There is a truly perfect game in here, somewhere within the knots and tangles of its narrative presentation - but alas, it exists in its current state as simply a very good one.

Still, I'm not going to complain about playing a great game! I think a lot of the critiques of FFXIII are more-or-less misguided, as I ended up either having no problems at all with or actively loving the parts that everybody complains about - namely the codex and the combat system. The codex means you have to stop every few hours to stop and read about the world, which isn't a problem to me because the world is so interesting. The gameplay is probably the best in the mainline Final Fantasy series (having finally perfected the ATB system after nearly two decades!) and is refreshingly hard, a surprise in a series known for being pretty easy to breeze through.

With this being said: there aren't many problems with FFXIII, but one of them is big enough to seriously dilute the experience. You hear a lot of people complain about the linearity but that really isn't the problem - the problem is that in a game so linear it still manages to have really poor pacing that simultaneously feels too slow and too fast. FFXIII is nothing without its characters and their internal conflicts, which are very well written and mesh with one another in a way that is perfect for the kind of story FFXIII is trying to tell. Problem is that the characters are exposited and fleshed out in a really rapid-fire way with so little downtime that all character development feels very abrupt and lacking in weight - it's more or less one dramatic scene and huge character moment after another, and as characters progress through their varying states of being it feels like you never get to really know who they are before you meet who they're becoming. Couple that with all of the actual plot developments and crucial world information being saved for the last five-or-so hours of the game and you have a story that feels rushed and way too slow at the same time - all of this only weighed down more heavily by bizarre and inexplicable difficulty spikes that leave you lingering further on moments that already overstay their welcome.

Even so, FFXIII is just a marvelous game to sit and exist in. The dual settings of Coccoon and Pulse are every bit as lively as they are beautiful - this is by far the prettiest game I've ever played both in terms of art direction and graphical fidelity, which is impressive considering this game came out in 2009 - and the atmosphere is bolstered even further by the phenomenal soundtrack. As poorly paced as the characters' personal arcs are, they're still extremely well-written on the whole and are all charming, likeable and memorable, with some seriously gripping character dynamics and relationships. Even when the writing's own convolution fails it, the Big Moments are delivered with a palpable heart-and-soul that I've only been really able to find in Final Fantasy games developed with Yoshinori Kitase and his usual posse at the helm. There were several moments in FFXIII that made me stop and remember why Final Fantasy is my favorite series, having been immersed in an intangible feeling you can really only get from this series (and Kitase's games in particular).

With themes, ideas, and characters this tight - as well as a near-perfect combat system - I imagine that with time the mess of FFXIII's presentation will long be overshadowed by the finesse of its actual substance in my mind, and that I'll only grow more and more fond of it as the years pass by.

"On the first day

man was granted a soul

And with it, clarity"

There's something oddly quaint about Demon's Souls, with its soundtrack's goofy orchestral bombast, relatively bog-standard dark fantasy setting and minimalist tale of kings & demons, conjuring up imagery of a DM's first DnD campaign, no doubt the result of a cultural import of Wizardy shaping the early days of Japan's RPG scene in ways that would give birth to Demon's Souls' very predecessor, King's Field. This basic tale of fallen kingdoms and terrifying demons, crestfallen knights and ancient dragons capturing the hearts of thousands as an old-school throwback trailblazer of the action RPG genre when it dropped in 2009, yet now mostly looked upon as an ancient ancestor defined almost entirely by its progeny's legacy.

