GingerV
2023
This review contains spoilers
“Become endless? To hell with all of that! I'm happy because we're together, right here and now. Even when the last star burns out... This memory will surely remain. Because I love you.”
I am assuming that if you have decided to click on that ‘I’m ready’ button you have learnt of the curious decision made within the heart of the void. If you have not, I will not begrudge you of your agency if you decide to read on further. I myself cheated this game out of its many secrets similarly to this, yet by the time I did so, it was because I was fully enamoured with it. So, I give this final opportunity to turn back should you seek to form your own infatuation with this experience before I corrupt any preconception you have with that of my bias.
As you are left perhaps still reeling at the decision made by Lady Gray, you reload the game and are given a brief reprieve to absorb what exactly has just transpired before you are thrown back once more into the void. That initial premise of Void Stranger you just endured in that first playthrough, encapsulating those classical story archetypes, was merely there to serve as pretext. A formative basis in which to be iterated upon in a never-ending pursuit of recontextualization and retrospection. The first layer of many in which you engage and form an understanding with a literature’s thoughts and ideas. Conventionally most stories will end here leaving the reader on their own to pursue any further depths, Void Stranger however does the work for you in reframing itself. Narratively bringing itself forward an age, the world setting shifting to cement this change. Becoming modern, a more contemporary piece, self-critical and questioning. The game’s story structure has evolved paralleling that of how story frameworks have over time. You slowly discover that Void Stranger is about the ever-evolving nature of literature itself.
But no that is not the immediate concern is it, this realisation happens later when the dust is settled and the immediate fire is put out. The most pressing thought that dwells in one’s mind for the second playthrough is less abstract. This thought as you are given control over a new character, this stranger that Gray chose over the very charge in which she braved hell itself for, forms a simple question. Why? Why did she make that choice?
And here lies the focal point of this game. Void Stranger is ultimately not a drama nor a romance but that of a tragedy. It is about the insurmountable power of love yes, but more so about one of its perpetually recurring adversities. More specifically that of the irreconcilable differences between the understanding of love of a parent with that of their child. How these different interpretations of love between them are not reciprocated because they each are conceived from that which is fundamentally opposed.
Gray embodies limitless love for one person, but that devotion was never towards her daughters. Instead, Gray’s love and devotion is ethereal, directed towards the voided, to that of a deceased queen upon whom their lineage derives. In lieu of a living being of flesh in which to dedicate her love, there is only simple memory. If memory is all that remains then so be it, Gray will see to it that it persists eternally. A light that she must see become endless.
Parents do not love their children for who they are. How can they? Initially there is nothing in which to form such a connection. These fragile zygotes that only eventually grow into personhood have yet to form a self. They are naught more than a growing mass of flesh. To sincerely love a child before they can grow and realise themselves is impossible. Instead, a parent loves that which they can project onto, a perceived potential. A belief in the idea of what the child will eventually become. For Gray that belief is in that endless light. That these children, and their children, and their children will live ever eternal. Proxies for the endlessly recurring memory that she is devoted to. This is a sincere expression of love. The tragic rationale on how she made that choice in the void.
A child’s love in turn starts as something much cleaner but unfortunately no less delusional. It, at least, is founded upon something tangible, the corporeal and living caretaker in front of them. This person who seemingly loves them unconditionally. As the child grows and attains self-actualization, this formative perception of love is sought to be reciprocated. Lillie (and the Lily whom was lost to the void) loves Gray wholeheartedly. And in turn seek to express this love by embodying to become just like them, to honour them by living as their reflection. Eventually however, it is come to be understood that the unconditional basis that formed such a love is not real.
And yet it does not matter at all! Love is belief in as much as it is devotion. Lillie embodies a sincere unconditional love for her mother Gray naïve it may be. This love however is not what Gray sought. She cannot accept Lillie to live for her sake over that of her muse. To do so would extinguish her memory, her eternal light, to kill what little remains. And so Gray does not, and cannot, reciprocate this love coming from this reflection herself. And so she rejects it.
There is no recourse. The memory is still doomed to fade. Devotion without purpose is foolishness. As Gray too becomes only memory what then becomes of Lillie? This being whose self was conceived from the basis of these two irreconcilable and unreciprocated beliefs in love? The dawning realization that Lillie could never become someone Gray could see as worthy to love. That perhaps she only exists as a wrong choice, that it should have been her left behind in the void. What answer exists there for her should she return? For one devoid of devotion? I will not deny you from forming your answer by presenting my own.
Void Stranger does not end here. As far as I am aware Void Stranger does not end. It seeks to encapsulate something grander than a story. The journey of life itself in all its infinite recursion. It repeats that trick mentioned earlier once more. Bringing the story forward another age, recontextualizing itself. The nature of story itself now coming under scrutiny. The enigmatic purpose of demons and of void to be elaborated upon and revealed. A work as a living being in which we breathe life into. Now becoming post-modern.
But I am not capable nor willing to elaborate any further. Satisfied as I am to leave it here. The adventure of life goes on, with and without me.
“I don’t know what this feeling is, but… I was searching for it for a long time. Now that I’ve found it… I realize that it doesn’t belong to me.”
I am assuming that if you have decided to click on that ‘I’m ready’ button you have learnt of the curious decision made within the heart of the void. If you have not, I will not begrudge you of your agency if you decide to read on further. I myself cheated this game out of its many secrets similarly to this, yet by the time I did so, it was because I was fully enamoured with it. So, I give this final opportunity to turn back should you seek to form your own infatuation with this experience before I corrupt any preconception you have with that of my bias.
As you are left perhaps still reeling at the decision made by Lady Gray, you reload the game and are given a brief reprieve to absorb what exactly has just transpired before you are thrown back once more into the void. That initial premise of Void Stranger you just endured in that first playthrough, encapsulating those classical story archetypes, was merely there to serve as pretext. A formative basis in which to be iterated upon in a never-ending pursuit of recontextualization and retrospection. The first layer of many in which you engage and form an understanding with a literature’s thoughts and ideas. Conventionally most stories will end here leaving the reader on their own to pursue any further depths, Void Stranger however does the work for you in reframing itself. Narratively bringing itself forward an age, the world setting shifting to cement this change. Becoming modern, a more contemporary piece, self-critical and questioning. The game’s story structure has evolved paralleling that of how story frameworks have over time. You slowly discover that Void Stranger is about the ever-evolving nature of literature itself.
But no that is not the immediate concern is it, this realisation happens later when the dust is settled and the immediate fire is put out. The most pressing thought that dwells in one’s mind for the second playthrough is less abstract. This thought as you are given control over a new character, this stranger that Gray chose over the very charge in which she braved hell itself for, forms a simple question. Why? Why did she make that choice?
And here lies the focal point of this game. Void Stranger is ultimately not a drama nor a romance but that of a tragedy. It is about the insurmountable power of love yes, but more so about one of its perpetually recurring adversities. More specifically that of the irreconcilable differences between the understanding of love of a parent with that of their child. How these different interpretations of love between them are not reciprocated because they each are conceived from that which is fundamentally opposed.
Gray embodies limitless love for one person, but that devotion was never towards her daughters. Instead, Gray’s love and devotion is ethereal, directed towards the voided, to that of a deceased queen upon whom their lineage derives. In lieu of a living being of flesh in which to dedicate her love, there is only simple memory. If memory is all that remains then so be it, Gray will see to it that it persists eternally. A light that she must see become endless.
Parents do not love their children for who they are. How can they? Initially there is nothing in which to form such a connection. These fragile zygotes that only eventually grow into personhood have yet to form a self. They are naught more than a growing mass of flesh. To sincerely love a child before they can grow and realise themselves is impossible. Instead, a parent loves that which they can project onto, a perceived potential. A belief in the idea of what the child will eventually become. For Gray that belief is in that endless light. That these children, and their children, and their children will live ever eternal. Proxies for the endlessly recurring memory that she is devoted to. This is a sincere expression of love. The tragic rationale on how she made that choice in the void.
A child’s love in turn starts as something much cleaner but unfortunately no less delusional. It, at least, is founded upon something tangible, the corporeal and living caretaker in front of them. This person who seemingly loves them unconditionally. As the child grows and attains self-actualization, this formative perception of love is sought to be reciprocated. Lillie (and the Lily whom was lost to the void) loves Gray wholeheartedly. And in turn seek to express this love by embodying to become just like them, to honour them by living as their reflection. Eventually however, it is come to be understood that the unconditional basis that formed such a love is not real.
And yet it does not matter at all! Love is belief in as much as it is devotion. Lillie embodies a sincere unconditional love for her mother Gray naïve it may be. This love however is not what Gray sought. She cannot accept Lillie to live for her sake over that of her muse. To do so would extinguish her memory, her eternal light, to kill what little remains. And so Gray does not, and cannot, reciprocate this love coming from this reflection herself. And so she rejects it.
There is no recourse. The memory is still doomed to fade. Devotion without purpose is foolishness. As Gray too becomes only memory what then becomes of Lillie? This being whose self was conceived from the basis of these two irreconcilable and unreciprocated beliefs in love? The dawning realization that Lillie could never become someone Gray could see as worthy to love. That perhaps she only exists as a wrong choice, that it should have been her left behind in the void. What answer exists there for her should she return? For one devoid of devotion? I will not deny you from forming your answer by presenting my own.
Void Stranger does not end here. As far as I am aware Void Stranger does not end. It seeks to encapsulate something grander than a story. The journey of life itself in all its infinite recursion. It repeats that trick mentioned earlier once more. Bringing the story forward another age, recontextualizing itself. The nature of story itself now coming under scrutiny. The enigmatic purpose of demons and of void to be elaborated upon and revealed. A work as a living being in which we breathe life into. Now becoming post-modern.
But I am not capable nor willing to elaborate any further. Satisfied as I am to leave it here. The adventure of life goes on, with and without me.
“I don’t know what this feeling is, but… I was searching for it for a long time. Now that I’ve found it… I realize that it doesn’t belong to me.”
2023
“For these defects, and for no other evil, we are now lost and punished just with this: We have no hope and yet we live in longing”
Devotion is an incredibly potent motivator. Our capacity to love something or someone to such an extent that we can pledge every facet of our being to their cause is both a wonderful, yet tragic curse. This infatuation we have can allow us to endure even the circles of hell itself, but in turn it makes us blind. We forgo all else around in the pursuit of perpetuating the eternal memory of our devotee.
Void Stranger is a hard game to discuss for several reasons. The most pressing of which is that you simply are not allowed to speak of it in any meaningful capacity lest you give its game away to the uninitiated. So sacred are its labyrinthian secrets revered by those privy that they are selfishly hoarded, and only dispensed piecemeal to the desperate to prevent them from succumbing entirely to the void. It should be self-evident from this alone that there is much value to be had from this game through self-discovery. That to discuss the contents within its locker is tantamount to sin.
Yet to not talk about it defeats its message! Did others not play the same game as I? Did they not learn of the ultimate tragedy that ensues when keeping something so tight to one’s chest? To keep silent of our experiences is to allow them to die with us! These bearings are to be exposed. These walls we build around ourselves must crumble away so that who we are may be shared.
This review is a compromise of these two thoughts and split accordingly into two parts. The first, in which you are reading, to serve as mere bait to entice the curious and hungry into a deadly snare. A brief synopsis of memory deliberately obfuscated to reveal limited truth and provide some initial guidance. A second intended to be read for those whom have completed a ‘successful’ dive into the void, in which I will elaborate upon the true nature of the abyss. Such tiered structure of revelation is at the very core of this story that I would seek to have you to play.
Void Stranger presents itself as a classical story about how one’s devotion can surpass all. Lady Gray is the embodiment of traditionally noble ideals. Conviction and duty are paramount to her. She honours that which she loves by seeking to exist as an extension of their will. There is no burden too great that she is unwilling or seemingly unable to bear. This to her is the nature of love itself, the meaning she has ascribed to it. She expresses love through her devotion.
And yet this labyrinth she is made to endure is ultimately one of judgment. A condemnation of those who wander its ever-twisting halls. These puzzles that you initially meet with earnest resolve, they will slowly wear you ragged. They will wear away at your soul. They will surely consume you. You will soon come to an understanding that playing this much Sokoban truly is hell! The question becomes what do you do afterwards when your resolve falters?
There are a few options available to you when this occurs. Not all are obvious. ALL of them are valid ways to progress. The one and only meaningful purpose of this initial review is to provide this assurance. That each of these paths will ultimately, albeit differently, lead to payoff.
The most intuitive of course being to press onwards undeterred. Conviction, duty, devotion, so neatly align with that of a quality that games as a medium tend to cultivate within its players. Determination. With simply enough perseverance you will succeed. And although I offer alternatives do not let this dissuade you from this road. It is the intended path to follow, and you will be uniquely rewarded should you tread it.
Perhaps though you will try again. Repeat the game fresh from the start. Carrying over only a more experienced perspective. A less naïve and more discerning approach. There are secrets to these halls after all, that which you may have noticed but were too late to act upon in retrospect.
Or perhaps you will simply give up. Move on and play something else. This too is a valid conclusion to the journey. There is no shame in doing so. So many others have fallen to these halls after all and so too will all in time. To perpetuate memory eternal is foolish. Let it fade.
However most controversially I offer a final recourse that some would consider taboo. Cheat. Cheat a little. Cheat a lot even. Cheat as much as you think you have been cheated by. Look at floor puzzle guides. Ask for advice or hints from others whom have undertaken this journey. I will not pretend that the other roads are not more ideal. But you have nothing to prove. It is not your devotion that is being tested after all.
Ultimately Void Stranger is a game that seeks to hurt you. It hurt me and it is this grievance that I wish to share. And at the end of the void, if you have not lost yourself, you will discover the folly that is devotion. Can you remember why you are here?
(I recommend this game first and foremost to those who wish to see videogames elevated as a form of literary art. After playing this it has shown my faith in the medium in being able to convey unique and profound experiences to not be misplaced. However, that is not without caveats. This is a long and grueling journey with an initially uncertain payoff. It demands a lot of time from you. Some knowledge is gatekeeped until you have endured a requisite amount of suffering. This however is a part of the ‘art’. It is absolutely my favourite game I have played in quite some while. Sokoban fans may even find they might enjoy this too!)
