Hattori
Yes, I am indeed one of those shmucks to whom the unique online experience provided by Journey not only worked for but deeply had an effect on that still resonates to this day, so the prospects of a new TGC game acting as a spiritual sequel to it and iterating upon the design philosophy that defined that game and its artistic recognition was all game for me.
Sky's biggest issue is its familiarity. The new coat of paint does not do enough to disguise how big of a shadow Journey casts over it. Not only conveying its aesthetic and narrative through the same devices and mechanics as its predecessor, it also ends up repeating many of Journey's most recognizable and memorable setpieces. What worked in Journey's more linear focused and intimate co-op design, now constantly disrupts the communial premise of Sky, frustratingly funneling you into a rollercoaster towards the finish line with obtrusive cutscenes that undercut whatever human connection you manage to build. The result: a very impressive looking game that in its attempt to outmatch Journey's holistic expression, ends up falling into the same trap so many of its copycats do.
Getting past that first impression is not an easy pill to swallow, but once Sky is no longer rushing you, a new game presents itself. Brimming with nooks and crannies and secret optional areas to find, Sky is a co-operative BOTW like experience of discovery unlike anything out there. The simple act of offering a candle to another player to be allowed to see their appearance and communicate with them alone invites interaction and dialogue, and with Journey's two player limit now gone, Sky is filled with players flying past and around you, ocasionally allowing for the small bit of limited interaction before parting ways never to be seen again. Finding myself holding hands with newbies to show them where to go, having the rare occasional small chat with people from different nationalities who speak in broken english, and demonstrating my gratitude towards a helpful hand by shooting fireworks around them, it becomes hard not to feel some speck of humanity twinge inside this decrepid jaded body.
It's a shame Sky feels the need to worship Journey so much, when its minimalist MMO design is more than enough to stand on its own, removing much of the excess I have so much trouble getting past in the genre. Spending hours with a group of strangers trying to open a door, filling up the time with whatever ways we could come up with to be entertained, only to be rewarded by one of the most underwhelming and yet hilarious secrets in the game, had me feeling a special sense of masochistic comradery, and as I watched each one of them say their goodbyes and part ways, knowing I would never see them again, I felt the same way I did when I missed the chance to reach out to that one stranger who died alongide me in Journey all those years ago. I made up my mind about Sky then.
Plus, hey, it's free.
Sky's biggest issue is its familiarity. The new coat of paint does not do enough to disguise how big of a shadow Journey casts over it. Not only conveying its aesthetic and narrative through the same devices and mechanics as its predecessor, it also ends up repeating many of Journey's most recognizable and memorable setpieces. What worked in Journey's more linear focused and intimate co-op design, now constantly disrupts the communial premise of Sky, frustratingly funneling you into a rollercoaster towards the finish line with obtrusive cutscenes that undercut whatever human connection you manage to build. The result: a very impressive looking game that in its attempt to outmatch Journey's holistic expression, ends up falling into the same trap so many of its copycats do.
Getting past that first impression is not an easy pill to swallow, but once Sky is no longer rushing you, a new game presents itself. Brimming with nooks and crannies and secret optional areas to find, Sky is a co-operative BOTW like experience of discovery unlike anything out there. The simple act of offering a candle to another player to be allowed to see their appearance and communicate with them alone invites interaction and dialogue, and with Journey's two player limit now gone, Sky is filled with players flying past and around you, ocasionally allowing for the small bit of limited interaction before parting ways never to be seen again. Finding myself holding hands with newbies to show them where to go, having the rare occasional small chat with people from different nationalities who speak in broken english, and demonstrating my gratitude towards a helpful hand by shooting fireworks around them, it becomes hard not to feel some speck of humanity twinge inside this decrepid jaded body.
It's a shame Sky feels the need to worship Journey so much, when its minimalist MMO design is more than enough to stand on its own, removing much of the excess I have so much trouble getting past in the genre. Spending hours with a group of strangers trying to open a door, filling up the time with whatever ways we could come up with to be entertained, only to be rewarded by one of the most underwhelming and yet hilarious secrets in the game, had me feeling a special sense of masochistic comradery, and as I watched each one of them say their goodbyes and part ways, knowing I would never see them again, I felt the same way I did when I missed the chance to reach out to that one stranger who died alongide me in Journey all those years ago. I made up my mind about Sky then.
Plus, hey, it's free.
1993
The original Shining Force is one of my favorite Mega Drive games, a wholesome comfort of an experience where you just let yourself get taken away by the colorful medieval fantasy setting, the tropey and silly storyline and the grind of the simple and entertaining strategic based combat. For some reason i never got around to finishing the 2nd one till now, which is usually touted as the best in the series. And yeah, it is pretty good.
Back again are the charming looking cartoony character designs that personify the world of Shining Force and its cast of protagonists that eagerly follow the call for adventure and embark on a quest to save the world from demonic threats, and so is the classic SRPG combat that sits nicely between something like Into the Breach's minimalistic precision and Disgaea's lavish grid grind.
In contrast to many of the genre's giants, I have always enjoyed Shining Force's focus on the transition from the abstracted 2D terrain grid to a cinematic and realistic point of view inbetween attacks where you get to witness the clash between your fully sized and animated character and his devilish looking opponent in a duel that last a couple of tense seconds, as you hope that the enemy doesn't avoid your attack or gets a chance at double damaging. It's always a rush, and SF2 continues with that presentation to great effect.
It is a bigger and longer game with an added emphasis on exploration not found in SF1 with a narrative that has you travelling various continents and kingdoms à la Final Fantasy. Which is something I'm not entirely sure I wanted out of Shining Force.
The added 10 hours just translate to more standard battles that rarely present standout encounters like the Laser Eye fight in SF1, and the extended runtime ends up exposing the simplicity of the narrative that has you sent in search of mcguffins and meandering plot points to fill up the hours, not helped by a very shoddy translation job. As a result, annoyances found also in SF1 present themselves here at a bigger scale, like having to watch every single enemy turn, even the ones that do nothing, dealing with unbalanced stats and level grinding, or listening to the same grating combat tunes.
It's a sequel in the most basic sense of being more of the original, and while I much prefer the short length and focus of SF1 and would have liked SF2 to reinvent and innovate more on it, it is still Shining Force, and that's very cool with me.
Back again are the charming looking cartoony character designs that personify the world of Shining Force and its cast of protagonists that eagerly follow the call for adventure and embark on a quest to save the world from demonic threats, and so is the classic SRPG combat that sits nicely between something like Into the Breach's minimalistic precision and Disgaea's lavish grid grind.
In contrast to many of the genre's giants, I have always enjoyed Shining Force's focus on the transition from the abstracted 2D terrain grid to a cinematic and realistic point of view inbetween attacks where you get to witness the clash between your fully sized and animated character and his devilish looking opponent in a duel that last a couple of tense seconds, as you hope that the enemy doesn't avoid your attack or gets a chance at double damaging. It's always a rush, and SF2 continues with that presentation to great effect.
It is a bigger and longer game with an added emphasis on exploration not found in SF1 with a narrative that has you travelling various continents and kingdoms à la Final Fantasy. Which is something I'm not entirely sure I wanted out of Shining Force.
The added 10 hours just translate to more standard battles that rarely present standout encounters like the Laser Eye fight in SF1, and the extended runtime ends up exposing the simplicity of the narrative that has you sent in search of mcguffins and meandering plot points to fill up the hours, not helped by a very shoddy translation job. As a result, annoyances found also in SF1 present themselves here at a bigger scale, like having to watch every single enemy turn, even the ones that do nothing, dealing with unbalanced stats and level grinding, or listening to the same grating combat tunes.
It's a sequel in the most basic sense of being more of the original, and while I much prefer the short length and focus of SF1 and would have liked SF2 to reinvent and innovate more on it, it is still Shining Force, and that's very cool with me.
2017
My sincerest apologies fellow Taro heads, but this is my favorite one. Nier Automata is the inevitable conclusion that the series has been working towards to, with the actors of the stage play set by its predecessors finally rebelling against the 4th wall and breaking past this ever beautiful aging artform we love. Videogame characters being aware that they are inside a videogame is nothing new, but Nier Automata masterfully utilizes ever interactive system, device, mechanic and language at its disposal to bring new life to this concept and create an incredible purposeful metanarrative that could only work within the limitations of the medium and nowhere else.
Utilizing videogame conventions and expectations to frame its story as one of existential crisis and nihilistic despair experienced by what could be the protagonists of any kind of shmup, a genre defined by its disregard for narrative context and its primordial struggle where the player throws themselves to death over and over again oblivious to such purpose, Automata pits its characters against the bleek reality devised for and enforced on them and instills a level of self awareness that brilliantly paints a baroque moving picture that paralels our own communial absurdity on this tiny rock floating in space. That same interactive narrative continues on outside of the 2D ships, where Drakengard 3's intertwining of violence with sexual drive is further expanded and improved upon in Automata through its combat design.
Just as the characters are built to derive pleasure from the killing, so too do we from the now immediate and highly satisfying stylish Platinum combat, and just as purpose and meaning starts to inevitably crumble in front of them, so too does the fighting quickly decline into Drakengard territory, as the non threatening and non hostile enemies fail to ilicit any desire for engagement. No better is this exemplified then by the shift from 2B's two weapon combo fare to 9S's stop and start combat that perfectly reflects his state of mind and increasing frustration that explodes at the tail end of the game. And at the peril of shooting myself in the foot and being sent to the internet gulags, even the much (deservedly so) maligned peek at 2B's undergarments ends up reinforcing through gameplay the protagonist's self awareness and rejection of player control.
