LunaEndlessWitch
Functionally unhooked from the extremely raw aesthetic by objectives and missions that would, I imagine, be wowing to me were they not entirely all irritating and unpalatable to stomach through. I missed El Shaddai. Everything else here is stellar and worth looking into to play, but I would definitely stress it's significantly more woozy and rocky than exhilarating.
2011
Can't stand party games where foregone conclusions are likely and encouraged. It's definitely a more refined Monopoly of sorts, this would be the iterative ideal from that game with a more interesting complex structure and significantly more charm and heart to it. Granted it still kind of caps off quick, and playing this solo is the worst thing you can do for it because it runs dry when there's not a single bit of chaotic energy from friends, because unfortunately this game isn't really chaotic at all! At least for me, I like to have my party games spend little time on turns, and make choices a constant turn of the gambit, but here it's moreso tension on what potentially MAY happen with a lot of safe results. And those turns take so longgg, even on full speed.
I definitely would have to get a four person party to have a more grander experience, but with two I felt most of the time I was kicking around a bucket hoping something would explode, with the game itself ending simply from One single high-cost building roll... 20+ turns later from that impact. It's fine, definitely fun enough if you can fill the interim with your pals, but too much of a waste for me when scrambling games through Parsec.
I definitely would have to get a four person party to have a more grander experience, but with two I felt most of the time I was kicking around a bucket hoping something would explode, with the game itself ending simply from One single high-cost building roll... 20+ turns later from that impact. It's fine, definitely fun enough if you can fill the interim with your pals, but too much of a waste for me when scrambling games through Parsec.
2018
Superb mechanical interweaving. Not simply incredible for actually mastering the idea of six degrees of freedom but also constantly introducing new dynamics both in how your fire travels through space and how to avoid enemy fire through space. Sure, your fps retro staples are all here, from Lost Souls to Pinkies, but almost all of them have additional variants or similar copies that each bring their own dangerous and ridiculously engaging way to deal with them. Reavers and Scorpions especially end up being terrifying hounding enemies that constantly limit your space. Like you can move in so many directions to avoid attacks but your degree of consideration is always getting narrowed down and that forces you to make strong decisions. In general it's the best enemy roster I can even think of in a fps? They use everything you have as much as they test everything you can feasibly do.
I also really love the massive amount of clarity a game like this has, as well as the spectacular auto-correction so that you're generally moving through areas without getting super dizzy (and is also adjustable!). The maps themselves do not compromise either, getting progressively large and huge and demanding a good deal attention by the end of things. My favorite level is just one huge cavern structure that moves like a meticulous maze of passages and discriminates against anyone who thinks that the best way of avoidance is to Keep Running, as you'll just inundate yourself with 10+ enemies that you introduced your face to.
Really the only disappointment of Overload overall is its pretty in-one-eye/ear-out-the-other aesthetic. Granted it's a heavy challenge to try to do That much with this foundation without making someone nauseous, but it's a shame that so much of the levels bleed into each other. The music is simply just whatever too, and the final quarter feels like it just pulled back punches. Ironic due to what happens there but it was very disappointing when I finished off what amounts to a final boss and went "really?"
These are still small to me though, although worth acknowledging because they were always on my mind to some extent. Mostly the intrinsic feeling of spacecraft gameplay mastery under constant fire of several different types of weaponry that move 6dof is way way way more than enough to enjoy. One of the best fps games in recent memory if not in general.
I also really love the massive amount of clarity a game like this has, as well as the spectacular auto-correction so that you're generally moving through areas without getting super dizzy (and is also adjustable!). The maps themselves do not compromise either, getting progressively large and huge and demanding a good deal attention by the end of things. My favorite level is just one huge cavern structure that moves like a meticulous maze of passages and discriminates against anyone who thinks that the best way of avoidance is to Keep Running, as you'll just inundate yourself with 10+ enemies that you introduced your face to.
Really the only disappointment of Overload overall is its pretty in-one-eye/ear-out-the-other aesthetic. Granted it's a heavy challenge to try to do That much with this foundation without making someone nauseous, but it's a shame that so much of the levels bleed into each other. The music is simply just whatever too, and the final quarter feels like it just pulled back punches. Ironic due to what happens there but it was very disappointing when I finished off what amounts to a final boss and went "really?"
These are still small to me though, although worth acknowledging because they were always on my mind to some extent. Mostly the intrinsic feeling of spacecraft gameplay mastery under constant fire of several different types of weaponry that move 6dof is way way way more than enough to enjoy. One of the best fps games in recent memory if not in general.
