Sometimes you're just gonna have to meet a game on its own terms.

Now, I've actually owned this one for quite a while, but only did my first proper playthrough of it last year or so. In the time since trying it as a kid and actually finishing it, I've heard enough to know that it's ultimately a pretty divisive game, and I can at least understand where that mentality comes from, but it doesn't feel that accurate to completely call the game a mess. If only on the notion that Oshima and crew would have tried to make a product that can reasonably function, going into this one somewhat fresh has made it easier to see how some of the "annoyances" here do end up serving you more than they hinder:

Why are rocks and other shit everywhere if they stop you from smoothly performing time-travel? Well, maybe you accidentally touched a Future sign (GoufyGogg's labeling of these things as enemy design made this entire game click with me, watch her Sonic CD video), in which case suddenly all these bumps in the road mean that not only are they easy ways to burn off that sign, but they also end up not taking too much effort. This also goes for why some stages place springs right near their Goal signs: to stop you from finishing too early if you're still learning how to route levels out. Might be awkward, but the solution always ends up being the same: just jump.

As much as you want to try and go forward, going back is also still a way to get speed. Stardust Speedway might be overwhelming at first, but getting pushed up and down and all around can still be used well in the right situation. If it drives you mad, taking it slowly at first to learn how to properly navigate between routes sounds like a good idea.

The inputting might be a bit more rigid compared to its Sonic 2 counterpart, sure, but the implementation of the Spin Dash is particularly interesting in this game since it has a direct counterpart in the form of the Peel-Out: the former is slower but more easily keeps you safe, whereas the Peel-Out gets you to sign-activation speed faster whilst also asking that you be mindful of when to jump or steer clear of enemies. Used in tandem, they both have their place.

Ultimately, out of the original Classic games, this one has the highest skill floor when it comes to needing to be able to manage speed and level knowledge effectively, which is why I'd say that, unironically, I think it's actually too easy: even later Zones have these kind of "safe spots" where you can easily build up speed in place, which feels like it defeats the purpose. If damage of any kind could rob you of a Sign proc, then that could ensure that these areas still require some caution to get to. Since the level design itself is a much bigger factor of difficulty this time around, I might even suggest that "Hard" layouts could help facilitate more use of Sonic's movement (which could be in place of the damage suggestion). Would love to know if a rom hack out there explores this.

Granted, you'll naturally look for more interesting ways to proc time-travel as you improve at handling Sonic; it's not like you have to abide by the fail-safes, just that I think the training wheels don't need to stay on for the whole ride, whilst also feeling like they're colored in neon. Rotating around a wheel in Metallic Madness and bouncing between two springs is functionally the same thing, but the former is helped a lot by being at least somewhat disguised.

Even then, it's still possible to play the game the same way as Sonic 1, if you simply can't stand the time-travelling. It helps that the Special Stages for this one are properly about handling a running Sonic; I'm very much a Blue Sphere enjoyer, but I'd still say CD handles Special Stages the best out of the Classics.

At least the one thing I don't need to debate is (sorry to that one YouTube video <3) the game's sense of identity. 30 years on and this is still the game that most proudly screams "This is Sonic the Hedgehog": Visually exciting (if still a little mismatched in terms of a complete package) with an energetic soundtrack that is rightfully unanimously agreed upon to be nothing but excellent. The US version's focus on atmosphere might undermine that, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its fair share of funky hits (SS Present and GF clear, I have to say it, alongside some other tracks I still ultimately prefer over JP), and it's still impressive for how little time it had to be made in.

And honestly, Sonic Boom is still always going to be Sonic's theme for me. As a kid, I never actually made it past Tidal Tempest (which I hope proves that my mechanical thoughts on this game are fair), but if there's one area where Sonic CD still gets nostalgia bias from me, it's that opening. They had the cutscenes on the Mega Collection and I remember watching them nonstop; I'm convinced they actually became a part of me, not just that song...IDK Sonic is just so fucking cool, man. This is the ideal version of Sonic for me.

