There's something intrinsically beautiful in games where dying is a mechanic in itself, but no game will ever get close to Romancing SaGa 2 where death is not only expected but enforced by the mere passage of time. If you wanted the videogame mechanics version of Snake's lecture at the end of MGS2, this is definitely the best you can get.

The inheritance system makes it clear that bloodline does not matter at all in the grand run of Empire sucessors. What does matter is everything your last emperor could pass on to their friends, family or perhaps children, in this case, stats, skills and magic proficiency. They never make it a point that this is one big lineage of the same bloodline, but rather that they all work towards a common goal: the expansion of the empire with the objective of amassing power to defeat the Seven Heroes. The very first showcase of this mechanic is your father dying against one of them so that his son can learn how to counter a very powerful spell via his inheritance, which is an ability you do keep for the rest of the whole game. It's deeply and silently powerful, because that's what you do in your (collective) journeys, get stronger so that the next generation can thrive.

This is game is also one of the games apt to be The Videogame Of All Videogames. Yes, the one fictional characters in other media will make comments about all the time and that we feel deep down how alien what they're describing is because most of our games have specific flags for events and a very predictable progression system. This game, however, is so open-ended that it's quite hard for two people to have the same experience, barring the use of a guide.

For example, I had to help a village with their monster problem, due to the fact that their band of protectors, some sort of martial arts monks, couldn't defeat a slime due to it being immune to physical damage. These monks specifically asked me to let them deal with the other big monster so that they wouldn't look so useless compared to the empress. That's fine, it's just that I absolutely forgot this was a SaGa game, and when I saw more dungeon to explore after beating the slime (and kinda expecting some kind of quest flag or cutscene, naive as I am) I just went there and kinda killed the other boss, which then made the monks furious, so their leader challenged me. I crushed him mercilessly and what happened is that their band lost any reputation they had, including the departure of every disciple that was inside their cave before, and I effectively wrestled control of the town out of their hands so that it would be empire territory. Whoops!

It's also infinitely interesting how this game has the angle of you being the emperor or empress of a perpetually expanding empire. Of course most of it is justified to you wanting to save the world, some tribes just give your their land as thanks and mostly you're seen as a good and benevolent empress (except the few times you have the choice to be terrible). But the brutal feeling of this expansionist crusade is not lost on many of the cities you visit, some that are afraid of being just lapdogs for the Empire. I'm pretty sure Kawazu took a look at FF4 and just wanted to make you be the Empire instead. (Although the payoff at the ending is pretty sensible)

All in all, this is one of the most impressive games on the system, terribly ahead of it's time for 1993 too. Yeah the final boss is infamously hard, so maybe read a guide on leveling and playing through the events so you don't suffer like me. But then again, playing this blind and not worrying if you'll be able to see every event or not creates a very special vibe to it just like the first game. One that sometimes would be nice to have in our current Game Design zeitgeist where everything must be available and experienced by everyone on their first playthrough.

sorry 4 the beyond tired analogy but this game is like a frail and defiant flower blooming uniquely through the rubble of its own technical limitations. It's simultaneously a nearly forgotten relic and an undeniable genesis point / clear creative influence for countless other game achievements for both the fractured Team Andromeda artists themselves and other inspired gamedevs (Rez, the team ICO oeuvre, thatgamecompany, from software, etc). An eerie and sensitive story with so much more brevity and respect for player time than typical JRPGS (probably both by intent and as a technical necessity) but also an unparalleled amount of spaciousness and quiet power. The still unimitated positional combat system is a complete revelation and so so beautiful in its graphic framing and expressivity. The closest thing I can think of is the (also spellbinding) Evrae battle from FFX, but magnified tenfold and constantly eclipsing the presumed limits of its prior majesty over the course of an entire game. The dynamism and propulsive grace within the compositions of each battle tableau grant an ATB-based jrpg the sensoral exhilaration of an Ace Combat game. The fact that the balancing is a bit too easy hardly matters when PDS remains such a bold declaration and unmatched proof of concept for an entire school of systemic evolutions it was denied the chance to ever iterate upon. These battles set my imagination on fire!!!

