Hylianhero777
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Deltarune: Chapter 2
2021
This review contains spoilers
I told myself I wouldn't write a review so this isn't one. I just found that I have way too much to talk about that I don't see many other people here talk about and I think it's just... sooo huge to think about and speculate.
I feel vindicated first of all because it cut to the chase heavily on that feeling of loneliness, isolation in a place you feel drifting on and not stuck to the ground or really, anything tangible. The dark world this time even offers a method of escapism, what with Kris's room showing a hollow reflection of that same gaudiness Asriel's side of their room had. Big Shot is the most explicitly hurtful hit to Kris but there's tons of hits to make the return to the town all the more damaging and harmful just watching more twisted ideas of characters you recognize fall into the same deterministic traps you expected in undertale while also watching what accounts for your 'family' look more fucked up and torn apart. And then the secret boss itself is a disgusting machination of Mettaton and it drives me insane how much he himself embodies the most brutal reflections of what Kris wants.
In some ways Deltarune already eclipses in its current strength alone Undertale with the introspection and hard hits of life, still hinging on the payoff ofc. But especially with the infamous 'genocide' route's ramifications, that push that while you may not have control over your life and feel a stuck cold path ahead of you, YOU CAN CONTROL THE LIVES OF OTHERS. This corrupted lashing out is given an even further metatextual lens and it just gets to such FUCKED up territory that the scariest part for me isn't whether it'll land the metatext but really... who else is going to be hurt next. These characters already feel so real to me that the idea of anyone more than the ones we have actively makes me shudder.
God i fucking love these games toby ruins me every time. I admit i was extremely anxious the night before release simply by what could be but my probably too much faith is so not misplaced. Thank you for the ride I look forward to the next one ;-;
I feel vindicated first of all because it cut to the chase heavily on that feeling of loneliness, isolation in a place you feel drifting on and not stuck to the ground or really, anything tangible. The dark world this time even offers a method of escapism, what with Kris's room showing a hollow reflection of that same gaudiness Asriel's side of their room had. Big Shot is the most explicitly hurtful hit to Kris but there's tons of hits to make the return to the town all the more damaging and harmful just watching more twisted ideas of characters you recognize fall into the same deterministic traps you expected in undertale while also watching what accounts for your 'family' look more fucked up and torn apart. And then the secret boss itself is a disgusting machination of Mettaton and it drives me insane how much he himself embodies the most brutal reflections of what Kris wants.
In some ways Deltarune already eclipses in its current strength alone Undertale with the introspection and hard hits of life, still hinging on the payoff ofc. But especially with the infamous 'genocide' route's ramifications, that push that while you may not have control over your life and feel a stuck cold path ahead of you, YOU CAN CONTROL THE LIVES OF OTHERS. This corrupted lashing out is given an even further metatextual lens and it just gets to such FUCKED up territory that the scariest part for me isn't whether it'll land the metatext but really... who else is going to be hurt next. These characters already feel so real to me that the idea of anyone more than the ones we have actively makes me shudder.
God i fucking love these games toby ruins me every time. I admit i was extremely anxious the night before release simply by what could be but my probably too much faith is so not misplaced. Thank you for the ride I look forward to the next one ;-;
Deltarune: Chapter 2
2021
This review contains spoilers
This is one chapter out of a 7 chapter game and it caused me more of an emotional response than most FULL games. The characters all seem more expressive, in the dialouge and artstyle, the new characters are great, and the new mechanics make for an even better battle system, and the old one was great as it is. and, obviously, i think the music is amazing.. All this would probably culminate in the game with a 9/10 but man.. spamton is really just amazing, his backstory, his presence before his NEO fight, all great, and the fight, my lord, probably my favorite fight in the series so far, and that includes undertale, and his theme is a banger dude. I really do believe toby fox has something special on his hands, and I hope he delivers in the future chapters.
No More Heroes III
2021
”The most detestable habit in modern cinema is the homage. I don’t want to see another goddamn homage in anybody’s movie.” - Orson Welles, speaking at the Cinémathèque Française in 1982
Meaningless referencing is a hallmark of Grasshopper Manufacture video games. In The Silver Case, Tetsugoro Kusabi says a moment in time reminds him of the Rocky movies; Stephan Charbonie name-drops the 1994 FIFA World Cup in Flower, Sun, and Rain; one of my favourite vignettes in The 25th Ward essentially boils down to two detectives being jacked to the tits about going to Starbucks for a caramel macchiato.
I didn’t bother fact-checking the references above for correctness - is that what those references were again? Is that what they actually referred to? I don’t remember. It was something like that, but I’m not sure - I doubt you knew if my references to these references were right, either. You just know that Suda 51 and his staff love to acknowledge things that they like inside things that they’ve created, right? That jarring feeling of hearing a sci-fi psycho killer monologue about the dollar menu at McDonalds, or watching the lyrics from your favourite moody new-wave hit crawl across the LEVEL COMPLETE screen. There’s something special about seeing and hearing a virtual world acknowledge another (real or fictional) world in material terms that we can recognise and appreciate.
References are, of course, an oft-maligned artistic technique - Orson Welles infamously condemned any artist who leaned on referential crutches. Ironically and hypocritically, the Welles filmography is stuffed with creations that he used as vessels of reference to other works of art. F for Fake - one of his best - is not much more than a series of homages to performances and works of art - both real and imagined - that Welles admired. Transformers: The Movie, his final performance, is nothing more than one big reference to a line of plastic Hasbro toys. Despite his trademark bullish blustering, even one of the all-time greats couldn’t avoid contradicting himself on the matter of referencing. Reference is an inevitable part of self-expression that even some of the best directors of adverts for frozen peas simply cannot avoid.
Cantankerous contradictions aside, I imagine most of us feel similarly to Welles about references. As the always-rolling stone of pop culture gathers more and more digital detritus, films, television shows and video games gain an ever-increasing pool of other people’s popular history to lean on - we’ve all no doubt rolled our eyes at a shameless Star Wars parody or Skyrim knee joke a few hundred times in our lives. Captain America’s infamous “I got that reference” line from Avengers has itself become a reference. 2020s culture has essentially become a referential ouroboros, with creators cyclically patting each other on the back with cameos, shoutouts and in-game tshirts.
Filling your own work with someone else’s work is often just a tedious exercise that outwardly effuses appreciation for another artist, but really just serves as a way for you to self-congratulate and show people what you and they already know. Despite the fact that all these shoutouts are essentially made unto a cultural void, there are still some references being made today that can become special to you or me. After all, we still hold some level of care for the pieces that make up each other's identities.
Since playing Travis Strikes Again earlier this year, I’ve not been able to shake the memory of a moment that held an eerie serendipity for me. It happened during one of the game’s visual novel detours - in pursuit of a Death Ball, Travis is sent to a festival in Split, Croatia. Whoa! In 2019, the year TSA launched, I went to a festival in Split, Croatia! And then, not long after that, Travis talks about how his handler/girlfriend/wife is really into SUP (stand up paddleboard) yoga right now - my handler/girlfriend/wife is really into SUP (stand up paddleboard) yoga right now! What are the chances, eh?! Travis is just like me! Are we on the same journey? If we read Travis as an extension of Suda 51, is Mr. Goichi Suda himself on that journey with me, too?
Such is the power of a meaningless reference. Two throwaway lines with no broader meaning or significance can suddenly bring a viewer/consumer deeper into an artist/character’s world by giving them something in common - but only for the people who rolled the same numbers on the die of life and culture that the creator did. A true artist, Orson would likely argue, could create meaning through depiction of a universal human experience - one that doesn’t rely on creator and observer both owning the same DVDs or liking the same sports team.
I don’t think I’m alone in seeing superficial-referential similarities between myself and Travis Touchdown. In the wake of No More Heroes 3’s launch, I read a tweet about the game that was making the rounds on KamuiNet - not only did it praise the game for allowing Travis, Shinobu and Bad Girl to age in line with the real-life release dates of the No More Heroes video games, it also suggested that it was refreshing to see a creation where older characters can let their geek-freak flags fly. It’s cool that a 40 year old man can like Chr’s Cunterttack; it’s cool to drink beers on your couch and watch moe anime; it’s cool to be a fully grown adult and still swing a toy lightsaber around; uhhh… and more of that sort of thing (I wager the tweeter would love Kevin Smith’s Clerks 2). I’d reference the tweet, but I don’t know where it is now - hopefully this allusion is enough to keep you in the loop, even if I have likely muddied the specifics once again.
So - was that tweet made with tongue planted firmly in cheek? It’s hard to say. You’d assume a fan of No More Heroes would think twice before praising a game for permitting revelry in stunted consumerism, but hey - I know of people who own replicas of Travis Touchdown’s jacket. Suda himself retweeted a dude who has the beam katana tattooed all the way down his calf. Some people love these games without thinking too hard about all of it. And that’s fine! Whether the tweet was intentionally ironic or not, though, I still think it’s a worthy observation that drives its Akira motorcycle (omg it does The Slide!! sick reference!!!) quite close to what No More Heroes 3 is hopefully trying to truthfully achieve in its own scrappy texture-popping, frame-hitching, wall-clipping little way.
I won’t waste too much time recapping how we got to No More Heroes 3 (you’re on Backloggd, after all, and can read excellent Top Reviews for each game in the series) but it’s worth considering what each NMH game was really about. The original game in particular, as it’s NMH3’s closest relative - No More Heroes 3 is to No More Heroes 1 as The Force Awakens was to A New Hope, to make another meaningless reference. A reboot and retread of well-worn ground that revels in all the superficial signifiers we’ve come to expect from each series. Revived from the dead with an injection of Disney/Marvelous cash and creatively controlled for a whole new generation. With each re-awakening, the main characters are now older and not necessarily any wiser, reliving glory days by referencing all that Good Shit you loved so much countless decades ago. Hey… They even both have blue lightsabers! What a reference!
Surface-level symbology and parallels aside, probably the most important thing to keep in mind about No More Heroes 1 while playing No More Heroes 3 is its pop-punk meditation on consumer identity and how it was essentially used to trap Travis in someone else’s violent cycle of gig economics (again: read those Top Reviews!). It doesn’t even matter if he’s aware of the grind he’s trapped in and why it sucks - you and Travis still have to participate in your literal or figurative lawn-mowing in order to afford your new video game t-shirts. And this was before the inescapable collective consciousness of the 2.0 and 3.0 Internets forced us all to look at and buy the same things all the time. Ultimately, the only way Travis could escape his perpetual consumer torment was to go live in the woods and play someone else’s video game (fuck!!! a reference!!) all day instead. And even then, the past he wasn’t able to kill (in the form of a reference to a prior NMH game) still found him and brought him back to the modern metropolis.
When looked at through a lens crafted in the present day, the original No More Heroes couldn't have dropped at a better time. It released the same year as the first iPhone and the '07 Global Financial Crash, and just a few months later, Iron Man hit cinemas. Can you think of three bigger social and cultural touchstones for the 2010/20s era? NMH was the final checkpoint before the end of nerd culture's Bronze Age and the beginning of its Iron (Man) Age. Not a smartphone in sight. Just NEETs living in the moe-ment.