“I wonder... Maybe we're simply too late. All light that reaches us is just a faded memory. If we wish to escape their fate... We must shine even brighter. Our light must become endless.”
Part 2 is here (Full of spoilers): https://www.backloggd.com/u/GingerV/review/1566841/
Devotion is an incredibly potent motivator. Our capacity to love something or someone to such an extent that we can pledge every facet of our being to their cause is both a wonderful, yet tragic curse. This infatuation we have can allow us to endure even the circles of hell itself, but in turn it makes us blind. We forgo all else around in the pursuit of perpetuating the eternal memory of our devotee.
Void Stranger is a hard game to discuss for several reasons. The most pressing of which is that you simply are not allowed to speak of it in any meaningful capacity lest you give its game away to the uninitiated. So sacred are its labyrinthian secrets revered by those privy that they are selfishly hoarded, and only dispensed piecemeal to the desperate to prevent them from succumbing entirely to the void. It should be self-evident from this alone that there is much value to be had from this game through self-discovery. That to discuss the contents within its locker is tantamount to sin.
Yet to not talk about it defeats its message! Did others not play the same game as I? Did they not learn of the ultimate tragedy that ensues when keeping something so tight to one’s chest? To keep silent of our experiences is to allow them to die with us! These bearings are to be exposed. These walls we build around ourselves must crumble away so that who we are may be shared.
This review is a compromise of these two thoughts and split accordingly into two parts. The first, in which you are reading, to serve as mere bait to entice the curious and hungry into a deadly snare. A brief synopsis of memory deliberately obfuscated to reveal limited truth and provide some initial guidance. A second intended to be read for those whom have completed a ‘successful’ dive into the void, in which I will elaborate upon the true nature of the abyss. Such tiered structure of revelation is at the very core of this story that I would seek to have you to play.
Void Stranger presents itself as a classical story about how one’s devotion can surpass all. Lady Gray is the embodiment of traditionally noble ideals. Conviction and duty are paramount to her. She honours that which she loves by seeking to exist as an extension of their will. There is no burden too great that she is unwilling or seemingly unable to bear. This to her is the nature of love itself, the meaning she has ascribed to it. She expresses love through her devotion.
And yet this labyrinth she is made to endure is ultimately one of judgment. A condemnation of those who wander its ever-twisting halls. These puzzles that you initially meet with earnest resolve, they will slowly wear you ragged. They will wear away at your soul. They will surely consume you. You will soon come to an understanding that playing this much Sokoban truly is hell! The question becomes what do you do afterwards when your resolve falters?
There are a few options available to you when this occurs. Not all are obvious. ALL of them are valid ways to progress. The one and only meaningful purpose of this initial review is to provide this assurance. That each of these paths will ultimately, albeit differently, lead to payoff.
The most intuitive of course being to press onwards undeterred. Conviction, duty, devotion, so neatly align with that of a quality that games as a medium tend to cultivate within its players. Determination. With simply enough perseverance you will succeed. And although I offer alternatives do not let this dissuade you from this road. It is the intended path to follow, and you will be uniquely rewarded should you tread it.
Perhaps though you will try again. Repeat the game fresh from the start. Carrying over only a more experienced perspective. A less naïve and more discerning approach. There are secrets to these halls after all, that which you may have noticed but were too late to act upon in retrospect.
Or perhaps you will simply give up. Move on and play something else. This too is a valid conclusion to the journey. There is no shame in doing so. So many others have fallen to these halls after all and so too will all in time. To perpetuate memory eternal is foolish. Let it fade.
However most controversially I offer a final recourse that some would consider taboo. Cheat. Cheat a little. Cheat a lot even. Cheat as much as you think you have been cheated by. Look at floor puzzle guides. Ask for advice or hints from others whom have undertaken this journey. I will not pretend that the other roads are not more ideal. But you have nothing to prove. It is not your devotion that is being tested after all.
Ultimately Void Stranger is a game that seeks to hurt you. It hurt me and it is this grievance that I wish to share. And at the end of the void, if you have not lost yourself, you will discover the folly that is devotion. Can you remember why you are here?
(I recommend this game first and foremost to those who wish to see videogames elevated as a form of literary art. After playing this it has shown my faith in the medium in being able to convey unique and profound experiences to not be misplaced. However, that is not without caveats. This is a long and grueling journey with an initially uncertain payoff. It demands a lot of time from you. Some knowledge is gatekeeped until you have endured a requisite amount of suffering. This however is a part of the ‘art’. It is absolutely my favourite game I have played in quite some while. Sokoban fans may even find they might enjoy this too!)
“I wonder... Maybe we're simply too late. All light that reaches us is just a faded memory. If we wish to escape their fate... We must shine even brighter. Our light must become endless.”
Part 2 is here (Full of spoilers): https://www.backloggd.com/u/GingerV/review/1566841/
2023
For better or worse, Fire Emblem is a formative part of who I am. The works we choose to Engage™ with in our youth tends to form a basis of our media literacy and in which initial appreciation for art stems. The ideas and themes we are first exposed to are inherently novel after all. With little else to compare with, these stories are earnestly received as they are indulged in. We have yet to form the necessary experiences to be critical, let alone know of contempt. And so, we view these early works that we are exposed to undeservedly favourably. This insidious phenomenon that retroactively becomes seen as nostalgia is something I must overcome! I like to think I have grown much since my youth. I can do it now! I am strong enough! It is time for me to condemn the naive joys of my past and see them as what they truly are so that I may live solely in the present. I will not shy away at the edge of dawn. It is time to destroy Fire Emblem, this puppy love of mine. This latest entry shall serve as a perfect target of my ire.
However, before I can get to condemning Engage™, there is necessary context that must be considered. It is not just a standalone iterative sequel after all. It is the celebratory title! It would seek to present itself as the ultimate culmination of an anthology. A statement of the series in its whole. The final destination of a long journey. If it dares to lay claim to such lofty dominion, then it elicits proper scrutiny. We will not just judge Fire Emblem Engage™ by what it is, but also, on what it isn’t. What it could have been. What it SHOULD have been!
Fire Emblem history, to me, is comprised of three distinct eras. The ‘Kaga Saga’, the first of which, having a particularly distinctive creative direction. Serving as the foundational ethos for all the future games to come, these early games were experimental in nature. More willing than most to utilise the unique qualities of videogames as a medium to tell its stories. Most infamously, Fire Emblem sought to embed a real sense of loss into its players by having characters permanently die should they fall during gameplay. That these characters with unique face, motivations and statistical significance would live and die through your hand was meant to instill a personal connection with Fire Emblem’s world. Such means of connection being only feasible through this uniquely dynamic aspect of video games.
And so, Fire Emblem was initially conceived to be a series about using games as a means of storytelling. A cohesive blend of gameplay with a narrative it wished to convey.
I have not played any of those games from that era. I am a fake fan, a poser, a revisionist. There is much to discuss of these entries that I have not the capacity or experience to do so. Instead, the games that I will elaborate upon comprise the second of these three Fire Emblem eras. That which I shall dub as the era of ‘Sanitation’. You see, that previous visionary ethos of character death was too successful. Most players were found unwilling to see the characters in which they are made to feel responsible for die, and instead of Engaging™ with this creative vision, would simply reset chapters until everyone survived. Creative intent clashed with the reality of a player’s actions. As these games had the ultimate purpose of seeking commercial success over making artistic statements, concessions were made to make the design of these games more tailored for the preferences of its general audience.
Yet even after the sanitation that ensued, alternative creative avenues were still sought to be explored, and though dulled, much remained of the original design philosophies post transition. Permadeath was kept, but instead of being a vestigial idea that players ignored, was retained explicitly because it was expected players would seek to circumvent it. If players were unwilling to let these previously expendable characters die, then why not encourage this behaviour? And so, these side characters became more integral and more significant within their stories. Fire Emblem was revised and recontextualized to be a series about the bonds we cultivate. This change of perspective inspired the most formative feature of this second generation, the support system.
Young me was enamoured by this concept! This method of storytelling I indulged in with earnestly, novel to me then as it was. Each character no matter how seemingly humble or insignificant would be given unique characterization through multiple conversations with others among the cast, conversations that had to be sought out by an invested player. Each of these conversations would in turn give you a tidbit of nuance of their character and the circumstances in which they exist. As you weave together these microstories you would unravel the nature of entire worlds. An understanding of why characters are the way they are, the rationale behind their actions, the material circumstances in which conflict is born. From this understanding you would find these simplistic stories are not as straightforward as they initially appear. The unique traits of videogames as a medium were still being utilized to tell stories. This time though through the ability to obfuscate details and dispense them piecemeal as a prize for the curious to seek.
Fire Emblem had adapted to its audience. It had become a series about story telling as a puzzle. It sought to exploit a player’s desire for discovery and willingness to Engage™ with character analysis and interpretation. Whilst deliberately echoing and iterating on past tropes and story beats from previous entries in which to contrast and compare against.
However no one, not even curious children with little responsibility, have the time to seek out all these support conversations individually. Instead, this support system deliberately or not, encouraged a certain type of Engagement™. Rather than spending 100s of hours repeating playthroughs just to see a few additional lines of text, these support conversations would be found much more readily accessible online in compilations on dedicated fan-sites. This centralization of resources became a hub of traffic. Communities formed around them, and so Fire Emblem had become more than just a series of games, it had become a culture in of itself.
Fire Emblem was now more than just the media it was sold as. It had become an outlet for discussion and critique. A way in which we can Engage™ with others who shared a passion for a niche media franchise. It had developed to become a cult, otherwise known as a fandom. An avenue of endless pontification about its characters, the ways it should be played and our individual experiences.
This second era of Fire Emblem would also not produce the requisite quota of milk deemed satisfactory to its masters. And so, the series was called away to be culled. Rather than go out quietly however, it was given one final mercy. A swansong game in which the series could be laid neatly to rest. And so, we entered the final and ongoing era of Fire Emblem: “Purpose (Id)”.
At the time I had wished Fire Emblem Awakening would have been the end of the series. It was so antithetical to what I was used to. A corrupted and revenant corpse of something I once loved. Tight deliberate mechanical design and maps were discarded in favour of a game that encouraged you to simply grind out your characters to become unkillable juggernauts. A cast of realistic and considered characters that defined the nature of the world they lived in had been replaced by one-note caricatures. Romantic pairings, which were once reserved for those with unique chemistry were now omnipresent for every and any male and female combination. All this just to enable the kids of these pairings to join your army in a mockery of one of the most incredible narrative twists of a previous entry of the series (that I hadn’t played).
Nostalgia is an insidious phenomenon. The very same spell that had captivated my younger self I was now resentful of others experiencing. My love after all was targeted towards something tangible, real, meaningful while that of these new fans was not. I would not have the Revelation™ for quite some time that this love was derived from the same source. That willingness to see the best qualities of something without a frame of reference in which to compare.
Seemingly equally confused by the financial success of Awakening as I, it’s producers immediately sought to ascertain as to the reason why through a curious application of market research. The next game in the series was released as a set of two, appealing to the separate expectations of newer fans as well as that of the ostracised veterans. It was a reactionary bid seeking to retain as much audience as it could. A final third game in the set would seek to reconcile the rift between these two audiences.
It was enough to temper me. Although it was apparent the prose and tone of Fire Emblem had been irrevocably changed forever there was something here that I could still latch onto. Fire Emblem may no longer have the capacity anymore to tell grounded or even coherent tales but as a mechanical object this iteration was unsurpassed. These embedded gameplay systems in which I was intimate with still persisted. I was content. Ready to move on and accept maybe what I saw in Fire Emblem wasn’t real. Just a naïve interpretation of the past. But then a beautiful tragedy occurred.
Three Houses. What a miserable chore to play! The antithesis of Fates: Conquest. Any vision it had for its gameplay either as artistic statement or as mechanical toy failed to manifest in a satisfactory way. And yet this game would leave me elated. It was perfect in a way that truly mattered. For it contained that aspect of Fire Emblem which I had thought was lost forever. What this lacked as a tactile game experience it more than made up through its quality of its narrative and its method of delivery. Yes, experiencing it all is a nightmare. Important details are scattered across four separate playthroughs and hundreds of optional and slowly dispensed dialogue events that no one with respect to their time is going to see all of it. But this was exactly how it should be! This was the Fire Emblem of my youth that I remembered. The antiquated method of storytelling from my nostalgia. Story as puzzle dispensed piecemeal. It was perhaps even better than it was in the past as there was no primary perspective of its story to cling to as ‘correct’. These different perspectives and the audience’s preconceptions would lead to extrapolating different interpretations from its details. Pictures that would be incompatible with those assembled by others. This lack of consensus on whose was ‘correct’ would facilitate endless debate, inspiring discussion and ultimately critical engagement with its story characters and themes. The tragedy of three houses is that it seemingly vindicated my nostalgia. That nostalgia I am now resolved to kill.
This preamble does not end on Hope™. There is one final game to discuss. The most integral and influential game to the future of the series. Fire Emblem makes money now. Lots of it. It is now a covetous cash cow. One of its games alone has surpassed the revenue of the rest of the series combined. That game is Fire Emblem Heroes and it is a drain upon all the goodwill of the series. Decades of character discussion, interpretations, fan translations of the many games that were never released internationally, are commodified, and then consumed by this beast. Three Houses was not made in-house and it shows. It was an outsourced project to keep the fanbase Engaged™ as the next direction of Fire Emblem was developed. The existence of Heroes means all future characters in the series are now designed for you to imprint upon so that they may be resold back to you in the most exploitatory way that is somehow still legal. That is the preconception for Fire Emblem Engage.
Fire Emblem that I had once viewed as a benevolent deity of storytelling had degenerated into a fell dragon needing to be slain. The fandom cultivated out of a shared love and passion was being used and preyed upon by that which it sought to enshrine. Was this always the series’ ultimate intention? The end goal of any corporate ip? It matters not, I have gathered all the necessary context needed. It is time to slay a degenerative dragon. I am ready to let go of the past. I am ready to kill this nostalgia within myself. I need to let go.
