LunaEndlessWitch
There's all kinds of games that are a piece of the creator's childlike wonder, glee, beauty, et cetera. I'd find it difficult to name one that has the same kind of resonance this emanates from start to finish. Gentle, elegant, earnest and bringing you along the ride through a wonderfully crafted landscape of dreams. Sour, dance, play and gymnastics your way through the circus stage made for you. Fears and anxiety are formed only to melt away in the light.
I'll keep thinking about it as the music swells and shifts over the coming days. A lasting impression, of which Oshima himself noted that above all else, they wanted a character and an experience that someone would look at and think "the future looks bright." I'll dance atop that spire of hopeful joy they made.
I'll keep thinking about it as the music swells and shifts over the coming days. A lasting impression, of which Oshima himself noted that above all else, they wanted a character and an experience that someone would look at and think "the future looks bright." I'll dance atop that spire of hopeful joy they made.
2021
Really, me and my SO dropped this several months back, but that's neither here nor there. Just reminded to talk about my thoughts on this, Uhm,
I appreciate the spirit of this moreso than the end nature of it. My partner and I had a blast playing it, and the whole Honey I Shrunk the Kids aesthetic is perfect. I loved all the little minigames, the cutesy charm, all the cooperative puzzles. It's a return to this form of gameplay style from what feels like very yesteryear. If any lesson is learned from this game's acclaim, it's that there should absolutely be more of this.
I just wish the end result here was something I could champion. We ended up dropping it largely from its surrounding noxious energy. The main conceit of this couple being entrapped together fantastically to just reignite their fire for, largely implied, the kids' sake, just made us lose all of the vibes at once. Every attempt to reopen the game was spent on trying to ignore that, but it didn't really go very far. We got about a couple hours in before it became too much to tolerate, especially since the absolutely brutal incompatibilities regarding one of the two just reminded one of us of our ex. It feels like a useless story to me? It's definitely not coming from a bad state of mind, and like, it's genuine, it's earnest! But it feels almost shaming to partners who aren't working out together. All for more people going to couples therapy to see if their issues truly aren't fixable but I don't like this general idea at all, it's so "makes up a couple". Couldn't help but doctor out a story in my head that starts with this same idea but ends up taking it in a direction that commentates that maybe at the end of it some things aren't fixable and requires splitting, a far more realistic notion to takeaway that finishes off with a note that has them separating after all, with a bittersweet understanding of what they've learned from their incompatibility, rather than some, to be blunt, sickening notion of THINK OF THE KID!! GOTTA FORCE YOUR TOTAL SPARK OF LOVE (that for most people in this situation, won't be there anymore) BY MAKING UP COOP STYLE.
Honestly it's worse than the writing. We laughed together at a couple jokes, my partner found the two much much more obnoxious from sentence to sentence than me, but I'm used to it. The smarmy totally shouty couple vibe isn't like a complete mismatch for what everything here is going for. That's the most charitable I'll get with it though haha.
I'll say it takes two is good when we get the much more ambitious polycule sequel it takes three.
I appreciate the spirit of this moreso than the end nature of it. My partner and I had a blast playing it, and the whole Honey I Shrunk the Kids aesthetic is perfect. I loved all the little minigames, the cutesy charm, all the cooperative puzzles. It's a return to this form of gameplay style from what feels like very yesteryear. If any lesson is learned from this game's acclaim, it's that there should absolutely be more of this.
I just wish the end result here was something I could champion. We ended up dropping it largely from its surrounding noxious energy. The main conceit of this couple being entrapped together fantastically to just reignite their fire for, largely implied, the kids' sake, just made us lose all of the vibes at once. Every attempt to reopen the game was spent on trying to ignore that, but it didn't really go very far. We got about a couple hours in before it became too much to tolerate, especially since the absolutely brutal incompatibilities regarding one of the two just reminded one of us of our ex. It feels like a useless story to me? It's definitely not coming from a bad state of mind, and like, it's genuine, it's earnest! But it feels almost shaming to partners who aren't working out together. All for more people going to couples therapy to see if their issues truly aren't fixable but I don't like this general idea at all, it's so "makes up a couple". Couldn't help but doctor out a story in my head that starts with this same idea but ends up taking it in a direction that commentates that maybe at the end of it some things aren't fixable and requires splitting, a far more realistic notion to takeaway that finishes off with a note that has them separating after all, with a bittersweet understanding of what they've learned from their incompatibility, rather than some, to be blunt, sickening notion of THINK OF THE KID!! GOTTA FORCE YOUR TOTAL SPARK OF LOVE (that for most people in this situation, won't be there anymore) BY MAKING UP COOP STYLE.
Honestly it's worse than the writing. We laughed together at a couple jokes, my partner found the two much much more obnoxious from sentence to sentence than me, but I'm used to it. The smarmy totally shouty couple vibe isn't like a complete mismatch for what everything here is going for. That's the most charitable I'll get with it though haha.
I'll say it takes two is good when we get the much more ambitious polycule sequel it takes three.
2022
Simultaneously easier than DD, but also more insane and significantly more illegible. I kind of hate it much much more, and also can't help but respect it more. The biggest issue is that I am personally tired of treating the game as half a manual, things especially here are so counter-intuitive that even the training mode is simply teaching you how you're 'kind of' supposed to be playing at the very minimum. This sort of compounds into a glorious but sort of fucked combo shooter that desires to be as ultimately incomprehensible as possible for you to pass over.
That's kind of sick, but it leaves me rather in the dust. It doesn't induce the panic that Devil Daggers does to me and instead feels like a sense stress test. For its modus operandi of some utter hellish ultraplanar fight against some undefinable deity I can't think of many things in general that's such a perfect match. It absolutely continues on its predecessor of being a congruous entity that you have to fully understand in order to survive and even progress. Its arcadey nature asks for creating clarity out of unwatchable madness.