"On the second day

upon Earth was planted an irrevocable poison

A soul-devouring demon"

It's this aforementioned quaintness though, that gives Demon's Souls the leg up in comparison to its spiritual successors in the multi-million Soulsbornekiroring franchise. The artificiality of Boletaria, it's segregation into video-gamey worlds aided immensely by its strong atmosphere, of abandoned monoliths and overrun capitals, of howling prisoners and majestic beasts that ebb & flow on the horizon, a setting so seemingly uninspired on paper yet so deeply compelling in motion. A game of antiquity, of four-direction dodge rolls and jank-ass lock-on, like pulling puppets missing a few strings; of spite, that thrives upon kicking you while you are down and robbing you of progress much more than its future installments ever would, yet it's so utterly cognizant of its shortcomings that it creates some of the most interesting boss encounters of the series so far, goliaths that do not simply ask for skillful execution and high-level action gameplay, but for observation, for spatial awareness, for a level of comprehension beyond spamming R1 at someone's ankles. Bosses such as Old Hero, Dragon God and Fool's Idol engage me on a level that not a single boss from Elden Ring managed to do so, and its a lost magic I wish other games of Demon's Souls' kin would try to recapture.

Demon's Souls is a game that left me with genuine headaches and gritted teeth at its obtuse brutality, and yet it is still filled to the brim with the magnetic charm of early FromSoft that compels me to their portfolio, the so very human feeling of perseverance in the face of adversity that runs through much of their catalogue. It's a game that I did not enjoy for most of my playtime, but it's one that deserves its praises and more, even if I'm not the kind of die-hard enthusiast these games seem to compel.

"Soul of the mind, key to life's ether

Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel.

Let strength be granted so the world might be mended.

So the world might be mended."

[Anamnesis] Try to recall Torment: Tides of Numenera by InExile Entertainment: FAILURE.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i think some people think of me as a bit of a hater at times, which makes me feel bad because I generally like most games I play and talk about, and even ones I don't think too highly of, like Elden Ring, have things about them that I appreciate. tedious negative formalism is, for me, the retreat of the disappointed romantic, and if i do end up there, it's only because I have tried and failed to love something. so please, know that when I say that I do, in fact, hate Tides of Numenera, it is because it is a genuinely rare occurrence for me: a game that repulses above and beyond anything it might have to offer.

i finished this fairly comprehensively when it first released and while I liked it quite a bit back in 2017, my fondness for it fades to an proportional degree to my strengthening fondness for the original Torment.

in a sense the problem is that I resent having to refer to Planscape: Torment as "the original Torment". there is a naked cynicism to the title that is hard to ignore, an almost desperate call to arms for fans of the original to treat this with the weight that something evoking a beloved work warrants. and yet, it rings so hollow. part of this is because by any reasonable metric, planescape: torment has plenty of sequels, there being a clear throughline of thematic exploration and continuity of staff from that game into the likes of Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Mask of the Betrayer, so this game tattooing "TORMENT" onto it's skin feels unnecessary at best and deeply insecure at worst. but the larger problem of the name is that this hollowness and insecurity seeps into the game itself.

a game like this really shouldn't be reminding me so strongly of Dark Souls 3 or - god forbid, The Rise of Skywalker - but those comparisons struggle to leave me when I weigh Tides of Numenera in my mind, this game that so desperately needs to be seen as a true successor to Planescape: Torment that it strains at every opportunity to deliver surface-level reference after vacuous call-back.

tattoos were part of Planescape, and so they are part of Tides of Numenera! except here the tattoos are given a weight and significance by the writing that is afforded only by the fact that they are a reference to the original. tattoos were important in Planescape because they represented the permanency of your past actions and effects on the world. tattoos do not leave us - and neither do our actions and the scars they leave on the world. there is no similar thematic resonance to the choice to use tattoos in numenera. the symbols are, as abstract symbols, important to it, but grafting them onto the flesh of the protagonist says nothing, other than "remember planescape?"

these kinds of embarrassing references are everywhere, but the one that got me to switch the game off in disgust was when you find a Bronze Sphere. The Bronze Sphere in Planescape was deeply important in that game, but its importance was something you had to discover. You can - and many do - simply ignore and forget about it once it first leaves your possession, to treat it like the insignificant bauble it seems. It's only by choosing to keep it - a choice that says a lot about your Nameless One, because the only reason you'd keep it is that you know it was important to a past version of yourself that you increasingly learn to be almost unimaginably cruel - all the way to the end of the game, do you finally learn what it is. in numenera, you find a bronze sphere - proudly labelled as such - in one of the first areas you have access to, a bronze sphere that, essentially, acts as little more than a place for your companions to hang out when you aren't with them. it is a rote mechanical feature that clads itself in one of the most resonant and evocative images of the game it's so desperately trying to summon within itself in order to afford it a weight derived entirely from the audience's recognition of that image in a completely one-dimensional way. it is planescape: torment reduced to brand recognition, a funko pop of the nameless one, dak'kon in fortnite, a disney+ limited series about fall-from-grace. it is the mcu-ification of a singular work that is very, very close to my heart. it fucking blows ass so much oh my god.

