Never did a review of this but oh man...

I actually love the gameplay, the feeling of getting new abnormalities in your facilities and discovering what they do is great. Getting one that benefits your facility by having good gear or easy to train on, or one that could make your life a living hell.

Story is amazing, one of the most unique and engaging stories I've read in a video game.

I’ve been meaning to play Disco Elysium for a while now. Pretty much everything about it sounded appealing to me. A dialogue-heavy RPG inspired by my all time favorite game and the writings of Marx and Engels? Count me in! Even knowing all of that, Disco Elysium subverted a lot of my expectations, and as a result, I’ve experienced one of the most well written, engaging, heartfelt, intelligent, and overall best games ever made.

As I’ve said before, the main strength of Disco Elysium lies in its writing, and it’s almost overwhelming how good this game’s writing is. The macabre and fascinating world of Revachol is brought to life thanks to its detailed descriptions and lively characters, as well as the beautiful and unique oil painting artstyle. While I still do think that Planescape: Torment has the best writing in any video game, Disco Elysium is a very, very close second. I also loved how Disco Elysium’s version of perks and traits played into the way that Revachol was perceived by both the protagonist and the player. Rather than using traditional traits like a conventional RPG, the player has to manage 24 different aspects of their brain that are constantly fighting over each other, and that is an unbelievably creative and interesting way of giving the player an understanding of how the protagonist thinks and functions.

There is so much intelligence and beauty present in Disco Elysium, and while I could go on and on about it, I just want to end the review by saying that this is one of the best games I have ever played, and I’m not only incredibly excited to see what else Robert Kurvitz and ZA/UM have to offer, but I’m also excited to read The Sacred and Terrible Air, Kurvitz’s original Revachol-set novel, when it eventually gets translated into English.

My original review for Persona 4 read "eeeeuuuugghhhghhhhgghghghghhgghgfhfghfdgsdhfgfdg". That is basically the full extent of my thoughts on this game, but I feel the need to elucidate further anyways.

I am not going to comment on the portrayal and handling of LGBT themes in this game. Instead I will state that the way that Kanji and Naoto are portrayed and handled is not even a particularly unique problem, and is representative of the greater issue with the game at large: Persona 4 has absolutely nothing to say, and any attempts at a greater statement it dares to make fall flat after it makes one or two steps.

On paper, the formula behind every member of the main cast of Persona 4 is as follows: person has problem or insecurity they feel ashamed of, person faces and accepts this issue as a part of themselves, person now feels comfortable in their own skin having accepted themselves inside and out. In execution, it is usually an exercise in characters repressing any divergent tendencies they might have and falling in with the rest of society and pretending like they're fine with that.

The problem is not that Naoto is not portrayed as a trans man, it is that any possibility of the character being anything but a cisgender woman is immediately stamped out and dismissed as something that must be "overcome" rather than being a unique quirk that is uniquely a part of her identity that she is allowed to embrace and feel proud of. The problem is not that Kanji's sexuality is only implied at best and a target of harassment at worst, it is that attraction to men is treated as something to be ashamed of and then never addressed as anything but a fallacy that he could not possibly accept or be accepted for in turn. You can say the same for Chie and Yosuke's shared resolution to live in the background of their own lives despite a shared desire to stand out and be recognized as individuals, for Rise's decision to submit herself to the grueling grind of idol culture in spite of her discomfort with being perceived as an ideal rather than an individual, for Yukiko's decision to remain tied to the family business rather than pursuing her individual dreams, and for Teddie's... well, Teddie's actually handled pretty well. A bit ham-fisted and underdeveloped sure, but I dunno why everybody seems to think he's so annoying.

Now, the characters' arcs almost universally being bungled and prone to ball-dropping could be forgiven if the actual plot itself had anything meaningful or remarkable to say, but... it doesn't. The game ostensibly prides itself as being about the abstract concept of truth, but it doesn't really... have anything impactful to say about some vague ramblings about "people only seeing what they want to see" (again, pretty regressive considering the main cast exclusively deals with people who feel ostracized from society for not fitting the status quo) and fails to deliver on it with the plot itself, which is effectively a long string of "gotcha!"s by dangling one false antagonist in front of the player after another until ending with a rushed and out-of-left-field climax that is only foreshadowed by some sidelines imagery in the school lessons and the protagonist's Persona.

What, exactly, does this have to say? Don't accept any answers but your own personal truth, and that "truth" as a whole is subjective? Okay, cool, that's great! All four of the major-player parties in the plot proper support this theory, as they all sincerely believe themselves to be justified in their actions and the "hero" of the narrative. It's a solid idea! However, this is directly backtracked upon by the aforementioned issues of the main cast's own "truth" being downplayed as something that has to be grown out of and dismissed when faced instead of embraced and embodied.