Carrying on the post 9/11 sentiment of Nier, Automata from the outset presents "the Other" as the consequence and victim of an eternity of perpetual warfare born from a conflict that none of the current perpetrators remember or fight for, and through an engrossing narrative that constantly delivers devastating revelation after another that repeatedly shatter the character's sense of purpose and resolve, it takes the ethos of a greek tragedy and creates a fascinating dialogue between the player and the screen. Route B and C provide the best use of sequential playthroughs in the series that cleverly switch between numerous point of views and further hammers home the theatricality of the game's construct, with 9S especially being a standout case with his pechant for breaking the boundaries of the game with his 4th wall breaking quips and hacking mechanics that ultimately make him the most vulnerable to the reality of the fiction he lives in. A world screaming out of the edges of the monitor, trapped in a nightmare of their own making and restricted by our very own code.
And that finale. That fuckin finale. What a glorious and exuberant display of love and admiration for the power of videogames and its capability to unite the world with empathy and optimism through a beautiful message of perserverance and struggle that only this artform knows how to deliver. Constantly do I see Automata criticized for being filled with philosophy name drops and references, implying an "emperor has no clothes" sort of deal that aspires to a pretense at depth, an odd critique that I fail to understand when the game consistently mocks said name drops and references and doesn't treat that lack of subtlety in the same manner as something like MGSV did with Moby Dick or 1984. If after witnessing that ending, you still believe that the philosophy musings aren't just the coat of paint through which the world of Automata communicates its message and are instead the focal point of the game, you my friend, have missed the forest for the trees. And I love how Automata's callback to Nier's final sacrifice gains a new whole meaning by its more open optionality.
Could go on about the perfect use of dynamic soundtracking, the cohesive selection of side quests that explore the game's ideas from numerous angles and humorous vignettes, or the clever use of achievements, but I guess I just did so time to wrap it up. I'm sorry the normiecore took this franchise from you, I truly am. But you wanted a new MGS2, right? Well, you got it. This is it.
Utilizing videogame conventions and expectations to frame its story as one of existential crisis and nihilistic despair experienced by what could be the protagonists of any kind of shmup, a genre defined by its disregard for narrative context and its primordial struggle where the player throws themselves to death over and over again oblivious to such purpose, Automata pits its characters against the bleek reality devised for and enforced on them and instills a level of self awareness that brilliantly paints a baroque moving picture that paralels our own communial absurdity on this tiny rock floating in space. That same interactive narrative continues on outside of the 2D ships, where Drakengard 3's intertwining of violence with sexual drive is further expanded and improved upon in Automata through its combat design.
Just as the characters are built to derive pleasure from the killing, so too do we from the now immediate and highly satisfying stylish Platinum combat, and just as purpose and meaning starts to inevitably crumble in front of them, so too does the fighting quickly decline into Drakengard territory, as the non threatening and non hostile enemies fail to ilicit any desire for engagement. No better is this exemplified then by the shift from 2B's two weapon combo fare to 9S's stop and start combat that perfectly reflects his state of mind and increasing frustration that explodes at the tail end of the game. And at the peril of shooting myself in the foot and being sent to the internet gulags, even the much (deservedly so) maligned peek at 2B's undergarments ends up reinforcing through gameplay the protagonist's self awareness and rejection of player control.
Carrying on the post 9/11 sentiment of Nier, Automata from the outset presents "the Other" as the consequence and victim of an eternity of perpetual warfare born from a conflict that none of the current perpetrators remember or fight for, and through an engrossing narrative that constantly delivers devastating revelation after another that repeatedly shatter the character's sense of purpose and resolve, it takes the ethos of a greek tragedy and creates a fascinating dialogue between the player and the screen. Route B and C provide the best use of sequential playthroughs in the series that cleverly switch between numerous point of views and further hammers home the theatricality of the game's construct, with 9S especially being a standout case with his pechant for breaking the boundaries of the game with his 4th wall breaking quips and hacking mechanics that ultimately make him the most vulnerable to the reality of the fiction he lives in. A world screaming out of the edges of the monitor, trapped in a nightmare of their own making and restricted by our very own code.
And that finale. That fuckin finale. What a glorious and exuberant display of love and admiration for the power of videogames and its capability to unite the world with empathy and optimism through a beautiful message of perserverance and struggle that only this artform knows how to deliver. Constantly do I see Automata criticized for being filled with philosophy name drops and references, implying an "emperor has no clothes" sort of deal that aspires to a pretense at depth, an odd critique that I fail to understand when the game consistently mocks said name drops and references and doesn't treat that lack of subtlety in the same manner as something like MGSV did with Moby Dick or 1984. If after witnessing that ending, you still believe that the philosophy musings aren't just the coat of paint through which the world of Automata communicates its message and are instead the focal point of the game, you my friend, have missed the forest for the trees. And I love how Automata's callback to Nier's final sacrifice gains a new whole meaning by its more open optionality.
Could go on about the perfect use of dynamic soundtracking, the cohesive selection of side quests that explore the game's ideas from numerous angles and humorous vignettes, or the clever use of achievements, but I guess I just did so time to wrap it up. I'm sorry the normiecore took this franchise from you, I truly am. But you wanted a new MGS2, right? Well, you got it. This is it.
2013
If it weren’t for the dreadful performance issues and the prior knowledge of who was at the helm of this project, I would have had a hard time differentiating Drakengard 3 from the countless mid budget Japanese games that populated the 7th gen. It is kinda fitting, and in some ways admirable, that a game coming at the very tail end of the ps3 lifespan, a console notorious for lowering the bar for acceptable framerate and optimization, would achieve the worst performance that ever graced the cell processor. But take away the obvious elephant in the room, and Drakengard 3 is actually a pretty serviceable and enjoyable hack n’ slash that hardly inherits the DNA from its predecessors.
Drakengard 3 carries itself with a whiff of resignation from the outset, an apathetic conformity to the whims of an industry that was slogging on forward to its demise, long after Nier’s final gasp for air. The world didn’t really care for what Drakengard 1 had to say, and while I don’t think Yoko Taro ever expected it to listen, Drakengard 3 is his most indifferent and defeatist work, with a constant self awareness that points out the absurdism of videogames, without ever trying to engage with it for most of the runtime, and while I am certain that the terrible performance issues are just a symptom of rushed development and a nonexistent budget, the 10 FPS drops do lend a certain intentional hilarity to the game at the player’s expense.
Despite not reveling in the misery porn of Drakengard 1, it somehow manages to be an even uglier game, in all senses of the word. The cast gleefully express from the get-go their propensity for violence and murder for comedic effect, the character designs are bloated with generic anime-isms and garish colors that clash with the medieval tone of the environments, the combat is now sufferable and standard musou fare that no longer provides the unique boredom present in Drakengard 1, filling the screen with shallow stylized blood splatter and DMC combos, and the game manages to be unpleasant in wholly new ways thanks to a plethora of explicit and depraved sexual innuendos that decorate most of the script. And yet Yoko Taro manages to find some life in this corpse of a videogame.
In contrast to Drakengard 1, the more you play, the more the game is willing to open a breach and extend its hand to you, regardless of how restrictive its polygon walls can be, and the jaded psychotic nature of its characters manage to somehow open up to reveal a sad, broken world pleading for death and change, of any kind. Even if the only language these characters can speak through are murder and sexual desire, they have the power to change the status quo, no matter how childish and naive that sentiment might be or how badly the cards they have been dealt are. And once again, Drakengard asks that you drop your weapons and everything you learned thus far, devote yourself and your time to its insanity, and struggle through one of the most infuriating and mesmerizing final bosses ever conceived. Bashing your head into a wall to the point of despair and defeat might not seem like the optimal way to communicate such messages, but like one character says after sacrificing itself in a bout of inspiration: “This was more human, wasn’t it?”
Drakengard 3 to me is Yoko Taro’s most impenetrable work, and a big part of it is due to the baffling decision to spread a lot of backstory and lore that drastically changes interpretation of the source material through a bunch of paid DLC, novellas and mangas, context that should have definitely been present in the game itself and would have made this a much more accessible and comprehensible entry in his Drakengard oeuvre. A lot of the ideas from Automata seem to have been conceptualized here first, such as being trapped in an endless death and rebirth cycle of bloodshed, a near impossible final boss that has you fighting against the game itself, or a meta-textual force interfering with the outcome of the story, and it functions like an inevitable bridge between Nier’s sorrowful epipath and Nier Automata’s existential rebellion. Drakengard 3 is the perfect 7th gen game, both a symptom of and a response to the dark age of japanese videogames. It just embodies that ethos a bit too much for its own good sometimes.
And yeah, this review was just an excuse to say I beat the Final Song. I did it. It took me 5+ hours to do it, but I fucking did it, and I did it without syncing the game to no video guide either. Hitting that final invisible note by pure intuition after going through hell is the most beautiful thing ever in videogames, and I’m so glad I never have to go through it again.
Drakengard 3 carries itself with a whiff of resignation from the outset, an apathetic conformity to the whims of an industry that was slogging on forward to its demise, long after Nier’s final gasp for air. The world didn’t really care for what Drakengard 1 had to say, and while I don’t think Yoko Taro ever expected it to listen, Drakengard 3 is his most indifferent and defeatist work, with a constant self awareness that points out the absurdism of videogames, without ever trying to engage with it for most of the runtime, and while I am certain that the terrible performance issues are just a symptom of rushed development and a nonexistent budget, the 10 FPS drops do lend a certain intentional hilarity to the game at the player’s expense.
Despite not reveling in the misery porn of Drakengard 1, it somehow manages to be an even uglier game, in all senses of the word. The cast gleefully express from the get-go their propensity for violence and murder for comedic effect, the character designs are bloated with generic anime-isms and garish colors that clash with the medieval tone of the environments, the combat is now sufferable and standard musou fare that no longer provides the unique boredom present in Drakengard 1, filling the screen with shallow stylized blood splatter and DMC combos, and the game manages to be unpleasant in wholly new ways thanks to a plethora of explicit and depraved sexual innuendos that decorate most of the script. And yet Yoko Taro manages to find some life in this corpse of a videogame.
