jushajod
13 reviews liked by jushajod
I'm moving. I'm going through things. I'm scared.
I'm choosing what gets kept, what needs to go. I have so much to sell. I feel overwhelmed.
Today I gave away my Animal Crossing amiibo cards. I had a special binder I gave away, too. My friend and I, we couldn't help but paw through it.
Baabara was my first neighbor. Kevin was my first friend. I set his catchphrase to "bromeo," which pissed off my boyfriend to no end (and delighted me in equal measure.) I built a shrine of public works projects when Keaton left. I paid 17 million bells to a forum user for Eric. I wrote in my real world journal how much I wanted to cry when Annabelle left. She went to my sister's village - it wasn't the same.
The year I played Animal Crossing: New Leaf was the year I got and had depression the worst. I played 1,000+ hours of this game. I 100%'d it. There was not a square inch of my town that wasn't thoughtfully decorated. I had every piece of furniture, every holiday event item from every region, every piece of clothing. My house was immaculate, my museum a marvel. Places that I would legitimately enjoy spending time in. I stopped playing because I literally ran out of things to do.
I once spent 8 hours resetting my game because I was so particular about where Bianaca put her house and I refused to compromise. I didn't like the system of drawing my paths, so I covered them all with 4-leaf clover. I learned how to hack my 3DS because of this game. (Fuck you Isabelle, that bridge needs to be behind my house at an angle to get to the train station and like hell I care about your zoning laws. I OWN YOU!) Blue and gold roses, purple pansies, every square littered with opulences that made visitors describe my town of Merriam as a wonderland.
G3 B3 G4 G4 A4 G4(held) F4 E4 (rest) D4 E4 D4 C4
I spent so long writing that song and it still comes to mind so easily. (The first D4 is actually a wildcard in-game, but it’s a D4 when hummed correctly.) It worked so well as a chime entering a store. I remember how Pashmina always squeaked singing the first D4. It felt like such a wonderful anthem in so many ways for so many of its uses. I was always taken off guard when visiting another town with a different tune, and always felt so natural and at home whenever I came back to it.
Do you know how invested I was talking to that little hedgehog at the sewing machine until I became her friend? Knowing nothing about this franchise, not knowing that she was a series staple gimmick? I was ecstatic.
When Reese had a special on sharks I was at the island fishing sharks all day long.
The amount I loved these little animal critters is legitimately Fucked. Up.
Seriously.
It seemed so natural the stories that sprung up in my mind. Al and Ceaser were the weird gay couple that were ugly but happy. Cookie bullied Rhonda into moving, and then left herself when there was no one to control. Pashmina had her eye on Kevin, who only had his eye on the ball. Julian was the cool friend I didn't think I deserved to have, and Henry left because he felt the same way.
When they sang Happy Birthday to me I near bawled my eyes out. Because for as touching and heart-warming as it was to have these little spirits sharing love for me, spirits that I had loved so much, I was still, in the real world, alone and playing my 3DS on my birthday.
That's the real rub of the magic and terror of Animal Crossing. Magical because you feel real emotions. Terrifying because you can see the code. They're puppets. Dolls. Elaborate and adorable, but predictable - and you still love them all the same.
But they're kind. They're understanding. You can hurt their feelings, blow them off, mess up their yard - and they'll still write you letters when they live next door, give you presents, and stop by your house to see what you're up to. Maybe each individual interaction is annoying, or doesn't register as important. But in aggregate, those emotions stack up. Each time they give you that piece of fruit you were looking for. That rare piece of furniture that completes your set. Each time they change outfits into something so stupid or so cute that it sticks in your brain. You feel real little things. Imperfectly perfect little moments seeded in time enough to weave in with the passage of time in your real life.
When I had insomnia, Static stared at the moon with me. I remember naming my town at my sister's graduation party. I remember my parents watching the New Year's ball drop on the TV and then looking at the fireworks in Merriam. I remember sitting at the kitchen table when the town was covered in snow for the first time. I remember hunting for beetles at Tortimer Island while dying of summer heat at my uncle's place in Arizona.
I have memories. Good ones. Real places, real emotions of these happy little animal people. And yet these little animal people are not. fucking. real.
Somewhere on a back-up hard drive or a laptop I lost the charging cable to, I have the save data for the perfect date of Merriam. A day in May in a particular year. Where the hydrangeas are in bloom, and the weather is perfect, and everyone who is supposed to be there, is there.
Do you know how raw and cringe it is to talk about loving anything about this game? Like, if you don't understand the appeal of this series, GOOD. Be healthy. Have self-respect. Everyone over-shared about New Horizons because the pandemic ruined everyone's sense of shame. But loving this game is not good. It's not healthy.
At the same time.
That grammar is hiding a lot. Was loving this game healthy for me? No. But was I healthy? Would I have been healthy if I hadn’t been playing this game? Fuck no.
You need time to get invested in Animal Crossing. Real world time that you do not get back. Real world time that is, in fact, a valid currency for trying to make connections in the real world. The potential opportunity cost for getting "the most" out of Animal Crossing is wild.
I hated New Horizons because I could tell the villagers didn't want to be my friend. They wanted to be Instagram fodder. But maybe that is for the best. Because that recontextualizes the appeal of the game to being something that you show off to other humans. That the Animal Crossing aesthetic is there merely to facilitate a shared experience with other people of how you've played with your lego set.
I'm going to miss my friend. I'm putting my life into boxes. And now I get it, that once your life is in boxes, it's too late for anyone to change your mind, too late for your mind to even matter. You can't not go.
Going through those cards, reminiscing of which ones were my favorites, my sister's favorites, remembering the hours we spent cloning flowers - it made me realize how Animal Crossing gets its hooks in you. How the connection to the real world's time gets you invested, but there's no closure. You can always come back. Most of your villagers will still be there and know who you are. Your furniture will be just as you left it. So not playing means there's always the possibility of coming back, and things being a little different, but capable of being the same. But here, with these cards, I had a tangible thing to hold in my hands, in the real world. Unlocked memories. Recreating the paths I walked in that town for months. Something I could make peace with. Something I could give away. Something to pass off at the end of a season.
As I spoke with my friend, I let myself talk honestly about what these little dudes had meant to me for the first time aloud. Because I could trust him to understand what I had been going through. What it meant for me to be that invested. What I was really telling him with these silly nonsense stories. Because he had played New Horizons the same way. And he knew that when you can honestly describe how something made you feel, in a way that previously would have been so vulnerable, you've truly moved on. And I needed to know that I wasn't still the person who lost a year of his life and redirected it into Animal Crossing.
I had to take them back. He can keep the binder and Diva and the dozens of strangers who mean nothing to me. I needed to keep the cards of the villagers who were with me at the end. At the end of playing pretend. Of when I ran out of ways to play. I'm still missing Static and Zucker and Pierce.
Maybe there isn’t shame in using Animal Crossing for what it was. A bridge, a crutch, a reminder of what kindness and friendship looked like in a time where those were in short supply. Don’t we sometimes use real people the same way? Aren’t some real friendships just as shallow, but mean just as much? Few friendships last a lifetime, the same as few games are played forever.
I don't want to move. But I can't not move. I have to forgive myself for the people I used to be. I have to find grace in seeing what I learned from the experiences I would never wish on myself again. Including my ability to love Animal Crossing.
I'm choosing what gets kept, what needs to go. I have so much to sell. I feel overwhelmed.
Today I gave away my Animal Crossing amiibo cards. I had a special binder I gave away, too. My friend and I, we couldn't help but paw through it.
Baabara was my first neighbor. Kevin was my first friend. I set his catchphrase to "bromeo," which pissed off my boyfriend to no end (and delighted me in equal measure.) I built a shrine of public works projects when Keaton left. I paid 17 million bells to a forum user for Eric. I wrote in my real world journal how much I wanted to cry when Annabelle left. She went to my sister's village - it wasn't the same.
The year I played Animal Crossing: New Leaf was the year I got and had depression the worst. I played 1,000+ hours of this game. I 100%'d it. There was not a square inch of my town that wasn't thoughtfully decorated. I had every piece of furniture, every holiday event item from every region, every piece of clothing. My house was immaculate, my museum a marvel. Places that I would legitimately enjoy spending time in. I stopped playing because I literally ran out of things to do.
I once spent 8 hours resetting my game because I was so particular about where Bianaca put her house and I refused to compromise. I didn't like the system of drawing my paths, so I covered them all with 4-leaf clover. I learned how to hack my 3DS because of this game. (Fuck you Isabelle, that bridge needs to be behind my house at an angle to get to the train station and like hell I care about your zoning laws. I OWN YOU!) Blue and gold roses, purple pansies, every square littered with opulences that made visitors describe my town of Merriam as a wonderland.
G3 B3 G4 G4 A4 G4(held) F4 E4 (rest) D4 E4 D4 C4
I spent so long writing that song and it still comes to mind so easily. (The first D4 is actually a wildcard in-game, but it’s a D4 when hummed correctly.) It worked so well as a chime entering a store. I remember how Pashmina always squeaked singing the first D4. It felt like such a wonderful anthem in so many ways for so many of its uses. I was always taken off guard when visiting another town with a different tune, and always felt so natural and at home whenever I came back to it.
Do you know how invested I was talking to that little hedgehog at the sewing machine until I became her friend? Knowing nothing about this franchise, not knowing that she was a series staple gimmick? I was ecstatic.
When Reese had a special on sharks I was at the island fishing sharks all day long.
The amount I loved these little animal critters is legitimately Fucked. Up.
Seriously.
It seemed so natural the stories that sprung up in my mind. Al and Ceaser were the weird gay couple that were ugly but happy. Cookie bullied Rhonda into moving, and then left herself when there was no one to control. Pashmina had her eye on Kevin, who only had his eye on the ball. Julian was the cool friend I didn't think I deserved to have, and Henry left because he felt the same way.
When they sang Happy Birthday to me I near bawled my eyes out. Because for as touching and heart-warming as it was to have these little spirits sharing love for me, spirits that I had loved so much, I was still, in the real world, alone and playing my 3DS on my birthday.
