2020
FLCL
*It is important to note this is my VERY FIRST watch. This is one of my favorite anime of all time. I have different thoughts on it now*
finished FLCL (fooly cooly) season 1 today and here are my thoughts:
it's good. animation and soundtrack are stellar (although any fan would tell you that). it's weird as hell to go into it completely blind, there r only 6 episodes and theyre packed with a ton of content and plot. it's experimental and wild but it all comes together concisely (to me at least)
character relationships and other things also seem extremely weird at first but on watching it through/ rewatching things make more sense
Borderlands 3
alright here's my short(mostly spoiler free) and review of bl3's main storyif i had to describe it in one word: "disjointed". individual story missions and character interactions didn really differ in writing quality from bl2 as far as I could tell, however the overarching story was a bit messy and really felt like I was playing a bunch of dics in a row.
the new characters were hit or miss, liked a few of them (wainwright, clay) but others were just kind of... there is (lorelei). ava was not as shitty as ppl said she was, i don't like her but she's more dumb than outright shit. didn't like how the bl1 and bl2 characters were thrown to the side. I mean hell, only one out of the six bl2 player characters actually had a part in the main story.
main villains were pretty good but a little uninteresting
overall definitely not as horrible and shitty as ppl said, but the overall main story was pretty weak. my recommendation is to play the side quests along with the main plot. also FL4K is very cool i liked playing them, oh that's another thing: your player character has WAY more lines, bl2 dlc level of lines. it's fun
give this game's story a "buy this game on sale or not at all" out of 10
random game shit I noticed
- you can slide and climb up ledges now
- i got a lot of legendary/orange weapons but most of them werent even that good so thanks rng I guess?
- I didn't know zero was in sanctuary until i literally bumped into em while wandering around
- really wish you could order your pets around a bit more, would die for a "sit" command. I try to watch characters do stuff and my skag karkat just starts wandering around in front of them and peeing. maybe it's my fault I had him as my active pet for those bits
- speaking of. i have accidentally empathically said "KARKAT NO" as he does some dumb shit and dies
- you get in game emails from corporations/npcs and they send you guns if you do certain shit it's a weird mechanic tbh. like how zero sends emails in haiku what a loser
(Blind) Evangelion liveblog
(scroll for all)
All Saints' Street
also if any of y'all have an afternoon free, check out the chinese cartoon All Saints Street, it's a modern slice of life show about a demon kid living in an apartment with an angel, a vampire, and a werewolf. it's cute, the characters are very likeable, and each of the 12 episodes (all reposted on youtube!) are about 5 minutes each, making it extremely easy to watch in one sittingHalf-Life
i was kind of shitty at the battle segments but overall i liked hl1, the world feels really vivid for being such an old gameim liking blue shift so far story/world wise im just tired of the half life 1 engine... slippery and its hard 2 move stuff around, gmod is hl2 engine so i already know how janky it can be
the music is all so good..... I wish it played more often, the dead silence is a lil unnerving. I got jumpscared more times in this than playing SOMA just because of the sudden noises
HL2
i finished hl2 and i don't have chapter 1 and 2 i'm so pissed.... I didn't know it was gonna end like that and im hungry for more :(I love playing a character with a PhD and also being a total dumbass. the shotgun really is my best friend, I just kinda walked point blank up to enemies and 1 hit blasted em
source really is a great engine. I didn't really appreciate how well I could stack stuff until now. flinging stuff around with the grav gun is SICK
dog and lamarr are so good i love them both
Dayshift at Freddy's 2
for a 2017 reddit meme packed stock image graphics fnaf fangame it had more of a coherent plot than i expected and... actual lore? good gameHomestuck^2
I tried to like it, I really did. I just don't really get the point in dragging on this same narrative for so longlike, this feelings jam is great and all but compared to the snail's pace that classic homestuck was at this is a breakneck sprint. it's 300 pages in and there's so... much. and it's all paragraphs and paragraphs of dialogue and half of it seems to barely matter in the long run. they just. go off topic so often. props if you like this but imo it's nothing compared to the original Homestuck. this is official fanfic
the Homestuck narrative has belonged to the fans for most of the time it's been around, but now that it's been given to only a select few fans it doesn't have the same appeal. the unofficial fan content can do what it wants and emulate the original comics essence without trying to be the next chapter in the Homestuck story...
Celeste
*2,000 deaths predicted, 2,000 deaths hit, 15/175 strawberries (LOL)*WOW the story and music are good. the gameplay was challenging and made me want to give up but seriously in th best way possible lol. I feel like I can do the path of pain in hollow knight now or something
I'm gonna go back to get strawberries and do chapter 8 sometime soon but for now. hell yeah beat tha game. 2k deaths.....
