This game's really good. You don't need me to tell you that. Anyway I wanna talk about something more tangentially related now.

So there's been this weird movement in the zoomer parts of our culture that goes by a lot of names. Weirdcore. Dreamcore. Nostalgiacore. Internetcore. Traumacore? Bunch of dumb names for what's essentially the same thing. It's a certain visual and auditory aesthetic thats supposed to evoke a general feeling of wistful nostalgia. I first became aware of this because of the weird resurgences of a bunch of indie acts that were relevant 10 years ago suddenly making a weird resurgence. I can safely say I would not have predicted zoomers getting really into shit like Roar, Crystal Castles, Nero's Day at Disneyland, Blank Banshee, Life Without Buildings, fucking Goreshit. All these random bands who peaked in relevance a decade ago all of a sudden are showing up on all your art hoe former-tumblr playlists along with Jack Stauber and Lemon Demon (and also spefically Falling Down from the Undertale OST, that song really captivates these people)

I mention this because somehow the Yume Nikki ost has been caught up in this entire "movement". Those feeling depressed for the first time zoomers sure do enjoy commenting weird stuff about how this song makes them want to "lay down in an open field in the rain" on the comments of the Snow World music in between whatever the fuck else they do all day. Go on TikTok, I guess? At first I was gonna call it mildly annoying, but the more I see this stuff the more I'm weirdly captivated by it. It's like watching a bunch of sea monkeys. Like a more earnest version of the amazing cultural touchstone that was Simpsonwave (Not the first time the zoomers cared about blank banshee, ho ho).

Anyway, I don't really know what I'm getting at here. Something something youth something something back in my day something gatekeep. I can't really say any of this really reflects back on yume nikki, since I'm almost certain the weirdcore zoomers aren't actually playing it, but I guess it's cool this game still lives on in our current cultural zeitgeist, even if it has to be through Youtube playlists made by people who misuse the word "liminal" all the time.

not a bad game at all, a pretty good one in a lot of ways but incredibly messy. the conspiracy in this one maybe tests your suspension of disbelief a bit, but there's so many good moments and it's not nearly as boring as 3's conspiracy so it's still an enjoyable time, at least when the game has you in onomichi. kamurocho feels like a drag regardless of how unfinished it is, but that's mostly because onomichi is just such a great hub and where most of the actually compelling story and character moments take place. characters like hirose and someya are also incredibly compelling, especially when the rest of the cast is just kind of there in my opinion. iwami more than anyone is a very bad and unenjoyable character but that's kind of the point and why he's so effective in his role, but then you have everyone else who's just kind of boring or vaguely evil and it just doesn't do much for me personally and it maybe doesn't help my wider thoughts on the characters that the western release is missing all of the tatsuro yamashita vocal tracks so cutscenes involving those songs just feel kind of empty and stilted since the original japanese version lets the vocals and facial animations do more talking than.. actually talking. the most striking thing to me about this game though is that even if it's not the last step in his journey, a lot of kiryu's story in this one basically has him in the passenger seat for a lot of events he went through in the first game, which i think works really well for a game that's supposed to be the end of his tenure as the sole lead of this series (more on that later).
very much a game that i enjoy but one that i don't find intensely remarkable most of the time. in terms of enjoyability though, the ending is where my thoughts on this game become more complicated, and while it really doesn't impact my thoughts on the game that much it's still something that constantly irks me and i find very hard to divorce from this game.

there's this pervasive idea in the yakuza fanbase that 6 was meant to be an end all be all finale to his character, that this would be the last time we would ever see him. however this idea falls apart pretty quickly; even while playing the game it becomes obvious that either this assumption is full of shit or that kiryu just got the worst send off ever, and to this day you'll see people upset about kiryu's inclusion in the post-6 like a dragon games. more than any other game in this series when like a dragon 8 was revealed there was this vocal fan outcry, people were upset that kiryu was coming back as a protagonist in this one and the more and more time i think about i just don't get it? on its own terms, as an ending to the individual game it's fine, but it's such an awful way to hypothetically conclude our time with this character and it's just perplexing to me that a non negligible amount of fans felt like kiryu's inclusion in games like 7, 8, and gaiden were even capable of "ruining" it. did kiryu fans really want his story to end with him once again falling back onto his deepest fatal flaw? the one thats been haunting him since the finale of the first game in this series? kiryu is constantly running away, he feels like people and especially the people he loves only get hurt when he's around, so he keeps running, and him not learning from that and just doing it again is supposed to be the final send off to this character? this grand finale that the newer entries tarnished? never has the fanbase of a series made me more happy that the loud voices in fandom are not the ones in the writing room because never before have i seen such a widespread misunderstanding of a character and his arc than with kazuma kiryu after yakuza 6.
hopefully as we get more fans in this series after the release of 8, a game that actually has what feels like a natural finale for the character, the idea that 6 was not only supposed to be a total finale for the character of kiryu but that it was a even a remotely good one for him dies down and yakuza 6 discussion can finally shift solely to how it has the worst version of kamurocho in the series, just like god intended.

