6 Yrs✓#
NoOne
6 Yrs✓#
I occasionally post things I write about video games in the discord server for HLTB, and it's horrible. If it gets too long it just uploads it as a txt file and any long sentences just roll off beyond the confines of the window. It's practically unreadable.
And then Resident Roach game me the idea of starting a blog, so here I am.
Outside of a record of my completions, I'll probably mainly write about video games (albeit not often), but if I do come across some other form of media that I want to write about, I'll post that here as well.
To anyone reading this, kindly bear with me. I'm not really good at this so yeah, thanks in advance for tolerating whatever I vomit out about things I experience.
And then Resident Roach game me the idea of starting a blog, so here I am.
Outside of a record of my completions, I'll probably mainly write about video games (albeit not often), but if I do come across some other form of media that I want to write about, I'll post that here as well.
To anyone reading this, kindly bear with me. I'm not really good at this so yeah, thanks in advance for tolerating whatever I vomit out about things I experience.
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
Kentucky Route Zero
SPOILER WARNING
(credit - knifeyspooney on steamgriddb)
.
.
.
I don’t really know where to begin with Kentucky Route Zero. I could talk about how classifying it as simply a game is disservice to its existence but that’s pretty obvious isn’t it? When a game presents you with a novel, a play, a conversation, an art exhibit and so much more. I could talk about what the presence of choices means here in a story where you can have no effect. But I’ll just stick to trying to express whatever I got from the story.
KRZ is a story about loss and acceptance, society. It is a game that looks at the world with the lens of time, with its characters refusing to accept the past and to reckon with the present, many trapped under the infinite weight of debt, and it is a story that grows into one about finding family, meaning, hope and home.
(It also presents the player with themselves. the choices I made when presented with a story that does not care about them, and how that leads to me inserting a bit of myself into all the characters perhaps led to me learning more about myself than the characters at times.)
America is being suffocated. It has lost control to large conglomerates. KRZ presents a society inhabiting a fantasy world with giant birds and surreal caves and mold-made supercomputers which is buckling under the pressures of capitalism. Here, a giant eagle carries away houses so that people can sleep, and there, rent is due, you’re about to miss a payment to a power company eating away at the bedrock that supports everything and everyone in a bid to completely take over. And there’s also the whisky company is coming for your soul.
"I don’t think you can win this game. It says on the box it’s a tragedy.", says one of the strangers in the basement of the gas station. They can't find their dice.
Conway has lost a lot. He’s losing the love of his life, his livelihood and alcohol. All he has left is a truck, some furniture, an address to deliver it to, and a dog. The people around him have lost just as much. Loss is mundane in and around the Zero. What Conway doesn’t realize is not only what he’s gained, but what it means to the people surrounding him. He finds companions, and a chance at a future after the delivery to the ever elusive 5 Dogwood Drive. His companions find in him various things, but mostly, they too find companionship. Ezra finds a new family, Junebug and Johnny find a way to settle down, and Shannon finds hope.
Conway is also just kind of… fascinating. There is this section in the first act where you can reach into the tank and get him shocked. “The water seems to tremble with life”, the text says, and I press on, beckoning him to reach deeper. “A tremor spreads from his elbow out to his fingertips”. An electric sign had fallen into the tank. I had no way of knowing. Conway did. He reached deeper anyways.
Debt is perhaps the most crucial part of this tragedy. We see its effects throughout the game. The gas station has its lights turned off. People live in museums and bartenders sell their customer's tabs to the whisky company. "All they want is debt! They feed on it! They put it in the whiskey!", screams the bartender in The Entertainment. Debt is their power. Debt is their product. The Entertainment was written by Lem Doolittle as a criticism of this system. We see him later as a whisky ghost in act III. He too has become their slave.
Debt feels like an omnipresent weapon with its hands at the throat of everyone, a weapon of the power company to help them control everything.
It affects everyone, and eventually it reaches Conway. It grabs his throat in Act II, as the doctor forces him to receive a medication with an 'unorthodox' payment plan (obviously just another way for the company to weaponize debt) and by the end of Act III, engulfs him entirely after he falls off the wagon and drinks at the Hard Times Distillery (also probably linked to the power company). The Hard Times Distillery is probably the most obvious display of debt as a weapon, filled with glowing skeletal ghosts, once people who fell into debt to the power company but simply could not pay it off. Conway's leg, too, glowed as they do after receiving the medicine. It was the first sign of the upcoming events.
Act IV begins with Conway having resigned himself to a future as their slave. By now, his arm too has become like his leg, a sign of debt and his enslaved future. He has seemingly moved on from the delivery, the goal that got him so far. The act works as a vehicle to explore the different characters. Just before the end, Conway passes on his truck to Shannon, perhaps aware of what's about to happen.
Act IV ends at a restaurant. Conway has just been taken (having fully become a whisky ghost) and the group are having a meal. On the table sits a perfectly preserved half eaten meal from years ago, serving as a cookbook for the chef, while her husband talks to fish about his paranoia and theft. Shannon leaves, and Christian country music starts playing and I cry.
They arrive at 5 Dogwood, without the person who was supposed to find the place.
"Alive or dead, a ghost is just what happens when a person is gone but still taking up space."
Act V begins after a flood. The town that roads go too (heard about in the 3rd interlude, “seen” in the 4th, will never recover) The Neighbors (Civilized horses that roam the streets freely) have died, and most people have left. Ghosts walk the town. You can interact with them to see glimpses of the past that someone hasn't let go of.
There lies 5 Dogwood Drive, an empty home, unoccupied, lacking walls.
A part of me feels great sadness, thinking about the fact that this might have been a gift from Lysette to Conway, a way for her to help him move on from the past, sending furniture to an empty house in hopes it becomes his home. He’ll never see it now, and its heartbreaking.
The group arrive in this town to see the empty home. They grow accustomed to the town. They grow accustomed to each other. Ezra accepts them as family, Junebug and Johnny find a place to settle down, and Shannon finds peace.