Resolution burning bright I would find little to dissuade this righteous fury within the opening acts. The world of Lythos is contrived to hell, deliberately so. There is no ambition here nor desire to tell a story that reflects upon or contrasts against a living world. Every creature here is an automaton, a faux imitation only resembling life. Vtuber avatars frolic about a story where conflict is abhorred, yet its root cause is never sought. A mandate of heaven is seen as absolute and unchallenged, as the cast indulge in a luxury resort above the clouds above an uninvolved populace. A zodiac of Fire Emblems past have their status cemented as commodities. Trinkets to flaunt and collect serving to establish the authority of a supposedly divine deity. The irony of how these emblems parallel a recurring theme of the series involving twelve ‘dead lords’ is not lost upon me.
Yet as the chapters go by, I find my resolve wavering. When your expectations start at the bottom of a ravine, it leaves the only direction left to climb. These caricatures clearly made to serve as an asset pack for a gacha game, slowly wear me down through a consistent message that concludes many of their story arcs. That we should not allow one’s past to define one’s future. I listen to this message because deep down it is something I want to hear. I am made to believe there is something salvageable and sincere beneath an ugly veneer. That I am wrong to judge Engage on what the series used to be. I should accept it on what it is and seeks to become.
I disengage. Yes, these characters do not compare as the ones in the gilded memories of the past or even that of the prior game, but there are aspects to like here. Templates in which I can extrapolate depth and nuance. Details to discover in which I can discuss and share with others. I can fix them! Both through gameplay and narratively. I am even provided the tools to do so. The game facilitating the means to combine traits taken of previous games to these characters. I can take ownership. Ascribe to them my own meaning. Is this not the culmination of what Fire Emblem is about? That ultimately we the audience are the arbiters of its story?
And so at journey’s end I hesitate. I find that I cannot will myself to kill this creature after all. There is a part of me still contained within. A part I still love. A sword wavers with conviction shattered. All I need is any reason, and I’ll let you go. Give me nothing even, be unrepentant and we can still live in peace. Arcadia can exist. Humans can live at peace with dragons.
The creature looks deep into my eyes. It sees shattered resolve, an extended hand. It sees only sovereign delusion. It rejects me thus, “I did it for Zero Emblem” uttered defiantly with no shame or remorse. This phrase is pure nonsense. A meaningless string of words that not even its speaker can decipher. It is not intended to be satisfactory nor received well. Even the most earnest of readings would find these words ring hollow. It is a proclamation of intent. A dismissal of peace. The game is telling me that I am wrong about it. That I am seeing something that was never there. That this was always a completely unserious farce and that I am foolish for seeing otherwise. A dagger reached for to provoke my reaction.
I can only oblige and stab it through the heart. We both always knew this was the only way this could possibly end. The beast is slain and I am free to move on. Thankyou for letting me go.
Fire Emblem is a series about the myriad ways in which we Engage™ with media. It has grown and adapted in response to how it has been perceived. It is a series that only still exists and thrives in the present because of the community that has formed around it. It would have us believe that it owns us because it sired that which we love. But we owe it nothing. This love is ours to shape and ours to reclaim.
I hate that I love these games so much.
“A world riven by pride, Repaired at last. And now its makers can be at rest, Our vision come to pass.”
(I recommend Engage to only Fire Emblem’s biggest fans. I recommend it to Its biggest haters. I recommend it to no one in between. It has absolutely succeeded in being the culmination of the series. As a mechanical object it is best in class. As a thesis statement of the series as a whole, it is a perfect tragedy. There is some genuine care here buried underneath a shallow exterior. Yet there is no way to save it. The game’s premise and the purpose on which it came to exist is antithetical to love. But there is closure to be had in laying it to rest)
However, before I can get to condemning Engage™, there is necessary context that must be considered. It is not just a standalone iterative sequel after all. It is the celebratory title! It would seek to present itself as the ultimate culmination of an anthology. A statement of the series in its whole. The final destination of a long journey. If it dares to lay claim to such lofty dominion, then it elicits proper scrutiny. We will not just judge Fire Emblem Engage™ by what it is, but also, on what it isn’t. What it could have been. What it SHOULD have been!
Fire Emblem history, to me, is comprised of three distinct eras. The ‘Kaga Saga’, the first of which, having a particularly distinctive creative direction. Serving as the foundational ethos for all the future games to come, these early games were experimental in nature. More willing than most to utilise the unique qualities of videogames as a medium to tell its stories. Most infamously, Fire Emblem sought to embed a real sense of loss into its players by having characters permanently die should they fall during gameplay. That these characters with unique face, motivations and statistical significance would live and die through your hand was meant to instill a personal connection with Fire Emblem’s world. Such means of connection being only feasible through this uniquely dynamic aspect of video games.
And so, Fire Emblem was initially conceived to be a series about using games as a means of storytelling. A cohesive blend of gameplay with a narrative it wished to convey.
I have not played any of those games from that era. I am a fake fan, a poser, a revisionist. There is much to discuss of these entries that I have not the capacity or experience to do so. Instead, the games that I will elaborate upon comprise the second of these three Fire Emblem eras. That which I shall dub as the era of ‘Sanitation’. You see, that previous visionary ethos of character death was too successful. Most players were found unwilling to see the characters in which they are made to feel responsible for die, and instead of Engaging™ with this creative vision, would simply reset chapters until everyone survived. Creative intent clashed with the reality of a player’s actions. As these games had the ultimate purpose of seeking commercial success over making artistic statements, concessions were made to make the design of these games more tailored for the preferences of its general audience.
Yet even after the sanitation that ensued, alternative creative avenues were still sought to be explored, and though dulled, much remained of the original design philosophies post transition. Permadeath was kept, but instead of being a vestigial idea that players ignored, was retained explicitly because it was expected players would seek to circumvent it. If players were unwilling to let these previously expendable characters die, then why not encourage this behaviour? And so, these side characters became more integral and more significant within their stories. Fire Emblem was revised and recontextualized to be a series about the bonds we cultivate. This change of perspective inspired the most formative feature of this second generation, the support system.
Young me was enamoured by this concept! This method of storytelling I indulged in with earnestly, novel to me then as it was. Each character no matter how seemingly humble or insignificant would be given unique characterization through multiple conversations with others among the cast, conversations that had to be sought out by an invested player. Each of these conversations would in turn give you a tidbit of nuance of their character and the circumstances in which they exist. As you weave together these microstories you would unravel the nature of entire worlds. An understanding of why characters are the way they are, the rationale behind their actions, the material circumstances in which conflict is born. From this understanding you would find these simplistic stories are not as straightforward as they initially appear. The unique traits of videogames as a medium were still being utilized to tell stories. This time though through the ability to obfuscate details and dispense them piecemeal as a prize for the curious to seek.
Fire Emblem had adapted to its audience. It had become a series about story telling as a puzzle. It sought to exploit a player’s desire for discovery and willingness to Engage™ with character analysis and interpretation. Whilst deliberately echoing and iterating on past tropes and story beats from previous entries in which to contrast and compare against.
However no one, not even curious children with little responsibility, have the time to seek out all these support conversations individually. Instead, this support system deliberately or not, encouraged a certain type of Engagement™. Rather than spending 100s of hours repeating playthroughs just to see a few additional lines of text, these support conversations would be found much more readily accessible online in compilations on dedicated fan-sites. This centralization of resources became a hub of traffic. Communities formed around them, and so Fire Emblem had become more than just a series of games, it had become a culture in of itself.
Fire Emblem was now more than just the media it was sold as. It had become an outlet for discussion and critique. A way in which we can Engage™ with others who shared a passion for a niche media franchise. It had developed to become a cult, otherwise known as a fandom. An avenue of endless pontification about its characters, the ways it should be played and our individual experiences.
This second era of Fire Emblem would also not produce the requisite quota of milk deemed satisfactory to its masters. And so, the series was called away to be culled. Rather than go out quietly however, it was given one final mercy. A swansong game in which the series could be laid neatly to rest. And so, we entered the final and ongoing era of Fire Emblem: “Purpose (Id)”.
At the time I had wished Fire Emblem Awakening would have been the end of the series. It was so antithetical to what I was used to. A corrupted and revenant corpse of something I once loved. Tight deliberate mechanical design and maps were discarded in favour of a game that encouraged you to simply grind out your characters to become unkillable juggernauts. A cast of realistic and considered characters that defined the nature of the world they lived in had been replaced by one-note caricatures. Romantic pairings, which were once reserved for those with unique chemistry were now omnipresent for every and any male and female combination. All this just to enable the kids of these pairings to join your army in a mockery of one of the most incredible narrative twists of a previous entry of the series (that I hadn’t played).
Nostalgia is an insidious phenomenon. The very same spell that had captivated my younger self I was now resentful of others experiencing. My love after all was targeted towards something tangible, real, meaningful while that of these new fans was not. I would not have the Revelation™ for quite some time that this love was derived from the same source. That willingness to see the best qualities of something without a frame of reference in which to compare.
Seemingly equally confused by the financial success of Awakening as I, it’s producers immediately sought to ascertain as to the reason why through a curious application of market research. The next game in the series was released as a set of two, appealing to the separate expectations of newer fans as well as that of the ostracised veterans. It was a reactionary bid seeking to retain as much audience as it could. A final third game in the set would seek to reconcile the rift between these two audiences.
It was enough to temper me. Although it was apparent the prose and tone of Fire Emblem had been irrevocably changed forever there was something here that I could still latch onto. Fire Emblem may no longer have the capacity anymore to tell grounded or even coherent tales but as a mechanical object this iteration was unsurpassed. These embedded gameplay systems in which I was intimate with still persisted. I was content. Ready to move on and accept maybe what I saw in Fire Emblem wasn’t real. Just a naïve interpretation of the past. But then a beautiful tragedy occurred.
Three Houses. What a miserable chore to play! The antithesis of Fates: Conquest. Any vision it had for its gameplay either as artistic statement or as mechanical toy failed to manifest in a satisfactory way. And yet this game would leave me elated. It was perfect in a way that truly mattered. For it contained that aspect of Fire Emblem which I had thought was lost forever. What this lacked as a tactile game experience it more than made up through its quality of its narrative and its method of delivery. Yes, experiencing it all is a nightmare. Important details are scattered across four separate playthroughs and hundreds of optional and slowly dispensed dialogue events that no one with respect to their time is going to see all of it. But this was exactly how it should be! This was the Fire Emblem of my youth that I remembered. The antiquated method of storytelling from my nostalgia. Story as puzzle dispensed piecemeal. It was perhaps even better than it was in the past as there was no primary perspective of its story to cling to as ‘correct’. These different perspectives and the audience’s preconceptions would lead to extrapolating different interpretations from its details. Pictures that would be incompatible with those assembled by others. This lack of consensus on whose was ‘correct’ would facilitate endless debate, inspiring discussion and ultimately critical engagement with its story characters and themes. The tragedy of three houses is that it seemingly vindicated my nostalgia. That nostalgia I am now resolved to kill.
This preamble does not end on Hope™. There is one final game to discuss. The most integral and influential game to the future of the series. Fire Emblem makes money now. Lots of it. It is now a covetous cash cow. One of its games alone has surpassed the revenue of the rest of the series combined. That game is Fire Emblem Heroes and it is a drain upon all the goodwill of the series. Decades of character discussion, interpretations, fan translations of the many games that were never released internationally, are commodified, and then consumed by this beast. Three Houses was not made in-house and it shows. It was an outsourced project to keep the fanbase Engaged™ as the next direction of Fire Emblem was developed. The existence of Heroes means all future characters in the series are now designed for you to imprint upon so that they may be resold back to you in the most exploitatory way that is somehow still legal. That is the preconception for Fire Emblem Engage.
Fire Emblem that I had once viewed as a benevolent deity of storytelling had degenerated into a fell dragon needing to be slain. The fandom cultivated out of a shared love and passion was being used and preyed upon by that which it sought to enshrine. Was this always the series’ ultimate intention? The end goal of any corporate ip? It matters not, I have gathered all the necessary context needed. It is time to slay a degenerative dragon. I am ready to let go of the past. I am ready to kill this nostalgia within myself. I need to let go.
Resolution burning bright I would find little to dissuade this righteous fury within the opening acts. The world of Lythos is contrived to hell, deliberately so. There is no ambition here nor desire to tell a story that reflects upon or contrasts against a living world. Every creature here is an automaton, a faux imitation only resembling life. Vtuber avatars frolic about a story where conflict is abhorred, yet its root cause is never sought. A mandate of heaven is seen as absolute and unchallenged, as the cast indulge in a luxury resort above the clouds above an uninvolved populace. A zodiac of Fire Emblems past have their status cemented as commodities. Trinkets to flaunt and collect serving to establish the authority of a supposedly divine deity. The irony of how these emblems parallel a recurring theme of the series involving twelve ‘dead lords’ is not lost upon me.
Yet as the chapters go by, I find my resolve wavering. When your expectations start at the bottom of a ravine, it leaves the only direction left to climb. These caricatures clearly made to serve as an asset pack for a gacha game, slowly wear me down through a consistent message that concludes many of their story arcs. That we should not allow one’s past to define one’s future. I listen to this message because deep down it is something I want to hear. I am made to believe there is something salvageable and sincere beneath an ugly veneer. That I am wrong to judge Engage on what the series used to be. I should accept it on what it is and seeks to become.
I disengage. Yes, these characters do not compare as the ones in the gilded memories of the past or even that of the prior game, but there are aspects to like here. Templates in which I can extrapolate depth and nuance. Details to discover in which I can discuss and share with others. I can fix them! Both through gameplay and narratively. I am even provided the tools to do so. The game facilitating the means to combine traits taken of previous games to these characters. I can take ownership. Ascribe to them my own meaning. Is this not the culmination of what Fire Emblem is about? That ultimately we the audience are the arbiters of its story?
And so at journey’s end I hesitate. I find that I cannot will myself to kill this creature after all. There is a part of me still contained within. A part I still love. A sword wavers with conviction shattered. All I need is any reason, and I’ll let you go. Give me nothing even, be unrepentant and we can still live in peace. Arcadia can exist. Humans can live at peace with dragons.
