#but I’ve heard that it’s one of if not the best Mario RPG game

[roscolate]

*inhales slowly and deeply*

SOOO MARIO FAM HOW WE FEELIN’

[i-sailorstar-i]

OMG OMG OMG PEACH FANS WE ARE GETTING SO SPOILED TODAY!!! 💖💖💖

⭐️ Super Mario RPG is game I’ve only played once in my life, and that was on the Wii virtual console. But it’s a fantastic game, and now it looks even better! Princess Peach looks adorable in the chibi artstyle, and is just as beautiful! I kinda wish they kept her classic dress, but I like it nonetheless :)

��� I 100% did not think this would ever happen! A new solo Princess Peach game, and way overdue if I may add. I played the hell out of Super Princess Peach on the DS when it first came out and I loved every bit of it, and now my wish has finally come true! And it looks like it has a magical girl thing going on and, as a massive Sailor Moon fan, I’m on cloud nine! Look at her! Peach looks so serene and graceful when transforming! But into what?! And where’s her crown?? Nintendo is dirty for teasing us with so little of it and it’s left me begging for more! How do they expect me to wait until 2024??? ;-;

🌼 I, like many others, have heard the rumors of a new 2D Mario game being announced on this direct, and it was true! I’m a little…iffy about it, tbh, but any game with playable Peach is an instant buy for me! It looks like it may be a tad overstimulating, with the way the world twists and turns, and with the bright colors, but I think I’ll be okay. The artstyle looks great, reminds me of the recent Sonic games with the way Mario moves and expresses. And Daisy’s playable? That’s awesome! She was overdue to be in one of these! The elephant power up is cute, but I’m a bit worried about Peach and Daisy wearing it… looking at you, DeviantArt… :/

There hasn’t been a Direct that’s had me this hyped in a long time, and I think this one’s the best yet! I need all the Peach content there is, and I’m looking forward to each game’s release! 💖👑⭐️

[athetos]

thoughts on the progression of the Paper Mario series? my friend said Origami King was the first in a while to return to the "classic" paper mario vibe, but I have zero idea what that means

I’ve only played the first 4 games, I’ve heard origami king was a lot better but still missing the charms of the original, it’s a step in the right direction but lacking that classic feel.

Paper Mario n64 - second best game in the series, and easily a 9/10 game at least. Even today the game is still hilarious, the combat is fun, and the environments are wonderful. The boss fights in particular are a blast. Toad town is one of my favorite hubs in any game ever, with so many npcs and attractions that open up as you progress. Keeping leveling up simple, by only offering to upgrade one of 3 stats, leads to way more strategies than you’d think. A lot of brand new species were made for this game, and the enemies have so much variety and flavor. And the soundtrack is wonderful, with many different variations of each tune (toad town has so many changes in instrumentation depending where you are in it). The premise is pretty standard but it makes for one of the best showdowns with bowser. The peach interludes were also a nice change of pace and gave her such personality… and of course the partners were true stars, it was always exciting to find the right character for the right job.

The thousand year door - the best in the series, a true 10/10 game. Everything I said about paper Mario 1 is still true - rogueport is such a darker and “edgier” hub that leads to no small amount of comedy, the partners are equally fun, a lot of the dialogue still makes me laugh out loud, and the npcs are goofy and cool. Perhaps the best part about this game is that it really leans into the paper motif! You can turn sideways to slip through cracks, turn into a paper airplane, roll up into a tube, etc. it’s just… it’s so GOOD. And the plot takes things up a notch, being much more fascinating with more peach interludes that can even feel tense. The Glitzville tournaments, the train murder mystery, the shadow sisters… so many amazing moments. And that’s not even including the sinister final boss fight that did irreparable damage to my sexuality as a 10 year old.

Super paper Mario - the first game to move away from the core formula, changing partners to pixls that while full of personality were less interesting, and to move from turn based battles to platforming. That said, while being a significant departure it’s a blast due to the insanely good story. This game could have been a phenomenal visual novel. For real! The plot had a big impact on me and my storytelling, and many of my friends also agree. I cried. It went to a lot of unexpected places too, such as a G-rated version of Hell of all things, fighting a weeaboo fedora-wearing chameleon guy, and even exploring outer space. It’s a game that’s hard to revisit solely because I find the actual gameplay a bit underwhelming, I love watching videos to see the dialogue and cutscenes.

Sticker star - most disappointing game I’ve ever played, most likely. Chuggaconroy on YouTube has a multi part series talking about why this game sucks, that’s really informative and puts a lot of frustrations into words. But to sum it up, the battle system is changed so drastically that it actively discourages you from battling; there’s so much backtracking because the game’s clues are obtuse and the puzzles make little to no sense; the levels are uninspired; many things are never communicated to the player; the npcs are generic species with zero charm; and kersti is perhaps the most annoying support character in anything ever. It’s not just that they removed the rpg elements, or the partners, or the more “open” world. They literally made the game utterly insufferable.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Podoboo

Debut: Super Mario Bros.

Before I start this post, I’d like to clear something up. Podoboo? Yes, Podoboo! I’m well aware these enemies are often called Lava Bubbles and that’s the name Nintendo has been trying to make standardised these days, but you know what? You can’t make me! Podoboo is a lot cuter, plus its the name I grew up with and changes in society scare me and cause me to lash out! Maybe Lava Bubble is closer to the Japanese name of just “Bubble”, but since when has that been a factor in any of the localised names? Do you really want to refer as Lakitu as “Jugemu”, huh? I’ll have you know one of my civil rights as a citizen of Wet Dry World is to refer to Mario enemies with whichever official name I please. Like it or leave it!

So this is a post about Podoboo. Do you like Podoboo? I certainly Podo-do! They are perhaps the most generic design you could give to a Mario enemy, a visibly Dangerous Thing with two eyes, but they have always charmed me! It’s the little things, like their distinct shape and the fact their pupils are somewhat wider than most obstacles like this. They bring me comfort in dire times. No matter what happens, I know Podoboo will be there, jumping at a set height in a particular spot of lava! Without them I would be nothing! 

So simple is their design, isn’t it weird to think they started off as even simpler? The Podoboos in the first SMB game are completely blind, and with no eyes they may as well not be creatures at all! Of course, I’m very glad they are creatures, and their iconic behaviour was there from the start! They love to jump, of course! There is nothing they would rather be doing!

Awaken! As of Super Mario World, they have been gifted sight and are no longer blind to the sins of this world! Hurray! What do you think they see as they jump up and down? I’m surprised it doesn’t make them dizzy!

You’ll be glad to hear Podoboos have had an expansive career ever since, now with their new trademark eyes! After all, they are THE lava enemy! Anywhere you’ve got that tasty hot fire juice, these guys are soon to follow! Here they are in Super Mario RPG, called Sparkies here because they couldn’t make up their minds on a localized name and probably because they confused them with Li’l Sparkies. In Yoshi’s Story they even called them Spark Spooks! Geez, I’ll even take the name Lava Bubble over this! But doesn’t this render look nice and juicy?

Though any great career has its flops, and I have to say... I am usually the first to campaign for the unique designs from the first three Paper Marios, but I do not really like this Lava Bubble! This takes away from their distinct Mario-y charm and makes them look like a Fire Enemy you could find in any other game! Though in the RPGs they are able to float around without needing any lava, the ones in Super Paper Mario act just like the platformer ones, jumping around despite not looking like they should be doing that! Ok!

The Podoboo from New Super Mario Bros. DS just wasn’t trying very hard at all. Come on! They could’ve it a bit more justice than this! 

Ah, there we go! The Podoboos in New Super Mario Bros. Wii decided to finally stop messing about and go back to what everyone loved from them in Super Mario World. I encourage experimenting with your identity, of course, but it’s good to be back, and now they are more mortal than ever! A single shot from an Ice Flower is enough to instantly vaporize a Podoboo in a puff of smoke, which is a bit scary! Are they really just pure fireballs that can be put out just like that? What a frightening life to live!

And in Super Mario Galaxy 2, they... hey, wait!! You took away their eyes again! Now you are just being inconsiderate. This outraged me as a kid! One of my most vivid memories of playing this game with my brother involved chanting “Podoboo rights! They deserve eyes!” because this upset me so much. Maybe my past as an activist is why I am so passionate about Mario enemies these days... I think I was 100 percent correct in hindsight, and now you know some of my backstory, too!

What relief it gave me to find out they were back to their usual selves in 3D Land! And they have been ever since, of course getting redesigned for the modern Paper Mario games and everything. 

What’s this? Blue Podoboos! Podo-blues, even...! They show up in 3D World, in its incredibly cool-looking blue lava levels! It’s a well known fact that blue fire is objectively cooler than red fire, and it seems even the Podoboos wanted in on the action! Blue Lava is an actual phenomenon I’ve just learnt, though it’s a sulfuric fire rather than lava. Could it be that Podoboos, being made entirely of lava, adapt to their environment? I’m not sure...

As an aside, the blue Lava Bubbles aren’t to be confused with Lava Bubble (Blue), which are from Mario Galaxy and show up during King Kaliente’s fight! They hop around on the ground and have square-ish eyes, which is enough to make them different I guess!

The Podoboo’s next big appearance, in Super Mario Odyssey, was in Soup! Yes you heard me- Soup! Some delightfully pepto-bismol pink coloured soup, no less. This is why I wasn’t too sure about Podoboo’s being able to adapt to their environment earlier- the Luncheon Kingdom is a big soup volcano after all, but the fact these Lava Bubbles are able to live in it is very interesting!

There is simply no way I would talk about Odyssey here without talking about possibly its greatest achievement, the best game design decision ever made! After decades of begging from fans, they finally did the impossible- they made Podoboo playable! Now it is Podo-you! It is quite unlike the other captures in the game, since it keeps the Podoboo’s simple-looking eyes and simply adds onto it a nose and a mustache! You may very well be the world’s first Podoboo with a sense of smell! I wonder if that is a benefit or not. The constant smell of soup might be a bit overpowering. 

Not only is this delightful, but it gives us more insight into the life of the humble Podoboo. First of all is the fact that they can swim around in lava, not just jump in one spot! Do you think they do this when we aren’t looking? I really hope so! Imagine a school of Podoboos swimming through molten lava in a castle’s moat. How delightful! 

The Luncheon Kingdom is also home to a number of Lava cannons, marked with a Podoboo’s lovely face. These are cannons for only for Podoboos to launch themselves across the kingdom, from one body of lava to another! My question is whether this was technology made by Podoboos themselves or whether it was made by some generous Podoboo lovers as some lava equivalent to the Fish Tube. I think I would take either explanation! 

And last I have a Podoboo appearance that even I, the world’s biggest Podoboo fan, didn’t know about! Paper Mario Color Splash has a Big Lava Bubble boss which speaks with you through a Shy Guy translator! It is quite upset that you barged into its volcano and decided to change the temperature. Mario, of course, kills it anyway, and also the Shy Guy translator without a second thought.

Still, just take a look at this sprite sheet! How cute! A little disappointing that they thinned out the eyes, but wow! They more than make up for it with this range of expressions! An angry Podoboo! A sad Podoboo! And my personal favorite is of course the shocked Podoboo with its assymetrical dot eyes, which might be one of the best things I’ve ever seen. 

To be honest, I could talk about Podoboo forever! If you didn’t stop me, I would go on all day about their every appearance, but I kind of had to limit myself to some of the most relevant ones. I just think they’re neat! And cute! And silly! Besides, I’m Mod F Boy, so I’m basically obliged to talk about fireballs with eyes! But for now I must bid you Pod-adieu! 

...Not! What, did you really believe me? Well you clicked the Keep Reading button, so you only have yourself to blame for this. Here I am talking about more Lava Bubbles from all over, because Lava Bubble’s career has taken it BEYOND the Mario series! Wow!

Podoboo’s had quite a few appearance in the Zelda series, appearing in Link’s Awakening, both the Oracle games, and even Cadence of Hyrule! Their Zelda wiki page is still called Podoboo instead of Lava Bubble, which means those Zelda fans have it better than we do. But wow, this is a pretty angry looking Podoboo! I wouldn’t mess with them! 

Both the Oracle games even had a Podoboo Tower! Amazing! They look quite a lot like a Fire Snake, but they are simply a tower of Podoboos! Why don’t they do this more often?

Hm... The Cadence of Hyrule one doesn’t have any eyes. Come on guys! It’s 2019! Podoboos having eyes should be standard! Though they still made the conscious decision to call them “Podoboos” in 2019, so I can’t be too mad. 

And they have even spread to Minecraft! In the Mario Mash-up Pack, they replace the Magma Cube enemies, and really there was no better choice for this. And now we have a Podoboo Cube! What more could possibly be left for Podoboo?

The answer is obvious- Podoboo in real life! Thanks to a certain Lego Mario set, Podoboo is now real and can be in your home for the small price of 19,99 US dollars. Please give a Podoboo a home today! Just make sure you don’t own anything flammable. 

[zehecatl]

rec post for @f-eef that got too long for its own good, and is now just. a general rec post i guess

(as of writing, today is the steam summer sale! writing this before that goes live, so no guarantee everything on here is on sale, but! most of these are older games, so it’s likely. keep them in mind~)

- Iconoclasts my absolute favourite game, ever (along with OFF, but shh), if you check out one game from this list, let it be this one. it’s a genuinely almost flawless package, with gorgeous pixel art, fun gameplay, a really good story, and a cast of characters i just. adore. it’s so so so good, and three years later, i’m still not over it

- The Binding of Isaac so there’s this genre called roguelikes, wherein the whole gimmick is that, when you die, you gotta start from the Very Beginning; and the ‘point’ is getting better and better at the game, until you win! it’s super easy to just, play a few runs (they generally don’t last that long!), and then go on with your day, so it’s a really fun game to just waste time in, if you just wanna chill with some game. and, in my personal opinion, Isaac is the best roguelike game, with so much stuff to unlock, a whole slew of items to play with, and so much content it’s kind of unreal. i definitely think the DLCs are worth picking up, but it’s mostly for more content than like. actually being necessary

- Terraria it’s minecraft, but 2D. unlike MC, it’s got a bit of guidance, which i personally prefer, with bosses to fight and such. an absolutely BLAST with other people too

- A Hat in Time a 3D platformer, ala Mario, that’s just. super charming. it’s also really fun to play. i haven’t actually played the DLC’s, since i played it way back, but i’ve heard good things about Nyakuza Metro, which does look super slick, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- Slime Rancher you are a slime rancher. you ranch slimes. it’s honestly just wholesome as hell, and just exudes happy vibes. mostly for running around and collecting slimes, ngl

- The Messenger really funky retro game, wherein you play a ninja on a mission. it’s primary draw is definitely in its gameplay, but there’s a surprising amount of story for this kind of genre? i honestly really just like this one. it’s neat

- Underhero you play as a cute minion, who kind of like. managed to kill the hero. and whoops, guess you’re doing his job now? it’s got that undertale vibe, though i’d say it’s less polished than it. HOWEVER, it’s absolutely lovely and it’s climax is REALLY good

- Hatoful Boyfriend bird dating sim. trust me. the ‘secret’ finale route is just. *chef’s kiss* fantastic

- Night in the Woods if you don’t mind having a very poignant sad time, oh my god, i could not recommend NITW more. it perfectly captures that period when you’re done with school, and suddenly your whole life is stretching before you, and you feel so so fucking lost, and overwhelmed and pained with it. it’s just. so good. a sadness worth experiencing 

- Shovel Knight another retro game! this one is, pretty much, the king of the genre, and for very good reasons. the first one (shovel of hope) doesn’t have much story, but the latter ones really add on it. they’re honestly just, really solid games! with funky knight characters!!!

