After hearing the news that the 3DS/Wii U's online services were shutting down, the first thing that popped in my head was replaying this game's online one last time.

Back in 2015, I remember seeing the trailer for this game and thinking it looked really cool. I never played an online shooter in my life, but this one actually interested me with its colorful art style and interesting concept. The day of release, I ask my dad if he could pick the game up on his way from work and when he came home, not only did he have the game..he had an Inkling Boy amiibo as well. That basically kickstarted my Amiibo addiction around that time but that's a story for another time. Anyways, I ended up enjoying Splatoon a ton. I remember the day after I got it, I had a relatives party to go to and I could only think about playing this game. This game consumed my whole summer, I loved it so much. Playing every Splatfest, seeing every update as they roll out, I was hooked for a couple months. Part of that is because I had no school of course, because once September arrived I didn't play this game nearly as much as before. Still, May-August 2015 was the summer of Splatoon and I'll never forget it.

Anyways, time to actually review the game lol. I think the most striking aspect is just how stylish this game is. From the different outfits you can wear, to the more experimental soundtrack, to the unique art styles that appear in the sunken scrolls. I've seen people compare this game to Jet Set Radio cuz of it's sort of counter culture type attitude and ofc its stylishness and appeal to the younger demographic and I can totally see it. It can be really influential playing this as a young lad, and it certainly worked for me.

Speaking of the music, I've seen some individuals on this site specifically call it bad and I just don't see it. Sure, it's not everyone's cup of tea but the OST is really well done honestly. Splattack! is of course a classic and Ink Me Up brings me right back to participating in Splatfests all day. Those are my two favorites but the whole OST is great. I think Splatoon 2 is great and all and probably the objectively better game, but if there's anything I prefer more in 1, its the soundtrack.

The meat and potatoes of this game however is it's online matches. This game doesn't have as much content or modes as 2 (and god it was pretty barebones at launch I'll admit that) but it's still a ton of fun to play a match or two. I was able to play a couple turf war and ranked matches and they were still fun. I remember raging so hard whenever I would lose on ranked matches, I had issues lol. Still, I wish Urchin Underpass and Saltspray Rig were in future games, I miss em lol. Sadly couldn't play them during this last play session but I remember they were some of my favorites.

I did also replay the campaign, and it's still fun as it was back then. Sure, it's no octo expansion and probably worse than 2's, but I always enjoyed it personally. I don't know if it's weird to say but I kinda get Mario Galaxy vibes from it. Just going from section to section using the launchpads and seeing the really cool backgrounds in each level. Always got that vibe. It does get a bit formulaic having every 5th and 6th level be the same level type, however overall, I really enjoyed the single player. At least you can still play that even with the online off.

This game may have been a bit obsolete in the eyes of a lot of people once 2 and eventually 3 came out. However, 2 I never got into nearly as much so my memories of 1 really outshine it. It's not perfect but this game will always hold a special place in my heart and is one of the first things I think of when the year 2015 is brought up. Rest In Piece Splatoon 1 online and the 3DS/Wii U online in general, I loved you dearly.

