"I believe our role as game creators is to give dreams to children all over the world." - Yuji Naka

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NiGHTS: Into Dreams is a marvel of a game. Originally developed with the intent of being a 2D game with pixel art graphics with a strong emphasis on Artificial Life sim (A-Life) gameplay, development shifted drastically towards the game we know today. The game was, for all intents and purposes, an experiment: can Sonic Team make a 3D game on the Sega Saturn? What are the limitations, if they could? How can they show the player 3D depth on a 2D screen? Can they create polygonal characters that look as appealing as 2D pixel characters?

The answer was a resounding yes. NiGHTS became a unique title that showcased the potential of the Sega Saturn, demolishing the sales and becoming the top selling game on the system. Sonic Team managed to create a new IP, play around with new ideas, and recharge their creative batteries from creating three or four Sonic game for the past four to five years.

But the reality of NiGHTS's release was that the game was not enough of a draw for the Saturn. The American consumer base desired more of the blue blur, and during consumer questioning with the Japanese side, kids infamously could only mutter "Sonic who?" when asked who Sonic was. Sonic was Sega's face, and Sega's face went missing.

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Between the cracks of the conscious and unconscious, there is a rift that trickles down to Nightopia. Windmills stand atop of pillars that hover aimlessly in the air, decorating the milky blue and purple skies like ornaments of a Christmas tree. Hills and valleys roll in a green mellow stream, spreading across every corner within the canvas of this dream. Sleep is a one way ticket to the carnival of dreams, performing all of humanity's unconscious thoughts and ideals in one place. NiGHTS is your guide, a being that's a culmination of every culture and gender, staving off the nightmares that infest the dreams of the collective unconscious, displaying as a hero amongst the self. Waking is your ticket back to reality, where you're left with your memories of that dream world, giving you the strength to reach out for your dreams in reality.

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Much like Sonic, NiGHTS is the king of fostering replayability. NiGHTS is essentially a prototype for the ranking system that would later be found in the Sonic Adventure series. Rank is based not how fast you proceed through a level, but more determined with the amount of points you received and orbs you collect throughout the allotted route. Each world is broken up by 4 routes, followed by a climatic boss fight to cap off your overall ranking. Mastering the game requires mastering a level's layout, learning the best way to acquire points and orbs, and optimizing your run to perfection. Your verbs are to loop, charge and fly to reach your goal, the motions in doing so feeling eloquent and refined like a figure skater's flow. This flow translates to gameplay and vice versa from one another.

The gameplay loop is addicting on an immediate level, and for me, has been more gratifying than playing and perfecting either SA1 or 2. The reason is simple: in Sonic, the qualifications to gain the best rank aren't actually clear with what the game is asking of you. Here in NiGHTS, it's 100% clear to me how I reach a better rank. The more points I wrack up, the better my rank.

For all of NiGHTS, there's a sense of clarity to the game design with how simplistic and creative it is. I'm not sure Sonic Team has ever quite reached such a level of clarity with their other projects.

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The world was passing me by so quickly. My surroundings were hard to really notice at a first glance, so I began to grow dissatisfied being unable to soak anything in. So, I did what I used to do when I was younger. I let myself get lost in the world.

The ground swerved and bent like an ocean's wave. These waves would envelop me from above and below me, closing me within this world like an open cavern. Walking felt weird, like at any given moment I'd start feeling heavy resistance from the sheer steepness of the terrain, but never did that heavy foot come. I wandered around, finding tiny creatures that would playfully smile, or laugh, or spin with glee.

The world felt still, in a way. Like this was the only moment that mattered. Thinking back on this, I felt like I once did when I was a kid. The world in front of me felt strange, new and a little scary. I didn't know what to expect from the game, and that within itself was such a refreshing experience.

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Despite the fact that NiGHTS started as an attempt to create an A-Life game, aspects are still found within the free range mode within NiGHTS. Before every level starts, you have the option to head directly towards NiGHTS, or to explore the entire level in full. Inhabiting these dreamscapes are tiny little creatures known as Pians, whom are born from eggs that you can find and hatch. These tiny little fairy men come in many shapes and sizes, and even come equipped with a full on breeding system. This system isn't as in-depth as the Chao system found within Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, but this mechanic adds a strange and needed element to the gameplay loop: a moment to relax.

Taking a break from the fast paced gameplay and simply exploring the world here creates a sense of exploration and discovery. There's details to this world that you're merely flying past in the main portion of the game, and being able to explore the same level from a completely different perspective is strangely freeing. Of course, the game doesn't want you to just running around collecting orbs for free, so they add in a slight pressure from an egg strapped with an alarm clock that chases you, along with a lower rank for the amount of time you've spent, so the game ends up being balanced with this approach. These open ended sections truly breathe life into the world of Nightopia.

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Ethereal synths move and sway from ear to ear, samples of children saying hello and every day noises floating in-between them. The sound of a sax screeching in mimicry of an a monster screeching as a bombastic drum 'n' bass and a groovin' bass line kick into full gear. As credits roll, you're treated to the sweetest songs ever conceived.

"In the night.
Dream delight.
I want to see you standing there.
In the night.
Dream delight.
I found someone who really cared."

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The Sega Saturn was considered a commercial failure. Sonic X-Treme was canceled, and there was no recovery from the lack of momentum. The Dreamcast was Sega's last shot to regain their market share and their consumer base. But too many mistakes were made. Sega closed down their console divisions for good.

Their dream was no more.

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As an adult, you don't really have the opportunity to meander. We hold off on leaving the living because there's too much to be done. Responsibilities need to be taken care of, work obligations need to be met. Life can come at you fast, and you can never be sure if the move you're making is the right move. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? When will I wake up from my fear of rejection, my fear of agency? The idea can often paralyze me. There's more I could be doing, more I could be aspiring towards.

NiGHTS: Into Dreams reminds me that there isn't a need to overcomplicated. Sometimes all you need is to focus on something simple. Take a deep breath and wander. Take a break but get back to it.

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The quote at the beginning was given in an interview with Yuji Naka and developers of NiGHTS: Into Dream. You might cringe at the cheese spewing out of every orifice of the lettering as you read the text, but the words hold weight for me. Despite everything Yuji Naka has done in his career, despite how notoriously difficult he was to work with said by those around him, despite the potential cynical business centric reasoning for this quote, NiGHTS: Into Dreams still encapsulates the feeling of magic into me. The game filled me with a wonder I don't think many games ever have. Just for a moment, I felt like I was a kid again, exploring a new, unknown game for the first time, wondering what this strange new world had in store for me. There was nothing but smiles of joy on my face.

This is me by the way, if you even care.

Happy Halloween!