- Hyper Light Drifter man, it’s just a masterpiece. everything about it is perfect. it’s been like, five years, and it’s still one of the very best indie games

- Tell Me Why it’s currently free for june! and it’s a story game! plus, if you like the genre, the devs got the ‘Life Is Strange’ serie(s) to delve into!

- Cat Quest honestly, i just really like this little game. the gameplay is SO much fun, and everything else is just. really charming :’)

- Yoku’s Island Express metroidvania, where you play as a dung-beetle post officer, and the gimmick is that it’s pinball-y! it’s really fun, and very cute and just an all around good time :)

- Owlboy you play as an owl boy! named Otus! and you can fly around, and there’s GORGEOUS pixel graphics, and a neat story, and just. the BEST cast of characters. it’s delightful

- Yuppie Psycho + Count Lucanor just gonna bundle these two together, because they’re both REALLY GOOD. YP is the newer one, and is therefore probably ‘the better one’, but i like them both a ton! they’re 2D horror, but i wouldn’t say they’re that spooky? though that might just be because they’re pixel games! you explore spooky place, and weird stuff happens around you. just a really fun time :)

- Angels of Death my FAVOURITE rpgmaker game, it’s main draw is, a 100%, the main characters and the relationship that develops between them. i just love it a whole lot, and it’s got that lil’ tinge of horror that i, personally, fucking adore. there’s actually an anime based on this, but i haven’t seen it myself!

- Celeste curve ball! it’s a 2D platformer! it’s really good, got a ton of accessibility features, and has like. the tightest gameplay- and, on top of that, surprisingly emotional story! 

- Bastion putting Bastion here, because it’s actually the only one i’ve properly played, but you could probably buy any of the Supergiant Games, and come out satisfied. Bastion is the oldest of the bunch, and is definitely a bit less polished for it, but i personally adore it; the gameplay probably hasn’t aged that well, but i think the story and presentation more than makes up for it

- The Darkside Detective funny point and click adventure, with great wit, and a pair of characters i kind of simply adore. it’s main draw is definitely its humour

- Littlewood very wholesome and chill farming game, that feels more like an RPG than something like stardew valley- i’d not recommend it over SV, but if you want more of SV, Littlewood might scratch that itch!

- Pony Island + The Hex absolutely adore both of these, though if i had to rec only one, it’d probably be Pony Island? they’ve both got that undertale-off vibe, though Pony Island definitely leans harder into it. very interesting plays, both of them

- Oxenfree another horror-ish game! primarily story-focused, but oh boy, what a story! i’m a BIG fan of this game, and the sequel was recently announced too! definitely worth a look if you like ghost shenanigans

- Creature in the Well wasn’t a 100% sure if i should rec this, but beside the finale boss, i really enjoyed my time with this! it’s this weird pinball inspired hack and slash, with some amazing vibes

- Kindergarten 1 + 2 they’re just fun little games okay. the 2nd is much more fleshed out, but the 1st one is really fun too

- the Henry Stickmin collection I JUST... LIKE THESE GAMES A LOT... i think you can find the old versions somewhere on the internet, if you wanna check them out first? idk, they’re fun!

- LIMBO + INSIDE personally, i like INSIDE more, but both of these are classics, and also they’re made by a danish team, and i like them a WHOLE LOT

- The Final Station i could not tell you why i like this game as much as i do, but oh my god. i love this game? it’s got a dying world, neat pixel graphics, big zombie apocalypse vibes, and a weird little story

- Year Walk i love Year Walk :)

- Smile For Me if you liked undertale’s lovely cast of characters, oh boy, you’d likely LOVE this game! it’s really, really, fantastic, and the epilogue (not in the actual game lol) hit me right in the feels

- Pikuniku just a fun little game! there’s not really much there, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a wonderful little play, one of those games that just sets out to give you a good time, and absolutely success. i like it a lot :’)

- A Short Hike wonderful game, where it’s more about exploring the island than actively finishing the game. it’s real wonderful

- ULTRAKILL ANOTHER CURVEBALL! no idea if you like FPS, but oh my god. ULTRAKILL is so fucking good. just an absolute blast to play. there’s a demo to check out, and i’d definitely recommend it, because if it’s a genre you might like, you’ll love this one (OH also it’s in early access, which means it’s not finished yet! personally, i don’t mind that, especially considering this is more gameplay focused, but ya’ know!)

- My Friend Pedro it’s honestly just really fun to play, and sometimes i still think about the implied lore, and go all !!!!

- Little Misfortune another point and click! this one is pretty short, and is set within the same universe as their other game, Fran Bow, which is much bigger, but idk. i like this one. it’s dark cute

- This Strange Realm of Mine i honestly dunno how to explain this one, because it’s kind of weird and a bit odd, but i really like it, in all its weird poetic glory. it’s neat!

- Donut County you’re a terrible racoon who’s ruined the whole city with holes. it’s great and i love it

- OneShot another ‘gives me undertale vibes’, though this one was in development before UT, if i recall correctly! it’s so good, and it’s got some fantastic meta bits, and i love Niko. i love Niko so much

- Inmost gorgeous vaguely spooky game with a neat story... my favourite genre

- Sayonara Wild Hearts i’d call this more of a spectacle than anything else, but oh my god. what a spectacle it is! the OST is amazing, everything about it just hits right, and even if you suck at the gameplay (which i did), it really doesn’t matter, in my opinion? it’s just great all around!

[askroahmmythril]

Smash Universe Experience : Updated

So one of those things that will randomly poke at my brain sometimes, felt like looking at what history I have with the different major “universes” of Smash Bros. Ultimate, now that the DLC is fully done.  So here we go! :

Super Mario : Pretty solidly a lot of experience with Mario and various spinoffs.  I will say I don’t have as much experience with the RPG side of things, though I have played the original Super Mario RPG, Superstar Saga, and Super Paper Mario.  Mostly I go for the platformers.

Yoshi : Pretty good overall experience I would say?  I do have Yoshi’s Story on WiiWare, but haven’t really played much of it.  I have however played Yoshi’s Island to 100% completion, same for Woolly World, and off and on poke at Crafted World.

Donkey Kong : Kind of middle of the road here I guess?  I’ve played the original arcade games, DKC 1 and 2 (technically I TRIED 3, but couldn’t really get into it), and Tropical Freeze, which I really should play more of.  I haven’t played any of the spinoff games though like Jungle Beat or what have you.  Also never played DKC Returns, though I’ve heard good things.

Legend of Zelda : Pretty solid experience, I would say I’ve played most of the series.  Notable exceptions, I never had a CDi so I never played.... those....  I’ve never played Spirit Tracks (I tried Phantom Hourglass, and just really hated the control scheme, got too in the way of my enjoyment).  I do have Skyward Sword now on Switch, need to get on that.

Metroid : Again, played most of these titles.  Notable exceptions, I never played Metroid Prime Pinball or Hunters, Other M, or Federation Force.  I should maybe try Samus Returns again sometime now that I have the experience of playing Dread, but... oof.  Still REALLY hate the melee counter.

Kirby : I’ve likely missed a few here and there, mainly spinoffs, but I think I’ve played most of the main series games?  I never played Rainbow or Canvas Curse, Mass Attack, or a lot of the “mini” games like Fighters.  Kind of maybe want the one on Switch though.  I have pre-ordered the new Kirby game though, looking forward to it.

Star Fox : Fairly little experience, I’ve only played the original and 64.  I do have access to 2 given SNES Online though.  Never played Assault or Zero.  It’s one of those series, I kinda like it, but I’m also terrible at it, haha.

Pokémon : .....Hello, my name is Roahm Mythril, and I’m a Pokéholic.  So yeah, big series for me.  Most of the more recent games, admittedly I kinda just play for what’s there, which.... really hope Scarlet and Violet don’t feel as rushed and half-finished as Sword and Shield did.... and still pretty disappointed by the DP remakes...  Anyway, I’ve played most of the games in the series.  Again, mostly a few select spinoffs I missed, like Cafe Mix (don’t really like using touch controls on Switch), Unite, and...... I can’t even remember the name, that early DS racing game?  Dash, was it?  Anyway excuse me while I go back to obsessively working on Legends Arceus research tasks.

F-Zero : I think the SNES original is the only one I’ve played...?  I at least don’t THINK I ever played the ones on GBA or N64, nor the Gamecube one, which... I legit kinda want, haha.  Even knowing it’s hard as heck, I kinda want to try it.

Mother : Minimal.  EarthBound is the only one I ever played, and just couldn’t really maintain interest in it.  It doesn’t help that for the most part, turn based RPGs aren’t really a go to genre for me, nothing against anyone else enjoying them though, I just have a hard time getting into them myself.

Ice Climber : I mean.... yeah, I played the one game, even on the channel as a joke once.  Not really much else to say on this one, haha.

Fire Emblem : Only one I’ve ever played barely counts, as it was Fire Emblem Warriors, haha.  Turn based strategy is another genre that I don’t often play admittedly.  Games like Advance Wars or Wargroove, they can keep me interested for a short time at best (which.... may or may not have to do with how quickly I have to deal with Fog of War because really screw that mechanic...).

Game & Watch : I don’t think I ever had a legitimate actual Game & Watch, but I did play basically all the Game & Watch Gallery games.

Kid Icarus : I’ve played all three games, though I never was able to finish the Game Boy game, Myths & Monsters I think it was called?  There was a particular boss where my game always crashed.

Wario : A few holes here and there, never played Master of Disguise or Wario World.  I think I’ve played most of the rest, both on the Land and Ware sides.

Pikmin : I’ve played all the Pikmin games I’m pretty sure, unless you count the Pikmin minigame in Nintendo Land?  I haven’t really considered that for any of the other universes, but never played that.

R.O.B. : Considering he only ever had two games to his name, 50%.  I’ve played Gyromite, but not Stack Up.

Metal Gear : Extremely minimal.  I played the original NES game myself, and watched my uncle play the original Metal Gear Solid, but that’s about it.

Sonic the Hedgehog : Pretty solid experience.  I didn’t play either of the Wii “Storybook” games, nor Sonic 4.  Also missed most of the handheld ones, I played the first Sonic Advance, and felt like I couldn’t see enough at one time, so hitting enemies and traps felt pretty bad.  Also didn’t play Forces.  Don’t know how I feel about upcoming open world Sonic game...

Animal Crossing : I think the only Animal Crossing I’ve never played is Wild World?  I’ve played the original, City Folk, New Leaf, Happy Home Designer, Amiibo Festival, and New Horizons?

Mega Man : Well yes, very much so.  I’ve played at the very least all the Classic games, X1 - X5, all the MMBN games, Legends 1 (still want to give that one another try sometime), the first two Starforce games, and I think Zero 1 - 3?  Never played the ZX series at all.

Wii Fit : I’ve never played any of the actual Wii Fit games.  If you count things like Wii Sports, I at least played the original one of those?

Punch-Out!! : I played the NES one, Super Punch-Out!!, and Punch-Out!! Wii.  Never played the arcade one.

Pac-Man : Good experience here, mostly with the arcade games.  I’ve played a few offshoots like Pac In Time, Pac Attack, etc.

Xenoblade : Zero experience, I haven’t played any of the Xenoblade games.

Duck Hunt : I’ve played Duck Hunt, as well as a few other Zapper games like Hogan’s Alley and Gumshoe.

Street Fighter : Basically I’ve only played Street Fighter 2 Turbo on SNES.

Final Fantasy : I want to say I’ve only played 7 and 9, with more of an enjoyment of 9.

Bayonetta : I’ve played both and beaten them, and interested to see where things go with Bayonetta 3.

Splatoon : I’ve played 1, though only the single player content.  I do have 2 and need to go through that, just haven’t gotten around to it.

Castlevania : Quite a good bit of experience here.  There are some here and there I’ve never played, like I’ve never had access to the original Rondo of Blood.  Also never played 64, or the fighting game, which at the moment I forget what that’s called....  Was that Judgment?

Persona : 4 is the only one I’ve played.  Oh, wait, nevermind, I have played Persona 5 Strikers.  I would like to play the actual Persona 5, but don’t have a system that runs it.  Really not interested in 3 though for personal reasons.

Dragon Quest : I played a couple of the early NES entries, but never really could get too into them.  Again, turn based RPGs aren’t really a go to genre for me.

Banjo-Kazooie : I’ve played the original and Tooie, as well as the GBA game whose name I can never remember.  Grunty’s Revenge?  I’ve never played Nuts & Bolts.

Fatal Fury : I don’t think I’ve ever played any of the Fatal Fury series.  I’ve seen Terry in passing, but that’s about it.

ARMS : I’ve only played the demo, not the actual game.

Minecraft : Never played it, and admittedly don’t really have any interest in it.  More power to those that enjoy it though, just not really my kind of game.

Tekken : I don’t think I’ve ever played a proper Tekken game, but I have played Pokken if that counts.  Which it probably doesn’t if I had to guess, haha.

Kingdom Hearts : I’ve played 1 and 2, Chain of Memories, uhh.... number of days, Re:Coded, and a little of Dream Drop Distance.  I have Birth By Sleep, but never played it, as my PSP is currently in need of a new battery pack, basically all of that kind of battery I had did the “puff out” thing, so likely best not to chance using them.

[sodapaladin]

Top 10 Games of 2021

As usual, here are my favorite games that I played over the year, not necessarily ones that came out in 2021.

I’ve decided not to include Deltarune chapter 2, because it’s technically part of the same game I already awarded last time, but know that it’s incredible. Now, the annual list!

10. Mario Party Superstars

After half a dozen disappointing Mario Parties, we finally got what fans have been begging for. While there are still some glaring issues, such as the completely busted coin economy and some puzzling minigame choices, I’ve been having a blast with my friends.

9. New Pokemon Snap

At last, a fantastic sequel to the original fun novelty. It’s so charming to see Pokemon living their normal lives in the world. From many of my favorites to some surprising, often forgotten pokes, I enjoyed discovering the many secrets in this relaxing game.

8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX

While BDSP disappointed many with its faithfulness taken to a fault, the Mystery Dungeon remake had the perfect mix of new and old. While it stuck to the original three generations of Pokemon like the original game did, it also added all evolutions of those Pokemon that appeared later, such as Mamoswine and Sylveon. As a result, the roster felt totally natural. The QoL additions are much appreciated, and there’s so much content to explore. I loved the music, too; the remixed medley of songs from Gates to Infinity is absolutely lovely, even though I hadn’t played that one. I could easily see myself pouring dozens more hours into this.

7. GameCenter CX 2

AKA Retro Game Challenge 2. Such a shame the original was the only to get officially localized. The experience of playing games with your friend, looking up tips in magazines, and waiting for new game releases as a kid is done so well in this charming nostalgia trip. They could have easily made all of these simple minigames, but they’re all legitimately fun games in their own right. I haven’t even touched the RPG yet, but it’s apparently a full thing with legitimately interesting mechanics.

6. Yooka-Laylee

You heard me right! As a huge fan of Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, I was looking forward to this, but then put it off for a long time in fear of disappointment. But despite hearing all the complaints, I gave it a fair shot at last, and you know what? I loved it. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be! I honestly don’t understand the hate it gets. If anything, I wish it had more levels. The space one was so cool, and I even loved the casino level. It’s a proper Banjo game in my books, and I’m bummed that the sequel wasn’t also a 3D platformer.

5. Pokemon Card GB2

Another game that tragically didn’t get an English release. The Pokemon TCG was already done well on GBC, and the sequel continues it by including the entire original game’s island, plus a whole new one. The addition of even a single new expansion adds a lot of variety to the game. And that soundtrack! Wow! The normal Team GR battle theme is one of the best Pokemon songs, forever trapped on a Japan-exclusive spinoff game. More people need to hear it.

