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Monthly GreejMedia (March 2024) - Born Noisy Yesterday, Gone Scrimbly Tomorrow

What a weird ass month, I don't even know what to make of this month for media for me. There's definitely more to talk about for me, but it's very scattered, and still feels like I didn't do THAT much this month, even if what I post here shows the opposite. Truth is all plan and go-ahead kinda got thrown out of the window after halfway through, so I felt a lot less commitment to certain media I wanted to do, but I think that ended up making a more interesting month overall? It's very strange, hold on tight cuz I'm going to be talking a lot about not much and not much about stuff there's a lot of. Let's start.

Okay, it's time to start with video games. Still nothing big to report, I swear those games I've been teasing will be done. But instead, I'll talk about the two games I DID finish this month, the first of which I also teased last month, being L.O.L: Lack of Love.

This is the fourth game on the Love-de-Lic adjacent chart that I have now finished, and the second of which was developed by Love-de-Lic themselves! This being the last of their three games, despite a fairly unassuming demeanour it definitely feels like they really wanted to go hard for the only Dreamcast-exclusive game in the entire LDL-related repertoire. It is their most unique game by a pretty decent margin, basically being a survival/evolution game before gaming thought it was the next cool trend. The game also intentionally leaves you in the dark basically as soon as it starts, somewhat similar to moon, although with the big difference that there is no guidance whatsoever. Sure, there are menu's that tell you what button does what, and which NPC fucked up creature is which, but that is basically the only guidance and help the fan-translation has over the non-translated game. Everything else is on your own, leading to a steep learning curve at the very beginning of the game, but starts to adjust to be a lot easier as you progress and understand the game world and logic, meaning the game isn't a complete guide-game as say, something like moon.

Despite how different this game is compared to basically anything else that came out at around this time, there's still a signature Love-de-Lic charm that shines through under the games core. All of the animals are charming and have a certain look, sound and feel that's definitely in line with the rest of their output. Everything has this distinct squeal and yap, everything has a surreal design but is definitely still evocative of their emotions, and the level design all feels very circular and made around living in this world with these lil guys rather then just getting to the next destination. There are also a lot of similarities in puzzle design here and there as well, like memory games or finding out unconventional ways to progress help with the different issues of an NPC like pressing the attack button to push something over.

There's a ton of other stuff that give it that Lic feel as well. There's the amazing soundtrack done by the influential legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto that is wonderfully ambient, beautiful, and effectively unobtrusive. The game is also all tied together with it's beautiful message about wildlife and the environment, which while can feel simplitistic, its WALL-E style emotional core and how it takes your single evolving guy throughout its beats and bumps make it extremely resonant with its audience, and where everything just keeps feeling bigger until you get this wholistic feel of earth and its life. So yeah, I found this game really neat. Definitely has it's problems though, like towards the backend of the game some puzzles require a bit too much of the bad kind of trial-and-error, and the last puzzle especially feels like it's just up to chance whether or not you make it to the ending, but I'd still wholeheartedly recommend it if you like adventure puzzle games, games like Rain World, or were just really excited for the concept of the game Spore and it's early-game gameplay ideas as a kid. Definitely an enjoyable and interesting game experience.

I uh, also played a game called (the) Gnorp Apologue.

So this is a random game I found from looking at stuff on my Steam queue and thinking it was interesting. I saw that it was a fun little idler game and, I gotta be real idle games are a huge weakness for me. They're my garbage food of gaming I love them even if they're dogshit Roblox/Fortnite ones. So, for it's cheap buying price, I decided to hop on and man I think this game enchanted some kind of brain problem with me as soon as I started it.

Gnorp is so simplistic I can destill it down to single nouns and adjectives. Atari-esque. Gnorp guys. Rock. Rock money. Money building. Resource. Rock more. And that's the gameplay loop until you beat the game. This could go into the usual boring trappings of most idle games but some key distinguished factors put Gnorp higher than its counterparts. The most obvious being that its just more active than its counterparts. There are certain elements that reward you if you're paying attention closely to your resource management, and also the to-fro's of certain units, you can really profit hard off of them with strategic timing and buying of certain elements that let you have a huge advantage. This in part also gives the game a much larger problem-solving mechanic that a lot of games of its ilk just do not have, where you're trying to figure out the best combination of units and collection to maximize damage/collection output as quickly as possible so you can get to the next level (called compressions) in good enough time. Of course, there's also the option of just waiting it out just like any idle game, but Gnorp does its best to make that option not only boring, but potentially possible to lock yourself out of if you're not paying at least the slightest amount of attention to your screen.

This is when prestige take form, a form of post-run currency that you obtain by going over certain profit/damage thresholds, that you can spend at the beginning of every new run for new bonuses and strategies, like new multipliers for certain attacks and new unit benefits. This can seem pretty annoying at first, especially the fact that these bonuses don't get unlocked to you after the fact, but since you'll never have enough prestige while playing you can mix-and-match stuff pretty effectively to make sure that a run is at least fairly interesting each time.

There are still issues with the overall gameflow though. It's still an idle game after all, but even though this one is very involved there are certain times it feels like there's nothing you can do and are just fucked over, leading to unsatisfying restarts. There's also the fact that like most idle games the uniqueness and novelty of the game kinda wears thin once you're approaching the end, which is very much a problem with this game considering you'll be doing multiple runs. But idk. I had fun it with. I thought it was neat. It gave me a headache at points and I don't wanna go back ever again but, it enchanted me definitely. Maybe check it out if you're as brainrotted as I am?

Alright, next up movies. I uh... Actually didn't watch that many movies this month! Only tended to stick to certain series, and uh, only so much I want to talk about...

So, those Dune movies sure are cool aren't they?

I've been thinking about getting into the Dune series of books for a while, but considering how slowly my current reading of books is going... I decided the release of Dune Part Two in cinemas would be a good time for me to watch both of the Denis Villeneuve films. The only film that he directed that I had seen before this was Blade Runner 2049, and while I really enjoy that movie I thought maybe I should've watched another one of his before hopping into these films, but honestly, that can wait. I'm really glad I was able to catch this in the moment.

These movies blew up as of late, and while you never thought we'd get here based on the original property, it is all very much deserved. Even in my room watching Part 1 on streaming where I knew the pretty decently sized TV I was watching it on wasn't enough to capture the full scale I was taken aback, and when I finally got to watch Part 2 in IMAX it built up that tension so well, especially during the first 10 minutes where I was totally taken aback by the entire experience, the music, the acting, the big screen cinematography and those colours. Damn.

Okay but the thing that I was the most invested in when watching these films was the potential links to the books that I never read, and, more than anything, how fucking influential the original book must have been on science fiction as a whole. I affectionately like to call Dune (at least from what I know of it based off watching these films and general discussion) Gundam Star Wars, but other potential inspirations I spotted included things like Dragon Ball, Halo, Starship Troopers, Studio Ghibli but PARTICULARLY Nausicca, and pretty much the majority of genre fiction and blockbusters made in the past decade. Insanely influential, as far as I can tell maybe I'm wrong somewhat. But yeah, these films have kinda taken a hold on me. I NEED Dune Messiah though. Like these films are great as is but I need Dune Messiah to bring it home and I need them to bring it home ASAP. But yeah, good films those two. Funny how all of science fiction was predicated on a franchise that was so innately political and anti white saviour this whole time.

I've also been going through a few shows of TV, but it's mostly been either rewatches or I'm not too far enough into anything yet to do a good enough full review yet. I rewatched Turn A Gundam again, a year after seeing it for the first time, this time with friends. God I love that show. Again, still hard to recommend to someone that doesn't really watch Gundam, and I was watching with a LOT of people who haven't seen Gundam! They mostly seemed to like it though, and I think its testament to how good the show is by itself. There's so many nitty gritty details you can get into if you know a good amount of Gundam knowledge, but you can still watch it without. Absolutely beautiful show. Now that we're done with that we've been going through another show I loved heavily on my first watch, Baccano! Those sessions are still going on though, so it's gonna be a bit till I write about that show.

There's also been a couple of friends who I've been stumbling around their sessions when they've been watching Adventure Time. I only ended up watching some of it though, so that means that I have... a very uneven understanding of the story of where they're up to so far, so I decided I'd try and catch up for myself and watch as much of Season 1 as I saw fit. While I didn't watch EVERY episode, I saw a good enough chunk to continue on and also feel comfortable with listing a few episodes that I would consider the highlights so far, which are the Pilot, Slumber Party Panic, a fun atypical first episode that has some good unexpected and fun turns and is generally a good time, The Enchiridion!, an episode I have etched into my brain as a child, and what feels like the first REAL episode, with a fun truly Adventurous atmosphere and being the episode with possibly the most involvement from Pendleton Ward himself outside of the pilot. There's also Business Time, a charming active romp of your typical businessmen episode plot, but hyper enough to be enjoyable. Ocean of Fear has some of the most iconic and funny moments of the entire show, and generally is a pretty good episode about Finn overcoming his fear of water. Dungeon is a really creative one, having Finn going through a myriad of trials and obstacles with different fun and animated moments with a pretty solid story, and last but certainly not least is my season highlight, Rainy Day Daydream, an episode so imaginative that it's literally about imagination, and showing how great and evocative the show's ideas and animation is without actually really showing you anything. Amazing laughs in this one. Yeah I think I do like this show despite its culminative 2010s datedness and child show cheese, gonna at least do a few more episodes of the next few seasons when necessary.

That's it for movies and TV for now! Time to go into music. There's a few things I wanna talk about actually, so I'm just gonna post the chart straight away before getting right into it.

So. It may not look like it but I kinda struggled to make this one towards the end of the month. Main reason for that being I had a bit of an ear blockage that kinda dampened not just my music listening, but my general media towards the end of the month in general. It was very annoying. However, in terms of this specific list it ended up being a blessing in disguise cuz that means I can go over a few things. There's some stuff here that I don't feel the need to talk about, Have a Nice Life, Neil Young (back on streaming, btw), Kendrick, Lil Ugly Mane (at least not yet), Laurie Anderson and more is all stuff I've loved for a while and can continue to point to and say "yeah, that's pretty great. That's a classic". Some stuff here I've either listened to for the first time like the Boldy James album, or hadn't really bothered to take an interest into until very recently, like Sheena Ringo's Kalk Samen, King Gizzard's Float On, and Straight Outta Compton, where I also got into a good chunk of Ice Cube's discography as well as a result.