It may just be me attributing my own meaning to a personal period of time, of course - I played the first game as an unemployed 18 year old dweeb hiding out in his parents' back room, and I'm now a 31 year old dweeb with a mortgage and a (furry) child - but it does feel like there's been a momentous paradigm shift in The Culture since 2007. When I went to university, my peers at the pub would turn up their noses when I talked about comics, video games and anime - they were fringe, outsider topics that swam in channels separate from the mainstream. Nowadays, everyone I know knows their Monkey Balls from their Dragon Balls. My own grandmother congratulated me for putting out a Doom wad, for fuck's sake! Make a Super Mario reference in 2021, and the chances are high that your own mother would probably know what you're talking about. Whether they like it or not, everyone is at least partially immersed in this grand nouveau-nerd culture that capital has kindly crafted for us to consume. It's no coincidence that Damon Riccitiello, landlord maximus and CEO of Not-EA Games, is Earth's ambassador for an extraterrestrial apocalypse.
And that is the main thrust of what I think No More Heroes 3 is trying to drive itself toward. Despite the introspective events of Travis Strikes Again, Travis Touchdown returns to his mainline series in a relatively unscathed blaze of geeky glory. Like that tweeter I referenced earlier said, the 40 year old Travis is now definitively a child walking in the realm of adults. He even has 2.5 children and a wife - the all-time classic societal markers of adulthood - but still somehow lives alone with his punk IPAs and wrestling figures, decorating his motel room with anime witch girl posters and collecting trading cards for an 80s video game that he watches obsessively on YouTube. Not exactly society's Dad of the Year material. Is that his fault, though? And is that necessarily a bad thing? I feel like NMH3 is trying to explore these questions without being particularly confrontational or condemnational about them. Grasshopper are holding up a mirror in your peripheral vision while you play their latest game; they're showing you their painting of that guy at your job who wears his Joker t-shirt three times a week and takes his kids to Disneyland so that he and his wife can go see the Millennium Falcon. Is Travis that guy?
Travis is probably the most frequently and meticulously discussed video game character on Backloggd. If ever there was a meme to sum up the whole site, it would likely be that "OMG! THATS ME!" guy, looking at a picture of Travis Touchdown (alongside his close friends Tokio and Sumio). The type of person who likes Suda 51 games and posts on Backloggd is unlikely to clap when Captain America references Fortnite in a Marvel movie, though. They’re probably not going to laugh when Elon Musk acknowledges Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in an episode of Rick and Morty. A Neon Genesis Evangelion reference in YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG is not gonna delight them. But they’ll still play these games, watch these movies, see these shows, and then seek out a social blogging website where they can share their disdain for said references and assign an appropriate star rating - as if that absolves them of their participation in said culture. What video game t-shirt did you wear in Travis Strikes Again, by the way? And how thick is that line of the web that separates you from that guy in the Joker t-shirt? How deep does your appreciation of the culture you appreciate really go? Could you pronounce "itadakimasu" (love the lyrics on that song!) any better than Travis does, despite playing all those Japanese video games of yours?
I say we're all "participating" in this international smorgasbord of culture-lite, but I think none of us are really all that free to choose how we interact with these things or allow ourselves to be molded by them, short of renting a trailer in the forest. Our friends chat about it, our mutuals snark about it, our coworkers use it for small talk. I didn't watch Loki, but it came up a lot in my daily team meetings. I know what happened in the show, even though I didn't want to think about it. I've played Call of Duty: Warzone with my buds, despite the fact I regularly condemn the Activision war machine. You gotta do what you gotta do. I saw Spider-Man: Far From Home because it's what my friends wanted to do one day. It wasn't a big deal. It's all a common ground we can embrace each other upon. In No More Heroes 3, one of the only ways Travis can relate to a bereaved Bad Girl is by barging into her bedroom and telling her to watch F-te/St-y N-ght or whatever that was. Meaningless references emit powerful psychoframes that connect us.
Meaningless referencing is a hallmark of Grasshopper Manufacture video games, and No More Heroes 3 is the platinum-stamped standard-bearer of that hallmark. You could even argue the gameplay itself (which I didn't even talk about here, lol) is just a series of references - you boot up your beam katana to the classic NMH beat, pull off various suplexes from the annals of NJPW and WWE history, drive the Akira bike down the highway, fly around in a knock-off Full Armor Unicorn Gundam, and mow lawns because you mowed lawns in the original No More Heroes. There's very little here that's of original invention, and Orson Welles, were he alive today and gaming his big ass off, would fucking hate that. It's all goddamn homage, all the goddamn time, you goddamn fuckhead. But in some weird way, there's an artistic bravery in building a game that's entirely about other people's work and how that makes you feel. If you can have a podcast about Takashi Miike, why can't you have a video game about Takashi Miike?
No More Heroes asked the player two questions - “Is this you?” and “Does it feel good?”
No More Heroes 3 tells the player two things - “This is you!” and “Man, does it feel good!”
Those two new statements might not end with question marks, but I think they're intended to provoke you. Whether you like it or not, this is the way that it is.
Can you do anything about it?
Can Travis (that's me!) really change the future?
Is this really the end of history?
Is this really the end?
No more heroes.
Meaningless referencing is a hallmark of Grasshopper Manufacture video games. In The Silver Case, Tetsugoro Kusabi says a moment in time reminds him of the Rocky movies; Stephan Charbonie name-drops the 1994 FIFA World Cup in Flower, Sun, and Rain; one of my favourite vignettes in The 25th Ward essentially boils down to two detectives being jacked to the tits about going to Starbucks for a caramel macchiato.
I didn’t bother fact-checking the references above for correctness - is that what those references were again? Is that what they actually referred to? I don’t remember. It was something like that, but I’m not sure - I doubt you knew if my references to these references were right, either. You just know that Suda 51 and his staff love to acknowledge things that they like inside things that they’ve created, right? That jarring feeling of hearing a sci-fi psycho killer monologue about the dollar menu at McDonalds, or watching the lyrics from your favourite moody new-wave hit crawl across the LEVEL COMPLETE screen. There’s something special about seeing and hearing a virtual world acknowledge another (real or fictional) world in material terms that we can recognise and appreciate.
References are, of course, an oft-maligned artistic technique - Orson Welles infamously condemned any artist who leaned on referential crutches. Ironically and hypocritically, the Welles filmography is stuffed with creations that he used as vessels of reference to other works of art. F for Fake - one of his best - is not much more than a series of homages to performances and works of art - both real and imagined - that Welles admired. Transformers: The Movie, his final performance, is nothing more than one big reference to a line of plastic Hasbro toys. Despite his trademark bullish blustering, even one of the all-time greats couldn’t avoid contradicting himself on the matter of referencing. Reference is an inevitable part of self-expression that even some of the best directors of adverts for frozen peas simply cannot avoid.
Cantankerous contradictions aside, I imagine most of us feel similarly to Welles about references. As the always-rolling stone of pop culture gathers more and more digital detritus, films, television shows and video games gain an ever-increasing pool of other people’s popular history to lean on - we’ve all no doubt rolled our eyes at a shameless Star Wars parody or Skyrim knee joke a few hundred times in our lives. Captain America’s infamous “I got that reference” line from Avengers has itself become a reference. 2020s culture has essentially become a referential ouroboros, with creators cyclically patting each other on the back with cameos, shoutouts and in-game tshirts.
Filling your own work with someone else’s work is often just a tedious exercise that outwardly effuses appreciation for another artist, but really just serves as a way for you to self-congratulate and show people what you and they already know. Despite the fact that all these shoutouts are essentially made unto a cultural void, there are still some references being made today that can become special to you or me. After all, we still hold some level of care for the pieces that make up each other's identities.
Since playing Travis Strikes Again earlier this year, I’ve not been able to shake the memory of a moment that held an eerie serendipity for me. It happened during one of the game’s visual novel detours - in pursuit of a Death Ball, Travis is sent to a festival in Split, Croatia. Whoa! In 2019, the year TSA launched, I went to a festival in Split, Croatia! And then, not long after that, Travis talks about how his handler/girlfriend/wife is really into SUP (stand up paddleboard) yoga right now - my handler/girlfriend/wife is really into SUP (stand up paddleboard) yoga right now! What are the chances, eh?! Travis is just like me! Are we on the same journey? If we read Travis as an extension of Suda 51, is Mr. Goichi Suda himself on that journey with me, too?
Such is the power of a meaningless reference. Two throwaway lines with no broader meaning or significance can suddenly bring a viewer/consumer deeper into an artist/character’s world by giving them something in common - but only for the people who rolled the same numbers on the die of life and culture that the creator did. A true artist, Orson would likely argue, could create meaning through depiction of a universal human experience - one that doesn’t rely on creator and observer both owning the same DVDs or liking the same sports team.
I don’t think I’m alone in seeing superficial-referential similarities between myself and Travis Touchdown. In the wake of No More Heroes 3’s launch, I read a tweet about the game that was making the rounds on KamuiNet - not only did it praise the game for allowing Travis, Shinobu and Bad Girl to age in line with the real-life release dates of the No More Heroes video games, it also suggested that it was refreshing to see a creation where older characters can let their geek-freak flags fly. It’s cool that a 40 year old man can like Chr’s Cunterttack; it’s cool to drink beers on your couch and watch moe anime; it’s cool to be a fully grown adult and still swing a toy lightsaber around; uhhh… and more of that sort of thing (I wager the tweeter would love Kevin Smith’s Clerks 2). I’d reference the tweet, but I don’t know where it is now - hopefully this allusion is enough to keep you in the loop, even if I have likely muddied the specifics once again.
So - was that tweet made with tongue planted firmly in cheek? It’s hard to say. You’d assume a fan of No More Heroes would think twice before praising a game for permitting revelry in stunted consumerism, but hey - I know of people who own replicas of Travis Touchdown’s jacket. Suda himself retweeted a dude who has the beam katana tattooed all the way down his calf. Some people love these games without thinking too hard about all of it. And that’s fine! Whether the tweet was intentionally ironic or not, though, I still think it’s a worthy observation that drives its Akira motorcycle (omg it does The Slide!! sick reference!!!) quite close to what No More Heroes 3 is hopefully trying to truthfully achieve in its own scrappy texture-popping, frame-hitching, wall-clipping little way.
I won’t waste too much time recapping how we got to No More Heroes 3 (you’re on Backloggd, after all, and can read excellent Top Reviews for each game in the series) but it’s worth considering what each NMH game was really about. The original game in particular, as it’s NMH3’s closest relative - No More Heroes 3 is to No More Heroes 1 as The Force Awakens was to A New Hope, to make another meaningless reference. A reboot and retread of well-worn ground that revels in all the superficial signifiers we’ve come to expect from each series. Revived from the dead with an injection of Disney/Marvelous cash and creatively controlled for a whole new generation. With each re-awakening, the main characters are now older and not necessarily any wiser, reliving glory days by referencing all that Good Shit you loved so much countless decades ago. Hey… They even both have blue lightsabers! What a reference!
