A Cultura nerd precisa ser revisada.

É uma cultura que sequestra obras de arte em um culto egocentrico e excludente. Pessoas resgatam símbolos das obras para se identificarem e vão enaltecer aqeuelus que reconhecem esses símbolos, que conseguem ler as referências e se sentem superiores por conta disso, mais popularmente culturados.
Ready Player Fuck sequestra esses símbolos em uma sátira divertida, engraçada e que não se importa com propriedade intelectual. Usando esses símbolos para mostrar o quão tosco e sem noção é esse imaginário coletivo do nerd boomer, que adora essas imagens religiosamente.

sensações oníricas recortadas e verbalizadas em uma revista artesanal -- expondo aquilo que é "delicado", aquilo que é "íntimo", aquilo que pode até ser "cringe" se você se olhar numa posição pouco sensível, mesmo que em retrospecto da situação

a necessidade de se expor em relação à problemática do deslocamento interno, representado pelo sonho, me aproxima de uma introspecção um tanto mórbida e até bruta de certo modo -- não estou sabendo demais? e o que é o 'demais' pro ponto de expressão de uma obra de arte?

pequenos trechos pouco legíveis do texto e toda a estética visual das páginas da revista retornam essa brutalidade do texto com algum carinho -- essa exposição, crua e pouco espaçada, que assume a perdição do ego no sonho, no fim das contas, aprisiona e liberta as sensações oníricas, deixando-as se propagarem pelo nosso cerne -- do talvez à afirmação final, provavelmente a frase mais legível do jogo, livrando-nos da rejeição do cerne.

"Thanks to these eyes...I came to understand how cruel and despicable people can be. But that also allowed me to appreciate true beauty. All you have to do is appreciate things from a different perspective. Once I realised the things we take for granted are really miracles, I came to see everything in its precious, ephemeral beauty."


I've been battling depression and anxiety as far as my earliest memories of my life go, from before I even knew what depression and anxiety really were. If someone asked me for how long I'll struggle with them I wouldn't be able to answer either, since my battle with them didn't have a clear cut beginning nor will it likely ever have an ending until maybe my inevitable death. It's something that has taken root inside me, branded itself into my ego, & was akin to a ghost attacking me that I neither knew how to fight off or what it even was. When you're in that state at 10, 12, or 15, there isn't a lot of room for words like "us" or "we" since I could never bring myself to believe that someone else could be suffering from what I'm struggling with & thought it was the height of arrogance for someone to give me vapid sympathy. As such, over time, before I knew it, I had closed myself off, shot down my world to pieces, and ended its horizons at the narrowest point possible to protect myself from its misery. I began developing unhealthy coping mechanisms that follow the mindset mentioned above, like wearing headphones to isolate myself, intentionally drifting myself away from everyone around me, and putting on aggressive, unapproachable facades. All of this culminated in December of 2019, when the horrifying Covid pandemic happened and soon enough so did lockdown, marking the beginning of the 3 year long gruelling, exhausting journey I had to go through where, in the microscopic world I had built, I had to reevaluate who I am, reflect upon who I was, make an honest choice as to who I want to be and work towards how would I change into who I want to be. Full of relapses, huge milestones, and moments in-between where I clung for my life to stay on the uncertain path I chose, the journey I took led me to discovering many things about myself and my surroundings, and as I was expanding my tight world to fit more and more people in it, I ended up finding fictional stories and characters that represented me on a spiritual level and helped validate who I am and pushed me forward, one of them being TWEWY with Neku Sakuraba as the center of that piece.



