metal gear solid 2 is arguably the most discussed videogame ever. you can just google “metal gear solid 2” with the words “meaning”, “themes”, “analysis”, “essay” or something like this that you will find plenty of articles and youtube videos. a lot of very good reviews on this game page here on backloggd, too. so… what can I say about it? everyone already said something. everyone already called it a postmodern masterpiece, everyone already called it a prophetic game, everyone already said how great the level geometry is, how deep the mechanics can be, everyone knows about the marketing campaign and how sexy raiden is and how well-written his relationship with rose is. everyone knows everything. what more can i say? still, metal gear solid 2 is the kind of game that you do want to say something. it feels impossible not want to, even if you lack words. for me, what i want to say this time, finishing it for the first time in 7 years, is: this is a very life-affirming game. it tells us that, even in the capitalist system we live in, controlled by the same old people, influencing everything we consume, molding our thoughts and ideals, we can still break free, shape our own personality and look for the meaning in our lives, building the future for the next generations. maybe we will not face a revolution, maybe we will not change the world, but someone will. our sons, grandsons or anyone influenced by our mark, we just need to pass the torch.

Atlus certainly did not waste the rare opportunity to tell a character focused story where most of the main cast isn’t composed of snot nosed brats. No stupid kids here to spoil the fun of leading a party of nothing but sad, pathetic individuals going through their quarter-life crisis. FUCK you, Persona 5. Adults ROCK!

Joking aside. Within the context of the Persona franchise, Eternal Punishment is definitely among one of the more distinct entries. As opposed to the other games, major character moments don’t consistently act as these scenes of clarity that overtly define a character’s progress as a person. In fact, it’s not uncommon that these moments will raise more questions than they answer, rarely ever making it immediately clear how a scene reflects on someone’s journey in the moment. And it’s through this handling where I think P2EP’s cast shines. At the start of the story, these characters feel genuinely detached from each other. They really struggle to open up, sometimes even lashing out over the simple idea of emotionally connecting. But they don’t strictly develop through opening up about their insecurities and immediately growing past them. It’s more so through their amazing chemistry and challenging each other through their unique perspectives on life that you feel a real bond begin to form. It’s a perfect balance between focusing on the cast members as individuals while also highlighting their importance in how they work as a collective.

I find one of the more under-appreciated aspects of Eternal Punishment are the major, fundamental changes it makes to Persona 2’s core to accommodate for the new, jaded perspective of its characters. The tone is far more subdued. Gone is the goofy, lighthearted bickering between Ginko and Eikichi; replaced now by moral conflicts of ideals between Katsuya and Baofu. The importance of individuality is put into question by the recurring motif of ‘Fate’. Asking what purpose is there to finding one’s self if one’s self can crumble under the power of nihilism, fortune, and higher powers? Its apparent emphasis on challenging gameplay, not only finally forces the player to fully engage with the duology’s battle mechanics, but reinforces the brutality the characters endure throughout the story. The game isn’t some cynical tale that spits in the face of its prequel. Nor is its prequel worse off because of its more outlandish and comedic nature. FAR from all of that. These aspects just allow for Eternal Punishment to act as a wonderful contrast to Innocent Sin, establishing a tone that compliments and builds off the heavy nature of the prequel’s final act.

Where Innocent Sin is remarkable for its effective balancing act of heartfelt character work and the most insane set pieces you could possibly imagine, Eternal Punishment looks to take a bit of a different approach with its priorities. The constantly escalating tension and shocking revelations remain, but the downtime between these moments become just as integral. It’s the short conversations mixed with powerful silence and contemplative penitence that’ll leave just as big of an impact as most of the overarching drama. It’s no surprise one of the lead writer’s favorite scenes is a short, one minute exchange revolving around the nature of adulthood where most of the dialogue boxes are filled with nothing but pauses.

As I further age into early adulthood, it’s easy to get lost in the confusion spurred forth by taxing shit like sin, identity, and especially responsibility. I’m not usually one to see myself reflected somewhere within a story’s world, but I find it’s so easy to attach myself to a cast so… human in their writing and presentation. Whether it be Ulala’s longing for comfort. Katsuya and Baofu’s ever-present battle with their regret. Tatsuya struggling to introspect on his strange, confusing life while dealing with consequence. Or the way everyone is able to find some sort of value in their relationships and provide for each other in their own ways. There’s a resonant aspect to find in every character that hits twice as hard thanks to the narrative’s mature handling of its personal beats.

It’s good, for my sake, that Eternal Punishment is here to affirm that there truly are some good things about being an adult… Just a few.

A nearly perfect sapphic love-letter to horror and sci-fi.

At the time of writing I've only gotten one ending of Signalis but I'll be getting the others ASAP. I don't even know where to begin with this game, I've been a huge fan of survival horror games most of my life and frankly I think Signalis is one of the best ever made. It's got a fun, tense gameplay loop, the item management may be a bit of stress to some people but after a bit it clicked with me and I found joy in planning routes and using resources, also frankly I think a lot of people that play Signalis and games like it are a little TOO hoard-happy, use those bullets baby! The lore and story are tight and interestingly told in a way that reminds me of early Silent Hills or Twin Peaks, where you are given a lot of concrete facts, a lot of symbolism, and you have to kind of discuss and piece together parts, but not in a way where things are overly cryptic or unexplained, quite the opposite. People (read:me) have discussed and theorized elements of Silent Hill's world, lore and symbolism for literal years and I feel strongly Signalis will have this same effect. Sorry if this review is kind of all over the place, I have played a lot of games in my life but this one is new yet already so truly special to me I hope I can make even one person try it out!

