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Only in politics is the post of second-in-command considered a punchline. Here, unlike in sport or war, Vice President (or, indeed, Deputy Prime Minister) is the ultimate embodiment of the near miss - evidence of a grasp for power that fell just a little short, which, it turns out, is the precise distance necessary for tragi-comedy. The Veep is presented in both fiction and media as the arch-loser, a person whose ludicrous ambition outstripped their achievement, making them the perfect candidate for our scorn (and, perhaps, the perfect distraction from our own personal fears and failures). If exaggeration leads to comedy, then Citizens of Earth goes all in: you're cast as vice president of the world. This is failure on the grandest of all scales then, a joke that's made all the better by the fact that you still live with your mother and brother and, for much of the game, simply wander the streets of your hometown and its surrounding area carrying out errands for the locals. The comedy comes from the juxtaposition of premise and reality. At the beginning of the game you wake in your childhood bed (a Japanese RPG cliché familiar to every Chrono Trigger veteran) as the newly elected second-in-global-command. The game's first boss? A creature lurking in the basement of the local coffee shop, Moonbucks, who has stolen the coffee beans and must be defeated in order to ensure that the young barista can keep her job.
The game's developer, Eden Industries - a young Canadian studio whose team includes artists and designers who worked on Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Mario Strikers Charged and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - understands the appeal of the mundane when set against a world-saving context. Perhaps it's a lesson learned from those days spent with Nintendo. After all, Nintendo's Earthbound remains one of the most powerful and best-loved RPGs, and much of its enduring power derives from the way in which it explored the mystery and menace of American suburbs. In the same way, Citizens of Earth celebrates the rhythm and texture of small town life. You bicker with the newly defeated opposition leader. You chase after wanted criminals for the local police. You help a local journalist take pictures of a car that's fallen into a lake for a story she's working on. You inspire the town mascot to rediscover his school spirit.
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