ikissgirls
75 Reviews liked by ikissgirls
Castlevania
1986
"It's good, for an NES game."
I see stuff like this a bunch, and to be honest it kinda sucks. I know as someone whose first system was the NES it may be hard to take my opinion seriously on such matters, as often this horrible thing called "nostalgia" clouds our vision of the true quality of games from our childhood. There's however a massive problem with this potential accusation towards me and Castlevania. I didn't grow up with it. My dad never owned it, and none of my friends had it for their consoles. Hell, I don't think I even knew what a "Castlevania" was until I read an issue of GamePRO with Castlevania 64 news in it.
There is no demented ghost voice or evil rabbit on my shoulder to go "oooOOOOOooo, tell them the game is good tho!" to everyone like with Crash Bandicoot 1 or something, even when they list valid and fair criticism as opposed to some hack using completely fake dribble like "Crash's cry of "WOAH" upon death disrupts my Netflix viewing experience" or some shit. That just simply doesn't exist for me here, because I didn't play this until I got emulation going on my PSP. As a matter of fact, may I perhaps offer a hot take? It's a take so hot that if you have central air in your home it'll probably kick on as soon you read it.
Belmont movement fucking rules.
Loose movement is neat, but the feel of me playing as someone who seems to be made of concrete and falls like they're under the effect of ten times normal Earth gravity does nothing but satisfy me as I land from a jump like a ton of bricks. Methodical platforming is my crack, to hell with that fast bullshit, I want to slowly strut my stuff and have to deal with the consequences of my actions if I don't think five seconds ahead.
From beginning to end, from Simon walking up to the front gates in that little intro cutscene and fighting the giant bat that reminds me of Golbat, to the very end when I send Dracula's head straight to Saturn and get rewarded with the shitpost credits brightening my day with "James Banana" and "Green Stranger" it never fails to entertain and I never tire of it. To say I could replay this X amount of times and never have second thoughts on doing so is as rare as the Jackalope for me, there are plenty of games in the same high end of my "enjoyment" spectrum that I can't say that about.
"Spyro on PS1? Sorry my friend, perhaps another time."
"Pokemon randomizer nuzlocke? Not feeling it."
"Shitty fighting games? Maybe next weekend."
"...Castlevania? Sure, I got thirty minutes to kill."
It's actually slightly difficult to resist the temptation of another playthrough upon viewing my list of completely-legal-and-dumped-myself NES games on my everdrive. Is a game that is infinitely replayable and only more enjoyable as you master it not the perfect game? Maybe if it came with cup holders and a winning lottery ticket it could be "perfect", but as it stands Castlevania to me gets as close as it gets. As some people say "good things come in small packages" or something, I guess they still say that.
Legendary.
Sorry for my random ramble, it was just something I was thinking on as I was replaying this for the 700th time as I was doing my laundry. NES games rule.
I see stuff like this a bunch, and to be honest it kinda sucks. I know as someone whose first system was the NES it may be hard to take my opinion seriously on such matters, as often this horrible thing called "nostalgia" clouds our vision of the true quality of games from our childhood. There's however a massive problem with this potential accusation towards me and Castlevania. I didn't grow up with it. My dad never owned it, and none of my friends had it for their consoles. Hell, I don't think I even knew what a "Castlevania" was until I read an issue of GamePRO with Castlevania 64 news in it.
There is no demented ghost voice or evil rabbit on my shoulder to go "oooOOOOOooo, tell them the game is good tho!" to everyone like with Crash Bandicoot 1 or something, even when they list valid and fair criticism as opposed to some hack using completely fake dribble like "Crash's cry of "WOAH" upon death disrupts my Netflix viewing experience" or some shit. That just simply doesn't exist for me here, because I didn't play this until I got emulation going on my PSP. As a matter of fact, may I perhaps offer a hot take? It's a take so hot that if you have central air in your home it'll probably kick on as soon you read it.
Belmont movement fucking rules.
Loose movement is neat, but the feel of me playing as someone who seems to be made of concrete and falls like they're under the effect of ten times normal Earth gravity does nothing but satisfy me as I land from a jump like a ton of bricks. Methodical platforming is my crack, to hell with that fast bullshit, I want to slowly strut my stuff and have to deal with the consequences of my actions if I don't think five seconds ahead.
From beginning to end, from Simon walking up to the front gates in that little intro cutscene and fighting the giant bat that reminds me of Golbat, to the very end when I send Dracula's head straight to Saturn and get rewarded with the shitpost credits brightening my day with "James Banana" and "Green Stranger" it never fails to entertain and I never tire of it. To say I could replay this X amount of times and never have second thoughts on doing so is as rare as the Jackalope for me, there are plenty of games in the same high end of my "enjoyment" spectrum that I can't say that about.
"Spyro on PS1? Sorry my friend, perhaps another time."
"Pokemon randomizer nuzlocke? Not feeling it."
"Shitty fighting games? Maybe next weekend."
"...Castlevania? Sure, I got thirty minutes to kill."
It's actually slightly difficult to resist the temptation of another playthrough upon viewing my list of completely-legal-and-dumped-myself NES games on my everdrive. Is a game that is infinitely replayable and only more enjoyable as you master it not the perfect game? Maybe if it came with cup holders and a winning lottery ticket it could be "perfect", but as it stands Castlevania to me gets as close as it gets. As some people say "good things come in small packages" or something, I guess they still say that.
Legendary.
Sorry for my random ramble, it was just something I was thinking on as I was replaying this for the 700th time as I was doing my laundry. NES games rule.
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐! ๐๐๐๐๐! ๐๐ก๐ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ฅ๐ ๐ก๐๐ฌ ๐ก๐๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ง๐จ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ซ ๐ฆ๐ฒ๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ข๐จ๐ฎ๐ฌ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐๐๐๐๐ฌ๐ญ, ๐๐ง๐จ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐ซ๐๐๐ญ ๐จ๐ ๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐๐ง๐ ๐ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ซ ๐ฏ๐จ๐ข๐๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐, ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐.
๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง ๐จ๐ ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ก๐ฎ๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ'๐ฌ ๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐ญ๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ซ๐๐๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฒ๐๐๐ซ ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ง๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ , ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ก๐๐ฏ๐ ๐ง๐จ ๐๐ก๐จ๐ข๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ญ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐:
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐๐ง๐ ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ฏ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ ๐๐ญ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฎ๐ง๐๐๐ซ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐ง๐จ๐ฐ ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ฌ...
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐: ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
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September 24th, 2021: About an hour after THATCHER'S TECHBASE is shared with the world, I'm filled with an overwhelming urge to never think about it again. I go out for a pint of Tennent's Lager at the pub.
September 25th, 2021: Despite my best efforts to pretend I don't care at all, I spend most of the day fixing all the bugs people found in THATCHER'S TECHBASE. There are a lot of them, but I'm buoyed by the fact that there is something really funny about debugging a joke.
September 27th, 2021: A representative from Channel 4 calls me up and suggests that THATCHER'S TECHBASE be included as a challenge in a reboot of the classic British gameshow GamesMaster. The smart part of my brain that thinks it sounds like Channel 4 are looking for someone to do a bunch of free work for them in exchange for exposure is immediately overridden by the mental image of famous British people shooting Margaret Thatcher in the face on television. I agree to make some stuff for the show.
September 28th, 2021: I have a surprisingly terse conversation with someone on Twitter who tells me that the Thatcher's Graveyard section of THATCHER'S TECHBASE is not optimised for four-player co-op play and that I should consider redoing that entire section of the wad for all the people out there who are playing THATCHER'S TECHBASE in 4-player co-op. I swallow the surreality of the situation and give in to plain old spite by making some of the corridors in that section a little narrower, immediately pushing a v1.3 to production.
October 15th, 2021: Conservative MP David Amess is stabbed multiple times at a constituency meeting in Leigh-on-Sea and later dies at the scene from his injuries. Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old man, is arrested at the scene.
October 21st, 2021: Ali Harbi Ali is charged with murder and preparing terrorist acts.
October 22nd, 2021: Another representative from Channel 4 calls me up to say they are now considering whether THATCHER'S TECHBASE is a "right fit" for GamesMaster. They stop responding to emails shortly after.
November 1st, 2021: Putting faith in the great professional relationshop we had previously established, I apply for a ยฃ5000 creative funding grant from the Tennent's Lager Grassroots Arts & Culture Project, explaining my intention to make [REDACTED], a new game about [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED].
November 3rd, 2021: My application for a ยฃ5000 creative funding grant from the Tennent's Lager Grassroots Arts & Culture Project is rejected for "cultural" reasons.
November 11th, 2021: During his day job as a community organiser in an assisted living facility, my dad finds out one of his elderly residents has watched the trailer for THATCHER'S TECHBASE via a Hillsborough Justice advocacy group on Facebook. This is the kinda shit that just makes me smile and feel glad that I went insane making a DOOM wad lol, idk
November 17th, 2021: EDGE publish their Christmas 2021 issue, which contains an article about THATCHER'S TECHBASE entitled "How Doom mod Thatcher's Techbase became the most talked-about videogame satire of 2021". Therein, I sheepishly admit that Tim Rogers baited me into making a DOOM wad by doing an incredibly affecting video about how great DOOM is and Tim responds in kind, closing the loop on a year-long project that was inspired by an off-hand YouTube comment. I am happy that I convinced Chris Schilling to print some of the Irish Republican Army's most famous attack lines in his computer game magazine.
December 5th, 2021: THATCHER'S TECHBASE finally appears on Channel 4's GamesMaster, much to my surprise. Because of the game's content, it is shown from very far away, blurred down to a small assemblage of black and white pixels that kinda look like maybe it was maybe Doomguy punching something for a second? Who knows. The Scottish professional wrestler Grado claims he killed Margaret Thatcher with a chainsaw, but players of THATCHER'S TECHBASE know that you can't use the chainsaw in THATCHER'S TECHBASE. The chainsaw has been replaced with a stream of piss.
December 7th, 2021: The GamesMaster reboot is cancelled after three episodes.
December 8th, 2021: Margaret Thatcher wins the coveted "Best Demon" award at Esquire magazine's 2021 Esquire Gaming Awards.
December 24th, 2021: Following three months of surprisingly involved legal back-and-forth with the law firm representing Tennent's Lager, the company finally acquieses to my nervous demands and donates ยฃ500 each to Stonewall UK, The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. Realising they have no further legal obligation to reply to my emails, the company ignores my queries about donations for the other organisations on the THATCHER'S TECHBASE website.
January 1st, 2022: I start a new job; one that doesn't involve banking or banks or people having full-scale meltdowns about share prices.
March 18th, 2022: The Scottish government declares an end to all mandatory coronavirus measures across the country.
May 18th, 2022: After a long break from thinking about Margaret Thatcher, Hell and THATCHER'S TECHBASE, I return to the Tenth Circle of Hell once more when the wad is exhibited at the Southside Games Festival in Glasgow and I am invited to attend and do a Q&A panel. Expecting questions like "do you like doom lol" and "who is margaret thatcher??" I am completely utterly blindsided when actual, real, not-pretend game developers start asking me questions about political theory and its applications in game design. I don't remember the things I said because my brain was too busy suppressing the urge to piss and didn't have enough free CPU cycles to record memories, but I do know that one dude asked "So what's the deal with all the timewasting elevators?" and then nodded in a satisfied way when I told him I really liked that one part of The 25th Ward where you have to solve the toilet maze and knock on 100 apartment doors - the TECHBASE lifts are meant to be sort of like that. Thank you, Backloggd, for allowing me to get away with being a little bit pretentious in front of people who make real art games. To the guy who nodded - I know you totally have a Backloggd dude, drop the @ in the comments below.
July 7th, 2022: REUTERS, BREAKING (via CNN): "U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned Thursday, bringing an acrimonious end to a nearly three-year premiership that has been beset by controversy and scandal."
August 3rd, 2022: As part of his election campaign, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak promises that people who vilify Britain will be treated as extremists and referred to the Governmentโs deradicalization "Prevent" programme.
August 18th, 2022: The build team from The World Transformed, a political festival that takes place at the same time as the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, ask me if they can turn THATCHER'S TECHBASE into an arcade machine that will support Living Rent, a Scottish tenants union who are struggling against record rent increases and ruthless landlord action.