The game is tragically inaccessible and unretrievable (the source code is completely lost and the effort/interest level required to reverse engineer a faithful re-release seems unlikely), but it also feels fitting for something with such a lamentful cadence to end up as a lingering piece of gaming hauntology. if fucking bluepoint or whoever decide to remake this absolutely peerless achievement in HD i will officially detonate the vest.

Emulate on Yabause/Yaba Sanshiro, SSF, or Satourne, the full game runs extremely well now! if you are having issues 4 real find me on social and message me and i will walk your ass through the whole process because truly everyone interested in games should play this game

Does this game have a Double Jump? Yes, a triple jump even! Sadly, it is only jumping out of the water and doesn't have that same feel as most other double jumps.

Finny the Fish & the Seven Waters is a kind of a fishing adventure game, except you are the fish. You play as Finny (who has a dope ass design), who is tasked by the Kappa to collect statues of the Masters to help expel the darkness that is rising in the waters. This involves exploring areas and doing a unique task from each master.

You have a hunger meter, so you need to eat other fish along the way, and some will try to eat you. However, Finny is a special fish who has an infinite gullet and get any things twice his size. If something is harder to catch, you gotta waggle your stick to "calm it down" and them swallow it. There are scales you can collect which will increase your jaw strength because you can't just eat bigger fish out the gate. Beware though, there are very convincing lures that can catch you, and then you are on the other side of a fishing minigame in which you must break the line, or unhook yourself. Breaking the line involves making it red, then slapping it with your tail a couple times, which will reward you with a lure to look at in the menu (you can also see the fish you ate). You can unhook the lure by jumping out of the water and wriggling it out, but you will not get the lure by doing this.

The music is also just beautiful. The Title Screen with its horns and piano, my gorsh.

The game gets a little frustrating at the end because some of the prey fish that eat at you are annoying to "fight", especially the Ray, that thing will just infinite combo you basically. The final boss is also a little annoying, but you can stock up extra lives that just full heal you on death so its fine.

But yeah, overall this game is a really fucking neat PS2 game that I dont think anyone thinks about.

They make a joke that Alan Wake's name sounds like Alan Walker. Like the YouTube royalty-free dubstep guy. That's a joke my mom made like 6 years ago.

Real good! Nice to play one of these post-the last of us morbillion-dollar AAAA Geoff Keighley cum sock experiences that has any coherent, like, anything? One of the prettiest things ever made, just insanely overblown colors everywhere.

Maybe in the minority for finding this games themes less coherent and overall just preferring Max Payne 1/2 and Alan Wake 1's writing, but I am more than happy to just bathe in the spectacle of this thing. Bright Falls is maybe the most alive a video game city has felt. 

Also the bit in the credits with the like 20 separate personal special thanks was great. Nice to see a AAA studio at least try to humanize the hundreds of people who work on these things.

minha parte favorita desse jogo foi quando um tornado surgiu do nada e começou a atravessar a estrada jogando um monte de carro pra longe

o que levou o meu rival a gritar:

"THERE'S A TRAFFIC JAM GOING ON AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!!!"

ENG above; PT-BR abaixo.
THIS REVIEW DISCUSSES DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. I DO NOT MINCE MY WORDS.
ESTA RESENHA DISCUTE VIOLÊNCIA DOMÉSTICA. NÃO MEÇO MINHAS PALAVRAS.

Akira Yamaoka – Terror in the Depths of the Fog

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My grandfather was a domestic abuser. He was controlling and violent. He cheated on his wife of many years, for many years. He attempted to run over his teenage daughter because he didn’t like her friends. It’s almost 30 years later and aunt still struggles in her relationship with her own children. He fills my heart with rage and I do not forgive him.

My father was a domestic abuser. He was controlling and violent. He cheated on his wife of many years, for many years, and put it on the internet. A police officer, he had a strong alibi for arriving home late (from his affairs) and attempted to strangle my mom. His only interest in raising me was my success in school, for which he wished to enroll me in a military high school. I know today that I would not have survived this, and thank my mom for impeding him. He fills my heart with rage and I do not forgive him.

Stories like my family’s are not uncommon. It takes a cursory look to find similar ones in news, in scientific publishing, in public health policies; but it takes a lot of involvement, introspection and tears to detect, comprehend and truly believe them when they’re in our communities, in the mouths of our neighbors and peers, in the beliefs and behaviors of those we love. We’re taught to respond to this shock with dismissal, to call it a farce and demand explanations for why the victims deserved what happened to them.

