Dismembering bodies, dismembering reality.

What i liked most from the first Nier was Taro's ability to play with what constitutes a being, and how bodies are transformed several times taking different forms. He has the ability to twist his stories and his characters, so that the confusion that arises from all the endings and new perspectives is not only to show the futility of conflict, but that the real conflict is upon our own bodies.

Nier Automata takes it even further. The only bodies that remain in the world are machine lifeforms. They can be replaced with spareparts, the androids are different from alien machines, but machines can fuse and give birth to androids, and androids are formed with machines' nucleus, and then everyone fights each other, while searching for a human soul.

They build community, they are greedy, they need connection, they need love, they need solitude. They feel. And their bodies keep twisting and turning and breaking and reconstructing and deconstructing and nothing remains the same anymore, because our bodies are in constant death and rebirth as time passes, and we meet new people and they change us and we change them in return. Such is the pain and grace of living.

For the first half, Humanity is an alright puzzle game. It falls into many irregular puzzle conventions of my personal dislike, focusing on introducing a large number of mechanics instead of being smart with the available tools, yet it still reaches some very high points of wit, even with the ideas that made me raise my eyebrow at first glance.

At the half of the game, the main surprise is the genre shift. The principal difference between the stealth, strategy, action, platformer or whatever else new facets of this second half is that, contrary to the first one, the quality ranges from bad to very bad. The principles established to make a good puzzle game do not cover enough range to go further from a surface recognition of the other genres. Even the genre shift idea itself seems less smart than the game thinks when noticing that the radical change comes from a single power up introduction. The first step to turn a Mario game into a shooter is giving him a gun.

This shift could be taken at least from its symbolic significance (hard thing to do considering the detachment that the narrative provokes by seeming more concerned with pretending to care about the big questions rather than caring about really anything), if it wasn't because of the occasional puzzle comebacks and, honestly, no idea how rejecting the puzzle nature or branching from it should be a positive read on humanity’s capacity instead of a signal of its incapacity.

To the puzzle that was the lack of ideas halfway through the journey, the proposed solution was to break all rules, forgetting why they existed, mistaking becoming a fragile shifting shadow of greater ones with an alternative way to find its own identity. The solution was to stop right there.

Here’s an idea: no more videogame ‘playgrounds’ set in developing nations. No, not even fictional ones. What ever emerges but colonialist mayhem?

How many sandboxes do we need? What is detail and authenticity worth if it’s all just local color? If it’s all serving the gun-fucking, world-skimming, kitchen-sinking cynicism of a videogame sequel?

When I lived in China, I met so many Westerners with the playground attitude: this is my place to have fun, to chase pleasure, to escape. No one knows me here, and no one is real. I don’t give a fuck. And I don’t have to pretend.

Initially, the game has no bad ideas at all. The Tartarus as the main (and almost only) dungeon being randomized gives it a sense of unknown in every journey, with even some team management elements in order to explore each floor in different ways. Speaking of teammates, the decision to not be able to control them directly gives the combat a fresh strategic view. Equally refreshing, the life simulation manages to convey its adolescent fantasy by mixing both mundane and supernatural worlds. Even the social links having direct effect and thus forcing you to relate with as many people as possible and to keep them happy whenever you encounter them is a right decision. True, it can lead to some condescending behavior towards everyone because of convenience, but it can also be understood as a way to understand each person.

And at the premises is where Persona 3 ends. The dungeon is soon revealed as poorly followed in thought. The floor generation is incredibly samey, and there is never a sense of getting lost (or a need to spread the companions around) because of using such a limited pool of assets in incredibly small sized floors. It fails both as a hassle to progress and as an adventuring device. The shadow enemies, being exactly the same during the whole game and the only enemy to encounter, are easy to observe and evade from the very beginning. The enemies happen to be so predictable that not only escalating to the next Tartarus checkpoint while avoiding combat or giving a back strike to start with an advantage is mindless, there is no trouble in doing both even with emulator turbo enabled.

