Alguns diriam que a interação é o que define a mídia videogame, mas não somente a interação entre jogador e jogo, mas interpessoal, e dessa vez Keita Takahashi leva esses conceitos a outro nível.

No escuro da noite, um quadrado acorda sozinho e seus olhos buscam por alguma companhia, ao não encontrar nada, só lhe restou as lágrimas, que convenientemente trouxeram um grupo de... pedras? ao seu encontro. Eles se encaram, o quadrado estranha, mas estava ali a oportunidade de fazer um novo amigo.

E com isso você entende por quais meios o jogo quer passar, as interações entre os personagens fazem que coisas inesperadas aconteçam e novos amigos apareçam. Wattam tem é um jogo ingênuo, e ele tem consciência de que aborda as relações interpessoais de forma muito frontal, já que é um jogo feito para crianças, literalmente, o jogo foi feito pensado para os filhos de Keita e Asuka Takahashi.

Existem aqui até maneirismos de um soft building ala Hayao Miyazaki em não querer explicar muito de como as regras funcionam naquele mundo, nada disso importa no fim, o que importa é que estamos aqui e estamos juntos!

Por todas as coisas diferentes que Wattam faz eu fiquei muito feliz jogando, desde a surpresa de um combate até uma sessão de investigação, mas para além disso, terminei grato, grato por ter todos os amigos que tenho.

Então Shigesato Itoi conta a sua ultima historia.

E que historia hein? Mother 3 começa como um jogo que tenta se desprender de Earthbound, mas mesmo tempo que encapsula a ideia do jogo anterior. Existe uma coisa muito impar nesses jogos que mesmo com suas narrativas mais sóbrias, deixam o coração aquecido.

E isso vem muito da ideia de que a serie mother são grandes fabulas que no fim querem te dizer algo além do que se é mostrado na superfície. E nesse ponto é bom eu começar a falar sobre as coisas que me acometeram no jogo: Mother 3 é sim uma fabula infantil, mas ainda é uma obra que trata e retrata comentários anti-capitalistas, o mal da militarização policial, uma falsa liberdade irrestrita, em resumo, um obra anti-fascista.

E aqui eu darei levíssimos pra elucidar os meus pontos, pois, em determinado momento da historia você vê que um grupo de personagens chegam na pacata vila de Tazmily (que nem sabia o que era dinheiro) com um item chamado "Caixa Feliz" que pode ser entendida como uma alusão a TV e com a chegada da TV, é propagada uma mudança do status quo dentro da vila que até o momento trabalhava em comunhão mas com a vinda do dinheiro houve uma ruptura e 3 anos depois do inicio do jogo a Vila de Tazmily estava totalmente diferente. E isso é confirmado pelo jogo, pois houve um progresso econômico na vila, mas isso veio em detrimento as relações interpessoais, algo crescia nas sombras.

Nesses 3 anos, um exercito composto por porcos (que usam da estética fascista, conveniente não?) oprime os opositores e os ridicularizam e ou presos com o uso de uma truculência policial (que já foi vista na serie quando Ness luta contra uma delegacia inteira em Earthbound). E aqui o ponto é trazer que a policial é um instrumento do estado que visa a manutenção do status quo da classe dominante, no jogo, a do vilão, no nosso mundo, a burguesia. (e guarde bem a informação "Nosso mundo" ela vai ser importante mais pra frente)

E sobre liberdade? bem, mais pra frente no jogo Tazmily estará abandonada, já que todos os habitantes se mudaram para a cidade grande, e na cidade grande aonde os prédios são de mentira, os trabalhadores são precarizados e principalmente, as pessoas acham que são livres, entre os NPCs você percebe todos reconhecendo o protagonista e nisso todos contam admirados como agora eles são realmente livres e que a cidade grande te proporciona isso.

Os porcos são os fascistas, obviamente, mesmo sendo retratados como um alivio cômico, nunca são subestimados, já que eles sempre conseguem alcançar seus objetivos, mesmo que isso custe vidas. Eles são movidos por uma uma fome insaciável de poder.

Bem, eu passei pelos temas de forma bem superficial, sendo algo que é permeável por todo o jogo é difícil falar diretamente as criticas sem grandes spoilers. Mas venho tentar demonstrar que Itoi tinha consciência de que você nunca está realmente livre dentro do sistema capitalista.

