within a span of two months, from september to november of 2019, i lost an old friend and former lover to bone cancer at 23 years old, and my father revealed to me that he’d been diagnosed with stage 2 lung cancer. this would indicate a nearly three year journey to where i am now - a sequence of events which tested the limits of my perseverance, willpower, camaraderie, self-love, and actualization of community. my life underwent severe changes throughout this period; essentially revising my entire outlook on my relationships to patching up and mending my relationship with my dad which had resulted in some pretty catastrophic gaps gashed out pretty equally on both sides. some outside events completely reformed how i lived, the safety and love i had to provide myself for my own wellbeing, and fostering a lot of growth and evolution out of a patch where what i’d known and what i held onto were slipping through my fingers.

during this time, my father set an example of how he would choose to live. he combatted cancer and heartbreak with rudiment, structure, dedication and iron will. i watched him break on more than a few occasions. but it was through his search for that light where he found his own branch of buddhism, practice of meditation, and a new outlook on his life. he began to teach me the lessons he’d taken away - both of us being that type of person with loud, constantly-spewing minds. he instilled and internalized the idea that meditation and serenity are not about clearing the mind of thought, but finding a means to acknowledge the thought and move on from it. it was only along the lines of that practice that we both began to unbox our trauma - both conjoined and individual. it was only then when we could cultivate growth, hope, and those first rays of light.

i had no access to therapy or professional help at the time. i was between jobs when i wasn't crammed into ones that abused and berated me and my time. my greatest resources for self-love, as they are now, were my loved ones and my then-cracked-yet-unbroken devotion to art. traumatic attachments kept me apart from those things i loved most, but in the process of recovering from a sequence in time in which i felt like i’d lost myself, figured it took recessing back to those works which had so clearly defined attics of my life to that point to regain shards of who i’d been, and define who i would choose to be moving forward. over the next year, i would play final fantasy vii six times to completion, twice with friends, four times on my own. the hanging threads of grief, trauma, self-actualization v. dissociation, lack of direction - these things culminated in a story which more and more i felt whispered answers directly to me, for my consumption alone. it’s in those moments where a bond is made between art and audience where the attachment becomes not just inseparable, but near essential.

final fantasy vii doesn’t hand you answers for the questions you come to it with. there isn’t a resolution to the trauma, there isn’t a solution to the pain or the grief. it is an embrace, and a hold of the hand, and a gentle call; “here is how you live with yourself. here is how you learn to be alive again.” the sociopolitical conflicts, the internal struggles, the budding seeds of affection and fraternity don’t reach a natural apex - they hum in anticipation of a deciding factor which never comes. perpetually trapped within the question, but offering you the means to provide your own answer in life. the final shot of the game isn’t a conclusion meant to be expanded upon. it’s simply a closing of the cover, the final page turned before the index of note paper before being passed to you with the command - “apply yourself. turn this into something that matters.” so i chose to.

and i found myself in midgar again, with new friends and a new outlook.

you come back to the slums of wall market and sector 7 with a new worldview and appreciation each time. there’s a different purpose, when your relationship with this game is as intimate as mine, for coming back here. i know the smog, the street life, the feeling of inescapable, walled-in urban destitution well. you grow up in any city poor enough and you get to know midgar intimately. it’s a familiar setting with a familiar social agency. the seventh heaven crew, they’re all faces i’ve known, fires in bellies i once shared, and now understand in a different light. they’re old friends i knew in my activism years as a teenager, they’re people i looked up to and lost through the years. i’ve lost a lot of people and a lot of faith over time. it might seem like a quick moment to many but the sector 7 tower fight reminds me of people and things that exist only in memories now.

the moment the world opens up and the main theme plays, while unscripted, is one of the most powerful in the game to me. i retain that this title track might be my favorite piece of video game music and such a perfect encapsulation of the game’s philosophy and emotional core. stinging synth strings meet acoustic woodwind and orchestral drones. playful countermelodies give way to massive, bombastic chords in a rocking interplay that rarely fails to inspire, intrigue and invoke. uematsu-sensei, unquestionably at the apex of his mastery here, provides his most timeless score. i think about, am inspired by, and draw from his work here intensely. the artistry pours out from every nook of final fantasy vii - the models, the cutscenes, the background renders, the gameplay systems, the story, the use of diegetic sound, the pacing, the designs - everything came together in a way that somehow evokes equal feelings of nostalgia, futurism, dread, fear, warmth, love, hope, and utter timelessness. streaming and voice-acting this entire game with my close friends was one of the best experiences of my year. hitting each turn with a decently blind audience provided both knowing and loving perspective and the unmitigated rush of first experience - in tandem, a passing of the torch, an unspeakable gift of an unbroken chain shared between loved ones. if final fantasy vii saved my life once before, this was the run which restored its meaning and direction.

