Fields of Asphodel
When it comes to creative writing, “indulgent” is usually a bad thing. It suggests a writer in love so in love with their own voice that the reader’s experience becomes a distant consideration: metaphors that distract with their tortured elegance, the ostentatious erudition of sesquipedalianism, irrelevant tangents about an author’s particular opinions.
I’ve seen JJ Laurier’s Fields of Asphodel described as an obvious authorial wish-fulfillment fantasy, and that’s hard to argue with. But somehow, it manages to be indulgent in the best sense: settling into this story is like slipping into a warm bath.
Fields of Asphodel is, essentially, a retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone. You play as the demigod child of Demeter, raised on Olympus but not entirely welcome there. It’s not the most exciting existence, cooped up under your mother’s protection, but it’s the only life you’ve ever known, so it comes a shock when Zeus announces he’s made arrangements to marry you to his brother Hades, who presides over the Underworld. It’s a daunting prospect - you’ve always heard the Underworld was a terrible place - but Demeter promises she’ll do everything in her power to get you out of this and bring you home as soon as she can. But the Underworld isn’t at all what you’d been led to expect, and as you begin to make new friends, try new things, even help manage the occasional crisis, you’re forced to consider where you truly belong.
Laurier clearly knows their mythology, but they haven’t hesitated to make the story their own, from making “Persephone” (who can be any gender) the child of a mortal instead of Zeus, to introducing modern understandings of gender into the ancient world. The result is a retelling that’s comfortably full of predictable elements while still managing to surprise and delight.
Laurier’s world, or at least their Underworld, is marked by a rare degree of kindness and consideration. The PC’s marriage to Hades is on paper only; there are no sexual demands, or even expectations. Everyone, even a child, asks before intentionally touching the PC in any way, for any reason, even within the context of a thriving friendship. It’s almost always up to the PC (though not necessarily up to the player, to the same extent) how to spend their time and with whom, whether they want any responsibilities or to attend social gatherings. There are never any hard feelings if they say no. It’s a little too gentle to feel entirely plausible, and I can’t deny I might have preferred more of the kind of tension that gives a story dramatic heft, but damn this game was a nice place to visit.
If I had a pet peeve with this game, it would have to be with the way it handles a couple of characters who are referred to by more than one set of gender pronouns. Genderfluid characters don’t bother me - I loved Tira Misu in The Bread Must Rise - but Laurier’s use pronouns so interchangeably they sometimes switch in the middle of a sentence, which can be confusing. It’s also fair to mention that, although this game does stand alone, a lot of the romance is of the slow-burn variety and will be explored much further in the planned sequel.
On the whole, however, what little I didn’t love about this game was greatly outweighed by everything I did. I got to pet Kerberos and feed him treats three at a time, so how could I possibly complain?