Horror as a genre I've always appreciated at a distance. I'm squeamish when it comes to gore, I hate being jump scared, I overthink too much about horrifying existential thought experiments. It's easy to draw emotions out of me, which is why I appreciate effective horror whenever I attempt to experience horror related media.

Silent Hill 2 is effective to the nth degree. It's a psychological deconstruction of a man who's grieving, and through symbolism and metaphor paints a hellscape of torment. Many of those far more capable of illustrating Silent Hill 2's strongest points have already done so. Instead, I'd like to talk about an interpretation I've had of the events with this playthrough. These may not be correct, but it's something I've thought about as I played.

For years since I first initially went to Silent Hill, I was enraptured by the sprawling letters written on the wall of Neely's Bar. "There was a hole here, now it's gone". It's meaning has escaped me throughout the 10 year gap that I've played. When I reached Neely's bar with this playthrough, I began to notice just how it's introduction is the start of a reoccurring theme. The Historical Society has a picture of the open grave, James keeps jumping down bottomless holes, all accumulating with him jumping down his own grave, meeting Maria at the bottom. He only begins to submerge from the nightmare that is the Historical Society when he makes the comment that, maybe Mary really isn't here.

My interpretation of this has represented James's obsession with Mary's death. The image of a grave brings about the image that he can't bare to accept that she's dead, buried in the ground. Each grave next to James's is open, shallow, and empty. James's is a never ending on his hellish journey downwards to believe that Mary is still there.

But Mary isn't. She's been dead for 3 years. James had killed her. She's buried in a hole that's been filled with dirt. There was a hole there, but it's gone. The grave has been filled.

This makes sense to me, given it's placement next to the other message, demeaning James for his actions. "If you really want to see Mary, you should just die. But you might be heading to a different place than Mary, James." To me, the hole message is a fleeting moment of clarity. A reality he knows deep down, but doesn't want to express. An unconscious thought meant to torment him. She's dead. She's buried. She's gone. And yet, he still keeps looking. He still keeps going, pushing the thought down further and further, still searching down the rabbit hole for her with no end in sight.

This could be wrong or has, for a lack of better word, holes in it's logic, but it's something I really like.

Regardless, Silent Hill 2 is a landmark title for not only horror, but for games in general. Masterful in it's artistry, powerfully told, and emotionally rich in character, Silent Hill 2 is exceptional.

This is a series of reviews as I make my way through Final Fantasy XIV. It's best to read my A Realm Reborn and A Realm Awoken write-ups before reading this.

Heavensward is the most significant expansion of Final Fantasy XIV. Almost singlehandedly, this expansion has become a turning point for this game's many trials and tribulations. From sandpaper rough beginnings with 1.0, to a better, but very rocky start with A Realm Reborn, FFXIV has finally reached it's first true quality expansion. Through legends and rumors, this expansion has been built up by friends, online personalities, strangers and the like, defining this expansion as their hook-line-sinker: A fantastic piece of fiction that sold them on Final Fantasy XIV.

Heavensward serves as a critical point for me as well. I jokingly called it "Jin'wey Akiyama's Big Break" in my last review for good reason. This journey has been a personal one for me. An expansion of my horizons of what my tastes could envelope, stepping outside of my zone of comfort and diving deep into the rabbit hole of what MMORPGs could offer. Final Fantasy XIV has proven to me that I can at the very least enjoy, or more aptly stomach, an MMO. This is territory I never dreamed of happening. Heavensward, in order to keep me going, in order to reel me in, needed to sell me on just what FFXIV has to offer. So the question remains: did Heavensward win me over to keep me playing?

Uhh, if you asked me before they added Stormblood to the free trial, I'd honestly say no. I couldn't see myself justifying the money. A monthly fee, coupled by slogging through an expansion that I've heard nothing but vitriol thrown against it? I would have told you I'm good.

Which isn't to say that Heavensward is bad. I could see why someone who's not me could enjoy this expansion in tenfold. It easily has the best story, gameplay, music, characters, everything out of any slice of the game thus far. Not that that's particularly a difficult bar to overcome. But still! I could see why someone would enjoy this!

For me though, Heavensward exemplifies aspects of story telling that I simply don't prefer. And with an MMO focused primarily on story, I don't think it's sold me.

Heavensward has a plot focused narrative compared to a character focused narrative. The moving parts of Heavensward is what's meant to hook you in. From the many twists and turns of the true cause of the endless bloodshed between man and the dragons, to the truth of the Ascian's role in this narrative, to the grand conspiracy with the Heaven's Ward, it all unravels in a relatively interesting way.

... Though, maybe not quite so in the beginning portion of the expansion. Early parts of the expansion revolve around earning the trust of characters that will become significant down the line, which halted the forward momentum from the post-patch storyline dramatically. We were on the run, and suddenly we were back to the same old chore duties we've done a million times. Not to mention that the one interesting plot line from the previous patch is reversed. It turns out that the Queen of Ul'Dah DIDN'T die! She was just slipped a lesser poison that wasn't fatal by a third party at the last second. I found this to be the weakest part of the story, an unnecessary backtrack of decisions that sweeps under the rug one of the only interesting story beat to A Realm Awoken.

Regardless, the story is focused more upon getting our characters from one place to another, everyone playing their roles in a cycle of revenge. Narrative focused plots don't quite give characters depth, but instead equip them with goals to pursue that relate to aspects of an overall narrative theme. This theme being the cycle of violence. Each major character represents this. Estinien is a war-torn dragoon who helps our cause to reconcile with the dragons for peace, but ends up being corrupted with his lust for revenge. Quite literally too — he stays in his armor, bloodied and soaked with Dragon's blood, when he has ample time to clean his armor. It's genuinely very funny, if not ridiculous. Ice-heart is guilt ridden from her previous actions within the story, and has an arc to rectify her actions, as well as the actions of our human counterparts. She wishes to stop the bloodshed on the grounds that she may prevent tragedies occurring like the ones haunting her past. A grand conspiracy has taken place, the Archbishop and his men called the Heaven's Ward, have been hiding the truth of the actions man has taken against the dragons, fueling the cycle of revenge into it's denizens, all the keep control over them. These actions not only cost the lives of many beings, but of one of our close and beloved compatriots, Haurchefant, as he fought to protect us from the Heaven's Ward attempts to eliminate our group. As he dies, he looks into our eyes and says "Oh, do not look at me so. A smile better suits a hero" as his body collapses. In death, he ensured us to keep smiling, even in the face of tragedy, and I find that touching. He represents the loss we face from this endless cycle, but also to never lose hope that one day, we can create a healing solution.

While on a technical level this narrative works, there's a bit of a problem. Ice Heart dies, Haurchefant dies, Estinien gets turned into a dragon. All the characters I've had a semblance of caring for have been used to advance the plot with their deaths. Which is fine, they've served their purpose in the story that was being told. The thing is though, I haven't felt like I've spent enough time with these characters to really invest myself into them. I like them, or at least found them more interesting than any other characters, but two issues arise. The first being that these characters didn't have enough time to be characters worth attaching to. I never saw enough of them to have them sneak their way into my heart and pluck at it's fleshy strings. I didn't cry for Haurchefant because I never really had the opportunity to get to know him. He was like a co-worker I liked, but never quite knew him. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. Same goes with the other characters. I'm sure Estinien and Ice-heart return at some point, but their loss never quite registered as tragic or sad. Just a mere utterance of "oh, I guess that happened. That's a shame". (Though with Estinien, the writing was on the wall with his insatiable dragon killing boner.)

The other issue that crops up is that by killing off these characters, they've ate up all their emotional hooks to keep me personally invested. Heavensward primarily utilizes these characters, as well as Alphinaud, who at the very least becomes more likable in the mix. Now the game has deserted me with the same cast of A Realm Reborn characters I wasn't very fond of to begin with, and will require even more time building up the Scions into actual characters that I only MAY eventually grow fond of. This is a result of the plot from the previous arc intriguing us with a separation of our friends, but not having the writing chops to give me a reason why I should miss them.This could be more forgiving if it weren't for the fact that this is an MMO, where plot, story pacing, and the like are dictated by the ever growing stretch of content, which means I'll have to trudge through more content just to reach the part of the game I want to enjoy, which are characters and their stories of change. My preferences lie with characters, and Heavensward just really isn't about that. It's characters are tools to advance the plot, and while that plot is on a technical level solid, I can't help but feel disappointed.