My hand fucking hurts.

Happy Halloween!

The second to last section left me sobbing in a voice call as I couldn't make a simple indian house.

Happy Halloween!

The cute cat is very cute, but why is there so much porn of it-

Happy Halloween!

30

The best of the Budokai trilogy, but still not good—not even close. Yet again, there are several improvements to the core fundamentals; the combat, the visuals, the character roster, all of these receive numerous updates and additions. But the developers are still intent on making a frustrating “story mode” that doesn’t offer anything new, besides mechanics that are pure gimmick so that the player can experience somewhat of a story.

So instead of a board game, this time you’re flying around the world—collecting Dragon Balls, finding optional fights with Saibamen and other obscure DBZ characters such as Cooler, or progressing through the story in the form of mainline battles. There still aren’t any cutscenes, only dialogue boxes with surprisingly mediocre voice acting. This is one of the only times I’ve heard the DBZ voice cast completely phone it in, it's almost like they don't even want to be there? You can play the story mode with different characters, experiencing an array of perspectives throughout every saga, and I’m not a big fan of this feature. It’s needlessly long, drawn out, and boring—not to mention that a few of the characters overlap, meaning you have to do some fights several times between characters. I don’t know anyone who willingly wants to play as Yamcha, Tien, Piccolo, or Krillin. They barely have any attacks, it’s just boring. Like I said before, there are some references to other obscure (at the time) characters, such as Cooler, Broly, and even SSJ4 Goku; but they're hidden in the world, meaning you have to aimlessly wander through it until you see a slight sparkle on the ground. If I didn’t look up videos of this game, then I wouldn’t even know that those characters are in here. It would’ve been cool if instead of those hidden encounters, entire cutscenes and levels were dedicated to them!.. but yeah, they don’t do those anymore.

Combat has very noticeably improved. More attacks. More special moves. More mechanics. There’s a lot more control. I feel like I can actually do stuff with intent instead of mindlessly blocking like I did in the previous games. They add a couple new mechanics that I’m not sure I like though, the hyper mode that allows you to become stronger until your ki runs out isn’t fun to play against, or to even use yourself. If the enemy uses it, you can literally only do one thing until it depletes, evade—because you won’t be able to attack, since they can’t be stunned while in that state. And that isn’t fun, it’s not diverse in gameplay, it’s limited, I don’t see what the purpose of adding it was, since some of the later enemies completely abuse it every chance they get. The dragon rush mechanic is also total ass. It’s pure RNG, and nothing more.

In terms of visuals—again, lots of fantastic improvements. More colours, more effects, everything just looks more like Dragon Ball Z. Even the stages are more accurate and impressive, whilst also being able to transition into other stages based on certain attacks. It’s all really cool.

Replaying these three games recently has convinced me to never touch a fighting game again. I’ve realized that I just really fucking hate this genre with a passion. As a whole, they’re a lot more focused on the fighting aspect than delivering any sort of narrative (without a bunch of dumb gimmicks thrown in)—rightfully so, because that is the main appeal, but to me? They do nothing. Another banger cinematic though!

Playtime: 6.1 hours

Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Dragon Ball Z - Ranked
2004 - Ranked

Jak II is a fascinating case study in the attempt to satisfy multiple audiences all at once. In order to best understand Jak II, it's best to view the game within the context of the time it was made.

GTA 3 exploded onto the scene, reverberating throughout the entire industry, causing everyone to go into a frenzy. Open world sandbox games were fresh and interesting, giving the player a means to doing seemingly anything they could ever want. Games like GTA, Halo and Metal Gear Solid 2 showed that games could not only be dark and serious, but could also be mature.

Jak, the series, was not this. Like, God, not at all.

Naughty Dog had just started a new IP that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tailend of the era of 3D platformers was here, and Jak 1 was one of the last ones out. So instead of leaning more into their current audience of mostly younger kids, they changed course with the sequel. Jak II would become a serious game, that's dark, brooding, cool, and most importantly, for mature gamers. Naughty Dog took the effort to become as appealing to this demographic of preteens, teens and inbetweens as much as humanly possible, injecting every facet of Jak 2 with any gaming trend to have ever graced the mid-2000's.

As a result, Jak II is a mish-mash of multiple ideas stapled together and crumpled up into a tiny ball. It's a GTA clone! It's a platformer! It's a third person shooter! It's a racer! It's a Tony Hawk clone? What?

The GTA style gameplay loop of driving around a city and having cops chase after you is very prevelant, albeit loosely implemented. The game pays lip service to GTA without ever really understanding the basics of why GTA works so well. A simple example: in GTA, roads function as you would expect in a densely packed Metropolitan area. In Jak II, this very simple element becomes lost in translation due to navigating around this futuristic dystopian world. Driving itself becomes counter-intuitive when there's numerous denizens walking in the middle of the road, airway congestion blocking you from above, every route and pathway feeling cramped, coalescing within every claustrophobic wall and tight corner this city provides.

This city is just simply not a fun place to drive in. There's so many dead ends, corners, traffic, with no real straight shots of any kind. The reason for this is simple. Everything is bundled to the world design, matching exactly how a dysfunctional dystopia would be. Dilapidated houses, roads with holes carved out by the many bomb blasts that have previously been bombarding the city. Wonky wooden pier pathways that creep out into the murky waters housing the equally wonkily built slum houses. Areas divided with electronic barriers to keep the slums from infecting the higher class areas. The world is built as an interesting backdrop first and a functionally fun place to drive around last.

Jak II has made me realize that I've taken for granted the systems and mechanics that GTA has set in place. Within the wanted system of GTA, there's a push and pull with how a chase begins, proceeds, and ends. When you begin, you're contemplating on whether or not the risk of obtaining a new car is worth potentially having the cops come after you. Is the coast clear? Are there any witnesses? Which car should I steal? If I need to get someplace fast, should I just steal any car? As you proceed with your car jacking proclivities, you obtain a wanted level. This level increases as you rack up more and more violations. Your choices from here are to either drive away avoiding the many cops blocking your escape route, or blasting them away, causing that pesky wanted rating to potentially rise more. The more your level goes up, the more artillery the cops begin to bust out to stop you, making your escape much harder. To end the madness, you have to hide until the heat dies down, or enter a safe house. Then, you can return to your normal state of being. Alternatively, you could also potentially die or get arrested by the police, causing you to either pay out with bail, or pay out your medical bills. This brings you back to the beginning, where you determine the next time if it's worth the risk to enter into the loop once again, potentially losing a valuable resource if you die/get caught. It's a fundamentally solid risk vs reward system.

Jak 2 does, uh... Very little of anything I just described.

