Cosmology of Kyoto

Cosmology of Kyoto is, perhaps, best known today for the fact that it's only video game to ever receive the official stamp of approval from perennial curmudgeon Roger Ebert. However, it's not hard to see why he was keen on this PC odditorium; on the surface, this is little more than a slab of interactive edutainment software meant to engage erstwhile disinterested schoolchildren in the history and folklore of feudal Japan. But never before or since have I encountered a video game that can drive home with such apalling clarity just how abject, violent, class discrepant, inhumane, and unremittingly horrifying life was for those forced to eke out a living in this period of time. On top of that, the flat 256 color palette, perpetual black horizons, claustrophobic straight-angled architecture, and grotesque character designs come together to form a uniquely unsettling aesthetic. The closest comparisons I can muster are the films Onibaba [鬼婆] & Sansho the Bailiff [山椒大夫]. In particular, a scene involving a prepubescent street urchin and coach driver literally made my jaw drop, and the final tour of Buddhist hell with its sundry tortures culminating in the player's deliverance by of 10th century Pure Land Buddhist saint Kūya reciting the Nembutsu is one of the most powerful sequences in video game history. Rarely have I been more grateful for living in a post-penecillin age than after playing this Windows 95 fever dream.