The Caligula Effect: Overdose devs discuss what sets the game apart from other urban/school-styled JRPGs

NIS America has conducted an internal interview with the dev team behind The Caligula Effect: Overdose. In one snippet of the internet, we get to find out what makes the game different from other school-centric JRPGs out there.

That again really ties to the development aspect of things. As explained earlier, the director was a former psychology student and he told us at last year’s Tokyo Game Show that he really wanted to explore the human psyche in this game. If you look up Caligula, it’s actually the name of a Roman emperor who was famous for debauchery and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. However, that’s not where the name of the game comes from. In fact, the “Caligula Effect” is a psychological phenomenon. In 1979, there was a movie called Caligula starring Malcolm McDowell, who is famous for A Clockwork Orange. When Caligula came out, it was known to have over-the-top content that wasn’t standard for major-release films at that time. In fact, in North America, the film was released in a special way to avoid being given an X rating or being banned outright.

This demonstrated that when human beings are told they shouldn’t do something, they tend to want to do that thing even more, and that’s the Caligula Effect! In this game, you’re tasked with defeating μ, this sweet and beautiful entity, in order to return to reality. This creates the Caligula Effect--would the player want to kill such a divine and lovable idol to return to the real world? I think that concept in and of itself sets it apart from other urban/school-styled JRPGs on the market.