I grew up in a house in ruins and it gave me a fetish for decrepit walls and destroyed ceilings. I love ruins. I also love Japan, post-apocalyptic stories and games with strange, unique and surreal settings, so I'm going to take this chance to talk about two games set in two very different version of Tokyo, though they are both ruins and past any hope of salvation. They are
Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon and
Shin Megami Tensei 4.
Fragile tells the story of the only living boy left in a world where humanity has disappeared, making his way to Tokyo Tower in hopes of finding another living person. The game's cast of characters, which includes ghosts, a robot boy, a motherly AI who answers to Personal Frame, and a chicken-headed merchant, are so interesting, unique and well-written that they'll stay on your mind. But the game's locales, empty ruins of an abandoned train station, a crumbling amusement park, a mall, or a dam, are equally important and more striking still, and exploring them is the game's main objective. The fourth ruin in the game, an abandoned hotel, is the one I'd like to talk about.
Even though the game doesn't explicitly says so (at least that I remember), Fragile takes place in an empty, ruined fantasy Tokyo. The protagonist, Seto, leaves his home in an attempt to reach "the red tower to the east," better known as Tokyo Tower. On his way there, he passes through several ruins, some of them inspired by actual buildings in Japan. That is the case of the hotel, one of the most memorable places Seto visits, and a somewhat faithful replica of one of the most famous ruins in Japan, the Maya Hotel.
Built in the early 1930s in Kobe, the Maya Hotel is now one of the holy places for ruin lovers and fanatics, and one with a lot of legends surrounding it. You wouldn't know it by its dilapidated state, but surprisingly it has only been completely abandoned since relatively recently, in 1994, after serving different purposes and going through different periods of abandonment through out the years, plus damage from World War 2 air-raids and typhoons. Due to structure damage, the hotel is understandably off limits but it's not like that's going to stop anyone from trying to visit. There seems to be some kind of magic about the place which elevates it even above the usual attraction ruins inflict on some people, and every visitor's account you'll find will mention the "spirit" of the hotel and will refer to the place as it being alive. The game's hotel is pretty faithful to the Maya Hotel, from the big windows, curved walls, art-deco architecture, to the surrounding mountains and forests, and, of course, the "spirit" of the hotel. One look at the Maya Hotel and it'll instantly feel familiar if you've played the game.
More info about the hotel can be found on its
Japanese Wikipedia page (in Japanese, of course) and in these blogs:
gakuranman and
nk8513. It's a very interesting subject, check them out or at least give the cool pictures inside a look.
Fragile isn't a game without problems but it's such a unique one that it deserves to be be experienced. The developers said that complete immersion was their objective and, thanks in big part to it's unique setting, they achieved it with flying colors, at least in my book.
Sadly, Fragile isn't very popular and I couldn't find many pictures of the game's hotel. The ones I found weren't of the places I wanted, most involved enemies (the game's weakest point, in my opinion), and some are even from unfinished builds of the game. Here are some pictures, anyway:
Here are some pictures of the actual Maya Hotel:
And some samples of the game's great music:
Opening Theme "Hikari" /
A Dedication to Everyone /
Ending Theme "Tsuki no Nukumori"