Guards out on patrol absolutely do not care if you steal someone's car. They don't even care if you mow down civilians with your car! See, these asshole only care if you hit any of THEIR cars, or what's more likely, accidentally rammed into one of them while you were trying to dodge all the flying cars that clutter the screen. The reason why they're so indifferent is the same reason as before; this universe we're violently kicked into is an authoritarian oppressive NIGHTMARE, with a government that makes normal citizens lick their boots before they stomp them into the ground. In-universe explanation be damned — as a mechanic, it just doesn't work here. There's no real consequences to your actions, there's no real push or pull. Death just means restarting the mission at worst and respawning nearby where you died at best. The system is brainless in how you approach the threat, and there's no such thing as planning your next step ahead.

Can you have fun with this system? Sure. You can wrangle fun out of just about any system. But the main issue that arises though from this lackluster wanted system, as well as the atrocious level design, is that the GTA style of missions become a mind numbing slog to even be reached. Every mission is just running back and forth between different key locations, remixing previous level design for a new type of mission. Escorts missions, turret missions, kill this many enemies, skateboarding to do this or that, go do a race, then do it all again in the next few missions. New spins to those types of missions happen, and they're welcomed, but every mission is then hampered by extremely limiting checkpoints that'll make you repeat the mission over and over until you eventually manage to survive the entire mission in a single go.

These missions are at the very least helped by the combat feeling satisfying. Hitting a dude with a melee attack and seeing Jak and Daxter squash and stretch is immensely pleasing to view. Running, jumping, spinning, shooting, all of the actions feel nice and weighty to perform. Same with their spin attack.

But the you start adding weapons into the mix.

You start off with a shotgun, which is meant to clear out enemies within it's radius. The blast takes about 2-3 bullets to take out a bad guy. This would be fine, but your melee hits do the same amount of damage. Your spin attack is about as equally effective too. They try and swarm you with many enemies at once to justify the use of the shotgun, but it isn't very satisfying to use when it's only purpose is for a slightly larger crowd control. This in turn means that the shotgun is repetitive to the combat loop, at least more towards the beginning. The second gun you get, the Blaster, is much more enjoyable to use. It's a single bolt shot, but if you melee followed by shoot, you can perform an extra move that shoots 3-4 shots. Spinning shoots out in any direction, hitting anything in it's path. Why the shotgun doesn't have this type of role is beyond me. Next is your equivalent to a chaingun, which can be fun to mow down guys with, but ultimately chows down too many bullets far too quickly to be a go-to weapon. Same with the final gun, the Peace Maker, of which has very limited ammo but has a massive blast radius. I feel the need to hoard my ammo with these like a tiny little muskrat, since they feel slightly rarer to drop. The blaster is just way too versatile to use, making it the best gun in the entire game, which overshadows all of the other weapons dramatically. This makes combat somewhat satisfying, but also quite mindless. Spinning while shooting does the job quite aptly... until it doesn't and you randomly get hit. There's no real aiming with these weapons, they're all auto aiming at a nearby target, which in turn becomes difficult for the player to point directly at an enemy in the distance. The designers only occasionally pull this nasty trick on you on purpose, but in more open sections, this becomes an unintended side effect of the limitations of this shooting system. It's clunkily held together by duct tape and glue, but combat does have it's moments.

Playing Jak II has been a bizarre experience. Not entirely for it's story corrupting a relatively family friendly kid's game and inserting causality loops and dark authoritarian dystopians into it. It has moreso to do with my perspective changing from when I initially first played the game. Jak II was the first PlayStation 2 game that I ever owned, and was THE reason I wanted a PS2. That's right, I was that demographic. The game served as a more age appropriate approach towards GTA gameplay, and was my first real exposure to the type of formula. In a way, there's a certain affinity for the game that still remains. Even through all the frustration I've felt from this game, there's something distinctively intriguing about it's tone and design. Which doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good video game, but at the very least, it's an fascinating disaster. Jak II is a tried and failed method of attempting to cram in as many mechanics together as possible, becoming a jack of all trades, master of none. The more you look at Jak II, the more the game begins to break apart at the seams, and yet, the more I'm enraptured by the game. None of it really works for me, but there's still something there. A spark of life. A hint of soul. I love when you've entered a vehicle, the music transitions to a more upbeat drum backing it. I love the environments to the game, there's an incredible sense of atmosphere to these bleak fantastical world. I love how dorky and lame it is to have Jak become some weirdo edge lord who wields a gun. I love that this is directly responsible for Shadow The Hedgehog existing.

If Jak II was scaled back and had refocused itself on one or two gameplay styles, it may have been a better game. At the same time though, I'm not entirely sure it would have been as interesting. It'd be less ambitious, less absurd, and less of what makes Jak II irresistible to watch.

I don't think Jak II is very good, but I do think Jak II is an interesting game. Not all media can say that. And personally, I'd rather be remembered for failing spectacularly than to be completely forgotten from sheer and utter mediocrity.

On a stop in my three day journey, I approached an open field. Grassy green-yellow knolls overtook most of my vision. Trees and cliffs formed an edge to the background, isolating the rest of the world from me. A familiar tune played, reminding me of a previous adventure I once took many years ago. It was now a distant memory. As I made my way uphill, I was met with the sight of a farm house and it's barn; both plain looking yet homely in their design. They looked oddly familiar.

Seated upon a wooden crate in front of the barn was a young girl. Long red hair, a protruding nose, she was around the same age as Link. I tried to speak with her, but coherent words failed to come out of her mouth. She stared vacantly, muttering to herself as if she were asleep, yet her eyes were still open. It was like she wasn't there.

Confused, I headed into the barn door to the young girl's left, only to be met by a young woman inside. Her back was turned towards me, but her body language read that she was deep in thought. She was distraught, talking to herself about how she wished she could have done something. She finally noticed me and apologized, but she couldn't speak with me right now. So, I waited outside.

Dawn turned to dusk, and the two girls headed into their home. Curious, I decided to follow them. As I walked inside, there they were in their dining room. They sat across from one another, both slumped in their chairs. There was a deep anguish to their faces. It was genuinely upsetting to see. I spoke to them, but their words felt like they were speaking in tongues. It was English, but it was hard to wrap around the meaning of their usage. The context felt lost. From what could be parsed through though, along with the minimal context of their distraught faces, it was clear that they had... given up. They fell into despair.