There's a gap in my reasoning, despite what I've stated. I know of others who've enjoyed Heavensward much more than me who are more character oriented than plot oriented, so there must be something else that colors my view on the story. Well, if you recall from my first review on A Realm Reborn, I mentioned my pet peeve of olden English being used. I deeply believe this pet peeve has contributed towards hampering my enjoyment of Heavensward.

I'm fully aware this is purely a me thing. When I was younger, I was plagued by multiple ear infections. This made hearing someone speak in a clear and concise manner to take priority very early on in my life, which has translated to reading as well. If I'm unable to understand a word and have to parse through language just to get to the core of what's being said, it often feels more frustrating than what may be common. This was a big hurdle just to make my way through in A Realm Reborn, where the game didn't have much to say that was very profoundly interesting, nor was well stated enough to justify the flowery language. Even here in Heavensward, I find it difficult to have a justification beyond the stylistic choice. Which is, again, comes purely down to preferences.

Added onto the language is yet another aspect that's purely preference. Final Fantasy XIV lacks a sense of humor. I'm a giant goofball, I can't help it. I was born to goof, I'll die a goof. When I write, or role play a character in DnD, my primary focus as that character HAS to have something goofy about them. Humor is an easy gateway to get me, or most people, to like your characters and sell them on your story. Levity in general is important in any story, it just matters on where you emphasize and pace it. Not to say that there's not levity within Heavensward, because there is. In fact, my favorite stretch of content throughout the entirety of the expansion was doing chores for the Moogle Village, and having our characters react to the dumb, silly antics of the Moogle tribe and their incompetent King. But characters don't even seem to joke with one another. There's not a lot of wit to them, or anything really all that charming within their chemistry. Of course, this expansion focuses on a very deadly war that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of lives, there's not a lot of humor you can draw when dealing with a subject manner like that. But we never really quite get someone like Haurchefant involved with our main group to lift our spirits while we learn how much evil and corruption has been at our foots. How we're up against an entire system that's been radicalizing it's own people to benefit themselves and their lust for power. A character like Haurchefant could have been there to help us remember to keep smiling and to have faith in a better tomorrow, only to have his death sting even moreso. But this sense of levity I feel could be added to places like AAR or ARA, where our main group of heroes develop a banter and chemistry with one another. Levity sets us up for the tragedy. Part of the reason why I like Ice-Heart in the first place is because we were able to see her in a situation where she was just a human being existing, watching on as she stared at the Moogles, obsessed with their fluffy cuteness. What better way to showcase that there's not just ice in her heart than with that? Everyone in this game, besides maybe Cid and his gang of Engineers, have all lacked distinct levity or sense of humor for me. It's been incredibly hard to attach myself to those who are just characters to move the plot along with. But humor is subjective, and preferences are preferences, so it may just be me.

I've realized where my preferences in gameplay lie while playing XIV. Well, not exactly because of XIV, I was already aware what my preferences are. But Heavensward has taught me for sure that, yeah, I'm still not a gigantic fan of MMO style gameplay. I've definitely grown more fond of the gameplay since I first started. Dungeons are now more intricate with a need to learning new mechanics on the fly or with your party members, but MMO style combat still isn't what I would prefer from a game. It's all a game of placement, attack rotations, heal rotations, coordination with your party. While this can be enjoyable, it's not quite for me.

Despite all of this, I still think I'd be willing to continue through with Stormblood. I don't see why not. This experiment has been fun. I enjoy trying games that I never thought I would enjoy and finding something good about them. There's aspects I enjoy enough to warrant me sicking around. It's nice to have a game where my friends all play fairly consistently that doesn't require me to buy a flavor of the month game just to be around them. It's nice to experience fun social interactions with people that I've never met before. It's fun to move out of my comfort zone and try something new for a change. I like some of these dungeons and how they've developed boss battles. I'm still incredibly curious why my friends and the world at large give so much praise to both Shadowbringers and Endwalker. It's just, once you start asking me to start paying, it'll be a more strenuous task to keep me interested.

Heavensward ends with the conflict coming to an end, but the damage done between the humans and the dragon aren't magically mended back together. It'll take many, many, many years for these wounds to heal. It will take time to grow, to trust, and to learn how to co-exist with one another. The hopes that one day, they'll earn the respect and peace to co-exist with one another.

I don't have to love FFXIV. I don't really have to co-exist with it if I so desire to. It's a fucking video game for fucks sake. But it's been a nagging force within my social bubble to the point where it's difficult to ignore. The progression from A Realm Reborn to Heavensward is significant, no doubt about it. It's shown it's capable of changing. But there's fundemental differences between what I prefer and what FFXIV tries to be. And you know what? I can respect that. Maybe I won't learn to love FFXIV like many others, but instead come to an understanding of why other people do. It takes time to break down the walls of your preconceived notions towards something. Maybe that patience and time is worth something. Maybe I'll come out the other side learning something. Maybe it's a waste of my time. Maybe this metaphor is breaking apart, I don't know.

I hope Stormblood doesn't completely kill any speck of motivation to continue, but the epic tale of Jin'wey Akiyama shall live to see another day. He'll continue to rebuild the Scions, he'll go on more adventures, he'll continue to save the world. Jin'wey Akiyama will spread the goofiest of smiles to all the people across the land, and will harass every bunny girl he comes across by patting them on the head. I'm sorry, I can't help it, bunny girls are too cute, plus I'm a goofy little guy, I'm just a goofy little cat guy.

I've been on a bit of a falling block puzzle kick in recent years. Panel De Pon has made me realize the sheer depth of these type of games and their addicting nature.

Kirby's Super Star Stacker is a clever little game within the genre. It's twist on a falling block game is unique: animal buddies from DreamLand 2 and 3 act as the colors you'd find in games like Puyo, but there's also a neutral block with the Star Blocks. These Star Blocks act as a buffer between the pairs of animal buddies, and you can score a line as long as two of the same animal buddies are on the opposing sides, be it horizontal or vertical. This makes for a bit of a learning curve with trying to wrap your head around where you can create a combo or not. On the same coin though, this also means creating chains of combos can happen much easier than you may realize. Leave it to Kirby to make an approachable yet gratifying puzzle game.

There's multiple modes, my favorite being more of a puzzle mode where your goal is to eliminate King Dee Dee Dee's health. There's a story mode as well, but it rarely if ever poses a challenge. The most challenging part of this game more has to do with the freeness of the controls, and fighting to place pieces where you'd like them to be. Older falling block games all seem to have this simple game feel problem, but this makes appreciating the game more a fair bit challenging. The presentation helps smooth out any kind of slight against the game, however: gorgeous pixel art reminiscent of water colors and hand painted portraits, taking DreamLand 3's aesthestic and just running with it.

I really liked this game, but I would be remised if I were to say I'd find myself replaying the game in comparison to other falling block games. Tetris is king and Panel De Pon is queen, I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean there's not room at the table for Super Star Stacker.

From the perspective of the time it was released, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 is a game that perfects a formula that that had been iteratively built upon at a yearly rate. It's levels are dynamic and full of secret areas, the moves have been expanded. Levels are full of life and edgy 2000's era skater punk charm, with music to match. The young teenager found somewhere deep within me relishes in all of this. A genuine video gaming experience.

From the perspective of a future man's hindsight, it can be a bit rough to control. Character control is not as refined as it could be. I find myself missing moves like the sticker plant to extend my combos further. From my end, my Dualshock 3 controller frequently makes me misinput moves I want to do, causing moves to be thrown out haphazardly, which in turn drops Mr. Hawk directly onto his ass. My PS2 disc often freezes when attempting to enter certain levels (only sometimes, other times it just decides to work), which can be a pain as well. This may be coloring a bit of the experience, but I do believe the core of the game feel is perfected in the remake of THPS 1+2. The game loop, however, is still as addicting as nicotine, and that's what makes THPS as a franchise so refreshing. In a sea of modern AAA titles, nothing has quite grabbed me like THPS has. Nothing has been so brash, so stupid, so loud, so much dumb fun. It reminds me of what I've been missing out from the entire skateboard craze of yesteryear, and what we stand to lose if we're not shredding as freely as the Hawk himself. Video games rule, and so does THPS 3.

On paper, I should really like Crumble. I like momentum based platforming. I'm a fan of using your grapple hook to fling your character forward with a rush of speed. Playing as a cute character that's reminiscent of Gooey from Dreamland 2 or a Dragon Quest Slime makes me smile ear to ear. But the game never quite lands for me.

