No More Heroes is a solid action game bogged down by bafflingly unnecessary grinding in the worst hub world I’ve ever encountered in a video game. It’s difficult to overstate just how much the town of Santa Destroy kills No More Heroes’ pacing. Following each ranked fight, Travis must raise money to pay for his entrance fee into the next battle. In order to earn money, you need to complete part-time jobs and assasination missions until you have enough to enter the next level. At first, this is kind of entertaining. Watching Travis lug around coconuts and punch trees is pretty funny, and there seems to be some interesting ideas expressed about the nature of this kind of work. In order to accept a part-time job mission, you need to talk to this guy who constantly calls Travis a “third-rater”, even until the end of the game. It adds to the irony of Travis’ desire to be the number one ranked assassin, as at the end of the day it doesn’t even make much of a difference in normal society. Travis, a loser who lives in a motel surrounded by anime figurines and who is the type of person to watch a DVD called “How to Please a Woman 101” is the perfect sort of person to seek to become the best at something so pointless. He has given up his place at the bottom of normal society to seek the top of a disgusting, harmful and useless subculture. As the game progresses, the grind for money becomes agonizing. Repeating the same mission over and over again, even the more lucrative assasination missions, is a complete waste of the player’s time. It feels like most of my playtime on this game is dissociating behind my computer monitor while I kill ten guys in a subway over and over again until I can finally play the real game. If you completely cut out these missions, the game’s pacing would be lightning fast, and really enjoyable to blaze through. This is not the game we ended up receiving.

Speaking of Travis, I find him to be a pretty interesting character. He perfectly portrays the type of extremely online, extremely delusional, extremely misogynistic losers who are common not only on the Internet, but in the real world. He’s a complete incel. If the game was primarily just riffling off how pathetic Travis is as a human being, that would be fine. However, the game clearly wants you to think that, on some level, Travis is cool. All it takes is two seconds of scrolling under any YouTube video about No More Heroes to find someone calling him cool, or something to that effect. Suda’s tendency towards unfocused writing doesn’t work with Travis, because he does not grow or change at any point throughout the game’s runtime. I don’t think the writer’s intent was for the player to respect or admire Travis in any way, but unfortunately the allure of someone who beheads hordes of enemies with a lightsaber is too strong to bear. The insertion of more normal people into the game would be a nice way to put Travis’ insanity into perspective. Maybe through Bishop, his friend who works at the video store? I will likely not play any future No More Heroes titles (aside from maybe Travis Strikes Again), so I don’t know how his character develops, if at all.

I think No More Heroes had a lot of potential to be a pretty cool and good game. I don’t think it’s entirely bad, per se, but it certainly doesn’t reach the heights of some of Suda’s prior works.

After taking 75,000 steps in Flower, Sun and Rain, you unlock the “Movement Speed UP” ability, which allows you to sprint, granting the player a much needed reprieve from Sumio Mondo’s endless march across Lospass Island. Only, the average player will never know this power up exists. I completed the game taking precisely 20,193 steps, a count which I imagine is generally higher than the average player, on account of me not knowing where to go and having to take a few additional agonizing journeys to and from the Hotel Flower, Sun and Rain. This begs the question: why even add such a thing in the first place?

Flower, Sun and Rain stretches its identity as a “video game” so thin that it only loosely fits the definition. Gameplay consists of mind-numbingly walking to various destinations around the island. Every puzzle is solved in the exact same way. Test the different colored jacks, find the corresponding passage in the guidebook, and then input the answer. Yet, despite not being similar to most games on a mechanical level, Flower, Sun and Rain is one of the most “gamey” video games I have ever played. Upon reaching certain milestones on your pedometer the game fades to black, and you are rewarded with largely worthless power ups, as if to shake the player out of their walking-induced trance and say, “Hey, you remember you’re still playing a video game, right? That’s what this is!” Similarly, characters will often break the 4th wall and recognize that they are, in fact, in a video game. It’s extremely obvious that all of these facts are meant to add up to some form of critique.

