must things be "good?" is it not enough to have consumed it during a weirdly vulnerable and foundational time in one's youth and promptly have it set a precedent for what one seeks out in other works of fiction going forward?

i'm not sure if katawa shoujo is entirely worth reading in this day and age; it is in almost every way a product of its time and place. its popularity was most likely spurned by a bunch of young dudes from /v/ expecting a funny little game with crass humor and walking away from it having genuinely felt something from a piece of media from the first time. again, time and place — in today's era of brutal honesty about commitment to fiction and fandoms wearing their investment in their favorite stories proudly on their sleeves, it may seem quaint at best and downright questionable at worst. but back in 2012 when the abstract concept of "feels" was all a lot of people really had to describe what this game and many other period-piece jp media had done to them, it was something truly special.

in many ways, it still is — at least to me. rin was my first favorite-ever character and probably my first hint that i was autistic was how much i related to her route at the tender age of 14. it set a precedent going forward for my investment in character writing above all else in fiction, and i really can't imagine where i would be without it.

minor spoilers ahead

i've always despised the reputation of this game, many people call it a 'predictive masterpiece" and similar other things when it's quite far from the truth, everything related to MEMES in this game is stuff that was already familiar to many people by the time this game released, and many other games came out before it and tackled similar postmodernism themes (The Silver Case, Deus Ex, etc).

what IS impressive however is HOW this game executes its themes, and i think it's one of the most fascinating things ever. it fully takes advantage of its medium and its role as a sequel and delivers powerful scenes and plotpoints that would never really work in any other game.

with that being said, these aren't really my reasons for loving this game as much as i do. it's fascinating stuff for sure but what made me really adore this game so much is the identity aspect of the game.

games about identity are always fascinating to me and appeal to my brain as a trans person, they can be healing and validating, and it's done so brilliantly here with Raiden, the ending was probably the hardest i ever sobbed at anything ever and Raiden getting such a happy ending after EVERYTHING that happened in his life and during the game is beautiful as fuck and makes for one of the most powerful stories i've ever seen.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game about many things, a lot of people to this day keep misinterpreting it by calling the patriots right, and it also hurts that that's all what people talk about whenever someone mentions the game and never mention the identity stuff ever. but it's also understandable that not that many people would care about it so it's whatever.

so what am i trying to say from all of this? well mainly i just hope people would stop saying "oh my god this game predicted social media" whenever it comes up for discussion and appreciate what it's actually trying to say, because it's really not that at all.

This work is too fucked, its problematic pain points harder to swallow over time for me, but I cannot reconcile that discomfort when this was a very heartfelt comfy experience during a more formative time in my life. So in some ways I avoid and reject that, but one thing I feel righteous in rejecting is the notion of a work being too 'online' to experience, as if something that reminds you of the too-many-hours you spent on twitter or whatever is a not-very-valid perspective. We're in an era of people who are going to spend further or similar time looking through the internet in a way that fragments their personality into ways that become a part of what they are and having that be called "too online, feels like twitter/reddit/etc." is honestly a bit frustrating for me! I guess it's cuz i'm too online, I suppose.

Anyways Jill is me that's what I'm getting at

Before you ask no I didn't finish the game and to be honest I don't know when I will. I have a lot of other shit on my plate and spending hours upon hours on the same game doesn't really sound all that fun, I'll finish the game at some point just not right now.

Now with that being said, HOOOWW BOY THIS GAME SLAPS. Imagine the fast-paced gameplay of a roguelike like Binding of Isaac or Hades, but mix it in with a bullet-hell and Lovecraftian imagery you have one of the most challenging games for next-gen systems, and the best part is I don't even feel remorse for spending 70 dollars on it.

Metroid Prime 2 was really good, I feel like it refined and smoothed out a lot of what Prime 1 was trying to do. Although I'm more of a fan of Prime 1's completely interconnected world (and by extension the Zebes games), I liked the map design of Prime 2 a little more. Temple Grounds and Agon Wastes were kind of on the bland side, the former being a little more forgivable since it was essentially a highway between areas, but the rest of the game more than made up for it. Torvus Bog and Sanctuary Fortress are some of the best areas in the franchise (that I've played thus far), and were a delight to explore.

The atmosphere was good, but I did feel it was a little all over the place. It did lean into the horror ambience more than probably any other game in the series (was not expecting to see dead human bodies hanging from the ceilings of some rooms in a Nintendo game lol), but there wasn't much feeling of isolation that you usually get in a Metroid game - you meet a living, talking NPC almost immediately (although the only one), but the world did feel more civilized even so, and less alien. Enemy and boss design was not great at all, continuing the Prime tradition from the first game, and sometimes you had to backtrack to a completely different area to get an item without any prompt to do so (hint system was off), especially when you've forgotten at that point you could open doors in that part of the map.

Still though, best game in the series next to Super, I loved it a lot.