It would be hard to summarize this I think. The most I can add to the small but fruitful conversation are simply collective anecdotes, which mostly consisted of spiraling down in self critique. Like, did you know I write fanfiction? It used to be "wrote" until recently when I picked up the Wings of Fire books and now I've added on a whole other world of things to help get both my emotional pains/frustrations out as well as seek affirmation to myself through shipping and what not.
This is relevant in HC3 because HC3 is at least partially about this sort of 'growing up' reflection, reconciliation, and reconstruction. It lashes out at everything it stands for and critically destroys and demakes its own ecosystem but it, at the end of the day, respects where its roots came from and how that transformed them to how they are today. Even despite the reactions of the cruel unforgiving world of Viewpoints that it then received. There is also so so so much more than that. A cascading rhythm of brutal acts of cleaning/detoxing the system by looking at what you've made like glass structures to throw rocks at. An immense cry for help to be heard by others but largely yourself. An attempt to reconcile with deep traumas that instead of being comforted by venting instead multiplied and become a duplicitous monster of a creation you regret. There is a plethora of interpretations that Childhood's End gives you and they are all frictional and ethereal and eternal.
But I kind of ruined some of that magic. Another part I find myself reflected here, doing the awful deed of continuing to graft myself onto these works is one of parasocial schisms within. There's a point in HC3 where there is a paranoid direct breakdown of feeling your move stalked and then duplicated to others. And unfortunately I imagine I'm one of those parasitic entities. I'm at a point now where my first step could hardly be a true one in most things anymore, there are multiple people I have watched from afar making myself like a kaleidoscope of parroting people. I've gotten better with it in that I no longer occupy those spaces to where I could be hurtful even indirectly and my mind is more clearer in my direction but the taint remains.
It feels wrong to sort of throw that sort of personal life off scenes (that do indeed super reflect that tho) but I find myself so personally changed on this journey that I find it difficult NOT to talk about it. It's funny because there's really not a year going by where I hate the "self" i was 1-2 years ago. It's like I don't stop 'growing' and I change almost to the point of instability when trying to consider what's 'me.' But I digress, the idea here is that HC1-3 as well as TWC were a turning point in terms of what I value in fiction, myself, and a big light on the path of where I go from here. I'm still going to write all of that fanfiction. Looking forward to being proud of it.
Where was I going with this again? I'm not sure. Let's hope there is something TO go to, the idea is after all to eventually move on from these selfs we might leave behind or grow discomforted with the thought of. I feel equivalently ready to move on as much as I do ashamed that I never quite gave the selfs enough "form" to move on from. I think from here though it's a new day and I'll press on, and worry less about the pasts of myself and more what I can do. It's time to put an end to this cyclical self destruction in some fashion, and I mean that in as little an ominous sense as I can possible.
This is relevant in HC3 because HC3 is at least partially about this sort of 'growing up' reflection, reconciliation, and reconstruction. It lashes out at everything it stands for and critically destroys and demakes its own ecosystem but it, at the end of the day, respects where its roots came from and how that transformed them to how they are today. Even despite the reactions of the cruel unforgiving world of Viewpoints that it then received. There is also so so so much more than that. A cascading rhythm of brutal acts of cleaning/detoxing the system by looking at what you've made like glass structures to throw rocks at. An immense cry for help to be heard by others but largely yourself. An attempt to reconcile with deep traumas that instead of being comforted by venting instead multiplied and become a duplicitous monster of a creation you regret. There is a plethora of interpretations that Childhood's End gives you and they are all frictional and ethereal and eternal.
But I kind of ruined some of that magic. Another part I find myself reflected here, doing the awful deed of continuing to graft myself onto these works is one of parasocial schisms within. There's a point in HC3 where there is a paranoid direct breakdown of feeling your move stalked and then duplicated to others. And unfortunately I imagine I'm one of those parasitic entities. I'm at a point now where my first step could hardly be a true one in most things anymore, there are multiple people I have watched from afar making myself like a kaleidoscope of parroting people. I've gotten better with it in that I no longer occupy those spaces to where I could be hurtful even indirectly and my mind is more clearer in my direction but the taint remains.
It feels wrong to sort of throw that sort of personal life off scenes (that do indeed super reflect that tho) but I find myself so personally changed on this journey that I find it difficult NOT to talk about it. It's funny because there's really not a year going by where I hate the "self" i was 1-2 years ago. It's like I don't stop 'growing' and I change almost to the point of instability when trying to consider what's 'me.' But I digress, the idea here is that HC1-3 as well as TWC were a turning point in terms of what I value in fiction, myself, and a big light on the path of where I go from here. I'm still going to write all of that fanfiction. Looking forward to being proud of it.
