Kind of a perfect game to come back to after a long kind of absence from the medium. It was so easy to find myself getting lost in the atmosphere of Ico. Even when I would personally get frustrated while playing I was to compose myself right away because everything else just felt so serene. Some of my favorite moments in the game were just jumping around and climbing the castle. With detailed sound design and beautiful visual direction to pair alongside each other.

However what I think what ultimately makes Ico so incredible is its narrative. Its interesting to play this after playing Shadow of the Colossus a while ago because I feel as though their stories are sort of different takes on a central theme. That being the "boy tries to save girl" found in a lot of video games and just stories in general. In Shadow of the Colossus Mono is already under her deep sleep and needs Wander to revive her. Resulting in a journey that he embarks on alone to save her. Whereas here in Ico Yorda is apart of our journey every step of the way. We have to fend off the shadow creatures in order to protect her. Even if these two aren't able to understand each other the simple gesture of holding onto each other is something far more powerful. Ico the boy who was destined to be scarified and Yorda the girl who was destined to be possessed by her evil mother. Coming together like that? How could I not tear up by the end?

thought i would be more annoyed at the meta elements, but theyre surprisingly affecting in how laser focused they are on the processes of overthinking and dissociation, keeping everything at a safe enough distance to be understood as an abstraction, with the only thing that can bring it crashing down being like...anything that requires something Other then thinking. i yearn for the seeming lack of stakes of navigating the internal world. climactic conversation gives me slight laura palmer feelings....horrific vouyerism subverted into an angelic Being The Only One Who Can Hear And Understand

a variety of notes, written whenever i can stop full body sobbing long enough to write them.

video games r the single greatest medium for this thesis statement, but it applies to all art. art is soul-powered, the machine cannot operate without a soul and the soul has nowhere to go if there is no machine. the machine must itself be made by a soul, often with the intent of capturing it, but it can only capture echoes and afterimages, only detectable with certain tools from certain angles. art in all mediums is in the ultimate superposition, completely at the mercy of its observer...yet the function of the machine is to convince the observer that its the other way around, and that THEY are at the mercy of IT

the most enriching experiences , for me, have come when awareness of this conflict have only aided the power, when i can see all the reasons i Should Not Care and how flaccid they are next to the amount that i Care Deeply. what is created is not distance but an Understanding, an effortless exchange where both i and the machine are aware of our relation to eachother, we have finally found someone who values the exchange as mutual instead of expecting the other to do all the work. many many ppl engage with art as a rule expecting it to simply whir away while they sit there and passively observe it, never letting their soul interact with it, never extending understanding to its limitations, never allowing it to just Be without explaining itself. that this is such a Particular Issue with the medium of video games has roots in a lot of causes, but i do not believe those causes are anything inherent to the medium itself. games, more then any other medium potentially, CAN demand your soul, and in this environment, it might be a moral imperative that they do

undertale is such an unbelievably trite line of comparison that i trust that u trust me that i wouldnt bring it up without good reason...aside from the fact that its rly an origin and anchoring point for my first exposure to a lot of these thoughts, its fascinating how two games that , timeline-wise, rly cant have Ripped Off Eachother, ended up with such similar things on their minds, and a similar drive to breathe life into what are on a surface level Barely Sketched worlds. in general i would say this is a lot more Specific and Conscious then undertale...undertale is thematically massive, filled with moments and images and rhymes that feel like they Should be straightforwardly didactic, but considering how vastly differently ppl have taken it over the years, theres plenty of testament to it being more of an associative sprawl...undertale does Not have a thesis statement, oneshot does

i might slightly prefer the sprawl approach in general...theres a lot more to chew on in a lot more directions, plus ive just had more time to live w/ undertale so its not the fairest comparison for me probably. but i also cant deny that i See my own personal undertale lens in this game, and that in fact it feels like an entire experience oriented out of that specificity, exploring and honing it to create the most power possible. thats the real reason i suppose that im bringing it up even tho its kind of embarrassing to do so...oneshot is capable of doing things Intentionally with its awareness of the player and its protagonist and the surrounding world in a way that undertale can rly only do between the lines with the player/frisk/chara interlocking triangle. the triangle is more interesting, its something ive been chewing on for years...but im not sure i feel it like i feel me and niko. and like how niko feels me and them.