A funeral is held for the neighbors. It is a funeral for the town. It is a funeral for the ghosts we cannot forget. It is a funeral for Conway. It is a funeral for what could have been, and what was. It is an acknowledgement and acceptance of the past, and a look at the present. As Emily sings, the ghosts appear, greater in number than those still alive, and as the funeral ends, they disappear. It was a funeral to help the people move on from those of the past. Ghosts no longer occupy the spaces of those who have disappeared, alive or dead.
The town will rebuild, free from the Power Company, and the group have found home. And in the absence of debt, choice is returned to you. 5 Dogwood Drive has become a home, though not for the man it was perhaps meant for, but rather for whose lives he touched.
.
.
.
I'm not really sure how to end this. Do I talk about how I felt? Do I talk about how the game made me sit through a half-hour play ending with a whisky ghost jumpscare? Do I talk about how I conversed with a tour guide for a fictional river for an hour?
I don’t know how to end this, perhaps because I'm still playing KRZ, perhaps more so right now than I did while going through it. It's occupied a great amount of my thoughts for the past few days and will do so for many more days to come, and I'm all for it.
(I wonder what happened to the dog.)
SPOILER WARNING
(credit - knifeyspooney on steamgriddb).
.
.
I don’t really know where to begin with Kentucky Route Zero. I could talk about how classifying it as simply a game is disservice to its existence but that’s pretty obvious isn’t it? When a game presents you with a novel, a play, a conversation, an art exhibit and so much more. I could talk about what the presence of choices means here in a story where you can have no effect. But I’ll just stick to trying to express whatever I got from the story.
KRZ is a story about loss and acceptance, society. It is a game that looks at the world with the lens of time, with its characters refusing to accept the past and to reckon with the present, many trapped under the infinite weight of debt, and it is a story that grows into one about finding family, meaning, hope and home.
(It also presents the player with themselves. the choices I made when presented with a story that does not care about them, and how that leads to me inserting a bit of myself into all the characters perhaps led to me learning more about myself than the characters at times.)
America is being suffocated. It has lost control to large conglomerates. KRZ presents a society inhabiting a fantasy world with giant birds and surreal caves and mold-made supercomputers which is buckling under the pressures of capitalism. Here, a giant eagle carries away houses so that people can sleep, and there, rent is due, you’re about to miss a payment to a power company eating away at the bedrock that supports everything and everyone in a bid to completely take over. And there’s also the whisky company is coming for your soul.
"I don’t think you can win this game. It says on the box it’s a tragedy.", says one of the strangers in the basement of the gas station. They can't find their dice.
Conway has lost a lot. He’s losing the love of his life, his livelihood and alcohol. All he has left is a truck, some furniture, an address to deliver it to, and a dog. The people around him have lost just as much. Loss is mundane in and around the Zero. What Conway doesn’t realize is not only what he’s gained, but what it means to the people surrounding him. He finds companions, and a chance at a future after the delivery to the ever elusive 5 Dogwood Drive. His companions find in him various things, but mostly, they too find companionship. Ezra finds a new family, Junebug and Johnny find a way to settle down, and Shannon finds hope.
Conway is also just kind of… fascinating. There is this section in the first act where you can reach into the tank and get him shocked. “The water seems to tremble with life”, the text says, and I press on, beckoning him to reach deeper. “A tremor spreads from his elbow out to his fingertips”. An electric sign had fallen into the tank. I had no way of knowing. Conway did. He reached deeper anyways.
Debt is perhaps the most crucial part of this tragedy. We see its effects throughout the game. The gas station has its lights turned off. People live in museums and bartenders sell their customer's tabs to the whisky company. "All they want is debt! They feed on it! They put it in the whiskey!", screams the bartender in The Entertainment. Debt is their power. Debt is their product. The Entertainment was written by Lem Doolittle as a criticism of this system. We see him later as a whisky ghost in act III. He too has become their slave.
Debt feels like an omnipresent weapon with its hands at the throat of everyone, a weapon of the power company to help them control everything.
It affects everyone, and eventually it reaches Conway. It grabs his throat in Act II, as the doctor forces him to receive a medication with an 'unorthodox' payment plan (obviously just another way for the company to weaponize debt) and by the end of Act III, engulfs him entirely after he falls off the wagon and drinks at the Hard Times Distillery (also probably linked to the power company). The Hard Times Distillery is probably the most obvious display of debt as a weapon, filled with glowing skeletal ghosts, once people who fell into debt to the power company but simply could not pay it off. Conway's leg, too, glowed as they do after receiving the medicine. It was the first sign of the upcoming events.
Act IV begins with Conway having resigned himself to a future as their slave. By now, his arm too has become like his leg, a sign of debt and his enslaved future. He has seemingly moved on from the delivery, the goal that got him so far. The act works as a vehicle to explore the different characters. Just before the end, Conway passes on his truck to Shannon, perhaps aware of what's about to happen.
Act IV ends at a restaurant. Conway has just been taken (having fully become a whisky ghost) and the group are having a meal. On the table sits a perfectly preserved half eaten meal from years ago, serving as a cookbook for the chef, while her husband talks to fish about his paranoia and theft. Shannon leaves, and Christian country music starts playing and I cry.
They arrive at 5 Dogwood, without the person who was supposed to find the place.
"Alive or dead, a ghost is just what happens when a person is gone but still taking up space."
Act V begins after a flood. The town that roads go too (heard about in the 3rd interlude, “seen” in the 4th, will never recover) The Neighbors (Civilized horses that roam the streets freely) have died, and most people have left. Ghosts walk the town. You can interact with them to see glimpses of the past that someone hasn't let go of.
There lies 5 Dogwood Drive, an empty home, unoccupied, lacking walls.
A part of me feels great sadness, thinking about the fact that this might have been a gift from Lysette to Conway, a way for her to help him move on from the past, sending furniture to an empty house in hopes it becomes his home. He’ll never see it now, and its heartbreaking.