The creature looks deep into my eyes. It sees shattered resolve, an extended hand. It sees only sovereign delusion. It rejects me thus, “I did it for Zero Emblem” uttered defiantly with no shame or remorse. This phrase is pure nonsense. A meaningless string of words that not even its speaker can decipher. It is not intended to be satisfactory nor received well. Even the most earnest of readings would find these words ring hollow. It is a proclamation of intent. A dismissal of peace. The game is telling me that I am wrong about it. That I am seeing something that was never there. That this was always a completely unserious farce and that I am foolish for seeing otherwise. A dagger reached for to provoke my reaction.
I can only oblige and stab it through the heart. We both always knew this was the only way this could possibly end. The beast is slain and I am free to move on. Thankyou for letting me go.
Fire Emblem is a series about the myriad ways in which we Engage™ with media. It has grown and adapted in response to how it has been perceived. It is a series that only still exists and thrives in the present because of the community that has formed around it. It would have us believe that it owns us because it sired that which we love. But we owe it nothing. This love is ours to shape and ours to reclaim.
I hate that I love these games so much.
“A world riven by pride, Repaired at last. And now its makers can be at rest, Our vision come to pass.”
(I recommend Engage to only Fire Emblem’s biggest fans. I recommend it to Its biggest haters. I recommend it to no one in between. It has absolutely succeeded in being the culmination of the series. As a mechanical object it is best in class. As a thesis statement of the series as a whole, it is a perfect tragedy. There is some genuine care here buried underneath a shallow exterior. Yet there is no way to save it. The game’s premise and the purpose on which it came to exist is antithetical to love. But there is closure to be had in laying it to rest)
(Chrono TRIGGER spoilers in this review)
Life is built upon an uncomfortable yet foundational truth. For one to exist, one must consume. To exist is to impose a tax upon the world, one that is ultimately paid for by other life-forms. Our wants, our needs come at the expense of the world in one way or another. The land we inhabit is denied to others, the food we eat torn of their flesh. But what other recourse do we even have? The alternative is simply that of nonexistence. Instead, we choose to persevere, to exist and to love ourselves. So too we learn to embody hate, to possess a necessary contempt for the lives of those that are sacrificed in order to allow us to live.
Once comfortable with this concept, that to survive we must destroy, it becomes increasingly easy to extend this thought. The life-forms that we extinguish out of necessity so quickly become those eradicated out of convenience. The strong survive and the weak diminish. Survival of the fittest is the core tenet of evolution. Is this not the natural extension of that foundational truth? Is this not the ultimate journey of life itself? That we exist no more as iterations in this infinite cycle of love and hate?
Chrono Cross is a contentious game. It is a game that follows from a prodigious pedigree in which its themes clash and contrast against. It is impossible to discuss this game without also its predecessor. Chrono Trigger is a game about the indomitable will of humanity. A celebration of us as a species. The love that we embody for one another. How this love enables us to overcome any trial, any hardship. How our mutual love can unify strangers across time. That through love nothing is impossible, our destinies no longer inevitable.
It is also less evidently a showcase of humanity’s capacity to hate. To compartmentalize this hate in such a way that we are blind to it. The ultimate ambition of Chrono Trigger’s journey is to ensure the long-term survival of humanity. However, the Reptites and the Mystics, two competing life-form species are suppressed during the journey. The love we embody is selective. For humanity to thrive its enemies must be eradicated. This hate is not construed to be of malice though, merely prescribing to that foundational truth once more.
The game culminates in a final showdown against Lavos, a world eating parasite that seeks to consume the planet itself. The cast of Chrono Trigger are inspired to stand against Lavos out of love, but to destroy Lavos we can only do so by embodying hate. The strong survive and the weak diminish. Lavos does not represent any ideal or conviction. Lavos is simply just another life-form that we are competing against. Another among many we ultimately triumph over.
Love and hate, this dichotomy of contradictions that represent the struggle of existence. Can they be reconciled?
Chrono Cross is the evolution of Chrono Trigger. For a thing to exist, we have come to understand it requisites a toll to be paid. A life given to ensure its conception. Chrono Trigger, its progenitor, is consumed in its entirety to enable Cross to exist. This cost is intended to hurt. To make you grieve a personal loss. To recontextualize what the struggle of the journey meant. To make you resent the rigidity of that foundational truth. To follow that train of thought to where that truth leads. To ponder what is the point of an existence built upon a foundation so cruel? Perhaps you may even find an answer.
(I recommend this game to anyone who can stomach it. Its statement on the world resonated with me and I would encourage everyone to experience it. But it is contentious for a reason. You need to be willing to engage with it. If you are coming into this game desiring a second Chrono Trigger you will be disappointed. But do play Chrono Trigger first as understanding its events is integral to the experience of Cross. The game has a bit of a slow start to facilitate a necessary buildup that may be off-putting for some. It is a game more focused on what it is trying to say than challenging its players with its gameplay systems. Its combat system is in fact designed to minimize the effort needed to succeed. If you are playing this game, it is to experience its story)
Life is built upon an uncomfortable yet foundational truth. For one to exist, one must consume. To exist is to impose a tax upon the world, one that is ultimately paid for by other life-forms. Our wants, our needs come at the expense of the world in one way or another. The land we inhabit is denied to others, the food we eat torn of their flesh. But what other recourse do we even have? The alternative is simply that of nonexistence. Instead, we choose to persevere, to exist and to love ourselves. So too we learn to embody hate, to possess a necessary contempt for the lives of those that are sacrificed in order to allow us to live.
Once comfortable with this concept, that to survive we must destroy, it becomes increasingly easy to extend this thought. The life-forms that we extinguish out of necessity so quickly become those eradicated out of convenience. The strong survive and the weak diminish. Survival of the fittest is the core tenet of evolution. Is this not the natural extension of that foundational truth? Is this not the ultimate journey of life itself? That we exist no more as iterations in this infinite cycle of love and hate?
Chrono Cross is a contentious game. It is a game that follows from a prodigious pedigree in which its themes clash and contrast against. It is impossible to discuss this game without also its predecessor. Chrono Trigger is a game about the indomitable will of humanity. A celebration of us as a species. The love that we embody for one another. How this love enables us to overcome any trial, any hardship. How our mutual love can unify strangers across time. That through love nothing is impossible, our destinies no longer inevitable.
It is also less evidently a showcase of humanity’s capacity to hate. To compartmentalize this hate in such a way that we are blind to it. The ultimate ambition of Chrono Trigger’s journey is to ensure the long-term survival of humanity. However, the Reptites and the Mystics, two competing life-form species are suppressed during the journey. The love we embody is selective. For humanity to thrive its enemies must be eradicated. This hate is not construed to be of malice though, merely prescribing to that foundational truth once more.
The game culminates in a final showdown against Lavos, a world eating parasite that seeks to consume the planet itself. The cast of Chrono Trigger are inspired to stand against Lavos out of love, but to destroy Lavos we can only do so by embodying hate. The strong survive and the weak diminish. Lavos does not represent any ideal or conviction. Lavos is simply just another life-form that we are competing against. Another among many we ultimately triumph over.
Love and hate, this dichotomy of contradictions that represent the struggle of existence. Can they be reconciled?
Chrono Cross is the evolution of Chrono Trigger. For a thing to exist, we have come to understand it requisites a toll to be paid. A life given to ensure its conception. Chrono Trigger, its progenitor, is consumed in its entirety to enable Cross to exist. This cost is intended to hurt. To make you grieve a personal loss. To recontextualize what the struggle of the journey meant. To make you resent the rigidity of that foundational truth. To follow that train of thought to where that truth leads. To ponder what is the point of an existence built upon a foundation so cruel? Perhaps you may even find an answer.
(I recommend this game to anyone who can stomach it. Its statement on the world resonated with me and I would encourage everyone to experience it. But it is contentious for a reason. You need to be willing to engage with it. If you are coming into this game desiring a second Chrono Trigger you will be disappointed. But do play Chrono Trigger first as understanding its events is integral to the experience of Cross. The game has a bit of a slow start to facilitate a necessary buildup that may be off-putting for some. It is a game more focused on what it is trying to say than challenging its players with its gameplay systems. Its combat system is in fact designed to minimize the effort needed to succeed. If you are playing this game, it is to experience its story)
2021
Pokemon is a behemoth. The largest media franchise in the world to this day. Since its inception over 20 years ago, its tendrils have writhed its ways into the neural cavities of every child on this planet. Aware of this, religious fundamentalism all over the world took a brief stand against the growing trend and was swiftly and irrevocably defeated. The cultural appeal of Pokemon proved indomitable. The children won, they were free to experience its joys upon dimly lit screens and televisions. This world about humans and their bonds with its fantastical creatures was theirs to partake in.
We would soon find that this world was never ours.
Children do not remain children forever. They learn, they experience, and they grow. What once was novel and wondrous so quickly becomes vapid and trite. Skepticism manifests with age and as these children grew up and played essentially the same game repeatedly, rechurned consistently over strict 3-year development cycles, it became undeniable that these games would not grow up with them. The Pokemon corporation had stumbled upon a gilded tactic for success of which those fundamentalists understood intimately and feared others would usurp. By focusing their appeal specifically towards pre-teens, there is no need to pursue them any further as they aged. Pokemon as a product and brand had already been forever imprinted upon young impressionable minds and rather mature with them it simply made more economic sense to move on and target the next generation of kids.
The result of this is that the world of Pokemon is one of stasis. Devoid of meaningful growth or challenge. Every game infantizing towards its players, as should be expected when the target demographic is actual infants. This is felt through each entry’s story and gameplay. While the games frequently bring up mature ideas including: whether the relationship between humans and Pokemon is exploitative and abusive, the socioeconomic stratification that is a result of a society based around success at Pokemon battling, and the consistent harm afflicted when individuals with unfettered egotism are allowed dominion without accountability, these ideas are never engaged with in a meaningful way. The player is devoid of agency, simply made to bear witness as the events unfold and resolve without their input. Only provided with a series of trivially easy Pokemon battles to placate any lingering feelings that they did indeed contribute to its story.
But why should it be any other way? So what if these games clearly made for children are not as mature or edgy or engaging as they could be? How entitled we must be to expect that all media should be made tailored for us? Noone is expecting Sesame Street to age up with them, so what makes Pokemon any different? It is because Pokemon teeters right on the edge of being something more. Those ideas I mentioned earlier already exist within the narrative framework, they are simply aborted right before they can come into fruition. The battle system and breeding mechanics are layered and well considered, just never needing to be utilized because the game just lacks the requisite challenge factor. It becomes clear that Pokemon’s limitations are artificially induced, restrained by corporate oversight. There is nothing more frustrating than squandered potential. Pokemon is so tantalizing close into becoming something meaningful and interesting. It is ever so tempting to ruminate on what it could be like, what it SHOULD be like. If only we were not exposed to it during such formative years, we might have had a chance of being able to ignore these intrusive thoughts and move on with our lives.
If this world is not for us, then we should make one of our own.
Pokemon Tectonic is a game resulting as a culmination of this thought. It is nowhere near as cynical as this review. It is instead a game made as the result from passion, sweat and love. Tonally sincere and respectful towards its source material. It merely seeks to break free of those self-imposed sanctions that shackle Pokemon from evolving into something mature and complete. Its stories and themes play out to satisfying conclusions. Its characters, responsive to you the player. Its worldbuilding, cohesive and nuanced. Its overhauled gameplay and quality of life features subliminal and thoroughly considered. All of its 1000+ Pokemon are rebalanced and given a viable niche, an incredible labour that individual players will only experience a fraction of. It is everything that I had always wished the series to become. It is the Pokemon game I ruminate of in my dreams. It is ultimately a critique and and meta commentary of the series as a whole. Presented in the most gratifying way possible.
In this world made for us we are even given a crumb of agency.
Ring ring…
Ring ring…
…It’s Professor Tamarind. Pick up the Phone?
> Yes
> No
(I recommend this game mostly to diehard Pokemon fans. Those who have engaged in the main series intimately and been found wanting. While the story is worth experiencing by everyone, the meat of this game’s appeal is within its deeply examined and reengineered gameplay. If you enjoy Pokemon battling but always wished the single player experience could match your passion. This is the game for you.)
We would soon find that this world was never ours.
Children do not remain children forever. They learn, they experience, and they grow. What once was novel and wondrous so quickly becomes vapid and trite. Skepticism manifests with age and as these children grew up and played essentially the same game repeatedly, rechurned consistently over strict 3-year development cycles, it became undeniable that these games would not grow up with them. The Pokemon corporation had stumbled upon a gilded tactic for success of which those fundamentalists understood intimately and feared others would usurp. By focusing their appeal specifically towards pre-teens, there is no need to pursue them any further as they aged. Pokemon as a product and brand had already been forever imprinted upon young impressionable minds and rather mature with them it simply made more economic sense to move on and target the next generation of kids.
The result of this is that the world of Pokemon is one of stasis. Devoid of meaningful growth or challenge. Every game infantizing towards its players, as should be expected when the target demographic is actual infants. This is felt through each entry’s story and gameplay. While the games frequently bring up mature ideas including: whether the relationship between humans and Pokemon is exploitative and abusive, the socioeconomic stratification that is a result of a society based around success at Pokemon battling, and the consistent harm afflicted when individuals with unfettered egotism are allowed dominion without accountability, these ideas are never engaged with in a meaningful way. The player is devoid of agency, simply made to bear witness as the events unfold and resolve without their input. Only provided with a series of trivially easy Pokemon battles to placate any lingering feelings that they did indeed contribute to its story.
But why should it be any other way? So what if these games clearly made for children are not as mature or edgy or engaging as they could be? How entitled we must be to expect that all media should be made tailored for us? Noone is expecting Sesame Street to age up with them, so what makes Pokemon any different? It is because Pokemon teeters right on the edge of being something more. Those ideas I mentioned earlier already exist within the narrative framework, they are simply aborted right before they can come into fruition. The battle system and breeding mechanics are layered and well considered, just never needing to be utilized because the game just lacks the requisite challenge factor. It becomes clear that Pokemon’s limitations are artificially induced, restrained by corporate oversight. There is nothing more frustrating than squandered potential. Pokemon is so tantalizing close into becoming something meaningful and interesting. It is ever so tempting to ruminate on what it could be like, what it SHOULD be like. If only we were not exposed to it during such formative years, we might have had a chance of being able to ignore these intrusive thoughts and move on with our lives.
If this world is not for us, then we should make one of our own.