Should also mention that I played this game on what is arguably one of its worst versions (Gems Collection), and I still liked it. Get on my level.

"For Resident Evil 4, I actually didn't stop my frenzy myself. I wanted a producer to step in and stop it for me," - Shinji Mikami

resident evil 4's gameplay mechanics can be summed up as the following: you have four different main gun types accompanied by grenades. enemies walk up slowly towards you with a few different weapon types, and to shoot them you must stop in place and take aim in an over-the-shoulder perspective. generally with multiple enemies, the goal is to stagger one and then run up and kick it, which not only gives leon copious I-frames but also serves as an AoE to any surrounding enemies. the handgun generally serves as your bread-and-butter choice in most close-quarters situations, while the shotgun clears out groups quickly, the rifle can eliminate precise long-distance targets, and the TMP allows a low-damage spray-and-pray solution for specific high-density situations. leon comes equipped with a knife at all times that can quickly kill downed enemies without expending ammo as quickly as well as open item crates strewn across the world. the majority of enemies are identical "ganados" fodder which can wield a variety of weapons, and can generally be taken down quickly with headshots. however, after a ganados's head explodes, there is a potential for a dangerous parasite "los plagas" to extrude from the wound, which can attack from range and generally requires high-powered weaponry (or a flash grenade) in order to kill. with all of this in mind, the core tenets of gameplay consist of keeping leon a comfortable distance from enemies, setting up AoE opportunities when possible, and strategically prioritizing highly-dangerous targets with complementary weapon selections.

that's the "gameplay" in a nutshell. it's a bit like saying super mario bros. 3 is a "game where the player must traverse from platform to platform via jumping, while analyzing the hazard space for the safest path..." blah blah blah. for so many games I feel like you can summarize the core experience with the mechanical interaction description, but when you get to something as unconventionally designed in terms of scenario as re4, it sort of defies being encapsulated by its mechanics. it takes virtually no time for the game to spread its wings, sort of like a biblical angel, literally so complex that it's not completely comprehendable upon first glance. and even this metaphor feels overwrought now that I've written it out because the game is so nonchalant about its own vastness. its almost workmanlike in how stuffed with content it is, treating the abundance of twists and new ideas as simply part of what it takes to put together a AAA.

that comparison with mario 3 wasn't idly tossed in; both games share a need to constantly change the objectives and gimmicks level-by-level, room-by-room. I don't think I can name a single time in re4 where I felt like it reused an idea, or remotely let a concept get stale before the credits rolled. yet the game delicately avoids feeling unfocused at the same time. instead of adding too many ingredients and risking a muddled palette, the designers instead simply rearrange old components in a new way every time you walk through a transition. you don't necessarily need to introduce a new enemy type every five minutes when you can just add switches you need to hit, or hidden doors that flood new enemies in when you hit a certain trigger, or a series of staircases that put leon on his back foot when attempting to attack those at the top, or even wrecking ball controls you need to nurse while facing an onslaught of enemies from all directions. the base gameplay is simplistic enough to apply to virtually any situation you could ever imagine and fun enough to carry whatever you throw at it, so why not throw everything into the pot?

the garradores are a great example of this. the first garrador you meet is fresh enough to stand on its own; you enter its dungeon, grab some key item or flip some switch (honestly can't remember), and attempt to leave, only for it to violently awake and begin chasing you. while its long iron claws make it immensely dangerous, it is blind and thus can only track you by sound. tricking it to getting its claws embedded in a wall or simply sneaking behind it opens up an opportunity to strike its plagas from behind, exposing its weak point and allowing you to dispose of the monster before exiting the dungeon. not long after this it appears for a second time. surely the logical iteration would be simply to add some other enemies into the equation, right? or maybe put it in a room where there are fewer ways to trick it into chasing after noises away from your position?