part of me wants to resist labelling this a truly terrible game. the writing is, in a vacuum, thought of entirely as a book of disconnected sci-fi short stories you can wander through, engaging, in the moment. there are some characters that work: I think most of the stuff surrounding the character of Rhin is genuinely fantastic and represents a genuinely thoughtful exploration of parenthood, the kind that the medium is historically lacking in. there are moments where the various mechanical concerns of the game - the crisis events, the resource management game you play through wandering the world - do come alive. the soundtrack is actually kind of fantastic. but what's it all in service too? this story, that has no ideas of its own, and is just stripping the scar tissue from one of my favourite games and selling it back to me on Kickstarter? this game that is torn in a dozen different directions by a dozen different writers with no cohesive ideas other than Being Like Planescape? i could begrudgingly admit that there are things Of Interest to be found in this game. but I don't want to, and nor do I think I should. i think i should reject this embarrassing, ambitionless, written-by-committee sludge as the failed attempt to colonize the affections of those who were earnestly affected by the travels of The Nameless One.

so much of the modern media landscape is built entirely on selling you back hollow tokens of your memories in the shape of lightsabers and web-shooters and synths and kids on bicycles. but what we remembered wasn't ever as important as why we remembered them. and because Torment: Tides of Numenera is so singularly focused on the what and not the why, it isn't much of a surprise that it's been so comprehensively forgotten: there's nothing about it to remember.

Thanks RPCS3. My favourite Souls - Blanketed in sorrow and an intoxicating ambiguity. An artstyle akin to a faded picturebook you've plucked out of an ancient water-logged library. I love so much that all of the environments feel restrained and utilitarian. A soundtrack that is wholly unique, doesn't feel a little inspired by the Hollywood Orchestral Epics nor does it even attempt to hit those notes.
The one title in the franchise that actually feels like a fantastical adventure, with encounters and environments that are more often a challenge of wit and intuition than attack pattern memorisation or a side-flippy shounen damage value race. It reeks!!! But it reeks beauty. I genuinely don't believe FromSoft in their current form have it in them to create a boss battle like King Allant again.

Solid and innovative, continues to be the breath of fresh air now as it was when I first played it in 2009. Nothin like it!!!!

All I'll say on the Bluepoint demake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5z2-hpZB1w

The fundamentals were already defined in the first game. Turning back to check on your children, counting all of them each time. Searching desperately for the food that likes to hide when the hunger is at its high. One of the biggest differences is in the approach, as convincing as some of the set piece driven linear navigation was carried out, the nature calls for the wild, the dread of danger coming from any direction, the prey harder to corner. A harsher world that shows its hazards in just being there, and in consequence, a world where life is more prized.

Despite my bad memory, I still remember much of my first playthrough about 7 years ago. How only one of my cubs survived, often not even knowing how the others got lost. Getting better at my hunts, not sure if because of experience or because all that remained was only one hope. Asking the stars that guided me to a secure den at the start if I misread the constellations, if I did something wrong. As i kept thinking, the little one was no more, it matched my shape and size now, the steps that were always on my back now often stole my lead. I reached the conclusion that it was pointless to ask for what could I have done and better celebrate the life that survived, the life that now had to go away and truly live on its own. I remember being emotional at the ending where the lonely notes didn’t last for long when the stars appeared again and I was reunited somewhere else with, what I thought, was once my child.

