chilla's art's winter streambait offering this year centers around an unnamed employee of a film company. it's unclear what kind of film company this is beyond the higher up wanting him to get some "interesting footage" at an abandoned home. the set up seems to exist primarily only to explain the use of a camera and vhs tapes through out the game; on steam, the game is described as a "found footage mockumentary."

what follows is a trip through a house littered with blood, feathers, and strange tapes documenting a young boy's stay with his grandparents in the home. much of the game reminds me of nana825763's "my house walk-through", other parts harken my mind back to "ring-u". there's a particular segment where, while wandering down a hall, you're forced to consider just how alone in this abandoned house you are-- a brief scare that reminded me of, surprisingly, the conjuring. the overall presentation, though, largely feels unique to jisatsu, a title built from the characters meaning "self" as in "self"ie and "suicide."

some of this game feels like the scariest chilla's art has gotten to date: jumpscares that actually feel earned, the intriguing use of a censor bar, the classic claustrophobic thriller minute. the tense anxiety that's built up through the game pays off, though it never really gets to the heights you really want it to.

it's hard to describe what it is that bogs this one down: is it too long? too short? too ambiguous? does it lean into it's inspirations too much? it is a sudden and awkward bumble at times, but it never loses it's tense atmosphere. it's good, just not as good as some of chilla's catalogue. it's fair; i'd recommend it if you have around two hours to kill, and miss j-horror from a decade ago.

like, i've dumped over 150 hours into this. but also, i don't know why i did that. the interplay of mechanics is nauseatingly both underwhelming and overwhelming, like a candy bar gone rotten the day before you unwrapped it. each character is alienating merely on the thinnest part of the surface, just enough to all generically imply depth. every day in the mines is just another pointless moment enrobed in feigned principle, all while the idea of simply standing next to your crops until they grow in taunts you from afar.

haley best girl anyway

i feel like some of this content should have been in the 2.0 update to the base game as opposed to dlc only. the furniture store, for example, feels kind of egregious since people have been asking about a nook's cranny update or gracie's return since launch.

it's fun. a little over-priced, and slightly too long, but the charm is all there and i had a big, goofy smile on my face when i saw what they did for the credits. designing facilities in particular was very, very fun. i wish we could do that on our main island, but i get the limitations with that.

the aesthetic island tours would be lit beyond belief tho

if you only want to touch one game in the metal gear franchise, make it mgs3. it may not be my favorite of the series, but it is the game that perfects metal gear. gameplay, story and kojipro's love for movies hit a operatic and harmonic crescendo in mgs3 that i've struggled to see replicated in any game since, though many have certainly tried. cinematic gaming is it's own sort of genre for better or worse, and the bones of mgs3 can be seen in every entry in it since. it's a unique experience that deserves it's position in gaming history as a benchmark.

also naked snake can find and eat tsuchinoko, a legendary yokai in japanese folklore in the form of a snake, which slaps i think

it's a clunky mess with a confusing storyline that requires exploration and time, but i truly do love the soundtrack and atmosphere. stroboskop is a one man developer who clearly has a passion for the human aspect of hauntings, and a sense of loneliness permeates sylvio, and it feels like a nail trailing down your spine. i never quite feel completely alone in the world when i open this one, but i know i'm the only person there.

that said the ending beefs it in a way where i'm still trying to grapple with the game over five years later

chilla's art finds supernatural horror in the most mundane of every day tasks. maybe over half of their games deal with something terrible happening to the protagonist while they're on the clock: the closing shift, the convenience store, the caregiver, night delivery-- and many more, but each of these titles takes place in some form of workplace environment, or leads you somewhere because of work that turns out to be dangerous. the aforementioned titles are also some of chilla's arts best; being forced into situations because of work, i guess, is it's own kind of horror.

the bathhouse is no different. the protagonist character finds herself in the epicenter of a haunting when she stumbles upon an ad for a job: live in an apartment in the country-side, rent free, as long as you work at the local bathhouse. craving freedom from the current state of her life, she jumps onto it, not realizing that the tiny village is a spiritual vortex that plans to swallow her whole. on paper, it's got all the markings of a chilla's art game that should succeed: atmosphere, fun characters, cheeky scares, interesting visuals, and a gooey, ghoulish center.

in execution, the game flounders on more than one level. the most egregious is performance, which also affects how the game looks; the eerie trademark character models look wonky in a way that doesn't feel intentional, but rather like a mistake. more often than not, it's hard to really tell what you're looking at, as the game feels like a blob of neutral tones. it stutters, crashes, fails to keep itself together. i'm not tech-y enough to guess why this is the case, but it's a shame: the lighting system this time around looks very refined, and like they're trying something new.

maybe if the game were functioning, it would be something you could lose yourself to, but the atmosphere never clicked for me. i didn't care for the storyline as much as i tried, and i found that what was conveyed about the story was done so in a way that left me confused. it isn't particularly hard to follow, but maybe the speed and progression is to blame here; the game runs for around two and a half hours if you decide to go back in for both endings, and with the job simulator portions feeling both too fast and too slow. the simplicity of it perhaps is to blame: the closing shift had you memorizing and checking how to make certain drinks, but there's nothing here but clicking and running back and forth. it's monotonous.

every once in a while, usually after dropping a Big title, chilla's art will drop another game that reminds me of the end of the week dinner you make to stretch your grocery run. it tosses in all your favorites with a few extra seasonings for flavor, but the mish-mash of them never quite harmonizes. this is that game. maybe it'll work more for you, than me, though.

the video game equivalent of reaching into a bowl of candy and discovering it's a 50/50 mix of skittles and m&ms.

there's parts of this game i abhor, and there's parts of it that i love. i absolutely adore the drama, and there's definitely the patented Kojima Cool Factor dripping off venom snake's adventure. but also: quiet and paz did not deserve that. what the hell.

there's this nagging feeling through out that there's something more, and the status of mgsv has been debated for years. mystified, even. it feels like people have been chasing the idea of a complete mgsv since it dropped. despite being a technical marvel, it lacks in heart more often than not. maybe if the relationship between kojima and konami had been more amicable, this would have been a much different game. in the years following it's release, though, it's become abundantly clear that this is just how it is, and how it was always meant to be. the leaked scripts confirming that the game always just kind of looked like this rubs salt into the open wound.

it's not really bad. it's just lacking, and with this being the "end" of metal gear, it feels like mgs itself will always be lacking, now. it's okay, though, at least we got some sick memes out of it