It's design reminds me of a bit of a mix between Sonic and Marble It Up. High speeds with an emphasis on momentum. Unfortunately, like Sonic, the base movement of your character feels slightly sluggish, one of the main aspects of Sonic that I've greatly disliked. This may be a game that much like Sonic, is better on sequential play throughs, but for a first timer, it was rough to even want to finish. It reminded me of my time with Dreamland 2, ironically enough.

The fast paced momentum rolls found in Marble It Up are here as well, and they're serviceable sections and were my favorite parts of the game. The flow felt intact and much more tighter in with the level design, keeping with the flow of the player. The rest of the game felt like a restless struggle against itself.

In theory using your tongue to grapple hook platforms should be exhilarating to perform, but the result is usually a fight between reeling yourself back in, or fighting with the controls to direct your slimey splooshing body towards the next floating, potentially unstable platform. The game is designed with these types of platforms, often being used as a challenge, floating or suspended in the air to give the player a challenge. This would be fine, IF the player had a better way to control where the grapple tongue is placed. In a way, I'd call it too loose. This makes trying to navigate tougher challenges more of a struggle against the controls than it is a rewarding challenge against the game design.

The music is what I would call "midi ragtime", and I'm personally not a fan of it. Repetitive, sometimes borderline annoying compositions, sometimes poor audio mixing, and generally just a very forgettable selection of music. The music felt unfitting for a colorfully fun romp through strange new worlds. It never made me feel like I was driving forward, but instead meandering around, which is the exact opposite of the gameplay.

It's never fun to be overtly critical to a game. Crumble was a game I was looking forward to eventually buying and playing as it went on sale, (I received it for free). I believe this was the developer's first game, and for a first game, it's a well put together package. The developer did everything themselves, which is a commendable, herculean effort. Even if I'm critical of certain aspects, I think there's a spark of something that I can clearly see be refined and tweaked into becoming something that's more satisfying. If someone were to be in love with the aspects I found unsatisfying, I could understand where they're coming from, but I think there's a happy medium to be found within a sequel with more experience under their belt.

On a stop in my three day journey, I approached an open field. Grassy green-yellow knolls overtook most of my vision. Trees and cliffs formed an edge to the background, isolating the rest of the world from me. A familiar tune played, reminding me of a previous adventure I once took many years ago. It was now a distant memory. As I made my way uphill, I was met with the sight of a farm house and it's barn; both plain looking yet homely in their design. They looked oddly familiar.

Seated upon a wooden crate in front of the barn was a young girl. Long red hair, a protruding nose, she was around the same age as Link. I tried to speak with her, but coherent words failed to come out of her mouth. She stared vacantly, muttering to herself as if she were asleep, yet her eyes were still open. It was like she wasn't there.

Confused, I headed into the barn door to the young girl's left, only to be met by a young woman inside. Her back was turned towards me, but her body language read that she was deep in thought. She was distraught, talking to herself about how she wished she could have done something. She finally noticed me and apologized, but she couldn't speak with me right now. So, I waited outside.

Dawn turned to dusk, and the two girls headed into their home. Curious, I decided to follow them. As I walked inside, there they were in their dining room. They sat across from one another, both slumped in their chairs. There was a deep anguish to their faces. It was genuinely upsetting to see. I spoke to them, but their words felt like they were speaking in tongues. It was English, but it was hard to wrap around the meaning of their usage. The context felt lost. From what could be parsed through though, along with the minimal context of their distraught faces, it was clear that they had... given up. They fell into despair.

I decided to check upstairs, only to be greeted with a sight that I didn't expect. What looked to be an entire family greeted me, colorful only in their age groups, all of them women. A middle aged one sat on a bed, left with the hope of her husband to come home, only to be met with the distained loneliness caused by the reality of his absence. Another older, but still middle aged woman sat on a bed across from her, afraid for her life. She was woeful from the regrets she had made in life. An old lady sat in a rocking chair next to them. She was riddled with dementia, believing that I was her late husband, (or perhaps grandson), come to greet her. They all seemed lost in a haze of thoughts. I felt like I was invading a private moment where I didn't belong.

I didn't stop to say good bye. I ran out the door back to the outside world. The sky was now filled with hues of purple, pink and blue, flooding the entirety of the world above. Dots of light littered the painted sky scape. I could make out Orion's Belt from the constellations. It reminded me that I was still on planet Earth. It sunk my stomach, thinking of how tangible it all felt.

Then, the ground began to shake.

I looked over towards the moon. The nose of it's monstrous face was edging closer and closer to the ground. I kept staring at it. I moved to a higher vantage point atop the roof of the now broken home just to keep a better view of it's grotesque face. It continued to fall.

And fall.

And fall.

The world shook once again and music began to play. Music that cemented that the world around me was ending and that there was no stopping the inevitable. Time began to count down.

Five hours.

Four hours.

Three hours.

Two hours.

One hour.


All I could do was stare. I was lost in the dream.

This moment in Majora's Mask was incredibly vivid to me. It was like peering into a dream broadcast onto my computer monitor.

... Though, the reality of the moment wasn't as flowery. I was in a voice call with friends where jokes and general chatter were had amidst 3 separate discord streams, including my own. At one point we began talking about in detail of a quest line in Old School Runescape where you turn into a monkey and trick a baby monkey that five bananas are actually twenty bananas. This transcribed as I stared at the moon slowly come down. Life is rarely full of perfect picturesque moments.

But the silly nonsense surrounding this moment didn't effect the impact it had over me. I was never taken out of the moment. It still felt like I was witnessing a dream unfold right in front of me. Whether it was my own dream I was witnessing or someone else's, I'm not sure. All I knew was that I felt like I was an observer within it, yet I was also present within reality. Like there was a bridge between the unconscious and the conscious and I was standing in the middle of it. It was a vividly surreal feeling. Aptly enough, this might be the best way to describe Majora's Mask as a whole.

Even before I played Majora's Mask, the game had already made quite the impression on me as a kid. Over at a friend’s house many moons ago, I witnessed him use the Deku mask, and watched on in horror as Link screamed in shrilling pain as he became this lifeless husk of what I thought was a wooden doll. His eyes were forever instilled with these sad, horrified look to them. It filled my 5 year old brain with absolute terror. Viewing through the portal of the CRT, I could see a world that slowly died right in front of me. Above was the look of the moon's ever peering, forever piercing gaze, stabbing directly into my soul and imprinting into my memory. Amidst all the horror, a clock sat directly in the middle of the screen, counting down until your demise was met, only to be saved by a time loop. A time loop of repeating the same three days, day after day, doomed for the world to end.

This absolutely, positively scared the shit out of me. Around this time, I had also listened to Linkin Park's "In The End", and had an outright existential crisis. As silly as it is, I had put the pieces in my head that the lyrics were (in part) a metaphor for death, and had an anxiety attack from this while in the back of my mom's SUV. I would stay up at night having anxiety attacks about eventually dying and never being able to do anything ever again. Death was something that always terrified me, and to see it so strikingly portrayed like it was in Majora's Mask left me scarred.

You would think it would end there as a scary, yet fleeting childhood memory. But those scars didn't seem to ever heal. Majora's Mask has stuck far into the recesses of my brain and has firmly implanted itself there. It's haunted me throughout the years, much more than I've ever realized up until writing this. And yet, it's also aided me when I felt I've needed it most.

This is quite a personal story — one I'm not sure I'm too comfortable even sharing in a public setting — but maybe it's worth stating simply to showcase the impact this game has had over me.

When I was in high school, I had pneumonia. It was hard to breathe, I could feel the weight of my lungs gasping and wheezing from the amount of mucus in them. I was eventually hospitalized for a day, with my mother worried sick about leaving me in the hospital for a night. It was the first time something like this had ever happened to me, but I was taking it in strides. I was self satisfied with the apple juice and pre-baked pretzel sticks the hospital provided. I didn't feel scared.

During the night, I kept waking from the nurses coming in to check on me. I clearly wasn't going to get a good night's sleep. It didn't help that the bed they provided was like an air mattress, which it made it feel like I was floating. So for a while, I just laid there, looking up at the ceiling, warm light vaguely illuminating it from a crack under the door. I let my mind wander for a bit. And then, very suddenly, the reality of the situation began to sink in; if it weren't for the medicine being put in my veins and the oxygen being pumped up my nose, I would have probably died.

And just like that, a vision blew over me.

