Will always find it ironic that one of my first exposures to the world of cRPG was on the Xbox 360 port, done by Edge Of Reality. It’s fine enough, but you really should just get it on its initial PC format nowadays, cause it’s a buggy game no matter what and mods will be able to ameliorate, or at least alleviate, most of the problems. It’s not as overbearing as KOTOR1’s steps, but not as lenient and (comparatively) straightforward as Jade Empire’s. Firstly, while Steam isn’t missing any of the essential DLCs, it does lack all the promo items that are bundled in the GOG or even Origin “EA App” versions, so if you’re extremely meticulous about having all DLCs and/or want to make the game a lot easier (seriously some of these are rather OP), follow this guide first and foremost, then install the following: FtG Ui Mod for easier readability; Qwinn’s Ultimate DAO Fixpack, both the main file and the hotfix, for the most extensive fanpatch available; Dain’s Fixes for even more sprucing up on top of that (just the Core and Bug Fixes folder for duct-taping issues, but you can nab the other folders after examining them if you want); a 4GB EXE patch to address the game’s memory leak issue, which Steam users need to follow this install guide on; and finally, Shale’s Talents Fixes Only so that party member Shale’s talents actually function properly. There’s four others I used, but they’re not essentials and are more so recommendations for special cases, such as DLC Item Integration for one example, so I’ll mention them when appropriate. Word to the wise, there’s two types of installs, so it’s imperative that you read the description to know which one you’re doing, alongside any important details to avoid issues.

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BioWare has always been a place where its employees implant their influences into their releases, Dragon Age Origins being no different. Its setting and worldbuilding blend epic and dark fantasy series like Lord Of The Rings and A Song Of Fire And Ice, with obvious callbacks to their roots of creating the Baldur’s Gate duology several years prior. Thing is, it’s also a title developed in about 7 years, and it shows in an egregious fashion. Drafts of ideas being abound but never coming to fruition, such as other origin points for Humans shot down before they were able to go anywhere, Morrigan being the narrator with an expanded Dark Ritual scenario becoming truncated or excised, Grey Wardens and Darkspawn weren’t elements conceived of at first, fictional languages for different races, with help from Wolf Wikeley once again, having to be tossed aside and altered after not panning out well, chaotic rumblings affecting the production and prototype process amongst other roadblocks like whether or not multiplayer should be implemented, hell originally the dragons part of the title weren’t gonna be a thing, yet they were retrofitted onto the story thanks to a name generator giving them ideas, and Thedas being born as the community forum’s shorthand for, well, THE Dragon Age Setting. This notion and wounded stitch can also be felt within the game: an influence system, forgoing the studio’s rising penchant for morality, has systemic benefits for your bonded partners while intense friction can allow them to leave permanently, but with how easy it is to accrue gifts and approval points, and no equal benefits to outweigh the immense drawbacks, there’s little reason to act as enraged towards them; the Broken Circle arc fundamentally has two dungeons, one you’re actively doing as you climb to the top, and another that appears right before the end enacted by a Sloth Demon’s hypnotic spell, that sprawls and elongates the venture to such a degree that those who replay it - myself included - elect to installing the Skip The Fade mod, reaping all the benefits while downscaling all the story bits to the absolute essentials; the Orzammar Assembly has options to coerce higher ups into swaying on the side of either Bhelen or Harrowmont, yet it’s all for naught since this arc ends with you gifting a crown that cements the new ruling; Brecilian Forest and the Denerim Alienage both have strong prologues to help lay the groundwork of worldbuilding and roleplaying potential, yet their inclusion in regards to the main story reeks of either undercooked ideas with any threads to the Dalish Elf’s encampment snipped and handwaved as “a different group”, or an excuse to help the player and their allies progress the Landsmeet plot while giving the City Elf’s birthplace an involved cog in the machine. Even the Dog you recruit, with its maxed influence, niche talent pools, and ho-hum stat fills that seems to have suffered from aborted experimentation and ideas, affecting the combat balance to such little degree that I used the Extra Dog Slot and Dog Gift Tweaks mods with marginal or no errors having cropped up during my entire session. Those are just the ones I can immediately recall, but there’s several more at the forefront.

Even the worldbuilding aspect comes across as moot, containing little deviations and idiosyncrasies that can carve out the title’s unique identity. The prevailing wound bled from all that time spent trying to get the idea a foundation, and it results in executions of tried-and-true cliches at their most bare, few deviations being done to give itself a mein. For the matriarchal belief and religion that Andraste had inspired, there exists Ferelden’s Chantry sect that is very easily inferred as controlling and seclusionary upon the mages. For the caste-based system and underground dwelling that gives the Dwarves a position to call their own, the Elves’ divide between nature and (sub)urban assimilation begins to sketch its mark yet again. It’s not inaccurate to say that DAO’s fantasy outings are “generic”, but it’s perhaps more accurate to say that it isn’t carved enough for genre enthusiasts to sink their teeth into, such as how the Fade exists and intertwines itself with the living or the near-fatalistic ideology that is shared amongst the Qunari, various DLC add-ons upholding that void instead. Also humanoid presentations are just kinda ugly but at this point I feel like that’s just a small issue. I haven't come across an entirely finished title this blatantly troubled and cobbled together since replaying Wind Waker last year. Thing is, much like that game, I'm willing to overlook past all that because the ADVENTURE is pretty damn sick. Bioware writing during this era had one best aspect coupled by the worst. KOTOR1's pacing is sublime and is likely the easiest to (re)play, but the story is so plattered with corn and cheese it makes some of the more awkward moments in the prequels and other Bioware titles become Shakespearian; Jade Empire has an immensely captivating and intricate world and villain, but it's dragged down by hollowed out moments with uncomplacent companions; Mass Effect 1 has the strongest sense of cohesion and scale, yet its lackluster side material holds it back. DAO, meanwhile, pretty comfortably captures that rampant and scattershot feel a TTRPG session has, especially since I recently dabbled into D&D and Pathfinder campaigns.