August 19th, 2022: I try to explain to the build team from The World Transformed that a DOOM wad won't translate to a pleasant arcade cabinet experience, but my protests are finally suppressed by the part of my brain that is yelling "THEY ARE MAKING AN ARCADE MACHINE OF THE WAD YOU MADE". I give sincerely cheerful thumbs-ups when the design plans for the cabinet are waved in front of my eyes, irresistibly activating the huge clusters of "VIDEO GAME" neurons in my hippocampus.
August 20th, 2022: I get to work on making a version of THATCHER'S TECHBASE that's more suited for an arcade experience. This mostly involves unlocking all the doors and pumping the player full of ammo and milk.
August 28th, 2022: I realise that even Capcom puts a little bit more effort into their Arcade Editions than this, and decide to put out feelers for an artist who can help me add some new enemies to the game because I am not living through a coronavirus lockdown any more and cannot spend five hours a day dragging little blue suits onto cyberdemons. By pure luck, the guy who originally helped me make the CyberThatcher sprites - Rafael Batista de Lima - responds to my advert without even realising it's the same project, a moment of serendipity that I have no choice but to recognise as divine intervention from Satan himself.
August 30th, 2022: Keeping proud design traditions from the original game alive, I start dragging Thatcher wigs onto the Archvile and other baddies and share the designs with Rafael.
September 2nd, 2021: Upon finding out what the project is, a workshop in Liverpool offers to provide and work on materials for THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION free of charge. This, in essence, means that the game will be making a "net profit" for Living Rent from the moment it comes online.
September 5th, 2022: Liz Truss becomes prime minister of the Tenth Circle of Hell.
September 10th, 2022: Despite making a strong case for her inclusion, I ultimately reject the invitation from TWT to make Liz Truss one of the new enemies in THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION, fearing that someone may be pictured performing violence upon a standing Member of Parliament.
September 20th, 2022: Development work is completed on THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION.
September 22nd, 2022: Development work on THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION is no longer completed, because my artist legend friend Rafael comes in clutch at the last minute with some more incredible sprites. The final art and polish is applied, and development work is completed on THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION. For real this time.
September 23rd, 2022: I arrive in Liverpool. After spending some time looking at things that have been built to look like The Beatles and having a few surprisingly cheap pints, I head to the community centre where The World Transformed is being hosted. A little buzzed, I enter the basement of TWT's venue for the weekend and see a giant vinyl sticker of the CyberThatcher lying on the floor in front of me; it's probably the beers, but I suddenly have to suppress the urge to be sick. I feel like I'm in a weird dream, sort-of-a David Lynch dream, one of those intense dreams where you're interacting with things that had only ever existed in your mind as if they were/are real, tangible actors in meatspace - playing tulpa Tetris with real bricks from on high, going ice-skating with Sonic the Hedgehog, getting freaky with some 32-bit polygonal video game hero you found sexy when you were thirteen... That sort of thing. It shouldn't exist, but there isn't much time to contemplate this concept further because suddenly I am knee-deep in adhesive paste and wood shavings, a Glaswegian dwarf at a forge of MDF and gorilla glue, trying to create a convincing simulacra of a machine that existed in a forgotten age so that I can put my political parody satire game-mod-wad thing inside it and ask people to pay money to piss on graves and fight the ghosts in the shell, those nasty little demon dudes wearing Margaret Thatcher wigs. I also end up painting protest signs and hanging lights somehow - can you believe they gave the drunk video game guy a hammer?! - while a local school teacher uses his arts & crafts kit to give the cabinet its beautiful finishing touches. At 1am or thereabouts, the owner of the venue insists we cease our demonic rituals and go home for the night. He is thoroughly creeped out by this B&Q obelisk.
September 24th, 2022: Having failed to actually install the computer and PCBs the night before, most of the morning is spent rotating source ports and virtual machines to try and get the split-screen experience going - to no convincing avail. While I'm in the middle of looking up the best ways to emulate a local DOOM multiplayer server, a woman asks me what the fuck I'm doing in the basement's basement, a little sweaty goblin tapping away on a giant arcade machine with Margaret Thatcher's face down the side of it. I try to explain my deeds in a number of ways, but she rightly cuts through the bullshit with a hot, shameful knife of "I don't have a clue what you're on about". The woman encourages me to K.I.S.S. and get something, anything out on the floor - especially if it's for a charity. About half an hour later, the experience has been simplified down to just the single player campaign, the second stick and buttons functioning as a cool little Geometry Wars/Steel Battallion/whatever dual-stick aiming system. I try explaining the absence of multiplayer and the new control scheme to people who try playing the game on the conference floor, but I'm quite rightly drowned out by people going "you can punch her? coooool" and "have you seen the shooting game where you can go into wetherspoons". I eventually stick an Xbox controller on the front of the arcade machine because there is no fucking way people are getting past the first area of THATCHER'S TECHBASE without being able to turn and shoot at the same time. It bothers me a lot less than I thought it would.
September 25th, 2022: Nothing of interest happens. I go do some sleep-deprived disassociating at a talk about a student doctor's plan to do post-colonial restructuring of the global pharmaceutical industry through "community action", and some more people play the THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION cabinet, including a few old men who were in town for the Labour Party Conference. I go home and play with my cat for a bit.
September 26th, 2022: The Independent, a UK newspaper, publishes an article: "Jeremy Corbyn played a version of Doom that lets you 'kill Thatcher'". About an hour later, my phone is turned off and thrown into the back of my desk.
September 27th, 2022: I find out about Denis Through The Drinking Glass, a 1984 title for the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro where you play as Denis Thatcher and have to try and escape from Maggie's lair in No. 10 while maintaining a certain blood-alcohol level. I think it's kinda funny that despite hours of research on the original THATCHER'S TECHBASE, I never found this game. Life is crazy like that!
September 28th, 2022: I do an interview with a newspaper journalist where I'm just filled with this overwhelming urge to just, I dunno, keep apologising for how ridiculous every story I'm telling sounds. This can't actually have happened, can it?
September 29th, 2022: After doing some "ideological trolling" with a very tired and exasperated BBC intern, I sign over the rights for THATCHER'S TECHBASE to be used as material on Friday night's """political comedy""" panel shows in exchange for some private donations.
September 30th, 2022: THATCHER'S TECHBASE appears on BBC 1 panel show Have I Got News For You, wherein British newspaper editor and satirist Ian Hislop compares CyberThatcher to the current prime minister, Liz Truss. On Twitter, I jokingly claim this is yet another example of the BBC's left-wing bias and a woman from Basingstoke sends me a DM to accuse me of being a traitor to the nation of Great Britain because I "only think about the 1%". Whoops!
October 1st, 2022: I discover that there is a mod for DOOM II called Pinochestein 3D. The final boss of the wad is a giant robotic Pinochet. I've never heard of this one before either. Pretty cool!
October 2nd, 2022: THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION is released to the general public.
October 3rd, 2022: Jeremy Corbyn plays THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION in Duke Nukem 3D mod Duke Smoochem 3D.
October 4th, 2022: Conceding to pressure from the Scottish Greens, Living Rent and other tenants' unions, the Scottish Government institutes an immediate rent freeze for six months and makes it illegal for tenants to be evicted during this time.
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There isn't much to say about THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION that isn't covered by the events above. If you've ever "finished" making something - an essay, a presentation, a drawing, a song, a game - you'll probably know the feeling of wanting as little to do with your work as possible once it's done. We all know the Picasso quote about paintings never being complete. It's not necessarily a feeling of shame or dislike for what you've created, but when you finally hit 'Save' on a _๐ ๐๐๐๐_๐ ๐๐๐๐_๐ ๐๐๐๐.๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐ฃ once and for all, there's always this sense of a weight being lifted - a job done, a book closed, an era's ending. A past confronted, hopefully, by your idea, and now captured in some media that lies external to your self.
As I spoke about in the original review for THATCHER'S TECHBASE, there was an overwhelming sense during this project that I'd kicked out a stone of a joke and caused it - sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally - to gather more and more moss of meaning, rolling downhill at such speed that I couldn't really contain it. By the end of 2021 I thought it was all finally, mercifully, over, but somehow the stone managed to roll back up a bigger hill and start the nightmare all over again, with me reluctantly chasing behind it.
The funny thing about THATCHER'S TECHBASE is that I spent a lot of the intervening year haunting myself with the ghost of its imperfections as a mechanical device. I was ultimately nonplussed by its crass political implications, and the gamer within bubbled over to fuss about gameplay. Dumb, I know; but for some reason, people messaging me about bugs, puzzle problems and balance fuckups concerned me far more than the people who wanted to report the WAD to the police for unthink. I spent a lot of time in my own head about such a trivial issue, grappling over whether I should go back and fix layouts and redo encounters and hand over more ammo to players who were SOL an hour into the WAD, my own little welfare state in the battle against Thatcher. Fortunately, a good friend of mine shook me back to reality by pointing out how fucking annoying it was when George Lucas went in and changed Han Solo shooting Greedo in the Star Wars movies. I didn't wanna be like Kanye West patching The Life of Pablo or some shit, did I? I'm glad I put the stupidity behind me and moved on with my life, leaving that Save button untouched for good, accepting that I'd made what I'd made.
... For a while, lol. Just when I thought I was out, they etc. etc. etc. Oh, go on then.
If there was something that was going to draw me back to THATCHER'S TECHBASE, it was always the chance to rectify the failures of the project that lay beyond just correcting linedefs and spawn triggers. While I was delighted that Tennent's Lager made good on their promise to donate money to charity in exchange for me compromising my perfectly legal right to express myself in a satirical work, I was still pissed off that they chose not to associate themselves with some of the more "contentious" organisations on my list. Partnering with Living Rent on ARCADE EDITION was the resurrection of a dying dream come true once more for a useless bohemian layabout like me, a spindly little computer guy who looks at tenant action movements and picket lines up and down the country and feels like he can't do jack shit but spectate and hold a placard up the back.
You read about what's going on in the world in newspapers and on Twitter; you see the results of government policy in your bills, your loans and the rising cost of milk and bread at the supermarket; somehow, it still feels abstract, remote, and far away. But actually going to a "hard left extremist fringe event" (per the Daily Mail article on THATCHER'S TECHBASE, September 26th, 2022) makes a lot of this evil become real to you in a sense it hasn't been before: You see people planning military-like operations to keep soup kitchens and food banks running; you see collections that will keep picket lines fed and watered for weeks at a time; you see people teaching other how to get out of handcuffs; and then you look over at the little MDF box with its game controller hanging over some Margaret Thatcher stickers and feel like you didn't really do jack shit but make jokes and crack wise about the end of the world. I was stewing in this feeling for a lot of that Saturday at The World Transformed, a combination of sleep deprivation and day-drinking becoming an ironic feeling of self-involvement at a festival of collective action. Oh poor me and my selfish little video game toy. What have I actually done here?
That night, however, I attended a rally in support of the striking dock workers in Liverpool, who were standing in the rain only a few miles down the road from the festival. Many hard-working people spoke passionately about their unfair treatment and burning desire to address the injustice of neoliberal wealth distribution, but there was one speech in particular that has stuck to my mind. A union leader from the Port of Baltimore told the crowd about the 2013 longshore workers strike, and how the 2000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association had stepped up across the world to defend the rights of their friends in the United States by threatening strikes and collective action of their own, no matter how small or large the organisation - including the men and women who were now picketing the Liverpool Docks at this very moment. He spoke of a lodge banner that's brought out for special occasions like these. Itโs almost a hundred years old. A simple symbol - two hands, joined together in a union. Thatโs what the labour movement means. You support me and I support you. Whoever you are. Wherever you come from. Whatever you can do. Shoulder to shoulder. Hand to hand.
If youโre one of the people whoโs supported us by putting money into buckets - the literal one lurking within the innards of THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION's flimsy wooden hide, the virtual one at the other end of the QR code on its display panel, or in the real/virtual buckets of any other charity that's come to your attention because of the wad - thank you. Because what youโve given the people who made THATCHER'S TECHBASE is more than money. Itโs friendship. And when youโre in a fight as bitter and as important as this one, against an enemy - like the CyberThatcher and her minions - who is so much bigger, so much stronger than you... Well, to find out that you have a friend you never knew existed - itโs the best thing in the world. So thank you. ๐
๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง ๐จ๐ ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ก๐ฎ๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ'๐ฌ ๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐ญ๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ซ๐๐๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฒ๐๐๐ซ ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ง๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ , ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ก๐๐ฏ๐ ๐ง๐จ ๐๐ก๐จ๐ข๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ญ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐:
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐๐ง๐ ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ฏ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ ๐๐ญ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฎ๐ง๐๐๐ซ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐ง๐จ๐ฐ ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ฌ...