I could see a tall tree up atop of a large hill. Beautiful pink flowers scatter around the ground, with a light green grass making a circle around the tree. It was reminiscent of Skull Kid siting under the tree towards the end of the game. I had walked towards it, and sat on the ground under it. I looked over to my right. There I saw a dog. It was my childhood dog Meeko, who I had held in my arms as we put him down not two years before, a traumatic experience that had haunted me. But he didn't look like himself, back how he looked during that final moment, with his muscle atrophied hind legs and his boney spine protruding from his malnourished body. His eyes didn't carry the same blank, lifeless look that I had accidentally glimpsed at as the vet took away his lifeless body. His body wasn't limp from his heart beat stopping. He looked more of a puppy, fluffy on the face but a bit curly in the back. His white and light brown fur shined under the shadow of the tree's branches. He was big for a Shih Tzu, but this version of him was tiny. It was a version of him I don't believe I've ever seen before. If I had, it must have been when I was very, very young. He sat with his head laying in his paws, nice and snug between them. As I looked at him, I began to gently pet him. His fur felt soft. It was almost tangible.

And then the image went away.

It was a deeply personal moment for me. I was conscious, but I could very vividly see this happen. I'm sure part of it was me wanting it to happen. Part of it was just being exhausted from the nurses checking in on me numerous times throughout the night. It felt like a religious experience, but I could tell it wasn't. It was more just memories and images drawn from the past that had stuck out to me, creating a story to comfort me. I had seen that moment in Majora's Mask, and my brain decided it was important enough to recall it. But it was a moment that felt like closure. Like Death itself was right there next to me, showing me a vision of what I thought heaven looked like. Saying good bye in the moment, but perhaps a glimpse at an eventual eternity to be with my dearly departed pet and best friend.

... And mind you, this is all without having played the game for myself. A poser even within my own "religious" experiences. God kicked me out of the vision and said "you're not coming back until you've at least played Majora's Mask, nerd".

So let's correct that.

Much like with my Pikmin playthrough, this has been a long time coming. I had joked in that review that the anxiety from even attempting to play Pikmin was a feeling of "childhood trauma", but I'm beginning to realize, in part, there's some truth to that. Obviously not to the same extent as someone facing horrible abuse, but an acute version of that. One caused by pre-existing fears manifesting into avoidance. Abstract fears that's bled into real life instances of feeling as if timed pressure was akin to the literal end of the world. I have relearned the lesson from my Pikmin play through: the reality of being timed is a lot less dramatic than in my head. The days go by quickly, sure, but you're equipped with tools to mitigate that ever ticking clock. Performing the song of Inverted Time slows everything down, giving you plenty of time to both experiment and accomplish longer sections of content within a single day, and a reasonable amount of wiggle room to boot. In fact, there are even moments where you'd want to move forward in time. This was something I had initially thought would be terrifying if I had to do while playing the game, mortified at the prospect of accidentally moving too far forward and triggering the end of the world. However, humans adapt to the situation given to them, and I habituated to the time loop. If I messed up, I didn't worry, I picked myself back up and kept going. There were times I even stopped and smelled the roses, waiting for an event to proceed. I had become a time management expert.

Most of the gameplay comes down to choosing your time between traditional style Zelda dungeons and tackling a side quest with one of the many denizens of Termina. The Zelda dungeons are the meat of the game, bringing about puzzles and gimmicks that built upon the formula brought about by Ocarina of Time. My major problem with Ocarina of Time dungeons has been the game's focus on looking around an environment. This was meant to get players used to thinking about how 3D spaces work, having them need to look around a dungeon for opportunities to unlock doors, solve puzzles, or whatever was needed to progress. For the first of it's kind, it does a great job at helping the player think within a 3D environment. As someone who already knows how to and has been aware of how to for years, I found the puzzles to be lacking. No other game puts quite as much emphasis on this aspect, and I've never meshed well with it. Majora's Mask, for me at least, remedies this by having dungeons that are more focused on their centralized gimmicks — the mask transformations and the multitude of key items — and using those abilities to reinforce the level design.

This can result in some hiccups, however. Switching between items that can only be accessed with 3 buttons at a time means you'll be in your menus a lot, and with the addition of masks, this issue becomes far worse than in OoT. Dungeons are built on more complex ideas, whether it be a vertical tower you need to work your way up, or a series of complicated underwater pathways that require the entirety of the dungeon to be changed. This can result in the player having to repeat loops if they by chance fall down to areas below, or get lost in the complexity of the dungeon.

The central time mechanic is a fantastic novelty, but it means that it is a very real possibility you may not have enough time to finish a dungeon. This can be slightly annoying. On the same token though, I adore this. It's nearly unwavering in it's commitment to it's central concept, and makes for a game that feels more cohesive as a result. It's not completely brutal mind you: you keep the dungeon's key item even after returning to the start of the loop, which acts as a checkpoint. This helps me become confident to continue rather than distraught at the progress I've lost.

... Unless the game crashes, in which case, it is NOT fun retreading the 3 or 4 objectives I just spent doing in that cycle. This happened to me twice and it was a nightmare. It's a drawback to the save system, but it's a system that I wouldn't want changed. It helps sell you into the time loop, having to commit to the day or to restart the day to progress. The system isn't perfect, but I'd much prefer the game constructing a specific feeling rather than washing out what made Majora's Mask interesting in the first place. Not to name any names. Ahem.

Like any other Zelda game, dungeons are topped off with bosses. The bosses in Majora's Mask I mostly enjoyed, the Goron boss "Goht" especially, since it makes great use of Goron Link's roll abilities and tests your mastery over it. But god almighty, do I hate the stupid fish boss. All his patterns feel so random for when he decides to chase after you. The floppy fish fuck will randomly decide if he wants to chew you now and take a third of my health or wait 15 seconds after you've pumbled into him. It never feels like you can predict or control the fight, and it's by far the worst part of the entire game.

The floppy fish fuck doesn't have his maw dragging down the overall experience, especially when even the side quests to the game are impeccable. Majora's Mask is half made up of these side quests. They are often about impacting the lives of the denizens of Termina in positive ways. Some of my favorites have to be both Romani and Cremia's quests. Romani is the little girl from the beginning of this review that lost her mind, which as the game unfold, I discovered this was due to her being abducted by aliens. The poor girl just wanted to save her farm and the cows they'd abduct every year.

Her older sister, Cremia, mourns for her sister's mental well-being if you neglect to save her. Saving Romani prevents Cremia from completely falling into despair, as she tries to keep a positive attitude even within the face of tragic death. She accepts her fate but wishes to keep strong for her little sister. It's genuinely touching character work and I'm in love with it. The idea of losing this side quest pumped me chalk full of anxiety. The thought of this poor, sweet, innocent little girl losing her mind because of MY inaction tore me up inside, and the notion of putting her sister through all of that only added to those feelings. Majora's Mask is way too skillful at drawing out my emotions, I swear.

One of the major side quests involves the characters Anju and Kafei. Their story plays out like a tragedy. Anju works at the Stock Pot Inn and is searching and waiting for her lost lover, Kafei, to return. Kafei hid himself away from everyone he knew, for he was cursed by Skull Kid who transformed his body into that of a child's. Kafei feels like he's unable to face Anju again due to his current form, as well as the fact that he's lost the one thing to bond them for their wedding ceremony, the Sun Mask. After jumping through the many trials and loops to obtain the mask, Kafei and Anju perform their wedding ceremony together, with only an hour on the clock counting down remaining. The two simply sit in their darkened room in the Stock Inn motionless, Anju bending down on her knees and holding Kafei in her arms like she was consoling a child. If you speak with them, they urge you to find shelter as the two of them continue to hug. I almost broke down crying.

This tone is spread all throughout Majora's Mask. The rich, deep melancholy exuded from the game fills almost the entire atmosphere. You start the game in a brooding forest, looking for your previous fairy friend Navi. You get flung off your horse and pick pocketed by Skull Kid, who orchestrated this to happen. You chase after Skull Kid and he bestows a curse onto you, transforming you into a Deku Scrub, a grimly sight. You reach the end of the cave and you're met with the fate of the body you inhabit, frozen dead in place. You later find out is the son of one of the Dekus you later come across. You eventually meet the Happy Mask Salesman, and his entire demeanor sends shivers down my spine. He barely has animations, he instead cycles to different poses in dramatic, unexpected cuts. His movememts are extremely jarring, giving off the impression that he may not even be a real person. You have trouble trusting him, but the salesman agrees to help you if you return the mask Skull Kid took from him.

