There's an in-game bookstore in The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa which predictably sells books which Ringo can read. They all have slightly parodic, possibly copyright dodging titles but are all clearly based on existing words of literature e.g Odysseus - > Ulysses, Brothers -> Brothers Karamazov etc.

Reading each of them involves figuring out the slightly obtuse method of finding a bench and using the right shoulder button and letting the slow progress bar fill up. If you've read the speed reading books in the school library you can speed the process up but it will take a significant amount of ingame time to read through the longer novels like Ulysses and Anna Karenina. There is basically 0 mechanical benefit in doing so, negative, if you factor in opportunity cost. Well, there is one female friend of Ringo's who has unique dialogue if you've read any of the russian novels but other than that (and the achievement for reading them all I suppose) like in real life you basically have to read for shock horror its own sake.

It is perhaps silly, but The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa's particular roleplaying, simulation charm had such a grip on me on replay that I sat on a bench in the park on a sunday and would periodically pause reading The Brothers Karamazov to light up a cigarette and continue where I left of, then stopping to put it out. I can't even really put my finger on why, perhaps its because for all the maturity of the subject matter and perceived adult-ness (which is even addressed in one of the conversations with Ringo's bookworm friend declaring that Adults didnt watch anime) its the kind of thing that taps into that dormant desire to make up stories of our toys of childhood; when play and learning went hand in hand.

Its also because smoking in a game is as close as I'll hopefully ever get to it IRL after giving it up a few years ago. Reading whilst smoking brings a nostalgia for one of the worst years of my life when I was 18 and had just started university in a different country.

I don't smoke anymore, but I've been getting back into reading. Reading Rumble Fish recently it was hard not to notice the influence in Ringo's story, a tale of a troubled teen gang leader's deep existential emptiness and misplaced idealism about the "rules" of chivalry supposedly involved. Even the scene in RI of Goro staring off into the lit up city across the river wondering if there's anything greater out there, a naïve hope of escaping the ennui of their hometown into a mythical "other place" smacks of a particular chapter in Rumble Fish; seemingly the only time at which the main character is comfortable is when drunk and surrounded by the pretty lights and party atmosphere of the city, shortly before being mugged.

I'm currently reading through Winesburg Ohio, I suppose I could have waited until i read through all of the books to come back and replay Ringo and do some kind of overlong comparative analysis of the influences, but I can't be assed right now. Maybe I will do that in the future. In replaying Ringo there was the unfortunate realization that the combat is kinda shit compared to Fading Afternoon and a few bugs got a bit annoying, as well as the confirmation that the pacing of the final few weeks was as weird as I remembered it, but everything else about the game was stellar, and I think I enjoyed it even more than last time. Ringo is a bit like Paprika and other works I love to revisit in that it feels like you're finding something new every time. For as obtuse and even abrasive as the design philosphy of Yeo's games can be, they are equally mesmerising.

For example, I discovered upon replay that you can squat to recover health. I also learned that story events do not trigger if you have your gang with you, which is both useful in setting the terms of the progression but thematically appropriate: Ringo's friends are coming apart, him seemingly the last one to realize this, and his various activities calling upon him to be alone and not keeping the gang together accelerates the process. That ending still hits fucking hard man. God. Y'know what? Fuck it, for all its faults, this is a 5 star game for me now. I don't think it will be most people's cup of tea but I humbly ask for everyone to play it at some point, even if just for a few hours

There’s a lot of games that invoke surrealism. While doing so, they tell you that what’s happening is surreal, and then why that’s connected to its narrative. Paratopic, however, is one of the few that understands that the surreal is not meant to explain or instruct. It is meant to illicit a feeling.

For example, talking to the cashier at the gas station about a store all about milk. Some people will try to analyze its meaning, or maybe its relevance to the narrative, or the symbolism of milk. All that is bullshit, and ultimately will mislead you Feel more, think less. Things will make more sense.