Silent Hill 2 understands this. It’s unafraid to discuss the pervasive nature of violence and its day-to-day reality. It’s a masterful portrayal of extraordinary phenomena that manifest in mundane lives. It oozes complexity and empathy in every second. Every single detail expresses something about the characters in a manner that makes me hauntingly uncomfortable, for I’ve met or been all of them in my life. Angela, who at her worst can barely identify who’s in front of her or what was last said in conversation; Eddie, who points to a single author responsible for his suffering, unaware of the larger material conditions that caused it; James, who’s been in my life longer than I’ve been alive and terrifies me as a potential future.

No game speaks to my reality and truth more than Silent Hill 2: of patriarchs who elect themselves arbiter and warden. No game is a better reminder of how lucky I am to not have been in the fire myself, yet simultaneously of how I’m still affected by the heat of its embers. It reshaped my preconceptions and expectations and categorically improved how I treat others and myself. I cannot overemphasize this game’s potential for sensitization and growth.

Please play it. Your life, and that of everyone in whose you participate, will be better for it.

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Meu avô foi agressor doméstico. Ele era controlador e violento. Traiu sua esposa de muitos anos, por muitos anos. Tentou atropelar sua filha adolescente porque não gostava dos amigos dela. Faz quase 30 anos e tia ainda tem dificuldades para se relacionar com os próprios filhos. Ele enche meu coração de fúria e eu não o perdoo.

Meu pai foi agressor doméstico. Ele era controlador e violento. Traiu sua esposa de muitos anos, por muitos anos, e publicou na internet. Como policial, ele tinha um álibi forte para chegar tarde em casa (depois de pular a cerca) e tentou estrangular minha mãe. Seu único interesse em minha criação era meu sucesso escolar, pelo qual ele desejava me matricular em um colégio militar. Sei hoje que não teria sobrevivido, e agradeço minha mãe por tê-lo impedido. Ele enche meu coração de fúria e eu não o perdoo.

Histórias como a da minha família não são incomuns. Basta uma leitura superficial para encontrá-las em notícias, em publicações científicas, em estratégias de saúde pública; mas é necessário muito envolvimento, introspecção e lágrimas para detectá-las, compreendê-las e genuinamente acreditar nelas quando estão em nossas comunidades, na fala de nossos vizinhos e pares, nas crenças e comportamentos das pessoas que amamos. Somos ensinados a responder a esse choque com desmerecimento, acusações de farsa e a demandar motivos pelos quais as vítimas mereceram o que lhes ocorreu.

Silent Hill 2 entende tudo isso. Não receia em discutir o caráter pervasivo da violência e sua realidade cotidiana. É uma retratação mestra de fenômenos extraordinários que se manifestam na vida mundana. Transborda complexidade e empatia em cada segundo. Todo mínimo detalhe da obra expressa algo sobre os personagens de uma maneira que me assombra, pois já conheci ou fui todos eles em minha vida. Angela, que em seus piores momentos mal consegue identificar quem está em sua frente ou a última coisa que lhe foi dita; Eddie, que aponta para um único autor como responsável por seu sofrimento, desapercebido das condições materiais maiores que o causaram; James, que faz parte da minha vida há mais tempo do que eu mesmo e que me aterroriza como potencial futuro.

Nenhum jogo diz mais sobre minha realidade e verdade que Silent Hill 2: sobre patriarcas que se elegem árbitro e algoz. Nenhum jogo é melhor lembrete do quão sortudo sou de não ter sido jogado ao fogo, mas simultaneamente de como ainda sou afetado pelo calor das brasas. Ele ressignificou minhas preconcepções e expectativas e categoricamente melhorou o modo como trato outras pessoas e eu próprio. Sou incapaz de exagerar o potencial desse jogo para sensibilização e crescimento.

