The phrase “x story helped me out during a rough time” is used commonly to elaborate on how much a piece of media has helped someone out, but I can’t say that about Persona 3, primarily because it’s a story that has taken root inside me deeply and stayed with me throughout the years ever since 2021 when I first played it. It’s not like it helped me during a single rough time, it was more like an affirmative embrace and an acknowledgement of my struggles throughout all of these years collectively instead of just one period of time. Persona 3, much like Good Will Hunting, Evangelion, and Pandora Hearts, is a game that I like to revisit and reflect upon every time I feel like I’m in a rut and can’t figure out who I am and what am I supposed to do in this world. It’s something I’ve closely attached to who I am because of how much it shaped my mindsets towards life, “The meaning of our lives is something that we make but don’t see”, and, “You don’t need to save the world to find meaning in life” are quotes I internalised, reminded myself of anytime I felt myself falling down an existential crisis, and the long term effects it had on me throughout the years is not something I take for granted. In a way, Persona 3 is a symbol of my struggles during my adolescence, and so, it is that revisiting it through Reload that I felt like I was looking back on parts of myself from back then and getting in-touch with them again. It felt like a reflection of my past, of all the struggles I pushed through to make it this far to where I am today, and by the end of it, I realised that much of my own growth throughout the years was because of stories like Persona 3, growth due to me burning my dread and venturing in life while living in the moment.


When you’re faced with a crisis that you have no idea how will it end, or how you will resolve it, you have two choices, whether to believe that you’ll fail and fall into a hole of cynicism or to believe in your happiness and work towards that ideal in the moment by focusing on yourself and doing what you can until eventually, everything falls into place. This sentiment seemed too unreal to me because of how clouded my vision was with all of the negativity that I surrounded myself with back in 2020 because whenever I tried to resolve my issues, I half assed it and it backfired, whether it be my existential crisis due to the societal pressure I experienced that made me feel like I had to have a larger than life success story to be worth anything, my ever growing disdain towards the fleeting nature of bonds, struggles with navigating interpersonal issues due to my self pity and cynicism as a byproduct of my fear of abandonment, and fear of death due to religious doubts I had. All of this was too much for my 17 year old self to bear, but as I said, Persona 3 and its characters all reflected different intimate parts of who I am for a reason.


For a dumb teenager like me who couldn’t believe in himself, drowned in self pity and inferiority towards others, and had trouble seeing what was so special about myself, Junpei Iori represented my struggles with the indifference of the universe crucially. He’s someone who believes his own hype to subconsciously convince himself that he’s a hero destined to save everyone, when in reality that’s merely his coping mechanism with his deep-seated insecurity about his incompetence, and that shows in the dichotomy of his goofiness and feelings of envy and jealousy. It’s only later through meeting Chidori, someone who felt like her life held meaning due to her persona, much like he did, that he realized that he doesn’t need to be this impossible image of a hero that he created within himself and that if he kept on being true to his innermost self, the one who wanted to become a baseball player, he’ll have already become a hero to someone, like he did with Chidori. I said that Junpei’s insecurities and tendency to compare himself to others reflects a part of me in the past, but truth be told, I still have those tendencies lingering in from within me, yet in the same vein, over time I’ve learned to trust in myself, that whatever I do, it’ll result in something special. I learned that it doesn’t matter if there’s someone who’s better, smarter, more insightful than me, because no matter what, they can never be me, and so long as I pursue that self and see to it that its potential is met, everything will fall into place. It’s for that reason that I can look back on Junpei’s arc in P3 fondly and think to myself about how much it helped me internalise that self trust, because there’s nothing more real than pulling a mentally ill goth bad bitch by being funny and quirky.



When I said that P3 reflects different parts of myself from the past, I meant that because it’s not just my teenage years that it reflected but my childhood as well with characters like Ken. I could go into how characters like Mitsuru, Akihiko, Shinjiro, & Fuuka connected with me but I want to go with Ken not just because he’s my favorite among the aforementioned characters (I’m quirky, I know) but because of how he crucially reflected a part of me that no other character has, and it’s how Ken chooses to adapt to his situation to fit in in self deriding ways that I feel seen by. From the start, Ken is pushed into this dog-eat-dog world where only the strong survive, even in SEES, and that sudden change in his environment not only made him lose himself but a person’s most precious value, that being his inner child. Ken was forced to let go of his childish nature, gaslight himself into thinking that such notions would only hold him back, and proceeded to move solely through objective means because of how he was stuck in an adult world where if he doesn’t man up and throw away his childish needs and struggles, he’d be left behind, much like how his mother left him behind and so did everyone else, with their looks that were devoid of nothing but pity, yet even then, in his linked episodes, he couldn’t let go of his inner child and it shows sprinkles of his inner child peeking out due to his enthusiasm. It’s a heartbreaking accurate depiction of how much Ken struggles to connect with others and most importantly himself, because nothing has been the same for him since his Mom died. Many people, when looking at Ken’s character, view Ken’s arc as a revenge arc, and while that’s a valid reading of his character, to me, it felt like it was more so Ken reconnecting with his inner child, realising that he doesn’t need to put up this facade to “survive” and “fit in” with this cruel world, and that he doesn’t need to hold himself back emotionally so much because of others anymore, because while he may have lost his family, he gained another through SEES, and that’s what “living” means. Losing people, meeting new people, bonding with them, and doing simple things like practicing your hobbies, that’s what living really means, and that meant so much to me because back when I was a kid, I never had any friends of my own, could never really connect with them, and that’s because I always hung out with my older brother’s friends, which subsequently made me mature too fast for my good and didn’t allow me to live my childhood to its fullest. I could never connect with people my age, because I was so used to forcibly maturing myself to keep up with my older friends, I always felt like bottling up my emotions and needs in favor of a facade that could get me the closeness and sense of belonging I wanted out of their company since I was too awkward to make any friends of my own, yet on the inside I was too young and emotional to get along with my older friends, creating this unstable interpersonal problem I had that plagued my childhood. It’s funny, how I’m a grown person now, yet seeing Ken be plagued with this same issue I had and recovering from it through mundane means, almost had me tearing up because it reminded me of how much I hardened myself and designed a strong man to protect the hurting child inside me.




