i loved Mothmen 1966, gotta play it again soon. it was a scary, quickly escalating mystery. Varney Lake is a sad horror drama. youth was a bad time. failure-haunted. a struggle for (in)human connection. the minigames are confusing, but optional this time, and i found them satisfying to work out to unlock the secret scenes. i wasn't expecting this be half standalone story and half indirect continuation of Mothmen!! loved the returning characters, loved that goat boy has become his own person. i can't wait for the next one! brief, beautiful writing, beautiful paintings, soundscape. the pixel pulps are my most anticipated games now.

mostly taking about story. be forewarned etc.

the stretch of story that is ysayle, estinien, alphinaud, and the WoL on a journey is great. distinct, conflicted characters. real senses of momentum and discovery. grappling with suppressed history, difficult truths, the irrevocable. everything else is also pretty good. the busywork at the beginning and throughout felt more or less organic. it has lulls, not lows. there are great little flourishes like midgardsomr's occasional commentary (which i would've liked more of) and edmond's narration. in the 3rd act, i felt my interest wan when ysayle left the story and you go off on what felt like a long series of tangents to set up the climax. i think it wrapped back around well enough, but i spent a lot of time wondering if she was just gone. done. then i was so happy when she returned... it was a cool cutscene, i ended up crying a little... but it felt like a disservice. the conversations with hraesvelgr are the best parts of this story, and now there are implied, impactful scenes with him and ysayle that the game just isn't gonna show?? i wanna see those scenes. i wanna read the fucking dialogue that lead them here. i'm not begrudging this too heavily cuz i still have 3.1-3.5 to get through and who knows what will happen (i don't, pls don't tell me). even if characters don't return, the WoL has the convenient superpower to have flashbacks to things that happened to other people lmao. i'm hopeful. regardless, i found much to love. i'm taking a break before i hit the patches. will update.

i meant to close the year with this, but i ended up starting the year with it. a few years ago i started the old, horrible looking mobile version and dropped it at the floating continent. i was waiting for the pixel remasters to hit ps4 and when they announced a spring 2023 release date i decided i couldn't wait any longer. i almost downloaded and resumed the moblie version, but ended up starting fresh emulating the original snes version on my psp, which was a better choice. it's incredible to finally beat this and i feel it's as good as ppl say. imo most final fantasy games are beautiful breathtaking messes, and though there's stuff here that's only partially sketched in, FFVI might be the most cohesive of the series. great characters and hard hitting plot beats. comedic, romantic, operatic. i loved this.

nobody wants to be friends with an icky biohazard.

re8 was complete, so the devs rlly didn't have to bother with this, but i'm more or less happy they did. this is an awkward lil companion piece, a mirror image, an almost epilogue that picks up characters and plot threads without answering any questions, asking many new ones. a sloppy play on cheap and well-tread conventions, like some alice in wonderland bs, "weeping angels" styled mannequins, sappy reunions, (bioorganic) virtual reality, and psychic energy fights between lost, lonesome daughters.

each piece of re7's dlc was ridiculous, but also singular and cohesive. shadows of rose is a mess of ideas layered one on top of another. it's not narratively necessary, but still, i enjoyed rose's trip into the biomatrix.

love how industrial this girl's arsenal is. i need to play more 6th gen horror.

i would call the ps4 version "less playable." there are loading screens to pick up items. when they introduce the unkillable pursuer, there's a musical cue that tells you if it's in the room you entered... but on ps4, there's a 5 second delay on the musical cue, so by the time it plays, you've probably already run into the monster. annoying.

some of the monster design feels icky. caricatures fashioned from wheelchairs, crutches, and amputations.

extremely rough presentation, and i don't mean the models or animations. just like, the position of the camera? the way the paths are designed? it displeases me. anyway a woman chasing her son and his abductor through a magic isle that they've been isekai'd to, fending off creatures of norse myth, is a great premise for a horror game. and it managed to raise my hair with its sound design. but the attempts at Real World Important Narrative Themes of maternity, abuse, divorce, and suicide are so weirdly handled. sours most of the enjoyment that can be taken from the game's concept. i liked the evil talking wolves tho. they were just hungry lil guys

"[square] save espen"
"[square] save espen"
"[square] save espen"
"[square] save espen"
"[square] save espen"
"[circle] accept"