the first twewy was a fruit of its age: a game about people trying to connect with each other, understating how bounds are importants and learning to accept themselves. settled in shibuya, the epicenter of japanese youth of it’s époque and pretty much adopting all of its aesthetics too: it’s emo, it’s stylish, it sounds like japanese pop, rap, it has scratches, it isn’t “clean”, it’s urban. even in a nintendo ds game, is a city that felt alive, not only for the care they had with the aesthetics but also because you could scan people’s minds and see their feelings, worries and experiences while living in such a city that shibuya was. it was also a game that could only exist on the nintendo ds: a game about utilizing the ds’ two screens to sustain its message. you played, in combat, controlling both neku and his partner of the week, utilizing your stylus and your d-pad to fight enemies on both “sides” at the same time -- basically you had to take care not only of yourself, but also of your partner, too, and when you were in sync, you could unleash an special power. it was weird, for sure, but it worked well enough to what the game was trying to say. yeah, there’s a mobile and a switch version today -- the last one being, basically, the canon one that leads to this game story -- but the original intent still is the ds one.

now, 14 years later, the context is different: people still have the same problems, but the gravity of this is changed by the internet. your presence online is more valuable than yours offline: is easier to form bounds, since you can find your own niche just searching for some keyword on twitter. is not that people are not afraid of being themselves, is more that they can be anyone today at a level that it’s true identity is messier than their own closets. today, the people you scan don’t care anymore about which CD he should buy at tower records or which clothes she should wear on a date. today they care about which CD is worth enough to be physically buyed and which boy is prettier enough on instagram to be worth a date. neo: the world ends with you is still a game about the importance of connections. not exactly about a protagonist that does not have any, but about a protagonist that must know how important they are. you now play with a whole team instead of a partner and each button of your controller represents both a pin and a player. while it seems strange, it’s actually a show of geniality: it gives the same feeling that you should adjust itself with the most comfortable and ergonomic pins, just like the DS gave, but now in a dualshock 4. you have plenty of options to customize your gameplay and it’s basically “what if control scheme was not a quality of life but instead a central game mechanic”. it is addicting too, you know? testing new pins, seeing they evolve, comparing their animation speed and which one has less friction. it feels really great, principally because you soon unlock a mechanic known as “drop the beat”, where you gain a percentage in order to do a special move. there’s a lot going on in this game’s combat and while some enemies are not That Fun, there are some great bosses at kingdom hearts 2 level of flashy-lasers-gimmicky-thing and overall quality and necessity of mastery of it’s system.

thematically, as i said, is still about the importance of connections, but more about understanding that your friends really does matter for you. instead of the fear of knowing new people, the fear now is of missing those people -- what if your best friend just gets erased? the question about accepting your true identity is still here, too. characters wearing masks to distant themselves from who they really are -- they are in fear of being genuine. what if no one likes it? sending a sticker saying “i love you” on telegram is easier than, actually, saying “i love you” in flesh and blood. you can see how those teenagers are influenced by how the internet treats relationships, in both bad and good ways, and also how the overall communication and relation-between-people have changed since the first the world ends with you released. it also talks about The System and how shit it is, where Higher Classes has shit privileges and can do whatever the shit they want to -- they are on the top, after all. having many teams fighting each other, directly and indirectly, trying to survive a game where it seems impossible to win, is pretty much how capitalism works: sometimes you just have to take care of your own group rather than help everyone in order to survive -- and this sucks. “systematic world, killing me” etc. this system, formed by old rules that doesn’t matter for the ones on top, is also what kills the chance of the youth to express themselves better and be able to have healthier relationships. you can’t just go and blame the one on top, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how bad you feel, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how much something matters to you, its cringe, so you just keep quiet. in the end, either die quietly or try to change things: if you could turn back time, would you do it right? and even if you don’t, would you mind doing it right, now? going against the system? trying to be yourself a little more? trying to understand others a little more? trying to show love a little more? the world ends with you, so you better change your fate.

