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This review contains spoilers
In 2019, back in those dreadful days when it was normal and expected of one to have a daily commute, I was playing Link's Awakening on my way home. Tired after a long day's work, I wasn't keen on making any significant progress, just wanted to look around. In the game's main hub town I've found Marin, who began to sing Ballad of the Windfish, a song I've heard a long-long time ago. I sat there, transfixed. I was in there, immersed if you will, a sensation the PS4 that waited for me at home sadly couldn't replicate with all of its hyper realistic graphics.
That's a cliche, I know, but I can't help being sentimental. I watched the little doggie hop about, the butterflies float about, the classic flowers bounce up and down, enjoyed my ability to move about without stopping the song, and goddamn. How did these wizards manage to squeeze this much life into a gameboy game?
After a bit, the magic was gone, I was staring at pixels and the sharp 8-bit sounds made my ears bleed, so I put the game away. But I was not the same after that. It was as if an alternate timeline, when I had Nintendos instead of (or alongside) Playstations as a child, converged with this one. I was, as Scallops Hotel once put it, nostalgic for something I never had.
Usually when someone, as kids today say, gasses a game from their childhood up, it's hard for others to get in on it, as those games tend to be enhanced by the vividness of a child's perception and imagination. I've been burned by Zeldas many times before on that front. Yet this game did it for me, first on an emotional level, and then on an intellectual one as well. It expresses childhood itself in a way only a videogame could.
At the end, after the player wakes the Windfish up, the entire game's world vanishes, being only said fish's (mammal's) dream. The bittersweet feeling one gets from it is analogous with that from growing up. Both things are something one has to willingly do, put effort towards. You don't wanna do it too fast, you want to cherish what you have and be in the moment, but you can't linger for too long. In a videogame, not making progress eventually makes the artifice obvious, breaks the magic of its presentation. In real life, staying an overdue kid is just not pretty. Look at Seth Rogen.
Even if it's gone, even if you can't go to places where you grew up or see people you remember, even if doing things that used to make you happy don't anymore, the initial experience of it all can still be found, deep within the folds of your soul. Summon it up every now and then, like a fleeting dream, to keep your feelings alive. After all, we live inside a dream.
That's a cliche, I know, but I can't help being sentimental. I watched the little doggie hop about, the butterflies float about, the classic flowers bounce up and down, enjoyed my ability to move about without stopping the song, and goddamn. How did these wizards manage to squeeze this much life into a gameboy game?
After a bit, the magic was gone, I was staring at pixels and the sharp 8-bit sounds made my ears bleed, so I put the game away. But I was not the same after that. It was as if an alternate timeline, when I had Nintendos instead of (or alongside) Playstations as a child, converged with this one. I was, as Scallops Hotel once put it, nostalgic for something I never had.
Usually when someone, as kids today say, gasses a game from their childhood up, it's hard for others to get in on it, as those games tend to be enhanced by the vividness of a child's perception and imagination. I've been burned by Zeldas many times before on that front. Yet this game did it for me, first on an emotional level, and then on an intellectual one as well. It expresses childhood itself in a way only a videogame could.
At the end, after the player wakes the Windfish up, the entire game's world vanishes, being only said fish's (mammal's) dream. The bittersweet feeling one gets from it is analogous with that from growing up. Both things are something one has to willingly do, put effort towards. You don't wanna do it too fast, you want to cherish what you have and be in the moment, but you can't linger for too long. In a videogame, not making progress eventually makes the artifice obvious, breaks the magic of its presentation. In real life, staying an overdue kid is just not pretty. Look at Seth Rogen.
Even if it's gone, even if you can't go to places where you grew up or see people you remember, even if doing things that used to make you happy don't anymore, the initial experience of it all can still be found, deep within the folds of your soul. Summon it up every now and then, like a fleeting dream, to keep your feelings alive. After all, we live inside a dream.
Baba Is A truly scandinavian experience. A cozy game on the surface, with soft visuals and rubbery sound reminiscent of the Mumins. The abstract level scenarios hint at the simple, natural pleasures in life - rivers and sea, windswept valleys and forests full of flowers, quiet playtime with friends. Sometimes they branch out into edgier territory, but remain innocent by coming across as Super Mario references - volcanoes, outer space or mountaneering.
But that surface is skin deep. It doesn't take long for one's interactions with the game to bring about senses of identity disorder and nihilism. From the low hum one hears when nothing on a level IS YOU, to how almost no object has inherent properties. The cold and unflinching λόγος of this world, only a fraction of which the player has control over, the way the game begins and ends... If Sören Kierkegaard saw this shit, he'd probably ask to tone it down a peg.
I love this game. It captured my heart instantly and proceeded to melt my mind during those lonely quarantine nights. I don't want to describe any of its mechanics, because discovering and understanding them is a part of gameplay. But the rabbithole to descend into here is very well lubed. Each verb gets a bunch of levels dedicated to it, slowly ratcheting up the complexity of required solutions. It all culminates in the endgame, which provides one of the best hidden and most satisfying secrets you can find in games.
At time of writing I have completed every level in the base game, but since then Hempuli the Legend has provided a whole new level pack called New Adventures, which I've only nibbled at a little. I don't like all of it, 3D gimmick didn't do it for me, neither did the arcade recreations, but they're free and in the spirit of this game's gonzo creativity. There's also a level editor which I really want to dig into and test out my ideas, so I'm never going to be done with this game.
The success on display here is simply inspirational. The idea that this can be what you do to provide for yourself makes my jaded tear ducts unclog. Maybe one day I can make it too.
But that surface is skin deep. It doesn't take long for one's interactions with the game to bring about senses of identity disorder and nihilism. From the low hum one hears when nothing on a level IS YOU, to how almost no object has inherent properties. The cold and unflinching λόγος of this world, only a fraction of which the player has control over, the way the game begins and ends... If Sören Kierkegaard saw this shit, he'd probably ask to tone it down a peg.
I love this game. It captured my heart instantly and proceeded to melt my mind during those lonely quarantine nights. I don't want to describe any of its mechanics, because discovering and understanding them is a part of gameplay. But the rabbithole to descend into here is very well lubed. Each verb gets a bunch of levels dedicated to it, slowly ratcheting up the complexity of required solutions. It all culminates in the endgame, which provides one of the best hidden and most satisfying secrets you can find in games.
At time of writing I have completed every level in the base game, but since then Hempuli the Legend has provided a whole new level pack called New Adventures, which I've only nibbled at a little. I don't like all of it, 3D gimmick didn't do it for me, neither did the arcade recreations, but they're free and in the spirit of this game's gonzo creativity. There's also a level editor which I really want to dig into and test out my ideas, so I'm never going to be done with this game.
The success on display here is simply inspirational. The idea that this can be what you do to provide for yourself makes my jaded tear ducts unclog. Maybe one day I can make it too.