ashwastakenx2
9 reviews liked by ashwastakenx2
To right the countless wrongs of our day, we shine this light of true redemption, that this place may become as paradise. What a wonderful world such would be...
I don't remember what my first exposure to The World Ends with You was, or when. For the longest time I thought it was this video but since replaying the game I'm no longer so sure, the date that video was uploaded is April 15th, 2019, but having combed through old Discord messages, I can see that I had played this game at least by March 14th. Regardless, what I do know is that one day, back in early 2019 I saw The World Ends with You: Final Remix on the shelf at EB Games, and having heard good things about the DS version I picked it up.
I was a lot like Neku, which isn't something I'm proud to admit. I had the same mindset of keeping people out, being unable to "get people", the whole nine yards. Although, maybe that was a learnt behaviour, when I was in high school the group of friends I hung out with had a big falling out and basically split in two overnight. I was told that this happened at my birthday party because I had invited people from both sides and most of them didn't show up or say anything to me. I haven't wanted to celebrate my birthday since.
"Trust your partner" are words spoken to Neku and echoed in his mind throughout the course of the entire game. To have to put your entire faith in someone for the sake of both of you, it's a big ask, and completely impossible with a mindset like that. Despite this, the game never presents Neku's mindset as wrong, instead it is presented as an unfulfilling and unnecessarily more challenging way of living, a key distinction in my mind. If you share Neku's sentiments about life and people you don't have to change, but you'd probably be better off if you did.
I don't think I really internalised these messages when I first played the game, but to be fair I was 17. I do know that I experienced the life changing affects of the game that everyone harps on about at that time, but I don't think I really changed as much as I could have, I don't think I wanted to.
And then I realised I was transgender.
"Listen up, Phones. The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go."
I don't think this is one of those cases where a piece of media causes someone to realise they're trans, although the timing of me playing The World Ends with You to me figuring it out is pretty close.
Suddenly, my world changed just as much as Neku's did except now I was a stranger in my own walled garden, I no longer understood myself, I hardly had a hope of understanding others. I started hormones on 10/09/19, and shortly after I found myself in a local community of trans people. I was pushing out my horizons just a little bit.
I tried to be just like them, talking about subjects I didn't really want to, forcing myself to the point of deluding myself into thinking I did. I was accepted, but only as an accidentally created artificial version of myself I had bludgeoned myself into thinking was who I really was. That I was "discovering" myself. It makes me sick to look back on. It didn't last and I was sinking back into my old mindset of asocial apathy, but at least it was actually me.
I met my girlfriend in this community, and her single influence on me has been more positive and influential for me than any sense of belonging derived from a community I didn't fit in with ever could be.
The World Begins with You
I completed work trainee-ships, I'm getting my life together (maybe only a little bit), and I feel better about myself, not because of a false self of belonging but from an internal sense of direction for my own life. I have hope and prospects for my future, and my ideals are clashing with the people I'm actually keeping around, and I'm letting people in, just a little. While it's true that it's not hard to understand people, it's impossible, I figure I still might as well try.
"Same streets, same crowds too. Yeah, Shibuya hasn't changed a bit, but still, I don't think I can forgive you yet. You don't see it, but, those few weeks were very hard for me. Learning to trust people, having that trust broken. Finding out the town I pegged as small, and stifling, and empty, wasn't any of those things. I'm glad I met you guys, you made me pick up on things I probably would've just gone on ignoring. Trust your partner, and I do. I can't forgive you, but I trust you. You took care of things right? Otherwise Shibuya would be gone, and my world with it. Hey, did I mention, I've got friends now! We're getting together for the first time in a week! See you there?"
Oh yeah btw the games good, the controls are kinda hard to get used to though, funnily enough I think being left handed like me makes the game easier. Fuck the final boss though I dropped my difficulty to easy cuz it just kills you in 4 hits.
I don't remember what my first exposure to The World Ends with You was, or when. For the longest time I thought it was this video but since replaying the game I'm no longer so sure, the date that video was uploaded is April 15th, 2019, but having combed through old Discord messages, I can see that I had played this game at least by March 14th. Regardless, what I do know is that one day, back in early 2019 I saw The World Ends with You: Final Remix on the shelf at EB Games, and having heard good things about the DS version I picked it up.