Pokemon Tectonic is a game resulting as a culmination of this thought. It is nowhere near as cynical as this review. It is instead a game made as the result from passion, sweat and love. Tonally sincere and respectful towards its source material. It merely seeks to break free of those self-imposed sanctions that shackle Pokemon from evolving into something mature and complete. Its stories and themes play out to satisfying conclusions. Its characters, responsive to you the player. Its worldbuilding, cohesive and nuanced. Its overhauled gameplay and quality of life features subliminal and thoroughly considered. All of its 1000+ Pokemon are rebalanced and given a viable niche, an incredible labour that individual players will only experience a fraction of. It is everything that I had always wished the series to become. It is the Pokemon game I ruminate of in my dreams. It is ultimately a critique and and meta commentary of the series as a whole. Presented in the most gratifying way possible.
In this world made for us we are even given a crumb of agency.
Ring ring…
Ring ring…
…It’s Professor Tamarind. Pick up the Phone?
> Yes
> No
(I recommend this game mostly to diehard Pokemon fans. Those who have engaged in the main series intimately and been found wanting. While the story is worth experiencing by everyone, the meat of this game’s appeal is within its deeply examined and reengineered gameplay. If you enjoy Pokemon battling but always wished the single player experience could match your passion. This is the game for you.)
2006
This review contains spoilers
Let me preface this text dump with its intent. This is not a review. Mother 3 has not been a game you discover on a mere fancy for quite some time now. Recommending this game by highlighting its appeal and features is a meaningless endeavor. It is not a product to be consumed, you cannot even purchase it. It is instead a work you seek out at the culmination of a personal journey. It being an iterative sequel, its slight inaccessibility, and its resonating message that people wish to share. These traits means that by the time you get around to seriously consider playing it, doing so has already become an inevitability.
So instead, this is merely an attempt to journal what this game means to me and my personal interpretation of it. Publicly disseminated so that I may compare my thoughts against those before me whom this game has also touched. The game has a lot to say and with the minimalist nature of trying to condense it all onto a 32-megabyte GBA cartridge there is a lot of room for its players to extrapolate its messaging from its details. I am incapable of encapsulating it all and certain topics I refrain from repeating, that which others I know have articulated far more succinctly than I. I choose instead to limit my focus on my observation on what Mother 3 says about legacy, and unavoidably, of love.
“And so the tale first begins… …as a tragedy”
We start off with the first chapter, establishing the tone of the rest of the story that is yet to come. Immediately any preconception that this tale was going to follow in the whimsical adventure template of its predecessors is stabbed through the heart. Flint, a reliable man of action loses the love of his life to an encroaching corruption. His son emulating him, goes out to seek retaliation. It does not end well. Although Flint does refrain from perpetuating the cycles of harm, this event destroys him. Unable to move on from his grief, Flint becomes stuck reminiscing in the past. Impotent to act against the coming storm.
“However, not everyone is content to sit quietly by as the enemy continues its odious attacks from every angle”
Recollection of the past can be more than just escapism from facing the present, understanding the past is paradoxically necessary to escape from itself. Duster, is strongly connected to the idea of identity to one’s legacy. Although not made apparent until the end, the idyllic communal town of Tazmily exist as the result of deliberate obfuscation of the past. However, without having the learned lessons of historic mistakes the town is vulnerable to repeating them. Wess, Duster’s father, is burdened to act as a failsafe during the inevitable time of crisis. A crisis that may not occur in his lifetime. How can one fulfil such a purpose that exists beyond their span? Through proxy. Duster is made to inherit this burden, the gravitas of which supersedes any personal desire for agency. Although the intention is noble, the game does not downplay the result of such a relationship where a parent tries to live extendedly through their child. Abuse. No matter the beatings or verbal assault or even mutual desire of both parties, Duster can never become Wess. This idea culminates in Duster’s inability to intrinsically understand his purpose, failing a test of discernment. The implication of this failure not lost upon an exasperated Wess.
“The pain and the sadness are unforgivably regrettable. Now I would like to repay all of this to you”
The abuse Wess enacts upon of Duster is born of frustration. While not to be undermined it is important to note that distinction when examining what follows. Fassad’s abuse of Salsa, and their zealous desire to destroy Tazmily, is incomparable. It is pure unadulterated malice. Calculated cruelty engineered to harm as much as possible. Fassad’s explicit motives are never elaborated upon. They are ultimately irrelevant. To provide a motive is to provide vindication that these actions are plausibly justified. Mother 3 makes no such concessions. Instead, the game gives nuance to his character through his background. That being, he was counted among the number of Magypsies, the nigh eternal beings responsible for overseeing the end of the world. Once again, the motive of his disaffiliation is left to the player to infer. The why is less important than the who. Fassad, is an individual acutely aware of history, and will ensure it is repeated. To oversee that humans cannibalise themselves to extinction once more through hubris and greed. Perhaps they seek to begrudge humanity from redemption? That when given a clean slate we can be so gently nudged towards our own annihilation. Perhaps this affirms a cynical worldview, that which appears reformed is merely a façade worth of contempt. It matters not, he is ambiguous by design for one to speculate. To showcase that vitriol can stem from anywhere.
"However, in that darkness, a once weak boy tried to become stronger. Lucas, is trying to paint this tragic story with a bright future.“
Likewise, so can kindness. The obsession with preserving and propagating the past, ones lived experiences, is a curse imposed with age. It is not by chance that instigating change is much more readily embraced by the youth. The fresh perspective that comes from those living solely in the present is necessary to conceive a future that has never been. These were my initial preconceptions going in for my expectations of a character such as Lucas that would be a gross mischaracterisation of what they are now. Former crybaby Lucas, as he is oft described, is just as shackled to the past as those previously mentioned. While Flint chases the fleeting spectre of those lost, Lucas however opts to fill their void. Claus, his twin, his mirror, now just a memory is not gone. No, Claus can yet live still through Lucas. Equivalent since birth, Lucas steps up to emulate the headstrong person he perceived his brother to be. Already embodying a kind and empathetic personality reminiscent of his mother, Lucas will propel the legacy of those he loves through his own life. This is not a burden nor obligation, this is how a child is able to contextualise a traumatic event to allow themselves to persevere, live and move on in absentia of mother, brother, and father. Not that Flint needs to worry that he is unable to see past the past to guide his son, he has ‘already grown to be a strong young man’.
“We crafted our story in haste, so the people inside it have very little “past” or “history”.”
In contrast and in parallel to Lucas and Wess, Kumatora, the driving force against the corruption that desecrates Tazmily is notable in her complete absence of familial legacy to propagate. That initial descriptor I had of Lucas, that as the catalyst of change, is more aptly applied to Kumatora. Just as kind and capable if not more so, the rugged princess of Osohe is beholden instead to a responsibility masqueraded as a fictitious past. However, unlike Duster, whom is oblivious of his true purpose, Kumatora is much more aware of the farce that is her role. Yet she continues to serve it through her own conviction. This isn’t as saccharine as it seems, otherwise completely isolated from the lives of the villagers, she fears without her ‘story’ she has no purpose nor connection to be made with people. A psychedelically induced dream entity declares: “Princess Kumatora is no princess. She's a broken woman not loved by anyone”. These fears are not unfounded, her interaction with the general populous of Tazmily incites commentary that is othering. Regardless she presses on, the significance and belief in her task too heavy to let such concerns cause her to falter.
“A great undefiable power has prepared a festival for the end of all life…”
Together Duster, Lucas and Kumatora (and a very narratively significant dog that I would do an injustice to describe) seek to preserve the idyllic commune of Tazmily from succumbing to the corrupting tendrils of a malignant thought. One perceived to have been carefully eradicated in order to preserve what little salvageable life is left in the world. Their efforts prove to be in vain. To forget is to repeat missteps. You cannot move on from that which you do not know. Their quest doomed before it even began. The end of life, of everything becomes inevitable. Yet there is meaning to be found in the struggle. Duster whose agency had always been privy to others comes to self-realisation and through his own agency commits himself fully to the cause. An end may also conceive a new beginning.
“I'll let you in on a little secret. No matter how much you attack me, I'm not going to die. Even if you manage to knock me down, I will not die. Didn't you know that?”
Porky Minch and what they represent is absolute harrowing, they are the dregs of the experience that is life, they are very much human, and they are eternal. The final chapter of the game is almost entirely dedicated to examining Porky as a character and idea and consequently the very worst aspects of the human condition. Fassad, who represents a concentrated and precise contempt is a nihilistic ideal that can be tangibly confronted, defeated, and suppressed. Porky comparatively is instead almost ethereal. A theology that cannot be meaningfully engaged and therefore cannot be defeated. Yet the impact of this idea they represent are very tangible, having omnipresent sway over the hearts and minds of people. There is an allure to the commodified lens of the world that Porky embodies. A lens that will see you perceive the world in terms of value and outputs. Of dollars and gains. Of winners and more tellingly losers. The destruction of the world that Porky conducts, the same that had occurred once before, is not done out of hatred nor malice. It has a much more sinister motive. Apathy. The ideal that is Porky, this harbinger of humanity’s unmaking is simply committed out of boredom. An act of exhaustion ensuing from a long life that is unfulfilling. When examining the world in such a way, this capitalistic framework ironically makes everything ultimately worthless. This is because fundamentally, the reason Porky is the way they are is because they do not, they cannot, comprehend love, to perceive something you hold dear to have personal value. In love’s void a perverse imitation is born. This corrupt idea of value is what Porky covets, enshrines but is never sated by. And it is so very very contagious.
“Lucas, be happy. We found Claus”
You cannot truly defeat Porky because they are broader than the individual entity they are represented by, they are an eternal occurrence, a perpetual idea. The contemporary to love itself. But what of one who knew love once and lost it? At the very end of the game, you have one final confrontation. Before the final needle which will preside the collective worth of humanity. Lucas stands before his mirror, a young boy who lost themselves to grief. Whos love hurt them so much that it had to be buried. To be forgotten. To leave them with nothing. To see Claus like that, Lucas, whom sought to embody who Claus used to be, what he was going to become, falters completely. It unmakes Lucas, his love for the idea that was his brother was the source of his strength. Lucas doesn’t know what to do. He falters. A voice rings out. A voice that stirs the soul and resonates the heart. You cannot bury those memory deep enough. Love is insidious, its permanent scars mark the very fabric of who you are. And it hurts. It hurts so much. It is unbearable. The memory of love resurfaces indomitable. And it forces Claus to remember. To emerge from the prison of his heart and become himself once more. And then in cruel mercy, allows him the agency to destroy himself.
"You must be so exhausted. Come here Claus”
Its over. Love triumphs. It is beautiful in all its tragedy. There is just one task left. To pull the needle and be judged. What worth is this love that was fought so hard to preserve? Calamity manifests on screen. The End?
“But as you can see, everyone is just fine! We’ve regained something incredibly immense”.
On a black screen the words above appear among many others. After witnessing the spectacle that is the end of the world, the game addresses any player that is still left wanting after the end screen. By fumbling around eventually you are rewarded with text. One by one characters chime in reassuring you that they are all ok and that everything worked out in the end. You can see it right? This is something that you the player can visualise right? This beautiful ending where it all worked out alright? The game is asking you if you can believe it. Do you?
I could not see it. I am currently incapable of doing so. This is a personal failing of mine. I have let bitter cynicism wear down my ability to conceptualise such a world. If I cannot even imagine it, how can I even seek to have it realised? But even so, I believe in it. Everything worked out ok for Lucas, Kumatora, Duster and everyone else. I might not have been able to witness it but it happened. Mother 3 says it can and it did. And I believe it. For what else is there to believe in?
“It looks like things will work out here, but what about your world? Will it be alright?”
So instead, this is merely an attempt to journal what this game means to me and my personal interpretation of it. Publicly disseminated so that I may compare my thoughts against those before me whom this game has also touched. The game has a lot to say and with the minimalist nature of trying to condense it all onto a 32-megabyte GBA cartridge there is a lot of room for its players to extrapolate its messaging from its details. I am incapable of encapsulating it all and certain topics I refrain from repeating, that which others I know have articulated far more succinctly than I. I choose instead to limit my focus on my observation on what Mother 3 says about legacy, and unavoidably, of love.
“And so the tale first begins… …as a tragedy”
We start off with the first chapter, establishing the tone of the rest of the story that is yet to come. Immediately any preconception that this tale was going to follow in the whimsical adventure template of its predecessors is stabbed through the heart. Flint, a reliable man of action loses the love of his life to an encroaching corruption. His son emulating him, goes out to seek retaliation. It does not end well. Although Flint does refrain from perpetuating the cycles of harm, this event destroys him. Unable to move on from his grief, Flint becomes stuck reminiscing in the past. Impotent to act against the coming storm.
“However, not everyone is content to sit quietly by as the enemy continues its odious attacks from every angle”
Recollection of the past can be more than just escapism from facing the present, understanding the past is paradoxically necessary to escape from itself. Duster, is strongly connected to the idea of identity to one’s legacy. Although not made apparent until the end, the idyllic communal town of Tazmily exist as the result of deliberate obfuscation of the past. However, without having the learned lessons of historic mistakes the town is vulnerable to repeating them. Wess, Duster’s father, is burdened to act as a failsafe during the inevitable time of crisis. A crisis that may not occur in his lifetime. How can one fulfil such a purpose that exists beyond their span? Through proxy. Duster is made to inherit this burden, the gravitas of which supersedes any personal desire for agency. Although the intention is noble, the game does not downplay the result of such a relationship where a parent tries to live extendedly through their child. Abuse. No matter the beatings or verbal assault or even mutual desire of both parties, Duster can never become Wess. This idea culminates in Duster’s inability to intrinsically understand his purpose, failing a test of discernment. The implication of this failure not lost upon an exasperated Wess.
