So then, I'm going to make this a review/analysis for the first three (I'm going to make one on the fourth someday. It's just fairly recent and I don't have all of my thoughts gathered yet.) on YouTube and not this game, you might be asking why? Mostly because I feel like this is pretty much the closest thing I have resembling a "platform" and an audience. I really appreciate you for reading this especially since this little YouTube series and Metal Gear Solid 2 is what has inspired me to look deep into works of art I enjoy. This series has so many themes I want to go over and hopefully can do justice for. There will obviously be spoilers for the 3 videos in this series . Also some incredibly disturbing topics will be covered such as CSA, Child Abuse, Suicide and Animal Abuse.

The series is basically just putting a horrid twist on those "cute girly" flash games made in the 2000s with some of them getting updated to have frightening Easter eggs that could easily traumatise anyone playing them and accidentally stumbling upon these secrets. The creator of these flash games, Rocio. Has described these cursed flash games as the "Real Girl Games". That line is haunting to me since the videos do depict what I'm sure many women go through such as Stalking, depicted in the first video. being unable to meet expectations in the dinner video, Childhood abuse/CSA in the Petshop video. Please do take note that I'm biologically male and don't like a girl at all. With me only really being genderfluid very recently and even then my life is still through that of a boy... even if I want to be more feminine. If I do end up saying some stupid shit. Please let me know.

The first video, the one this game is actually based on. Is incredibly lacking to the later entries in my opinion. The horror is decent but not enough to really dissect here. You could say that Lacey being forced by the player to go outside when the Stalker is right there and here even telling you to not make her go outside represents her parents, aka the player I think. Still doing something we want against her will. But this is just a theory and again...not that interesting.

The dinner is when we really start to pick up. Lacey opens up a dinner (wow, no fucking way Andria really?) and is enthusiastic about it until she realises that...the costumers can be quite unforgiving when they're hungry. It's safe to assume she's had so much trouble running it, with customers yelling at her for not working fast enough... unfortunately, I've seen a lot of employees get treated like shit. It's incredibly sad to see. Especially since Lacey tries her best to do anything to make them happy and keep her business a float but...to no avail. Then the video glitches into the "horror" state. Showing what I assume to be her uncle and her things from her childhood. It's pretty clear to me that she has PTSD and has flashbacks to her awful childhood which we'll get to...before we know it, The business is shut down. With Lacey smoking before taking her own life. As someone that struggles with wanting to meet expectations and feeling like I'll be a failure with no future...this hit me incredibly hard. Especially since, while definitely not as bad as Lacey's situation by any means. Does remind me of getting yelled at for not doing things properly or not being smart nor competent as my peers. Sometimes even wanting to uhh...go to sleep forever since I thought my parents hated me for being so useless. The atmosphere turning into the cold, dark night when we see her business shutting down, it's incredibly chilling yet fitting in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to falling short on expectations. To say this is a huge improvement over the first one would be an understatement.