I was a lot like Neku, which isn't something I'm proud to admit. I had the same mindset of keeping people out, being unable to "get people", the whole nine yards. Although, maybe that was a learnt behaviour, when I was in high school the group of friends I hung out with had a big falling out and basically split in two overnight. I was told that this happened at my birthday party because I had invited people from both sides and most of them didn't show up or say anything to me. I haven't wanted to celebrate my birthday since.
"Trust your partner" are words spoken to Neku and echoed in his mind throughout the course of the entire game. To have to put your entire faith in someone for the sake of both of you, it's a big ask, and completely impossible with a mindset like that. Despite this, the game never presents Neku's mindset as wrong, instead it is presented as an unfulfilling and unnecessarily more challenging way of living, a key distinction in my mind. If you share Neku's sentiments about life and people you don't have to change, but you'd probably be better off if you did.
I don't think I really internalised these messages when I first played the game, but to be fair I was 17. I do know that I experienced the life changing affects of the game that everyone harps on about at that time, but I don't think I really changed as much as I could have, I don't think I wanted to.
And then I realised I was transgender.
"Listen up, Phones. The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go."
I don't think this is one of those cases where a piece of media causes someone to realise they're trans, although the timing of me playing The World Ends with You to me figuring it out is pretty close.
Suddenly, my world changed just as much as Neku's did except now I was a stranger in my own walled garden, I no longer understood myself, I hardly had a hope of understanding others. I started hormones on 10/09/19, and shortly after I found myself in a local community of trans people. I was pushing out my horizons just a little bit.
I tried to be just like them, talking about subjects I didn't really want to, forcing myself to the point of deluding myself into thinking I did. I was accepted, but only as an accidentally created artificial version of myself I had bludgeoned myself into thinking was who I really was. That I was "discovering" myself. It makes me sick to look back on. It didn't last and I was sinking back into my old mindset of asocial apathy, but at least it was actually me.
I met my girlfriend in this community, and her single influence on me has been more positive and influential for me than any sense of belonging derived from a community I didn't fit in with ever could be.
The World Begins with You
I completed work trainee-ships, I'm getting my life together (maybe only a little bit), and I feel better about myself, not because of a false self of belonging but from an internal sense of direction for my own life. I have hope and prospects for my future, and my ideals are clashing with the people I'm actually keeping around, and I'm letting people in, just a little. While it's true that it's not hard to understand people, it's impossible, I figure I still might as well try.
"Same streets, same crowds too. Yeah, Shibuya hasn't changed a bit, but still, I don't think I can forgive you yet. You don't see it, but, those few weeks were very hard for me. Learning to trust people, having that trust broken. Finding out the town I pegged as small, and stifling, and empty, wasn't any of those things. I'm glad I met you guys, you made me pick up on things I probably would've just gone on ignoring. Trust your partner, and I do. I can't forgive you, but I trust you. You took care of things right? Otherwise Shibuya would be gone, and my world with it. Hey, did I mention, I've got friends now! We're getting together for the first time in a week! See you there?"
Oh yeah btw the games good, the controls are kinda hard to get used to though, funnily enough I think being left handed like me makes the game easier. Fuck the final boss though I dropped my difficulty to easy cuz it just kills you in 4 hits.
A one of a kind experience - amazing story, but lackluster game-play. Possibly the strongest cast in all of persona and yet also nearly the worst game-play wise. The fact the story keeps a 1/5 game-play experience at a 4/5 is insane.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a really difficult game to try and review, because on one hand, the gameplay and combat is an absolute chore, the battle system is legitimately unfun and is guaranteed to turn some people away from the game... yet on the other hand the story of P2:IS is absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking, but I don't think it could be fully enjoyed if you just watched a lets play on Youtube. Plenty of people believe Persona 3 sets the template Persona games follow to this day, but I can see the foundations laid here, excluding Social Links and hitting weaknesses for knockdowns, Persona 2: Innocent Sin is the real template that Persona 3 expanded upon by leveraging the power upgrade of the Playstation 2 to really solidify the beloved formula we know now.