“The pain and the sadness are unforgivably regrettable. Now I would like to repay all of this to you”
The abuse Wess enacts upon of Duster is born of frustration. While not to be undermined it is important to note that distinction when examining what follows. Fassad’s abuse of Salsa, and their zealous desire to destroy Tazmily, is incomparable. It is pure unadulterated malice. Calculated cruelty engineered to harm as much as possible. Fassad’s explicit motives are never elaborated upon. They are ultimately irrelevant. To provide a motive is to provide vindication that these actions are plausibly justified. Mother 3 makes no such concessions. Instead, the game gives nuance to his character through his background. That being, he was counted among the number of Magypsies, the nigh eternal beings responsible for overseeing the end of the world. Once again, the motive of his disaffiliation is left to the player to infer. The why is less important than the who. Fassad, is an individual acutely aware of history, and will ensure it is repeated. To oversee that humans cannibalise themselves to extinction once more through hubris and greed. Perhaps they seek to begrudge humanity from redemption? That when given a clean slate we can be so gently nudged towards our own annihilation. Perhaps this affirms a cynical worldview, that which appears reformed is merely a façade worth of contempt. It matters not, he is ambiguous by design for one to speculate. To showcase that vitriol can stem from anywhere.
"However, in that darkness, a once weak boy tried to become stronger. Lucas, is trying to paint this tragic story with a bright future.“
Likewise, so can kindness. The obsession with preserving and propagating the past, ones lived experiences, is a curse imposed with age. It is not by chance that instigating change is much more readily embraced by the youth. The fresh perspective that comes from those living solely in the present is necessary to conceive a future that has never been. These were my initial preconceptions going in for my expectations of a character such as Lucas that would be a gross mischaracterisation of what they are now. Former crybaby Lucas, as he is oft described, is just as shackled to the past as those previously mentioned. While Flint chases the fleeting spectre of those lost, Lucas however opts to fill their void. Claus, his twin, his mirror, now just a memory is not gone. No, Claus can yet live still through Lucas. Equivalent since birth, Lucas steps up to emulate the headstrong person he perceived his brother to be. Already embodying a kind and empathetic personality reminiscent of his mother, Lucas will propel the legacy of those he loves through his own life. This is not a burden nor obligation, this is how a child is able to contextualise a traumatic event to allow themselves to persevere, live and move on in absentia of mother, brother, and father. Not that Flint needs to worry that he is unable to see past the past to guide his son, he has ‘already grown to be a strong young man’.
“We crafted our story in haste, so the people inside it have very little “past” or “history”.”
In contrast and in parallel to Lucas and Wess, Kumatora, the driving force against the corruption that desecrates Tazmily is notable in her complete absence of familial legacy to propagate. That initial descriptor I had of Lucas, that as the catalyst of change, is more aptly applied to Kumatora. Just as kind and capable if not more so, the rugged princess of Osohe is beholden instead to a responsibility masqueraded as a fictitious past. However, unlike Duster, whom is oblivious of his true purpose, Kumatora is much more aware of the farce that is her role. Yet she continues to serve it through her own conviction. This isn’t as saccharine as it seems, otherwise completely isolated from the lives of the villagers, she fears without her ‘story’ she has no purpose nor connection to be made with people. A psychedelically induced dream entity declares: “Princess Kumatora is no princess. She's a broken woman not loved by anyone”. These fears are not unfounded, her interaction with the general populous of Tazmily incites commentary that is othering. Regardless she presses on, the significance and belief in her task too heavy to let such concerns cause her to falter.
“A great undefiable power has prepared a festival for the end of all life…”
Together Duster, Lucas and Kumatora (and a very narratively significant dog that I would do an injustice to describe) seek to preserve the idyllic commune of Tazmily from succumbing to the corrupting tendrils of a malignant thought. One perceived to have been carefully eradicated in order to preserve what little salvageable life is left in the world. Their efforts prove to be in vain. To forget is to repeat missteps. You cannot move on from that which you do not know. Their quest doomed before it even began. The end of life, of everything becomes inevitable. Yet there is meaning to be found in the struggle. Duster whose agency had always been privy to others comes to self-realisation and through his own agency commits himself fully to the cause. An end may also conceive a new beginning.
“I'll let you in on a little secret. No matter how much you attack me, I'm not going to die. Even if you manage to knock me down, I will not die. Didn't you know that?”
Porky Minch and what they represent is absolute harrowing, they are the dregs of the experience that is life, they are very much human, and they are eternal. The final chapter of the game is almost entirely dedicated to examining Porky as a character and idea and consequently the very worst aspects of the human condition. Fassad, who represents a concentrated and precise contempt is a nihilistic ideal that can be tangibly confronted, defeated, and suppressed. Porky comparatively is instead almost ethereal. A theology that cannot be meaningfully engaged and therefore cannot be defeated. Yet the impact of this idea they represent are very tangible, having omnipresent sway over the hearts and minds of people. There is an allure to the commodified lens of the world that Porky embodies. A lens that will see you perceive the world in terms of value and outputs. Of dollars and gains. Of winners and more tellingly losers. The destruction of the world that Porky conducts, the same that had occurred once before, is not done out of hatred nor malice. It has a much more sinister motive. Apathy. The ideal that is Porky, this harbinger of humanity’s unmaking is simply committed out of boredom. An act of exhaustion ensuing from a long life that is unfulfilling. When examining the world in such a way, this capitalistic framework ironically makes everything ultimately worthless. This is because fundamentally, the reason Porky is the way they are is because they do not, they cannot, comprehend love, to perceive something you hold dear to have personal value. In love’s void a perverse imitation is born. This corrupt idea of value is what Porky covets, enshrines but is never sated by. And it is so very very contagious.
“Lucas, be happy. We found Claus”
You cannot truly defeat Porky because they are broader than the individual entity they are represented by, they are an eternal occurrence, a perpetual idea. The contemporary to love itself. But what of one who knew love once and lost it? At the very end of the game, you have one final confrontation. Before the final needle which will preside the collective worth of humanity. Lucas stands before his mirror, a young boy who lost themselves to grief. Whos love hurt them so much that it had to be buried. To be forgotten. To leave them with nothing. To see Claus like that, Lucas, whom sought to embody who Claus used to be, what he was going to become, falters completely. It unmakes Lucas, his love for the idea that was his brother was the source of his strength. Lucas doesn’t know what to do. He falters. A voice rings out. A voice that stirs the soul and resonates the heart. You cannot bury those memory deep enough. Love is insidious, its permanent scars mark the very fabric of who you are. And it hurts. It hurts so much. It is unbearable. The memory of love resurfaces indomitable. And it forces Claus to remember. To emerge from the prison of his heart and become himself once more. And then in cruel mercy, allows him the agency to destroy himself.
"You must be so exhausted. Come here Claus”
Its over. Love triumphs. It is beautiful in all its tragedy. There is just one task left. To pull the needle and be judged. What worth is this love that was fought so hard to preserve? Calamity manifests on screen. The End?
“But as you can see, everyone is just fine! We’ve regained something incredibly immense”.
On a black screen the words above appear among many others. After witnessing the spectacle that is the end of the world, the game addresses any player that is still left wanting after the end screen. By fumbling around eventually you are rewarded with text. One by one characters chime in reassuring you that they are all ok and that everything worked out in the end. You can see it right? This is something that you the player can visualise right? This beautiful ending where it all worked out alright? The game is asking you if you can believe it. Do you?
I could not see it. I am currently incapable of doing so. This is a personal failing of mine. I have let bitter cynicism wear down my ability to conceptualise such a world. If I cannot even imagine it, how can I even seek to have it realised? But even so, I believe in it. Everything worked out ok for Lucas, Kumatora, Duster and everyone else. I might not have been able to witness it but it happened. Mother 3 says it can and it did. And I believe it. For what else is there to believe in?
“It looks like things will work out here, but what about your world? Will it be alright?”
2023
“The better your… Dandori… the more important… you are…”
The original Pikmin game is a novel experience like no other. If you were to ask one of its fans to describe the gameplay to you, you will be met with a different answer each time. It was the inception of a new genre of game that despite its critical acclaim has inspired few contemporaries, certainly due to the rather modest return on investment the series has made over its lifetime. You see in this world (which is one and the same as in Pikmin) there is an objective evaluation upon which your work’s value can be judged and deemed beautiful. The more efficient you are in obtaining these metrics the better the work is. This concept and its romanticization as I have come to understand it is referred to as ‘Dandori’. Pikmin despite its promise as a unique, fun, and compelling gameplay experience had failed to draw in sufficient mainstream appeal. Experimentation on the game’s format in its iterative sequels also performed mildly. As efficient use of time can be equated to money, the ever-increasing pursuit of greater attainment of Dandori becomes self-evident and demands for these inefficiencies to be expunged.
“Your Dandori…needs work.”
Pikmin 4, for good or ill seeks to do exactly this. The concept of Dandori is the focal point of the game, both in its design philosophies as well as its narrative. Pikmin 1 and 2, tells a tale of success and perseverance. How the brave space captain Olimar, whose work-ethic was peerless, was able to overcome trials and tribulations to save both himself and the company he worked for. Pikmin 4 completely dispels this preconception. It is both a meta retrospection and a reboot. Instead, in both our reality and in Pikmin’s, a different turn of events transpired. Olimar, and metaphorically the Pikmin series itself, did not escape past the stratosphere of PNF-404. He was close to success, but failed, doomed to become just another part of the abandoned wilderness, but perhaps with just a bit more acumen and acclimation towards Dandori principles he could be saved.
“Those who do not embrace Dandori cannot survive this planet… But if they grow the leaves… they will thrive”
Pikmin 4 wants to succeed. It is engineered to succeed. To do this it wants ‘you’ to succeed. Like the player carefully manages their Pikmin, the game seeks to manage the player. It does this through several ways. It limits your options, guiding you towards efficiency (having more than three Pikmin at a time is almost never optimal) and it provides you the means to easily accomplish your tasks. Most prominently of which is Oatchi, an entity that will both point you to your objectives as well as accomplish them for you. There is almost no obstacle that Oatchi cannot handle alone, but then what becomes the purpose of the Pikmin then? Therein lies the beauty that is this game. You see Dandori and its pursuit is never forced upon you. It is tantalized, endorsed, and romanticized but your adherence to its principles is voluntary. You can beat this game and all its challenges as efficiently or inefficiently as you wish. Dandori challenges, of which there is specific threshold requirement to complete, can be entirely skipped and ignored. You use the Pikmin because you want to be efficient. You want to be efficient to save time. You want to save time because it is made to feel satisfying to do so. What do you do with the saved time? Further pursue mastery of Dandori. It is a malady and madness. Which the game itself acknowledges.
“Go home!”
Not everyone has fallen for this spell. Dandori is ‘almost’ presented as NOT being inherently beautiful and meaningful. Pikmin or Captain lives and wellbeing are not factored into its evaluation. Olimar and his obsession at being an exemplary worker is not unquestionably a good thing. It is shown to take a strain upon his life and the time he would spend with his family. It is unfathomable to directly challenge the idealization of Dandori as it is not just foundational for Pikmin 4 but the culture that produced it in the first place. Yet intentional or not, Pikmin 4’s endgame is its own critic.
I recommend this game to anyone who is already a Pikmin fan, particularly for those who enjoyed Pikmin 2. While the wilderness has already been tamed four entries in, I am sure there is plenty for you to enjoy, even if the game is back heavy with the challenges. If you are foreign to the series whether you will enjoy this game depends on how much you are willing to engage with Dandori. If you are sick of hearing the term’s prominence in this review, you will not survive the game itself.
(If a game inspired me to write something about it, it gets 5 stars regardless of all other factors. Like Dandori this metric is only as real as you let it become)
The original Pikmin game is a novel experience like no other. If you were to ask one of its fans to describe the gameplay to you, you will be met with a different answer each time. It was the inception of a new genre of game that despite its critical acclaim has inspired few contemporaries, certainly due to the rather modest return on investment the series has made over its lifetime. You see in this world (which is one and the same as in Pikmin) there is an objective evaluation upon which your work’s value can be judged and deemed beautiful. The more efficient you are in obtaining these metrics the better the work is. This concept and its romanticization as I have come to understand it is referred to as ‘Dandori’. Pikmin despite its promise as a unique, fun, and compelling gameplay experience had failed to draw in sufficient mainstream appeal. Experimentation on the game’s format in its iterative sequels also performed mildly. As efficient use of time can be equated to money, the ever-increasing pursuit of greater attainment of Dandori becomes self-evident and demands for these inefficiencies to be expunged.
“Your Dandori…needs work.”
Pikmin 4, for good or ill seeks to do exactly this. The concept of Dandori is the focal point of the game, both in its design philosophies as well as its narrative. Pikmin 1 and 2, tells a tale of success and perseverance. How the brave space captain Olimar, whose work-ethic was peerless, was able to overcome trials and tribulations to save both himself and the company he worked for. Pikmin 4 completely dispels this preconception. It is both a meta retrospection and a reboot. Instead, in both our reality and in Pikmin’s, a different turn of events transpired. Olimar, and metaphorically the Pikmin series itself, did not escape past the stratosphere of PNF-404. He was close to success, but failed, doomed to become just another part of the abandoned wilderness, but perhaps with just a bit more acumen and acclimation towards Dandori principles he could be saved.
“Those who do not embrace Dandori cannot survive this planet… But if they grow the leaves… they will thrive”
Pikmin 4 wants to succeed. It is engineered to succeed. To do this it wants ‘you’ to succeed. Like the player carefully manages their Pikmin, the game seeks to manage the player. It does this through several ways. It limits your options, guiding you towards efficiency (having more than three Pikmin at a time is almost never optimal) and it provides you the means to easily accomplish your tasks. Most prominently of which is Oatchi, an entity that will both point you to your objectives as well as accomplish them for you. There is almost no obstacle that Oatchi cannot handle alone, but then what becomes the purpose of the Pikmin then? Therein lies the beauty that is this game. You see Dandori and its pursuit is never forced upon you. It is tantalized, endorsed, and romanticized but your adherence to its principles is voluntary. You can beat this game and all its challenges as efficiently or inefficiently as you wish. Dandori challenges, of which there is specific threshold requirement to complete, can be entirely skipped and ignored. You use the Pikmin because you want to be efficient. You want to be efficient to save time. You want to save time because it is made to feel satisfying to do so. What do you do with the saved time? Further pursue mastery of Dandori. It is a malady and madness. Which the game itself acknowledges.
“Go home!”