I've also decided that it would probably be a good time now to get more into live videos and albums. Some of these I had already heard, like Fishmans famous 98.12.28 album, some I had gained a newfound appreciation for, like Live at Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash. One that I had not heard before though, was the Jimi Hendrix Woodstock show. I'm trying to be as much of a completionist of Jimi Hendrix's stuff that doesn't involve too much posthumorous stuff (I'll probably still give First New Rays of the Rising Sun a shot though). Having never seen this apparently legendary show, I decided to find a rip of the DVD recording of the show, and, during the beginning interview that the film starts with, it goes into the history of the band, the Woodstock festival event, and what lead to that show and... It made me realize that the idea I had of this show and what it actually was were two very very different things. I always imagined that the Jimi Woodstock concert was a spotless, face-melting event the way its built up historically, but listening to it definitely reveals... not that.

The band got delayed to play the morning after the final day, long before everyone else had left. They were operating at a cut crew, a lot of them were tired, hungover and high out of their minds. Only so many of the audience was there. They're not playing as good as they normally would. It's still an amazing stellar performance. It's funny because you wouldn't think so if you were either ignorant or if you removed it from history. At first. But as the show keeps going shit just keeps upping the anti. At the start of every song they start playing shoddy and you think "there's no way they can come back from this" and every song ends a banger every single time. The show and the setlist, despite the worlds best effort, went amazingly. They were just that different, that above the rest. And that's not even counting the end of the show, as they keep on improving they lead one of their longest songs going on, tell the audience they're just jamming and people are allowed to leave, and then play some of their most iconic performances, as well as some of the most iconic live performances ever. The Star Spangled Banner version in this set is as astonishing as the legends go, and the Purple Haze performance isn't anything to snuff at either. Fantastic live show, messy but wonderful, absolutely worth the watch for sure.

Another artist I got entranced yet again by that I wanna talk a tiny bit about is Beat Happening. If you remember I had these guys listed last month as well but lemme go into that album. Beat Happening is a band that formed in Olympia Washington while the post-hardcore scene was budding. Loving the punk ethos, they decided to join a lot of these shows, despite the fact that they... were very much the opposite kind of sound. Instead of being noisy and aggressive, they were twee and sweet, instead of being technical they were sloppy, and this made them resented in their local scene. Despite the abuse though, they soldiered on, and due to their love for the basis of acceptance that the punk scene brings, they gathered a cult following. Their first album is extremely lo-fi, messy, their songs are extremely one-note and childish from a songwriting standpoint, and I also love them. There's something so innocent about this album, trying to delve into the several emotions of childhood love in the simplest, dumbest ways possible, and if you're listening to the extended CD cut of this album (which people will disagree with me about, but is the superior release), you get all these cuts and emotions on these tracks that are just not that amazingly constructed but give you a big smile on your face because of how honest they are. There's nothing like this album I love it.

Two other albums I'd recommend by them are Black Candy, the closest they got to make an "intentionally creepy" album, which is still in their normal style but the subject matter is a lot more sketch, creates this entirely unique listening experience even at its lowest points, and You Turn Me On, the album that refines their sound the hardest, still having their distinct sound while also having some enchanting and interesting songs like the 9 minute centrepiece Godsend, which is probably their masterpiece. So yeah I absolutely recommend Beat Happening, definitely not everyone's thing but a band I love a lot despite and because of their flaws.

... Have I bored everyone yet? Has everyone stopped reading? Have I rambled for long enough? Okay good thank god guys we NEED to talk about Urusei Yatsura.

I was parts of me cautious but also interested in watching this classic 80s anime, but there were a few things that solidified my decision. The main reason was finding out the direct involvement with this series and prolific anime director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, and one of my favourite movies that I saw last year Angel's Egg), with Urusei Yatsura being the beginning of his directorial career. The second reason being it based on the work of the influential and prolific Rumiko Takahashi, with the original manga being her first big break, so for both of those reasons it seemed like a very historically significant anime to watch if nothing else. That and the fact that its influence is seen in almost all anime shounen and other genres and the fact that its aesthetic is still being poorly mimicked in Twitter and Tumblr accounts across the board. So, with that curiosity, and a fair basis of what the show is like thanks to cultural osmosis and having the reboot on another monitor one time while my friends were watching it, I thought it would be a good idea to randomly put on the first Urusei Yatsura film (Mamoru Oshii's theatrical debut), just to get a better grasp on the series as a whole... and...

OK, lets just get the honest bit out of the way, there's not much in this film that feels all that particularly stellar from a directory or production standpoint. There are definitely some cool scenes, like the first 10 minutes or so has its moments of emotional resonance and generally captures the essense of the show and spins it pretty well, but it definitely still does feel like a TV show movie, if that makes any sense. To a point I would say that's fine, and hell the film definitely feels like a standard episode of its source material and that'd probably be a good thing, but there's definitely a few other issues with the film. One of those being that the pacing just feels off for the film, the plotpoints and jokes don't really hit as hard as they feel like they should, and the events of the film just kinda... transpire and happen. A lot of this could be forgiven if the characters were more likeable, and they have their moments, but this is THE Space Princess Lum anime we're talking about, being unlikeable is a part of the shows general grab and appeal, it's what glues everything together. More than anything I guess, it's just kinda sad to see it used in a context here that doesn't really do it much favours with the added new characters and the New Alien Bride the movies premised around.

And I think this is where the underlying issue is. I would say despite what I've said so far the film isn't quite as trite as I'm making it out to be (even if at times only barely). The film itself I would say despite this is still overall fine I guess. It can be cute, it can be aethestically pleasing, it has a scene here and there that impress... But generally speaking I think the film just suffers from its own premise and source material, which, if I'm being fair, is hard to analyse from a modern day perspective due to how rooted it is 80s anime shonen tropes and culture. The show might have some weirdness and is probably very flawed itself but having these anti-cultural, subversive, unlikeable characters at least allows them to make room to subvert the "persevere the abuse!" and especially "born sexy yesterday" fundamentals of the show in an enjoyable way (there's a comparison between this and Poor Things I could make here, but I'm running low on writing as is and I've become more apathetic to the film as times gone on). You lose that subversive balance, you focus too much on the literal otherworldly threat, you just have a pretty unwatchable immature shonen harem anime. Which, maybe is what the show basically is after all. Maybe my assumptions and things I just thought of and assumed online were wrong and I just gave it too much credit. I mean, seeing the time, genres, and general ideas that the hsow helped popularize I shouldn't be too surprised. Ah well, that's just how it goes. A fundamentally flawed piece of media that is inevitably gonna leave a bad taste in my mouth.

So of course, I had to watch the second film as well.

In all fairness to myself here, the second Urusei Yatsura film was the one I actually wanted to watch, and was the entire reason I even went through the first film in the first place. Being Mamoru Oshii's second film, it was also the first one to get a large amount of acclaim from a ton of places, being the first to show his distinct directing style and talent just a year before he'd make Angel's Egg. Knowing his career was the entire reason I watched these films in the first place, I thought I might as well do it in order, and learn my anime history at that. There you go, my actual reason I watched these films. And I thought the movie was... pretty good I guess!

First thing's first, there's been a HUGE production upgrade over the last film. Animation just looks way better here, the drawings are nicely stylised, and there's actual interesting consideration to a lot of the shots and movement, budget must've been WAY bigger this time around. If you're an animator I imagine there's enough interesting things to analyse in this film alone to make it worthwhile.

Secondly, the film's whole premise here is... Weirdly inspired? It doesn't exactly play with the shows premise in the way I was expecting, but it kinda works aside from it. Technically the film here didn't need the Urusei Yatsura premise to really work, in fact it feels singular in a way that makes up something more akin to a Doctor Who episode, but yet it still works with the show very well. It's a weird fucking film and premise, kinda ahead of its time considering the films with similar ideas that'd come out way later (Groundhog Day, Paprika, Inception) and honestly in a weird way I'm kinda glad to see it be tagged along with a weird property like Urusei Yatsura, if that makes sense?

The big reason is, while it maybe could've worked on its own, I feel like it benefits the most from being based off funny Lum anime is the way it counters is perserverance. Unlike the first film, that leaves its anti-social detestable cast go unchecked, this film allows it to really flourish, with the main antagonist of the film being the concept of desire. The themes of the film actually go alongside the themes of the show, giving both room for the cast to have more interesting dynamics and also tackle the psychology of Lum and Ataru and how they act to others and the world around them. It's something that allows the merits of the shown to actually be seen rather than it exclusively be this old weird problematic horny anime.

Of course the film isn't without its issues. The show itself is definitely a hard sell, and I still don't really know how to feel about Urusei Yatsura as a show or property. There's gonna be some fundamental issues with how these characters are set out and are made out to be in the first place, and of course the era that the show was made in to make it like this, but I think if you were to watch a single piece of Lum media, I guess this would be the one? In a weird way it feels like a good capstone on anyone just wanting a good hop-off point as well, but I think it works on its own fine too. Which is a good thing cuz I have absolutely no desire to watch any more of this franchise, I watched a pretty enjoyable movie and I'm willing to leave it at that. Anyway that's it for the media post holy SHIT this took ages to write I'm never writing this much again. If you've got this far thank you so much for reading and see you next month which will probably just be a few scribbles on a wall somewhere. See you then.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Monthly Greej Media (February 2024) - Month of Scrambling

Sometimes I forget that February is the shortest month. Even when it's a leap year (which I only just barely noticed happened this year), a single day can be the difference for me on whether or not I write about something here or not. Especially this month, where I decided that I would take up several long media properties... while also not having the dedication to go through them at a constant rate to actually get close to finishing them. It's been a weird month.

Because of this, there isn't going to really be much in terms of video games for me to talk about. There's a few films I want to cover (and some I'm probably gonna save for a later point... again... maybe), but truth be told there isn't actually that much interesting in terms of new games for me, unless I wanna parrot what I wanna say last month (played a lot less of those two games though, even). I was going to have two shorter games beaten by the end of the month, but I was only able to beat one of them in times for this. There's a good chance that if I don't decide to talk about the other game next month though, I'll just make a short post about it at some point.

The one game I JUST managed to finish, is Earthworm Jim: Special Edition for the Sega CD.

I've been pretty public about my enjoyment of the Earthworm Jim series for a while, but I think I'm not as vocal about how my enjoyment basically EXCLUSIVELY comes from Earthworm Jim 2. Specifically the Genesis version, which was the one available on the Wii Shop Channel, but any of the non-GBA ports are good. Learning about the Special Edition was wild to me, which I had previously had no idea existed, as my general EJ1 experience mainly came from attempts to play the original Genesis version and falling off after a couple of levels... and replaying the old demo on the apple store on my old iPod Touch back in the day (which I'm 90% sure that version is lost media now?). Anyway, hearing about the "superior" Sega CD version of the game made me curious, and as someone who has never really beaten a game for the Genesis addon before (the closest example is Sonic CD, and that was the updated Whitehead rerelease), I thought it'd be a fun idea to boot this version up. I'm glad I did, cuz this definitely heightened my opinion of the game.