So as a realized vision I have to like, sort of stan it! But I also feel an utter bone to pick, a sledgehammer I want to take to this sort of approach. From a personal note, for one, this game is absolutely irresponsible. The steam page fine print has an epilepsy warning but the game should fucking start with one, if not more, as should its creator be saying such shilling this game past twitter and youtube. When I first streamed it in front of a friend they felt so unwell they had to tune out for a solid 15 or so minutes because they felt like they were going to have a seizure and they're not epileptic. It's rudimentarily so overzealous in its mission that it genuinely hurts my eyes after a little bit of time to play, and its mixing and sound design just hurts and nails on chalkboards but all of those are Intensely Important Indicators to play. To be blunt I almost feel a sort of noxious "loves its ingroup and hates everyone else" vibe from all that.
But idk, it's like mostly fun past all that. Things connect pretty smartly and it can lead to some intense fun, and it'll certainly satisfy those who REALLY REALLY like Devil Daggers and this uncompromising way of creation. Which is totally valid. It has got crazy good game design top to bottom.
That's kind of sick, but it leaves me rather in the dust. It doesn't induce the panic that Devil Daggers does to me and instead feels like a sense stress test. For its modus operandi of some utter hellish ultraplanar fight against some undefinable deity I can't think of many things in general that's such a perfect match. It absolutely continues on its predecessor of being a congruous entity that you have to fully understand in order to survive and even progress. Its arcadey nature asks for creating clarity out of unwatchable madness.
So as a realized vision I have to like, sort of stan it! But I also feel an utter bone to pick, a sledgehammer I want to take to this sort of approach. From a personal note, for one, this game is absolutely irresponsible. The steam page fine print has an epilepsy warning but the game should fucking start with one, if not more, as should its creator be saying such shilling this game past twitter and youtube. When I first streamed it in front of a friend they felt so unwell they had to tune out for a solid 15 or so minutes because they felt like they were going to have a seizure and they're not epileptic. It's rudimentarily so overzealous in its mission that it genuinely hurts my eyes after a little bit of time to play, and its mixing and sound design just hurts and nails on chalkboards but all of those are Intensely Important Indicators to play. To be blunt I almost feel a sort of noxious "loves its ingroup and hates everyone else" vibe from all that.
But idk, it's like mostly fun past all that. Things connect pretty smartly and it can lead to some intense fun, and it'll certainly satisfy those who REALLY REALLY like Devil Daggers and this uncompromising way of creation. Which is totally valid. It has got crazy good game design top to bottom.
2016
This game is so fucking intelligent but I hate playing it.
Welcome to hell featuring:
-your mistakes constantly adding up quick and presented to you in crystal detail
-where as you get better the downtime increases and you relive small annoyances
-surviving tooth and nail for seconds at a time while you fight with your nerves and maybe a panic attack or two (it gets fucking ridiculous)
Not for the faint of heart because it will compound into you. Devilishly addicting game, avoid at all costs, holy fuck how did i spend several hours already.
(Managed to time 231 seconds, #10 of my friends. That's the best I can do atm)
Welcome to hell featuring:
-your mistakes constantly adding up quick and presented to you in crystal detail
-where as you get better the downtime increases and you relive small annoyances
-surviving tooth and nail for seconds at a time while you fight with your nerves and maybe a panic attack or two (it gets fucking ridiculous)
Not for the faint of heart because it will compound into you. Devilishly addicting game, avoid at all costs, holy fuck how did i spend several hours already.
(Managed to time 231 seconds, #10 of my friends. That's the best I can do atm)
This review contains spoilers
Problematic fav. Not that like, it's super problematic or anything, I mean there's certainly some problematic ELEMENTS, but really it's more in the sense that I keep staring at it and go "problematic fav :)".
Breaking that down is a little difficult. Especially now. I want to warn that there is some heavy shit I'm about to divulge, talks of suicidal thought, attempted suicide, incredibly personal stories being dropped in topic on a game that, in all honestly, doesn't super deserve that kind of baggage. It's inextricably tied, in the sense that I think about this game a lot, too addicted to the point that I use it as comfort gruel in awful times, and that as of today, during one of the most important moments that's fucking me up right now, I am hyperfixated on it once again.
It's kind of a beautiful mess. Yoshi-P just decided "fuck it we're squeezing three expansions into one" and they actually went for it (and it is core to how fucked up this all is). So much of it is a little too underdeveloped even if it, quite well, ties back to the thesis. It also retroactively works against Shadowbringers, demystifying some of its best components and outright throwing itself at a fanservice pile to redeem a past version of a really clearly unforgivable villain. It kills the potential of some of its most teased characters that could've struggled with such a clearly "fascism eats itself" state and try to find a sense of what to do next in that discovery and what that meant for them, but they're all sidelined!!!
But also, its story is too poignant for me to discard. Extremely so. From its decrepit sunset to the sunrise at the end it's an uplifting, championing vibe. In particular I think a lot about that final dungeon, how it's so fucked up and depressing that it really tries to tear you down, as much as it can through its medium. All in service to building up to that great moment, that pushback against an intense hopelessness that's always seeping out the ends of everywhere we look. I admire, as awful a tightrope as it is to walk, its attempts at dealing with depression. This is the point that's kind of unarguably problematic about it at the same time though, not so much in terms of the main story, but really the job quests. It's such a gross mishandling, you fight the monstrosity of someone who's succumbed while (most of) the city states do nothing to even address their problems. Just remember, understand what happened, and move on. Nothing to fight against what caused the dead. That part was kind of painful for me really, like that's a bit callous, that's not honorable, that's heartless even.
It's only today that it screams a bit more sympathetic. A very close friend of mine, who hasn't really ever expressed interest in my game talks much at this level, has attempted to commit suicide. Maybe even still, I don't know. They're all the way across the country and I don't have anymore prior contacts to hunt down or a number to call (it has already been called). I've been ghosted for the past 24 hours and all I know at this very very moment is that they did, and might still be trying to. Yesterday I dealt with that by crying with my SO and being stuck in bed staring at the ceiling praying until I went to sleep, which wasn't even good sleep. I spent today planning on a hopeful future where I pray they just show up the next morning and hoping that, this last attempt I can DO something about it or else ALL I can do, without strictly blaming myself, is just steel myself to not let that pain bring me down in a fucked up psychiatrically way and just keep his memory.