In contrast to Drakengard 1, the more you play, the more the game is willing to open a breach and extend its hand to you, regardless of how restrictive its polygon walls can be, and the jaded psychotic nature of its characters manage to somehow open up to reveal a sad, broken world pleading for death and change, of any kind. Even if the only language these characters can speak through are murder and sexual desire, they have the power to change the status quo, no matter how childish and naive that sentiment might be or how badly the cards they have been dealt are. And once again, Drakengard asks that you drop your weapons and everything you learned thus far, devote yourself and your time to its insanity, and struggle through one of the most infuriating and mesmerizing final bosses ever conceived. Bashing your head into a wall to the point of despair and defeat might not seem like the optimal way to communicate such messages, but like one character says after sacrificing itself in a bout of inspiration: “This was more human, wasn’t it?”
Drakengard 3 to me is Yoko Taro’s most impenetrable work, and a big part of it is due to the baffling decision to spread a lot of backstory and lore that drastically changes interpretation of the source material through a bunch of paid DLC, novellas and mangas, context that should have definitely been present in the game itself and would have made this a much more accessible and comprehensible entry in his Drakengard oeuvre. A lot of the ideas from Automata seem to have been conceptualized here first, such as being trapped in an endless death and rebirth cycle of bloodshed, a near impossible final boss that has you fighting against the game itself, or a meta-textual force interfering with the outcome of the story, and it functions like an inevitable bridge between Nier’s sorrowful epipath and Nier Automata’s existential rebellion. Drakengard 3 is the perfect 7th gen game, both a symptom of and a response to the dark age of japanese videogames. It just embodies that ethos a bit too much for its own good sometimes.
And yeah, this review was just an excuse to say I beat the Final Song. I did it. It took me 5+ hours to do it, but I fucking did it, and I did it without syncing the game to no video guide either. Hitting that final invisible note by pure intuition after going through hell is the most beautiful thing ever in videogames, and I’m so glad I never have to go through it again.
2010
Not much to say about Nier that hasn't been said countless times before. A beacon of shining light that managed to cut through a miasma of western blockbuster homogenization that was destroying Japan's videogame landscape, just by virtue of being unabashedly japanese and wearing its influences on its sleeve.
While Drakengard was a cynical product conceived out of contempt for the regressive state of videogames and created within the constraints of a marketeable Square Enix work, Nier was the opportunity for Yoko Taro and his team to create the sincere game they always wanted to make and that represented their aspirations for the interactive medium. And how beautiful of a message it was for a studio on its dying breath to make.
Shifting the detached and voyeuristic point of view from Drakengard to a much more intimate and empathetic one, Nier gives us now the chance to relate and sympathize with the broken and damaged characters of this universe, who despite the cards they were dealt with, strive to make the right decision in a world that constantly beats them down and prevents them from doing so. One of the greatest qualities of Nier is its willingness to have its cast of characters be placed in situations of emotional vulnerability and letting us sit down with them as they cry their guts out, which is something you hardly see games having the courage and honesty to do so.
I'm not sure how instrumental Nier was in the resurgence of japanese videogames era we are going through right now, but Yoko Taro managed to prove that it doesn't take a multi million dollar budget or expertise game design to provide an experience that transcends what had come before it. Nier is a game filled with outdated side quests, redundant backtracking and tedious item collecting, all glued together into a package that always seems on the verge of breaking at the seams. But it honestly doesn't matter and I don't care.
Yoko Taro put his money where his mouth is and responded to his own critique imposed by Drakengard with a genuine and compassionate work that simultaniously demonstrates what videogames are capable of when not catered to their most primal instincts, while also being proud of its inheritance and speaking through the language that its inspirations used before it, culminating in one of the greatest endings in videogame history where the player willingly sacrifices a tangible and real possession in service of a fictional character who you have grown to care for.
And yeah, having one of the best soundtracks of all time doesn't hurt either. Abuse that Emil-Sacrifice theme all you want, game. I'll gladly curl into a ball and weep everytime.
While Drakengard was a cynical product conceived out of contempt for the regressive state of videogames and created within the constraints of a marketeable Square Enix work, Nier was the opportunity for Yoko Taro and his team to create the sincere game they always wanted to make and that represented their aspirations for the interactive medium. And how beautiful of a message it was for a studio on its dying breath to make.
Shifting the detached and voyeuristic point of view from Drakengard to a much more intimate and empathetic one, Nier gives us now the chance to relate and sympathize with the broken and damaged characters of this universe, who despite the cards they were dealt with, strive to make the right decision in a world that constantly beats them down and prevents them from doing so. One of the greatest qualities of Nier is its willingness to have its cast of characters be placed in situations of emotional vulnerability and letting us sit down with them as they cry their guts out, which is something you hardly see games having the courage and honesty to do so.
I'm not sure how instrumental Nier was in the resurgence of japanese videogames era we are going through right now, but Yoko Taro managed to prove that it doesn't take a multi million dollar budget or expertise game design to provide an experience that transcends what had come before it. Nier is a game filled with outdated side quests, redundant backtracking and tedious item collecting, all glued together into a package that always seems on the verge of breaking at the seams. But it honestly doesn't matter and I don't care.
Yoko Taro put his money where his mouth is and responded to his own critique imposed by Drakengard with a genuine and compassionate work that simultaniously demonstrates what videogames are capable of when not catered to their most primal instincts, while also being proud of its inheritance and speaking through the language that its inspirations used before it, culminating in one of the greatest endings in videogame history where the player willingly sacrifices a tangible and real possession in service of a fictional character who you have grown to care for.
And yeah, having one of the best soundtracks of all time doesn't hurt either. Abuse that Emil-Sacrifice theme all you want, game. I'll gladly curl into a ball and weep everytime.
2003
My first exposure to Drakengard was watching a LP on youtube to catch up with the series in preparation for Nier Automata. I sat there fast forwarding the missions until the cutscenes came up, chuckling at the overacting done by the cardboard characters, and finding some brief amusement as the plot got progressively more fucked up, culminating in a "I get it" from me and moving on with my day. Turns out that, no, I didn't get it. Unless you actually sit down and go through with it, you have no idea how life draining and excrutiating this shit can get.
From the moment you first swing your sword at the endless spawning enemy soldiers in a wasteland of early ps2 environments and you feel how kinesthetically unpleasant it is to control Caim, you have at that point every reason in the world to shut off the game and never pick it up again. What follows from then on is one of the bitterest and most incisive condemnations of the videogame industry and its propensity for using violence as its main language. After spending 20 minutes boringly killing hundreds of enemies for no seemingly apparent reason, and having characters off screen constantly chastising and belitlling you in disgust, while a cacophony of classical symphony samples assault your ears, it honestly doesn't get any better.
You are then greeted by the most bizarre set of cutscenes that have the characters wallowing in self pity and agony, with a bird's eye view camera that never allows us any chance to sympathize or get comfortable with these muppets. The main character even has his ability to speak taken away, giving him no concrete way to express himself other than murder and gladly passing that torch to the player. As I finally completed the story by killing a giant possessed kid after a slog of grinding and repetitive sword slashing, I was more than happy to have my Drakengard experience over with. But 4 endings remain, the game taunts me.
Subjecting yourself to more of Drakengard, the story does indeed open up itself to reveal more. And what it reveals is even more despair and bloodshed. Searching for answers and a better resolution, what you get instead is your allies sharing the gruesome skeletons in their closets, the inescapeable truth of Caim's lust for violence, and the total annihilation of humanity in every shape or form possible. Shit, I'm playing Undertale before Undertale was even a thing.
These characters are forever trapped in this universe conceived purely for eternal war and death, it's no wonder that they are all mentally scarred and can only express themselves through senseless violence and the abuse of others, what can you expect them to do when these are the walls we devised for them? It's only fitting and brilliant then that at the end of it all the universe of Drakengard has no other way of resolving itself besides breaking through our own world to fight a ridiculously challenging final boss that in no way resembles any of the mechanics we spent the last 30 hours wrestling with, only to get annihilated by the people and machines that would have the capacity to create a game such as this one.
What's disturbing is that you eventually learn to compromise with Drakengard. You quickly figure out that you can ignore 90% of the enemies and just dash for the actual targets and you fall into a senseless stupor of boredom that allows you to disengage from the grind. And maybe that's part of its point, but I do wish it was more excrutiating and near impossible to beat. Or maybe i'm just fucked up, who knows. It's one of the best examples I have seen of consolidating a message of anti-violence with the actual act of playing, a narrative that is only fully conveyed if you are the one actually behind the controller. I just don't want to ever play it again, and if you are to get anything out of this review, is that you shouldn't either. Watch a LP.
P.S.: The true horror of Drakengard is coming to the realization that somewhere out there is someone that truly enjoys the ground combat for what it is and isn't remotely aware of the message the game. I shudder at the thought of it.
From the moment you first swing your sword at the endless spawning enemy soldiers in a wasteland of early ps2 environments and you feel how kinesthetically unpleasant it is to control Caim, you have at that point every reason in the world to shut off the game and never pick it up again. What follows from then on is one of the bitterest and most incisive condemnations of the videogame industry and its propensity for using violence as its main language. After spending 20 minutes boringly killing hundreds of enemies for no seemingly apparent reason, and having characters off screen constantly chastising and belitlling you in disgust, while a cacophony of classical symphony samples assault your ears, it honestly doesn't get any better.
You are then greeted by the most bizarre set of cutscenes that have the characters wallowing in self pity and agony, with a bird's eye view camera that never allows us any chance to sympathize or get comfortable with these muppets. The main character even has his ability to speak taken away, giving him no concrete way to express himself other than murder and gladly passing that torch to the player. As I finally completed the story by killing a giant possessed kid after a slog of grinding and repetitive sword slashing, I was more than happy to have my Drakengard experience over with. But 4 endings remain, the game taunts me.