Earlier, I described Persona 3 as a meditative experience that gives me space for my feelings whenever I need a haven to express myself within, or feel seen within, and so, there are parts of it that are timeless to me, parts of it that help me see myself in a better light and enable me to look at myself more positively, one such part is Yukari’s character and how much of an embrace it feels to me. Truthfully speaking, my aim with my media experiences is to either escape the real world, or for edutainment purposes, but it is so rare for me to engage myself with a story that can help me discover positive, strong traits within my character that makes me love myself. It’s hard for a story to do that, since what I look for in fictional characters are parts of me that I and others around me struggle to accept, more often than not are negative parts, but that’s why Yukari means the world to me, since not only does her character give me a safe space to feel seen and accepted for my contradictory feelings of love and hate towards intimacy, but she also embodies a trait of mine that helps me accept it, that being kindness and empathy. Yukari’s premise is that she struggles with the internal conflict known as the hedgehog dilemma, where she craves intimacy but disdains contact with others, because she wants to be loved, but doesn't think she's worth loving because of the self pity, sense of weakness/inferiority, & self hatred she internalised as a byproduct of being "abandoned" by both of her parents, at least emotionally. I say emotionally because her dad died so he didn’t abandon her technically, and her mother simply clung to other men for emotional support, so she didn’t consciously abandon Yukari, but at least on an emotional level, Yukari felt like she had the deepest craving she had was taken away from her, forever a wish beyond her reach, and that affected how she perceived herself and others and based her moral compass around her disdain for her Mother who abandoned her and what she represents. Following that, Yukari would disassociate with anything that resembled the escapist coping mechanisms her Mother did through either self-denial or self-isolation from others. It’s why she despises being helped out, because not only does she blame and hate herself for what happened to her parents but because it resembles her Mother’s helpless state of feeling like she needs to be saved, it’s why she was mad when Makoto helped her out during her s. Link, it’s why she tries to present herself as this being who towers above the concept of weakness to feel a sense of leverage and derive self-worth from that, but at the same time, she’s a highly emotional person who wears their heart on their sleeve, and so bits and pieces of that need for emotional support and insecurities about her self image come out. An example of this would be her jealousy and fixation over Mitsuru, she’s so fixated on Mitsuru because deep down, she wants to be like her, someone who’s unfazed, looks powerful and is the exact opposite of her Mother. A toxic sense of admiration, you could call it, since she never recognizes this jealousy, how wrong it is since even Mitsuru’s flawless demeanor was fake and a byproduct of societal expectations, and how much it contradicts Yukari’s conscious desire to present herself powerfully, and whenever she recognizes that, it’s in self-loathing, like how she did in Yakushima, because of how much she gaslights herself into thinking that she’s strong and doesn’t need help, even if it means ignoring herself and wrongly seeing others. Despite those insecurities getting in the way of how she interacts with others, she's a very kind person who has all the love to give to others, yet when it comes to loving herself, that ''love'' she has for others is devoid of any love for herself. Time and time again, in various instances Yukari shows how much empathy and kindness she has for others, even from the start of the game, like how she was the first SEES member who bothered to reach out to Makoto and connect with him instead of spying on him, how she was the first to defend Makoto when Junpei lashed out at him, how she made insensitive jokes about Junpei but then apologized to him and considered his feelings, or with how she helped other SEES members navigate their problems like Fuuka who struggled with people pleasing habits during her final s. link and Mitsuru who struggled with self-acceptance and existential dread. Additionally, if you spend enough time with her during the night events, there's a moment where she talks about how inspiring the main female character is, how she wants to be just like her, someone who's there for everyone around her and is capable, and that puts into perspective how kind Yukari is and how much she empathizes with others. Yet, she has moments where she’s a tease and makes fun of others, sometimes in a tone-deaf way, and why is that? The majority would chalk it up to her being a quirky mean white girl, and while I get it and understand how appealing that is since I’d love for a pretty white girl like her to call me racial slurs and deride me my right to live, I think that Yukari’s need to prove her toxic self image right to justify her self hate and rejection of help to disassociate from her Mom is what causes her to be such a tease and to be so slanderous, because while she's quirky and mean in her own right, it's also valid to infer that about her character. It doesn't help that being bullied due to her father's failure influenced her perception of social interaction more aggressively and might've added to that if anything. In a sense, she has the most amount of kindness out of anyone, but the dichotomy she has where she pushes everyone away while craving their love and attention, is what clouds that trait of hers and makes it harder for her to express that, and it's why whenever she gets praised for her kindness, she denies it. She's a perfect example of how someone's personality can be so dynamic, where she's a mean teaser on the outside, but would be the quickest to be there for someone else, and that part of her helps me embrace the idea that I'm a kind person, or at least, try to be because I'm similar to that aspect of her and it feels very validating. It's especially relatable because there are moments where I went out of line and lost friendships due to that, due to unhealthy tendencies and mindsets I had, and that made me reject my kindness in favor of self-loathing, yet through Yukari, I was able to see that part of me, admit to it, and love myself more authentically because of it.