The group arrive in this town to see the empty home. They grow accustomed to the town. They grow accustomed to each other. Ezra accepts them as family, Junebug and Johnny find a place to settle down, and Shannon finds peace.
A funeral is held for the neighbors. It is a funeral for the town. It is a funeral for the ghosts we cannot forget. It is a funeral for Conway. It is a funeral for what could have been, and what was. It is an acknowledgement and acceptance of the past, and a look at the present. As Emily sings, the ghosts appear, greater in number than those still alive, and as the funeral ends, they disappear. It was a funeral to help the people move on from those of the past. Ghosts no longer occupy the spaces of those who have disappeared, alive or dead.
The town will rebuild, free from the Power Company, and the group have found home. And in the absence of debt, choice is returned to you. 5 Dogwood Drive has become a home, though not for the man it was perhaps meant for, but rather for whose lives he touched.
.
.
.
I'm not really sure how to end this. Do I talk about how I felt? Do I talk about how the game made me sit through a half-hour play ending with a whisky ghost jumpscare? Do I talk about how I conversed with a tour guide for a fictional river for an hour?
I don’t know how to end this, perhaps because I'm still playing KRZ, perhaps more so right now than I did while going through it. It's occupied a great amount of my thoughts for the past few days and will do so for many more days to come, and I'm all for it.
(I wonder what happened to the dog.)
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
I'm glad you enjoyed reading it!
Tbh, this was quite frustrating to write. It feels like i just cannot gather all the thoughts about this game swirling around in my head after playing KRZ (though I do feel like that's just a given with a game as... dense as KRZ is). At some point I wrote a 5-page document and scrapped it all because it was horrendous (even more so than what i posted). I do think that what i posted was my best attempt though.
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
Thanks, and yeah, those were definitely a big part of the stuff i felt while playing the game 😅
1 Yr
✓#
hellobion✓#
1 Yr✓#
✓#Great new blog to keep up with and like your writing style.
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
Thanks, I'm looking forward to writing more stuff too.
I'm not sure if i can always write like that (a large part of why i was able to was the game itself. KRZ felt like it was built to be discussed) but I'll try.
Also wondering if I should post about other forms of media on here, like books and shows and stuff. I probably will.
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
So, I realized that I never actually introduced myself.
Hey, I’m No One, a 17 y/o dude from India. I love practically all forms of media, from all sorts of genres. Games, Music, Animanga and Books are my favorite mediums though. I can play basically all genres of games except for RTS games. I generally stay away from multiplayer games though.
More importantly, I’m not really sure whether I just want to use this blog as a place for random stuff I write, or also as a record of the media I consume, but for now I’m gonna try out the latter. I don’t trust myself to do a weekly thing, so I’m gonna attempt a bi-weekly update for like 2 months to see whether or not I want to do this going forward.
Anyways, welcome to...
No One's record of the shit he's done: March 2024
[Completed]
1. Divekick (PS Vita) - 6/10
- Not really for me. I guess it's supposed to be a parody of fighting games, but a parody required the person interacting with it to be aware of and informed about the thing it’s parodying, which I most certainly am not when it comes to this genre
(credit - GangstaWaffle on steamgriddb)
_________________________________________________________________
2. Downwell (PC) - 9/10 +1 point for Cat.
- Been playing this on and off since some time in 2021. Beating the 3rd level was exhilarating enough to get me to spend 2 days doing nothing but vibing to music suited more for reading romcom manga and listening to podcasts while I blasted my way through some sort of (possibly imagined) hell-in-a-well with guns stuck to the soles of some shoes. For someone like me who loves the occasional gaming torture session, this was a perfect little shot of pain.
_________________________________________________________________
3. Excitebike (NES) - 7/10
- Nothing much to say. Fun enough.
_________________________________________________________________
4. flOw (PS Vita) - 7/10
- Again, nothing much to say. I generally end up enjoying Thatgamecompany's games, same here. Pretty visuals and solid music. Style is substance (especially when I can't understand where the substance is)
_________________________________________________________________
5. Inscryption (PC) - 10/10
- This game is amazing. Resident Roach had been gushing about it for a while in the server, so I ended up playing it, and goddamn I cannot remember the last time a game kept me on my toes like this. It's just so well-crafted. Kept me glued to the screen for my entire playtime. The record of all my "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GAME"s are publicly available for all to see on the discord. Do yourself a favour, get this game, don't look up ANYTHING. You're guaranteed a good few hours of getting your mind blown.
(P.S., don't let the deck-building (or whatever the genre's called) deter you from playing the game. I usually stay away from such games, but the gameplay here kept me engaged throughout.)
JUST GO PLAY IT
_________________________________________________________________
6. Kentucky Route Zero (Mobile) - 10/10
- I am incapable of describing what this game is, and can only describe what it did for me (already did that, 2nd post in the thread is an approximately 1400-word wall of text about the game).
This game will stick with me for a long time, (I can only hope that's my whole life). I'm still thinking about it, playing it in some corner of my brain.
If you find me along the Echo, do say hello. I'm a permanent resident of that world now.
(credit - knifeyspooney on steamgriddb)
_________________________________________________________________
7. The Last of Us: Remastered + Left Behind (PS4) - 10/10 + Replay
- Still one of the best games ever made. Replayed it to recover from playing Part II. The game's great at overcoming ludo-narrative dissonance in my opinion. The gameplay serves the story perfectly. The tenseness of a close clicker encounter, etc. etc. all end themselves to what I consider to be some peak gameplay from Naughty Dog. Even at the end, I had no problem with pulling the trigger. I would have too. No, I did. I was as responsible for killing that doctor as Joel was, as I too felt like I need to protect Ellie.. The game's greatest strength is its ability to get you to bond with its characters.
_________________________________________________________________
8. The Legend of Zelda (NES) – 8/10 + Replay
- Still holds up great, had a lot of fun going through it. Also didn’t struggle a lot since it’s like my 3rd or 4th time playing the game.
_gold.png?width=250)
_________________________________________________________________
9. LittleBigPlanet PS Vita - 8/10
- Probably the most charming platformer I've ever played. Can’t wait to play the mainline games now. The grappling hook levels were the most fun.