Do you like Genshin? Do you like Vtubers? Do you like FEH? Here’s all of that!

So this is the supposedly latest "mainline" game in this franchise. I know Engage is allegedly a game celebrating
the 30th anniversary of FE, but that's even worse. Bold move celebrating the 30th anniversary of FE with a game that doesn't look like FE at all.

FE always looked like anime and followed the latest trends in artstyle etc, but all character designs still had a coherent theme. The medieval europe aesthetic was always a big influence. Even in a horny game like Fates (even the Hoshido desgins were coherent for the aesthetics of the nation). Ignoring the fanservice most designs looked decent (though there were some stinkers like Peri).

But Engage looks like it has no theme at all. It's just "fantasy" and goofy. The character designs are all over the place like they're all from different fantasy gacha games.
These designs seem like a perfect blend of every currrent day anime design trope and it just looks soulless as a result.
This artstyle is by far the worst the series has ever seen, and it makes me appreciate Three Houses, SoV, Path of Radiance etc. all the more. You know what actually bothers me the most, more than just disliking the aesthetics of the designs? All the women I see look like goddamn kids and suffer from same face syndrome. And my god, the 3D models in general look absolutely atrocious. Even the past lords look like shit in this game's style. Engage is certainly more colorful, but that's honestly it. The textures in Engage are another problem, they're mostly not there. The textures on everything are so flat. Everything looks so artificial because of it. FE3H was not a good looking game but I expected more from a game that released nearly 4 years later.

This game looks like a dollar store genshin that collabs with FE, but at least the Genshin characters look coherent for the themes and aesthetics of the nation they come from.
Colgate and friends look like a travelling circus. I remember when some pictures of this game leaked some time ago and people were 100% convinced that this was a chinese bootleg FE gacha, because of course they would.

Well, let's talk about the gameplay. It's FE so the gameplay was bound to be fun. People say that Engage is going back to its roots because the game "focuses more on the
tactical gameplay than the story, lore and characters". While it's true that Engage offers more variety in the tactical side of things, it still falls flat since the game is lacking some kind of balance. Thanks to the rings units are broken from the start. The problem is, to balance against this, you’d need to have absurdly difficult enemy units, who would invalidate all non-ring using characters and they didn't do that. Though, there are units/classes that are broken in general, so clearing maps wasn't really challenging. Engage offers average FE gameplay with some neat battle animation updates. There are some improvements, but also some step backs. But hey, at least we got weapon triangle back, right?
This is by far one of the easiest FE game I've played. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is fun but it's not "more challenging" than the past games in that regard. Also, Engage got new game modes and mechanics that are straight up from FEH and I'm not a fan.

The story...exists. Most FE stories aren't really all that unique but can still be enjoyed as political dramas on surface level for most of the time (I greatly enjoyed PoR, Thracia and 3H)
Engage's plot is the most vanilla, over the top anime story in this franchise and I mean this in a bad way. Yeah, it's even more "anime" than Fates. The story simply does not live up to previous installments in the series writing-wise.
Oh and Emblem heroes don't factor much into the plot at all, even Marth.

Also, I hate the "but FE was always anime!!!" argument. Yeah, no shit. Anime can have different genres, artstyle and a difference in tone and groundedness. Not every modern anime has to look like a generic moe harem isekai. Because you know, even "anime" can be serious. And it's not like the series cannot try to do that these days - see SoV and 3H. Now, I'm not against lighthearted plots in this franchise, but Engage's plot is just a joke that overstays its welcome way too long. It's been a while since I cringed so many times while playing a game.

The cast is also the most forgettable one. None of the characters felt unique or interesting in any way. Everyone here is meant to either be a laugh, a bland stereotype, or combination of the two. So, tiresome one-note gimmicks whose character profile never left the draft drawer but was put into the game anyway. Supports heavily focus on the character's gimmicks, which got annoying very fast. The supports are not engaging in any way. It's quantity over quality. All of them are very short, but I appreciate that they fully voiced all of them.

Honestly, the only reason I played this game is because I love Fire Emblem and wanted to give this game a chance. I enjoy FE gameplay, but even good gameplay can get tedious and boring if I don't care about the rest of the game. After finishing a map, I got rewarded with more over the top anime crap and meh characters. I was just not invested enough because of that and hated my time with it as a result. See, I love plenty of gameplay-focused games. The issue is that Engage isn't structured like a gameplay-focused game, it's structured like a game with a shit story featuring shitty characters. Does it give you a rough outline of a story to then let you play freely with no distraction? No. It's not a dungeon crawler, it's not XCOM, it's a very classic FE game with tons of character introductions and interactions that are wasting your time, they're just bad. I can't just admit the game's writing is so shit that it's better to skip every cutscene and call that "gameplay-focused", it's clearly a failure and not the intended experience. That was the worst experience I had with a FE game.