one last note: one of my favorite things, esp compared to similar games, including undertale if im being honest, is its lack of moral judgement. it assumes that u are acting in good faith, are capable of having complicated feelings, and have a generally healthy ability to acknowledge that it is Just Fiction even as u are invested. the game is not interested in using yr input as a gotcha, not interested in wasting breath on those who dont engage with it in an earnest way. its not there to impress you, its not there to change your mind if you are going to be stubbornly callous towards it. it is not playing to a crowd, it is there for you. it is there for anyone who needs it. if thats you, youll know. and itll know.

“In those dreams…
I loved one woman
No matter the day
No matter the era…
That did not change…

Nor did her name”...

Xenogears is everything that art should strive to be and goes beyond any piece of work I’ve experienced. It’s everything I could ever truly want. Ever since first finishing the game in August of last year I’ve thought about Xenogears at least once everyday. All its moments have etched themselves into my subconscious. All those painful, passionate, and loving moments that make all of Xenogears become one whole. My revisit here was not me playing, but a dear friend of mine playing while I sat on the sideline and gave advice. It was an incredible time to both re-experience these moments and to share them with another person. We laughed, cheered, cried, and all the other emotions you could possibly think of. It made me fully realize that Xenogears is an important part of the person who I am now. It inspires me to keep on living and making the most out of an imperfect existence.

It also made me realize that this is also the most life affirming work of art ever created. Throughout the entirety of Xenogears there’s a strong emphasis on the power of the human connection. We follow Fei build on himself and his life experiences through the people that he meets. He has these moments with people that neither he or the player could ever forget. You could argue that characters don’t get enough time in their own spotlight, but it doesn’t really bother me too much personally. Mainly because of the moments and how they impact Fei makes it all the more worth it to me by the end. We humans aren’t meant to be alone and Xenogears reinforces this belief. This is represented beautifully by the one winged angel statues introduced in the Nisan cathedral. To me those angel statues are the personification of the emotional core of Xenogears. Those angels correspond with each other and they need each other to fly. I’ll have moments in life where I am bitter towards humanity and am frustrated to be amongst the horrible people that are out there. However there are also the people I know who are kind and caring, and have helped me become the person that I am today. Humanity is worth preserving because of people like them. The people who are embracing the ideas of love and coming together. That is the human experience, even in spite of everything we have each other, and that’s the most important thing of them all.

A whole lot of the cast in Xenogears come from broken and unfortunate circumstances. The game portrays these characters and their lives with a careful, complex, and tender understanding of circumstances. There is that coming together I mentioned earlier that creates the beating heart emotional storytelling of this game. These people are able to comfort each other in the help that they provide in their companionship. Bart gave Fei a home after the destruction of his village, the party were able to help Billy cope with what happened to The Ethos, they helped Maria confront her “father”, and then there’s everything with Elly.

Fei and Elly is the greatest romance ever written without a shred of doubt in mind. It’s a relationship that so perfectly shows what love is and how it transcends everything else. From their first interaction in the forest you can tell something special is there, especially when Fei was able to guess her name in an instant. Which hit me incredibly hard on this revisit, those who’ve played this game will understand why. Same with the scene in the Nisan cathedral where Fei says that Sophia reminds him of Elly. As we get deeper and deeper into the game we see their relationship get richer and richer. Showcasing that these two will do anything to help each other. At first they turned to each other because they had similar situations and that they could run away from them by being with each other. However they realized that they need each other out of true and earnest love, not solely because they are sanctuaries for their own problems. They are separate pieces that become whole when they are with each other. It’s that sort of loving connection that can topple any kind of cycle of tragedy that our universe can present us with. Fei was always told to “Live!” in spite of everything that had happened. No matter the day and the era that message never changed. However now both Fei and Elly have a home to return to. Love is the greatest power in the universe.