Things have changed now. The harsh world that I remembered is bland. Not only you don’t have to go out of your comfort zone at all, completionism being the only incentive to explore to make it worse. Hunting rabbits for the whole year does the job, I don’t even think you need to return to the den at all. Climate changes the look and a bit of what gets added to your collection, but nothing more. The seasons run long, not because of the hard job of keeping the family alive, but because of the tedium of always repeating the same hunt. When the 4 cubs now survived and grew up I didn’t cherish the last moment, I just wanted them to spread as soon as they could, I knew they were ready after all. That ending scene that moved me so much was misunderstood, the 4 lynx survived, but there was only one there waiting for me. Who was that? My own mother, one of my children, some partner that I lost time ago? At least I can still recall the sentiment of what I once thought this was.

I have so much to say about this one that I don't know how to structure it in a coherent or meaningful way, so I'll try to keep it short. This is exclusively for the base game; I'll record my thoughts on the expansions separately.

Final Fantasy XI strikes a balance between the traditional simple writing of classic JRPGs (like the first five Final Fantasy games) and the thematic density that defined the JRPGs of the late 90s (like the five Final Fantasy games that came before it). What it lacks in character writing, it makes up for in the strength of its themes and a hyper-sharp focus on the single most important part of any MMO: the world.

Vana'diel as a setting is the true main character of Final Fantasy XI, and every aspect of the game is sculpted in a way that strengthens its distinct feel. Vana'diel wouldn't feel the same without the game's trademark extreme difficulty, nor the somber and mournful tone of the lore, nor the otherworldly ambiance that permates the very act of simply existing in one of the game's many enormous zones. In many ways I feel as if playing the game solo in what is effectively a dead server only intensified this experience; much of Final Fantasy XI is shaped around the idea of Vana'diel's permanent change (or lack thereof) in the wake of a cataclysmic event that changed the world forever. When wandering around alone in the remains of what was once a trailblazing title in the MMO sphere, one's connection with Vana'diel's ever-present sense of sorrow and loss is only intensified: there was once something lively and prosperous here, only to wither away until it and its inhabitants manage to simply skirt on by.

Masato Kato's writing accentuates this feeling; he builds on many of the same themes, ideas and messages as in his previous title Chrono Cross (My Favorite Game Of All Time Btw) while managing to convey them using a more streamlined and conventionally-coherent plot structure. Admittedly the mechanical structure of the game hampers the impact of these ideas a bit (as much as Kato loves to write about the plight of wildlife and beastfolk in JRPGs, it's hard to take it at face value when slaughtering them en masse is the most efficient way to level your jobs), but they're so resonant with the identity of Vana'diel as a world that I can't help but commend them.

FFXI's gameplay is more than anything defined by being bullshit. Sometimes it's bullshit in a charming and endearing way that one can approach like a puzzle and others it's bullshit in a way that's just sort of poorly designed. Again - not to downplay how frustrating it can be, which is often - this just works for what it is: Vana'diel is a hostile, unpredictable and dangerous world defined by conflict. To exist within it is to not know what awaits around the corner, and to accept that prosperity is equally likely to come as a swift death.

It's such a unique gamefeel that I can't really describe it but I think everything about it works together to make something that is very singular and unique even today. While the sense of thriving community is gone, the experience of wandering in what remains of it persists and lives on as Final Fantasy XI's primary attraction.

This change defines Final Fantasy XI in the current day and age, much like Vana'diel is defined by the lingering effects of the war that tore it asunder.

I could sit here and write out a long, nuanced review expositing why I hated almost every second of this expansion, but instead I will effortlessly and precisely explain the issues with Stormblood using but a single sentence: Lyse fucking sucks.

The decision to split this expansion evenly between two regions was a mistake and both sides suffered for it. While I love the Othard sections and the characters within (the Azim Steppe gets special mention here, being penned by the ever-winning Natsuko Ishikawa) in the end they felt a bit rushed and half-baked despite having taken up a solid half of the expansion – pacing is the name of the game, folks. It's an issue FFXIV has always had, though Heavensward was a great deal better about it for the most part. Ala Mhigo as a whole is just a mess of poor writing, insensitive at best and outright offensive at worst. I'm not going to get into it in any great degree of detail but again, Lyse is the corporeal embodiment of everything wrong with Stormblood. It's hilarious to me that they drop her like a bad habit the second the post-Stormblood patch content starts rolling out.