The only interesting thing about Engage are the past lords but if I want to see them I just play their games, where they look decent and not like...this. They're also not even able to
interact with each other or are all that relevant in the story, so whats the point of this "celebration"? That you'll point at your favorite lords and clap? That's what FEH is for. This game that shoves in generic anime designs, gags, lines, acting, same baby face women, and non fitting outfits and other elements is for me the worst FE game. I hope the next one will be better, because this was very disappointing after FE3H's big success. I understand that Engage is supposed to be a goofy and lighthearted "celebration" of this franchise, but why is it mainline? And why is it done so bad? There are many other and better ways to celebrate this franchise that I came to really love. But not like this. It's nothing more than a soulless cashgrab.

(The game leaked a few days ago, so I had the chance to play it early.)

A story that deals with tragedy, along with self-loathing, mistakes and pain and how these characters deal with it. A gloomy and oppressive atmosphere that's on point. This is psychological horror at its finest.

To me this game was more psychological than scary. Some moments were tense, yes, but it was definitely more of a mind bender which I personally enjoy way more than mindless gore and jumpscares.

The voice acting wasn't the best but the game certainly made up for it with its narration, details, music and use of sounds.

It is hard to describe how much joy it brings me that there are a pair of brilliant minds at the helm of rose-engine who truly understand the horror video game genre. SIGNALIS feels like the best of all worlds, having borrowed the best parts of its predecessors to create something unique.

From the moment you open up the inventory screen for the first time, the inspiration is plain. The Silent Hill/Resident Evil is here, and the striking art style comes from a fidelity just above the PS1 era but not PS2. You also aren't locked to tank controls, and can even move around while aiming. There are a multitude of weapons (evidently a couple of which are very missable), but the ones I did not miss sound and feel amazing. The game also even features a radio, but unlike the one featured in the Silent Hill series, there are quite a lot of extra gameplay functions, many puzzles of which make use of tuning it to different channels to find solutions. A lot of the major puzzles lean a little too often on being collectathons to unlock your next area, but they are usually made up of smaller more interesting puzzles to claim the pieces. The map screen is well done too, marking the names of rooms you have visited and the status of doors you have tried (unlocked/locked/broken). It will also mark key interactables if present, but you aren't told if you have picked up every item which I feel is a good balance.

The story is intriguing and emotional with a focused cast of interesting characters and themes, and the tone is a lot closer to something like Silent Hill than Resident Evil. If you love classic survival horror and science fiction, SIGNALIS is unmissable. I'm really glad there are game creators out there who still truly get it.

Good morning.
This farewell is as sad for me as it is for you.

I’ve prepared a goodbye party for tonight. A game competition will be included as well, so please feel free to participate.

The difficulty is small, but not to be trifled with.
As this will be the last opportunity, why not take part yourself?

Written in 1928 by S. S. Van Dine, the article “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” is a fascinating collection of 20 writing regulations that could, in theory, elevate a given investigation tale to its best possible iteration. Described by close friend and timeless author T. S. Eliot, as to one day having a nervous breakdown and spending the following 2 years in bed reading more than two thousand detective stories, the poet argues that during that time, Van Dine methodically distilled the genre’s formulas and began writing novels, to which he considered them to be masterpieces.

Out of his absurdly strict rulings, some may argue that most of them can in fact improve the narrative such as (10) stating that the culprit must play a role in the story and (15) stating that the truth of the problem must at all times be apparent, giving so a chance to the reader to decipher the story alongside the detective and not having to rely on hunches from time to time. The reception for his failed jurisdiction on the detective genre became a moderate success from the makers of such stories but not so much by the fans. It rejected possible clichés such as (11) servants not being able to be the culprits, and narratives that were not explored around enough at time such as (12) multiple culprits. People like clichés what can you do...

Over time however, reception of it started to get even worse, not only because of what was mentioned before, but in no small part due to the release in the following year of a much more CHAD reasonable article dissecting the mystery genre and its inner workings, called Knox's Decalogue, written by Ronald Knox. In one of literature's biggest middle finger ever, his 10 points were almost 1 to 1 with half of the Twenty Rules, prioritized giving the viewer a fair challenge of a tale, but this time allowing cliché tropes and creative liberties about its possible cast. Imagine Van Dine’s reaction seeing that become overwhelmingly more praised from writers and viewers alike. Take this big fucking L, nerd.

And while we get gaslit into thinking that the viewers rights to “fight back” in the intellectual game wasnt started by Dine, he will probably keep seething in his grave over the fact that some rules are obviously made to be broken at times, simply for fun. Even looking at the books in "golden age", some break fundamental rules that are praised nonetheless for it's creativity, as sometimes you can fix this unfairness in the game by using foreshadowing effectively (hats off to Disco Elysium). I am here solely to add to his perpetual torment in the history books arguing that his ruling number 3 in particular, is fundamentally why people like me and other highly sexy and intellectual individuals preffer the CHAD reasonable Knox's Decalogue more.