Despite all my rabbles and censures, David Gaider and his writing cohorts did a superb job at formulating the usual serial TV pacing into the sword and sorcery tale that takes you on wild and differing ventures, all to march and band factions to face against the Darkspawn’s Blight in the upcoming final battle. Sure, I could go for a random B-Movie horror montage about the rising dead seeking to overtake Redcliffe Castle and its village, all concocted from a mage tutorship gone awry. You mean to tell me that after that I have to deal with a random cult in a bygone temple to secure an ancient artifact too? Oh please, I can only handle so much excitement! Talking trees and mad hermits inhabiting Brecilian Forest, alongside a werewolf’s curse? What kind of Point And Click game did I stumble onto? All that political intrigue and history lesson Orzammar unfolds and lets you peruse is great and all, but maybe I just wanna go apeshit about connecting dungeons of time lost so lemme see that Deep Roads real quick. I fucking LOVE towers just like Tsutomu Nihei, so thank god I can climb this desolate institute the Mages and Templars occupy, lemme sidestep those creepy demons and their turmoil real quick. I don’t have anything funny to say about the Alienage. It really is that strange of a detour. Got a funny ass interaction though. My tolerance for BIG choices with HUGE consequences has ultimately simmered down to a cool ambivalence, but I’m glad this team had some restraint when it comes to leveling the impact and weight of this angle. There’s not a whole lot of Golden Options or one-sided ways, and the ones that do exist make enough sense to not feel intrusive such as how to resolve the Demon curse in Redcliffe, or finding the middleground for the Dalish/Werewolf feud, or picking Caridin’s side and dropping an ancient anvil because Branka’s a damn psychopath that lost it years before and thinks using it will somehow better the Dwarven society’s already grueling and trepidatious state. It also helps that being an evil bastard here actually fits the setting this time with various ways to do so, finally instilling that sense of roleplay that the studio has always been skewering with alongside all the reactive elements dependent on the Human, Mage, Elf, and Dwarf backgrounds, but admittedly that was a bit of a given. Not every dialog choice has something that will fit entirely with what you want, but there’s enough leeway available to not feel so limiting by comparison too. Couple that with said backgrounds providing insight to the world as much as they can like mentioned before, and even illuminating and strengthening the involvement in a few key areas (again, sans Dalish and City unfortunately), and it was an immediate bet I’d try out so many options in the future. All of this culminating into the Landsmeet, an event monumental in establishing order before the call of the final defense, with niggling ways to influence the outcome and all belaying upon who you are and what you’re about to do.

Bolstering this is far and away my favorite Bioware cast of this era. Suddenly their desire of Whedonisms and outwardly quips are now tied into peeling layers behind some compatriots’ face, or at least utilized in a way that it doesn’t feel as garishly droning as before. Alistair tends to get the brunt of the criticisms regarding this, but considering the dude’s still a fresh-faced recruit who’s still upholding the view of the world always containing clears good/evil, his way of hiding this turmoil behind bad jokes and snarky comebacks are warranted… mostly. He could stand to cut it out a little. Conversing with Zevran and Leliana has always been a delight, the former bearing all of his assassination background for all to know and slowly starting to unveil his reservation regarding where and how he ended up where he is now, and the latter being someone just now finally getting their life figured out after many hardships and a toxic relationship with one they used to call a partner. It’s kind of astounding to me I missed these two out initially cause they’re sort of the answer to something I had wanted Bioware to actually do, that being about writing (as close as they could to) making normal ass people without feeling like a plank of wood about it, and I always make room for them in the party even if I pick the Rogue build myself. Sten’s ideology and conversations are endlessly fascinating to me, his opposition and confrontational attitude giving way to someone to argue and debate over, which immensely helps give him and this worldstate some much needed variety and spice to keep it refreshing. Being able to fully get along with him and be treated in such a way he considers you worthy of respect has consistently been one of the highlights of my play. Wynne’s great in being the tutoring grandma with a magical girl-ass power coinciding with her flaw of letting down someone due to her arrogant youth, Shale’s equally likable for reasons I already touched upon in their accompanying DLC, Morrigan’s someone I want to gush about when I hit the Witch Hunt DLC but I very much consider her one of my all time favorites with an extraordinary look as to how and why she became the way she is now, really the only character I don’t really like all that much is Oghren. I love Steve Blum and Dwarf Jokes as much as the next guy, but he’s kind of a hunk of wood in this respect with a few occasional cool stuff going on. Then there’s Loghain who’s effectively your main antagonist - not villain, that’s the Archdemon - and he’s also someone I’m fascinated by. A heroic and idolized general, so paranoid and distraught over an enemy country potentially allying themself with his home turf and what King Cailin has been attempting to do, that he succumbs to his overemotional outburst, harming both the kingdom and the Grey Wardens solely to drive his desire of vengeance. So many codices and inferences to pick up on, and different states to delve into his psyche, it’s the studio’s biggest throughline into trying out an ambiguous angle, and for the most part it passes all the marks.