Por favor, jogue. Sua vida, e a de todos das quais você faz parte, melhorará.

part of growing up is learning to disregard the opinions of gaming youtubers and to actually form your own

crazily enough, a bad translation should not define how a game is percieved, and in an age of romhacking and text insertions, you'd think that people would've caught on by now that maybe, just maybe, an nes game with countless articles going over the numerous translation errors and unintelligable text would have more people wondering what it would be like to play in its native language. but alas, despite being a game cut from the same cloth as the many pioneers of games as we know them today, simon's quest is usually only met with vitriol.

as good as symphony of the night is, and as much influence it had on the metroidvania genre, to disregard this game and claim that sotn is entirely what constitutes for the "vania" part of "metroidvania" instead is both dismissive and disingenuous. i'm not saying sotn isn't part of the vania in metroidvania, because sotn played a huge part in popularising and refining the formula - what i am saying is that sotn and countless other games in turn inspired directly by it likely wouldn't exist without castlevania 2. It, the first metroid, and the first legend of zelda (which i admittedly have more qualms with) all tackled non-linearity while console gaming was still in its hayday, all to mixed degrees of success, and quite frankly castlevania 2 stands on top as my preferred game. at least, it stands on top when the text actually makes sense. yes the translation sucks, yes "laurels in your soup" and "don't look into the death star" and all that, but if you're going to acknowledge that this game's translation is bad then you're doing it a disservice by playing it with that bad translation and judging it based on that when better, easily accessible alternatives exist.

the control scheme is still classic castlevania with your stiff jumps and knockback and it still feels good to just walk around and whip things. subweapons are definitely lacking though and you're required to throw holy water down a LOT in order to reveal illusorary blocks in the floor and secrets in the walls (the latter being well telegraphed and opting to throw water at each wall you can really doesn't consume too much time anyway) and while i'd be hard pressed to say it plays better than the other nes castlevanias, I can still pretty comfortably say that simon's quest is simply just a good game. it's certainly not as polished as the other two but it tried something new and didn't play it safe, and for that it helped form an entire genre. I respect it. it also had me bringing up a word document to note down all of the text because almost 90% of the text in this game is some kind of clue on what to do next, and I think the clues that you find in walls don't reappear either, which is kind of an issue. so that's something i definitely recommend doing.

here's the patch I used, it's pretty customisable and includes some nice qol additions that you can toggle on and off to get a more vanilla experience if you'd prefer. chief among these additions are the ingame map (which is copied 1-1 from the japanese manual) and a clue browser that saves having to manually note things down. I personally just enabled the retranslation (and kept the day-night transition text the same, mistranslation or no "what a horrible night to have a curse" will always be iconic, glad that's an option). The website is in finnish by default but there's language options as soon as you open it. Oh yeah, this thing is a whole project - it covers translations of the game in finnish, english, french, spanish and filipino. The author also has a page dedicated to dissecting the differences between the original official localization, the japanese script, and their own translations with their own reasoning provided. definitely worth checking out. one major word of warning though: there seems to be a bug where if you press right while hovering over any of the items in the upper half of your inventory, it just. wipes the lower half. scrolling loops around if you keep pressing left though, so it's not a huge issue. might be a good idea to have rewind or a savestate to go back to.

also if we're gonna make avgn's opinions the be-all end-all of retro gaming takes can we also admit that zelda 2 is actually good HE SAID ZELDA 2 WAS GOOD GUYS

Not trying to diss on the Steam version or anything I just think that downloading this as a .zip file from a not-completely-trustworthy site is the best way to experience it.

Feels like taking a peek into the past. The internet as an unknown, vast place full of mysteries. Malware as a cursed unfinished demo game. Like a kid who downloaded a file with things they weren't meant to see.

Having it on Steam and so many information about it breaks the illusion of course, but also adds some more flavor to it. Like revisiting a solved mystery, a completed ARG.

So simple and humble in execution yet so effective in its storytelling. It's silly, but it knows it and doesn't let it get to it, it doesn't go overtly "edgy" in hopes of coming off as a more than it is besides the usual horror tropes pastiche. Better than any meta-horror game that came after it (Daniel Mullins has been trying to make this game for almost 10 years after Undertale released). The closest we'll ever be to an effective creepypasta game.