Subjecting yourself to more of Drakengard, the story does indeed open up itself to reveal more. And what it reveals is even more despair and bloodshed. Searching for answers and a better resolution, what you get instead is your allies sharing the gruesome skeletons in their closets, the inescapeable truth of Caim's lust for violence, and the total annihilation of humanity in every shape or form possible. Shit, I'm playing Undertale before Undertale was even a thing.
These characters are forever trapped in this universe conceived purely for eternal war and death, it's no wonder that they are all mentally scarred and can only express themselves through senseless violence and the abuse of others, what can you expect them to do when these are the walls we devised for them? It's only fitting and brilliant then that at the end of it all the universe of Drakengard has no other way of resolving itself besides breaking through our own world to fight a ridiculously challenging final boss that in no way resembles any of the mechanics we spent the last 30 hours wrestling with, only to get annihilated by the people and machines that would have the capacity to create a game such as this one.
What's disturbing is that you eventually learn to compromise with Drakengard. You quickly figure out that you can ignore 90% of the enemies and just dash for the actual targets and you fall into a senseless stupor of boredom that allows you to disengage from the grind. And maybe that's part of its point, but I do wish it was more excrutiating and near impossible to beat. Or maybe i'm just fucked up, who knows. It's one of the best examples I have seen of consolidating a message of anti-violence with the actual act of playing, a narrative that is only fully conveyed if you are the one actually behind the controller. I just don't want to ever play it again, and if you are to get anything out of this review, is that you shouldn't either. Watch a LP.
P.S.: The true horror of Drakengard is coming to the realization that somewhere out there is someone that truly enjoys the ground combat for what it is and isn't remotely aware of the message the game. I shudder at the thought of it.
2004
I would have a hard time coming up with a solid list of games I would consider to have absolute perfect game design, but I know for sure Katamari Damacy would be on there. Despite how antithetical Katamari Damacy may feel to our collective perceived notions of videogame conventions and norms, Keita Takahashi still managed to tap into that same escapism primeval soup that characterizes so many of our favorite games, abstracting its violence to a family friendly degree while maintaining its appeal and utilizing it to create one of the most cathartic power fantasies in the medium.
What’s truly brilliant about KD is how much of its chaotic and free form nature ends up dictating its narrow and tightly focused design by default without resorting to any hand holding or pushing the player in any particular direction beyond the main premise of rolling a ball over stuff to make it bigger. Its progression naturally unfolds before you, as you increase the scope of your katamari and more things become available to be consumed by it, immediately a consequence of every choice the player makes in their unconscious toddler rampage. And whatever frustration that might arise from its more clunky mechanics and physics is quickly subverted when you finally get big enough to roll over that annoying bear that would always stop you on your tracks.
Funny then how that stroke of incredible originality and genius seems to have sparked by mere accident from just approaching video games from an outside perspective and being dissatisfied with the industry’s modus operandi and never taking itself too seriously. The final stage that beautifully represents the apex of the experience unveils the artifice of the game in its final moments, showing that you have been playing in a playground all along, and that recess time is over, the self indulgence was fun. Pardon my boomer-ism, but it’s a major bummer that we probably will never return to an age like the PS2 gen where people like Keita Takahashi get the opportunity to take the wheel and produce a unique title like this one that sits nicely next to its big budget pals.
It might come across as corny or histrionic of me, but the feeling I get while playing Katamari Damacy is one of love. This is a labor of love, a life affirming appreciation of all things that encompasses our planet, and while it does have something to say about consumerism or capitalism, it does it in a humorous and non condemning way in the same vein as Jacques Tati would with his films and without ever sacrificing the joy of rolling up everything on sight as people scream and a cheerful jazzy song plays in the background. Katamari Damacy is above analysis or interpretation, it is an achievement of ludology, up there with the likes of Tetris, and you don’t have to question where the art is because you can see it right in front of you, and you can play it. Truly a lonely rolling star in a sky filled with static dust.
What’s truly brilliant about KD is how much of its chaotic and free form nature ends up dictating its narrow and tightly focused design by default without resorting to any hand holding or pushing the player in any particular direction beyond the main premise of rolling a ball over stuff to make it bigger. Its progression naturally unfolds before you, as you increase the scope of your katamari and more things become available to be consumed by it, immediately a consequence of every choice the player makes in their unconscious toddler rampage. And whatever frustration that might arise from its more clunky mechanics and physics is quickly subverted when you finally get big enough to roll over that annoying bear that would always stop you on your tracks.
Funny then how that stroke of incredible originality and genius seems to have sparked by mere accident from just approaching video games from an outside perspective and being dissatisfied with the industry’s modus operandi and never taking itself too seriously. The final stage that beautifully represents the apex of the experience unveils the artifice of the game in its final moments, showing that you have been playing in a playground all along, and that recess time is over, the self indulgence was fun. Pardon my boomer-ism, but it’s a major bummer that we probably will never return to an age like the PS2 gen where people like Keita Takahashi get the opportunity to take the wheel and produce a unique title like this one that sits nicely next to its big budget pals.
It might come across as corny or histrionic of me, but the feeling I get while playing Katamari Damacy is one of love. This is a labor of love, a life affirming appreciation of all things that encompasses our planet, and while it does have something to say about consumerism or capitalism, it does it in a humorous and non condemning way in the same vein as Jacques Tati would with his films and without ever sacrificing the joy of rolling up everything on sight as people scream and a cheerful jazzy song plays in the background. Katamari Damacy is above analysis or interpretation, it is an achievement of ludology, up there with the likes of Tetris, and you don’t have to question where the art is because you can see it right in front of you, and you can play it. Truly a lonely rolling star in a sky filled with static dust.
We didn't know how good we had it when Silent Hill 4 was considered the worst entry in the series, did we? And I get it, gone are the iconic dark hallways and rooms lit by your meek flashlight, now there's a bigger emphasis on combat with wonkier controls than ever, you have to constantly deal with invincible enemies that pursue you through long stretches of the game, item management is now a centerpiece of progression that forces you to backtrack frequently, and to top it all off, the game commits the cardinal sin of turning half of its runtime into an escort mission with a frustrating AI through levels you have already been through. But goddammit, is that what makes it so compelling.
Conditioning the player to feel a sense of relief and security during their time spent in the titular room inbetween the intenionally unpleasant and "not fun" levels, only to eventually pull the rug out of their feet is what makes SH4 brilliant and a success of horror game design. The player gladly takes any invitation from the game to return back to the room, away from the outside world with its unwieldy and untamable third person camera, if only to get their health replenished back and take a quick breather, where they quickly establish a routine of menial tasks removed from any kind of danger, sheltered by the non hostile 1st person view.
And many years before Yurt or Lautrec defiled our Nexus and Firelink Shrine havens, our perceptions and understanding of how hub worlds and save areas should work in videogames is betrayed and weaponized against us. We perceive our small houses and bedrooms to be the one corner in this world where we get to be ourselves truly and safe from any outside social anxieties that could harm that well being, and having those walls turn against your isolation and loneliness is a very real threat that i'm sure many have felt in some shape or form. SH4 being able to explore that dread and horror through the language of safe spaces in videogames is nothing short of genius and what makes this entry in the franchise wholly unique.
With the introduction at the halfway point of a NPC that requires your constant protection from more powerful and invincible enemies, along with the sudden predatory shift the room takes, SH4 ramps up the anxiety with all those at first dubious design choices previously mentioned working in tandem to create a highly stressful dynamic between the outside world and the apartment. And while the hauntings eventually become an easy threat to deal with, the damage is already done, the room is no longer the same and that sense of respite you learned to cherish each time you found yourself inside those 4 walls is long gone. The Silent Hill franchise has always been very interested in our relationship with setting and spaces and the horror we can bring out of or into it, but it wasn't until SH4 when that concept was fully explored through the strengths of the medium.
Even disregarding SH4's strongest aspects, its world still manages to captivate just as its predecessors did, with nightmare inducing settings and monsters that provide some of the best scares in the series. The literalization of confinement and entrapment from the outside world through gameplay lends itself to numerous readings and interpretations of our innate desire for human contact and vouyeristic curiosity, despite how much we might intentionally or not struggle to fight against it, and the villain's bitter and cynical childlike propensity for violence provides a great foil and parallel to Henry's ubiquitous passive blank slate posture that we are meant to self insert into. I've always found interesting how Henry doesn't try to call Eileen through the peephole. She probably wouldn't hear him, but he doesn't even try, why is that?
Sure, it lacks the level of polish its predecessors enjoyed and there's no way for me to defend the nurses burping their way down the stairs, but Silent Hill 4 stands tall in the ps2 trilogy, and is a fitting endcap to Team Silent's stamp in the survival horror genre that, unfortunately, won't be topped anytime soon.
Conditioning the player to feel a sense of relief and security during their time spent in the titular room inbetween the intenionally unpleasant and "not fun" levels, only to eventually pull the rug out of their feet is what makes SH4 brilliant and a success of horror game design. The player gladly takes any invitation from the game to return back to the room, away from the outside world with its unwieldy and untamable third person camera, if only to get their health replenished back and take a quick breather, where they quickly establish a routine of menial tasks removed from any kind of danger, sheltered by the non hostile 1st person view.
And many years before Yurt or Lautrec defiled our Nexus and Firelink Shrine havens, our perceptions and understanding of how hub worlds and save areas should work in videogames is betrayed and weaponized against us. We perceive our small houses and bedrooms to be the one corner in this world where we get to be ourselves truly and safe from any outside social anxieties that could harm that well being, and having those walls turn against your isolation and loneliness is a very real threat that i'm sure many have felt in some shape or form. SH4 being able to explore that dread and horror through the language of safe spaces in videogames is nothing short of genius and what makes this entry in the franchise wholly unique.
