zerotoker
This review contains spoilers
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
Historians, whether they be of the armchair or academia-spoiled variety, will indefinitely debate what the most pivotal and transformative event is. Despite these disagreements, there are two indisputable historical events that have forever altered the course of history. The first and most obvious example of this is Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s invention of the atomic bomb in the 1940’s. The second answer, certainly the less sexy of the two, is Johannes Gutenberg’s 16th century introduction of the printing press. Gutenberg’s legacy is expandable to any facet of history itself, but before diving into that, it’s worth recontextualizing this for modernity’s sake. Before the era of the internet, there was this idea of ‘centralized information’. Not that everybody thought the same way or lived the same way- there have been wars fought over this since Man realized that pain can be inflicted onto others. In more ways than are worth getting into here, information essentially had to be centralized, thanks to a lack of improper education systems combined with lackluster literacy rates among the average Western citizen; we were to rely on those who could teach us- the ones that could Preach The Gospel. Though it may sound obvious, it’s worth reminding ourselves there was a point in time, not too long ago, that there wasn’t a choice of where we received our information. If the medieval example of weaponization was physical pain present in warfare and the like, then the contemporary equivalent are methods of influence and persuasion that could offer similar advantages. Martin Luther’s utility of the printing press was The game-changer; information and knowledge became readily available to the masses for the first time in history, leading not only to a total shift in how we think about ideas and interpret them, but allowing for an influx of opinion that wouldn’t have been heard otherwise. One of the most infamous early examples of a printing press beneficiary is Nostradamus, a jack of all trades as the history textbooks may tell us, but most importantly, he was a clairvoyant of sorts, The Seer; Les Prophéties (1555 A.D.) was a collection of Nostradamus’s prophecies of events that were to occur throughout the course of Earth’s existence. The default reaction that most people have upon reading the prophecies is that it’s a load of nonsense. An entirely sane response to have- I’d go as far as to say that I agree. What’s worth emphasizing here, is not that Nostradamus was full of shit, but that there is an option to disagree.
The printing press also introduced humans to think more ‘freely’ than we once could. All technology brings a mutual existence of benefit and dilemma. The quest for Truth is something that the average daydreamer will inevitably come to a crossroads with. The questioning of life’s meaning and what the future may hold rings through our ears on a day-to-day basis, but it’s rare that one ever comes to an actual acceptance of an answer. The ability to think brings you the benefit of having a brain full of ideas, the dilemma may be that you’ll never truly know how you feel. This is, part of a much bigger reasoning, why some turn to religion or philosophy; there is a comfort in just being told that this is that and that is this. Questioning another person’s logic or way of thinking is a lot harder to do when we have a direct relation to said philosophy. It boils down to trust; why am I to believe the random person that gives me one answer rather than the person I consider my best friend, who gives me an entirely different answer? This is the crisis of common knowledge.
The first three episodes of the questions arc (we’ll get to the fourth and final episode, then) have their stories told via ‘game boards’ which presents a new permutation of the events that occurred on October 5th and 6th, 1986. These game boards all take place on the remote island of Rokkenjima, located off of the tokyo coast. This entire island, as we are told, is owned and inhabited by family head Kinzo Ushiromiya: an inheritor of mass wealth, maintaining an equal distribution of addiction to absinthe, chess, and magic. Each game board has a set number of murders that occur, in a whodunnit style that leaves both the characters and reader unsure of what to believe. Each game board has a different combination of characters that die, but each case regarding time and reasoning, intentionally vague at points, follows The Witch’s Epitaph.
The selection of characters, if not random, is something that I am not sure of. Knowing Ryukishi07, though, I’d like to rephrase that and say that it’s something that I am not sure of yet. I am not going to get ahead of myself and introduce each character, you should already be familiar with them, anyways, but Umineko has an overwhelming amount of them, or so it appears that way at face value. Robert Altman’s 1975 film Nashville level of characters. With a head count of eighteen, the reader is offered a menu that shows the Ushiromiya family tree as a way to refer to characters early on when you are less familiar with them or who is whose parent/child, for instance. It serves an entirely different purpose throughout the rest of the questions arc; I found myself referring to it mostly to read the character descriptions and how they change when a character dies. Before I realized that this would be the main reason I make use of it, I found myself already familiar with the characters I was introduced to. Ryukishi manages to put so much effort, meaning, and time into his characters that it somehow feels that each one gets an equivalent amount of screen time (this is absolutely not the case). The entire cast feels as if they have a direct purpose and meaning in Umineko, a Chekhov's Gun of sorts. I believe in Ryukishi and 07th Expansion enough to know this is intentional. There is no fluff, there are no “filler arcs”- the astronomical quantity of words that Ryukishi writes are not without purpose. The interactions between characters and their respective pairing has a purpose- whether it be Kanon and Shannon or Eva and Hideyoshi, the pairings that we often find have some underlying emotion and meaning behind them. Oftentimes more than not, they share love. Love is something that is an essential part of how Ryukishi07 writes, and without it I strongly believe you would wind up with a lower quality of writing. Learning this way that Ryukishi07 views love and intrapersonal relationships is crucial to When They Cry as a whole.
As the game boards repeat, the information that we get increases in quantity and quality. What’s important to mention about what is given to the reader is not only does it help you solve Rokkenjima in early October 1986, but it gives you the missing ‘why’. This is a lot more important than whatever conclusion you may come to, and a hell of a lot less accredited than deserved. Battler Ushiromiya dismisses his initial theories after the first game board with an answer being ‘too easy’. This is something we’ve all related to, taking up a task that we may deem as complex, figuring out the solution and thinking that was it?- readily available knowledge creates a paradox that allows constant doubt of our own decisions or conclusions because of that option to think of what the Answer is. It’s a blessing and a curse. Why did you stop thinking? he’ll ask himself. This creates a paradox of sorts: did Battler stop thinking about a less obvious answer that may be more accurate, even if only marginally, or did he stop thinking about why the easy answer may be The answer? Answers mean ultimately nothing if an underlying foundation of reasoning and context is absent- I believe this to be true in nearly every facet of life. A part of me enjoys the Christie-esque theory craftings that lie between the questions and answers arc. The other part of me wonders whether The Answer matters. This is not to say that one's ability to ‘solve’ Umineko or not is necessarily impressive or unimpressive, you should be able to back up your own theory if it’s something that you believe in. I think that’s what Umineko does best at its core: these lessons of whether we truly believe in something or understand the concepts and emotions that we imagine to be true are crucial to properly processing that emotion.
This leads me into a quick mention regarding the fourth and final episode: Alliance of the Golden Witch. From my understanding, this is the most disliked episode in the questions arc. I’d imagine that this is the same crowd that doesn’t like Chapter 7 of Higurashi. I absolutely adore the relationship that Ange and Maria have. The sections of this episode that are spent displaying the growth and development of Ange’s understanding of ‘magic’ and how that relates to Maria is spectacular.
Howard L. Boorman, once-was Foreign Service Officer representing the U.S. in China, wrote in a 1996 edition of The China Quarterly: The label “history” is conventionally used with at least two distinct meanings: history-as-actuality and history-as-record. It is hard not to think of history as a giant game of back-and-forth semantics between the armchair and academic historian. Marx’s Theory of Historical Materialism brought to life this understanding that the ‘fundamental truth’ of a society’s history is told by those who have higher socioeconomic position relative to their nation’s output. Simply put: the wealthier ruling class are the ones going to be telling the stories of their nation that build a foundational understanding of what occurred through the years. History is told by the winners. I tend to view Umineko through a similar lens that Karl Marx viewed history as a whole.
It’s also hard not to think of these board games in dogmatic terms when storytelling is set up to be that way. Oftentimes the reader/listener has a certain level of trust in a storyteller, but aside from this inherent, yet willing and unknowing reasoning, there is not much supporting it.The average reader will not have a direct relationship with the storyteller. Without a familiarity of the author’s prior work, or an ability to contextualize a number of factors, the easiest option is to blindly accept what we are told. Umineko manages to use its format to manipulate this in a way where you (seemingly) cannot allow all three of these stories to coexist with one another. There are a mere number of contradictions that make this nearly impossible. This is not to say that I believe one out of the three game boards is the Truth; Higurashi is not read in this way, nor should it be.