the most "2000s cartoon network" videogame ever made (probably). i cannot imagine this game being made today, it has such billy & mandy type of humor and when the conspiracy hits is just like, KND movie levels of nonsense and paranoia (zombies that are actually old people (everyone is afraid of old people, i guess?)). just real clever writing, with good timing for comedy while showing a lot of different mental illness and traumas with a bit of dark humor here and there, but never losing sensibility (not the same you would see in today's games like celeste, but still!! (and to be honest, this approach feels better for my tastes)). the main character, raz, is very well developed and his character arc is concluded in the most unexpected way. love the whole contextualization of "videogame things" into mind-things, i.e, your health bar being "mental health" and your power being medium powers (im surprised i've not seen a joke about bending spoons) and stuff you see in cold war media (btw, is this game happening in the 60s? 70s?). the gameplay being janky as it is and some levels being a little frustrating just helps with the comfy-yet-menacing vibes and the whole mean comedy it has. some of the levels are, by the way, one of the best i've ever seen in a videogame -- milkman's conspiracy is just such an engaging story and meat circus is at bowser's castle from super mario 64 level of "utilizing everything you've learned from the game" (while being a scout mission, too!). really like how the camp is a whole place and not a mini HUB -- love when games with levels have a way of locomotion between them, makes the world feels more real and is crazy the amount of, cough, "lore" it has -- hidden stories about the other kids in the camp or bizarre things that you may encounter soon but, until there, is just legend. the kids, by the way, really act like 10~13 years old kids: they are starting to fell in love with each other, talking about "making out" but still have both meanness and innocence a kid has -- you can see this in raz own character, like how he reacts to some of the adults problems while you can totally relate to them, but is still gentle and helps in the way he can.

is just. a really good game.

metal gear solid 2 is arguably the most discussed videogame ever. you can just google “metal gear solid 2” with the words “meaning”, “themes”, “analysis”, “essay” or something like this that you will find plenty of articles and youtube videos. a lot of very good reviews on this game page here on backloggd, too. so… what can I say about it? everyone already said something. everyone already called it a postmodern masterpiece, everyone already called it a prophetic game, everyone already said how great the level geometry is, how deep the mechanics can be, everyone knows about the marketing campaign and how sexy raiden is and how well-written his relationship with rose is. everyone knows everything. what more can i say? still, metal gear solid 2 is the kind of game that you do want to say something. it feels impossible not want to, even if you lack words. for me, what i want to say this time, finishing it for the first time in 7 years, is: this is a very life-affirming game. it tells us that, even in the capitalist system we live in, controlled by the same old people, influencing everything we consume, molding our thoughts and ideals, we can still break free, shape our own personality and look for the meaning in our lives, building the future for the next generations. maybe we will not face a revolution, maybe we will not change the world, but someone will. our sons, grandsons or anyone influenced by our mark, we just need to pass the torch.

echo-commentary, cyberpunk platformer. really good, even if odd designed - very labyrinthine levels that may seem strange if you play this after 2 and "worse" when thinking about it on 3. turns out, though, that it is way better replaying it than playing for the first time - some levels that may seem gigantic, after recognition, you can finish them pretty quickly. the future/past mechanics are very well implemented, because it not only sustains the environmentalist message but also the levels has big linear spaces and loops for you to use or creates challenge where losing your momentum is losing the time-travel. love the bosses!! they are fast and smartly designed. the music rocks too!! really a sonic masterpiece and after replaying, thinking if it could be my new favorite . . .

imagine someone just waking up some day and thinking "what if i made a game about a small guy with a ball than can go big with the many things it collects? all of the objects having it's own kind of collision, causing that crispy sensation? and, logically, the ball itself getting slower with the amount of things you collect? oh, and of course, the art style being so colorful and caricatured in a humurous - but never offensive - way? having one of the best soundtracks of the medium? man, it's gonna be awesome"

well, someone actually thinked. thanks to keita takahashi, now we have katamari damacy, the greatest videogame production since super mario bros. (1985).

at least for me!

when you think about video games, reducing the form to the most simple level, it will be an experience where you press a button and things happen on screen: it's the so-called interactivity. when you think about buttons, the most important one, the one that is buried deep into your mind, next to some pop music from the 2000s that you listened to a lot as a kid but don’t remember the name and don’t want to (the magic will be gone!) is the “action button”, the button where your character or the game cursor or whatever is the representation of your actions in that world, does the most iconic mechanical thing he can do. you jump with “A” on super mario bros., is also the button which you select things on menu. is the most important button on that game -- not because the others doesn’t matter, you need to walk and run, but because is the button that defines the most important thing about super mario: mario jumps, we like mario because he jumps, we like mario because it feels good seeing him jumping with all his inertia through an alice in wonderland-like level, falling into the head of a apparently-innocent-goomba. perhaps we like mario because he kills? i don’t know, and it doesn’t matter either!

in killer7, your “action button” -- A, on the gamecube -- is the button which you walk and shoot. run and gun. movements and kills. the 2005 goichi suda’s masterpiece is a “on-rails” videogame -- not exactly what you expect from it, since you do move the character on this game, but your exploration is limited to where the game allows you to be, with options to go to corners and rooms popping up on screen and you, of course, selecting where you want to go with the action button. yes, you do utilize the other buttons a lot as well: there’s the R button, where you change the perspective of your character to first person in order to kill enemies, but not before you press the L button to scan them. you choose the place you want to shoot movementing the control stick, that is also used to choose things in the game in general. but still, the most important button is the one that you use to do what an assassin should do: localize yourself in a field and kill enemies. the game is so focused in letting you feel the viscerality of being an assassin and fighting biological terrorist weapons (heaven smiles) that don’t let you go to places you don’t have to, you just need to concentrate, to don’t let your guard down, doing what the game wants you to do. doing what the government wants you to do.

