Look at all of you. Complaining about superfluous issues in your vidya. "Waaah, the story's unengaging! The aesthetics aren't as good as nocture/sj/whatever! They changed the gameplay! Too few save points! It looks ugly!" WHo fucking cares bro. This shit is the best playing megaten and it aint even fucking close. Does anything else really matter?

Perhaps blowing my load a little because I haven't fully completed it, but I think I can safely say this is the best game it probably could have been. Top notch gameplay, basically every change made to the battle system from 4 is objectively better (them removing smirk entirely, changing how light/dark attacks work, changes to buffs/debuffs, STATUS AILMENTS BEING ACTUALLY USEFUL).

And sure, maybe the story isn't as engaging as your personas and the like, but you know what this game has that those dont. Fucking cutscene direction. God, after playing FF10 and this I have no idea how the fuck people ever put up with peesona 5's decade long cutscenes of models standing there and doing absolutely nothing but a couple of stock animations. Jesus, jrpg fans have been putting up with that kind of shit for too long.

Anyway. Game's fun. Aesthetic's cool. Doi's design work has increased tenfold from 4a and SJR. I like running around the mountains collecting shit. Sidequests perfectly alleviate any need of grinding while giving you fun new content. Ratio. L. You fell off. Stan Bladee.

This game's really good. You don't need me to tell you that. Anyway I wanna talk about something more tangentially related now.

So there's been this weird movement in the zoomer parts of our culture that goes by a lot of names. Weirdcore. Dreamcore. Nostalgiacore. Internetcore. Traumacore? Bunch of dumb names for what's essentially the same thing. It's a certain visual and auditory aesthetic thats supposed to evoke a general feeling of wistful nostalgia. I first became aware of this because of the weird resurgences of a bunch of indie acts that were relevant 10 years ago suddenly making a weird resurgence. I can safely say I would not have predicted zoomers getting really into shit like Roar, Crystal Castles, Nero's Day at Disneyland, Blank Banshee, Life Without Buildings, fucking Goreshit. All these random bands who peaked in relevance a decade ago all of a sudden are showing up on all your art hoe former-tumblr playlists along with Jack Stauber and Lemon Demon (and also spefically Falling Down from the Undertale OST, that song really captivates these people)

I mention this because somehow the Yume Nikki ost has been caught up in this entire "movement". Those feeling depressed for the first time zoomers sure do enjoy commenting weird stuff about how this song makes them want to "lay down in an open field in the rain" on the comments of the Snow World music in between whatever the fuck else they do all day. Go on TikTok, I guess? At first I was gonna call it mildly annoying, but the more I see this stuff the more I'm weirdly captivated by it. It's like watching a bunch of sea monkeys. Like a more earnest version of the amazing cultural touchstone that was Simpsonwave (Not the first time the zoomers cared about blank banshee, ho ho).

Anyway, I don't really know what I'm getting at here. Something something youth something something back in my day something gatekeep. I can't really say any of this really reflects back on yume nikki, since I'm almost certain the weirdcore zoomers aren't actually playing it, but I guess it's cool this game still lives on in our current cultural zeitgeist, even if it has to be through Youtube playlists made by people who misuse the word "liminal" all the time.

They don't give money to people with a sense of humor anymore.

In modern day, a video game being endorsed by a celebrity can only mean one of two things: It's either a sports game or the worst piece of shovelware you've ever played. It's a shame! Just 30 years ago, a game being endorsed by a celebrity could mean one of three things: It's either a sports game, the worst piece of shovelware you're ever played, or the most batshit crazy thing ever designed.

The most obvious comparsion point would of course be The Ultimate Challenge from Beat Takeshi, as both are video games developed by comedians as essentially one big joke, but I think a more apt one would be Don't Buy This, a semi-obscure british pc game that was a collection of bad indie-developed games publisher Firebird was sent. All three of these, however, do have the same central thesis: This is all a joke. The key difference is who the joke is on; For Kitano, it's the poor shmuck who bought the game, for Firebird, it's the poor shmucks who developed those games in their homes, and for Penn and Teller, it's everyone.

Most obviously, it's a joke on your friends. The majority of these games solely exist to fuck with onlookers by way of convincing them that the game is a psychic, that they suck at video games, or just that your tv broke. Very cool how they implemented these through secret codes you would input, but they're more a novelty now than anything else, especially Sun Scorcher, which basically wouldn't work on any modern TV. They do at least come packaged with very entertaining FMV segments, so it's not a full bust even if you're playing them alone.

Then, you get to Desert Bus, the most infamous part of this package by a long margin, the ultimate video game simulation. Iconic, incredible, insane, it still stands as the greatest genre deconstruction in video game history. Just drive the fucking bus, dude. Finally, there's the title game, Smoke and Mirrors. While not as much of a punch in the face as Takeshi's offering (Nobody can beat the master), it's a very effective piece of "literally what the fuck is going on" platforming: Movesets barely make any sense, enemies and puzzles are frustrating, levels are designed like ass, about what you'd expect. Once again, the FMV is the real highlight, shout out to Lou Reed blowing Penn and Teller the fuck up in the impossible level, from one shit eater to another (Any Metal Machine Music fans in the audience tonight? I'm not one, I'm just curious).

Finally, in the most cosmically apt way possible, the ultimate prank was played on Penn and Teller themselves, as the company publishing the game went under right as the game was ready to ship, leaving it unreleased for 10 years until some journo who was sent a review copy leaked the rom online. It's as if some kind of divine intervention prevented them from pranking anyone, which in turn made the game the ultimate prank: Seeing as it's literally impossible to play the game now without knowing what you're getting into, it's only truly possible to prank yourself by playing it now. It's the embodiment of "Dead Dove, Do Not Eat".

Go fuck yourself.