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐: ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
------------------------------------
September 24th, 2021: About an hour after THATCHER'S TECHBASE is shared with the world, I'm filled with an overwhelming urge to never think about it again. I go out for a pint of Tennent's Lager at the pub.
September 25th, 2021: Despite my best efforts to pretend I don't care at all, I spend most of the day fixing all the bugs people found in THATCHER'S TECHBASE. There are a lot of them, but I'm buoyed by the fact that there is something really funny about debugging a joke.
September 27th, 2021: A representative from Channel 4 calls me up and suggests that THATCHER'S TECHBASE be included as a challenge in a reboot of the classic British gameshow GamesMaster. The smart part of my brain that thinks it sounds like Channel 4 are looking for someone to do a bunch of free work for them in exchange for exposure is immediately overridden by the mental image of famous British people shooting Margaret Thatcher in the face on television. I agree to make some stuff for the show.
September 28th, 2021: I have a surprisingly terse conversation with someone on Twitter who tells me that the Thatcher's Graveyard section of THATCHER'S TECHBASE is not optimised for four-player co-op play and that I should consider redoing that entire section of the wad for all the people out there who are playing THATCHER'S TECHBASE in 4-player co-op. I swallow the surreality of the situation and give in to plain old spite by making some of the corridors in that section a little narrower, immediately pushing a v1.3 to production.
October 15th, 2021: Conservative MP David Amess is stabbed multiple times at a constituency meeting in Leigh-on-Sea and later dies at the scene from his injuries. Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old man, is arrested at the scene.
October 21st, 2021: Ali Harbi Ali is charged with murder and preparing terrorist acts.
October 22nd, 2021: Another representative from Channel 4 calls me up to say they are now considering whether THATCHER'S TECHBASE is a "right fit" for GamesMaster. They stop responding to emails shortly after.
November 1st, 2021: Putting faith in the great professional relationshop we had previously established, I apply for a ยฃ5000 creative funding grant from the Tennent's Lager Grassroots Arts & Culture Project, explaining my intention to make [REDACTED], a new game about [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED].
November 3rd, 2021: My application for a ยฃ5000 creative funding grant from the Tennent's Lager Grassroots Arts & Culture Project is rejected for "cultural" reasons.
November 11th, 2021: During his day job as a community organiser in an assisted living facility, my dad finds out one of his elderly residents has watched the trailer for THATCHER'S TECHBASE via a Hillsborough Justice advocacy group on Facebook. This is the kinda shit that just makes me smile and feel glad that I went insane making a DOOM wad lol, idk
November 17th, 2021: EDGE publish their Christmas 2021 issue, which contains an article about THATCHER'S TECHBASE entitled "How Doom mod Thatcher's Techbase became the most talked-about videogame satire of 2021". Therein, I sheepishly admit that Tim Rogers baited me into making a DOOM wad by doing an incredibly affecting video about how great DOOM is and Tim responds in kind, closing the loop on a year-long project that was inspired by an off-hand YouTube comment. I am happy that I convinced Chris Schilling to print some of the Irish Republican Army's most famous attack lines in his computer game magazine.
December 5th, 2021: THATCHER'S TECHBASE finally appears on Channel 4's GamesMaster, much to my surprise. Because of the game's content, it is shown from very far away, blurred down to a small assemblage of black and white pixels that kinda look like maybe it was maybe Doomguy punching something for a second? Who knows. The Scottish professional wrestler Grado claims he killed Margaret Thatcher with a chainsaw, but players of THATCHER'S TECHBASE know that you can't use the chainsaw in THATCHER'S TECHBASE. The chainsaw has been replaced with a stream of piss.
December 7th, 2021: The GamesMaster reboot is cancelled after three episodes.
December 8th, 2021: Margaret Thatcher wins the coveted "Best Demon" award at Esquire magazine's 2021 Esquire Gaming Awards.
December 24th, 2021: Following three months of surprisingly involved legal back-and-forth with the law firm representing Tennent's Lager, the company finally acquieses to my nervous demands and donates ยฃ500 each to Stonewall UK, The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. Realising they have no further legal obligation to reply to my emails, the company ignores my queries about donations for the other organisations on the THATCHER'S TECHBASE website.
January 1st, 2022: I start a new job; one that doesn't involve banking or banks or people having full-scale meltdowns about share prices.
March 18th, 2022: The Scottish government declares an end to all mandatory coronavirus measures across the country.
May 18th, 2022: After a long break from thinking about Margaret Thatcher, Hell and THATCHER'S TECHBASE, I return to the Tenth Circle of Hell once more when the wad is exhibited at the Southside Games Festival in Glasgow and I am invited to attend and do a Q&A panel. Expecting questions like "do you like doom lol" and "who is margaret thatcher??" I am completely utterly blindsided when actual, real, not-pretend game developers start asking me questions about political theory and its applications in game design. I don't remember the things I said because my brain was too busy suppressing the urge to piss and didn't have enough free CPU cycles to record memories, but I do know that one dude asked "So what's the deal with all the timewasting elevators?" and then nodded in a satisfied way when I told him I really liked that one part of The 25th Ward where you have to solve the toilet maze and knock on 100 apartment doors - the TECHBASE lifts are meant to be sort of like that. Thank you, Backloggd, for allowing me to get away with being a little bit pretentious in front of people who make real art games. To the guy who nodded - I know you totally have a Backloggd dude, drop the @ in the comments below.
July 7th, 2022: REUTERS, BREAKING (via CNN): "U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned Thursday, bringing an acrimonious end to a nearly three-year premiership that has been beset by controversy and scandal."
August 3rd, 2022: As part of his election campaign, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak promises that people who vilify Britain will be treated as extremists and referred to the Governmentโs deradicalization "Prevent" programme.
August 18th, 2022: The build team from The World Transformed, a political festival that takes place at the same time as the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, ask me if they can turn THATCHER'S TECHBASE into an arcade machine that will support Living Rent, a Scottish tenants union who are struggling against record rent increases and ruthless landlord action.
August 19th, 2022: I try to explain to the build team from The World Transformed that a DOOM wad won't translate to a pleasant arcade cabinet experience, but my protests are finally suppressed by the part of my brain that is yelling "THEY ARE MAKING AN ARCADE MACHINE OF THE WAD YOU MADE". I give sincerely cheerful thumbs-ups when the design plans for the cabinet are waved in front of my eyes, irresistibly activating the huge clusters of "VIDEO GAME" neurons in my hippocampus.
August 20th, 2022: I get to work on making a version of THATCHER'S TECHBASE that's more suited for an arcade experience. This mostly involves unlocking all the doors and pumping the player full of ammo and milk.
August 28th, 2022: I realise that even Capcom puts a little bit more effort into their Arcade Editions than this, and decide to put out feelers for an artist who can help me add some new enemies to the game because I am not living through a coronavirus lockdown any more and cannot spend five hours a day dragging little blue suits onto cyberdemons. By pure luck, the guy who originally helped me make the CyberThatcher sprites - Rafael Batista de Lima - responds to my advert without even realising it's the same project, a moment of serendipity that I have no choice but to recognise as divine intervention from Satan himself.
August 30th, 2022: Keeping proud design traditions from the original game alive, I start dragging Thatcher wigs onto the Archvile and other baddies and share the designs with Rafael.
September 2nd, 2021: Upon finding out what the project is, a workshop in Liverpool offers to provide and work on materials for THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION free of charge. This, in essence, means that the game will be making a "net profit" for Living Rent from the moment it comes online.
September 5th, 2022: Liz Truss becomes prime minister of the Tenth Circle of Hell.
September 10th, 2022: Despite making a strong case for her inclusion, I ultimately reject the invitation from TWT to make Liz Truss one of the new enemies in THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION, fearing that someone may be pictured performing violence upon a standing Member of Parliament.
September 20th, 2022: Development work is completed on THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION.
September 22nd, 2022: Development work on THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION is no longer completed, because my artist legend friend Rafael comes in clutch at the last minute with some more incredible sprites. The final art and polish is applied, and development work is completed on THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION. For real this time.
September 23rd, 2022: I arrive in Liverpool. After spending some time looking at things that have been built to look like The Beatles and having a few surprisingly cheap pints, I head to the community centre where The World Transformed is being hosted. A little buzzed, I enter the basement of TWT's venue for the weekend and see a giant vinyl sticker of the CyberThatcher lying on the floor in front of me; it's probably the beers, but I suddenly have to suppress the urge to be sick. I feel like I'm in a weird dream, sort-of-a David Lynch dream, one of those intense dreams where you're interacting with things that had only ever existed in your mind as if they were/are real, tangible actors in meatspace - playing tulpa Tetris with real bricks from on high, going ice-skating with Sonic the Hedgehog, getting freaky with some 32-bit polygonal video game hero you found sexy when you were thirteen... That sort of thing. It shouldn't exist, but there isn't much time to contemplate this concept further because suddenly I am knee-deep in adhesive paste and wood shavings, a Glaswegian dwarf at a forge of MDF and gorilla glue, trying to create a convincing simulacra of a machine that existed in a forgotten age so that I can put my political parody satire game-mod-wad thing inside it and ask people to pay money to piss on graves and fight the ghosts in the shell, those nasty little demon dudes wearing Margaret Thatcher wigs. I also end up painting protest signs and hanging lights somehow - can you believe they gave the drunk video game guy a hammer?! - while a local school teacher uses his arts & crafts kit to give the cabinet its beautiful finishing touches. At 1am or thereabouts, the owner of the venue insists we cease our demonic rituals and go home for the night. He is thoroughly creeped out by this B&Q obelisk.
September 24th, 2022: Having failed to actually install the computer and PCBs the night before, most of the morning is spent rotating source ports and virtual machines to try and get the split-screen experience going - to no convincing avail. While I'm in the middle of looking up the best ways to emulate a local DOOM multiplayer server, a woman asks me what the fuck I'm doing in the basement's basement, a little sweaty goblin tapping away on a giant arcade machine with Margaret Thatcher's face down the side of it. I try to explain my deeds in a number of ways, but she rightly cuts through the bullshit with a hot, shameful knife of "I don't have a clue what you're on about". The woman encourages me to K.I.S.S. and get something, anything out on the floor - especially if it's for a charity. About half an hour later, the experience has been simplified down to just the single player campaign, the second stick and buttons functioning as a cool little Geometry Wars/Steel Battallion/whatever dual-stick aiming system. I try explaining the absence of multiplayer and the new control scheme to people who try playing the game on the conference floor, but I'm quite rightly drowned out by people going "you can punch her? coooool" and "have you seen the shooting game where you can go into wetherspoons". I eventually stick an Xbox controller on the front of the arcade machine because there is no fucking way people are getting past the first area of THATCHER'S TECHBASE without being able to turn and shoot at the same time. It bothers me a lot less than I thought it would.
September 25th, 2022: Nothing of interest happens. I go do some sleep-deprived disassociating at a talk about a student doctor's plan to do post-colonial restructuring of the global pharmaceutical industry through "community action", and some more people play the THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION cabinet, including a few old men who were in town for the Labour Party Conference. I go home and play with my cat for a bit.
September 26th, 2022: The Independent, a UK newspaper, publishes an article: "Jeremy Corbyn played a version of Doom that lets you 'kill Thatcher'". About an hour later, my phone is turned off and thrown into the back of my desk.
September 27th, 2022: I find out about Denis Through The Drinking Glass, a 1984 title for the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro where you play as Denis Thatcher and have to try and escape from Maggie's lair in No. 10 while maintaining a certain blood-alcohol level. I think it's kinda funny that despite hours of research on the original THATCHER'S TECHBASE, I never found this game. Life is crazy like that!
September 28th, 2022: I do an interview with a newspaper journalist where I'm just filled with this overwhelming urge to just, I dunno, keep apologising for how ridiculous every story I'm telling sounds. This can't actually have happened, can it?
September 29th, 2022: After doing some "ideological trolling" with a very tired and exasperated BBC intern, I sign over the rights for THATCHER'S TECHBASE to be used as material on Friday night's """political comedy""" panel shows in exchange for some private donations.