Thankfully, you can progress through Tartarus at your own pace, but even if you defeat the bosses and reach the story blocked checkpoint, the game incentivizes you to go back and grind. It will be your only source of experience, money and personas to begin with. The worst part is noticing that the randomness of the dungeon that was supposed to make it intimidating ends up acting as a pseudogacha where to celebrate the encountering of rare chests and drops. And yes, your characters fatigue after a number of fights, but instead of making this as a threat, it is another incentive to keep grinding the dungeon while everyone is capable of combat (and the most interesting implications of this, getting blocked because of mismanagement, is erased for your convenience at the end of the game).

The JRPG dungeon grinding systems are the best part of the game.

The life simulation suffers from a similar need to press the turbo button because of its babyfied copy of Tokimeki Memorial being shallow, elongated, devoid of friction and with no interesting real choices to make (similarly, Tokimeki also had an implicit comment on time being wasted on improving oneself while life went away, it helped to get the point across that three years of high school went away in 5 hours at most in opposition to less than one year ending after 60+ hours). I could forgive this and other details like the weird push for romantic connotations with every female character, the friendship hilariously disappearing whenever the social link is completed (when the bond is unbreakable, according to the game own words) or the aforementioned convenient condescending approach to dialogue options if the stories would be any good. They start with an attempt of being lighthearted, and noticing how boring they are halfway through, they usually throw some half-baked drama that makes Inazuma Eleven secret characters' backstories look like Shakespearian tragedies.

Even though it is appreciated that the game main plot is rather calm to just enjoy the day to day (something that, as already said, fails to do so), the narrative obstacles in the smaller stories are just a teaser of the ineptitude of the whole game. The main group, despite living in the same residence and going to the same school, seems afraid to spend time together that is not relevant to the main plot. It is so clearly disinterested in making a group dynamic that up until the very end of the game it will be usual to approach one of your team members at night for a casual talk and hear a tutorial prompt instead. I have to admit that the overall insipidness of everyone helps to look at the dog the same as any other team member, at least.

The more “serious” story beats may be the worst part. Just to exemplify, the first arc of the story that wants to carry some weight deals with a group of girls bullying one of their classmates. As obvious as it is at this point, Persona 3 does not care in any human way about neither life in general nor in teenage life in particular, so the bully is forgiven and corrected after her life is saved by the bullied and the story is concluded, they are now inseparable friends even. This very same ineptitude could be discussed with every dramatic driven story beat, save perhaps for the admittedly okayish ending (talking about The Journey here, I prefer to ignore the whole existence of The Answer in every sense).

As much as Persona 3 ends up wanting to talk about the importance and impact of death and its worries or where our world is going to (in quite a conservative mindset where marriage and divorce rates are relevantly present in the news for instance), its attempt cannot be taken seriously at such a glaring misunderstanding of life itself.

What makes a good shoot em up? It is easy to focus on unique quirks and tricks from each title and start justifying from there. It is not without reason, at least in Cave case, since these ideas are usually well thought out to be praised on their own. But those don’t make a good shooting game. Not fundamentally.

Mushihimesama strips away from everything. Three lives, three bombs, five levels. Unexplainable numbers that keep appearing in the genre again and again. Does the number three come so far back from the very first arcades? Why five levels instead of the eight, like the number of bits, of Mario? Arcane conditions we will never understand that, regardless, seem indispensable to perform the ritual with success.

Numbers are essential in games, they are the unavoidable abstraction that keeps coming back again and again, a whole world, its looks, its movements, can be explained in numbers. Bullet hells is one of the genres where numbers matter the most. These numbers, the important ones, cannot be seen. The old school math, the one where to measure distance you don’t bring up a formula but make a throw and see how right you were. But in reverse. You see hundreds, thousands of dots on the screen and draw the mathematical graph in your mind to pray for your safe position. Because only a god can move your body safely in between hell. It is the reverse of ball sports, there are too many objectives to keep an eye on and your goal is to keep away from them. It is one versus the world at dodgeball.