All of this raises the question: what are we to believe? If this foundation of trust and normalities are stripped away, then what does that leave? It’s a downward spiral of second-guessing and self doubt that we face in our realities every single day; Umineko is the only piece of art that I can think of where it manages to take that concept into action by making you question every single thing that you’re reading, seeing, or hearing. The three game boards being told one after the other have their purposes regarding the story’s characters and development, but it also means that you don't necessarily have the option to poke holes in theories as you normally could if it was one game board. You can do this on an individual level, but when it comes to finding an answer for the sum of its parts, you come to a dead end.
Historians, whether they be of the armchair or academia-spoiled variety, will indefinitely debate what the most pivotal and transformative event is. Despite these disagreements, there are two indisputable historical events that have forever altered the course of history. The first and most obvious example of this is Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s invention of the atomic bomb in the 1940’s. The second answer, certainly the less sexy of the two, is Johannes Gutenberg’s 16th century introduction of the printing press. Gutenberg’s legacy is expandable to any facet of history itself, but before diving into that, it’s worth recontextualizing this for modernity’s sake. Before the era of the internet, there was this idea of ‘centralized information’. Not that everybody thought the same way or lived the same way- there have been wars fought over this since Man realized that pain can be inflicted onto others. In more ways than are worth getting into here, information essentially had to be centralized, thanks to a lack of improper education systems combined with lackluster literacy rates among the average Western citizen; we were to rely on those who could teach us- the ones that could Preach The Gospel. Though it may sound obvious, it’s worth reminding ourselves there was a point in time, not too long ago, that there wasn’t a choice of where we received our information. If the medieval example of weaponization was physical pain present in warfare and the like, then the contemporary equivalent are methods of influence and persuasion that could offer similar advantages. Martin Luther’s utility of the printing press was The game-changer; information and knowledge became readily available to the masses for the first time in history, leading not only to a total shift in how we think about ideas and interpret them, but allowing for an influx of opinion that wouldn’t have been heard otherwise. One of the most infamous early examples of a printing press beneficiary is Nostradamus, a jack of all trades as the history textbooks may tell us, but most importantly, he was a clairvoyant of sorts, The Seer; Les Prophéties (1555 A.D.) was a collection of Nostradamus’s prophecies of events that were to occur throughout the course of Earth’s existence. The default reaction that most people have upon reading the prophecies is that it’s a load of nonsense. An entirely sane response to have- I’d go as far as to say that I agree. What’s worth emphasizing here, is not that Nostradamus was full of shit, but that there is an option to disagree.
The printing press also introduced humans to think more ‘freely’ than we once could. All technology brings a mutual existence of benefit and dilemma. The quest for Truth is something that the average daydreamer will inevitably come to a crossroads with. The questioning of life’s meaning and what the future may hold rings through our ears on a day-to-day basis, but it’s rare that one ever comes to an actual acceptance of an answer. The ability to think brings you the benefit of having a brain full of ideas, the dilemma may be that you’ll never truly know how you feel. This is, part of a much bigger reasoning, why some turn to religion or philosophy; there is a comfort in just being told that this is that and that is this. Questioning another person’s logic or way of thinking is a lot harder to do when we have a direct relation to said philosophy. It boils down to trust; why am I to believe the random person that gives me one answer rather than the person I consider my best friend, who gives me an entirely different answer? This is the crisis of common knowledge.
The first three episodes of the questions arc (we’ll get to the fourth and final episode, then) have their stories told via ‘game boards’ which presents a new permutation of the events that occurred on October 5th and 6th, 1986. These game boards all take place on the remote island of Rokkenjima, located off of the tokyo coast. This entire island, as we are told, is owned and inhabited by family head Kinzo Ushiromiya: an inheritor of mass wealth, maintaining an equal distribution of addiction to absinthe, chess, and magic. Each game board has a set number of murders that occur, in a whodunnit style that leaves both the characters and reader unsure of what to believe. Each game board has a different combination of characters that die, but each case regarding time and reasoning, intentionally vague at points, follows The Witch’s Epitaph.
The selection of characters, if not random, is something that I am not sure of. Knowing Ryukishi07, though, I’d like to rephrase that and say that it’s something that I am not sure of yet. I am not going to get ahead of myself and introduce each character, you should already be familiar with them, anyways, but Umineko has an overwhelming amount of them, or so it appears that way at face value. Robert Altman’s 1975 film Nashville level of characters. With a head count of eighteen, the reader is offered a menu that shows the Ushiromiya family tree as a way to refer to characters early on when you are less familiar with them or who is whose parent/child, for instance. It serves an entirely different purpose throughout the rest of the questions arc; I found myself referring to it mostly to read the character descriptions and how they change when a character dies. Before I realized that this would be the main reason I make use of it, I found myself already familiar with the characters I was introduced to. Ryukishi manages to put so much effort, meaning, and time into his characters that it somehow feels that each one gets an equivalent amount of screen time (this is absolutely not the case). The entire cast feels as if they have a direct purpose and meaning in Umineko, a Chekhov's Gun of sorts. I believe in Ryukishi and 07th Expansion enough to know this is intentional. There is no fluff, there are no “filler arcs”- the astronomical quantity of words that Ryukishi writes are not without purpose. The interactions between characters and their respective pairing has a purpose- whether it be Kanon and Shannon or Eva and Hideyoshi, the pairings that we often find have some underlying emotion and meaning behind them. Oftentimes more than not, they share love. Love is something that is an essential part of how Ryukishi07 writes, and without it I strongly believe you would wind up with a lower quality of writing. Learning this way that Ryukishi07 views love and intrapersonal relationships is crucial to When They Cry as a whole.
As the game boards repeat, the information that we get increases in quantity and quality. What’s important to mention about what is given to the reader is not only does it help you solve Rokkenjima in early October 1986, but it gives you the missing ‘why’. This is a lot more important than whatever conclusion you may come to, and a hell of a lot less accredited than deserved. Battler Ushiromiya dismisses his initial theories after the first game board with an answer being ‘too easy’. This is something we’ve all related to, taking up a task that we may deem as complex, figuring out the solution and thinking that was it?- readily available knowledge creates a paradox that allows constant doubt of our own decisions or conclusions because of that option to think of what the Answer is. It’s a blessing and a curse. Why did you stop thinking? he’ll ask himself. This creates a paradox of sorts: did Battler stop thinking about a less obvious answer that may be more accurate, even if only marginally, or did he stop thinking about why the easy answer may be The answer? Answers mean ultimately nothing if an underlying foundation of reasoning and context is absent- I believe this to be true in nearly every facet of life. A part of me enjoys the Christie-esque theory craftings that lie between the questions and answers arc. The other part of me wonders whether The Answer matters. This is not to say that one's ability to ‘solve’ Umineko or not is necessarily impressive or unimpressive, you should be able to back up your own theory if it’s something that you believe in. I think that’s what Umineko does best at its core: these lessons of whether we truly believe in something or understand the concepts and emotions that we imagine to be true are crucial to properly processing that emotion.
This leads me into a quick mention regarding the fourth and final episode: Alliance of the Golden Witch. From my understanding, this is the most disliked episode in the questions arc. I’d imagine that this is the same crowd that doesn’t like Chapter 7 of Higurashi. I absolutely adore the relationship that Ange and Maria have. The sections of this episode that are spent displaying the growth and development of Ange’s understanding of ‘magic’ and how that relates to Maria is spectacular.
Howard L. Boorman, once-was Foreign Service Officer representing the U.S. in China, wrote in a 1996 edition of The China Quarterly: The label “history” is conventionally used with at least two distinct meanings: history-as-actuality and history-as-record. It is hard not to think of history as a giant game of back-and-forth semantics between the armchair and academic historian. Marx’s Theory of Historical Materialism brought to life this understanding that the ‘fundamental truth’ of a society’s history is told by those who have higher socioeconomic position relative to their nation’s output. Simply put: the wealthier ruling class are the ones going to be telling the stories of their nation that build a foundational understanding of what occurred through the years. History is told by the winners. I tend to view Umineko through a similar lens that Karl Marx viewed history as a whole.