COMMANDMENT 3:
THERE MUST BE NO LOVE INTEREST. THE BUSINESS IN HAND IS TO BRING A CRIMINAL TO THE BAR OF JUSTICE, NOT TO BRING A LOVELORN COUPLE TO THE HYMENEAL ALTAR

It’s easy to just stop here and think about how many great mysteries would have not existed or be less impactful had every writer followed up on that, but we have to remember that this comes from someone living in what was soon perceived as the “golden years” for said genre. While you could argue that love could bypass any resemblance of a logical reasoning to which it would be the ends but not the why’s (aka when love devolves into lunacy with the killer incessantly screaming “I loved her” while being taken away) these are far and few between to be argued on Van Dine’s favor. Human affection can and will lead to insanity, but if the ultimate end goal is also one, was it really love?

The important element about love as a reason that has failed to be comprehended here, is that it can take many forms that I simply wouldn’t have time to begin describing here, as with just the change of a simple word in “love for others” becoming “love of others” you can turn tragedy into fortune. While the advent of romantic love that is heavily implied here does mean that the amount of plausible given possibilities are diminished, lesser infinities are still endless.

Now I’m sorry, but will there EVER be a better motive to kill, murder and slaughter someone, than the reason that brings up the loss of reason itself?

I will go further. There CANNOT be a single plausible reason for a murder in a tale that values the life of its characters and doesn't treat them as pieces waiting to fall off the board, other than actions relating to the innate fondness of others that we so desperately need. A given character in a tale that has their own romantic life all figured out should never be the killer nor suspect, as the most impactful and sincere motivation, from the bottom of their hearts, cannot be present.

Van Dine’s precepts make it very clear that (17) crimes by house-breakers and bandits are the province of the police department, not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. If you fail to treat your victims and killers with the same amount of respect for an action that isn’t guided by an illogical leap-of-faith that seeks adoration of some sort, was it really a murderer or an overly intricate common burglar?

Love is the reason we sin.

Love is the reason we go further.

Love is the reason we are humans.

And to put it extremely bluntly.

Love just makes us do some stupid ass shit.

“ Love is generous, love is merciful.
Love does not envy, it does not boast. “ - Zepar & Furfur

" At times, love can make the invisible visible. " - Featherine

“ The love we give away is the only love we keep. “ - Ushiromiya Ange

“ To fear love is to fear life, and vice-versa.
One must never embrace death as long as love persists. “ - Ronove

“ Without love, it cannot be seen. “ - Beatrice

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Welp, I’ve used all my pretentiousness for now.

I know someone really special will be reading this soon so I’ll be brief now.

Merry Christmas Audrey.

I love you so much.

Do you want to be my girlfriend?

[Every year my buddy starts a “year in review” thread where a bunch of friends and friends of friends share their favorite things/experiences of the year. Since I played the entirety of FFXIV over the past 10 months, I wrote a piece about it and figured I’d copy it here]

…Legs weary from a day spent in the chocobo saddle, I reclined on a bench in the heart of a town tucked cozy away in an ancient forest and watched a man named Daddy pluck the sugary notes of "Californication" on a glowing guitar, while a nearby gaggle of catgirls whipped out brooms and tried in vain to sweep in rhythm to the song. I was home…

2022 was the shittiest year of my life. I spent much of it watching my dad die—the ALS slowly wearing his muscles down to nothing. The inevitability of an incurable disease means you start the grieving process while the subject of your grief is still beside you. It’s weird and intense

Weeks and months spent with family in my hometown tugged at a slowly tightening knot that reprieves in the city where I currently live would loosen again. Although the greatest source of relief for me was my family and friends and the good times I still managed to have with them this year, I'm also a big believer in escapism, and boy did I do some escaping this year: a vital means of loosening that knot was Final Fantasy XIV, a fathomless game that can swallow you whole

In FFXIV, you're dropped into a vast and bewildering and beautiful world, the result of over a decade of work by a whole (whole) lot of people. Simply put, you go on an adventure. Less simply put, you play through action-packed quests while engaging with a sprawling narrative in a world inhabited by many other human players (leading to spontaneous moments of amusement like the one described in the prelude)

FFXIV’s quests are consistently imaginative and wonderful and filled with meticulous mechanics and design. I chose to play as a healer when teaming up with others, and found it one of the most singular experiences I've had with a game. I would get zoned into this pristine zen-like state of thought-to-action translation, a deluge of information reverberating around my skull from which I would glean a single Next Action to take from dozens of possibilities. And then half a second later it's time to do it again. It's gameplay enlightenment. The feeling of muscling your party back from the brink of death to finish off some creative horror and then setting off again to explore more wondrous locales never got old

"…in the end, I will always be of the sea," Yugiri said, wistfully casting her gaze toward her hometown, out of sight over the endless waves, as the nation she swore to protect lay shattered and blazing at our backs. I watched her desperately try to reconcile her origins with her present duties after brutally bearing witness to the fear and despair that had left her countrymen broken under the iron fist of their oppressor. The delivery of her monologue paired with the swelling, haunting orchestral accompaniment set my mind on fire…