I decided to check upstairs, only to be greeted with a sight that I didn't expect. What looked to be an entire family greeted me, colorful only in their age groups, all of them women. A middle aged one sat on a bed, left with the hope of her husband to come home, only to be met with the distained loneliness caused by the reality of his absence. Another older, but still middle aged woman sat on a bed across from her, afraid for her life. She was woeful from the regrets she had made in life. An old lady sat in a rocking chair next to them. She was riddled with dementia, believing that I was her late husband, (or perhaps grandson), come to greet her. They all seemed lost in a haze of thoughts. I felt like I was invading a private moment where I didn't belong.

I didn't stop to say good bye. I ran out the door back to the outside world. The sky was now filled with hues of purple, pink and blue, flooding the entirety of the world above. Dots of light littered the painted sky scape. I could make out Orion's Belt from the constellations. It reminded me that I was still on planet Earth. It sunk my stomach, thinking of how tangible it all felt.

Then, the ground began to shake.

I looked over towards the moon. The nose of it's monstrous face was edging closer and closer to the ground. I kept staring at it. I moved to a higher vantage point atop the roof of the now broken home just to keep a better view of it's grotesque face. It continued to fall.

And fall.

And fall.

The world shook once again and music began to play. Music that cemented that the world around me was ending and that there was no stopping the inevitable. Time began to count down.

Five hours.

Four hours.

Three hours.

Two hours.

One hour.


All I could do was stare. I was lost in the dream.

This moment in Majora's Mask was incredibly vivid to me. It was like peering into a dream broadcast onto my computer monitor.

... Though, the reality of the moment wasn't as flowery. I was in a voice call with friends where jokes and general chatter were had amidst 3 separate discord streams, including my own. At one point we began talking about in detail of a quest line in Old School Runescape where you turn into a monkey and trick a baby monkey that five bananas are actually twenty bananas. This transcribed as I stared at the moon slowly come down. Life is rarely full of perfect picturesque moments.

But the silly nonsense surrounding this moment didn't effect the impact it had over me. I was never taken out of the moment. It still felt like I was witnessing a dream unfold right in front of me. Whether it was my own dream I was witnessing or someone else's, I'm not sure. All I knew was that I felt like I was an observer within it, yet I was also present within reality. Like there was a bridge between the unconscious and the conscious and I was standing in the middle of it. It was a vividly surreal feeling. Aptly enough, this might be the best way to describe Majora's Mask as a whole.

Even before I played Majora's Mask, the game had already made quite the impression on me as a kid. Over at a friend’s house many moons ago, I witnessed him use the Deku mask, and watched on in horror as Link screamed in shrilling pain as he became this lifeless husk of what I thought was a wooden doll. His eyes were forever instilled with these sad, horrified look to them. It filled my 5 year old brain with absolute terror. Viewing through the portal of the CRT, I could see a world that slowly died right in front of me. Above was the look of the moon's ever peering, forever piercing gaze, stabbing directly into my soul and imprinting into my memory. Amidst all the horror, a clock sat directly in the middle of the screen, counting down until your demise was met, only to be saved by a time loop. A time loop of repeating the same three days, day after day, doomed for the world to end.

This absolutely, positively scared the shit out of me. Around this time, I had also listened to Linkin Park's "In The End", and had an outright existential crisis. As silly as it is, I had put the pieces in my head that the lyrics were (in part) a metaphor for death, and had an anxiety attack from this while in the back of my mom's SUV. I would stay up at night having anxiety attacks about eventually dying and never being able to do anything ever again. Death was something that always terrified me, and to see it so strikingly portrayed like it was in Majora's Mask left me scarred.

You would think it would end there as a scary, yet fleeting childhood memory. But those scars didn't seem to ever heal. Majora's Mask has stuck far into the recesses of my brain and has firmly implanted itself there. It's haunted me throughout the years, much more than I've ever realized up until writing this. And yet, it's also aided me when I felt I've needed it most.

This is quite a personal story — one I'm not sure I'm too comfortable even sharing in a public setting — but maybe it's worth stating simply to showcase the impact this game has had over me.

When I was in high school, I had pneumonia. It was hard to breathe, I could feel the weight of my lungs gasping and wheezing from the amount of mucus in them. I was eventually hospitalized for a day, with my mother worried sick about leaving me in the hospital for a night. It was the first time something like this had ever happened to me, but I was taking it in strides. I was self satisfied with the apple juice and pre-baked pretzel sticks the hospital provided. I didn't feel scared.

During the night, I kept waking from the nurses coming in to check on me. I clearly wasn't going to get a good night's sleep. It didn't help that the bed they provided was like an air mattress, which it made it feel like I was floating. So for a while, I just laid there, looking up at the ceiling, warm light vaguely illuminating it from a crack under the door. I let my mind wander for a bit. And then, very suddenly, the reality of the situation began to sink in; if it weren't for the medicine being put in my veins and the oxygen being pumped up my nose, I would have probably died.

And just like that, a vision blew over me.

I could see a tall tree up atop of a large hill. Beautiful pink flowers scatter around the ground, with a light green grass making a circle around the tree. It was reminiscent of Skull Kid siting under the tree towards the end of the game. I had walked towards it, and sat on the ground under it. I looked over to my right. There I saw a dog. It was my childhood dog Meeko, who I had held in my arms as we put him down not two years before, a traumatic experience that had haunted me. But he didn't look like himself, back how he looked during that final moment, with his muscle atrophied hind legs and his boney spine protruding from his malnourished body. His eyes didn't carry the same blank, lifeless look that I had accidentally glimpsed at as the vet took away his lifeless body. His body wasn't limp from his heart beat stopping. He looked more of a puppy, fluffy on the face but a bit curly in the back. His white and light brown fur shined under the shadow of the tree's branches. He was big for a Shih Tzu, but this version of him was tiny. It was a version of him I don't believe I've ever seen before. If I had, it must have been when I was very, very young. He sat with his head laying in his paws, nice and snug between them. As I looked at him, I began to gently pet him. His fur felt soft. It was almost tangible.

And then the image went away.

It was a deeply personal moment for me. I was conscious, but I could very vividly see this happen. I'm sure part of it was me wanting it to happen. Part of it was just being exhausted from the nurses checking in on me numerous times throughout the night. It felt like a religious experience, but I could tell it wasn't. It was more just memories and images drawn from the past that had stuck out to me, creating a story to comfort me. I had seen that moment in Majora's Mask, and my brain decided it was important enough to recall it. But it was a moment that felt like closure. Like Death itself was right there next to me, showing me a vision of what I thought heaven looked like. Saying good bye in the moment, but perhaps a glimpse at an eventual eternity to be with my dearly departed pet and best friend.

... And mind you, this is all without having played the game for myself. A poser even within my own "religious" experiences. God kicked me out of the vision and said "you're not coming back until you've at least played Majora's Mask, nerd".

So let's correct that.

