second playthrough via The Final Draft, which gives what I consider to be the actual ending. tbh, still not sure what it all means. for me the best horror has a hidden, or not-so-hidden, layer of metaphor stemming from the human condition. I'm not entiiiiirely sure if that exists here? there are flavours of it but the plot is so complicated and the lore is so heavy that it can be hard for me to process it all into something more in depth, more meaningful. still, it's a hell of a sequel and the most remedy-ass remedy game that ever remedy'd. and i would be lying if i said I hadn't thought about it every day since finishing it the first time. I'm probably gonna be thinking about it EVEN MORE from now on.

AW2 is so unique because it feels like such a singular vision, executed in such a specfic way that only heightens that vision. it is, in some part, literally about creating something and the chaos of that process. in the context of a videogame, with hundreds of people working on it, all of them needing to click into place to make the entire thing work, that theme is inherently relevant to every single thing that happens in the not only in this game, but retrospectively everything in Remedy's previous works too.

I have so many thoughts but I really struggle to put them all into words, it's all just so much, but in the best way possible.

Fun to play with the gf while it was on but doesn't get much more impactful than that. I do admire how often it switches things up but I still feel like it makes it feel twice as long as it is. Story stuff also ranges from mediocre to completely insufferable, and I can't believe it ultimately ends with these two characters who are clearly terrible for each other and destroy everything in their path staying together for the kid. Yawn. There is so much potential for a more interesting and nuanced story to be told here but I guess I'm expecting too much?? Which feels kinda bad to say. Anyway, it's fine, it's too long but it's fine and I doubt I'll think about it ever again.

A game of soaring highs and absolutely soul-crushing lows. Some runs genuinely just feel insanely unfair due to just being fucked by the games RNG over and over again. There's only so much skill I can have before me winning or losing feels completely out of my hands. I really love how this game feels to play, the music is fantastic and I like the strange cosmic imagery, but I've been trying to hit credits since on and off this came out and I've never managed it. I came SO close this time but, admittedly, fucked it up. The story isn't really hitting for me either, I like an abstract vibes-based narrative but this is so obtuse that it almost comes off as obnoxious. After like 20 hours, Selene constantly spouting bizarre gibberish in logs just gets a little grating. ALSO, and maybe this contributed a fair bit to me dropping this again, but the PC port of this is pretty terrible. Constant microstuttering in a fast-paced game is so god damn annoying (and kinda nauseating), and I've had a couple of game breaking bugs that have seemingly just never been patched out.

Oh well. I will probably once again come back to this and try (and most likely fail) to beat it at some point in the future, but I've gotten almost right to the end and the story isn't enough for me to want to keep going through it all again.

I decided to give this another shot but I think there are just too many tiny frustrations that all build up into something I cannot spend my time on any longer. The combat is just so insanely clunky, whilst simultaneously being extremely boring. Enemies will sometimes just stand around doing nothing for their entire turn, while I sit there watching gormlessly waiting for the game to figure out what it's meant to be doing. The entire combat seems to hinge on having high ground or the element of surprise, but when jumping up to higher ground is seemingly a dice roll (not actually) because sometimes the game just decides it won't let you, the entire combat system starts to just look shoddy. The progression here is soooooooo fucking slow, too. And each level-up session feels like such a daunting task while having to level up 4 separate characters all at once, each time having to choose between like 20 different stat buffs or spells and what not. I much prefer smaller, more consitent progression, that makes you feel like your character(s) are constantly improving with you. The whole thing just sort of oscillates between extremely overwhelming and extremely dull.
I do like the main companions and I am interested in where their stories go, but again the dolling out of story moments feels extremely stingy, for no discernable good reason. You do side quests because you have to in order to not be underlevelled for the next big unfair, clunky combat section, not because there's anything interesting to say in those quests' stories. Obviously, I haven't even finished act one, but I think 21 hours is enough time to realize that I don't think this narrative is actually trying to say anything, which means I don't want to spend 120+ hours with it. I'm perfectly fine with things being character-driven over thematic storytelling, but I would much prefer it if that character storytelling was quicker, more direct, like in something like the Mass Effect trilogy. Here it's "Hey, here's my cool backstory, now I need you to help me do this. Welp, see you in 10 hours to find out how that goes!" It's just so unbelievably tedious in such a story-heavy game. Sure, the story and quests are very reactive, and I think that's commendable, but ultimately that doesn't mean much to me if the story you end up with isn't all that interestng. I would truly rather a more rigid set of events that mean something to me, that make me feel something.