There's a lot of reasons why the Special Edition is the superior version of the game, from beautiful animations and visuals (which, when testing around with CRT Filters via Reshade like I have for the past month, are EXTREMELY visually impressive and basically look HD), an improved soundtrack, and just generally more content and levels. What I think absolutely sells it though, is that the overall game experience is just BETTER here, compared to the other version. Obviously nicer visuals and sound will do numbers in terms of making the game feel better to play, but I'm mainly talking about the game's flow and pacing itself.

Level order has been changed, new levels add a more interesting difficulty curve than the previous versions, and there are new secrets to find, including all-new secret paths that are not only loaded with rewards for the betterment of play but are just generally better than what was in the original game, it's a vastly better experience. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely some stuff here that's kinda stinks up the experience (that last level especially can blow me), but compared to how I previously viewed this game? It's much better now. I still wouldn't consider the first Earthworm Jim better than the second one even with this version, like a large portion of people (mainly... what I'd describe as "oldheads" but I mean this is Earthworm Jim we're talking about) seem to believe, but I at least get the logic when people believe that. Also like, Earthworm Jim 2 is one of the most creative platformers of all time so it's like, kinda hard to beat that. What went from a difficult recommendation from me went to something absolutely worth checking out.

But uhhh... Yeah that's it for video games. Like I said earlier, there's a little bit more to talk about for films this month, so I guess I'll start with... uhh... So uh... Oscar season is happening, right? I wouldn't really be able to tell for myself but from what I've heard 2023 has been a good year for movies, so I decided to make it fun for myself and make sure this year I've seen at least half of the best picture nominees before the show starts (not really that hard, but I've never done it before). It succeeded, although I'm still debating as to whether or not I should watch some of the others as well to make it fun for myself (namely Killers of the Flower Moon and Anatomy of a Fall). I thought it was a good time, while the film was just barely still in theatres over here, to watch one of them on a brand fancy new screen at a local theatre. That film, of course... was Poor Things.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

This ones gonna be... difficult to talk about for me, for a large, LARGE variety of reasons. One of which I might cover in a future blog post, but let it be known that I did NOT expect the kind of movie this was when going in. I knew about the sex symbolism, for sure, but to the level that it was...

OK, I just wanna say that I do appreciate what the films going for. It's weird. Weirdest film I've seen in theatres, and by far the most adult. And a lot of the subjects in this film are not being discussed at all! It dares to actually talk about shit like how women get taken advantage of by men and patriarchy, the conditions of sex work, and the failure of society to not protect women who aren't seen as perfect or exhibit traumatic responses in the real world! However, the actual result of these subjects being discussed... eh...

I will say that it does get the some of the points across well by the end, the second half manages to do a good job of making sure it's messages are sent. Although at this point... the film feels like it kinda needs to come to a halt to do so? A little? Also there are some implications here and there... weird one to chew, not sure how well some of these are gonna be seen generally, sometimes feels contradictory sometimes it lands perfectly into its message about women's choices. But overall, I still think I'm glad I saw this film, even if it made me feel like that one scene in Taxi Driver (even though I saw it alone). Weird and interesting, glad to support this kind of cinema, even if I don't know whether or not it'll grow on me as time goes on or I'll just start to resent it more. We'll see I suppose.

The last film I saw before the Oscar's was one I decided to watch at home, and that was The Zone of Interest.

Holyyyyy. What a film. I'm gonna be very short about this one because I feel like this is a film you need to experience for yourself but put simply: A film with pure vision. Pretentious arthouse indie cinema used as malice. Abhorrently aesthetic-focused to its favour. Exists only within frame but ALWAYS vividly presented outside. A film with a very clear, ageless message that defies all conventions to proceed, but still feels especially required and relevant in the current climate. A one-note experience, but that note is an unforgettable drone that lasts long after viewing. Perfect cinema. It's also the weaker of the two Jonathan Glazer films that I've seen. How the fuck does this man do it.

But yeah... Jesus. That shit bummed me out. A great experience, but a drowning one. Anyone want a pick me u- oh god damnit.

Saw this at the beginning of the month, so my review is gonna be a bit hazy, but I do think it says a lot about me that this was the film that I enjoyed the most out of everything I have seen so far this year. This year being y'know. The past two months. Not in terms of releases this came out in 2016. Whatever.

God this film is sad. It's so fucking sad. Manchester by the Sea is a film that should not be watched unless you are either currently depressed or ready to be depressed. However, that being said, it also manages to be such an realistic portrayal of suffering and grief that I absolutely fell in love with it. The film not only looks beautiful but feels it as well. I've heard complaints ranging from that it glorifies trauma or that it represents it's symptoms as "personal failings", but I think it rounds around to me to represent something truly human and honest with itself. There are the occasional times in a couple of scenes where it takes the safe route of modern storytelling for my liking, and there's definitely other issues (mainly the sound design, if you know you know), but there are few films that feel as groundedly sad and wonderful as this one does. Even if it's extremely sad and bittersweet, there's something reflective I got from this film that almost made me feel... Weirdly satisfied? Very strange thing to say, I'm aware, especially if you've seen the film and know what I'm talking about. Maybe I just like movies set in Boston Massachusetts. But god damn... what a film. Highly recommend if you can handle fucked up dark trauma films.

Anyway, last up, music!!! Still not a lot to say here, so I think I'm just gonna post the chart and dip I think. A couple of these were new listens for me (aside from Friko being a brand new release, the Allman Brothers Band and David Kauffman albums were my first time hearing them). A vast majority of them I went back to a few songs often but only just went back to the album now. Some of these I just haven't heard since ages ago. So yeah, that's it. Cya either next month on in an extra post I make in a week or so, we'll see what happens first.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Monthly Greejily Media (January 2024) - The First of Who Knows

God I hate Twitter. I mean I still use it way more than any other social media, but I'm so tired of it man. From all the recent mistakes, to how posts get popular, to how it and TikTok's business decisions have infected the entire tech industry at large. All that and more is good enough reason to move my media threads away from that platform, but truth be told I'm only so moved by these things in that regard. Nah, more than anything, the format for media threads on that site just got tiring for me. Feeling the need to fit in everything into a single tweet, the want to put every single media I've consumed in one place even if I'm not particularly moved or interested in the updating process. So, I thought this'd be much nicer. Having a little section on my Tumblr dedicated to the stuff that's interested me the most, on a monthly basis. A lot more appealing! And that way I can talk about whatever I want for as long as I want. Fantastic. This probably won't stop my full reviews (there are still a few I want to write, but writer's block is getting to me right now), but this is definitely a more flexible format for me at least for now. Let's start shall we?

I might as well start with video games, as it's the thing I tend to talk about most on this blog, but truth be told I haven't actually beaten a single game this year yet. There's one game I'm currently working on beating, but because I'll be taking a more casual approach to that one (as well as gaming in general this year I imagine), I'm not comfortable talking about that one yet. Two games I'll talk about for now though, and will definitely probably come up again I will discuss though, one of those being Picross 3D.

I've never been invested in Picross but I've always found it a good time. I love all kinds of old puzzle solvers and Picross/nonograms in general have been a great, shockingly modern version of that that fit amazingly for video games. Picross 3D has felt like the perfect culmination of what Picross has achieved for years, and seeing the praise for it I knew this would be a great step for me getting into more of Picross in general, and I was right.

There's not much I can really add here, I feel no need to explain what Picross is and not much to add to it's actual gameflow other than its so addicting and there's so much of it here. I'm approaching halfway through right now and this game has nearly 400 puzzles. Each puzzle is like a trance, they all have logical and sensical solutions, and the satisfaction of finding a discrepancy, deleting/saving blocks as needed, and realizing you've just opened a whole new set of options for yourself feels amazing.

I only have two issues with it as of right now, one of them being because this game was made with a DS in mind, and because there are no zoom-in options for the game, trying to get the correct block to delete can often feel very finicky. The other issue being, well I can't play too much of it! I start seeing Picross when I close my eyes and it comes up with unsolvable puzzles! I'll talk about my future adventures with Picross no doubt in the future though, so get ready.

Another game I've been into, and you should expect to see again in these posts, is Burnout 3: Takedown. Again, probably not gonna say much on this for now, but I already have over one hundred gold medals for the courses in this game. This game has such good variety, despite having a fairly limited number of tracks it makes real good use of it, and it's technical ability for a PS2 game can only been the work of gods. Also it feels amazing to play holy shit. I get why there's never been a new one of these, but the worlds been worse without it.

One thing I will say though, don't be surprised if I write a full review on this game where I inevitably tear the latter Gran Prix to shreds, cuz holy shit the last one I did was so fucking hard. The game has great feel, design and good tells for a PS2 game, but it's still a PS2 game. You can be a god at this game and still get fucked over. But the fact that the game is so tantilizing and the amount of fuckups that can happen with you having a smile on your face... yeah I'll have to make a full review on this game when I 100% it, watch this space.

All right, next up films and television!!!

This is the section I was really excited for. I haven't talked about film at all on this blog, and I wanna make up for it. There's still a TON of films I watched last year that I want to talk about, so don't be surprised if I start making tangent posts about those at some point. More than anything, I want this year to be my film and book year, so expect it to take over all these upcoming posts from now on.

To start with, the show I finally finished, Gundam 00! This was the Gundam series I always wanted to watch even before I knew what the UC was, and now being a huge Gundam fan it's made watching the full series an... interesting reflection. I did post my opinions on the first season after finishing it last year, and I'll stick by those. Despite its problem with plotlines and characters, this show is a great response and reflection of what led to the Iraq war, as well as the war on terrorism in general. Season 1 also ended extremely strong, so Season 2 had a lot to live up to. A lot that I knew, based on a general sense and public opinion that it wouldn't. It ended up with me dropping the show for a few months until I eventually picked it back up after watching Wing rightfully thinking "it can't be any worse".