I went from a Suda fan to a Suda admirer after playing this game. The gameplay isn't anything to write home about and normally I'd dock more stars because of that, but the writing here elevates the game to four stars. I can't think of many games, or hell, any pieces of art that is this humanly self reflective. It doesn't come off as masturbatory in the slightest for me. Suda is simply reflecting on his career. Celebrating his highs and lamenting his failures. If there's any takeaway from TSA, it's get out there and do what you want to. Celebrate your success' and learn from your failures. You've got one life. Aim true and fire away.

Pokemon continues a real breakneck release schedule with another title little over a year after the last DLC for Sword & Shield and apparently the same year as the next generation. I wish Game Freak would take their foot off the pedal for a slower, more considered game.

Legends Arceus is at the same time a successful expansion of the mechanics in Sword & Shield while showing off painful limitations in those mechanics- at least with GameFreak's vision and resources. I found it fantastic fun for the first few hours to run out into the wild and pelt pokeballs at all around me, catching Starlies and Shinx with wild abandon. But as the game went on I found myself becoming disinterested in pokemon. All pokemon were just something to chuck balls at. The unique qualities of the pokemon faded into the background, especially with infrequent and unchallenging combat. In previous generations I spent hours searching for a rare Gible, and prized the one I found. In this game I saw a wild Garchomp and passed over it immediately; it wasnt' Alpha.

The new Hisuian Forms and the brand new evolutions for old pokemon are all good, I'm a big fan. Maybe a little less-so for the starter evolutions. They all have fun typings, but none of them really do it for me. I have more mixed feelings on Alphas- extra-large versions of any given pokemon. They look cool, but they're sufficiently common that they server to make non-Alphas feel lame.

There are some other new ideas on show- a series of boss fight pokemon where you run around a large arena clumsily dodging and chucking little stinky bags at them (this calms their raging aramitama, for some reason). It's a solid idea and the first couple of fights are fine, but the flimsiness of the system shows through. The camera is a mess, you need to see the ground underneath you to dodge, but you can't while you're throwing things. There's no way to recover health while in combat, and the game isn't shy about just lamping you across the back of the head while you're in the recovery animation for another move. It becomes truly unbearable in the postgame when you have to fight four fast moving legendary pokemon who shoot out untelegraphed tornado attacks at random positions, in areas populated with dozens of regular pokemon. Some more time and care might have saved these mechanics but they didn't get any.

The story, however, never had any potential. Pokemon's absolute nosedive into interminable cutscenes with unlikeable jerks continues unabaited. I'd say this is the absolute nadir but I've learned not to underestimate these games. In PLA you're tasked with singlehandedly supporting an entire colony of workshy cowards, catching hundreds upon hundreds of pokemon for these idle twits who are too thick to catch their own bloody Buizels. I absolutely dreaded going back to town, knowing that the absolute worst of them, Professor Laventon, was going to spend 5 minutes force feeding me potato mochi before allowing me to proceed to the next area. I was only ever interested in getting new ride pokemon and accessing new areas, but these guys talk endlessly about the paper thin plot- there are 5 very angry pokemon, punch them until they stop being angry, and then punch even more pokemon into submission after that.

One element of the story I feel a little reticent to comment on is the colonial theme and the representation of the Ainu people. The game is set in Hisui/Sinnoh, an analogue for Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's four main islands. The Ainu are an indiginous ethnic group native to Hokkaido. In the game, the Galaxy Team are colonising Hisui which is currently inhabitted by the Diamond & Pearl clans. I haven't been able to find any Ainu commentary on the game so I don't have a strong feel for if the portrayal in the game is good or not. I'm personally not nuts about the depiction of the Japanese establishment as peacefully and happily agglomerating the native peoples into their society (by the "present day" of Diamond/Pearl, there isn't much identifiable heritage left). There's also a very weird implication, buried deep in the game's lore, that there is another even-more native group of blonds who predate even the Diamond & Pearl clans. I'd love to hear a more informed reading of the plot, I have anxiety that there might be dog whistles going off that I can't hear.

The game was sweet at first, but left a bad taste in my mouth by the end. It feels rushed, half baked, in the same way that Sword & Shield felt underdeveloped. I wish the Pokemon Company weren't committed to this pace of releases. I would rather wait a Zelda length of time, or a Mario length of time for a new pokemon if it meant getting titles as good as Black & White, but instead year after year I see new titles that dillute my love for the series. For the love of Arceus, slow down.