Close in the Distance is a song near the end that plays while your friends, while temporary, are completely gone but you have to hold steadfast that they're right here with you. Sometimes, unfortunately or not, worlds will meet their end, and people, close people you wish you could fucking save right now, wish they could hear your voice or you could hear theirs, can't and have already fallen. Whispers, now a memory, promises broken, an endless array of tears. Those quests still aren't right, I'm actually really angry with them still right now, but I feel weak. I feel almost like giving up, that maybe at some point I have to let go so I don't have it completely ruin me. If they come back tomorrow, and my last ditch effort to set them down and tell them everything, my one last barely-qualifies-as-a-gambit to get them on a path to live and improve, if they said no it'd ruin me. If they don't come back tomorrow, or ever again, that would also ruin me. I tie myself here, writing this, in an act of coping with that, maybe. I don't know, last time I felt fucked up like this I chose Persona 3. I'll probably still replay that too.
But for now I'm going to sit at a screen playing endwalker music on an endless cycle, crying probably, feeling better hopefully. This work has that sort of pathos effect on me. I often run to art to distract me now and help me fix problems later and here I am again hedging myself on that and blasting this awful stream of words out into others' void.
If you made it this far, thanks. Comments are off for you, but I appreciate you getting this far and reading me ramble on this site I've chosen to be my venting ground for a long time now. If the friend in question has found this, and you're still alive. Fuck you for leaving me like this, Fuck you for refusing to let yourself be confronted, Fuck You for dismissing mine and others' faith in you, Fuck you for being a real shitty friend absently from this and trying to break me down and push everyone else you know away. But also please keep fighting. Please. It is never too late, hope is never lost. And I want to be here for you. I don't want to leave you out there in the wind and the cold and you don't deserve that.
Breaking that down is a little difficult. Especially now. I want to warn that there is some heavy shit I'm about to divulge, talks of suicidal thought, attempted suicide, incredibly personal stories being dropped in topic on a game that, in all honestly, doesn't super deserve that kind of baggage. It's inextricably tied, in the sense that I think about this game a lot, too addicted to the point that I use it as comfort gruel in awful times, and that as of today, during one of the most important moments that's fucking me up right now, I am hyperfixated on it once again.
It's kind of a beautiful mess. Yoshi-P just decided "fuck it we're squeezing three expansions into one" and they actually went for it (and it is core to how fucked up this all is). So much of it is a little too underdeveloped even if it, quite well, ties back to the thesis. It also retroactively works against Shadowbringers, demystifying some of its best components and outright throwing itself at a fanservice pile to redeem a past version of a really clearly unforgivable villain. It kills the potential of some of its most teased characters that could've struggled with such a clearly "fascism eats itself" state and try to find a sense of what to do next in that discovery and what that meant for them, but they're all sidelined!!!
But also, its story is too poignant for me to discard. Extremely so. From its decrepit sunset to the sunrise at the end it's an uplifting, championing vibe. In particular I think a lot about that final dungeon, how it's so fucked up and depressing that it really tries to tear you down, as much as it can through its medium. All in service to building up to that great moment, that pushback against an intense hopelessness that's always seeping out the ends of everywhere we look. I admire, as awful a tightrope as it is to walk, its attempts at dealing with depression. This is the point that's kind of unarguably problematic about it at the same time though, not so much in terms of the main story, but really the job quests. It's such a gross mishandling, you fight the monstrosity of someone who's succumbed while (most of) the city states do nothing to even address their problems. Just remember, understand what happened, and move on. Nothing to fight against what caused the dead. That part was kind of painful for me really, like that's a bit callous, that's not honorable, that's heartless even.
It's only today that it screams a bit more sympathetic. A very close friend of mine, who hasn't really ever expressed interest in my game talks much at this level, has attempted to commit suicide. Maybe even still, I don't know. They're all the way across the country and I don't have anymore prior contacts to hunt down or a number to call (it has already been called). I've been ghosted for the past 24 hours and all I know at this very very moment is that they did, and might still be trying to. Yesterday I dealt with that by crying with my SO and being stuck in bed staring at the ceiling praying until I went to sleep, which wasn't even good sleep. I spent today planning on a hopeful future where I pray they just show up the next morning and hoping that, this last attempt I can DO something about it or else ALL I can do, without strictly blaming myself, is just steel myself to not let that pain bring me down in a fucked up psychiatrically way and just keep his memory.
Close in the Distance is a song near the end that plays while your friends, while temporary, are completely gone but you have to hold steadfast that they're right here with you. Sometimes, unfortunately or not, worlds will meet their end, and people, close people you wish you could fucking save right now, wish they could hear your voice or you could hear theirs, can't and have already fallen. Whispers, now a memory, promises broken, an endless array of tears. Those quests still aren't right, I'm actually really angry with them still right now, but I feel weak. I feel almost like giving up, that maybe at some point I have to let go so I don't have it completely ruin me. If they come back tomorrow, and my last ditch effort to set them down and tell them everything, my one last barely-qualifies-as-a-gambit to get them on a path to live and improve, if they said no it'd ruin me. If they don't come back tomorrow, or ever again, that would also ruin me. I tie myself here, writing this, in an act of coping with that, maybe. I don't know, last time I felt fucked up like this I chose Persona 3. I'll probably still replay that too.
But for now I'm going to sit at a screen playing endwalker music on an endless cycle, crying probably, feeling better hopefully. This work has that sort of pathos effect on me. I often run to art to distract me now and help me fix problems later and here I am again hedging myself on that and blasting this awful stream of words out into others' void.
If you made it this far, thanks. Comments are off for you, but I appreciate you getting this far and reading me ramble on this site I've chosen to be my venting ground for a long time now. If the friend in question has found this, and you're still alive. Fuck you for leaving me like this, Fuck you for refusing to let yourself be confronted, Fuck You for dismissing mine and others' faith in you, Fuck you for being a real shitty friend absently from this and trying to break me down and push everyone else you know away. But also please keep fighting. Please. It is never too late, hope is never lost. And I want to be here for you. I don't want to leave you out there in the wind and the cold and you don't deserve that.