By now you understand how much Persona 3 means to me, how much of a solace inducing experience it is for me, and how much it helps me to love, to feel loved, to express my earnest desires, and to be there for everyone around me, but in contrast, oddly enough, when I was playing through Reload, a certain part of it re-stimulated my fear of abandonment, my disdain for the fleeting nature of relationships due to past experiences, and my desire for everything to stay the same way, thinking about how worthless something is if it’s destined to never last, that certain part being the front and center of the game, Aegis. A few years ago, during the pandemic, I’d say I was at my worst mentally, and it’s not because of the experiences I went through by that point, but it was more so because of how I dealt with those experiences by willingly surrounding myself with negativity, choosing to be miserable instead of fighting, and preferring victimhood over the pursuit of happiness. It led to loads of perceptual issues I had, and that only piled up more on the issues I already struggled with at the time. You see, I grew up in an environment that shunned sensitivity and emotions and saw them as a sign of weakness, and so, a feminine guy like me who was highly emotional and sensitive, was essentially born and raised in the wrong environment because of how much that aspect of it contradicted how I was at my innermost core. In an attempt to fit in, I discarded myself, drowned myself in an endless hell of facades, and over time, forgot who I even was, becoming something of a colorless broken puppet unable to discern my emotions and convey them, forever emotionally stunted and ignorant of how it feels to “live” because all I did was exist. For that reason I’ve had my complications with loneliness and love, feeling like I couldn’t feel it or even deserved it. So, it is that through Aegis I was able to see a picture of my past self, a grotesque portrait of how I was 4 years ago. It was as eerie as it was comfortable, seeing a character frustratingly and confusingly try to navigate their place in the world and getting shredded by it. It felt validating, because Aegis had the same misconception that I did, and it was that I thought I had to do something larger than life itself to justify my existence when that wasn’t the case. It was very comforting for me to see a character that represents how I was a few years ago, that’s how it was at first anyway. It later dawned on me that after Aegis decided to live, she started struggling with something that I struggle with nowadays, and it’s maintaining relationships, or rather, thinking that they’re worth maintaining anyway since they all end. I’ve always had this thought that yeah, sure, all bonds end, that this is an absolute, but it always pained me whenever I met someone, because I knew deep down, that at some point they’re going to leave me behind and we’ll part ways. Even if we reconnect, it might not even be the same as before and that made me oftentimes crave a reality where time could be halted. But upon revisiting Aegis’ social link, there’s a piece of dialogue that reminded me why I cherish the people I cherish and why I’ll never stop loving the people I’m with.

“Life is both short and finite. That’s what makes it so invaluable, and why one feels that it must be cherished… When you think about it, it’s a miracle that two given people are able to ever meet in this chaotic flow of time and space.”


It’s a simple line, something that’s hard to miss, but that's the case with most ideas in life and is what makes it connect with me because of how Makoto’s dynamic with Aegis resonates with that sentiment and embodies it with the stark contrast of how they live. Their differences made them feel complete because, on the two opposite spectrums, they struggled to understand life and the worth of the process that goes within it that inevitably leads to death, yet through something simple, like knowing and understanding each others' emptiness, they felt the elusive taste of connection and yearned for more from it. Makoto is a human who tries to be a machine, while Aegis is a machine who tries to be human, yet despite their differences, they connected because they both yearn for the same thing, to stand with one another atop Gekoukan’s rooftop and gaze at the city that gave them a taste of that elusive connection. The shortage of something is what makes you fear losing it. Yet, in the same vein, it makes you want to appreciate it and make use of it to the fullest so that when it ends, you can look back on it with no regrets and cherish your memories of it because it’s the memories that make our experiences with one another flow through all eternity. And so, even if I fear losing the ones I love, even if I lived a life of an emotionally stunted puppet, even if I lived in existential dread, even if I thought at times that I didn’t deserve to be liked, or that I was of less worth than others, none of that matters, because regardless of what happens, I’m human, I have feelings worth conveying, I will always have people I love, and I have something to live for, it may not be monumental, but the small ripples caused by the day to day things I do will surely produce a result worth living for in the long run because no two days are the same. It’s funny, I talked about my time during the pandemic as the worst time in my life, yet when I look back on it, I can’t look at those days as an unhappy time. To me, they’re a sign that I’m alive, a backdrop for me to push forward from, a pat on the back telling me how much I’ve changed, and a signal to dash forward and follow my heart, because I now know that rejecting it is the most painful of all. Maybe that’s how I feel about them because over time, I’ve slowly subconsciously implemented the feelings and lessons that Persona 3 made me feel and taught me into my day-to-day life, and now looking back on it, after everything has been said and done, I feel nothing but pride and love towards who I became and who I was. Through remembering my mortality, I remembered to live, and so I did.

Earnest and empowering, in short. Trails from Zero is an incredibly powerful game that feels like a battle shonen in video game form, mixed with the long term storytelling, ambitious world building, and the mind bogglingly deep lore of Kiseki that results in a video game that combines the best of both and works perfectly, primarily because of how every element from the two spectrums I mentioned are glued together seamlessly through Lloyd bannings. On the surface, Lloyd seems like a perfectly normal main character with a clear cut moral code, but what makes Lloyd so compelling are the small neat bits of characterization that hint at a deeper, darker side to him that he grapples with without even realising it. It kind of fits with Crossbell’s setting too, because in a way, much like Lloyd, Crossbell looks like a perfectly stable peaceful state, but is actually run by the absolute worst, corrupt politicians. In the same way, Lloyd puts on an unbreakable facade and tries to be an invincible hero with an unflinchingly optimistic attitude, but on the inside, he’s the same kid that lost his brother, hasn’t moved on, and is stuck chasing after his shadow even after he died.


This is something that I absolutely adore when it comes to world building, where it feels like the city is a breathing, living character who’s tied to the main characters leading it, and that applies to Crossbell where it’s all about exploring your own truth and finding meaning to it on your own terms, because in Lloyd’s journey of uncovering his truth, he began uncovering Crossbell’s identity as well, and that acted as a genius backdrop for Crossbell’s theme of truth. Going back to Lloyd for a bit, as I mentioned, the parts of him that make him stand out to me are the small bits of characterization that people who call him boring often times miss, the small bits that show how caught up he is in his own brother’s shadow, how they seep into his mundane day to day life events, and how self damaging that can be.