It’s a kind of weird feeling to discuss why I enjoy this as much as I do now, cause it bears all the highs and lows of what makes Bioware, well, Bioware. Sure, I’d like it if they cut it out and actually design enemy encounters that aren’t just peekaboo room holdouts and give me a reason as to why I should bother with all my salves and elemental resources, but I can also do this shit to enemies and guide them along my trap-filled layouts so eh. I wish I had more reasons to use the innate skillset that you’d typically find in these fantasy RPGs, but being able to pickpocket so many people with ease is devilishly sickening. They really need to get a handle on their friendly AI patterns, but this being so easy to fine tune and take control of yourself at least means I don't have to suffer the wrath of stupidity like all their other titles I tried out, though they could do with a lesson on "enemy variety" I'm snoozin from all these same types even if that's the intent. I appreciate this being so busted that a synergy involving dual-wielding rogue with specced out Cunning and Dexterity, a dodge-tanking warrior that draws in all the aggro amongst foes, with a mage that does all my support and cast big “FUCK OFF” spell combinations never truly gets old. They could cut it out with the romances but… actually there’s no but. In fairness DAO does is at least the closest it got to maintaining a sense of a gradual kinship and closeness, even if it’s troubling to sell since the options pertaining to this are pretty easy to please and can yet again be maxed way earlier than intended. Overall it’s just an easy game for me to get lost in, despite again, its gangrene state being so blatant that it can understandably harm others’ enjoyment.

A common thread I see amongst all the arcs available is this sensation of something once thought to be lost in the ages, now coming back to us in unexpected, gratuitous, and downright cataclysmic ways. Something that sort of emboldens our hunger for knowledge or for a path to make things right, or at least confide in as we lose ourselves to our internal pain and suffering. Considering that I coincidentally started going through old Bioware titles (and KOTOR2 but that’s not quite as relevant here) around the time they’re finally at the risk of collapsing, along with the fact that I'm now seeing a lot of people call this their "last good game" if not for ME2 which is increasingly growing my cracked (again, all from what I'm seeing, doesn't mean I believe it), maybe that was just the sort of thing I needed a refresher on, a hallmark and reminder on the type of adventure they used to deliver in my youth. Either that or I just wanted another excuse to pour a hundred and so hours into this title I like a lot, considering it's been on my docket since replaying the original Mass Effect trilogy two years ago. Maybe it’s both! It’s probably both. Perhaps more experience of cRPGs could impact what I gain from this but uhhhhhhhhh idc about that it's kinda lame to think so. Doesn't mean I won't neglect my homework though.

Anyway I gotta do something about this strange rock I found... wonder what I can make from it.

Omori is... strange. Omori's story is the kind that can only be properly communicated through the dynamic and interactive medium of video games... but at the same time, it's the fact that Omori is a video game that holds it back from being truly amazing. It needed to be a video game, but the actual gameplay is the curse that prevents Omori from stepping into the sun.

There's so much good buried inside of Omori that giving the game a 3.5/5 feels like an insincere disservice to Omocat's darling pet project... but at the same time, a 3.5/5 feels awfully generous for what ultimately amounts to a decent but grindey Earthbound-like RPG that never fully understands the meaning of 'restraint'... or 'balance', for that matter. The more time passes, the more issues I have with this game. It is simultaneously misguided as hell while also being a genuine passion project, although I do think it leans more towards the 'passion project' side of things. It's strange. Omori is hard to nail down. Omori is both a genuine work of art and an intermittently-frustrating slog all at once.

Omori is too fucking long, for one thing. I was already starting to feel fatigue around Sweetheart's castle (a crying shame given how excellently-crafted the dungeon actually is, it's easily one of the mechanical highlights of the game), and realizing there was even more game to go through was a real killer. Omori is a serviceable eight-ten hour game that stretches itself out to twenty, and that's frankly unacceptable because there isn't a whole lot to actually do in Omori a lot of the time. There are several points throughout the game where Omori drags its heels and dicks around, seemingly because the game wants to use its bloated runtime to justify the $20 price tag. There are "sidequests", but they're pointless little endeavors that amount to you fetch-quest meandering all over the place for what amounts to a pat on the back and a slap on the wrist. There's a lot of interactable objects, but a lot of them just say basic things like "a fire hydrant, nothing special" or "a cutting board", momentary little time-wasters that add up over time because sometimes you click on something and it actually has something funny or enlightening to say, leading to this annoying cycle where you'll keep tapping Z on every object you see even though you know 85% of them are going to say nothing of merit. (In stark contrast to Undertale, where interacting with objects was one of the highlights of the game because it felt like everything had unique dialogue attached to it.)

