Have you ever saw an abstract painting which has recognizable objects but seem out of place? Have you ever watched a horror movie where everything seems consistently incoherent? Have you ever been to a meaty flesh tunnel where you feel intense claustrophobia and... okay maybe not this one. "How Fish is Made" is a game which I dare to say perfectly encapsulates the experiences I mentioned above. It has this retro early 2000s graphic in PS1 era aesthetic, but it somehow it managed to make the environment within the game to be one of the most repulsively putrid sight I've ever seen. What's even impressive, is how this game could make this environment to be rather fascinating and abstract... in a gross way, of course.

Let's start from the beginning, you're a sardine falling down in one of those industrial conveyors. You instantly get this feeling that this odyssey won't end well since, well, you may ended up as a processed sardine. Once you hit the bottom, one of the first thing you'd notice is there another fish idling in place, as if it was waiting for your arrival. Bizarrely, the industrial conveyor is seemingly empty aside from that fish you saw. Naturally, you go interact with the said fish. As expected, the fish already prepared a question for you; are you going UP or DOWN. This is the main plot of the game; fishes asking for your answer whether you're going UP or DOWN at the end of this considerably long "tunnel". Talking about the tunnel, this is where the visual really shines; it started off pretty normally like any other industrial conveyor belt, but as you progress deeper into it, you can see that some things get a little twisted. By that, I mean, walls turned into fleshes, innards, and living fleshes. It is a sight that would left you in disgust, yet you can't simply close your eyes because it is unlike anything you've ever seen. In your journey through this nightmare-fuel, you'll encounter many fishes of different personalities. There are four characters worth highlighting in this game, let's start from the first.

The first is a fish that'd lend you a moral dilemma; the fish is stuck in between gears of mechanism for a giant hydraulic press. This giant hydraulic press' pressing into each other, blocking the way of the tunnel. There is only one thing you can do to resume this journey of yours, which is getting the hydraulic press starts working again. To do that, you need to sacrifice this one fish. Now, you have the option to close the game, but for the sake of understanding this essay and the meaning of this game, let's just say I did commit a little decapitation. The second fish is... rather unique and stands out amongst other fishes. It's a fish with a parasite living in it and acts as its tongue. The parasite talked quite a lot about its scheme to be parasite, but in a more subtle way. It then brought a literal musical which features an electro swing track and a footage of fishes getting infected with parasites and such, all of this delivered in a whimsical way, like dressing up corpses in jester suits. This part is also more comprehensible, because it's almost painfully obvious what the parasite's trying to do. The parasite is playing the role of a capitalist here, trying to get you with its scheme covered with showmanship. Another way to interpret this in a more literal way is that some companies don't really care about its product.

The third fish is more dramatic than the others; you're entering a giant hall and it doesn't seem like an industrial conveyor anymore. This fish stands at the middle of the hall, and it preached about how this game isn't about choosing, it's about conviction! There is... nothing worth noting other than that, but this is the part where I think a lot of people got a little misled. The fourth fish is a fish that stands near two tunnels which will deliver your ending; UP and DOWN. He counted every fishes that entered both tunnels. I remember that the fish said that there are more fishes going up rather than down. Now let's just get to the ending. Whether you choose UP or DOWN, believe it or not: You died either way, but in a slightly different way. If you go up, you get turned into a sandwich. If you choose down, you're disposed into mountain of meats of fish. 

You might be wondering, what's the point? What the ending is trying to say? Well, let me tell you, How Fish is Made is exactly the embodiment of its title. The game is so abstract, even the fish in the title is interchangeable; try replace to replace it with the word "human". Exactly, you don't become a human by beholding the way you die, you become human by... interacting with other humans! Every fishes in this game have their own opinion, have their own argument to present. The UP and DOWN is interchangeable too, it can be political parties, it can be your career, it can be literally the way you die. But in the end, we forgot to ask ourselves; why does it matter? You'll die either way. Your choices, or convictions, or opinions, or whatever you want to call it won't give you a guaranteed good ending! It is a bleak, bleak game, but it gave me a valuable life lesson. I don't become human by simply choosing how I'm going to end things, but I become human by simply living the life itself and not obsessing myself over certain beliefs or choices.

Well, anyway, I think I'm going to end it there. Feel free to if you have further question, discussion, etc etc. Thank you for reading, and see you next time.
PS: If I don't forget, I'll add screenshots of the game later