When it comes to trauma, we often times unintentionally bottle it up for our self preservation since they’re unexpected, yet in spite of that, they seep into our mundane day to day life no matter how much we sugarcoat it and spreads its disease into our social interaction, which is my favorite form of portrayal of trauma and is why I adore Lloyd so much. He tries to put on Guy’s persona of an unstoppable hero that everyone can rely on even when it comes at his own expense, yet the person he forgets to save is himself, and it’s never explicitly told that this is what he struggles with until the near end of Zero because up until that point, Lloyd’s struggles are portrayed through his behaviour and it’s up to the player to infer what he goes through in comparison to the cast. In this sense, we’re put into Lloyd’s comrades’ shoes, have our intelligence tested by trying to infer what he himself goes through despite his seemingly normal demeanour, and that’s what makes the eventual exploration of Lloyd’s issues and his admittance to his insecurities hit so hard, because we as the player already could infer what he goes through yet ignores and are simply waiting for him to recognize that part of him. It’s an incredibly effective yet unique way of telling a main character’s arc through perspective, and that goes well with Crossbell’s themes about perception and truth, because even if Lloyd seems normal when we first perceive him, he is the exact opposite of that and that plays well into what Crossbell is trying to tell about the concept of truth.


Time and time again, from start to finish, Lloyd’s insecurities are shown through his actions even from the get go, where he was prepared to throw his life away to save the SSS from the geofront monster before Arios came in to save the day, and that’s not just because of the goodness of his heart but because that’s what his image of Guy would do in a situation like this. In this sense, you can say that when Guy died, Lloyd’s sense of self split into two, the part of him that admires Guy and the part of him that feels worthless in comparison to him and chases a far fetched shadow of his, forever stuck in an endless whirlpool of insecurities and living on auto-pilot mode. To illustrate further, whenever Lloyd accomplishes something, or is praised for having a good trait, he always denies that praise and credits it to Guy, which might seem like its Lloyd being humble, but in reality, it’s much more complicated and sadder. The reason for this is that Lloyd doesn’t take credit for those accomplishments or traits of his because he views them as Guy’s, or rather, the traits/accomplishments of his image of Guy that he only inhabits because of his desire to be like Guy. As such, when he does a good deed, or embodies a good trait, it’s to chase after that image of Guy first and foremost, and since those traits and actions are motivated by his desire to catch up to Guy, not just his own good will, it feels wrong to take credit for that because it doesn’t truly feel like his. He disassociates from those good deeds because they were coloured by his unhealthy admiration towards Guy and while motivated by his good will, that good will is only a secondary reason. It’s why in chapter 2 after Lloyd gives Ellie a corny friendship speech and Ellie asks him how he can be so optimistic, Lloyd doesn’t take credit for that and instead thanks Guy for it. While that’s definitely because Lloyd loves Guy, it’s also because he doesn’t believe in himself to be great enough to be that capable and strong on his own. Lloyd’s arc is all about finding balance between his image of Guy and who Guy really was, it’s about repairing his sense of self after it was shattered by how much he revered Guy and attached his individuality to him, and that’s makes Lloyd such a sympathetic main character to me, because in his attempt to find meaning in Guy’s death, he forgot to find meaning in his self, and that’s what enabled him to connect with the SSS members on such a spiritual level. At their core, Randy, Lloyd, Tio, and Ellie, are all incredibly lonely individuals with no place to call home, and that’s what enabled Lloyd to guide them and be their leader.


All of what I said about Lloyd up until now has been purely analytical, but on a personal note, there are small bits and pieces of dialogue that Lloyd said that truly connected with me, the biggest of them being when he told Randy that as strange as it is, he can finally accept that he can be his own man, reach his ultimate potential, and be satisfied, as opposed to a few months ago. This sentiment rung true to me personally, because I have an older brother that I admire and feel the need to chase after as well, yet despite being told countless times that I just need to keep being me, it all felt like hollow garbage to me that meant nothing, until lately after years of practising self love and self care, where I’ve come to identify and appreciate my own worth beyond my brother’s. It made me feel seen, because with Lloyd, the truth of his being and his surroundings and their meaning started and ended with him. This sentiment is reflected in the concept I mentioned above with Crossbell being like a living, breathing character on its own, where by overcoming his own barriers and finding his truth, Lloyd was able to understand the ins and outs of what Crossbell’s conflicts pertain, break the status quo, and change Crossbell for the better, like the hero he had hoped to become after initially running away from the city he treasured. In the end, it was all about perspective.


Truth be told, I didn’t really plan on writing such a long form piece on Crossbell mainly cause I wanted to do that once I was done with Azure, but I couldn’t really stop myself once I started expressing my passion for this game and what it made me feel. I guess that’s what happens when you let your own words flow and come together to form a pattern of thoughts instead of limiting yourself, and maybe that’s what Trails has become to me. Something that allows me to be ‘’free’’, and that’s why I’ve come to adore it and adore talking about it so much. In a word, though, Lloyd’s earnest nature is what made Crossbell’s cast (and me) love him, and through that love, he was able to find meaning to himself and have several white women wanting to fuck him.

For the longest time, I’ve always delayed this review for a specific reason. When I first finished FFXVI, I wrote down a 6 paged long review for FFXVI and while I am proud of the passion I poured into it, it just…lacked “something”, a main integral part of it was missing. It would only be a few months later that I’d realise the reason why, and it’s because while I did absorb the motivational and inspiring themes about accepting reality for what it is and resisting your predetermined fate to shape the reality you want, I didn’t apply that to my life like I thought I did and that faint, vague thought that slept in the deepest crevices of my mind would be the sole saviour of my mind when I was forced to confront a personal, subconscious part of who I am that I kept locked away for my own comfort when I had a painful self realisation about my darker subconscious traits. Trying to verbalise the vehement disgust and sheer sense of discomfort I felt towards myself when I made that self realisation was too much for me at the time, and so, in a way, writing this review at this state in my life about a game that was the catalyst to this realisation I made was like going through the different parts of myself that I hated and denied for the longest.


It was like picking the scattered shards of a broken glass, trying to reconnect them one by one from the past into one integral piece to feel a sense of peace. But the more shards I picked, the more they hurt, and that sensation of wanting to throw it all away and replace the broken shards with fake ones that barely fit just to indulge in self denial was what made me connect with the leading protagonist, Clive Rosfield. What I’d been ignoring my entire life, my own shadow and subconscious reactions, have been what were causing me most of my strife in life, yet I always averted my eyes from the truth when it was staring right into my face and blamed another for it to spare myself the guilt that I always feared would destroy what little was left of me. It set me on a long journey that tested my perseverance, self love, outlooks on life, my relationships, and most importantly myself, causing me to re-evaluate everything that I was, with beach walks by the full moon at night being my only temporary relief in an otherwise overwhelming time.