Only big complaint is the achievements being required to get the ending. At first I hated it because it broke the pace and immersion, but I actually think having to get a "key" to access the heart of the ghost haunting your computer makes sense. It's just the fact that it's completely non-cryptic and on the nose that completely breaks the atmosphere. You're telling me the ghost who messes with my wallpaper and files to toy with me is just telling me to the face the way to get out of this? Silly stuff, the ending more than makes up for it tho. There's no mystery to solve, no story to dig, you'll probably never know what it was that you downloaded. So melancholic, yet so peaceful.

This is by no means a proper postmortem of the "car combat" genre, but a recent viewer e-mail on The Jeff Gerstmann Show got me thinking about Twisted Metal and and the near total abandonment of the type of gameplay it innovated. To hear Gerstmann explain it, the advent of more sophisticated control schemes and adoption of first person shooters on console contributed to an erosion of interest in car combat. He points to the need to gas and brake to simulate the fluidity of movement FPS games required as being a problem later solved by analog controls, though some single-analog games still employ a similar control style, like KISS Psycho Circus, a classic! I see the logic here. Twisted Metal was the only franchise with legs, and the rapid pace of change game design was undergoing in the mid-to-late 90s meant a lot of genres phased in and out of existence.

I decided to put together a committee to further investigate the demise of the genre, comprised of my friends Larry Davis, TransWitchSammy, and Appreciations. When asked what they thought of Twisted Metal and what contributed to the withering of the genre, the most interesting answer came from Appreciations, who posited that games like Grand Theft Auto III incorporated some staples of car combat into larger and more ambitious experiences, which further lessened the need for more bespoke vehicle-based brawling. Satisfied, I pressed two of the big red buttons on my console and dropped Larry and Sammy into a subterranean furnace located beneath the conference room. Congratulations on your promotion, Appreciations...

This is a long walk to say I don't really know what the hell happened, because car combat was a genre that I never really cared for. Not because I have some long-standing beef dating back to the 90s, but because it just never interested me. It's always existed in the periphery. I played maybe 15 minutes of the original Twisted Metal on a classmate's PS1 which he brought to school, and it's funny to think back to that when Pokemon in all shapes and form was explicitly banned from campus. Beyond that, it's been a couple minutes here and there while testing ISO sets and demo discs over the year.

Two full hours with Twisted Metal Black is the most I've ever spent with one of these games in a single sitting, and I don't think I like it very much. True to the clip I linked, movement was my most immediate problem. Driving around feels fine, but getting your shots to line up is finicky, resulting in an over-reliance on homing missiles that often whiff against uneven terrain, which (while satisfying to get air off of) aren't conducive to getting a bead on your opponents. I frequently found myself the recipient of off-screen barrages that chewed through my health before I could flip a U-turn, and usually the attacking car would whizz by before I could line myself up to retaliate. Annoying.

After being assured by Larry that Black is just a hard game, I bumped the difficulty down and played a couple more levels only to find they still took an agonizing amount of time to clear and that I wasn't having much fun. Maye this is one of the worst Twisted Metal games, a series low point (it has a 3.5 average on here, so I'm guessing that's not the case), but I don't rightfully know because I've never given any of these much attention. I don't even know why I picked Black other than vague memories of it being billed at the time as a more mature Twisted Metal experience, one that had a bit of a harder edge. I like the cover, too.

I'm sure someone will tell me to play Vigilante 8 or I will "go in the contraption again," but guess what? I outfitted my 2003 Toyota Avalon with sidewinder missiles, and if you think I'm going back in there you got another thing co-- wait, the trigger isn't engaging oh NO

Um jogo FENOMENAL e com a melhor gameplay dos jogos da SuperGiant - porém não com a melhor história.