Even as you set foot in Clock Town, where things are relatively at their most normal, something just always feels off. Clock Town's mostly cheery music helps to make the town feel more homely, but the town's denizens are rather strange. During the day, jugglers prance and speak in small riddles of the end times, the night comes and dancers perform ritualistic dances for at first, seemingly no reason. In the laundry pool, a man cranks his instrument and goes off on a bizarre rant about a bunch of dogs, reliving the story in his head and becoming furious at the idea as he recounts it. The Mayor's office is in discord from a town meeting, arguing if it's even okay to do a carnival, let alone stay in town if the moon is going to fall. That very moon follows you everywhere you go, looming over you with it's omnipresence. Wherever you go, death lingers in the background.

Whether it be the iconography or the music, so much of this game paints the walls of my mind. The Song of Healing's motif being one in the same with the Mask Salesman's theme paints this hauntingly beautiful track of releasing the searing pain from a soul with each variation. It plays in moments of healing, my favorite example being that of when a young girl is reunited with her father after his body had transformed and mummified into a redead. The eerie murmuring of the ambient synth mixed in with the chime of bells tolling make up the beginning of the Final Day theme. Calming synth chords roll in and establish the mood that yes, this is it, this is the end, hope itself sapping away from you as you continue to listen. Changing the tune, the almost magical feel to the Astral Observatory theme fills me with awe and makes me feel like magic is real.

The imagery to accompany these tracks like with The Giant's theme bring about such an ambience. A dense gray fog envelops the world as Link stands atop of a lone pillar. Whirlwinds litter this world of fog and storms as giant unfathomable gods opaquely seen afar call out to you in a language you cannot comprehend. The Great Sea Bay uses a synth that makes you feel uneasy to journey into the desolate sea in front of you. The Zora hall matches the relax, sublime mood of the sea side concert auditorium. A parade of colors and sea shells almost glimmering off the serene beds of water.

Areas by themselves bring about unbelievable moods. Locations like the Stone Wall Temple seem impossible and foreboding, looking as if apocalyptic sky scrapers surround the walls of this place. The snowy plains of the Goron Village capture my heart with it's pronounced love of snow levels. The Great Sea contains a section similar to Mario 64's Jolly Roger Bay eel, and it legitimately made me yelp. That same Sea contains recognizable iconography that's stuck with me, like the Lab's hook like shape and the Sea Turtle's island upon it's back. Inside the Moon, dear God, inside the moon. I've already described it, but what I left out were details like the slight delayed shimmering blur added to everything. How you start off from far away and have to run all the way up the hill. The beautiful baby blue sky above. The figments of Skull Kid wear masks of the fallen bosses, asking you to play as well as questions about what it's like to be happy and have friends. Further on, you encounter Majora. The demented forms that Majora takes during his climactic boss fight are nothing but alien abominations, each form of his shape-shifting and morphing akin to The Thing as he tries to destroy you. It's all just so visceral.

Majora's Mask feels deeply personal. Everyone I've met has described their own entangled relationship with the game. Stories and memories integrating the game and themselves together. In the best possible way, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is like a nightmare you had when you were young. You remember the feelings you had when it happened. How you felt in the moment. How you reacted when you woke up. How shook you were to your core. How you'll never forget what you saw. It's reminded you that one day, you may not wake up again. You'll be forever lost in a dream. A dream no one knows the boundaries or limits of. A dream that's eyes may truly be as black and void as you fear in the waking world.

I just hope in the dream, I'm sitting underneath a tree on top of a hill.

I was given this game as a gift, with the express purpose of playing it to laugh at it. From the word go, it's incredibly clear that this is one of those games that's clearly not for me. I'm not a furry, I'm not a member of the LGBT, I'm not into this lo-fi emotional rock music, I'm not into all the interpersonal high school girl drama. Most of my friends don't fit this category either. I think most of us expected the worse, given the reputation of this game's rocky development, and it's shadow being cast by a parody game that beat them to release. That's all I really knew going in.

What I was met with was a fine story with characters that the creators truly cared deeply for. The tiny minute intricacies that only someone deep within their own writer sauce would care about. They're not all details I particularly care about, but they help these characters feel grounded within their paleontological world. A major section of this game is the group playing a DnD game, and it really captures the feel of playing the game while encapsulating it with the themes of the Goodbye Volcano High as a whole. It's where I liked the game the most, and wished the game was just this. It was charming.

I could sit here and go into detail about the sometimes rough transitions of these animated scenes switching on the fly, the mouth flaps going out of sync, the memes that'll surely date the game in a few years, the climax of the plot feeling rather forced with my playthrough, motivations not quite lining up with all the possible choices they've laid out, etc. But doing so would be pointless. For what it is, Goodbye Volcano High is a game not for me, but I could see this impacting someone who relates to these characters much more. I can't, and I refuse, to hate the passion put into this game. Someone cared, even if I don't.

It's important to know your roots.

Team Reptile is a company that's made one of my favorite games, Lethal League. It just absolutely oozes style like no other. Wacky character designs that look cool and striking, all with superb poses to make them each stand out. It's music would hit you heavy with it's banging synths from the most underground of underground artists, hand picked to create a feel for these sprawling urban environments these characters reside in. The game itself is deceptively simple yet mechanically rich. I had spent hours upon hours finessing ball movements, learning new character tech, and being absolutely demolished by the larger sharks above my skill level. It's a game I've bought tens of times for friends to play with me, and even rebought the game multiple times on different platforms. The soundtrack I have on CD, a precious treasure I call my own. All of this to spread the love for the game as far and wide as I could.

Upon seeing the initial teaser trailer for their next game, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, I had no doubt in my mind that this team could pull off the style, charm, and mechanical feel of a Jet Set Radio type of game. Trailer after trailer, my mouth watered with excitement. The sound, the look, the feel of it all just completely enraptured me.

And they nailed it entirely. So much so, that I believe they've strongly surpassed the series they were most influenced by. However, I don't necessarily think they've beat out the other spouse in this influential marriage, Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

... Okay, that sounded all kinds of wrong. What I mean is, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk stands proud and tall against Jet Set Radio, but doesn't quite reach the same levels of euphoric mechanical high as Tony Hawk does.

In Jet Set Radio, your goal was to tag as many areas as you could in a level, traversing on your roller blades and grinding on rails as you do so. Tagging was scored by performing quick time events that were often very stiff and precise, given they used the directions on the stick. As you tag, the police start to roll up and try to take you down. Funk on them with a spray can and carry on your way, Yo.

In Jet Set Radio Future, it was similar, except the areas were more free-roaming, were expanded greatly in size, and had less of an arcade loop focus. Instead of completing an area within a time limit, you'd do missions within these bigger areas, and that'd gain you more points. These ranged from races, jumping/grinding challenges, tagging challenges, etc. Usually this would end with you taking on the rival gang in a funkaholic challenge. In Bomb Rush, this is no different. Exploring open levels, trying to tag as much you can, doing missions, versing against your rival street gang, it's all there. The difference here comes down to the finer details.

The movement for starters is simply divine. No longer is your character this weighty yet fragile entity who gets knocked down easily, or who's so stiff you can't even precisely jump onto a rail. Now you can easily move around, with no friction between what you want done and performing it. Wanna jump around everywhere? Go for it, do some flips and tricks while you're at it. Have a boost that helps you mid-air and a jet blast to speed up even more on top of it. You can still grind on rails and sign boards, but now your method of travel has expanded. Skateboarding, biking, roller blading, the choice is all yours. Heck, you can even get off your board and run and slide around, doing flips and tricks to extend combos or speed up momentarily.

On top of movement tech, trick combos slide on in. Much like in Tony Hawk, these combos are ones you chain together as you move about the stage. In Tony Hawk however, the amount of tricks you can do depends directional inputs along with button inputs. This allows for a wide variety of tricks to be done, and makes scoring a lot more varied. The amount of tricks you can perform in BRC is limited to Y, X and A, which is a significant step down in complexity. To make up for this, they have you scoring multipliers to your tricks by using every part of the stage as you can. This entails making hard turns, dashing across signs, or flipping through half-pipes to increase your multiplier. This forces you to keep moving rather than sticking to a small loop that'll reward you with the best points, like in higher level play Tony Hawk games. The lack of tricks hurts the game a little in feeling complex, but it's still a dynamic system, where it requires you to plan out routes to obtain the best possible scores. The foundation of the movement system is enough to carry the rest of the combo system's short comings, making it addictive, but not as masterful as BRC's secondary influence. It'd be nice to have a bit more variety in tricks, maybe with the left stick like in THPS, but with what's there, it's a great system.