I think a term commonly associated with romance/sol animanga and games is “wish fulfillment.” Now, from my experience, it's a term usually met with some level of disdain or condescension. “Wow what a loser, they need this thing to feel good about themselves.” And, sure, I can understand where that attitude comes from, in fact I'm like that sometimes too. But I feel it's not that simple. People come from different backgrounds, places, and circumstances. Sometimes what we need is comfort from something, even if it isn't real.
Clannad, among many, many other beloved visual novels is boiled down to the common “your friends and family are important, your life is worth living” morals, but is it a bad thing to be so commonly communicated? I would assume that Maeda and the many other writers at Key are trying to convey this, and even if they were or not, intention does not always align with found purpose. Tomoya Okazaki, our protagonist, is a great stand in for players like me to some degree. He's still his own character, but I think him being a loner to align with the usual “wish fulfillment” protagonist role really works to its benefit. No matter your background or role, there is worth in finding friends and family, whether it be genetic or found. It finally gives us purpose to those who feel so aimless in life. Clannad is not simply “wish fulfillment” at play. It's inspiring us to fulfill those wishes ourselves, and fulfill the wishes of others.
I’ve seen complaints about Clannad’s core structure before, as for some people the routes are “not interconnected enough”. But is that a problem? In my opinion, anyway, Clannad is an anthology of the multiple “what if” scenarios surrounding Okazaki’s journey in life. While Nagisa’s route is what leads to the true ending of the story, it doesn’t make the other routes pointless. Regardless of what is the “true” outcome of the story, your experiences and how you see these characters develop will always live on with the player. You get to see Okazaki give these people true happiness in life, and by the true ending, he is repaid for everything he’s done. While in gameplay the route system is a little rough around the edges with much needed polish, I think playing with a guide allows for a very smooth experience.
Playing this after my most prior Key visual novel experience, that being AIR, really opened my eyes to how well thought out and executed much of Clannad is. While AIR suffers from an overly ambitious but ultimately meaningless structure, Clannad takes a safer approach and cuts out any filler. Jun Maeda and his team really wanted to make up for the mistakes of AIR, and you can really tell from how much more polish is applied to this game. Despite this being one of the longest games I’ve ever played, Clannad rarely falls victim to artificial padding. The game gives you and makes proper use of the “skip already read text” feature, which makes hopping into your next route a very quick and easy experience. It helps that the game is split into 10+ routes that all vary in length, meaning I don’t think the game can ever burn you out from a scenario. Each route (with two exceptions, one being entirely optional) is very different overall so nothing is samey either. I’d also like to make note of the amount of content on offer, Clannad is not only long from the main game but has TONS of little secrets and extra blurbs of dialogue to discover, it really feels like the team wanted to put as much as they could onto the disc.
And that’s the overall thing I love about Clannad: it’s very polished. Not perfect, but very damn close. Clannad may seem safe or tropey, but it uses those aspects and pushes them to a wonderful and engaging extent. The current top review tries to make fun of fans of this game and I’d have to say that this person probably has never experienced joy in their life. None of the huge visual novels I’ve played so far have been flops, and Clannad is no exception either. In fact, out of the three (Higurashi, Tsukihime, Clannad) I would say this is my new favorite, and knowing that Key still has some fantastic games in their catalog for me to still try out (Kanon, Little Busters!, and Rewrite) has me so immensely excited. But none of those games, or any visual novels in the future will take away what a special experience Clannad was for me. I had taken a long break from reviews and I needed to get out of that slump, and this game was what inspired me to write a little something again, especially seeing how none of the longer reviews about this game on this site are in good faith. I wanted to fix that. Thank you for reading, and if this review manages to get even one person to fully play through this game, I’ll be happy.

pretty easily the most bafflingly received 3d sonic i've played. i find it unfathomable this is the one that's so polarizing - even to the point of frequently being compared to its successor for some inane reason

sure, the slipperiness takes getting used to and there's some occasionally janky hit detection... but what else?

i suppose there's something to be said about the more impersonal and back-to-basics narrative. it's a far cry from the sheer ambition sa2 put on display just two years prior, but i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. heroes instead opts for being a straightforward, fun, gamey-ass video game

what's presented here is what most sa1/2 detractors claim to wish those games were - almost nonstop, high class speed stages. seaside hill? grand metropolis? frog forest? egg fleet? these are some of the best zones in the series - and casino park is EASILY the coolest take on that running theme without question. what, you gonna tell me you prefer casinopolis? are you stupid?

i'm not gonna deny there are stinkers in the mission count - the chaotix variant of mystic mansion is fucking abysmal, team dark's enemy rush segments are especially tedious and racing for chaos emeralds frankly feels like complete dog shit no matter who you're controlling - but these sections all amount to a footnote in contrast to what heroes does right - everything else

sick final boss as per usual too. neo metal is so fucking cool and "what i'm made of" is easily a top 5 crush 40 track

...speaking of top tier crush 40 tracks

This game will put you through 7 years of emotional distress and at the same time captivate you long enough to keep coming back.

Gameplay ranges from making you wanna refund the game before realizing now you're past the refund date, to "Oh my god I just did 200 damage in one turn I am literally so cracked at this game" (Floor of language moment) And on a genuine note even if you find the gameplay a hollowing experience I near guarantee you'll stick around for the plot

I can't recommend this game to anyone who doesn't like deck building though cause by midgame you're gonna be getting butt piped by every minor enemy if you don't learn some builds.