Thankfully it wasn't! The show picked up a fair bit after the second half, and included a lot of interesting arcs and stories (mainly, the stuff regarding the ALAWS) to consistently keep the show fairly solid. However, there was still a ton of problems. Plots were even messier here than they were during the first season, a huge portion of motivations just got cut in half, the characters are even less likeable here (aside from the worst ones, which are nicer now by comparison), and the main issue of the villains being a LOT less compelling here than they were in season 1, to the point of both detriment of the show and making it feel a lot more standard-Gundam faire, compared to S1's striking originality. However, there's still a lot to like! Again, a lot of the plotlines I liked such as the ALAWS and everything with Marina, the Gundam designs and effects are still solid, animation is nice (even if at points I'd prefer more clearer and concise boarding and battles), and it still carries over a lot of the themes that made Gundam 00 so solid to begin with. So despite it's weakness I'd still say that season 2 is worth the watch, if anything else for more of Setsuna and Graham.

Oh yeah and I uh, watched the movie as well.

OK, slight spoilers ahead, but I'm just gonna get through this very quickly here. This film is dumb. All of the political intrigue of the show is basically gone to make a James Cameron-inspired dumb anime blockbuster. The main villains are a cross between Xenomorphs and Terminators. It's got quip dialogue. There is a scene where they somehow make the comical approach to Allelujah's mental illnesses even more comical by giving him this Hulk-style action switch sequence. The film largely focuses on characters that get no payoff, with Setsuna being the only strong focus throughout. It's dumb. It's shallow. It's a mess. It's also kind of fun??? I can't say it looks visually much better than the show, but what it does have is a fairly simple but strong premise that fits the world fairly well. And whenever something cool happens it manages to make it REALLY cool. So that's always nice. Somehow, still a very satisfying conclusion to the series despite everything that it is, and probably up there somewhere in the middle of the Gundam films I've seen so far.

That was the first of the three films I saw this month, with the other two being not quite as schlocky. In fact, on the complete opposite of the "war is bad" scale, we have the 1957 Soviet film "The Cranes are Flying".

While a much-beloved classic by prestigious classic by many, I knew essentially nothing about this film an hour before I decided to start watching it. When I started watching the film, I was fairly disappointed in how, premise-wise, this film doesn't really have much different from what I wasn't already used to from a variety of war history, poetry, and sad mid-2000s webcomics. As stunning as this film could be with its technical prowess for the 50s, I was worried that this film wouldn't really do much for me. That was until I reached about the halfway point.

The small little trick this film plays with you (that's not really much of a trick, mind you), is extremely potent and gives this film relevancy to this day. Not being just a film about war-torn lovers, this film focuses well and truly on it's main character, Veronika, and all of her strifes and problems that arise either as caused by the war, or by her family. This film goes in to a lot of issues of women's suffrage and plight that you would not expect a film from this era to discuss, and does it with great decorum and respect (although, this came out the same year as Nights of Cabiria, which, wow, what a year for feminist film). There are some scenes in this film that are filled with harrowing emotion that I can definitely see why it's considered such an underground classic, at least as far as the west is concerned.

I think because of the general content of the film there's only so much I can enjoy though, if that makes sense? But that's just an issue for me and old movies in general, nothing against the film itself. I would still absolutely recommend this film to anyone who is interested, as relevant and ever-present now as it ever was. Man, I hate war. And warlord fascists.

Any way, final film that I watched this month, and this one's one for the BOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uh, spoilers for this one too, by the way.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is a weird one for me to talk about, because if it wasn't for the (admittedly few) caveats that I have with this film I could easily see it being one of my all-time favourites. Had I watched it a few years back it probably would be! The acting is fantastic, portraying each character and their differences wonderfully. The characters themselves are all extremely likeable and each has their own interesting quirks and interests that keep them apart despite the amount that there are onscreen. The technical ability in this film's phenomenal, loads of wonderful shots here, and the way the more compact scenes here move in-and-out of focus is absolutely wonderful. Pace, soundtrack, general story and motivations, all solid stuff.

But... at the same time... I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but like... I was only half-kidding when I called this film a "boys movie" earlier. Not that it's an innate issue! But let's say, I wanted to make a really dumb and unfavourable view on the film, you could definitely theoretically make a Letterboxd review complaining how this film is a contrived story about an evil matriarch trying to destroy "the boys" fun at all opportunities, the evil bitch! This, in and of itself I don't think would be a real issue for me with this films plot alone, but the film constructs itself with this plausible deniability aspect to it, the possibility that these men are just here to chill or self-improve! It puts some of the films accolades and themes and misunderstandings (mostly from guys) into a different context.

This, along with some other issues I have including a couple of character arcs like the Chief, and general ambivalence to certain topics as a whole, apparently don't exist in the book (from what I've been told). It's definitely something I want to read at some point! HOWEVER, all that being said, I don't hold much of this too much against the film, mostly because one, the story is still pretty damn good, and two, god there aren't many other movies out there that treat those with problems and mental illnesses with the humanity and respect quite like this film does. The way the film manages to make sure that each character deserves their own urgency and respect, and makes sure to put blame and point at the terrible ablest structures that demonise and trap them...

I think the best example of this in the film is during the beginning of the film, where the first group therapy meeting is held. The scene manages to perfectly represent the circle the main cast surrounds themselves in, where the previous good mood and vibes of the previous 10 minutes starts dimming. When Mrs. Fletcher asks Mr. Harding about his wife, with the set implication that she was being unfaithful. Harding tries to avoid the question, particularly when the topic of abuse comes up, leading to deflection, however, as the conversation goes on, the emotion from great late actor William Redfield becomes more and more potent. It starts to become more clear that even if he is deflecting, he is truly looking for redemption and self-improvement, and, truth be told, the fact of him being abusive, or even her cheating both start becoming irrelevant (the film never states if they were or not). This is lost on the other patients though, who see this session as just another time of him yapping about his wife, strictly against Harding's wishes. This turns into a shouting match, all the while Mrs. Fletcher and the other doctors do nothing but watch. Despite how this has clearly happened before, despite the fact that it's strictly not working, they let it continue not necessarily because they personally believe it helps, but because they believe it's best to follow the systems and rules set in place by the hospital, even if it only hurts and victimizes the patients who are there just to get help.

So yeah I like this film a lot, I think it's fantastic. I know I kinda went on about it for a bit for a film that's been talked about to death, but whatever. Definitely would recommend, good film good film.

And laaaastt uppp uuhhhh albums I guess? Truth is, I'm gonna have a similar issue with this section that I did last time where I'm not gonna know what to write that much, so I came up with a solution. Most of the reason I did what I did last year on Twitter with my relistens was to make up for lastfm mostly being irrelevant for me now. So, I decided instead I'd make my own lastfm 5x5 charts based on what I listened to that month, either being new albums or relistens. So, here it is:

There'll be times where I probably go on tangents here. For example I FINALLY got around to hearing Quaranta and I of course ended up really liking it. Same with Genesis' Trespass, Far East Suite, and that Funkadelic album. And there's still issues with this format like I might have to differentiate what was new for me and what was a relisten. But I imagine the format will end up changing a lot as the months go on and it might not even be the same next month so, we'll what I do next I suppose, if I scrap this idea don't be surprised, it's probably cuz I didn't listen to that month or something I dunno.

Anyway, that's the update done! God knows if when I do this next month it'll be even remotely as close to as long as this one was. There might be months when I decide to dedicate an entire section to one single piece of art I enjoyed. Maybe there won't be one some months and I just try to put out a review or something instead, or I just choose to shitpost a whole month cuz I REALLY have nothing to say. We'll see. I imagine this'll be a fun format to experiment with, either way. Thanks for reading!

[greenjokwe-blog]

Planescape: Torment - Finished 31/08/2023

I'll be perfectly honest, 2023 gaming for me has not been my best year. That has nothing to do with the games that have come out though, moreso that all the games that I have played this year aside from a couple have mostly pailed in comparison to what I played in 2022. In fact, I'll be the first to admit that from what I can tell, the games that have actually come out this year have been nothing short of phenomenal, with a ton of groundbreaking games all coming out very short of each other. That being said, my backlog is just waaaay too massive right now, so when Baldur's Gate 3 was about to come out to wide acclaim, I tried looking through games that I could take out before I would be able to in good mind get myself to buy it. The first of which immediately came the old CRPG DND games, which after playing around in a ton of RTS games for a bit seemed like a perfect way to test my old game limit. It eventually lead me to Planescape: Torment, a game for the longest time I had heard was one of the greatest games ever made, so I decided to give it a try, letting myself know I could quit at any point, and... Wow. Woah. It's not that I didn't believe in it it's just... God damn.

I should say that technically, Planescape Torment was my second game on my CRPG adventure since I technically started with playing the first Baldur's Gate. A game that I did not get very far in mind you, but not out of any particular distain! In fact, there were parts of that game that I really enjoyed. Honestly, seeing a game like that so ambitiously and elegantly attempt to mimic the experience of a single-player DnD session was fascinating for me (even though I've never finished a full campaign with friends), which works wonders considering not only the fact that a ton of modern-day RPG's are influenced by this title in particular, but the foundation of all RPG's basically coming directly from the stats and campaigns told in the advanced Forgotten Realms worlds. It put the entire genre in a context for me that's only really been matched by Dragon Quest V in terms of its benefits and how so many of what we consider the genre's antiquities were originally used, and how to use them in ways that complement the games themselves and make them interesting design-wise. Unfortunately, that interest only brought me so far, as the constant save-scumming that I did to myself just to experience in-game scenarios that didn't particularly interest me, with my first real interaction with pause/play combat wore me out, and lead to me dropping the game after only a few hours.

I will say though, that I am extremely glad that I started that game before starting Planescape, as it absolutely helped me out with my experience here. Knowing how to traverse the menu system, the pause combat, the character management, amongst other things went a long way in helping me understand the game, which was likely needed as one of the game's biggest issues is definitely how obtuse and archaic it can be at the best of times. The obvious main complaint that everyone will go to first is the combat, which even for an 1999 RPG, isn't particularly stellar, and usually cycles from mind-numbingly simple to extreme tedium and confusion. That along with poor item management and a ton of glitches no matter which version of the game you play leads to the game being a hard revisit for many a player, and all aspects have been improved with later RPG's, however the number of titles it manages to predate with it's ambition, also the fact that there are slight workarounds and ways to avoid most issues with reasonable planning make it somewhat forgivable, so you can actually get through to the main game's role playing and story.

And holy hell, what a story it is. The way the game manages to work it's incredibly investing, multi-faction, multi-belief world of the afterlife and multiverse in it's Planescape setting, along with the mainline writing of the subversive and beautiful CRPG character-driven experience that plays with tropes and archetypes that can only really be matched by Love-de-Lic's moon in terms of total scale (although both have very different influences and go in very different direction with their playing of expectations!). The central mystery of the game, focusing on the main character and his identity, in conjunction with the extremely deep dialogue options of every single named NPC of Sigil, makes for perhaps the most wonderful story I've experienced in a game, with the involving nature and the great dramatic scale of the best DnD campaigns, and the intrinsic value and general structure of Black Isle's other series, Fallout, which the game is based on more than anything else.

