Great trans representation. Just lovely to follow this trans man through struggles that aren't his transness, but the transness affecting him in subtle ways - a much more real picture of what it's like. Those micro moments were gold and so well told.

I loved the character's perspectives. Jumping between them. Arguing. Healing.
It's very thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Not as personal to me as the original LiS was when I played it first, but coming back to this game for a second time after coming out was such a good decision and I'm very pleased with this game.

My headcanon wanted to make Alyson a trans woman bc honestly, transition goals. But I'm glad we're getting more trans men in media, we need to see more of the guys.
I felt deeply with Tyler - always interesting getting to empathise with trans men, like I can't relate with what you want from my own goals but also totally get it.

Beautifully painted and wonderfully orchestrated!

There's an innate sense of calm and melancholy that's really beautiful. The gameplay similarly is more of a chill "figure out how to get there" platformer with a surprisingly amazing water 'level' (don't hear that phrase a lot!).

I only have two criticisms:
The length. It isn't just short at 3 1/2 hours but feels short as well sadly. I recognise this is a debut game etc. but this could really blossom with more of itself. Every minute of the game is showing you something new and I adore that but it's over so quickly ;(

Second criticism for me, which I'm not sure is one generally, is that it's a super subtle story, which in my case I didn't get into too much. I think I didn't know how to read most moments and I think that isn't an issue if you're in a super dreamy and emotionally vulnerable state when playing, but I was hoping for the game to fully engulf me in that story, but because of the subtleness it was hoping to draw more out of me and I didn't have anything to give on my playthrough (but may have in a future playthrough!).

Anyway, recommend playing this, but maybe not top of my list. Recommend to self-insert a lot or diagnose our girl early on!

Death Stranding is surprisingly good. Strangely this game gets better over time. I was hooked on the opening but then thought the first few hours were a bit empty. But in Episode 5 it really picks up and continues to do so more and more until the end. So it's really worth going through until then (not boring or anything but just be aware that story is thin until then).

All the weird and strange elements are actually really fascinatingly thought out rather than just weird for the sake of weird which is what I feared it may be knowing how the trailer was presented and how Kojima is desperately trying to be this great video game auteur. This game is clearly a labour of creativity from all departments and not just Kojima, which means it's actually rich in many areas.

The acting is phenomenal, I mean the cast is fantastic of course. The Nicolas Winding Refn and Guillermo Del Toro characters absolutely hit it out of the park too (which they didn't act though) and I loved especially Guillermo's character so much that he made me cry.

This game is emotional at times; fascinating, mysterious, scary and sweet at others and it pulls this off so well.

Thematically this game doesn't touch me as much as other games I've played, I mean this game is made for cis boys primarily.

I always admire works that don't thematically resonate with me directly and yet manage to move and capture me to a point where I look back saying "this was great" and I have to say: This was great!

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