Mas não me levem a mal ao dizer isso da história. A construção de mundo adaptada da mitologia grega, os designs dos personagens e a personalidade deles são MAGISTRAIS! Algo óbvio, afinal estamos falando da SuperGiant. No entanto o peso sentimental da história do Hades, assim como a emoção de sua conclusão, é bem menor em comparação aos jogos anteriores da empresa - algo compreensível, visto o estilo do jogo. Encaixar uma história profunda em um roguelite de alta rejogabilidade onde o jogador está preso ao loop de sempre passar pelos mesmos cenários é algo deveras complexo, e a solução de vincular e enriquecer esse storytelling por diálogos advindos das diferentes bênçãos (itens de upgrade de habilidades do jogo) foi genial, ao dizer o mínimo. Isso fez com que a história de Hades, mesmo que não ganhando no aspecto de conclusão narrativa, ganhasse na gigantesca teia de diálogos que vão se interconectando para desenrolar não apenas o storytelling mas também todos os pormenores de construção de mundo, relacionamentos, mistérios, etc, etc.
Assim podemos dizer que a história de Hades é uma gigantesca teia conectada por diversos diálogos fragmentados que o jogador encontra ao coletar bênçãos e conversar com personagens no HUB do jogo. Essa teia, porém, não é perfeita e, dependendo do quanto o jogador consegue avançar nas runs do jogo, elas vão começando a tropeçar em si mesmas por conta da quantidade de diálogos que o jogador desbloqueia em suas progressões - mas isso é o de menos, afinal os diálogos vão sendo ditos com o tempo e há diálogos com prioridade sobre outros, dependendo da situação de jogo que foi alcançada.

Quanto a parte artística, eu faço as palavras dos elogios de todas as outras reviews as minhas, afinal estamos falando da SuperGiant, então é claro que essa parte é indiscutivelmente gloriosa - sejam os cenários, as artes, os designs, as músicas, tudo!

A gameplay - e agora entrando numa parte interessante - é um belíssimo carnaval. Como todo bom roguelite, vc vai ser espancado igual uma desgraça no começo mas, independente da dificuldade, vc vai aprendendo o moveset de cada inimigo e boss e vai conseguindo perseverar mesmo com builds fracas. As bênçãos e recompensas do jogo são DIVERSAS e enriquecem muito o fator de rejogabilidade, ainda mais somados às diferentes armas (que requerem táticas de jogo diferentes) e aos desbloqueios e upgrades presente no HUB.
Todas as mecânicas são fluidas, porém não infalíveis, e é aí que entram os dois maiores problemas do jogo que senti durante minha gameplay: O primeiro é quanto a hitbox dos obstáculos dos cenários, que não possuem suavizações e isso faz com que, dando dash, vc enganche e tudo quanto é tipo de coisa (mesmo que seja uma reles pontinha de cenário) e a segunda é quanto a queda de FPS's que ocorre ao forçar a barra dentro do jogo. Por "forçar a barra" eu quero dizer "ficar atacando vários inimigos sem parar, dando dashs constantes e pichando a tela com os efeitos especiais das bênçãos", o que não é um cenário incomum de ocorrer no jogo, ainda mais jogando igual um troglodita maníaco que só sai espancando tudo e todos pelo caminho, dando dashs sem parar (que é a forma que eu jogo...), e claro que esses dois problemas podem e vão ferrar suas runs fazendo vc tomar danos gratuitos por ficar preso em alguma hitbox ao tentar desviar e/ou não desviar a tempo pois a queda de FPS atrasou o tempo de resposta do dash que vc queria dar. São problemas consideráveis e bastante irritantes quando ocorrem, mas nem de longe inviabilizam a gameplay em seu todo, claro.

Assim, resumindo a festa: Hades, tal qual todos os jogos da SuperGiant, não decepciona nem um pouco - muito ao contrário, ele te prende e te anima de uma maneira sem igual!
E algo importante de mencionar, também, é quanto a grande quantidade de conteúdos pós-game do jogo, que, na minha experiência, então estendendo minha gameplay para além do dobro do tempo que levei para zerar (e não estou nem perto de completar tudo).
Então, se você preza história, narrativa, artes e músicas incríveis, alta rejogabilidade e uma gameplay rápida, dinâmica e fluida, meu amigo, pode ter certeza que Hades vai ser um prato cheio para você!

Easily one among the most gorgeous video games that I've ever played, and where it really shines, Ecco’s animations are fluid and there’s some very visually striking elements in the game : the early coral reefs, the Hanging Waters level, alien design, some of the architecture in Shrine of Controversy and Atlantis Lost levels.

The music is an absolute delight to listen to, the biggest pro of the game. It's soft, light, and relaxing, almost dreamlike, it does shifts into an upbeat, suspenseful theme in dangerous areas on a whim that can be at times jarring because of the transition, but nonetheless enhanced the experience immensely.