Surface-level symbology and parallels aside, probably the most important thing to keep in mind about No More Heroes 1 while playing No More Heroes 3 is its pop-punk meditation on consumer identity and how it was essentially used to trap Travis in someone else’s violent cycle of gig economics (again: read those Top Reviews!). It doesn’t even matter if he’s aware of the grind he’s trapped in and why it sucks - you and Travis still have to participate in your literal or figurative lawn-mowing in order to afford your new video game t-shirts. And this was before the inescapable collective consciousness of the 2.0 and 3.0 Internets forced us all to look at and buy the same things all the time. Ultimately, the only way Travis could escape his perpetual consumer torment was to go live in the woods and play someone else’s video game (fuck!!! a reference!!) all day instead. And even then, the past he wasn’t able to kill (in the form of a reference to a prior NMH game) still found him and brought him back to the modern metropolis.
When looked at through a lens crafted in the present day, the original No More Heroes couldn't have dropped at a better time. It released the same year as the first iPhone and the '07 Global Financial Crash, and just a few months later, Iron Man hit cinemas. Can you think of three bigger social and cultural touchstones for the 2010/20s era? NMH was the final checkpoint before the end of nerd culture's Bronze Age and the beginning of its Iron (Man) Age. Not a smartphone in sight. Just NEETs living in the moe-ment.
It may just be me attributing my own meaning to a personal period of time, of course - I played the first game as an unemployed 18 year old dweeb hiding out in his parents' back room, and I'm now a 31 year old dweeb with a mortgage and a (furry) child - but it does feel like there's been a momentous paradigm shift in The Culture since 2007. When I went to university, my peers at the pub would turn up their noses when I talked about comics, video games and anime - they were fringe, outsider topics that swam in channels separate from the mainstream. Nowadays, everyone I know knows their Monkey Balls from their Dragon Balls. My own grandmother congratulated me for putting out a Doom wad, for fuck's sake! Make a Super Mario reference in 2021, and the chances are high that your own mother would probably know what you're talking about. Whether they like it or not, everyone is at least partially immersed in this grand nouveau-nerd culture that capital has kindly crafted for us to consume. It's no coincidence that Damon Riccitiello, landlord maximus and CEO of Not-EA Games, is Earth's ambassador for an extraterrestrial apocalypse.
And that is the main thrust of what I think No More Heroes 3 is trying to drive itself toward. Despite the introspective events of Travis Strikes Again, Travis Touchdown returns to his mainline series in a relatively unscathed blaze of geeky glory. Like that tweeter I referenced earlier said, the 40 year old Travis is now definitively a child walking in the realm of adults. He even has 2.5 children and a wife - the all-time classic societal markers of adulthood - but still somehow lives alone with his punk IPAs and wrestling figures, decorating his motel room with anime witch girl posters and collecting trading cards for an 80s video game that he watches obsessively on YouTube. Not exactly society's Dad of the Year material. Is that his fault, though? And is that necessarily a bad thing? I feel like NMH3 is trying to explore these questions without being particularly confrontational or condemnational about them. Grasshopper are holding up a mirror in your peripheral vision while you play their latest game; they're showing you their painting of that guy at your job who wears his Joker t-shirt three times a week and takes his kids to Disneyland so that he and his wife can go see the Millennium Falcon. Is Travis that guy?
Travis is probably the most frequently and meticulously discussed video game character on Backloggd. If ever there was a meme to sum up the whole site, it would likely be that "OMG! THATS ME!" guy, looking at a picture of Travis Touchdown (alongside his close friends Tokio and Sumio). The type of person who likes Suda 51 games and posts on Backloggd is unlikely to clap when Captain America references Fortnite in a Marvel movie, though. They’re probably not going to laugh when Elon Musk acknowledges Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in an episode of Rick and Morty. A Neon Genesis Evangelion reference in YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG is not gonna delight them. But they’ll still play these games, watch these movies, see these shows, and then seek out a social blogging website where they can share their disdain for said references and assign an appropriate star rating - as if that absolves them of their participation in said culture. What video game t-shirt did you wear in Travis Strikes Again, by the way? And how thick is that line of the web that separates you from that guy in the Joker t-shirt? How deep does your appreciation of the culture you appreciate really go? Could you pronounce "itadakimasu" (love the lyrics on that song!) any better than Travis does, despite playing all those Japanese video games of yours?
I say we're all "participating" in this international smorgasbord of culture-lite, but I think none of us are really all that free to choose how we interact with these things or allow ourselves to be molded by them, short of renting a trailer in the forest. Our friends chat about it, our mutuals snark about it, our coworkers use it for small talk. I didn't watch Loki, but it came up a lot in my daily team meetings. I know what happened in the show, even though I didn't want to think about it. I've played Call of Duty: Warzone with my buds, despite the fact I regularly condemn the Activision war machine. You gotta do what you gotta do. I saw Spider-Man: Far From Home because it's what my friends wanted to do one day. It wasn't a big deal. It's all a common ground we can embrace each other upon. In No More Heroes 3, one of the only ways Travis can relate to a bereaved Bad Girl is by barging into her bedroom and telling her to watch F-te/St-y N-ght or whatever that was. Meaningless references emit powerful psychoframes that connect us.
Meaningless referencing is a hallmark of Grasshopper Manufacture video games, and No More Heroes 3 is the platinum-stamped standard-bearer of that hallmark. You could even argue the gameplay itself (which I didn't even talk about here, lol) is just a series of references - you boot up your beam katana to the classic NMH beat, pull off various suplexes from the annals of NJPW and WWE history, drive the Akira bike down the highway, fly around in a knock-off Full Armor Unicorn Gundam, and mow lawns because you mowed lawns in the original No More Heroes. There's very little here that's of original invention, and Orson Welles, were he alive today and gaming his big ass off, would fucking hate that. It's all goddamn homage, all the goddamn time, you goddamn fuckhead. But in some weird way, there's an artistic bravery in building a game that's entirely about other people's work and how that makes you feel. If you can have a podcast about Takashi Miike, why can't you have a video game about Takashi Miike?
No More Heroes asked the player two questions - “Is this you?” and “Does it feel good?”
No More Heroes 3 tells the player two things - “This is you!” and “Man, does it feel good!”
Those two new statements might not end with question marks, but I think they're intended to provoke you. Whether you like it or not, this is the way that it is.
Can you do anything about it?
Can Travis (that's me!) really change the future?
Is this really the end of history?
Is this really the end?
No more heroes.
Deltarune: Chapter 2
2021
This review contains spoilers
I’m so unbelievably happy right now. Toby’s ability to completely unify people and communities with his works has become so commendable and frankly rather frightening to be honest. He did it once before with the surprise release of Deltarune’s first chapter almost three years ago, and he’s done it once more with the shadowdrop of the second chapter in the Undertale 6th anniversary stream. I can’t express how grateful I am that the old age of disliking a work of art simply due to its popularity has finally gone behind us. After that immensely frustrating hate bandwagon Undertale suffered from that I was unfortunate enough to witness in person was seemingly demolished after Deltarune chapter 1 was released, I’m glad I can finally be back to expressing my love for games no matter how popular. I was honestly quite surprised when Toby actually decided to go through with the episodic release of the newest chapter in the story of Deltarune, and it’s definitely one I’m ready to express for.
First off, we might now just have an idea of what a behemoth of a game we may have on our hands now. Upon startup now you can see that we’re currently only two chapters into a seven chapter story. Just what kind of ride does Toby have planned for us?! With everything that chapters 1 and 2 had to offer, the idea of five more chapters coming off of all this seems incredibly daunting. It no doubt must be daunting for Toby as well, with how he’s stated before how badly he’s eager to show everything he has planned. Plus the wait between this new chapter and the first was almost like, what, three years? I’m rather concerned with how much Toby is setting up. Has he made progress on the other chapters alongside the full completion of chapter 2 or is this all that’s finished at the moment? Clearly he’s taking his time with this gargantuan project but I really hope he gets some form of extra resources to help him out. Hell, I’d help fund a Kickstarter for this game just so he can get what he’d need. But I digress, I’m just worried for him and his project as a whole as of now.
Anyways, chapter 2 starts off much more abruptly than chapter 1 did, fitting with everything already set up so far and with characters like Susie who are desperately eager to cut to the chase after whatever the hell they had just witnessed yesterday. You’re soon introduced to your own dark world town, located conveniently in the school’s back closet. Here is where you’ll likely take notice towards how the morality formula is going to make a difference in the game. Through sparing enemies you’ll end up recruiting them to your own town and grow its populace and locales. Perhaps this is a way to make the whole morality system work within the lack of control narrative being set up in Deltarune, or maybe it’s another setup of sorts? Who knows. What I take a lot of interest in is how you’re also shown how the state of the outside world does in fact affect what goes on in each of the dark worlds, like how all of their environments are presented, what represents all of the Darkners in each world, details like those. For example, think about the room next to the school’s back closet. Thinking about how you were released from it when you vanquished the fountain, what all of the clutter was in that room, just that room being next to the closet in general, and with extra details shown later you can piece together how that room was where the whole kingdom of cards took place.
With not much to show off in your little castle town aside from a few oh-so kindly built rooms (susie really thinks she got the cool room when lancer’s is right next to her’s lmao), your journey in the dark world for today comes to an abrupt stop as it seems. Well until that detail about dark worlds being formed from real world locations comes into play as the library’s computer lab has become a dark world as well somehow. This is where we’re introduced to the real main event of chapter 2, the Cyber World.
My, oh my, what do I say about the Cyber World? Coming off of the mysterious Kingdom of Cards, the Cyber World sure does feel like a tonal shift. It’s vibrant, wondrous, whimsical, and a sheer spectacle to behold. All of these traits of the Cyber World in general could possibly also describe how chapter 2 feels as a whole, aiming for a much more adventurous vibe than the first. This can come at the cost of feeling less emotional than the first chapter did overall, but what chapter 2 wants to do instead is give more depth to the characters that are alongside you. We’ve already gone through Susie’s arc on growing as a person, so why don’t we let these character’s newfound bonds show themselves off in a brand new adventure? That’s not to say there isn’t some newfound character growth to be had here, as Noelle and Berdly are also introduced into the equation in this chapter. Noelle was clearly going to have some involvement in this chapter but Berdly was one I was surprised on. Noelle appears as an occasional temporary new party member and Berdly as a fittingly annoying foil, with both being strung along by our robotic overlord of the new dark world, Queen. Queen in general is likely where a lot of the tonal dissonance from chapter 1 and chapter 2 is visible, as she feels like a much more comedic and aimless villain than the likes of the King of Spades. Granted the King of Spades is never really present until the end of chapter 1 and you have his comedic buffoon son, Lancer, teasing you throughout the majority of chapter 1, but the King of Spade’s cruel influence on his dark world was still very present. Queen’s influence on her dark world is much more lighthearted in comparison. Plus her overall demeanor is in a much more entertaining fashion, comparable to that of Lancer actually, and her constant intrusions on your journey simply set out to provide more whimsical interactions with you and your whole gang. Speaking of your whole gang, with how Noelle is confirmed to be a new member in your group, and there’s still some major hints of Berdly becoming a new party member as well (oh dear god), I’m starting to wonder how all of your many new friends you have on your side are going to be handled. Are they simply going to switch in and out contextually like they did with Noelle in this chapter, or are they eventually going to be one big squad that you can swap out freely Chrono Trigger style? Only time may tell for this, I guess. Just one more thing to be anticipating for the coming chapters!