That's the real rub of the magic and terror of Animal Crossing. Magical because you feel real emotions. Terrifying because you can see the code. They're puppets. Dolls. Elaborate and adorable, but predictable - and you still love them all the same.
But they're kind. They're understanding. You can hurt their feelings, blow them off, mess up their yard - and they'll still write you letters when they live next door, give you presents, and stop by your house to see what you're up to. Maybe each individual interaction is annoying, or doesn't register as important. But in aggregate, those emotions stack up. Each time they give you that piece of fruit you were looking for. That rare piece of furniture that completes your set. Each time they change outfits into something so stupid or so cute that it sticks in your brain. You feel real little things. Imperfectly perfect little moments seeded in time enough to weave in with the passage of time in your real life.
When I had insomnia, Static stared at the moon with me. I remember naming my town at my sister's graduation party. I remember my parents watching the New Year's ball drop on the TV and then looking at the fireworks in Merriam. I remember sitting at the kitchen table when the town was covered in snow for the first time. I remember hunting for beetles at Tortimer Island while dying of summer heat at my uncle's place in Arizona.
I have memories. Good ones. Real places, real emotions of these happy little animal people. And yet these little animal people are not. fucking. real.
Somewhere on a back-up hard drive or a laptop I lost the charging cable to, I have the save data for the perfect date of Merriam. A day in May in a particular year. Where the hydrangeas are in bloom, and the weather is perfect, and everyone who is supposed to be there, is there.
Do you know how raw and cringe it is to talk about loving anything about this game? Like, if you don't understand the appeal of this series, GOOD. Be healthy. Have self-respect. Everyone over-shared about New Horizons because the pandemic ruined everyone's sense of shame. But loving this game is not good. It's not healthy.
At the same time.
That grammar is hiding a lot. Was loving this game healthy for me? No. But was I healthy? Would I have been healthy if I hadn’t been playing this game? Fuck no.
You need time to get invested in Animal Crossing. Real world time that you do not get back. Real world time that is, in fact, a valid currency for trying to make connections in the real world. The potential opportunity cost for getting "the most" out of Animal Crossing is wild.
I hated New Horizons because I could tell the villagers didn't want to be my friend. They wanted to be Instagram fodder. But maybe that is for the best. Because that recontextualizes the appeal of the game to being something that you show off to other humans. That the Animal Crossing aesthetic is there merely to facilitate a shared experience with other people of how you've played with your lego set.
I'm going to miss my friend. I'm putting my life into boxes. And now I get it, that once your life is in boxes, it's too late for anyone to change your mind, too late for your mind to even matter. You can't not go.
Going through those cards, reminiscing of which ones were my favorites, my sister's favorites, remembering the hours we spent cloning flowers - it made me realize how Animal Crossing gets its hooks in you. How the connection to the real world's time gets you invested, but there's no closure. You can always come back. Most of your villagers will still be there and know who you are. Your furniture will be just as you left it. So not playing means there's always the possibility of coming back, and things being a little different, but capable of being the same. But here, with these cards, I had a tangible thing to hold in my hands, in the real world. Unlocked memories. Recreating the paths I walked in that town for months. Something I could make peace with. Something I could give away. Something to pass off at the end of a season.
As I spoke with my friend, I let myself talk honestly about what these little dudes had meant to me for the first time aloud. Because I could trust him to understand what I had been going through. What it meant for me to be that invested. What I was really telling him with these silly nonsense stories. Because he had played New Horizons the same way. And he knew that when you can honestly describe how something made you feel, in a way that previously would have been so vulnerable, you've truly moved on. And I needed to know that I wasn't still the person who lost a year of his life and redirected it into Animal Crossing.
I had to take them back. He can keep the binder and Diva and the dozens of strangers who mean nothing to me. I needed to keep the cards of the villagers who were with me at the end. At the end of playing pretend. Of when I ran out of ways to play. I'm still missing Static and Zucker and Pierce.
Maybe there isn’t shame in using Animal Crossing for what it was. A bridge, a crutch, a reminder of what kindness and friendship looked like in a time where those were in short supply. Don’t we sometimes use real people the same way? Aren’t some real friendships just as shallow, but mean just as much? Few friendships last a lifetime, the same as few games are played forever.
I don't want to move. But I can't not move. I have to forgive myself for the people I used to be. I have to find grace in seeing what I learned from the experiences I would never wish on myself again. Including my ability to love Animal Crossing.
are you using your time to properly think and talk with art? are you listening? or do you plug your ears anytime it tries to talk with you, to challenge you and make you rethink what you're engaging with?
i don't think i have any common ground with most people who like videogames, actually. but i don't think this is just videogames anymore, this is endemic in all of the arts. people stopped being listeners, started being consumers. no long a plot twist will make your heart skip a beat, now it's the author "betraying" your trust. no longer can complicated concept be presented before your public, now you're "fumbling", "overdesigning" or whatever new word people will invent to use as analytical shortcuts. like, really, you spent 90h with this game and all you could get back from it was that it has "Ubisoft-like" design because it has towers? i don't care if you gave the game 4 or 5 stars or if that was a compliment, is it that hard to think more about it? am i setting the bar too high? probably.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is not a product, it's an art piece which you converse with (that's honestly 99.9% of games too btw). hefty admission price for sure, but it does not need to cater to you at any moment. it needs to be heard, seen, felt, I think running around the grasslands felt incredible and vibrant, i love how every map changes its whole design based on the chocobos, i love how sidequests have their own little songs to them with battle music included, i love how every character gets explored a whole ton more because now they have the time to do so, I love how Tifa can be herself instead of Cloud's past, I liked every change, I think this game is probably one of the most courageous games ever made and that will ever be made and people won't appreciate it enough, but that's fine because I will.
the more i think about it, the more i think about its last hours, the more i think how they handled -that moment- the more I like it. I like this and Remake for entirely different reasons, but Rebirth made me feel things I don't think i was even aware I could feel playing a game and I don't mean crying i cry for everything and i cried super hard at several moments in this game, it's something else, which i would only dare to explain if I had spoilered this text but i don't want to do so.
like i said i think i finally realized my lack of common ground is what makes it really hard to talk about videogames outside of my circle, people who only wear "videogames are art!!" as a mantle for feeling validated, but not really treating them much differently than the hamburger they'll buy for lunch. i don't mind if you didn't like the game but i only ask for something of substance, an interesting read, at the very least a personal perspective, not internet gaming buzzwords i can see in like 60 other reviews. i just want to think and challenge myself and i feel like i'm always going into a hivemind. but i guess that's fine i get to cherish good things when i see them at least.
i just need to remind myself of this
i don't think i have any common ground with most people who like videogames, actually. but i don't think this is just videogames anymore, this is endemic in all of the arts. people stopped being listeners, started being consumers. no long a plot twist will make your heart skip a beat, now it's the author "betraying" your trust. no longer can complicated concept be presented before your public, now you're "fumbling", "overdesigning" or whatever new word people will invent to use as analytical shortcuts. like, really, you spent 90h with this game and all you could get back from it was that it has "Ubisoft-like" design because it has towers? i don't care if you gave the game 4 or 5 stars or if that was a compliment, is it that hard to think more about it? am i setting the bar too high? probably.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is not a product, it's an art piece which you converse with (that's honestly 99.9% of games too btw). hefty admission price for sure, but it does not need to cater to you at any moment. it needs to be heard, seen, felt, I think running around the grasslands felt incredible and vibrant, i love how every map changes its whole design based on the chocobos, i love how sidequests have their own little songs to them with battle music included, i love how every character gets explored a whole ton more because now they have the time to do so, I love how Tifa can be herself instead of Cloud's past, I liked every change, I think this game is probably one of the most courageous games ever made and that will ever be made and people won't appreciate it enough, but that's fine because I will.
the more i think about it, the more i think about its last hours, the more i think how they handled -that moment- the more I like it. I like this and Remake for entirely different reasons, but Rebirth made me feel things I don't think i was even aware I could feel playing a game and I don't mean crying i cry for everything and i cried super hard at several moments in this game, it's something else, which i would only dare to explain if I had spoilered this text but i don't want to do so.
like i said i think i finally realized my lack of common ground is what makes it really hard to talk about videogames outside of my circle, people who only wear "videogames are art!!" as a mantle for feeling validated, but not really treating them much differently than the hamburger they'll buy for lunch. i don't mind if you didn't like the game but i only ask for something of substance, an interesting read, at the very least a personal perspective, not internet gaming buzzwords i can see in like 60 other reviews. i just want to think and challenge myself and i feel like i'm always going into a hivemind. but i guess that's fine i get to cherish good things when i see them at least.
i just need to remind myself of this
NieR: Automata
2017
—WARNING—
SNESSER
Videogames are for media perverts.
Really, is it not enough just watching a character perform an action from the comfort of the living room sofa? We’ve got the written word, the stage, the projector, illustration and sound, but for the weirdos among us, that doesn’t cut it. No, we just have to crawl into the screen and take up residence in their skin. We need to feel their digital knuckles scraping against the robo-flesh of their adversaries. We need to breathe the air of that post-apocalyptic wasteland and go fishing in the little streams that have formed between the cracks in the asphalt. In "A Play of Bodies," games researcher Brendan Keogh (the man responsible for my treatment of "videogame" as a single word) writes that video-gameplay creates a circuit between the player and the software. We enter the machine, and there is a “meshing of materially different bodies into an amalgam cyborg body through which the player both produces and perceives the play experience” (41).
It’s a little twisted, isn’t it? Just the slightest bit deranged?