Not everyone has fallen for this spell. Dandori is ‘almost’ presented as NOT being inherently beautiful and meaningful. Pikmin or Captain lives and wellbeing are not factored into its evaluation. Olimar and his obsession at being an exemplary worker is not unquestionably a good thing. It is shown to take a strain upon his life and the time he would spend with his family. It is unfathomable to directly challenge the idealization of Dandori as it is not just foundational for Pikmin 4 but the culture that produced it in the first place. Yet intentional or not, Pikmin 4’s endgame is its own critic.
I recommend this game to anyone who is already a Pikmin fan, particularly for those who enjoyed Pikmin 2. While the wilderness has already been tamed four entries in, I am sure there is plenty for you to enjoy, even if the game is back heavy with the challenges. If you are foreign to the series whether you will enjoy this game depends on how much you are willing to engage with Dandori. If you are sick of hearing the term’s prominence in this review, you will not survive the game itself.
(If a game inspired me to write something about it, it gets 5 stars regardless of all other factors. Like Dandori this metric is only as real as you let it become)
2022
For a very long time I was never a fan of ‘arty’ games. Games that try and present meta commentary about themselves and the medium as a whole. In fact, until recently, I would consider my disdain for them to be almost hostile.
That is not to say I had a real ideological opposition to the concept. No… my grievances with them were petty and personal. You see back in my youth I had very limited access to money, a sentiment I am sure many of us share. One day, young and so very impressionable me stumbled into a fortune. TWENTY Dollars! TWENTY $DIGITAL$ Dollars! This discrepancy is important. In these formative years of mine I had just recently been entrusted with a Debit Card. I had grown older, wiser, more responsible. Soon I would become an adult. Achieving autonomy and independence as a person. But not yet, I was but a child and I had a lot to learn about the world. About fiscal responsibility.
So of course, I immediately spent my life’s savings on a videogame. You would all have done the same. But no… not just any game! I had seen ads. I had read the glowing reviews. With these TWENTY dollars I had bought… something grand. Something profound. That which would flip my perspective on what videogames meant. What they could become. I was promised something beyond a childish gaming experience. I had purchased… ART!
I had spent all the money I possessed on ‘Braid’.
To say I was… disappointed, is an understatement. Not to disparage the game but young naive idealistic me expected so much more. Braid was advertised as perfect. The greatest thing I would ever play, and it was certainly different. The game was short, the puzzles weren’t especially difficult or novel, and the twist at the end? Meaningless droll. So what if it flips the perspective on what the game was about if I did not engage with that original perspective in the first place? I had spent TWENTY dollars on a game that barely held my attention for a day. A game so pretentiously full of itself that it includes one puzzle that expects you to sit and wait idle for TWENTY minutes as a platform slowly meanders across the screen before finally allowing you to grab a collectible.
Jonathan Blow? More like Jonathan Blows!
And so young (did I mention young?) impressionable me had learnt an invaluable lesson that day. Games were not only not art, but they SHOULD NEVER STRIVE TO BECOME ART. The concept of art was a pretentious blight upon the medium. Compromising the experience instead of enhancing it. Games should be gameplay focused and nothing more. It would be nice to have a good narrative and atmosphere alongside the dopamine high of overcoming challenging (but fair) obstacles but that should just be an extra detail. This pretentious meta introspective nonsense was a fad that surely not even the author believed in.
It has taken a long time for me to grow out of this perspective. I have played many games since then and have grown older and much more appreciative of games that try to explore the medium in different ways. TWENTY dollars meant so much more to me then than it does now. A paltry sum and yet the ultimate cost to me was much more severe. Even now I still am adverse to try ‘arty’ games and given the choice between playing some meta commentary puzzle introspective adventure or like the next game trying to emulate the tight tailored gameplay design philosophies of say Zelda or Dark Souls I would have to be tricked into choosing to play the former over the later.
Huh? I was supposed to be talking about Tunic? Oh… strange. What a weird unrelated tangent I went on. Well, I recommend this game to people who enjoy the tight tailored gameplay experiences in the vein of Zelda and Dark Souls. This game does not hide these inspirations and is very successful in both emulating these philosophies as well as branching out into its own identity. It is quite the tricky game. It has allowed me to forgive Jonathan Blow.
That is not to say I had a real ideological opposition to the concept. No… my grievances with them were petty and personal. You see back in my youth I had very limited access to money, a sentiment I am sure many of us share. One day, young and so very impressionable me stumbled into a fortune. TWENTY Dollars! TWENTY $DIGITAL$ Dollars! This discrepancy is important. In these formative years of mine I had just recently been entrusted with a Debit Card. I had grown older, wiser, more responsible. Soon I would become an adult. Achieving autonomy and independence as a person. But not yet, I was but a child and I had a lot to learn about the world. About fiscal responsibility.
So of course, I immediately spent my life’s savings on a videogame. You would all have done the same. But no… not just any game! I had seen ads. I had read the glowing reviews. With these TWENTY dollars I had bought… something grand. Something profound. That which would flip my perspective on what videogames meant. What they could become. I was promised something beyond a childish gaming experience. I had purchased… ART!
I had spent all the money I possessed on ‘Braid’.
To say I was… disappointed, is an understatement. Not to disparage the game but young naive idealistic me expected so much more. Braid was advertised as perfect. The greatest thing I would ever play, and it was certainly different. The game was short, the puzzles weren’t especially difficult or novel, and the twist at the end? Meaningless droll. So what if it flips the perspective on what the game was about if I did not engage with that original perspective in the first place? I had spent TWENTY dollars on a game that barely held my attention for a day. A game so pretentiously full of itself that it includes one puzzle that expects you to sit and wait idle for TWENTY minutes as a platform slowly meanders across the screen before finally allowing you to grab a collectible.
Jonathan Blow? More like Jonathan Blows!
And so young (did I mention young?) impressionable me had learnt an invaluable lesson that day. Games were not only not art, but they SHOULD NEVER STRIVE TO BECOME ART. The concept of art was a pretentious blight upon the medium. Compromising the experience instead of enhancing it. Games should be gameplay focused and nothing more. It would be nice to have a good narrative and atmosphere alongside the dopamine high of overcoming challenging (but fair) obstacles but that should just be an extra detail. This pretentious meta introspective nonsense was a fad that surely not even the author believed in.
It has taken a long time for me to grow out of this perspective. I have played many games since then and have grown older and much more appreciative of games that try to explore the medium in different ways. TWENTY dollars meant so much more to me then than it does now. A paltry sum and yet the ultimate cost to me was much more severe. Even now I still am adverse to try ‘arty’ games and given the choice between playing some meta commentary puzzle introspective adventure or like the next game trying to emulate the tight tailored gameplay design philosophies of say Zelda or Dark Souls I would have to be tricked into choosing to play the former over the later.
Huh? I was supposed to be talking about Tunic? Oh… strange. What a weird unrelated tangent I went on. Well, I recommend this game to people who enjoy the tight tailored gameplay experiences in the vein of Zelda and Dark Souls. This game does not hide these inspirations and is very successful in both emulating these philosophies as well as branching out into its own identity. It is quite the tricky game. It has allowed me to forgive Jonathan Blow.
2021
Messy. People are messy. All of us down to the individual are not without flaws. We are tormented by psychoses induced by our upbringing, by events in our lives experienced or witnessed, by our needs desires and aspirations or by chemical imbalances in our bodies. How we deal with our demons varies. Perhaps we can successfully compartmentalize them. Perhaps we cannot and they overwhelm us. Perhaps we have no will to do so, and they simply run amok. Regardless, people are more complicated than their actions and giving the proper nuance to understanding why people behave the way they do is an impossible task. Yet it can still be a worthy endeavor, even if the result is not as clean
Psychonauts tries to tell a story about messy people. Popular consensus and the fact that I am reviewing a game with ‘2’ at the end of the title would imply they had some degree of success the first time around. I would agree, although it has been many years since I played it, my fading recollection of the 1st game acknowledges that I at least felt the game hit these notes for me. The game was successfully able to perform the novel feat of portraying the contents of the character’s mind as interactable worlds. Somehow, they were able to do this in a way that did not diminish the severity of the themes they were trying to convey of mental illness, trauma, our biased perceptions of reality. Yet they were still able to tailor these experiences to be enjoyable, engaging and amusing to play through.
It was not without its flaws. Particularly the gameplay I remember being lacking. For example, the game is essentially a ‘collectathon’ and while the main things you collect (figments) are cool little sketches that both serve as set pieces as well as informal ways to add details about the person’s psyche you have entered, they are simply not very fun to collect, there are so many scattered around and placed so arbitrarily that picking any that are out of your way feels like a chore than something you would willingly do. But videogames are more than the sum of its individual components. Good gameplay is not why you play Psychonauts, it is merely the way in which the game tricks you into engaging with its story and world (the ‘collectathon’ aspect is mostly optional). And it is the story and world of Psychonauts where it excels.
So why am I talking about the 1st game instead of the 2nd? Mostly, because the sequel was mostly successful at replicating the original. If you enjoyed the first game because of its writing style, its quirky characters, and the novel way it presents people’s mind as worlds, Psychonauts 2 delivers on all these fronts, at least to the standards that I remember. However more importantly I wanted to address where these games differ.
Psychonauts 1 is clean. At least how I remember it. The decaying memory of its story that lingers in my mind. It was a very optimistic take on people and the circumstances that govern their lives. Yes, people have suffered through terrible traumatic experiences, sometimes at the hands of other people. But these traumas can be overcome you can ultimately move on from them and heal. Those that harmed you might not be doing so from a rational state of mind and can be rehabilitated and found to be remorseful. The events of the game resolved into a positive outcome for all involved.
As usual for a sequel the stakes are raised so very much higher. Psychonaut 2’s tale talks of a war still in living memory, the trauma the war invoked, how it broke people, how they grieved over loved ones lost, their regrets, their inability to have made more meaningful change and horrible unforgiveable irreversible things that were done. It is now more selective on how it pushes that optimistic world view. It is no longer possible to present everyone as redeemable.
The result… is messy. Although perhaps appropriately so. Life in general is messy, people are messy. Is it good or bad? Subjective. It’s different. The in-game characters themselves are not sure of what to make of the game’s resolution and I suppose neither am I. Perhaps all it takes to make something work is simply believing it does. I am on the fence if I want to believe.
I recommend this game to everyone who played and enjoyed the 1st game and want more of it. I recommend the 1st game to those who want to experience an approximately 12-hour long story focused game that is quirky, funny, and surprisingly more considered than how it may initially appear. It is a cult classic for a reason.
Psychonauts tries to tell a story about messy people. Popular consensus and the fact that I am reviewing a game with ‘2’ at the end of the title would imply they had some degree of success the first time around. I would agree, although it has been many years since I played it, my fading recollection of the 1st game acknowledges that I at least felt the game hit these notes for me. The game was successfully able to perform the novel feat of portraying the contents of the character’s mind as interactable worlds. Somehow, they were able to do this in a way that did not diminish the severity of the themes they were trying to convey of mental illness, trauma, our biased perceptions of reality. Yet they were still able to tailor these experiences to be enjoyable, engaging and amusing to play through.
It was not without its flaws. Particularly the gameplay I remember being lacking. For example, the game is essentially a ‘collectathon’ and while the main things you collect (figments) are cool little sketches that both serve as set pieces as well as informal ways to add details about the person’s psyche you have entered, they are simply not very fun to collect, there are so many scattered around and placed so arbitrarily that picking any that are out of your way feels like a chore than something you would willingly do. But videogames are more than the sum of its individual components. Good gameplay is not why you play Psychonauts, it is merely the way in which the game tricks you into engaging with its story and world (the ‘collectathon’ aspect is mostly optional). And it is the story and world of Psychonauts where it excels.
So why am I talking about the 1st game instead of the 2nd? Mostly, because the sequel was mostly successful at replicating the original. If you enjoyed the first game because of its writing style, its quirky characters, and the novel way it presents people’s mind as worlds, Psychonauts 2 delivers on all these fronts, at least to the standards that I remember. However more importantly I wanted to address where these games differ.
Psychonauts 1 is clean. At least how I remember it. The decaying memory of its story that lingers in my mind. It was a very optimistic take on people and the circumstances that govern their lives. Yes, people have suffered through terrible traumatic experiences, sometimes at the hands of other people. But these traumas can be overcome you can ultimately move on from them and heal. Those that harmed you might not be doing so from a rational state of mind and can be rehabilitated and found to be remorseful. The events of the game resolved into a positive outcome for all involved.
As usual for a sequel the stakes are raised so very much higher. Psychonaut 2’s tale talks of a war still in living memory, the trauma the war invoked, how it broke people, how they grieved over loved ones lost, their regrets, their inability to have made more meaningful change and horrible unforgiveable irreversible things that were done. It is now more selective on how it pushes that optimistic world view. It is no longer possible to present everyone as redeemable.
The result… is messy. Although perhaps appropriately so. Life in general is messy, people are messy. Is it good or bad? Subjective. It’s different. The in-game characters themselves are not sure of what to make of the game’s resolution and I suppose neither am I. Perhaps all it takes to make something work is simply believing it does. I am on the fence if I want to believe.
I recommend this game to everyone who played and enjoyed the 1st game and want more of it. I recommend the 1st game to those who want to experience an approximately 12-hour long story focused game that is quirky, funny, and surprisingly more considered than how it may initially appear. It is a cult classic for a reason.
1994
I don’t need to tell you if Final Fantasy 6 is any good. You already know. Countless people have told you already, so many in fact that you have grown cynical. That something so serialized that there are 15 other games in the series can truly be novel. There is no need to play this game. You have already done so in essence. With all the derivative works and tropes inspired by this dated 30-year-old game what value is there left to be had?
Booting up the game you would find yourself to be vindicated. The amnesiac chosen hero is set up to be the turning point of a resistant group against a comically evil empire (led by a literal clown!). To accompany them they are accompanied by the lovable rogue, the perverse yet kind-hearted king, his himbo brother, the stoic warrior, the mysterious assassin, the feral catboy, the empire’s defector. You have seen this premise and these caricatures before in many forms, across all kinds of media. Certainly in depictions not so compromised by the limitations of compacting such a story onto a 4-megabyte cartridge. Heck the game even references one of its inspirations (Star Wars) as soon as the game begins!