It’s also hard not to think of these board games in dogmatic terms when storytelling is set up to be that way. Oftentimes the reader/listener has a certain level of trust in a storyteller, but aside from this inherent, yet willing and unknowing reasoning, there is not much supporting it.The average reader will not have a direct relationship with the storyteller. Without a familiarity of the author’s prior work, or an ability to contextualize a number of factors, the easiest option is to blindly accept what we are told. Umineko manages to use its format to manipulate this in a way where you (seemingly) cannot allow all three of these stories to coexist with one another. There are a mere number of contradictions that make this nearly impossible. This is not to say that I believe one out of the three game boards is the Truth; Higurashi is not read in this way, nor should it be.
All of this raises the question: what are we to believe? If this foundation of trust and normalities are stripped away, then what does that leave? It’s a downward spiral of second-guessing and self doubt that we face in our realities every single day; Umineko is the only piece of art that I can think of where it manages to take that concept into action by making you question every single thing that you’re reading, seeing, or hearing. The three game boards being told one after the other have their purposes regarding the story’s characters and development, but it also means that you don't necessarily have the option to poke holes in theories as you normally could if it was one game board. You can do this on an individual level, but when it comes to finding an answer for the sum of its parts, you come to a dead end.
2018
Throughout the history of video games, those that have focused on western comic book superheroes have not been particularly good. I'm framing this as a (purposefully) broad and easily-expandable idea; Some have terrible stories, some have terrible gameplay, or a mix of both. The first game that I ever played that didn't follow this predictable format was Batman: Arkham Asylum. Ten year old me at the time knew nothing about video games, but I knew that this game was a lot different from how Superman: Shadow of Apokolips felt.
It's easy to blame studios like THQ, Activision, hell, even LJN (if we're going way back) for all of the seemingly low effort superhero games that were made revolving around the superheroes that we grew up idolizing. These were essentially cash-grabs for the companies at play- consumers are bound to buy a product if it has a recognizable character on it's packaging. Marvel and DC are guilty of this throughout it's nearly decade plus run of MCU films; Why sink in unnecessary amounts of effort when the launch of the product is bound to make money, regardless of it's quality?
Marvel's Spider-Man breaks this doom loop combo of bad writing and gameplay, and capitalizes on both of them. This game's story roped me in a hell of a lot more than I ever expected it to; I am already a fan of Spider-Man himself, but I've witnessed a shocking amount of people play this game who could give less of a shit about Spider-Man (or Marvel in general). This is how you get people invested into a character or story. When a company/studio shows us this potential that they could care if they wanted to, it makes it even more upsetting to see the shitty low-effort products that are inevitably released going forward. It seems that as long as Disney keeps their paws off of Marvel Game Studios, we might be able to have a period of time where superhero games are not only good, but great.
I'm stoked to play Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2 this year. I knew I was going to play them eventually, but finally playing this game made me realize what this hype around these games actually were. I get it now!
Edit: within the next few days I'm going to write more about this game's story, and talk about it in this review
It's easy to blame studios like THQ, Activision, hell, even LJN (if we're going way back) for all of the seemingly low effort superhero games that were made revolving around the superheroes that we grew up idolizing. These were essentially cash-grabs for the companies at play- consumers are bound to buy a product if it has a recognizable character on it's packaging. Marvel and DC are guilty of this throughout it's nearly decade plus run of MCU films; Why sink in unnecessary amounts of effort when the launch of the product is bound to make money, regardless of it's quality?
Marvel's Spider-Man breaks this doom loop combo of bad writing and gameplay, and capitalizes on both of them. This game's story roped me in a hell of a lot more than I ever expected it to; I am already a fan of Spider-Man himself, but I've witnessed a shocking amount of people play this game who could give less of a shit about Spider-Man (or Marvel in general). This is how you get people invested into a character or story. When a company/studio shows us this potential that they could care if they wanted to, it makes it even more upsetting to see the shitty low-effort products that are inevitably released going forward. It seems that as long as Disney keeps their paws off of Marvel Game Studios, we might be able to have a period of time where superhero games are not only good, but great.
I'm stoked to play Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2 this year. I knew I was going to play them eventually, but finally playing this game made me realize what this hype around these games actually were. I get it now!
Edit: within the next few days I'm going to write more about this game's story, and talk about it in this review
I finished this a month or two ago but just now realized I had forgotten to write something up. Mario Bros Wonder is seriously a blast and easily the best 2d Mario game since NSMBDS. There's so much soul and creativity here that at times it didn't even feel like I was playing a Mario game, and I mean that in the best way possible. Wonder was not your run of the mill 2d Mario game that had been coming out time after time again ever since NSMB: Wii, and that's the best thing to happen to this franchise since then, as far as I'm concerned. If this is the blueprint for 2d Mario to come, I cannot wait to see what comes next.
This is a franchise that I cannot wait to get to the end of. I don't mean that in a bad way, either; I hear how people talk about Uncharted as a franchise and the amount of respect and solidarity that they have for something that, relatively speaking, the modern-era Naughty Dog created (except for TLOU, obviously) gets me excited. They've always been a well respected studio as I understand it, but to be able to play the first Uncharted game - one of the lowest rated in the franchise! - and think "this writing is actually good" either says a lot about the quality at play, or the lack thereof in the rest of the industry.
It's weird to think that this is my first Kirby game in the past 15 years or so? I remember going to Blockbuster with my parents, and I rented Kirby's Epic Yarn on the Wii. There are plenty of things to say about that title, but the fact of the matter is that I was genuinely mad that I beat the game in an afternoon. In my head, there was absolutely no reason that a child should be able to beat any video game in such a short period of time!
That's kind of the beauty of these games, though. A collection of games makes the most sense for this series, at least in it's earlier phases; It's incredibly relaxing to just play a bit, put it down, rinse and repeat. I wound up playing this game over the course of a few days and I really loved the time I spent with it- I didn't 100% all of the games or anything but I could definitely see this becoming an annual playthrough for whenever I have an itch for Kirby.
That's kind of the beauty of these games, though. A collection of games makes the most sense for this series, at least in it's earlier phases; It's incredibly relaxing to just play a bit, put it down, rinse and repeat. I wound up playing this game over the course of a few days and I really loved the time I spent with it- I didn't 100% all of the games or anything but I could definitely see this becoming an annual playthrough for whenever I have an itch for Kirby.
2022
It’s Fall 2022. I had zero experience with any souls games prior to this, and upon asking the cashier whether Elden Ring was a good entry point in the series, he said yes! I was stoked that I, a person who would not consider themselves very good at video games, could finally delve into the souls series.
What made me return the game a few days later was not the difficulty. As far as difficulty goes, the aforementioned cashier was correct in that it’s a great starting point for people looking to get into the souls games. I had a way easier time getting through this game than I did with the first Dark Souls game. What I failed to consider here is that open world games are…messy. When the term “open-world” is used we often think of AAA studio level games like Breath of The Wild or the Bethesda-era Fallout games - and that is indeed what I’m talking about here. When I use the phrase, I think of so many AAA Breath of the Wild inspired games. Anyone who has played either Elden Ring or BotW will know exactly what I am talking about. There are always tweeks to be made when it comes to a new trend in art, and I do not think we are in the peak of explorative RPG games. I’ll get to this in a second.
I think it’s safe to lump in Breath of the Wild here; there is no way Hidetaka Miyazaki wasn’t inspired by that game when creating Elden Ring. Hey, speaking of which, it’s so bizarre that The Legend of Zelda managed to change the trajectory of their respective genre not once, but twice! Ocarina of Time changed video game combat, Breath of the Wild inspired exploration in modern AAA rpg games. Maybe this is something that Miyazaki and his crew at FromSoftware recognized, I have no idea.
This leap of faith in innovation is a lot easier to see in retrospect. Elden Ring on the other hand was seemingly praised as THE video game that was going to change all future video games. Maybe that’s true - enough time has yet to pass until one can really comment on that, in my opinion.
FromSoftware and Hidetaka Miyazaki have a rocky history. This is worth bringing up not only in relation to what I said about FromSoftware doing a fourth quarter hail mary to yet again change action RPG games, but when you are in a position to make a perfect piece of art after already creating what you thought was your magnum opus many moons ago…well, what happens?