I think about that whenever I consider recommending NieR: Automata to another person, because even if it didn't mean asking someone to take control of an android soldier inexplicably dressed as a blindfolded french maid in a billowy skirt and heels (“Taro just likes girls, man”), it still demands a degree of investment which isn’t remotely common in media. For games, it’s a high bar. I have to remind myself that even in 2023, the year when my Mom called in to rave about HBO’s The Last of Us, picking up a controller to actively involve oneself in a play experience of this kind is still a lot to ask. That show managed to reach an audience of people who had never considered conversion into one of Keogh’s cyborgs. If even one of them asked me which videogames to start with, Automata wouldn’t make the shortlist. You’ve already gotta be quite a ways down the rabbit hole. You have to love giving yourself over to and becoming entwined with these things for hours at a time. You have to be aware of their conventions. It’s one for the video-perverts.
Luckily, there are plenty of us to go around if you know where to look. Media literacy is an odd thing. I’m enough of a ridiculous videogame/media cyborg person that I might’ve written off Automata — of all things — as passé. A little too indulgent in some unfortunate tropes and well-trodden themes.
If you’re just joining us, the premise is this — In the future, aliens have sent a mechanical army to conquer the Earth, forcing humanity to take refuge on the moon. We’ve constructed a squadron of android soldiers to take back the planet, resulting in an ongoing proxy war between the two robotic factions on the surface. You, the player, follow androids 2B and 9S in their righteous quest to drive back the alien menace and reclaim the world.
Incidentally, this is pretty much the plot of DoDonPachi DaiOuJou. You have the right to remain suspicious.
I’d played my share of JRPGs, done some hacking and slashing, wasn’t terribly impressed with 13 Sentinels, seen Evangelion, Lain and Ghost in the Shell. I’ve had Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked in my queue since that one Hazel video, alright. I wasn’t…pressed. I didn’t discount what I’d heard about its excellence and experimentation, but I was pretty sure I knew what I’d find. No matter how you slice it, the broad questions of existential philosophy can only have so many possible conclusions. Either everything is futile, or it’s not. To paraphrase Albert Camus, you either live for some reason, or you don’t. Viktor Frankl narrowed it down to three: one might live for a goal, for someone else, or to overcome suffering. Paring it further down, you either accept the beauty that you can find in whatever corner of this world you inhabit, or else rage against it and build a better one.
Really, I hoped it was hiding a perspective or a problem that would change my mind. I want to be wrong and I want to learn. My diagnosis of existentialism is so broad as to be useless. But Automata didn’t show me “The Gospel of the New Age,” it didn’t pretend it could arrive at unique conclusions about life and its meaning. Rather, it’s frustrated with the answers that have been given. It just doesn’t know how to escape from them.
SYSTEM MESSAGE
(It's gonna be a long one)
The opening says as much, states in no uncertain terms that we’re “perpetually trapped” in The Wheel of Samsara, and then drops us into a top-down arcade shoot ‘em up. I watched the rest of my squad get picked off one by one, and knew I was in the hands of a director. So let’s talk Taro. Yoko Taro, the all-but undisputed creative force behind NieR, has spoken loudly about his love for 2D shooters, and that inspiration isn’t limited to gameplay. It comes through in Automata’s premise, themes, and looping narrative. Shoot ‘em ups are about dying again and again, setting one’s own goals, finding meaning in their madness. They’re about lone pilots in their last stands to save already doomed worlds. Their characters never escape the five to seven manic stages that contain their stories. Yoko Taro may have wanted to make ZeroRanger (and if he had, it’d had said all he’d wanted to say), but given Square Enix’s requirement that it be an Action RPG, I think the team came to a solid compromise.
Automata’s control scheme is cleverly designed to seamlessly shift between 2D shooting and 3D action without twisting the fundamentals. Melee attacks, specials and evasion are all mapped to the same buttons no matter the perspective, and that’s a powerful gesture. NieR: Replicant was bent on shocking the player out of their comfort zone with shifts into text adventuring and fixed camera Resident Evil…ing, its parts as cobbled together as any of Automata’s machines (and make no mistake, I love it for that). Automata, meanwhile, is sleek. Its mechanical consistency more readily invites the player to slip into a state of cyborg-dom, even as the shape of the game morphs around them. Nowhere is this better felt than the final stretch of The Tower, and those who’ve played the game will know what I’m talking about. Whatever form it takes, whoever you are, your index finger is for shooting. Customizable chips inform your abilities and interface, and it does plenty to contextualize game elements as features of the android protagonists. Whether or not it measurably contains “zero unintended ludo-narrative dissonance,” Automata goes the distance.
But few players I know would accuse Automata of “consistency,” and for good reason. Its narrative structure is easily one of its strangest features. I wouldn’t call it subtle so much as…selectively cryptic? Curious. I wouldn’t say there’s anything presented in the critical path that doesn’t serve at least a thematic purpose, but events rarely build directly on top of each other throughout the A/B playthroughs, and only the barest threads actively cause the events of Routes C/D. Much of this is by design, seeing as the player is taking direct orders from their commanding officers as soldiers of YoRHa, simply doing as you’re told without the agency to decide your path, but I wouldn’t argue if someone found Automata “half-baked.”
I’m getting ahead of myself — I’ve seen it discussed that the mystery of the machines’ sentience is badly handled, that it’s too obvious and heavy-handed right from the get-go, but I think it’s clear that’s not the question being raised by the story. It’s not “do the machines really have emotions,” it’s “why are the androids so bent on deluding themselves into believing that the machines lack emotion?” What’s so qualitatively different about the two robot factions? What drives people to ignore the pleas of others and deny their personhood? We find them in distress in the desert, quite literally birthing two beings called Adam and Eve. It takes just three hours to encounter a village of machine pacifists, and, when he’s no longer able to deny their sentience, 9S just pulls out some lame excuse to maintain his worldview. This might be frustrating as a player, to be required to carry out actions you don’t believe in for the sake of progress through a story. You could call it stupid, maybe cruel, or you might appreciate that your doubts echo those of the characters.
But some cracks begin to show as you await each revelation.
_________________________________
After a climactic battle with a gargantuan mech results in the loss of your sidekick, you follow a trail of breadcrumbs to a rusted elevator in the depths of a dimly-lit cavern. You’re warned it may be a trap. Both you and your character shrug off the suggestion.
At the bottom of a long descent, you emerge beneath a subterranean sky, a void of white. Before you, an eerie facsimile of civilization. The architecture is reminiscent of a metropolis that once stood, but colorless and incomplete. One of the top three songs in the game starts up.
Pressing forward, you find the bodies of androids strewn about the scenery. Further and further, until you come face to face with the perpetrator. You have a dramatic rematch with Adam. Philosophy is spouted, combat ensues, and you kill him. You retrieve 9S.
You then…report back to the Resistance Camp and receive your next assignment.
The Copied City never becomes relevant again.
_________________________________
(Tangentially, Adam and Eve confront our heroes a total of three times, which doesn’t give them much room to interact beyond being born and dying. This is interesting on the face of it, but none of these interactions shake up the status quo. Killing Eve supposedly alters the machine network, but not in a way that interferes with its normal functioning. 9S then enters the machine network during the first ending, and little seems to come of it beyond perhaps the intermittent vignettes you receive before and after boss fights during Route B. Tragically, none of these vignettes seem to influence 9S’ thoughts or actions later on)
I’m not here to slap a “bad writing” stamp on NieR: Automata, despite what I'm about to say. Honest. All of this is kind of fascinating to me. The fact that Adam and Eve’s story doesn’t affect the characters as much as it should might speak to how little regard the androids afford machines in general. The fact that the status quo is not affected by any of these wild moments sort of makes sense when you consider the cyclical state of the setting. Maybe. But a certain thought cloud began to hang over me as I continued playing, and then it grew as the story revealed itself.
Any suspicions I had were confirmed by Taro’s 2014 GDC Talk where he lays bare his process. Before arriving at any character or premise, he whips up an emotional climax. He decides where he wants his audience to cry, and then works backward to create context for that moment. I’d like to be charitable, everyone expresses themselves differently, but it’s hard not to look at this and find some Hack Behavior. Taro does explore themes and questions and characters, but it’s obvious when a moment is crafted in isolation for the sake of shock value, and it doesn’t help that many of them lack long-standing consequences. Of course there are great, hard-hitting scenes (the intro to the game’s second half comes to mind), but I know when I’m being punked. And as it pulls this sort of thing again and again, it becomes easier to see the mirrors behind the smoke. Final Fantasy VI’s opera setpiece might be very obviously tossed in there, but the development that happens in and around it, before and after, makes it worthwhile.
And so is Automata, just not for the same reasons. I was convinced at one point that it had actually been about the conflict between A2 and 9S all along. Whatever inconsistencies there’d been or questions that had gone unanswered, everything had been built to explore how they’d end up as ideological opposites. But for that to be true, A2 herself would’ve needed more time. I’ve got just enough of a speedrunner’s brain that I enjoyed replaying the first third as 9S, especially for recontextualizing his role in the duo and containing late-game reveals only he was privy to. Likewise, we’d have needed to see what made A2 who she was at the beginning of the story. After ages of aimless rage and rebellion, it should have taken more than just one late-game subplot to alter her worldview (2B-pilled or not). It’s a testament to the music, pacing and performances that I was able to buy her character, but it would be a stretch to say that the story is squarely about her.
Maybe it’s become clearer as Taro has progressively dominated this write-up, but I don’t feel this is a game about its characters, but a mind at odds with itself. It won’t be obvious if you’re only reading this review without having played the game, but NieR is the story of a man grappling with existentialists, admitting that none of their perspectives have managed to convince him or offer a satisfactory route to purpose. Maybe he’s frustrated that none of them click. Whether you’re driven by fear or beauty or selfishness, spirituality or revenge, we’re all made of the same stuff, and we’re all going to the same place.
I don’t think it’s unfair to criticize Automata for failing to thoroughly explore those avenues of meaning. Fair or not, I’ll posit this dismissal comes from the honest place of a person who’s become lost and resentful toward structures built to fabricate meaning at the expense of others. Religion and love and community are all represented in unflattering extremes, and having one’s purpose stripped away is immediately met with violence against oneself and others. Even when I disagreed or wanted more in the way of nuance, I had to admit that I could sympathize with the author. I realize I’ve come to take God’s absence for granted, that meaning is self-made. Around the time I played Automata, a close someone told me that life would not be worth living without God. Happiness would be impossible. Only the involvement of an Eternal Being can give our existence weight.