Perhaps the biggest pacing issue is the fact that sizable portions of Omori honestly feel like filler. When the game starts and you're fighting charming, spunky characters like Space Boyfriend and Sweetheart, it's easy to enjoy yourself and simultaneously get lost in their zany antics while also acknowledging their psychological potential for Omori's character (it's clever how Space Boyfriend's lovesickness is a parallel for Omori's fear of connection, and how Sweetheart's obnoxious arrogance is a personification of Omori's own problems with self-love). But over time when you fight people like the Bread Twins and the shark guy Mr. Jawsum and those strangely hot mermaid slime girls and that dickhead whale Humphrey, you start wondering... what's the point of all this? What is this all building up to? And the truth is that it doesn't add up to much at all. So much of the goofy shit that happens in Headspace has honestly very little to do with the actual plot of the game: the character arc of Omori coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. After a certain point, it stops having much of anything to do about Omori or Basil or Aubrey or any of the main characters, really. All it does is reinforce the fact that Omori absolutely did not have to be this long - if they'd trimmed the fat and focused, then Headspace could have been a clever and creative tool to visibly demonstrate Omori's character growth. Instead, it's more of a playground of occasionally-great and hard-hitting moments underscored by frustrating backtracking, narrative aimlessness, and frankly unfair difficulty spikes.

I wouldn't call Omori 'hard' per se, but I would call Omori unfair if you go through it normally (without any substantive grinding, anyway). Omori has a serious balancing problem that permeates throughout the entire game. Grunt enemies can take away like a third of your health bar, and Omori loves surprising you with bullshit damage-sponge boss encounters that utterly cleave away at your health and barely give you any time to breathe. Any moment when you have to go on the defensive and heal/revive your teammates, you are absolutely at a disadvantage, and you're probably going to die. Healing items cost way too much money for a game with damage outputs as sometimes busted as this, and it commits the cardinal sin of turn-based RPGs: Omori dying ends the entire fight prematurely, an aggravating and outdated JRPG trope that, while it makes narrative sense given that it's all in Omori's mind, is annoying and counterintuitive to consistent game design. And as neat as the Emotion System is, I feel like it ultimately doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things compared to raw damage output. Most times I was just using it for the sake of damage output, like making Omori sad to improve his shanking skills (somehow), or making Aubrey & Kel angry to make their multi-hits hit harder. Once you find the singularly useful and damaging thing that any given Emotion can do, you're never given much reason to variate from that because this game can be demanding and difficult if you're underleveled or breaking even.

The game is practically screaming at you to GRIND. Grind for money, grind for items, grind for level-ups. Work for that bread. I had to grind considerably to even dream of making it through Sweetheart's boss battle, and even then she had me on the ropes near the climax of the battle. And frankly, I was overleveled by that point in the game. As much as I enjoyed being on the edge of my seat and constantly thinking in the moment, I couldn't help but realize "I would be fucking infuriated if I was at the recommended level cap for this". Now, grinding doesn't take too long in Omori, teammates level up fairly quickly. But the process of grinding in this game is boring, and I don't enjoy having to grind more than I'm inclined to in the first place. It constantly feels like a chore, and it doesn't make any narrative sense given that Omori's world is an escapist one.

So much about Omori frustrates me... that it completely blindsides me whenever the game decides to be good. Like, REALLY good. There are moments, decisions, and ideas in Omori that are absolutely stellar. The actual smallness of the real-world narrative paints a compelling parallel to the goofy grandiosity of Omori's dream world. All of Omori's friends are fleshed-out and well-written, and it's easy to genuinely care about them whenever something happens to them. The artstyle is wonderful, a blend of cutesy pastel colors and lively, anime-esque colored-pencil sketches that only adds to the dreamlike and psychedelic quality of the game's presentation. Sometimes the synergy of the battle system actually clicks and you're making thrilling tactical decisions just to stay alive (I like the interplay of passing attacks between allies and how every single pass between two people have different mechanics attached to them). The fact that there's an entire hidden second route ('Hikikomori Route') that you can access simply by choosing not to open the door when you wake up is fascinating. Omori is a wonderful silent protagonist, full of character and depth and nuance in spite of the fact that he virtually never opens his mouth; practically the entire game is an inside-out exploration of his deep-seated fears and guilt. The eclectic and energetic soundtrack is fucking terrific. Omori is genuinely funny, never letting the horror drag the comedy down or vice versa.