Reading this, you might have already made the connection of why TWEWY connected with me so deeply, since its themes and main character embody my struggles to their bones, but I think what truly enabled me to connect so much with Neku isn’t just his struggles but the way they’re conveyed, his coping mechanisms, how he ended up finding solace, and how Shibuya, as a setting, was integrated into his character. Neku is an average edgy 15 year old on the surface, he doesn’t exactly have a tragic backstory that makes him the way he is, but a misguided admiration and interpretation of CAT’s artworks that gave his deepest insecurities validation and made him close himself off in ways that felt incredibly real to me. Much like how I do, Neku wears headphones to cut himself off from reality, avoid interactions with those around him, and goes on his own way to enjoy his own world by himself. It’s not a particularly unique trait since other mcs like Makoto Yuki and Ikari Shinji have it too, but it’s the emphasis on it and attention to detail that sets it apart from many displays of self isolation that mcs emit. I’m going to get into why it’s so unique later, but to dig into why I connected so much with Neku’s mindset, it’s because of the reasoning behind why he doesn’t accept the concept of friendships specifically. In week 1, Neku says he looks down on friendships as a concept because its a basic form of conformity where you pretend to agree with others to keep up appearances and lie to each other about disagreements, flaws and sides of yourself in response to Shiki. And the reason why that impacted me so much was because it was reminiscent of how I viewed much of my irl friendships, since much of them were with conservative extremists who had repulsive opinions that I couldn’t stand due to the country we all live in, but I went along well with them anyway and pretended to agree to get along well with them. Realizing this, I began questioning the value of my friendships and that’s why Neku’s arc struck such a deep chord inside me, helping me feel seen.


In my connection with Neku’s character and his journey towards salvation that was strikingly similar to my 3 year long journey, I was able to feel more content about myself and the insecurities that I felt back then and still feel to this day, and the more I progressed in the game, I began seeing more and more of myself in Neku’s way of breaking out of his shell. By engaging with the reapers’ game in Shibuya, hearing people’s thoughts, seeing their day to day life struggles, seeing them doubt themselves, push through their regrets, move forward, open up, and teaming up with Shiki, who helped him see that even someone as positive and bright as Shiki as a dark side to her, Joshua, someone who verbalized his isolationist mindsets, and Beat, someone who Neku was able to guide to the right path the same way Joshua and Shiki did, Neku was able to slowly but surely break out of his own shell and expand his own world as the holder of the chalk to his own blank canvas of a life, accepting the discontent of life and embracing the uncertainty of it all in the process as his greatest asset instead of a handicap.



As I mentioned before, the way Shibuya as a setting is integrated into Neku’s character is what sets him apart from other mcs, since by playing the reapers’ game Neku is forced to read people’s thoughts, and in doing this, Neku realized how small his world, his sacred garden, was compared to others, felt easier about the struggles he goes through since even the brightest souls like Shiki go through that struggle too, and started to feel less scared by the environment around him since it resembled pieces of him and familiarised himself with the mundane nature of Shibuya. By changing his perspective about the concept of betrayal and mistakes and how he views Shibuya, he managed to change how he views his own sacred garden, and in recognizing this, he no longer felt the need to cut himself off, because by opening up his sacred garden to others and seeing other people’s gardens, he might feel envy, jealousy, & self loathing, but he’ll also find more ways to rebuild his garden and make it into an ever most beautiful garden that shines brightly and brims with hope. It’s what makes the ending so poetic and ambiguous, because in failing to kill Joshua, an arguable mistake, Neku managed to pass the final exam, grow the most he ever has, and it reinforced to him the idea that mistakes, betrayals, and all the things we fear, are what will mould us the most and make us stronger.



This part of the game is why the final scene of the game means the world to me, since the headphones that Neku put on to cut himself off the world were no longer needed to conceal his garden, and in doing so Neku found solace in the simple monotonous act of walking by the streets of Shibuya and gazing at the people around him that he grew ever so familiar with. It feels incredibly inspiring and personal to me, since I used to use my headphones as an escapism method and my way of recovering from it was to take walks around my own city and interact with my surroundings in the most arbitrary, simplest ways to remind myself that the people around me are human, much like me, and I have no need to fear them anymore. By expanding his own world and opening up his horizons, Neku reminded me of a personal part of my life, and helped me feel seen and reflect upon who I once was.


Side note: a couple of things inspired this review so i wanna give them a quick mention, those being: Midrule's twewy review & Wentworth Miller's Goalcost speech. Thanks a lot to them I was able to get this review off quick, which probably has some grammer/spacing/spelling mistakes that i'll edit once i wake up.

To right the countless wrongs of our day, we shine this light of true redemption, that this place may become as paradise. What a wonderful world such would be...