New Amsterdam makes for some real fun skateparks. Technologically advanced, yet still modern, these urban playgrounds are jungle gyms to monkey around on. Massive Mega Malls with shops littering every corner. Sprawling skyscrapers with massive monuments to golden men with heads of goats and cattle. A construction site in the shape of a giant pyramid. Urban streets and districts that are filled with all kinds of life. A bustling metro transportation depot, with never ending traffic. No trees in sight, all the oxygen is faked. Details like having your phone's camera take place physically into the game's world helps you become grounded the world. You use your phone's mini map as a way to navigate, controlling your music, and messaging with your buddies, all of which help sell you just a bit on being here. DJ Cyber's set list plays as you make your way through each environment, reflecting the vibe of the gangs that reside there. Funk, Hip-hop, electronica, future funk, all these fresh beats infect your earholes and stay there. Naganuma's presence in the Jet Set Radio games defined it's style, and he was brought back for a few tracks here. But the entire soundtrack is studded with multiple artists that bring to life these cultures and have some of the phatest beats imaginable.

The atmosphere to everything is heavily inspired by Jet Set Radio Future, and you can tell with many of the iconography they've picked and choose for the locations and music. It's inspiration is on it's sleeve, but they make large scale changes to these types of environments with the mechanics they've introduced, welcoming in their own ideas into the mix.

Lethal League wasn't exactly known for it's story. Blaze in particular has a story mode, but it wasn't anything substantial. Lethal League I believe takes place in the same universe as BRC, where street rats roam and play underground ball games. BRC's approach is fairly more substantial, with characters that have their charm. You play first as Faux, a legendary writer in New Amsterdam, who finds himself arrested. After breaking out with a new found friend, you find yourself getting your head cut clean off by a deadly disc thrown by DJ Cyber, another legendary writer. Apparently, someone has been collecting heads, so your body needs to be refit with a new one. Your new name is Red. Your friend wants you to go All City, which means taking over each rival gang and marking each street with your gang's name. King of All City.

The root of the story is a discovering a sense of identity. Finding out who you are, what you are, where you came from. You end up as a shell of a person. Through many twists and turns, your true identity is revealed, and you have to embrace that reality. The two personalities become interwoven into one, and you come out as a brand new you.

It's a strong arc for the story, but it's emblematic of the game as a whole. Your roots are a part of you. Your inspirations, your love, your culture, it's all a part of you. Embrace those parts of you, and create something new and inspiring from it. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is an amalgamation of it's inspirations, turned into something new and exciting. It embraces this wholeheartedly. And you can't help but love it for that fact. It knows what it is, and although it's not the picture perfect idealization of all the ideas it tries to execute, it's still a superbly tight game.

I've put off playing Pikmin for 22 years.

Timers give me anxiety. Being timed with anything just about makes my heart rate sky rocket. I've been avoiding games like Pikmin for a long time because of this. Majora's Mask, Dead Rising, I've told my friends countless times I'd get around to playing these games, only to inevitably end up feeling deterred from a sudden spike of anxiety.

It's really just all in my head. I fear the anguish caused by failing miserably and having to restart. I psych myself out and over think about how much I need to manage my time efficiently. In my head, I have to do things perfectly on my first time. Part of me knows the game is much easier to manage than I'm making it out to be. Another part of me doesn't seem to get the picture. Pikmin is likely the first game that I've ever played with a timer, and it's one of the reasons why playing these types of games affects me so much. Childhood trauma.

So, I put off Pikmin for 22 years. My GameCube copy from when I was 5 just sitting there, untouched. A reminder of past scars.

On a whim, my friend suggested I should stream it. He's been asking me to stream it for him for years now. I had tried once before in the past, but I had stopped early and feared going back. So I figured, eh, why not? I should stay true to my word.

And a funny thing happened. I made myself stop caring about the failures I'd make, or all the Pikmin I'd lose. Instead, I just went marched forward. If I messed up, I'd mess up. As I played, I became detached from my Pikmin and saw them less as cute little creatures, and more just the video game polygons they actually are. I dehumanized myself and faced the bloodshed.

As a result, hundreds upon hundreds of Pikmin died in tragic (and needlessly stupid) deaths, but here I was, finally viewing the end credits. A man turned monster, sitting upon his throne of dead (pik)men behind him. The weight of my soul is too much to bear.

... In all seriousness, it was just a really fun time. I throughly enjoyed my time with Pikmin 1.

The reality of playing Pikmin is much different from the fantasy in my head. The timer is an ever present source of pressure, yeah, but the amount of time you're given is plentiful. You're able to restart from your last save too, which saves a lot of time compared to a hard reset which took the edge off. As a kid, I had no idea what to do, where to go, and stressed out about finding the ship pieces in time. But I was a 5 year old. I was bound to be bad at a game like this.

Pikmin is a real time strategy game, and what's unique about it is that it's a character centric one. Usually in these types of games, you're controlling massive amounts of characters all at once as a sort of nebulous god. With Pikmin, you're in control of Olimar, and your army of Pikmin follow you automatically.

Pikmin break down into groups of 3: red, yellow, blue. Red are strong and fire resistant, yellow can jump high, throw bombs and carry pieces quicker, and blue can go in water. Blues end up getting the short end of the stick, but every type have their benefits in using. Much of the gameplay revolves around organizing these little dumb bastards and making the carry, kill, swarm, whatever. You also have to be their nanny and make sure they don't get lost from the group if they decide to, I don't know, go play with grass or rocks, or get stuck on a wall, or just decide that they don't really want to follow you for no reason.

The AI for these things can be a bit frustrating, (especially when they get lost the second you're about to take off for the night) but in a way, it's like they have a mind of their own. It's a good balance of just competent enough to not be completely aggravating, but aggravating enough to feel like they don't listen and are just absent minded. I could probably go without the part where Pikmin get caught on walls and having to search around the Walmart looking for my lost son. At least I have a chip in him to track where he is on a map.

Alongside being a real time strategy, Pikmin is also a bit of a puzzle game. Each ship piece requires you to put together how you're going to bring each back, using each element of the 3 types of Pikmin at your disposal. This could mean having reds carry the pieces through fire, having yellows throw bombs to take down walls or to reach high enough places to obtain a piece, blues going through water, or all of them fighting for their lives against a monster dumb enough to eat a ship part.

This game can be brutal. Enemies love eating Pikmin, and they get greedy if you're not careful. The lifecycle to this planet have Pikmin on the lower end of the foodchain, so almost everything eat them. The ones that don't have a habit of eating them end up being bullies as well,whether that be picking them up and tossing them in the ground, or just pumbling them into the ground. Some creatures even like stealing your stuff, like the breadbugs. This ecosystem is strange, and you always feel like an underdog.

Yet, despite the oppressive difficulty and ever dreaded clock, the atmosphere is serene and peaceful. The sun blooms during the day, and these grassy sandboxes paint the world to be gentle and calm outside of it's cut throat environment. Water pools and moves with as much realism as the 6th generation lunchbox can handle. Damp caves bring about a gloomy atmosphere, yet teems with light and life. Rusted cans and objects stick out of the ground, implying we're merely the size of an ant on a much larger planet. That planet might very well be our planet, morphed and mutated into something without humanity. And yet, the music remains peaceful and hopeful. There's not a lot of areas to this game, but they make the most out of them.

The ending is a short puzzle using all the Pikmin's abilities, only to then reach a giant boss who absolutely demolishes your troops. It's one of the most brutal encounters in the game, right next to the Wollywogs. Those damned jerk offs love slapping down on your Pikmin and crushing them. They don't even eat them! They just love crushing things to death! And at the end, Olimar finally gets to return home, thanking the Pikmin for their service and leaving them behind. They now can fend for themselves with their new found confidence, and with time, I bet they could become on top of the food chain.

This game has been quite a journey. Although it's short, it's definitely taught me a lot. Don't think you'll be perfect the first time you do something. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Don't overthink it and just have fun. Dehumanize yourself and face the bloodshed.

I don't have the right words to describe my feelings towards LISA: The Painful. It's impacted me on such a deep level that I don't know how to formulate the right sentences in the right order to explain it. It's a deeply personal game to me, a game that feels like only I and a niche of others could love. It's as if on some level, it understands me. And yet, it challenges my own beliefs. My own morality. It's one of those pieces of media that leaves me reflecting with questions of, "what would I have done? What could have happened to prevent all this?". It's one of the rare few video games that's left me reflecting like this — a sign of a great work.