Some of the narrative moments in this game really fucking hit: the haunting Black Space, the peaceful yet heartbreaking Lost Library sequence, Aubrey in the church, the stark contrast between IRL Aubrey vs. Dream Aubrey, Omori following the trail of photos to relive the truth, the terrific ending of the game. And while not all of the horror really sticks the landing, most of the time Omori fucking nails it in the psychological-horror department, like the oppressive dark blues and blacks in Sunny's house late at night, the simple but haunting design of 'Something', the frequent but subtle usage of droning bass, and the aforementioned minimalism of Black Space, a genuinely inspired Yume Nikki-esque monochrome realm containing some of the most abstract and ghoulish imagery the game has to offer. Omori is genuinely unnerving throughout its runtime, and I have to admire that even if it sometimes lapses into eyeroll-inducing creepypasta territory (only sometimes; it's much, much better than DDLC in this regard).

I don't know. Omori is both really special but also really lost in its own sauce. Omori's style and presentation is wonderful, a darling blend of space-pastel pixel art, notebook sketches, and these off-kilter, oversaturated photorealistic backgrounds that heighten the dreamy aspects of the overall game... but it all starts to lose its charm thanks to samey dungeon design and an overt amount of backtracking and fumbling around. The main characters and some of the side cast are genuinely enjoyable and have a lot to say for themselves. There's some terrific character writing here, but sometimes they don't really get a proper chance to shine due to the aimlessness of the overall plot, a plot that manages to be both harrowingly moving and distressingly aimless. Omori has a powerful and heartfelt message at the core of its messy, poorly-paced story, but you have to be willing to wade through a fair deal of monotony in order to actually see the diamonds in the rough, see what makes the narrative special. It is wonderfully-written and confused all at once.

And I think that's the most apt description I could cook up for Omori. It has the core of a really great game, but a sometimes-hollow and unflattering shell that doesn't do its greatness any favors. The nucleus of the game is good. Really good, in fact. There's a fantastic video game hidden inside of Omori, just barely out of sight - you can make out the shadow of it most of the time, and sometimes you even manage to see the jewel in the emperor's clothes... but these momentary flashes of lightning in a bottle never last long enough to make the overall experience completely 'worth it'. Omori just being "pretty decent" is honestly kind of a pity. I love what it has to say, I love how it looks, and sometimes I find myself just loving it, indubitably and unambiguously... but frankly, it's a hard game to love. Perhaps if Omori had been shorter and had some sharper design choices, I'd be singing a different tune. It's so, so close to being great. But as it stands, Omori, as a video game, merely stands in the shadow of greatness, only occasionally stepping into the sunlight and making itself known... much like its own reclusive and deeply shy protagonist.

Within the first 5 seconds of freedom this game gave me, I immediately picked up the kitchen knife and used it in probably the worst way possible. The game didn’t stop me and it also didn't seem to care, and neither did I. But that was probably the worst way possible to start this game, because as it dragged on for hours the main thought in my head was, “We were cooking on the first route” which should have ended the game. Instead I was trapped in a torture chamber of nonsensical solutions and horrible dialogue delivery, with an ending that wasn’t even interesting enough to be worth the painful drawl. The image of Daisy Ridley’s weird polygonal feet are scarred into my brain forever.

While I find the trial and error bit of gameplay to be rather neat, it’s done in such an excruciatingly painful way here. Every do-over lacks the ability to skip the cinematics so you’ll feel your body rapidly age with every scene you’re forced to watch on repeat. The lack of options your character gets to work with are frustrating and unrealistic. The characters shamble around like zombies and there’s zero way to speed up the process to get back to a later segment in the timeline aside from some line skips. I guess had they implemented such a silly concept then the game would quite literally be 12 minutes long. Instead, you sit through hours of trying out the smallest changes, only to awkwardly miss-click something and have to redo the whole process again. With every make-out session your wife assaults you with unprompted at the beginning of every loop, the more reptilian I felt while playing this game. How icky it made me feel while I slowly became an iguana.

You’d think a game that allows you to stab the shit out of your wife in the first five seconds would have literally anything to say about violence or impatience or domestic abuse or literally anything? Maybe it’d point a finger at me and go, “You’re part of the problem!!” and question my immediate conclusion to stretch the game's choices to it’s most inhumane limits. Nope. It meant nothing, like it was just something cool you could do for the sake of it. Violence is actually the only way to siphon any useful information from any of the characters, in fact the peaceful communicative solutions don’t even open up until after you’ve murdered so it’s not like it’s not encouraged. But, it literally doesn’t acknowledge this as something awful nor does it affect your character in any real way. The game does not care, so why should you? Allowing me to start the game with the ability to do this really set itself up for failure. It never challenged my thought process, so I just simply progressed with not giving a shit. It's almost like game interactivity has a way of affecting the player if it's implemented in a meaningful way instead of just existing for "artistic" shock value.

At the end of the day, does it even matter? I went through all this effort just to land on a conclusion that I said out loud as a joke. When the twist happened and that joke ended up being the reality, oh fuck off. This is it. It’s just a game that let me murder my wife in the first 5 seconds of it and nothing else. Riveting stuff, guys.

How they got James McAvoy, Willem Dafoe, and Daisy Ridley involved in this is insanely hilarious. They sound like they’re phoning it in the whole time, like they don’t even believe in this game’s bullshit themselves. It’s artistic, I’ll give it that. But, am I buying it? No. I ate chocolate mousse while a man screamed at my wife and hogtied her to the floor right in front of me. Neat.