FFXVI isn’t just a game, it’s about taking responsibility towards others but most importantly yourself, it’s a fiery, blazing yet a gentle and a warm reminder that while choosing to be the victim is easy, becoming the hero of your own story and turning tragedy to triumph is a continuous arduous path that’s full of suffering and fear. FFXVI pushes the generic idea that embracing the truth makes you stronger, but what sets it apart is that it emphasises how accepting the truth is only a part of the equation and isn’t the be all and end all. Accepting the truth is part of it, but applying that truth, etching it onto your heart, and wearing your heart on your sleeves as you’re burning a roadless path ahead without running away is what matters. It doesn’t show that the acceptance of truth is a one time event, it’s an ongoing process that takes as long as our lives do, and it does that with how it characterises Clive’s contradictions because when he accepted the truth, trying to apply it on his journey was just as arduous as ever and that’s what truly touched me, because there is no escape nor a solution to it, it’s an endless treadmill with moments of bliss sprinkled every now and then. Whether it’s Clive’s own struggles to live up to his father’s ideals and his fears pertaining them, Jill’s inability to shake off her self deprecating views about herself from her experiences with abuse, Joshua’s need to prove his own self because of his inferiority complex, & Dion’s need to obsessively pay everyone he unintentionally hurt back when he doesn’t need to, I felt like I was seen and validated by each and everyone of them. It’s when a piece of art can speak to you so spiritually and forms such an intimate connection with you that its characters feel like real people and integral parts of who you are, that it stops being just a piece of art and something deeper than that. It becomes a safe haven and that’s the most accurate way I can describe FFXVI.


Though I did the most I could to embrace the shadow and subconscious traits from within me, to forgive and accept that part of me instead of rejecting it by doing inner child work, patching up my hostile relationship with my parents, reconnecting with my siblings and friends, going out of my comfort zone to do things I always wanted to do, and internalising a new way to look at everything as I knew, even as I’m writing this, I can feel those dark habits pulling me back and my fear of the truth from within me breaking me apart, but it’s why I’m able to connect with Clive so much, who tries to be an unstoppable force while being barely held together by thin rope that could break at any moment & believing in the truth of his being. The truth is a feeble concept, one formed and changed by the narrow mind’s singular perspective in an attempt at self preservation, but that’s what helped me explore a deeper meaning to my life because the truth isn’t what’s before you, it’s what you make of it and work towards realising that. We can’t choose who we are, but we can choose who we become on the morrow and strive towards that self. It’s less about changing who we are as much as it’s about exploring who we can become and getting comfortable with that. In this piece in which I impart an integral, personal chapter of my life, I leave a mark that maybe someone can learn from or be inspired by, the same way this piece of art inspired a transformative stage in my life. Years from now, I likely won’t be able to recall the exact feelings I felt writing this piece, but I know that they will impact me forever after, as little as they are, just like how the few blissful moments I spent walking by the beach and gazing at its endless horizons with the full moon’s light illuminating the ocean did.

I wasn’t really planning on writing any long form pieces of writing about Trails where I’d go in-depth in relentlessly praising it and talking about how much of a destressing, genuine experience it’s been until I was done with Sky the third because acting like a huge fan of an 11 game long series when I’ve only played 2 games seemed weird, but between the engaging political conflict that’s incredibly ambitious because of the increasing amount of parties with different motivations involved with each conflict, the twists surrounding each conflict, how these political conflicts impact the characters in realistic ways that enforce challenges upon the leading main characters to overcome both on an ideological level and a physical level, the heartwarming large cast full of good for nothing goofy ahh misfits with earnesty and charm filling their banter as much as it fills their genuine moments of emotional vulnerability, the ridiculously large scale amount of global level conflicts being set up for events far into the future with lots of twists and turns and conspiracies that kept me at the edge of my seat at times, the deep lore that’s not too convoluted and is moreso used as a backdrop for kiseki’s characters’ struggles, and most importantly, the human and grounded struggles that characters like Joshua, Estelle, Loewe, and Agate go through that brings this insanely ambitious narrative that covers several continents to a grounded level, it was hard not to scream at the top of my lunges “AHHHHHHHH I LOOOVVVEE TRAIILLSSS I LOOVVEE BRAZIL KONDO MADE A SERIESS THAT’S FOR ME BRUH”



Ok but frfr it’s virtually impossible to write down every single thing I loved about Sky FC/SC, but the best starting point I can think of is the central driving force, that being Joshua and Estelle’s dynamic and how it plays out during the story. There’s a line Joshua says in FC where he tells Estelle to go about expressing her unbridled trust towards her surroundings, her innocence, and to not so much as doubt what’s infront of her and see the darkness within it, practically telling her to avoid seeing the unpleasant side of things and questioning them and to leave the anxiety driven suspicions and doubts to joshua instead because that’s his speciality as an assassin. In a way, Joshua was keeping her vision unclouded, and telling her what he doubts and sees as dangerous to help her avoid making the wrong choice as much as he can. Similarly, at the end of SC, due to Joshua’s self isolationist, self hating tendencies that always look to make him run away from what’s right before him and wallow in his misery because that is more convenient to him than thinking he’s worth other people’s company and troubling them with his presence, Estelle told Joshua that she'll be the one to keep him in check and walk alongside him because Joshua always fails to see the obvious things like people’s love for him, how much they want to be there for him, and how important he is to them, which Estelle regulates by pointing to him these obvious cues and keeping him on the right track. In their own ways, at different points, they covered for each others’ weaknesses, and seeing their method of helping each other out transition from an unhealthy one to a much more empowering one was super poetic. That beautiful, organic transition where Estelle goes from being a naive, innocent dork to an emotionally mature, determined lady with unwavering, grounded optimism and Joshua goes from being a tryhard tough act who pretends to be emotionally mature and determined to a vulnerable, scarred soul trying to walk the right path with the bad bitch he bagged by trauma dumping and correct all the sins he’s made with his previous antics, perfectly sums up why I love their relationship so much. It’s so full of parallels like the one I mentioned yet so opposing, and in their opposition to each other in terms of background, they manage to connect to a spiritual level and works so well as the main force that pushes Sky’s themes about facing your fears and embracing the truth as the guiding light that’ll help you carve your path with others instead of losing it no matter how different you all seem.