Going from the original to this is a significant leap ahead, a swansong that pays its tribute to the miles and miles of experience, refined to such a degree that you can really feel it to an almost clinical level. In a sense this already fails at matching up to what it's paying respect to years in the past, as its edge is mostly sanded, the unique artistry of the single stream of consciousness replaced by a more general structure. Things rise, things fall, go to one climactic finish that blissfully spreads its message of a loving companionship versus the mechanical ends of humanity.
But yeah I love that more. An easy victim to the usual, the violent swells, the compounding final boss rush, the absolute insanity of an XBLA-vibe masterwork. What I felt with the original was that it lacked "impact", and even though it's on the more appreciation-over-time end, I kind of kicked its ass. It was too easy for me on Normal and I didn't spend a credit. The almost-but-not-quite formless nature of most of its music enshrouding its levels left me feeling very miffed and unflinching towards things on an initial level. For whatever inexplicable reason, though it's significantly less of an innate strength in tone versus the OG's harsh and heavy beat vibetown, I could really feel the energy through each mission in Star Successor. But it's definitely possible that it's more many things coming together in ways that definitely appeal to me way more. Treasure is simply encapsulating the most awesome parts and aesthetical sensibilities of the generation they're in.
Of course, the biggest demonstration Star Successor has on offer is how it has simply mastered layered action in its gameplay. There's actually such cool shit to how bullet patterns and enemies come together onto your mental stack, testing significantly more within its frame of movement than ever before. If nothing else, Star Successor is quite literally the best mechanical rail shooter, and it's lovingly difficult!!! Despite the intense "who the fuck would want to 1cc this" length, each mission is a perfectly paced piece with some of the best positional boss battles to rival most action games! While not the exact back-to-back variety you'll see on the N64 the whole of Star Successor also doesn't feel like it quite ever does the same thing twice, although there's some overlap. I was so expressively losing myself in the final stage too. Real piercing the heavens stuff. Good shit.
I apologize though, you'll have to forgive me for comparing the two so strictly. Star Successor is not Trying to be the original again, and while there's merit to meshing the two together to see their more apparent differences and how much the developers have grown, it's still a battle of appeals. People should be playing both of these because as a sequence they're reflective on the absolute best of us and how that culture of the best of us moves over time. The most poignant note is that we'll be making 100 different versions on the same determination of our spiral united power, yet still result in beautiful wholly unique stars that inspire the way forward.
But yeah I love that more. An easy victim to the usual, the violent swells, the compounding final boss rush, the absolute insanity of an XBLA-vibe masterwork. What I felt with the original was that it lacked "impact", and even though it's on the more appreciation-over-time end, I kind of kicked its ass. It was too easy for me on Normal and I didn't spend a credit. The almost-but-not-quite formless nature of most of its music enshrouding its levels left me feeling very miffed and unflinching towards things on an initial level. For whatever inexplicable reason, though it's significantly less of an innate strength in tone versus the OG's harsh and heavy beat vibetown, I could really feel the energy through each mission in Star Successor. But it's definitely possible that it's more many things coming together in ways that definitely appeal to me way more. Treasure is simply encapsulating the most awesome parts and aesthetical sensibilities of the generation they're in.
Of course, the biggest demonstration Star Successor has on offer is how it has simply mastered layered action in its gameplay. There's actually such cool shit to how bullet patterns and enemies come together onto your mental stack, testing significantly more within its frame of movement than ever before. If nothing else, Star Successor is quite literally the best mechanical rail shooter, and it's lovingly difficult!!! Despite the intense "who the fuck would want to 1cc this" length, each mission is a perfectly paced piece with some of the best positional boss battles to rival most action games! While not the exact back-to-back variety you'll see on the N64 the whole of Star Successor also doesn't feel like it quite ever does the same thing twice, although there's some overlap. I was so expressively losing myself in the final stage too. Real piercing the heavens stuff. Good shit.
I apologize though, you'll have to forgive me for comparing the two so strictly. Star Successor is not Trying to be the original again, and while there's merit to meshing the two together to see their more apparent differences and how much the developers have grown, it's still a battle of appeals. People should be playing both of these because as a sequence they're reflective on the absolute best of us and how that culture of the best of us moves over time. The most poignant note is that we'll be making 100 different versions on the same determination of our spiral united power, yet still result in beautiful wholly unique stars that inspire the way forward.
2000
Cool incarnate, like if you scanned a mecha-enthused 10 year old's idea of cool and just plastered the unfiltered thoughts onto the screen this is the result. Everything you do just goes from one to another in a series of hype moments with barely sensical threads (complementary). And it's also like, really competently put together top-to-bottom. It's Treasure! Gotta love treasure.
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This next bit is just scattershot thoughts of a sort of malaise in my head, feel free to skip over it or pretend they don't exist. I honestly don't really have any 'real' issues with Sin and Punishment, not so much in a "mm yes critic's job is to-", but more in a "I don't know how I can condense my sort of npc-feelings I had at times into actual justifiable issues". I think just the n64 dirty-drab palette chosen here's like an instant turn-off for me and I turned my internal resolution way up. Although, I still lost my shit at the naval segment, and the finale. There's certainly not a lot of mechanical meat on its bones, but also it has more than any other rail shooter I know of? Normal is also not THAT hard for me and I managed to beat it without credit feeding. Idk, it's a great time! I just feel it really slipping from my grasp in impact quicker than I expect and it's only been 45 minutes ;;
Edit: WAIT hold on I figured one part out. The music blends so heavily together that it undercuts so much, you could randomly change them around and it'd do NOTHING. They should've at least done something to the final fight track!!!