_________________________________________________________________
10. The Manhole (PC) – I can’t rate this.
- I’m not really sure what to rate here. I got this as a gift from Tiamat a while back as a pack of 3 games, and they’re fascinating little relics from… whenever they were released. Little point and click game with, as far as I could tell, no real story
_________________________________________________________________
11+12. Nex Machina (PC) + Resogun (PS Vita) - 7/10
- Both are good enough arcade games, beat both of them in one sitting.
+ 
_________________________________________________________________
13. Super Smash Land (PC) - 7/10
- Gameboy-vibey Smash Bros. fan remake.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Retired]
1. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved (PS Vita)
- I said in the Downwell section that I enjoy a bit of pain while gaming. Not like this. This just was not fun. Fuck these shapes.
_________________________________________________________________
2. Helldivers (PS Vita)
- Honestly, it was pretty fun. I finished one world. I just think I'd end up enjoying it more with friends but none of my friends are into top-down shooters. So yeah.
_________________________________________________________________
3. Puyo Puyo Tetris (PS Vita)
- I love Tetris. I do not like Puyo Puyo. I do not get this game.
_________________________________________________________________
4. Super Meat Boy Forever (PC)
- I love the first game. I just don’t get the transition to an auto-runner
_________________________________________________________________
5. Unit 13 (PS Vita)
- Decent enough of a shooter, I just wasn't in the mood for one
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Playing]
1. Disco Elysium (PC)
- Just started this, no opinions yet.
_________________________________________________________________
2. Hades (Mobile)
- Playing it on an iPad via Netflix. It's my 2nd time playing, and I'm enjoying it a lot more this time around.
_________________________________________________________________
3. Soul Sacrifice Delta (PS Vita)
- Good few hours into it. Monster Hunter-like based on fairy tales. The lore is really fascinating to be honest.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Next on the chopping block]
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (PS Vita)
- Evo version. I've got to restart this game. I had finished the prologue or something but then my save got corrupted so yeah.
[Completed]
1. Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon) - 9/10
- This show is actually the reason this post didn't come out today. While I have very minor issues, the series was amazing and kept me hooked from start to finish. I'll talk about it at-length in a separate post (coming soon to blogs near you ;] )
_________________________________________________________________
2. The Batman (2022) (Movie) - 9/10
- The performances, music, cinematography, everything was on point. Great portrayal of probably my favourite comic book character of all time. However, as someone who's read Scott Snyder's run of the Batman comics, it did slightly feel like a rehash of the Zero Year arc near the end.
_poster.jpg)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Watching]
Delicious in Dungeon (Anime) - 9/10
- All caught up. It's probably the most fun anime I've seen in a while.
[Next on the chopping block]
The Legend of Korra (Cartoon)
P.S. Please give me recommendations for anime. This anime season doesn't have a single show which interests me. Any genre, from any time.
Nothing much on this front.
[Completed]
Koibito Tutorial (Manga) - 8/10
- One-shot romance manga. Short and sweet. Good read.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Reading]
Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga) - 9/10
- I WILL NOT TALK ABOUT IT. THAT DAMN CAT-CLOPS HATES US.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Next on the chopping block]
1. Berserk (Manga) - 10/10 + Reread
- This is, no doubt, the greatest piece of fiction ever created in the history of mankind. It’s my favorite piece of media ever. I wanna reread it.
_________________________________________________________________
2. House of Leaves (Book)
- Uvehj recommended it to me, and it looks really interesting.
So yeah, that's pretty much it for now. Goddamn this took a long time to write.
Anyways, I want to write something about Avatar, Berserk and maybe actually organize my thoughts on The Last of Us PII on here.
Buhbye.
Hey, I’m No One, a 17 y/o dude from India. I love practically all forms of media, from all sorts of genres. Games, Music, Animanga and Books are my favorite mediums though. I can play basically all genres of games except for RTS games. I generally stay away from multiplayer games though.
More importantly, I’m not really sure whether I just want to use this blog as a place for random stuff I write, or also as a record of the media I consume, but for now I’m gonna try out the latter. I don’t trust myself to do a weekly thing, so I’m gonna attempt a bi-weekly update for like 2 months to see whether or not I want to do this going forward.
Anyways, welcome to...
No One's record of the shit he's done: March 2024
GAMES
[Completed]
1. Divekick (PS Vita) - 6/10
- Not really for me. I guess it's supposed to be a parody of fighting games, but a parody required the person interacting with it to be aware of and informed about the thing it’s parodying, which I most certainly am not when it comes to this genre
(credit - GangstaWaffle on steamgriddb)_________________________________________________________________
2. Downwell (PC) - 9/10 +1 point for Cat.
- Been playing this on and off since some time in 2021. Beating the 3rd level was exhilarating enough to get me to spend 2 days doing nothing but vibing to music suited more for reading romcom manga and listening to podcasts while I blasted my way through some sort of (possibly imagined) hell-in-a-well with guns stuck to the soles of some shoes. For someone like me who loves the occasional gaming torture session, this was a perfect little shot of pain.
_________________________________________________________________
3. Excitebike (NES) - 7/10
- Nothing much to say. Fun enough.
_________________________________________________________________
4. flOw (PS Vita) - 7/10
- Again, nothing much to say. I generally end up enjoying Thatgamecompany's games, same here. Pretty visuals and solid music. Style is substance (especially when I can't understand where the substance is)
_________________________________________________________________
5. Inscryption (PC) - 10/10
- This game is amazing. Resident Roach had been gushing about it for a while in the server, so I ended up playing it, and goddamn I cannot remember the last time a game kept me on my toes like this. It's just so well-crafted. Kept me glued to the screen for my entire playtime. The record of all my "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GAME"s are publicly available for all to see on the discord. Do yourself a favour, get this game, don't look up ANYTHING. You're guaranteed a good few hours of getting your mind blown.
