Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog captures the spirit, as well as the sprites, of the past
According to Gun-Dog's Steam page, this sci-fi adventure is trying to capture the look and feel of the PC-98, a popular Japanese computer that played host to a huge selection of incredible games decades ago. Many of its best and most impressive adventure games featured a lavish combination of exquisitely detailed pixel art framed by an elaborate decorative border. In spite of the hardware's age, that's still a high standard to aim for.
Gun-Dog manages to clear it anyway. It's accurate to an astonishing degree; I wouldn't blame anyone for mistaking this for some forgotten classic, even though it's as fresh as Monster Hunter Wilds. Characters sit right in the middle of the screen no matter how many people are actually present, their surroundings shaded by traditional pixel dithering, keeping the colour count as low as possible.
What really sells the look isn't the relatively low resolution pixel art, or how it's been coloured (or not coloured: there are two optional monochrome settings I can switch to any time I like), but its total commitment to the era it's trying to evoke. Like Alien Isolation's chunky phone booth-style save points and space stations built entirely from '70s furniture, the retro aesthetic here is more than skin deep. Monitors are chunky CRTs with glass fronts. Music is listened to on cassettes. "Portable" devices are brick-like things inspired by the '80s finest luggable computer, the Osborne 1, and hairdos come in just two spray-soaked types: big and huge.
The interface is just as true to the era, with most interactions handled by selecting basic verbs from a single column of oversized boxes, same as a whole pile of floppy disk-based adventures from days gone by. LOOK then highlight a desk. USE the vending machine.
Wherever I am my interactive options are extremely limited and always in my field of vision, the technical limitations of the hardware the developers are drawing from encouraging the game to get to the point. A small and restrictive inventory, as well as some welcome "Hey, shouldn't I be…" style dialogue, as in keeping with the old days as everything else, also help to keep me on track.
But the most accurate thing Gun-Dog can be is good. PC-98 adventures weren't niche things that survived on their novelty, little curiosities for people who like their Gundam stories in book form and have nice things to say about EGA graphics. They were premium experiences; expensive to buy and expected to be worth the money.
And again this game proves it truly understands the genre, rather than merely tries to copy a few of the most obvious surface-level details.
Solar Flair
The story drops me straight into the middle of a rookie's first ever battle in a war that doesn't sound like it's going very well for anyone on their side, and quickly spirals into a whole host of technical errors that are absolutely not my character's fault but still haunt them and their career to the present day.
The present day where they're the security officer on a ship staffed entirely by people either not good or well-behaved enough to promote, but not bad enough to fire, off on a mission that is of course a perfectly normal job and absolutely nothing will quickly go horribly wrong at all.
It's a strong hook that soon leads to a string of gripping events starring characters I either love or love to hate, and it'd still be a strong hook even if it wasn't wrapped up in a gorgeous pixel art look from long ago.
The further in I go, the better it gets. Seemingly insignificant details become key components in a mystery that only gets bigger the more I poke and prod at it, and throughout it all I'm given a surprising amount to freedom, expected to perform my own investigations, draw my own conclusions, and then use whatever I do or don't discover to direct the flow (and outcome) of the story. Some things went exactly the way I expected them to but plenty more didn't, and some decisions had to be made now in rare timed choices, or made me confirm, over and over again, that I really was going to do the right thing and wait for someone who hated my guts, even though doing so might kill me.
Like the best examples on the PC-98, Gun-Dog knows that good adventures are so much more than Choice A leading to Event F with a quick stop at Unique Art #5 along the way. None of it could work, no matter how pretty it looked or how authentic the chiptunes and sparse sound effects were, unless I was so caught up in the moment I could believe the things I said, did, and noticed actually made a real difference, and I cared enough for the game's small but memorable cast to want to make an effort to help them, even when things took (another) turn for the worse.
I wish every retro-inspired game could be like this. I loved seeing this game do not just aging hardware but an overlooked and often underappreciated genre justice too, especially when it would have been so much easier to steal the look but not the spirit of the era. This feels like I've pulled a giant old box off my shelves for the first time in decades and given a favourite stack of floppy disks another spin.
And if you're not the sort of weirdo who still thinks code wheels are kinda fun, this is "just" a fantastic adventure in a streamlined and easily understood format, offering all of the pleasure of a great PC-98 experience without any of the retro pain. You will never have to swear your way through the process of making a new user disk just so you can save your game, or swap Disk B for Disk E when moving to the mess hall, then insert Disk C in Drive 2 because a certain character wants to talk.
Gun-Dog is a fine ambassador for the PC-98, the adventure genre as a whole, but most importantly of all: itself. Good ideas, done well, are timeless.