Harold Halibut is a very technically impressive (when its not bugging out or dropping frames) feat, which unfortunately puts its gorgeous claymation style and cinematography in service of an overwritten, overindulgent miserable slog which might have been refreshing were it a fifth of its length instead of the overbearing wank we got instead.

Wank is the operative word here, the game is spiritually similar to jerking off. It takes inspiration from various sources, wes anderson films chief among them, but from what few films I have seen of those, they were much more entertaining and well written. The sheer nothingness of the gameplay even for narrative focused adventure games and amount of dialogue that was 3 lines too long for what it needed to be really fits together when you learn about the game's 10 year development time. This is someone's baby, presumably a labour of love, but thats the thing, sometimes you need to detach yourself emotionally from your work and cut things when they don't actually add anything. The most damning thing of all, after all that, 8 goddamned hours (it felt twice that) I feel nothing. The game is nothing. I am nothing. We're all nothing. And I have 8 fewer hours now before I return to the nothingness of oblivion with little to show for it.

This is a much better game than its predecessor, but I can't help but feel like it lost some of its uniqueness in becoming that better game. You can feel those five years between games, and what came out during them. Let's start with the positives, movement is much better. Triple jumping and being able to stick to walls help mitigate some weird movement, and launch is such a fun ability. Combat is better too, you have more options than you did in the first game.

I think I prefer the story of the first game, but the beginning and ending sequences in this game were both beautiful and touching. However, having NPCS to talk to did nothing for me. They feel tacked on, this game is always strongest when there are no words. Their quest system and purchasing upgrades instead of having a skill tree also feels tacked on, more an obligation than something that really suits the game. It's very... video gamey. And there's nothing wrong with video gamey, I love video games, but it's out of place here in Ori's world of beautiful simplicity.

It's frustrating when there are two pieces of art that could become something more fantastic than either of them if they just married their best traits (the 2003 FMA anime and the manga/Brotherhood is my go-to example) and I think this is another case of that. Ori is best enjoyed one game after the other I feel.

Disaster Report 5 is a very memorable ride that makes up for its flaws in sheer entertainment value. Its the kind of game that makes me rethink if I should even be giving games numerical scores out of 10. Its kind of a mess? But a very fun mess, the kind that can only come about when a game attempts to be simultaneously silly, somber, challenging, funny, absurd, human and dramatic at the same time.

I am not familiar with the rest of the disaster report franchise but judging by the other reviews on the page it would seem this was a fairly big departure from the series which was up until then focused more on the schlock, action sequences and cartoonish supervillains than the relatively more toned down, more serious natural disaster and human drama of 4... er, I mean 5!

From what little I know, it seems that the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake kind of forced the change in the series (also the transition to HD that caused so much trouble for the japanese industry around 7th gen), a deeply traumatic event in the japanese collective psyche, I presume not addressing it or treating it lightly might have been very poorly received. Instead we have a very episodic series of vignettes and character moments threaded by adventure game inventory puzzles, light survival sims and moral choices; all of which tie back into the broader theme of natural disasters and their impact on people. Indeed one of MANY 4th wall breaks includes a random citizen in "not Shibuya" pointing to a poster for Disaster Report 4 and wondering something along the lines of "I wonder if this will affect the games' release", acknowledging the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake's effect on both the dev cycle of the game and the impact on its writing.

The game doesnt completely give up on its roots and this is kind of where my earlier point of the game being "kind of a mess" comes from. Its a hard thing to complain about, tonal shifts; cause even beyond the usual subjectivity of any criticism, it feels like they are more susceptible to a third person going "it didnt feel jarring/it worked for me" and the discussion cant really go anywhere from there. Personally its just hard to take the more melancholy gritty drama when so much of the game is really silly. I just get whiplash and honestly the number one emotion I have experienced playing this game is laughter and joy ; which I like, but it feels like the underlying message is being lost a bit.