Persona 4 was probably the most miserable I have ever been while going through a main storyline in a video game in recent memory. Coming fresh off Persona 3, a game that I adored greatly for just how character focused its main story was (it wasn’t even my favorite video game at the time of starting P4), and hearing the sheer amount of praise this one received on Twitter during its re-release on Steam, I was shocked at how mind numbing this was as an experience.

Despite the intriguing premise, the main narrative is something I could only describe as factory produced. It quickly establishes a basic formula, that greatly detracts from both the emotional depth of the themes the story attempts to portray and the intricacy of the murder mystery, to create a predictable, repetitive slog of a campaign. Outside of an incident towards the end of the game, there’s little to no tension as you go through arcs with the exact same structure ad nauseam. Once the cast decide to devote themselves to catching the killer after the first arc, the “mystery” element quickly devolves into basic, deductive reasoning with no creative input required.

P4 decided to change from P3 how it would handle the time between each major event within the story. In P3, this time was filled with the cast’s introspection regarding their current circumstances and the further development of their characters arcs. In P4, this is replaced with wacky, anime high schooler hijinks that dwells more on the overall vibe between the cast rather than the individual journeys of each character. And this approach isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I can respect the greater focus on an upbeat tone, as I actually think it works pretty well and distinguishes this game from any other in this regard. And I can see why this is something that’s endeared countless people to this game. To its credit, I can say a lot of these moments do help the Investigation Team feel like a genuine group of friends. My biggest issue would lie in the fact that many of these scenes are unfunny at best and blatantly problematic at worst.

Whether it be the camping trip, where we see Yosuke blatantly accuse a sexually confused Kanji of planning to “do things” to him in his sleep solely because he’s potentially interested in men. Or in the next scene, where Yosuke pressures his female friends into wearing swimsuits so he can gawk at them. Or the cultural festival, where Yosuke signs them up for a swimsuit competition without their consent, despite the fact that one of them has made it very clear that they are extremely conscious about their feminine body... ᴵ’ᵐ ⁿᵒᵗᶦᶜᶦⁿᵍ ᵃ ᵗʳᵉⁿᵈ ʰᵉʳᵉ...

In conjunction with my lack of care for the goofy antics and the narrative’s lack of focus on organic characterization, it leaves the main story itself feeling incredibly vapid. You may be thinking “god fucking damn, he hates this game. 3/5 stars? Stop lying 😭” and yeah, I think that myself sometimes too. But I do have to remind myself that the underlying qualities of Persona 4 are really fucking good.

I think most social links do an amazing job at genuinely pushing the messages the game wants to communicate. In particular, I think they fantastically highlight the importance of self confrontation; the difficulties of acknowledging our own faults, the pain that comes with, and the betterment that we attain as a result. These stories contain the exact heartfelt writing I look for in this franchise, some of them still being among my favorites to this day. Shoutout to Dojima and Kanji in particular. My fuckin beloveds.

And I find the atmosphere, while not being something I personally clicked with, is still something I greatly respect. It’s what you’ll hear literally everyone praise this game for and for a damn good reason. A comfy small town is a genius idea that heavily contrasts with the typical big city environments we see from this franchise. The game does a good job at occasionally meshing the setting of Inaba with the motivation of individual characters and other elements within the story. And the upbeat J-Pop tracks of the overworlds sell the feel-good nature of the game’s tone perfectly.

Talking about Persona 4 makes me realize that it’s just… hard for me to talk about this game without comparing it to other entries within the series. It's hard to look back in retrospect without thinking about how this game represents everything I dislike about the series and its current direction. Not made anymore easy when recognizing that this is still technically a follow up to my favorite game ever. It turns many of Persona 3’s captivating ideas that were used to push its unique themes (The Fool’s Journey, the calendar system, the overall gameplay loop) into formulaic elements to craft a narrative that has little in common with Persona 3. And this is something that I find continues to plague the series, as Persona 5 occasionally falls into the same trappings. But at the end of the day, it’s still important for me to recognize the strengths of Persona 4. With the charming atmosphere of Inaba and consistent character writing, I still find it to be a competent, standalone game. And regardless of my faults with what I think is a flawed approach, I can still see why this could be someone’s favorite game ever.

I plan on revisiting Persona 4 some day, but through the original PS2 version. I’ve seen many discussions online regarding how Golden’s added scenes heavily detract from the atmosphere of the game. Mostly through how Inaba is now seemingly only an hour drive away from the biggest attractions in Japan. And the added padding in general is something I never really cared for. It’s important to me, as like I said earlier in the review, Persona 4’s atmosphere is something that I didn’t really click with, despite how much I respect the approach. I hope that playthrough helps me focus on this game’s strengths, as this is something that I want to like, despite the constant complaining I direct at it.

Insane that we got one of the most empathetic and compassionate series of games towards people suffering from mental illness in the early 2000s and outside of indie games, nothing has come close since.

It'd be really funny that if Konami brought it back they'd hire the studio with games that are the complete opposite of that.

EDIT (Oct 20th 2022): if only you knew how bad things really were.

There is absolutely nothing like Illbleed.