(P.S., don't let the deck-building (or whatever the genre's called) deter you from playing the game. I usually stay away from such games, but the gameplay here kept me engaged throughout.)
JUST GO PLAY IT_________________________________________________________________
6. Kentucky Route Zero (Mobile) - 10/10
- I am incapable of describing what this game is, and can only describe what it did for me (already did that, 2nd post in the thread is an approximately 1400-word wall of text about the game).
This game will stick with me for a long time, (I can only hope that's my whole life). I'm still thinking about it, playing it in some corner of my brain.
If you find me along the Echo, do say hello. I'm a permanent resident of that world now.
(credit - knifeyspooney on steamgriddb)_________________________________________________________________
7. The Last of Us: Remastered + Left Behind (PS4) - 10/10 + Replay
- Still one of the best games ever made. Replayed it to recover from playing Part II. The game's great at overcoming ludo-narrative dissonance in my opinion. The gameplay serves the story perfectly. The tenseness of a close clicker encounter, etc. etc. all end themselves to what I consider to be some peak gameplay from Naughty Dog. Even at the end, I had no problem with pulling the trigger. I would have too. No, I did. I was as responsible for killing that doctor as Joel was, as I too felt like I need to protect Ellie.. The game's greatest strength is its ability to get you to bond with its characters.
_________________________________________________________________
8. The Legend of Zelda (NES) – 8/10 + Replay
- Still holds up great, had a lot of fun going through it. Also didn’t struggle a lot since it’s like my 3rd or 4th time playing the game.
_________________________________________________________________
9. LittleBigPlanet PS Vita - 8/10
- Probably the most charming platformer I've ever played. Can’t wait to play the mainline games now. The grappling hook levels were the most fun.
_________________________________________________________________
10. The Manhole (PC) – I can’t rate this.
- I’m not really sure what to rate here. I got this as a gift from Tiamat a while back as a pack of 3 games, and they’re fascinating little relics from… whenever they were released. Little point and click game with, as far as I could tell, no real story
_________________________________________________________________
11+12. Nex Machina (PC) + Resogun (PS Vita) - 7/10
- Both are good enough arcade games, beat both of them in one sitting.
+ _________________________________________________________________
13. Super Smash Land (PC) - 7/10
- Gameboy-vibey Smash Bros. fan remake.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Retired]
1. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved (PS Vita)
- I said in the Downwell section that I enjoy a bit of pain while gaming. Not like this. This just was not fun. Fuck these shapes.
_________________________________________________________________
2. Helldivers (PS Vita)
- Honestly, it was pretty fun. I finished one world. I just think I'd end up enjoying it more with friends but none of my friends are into top-down shooters. So yeah.
_________________________________________________________________
3. Puyo Puyo Tetris (PS Vita)
- I love Tetris. I do not like Puyo Puyo. I do not get this game.
_________________________________________________________________
4. Super Meat Boy Forever (PC)
- I love the first game. I just don’t get the transition to an auto-runner
_________________________________________________________________
5. Unit 13 (PS Vita)
- Decent enough of a shooter, I just wasn't in the mood for one
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Playing]
1. Disco Elysium (PC)
- Just started this, no opinions yet.
_________________________________________________________________
2. Hades (Mobile)
- Playing it on an iPad via Netflix. It's my 2nd time playing, and I'm enjoying it a lot more this time around.
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3. Soul Sacrifice Delta (PS Vita)
- Good few hours into it. Monster Hunter-like based on fairy tales. The lore is really fascinating to be honest.
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[Next on the chopping block]
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (PS Vita)
- Evo version. I've got to restart this game. I had finished the prologue or something but then my save got corrupted so yeah.
ANIME, CARTOONS, TV SERIES & MOVIES
[Completed]
1. Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon) - 9/10
- This show is actually the reason this post didn't come out today. While I have very minor issues, the series was amazing and kept me hooked from start to finish. I'll talk about it at-length in a separate post (coming soon to blogs near you ;] )
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2. The Batman (2022) (Movie) - 9/10
- The performances, music, cinematography, everything was on point. Great portrayal of probably my favourite comic book character of all time. However, as someone who's read Scott Snyder's run of the Batman comics, it did slightly feel like a rehash of the Zero Year arc near the end.
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[Watching]
Delicious in Dungeon (Anime) - 9/10
- All caught up. It's probably the most fun anime I've seen in a while.
[Next on the chopping block]
The Legend of Korra (Cartoon)
P.S. Please give me recommendations for anime. This anime season doesn't have a single show which interests me. Any genre, from any time.
MANGA, COMICS & BOOKS
Nothing much on this front.
[Completed]
Koibito Tutorial (Manga) - 8/10
- One-shot romance manga. Short and sweet. Good read.
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[Reading]
Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga) - 9/10
- I WILL NOT TALK ABOUT IT. THAT DAMN CAT-CLOPS HATES US.
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[Next on the chopping block]
1. Berserk (Manga) - 10/10 + Reread
- This is, no doubt, the greatest piece of fiction ever created in the history of mankind. It’s my favorite piece of media ever. I wanna reread it.
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2. House of Leaves (Book)
- Uvehj recommended it to me, and it looks really interesting.
Afterword
So yeah, that's pretty much it for now. Goddamn this took a long time to write.
Anyways, I want to write something about Avatar, Berserk and maybe actually organize my thoughts on The Last of Us PII on here.
Buhbye.
12 Yrs♥$✓#
Satoshi Kon movies are good if you haven't seen them. These three are ones I'm confident recommending, but Millennium Actress is also supposed to be good from what I've heard.
Perfect Blue
Tokyo Godfathers
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Paprika
Perfect Blue
Tokyo Godfathers
Paprika
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
I've seen all of Satoshi Kon's work! Well, all the movies he directed, atleast. His movies are amazing. I'm thinking of rewatching Paranoia Agent soon. I'll probably right about it here when i do.
