As one would expect, Mega Man 3 was pretty successful for Capcom, despite not being quite on the same level as the success of Mega Man 2. Nevertheless, a sequel was already being put in development shortly after, even though at this point, given how the SNES was already out, they could have just as easily ended off the NES lineup with 3 and called it a day. Instead, however, they pressed on to make yet another set of games for the system, starting off with Mega Man 4.

So, this is where a majority of people would consider this to be the start of the “lesser” NES Mega Man games. Not bad by any means, but compared what had come before, people would consider this, as well as the two games to follow, very samey, repetitive, and just not as interesting as before. Honestly, I completely understand where people are coming from when they say that… but with that being said, of course I still fucking love Mega Man 4. Would I consider it as good as Mega Man 2 or 3? No, but it is still a fantastic entry in the series, and one that no fan of the franchise should pass up.

The story is pretty much the exact same, except now changing up the characters, which is fine for me, although I don’t understand why now in the 4th entry we are getting a cutscene that details the origins of Mega Man, the graphics are the best in the series so far, even if they appear very similar to that of the previous titles, the music is awesome, no surprise there, the control is just as tight, responsive, and fun as ever, and the gameplay is also just as fun and satisfying as every other mainline entry so far.

If you somehow need a reminder of how the gameplay in Mega Man works, then you should probably see a doctor for your memory loss issues. You run through stages, jumping and shooting through many enemies, getting health and weapon supplies along the way, defeating bosses, gaining their powers, and using those powers to your advantage in other stages. Just like with the previous games, though, they do add a few new features in this game to spice things up. For starters, this is the first game in the series to give you a charge shot, which is very great to see, as it helps out with dealing with a lot of the bigger threats that you will face throughout the game. Sure, it isn’t as big or effective as future charge shots from future games, but for what we have here, it is still pretty great stuff, even if the noise it makes can make other people want to permanently clog up their ears so they can never hear it. I’ve just gotten used to the sound now.

In addition to all the new powers you get throughout the game, as well as the Rush abilities still here, there are also additional hidden powers that you can find in two of the levels, those being Balloon, which is just Item 1 from Mega Man 2, and the Wire, which is a grappling hook that allows you to get to places for extra goodies. Not only does this add replay value to the game, which is always appreciated, but the items themselves are very useful in several scenarios, so it doesn’t feel like too much stuff at once. Not much else to say about the changed gameplay, except for the introduction of Eddie, who shows up in several levels to give you an item, which you can then exploit into him giving you a free E-Tank, which is nice.

In terms of problems with the game, this goes back to something I brought up in my review of Mega Man 3: the padding. In this game, as well as the next two after this, you have to go through two separate final castles to beat the game, because the plot demands that you find out about this obvious twist that you already know going in. Granted, it’s not as annoying as it is in Mega Man 3, but padding is still padding, no matter what form it comes in, and needless to say, the game doesn’t need to be extended for this long, even if I still find it to be fun and challenging. In addition, from here on out, the Rush Jet ability gets nerfed pretty hard. In Mega Man 3, you could move about freely on Rush Jet, allowing you to get to various hard-to-reach areas with little to no trouble. Here, and in every other subsequent game to come after, you can only move up and down while moving forward constantly in the direction you are facing, which isn’t terrible by any means, but it just sucks compared to what we had before. There are also other minor things, like, y’know… Toad Man, but that other stuff doesn’t really bother me too much, and none of the problems did anything to keep me from having a great time

Overall, despite the issues that it has, this is still yet again another fantastic entry in the Mega Man series, and I would definitely recommend it not just for Mega Man fans, but anyone who wants to get into the series in general. I mean, it has the origins of Mega Man in the opening cutscene, so hey, you may as well get people started on this game instead of the first one. Probably would make for a better experience.

Game #196

It's hard for me to think about what to write about FFX--so much has been said about it over the years! And if I'm honest, so many of my thoughts are so tied up in the experience of nostalgia and of playing it when it was new and I was a young teenager. So in lieu of anything massively interesting to say about its mechanics (which I love), or Blitzball (which I love) or the story (which I love) or the characters (whom I love), I'll just relay some anecdotes from my freshman year of high school in the fall of 2002.

The first in-real-life girl I ever felt anything for (I wasn't out yet, not for a long time) and that I knew I felt things for and I were in that girl's bedroom. We had met at the statewide anime convention earlier in the month and only then realized that we were going to be going to the same High School. We were both nervous and both ended up talking about how what we talked about at the convention was how cool Lulu and Yuna were and how annoying we thought Blitzball was. She turned on her PS2 and loaded her save; it was at the Shoopuf landing. I felt my heart flutter as she ran around.