And this is coming from a game with a fucking talking fish lawyer. This game is stupid, it is SO STUPID—

I really don't think I could do it justice here in this format, so I'll keep this brief. LISA: The Painful is a gift. It's simultaneously one of the most soul crushing and gut-bustingly hilarious games I've ever played. It has some of the craziest, coolest, absolutely bonkers music in a video game. It's a nightmare, it's a trip, it's an must-have experience. Not everyone will love it. Some may find it annoying. But with all my heart, I love it. You might love it too. Go play it and find out for yourself.

Before I start, I recommend reading my review of A Realm Reborn, given that it's a continuation.

A Realm Awoken is the inbetween patch between A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. As such, it's design goals were to build the story up until the next expansion, but also to give players something to do while they developed said expansion.

The designer brain in me is understanding in what they've had to do. The need for new content in an MMO is paramount for letting the hardcore players stay satisfied, and it's a tough battle to keep your player base occupied while you're working on the next big thing. MMOs are a live service, and that requires consistent updates.

The gamer part of my brain wants to violently throw up at merely the thought of having to do the originally set 100 main scenario quests instead of the chopped down 80.

It's not like I really enjoyed a majority of those 80 quests either. ESPECIALLY in the beginning. At times, it was worse than my experience with ARR. But as the game progressed, specifically as Moenbryda arrived, the game suddenly caught my attention. Here's a character that has a personality, a bit of charm with the rest of the cast, someone who resembles something human-like in this sea of cardboard!

It was as if a switch was flipped within the writing, where characters started being written as characters, and not as pure dumps of information. Characters who I held no real interest for up until this point, suddenly started becoming somewhat charming. Characters like Aymeric and Haurchefant began to demand attention from the screen, holding my interest rather than reading the words on screen and barely retaining any of it. I began to keep track of what's happening in the plot, and can actually recall things that happened in the plot! I found myself wondering "oh, I wonder what will happen next?".

... At this point, I feel like I'm giving praise to someone for knowing how to breathe.

I've learned of a basic story-telling technique recently that has helped put in perspective much of what XIV's story short comings have been. Basically, if your story's plot beats follow from each other with the word "and then", your story is going to be incredibly boring. Compelling stories are about consequences of actions and how they flow from one another.

"The Warrior of Light defeated the first primal. Then the second primal. Then he defeated the third primal. And then the fourth one."

Those have been the main plot beats to A Realm Reborn, and it's so boring, it's incredibly nothing, there's no movement in what's happening. You can jam your epic fantasy lore in all you want, but if the basis for your story can be boiled down to "and then this happened", then it's NOT interesting.


It doesn't help too that plot points have been stretched thin due to the sheer amount of quests needed to set up some of the bigger moments found within A Realm Awoken's story. It's stretched so thin and only begins to pay off towards the end, where we're exiled from the home we've been protecting from being falsely accused of assassinating the Ul'Dah Queen. I'm beginning to see inklings of a good story being set up, but it took way, way, WAY too long to set us up for this. It's hard to get emotionally attached to character betrayals, deaths, etc when you're basically only beginning to like some of these characters. At this point, it's a brand new beginning.

As for the actual gameplay, it's strangely... experimental? What's interesting about experiencing a live service game, as I'm learning, is that you get to see in real time a team learning what works and what doesn't. ARA has a bunch of experimental content, with large raids with the Crystal Towers, to a weird full on battle to fight a dragon, to what was supposedly meant to be the new way content was to be dished out with blue quests like Primal Awakening. To me, none of these experiments really did much for me, and were apparently much worse at launch than they were now. It is interesting that all your design mistakes will be shown in an MMORPG. It's interesting too, that you can then rectify mistakes much later down the line. The developers finally decided that the Scions needed a base of operations that you could actually TELEPORT to, rectifying an asinine decision that I have no idea how it was even made. It's your MAIN SCENARIO QUEST, the one where players are CONSTANTLY going to head towards, and you don't even make a teleport point there for it???

I'm still not very keen on Final Fantasy XIV. It's improved since A Realm Reborn, for sure. I'm at the very least going to continue on to Heavensward and finish it. I just don't know if Heavensward can convince me that all the time spent disliking the game will be justified. With how much praise it's received from pretty much everyone I know, it is apparently the hook-line-sinker for the game. Is it worth the trouble? Am I really going to do a true 180 on this game? Is Jin'wey Akiyama's story going to be continued all the way to the finish line?

Find out in the next episode of Final Fantasy XIV titled "Heavensward: aka Jin'wey Akiyama's Big Break"

The best sales pitch for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is that it's Kodaka's version of AI: The Somnium Files, with a Danganronpa twang. If you know what either of those things are, at least. If you don't, imagine taking a mystery visual novel and inserting a 3D world to explore and investigate, not too similar to a point-and-click Adventure. Funnily enough, this is a rather apt metaphor for knowing if you'll enjoy Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: if you know what the deal with Danganronpa is, you will enjoy this game. If not, your mileage may vary.

Personally, I wholeheartly adore Kodaka's works — with his not-so-subtle writing, his strange naming conventions, his oddball dark humor — it's just a very distinct style. They can be a bit messy in certain places, enough for my friend group to have the running joke of calling him "a hack fraud", but this all comes from a place of love.

At least, for me it does.

His strengths lie with character writing and weaving a thematic thread into the core of his narratives, and those parts greatly appeal to me. It also helps that he constructs very fun murder mystery logic puzzles in-between it all.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is — you know what? Fuck it, I'm just calling it Rain Code from now on. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is too much a fucking mouthful to say.

Rain Code is incredibly enjoyable, albeit with some slight caveats. As much as I've just spent a paragraph defending Kodaka's writing, the writing within this game can vary from strangely put sentences, to straight up repeated plot points. Slight spoilers, but the entire main "final battle" is just regurgitating things we already know and have discussed the entire case. It's cool to see you throwing it all back at the villain's face, but they could have used this section to portray the struggle between these two characters and their diametrically opposed viewpoints, with gameplay sections to showcase the two sides having both strong arguments. They sort of try that in a way, but it's only really half-baked with it's approach. It's meant to be a cool finisher, but it just doesn't come off as such.

"Repeating things we already know" is a bit of hard thing to criticize in mystery solving games. Everyone will have their troubles with figuring out the mysteries involved to solve the case, it's purely dependent on the person. For me, I managed to piece together a majority of how the crimes were executed, and sometimes even who did it. This would occur halfway through the Mystery Labyrinth, if not before reaching the Mystery Labyrinth in it's entirety.

On top of this, mechanically, it never brings the most out it's main gameplay sections. The Death Battle Matches are fun, but they lack a certain oomph to make them feel impactful. I think giving them more of a challenge would solve that. Having to duck and weave through phrases thrown at you, having to jump mid-air and hit a word away would give this style of game an extra layer of depth. This could alienate your core audience of visual novel readers, but it would make this kind of gameplay much more distinct than what you would find in Danganronpa. The game also hampers it's own difficulty with the abilities you unlock all throughout the game. Very easily, you can negate many of the challenges that the game throws at you. Above all of this, you have a game with very straight forward cases, combining into a game with cases that are just much simpler than what you'd find in a Danganronpa game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, some of the cases in Danganronpa can be hair-rippingly annoying, but for this game in particular, it is simultaneously a welcomed change of pace, and a let down.

It's relative ease helps Rain Code's cases be less satisfying to solve than a Danganronpa game, but that's not the only culprit. The other mastermind behind this problem lies within the game's own structure. Because Rain Code borrows it's structure from Danganronpa, which in turn borrowed IT'S structure from Ace Attorney, narrative design problems crop up. Since a Mystery Labyrinth is a degree separated from the real world, it's much less satisfying to see the holes in logic unravel before me. Causing a culprit to squirm and shimmy as they throw their barrels of lies at me to try and save face is part of appeal for these types of games. It feels good to catch someone in a lie and absolutely blow them the fuck out. With Rain Code, it's this weird middle ground where it's an entity speaking on the behalf of the real character, but not exactly them. At times, it feels more like the game director dictating me down the right path where the story must go next, rather than a real person or character. Another design problem is that because the narrative is structured with starting you off with a heavy duty detective investigation, too many of the pieces to solve the murder end up being revealed in the beginning, letting you already know whodunnit. In Danganronpa and Ace Attorney, going into a trial after investigating meant new information could be discovered through witnesses or from an opposing side that could completely change who you suspected to have done it. While a couple of cases make use of this technique, each case made it's culprit still a little too obvious for me.