4. A Short Hike

The definition of “charming.” True to its title, you can see just about everything in the game in an hour or two, but what a lovely hour or two you’ll have. What else to say other than it makes me feel warm inside?

3. Lisa: The Painful

The complete opposite of my last pick. Equal parts depressing and hilarious, this bizarre game gave me an unforgettable ride. On top of the dark humor, the game’s also a lot of fun, with many unique party members. I can’t get the Shenmue grunt sound effect song out of my head.

2. Final Fantasy XIV

Hoo boy. It was really difficult to decide between this and my #1 pick. I had never played an MMO before, and never thought it would appeal to me. But when a friend started the free trial over the summer, I figured eh, I’ll give it a shot. And boom, now it’s half a year later and I’m going to themed cafes with guildmates. My idea of MMOs had always been grinding to fight difficult bosses with minimal story. I didn’t expect to fall in love with a fascinating world. I’ve joined a wonderful free company (read: guild) and made many great friends through it. I’m having the time of my life, and I can’t wait to start Shadowbringers soon.

1. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

This is the kind of game you wish you could experience for the first time again. Not since 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors have I had my mind blown to such a degree. There are many mystery games that make less sense the more you think about them, but 13 Sentinels is a game that rewards you for connecting the dots. I love how many times I looked into the timeline and realized how everything fit together. Rather than just outright lying to the player, which makes mysteries feel cheap, the game gives you multiple perspectives. What seems like the obvious truth to one character then plays out entirely differently when you see it from another angle. All of this on top of a kaiju-fighting mecha RTS game that’s surprisingly fun once you get the hang of it, which has tons of postgame levels. If you’re not into visual novels, you may become bored from the tons and tons of story. It’s definitely a VN at heart. But if you’re into mysteries involving sci-fi tropes like giant robots and time travel, this love letter to them is an incredible experience.

[repentantsky]

5 Franchises That Should be more Popular

Hello, I talk about games a lot, and while I always seem to mention at least one or two series on my lists that aren’t the most well known, I haven’t yet made a list comprised entirely of less popular than they deserve to be titles, so I thought I should maybe do that. No, the irony of a damn near nobody talking about video games that should be more in the public eye isn’t lost on me, but I like a lot of things that aren’t as popular as they should be, so at the risk of making a list that falls completely into the void, here are 5 game franchises that should be more well known. 

5. Yo-Kai Watch. 

We’re starting off with a kid’s game, don’t worry, I swear it will get better for those looking for some of their favorites, or at least I hope, but Yo-Kai Watch as a series is truly fantastic. Not only had it at one point managed to out-popular Pokemon in Japan, and for good reason, that reason being it actually took place is town’s that look like Japan, and the cultural references everywhere make it a joy of a series to play, but there’s a dang good lot of content in these games. While the base games will probably only run you about 25 to 30 hours, which is not long for an RPG, their bonus content, and the collection aspect, will give you more to do than Pokemon. Extra dungeons, stronger versions of the final bosses, and the ability to grind your favorite Yo-kai, and there are a lot of cool designs, was and still is, far more enjoyable than most other games of it’s kind have ever been, and to top it all off, it’s actually pretty funny, which is rare for games to do. The charm of Level 5′s games is also on full display here, and oh man, the whole series is just a treat, and we really need to have Level 5 properly back in the West. 

4. Naruto games.

Now wait, I hear you saying, Naruto games are all really popular, the whole series only barely lost out to One Piece for several years, but no, you’re not right in that assessment, the only games in the series that reached true high level success were it’s leading 2D fighting games, and the series has a lot more to offer than that. Ever heard of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact? What about The Path of the Ninja 1 and 2, what about Kizuna Drive, or the entire list of exclusive Naruto RPG’s in Japan? Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about handheld Naruto games. Did you know there were actually a whole ton of them, and they varied in genre’s from RPG’s, is side scrollers, to Beat’em ups, and yes, even fighting games, some of which were not just ports of the console versions. Naruto’s handheld adventures obviously did something for the series, or there wouldn’t have been so many as there are, but none of them reached the hype and the Ultimate Ninja Storm series, even if they were just as good, if not better, and it’s honestly sad. Naruto got a lot of out of it’s fans, and it still does even now, but it could have done so much better if only those handhelds had reached the numbers they deserve. 

3. The Asphalt series. 

It’s not often that I talk about racing games, but I do like a number of them, and my favorite that I swear I’ve never seen a sole talk about, is Asphalt. They aren’t the best games ever, but they do what most racing games should do, they come at you fast, with great cars to race, and they are also the only series of racers I’ve ever played a handheld version of that didn’t have me crying in pain because how awkward they were to on a handheld device, seriously have you ever played Mario Kart 7 for more than an hour? Never again I promise you. But seriously, the Asphalt series is a lot of fun. My favorite are the Urban GT games, but if whatever reason you can’t play those, 3D and Injection are also a lot of fun, and while the series doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and yes I understand how that joke will be taken by many, it’s still just a series you can sit down and enjoy without getting cramps. Seems like a series that’s underrated to me. 

2. Shin Megami Tensei

Some people after playing Persona 5/Royal and now possibly Strikers, are apparently super hyped for Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, and that’s great, it really is, but the problem is most of those people only aware of mainline SMT, and have either never experienced it, or are have only played something like SMTIV Apocalypse, which is a great game, but also an incredibly easy one. I hope you all enjoy finding out how hard the series can be. The SMT name, which has been dragged around a lot in the West since it’s more notable to Western fans, has several spin-offs, including just Shin Megami, The Last Bible, Majin Tensei, Devil Children and Devil Summoner. To be fair, a number of those games, or entire series, haven’t come to the west, and several are left on old platforms, I mean who collects for Macintosh these days, but that’s the problem. If the series was as popular as it deserved to be, we’d be getting those games on more modern platforms, and people who think they are hyped for May 25th in the west, might already know what they’re getting into. SMT has been around since 1987, that’s 34 flipping years if you can believe it, and the series has never gotten to the level of popularity it deserves. Persona being it’s most popular spin-off helps, but we’ll have to wait and see if the hype this year, really translates to what the franchise is long overdue for. 

1. The Legend of Heroes. 

You know ones series I really like, it’s Kingdom Hearts, and if you’re wondering why that matters, you probably haven’t played a Legend of Heroes game before. The series has become over the years, similar to Kingdom Hearts in one very specific way, that being that it’s all about over-arching stories, and every sequel mattering. It is true that not every game is connected, there are five previous entries that are two games long, and three games long as their own series respectively, but the franchise is turning 30 years old next year at least for the West, and it’s shameful that we still don’t have three of the games from the mainline releases, and neither of the two spin-offs that weren’t gatcha games, both of which are fantastic if you play them in their original Japanese with fan subtitles. Most of the Trails series can be found on Steam, which is great, accept that two crucial games are missing, because the series isn’t seen to be as important as it is. I love games with continued stories, and as far as I’m concerned, The Legend of Heroes Trails series is absolutely the best of them all, because it takes it’s time developing all of it’s characters and it wait it avoids trying to create hype moments for fans just for the sake of it. It can be a slow burner of a series at times, which can turn some people away from it, but man when it goes, it goes so much harder than almost everything else, that it’s a massive shocker that it’s not more popular. Sure, it’s not visually all that impressive, even when it first becomes 3D, but if you can get past the looks, it truly is something to marvel at. 

And that’s my list. Did I miss anything that you think it underrated? Let me know in the notes below, reblog this list if interested you, and have a wonderful day.    

[razieltwelve]

Nostalgia

As I’ve hinted at in quite a few of my posts, I do play video games. Admittedly, I don’t play nearly as much now as I once did, but that comes down to not having as much time as I used to and developers not making games that I particularly enjoy anymore. That’s right, I’ve become that crazy person sitting on their porch and ranting at passersby about how awful everything is now and how everything was better back in the old days.

That said, video games played a huge role in my childhood and young adulthood. I remember my high school and university years as much by what I was playing as what I was studying. As you can imagine, I get a bit of nostalgia every now and then. Most of the time it’s music that triggers it. I’ve found that as much as the images of a game might fade from my memory over time, the sound of its music lingers long after all of the other memories are gone.

I experienced this just recently when I heard the Gusty Galaxy Theme from Super Mario Galaxy. It’s a wonderful piece of music. Indeed, I’d put it in the top five best themes from any Nintendo game. The moment I heard it, I was taken back to the past. I loved that game, and I put a lot of hours into it. Hearing that theme brought back all of those memories in an instant from the good (completely finishing the game with everything unlocked and acquired) to the bad (accidentally deleting an almost completely finished save file).

I haven’t touched that game in more than a decade, yet for a few moments, the experience of playing it was so clear that it could have been yesterday. I could feel the controller in my hand again, even feel the chair I used to sit on when I played. I even remember playing on a dodgy CRT which was pretty much permanently magnetised, so the colours were off.

In some part, I think this is why we put up with game franchises long after the games themselves have stopped being good. We have such a strong connection to the older games that part of us will always love the series, no matter how bad it gets. For example, Blizzard has been a disaster zone for years now, but I still watch Broodwar and Starcraft 2 even though I no longer play because of how many great memories those games have given me over the years.

I really think that one of the biggest mistakes companies make these days is obsessing over photorealistic graphics. Photorealistic graphics rarely age well. They are a product of their time and technology, and time and technology both march ever onward. But music? That lasts. There isn’t a gamer alive who can’t recognise the Mario theme within moments, and I’d wager a great many of them are taken straight back to the past when they hear it. I have friends who get misty-eyed over the Halo theme and who immediately start rocking along when Guile’s theme from Street Fighter comes on. I’ve seen people moved almost to tears when they hear a song from their favourite RPG, and you can always tell the Final Fantasy fan from the manic grin they get when One Winged Angel starts up.

Nostalgia… even the words sounds vaguely nostalgic. For some people it’s a sight or a smell. But for me it’s always been music. Indeed, I’ve forgotten so many details from when my family first moved to Australia, but one I’ve always remembered is the little red radio my father brought over. Sure, it needed an adaptor to work with the power socket, but it could still play music, and for that, I’ll always remember it.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

[gamersonthego]

Chase Koeneke’s Top 25 DS Games

The DS was a fascinating system. It was the first salvo in Nintendo’s pivot to more innovative and oddball gaming, priming an audience for the Wii console that was about to come. It was easy to laugh at this thing. How the hell were you supposed to pay attention to two screens at once? And yet, developers found interesting new ways of using the dual screens to create a slate of awesome and original titles. I haven’t played every DS game. Hell, I haven’t even played all the ones I’ve wanted to (like The World Ends With You or Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story), but here is a list of my 25 favorite DS games. If you don’t see one of your favorites listed, let me know. I could always use another game to add to my never-ending backlog. 1. Advance Wars: Dual Strike 

I may be president of the Fire Emblem fan club these days, but back in the DS era, it was all Advance Wars, all the time. And Dual Strike represented the peak of the series, even if it may have gotten a little too complex for its own good. The dual front mechanics and new units types felt mostly superfluous, but the online play is what made this game truly special in its day. It’d be great to see Intelligent Systems come back to this series one day. 

2. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

I love to tinker. I love to grind. I love job systems with lots of unique skills. Dragon Quest IX has all that and much more. While some may not enjoy the blank slate party you’re given, I loved building a completely customized team. The main campaign is extremely meaty (HowLongToBeat clocks it in at 48.5 hours), but the amount of endgame content is truly staggering. With proto-StreetPass and SpotPass functionality, the game felt truly limitless (for comparison, HowLongToBeat says a “completionist” playthrough balloons up to 752 hours!)

3. Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

Nostalgia keeps the original Red & Blue as my favorites of the series, but if I’m being honest with myself, these are the best Pokemon games ever made. These remakes smoothed out the few rough edges from Johto and added in the modern functionality from Diamond & Pearl (like the Global Trade System). This double-long Pokemon adventure is one of the best, with expressive new sprite work and a remastered soundtrack.

4. Monster Tale

Don’t be discouraged if you’ve never heard of Monster Tale. No one has. It came out late in the DS lifecycle (like, five days before the 3DS launched), so it very quickly was buried in the mix. And that’s a shame because it’s one of the best DS games ever made. Developed by the makers of Henry Hatsworth (#19 on my list), Monster Tale makes great use of the two-screen concept, having a Metroidvania brawler on the top screen and a virtual pet simulator on the bottom. The two games worked in tandem as your pet could come up to the top screen to help solve puzzles or battle enemies. An excellent aesthetic and tight controls make this one of the best games you’ve never played.

5. Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2

Speaking of games you’ve never played, what is a licensed anime game doing in my top five? It’s here because it’s actually a really great RPG. You get access to a large cast of unique characters and arrange them on a 3x4 grid for surprisingly tactical combat. You may rub a hole into your DS’ bottom screen with the game’s poor special attack quick-time events, but if you can get past that, it’s a real gem. I wrote more on this series back in an old GOTG SP if you like what you’ve heard.  

6. Mario Kart DS

This is the best Mario Kart game, don’t let anyone tell you different. No silly gimmicks like two people on a cart or motorcycles or anti-gravity: Just good, tight racing action. A bevy of great new courses (like the incomparable Tick-Tock Clock) and retro tracks (Moo Moo Farm, Choco Mountain, Donut Plains 1) complete the package. There are plenty of other good Mario games, but this one’s the best.

7. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Look, I’d be lying if I said this game was as good as the ones on the Game Boy Advance, but I love Golden Sun with all my heart and this entry does have some cool ideas. Lots of cool characters, some amazing summons and a very useful encyclopedia that can be accessed within the natural dialogue of the story: There’s good stuff here. The graphics may not be great and the game may be too easy, but I enjoyed my time with it, even if I was mostly reminiscing about the GBA games.

8. Final Fantasy III

I’ve mentioned it on a number of shows and in some of these GOTG posts, but I just don’t enjoy Final Fantasy’s Active Time Battle (ATB) system. I like my RPGs strictly turn-based. And Final Fantasy III is that. While not the strongest game in the series by any stretch, it does have a fairly robust job system that I appreciate, and the updated 3D graphics were great for the time (and led to a beautiful, yet too difficult version of Final Fantasy IV not much later).

9. Picross 3D

I love Picross. I’ve written about it here before. But Picross 3D changed the game, literally. That extra dimension made for much more interesting puzzle mechanics as you strategically chipped away blocks to reveal the figure within. So charming, so fun and occasionally, so challenging. I’m glad a 3DS sequel was eventually made, but this original is still the one to play.

10. Meteos

My very first DS game, Meteos immediately showed me how the DS era was going to be different, both in design and input. In this puzzle game, you’d need to skillfully use the touchscreen to line up blocks and bury your opponents while monitoring their progress on the top screen. Each planet you played on had a particular quirk to it, keeping things fresh as you matched and rocketed your way to victory. Extremely fun and a sign of the innovation to come.