In short this is the worst game I've ever played and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy it's singlehandedly ruined my mental state and I regret buying it 10/10 Binah is my one and true love

2012.

Imagine a young preteen boy living out what was one of the worst years of his life. Puberty was settling upon him, causing massive changes to his body and mind, a torturous calamity the result of aging in the physical sense. This kid was a dumbass clown, never taking the right things seriously, never taking the right things jokingly.

An amoeba of borderline incel like emotions, harboring feelings for every pretty girl he'd lay his eyes on regardless of if their character was good or if he was even being reasonable in his attractions.

During one of the most emotional and terrible times of his life, the man who would eventually become his brother in law got him several Christmas Gifts for the Xbox 360 he had gotten maybe only a year or two prior. There were many games, Gears of War, Batman Arkham City, etc.

But chief among them was Fallout New Vegas.

2009-2010

Jump back a few years to when the boy was younger. He had recently left public school to enter what would be a hellish and depressive 3 year stint as a homeschooler. His half brother had recently returned into his life after mostly being out of the picture. At this point of his life, the boy was losing connection with his social life, becoming an isolated little shrimp who dare not speak to others in complete social fear. Alone, every day in his house, learning propagandist Christian homeschool work. Just him, and his brother, a recovering alcoholic.

One day, the boy and his father go to the basement where the brother lived his days out. He was playing a particular game on his Playstation 3, wearing this Abe Lincoln hat in game and wandering this devastated yet familiar landscape. The brother talked about it being the third entry in the Fallout series, and mentioned that a new game would be coming out called Fallout New Vegas.

2000-2009

The boy is born, his life shaped by his parent's love for old media. His dad really loved old music like Frank Sinatra, and once in a Blue Moon, the boy and his dad would watch an old picture together, something that made the father very happy.

The boy spent a lot of time with his mom in this time, his parents were divorced around his second to third year of existence you see. The boy would visit her work place and her parents frequently, the D.C. area was very familiar to him.

It felt like home.

2009-2010

The boy recognizes the setting of this third Fallout game to be a destroyed version of his home, with music playing that reminded him much of songs his father and him would listen too.

2011

The brother would leave and join the military. The boy never felt so alone before in his entire life.

2012

The boy returns to school, his social awareness crippled by years spent languishing on Youtube alone and being brainwashed by the Christian agenda.

He meets friends he would keep for what is currently the remainder of his life.

Which brings us to Christmas of 2012 once again.

At first the boy was not interested in this Fallout New Vegas, his cousin had ruined first person shooters for him, constantly tearing away his freedom from his own devices in order to play schlock like Modern Warfare 3.

There was a trauma that happened, we won't go into the details, but it severely impacted the boy for the rest of his life, even now.

Fallout New Vegas is what carried him through it.

It's what carried me through the difficult times in my life.

Fallout New Vegas is a game that is so heavily focused on showing both the consequences of your actions while simultaneously telling you to move on from the past and keep living.

Despite its post apocalyptic world, the people of New Vegas are always trying to keep going, with the backing track of songs like Jingle Jangle Jingle being very much about continuing forward through life, while other tracks like Blue Moon and Ain't That a Kick in The Head show the positive consequences that showing affection to another person can bring.

All of these songs brought together by the calm yet caring voice of Mr. New Vegas, who despite not being real in both the game and in real life, comforted me greatly and made me feel like I was wanted. That I belonged somewhere in this twisted awful place in my life.

I spent a lot of time with my companions, one in particular being Craig Boone, the soldier who lost his wife to slavery. Even to this day I sympathize with his character. This is a man who has had to suffer so much pain, even outside of just his wife and unborn child being enslaved and him mercy killing them. He's killed innocent people under orders, despite not wanting too, and at the end of the day he can atone, and be loved.

Many of the companions fit with this central theme of moving on from the past and embracing the choices you make. Veronica, Raul, Cass, Rex, ED-E, Lily, Arcade, and that's not even getting on the DLC companions, all of them have to learn to either move on or accept the past.

I think that's why this game has the draw it has, and honestly why it's so beloved by the transgender community. I'm not going to speak for them honestly, I am a cis male, but I think I understand why they love it so much.