But then as you play you start to come to an incredible revelation. That this adherence to these stock standardized characters and this simple clichéd story is deliberate. That the game is exploiting the fact that you have already seen this all before. That this 4-megabyte game can say so much more than should be possible because it is using templates you are already familiar with. Templates to be challenged and dissected when confronted with the main themes of the game.
I am sure nearly everyone is familiar with what happens around halfway through the game. This JRPG twist is legendary and perhaps only eclipsed in universal knowledge of what happens to a certain party member in the next game in the series. Yet despite being fully aware of what was coming I was not prepared for what it meant in practice.
Wow. If you were looking for what makes this game novel this is it. What an unprecedented level of freedom and adventure given to a genre as conventionally shackled to linearity as JRPGs. What exhilarating feeling of wonder you feel when it is your own personal desire to know what happened to your beloved cast of characters that becomes the main driver of playing the game. To experience the payoff of those presumed cookie cutter characters subtly subvert or stand firm of your expectations of them when presented in the scenario of this game’s premise.
You don’t need me to tell you if Final Fantasy 6 is good. You already know it is good. Excellent even. But should you play it? Maybe. While this game is a master class of game design and storytelling there is no point denying that for good or bad, it is a product of its era, regardless of how quintessential it is. The game is 35 hours long and half of that is setting the scene for the meat that is the 2nd half. While the gameplay is consistently snappy and each party member has unique mechanics, the draw is more about how the game utilizes its gameplay to convey its story than having mechanically challenging fights (although the game will sucker punch you now and then). Characterization and dialogue no matter how deeply considered it is, is designed for its medium and the game expects you to read a little and infer a lot. Music is stellar, no complaints (Phantom Train is gooooood).
Although it is an almost useless answer: if you like turn based JRPGs you will likely love this game and I recommend it. If you don’t like turn based JRPGs this game is unlikely to change your mind. If you are unsure then play it anyway and find out, because to me, this is among the best of it’s kind.
Booting up the game you would find yourself to be vindicated. The amnesiac chosen hero is set up to be the turning point of a resistant group against a comically evil empire (led by a literal clown!). To accompany them they are accompanied by the lovable rogue, the perverse yet kind-hearted king, his himbo brother, the stoic warrior, the mysterious assassin, the feral catboy, the empire’s defector. You have seen this premise and these caricatures before in many forms, across all kinds of media. Certainly in depictions not so compromised by the limitations of compacting such a story onto a 4-megabyte cartridge. Heck the game even references one of its inspirations (Star Wars) as soon as the game begins!
But then as you play you start to come to an incredible revelation. That this adherence to these stock standardized characters and this simple clichéd story is deliberate. That the game is exploiting the fact that you have already seen this all before. That this 4-megabyte game can say so much more than should be possible because it is using templates you are already familiar with. Templates to be challenged and dissected when confronted with the main themes of the game.
I am sure nearly everyone is familiar with what happens around halfway through the game. This JRPG twist is legendary and perhaps only eclipsed in universal knowledge of what happens to a certain party member in the next game in the series. Yet despite being fully aware of what was coming I was not prepared for what it meant in practice.
Wow. If you were looking for what makes this game novel this is it. What an unprecedented level of freedom and adventure given to a genre as conventionally shackled to linearity as JRPGs. What exhilarating feeling of wonder you feel when it is your own personal desire to know what happened to your beloved cast of characters that becomes the main driver of playing the game. To experience the payoff of those presumed cookie cutter characters subtly subvert or stand firm of your expectations of them when presented in the scenario of this game’s premise.
You don’t need me to tell you if Final Fantasy 6 is good. You already know it is good. Excellent even. But should you play it? Maybe. While this game is a master class of game design and storytelling there is no point denying that for good or bad, it is a product of its era, regardless of how quintessential it is. The game is 35 hours long and half of that is setting the scene for the meat that is the 2nd half. While the gameplay is consistently snappy and each party member has unique mechanics, the draw is more about how the game utilizes its gameplay to convey its story than having mechanically challenging fights (although the game will sucker punch you now and then). Characterization and dialogue no matter how deeply considered it is, is designed for its medium and the game expects you to read a little and infer a lot. Music is stellar, no complaints (Phantom Train is gooooood).
Although it is an almost useless answer: if you like turn based JRPGs you will likely love this game and I recommend it. If you don’t like turn based JRPGs this game is unlikely to change your mind. If you are unsure then play it anyway and find out, because to me, this is among the best of it’s kind.
2022
Videogames are a powerful medium for telling stories. They are unique in the way that players interact with them. Unlike more antiquated methods of storytelling, such as literature or films, videogames have this innate property where the player has some bearing on how they are told. User input can influence and explore branching decisions that impact how the narrative plays out, choose the level of intricacy in which they explore a game’s world and dictate the pace in which the journey progresses. Of course, in practice, how much influence players really have is still dictated by its authors. The freedom you are given is not absolute, not even close, it is merely slack to a leash. You are still guided and pulled along the path that is expected of you, a path designed for you to follow. LiveAevil (yes, I am calling it that) is a videogame ABOUT these paths. These unyielding templates of how stories will go.
The game presents itself as an anthology of seven stories from which you may play in any order of your fancy. To say that these individual stories are simple cliches of popular film genres, while true, does not accurately do them justice. They are a love letter to these templates and the unique traits that define them are carefully adapted and rendered into the gameplay. A story about a martial artist preserving their legacy by raising a successor is presented in game by having you frequently spar against them and watching their in-game statistics and move pool gradually improve until they eventually exceed yours. The build-up of tension leading to a climatic showdown, the defining trait of Westerns, is replicated by placing you on a time limit (announced through a series of bell chimes) as you explore the town and prepare for the duel. A futuristic horror story has you take the role of a helpless observer. Your ways of interacting with the world are intentionally limited and you are forced to watch the rest of the cast slowly dwindle away as you try your best to avoid confrontation. Effectively contrasting the other stories where combat is a main aspect of the gameplay.
These individual stories are all wonderful. Well-crafted and a joy to play through. Even when held to modern standards (at least for the remake). Filled with charm, a surprising amount of gameplay depth and respect for some of the decisions you make as a player (try running away from your duty in the Ninja chapter). Yet these aren’t the reasons why LiveAevil is truly special. LiveAevil is storytelling’s biggest fan and true appreciation of a craft must also inspire criticism.
These stories, seemingly completely unrelated, do share a common feature. It is an abstract feature, but the game makes a point that it is there. These heroes with their different motivations, objectives and desires, all follow standardized paths laid before them. Story templates full of cliches and tropes and expected outcomes. If the heroes do not stray from their path, their success is assured. Each and all guaranteed a satisfying and complete payoff to their narratives. Who cares if it is uninspired and predictable if it works?
LiveAevil itself cares. These seven unrelated stories culminate into one final one. The one that truly matters but cannot be told without intimate awareness of what it subverts. You need to know how the story is meant to go, to have seen how it DID go seven other times, to see how precarious it is to truly follow the path engineered before you. Then you can be made to understand how truly fickle the line between success and failure is in a life preplanned. To perceive how cruel it is to bear the burden of meeting expectations imposed on you that were never truly yours to begin with. It is through this final story that LiveAlive becomes more than just an anthology but a commentary and indictment on what the stories mean and represent. How these stories, these templates influence our expectations of life itself and how we can only truly grow if we can escape from our preordained path when we find our story is not one that is conventional.
I recommend this game to anyone with even a mild interest in JRPGs, it is a pleasant gameplay experience throughout. If you ever thought Octopath Traveler looked interesting play this game. Even if you didn’t enjoy Octopath.
(Ignore the star rating. I don't believe in numerical evaluation of games. Every game gets 5 stars unless it does something to warrant motivating me take them away)
The game presents itself as an anthology of seven stories from which you may play in any order of your fancy. To say that these individual stories are simple cliches of popular film genres, while true, does not accurately do them justice. They are a love letter to these templates and the unique traits that define them are carefully adapted and rendered into the gameplay. A story about a martial artist preserving their legacy by raising a successor is presented in game by having you frequently spar against them and watching their in-game statistics and move pool gradually improve until they eventually exceed yours. The build-up of tension leading to a climatic showdown, the defining trait of Westerns, is replicated by placing you on a time limit (announced through a series of bell chimes) as you explore the town and prepare for the duel. A futuristic horror story has you take the role of a helpless observer. Your ways of interacting with the world are intentionally limited and you are forced to watch the rest of the cast slowly dwindle away as you try your best to avoid confrontation. Effectively contrasting the other stories where combat is a main aspect of the gameplay.
These individual stories are all wonderful. Well-crafted and a joy to play through. Even when held to modern standards (at least for the remake). Filled with charm, a surprising amount of gameplay depth and respect for some of the decisions you make as a player (try running away from your duty in the Ninja chapter). Yet these aren’t the reasons why LiveAevil is truly special. LiveAevil is storytelling’s biggest fan and true appreciation of a craft must also inspire criticism.
These stories, seemingly completely unrelated, do share a common feature. It is an abstract feature, but the game makes a point that it is there. These heroes with their different motivations, objectives and desires, all follow standardized paths laid before them. Story templates full of cliches and tropes and expected outcomes. If the heroes do not stray from their path, their success is assured. Each and all guaranteed a satisfying and complete payoff to their narratives. Who cares if it is uninspired and predictable if it works?
LiveAevil itself cares. These seven unrelated stories culminate into one final one. The one that truly matters but cannot be told without intimate awareness of what it subverts. You need to know how the story is meant to go, to have seen how it DID go seven other times, to see how precarious it is to truly follow the path engineered before you. Then you can be made to understand how truly fickle the line between success and failure is in a life preplanned. To perceive how cruel it is to bear the burden of meeting expectations imposed on you that were never truly yours to begin with. It is through this final story that LiveAlive becomes more than just an anthology but a commentary and indictment on what the stories mean and represent. How these stories, these templates influence our expectations of life itself and how we can only truly grow if we can escape from our preordained path when we find our story is not one that is conventional.
I recommend this game to anyone with even a mild interest in JRPGs, it is a pleasant gameplay experience throughout. If you ever thought Octopath Traveler looked interesting play this game. Even if you didn’t enjoy Octopath.
(Ignore the star rating. I don't believe in numerical evaluation of games. Every game gets 5 stars unless it does something to warrant motivating me take them away)
Mother is truly something special. Even to those who have not directly experienced it, its mark upon those who have can be felt in their own works, often a cited inspiration that influenced many others creative devices. So what is it that makes Mother special? The way I perceive it, it can be distilled into two main things.
The first of which is its core message. It is a simple message. Mother is a story about unconditional love. A sincere tale about this deep inexplicable connection that people can share. This message resonates with those who play it, both because of how earnestly it is conveyed and also how applicable that message is even outside of the context of the game.
The second is how the game presents this message. Mother is a series of video games that fully utilities its medium to tell its story. Its appeal is in how interlaced the game-play is with the narrative. The non-standardised design considerations across many things including how you save the game, how you earn money from battles to how you resolve the final conflict are all what makes Mother an incredible experience even in spite of how archaic much of its core game-play has become.
Earthbound Beginnings is the 1st game in the Mother series and despite the almost universal acclaim its two sequels receive, this first entry is much more contentious. This is not unwarranted. Much of it is a chore to play, the result of it being conceived during the infancy of video games. Designers over time have become more aware on how to provide helpful direction to players and reduce tedium causing the later entries to be more conventionally enjoyable experiences. This game expects you to frequently level grind and because of some poor pacing issues by the time the game-play becomes more involved than selecting auto-battle to win, the game is already 2/3rds over.
Additionally, having come from having already played Mother 2, there is noticeable overlap between the 1st and 2nd entries in the series. A lot of characters, gimmicks and story beats are reused or deliberately similar. With the nature of the 2nd game being more refined it does make it seem the 1st game is made entirely redundant.
Yet there are three Mother games for a reason. It is not the same story told three times, each game having its own particular focus. The conflict in Mother 2 is made out to be seen to be identical to its Mother 1 counterpart and yet it is found to be subverted. An intentional perversion of the original tale.
I would recommend this game only to those who enjoyed its sequels and would be willing to invest about 10 hours in having this original context. Earthbound Beginnings despite its rough edges has the same charm as its progeny. But it requires a bit of patience to suffer through its early (and mid) game. Its end game is a treat.
(Ignore the star rating. I don't believe in numerical evaluation of games. Every game gets 5 stars unless it does something to warrant motivating me take them away)
The first of which is its core message. It is a simple message. Mother is a story about unconditional love. A sincere tale about this deep inexplicable connection that people can share. This message resonates with those who play it, both because of how earnestly it is conveyed and also how applicable that message is even outside of the context of the game.
The second is how the game presents this message. Mother is a series of video games that fully utilities its medium to tell its story. Its appeal is in how interlaced the game-play is with the narrative. The non-standardised design considerations across many things including how you save the game, how you earn money from battles to how you resolve the final conflict are all what makes Mother an incredible experience even in spite of how archaic much of its core game-play has become.
Earthbound Beginnings is the 1st game in the Mother series and despite the almost universal acclaim its two sequels receive, this first entry is much more contentious. This is not unwarranted. Much of it is a chore to play, the result of it being conceived during the infancy of video games. Designers over time have become more aware on how to provide helpful direction to players and reduce tedium causing the later entries to be more conventionally enjoyable experiences. This game expects you to frequently level grind and because of some poor pacing issues by the time the game-play becomes more involved than selecting auto-battle to win, the game is already 2/3rds over.
Additionally, having come from having already played Mother 2, there is noticeable overlap between the 1st and 2nd entries in the series. A lot of characters, gimmicks and story beats are reused or deliberately similar. With the nature of the 2nd game being more refined it does make it seem the 1st game is made entirely redundant.
Yet there are three Mother games for a reason. It is not the same story told three times, each game having its own particular focus. The conflict in Mother 2 is made out to be seen to be identical to its Mother 1 counterpart and yet it is found to be subverted. An intentional perversion of the original tale.
I would recommend this game only to those who enjoyed its sequels and would be willing to invest about 10 hours in having this original context. Earthbound Beginnings despite its rough edges has the same charm as its progeny. But it requires a bit of patience to suffer through its early (and mid) game. Its end game is a treat.
(Ignore the star rating. I don't believe in numerical evaluation of games. Every game gets 5 stars unless it does something to warrant motivating me take them away)