Perhaps this is why Mushihimesama uses insects, instead of the most common military/mecha premises. Somehow primitive, seen every day in everyone's life since humanity exists. Somehow inexplicably alien. Undeniably instinctual. The bugs coordinate in their hivemind to act as one hell machine, and your study of their behavior begins moving your body without thinking, without looking at yourself anymore, just knowing that you are doing it right. With that same instinct, I know Mushihimesama is a great shooting game, and the reasons are still unclear.

What is found between the bullets is not death, but life.

Parece que la filosofía completista de Yoshi's Island engendró descendencia. Y yo que pensaba que su influencia había quedado relegada a las monedas rojas y poco más.

Wario Land 4 es un plataformas de exploración cuya exploración está sustentada por: nada. Uno no explora sus niveles en busca de áreas o caminos ocultos, ni de secretos, ni de recompensas que mejoren nuestro desempeño, ni tan siquiera por curiosidad genuina. Uno busca (se topa con) los ítems necesarios para terminar el nivel y abrir los siguientes, y si se sumerge del todo en la propuesta incluso el ítem opcional (para sacar el final bueno) y el máximo dinero posible (los puntos del juego, a efectos prácticos). O sea, que uno explora por puro y sucio completismo. No hay otra motivación para hacer lo que el juego te pide. Y como sus distintas áreas (amasijos de gimmicks variopintos con la ambientación de turno) no generan curiosidad ni existen recompensas secretas o valiosas, la exploración pierde todo su toque.

Cuando hablamos de videojuegos, la mayor parte de las veces no se trata tanto de lo que haces, sino de cómo se siente lo que haces. Por eso ha evolucionado tanto el "game feel" (que te sumerge, te hace sentir el peso y el tacto de las cosas) con el paso de los años. Y por eso, también, el contexto bajo el que se desarrolla cada acción cambia nuestra respuesta a ella. Explorar y encontrar algo tendrá un efecto u otro en el jugador en función de lo que el juego haga para contextualizar esa acción. Si el juego no genera curiosidad ni necesidad, todo ese buscar y encontrar se vuelve trabajo. Completitis.

Wario Land 4 es creativo en cada una de sus fases, ofreciendo un amplio abanico de ideas en lo referente al diseño de niveles a pequeña escala (enemigos, power-ups, obstáculos...), pero su defecto es de base, viene de raíz. Da igual toda esa creatividad y conciencia puestas en el diseño cuando la filosofía tras la que opera condiciona negativamente nuestra respuesta a él. Al menos Yoshi's Island tenía apuntar y lanzar huevos, proteger/recuperar a bebé Mario y uno de los saltos dobles más particulares de la historia de los videojuegos.

Que este sea el último de una saga que pasó por muchos formatos y estilos se me hace super lindo. Es como un todo en uno como despedida.
A "2012" lo siento como la propuesta mas empastillada y alocada de Jaffe y Campbell. Esta gente parece que nunca se les acaban las ideas y las formas, siempre tienen algo del que quieren sorprender.
En general Twisted Metal es raro, raro porque por más que conduzcas autos, estos nunca han tenido la intención de transmitir las físicas de uno (y tampoco lo necesita). Es su propio mundo, su propia mirada del combate a través de vehículos y el juego del espacio. Desde el primer juego siempre buscó esa idea de que persona y máquina pueden ser un mismo ente: El conductor tiene sus ideas, motivaciones e historia, el vehículo está para manifestarlo. E incluso en "2012" que esa conexión ya se rompió sigue estando esa faceta humana.
Me encanta eso de poder crear o recrear secuencias de acción que antes yo solo podía soñar. Literal hay combates que se sienten como escenas de Speed Racer.
En "2012" está todo lo que fue formando a la saga; carreteras, arenas, tecnicismo, táctica y libertad para sentirse todo-terreno de la forma mas literal posible, lugares específicos que no tendrían sentido que un auto pueda llegar ahi...pero puede.
El juego no es boludo, sabe bien lo que quiere ser: un Rock Savage Arcade.
(Me lo acabo de inventar)

It may look like a cheap move to compare Only Up to Getting Over It, in which I commit the error of asking for a game to be something that it isn't. I think it’s interesting to compare where it comes from (as the influence is clear, and even explicit) just as it would be fair to compare Getting Over It to Sexy Hiking.