The freedom of being able to carve your own path forward, and leave that past behind, having the choices you make find you a place to belong, I get it.

I think a part of me is very sentimental over this game, despite its various bugs and gameplay issues, but you'll have to forgive me it's almost been 10 years that this game has been in my life.

Fallout New Vegas is very much about making a new chapter in your life, and honestly...

It saved mine.

I have a more sympathetic view of James than I think most people do.

At the very least, I believe that my understanding of the game is less emphatic on his flaws and failings than an awful lot of the interpretations I’ve seen others form in fifteen-plus years of playing, thinking about and growing into Silent Hill 2. I also think a lot of these interpretations scrub out a lot of Mary’s worst traits and have a very one-dimensional view of the two’s marriage and relationship, especially given the all-too-great extent to which I can find myself in James’ shoes and understand just what being in the sorts of situations he’s been thrust into can do to you. This isn’t to say that I think Mary is outright an antagonistic figure, that she was necessarily an abusive partner, or that James’ reaction to that pressure coming to a head was justified, nor do I think James is necessarily an innocent or pure soul. I mean, let’s face it, Silent Hill 2 is a 12-hour manifesto about just how much James Sunderland sucks, but… Mary sucks, too. So does Angela. So does Eddie. So does Maria. So do I, and so do you. Don’t we all?

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In spite of Silent Hill 2’s unapologetic and uncompromising portrayal of the rot within the souls of its cast, we’re never given reason to believe that these people necessarily have to be defined by their pain and the maladaptive manners in which it manifests. Not the banality of Americana left to decay nor a grindhouse of grisly guts-and-gore undercut the beating heart within each one of these individuals’ chests; if anything the desolate atmosphere and steady throughline of sorrow amplify the moments of kindness and connection even more.

James, for all of his single-minded spaciness and passive suicidal ideation, routinely makes an effort to treat the people he encounters with dignity and respect, and that effort is often reciprocated if not paid forward in its entirety — though Angela’s concern for James is largely rooted in bouts of self-depreciation and self-loathing, there is still a consistent pattern of the two wishing one another well as they part ways. Even Eddie, who seems to go out of his way to alienate everybody he meets so that he can be truly alone and therefore exempt from judgment, makes a point of awkwardly telling James to take care of himself after their first meeting. While Laura appears to be little more than a menace for much of the story’s runtime, even she pays James’ concern for her safety forward once it becomes clear that they have a common goal in the Lakeview Hotel.

Each of these people are suffering in their own way, and have convinced themselves for one reason or another that they must carry their burdens alone — even James, for all of his tendencies to try and support others where he can, insists on marching upon his chosen path in solitude where he can help it. But even then they appear to acknowledge that perhaps it’s better to be united through suffering, even temporarily and even through acts as evidently-insignificant as acknowledging one another’s hardship. Misery loves company, and even in the midst of a corporeal Hell each and every one of these people are willing to let their innate tendencies towards decency and understanding shine through even as they teeter upon the precipice of their own individual downward spirals. Their best traits and worst traits exist not as compartmentalized aspects that function in dichotomy to one another, but as two parts of a greater whole. They are human. They are people. Silent Hill 2 concerns itself more than perhaps anything else with this duality that exists in all people, the eternal conflict warring within between our best impulses and our worst impulses.

It’s only fitting, then, that each of these people have already let their worst traits win once, before the story even started. Angela, Eddie and most infamously James have all already taken a life before fleeing to Silent Hill, the darkness within them exacerbated and pushed to an irreconcilable breaking point by circumstances largely outside their control. Angela and Eddie are largely victims who were burdened with their worst traits by a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their family and peers respectively, whereas James’ more general negative personality traits and failings were ingrained by systemic prejudice and toxic ideals of manhood and men’s role in a relationship being strained by a marriage slowly falling apart over the course of three years. It isn’t their fault that they have these negative aspects, nobody is born bad (Laura perhaps represents this more than anybody; as a child she is inherently innocent and sees Silent Hill as a normal town for she has no darkness to exploit), but as unfair as the responsibility of keeping these traits in check might be it is a responsibility nonetheless.