Well, It’s a good thing He’s up there, then.
…
So we play as this torn mind, inhabiting both characters and driving them toward opposite objectives. These androids are only granted agency by the player, after all. Whichever of the two you gravitate toward, each must be defeated by the other. You must kill both of your selves.
It’s a bleak lens. Maybe it shouldn't be any sort of surprise that Automata’s ending invites its players to rebel against its worldview, unite and collectively destroy it. It wants us to demonstrate that we can find purpose in each other. As far as I can tell, Taro wants to be proven wrong. He wants to learn something. Of course, it could be that I only found what I wanted to see.
But that’s not what I saw in the moment. Ending E didn’t hit as hard as I’d wanted. I nodded in acknowledgment of the gesture, knew that it was a modern Shigesato Itoi finale. Automata contains some real sparks of bottled magic, but it rarely managed to pull me out of my own head, maybe because the mind behind it was made so painfully visible. It never brought me to tears (TieRs?). Despite the gorgeousness of its soundtrack, I felt more distant than I’d have liked to be. I became uncomfortably aware of myself in that desk chair, holding a plastic videogame controller, watching my screen flash with the light of real people who’d given up their save data to help me, someone they’d never meet.
It felt like getting caught in the act.
SNESSER
Videogames are for media perverts.
Really, is it not enough just watching a character perform an action from the comfort of the living room sofa? We’ve got the written word, the stage, the projector, illustration and sound, but for the weirdos among us, that doesn’t cut it. No, we just have to crawl into the screen and take up residence in their skin. We need to feel their digital knuckles scraping against the robo-flesh of their adversaries. We need to breathe the air of that post-apocalyptic wasteland and go fishing in the little streams that have formed between the cracks in the asphalt. In "A Play of Bodies," games researcher Brendan Keogh (the man responsible for my treatment of "videogame" as a single word) writes that video-gameplay creates a circuit between the player and the software. We enter the machine, and there is a “meshing of materially different bodies into an amalgam cyborg body through which the player both produces and perceives the play experience” (41).
It’s a little twisted, isn’t it? Just the slightest bit deranged?
I think about that whenever I consider recommending NieR: Automata to another person, because even if it didn't mean asking someone to take control of an android soldier inexplicably dressed as a blindfolded french maid in a billowy skirt and heels (“Taro just likes girls, man”), it still demands a degree of investment which isn’t remotely common in media. For games, it’s a high bar. I have to remind myself that even in 2023, the year when my Mom called in to rave about HBO’s The Last of Us, picking up a controller to actively involve oneself in a play experience of this kind is still a lot to ask. That show managed to reach an audience of people who had never considered conversion into one of Keogh’s cyborgs. If even one of them asked me which videogames to start with, Automata wouldn’t make the shortlist. You’ve already gotta be quite a ways down the rabbit hole. You have to love giving yourself over to and becoming entwined with these things for hours at a time. You have to be aware of their conventions. It’s one for the video-perverts.
Luckily, there are plenty of us to go around if you know where to look. Media literacy is an odd thing. I’m enough of a ridiculous videogame/media cyborg person that I might’ve written off Automata — of all things — as passé. A little too indulgent in some unfortunate tropes and well-trodden themes.
If you’re just joining us, the premise is this — In the future, aliens have sent a mechanical army to conquer the Earth, forcing humanity to take refuge on the moon. We’ve constructed a squadron of android soldiers to take back the planet, resulting in an ongoing proxy war between the two robotic factions on the surface. You, the player, follow androids 2B and 9S in their righteous quest to drive back the alien menace and reclaim the world.
Incidentally, this is pretty much the plot of DoDonPachi DaiOuJou. You have the right to remain suspicious.
I’d played my share of JRPGs, done some hacking and slashing, wasn’t terribly impressed with 13 Sentinels, seen Evangelion, Lain and Ghost in the Shell. I’ve had Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked in my queue since that one Hazel video, alright. I wasn’t…pressed. I didn’t discount what I’d heard about its excellence and experimentation, but I was pretty sure I knew what I’d find. No matter how you slice it, the broad questions of existential philosophy can only have so many possible conclusions. Either everything is futile, or it’s not. To paraphrase Albert Camus, you either live for some reason, or you don’t. Viktor Frankl narrowed it down to three: one might live for a goal, for someone else, or to overcome suffering. Paring it further down, you either accept the beauty that you can find in whatever corner of this world you inhabit, or else rage against it and build a better one.
Really, I hoped it was hiding a perspective or a problem that would change my mind. I want to be wrong and I want to learn. My diagnosis of existentialism is so broad as to be useless. But Automata didn’t show me “The Gospel of the New Age,” it didn’t pretend it could arrive at unique conclusions about life and its meaning. Rather, it’s frustrated with the answers that have been given. It just doesn’t know how to escape from them.
SYSTEM MESSAGE
(It's gonna be a long one)
The opening says as much, states in no uncertain terms that we’re “perpetually trapped” in The Wheel of Samsara, and then drops us into a top-down arcade shoot ‘em up. I watched the rest of my squad get picked off one by one, and knew I was in the hands of a director. So let’s talk Taro. Yoko Taro, the all-but undisputed creative force behind NieR, has spoken loudly about his love for 2D shooters, and that inspiration isn’t limited to gameplay. It comes through in Automata’s premise, themes, and looping narrative. Shoot ‘em ups are about dying again and again, setting one’s own goals, finding meaning in their madness. They’re about lone pilots in their last stands to save already doomed worlds. Their characters never escape the five to seven manic stages that contain their stories. Yoko Taro may have wanted to make ZeroRanger (and if he had, it’d had said all he’d wanted to say), but given Square Enix’s requirement that it be an Action RPG, I think the team came to a solid compromise.
Automata’s control scheme is cleverly designed to seamlessly shift between 2D shooting and 3D action without twisting the fundamentals. Melee attacks, specials and evasion are all mapped to the same buttons no matter the perspective, and that’s a powerful gesture. NieR: Replicant was bent on shocking the player out of their comfort zone with shifts into text adventuring and fixed camera Resident Evil…ing, its parts as cobbled together as any of Automata’s machines (and make no mistake, I love it for that). Automata, meanwhile, is sleek. Its mechanical consistency more readily invites the player to slip into a state of cyborg-dom, even as the shape of the game morphs around them. Nowhere is this better felt than the final stretch of The Tower, and those who’ve played the game will know what I’m talking about. Whatever form it takes, whoever you are, your index finger is for shooting. Customizable chips inform your abilities and interface, and it does plenty to contextualize game elements as features of the android protagonists. Whether or not it measurably contains “zero unintended ludo-narrative dissonance,” Automata goes the distance.
But few players I know would accuse Automata of “consistency,” and for good reason. Its narrative structure is easily one of its strangest features. I wouldn’t call it subtle so much as…selectively cryptic? Curious. I wouldn’t say there’s anything presented in the critical path that doesn’t serve at least a thematic purpose, but events rarely build directly on top of each other throughout the A/B playthroughs, and only the barest threads actively cause the events of Routes C/D. Much of this is by design, seeing as the player is taking direct orders from their commanding officers as soldiers of YoRHa, simply doing as you’re told without the agency to decide your path, but I wouldn’t argue if someone found Automata “half-baked.”
I’m getting ahead of myself — I’ve seen it discussed that the mystery of the machines’ sentience is badly handled, that it’s too obvious and heavy-handed right from the get-go, but I think it’s clear that’s not the question being raised by the story. It’s not “do the machines really have emotions,” it’s “why are the androids so bent on deluding themselves into believing that the machines lack emotion?” What’s so qualitatively different about the two robot factions? What drives people to ignore the pleas of others and deny their personhood? We find them in distress in the desert, quite literally birthing two beings called Adam and Eve. It takes just three hours to encounter a village of machine pacifists, and, when he’s no longer able to deny their sentience, 9S just pulls out some lame excuse to maintain his worldview. This might be frustrating as a player, to be required to carry out actions you don’t believe in for the sake of progress through a story. You could call it stupid, maybe cruel, or you might appreciate that your doubts echo those of the characters.
But some cracks begin to show as you await each revelation.
_________________________________
After a climactic battle with a gargantuan mech results in the loss of your sidekick, you follow a trail of breadcrumbs to a rusted elevator in the depths of a dimly-lit cavern. You’re warned it may be a trap. Both you and your character shrug off the suggestion.
At the bottom of a long descent, you emerge beneath a subterranean sky, a void of white. Before you, an eerie facsimile of civilization. The architecture is reminiscent of a metropolis that once stood, but colorless and incomplete. One of the top three songs in the game starts up.
Pressing forward, you find the bodies of androids strewn about the scenery. Further and further, until you come face to face with the perpetrator. You have a dramatic rematch with Adam. Philosophy is spouted, combat ensues, and you kill him. You retrieve 9S.
You then…report back to the Resistance Camp and receive your next assignment.
The Copied City never becomes relevant again.
_________________________________
(Tangentially, Adam and Eve confront our heroes a total of three times, which doesn’t give them much room to interact beyond being born and dying. This is interesting on the face of it, but none of these interactions shake up the status quo. Killing Eve supposedly alters the machine network, but not in a way that interferes with its normal functioning. 9S then enters the machine network during the first ending, and little seems to come of it beyond perhaps the intermittent vignettes you receive before and after boss fights during Route B. Tragically, none of these vignettes seem to influence 9S’ thoughts or actions later on)
I’m not here to slap a “bad writing” stamp on NieR: Automata, despite what I'm about to say. Honest. All of this is kind of fascinating to me. The fact that Adam and Eve’s story doesn’t affect the characters as much as it should might speak to how little regard the androids afford machines in general. The fact that the status quo is not affected by any of these wild moments sort of makes sense when you consider the cyclical state of the setting. Maybe. But a certain thought cloud began to hang over me as I continued playing, and then it grew as the story revealed itself.