What Bennet Foddy saw in its inspiration was that the seed towards new ways of conception could be found in places that embraced the unconventional, that didn't care, or even preferred, to be "janky", as it allowed for the freedom to create its own discourse without having to answer to any expectations. His mountain of "digital junk" in the form of collected free assets wasn't (just) an ironic commentary on how everything online is just waste nowadays (I know there are some connotations about it, but they are more bridges towards other more interesting ideas). What was valuable in its collage of a map was to see through all that worthless collection and carefully select and position everything in a way that found a new meaning. To appreciate the shape of a lamp through the brutality of the hammer by moving it as carefully as an artist's brush.

Only Up seems to accentuate the collage of jank. Now it's a longer, fully 3D map, the companion voice is automated and even the movement itself is, or looks like, a preset moveset from any modern 3D engine. In this movement that clings into collisions the same no matter the shape, the objects matter no more, a lamp is just another box of a different size. The length of the game is less defined by the particular focus on the detail and more on repeating mechanical and repetitive motions, continuing to believe in a tendency where quantity beats quality, or at least carefulness. Where Getting Over It found meaning in its assets by making them an integral part of its revolutionary new take on platformers, Only Up only gets it in an even weaker comment of modern waste and a shield of irony.

If you think that the movement is uninspired, the response is that it's a purposeful ironic comment. If the lack of ideas to make an interesting platformer keeps appearing again and again, it isn’t a signal that there was no purpose to make a good game, but another ironic comment.

Getting Over It found value in everything through the delicate strokes of the hammer that moved through its mountain. Only Up believes that nothing of value can be done, we are at a point of no return and movement cannot be conceived as something interesting, it's just a standard to be mocked about. The worst part is that the wave of infinite clones is already feeding its empty argument.

A veces pienso que los videojuegos sirven mucho para ponerse en el papel del otro, en especial de alguien cercano/a.
Mi relación con Yume Nikki es muy parecida a Silent Hill 3 pero este juego me resultó aún más impresionante. En esa misma edad, alguien a quien quiero mucho pasó por una etapa de aislamiento social terrible, de una forma extrema que no se lo imaginan. No quiero hablar en detalles por ella pero la cosa va que Yume Nikki supo hacerme una simulación de este estilo de vida y por qué alguien tomaría una decisión como esa, yo sinceramente ni loca haría algo como eso pero al menos puedo comprender mejor el contexto y los motivos que hay detrás. Creo que es mejor eso que ir prejuzgando y burlándose de quien "padece" esto.
Lo volví a jugar el año pasado y diosa querida mia, como pega.
Ojalá poder recordar mis sueños 😔

Tal vez se deba al hecho de que la naturaleza tan idealizada de este libro de colores para adultos contrasta mucho con mi propia experiencia de niño, pero hay cierto carácter impostado en las formas de este juego que me echa un poco para atrás. Lo peor de todo, en mi opinión, es que a las criaturas de esta historia no se les permite, ante todo, ser criaturas. En vez de jugar a explorar por tu cuenta, meterte en líos e ir un poco a la tuya por la isla del Secarral (ya sea para matar el aburrimiento o incordiar a tu familia), juegas el papel de una niña híper-idealizada que puede hacer literalmente cualquier cosa que se le proponga. A un juego con tan poca profundidad se le va la vida, en mi opinión, cuando intenta meterte muchas tareas a la vez. Al final, lo único que haces es recolectar y rellenar el cuaderno de las tareas, y no creo que eso esa lo que unas vacaciones deberían ser.