the game plops you into a cage with the garrador with multiple enemies on the perimeter snarl and take potshots at you, safe behind grates enclosing you in with the murderous creature. attempting to fight back will alert the garrador to your presence, ensuring your swift defeat. there happens to be an door the player can use to exit the cage, but it has a padlock that requires the player shoot it off, again putting the player at risk of the garrador closing in. does the player choose to avoid the attacks from outside the cage, luring the garrador into a spot where the player can take care of them before dealing with the rest? or do they risk leaving the cage with the garrador in immediate pursuit, hoping that the space to maneuver outside makes the encounter easier? one intrepid forum user in a thread I read discussing favorite parts of the game shared their solution: throw a grenade near the door, which instantly disintegrates the padlock, distracts the garrador towards the blast, and allows the player to sneak out and begin taking care with the external opponents. as someone who has always been a bit grenade-shy no matter why game I play, I would've never thought of this (I took the garrador out and ate the external damage before leaving the cage). it's this multiplicity of solutions for any given confrontation that makes the design truly sing.

all of these are strung between simple feel-good classic resi item fetching and some small puzzles here and there that keep the game structured and the locality of each area present in the player's mind. when even with these elements the combat becomes overbearing, the game throws a curveball, letting the player navigate the hedge maze or forcing them to evade the verdugo. that latter boss concept gets repeated later with the U3 without reusing a single lick of content, instead choosing a completely different way to instill the horror of a disgusting entity chasing you. imagine how easy it would've been for them to use multiple elevator-ride fights; the design team threw in a ski-lift section instead. area with ashley operating switches while you provide cover fire? somehow they restricted themselves to only doing it once. which lest I forget, when the game feels like there's not quite enough spice, they'll toss ashley into the equation, who you must escort and protect to avoid an instant game over. somehow they even made this work! the enemies primarily focusing attacks on you and your ability to instantly take care of anyone who attempts to abscond with her in their grasp goes a long way towards making what should be a detestable mechanic overall rather nonintrusive.

unfortunately, with the relative simplicity of the gameplay, bosses tend to be less exciting and more of an afterthought. unload bullets into the boss, run away, reload, rinse and repeat. it doesn't help that virtually every boss is replete with attacks that require dodging via a QTE, which show up far too often in the game in general and jeopardize any real fear or unique qualities for each fight. at worst you can simply use a rocket launcher to instantly kill any boss that is giving you a hard time (I used the free one in the castle on salazar), but overall most of them are more like ammo dumps rather than true tests of skill. on that note, I also can't say I like the regenerators or iron maidens very much. it's a late-game reminder that the genre is technically survival horror, and I think it does a solid job on that note, but hitting the weak spots can be fiddly, especially when they're located on the monster's back like in the first iron maiden fight. for a game that otherwise doesn't really penalize non-optimal shots on regular enemies it's a bit of a nuisance, but I never ran out of ammo regardless and it seems like eventually you will kill one of these enemies with raw damage even if you don't quite hit the final weak spot.

obviously a game this utterly rich with peerless design drew a lot of attention, and like that aforementioned angel, grotesque in its majesty and scope, onlookers and fellow designers created images of it that couldn't capture the vastness of its splendor. more specifically, everyone ran with the novel camera perspective to instead make legions of less-inspired shooters bursting with endless arenas of slight variations on the same theme, with none of the charm or endless inspiration capcom production studio 4 seemed to contain. in hindsight, I don't think resident evil 4 really separates itself all that much from something like gears of war in the sense of carrying a certain level of prestige or dignity. both games simply set out to make great action experiences for those interested. resident evil 4 is humble in its creativity, but frenzied in its drive to never give the player a second of boredom amidst its staggering campaign.

