Surrealism might as well not exist in our pointless efforts to reach realism in the modern day space of video games. While every studio is currently looking to make the AAAA metaverse game that will consume the rest of our lives, this quirky, downright nonsensically designed one-button 3D platformer recalls the glory days of the Dreamcast with a sincerity embedded in its cast of regular folks who just need some cheering up, clearly coming from a place of bizarre, but undeniable empathy via Yuji Naka's direction. If you've played Naka's NiGHTS into dreams... before, you should know what I'm talking about. There is a deep, Seuss-like respect for childish imagination that has no place in our angry, confused current world. Of course everyone hated it.

To preface this I'd already watched the cutscene collection of this from the 1.5 ReMix a couple years ago so I had a vague idea of the story going into this. That said, 358/2 Days feels like an instant comfort game to me. I liked seeing the daily going-ons of the organisation, it made the whole lineup feel a lot more grounded in contrast to the other games. The gameplay loop is a bit boring - usually equating difficulty to larger health bars on enemies and the combat doesn't really evolve outside of new keyblades changing combos, which I still appreciated. Okay so I've established that the missions are monotonous and repetitive but seeing Axel and Xion after each mission on that clock tower made it all worthwhile. Playing through this allowed me to connect to the Seasalt trio a lot easier than from watching the cutscene collection, Roxas, Axel and Xion were all just trying to make it through each day and enjoy their time with one another. I loved seeing them grow together as people, as a group and seeing this friendship drift apart was heartbreaking stuff, definitely some of my favourite KH characters. Move aside Spider-Man PS4: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days really makes you feel like an underpaid worker who hates their job but loves their coworkers!

Easily the worst fnaf game. As someone who at least has something of an appreciation for the first game and Pizzeria Simulator, this game basically embodies everything that lead to fnaf's self cannibalization: Shit gameplay, zero tension, dumbass obtuse puzzles, stupid lore.

Is is naive to blame fnaf for analog horror being such a big thing as it is nowadays? I know that it didn't invent the genre, but it becomes a thing right around the time this game comes out and they share a lot of similar ideas; The perversion of childhood imagery, the retrofetishism, the inanely deep lore for no real reason. The major difference is that fnaf as a series relies way too much on jumpscares over anything else as it goes on, whereas most analog horror prides itself on it's atmospheric slow burn A24 horror with zero jumpscares, but jesus fucking christ does every single analog horror series fall flat on its face on being scary. They're basically 90% buildup, and the payoff more often than not is a creepy face less scary than the majority of shitty old creepypastas or some kind of abstraction that leaves it up to the viewer to imagine a scary thing themselves. More often than not it just ends up kind of funny.

To quote the top comment of soon to be horror classic DELTARUNE VHS | SNOWGRAVE: "I like that there are no cheap jumpscares, just unnerving imageries and sounds and that's what makes it look actually scary." Indeed.