September 30th, 2022: THATCHER'S TECHBASE appears on BBC 1 panel show Have I Got News For You, wherein British newspaper editor and satirist Ian Hislop compares CyberThatcher to the current prime minister, Liz Truss. On Twitter, I jokingly claim this is yet another example of the BBC's left-wing bias and a woman from Basingstoke sends me a DM to accuse me of being a traitor to the nation of Great Britain because I "only think about the 1%". Whoops!
October 1st, 2022: I discover that there is a mod for DOOM II called Pinochestein 3D. The final boss of the wad is a giant robotic Pinochet. I've never heard of this one before either. Pretty cool!
October 2nd, 2022: THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION is released to the general public.
October 3rd, 2022: Jeremy Corbyn plays THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION in Duke Nukem 3D mod Duke Smoochem 3D.
October 4th, 2022: Conceding to pressure from the Scottish Greens, Living Rent and other tenants' unions, the Scottish Government institutes an immediate rent freeze for six months and makes it illegal for tenants to be evicted during this time.
------------------------------------
There isn't much to say about THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION that isn't covered by the events above. If you've ever "finished" making something - an essay, a presentation, a drawing, a song, a game - you'll probably know the feeling of wanting as little to do with your work as possible once it's done. We all know the Picasso quote about paintings never being complete. It's not necessarily a feeling of shame or dislike for what you've created, but when you finally hit 'Save' on a _๐ ๐๐๐๐_๐ ๐๐๐๐_๐ ๐๐๐๐.๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐ฃ once and for all, there's always this sense of a weight being lifted - a job done, a book closed, an era's ending. A past confronted, hopefully, by your idea, and now captured in some media that lies external to your self.
As I spoke about in the original review for THATCHER'S TECHBASE, there was an overwhelming sense during this project that I'd kicked out a stone of a joke and caused it - sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally - to gather more and more moss of meaning, rolling downhill at such speed that I couldn't really contain it. By the end of 2021 I thought it was all finally, mercifully, over, but somehow the stone managed to roll back up a bigger hill and start the nightmare all over again, with me reluctantly chasing behind it.
The funny thing about THATCHER'S TECHBASE is that I spent a lot of the intervening year haunting myself with the ghost of its imperfections as a mechanical device. I was ultimately nonplussed by its crass political implications, and the gamer within bubbled over to fuss about gameplay. Dumb, I know; but for some reason, people messaging me about bugs, puzzle problems and balance fuckups concerned me far more than the people who wanted to report the WAD to the police for unthink. I spent a lot of time in my own head about such a trivial issue, grappling over whether I should go back and fix layouts and redo encounters and hand over more ammo to players who were SOL an hour into the WAD, my own little welfare state in the battle against Thatcher. Fortunately, a good friend of mine shook me back to reality by pointing out how fucking annoying it was when George Lucas went in and changed Han Solo shooting Greedo in the Star Wars movies. I didn't wanna be like Kanye West patching The Life of Pablo or some shit, did I? I'm glad I put the stupidity behind me and moved on with my life, leaving that Save button untouched for good, accepting that I'd made what I'd made.
... For a while, lol. Just when I thought I was out, they etc. etc. etc. Oh, go on then.
If there was something that was going to draw me back to THATCHER'S TECHBASE, it was always the chance to rectify the failures of the project that lay beyond just correcting linedefs and spawn triggers. While I was delighted that Tennent's Lager made good on their promise to donate money to charity in exchange for me compromising my perfectly legal right to express myself in a satirical work, I was still pissed off that they chose not to associate themselves with some of the more "contentious" organisations on my list. Partnering with Living Rent on ARCADE EDITION was the resurrection of a dying dream come true once more for a useless bohemian layabout like me, a spindly little computer guy who looks at tenant action movements and picket lines up and down the country and feels like he can't do jack shit but spectate and hold a placard up the back.
You read about what's going on in the world in newspapers and on Twitter; you see the results of government policy in your bills, your loans and the rising cost of milk and bread at the supermarket; somehow, it still feels abstract, remote, and far away. But actually going to a "hard left extremist fringe event" (per the Daily Mail article on THATCHER'S TECHBASE, September 26th, 2022) makes a lot of this evil become real to you in a sense it hasn't been before: You see people planning military-like operations to keep soup kitchens and food banks running; you see collections that will keep picket lines fed and watered for weeks at a time; you see people teaching other how to get out of handcuffs; and then you look over at the little MDF box with its game controller hanging over some Margaret Thatcher stickers and feel like you didn't really do jack shit but make jokes and crack wise about the end of the world. I was stewing in this feeling for a lot of that Saturday at The World Transformed, a combination of sleep deprivation and day-drinking becoming an ironic feeling of self-involvement at a festival of collective action. Oh poor me and my selfish little video game toy. What have I actually done here?
That night, however, I attended a rally in support of the striking dock workers in Liverpool, who were standing in the rain only a few miles down the road from the festival. Many hard-working people spoke passionately about their unfair treatment and burning desire to address the injustice of neoliberal wealth distribution, but there was one speech in particular that has stuck to my mind. A union leader from the Port of Baltimore told the crowd about the 2013 longshore workers strike, and how the 2000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association had stepped up across the world to defend the rights of their friends in the United States by threatening strikes and collective action of their own, no matter how small or large the organisation - including the men and women who were now picketing the Liverpool Docks at this very moment. He spoke of a lodge banner that's brought out for special occasions like these. Itโs almost a hundred years old. A simple symbol - two hands, joined together in a union. Thatโs what the labour movement means. You support me and I support you. Whoever you are. Wherever you come from. Whatever you can do. Shoulder to shoulder. Hand to hand.
If youโre one of the people whoโs supported us by putting money into buckets - the literal one lurking within the innards of THATCHER'S TECHBASE: ARCADE EDITION's flimsy wooden hide, the virtual one at the other end of the QR code on its display panel, or in the real/virtual buckets of any other charity that's come to your attention because of the wad - thank you. Because what youโve given the people who made THATCHER'S TECHBASE is more than money. Itโs friendship. And when youโre in a fight as bitter and as important as this one, against an enemy - like the CyberThatcher and her minions - who is so much bigger, so much stronger than you... Well, to find out that you have a friend you never knew existed - itโs the best thing in the world. So thank you. ๐
despite how fucked up we and the world can be, we move on, sometimes painfully, but such is inevitable.
putting out something pretty minimal without whole ton of thought, mainly piecing together shit i wrote on discord
i really enjoyed the subtext about capitalism and societal influence, also how theres no real resolution. itโs an outlet for its creators to express, it doesnt try and convince you thereโs something wrong with this futuristic dystopia where basically everyone is fucked up and corporate corruption overwhelms, it simply just manifests. whether itโs โgoodโ or โbadโ is simply up to the playerโs interpretation. i found myself in this morally gray area, seeing the overarching corrupt madness that influences everyoneโs moods as a bit depressing yet motivational for some. this is how their world is and despite how it operates, people move forward. acceptance of the circumstances has sank in and acceptance of others also in the process, everyone is in the same boat. dogs, machines, talking brains; you name it. all in mutual understanding of one another.
i think some of the more sexual content can be pretty uncomfortable but itโs only very prevalent in one character and part of it does help build upon how shitty the world is, sexual desires overcome in the face of hopelessness.
characters are all super cool and i had been expecting the story to be more grandiose but iโm glad it wasnt in the end. a short but sweet small outlook into a much larger world we still donโt have a complete grasp on, but ultimately thats okay and not even its citizens fully have a grasp on it. lots of neat writing and exchanges that both satisfy with being fun and contributing to the overall ideas. itโs quirky in its own way. a fun and cozy time where you can forget and just be with these tragic yet lovable people. the infamy of the foot-tapping soundtrack also delivered. maintaining that level of intimacy with its audience that resonates. at the end i was kinda like โthats it?โ but thinking about it more, va-11 hall-a doesnโt overstay its welcome at all and does exactly what it sets out to do. def one of my most memorable experiences with the genre. iโm a sucker for anything post-modern or cyberpunk related.
putting out something pretty minimal without whole ton of thought, mainly piecing together shit i wrote on discord
i really enjoyed the subtext about capitalism and societal influence, also how theres no real resolution. itโs an outlet for its creators to express, it doesnt try and convince you thereโs something wrong with this futuristic dystopia where basically everyone is fucked up and corporate corruption overwhelms, it simply just manifests. whether itโs โgoodโ or โbadโ is simply up to the playerโs interpretation. i found myself in this morally gray area, seeing the overarching corrupt madness that influences everyoneโs moods as a bit depressing yet motivational for some. this is how their world is and despite how it operates, people move forward. acceptance of the circumstances has sank in and acceptance of others also in the process, everyone is in the same boat. dogs, machines, talking brains; you name it. all in mutual understanding of one another.
i think some of the more sexual content can be pretty uncomfortable but itโs only very prevalent in one character and part of it does help build upon how shitty the world is, sexual desires overcome in the face of hopelessness.
characters are all super cool and i had been expecting the story to be more grandiose but iโm glad it wasnt in the end. a short but sweet small outlook into a much larger world we still donโt have a complete grasp on, but ultimately thats okay and not even its citizens fully have a grasp on it. lots of neat writing and exchanges that both satisfy with being fun and contributing to the overall ideas. itโs quirky in its own way. a fun and cozy time where you can forget and just be with these tragic yet lovable people. the infamy of the foot-tapping soundtrack also delivered. maintaining that level of intimacy with its audience that resonates. at the end i was kinda like โthats it?โ but thinking about it more, va-11 hall-a doesnโt overstay its welcome at all and does exactly what it sets out to do. def one of my most memorable experiences with the genre. iโm a sucker for anything post-modern or cyberpunk related.
octo expansion came out 4 years ago? christ, time really passes; my life has changed significantly between when this initially came out and now. now, a sequel is upon us, and i thought it was time to give this little campaign a try again, and it still holds up!
octo expansion comprises 80 challenge stages that test your knowledge of game mechanics in a way that is surprisingly not seen in nintendo games (excluding new super luigi u). at the time, these challenges greatly improved my skill in the multiplayer (the bulk of the game), and since this was the dev team's goal; it's sincerely appreciated.
however, octo expansion strives to be more than a simple guiding hand to the game's mechanics, it also seeks to break the mold in what was seeming to be splatoon's typical aesthetic after 2's initial release. splatoon is characterized by the loud splashes of color it paints across the screen, often screaming lyrics that don't make much sense as you rush an objective to a goal in 15 seconds. this dlc decides to go for a much different approach to how this series typically characterizes itself, going for a vaporwave-inspired aesthetic.
this aesthetic works extremely well for what this expansion is attempting to achieve, being able to keep splatoon's loud striking neon colors, but applying them to a much different context where the developers were able to mix it with various things that youโd often not see in the gameโs other scenarios (like floating gamecubes, those rock.) vaporwave is able to encapsulate the aesthetic and how the levels were designed, often being chopped samples of assets from the base-game, which may just be some of the smartest asset-reuse iโve seen in a game of this kind.
all in all, octo expansion is able to do everything it sets out to do with flying colors. even with the impending release of splatoon 3, and its significant overhauls to splatoonโs game-flow, this will always be a special experiment in nintendoโs lineup.
((this didnโt get a perfect score though, because octolings only had two hairstyles, seriously; what is up with that))
octo expansion comprises 80 challenge stages that test your knowledge of game mechanics in a way that is surprisingly not seen in nintendo games (excluding new super luigi u). at the time, these challenges greatly improved my skill in the multiplayer (the bulk of the game), and since this was the dev team's goal; it's sincerely appreciated.
however, octo expansion strives to be more than a simple guiding hand to the game's mechanics, it also seeks to break the mold in what was seeming to be splatoon's typical aesthetic after 2's initial release. splatoon is characterized by the loud splashes of color it paints across the screen, often screaming lyrics that don't make much sense as you rush an objective to a goal in 15 seconds. this dlc decides to go for a much different approach to how this series typically characterizes itself, going for a vaporwave-inspired aesthetic.
this aesthetic works extremely well for what this expansion is attempting to achieve, being able to keep splatoon's loud striking neon colors, but applying them to a much different context where the developers were able to mix it with various things that youโd often not see in the gameโs other scenarios (like floating gamecubes, those rock.) vaporwave is able to encapsulate the aesthetic and how the levels were designed, often being chopped samples of assets from the base-game, which may just be some of the smartest asset-reuse iโve seen in a game of this kind.
all in all, octo expansion is able to do everything it sets out to do with flying colors. even with the impending release of splatoon 3, and its significant overhauls to splatoonโs game-flow, this will always be a special experiment in nintendoโs lineup.