From hour one, FFXIV shines for its deep gameplay systems framed in a gorgeously crafted world. Sadly, the narrative of the early game isn't quite on par in quality, offering only a boilerplate fantasy storyline. With its first two expansions, the broader ambition of the writing team begins to come into focus, and the story becomes more than satisfying enough to propel you through the game's myriad content, but, like many a broadly swept epic narrative, the many plot threads that are woven can feel uneven, and some become neglected over time in favor of ever-fresh, ever-new ones. With the third expansion, Shadowbringers, however, they handed the keys to Natsuko Ishikawa and let her finally tie this monstrous work together with a story that transcends the whole affair into pure sublimity (and thus unfortunately making this game the ultimate and worst example of "you just have to get x hours in and then it gets really good," and therefore a difficult investment to wholeheartedly recommend to anyone)

[heads up: the next two paragraphs contain Shadowbringers spoilers]

Despite my love for hyperbole, I will stop quite a ways short of calling Shadowbringers the greatest story ever told……however! I will say it pulls off the most remarkable magic trick I've ever seen in fictional storytelling. It plucks you up out of the world that's been laboriously built up around you, and plops you down in an alien and dying land utterly isolated from everything you know. Here you might say, "Ah I see, the writers unload themselves of the baggage of the earlier plot to give themselves the freedom to tell a whole new story." To which I would smugly retort, "Wrong! While forging this new story in a new world, they also simultaneously resurrect every single one of the threads they constructed over the first few hundred hours of the game and manage to re-contextualize everything in a way that retroactively makes every bit of the preceding narrative orders of magnitude better in hindsight!" That's the magic trick

One key conduit for Shadowbringers' narrative success is one of the most miraculously conceived and executed villains I've ever had the pleasure of traveling with in a game (in one of the many neat inversions of expectation, the villain is not a destination you work your way towards, but rather a companion accompanying you on your journey (and the fact he is a villain is not some third act twist either; you always know)). The story's finale struck a sincere chord with me to the point that I teared up, and those misty eyes weren't for the sake of something so dull as a comrade's self-sacrifice; they were for this villain whom cosmic circumstance (rightfully) bade me strike down. Magic

[end of Shadowbringers spoilers]

"…Reconciliation…I was needed. I withdrew myself…for them." A commitment forgotten, but still upheld. Loved ones forgotten, yet still felt. "My people. My brothers…my friends." Varicolored stones clutched in a child's hands. "Stay strong. Keep the faith. At duty's end, we will meet again. We will." A tear slips from behind the mask, then drifts upward alongside this poor soul's aether. "The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day…"

And now I should probably mention that Shadowbringers is only the second best expansion. If SB deconstructs and re-contextualizes the game's overarching narrative into a snug and tidy baseball, then Endwalker is the slugger that smacks that puppy into orbit (and I'm not just speaking figuratively here). It's a little messy, sure, and it takes a few zigs and zags along the way, but it does get there

In this year defined by a vigil over illness, I have looked longly upon the face of despair, and I have felt my own temperament incline in such a direction, felt the tug of the whirlpool of nihilism. And as stupid as this feels to say, Endwalker was one of the hands that pulled me from that current. It names despair itself one of its antagonists, paints a world in which despair is not just a consequence but a temptation, and where succumbing to the feeling invites literal monstrosity upon one's neighbors. And then it earnestly puts forth a message not of hope triumphing over despair but rather of hope regaining its rightful place alongside despair, acknowledging that darkness is not a thing to be defeated but rather a natural and inevitable part of life that we must learn to accept if we are to truly gaze upon this existence as the beautiful thing that it is. The way this message is delivered is so on-the-nose it could be a pair of glasses. It's so brazen, so saccharine that in any other year it may have repulsed me. But not this year. This year I let that message saturate my being. I cherished the story's more graceful moments and looked past its less graceful ones with ease. I wept when the hero of this tale—the avatar for myself, the player—through no input of my own, performed the single most tender and gut-wrenching act of mercy and understanding I've ever seen on a screen

I wish I had the words to convey how moving this journey was…for an MMO to drop a story on my head that was silly and exuberant in one moment, then dark and ponderous in the next, yet always brimming with a rare kind of messy emotional wisdom; brooding meaningfully on themes such as memory and legacy; impactful in the moment of experiencing it, then continuing to grow richer in hindsight as I think and read on it more…it's still hard to believe. In a year where joy was hard to find, Final Fantasy XIV provided it and provided it generously

"The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it"

"Fate can be cruel, but a smile better suits a hero"

I recently got a 3060ti and decided the perfect game to stress test this sucker was Signalis, a game that looks like it clawed its way out of a Playstation. Plus, uh, it never hurts to get really fucking depressed right before Thanksgiving.

I'm not going to write a lengthy review on its themes or its story, because frankly I'm not sure I can untangle it all. There's some excellent write-ups on this site already that really dig in to what Signalis means and what it has to say about identity, the loss of self, and the pain of losing others. It tells its story in a way that is intentionally confusing, always keeping you questioning who is who, what your motivation is, where you're even at, and when in time you're currently existing. There's a lot of great stuff going on with its narrative and I think it's best enjoyed without understanding anything more specific than what I just laid out, but I probably couldn't dissect it with any more accuracy than that if I tied.