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Perhaps it's due to the fact that this adult coloring book contrasts so sharply with my own experience as a child that used to vacation in a similar place, but there's a fakeness to this work that turns me off. The clearest example I can offer is that the children of the game are never allowed to act as children. Instead of exploring on your own or getting into shenanigans because you want to kill boredom or annoy your family, you act as this highly idealized girl who's the best at everything they ask her to be. A game with so little depth loses me when it tries to cram so many tasks at once. In the end, all you're doing is collecting and filling in your notebook, which is not what vacations should be about.

in an era defined by the demand for remasters, remakes, updates of successful works, it'd be easy to insist you leave this one to the gamefreaks and just play the impeccable REmake instead

but you'd miss out. this game has an utterly unique look and feel -- rooms lit strangely and painted in sickly yellows, browns and greens, as if the house itself has gone rotten. rooms in REmake look like, well, rooms -- incredibly lit, atmospheric rooms. rooms in resident evil don't look like any room you've ever been in outside of a dream. the zombies shuffle and pivot jerkily and make funny noises, but that doesn't stop a lucky pair from stun-locking you to an instant death if you underestimate them. the music shifts between mocking you and terrifying you, because the fact that something's a bit camp wouldn't stop it from eating you alive

the first zombie scene hits hard in this game due to inconsistent details. the zombie's face looks more like just some old guy than a monster. the half-chewed head is so strangely clean, as if willing flesh was merely sucked from it, not chewed. go watch the FMV again, look at how oddly out-of-scale the zombie is compared to the tea room. guy looks like he'd be about 9 feet tall

absolutely play resident evil. the non-dual-shock director's cut has some cool features for returning players, but the original is just fine too.

Resources are now even more conveniently placed than they were. Before, if there was snow you'd find chilis nearby. Getting into a dangerous place? Here are some weapons. But now everything is there for you. This rock that previously was just lying around is now something you can use to build yourself a weapon. The bombs that were previously part of Link's device are now an item that only grows for Link to use it. Elemental items now are there to build elemental weapons. Arrows, berries... There are more than ever, because it's Link's only way to do things that he could previously do just fine. The world as a resource, not as a place.

The exaggerated gamification of everything that was previously in the game doesn't help either. You found a new place? Don't worry here's the name and your "New discovery" title so that you feel like you accomplished something. The two hundred wells across the map are no more than a different way to provide you with more resources. The minerals you find? They're another currency you exchange for more items. The poe, which are lost souls that you find in the underground? More currency to make your life easier there. The towers? They're not a a place to conquer anymore, but a chore: do this and that, talk to this person, get in from below. The batteries, wings, even the pots, are more items in your inventory that you get from a fucking gacha. It's the carrot and stick, clearer than ever. Congratulations, you are a donkey.

Sure, the new mechanics are great by themselves. But what can you do with Rewind that you could not with Stasis and some imagination? Did we really need Ascend in a game where you can climb virtually any surface? I get that being able to build giant mechs with auto-aim is super cool but how does that translate to the actual world and your interaction with it? When, realistically, are you going to need that and why? More importantly, how does the game give you the pieces needed to build that? Let me answer this last one: conveniently placed items in a clearly defined zone that you can recognise it from far away and a fucking gashapon. And only Link can make use of them. Where's the illusion of a world and the never-seen-before ecosystem? Which kind of place works like that? This is not a world anymore, it's a power fantasy. As imaginative as the new mechanics can be, they don't work in the context of the game because they were never necessary to begin with. They're the definition of over-engineering: trying to fix something that was never broken in order to justify the existence of a product that no one asked for and serves no purpose.

If you look at each element by itself it's hard to argue that they're not fun and entertaining because it's small little challenges and rewards that move you forward built on top of well made systems that have already been proven to work in a full game, but is that really enough? Everything in the game works in a vacuum because, in the end, everything is based well-thought, well-built mechanics on top of something that we found marvelous and fascinating when we first experienced this in 2017. But where's the charm? Where's the spark? Where's the wonder? Is there any real thought behind it other than mindlessly expanding what we previously saw? What's really new to experience or how do our new ways of interaction make Hyrule seem fascinating and challenging again?

Not only is it greatly flawed but, fundamentally, TOTK feels the same as BOTW. And thus it doesn't.