E isso nos leva pro pos credito do jogo, aonde pós eventos finais do jogo, em uma grande tela preta o jogo e personagens conversam com você, e nessa conversa o jogo vai falar sobre como aquela historia acabou e que aquele jogo acabou, mas que tudo vai ficar bem lá, e ele faz uma provocação: "Aqui vai ficar tudo bem, mas e ai no outro mundo?"

Mother 3 nos minutos finais subverte a mensagem de seu jogo pra dizer que não devemos nos esquecer daquele jogo e daqueles personagens, e eu entendo todo esse pós credito como uma grande provocação, mas também como um consolo. Entendo que não devemos esquecer aqueles que amamos mesmo sedo eles "meros" pixels em uma tela, já que eles foram peças importantes pra uma narrativa que te impactam de uma maneira

E devem permanecer com você, mesmo que numa cultura capitalista e de alto consumo você acabe passando pro próximo jogo sem refletir no que acabou de jogar, faça um esforço e considere levar essas historias no seu coração.

Eu entendo que Itoi vem falar sobre as relações cada vez mais liquidas que se tem com obras e com a mídia principalmente, e então voltamos pro "Aqui vai ficar tudo bem, mas e ai no outro mundo?"

Eu gostaria muito de dizer a Itoi que a unica coisa livre aqui são as minhas lagrimas, mas mesmo não vendo tanta esperança quanto ele (já que o o mundo nunca me tratou bem como ele pede no fim) eu ainda acho digno de lutar por uma superação desse sistema que nos levará a extinção, e no fim talvez essa seja a resposta das coisas, ter algum tipo de fé, né?

Eu acabei divagando demais sobre os temas que me apetecem no jogo que deixei de fora todo o resto, mas isso não é tão importante nessa review, é um jogo do itoi, se você jogou os anteriores, você sabe o que esperar (alias, importante jogar os outros já que é um jogo que se referencia a serie inteira e toda essa jornada ganha peso caso você tenha bagagem dos outros).

Mas acho que passei de forma resumida e sem spoilers o que eu senti e gostei enquanto jogava Mother 3, foi um jogo que me divertiu, me estressou, mas principalmente me fez amar ainda mais a franquia e videogames num geral, entrou facilmente entre os meus jogos favoritos.

Itoi nunca mais vai fazer outro jogo, e tudo bem, ele já contou as historias que ele queria e eu já ouvi o suficiente, eu só espero que o mundo daqui tenha sido gentil com ele.

“The living leave traces of themselves wherever they go; and once you’re gone, it’s the traces that tell the story”

Essa frase dita por um dos personagens de Trace Memory não só descreve perfeitamente como é desbravar a mansão Edwards, local onde se passa o jogo, mas também toda a essência de jogos de mistério desse tipo, ou mais profundamente, sobre como a memória também pode ser material, como a vida continua mesmo após seu fim.

Trace Memory é curto e agridoce, assim como a vida, e te faz lembrar deste fato. Abaixo da premissa simples e pessoal há muita maturidade, com adolescentes de diferentes épocas se encontrando e se aproximando em meio à tragédias pessoais.

Contando duas histórias paralelas de forma realista e com pé no chão, esse jogo utiliza as funcionalidades do DS de forma total e com muita criatividade, e fato disso ter vindo diretamente de 2005 torna tudo mais impressionante. É único e atmosférico, com efeitos sonoros (destaque especial para os sons de passos) e músicas assombrantes, em uma ambientação simples mas muito bem realizada. Para uma experiência de uma tarde, foi bem gratificante, e mal posso esperar pelo remake.

[ps. joguei a demo do remake e… esperarei promoções]

Content warning for non-explicit discussion of real life death, expulsion of bodily waste and fluids, pregnancy, childbirth, needle use in a medical context

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I am a woman. My experience as a woman is one of the less common ones, statistically, because I didn’t have it in me to assert that I was one until a good quarter century after most women are informed that this is what they are. That there are rules to this, and ways to perform womanhood, and perhaps most importantly for a lot of people, certain baseline genetic requirements that separate women from non-women. That last part is the sticky one for me, and because of this there are a lot of people out in the world who hate me, who want me to simply not be. Many of these people are powerful and they make decisions every day about my privilege to exist, but many many more of them are regular people out in the world. Sometimes it’s easy to tell who they are by the looks they give, the things they say; sometimes it’s not so immediately obvious. It is stressful to go outside, often, and occasionally it is outright difficult. Nevertheless, I am a woman.