All of these criticisms I think are valid, but they're important to get out of the way. After all, I've enjoyed the game a lot. With what's here, it's a wonderful first game in what I presume will become it's own series of games. The foundation is all here to be explored and tweaked, having the potential to expand past this game and onto something even better. But what's here is still great!

As much as I've harped on the predictability of how the cases would play out, I still would guess wrong who had done it initially. There was only a single time I guessed for sure who the culprit was halfway through, but getting there meant learning how the crime was done first. The mechanics involved are basically a twist on Danganronpa's, albeit simplified and more gameified, so it's still an enjoyable formula to play. What's added to this formula are jolts of exploration through the rain soaked dystopian city of Kanai Ward. Neon lights shine across the entire roads of the city, being reflected by the constant downpour. Virtual billboards litter the city to direct the cramped denizens to their shopping desires with Amaterasu Corp. Amaterasu Corp infects every part of this city with it's corruption, and you not only get to experience it all through gameplay, but through it's many cases as well. Each case and culprit revolve around how people within this oppressive environment are effected by Amaterasu Corp's ever closing grip. The only way to save the city from it's corruption is to cut out all the mysteries and let them bleed to death. It's another one of Kodaka's games that revolve around the idea of truth, but takes it in a direction that's very much in line with detectives.

Rain Code has a rather small main cast in comparison to Danganronpa, which is a welcomed change of pace. Each character gets their own moments to shine and express themselves, coming and going with satisfying character arcs. Vivia and Chief Yakou are most likely my favorites from the main cast of Detectives, followed by Hallara and Fubuki. Vivia is just a depressing loner who wants to either die or read his books. Yet, he's also caring about the people around him, just in a more unconventional way. Chief Yakou is a little shit head who has a good heart, but keeps taking advantage of his underling. He's a coward, but his love for his crew is strong, and he'll do whatever he can to protect them.

Hallara is a cold, stern, off-putting character, but opens up as you spend more time with them. Fubuki is an absolute dumb ass who is so shelter, she can barely function, yet has the most over powered ability ever, so that she can survive.

Fubuki is also "dummy thicc". Not my words, those are Kodaka's own words.

Desuhiko is kind of the stock annoying character, where his motivations are only focused on pussy and how to get it. He grows on you, but it can be rather redundant to hear how badly he messed up on getting a woman to even look at him.

Yuma and Shinigami are definitely my favorites out of all of the characters, however. They both have a very fun banter, as well as an incredibly sweet relationship that gets developed. Shinigami being a death god means she's very familiar with death, and is rather bubbly about the idea of it. Part of it is just her nature as a god of death, part of it is her affinity to tease Yuma in order to get a reaction out of him. She isn't heartless however, which I think is important to keep her from being unlikable. She deeply cares about Yuma, and wants him to succeed, as well as depend on her from time to time. Yuma's arc throughout the game is to find his own footing as a detective, and the cost of what it means to uncover the truth. He wants to do things himself, but lacks the confidence in his own abilities that he ends up relying on others. In the end, it actually ends up benefiting him, and juxtaposes with the mastermind's motivations.

Speaking of, the antagonists in this game are surprising in how good they are. Danganronpa has always been good with having instigating antagonists that add dramatic layers to the plot, and it's no exception here. Yomi Hellsmile is demonically cold and evil, and manages to make my skin crawl with his rottenness. Him threatening to turn his own lover into a meat cube to wear around his neck for her failure to deliver on covering up a case made me HATE him. Makoto on the other hand is more insidious, where his manipulation of events is not only terrifying, but calls into question just how much influence he actually has control over. You never know what to make of him, and as events unfold, you suddenly realize that every step he's taken has been planned out from the beginning.

The messed up thing about Makoto in particular is that... his heart is in the right place. Yomi never wanted peace in their battle for power, Makoto did. But the actions Makoto takes to ensure that peace for his citizens are heinous. They make my skin crawl from how absolutely horrible they are. And yet... you can understand why he came to the conclusion he did. And in many ways, it mirrors the exact mindset that not only Yuma made in his head when he used Shinigami to kill people, but MY justifications as to why what he's doing is fine. It makes my skin absolutely recoil in on itself.

The soundtrack to Rain Code is done by Masafumi Takada, who is one of my favorite composers. Each track brings the exact mood to perfectly fit into each story beat. They have a similar motif of using "ghostly" sounding synths, (similar to Luigi's Mansion) , which was something I greatly enjoyed. In a lesser composer's hands, these tracks could have sounded insanely annoying, but the way it's composed never feels grating or repetitive. It is once again composed in a very similar Danganronpa way, but uniquely it's own thing.

It's hard to separate this game from it's Danganronpa roots, but as far as I can tell, there was never an attempt to conceal that fact. In a way, it feels like a step forward for Kodaka's forte in mystery visual novels. It's a different universe, yet it's another grand adventure, ripe with potential for more stories to be told and explored. While it doesn't quite nail everything it sets out to do, and has left me disappointed in a few ways, it does provide a great beginning for this new series. I do hope we get a continuation of it, and that they flesh out the mistakes made with this game. Just, maybe next time we can shorten the title. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, why not like, Shinigami's Big Fat Juicy Tits? Come on Kodaka, make it happen.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy released just when the 3D platformer was nearing the end of it's popularity: the big three of the 6th generation were fast approaching. GTA III, Halo, and Metal Gear Solid 2 all hit stores the same year, changing the gaming landscape forever in a massive nuclear blast. I'm not sure it quite escaped that blast either.

Jak and Daxter as a series I've heard described as the "middle step child" for Naughty Dog as a company. I've also seen the series be used as an example of gaming's adolescence going from appealing to the younger generation to suddenly switching to the tween to teenage demographic. I've also heard that it's a series that doesn't quite have a strong identity thematically. All of which have been true.

The Precursor Legacy as a game, is mostly just a fairly decent platformer. It tends to be a bit generic with it's level themes, mixed in with some frustrating level design. Though, I may have not played this in the right conditions. I had heard the PS4 versions of these games came bundled with their own share of problems, and I could definitely feel the input lag. I mostly picked these versions up for the convenience, and for what I played, has been fine. There were some strange camera issues, though that was to be expected from a game coming from the early 2000's. Jak has a very fun move where you thrust forward with momentum, as well as a spin jump and a double jump, but it all rather feels stiff to control at times.

The aesthetics to this game borders on being interesting. You have a strange mix of fantasy and sci-fi, anime and western, but they don't ever seem to clash together quite right. Some of the environments can be pleasant looking, at being able to seamlessly go from any part of the game without any loading screens was novel, but something about the world feels rather lifeless and purposeless. Granted, there seems to be something going on beneath the surface of this world, which I think is being hinted at, but it never quite hits the mark for whatever reason.

It may be because of the story and the characters within the story. You have some fun archetypes found in your typical saturday morning cartoon, juxtaposed with designs that don't really match that tone. The main cast of characters are kind of just jerks to each other, with Daxter and the Shaman being unnecessarily mean and not really all that funny. Then you have a weird romance thing between Jak and his love interest that's kind of cute, but ultimately kind of forced as well. On top of this, you have villains that have an okay motivation, but I know nothing about them and they sort of just feel like they're there to give a finale to the game.

I know this entire review thus far has been a lot of negativity, but I think I enjoyed this game much more than I've let on. It mostly comes down to me being a major fan of 3D platformers in general more than anything else. I love exploring a world, collecting stuff and using my skills to figure out how to get from one place to the other. All of these core aspects Jak nails, even if they aren't the best at times. There's improvements that could clearly be made, but with what's there, I still managed to enjoy for the most part, even if I was looking forward to quit playing the game after I was finished. I chalk it up to my current mood, and the PS4 version having extremely noticeable input lag.

I can kind of tell why they made the switch to what Jak 2 would later become. It was the game that appealed to me when I was a 12 year old attracted to edgy things, and it was my gateway drug to experience GTA gameplay in a kid friendly setting. I'll get to that in my Jak 2 playthrough, (which will be interesting for me because I haven't actually played that game in years, nor have I ever beat it), but for now, this game is a landmark for a very specific time in gaming. It was definitely an end to an era, and as one of the last major 3D platformers, it didn't exactly go out with a bang — but it also wasn't expected to. For what it is, it's a serviceable game with a sort of fun world to explore.