The first time I ever truly had my heart broken was by the dungeon master of the first D&D campaign I ever played in; I was a sophomore and my Wizard's name was Yunalesca.

The first time I was ever stopped for photos by multiple people in an anime convention hallway and had multiple cameras snapping away like the paparazzi was me cosplaying Rikku; I cut my hair so short my mother cried. I was a Junior in high school.

I love Final Fantasy X. It made an impact on me. I think you should play it if you haven't.

You know when you fail a jump in Sonic, you drop down to a slower part of the level? You know, the tiered platforming level design that makes the series so fantastic?

What if you just died instead?

Awful game. Shame too, looks great, runs great, sounds great. Really love how Sonic runs up the top screen, down into the bottom one. The dual screens would actually be perfect for a real 2D Sonic level.

Sonic Rush? More like, Sonic Flush this turd down the toilet.

For the past few years, I have thought about writing a "walkthrough" for this game, repurposing that format to make something more tailored to this game's distinct structure than a typical essay or review. I still want to do that, but until then consider this a loose sketch of the primary ideas:

Western pop culture since the debut of Star Wars in 1977 has become obsessed with Heroes, their Journey, and their One Thousand Faces. In the 21st century, interpretations and explorations of heroism have largely become addicted to Joseph Campbell's monomyth structure by way of its diluted Hollywood cliffnotes versions from Christopher Vogler, Dan Harmon, and their like. What began as a loose interpretive tool for comparing existing myths and stories across cultures has become a rigid instructive tool for constructing and reconstructing the same stories over and over. Entries in the Legend of Zelda series have often employed this structure. Compelling as it is, it's the sort of truth you get from telling a lie often enough. Majora's Mask strives to be more honest about heroism.

Link is already The Hero when you start the game and though his journey was completed, time travel erased it from history. It now exists only in Link's memory (and yours, if you played that game first). Already we are in a textual knot: the hero's journey is shown to be entirely optional due to the overwhelming power the goddesses bestowed on Link and Zelda, but it did have to happen in the first place in order for it to then never have happened. The Hyrule fantasy in all its iterations is a rigged game, the Triforce having so many failsafes to prevent it ever being wielded for evil and always resulting in a two-on-one showdown. Majora's Mask swiftly plucks Link out of this dynamic and drops him into a new world called Termina.

Termina does not have a bucolic time of grace to fall from, but it has a sense of history culminating in a contemporary-feeling society. It has no divine order preserving it, but instead a singular core evil seeking to destroy life. People are not standing still waiting for the Hero to rescue them, but rather are in-fighting and exacerbating a bad situation through prejudice and selfishness. There are Heroes aside from Link, but they have failed. Similarly, the problems plaguing each region and Termina as a whole are not static: they worsen day by day until they become catastrophes. In prior games and later games people's situations were binary, being in peril until Link flipped their switch to rescued and caused them to say the same dialogue for the rest of their existence.

Like everyone currently alive in our reality, Link is born into a world that won't necessarily survive and not for lack of trying by well-intentioned people. The two powers that distinguish Link from those people are remembering and trying again; save and load. Every other verb necessary to succeed is either something anyone could do (listen/observe, communicate, exchange) or is a power given to Link by someone else. And each power allows you to solve the problem of another, making you a medium between people who cannot interact for lack of knowledge or who failed in the attempt. Everywhere you go, Link is just finishing a quest someone else started and by extension everyone you meet is a potential hero.

That is, until the game introduces Ikana. Ascending, inverting, and saving Stone Tower is not possible by any person you've met, not by any single form Link can assume: he must use shells of his forms to stand in the right place at the right time in order to progress, he must swap between all forms, and he must grow. No one person can save the world.

In a sense this was also true of Ocarina of Time or Link to the Past before, with the Sages/Maidens and Zelda assisting in defeating Ganon. One can play Majora's Mask like those games, such that Link prevents the primary apocalypse and everyone is in a roundabout way saved. Doing so would mean the Deku princess remains trapped and the monkey is still imprisoned; that Lulu does not perform again; that Romani Ranch is devastated; that Anju and Kafei never reconcile.

