Tron Identity - Digital Noir

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I feel like the Tron universe always had something really intriguing to offer, and that's not coming from watching the original. Which has a nice, simple concept, but computer nerds nowadays see it pretty far behind the times. Not the case with its sequel.

Disney gave that one an expanded universe that embraced Daft Punk, politics, social unrest, great world building that made it transition from just your average Disney flick to a grander Sci-Fi franchise that is similar to Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert's work. Tron Identity continues to represent that direction.

A short interactive dialogue driven game, where there are many outcomes for the few characters that are in the game. All the dialogues are important to note, as the story paces itself a lot faster. I wasn't prepared for it, so I made a number of bad decisions in the game. I have an interesting story to tell here.

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An explosion occurs in a major Grid inside Tron, for that an investigator or DoT named Query was sent to look into the matter. But before he could enter the facility, he encountered bikers rushing towards him, between the option of standing or dodging, I chose to stand my ground.

A display of grit was noticed by the head of security, named Grish, whose cynical demeanor was all over the place. This is where the game kind of establishes its lingo before slowly drawing its world for me and the characters I converse with.

My first encounter with him wasn't easy, he was an unsettling character, always questioning me and throwing snide retorts unless I tell him something he would agree towards. Even more difficult is when he starts to take control of the situation am in.

Grish takes me to the program in charge of the Grid called Prinz, it was obvious that both of them were sort of reluctant to have someone outside their circle come into this affair and place an intervention.

Prinz was giving me a warm welcome at first, though that was their way of trying to get a read on me first. He asks me questions like whether I serve the user or the programs. The latter, which I answered, was not something he was fond of.

As it was clear to me that he believes the programs are supposed to serve roles and have no designation in changing what Tron is. Their choices, their freedom have no stake and therefore places power and loyalty towards the users themselves.

But of course, trust was still placed in me to help them investigate the event that occurred, whatever their reasons may be. So I went to interview both the guard of the vault that exploded, and the accused prisoner locked in the library.

The guard was dealing with memory loss and confusion, as he has no idea what was going on. So a mini-game named Defrag was prompted, which was tricky to get at first since that involves clearing up unnecessary data bits with basic, but difficult to follow rules.

I got the hang of it after some time, and conceptually, it's really neat. Still takes a while to grasp, but cool nonetheless. This was the point where the story started to get more intense and I had to make more careful decisions, which I've kind of foiled at.

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So to understand why such bad things are happening, it's simple. A guy named Flynn created Tron and has left these programs to fend for themselves. It's been years and now there has been feuds between lower and higher class programs.

Better comprehended if you've watched the Tron movies. But the gist of it is, the programs are becoming self-aware and wants rights, while the ones in charge don't like that and are suppressing them.

The challenges of trying to get into the bottom of things becomes more difficult as the line begins to blur, even the prisoner I interrogated was not properly responding to me due to the presence of Grish and my reluctance to cooperate with his demands.

At some junction point, right Prinz leaves for security matters. In the Grid landing pad has an unexpected visitor named Proxy. A rogue agent working for the programs starts giving me the ultimatum of moving away or starting a fight with her. This decision ultimately makes up whether I should trust her or not.

And because I let her sadly have her way, I lost Grish's trust. Prinz gets captured which makes thing worse, and now the prisoner named Sierra had an alibi this whole time, and was now angry with me for not releasing him. Which was not my jurisdiction.

My only hope and the people I trust with, are the vault guard and Proxy. As of now, Grish and Sierra wants me dead, sort of. What will happen to me when I get to the bottom of what happened? Well, I guess I'll have to keep playing.

This is an interesting turn for Disney licensed games, and for Tron too. It felt great playing with high stakes, characters with depth, and a world that I yearn to learn more about. I hope part of the story here becomes canon, because this is the kind of storytelling I could get behind.