There are so many little nitty gritty details I could get into about this game that made me fall in love with it initially, talking to the characters and finding out about the game's first faction, going through the side quests without an extra thought because I was genuinely intrigued about how things would resolve, the fact that half of the main playable cast in the game is up there as the best party members in any RPG I've played. There is a LOT to cover, and it's all down to the game's excellent writing and its smart way of kiting you along, while still being fairly linear compared to other CRPG's the game itself never really doubts the player and always makes the multitude of options feel gratifying even if there's not that much choice. Granted, not all of the game's interactions are this simple, and in fact there are definitely some quests and different parts of the game that require a bit much of you to figure out yourself. It's what reluctantly makes me say that this game will likely be a Guide Game for the vast majority of players, because although I'd love to recommend multiple playthroughs for this game to get the most out of it, if you're like me and want to see as much as they can in one go, or you're as dumb as me when it comes to the mainline fetch-puzzles cuz you didn't pay quite enough attention to one NPC, you're probably gonna need to be Walkthroughed to experience the most of what this game has to offer. Don't worry, trust me, it's worth it, the payoffs in this game are great.

... Okay, maybe not all of the payoffs. In more ways than the ones already mentioned, there are a lot of obvious tellings of this game's issues that were fairly rushed before release, but this issue really starts to ire once you leave Sigil. Let it be known that the way that Sigil breadcrumbs you through everything, and allows players to figure the compelling world out for themselves and all of that stellar game design, essentially doesn't exist when you get to the area Curst. Extremely insular in scope, a reliance on classical RPG job board-esque quests, an overreliance on the combat which at this point was easily skipped, generally poor design with selections of items and resting points... It's not a pretty site, and by the time you get to the Prison section where you'll likely be picking off one enemy at a time ad nauseam until you clear out every single room... It feels extremely rushed and uncared for compared to the rest of the game, which is a shame as the game starts finally picking up again once you get to the last area, where the game finishes very, VERY strong and leaves a perfectly satisfying conclusion while leaving you guessing and thinking for all the while longer.

But, out of everything, out of all of the issues and annoyances I had, I cannot begin to describe how absolutely enamoured by this game I was when first going through it. I've been trying to keep it brief but I could go on about how much I love Morte and Dak'kon (amongst the other party members), some of the individual quests that kept me investigating and thinking about what dialogue options to choose and where to go, trying to compartmentalize the whole world and it's factions/philosophies as much as possible in my brain without the need of the journal or writing things down. The voice acting, the visuals, the character design, the use of stats... god I could go on. It's a video game that, like many others, has affected me in a way not many other games have, and managed to get me not only interested in Dungeons and Dragons history, worlds, and lore but also got me back into reading books! That's probably one of the biggest compliments I could ever give a game, especially of Planescape's type. Absolutely worth the huge amount of love and devotion it's cult following has given it. Maybe not a universal recommendation (and hey, maybe with BG3's success a remake of this game may come out that actually isn't too bad. Weirder has happened.), but absolutely worth it if you're willing to give it a chance.

[greenjokwe-blog]

AI: The Somnium Files - Finished 13/07/2023

Oh my god fucking finally dude.

So as my friends know I’ve been meaning to get around to playing this game for quite some time now, for at least over a year. Being a public fan of Uchikoshi and the Zero Escape games for a while now, particularly 999 which I consider to be one of the best visual novels I’ve ever played, being able to bond with friends over our discussions and on-going jokes about these games had been an absolute delight during the lockdown years. Knowing that I was one of the few of these friends who had yet to play AI Somnium only made my desire grew, as they all put the game on a pretty high pedestal compared to ZE, so I knew I was in for a good time, which is why I also decided to stream my entire playthrough on Twitch (I’d link here but can’t be arsed). It was definitely a fun stream game, and I think I can gladly say it’s also a pretty nice non-stream game as well.

I think one of the biggest compliments I can give Uchikoshi’s writing style is that he tends to rely on stories that are on the surface very logical and complicated but in reality store a strong emotional core to them that’s undeniably potent. That is definitely the case with this game, although I'd probably say this is weirdly one of the more grounded games he's made yet. Don't get me wrong it's still batshit, and becomes very batshit by the time you get to the end, but the game's a lot more willing to lean on the more human aspects of the story a lot earlier on and save a lot of the pseudo-scientific aspects for later. Now that's largely to do with it's detective story structure rather than an escape room killing game one, but the game's approach to it's characters tends to be a lot less intensive and plays more into the quirkiness than even ZE. This leads to dialogue that's both very funny and very... Interesting. Now don't get me wrong I like the characters (faves being Mizuki and... Ota), it definitely has its moments. With so much of the game's humour coming from weird puns or any given character's terminal horniness, combined with a lot of the character dynamics that lean on either being Junepei-lite or, at worst, veryyyyyyy questionable... However!!! Compared to contemporaries Uchikoshi I would say has SOME tact with writing these segments and when it matters he's able to make me laugh heartedly, and hey! Out of all the weird bad jokes only about a fourth of them made me wanna recoil! That's okay!

The game also diverts from ZE in other interesting ways. You have the VN sections taking a bit more from TellTale type adventure games, with the branching character dialogues and how the detective story is handled. The biggest thing that makes it stand out, however, are the actual gameplay sections. These "Somnium Psync" portions of the game are definitely the most adventure game-ish section of any Uchikoshi game so far, but they end up being a lot more involving than one would think at first inspection. These Psychonauts like, multiple choice timed levels not only test your logical deduction skills with surveying the environment and making choices based on the different interactables, but also require you to think from a sensical, emotional aspect from the game's story so far and how what you're doing is benefitting the character you're Psynched with. Granted, this isn't always the case, some of the choices can end up being trial and error, and that combined with how tight the later-game Somniums can be, can lead to at least a few frustrations. However, at their best they end up being an extremely fun combination of play and storytelling these games tend to excel at.

... That being said, there is a LITTLE disappointment in this regard though, most namely, in how the game handles its branching paths. Compared to ZE (not counting ZTD), there're only about 5 different branching paths and endings in the game overall. This wouldn't be that much of an issue in and of itself, but due to the game's more grounded nature, it's also a lot less interesting and playful in this regard compared to VLR, meaning that these paths, while nice for variety, end up feeling more like just a buffer for feeding you certain information, which can feel both tiring and very much short of the heights that the former game was able to achieve so well (for uh, the most part, disregarding the ending). Although that being said, I probably wouldn't have as much of an issue with this as I did if it wasn't for the fact that nothing really took me away like ZE did, which honestly I think mostly comes down to the fact that this being my 4th Uchikoshi game means I'm more adjusted to his writing style at this point. Not an inherent negative, and I imagine a lot of other people won't necessarily feel the same going right into this before his other games.

There are other complaints I could probably list with this game, like some weird logical leaps in it's story, the "action" segments of the game that are weirdly executed QTE segments that are ALMOST really good climaxes for certain jokes, and again, a lot of laurel-lying with the writing that makes the game feel a lot safer than its predecessors. However, if there's one thing that I realized by the end of the game is that there aren't really many games out there that get the heart of it right quite like this one does. It may be limited in scope but it allows the game to be more down to earth, with each jest feeling like it comes from a place of love. The game has more honest and reasonable expectations of itself, which means it can also have a lot more fun with itself, and also experiment here and there with its new foundation without being completely over-bearing.

The game leaves a lot of things up in the air by the end of the game, maybe moreso than needed to make a strong enough conclusion. Answers I now know will probably not entirely be answered by Nirvana Initiative, but maybe that's fine! Maybe a fresh branch of the game story to elaborate more on its ideas is just what this game needs! Eh, I don't know, I'm not expecting a masterpiece. I've pretty much accepted now that no Uchikoshi game will surpass 999 for me, but I've also accepted that's fine, considering I've always had a good time with each installment. AI Somnium is just another good game for people who want to play more weird, indulgent good games. Just what I needed to get back to. Good stuff. I don't know what else to write. God I forgot how hard this shit was.

[greenjokwe-blog]

OneShot - Finished 06/04/2023

/ * * * Slight Spoilers Ahead * * * /

After being sent to unreasonable rage for three games in a row for various reasons, I knew I needed something to change. Even if I didn’t necessarily want to, I knew I had to pick a safe bet, a game where I knew, if I had any issues with it that would cause me to raise my temper, I’d need to quit video games for a while. My One Shot. It seemed like the perfect pick from the outset and honestly, thank god, it was just what I needed.

I say it a lot with games of its ilk, but conceptually OneShot feels hand-crafted for me to like it. A game with a striking world, and interesting and diversely-designed characters, all about leading a character to a single destination each step of the way, and building on that bond at each step. It’s an RPGMaker game that plays out more like a classic adventure game, putting the engine’s strengths to good use and also giving you puzzles that aren’t challenging like it’s progenitors, but just rewarding and makes you think outside of the box enough to be rewarding.

And of course, when I say “out of the box” it’s quite literal. The big appeal of this game is its meta-narrative,  one that exudes from the whole game that it’s a shock that I didn’t play it sooner with my obsession with the concept. The ideas and shit that the game throws at you build up to the point of its strong final portion, where the core of the game and it’s point reveals itself. One thing I will say is that the things that OneShot throws at the player definitely aren’t unique, even if you count its mid-2010′s release, but I think execution is important here. If there’s one compliment that OneShot deserves is that it ironically understands its limitations very well, and due to that understanding is able to deliver them with a level of quaintness and sincerity that is very befitting for what the game is going for.

However, one thing I will say is that initially, the tightrope that OneShot tries to pull with this can feel counter-productive. The world-building and cast initially seem to be put on an occasional backburner in order to emphasise the game’s link with Niko, and while it works for what the game is trying to do, it can feel particularly light on content and context and points to really to bring all of the atmosphere and feeling the game is trying to bring home... That is, until you begin the game’s second playthrough. This playthrough adds a LOT to the game’s general tone, worldbuilding, and message, at the price of the general gameplay and puzzles being a lot weaker. The game also starts adding a lot of jargon, feel fairly on the nose and over-elaborates on some details to the point of making things overly lore-dumpy and complex but... I don’t mind it too much cuz it seems like that’s part of the point. The two playthroughs feel like two sides of the same coin, both used to bounce off each other and play off the core of the game’s themes and message. One that I highly empathise with.