2.5 stars for the Othard sections, 0 stars for the Ala Mhigo section – but a consolation half-star on account of the dungeons and (most of the) trials being the best that FFXIV has had to offer up to this point. Seriously, they're incredibly fun and quite visually striking (not to mention full of love for Final Fantasy VI, one of my favorite Final Fantasy titles) in a way that I almost forgot about my issues with the story and non-party duties while playing through them.

Yotsuyu had girl power when she made that dude kill his own parents.

Been biding my time thinking about my experience with Halo infinite because I sort of just logged hours when I felt like it and I never really shared it with any friends. Mostly because it's like a flurry of fights not just with the expectation this game brings out, but also my lightly nostalgic feelings on the series, and my tumultuous actual time with the series over time. To describe my conclusion now would be 3 steps forward and 2 major falls back.

We made one big step for suffusing the campaign again with a great deal of charm and a flurry of lovely 'moments' that reminds me what this series Can bring as an experience.
We made another step up in that same area by really stressing the word "infinite" in an interesting place, an infinitely recharging grappling hook that somehow perfectly combines halo textbook shooty patooty with freedom to bring to encounters. Especially doing such in a way where it really never got old for me by campaign's end.
And finally another strong step by having a really super competently put together multiplayer. While I mourn what 5 gave me I'm not at all unhappy with this Halo 3-meets-more-arena-fundies.

The first trip-up was in the story. The immeasurably gross moe Cortana-but-not-Cortana that we infantilize in such a fashion that the meme people make about "Dad Games" is somehow more true here than any other actual example. It's so disgustingly misogynistic while also once again slamming Halo 4's sense of letting go. The idea is twisted into a semblance of moving on by neither addressing john's problems and instead just letting him have a girl he can have grieving fatherly control on.
The second was the multiplayer beginning to regress. Besides the fact that it has no real timeline to keep it afloat while lacking in SOOOO much that pretty much every other Halo multiplayer has as a staple, it's already pushing me back into a Halo Reach situation again, removing the tech I actually enjoyed doing with no communication beforehand (Honestly it's just shocking. I was modding waypoint when I got to see Bungie just sack ability tech in favor of making each one stronger on their simplest shit which is how you got modern armor lock. I'm reliving it!). The idea of compromising with long term vets and re-introducing people to Halo of old is now dissipating like the smokescreen it is.

This leads to such a discombobulate frustrating experience. Even if they reverse some of what I've talked about it won't change how Halo has become so trashy in having a coherent vision. For fucks sake

[This review is sponsored in part by My Buddy Erick, who so generously gifted me my copy of Elden Ring]

FromSoft's latest dark fantasy dodge-roll extravaganza is a game I was perfectly content to let pass me by despite the insane hype built up by its memetically-long development cycle and the critical acclaim heaped onto it by its rabid fanbase. The Soulsborne series is something that I'm very aware of as an avid gaming enthusiast (it's kind of impossible to ignore the biggest action RPG craze of the past decade,) but it's a series that I, up until now, admittedly had zero interest in. I'm not one for the fantasy aesthetic or its vast amounts of masturbatory lore about the adventures of ancient knights named Big Shoe Lorentz et al, and the online circlejerk of hardcore Souls masochists who get their rocks off by being elitists online isn't my kind of scene. It wasn't until every single friend, mutual and countryman I knew seemed to be playing this damn thing that I eventually caved when I was generously offered a copy by a friend of mine who was similarly swept up by the Elden Ring cultural zeitgeist.