Much like with my Pikmin playthrough, this has been a long time coming. I had joked in that review that the anxiety from even attempting to play Pikmin was a feeling of "childhood trauma", but I'm beginning to realize, in part, there's some truth to that. Obviously not to the same extent as someone facing horrible abuse, but an acute version of that. One caused by pre-existing fears manifesting into avoidance. Abstract fears that's bled into real life instances of feeling as if timed pressure was akin to the literal end of the world. I have relearned the lesson from my Pikmin play through: the reality of being timed is a lot less dramatic than in my head. The days go by quickly, sure, but you're equipped with tools to mitigate that ever ticking clock. Performing the song of Inverted Time slows everything down, giving you plenty of time to both experiment and accomplish longer sections of content within a single day, and a reasonable amount of wiggle room to boot. In fact, there are even moments where you'd want to move forward in time. This was something I had initially thought would be terrifying if I had to do while playing the game, mortified at the prospect of accidentally moving too far forward and triggering the end of the world. However, humans adapt to the situation given to them, and I habituated to the time loop. If I messed up, I didn't worry, I picked myself back up and kept going. There were times I even stopped and smelled the roses, waiting for an event to proceed. I had become a time management expert.

Most of the gameplay comes down to choosing your time between traditional style Zelda dungeons and tackling a side quest with one of the many denizens of Termina. The Zelda dungeons are the meat of the game, bringing about puzzles and gimmicks that built upon the formula brought about by Ocarina of Time. My major problem with Ocarina of Time dungeons has been the game's focus on looking around an environment. This was meant to get players used to thinking about how 3D spaces work, having them need to look around a dungeon for opportunities to unlock doors, solve puzzles, or whatever was needed to progress. For the first of it's kind, it does a great job at helping the player think within a 3D environment. As someone who already knows how to and has been aware of how to for years, I found the puzzles to be lacking. No other game puts quite as much emphasis on this aspect, and I've never meshed well with it. Majora's Mask, for me at least, remedies this by having dungeons that are more focused on their centralized gimmicks — the mask transformations and the multitude of key items — and using those abilities to reinforce the level design.

This can result in some hiccups, however. Switching between items that can only be accessed with 3 buttons at a time means you'll be in your menus a lot, and with the addition of masks, this issue becomes far worse than in OoT. Dungeons are built on more complex ideas, whether it be a vertical tower you need to work your way up, or a series of complicated underwater pathways that require the entirety of the dungeon to be changed. This can result in the player having to repeat loops if they by chance fall down to areas below, or get lost in the complexity of the dungeon.

The central time mechanic is a fantastic novelty, but it means that it is a very real possibility you may not have enough time to finish a dungeon. This can be slightly annoying. On the same token though, I adore this. It's nearly unwavering in it's commitment to it's central concept, and makes for a game that feels more cohesive as a result. It's not completely brutal mind you: you keep the dungeon's key item even after returning to the start of the loop, which acts as a checkpoint. This helps me become confident to continue rather than distraught at the progress I've lost.

... Unless the game crashes, in which case, it is NOT fun retreading the 3 or 4 objectives I just spent doing in that cycle. This happened to me twice and it was a nightmare. It's a drawback to the save system, but it's a system that I wouldn't want changed. It helps sell you into the time loop, having to commit to the day or to restart the day to progress. The system isn't perfect, but I'd much prefer the game constructing a specific feeling rather than washing out what made Majora's Mask interesting in the first place. Not to name any names. Ahem.

Like any other Zelda game, dungeons are topped off with bosses. The bosses in Majora's Mask I mostly enjoyed, the Goron boss "Goht" especially, since it makes great use of Goron Link's roll abilities and tests your mastery over it. But god almighty, do I hate the stupid fish boss. All his patterns feel so random for when he decides to chase after you. The floppy fish fuck will randomly decide if he wants to chew you now and take a third of my health or wait 15 seconds after you've pumbled into him. It never feels like you can predict or control the fight, and it's by far the worst part of the entire game.

The floppy fish fuck doesn't have his maw dragging down the overall experience, especially when even the side quests to the game are impeccable. Majora's Mask is half made up of these side quests. They are often about impacting the lives of the denizens of Termina in positive ways. Some of my favorites have to be both Romani and Cremia's quests. Romani is the little girl from the beginning of this review that lost her mind, which as the game unfold, I discovered this was due to her being abducted by aliens. The poor girl just wanted to save her farm and the cows they'd abduct every year.

Her older sister, Cremia, mourns for her sister's mental well-being if you neglect to save her. Saving Romani prevents Cremia from completely falling into despair, as she tries to keep a positive attitude even within the face of tragic death. She accepts her fate but wishes to keep strong for her little sister. It's genuinely touching character work and I'm in love with it. The idea of losing this side quest pumped me chalk full of anxiety. The thought of this poor, sweet, innocent little girl losing her mind because of MY inaction tore me up inside, and the notion of putting her sister through all of that only added to those feelings. Majora's Mask is way too skillful at drawing out my emotions, I swear.

One of the major side quests involves the characters Anju and Kafei. Their story plays out like a tragedy. Anju works at the Stock Pot Inn and is searching and waiting for her lost lover, Kafei, to return. Kafei hid himself away from everyone he knew, for he was cursed by Skull Kid who transformed his body into that of a child's. Kafei feels like he's unable to face Anju again due to his current form, as well as the fact that he's lost the one thing to bond them for their wedding ceremony, the Sun Mask. After jumping through the many trials and loops to obtain the mask, Kafei and Anju perform their wedding ceremony together, with only an hour on the clock counting down remaining. The two simply sit in their darkened room in the Stock Inn motionless, Anju bending down on her knees and holding Kafei in her arms like she was consoling a child. If you speak with them, they urge you to find shelter as the two of them continue to hug. I almost broke down crying.

This tone is spread all throughout Majora's Mask. The rich, deep melancholy exuded from the game fills almost the entire atmosphere. You start the game in a brooding forest, looking for your previous fairy friend Navi. You get flung off your horse and pick pocketed by Skull Kid, who orchestrated this to happen. You chase after Skull Kid and he bestows a curse onto you, transforming you into a Deku Scrub, a grimly sight. You reach the end of the cave and you're met with the fate of the body you inhabit, frozen dead in place. You later find out is the son of one of the Dekus you later come across. You eventually meet the Happy Mask Salesman, and his entire demeanor sends shivers down my spine. He barely has animations, he instead cycles to different poses in dramatic, unexpected cuts. His movememts are extremely jarring, giving off the impression that he may not even be a real person. You have trouble trusting him, but the salesman agrees to help you if you return the mask Skull Kid took from him.