With the introduction at the halfway point of a NPC that requires your constant protection from more powerful and invincible enemies, along with the sudden predatory shift the room takes, SH4 ramps up the anxiety with all those at first dubious design choices previously mentioned working in tandem to create a highly stressful dynamic between the outside world and the apartment. And while the hauntings eventually become an easy threat to deal with, the damage is already done, the room is no longer the same and that sense of respite you learned to cherish each time you found yourself inside those 4 walls is long gone. The Silent Hill franchise has always been very interested in our relationship with setting and spaces and the horror we can bring out of or into it, but it wasn't until SH4 when that concept was fully explored through the strengths of the medium.
Even disregarding SH4's strongest aspects, its world still manages to captivate just as its predecessors did, with nightmare inducing settings and monsters that provide some of the best scares in the series. The literalization of confinement and entrapment from the outside world through gameplay lends itself to numerous readings and interpretations of our innate desire for human contact and vouyeristic curiosity, despite how much we might intentionally or not struggle to fight against it, and the villain's bitter and cynical childlike propensity for violence provides a great foil and parallel to Henry's ubiquitous passive blank slate posture that we are meant to self insert into. I've always found interesting how Henry doesn't try to call Eileen through the peephole. She probably wouldn't hear him, but he doesn't even try, why is that?
Sure, it lacks the level of polish its predecessors enjoyed and there's no way for me to defend the nurses burping their way down the stairs, but Silent Hill 4 stands tall in the ps2 trilogy, and is a fitting endcap to Team Silent's stamp in the survival horror genre that, unfortunately, won't be topped anytime soon.
2003
Now that the franchise is plagued with a bunch of Silent Hill 2 imitators, it's striking and quaint to see how quickly its direct sequel distanced itself from many of SH2's touted hallmarks that seemed like the success formula to exploit from then on. Silent Hill 3 doesn't waste much time with preambles, knowing already what you came here to see, and presents itself as the most predatory entry in the series, with highly aggressive and pursuing enemies, unlike the more passive and slow moving foes of SH1 and SH2, a very limited item and ammo count that forces you into a constant fight-or-flight response state that wasn't present in the series before, and more expansive and disorienting spaces to trudge through that more often than not have you staring into deep darkness as you scramble for a way out with monsters bitting at your heels.
Silent Hill 3 takes the unrelenting nature of the Historical Society stretch in SH2 and extends it into a full game. The Otherworld is ramped up even further as one of the most nightmarish settings every produced in videogames, filling it with bloody and rusty metal, grotesque disfigured monsters, dream-like disturbing visions, and disquieting noises that constantly make you feel like something is about to come out of the walls. The soundscape of SH3 might be Yamaoka's best work in the series, shifting the indiferent and somber tone of the previous entries into a much more hostile and invanding presence that assaults your ears constantly. Of the trilogy, SH3 is without a doubt the deliberately scariest one of the bunch, and bluntly makes its case as to not be fucked around it.
Which is why it's fascinating how much the main protagonist undercuts that vicious horror with her disinterested personality and musings on the whole ordeal. Beyond having a natural knack for making every interaction with the antagonists feel like a sitcom during cutscenes, Heather's charismatic remarks and quips during exploration create a certain detachment between her and the player's control, that wasn't as present in Harry's passive voyeurism or Jame's ambivalent resignation. SH3 puts tremendous effort in its oppression of the player, and yet Heather ain't having none of that shit. It's easy to understand why SH3 doesn't enjoy the same prestige and adoration that its prequel does, and I can't really blame people for that. SH2 interweaves both text and subtext so seamlessly that interpretation becomes highly accessible for anyone who experiences it, unlike SH3's more metatextual concepts that can easily be ignored if you just take the plot at face value.
But if your take away after playing the whole game, and witnessing Heather abort a God inside a church at the end, is that Silent Hill 3 disappointingly doesn't contain psychological horror and is just another devil cult story with little substance, then I'm afraid you missed the forest for the trees. There's an ever present underlying theme that permeates most of SH3 of imposed expectations of young women, that extends beyond its devil cult plot and impregnates with meaning the institutionalized settings of the game and its towering and stalking monsters that constantly harrass Heather. And having such an ubiquitous character push back the assaulting nature of SH3, mocking and making light of its villains, and in the process the Silent Hill concept itself, makes for a very refreshing and compelling subversion of what came before it.
We will never know what Silent Hill 3 could have been if it had gone the same route as Silent Hill 2. Hell, we will never know what it could have been if it had been a rail shooter, like intended. But this is the Silent Hill 3 we got, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Silent Hill 3 takes the unrelenting nature of the Historical Society stretch in SH2 and extends it into a full game. The Otherworld is ramped up even further as one of the most nightmarish settings every produced in videogames, filling it with bloody and rusty metal, grotesque disfigured monsters, dream-like disturbing visions, and disquieting noises that constantly make you feel like something is about to come out of the walls. The soundscape of SH3 might be Yamaoka's best work in the series, shifting the indiferent and somber tone of the previous entries into a much more hostile and invanding presence that assaults your ears constantly. Of the trilogy, SH3 is without a doubt the deliberately scariest one of the bunch, and bluntly makes its case as to not be fucked around it.
Which is why it's fascinating how much the main protagonist undercuts that vicious horror with her disinterested personality and musings on the whole ordeal. Beyond having a natural knack for making every interaction with the antagonists feel like a sitcom during cutscenes, Heather's charismatic remarks and quips during exploration create a certain detachment between her and the player's control, that wasn't as present in Harry's passive voyeurism or Jame's ambivalent resignation. SH3 puts tremendous effort in its oppression of the player, and yet Heather ain't having none of that shit. It's easy to understand why SH3 doesn't enjoy the same prestige and adoration that its prequel does, and I can't really blame people for that. SH2 interweaves both text and subtext so seamlessly that interpretation becomes highly accessible for anyone who experiences it, unlike SH3's more metatextual concepts that can easily be ignored if you just take the plot at face value.
But if your take away after playing the whole game, and witnessing Heather abort a God inside a church at the end, is that Silent Hill 3 disappointingly doesn't contain psychological horror and is just another devil cult story with little substance, then I'm afraid you missed the forest for the trees. There's an ever present underlying theme that permeates most of SH3 of imposed expectations of young women, that extends beyond its devil cult plot and impregnates with meaning the institutionalized settings of the game and its towering and stalking monsters that constantly harrass Heather. And having such an ubiquitous character push back the assaulting nature of SH3, mocking and making light of its villains, and in the process the Silent Hill concept itself, makes for a very refreshing and compelling subversion of what came before it.
We will never know what Silent Hill 3 could have been if it had gone the same route as Silent Hill 2. Hell, we will never know what it could have been if it had been a rail shooter, like intended. But this is the Silent Hill 3 we got, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
2001
When discussing sequels that fully realize the potential of the original's premise, elevating it to a level of perfection and showmanship that would forever be near impossible for subsequent entries to overcome, you will be hard pressed to find a better example than Silent Hill 2. That isn't to say that SH1 wasn't already lightning in a bottle, but the level of confidence and talent Team Silent poured into its sequel, just 2 mere years later, is nothing short of amazing to witness.
While Harry Mason's plight in SH1 was easy to sympathize and engage with, there was always a level of detachment between the personal search for his daugther and the source of the emotional trauma that the town of Silent Hill manifested. By shifting the subconscious reflection of the town from a NPC to the player character itself, Team Silent creates with James Sunderland one of the most fascinating explorations of the human psyche and is able to more expertly utilize the setting to inform the state of mind of its victim through a much subtler and escalating process.
This switch in perspective also enables Team Silent to put aside the literalization of Silent Hill's cursed nature as the result of a devil worshiping cult in service of a much more Lynchian approach to storytelling that lends SH2 its ethereal and fleeting somber atmosphere. And don't get me wrong, the cult stuff is still there, and I wouldnt have it in any other way. But by putting that context into the background instead of being the main focus, it imprints SH2's setting with an odd believability and suspension of disbelief that turns it into one of the best purgatory stories ever told.
With the leap to the 6th generation, every aspect that made SH1 special is further iterated and expanded on. The lighting effects are greatly improved and still a marvel to look at, working in tandem with an even more unreliable and claustrophobic camera that Team Silent confidently utilizes to create dread and horror out of every angle and point of view possible. The mundanity of the suburbian spaces you walk through is even more apparent and scary, with each room you pass by being filled with detail and texture that new gen games wouldn't dare mimic. Even the soundscape of SH2 is vastly improved upon, filled with wailings, heavy breathings and industrial clangs and bangings that give an unsettling life to the town.
These tools and devices end up working so well together, that for the most part SH2 is more than happy to let the implications of horror work their way on you instead of actually presenting any real threat, fully aware that the player's mind can do all the work inside a dark empty room. Which makes the actual few and far between jumps scares that much more memorable. It has been 20 years and the Silent Hill Historical Society still remains one of the finest horror moments in all of fiction.
And everyone already knows how well executed the story and revelations of SH2 are. To this day, you will not find many games willing to successfully tackle such serious and morally taxing subject matters with the level of nuance and sincerity that is displayed in Mary's letter. Silent Hill 2 has installed itself as one of the Greats in the videogame halls of history, and weirdly enough that has given it nowadays a target on its back, similar to games like Shadow of the Colossus or Nier Automata. And I kinda understand, Silent Hill 2 is an easy game that anyone can latch onto for quick "videogames are art" cred, but going against the tide here feels like sorta trying to trash Goodfellas. And you don't wanna be the guy who trashes Goodfellas, do you?