As my first Soulsborne experience, I was surprised by how many of the positive qualities in Elden Ring are in none of the popular conceptions perpetuated by the Soulsborne fanbase en masse. The often-lauded nightmarish difficulty isn't nearly as tough as gamerbros will lead you to believe, often being more of a test in patience and observation instead of any particularly taxing test of "Pure Gamer Skill" you'd see in a character action game (except for maybe Malenia). The story is relatively understated all things considered and the quote-unquote lore is mostly left to the player to piece together on their own instead of being forced down my throat via lengthy exposition, which is a far cry from the initial impressions I had set by the enthusiasts stripping these games down into 6 hour loredumps. It's honestly kind of refreshing! The exploration in Elden Ring is nothing short of magical in those first few hours; stepping into Limgrave, searching every nook and cranny for adventure and constantly being rewarded for doing so. I could see exactly how this series managed to get so popular, and Elden Ring certainly dug its claws deep into me with all the hours I sunk into this damn thing. The bases are loaded, which makes the surprise foul all the more disappointing.

Disappointment is often the brood of expectation, especially when you have such a rabidly devoted fanbase that would proclaim the release of Elden Ring equivalent to the Second Coming, so the shoes to fill were quite large (almost as large as the shoe of aforementioned legendary knight Big Shoe Lorentz, if you will), and for what it's worth, Elden Ring does a good job at tricking you into thinking it manages to fill them. The awe of these stunning landscapes and sprawling world do well to mask the inanity of it all, and it's a charade Elden Ring manages to keep going for an impressively long time, but once it starts to funnel you towards the finale, the jig is up. For a series hailed for its innovation in the action RPG genre, Elden Ring isn't really convincing me that FromSoft is doing anything truly innovative. It's very pretty to look at and well-executed mechanically and all that, but I struggle to see how you manage to maintain a fanbase as rabid as Souls fans with something like Elden Ring.

From the outside looking in, it feels like they've made this game at least four times now: fucked-up, decaying dark fantasy world where some Average Joe called something vaguely demeaning is beset to dodge-roll their way to the front doorstep of the setting's head honcho. It seems the well has run dry if the only difference I can gleam from Elden Ring is that our Average Joe now has a jump button and a bigger playground to explore, the triple A idea of relentless biggering being the final step FromSoft has taken into true mainstream appeal (even despite all the xenophobia peddled by western devs in their criticism towards Elden Ring's design philosophy like we're back in the 7th gen or something.) I'm not very partial to the open-world genre in general, these massive timesinks with tons of little repetitive checkmarks to fill-out a sprawling sandbox, and Elden Ring is no different in this regard, even if it manages to keep the fresh ideas coming for an admirably long time, which begs the question of what makes Elden Ring stand out from the crowd besides the big names behind it and its innate goodwill built up by a decade of prior entries. By the time I reached the Mountaintops of the Giants, I had already checked out, and very nearly dropped it when Elden Ring kept dragging its feet and setting up more hoops for me to jump through in an attempt to pad out its already ludicrous runtime.

So as my first Souls experience: It's fine. If you've already drank the Kool-Aid, you were never going to be anything but pleased with Elden Ring, but as a first-timer looking in: I'm not entirely sold on what Miyazaki is peddaling. I can only hope the other Soulsborne games do a better job at selling me on their core appeal.

Thoughts have arisen playing this, more aesthetic than the game itself
A couple of notes:
-The vast majority of confrontations in fighting games are raised under an ultrafictitious logic that the aesthetics of combat is something similar to "a dance", perhaps that is why tremendous animations are designed with an almost liquid fluidity of movement, that's great, the body, as a flexible element disconnected from logic, should always be explored, but it is very far from the truth; Martial arts training, adapted for sport or not, is remotely similar to dance in that both are rehearsal and rehearsal, to feel and perfect a physical technique, but not much more. And the direct and real metrics of a fight are opposite to those of a couple dance. The aesthetic satisfaction that comes from seeing performers at their peak of skill is the only link between the two arts, and that too is probably inaccurate, because fighters must fail and dancers cannot afford it.