The Petshop gets even better. Lacey opens up a Petshop (by the way the timeline of these games don't really matter all that much, from what I've seen at least.) this is going to be quite impactful to me, I have a dog named Sora and I love him very much. I'd have a mental breakdown if I saw him even get hurt haha. Plus I've always loved animals for all of my life. But anyways, that aside. Lacey's pet orders seem simple and reasonable enough until the customers begin to make more and more weird requests...which the scariest ones being the rabbit having it's limbs cut off and the turtle having teeth to smile at it's owner...then as we do the typical horror transition. Lacey is in another reality it seems with a house. The sky and ground seems like something that would come out of hell though...huh, wonder why? Anyways. As Lacey gets permission from a cat to go the keys she walks into her dinning room with pigs eating flowers...this is supposed to represent her family. Her uncle was the main abuser but it's safe to say the rest of her family probably treated her like shit as well. With them neglecting her and leaving her with the uncle...them eating flowers in my opinion is symbolism for taking away her childhood innocence for their own greed and benefit. With the uncle being heavily implied to assault her...it's sad how much shit this poor girl has gone through. But before we're able to process it...no one is at the dinning table anymore besides Lacey. She gets out of there and enters the living room with a...weird cage. She then suddenly gets in it. Pondering about her life and how "this pain hurts so comfortably.". I interpret this as Lacey just not knowing what to do about her situation and just being forced to suck it up, getting used to it so much to the point where it's the norm for her. The cage represents her feeling trapped since she really can't do anything in her awful circumstances. As she's going through her "edgy moment" in her own words, she finds a key. Picks it up and opens the lock leading to the second floor of the house. She enters the bathroom, saying "I'm not afraid of myself, let's look just for a little bit." As we look into the mirror...Lacey begins to transform into the one behind these games, Rocio herself. Talking to us if we're enjoying her work, this is where we get the famous line. "These are the real girl games". With the most horrifying visuals and audio. Before Lacey books it out of there...if this scene isn't perfect I don't know what is. Lacey turning into Rocio symbolises to me as these games being her own way of venting and telling her experiences through Lacey. Lacey is supposed to be the representation of how damaged you can be mentally because of gender roles/societal expectation, women don't have it easy, men don't either. But this series is made by a woman and I'm sure is representation of what they might have experienced...which is awful to think about. Carrying on from the depressing topic into another. Lacey storms into her bedroom after witnessing the horrifying sequence, then Lacey begins to ponder again. Thinking about fun things to do such as eating ice cream, buying CDs of her favourite songs and getting a cat before she's reminded of her pet dog. I haven't brought him up yet but now is the perfect time. Lacey in a split frame talks about her uncle being a pig and taking her "angel" away...which is her dog, Puddles. It's fairly obvious her uncle killed her only real friend she had. Leaving her in an even worse mental state... something I'd like to mention is that my dog looks really similar to puddles which just only made me more depressed watching this. As Lacey slowly begins to lose her mind she goes to a room that looks like nothing from our reality and more like again, hell with candles and a matchbox on the ground before taking her life. As she sings a depressing tune about her 4-legged best friend...before waking up from her nightmare? Huh-wait...oh...if you look under her bed as she's woken up you can see a corpse censored underneath it...it's safe to assume she's killed her uncle. I think the hell symbolism makes a lot more sense since her home life was her own hell plus her worst fear is going to hell after killing her uncle, that's why it was her nightmare if I had to guess. Again, this is an amazing video and an improvement over the last. Seems like tundra will only keep getting better and better. I definitely didn't have an abusive homelife like Lacey so I can't comment on it much but I'm confident in saying that's it's just as horrifying as than this series depicts. For children, seeing those who gave you your life being abusive towards you with no form of escape...that is pretty much their own hell. It feeling eternal and never ending. Plus the scenes with her dog almost made me shed a tear due to how much I fear about my dog being hurt and how painful it is to lose your best friend...fantastic work, Tundra. I'm really sorry if this comes off as too sappy it's just...it's been a while since I've seen a video series that captures my attention this much. With the topics it handles and how respectful it feels by showing how horrifying and damaging these can be. If you haven't watched the series yet, please do. It's incredible and there's definitely some stuff I left out, with having amazing scares as well.

- Andria <3

Review #2

As I finished the game on my PS2 emulator and seeing the credits roll, All I could really think was "what the hell just happened." But don't get me wrong, I mean this is in a good way.

Metal Gear Solid 2 has been described as one of if not the most profound game, which is definitely deserved from my point of view. As someone that's spent a lot of my life in the cesspool that is the internet...I still see some of the things this game talks about at the final codec call to this day, which is incredibly impressive for a 2001 game. With the invention of AI programs like ChatGPT it only feels like this "junk data" as the game says is only going to become more and more of a problem for the foreseeable future. Sure, the AI might not be prone to ideologies and ideas that make us, the more "immature" species change the "truth" just a tiny bit to fit our side. But AI can often have grammar mistakes to outright getting important details wrong. Not only this but it was correct about it building an algorithm to suit our "tastes". But I find it to be the exact opposite because it's been confirmed that platforms like Facebook actually push "rage bait" onto us to engage more with the platform...arguing with strangers to give those controlling the algorithm more money and power in the process. I'd say Raiden was kind of right about this feeling like a nightmare we can't wake up from. While in my previous review, I did shit on people for "doomposting" but it's genuinely understandable for being a bit scared because with the way things are going, the internet is only getting more and more unsearchable and unusable, the bot accounts on Twitter, YouTube or any Social Media platform you can really think of seems to be getting worse as time goes by. flooding discussion with oddly horrifying comments/replies trying their best to act human. In some cases they're able to reply to each other. It's just so wrong and odd to see, I'm not sure why I find it as creepy as I do. So far, this has mostly been about the internet but I'd say this fits really well with the main theme of the game, being "memes" yes, you've definitely heard this word being thrown around a lot in discussions about metal gear solid 2. But I feel like the internet is a new way to find out about different ideas, cultures and history. Of course, this is great seeing as pretty much at least half of the world population has access to a device that can access the internet...on paper though, the AI I've discussed about is the NEW problem I'd say, some of the problems I've talked about can more than definitely be done by a human being, altering information just enough to enforce their agenda or even outright spread misinformation...now, books and news papers or just any form of old media was obviously suspectable to this but those had professionals checking over if the information was correct...but, what makes someone a "professional"? What makes another human more worthy of another? Humans are inherently biased...I think what this game is trying to say that finding the absolutely unbiased truth is pretty much impossible. Which is obviously a horrifying thing to think about...or actually kind of beautiful in a way, Snake's speech reflects a different side of coin to the GW. Sure, there might practically be no "unbiased truths" but we can all have our own "memes" to pass onto the future, that's what I and I'm sure many others are doing with these reviews. To share with others how we felt with a specific piece of media, culture, history or anything really. Our world is definitely in a flawed state right now and definitely will be for as long as it exists but I have faith that things will get better, even if they're unrealistic beliefs.