mizuguchi's work fascinates me because it often incorporates musical elements without being explicitly rhythmic. the player within his games becomes an equal contributor to the creative tapestry of the soundscape rather than reciting canned phrases or demanding precision. as you move, rotate, place, and destroy blocks throughout this game, your actions directly accent the soundtrack and create new polyrhythmic layers over top of it, leading to a temporally fluid pacing that ebbs and flows with the eye-catching and psychedelic backdrops that each "skin" (or stage) brings. the effect is subtle; auspiciously off-beat inputs will not result in any added sonics, and with enough play this absence becomes noticeable. you unconsciously begin to follow the tempo and create your own grooves over top of the gameplay, and in this way the game manages to gently control your input timing to match up with the moving cursor that destroys your grouped blocks. this cursor slides along in perfect sync with the backing track... and here we come full circle. our button presses, twitches, and excited exhalations form their own accompaniment to the game, and lumines codifies these subliminal impulses to alter the player's behavior without letting them know explicitly. terrific design.

thankfully lumines would be an addictive puzzle game even without the audiovisual spectacle. the goal here is to clear 2x2 single-color block squares made up from two-tone squares you drop to keep them from stacking up to the top of the play area. while it draws heavily from the tetris-esque block puzzler genre, it twists the expected elements in ways that will fascinate and challenge even those who excel at other games of its ilk. the play area is much wider than it is tall, owing to the four-beat phrase that the cursor moves on sweeping the field of finished squares each measure. gravity is also in complete effect at all times, allowing you to easily chunk squares on uneven terrain in order to transform the structure by controlling where the blocks fall. once the idioms become apparent it becomes a classic game of optimization and risk evaluation: should I try to set up this complicated chain that's dependent on good block RNG? do I have a free spot open for this or will I have to set it down and hope for the best? that one column is getting a little high, do I have anything that could potentially break it down? etc. back when I initially played it it was an essential part of my podcast-listening routine, and one that I wouldn't mind pulling out today to kill a little time or occupy my hands.

I originally played the remaster though, and admittedly this version pales a bit in comparison to the content offered in that package. for a less serious player like myself, shuffle mode was an essential way to keep things fresh with a mix of skins from all modes rather than repeating the basic challenge playlist over and over. sadly it's not available here, as you can only choose between an endlessly looping of the basic playlist and single-skin play, the latter of which loses some of the charm of the skin variety. puzzles and the CPU versus mode seem basically identical between the two releases, and neither of which are particularly revelatory in comparison to the primary gameplay, but I do miss the often-perplexing missions within the remaster. in terms of mechanics, only one major difference exists: chain blocks which can wipe all attached blocks of a matching color whether within a square or not must be activated within a square in this original release, while in the remaster they fire off instantaneously upon touching another colored block. as for its ramifications on the design, I find both to be valid expressions of the quick-clear concept, with the original variation favoring more strategic play but only insofar as you care about score. the remaster has a bit of an 8th-gen mobile-esque sheen that will make fans of the starker, more lo-fi original blanch, but at the same time these updates have made the UI more consistent (a debatable positive) and made confusing layouts such as "Please return my CD" much more legible. ymmv on whether the remaster compromises the experience or not, but for me I will likely keep the remaster in my occasional rotation as much as I enjoy the novelty of playing it on a psp.

in the early days of the pandemic I dedicated at least an hour a day to playing the remaster, and replaying through everything now has brought a lot of those memories back to the forefront. while the game is second nature to me now, I still have those glimpses of utter confusion from when I first encountered it and attempted to make sense of its unorthodox characteristics. with a little time and effort, I think anyone can become comfortable with the concepts here and fall in love with the gorgeous and varied soundtrack. a must-play for puzzle fans of all stripes.

A free to play mobile game disguised as a fun little $5 indie project someone just accidentally did, but in reality is meticulously designed to be as addicting as possible despite there being literally 0 point or goal, not even in a meta sense. I saw a review or comment that sums it up the best, "I only died because I stopped moving for 20 minutes."

Cookie Clicker without the chocolate chip flavored lore.
Wallpaper Engine but it only has one wallpaper.