Didn't get round to the Foundation expansion but did finally do the AWE one. Sets up so many small details for AW2 in a lot of the logs and in the AWE stuff, which was a nice surprise on replay post-AW2. But yeah, overall I still love it, probably even more than I did when I first played it a few years ago. Such a distinct and palpable vibe across the whole thing and the combat really holds up; especially when going deeper into the ability trees and such. Will defo get around to the other expansion at some point but wanted to move onto something else for now.

interesting! definitely been thinking a lot lately about my own tastes and why i like things and why i don't a lot more, and interactivity and how much i care about it above other aspects has been a big chunk of that thought process. also the author is completely right about the medium peaking in 2005 with shadow of the colossus lmao, especially in the context of fully committing to interactivity in every element of a game.
but i do find myself questioning why i even like videogames as a medium and why i couldn't just be spending my time reading more books or watching more movies or TV shows if i just want to passively watch things unfold in front of me.

so, at the very least this gave me some nice extra food for thought on top of all the things I've been asking about myself and this medium. i do hope there's more of these in the future!

One of my favourite (open) worlds, whilst also being one of my least favourite Souls games, whilst also being the most accessible, whilst also containing some of the most frustrating encounters in any of the From games I've played. Also probably the biggest case for me not sticking ratings on media anymore because my feelings cover pretty much every area of the enjoyment spectrum. I think Elden Ring might be the last game I play made by From Software.

I've tried and failed to finish Elden Ring roughly 3 times, my first playthrough near release ended about 10 hours in, if I remember correctly I was in a period of open world fatigue (dramatic, I know, but that's what it was) and found the ways the game obfuscates so much necessary information to be offputting. The next couple of times I started again, and got further than I did before, but ultimately got burnt out and decided it just wasn't for me due to the sheer length. I almost got burnt out this time as well, but I found just taking a day or two off when that feeling started to creep in helped me keep going. I felt more motivated to see it through to the end this time, purely because I just hadn't stopped thinking about existing in this game since I first started it in 2022. The Lands Between is 1000% my favourite part of all this. This world is (mostly) a joy to inhabit and exploring it was just as mesmerising even after multiple restarts. It's gorgeous, intriguing and it just never fails to suck me in for hours on end. I had the same sort of feeling while exploring Dark Souls III, albeit in a much more linear and closed container with that entry.

But, I do think I've had my fill of Souls/From games for the forseeable future. I fear their next open world Souls entry will be twice as long and twice as hard and I have just gotten slightly tired of it all. God, this game is so fucking long. I love the slow adoption of the Breath of the Wild-like open world where your curiosity is the motivator to get around it, but I would love to see it applied in some games that don't make me want to gouge my eyes out. Seriously, the last stretch of bosses in this, while visually insane and gorgeously animated, I found straight up unfair and just WAY above my patience and skill level. I Mimic Tear'd, I summoned other players, I grinded (ground?) to get overlevelled and still just kept getting my ass beat which kinda sucked a lot of the "epic" out of it. Elden Beast and Maliketh can straight up go to hell. Dicks.

Also not particularly a fan of just how much ER obfuscates it's quests. The map markers for NPCs definitely help (and I couldn't even fucking imagine trying to get through any of them at launch without them) but there were still so many times where NPCs would just disappear and I would never find them again (Blaidd, come back to me!). The story stuff I did end up doing didn't actually do all that much for me anyway though, the characters have strong personalities but the actual lore and storytelling I think is just too sporadically paced to really hook me.

I've run out of thoughts now, but I'm glad I finally finished this. Mostly because I think it was worth doing, but also because I'm glad it's finally over.

So apparently I took this way too literally and only did it dawn on me that I'm an idiot after the fact. But I do think the sentiment of dissecting and the need to understand art on a "deeper" level resonates with me, AND the whole getting extremely burnt out from creating thing also hits home as I haven't picked up a guitar (ok a few times to noodle a bit but nothing substantial) or played drums in like 7 years because the process of creating and then releasing to the world even at a small scale was terrifying and I hated it. But also wanted the validation. Idk! Pretty cool, made me feel some stuff.