If anything, take solace in the fact that SIlent Hill 2 still manages to filter such renowned and prestigous videogame critics such as this one after all these years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lhy9QnBHmo&ab_channel=MrStuntAction
While Harry Mason's plight in SH1 was easy to sympathize and engage with, there was always a level of detachment between the personal search for his daugther and the source of the emotional trauma that the town of Silent Hill manifested. By shifting the subconscious reflection of the town from a NPC to the player character itself, Team Silent creates with James Sunderland one of the most fascinating explorations of the human psyche and is able to more expertly utilize the setting to inform the state of mind of its victim through a much subtler and escalating process.
This switch in perspective also enables Team Silent to put aside the literalization of Silent Hill's cursed nature as the result of a devil worshiping cult in service of a much more Lynchian approach to storytelling that lends SH2 its ethereal and fleeting somber atmosphere. And don't get me wrong, the cult stuff is still there, and I wouldnt have it in any other way. But by putting that context into the background instead of being the main focus, it imprints SH2's setting with an odd believability and suspension of disbelief that turns it into one of the best purgatory stories ever told.
With the leap to the 6th generation, every aspect that made SH1 special is further iterated and expanded on. The lighting effects are greatly improved and still a marvel to look at, working in tandem with an even more unreliable and claustrophobic camera that Team Silent confidently utilizes to create dread and horror out of every angle and point of view possible. The mundanity of the suburbian spaces you walk through is even more apparent and scary, with each room you pass by being filled with detail and texture that new gen games wouldn't dare mimic. Even the soundscape of SH2 is vastly improved upon, filled with wailings, heavy breathings and industrial clangs and bangings that give an unsettling life to the town.
These tools and devices end up working so well together, that for the most part SH2 is more than happy to let the implications of horror work their way on you instead of actually presenting any real threat, fully aware that the player's mind can do all the work inside a dark empty room. Which makes the actual few and far between jumps scares that much more memorable. It has been 20 years and the Silent Hill Historical Society still remains one of the finest horror moments in all of fiction.
And everyone already knows how well executed the story and revelations of SH2 are. To this day, you will not find many games willing to successfully tackle such serious and morally taxing subject matters with the level of nuance and sincerity that is displayed in Mary's letter. Silent Hill 2 has installed itself as one of the Greats in the videogame halls of history, and weirdly enough that has given it nowadays a target on its back, similar to games like Shadow of the Colossus or Nier Automata. And I kinda understand, Silent Hill 2 is an easy game that anyone can latch onto for quick "videogames are art" cred, but going against the tide here feels like sorta trying to trash Goodfellas. And you don't wanna be the guy who trashes Goodfellas, do you?
If anything, take solace in the fact that SIlent Hill 2 still manages to filter such renowned and prestigous videogame critics such as this one after all these years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lhy9QnBHmo&ab_channel=MrStuntAction
1999
There's something oddly unsettling and fascinating about exploring empty human-made spaces and structures that would otherwise be bustling with life and activity in a normal day-to-day context, which for me is the biggest strength of the Silent Hill series and what made it stand out from the survival horror crowd.
Like walking inside a Giorgio Chirico painting, Silent Hill focuses on the haunting presence that pervails inside these communal gathering spots long after everyone is gone and drenches it with surrealism that brings the horror out of the ordinary and mundane. Despite its deceitful open air exterior, walking the streets of Silent Hill instils the sense of constantly being watched and trapped by something, in part due to its brilliant unwieldy and claustrophobic camera and purposefully limited draw distance.
Team Silent had a firm grasp on how to pace and escalate horror from game one, making that first treck to the school after night falls for the first time, and filling the streets with unseeable monsters, one of the most harrowing dashes for safety ever, slowly ramping the dread back up again with a seamless transition into the Otherworld that barrages your senses with nightmarish colors and sounds. This is the king of horror atmosphere, making good use of sparse and well payed off jump scares, a lesser focus on situational combat struggles in favor of a long grueling descent into the unknown, and a mastery of setting that makes the sudden appearance of a new floor on an elevator one of eeriest things ever.
One of my favorite moments in the whole game is when after what feels like an eternity in hell being assaulted by disturbingly child looking enemies, a church bell rings in the distance and the once black windows are now filled with foggy familiar daylight, as a sense of relief and salvation washes over you. You quickly end up appreciating being chased by pterodactyls and resident evil dogs during the day after the game makes you spend just a few seconds on the Otherworld version of the town, where darkness covers everything, even the grated floor in which you stand on.
Despite what some might want you to believe about the devil cult focus of the plot, Silent Hill is at its heart the story of broken people and the abuse they have suffered. Lisa's famous and outstandingly directed death cutscene represents the whole Silent Hill pathos, and Harry's inability to deal with such distressing plea for help would further be expanded and explored in the sequel. Despite the torment Alessa suffered during her lifetime and her forever distorted view of the world we witness along the game, Harry's love for Cheryl manages to get past the fog of Silent Hill and reach out to her. Was the amusement park a cheerful distant and fleeting happy memory? Was it experienced at Harry's side?
Age has only made Silent Hill better, the low poly aesthetic giving it even more of a dream like feel, and the primitive sound design of Harry's shoes being closer to reality than what we can get nowadays with modern technology. The soundscape created by Yamaoka is still as effective and essential at presenting the Otherworld as a machinery of industrial sounding evil and madness. Despite not having the cohesiveness its sequels would present with their enemy designs, cast of characters and storyline, Team Silent hit a homerun with this first entry, do not let the outdated discourse get in the way of playing this.
PS: For the love of God, change that damn box art.
Like walking inside a Giorgio Chirico painting, Silent Hill focuses on the haunting presence that pervails inside these communal gathering spots long after everyone is gone and drenches it with surrealism that brings the horror out of the ordinary and mundane. Despite its deceitful open air exterior, walking the streets of Silent Hill instils the sense of constantly being watched and trapped by something, in part due to its brilliant unwieldy and claustrophobic camera and purposefully limited draw distance.
Team Silent had a firm grasp on how to pace and escalate horror from game one, making that first treck to the school after night falls for the first time, and filling the streets with unseeable monsters, one of the most harrowing dashes for safety ever, slowly ramping the dread back up again with a seamless transition into the Otherworld that barrages your senses with nightmarish colors and sounds. This is the king of horror atmosphere, making good use of sparse and well payed off jump scares, a lesser focus on situational combat struggles in favor of a long grueling descent into the unknown, and a mastery of setting that makes the sudden appearance of a new floor on an elevator one of eeriest things ever.
One of my favorite moments in the whole game is when after what feels like an eternity in hell being assaulted by disturbingly child looking enemies, a church bell rings in the distance and the once black windows are now filled with foggy familiar daylight, as a sense of relief and salvation washes over you. You quickly end up appreciating being chased by pterodactyls and resident evil dogs during the day after the game makes you spend just a few seconds on the Otherworld version of the town, where darkness covers everything, even the grated floor in which you stand on.
Despite what some might want you to believe about the devil cult focus of the plot, Silent Hill is at its heart the story of broken people and the abuse they have suffered. Lisa's famous and outstandingly directed death cutscene represents the whole Silent Hill pathos, and Harry's inability to deal with such distressing plea for help would further be expanded and explored in the sequel. Despite the torment Alessa suffered during her lifetime and her forever distorted view of the world we witness along the game, Harry's love for Cheryl manages to get past the fog of Silent Hill and reach out to her. Was the amusement park a cheerful distant and fleeting happy memory? Was it experienced at Harry's side?
Age has only made Silent Hill better, the low poly aesthetic giving it even more of a dream like feel, and the primitive sound design of Harry's shoes being closer to reality than what we can get nowadays with modern technology. The soundscape created by Yamaoka is still as effective and essential at presenting the Otherworld as a machinery of industrial sounding evil and madness. Despite not having the cohesiveness its sequels would present with their enemy designs, cast of characters and storyline, Team Silent hit a homerun with this first entry, do not let the outdated discourse get in the way of playing this.
PS: For the love of God, change that damn box art.
Being a FFIX kid, and only having played the original FFVII many years after its cultural impact, I never had the reverence and attachment for it that would warrant much excitement for a remake, which is why it came as shock to me how much I ended up resonating with FF7R. Beyond cementing even further the strengths of FFVII's iconography and imagery that accompanies the opening hours of the game, FF7R manages to tap into an expanded lens of Midgar's intersectionality and its cast of characters that, while not overtly present in the original, seemingly was always there hidden in plain sight, recontextualized through the nostalgia brought in by the players familiar with the source material.
Besides the low poly textures and PS2 looking NPCs, much of FF7R's structure and design feels like a mish mash of 3 console generations with the occasional next gen setpiece thrown inbetween, that ends up shifting the focus from the bombastic high definition spectacle and graphical prowess long expected from a FFVII remake into a more intimate and contained retelling of Midgar's, unfortunately, still and ever increasingly relevant message. Being able to walk freely through the cheerful impoverished Sector 7 or the vibrant and lively Yakuza-y Wall Market and experiencing the lives of its residents through the eyes of a fully 3D controllable Cloud who is always able to look up and be reminded of how much better it could be for these people, conveys so much more than what was ever possible in the original's restricted camera and fast paced storytelling, and after spending so many hours in enclosed repetitive industrialized and wreckage filled grey hallways, being greeted with the rare beautfiul vista respite, like a glimpse at the full sky or Aerith's flower garden, makes the pathos of Midgar that ever more impactful as you storm the Shinra building in the grand finale.