Even still, chapter 2 retains just exactly what I love Toby’s works for, just in an insanely wondrous form that I still greatly appreciate. Those quirky unique encounters like the Sweet Cap’n Cakes crew, big shot Spamton, Rouxls Kaard’s vengeance, and Berdly’s many attempts to come off as superior. I can’t forget about those endearing situations the gang goes through on their journey, my favorite being that one really cool Punch-Out tribute you group all of the main three together to absolutely stomp Queen at. Plus one really cool thing chapter 2 does is that it decides to continue the whole secret superboss trend set by the likes of Jevil. Like Jevil, it’s a bit cryptic to find out how to encounter them but this is gonna be the one thing I don’t want to go into detail here as what that battle does to the gameplay is so fucking cool and honestly makes it a more enjoyable battle than Jevil for me so I just really want people to find out what it is for themselves.
But still, I have quite a lot of things on my mind after this. It’s rather hard not to have questions on what’s going on due to the whole episodic release plan. The epilogue of chapter 2 still retains a bit of it’s lightheartedness but gives off many more questions and much more anticipation for the future. Thankfully Rudy is still alive in this chapter, some people had speculation here would be when he would flatline but that wasn’t the case. But one thing that unfortunately didn’t come to fruition is MY DAMN TIME WITH PAPYRUS. Come ON Sans, what do you mean it can’t be today????? Guess I gotta anticipate meeting Papyrus in chapter 3 then. (ignore my score, it’s actually a 0.5 because of this >:[ ) And that ending, wow that sure gave off the most questions, but some answers as well ironically enough. Kris has to be up to something, as they keep casting away their soul in certain moments, only to take it back again. It can’t be some sort of influence from someone like Chara, why would they take the soul back? Maybe they cast it away to make sure you can’t control them when they’re trying to do something dubious. And that very end, with Susie sleeping over at your house, and Toriel concerned about ominous things happening around her, all topped off with Kris literally creating a fountain in their own living room. Is Kris the Knight that has been mentioned so often? Are they the one who created all of the fountains? Why are they creating the fountains in that case? I read a theory that Kris might be doing something like this to make things interesting for them. I could presume it could be something along the lines of that, but what if there actually is some ulterior evil play at play here? Only time can tell. I can only anticipate what the later chapters are going to bring us, and what sort of dark world will be made out of our own home. I’ll be ready for it anytime.
Also, since I’m on the topic of the ending, I just can’t hold this back anymore. I just HAVE to gush about how that ending of this chapter went down. The whole climactic battle with Queen was pretty cool but it was probably intentionally made to come off in a similar format to how the final showdown with the King of Spades went down, just so the bait and switch with the REAL final battle of the chapter can come in and slam as hard as it did. Queen suddenly comes in piloting this absolutely massive robot, and once Kris, Susie, and Ralsei came together to form that dumb arcade playing position again right in front of it, I was so fucking ready for what I thought was about to happen. THEN IT ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENED AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT. One big friend reunion and fittingly corny fusion transformation sequence later and the game takes that one cute little Punch-Out homage from earlier and TURNS IT INTO A FULLY FLEDGED BADASS GIANT MECHA BOXING MATCH FINAL BOSS! Just, in that entire buildup to that moment and during the entire duration of that fight I just had the biggest dumb grin on my face as I relentlessly brought the beatdown in this absolute spectacle of a moment. I just couldn’t believe that Toby actually fucking did that, and it how much it fucking RULED!
So, after how much I’ve gone on about how much joy I felt and how purely I was enamored by the sheer scale of chapter 2, why did I only give it 4 stars? Well, it’s mainly with some concerns on this chapter’s tone as a whole and with the overall format on how this game is presented. I mentioned earlier on how in comparison to chapter 1, chapter 2 feels notably less emotional and more lighthearted. Sure, there are still quite a bunch of neat character interactions and new depth given mainly towards Noelle and Berdly, but it’s less tonally impactful than everything that was going on with Susie in chapter 1. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, as I feel this means that whatever impactful narrative is likely being saved for what the later chapters have in store for us eventually. But the whole primary focus on a more whimsy and surreal adventure of great proportions and spectacle with the extra character fleshing-out as a treat makes chapter 2 feel like some form of elaborate buildup for what’s to come later on down the road.
Plus, I also feel that chapter 2 has one major issue as a whole, and I feel chapter 1 has this same issue as well. Well actually, to be honest, calling it this “major issue” is probably being way too harsh on it, as it’s pretty much the same issue I would have with something like standalone Sonic the Hedgehog 3. That issue is basically spelt out to you in the title: it’s only chapter two. Most of the reasons why I have so many questions and so many theories and all this built up anticipation as a whole after this experience is primarily due to it being an unfinished story as of now. With how the episodic format of Deltarune has been planned out to be released in, each chapter now has sort-of been treated as their own standalone release, which is a bit fair as both chapters 1 and 2 have been exceptionally lengthy and in depth with everything going on in them and together can even feel like a bigger experience than Undertale alone was. However I still feel it may be a bit unfair to judge them as fully fledged releases like this as in the grand scheme of Deltarune as a whole, to me rating each of these chapters individually would be akin to maybe rating a singular chapter in a Paper Mario game or a singular case in an Ace Attorney game to give some examples. It’s the primary reason why I wished that Deltarune wouldn’t be released in parts like this and just be one gigantic experience let loose once it was finally finished, but oh well, I wouldn’t want to complain about getting pieces of this early.
Regardless, Deltarune’s second chapter more than definitely lived up to what I had hoped for. All that I dislike about it is essentially just that I want more of it even! Toby’s been extremely generous to give us this extra taste of art for free, and god do I admire him for doing that. I’d be more than willing to pay for the rest to continue this story. I’ll certainly be prepared for what Toby has to throw at us next.
Also that one segment with Noelle monologuing to you actually softlocked me at the end of it for some reason. Gay baby jail transcends beyond all forms of medium and will never hold any mercy for you.
First off, we might now just have an idea of what a behemoth of a game we may have on our hands now. Upon startup now you can see that we’re currently only two chapters into a seven chapter story. Just what kind of ride does Toby have planned for us?! With everything that chapters 1 and 2 had to offer, the idea of five more chapters coming off of all this seems incredibly daunting. It no doubt must be daunting for Toby as well, with how he’s stated before how badly he’s eager to show everything he has planned. Plus the wait between this new chapter and the first was almost like, what, three years? I’m rather concerned with how much Toby is setting up. Has he made progress on the other chapters alongside the full completion of chapter 2 or is this all that’s finished at the moment? Clearly he’s taking his time with this gargantuan project but I really hope he gets some form of extra resources to help him out. Hell, I’d help fund a Kickstarter for this game just so he can get what he’d need. But I digress, I’m just worried for him and his project as a whole as of now.
Anyways, chapter 2 starts off much more abruptly than chapter 1 did, fitting with everything already set up so far and with characters like Susie who are desperately eager to cut to the chase after whatever the hell they had just witnessed yesterday. You’re soon introduced to your own dark world town, located conveniently in the school’s back closet. Here is where you’ll likely take notice towards how the morality formula is going to make a difference in the game. Through sparing enemies you’ll end up recruiting them to your own town and grow its populace and locales. Perhaps this is a way to make the whole morality system work within the lack of control narrative being set up in Deltarune, or maybe it’s another setup of sorts? Who knows. What I take a lot of interest in is how you’re also shown how the state of the outside world does in fact affect what goes on in each of the dark worlds, like how all of their environments are presented, what represents all of the Darkners in each world, details like those. For example, think about the room next to the school’s back closet. Thinking about how you were released from it when you vanquished the fountain, what all of the clutter was in that room, just that room being next to the closet in general, and with extra details shown later you can piece together how that room was where the whole kingdom of cards took place.
With not much to show off in your little castle town aside from a few oh-so kindly built rooms (susie really thinks she got the cool room when lancer’s is right next to her’s lmao), your journey in the dark world for today comes to an abrupt stop as it seems. Well until that detail about dark worlds being formed from real world locations comes into play as the library’s computer lab has become a dark world as well somehow. This is where we’re introduced to the real main event of chapter 2, the Cyber World.
My, oh my, what do I say about the Cyber World? Coming off of the mysterious Kingdom of Cards, the Cyber World sure does feel like a tonal shift. It’s vibrant, wondrous, whimsical, and a sheer spectacle to behold. All of these traits of the Cyber World in general could possibly also describe how chapter 2 feels as a whole, aiming for a much more adventurous vibe than the first. This can come at the cost of feeling less emotional than the first chapter did overall, but what chapter 2 wants to do instead is give more depth to the characters that are alongside you. We’ve already gone through Susie’s arc on growing as a person, so why don’t we let these character’s newfound bonds show themselves off in a brand new adventure? That’s not to say there isn’t some newfound character growth to be had here, as Noelle and Berdly are also introduced into the equation in this chapter. Noelle was clearly going to have some involvement in this chapter but Berdly was one I was surprised on. Noelle appears as an occasional temporary new party member and Berdly as a fittingly annoying foil, with both being strung along by our robotic overlord of the new dark world, Queen. Queen in general is likely where a lot of the tonal dissonance from chapter 1 and chapter 2 is visible, as she feels like a much more comedic and aimless villain than the likes of the King of Spades. Granted the King of Spades is never really present until the end of chapter 1 and you have his comedic buffoon son, Lancer, teasing you throughout the majority of chapter 1, but the King of Spade’s cruel influence on his dark world was still very present. Queen’s influence on her dark world is much more lighthearted in comparison. Plus her overall demeanor is in a much more entertaining fashion, comparable to that of Lancer actually, and her constant intrusions on your journey simply set out to provide more whimsical interactions with you and your whole gang. Speaking of your whole gang, with how Noelle is confirmed to be a new member in your group, and there’s still some major hints of Berdly becoming a new party member as well (oh dear god), I’m starting to wonder how all of your many new friends you have on your side are going to be handled. Are they simply going to switch in and out contextually like they did with Noelle in this chapter, or are they eventually going to be one big squad that you can swap out freely Chrono Trigger style? Only time may tell for this, I guess. Just one more thing to be anticipating for the coming chapters!
Even still, chapter 2 retains just exactly what I love Toby’s works for, just in an insanely wondrous form that I still greatly appreciate. Those quirky unique encounters like the Sweet Cap’n Cakes crew, big shot Spamton, Rouxls Kaard’s vengeance, and Berdly’s many attempts to come off as superior. I can’t forget about those endearing situations the gang goes through on their journey, my favorite being that one really cool Punch-Out tribute you group all of the main three together to absolutely stomp Queen at. Plus one really cool thing chapter 2 does is that it decides to continue the whole secret superboss trend set by the likes of Jevil. Like Jevil, it’s a bit cryptic to find out how to encounter them but this is gonna be the one thing I don’t want to go into detail here as what that battle does to the gameplay is so fucking cool and honestly makes it a more enjoyable battle than Jevil for me so I just really want people to find out what it is for themselves.