Illbleed is an absolute achievement. Bonkers. Wild as hell. Absolutely unpredictable in everything its doing. Designed to entertain and fuck with you to a degree I haven't seen a horror comedy joint ever really quite do and only really in the way that a video game can.

Illbleed is a reminder of the kinds of things only video games as a medium can do in the ways in which they interact and interface with the player and the way the player interacts and interfaces with the game. You could adapt The Last of Us, Dead Space, God of War and Final Fantasy XV into a series or film or something. You could NOT adapt Illbleed into anything else.

You could not remake Illbleed and get the same result. You could not make a sequel to Illbleed and have it work the same at all. This is a culmination of absolutely deranged ideas all culminating into a beautiful package at one specific time by one specific team at one specific moment. This shit is special.

Illbleed frankly is fuckin peak. The more I played the more I fell in absolute love with it. It trolled me, it baffled me, it knocked me on my ass and every twist and turn had me waiting for where the fuck this thing was gonna go next.

Sorry to be vague but you should really just play it for yourself and see what this has to offer. I want people who experience it to have the raw experience I had with it. I really wish there was some Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind type procedure so I could wipe my memory and play this shit fresh cause it is such a transcendent and wild experience. I will absolutely never forget it. Don't be afraid to use a guide if ya need to, it's absolutely worth experiencing.

Make sure ya invest in them worm stocks alright?

jesus fucking christ.

OKAY actual review (spoilers at the very end):
I think NSO has kind of decent ideas (the throughline seems to be “the endless cycle of chasing clout is bad and mentally ill people should get help instead of turning to the internet to cope”) but a lot of the endings are like, “Woah!! That was craaaazy! Wasn’t that fucked up?” And then they all just end without really even saying much or trying to elaborate on any kind of point. As someone who went out of her way to get the endings all boy did it make me mad to grind for some of them that were only a couple sentences long before abruptly ending jesus lol.

There isn’t even an ending that feels like you can truly win. And that’s not bad, I’m cool with an ending that’s a bit of a downer or things don’t go as planned/you don’t “win”, but NSO doesn’t have any real story to justify these endings or make them satisfying in their own right (and it makes less sense that this kind of thing exists in a raising sim where the whole point of the genre is to Raise Or Lower Number And Win). In the endings where KAngel gets tons of subs, she can dump you and then get into a scandal herself, break the internet, feel empty that she’s made it this far, kill herself onstream, etc etc. And I think I would be fine with some of these if they had anything to actually say or made the loss feel important. They jump right into the shock or weird stuff and then immediately end it with some fuckin textbox like “ohhhh she’s soooo fucked up what did you dooooo”! Like maybe I would like some of these more if they went on for more than 30 seconds and had some closure/thoughts to leave you with!!!

In my head I compared NSO a lot to Doki Doki Literature Club because that's a pretty popular game that also appeals to NSO’s audience of “Yeah this game looks cute and has a cute girl in it …. But be careful. It’s FUCKED UP”. But DDLC has the upper hand because you spend a lot of time getting to know the characters and see their arcs before they suddenly do the big horror twist, and after that every horror moment is carefully placed until it crescendos into the ending sequence. With NSO, there isn't really a story for you to get to know Ame with, you can learn more about her but you can really only bond with her on a surface level (taking her out, sex, playing games) before they start spamming you with horror stuff back to back with little to no breaks. You never share a truly deep moment or a moment that would legit make me go, “Oh wow, I really care about her”. As a result, whenever the game does freaky horror metanarrative-breaking things it’s just, “Oh wow!” in the moment and then it immediately ends, and that's it.

That’s kind of another thing, I just don’t like Ame. Menhera girls just really put me off, it’s one of those things that I think are popular because it’s Japanese/anime. Like the same girls that will go “i wanna die i hate myself im horny im lonely im manipulating people i want money blahbblahblah” also exist in SPADES on Tumblr and Twitter in English/America and everyone can’t stand those type of people (myself included). I just dont like self pitying “I’m so fucked up” manipulative people with mental illness especially when using it to get undeserved sympathy money/things from others. It just annoys me so much. Call it a mix of personal experience and I am mentally ill so I can weigh in on this a little. So when creepy things happen to Ame I just don’t really care. When she’s annoying I get annoyed. When she’s talking about how P-chan isn’t good I just roll my eyes. And I don’t even hate her, like I don’t want to ruin her life or anything, because she isn’t real so it wouldn’t matter. I just want her to like go away and get serious help. This is why the “hospitalize her enough and she becomes normal” ending rules in my opinion.

And THEN… Possibly my most lukewarm take ever, but I just don’t like stories that focus on the need to get likes/followers. I’m really weirded out by people who only care about this. It just feels so vapid and like not a real goal at all, to be obsessed with that kinda thing (one could say this is the point of NSO, but again I feel like the story is lacking and does not speak well on this point).

And she wants all of this shit in a month which is just laughable. Like yeah try getting a million subs in a month I’m sure that will work out for you. When she guilts you for not being able to get her that many followers it’s just fucking stupid, like girl you have been at this for 30 days and you’re an independent streamer. You’re lucky to even have 500 followers. On god plz stop.