tl;dr, Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a foundational game for the franchise, and I strongly recommend playing for yourself with speed up to get through the awful battles and encounter rates to really enjoy this heartwarming and heartbreaking story about what friendship means, how fragile the human memory is, and overcoming trauma.
tl;dr, Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a foundational game for the franchise, and I strongly recommend playing for yourself with speed up to get through the awful battles and encounter rates to really enjoy this heartwarming and heartbreaking story about what friendship means, how fragile the human memory is, and overcoming trauma.
Persona 5
2016
This review contains spoilers
Spoilers for what happens after the casino palace, an out of context spoiler for the cutscene following the defeat of the final boss, and light Persona 3 spoilers regarding Apathy Syndrome
Persona 5 feels like a game that outgrew its original scope quite significantly. I get this feeling most when looking back to Persona 3, in that game Apathy Syndrome was the antagonist for most of the run time, and Persona 5 has a fictional syndrome that bears resemblance, the Mental Shutdowns and Psychotic Breakdowns (the differences of these really aren't at all clear so I'll just be treating them as the same thing).
Persona 3's Apathy Syndrome has one primary distinction though, it's actually visible in the game world, anywhere you go you will see any number of The Lost corresponding to your progress in the game. Yet, in Persona 5 victims of Mental Shutdowns have absolutely no impact on the game world at all. If you read the TV in Leblanc everyday like I did it will paint a bleak picture of the world, that this is a significant issue, but I step outside and it's as peaceful as ever? Seeing The Lost everywhere gave me a sense of dread and impending doom that Persona 5 just left on the table.
The game also treats the player like they're fucking stupid. It constantly shows you flashbacks to dialogue from a scene or two ago to make sure you really understand that when Ann called Makoto useless its just like how her sister also called her useless like 5 minutes ago. I can't even make this shit up. There are some moments where the flashbacks are used properly but 9/10 times it's bullshit.
My final major issue is that the plot twist following the casino palace fucking sucks. It just demands so much suspension of disbelief that I wasn't willing to afford it after like 85 hours of "society destroying Mental Shutdowns" and bullshit flashbacks. I refuse to believe Futaba couldn't install a bug on Akechi's phone that records both sides of conversation but she could hack into security cameras from the Metaverse to make sure they wouldn't get caught in the interrogation cells. I refuse to believe Akechi is stupid enough to call Shido by name when referring to murder. I have no clue why Nijima had to show Akechi Joker's phone in order to take them into the Metaverse. I'd also like to know when, exactly, Akechi heard Morgana speak in Madarame's palace, one of the few times a flashback could be used properly and it isn't.
However, the game made me feel something, I don't know what that something is even after two days of thinking about it but I do know that Morgana's spiel about the world being a product of cognition made me think about replaying The World Ends with You, so there HAS to be something there. Also the gameplay is great and the characters are almost as lovable as Persona 3's cast.
The peaks of this game are like, 4.5 stars and the valleys are like, 1 star, I'm honestly hesitant to give this game a score at all but my heart tells me 2.5 stars is how I feel so that's what I'm going with.
Persona 5 feels like a game that outgrew its original scope quite significantly. I get this feeling most when looking back to Persona 3, in that game Apathy Syndrome was the antagonist for most of the run time, and Persona 5 has a fictional syndrome that bears resemblance, the Mental Shutdowns and Psychotic Breakdowns (the differences of these really aren't at all clear so I'll just be treating them as the same thing).
Persona 3's Apathy Syndrome has one primary distinction though, it's actually visible in the game world, anywhere you go you will see any number of The Lost corresponding to your progress in the game. Yet, in Persona 5 victims of Mental Shutdowns have absolutely no impact on the game world at all. If you read the TV in Leblanc everyday like I did it will paint a bleak picture of the world, that this is a significant issue, but I step outside and it's as peaceful as ever? Seeing The Lost everywhere gave me a sense of dread and impending doom that Persona 5 just left on the table.