But still, I have quite a lot of things on my mind after this. It’s rather hard not to have questions on what’s going on due to the whole episodic release plan. The epilogue of chapter 2 still retains a bit of it’s lightheartedness but gives off many more questions and much more anticipation for the future. Thankfully Rudy is still alive in this chapter, some people had speculation here would be when he would flatline but that wasn’t the case. But one thing that unfortunately didn’t come to fruition is MY DAMN TIME WITH PAPYRUS. Come ON Sans, what do you mean it can’t be today????? Guess I gotta anticipate meeting Papyrus in chapter 3 then. (ignore my score, it’s actually a 0.5 because of this >:[ ) And that ending, wow that sure gave off the most questions, but some answers as well ironically enough. Kris has to be up to something, as they keep casting away their soul in certain moments, only to take it back again. It can’t be some sort of influence from someone like Chara, why would they take the soul back? Maybe they cast it away to make sure you can’t control them when they’re trying to do something dubious. And that very end, with Susie sleeping over at your house, and Toriel concerned about ominous things happening around her, all topped off with Kris literally creating a fountain in their own living room. Is Kris the Knight that has been mentioned so often? Are they the one who created all of the fountains? Why are they creating the fountains in that case? I read a theory that Kris might be doing something like this to make things interesting for them. I could presume it could be something along the lines of that, but what if there actually is some ulterior evil play at play here? Only time can tell. I can only anticipate what the later chapters are going to bring us, and what sort of dark world will be made out of our own home. I’ll be ready for it anytime.
Also, since I’m on the topic of the ending, I just can’t hold this back anymore. I just HAVE to gush about how that ending of this chapter went down. The whole climactic battle with Queen was pretty cool but it was probably intentionally made to come off in a similar format to how the final showdown with the King of Spades went down, just so the bait and switch with the REAL final battle of the chapter can come in and slam as hard as it did. Queen suddenly comes in piloting this absolutely massive robot, and once Kris, Susie, and Ralsei came together to form that dumb arcade playing position again right in front of it, I was so fucking ready for what I thought was about to happen. THEN IT ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENED AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT. One big friend reunion and fittingly corny fusion transformation sequence later and the game takes that one cute little Punch-Out homage from earlier and TURNS IT INTO A FULLY FLEDGED BADASS GIANT MECHA BOXING MATCH FINAL BOSS! Just, in that entire buildup to that moment and during the entire duration of that fight I just had the biggest dumb grin on my face as I relentlessly brought the beatdown in this absolute spectacle of a moment. I just couldn’t believe that Toby actually fucking did that, and it how much it fucking RULED!
So, after how much I’ve gone on about how much joy I felt and how purely I was enamored by the sheer scale of chapter 2, why did I only give it 4 stars? Well, it’s mainly with some concerns on this chapter’s tone as a whole and with the overall format on how this game is presented. I mentioned earlier on how in comparison to chapter 1, chapter 2 feels notably less emotional and more lighthearted. Sure, there are still quite a bunch of neat character interactions and new depth given mainly towards Noelle and Berdly, but it’s less tonally impactful than everything that was going on with Susie in chapter 1. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, as I feel this means that whatever impactful narrative is likely being saved for what the later chapters have in store for us eventually. But the whole primary focus on a more whimsy and surreal adventure of great proportions and spectacle with the extra character fleshing-out as a treat makes chapter 2 feel like some form of elaborate buildup for what’s to come later on down the road.
Plus, I also feel that chapter 2 has one major issue as a whole, and I feel chapter 1 has this same issue as well. Well actually, to be honest, calling it this “major issue” is probably being way too harsh on it, as it’s pretty much the same issue I would have with something like standalone Sonic the Hedgehog 3. That issue is basically spelt out to you in the title: it’s only chapter two. Most of the reasons why I have so many questions and so many theories and all this built up anticipation as a whole after this experience is primarily due to it being an unfinished story as of now. With how the episodic format of Deltarune has been planned out to be released in, each chapter now has sort-of been treated as their own standalone release, which is a bit fair as both chapters 1 and 2 have been exceptionally lengthy and in depth with everything going on in them and together can even feel like a bigger experience than Undertale alone was. However I still feel it may be a bit unfair to judge them as fully fledged releases like this as in the grand scheme of Deltarune as a whole, to me rating each of these chapters individually would be akin to maybe rating a singular chapter in a Paper Mario game or a singular case in an Ace Attorney game to give some examples. It’s the primary reason why I wished that Deltarune wouldn’t be released in parts like this and just be one gigantic experience let loose once it was finally finished, but oh well, I wouldn’t want to complain about getting pieces of this early.
Regardless, Deltarune’s second chapter more than definitely lived up to what I had hoped for. All that I dislike about it is essentially just that I want more of it even! Toby’s been extremely generous to give us this extra taste of art for free, and god do I admire him for doing that. I’d be more than willing to pay for the rest to continue this story. I’ll certainly be prepared for what Toby has to throw at us next.
Also that one segment with Noelle monologuing to you actually softlocked me at the end of it for some reason. Gay baby jail transcends beyond all forms of medium and will never hold any mercy for you.
Deltarune: Chapter 2
2021
This review contains spoilers
It's been so long since Chapter 1 that I forgot that Toby Fox is like, the funniest person making games right now. Like this might be the most consistently hilarious game I've played ever, maybe even more than previous Toby Fox games. In general this was absolutely worth the wait, so much good stuff all around, doesn't at all feel like just a retread of chapter 1. Also, some incredibly emotional punches dotted across this game, and yet it never clashes with the humor, as there's always appropriate space given for both. Shit is ready to start fucking HURTING though, the way several of this game's threads are going, and I'm ready for it, I'm ready to be hurt by this series. I guess my biggest concern is that with everything this and the previous chapter have set up, as well as the time between each chapter, there's a possibility the final chapter won't be able to wrap it all up in a satisfying way, but I think if anyone could pull it off it would be the small team behind this series.
...shit I missed the hidden boss again didn't I FUCK
...shit I missed the hidden boss again didn't I FUCK
Deltarune: Chapter 2
2021
pacing was kind of a mess but it also reminded me im still capable of holding love in my heart so all in all good game. just like chapter 1 my favorite parts were the parts where ur just in a small town having a nice time. lots of good quiet sadness baked into a space that feels truly lived in.
Deltarune: Chapter 1
2018
This review contains spoilers
Probably with too much praise, toby could've sang pretty much any song, written any poem, and I'd be right here to sit wide-eyed giving such. The first episode here pulls back from saying anything too deep as of yet, and I imagine like Undertale some of that won't really thread together until those final moments. However, with the second chapter on the rise tomorrow though, I wanted to at least throw my hat in.
We're placed in the heart of someone isolated, and the imagery of determination and love act more like a darker "other world" that is taught as lessons, before the final bits harken back to Undertale with familiar characters juxtaposed with unfamiliar backgrounds. The story runs through familiar themes of love and friendship with characters who, largely don't have reason to care at first. Of course, they come to terms with friendship but what I find more striking is that the stories of Susie and those around her are situated in lives firmly out of their control, and lives that feel depressed and incomplete. Susie is boxed in to being the bully, unable to really deal with life as a result other than to succumb to the role she's been dealt. The king is an extension of unhinged isolation, unable to live with being alone in the dark feeling this way and wanting some form of retribution, and Lancer just has to live under that before Susie comes in. And then there's you, the creepy kid and only human among a society of people drastically different than you, who seem to really care more about your brother in conversation than who you are. There's an angst and unsettling feeling in then seeing all these characters you've certainly met before in ways that practically live on without you. You could be removed from the equation and the world would move on, but not in a way that makes the world feel truly lived in and more that, you don't really matter. Or at least that's how I imagine Kris really feels, and is the point Deltarune wants to address. Having choice and impact on your life.
I imagine it's like moving into a new place you've been forced in, reality changing things too fast to where you're backed into one that feels so utterly lonely. Ralsei is trying to make you feel happy and loved but when you come home the reality sets back in again. And Kris has had enough of trying to feel anything anymore too, because when you get home with them they throw you into a cage as they wreck whatever pent up frustrations they have. Making friends is certainly a first step to trying to get out of that box, but life is complicated and so is overcoming demons that have you still thinking that there's nothing you can really do.
In some ways, I'm unsure if Deltarune actually is thinking what I am reading from it. "Control over your life" is definitely a huge explicitly said message but these feelings and thoughts could be easily estranged. It's a little scary, but I for one, am ready for what tomorrow will bring.
We're placed in the heart of someone isolated, and the imagery of determination and love act more like a darker "other world" that is taught as lessons, before the final bits harken back to Undertale with familiar characters juxtaposed with unfamiliar backgrounds. The story runs through familiar themes of love and friendship with characters who, largely don't have reason to care at first. Of course, they come to terms with friendship but what I find more striking is that the stories of Susie and those around her are situated in lives firmly out of their control, and lives that feel depressed and incomplete. Susie is boxed in to being the bully, unable to really deal with life as a result other than to succumb to the role she's been dealt. The king is an extension of unhinged isolation, unable to live with being alone in the dark feeling this way and wanting some form of retribution, and Lancer just has to live under that before Susie comes in. And then there's you, the creepy kid and only human among a society of people drastically different than you, who seem to really care more about your brother in conversation than who you are. There's an angst and unsettling feeling in then seeing all these characters you've certainly met before in ways that practically live on without you. You could be removed from the equation and the world would move on, but not in a way that makes the world feel truly lived in and more that, you don't really matter. Or at least that's how I imagine Kris really feels, and is the point Deltarune wants to address. Having choice and impact on your life.
I imagine it's like moving into a new place you've been forced in, reality changing things too fast to where you're backed into one that feels so utterly lonely. Ralsei is trying to make you feel happy and loved but when you come home the reality sets back in again. And Kris has had enough of trying to feel anything anymore too, because when you get home with them they throw you into a cage as they wreck whatever pent up frustrations they have. Making friends is certainly a first step to trying to get out of that box, but life is complicated and so is overcoming demons that have you still thinking that there's nothing you can really do.
In some ways, I'm unsure if Deltarune actually is thinking what I am reading from it. "Control over your life" is definitely a huge explicitly said message but these feelings and thoughts could be easily estranged. It's a little scary, but I for one, am ready for what tomorrow will bring.
Umurangi Generation
2020
Just... feeling really underwhelmed. Maneuvering yourself via horrible controls through scenarios that fail to feel alive. Any hint of authenticity drops when you're given arbitrary objectives that mean nothing (yet you get money for some reason). Its narrative clashes with its gameplay. The characters the game frames as "your friends" serve no purpose but to pose for your photos. You can bing bing wahoo your way to the UN's military tent and come out unscathed, despite there being a message about the use of oppressive force. The game acknowledges there is no reason to judge you on your pictures, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Then why is there money to be gained from them? Why give you these nonsensical objectives? Why gatekeep equipment behind them?
"But it's a photography game!" You might say. But it stopped being that the moment the game placed me in the context of a dying world. It wasn't a game about filling an objective list anymore. When I wanted to understand the world, all I got was surface level commentary that's been part of the aesthetic for years. Despite my investment to see Umurangi Generation rise above the path that it started to tread, it was determined to be the same as it was from the beginning, through and through.
And yet, I find myself with conflicting feelings. Are the same things that I complain about part of the message? The price tag attached to every photo is an indication that capitalism will makes us work our asses off even when the world is about to meet its demise. The system continues to profit of off disaster, even if that disaster will mean death for the world.
Hopelessness is felt all throughout every other civilian you come across, with the end of the world being met with tiresome eyes. What are we even supposed to do...?