As much as I think Angela’s family and (to a lesser extent) Eddie’s bullies had it coming — I am a full-faced proponent of victims’ right to revenge — I think most people would agree that you aren’t allowed to hurt the innocent people around you just because you have been hurt in turn, and that self-destruction often leaves little but a smoldering crater where a person once stood. Angela’s hostility towards James’ attempts at extending a hand (while understandable and outright justified considering James’ own sins and views of women) does little but dig her further into the hole that she was kicked down into as a little girl, and Eddie’s slow descent into serial murder makes him even more of a sinner than the bullies who pushed him to the brink to begin with. Both of these people are given chances to take steps to right their personal wrongs and make an effort to let their best traits emerge victorious, but eventually choose to spiral out and allow themselves to be consumed by their pain, sorrow and trauma. The story frames them with nothing but a level of empathy and respect still largely unseen in game narratives even to this day, and yet it remains frank and up-front about the simple truth of the matter: you cannot heal if you don’t choose to do so.

Where does that leave James, then? What is his role in Silent Hill 2’s portrayal of the eternal struggle between the good in us and the bad in us? His fate is in your hands. As in, you, the player’s.

You see, James is in a unique position compared to the rest of the cast. While he has a backstory, personality traits, characterization and dialogue that is wholly independent of player input, at the end of the day the choices he makes and the ways in which he carries forward in the face of despair are wholly up to the player. Silent Hill 2 actually isn’t a game about killing monsters and surviving in an environment born and bred for hostility. Konami’s been lying to you this entire time, the guns aren’t actually guns. Silent Hill 2 is a game about a man navigating the tightrope path to recovery and trying to make use of the resources presented to him to accept himself, heal, and let go. Will he make it to the other side, shaken and scarred but still breathing, or will he let himself fall and be sent into the depths below?

It’s all up to you.

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You often see people talk about how Silent Hill 2 is actually a pretty easy game all things considered, more or less nixing the “survival” element of “survival horror” wholesale, and I’ve seen a lot of people make a connection between this and James’ apparent need to be coddled and supported unconditionally. I get where they’re coming from there, but I think that Silent Hill 2’s abundance of resources and player agency as far as minute-to-minute gameplay decisions serves a greater narrative purpose. I don’t mean to sound like an “it was all in his head” ass creepypasta dude here, but work with me: weapons and ammo aren’t actually weapons and ammo, health packs aren’t actually health packs, monsters aren’t actually monsters. These are manifestations of James’ ability to fend off negative impulses and the bad parts of himself rearing their head. These are manifestations of his ability to take care of himself and know how to healthily cope when he eventually falters and stumbles on the road to recovery and normality. These are dark thoughts and self-destructive ideations raising up from our subconscious to haunt us, always lurking in the shadows and ready to strike if we aren’t careful. Even Maria’s role as a literal sexual temptress, while certainly representing James’ idea of an ideal, perfect Mary and his desire for gratification battling with his need for catharsis and honesty with himself, embodies the idea that temptation and indulgence in negative thoughts and habits are a means by which we lose touch with the greater picture as far as our mental health goes.

After a point of stumbling around in the dark and eventually making use of whatever resources you can — medication, therapy, the support of friends and loved ones — you begin to get a feel for your own psyche and learn to know yourself, and you also know how to deal with problems when they come up. This is what Silent Hill 2’s gameplay loop is ultimately about, and why James’ minute-to-minute gameplay decisions influence the way his story ends up rather than compartmentalized routes or story choices like most games that play with the idea of multiple endings. If James fails to take care of himself and makes a point of letting his worst traits get the best of him over and over again, then it’s no surprise that his story ends with him viewing redemption as only coming through his own death. If he gives in to temptation and focuses on the wrong things to try and fill the void left by his trauma, he’ll end up stuck in the same situation and look for the wrong way out, repeating the cycle over and over again until something changes.

But — if James is smart, and careful, and puts in the work and effort to take care of himself and fight all of the rot inside him by using the resources and good habits he’s picked up along the way — he might not be able to really ever get better, but he can live with it. He can start to define himself by his best traits again. He can heal. He can look at all the pain that’s got him to where he is now, turn his back, and leave it all behind.