Even as you set foot in Clock Town, where things are relatively at their most normal, something just always feels off. Clock Town's mostly cheery music helps to make the town feel more homely, but the town's denizens are rather strange. During the day, jugglers prance and speak in small riddles of the end times, the night comes and dancers perform ritualistic dances for at first, seemingly no reason. In the laundry pool, a man cranks his instrument and goes off on a bizarre rant about a bunch of dogs, reliving the story in his head and becoming furious at the idea as he recounts it. The Mayor's office is in discord from a town meeting, arguing if it's even okay to do a carnival, let alone stay in town if the moon is going to fall. That very moon follows you everywhere you go, looming over you with it's omnipresence. Wherever you go, death lingers in the background.

Whether it be the iconography or the music, so much of this game paints the walls of my mind. The Song of Healing's motif being one in the same with the Mask Salesman's theme paints this hauntingly beautiful track of releasing the searing pain from a soul with each variation. It plays in moments of healing, my favorite example being that of when a young girl is reunited with her father after his body had transformed and mummified into a redead. The eerie murmuring of the ambient synth mixed in with the chime of bells tolling make up the beginning of the Final Day theme. Calming synth chords roll in and establish the mood that yes, this is it, this is the end, hope itself sapping away from you as you continue to listen. Changing the tune, the almost magical feel to the Astral Observatory theme fills me with awe and makes me feel like magic is real.

The imagery to accompany these tracks like with The Giant's theme bring about such an ambience. A dense gray fog envelops the world as Link stands atop of a lone pillar. Whirlwinds litter this world of fog and storms as giant unfathomable gods opaquely seen afar call out to you in a language you cannot comprehend. The Great Sea Bay uses a synth that makes you feel uneasy to journey into the desolate sea in front of you. The Zora hall matches the relax, sublime mood of the sea side concert auditorium. A parade of colors and sea shells almost glimmering off the serene beds of water.

Areas by themselves bring about unbelievable moods. Locations like the Stone Wall Temple seem impossible and foreboding, looking as if apocalyptic sky scrapers surround the walls of this place. The snowy plains of the Goron Village capture my heart with it's pronounced love of snow levels. The Great Sea contains a section similar to Mario 64's Jolly Roger Bay eel, and it legitimately made me yelp. That same Sea contains recognizable iconography that's stuck with me, like the Lab's hook like shape and the Sea Turtle's island upon it's back. Inside the Moon, dear God, inside the moon. I've already described it, but what I left out were details like the slight delayed shimmering blur added to everything. How you start off from far away and have to run all the way up the hill. The beautiful baby blue sky above. The figments of Skull Kid wear masks of the fallen bosses, asking you to play as well as questions about what it's like to be happy and have friends. Further on, you encounter Majora. The demented forms that Majora takes during his climactic boss fight are nothing but alien abominations, each form of his shape-shifting and morphing akin to The Thing as he tries to destroy you. It's all just so visceral.

Majora's Mask feels deeply personal. Everyone I've met has described their own entangled relationship with the game. Stories and memories integrating the game and themselves together. In the best possible way, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is like a nightmare you had when you were young. You remember the feelings you had when it happened. How you felt in the moment. How you reacted when you woke up. How shook you were to your core. How you'll never forget what you saw. It's reminded you that one day, you may not wake up again. You'll be forever lost in a dream. A dream no one knows the boundaries or limits of. A dream that's eyes may truly be as black and void as you fear in the waking world.

I just hope in the dream, I'm sitting underneath a tree on top of a hill.

I was given this game as a gift, with the express purpose of playing it to laugh at it. From the word go, it's incredibly clear that this is one of those games that's clearly not for me. I'm not a furry, I'm not a member of the LGBT, I'm not into this lo-fi emotional rock music, I'm not into all the interpersonal high school girl drama. Most of my friends don't fit this category either. I think most of us expected the worse, given the reputation of this game's rocky development, and it's shadow being cast by a parody game that beat them to release. That's all I really knew going in.

What I was met with was a fine story with characters that the creators truly cared deeply for. The tiny minute intricacies that only someone deep within their own writer sauce would care about. They're not all details I particularly care about, but they help these characters feel grounded within their paleontological world. A major section of this game is the group playing a DnD game, and it really captures the feel of playing the game while encapsulating it with the themes of the Goodbye Volcano High as a whole. It's where I liked the game the most, and wished the game was just this. It was charming.

I could sit here and go into detail about the sometimes rough transitions of these animated scenes switching on the fly, the mouth flaps going out of sync, the memes that'll surely date the game in a few years, the climax of the plot feeling rather forced with my playthrough, motivations not quite lining up with all the possible choices they've laid out, etc. But doing so would be pointless. For what it is, Goodbye Volcano High is a game not for me, but I could see this impacting someone who relates to these characters much more. I can't, and I refuse, to hate the passion put into this game. Someone cared, even if I don't.

I've put off playing Pikmin for 22 years.

Timers give me anxiety. Being timed with anything just about makes my heart rate sky rocket. I've been avoiding games like Pikmin for a long time because of this. Majora's Mask, Dead Rising, I've told my friends countless times I'd get around to playing these games, only to inevitably end up feeling deterred from a sudden spike of anxiety.

It's really just all in my head. I fear the anguish caused by failing miserably and having to restart. I psych myself out and over think about how much I need to manage my time efficiently. In my head, I have to do things perfectly on my first time. Part of me knows the game is much easier to manage than I'm making it out to be. Another part of me doesn't seem to get the picture. Pikmin is likely the first game that I've ever played with a timer, and it's one of the reasons why playing these types of games affects me so much. Childhood trauma.

So, I put off Pikmin for 22 years. My GameCube copy from when I was 5 just sitting there, untouched. A reminder of past scars.

On a whim, my friend suggested I should stream it. He's been asking me to stream it for him for years now. I had tried once before in the past, but I had stopped early and feared going back. So I figured, eh, why not? I should stay true to my word.

And a funny thing happened. I made myself stop caring about the failures I'd make, or all the Pikmin I'd lose. Instead, I just went marched forward. If I messed up, I'd mess up. As I played, I became detached from my Pikmin and saw them less as cute little creatures, and more just the video game polygons they actually are. I dehumanized myself and faced the bloodshed.

As a result, hundreds upon hundreds of Pikmin died in tragic (and needlessly stupid) deaths, but here I was, finally viewing the end credits. A man turned monster, sitting upon his throne of dead (pik)men behind him. The weight of my soul is too much to bear.

... In all seriousness, it was just a really fun time. I throughly enjoyed my time with Pikmin 1.

