Notes on Stray forcefully anti-intellectuals because it is necessary to think about video games outside the logic of video games or something like that

-I talk too much about spaces, their construction and exploration and I barely realize how important the height and size we use to move through it is, but I have always felt that small avatars are a little more interesting. Maybe because I'm 1.85, I have no idea.

-When Stray was released I saw a tweet that said something like "it's a game about being a cat but in BoTW you move more like a cat" or something like that. I found it a bit ridiculous because it seemed to disdain Stray's navigation based on pseudo-realistic logic, but in BoTW almost any surface is "sticky" and you can scale it like a lizard. That's not very catty bro

-The environments are excellent on their own, but they also seem to me to be an excellent architecture that reflects the dilemma of the automata.
There is a lot of beauty in walking around the district and just sitting next to any inhabitant, a robot, an npc, a mannequin. an inhabitant.

Why fool ourselves, if the game had been a cat Playground most of GamersTm would have been annoyed for not having objectives, "nothing to do".
goodoo.

-The complaint of many is that the game should have been a playground instead of a directed adventure with some freeform moments. I think so too, but against everything I believed, I ended up liking the direction, despite being quite conventional.

-Creating a fictional world through the aesthetic and cultural appropriation of countries with problematic political pasts (is there a country that does not have it?) can be problematic, but it is true that many countries have done it to a greater or lesser extent. It doesn't matter how; Turbo-capitalist revisions of Marie Antoinette of Austria, JRPGs with bucolic aesthetics or those martial arts movies where completely anachronistic techniques and movements are shown. Perhaps it would matter more WHO takes that culture to use it as background and decoration

-Alexis Ong's text isn't bad to be honest


-Sisi Jiang's text wouldn't be bad either. But back to the same.
It's not that I want to play the parry that we should be permissive with the romanticization (and appropriation) of a problematic aesthetic and culture for the sake of a freer and more experimental fiction... But if I'm doing it a little?? maybe?
Why complaining about the appropriation of pizza or the word (k)Otaku would be silly but doing it about Hong Kong architecture is smart?

-In the past, some Asian countries, by necessity or imposition, have also absorbed too much Western culture, now they appropriate it and, by necessity or because of the turbo-capitalism in which we live, they market their own culture.
I apologize if this may offend anyone but it is something that I see very real.

This is it baby this is THE Final Fantasy! The good shit!!! Have I ever played this game like a normal person? Absolutely not! I'm sure on my ninth fiesta run though!

Even though limiting yourself to four random jobs cannot possibly have been on the minds of anyone developing the game, the fact that it works so well and makes for such a rad experience really shows the games' various strengths, which are all in the nitty-gritty of the boss and job design. Certainly not the story, which is great for what it is, has a lot of funny moments and works as a nice romp, but isn't particularly ambitious. Try to find a theme in the story: you can't. It kind of gestures at some environmentalism here and there but it doesn't actually care so there's nothing at all.

First: the jobs. Most of them have a pretty big variety of tools or some unique utility. Nobody is completely dead weight, even Geomancer. The overlap between different jobs is a big part of how the game remains playable with any team composition, I think. They also are not even close to balanced, which rules. Generally, you need a lot of experimentation or outside info to know, say, when you can just use an instant death attack to kill a boss instantly, or how mixes work with the chemist, but the decision to not worry much about flattening everything in terms of power level, or going the other way and just having a progression of jobs like in FF3, makes the random style of playthrough work. And this is not even getting into the synergies! A lot of the game can be decided by figuring out which combination of abilities will get you something truly cool and busted, and finding that stuff feels great! This is another place where the fiesta rules, because playing normally you would just not use a Berserker. If you have to, though, you can figure out that giving them Equip Bows makes them way faster and stronger.