I'm sorry I didn't really go over much about the gameplay or the actual plot, I will say that the gameplay is a huge improvement over the first game but I still found myself a little frustrated with some parts like the swimming and the freezing bombs being a bit too long for my liking. But tranquilizers and hanging were really fun to play around with even if I wish hanging was encouraged to be used more by the player. The characters are stellar of course, it's metal gear. Raiden is such a perfect protagonist for this game, having no "personality" and his own ideas until the ending to me feels like growing up together with Raiden, Raiden was immature at the start of the game but most people who played this game back in the day probably HATED this dude for not being Snake. But he grows alongside you and you two have sort of a "friendship" and develop as more it goes on. This definitely might sound ridiculous but it's how I feel. There's also something really cool about both the player and Raiden knowing something one doesn't, Raiden with his suppressed trauma and the player knowing that Snake is obviously Pliskin, Campbell acting odd and out of character as well. I don't think I've seen many other games do this besides maybe Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations?

This will be my last part of the review but the most personal as well...get ready for quite the sob story, feel free to stop reading if you don't want to haha. But the scene where Emma dies and Otacon is mourning broke my heart...the part where he said he did his mother made me laugh a bit more than it should've lmao but I felt awful for otacon, seeing as Sniper Wolf. Another person he cared about died as well...the voice actors did a phenomenal job. Raiden, Snake and Otacon are an amazing trio and wish we got more of the game with all three of them together. But I didn't really begin to cry until the scene where the parrot starts talking to Otacon. Saying "Hal, I miss you..." It's clear that Ema has been talking to the parrot and repeating it so much to the point where even the parrot could repeat it on it's own. Then Hal breaking down into tears before the part that made me have a mental breakdown, which was his speech about finding love. Now this is going to be really personal but I've pretty much have always been alone for most of my life, being the weird kid no one really cared about. With my grandfather passing away not long before I played this..."you and I, we always wanted to be loved." Yep...again, that hit way too damn close to home and began to cry like a damn baby. I don't think I've ever really felt so "seen" until now...which I can't thank this game enough for. Thanks, Kojima.

NEO: The World ends with You, unfortunately had all of the odds stacked against it. from Square Enix's frankly moronic marketing decisions and unrealistic expectations. (Square, you are actually fucking high for thinking this would even compare Final Fantasy 7 Remake sales wise. ) Which is quite sad considering how great this game really is. While I do prefer the first game a bit (mostly for story reasons) to say NEO isn't a worthy sequel would be a bit of a lie in my eyes.