To call it shallow would be to praise even the thinnest puddle.

Pure, unadulterated dreck. This slot machine designer's glittered up swirling turd being lined up alongside the likes of Tunic in running for Best Indie 2022 is a fucking travesty. Video games are better than this, I promise.

UPDATE: I've been informed I missed the point of the game, it's not that you just waggle WASD pointlessly, you can also tick some boxes between runs before pressing continue to go back to mindlessly waggling WASD.

General mix of nausea trying to see this on its own terms versus what the series means for me. I'm moreso feeling to judge towards the latter considering that the game is seeking to be more replacing than going in its own direction, albeit you can still buy the first game on any market for cheap, it's not that sunset, so maybe that's a little mean?

Regardless though, I got about to chapter 5 before I stopped. Then got increasingly upset about it. Positives first it's like, a more competent horror in terms of visual design and understanding of its gore and shock. Genuinely better at pacing its atmosphere than the original, which is something I didn't think I'd find myself saying. I think a lot of that is simply by the original's design, as they couldn't get as visceral with the lighting or do most of the effects presented here, and said lighting back then in gen 7 now looks significantly aged worse even within its context. Dead Space 2 sidelines this entirely by going for a way better fusion with its pocket city meets infection, but still, credit where it's due the devs here's very clearly first project with a game of this kind of tone is firing very well here.

Everything ends there though. The big massive elephant in the room is how Dead Space Remake plays. I think it'd be really really silly to not acknowledge that Dead Space by Clear Intent explicitly and by result is influenced by Resident Evil 4. The OG and especially Dead Space 2 took this influence to give incredibly threatening enemies that were built around a toolset you had properly balanced to deal with them. You manipulated their enemy state between terrifying rush mode and kiting them together so you can get shots in while faster and more difficult incarnations came around the corner later. This significantly added to that horror, the necromorphs were very much abominations that gruesomely formed from humanity and their feral instinctual power that you had to manage and keep your distance especially with their erraticism was The defining factor.

But here? They're entirely defanged. This is utterly indefensible to me. The AI for lack of a better word is total dogshit. They'll constantly, CONSISTENTLY, revert to an idle state both after sprinting or even in the middle of attacks. They're boring, reduced in a manner similar to xenomorphs from Alien to Aliens, their threat deorbited to be replaced by, well, nothing. You're far more powerful too, weapon hitboxes have been so overtuned to where flamethrower just disintegrates now, as an example. Your stomp hitbox is so laughably huge that it brought me out of the game hard. I went through the entirety of chapter 4 trying to see how much I could get by just stomping enemies to death. I succeeded and that was depressing. I'm playing this game on Hard btw, and I've actually never been quite able to power through the original's hardest difficulties. I'm not that good at Dead Space. This remake really is just that toothless.

And that's astonishing to me. This is a remake set to be a powerful recognizable spirit of the original, with an uncharitable doctrine towards its coming entirely because EA still absolutely sunset the original devs with prejudice. But its roots, they're gone! They're not even a part of the equation here. I found playing this less interesting and engaging from a mechanical standpoint than Dead Space 3 and that in of itself is also something I never wished I had to say.

I don't know. On its own terms, I think it's largely understandable that people are seeing this from a nu-standpoint where they, likely honestly, never played the original. Simply observed it from its marketing and its dominating horror appeal and came in hoping to be blown away by that part of things. Which is there. That part is not, like, missing. This is in some sense a strongly competent horror walking sim of sorts (yeah i know, levels are still nonlinear, you still kind of fight things, but it's obviously not the point anymore). Difficult for me to internalize that though. The legacy I loved the series for is gone. I'm not very good with horror games exclusively, I loved Dead Space largely for how its monsters were analogous to the horror and forced me to feel things intrinsically through gameplay. I loved that something something ludonarrative. I liked the power and actualization of accomplishing past these terrible monsters, going through with wounds and scars and feeling like I really just lived through a stone cold hell.