((this didnโt get a perfect score though, because octolings only had two hairstyles, seriously; what is up with that))
i first played xenoblade chronicles 1 when i was about 14. it was the first game i think i ever truly loved. i remember the feeling of beating it, and missing it so much - i didn't want that cast to leave. i didn't want to leave such an amazing experience behind.
now i'm 20, and i've just beaten xenoblade chronicles 3. i did cry at the ending again, but i'm not sad at all. i'm happy. 7 years later, i think i've gotten a little bit of closure. this game is fantastic - but i'm not sad to see it end.
who would want to live in the endless now?
now i'm 20, and i've just beaten xenoblade chronicles 3. i did cry at the ending again, but i'm not sad at all. i'm happy. 7 years later, i think i've gotten a little bit of closure. this game is fantastic - but i'm not sad to see it end.
who would want to live in the endless now?
A Short Hike
2019
Lo-fi has become a movement, a style of its own in the last decade or so. Inspired by the great late Nujabes and his peers, it's a space on Soundcloud, YouTube etc that's about chill vibes, relaxation. Initially a musical subgenre, it grew and spread beyond the boundaries of that categorization. It's not enough to post a mixtape of chill beats, they have to come with a general mood, a theme conveyed through some artwork. If you scroll down to the comments of a lo-fi hip-hop video on YT, you may be surprised to find not cringe humor or holocaust denial, but a community of people sharing their life stories and emotions with otherwise complete strangers.
I first started noticing the style make its way into videogames when Celeste included a remix by In Love With a Ghost in its soundtrack. Games were clearly a part of the lo-fi world before, what with all the vg music remixes in the genre, but this was a full-on feature. With Desert Child first and now A Short Hike, I see Lo-fi Games as a thing now.
Low fidelity implies amateurism, a slapdash approach and outdated technologies. Short Hike has graphics worthy of a Nintendo DS and a vibe worthy of the Gamecube. The gameplay is equally relaxed, just explore, jump, chat up with the locals. What can be classified as a challenge is very soft - on many occasions I've found myself cheesing through level geometry, as the game can be very easygoing about its slopes and edges.
I personally believe this to be an artistic choice. What usually gets overlooked about the lo-fi aesthetic (which is why it can be an object of mockery at times) is that under the careless surface lies attention to detail. The subtle use of effects, the microsounds or the background hums are key ingredients to making a vibe, the main object of interest for the genre. Same with Bird Game - even when it gives the player explicit challenges such as races, the conditions for beating them are vague. BeachStickBall, a tennis-volleyball hybrid, allows the serve to be counted as a point, while also letting the ball touch the ground once before stopping the count. Boat challenge adds extra seconds for bumping rocks, but considers those penalties when reviewing the result. Every character side story manages to include the message to not be too hard on yourself. You're doing great. You're going to get even better. Just keep going.
The game has the best structure a modern game can have in my humble. Obviously inspired by Breath of the Wild, it sets up a final goal that's known from the get-go and erects a soft barrier in front of it - collect some feathers to climb better. How does one collect feathers? Why, just go and play the game.
We here in the westriarchy have a bad case of school brain, a condition when we tend to value extrinsic rewards over the intrinsic ones, even when the former are actually meaningless. How many people complain about Mario 64 booting them out of the level when they collect a star? I've seen youtube thought leaders peddle it, even though the benefit of such a design decision is obvious - the player gets to play more. Every re-entry into a level means an opportunity to experiment, to play around, to find new ways of getting to a goal. But we don't play to play, we play to win, to see that number go up, to beat the game and put it on our Backloggd profile. Playing, learning and adapting can be hard, dopamine from seeing credits roll is much easier.
And yes I said we, I am that guy too. I'm incredibly grateful to games such as A Short Hike for providing practical exercises for deconstructing these habits. Go check out what's around, it says. Play, engage. When you feel like you've had enough, go up the mountain for a final treat. You'll be more than ready.
Thanks, it was lovely.
I first started noticing the style make its way into videogames when Celeste included a remix by In Love With a Ghost in its soundtrack. Games were clearly a part of the lo-fi world before, what with all the vg music remixes in the genre, but this was a full-on feature. With Desert Child first and now A Short Hike, I see Lo-fi Games as a thing now.
Low fidelity implies amateurism, a slapdash approach and outdated technologies. Short Hike has graphics worthy of a Nintendo DS and a vibe worthy of the Gamecube. The gameplay is equally relaxed, just explore, jump, chat up with the locals. What can be classified as a challenge is very soft - on many occasions I've found myself cheesing through level geometry, as the game can be very easygoing about its slopes and edges.
I personally believe this to be an artistic choice. What usually gets overlooked about the lo-fi aesthetic (which is why it can be an object of mockery at times) is that under the careless surface lies attention to detail. The subtle use of effects, the microsounds or the background hums are key ingredients to making a vibe, the main object of interest for the genre. Same with Bird Game - even when it gives the player explicit challenges such as races, the conditions for beating them are vague. BeachStickBall, a tennis-volleyball hybrid, allows the serve to be counted as a point, while also letting the ball touch the ground once before stopping the count. Boat challenge adds extra seconds for bumping rocks, but considers those penalties when reviewing the result. Every character side story manages to include the message to not be too hard on yourself. You're doing great. You're going to get even better. Just keep going.
The game has the best structure a modern game can have in my humble. Obviously inspired by Breath of the Wild, it sets up a final goal that's known from the get-go and erects a soft barrier in front of it - collect some feathers to climb better. How does one collect feathers? Why, just go and play the game.
We here in the westriarchy have a bad case of school brain, a condition when we tend to value extrinsic rewards over the intrinsic ones, even when the former are actually meaningless. How many people complain about Mario 64 booting them out of the level when they collect a star? I've seen youtube thought leaders peddle it, even though the benefit of such a design decision is obvious - the player gets to play more. Every re-entry into a level means an opportunity to experiment, to play around, to find new ways of getting to a goal. But we don't play to play, we play to win, to see that number go up, to beat the game and put it on our Backloggd profile. Playing, learning and adapting can be hard, dopamine from seeing credits roll is much easier.
And yes I said we, I am that guy too. I'm incredibly grateful to games such as A Short Hike for providing practical exercises for deconstructing these habits. Go check out what's around, it says. Play, engage. When you feel like you've had enough, go up the mountain for a final treat. You'll be more than ready.
Thanks, it was lovely.
Torna giveth, and then Torna taketh away.
This game hits the ground running at a moderately smooth pace. Perhaps the game realized it'd go a little too quick if one were to bum-rush the plot, so it also made to season our plot with a bit of mandatory side-quests. Nice save!
Truthfully, though, the game never reaches a point where it's a waste of time, which I must commend it for. I cannot understate how good the combat is this time around. Who knew the removal of the gacha system, and the streamlining that comes with that choice, would be exactly what Xenoblade 2's gameplay loop needed?
Torna is an excellent prequel indeed, a true cherry on top of the Xenoblade 2 sundae. When playing this game, I was given a little, but the experience was worth a lot.
This game hits the ground running at a moderately smooth pace. Perhaps the game realized it'd go a little too quick if one were to bum-rush the plot, so it also made to season our plot with a bit of mandatory side-quests. Nice save!
Truthfully, though, the game never reaches a point where it's a waste of time, which I must commend it for. I cannot understate how good the combat is this time around. Who knew the removal of the gacha system, and the streamlining that comes with that choice, would be exactly what Xenoblade 2's gameplay loop needed?
Torna is an excellent prequel indeed, a true cherry on top of the Xenoblade 2 sundae. When playing this game, I was given a little, but the experience was worth a lot.
Yakuza 3 Remastered
2018
Yakuza 3 is somewhat of a controversial title in the community, Iโve found. Very few argue itโs a truly bad game, but Iโve seen plenty of fans rank it at the bottom of their series rankings. I was aware of this bias as I got into the game, but I didnโt let it cloud my judgment.
Now, Yakuza 3 Remastered, is, rather obviously, a remaster, not a remake in the same vein as the Kiwami titles. As such, Iโll try not to compare it to those titles in this review, as theyโre several years older โ I figure the harsh jump from Kiwami 2โs smooth combat and HD graphics into a PS3-era game is part of why this is the game looked least-favorably upon in the franchise by a good chunk of the fanbase.
(Forewarning: Iโll not be reviewing the side content. Yakuza 3 Remastered is admittedly the game I spent the least amount of time on in this franchise.)
With that out of the way, Iโll start with by far my favorite part of this game: the story and its themes. People often complain about Y3โs start being really slow for a Yakuza game, but Iโll get to that in a second.
The important part is; Kiryu has an orphanage now! He moved away from the busy life of Kamurocho into the calm, breezy relaxation of Okinawa, where he leads the Morning Glory Orphanage with Haruka, taking care of 8 kids.
The game opens up with Kiryu taking care of the orphanage, helping the kids do their chores and making sure everythingโs okay with them. Itโs a very slow start, especially compared to the rest of the franchise, but honestly? I donโt mind it. Kiryu is legitimately happy, and it felt earned โ after 0, K1, and K2, he deserves this. Itโs heartwarming!
Anyways, I wonโt summarize the rest of the story here, but Iโll just say that most of the characters are fun and enjoyable to follow as always (shoutouts to Rikiya and Shigeru in particular), although Iโm still very annoyed at Sayama being written out at the start. She couldโve been such a cool character to have by Kiryuโs side, but I suppose virginity wins in this franchise.
Instead, Iโd like to talk about this seriesโ main theming/message, which is expressed through the gameโs main antagonist, Yoshitaka Mine. Mine had a very similar childhood to Kiryu, with one exception: unlike Kiryu, he did not have anyone to rely on, whereas our protagonist had the orphanage and Kazama.
Mine appears polite, yet cold at the start, seeking to repair the Tojo Clan alongside the chairman after the events of Yakuza 2. Later on, itโs revealed heโs desperately attempting to fill the hole in his heart growing alone created, and the fact he had a similar background to Kiryu made something very clear - Mine is what Kiryu couldโve become, and I love when antagonists are related to a protagonist in that sort of way.
Mine chased after wealth, but it was the underworldโs reliance on human trust that caused him to turn to it, and it finally gave him a taste of what it meant to be truly trusted. Before that, people only began to come close to him after he was already rich, and he saw through them. They were never real connections.
People make fun of Mine for what his plan ultimately becomes - passionately killing the comatose chairman (Daigo, the one person who immediately trusted without doing so for money) and taking over the clan. Many see it as nonsensical, and I think thatโs a fair initial assumption, as Kiryu cuts him off before he can explain what he believes itโd achieve.
However, I think it makes perfect sense for Mine. The only person who trusted him without an ulterior motive was suddenly at the verge of death. He truly believes passionately killing the one man he loved and carrying his mission on will fill the hole in his soul. Is it irrational? Perhaps, but Mine is irrational, despite his calculating exterior.
In short - yeah, I like Mine. A lot. Heโs easily my favorite villain in this franchise, because of how he serves as an other side of the coin to Kiryu. While Ryuji sort of attempted that, this feels more personal, and my only complaint with it is that Mine just sort of explains everything in the climax while he has a gun pointed to Kiryuโs head, but hey, heโs a good character.
Onto combat. This is where the game gets a bit rough. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of it though, I have to point out the remaster runs at 60 FPS, whereas the original game runs at 30. This wouldnโt be a huge deal, except for the fact the higher framerate halved the quickstep distance (except on the PS4 version, where itโs doubled). I installed a mod to restore the quickstep, but I find it weird thatโs even in the game to begin with.
Anyways, Yakuza 3 Remasteredโs combat is considerably clunkier than YK1 and YK2, but it doesnโt mean itโs bad. Itโs very crunchy and pretty satisfying, but it does have its fair share of issues:
- The most common complaint with Yakuza 3 in general is the amount of times enemies block. I didnโt really have much trouble with blocking enemies (really, it was some bosses that gave me trouble more than anything), but I can see how it can become infurating fast.
- Bosses take way less damage than enemies, including from heat actions. This means that some slower boss fights (looking at Lau Ka Long in particular) can easily overstay their welcome, especially as heat actions do not do much damage to them either.
- Heat drains fast, and itโs hard to get much of it aside from double finishers. Unless youโre chaining long strings of wallbounces and quickstep attacks together (which is the primary strategy used by more veteran players), youโre not getting much of any heat from bosses.
