Helping the Community is the Point in Artis Impact
One look at Artis Impact in motion is all you need to fall for its charm. A simple GIF featuring the meticulous animation or novel and often humour filled storytelling panel transitions is enough to spark a joy at just how warm the game feels.
The meticulous care developer Mas has when it comes to this shines through not just an expertise in craftsmanship, but as a deep philosophy on how using your talents to help your community is one of the most noble pursuits you can follow.
Artis Impact has a grand and twisting A plot focusing on an endless war between humans and AI. The lore is actually pretty neat, if you get deep in the weeds on it - heavy inspirations from NieR Automata will lead to that inevitability, I think - but it's ultimately background to what's important in Akane and Bot's story.
The world thrives through its seemingly innocuous interactions. Get a job at the local diner. Rescue various wildlife from hunters and fishermen. assist a forager in search of a rare flower, take a part time cleaning gig at the inn, build your own pizza shop. It's here where the personalities of our dynamic duo are brought forth, both in the heat of the moment and in more contemplative contexts.
Here is where Akane and Bot's depth are truly found, as individuals and as a pair. Akane is confident in who she is as a person, be it in her strength in putting certain individuals in their place, her lighthearted moments of reviewing various sleeping arrangements, or her willingness to perform actions that seemingly go far beyond helping another out of pure goodness and into straight up self-sabotage ("hey muggers, I know I could clearly wipe the floor with you, but take not only my wallet, but also my backup second wallet that I keep hidden in case I get mugged").
Bot acts as the obvious foil for Akane's pious nature, bristling at her illogicalities while also actively pushing for more underhanded tactics. This approach brings out Akane's deeper thoughtfulness and more complex understanding of the world, while giving Bot personality quirks that extend well beyond what's to be expected from a simple floating square. Their actions and the impact they make on those they exist alongside are the meat, while their banter and bond are the heart.
One of the smartest implementations of this is the way the game rewards some of these interactions. Where a lot of games today lead the player on explicit side quests with objective markers and clear reward progression - sometimes being as cold as to to tell you up front that you will receive X loot if you perform Y task - here, Artis Impact can sometimes, but not always, reward you with "Aptitudes".
These are essentially skills that are permanent buffs to your stats. "Hot Tub Diva" offers an all round lower buff across all stats, while "Fighter" leans more heavily on defense bonuses with a little attack and MP. Not only are they general incentives that are obviously worth pursuing, but they are ludonarratively harmonic with the idea of character progression - of course diverging from the "main" path leads to different experiences that reflect on your overall character, not just some generic number of XP or skill points.
Looking back on the list of these at the end of the game, they are little reminders of the people you met and the stories you encountered along the journey you took. They aren't even fully consistent either. You might finish an entire quest chain and not see anything like this, or one might pop due to a single interaction you might not have thought to do, which only further reflects reality. You never know what skills you will randomly pick up on your journey - you might stay at a job for 10 years at a paper company and learn basically nothing, or your whole perspective on life might change because you played a video game.
Nearly all of the "side content" is not only fairly hidden, but obtuse to find, progress through, and understand. To the point that Mas is going to be implementing some more guided help towards finding it - which, look I get it, I want to see all the cool stuff too - but the ambiguity of it only strengthens the themes behind the actions. You don't know how your actions are going to make a difference out there. Maybe your intervention does change someone's life, or maybe throwing a few coins down a wishing well doesn't actually change anything.
Life isn't about a set task list that you tick off to automatically receive satisfaction at the end, or a set of equations that lead to the "solving" of life. All you can really do is live with intention, and hope that it makes a positive difference. Doing so on a grand scale isn't possible for most, with it's impact being ambiguous at best. But helping out a neighbour, a friend, a family member or simply a stranger on the street? Those actions have material, worthwhile impacts, helping shape your own community towards a more positive, friendly and cohesive future, for as long as that future can last.