The game's writing culminates in nothing and refuses to commit to some of its genuinely great ideas or follow up on the strong foundations that it sets. Even the hokey theme about "the power of bonds" basically turns to nothing in the end because the protagonist is forced to leave his friends behind and return to his home in the big city. I honestly think that Persona 4 even fails as a social simulator considering that it's a sequel to Persona 3 (which I will admit is my favorite game of all time, a fact that heavily imparts bias onto my perception of Persona 4), which deliberately used mechanics such as the social link and calendar systems as an extension of its themes and as tools with which it deconstructs and plays with what's expected of visual novels, dating simulators and social simulators. Not only does Persona 4 fail to do anything interesting thematically or narratively with these elements as Persona 3 does (the "self-insert" dating sim protagonist trope of being a silent blank slate played straight and the protagonist's eerie, emotionless disposition actively creeping out and upsetting other characters for example, or the limited calendar dates reflecting the game's theme of mortality and making the most out of life while it lasts). It commits the cardinal sin of being a sequel that does nothing to build upon its predecessor or follow up on what it established, and seems determined to actively undo everything Persona 3 had achieved, from its more standard dating sim experience to its warm and chipper atmosphere.

Mechanically it's... it's fine, I guess. It's a generic JRPG. Some dislike the RNG dungeons, I personally really like them. Fusing and creating Personae is really satisfying and addicting as it always is. It gets piss-easy towards the end especially if you've built your characters properly, but I really like the "bonus dungeon" added in Golden for the reason that it so heavily restricts your characters and forces you to think outside whatever strategy you've been using to sweep the last three or four dungeons. The combo attacks/bonus actions from dormant party members are cute.

In spite of the time I've just spent ripping Persona 4 a new one I don't entirely loathe it it. I kind of love it for what it is, and that's a horrifically fucked up and flawed game that happens to have a few really good things going for it. As a whole I think the social links are the best in the stories as individual stories (the Dojimas stand out in particular, and Marie has the honor of being my favorite social link in the series). When it's not being oppressively backwards-assed, the atmosphere is really unique and captures the uneasy nothingness of growing up in a small town really well. The music and washed-out aesthetic of the game engine really drives home the unique atmosphere, which is simultaneously a little stilted and eerie while also feeling warm and inviting. I do feel a weird sense of connection to the Investigation Team despite the fact that I never once thought they were friends and spend much of their time together riffing on one another and treating each other like shit. Some moments in the story, as poorly structured as it is, really do hit home and manage to evoke a strong emotional reaction out of me (though they're usually undone literally the next second so the bliss is brief at best). The main antagonist of the game is my favorite in the series; for the scant moments and single in-game day that they directly appear they manage to exhibit a large amount of nuance and complexity that I feel Persona antagonists generally have a hard time capturing.

I don't fucking know, man. This game fucking sucks but I also don't feel like it'd be correct to call it a bad game.

Just read the manga. The writing in that one is way different and doesn't have almost any of the issues with the I've mentioned in this review, with every character and topic being handled with much more nuance than Atlus was evidently capable of putting forth back in 2008, and I find Souji Seta to be a much more palatable and interesting character than the game's blank slate or Yu Narukami, the cardinal douchebag portrayal seen in the spinoffs and anime.

God. I hate Persona 4. I also think about it quite often. 2.5 stars - exactly half on the scale, because it's every bit as aggressively terrible as it is uniquely and bizarrely excellent.

tl;dr eeeeuuuugghhhghhhhgghghghghhgghgfhfghfdgsdhfgfdg

This game came very, very close to being my favorite game of all time, but in the end it didn't hit the mark the way that a lot of my favorites did. This isn't a bad thing; NieR expresses all of its ideas in as coherent and fluid a manner as it can and I think it really hammers home everything that it needs to with the tools that it has. It just didn't tell me anything I didn't already know - and that’s a good thing. I cherish NieR as much as I do for the exact reason that it reminds me so much of what I have, what I know and how I've grown.

NieR is a celebration of video games as a medium; it picks them apart, critiques them, and gets to know them inside-and-out for all their weird quirks and then pieces them back together, the relationship between creator and creation much stronger for all the bizarre intimacy and trust that can only come when you've exhausted every little detail of something you know and love so well. In many ways, NieR is the definitive game of the state of games in 2010: a look back at the achievements of games' past (with countless homages to games such as Resident Evil or the original Legend of Zelda with gameplay mix-ups and perspective changes), while taking a few brave first steps into the increasingly unique and experimental narrative language games had started to develop going into their fourth decade of mainstream prevalence.