My reading of Flower, Sun and Rain interprets the work as a critique of the obsessive push toward realism in gaming. Nowhere is this critique more present than in Request 14: Träumerei. Directly following two chapters where the player controls characters who are not Sumio Mondo, the hotel manager Edo Macalister chides Sumio, saying that in order to make up for missing two chapters of action, he should prepare for lots of walking. This is precisely what happens. The player must walk from the Hotel and the wheat fields, two points which are about as far away from each other as possible, twice. Then, the player walks up to the fourth floor of the hotel another eight times, while Sumio is frustratingly locked into just walking. Running in the hotel rooms and stairways is not permitted, of course. After my first two trips and my first four journeys up and down the stairwell, I was reaching my wit’s end. However, that is when Ken appears, who is notably the only person on the island who has access to a form of transportation. Long story short, you “borrow” Ken’s bike, and it acts as a form of fast-travel for the chapter, and cuts down on the length of the chapter considerably. However, the scenario is very much “unrealistic” and somewhat out of character for Sumio. FSR asserts through this mechanic that obsession with realism is only valuable to a certain point. If a piece is injected with too much realism, it will lead to an unfun experience, as is the case in many sections of FSR. There were many times throughout the game where I was not necessarily having fun, but just because the game isn’t fun all the time doesn’t mean it can’t be a great experience.

There’s so much to be said for the quality of writing in this game. I love how they are able to so effortlessly allow the player to identify with Sumio. I don’t agree that the game is meant to be obtuse as a way to make fun of people who like games, far from it. I interpreted that you were supposed to be laughing along with many jokes at the expense of the player and Sumio, but these ideas would be better saved for a longer piece. Flower, Sun and Rain is among my favorite games of all time, and I recommend it to anyone with the patience to see it through to the end.

The Silver Case, ultimately, begs the player to be critical. To be critical of government, police, and most importantly of one's self. What does it mean to commit a crime, when the governments that define "crime" are themselves criminal? Since completing this game, I've been constantly thinking about the case Lifecut. About how the masks of the Heinous Crimes Unit slowly slip away, revealing that despite their apparent individuality, they are nothing but pawns to be used for the higher powers surrounding the story. They side with the law, and die for it. They die to protect the truth of their master's misdeeds, and commit criminal acts without being labeled "criminal". It's only by embracing that which is deemed "wrong" by society that one is able to kill their past.

The Silver Case lauds individuality, but also depicts how dire the need for community is in a world shaped by the Internet. Tokio Morishima starts his half of the game as a person who is largely squandering his potential to be great. He sits in his shabby apartment, checking his email, chain smoking and talking to his turtle. It is only through his connections with Erika and the bartender at Jack Hammer that he is able to reach his true potential. He transforms from a slimy tabloid reporter into an almost sagely presence in Lifecut. He rejects the Internet, and finds what really matters in the real world.

It’s really hard to wrap my head around the insane amount of themes and images invoked in this game. This game has my utmost recommendation to anyone with the patience to keep up with a visual novel created in 1999.

“I feel weird. Someone died in my building, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t hear the sound, I wasn’t told by someone else living here: I first knew of it via my computer. It doesn’t feel real.”

- Tokio Morishima, Hana

To preface this review, I went into Baldur's Gate 3 lacking any context about what this game was about, other than the game being "very good" and people thirsting over Astarion. I haven't played Dungeons and Dragons, and probably never will. Further, I have little experience with table-top RPG inspired games aside from Disco Elysium and Darkest Dungeon (does this count?) so this was a decently-sized step out of my comfort zone. I played about 20 hours worth of this game, up until I reached Act II, and decided that I had my fill.

There's a lot to like here. Clearly, a lot of love and care went into making this game. I liked the character designs and I thought the voice actors generally did a good job. Aside from some visual bugs I encountered, the game looked quite nice as well. Initially, I found exploring the world and getting new party members to be quite fun. There's a lot happening in the first ten or so hours of this game, and I was with it. Unfortunately, past a certain point, the game's pacing slowed to a crawl and I sort of lost interest.

I was not remotely hooked by the game's opening sequence. It felt like there were pieces of requisite information I needed in order to understand what was going on. The inciting incident of "let's get these parasites out of our brains, or else we're going to die" kind of loses its luster when you can take as many days as you like working through the world. I'm not suggesting that they add a strict time limit or anything like that, but some kind of motivation other than the parasite would make me way more interested.

I would have only a slight problem with the main quest's structure if the game's other systems were fun and engaging enough to make up for the weaker story. I did not find that to be the case. My gripes with the gameplay mostly stem from being given entirely too much choice. In battles, my magic users have a huge repertoire of spells that they can learn and use, to the point where it's overwhelming. I don't understand basic system mechanics like saving rolls, advantage/disadvantage, and status effects in general because the game does not explain them well enough. I could simply find this information online, but even at the medium difficulty I had no problem clearing battles, so I felt no need to. Winning battles and not really knowing why you're winning is not satisfying to me, however I recognize that those with more knowledge on the systems will likely enjoy it more.