11. Animal Crossing: Wild World

12. Pokemon Diamond/Pearl

13. Chrono Trigger

14. Metroid Prime Hunters

15. Retro Game Challenge

16. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

17. Pokemon Conquest

18. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

19. Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

20. New Super Mario Bros.

21. Pokemon Black/White

22. Space Invaders Extreme

23. Advance Wars Days of Ruin

24. Kirby: Canvas Curse

25. WarioWare D.I.Y.

[le-switch]

Yes, that’s right, 125 pecking headcanons

This has been in my notes for way too long dfjkdf

I’ve been writting down headcanons for the switch in time au for a while. I stopped doing that now so i thought i might as well share what i got done

@switch-in-time It is time- JK you already saw these

💫 Empress thinks the other kids are really cool but doesn't wanna admit it 💫 After sneaking through the manor, Snatch started to strongly dislike cold weather, and even became a little afraid of it 💫 Moonjumper also started to dislike cold weather, just not as much as his brother 💫 The florist is taller than everyone else. She makes fun of everyone for it but will stop if someome gets actually upset 💫 Grooves prefers instrumental music over lyrical music, since he can create his own lyrics for them 💫 Despite being a very popular and talktative kid, Grooves doesn't feel comfortable enough to sing in front of others yet 💫 Connie is the only one who has heard Grooves' singing voice. It was an accident, but he doesn't regret it 💫 Empress would be nicer if everyone taught her how to do the things they are able to do (Like MoonJumper's arts and crafts, for example) 💫 The moon penguins got to know each other thanks to Grooves, and they'll always be grateful to have him as a friend 💫 The express owls already knew each other before meeting Connie 💫 The express owls know that Connie isn't really as mean as he pretends to be, and they all care for him 💫 Hattie's bed is not hers anymore. It was completely invaded by the kids and she now mostly sleeps in her pillow fort 💫 Split Nessa is more unorganized than Gen Nessa, since her appereance doesn't really matter anymore 💫 Snatch stole everyone's left socks at some point 💫 Split Snatch and MoonJumper have an ant farm and they love every single one of their ants 💫 Connie and Grooves will overdramatize everything since they wanna be actors, no matter how mudane the situation is 💫 Mafia Bab once tried to "kidnap" Mu by trying to block her way with chairs. It did not work 💫 To join the mafia you must shave your hair since "Mafia boss is only mafia member allowed to have hair" 💫 Split Snatch and Moonjumper can't be found separated from each other. If you see one of them alone, the other must be nearby 💫 Nessa is usually very polite and shy, but once she's comfortable around you she can become a little bratty 💫 Everyone thinks Split Snatch is adorable and he hates it 💫 Empress doesn't like to play in mud 💫 After being defeated in his "boss battle", Snatch became so exhausted he accidentaly fell asleep on Hattie 💫 MoonJumper loves to swim and play with water 💫 Snatch on the other side, hates water and it's a pain to force him to bath 💫 Empress was supossed to get temporary glasses after her eye got scarred but she refused, and will refuse for the rest of her life 💫 Every kid has called Hattie "Mom" at least once. Most of them are accidents tho 💫 Nessa is the only one who hasn't called Hattie "Mom" by accident because they're all on purpose 💫 Shapeshifter is one of the kids Connie considers an "enemy" since the day they tricked him into giving them his nuggies 💫 Shapeshifter also wants to be an actor like Connie and Grooves, but their shyness wont let them even practice 💫 The Prince from the Split timeline was a Gemini 💫 Every mafia kid wants to be an actual mafioso when they grow up, except for one, who wants to be a paranormal investigator 💫 Despite wanting to be a paranormal investigator, this particular mafia kid is afraid of paranormal stuff. He's trying his best tho.... I'm talking about Goofy Mafia obviously- 💫 The Subcon trio once played 'Kingdom' and Nessa got to play as queen. They never played this game again 💫 Mafia bab and Goofy Mafia were the most hurt by Mu's betrayal, and yet, they were the first kids to forgive her 💫 Snatch was caught trying to steal Hattie's cereal once. Instead of giving it back like a normal child, he started to run yelling it was HIS cereal now 💫 Empress used to like theater until she learned it was for "nerds" 💫 Split Snatch is not an actual ghost despite being like one. He still has to eat, sleep, breath and has a heartbeat 💫 How are babies made? This is a question only Badge knows the answer to 💫 Mafia bab and Goofy Mafia love pizza but the other Mafia kids like hamburguer better 💫 Connie can, and will bite your legs if you make him mad, wich is very often so you better wear long pants 💫 It's very hard to make Grooves mad, but if you do, he'll give you the silent treatment 💫 When Snatch gets sick he will either take full advantage of the situation or pretend he's perfectly fine and push himself to his limit 💫 Mafia bab to Empress: What do you MEAN theater is for nerds??? 💫 Shapeshifter likes to hang out with the penguins and Grooves the most 💫 After a while, Snatch learned that calling any of the alien gals "mom" is the ultimate manipulative move 💫Goofy Mafia and Mafia bab, despite having pretty much opossite personalities, get along so well to the point of being considered best friends 💫 Mafia bab somehow recognizes and knows the names of every single one of the Mafia kids 💫 Mu subconsciously plays favorites. She can't help it, she has to take care of almost 100 kids, if not more 💫 Nessa has a small crush on Snatch. The feeling is, sadly, not mutual 💫 Snatch snatches Nessa's crown sometimes. He likes to pretend he's a king 💫 Mu's cape looks REALLY messy and it's mostly an amalgamate of stitches and fabric. That's because Mafia made it. It was a Mafia gift 💫 Goofy Mafia's other best friend is Thor. Thor would like it better if he spoke like a normal person tho 💫 Bow is a GREAT actress. She can save entire shows with the power of her presence alone 💫 The reason Snatch is more afraid of Victoria than MJ is because he was the closest to being caught. This means he got to see her eyes and the cold stare she always carries with them 💫 This may sound ironic but Snatch strongly dislikes snowball fights. He'd rather build a snowman while drinking hot cocoa 💫The only way Snatch and Empress get along is when it's winter and neither of them want to go outside 💫 Shapeshifter and Empress both have a massive sweet tooth 💫 Thor eventually manages to break Goofy Mafia's habit of speaking in third person. The Mafia kids are confused and Mafia bab is scared 💫 When Nessa gained a lot more confidence, she started to show public affection towards Snatch with the sole purpose of making him flustered. He hates it 💫 Thor can tell when Mafia bab breaks his stuff on accident, even if he tries to pretend it was on purpose. He can identify when he's nervious or guilty 💫 When Split Snatch gets REALLY mad, he burts into flames. The Fire spirits love when this happens 💫 When someone dies, they are given the options of going to the afterlife, stay as a Subconite if they feel like they died before it was their time, or stay as a Dweller to guard the forest if they don't have any issues left but want to be helpful 💫 The Dwellers don't remember their past life, since it'd get in the way of their duties. However, they can feel conections to those who were close to them 💫 If you were really REALLY close to a Dweller when they were alive, they might give you a flower 💫 A particular Dweller gave Nessa a flower once. She was really confused but felt the need to keep it anyways 💫 The swamp tries to drown Hattie at first, for she is an intruder. However the forest eventually warms up to her and stops trying to harm her 💫 Even if the forest didn't warm up to her it would've made no difference since the Subcon trio likes her 💫 The forest also may or may not be a little jealous of the kids' attachment to Hattie. Especially the Split timeline's forest 💫 Goofy Mafia learned about the types of cables and what they're useful for against his will. Guess who taught him 💫 Thor learned about far away planets and the life forms they might contain against his will. G u e s s w h o- 💫 Empress calls Snatch adorable nicknames like 'Marshmallow'. Don't missunderstand, she does this in a mocking way with the sole purpose of making him mad 💫 When Snatch and Empress fight, it's never certain who will win. The Mafia kids like to bet when it happens in front of them 💫 Split Snatch can sing decently. He usually gets the notes right, but he's not a great singer either, so he almost never sings. Gen Snatch's voice cracks every time he tries 💫 Star kid is a very good writter. They make whole stories by their own and sometimes help Grooves with the creation of his songs 💫 Goofy Mafia actually, geniuenly needs his weird swirled glasses to see 💫 Thor convinces Goofy Mafia to be as nerdy as he wants to be. Being a "cool boy" is overrated anyways 💫 The one thing Mu succesfully taught Mafia bab is that beating kids that can't or won't fight back is stupid. It's not like you win something from it. It's not even fun 💫 Snatch is surprisingly good at strategy videogames. One would think he'd mindlessly go for the strongest attack in rpgs, but he doesn't 💫 Goofy Mafia can, and will kick your butt in racing games like Mario kart 💫 Empress is a natural in fighting games. She knows and plays games she really shouldn't. Like Mortal Kombat 💫 Thor and MJ prefer games where you build and take care of a place 💫 Empress is great at biology. She knows body parts, functions and where to stike to kill you. She doesn't want to be grounded for life tho, so don't worry too much about it 💫 Hattie interrupted a Mafia theater play once. The options she inmediately thought about for that situation were -Say sorry and leave -Play dead -Sweat a lot and stand there awkwardly 💫 Thor can be VERY sassy when he wants to be 💫 Goofy Mafia eventually learns about the power of sass thanks to local goggle boy. He barely uses that himself tho 💫 One of Snatch's biggest dreams is to bite Victoria's ankles 💫 Goofy Mafia makes sure that everything "behind scenes" goes without problem at the Mafia theater when there's a play. He even has a checklist 💫 The checklist is actually nothing but scribbles no one except him can understand 💫 Hattie started a "Too self-conscious to act/sing in front of crowds" club to try and help some kids and herself to be more confident in that aspect 💫 Since Goofy Mafia is like the theater's manager he rarely acts in plays. But he's surprisingly good at playing villains. This confuses E V E R Y O N E, no exceptions 💫 Thor often visits Alpine Skyline when he gets tired of being in Mafia Town. He does this especially when he's working on small projects that don't require big tools or too much material 💫 Little Grooves tried to befriend Empress once. Keyword Tried 💫 Caw agents are the type of children that will carefully observe their toys to see if they move after watching Toy Story 💫 Mu hesitated for a second in The Finale when she saw that both Goofy Mafia and Mafia bab were scared of her 💫 Caw agents often say the same thing at the same time when talking to someone else. No one knows how they do it 💫 Caw agents can be described as 'those kids everyone says are weird, but secretly think they're cool' 💫 Warm weather: Nessa, Empress, Snatch, Connie, MJ, Starkid, Express owls, Hattie, most Mafia kids, Mafia bab 💫 Cold weather: Mu, Grooves, Moon Penguins, Caw agents, Goofy Mafia, Thor, Cookie, Cap'n Warlus and his crew 💫 Both are good: Shapeshifter, Badge, Bow, The Nomads, Nyakuza cats 💫 Nessa spaces out often when not in the manor. Don't laugh at her if she crashes into something or someone when walking, it's already embarasing enough 💫 Badge may not talk much but when they do it's always something wise or confusing that leaves people thinking. Goofy Mafia loves it 💫 Just so you know, wise and confusing can also mean out of place and things kids shouldn't know yet 💫 Badge likes snakes and snakes like them back 💫 Nessa doesn't know how to write things other than her name. Her mother told her that's the only thing she needs to know how to write so she can sign stuff 💫 Split Snatch taught his Nessa how to write. Gen Snatch tried with his, but he's more impatient 💫 Victoria moves similar to a snake when mad. Her massive hair starts moving slightly like tentacles, giving her a medusa-like look. What makes it so scary is that she remains calm and calculating when moving like that 💫 Nessa hates her name. There's people who actually believe her name is Nessa and not Vanessa because she never introduces herself like that 💫 Don't forget that despite that, Nessa is still Vanessa in a sense. She can get REALLY clingy. They're working on it 💫 Mafia kids are REALLY strong. They can take a lot of damage and hit hard 💫 Goofy Mafia is not strong. At all. He is however w a y more agile than the other Mafia kids 💫 Thor doesn't find Mafia bab as annoying when he's geniuenly thinking and trying to understand something. It's even endearing sometimes 💫 Cookie is, unsurprisingly, not very good at acting. But she sometimes plays secondary characters in Mafia plays, since some of those characters might need a more unique look and Mafia kids can't provide that all the time 💫 Empress, after a l o t of self-convincing attended one of the "nerd plays" to see Cookie act, and saw how she rarely fit her roles 💫 Cookie expected Empress to regain at least a little bit of her former love for theater with the play she attended to. She didn't 💫Mafia bab once told Goofy Mafia that he would teach him how to be tough. He didn't believe him, and it didn't really work anyway. If anything it was Thor who taught how to be tough 💫 Empress forces the Nyakuza cats to watch Cookie's cooking tutorials. They ended up liking them so it's not that bad 💫 in stressful situations Goofy Mafia will often hide behind Mafia bab. If he doesn't then Mafia bab will automatically put himself in front of him, so it might as well just happen 💫 Subcon's favorite holiday is halloween. They adore it and will put a lot of attention to detail. Even the queen enjoys some parts of it 💫 The reason Victoria enjoys some of it is because she chooses a group of random people to terrorize all night 💫 The candy for halloween is not for the children. It's for the people Victoria keeps up all night, and it's their decision if they wanna share it with children 💫 Mu actually lives in a cave. She can actually get a normal home, but the cave is cooler and bigger 💫 Mafia was not born in "Mafia Town". One beautiful night Mu woke up to find 100+ children, all of them asleep in boats 💫 If you ask Thor what the worst day of his life was, he'd tell you it was day he woke up to a bunch of random children running around in the usually pacific and quiet town, only to have one of them yell at the top of his lungs that they were staying 💫 Shape can be very forgetful sometimes. Don't call them out if they say "happy birthday" 10 times on your birthday

[radramblog]

Ninty Direct Feb 2021 Thoughts

That was uh. Kind of disappointing, actually.

I suppose it was inevitable that we weren’t seeing Pokemon since they’re gonna do their own announcement. But like. Coulda done better here.

(oh no you’re now introduced to my awful awful handwriting, is this better or worse than my cursed interests? you decide)

Anyway I wrote down everything they announced so here we go

Pyra/Mythra in Smash: I don’t give a single shit about the Xenoblade series, but it’s one of like 2 IPs Nintendo has had in the last decade so sure whatever they can have second a character as a treat. I’m mostly just annoyed this wasn’t a third-party character.

Fall Guys Switch: This feels inevitable. It also feels about 5 months too late.

Outer Wilds Switch: I’ve heard some absolutely excellent things about this game, so fair enough. I’m not sure I’d buy it on the Switch, but I haven’t bought it at all yet, so.

Famicom Detective Club: This looks like a Ren’py game if it had an actual budget, but still used Ren’py for some reason. Prooobably not biting on this one chief.

Samurai Warriors 5: The only Warriors game I’ve played is the first hyrule warriors, and the only Nobunaga game I’ve played was Pokemon Conquest (it’s a trip), so. I don’t understand the obsession they have over there for this bloke, like imagine if Australia made like a tv series a year and a large handful of video games about Ned Kelly or something.

Legend of Mana: Shit I should go play Octopath Traveler huh

Monster Hunter Rise: Those monster designs looked pretty kickass, and those human designs made me crack up laughing. I’ve never played Monster Hunter, and I don’t think this is gonna change that.

Mario Golf: Hey look they confirmed Waluigi as playable ahead of time so people wouldn’t complain, good job guys. The multiplayer of this looked silly as hell, but I’m not spending 80 bucks on wii sports tennis for a multiplayer mode ill drag my mates to play all of once before we go back to playing Beetle Adventure Racing.

Tales from the Borderlands: Wait telltale is still around? Ok…? I haven’t played Borderlands and don’t really care for the Telltale style so nah

Capcom Arcade Stadium: They could have made a peripheral like the NES/SNES mini, but they didn’t, and it’s for the best. The fact that one of the games is free implies to me that the rest are going to be overcosted, though.

Stubbs the Zombie: What the fuck am I looking at. Apparently this is a remaster of an old Xbox game, but I’ve never heard of it. Weird as fuck, but sure.