As a game, Signalis is survival horror in the most old school way possible, with limited resources that need to be managed, and scant few inventory slots with which to do so. Enemies cannot be properly killed, only incapacitated for a period of time, almost like REmake's Crimson Heads, though without the added aggression on resurrection. Signalis uses respawning enemies to force the player to consider who to put down and who to spare. A tight corridor you often travel might be better to clear out than a wide open room where enemies can be safely juked, but you also have to consider that corridor will become dangerous again if you don't hustle. Enemies also patrol on set patterns regardless of whether or not you're in a room, which is at times problematic given their predilection to group near doorways, leading to some cheap shots; but the idea is certainly there, and it does nevertheless add to the tension when enemies aren't stationed in a way that's predictable.

Puzzle design is mostly good with a few clunky ones hampering the experience. On the one hand you have things like the Magpie frequency puzzle, on the other you have the pump room puzzle which is so bad they just write the solution down next to the pump station. The game bounces around between Resident Evil and Silent Hill in terms of how difficult these are to solve, though the vast majority are very engaging, and the story is woven in with progression in a way that feel quite seamless. Every problem you have to solve carries some narrative weight, it tells you more about the place you're in and the people who used to live there, so even the few that are mechanically iffy still have something there to draw you in.

One area where my criticisms aren't metered with praise is the controls. The targeting system is just not good, and it doesn't feel like it's by design. It frequently fails to target enemies you've got a clear shot at, and attempting to line up accurate shots in a crowd is a pain given its propensity to target whoever the hell it deems worthy of getting blasted, whether they're who you wanted to unload into or not. Going through doors can also be troublesome, as it sometimes just doesn't seem to register inputs. This isn't too much of a problem unless you're being chased by an enemy, in which case i just want the door to open please open they're coming for me oh god why is their head a leg open up please god please

But really, control problems and a few dodgy puzzles are absolutely not enough to take away from how good Signalis is. Every single survival horror game to resonate with me this much is at least two decades old at this point. That's not to say I don't like modern survival horror, but good god, I haven't played anything "modern" that feels so clued in to the design ethos of the genre's earlier days like Signalis.

A lot of this game is going to stick with me. Its story, its puzzles, its atmosphere... The game's art style is just gorgeous, I adore the way it mixes aliased graphics with pre-rendered elements. A few locations (such as Nowhere, the highlight of the whole game for me) seem to be clearly inspired by Silent Hill, while others reminded me of Myst in ways I'm not sure were really intentional, but impactful nonetheless. It's been a long time since I felt a modern game was made just for me, appealing to everything I love about not just the survival horror genre, but horror in general, with a presentation that is also so tuned in to what I like that it almost makes me a bit paranoid, like I'm being spied on. Like someone is in my head.

God damn. Go play Signalis.

Actual masterpiece shit. Much like last year's Unmetal, a microstudio throwback game has swooped in and stolen my heart right before GOTY season. This is a beautiful, gloriously-realized survival horror experience that pays homage to and even improves upon its all-time classic predecessors while still being incredibly unique all the same.

There is so much to love here, it's like a game tailor-made for me - where to even begin? The gorgeous artistic design? The enigmatic, surreal, heartbreaking storyline? The best horror game puzzles I've solved in countless years? The way it plays with perspective and genre expectations? I wish the inventory limit was bigger, because that is absolutely going to be a sticking point for many people, but the occasional tedium barely even fazed me. I finished my first playthrough, then went right back in on the hardest difficulty to see the secret ending and get the rest of the achievements. I never do that.

After years of games promising to be the "new Silent Hill" and seeing Konami pimp out the SH2 remake to Bloober Team of all people, I'd grown jaded... but no more. This is the new Silent Hill. The spirit of our favorite games will always live on in the hearts and minds of dedicated indie developers.

You writhe beneath my skin
Born of ailing flesh and love
My thoughts, consumed by your sorrow.

Waking nightmares plague me, endless
A slow rotting miracle plucked from time,
You are all that I love, everything I fear
And all the entanglement festering between

For want of fair chances,
I stared into your abyss
As I've done for many before

And in return, you tore out my heart,
Impaled my eyes with your scarlet terror
Invaded the privacy of solitude,
And plunged your iron claws into my very soul.

You interrupt my nights.
My days, occupied by you
You are inescapable, yet...

For all your malignance,
Burrowed under flesh
and boiling blood,

I refuse
to let
go

–

Signalis bores its hooks into my skull, carving grooves into my brain where my psychoses pool. There’s something to be said for its reliance on the narrative language of anime and survival horror, but whether it’s derivative or iterative is a moot point. These beats that ring familiar are sores that Signalis splits open with a sadist’s pleasure. I could sit here and rattle off references, the obvious calls that permeate the body of the work, but where does that get you? Where does that get any of us, other than a cognizant “if you know you know” stranglehold? The language of Signalis isn’t concerned with simply being “Space Resident Evil”, or “Utena by way of Evangelion”. Much like the doomed Penrose, the referential nature of Signalis is, in itself, a repetitious time loop. It is not a work of references, it is its references.

I bolt awake, and Signalis presses on the nerve center that kick started my love of horror. 2008, in front of a bombed-out Gamecube, Jill Valentine tinkers though a puzzle box called the Spenser mansion. 2022, I bumblefuck through the escape room that is Sierpinski S-23.