All of what I mentioned are things I like to see in media being on full display in Trails, but…what really struck me wasn’t any of the larger than life aspects I mentioned as much as Joshua’s personal struggles did. Drowning in self denial for solace, shifting the responsibilities you’re supposed to uphold by running away from them and attaching them to external sources, hurting others in the process of putting your guilt elsewhere, and self isolating to avoid hurting others as much as possible while maintaining the distance you’ve built between you and the guilt you shifted elsewhere to balance things out, all being a byproduct of abandonment issues and the fear of losing others dear to you, are all things that terribly resonate with me and since I’m in the middle of trying to uncover the root cause for them and get rid of these toxic habits once and for all, going through Sky fc/sc was like going through my own small journey of revisiting myself and re-evaluating it from a different perspective that rung true to me. Relatibitly aside, while I do relate to Joshua in some aspects, I don’t wholeheartedly relate to him, and most of my appreciation for his character comes down to how much of a unique spin it is on the ideas and struggles I mentioned above. While most characters who fall under that trope direct that guilt towards a different person, Joshua directs it at a different version of himself, the puppet like person inside him that was born after Weissman experimented with his heart and the source of his inner turmoil, which is a very interesting touch Kondo made with his character because while it’s a less common coping mechanism than laying the blame on another different person, it’s just as realistic and potent because of how it fits his background with being a test subject who had his sense of self played with in the past.

"Thanks to these eyes...I came to understand how cruel and despicable people can be. But that also allowed me to appreciate true beauty. All you have to do is appreciate things from a different perspective. Once I realised the things we take for granted are really miracles, I came to see everything in its precious, ephemeral beauty."


I've been battling depression and anxiety as far as my earliest memories of my life go, from before I even knew what depression and anxiety really were. If someone asked me for how long I'll struggle with them I wouldn't be able to answer either, since my battle with them didn't have a clear cut beginning nor will it likely ever have an ending until maybe my inevitable death. It's something that has taken root inside me, branded itself into my ego, & was akin to a ghost attacking me that I neither knew how to fight off or what it even was. When you're in that state at 10, 12, or 15, there isn't a lot of room for words like "us" or "we" since I could never bring myself to believe that someone else could be suffering from what I'm struggling with & thought it was the height of arrogance for someone to give me vapid sympathy. As such, over time, before I knew it, I had closed myself off, shot down my world to pieces, and ended its horizons at the narrowest point possible to protect myself from its misery. I began developing unhealthy coping mechanisms that follow the mindset mentioned above, like wearing headphones to isolate myself, intentionally drifting myself away from everyone around me, and putting on aggressive, unapproachable facades. All of this culminated in December of 2019, when the horrifying Covid pandemic happened and soon enough so did lockdown, marking the beginning of the 3 year long gruelling, exhausting journey I had to go through where, in the microscopic world I had built, I had to reevaluate who I am, reflect upon who I was, make an honest choice as to who I want to be and work towards how would I change into who I want to be. Full of relapses, huge milestones, and moments in-between where I clung for my life to stay on the uncertain path I chose, the journey I took led me to discovering many things about myself and my surroundings, and as I was expanding my tight world to fit more and more people in it, I ended up finding fictional stories and characters that represented me on a spiritual level and helped validate who I am and pushed me forward, one of them being TWEWY with Neku Sakuraba as the center of that piece.



Reading this, you might have already made the connection of why TWEWY connected with me so deeply, since its themes and main character embody my struggles to their bones, but I think what truly enabled me to connect so much with Neku isn’t just his struggles but the way they’re conveyed, his coping mechanisms, how he ended up finding solace, and how Shibuya, as a setting, was integrated into his character. Neku is an average edgy 15 year old on the surface, he doesn’t exactly have a tragic backstory that makes him the way he is, but a misguided admiration and interpretation of CAT’s artworks that gave his deepest insecurities validation and made him close himself off in ways that felt incredibly real to me. Much like how I do, Neku wears headphones to cut himself off from reality, avoid interactions with those around him, and goes on his own way to enjoy his own world by himself. It’s not a particularly unique trait since other mcs like Makoto Yuki and Ikari Shinji have it too, but it’s the emphasis on it and attention to detail that sets it apart from many displays of self isolation that mcs emit. I’m going to get into why it’s so unique later, but to dig into why I connected so much with Neku’s mindset, it’s because of the reasoning behind why he doesn’t accept the concept of friendships specifically. In week 1, Neku says he looks down on friendships as a concept because its a basic form of conformity where you pretend to agree with others to keep up appearances and lie to each other about disagreements, flaws and sides of yourself in response to Shiki. And the reason why that impacted me so much was because it was reminiscent of how I viewed much of my irl friendships, since much of them were with conservative extremists who had repulsive opinions that I couldn’t stand due to the country we all live in, but I went along well with them anyway and pretended to agree to get along well with them. Realizing this, I began questioning the value of my friendships and that’s why Neku’s arc struck such a deep chord inside me, helping me feel seen.


In my connection with Neku’s character and his journey towards salvation that was strikingly similar to my 3 year long journey, I was able to feel more content about myself and the insecurities that I felt back then and still feel to this day, and the more I progressed in the game, I began seeing more and more of myself in Neku’s way of breaking out of his shell. By engaging with the reapers’ game in Shibuya, hearing people’s thoughts, seeing their day to day life struggles, seeing them doubt themselves, push through their regrets, move forward, open up, and teaming up with Shiki, who helped him see that even someone as positive and bright as Shiki as a dark side to her, Joshua, someone who verbalized his isolationist mindsets, and Beat, someone who Neku was able to guide to the right path the same way Joshua and Shiki did, Neku was able to slowly but surely break out of his own shell and expand his own world as the holder of the chalk to his own blank canvas of a life, accepting the discontent of life and embracing the uncertainty of it all in the process as his greatest asset instead of a handicap.



