Hidden Gem Black/Matrix: A Philosophical View on Religion and Historical Society

CHAPTER 1
The World​

The fact that a story begins with an amnesiac protagonist is nothing new by any means. But the factor it has in facilitating the understanding of a world that we do not know from an external perspective is immense, relearning everything from scratch just like the first day we are born is one of the best forms to approach a narrative. Surely you have asked yourself at some point in your life;

«What if..?»

Well, that simple “What if..?” can explain what this story is about. All the ideals and beliefs that you have been taught since you were a child and you bring with must be left behind because they will not serve you in this story. One could say that it is a world turned upside down and you will soon realize why. This story begins with an introduction that as soon as we see it, we will know why this series would never of the evers set foot in the West, quoting the first sentence that appears in the game:

«We are beings you may call ‘‘evil’’...
But in this world, concepts of ‘‘evil’’ and ‘‘virtue’’ are reversed.»

A priest in the middle of a church tells us the story of how the heavens were split in two after a war in the world of the apes, the war lasted 666 days between the archangel Mephistopheles commanding the forces of the holy father Satan and the rotten deity known as God. The winner of this holy war turned out to be Mephisto who became a savior. Sealing the forces of God underground finally the world was free of hypocrisy, that would be known as the Genesis War where the apes were exterminated and the earth became the property of the black wings.

Most likely a statue of Mephisto shown in the intro.
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This is just a small sneak peek of what the world of Black/Matrix has to offer over the next 20 hours, a story that is not afraid to play around and experiment with the Judeo-Christian Bible. And I must say that although it is one of the best written stories I have had the pleasure of seeing, it is not for everyone and honestly, it is understandable. Since throughout the game subjects such as homosexuality, human rights, bullying, gender identity, freedom of speech and social classes are also talked in the story.

It could almost be seen as a hidden criticism of the history of society and religion, even if I don't really like using that sentence since we are in a time in which we are considering more and more things a criticism of society, making the phrase slowly hold less weight with each use.

CHAPTER 2
Masters & Slaves​

As stated at the beginning of the article, our protagonist is a young amnesiac who must rehabilitate himself to relearn how to live and serve in this world based on the new rules it has. But he will not be alone, since by having white wings will make him part of the lower class of the society and therefore he will need to serve a master with black wings. Said master is selectable as soon as you start a new game, giving you the choice of one between the five different girls, each with a different personality than the previous one. But wait! Because there is also a secret male master unlockable with a secret button combination (different on each console), this master is the one that fans (myself included) usually choose as the canonical one.

Abel:
- The protagonist of Black/Matrix, wakes up with amnesia after sleeping with a fever for 10 months in his master's house.
- Has white wings.
VA: Hiroshi Kamiya (Izaya Orihara - Durarara!!)

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤVA: Noriko Hidaka (Hunter × Hunter - Kurapika)
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤJunko Shimakata (Beyblade - Kiki)
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤYuko Miyamura (Neon Genesis Evangelion - Asuka)
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤWakana Yamazaki (Detective Conan - Ran Mouri)
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤMika Kanai (Tales of Phantasia - Arche Klein)

Zero:
- The sixth and only male master to choose at the start of the game.
- Bad boy (we all love him)
- Has black wings.
VA: Kentaro Itou (Bleach - Renji Abarai)


After starting a new game and after the initial 2 FMVs, when a text appears you will have to quickly press one of these two combinations to have Zero as a master:
SEGA Saturn code: X, Y, Z, A, B, C, Start.
Playstation code: L1, R1, L2, R2, Start.

Allies

Leburobus:
- Gladiator.
- Criminal in prison for killing his former masters.
- Seeks ''freedom''.
- Has white wings.
VA: Hideyuki Hori (Saint Seiya - Phoenix Ikki)

Gaius:
- Lancer.
- He's also called ''The Gale'' for stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
- Criminal in prison for ''hypocrisy''.
- Has white wings.
VA: Kaneto Shiozawa (Hokuto no Ken - Rei)

Johannes:
- Necromancer.
- Priest of the Temple of the Sun.
- His reasons for joining the group are unknown.
- Has black wings.
VA: Takeshi Aono (Dragon Ball - Piccolo Daimao)

Piripo:
- Archer.
- Prison guard.
- Bullied because of his weakness.
- Has black wings... !?
VA: Hiro Yuuki (Dragon Ball Z - Tapion)

RupiRupi:
- Demon Knight.
- Former student of Johannes.
- She always writes in her "revenge diary".
- Has black wings.
VA: Kikuko Inoue (Guilty Gear XX - I-No)

Marco:
- Arch-demon Armor user.
- Also known as the ''Miracle Boy''
- Leader of the white wings rebellion.
- Has white wings.
VA: Ai Orikasa (Mobile Suit Gundam Wing - Quattre)

Besides from these six allies, there are another dozen of recruitable ones throughout the game, although these are the ones that stand out the most among them and the ones that will accompany you the most on your adventure.