Unlike the Compilation of FFVII's failure to capture the essence of the original, FF7R perfectly translates the old lego characters into fully realized HD versions with manneurisms and personalities more fitting of the modern age players sensibilities, while still retaining their simplicity and core motivations that defined FFVII. Witnessing the earnestness and sincerity between the protagonists as they recreate memorable and iconic scenes from the original in a much more cinematic flavor felt like watching a movie sucessfully reinterpret the text from a book into the visual medium, much more so than whatever Advent Children was, and it's easy to see that the team behind the remake genuinely understood and cared for the source material, keeping in all the weird, funny, cute and serious overtones and plot beats from FFVII. With a much bigger emphasis on the interaction and communication between the main cast, which extends itself into a dynamic and interchangeable fast paced combat that fully realizes the abstracted nature of the original's action and further elevates the comradery in and out of fights, FF7R addresses a major criticism I have had with FFVII and fills in the gaps of how these characters perceive and understand each other, with much more established motivations and fears that make use of the player's knowledge of this story and its outcome, and boy do they play to that as hard as they can.
The surrealness and magic that surrounds every interaction between Cloud and Aerith in the remake is greatly exacerbated by The Biggest Twist in Videogame History™, so much so that I had to keep myself from bursting into tears during that initial treck from the church to Aerith's house every time she opened her mouth. FF7R is very self aware of its nature as a remake, and it's fascinating how it utilizes the preconceptions of its player base to exponentiate its emotionality, which makes the moments when it pulls the rug on you that ever more impactful. As the distaste for videogame remakes continues to increase, sentiment as I'm sure many on this website share, I find it commendable that Square would analyze the fandom's idealization of FFVII and its characters, literalize it in FF7R and then immediately throw out the window the prospects of faithfully recreating the most conveted remake of all time. There are definitely added moments that do not stick the landing here, but FF7R explicitly makes the case very early on that it is in no way a replacement for FFVII. It felt liberating to see these characters free themselves from the shackles of the franchise and end up in uncharted territory, and while I have no idea what that will entail for the quality of the next episodes, the ambiguity and mystery of it all is definitely more enticing than pandering to an audience that would never be fully satisfied with the end result.
FF7R is an odd beast. A lot of its original content is subpar and undercuts the source material, like Jessie's big spotlight that undermines Aerith's talent for making Cloud uncomfortable, or Leslie's sewer detour that pads out what was supposed to be an urgent dash for Shinra's building. My apprehensions towards the future of this project remains ever present, judging from my experience with episodic content that most of the time fails to create a cohesive whole, with each subsequent episode shifting priorities and distancing themselves from the previous one. FF7R's release at the intersection between old and new gen also doesn't bode well for its future, and i'm deeply terrified of whatever Nomura-isms will inevitably happen in the next episodes. But considering I went into this one filled with cynicism and doubt, and got out of it feeling a newly found adoration for Final Fantasy that I hadn't in a very long time and an appreciation for the irony and snark devoid storytelling where the terrorists are the good guys and the bad guys are obvious and uncomplicated evil doers, I can say that the Final Fantasy VII Remake experience, for now, has been a resounding success.
Besides the low poly textures and PS2 looking NPCs, much of FF7R's structure and design feels like a mish mash of 3 console generations with the occasional next gen setpiece thrown inbetween, that ends up shifting the focus from the bombastic high definition spectacle and graphical prowess long expected from a FFVII remake into a more intimate and contained retelling of Midgar's, unfortunately, still and ever increasingly relevant message. Being able to walk freely through the cheerful impoverished Sector 7 or the vibrant and lively Yakuza-y Wall Market and experiencing the lives of its residents through the eyes of a fully 3D controllable Cloud who is always able to look up and be reminded of how much better it could be for these people, conveys so much more than what was ever possible in the original's restricted camera and fast paced storytelling, and after spending so many hours in enclosed repetitive industrialized and wreckage filled grey hallways, being greeted with the rare beautfiul vista respite, like a glimpse at the full sky or Aerith's flower garden, makes the pathos of Midgar that ever more impactful as you storm the Shinra building in the grand finale.
Unlike the Compilation of FFVII's failure to capture the essence of the original, FF7R perfectly translates the old lego characters into fully realized HD versions with manneurisms and personalities more fitting of the modern age players sensibilities, while still retaining their simplicity and core motivations that defined FFVII. Witnessing the earnestness and sincerity between the protagonists as they recreate memorable and iconic scenes from the original in a much more cinematic flavor felt like watching a movie sucessfully reinterpret the text from a book into the visual medium, much more so than whatever Advent Children was, and it's easy to see that the team behind the remake genuinely understood and cared for the source material, keeping in all the weird, funny, cute and serious overtones and plot beats from FFVII. With a much bigger emphasis on the interaction and communication between the main cast, which extends itself into a dynamic and interchangeable fast paced combat that fully realizes the abstracted nature of the original's action and further elevates the comradery in and out of fights, FF7R addresses a major criticism I have had with FFVII and fills in the gaps of how these characters perceive and understand each other, with much more established motivations and fears that make use of the player's knowledge of this story and its outcome, and boy do they play to that as hard as they can.
The surrealness and magic that surrounds every interaction between Cloud and Aerith in the remake is greatly exacerbated by The Biggest Twist in Videogame History™, so much so that I had to keep myself from bursting into tears during that initial treck from the church to Aerith's house every time she opened her mouth. FF7R is very self aware of its nature as a remake, and it's fascinating how it utilizes the preconceptions of its player base to exponentiate its emotionality, which makes the moments when it pulls the rug on you that ever more impactful. As the distaste for videogame remakes continues to increase, sentiment as I'm sure many on this website share, I find it commendable that Square would analyze the fandom's idealization of FFVII and its characters, literalize it in FF7R and then immediately throw out the window the prospects of faithfully recreating the most conveted remake of all time. There are definitely added moments that do not stick the landing here, but FF7R explicitly makes the case very early on that it is in no way a replacement for FFVII. It felt liberating to see these characters free themselves from the shackles of the franchise and end up in uncharted territory, and while I have no idea what that will entail for the quality of the next episodes, the ambiguity and mystery of it all is definitely more enticing than pandering to an audience that would never be fully satisfied with the end result.
FF7R is an odd beast. A lot of its original content is subpar and undercuts the source material, like Jessie's big spotlight that undermines Aerith's talent for making Cloud uncomfortable, or Leslie's sewer detour that pads out what was supposed to be an urgent dash for Shinra's building. My apprehensions towards the future of this project remains ever present, judging from my experience with episodic content that most of the time fails to create a cohesive whole, with each subsequent episode shifting priorities and distancing themselves from the previous one. FF7R's release at the intersection between old and new gen also doesn't bode well for its future, and i'm deeply terrified of whatever Nomura-isms will inevitably happen in the next episodes. But considering I went into this one filled with cynicism and doubt, and got out of it feeling a newly found adoration for Final Fantasy that I hadn't in a very long time and an appreciation for the irony and snark devoid storytelling where the terrorists are the good guys and the bad guys are obvious and uncomplicated evil doers, I can say that the Final Fantasy VII Remake experience, for now, has been a resounding success.
I had to see this one with my own two eyes for some twisted and self hurting reason, and boy was everyone right about how baffling and grueling of a self absorbed mess this one is. To me, YIIK represents the apex of the indie scene's obssession with the egocentric tortured artist narrative that has been the go-to window dressing for many of the critical darlings of the last decade, mostly due to how badly it fails on the execution of said concept.
Andrew Allanson makes his case for Alex's incredible lack of charisma and likeability by implying that those were intented attributes deliberately written to present an unlikely protagonist that defies the expectations of videogame conventions and serves to tell a "meaningful and thought provoking" narrative, but I do have to question if Andrew understands that you can write unredeemable pieces of shit and still have them be compelling people to follow, not unlike the characters from the inumerous prestigious novels and movies he so eagerly name drops as influences. The voice behind Alex's obnoxious and verbose inner thoughts and social interactions permeates most of YIIK's world and people, bloating the whole experience with an onslaught of solipsistic musings that would make your teen self cringe and inner world exposition dumps that would make Kojima blush, and a group of characters lacking in so much chemistry and entertaining banter that fill the game's dead air with loud meaningless conversations that made me appreciate how much of an art what Persona does is.
Tying it all up, you have one of the most unpleasant combat systems I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing in an rpg. A third of the way through I had to turn on Story Mode and Assist Mode while fast forwarding as much as I could, and I shudder to think of the people who subjected themselves to the rest of the game without resorting to any of those settings. There are design choices made here where I struggle to believe that someone made them without deliberately trying to make this combat system a living hell to wrestle with for 20 hours. Andrew infamously stated that if people aren't able to appreciate his game, then "games aren't art, but toys for children", an idea that I find very insincere when he himself has brushed aside the strengths of the medium as mere tools in service of his literary interests and fails to recognize the gameplay value of the many games he apes from and that already disprove his perception of the audience.
I have seen comparisons made between YIIK and The Room, and while YIIK's team has immensely more talent than whatever Tommy Wiseau has, I do see where that's coming from. You aren't so much in it to experience the art presented to you, as much as you are to see the psychosis of the artist behind it, and YIIK does have its poignant and head turning moments that reach Pathologic levels of antagonism towards the player that reveal some kind of accidental genius behind its aggresively mediocre facade. Not only does the world of YIIK unironically revolve around Alex by the end of the game, he implicates you in his self importance and passes onto you his responsibilities and obligations to be a better person, and I find the audacity and nerve to do that...kinda brilliant??, more so deserving of the pretentious "Postmodern RPG" moniker than the Earthbound/Mother 3 gimped 4th wall breaks or the doubt seered into me each time the loading screen tip "videogames are not a waste of time" popped up.