As I mentioned before, the way Shibuya as a setting is integrated into Neku’s character is what sets him apart from other mcs, since by playing the reapers’ game Neku is forced to read people’s thoughts, and in doing this, Neku realized how small his world, his sacred garden, was compared to others, felt easier about the struggles he goes through since even the brightest souls like Shiki go through that struggle too, and started to feel less scared by the environment around him since it resembled pieces of him and familiarised himself with the mundane nature of Shibuya. By changing his perspective about the concept of betrayal and mistakes and how he views Shibuya, he managed to change how he views his own sacred garden, and in recognizing this, he no longer felt the need to cut himself off, because by opening up his sacred garden to others and seeing other people’s gardens, he might feel envy, jealousy, & self loathing, but he’ll also find more ways to rebuild his garden and make it into an ever most beautiful garden that shines brightly and brims with hope. It’s what makes the ending so poetic and ambiguous, because in failing to kill Joshua, an arguable mistake, Neku managed to pass the final exam, grow the most he ever has, and it reinforced to him the idea that mistakes, betrayals, and all the things we fear, are what will mould us the most and make us stronger.



This part of the game is why the final scene of the game means the world to me, since the headphones that Neku put on to cut himself off the world were no longer needed to conceal his garden, and in doing so Neku found solace in the simple monotonous act of walking by the streets of Shibuya and gazing at the people around him that he grew ever so familiar with. It feels incredibly inspiring and personal to me, since I used to use my headphones as an escapism method and my way of recovering from it was to take walks around my own city and interact with my surroundings in the most arbitrary, simplest ways to remind myself that the people around me are human, much like me, and I have no need to fear them anymore. By expanding his own world and opening up his horizons, Neku reminded me of a personal part of my life, and helped me feel seen and reflect upon who I once was.


Side note: a couple of things inspired this review so i wanna give them a quick mention, those being: Midrule's twewy review & Wentworth Miller's Goalcost speech. Thanks a lot to them I was able to get this review off quick, which probably has some grammer/spacing/spelling mistakes that i'll edit once i wake up.

''Embrace your dreams. And whatever happens, protect your honor as SOLDIER''


One of the most interesting premises a story can have is building a main character with heroic ideals & righteous beliefs in an environment that downright rejects, denies & is thoroughly incompatible with said ideals due to its cruel, unforgiving nature & that being Crisis Core's premise & main theme communicated through Zack's character is what makes it so poetically beautiful especially with the symbolism behind the concept of wings in this game & how it ties to its theme of freedom & heroism where Zack is forced to undergo challenges that make him question the crux of his ideals so much so he begins to doubt himself.



Now to focus on the symbolism behind wings for a bit, wings are defined differently by Crisis Core's cast, Genesis and Angeal believe them to symbolize monstrosity, Cissnei believes they're a sign of freedom, & Zack's own personal discovery of what wings mean is his entire character arc. From time and time again, Zack constantly gets betrayed by what he believed in, whether it be Angeal, the cruel reality of what SOLDIER really is about, or the dark side of Shinra & what always brings him back on his feet & keeps him going is his sense of honor & ideals that are shaped by his relationship with the cast. When his sense of honor was breaking apart & he pleaded to Angeal for help, what brought him back to his senses & reminded him to stay loyal to his honor even if the crux of what he was fighting for turned out to be worthless, was Cloud's words & the reason why that moment stood out to me so much, is that when both Zack and Cloud were wavering in their respective games, what brought them back on their feet were their memories & love for the people dear to them. The emphasis on bonds & their importance to who you are as a person in both games was tied perfectly, all while pushing the main idea of Crisis Core, & it's that freedom & honor is something you decide yourself & define on your own terms instead of letting external factors shackle you down. Whatever your environment tells you, protect your beliefs & fight for them for a brighter tomorrow.



"If you want to be a Hero, you need to have dreams... and honor''


If there was a moment that ever strongly expressed the notion I just mentioned, it's Zack's sacrafice & what it meant for him to go against Shinra, the company he dedicated his entire life to serving & dreaming of saving to become like his ideal hero Sephiroth. To fight the physical manifestation of everything that rejects his ideals, to fight the crux of what he previously admired, & to break through the cage & shackles holding his wings back for a tomorrow with no regrets, Zack defined his own personal belief of what wings are & instead of fearing them & viewing them with resentment, he used them as a way to empower himself, pay his price of freedom to become an unspoken hero & entrust his legacy to Cloud.

This was pretty fucking ass, I'll be honest that I didn't like it but it has Atlus on its name so I'm obligated give it 5 stars because of that alone. A game can be the worst fucking creation in all the universes that ever existed and will ever exist, it can be the cause for the tiniest wars to the fucking Holocaust & the most horrific carnage recorded in human history, but if it has the name ''Atlus'' on it I simply have to act like it saved my life and gave me an everlasting feeling of solace. This isn't even dickriding, it's how my brain is wired. Dickriding is a choice of freedom, this is intinct & a part of my construct. If you make fun of this then you're ableist. I dont make the rules

''Everyone knew that. I'm...Cloud. The master of my own illusionary world. But I can't remain trapped in an illusion anymore... I'm going to live my life without pretending''