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The greater Silent Hill fandom has found itself locked in arguments for years over which ending of Silent Hill 2 is canon, the “true” ending, or the one that the developers had in mind when crafting the rest of the story. I understand why — and I understand why people find the framing of Silent Hill 2 as a cautionary tale with the In Water ending compelling — but I think to view it all as a series of compartmentalized possibilities and not as individual parts of the same greater statement is cynical and dehumanizing at absolute best. Silent Hill 2 isn’t about one specific outcome of the duality within us all, but exploring the duality itself and how different people might struggle with it in different ways. At its barest core, it isn’t a game about healing, succumbing, or being trapped in self-perpetuating cycles — it is a game about the very act of struggling and the multitudes that this act encompasses. It understands what it means to grieve, to fear, to hurt, to hate, to decay. It understands what it means to relish, to rejoice, to love, to grow, to live. And it understands more than just about anything else in the world the spaces in the margins where these things meet, intersect, clash and struggle for power.

Myself, though, I have my preferences as far as how I like to view the story ending. I find myself in James’ shoes more and more often these days. It’s been a really rough eighteen months or so, man. It just keeps getting worse. Some of it is through circumstances out of my control, some of it is my own doing, but all of it is mine to deal with and mine to choose what to learn from. I’ve lived the selfish, petulant parts of James who doesn’t want anything more than to be loved unconditionally without concern for the people doing the loving. I’ve lived the same experiences as the James who puts his neck out for the people around him only to get bitten and drained dry in turn. I’ve done much the same as James when he lashes out and hurts people around him to try and make sense of his own pain. I’ve been in the same position of James where I have to let people take advantage of me by letting them hurt me and then acting as their solid rock of support immediately after. More often than not these days I’m the James that we see at the very beginning of his descent into Silent Hill: glass-eyed and empty of the spirit, moving on auto pilot as if not quite sure he’s really here to begin with.

But I don’t want to feel this way forever. I don’t think anybody does. Silent Hill 2 understands that, and it understands that getting better isn’t as easy as it might sound on paper. But I’m trying, man, I really am. I want to let the best parts of me prosper and emerge victorious over all of the worst parts of me. I want to return to the point where better days seem like they’re on the horizon and not twenty miles behind me.

And I want to one day be able to look at all of this that I’m experiencing, turn my back on it, and leave.

-direct sequel that's notably different in tone and style from its predecessor
-two different campaigns that are both required to fully understand the story
-one of the playable characters is a female government agent
-there's a dark doppelganger of the main protagonist
-important story moments are punctuated with butt rock anthems by the developer's in-house band

this is just finnish sonic adventure 2

It doesn't work.

3 is a game that has a lot of idiosyncracies and quirks to it that allow it to stand out among not just other entries in its series, but JRPGs in general. The limitations and frictive elements reinforce how finite the experience is and encourage engagement with its time management systems. Reload, as I vaguely riffed on with my one sentence review before, largely strips the game of most of the charm and leaves me with a product that is perfectly competent and yet feels deeply artless.

Persona 3 back in 2006 was designed as a fresh reboot with a fresh set of eyes on the series as whole. It's a monumental game for Hashino and Soejima -- while it wasn't their first work on Atlus' games, the duo created something distinctly... theirs. Something about the complete lack of involvement of the original creative names behind the game, including the no-brainer inclusion of Shoji Meguro at minimum, puts a bad taste in my mouth. It's not even that I'm drunk off auteur worship and think a loving product can't be made with new hands. It's that... Persona 3 is not a new product. It's an old one with a lot of significance to Atlus' history.

Reload manages to take a step back on almost every mechanic established in the original as a purposeful statement. One of the most immediately noticeable is the removal of a functional tactics/AI system. Others have highlighted the flaccid, restrictive and ineffective system in the remake and how it's largely not a replacement for the experience on the PS2. Without getting too into details, I'd rather highlight the logic behind its design from Hashino himself.

Hashino: There are a lot of RPGs out there where you can control every aspect of your party members, including what kind of underwear they are wearing… but because we wanted the player to relate to the Hero more than any other character in “Persona 3”, we wanted the other characters to feel like “other people”.

Soejima: It was important to make that distinction. It helped to emphasize the concept of Social Links, and it also allowed us to show off the improved AI. It would have been extra cool if the party members had been completely free of player control, but we knew that would be pushing it a bit too far, so we gave the player control over their equipment at least.