The reality of playing Pikmin is much different from the fantasy in my head. The timer is an ever present source of pressure, yeah, but the amount of time you're given is plentiful. You're able to restart from your last save too, which saves a lot of time compared to a hard reset which took the edge off. As a kid, I had no idea what to do, where to go, and stressed out about finding the ship pieces in time. But I was a 5 year old. I was bound to be bad at a game like this.

Pikmin is a real time strategy game, and what's unique about it is that it's a character centric one. Usually in these types of games, you're controlling massive amounts of characters all at once as a sort of nebulous god. With Pikmin, you're in control of Olimar, and your army of Pikmin follow you automatically.

Pikmin break down into groups of 3: red, yellow, blue. Red are strong and fire resistant, yellow can jump high, throw bombs and carry pieces quicker, and blue can go in water. Blues end up getting the short end of the stick, but every type have their benefits in using. Much of the gameplay revolves around organizing these little dumb bastards and making the carry, kill, swarm, whatever. You also have to be their nanny and make sure they don't get lost from the group if they decide to, I don't know, go play with grass or rocks, or get stuck on a wall, or just decide that they don't really want to follow you for no reason.

The AI for these things can be a bit frustrating, (especially when they get lost the second you're about to take off for the night) but in a way, it's like they have a mind of their own. It's a good balance of just competent enough to not be completely aggravating, but aggravating enough to feel like they don't listen and are just absent minded. I could probably go without the part where Pikmin get caught on walls and having to search around the Walmart looking for my lost son. At least I have a chip in him to track where he is on a map.

Alongside being a real time strategy, Pikmin is also a bit of a puzzle game. Each ship piece requires you to put together how you're going to bring each back, using each element of the 3 types of Pikmin at your disposal. This could mean having reds carry the pieces through fire, having yellows throw bombs to take down walls or to reach high enough places to obtain a piece, blues going through water, or all of them fighting for their lives against a monster dumb enough to eat a ship part.

This game can be brutal. Enemies love eating Pikmin, and they get greedy if you're not careful. The lifecycle to this planet have Pikmin on the lower end of the foodchain, so almost everything eat them. The ones that don't have a habit of eating them end up being bullies as well,whether that be picking them up and tossing them in the ground, or just pumbling them into the ground. Some creatures even like stealing your stuff, like the breadbugs. This ecosystem is strange, and you always feel like an underdog.

Yet, despite the oppressive difficulty and ever dreaded clock, the atmosphere is serene and peaceful. The sun blooms during the day, and these grassy sandboxes paint the world to be gentle and calm outside of it's cut throat environment. Water pools and moves with as much realism as the 6th generation lunchbox can handle. Damp caves bring about a gloomy atmosphere, yet teems with light and life. Rusted cans and objects stick out of the ground, implying we're merely the size of an ant on a much larger planet. That planet might very well be our planet, morphed and mutated into something without humanity. And yet, the music remains peaceful and hopeful. There's not a lot of areas to this game, but they make the most out of them.

The ending is a short puzzle using all the Pikmin's abilities, only to then reach a giant boss who absolutely demolishes your troops. It's one of the most brutal encounters in the game, right next to the Wollywogs. Those damned jerk offs love slapping down on your Pikmin and crushing them. They don't even eat them! They just love crushing things to death! And at the end, Olimar finally gets to return home, thanking the Pikmin for their service and leaving them behind. They now can fend for themselves with their new found confidence, and with time, I bet they could become on top of the food chain.

This game has been quite a journey. Although it's short, it's definitely taught me a lot. Don't think you'll be perfect the first time you do something. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Don't overthink it and just have fun. Dehumanize yourself and face the bloodshed.

The best sales pitch for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is that it's Kodaka's version of AI: The Somnium Files, with a Danganronpa twang. If you know what either of those things are, at least. If you don't, imagine taking a mystery visual novel and inserting a 3D world to explore and investigate, not too similar to a point-and-click Adventure. Funnily enough, this is a rather apt metaphor for knowing if you'll enjoy Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: if you know what the deal with Danganronpa is, you will enjoy this game. If not, your mileage may vary.

Personally, I wholeheartly adore Kodaka's works — with his not-so-subtle writing, his strange naming conventions, his oddball dark humor — it's just a very distinct style. They can be a bit messy in certain places, enough for my friend group to have the running joke of calling him "a hack fraud", but this all comes from a place of love.

At least, for me it does.

His strengths lie with character writing and weaving a thematic thread into the core of his narratives, and those parts greatly appeal to me. It also helps that he constructs very fun murder mystery logic puzzles in-between it all.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is — you know what? Fuck it, I'm just calling it Rain Code from now on. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is too much a fucking mouthful to say.

Rain Code is incredibly enjoyable, albeit with some slight caveats. As much as I've just spent a paragraph defending Kodaka's writing, the writing within this game can vary from strangely put sentences, to straight up repeated plot points. Slight spoilers, but the entire main "final battle" is just regurgitating things we already know and have discussed the entire case. It's cool to see you throwing it all back at the villain's face, but they could have used this section to portray the struggle between these two characters and their diametrically opposed viewpoints, with gameplay sections to showcase the two sides having both strong arguments. They sort of try that in a way, but it's only really half-baked with it's approach. It's meant to be a cool finisher, but it just doesn't come off as such.

"Repeating things we already know" is a bit of hard thing to criticize in mystery solving games. Everyone will have their troubles with figuring out the mysteries involved to solve the case, it's purely dependent on the person. For me, I managed to piece together a majority of how the crimes were executed, and sometimes even who did it. This would occur halfway through the Mystery Labyrinth, if not before reaching the Mystery Labyrinth in it's entirety.

On top of this, mechanically, it never brings the most out it's main gameplay sections. The Death Battle Matches are fun, but they lack a certain oomph to make them feel impactful. I think giving them more of a challenge would solve that. Having to duck and weave through phrases thrown at you, having to jump mid-air and hit a word away would give this style of game an extra layer of depth. This could alienate your core audience of visual novel readers, but it would make this kind of gameplay much more distinct than what you would find in Danganronpa. The game also hampers it's own difficulty with the abilities you unlock all throughout the game. Very easily, you can negate many of the challenges that the game throws at you. Above all of this, you have a game with very straight forward cases, combining into a game with cases that are just much simpler than what you'd find in a Danganronpa game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, some of the cases in Danganronpa can be hair-rippingly annoying, but for this game in particular, it is simultaneously a welcomed change of pace, and a let down.