To Miyazaki and company’s credit, Elden Ring has been the most praised video game in god knows how long. I know so many people who had never even heard the combination of Dark Souls that eventually tried to give it a shot. Plenty of them knew rage quit, and that’s totally understandable. However, this stacking of praise constantly pushed under FromSoftware just led to an overabundance of people who were trying to get into the series. Elden Ring is an absolutely terrible place to start.
I’m dramatizing this a lot more than I should be. For what it’s worth, I loved Elden Ring. Oh man, it was a blast. I have so many memorable moments; getting sent to Mt. Gelmir for the first time by that weird furnace-crane enemy, having to literally turn off the game because of how squirmish some of the enemies in Caelid made me, finally being able to use the Greatsword and pretending I was Guts for the remainder of my playthrough, going into secret zones time after time again - the list goes on. However, with most things, that which we love we are also most critical of.
This point has been levied against the game plenty of times, but holy shit; the balancing of runes across boss fights in this game is absolutely atrocious. It’s almost as if they were randomized! Most optional bosses that you can go to are on a complete random scale for how many runes you get. There is truly nothing more frustrating than going to a boss, dying 10+ times, and seeing your runes tick up a few thousand. That might not sound like a lot, but when you get into level 50+ and it’s more than 10k runes to level up, oh it’s painful.
This at times disincentivizes exploration. The journeys that you make are often a lot of fun - you get to explore new areas, see some new enemies, and maybe even get a new optional boss fight. But the mere fact that this game is purely based on leveling yourself up and grinding until you are able to reach a new landmark by defeating a boss or clearing a castle/dungeon is counterproductive against the idea of exploration when your incentives are totally random. What would be the point of me constantly respawning mobs of enemies to kill when I could get the same amount of runes that I could get from a mini-boss fight that’s five times as difficult? You could argue the challenge is there, sure, but time is of the essence.
I don’t mean to speak ill of Hidetaka Miyazaki, by the way. If you’ve read this far and feel that I am bashing him, then I’ve either misled you or you’ve missed the point. I love FromSoftware, and I love what Miyazaki brings to the table. I want FromSoftware to one-up themselves on whatever their next souls game is. I want to see this studio just get better and better because I have only seen them do exactly that as I make my way through their games. They have the potential to do it, and hopefully the developers and directors are out there reading people’s thoughts on this game, because I believe that they care about the art that they’re creating.
What made me return the game a few days later was not the difficulty. As far as difficulty goes, the aforementioned cashier was correct in that it’s a great starting point for people looking to get into the souls games. I had a way easier time getting through this game than I did with the first Dark Souls game. What I failed to consider here is that open world games are…messy. When the term “open-world” is used we often think of AAA studio level games like Breath of The Wild or the Bethesda-era Fallout games - and that is indeed what I’m talking about here. When I use the phrase, I think of so many AAA Breath of the Wild inspired games. Anyone who has played either Elden Ring or BotW will know exactly what I am talking about. There are always tweeks to be made when it comes to a new trend in art, and I do not think we are in the peak of explorative RPG games. I’ll get to this in a second.
I think it’s safe to lump in Breath of the Wild here; there is no way Hidetaka Miyazaki wasn’t inspired by that game when creating Elden Ring. Hey, speaking of which, it’s so bizarre that The Legend of Zelda managed to change the trajectory of their respective genre not once, but twice! Ocarina of Time changed video game combat, Breath of the Wild inspired exploration in modern AAA rpg games. Maybe this is something that Miyazaki and his crew at FromSoftware recognized, I have no idea.
This leap of faith in innovation is a lot easier to see in retrospect. Elden Ring on the other hand was seemingly praised as THE video game that was going to change all future video games. Maybe that’s true - enough time has yet to pass until one can really comment on that, in my opinion.
FromSoftware and Hidetaka Miyazaki have a rocky history. This is worth bringing up not only in relation to what I said about FromSoftware doing a fourth quarter hail mary to yet again change action RPG games, but when you are in a position to make a perfect piece of art after already creating what you thought was your magnum opus many moons ago…well, what happens?
To Miyazaki and company’s credit, Elden Ring has been the most praised video game in god knows how long. I know so many people who had never even heard the combination of Dark Souls that eventually tried to give it a shot. Plenty of them knew rage quit, and that’s totally understandable. However, this stacking of praise constantly pushed under FromSoftware just led to an overabundance of people who were trying to get into the series. Elden Ring is an absolutely terrible place to start.
I’m dramatizing this a lot more than I should be. For what it’s worth, I loved Elden Ring. Oh man, it was a blast. I have so many memorable moments; getting sent to Mt. Gelmir for the first time by that weird furnace-crane enemy, having to literally turn off the game because of how squirmish some of the enemies in Caelid made me, finally being able to use the Greatsword and pretending I was Guts for the remainder of my playthrough, going into secret zones time after time again - the list goes on. However, with most things, that which we love we are also most critical of.
This point has been levied against the game plenty of times, but holy shit; the balancing of runes across boss fights in this game is absolutely atrocious. It’s almost as if they were randomized! Most optional bosses that you can go to are on a complete random scale for how many runes you get. There is truly nothing more frustrating than going to a boss, dying 10+ times, and seeing your runes tick up a few thousand. That might not sound like a lot, but when you get into level 50+ and it’s more than 10k runes to level up, oh it’s painful.
This at times disincentivizes exploration. The journeys that you make are often a lot of fun - you get to explore new areas, see some new enemies, and maybe even get a new optional boss fight. But the mere fact that this game is purely based on leveling yourself up and grinding until you are able to reach a new landmark by defeating a boss or clearing a castle/dungeon is counterproductive against the idea of exploration when your incentives are totally random. What would be the point of me constantly respawning mobs of enemies to kill when I could get the same amount of runes that I could get from a mini-boss fight that’s five times as difficult? You could argue the challenge is there, sure, but time is of the essence.
I don’t mean to speak ill of Hidetaka Miyazaki, by the way. If you’ve read this far and feel that I am bashing him, then I’ve either misled you or you’ve missed the point. I love FromSoftware, and I love what Miyazaki brings to the table. I want FromSoftware to one-up themselves on whatever their next souls game is. I want to see this studio just get better and better because I have only seen them do exactly that as I make my way through their games. They have the potential to do it, and hopefully the developers and directors are out there reading people’s thoughts on this game, because I believe that they care about the art that they’re creating.
1999
If you know me, you know that I have not played many JRPGs. I've been told through friends and reading online discourse that Final Fantasy VIII was contentious. I get it.
I do not agree, though.
I've been interested in this genre much longer than I have actually been playing them. There's no way of getting around it, most of my close friends are aware of this. The first two that I played (Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger) had me feeling emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum; amazed, and underwhelmed, respectively. Funnily enough, both of these games have notoriously risky successors. Anyways, I digress, because the point that I am trying to make here has nothing to do with narratives in video games (something that FFVII and Chrono Trigger are of course rightfully praised for).
Before I started playing JRPGs, I knew I liked the idea of games being experimental. I like seeing game developers take risks! Have fun with it! I saw plenty of gameplay where I didn't understood why people even visited this genre because it all just felt so same-y to me. If I'm playing a game where I somehow don't get annoyed by random enemy combat, you did a damn good job at making your game. Square did a damn good job at making this game.
Final Fantasy VIII takes whatever you knew about the genre and says "fuck it - let's do something new". I absolutely adore that mindset and creativity that gave us this game's mechanics. The junction system. AP and GF. Triple Triad. The limit break mechanics. It's all just so charming to me. This is the most fun I have ever had in a game's combat system, and I mean that. The concept of enemies leveling up alongside you REALLY kept me immersed as well, and I found myself doing less mindless fighting and really strategizing my team's next move.
A lot else of what else is criticized is the story. What is most baffling to me is that despite Square taking a similar approach to Final Fantasy VII, dealing with complex characters with complex emotions, the reaction to what this game does and says seems to be downright despised. If you are not a fan of this video game's storytelling, then that's fine. But is your journey entirely ruined because of the end result?
Let's say there are two people walking. Person 1 enjoys walking, but has no destination in mind. Person 2 also enjoys walking, but just cares about getting from point A to point B. Which of them more than likely had a memorable experience? Hopefully you see what I am getting at here.