I think that kinda sums up my thoughts on OneShot in general. It’s definitely not a perfect game and I wouldn’t call it a mind-blowing experience, but I can’t really fault it at all either. The puzzles are simple and fun, the game knows how to work in and out of its boundaries, the general art style and atmosphere of the game are wonderfully nice and sweet, the music is calming, and the game knows how to keep the player’s interest and surprise them while still keeping to its sincere core and heart, and it’s one that resonates so well with me personally I THINK I’ll be able to keep the game’s promise. A lovely little time.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure - Finished 01/04/2023

... I really, REALLY need to vet these games before playing them.

Zack and Wiki was high up on the list of games I needed to play for a WHILE. I bought it YEARS ago for preowned £12 back when the Wii was still relevant, I heard RAVE things about this game from places like Official Nintendo Magazine when it launched. As far as I’m aware, the game is still considered a hidden gem in the Wii library to this day. I left my Wii backlog abandoned for a while, so when I decided to finally dust off my Wii U (it wasn’t that undusted, was replaying some BoTW recently) and finally beat it, thinking a break with a nice, casual, children's point-and-click game...Fuck man, part of me makes me almost think I’M the issue.

Okay, compliments first cuz there’s a LOT to love about this game. The visual presentation is absolutely lovely. The models look great, colours gorgeous, animation is lovely, and honestly this game feels like to the Wii what Mega Man Legends was for the PS1. In fact I’d say this game has a lot of the best of Capcom’s default charm. Everything pops out and makes sense, there’s an inherent “kick” to how things feel to use and interact with, and in general, there’s just a great sense of creativity with the amount of game mechanics that fit into the structure of the game. This game has a ton of ideas and feels pretty unique for what it is, the best way I could describe it is like a fusion of Mega Man Legends, Ghost Trick, Secret of Monkey Island, and your standard early Wii game.

And when I say early Wii game, holy shit do I mean it. What’s nice about the puzzles in Zack and Wiki is that they are very beginner-friendly and easily solvable, but maaaan that does NOT follow up in actual execution. This game controls entirely via the Wii mote, and a lot of actual interfacing with the mechanics requires a variety of different motion control actions. Which, don’t get me wrong, at the time, SUPER cool, especially with how they’re integrated into the levels and the items it can feel super immersive, but it makes things a strain at certain points, especially towards the end of the game where it feels like half of the controls don’t even work like intended, leading to a lot of unintended deaths.

Oh yeah, dying in this game sucks. Instead of having your standard life system or using checkpoints, this game needs you to buy lives with gold, you don’t get any for free. What at first seems like an interesting idea to play into the games score system for solving puzzles, turns into immediate frustration very quickly, as large amounts of progress can be reset due to a mechanic not working or an accidental misclick, and your only reprieve is that you didn’t waste your money and have enough lives, which still resets your score, so you might as well reset anyway. It sucks cuz what could’ve been a convenience was turned into the exact opposite.

It’s so frustrating. If these features felt less broken, felt more considered and just, worked? I feel like this would be one of my favourite games on the Wii. And who knows, maybe it’s because of the final boss that really frustrated me and broke the straw, but man it’s hard for me to even look at the great parts of the game without thinking twice. I did really like the game at its best though, fusing great child-friendly point-n-click mechanics without the inherent puzzle-solving arbitrariness that may turn people off.��I love games like this, I LOVE unconventional games and, if not limited by the pre-Motion+ Wiimote or maybe a better money balance for hints AND lives that didn’t require you to replay levels, I’d be suggesting EVERYONE check this out. I can still definitely recommend this game just cuz the good parts manage to be so incredibly impressive, unique and charming, but only with the pre-warnings I didn’t really give myself. I really really wanted to fall in love with Zack and Wiki, but all the things against it just make me never want to touch it or its post-game ever again. An EXTREMELY neat game worth remembering and looking into, but nowadays will need to be judged by new players to see if it’s worth the dive.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Ninja Gaiden Black - Finished 23/03/2023

Man, I need to vet these games more before I decide I’m gonna finish them.

That’s not to say that Ninja Gaiden Black is a bad game, of course, to start right off the bat I enjoyed it quite a bit. While I didn’t initially plan on playing it, thinking back on the Devil May Cry games I remembered I never really gave this one a shot, when reminiscing over Xbox exclusives with friends. I always think of how much I’ve changed since then, from not being able to beat the first level of DMC3 as a kid, to eventually beating it and adoring each moment. I also think back to recently beating Dark Souls 2, and even though I usually downplay how “good” I am at games and use excuses as to why what I’m able to do I consider to not be out of the ordinary. Dark Souls 2 definitely got me to reflect on that and give myself some credit but fuck, after Ninja Gaiden Black, just give me all the credit. Give me the whole arcade, actually.

I get kinda weird about gaging difficulty for games, I think the modern perspective of difficulty is completely different to what it was, and the fact that we’ve all accepted Souls as “the most difficult thing to ever exist ever” is kinda proof of that. However, if we’re basing it on 21st Century games, no save states, no exploits, running through as intended, and factoring in a consistent struggle rather than random difficulty “stuck” spikes... Ninja Gaiden Black is almost definitely the hardest game I’ve ever beaten, and I only played it on normal.

Y’see, the way I see it is with a game like Dark Souls, as difficult as its hardest points can be, one or two messing around with the game’s systems or having a full commitment to one build can mitigate a LOT of the game’s overall frustrations. Ninja Gaiden Black requires at least a good amount of competency in its overall mechanics and combat in order to be beaten. And to be fair the game’s combat is pretty damn good! You’re given the faith of having a large kit right from the getgo, and your interest is only kept over time with the introduction of upgrades and new weapons, and different kinds of projectiles to weave into battle. Enemies hit hard but so do you, and (most of) their attacks are well-telegraphed enough for you to use one of many effective defence mechanisms and come back with a 20/30 hit, fighting game-style combo, that feels satisfying in a way unlike any other game of its kind.

Where the game ultimately fails in terms of its Devil May Cry contemporaries, however, is having its combat and platforming elements coexist without conflicting with each other. Both on their own at their best moments shine very brightly, especially how wall running can lead to some true ninja-esque moments, but when fused together to fit in one cohesive game, can lead to a lot of unintended inputs that are impossible to easily mitigate. That along with the absolutely terrible camera in the game lead to issues like completely missing a jump and being unable to gauge what is needed to land, and losing a combo because you needed to spam a move to give yourself the right spacing which you still weren’t able to get. 

The game is kind of filled with frustrating aspects like this, including the fairly primitive first-person bow mechanics in urgent combat situations, but I think the shocking thing is despite the game’s most glaring annoyances the whole experience remains pretty damn solid. The bosses, while extremely hard and also very infuriating with how much they repeat the same bosses over and over again, definitely still have their highlights, and some manage to be extremely engaging and rewarding. The graphics look insane for 6th gen, you can tell that this is a game that tested the Xbox to its limits. The story... honestly I had no fucking clue what was happening but the FMV’s look cool as shit.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were a LOT of moments playing this where I was on the verge of crying and going “there was no reason to make the game this hard”, but hey I fucking beat it! Which is saying something considering how unfair the game can be at points with saves (even if it’s one of the more generous of the generation), and extremely minimal heals at the beginning of the game, which lead to me hoarding all my heals till the end of the game making it harder for myself, but fuck I breezed through the last part of the game cuz of that, hey I even beat the final boss on my first try! Frustrating and faulty on a level that doesn’t make it as strong as the two DMC games I finished, but still a really fun experience I can now use as bragging rights from hereon out in my gaming career.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Pizza Tower - Finished 20/03/2023

It’s been incredibly interesting watching this game go from a neat indie platformer I’d see the progress of on Twitter to this huge phenomenon in the span of a few months. Not only that, but it’s a Wario Land inspired precision-platformer! It seemed like everything was working in it’s favour for me to absolutely adore it, and while I wouldn’t say this is my favourite of the genre (I’d give the edge to DustForce on this one), yeah this game is stellar.

Weirdly enough though, I feel like I don’t actually have that much to say about the game in general, so I’ll just go through each element real quick. Animation: obviously excellent, the artstyle has the great 90s gross-out edge while still feeling like the gamey-games its inspired by. Music, also really good, as exciting as it needs to be and it needs to be REALLY exciting. Level design - again, really good, not all levels are created equally but every level has at least something going on that makes it unique and interesting. Creativity overall is out of the park on this one, and the way it fuses it with it’s influences makes the game come across as a true passion project.

Once again, I have to state that not everything in this game is created equally, but every time I try to write an issue I do have with the game it comes across as incredibly nitpicky. Mainly it just comes down to the fact that some mechanics I enjoyed dealing with over others, and the fact that I don’t really feel the desire to replay these levels like I do a lot of it’s contemporaries. I feel completely comfortable with my all A-Ranks, All Treasure playthrough (which also by complete accident, also managed to be the bare minimum for me to get the “not bad at all!” judgement), and to leave the game at that. I feel like it’s not the most addicting, seamless, or easy-to-pick-up of it’s kind, but it definitely feels like the one with the most enjoyable amount of content per level, and definitely the one that feels the most outwardly enjoyable. Definitely worth the praise it’s getting. Great game.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Young Fathers: Heavy Heavy - Listened 04/03/2023

While this post has Heavy Heavy highlighted, I wanted to make a general post about Young Father’s music in general. I’ll be honest I do not really know why it took me so long to listen to these guys. I’ve heard the occasional song here and there but I’ve never really listened to a full project until recently. A few days ago I listened to Cocoa Sugar and was thoroughly impressed at how interesting and stand-out it sounded while still being so irresistibly catchy (another album from 2018, if my “best year for music” hypothesis wasn’t proven enough). Listening to their earlier stuff also proved this to me, a lot rougher but still solid songs that are energetic and well crafted. I’m glad I listened to more of their music before Heavy Heavy dropped, because man while I definitely found a new band to really enjoy, this is easily their best so far.