---
This next bit is just scattershot thoughts of a sort of malaise in my head, feel free to skip over it or pretend they don't exist. I honestly don't really have any 'real' issues with Sin and Punishment, not so much in a "mm yes critic's job is to-", but more in a "I don't know how I can condense my sort of npc-feelings I had at times into actual justifiable issues". I think just the n64 dirty-drab palette chosen here's like an instant turn-off for me and I turned my internal resolution way up. Although, I still lost my shit at the naval segment, and the finale. There's certainly not a lot of mechanical meat on its bones, but also it has more than any other rail shooter I know of? Normal is also not THAT hard for me and I managed to beat it without credit feeding. Idk, it's a great time! I just feel it really slipping from my grasp in impact quicker than I expect and it's only been 45 minutes ;;
Edit: WAIT hold on I figured one part out. The music blends so heavily together that it undercuts so much, you could randomly change them around and it'd do NOTHING. They should've at least done something to the final fight track!!!
2022
We're all still trying to figure ourselves out, right? I guess so. You think that maybe it's done this time but you're going to keep peeling back layers, then putting on new ones, an endless cycle until your last breath leaves. If you try to stop and think it's over for a bit, you'll eventually find yourself detached, leaving personal orbit to find yourselves without connection. Was that what was important? No, hold on, connection, that IS important. Let's dive deeper...
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Sephonie would like you to look at the painting again and see what you missed the first time. At first it was clear, every single piece here is meant to spark an internal reflection. That's how we might communicate with nature, or at least try. Connect it with us, and once we do that and consider what it means in terms of the whole island, maybe we can understand what we might move on with. Or, perhaps, we're all just trying to find meaning in the little things. That's not really the full story though, eventually we go home. The research is done, and we put up our dresses, and retire back from the day's work. Did the island come back with you? Or maybe you just box it, compartmentalize it as another 'day', send it to the back of your head. Obviously not every moment changes us, but eventually these bits combine, flashes of life that start to become distorted skyscrapers that interfere with the work ahead, and in connecting with others around you, you will find yourself confronting that. Maybe you'll spend hours, days, months, trying to piece those together back into an organized box. They fit before, they can fit again. At some point you have to reach out a hand for help, tie yourself to others that, whether you know or not, are on that same journey as yours.
In other, much less complicated and psuedo philosophical words, Sephonie wants to impart that connection isn't just a process in how it deals with yourself, but also how you might light the path for others by sharing your own memories, anxieties, and fears onto the beautiful greenery that are the lives around you. Boundaries still exist and we don't want to tear them asunder, less we become like dust, but we join hands and feel together, holding a steadfast, tightened grip. Whether near or fear, distant lights countries away or together in the same room staring into each other's eyes minutes before breaking down, we hope for beauty in the road ahead by trusting in each other.
I like that Sephonie was viscerally moved and shifted by the rise and eve of the pandemic. I like that as it gazed across the cities and towns who all had to isolate, it found that the biggest threat for a body that EXERTED FORCE, REFLECTED LIGHT, IN AN INSTANT COULD BE GONE, was releasing itself to nothing. Intimacy is our net, and a beating pulse of our heart. A strand of beauty linking you and I. How lucky!!!
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Sephonie would like you to look at the painting again and see what you missed the first time. At first it was clear, every single piece here is meant to spark an internal reflection. That's how we might communicate with nature, or at least try. Connect it with us, and once we do that and consider what it means in terms of the whole island, maybe we can understand what we might move on with. Or, perhaps, we're all just trying to find meaning in the little things. That's not really the full story though, eventually we go home. The research is done, and we put up our dresses, and retire back from the day's work. Did the island come back with you? Or maybe you just box it, compartmentalize it as another 'day', send it to the back of your head. Obviously not every moment changes us, but eventually these bits combine, flashes of life that start to become distorted skyscrapers that interfere with the work ahead, and in connecting with others around you, you will find yourself confronting that. Maybe you'll spend hours, days, months, trying to piece those together back into an organized box. They fit before, they can fit again. At some point you have to reach out a hand for help, tie yourself to others that, whether you know or not, are on that same journey as yours.
In other, much less complicated and psuedo philosophical words, Sephonie wants to impart that connection isn't just a process in how it deals with yourself, but also how you might light the path for others by sharing your own memories, anxieties, and fears onto the beautiful greenery that are the lives around you. Boundaries still exist and we don't want to tear them asunder, less we become like dust, but we join hands and feel together, holding a steadfast, tightened grip. Whether near or fear, distant lights countries away or together in the same room staring into each other's eyes minutes before breaking down, we hope for beauty in the road ahead by trusting in each other.
I like that Sephonie was viscerally moved and shifted by the rise and eve of the pandemic. I like that as it gazed across the cities and towns who all had to isolate, it found that the biggest threat for a body that EXERTED FORCE, REFLECTED LIGHT, IN AN INSTANT COULD BE GONE, was releasing itself to nothing. Intimacy is our net, and a beating pulse of our heart. A strand of beauty linking you and I. How lucky!!!
2018
Unreasonably cruel by design, completely decrepit and crusty as an entirely grounded virtue, and still earnestly unplayable no matter how much I or it tries to justify that as part of its core thesis. And that's soooo cool. The surface levels of its completely aware corporate, deterministic, and hellish analogues for depressive and nihilistic thought that you quite literally ascend out of is MORE than worth the thorns, but not for me. Nope. I got several days in before the realization that metagaming would be an encouraged straight-faced requirement and that's when I knew I would never get through this without hotkeyed console commands every single day so I committed the immutable sin of just... watching/reading my way to victory. Sorry! My "reviews" are glorified blogposts anyway, so it's nothing new. And I personally just don't accept this kind of design altogether, especially in the later days of this game.
I still hold so much respect for it though, both in terms of encapsulating such a stark but brutally real depiction of life through its particular lens, and grounding it all in such a way that all of the complex layers can be easily peeled back to the same pathos core. Kind of difficult to dance around a lot of the elements here without spoiling, there's quite a few character cuts that go for the throat on various levels of "how does one find that strength to continue" here that I'm going to think about a lot. I couldn't delve that much into the detail anyways, I've lived privileged, I have not been in the depths of darkness that walk the hallways here. I will say as my single form of criticism to the story that its philosophical quandaries aren't exactly hitting high above the clouds, and I don't mean that in terms of vs. philosophy I mean that the highest highs here don't hit so hard, another victim of the gameplay making you largely senseless to it but also because the pacing kind of crams some of that in all at once.