i’ve been cloud, i’ve been tifa, i’ve been barret, i’ve been nanaki. i’ve been zack, i’ve been aerith. there are lives lived in the confines of final fantasy vii which i hold as pieces of my own, countless repetitions of those stories with those resolutions my own to meet, different each time. there was something magic about the ability to, a year after that painful strike of all of that anguish, that death, that loss, that fear, sit on the end screen as the series’ endless “prelude” played amongst 32-bit starfields and openly sob for a half hour surrounded by the voices and words of my loved ones. that was the day i learned to live again. it’s more than a game when you know it this intimately. it’s more than an experience when you share these scars. it’s more than art when you hold onto so dearly. there isn’t a classifier for what final fantasy vii means to me other than, “a lot”. sometimes, less is more. i don’t have a conclusion beyond that for you. the experience recalls everyone and everything i've ever loved and lost, and all that i've come to gain and hold dear. goodbye to some, hello to all the rest. true, reading this, it may have been a waste of your time, but i’m glad i was able to share this with someone. i hope this reaches at least one of you on a level you needed today, or maybe it invokes something in you about something you love so dearly. i’m here to tell you - this is how i learned to live again. if you need someone to tell you, today, that you can too, here it is. you aren’t alone. go find those answers for yourself.

please don't step on the flowers on your way.

I was completely ready to rank this as my favorite game only a few hours in, but after beating it, Rain World has solidified itself even more as such. If you’re at all interested in the game, stop reading and play it. It is absolutely best experienced blind, since much of its satisfaction comes from figuring out the things the game doesn’t tell you.

Rain World strives to be unique in every sense of the word. Each facet of the game oozes with originality and passion, to the gameplay, narrative, art direction, setting, music, world building... all of which blends together to create a frankly masterful work of art. It isn't common that games who try to be one-of-a-kind are, well, good, but Rain World is a different case. Sure, if you pick apart each individual gameplay quirk and inspect it under a microscope, it wouldn't seem that great. This is because, as a whole, the game is designed to be a representation of nature; a living ecosystem. It isn't fair. It doesn't hold your hand. It holds no quarter. It wasn't made to be marketable or streamlined, and instead tailors an experience unlike any other. You do not belong in this world, and it's made abundantly clear. This is accomplished by finely tuning every aspect to accentuate the ludonarrative harmony the developers were aiming to achieve, and makes for one of the most immersive worlds one could ever experience in this medium.

To start things off, you are given a short and cute intro cinematic, then plopped into the game as a creature called a slugcat. Weak and hunted by everything, you must rely on a keen eye, cunning tactics, patience, and perseverance above all else to survive in the harsh environment that is threatened to be drowned by the torrential rain. Steady amounts of food must be acquired, deadly predators must be avoided, and shelter must be found to survive just one cycle among many as you explore the regions. Death is punishing, as it delays your progression into new areas, forcing you to play well and learn your environment, as well as avoiding those who'd see the slugcat fit as a meal. Knowing how easily it is to have progress snatched away at a moment’s notice, every victory becomes immensely satisfying.

The first immediate thing that becomes apparent is the movement. It is simple on the surface, with 4 movement keys and 3 interactive buttons - jump, grab, and throw. Slugcat feels slow and clumsy to control at first, which adds to the feeling of vulnerability. However, therein exists a plethora of completely unexplained techniques and mechanics that, while not essential to master, will aid massively. Learning how to lodge spears into the ground/walls, wall jump, backflip, roll, slide, leap, and combine any of these is satisfying in both practice and application. Schmoving around the environment has never felt so rewarding, and that is due to how fundamentally limiting it is.

Said environment is extremely varied in how it's structured and designed to be interesting to navigate around in. I'll touch on the visuals later, but the way the world connects together reminds me of my enjoyment of my first Dark Souls playthrough, and makes me excited to play it again after writing this. Rain World's... world isn't static, either. The world goes on around you even when you aren't present to see it, and creatures will not be in the same spots they were last time, making for circumstances that will never mirror a previous instance. Heights are terrifying, the open sky is terrifying, tunnel mazes are terrifying, large stretches of water are terrifying. Come to think of it, it’s harsher than the aforementioned game, which I didn’t think was possible until playing this.