It's relative ease helps Rain Code's cases be less satisfying to solve than a Danganronpa game, but that's not the only culprit. The other mastermind behind this problem lies within the game's own structure. Because Rain Code borrows it's structure from Danganronpa, which in turn borrowed IT'S structure from Ace Attorney, narrative design problems crop up. Since a Mystery Labyrinth is a degree separated from the real world, it's much less satisfying to see the holes in logic unravel before me. Causing a culprit to squirm and shimmy as they throw their barrels of lies at me to try and save face is part of appeal for these types of games. It feels good to catch someone in a lie and absolutely blow them the fuck out. With Rain Code, it's this weird middle ground where it's an entity speaking on the behalf of the real character, but not exactly them. At times, it feels more like the game director dictating me down the right path where the story must go next, rather than a real person or character. Another design problem is that because the narrative is structured with starting you off with a heavy duty detective investigation, too many of the pieces to solve the murder end up being revealed in the beginning, letting you already know whodunnit. In Danganronpa and Ace Attorney, going into a trial after investigating meant new information could be discovered through witnesses or from an opposing side that could completely change who you suspected to have done it. While a couple of cases make use of this technique, each case made it's culprit still a little too obvious for me.

All of these criticisms I think are valid, but they're important to get out of the way. After all, I've enjoyed the game a lot. With what's here, it's a wonderful first game in what I presume will become it's own series of games. The foundation is all here to be explored and tweaked, having the potential to expand past this game and onto something even better. But what's here is still great!

As much as I've harped on the predictability of how the cases would play out, I still would guess wrong who had done it initially. There was only a single time I guessed for sure who the culprit was halfway through, but getting there meant learning how the crime was done first. The mechanics involved are basically a twist on Danganronpa's, albeit simplified and more gameified, so it's still an enjoyable formula to play. What's added to this formula are jolts of exploration through the rain soaked dystopian city of Kanai Ward. Neon lights shine across the entire roads of the city, being reflected by the constant downpour. Virtual billboards litter the city to direct the cramped denizens to their shopping desires with Amaterasu Corp. Amaterasu Corp infects every part of this city with it's corruption, and you not only get to experience it all through gameplay, but through it's many cases as well. Each case and culprit revolve around how people within this oppressive environment are effected by Amaterasu Corp's ever closing grip. The only way to save the city from it's corruption is to cut out all the mysteries and let them bleed to death. It's another one of Kodaka's games that revolve around the idea of truth, but takes it in a direction that's very much in line with detectives.

Rain Code has a rather small main cast in comparison to Danganronpa, which is a welcomed change of pace. Each character gets their own moments to shine and express themselves, coming and going with satisfying character arcs. Vivia and Chief Yakou are most likely my favorites from the main cast of Detectives, followed by Hallara and Fubuki. Vivia is just a depressing loner who wants to either die or read his books. Yet, he's also caring about the people around him, just in a more unconventional way. Chief Yakou is a little shit head who has a good heart, but keeps taking advantage of his underling. He's a coward, but his love for his crew is strong, and he'll do whatever he can to protect them.

Hallara is a cold, stern, off-putting character, but opens up as you spend more time with them. Fubuki is an absolute dumb ass who is so shelter, she can barely function, yet has the most over powered ability ever, so that she can survive.

Fubuki is also "dummy thicc". Not my words, those are Kodaka's own words.

Desuhiko is kind of the stock annoying character, where his motivations are only focused on pussy and how to get it. He grows on you, but it can be rather redundant to hear how badly he messed up on getting a woman to even look at him.

Yuma and Shinigami are definitely my favorites out of all of the characters, however. They both have a very fun banter, as well as an incredibly sweet relationship that gets developed. Shinigami being a death god means she's very familiar with death, and is rather bubbly about the idea of it. Part of it is just her nature as a god of death, part of it is her affinity to tease Yuma in order to get a reaction out of him. She isn't heartless however, which I think is important to keep her from being unlikable. She deeply cares about Yuma, and wants him to succeed, as well as depend on her from time to time. Yuma's arc throughout the game is to find his own footing as a detective, and the cost of what it means to uncover the truth. He wants to do things himself, but lacks the confidence in his own abilities that he ends up relying on others. In the end, it actually ends up benefiting him, and juxtaposes with the mastermind's motivations.

Speaking of, the antagonists in this game are surprising in how good they are. Danganronpa has always been good with having instigating antagonists that add dramatic layers to the plot, and it's no exception here. Yomi Hellsmile is demonically cold and evil, and manages to make my skin crawl with his rottenness. Him threatening to turn his own lover into a meat cube to wear around his neck for her failure to deliver on covering up a case made me HATE him. Makoto on the other hand is more insidious, where his manipulation of events is not only terrifying, but calls into question just how much influence he actually has control over. You never know what to make of him, and as events unfold, you suddenly realize that every step he's taken has been planned out from the beginning.

The messed up thing about Makoto in particular is that... his heart is in the right place. Yomi never wanted peace in their battle for power, Makoto did. But the actions Makoto takes to ensure that peace for his citizens are heinous. They make my skin crawl from how absolutely horrible they are. And yet... you can understand why he came to the conclusion he did. And in many ways, it mirrors the exact mindset that not only Yuma made in his head when he used Shinigami to kill people, but MY justifications as to why what he's doing is fine. It makes my skin absolutely recoil in on itself.

The soundtrack to Rain Code is done by Masafumi Takada, who is one of my favorite composers. Each track brings the exact mood to perfectly fit into each story beat. They have a similar motif of using "ghostly" sounding synths, (similar to Luigi's Mansion) , which was something I greatly enjoyed. In a lesser composer's hands, these tracks could have sounded insanely annoying, but the way it's composed never feels grating or repetitive. It is once again composed in a very similar Danganronpa way, but uniquely it's own thing.

It's hard to separate this game from it's Danganronpa roots, but as far as I can tell, there was never an attempt to conceal that fact. In a way, it feels like a step forward for Kodaka's forte in mystery visual novels. It's a different universe, yet it's another grand adventure, ripe with potential for more stories to be told and explored. While it doesn't quite nail everything it sets out to do, and has left me disappointed in a few ways, it does provide a great beginning for this new series. I do hope we get a continuation of it, and that they flesh out the mistakes made with this game. Just, maybe next time we can shorten the title. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, why not like, Shinigami's Big Fat Juicy Tits? Come on Kodaka, make it happen.

I really like this game, it's one of those games that does an interesting gimmick that I feel like it could be expanded on further but just never was. Flinging a bomb backwards to propel yourself forwards is just really fun, and takes a bit of a skill curve to master! Some of the later tracks can be a bit demanding and unfairly tight, but besides that, most of the tracks are fairly fun and provide a way to use the mechanics in a fun way. I like this game the same way I love Kirby Air Ride, it's such an interestingly weird game that I wish could get a sequel that expands on the mechanics even further and refine them.