I think it’s not impossible to have a good game critiquing the internet, it’s a less popular game but the game Buried Stars (game about 5 kpop stars being stuck in a collapsing building) does a very good job of both telling a compelling story while also weaving in what fame/ followers/internet can do to change people and influence their choices in the moment. Though that game is more about showbiz, it definitely has strong critiques of some of the same things that NSO failed to try to say, because you can grow with the characters and find out deeper things about them and learn on a deeper level how everything affects them. Meanwhile Ame is just constantly in comically high highs and low lows and you can only exchange a couple of messages with her a day, never having a meaningful talk.

And hey! Spoiler time. The twist that P-chan isn’t real is just stupid if you think about it for more than 5 seconds. Who was she having sex with the whole time to the point of making the screen shake (finger blasting queen I guess)? Who was she at the amusement park with and kissing in the ending where she has her livestream outside? Who was walking around in her house and making noise during her livestream where she was talking about mysterious things and even said “Teehee I didn’t tell P-chan I was streaming so they were walking around!” after the stream? In the Labor ending you’re messaging from the computer while she’s away at work and doesn’t come home, what, is she actually at home typing on her computer and just ignoring her own texts to herself then? What about the endings where she blocks you from viewing her page, bro you made the fucking guy up you don’t have to block them they ain’t real they can’t actually see your post anyways!!!! I could literally go on and on but it’s a twist that exists just to be a twist. It doesn’t need to be there and the more you think about it the less sense it makes within the context of the entire rest of the game.

I do not like menhera girls, I do not like plots about chasing after clout, I do not like the lack of writing this game had. I suppose I am out of the target audience for the first two points but overall I feel like a good game should be able to pull you in regardless if you’re not necessarily a huge fan of some of its elements, because it does something good with those elements. This game has nothing to say except internet be crazy and mentally ill people be crazy too, and even then it can’t even be fucking bothered to say that half the time, it just shows you a fucked up anime girl who’s bloody and saying mean things and then it just ends. What an absolute waste.

I don't really know what but there's something that really pissed me off about this game. I think at the core of it, it's that, I know some women who are influencers or streamers of various scales, and I think about this game and wonder "does this game do any justice for the kind of stuff they deal with online and offline, or the kind of social conditions that even pushed them towards that stuff in the first place? Does it primarily push a player to consider those things deeply?" and my answer, regardless of any interpretative gymnastics aside, pretty much comes down to: "No."

I think humans are generous and thus you CAN find something good in this game. But I don't think the game is, itself, meaning to be 'good' towards the types of people it takes up as its subject manner.

I guess one way I can frame it is, what if the premise of the game was flipped a bit and it was something like "Desperate Asian Girlfriend?" We play as a boyfriend of some unspecified age who has surprising control over an 'unstable' asian girlfriend. Through your choices you can lead her to all sorts of terrible endings! In fact the game revels in that - the endings are flashy, 'cool,' and a big selling point for the game, more than any look into why this 'asian girlfriend' is 'unstable' in the first place, historical precedents, etc. That's just what this feels like but for I guess, young Japanese women who use the internet a lot or something... like are we really playing this to somehow get a better look at mental illness and the internet? Or for something else?

---

As a "princess-raising" style game it's a bit flat-feeling - having to go through the same motions of opening the messages, twitter, etc each day make replaying stuff a bit of a slog.

Beyond that idk. I understand how people could see themselves in this character and the pressures of the internet, but there's just something to the way that feels a bit more like a exploitative look at "various kinds of mentally ill streamer women" - I think, because of the way the game really pushes you to do things like overdose her on drugs, push her stress to the max, as it places (!) icons on all sorts of options. I would wager that more endings than less have these sort of schlocky, shock-value endings.

Does the game think that women who become streamers are stupid, emotionally unstable and manipulative? Does the game think that streaming is an exploitative system that perpetuates loneliness amongst viewers and streamers while video companies profit?

It honestly doesn't particularly argue for either, but it definitely plays into the shock value to increase its sales, and it takes advantage of players' preconceived notions expectations as to what hope to see happen to the character. It barely looks into Ame as a character outside of a malleable doll tumbling towards any one of the bad endings.

It ironically plays entirely into the streamer and social media fodder that partially creates the space for people like Ame to suffer, or creepy dude producers like P-chan to take advantage of young womens' streamer labor for money or sex.

I don't really know what to say but young women struggling through life or the internet aren't lab rats to be categorized and put on display in these kinds of bizarre simplified archetypes. I understand that women could find themselves represented in this game and I'm not faulting them for liking it, but to me that just feels like a slight positive to the game rather than an argument for the game's holistic goodness.

I'm not against a more nuanced take on the struggles of streaming, but I don't think it should be done through this cliche of the 'huge big streamer' - what about the majority of streamer, people who perhaps - are equally unhappy - but with small audiences in the 100s or even 10s, working each day towards... what exactly?

I don't know. The kind of latent misogyny I feel from this just pisses me off for some reason, something that is just profiting, via spectacle, off of the whole culture of fame and whatnot that makes a lot of people I know suffer