Not everyone has the same trauma or reacts to it similarly but that doesn't make their emotions any less valid. In some ways it even ends up resonating with people and becomes mirrors for their past or current self.

This is one of those games that need to be more experienced than verbally discussed in order to get a feel for it but this was definitely something I need in my life right now and it's hard not the detach myself with the vulnerability Taylor was willing to put out with this work. Trauma looping is an endless cycle and no matter how long it takes, sometimes the losses you face are what you need to accept yourself and move forward.

"I wanted to be clean again."

There's really no other way to put it. This game (and possibly franchise) is morally and creatively bankrupt. Between the shallow depictions of mental health whether there's dramatic zooms of the protagonist self harming or even going as far to have chapters end with you jumping off a building and the following interludes flash a suicide hotline message until the level loads or the awkward anime dub tier voice acting berate you with insults or commentary on your surroundings because Konami needs to remind you this is in a fact a serious game and they're afraid of leaving things to interpretation, I fail to see how the 2 hours I spent with this tech demo can leave me anticipation of the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake or "missing the point".

This whole experience ends up feeling like a parody of the thing it's trying to comment and I don't think that's the takeaway someone with diagnosed BPD should be feeling.

Didn't really keep an eye on this one's development but after hearing recently that the Rayman team was working on it I decided to take a crack at it.

They clearly have a good grasp on what makes a compelling metroidvania. Well placed upgrades and abilities to keep the pacing consistent, easy to get into flashy combat with depth and customisation, plenty of visual cues to encourage exploration, hell if I was good enough I could even perform a few instances of sequence breaking. However I feel like there was something lost in their attempt to balance accessibility and open-ended structure. The linear (and honestly subpar) narrative structure doesn't translate well for this kind of game unless you use Guided mode religiously because there's no guarantee you won't go out of order. It doesn't really help when the game opens it's map 60% through the campaign to ask you to hunt for key items in tucked away in far corners. This could've been a great 15 hour puzzle platformer if they kept the more linear design instead of shifting the more metroid-like level design.

Outside the screenshot map marker this won't the most innovative game out there but Montpellier has something going for them right now and I hope to see this utilised in future projects because the fact a modern Ubisoft game of this caliber can exist is more of a miracle than I can say really.

I need girls to look at me the same way white people looked at the Killmonger cut after PoC said they were tired of afros and fades in media.

Over four months of on and off playing, Steam says I finished the game with 144 hours clocked in and I'm finally finished with Baldur's Gate 3. Even though I don't agree with the popular conscious this is going to be a gateway into the next revolutionary RPG (Player choice and a game with vocal range and performances for nearly every bit of dialogue you encounter is not innovative.) one thing I can say with confidence is this is probably the independent game with the biggest budget I've seen in recent time perhaps even ever. You'd find it hard to believe a RPG with the much scope and ambition was originally crowdfunded. They did exactly what they promised to deliver on. This is 5e Dungeons and Dragons for people who don't have the time or friends to actually sink into tabletop sessions. Even though I don't really like how character classes function in this version compared to 1 and 2.5e (Warlocks especially. I loathe whenever I have to use Wyll for combat encounters) Larian did try their best to make it viable. Maybe it's because I was able to make the Custom Origin character I wanted to build around when I started but despite my issues like with how slow and excessive the downtime is between turns is, I was still able to enjoy slowing working my way towards a decent kit by the end of Act 1 to a building fairly powerful characters but the time I was two-thirds into Act 3.

Speaking of Act 3, I can't help but feel like this was kind of unfinished. The fact one of this game's recent patches added in epilogues only reinforces my point further. For how overwhelming the amount of side content and expositions are laid upon you which lead to my burnout around October, a lot of them really just end up being kill quests or companion questlines that just end abruptly until it's time for the final dungeon. I want to say I'm underwhelmed but the ending I got felt so bittersweet I honestly couldn't help but grin by the time the end credits rolled.

Albeit this is still one of the better games I played this year. Dark Urge replay when definitive edition drops next year will save me. My ass is not touching the Original Sin duology for at least 2 years minimum. I don't know how many 80+ hour RPGs I have left in me and I haven't even gotten around to finishing Starfield yet.

Also, I just beat this game on December 24th so I pretty much altered the fate of the world right before Christmas :) Happy Holidays everyone!

Atlus: Hey guys we heard your complaints about the lack of Akechi and Sumi content in Strikers and Dancing so we added them Tactica. All you need to do is beat the $20 sub-4 hour dlc and you get to play them.

Me: Price tag is a little bit steep for that amount of content but sure the requirements don't seem too bad.

Atlus: Wait, people actually caved? Shit uhhhhhhh. SCRATCH THAT! Now you need to beat both the expansion AND main story campaign in order to unlock them. Yeah good luck gamers :)

😐

Street Fighter 6: Doesn't have Gold Ship and Special Week
God of Rock: Doesn't have Gold Ship and Special Week
Mortal Kombat 1: Has an Omni-Man voiced by JK Simmons BUT UNFORTUNATELY it still don't got Gold Ship and Special Week
NASB 2: Doesn't have Gold Ship and Week
Pocket Bravery: Doesn't have Gold Ship and Special Week
Tekken 8: Doesn't have Gold Ship and Special Week
UNI 2: Doesn't have Gold Ship and Special Week
Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising: Has Gold Ship and Special Week


I think we all know what the real fighting game of the year is. See you on December 12 2024 Geoff Keighley.

"There will always be things in life that escape our control. We cannot fight them all. But we can mourn, remember, learn, share, and accept."

I'll try not spoil too much because I think Cosmic Wheel is something you should experience as blindly as possible but Deconstructeam just gets it man. Most of your time is spent in these confined walls of an asteroid. Trying to find ways to past the time playing with your deck, going through your backlog of books, or in some cases I end up reflecting on the choices and conversations I made with visitors. They understand that histrionic feeling of isolation. Wanting your voice to be heard. To feel like you truly exist in this world and the desperate measures you might take to make these thoughts a reality. This is the kind of game where you leave with one of the themes reaching you on some level whether it be depression, sexual frustration, anxiety, discovering your role in the world, or gender dysphoria.

Fortuna was such a great protagonist for this type of interactive narrative too. Watching her grow or regress from her coping mechanisms or quirks while doing her best to talk to visitors and perceive what future fate has in store for them. The decision to have your each of your playthroughs have one dedicated slot that gets override via autosave adds to this as well. No one truly knows what fate has in store for them and how we deal with it is how we grow as people. Do we try to face these odds head on? Will we get overwhelmed by them and flee? Is there something to learn from these hardships or will they haunt and torment our memories?

There's a demo but also buy this game if this kind of experimental storytelling intrigues you. It was nice to see future my tarots saw mentioned as the story progressed. The visuals, music, overarching messages and tranquil moments of creating your tarot cards to your upmost vision are all magnificent.

I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up ranking high or even being my number one game of the year.