Also, nice pfp lmao
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
Hello folks, been a while! I just hadn't really found anything to write about (except for Disco Elysium which i've been raving about in the HLTB discord ever since i finished it, and am actively trying to write something on)
However, we ended up talking about the Mascot Horror genre on the abovementioned server, and i ended up writing a thing on it on there.
Since it's a topic i'd love to recieve more opinions on, here i am.
Here's No One's word-vomit on "The Degradation of Mascot Horror as a Genre"
FNAF was unarguably the start of mascot horror as a genre, and its been the template for what the genre even is ever since.
Mascot Horror is inherently a genre that's steeped from head to toe in nostalgia. For FNAF, it was a game (atleast initially) unequivocally about some sort of nostalgic fear of animatronics at restaurants like Chuck E. Cheese and the uncanny fear of such machines dancing and singing in robotic, inhuman sequences.
HOWEVER, I feel like the genre's switched... nostalgias in a way.
FNAF absolutely blew up, and my generation is one where basically everyone 15ish and above grew up on the series (via youtube especially). I feel like the new wave of these games is
1. targeting not some nostalgic fear and twisting the childlike into something horrific, but simply target the nostalgia of games that did so in the past
2. trying to sell as much merch as possible by being as "cute" as possible to appeal to as many kids as possible, some of which might not even understand what they're interacting with exactly.
The one mascot horror game that (atleast for the first 2 episodes or so) clicked with me was Bendy and The Ink Machine. Me and my friends absolutely grew up on tv cartoon channels. I don't think my brother's ever even seen an episode of Tom & Jerry or Mickey Mouse. That was the last time i felt like someone was doing the "childlike wonder being twisted and perverted" thing. It came out at a time the generation that would play it would be intimately familiar with the thing it targeted most likely (keep in mind im not talking about the quality of its gameplay and systems but simply the type of horror it tried to execute. as someone who's not really scared by horror, it didnt scare me, but i could appreciate what it was trying to do)
But these days it feels like the genre is targeting the nostalgia of its predecessors itself (not even talking about trying to appeal to children to sell merch to them)
None of the people that are the target audience of Poppy Playtime will be familiar with VHS tapes. They will not have any nostalgia about it.Maybe dolls?
But in an effort to appeal to both my generation and the next, it seems to be going for both "how cute" and "how disturbing" with no subtlety.
In my opinion Mascot Horror is something that only works with the assumption of subtlety, something disturbing lying under the facade of the intimately familiar. That is what has made FNAF stick with all of us kids who watched those videos and/or played those games. That subtlety is completely absent here. "Oh look, the toy company is inserting spines and nerves inside your toys and now they're talking!" bitch tf do you think you're toy story?
its not disturbing, its pitifully pathetic imo.
Note: The reason i specifically talk about Poppy Playtime is because it's the only one of the new mascot horror wave I've personally played and not just seen in videos.
The discussion on the discord started with a question about the monetization of these games (which seems to just be "get kids to make their parents buy plushies) and while that turned into a long discussion overall, this is what it got me thinking about, since its a genre that a lot of my people my age have been exposed to,a lot.
Anyways, let me know what you think about this i guess.
See you next time (whenever i finish my little massive thing on Disco Elysium which I've redone 5 times now)
6 Yrs✓#
NoOne6 Yrs✓#
So, I'm back! Never finished my Disco Elysium thingy, and then I just didn't find anything else I wanted to desperately write about... Until now!
Persona 5 Royal! Beat it a few days ago and I've been working on this since then in some way, shape or form.
Mainly want to discuss 2 things today.
Thoughts on Persona 5 Royal and on the ideology of the Phantom Thieves.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PERSONA 5 ROYAL AHEADA. Thoughts on Royal's additions to Persona 5
I'll start with Akechi. He's the clearest "improvement" of an aspect of base P5 for me.
He and his character arc, they're all just used and written way better here. He was not a character I particularly enjoyed in the base game. He was fine, very underutilized, and not fleshed out enough for the events in Shido's palace to hit as hard as they did in Royal. Here, he's straight up your rival, both of you trapped in a game of deception, both knowing the others' secret, it just so being the case that you kept his secret for yourself for just that much longer to lay out a trap. He's your... glove-mate? I don't know. Whatever he is, his new, manual confidant lets him be utilized better in the story ideologically, personally, story-tically, and pretty much every other way.
Speaking of new confidants... Oh boy, Yoshizawa and Maruki. The Royal content is genuinely fucking spectacular. It's somehow some of the most compelling stuff in the entire game for me. Maruki in particular works as such a wonderful foil to the Phantom Thieves.
Why can't the world be like he wants it to be? What's so utterly wrong about his world? (Ignoring the fact that you can,) Why can't you accept it? How is it any different from the Phantom Thieves imposing their wills, their change of hearts on the villains of society? Is Maruki not doing the same thing on a much larger scale? Is he not targeting the evils of society instead? What's so fundamentally wrong about that?
Of course, what's wrong with it, as said by Hifumi on the very last day, is that we're lances. We're not made to lie down. We're made to push through the battlefield until we die or get promoted. Grow or die a stagnant death. Setting aside the amount of nuance you'd need to make that relevant to reality for a moment, that's what's wrong with his world. It is fundamentally a world that refuses to move forward. It refuses to challenge the muck and the dirt. It lies down. It rolls around in his garden of eden, content with simply moving from side to side instead of forward.
What's wrong with that? Why can't we lie down? Why can't we ignore the pain? It's because ignoring the pain is ignoring all that we were and all that we are and all that we will become. His world is, oddly enough, one built to fall apart in an instant if you think about it. It erases history. He's not immortal, so what happens when he dies? Those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it, and so what happens when there is nothing to be remembered? His world is the static that Jose tastes in those very final flowers, it is a form of stagnation and the disease that lurks under that stagnated muck. And that's on a societal scale. On a personal level, it's against everything the Phantom Thieves, everything the game stands for. It's a sin to lie down and take it, the game says, move forward. Maruki says to fall asleep until he makes the bullies disappear.