- Yakuza 3 Remastered has the Feel the Heat! sequences introduced earlier in the franchise. However, instead of mashing square, you have to mash R2 - quite possibly the worst button in the entire controller they couldโve chosen to assign it to. In addition, none of the finishers are even guaranteed to properly finish a fight (aside from maybe Hellโs Gauntlet), so they come across as a waste of time more than anything else.
Thatโs not to say the combat isnโt fun, though. When this game rocks, it rocks. For instance, Touto Hospital long battle is my favorite long battle in the series currently โ it has the right amount of length and three great bossfights back to back to back. The Richardson and Mine fights are incredibly fun, and the standouts when it comes to this gameโs bosses, alongside the Joji fight.
But there are a fewโฆ unsufferable spots. In particular, the Lau Ka Long fight, which is easily one of the the least fun fights in the series, solely because of how slow it is and how punishing he can be if he decides to do so.
Overall though? Combatโs alright. Itโs clunky but still fun, and most of the issues I have with it have been polished in Yakuza 4. If anything, itโs a peak example of โnew engine syndrome.โ
I donโt have much to talk about on the music front, but itโs cool as always. Itโs one of the shorter soundtracks in the series, and itโs aggressively PS3.
Before I wrap this up, Iโd like to commend Yakuza 3โs very positive depiction of a transgender woman, Ayaka, especially for a mid 2000s game. Her identity is not treated as a joke, and sheโs even voiced by a trans celebrity the seriesโ creator is friends with. Itโs incredibly heartwarming to see Kiryu learn about Ayakaโs insecurities and reassure her she just has bigger obstacles in life, and that sheโs not at fault for being herself.
Overall, Yakuza 3 is a very fun game, even if it has its faults. Sandwiched between clunky-but-satisfying combat and some particularly unfun segments lies an excellent story about trust, with one of the best antagonists Sega has ever created. Itโs definitely worth checking out, and honestly? I think Y4 is the worse game, but Iโll get to that one later.
Now, Yakuza 3 Remastered, is, rather obviously, a remaster, not a remake in the same vein as the Kiwami titles. As such, Iโll try not to compare it to those titles in this review, as theyโre several years older โ I figure the harsh jump from Kiwami 2โs smooth combat and HD graphics into a PS3-era game is part of why this is the game looked least-favorably upon in the franchise by a good chunk of the fanbase.
(Forewarning: Iโll not be reviewing the side content. Yakuza 3 Remastered is admittedly the game I spent the least amount of time on in this franchise.)
With that out of the way, Iโll start with by far my favorite part of this game: the story and its themes. People often complain about Y3โs start being really slow for a Yakuza game, but Iโll get to that in a second.
The important part is; Kiryu has an orphanage now! He moved away from the busy life of Kamurocho into the calm, breezy relaxation of Okinawa, where he leads the Morning Glory Orphanage with Haruka, taking care of 8 kids.
The game opens up with Kiryu taking care of the orphanage, helping the kids do their chores and making sure everythingโs okay with them. Itโs a very slow start, especially compared to the rest of the franchise, but honestly? I donโt mind it. Kiryu is legitimately happy, and it felt earned โ after 0, K1, and K2, he deserves this. Itโs heartwarming!
Anyways, I wonโt summarize the rest of the story here, but Iโll just say that most of the characters are fun and enjoyable to follow as always (shoutouts to Rikiya and Shigeru in particular), although Iโm still very annoyed at Sayama being written out at the start. She couldโve been such a cool character to have by Kiryuโs side, but I suppose virginity wins in this franchise.
Instead, Iโd like to talk about this seriesโ main theming/message, which is expressed through the gameโs main antagonist, Yoshitaka Mine. Mine had a very similar childhood to Kiryu, with one exception: unlike Kiryu, he did not have anyone to rely on, whereas our protagonist had the orphanage and Kazama.
Mine appears polite, yet cold at the start, seeking to repair the Tojo Clan alongside the chairman after the events of Yakuza 2. Later on, itโs revealed heโs desperately attempting to fill the hole in his heart growing alone created, and the fact he had a similar background to Kiryu made something very clear - Mine is what Kiryu couldโve become, and I love when antagonists are related to a protagonist in that sort of way.
Mine chased after wealth, but it was the underworldโs reliance on human trust that caused him to turn to it, and it finally gave him a taste of what it meant to be truly trusted. Before that, people only began to come close to him after he was already rich, and he saw through them. They were never real connections.
People make fun of Mine for what his plan ultimately becomes - passionately killing the comatose chairman (Daigo, the one person who immediately trusted without doing so for money) and taking over the clan. Many see it as nonsensical, and I think thatโs a fair initial assumption, as Kiryu cuts him off before he can explain what he believes itโd achieve.
However, I think it makes perfect sense for Mine. The only person who trusted him without an ulterior motive was suddenly at the verge of death. He truly believes passionately killing the one man he loved and carrying his mission on will fill the hole in his soul. Is it irrational? Perhaps, but Mine is irrational, despite his calculating exterior.
In short - yeah, I like Mine. A lot. Heโs easily my favorite villain in this franchise, because of how he serves as an other side of the coin to Kiryu. While Ryuji sort of attempted that, this feels more personal, and my only complaint with it is that Mine just sort of explains everything in the climax while he has a gun pointed to Kiryuโs head, but hey, heโs a good character.
Onto combat. This is where the game gets a bit rough. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of it though, I have to point out the remaster runs at 60 FPS, whereas the original game runs at 30. This wouldnโt be a huge deal, except for the fact the higher framerate halved the quickstep distance (except on the PS4 version, where itโs doubled). I installed a mod to restore the quickstep, but I find it weird thatโs even in the game to begin with.
Anyways, Yakuza 3 Remasteredโs combat is considerably clunkier than YK1 and YK2, but it doesnโt mean itโs bad. Itโs very crunchy and pretty satisfying, but it does have its fair share of issues:
- The most common complaint with Yakuza 3 in general is the amount of times enemies block. I didnโt really have much trouble with blocking enemies (really, it was some bosses that gave me trouble more than anything), but I can see how it can become infurating fast.
- Bosses take way less damage than enemies, including from heat actions. This means that some slower boss fights (looking at Lau Ka Long in particular) can easily overstay their welcome, especially as heat actions do not do much damage to them either.
- Heat drains fast, and itโs hard to get much of it aside from double finishers. Unless youโre chaining long strings of wallbounces and quickstep attacks together (which is the primary strategy used by more veteran players), youโre not getting much of any heat from bosses.
- Yakuza 3 Remastered has the Feel the Heat! sequences introduced earlier in the franchise. However, instead of mashing square, you have to mash R2 - quite possibly the worst button in the entire controller they couldโve chosen to assign it to. In addition, none of the finishers are even guaranteed to properly finish a fight (aside from maybe Hellโs Gauntlet), so they come across as a waste of time more than anything else.
Thatโs not to say the combat isnโt fun, though. When this game rocks, it rocks. For instance, Touto Hospital long battle is my favorite long battle in the series currently โ it has the right amount of length and three great bossfights back to back to back. The Richardson and Mine fights are incredibly fun, and the standouts when it comes to this gameโs bosses, alongside the Joji fight.
But there are a fewโฆ unsufferable spots. In particular, the Lau Ka Long fight, which is easily one of the the least fun fights in the series, solely because of how slow it is and how punishing he can be if he decides to do so.
Overall though? Combatโs alright. Itโs clunky but still fun, and most of the issues I have with it have been polished in Yakuza 4. If anything, itโs a peak example of โnew engine syndrome.โ
I donโt have much to talk about on the music front, but itโs cool as always. Itโs one of the shorter soundtracks in the series, and itโs aggressively PS3.
Before I wrap this up, Iโd like to commend Yakuza 3โs very positive depiction of a transgender woman, Ayaka, especially for a mid 2000s game. Her identity is not treated as a joke, and sheโs even voiced by a trans celebrity the seriesโ creator is friends with. Itโs incredibly heartwarming to see Kiryu learn about Ayakaโs insecurities and reassure her she just has bigger obstacles in life, and that sheโs not at fault for being herself.
Overall, Yakuza 3 is a very fun game, even if it has its faults. Sandwiched between clunky-but-satisfying combat and some particularly unfun segments lies an excellent story about trust, with one of the best antagonists Sega has ever created. Itโs definitely worth checking out, and honestly? I think Y4 is the worse game, but Iโll get to that one later.
This game is a miniscule addendum to a game that may not need one.
I am fond of the principle of using a rerelease to incorporate content that developers did not have a chance to use in the original versions, and the Bionis Shoulder area is alright. It doesn't feel out of place, and is just as fine of an area as the rest of the ones in the main game, but also not enough to really call Future Connected a must-play.
The plot, although well-acted, doesn't do much for the heart strings. The combat is a bit more shallow than the main game, and the side-quests are absolutely nothing to write home about.
All in all though, this is more Xenoblade. If you're itching for that after your playthrough of the main experience, go ahead and give it a try.
I am fond of the principle of using a rerelease to incorporate content that developers did not have a chance to use in the original versions, and the Bionis Shoulder area is alright. It doesn't feel out of place, and is just as fine of an area as the rest of the ones in the main game, but also not enough to really call Future Connected a must-play.
The plot, although well-acted, doesn't do much for the heart strings. The combat is a bit more shallow than the main game, and the side-quests are absolutely nothing to write home about.
All in all though, this is more Xenoblade. If you're itching for that after your playthrough of the main experience, go ahead and give it a try.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 carries the soul and passion of the original game into new territory. It's certainly rough around the edges, and it's not all hits, but this game is just as impactful as the first. The combat is deep, its story complex, and its worldbuilding intensely detailed - it's the sequel Xenoblade Chronicles deserved.
MONOLITHSOFT, even when the odds are against them, are the master of their craft. This game's best aspects are the combat, enhanced by the Blade system. It makes for a world of depth and experimentation. The caveat being that the early-game is a right trudge. It takes time for this game's tone and events to really have an impact, and the skills that make the game as enjoyable as they are will take time to obtain; hence you may have to fight off potentially sour first impressions.
Nevertheless, if you take the plunge into Xenoblade Chronicles 2, you will get one of the most exciting and substantial bangs for your buck that $60 can take you for the Nintendo Switch.
Nevertheless, if you take the plunge into Xenoblade Chronicles 2, you will get one of the most exciting and substantial bangs for your buck that $60 can take you for the Nintendo Switch.
A game with a lot to say and really satisfying combat once you've figured it out, but unfortunately they let a horny teenager into the writing room and a mobile game designer into the game design room, and the rest of the team didn't notice what happened to the game until it was too late
so 6 years later, we finally see a sequel to gunvolt 2:
finally gunvolt himself sees the spotlight again (or not), because he's actually a secondary playable character to the main character this time, kirin.
so is gunvolt 3 a proper follow up to 2?
..not really. every plot point from 2 is seemingly dropped from thin air in this game, only to be replaced with a relatively nonsensical plot where sumeragi is suddenly being sympathized with; despite being shown to be a force of relative evil in the past games, xiao and nori are nowhere to be seen, copen is only mentioned in one singular line and quinn is just gone (Lol). so, is there any postitives to this plot? the cast and support team are fun this time around, this game goes for a relatively lighthearted tone compared to 1 or 2 so the cast get to bant alot more and it is quite fun, kirin especially is a really fun character. but honestly, plot really was never that important in gunvolt, so let's get down to the gameplay:
let's start with the newbie, kirin. kirin is a melee sword-wielding character, she is a good mix between zero and gv's gameplay, where she tags like gunvolt and closes the distance so she can inflict melee damage like zero. now, this isn't the first time gunvolt has dealt with melee weapons, this game released 6 months after the first melee character in gunvolt, ix2 copen. so how does kirin fare compared to ix2 copen? well, she's like MILES better. while ix2 copen felt like trying to attach a melee element to a character that was clearly not designed around it. kirin feels like a great balance between trying to do sword-wielding platforming and doing something new with it, while this is only my first playthrough of many, i cannot wait to experiment in more detail with kirin as a whole as she is extremely fun.
but she's.. only one of two playable characters
so how about gunvolt himself?
ow. gunvolt is rough in this game. due to being made an op super-crutch for players, you can't really appreciate the additions to his kit that they made because he tears anything and everything apart on the screen in seconds, it's just
kind of sad that they made a pretty fun gameplay loop like this into something mindless
i'm not even going to bring up the gacha system because it's stupid and doesn't deserve my time
overall? i'm conflicted on this game, for every step it makes forward for the series, it feels like it takes 7 steps back
also the ending is really bad and unearned
tl;dr
7.5/10
update (12/16/22)
all of the updates for this game came out and umm yup!!! this was gunvolt 3 alright yep yup gunvolt 3
finally gunvolt himself sees the spotlight again (or not), because he's actually a secondary playable character to the main character this time, kirin.
so is gunvolt 3 a proper follow up to 2?