It also cannot be understated that no one helping Link or being helped by Link is a higher being chosen by fate. They have no magic, not even a magic of friendship as they will forget you in due time. They are all the people that in the prior game stood around helplessly and waited for you to solve their problems for them, feet nailed to the ground. Now they move and try but fail, only able to try the once. They are never in the right place at the right time until you use memory and communication to guide them there. If they could remember and try again, they could do it themselves. You were not chosen by fate, you are not a component of a formula, you are merely the person who remembers being a hero and is willing to try being one again.

If you play Majora's Mask like a conventional Hero's journey, jumping from region to region and vanquishing monsters, you arrive at its final challenge poorly equipped. The manifestation of evil will tell you plainly that you "only have weak masks". It can be defeated this way, and the conclusion is satisfying if you wanted a story about a hero narrowly defeating evil through their own cunning and some supernatural aid. When the credits roll, you will be shown the masks you didn't collect. Characters will be conspicuously absent from the celebrations of your victory over evil.

If you play the game caring about people and learning from them, you gather a number of masks to wear and identities to assume. Help everyone you can and bring their memory with you and give that memory to others, and the manifestation of evil will call you "the bad guy". You gain a new power that lets you steamroll over evil easily. The ending adjusts accordingly, and you see everyone you helped making each other happier.

Evil in Termina in not a person or demon, but a mask worn by the frightened to justify acting on their worst impulses. Throughout the world you learn of the direct damage Skull Kid wrought under the mask's influence, and the indirect damage forms a shadow of that same cruelty cast on other faces. Wear the evil mask to convince yourself you're good, and call someone wearing its opposite bad. Goes on so easily, grips so tightly. Just as anyone here could be a hero, anyone here can (and sometimes becomes) a villain.

Link's Awakening introduced the trading sequence to Zelda, and many games that follow incorporate it as a side quest. The structure is simple: you find something someone needs, you give it to them, out of gratitude they give you something someone else needs, repeat. Majora's Mask proves this is ultimately the only quest worth doing. Go among people and link them. Link as many people as you can, make them happy, make them willing to help each other, and evil finds nowhere to take root. You will never be picked by goddesses to go save the world by collecting crystals or medallions or triangles, so stop waiting for your journey to begin.

I played this game when I was six years old and it was new. I replayed it as a teenager, in my early twenties, in my late twenties; it had aged but was not old. When I began exhibiting symptoms of chronic illness around the age of 8, I would have good days and bad days. I found that after three days of feeling good or bad, my body forgot what it was like to not be how it had been for the past three days. When depression manifested later on in my life, I found a similar cycle. Three days in it and I feel like I will never be happy again, and fear I never was before. My mind needs to remember what my matter cannot. I come back to this game to strengthen my remembering; that every time I wake up facing three miserable days in which my world could fall apart, I can fight that off and maybe make for myself or someone else three better days. After all, I am at least waking up.

"And sure, if fate some future bard shall join
In sad similitude of griefs to mine,
Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more;
Such if there be, who loves so long, so well;
Let him our sad, our tender story tell;
The well-sung woes will soothe my pensive ghost;
He best can paint 'em, who shall feel 'em most."

Yuna: "My two girlfriends. And yes, they smoke weed."
Wakka: "Do they smoke weed, ya?"
Yuna: "Yes, actually."
Lulu: "You mean she isn't just smoking a cigarette?"
Khimari: "Khimari don't know weed cigarettes."
Dressphere change: Dancer
Yuna: "It's called a phid... not weed cigarette..."
Yuna: "And yes, it is a weed phid. They all smoke weed phids before we kiss. (They are my girlfriends,)"

me: The villain of What Remains of Edith Finch? Wouldn't call it a "villain" personally, but in the sense that it's the source of the tragic events of the story I'd say it's intergenerational trauma, interlinked with mental illness. Though obviously certain characters make bad, often neglectful decisions which cause harm, I feel it would be callous and mistaken to call any of them a "villain". The developers walk a fine line of weaving into each family tragedy both their virtues and their weaknesses/blind spots to create a sense of ironic inevitability, conveying to the audience each family member's individual experience trying to process and overcome their cumulative grief/psychosis before succumbing to it. Situating Edith (at the tip of the nearly-dead family tree and the only hope for it to continue) as the player character tasked with interpreting or reinterpreting each story (which are often conveyed through second- or third-hand accounts that naturally invite skepticism and critical reading) forces us to confront the familial fear that one's fate is predestined, while allowing relative detachment from which she/we hope to find some lasting healing for herself and her child. If anything, the attempt to identify a culpable villain is a trap the game seems to hope Edith avoids: there is no silver bullet for personal demons, no solution from without to solve any one person's inherited trauma and self-destructive patterns. Convincing yourself that someone else or a family curse is the sole cause of your tragic circumstances can cause you to neglect your own capacity and responsibility (obviously excepting systemic social issues here, this isn't some conservative "don't blame other people for your failures" argument). Though we may understandably lash out in blame at those who seem to pull us in and perpetuate these tragic cycles--and it may be necessary to cut off those whose coping mechanisms perpetuate the inherited trauma, as Edith's mother does for her and her children's sake--we must recognize they are also suffering and also coping and also deserve our sympathy. That the Finches and Edie in particular are often irrational (sometimes ridiculously, Gashlycrumb Tinies-ly so) does not speak to villainy, it speaks to the central metaphor and family dynamic being explored and the style being adopted.