On the other hand, the music mmmmmmmmmm. Awake in Death, When It Rains, Second Trumpet are incredible. The aesthetic is lovely too, with immaculate detail that's super suitable. If nothing else I'm committed to anything Project Moon comes up with (god I'm really going to get another gacha huh) simply for its irrefutable direction over every single one of its elements, even if this game is barely managing to make its initial mechanical concepts meet by sheer tedium.
To sort of address a last elephant in the room, I'm not going to say that if you are curious you should go down the same path as me. You will ABSOLUTELY most certainly be filtered at some point to like, 90-95% of the people I know who read the shit I write, but you should try to persevere as far as you can. I think at the least everyone should like, TRY, this, to understand the full scope of what the fuck Lobotomy Corporation has in store for you.
I still hold so much respect for it though, both in terms of encapsulating such a stark but brutally real depiction of life through its particular lens, and grounding it all in such a way that all of the complex layers can be easily peeled back to the same pathos core. Kind of difficult to dance around a lot of the elements here without spoiling, there's quite a few character cuts that go for the throat on various levels of "how does one find that strength to continue" here that I'm going to think about a lot. I couldn't delve that much into the detail anyways, I've lived privileged, I have not been in the depths of darkness that walk the hallways here. I will say as my single form of criticism to the story that its philosophical quandaries aren't exactly hitting high above the clouds, and I don't mean that in terms of vs. philosophy I mean that the highest highs here don't hit so hard, another victim of the gameplay making you largely senseless to it but also because the pacing kind of crams some of that in all at once.
On the other hand, the music mmmmmmmmmm. Awake in Death, When It Rains, Second Trumpet are incredible. The aesthetic is lovely too, with immaculate detail that's super suitable. If nothing else I'm committed to anything Project Moon comes up with (god I'm really going to get another gacha huh) simply for its irrefutable direction over every single one of its elements, even if this game is barely managing to make its initial mechanical concepts meet by sheer tedium.
To sort of address a last elephant in the room, I'm not going to say that if you are curious you should go down the same path as me. You will ABSOLUTELY most certainly be filtered at some point to like, 90-95% of the people I know who read the shit I write, but you should try to persevere as far as you can. I think at the least everyone should like, TRY, this, to understand the full scope of what the fuck Lobotomy Corporation has in store for you.
2016
I thought Hard Mode would be too much for me but no I forced myself back in and fuck it's so good. It is impossible to put the coursing level of electric hype Copy Kitty has through its continuous more difficult campaign into the proper words. I'm just, stunned, how incredible the level design is, how the boss design has been radically built upon to force you to make true on your fundamental movements and mechanics, how the final boss has you THROWING SUNS AT EACH OTHER THAT FUSE AND THEN EXPLODE. How even all the way up to the end it never ceases or slips up with its brilliant charm. I really wish I simply had an avenue to shoot this into any person I know's inbox. Rawest game that never compromises on anything, and so much to it. Like I haven't even played as Savant, or done Extra mode, or the boss rushes. There's still much for me to come back to and then GUSH unashamedly about next time. Good fucking god. I love video games
Marvelous duality to everything here. The story from the ground up is my shit, with the world surrounding Jack being a perilous shell of other FF games bereft of context as we are complete strangers to this place, both textually and metatextually. Haunting, unfeeling, then recontextualized at last in the end to these ghosts looking towards Paradise we say a mighty fuck you to. And on the other side, probably the most frustratingly dull interior and exterior for the vast vast majority of its time spent playing.
I'm not one to give props to being "intentionally" sludge, as in, I wanted to buy that maybe this gripping sense that Team Ninja simply Did Not Give a single SHIT past what they were asked to is an Intentional choice. But no I really think it brings everything down, as much as emulating the FF feel is nice the "variety" is genuinely smokescreen. Options between classes blend together real quick without much uniqueness to them, even with a kinesthetically sound toolset to all of them too much boils together into tedium. In hindsight, part of this is my fault for playing Monster Hunter at the same time as this, which pretty much takes the uh, for the sake of levity let's call it the 'soulsborne' system of whiff punishing, to an actually fantastic conclusion. Even beyond that though, somebody else mentioned it that, Nioh was never THIS bad. Nioh was never THIS tiring and boring. Even when upping the difficulty to hard and losing the party assist (which, tbh, i never used it anyway but needed to take away the temptation), things formulate too much together. The most praiseworthy aspect of the design is in its bosses but even that comes with a lot of caveats, as so many of them, almost all of them really, limit themselves with their pre-ordained telegraphing. In that the purple-orange-red system is bluntly, a fucked system that pretty much lowers the ceiling tremendously on what a boss's attacks and moves are capable of!!! After Tiamat the game might as well have ended, because once my head entered the rhythm that is how to respond to every single one of these attacks, nothing else ever puts a wrench in it.
Additionally, this project could not have had less caring hands on it for the lead-up to those final couple hours. Not so much in a budgetary way, but more so in a "this is a first draft, and it shows!!!" Found myself a lot of the time script doctoring how I could've paced so many of these elements better, because there's so little to emotionally buy into. And no it's not like that Is the idea, the last hour or so is absolutely riding on that payoff ludicrously.
So, something something duality, two teams who conceptually MAY have been a match made in heaven rather turned the whole thing into a smushed together crust that formulates only barely by the strength of some of its parts rather than the sum. I don't know, I really do love high concept stuff, I really really really really love Nomura's markings and pullings here, the futurism and its cracks and Jack's very multifaceted awakening! Maybe my standards have simply been put too high to accept a very good story told super terribly. I wanted to be floored, I was rooting and hollering for Jack but he just said meh and walked off. And you know what, I somehow enjoyed this a good deal overall.
So good for him, good for him. Respect.