This perspective only troubles me. Does Umurangi Generation really hold such a cynical view of our future? What can we do to stray from it, if we even can...? I'm not sure what to make of it.
I cannot read the future, and this game can't either. "The last generation who has to watch the world die". I hope we do not meet the same fate.
"But it's a photography game!" You might say. But it stopped being that the moment the game placed me in the context of a dying world. It wasn't a game about filling an objective list anymore. When I wanted to understand the world, all I got was surface level commentary that's been part of the aesthetic for years. Despite my investment to see Umurangi Generation rise above the path that it started to tread, it was determined to be the same as it was from the beginning, through and through.
And yet, I find myself with conflicting feelings. Are the same things that I complain about part of the message? The price tag attached to every photo is an indication that capitalism will makes us work our asses off even when the world is about to meet its demise. The system continues to profit of off disaster, even if that disaster will mean death for the world.
Hopelessness is felt all throughout every other civilian you come across, with the end of the world being met with tiresome eyes. What are we even supposed to do...?
This perspective only troubles me. Does Umurangi Generation really hold such a cynical view of our future? What can we do to stray from it, if we even can...? I'm not sure what to make of it.
I cannot read the future, and this game can't either. "The last generation who has to watch the world die". I hope we do not meet the same fate.
Thatcher's Techbase
2021
On September 24th, Margaret Thatcher will rise from her grave. Only you can send her back to Hell.
3D: Doom Daddy Digital is proud to present 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐄, a new 𝙳𝙾𝙾𝙼 adventure for PC, Mac, Linux and whatever the hell you want to try running it on.
http://thatchers-techbase.github.io
3D: Doom Daddy Digital is proud to present 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐄, a new 𝙳𝙾𝙾𝙼 adventure for PC, Mac, Linux and whatever the hell you want to try running it on.
http://thatchers-techbase.github.io
the music drowned out by the sound of bullets.
the war of styles for the war of covers.
For some reason, several rappers have shown to have a fairly strong relationship with video games, or maybe it is the rappers' own public that has that relationship and ends up joining both things, I don't know.
def jam icon or wu tang clan shaolin style are fighting games that got a more violent fantasy, a collage of martial arts and Asian cultures mixed with black culture, and it makes sense to me.
I am not going to stop to explain the connection among some hip hop or bboying artists, (maybe this movie can help as an entry point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqW15TUzPc8 )but their relationship with martial arts cinema was key to developing styles and establishing schools and competitions,
Now then, what is this game? Why is the 50 cent and the ultra militarized G-unit shooting soldiers in the Middle East? Why does everything look like anti-jihadist weapons propaganda?
It can be very interesting, but I don't get it.
the war of styles for the war of covers.
For some reason, several rappers have shown to have a fairly strong relationship with video games, or maybe it is the rappers' own public that has that relationship and ends up joining both things, I don't know.
def jam icon or wu tang clan shaolin style are fighting games that got a more violent fantasy, a collage of martial arts and Asian cultures mixed with black culture, and it makes sense to me.
I am not going to stop to explain the connection among some hip hop or bboying artists, (maybe this movie can help as an entry point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqW15TUzPc8 )but their relationship with martial arts cinema was key to developing styles and establishing schools and competitions,
Now then, what is this game? Why is the 50 cent and the ultra militarized G-unit shooting soldiers in the Middle East? Why does everything look like anti-jihadist weapons propaganda?
It can be very interesting, but I don't get it.
in a genre well known for conservative sensibilities and a dearth of anthropological and cultural respect, as well as voyeuristic and hedonistic death tourism, blood on the sand stands out as self-aggrandizing, maximalist, and bordering on parodic in a way very few tend to be. a subversive and stately satire this is not, but the mere insertion of 50 cent into a wartorn setting when his previous digital outing humbly involved enacting vengeance against the american criminal underworld says as much about the aughts zeitgeist as our proclivities in the horror genre during that era does. maybe this buries the lede somewhat, because one of the most important facts about this game was only revealed relatively recently, but blood on the sand was alleged to have started as a tom clancy game recently; conflicting reports from development suggested its yarn was spun from a failed covert-one project, an adaptation of bourne trilogy alum robert ludlum's ideas. one article implicitly posits that these prospective titles were stages in a continuum prior to publisher vivendi's decision to use their convenient rights to 50 cent, although its also possible the use of tom clancy was shorthand for use in an interview given that vivendi didn’t have the license to adapt tom clancy’s works. whatever the case, this largely explains the game's constituent elements – fighting tooth and nail through a wartorn middle-east setting, so familiar to video games and film of the era, recontextualized to fit 50 cent.
other games centered around rappers are designed around an understanding of their core ethos; the wu-tang clan, with their sound representing an evocative mix of east asian and black culture, with particular reverence afforded towards martial arts, found themselves on the psx with 1999’s shaolin style, a fighting game that literalized and made tangible the groups stage personae and the aesthetic undercurrents in their discography. or take the def jam franchise, which takes the feuds, the aggression, and the machismo of the music industry during that time and channels that raw energy into a wrestling game developed by AKI. and this was mythological for its cast – there’s an interview with method man that always makes me crack up where he essentially says that all he cared about was having the hottest finishing move in the game. even rap jam volume one, a basketball game for the snes, plays to some of these sensibilities by essentially offering basketball Without Limits. coolio isn’t afraid to throw hands there. rims creak under the weight of dunks from impossible heights. it’s all performance centered around culture, identity, reputation.
what makes 50 cent unique in this regard, especially as far as performance and cultural mythology is concerned, is the now-infamous, oft-referenced incident in which, early in his career, he was shot nine times in south jamaica allegedly as the result of the release of his controversial song, ‘ghetto qu’ran’. ‘bulletproof’ isn’t just the title of a licensed video game, it’s part and parcel of the 50 cent brand and his identity, referenced often in his discography and utilized to demonstrate the artists grit and countercultural edge. the violence of his work is therefore afforded numerous dimensions given his firsthand experience with this kind of trauma, which in turn represents part of the appeal, that kind of verisimilitude. certainly, bulletproof (the game) plays into this mythology. where fighting games seem the natural route for the wu-tang clan, 50 cents life and identity could only ever have seen translation into ludology through firefights. it’s a bit macabre but totally in line with his career sensibilities.
blood on the sand, then, seemingly represents a reactionary inverse to bulletproof’s simple reiteration and expression of the 50 cent persona. instead of playing a nameless, hardened soldier fighting on behalf of an imperialist agenda in the middle east as is the standard in this format, that voiceless force of nature has been replaced by 50 cent, who can easily, cynically, be read as the all-american invulnerable supersoldier - one who built his brand from the ashes of derelict poverty. y'know, bootstraps, the american way. but the game rejects any easy textual understanding. yes, 50, narratively and mechanically, is totally committed as an agent of destruction and havoc, but his quest primarily pits him against a rogues gallery of self-interested judas archetypes; 50 is naturally distrustful and seldom offers aid, only so long as his goals align with other parties. and these rivals are all configured as gangsters, entrepreneurs, those seeking profits. an early conversation is helpful in this regard, in which 50 cent claims new yorks streets are entirely owned by gangsters; his conversational partner claims the middle eastern region theyre in is controlled by organized crime on a scale surpassing that of new york. the kind of americanized conception of gang warfare transplanted onto the middle east revealed through this dick-measuring contest is the crux of blood on the sand’s text, additionally reflected in its color coded enemy design, evoking gang colors and affiliation more than it necessarily does terrorism, as well as in its environmental design, like a hyper-americanized strip club sticking out like a sore thumb. the connotations of the war on terror are there but one gets the sense that blood on the sand uses those familiar political and genre elements as (unfortunately) familiarized backdrop and setting moreso than it does to convey a straightforward narrative about combatting jihadist insurgents.
another thing setting blood on the sand apart from its milieu is 50’s characterization – this alone isn’t revelatory but it’s in stark contrast to others in the genre. uncharted is allowed to disguise its lack of humanity through a constant assault of quips and ironic insincerity, as protagonist nathan drake pilfers the remains of ancient civilizations for profit and slaughters anyone in his path, reenacting colonial tendencies in the process for the sake of ‘a good time’. and this is a constant thread in all the games, encountering ancient societies where something went wrong and the enemy type shifts towards supernatural, impossibly advanced yet primitive ghoul caricatures. these misanthropic attributes are not alone to uncharted, as several other adventure shooters share much of the same problems. perhaps the most brutally honest any of these games has ever been is when you lead a no-holds barred defence against enemies laying siege to a fast food establishment in modern warfare 2.
50 cent, meanwhile, is unceasingly committed to securing the bag – there’s no pretense of nobility or honor here, but he will have banter with the rest of g-unit, air his frustrations with the constantly spiraling nature of his journey to get a skull back, and discuss the setting and architecture with his allies. it's all a matter of debt collection from shady benefactors who continually steer you in the wrong direction, and 50 is content to follow this labyrinthine design so long as payments still on the table. so, blood on the sands rejection of its central middle eastern analogue transforms the game into an interpretive assault on the restraints and foibles of the modern music industry. the whole plot is kickstarted when 50 cents contract isn’t honoured and he isn’t paid a cool 10 mil for a concert he held; a diamond-encrusted skull is offered as a means of recompensation, which becomes the driving force of the narrative and its collection becomes the locus for his rampage. thus, it can be said that blood on the sand is very simply a game about honoring the work of artists, and of fairly compensating them for their labour. one of many traitorous parties in-game is a paramilitary squad who force 50 into committing a heist and then attempt to take the payout for themselves; during the subsequent boss battle, the squad’s commander, voiced by lance reddick, tells 50 to walk away with his life and squander the profit for everyone’s sake. after all, his nephew’s an ardent fan, and 50 should chalk this mishap up to experience before he gets hurt. this read is bolstered by a couple of tidbits: the knowledge that, according to 50, blood on the sand is in part a tie-in to g-unit’s 2008 damning ‘elephant in the sand’ mixtape, which followed a longstanding feud between 50 cent on the one hand and ja rule and fat joe on the other hand, his peers in the industry. additionally, a great deal of blood on the sand’s visual identity and palette was inspired by the film blood diamond of all things, which of course involves atrocities in sierra leone revolving around the highly inhumane and exploitative diamond mining trade, all farmed during a war zone. continuing the read, theres obviously more than a few unsavoury statements one could make about the music industry in this light. that kind of exploitation -> reclamation loop was something i felt that was common to the games mini-arcs.
one other film i didn’t expect to weigh on my mind so heavily over the course of my playthrough was uncut gems! the image of 50 holding a diamond encrusted skull, a symbol of his labour and his persona, is downright operatic. it parallels kevin garnetts role in uncut gems, who perceives entire iridescent universes, with his lived experiences superimposed and rapidly cutting in and out of frame, and the metaphorical blood, sweat, and tears of many in an unethically sourced black opal. he becomes determined, obsessed even, to hold on the alluring gem, as he considers it a symbolic representation of wealth, fortune, and physical prowess - like a good luck charm. clearly, the skull, with its own implied sordid history, has similar value for 50 as well - it's considered priceless, but his intentions with it are undisclosed for the entire narrative. he simply wants it. both fictionalized portrayals of these 'characters' are in conversation with their mythologized roles in culture, but where uncut gems is concerned with destiny, stability, and fortune, with questions of materialism and faith at the forefront, blood on the sand makes no such appeals to higher powers – 50 is, after all, bulletproof, and the game is more than happy to let him manifest his own payback narrative, the gods be damned. the exploitation of miners in uncut gems’ prologue frames its narrative, but through bombast and hyperbole 50 uses the lens of a militarized zeitgeist to take revenge on his own enemies in the industry, both real and perceived - which serves its purpose as a reclamation narrative.
