some films that came to mind while playing this: spring, summer, fall, winter... and spring (temple of isolation and cycles), little shop of horrors (elder god audrey 2 creation myth), flight of the navigator (quarantine, unidentified floating object), vivarium (suburban alienation)...

there's more, of course, and i'm not suggesting that any of these were necessarily intentional references; rather, it's more likely these are things i'm inferring because the game, short and small as it is, is littered with these little archetypal bits of things both mythical and mundane. i think it's a mistake to take fatum betula as a simple mess of dream logic. it has things to say, and it's up to you to do the experimenting required to discover what these things are. in the end, whichever ending(s) you get, you'll most likely come away with something to think about for a while. the kind of person you want to be, perhaps.

fairly sure i'm not even 1/3 through my first time through this game and i'm like 150 hours in (though i did restart once after like 20 hours lol). i have a feeling i'll have more to say later on; consider this a "first impressions" kinda thing, silly as that may seem after so much time with it.

getting some complaints out of the way, it's a pretty flawed game in terms of bugs and some extremely fucked balance (playing it on easier difficulty settings is highly recommended until you really know the game (and i still don't feel i do)) and moments of frustrating writing clashing with the roleplaying possibilities of its pnp systems (e.g. you can't always rescue someone from their fate due to a curse placed on them despite there being a spell called remove curse available and stuff like that feels... kinda bad, sometimes). that's pretty much it, i guess? i could probably complain about the overwhelming timesink crusade system introduced in the second act, but i switched that shit to automated/story mode so i could focus on the baldur's gate-style adventuring and such. the half-star i docked from my rating could probably be a bigger mark down, but, see...

what makes wrath of the righteous so compelling to me, aside from the incredibly deep character-building, is its campaign and setting: a realm torn asunder by the worldwound, a vast fracture in the planet's surface from which the abyss emerges - a place where gods and demons rally their forces in a game of chess... where they literally can't intervene too much because the conflict would simply obliterate this domain over which they struggle for power and influence. and this is where you come in: chosen by the good gods, granted the power to choose your path - even with the freedom to become a devil or a swarm-that-walks or whatever...! power fantasy to the extreme.

and this is what sets wrathfinder apart from its ilk: it features a variety of mythic paths for you to choose as you progress (angel, lich, demon, azata, trickster, legend, and several more) and a pretty large cast of possible companions - to the point that it feels more properly inspired by bg2 than most of these "new wave of oldschool crpg" games in terms of the sheer possibilities. for my first time through it, i'm going azata: chaotic good butterfly-winged friendship is magic superhero bard romancing a succubus who wants to be a good girl after being touched by the goddess of dreams and made aware of her sins. (you can either help her with this or decide to be a total fucker and corrupt her, destroying her newfound ability to love.) game's absolutely enormous and i'm likely to be playing it all year (irl circumstances willing (not to be overly cryptic, but my mental illness is catching up with me again)).

uh, anyway... yeah, game rules. also i love the very bg-styled music, all that Epic Brass Blaring Mightily.

its called pastiche you dipshits and it rocks

honestly this game is basically perfect, surf maps sega dreamcast sonic adventure gun game good sound design good platforming good leaderboards good skips good everything. adore it!

also here's my spiciest take: if you dont like the writing in this but you do like the writing in hades then you need to get better at having fun because they are The Same, but this one is more joyous

Whelp, this game was polarizing to say the least. Right off the bat some fans decided that The Last of Us Part II was a disgraceful sequel to the first game, mostly because of one major plot point early in the game's narrative. While of course some gamers took it way too far with the death threats and all of that, it's not too surprising to me reactions went this far. They knew this was going to be polarizing and ultimately hoped it would be worth it for the sake of an effective story.

The Last of Us Part II is another technical showcase but a gruesome and bleak title, even moreso than its ultimately somewhat optimistic predecessor. At times the violence here is so extreme that Naughty Dog seems to be pushing toward tastelessness, partly to prove their point but also for the fun and intense combat encounters.

A million things have been said about this game and it's story direction and ultimately I landed somewhere on the spectrum of liking it. It's definitely not a homerun the way the last two Naughty Dog titles were and lacks the subtlety it thinks it has but it gives you a lot to think about despite its flaws.

Mostly I just love this sort of super-AAA experience where everything is super refined and cinematic. The Last of Us Part II is very much that and therefore made for a pretty enjoyable 25 hours or so it took to finish the story. I don't see myself returning to this one as much as I did many other Naughty Dog titles but still think it's a noble effort that mostly hits its marks.

So apparently the studio at which this game was made was or became an extremely toxic work environment? Yikes. If any of that was going on around Gone Home's release, it was mostly under wraps since any controversies surrounding the game concerned its value as a "walking simulator".

Gone Home is one of the earlier and more famous examples of this sort of genre of interactive narrative game. It's a short experience, but the storytelling here is really strong as you the mystery unspools and you're left with a strong understanding of the characters simply by the memorabilia they've left behind. I honestly really enjoyed my time with it but see how it could turn off some gamers.

A first-person shooter that is quite fun and that has interesting worldbuilding in a direction that I don't think I've seen explored - answering the question "What if the Nazis won?". The story is rather generic but I did connect with most of the characters. BJ Blazkowicz is a funny and badass main character. It's a very polished shooter that doesn't innovate much but varies its level design enough to keep you wanting more. Gets a little cheesy at times, but Mick Gordon's score is pretty good and its a fun time.