Drawing attention to the quiz in his palace, this entire tangent can be summed up using the question of whether it's better to help your friend yourself or call for help. It's personal responsibility vs societal responsibility. He wants a responsible society, one that takes care of its own.
He's not wrong in saying that it's okay to run away and call for help. (Also, it's notable that he does fundamentally believe that the Phantom Thieves were right, as demonstrated in that same quiz.) What he's forgetting is that a world where people always and fundamentally run away to call for help cannot exist in his world because in his world nobody will ever be in pain.
1. He eliminated all the evils, supposedly. Every consciousness, every history has been interfered with by him, and every life has been altered to be one without sin. Who is there to call when that person will also run to call the next person? Who is there to report when you live in a responsible society?
2. A society that is responsible rests solely on the millions of backs of the responsible people within it, and yet he wants to eliminate that responsibility.
It's fantasy. It's a cake with only the floating, frozen frosting, the bread that supports it having been removed by the baker. He made a world as a response to the scars he got, not by looking at the scars and filling them in but by looking away and falling asleep. That's what's wrong with his world. His world is one with nothing but happiness, and so the world after him will lack the courage and responsibility to stay on the right path, to keep themselves just. At least, that's what I think.
Persona 5 is, on a fundamental level, about fighting against human nature, about learning to be better. Maruki is not the most evil aspect of that nature, he's the weakest. He's cowardice and pain wrapped in spectacle and bombast. He's a man who wants to essentially hide the entire world in a shell, in a darkness where people cannot experience the things that might hurt them. It is his will to run away forced onto every single person.
And I love it. He's not a disgust-inducing caricature like most of the rest of the palace owners. Nor is he some sin incarnate. He's not a mass murderer, he's not the end of the world, he's not a god hell-bent on control. He is longing, sorrow, and the desire in us all to just wish it all away, and that wish is his control. Absolutely fantastic stuff in my opinion. Maruki might now be my favorite persona antagonist of all time, across all the antagonists of all 4 of the games I've played.
Yoshizawa, too, works as a great exploration of his ideology. I mean, she literally fell for his world (and I'd like to say that I genuinely did not see the twist of her identity coming), and yet she is what Maruki couldn't be. She is someone who wanted to and chose to fall for his sleep but decided that a good night's rest was enough and that it was time to wake up. She might be the most "realistic" character in that regard. Most of us do not have the willpower of the thieves. Most of us won't stand against the authority figures in our lives like Yusuke did. Most of us won't be up and about so quickly after our (albeit shitty) father's death. Most of us cannot steal someone's heart. Most of us aren't that strong and none of us live in a fictional world. Most of us, do, however, understand Sumire's desire to look away from her own truths. Most of us are not an extremely capable gymnast, but a lot of us know the pain of loss and also the pain of losing to someone else. Most of us did not have our twin sister shove us out of the way of a truck, but a lot of us might know the desire, even if we only desired it for a split second, to be someone else, someone more capable than us. Most of us can understand the desire to rise above that, to fight against our own weakness. I'm not trying to say that the Phantom Thieves aren't relatable, I'm just saying that they do, at times, feel like larger-than-life figures of rebellion (I mean, that's literally the theme of their personas), and hers is Cinderella, a relatively small rebellion that still changed her life for the better. Her rebellion is against her weakness, against the part of her that wants to go back to sleep and ignore it all. I used the word "we" a lot, but I found her to be the most relatable because we're all weak in some ways and we all want to change that, to lead relatively small rebellions that will change us for the better if nothing else. Hers is a fight against the desire to give up, the one that Maruki oh so eagerly embraces and enforces. A small strength that won't fail the tests of time or of wills.
Anyways, to cap off this section, I want to compare the two endings.
Both endings start with a fight against a being controlling the consciousness of the world, twisting them into their ideals. I love the contrasts between the two, one rising above the grime of society to kill a sanitized, "impartial", unfair god, and rising through a utopia to stop the broken man at the heart of it all, surrounded by debris and grime. One wants to shove that muck of humanity below it(?) and the other wants to carry it all on his shoulders, in a way. Utter apathy and an extremist form of empathy.
The endings themselves, I'm more... unclear about (in regard to my own opinion on them).
I consider (or considered) the final cutscene of Persona 5 to be amongst my favorite cutscenes in the entire game. Just Joker opening the sunroof and basking in the blue of the sky and the light of the sun. Freedom. Everything he fought for, everything that was stolen from him, was finally given back to a stronger, better him, one surrounded by the bonds forged in his captivity.
This one hits like a truck and says "Fuck that. Your bonds are immortal anyways. You've grown. Wasn't the point to help others? Good. It's okay, you'll be alone, maybe lonely, but your bonds won't die. So let them go. They'll better themselves too, just like you did". It ties into the third semester really, really fucking well, and Ryuji himself said, if they didn't do this, if they didn't live like this, it'd be a betrayal of the principles based on which they fought against Maruki. And so, Joker at long last takes off his mask. He can rest now, he doesn't need to be a phantom thief any longer. His mask gave him the strength to fight for a future in which he could stand without it, one in which he could live without it.
If 5's freedom was a blue wrapped in Joker's bonds, Royal's freedom is the strength to trust your bonds and stand without them, to trust yourself and stand alone.
I love both endings, and I can't seem to decide which one I like better. One is clean, like the game that it wrapped up. It's as clean as a battle against a god in the sky ending with a clean headshot with a magical bullet to fight against society. One is as melancholy as the people that it sends off, as grimy as the final fight between two men punching each other in the fucking face as the world collapses around them, and as personal as the bullet Joker delivers point blank to a mech. It's a battle against the "selves" that weaken us. It's personal. (also like, damn, this game loves its massive creatures, and so do I o7)
I suppose talking about it has made me realize that this ending was also a form of stagnation, the kind that Maruki would've liked. Painless, ignoring the fact that the thieves are done, rolling around in that same garden they made together. It'll be painful to run again, to move abroad, to do their own things, but it's what they fought for. Again, as Ryuji said, it'd be a betrayal of what they fought for. It's a bittersweet ending, but aren't all goodbyes bittersweet? So be it. They fought together and they're stronger for it. Separation won't break them even if it'll hurt. And yet, a part of me is also left wondering if it betrays the part of Persona 5 which said that they were stronger together and better for it, the reason why Akechi only had two personas and the reason they could "beat" him. I think this part's something I'll be thinking about for a while to come, somewhere in the back of my head.