..not really. every plot point from 2 is seemingly dropped from thin air in this game, only to be replaced with a relatively nonsensical plot where sumeragi is suddenly being sympathized with; despite being shown to be a force of relative evil in the past games, xiao and nori are nowhere to be seen, copen is only mentioned in one singular line and quinn is just gone (Lol). so, is there any postitives to this plot? the cast and support team are fun this time around, this game goes for a relatively lighthearted tone compared to 1 or 2 so the cast get to bant alot more and it is quite fun, kirin especially is a really fun character. but honestly, plot really was never that important in gunvolt, so let's get down to the gameplay:
let's start with the newbie, kirin. kirin is a melee sword-wielding character, she is a good mix between zero and gv's gameplay, where she tags like gunvolt and closes the distance so she can inflict melee damage like zero. now, this isn't the first time gunvolt has dealt with melee weapons, this game released 6 months after the first melee character in gunvolt, ix2 copen. so how does kirin fare compared to ix2 copen? well, she's like MILES better. while ix2 copen felt like trying to attach a melee element to a character that was clearly not designed around it. kirin feels like a great balance between trying to do sword-wielding platforming and doing something new with it, while this is only my first playthrough of many, i cannot wait to experiment in more detail with kirin as a whole as she is extremely fun.
but she's.. only one of two playable characters
so how about gunvolt himself?
ow. gunvolt is rough in this game. due to being made an op super-crutch for players, you can't really appreciate the additions to his kit that they made because he tears anything and everything apart on the screen in seconds, it's just
kind of sad that they made a pretty fun gameplay loop like this into something mindless
i'm not even going to bring up the gacha system because it's stupid and doesn't deserve my time
overall? i'm conflicted on this game, for every step it makes forward for the series, it feels like it takes 7 steps back
also the ending is really bad and unearned
tl;dr
7.5/10
update (12/16/22)
all of the updates for this game came out and umm yup!!! this was gunvolt 3 alright yep yup gunvolt 3
A dramatic improvement in some ways, and a notable disappointment in others. I am in love but I am repulsed. I am uplifted but I am confused. I am happy with this, but I am also not.
So much here is so compelling, but so much is equally as ridiculous and stupid and borderline indicative of incompetence in writing a compelling sequel.
One could even say my opinion is cut straight down the middle...?
No number rating. I can't even begin to put my feelings on this game into words just yet.
So much here is so compelling, but so much is equally as ridiculous and stupid and borderline indicative of incompetence in writing a compelling sequel.
One could even say my opinion is cut straight down the middle...?
No number rating. I can't even begin to put my feelings on this game into words just yet.
This review contains spoilers
I wouldn't call this a coherent review, but here's all of My Thoughts I have to say about this game. I make no promise that this is well-organised, or working towards any particular conclusion. Spoiler warning for not only nirvanA Initiative, but also the first AITSF, as well as the Zero Escape and Infinity series.
I do agree with criticisms I've seen that a lot was sacrificed to enable the timeline twist, and that is unfortunate. Characters with timeskip designs can't appear, and conversely, characters who appear a lot can't have timeskip designs. This is sometimes justified cleverly in a way that ties into other parts of the plot, such as Shoma, but sometimes it's just arbitrary. Lien in particular suffers from this as it reinforces the perception that he's too old for Kizuna. Additionally, characters can't seem to change too much over the 6 years, especially Mizuki and Bibi, who also have to act similarly enough to each other to not give away the twist, with only the occasional aberration to make the player raise their eyebrow. This means de-emphasising traits Mizuki has that Bibi wouldn't, even when they're core parts of her appeal in the first game. Bibi gets some development in her role as the Masked Woman, but despite similar elements being inserted into Mizuki's backstory they don't feel as explored. These elements (as well as her newfound connection being the Most blood-related) also undermine her found family > blood family arc from the first game, which was the biggest factor in endearing me to her. I also just felt like we didn't get enough time with anyone, be that Ryuki, Tama, Mizuki, Bibi or Aiba. But that may in part be a consequence of the speed at which I played through the game.
All that said though, I do love the timeline twist. I don't think any Uchi twist that I've experienced has so radically reframed the player's perspective, even in Ever17. While that game does feature two distinct time periods made to appear the same, you still experience them in isolation from each other. The way they're twisted together, and all the elements in the story surrounding that, bring so much to the game. All the little events that link up together, like Boss chewing out Ryuki not for losing the target in the cathedral but really for shooting at the civilian. That's just one example, but there are countless. The true intensity of Ryuki's mental trauma, with his breakdowns and flashbacks occurring all before he contracts TC-PERGE. There's something I like about Bibi too, though I can't put my finger on it. And of course, the fact that this was all for the Frayer.
The Frayer is probably my favourite implementation of the player-avatar concept in an Uchi work. (Though it's basically only competing with Blick Winkel because ? is nothing and I don't like R11 don't tell the stans). The Frayer has undeniable relevance to the plot, but there's also plenty of plot not focused around them. In particular only certain characters are really involved, mostly Tokiko. And Tokiko is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever encountered. It's one of the most interesting fictional takes on Simulation Theory I've ever seen. She is right, and it drives her actions and ultimately she gets exactly what she wants. But as far as everyone else is concerned, they see no particular evidence that she's right and it doesn't matter. She'd go so far as to take her own life and have her body used to manipulate the Frayer. All the while, she's not completely detached from in-universe motivations, especially in her backstory, and it can be argued despair from this is what drove her to her worldview.
Another thing I like about the Frayer is how the game strikes a balance between Blick Winkel's unquestioned good and SELF's pre-assumed evil. Ryuki's mental health issues are compounded severely by his connection to the Frayer, but unlike R11 this isn't something that happened off-screen without you having a say in it, and the game doesn't crucify you for it either way. Instead, it's a direct consequence of you carrying "Dahlia Boat" across timelines, and you're left to consider those consequences for yourself.
Some more minor individual plot points- personal issues including Gender prevented me from getting too attached to any of the side endings in this game, being a blood-related father/son duo and two het romances. The latter in particular both had some glaring execution issues marring their solid ideas. As mentioned Lien appears older than he is and significantly older than Kizuna, especially pre-timeskip, and his stalking behaviour is explicitly called out in-game, with characters saying that Kizuna's acceptance of his is a bad idea, and then that's never really addressed as she immediately gets so excited by his proposal that she has to dance. This is followed up by an unseen timeskip where you talk to Lien and he sounds more familiar with Kizuna than he should be, it having secretly been 6 years since. It leaves him looking like a creep and Kizuna looking like a pushover. However the base idea of an ex-convict struggling for acceptance is definitely a good one, and I'll touch more on the game's recurrent themes later.
As for Gen and Amame, Gen's age is similarly made unclear, moreso because it's never actually confirmed, and at least one character outright says that he seems more like a father, with him not really fighting that label. I do think this is a potentially really interesting setup, but they don't explicitly explore the angle that makes itโฆ OK. Reading between the lines here I think what's going on is that Gen is read as older than he is because of his bulk (as a result of Chikara's experiments), and people find it hard to consider him in terms of romance because of his deformity. He's internalised that, and accepts labels like Father or Friend to try and deny the feelings he doesn't feel he's worthy of having reciprocated. This makes his arc one of self-love, which is definitely part of the angle the game tries to go for in his Somnium, but that Somnium is so far removed from his ending, which seems to focus on the hetromantic feelings for Amame. Again, they're conceptually tied together, but the game doesn't make that connection in its own text strongly enough, I don't think. Regardless, the Amame and Gen ending is the moment in this game that most got me crying, with Amame's sobbing singing. Between that and Resolution Route, Faye Mata went the fuck off this game.
On that note, overall I don't think anything in this game got me remotely as emotional as moments in AITSF like Mizuki route or 41205. However, it excels in other elements like its horror undertones and metanarrative mystery. I think the two games are honestly quite dissimilar in their core appeal, which is maybe part of why they pushed the ability to play them independently. This can be a good thing, as it broadens the appeal of the overall series and covers more ground in terms of what we expect from Uchi. However, this can also leave people who were hoping for a tonal and thematic followup to AITSF disappointed. Personally I'm very glad both games exist, and I find it difficult to compare them for a relative ranking. On the note of the two games being separated, it's already been noted how Mizuki's character takes a hit, which is also due to other reasons. The same is true of Iris and Ota, who have to hide their timeskip designs. At the same time, Amame fuckin' Doi being a culprit is a masterstroke and is a prime example of an aspect that's enhanced by familiarity with AITSF. Date is something of a complicated topic. His horny jokes are more palatable when you're not hearing his internal monologue, and they're not as often aimed uncomfortably at specific people (Iris most of all). I also think the Porno Mag Power is somehow a good compromise between the goofiness of the QTEs in the first game and being legitimately cool. The way he throws the magazine in the air and beats up everyone before catching it. And having it reprised later, as an excuse to have ProZD say it, was hilarious. On the flip side, we don't see as much of his more mature, caring side, especially as it relates to Mizuki, with most of that being reserved for him as Ryuki's mentor. This is partially because he disappears for 6 years, but we don't even see Mizuki be particularly concerned by that, again partially because half the time it's actually Bibi.
To come back around to what I said about themes, I fucking love the undercurrent of disability love in this game. Ryuki's mental illness, Kizuna's wheelchair, Gen's deformity, Bibi's heart condition, none of them stop them from deserving love or kicking ass, despite them all grappling with such feelings. And Hitomi's arm was treated properly in the ending dance, even though she's an absolute bit character in this game! While not disabilities, this attitude of acceptance also extends to Lien's past and even Komeji's head, which looks strange pretty much just to make a silent point about that not mattering. Mizuki's speech in Marble was legitimately beautiful, and while I loved her spiel in the first game too it honestly wasn't too much deeper than "queer people exist and are cool", making this quite the step up.
The Somnia in this game are so good, it's ridiculous. They're all rich in tone, logically consistent and mentally engaging. The tense and horrifying ones like Neurotic Inception and Nonentity Incognito are like a return to the atmosphere of Zero Escape, and the light-hearted ones like Nemesis Identified and Necessary Intervention were absolutely hilarious.
The music in this game was largely great and some of my implementation issues from the first game were resolved, most of all the overplay of Alarming Incursion - though, this was mostly solved by just not having scenes in the Psync Room, which really cuts down on Boss's and especially Pewter's screen-time. Still, it's probably better for pacing. No use forcing a conversation in the Psync Room if there's nothing meaningful to say. I also appreciate how largely speaking, tracks re-used from the first game were used properly. There were a couple of standout issues, though. My new personal bugbear for this game, replacing Alarming Incursion, is meikAI. It was played once in AITSF, for the specific scene of Mizuki discovering Renju's body. In AINI it becomes a regular corpse discovery theme, and I don't think any of those moments could compare to the horror of a 12 year old girl finding her second parent like that. It's also made to loop, which wasn't the original compositional intent and doesn't sound very good. Distortion Instigating, a new tension theme, also kind of gets just overplayed, with the most comparable AITSF theme yakusAI being neglected. I like the new naming scheme for tracks, with the words from one name flowing into the next. It's neat, and which tracks are part of the same sequences sometimes show a connection, with clearly identifiable themes like "Tearer", "Aioen" and "Lien". Some personal highlights from the new soundtrack are Insane President and Snowy Nonlogical. Personally I don't like Half to Whole as much as Invincible Rainbow Arrow, the latter has this kind of earnest cringe anime OP shouty energy that specifically appeals to me. That said, my mind might end up changed as Half to Whole remains stuck in my head big time after finishing the game.