Where was I going with this again? I'm not sure. Let's hope there is something TO go to, the idea is after all to eventually move on from these selfs we might leave behind or grow discomforted with the thought of. I feel equivalently ready to move on as much as I do ashamed that I never quite gave the selfs enough "form" to move on from. I think from here though it's a new day and I'll press on, and worry less about the pasts of myself and more what I can do. It's time to put an end to this cyclical self destruction in some fashion, and I mean that in as little an ominous sense as I can possible.
2004
Getting Over It: Marble blast edition
This review contains spoilers
Every shell of me was punctured, left to bleed out onto the floor below. The world yelled, hammered, painfully clawing until there was nothing but the byproduct. The body was like hers I could not fathom the similarities I could only feel the unyielding inked connection and how it tore at me. Would there be a day I had not the courage to get up, if the air and lives of us all are so contaminated and filthy.
There's a strange, curious, unimaginable comfort in feeling eyes on you. Eyes whose gaze is powerful, so utterly incomprehensibly strong that all of your soul is laid bare to the world. I did not expect it and knee-jerkingly I wish I could blind it, refute the person and torment it for seeing me. I do not ask to be made this way, I do not enjoy being so vulnerable, I do not sit here in my chair thinking for hours on hours on who I am and what that means for me I do not want to push myself on others' lived experience and find the same frictional questions of DID I CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING IS TRANSITIONING WORTH THE COST WILL THE WORLD EVER LET ME LIVE CAN THERE BE ANY SORT OF HAPPY WAY OF BEING IS THE END TRULY ALWAYS SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO VILE.
That's not important. A full, unearthed happiness is impossible. We cannot simply move the hands in the right place to touch it. There's no complete symbiosis and choosing to leave it was never the right answer. And in such we turn to find others' way "It's the people who meet us that give us color". Utopia is perhaps futile but we are not powerless. Decisions are always up to us and even if they hurt everyone else around us we can but march on. "Seth" would.
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In a sense it's hard to be satisfied with that answer even after I gave it plenty of time to ruminate. I think the series in of itself has changed me and given me a lot to think about over time. I have different conclusions on Ep1 than i did when i published what amounts as a shitpost (but as with most good shitposts imo, one that's at least half true), and I have a strong urge to replay TWC after I'm done with episode 3. I find the series hard to recommend, because most people really shouldn't play this unless they feel they have the right fortitude. There are shards of glass here and now I've added some of my own. There is no hopeful message nor a positive one to go on, which I usually have to say. In an exception to my own sort of creed, I guess that is a fine thing here. Hopefully I can muster the strength to play Episode 3 after I've picked up the pieces. A new favorite
There's a strange, curious, unimaginable comfort in feeling eyes on you. Eyes whose gaze is powerful, so utterly incomprehensibly strong that all of your soul is laid bare to the world. I did not expect it and knee-jerkingly I wish I could blind it, refute the person and torment it for seeing me. I do not ask to be made this way, I do not enjoy being so vulnerable, I do not sit here in my chair thinking for hours on hours on who I am and what that means for me I do not want to push myself on others' lived experience and find the same frictional questions of DID I CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING IS TRANSITIONING WORTH THE COST WILL THE WORLD EVER LET ME LIVE CAN THERE BE ANY SORT OF HAPPY WAY OF BEING IS THE END TRULY ALWAYS SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO VILE.
That's not important. A full, unearthed happiness is impossible. We cannot simply move the hands in the right place to touch it. There's no complete symbiosis and choosing to leave it was never the right answer. And in such we turn to find others' way "It's the people who meet us that give us color". Utopia is perhaps futile but we are not powerless. Decisions are always up to us and even if they hurt everyone else around us we can but march on. "Seth" would.
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In a sense it's hard to be satisfied with that answer even after I gave it plenty of time to ruminate. I think the series in of itself has changed me and given me a lot to think about over time. I have different conclusions on Ep1 than i did when i published what amounts as a shitpost (but as with most good shitposts imo, one that's at least half true), and I have a strong urge to replay TWC after I'm done with episode 3. I find the series hard to recommend, because most people really shouldn't play this unless they feel they have the right fortitude. There are shards of glass here and now I've added some of my own. There is no hopeful message nor a positive one to go on, which I usually have to say. In an exception to my own sort of creed, I guess that is a fine thing here. Hopefully I can muster the strength to play Episode 3 after I've picked up the pieces. A new favorite
Watching my SO play this game after getting it set up for her on her PC has been a full appreciation hours experience. I realized the many limits and sides of the game I never would've sincerely done on my own. When I played, I was a very objectives focused player at the time. Not exactly check all the boxes but I did mostly head towards Shrines, Divine Beasts, Memories. I did a little bit extra here and there, but generally it was just that.