perhaps these are some highbrow, navel-gazey interpretations and readings on why you should play blood on the sand. but you wanna know the lowbrow, crass, real reason? the game’s just fun as hell. even leaving aside its aesthetics this is a white-knuckled responsive third person shooter, rapidly maneuvering you through conflict after conflict in an arcade setting with more of a semblance of actual encounter design than the majority of its peers. these mechanics are framed by an unrelenting tempo of macro and micro goals in visually distinguishable and legible skirmishes while aiming for combo chains and high scores. 50 cent and devil may cry’s dante alike both see the value of taunting enemies to bolster their ranks and to style on their enemies. 50 cent basically gets heat moves as well, and he can activate max paynes bullet time. this bullet time mechanic is known as gangsta fire, and it essentially makes 50 move faster while also slowing down time. its meter is quite strict and can only reliably be filled up quickly by means of stage pickups, meaning that there's a balancing act between meter preservation and combo priority at all times. and it’s all set to a wide selection of 50 cents discography, freely customizable in the games playlist function. even where the game fails in its design from time to time (optional scoring goals are too often intertwined with the overt objective of the mission, thus not pushing players out of their comfort zone; an overabundance of helicopter encounters, charmingly explained away by 50 cent’s son’s obsession with them and request to include them; gold ranks are almost impossible to acquire outside of hard mode), the experience of listening to P.I.M.P. while racking up the body count with a mossberg and with a LMG as 50 hurls shittalk is unlike anything else in the medium. but i think this paragraph is fairly obvious to anyone who’s played this. so here’s my consensus: i was grinning ear to ear the whole time. this is by far one of the finest exploitation genre games you can play, bordering on high art. in a games industry that now lies about american war crimes, and in a music industry dominated by spotify, blood on the sand is one of the last bulwarks of honesty left. hands down the most culturally significant response to 9/11 right here in this game.
(this game invokes dmca's ire so almost all the gameplay footage you can find of it online doesnt have the soundtrack blaring. totally misrepresents the intensity of the experience imo! no 21 questions or candy shop though...)
other games centered around rappers are designed around an understanding of their core ethos; the wu-tang clan, with their sound representing an evocative mix of east asian and black culture, with particular reverence afforded towards martial arts, found themselves on the psx with 1999’s shaolin style, a fighting game that literalized and made tangible the groups stage personae and the aesthetic undercurrents in their discography. or take the def jam franchise, which takes the feuds, the aggression, and the machismo of the music industry during that time and channels that raw energy into a wrestling game developed by AKI. and this was mythological for its cast – there’s an interview with method man that always makes me crack up where he essentially says that all he cared about was having the hottest finishing move in the game. even rap jam volume one, a basketball game for the snes, plays to some of these sensibilities by essentially offering basketball Without Limits. coolio isn’t afraid to throw hands there. rims creak under the weight of dunks from impossible heights. it’s all performance centered around culture, identity, reputation.
what makes 50 cent unique in this regard, especially as far as performance and cultural mythology is concerned, is the now-infamous, oft-referenced incident in which, early in his career, he was shot nine times in south jamaica allegedly as the result of the release of his controversial song, ‘ghetto qu’ran’. ‘bulletproof’ isn’t just the title of a licensed video game, it’s part and parcel of the 50 cent brand and his identity, referenced often in his discography and utilized to demonstrate the artists grit and countercultural edge. the violence of his work is therefore afforded numerous dimensions given his firsthand experience with this kind of trauma, which in turn represents part of the appeal, that kind of verisimilitude. certainly, bulletproof (the game) plays into this mythology. where fighting games seem the natural route for the wu-tang clan, 50 cents life and identity could only ever have seen translation into ludology through firefights. it’s a bit macabre but totally in line with his career sensibilities.
blood on the sand, then, seemingly represents a reactionary inverse to bulletproof’s simple reiteration and expression of the 50 cent persona. instead of playing a nameless, hardened soldier fighting on behalf of an imperialist agenda in the middle east as is the standard in this format, that voiceless force of nature has been replaced by 50 cent, who can easily, cynically, be read as the all-american invulnerable supersoldier - one who built his brand from the ashes of derelict poverty. y'know, bootstraps, the american way. but the game rejects any easy textual understanding. yes, 50, narratively and mechanically, is totally committed as an agent of destruction and havoc, but his quest primarily pits him against a rogues gallery of self-interested judas archetypes; 50 is naturally distrustful and seldom offers aid, only so long as his goals align with other parties. and these rivals are all configured as gangsters, entrepreneurs, those seeking profits. an early conversation is helpful in this regard, in which 50 cent claims new yorks streets are entirely owned by gangsters; his conversational partner claims the middle eastern region theyre in is controlled by organized crime on a scale surpassing that of new york. the kind of americanized conception of gang warfare transplanted onto the middle east revealed through this dick-measuring contest is the crux of blood on the sand’s text, additionally reflected in its color coded enemy design, evoking gang colors and affiliation more than it necessarily does terrorism, as well as in its environmental design, like a hyper-americanized strip club sticking out like a sore thumb. the connotations of the war on terror are there but one gets the sense that blood on the sand uses those familiar political and genre elements as (unfortunately) familiarized backdrop and setting moreso than it does to convey a straightforward narrative about combatting jihadist insurgents.
another thing setting blood on the sand apart from its milieu is 50’s characterization – this alone isn’t revelatory but it’s in stark contrast to others in the genre. uncharted is allowed to disguise its lack of humanity through a constant assault of quips and ironic insincerity, as protagonist nathan drake pilfers the remains of ancient civilizations for profit and slaughters anyone in his path, reenacting colonial tendencies in the process for the sake of ‘a good time’. and this is a constant thread in all the games, encountering ancient societies where something went wrong and the enemy type shifts towards supernatural, impossibly advanced yet primitive ghoul caricatures. these misanthropic attributes are not alone to uncharted, as several other adventure shooters share much of the same problems. perhaps the most brutally honest any of these games has ever been is when you lead a no-holds barred defence against enemies laying siege to a fast food establishment in modern warfare 2.
50 cent, meanwhile, is unceasingly committed to securing the bag – there’s no pretense of nobility or honor here, but he will have banter with the rest of g-unit, air his frustrations with the constantly spiraling nature of his journey to get a skull back, and discuss the setting and architecture with his allies. it's all a matter of debt collection from shady benefactors who continually steer you in the wrong direction, and 50 is content to follow this labyrinthine design so long as payments still on the table. so, blood on the sands rejection of its central middle eastern analogue transforms the game into an interpretive assault on the restraints and foibles of the modern music industry. the whole plot is kickstarted when 50 cents contract isn’t honoured and he isn’t paid a cool 10 mil for a concert he held; a diamond-encrusted skull is offered as a means of recompensation, which becomes the driving force of the narrative and its collection becomes the locus for his rampage. thus, it can be said that blood on the sand is very simply a game about honoring the work of artists, and of fairly compensating them for their labour. one of many traitorous parties in-game is a paramilitary squad who force 50 into committing a heist and then attempt to take the payout for themselves; during the subsequent boss battle, the squad’s commander, voiced by lance reddick, tells 50 to walk away with his life and squander the profit for everyone’s sake. after all, his nephew’s an ardent fan, and 50 should chalk this mishap up to experience before he gets hurt. this read is bolstered by a couple of tidbits: the knowledge that, according to 50, blood on the sand is in part a tie-in to g-unit’s 2008 damning ‘elephant in the sand’ mixtape, which followed a longstanding feud between 50 cent on the one hand and ja rule and fat joe on the other hand, his peers in the industry. additionally, a great deal of blood on the sand’s visual identity and palette was inspired by the film blood diamond of all things, which of course involves atrocities in sierra leone revolving around the highly inhumane and exploitative diamond mining trade, all farmed during a war zone. continuing the read, theres obviously more than a few unsavoury statements one could make about the music industry in this light. that kind of exploitation -> reclamation loop was something i felt that was common to the games mini-arcs.
one other film i didn’t expect to weigh on my mind so heavily over the course of my playthrough was uncut gems! the image of 50 holding a diamond encrusted skull, a symbol of his labour and his persona, is downright operatic. it parallels kevin garnetts role in uncut gems, who perceives entire iridescent universes, with his lived experiences superimposed and rapidly cutting in and out of frame, and the metaphorical blood, sweat, and tears of many in an unethically sourced black opal. he becomes determined, obsessed even, to hold on the alluring gem, as he considers it a symbolic representation of wealth, fortune, and physical prowess - like a good luck charm. clearly, the skull, with its own implied sordid history, has similar value for 50 as well - it's considered priceless, but his intentions with it are undisclosed for the entire narrative. he simply wants it. both fictionalized portrayals of these 'characters' are in conversation with their mythologized roles in culture, but where uncut gems is concerned with destiny, stability, and fortune, with questions of materialism and faith at the forefront, blood on the sand makes no such appeals to higher powers – 50 is, after all, bulletproof, and the game is more than happy to let him manifest his own payback narrative, the gods be damned. the exploitation of miners in uncut gems’ prologue frames its narrative, but through bombast and hyperbole 50 uses the lens of a militarized zeitgeist to take revenge on his own enemies in the industry, both real and perceived - which serves its purpose as a reclamation narrative.
perhaps these are some highbrow, navel-gazey interpretations and readings on why you should play blood on the sand. but you wanna know the lowbrow, crass, real reason? the game’s just fun as hell. even leaving aside its aesthetics this is a white-knuckled responsive third person shooter, rapidly maneuvering you through conflict after conflict in an arcade setting with more of a semblance of actual encounter design than the majority of its peers. these mechanics are framed by an unrelenting tempo of macro and micro goals in visually distinguishable and legible skirmishes while aiming for combo chains and high scores. 50 cent and devil may cry’s dante alike both see the value of taunting enemies to bolster their ranks and to style on their enemies. 50 cent basically gets heat moves as well, and he can activate max paynes bullet time. this bullet time mechanic is known as gangsta fire, and it essentially makes 50 move faster while also slowing down time. its meter is quite strict and can only reliably be filled up quickly by means of stage pickups, meaning that there's a balancing act between meter preservation and combo priority at all times. and it’s all set to a wide selection of 50 cents discography, freely customizable in the games playlist function. even where the game fails in its design from time to time (optional scoring goals are too often intertwined with the overt objective of the mission, thus not pushing players out of their comfort zone; an overabundance of helicopter encounters, charmingly explained away by 50 cent’s son’s obsession with them and request to include them; gold ranks are almost impossible to acquire outside of hard mode), the experience of listening to P.I.M.P. while racking up the body count with a mossberg and with a LMG as 50 hurls shittalk is unlike anything else in the medium. but i think this paragraph is fairly obvious to anyone who’s played this. so here’s my consensus: i was grinning ear to ear the whole time. this is by far one of the finest exploitation genre games you can play, bordering on high art. in a games industry that now lies about american war crimes, and in a music industry dominated by spotify, blood on the sand is one of the last bulwarks of honesty left. hands down the most culturally significant response to 9/11 right here in this game.