Exploration started to feel like a chore once I had already recruited all (from what I can tell) of my party members. I think that throughout all RPGs, the make or break point for me comes from the party. If I have no interest in the party, then I have no interest in the game. I won't say that I have no interest in the party members of Baldur's Gate 3 - aside from Astarion and Lae'zel, who I couldn't care less about- but I would say that my interest is mild at best. I like their surface-level appearances, but there doesn't seem to be enough depth to these characters to justify spending potentially 60+ hours with them.

What was perhaps most damning to this game in my perception was dealing with inventory management and equipment. I don't like that I even have the option of picking up some of the useless stuff around the world, be it rings that don't do anything or shit like goblets or plates or what have you. I also found most scrolls and potions that I would be rewarded with to be too niche to bother with, creating a situation where I don't want to waste something that could potentially be valuable, so I end up hoarding it for the entire game. I recognize that this is a very personal problem, and this is not necessarily a slight on the game or its design. It's just not for me.

There's a certain level of uncaring oozing out of Thracia 776 that I can't help but admire. Beating this game without having my eyes glued to a guide would be not only extremely tiresome, but also extremely frustrating. Getting ambushed from the impassible, pitch black fog-of-war? Should've played around that. Healing staff misses at critical moments in the early game? Should've gotten better level ups. Being softlocked at the literal final chapter because you didn't bring enough Door Keys? Fuck you, you should've known you needed those. It's refreshing to play a strategy game that doesn't let up, one that punishes you heavily for tactical errors, even if those errors may not be clear when you make them.

Thracia masterfully communicates an almost hopeless tone through all of its different design choices in a way which almost completely removes any ludonarrative dissonance from the plot. There's never a point in this game where you feel truly in power like you do in prior and future entries of the series. Thracia's soundtrack, which I believe may be the best soundtrack in the Fire Emblem series, lacks a certain bombasticity present in other titles. It's very dramatic, and communicates tension very well. Battles in Thracia are not wars fought by powerful generals (at least, not on your side), they're brutal struggles between common people and tyranny.

Through all of Thracia's jank and unforseen bullshit, I found myself connecting with Leif on a deeper level than other Fire Emblem protagonists. It never felt as though his quest was sure to succeed, just as I never felt victory over the opposing armies in each chapter was guaranteed. Thracia was a deeply enjoyable experience, although I'm not sure I'll want to replay it ever again.

Bloodborne is a gamer ass game. From Software took everything that was amazing about Dark Souls' combat, streamlined it, and then increased the speed by three times. There's no blocking or spellcasting, only fighting and parrying. This reduction in scope allows for combat to be more tightly designed around melee-ranged battles. It doesn't matter if you're using a cleaver or a cane, those half-British half-beast (hard to tell which is scarier) monsters are still gonna tell you you're not wanted here. Presentationally, every part of combat is designed to make killing enemies as viscerally satisfying as possible. When you stagger an enemy, you tear into them and seemingly rip their heart out, dealing massive damage. Weapons, especially the Saw Cleaver, have a satisfying weight to them, as indicated by the excellent sound design.

In Dark Souls, the player works against the world they've found themself in, a lone warrior who is fated to save or reshape the world. In Bloodborne, the player is very much entrenched in the world of Yharnam. There is no hope for this world, no saving it. Upon beating the game, there is no ending which could be considered a "good ending". You either perpetuate the world's cycle or become part of the power structure. Kill or be killed.

Bloodborne is, in a lot of ways, less vibey than Dark Souls. It's a lot less vague about its plot, and features many cutscenes where human characters have, at least comparatively, human conversations. There's no joy to be found in Yharnam, only death and despair and blood. The world of Lordran is much more complex than this, featuring abject suffering juxtaposed with otherworldly beauty. Thus, Bloodborne didn't evoke any emotions in me other than "this owns", which I think is totally fine. I truly believe Bloodborne is faultless, even if I do slightly prefer the original Dark Souls. It's a shame this game is trapped on the PS4, because I feel if it could be accessed by more players it would comfortably be considered one of the greatest video games of all time.

Killer7 is a game I thought I was going to hate. Prior to playing this game I had sectioned it off in my brain as a game for pretentious assholes, one with an overly esoteric plot and with gameplay that is designed to be tedious, as a sort of meta-commentary at the expense of the player. Still, I decided I should take the plunge and got it for dirt cheap on sale. I went in expecting to dislike the game, but from the moment I killed that first Mother Smile with Dan's charge shot, I was completely hooked.

Every ounce of Killer7 oozes this deeply unique, unflinchingly bold charm. When Killer7 says something, it does so without stuttering. Someday, I'd like to write a longer piece on the greater details of Killer7's narrative. Instead, I'm just gonna gush about all the different things that I love about this game.