Epilogue! I forgot to complain about the game! Off the top of my head, I've only really got two complaints about Royal (not Persona 5, just Royal. That list is quite a bit longer).
- In the original game, you get arrested on Christmas so that Sae can prosecute Shido, and your confidants spend the next 2 months fighting for you, looking for a way to get you out, culminating in you getting released on the 13th of February. After the end of the third semester, once you return to reality, things "rebound back to what should've happened" and so things do line up time-line wise but I think the way they show that is very confusing since they just play the exact same cutscenes as the ones in the original game so now it looks like they spend 10 days getting him out of prison instead of almost 2 months.
- The teaser in the post-credits. I hope that it was only some sort of way to show that Joker's letting go of Akechi, but I think it was a tease that he's alive, in which case, no, just let him die. Wasn't that the culmination of his character's arc and Joker's in the third semester? His being alive feels like it'd ruin that.
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B. Thoughts on the ideology of the Phantom Thieves
This is less of a complaint and more of an observation (leaning towards a disagreement) that got stuck in the back of my head when going through P5 this time.
I'm gonna frame this discussion in the context of Shin Megami Tensei. I don't know a lot about the series, but from the half or so I've played of 3 and 5, It's essentially a war between Law (absolute control, siding with "God"), Chaos (absolute free will, siding with Lucifer) or neutrality (which is essentially a lawful society with personal control, or free will). Personally, I'd take the site of neutrality. It, to me, is not inaction but rather the maintenance of balance. I've heard stuff like "Oh neutrality is just delaying the inevitable victory of either Law or Chaos" but then that only means that neutrality is the toughest, eternal fight. They have to win once, neutrality has to win every time, over and over, to keep free will alive.
Anyways, my point is that to me, in this playthrough, Persona 5's story essentially plays out like the 3 forms of Law at war with each other. The Phantom Thieves would be Neutral-Law, Yaldabaoth would be Dark-Law, and Maruki would be Light-Law. In the end, all 3 of them are imposing control and eliminating someone's free will.
- Yaldabaoth oppressed the masses under the name of absolute control. Even if it was under the pretense of "they asked for it" and using his scheming to cover up for that, it was still a form of Law to me. It's what the neutrals (or whatever the term would be) that are against law would say, that it'll lead to a ruler/ruling class that essentially says that it's only right for them to rule because humanity asked for it, that it was their collective consciousness, nevermind the fact that people were clearly manipulated by their own work.
- Maruki would be the other side of the coin, the one that those aligned with chaos would decry. It's a utopia built on cowardice and weakness. It's an attempt to sweep away all that is wrong and manipulate history and minds into a numb, false utopia. It's an anesthetic of sorts. Weak, fragile, and impermanent.
In that way, are the Phantom Thieves not also people who are imposing a form of control over their targets?
First off, before I begin talking about the parts of their methods I disagree with, I'll say that this doesn't apply to the Mementos targets. At least to me, that feels like a sort of "conversation through words or fists, whichever ones reach them first". It's someone realizing that hey, maybe if I'm getting punched for this, I was in the wrong. It's not their hearts being manipulated but rather nudged into or shown the right path. (Editor's note, just looked it up, according to the MegaTen wiki, "Unlike the changes of heart targeted against Palace rulers, these are genuine, and the protagonist will often find out that their targets had become better people or made sincere apologies", this only makes me feel like my conclusions are more correct).
The targets on the other hand? In my mind, the Thieves' actions on them are different in terms of what they want to achieve, but not antithetical to the actions of Maruki or Yaldabaoth (though they are more similar to Maruki). I agree with their intentions, to bring crimes to light, and to punish the scum and the unjust.
The thing is, what essentially plays out is that the thieves steal away their cognition, their cause for committing said crimes, and thus the part of them that did commit those crimes. I'd say that this only serves to erase the "them" that committed those crimes and thus erases the "them" that existed before the heist. It's creating what is, in my opinion, a fundamentally different self, one incapable of committing those crimes. This self of theirs that did not commit those crimes is the one that apologizes.
Is that truly justice? Is it not a lobotomy? Is it not erasing the value, or rather the weight of those crimes? What good is atonement or punishment for someone who cannot and will not commit those crimes? It is not the same as their crimes being brought to light. It may be a different outcome, a better outcome, but it is built on the same base of those that they opposed for me. It's built on an imposed control, thus voiding the value of the punishment they do or do not receive. It's an erasure of the "self" that should have received that punishment. It is worthless because it doesn't punish the person, it punishes a shell. What good is, and how effective is repentance born not of one's own thoughts but the imposed will of someone else erasing the part of the self that committed those crimes.
I said at the start of this that it was more of an observation leaning towards a disagreement, that's because their actions do end up being good for people and so most of my brain cells do agree with the net result of their actions. The people they change the hearts of will not create more victims, and won't hurt other people. But that tiniest sliver of remaining brain cells left in the back of my head keep wondering if their goal was for the crimes to be brought to light and the people punished, they've created a sort of paradox in my opinion, because as I said, I think that the people receiving those punishments are fundamentally someone else. More importantly, it is still an imposed will, the very kind they've so adamantly fought against. It's left me with this gnawing feeling in the back of my head forcing me to keep thinking about this.
Speaking of paradoxes, to end this section, I'd like to pose a question. Since they changed the hearts of Shido, would he not end up being the best candidate to actually become the prime minister? Since they erased the "him" that committed those crimes, since they erased his desires, would he not end up being the most selfless possible leader? Especially considering that most if not all politicians could not be as repentful for their sins as the thieves' actions have made Shido.
Ignoring the GOAT himself, Toranosuke Yoshida!!!