Another restless night, another stab into my brain. 2012, my first pangs of personalized gender misanthropy at the hands of Asuka Langley Sohryu and Rei Ayanami, the brilliant shine of sapphic love reflected by Utena and Anthy. A decade later, the hate has faded and its place remains remorse for the past, regret for the now as the signature flashes of light and text flicker, as LSTR-512 and Ariane waltz in their final moments.

Again, interrupted sleep prevails. October, last year, the clattering of keys clicked out a cacophonous rhythm as I parse out a write up for Illbleed, a game that set ablaze the dying candle that was my love for gaming, for horror as a whole. Now, after a global rotation, I return to Signalis in the same spot, a love for writing, for fear, for gaming, for love itself, rekindled after a seasonal stagnation.

To try to put definitive words to Signalis seems contradictory to the way the game is delivered, indirect and symbolic in a way anathemic to thematic deduction. In it, I saw the spark of life relight my passion, and I enacted swift death to the tyrant, critical analysis. I could brandish lofty terms, of this having flawless gameplay, immersive writing, a memorable soundtrack, or any other terms I would gladly throw around about games that I will forget in a week. It’s not perfect. I don’t want it to be perfect: It’s for me. I don’t need it to be anything more than what it means to me, and what it means is that I think I love games again.

I awaken once more from broken sleep.

It’s 2014. I’m sitting with someone who, at the time, was my closest friend. We’re huddled around a laptop deep into the night, burning through works that would come to reflect what matters to me in games.

It’s tonight. I’m on call with someone I love. I’m huddled over a keyboard, burning through a write-up of a work that redefines what matters to me in games.

Play Signalis. You probably won’t get what I got out of it. That’s a good thing; it means there’s going to be something else out there that gives you the same feelings that this gave me. For now, I can push you to try a game I view as my personal perfection.

Working titles for my review included:

1) "God of Snore" - Reason not used: Taken
2) "God of More" - Reason not used: Could imply the more was positive/good
3) "Teen Angst Simulator" - Reason not used: Everyone was angsty, not just Atreus.

Used Title: "A Series of Unfortunate MacGuffin's"

I bought this game almost entierly out of curiousity, one of my more controversial gaming opinions and reviews is that of the renewed God of War (2018,) which I played because I wanted to get a gauge on the game that defeated Red Dead Redemption 2 come year's end at the Game Awards. In my experience I found GoW to be a mostly bland, monotonous, and unadventerous experience. I didn't get the same buzz or energy others did from the axe-wielding combat, I didn't enjoy the consistent babbling from Mimir and crew, and I certainly did not have a positive takeaway on the MacGuffin nature of the plot. I'd hoped, in playing Ragnarok, that the extremely high acclaim given to the game by critics when review embargo ceased meant that Sony had remdied the issues I had with the previous title. Now, I know that The Game Award should and have zero bearing on my enjoyment of a game, but it's clear that the two frontrunners for the big daddy of them all "Game of the Year Award" will be Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarok. Curiosity killled the cat, and maybe it killed me too. What I found almost immediately in Ragnarok was that I'd be getting the exact same takeaways and experiences that I had in the 2018 game.

Starting it off with combat, which is admittably a little less... boring as it was in 2018 but comes with its own grievances. Gone is going 75% of the game with the same weapon, as you start the game with Kratos' famous Blades of Chaos and pick up a third weapon down the line (redacted for spoilers.) This is nice because it gives you a little variation in terms of visual flavor for the majority of the game but this fell completely flat for me as the enemies, from start to finish are pretty much all just "bullet" sponges for lack of a better term. There's a certian flare to the combo weaving of different weapons and taking advantages of status effects, but at the end of the day you'll have to pump so much time and effort into enemies to kill them, that I abandoned trying to make it look snazzy. Basic enemies aren't too bad but once you get into the special/mini-boss fights it gets real samey, real quick. Monotonous combat was a compaint I had in the 2018 release that really took up a lot of my opinion on the game, and unfortunately it's back in Ragnarok. Not only does Kratos' arsenal not feel very different overall, not enough for me rather, but again the enemy variation and recycled encounters greatly holds this game back just as it did in the predecessor. I recently played Bayonetta 3 which had the enemy arsenal/variety to make this work, but in God of War every gameplay sequence in a realm can be boiled down into such: Shimmy through a tight loading screen corridor -> solved light puzzle that requires throwing axe and using some kind of time magic -> fight same three to five enemies that are dropped into area -> shimmy loading screen -> repeat. These enemies change per location but the cyclical nature of fighting them, their spongey health bars, and responding to their same mechanics got reallllly old real quick.