Second: the boss/enemy design. I think this is really the key point. They're so good. There are so many different gimmicks, and only a few fights that are just straight-up brawls. Almost every single major encounter in the game has at least one dirty trick available to trivilize or mitigate it. It's often as simple as just letting status effects work on bosses. There are plenty of RPGs where you also have lots of tools but they suck because they only work in places you'd never care to use them. In FF5, even playing as intended, you can come up with creative solutions to problems, and you will because levelling is only marginally relevant to your overall power. It smooths some edges but won't fundamentally overhaul your approach.

Yall I recommend FFV. Use a guide and do some random job bullshit or play it normally. Either is neat.

Love this game's moxie and it breaks my heart to only come out thinking it's just a poor Armored Core-like. Wing of Darkness is a fair bit more interested in telling a story than having particularly stirring gameplay, with missions broken up through visual novel sequences that touch on the human impact of war and relationships and all that. Cuts too many corners as it beelines to the end of its 2-hour total playtime and fails to flesh out both its characters or systems as a result. Bleh.
It is at the very least host to my favourite soundtrack of the year lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ZL2l3pRc0

A pretty solid attempt at 3D Castlevania, but not without some flaws and jank.

I think it's pretty cool that they attempted to make a 3D metroidvania here, but it doesn't feel like a true metroidvania, I would've liked more side content like in Symphony of the night. But the level design is still solid, it's just not as good as the masterpiece that is Symphony of the night.

The combat is decent and can be pretty fun at times, but my main issue is that it's too repetitive and gets old before the game ends. The bossfights are pretty good though, I have no complaints about them.

I also love the music, it's great even by Castlevania standards.

The game's story was also better than I expected, although I had low expectations on this front. There is a good deal of emotion carried across by the actors in certain scenes which I really liked. Although some scenes seemed to me to have no background noise, not music or even ambience, which is very strange and makes them feel a little more awkward.

One little thing I greatly appreciated was the super quick loading times, this is something that many people won't notice that improves the experience drastically.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game and think it lays down a solid foundation for a sequel, but it gives a medium budget feel with some jank and repetition. It is a worthwhile game for fans of Iga's Castlevania games as long as you can get it for a decent price.

an unforgiving masterpiece of making you lose time. you can't speed-up text in a decent way? who's the evil mastermind who design the 100% run requisites?

that's about it. best visual novel ever made

Tama is cute.

Nothing much to say about this one, Nero is too easy to use and maybe too serious for his own good, and Dante is quite amusing when he hits the scene, but it doesn't feel as good to play as Nero, given that he's not suited for the same copy-pasted stages and enemies. Maybe I don't enjoy the combat as much as other people, but it's short and fun enough. The Play3 era, when they were able to put a giant and clunky boss battle like Sanctus that gets pretty boring when you figure out the gimmick (maybe too many fucking gimmicks and puzzles).

I think I want to like Ghosthunter a lot more than I actually do. On a visual level the game rocks thanks to a great 2000's-era gothic look. Gameplay-wise its also really fun, blasting through various spooky locations as 2000's-era Brad Pitt. Its a real joy thanks to some snappy controls and memorable characters.

Its clear the game had a big attack of the budget though about half-way in as the game suddenly yanks all of the exploration away, yanks a lot of the intresting story beats and completely removes the hub-area and practically SPRINTS to the finish line and its such a jarring and unwelcome change of pace that it does spoil a lot of the experience. Its a crying shame given how good the first part of the game was.

When 'what games would you like to see remade' topics come up, this is always the game that comes to mind first. I don't think we need to see remakes of games that are already perfect or close, I'd rather see remakes of games like this - that have some great ideas and good things going for it but are held back by fixable things.

I really liked the cast, and the story was quite good, aided by worldbuilding and background lore that always got me more invested. The setting was interesting and atmospheric.

The battle system was a pretty big mess, and the difficulty was extremely inconsistent. This game has a breakable weapon system which I always find to be obnoxious and tedious to deal with.

It's a pipe dream but I really hope to see a remake someday, because the potential for an amazing game is clear.

Anybody that intends to play the Shadow Hearts series would do well to give this a look first if possible.