No More Heroes III: No more Heroes is a franchise that I’ve never played, but always wanted to. It seems right up my alley aesthetic-wise, and the gameplay looks pretty solid too- probably gonna try one of the older ones first, though.

Neon White: Speaking of aesthetic. This looks anime as fuck and edgy in a good way, and the gameplay looks real fun. I actually really want to check this out, and no, it’s not just because of the skull masked goth gf on the cover. (Doesn’t hurt, though.)

DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power: Jesus, this looks like a bad tie-in game from the mid 2000s. Not like Battle for Bikini Bottom, more like a Jimmy Neutron. And while I really liked the Jimmy Neutron game as a kid (shame about the show), this doesn’t look like it’ll stand up to that…high bar. Listening to this trailer made me want to die a little bit inside.

Plants Vs Zombies: Battle for Neighbourville: I miss PopCap. Peggle 3, never.

Miitopia: This looks cute, and will probably lead to the same sort of 3am DMs that happened with Tomodachi Life. If it’s a full priced game, it probably won’t sell at all.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Mario items: uhhh sure. Don’t have that game, so.

Triangle Strategy: Aww fuck it’s a final fantasy tactics that looks like octopath and it might have an actually good story, shiiiiiiiiit. I’m gonna give the demo a try before I land on this, but I’m optimistic.

Star Wars Hunters: When was the last time we had an actually good Star Wars game? And don’t say Fallen Order. Yeah, didn’t think so.

KO City: Ah, the bottom of the barrel. Didn’t think it would take this long. At this point, the pseudo-cartoony style everything has because they’re trying to ape Fortnite is extremely grating on me. (I definitely thought this ad was for Fortnite stuff at first)

World’s End Club: OK this one has me actually hyped. I knew that Kodaka (director/writer of the Danganronpa series) and Uchikoshi (director/writer of the Zero Escape series) were working on a joint project, and we’re finally seeing the results. Both of them have multiple excellent games under their respective belts, and this new game looks like a fun spin on what I’m sure a lot of people were expecting from the pair. Literally both of them have made a game where (spoilers I guess, Keara stop reading here you haven’t played VLR yet) there’s a death game going on while the characters are unaware the world fucking ended, so to see the idea of the death game getting interrupted and the characters actually having to live in the dead world is really cool. I’m paying cloooose attention to this one.

Hades (Physical Release): Dang now if I buy hades I can choose to have some of my money go to EB games or JB hifi or something. Cooooooooooooool.

Ninja Gaiden Collection: This just made me wonder why Ryu Hayabusa isn’t in Smash yet. Is it because there’s already a Ryu?

Age of Calamity DLC: I don’t think I mentioned this in my post yesterday, but I would have put money on DLC for this game coming out. I still haven’t played it, but the first Hyrule Warriors had so much fucking DLC so this was inevitable in my eyes.

Bravely Default 2: Uhhh its another JRPG man idk what you want me to say. Didn’t play the first one, apparently its good.

Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection: Kinda funny having this next to the free original in the Capcom Arcade Stadium. Capcom is reviving old franchises, I guess? Where’s Mega Man Battle Network, cowards?

SaGa Frontier: I’ve heard good things about the SaGa series, but this looks awful. Not like gameplay wise, the style for the models and shit in game just disinterests me.

Apex Legends: Is anyone still playing this game?

BOTW 2 (no news): I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Next Direct, I guess.

Skyward Sword HD: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Seriously though, I was expecting 3 of the best Zeldas ever made to get ports, and we got the one that I wasn’t interested in. Fuck you too, I guess.

Splatoon 3: I actually was super interested in this, seeing as the trailer looked like it was gonna be for some like… side game, 3D RPG or something, exploring the origins of the Splatoon world? But then it’s just Splatoon 3. And like, I know people really like that series, but it never appealed to me. The world is neat! But I’m not interested in the series as it is.

And that’s the tea.

ADDENDUM:

shit that’s this weekend? huh ok -New Hearthstone expansions revealed, kinda like WOTC does with magic every so often, just like “here’s the next couple sets btw”. Since they do nothing but plagiarise off each other and MTG is having a set based on another WOTC property this year (D&D), there’s going to be a Starcraft set. -Diablo 4 release date that will not be stuck to since COVID is still a thing -people are hoping for starcraft 3. Blizzard to announce Starcraft 2 Episode 1. -New WoW expansion announced, determined objectively to be “worst ever” before trailer is even finished

[punishedvenomsnake]

You are one in a MINION! Send this to ten friends you think are simply bananas!

Hello ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to episode one of Jermacraft, the series where I play Minecraft.

This is gonna be a singleplayer let's play and when I say let's play I use that term... pretty loosely because I'm an idiot in this game - you're gonna see lots of fails, you're gonna see lots of triumphs, at least I'm hoping.

So go grab yourself a nice hot cup of coffee, hot cup of cocoa. I've got apple cider right here freshly brewed, let me take a sip.

sip

Ah that's good cider. Alright, so let's get this started - create new world.

World name is going to be... JermaCraft! Sounds about right, eh ok...

Game mode is going to be suurvii- survival, that's the most interesting I think.

More world options- seed for world generator ok this is important!

I gotta name this something crazy to get cool structures and stuff.

Gonna name it... umm... how about,

"DiamondsAreForever"

"LOL"

"cheese"

uh "BURGAH".

Alright, there's- that's our world generator seed, "DiamondsAreForeverLOLcheeseBURGAH"... Done!

Alright let's see what happens, create new world let's do it guys. 'Building terrain' oh my god this is so exciting this is episode one!

I wonder... I wonder where we're gonna end up... Where are we gonna end up?

Ok... what- what? Where the hell am I? I spawned on top of a mountain top! Ok hold on, sound has to be lowered, definitely...

Mkay, a lil' bit of that, a lil' bit of that... maybe a little lower! That sounds about right. Alright!

So, uh, apparently I spawned on top of a mountain... I kinda- this is a good seed!

What's that? We're going to explore it right now - GO!

dies from fall damage

Oh! jerma laugh

... Heheheh... Alright we're going to try that again. This time I'm not gonna miss... I wanna get down to tha- that's the home right there, I wanna live right there.

Don- I don't even have to explore, see if I can't do this... I gotta, hold on... I got an idea, I got a plan.

JermaCraft episode one, this is how we do it! You guys ready? I don't know if you- I don't know if you guys are actually really ready for this!

Here we go! I'm going for a skydive. Remember if you hold shift you don't fall off... That's something I didn't know when I used to livestream this game...

wheeze Heh heh! You guys ready? Ready to go see our new home?

jerma laugh

Alrighty then... What the hell is that? Oh it's an octopus... Look at this quaint little place... I love it already! Heh heh! Alrighty...

So- oh.. exhalation I'm so stupid! Y'see I'm- this is why... this is why I'm an idiot guys... y'see, why would I... I need to get wood! And I just jumped off th- ok...

Remember this... Where are we, pointing east? I have no idea.

Gotta get some trees... That's the most important part of Minecraft you gotta get trees, that's the first thing you gotta get.

Lemme take a sip of my apple cider...

sipping sounds

Oh that's good stuff!

Hopefully you guys picked up a thing of coco like I told you to because that's the most relaxing thing in the world, sitting down, playing videogames... doesn't get much better than that.

Ah ok, c'mon now! Oooh, we got sand too! Now, explain this to me alright?

Alright I want Notch to send me a personal email, and explain to me why there are cows that are acting like Mountain Lions...

I'm gonna kill each one of those cows in just a minute, you watch.

fall damage

Ow... Well at least there's one tree over here... Gotta remember, I gotta go back that way, cause that's where the, the house is gonna be... My awesome dirt house!

So if you are an OLD subscriber, I mean really old, like at least four months ol- month- four... ffweehh four or five months. You'll remember the original JermaCraft it was like two episodes...

And I built a dirt house. This is gonna be completely different I'm going to actually spend time... and make some cool stuff. At least that's what I'm pretending that I'm gonna say that.

Got some wood... aw I got Geno still (his Minecraft skin) from Mario RPG, one of the best games of all time. If you have never played Mario RPG I suggest you play it.

Alright, got some wood, I need more trees over here I can... dig up. I'll get this one too.

excruciatingly slow wood punching

One more and we'll make our way back.

more wood punching

So I guess they added a hunger feature now too if- if you're hungry, you... you die? ... Or something, I guess? Who knows?

even more wood punching

Little bit more wood... And in my livestreams I- I was, always a tradition that when I played this game I would sing a song when things got really boring.

So that seems like the perfect opportunity right now to sing a song, so uh lemme just prep my vocal chords for a second...

sips apple cider

clears throat

Ok... So we're getting wood right now right?

(In Jazz Tune) doodoo, doo doo, (kh) doo, (kh) doo, (kh) doooo doo dooo doo doo, (kh) doo, (kh) doo (kh), doooo.

We're chopping wood down!

(kh) doodoo, doo (kh).

Every single day...

(kh) doo, (kh) doo, (kh) doooo.

I gotta get my tools!

(tch) m'doo (kh)

Any which way.

(tch) doodoo, (kh) doo, (kh) doooo doo doo.

I can't seem to reach this stupid piece of wood, so I gotta put some blocks down to get where I should...

I'mgonnachopem.

(tch) d'dnn, (tch) nhh, (tch) nhhh~

I'm gonna chop right now.

nhh, (tch) nhh, (tch) doooonnnh~ doodooonnh~ doon, (tch) doon, (tch)

fall damage

Alright that's enough... Got it! Let's get the hell outta here! Yaaay!~ splash So those of you that don't think that's gonna be a good spot- you'll see...

I'm gonna build that up to be like a castle! So here's the goal... by Christmas time of this year, 2011, I wanna have... a giant castle like as big as that, uhh, that mountain over there...

begins breaking blocks

So let's clean this up a little bit. Why don't we huh? Yeah alright, alright! ... Maybe put a little bit of dirt down here... Make sure I can y'know...

D- did I really run out of dirt? Wonderful... My first wooden tools. It's just like going to your first day of school... And get, punched in the face by the bully...

Speaking of bullies... I got a funny story for you. First ever story on JermaCraft! While I do this mundane stuff.

So... when I was like in the fourth grade, there was a kid that lived down the street from me, his name will- will stay anonymous, because... y'know I don't want him to like- if he watches these videos- I don't want him to come, like, beat me up.

Not that he would ever remember this to begin with... but I- I was probably like the fourth grade... And eh, swallows I was a little S-word guys I was a little- I was a little... little jerk when I was younger.

So essentially what happened, was- this kid, he was a big, big, fat kid: scary, not very nice. And my brother got in like a fight with him, like a looong time before this v- when I was like the second grade my brother's a little bit older than me...

And lemme pick this up.

So my brother got in a fight with this kid and... and... and like I heard about it. And so at the bus stop one day, cause we were at the same bus stop because he lives right down the street from us. At leas- at least he did, I don't know if he does anymore.

So... I dunno why- I was in the fourth grade this so much of a little jerk I was. So my grandmother used to pick me up from school, after I got from the bus stop...

Because y'know obviously you don't wanna walk- y'know, the mile and a half back to your house or whatever it is, mile... Cause the bus stop wasn't that close.

So my grandma used to pick me up, and he was at the bus stop as well, and one day I decided that out of the back window, I was going to give him a double middle finger, as I was driving with my grandmother one day.

I dunno why- I don't even know why I did it guys I can't- I can't tell you one reason why I gave this kid the double middle finger. And from that day forward, he just kinda gave me the w- like a weird look like "What? The hell are you doing?"

And from that day forward I would RUN. RUN, as fast as I could to the bus stop, and away to the bus stop where my grandmother was gonna pick me up, and it was like that for almost six months.

And he never beat me up or anything like that he, eh- he, I- I he- I don- I don- I was like, overreacting.

Actually hold on a second I don't need this... What am I doing with this? I was just putting blocks down! Actualy nonono, I was- I was doing the right thing. I want- I want these. Cause I wanna make like a wall kind of...

Let's keep that going. So yeah, so I guess the moral of the story is, never give the double middle finger to a bully. Cause, you'll be scared for the rest of your life.

And I still am scared, when I like open my doors to like, go and get the groceries... I'm scared. That bully's gonna come get me for me... givin' him the bird.

Yeah- yeah that is actually a true story I did not make that up it- I was scared for like, at least six months. And nothing ever happened either, and like- like I didn't get beat up or anything, so...

Alright now. Is there- is this all- is this gonna go straight down into... ok cool. C-o-o-o-o-l! I'm gonna make a little mine here!

hisses

It's getting late... it's getting late and when it gets late that's when Jerma starts to lose.

starts digging 4x4 hole straight down

I don't think I've ever made it past one night in this game when people are watching. I really don't think it's happened.

ambient cave sound

Is that- Ooh, there's a mine somewhere around here... Pretty sick! Oh jeez- it's right here! Ohohohoh! Nice! Maybe there's coal right here too, that'd be pretty awesome!

Oh my god, Creeper! Creeper get the hell outta here! I'm gonna kick your butt! Y'know yeah- yeah blow up! Go on, go on what do you think I care?

You can't hurt me I got a shovel! I'm gonna shovel your face in-

creeper explodes and takes off more than half of Jerma's health

gasp

... Ok well that's done. chuckles There's not coal just right here somewhere? There has to be... See this is why they always tell you, right when you start, you need to go get coal, you need to go get wood and everything, but I was too busy talking about a bully... me giving him the middle finger.

So looking- I'm trying to see if I can see coal, sometimes it's just right on the edge of these mountains...

stares into pitch black

Hmmmm... I am not pleased! ... Let's at least do this. I need a sheep too, I need wool! I'm being a real piece of crap...

[posthumanwanderings]

alright so I’ve done a top 10 favorite obscure SNES games and my top games in general are real obvious / similar to others (all you need to know is that Chrono Trigger is the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME :) ) so I’ll do instead a.... ~Top 10 SNES Memories~

1. dat pre-launch Super Mario World hype at Sears (how I played SNES for the 1st time, then afterwards at a babysitter’s house cause we didn’t get one right away)

2. witnessing the first RPG I’ve ever seen, Final Fantasy IV (FFII in NA). I didn’t actually know how to play it, was too young so my older brother would get home from school yelling at me thinking I fucked something up but I didn’t accidentally save anything luckily. so I watched him and his friend beat it from midway in the game, the underground cave of monsters part to be exact.

3. everything about Donkey Kong Country, from gameplay to presentation and this video that came with Nintendo Power magazine:

4. playing copious amounts of Super Mario Kart with my cousin all summer while drawing our own maps and character creations during game breaks. also truth be told, but I came up with a very Bowsette like character back then, with a very similar look but only differences were that she had red hair and was Bowser’s wife, not just the princess alter ego of him.

5. celebrating my 7th birthday at Pizza Hut while getting Star Fox as a present from my mom which came out a week before. for its time it was one of the best looking console games and it drove me towards loving much of the on-rails shooter genre.

6. between the time Star Fox released and before Final Fantasy VI came out my parents got divorced, so I remember vividly how much FFVI and other SNES RPG’s around the time I learned to play from watching my brother helped me cope with it all, just immersing myself in another world and its story. no salty feelings about it now, but gaming definitely helped with my escapism from shit you can’t help in life. so, thanks Squaresoft : )

7. METAL WARRIORS head-2-head mode! I might’ve talked to one person IRL who knew exactly what was up when I mentioned MW, but I see other peeps on the net low key appreciate how intense those matches could get. made me wish the actual Assault Suits games had 2-player Vs. mode, or even co-op.

