It’s hard to believe this exists. Its illustrations are straight out of a warm children's book; it's carefully woven to evoke this all-encompassing sensation that you're deep in the throes of a fairy tale, with its most sinister moments only solidifying that feeling. Its effortlessly delightful soundtrack and phenomenally soft, cozy drawings brought such a sincere smile to my face.

Somehow, Square Enix published this dating sim RPG where you can ONLY romance other women. Yep, it’s 100% queer. Alongside its shockingly uncomfortable commitment to abstract horror, staggering production quality, and 90s anime aesthetic inspirations, it is a personal dream game. I cannot fathom how this is actually real.

I’m only just recovering from my first playthrough, but after catching four of the game’s endings, I don't have much else to say except I’m in love with Little Goody Two Shoes. I want to write more about it someday soon, but I am deep in adoration after having finished the game tonight and need to get the word out there.

Please, if you're a fan of 90s anime, love abstract horror, are into magical, fairy-tale aesthetics/music, or are remotely excited by the idea of sapphic love stories, do not miss out on this. Little Goody Two Shoes is wonderful.

in 2011 (12 years ago today) someone broke into my parents' car and stole all my video games while we were on vacation (my fault for leaving them in there). i lost everything - six different pokemon games i had dedicated a quarter of my life to, my 3DS which i had only just gotten a month prior, my copy of ocarina of time 3D that was my first real introduction to the series, all gone.

my parents didn't really give a fuck. on the way to our destination, after we had filed an insurance report and hastily patched the window, we stopped at a target so i would stop crying about losing all my damn pokemon - they told me they'd buy me another 3DS, along with one game. my stupid ass chose lego pirates of the carribean.

i don't know why. i should have chosen anything else. replaced my copy of pokemon black, or OOT3D (which i was playing mere hours before it was stolen). what drew me to this game? what allure did it have on my little brain? i had played the DS lego star wars and indiana jones in the past, and i didn't think they were great (the wii versions were way better). there was no reason for me to squander my one chance at entertainment on this god forsaken game.

for an entire month, that whole vacation, all i had was lego pirates. i'd spend days at a time holed up in the rental house just mindlessly playing through levels. listening to the main theme on loop in the hub world, and suffering through the click, click, click of studs slowly being collected. even today, lego pirates is still listed as having one of the highest average playtimes on my 3DS.
on that vacation, i learned how to ride a bike for the first time. that's when i first saw the rockies. but no matter how much fun i had, i'd always come back to lego pirates. that's all i associate with that vacation.

recently, i booted the game up again, in hopes of dropping that average playtime down a bit so i could stop looking at that bronze #3 in my console's activity log - a horrible testament to my own stupidity. there were two levels i had not 100%ed - just two things i needed to conquer this game. so i said fuck it and went for it.

it only took me an hour, on and off. but that hour had this really weird sadness to it. just playing the game again, hearing the bumbling, drunken sounds of the Pirates soundtrack blasting through my speakers as i rolled around in the big bone cages from the second movie. it's like i was back in that shitty house with the hard-ass mattress and the wooden floor. with the rusty metal airplane model that was the only thing decorating the room where i stayed. eleven years old, not really feeling anything anymore. just killing time.

i had to look up a guide. after a lot of searching, i realized that the 3DS version was just a lazy port of the DS version. this somehow made me even more sad.

but, i did it. all that pain from twelve years ago, culminating in just another little check on the backlog. i felt physically ill. omega ruby now proudly wore the #3 average playtime badge in my 3ds' activity log, and i'd never have any reason to play this game ever again.

life sucks. horrible things happen every day. windows get smashed for someone to make a quick buck, an eleven year old boy fills the void in what little life he's lived with youtube and pokemon, only to have it all get ripped away. for the longest time, august 3rd was the worst thing to have ever happened to me.
but horrible things still happen every day - things that youtube and pokemon can't fix anymore. twelve years to the day, and here i am doing the exact same thing. filling the void, just in a different way. checks on the backlog. little blue estrogen pills. learning a new fighting game. frozen yogurt (praying every time i go they'll have the flavor i had that one perfect summer, so long ago). always chasing the unattainable - that perfect feeling that i can't even describe. joy? satisfaction? confidence? i'll know it when i get there.

anyway. if you robbed a blue volvo in amarillo, texas on august 3rd 2011 just know that i hate you for making me play this game