She plays differently of course, far more observant explorer than I for example. She ended up finding a ton of korok seeds so far, simply because she loved just looking around the environments. It's become a common phrase just for me to hear by earshot "there's something suspicious around here" and then the familiar jingle. She also just talks to every single npc, something I'd certainly do now were I playing for the first time but experiencing all the first time dialogue with her together has been sincerely charming. There's a profuse amount of work to make all of the characters just dotting the little villages you find endearing and earnest. I never really touched the quests and she's filling them out as she finds them. It's genuinely astounding how nothing that I see here feels too trodden or familiar to me just watching her play, I'm just watching with her and feeling a heavy surge of joy. I honestly wish there was co-op!!!
Both our birthdays are coming up this week, and living this game again together crafts a warm blanket, a sincere coziness to the days ahead. Bless
She plays differently of course, far more observant explorer than I for example. She ended up finding a ton of korok seeds so far, simply because she loved just looking around the environments. It's become a common phrase just for me to hear by earshot "there's something suspicious around here" and then the familiar jingle. She also just talks to every single npc, something I'd certainly do now were I playing for the first time but experiencing all the first time dialogue with her together has been sincerely charming. There's a profuse amount of work to make all of the characters just dotting the little villages you find endearing and earnest. I never really touched the quests and she's filling them out as she finds them. It's genuinely astounding how nothing that I see here feels too trodden or familiar to me just watching her play, I'm just watching with her and feeling a heavy surge of joy. I honestly wish there was co-op!!!
Both our birthdays are coming up this week, and living this game again together crafts a warm blanket, a sincere coziness to the days ahead. Bless
Got the sinden lightgun today so like, OF COURSE I'd go straight to the kino.
I spent about an hour of troubleshooting just to ultimately run through the game with borders that covered up the edges (which made the second boss a bit tough) and a cursor I couldn't remove that was offset from where the gun was actually pointing. Still finished it though because it's House of the Dead. And House of the Dead is still huge fun.
Like listen to this and try telling me the experience isn't worth it: https://youtu.be/9RgXbb3ne24
I spent about an hour of troubleshooting just to ultimately run through the game with borders that covered up the edges (which made the second boss a bit tough) and a cursor I couldn't remove that was offset from where the gun was actually pointing. Still finished it though because it's House of the Dead. And House of the Dead is still huge fun.
Like listen to this and try telling me the experience isn't worth it: https://youtu.be/9RgXbb3ne24
2019
The coolest thing about this game is that the act of finishing it is a smokescreen. If you actually went all the way to the end, and did everything, I salute you, but the real point for most is to stop playing the campaign and pretty much spend all your time using the custom workouts or something that feels right for you. To go at your own pace.
The amazing heartfelt purpose is simply to establish a routine, pushing you on, congratulating you, giving tool tips and etc. just to get you into a workout mindset. With enough body positivity I was able to come back and establish what I need to do, giving myself a full regimen to stick to for the past week or so now. The gamey part falls away, now earnestly happy to just let you use it to your heart's content. Feels great.
The amazing heartfelt purpose is simply to establish a routine, pushing you on, congratulating you, giving tool tips and etc. just to get you into a workout mindset. With enough body positivity I was able to come back and establish what I need to do, giving myself a full regimen to stick to for the past week or so now. The gamey part falls away, now earnestly happy to just let you use it to your heart's content. Feels great.
The only RTS campaign I can say I really finished, out of no obligation, no gritting teeth, no asterisks attached.
I think the biggest thing immediately for me is that Wings of Liberty as a campaign is not satisfied with just teaching you the general units and the general strategy. No, it wants to push into you every RTS fundamental. Getting really good at this campaign also made me more confident in the genre as a whole, because objectives had you target core fundamentals. On top of this, Wings of Liberty just has a lot of heart! There's a fucking shmup minigame in the mission cantina, there's a post-mission news reel you can watch, so many interactable characters with some of that "Blizzard magic" that doesn't feel like swallowing poison. And god there's a brutal difficulty option too, I can't imagine something like the last mission with nydus tunnels (which output STRONGER UNITS THE LONGER THEY'RE OUT) any harder than normal. I barely got through in the end.
