i think it's abhorrent that this thing ultimately wants you to smash the bird with a rock. this bird who might be dying, but otherwise appears to be at peace. i've had birds as pets, and even held sick and dying birds in my hands, and i would have never, ever thought to do something as violent as crush them with rocks and sticks.

"getting help isn't making me weak, but refusing it is" says the text bubble, as if these are the bird's final thoughts. i just find it strange and clumsy. who is supposed to benefit from this?

i removed the stick and the rock from my sight and then placed each flower in a crescent around the little bird's face. compassion comes as simply as being there, requiring no bloody "act of mercy" beyond sharing in one's suffering, hoping to bring comfort by doing so. obviously, there are situations where granting a living creature release is the right thing to do, but that all seems outside the scope of this thing. closed the window feeling a mixture of heartache and disgust. i miss my birds.

quiet... and LOUD. the silence of the dark glides like oil between small islands of thrumming sound and jagged stabs of screaming steel. echoes of dark souls, shadow tower (abyss), BLAME! (& other nihei), eraserhead, shinya tsukamoto, killer7, silent hill, ico, angel's egg... prometheus? post-industrial, rusted out and haunted, this 'somewhere' could be anywhere, endless. headphones recommended — do brace yourself, though. very much looking forward to tower of no one.

this game's running an open playtest (which i believe is almost over) and it shows a ton of promise. it's clearly pretty early in development, though, and so this 'review' is nothing more than a handful of comments on its current state.

first of all, i really like the look of it, though i would appreciate a unification of its retro resolution — increase the resolution of the player character and lower the resolution of the rest of the world and hud elements to match. this is just a personal taste kind of thing, i suppose. i also hope to see more variety in the environment, and a bit more distinction from moment to moment, though i understand that's a ton of work for the two people making the game.

the character designs are simple, but cool and unique: creepy, empty black eyes of the soulless define an otherwise cutesy design.

combat! it feels good, but you're at a serious disadvantage even with a follower npc. it fast becomes an overwhelming challenge to manage your already extremely limited stamina when the enemy fighting your partner turns around to throw a fireball up your ass before you can even react (because you're busy fighting the other guy). considering this is a game with directional control over attack/block/parry, you're going to be paying close attention to your immediate opponent's movements — multiple enemies are just too unpredictable and aggressive to feel like i have adequate control and awareness.

anyway, these are just a handful of impressions taken from a bit under an hour with the game. i'll be keeping an eye on this one.

wow. genuinely no idea how to rate this thing. it appears to be a dungeon crawler (and not even one with automap, but with the map already visible) with a bunch of mid-'90s cgi video and stop-motion elements. you explore until an encounter, where you — to the best of my understanding — use the directional buttons to highlight a section of musculature on your chosen bioform's caked-up humanoid diagram (?!)... and, whether you are successful or not (who can say), you switch to some kind of killer instinct lookin side-on view where one monster hits the other. beyond that... i couldn't tell you.

in my total befuddlement i looked for a longplay on youtube and found a video where the guy looked up someone else's playthru and determined they had no better idea of how to play than he did. so it would seem nobody on earth knows how to play this thing. ok! well, it looks fucking cool, anyway...!

kind of a special little game. not only because it's on the neo geo pocket color (i played it with an emulator on my ds, though evidently it's also on the switch and pc now!), but also because it's a tight, short action rpg featuring elements of gothic horror pulling from classic monster stuff (werewolves, zombies, draculas) with a flourish of a weirder sort of biopunk tokusatsu reminiscent of the creations of keita amemiya, or of tetsuo in akira with his gnarly arm-thing. i mean, your actual weapon evolves as it feasts on the souls of the monsters you've busted. that's the game!