the group “killer7” is a group of assassins (or better, a multi-personality-body-something) leadered by harman smith, ordered to do the “dirty job” to the usa government under the covers, in a age where, until the heaven smiles appeared, world peace has been achieved. of course there is some questions about the validity of the usa, as well as a whole west vs east fight. the thing is: the usa, the country, can explode japan or any other country with, guess what, an “action button”. is a country to have fear of, if you think well, they have nuclear weapons, they have the most powerful marine, they are the most powerful country. and with a simple button they can explode a whole other one. politics are just like videogames: you have a lot of mechanics and tools, but there’s one, acessible with a simple button, that is the most important of all of them and, oh boy, can do a lot of damage.

the “action button” is also the button where you press the trigger of the gun. to what? to kill the enemy. what is the enemy? the past. killer7 is a videogame where the past always haunts you -- the ones you killed appear as “remnant psyches”, giving you advice or thanking you for killing them: they are no longer stuck in the past, they are free to move forward. even in politics, if you don’t kill the past, you will probably turn into a fascist. so what are you waiting for? kill the past, jump over the age, they say. press the “action button” to begin the game. press the “action button” to move. press the “action button” to shoot. press the “action button” to kill. kill the heaven smiles. give me blood! blood thirsty. oh no dan is dead, press the “action button” to revive him - give it life! press the “action button” to kill. kill the past.

there's a moment in moon where the "HERO" is drunk at a restaurant, doesn't knowing how to advance. after killing all those "Bad Monsters", "helping" all those people, entering without invite in all those houses and taking possession of all those objects, he's lost. he is at the maximum level that he can obtain, but what then?

the "HERO" lacks of love.

in fact, everyone in moon's world is searching for love: consciously or not; for know what it is, what is for and who can possess it. love is a mystery and everyone wants to know how to discover it. you, the protagonist, is the one who help those thirsty for love by... living your life. you see, There Is Someone(s) that indeed knows what love is and want you to collect it - but i won't tell who! you do it by helping people in different ways: fishing, listening, catching their souls, telling that they actually are a robot (do technopolis habitants dreams about MOON: REMIX RPG ADVENTURE?) and all sort of different things.

they say you find love in small things, and perhaps someone would say that moon is a game about finding love in the minor aspects of our day. i wouldn't say they are incorrect, but a letter of love is A Big Deal to the one who sent it, as well to the one who received it. the size of what we love is measure by our heart perspective.

moon: remix rpg adventure is a small, old, indie game, but in my heart, is a gigantic thing that i love.

after a lot of people died in sin's attack, yuna dances. this dance is called "the sending", where she makes sure their souls are not staying on this plane, wandering, with envy for the living and then turning into fiends. instead, she sends them to the farplane, where they can live in peace. a lot of cultures around the world have rituals for the dead where you dance to celebrate how great their lives were or to just be a kind of grieving. you see, our bodies express our feelings more than we could ever think they do. when you are anxious you are always shaking your legs, even grinding teeth sometimes. i like to believe that yuna's dance is not only to send those people to better places but also her cope mechanism to deal with everything -- spira's condition, her father's dead, her destiny.

then yuna finds a pair. this blonde boy that appears from nowhere, claims to be from a thousand years old civilization that does not even exists anymore. he is also constantly dancing. he has problems with his father, which calls him a crybaby -- and he is, really. he is constantly expressing his pain through his smile but you know he's not always happy. he just don't want to show his sadness or, as everyone, just don't want to be sad. yuna's not so different, too. and since her has a pair, it's important to say that when you are dancing with someone, at first it may not work -- your pair can be at the wrong tempo, overstepping you etc. when your steps synchronizes and you are connected, though, this is what we call love. not necessarily romantically, of course. yuna have a lot of friends with their own dances, grieving and trying to live their lives as hard as it can be. but, when everyone is together, even dancing with the dead, they can share their insecurities, being open about their problems and, truly, overcoming it. maybe not stopping dancing but dancing towards the truth -- the painfully beautiful truth.

the last time yuna dances, she's not only grieving, but also celebrating.

i tried to play this without guides or anything like that at first, but i'm not gamer enough to do this. even when i used one, i still felt constantly as if i would have a stroke every single damn time i entered a room. this is not the first search action game, it's actually the first survival horror game: navigating into a horrific and menacious environment, while having to administrate resources and without a single map!! even with your jumps and shootings you still have to search for better shootings and bigger jumps as a stray dog looking for food. it's amazing how it even has checkpoints, but you start with 30 HP only and almost no missiles! it's a cursed but yet interesting experience. i need some water, though.