I don't remember what my first exposure to The World Ends with You was, or when. For the longest time I thought it was this video but since replaying the game I'm no longer so sure, the date that video was uploaded is April 15th, 2019, but having combed through old Discord messages, I can see that I had played this game at least by March 14th. Regardless, what I do know is that one day, back in early 2019 I saw The World Ends with You: Final Remix on the shelf at EB Games, and having heard good things about the DS version I picked it up.

I was a lot like Neku, which isn't something I'm proud to admit. I had the same mindset of keeping people out, being unable to "get people", the whole nine yards. Although, maybe that was a learnt behaviour, when I was in high school the group of friends I hung out with had a big falling out and basically split in two overnight. I was told that this happened at my birthday party because I had invited people from both sides and most of them didn't show up or say anything to me. I haven't wanted to celebrate my birthday since.

"Trust your partner" are words spoken to Neku and echoed in his mind throughout the course of the entire game. To have to put your entire faith in someone for the sake of both of you, it's a big ask, and completely impossible with a mindset like that. Despite this, the game never presents Neku's mindset as wrong, instead it is presented as an unfulfilling and unnecessarily more challenging way of living, a key distinction in my mind. If you share Neku's sentiments about life and people you don't have to change, but you'd probably be better off if you did.

I don't think I really internalised these messages when I first played the game, but to be fair I was 17. I do know that I experienced the life changing affects of the game that everyone harps on about at that time, but I don't think I really changed as much as I could have, I don't think I wanted to.

And then I realised I was transgender.

"Listen up, Phones. The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go."

I don't think this is one of those cases where a piece of media causes someone to realise they're trans, although the timing of me playing The World Ends with You to me figuring it out is pretty close.

Suddenly, my world changed just as much as Neku's did except now I was a stranger in my own walled garden, I no longer understood myself, I hardly had a hope of understanding others. I started hormones on 10/09/19, and shortly after I found myself in a local community of trans people. I was pushing out my horizons just a little bit.

I tried to be just like them, talking about subjects I didn't really want to, forcing myself to the point of deluding myself into thinking I did. I was accepted, but only as an accidentally created artificial version of myself I had bludgeoned myself into thinking was who I really was. That I was "discovering" myself. It makes me sick to look back on. It didn't last and I was sinking back into my old mindset of asocial apathy, but at least it was actually me.

I met my girlfriend in this community, and her single influence on me has been more positive and influential for me than any sense of belonging derived from a community I didn't fit in with ever could be.

The World Begins with You

I completed work trainee-ships, I'm getting my life together (maybe only a little bit), and I feel better about myself, not because of a false self of belonging but from an internal sense of direction for my own life. I have hope and prospects for my future, and my ideals are clashing with the people I'm actually keeping around, and I'm letting people in, just a little. While it's true that it's not hard to understand people, it's impossible, I figure I still might as well try.

"Same streets, same crowds too. Yeah, Shibuya hasn't changed a bit, but still, I don't think I can forgive you yet. You don't see it, but, those few weeks were very hard for me. Learning to trust people, having that trust broken. Finding out the town I pegged as small, and stifling, and empty, wasn't any of those things. I'm glad I met you guys, you made me pick up on things I probably would've just gone on ignoring. Trust your partner, and I do. I can't forgive you, but I trust you. You took care of things right? Otherwise Shibuya would be gone, and my world with it. Hey, did I mention, I've got friends now! We're getting together for the first time in a week! See you there?"

Oh yeah btw the games good, the controls are kinda hard to get used to though, funnily enough I think being left handed like me makes the game easier. Fuck the final boss though I dropped my difficulty to easy cuz it just kills you in 4 hits.

Um mundo atípico em um romance igualmente atípico para um jogo completamente atípico. Original, marcante, envolvente e muito sensível. Desde sua mecânica de turnos em tempo real até sua trama e personagens envolventes, Super Giant e Amir nos entregam mais um contexto apocalíptico. Novamente vemos nossa realidade ser tomada por um tipo de praga, mas diferente de Bastion, esta é uma história de Romance.

E que belo romance. Aqui já vemos a sutileza com que a Super Giant desenvolve seus personagens, um carisma que cresce à medida que você joga e, ao final das 4 horinhas, nos apegamos muito a uma cantora sem voz e seu cavaleiro sem corpo.