Any suspicions I had were confirmed by Taro’s 2014 GDC Talk where he lays bare his process. Before arriving at any character or premise, he whips up an emotional climax. He decides where he wants his audience to cry, and then works backward to create context for that moment. I’d like to be charitable, everyone expresses themselves differently, but it’s hard not to look at this and find some Hack Behavior. Taro does explore themes and questions and characters, but it’s obvious when a moment is crafted in isolation for the sake of shock value, and it doesn’t help that many of them lack long-standing consequences. Of course there are great, hard-hitting scenes (the intro to the game’s second half comes to mind), but I know when I’m being punked. And as it pulls this sort of thing again and again, it becomes easier to see the mirrors behind the smoke. Final Fantasy VI’s opera setpiece might be very obviously tossed in there, but the development that happens in and around it, before and after, makes it worthwhile.
And so is Automata, just not for the same reasons. I was convinced at one point that it had actually been about the conflict between A2 and 9S all along. Whatever inconsistencies there’d been or questions that had gone unanswered, everything had been built to explore how they’d end up as ideological opposites. But for that to be true, A2 herself would’ve needed more time. I’ve got just enough of a speedrunner’s brain that I enjoyed replaying the first third as 9S, especially for recontextualizing his role in the duo and containing late-game reveals only he was privy to. Likewise, we’d have needed to see what made A2 who she was at the beginning of the story. After ages of aimless rage and rebellion, it should have taken more than just one late-game subplot to alter her worldview (2B-pilled or not). It’s a testament to the music, pacing and performances that I was able to buy her character, but it would be a stretch to say that the story is squarely about her.
Maybe it’s become clearer as Taro has progressively dominated this write-up, but I don’t feel this is a game about its characters, but a mind at odds with itself. It won’t be obvious if you’re only reading this review without having played the game, but NieR is the story of a man grappling with existentialists, admitting that none of their perspectives have managed to convince him or offer a satisfactory route to purpose. Maybe he’s frustrated that none of them click. Whether you’re driven by fear or beauty or selfishness, spirituality or revenge, we’re all made of the same stuff, and we’re all going to the same place.
I don’t think it’s unfair to criticize Automata for failing to thoroughly explore those avenues of meaning. Fair or not, I’ll posit this dismissal comes from the honest place of a person who’s become lost and resentful toward structures built to fabricate meaning at the expense of others. Religion and love and community are all represented in unflattering extremes, and having one’s purpose stripped away is immediately met with violence against oneself and others. Even when I disagreed or wanted more in the way of nuance, I had to admit that I could sympathize with the author. I realize I’ve come to take God’s absence for granted, that meaning is self-made. Around the time I played Automata, a close someone told me that life would not be worth living without God. Happiness would be impossible. Only the involvement of an Eternal Being can give our existence weight.
Well, It’s a good thing He’s up there, then.
…
So we play as this torn mind, inhabiting both characters and driving them toward opposite objectives. These androids are only granted agency by the player, after all. Whichever of the two you gravitate toward, each must be defeated by the other. You must kill both of your selves.
It’s a bleak lens. Maybe it shouldn't be any sort of surprise that Automata’s ending invites its players to rebel against its worldview, unite and collectively destroy it. It wants us to demonstrate that we can find purpose in each other. As far as I can tell, Taro wants to be proven wrong. He wants to learn something. Of course, it could be that I only found what I wanted to see.
But that’s not what I saw in the moment. Ending E didn’t hit as hard as I’d wanted. I nodded in acknowledgment of the gesture, knew that it was a modern Shigesato Itoi finale. Automata contains some real sparks of bottled magic, but it rarely managed to pull me out of my own head, maybe because the mind behind it was made so painfully visible. It never brought me to tears (TieRs?). Despite the gorgeousness of its soundtrack, I felt more distant than I’d have liked to be. I became uncomfortably aware of myself in that desk chair, holding a plastic videogame controller, watching my screen flash with the light of real people who’d given up their save data to help me, someone they’d never meet.
It felt like getting caught in the act.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
This game is peak in so many regards but also fumbles in so many ways when it comes to combat, quest design and level design. This is probably the highest I’ve rated a game that i have so many complaints with that’s how good the peaks of this game are.
Combat is restrictive, barebones and often plain unfun. 4 hit combo and that’s it? Really? Launcher tied to another character? 6 ability slots while having 30+ abilities and they have cooldowns? Large enemies that don’t reach to you, can’t be juggled and are just wet noodle sponges slap fests to fight? Why would you make an action game like this?
Any time your abilities are on cooldown vs a larger enemy with a stamina bar you can only mash square and do the same 4 attacks over and over. Or weave in some bad feeling magic follow ups to increase it to an samey 8 hit combo. Enemies have too much HP for how boring they are to fight and how little variety they have.
I understand the game can’t be at an 11 of hype at all times or else it would lose its impact but the rise actions of its structure are so BORING. Gotta get margret her 7 shit potatoes for 3 hours before we can actually move the plot forward. There are these little arcs when you get to a new town that has a roadblock preventing you from getting to a bosses’ palace that you must get around and they get so fucking old after the 2nd time they do this. The game could have easily 15 hours shorter with all these boring repetitive shit cut out
85% of the side quest are the shit quests from FF14 you ignore and walk past unless you are an absolute fiend that should be locked in a cage and need something left to do after playing it for 7000 hours. They sprinkle you with some good ones every once in a while and it isn’t until the literal final hour do you get all the good side quests with your friends.
The open world is barren and has zero reason to traverse. The game is an assortment of hallways they tried to obfuscate by putting them in empty warehouses. I’d rather it just have Stranger of Paradise’s level structure because that was too the point.
The music to this game is incredible. People finally getting a taste of some of the best FF music now that it isn’t locked behind 300+ hours into an mmo. The performances are great and the sound design for the main villain is really cool. I wished they stuck speaking gibberish like they did at the start.
I was really engaged with the story even if it blue balls you a bit too much in areas and there is one character that may as well be a talking map because all they do is show up to give the game of thrones opening styled map cutscenes of the world.
The scale of boss fights and set pieces are insane. Normies got baited thinking they were buying game of thrones only to find out square secretly made the sequel to asura’s wrath and the hypest kaiju/toku game on the market. Holy fuck those behomet and titan fights. I’ll be thinking about those for a while
Combat is restrictive, barebones and often plain unfun. 4 hit combo and that’s it? Really? Launcher tied to another character? 6 ability slots while having 30+ abilities and they have cooldowns? Large enemies that don’t reach to you, can’t be juggled and are just wet noodle sponges slap fests to fight? Why would you make an action game like this?
Any time your abilities are on cooldown vs a larger enemy with a stamina bar you can only mash square and do the same 4 attacks over and over. Or weave in some bad feeling magic follow ups to increase it to an samey 8 hit combo. Enemies have too much HP for how boring they are to fight and how little variety they have.
I understand the game can’t be at an 11 of hype at all times or else it would lose its impact but the rise actions of its structure are so BORING. Gotta get margret her 7 shit potatoes for 3 hours before we can actually move the plot forward. There are these little arcs when you get to a new town that has a roadblock preventing you from getting to a bosses’ palace that you must get around and they get so fucking old after the 2nd time they do this. The game could have easily 15 hours shorter with all these boring repetitive shit cut out
85% of the side quest are the shit quests from FF14 you ignore and walk past unless you are an absolute fiend that should be locked in a cage and need something left to do after playing it for 7000 hours. They sprinkle you with some good ones every once in a while and it isn’t until the literal final hour do you get all the good side quests with your friends.
The open world is barren and has zero reason to traverse. The game is an assortment of hallways they tried to obfuscate by putting them in empty warehouses. I’d rather it just have Stranger of Paradise’s level structure because that was too the point.
The music to this game is incredible. People finally getting a taste of some of the best FF music now that it isn’t locked behind 300+ hours into an mmo. The performances are great and the sound design for the main villain is really cool. I wished they stuck speaking gibberish like they did at the start.
I was really engaged with the story even if it blue balls you a bit too much in areas and there is one character that may as well be a talking map because all they do is show up to give the game of thrones opening styled map cutscenes of the world.
The scale of boss fights and set pieces are insane. Normies got baited thinking they were buying game of thrones only to find out square secretly made the sequel to asura’s wrath and the hypest kaiju/toku game on the market. Holy fuck those behomet and titan fights. I’ll be thinking about those for a while
They have outdone themselves
Rebirth makes the original remake look like a demo LOL. I am simply blown away with this game by every aspect of it and crave to continue to play more even after finishing the story to clear up side stuff I missed. It is hard for me to comprehend how anyone can play this title and dislike it even if you are not a fan of certain story changes.
STORY
THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS ABOUT ANYTHING.
This is where most fans divide with rebirth. To explain I will not talk about anything within the story but I will simply state my opinion quickly before moving on. To put it simply, when the story is the original it's as amazing as you remembered but when the story is rebirth’s you may or may not like it. Personally I love what is being done here with the expansion of characters and the world but I can also understand why hardcore fans of the original may not be a fan of it. Just enjoy it for what it is and come to your conclusion when we get the final game as everything will most likely be answered with that game. For me it's silly to blindly hate when we do not have the completed story in our hands. All in all I loved the story and certain changes that were done.
Graphics
The games world is simply breathtaking and honestly hosts some of the best town visuals I have seen period in gaming. You can move to literally any spot , look out in the distance and have art worthy of a picture. One thing that blew me away was how NOTHING would load in as if you were on a highpoint of an area you can literally look out to the distance to places you were just at or areas you may not have been to that you want to go to. Its things like this that take the immersion to a whole new level with this game that makes you cherish every moment you move around the world. However, there are some short fallings as some ground textures looked horrendous and a few textures that didn’t seem correct but overall the game is gorgeous. I played in performance mode to get that 60FPS boost so I did lose some visual performance but the game still looked amazing.