just finished watching the new tetris biopic on [streaming site] and there's probably a lot to be said about this movie's angle on various things... which i only want to touch on briefly. specifically, i don't think this is too simple a tale of capitalism triumphing over communism: it does a fair enough job of illustrating failure and greed on both sides of this specific conflict, thugs and liars, howard lincoln calling atari "those motherfuckers," etc. it is perhaps telling that henk rogers, the international entrepreneur (and developer of the first turn-based rpg released in japan) who had a hand in the worldwide emergence of tetris — specifically its relationship to the game boy — is presented here as the central protagonist, and even alexey's personal american jesus. a man who risked everything for the absolute jackpot that this game could be. i mean, uh, for pajitnov and his brilliant game. yes.

still, the story of tetris itself is a compelling one. a friend said in irc, wondering if someone else would have eventually made the game if pajitnov hadn't, "it seems like a sort of inevitable game." i agree: there is a sort of visually mathematical quintessence to it — like pythagoras's triangles. like, i'm a total idiot who hates math and even i can see that. everyone can; it's just that good. a perfect game most of us play quite imperfectly and it always feels good from the first tetromino. it's like a key that unlocks something as you play it. something like love or truth, maybe.

i think i can finally accept this as the definitive version of dark souls, particularly when fixed up with the original armor textures (which were horribly flattened in this one, for reasons i cannot fathom), a reshade profile which adjusts the lighting and contrast to be a bit closer to that of the original game (gotta have that heavy chiaroscuro and golden glow), and a mod which augments and meshes with the game's own online functionality to cycle through each location for possible invasions whether within the limitations of your own soul and weapon levels or infinitely upward. i haven't waited more than a minute or two to invade with this mod, and for me this is an absolute godsend since i am far more interested in 'organic' invasions, world pvp style, than i am in sweaty arena duels at the oolacile township bonfire.

i hadn't actually played this game at all since moving back home to michigan (from portland, oregon) at the end of 2019, and... well, "it feels like going home again" isn't what i want to say: it's more like a refreshing reminder that i haven't lost everything, though sometimes it feels that way. i don't think of too many video games as being mine, made for me, but this is one of them.

so much of re4 comes down to the tension of its moment-to-moment play, and i bear this in mind as i consider the possibilities of the remake and the crucial matter of how the action feels if the pacing and your maneuverability is significantly increased or 'improved' — as we expect it to be.

looking back at the original game (and its various ports), especially having now played the re2 remake and a number of similar modern tps games, there's a vaguely king's field-like sluggishness to re4 and its tank controls and slower forward movement. combined with its wild action setpieces and a synesthetic style resembling an arcade game (especially apparent in the character models, their faces and the particular expressiveness of their voices, the scope and flair of the boss fights, the button-mashing qte stuff, etc), this very deliberate and yet very flexible approach to action in balance with tension is something which continues to set re4 apart from the rest. in praise of games which offer interesting friction to your mobility, rather than endlessly seek ways of reducing it. amen.

fairly sure i'm not even 1/3 through my first time through this game and i'm like 150 hours in (though i did restart once after like 20 hours lol). i have a feeling i'll have more to say later on; consider this a "first impressions" kinda thing, silly as that may seem after so much time with it.

getting some complaints out of the way, it's a pretty flawed game in terms of bugs and some extremely fucked balance (playing it on easier difficulty settings is highly recommended until you really know the game (and i still don't feel i do)) and moments of frustrating writing clashing with the roleplaying possibilities of its pnp systems (e.g. you can't always rescue someone from their fate due to a curse placed on them despite there being a spell called remove curse available and stuff like that feels... kinda bad, sometimes). that's pretty much it, i guess? i could probably complain about the overwhelming timesink crusade system introduced in the second act, but i switched that shit to automated/story mode so i could focus on the baldur's gate-style adventuring and such. the half-star i docked from my rating could probably be a bigger mark down, but, see...

what makes wrath of the righteous so compelling to me, aside from the incredibly deep character-building, is its campaign and setting: a realm torn asunder by the worldwound, a vast fracture in the planet's surface from which the abyss emerges - a place where gods and demons rally their forces in a game of chess... where they literally can't intervene too much because the conflict would simply obliterate this domain over which they struggle for power and influence. and this is where you come in: chosen by the good gods, granted the power to choose your path - even with the freedom to become a devil or a swarm-that-walks or whatever...! power fantasy to the extreme.