CHAPTER 3
Seven Deadly Sins​

As we had talking about, the story continues with Abel's rehabilitation in his master's house, who seems to have a very close relationship with our protagonist, to the point that they cover themselves together with a sheet in front of a fireplace during a cold night. As the days and months go away from your hands, you could find books that talk about the seven deadly sins of the world that should never be broken no matter how much you think about them, in them it is sworn:

1. You should never show weakness.
2. You should never show love.
3. You should never seek freedom.
4. You should never be a hypocrite.
5. You should never seek justice.
6. You should never seek equality.
7. You should never believe in friendship.

Anyone who breaks even one of these sins will be sentenced to death with no forgiveness.

And so after twelve months of rehabilitation the cycle of the seasons returns to zero once more, but with it Abel's master who helped him continuously and taught him to live as an equal without chains in the far reaches of society, disappeared one morning without saying anything. Now without an owner, it is up to Abel to go out into the garden of the house and open his white wings to the world to continue his quest while searching for his master, just like a bird taking its first flight looking for food outside its mother's eyes.

This is how the first of the 12 chapters of the game ends. Believe me when I say that I would love to continue talking for hours about the story and the other characters that have not yet been introduced, but I'm afraid that if I did so without you having played it before hand, I would be completely spoiling the story for you and that would make me truly sad. And talking about this game without spoilers is almost impossible for me since it has more story than gameplay, to the point that the end story scenes are literally an hour long cutscene of just text and voice. But trying to say a little more without spoiling too many things, several of the remaining chapters will be about visiting towns to solve ''their problems'', while also getting more allies and armors of certain historical archangels. That's right, if you thought the Biblical references were over, you were wrong as there are many more left, including among them the Tower of Babel, Noah's Ark and even Gomorrah and Sodom.

CHAPTER 4
Black/Matrix​

When you start the game the first thing you see, aside from the classic SEGA Saturn logo, are the logos of the companies behind this game; but surprisingly none of them is the developer, their name is instead just below the game's logo in the main menu. Perhaps its most likely because almost nobody knew about little Flight-Plan back then. They had only made a couple of erotic visual novels and some side-scrollers with good notes but nothing that caught the public's attention... until now.

A year after Final Fantasy Tactics, a new RPG was getting ready to be launched exclusively for the Japanese public, specifically on a console that had already been losing more and more sales since two years thanks to the two titans known as the Playstation and Nintendo 64, the SEGA Saturn.

Graphic source: Leaked Fiscal Year '97​

The game's idea? To make a Tactic RPG like the one from the Squaresoft company, only that this one would be a much darker story and tone, similar to the style of the popular Atlus franchise Megami Tensei. The team had almost no prior experience with RPGs, mostly just with the games the company had worked on up until then (Doukyousei series, Refrain Love, Metamor Jupiter), so this meant that it wouldn't have a deep gameplay. In fact, it was pretty basic and covers enough of the genre to be enjoyable, but at the same time when it tries to have a minimum of depth it's more a confusing thing than anything else, which ends up being worse than having nothing at all.

But its greatest strength was the gothic art style, which is so remarkable for its beauty, like its soundtrack which is full of trip hop tracks that fit perfectly with the weirdness of the story. But above all else the voices of the characters are the most remarkable thing about this project, which brings with it voice acting legends (seiyuus) that we can enjoy for 90% of the total texts in the game. It is completely crazy that all the story texts were voiced for a game from 1998 and it is surely where they spent most of the game's budget, taking into account that the seiyuus are not usually paid little.

And with all this, on August 27 of 1998, Black/Matrix ‘‘The Final Chapter’’ was released for sale.

CHAPTER 5
Blood

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And speaking of it being for sale it's time to try it out, right?

As I said earlier, the gameplay is nothing special but rather basic to the point that if you want to beat the game in normal mode it's practically always a matter of moving (based on your movement stat), then positioning yourself to flank the enemy (for more damage) and finally attacking with your equipped weapon of choice.

What you do have to take into account is the stance system in order to survive to each stage, fortunately for those who don't know Japanese, it's quite easy to use. Simply open the actions menu, select the fourth option and choose from one of the three stance options of the game.

Most of the time with just using ''Counterattack'' you will be fine, since it compensates for receiving damage because of the damage you will do to the enemy. Especially when you have a spear as a weapon, which in my opinion is the best weapon type in the game since they pierce several enemies at once, being able to damage three enemies in the same action as an example.