Art as a whole should not solely be about the endpoint. If it was, then what is the point of experiencing art? What's stopping someone from just going on Wikipedia and reading the synopsis of a game and saying "ah, 5/5, best game I ever played" if they're not even thinking about the journey they took to get there?
Maybe this is just all cope for the bashing I see Final Fantasy VIII get, I really don't know anymore. My adderall is wearing off, and I'm hungry. Regardless, I love this game. I can't wait to play more experimental PlayStation games.
(i'm looking at you, Chrono Cross and Xenogears...)
I do not agree, though.
I've been interested in this genre much longer than I have actually been playing them. There's no way of getting around it, most of my close friends are aware of this. The first two that I played (Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger) had me feeling emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum; amazed, and underwhelmed, respectively. Funnily enough, both of these games have notoriously risky successors. Anyways, I digress, because the point that I am trying to make here has nothing to do with narratives in video games (something that FFVII and Chrono Trigger are of course rightfully praised for).
Before I started playing JRPGs, I knew I liked the idea of games being experimental. I like seeing game developers take risks! Have fun with it! I saw plenty of gameplay where I didn't understood why people even visited this genre because it all just felt so same-y to me. If I'm playing a game where I somehow don't get annoyed by random enemy combat, you did a damn good job at making your game. Square did a damn good job at making this game.
Final Fantasy VIII takes whatever you knew about the genre and says "fuck it - let's do something new". I absolutely adore that mindset and creativity that gave us this game's mechanics. The junction system. AP and GF. Triple Triad. The limit break mechanics. It's all just so charming to me. This is the most fun I have ever had in a game's combat system, and I mean that. The concept of enemies leveling up alongside you REALLY kept me immersed as well, and I found myself doing less mindless fighting and really strategizing my team's next move.
A lot else of what else is criticized is the story. What is most baffling to me is that despite Square taking a similar approach to Final Fantasy VII, dealing with complex characters with complex emotions, the reaction to what this game does and says seems to be downright despised. If you are not a fan of this video game's storytelling, then that's fine. But is your journey entirely ruined because of the end result?
Let's say there are two people walking. Person 1 enjoys walking, but has no destination in mind. Person 2 also enjoys walking, but just cares about getting from point A to point B. Which of them more than likely had a memorable experience? Hopefully you see what I am getting at here.
Art as a whole should not solely be about the endpoint. If it was, then what is the point of experiencing art? What's stopping someone from just going on Wikipedia and reading the synopsis of a game and saying "ah, 5/5, best game I ever played" if they're not even thinking about the journey they took to get there?
Maybe this is just all cope for the bashing I see Final Fantasy VIII get, I really don't know anymore. My adderall is wearing off, and I'm hungry. Regardless, I love this game. I can't wait to play more experimental PlayStation games.
(i'm looking at you, Chrono Cross and Xenogears...)
Alright. I feel like I've played enough of this game at this point to finally write about it. I was taking my time on this one before I finally put something out, but I've beaten it on PS4 as well as on PC. I don't really think I would have ever expected it to be this way, but I think that Dark Souls (2011) has ruined my perception of storytelling in all other video games. I talked about this a bit in my write up of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou, where Ryukishi07 had me feeling the exact same way. I won't talk about him too much, but Ryukishi07 is a fantastic writer that actually understands his characters, understands people and writes his characters with love. This is without a doubt a necessity to write a story that encapsulates the reader. Now think about Ryukishi's skillset alongside his recognition of plasticity in modern video game storytelling, and adapt that skill set to Hidetaka Miyazaki understanding how to be efficient in how a story is told. Miyazaki is also just one hell of a game designer, but I'll get to that in a second.
The term 'environmental storytelling' gets thrown a lot when discussing Dark Souls, and it's for great reason. I can count the number of dialogue sequences in this game on my hand. That's something I admired about Miyazaki's design, let the artwork speak for itself. It's the classic rule of storytelling "Show, don't tell". Skip the bullshit dialogue that you would normally have in a regular RPG and Dark Souls is able to tell a story without spoon-feeding it to you. It's a great concept that so many AAA studios just fail to recognize or act upon. Think about the modern Assassin's Creed games, or something adjacent. These are games that treat you like a child. It's always been an extreme turnoff in RPGs for me; The obnoxious map markings, the game's mechanics that force you to play the game a certain way, the atrocious writing. Dark Souls flips all of this on it's head.
Dark Souls is not a very nice game. It will make you mad. But the important thing about this franchise is to remember that these games are designed to be beaten. Hidetaka Miyazaki had to of had this in mind when working on Dark Souls; There is nothing more refreshing than beating a boss, moving forward, and coming across a new bonfire. There is great reward for exploring in areas that you are not forced to go into, albeit sometimes those rewards may be a bit imbalanced. The concept is still there, and the execution, I feel, is genuine and done with passion in mind for gamers that strive for adventure.
Aside from just the bonfire aspect of the game, there are so many secrets in this game that you would absolutely never find unless you were reading a guide. I beat this game both times and never found the secret bonfires at Darkroot Garden, The Catacombs, and Bed of Chaos. I'm not even going to spoiler mark this because those details aren't enough for someone to find them. It's that absurd and secret, that if you are to google "Darkroot Garden bonfire" you'll just shake your head and sigh. I'm not saying this as a bad thing - it's fun! It doesn't hurt anyone to run the extra distance to pass the easy enemies and just go to kill the Moonlight Butterfly.
One last thing I'd like to touch upon here; I don't think Hidetaka Miyazaki's efficiency in linearity is brought up enough. I have not beaten the later Dark Souls games yet, I am still about halfway done with my first play-through of Elden Ring, but nothing compares to what Dark Souls 1 was able to regarding player direction. This might be a downside for some people, where the game more or less forces you to face bosses in a certain order. I view it as a positive - when you are overwhelmed with the number of bosses you can face (Elden Ring) you do not have to spend time planning out your next strategy thinking about what mini-boss you can fight before you fight the one you are failing against, what mobs can you kill to easily rack up souls and level up faster, etc. Sure, you can go grind mobs on the outside area surrounding it, and face the boss, repeat this process until you finally beat them. There are plenty of mobs along your trek from the bonfire to the boss that the level of souls you'll wind up getting will only benefit you, though. This is, again, not a very nice strategy to the player! But it's important to remember: Dark Souls is a game that was meant to be beaten.
The term 'environmental storytelling' gets thrown a lot when discussing Dark Souls, and it's for great reason. I can count the number of dialogue sequences in this game on my hand. That's something I admired about Miyazaki's design, let the artwork speak for itself. It's the classic rule of storytelling "Show, don't tell". Skip the bullshit dialogue that you would normally have in a regular RPG and Dark Souls is able to tell a story without spoon-feeding it to you. It's a great concept that so many AAA studios just fail to recognize or act upon. Think about the modern Assassin's Creed games, or something adjacent. These are games that treat you like a child. It's always been an extreme turnoff in RPGs for me; The obnoxious map markings, the game's mechanics that force you to play the game a certain way, the atrocious writing. Dark Souls flips all of this on it's head.
Dark Souls is not a very nice game. It will make you mad. But the important thing about this franchise is to remember that these games are designed to be beaten. Hidetaka Miyazaki had to of had this in mind when working on Dark Souls; There is nothing more refreshing than beating a boss, moving forward, and coming across a new bonfire. There is great reward for exploring in areas that you are not forced to go into, albeit sometimes those rewards may be a bit imbalanced. The concept is still there, and the execution, I feel, is genuine and done with passion in mind for gamers that strive for adventure.
Aside from just the bonfire aspect of the game, there are so many secrets in this game that you would absolutely never find unless you were reading a guide. I beat this game both times and never found the secret bonfires at Darkroot Garden, The Catacombs, and Bed of Chaos. I'm not even going to spoiler mark this because those details aren't enough for someone to find them. It's that absurd and secret, that if you are to google "Darkroot Garden bonfire" you'll just shake your head and sigh. I'm not saying this as a bad thing - it's fun! It doesn't hurt anyone to run the extra distance to pass the easy enemies and just go to kill the Moonlight Butterfly.
