SALLY FACE
by portable moose.
with an art style reminiscent of 90's nickelodeon cartoons and a storyline on the cusp of bleeding edge, sally face seemed poised to be the new Hot Topic It Girl. it slotted nicely in with invader zim, next to nightmare before christmas. it had nostalgia for people older than me, people the same age as me, and the appeal of the metal and grunge subculture of yesteryear for the current generation of alt tweens and teens. the 90's are in, and sally face was ahead of the curve.
a promotional title image. the colorful palette highlights the unique art style.
so what happened? why don't you see sal fisher next to zim and jack skellington and kuromi and my chemical romance's the black parade? it's not like they didn't try on some level, you can find tiny little smatterings of sally face on the website. like with many things, it's not a very climatic story.
sally face has an opening more gauche than ghoulish but it sets the tone well for a game that indulges in graphic gore with the same kind of zest as a child using finger paints. this isn't a bad thing, to be clear. i also don't think teenagers are the target demographic for sally face but i do think it accrued a younger audience than initially intended. there's references to 80's cult horror movies through the game, understandably so with the time period. ash herself is simply a long, long set up for an evil dead reference that doesn't pay off until the last portion of the game.
the prologue of episode one introduces the player to the bloody overtones of sally face, as well as it's occult core.
there's not much here, really, that's new for the genre. it's a supernatural murder mystery with the twist of demonic possession. it doesn't set new standards but it does consistently meet them, with shocking twists and turns where it seems like everything that could go wrong does. it's part tragedy, really, watching sal and his friends try to save the world.
as far as a point and click adventure goes, it works well and accomplishes what it wants to do. it implements rhythm games eventually, if a bit wonkily but the attempt to shake up gameplay is appreciated. where the game really shines is the unique, colorful cast of characters in sal's apartment complex that steve gabry takes extra care in introducing you to. it's easy to get attached to a fair few of them. gabry's character writing is charming, and he brings a sort of refreshing and dark quirkiness to his characters that i don't think anyone would be able to copy. it's very distinct.
sal reflects on a conversation he had with larry; the heart of the game lies in the endearing relationships sal forms.
what actually stunk about sally face is that the gauche opening was more of a preview than an introduction. the ending of the game is dissatisfactory, raising more questions than answers. one problem is dealt with but the rest are ignored or implied to continue in a later installment. that installment never came, and if it does, i'll be surprised. steve seems more occupied right now with launching what looks like a board game adaption of the game than continuing it.
a number of things and characters are written up and implied to have more to do or say just to... not. maybe that's indicative of what gabry's actually writing about: the inevitableness of death, the way that those who have left us for the other side are always going to have unfinished business. that life itself is an ongoing story with no end in sight, until it simply does. death is a cornerstone in sal's life, something that defines him as much as he denies it. it's what makes sal a compelling protagonist, to be someone who fights despite his circumstances. seeing him grow into the person he does is part of the journey, if not the whole journey.
part of the journey with sal is meeting people who say ominous things for scary reasons.
it's not really just that potential was wasted here. it was tossed aside, forgotten and ignored for a number of references that no one really wanted. sally face, just before the finish line, forgot what was fun about itself. it traded the fun of ghost hunting and mystery solving for straight cult horror and action, neither of which were pulled off well, in truth, and i knew this from the first scene. the mystery was always fun, but when it was solved with a blaze of glory, it lost all the charm.
maybe the reason you don't see sally face merchandise in hot topic is less because people lost interest in it. maybe it's more likely that the game is actually more similar to the mall store giant; it started out with a macabre niche that it filled nicely only to collapse under the weight of the things it kept trying to carry and sloughing them off, one by one, to make room just for the pop culture references it was desperate to make.
a cinematic shot of sal holding a guitar.
just watch the evil dead.