-The fights on martial arts action movies , THAT is dance. complete and absolute

- The possibilities of space and its pleasures in video games are a long way from being fully resolved or discovered and clinging to combos and the metagames has resulted in an unconscious disregard for topography and the impact it has on 3D action. Devil May Cry 4 and the trickster style are somewhat to blame for this by proposing a game of juggling, and partly because we have focused a lot on the sensations of weight, jumping and the impact of the blows, which is perfectly fine, but What about the ground we land and step on?

-From the point of view of competition, the best is an infinite arena, without obstacles or topography as such; smooth floor, colorful backgrounds.
But then the hitboxes of each fighter should be more imprecise and chaotic, right? obeying the bodies and less computer codes.

-That's bullshit, digital bodies are made of computer code

-F.uck

Savaki, Tekken 4 and Hellish Quart are my favorite 3d fighting games for approaching space combat from the flexibility and chaos of collisions and location, rather than hitbox and perfect distances. That's the only thing I have more or less clear lol

Acudes al nuevo menú de un famoso restaurante. Sabes por tus anteriores visitas que su estilo no es tu preferido, pero oye, sabes apreciarlo igualmente.
Y van sacando platos.
Inicialmente estás encantado, tiene un sentido de libertad que le sienta genial, y buscas por los rincones, intentando saborear cada bocado. Incluso los siguientes platos los disfrutas mucho también, aunque empiezas a no dedicarles una atención tan minuciosa porque no te quieres saturar.
Pero los platos no dejan de salir.
Ya estás comiendo más rápido, porque quieres acabarte ese menú y no quieres darte tanto tiempo a llenarte.
Pero todavía hay más.
Los ingredientes y conceptos empiezan a repetirse, e incluso alguno de estos platos cojea un poquito en la técnica. La calidad sigue siendo muy alta, pero ya estás pensando en cuánto queda.
Y siguen viniendo platos.
Aunque no habría nada de malo en ello, no quieres irte sin comer un poco de cada plato, así que pasas a picotear de cada plato, lo suficiente para ver cómo es, antes de pasar al siguiente.
Y cuando por fin acabas el menú con unos platos finales que también son muy buenos, ya no sientes tanto disfrute por la comida como alivio por haber acabado.

Pues más o menos esa ha sido mi experiencia con Elden Ring.
Sé que habría sido distinto si su estilo hubiera encajado más con mis preferencias, pero igualmente creo que se les ha ido la mano con la escala. Cuántas catacumbas clónicas, cuántas cuevas con algún gimmick frustrante que hace que les dediques horas en lugar de minutos. Y hacia el final, cuánto (para mi gusto) jefe reutilizado como enemigo común, cuánto enemigo puesto a mala baba para que un pasillo cualquiera se convierta en un escollo donde buscas cuál es la forma menos costosa de pasar.
Pero aún con todo, qué mundo tan bien hecho, qué trasfondo tan bueno, qué primeras cuarenta horas.

fuck, croc, i was rooting for you. i really was. you deserved better.

the story goes that croc was originally pitched by argonaut games to nintendo as a yoshi game, as what would be the first ever 3D platformer: Yoshi Racing. miyamoto was apparently enthusiastic about the idea, but nintendo turned them down. argonaut had previously had a very close working relationship with nintendo. they helped make many of their first 3D games on the snes, including the original star fox. but things started to seem iffy when nintendo decided not to release star fox 2, which was already completed. when nintendo turned down argonaut on their yoshi project, argonaut forged forward with the idea and ended up making croc. and nintendo? well, whether or not they took the idea directly or not, they made super mario 64, a game with a similar premise and with a legacy that continues to endure, while croc has faded into obscurity and argonaut fizzled out in the 2000s. jez san, the founder of argonaut, said miyamoto himself apologized to him for how nintendo handled the situation, and that at least croc was doing well for them. but jez san felt that the bridge had already been burned a long time ago.

this firmly solidifies croc as an underdog, a scrappy and ambitious game who had its thunder stolen by one of the biggest gaming companies of all time. we all love an underdog story, i'm sure. but underdogs aren't always good at their job. and croc, frankly, isn't.