One last thing I'd like to touch upon here; I don't think Hidetaka Miyazaki's efficiency in linearity is brought up enough. I have not beaten the later Dark Souls games yet, I am still about halfway done with my first play-through of Elden Ring, but nothing compares to what Dark Souls 1 was able to regarding player direction. This might be a downside for some people, where the game more or less forces you to face bosses in a certain order. I view it as a positive - when you are overwhelmed with the number of bosses you can face (Elden Ring) you do not have to spend time planning out your next strategy thinking about what mini-boss you can fight before you fight the one you are failing against, what mobs can you kill to easily rack up souls and level up faster, etc. Sure, you can go grind mobs on the outside area surrounding it, and face the boss, repeat this process until you finally beat them. There are plenty of mobs along your trek from the bonfire to the boss that the level of souls you'll wind up getting will only benefit you, though. This is, again, not a very nice strategy to the player! But it's important to remember: Dark Souls is a game that was meant to be beaten.
damn this was tight. I've never finished a Metroid game before so it's hard for me to say what it's like in comparison to the rest of the series, but I really admired this. can't wait to play the rest of the 2d games, as well as the 3d ones
This review contains spoilers
“..This is a miracle. You noticed the sin you committed in another world. That’s impossible to do. But you did it. That is the most unbelievable and precious of miracles that could exist in this world…” - Rika Furude
At one point I had absolutely zero interest in visual novels. A few years ago I didn't even know what a visual novel was. I was honestly not very interested in anime or manga, but those things have changed now. I was initially turned off by stereotypical anime fans in America, which I don't really think I need to elaborate on.
A few friends of mine in a close-knit community - who I can now comfortably call the best friends that I have ever had - sort of warmed me up to aforementioned mediums knowing that I did not have much background in them, initially. None of it was forced; I'd like to think I'm quite open-minded so I figured, oh why the hell not. Let me just play a 150 hour visual novel and see what I think of it.
To keep it short, this game has changed my perspective on everything that surrounds me. At this point I’ve already jumped into Ryukishi’s next piece of work, Umineko: When They Cry.
Before I start pouring my heart into this thing, I’d ask you to give my dear friend カケラSKY’s review on Higurashi: When They Cry, which you can read here.
This is also the same person who helped me finish this game - I cannot thank them enough.
Ryukishi07 is a writer. He is the writer. He is the most prolific yet efficient writer that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. There are plenty of authors out there who manage to create these expansive worlds of lore and beautiful imagery, but Ryukishi07 is different. He is someone that can operate on a level of efficiency that is dare I say unmatchable. The toolset that he brings to the keyboard is one that I find a lot of writers lack, but yet it seems so obvious to do.
Ryukishi07 writes his characters with love.
There are a lot of characters within fictional mediums that more or less feel like a chore to believe in. Emotional appeal within writing is something that can be very hit or miss, and oftentimes more than not ruin a story for me. This is a problem that I find to be true in almost every video game I play. If you look at my top games, you’ll notice that aside from Higurashi, the only narrative that has much of an emotional core is Final Fantasy VII. (You could argue about Fallout: New Vegas being emotional at parts, but it isn’t something that’s necessary in order to play or finish the game). Higurashi’s cast feels effortless as far as emotional appeal goes. To remind you, I straight up don’t like most anime. I find the writing abysmal and I can’t find emotional ground in any of the characters that surround me. It’s exhausting, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a problem for me rather than the medium itself. Maybe it’s just a problem with writing adult characters. Adults are confusing on an emotional level. I witness it everyday within my own life, and I see it in many others too. Children for the most part I feel are pretty straightforward in their emotions. They often say things as they see it, without taking other’s feelings into account. Which makes sense, they’re not self-aware yet at their age and not the best at realizing how what they say may impact others on an emotional level.
What I find interesting about Ryukishi07 is that this concept is flipped around entirely. The children of Hinamizawa are at an age where they’re able to communicate properly, realize their emotions, and solve problems together. This does not, however, exist in a vacuum. There was a cost that was made to be able for these children to get to this point.
Furthering through the questions arc of Higurashi: When They Cry, we see the trauma and internal emotions of these characters on an individual level. Speaking from experience here, trauma is a blessing and a curse. The curse is of course the trauma that you are dealt. Trauma is not an ideal scenario to have in your life. Trauma is, however, a learning experience. There are certain instances of trauma that put you in a position that you need to grow up faster than others. I remember being in this spot when my mother died. I was 12 years old, all of my friends around me were still kids, and I felt like I was trying to advance my life much faster than them, while simultaneously trying to hold onto my childhood without completely saying goodbye to it. I had a long road ahead of me, but for the sake of trauma, I had to develop my emotions a lot faster and further than most other people around my age at the time, and so I just had to deal with it. I don’t think that this is talked about nearly enough when pieces of art deal with the subject of trauma, and I don’t think it’s recognized nearly enough in the mental health community, professionally. Ryukishi understands this without actually ever directly saying this. Despite their trauma all being relatively different, it speaks to the group en masse and even alongside you, watching these events unfold. Keiichi Maebara, Mion Sonozaki, Shion Sonozaki, Satoko Houjou, and Rena Ryuugu, are all introspectively deep thinking characters that have their certain positions and personality traits all because of what insofar has happened to them throughout their lives. These are incredibly, incredibly smart children who throughout the game begin to better understand one another, and our understanding of what they went through becomes more clear when the topic of their trauma is brought together. I see a younger version of myself in a lot of these characters. Rika Furude, the mascot of Hinamizawa, is a perfect example. She’s technically younger than most of her peers, but on an emotional level she is tenfold of what the rest of the friend group is. This isn’t to discount the other friends, by the way. Rika Furude is just…an interesting character. I’ll get back to this momentarily.
It’s not worth going into the specifics of the individual traumas, although in relation to understanding the game and ‘solving’ Higurashi: When They Cry it is crucial to understanding the game.
The biggest part of this game that I found fascinating was what Ryukishi writes in a writers room at the end of chapter 4 or so. Maybe it isn’t Chapter 4, I could be misremembering, but regardless of this, Chapter 4 was the part of the game (aside from the opening of Chapter 2 where nobody remembers each other, and the cycles of Hinamizawa repeat themselves) where I realized I was in for much bigger of an experience than one would have originally anticipated. Anyways, Ryukishi at one point mentions the discourse among people that question whether Higurashi is a video game or not. The semantics here aren’t relevant to what the experience of Higurashi was. Call the When They Cry series whatever you want, it’s so far a brilliant piece of art that has had way bigger of an impact on my life than I ever expected.
Speaking of chapter 4, it doesn’t seem like most Higurashi fans enjoy this one as much as the other chapters in the questions arc. I think it is one of the top three chapters for me. Keep in mind we’re dealing with Ryukishi, even chapters that I found less interesting than others (e.g, Chapter 2 and Chapter 5) were still great experiences and serve as very important pieces when looking at Higurashi: When They Cry as a whole. Chapter 4 in particular is the shortest in the questions arc. The first three chapters deal with the trauma and experiences of, respectively: Keiichi Maebara/Rena Ryuugu, Mion/Shion Sonozaki, and Satoko Houjou. You’ll notice that one character is missing here, and I’ve also (intentionally) failed to mention them. The mascot of Hinamizawa, Rika Furude.
When I wrapped up the questions arc, I knew that Rika Furude was special. There was something much bigger and expansive as far as her character depth goes when compared to the other children in the friend group. I recall having a lengthy conversation with my dear friend, カケラSKY, about the conundrum of Rika’s character. Keep in mind that カケラSKY has played this game long before me, so they served as my witch for most of this experience. As we conversed, I came to the conclusion that Rika Furude is the way she is for an absolutely fascinating reason. She is a bystander. She takes the position of any one who simply reads a book, watches a movie or television show, or listens to a piece of music. She does not directly change the course of what is to happen to her friends in Hinamizawa, and she recognizes this. She is aware of the events that will happen in June 1983, and so are we, the readers. She has lived through these cycles of abuse and trauma, and remembers those experiences, just as we do too, the reader, after reading the first three chapters of the questions arc. How do we, as the reader/bystander, relate to Rika Furude? What exactly is Rika Furude? I did a lot of thinking about Rika as a character, and what her place was inside the story of Higurashi: When They Cry. A lot of this was overthinking, too, but when approaching a piece of media through love and well intentions it’s quite easy to figure out. Rika Furude is the embodiment of the viewer. Like us, she is the one who watches these events unfold, doing nothing with this knowledge, until this realization is made and action is taken to help save her friends, as well as herself, from ever dying or being murdered. Rika Furude is a bystander, watching her friends (and herself) be murdered.
