Pools, at least large public pools like the ones evoked by POOLS, are designed to be communal spaces. They are meant to be places of life and sound. In real life and the game, being alone when exploring a pool and its surrounding facilities can feel otherworldly. That isn’t necessarily an unsettling thing. While that is pretty explicitly what POOLS is trying to evoke, for me it manages to be almost meditative.

The best visual representation of this has always been, for me, the work of Leanne Shapton. Now an artist and writer, Shapton was a competitive swimmer for the majority of her youth. In her memoir, Swimming Studies, Shapton intercuts text with various pieces of art. The most memorable to me are the pages of simple geometric renderings of different pools across the world that Shapton has visited. The dark shapes of the pools are contrasted by a stark white surrounding, with nothing else.

Like Shapton’s art, POOLS breaks these spaces down to the basics of dark water and muted white surroundings. But the game triggers something in me much closer to my memories. It’s a combination of the visual rendering of the space, the audio of water dripping on tiles, and the ability to wander at my own pace. There are some rooms in POOLS that feel almost directly lifted from my brain like I’m wandering into memories. It’s not the unsettling experience the game is intended to be for most players, but something more personal and just as enthralling.

Tekken is a game about decades long family feud so here’s my story of Tekken-related patricide.

When I turned 6 my dad decided to gift me a Playstation 1. We weren’t rich so we bought it second hand. He found some guy willing to sell his console and we visited him together to make sure it works. I remember his room being cluttered and messy. I also remember the game he showed us first. It was Tekken 3. It blew our minds. Never have we seen 3D graphics that looked so detailed, so animated, so lively. Coming straight from shitty famicom clones it looked unbelievable. My excitement about graphics peaked right there and I’m still trying to catch that high. That dude sold us his stack of discs as well (I also remember a shitty Mission Impossible game), but really we only cared about the “game with brawls”. When we got back we played Tekken 3 all night long. That was maybe the most memorable day of my childhood.

Years passed and I “grew out” of PS1. I didn’t have a PS2 or PS3, I got into PC gaming instead, so the rest of the Tekken series passed near me. I played some T5 on friends’ PSPs (I even showed them how to do cool Law kickflips that still worked exactly how I remembered) but otherwise it wasn’t something I was particularly interested in anymore. I’m into “smart” games now, not those meathead fightings.

But my dad, it turns out, never stopped caring. Now living a pretty prosperous life he bought his new son a PS3 (we stopped living together by then) with, you guessed it, Tekken 6. And this time it was a deliberate ploy for him to REALLY get invested in fighting. He started maining Hwoarang, actually learning his moves, trying out online. I remember my lil bro’s excitement when T7 got announced for PS4 because he knew dad would WANT to play that one, so yet another birthday Playstation was imminent. In T7 he got addicted to ranked play so he got really good. The meme about 40yo old dudes playing Kazuyas perfectly wavedashing and putting you in nasty mixup is real, except it’s my dad, he’s 50 now and he’s Hwoarang.

And of course whenever I’d visit Dad's side of the family he’d invite me to play Tekken for old time’s sake. And since he got so good it’s gotten pretty miserable. I played a bit of T7 as well since it was on PC, but never on the level that invited understanding, just mashing here and there with friends. Of course it wasn’t enough against Dad’s Hwo. And whenever he’d perfect K.O my ass he’d laugh straight in my face. Look at the gamer son who can’t play fighting games! I very much gave up on reaching his level, I just accepted my beatings at occasional family gatherings.

That is until Tekken 8.

Something clicked with me in this game. Maybe it’s fantastic learning tools, maybe it’s yet again great graphics, maybe it’s Jun Kazama being an amazingly fun character, but it got its hooks deep in me. Now I know how to apply pressure, how to put an enemy in a mixup state. I understand the concept of taking turns, the difference between crush and evade, when to use my 13i and 10i punishes. I know my character’s moves and available tools. I’m actually learning.

My Dad of course also hopped on T8. He bought an entire new laptop for the game, justifying it as a working expense! And yesterday we finally got to play some sets.

These were my most nailbiting T8 matches so far. Turns out Dad doesn’t like it when I’m ducking his highs. He also can’t do much when it’s me who’s putting the pressure and forces the mixups. I put everything into this… and finally got him. We went 4-3. I defeated my Dad. I truly am the son of the Mishima family.

The World Ends with You is a statement, both literally and figuratively. The game has a creative approach to street culture, if you will, cultivating its most fresh and inspiring aspects. At the same time, it deals with deep seated fears and expectations of youths everywhere in the world, not just Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Clearly it's a different perspective compared to other media aimed at younger audiences but it's true, real and felt. A friend told me: "Had I played this game when I was 15, it would've meant the world to me." I did, so I can only agree.

The gameplay is different, bold as the game itself. It hits way more times that it misses and combat is extremely customizable, with pins of different brands having different effects, damage types and doing numbers depending on said brand being a hit on the streets the fight takes place in or not. When it hits, it's fun and engaging, but when it misses it's the most miserable I've felt playing a game. The soundtrack is incredible; I personally love Long Dream and Calling, but there's stuff for everybody.

As said before, TWEWY has a lot to say and to show. It means a lot to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but mostly it's because it's a very personal tale and pushes different buttons for different people. Diverse as the brands themselves, going with the flow, against it, up and down, yet statements, always.