it's all so rote as to be asinine to describe: croc consists of running and jumping between FOUR COLORFUL WORLDS and collecting FLOATING ICOSAHEDRONS and saving these little fuzzy critters called "gobbos", which i can't take seriously at all, partially because its a silly name, but mostly because i once stumbled into some erotica about lesbians turning into goblins that was very intensely into body odor fetish and she referred to herself as a "gobbo" and that's all i can think about when i hear it now. the levels are trivially short if you don't go for the collectibles, which at least can make completing this game less painful. but i don't even like 3D platformers that much to begin with, and this game is maligned even among those fans.

i'm sure there a bunch of reviews on youtube or whatever that go into the particular design failures of croc. i don't really want to get into it too deep. but a note on tank controls: i think tank controls are fine. i like them. they do need to exist in a context, though. croc is a 3D platformer, which usually shouldn't have that, but i do genuinely think you could have a decent 3D platformer with tank controls. but this isn't it. controlling croc doesnt feel great, but it could be a lot worse, it's better than bubsy 3d. honestly the bigger issue is his tailwhip attack, where he yells "kersplat!!" or "kaboof!!" or "kapow!!" and pretty much never hits any enemy and dies because the hit detection in this game is terrible. for me the problem of game feel is exacerbated by everything else. it has this classic 3d platformer design, the same kind that underwhelmed me in spyro and crash, and in fact the extension of design in the mascot platformers of the previous era, a game of just "Stuff in Places". its far from the worst example of that design, collectibles are usually framed within some particular challenge or puzzle, but it’s just not enough. everything is forgettable. it instills this sense of meaninglessness to these objects and it doesn't help that along with that, moving croc around never feels great.

i know people have nostalgia for these kinds of games, but there is a very good reason mascot platformers have died out. they were always banking on the likability of their funny animals, but there's only one mickey mouse. there are some great ones, sure. but do you like mr nutz, kao the kangaroo, donk the samurai duck? probably not, and if you do, you probably stan gex ironically. because when you're banking on the character, you're not really spending much time on everything else. i dont know what most of these enemies are supposed to be, the levels mostly look the same, couldn't hum you any of these songs. but that doesn't matter. just look at the funny animal, go through 8 levels in green grass forest place collecting MAGIC GEMERALDS and then 8 levels in the sewer and then 8 levels in ice world and then the end of the game. these games lack so much personality even though that's the exact thing they're trying to cash in on. croc, my friend, i'm trying to give you a chance, i'm listening to you when you say "kersplat!!", i want you to be the clumsy yet triumphant underdog, but theres so little to care about, i dont care about the secret jewels, and every single time i save one of these little gobbos all i can think about is that goblin lesbian porn i read. how did i even find it? i can't even remember, but it was about a virus that turns people into very stinky goblins and orcs. ive got no problem with the green lesbians, i respect and cherish them. but i have so many questions. why "gobbo"? is that seriously sexy? why was it so clearly a reference to covid-19? with quarantine measures and such? how would a virus even change your bone structure? maybe it can, im not a doctor. and why did it then frame the virus as something that would project into social standing? it constantly highlights prejudices and judgements cast on those who become smelly goblins. are there unanswered issues with racial politics within its fantasy? why was it also very deliberately using an epistolary style, as if on reddit? are cockney accents for goblins supposed to be sexy? why was the stinkiness so important? are goblins and orcs particularly stinky? they were always talking about the smell, i'm not even sure what smell i was supposed to imagine. i know that's a fetish but like why? is reading about the odor enough to illicit a response? i'm not even really disgusted by it i am just trying to process it. there are so many weird twists and turns with the interiority of the characters that we see, how they respond. stinky gobby girl and her big giant smelly orc gf. im happy for them but also what. is it supposed to be a metaphor for something specific? queerness, transness, disease, disability, racism, classism, something else entirely? who is all this even for? is it for me? did i like it? i don't THINK i liked it, but i definitely found it somehow, and i definitely read it to the end, and i definitely am still thinking about right now when i'm trying to play croc: legend of the gobbos and i’m definitely considering reading it again