I think the most titular example I can think of that felt like some ecstasy level mastery, was the mission Engine of Destruction. It's a very simple mission in concept, your pal Tychus is piloting an Odin that decimates mostly whatever is in his way, but he can't hear you. So he waits a bit, then hightails it to the next base he's going to destroy. This stresses a few things:
-Make sure to have enough units giving support that you'll also need to replenish, as fast as possible
-Defend him from harm
-Adapt quick to the enemy unit forces that are in your way.
I ended up finally getting a handle of the command group hotkeys, and things just completely clicked. Oh and during the whole thing you just get Tychus saying one liners with just perfect voice acting. It's soulful, it's damn well structured, it's a really really really good game!
I think the biggest thing immediately for me is that Wings of Liberty as a campaign is not satisfied with just teaching you the general units and the general strategy. No, it wants to push into you every RTS fundamental. Getting really good at this campaign also made me more confident in the genre as a whole, because objectives had you target core fundamentals. On top of this, Wings of Liberty just has a lot of heart! There's a fucking shmup minigame in the mission cantina, there's a post-mission news reel you can watch, so many interactable characters with some of that "Blizzard magic" that doesn't feel like swallowing poison. And god there's a brutal difficulty option too, I can't imagine something like the last mission with nydus tunnels (which output STRONGER UNITS THE LONGER THEY'RE OUT) any harder than normal. I barely got through in the end.
I think the most titular example I can think of that felt like some ecstasy level mastery, was the mission Engine of Destruction. It's a very simple mission in concept, your pal Tychus is piloting an Odin that decimates mostly whatever is in his way, but he can't hear you. So he waits a bit, then hightails it to the next base he's going to destroy. This stresses a few things:
-Make sure to have enough units giving support that you'll also need to replenish, as fast as possible
-Defend him from harm
-Adapt quick to the enemy unit forces that are in your way.
I ended up finally getting a handle of the command group hotkeys, and things just completely clicked. Oh and during the whole thing you just get Tychus saying one liners with just perfect voice acting. It's soulful, it's damn well structured, it's a really really really good game!
2020
a more earnest parody than a PETA sheen, maximized to satisfy the spreadsheets players who feel that the soul of pokemon is the use and maximization of pokemon rather than the adventure and understanding. Rika from tamers pre-arc. In reality it looks past the franchise, choosing instead to wallow in meta escapism self aware droll
we do a little murder (after i shut down myself for the sake of hopeful friendship (we smile because memories are painful and the sin is there the hate is there there's so much there but we must press on (seeing beyond the pale must always come with a center to come back to)))
2018
As someone who's rather curious about Diablo-likes I was very interested in trying this at least to see how it felt, even if a lot of the surrounding elements would end up rather tame and very standard. Unfortunately, we as a people seem to be unable to untether ourselves from formless milquetoast stock fantasy. I just needed a crumb of inspired, not specifically original, but earnestly inspired culture here. Fucking something
2019
Ah
I really needed that.
Hard to be cynical, hard to analyze what I needed emotionally in the moment. Something to plug a hole I didn't realize was bothering me. Sometimes the verisimilitude of a hike that I can't currently get right now is the best medicine for my mental state. The lighthearted soul of something really warm, uplifting that makes my heart soar. I cried to very small, very clearly crafted, earnest messages. I wandered, I explored, I went to the ends of the island and back, and I got something to remember this day forever.
Thank you for the gentle reminder to look forward head high.
Suggested by Phantom. Thank you
I really needed that.
Hard to be cynical, hard to analyze what I needed emotionally in the moment. Something to plug a hole I didn't realize was bothering me. Sometimes the verisimilitude of a hike that I can't currently get right now is the best medicine for my mental state. The lighthearted soul of something really warm, uplifting that makes my heart soar. I cried to very small, very clearly crafted, earnest messages. I wandered, I explored, I went to the ends of the island and back, and I got something to remember this day forever.
Thank you for the gentle reminder to look forward head high.
Suggested by Phantom. Thank you
2001
A soundtrack so immeasurably good and soul-shocking has no business being attached to a game this soul-sucking. My god.
I wanted it to at least be a vibe yknow ;-; but the sound mixing has it to where the music is all drowned out! Undub doesn't really even fix the issue, the first 20 minutes are suitably ~ethereal~ and then it succumbs to what feels like beta project monotony. My heart SUNK when the main gimmick of shared party health was immediately circumvented by health items that Full Restored Every Time.
I wanted it to at least be a vibe yknow ;-; but the sound mixing has it to where the music is all drowned out! Undub doesn't really even fix the issue, the first 20 minutes are suitably ~ethereal~ and then it succumbs to what feels like beta project monotony. My heart SUNK when the main gimmick of shared party health was immediately circumvented by health items that Full Restored Every Time.