The group was already interesting with their strange soul/indietronica hybrid, but this album is easily their most experimental yet. It’s still accessible, thanks to the soul blend and gospel influence along with the great hooks, but there’s definitely a tinge to ominousness and light industrial influence shown here. It reminds me of an advancement of what TV on the Radio was doing, but with way stronger production and shocking sounds throughout. It can be tense but it’s also extremely exciting, the modern art pop interpretation of African spiritual music that can be seen throughout makes the album feel both like an enlightening and a sonic roller-coaster. Excellent stuff. One of my favourites of 2023 very easily. Will be listening to this (along with all of their other stuff) I can imagine a lot this year.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin - Finished 02/03/2023

And that finishes off the first four FromSoft Soulslike games! I will say that even though the main reason I went from Dark Souls 1 to Bloodborne was the fact that I did not own Dark Souls 2 at that point, I will also admit that there was a personal aversion that put me off playing it as well. Hearing it was the weakest Soulslike game for the longest time and how it learnt all the wrong lessons from the first game definitely effected how I went into it, but after Bloodborne I was excited for anything that resembled the first Dark Souls so after playing it... I don’t hate it, but at the same time I can’t say those previous sentiments were wrong.

I think you can definitely tell this is the game where FromSoft let the “Dark Souls hard” marketing really get to them, cuz MAN this game fucking prides itself on being difficult to a ridiculous degree. I’d say the other games were difficult but the main difficulty came from periodic spikes or specific areas that were either hard to navigate or deliberately contained all the hardest enemies. This game is hard throughout. It’s the only FromSoft Soulslike game I’d honestly put up there as one of the hardest games I’ve ever played because of how absolutely relentless it is. The bosses aren’t harder but everything else is, especially the levels, with enemy placements everywhere, often put in tight corridors requiring you to fight them (I will say from what I’ve heard SotFS is worse than the original in this regard), meaning that the swerves and the fun of learning to traverse areas to get to bosses is greatly harmed. It can definitely lead to some funny moments but like the rest of this game the joke doesn’t land as well when it’s repeated so many times.

I’m sounding a bit mean here, I do think there were a lot of decisions here that were made to improve upon the DS1, but they seem extremely misguided at best. Most obvious one is how the Hollow mechanic works, slowly losing your health the more you die until you either get to a certain ring equip in the game or use an effigy item, which are limited unless you’re willing to grind at the cost of either constantly invading others games or making all the enemies around a certain bonfire harder. I can see what they were TRYING to do with this, especially when you consider the “adaptive difficulty” mechanic of less enemies appearing the more you spawn into a certain area (also likely a way to deter players from grinding a certain point), but not only does it feel unnecessary, it feels like it does the exact opposite of what it’s set out to do, often making a lot of fights feel like races against the clock, meaning if you’re not operating on the games own logical pacing you’re likely fucked, which is probably one of the least desirable things you can have in a Souls game.

There are many other issues, a lot of which have been talked about to death. Bosses are mostly copy-pasted either from Dark Souls 1 or they’re reused again and again later on, the areas aren’t that memorable in comparison to the other games and don’t match up at all thematically, characters are all cardboard save for two of them, the adaptability stat even existing in the first place, and the weapon durability system is completely broken and nonsensical. Yet despite all of that... I’d still say this game is okay. Not even bad, just okay. There are some good ideas in here that I really like, Burnt Ivory King is at least in the top 5 FromSoft bosses I’ve fought, the builds are still customizable and arguably, even more, engaging this time around thanks to power-stancing, and there are plenty of gimmicks that, while not always working end up being at the very least engaging or adding a little extra to what might be a forgettable area. And again, the game seems to have a nice humour about itself. I think it says something that I still went through and beat every boss in this game, despite it easily being the longest. The fundamentals of the game are still that solid. I think people forget that even the game’s biggest detractors at launch still had fun with the game, and there’s a lot of fun to be had! If you weren’t in love with the Souls formula at this point this game isn’t gonna win you over, but I still enjoyed my time with a good chunk of it. I don’t think it’s really on the same level as the first game like its biggest defenders would let you believe, but enough is there to have a good time and enjoy at least a little of the process of a B-Team be in the dark. Plus a lot of issues I have with it I could easily see people being invested in and enjoying those aspects of the game! I don’t think it’s a net negative at all in that regard, I can see the appeal very easily here. Dark Souls II, while I would definitely call it a step-down, I think earns its own reputation, despite whatever people might think of it. Not for everyone (hell, not even really for ME), and a bit of a gruelling mess, but hey it’s a gruelling mess that also somehow manages to be an entertaining mess. I think that’s at least something.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Pyre - Finished 20/02/2023

Going back through my Supergiant game journey after putting it on hold for a year and a half, playing through them all in order has been a very interesting experience for me. They’re a studio who both haven’t released any bad games and not only have improved more and more over time, but with the massive success of Hades warranting their first direct sequel, it’s very fun putting all of their other games in context to that without having played the game for myself. Pyre in a lot of ways is technically more impressive than both of their previous games, although for me in terms of favourites I’d probably put it in the exact middle right now.

Firstly, the structure is completely different this time. While it does keep a lot (maybe even most) of the studio’s staples, some aspects are much favoured over others, such as the more narrator-style of storytelling being changed for it’s more multi-choice, choose your own adventure story, hell most of the game is basically a visual novel! While I loved the old story presentation, seeing how perfectly it was executed in Transistor, I’m happy to see them strive for new ideas, and this game definitely shows the heights of the new formula at certain points.

First off, I must talk about the best part about this game - the characters. The cast is easily the best Supergiant has ever done, there will be at least a couple of characters you’ll be invested in their character arcs throughout, and wanna stick out from them. Which is when the game reveals its biggest secret and greatest strength; its understanding of character progression and levelling with player investment, leading to some reveals that hit the player like a brick.

Although that being said, once the game first drops its biggest ball about four hours in, the rest of the game never really seems to hit quite as hard, which is fine because it still has its moments that shine very bright, but considering that when this released it was the studios longest game, and that a lot of that is bogged down by large dialogue of lore dumps, the game really shined only as bright to me with the characters I liked and the choices I made. Towards the game’s end the game suffers the most, but also created this unique feeling of melancholy I definitely appreciated and is befitting of Supergiant's body of work as a whole.

But uh yeah, rest is as you expect. Beautiful art, wonderful soundtrack, the gameplay... even more unbalanced and exploitable than usual. I definitely still do like it, and I think that’s due to my love of sports RPGs sparked by Inazuma Eleven, but it definitely suffers from character playstyles that aren’t great or synergize very well with other party compositions, trivializing a lot of encounters or making some character styles suffer when the game forces you to use them. Still, at its best, it’s incredibly involving and exciting, with incredibly tight controls and decision-making play.

So yeah, Pyre isn’t without its flaws, but I’d still say it’s a very good game. Honestly, I’m just really glad to see them try something new, and if Hades uses the character dialogue presentation of story (which from what I’ve seen of what Hades story is) and improves on it as much as Transistor did with Bastion���s roots, I think I’ll definitely love that game as well. But considering it’s longer than the length of every Supergiant game up to this point combined, I’m not in a rush. I’d still recommend this, the most slept-on Supergiant game that’s definitely worth checking out.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Vylet Pony: Carousel (An Examination of the Shadow, 'Creekflow', and its Life as an Afterthought) - Listened 06/02/2023

Back in 2019, I made a bold and very premature claim that fandom music was the way of the future. I don’t know how I feel about that now but I think I still believe in the idea on a fundamental level. From what I see from my interpretations of current trends (again, probably wrong), the all-range demand and universal love for music and art that’s based on “real life experiences” as amazing as it can be I feel can sometimes diminish from artists who are influenced to write genuinely about other unpopular means, the art of character songs, and ironically enough prints artists into this box of spreadable, marketable personas, leading to restrictions along the line and the need to self-fabricate (which, for the record, is totally fine, but you can see the contradiction). I feel like in order to keep with the creation of wonderful art that’s still sincere, it has to go back to the roots of the one thing basically all artists have in common; the love of their influences and the desire to create.

This is a lot of what makes Vylet Pony’s music so interesting and special to me. An artist who addresses these ideas as directly as you possibly could, Vylet has an amazing talent regarding production and musical ideas, and manage to deliver that with such honesty regarding its specific interests, and strong disregard for anyone who wouldn’t give its music the time of day. It ends up leading to music that’s incredibly exciting to listen to, sounding very assessible while still being albums filled with love. I have no real weight in the say of My Little Pony music specifically, stopped watching FiM after the airing of the first episode of season 2 (still don’t know what happened to Discord), but this album manages to be the best of all worlds regarding previous outings, being arguably one of the more generally accessible from a surface analysis, but musically as experimental and personal as ever.

While I really liked fish whisperer, one of the easier complaints that you could make about that album is that it was very much a “Porter Robinson worship” album (fine by me, I loved nurture!) This album, however, takes a much broader influence from a variety of electronic music in general. From artsy indietronica, to drum and bass, to bro-step, to glitchy VGM and its many samples. There are also broader influences from rock music and industrial that make the album sound truly unique as far as my experience of this kind of music goes. Some of these influences and their execution I prefer more than others, but overall generally I think it works great at getting the point across, that the album, as well as Vylet’s music in general, isn’t made to be “confrontational”, but rather take the feelings of the whimsical and the eclectic from its sources and expand on them anew, with its own vision and personality.

And again, this album is definitely the most personal Vylet has released yet. It’s one that I have difficulty writing about as of yet, having not heard it a second time yet and currently still writing this to mainly keep up with my media thread (don’t expect album reviews to be here often bc of this, even if it’s my preferred medium), but I do have a strong feeling that Vylet doesn’t really know what to make of its placement as a long-standing artist. Feelings of losing self-confidence and fleeting moments and dreams seem to fill the album, almost like the baggage of its work has bitten back, no matter how unjustified it may be.

I’ll refrain from writing any more about it in case I find something else on relistens or find out more abt Vylet/Pony lore, but if one thing is the case for me is that I hope Vylet keeps creating music that feels like this. While fish whisperer might be easier for me to digest and go back to, this album is definitely the better and more accomplished of the two. Something that I genuinely hope makes an impact, that has so much talent going into it that I hope that even its harshest cynics sit back and think about it for a bit. If we can finally break this boundary of this kind of music being put into a corner and forgotten about, I feel like the more that music as a whole can grow and change for the better. Although maybe we don’t have to. Maybe it’s already here. I don’t know. But yeah, definitely the first album of 2023 I ended up loving. Excited for what the future may bring, both for Vylet and music in general.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Little King’s Story - Finished 04/02/2023

This is the third game from the Love-de-Lic legacy chart that I have completed, after moon and Chibi Robo. Out of the whole chart Little King’s Story particularly caught my attention, after knowing about its very small cult status and rave critical acclaim from places like Official Nintendo Magazine which I read religiously as a child. That along with the fact that a few core people behind moon worked on this game meant I knew I had to play this one eventually, and while I didn’t love this game on the same level as moon (not much games that I do), it IS an absolutely fantastic game.