And dont get me wrong, thinking that YIIK is some misunderstood masterpiece of game design or secretely a arthouse cult classic in the making. Judging by Andrew's defensive posture when talking about the game's reception and the passive aggressiveness he slides into the game's updates, much of the artistic merit that can be inferred from YIIK is most likely just a pure casualty of someone trying to aspire to his influences and falling way short of the mark, and suggesting that most of it was intentional would be implying that someone could have the talent to consciously write and design as badly as YIIK was. But Andrew made art here, not the kind of art he wanted to make, but art nonetheless, and I do find more value in this relentlessly life draining game than most indie artsy fartsy games out there. I play YIIK and I see a sincere attempt at creating something unique and different, scrambling ideas from every piece of fiction the creator cherishes and throwing it at the wall to see what sticks, not having the self awareness to realize its own mediocrity or how misplaced and misguised many of those ideas might be, and I can definitely sympathize and relate to that.
PS: The Iwata "tribute" is the most unintentionally hilarious bit in the whole game. You have the power of videogames to make anything you want, and you put the man in a fucking tombstone.
Andrew Allanson makes his case for Alex's incredible lack of charisma and likeability by implying that those were intented attributes deliberately written to present an unlikely protagonist that defies the expectations of videogame conventions and serves to tell a "meaningful and thought provoking" narrative, but I do have to question if Andrew understands that you can write unredeemable pieces of shit and still have them be compelling people to follow, not unlike the characters from the inumerous prestigious novels and movies he so eagerly name drops as influences. The voice behind Alex's obnoxious and verbose inner thoughts and social interactions permeates most of YIIK's world and people, bloating the whole experience with an onslaught of solipsistic musings that would make your teen self cringe and inner world exposition dumps that would make Kojima blush, and a group of characters lacking in so much chemistry and entertaining banter that fill the game's dead air with loud meaningless conversations that made me appreciate how much of an art what Persona does is.
Tying it all up, you have one of the most unpleasant combat systems I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing in an rpg. A third of the way through I had to turn on Story Mode and Assist Mode while fast forwarding as much as I could, and I shudder to think of the people who subjected themselves to the rest of the game without resorting to any of those settings. There are design choices made here where I struggle to believe that someone made them without deliberately trying to make this combat system a living hell to wrestle with for 20 hours. Andrew infamously stated that if people aren't able to appreciate his game, then "games aren't art, but toys for children", an idea that I find very insincere when he himself has brushed aside the strengths of the medium as mere tools in service of his literary interests and fails to recognize the gameplay value of the many games he apes from and that already disprove his perception of the audience.
I have seen comparisons made between YIIK and The Room, and while YIIK's team has immensely more talent than whatever Tommy Wiseau has, I do see where that's coming from. You aren't so much in it to experience the art presented to you, as much as you are to see the psychosis of the artist behind it, and YIIK does have its poignant and head turning moments that reach Pathologic levels of antagonism towards the player that reveal some kind of accidental genius behind its aggresively mediocre facade. Not only does the world of YIIK unironically revolve around Alex by the end of the game, he implicates you in his self importance and passes onto you his responsibilities and obligations to be a better person, and I find the audacity and nerve to do that...kinda brilliant??, more so deserving of the pretentious "Postmodern RPG" moniker than the Earthbound/Mother 3 gimped 4th wall breaks or the doubt seered into me each time the loading screen tip "videogames are not a waste of time" popped up.
And dont get me wrong, thinking that YIIK is some misunderstood masterpiece of game design or secretely a arthouse cult classic in the making. Judging by Andrew's defensive posture when talking about the game's reception and the passive aggressiveness he slides into the game's updates, much of the artistic merit that can be inferred from YIIK is most likely just a pure casualty of someone trying to aspire to his influences and falling way short of the mark, and suggesting that most of it was intentional would be implying that someone could have the talent to consciously write and design as badly as YIIK was. But Andrew made art here, not the kind of art he wanted to make, but art nonetheless, and I do find more value in this relentlessly life draining game than most indie artsy fartsy games out there. I play YIIK and I see a sincere attempt at creating something unique and different, scrambling ideas from every piece of fiction the creator cherishes and throwing it at the wall to see what sticks, not having the self awareness to realize its own mediocrity or how misplaced and misguised many of those ideas might be, and I can definitely sympathize and relate to that.
PS: The Iwata "tribute" is the most unintentionally hilarious bit in the whole game. You have the power of videogames to make anything you want, and you put the man in a fucking tombstone.
Doesn't take long before the cartoonish colorful artstyle and cheerful story of Landstalker reveal a ruthless and frustrating experience underneath it. The isometric point of view makes for a very unique maquette looking game on the megadrive, but man does it turn into a mess when you add grid movement based combat and platforming into the mix.
Oddly enough, in the gameplay department Landstalker feels like a proper sequel to the NES Zelda games, sometimes more so than Link to the Past was, with enemies that gank you and hit like a truck if they manage to ambush you into a corner and dungeons that go on forever with enemies to dispatch and moderately cryptic puzzles to solve. The problem is of course that isometric angle.
While the stiff movement based combat and platforming would be fine in a 2D plane, it becomes a problem when you have to be guessing your perspective in relation to everything else while the enemies are all making a b-line to you and the platforms are impossible to discern from the floor and the background. The game even had the bright idea of making your sword hit the walls, fun!
Still, despite the concept not fully working out in the game's favor, I did still have fun with its relentless pushback and the massive labyrinthian dungeons filled with annoying ass platforming time based puzzles and room corner combat tactics. Make use of that save state button, don't feel ashamed by it, and you might enjoy yourself with this one. Just don't expect to find an overlooked classic here.
Oddly enough, in the gameplay department Landstalker feels like a proper sequel to the NES Zelda games, sometimes more so than Link to the Past was, with enemies that gank you and hit like a truck if they manage to ambush you into a corner and dungeons that go on forever with enemies to dispatch and moderately cryptic puzzles to solve. The problem is of course that isometric angle.
While the stiff movement based combat and platforming would be fine in a 2D plane, it becomes a problem when you have to be guessing your perspective in relation to everything else while the enemies are all making a b-line to you and the platforms are impossible to discern from the floor and the background. The game even had the bright idea of making your sword hit the walls, fun!
Still, despite the concept not fully working out in the game's favor, I did still have fun with its relentless pushback and the massive labyrinthian dungeons filled with annoying ass platforming time based puzzles and room corner combat tactics. Make use of that save state button, don't feel ashamed by it, and you might enjoy yourself with this one. Just don't expect to find an overlooked classic here.
Despite how vocal some folks like to posture themselves regarding the uniqueness of the medium and its use of interactivity to convey experiences not found in other artforms, judging from Ancestors' lukewarm reception, both from the critics and the consumers, it appears that the notion of utilizing gameplay with the purpose of anything other than immediate "fun" is still vastly underappreciated and maligned by most. Designing an entire game around the idea of discovery and progress through the process of trial and error seems like a sure way of shooting yourself in the foot, yet somehow Ancestors manages to pull off this venture while creating a unique combination of immersive survival sim and surprisingly good edutainment.
Initial frustration and sense overload that accompanies the first couple of hours eventually lead to a succession of small victories as you slowly figure how your fragile ape manipulates himself and his surroundings, and the ever presence of predators lurking about makes each detour into the wild an exciting and dangerous quest that has you dreading every second you aren't on top of a tree, making each territory conquest an important milestone. Ancestors succeeds in implementing the experience of human evolution through its guideless gameplay, making it hard not to feel the crushing weight of time and nature as you get your ape to stand on his two feet and guide his clan into the outskirts of the even more perilous Savanah setting where there are no trees to hide in.
If anything, I wish the game was even more cruel. As the game systems and mechanics start to unveil themselves over time, the artificiality of Ancestors inevitably starts to show off, and much of its previous obstacles and challenges start to become either obsolete or easy to shrug off, with birth even becoming just another tool to exploit. Maybe it's just me speaking from a place of privilege, considering I played Ancestors after a bunch of QoL updates were added in response to the inumerous criticisms at launch, but in a world where Rain World exists, I do have to wonder how much better my experience with Ancestors would have been if I didn't have the ability to choose how much HUD information was displayed and if the game continued its initial punishing difficulty until the very end.
It's depressing to see that the one time Ubisoft people stop doing Assassin's Creed to do something else much more worthwhile, it is immediately shut down, which kinda sends mixed signals about how much people really want them to do something different. But when you take into account that Ancestors came out in the same year as works like Death Stranding and Pathologic 2 did, I guess we can be optimistic about the future of videogames.
PS: No, you can NOT throw your feces in this game. I know, I was beyond disappointed as well.
Initial frustration and sense overload that accompanies the first couple of hours eventually lead to a succession of small victories as you slowly figure how your fragile ape manipulates himself and his surroundings, and the ever presence of predators lurking about makes each detour into the wild an exciting and dangerous quest that has you dreading every second you aren't on top of a tree, making each territory conquest an important milestone. Ancestors succeeds in implementing the experience of human evolution through its guideless gameplay, making it hard not to feel the crushing weight of time and nature as you get your ape to stand on his two feet and guide his clan into the outskirts of the even more perilous Savanah setting where there are no trees to hide in.
If anything, I wish the game was even more cruel. As the game systems and mechanics start to unveil themselves over time, the artificiality of Ancestors inevitably starts to show off, and much of its previous obstacles and challenges start to become either obsolete or easy to shrug off, with birth even becoming just another tool to exploit. Maybe it's just me speaking from a place of privilege, considering I played Ancestors after a bunch of QoL updates were added in response to the inumerous criticisms at launch, but in a world where Rain World exists, I do have to wonder how much better my experience with Ancestors would have been if I didn't have the ability to choose how much HUD information was displayed and if the game continued its initial punishing difficulty until the very end.
It's depressing to see that the one time Ubisoft people stop doing Assassin's Creed to do something else much more worthwhile, it is immediately shut down, which kinda sends mixed signals about how much people really want them to do something different. But when you take into account that Ancestors came out in the same year as works like Death Stranding and Pathologic 2 did, I guess we can be optimistic about the future of videogames.
PS: No, you can NOT throw your feces in this game. I know, I was beyond disappointed as well.