Spoilers for the game generally from here on out

I absolutely love the dialogue options, even though I am a coward who never picked the evil options, just their presence alone has made me laugh more than almost any other game this year. Lines such as "before I inform you, will you give me money" or the contextually funny "I pray only for those who worship me" after becoming the leader of a cult or "I felt lonely upon realizing I cant meet her again in the sequel" after the tragic death of a character (though this one incidentally completely saps away any sadness I could have felt for this moment). Its also the fact that a big chunk of the game is collecting and wearing stupid outfits, which is cool but also deflates the seriousness whenever the game tries its hand at it, personally.

On the subject of morality, I genuinely don't know if the moral/inmoral points are supposed to be taken seriously or not or who is even deciding what they are. I won't be the first or last person to complain about quantifying morality as a variable in a game, but even accepting it, why do I get 100 good guy points for taking over as cult leader but 200 bad guy points for blowing up a ship full of human traffickers who are currently kidnapping me and others? At points the morality system makes sense in that good guy points are won by being selfless and helping out in a crisis situation whereas being a selfish, "every man for himself" type prick nets you bad guy points. The rest of the time however they feel arbitrary and in all honesty the story is going to railroad you into doing good and bad things regarless of your character if you were roleplaying as mother teresa or patrick bateman.

Much has been talked about the infamous "miracle water" episode wherein we trick a bunch of stand ins for the tendency in humans generally and presumably some japanese people specifically to devolve into in-group out-group xenophobia and prejudice in an emergency situation, into buying our magic water which is just regular plain water. Its pretty upsetting how that subplot ends and though I havent played the epilogue yet, I think Danny, the foreign exchange student who gets caught up in our scheme through no fault of his own gets beaten up by the mob dies? Im not too sure, it was kind of unclear. A nitpicky complaint I have also: why cant I use my money here? Were victimized by the xenophobic pricks at the school and have to beg them to share their food but I had 30 million yen? Surely even the biggest UKIP voter would have given us an onigiri for a 100k? I think the cult subplot bears mention, even if its kind of rushed and bizarre. Essentially you join an obvious cult preying on people's desesperation and vulnerability and get promoted to leader in about 15 minutes, before just as quickly being run off as a traitor (though not before making off with their money).

The actual gameplay for the most part is just basically fine, mostly "find the NPC to talk to" and trying not to get crushed or otherwise killed by debris from the quake aftershocks for the first few hours. I like the narrative and gameplay progression of there being fewer physical dangers as the days go by, you return to old areas which are now being repaired, generators being set up to light up darker areas etc. There's a real sense of time passing and the situation slowly returning to normal, in a sense. I like some of the cooler details like early on there is no power or running water anywhere but the CEO of a company has seemingly the only generator in the building powering a fan to keep them cool in their office. There is a bit of that whole point and click adventure bullshit with "You havent talked to person A yet, so person B hasn't materialized from the Ether yet" flag based causality which can get annoying. Similarly there is a tendency for game continuing cutscenes to not trigger unless you approach them in a specific direction or whatever which can get annoying, especially at first.

The character's generally are quite memorable even if they (not including the epilogue I havent played through yet) don't all have a resolution or their arc just sort of stops at some point. I like Danny, the phoney store manager is hilarious, Kanae etc. There is also one very jarring and sudden inclusion of violent SA which is admittedly not shown to the audience but is so jarring and seemingly quickly brushed aside as to cause actual whiplash. I think the issue of violence against women is definitely one worth exploring in media, especially by a piece which is trying to create some kind of broad representation of society and their various reactions to trauma and disasters, but this game is really not equipped to do so in this case and just feels very ill-advised and even exploitative, imo.

It ties into the broader trend of the game struggling to keep both its identity as a wacky unserious disaster schlock sim and an obligation to treat its subject matter more seriously.

That aside, I hope I havent created the impression that I dislike this game, because for all I can complain about its still a game I enjoyed more than most this year and has kept me hooked for its entire runtime, though it is admittedly an 8 hour game. Fitting for a game with the subtitle 'Summer Memories' I played it during the bits of free time I have had during a recent summer trip to a hot spring town, and I will remember both the trip and the game vividly for a long time.