You switch between Atreus and Kratos in Ragnarok for level sequences and unfortunately the combat doesn't feel very fresh in either when you change between. Atreus' gameplay loop is even more restricted than Kratos in the first game and his equivalent of Spartan Rage, while stronger, is just a swap-in move which doesn't even do the Nero-Dante dynamic that every character action game should do in making playable protagonists FEEL fundamentally different so controlling them comes off as fresh. My ultimate qualm with the combat, which is also backlines my qualm with the game itself, is that it doesn't feel fresh enough. The combat feels the same, the Hollywood-board-room-type dialogue feels the exact same, the light unecessary puzzle solving feels the same, the missions/levels feel the exact same. What's new with God of War that's supposed to push this series from Great to Fantastic? I don't know, I can't answer that question because I surely didn't find it. The narrative that is meant to wrap up Kratos' Nordic saga felt bland and broken at times, leaving me to constantly wonder the where's and why's of my actions. I get there is an over-arching narrative at play leading to Ragnarok itself, given the actions of the previous title, but I think the game could have done a much better job sequencing its filler-story content. Missions just felt like they were happening to give characters exposition, rather than move the narrative forward and do so. Final Fantasy X does a great job at this, giving each character their own arc while actually advancing the stakes and story at hand. Wakka, Kimahri, Auron, Tidus, and Yuna all have their character examined and challenged while keeping the focus on stopping Sin. Ragnarok had me wondering why I was taking Freya, Atreus, Sindi, Brok all on their own respective adventures that didn't really add to the sequencing of the game in a manner that made sense. With each of these characters you'll find either Kratos or Atreus running the same combat-puzzle-loading screen gambit in an attempt to achieve something or retrieve an item that is to help them in their final huzzah. Doing this over and over and over just felt... bland. God of War Ragnarok for much of its runtime didn't feel like an epic adventure across one of the cooler pantheons to exist within dated mythos, but like a buddy cop comedy where the entire exposition was to retrieve MacGufffin's.

This game honestly just reminded me of the MCU, specifically speaking the Avengers film franchise. Avengers is a media phenomenon that took the world by storm, utilizing a carefully crafted pattern to set up a plethora of Marvel heroes/villains to have them culminate in an epic cinematic experience sure to take the world by storm, and it did. Marvel/Disney spent the time and monetary effort setting up this big "Huzzah" that had never been seen before in the world of film. Almost everyone I knew that was a casual movie watcher, thus excluding those who I would call "Movie hipsters" like myself, were jumping at the seams to speak on the magnitude of the avengers and its fiscal achievements. People were completely enamored in what was a fairly basic story. How do you react when so many around you are speaking in praise of something that you view so mediocre? Surely the right thing to do is not speak ill on something in the world of media that others hold high, because a film series like the Avengers is entierly subjective when it comes to taste, but it's reasonable to have the discourse with those that investigate your dissent with the series further. Thus is my issue with God of War 2018 and Ragnarok. Almost everyone I know that has played the game(s) has loved them, critics have been raving over Ragnarok as soon as reviews were allowed to come out. I've had to step back from most discourse because I don't want to be "that guy" but this is a review space and this is my review, so I feel alright stating how I feel. God of War is that Avengers to me, it's something that can only be made possible by having a lot of money to make and afford the resources needed to make it "work." They both are spectatcles, never shying away from thrusting intense CG and big moments at the consumer. They both utilize top tier composition, sound design, and voice acting to create a complete experience, free of any hitch. God of War was a completely polished game, I had only one minor bug, and it ran phenomenally on my computer... but can that alone with a mediocre story and samey combat make the game "good" for me? The answer I found, to be no it cannot.

There are some things God of War Ragnarok does well, but in the theme of things being the "same" to me as 2018, they were the same things that the game before it did. Christopher Judge is a great Kratos, matter of fact the entire cast does an amazing job acting out and making their characters mostly believable (shoutout SungWon Cho,) but it's almost... too AAA. The game itself is beautiful, I played performance mode on my PS5 and it truly was a crisp experience, taking full advantage of the graphical prowess of the console and my 4k monitor. The game was eye candy, but to that point I felt myself let down with these amazing vistas because of the soulless gameplay loop I knew I was about to embark upon. Animation was great, again I had that "wow I remember gaming twenty years ago moment" whenever they panned to Kratos' face and you could see his emotion vividly. I also love how they took full advantage of the Norse pantheon, including smaller characters like the Norns, Sigurn, Angrboða, and many more to the bigwigs like Freya, Fenrir, Tyr, and Surtr. I loved seeing/hearing a character speak and opening up their wikipedia page to remind myself about their lore. I used to love doing that in my youth, and God of War Ragnarok was a great reminder of doing that.

Lesser issues I had with the game include one, the assumption that you as the player did all the sidequesting and optional content from the previous game. It was a little confusing when Kratos/Atreus were referencing things they did like "Hey remember when we did this" or explaining to another character of their actions and I'm sitting there completely confused because no... I never did that and I had no clue what they were talking about. Secondly, the camera was just downright poor in most combat and even in cutscenes. There was quite a lot of forced panning that takes away player agency from experiencing what they want in a game. Maybe this is part of appealing to the most common consumer, but it was more offputting to me because I am overall not a fan of being told how to interpret or take away scenes from a narrative experience. I would be trying to walk through a scene or turn to see the entire environment at large to only be met by a slow moving camera and a locked screen.

Ragnarok largely missed the mark for me, really feeling like a DLC/Expansion of the 2018 game without enough variety/change to rectify the previous mistakes for me. There were new vistas and characters, but it felt like the fundamental same experience for me, and I'm glad I didn't wait four years between these two releases. Odds are, fans of the 2018 game will absolutely love Ragnarok, and dissenters will not. I cannot recommend God of War Ragnarok, especially for $70, unless you're set on the experience and getting the most out of its sidequesting and characters.