I'm not one to give props to being "intentionally" sludge, as in, I wanted to buy that maybe this gripping sense that Team Ninja simply Did Not Give a single SHIT past what they were asked to is an Intentional choice. But no I really think it brings everything down, as much as emulating the FF feel is nice the "variety" is genuinely smokescreen. Options between classes blend together real quick without much uniqueness to them, even with a kinesthetically sound toolset to all of them too much boils together into tedium. In hindsight, part of this is my fault for playing Monster Hunter at the same time as this, which pretty much takes the uh, for the sake of levity let's call it the 'soulsborne' system of whiff punishing, to an actually fantastic conclusion. Even beyond that though, somebody else mentioned it that, Nioh was never THIS bad. Nioh was never THIS tiring and boring. Even when upping the difficulty to hard and losing the party assist (which, tbh, i never used it anyway but needed to take away the temptation), things formulate too much together. The most praiseworthy aspect of the design is in its bosses but even that comes with a lot of caveats, as so many of them, almost all of them really, limit themselves with their pre-ordained telegraphing. In that the purple-orange-red system is bluntly, a fucked system that pretty much lowers the ceiling tremendously on what a boss's attacks and moves are capable of!!! After Tiamat the game might as well have ended, because once my head entered the rhythm that is how to respond to every single one of these attacks, nothing else ever puts a wrench in it.
Additionally, this project could not have had less caring hands on it for the lead-up to those final couple hours. Not so much in a budgetary way, but more so in a "this is a first draft, and it shows!!!" Found myself a lot of the time script doctoring how I could've paced so many of these elements better, because there's so little to emotionally buy into. And no it's not like that Is the idea, the last hour or so is absolutely riding on that payoff ludicrously.
So, something something duality, two teams who conceptually MAY have been a match made in heaven rather turned the whole thing into a smushed together crust that formulates only barely by the strength of some of its parts rather than the sum. I don't know, I really do love high concept stuff, I really really really really love Nomura's markings and pullings here, the futurism and its cracks and Jack's very multifaceted awakening! Maybe my standards have simply been put too high to accept a very good story told super terribly. I wanted to be floored, I was rooting and hollering for Jack but he just said meh and walked off. And you know what, I somehow enjoyed this a good deal overall.
So good for him, good for him. Respect.
2010
I'm going to do something nightmarish and probably go and play (and MAYBE finish) XCX and XC2 before playing 3. I have no intention of replaying 1 and potentially invalidating a lot of my thoughts on it, because it does have issues.
The thrust of the main conceit largely centered around halfway through the narrative is dumb, for one. The whole both sidesy conclusion Shulk comes to with, ahem, "the big bad", is tacky if not downright callous treatment/response to the direct concentration camp theming laid out beforehand. Which leaves a genuinely bad set of things to just have in your head towards the finale when it gets largely spiritual. Granted, when I played this, my brain was fucking off, and that was a blessing in disguise.
Simultaneously, it's hard for me to really really hate. Even if things don't fit together, playing this on a dingy Wii in the late hours of night back from school was borderline transcendental because Xenoblade is just so pretty top to bottom. I love how everything looks, sounds, and feels, from exploring the secret areas of Eryth Sea, to the beautiful serenity of Satorl Marsh, it's lovely. In a way it is a "first mmo" experience in that respect, at least nailing what the mmo is supposed to capture in that sense of awe and scale. Something I wouldn't ever quite feel the same way again in an rpg. Even FFXIV which I still play religiously barely scratches at that side of the surface.
I also love the cast, they're so beautifully characterized, largely by the VA which at some points just carry the whole thing. I don't think there's very many people who can quite belt a scream like Shulk's Adam Howden out there and make it work, you know? It's because of that there's a genuine memetic quality to it that spreads out and surrounds the game with a lot of heart. That side of the text is also moderately kept, there's a lot of moments where the cast just gets to sit down and talk and those moments speak louder than the bombastic messy parts it gets to.
In a way I often liken Xenoblade Chronicles to Chrono Trigger. Practically rips off its whole idea of structuring its story really, there's very similar downtimes and pacing. I'd argue both don't really speak to larger themes either, both impart that unique "epic"ness through playing it, and vibes and energy are a core part of being strung along. CT certainly isn't as messy but neither does it really hit the same highs XC1 gives me. Ah, the point of the comparison though is that I think XC1 genuinely pays true on what the CT intro does. That rip-roaring 2 minute intro with the pendulum swinging through that embarks your journey? Xenoblade Chronicles does that same feel in its own way before expanding beyond that, becoming something much larger and visceral. So massive and sweeping me off my feet that with my feet high above the clouds I neglect to look at the ground below at all to see how it is.
That's magical. It's what adventure and journey can really impart. Whether or not the lessons in here are even worth discussing (they're not) I'll cherish those holy-shit-that's-a-lot-of-hours it gave me.
The thrust of the main conceit largely centered around halfway through the narrative is dumb, for one. The whole both sidesy conclusion Shulk comes to with, ahem, "the big bad", is tacky if not downright callous treatment/response to the direct concentration camp theming laid out beforehand. Which leaves a genuinely bad set of things to just have in your head towards the finale when it gets largely spiritual. Granted, when I played this, my brain was fucking off, and that was a blessing in disguise.
Simultaneously, it's hard for me to really really hate. Even if things don't fit together, playing this on a dingy Wii in the late hours of night back from school was borderline transcendental because Xenoblade is just so pretty top to bottom. I love how everything looks, sounds, and feels, from exploring the secret areas of Eryth Sea, to the beautiful serenity of Satorl Marsh, it's lovely. In a way it is a "first mmo" experience in that respect, at least nailing what the mmo is supposed to capture in that sense of awe and scale. Something I wouldn't ever quite feel the same way again in an rpg. Even FFXIV which I still play religiously barely scratches at that side of the surface.
I also love the cast, they're so beautifully characterized, largely by the VA which at some points just carry the whole thing. I don't think there's very many people who can quite belt a scream like Shulk's Adam Howden out there and make it work, you know? It's because of that there's a genuine memetic quality to it that spreads out and surrounds the game with a lot of heart. That side of the text is also moderately kept, there's a lot of moments where the cast just gets to sit down and talk and those moments speak louder than the bombastic messy parts it gets to.