Let's start off with the gameplay, the way you can experiment with so many different types of pins and the synergies they all have pretty much almost always allows you to approach battles differently. chaining a bunch of attacks together feels satisfying especially when you get to top it all of with a huge super move like the elemental killer mixes (which also can also be used as combo tools depending on which element of the pin you last used so it's really not just your generic powerful damaging move) or the 300% one if you're low on health and want to increase drop rates. Now, I totally understand that this game's gameplay doesn't really have the same ludonarrative storytelling as the first game with it's partner system, which is a bit of a disappointment. but for me, this comes with the strength of the game being much easier to go back to since I don't have to deal with touch controls. both have their inherent strength and weaknesses, I cannot possibly say which one is "objectively better". though I do find myself having more fun with NEO's combat. Now, if there was one complaint I have about the combat is that some of the enemies are really, REALLY damn tedious to fight. the Wolf and ESPECIALLY the Chameleon noise come to mind. The Wolves absolutely love running around the field which can make your slashing and projectile pins whiff, not only that. the gold ones you fight in week 2 can leave a trail of fire, meaning you get BURNT EVERYTIME YOU TOUCH IT! not only that, some of these mongrels absolutely love jumping from off screen and then binding one of your party members. you have to target them and damage them enough to let them go...this feels incredibly frustrating especially since the game, especially in week 3 loves throwing a pool of enemies at you. this gets even worse when you account for the dive missions, WHICH ARE TIME BASED! so you can lose time for essentially getting attacked off screen...the Chameleon noise is another one that enjoys wasting your time since you have to wait for it to appear before you can deal any sort of damage for it. now, I wouldn't really mind this if these waiting times weren't so DAMN long. oh and to add the cherry on top of the shit Sundae, in week 3. you fight a variant of chameleon noise that can heal enemies back to full health. But thankfully, for the most part. the other enemies are tolerable or actually pretty damn fun to fight (the bosses, the Grizzly noise, Stingers etc). Overall, I still think NEO has a great combat due it's sheer variety of pins and the synergies they can have with one and other.


Let's get to the characters, shall we? to say we have a great cast of characters on our hands would be an understatement. I think all of them are really likeable and serve some purpose in the plot at least, on top of just being really interesting and well written. I will not be going over all of them because frankly, we would be here all day. so I'm thinking of doing dives on Rindo, Beat and Shoka. Despite me not doing dives on a lot of them, I do think a lot of these lads are genuinely entertaining (Kubo is such a fun villain, same with Minamimoto. and Nagi, while she can be a bit annoying at times, was still great to have around.)

Rindo's arc is about overcoming the struggles of making hard decisions and being generally passive, this is somewhat obvious as he pretty much entirely relied on Minamimoto for Week 1. his morale was absolutely destroyed when he left the team, losing all hope of winning the game. However, his development at the end of the game changes from him being passive to making incredibly huge decisions such as going back in time to save his friends after they were killed at the risk of making the "boss" fight even harder since every time he used this time travel abilities, the "boss" would get stronger...plus, seeing all of the characters in the game team up at the end of the game was just really awesome to see. while I much prefer Neku as a protagonist, Rindo is still pretty good.

to say I was excited when I saw Beat again in week 2 would be an understatement in the century, he's probably one of my all time favorite characters in all of gaming. and I'm happy to say he's absolutely great here, I love his vulgar attitude towards the reapers but he's like a genuinely caring bigger brother (pretty fitting, huh?) to the wicked twisters and their allies. I'd say he's like the second leader of the team. I was so happy everytime I saw this blonde shithead spoke. I wouldn't love this game THIS much if it wasn't for the GOAT himself #BeatSupremacy also, I'm not exactly sure if Breaking Free is his theme (I'm confident it is though since it aligns with his backstory pretty well) but my god Breaking Free is such an amazing song, the lyrics hit too fucking close to home ;_; I'm literally him fr

Shoka is probably my favorite New-comer from NEO. She was a huge dickhead to the Wicked Twisters at the start of the game. Seeing her get more and more discontent with being a Reaper, eventually rejecting her closest form of family (being Ayano and the other Reapers) to live for herself was an amazing moment. Also damn...her reaction to Ayano getting erased was genuinely sad :( the only real issue I had is that Ayano was the closest character in this game to feel like a "plot device" for another character's development, Kanon and Motoi had enough screentime to make an impression to make you feel SOMETHING at least for them...but Ayano just feels like she didn't do that much sadly. But still, Seeing Shoka being so vunerable to her friend's death was heartbreaking, man ;_; but also really heartwarming to see her eventually open up to the twisters and her "fearless leader". I think out of all of the characters Shoka has the most "noticable" development out of all of them...but saying the others were underdeveloped would also be really disingenious to me. (ESPECIALLY fret, he may not be a favorite of mine but I can't deny that him learning from Kanon to be genuine to those around him was absolutely fucking great.)

Overall, I highly recommend this to anyone who has played the first game. trust me, it won't disappoint. but please, play the first game before playing this one because a lot of scenes just don't feel that impactful if you haven't played the first one and you'll also just be somewhat lost as well.

I would like to thank you all for reading this, I love both of these stupid ass games and probably impacted the way I see life. Remember y'all,The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go. I shall bid y'all adieu, sheeple of Backloggd. <3