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Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French writer who has been prolific in many fields over her six decades of writing, but I often find myself thinking of her most famous work, one of her earliest publications - 1980’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, because it is the only thing by her that I’ve read. It’s a 200-ish page book that builds heavily on old Freudian theory to, among other things, consider the ways people use powerfully negative experiences to define and value the self.

Kristeva defines abjection like this: “The human reaction to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or between self and other.” Abjection, in a way, forces us to choose our identity; we define ourselves via rejection, by how we think of ourselves in opposition to things that disgust or harm us. It preys upon this idea of selfhood, of the boundaries we construct and maintain to create identity. It preys upon the divisions we create when we erect these boundaries. One example of this that Kristeva uses is things we naturally expel from our bodies, stuff like blood from a wound, teeth that fall out, semen, piss, shit, vomit. One second these things are subject – they’re part of you – and the next they’re object – separate from you entirely. This may not seem like much but this intrinsic mental separation from what was a part of you as soon as it leaves your body highlights how fragile these boundaries actually are.

I am, because I am not.

Kristeva thinks it’s a thin line.

She most often frames abjection in terms of violence, revulsion, disgust, and trauma. And it’s true that we tend to use the word “abject” as a maximalist adjective to highlight negative things. Abject terror. Abject misery. Abject poverty. But for Kristeva it’s not actually a bad thing in the grand view; on the contrary it’s an essential part of making us who we are as a collective and as individuals. She talks a lot about childbirth as the first moment of abjection. Birth being as much a kid fighting to live, to create a self, a sense of being, even as they tear away from the safety of their mother’s womb. It’s an inherently violent act and it’s the only way to become. It’s an ongoing process throughout life; kids have values imposed on them - language, culture, law - all things contrary to totally natural impulses but also things that most of us agree are necessary for them to grow into society as we know it. This is a process that repeats constantly throughout life to varying degrees. It can be painful, horrible, and disgusting, but it’s necessary. These experiences sharpen our sense of who we are, in our sense of opposition to the things that cause us pain, horror, and disgust.

I am not, so I am.

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Silent Hill 4: The Room has, if I’m remembering all My Gaming from last year correctly, the largest cast of characters of any Team Silent game, but it is almost entirely concerned with the thematic opposition of its player character, Henry Townshend, and its central figure and villain, Walter Sullivan. Henry is cursed, you see, trapped inside of his apartment by supernatural forces, unable to be seen or heard by anyone on the outside even as he becomes increasingly aware of a deadly, ghostly threat haunting the complex and its inhabitants. Walter uh, IS that threat, the ghost of a serial killer returned partially from the grave to finish his cruel sacrament with the six-ish murders he had to leave off in life (all according to his grand plan, of course). His ultimate goal, it’s eventually revealed, is to get permanent access to Henry’s apartment, which he sees as the vessel for his own mother, whose spirit he believes will awaken when he completes his twenty-one ritual murders.

Walter has a tragic past, raised within an evil cult, abused constantly by his caretakers, turned out onto uncaring streets with only his brainwashing and occult dogma to motivate him to go on. He’s a man who experiences moments of abjection and rejects them, becoming singularly focused on rescinding his identity. He is in constant pursuit of a mother he doesn’t remember, his mission to return permanently to the safety of her womb, where he can exist eternally, unburdened and unfettered by both his trauma and his self.

In all of the early Silent Hill games, aspects of the world take on attributes specific to the psyches of particular characters central to the story, and in The Room that person is Walter himself, whose fears and hates dictate the worlds that Henry and his neighbors are dragged into throughout the game. Walter’s fears are decidedly more mundane than previous Silent Hill fear generators, with environments like normal forests and subway stations, urban blocks and apartment complexes. Walter is afraid of, generally speaking, the Out There. He wants to retreat. Enemies are other people. They squish, they slurp, they burp grotesquely (bodily expulsion is a hallmark of abject experience, remember). Ghosts pursue you doggedly, without pause, and the worst thing they can do is just be present, their very auras radiating sinister energy that hurts Henry without action.