In a way I often liken Xenoblade Chronicles to Chrono Trigger. Practically rips off its whole idea of structuring its story really, there's very similar downtimes and pacing. I'd argue both don't really speak to larger themes either, both impart that unique "epic"ness through playing it, and vibes and energy are a core part of being strung along. CT certainly isn't as messy but neither does it really hit the same highs XC1 gives me. Ah, the point of the comparison though is that I think XC1 genuinely pays true on what the CT intro does. That rip-roaring 2 minute intro with the pendulum swinging through that embarks your journey? Xenoblade Chronicles does that same feel in its own way before expanding beyond that, becoming something much larger and visceral. So massive and sweeping me off my feet that with my feet high above the clouds I neglect to look at the ground below at all to see how it is.
That's magical. It's what adventure and journey can really impart. Whether or not the lessons in here are even worth discussing (they're not) I'll cherish those holy-shit-that's-a-lot-of-hours it gave me.
2022
I wish parody in games had bite. Most of them are either too ironic for their own good or end up moving into their own sort of territory abandoning the parody like a third of the way through. I kind of respect Stanley Parable actually, and it lost the coin toss of me playing its 'sequel' over this, but I'm sure it would have had much to tell in its own fashion. Whether played out or not, it would have something to say for itself.
This doesn't. That's the weird part, Jonathan Blow is to me one of the easiest targets ever. You can make some good jokes about him that can turn into many great points. Obviously, The Looker isn't about Blow, but its painful attempts to target what The Witness is going for makes me wish it kind of was because that would've been at least an interesting way of joking about the game. Here you have, puzzle types painfully recreated without any illusion to seem smarmy, and attempts to spin the joke to other genres that never actually quite capture when The Witness actually excels. The jokes have a dual problem of being too reverent of the game to give something really powerful, and too smarmy to land the joke about Witness being up its own ass. From the most charitable lens, it's all cute, but says nothing.
Want to hear another spin? The Witness is a game about someone who is so insecure of their own experience of the world being misunderstood, with walls of libertarian almost incel level thoughts of how they don't quite understand girls, as well as being met with heaps of talk calling their work pretentious already, that they make a work about widening your perspective. Get it, because his own is genuinely really shallow. The irony!
This is a better joke than anything you'll find here, and that fucking sucks.
t. Someone who quite likes the Witness overall
This doesn't. That's the weird part, Jonathan Blow is to me one of the easiest targets ever. You can make some good jokes about him that can turn into many great points. Obviously, The Looker isn't about Blow, but its painful attempts to target what The Witness is going for makes me wish it kind of was because that would've been at least an interesting way of joking about the game. Here you have, puzzle types painfully recreated without any illusion to seem smarmy, and attempts to spin the joke to other genres that never actually quite capture when The Witness actually excels. The jokes have a dual problem of being too reverent of the game to give something really powerful, and too smarmy to land the joke about Witness being up its own ass. From the most charitable lens, it's all cute, but says nothing.
Want to hear another spin? The Witness is a game about someone who is so insecure of their own experience of the world being misunderstood, with walls of libertarian almost incel level thoughts of how they don't quite understand girls, as well as being met with heaps of talk calling their work pretentious already, that they make a work about widening your perspective. Get it, because his own is genuinely really shallow. The irony!
This is a better joke than anything you'll find here, and that fucking sucks.
t. Someone who quite likes the Witness overall
2022
rage, the blood curling screams across generational continuous visceral warfare to keep lives compounded, perpetual punishment. we slowly bleed out, only when forcibly running into fire do we remember to keep going.
against an increasingly powerful syndicate that cages, twirling the keys in their fingers giggling on "rehabilitation"
the bells toll, jail cells are more than bent metal they can constrain the flesh through words and deeds until freedoms become a beautiful splatter for the boot stamping down on this stupid queer
they'll keep functioning the glorious Machine until we break it
against an increasingly powerful syndicate that cages, twirling the keys in their fingers giggling on "rehabilitation"
the bells toll, jail cells are more than bent metal they can constrain the flesh through words and deeds until freedoms become a beautiful splatter for the boot stamping down on this stupid queer
they'll keep functioning the glorious Machine until we break it
2019
Already played this game, but suggested to be reviewed by SunKabir77.
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Ok yeah this doesn't leave much of An Impression nor much to say on it that isn't just a comprehensive rundown :/. It's Hotline Miami, sure, but filtered through its own lens that results in something arguably much more shallow? Fun to play as quick stop and pop popcorn, but story is ironically gestural insomuch that any point it COULD be making about violent video games as a whole and player commentary is ultimately facile and its leading threads don't coalesce in any other real point. I won't say this part is "offensively handled" but it sort of backing a lot of that subtext on real imagery of ptsd, mental health, and cycles of therapy and then rewarding you with some super cool ultra hard boss fight for saying fuck you to your corporate AND government led therapist (lol) is a wee bit uh, well ok then. Was never particularly excited for the dlc or sequel stuff whatever is the state of that now. Credit where it's due, it's a nice crisp presentation altogether (although apparently riding a lot of that backing on games I Still Haven't Played Yet ;-;) and with it I can still remember everything about this game a couple years later in pretty good detail.
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...
Ok yeah this doesn't leave much of An Impression nor much to say on it that isn't just a comprehensive rundown :/. It's Hotline Miami, sure, but filtered through its own lens that results in something arguably much more shallow? Fun to play as quick stop and pop popcorn, but story is ironically gestural insomuch that any point it COULD be making about violent video games as a whole and player commentary is ultimately facile and its leading threads don't coalesce in any other real point. I won't say this part is "offensively handled" but it sort of backing a lot of that subtext on real imagery of ptsd, mental health, and cycles of therapy and then rewarding you with some super cool ultra hard boss fight for saying fuck you to your corporate AND government led therapist (lol) is a wee bit uh, well ok then. Was never particularly excited for the dlc or sequel stuff whatever is the state of that now. Credit where it's due, it's a nice crisp presentation altogether (although apparently riding a lot of that backing on games I Still Haven't Played Yet ;-;) and with it I can still remember everything about this game a couple years later in pretty good detail.