Hashino: It’s true that we got some feedback stating that the party system was “too difficult” to control effectively, but I’ll honestly say that I don’t regret doing what we did with it. I’m glad we stuck to our guns on that one.

You don't have to love the mechanic in the original, there's room for criticism in how it was implemented and established. However, it helps no one to not understand the very purposeful thematic statements Hashino wished to express -- the individuality and independence of your comrades in SEES. Reload does not even attempt to improve upon and evolve these systems, but does away with them as if they're just worthless cruft and "clunk" that needs to be stripped away.

Similar frictive elements have been gutted, such as the fatigue system, the maze-like structure of Tartarus being morphed into wide, open spaces with no intrigue or rat-brain navigation, and a myriad of other changes adjusted for "modern sensibilities". Reload is explicitly designed to model after 5 and the philosophies and approaches that game established.

I think the frustration here comes less from Reload being a bad video game in isolation and moreso how frustrating a precedent it sets. I do not want to live in a world where older properties and works are reheated and find themselves homogenized with recent best-sellers.

Alan Wake is all about stories and creativity, but it struggles with language. Both games center around reality-warping meta-narratives which shed light on the author’s disorganized psyche, but an abstract conflict like this is difficult to portray either visually or interactively. The visual motif it uses to do so is probably the most simplistic and traditional one of all: darkness and light. Light of goodness, shadow of despair, it’s been in use for literally thousands of years, and for a nontraditional story like this, it at least works as a familiar foundation to ground understanding. The interactive language meanwhile is equally simple, but in a way that feels less purposeful.

A game about creativity, self-doubt, and the nature of reality is, for some reason, presented by way of a third-person shooter, with a dynamic difficulty system generous enough to preclude any sense of survival horror. These shooter mechanics exist mostly as a way to create a sense of pushback, rather than actually representing the conflict that drives the narrative. However, I do have to give it some credit, as it actually does come close to doing so with the design of its enemies. Most of them are faceless shades, which stand around in the midst of other identical, but harmless, shadowy figures. At the start of the game, you’ll find yourself waving your flashlight from spot to spot, hoping to find foes amongst the fakers, but that’s as far as the mechanics ever push you. If you use a healing item, you can be certain that within two item boxes, you’ll find a replacement, and if you used all your ammo, you’ll instantly find more. The interactive language it’s using is, again, incredibly simple, just meant to slow you down, not to have much actual relevance to the story.

But of course, that’s the reason why we’re here in the first place; it’s hard to portray a struggle against the self in a way that can be experienced from without. It’s what brings us back to the darkness-and-light motif, an idea general enough for an audience to reflexively understand, but this generality creates a feeling of hollowness in its message. With this theme being the core of its visual and narrative identity, the only language it had to convey the fulfillment of a character arc was in the shedding or embracing of inner darkness, which flattens the nuance of a mature plot into a finale that feels like a kid’s cartoon, telling you to just believe in yourself.

That’s what I mean when I say the game struggles with its language; its genuinely interesting plot and narrative themes are let down by the methods chosen to communicate them. This is the same way I felt while playing Alan Wake 1 and Control as well, like Remedy’s boundary-breaking impulses are forcibly being restrained by the need to speak in marketable terms. That’s, ironically, why I’ll just keep buying these games. I want them to know that they’ve proven themselves, that they’ve reached their audience. I’m here, I’m listening. I want them to confidently say what they have in mind, to finally speak without reservation.

I picked this game up sometime in 2017-2018 and
even though I loved the atmosphere and was able to get used to the immense amounts of paragraphs and text, I still really disliked the way it played and the way it looked on my screen.
So for the next 5 years, I'd pick it up, play for a couple minutes to an hour and then drop it again. Either because I was frustrated about the combat or a quest bugged out for whatever reason.

So it's really weird to say that after all this time, I feel as if I just said goodbye to an old friend.

I don't have any deep or detailed observations nor any minute play by play on how or why the writing is good or bad. I don't remember every single lore thing, I really couldn't tell you. There were many times the game was buggy or the writing felt l kind of amateur-ish or went on for too long (I don't think it's a masterpiece or the best game of all time)

...I've ended this game experience feeling really good about it.

I don't know, I liked it, lol.