Not here though. Dead Space has moved on. Maybe we should too.

Essentially a battle between the two sides of nostalgia’s collectable coin: on one there’s the ugly and hollow self-perpetuation of “oddjob slappers-only natalya AI bad” that the Nintendo-Microsoft marketing machine is currently indulging in - cravenly memeing about the pause menu music while the game’s original developers call foul of an emulator’s exhumation in the replies column; but on the other side, despite it all, there remains a more sincere evocation of random-access memory here, one that arrives in unexpected moments - on this playthrough I was struck by the sound of Natalya shooting a guard off-screen in the eerie silence of Jungle, the way the cartoon violence suddenly veers towards reality in a rainforest soundscape that thrives upon an absentia of Kirkhope’s otherwise-welcome elevator-electrofunk. It felt good to be reminded of a time when this game felt so real to us and there was genuine fear in Xenia barrelling across a rope bridge with a grenade launcher… I don’t want to go back, but I do like to visit.

Like Pokémon Red & Blue, this is a game that’s ultimately doomed to be misunderstood and maligned by those that came after us. Despite playing this game for days and years on end, I’ve never been able to perceive the all-consuming glitches, bugs and jank these games apparently stink of. A recent Twitter thread recommended switching the control scheme to 2.3 Mode and then using the Switch’s built-in accessibility settings to swap stick and button inputs around in order to get the conventional twin-stick shooter experience; many replies praised the OP for “fixing” the game on behalf of Nintendo - but in what way was the game broken? Why afford yourself precision aiming in a game that is best left in the hands of a frankly glorious Auto-Aim? Why deny yourself the James Bond Musou experience of running down Control’s corridors with dual RPKs on full auto? Why not indulge in a couple of thoughts about how game designers in the 1990s overcame technical limitations that they didn’t even know existed yet? Other gamers in proximity to the thread lamented the fact that the re-release does not include upscaled or redone textures and character models, but I’m not going to get into the Midjourneyification of preexisting art because I don’t like to write mean things about consumers who just want to hitch a ride on a Ship of Theseus that bears the false flag of Goldeneye: 007. It aged poorly? So will you, soon enough.

Ringing in the new year with some fireworks.

So, the reason I was even able to see this game all the way through to the end is its “Rising” mode, one that lets you upgrade your character over time- and I’m really torn on it. On the one hand, I think it’s a great way of easing players into a genre that can be notoriously difficult, having them slowly build up some familiarity with the game as they’re unlocking abilities to make it that much easier. On the other, it’s a mode built around a gross framework that wants you to unlock everything in the shop, the kind of Skinnerbox shit that I despise in games. I don’t know if it's a pull that will be that strong for most people, especially for anyone who’s playing the game now, but it sort of speaks to mode’s conflicted priorities: Is it an easy mode? A practice mode? An inelegant attempt to graft some extrinsic motivators onto the arcade mindset that’s really about your personal growth?

An article I was thinking about a lot while playing through this was Durandal’s excellent piece on the value of easy modes, where they discuss how a good easy mode can help bridge the gap for novice players and help them jump into the rest of the game, noting,

By having assists and options aimed at casual players also be framed around the core appeal of the game, it can be more likely to make casual players see that appeal and even try to engage with it at a deeper level. Even if they decide not to, they can at least put in a good word for others by shilling your gameplay on top of the narrative and presentation.

With some retooling I think the Rising mode is almost there; the game puts a big emphasis on your letter grade at the end of each stage and something like having the number of assists you had activated lower your total possible score could’ve been a good way to encourage players to try levels with your Arcade restrictions. As it stands, it's an attempt at accessibility that I appreciate and even for all the flaws in the mode’s implementation, it seems like a genuine effort on the part of the developers to get new players on board, aware of how daunting the game might’ve been otherwise- at the very least it got me onboard. (Though I think the ideal is probably something like the options provided by M2 ShotTriggers ports, where accessibility and practice modes are available from the outset, made with knowledge that those options help both new and experienced players alike.)