At some point, sooner rather than later, we realize that we are ultimately hopeless in helping our friends in Hinamizawa. We feel despair and upset feelings watching these helpless children go through their lives, dealing with cycles of abuse and experiencing life changing trauma that puts an impact on their relationships with others, as well as internally. Given that the format of the story being told is a visual novel without routes or choices to be made, there is nothing to be done. Ryukishi recognizes this and talks about it fairly deep into the answers arc. It’s an idea that’s sort of thrown back at the viewer, though, and I don’t think offense should be taken from it. The gist of Ryukishi’s in a TIPS module asks that if we were to be able to make choices in the story of Higurashi, how much would they actually matter? We are given the choice to pick between two different boxes. Humans as a species are inherently selfish. We think that we know how to do something, and ultimately, we fail. This is not something that is the fault of the viewer. This is the world at large and a part of the media that we consume on a daily basis. If you are given a set of characters inside of a fictional world, how are we to trust that they are going to make the best decision? This question should be viewed from another perspective. Let’s spin the chessboard, if you will…
One box has a piece of caramel in it, while the other has a piece of chewing gum. They are two different outcomes, but the point of Schrodinger's cat is present here. What if one box provided you the key to solving Higurashi: When They Cry? We don’t know until that box is opened. We don’t know until we see both outcomes what the best option truly is. Even when both options are presented, what someone considers the “best” outcome of the game is entirely subjective. There is no right or wrong in the world of fiction, so what is the point of offering choices when a desired outcome is already set in stone? This leads to an interesting question regarding a point Ryukishi makes in a later part of the answers arc. He brings up the point that this game, unlike other popular VNs at the time, lacks different routes or options to see how the story progresses. How can you be sure that you will make the best decision, if choices/routes were present in Higurashi: When They Cry?
You can’t be. It’s a heartbreaking realization, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ll get back to this in a second. Anyways, you’ll never be 100% positive that your actions, or choices, will bring the best guaranteed outcome. Even in our daily lives, we have to make choices and go for something, taking bets on what the outcome is going to be. The illusion of choice, in a piece of fiction, is that your outcome is guaranteed. Rather, choices are taking a chance that a preferred outcome is what you get out of said decision.
There is a good amount of criticism surrounding Matsuribayashi, in particular the fourth subchapter. For those that may not remember, that’s the chapter where Bernkastel sets up the fragments, and you are to view them in a particular order for you to progress through the game. As a piece of metafiction I think this works quite well. As the viewer gets closer to realizing that Rika Furude is an embodiment of the viewer, where we are just acting as bystanders, the miracle of Hinamizawa can not happen. The furthering of June 1983 is not possible without our efforts alongside the children of Hinamizawa. When the puzzle pieces are in their correct spots, the miracle can now happen. A miracle can not happen if 100% effort is not given by all parties, as we see throughout each of the answers chapters.
I found myself internalizing the messages of Higurashi: When They Cry rather naturally. I eventually found myself acting upon them without even thinking of it. I think that's really the beauty of impactful art. While some aspects of your life you may have to work on, others just come naturally. Humans are born as loving creatures. There is love and compassion in all of us that we are able to act upon.
Reach out to your friends. Love the people that surround you. Ask for help when needed. You can't do this all on your own, and that's a good thing. There are billions of us here for one reason or another.
At one point I had absolutely zero interest in visual novels. A few years ago I didn't even know what a visual novel was. I was honestly not very interested in anime or manga, but those things have changed now. I was initially turned off by stereotypical anime fans in America, which I don't really think I need to elaborate on.
A few friends of mine in a close-knit community - who I can now comfortably call the best friends that I have ever had - sort of warmed me up to aforementioned mediums knowing that I did not have much background in them, initially. None of it was forced; I'd like to think I'm quite open-minded so I figured, oh why the hell not. Let me just play a 150 hour visual novel and see what I think of it.
To keep it short, this game has changed my perspective on everything that surrounds me. At this point I’ve already jumped into Ryukishi’s next piece of work, Umineko: When They Cry.
Before I start pouring my heart into this thing, I’d ask you to give my dear friend カケラSKY’s review on Higurashi: When They Cry, which you can read here.
This is also the same person who helped me finish this game - I cannot thank them enough.
Ryukishi07 is a writer. He is the writer. He is the most prolific yet efficient writer that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. There are plenty of authors out there who manage to create these expansive worlds of lore and beautiful imagery, but Ryukishi07 is different. He is someone that can operate on a level of efficiency that is dare I say unmatchable. The toolset that he brings to the keyboard is one that I find a lot of writers lack, but yet it seems so obvious to do.
Ryukishi07 writes his characters with love.
There are a lot of characters within fictional mediums that more or less feel like a chore to believe in. Emotional appeal within writing is something that can be very hit or miss, and oftentimes more than not ruin a story for me. This is a problem that I find to be true in almost every video game I play. If you look at my top games, you’ll notice that aside from Higurashi, the only narrative that has much of an emotional core is Final Fantasy VII. (You could argue about Fallout: New Vegas being emotional at parts, but it isn’t something that’s necessary in order to play or finish the game). Higurashi’s cast feels effortless as far as emotional appeal goes. To remind you, I straight up don’t like most anime. I find the writing abysmal and I can’t find emotional ground in any of the characters that surround me. It’s exhausting, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a problem for me rather than the medium itself. Maybe it’s just a problem with writing adult characters. Adults are confusing on an emotional level. I witness it everyday within my own life, and I see it in many others too. Children for the most part I feel are pretty straightforward in their emotions. They often say things as they see it, without taking other’s feelings into account. Which makes sense, they’re not self-aware yet at their age and not the best at realizing how what they say may impact others on an emotional level.
What I find interesting about Ryukishi07 is that this concept is flipped around entirely. The children of Hinamizawa are at an age where they’re able to communicate properly, realize their emotions, and solve problems together. This does not, however, exist in a vacuum. There was a cost that was made to be able for these children to get to this point.
Furthering through the questions arc of Higurashi: When They Cry, we see the trauma and internal emotions of these characters on an individual level. Speaking from experience here, trauma is a blessing and a curse. The curse is of course the trauma that you are dealt. Trauma is not an ideal scenario to have in your life. Trauma is, however, a learning experience. There are certain instances of trauma that put you in a position that you need to grow up faster than others. I remember being in this spot when my mother died. I was 12 years old, all of my friends around me were still kids, and I felt like I was trying to advance my life much faster than them, while simultaneously trying to hold onto my childhood without completely saying goodbye to it. I had a long road ahead of me, but for the sake of trauma, I had to develop my emotions a lot faster and further than most other people around my age at the time, and so I just had to deal with it. I don’t think that this is talked about nearly enough when pieces of art deal with the subject of trauma, and I don’t think it’s recognized nearly enough in the mental health community, professionally. Ryukishi understands this without actually ever directly saying this. Despite their trauma all being relatively different, it speaks to the group en masse and even alongside you, watching these events unfold. Keiichi Maebara, Mion Sonozaki, Shion Sonozaki, Satoko Houjou, and Rena Ryuugu, are all introspectively deep thinking characters that have their certain positions and personality traits all because of what insofar has happened to them throughout their lives. These are incredibly, incredibly smart children who throughout the game begin to better understand one another, and our understanding of what they went through becomes more clear when the topic of their trauma is brought together. I see a younger version of myself in a lot of these characters. Rika Furude, the mascot of Hinamizawa, is a perfect example. She’s technically younger than most of her peers, but on an emotional level she is tenfold of what the rest of the friend group is. This isn’t to discount the other friends, by the way. Rika Furude is just…an interesting character. I’ll get back to this momentarily.
