I had a rough start with Hypnospace Outlaw. The opening hour led me to believe it was first and foremost anti-capitalist satire, and when the game resisted my actions made under this assumption, I was frustrated. The premise alone, sleep being commodified in the name of productivity, sounds dystopian. The tutorial introduces your role as an online moderator, which you perform by reporting violations such as copyright infringement and harassment. You’re told that, although you can submit a report once you meet the report quota, you can earn a cash prize for each violation reported beyond this quota. This immediately brought to mind a similar mechanic in Papers, Please, which incentivizes you to detain people whenever possible for a commission. Sure, in Hypnospace you’re only paid in hypnocoins which explicitly have no real-world value, and sure, there’s no backstory about how I have to feed and house my starving family, but come on! I went in expecting to have my morals pushed and was ready to wield (and abuse) my authority.

That’s not what Hypnospace Outlaw is.

While struggling to deal with the game’s second case, centering around harassment in the teen forum, I was forced to realize what Hypnospace Outlaw was actually trying to do. I’d found a lead about a site called “The Dumpster,” a mean-spirited blog making fun of lolcows. None of what was on that blog was outright harassment – reading between the lines it’s obviously meant to be demeaning and cruel, but the language is mild and inoffensive enough so that it’s following the letter but not the spirit of the law. That didn’t deter me, and I tried to report every single line of text on the site for harassment. But none of them actually stuck – I got told over and over again to stop sending false reports. “But how am I supposed to abuse my authority if the standards for what constitutes a violation are so high?” I thought. “It’s like I really am supposed to act like a regular moderator.”

After that point it stuck. I had been trying to shove square pegs into round holes, but once I realized my place in Hypnospace, I embraced it. I stopped looking at everything as a potential violation and started to lose myself in the different communities and subcultures found on the forums.

Hypnospace Outlaw is pure fun. It’s unrelentingly earnest and empathetic to the people inhabiting its fictional world, and my role as moderator is just a framing device to put me, the player, as a tourist into this world. It perfectly balances an absurd, almost cartoonist tone while still feeling entirely grounded. People are weird! When given complete freedom to express yourself in a judgement-free (or at least judgement-lite) zone, we’re all cringe and embarrassing!

In recent years I’ve been making an effort let myself enjoy things without shame. I’m only 20, so I wasn’t even alive when this game would have taken place, but it resonated with my journey with unrestricted internet access and how I portray myself online. I remember making a Tumblr account at 13 and over-decorating it to make it feel like my own space before feeling so ashamed at how “cringey” it all was that I deleted it before ever posting anything. Even today, I’m always terrified to post my own thoughts and opinions (like this review!) because putting it out into the world and having it be perceived, people forming ideas about me separate from how I view myself, is terrifying. Anything I put out into the world becomes a reflection of myself, and sincerity is terrifying! It’s so much easier to hide behind a veil of irony!

The people of Hypnospace, on the other hand, are so unabashedly themselves. Each and every person’s page is a sensory nightmare of conflicting colours, textures, sounds, and imagery. But it feels so personal and so earnest that I can’t help but smile anyway. That’s admirable, and something I want to work on myself.

It’s kind of funny then, how I went in expecting this to be mean-spirited and cynical, only for it to instead be a love letter to the internet and those that put a piece of themselves online. I don’t think I could have had this same conclusion if not for my faulty first impression of Hypnospace Outlaw.

I don't know if I can ever connect to a retro JRPG the way that so many people put them up as "The greatest games ever." I went through FF6 and Chrono Trigger , and now FF7 and came away with "I can see how thats cool, but I'm not attached to it." The only JRPG I've really come out of loving is Dragon Quest XI, but that has the benefit of being a modern game.

I feel like my main problem is I never get attached to the party members, and I think its the text based dialogue(?). Maybe not just that, possibly also the amount of time actually spent with the party, doesn't feel like its enough. If there was voice acting and a good performance, that could be alleviated i think.

Another reason for that in FF7 is I don't think the party members feel unique mechanics wise. So I'm not getting super attached to these characters because I love how they play, or through the way they are portrayed. FF6 I got to enjoy Sabin because he suplexed and shit; the FF6 cast had a lot of unique stuff going on for them, but FF7 its pretty much only limit breaks. The materia system is cool, but it blends everyone together. Kind of hate it when JRPG's restrict story moments to who is currently in your party, and not just summoning everyone to talk at once, perfect opportunity to spend more time with people.

I will be trying FF7R at some point because I feel like I will just like it more for the above reasons.

I did enjoy the beginning of the game up until the first Nibelheim flashback, then the openness truly took over and made me start groaning. Felt like the game was floundering for a while until I got to Nibelheim. From there to the ending is cool though.

I did start cheating at Demon Gate in Temple of the Ancients though because that boss just pissed me off and I loathe grinding XP/AP. I have cheated in every JRPG I've played and I probably won't stop (though in DQXI it was just the secret boss, I actually did enjoy grinding in that game).

I do constantly think about Cloud and his fruity little poses, stuck in my brain.