A Privy Analysis (on Bathrooms in Games)

The title sounded better in Portuguese...

A while back, I was making a little house for a game I was trying to create for the GBC (which I totally haven't finished to this day). 

And for that, I went looking for some classic references:

Do you know what all these famous RPG houses have in common? No bathroom! (And also the general lack of your mom's room; I don't know, maybe she sleeps in the kitchen or something).

Some more observant folks may have already noticed this and wondered, why? Why isn't something so common in everyday life in all this mega-complex scenery? And I asked this to other professionals more observant than me, specifically which one they thought was the best bathroom in games... I should have expected no less.

So you might say: -"Oh, but it's a lot of work, and the characters don't go to the bathroom..." What do you mean these characters don't go to the bathroom, my god!!! You have a world of magic, but you still choose to live like an animal??? Excuse me, but Witch Hat Atelier taught me that this is wrong!

In the bathroom, you find a person's peculiarities. What shampoo do they use? What type of toilet paper? Two-ply or the cheapest? Are the toothbrushes right on the sink, in a cup, or a holder? A whole great layer of stories that can be told in tiny, hidden details. What are they trying to hide from us???? What is hidden in the protagonists' bathrooms that we can't see????

And that's the analysis we'll do today, so let's get to it:

AN ANALYSIS OF THE (few) BATHROOMS IN GAMES 

Breath of Fire 2 (SNES)

This first one is for you who say that you'd need more sprites to make a bathroom. Well, look at this elegance in terms of saving resources... a toilet, and that's it. All the bathrooms in this game are basically identical, a toilet, and nothing else (it's very sad that this was lost in the subsequent games of the franchise).

Because let's be honest, in these cities in this game, if you tell me someone goes to the bushes to go to the bathroom, that means that NPC would have to leave the city gates and subject themselves to a RANDOM BATTLE just to be able to pee before going to sleep.

Sonic Adventures (Dreamcast)

I even had to replay this one to remember if I was right about the strange feeling this bathroom gave me. (My god, how I loved this game... and how it aged like milk). This era was filled with games that loved to show water, and clearly, the expected treat was an appearance of them... the bathrooms.

And after playing, I understood why this bathroom was strange. First, it's a huge bathroom in the middle of a casino, where there are only sinks... and showers... Second, when you go under a shower, an animation of Sanic taking a bath is activated. Yes, while Tails watches... I'm afraid of what has already happened in this open bathroom in a casino, but as they say, what happens in the champions' bath, stays in the champions' bath.

Harvest Moon (SNES, PS2)

Imagine yourself, getting an old house in the countryside and starting to live there. The house is so old that the only bathroom is nature itself. So far, so good, you just have to be careful not to wipe yourself with the wrong leaf.

Then, after years of hard work, you finally renovate your house, and in the first renovation, the much-desired room is created, THE BATHROOM! (It really took me a while to understand that in Japan, the toilet part is separate from the shower. For me, a young Latin American, this never made sense in Harvest Moon).

However, not everything is rosy. If you'll notice, I haven't included any images of this bathroom for the analysis... because you will NEVER see it! The only existing bathroom in Mineral Town or Forgotten Valley has never been seen!... which makes me doubt its existence...

(Oh, there's also the hot water you can only shower with in winter... showering only in one season of the year must be sad).

Radiata Stories (PS2)

I also think this is a great example. I like how the more modern things in our world are also in a medieval form in this game, not just the bathrooms, but radios, technologies, etc.

Incredibly, it's one of the few bathrooms... that just looks like a bathroom. If you ignore the fact that, as far as I remember, there's only one bathroom in the warriors' guild and one in the castle, think about the line they must have on a Friday night.

Sillet Hill (PS2)

I've always been a fearful person when it comes to horror games, so it's no surprise this bathroom is here. A bathroom so filthy and neglected that it could only be the reflection of a disturbed mind like James.

Here, we can literally discuss how a bathroom represents the intimacy of its owner, because my god, WHAT A HORROR! It looks like this bathroom has never seen a bottle of soap in its life, on a par with a college dorm bathroom or some forgotten bus station bathroom. Before seeing a psychologist, I really recommend that James stop looking for his wife and get his act together, buy a bucket, 1L of bleach, and clean up this mess. (And come on, man, not even if I were really desperate would I have stuck my hand in there...)

Majoras Mask (N64/3DS)

Clock Town! A wonderful place to spend New Year's, it has everything there: shops everywhere, "alternative" entertainment, traveling circuses, elderly thieves, banks, musicians, and various builders who don't do anything!

Seriously, nothing! Now I understand how it took them so long to build things for the new year, because it seems that the Bolson Construction Company, during the entire planning of this extremely detailed circular city, forgot something very important... WHERE THE HECK DOES ALL THESE PEOPLE EVACUATE????

We have sewers, plumbing, rivers that cross the city, but not even in the house of the richest person, the mayor, is there a single bathroom!

"Oh, but there's a bathroom in the inn!"

THERE'S A PERSON LIVING IN THERE! Imagine, after a long journey of months, crossing seas, mountains, forests, you finally find a place to rest and finally "relieve yourself"... and when you go to the ONLY bathroom in the city... A HAND COMES OUT FROM INSIDE!

And don't you dare tell me that a person can go to the bathroom outside the city since you would have to do number two while this looks at you.

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But then, why is such an important part of everyday life so neglected during a game's development? You, intelligent person, can give me great logical answers:

• The development time doesn't allow it.

• The time spent on these assets can be used for more important things.

• It doesn't make sense gamistically.

• No one remembered.

• And various others...

However, I don't think so... I don't think logically. For me, it's clear: developers are afraid to open up.

The bathroom is where the greatest moment of intimacy for these game creators is found, one of the few places where privacy allows them to be themselves away from any of society's restraints. It's not for reasons of time and creative concepts that we no longer have bathrooms in games, it's for fear of opening up and showing the world what we really are...

I hope that one day all developers can break free from these chains imposed by society and open their hearts, thus bringing to their games their long-dreamed-of bathrooms...

A good flush, don't forget to hydrate (please, not with bathroom water).

And until next time ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ/