Tick. Tick. Tick.

It is February 2022. I don’t remember the date. I’m sitting in my living room at midnight. I’m scrolling through twitter.
Nothing better to do with my time.

I see my friend, Rom, on the timeline talking about a game he really enjoys.
Tsukihime.
Game? That’s not quite right—it’s a visual novel. Up until this point the only one’s I’ve played are a handful of Ace Attorney games and the main entries in the Danganronpa series, but I see them more as games than visual novels in my eyes. I’m not particularly enticed by the screenshots of Tsukihime that I see either… I don’t read much and I don’t know if I could handle 50 hours of just that.

But even so, I’m find myself being pulled towards it…like a lost relic from the past, I’m nostalgic for it without a reason to be so, it might just be that I’ve played a lot of Melty Blood the year prior without any care for where these characters originated from but this feeling scratches away at my mind like a dog with my curiosity being the only driving factor. I do not understand.
—I cave.

𝗧𝗦𝗨𝗞𝗜𝗛𝗜𝗠𝗘
—Suddenly, I awaken with a start.
I can’t remember much from my reaction to the beginning, other than that I only experienced the first three hours before going to sleep, expecting myself to continue the next day. I didn’t.
A few months later, I find myself isolated. I can’t talk to my friends, I can’t do much of anything except waste my time playing video games. Still, it’s not all bad. This allows me to overcome some games on my backlog.
A voice in my head nags at me. Begging me to come back, come back to Tsukihime. Before I know it, I find myself on the title screen again. Over the course of the next two days, I find myself enthralled by the game, especially by Arcueid Brunestud. I wouldn’t call myself a “milkman” in any capacity…but something about this particular white woman puts her apart from the rest of the cast.

I meet her in the street. It’s my first contact with her.
It’s my worst contact with her.
Yet she still takes a chance on Shiki, and he takes a chance on her. They’re each other's polar opposites but incredibly similar too. They’re both beings haunted by a sin they committed as they try to atone for it. Their sins are pulling them toward each other, and it’s ultimately their sins that are tearing them apart. A love burns in Shiki’s heart that’s only matched by his murderous rage, both birthed out of the same place. He can’t let go.
A few days go by and I’m at the end. Shiki stares at the orange sky, I stare at my laptop screen. Both of us are waiting, waiting for a chance to meet her again and yet that feeling is what we ultimately must let go off.
The credits start rolling. There’s not a single tear in my eye…yet I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way at something before. I promise myself that I will finish this VN soon. The first of many lies.
On the 18th of April, 2022 at 12:02 am, I finish Arcueid’s route.

𝗗𝗔𝗬𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗕𝗟𝗨𝗘
I close my laptop after that ending. I’m excited. I don’t think I’ve been invested in something this much in a while. I promise myself that I’ll start reading the next route tomorrow. This too, of course, is a lie.
I feel like it should be put into perspective just how much I had changed when I picked up Tsukihime again. I’d finished The Silver Case and with it I felt like a whole new world had been opened to me, a different way of viewing art itself. I feel like it was made for me on every level and it showed me where the true strength of a visual novel medium lies. Surely nothing else will ever make me feel this way, right?

—I’m in a familiar place. I’m isolated again. I’ve got nothing to do, nobody to talk to. Slowly, I feel an urge come over me. I’ve been here before, I know what to do. I find myself on the title screen again.

This music…I realized it before but this track really is beautiful. As limited and repetitive as Tsukihime’s tracks can get at times, I still love the sound. The repetition of the tracks is something I can grow accustomed to.
The same can’t be said for the narrative.
A few hours into the Ciel route and I’m still clicking away most of what I read. I’ve read all this before, seen all this before. It’s not unpleasant to go through this once more, but I really feel this is holding Ciel back as a character. I don’t think she’s being given ample time to develop her. I’m at the halfway point now, I think. I can’t tell when the Arcueid route ends and the Ciel route begins, but I think I made it.
Now that I think about it, each heroine is a character that lives and dies depending on their relationship with Shiki so what exactly is going on? Am I not near the end? Why is it still-

THUMP
—My heart throbs. I realise it.
This isn’t a mistake. This is a love triangle.
Frustrated. I’m frustrated. The more I read the more my suspicions just get confirmed. “Show don’t tell” is the rule isn’t it? Then why are scenes, ones that can be moving and impactful, traded away for a quick explanation of how each other is feeling? This is crazy, I’m crazy. I’m complaining about exposition dumps in a story filled to the brim with them. But I can’t help but feel this is where it’s most egregious.
What I’m reading…it’s something about perspective. Not only just in the routes, but bit by bit you uncover more of these characters, things you aren’t told in the other routes, and the two Near Side routes are a perfect showcase of that. Ciel is someone who’s able to stand on her own, apart from Arcueid, as a character. Yet she still parallels Shiki’s descent. So it’s frustrating. Frustrating that the relationship between these two feels so underdeveloped.
These thoughts keep churning in my head. At the forefront of my mind, while I keep on reading. I’m at the end now, the end of this journey. I’ve been critical of this whole route…so why does it make me feel this way? Is it some kind of Stockholm Syndrome? Am I just easily won over by lazy writing?

Shiki opens his eyes and Ciel’s teardrops fall. I smile.
On the 8th of January, 2023 at 1:08 am, I finish Ciel’s route.

𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗠 𝗔𝗙𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗡𝗢𝗢𝗡 𝗡𝗔𝗣
I close my laptop. I lie to myself again. It’s become a ritual now.

—It’s March. Hell is right around the corner for me. I don’t care. I don’t want anything to do with it. I refuse. I utterly refuse to care what life is throwing at me. Truth be told I don’t even think of it. To escape my hell, I decide to dip my toes into another one.
Truth be told, I knew what I was getting into with this route. It’s simple when I think about it. This is a game where in each route you have a heroine that you get into a romantic relationship with, so it’s not too far-fetched to assume this route will do the same. Only problem is that the heroine is the Shiki’s sister.

I can handle “dark” subject matter, it’s not a question of whether or not I can stomach incest, it’s if this game handles it well. Either that…or it veers into the dangerous territory of “problematic”. I’ve always found discussions about problematic content interesting. Of course I think the elements that fall under that label shouldn’t be in media if they’re used to fetishize them but I can’t help but notice that a lot of the argument surrounding them centers on the fact of morality. That in a society as consumed by capitalism as ours the only way to have an identity, something with which we can recognize others, is by the content we inhale at a rapid pace. Where the only way we can tell others that we are inherently good is if we enjoy stuff that doesn’t have anything “problematic”.

—There’s someone out there who could probably make an essay of this topic, but this is a review on Backloggd and I’ve spent too much time thinking about this because I’m already at the big scene.

“I love you as my sister.” Shiki says.
I hold my breath. Time feels like it’s stopped. A spark ignites in my head, the synapses of my brain jolt back and forth. My eyes fixate on the screen. My hand hovers on the spacebar. Maybe it will be all right, maybe there is no incest. I have hope, but fear still has an iron grip on me. After what feels like an eternity, I close the gap between my finger and my keyboard.
“But… I love you as my sister even more.”
I close my eyes.
“It is fate.” I utter.
Nothing I can do besides accept it.

Fate. It’s only now I realise that fate lies at the heart of this route. I’m so close to the end but this is where this route has laid its soul bare. Are we all fated to end up this way? Or can we change that? Is Akiha is a product of nature and Shiki one of nurture? Can you even fight against yourself in that manner? Is a child who has been abused all his life destined to repeat that cycle of abuse, is that evil just in his nature? It took me too long to realise, and now it’s too late.
Under a blue sky, a girl cries and hugs a knife. The end credits start playing.

On the 3rd of March, 2023 at 1:04 pm, I finish Akiha’s route.

𝗠𝗜𝗗𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝗠𝗢𝗢𝗡
—I lie again.

I have an idea. I’m eventually going to finish this visual novel one day, so why not make my review different for this one? Why not write in the style of Nasu’s prose?
Of course, I know how insane that sounds. I can’t compare to the real thing but I want to try anyway. It seems like a good way to challenge my writing capabilities.
The biggest hurdle right now is actually finishing this thing. I’m free now, so why don’t I finish Hisui’s route as soon as I can?

The first thing I notice is that this is a repeat of everything in the Akiha route for now. Mindless taps. Nothing but mindless taps.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I’m in a dark room.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I keep waiting.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
That rhythmic tap of the spacebar. I press it over and over and over. I feel like I’m going insane. But I can feel it, I’m so close. So close to finally getting to the new stuff but with each tap my patience keeps dwindling until there’s nothing left. Knots in my brain. Cold dead eyes. I stare at the screen.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Ta-

This is it. I’m here.
…
……
………!?
Is this a joke? I don’t understand.
The main scenario in this chapter is just Shiki going insane in a room. Just like I was. For a moment it feels like an unfortunate coincidence, something to point at and laugh but I can’t but feel like there’s something more. I have spent these past few months honing my backloggdian skills, becoming a better writer on the way.
No. My analytical skills tell me this is something more.
Yes. Kinoko Nasu did all this purpose. Yes. Kinoko Nasu is that much of a genius.
I clasp my hands in a prayer. Blessed I am to be reading this visual novel. I can only marvel at this man’s sheer writing power. With this one route, I am not “just like” Shiki Tohno. I have become him.

But I’m ignoring something, aren’t I?
Hisui’s doll-like expressions, calm demeanor, and general aloofness is something I’ve grown accustomed to by now. So seeing it break doesn’t feel like the conclusion of a character arc, it feels like a porcelain doll shattering. It’s messy. Every time I look at her I see nothing, besides someone so hellbent on protecting oneself by any means necessary. Even if it means not rejecting your own humanity.

I’m underneath a tree. Clear blue sky. I listen to her.
My heart shatters.

On the 4th of October, 2023 at 11:08am, I finish Hisui’s route.

𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗦𝗨𝗡𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗘
I’m done lying.

—Perspective.
It lies at the heart of Tsukihime. A subtle change in how you perceive an event can lead to a radically different outcome. For a story that’s written with this theme at heart, I can only expect the final route to be a culmination of everything I’ve come to know so far.

But with each clicking sound on my keyboard, I just feel my opinions lowering. Is this…really it? I didn’t expect a grand finale but most of what I’ve seen so far is just a rehash of the Hisui route, and not in a good way. I can almost taste the laziness through the screen.
I don’t know if I’m disappointed or something else. In a way, I can’t say this is surprising. But regardless, everything feels so rushed. It’s almost tragic to see a narrative failing its most interesting character.
—Hate.
Everything in this house is built on hate. A carefully constructed façade through and through. If you didn’t know, you could have never even guessed, and the more I play the more I become convinced that everything would’ve turned out this way, sooner or later.

I keep pressing the spacebar. Of course, now I’m long past the point of divergence with the Hisui route as well. Coming face to face with what the route has to offer and I can’t help but feel an ache in my heart, coupled with a smirk on my face. I ache for what suffering took place but my smirk isn’t a sign of a critique of the game. I think.
In a lot of ways, Kohaku’s route sort of mirrors Akiha’s route as well. “Can a doll be fixed?” being the main question here. When do you stop believing in a person, when do you give up? For a person as pigheaded as Shiki Tohno, the answer is obvious. Of course I smirk, if only Akiha route’s Shiki could see what this one has to say about incest.
I come closer and closer to the finish line. The only thing I can hope for is a happy ending, and I got a rushed one.

On the 8th of October, 2023 at 11:26pm, I finish Kohaku’s route.

𝗘𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗣𝗦𝗘
—I’m finally here, aren’t I?
Text pops up on the screen, my eyes carefully examine every single line. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Maybe a more meaningful understanding of everything so I can tell myself that it was worth it. Maybe I don’t want it to end.
With each tap, with each clicking sound, I read more and more of the final words this product has to offer. Maybe it’s a form of Stockholm Syndrome, but despite its faults, I think this visual novel won me over.
What am I saying? Stockholm Syndrome isn’t even real.
Even now as I sit here months later, way past the due date on this review, I think back to it. My first experience opening Tsukihime and meeting her, along with my last.
I can only hope that I captured even a little bit of what makes Nasu’s writing so captivating to read, but even I can acknowledge that this is nothing more than a pale imitation. Although…don’t we all try to imitate a little bit of everything that we see?

When it comes to what I’ll imitate besides this…well…
The way I look at it, every single person touched by Shiki is due to his love. His decision to pay back that small bit of kindness he received when he was very little. We are all surrounded by kind people aren’t we? So why do we hurt the ones we love the most?
You may call this unrelated rambling. I call it a clever way of imitating Nasu’s tendency to go on tangents.

At the end of the day, I have nothing more than the memories I received. It doesn’t matter if they’re positive or not, I’m just glad to have them. I know that even they will twist, even they will fade. But I don’t care.

—The lunar eclipse is far away.
So I let go.
You go ahead and pass through your remaining time.
I’ll pass through mine.
Thank you, for everything.

"Are you ready for the sexualising minors in your story lesson?"

Kazutaka Kodaka gulped.

Katsura Hashino nodded.

Nisio Isin blinked nervously.

"Yes, Gen Urobuchi" they said in unison.

In all the time building up to this game and Mario Wonder, I have constantly argued about what "soul" means for a video game. To have a "soul" means to have substance, a reason to exist in the first place, something of inherent value. There are many games I would argue that have a vast "soul," Fallout New Vegas, Lobotomy Corporation, hell, even something like Tsukihime has some value buried deep down inherently. So the question then becomes, what does a game with no "soul" look like?

Enter Sonic Superstars.

While this game may have the facade of Classic Sonic down, it lacks any of the charm that makes any of those titles feel fresh and exciting. Every stage feels dead and lifeless as if they were put into an AI Sonic Level generator and shat out like pig slop; All the most generic and bland concepts. We have bitchless Green Hill, we have bitchless Chemical Plant, We have bitchless Death Egg Zone, everything so utterly devoid of true originality.

None of these stages brought any semblance of joy to me, even with the physics being relatively similar; going through these vapid, boring worlds left me tired and unhappy. While the game isn't offensively bad in the way that something like Sonic 4 is, it represents an arguably worse issue: Pure Unadulterated Mediocrity.

Starting first with the Chaos Emeralds, while the Special Stages are mostly mindless nonsense, the Chaos Emeralds have functions beyond granting you your Super State. Each Emerald has individual powers, a concept not seen since Tails' Adventure on the Game Gear. In theory, these would all be very cool, but in practice, almost all of the abilities are situational at best, and borderline useless otherwise.

What is the purpose of the Vision power when the game doesn't blatantly tell you to use it? Fucking nothing, absolutely nothing. The ability to turn into water is so situational, given that most of the areas in the game don't have water, and it isn't even that helpful when used. I guess the beanstalk one is helpful, but if you play Tails (like me), it doesn't serve much purpose. The ones I got the most use out of were the Screen Nuke (the first one you get for some reason) and the Slowdown Power. The slowdown power was helpful in particular instances in boss fights, and well, the Screen Nuke is part of why this game isn't even worse in my eyes because let's talk about the bosses.

Sonic Bosses have never indeed been the pinnacle of boss fights, especially in Classic, but usually, they were a relatively speedy process. Superstars decides to nix that and make it so that bosses can only be damaged at certain times, removing the strat of multi-hitting a boss that the older games and even Mania used. This results in fights where you must wait before you can do anything. Waiting in a Sonic Game, indeed, we have reached the point of stupidity I didn't think was possible. The Screen Nuke exists because it can essentially chain hits on bosses, annihilating them to make them less lengthy… Not that it matters because some of these later boss fights start getting so long you'd wonder if you're playing Sonic or a JRPG.

Not to mention this game still falls into annoying tropes I hate, like random shmup level near the end of the game that plays like shit and wastes your time. Hell, at one point in the final level, the game has you go through the same four level gimmicks in a row, like three fucking times, and then the next act have you do it all backward; I cannot make this shit up.

I'm sure all this will come across as foaming at the mouth, but you must understand I love Sonic. Sonic is my favorite platformer franchise, and I am so sick of seeing it fall back into mediocrity when games like Mania prove that this franchise can move forward. But here at Arzest, I can see the only thing being moved forward is level gimmick after level gimmick, hell there was even a Gimmick Programmer in the fucking credits.

There are other things I could say: Unlimited Lives is stupid, the character-specific and fruit stages are literal wastes of time, the music is forgettable minus the one Tee Lopes track, and every level looks boring.

The profound lack of soul comes from the fact that Sonic Superstars is what happens when you make a mass-produced Sonic game, gentrified Sonic the Hedgehog. All you have are some dull level concepts and a bunch of wasted potential.

To think I wanted to make a video comparing this game to Mario Wonder… I have to scrap it because it'd be like comparing a Coughing Baby to a Hydrogen Bomb.

"I'm going to fucking kill myself" were the words I found myself uttering over and over while I played this game.

Coming off of the third game you'd expect Devil May Cry 4 to be much better than it is. Enter NERO. Moody and arrogant, in essence he is HIM. You know I had a really funny joke regarding Nero but it's too funny and I'm absurdly proud of it so I'm going to save it for later and don't you fucking dare say that it probably wasn't gonna be funny it absolutely fucking is everyone I've told it to has laughed at it fuck you. Anyways this kind of thing is exactly what DMC4, it set ups tons of things which make you feel like this will be "peak peak goatly goat raw fire", you kill demons in the first level that banger of a soundtrack comes in and you are getting into the grove of playing as Nero and just when you've had enough of the foreplay the game rips your nuts apart by having dogshit level design and enemies which range from mediocre to annoying

Devil Bringer is really something I felt was missing in DMC3, a way to bridge the gap between you and the enemies outside of mashing Stinger. The game is smart with it as almost every enemy in the game feels like they're designed with Devil Bringer in mind, right down to the bosses. Speaking of which, how are they bosses? Well they start off all right and it all goes downhill when I got to Mission 6 and went "oh my god this is so dogshit". Agnus can SHOVE those fucking swords UP HIS ASSHOLE and fiddle them around like a fucking DILDO and I hope that he doesn't have a G-spot cause my god that fucking FUCK does not deserve any form of pleasure. Then in the last 8 missions they start fucking reusing bosses like crazy to the point where the second final/final boss (depending on who you ask) is just a fucking beefier version of a boss you've fought before and they made said boss even MORE dog shit fuck your fucking BUBBLES fuck YOU.

Right when you get the hang of Nero the game throws you a curve ball and gives you control of Dante and baby? This was the best Dante yet, gameplay wise. "YEEESSSS BRO YESS 😍🥰🥵" was my reaction once I remembered how to play Dante. I should add that I didn't buy this game myself to play it but got it from a friend, and I noticed that she had bought souls with real world money, so I had an abundance of souls at the beginning which I spent into upgrading myself. In hindsight I'm kind of grateful for it as it gave me the chance to get my bearings in the game without being overwhelmed but when I got to Dante's section I was running low on souls. Fuck you Angela could you have seriously not bought MORE??? WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO FOR THE LAST FUCKING HALF OF THE GAME?? PLAY IT NORMALLY? Fuck you it costs like 2 fucking pounds, are you really THAT broke???? And don't you dare act like you don't have 2 pounds, I am the poor broke boy from a third world country, NOT you. So please sell that fucking Nando's gift card already and give ME the fucking money you are fucking RUINING my gaming experience.

Remember how I said how each enemy was designed with Nero in mind? Well that comes back to bite this game in the ass when you play as Dante cause it's something that becomes really apparent especially when you start to fight old bosses again. Don't worry my DEAR reader, I didn't do a gamer rage moment and throw my controller. No, I'm a civilised man. I just beat the shit out of cardboard boxes like a REAL man cause this game is for REAL men like me and nobody should dare challenge me on that fucking front.

Level design and atmosphere is something that's also worse in this game. As bad as DMC2 is I will at least admit that due to the fact it reused a lot of shit from DMC1, it remained just as atmospheric. DMC3 was also really atmospheric! And I know DMC4 came out during the height of ugly brown Unreal Engine 3 games but goddamn does this game not hold up as well graphically as 1 and 3. I could really go on about how shit some of the puzzles in these levels are like holy fuck DICE WOO DICE it's fucking YAHTZEE ALL OVER AGAIN but I feel like I'd add nothing to the discussion except dry humping a limp corpse while I go "what's up my fellow Devil May Cry-ers I am also on the team".

Now we come to the story and there's really nothing much to be said. I don't CARE about old dude, I DON'T care about evil scientist, I don't CARE about the fact the girl who has 3 minutes of screentime. Nero aside, all new characters are a bust and even old characters take a hit. Still, I fucking laughed out loud when Dante used Royal Guard in his boss fight. Although, there is one new character I'd like to talk about...Gloria.

Let me start off by saying that, as you may have surmised, me and "sex" don't have the best of relations. I never had sex-ed in school, I didn't know what a "clit" was until I was 16, when a girl said that she'd make me her bitch I just replied with "woah cool", when a girl confessed to ME, I FUCKING RAN AWAY. So to have Gloria pop up and have my mind for the first time in a while go "Hmm while I usually don't find characters attractive this Gloria person is very pretty I hope she's good" is no easy feat. "Is this it?" I wondered. Like Nero, did I finally awaken a demon inside me, but instead of being a cool fucking arm that can grab things, the demon inside me is called "sex drive". Maybe I could finally give this sex thing a shot, maybe I don't have to be scared of anything sexual, even while alone, anymore. In that moment, I got Nero, I became him. I looked at my hand like it was Devil Bringer as I wondered if I should give this "jacking off thing" a go. Is this a new chapter for me, Quade Pad? Did Devil May Cry 4...change my life? As I slowly came to terms with this new side of me, it all came crashing down via the fucking costume select screen where I got spoiled on Gloria's true identity and oh my god jokes aside I laughed so fucking hard. Which made me realise a new truth.

"White women are mid"
Thank you Devil May Cry 4, for opening my eyes and changing my life.

The final mission pretty much cemented my view of the game. Truth be told I'm going through a rough patch in my life at the moment, and during these trying times where I've distanced myself as much as possible from everyone who loves me, I'm playing one of the worst boss fights I've ever seen in a video game. FUCK that boss FUCK you FUCK Dante FUCK old men FUCK statues FUCK everything FUCK me and Dante WILL WE FUCK AGAIN?

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to kill myself and this review is my last mark on this world. Also it's my birthday! Please say "Happy Birthday Quade!" in the replies. It'd really make me feel better! Cheers and god bless Devil May Cry. I will see you next time.