There’s also something to be said about NieR’s LGBT themes and the manner in which it explores them and works them into its core narrative; every single member of the main party has some sort of LGBT experience related to their story. Rather than dedicating entire subplots to extrapolating upon these themes, it lets the player identify these characters as gay/intersex/bisexual and then places them in circumstances where one can identify strong parallels with LGBT experiences in a very real way without having to carve out room in the story just for those. It feels natural, and it’s the best way I’ve seen a game tackle LGBT themes - a scene where two “non-human” characters reassure one another over their “flaws” becomes a textual example of LGBT solidarity in the narrative, whereas one character’s discomfort and feeling unsafe being half-shade in a party of shade-hunters becomes a parallel to the fears that intersex and transgender feel in cisgender society. I’ve never seen another narrative handle it so subtly and yet so explicitly as Nier does, and I cherish it endlessly.

The fact that NieR has two protagonists is one of the best possible decisions that could have been made for this game. Perception, perspective and understanding is an important theme in this game, and a lot of the writing is written in a way that will resonate differently depending on whether or not the protagonist is a young man protecting his sister or a middle-aged man protecting his daughter. Brother Nier’s story is one of the best intentions and purest love slowly rotting into the most volatile hate, whereas Papa Nier’s story is one of how even the most innocent and noble of love can draw you to do terrible, awful things. Both protagonists have unique and incredibly impactful effects on the world around them, and are impacted by it in different ways, and have equally meaningful and unique relationships with their party members.

I personally prefer Brother Nier - he resonates with me on a much greater level and I find his more dynamic character arc more compelling, and I’m a sucker for understated, subtle romances such as the one between Brother Nier and Kainé, which is amplified considering the backstory context (and resulting LGBT status) that Brother Nier has whereas Papa Nier does not have it. At the same time, I cannot imagine NieR without Papa Nier. I found myself missing him even when he was right there in the playthrough of NieR: Gestalt I watched while playing through Replicant.

Some criticize the new ending in the remake as unfitting or that it ruins the original game’s point. I understand where they’re coming from in saying so, but I disagree - I think to emphasize NieR as a purely cynical and centering its darkness above all else is to miss the point. NieR is a story about love, and what people are willing to do for the people that they love. Some loyalties are unbreakable and will lead people to do unthinkable things - such as “undo” a poignant and controversial ending that many people consider the highlight of the narrative in which they are held. (Personally, I find Ending D to be a bit overrated - the twist ending comes as a bit shoehorned in and doesn’t have much narrative weight or presence, without ever explaining how Nier can do what he does to achieve that ending).

The only true complaint I have is that I feel that it’s a touch too short and relies too heavily on padding through (ultimately meaningless, if not entertaining) sidequests, and that its truly emotionally impactful moments are more-or-less hastily crammed into a game whose routes you could beat in ten hours or less if you rushed through it (it took me about eighty hours to achieve all five endings, with this in mind). I understand the importance of the game’s replay value and that it’s what makes the game so special, but at the same time I feel like I would have definitely been willing to rack up 100 hours or more in exchange for longer playthroughs so that I could see the party interact more. The four-man ensemble of Nier, Kainé, Emil and Grimoire Weiss is my favorite in any video game, and it feels like we’re made to say goodbye to them just as we’ve truly gotten to know them.

But — and this is a key theme of NieR in and of itself — perhaps it is more important to appreciate the journey itself, for often it won't end the way you expect, or even in the manner that you want it to. Sometimes you're happier on the path to your goals than you are when you achieve them. Love your friends while you still can, cherish every step you take for what it is, and don’t look back.

Celeste is a game about Madeline. A girl trying to tackle her anxiety and depression by climbing a literal, and, figurative mountain that stands in her way in the form of the insurmountable obstacles that stand not only in her way right in front of her but the battles that she has to fight inside of her own head. In a way, Celeste makes sure to make you understand this by being an extremely hard platformer that will have you dying a lot, but, learning a lot from it along the way and not wanting to give up.

Each time you complete a chapter or complete a hard section of this game, it not only feels deserved but it feels rewarding. Despite being bad at platformers myself (2000 deaths, I didn't do any of the side content) I never felt like giving up because Celeste isn't a game about that. You can take a break and step away and then come back at a time when it's better for you, when it's better for Madeline and for her state of mind.

The game isn't unfair by any means. It doesn't try to pull any gotchas on you or put you into situations where the platforming is nigh impossible or only for veterans of the genre. Yet, it's still challenging in a way to represent that not only are you trying to overcome this hurdle, but, this hurdle itself is synonymous with Madeline's own internal struggles.

Yet, I'm not gonna try to make this review a spoiler-laden one. Celeste as a game is very important. The issues it tackles are given the importance they deserve and are handled in a way that I never thought I would see in a video game. In a way, I'm so very happy that something from my favorite medium was able to not only speak up on these topics but speak up on them in a way that is so very right. Sometimes even jarringly so. Though, don't let that discourage you! This is all praise so far because of the fact that the message it did give me was one that I'm so glad I was able to take away.

Of course, the message Celeste gives to people is always a different one dependent on your situation or who you are as a person. The only thing I can really say is that you should go in and play it yourself! Whether you are bad at platformers or not, this game is a must play for anyone.