Characters
You love them all like I love them all.... Unless if you are Chadley.
Gameplay
Besides the sheer hugenous of the game what also caught me off guard was the amount of content thrown at you that was good. To explain, with open world titles side content can feel like a drag as it sometimes doesn’t offer enough to really keep you entertained enough to want to do it. With FF7 rebirth you will WANT to do everything as the side content is insanely addicting. Side quests can be hit or miss but mostly were a hit and all the mini games were very well done and fun to play. Each time you hit a new area of the game you most likely will want to do everything the map has to offer before continuing the story and I would highly recommend it as its very fun content and will give you lots of items to use for the next story portion. Furthermore, combat is just as fun with many synergies , spells and unlocks to mess around with making you want to change things up constantly. The biggest surprise for me was Queen’s blood as I fell in love with the mini game. It's a very simple card game that turns pretty complex with specific deck builds as you progress the story for it but Queens blood is insanely addicting and makes me really want an online mode for it. Finally, the combat simulation is back as just as challenging as the original remake but very fun to fight against summons. They really knocked it out of the park with its content and gameplay that almost makes you think this game isn’t real.
My only real complaint
Chadley is in the game.
In the end
FF7 Rebirth IMO is a masterpiece that should be played by all FF fans. While some story elements may not sit well with you there is no denying the masterfully crafted game they have created here. FF7 rebirth is an almost dream-like game that doesn’t happen often. I can only hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. There is a lot I didn’t get into as I really didn’t want to get into ANYTHING specific since for me seeing all the new content the game was throwing my way not knowing what it was going to be was such a blast so I wanted to refrain from talking about WHAT mini games and side stuff were here besides queens blood which you most likely have heard of by now.
THIS IS A MUST BUY AND 200% WORTH THE ASKING PRICE.
Rebirth makes the original remake look like a demo LOL. I am simply blown away with this game by every aspect of it and crave to continue to play more even after finishing the story to clear up side stuff I missed. It is hard for me to comprehend how anyone can play this title and dislike it even if you are not a fan of certain story changes.
STORY
THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS ABOUT ANYTHING.
This is where most fans divide with rebirth. To explain I will not talk about anything within the story but I will simply state my opinion quickly before moving on. To put it simply, when the story is the original it's as amazing as you remembered but when the story is rebirth’s you may or may not like it. Personally I love what is being done here with the expansion of characters and the world but I can also understand why hardcore fans of the original may not be a fan of it. Just enjoy it for what it is and come to your conclusion when we get the final game as everything will most likely be answered with that game. For me it's silly to blindly hate when we do not have the completed story in our hands. All in all I loved the story and certain changes that were done.
Graphics
The games world is simply breathtaking and honestly hosts some of the best town visuals I have seen period in gaming. You can move to literally any spot , look out in the distance and have art worthy of a picture. One thing that blew me away was how NOTHING would load in as if you were on a highpoint of an area you can literally look out to the distance to places you were just at or areas you may not have been to that you want to go to. Its things like this that take the immersion to a whole new level with this game that makes you cherish every moment you move around the world. However, there are some short fallings as some ground textures looked horrendous and a few textures that didn’t seem correct but overall the game is gorgeous. I played in performance mode to get that 60FPS boost so I did lose some visual performance but the game still looked amazing.
Characters
You love them all like I love them all.... Unless if you are Chadley.
Gameplay
Besides the sheer hugenous of the game what also caught me off guard was the amount of content thrown at you that was good. To explain, with open world titles side content can feel like a drag as it sometimes doesn’t offer enough to really keep you entertained enough to want to do it. With FF7 rebirth you will WANT to do everything as the side content is insanely addicting. Side quests can be hit or miss but mostly were a hit and all the mini games were very well done and fun to play. Each time you hit a new area of the game you most likely will want to do everything the map has to offer before continuing the story and I would highly recommend it as its very fun content and will give you lots of items to use for the next story portion. Furthermore, combat is just as fun with many synergies , spells and unlocks to mess around with making you want to change things up constantly. The biggest surprise for me was Queen’s blood as I fell in love with the mini game. It's a very simple card game that turns pretty complex with specific deck builds as you progress the story for it but Queens blood is insanely addicting and makes me really want an online mode for it. Finally, the combat simulation is back as just as challenging as the original remake but very fun to fight against summons. They really knocked it out of the park with its content and gameplay that almost makes you think this game isn’t real.
My only real complaint
Chadley is in the game.
In the end
FF7 Rebirth IMO is a masterpiece that should be played by all FF fans. While some story elements may not sit well with you there is no denying the masterfully crafted game they have created here. FF7 rebirth is an almost dream-like game that doesn’t happen often. I can only hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. There is a lot I didn’t get into as I really didn’t want to get into ANYTHING specific since for me seeing all the new content the game was throwing my way not knowing what it was going to be was such a blast so I wanted to refrain from talking about WHAT mini games and side stuff were here besides queens blood which you most likely have heard of by now.
THIS IS A MUST BUY AND 200% WORTH THE ASKING PRICE.
Resident Evil 4
2023
I know the original Resi 4 was considered a game-changer back in the day and caused a storm among anyone with even a passing interest in survival horror, but I wasn't one to heap praise on to it. I did like it, it was a solid 8 outta 10 for me, but its kitchen sink approach to storytelling and tonal whiplash really worked against it for me. It was a game that wanted to be a legit horror experience and a batshit Looney Tunes cartoon at the same time, and that didn't sit right with me. I came for the gameplay, but I sure as hell didn't stay for all the nonsense surrounding it.
This remake goes some way to legitimising Resident Evil 4's core story. While the goofiness remains in places, it manages to be a lot more cohesive in tone. The acting performances across the board are far stronger (with one notable exception), and there are some moments of genuine pathos to be found; a rarity in a franchise that often demands to be taken seriously, but is far easier to laugh at. The adrenaline-pumping second fight against Krauser, the uneasy bromance between Leon and Luis, the mutual respect that Leon and Ashley gradually find for each other - it's all unequivocally improved here. The horror works better, the comedy works better, and the silly absurdities that remain are easier to forgive.
In terms of pure gameplay, it's hard to think of a survival horror that plays better. The original was no slouch in this department, but the remake manages to take everything that worked before and refine it to perfection. Tackling the hordes of enemies that swamp Leon from all directions, the strangely addictive inventory management mini-game that is Leon's suitcase, the shooting gallery that showcases just how fundamentally satisfying the controls are... REmake 4 really is a joy to play from start to finish.
If I have any qualms, it's that Ada and Leon don't have near the same kind of chemistry in this that they had in REmake 2. How much of that is specifically down to the much-maligned acting performance of Ada's new actress I don't know. Maybe she received bad direction during recording. Maybe the devs missed an opportunity to flesh out her character more this time around. I get that Ada Wong is meant to be a morally-dubious ice queen, but all her lines are delivered with a wooden, almost lifeless quality. It's a shame, because the interplay between Leon and Ada was an undeniable highlight of REmake 2, and I would've liked to see that built upon. Also, the merchant never shuts up. He just keeps on prattling on, and by the second half of the game I had enough of hearing him repeat the same lines over and over again.
Those are mere nit-picks though. If REmake 4 doesn't quite represent the high-water mark of the entire franchise (that honour is still bestowed upon REmake 2), then it comes incredibly close at least.
This remake goes some way to legitimising Resident Evil 4's core story. While the goofiness remains in places, it manages to be a lot more cohesive in tone. The acting performances across the board are far stronger (with one notable exception), and there are some moments of genuine pathos to be found; a rarity in a franchise that often demands to be taken seriously, but is far easier to laugh at. The adrenaline-pumping second fight against Krauser, the uneasy bromance between Leon and Luis, the mutual respect that Leon and Ashley gradually find for each other - it's all unequivocally improved here. The horror works better, the comedy works better, and the silly absurdities that remain are easier to forgive.
In terms of pure gameplay, it's hard to think of a survival horror that plays better. The original was no slouch in this department, but the remake manages to take everything that worked before and refine it to perfection. Tackling the hordes of enemies that swamp Leon from all directions, the strangely addictive inventory management mini-game that is Leon's suitcase, the shooting gallery that showcases just how fundamentally satisfying the controls are... REmake 4 really is a joy to play from start to finish.
If I have any qualms, it's that Ada and Leon don't have near the same kind of chemistry in this that they had in REmake 2. How much of that is specifically down to the much-maligned acting performance of Ada's new actress I don't know. Maybe she received bad direction during recording. Maybe the devs missed an opportunity to flesh out her character more this time around. I get that Ada Wong is meant to be a morally-dubious ice queen, but all her lines are delivered with a wooden, almost lifeless quality. It's a shame, because the interplay between Leon and Ada was an undeniable highlight of REmake 2, and I would've liked to see that built upon. Also, the merchant never shuts up. He just keeps on prattling on, and by the second half of the game I had enough of hearing him repeat the same lines over and over again.
Those are mere nit-picks though. If REmake 4 doesn't quite represent the high-water mark of the entire franchise (that honour is still bestowed upon REmake 2), then it comes incredibly close at least.
Bravely Default
2013
It's impossible to predict what games give you comfort in what ways. I thought I almost died this week, and on the other side of that, I can't help but think of my time with Bravely Default.
I devoured this game at a time where it felt like my life was ending. My 3DS activity log showed that I played it in chunks averaging 8+ hours a session. To say that I thoroughly replaced reality with this game is an understatement.
I needed to find meaning and beauty in the world, and in Bravely Default, I found enough to tide me over. The repetitive nature of filling out the bestiary, maxing out every job class, even the repetitive nature of the game itself. When it reused bosses, I didn't blink an eye. I dutifully went through the long way of beating this game without a single critical thought, of any of the ways that I could have cleverly ended the game sooner. I needed that structure. I needed to not think about the freeform mess of reality around it.
