Posted by Marc
The game starts with creating a setting. We’re supposed to pick a basic story concept, something everyone’s already familiar with. As Caroline read out the description, an idea flashed into my head. “Ok, hear me out,” I said. “Power Rangers.” We set up our little world of high school seniors at Sentai High in Neo-San-Kyoto, who face the challenge of fighting huge monsters in Japanese-warrior themed mechs while also finding time go on dates and study for the big test!
“We can’t lose someone else…”
Our cast of characters started with Riyuji Takanaka, a transfer student and newest member of the team, aka “the rookie” and Val Vaneo, a hot-headed hotshot member of the team. Next was my character Venetia Vaneo, younger sister of Val and decidedly not a mech pilot (and thus unaware of their existence!) Finally we had Tiger Lopez, Venetia’s boyfriend and (to complete the loop) Riyuji’s mentor. Tiger was the head of the ranger squad, but he was haunted by the loss of their former leader Jason, for which he blamed himself.
We finished character creation by writing feeling statements between our characters (Venetia loves Tiger, Val feels threatened by Riyuji), then passing the card to that player so they can write a reason why you should or shouldn’t feel that way (Venetia shouldn’t love Tiger because he’s hiding the truth from her, Val shouldn’t feel threatened because Riyuji aspires to be like him). We did this twice, then dove into the gameplay loop.
You got your sports anime in my mecha anime!
Our story was, from the get-go, a mess of emotions. Val and Riyuji were constantly at each others’ throats, both on the basketball court and during combat with giant monsters. Venetia, none the wiser about their secret identities as senpai superheroes, wanted to spend time with her cool older brother and go on a date to Boba Mountain with her boyfriend–but both activities were interrupted by the call of battle. Riyuji struggled to fit in, while also trying to fill the big shoes of the lost leader Jason.
In the end, Val overcame some of his impulsiveness, Venetia and Tiger broke up over a misunderstanding but got back together when she learned he wasn’t cheating on her (he was just out driving a huge robot!), and Riyuji finally found his place on the team after defeating the big bad and discovering the “actually just missing” Jason. Venetia got a mech of her own, and end credits rolled with the five of us silhouetted at sunset overlooking the city–along with a sixth character who was definitely there the whole time, what to do mean she never appeared in any scenes, she’s definitely part of the team and always as been!
Memorable Moments
“I’m heavily armed!” – Giant Octopus Monster, during battle.
“Now if you’ll excuse me… I have to go do a group project.” – Val, Tiger, and Riyuji’s consistent excuse for ditching Venetia over and over.
What I loved most about playing this game was the, well, entanglement of it all. We created a very deep and interconnected set of characters who just made sense together, and then attached them to each other with tons of thick strands of emotional yarn. This meant each of us had an interesting opportunity for interaction with every other character–and as any season groundtable gamer will tell you, often the best way to set up a scene is just pick someone you want your character to talk to, throw them into a situation, and let it fly.
Stay Tuned!
Entanglement is Caroline’s latest project that you’ll hopefully be able to play yourself in the not-too-distant future!