I love every single member of the titular Killer7. Each member has totally distinct designs and gameplay types, and I got pretty even use out of each character. Garcian, Coyote, and Dan were the standouts for me, but that doesn't make the other characters bad by any means. From what I've seen online, everyone comes out of Killer7 with differing favorites. I love the aesthetic of this game, from its beautiful cel-shaded graphics to its "futuristic" UI design. Every little bit of design in this game feels intentional, which in turn makes it very satisfying to dissect and consume. I shockingly loved the on-rails shooter gameplay of Killer7, and found it viscerally satisfying to play through. I even loved the filler text in this game. When Coyote uses his ability to jump, the text reads "The Eagle has landed on the roof", or when you use a ring it goes, "(Ring name) howls". It's just the extra effort to characterize even the most basic of actions that made me completely enamored with this game.

If there's anyone out there who may be on the fence about this game like I was, I implore you to give Killer7 a try. I will be thinking about this game for a very long time.

Sekiro was not the game I wanted or the game that I expected it to be. It was recommended to me by a friend of mine, who had played and loved this game in a very deep way. I had told him about my love for Dark Souls, to which he responded with, "yeah, dude, but Sekiro's way better."

Every online space surrounding this game is obsessed with comparing this game to From Software's other titles, but I feel that this is not a fair assessment of the game. Because I had gone into this experience expecting something akin to Dark Souls, I ended up being disappointed by the game on some level. Sekiro is nothing like Dark Souls, straight up. They share extremely minor system mechanics, but the broad strokes of the gameplay couldn't be more different.

Dark Souls is an RPG first, and an action game second. Many obstancles in the game can be overcome by buffing yourself up with new weapons or stats. Sekiro is an action game through and through. Combat in Sekiro is absolutely electric. Battling bosses and mastering their patterns is very satisfying. If this game was simply fighting bosses, it would be nearly perfect.

However, I feel that Sekiro falters when it comes to exploring the space between the bosses. I felt utterly disinterested in tackling any of this game's side content, which I imagine was in part due to my obsession with tackling the game's bosses. I found traversal to be awkward at times, and the various locations of the game, namely Ashina Castle and the Sunken Valley to be frustrating and unfun to engage with.

I think, at the end of the day, Sekiro is not really a game for me. That being said, it's impossible to ignore the obvious genius exhibited throughout this game. If there's ever a Sekiro 2, I would be interested to see how From Software improves upon the weaker parts of this game.

Dark Souls is, in a word, magnificent. I'd lived my entire life yearning for something like it, but due to the reputation it's garnered I thought that it wouldn't be something I'd enjoy. Not necessarily due to the overall difficulty of the game, but I had perceived that there was a complicated barrier to entry in order to play and enjoy the game. This game is shockingly simple to play on the most basic level, but the game's difficulty invites the player, or perhaps forces the player, to gain an intricate knowledge of the game's world and systems.

I'd never played a game that demanded so much from me before I played Dark Souls. A game which places a great barrier before you, and says, in a stern tone, you don't get to see any more of me until you can figure this out. I was instantly enraptured with the setting of Lordran, a setting at times both majestic and miserable. I powered through this game over the course of a week, living and eating and breathing Dark Souls.

I love absolutely every second of this game, including Lost Izalith and the Tomb of the Giants, because this game encapsulates the idea of an adventure so well. It doesn't feel like a world in which my triumph is an expected and obvious outcome. It's unfair, uncompromising. It's almost unbelievable how thrilling it feels to be well and truly challenged by a game.

I love the quirkiness of the game's mechanics, I love how there's a Resistance stat that seemingly does absolutely nothing. I've never once invested in the stat, but its appearance on the level up screen makes me happy in some unexplainable way. Dark Souls is a truly secretive game, in an era where every minute detail of a game is thoroughly and completely explained. Modern games have "secrets", but they feel intended to be found on some level. Dark Souls' secrets feel enthralling to come across, with entire areas and dedicated development time behind places where the average player may never come across. I never found Ash Lake on my first playthrough, and when I heard it existed I immediately started a new run, and beelined my way over.

Dark Souls is difficult and frustrating at times, but it's also a deeply joyful game. Beating a hard boss, finding a Bonfire when you have no more flasks, or even just finding a cool weapon feel one hundred times more rewarding than contemporary titles because the stakes of the world surrounding your gameplay make them feel like genuine victories on a personal level. I nearly cried tears of joy the first time I beat Ornstein and Smough. No other game has made me FEEL in the ways that Dark Souls has.