When you need to find beauty in something, you do. I think Bravely Default still has one of the best soundtracks of all time. When I first heard the theme of the Land of Radiant Flowers, I almost cried. Obviously I was in a vulnerable state of mind, and now I don't think its one of the strongest tracks in the game. But I think about that experience a lot.
There were jokes I laughed at in this game that are objectively lame. I took screenshots on MiiVerse to save for posterity (lol) that I failed to remember the significance of within a month.
But that has to speak to something in the strengths of this game that I could use it as the refuge I needed it to be.
I remember very little about what it was like to play this game, because for a long time I needed to forget everything about that period of my life. Including this game. But like the experience I was trying to avoid, Bravely Default became a part of me. I still say "grgrgrgr" in real life the way Edea does. I have had Victory's Chime as my default ringtone for over a decade at this point and forget where it came from.
I'd like to think that was a form of healing. That I used that vulnerability to slot in the potential for something beautiful when I was at a low point full of pain. Maybe Bravely Default was a vapid thing to latch onto, but it was harmless. And at that time, as evaluated by my future current self, it was exactly what I needed. Or, now it has to be what I needed. Because I still got so much beauty out of it.
On its own merits, Bravely Default is an S-tier soundtrack on a mediocre game. Solidly B-rank, hard to recommend playing much more than recommending listening to the soundtrack.
But maybe the real lesson I needed to learn, or the lesson I taught myself through Bravely Default, was finding how to love something imperfect when it felt like the world would not love an imperfect me.
I devoured this game at a time where it felt like my life was ending. My 3DS activity log showed that I played it in chunks averaging 8+ hours a session. To say that I thoroughly replaced reality with this game is an understatement.
I needed to find meaning and beauty in the world, and in Bravely Default, I found enough to tide me over. The repetitive nature of filling out the bestiary, maxing out every job class, even the repetitive nature of the game itself. When it reused bosses, I didn't blink an eye. I dutifully went through the long way of beating this game without a single critical thought, of any of the ways that I could have cleverly ended the game sooner. I needed that structure. I needed to not think about the freeform mess of reality around it.
When you need to find beauty in something, you do. I think Bravely Default still has one of the best soundtracks of all time. When I first heard the theme of the Land of Radiant Flowers, I almost cried. Obviously I was in a vulnerable state of mind, and now I don't think its one of the strongest tracks in the game. But I think about that experience a lot.
There were jokes I laughed at in this game that are objectively lame. I took screenshots on MiiVerse to save for posterity (lol) that I failed to remember the significance of within a month.
But that has to speak to something in the strengths of this game that I could use it as the refuge I needed it to be.
I remember very little about what it was like to play this game, because for a long time I needed to forget everything about that period of my life. Including this game. But like the experience I was trying to avoid, Bravely Default became a part of me. I still say "grgrgrgr" in real life the way Edea does. I have had Victory's Chime as my default ringtone for over a decade at this point and forget where it came from.
I'd like to think that was a form of healing. That I used that vulnerability to slot in the potential for something beautiful when I was at a low point full of pain. Maybe Bravely Default was a vapid thing to latch onto, but it was harmless. And at that time, as evaluated by my future current self, it was exactly what I needed. Or, now it has to be what I needed. Because I still got so much beauty out of it.
On its own merits, Bravely Default is an S-tier soundtrack on a mediocre game. Solidly B-rank, hard to recommend playing much more than recommending listening to the soundtrack.
But maybe the real lesson I needed to learn, or the lesson I taught myself through Bravely Default, was finding how to love something imperfect when it felt like the world would not love an imperfect me.
Fantasian
2021
I’d fallen out of love with RPGs over the years. As the industry has largely distanced itself from turn-based experiences like Dragon Quest in favor of more action-focused takes on the genre like Xenoblade Chronicles or Tales of Arise, I’ve become disenfranchised.
Along comes Fantasian—a phone game, my gosh—created by the “father” of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and composed by Nobuo Uematsu. These two are the team that made the turn-based RPGs I fell in love with as a child! I upgraded my phone for the first time since 2014, bought a $50 Lightning Cable accessory, and signed up for a couple months of Apple Arcade to make Fantasian happen for myself…and it is truly the best gaming decision I made in 2021.
With Dragon Quest XI being a noteworthy exception, I haven’t felt so compelled to not just learn but master an RPG’s systems in years. And I haven’t even mentioned that the entire game is made from hundreds of literal hand-crafted dioramas, giving it a sense of artistry that makes it like almost no other game. At the end of the day, though, I was really compelled to keep playing because it’s got what I feel is my favorite implementation of the traditional “turn-based RPG structure” ever created. If you’ve played any of the old Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest games, you know how random battles work. You’re just wandering around in the world, and suddenly the screen fades and you’re treated to a battle….over and over again, every 3 steps you take, to the point where it kind of grates. Fantasian addresses this annoyance by introducing the Dimengeon, a device that literally sends the enemies you would’ve encountered to a “pocket dimension” so you can face them later. You “store” 20-40 enemies as you freely explore, then you can fight them all at once when you’re ready. And when the fighting happens in this space, you can stack the odds in your favor by making sure your skills or spells activate these crystals that double your attack power for a few turns, or steal an enemy’s turn for yourself. It’s so simple and it’s so satisfying.
As you get into the meat of the experience, though, the boss fights become anything but simple. My proverbial hat is completely off to the group of people that are responsible for some of these battle scenarios. These are some of the most unique, freshest, and unmistakably brutal RPG bosses ever—I felt truly accomplished and like I’d mastered anything any dang turn-based RPG could throw at me after I rolled Fantasian’s credits. It reignited a love I haven’t felt for Final Fantasy since “the good ole days”—and this isn’t even a Final Fantasy game. Honestly, Fantasian is what Final Fantasy XVI should be, to me.
Along comes Fantasian—a phone game, my gosh—created by the “father” of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and composed by Nobuo Uematsu. These two are the team that made the turn-based RPGs I fell in love with as a child! I upgraded my phone for the first time since 2014, bought a $50 Lightning Cable accessory, and signed up for a couple months of Apple Arcade to make Fantasian happen for myself…and it is truly the best gaming decision I made in 2021.
With Dragon Quest XI being a noteworthy exception, I haven’t felt so compelled to not just learn but master an RPG’s systems in years. And I haven’t even mentioned that the entire game is made from hundreds of literal hand-crafted dioramas, giving it a sense of artistry that makes it like almost no other game. At the end of the day, though, I was really compelled to keep playing because it’s got what I feel is my favorite implementation of the traditional “turn-based RPG structure” ever created. If you’ve played any of the old Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest games, you know how random battles work. You’re just wandering around in the world, and suddenly the screen fades and you’re treated to a battle….over and over again, every 3 steps you take, to the point where it kind of grates. Fantasian addresses this annoyance by introducing the Dimengeon, a device that literally sends the enemies you would’ve encountered to a “pocket dimension” so you can face them later. You “store” 20-40 enemies as you freely explore, then you can fight them all at once when you’re ready. And when the fighting happens in this space, you can stack the odds in your favor by making sure your skills or spells activate these crystals that double your attack power for a few turns, or steal an enemy’s turn for yourself. It’s so simple and it’s so satisfying.
As you get into the meat of the experience, though, the boss fights become anything but simple. My proverbial hat is completely off to the group of people that are responsible for some of these battle scenarios. These are some of the most unique, freshest, and unmistakably brutal RPG bosses ever—I felt truly accomplished and like I’d mastered anything any dang turn-based RPG could throw at me after I rolled Fantasian’s credits. It reignited a love I haven’t felt for Final Fantasy since “the good ole days”—and this isn’t even a Final Fantasy game. Honestly, Fantasian is what Final Fantasy XVI should be, to me.
At the top of a seemingly ordinary mountain in Pokemon Silver you find a familiar figure. A few dozen or so hours before, you shrugged off the finality of the Pokemon League and indulged your motivation to continue exploring a virtual world that seemed endless to you, crossing a small unassuming river to find yourself setting foot in a whole new continent with more Gyms to conquer and new Pokemon to discover. Shocked and ecstatic to find out you knew this new world like the back of your hand, you return to an older game affected by the passage of time and your previous presence in it. Having exhausted both Johto and Kanto, you proceed past the bounds of its world and up the summit of a seemingly ordinary mountain where you find a familiar figure. To anyone who lived through that experience during their childhood and stood in front of a mute Trainer Red that threw a lvl 81 Pikachu at them, you know that at that very moment that was as good as videogames were gonna get.
And in some sense, that has always been true to me. Despite losing interest in the franchise over the years, Pokemon occupies a special place in my heart as it was the first video game I truly surrendered myself to, at a time where the magic and enigma of video games weren't lost to me and the reward of exploration and experimentation weren't bogged down by hindering familiarity with game design, and while Pokemon is now bigger than it's ever been, it has never again been able to recapture the same mania of the late 90s I was fortunate to have witnessed. Excuse me while I step away from my unbiased persona for a sec to tell you that if you didn't play Pokemon in a pre-internet age, where secrets and rumours were exchanged word of mouth by snot nosed lying kids, doing battles and trades meant having to deal with the annoying neighbour rich bully that had the one link cable, and where the game extented past the screen into a shared cult of watching the tv show, collecting the trading cards and buying the toys, then the Pokemon experience is no longer accessible to you because you simply. weren't. there.
Anyways, Arceus is none of that. Understandably and rightfully so, it doesn't try to remake the unremakeable but instead demonstrates to be the most effort Game Freak has put into the series in 20+ years of stagnation, being the closest Pokemon has ever gotten to creating the fantasy sequel me and many others envisioned all those years ago while being transfixed by a Game Boy and a small cartridge. It sounds shallow on paper, but it's astounding how drastically being able to see the critters moving around in the distance in full 3D changes the entire series. Reducing the scope beyond the simplicity of Gen 1, Arceus removes the towns, gyms, trainer battles and traditional progression of the main series to focus exclusively on the core experience of "catching them all", and while that ends up being a bare bones gameplay loop, it sustains its appeal through free form BOTW like set of landscapes that present the Pokemon as wild dangerous beasts to be carefully observed and approached and that give brief glimpses of the kind of excitement for exploration encountered in those old games of yore.