8. Street Fighter 2 and each revision afterwards was HYPE. from playing it in the arcade to seeing a decent home port, only getting buffer and faster with each release which we got with no regrets. I still play this classic game (SSF2x) on Fightcade to this day, the perfect fighting game.

9. Super Metroid’s deep, desolate atmosphere is embedded in my mind as one of most mood inducing games I’ve ever played. all while still just a 2D game too. foggy, cloudy transparencies, alienating / suspenseful music, nice use of lighting in dark areas and ambiguous ruins that the Metroid series never fully explains until the Metroid Prime series and Zero Mission. on my top 5 favorite game list.

10. sometime in the early 2010′s I had what I call an SNES Renaissance, when I got back into playing emulators but wanted to check out games I never heard before thanks to the blogs at the time showcasing the hidden 16-bit gems. my list I wrote before were the games I beat then, and there’s still plenty more for me to check out, especially the RPG’s!

had a lot of fun fond memories playing the Mega Man X games, Yoshi’s Island, Mario Paint, and losing my mind with Contra III, but I think I wrote enough already for this. currently about to beat the PSP version of FFIV (then maybe check out FFIV After Years?) then play more SNES favorites from my past and some new ones before switching it up to the next system focused vibe (o you already know..) show dat grey and purp box some love for me, and feel free to post some of your own memories here as well : )

[simone-boccanegra]

Filling the video game asks

VIDEOGAMES

First videogame ever played - Mario, sometimes in the 90s

Two favorite videogames genres - fantasy and horror

Three favorite videogames’ soundtracks - The Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Dragon Age 2

Four favorite fantasy rpgs classes - mage (all Dragon Age), sneak archer (Skyrim), dual wield (Dragon Age), conjuration mage (Skyrim)

Five favorite gaming companies: I don’t really care about companies enough to remember 

Six (or less) videogames played in 2019: Skyrim, Oblivion, Dragon Age (Origins and 2), The Witcher 3

Seven (or less) videogames you plan to play in the future: Bloodborne (I need a PS4), Dark Souls 3 (I need at least an USB gamepad, the controls are shit on PC), Elden Ring, Dishonored, Dishonored 2 (I’ve watched let’s plays of all that are out, but I want to play them too)

Eight favorite videogames’ locations: 1. The Shivering Isles 2. Blackmarsh 3. Ostagar 4. Whiterun 5. Sovngarde 6. Deep Roads (DAO) 7. Velen 8. Denerim during the siege

Nine underrated/unknown videogames: I know ONE that’s very little known and I LOVED, Animamundi: Dark Alchemist

Ten videogame/videogames series: Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls, Assassin’s Creed, Dishonored, The Witcher, Sekiro, Bloodborne, Hollow Knight

CHARACTERS (any game)

One character creation screen you love: Dragon Age: Origins is easy to navigate, easy to mod and you can get right to it by skipping the intro

Two of your player characters (share your protagonists!): Idun Brosca, my first Warden, and Rowena Shepard, my first and canon Shep

Three characters you wished you could romance: The Arishok, Legion, and Lucien Lachance

Four family members (characters who are your protagonist’s family): Bryce and Eleanor Cousland (I’m still not over them), Bethany Hawke, Ciri

Five best outfits (for any character): Daedric Armour (Skyrim), Sentinel Armour (DA: Awakening), franky all the rest are from mods. Vanilla outfits generally suck.

Six pre-made protagonists you love: Geralt, Ezio, Altair, Corvo, Sekiro, Bayek

Seven villains/antagonists: The Arishok, Loghain, Samson, Sovereign, Jyggalag, The Illusive Man, Ludwig the Accursed/the Holy Blade

Eight secondary characters (non companions): Regis, the Bloody Baron, the Fire Keeper, the Doll, Duncan, Caridin, Captain Anderson, Ketojan (he should have been a companion!)

Nine favorite companions: Zevran, Anders, Legion, Thane, Mordin, Solaire, Alistair, Isabela, Tali

Ten favorite characters: Sheogorath, Regis, Legion, Mordin, Anders, Thane, Iris von Everec, Vernon Roche, Flemeth, the Outsider

EXTRA/RANDOM

One frustrating plot hole: 

Two moments that made you cry: only 2? XD Okay, Mordin’s death and Thane’s death. But there are so many more...

Three games where you would like to play/played as evil: Dragon Age: Origins and 2 (I did), Skyrim (not all-out evil but I murder NPCs for the crime of being annoying)

Four plot twists: 

Five rpg choices you could never make: I could never sell Fenris to Danarius or give Isabela to the Arishok, never keep the Anvil, never destroy the werewolves, and NEVER KILL ANDERS 

Six pets/animals: BARKSPAWN!!!, Rieklings (they are classified as pets!), the space hamster in Mass Effect, Roach (spawning in the weirdest places), Ser Pounce-a-Lot, Arvak

Seven spells: Storm Atronach (Skyrim), I don’t know the spell names in DA by heard but the crushing cage, various ice spells, various lightning spells, heal/group heal, resurrect!, that pull thing you have as battlemage in DA2

Eight (your choice)

Nine (your choice)

Ten (your choice)

[theartofmedia]

The Art of Review: YIIK: A Postmodern RPG

I have been sitting here for about two hours with this tab open, trying to find out how to properly introduce this. At the time of writing this (May 7, 2019, 10:02 PM), I have just finished watching YIIK several hours ago. However, I have been doing just about everything to avoid actually writing about it, because I have no idea how to ease the reader into this.

YIIK is so reprehensible that I created this segment--”The Art of Review”--because I needed to talk about this game. I needed to explain just why this game fails on every single account, and is so blatantly offensive. Initially, I was going to do a piece on something creator Andrew Allanson had said about games and his protagonist, Alex. It had to do with character development, and a common criticism was Alex’s sheer lack of it; naturally, I decided to watch a walkthrough online in order to see this for myself first-hand.

I was not prepared for what I saw. I have never had to take as many breaks from any media before due to sheer anger at what I was witnessing. I have never seen a game that fails in every single sense, that is regarded as such high art by its developers. Except maybe David Cage, but he’s a topic for another day.

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is one of the worst pieces of media I have ever had the displeasure of viewing... probably in my entire life. I wish I was exaggerating.

Before I go any further, I would like give immense credit to GrandmaParty and the others at the Something Awful forums for doing an LP of the game with commentary and cutting out the fights. GrandmaParty graciously linked the thread to me--which is full of sources that I will also be linking to throughout this piece--and made the entire game tolerable enough for me to power through. It wouldn’t have happened without you guys, so thank you very much for extending a hand to a small creator trying to get her footing in the world. <3

I will also be linking to the various episodes of GrandmaParty’s LP with timestamped links to show particular scenes or dialogue. I’ve heard that one Andrew Allanson likes to say that people doctored screenshots of his game to make him look bad. Sorry, but I don’t like being accused of forgery, so I’m going to just preemptively strike that claim down.

Now then. This is going to be a big, long review. Allow me to tell you how we’ll be separating this.

We’re going to have two main sections: a non-spoiler review, and a spoiler review. This is mainly due to the fact that a lot of the game’s issues come from its mess of a story, one that can only be understood fully if you’ve seen it through to the end (and its multiple endings).

But let me be clear here.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME.

Don’t buy it for a laugh. Don’t buy it to see how bad it is. It’s broken, it’s offensive, and the creators and proven themselves time and time again to be genuinely awful and prejudiced people. Do not give these people money.

The non-spoiler and spoiler sections will be divided into subsections, which may also have subsections of their own.

With that said... let’s begin my review of YIIK: A Postmodern RPG.

Non-Spoiler Review

Plot:

The plot of YIIK (it’s pronounced like Y2K, but I’m going to pronounce it as ‘yick’ personally) follows Alex, a freshly-graduated college student, and the strange events that begin to occur once he returns to his hometown of Frankton. He follows a cat to an old factory/hotel, where he meets Sammy, a young woman who appears to live there. When she is taken by some mysterious creatures in front of Alex, he begins a journey to try and find out what happened to her, and begins to make discoveries that could endanger the very fabric of the universe. In theory, at least. In reality, the story is an absolute clusterfuck of vague metaphysics, and the rules of the world were never clearly established, so everything just becomes an incoherent mess.

Characters:

The characters are bare-bones at best and absolutely insufferable at worst. Alex especially is infamous among critics and detractors of the game for his arrogance, ignorance, underlying racism/sexism we’ll get to that, and lack of properly-written development. I’m not going to go into full detail with Alex just yet--there will be an entirely separate post on him. Something also to keep in mind that general consensus appears to be that Alex is an author-insert for Andrew Allanson. Whether that is or isn’t true is frankly up to the viewer, but there’s no definitive proof of it.

(Oh!!! Quick thing!! This image here keeps circulating around--this person is not Andrew! That is someone named Cr33pyDude on both Twitter and Reddit! He just so happens to look like the main character. Don’t rag on this guy, everyone, he doesn’t have anything to do with this shitshow. <3)

Most of the other characters are bland and underdeveloped, but all have potential to be better (Rory especially, in my personal opinion) if they were in the hands of a better writer. The female characters, though... either they are fawning over Alex, being written as nagging and overbearing, or having so little significance that taking them out entirely would change nothing. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that. Other NPCs are forgettable, and enemies are out-of-place monsters that hold no consequence to the story.

Writing:

And the writing--dear god the writing. The writers don’t know the phrase “show, don’t tell.” So frequently would Alex monologue about nothing. Upon coming back from seeing a woman get taken by supernatural creatures, he goes home and reflects--only to go on a tangent about his mother. Immediately after that, he goes on a rant about p/o/r/n/ when sent an email and how girls that he used to go to school with wouldn’t be doing “particularly unladylike” things. And the entire game is like this. Alex will go on pseudo-philosophical rants to himself, and they reveal nothing about his character except that he thinks he’s better than everyone else. He’ll also frequently describe things as though talking to someone--while this does get explained later, it still is completely frustrating when the narrative says “I said this and she said that” instead of just having dialogue or actions between characters. A lot of the dialogue doesn’t exactly... sound like anything a human would say. It’s stilted and unnatural.

Graphics:

The graphics are... bad. Really bad. The style is supposed to be a throwback to old-school, very polygonal games, but environments lack any and all actual texture, making them incredibly flat and uninteresting at best and painful for the eyes at worst. Everything is extremely colorful, but in the sense of neon colors. Everything is so bright and vibrant, and there is barely a place where someone’s eyes can rest--it’s balance in art. Brightness like this needs to be contrasted with darker, more muted shades, or else it just hurts to look at. The viewer’s eyes need places to rest, and the muted shades allow them that reprieve. You don’t get that with YIIK. It’s just a constant bombardment of colors and lights, to the point where if you are sensitive to these kinds of things, you may not want to look even at game footage unless you’re prepared. The character portraits are fine, even if some expressions are odd, but the in-game chibi-esque models are... bad. Really bad. They’re so uncanny and unsettling, and their expressions almost never change. (Also Alex has detailed teeth and it’s just as horrifying as you might think.)

Music/Audio:

The music is. Awful? It’s awful. It’s genuinely really bad. Case in point: one of the boss battle themes. You can hear this poor guy trying so hard to put power behind his voice, but it just sounds unnatural and strained. (Also he clips the mic at some points, and the balancing in general is. Bad.) He’s out-of-tune and occasionally off-beat, and it just makes for a very unpleasant listening experience. And a lot of the music is like this, being just an assault on the ears. The one real exception to this is the track “Into the Mind” made by one Toby Fox, presumably before he made Undertale and was doing freelance work. (He has since deleted his tweet promoting it. Screenshot of the tweet here, courtesy of @GameTheoryRejects.) The audio in general is poor, with irritating sound effects, occasional distorted audio that’s supposed to be scary but is so poorly done that it just hurts to listen to, and voice acting that’s lackluster at best and utterly emotionless at worst.

Gameplay:

Full disclosure: I did not personally play the game. But just looking at it shows how irritating, slow, clunky, and repetitive it is. Each character has a minigame that you play in order to attack, defend, use special attacks, and even run away. These minigames, unlike in something like the Mario & Luigi series, are slow, drawn-out, and completely break up the flow of the fight. And none of the other characters matter then anyway, because turns out if you max out your LUK stat, you can use a particular move that hits all enemies and completely one-shot them from critical damage. (And this move can even glitch out the game in some cases!) The menus are crowded and visually uninteresting, making everything sort of meld together. (Another minor criticism: YIIK has a tendency to put the player in unwinnable fights. You are never aware of what fights are winnable and which fights are designed to kill you. More on this later.)

Speaking of gameplay, the leveling system is... bizarre and tedious. You get EXP, but you don’t gain the ability to level up (yes that is an ability you have to gain) until a couple hours into the game. Leveling up is done in the Mind Dungeon, which you access from save points, and you have to go through doors that increase the stats you assign it. There are four doors per floor, and when you go to the next floor, you and all of your teammates (even if you haven’t met them in-game) level up. Sounds simple, right? Well. It’s slow and repetitive, and NOTHING HAPPENS. You walk in a door. You walk out the door. Rinse and repeat for 70 floors. (280 doors, by the way.) Here’s GrandmaParty doing this for an hour to get an idea of the tedium that this induces. You get to play a minigame when you banish certain enemies, but that serves less as ‘spicing up the gameplay’ and more of ‘adding more steps to this already-boring section.’

So to recap: Flat characters, word-salad plot, painful prose flat-out ugly graphics, backwards gameplay and leveling system.

Tl;dr: Game bad. Don’t buy it.

... This ends the non-spoiler portion of the review. And also the section where we start to talk about some... sensitive topics.

As such, I am going to issue a legitimate trigger warning: the following pieces talk about suicide/depression in detail, as well as physical & domestic abuse situations.

And a small content warning for those who aren’t legitimately triggered by these subjects but still feel uncomfortable reading about the following: homophobia/transphobia; sexism; racism; and the actual use of a real-life woman’s death as a plot device. No I am not fucking kidding about that last one.

So. Let’s get into the real shit about YIIK.

Spoiler Review

Plot:

Let’s start with the plot. There isn’t really a driving force for this plot; initially, it’s finding Semi “Sammy” Pak (well, everyone except Rory says “Park,” even though all of the written lines say “Pak,” so that’s great) after she is taken by mysterious figures. However, as the game progresses, the search becomes less about finding Sammy until she’s just a footnote, and becomes more about... meandering around the world going from one goal to another while fighting things. (The game points this out, but self-awareness doesn’t excuse the fact that it happens. Especially considering the upcoming plot points...)

Then the metaphysics start--people have been trying to decipher this world’s rules for a while with little success, so bear with me, I’m going to try to make as much sense of what we’re given as possible.

There exists a “place between places“ known as the Soul Space. It exists between parallel realities. A person can actually will themself into the Soul Space via... depression? One character, Vella, says that another character, Rory, left his body when he “surrendered himself to his misery” following the death of his younger sister, and explained herself that she fell into a deep depression as well before entering the Soul Space... but it’s not dying? Or it can be? Here Rory asks The Essentia 2000 oh we’ll get to her don’t you worry if dying means you enter the Soul Space. She says that it’s complicated. Her explanation boils down to, “if you care only about material goods and not about your bonds, when you die, you will cease to exist. If you don’t care about materialistic goods when you die, then ehhhhh???”

Also, if your reality is destroyed but you go into the Soul Space, you can become a Soul Survivor (aka the not-Starmen, seen in the cutscene with Vella and Rory linked above) and get stuck in other’s realities as you try to find a physical body. Also, people share a Soul across parallel realities--meaning, parallel versions of yourself would share the same Soul. But they’re not the same people. They have different lives, races, genders, names, but they share the same “Soul.” Only one person with that “Soul” can exist in a reality at a time, hence the form that the Soul Survivors take if they enter a reality where another person with that “Soul” lives. If, however, that person with your “Soul” is no longer in that reality, you can retake physical form and essentially take their place--though not as them, but as you.