Creatures and predators are animated and programmed in such a way that they are always unpredictable and always scary. One example among many is the Lizards: they are aggressive and kill slugcat in one bite (like most creatures), but they are large, and will stumble as you evade them, getting visually frustrated when you get out of reach. They may potentially fight amongst themselves, providing an opportunity to sneak past. Depending on their color, they employ various hunting tactics for those they deem prey; not just the slugcat. Lizards are not at the top of the food chain though, and will flee when more dangerous predators make an appearance, shifting its focus away from the slugcat to one of self-preservation. The world's inconsistent nature, as well as the creature variety and their innate unpredictability, keeps you on your toes and creates for a consistently engaging experience.

All in all, slugcat is given equally as much world significance as every single other creature in the game. It's an ecosystem that happens around slugcat, not because of it. Just as you scour for food, each creature does as well. When the rain is imminently close to falling, animals will all but ignore you while they’re fleeing themselves. It cannot be understated how much this affects the core of Rain World's gameplay, and sets it apart from everything else.

The visuals cannot be properly described through a review, since you'd just have to see for yourself, but let me tell you they're some of the most gorgeous I've witnessed. It's pixel art at its absolute finest, and I have nothing but respect for the artist who painstakingly crafted it. It's detailed beyond belief, and the lighting system just makes everything pop out even more. Superstructures and destroyed worlds, especially if they’re combined as such, tend to elicit powerful feelings from me, so there is some bias, but I think it’s undeniable how damn the game looks. Handfuls of times I'd catch myself stopping and admiring many of the environments and vistas, two of which are my favorite in any game. They're very high up; those who know, know.

Perfectly complementing the regions’ visuals is the music. MAN, what a soundtrack this game has. It’s light on, but not devoid of, music you’d bop your head to, but there’s an emphasis on atmospheric ones. The latter usually play when transitioning between regions, or in dead-end areas, and when it does… it’s so easy to get instantaneously pulled in, is how I’d describe it. Immersed. Engrossed. Some other synonym. It’s giving me goosebumps just remembering some of the key moments and areas where their sole function is to provide immaculate vibes. On that note, something I don’t see discussed often is the amount of spots in each region that are functionally useless in normal gameplay, yet simply serve to flesh out the world. Prime environmental storytelling.

I cannot touch on the narrative and overall worldbuilding in a detailed manner because I’m frankly not super versed in the Buddhism it takes after. I will say though, the method of which Rain World slowly reveals its themes is stellar. Not a single line of dialogue; nothing is explicitly told… in the first half, at least. It’s all told through worldbuilding. You’ll have to really go out of your way to find more details. By the end, I was so friggin hooked that I’m fairly certain it has changed my brain chemistry and how I perceive life. Gazing upon the ending screens, emotions boiled over and had me crying tears of relief and joy. My life in this world flashed before my eyes as I reflected on the harrowing journey that I had endured. It was finally conquered. A truly ethereal experience this game pans out to be. I love it so much.


If there’s one thing I regret after playing Rain World is if I’ll be able to enjoy other games as much. My standards for what a game should strive to be have been raised even higher than they once were. It isn’t for everyone, though, as much as I wish every person could experience it in its entirety. It’s frustrating and obtuse as all hell - sometimes genuinely unfair - and it’ll heavily depend on whether or not that’s a good thing. For me at least, its unflinching, uncompromising resolve to portray living as a prey animal in a decrepit world’s ecosystem is what elevates it far and beyond what I’ve already played, and likely what I will ever play.

“In those dreams…
I loved one woman
No matter the day
No matter the era…
That did not change…

Nor did her name”...

Xenogears is everything that art should strive to be and goes beyond any piece of work I’ve experienced. It’s everything I could ever truly want. Ever since first finishing the game in August of last year I’ve thought about Xenogears at least once everyday. All its moments have etched themselves into my subconscious. All those painful, passionate, and loving moments that make all of Xenogears become one whole. My revisit here was not me playing, but a dear friend of mine playing while I sat on the sideline and gave advice. It was an incredible time to both re-experience these moments and to share them with another person. We laughed, cheered, cried, and all the other emotions you could possibly think of. It made me fully realize that Xenogears is an important part of the person who I am now. It inspires me to keep on living and making the most out of an imperfect existence.

It also made me realize that this is also the most life affirming work of art ever created. Throughout the entirety of Xenogears there’s a strong emphasis on the power of the human connection. We follow Fei build on himself and his life experiences through the people that he meets. He has these moments with people that neither he or the player could ever forget. You could argue that characters don’t get enough time in their own spotlight, but it doesn’t really bother me too much personally. Mainly because of the moments and how they impact Fei makes it all the more worth it to me by the end. We humans aren’t meant to be alone and Xenogears reinforces this belief. This is represented beautifully by the one winged angel statues introduced in the Nisan cathedral. To me those angel statues are the personification of the emotional core of Xenogears. Those angels correspond with each other and they need each other to fly. I’ll have moments in life where I am bitter towards humanity and am frustrated to be amongst the horrible people that are out there. However there are also the people I know who are kind and caring, and have helped me become the person that I am today. Humanity is worth preserving because of people like them. The people who are embracing the ideas of love and coming together. That is the human experience, even in spite of everything we have each other, and that’s the most important thing of them all.