(this game invokes dmca's ire so almost all the gameplay footage you can find of it online doesnt have the soundtrack blaring. totally misrepresents the intensity of the experience imo! no 21 questions or candy shop though...)
Metroid Fusion
2002
completely different design philosophy from the one seen in super metroid, but still it feels like not a sequence that does better or worse, but a complementation to metroid 3. it is less aesthetically oppressive but then samus don't have the amount of gadgets you used to have at the end of super metroid - but a virus does have and it is searching you. you don't have that amount of freedom in its level design, too, feeling way more like millimetric calculated segments. what this could be considered a "loss", i find pretty interesting and it is what made the game so special for me: it allows the player to feel full tension while being chased by SA-X and some exits and interconnections are very smartly implemented. the geography logic does less sense than super metroid but still, thinking in-universe, are just a bunch of different habitats in a research facility - by that, it does makes sense. also, i like the bosses! nightmare did live up to his name, probably the most difficult fight in the game but it is so well-made: the hitbox is horrendous but propositally, to make you feel really claustrophobic; as you shoot him, he'll cry until he reveals his gross face. i guess that this boss can say a lot of what metroid fusion search and, to me, accomplishes
No More Heroes III
2021
This review contains spoilers
When i was around 2 hours into NMH3, after the rank 9 fight and trudging around a chunk of the open world that makes Gravity Rush 1 look like Yakuza, I was getting the feeling of something. Something called... copium. I felt like maybe i was trying too hard, looking too closely at the little things in an attempt to find a nugget of a theme I could latch onto. Nothing actually substantial, but something to rationalise the kinda garbage stuff in NMH3. Why the world is so empty, why it's so discordant, why things weren't flowing right.
And this was my thesis, at the time. "NMH3 is literally a death drive game that travis has put himself in as a form of escapism or something." This would tie in with the mechanics of TSA's story to an extent, it would make sense!
Yeah, that's probably not my finest read. Grasshopper's games aren't really like that. I'm not playing MGS and expecting a twist like that to "redeem" something is always a fools errand in my experience. I still think it's a somewhat valid take on the game, but as I played through the game, that level of trying to rationalise the game into being good gave way into me actually getting it.
Of course this is a GHM game. And this is one of their more out-there ones. Whilst it's perhaps not as "make what you will of it for yourself" as Flower Sun and Rain, I'm not going to pretend my WEEK 2 take on this game that probably wont get a nuanced opinion base for a decade is anything definitive or special - but it makes sense for me.
Essentially, I see NMH3 as an exploration of artifiiality and what can be done without immersion. NMH3 is a game constantly reminding you of it's status of a game. From fourth wall breaks that would make the rest of the series blush, Anime openings and endings every hour or so, a world that is blatantly impossible and occasionally outright ludicrous (why is the border to Mexico in santa destroy now a tunnel over the ocean???), you can barely go a second in this game without it reminding you of it's artificiality. And that's what provides the context for each of the game's vignettes, and revelry in that acknowledgment of fiction and basically fucking about with it without a care - that is the punk in NMH3. In NMH1 travis realises he his a character in a game and stops pretending he isnt. In NMH3, the game itself is done with that. It's indulgent, irreverernt, and abandons any notion of the canon mattering at all, and also doesnt really care about internal logic.
In this framework, we get a couple of great vignettes. Ranks 7 through 5 of this game are the clear highlights, with both the most blatant incorporation of the kill the past theme sneaking its way into this madness, but also genuinely enteraining, somewhat thoughtful, and consistently funny little tales. Not all of them are - i probably legitimately couldn't tell you anything about what happens in Rank 4, the final enconter against Fu is pretty weak and dominated by an awful final "normal" boss, and it's clear that budget and COVID got in the way a few times - some scenes just aren't edited as snappily as they should be which diminishes the impact of certain scenes. Henry cooldown's extremely limited role feels like a bit of a waste even if he's mostly a joke character, and i think neither Bad Girl or Shinoubu really get the day in the sun TSA kinda promises for them.
I would say most of the silly little stories do work though. There's moments of massive catharsis and pathos alike, and some great gags - but even when it's not, there is always one thing going for it - style.
Frankly, regardless of everything else, NMH3 is a remarkable collaborative piece of audiovisual art. Dozens of artistis, musicians, animators, even rights holders, have clearly worked their asses off to make it work, and somehow it absolutely does. The soundtrack is fantastic, the usage of 2D animation both in and out of gameplay is remarkable, and the sheer passion of it all shines so brightly even in the game's weaker moments.
So there is plenty, plenty to criticise here, and ultimately I think I prefer Travis Strikes Again (which this is basically a direct sequel to) for it's more personal, low-key tale than the sheer madness of NMH3. But nontheless it's such a blast, and I havent even touched on how fantastic feeling the core combat is.
Time will reveal NMH3's true place more than any reactionary backloggd review. Maybe in 10 years we'll be looking at this madness in the same way we look at NMH2's stupid 5 hours now. Maybe I will have to kill my past by deleting this review and replacing it with "wow, that was stupid and indulgent and runs like shit" because it is and does, frankly.
But I doubt it. There's too much earnestness, too many good moments, too strong a style, too much heart in it for me to think i'm still on the copium.
And this was my thesis, at the time. "NMH3 is literally a death drive game that travis has put himself in as a form of escapism or something." This would tie in with the mechanics of TSA's story to an extent, it would make sense!
Yeah, that's probably not my finest read. Grasshopper's games aren't really like that. I'm not playing MGS and expecting a twist like that to "redeem" something is always a fools errand in my experience. I still think it's a somewhat valid take on the game, but as I played through the game, that level of trying to rationalise the game into being good gave way into me actually getting it.
Of course this is a GHM game. And this is one of their more out-there ones. Whilst it's perhaps not as "make what you will of it for yourself" as Flower Sun and Rain, I'm not going to pretend my WEEK 2 take on this game that probably wont get a nuanced opinion base for a decade is anything definitive or special - but it makes sense for me.
Essentially, I see NMH3 as an exploration of artifiiality and what can be done without immersion. NMH3 is a game constantly reminding you of it's status of a game. From fourth wall breaks that would make the rest of the series blush, Anime openings and endings every hour or so, a world that is blatantly impossible and occasionally outright ludicrous (why is the border to Mexico in santa destroy now a tunnel over the ocean???), you can barely go a second in this game without it reminding you of it's artificiality. And that's what provides the context for each of the game's vignettes, and revelry in that acknowledgment of fiction and basically fucking about with it without a care - that is the punk in NMH3. In NMH1 travis realises he his a character in a game and stops pretending he isnt. In NMH3, the game itself is done with that. It's indulgent, irreverernt, and abandons any notion of the canon mattering at all, and also doesnt really care about internal logic.
In this framework, we get a couple of great vignettes. Ranks 7 through 5 of this game are the clear highlights, with both the most blatant incorporation of the kill the past theme sneaking its way into this madness, but also genuinely enteraining, somewhat thoughtful, and consistently funny little tales. Not all of them are - i probably legitimately couldn't tell you anything about what happens in Rank 4, the final enconter against Fu is pretty weak and dominated by an awful final "normal" boss, and it's clear that budget and COVID got in the way a few times - some scenes just aren't edited as snappily as they should be which diminishes the impact of certain scenes. Henry cooldown's extremely limited role feels like a bit of a waste even if he's mostly a joke character, and i think neither Bad Girl or Shinoubu really get the day in the sun TSA kinda promises for them.
I would say most of the silly little stories do work though. There's moments of massive catharsis and pathos alike, and some great gags - but even when it's not, there is always one thing going for it - style.
Frankly, regardless of everything else, NMH3 is a remarkable collaborative piece of audiovisual art. Dozens of artistis, musicians, animators, even rights holders, have clearly worked their asses off to make it work, and somehow it absolutely does. The soundtrack is fantastic, the usage of 2D animation both in and out of gameplay is remarkable, and the sheer passion of it all shines so brightly even in the game's weaker moments.
So there is plenty, plenty to criticise here, and ultimately I think I prefer Travis Strikes Again (which this is basically a direct sequel to) for it's more personal, low-key tale than the sheer madness of NMH3. But nontheless it's such a blast, and I havent even touched on how fantastic feeling the core combat is.
Time will reveal NMH3's true place more than any reactionary backloggd review. Maybe in 10 years we'll be looking at this madness in the same way we look at NMH2's stupid 5 hours now. Maybe I will have to kill my past by deleting this review and replacing it with "wow, that was stupid and indulgent and runs like shit" because it is and does, frankly.
But I doubt it. There's too much earnestness, too many good moments, too strong a style, too much heart in it for me to think i'm still on the copium.
No More Heroes III
2021
Wow. So this is what it's like to love video games.
not a poorly crafted experience in any sense and i'm sure theres a lot here i lacked the generosity to find but i felt like i could completely visualize the creators' concept and reference stack with such exact clarity that it became distracting:
femininely morose akihiko yoshida and ayami kojima art/
lilting twinklechoral keichi okabe-wave ost/
vanillaware storybook Spine animations/
folklore character collection combat/
soulstroidvania wielding its genre structure of labyrinthine sparseness to spin a ludically obvious yarn about seeking ~ absolution amidst decay ~
-- and I had to uninstall because the returns are so diminished for me at this point and it was genuinely making me sad that such a clear and passionate labor of love could feel so utterly taxonomizable and consumed by its own clockably interrelated references
at this point idk its just kind of upsetting to play something with such a rigorous and dogmatic commitment to its reference material that doesnt seem to extend very far beyond the world of games themselves, even if said games are all things i find personally beautiful and worth emulating. felt like a very workmanlike and glossy medley of touchstones from works that clearly moved the creators--but executed in a sort of surface way that belies their inability to cogently, personally express how said works resonated beyond mere facsimile. no judgies girl i relate and its why i havent reliably maintained any true semblance of a dedicated art practice for years!!!
tldr; i saw myself in this and i didnt like it
femininely morose akihiko yoshida and ayami kojima art/
lilting twinklechoral keichi okabe-wave ost/
vanillaware storybook Spine animations/
folklore character collection combat/
soulstroidvania wielding its genre structure of labyrinthine sparseness to spin a ludically obvious yarn about seeking ~ absolution amidst decay ~
-- and I had to uninstall because the returns are so diminished for me at this point and it was genuinely making me sad that such a clear and passionate labor of love could feel so utterly taxonomizable and consumed by its own clockably interrelated references
at this point idk its just kind of upsetting to play something with such a rigorous and dogmatic commitment to its reference material that doesnt seem to extend very far beyond the world of games themselves, even if said games are all things i find personally beautiful and worth emulating. felt like a very workmanlike and glossy medley of touchstones from works that clearly moved the creators--but executed in a sort of surface way that belies their inability to cogently, personally express how said works resonated beyond mere facsimile. no judgies girl i relate and its why i havent reliably maintained any true semblance of a dedicated art practice for years!!!
tldr; i saw myself in this and i didnt like it