And if you go into the Soul Space you apparently understand the secrets of the universe and are beyond normal human follies.

Confused yet? Me too, and I wrote this damn thing. The worldbuilding is so vague, and the players aren’t given set rules that the world plays by. Even when the more surrealist elements of the game start to appear, there should still be rules. Perhaps nonsensical rules, but rules nonetheless. Instead we get talk about Souls and parallel realities, scenes of bright colors and strange imagery that never gets explained or really acknowledged (other than a mention of them being “breaks in reality” like, once), and some plot twists that imply... a lot.

Let’s talk about the characters before we get to the ending.

Characters

Besides Alex, there are five major characters in YIIK:

Michael, who is Alex’s childhood friend and who doesn’t really have much relevance between the beginning and the end of the game. No, really, for the middle portion of the game, he doesn’t really do anything. He hangs around, that’s about it. He gains relevance again during the end of the game where he goes into the Soul Space and becomes Proto-Michael, and that... happens, I guess. I think it contributes to the revelation later on about reality breaking.

Vella is... a strange character. A strange character forced to contradict herself because the plot demands it. She’s shown to be a character who takes no shit, but also bends at the first flimsy apology Alex gives her. She is compassionate to someone like Rory, but spends most of her time calling out Alex. (And yet, somehow, they fall in love???) These notes I took previously on Vella’s first appearance show how what kind of walking contradiction that Vella is as a character:

”Stop creeping on me while i’m at work”

”Okay I’ll go to the house of two strangers who i just accused of perving on me, in the middle of my work shift, to look at these pictures of me on this website i’ve never heard of that can’t go wrong”

”So let me tell you about this traumatizing experience i had with a supernatural creature, saying how emotional and painful it was without any emotion in my voice”

”also i’m not going to tell you how I got to where the supernatural creature was because it’s very personal and I don’t know you and revealing that would make me vulnerable”

”By the way I’m going to give you my number as well as this other number for a training dungeon basically because I like you two”

... yeah,

Rory is probably my favorite character out of this dreck, and he deserves so, so much better than being in this shit. He’s a quiet scene kid who initially gets roped into the plot with the disappearance of his 12-year-old sister--turns out, however, that she killed herself, and Rory struggles with the resulting grief, trauma, and depression that follows. He’s a sweet kid who’s a pacifist, is teaching himself how to make games, knows a lot of random bits of information about many things, and overall deserves so much better than this game. Sorry Allansons you’ve lost your Rory privileges he is My son now

Claudio and Chondra... are just kind of there? Claudio’s a stereotypical weeb. Chondra is the “sassy black girl”/little sister type (which is later revealed to be even stranger, because she’s apparently a graduate student). They don’t have much outside of that, and that’s a shame, since they had a lot of potential to be really good. However, they also seem a bit... tacked on and included for diversity’s sake, as both of them mention racism at some point, and... yeah. The game isn’t very graceful with that topic, as I’ll soon get into.

There is also the character of Panda, who appears out of nowhere in the factory/hotel and is never questioned. It becomes very clear that he’s a figment of Alex’s imagination, and is Alex personifying him as his sort of “conscious“ when he is, in reality, only a stuffed bear. He only talks when Alex is alone. A lot of people really don’t like him, but I will admit that I got mildly emotional when he drifted away in space near the end--but only because I myself make stuffed animals and dolls, so nearly any stuffed animal holds a place in my heart. However, I can very much see why people wouldn’t like him at all.

Anyway.

The Fucking Ending:

So everyone just kind of meanders around for the middle portion of the game until surprise! On New Years’ Eve the world is going to be destroyed. Not just the world--the entire reality. And it’s going to be Alex’s fault, somehow. Also Sammy--who Alex becomes obsessed with--Vella--who is an explicit love interest for Alex--and an android--the previously-mentioned The Essentia 2000, who Alex has a dream about and immediately becomes infatuated--with all turn out to be the same person! Why pick between love interests when they can all just turn out to be the same person?! Also, Sammy was taken by apparent demons because her Soul was in the process of going into the Soul Space, and the creatures the took her were actually the other 2/3rds of her Soul that had already gone into the Soul Space and they were just collecting the last piece. I think.

The game turns into a watered-down version of Persona 3, where you have about a month--from Thanksgiving until New Years’ Eve--to train and get strong enough to stop whatever is going to destroy reality. (The actual Y2K thing is mentioned about halfway through and serves little relevance other than to mark when the end of the world is, since Y2K isn’t actually the cause of the world ending). Then there are some weird plot twists about how reality has been breaking for a long while (this was briefly foreshadowed in Alex going to Michael’s house only to be told that Michael doesn’t live there, and then going to another house where Michael is) and it makes a lot of things really confusing?? And then New Years’ Eve comes where everything is really breaking. Turns out the end of this reality is caused by a meteor with Alex’s face on it a la the moon from Majora’s Mask, no I am not fucking kidding. And it moves around like an inflatable arm-flailing tube man, no I am not fucking kidding.

And then everyone dies. No, really, this is an unwinnable fight. You die. Your entire party dies. Their reality is destroyed.

Alex wanders around the Soul Space for a while until he finds other versions of himself, and various “dark versions” merge together to create the Proto-Comet (’proto’ being the suffix to describe the end product of parallel selves merging together to form one entity). Alex follows the comet around as it destroys reality after reality until...

He finds one that hasn’t been attacked.

And gueeeeeeess what?

You, the player, are a parallel version of Alex. So he enlists you and another party of parallels (using the names you were supposed to input in the beginning) to destroy Proto-Alex. Here, you meet a spectre who is very obviously Sammy Pak, and she says that she’s sorry that Essentia “used her to get to you,” and you hug her.

Eventually you do get to Proto-Alex, as well as a different form of Essentia. Turns out that Essentia lied to you about Sammy and Vella--turns out, Essentia IS you. Well, Essentia is part of Alex, and she tricked Alex into destroying Proto-Alex in order to free herself from the “Soul” that they share. So you can choose to fight Proto-Alex, and if you do, you lose. Again. The boss fight in unwinnable.

And then this... really weird section happens with the character of Roy from Two Brothers, Ackk Studios’ previous game that got pulled from Steam due to bugginess and crashing. Roy basically says that people were “trying to stop his quest” (aka critics) and that Alex shouldn’t give up. (Note that this is a complete non-sequitur to anyone who doesn’t know who Roy is, where he came from, or the story behind the game being pulled.)

After that, you control both the player avatar given and Alex in order to “unplug” Proto-Alex and Essentia, which will make them “whole”? It basically means that all the versions of Alex will merge together into you, the player.

Then the game ends.

At least. Kind of. There’s more than one ending.

But... we’ll get back to that in a bit.

There are many questions the game raises without answers. Why was Sammy bleeding and screaming for the Soul Survivors not to take her because “you promised you wouldn’t move me again!”? Who actually is Vella? Why did no one question Essentia and Vella being in the same space if it was already said that they couldn’t be? Who actually is Sammy? Why is she a ghost and not a Soul Survivor? Why were Proto-Alex and the other “dark Alex”-es trying to destroy realities? Why does Proto-Alex look different than the other Alex-es, who look relatively similar? Who actually was the voice on the phone--it was implied to be Proto-Michael, but he didn’t exist when those phone calls were made? Is Claudio and Chondra’s missing younger brother actually a version of Alex, as this clip implies (esp. w/ the anime shirt)?

Good luck getting answers, because we sure as hell don’t get any.

Also--glad to know that the entire month of training that you spent the latter half of the game doing was all for naught, since the last two major fights you’re in are unwinnable. There are four minibosses to fight, so it isn’t all for nothing, but still. You don’t even get the satisfaction of killing the final boss. You pull a lever and he and Essentia get weirdly electrocuted.

One more thing: the twist of “Essentia lied to you” made a metric fuckton of exposition in her Mind Dungeon utterly pointless, and also feels like a flimsy excuse to absolve Alex of blame for the shitty actions of his parallel selves--more on that later.

So let’s touch on some controversy now that we have gone over the rest of this incoherent mess of a plot.

Elisa Lam

One of the most famous controversies of YIIK is the use of Elisa Lam’s death to propel the story. This is true--the creator admits that he “was very moved” by Lam’s death.

For those not in the know, let me give you a brief summary of the case of Elisa Lam. (Yes this is going to be primarily from Wikipedia but it also has news sources cited for it.) Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old Chinese-Canadian student who was reported missing at the beginning of February 2013. On February 17th, the workers at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles (where Lam was visiting) discovered her nude body in one of the hotel’s water tanks after guests complained about the taste of the water. The police released footage of Lam, from the day of her disappearance, acting strangely in an elevator, appearing to be hiding from something, pressing elevator buttons, and gesturing and talking to no one. There was controversy surrounding her death, as people wondered how she could have locked herself in the water tank, and how the police could rule her death as accidental. People have suspected that it was due to paranormal activity that she was acting like that, or others said that she could have been having hallucinations (as Lam was diagnosed with bipolar and depression). Her death was quickly spread through internet circles as some paranormal myth.

YIIK incorporates this as a huge part of its starting plot.

Semi “Sammy” Pak is very clearly inspired by Elisa Lam. The two bear striking resemblance to one another, being young Asian women in their early twenties with straight black hair (even parted in the same place)--and this photo from the LA Times shows that Lam wore rounded glasses, like the ones Sammy wears. (Lam is Chinese-Canadian, while Sammy is stated to be Koren-American. Sammy is also 23 when Lam was 21.)

This photoset from JamJamJamJamuel shows the biggest criticism of YIIK: the recreation of the elevator video. It’s obvious by the angle and some of Sammy’s movements that this was, in fact, meant to emulate the elevator video of Lam. The game also shows that people are less concerned about Sammy as a person and more about the mystery of the elevator, like the internet stopped caring about Lam as a person and more of a supernatural myth.

However, there’s more than just this.

There’s a weird... almost fetishistic nature when the in-game protagonist talks about Sammy. Alex describes his meeting with her as “intimate” (they met for like. an hour), calls her “my Sammy” when comparing his story to the story of the news, says that he “misse[s] her. I didn’t know her really, but I felt like I did.” And the very next line is uh. “In the unreal twilight hours, in-between sleep and waking, she slipped into my dreams, got tangled in my thoughts, like the blankets tangled between my legs, her brain melting with mine.”

... Gross, to say the least.

And yes, by the way, Sammy basically becomes a love interest. That’s not completely disrespectful and disgusting to the actual human woman that the devs never met or anything at aaaaaaaall.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

Rory basically goes on to describe a “creepy urban myth” about the water tower near his town. You can imagine what that leads to. It’s a beat-by-beat retelling of the finding of Elisa Lam’s body, except they make it a “nameless girl,” and the writers basically insert their opinions of how it was definitely a murder and the police called it an accident.

More tasteless than a fucking saltine.

OH BUT WAIT THERE’S EVEN MORE.

Near the end of the game, you find the ghost of Sammy Pak. Since she’s not a part of Essentia, it seems that Essentia used her form to get to Alex. She says that she’s sorry and that she’s going to go back ‘home’ now, and you hug her.

But that’s not even the worst of it.

Allow me to tell you about the second ending.

Second Ending:

YIIK has more than one ending--both are considered canon. Ending 1 is the one described above.

Ending 2, however...

Just before leaving the house for the last time, in order to get this second ending, you have to look at the computer in Alex’s house and read this post. It implies that you need to go find Sammy. (It also has some things to say about postmodernism but that’s for another day.)

You go outside... and she’s hiding behind a tree outside your house. No I’m not kidding. (Granted, this is the part of the game where reality is beginning to break apart, so.) She also says “I love you” which, given her “inspiration” by Elisa Lam... yeah. That’s not creepy and tasteless at all. And it also doesn’t make any FUCKING SENSE BECAUSE ALEX KNEW HER FOR AN HOUR AND NEVER SAW HER AGAIN.

Okay, okay, anyway, if you go back into the house and leave through the back entrance, you’ll be taken to the world map. Your destination is the KNN--the Korean News Network, where Sammy had been employed before she vanished. The faceless NPCs only refer to Alex as the name you put in at the beginning of the game, so presumably, everyone from this point forward is now talking to you, the player. (Also everything is pink. Really pink. For no real reason unless it’s “””symbolic””” of something?) You wander around for a bit, doing menial tasks, until you finally get to a pink version of the room you first met Sammy in. She calls you on a phone and tells you that she’s sorry for dragging you into this mess (because Alex/the player went looking for Sammy in the first place), and that she “has a solution” to prevent Essentia from using Alex any more.

You find yourself in front of an elevator, the same elevator that you rode with Sammy when she disappeared. She calls you on the phone again and says that if you go through the elevator doors, there’s no turning back. If you step through, you see the spectre of Sammy again, and she wants to show you where she’s been. You hug her, and she says that she’s so glad that she met you, “even if it was just a game. We’ll be together in your waking reality one day, I’m sure of it. For all I know, we may already be.”

... Roll credits!

No. Seriously. That’s the second ending. You, the player, (presumably) go into the Soul Space with Sammy for eternity, and Sammy basically gives you a love confession (after all she says “I love you” before anyway).

Need I remind you all that she is based off of a REAL-LIFE WOMAN WHO DIED THAT NEITHER OF THE ALLANSONS KNEW?!

Hi, yes, sorry, I’m fucking livid about this. Not just because of the disgusting use of a real-life woman’s death in your game, not just because they fetishized her and turned her into a love interest, not just one of the endings--which is a canon ending--had her telling you she loves you and having you go off with her...

... but because this game has been in development since 2013.

Elisa Lam wasn’t even dead for a fucking year.

Yes, other media has cropped up about Lam’s death, and I think it’s just as tacky and tasteless as this. But these guys had so much time to change it, to have someone say “hey maybe you shouldn’t do that,” and it happened anyway. The sheer lack of respect that the Allansons have for not just Lam but also her still-grieving family is astonishing, and it genuinely makes me sick. My thoughts and condolences to the family of Elisa Lam, having to deal with the press, internet conspirators, and people like this. I hope that they all can still find some sense of peace, even with all of this going on.

Racism:

So this game can be really, really fucking racist sometimes. Let’s start with the more explicit dialogue.

In the very beginning, Sammy calls Alex a ginger, and he says “that’s our word.” He’s equating “ginger” to a derogatory slur.

Here’s the next instance, with Alex referring to Vella--an Asian woman--as “vaguely ethnic” and “exotic.” (He doesn’t face consequences for this, either. Just a slap on the wrist of “don’t talk about race.”)

Later on, Chondra talks about race in an actually not that bad rant about how “I bet if [my brother] had been a beautiful white woman, everyone would have cared that he vanished.” This actually is somewhat insightful, as... well, it’s rather true. POC, when it comes to investigations, are often pushed aside, ignored, or given the least amount of effort. And then Chondra also calls out Alex’s lowkey racist fantasy of “being the white knight swooping in and saving the exotic Korean girl.” However... that’s it. Alex doesn’t get any insight from that, or rethink his reasons on why he wants to save Sammy.

And that’s where we get into Claudio and Chondra and the more implicit racism in the game. Neither of them have much in terms of personality--Claudio likes anime, Chondra is there for quips. Neither of them have any significant arcs, nor do they serve much story purpose beyond being extra party members and talking about race--which feels racist in and of itself, just to have characters of color there to talk about race. (Claudio even goes into an extensive rant about how it’d be racist to think that he knows how to pick locks, but he does know how to pick locks, just not the type that they need open. It comes out of nowhere, is utterly unwarranted, and is completely against the rather chill persona that Claudio has had up until then.) Their characters had a lot of potential to be good! However, much like every other character, they’re very underdeveloped.