Then there is also the magic system, though not all characters at your disposal can use this, such as Johannes and RupiRupi. With these I must admit that it's more difficult for non-Japanese speakers to understand since the only way to know what each spell does is by using it and trying it, although as long as you can identify which is the strongest DPS spell at the moment and which is the healing spell you will be fine for the rest of the game.

Speaking of healing, when an enemy or ally falls to the ground they do not die instantly. To do so, you have to hit them again to end their lives (or heal them to save them) and in the process take their blood, which is very important both to improve your weapons to make them evolve, as well as to be able to cast spells. That's right, the only way to cast spells and weapon skills is with Blood Points (BP) that are obtained in the previously mentioned cycle of killing and then in the pre stage menu before each combat, assign them to the character you want. At the beginning there are few points but by the end you will find yourself with a lot of BP to spare.

Level Up & BP selection menu.
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In the preparation menu shown above you can also raise the stats of the characters you want through the use of the experience gained after combat; although this is

scarce throughout the game so it is better to think carefully about who to give those juicy points to. Since the only other way to farm those is with very specific combat arenas in each town where they will give you crumbs of experience that are hardly worth fighting for. And having already talked about the best and most fun aspects of combat and its easy point management, now it's time to talk about the worst and most disastrous aspects of the gameplay.

On one hand, we have a clock at the top right of the screen which will slowly change every few turns to indicate the power of certain spells at that moment. Honestly, very few people really know what it does (myself included) so I can't go into more detail than that, but fortunately it's practically indispensable unless you're in the last battles of the hard mode (Advance mode), which are really difficult and I haven't been able to beat the final boss in that mode during my second playthrough.
And the next negative point that plays a huge role in the stages and is vital to 100%ing or even getting some of the best weapons in the game is again the blood system, only that now with weapons upgrades.
There are ''hundreds'' of evolutions that can be done for each type of weapon and it's a total pain in the ass since it requires a very specific amount of blood to offer between 001 and 245 (or was it 255?). The trick is that if you go over the amount you need, you can no longer get the evolution you wanted or even a random evolution.

And you might be wondering, "How do I know that I can get a good evolution in my weapon?" or "How do I know what each evolution does?" Well, the first thing is that you don't know unless you have the physical guide at hand, which is very rare and I've only managed to find one in Japanese at very bad quality (it hurt my eyes to just look at the text) on the entire internet. As for the second question, you have to get the evolution and then see its description once you have it to know what it does... I know, it's dumb.

If you noticed, there was still one option left in the actions menu which is the Armor Summons, this only becomes available much later in the game by having very specific armors from the story that you will be able to unleash the power they have within in exchange for an immense amount of BP. I have only managed to do it in my first playthrough near the end of the game when I already had a lot of BP to spare and the truth is that they help greatly but if you're replaying the game and you know what you're doing, you don't need these summons at all (at least in normal mode). I'll let you discover the animations of each summon on your own.

CHAPTER 6
Cross
​

And to close this long article, it's time to talk about Black/Matrix + (pronounced as ‘‘Cross’’), a remaster of the original SEGA Saturn version with additional content for the first Playstation released on February 14, 2000.

The question now is, is it worth it?

Well, considering that it is a more accessible version, I think yes; although the Saturn version nowadays usually costs around €20 (I think I even saw it new for that price). But in a certain way it is a quite different version since several of the stages maps have been changed, so the fights are not the same (nor the final boss) and the original aesthetics have been lost along the way (it's still not that bad tho).

As a positive point to highlight, there are new endings to choose at very end (which are really good), there are approximately 6 of them when in the original version there were only 2. In addition to that, here you can find the new additional story of Piripo that adds a very cool backstory to the character in chapter 4 if you decide not to pay attention to Leburobus. But the most substantial gameplay changes aside from the different maps and different final boss, is an altered version of the blood system where you now get to choose from a small selection of skills for your weapon instead of having to experiment with that horrible thing, which is pretty good since it was very confusing as I said before. Also you can now recruit new characters, including the masters you haven't selected when starting a new game. So if you wanted to use Zero or any of the girls in combat, now's you can.

The biggest negative point of Cross is the new artistic direction and the different portraits art style, which have lost a lot of their Saturn charm as well as their striking colors. In addition the animations of the armor transformations are no longer clearly visible.

I would honestly recommend the Saturn version Day and Night over this one but if you can’t afford it or can’t find it anywhere, this is the next best thing…

With all that said, I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of this incredible game on your own and although I’m sorry I can’t develop it as much as I would like (I even had to delete 1 chapter), I’m sure we’ll meet again when an in-game translation is available one day. In the meantime, enjoy the “complete” one on YouTube thanks to Omae Dotdotdot for such incredible work that I’ve followed since the very start of the project and it become one of my all-time favorite games.