The English voice acting in this game was top notch as with the last. Depending on how you want to count it, Corina Boettger has as many as 6 different versions of Mizuki with varying levels of how similar they are to each other, and they nail the job. (I'm counting 12yo Date, 18yo Date, 18yo Bibi, 18yo Masked, 24yo Bibi, 24yo Masked). It's also fantastic to have a non-binary person in such a high-profile role. Greg Chun puts his all into Date's exaggerated reactions to porn both gained and lost, while still having the soft fatherly edge for when Date's being more mature. As mentioned before, Faye Mata did a fantastic job with Amame, ranging from devastating sobbing to desperate, murderous rage, all while being very much the same character as the goofy, no-name extra from the first game. Stephen Fu brought Ryuki to life, with everything from wacky antics in reenactments to his absolute mental breakdowns. Anairis Quiรฑones also nailed Tama, with a mix of sultry, caring and goofy. It's rare to find voice-acted laughter not obnoxious just by the nature of it naturally having to be forced, but somehow Tama's reactions to Komeji's jokes never hit that for me. On the topic of things that normally sound annoying, child characters - obviously Corina has been knocking Mizuki out of the park since AITSF, but we also get Shoma here who similarly sounds legitimately young without being an obnoxious falsetto, so props to Greg Vinciguerra. Of course everyone did a fantastic job, there's no performance I can think of that stands out as remotely subpar, but these are the ones I had specific comments on. Finally, fuck, it absolutely knocked me out to recognise Billy Kametz as Tearer. RIP.
Short of searching Discord for everything I've ever said about the game, I think that's most of my thoughts out there. It's hard to rate this impartially, I've spent basically all year anticipating it. It's a strange mix of "I'm biased to rate it highly because I'm hinging a lot on it" and "I'm biased to rate it low because it could never have reached my expectations". As well as just comparing it to other similar games feeling like apples and oranges. So I'm not going to give it a rational rating (with the 5 star being for vibes and personal importance), and anyone reading this should have already played the game so a recommendation is moot. I think in the long term, AITSF is going to be the game that means the most to me personally, while I'll consider AINI "just" another Uchikoshi game I love. And that sounds weird, but it's no small praise I assure you.
I do agree with criticisms I've seen that a lot was sacrificed to enable the timeline twist, and that is unfortunate. Characters with timeskip designs can't appear, and conversely, characters who appear a lot can't have timeskip designs. This is sometimes justified cleverly in a way that ties into other parts of the plot, such as Shoma, but sometimes it's just arbitrary. Lien in particular suffers from this as it reinforces the perception that he's too old for Kizuna. Additionally, characters can't seem to change too much over the 6 years, especially Mizuki and Bibi, who also have to act similarly enough to each other to not give away the twist, with only the occasional aberration to make the player raise their eyebrow. This means de-emphasising traits Mizuki has that Bibi wouldn't, even when they're core parts of her appeal in the first game. Bibi gets some development in her role as the Masked Woman, but despite similar elements being inserted into Mizuki's backstory they don't feel as explored. These elements (as well as her newfound connection being the Most blood-related) also undermine her found family > blood family arc from the first game, which was the biggest factor in endearing me to her. I also just felt like we didn't get enough time with anyone, be that Ryuki, Tama, Mizuki, Bibi or Aiba. But that may in part be a consequence of the speed at which I played through the game.
All that said though, I do love the timeline twist. I don't think any Uchi twist that I've experienced has so radically reframed the player's perspective, even in Ever17. While that game does feature two distinct time periods made to appear the same, you still experience them in isolation from each other. The way they're twisted together, and all the elements in the story surrounding that, bring so much to the game. All the little events that link up together, like Boss chewing out Ryuki not for losing the target in the cathedral but really for shooting at the civilian. That's just one example, but there are countless. The true intensity of Ryuki's mental trauma, with his breakdowns and flashbacks occurring all before he contracts TC-PERGE. There's something I like about Bibi too, though I can't put my finger on it. And of course, the fact that this was all for the Frayer.
The Frayer is probably my favourite implementation of the player-avatar concept in an Uchi work. (Though it's basically only competing with Blick Winkel because ? is nothing and I don't like R11 don't tell the stans). The Frayer has undeniable relevance to the plot, but there's also plenty of plot not focused around them. In particular only certain characters are really involved, mostly Tokiko. And Tokiko is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever encountered. It's one of the most interesting fictional takes on Simulation Theory I've ever seen. She is right, and it drives her actions and ultimately she gets exactly what she wants. But as far as everyone else is concerned, they see no particular evidence that she's right and it doesn't matter. She'd go so far as to take her own life and have her body used to manipulate the Frayer. All the while, she's not completely detached from in-universe motivations, especially in her backstory, and it can be argued despair from this is what drove her to her worldview.
Another thing I like about the Frayer is how the game strikes a balance between Blick Winkel's unquestioned good and SELF's pre-assumed evil. Ryuki's mental health issues are compounded severely by his connection to the Frayer, but unlike R11 this isn't something that happened off-screen without you having a say in it, and the game doesn't crucify you for it either way. Instead, it's a direct consequence of you carrying "Dahlia Boat" across timelines, and you're left to consider those consequences for yourself.
Some more minor individual plot points- personal issues including Gender prevented me from getting too attached to any of the side endings in this game, being a blood-related father/son duo and two het romances. The latter in particular both had some glaring execution issues marring their solid ideas. As mentioned Lien appears older than he is and significantly older than Kizuna, especially pre-timeskip, and his stalking behaviour is explicitly called out in-game, with characters saying that Kizuna's acceptance of his is a bad idea, and then that's never really addressed as she immediately gets so excited by his proposal that she has to dance. This is followed up by an unseen timeskip where you talk to Lien and he sounds more familiar with Kizuna than he should be, it having secretly been 6 years since. It leaves him looking like a creep and Kizuna looking like a pushover. However the base idea of an ex-convict struggling for acceptance is definitely a good one, and I'll touch more on the game's recurrent themes later.
As for Gen and Amame, Gen's age is similarly made unclear, moreso because it's never actually confirmed, and at least one character outright says that he seems more like a father, with him not really fighting that label. I do think this is a potentially really interesting setup, but they don't explicitly explore the angle that makes itโฆ OK. Reading between the lines here I think what's going on is that Gen is read as older than he is because of his bulk (as a result of Chikara's experiments), and people find it hard to consider him in terms of romance because of his deformity. He's internalised that, and accepts labels like Father or Friend to try and deny the feelings he doesn't feel he's worthy of having reciprocated. This makes his arc one of self-love, which is definitely part of the angle the game tries to go for in his Somnium, but that Somnium is so far removed from his ending, which seems to focus on the hetromantic feelings for Amame. Again, they're conceptually tied together, but the game doesn't make that connection in its own text strongly enough, I don't think. Regardless, the Amame and Gen ending is the moment in this game that most got me crying, with Amame's sobbing singing. Between that and Resolution Route, Faye Mata went the fuck off this game.
On that note, overall I don't think anything in this game got me remotely as emotional as moments in AITSF like Mizuki route or 41205. However, it excels in other elements like its horror undertones and metanarrative mystery. I think the two games are honestly quite dissimilar in their core appeal, which is maybe part of why they pushed the ability to play them independently. This can be a good thing, as it broadens the appeal of the overall series and covers more ground in terms of what we expect from Uchi. However, this can also leave people who were hoping for a tonal and thematic followup to AITSF disappointed. Personally I'm very glad both games exist, and I find it difficult to compare them for a relative ranking. On the note of the two games being separated, it's already been noted how Mizuki's character takes a hit, which is also due to other reasons. The same is true of Iris and Ota, who have to hide their timeskip designs. At the same time, Amame fuckin' Doi being a culprit is a masterstroke and is a prime example of an aspect that's enhanced by familiarity with AITSF. Date is something of a complicated topic. His horny jokes are more palatable when you're not hearing his internal monologue, and they're not as often aimed uncomfortably at specific people (Iris most of all). I also think the Porno Mag Power is somehow a good compromise between the goofiness of the QTEs in the first game and being legitimately cool. The way he throws the magazine in the air and beats up everyone before catching it. And having it reprised later, as an excuse to have ProZD say it, was hilarious. On the flip side, we don't see as much of his more mature, caring side, especially as it relates to Mizuki, with most of that being reserved for him as Ryuki's mentor. This is partially because he disappears for 6 years, but we don't even see Mizuki be particularly concerned by that, again partially because half the time it's actually Bibi.
To come back around to what I said about themes, I fucking love the undercurrent of disability love in this game. Ryuki's mental illness, Kizuna's wheelchair, Gen's deformity, Bibi's heart condition, none of them stop them from deserving love or kicking ass, despite them all grappling with such feelings. And Hitomi's arm was treated properly in the ending dance, even though she's an absolute bit character in this game! While not disabilities, this attitude of acceptance also extends to Lien's past and even Komeji's head, which looks strange pretty much just to make a silent point about that not mattering. Mizuki's speech in Marble was legitimately beautiful, and while I loved her spiel in the first game too it honestly wasn't too much deeper than "queer people exist and are cool", making this quite the step up.
The Somnia in this game are so good, it's ridiculous. They're all rich in tone, logically consistent and mentally engaging. The tense and horrifying ones like Neurotic Inception and Nonentity Incognito are like a return to the atmosphere of Zero Escape, and the light-hearted ones like Nemesis Identified and Necessary Intervention were absolutely hilarious.
The music in this game was largely great and some of my implementation issues from the first game were resolved, most of all the overplay of Alarming Incursion - though, this was mostly solved by just not having scenes in the Psync Room, which really cuts down on Boss's and especially Pewter's screen-time. Still, it's probably better for pacing. No use forcing a conversation in the Psync Room if there's nothing meaningful to say. I also appreciate how largely speaking, tracks re-used from the first game were used properly. There were a couple of standout issues, though. My new personal bugbear for this game, replacing Alarming Incursion, is meikAI. It was played once in AITSF, for the specific scene of Mizuki discovering Renju's body. In AINI it becomes a regular corpse discovery theme, and I don't think any of those moments could compare to the horror of a 12 year old girl finding her second parent like that. It's also made to loop, which wasn't the original compositional intent and doesn't sound very good. Distortion Instigating, a new tension theme, also kind of gets just overplayed, with the most comparable AITSF theme yakusAI being neglected. I like the new naming scheme for tracks, with the words from one name flowing into the next. It's neat, and which tracks are part of the same sequences sometimes show a connection, with clearly identifiable themes like "Tearer", "Aioen" and "Lien". Some personal highlights from the new soundtrack are Insane President and Snowy Nonlogical. Personally I don't like Half to Whole as much as Invincible Rainbow Arrow, the latter has this kind of earnest cringe anime OP shouty energy that specifically appeals to me. That said, my mind might end up changed as Half to Whole remains stuck in my head big time after finishing the game.
The English voice acting in this game was top notch as with the last. Depending on how you want to count it, Corina Boettger has as many as 6 different versions of Mizuki with varying levels of how similar they are to each other, and they nail the job. (I'm counting 12yo Date, 18yo Date, 18yo Bibi, 18yo Masked, 24yo Bibi, 24yo Masked). It's also fantastic to have a non-binary person in such a high-profile role. Greg Chun puts his all into Date's exaggerated reactions to porn both gained and lost, while still having the soft fatherly edge for when Date's being more mature. As mentioned before, Faye Mata did a fantastic job with Amame, ranging from devastating sobbing to desperate, murderous rage, all while being very much the same character as the goofy, no-name extra from the first game. Stephen Fu brought Ryuki to life, with everything from wacky antics in reenactments to his absolute mental breakdowns. Anairis Quiรฑones also nailed Tama, with a mix of sultry, caring and goofy. It's rare to find voice-acted laughter not obnoxious just by the nature of it naturally having to be forced, but somehow Tama's reactions to Komeji's jokes never hit that for me. On the topic of things that normally sound annoying, child characters - obviously Corina has been knocking Mizuki out of the park since AITSF, but we also get Shoma here who similarly sounds legitimately young without being an obnoxious falsetto, so props to Greg Vinciguerra. Of course everyone did a fantastic job, there's no performance I can think of that stands out as remotely subpar, but these are the ones I had specific comments on. Finally, fuck, it absolutely knocked me out to recognise Billy Kametz as Tearer. RIP.
Short of searching Discord for everything I've ever said about the game, I think that's most of my thoughts out there. It's hard to rate this impartially, I've spent basically all year anticipating it. It's a strange mix of "I'm biased to rate it highly because I'm hinging a lot on it" and "I'm biased to rate it low because it could never have reached my expectations". As well as just comparing it to other similar games feeling like apples and oranges. So I'm not going to give it a rational rating (with the 5 star being for vibes and personal importance), and anyone reading this should have already played the game so a recommendation is moot. I think in the long term, AITSF is going to be the game that means the most to me personally, while I'll consider AINI "just" another Uchikoshi game I love. And that sounds weird, but it's no small praise I assure you.