The game also treats the player like they're fucking stupid. It constantly shows you flashbacks to dialogue from a scene or two ago to make sure you really understand that when Ann called Makoto useless its just like how her sister also called her useless like 5 minutes ago. I can't even make this shit up. There are some moments where the flashbacks are used properly but 9/10 times it's bullshit.
My final major issue is that the plot twist following the casino palace fucking sucks. It just demands so much suspension of disbelief that I wasn't willing to afford it after like 85 hours of "society destroying Mental Shutdowns" and bullshit flashbacks. I refuse to believe Futaba couldn't install a bug on Akechi's phone that records both sides of conversation but she could hack into security cameras from the Metaverse to make sure they wouldn't get caught in the interrogation cells. I refuse to believe Akechi is stupid enough to call Shido by name when referring to murder. I have no clue why Nijima had to show Akechi Joker's phone in order to take them into the Metaverse. I'd also like to know when, exactly, Akechi heard Morgana speak in Madarame's palace, one of the few times a flashback could be used properly and it isn't.
However, the game made me feel something, I don't know what that something is even after two days of thinking about it but I do know that Morgana's spiel about the world being a product of cognition made me think about replaying The World Ends with You, so there HAS to be something there. Also the gameplay is great and the characters are almost as lovable as Persona 3's cast.
The peaks of this game are like, 4.5 stars and the valleys are like, 1 star, I'm honestly hesitant to give this game a score at all but my heart tells me 2.5 stars is how I feel so that's what I'm going with.
It was cozy, if nothing else.
The pacing was weird and each chapter could be summarized in a single sentence. A lot of stuff was optional, which would have been fine if the main story had more meat. For a mystery there are only really 3 steps to uncovering the truth.
What stood out was how Alex's empathy superpower is so underbaked. She can only sense four emotions, and the game never puts her in a position where she needed to have literal superpowers instead of regular human empathy. One scene really stood out to me where Steph looks at a bottle labelled "Foosball Champion" and becomes visibly upset. Alex uses her superpower to investigate, then asks Steph for a match of foosball to cheer her up. Steph asks "How'd you know I liked foosball?" What do you mean "How'd you know I liked foosball?" That kind of thing happens every single time. Maybe I'm just gifted in emotional intelligence and empathy, but it never felt like superpowers were at all necessary and were only added because that's the Life is Strange gimmick.
I had fun, I'm glad I played it, and it was a nice change of pace. But it didn't leave a strong impression and I probably won't think about it a week from now. It's just... okay.
The pacing was weird and each chapter could be summarized in a single sentence. A lot of stuff was optional, which would have been fine if the main story had more meat. For a mystery there are only really 3 steps to uncovering the truth.
What stood out was how Alex's empathy superpower is so underbaked. She can only sense four emotions, and the game never puts her in a position where she needed to have literal superpowers instead of regular human empathy. One scene really stood out to me where Steph looks at a bottle labelled "Foosball Champion" and becomes visibly upset. Alex uses her superpower to investigate, then asks Steph for a match of foosball to cheer her up. Steph asks "How'd you know I liked foosball?" What do you mean "How'd you know I liked foosball?" That kind of thing happens every single time. Maybe I'm just gifted in emotional intelligence and empathy, but it never felt like superpowers were at all necessary and were only added because that's the Life is Strange gimmick.
I had fun, I'm glad I played it, and it was a nice change of pace. But it didn't leave a strong impression and I probably won't think about it a week from now. It's just... okay.
Life is Strange
2015
Life is Strange is a thrilling narrative experience, it's as beautiful as it is impactful and heart breaking. This is one of the first games that ever made me cry from an ending when i was a kid. This is a scenaristic masterpiece
Life is Strange
2015
i started in 2022 and stopped playing cause i didn’t let myself get past chapter one and i regret it UGH. this game is so perfect i wish i didn’t drop it back in 2022. the shock factors in this game will never fail to disappoint😭chloe and max U ARE EVERYTHING TO ME!!
Life is Strange
2015
are you cereal
Life is Strange
2015
This review contains spoilers
Killed the city for sesbian lex.