Does Arceus get a pass, that its contemporaries wouldnt benefit from, just for being Pokemon? Yeah. Catching one Pokemon means you have essentially catched them all, as they all share the same behaviors, movements and animations while stumbling about their primitive AI, battles are included in a meandering compromise of broken and mindless combat with little strategy and bond between your team, and the lack of interaction between the Pokemon and the environments they inhabit relegate the few and far between moments of personality and characterization to the quests and cutscenes. But goddammit, I'm human too, and I would be lying if I said I didn't get a sense of eager satisfaction everytime I watched that pokeball jump around into a sucessful catch. It's not the dream Pokemon game we have learned to forget over the decades, it will probably take another 20+ years to get there. But it's an evolution, and that has to mean something in the case of Pokemon.
And in some sense, that has always been true to me. Despite losing interest in the franchise over the years, Pokemon occupies a special place in my heart as it was the first video game I truly surrendered myself to, at a time where the magic and enigma of video games weren't lost to me and the reward of exploration and experimentation weren't bogged down by hindering familiarity with game design, and while Pokemon is now bigger than it's ever been, it has never again been able to recapture the same mania of the late 90s I was fortunate to have witnessed. Excuse me while I step away from my unbiased persona for a sec to tell you that if you didn't play Pokemon in a pre-internet age, where secrets and rumours were exchanged word of mouth by snot nosed lying kids, doing battles and trades meant having to deal with the annoying neighbour rich bully that had the one link cable, and where the game extented past the screen into a shared cult of watching the tv show, collecting the trading cards and buying the toys, then the Pokemon experience is no longer accessible to you because you simply. weren't. there.
Anyways, Arceus is none of that. Understandably and rightfully so, it doesn't try to remake the unremakeable but instead demonstrates to be the most effort Game Freak has put into the series in 20+ years of stagnation, being the closest Pokemon has ever gotten to creating the fantasy sequel me and many others envisioned all those years ago while being transfixed by a Game Boy and a small cartridge. It sounds shallow on paper, but it's astounding how drastically being able to see the critters moving around in the distance in full 3D changes the entire series. Reducing the scope beyond the simplicity of Gen 1, Arceus removes the towns, gyms, trainer battles and traditional progression of the main series to focus exclusively on the core experience of "catching them all", and while that ends up being a bare bones gameplay loop, it sustains its appeal through free form BOTW like set of landscapes that present the Pokemon as wild dangerous beasts to be carefully observed and approached and that give brief glimpses of the kind of excitement for exploration encountered in those old games of yore.
Does Arceus get a pass, that its contemporaries wouldnt benefit from, just for being Pokemon? Yeah. Catching one Pokemon means you have essentially catched them all, as they all share the same behaviors, movements and animations while stumbling about their primitive AI, battles are included in a meandering compromise of broken and mindless combat with little strategy and bond between your team, and the lack of interaction between the Pokemon and the environments they inhabit relegate the few and far between moments of personality and characterization to the quests and cutscenes. But goddammit, I'm human too, and I would be lying if I said I didn't get a sense of eager satisfaction everytime I watched that pokeball jump around into a sucessful catch. It's not the dream Pokemon game we have learned to forget over the decades, it will probably take another 20+ years to get there. But it's an evolution, and that has to mean something in the case of Pokemon.
Elden Ring
2022
When a FromSoftware game releases, inevitably the topic of difficulty will enter the conversation. The genre’s challenge is both a staple and a major selling point. Proponents of the genre expect it. It was the reason I played the original Demon’s Souls. I wanted my ass kicked. Understandably, this feature also alienates some, with the more vocal critics decrying the Soulsborne genre for gatekeeping or fostering elitism. It also doesn’t help that a vocal minority spews “git gud” at every sign of criticism. Up until recently though, SoulsBorne games enjoyed their relatively niche corner of the market, so the issue rarely entered mainstream dialogue. Elden Ring was different. Elden Ring, like Breath of the Wild, is a member of a new wave of open world games. Instead of icons and objectives littering the map, these games give you little direction and instead encourage you to get lost. It’s quite freeing, providing an unmatched sense of discovery. It gave Elden Ring a broad appeal. Unlike Breath of the Wild though, Elden Ring immediately introduces the player to a harsh and unforgiving landscape. That sense of discovery comes after a heavy dose of anxiety coupled with painstaking combat. Like its Soulsborne kin, Elden Ring is hard.
Many new players felt that they were unjustly denied one of the best games of the last decade because a gold-clad, horse mounted knight showed them what for. Demands to increase its accessibility arose. Casual players, youtubers, streamers, influencers, and critics questioned why Elden Ring refused to include a difficulty scaling, a common practice in many action games. Some would outright declare Elden Ring as an example of poor game design. I disagree. I won’t be telling anyone to “get gud” though. Rather, I implore people to see the difficulty as intentional game design meant invoke specific emotions and tell a story through subtext. Elden Ring isn’t out to intentionally make you mad. It wants to say something. In other words, Elden Ring’s difficulty is an artistic expression, and like all art, it won’t be for everyone.
Go to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and you’ll likely run across a Jackson Pollock painting. As an abstract expressionist, Pollock’s work will elicit a varied response from its audience. You’ll likely see his work wholly different than the person next to you. Perhaps you see genius. Maybe you see something pretty, but you’re not sure what the fuss is about. Or maybe you see nonsense and hate it. Regardless of how you feel about his work, Pollock made intentional decisions in every drip and splatter. It isn’t random crap. His paintings have meaning. Maybe you don’t understand it, and that is fine, but would you then demand his paintings be easier to understand? Maybe he should have included a legend or an explanation. Maybe he should be more like Normal Rockwell. Afterall, why should you (or anyone) be excluded from Pollock because he is hard to understand? Ok, enough of that. Pollock can be respected even if you don’t get it or feel included in its audience. His work, even though it is objectively great, still isn’t for everyone. Changing it to fit a broader audience would rob the work of meaning. This applies to all works of art.
Video games can be great art pieces, and Elden Ring seeks to paint a brutal world. It isn’t enough to merely be told that the world has gone to hell, you must feel it. Through its difficulty Elden Ring makes you question your choices: should you delve deeper into the crypt knowing that you may easily loose all your runes? Is the world redeemable or does the Frenzied Flame have it right and the whole place needs to burn. In the Lands Between, you must earn your title of Elden Lord, not because you need to “get gud”, but because the game wants to really emphasize its importance. Not just any one can do it, but maybe you can.
FOMO places and undue stress upon some. Not everything needs to be experienced, nor can it be. But just because an experience seems beyond our grasp doesn’t mean a crime has occurred. Like Pollock, Elden Ring has a barrier that prevents some from fully experiencing it, but that does not diminish its artistry or value. The difficulty elevates it. We can respect it without playing it. As someone who has played it, I can say this game is phenomenal. But even if I couldn’t conquer all its challenges, I would be hard pressed to find much to criticize, and I certainly wouldn’t do so out of spite. At the very least, we should celebrate its deliberate decisions and artistic merit in a market where broad appeal means broader profits that then dictate and restrict what companies develop. The world needs more games like Elden Ring.
Many new players felt that they were unjustly denied one of the best games of the last decade because a gold-clad, horse mounted knight showed them what for. Demands to increase its accessibility arose. Casual players, youtubers, streamers, influencers, and critics questioned why Elden Ring refused to include a difficulty scaling, a common practice in many action games. Some would outright declare Elden Ring as an example of poor game design. I disagree. I won’t be telling anyone to “get gud” though. Rather, I implore people to see the difficulty as intentional game design meant invoke specific emotions and tell a story through subtext. Elden Ring isn’t out to intentionally make you mad. It wants to say something. In other words, Elden Ring’s difficulty is an artistic expression, and like all art, it won’t be for everyone.
Go to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and you’ll likely run across a Jackson Pollock painting. As an abstract expressionist, Pollock’s work will elicit a varied response from its audience. You’ll likely see his work wholly different than the person next to you. Perhaps you see genius. Maybe you see something pretty, but you’re not sure what the fuss is about. Or maybe you see nonsense and hate it. Regardless of how you feel about his work, Pollock made intentional decisions in every drip and splatter. It isn’t random crap. His paintings have meaning. Maybe you don’t understand it, and that is fine, but would you then demand his paintings be easier to understand? Maybe he should have included a legend or an explanation. Maybe he should be more like Normal Rockwell. Afterall, why should you (or anyone) be excluded from Pollock because he is hard to understand? Ok, enough of that. Pollock can be respected even if you don’t get it or feel included in its audience. His work, even though it is objectively great, still isn’t for everyone. Changing it to fit a broader audience would rob the work of meaning. This applies to all works of art.
Video games can be great art pieces, and Elden Ring seeks to paint a brutal world. It isn’t enough to merely be told that the world has gone to hell, you must feel it. Through its difficulty Elden Ring makes you question your choices: should you delve deeper into the crypt knowing that you may easily loose all your runes? Is the world redeemable or does the Frenzied Flame have it right and the whole place needs to burn. In the Lands Between, you must earn your title of Elden Lord, not because you need to “get gud”, but because the game wants to really emphasize its importance. Not just any one can do it, but maybe you can.
FOMO places and undue stress upon some. Not everything needs to be experienced, nor can it be. But just because an experience seems beyond our grasp doesn’t mean a crime has occurred. Like Pollock, Elden Ring has a barrier that prevents some from fully experiencing it, but that does not diminish its artistry or value. The difficulty elevates it. We can respect it without playing it. As someone who has played it, I can say this game is phenomenal. But even if I couldn’t conquer all its challenges, I would be hard pressed to find much to criticize, and I certainly wouldn’t do so out of spite. At the very least, we should celebrate its deliberate decisions and artistic merit in a market where broad appeal means broader profits that then dictate and restrict what companies develop. The world needs more games like Elden Ring.