FF7 was a unique experience, one that I'm still trying to wrap my head around & my thoughts & feelings on it are still scattered throughout, disconnected & lost in the endless cosmos of my mind, but maybe it's because of that disjointed state of mind that I connected with Cloud's identity crisis on such a sacred level. It almost felt eerie but to put it into words, the part of Cloud that I saw myself in the most was his inability to face the truth in his identity, strive to discover who he is, & was comfortable with indulging in the idea that he is someone he isn't at all to escape his conflicts & abandoned the effort to uncover the truth since it maybe too painful. The idea that maybe if I was someone else, maybe if I started anew as an entirely different person who's less pathetic and less weaker with more to offer & was strong enough to help others by any means, I'd get the love and the warmth of acceptance by everyone that I yearn for, and I wouldn't feel so alien & disconnected. Such a faulty, twisted desire has been immortalized in my mind, and living in an environment where I'm always put down to praise someone else only strengthened it more. But it's exactly because of that that I was able to wholeheartedly relate to FF7's usage of the concept of memories as a backdrop for Cloud's character conclusion. Memories are the proof that we exist in both the real world and in people's eyes. No matter how fiercely we struggle to believe that our existence isn't worthless, they are the proof that we existed somewhere, & have impacted someone in someway. But it's exactly because of that that we need connections with others & loved ones to make memories with. It's a simple message, but the idea that as long as there are people with you, who have fond memories of you and vice versa, you'll always be able to exist & achieve self discovery, strikes a deep chord in my soul since I always dread the truth of my identity and how much it can crush me. It's why Cloud inspires me so much, because if someone who had a large portion of his life be artificially made & live his life as a fake puppet for so long, can achieve solace and make fond memories with people he loves and is loved by after a cruel journey of self discovery, then maybe I can find something fond & genuine too

Tales of Arise is a criticism of the narrow human perspective & a love letter to all who struggle with their individuality in the form of a video game


‘’Only living for the sake of dying is no better than being a slave’’

This quote sums up what Arise covers thematically & its a story that’s best described as eloquent & unbiased in its portrayal of slavery, racism, & how it uses its premise as a backbone to tell a tale about what it means to be a slave & what it means to be free figuratively. Are we free of slavery if we aren’t wrapped in chains, being ordered around, & tortured over the slightest mistakes? When can we tell if we’re free or chained down by worldly trivial desires? The answer is simple: The change that we desire & aspire to achieve, can only happen within us & we are the ones who decide that ourselves. Instead of staying in our comfort zone, doing what’s expected of us, & roaming randomly in life, making an effort to achieve self discovery, no matter how scary the truth is, is what decides the value of our lives & whether we are chained by this phenomenon called ‘’destiny’’. This message is very simple on paper, but the way Arise presents it is nothing short of special since it actively goes out of its way to show the hardships of trying to break free of the chains of destiny that binds us as much as it shows how rewarding it is to free your heart of its darkness by achieving connections & holding onto them. There are various plot points in the story that show how hard achieving connections is & how narrow minded the human perspective is even from the mcs’ pov & how as a consequence of that, hatred & conflict are everlasting. Alphen fights the lords not knowing that each of them hold a philosophy and much like him, are fighting for people they cherish & ideals they champion. That sort of contrast & the exploration of said contrast creates an intricate narrative that forces the cast into a corner, causing them to question what they initially believed to be right, & undergo a change in their individuality to cope with the challenges presented against them. Dohalim accepts that self loathing may be the easy way to go about your conflicts, but facing said conflicts head on & seeking the truth is far more rewarding than it could ever be. Law realizes that his purpose in life & his Father’s dying words both of which he struggled to uncover so much, could be solved by merely finding someone you can love & taking care of them, & chose to be his own person instead of endlessly agonising over becoming what his father wanted him to become. Rinwell, upon seeing what hatred caused dedyme to do to his own people, realized that indulging in hatred will only breed more and more hatred, until she herself gets consumed by it, & it’s better to walk down the path of life carrying your hatred and using it as your strength instead of allowing it to define you. The best showcase of the theme of individuality & connection mentioned before is none other than Alphen’s dynamic with Shionne, & how they both pulled each other out of their darkness & brightened each others’ lives. The deepest, most fragile, & vulnerable bonds we have, are the ones that cut us the most & cause us the most amount of pain cause of how loosely tied they are to our identity, but it’s because of that, that we risk everything we have to protect them & bottle up our emotions to keep them from cracking down. That kind of bond, that kind of intimacy, is what’s shared between Shionne and Alphen. A bond formed through acceptance, undiluted love, & loyal affection, results in what’s one of the most human representations of connection & how we view them. Connections & love are necessities in our lives, we form bonds to feel complete, to feel needed, to feel loved & wanted, & to feel understood. But at the same time, losing that bond means losing what gave us hope & the ability to live, so the idea of attaining said love, only to lose it, drives us insane with trust issues & anxieties. We wish bonds weren’t needed so we wouldn’t have to feel so regretful about having them & the possibility of losing them, or not attaining them at all. It’s a complex, intricate emotion, yet it’s perfectly captured in this scene where Shionne, a character who’s been closed off & disconnected the entire series, buckles up under the weight of her regrets & sadness over her fleeting bonds. Breaking down in tears, Shionne confesses her rawest feelings with the honest belief that they’ll be rejected, only for Alphen to give her what she deeply yearned for yet rejected cause of a lack of a sense of self worth. This scene impacted me on a personal level & left me speechless since I, on a day to day basis, struggle with the same thoughts, regrets, & depression, so to see such an insecure part of myself represented in media…it breaks my heart but gives me a sense of comfort. Ironically enough, Alphen never truly understood the weight of being able to hold Shionne's hands & how much it means to both of them until he regained his sense. of pain, which puts an emphasis on the idea of connection & communication. It's strange how in a game about slavery, i felt a sensation of liberty & inner peace that I yearned for for so long, & it was fulfilling

As majestic, thoroughly horrifying, & rewarding in its brutal, relentless gameplay that's complemented by a Victorian era premise of a world on the verge of death as its brilliant in its use of that premise as a backdrop for heart-wrenching, tragic stories that all tie to the endgame boss through meticulous & intricate lore that flips the world upside down & shows different sides to the spectrum, revealing how the blood crazed beasts we once thought of as merciless, wretched animals, are nothing but victims of an upper system ruled by The Great Ones & a disease that plagued the streets of Yharnam. What makes this gem of a game special is how it slowly, but subtly peels off layers of its core, & turns from a game of beast hunting to replacing God himself to end the Nightmare. That change in storytelling feels so sudden and jarring on paper, but Miyazaki made it work and it resulted in what's one of the best, most well crafted games ever made that'll leave an everlasting impact on its players