(Also, if you have either Claudio or Chondra in your party when you get attacked by cop enemies, they will only shoot at either of them, you know, the only black characters in the main party, and my god I wish I was kidding.)

And then... the love interests.

Sammy is a Korean woman. Vella is an Asian woman of unknown descent. The Essentia 2000 has shown that many of her parallel lives are women of color. All of them are love interests for Alex, the white hero. Yeah. And the game calls it out, but no actual repercussions are given!

Speaking of these ladies...

Sexism

This game is really fucking sexist. Like, genuinely, it’s really sexist.

I think a lot of Vella’s contradictory character comes from this sexism and seeing her as a love interest rather than a character. Though she calls out Alex and is upset with him most of the time, she still accepts his weak apologies very easily--apologies that seem very manipulative and insincere when almost immediately after, Alex tries to convince her to let him into her Mind Dungeon, and if you take that as a metaphor than it gets even worse.

As well, Vella’s backstory includes her being used by a much-older man. What can you do after she tells this traumatic story about her being used by a man? Kiss her. And she doesn’t even get upset or angry with you; she just blushes and says to head back to the others. Because that’s not gross and manipulative or anything. That’s not taking advantage of a vulnerable woman at ALL.

The only female characters of importance that aren’t lusting after Alex are his mom and Chondra--I’ve already mentioned that Chondra has little story importance and personality, and Alex sees his mom as nagging for asking him to get groceries, gets angry at her when she says that she lost her job and asks him to get one to support the house (please note that she paid for his and his sister’s college educations in full, including semesters she didn’t plan for), and gets annoyed with her freaking out when he went missing for five days.

So yeah. The game doesn’t have the highest view of women.

But let’s talk specifically about Essentia. Essentia mentions that Alex has hurt her in parallel realities--but it’s okay, because they’re parallel versions, not actually him! And Essentia reveals that Alex’s parallel was the person who hurt Vella! But it’s okay, because she’ll love him unconditionally no matter how much he hurts her. It’s... really reminiscent of domestic abuse. And it frankly doesn’t matter that Essentia turns out to be a part of Alex and that any of the story of Vella or Sammy isn’t true; the game frames it as perfectly okay that it might have happened. It’s okay that parallel versions of Alex have hurt parallel versions of Essentia, because she loves him. It’s incredibly twisted, and it’s honestly a dangerous message to be sending.

(Also, in a very weird instance of sexism against men, out of all of the parallel selves that Essentia shows Alex, the only man is extremely hostile and violent towards Alex. It’s... kind of weird, honestly.)

Depression/Suicide:

Oh boy. Oh fucking boy.

A little background on myself.

I’m two years into my undergrad for a Psychology/Criminology double major. Classes I have taken include classes about pathologies of the mind and mental health (Psychopathology of Childhood, Developmental Psychology, Personality Psychology, Seminar on Positive Psychology, and of course Basic Psychology to be specific). I have also been clinically diagnosed with anxiety/depression, and both of these are genetically based, meaning that I have lived with them my whole life and will continue to live with them. (I am medicated, for anyone wondering. The meds are the only way I can function at a normal level.) I have felt suicidal before, I have had friends who have been suicidal before, and I have talked others down from self-harm or suicide. I’m not an expert, but I know a thing or two about mental health, depression, and suicide.

This game... this game doesn’t fucking get it at all.

(Just a quick thing: the game makes an OCD joke. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder jokes aren’t funny, folks, since people who have it are affected by it all the time to the point of it often being debilitating. Just wanted to mention it a) to give you an idea on how the game handles mental health and b) because it really doesn’t fit anywhere else.)

Most of this surrounds the character of Rory, as he clearly suffers from depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as feeling grief surrounding his sister’s own suicide. When this is revealed, you know what Vella says to “comfort” him? “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. I understand what you were feeling. 'This depression is unbearable.' 'I can't take it anymore.' The 'depression/pain' part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can overcome it is up to you. You decide if you're going to keep going. Your sister is dead. Nothing can change that. [...] You can't help but feel the pain, but you can get through the suffering. That will go away. Look, I understand that it's easy for me to say. I'm not the one whose sister is dead. But you have to understand that I am telling you the true reality of the situation. You're playing with some otherworldly dangers here!“

Let me break this down to show you why this is not something to say to someone who is traumatized and in a deep depression due to the loss of a loved one.

“[W]hether or not you can overcome it is up to you.” This puts full responsibility of overcoming grief and depression onto the person suffering from it, which is not okay, and not true. Rory lost his 12-year-old sister to suicide! Very recently in the game’s timeline, as well!

Vella is basically telling him “it’s your job to get over your grief and depression.” Putting full responsibility on someone for feeling depression and grief is disgusting. If someone is grieving, what they should do is reach out. If they aren’t, reach out to them. Don’t let them suffer alone. Suffering like this is not a choice. People don’t choose to suffer.

By saying that suffering is “optional,” it subtly blames the person suffering for their own suffering, which makes their chances of getting better plummet. So frequently will people suffering from mental disorders put the blame on themselves for “not trying hard enough” or “being broken” or “not being good enough” because they think that this is all their own fault, and they won’t seek help, because “it’s all my fault.”

Now, when someone is in recovery? Yes, they should definitely try--even if it’s in small bits at a time--to to learn to cope with their disorders in healthy ways. However, when in recovery, the person is assisted by therapists, friends, family, and possibly medications. They aren’t alone. They aren’t alone, and are often guided by those who know how to help them and want to help them. The responsibility isn’t pushed solely onto them. One doesn’t “get over” being depressed. They learn to cope. They learn to accept it as a part of them, rather than all of them, and learn that they are more than their depression. The suffering never truly goes away; it can lessen, though, and a person can learn to live with it.

Some people may defend this by saying that the Allansons lost their mother very recently, and this is how they handle their grief. I lost my father in February of last year. I know this type of grief. And just because that’s how they handle their grief, that doesn’t mean it’s a healthy way of coping, nor the type of coping mechanism you should promote in your game. (I will admit that my own methods of coping weren’t great, and that I’m trying to improve on that now.) There’s a quote that I heard somewhere that goes something like, “grief never really goes away. We just learn to live with it.” That suffering doesn’t ‘go away.’ It ebbs and flows, some days being bearable, and other days not.

But that’s not the end, friends. Oh, far from it.

At one point, you can flat-out tell Rory to “stop being depressed. Being depressed is a choice.” It is noted to be the “wrong” choice, however, Rory barely reacts to it, making it not seem like the wrong decision. I don’t feel like I need to explain why “depression is a choice” is a take colder than the depths of space. Depression’s not a choice, folks. Hell, I would love it if it was, I would love to stop the fatigue, the emptiness, the lethargy, the lack of motivation, the irritability, the messed-up appetite, the fucked-up sleep patterns, the fits of crying. That would be fucking great. But I can’t. BECAUSE IT’S NOT A CHOICE, YOU WALNUT.

Okay, okay, sorry, back on topic. So let’s say you’re mean to Rory. You wanna know what happens?

He kills himself. And according to this user, the story doesn’t change and barely acknowledges Rory after his death. (Obviously there’s not footage out there of the characters mentioning that Rory committed suicide. However, the developers themselves commented on the previously-linked Steam forum post confirming its legitimacy. This is so unbelievably fucked up. Suicide is already a topic that should be handled with care, but having a main character commit suicide and have that death have no impact on the story? I don’t even have words for how deplorable that is. (Doesn’t help that the game basically pushes whether Rory lives or dies onto the player, which is also disgusting, because I don’t think the developers had the insight into suicidal ideation to know that it’s a multitude of factors that lead to suicide, and not just one person being )

(Sidenote: here are the links to the National Suicide Prevention Line and the Crisis Text Line in case anyone needs them. Please take care, friends. <3)

[Addendum: as I was working on this review and listened to the podcast linked a little further down, Andrew Allanson had this to say at 2:08:47: "When you make an unlikable character, people expect Sherlock Holmes or Dr. House. They want flawed heroes, but only to the extent that they’re beautiful and intelligent and slightly Asperger-y."

Thank you for basically saying that having Asperger’s Syndrome is an unlikable trait or makes people unlikable.]

Anti-LGBTQ+

So let’s talk about the prejudice against non-straight and non-cis people!

Andrew Allanson has been rather fucking clear about his prejudice against trans people and non-straight people. In the “The Dick Show” podcast, starting at 1:45:45, Andrew Allanson was interviewed by the commentators. I will be providing timestamps of quotes since I can’t directly link to them.

(Sidenote: I was listening to this podcast and waiting for Andrew’s pa rt to start, and one of the commentators was talking about Women’s History Month, and saying “If a woman doesn’t have a man, she’s going to expect the government to be her man. That’s just the way they’re wired.” [1:44:24 - 1:44:31].  Yeah. That tells you the type of people who run this podcast and the type of people that Andrew decides to associate himself with.)

[1:52:15 - 1:52:] “... we made the mistake of asking the player, ‘what name did your parents give you?’ And it turns out that that is a very offensive question. Because some people, um, are trans, and don’t use the name their parents gave them. So immediately the game is targeted as being transphobic. [...] So we wanted to basically create a character off of the player in the game, the first thing we ask you ‘are you a boy or a girl,’ ‘what’s your name’, and people were so bent out of shape over this. Look, I’m sympathetic to trans people, I understand why it upset them. But the problem was when we apologized, that wasn’t good enough. People then took it and said ‘what else can we find in this game to prove that it’s offensive?’”

So here’s the thing: that... is lowkey transphobic? Because it’s like you said, these people don’t use the names that their parents gave them. You’re asking them, intentionally or not, to deadname themselves. There’s a reason they call it a “deadname.”

Later on they ask, “which of these do you identify with?” and show a male figure and a female figure. Which frankly, is alright.

And then they changed it in an update to “what do you look like?” which feels like a very direct jab at trans people, especially the ones who were upset by the initial question relating to names.

Oh, and then there’s this part (I only know DIck and Andrew’s voices, I’m afraid I don’t know the third, sorry m8).

[1:54:35 - 1:55:10]

Andrew: So you play as this guy, Alex, you just come home from [college, audio cut out here], you’re an entitled asshole--

Dick: You get points for stomping queers, as I understand it, that’s the game, right? You go around and--

Andrew: The goal is to establish the white ethnostate.

[unintelligible as others laugh and talk over each other]

Dick: --you have a little ‘gaydar’ in the corner and it points you to the nearest homosexual, and then you go, y‘know, “Hammer [X]”

Andrew: It’s - it’s - yeah, it’s a hack-and-slash.

Dick: If you buy the game they send you a special overlay you can put on your controller that turns all the buttons into ‘K.’ So it’s not ‘A’--

Andrew: Yes!

Dick: --Just ‘K,’ ‘K,’ and ‘K.’

Andrew: Just ‘K,’ ‘K’--yeah, exactly, exactly.

So we not only have the mockery of gay folk, but also mention of murdering them (whether in a joking fashion or not, this still isn’t fucking funny and not something to joke about, especially if you are not LGBTQ+ yourself. And to my knowledge, none of these men are).

And that’s just from the creator himself, as well as the first few minutes of the game.

Let’s talk bout The Scene.

What is The Scene? Well, it’s the scene where Alex and Rory talk, where you can tell Rory that “depression is a choice.” Should you be kind and supportive to him, you know what you can do? “Try to kiss [him.]” And there’s art for it. There is literally no reason for this to be here other than “haha it’s a guy trying to kiss another guy, gay people are funny!” It seems to be an attempt at humor, but it fails... rather miserably.

The Legendary Third Ending

I call it “legendary” because no one knows if it actually exists or not, because people can’t find it, regardless of the hints given by the developers.

Andrew, while doing “The Dick Show” interview, mentions that he put DIck Masterson (the host of the show) into the game in the third update [1:45:56] , and that you have to give Dick a pair of aviator glasses, where he will give you a red pill [1:47:15 - 1:47:33]. Dick is also found in Chapter 4 of the game [1:47:40].

The devs also tease it on Twitter, saying that it’s “sad and challenging to complete”, and they give vague and unclear hints that don’t seem to help even the fans of the game--after all, no one has found it, apparently. Even the YIIK Discord (though this is just hearsay) has been losing steam in trying to find this ending.

I think it’s a testament to the quality of the game when one of your major three endings is nigh-impossible to find. (For the record, I feel the same way about how PT went about its ending, and how arbitrary it felt to do these very specific things that the game barely tells you about.)

Miscellaneous Other Things That Don’t Fit In The Above

There are a couple other things that irk me about this game, so time for a rapid-fire round!

You can kiss Rory, who’s implied to be a senior in high school (due to this talk of college). So he’s, at best, 18. Alex had 5 and a half years of college (the game says “five and a quarter” but unless I’m mistaken colleges work in semesters not quarters,), so he’s probably 23-24. Yeah. (There’s also the issue of consent--when you kiss Vella she just blushes and acts more docile, while with Rory, he rather vehemently rejects it. So women just accept an unwanted kiss? Hm.)

You fight a flasher as a miniboss. Because sexual harassment is hilarious. (And if neither Michael nor Rory are 18 yet, then there’s the possibility of minors being involved. YEAH.)

The title card is intentionally glitchy af and it hurts the eyes, honestly.

If you go through New Game+ and go to the 70th floor of the Mind Dungeon, Alex will basically talk to himself about some things:

It mentions that “crows are ugly.” You fool. You absolute buffoon. Crows? Excellent. Very intelligent birbs.

This is basically “hey we suck, but so does everyone around us, it’s fine”

This game unironically uses Wonderwall lyrics in an emotional scene, like I know it was popular and not a meme in the 90s but my guy, you gotta think about the connotations with the audience you’re releasing this for,

“I sighed as the elevator began to shake, vibrating with motion.” Thank you for using three words to describe the elevator shaking,

The One Thing That I Liked

Surprisingly, there is something I liked about this game. Not solely in concept, not in its potential, but in its actual execution.

It starts on the day of New Years’ Eve. It’s dark outside and inside. Alex suddenly starts getting many random calls, some from people he knows, others he doesn’t. Some voices are distorted, some aren’t. Some are talking to him, some aren’t. And they’re quick little calls before they hang up, and Alex barely says a word. He can’t leave the house, and keeps getting phone calls that get more and more distorted as time goes on.

That? I think that actually really works.

It’s a more subtle way of showing reality breaking: getting calls from people, both friends and strangers, that are slowly getting more and more broken, and you can’t do anything. You’re trapped in your house, you can’t see outside, you don’t know what’s going on. You can’t help your friends, even when Michael screams for your help. The slowly deteriorating stability of the calls are your only indication of what’s going on outside.

And for me, that works. It was the one section of the game that I felt legitimately invested in. So, kudos to the devs for that one.

Conclusion

YIIK isn’t just bad. It’s offensive. It’s ignorant, it handles serious topics incredibly clumsily, and the worst of it is that Andrew Allanson considers it to be ‘art.’ (If you’re wondering why I didn’t talk about the “video games aren’t art” quote, don’t worry. That’s going to be its own essay.)

YIIK fails on every level, from technical to storytelling. Please, I beg of you, don’t give this game money. Just go watch the LP.

You may have noticed that I didn’t talk much about the “postmodern” aspect of the game, nor much about Alex as a protagonist.

Both of those are going to be their own separate essays.

This wild ride still ain’t over, folks. Hang on.