a video essay with 4.5 million views: the villain is the old lady, that attention-craving bitch

(edit: 5 million views)

Played on the Mega Man Legacy Collection on Switch. Every time I crave playing a Mega Man game, im always like trying to convince myself “Come on, its not that bad. You’ve played and beaten plenty of platformers, you’ll be fine.” Then I start playing, I’m enjoying myself, listening to the great music and appreciating that fun art style, occasionally using the rewind feature a couple times per level, but nothing too bad. Then the back half hits. And I am reminded why I take so long in between each of these games, abusing the rewind to a ridiculous extent. All this said though, its another Mega Man game. I still enjoyed my time with it at the end of the day and just love the world of Mega Man. Mega Man 4 honestly feels like the developers were easing up the gas a bit though in terms of difficulty, ehich is MORE than welcomed by me. Things like that robot that throws up gifts at you, fairer platforming challenges, more E Tanks than normal, etc. It’s still trash difficulty, but definitely the most enjoyable classic Mega Man to play ive played so far (Mega Man 2’s soundtrack and over all vibe is still better though). Also the whole Russian plot is really random, but I kind of like it for how out of left field it is.

Has any other game given us something like Watch For Rolling Rocks in 0.5 A Presses? And if they haven't, could they? A lot of games when taken to their outer limits feel like breaking them; like you hotwired the machine of Pokemon Red or Ocarina of Time to spit you out at the ending. There's fascination in that, sure. But for all the non-Euclidean twists and taffy-stretching it has been exposed to over the past two-decades-plus, Super Mario 64 in a sense remains whole. You can pull at the seams of this game on a quantum level in the name of not pressing the A button and it doesn't ever really split, but rather reveals another wrinkle to tug. On top of that, this magic is achieved not through behind-the-scenes manipulation but instead through a small Italian man gleefully performing acrobatics and building up enough speed to phase through gaps between atoms.

Its place at the dawn of 3D console video games only strengthens its pull in this regard. The new dimension begged so many questions about what was and wasn't possible that it feels like we'll never hit the end of them in this single game, let alone in the medium. Equally important is the meticulous commitment to making basic locomotion feel so easy to grasp yet hold remarkable depth that people would care about it on its own, inventing convoluted challenges because they got bored of playing the game as it was designed but not of playing with the game as it is. It was always going to be The First 3D Mario Game and thus would always have a pull on people, but I don't think that accounts for just how deeply people have studied and stretched and scrambled this game. There's something deeper there.

Think about the general recognition that the stacked "mario-yahoo" sound effect of backwards-long-jumping has reached. What once sounded like something going wrong now carries a sensation similar to an older sibling asking if you want to see something weird. A signal that you are about to unravel something previously solid and follow the loose tendrils to new places. Maybe not the most emotionally resonant or life-changing type of depth, but one that feels largely distinct to video games as a medium. Though I'll never personally dip my toes in those waters I still find enjoyment in watching others diving to the bottom of this game's ocean, and in my own time spent floating in the comparative shallows.

Things I've Learned:

- I have anxiety about not utilizing every second of my existence for something productive.

- It’s okay for nothing to happen. Moments occur, and it’s just as important to enjoy those as it is to appreciate the natural nothingness that life has as its base.

- Task-hunting can give purpose, but experiencing each instant as it is gives fulfillment.

- Discovery and the pursuit of newness shouldn’t take you away from treasuring what you can already explore.

- My experience was both heightened and weakened by not knowing Japanese. I felt even more engrossed with the childlike discovery this game roots itself in, but there were moments I felt lost that might have been solved by knowing what the dialogue was saying. (this is really the only negative I have to say about this game, and it's not the game's fault at all! if the proposed English translation releases, this game will be an easy 10/10 for me.)

- I had a pretty good summer. Even though it's not even spring yet.