In many of the game’s levels, it’s often unclear what your objectives are and where you’re supposed to go, there are crystals you can interact with that give you hints, but unfortunately, these hints are extremely vague and in the form of riddles in most cases. The inherent fear of hostile sharks and other creatures, the big labyrinthine areas, navigating skyborne water tracks with some of the most unforgiving, notoriously, frustrating sections to play, for some reason hit a strange chord with me, instead of pulling my hair at the grievance the game caused me, the aesthetics and sheer novelty of the game made me continue.

All in all Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future is a game full of contradictions; describing it to a anyone, you'll likely find yourself using the word "but" for it. It's a highly innovative game that explores ideas few others have attempted, however, many of these innovations present challenges that can be frustrating and detrimental rather than enjoyable features that strengthen its gameplay.

Content Warning for Attempted Suicide, Terminal Illness, Death, and Chronic Illness

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It’s September 2011 and I’m seventeen years old when I try to kill myself. There are two ponds near my parent’s house. It’s like 4 AM. I like to be out this early. Nobody else is awake, and they won’t be for a while. It’s like the whole world belongs to me. I wander around between the neighborhoods, along the roads, and in the fields. In ten years these will be fresh real estate properties but today they’re still farmland. This hour and a half is the only time the anxiety quells. The real world never knows peace. There’s a dread that accompanies every action and every moment; living in that house, going to school, hanging out with my friends (are they my friends? They are but I won’t be able to understand that until I’m healthier). I’ll always have to go back home. I’ll never be able to articulate what’s happening to me. The pressure is too intense. I don’t plan it, but, the pond is right there, and it’s deep enough, and early enough that no one will hear me. Not having a plan is what saves my life. Turns out impromptu self-drownings are difficult to pull off when the water is still and not THAT deep. So, it doesn’t work, and I’m soaked, and grateful to get home and hide the evidence before my parents wake up, but I don’t feel BETTER. I feel despair, still. There’s no way out. I wish I could just climb up the stairwell, out of this. I wish I had the clarity to understand what was wrong with me.

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What do you even say about Silent Hill 2? To say that it’s one of the best video games ever made feels simultaneously obvious and like I’m underselling it, right? Fuckin, uhhhh, Resident Evil 2 is one of the best video games ever made. Ace Attorney 3 is one of the best games ever made. Come on! When we see people talk about old games that they like they’ll so often say stuff like “it holds up really well for its age” or some similar comment that implies that progress is the same as quality. This is, of course, nonsense. I wouldn’t say video games are better as a medium in 2021 than they were in 2001; on the whole and in the mainstream I would say they’re demonstrably worse in almost every way – how they look, how they sound, how they feel. Silent Hill 2 was a AAA game. What do we get now instead? Far Cry 6? The fuckin, THE MEDIUM? We’ve lost everything in pursuit of bad lighting and looking like a mediocre episode of whatever was popular on HBO three years ago. Silent Hill 2 looks great and sounds great and fuck you it plays great too it feels good and even the puzzles are MOSTLY FINE. MOSTLY. Listen I’m saying this is the all time best video game I’m not saying it fuckin ended world hunger.

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It’s October 2012, I’m nineteen and I’m sitting in a business communications class when I get the text confirmation that Sam’s brain tumor is back, again. It’s not the first time, and I know that there’s nothing left to do, he’s going to die. It’s fast, untreated. He’s one of my best friends, and the only person I know from home who went to the same college as me, but we live really far apart on a big urban campus and I haven’t seen him as much as I’d have liked to. Now he’s gonna spend the rest of his time with his family back home. When I see him next it’s at a hometown charity event for his family in December. He’s unrecognizable physically, and he can’t speak. The event is at our old catholic elementary school, in the gym, where in the years since we graduated they’ve painted a giant tiger on the wall. It’s the school mascot. I feel incredibly awkward around him and spend most of the time away with our other friends. I only speak to him briefly, and when I do it’s a stupid joke about the tiger mural. These will be my last words to him. I do know this will be the case, I think. Later that month I’ll be one of his pallbearers. I spend a lot of time angry and ashamed of myself for not being better to him, not knowing how to act or what to say. I’m about to drop out of school for reasons financial and related to my mental health.