Playing through Uprising has also been a nice reminder of why having honest-to-god stages can be so compelling- especially when run and guns seem to be so synonymous with boss rushes- with lots of improvisational moments that naturally come from the amount of enemies flooding the screen. What really pushes it over the edge are the options provided by your context-sensitive actions; while the most obvious application is probably your bullet-reflecting parry, you’re also able to dodge through enemies and obstacles, during which you’re granted a generous number of i-frames, letting you cut through huge portions of the stage if you’re daring enough.

For a title where you’re going to see the first few stages on repeat, it’s the kind of nuance that really helps to keep the game alive, your view of the enemies and stage design slowly transforming with time, going from hazards to opportunities- always a sense that you have at least a few tools at your disposal, even if you’re down to your starting weapon.

Less true of most of the bosses, rigid enough that you could set your watch to them and little to do to but whittle down their health bar if you get knocked off your rhythm, but there are a couple of outliers that are really cool: the boss of stage 2 could best be described as a miniature version of a “The End”-style encounter set in a jungle arena with fruit that you can shoot down for some extra health, and the last phase of the final boss has you fighting it in freefall with destructible platforms you can shoot to get some weapon pick-ups, and so you constantly have to reposition and debate whether you can afford to destroy some to terrain to upgrade your weapon.

You can tell that both fights are edge cases: the former doesn’t seem to have a fixed pattern for its attacks, so you can spend more of time looking for it than actually fighting it, and with the latter, it’s easy to find yourself in a situation where you have nowhere to jump to and end up falling to your death. I imagine that it's the kind of randomness that would be infuriating for anyone going for a no-death clear, but they provide some great “dig in your heels” moments; would’ve loved to see a few more fights like them, as they seem much more suited to a game where its best moments come from its mechanical flexibility.

That’s the heady stuff- it’s also a game where you’ll hit a big enough ramp to stay airborne for the rest of the stage, where the soundtrack is killer, and that contrasts its big dumb action with a bit of introspection in the time in-between levels.

The kind of game I will always show up for.

---

References:

Durandal, "How Can Game Options Help Casual Players See The Core Appeal Of A Game?," Link

In 1953 two psychologists, James Olds and Peter Milner, modified the famous experiment of the "Skinner Box", by implanting nodes in the pleasure center of rats and linking them to a lever, which then the rats would press to activate.

¿The result? The rats would press the lever up to 7000 times per hour. When they were hungry they kept pressing the lever instead of eating. They kept pressing it when they were thirsty. They kept pressing it when they were in heat. They even ignored their offspring to keep pressing the lever.
The nodes had to be removed, otherwise the rats would literally die of starvation and thirst.
They called this phenomenon "Brain stimulation reward".

In case it's not clear, I'm saying this atrocity is the closest thing to that without outright implanting electrodes in your brain. It's no wonder the person who made this worked on the gambling machine industry, only someone with such a disgusting background could think that the only harmful aspect of that industry is the "gambling" part.

Now, as an exercise, think of any of the reasons why someone could find a game enjoyable or worthwhile. A meticulously crafted gameplay, an original artstyle, imaginative music, a masterful narrative. These are the ones that come to mind. Well, none of these, nor any other reason that makes games, or art in general, good and beneficial to people are present in Vampire Survivors.
The only thing this thing can provide you is the same hollow, even harmful, mindless pleasure that the lever gave the rats. And, as happened with the rats, you should unplug this shit off your brain before you are incapable of enjoying anything else.

Edit: In case it needs to be said, I do not think anyone is stupid for liking VS, but I do think almost any videogame with a focus on their gameplay loop is a better use of your time in case you simply want to disconect. Play stardew valley, or into the breach, or hades, or crypt of the necrodancer, or enter the gungeon, or a forza horizon, or even play a monster hunter.