Okay, first off, did NOT expect this game to be as long as it was. I went in expecting at most a 10-or-so hour game, and my final playtime ended up being more than three times that. This game is absolutely LOADED with shit to do, with a huge map, a large amount of bosses, tons of different classes and jobs, you name it. And yet, it manages to deliver on all of these aspects with an INSANE amount of polish, with issues being very few and far between, despite how complicated I can imagine some of this shit could be to get working at points. In fact, the whole game perfectly teeters between being easy to pick up and having impressively in-depth systems so elegantly, and with seemingly very little detail missed. 

Hell, the game’s FILLED with detail. It feels like a vision of the game has been wonderfully realized and brought across with the beautiful artstyle, world variety, and it’s insane combinations of gameplay styles. The best way to describe how Little King’s Story plays is a combination of moon and Pikmin, although there’s definitely elements of a ton of other games in there as well that I could use to compare it to (Civ, Dragon Quest, Zelda). Although if I had to complain about one main element of the game, it’s that the Pikmin battle elements that this game lifts from definitely aren’t as mechanically compelling as it’s predecesor. While a lot of the bosses thankfully are design around that, it doesn’t stop the fact that most encounters are constant straight-ways of back-and-forths which, combined with the game’s lesser ability to sort through units, and the bad AI pathfinding, end up with a ton of fights being A-press spams without thought, and the occasional B to avoid attacks.

Although, even though I’ll admit that the combat isn’t nearly as good as it is in Pikmin... fuck me if I don’t prefer literally everything else about this game. All the other issues I have with the game can be easily forgiven or written past just because of how amazingly packed with ideas this game is throughout its 30-hour runtime, and how every single one hits. And it’s only elevated with the game’s writing, which is god damn amazing. The game’s funny and charming but it gets into some surprising topics you wouldn’t expect with how incredibly cute everything is and has such a humorous approach in discussing its monarchical and colonist themes that you could write a whole video e... nope, not humouring it. Get Folding Ideas or someone else.

If this game even sounds remotely interesting to you, PLEASE do yourself a favour and play it. It absolutely deserves it’s place as one of the best games ever released on the Wii and, while I’d recommend avoiding the PC port you’ll probably find other ways of playing it anyways. Please do. Criminally overlooked.

[greenjokwe-blog]

Fellini’s 8½ - Watched 27/01/2023

It’s an blatant anecdote coming from me, but I recall David Lynch saying in an interview about being asked to discuss his films and what they mean, follow by him wincing, and then him lightly saying “the film does the talking”. Little did I know before writing this that 8½ is Lynch’s favourite film of all time. It seems so obvious looking at it. 

8½ makes sure to assert that it’s a movie that is talking at you rather than with you, but that ultimately makes the whole thing work.  In its pursuit for universal truths, Fellini has created a film so outspokenly honest that it will likely turn some people away, but ultimately becomes something so unique and powerful it’s felt for generations. While maybe not as gut-punching as Nights of Cabiria,  8½ absolutely carries its similar themes of human desires, confusion, woman empowerment very well, and in the perfect setting where it can all flourish with a sincere sense of unification. This movie will make your head feel like it’s split in two at points and it perfectly puts you in place of what’s going on in the film itself. The film points and laughs at itself, and you laugh along because it’s genuinely funny, although the lines of poignant satire and self-deprecation blur, and you wonder if you should be concerned.

It’s hard for me to write about this film in anymore detail without it being an ironic act of futility, but it’s definitely gonna sit with me for a while. Just like the best films of my 2022 list I feel like its impact will last, it definitely feels like I needed to see this film at ONE point, especially with my preferences. But yeah, fucking fantastic film, I can see why it’s a masterpiece, and two films in I’m already absolutely loving Fellini’s work. Who knows when I’ll see my next Fellini with my backlog but I can see him being a favourite director of mine if he has even a couple of other films that are this good.

[greenjokwe-blog]

TimeSplitters 2 - Finished 22/01/2023

Finally beat this game after owning it for years on-end. Not gonna lie thought I would never go back to this one; I remember me and my friend trying to co-op this game on the PS2 years and years back and being utterly bored and annoyed at the first level, where then we just switch over to the multiplayer modes. Now that I’ve finally beat it I can definitely see why I quit, but I think I still had my fun with it.

First off gotta say off the bat I played this game with a Keyboard + Mouse mod, which sure is the unintended play method and none of the levels are designed around it (and it shows), GOD was I not gonna play this game with a controller. One because it’s a very hard sell already for me to play an FPS with a controller (I struggle very much with console FPS games), but the specific Goldeneye-style gameplay from this game feels particularly sluggish for me in this regard. It’s mostly a personal thing I’ll admit but the era before Halo normalized how console FPS games should be made feel almost uncomfortable for me to play.

But hey, for a game that released what, less than a year after Combat Evolved, it’s pretty fun I think! I can see why people say it’s the peak of Goldeneye-style shooters. There’s a level of variety in the campaign here, from the levels to the enemies to the guns to the characters, that feels basically unmatched even in modern FPS games. Although not all the levels are created equal - the mission-style structure, while appreciated a lot of the time due to the not completely drab one-note linear structure seen in more modern titles, can often lead to a lot of objectives that either aren’t clear and require backtracking or will just break entirely. Also, a lot of the NPC-focused levels become an exercise in pulling teeth out because of how enemies will see you from a million miles away in stealth missions or how allies will just run to their death, causing you to reset the entire level.

Oh yeah, the checkpoints are trash as well. I’d argue that it’s even worse then Halo, and not by a small magnitude. Some levels will only have one checkpoint towards the beginning of the level and will force you to go back to it each time you fuck up. Even if normal isn’t too difficult with KB+M controls, you’ll likely be using save-states anyways for some of the later levels for this alone. And then there are the obvious issues from being an old FPS game on console - no instant commands for changing weapons means you’ll be scrolling back and forth between weapons, often missing one, then having to go back until you finally pick the weapon you wanted, all the while you’re under fire.

However, for as dated and as many issues as Timesplitters 2 has, I have to give it credit for its insane creativity at points, so many ideas they manage to cram in while still having a consistent gameplay feel. AND not to mention all the different side content - not only the multiplayer with an insane amount of gamemodes from regular deathmatch to eliminations to random game modifiers to health management modes to capture the flag, but it also gives you an Unreal Tournament style singleplayer arcade mode to play these modes in record time, not to mention a challenge mode where you’re tasked with different objectives under certain timelimits. It’s hard not to see Timesplitters 2 as the full experience for this type of game because of this. 

I honestly think I’d love a modern take on Timesplitters 2, even a simple PC port sounds like it’d be a lot of fun. That doesn’t seem likely though, thanks to many reasons, the current gaming market, the state of the Timesplitters brand, and the desire to play these types of games again in general. If anything though, at the very least I’m definitely interested in trying Future Perfect, hearing from a lot of people that it feels easier to control and is better aged than 2 makes me hopeful, might even try to play it on a controller this time, or maybe even co-op! But, for now, I’m glad I finally took the three hours that Timesplitters 2 took me to beat, if anything to close that window and see why people loved it so much (even if I’d rather just play Halo).

[greenjokwe-blog]

Bloodborne - Finished 19/01/2023

Third FromSoft Souls-like game I’ve finished now! Kinda scary to talk about this one considering the game’s INSANE reputation as one of the greatest things ever, and I definitely did really enjoy it and think all of these games I’ve played so far are definitely masters of their craft, buuuuut I did have my fair share of gripes with it.

Okay first off I should make the biggest and most obvious complaint about the game clear - this shit NEEDS a modern day update. Constant pop-in and framerate drops really kinda bog down a lot of the games best moments, and if they just ported the game onto next-gen consoles with a slight patch update the game would be an undoubtable recommendation from me.

Next up, the most obvious COMPLIMENT for the game! The world is absolutely stunning. It’s all so beautifully dreary and intimidating, and keeps that feeling throughout. While it does make me miss that variety and scope of constantly traversing Dark Souls, the consistency of the theming here and believability of a real breathing location definitely makes up for it. The designs of all of the characters and enemies here are also excellent, REALLY perfecting that Lovecraftian horror design, legit you won’t see shit that looks like this in any other game.

Then there’s the combat, which... hasn’t really swayed me one way or the other on Souls combat in general, which is good, but not in a vacuum. Every single weapon is viable now! Which seems neat, but ultimately means you’re less likely to experiment when you use one build the whole time, which is probably good for some, and the game at least makes up for it by making upgrading multiple weapons at a time fairly painless, but there’s a lot LESS decision-making than in Dark Souls, and even less than it’s “more aggressive” system here would have you believe, because a lot of bosses in this game can be defeated by just spam-dodging into them and wailing R1 mindlessly. Until you get to the The Old Hunters that is in which case HOLY FUCK I THINK THEY BUFFED UP THE BOSSES A BIT TOO MUCH.

Oh yeah, the bosses, right. The big Souls selling point. They’re pretty good I guess. The thing with me is that I always kinda craved the insane diversity of the bosses that Demon’s/Dark Souls always gave, and these bosses are definitely a lot more consistent and there’s nothing as bad as say, Capra Demon or Maneater, I also feel like there’s also nothing as good as shit like Artorias or even Sif (This is why we love Micolash in this house). I did also really like the final boss though, and shit like beating Matyr Logarius first try, or FINALLY beating Orphan of Kos after so many hours gave me a feeling of satisfaction I won’t feel in any other game, so I think it still works pretty well.

The worst part about going through this game though, for me, was the Blood Vial system. I’ve alluded to it but a lot of shit was done in Bloodborne in order to streamline the combat experience, one of the big things is give you a default max of 20 healing items on you at a time so you can more easily spam them while struggling in a boss (it even lets you move while using them now, how sweet). However, what this DOES mean is that Blood Vials only come back to you when you have enough unlike Estus Flasks, and are overall closer to working like the healing items in Demon’s Souls, so guess what, THE GRIND IS BACK BAYBEEEEEEEE! JESUS is it a step-down in almost every aspect, the ease of use in bosses is not worth me grinding at this one spot over and over again to either 1. get blood vials from enemy drops or 2. get enough blood echos to hopefully buy enough vials to fight the upcoming boss for the next 10 minutes. This, along with the Nexus-like hub world labelled Hunter’s Dream, just feels like Bloodborne taking unnecessary step-backs from what Dark Souls established in order to make the game “more convenient” when it does anything but.

So uh... Bloodborne. Still VERY VERY VERY GOOD don’t get me wrong!!!  Absolutely worth playing and isn’t much like anything else, but... I still prefer DS1!!! Sorry!!!