Henry himself is a mirror to Walter, trapped seemingly eternally in the thematic womb, his only escape the long long tunnel that forms in his bathroom wall, one that spawns him into these frightening outside worlds, often in the fetal position (I know writers who use subtlety and they’re all cowards, etc). While he does face trauma in these worlds and after every moment of abjection retreats back to his apartment for nourishment and healing, Henry does, ultimately, want to get the fuck outta there bro. He’s desperate for human connection too (and connection beyond murder – his moments of abjection always come via Walter doing something fucked up to one of his neighbors), desperate enough to peep on his direct next door neighbor Eileen through a hole that a previous tenant left in their shared wall. Tellingly, Henry can’t even begin to have a real connection to Eileen, or anyone, until he symbolically begins to separate himself from the room; once they meet for real and succeed in evading Walter’s attacks for the first time, the room stops healing Henry, and becomes open to hauntings that actively harm him.

The titular room is Henry’s place of refuge and comfort, at first, but it’s also his ultimate enemy. This is true the entire game, not just after Walter’s influence begins to infect the space. He’ll die if he stays here. He has precious little food, and during gameplay he gives away his last bottle of chocolate milk (milk being one of Kristeva’s confessed personal objects of great disgust, in a moment of fun serendipity). He has no one to interact with, and even though it’s stated in game that he was not a social guy before he was cursed, once you’re down to zero everything seems like a lifeline. Eventually, of course, he’ll be literally killed by the curses that infect the room. He can’t stay. He needs to be born, and he knows it. It’s a false security, and it intrinsically can’t last.

Walter and Henry aren’t the only figures central to the game, though. There is, of course, a third pillar here: you. Er, me. Y’know, The Player. There is essentially nothing to Henry – this is part of why he exists primarily as a thematic contrast to Walter, and part of why it’s hard to ascribe much character to his actions. You’re Henry in large part. When he’s in the apartment you even control him in first person. You are the ultimate voyeur, in the same way that Henry is to Eileen and Walter is to Henry. And this is part of why Walter’s worlds and the creatures that populate them are on the surface so much more generic than the places and monsters of past games: applicability.

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I have this uncle who died in his apartment. I didn’t know him, really. From stuff I’ve been told he wasn’t a good guy. I was a kid, and we lived states away. I only met him a handful of times at big family parties. The only reason I ever think about him at all probably is because he died in his apartment, and even then I’ve only started thinking about him so much recently, in the last couple of years, because we’ve all been spending a lot more time in our apartments. It’s covid, bay bee. The reason I think about him so much is because when he died in his apartment, nobody knew. Nobody cared to check in. They only found him, weeks later, because his landlord went into his place because they had assumed he had run out on it because he hadn’t paid rent or responded to any communication, for weeks, because he was dead.

So I think about that a lot the last couple years.

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I mentioned that Walter’s hellscapes are mundane places and his monsters are other people and I do think this is a reflection of where the developers thought maybe a lot of their presumed audience was at when Silent Hill 4 came out. Which is pretty funny. But it’s real, too, for me. There’s not a lot that’s scarier for me as a trans person than An Only Vaguely Familiar Public Place With An Off Vibe. That’s alarm bell central. It’s hard out there, man. Rarely do I feel outright unsafe but often do I feel eyes. It’s difficult to tell a lot of the time if the eyes are real or if I’m inventing them, and that doubt can make it even harder to feel confident in my place in perfectly normal spaces. Just yesterday I was actively frightened waiting in line for the bathroom in an inexplicably crowded gas station in the middle of nowhere in Iowa. You just never know when it’s going to be a problem. I was never the most confident person, but this low level thrum of unease colors every moment of public life. In talking about abjection in an academic sense and especially when talking about fiction it’s easy to forget that part of it is that it is upsetting by nature. But in life it sharpens me. I know who I am.

It’s a harsh dichotomy – every day I am more visibly transgender in more irreversible physical ways. Every day I become more obviously Neither Male Nor Female and while I love this about myself and I am truly happy with these changes they are the same changes that make me less safe and more vulnerable in ways that become harder and harder to cover up with clothes and masks. It would be easy to retreat to my womb, metaphorically. I want to, sometimes. I work remotely on a permanent basis. I live literally across the street from the grocery store. My girlfriend is here, my cats are here, my friends are online.

But I am transforming. Every week I stab myself with a needle. I force through this needle the fluid that makes my body into what I want it to be. A violent transmogrification. I feel the most beautiful in these moments. They are moments of clarity, of self expression, of definition by rejection. I am not a man. I am a woman. This needle in my leg is my signature. Living in fear of living in fear can’t be the way.

I am not who I was. I oppose that. I am becoming. Every week I am new. I need to tear away.

I want to be born.