It’s not worth going into the specifics of the individual traumas, although in relation to understanding the game and ‘solving’ Higurashi: When They Cry it is crucial to understanding the game.
The biggest part of this game that I found fascinating was what Ryukishi writes in a writers room at the end of chapter 4 or so. Maybe it isn’t Chapter 4, I could be misremembering, but regardless of this, Chapter 4 was the part of the game (aside from the opening of Chapter 2 where nobody remembers each other, and the cycles of Hinamizawa repeat themselves) where I realized I was in for much bigger of an experience than one would have originally anticipated. Anyways, Ryukishi at one point mentions the discourse among people that question whether Higurashi is a video game or not. The semantics here aren’t relevant to what the experience of Higurashi was. Call the When They Cry series whatever you want, it’s so far a brilliant piece of art that has had way bigger of an impact on my life than I ever expected.
Speaking of chapter 4, it doesn’t seem like most Higurashi fans enjoy this one as much as the other chapters in the questions arc. I think it is one of the top three chapters for me. Keep in mind we’re dealing with Ryukishi, even chapters that I found less interesting than others (e.g, Chapter 2 and Chapter 5) were still great experiences and serve as very important pieces when looking at Higurashi: When They Cry as a whole. Chapter 4 in particular is the shortest in the questions arc. The first three chapters deal with the trauma and experiences of, respectively: Keiichi Maebara/Rena Ryuugu, Mion/Shion Sonozaki, and Satoko Houjou. You’ll notice that one character is missing here, and I’ve also (intentionally) failed to mention them. The mascot of Hinamizawa, Rika Furude.
When I wrapped up the questions arc, I knew that Rika Furude was special. There was something much bigger and expansive as far as her character depth goes when compared to the other children in the friend group. I recall having a lengthy conversation with my dear friend, カケラSKY, about the conundrum of Rika’s character. Keep in mind that カケラSKY has played this game long before me, so they served as my witch for most of this experience. As we conversed, I came to the conclusion that Rika Furude is the way she is for an absolutely fascinating reason. She is a bystander. She takes the position of any one who simply reads a book, watches a movie or television show, or listens to a piece of music. She does not directly change the course of what is to happen to her friends in Hinamizawa, and she recognizes this. She is aware of the events that will happen in June 1983, and so are we, the readers. She has lived through these cycles of abuse and trauma, and remembers those experiences, just as we do too, the reader, after reading the first three chapters of the questions arc. How do we, as the reader/bystander, relate to Rika Furude? What exactly is Rika Furude? I did a lot of thinking about Rika as a character, and what her place was inside the story of Higurashi: When They Cry. A lot of this was overthinking, too, but when approaching a piece of media through love and well intentions it’s quite easy to figure out. Rika Furude is the embodiment of the viewer. Like us, she is the one who watches these events unfold, doing nothing with this knowledge, until this realization is made and action is taken to help save her friends, as well as herself, from ever dying or being murdered. Rika Furude is a bystander, watching her friends (and herself) be murdered.
At some point, sooner rather than later, we realize that we are ultimately hopeless in helping our friends in Hinamizawa. We feel despair and upset feelings watching these helpless children go through their lives, dealing with cycles of abuse and experiencing life changing trauma that puts an impact on their relationships with others, as well as internally. Given that the format of the story being told is a visual novel without routes or choices to be made, there is nothing to be done. Ryukishi recognizes this and talks about it fairly deep into the answers arc. It’s an idea that’s sort of thrown back at the viewer, though, and I don’t think offense should be taken from it. The gist of Ryukishi’s in a TIPS module asks that if we were to be able to make choices in the story of Higurashi, how much would they actually matter? We are given the choice to pick between two different boxes. Humans as a species are inherently selfish. We think that we know how to do something, and ultimately, we fail. This is not something that is the fault of the viewer. This is the world at large and a part of the media that we consume on a daily basis. If you are given a set of characters inside of a fictional world, how are we to trust that they are going to make the best decision? This question should be viewed from another perspective. Let’s spin the chessboard, if you will…
One box has a piece of caramel in it, while the other has a piece of chewing gum. They are two different outcomes, but the point of Schrodinger's cat is present here. What if one box provided you the key to solving Higurashi: When They Cry? We don’t know until that box is opened. We don’t know until we see both outcomes what the best option truly is. Even when both options are presented, what someone considers the “best” outcome of the game is entirely subjective. There is no right or wrong in the world of fiction, so what is the point of offering choices when a desired outcome is already set in stone? This leads to an interesting question regarding a point Ryukishi makes in a later part of the answers arc. He brings up the point that this game, unlike other popular VNs at the time, lacks different routes or options to see how the story progresses. How can you be sure that you will make the best decision, if choices/routes were present in Higurashi: When They Cry?
You can’t be. It’s a heartbreaking realization, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ll get back to this in a second. Anyways, you’ll never be 100% positive that your actions, or choices, will bring the best guaranteed outcome. Even in our daily lives, we have to make choices and go for something, taking bets on what the outcome is going to be. The illusion of choice, in a piece of fiction, is that your outcome is guaranteed. Rather, choices are taking a chance that a preferred outcome is what you get out of said decision.
There is a good amount of criticism surrounding Matsuribayashi, in particular the fourth subchapter. For those that may not remember, that’s the chapter where Bernkastel sets up the fragments, and you are to view them in a particular order for you to progress through the game. As a piece of metafiction I think this works quite well. As the viewer gets closer to realizing that Rika Furude is an embodiment of the viewer, where we are just acting as bystanders, the miracle of Hinamizawa can not happen. The furthering of June 1983 is not possible without our efforts alongside the children of Hinamizawa. When the puzzle pieces are in their correct spots, the miracle can now happen. A miracle can not happen if 100% effort is not given by all parties, as we see throughout each of the answers chapters.
I found myself internalizing the messages of Higurashi: When They Cry rather naturally. I eventually found myself acting upon them without even thinking of it. I think that's really the beauty of impactful art. While some aspects of your life you may have to work on, others just come naturally. Humans are born as loving creatures. There is love and compassion in all of us that we are able to act upon.
Reach out to your friends. Love the people that surround you. Ask for help when needed. You can't do this all on your own, and that's a good thing. There are billions of us here for one reason or another.
2020
its not for me. i just straight up do not give a shit about anything that happens in this game. everything about these characters feels forced and inauthentic, especially in comparison to BG 1/2. i enjoy the combat but i cant help but imagine how much better it would feel if the camera control system wasn't a total piece of shit. the overzealous romantic aspects of this game are just extremely unattractive to me.
i'm glad I gave it a chance because I wanted to see the hype, and I definitely understand why people enjoy it. I just can't see myself pushing much further in this game without it feeling like a chore.
i'm glad I gave it a chance because I wanted to see the hype, and I definitely understand why people enjoy it. I just can't see myself pushing much further in this game without it feeling like a chore.
2023
this is the most fun I've had with an FPS game in god knows how long. I get the sense of nostalgia from games like phantom forces on fucking roblox without actually having to play it; instead I can play a good battlefield clone, and I mean that with HIGH levels of respect
2023
I thought this was super charming at first. The story genuinely had me so pulled in and I was dare I say entranced by it all, but at some point that effect just wore off entirely. I'd say around 4-5 chapters in things just started to get stale. The side quests are dull, the characters you eventually meet are rather uninteresting. The people you start off with and the plot you begin with I was super into. Past that though, there just wasn't much there for me. Got really formulaic and to be honest I found the boss battles way too easy.
1998
forgot to log this one (like i always do) but I finished this. I gotta say, man. I love what Hideo Kojima and co. did with this. Truly revolutionary on a console that was full of experimentation.
my unpopular opinion here though is that my enjoyment of this game for the most part came from me thinking about it rather than playing it. fuck some of these bosses suck or I'd just have no idea what to do. maybe it's the zoomer in me, or that I'm bad at video games, or both.
my unpopular opinion here though is that my enjoyment of this game for the most part came from me thinking about it rather than playing it. fuck some of these bosses suck or I'd just have no idea what to do. maybe it's the zoomer in me, or that I'm bad at video games, or both.
forgot to log this. combat was a lot of fun. nu metal was tight. i don't remember anything about the story. pretty cozy