A whole lot of the cast in Xenogears come from broken and unfortunate circumstances. The game portrays these characters and their lives with a careful, complex, and tender understanding of circumstances. There is that coming together I mentioned earlier that creates the beating heart emotional storytelling of this game. These people are able to comfort each other in the help that they provide in their companionship. Bart gave Fei a home after the destruction of his village, the party were able to help Billy cope with what happened to The Ethos, they helped Maria confront her “father”, and then there’s everything with Elly.

Fei and Elly is the greatest romance ever written without a shred of doubt in mind. It’s a relationship that so perfectly shows what love is and how it transcends everything else. From their first interaction in the forest you can tell something special is there, especially when Fei was able to guess her name in an instant. Which hit me incredibly hard on this revisit, those who’ve played this game will understand why. Same with the scene in the Nisan cathedral where Fei says that Sophia reminds him of Elly. As we get deeper and deeper into the game we see their relationship get richer and richer. Showcasing that these two will do anything to help each other. At first they turned to each other because they had similar situations and that they could run away from them by being with each other. However they realized that they need each other out of true and earnest love, not solely because they are sanctuaries for their own problems. They are separate pieces that become whole when they are with each other. It’s that sort of loving connection that can topple any kind of cycle of tragedy that our universe can present us with. Fei was always told to “Live!” in spite of everything that had happened. No matter the day and the era that message never changed. However now both Fei and Elly have a home to return to. Love is the greatest power in the universe.

Story is peak and everything about this game from a presentation perspective is amazing.

Unfortunately the game has not aged well at all. The combat is extremely half-baked especially towards the latter half of the game where the it expects you to endure a shit ton of BS. I actually ended up enjoying Disc 2 way more than Disc 1 simply because it gives you less shitty gameplay and a lot more juicy story.

The dungeon design is boring and bland. The random encounter rate is completely fucked to the point where you won't even be able to walk 5 steps without an battle.

On top of that everything in this game is slow. Simply navigating UI, opening menus, and saving takes forever. Even the text scrolls at a snails pace with no way to skip or make it go faster. (This makes it doubly annoying when you have to reload a save after wiping to the game's semi-frequent bullshit boss fight)

I can't imagine how anyone would be able to get this through this game without save states and fast forwarding. Like please, if you're going to play this in the year 2023, play it on an emulator. You will want to kill yourself otherwise.

That said, even with all these flaws this is still Takahashi's magnum opus in terms of narrative as well as soul. I'm not kidding when I say that this game clears every Xenoblade game in terms of story and characters. Fei literally makes Shulk, Rex, and Noah look like loser virgins in comparison.

One thing that left much to be desired is the soundtrack. There are a handful of tracks I got sick if hearing by the halfway point due to how much they're spammed in cutscenes and battle sequences. There's also not a lot of particularly good songs either. Many of the best tracks only appear in Disc 2 or in scenes to supplement a tragic event. There were also a few times where I felt the song playing during a scene did not fit whatsoever with what was happening.
^All in all this game desperately needed more original and diverse tracks because many of them got repetitive fast.

tl;dr it's a great game with a story that makes it very easy to overlook some of it's flaws. It's very much outdated gameplay design-wise and lacks some of the polish that even JRPGs back in the PS1 era had. DO NOT play this game on anything but an emulator. The ability to fast forward and create save states are very much required to enjoy this game in the year 2023.

such a good time
the early 3D jank just actually makes it better honestly
theres a lot you could say about this game and how its one of the most revolutionary games of all time with how it handled 3D space in video games, but everyone's already said that before a billion different times in a billion different ways.
The fact that nintendo got it so right on their first time is an impressive feat and the game honestly holds up pretty darn well with fun level designs. Definitely a game you've gotta play at least once in your life. All time hood classic fr fr

They took everything in the first game and pushed it to its logical extreme. Significantly more puzzles, a longer running time that is well paced enough to still feel right, more mechanics to make for more interesting puzzle designs, more characters that are just as lovingly written and performed as in the first game, and an entire co-op campaign with its own characters and puzzles designed to perplex 2 people with 4 portals. This feels like Valves magnum opus. And it might as well be that because they pretty much haven't made a big video game since this game released which is big sad. The PC version did get an update to have its own level editor so the content never ends! This is a game that you absolutely HAVE to check out and I cannot recommend more.