and this is what sets wrathfinder apart from its ilk: it features a variety of mythic paths for you to choose as you progress (angel, lich, demon, azata, trickster, legend, and several more) and a pretty large cast of possible companions - to the point that it feels more properly inspired by bg2 than most of these "new wave of oldschool crpg" games in terms of the sheer possibilities. for my first time through it, i'm going azata: chaotic good butterfly-winged friendship is magic superhero bard romancing a succubus who wants to be a good girl after being touched by the goddess of dreams and made aware of her sins. (you can either help her with this or decide to be a total fucker and corrupt her, destroying her newfound ability to love.) game's absolutely enormous and i'm likely to be playing it all year (irl circumstances willing (not to be overly cryptic, but my mental illness is catching up with me again)).

uh, anyway... yeah, game rules. also i love the very bg-styled music, all that Epic Brass Blaring Mightily.

a bit surprised by this one! a game which has languished in my steam library since i picked it up in a bundle some years ago, i had written it off as likely some soulless imperialist fantasy sim/rpg, admittedly based more or less on its title alone. as it turns out, well, after falling in love with baldur's gate this fall i started looking for more games in that vein of crpg. recently, pathfinder: wrath of the righteous appears to be the hot new thing among hardcore fans of the genre (and i must say that one looks far more appealing to me at a glance), and so i decided to give this one a chance first.

i'm pleasantly surprised. the most common complaint i've encountered is that the kingdom management aspect of the game, foisted upon you as you're tasked with the establishment of a new barony in neighboring lands infested with trolls and other monsters, bandits, and a cruel warlord, is poorly executed and a drag of a distraction from adventuring and dungeon crawling. i gather settings which automate this part of the game or render it effortless (in a difficulty setting for the management alone literally called effortless) wasn't always available, but it is now and as such i think it's perfectly fine.

what interests me more is the range you're given to be the baroness you'd like to be (within the dnd alignment system). i am loathe to be a lord of lands, but there's ample opportunity to rule with benevolence, instructing your advisors to tend to various matters before you and your party set out to make efforts in service of the people.

one thing i will warn about: character creation and early leveling are extremely daunting, even after getting a grasp on baldur's gate. the build potential is unreal. i love that shit, personally, though it does mean i end up spending hour after hour figuring it all out. a mod that lets you respec for free is an absolute must. i mean, you essentially need to have an understanding of how leveling works, how classes synergize—you select your class for every level you gain, then choose from a number of subclasses, abilities, spells, feats, etc. unless you just set it on story mode and do whatever you think seems cool, i suppose. i started as a sorcerer and later switched to a paladin with a dip into the thug subclass of rogue so that i can tank, heal, and put out the big damage with sneak attacks (which are powerful frontal attacks of opportunity, not stealth attacks). i seem to typically prefer a chaotic good mc with high charisma for games like this, and turn up my nose at lawful religious zealots, but again, in kingmaker (actually queenmaker tho) you can be a truly good person even as such. that matters to me. i don't like being evil unless it's in a game like tyranny, and even then i strive to do all the good i can for as many people as possible. big part of my enjoyment of these games, of roleplay...

might eventually amend this with further thoughts, assuming i finish it. i think i'd like to unless it really falls off later on.

pretty basic dungeon crawler, but the crusty fmv and smooth-scrolling prerendered cgi graphics (with some digitized costume-monsters) are a vibe. it suffers from repetitive visuals making navigation a bit of a chore, though there is a handy automap + journal feature to mitigate feelings of aimlessness. one especially novel feature is its magic system, which has you engraving runes onto wands in the creation of custom spells. mundane and innovative (with its presentation) in equal measures, it's an extremely 1995 game. and that skeleton on the box art? a beautiful 3d hologram sticker. those were the days...