O mais incrível neste jogo é sua metalinguagem sutil, que me fez sentir parte da aventura. Ver a realidade do jogo se deteriorando é entender que no fim de tudo, talvez não haja escapatória da realidade que eles estão vivendo. A luta então é encontrar essa alternativa, essa solução, mas o jogo e os personagens entendendo sua realidade, tomam suas decisões finais, o que é um belo desfecho romântico para um casal lindo. Me fez nunca mais querer abrir esse jogo, não quero que passem por tudo de novo.

Transistor é paixão em um mundo apocalíptico, traduzindo-se em um combate envolvente e um mundo incrível, visto por pequenas janelas que nos fazem pensar "o que há além?" Felizmente, o pouco que eu vi do além foi uma imagem final que me deixou, para além da curiosidade, lágrimas nos olhos.

Excelente.

9/10.

Truly gorgeous.
Absolute Great.

A experiência mais divertida e marcante que tive num jogo metroid.

O level design disso é sem duvida maravilhoso
A atmosfera pega legal até a região de burenia, depois desanda um tanto.
Num geral foi uma excelente experiência, o fator exploração me pegou demais, a progressão também se fez excepcional e somou com o bom gameplay.

Porém não gostei de 3 coisas.

A forma como o plot twist/explicação da trama acontece.
A droga do free aim e sua sensibilidade 1000
E a fase final.

I mean, it's almost as if they traveled forwards in time, read my review of the first game, saw the things I wished were improved, saw the things I didn't like, and just improved all of them.

The gameplay feels so much tighter than the first one, the graphics are frankly beautiful, the voice acting is better, even the story is better. My biggest issue with the first game's story was how generic it was due to it being so influential to future games. This game, while it still has some classic beats of detective thrillers and crime dramas, had a much more compelling and unique story. I was engaged the entire time.

This is also where you can start to really see the Remedy branding come in to play. The first game had a lot of features that are absolutely reminiscent of modern Remedy, but this is where you really see that flower blooming. Specifically, the various TV spots like Lords and Ladies and Address Unknown really add so much character, there are so many fun dream sequences/set pieces, and without spoiling anything, the Vincent Gognitti part screamed Remedy.

I described the first game as having a lot of potential to be one of my favorite games of all time if the remake irons out my issues with it. I dare say that Max Payne 2 COULD be on that favorites list, and I will say with certainty that it's going on my Honorable Mentions list as soon as I post this review.

Alguns diriam que a interação é o que define a mídia videogame, mas não somente a interação entre jogador e jogo, mas interpessoal, e dessa vez Keita Takahashi leva esses conceitos a outro nível.

No escuro da noite, um quadrado acorda sozinho e seus olhos buscam por alguma companhia, ao não encontrar nada, só lhe restou as lágrimas, que convenientemente trouxeram um grupo de... pedras? ao seu encontro. Eles se encaram, o quadrado estranha, mas estava ali a oportunidade de fazer um novo amigo.

E com isso você entende por quais meios o jogo quer passar, as interações entre os personagens fazem que coisas inesperadas aconteçam e novos amigos apareçam. Wattam tem é um jogo ingênuo, e ele tem consciência de que aborda as relações interpessoais de forma muito frontal, já que é um jogo feito para crianças, literalmente, o jogo foi feito pensado para os filhos de Keita e Asuka Takahashi.

Existem aqui até maneirismos de um soft building ala Hayao Miyazaki em não querer explicar muito de como as regras funcionam naquele mundo, nada disso importa no fim, o que importa é que estamos aqui e estamos juntos!

Por todas as coisas diferentes que Wattam faz eu fiquei muito feliz jogando, desde a surpresa de um combate até uma sessão de investigação, mas para além disso, terminei grato, grato por ter todos os amigos que tenho.

Incrivelmente interessante pra um gênero que eu não gosto. A habilidade de se movimentar, girar rapidamente para o inimigo e ficar parado no ar ao invés de estar sempre em trilhos tornam o jogo mais dinâmico e mais rico.

Ele consegue dar uma sensação de vôo livre em alguns momentos, apesar de ainda ter sua progressão em trilhos.

A trilha sonora também é excelente, e os valores de produção impressionantes. Há cenas em FMV com atores reais alterados por CGI misturados com efeitos práticos e figurino próprio que são de alta qualidade.

Não esperava me divertir tanto (enquanto durou).