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So what DO you say about Silent Hill 2? That it’s a masterpiece? That it’s the most well-conceived and executed video game ever made? That every detail of it dovetails into every other in a legitimately perfect cocktail story, presentation, and play? That the performances, cinematography, soundscape, all of it are untouchably top of their class? That when Mary reads the letter at the end I WEEP because it’s one of the best pieces of acting I’ve ever heard? That if I ever meet Troy Baker it’s ON SIGHT? These things are all true. We all know it. Everybody knows this. It’s Silent Hill 2.

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It’s August 2019, I’m twenty-five and I’ve just managed to graduate college in time to move to a new city with my partner as she enters her third year of medical school. That’s the year they kick you out of the classroom and you start going to the hospitals to do your real hands-on training month to month. I’m job hunting unsuccessfully and we’re living exclusively off her loans, when what seems at first like a pulled lower back muscle becomes a fruitless early morning ER trip (five hours, no results, not seen by a doctor) becomes an inability to get out of bed becomes a forced leave of absence. Without a diagnosis she can’t get disability accommodations. While on a leave of absence we can’t have her loans, and in fact we have to pay them back. We’re getting desperate, thousands of dollars in debt, and I take the first soul sucking job I can find. It takes almost a full year of visits to increasingly specialized physicians but eventually my partner is diagnosed with non radiographic axial spondyloarthritis, an extremely rare condition that culminates in the fusion of the spinal column. We can treat the pain, sort of, but it’s only a matter of time until it’s likely to evolve into a more serious condition, she’ll never have the strength or stamina she had before, and the treatment options are expensive and difficult. Her diagnosis doesn’t even officially exist as a recognized condition that people can have until September 2020.

Suddenly I am a caretaker and everything is different now. Obviously our mood is stressed from the financial dangers, but she’s in pain, terrible pain, constantly for months. She can’t sleep, she can’t eat. There’s nothing I can do. It’s exhausting to live like that. She’s depressed. On good days we try to walk outside but good days are few and far between, and grow fewer over time, and her body makes her pay for the walks. She’s on drugs, a lot of them. Do they help? It’s unclear. They don’t make her feel BETTER. Nobody knows what’s wrong with her. Her school thinks she’s faking, they’re trying to concoct ways to get her kicked out. She wants to die. It breaks my heart. She’s everything to me, all that there is. She has literally saved my life. And I can’t help her. But it’s exhausting for me too. I don’t want to admit this, not even privately, to myself. It is hard to be the person who is leaned on, especially when the person you love can’t give anything back. I’m tired. I’m not angry, and I don’t think I’m resentful. But I’m tired. I feel shame for thinking about it, for acknowledging it. I know it’s silly to feel the shame but it’s there. I do find a job eventually, thankfully, but it’s still a long time before we get a diagnosis, much less an effective treatment. Even after things settle somewhat, it’s a hard year. And there are hard times to come.

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Ever since I first played it as a teen, Silent Hill 2 is a game that has haunted me through life, like a memory. It struck a deep chord with me when I was too young for that to be fair, too young to identify why I could relate to these people and their ghosts. I used to think this was a special relationship that I had with the game, the way you kind of want to think you have these when you’re younger, but the older I get the more I recognize this as part of growing up. Silent Hill 2 doesn’t resonate with me because I’ve encountered situations in life that closely mirror that of the protagonist. I mean, Angela’s story resonates deeply with me despite little overlap in the specifics of our family traumas. Silent Hill 2 touches me – and most of us – so deeply, because it has such a keen understanding of what it feels like to be Going Through It. It is a game that knows what it is to grieve, to despair, to soak in the fog, and also, maybe, to feel a catharsis, if you’re lucky, and you do the work.

I’ve been Angela, parts of her. I’ve been Laura too. I’ve had more James in me than I would prefer. I suspect all of us have these people, these feelings in us, to some degree or another. We collect them as we get older. That’s just part of it. Silent Hill 2 isn’t a happy game, but it’s one that Gets It, and lets us explore those spaces in a safe and cathartic way. It does this about as well as any piece of media I’ve encountered, on top of being so excellent at all the cinematic and video game stuff. But that’s really what makes it what it is. The empathy, and the honesty. I think it’s beautiful.