Rakuen

Steam poster

***Rakuen*** is a 2017 Japanese-American adventure game developed by Laura Shigihara, using the RPG Maker XP program.

The game follows a boy with his mother in the hospital, reading his favorite book every night, Rakuen. As the storybook goes on, the boy and his mother enter the secret door that leads to the Morizora's Forest, only to learn that the Guardian of the Forest has been placed in a deep slumber due to a darkness that has fallen over the land.

## Gameplay

The player moves a boy through two-dimensional fields, interacting with and examining various objects.

## Plot

The next day, after being given the Rakuen key by his mom, the boy with his mom finds a secret door to Leeble village. They then go through a cave after helping out Jacky the blacksmith to reach Morizora. However, Morizora is in a deep slumber due to the negative energy of the envoys (spirits between the two realms) and cannot be awoken without a special song called Mori no Kokoro. To learn the five parts of the song, the player helps out different characters in Morizora's forest (who all have counterparts in the hospital).
The boy first meets Winston, a carpenter Leeble. Despite tensions between the Ilbo and Kanko Leebles (Ilbon means Japan in Korean and Kankoku means Korea in Japanese) Winston, a Kanko, falls in love with Gemma, an Ilbo. However, his parents are against this relationship and Winston is unable to meet with Gemma before she falls unconscious during a storm. Afterwards Winston is guilt-ridden because he thinks that Gemma's last conscious thought was that he had abandoned her until he learns that Gemma received his hikaribana (a flower in Morizora's forest that is known for bringing loved ones together) before her falling into a coma. In the real world, Winston is Korean and Gemma is Japanese, and the storm that happened on the day of their meeting correlates to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
Afterwards the boy meets Tony, a bear in Morizora's forest that harasses leebles and a retired airplane pilot in the hospital. Tony is shown to be caring dad early on, and his children, Christina and Benny, have a close sibling relationship with each other. However, when Benny dies during an accident, the whole family is devastated. Christina feels guilty because she couldn't protect Benny, and due to Tony's avoidance of her, she starts to think that Tony hates her. In actuality, Tony was unable to deal with his own guilt after Benny's death, despite the love he had for his daughter.
The boy and his mom then run errands for Kisaburo and Kazuko, a couple that ran a tea shop in Morizora's forest together until Kisaburo had to rest in a hot spring due to his illness. In the hospital the human Kisaburo is also bedridden and has a mental illness and can't remember Kazuko. Despite the endangerment to herself, Kazuko had wanted to abide by Kisaburo's wishes and take care of him by herself. Meanwhile in Morizora's forest, Kazuko can't find Kisaburo when she tries to bring him a hikaribana to rekindle their love for each other. Eventually, when Kazuko finds Kisaburo with hikaribanas that he had grown for Kazuko. Similarly, in the hospital Kisaburo and Kazuko are seen embracing each other surrounded by the flowers that Kisaburo had given to Kazuko when they were young.
Upon bringing Puchi to Sue, the player learns of Sue's history. To prevent Puchi from being taken by animal control, Sue claims that Puchi is her dog. However, Sue cannot bring Puchi home due to her dad and instead thinks of Puchi as her best friend and stays with her to escape her father who is addicted to gambling. One day, Sue's dad leaves the family after yelling at his wife, and Sue has to leave their house so she can get better medical care. Sue becomes sad because she had previously told Puchi to wait by a tree and had no chance to say goodbye to her before Sue left. It is revealed that Uma is actually Sue's dad, and to make up for being such a bad father, he (presumably) reunites Sue with Puchi.
Back in the leeble village, the leebles are having their star night. Once Kazuko gives the boy midnight tea, the boy dreams about going with Sue into all of the "little worlds" she creates in her marbles. However, once the boy wakes up, he goes back to the hospital to find that Sue is gone. Suddenly Yami appears by the boy's side, and they have a conversation Yami convinces the boy to come with him. Later, the mom has woken up and is alarmed to find that her son is gone. Upon trying to give a hikaribana to the boy, the mom flashbacks to the time when she first learned that her son had cancer. Trying to reassure him, the mom makes a samurai helmet out of paper that the boy is seen wearing throughout the game. One day, an earthquake happens that damages the hospital. The dad, a power plant worker, calls the mom to say that he has to stay a bit longer. However, later newspaper clippings tell of the heroic bravery of those who died trying to defend the town by deactivating the damaged reactors, and it is implied that the dad is one of those heroes. Now in the present, the mom confronts Yami, who appears to be just a darker side of the boy. the mother sings him the fifth part of Mori no Kokoro, and the boy comforts Yami. With all five parts of Mori no Kokoro, the boy visits Morizora for his wish, and asks him for a ride to Rakuen. In the end, the boy says farewell to his mom as boards Morizora's magical boat, giving his hat to his mom and revealing his hair loss from chemotherapy.

## Development

Inspired by Kan "Reives" Gao's passion of video game development prior in release of his own 2011 game *To the Moon*, Shigihara developed her own game, after years of attempt with her previous projects *The Blue Star* and *Melolune* as well as original PvZ team's layoff.

*Rakuen* was developed over the course of four years using the same game engine as his, with programming, design, audio, and in-game pixel character art designed by herself with the help of her teammates as artists Emmy Toyonaga, Matt Holmberg, and Steven Davis.

The namesake is translated from Japanese as "paradise", described as a sprite-based exploration game, in which text boxes serve as the primary conduit for communication. Like Gao's game, *Rakuen* is entirely story-driven and adventure elements, omitted the role-playing system.

Rakuen's gameplay and puns drew inspiration on *Maniac Mansion*, *To the Moon*, and *The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past*. The story and character design are influenced by Japanese mythology and children’s culture, as well as films like Hayao Miyazaki’s *Spirited Away*.

## Trivia

* Shigihara started a small franchise shared in the same universe, started with an animated series and then a follow up, *Mr. Saitou*.

## References

1. ↑ Rakuen (Video Game) - TV Tropes
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 My new game, Rakuen | mybluedream (wordpress.com)
3. ↑ Rakuen review - Polygon