Transformers: MTMTE/Lost Light
Ulaan it was... seriously excellent. I wasn't expecting a whole ton from a TF comic but damn. it's a genuinely neat space opera packed with good writing and visuals. and also transformers.The the characters were well written and had satisfying arcs both individually and as a whole, and it was cool to see relationships develop between them *cough cough* whirl and cyclonus beginning/end parallels *cough*) nobody fit into any specific character trope either, which was refreshing
overall: very good/10, i can't articulate it very well but these robots unlocked feelings within me
17776
seriously 17776 sticks with you so much. it's such a unique perspective on the concept of an immortal human race, and the atmosphere it sets up is so strong. it takes about three hours to read and its totally worth your time.genuinely love how human the dialogue is. just.... time and death have no meaning anymore, tens of thousands of years in the neverending future, and a couple is talking about plums. the scope is just wide enough to understand the underlying, mundane horror of it all, but not enough that you cant care about the little things.
Outer Wilds
weirdly enough my least favorite part of outer wilds so far is the space travel. i don't hate it by any means, it's well designed, but man sometimes i just need to get back to ember twin because i died to ghost matter for the fifth time in a row and I don't feel like trying to land without breaking my ship :/ there is also just.... so much information. the story is entirely nonlinear, it's both a blessing and a curse. one one hand i can do everything at random and if I'm stuck on one thing I can just do another.on another hand, there is so MUCH. it's a big history book and I'm flipping through pages at random
anyway game good i like being a blue genderless alien and bonking my head on things because I'm bad at using my jetpack. ow
music talk from later in the year:
its just... the game centers around space travel, the [major plot point redacted] separates you socially from everyone else you DO meet or hear about, most places are abandoned, there are so many dangerous places you visit alone. its a solitary game.
and contrasting with that then: the soundtrack is mostly acoustic (with, granted, some electronic elements). it feels like you're hearing your player characters thoughts about the place as opposed to the place itself. and your character has this innate sense of home that they're reflecting onto the places they visit.
anyway tl;dr I cry when I hear the menu theme sometimes, it's got some good guitars and makes me feel like I'm sitting at a campfire. ' listen to the second track on the ost
after finishing:
this simultaneously felt much shorter and much longer than 20 hours of playtime. ow my brain hurts
really hard to explain how it's good without spoiling it but... space exploration where every little thing has lore that you piece together with other scraps of information and then you learn how to beat the game through the info you learned, as 1 well as how the (spoilers redacted, consume game]
VITOLIVE and there are TWO races of cool aliens, the soundtrack is ridiculously good with a lot of leitmotifs, and the visuals are immersive even on my shitty graphics card!
end was so trippy, I loved it. I kind of wish I didn't have to use a walkthrough for the last half of the game, but i would have wasted a lot of time wandering around doing nothing without it :/
actually scratch what I said previously. outer wilds makes me feel like an 8 year old at a science museum planetarium presentation: my brain has been expanded and rewired and I now have an intense conviction to go stargazing
20020
holy SHIT crying in the club. I can't believe it's over and I'm glad it's coming back.this was a great sequel, it expanded the human part of the narrative really well (a lot of 17776 was the satellites talking, as opposed to 20020 where it's more equal) and I'm always amazed at how Bois can create so much tension in a story without death or pain. time is wild
I also loved this playing field. it made for some really interesting gameplay as well as some cool history stuff too! I definitely appreciate Nine a lot more in this one, they got a lot of development. they're a great mix of inquisitive but not overly naive.
overall? amazing. I'm really glad this narrative exists, there's genuinely nothing else like it out there
complaining about the Epilogues/HS2 more
the deal I have with the dubiously canon parts of the HS canon are that they're really just a drama about the characters, with the world of the original HS being almost entirely stripped away.the original Homestuck, for the most part, emphasized the way the characters interacted with the world and the people around them, to the point where the comic eventually came to have every single type of narrative conflict. it had no true main character and flaunted a wide moral spectrum of characters. it never forgot it was about KIDS playing a VIDEO GAME, and it explored that in its story in so many facets. it was, maybe inadvertently, an experiment in the way you could tell a story, and it succeeded. homestuck 2 and the epilogues are, if anything, very little of the above.
E I'm half waiting for someone to go on twitter and say the whole thing was a ruse, a commentary about how fans can bastardize and echo chamber a narrative and its characters to the point where they're just little ghosts of the original.
none of the gimmicks from the og carried over, like. the entirety of SBURB, the simple ms paint sprite comic aesthetic, and the usage of prompt based narrative style, which led to some really interesting types of panels in the later acts. for the most part the dhbuously canon content is just a big text mess of... things. it feels stale to read
it doesn't feel like the dubious canon authors are experimenting with a brand new, interesting narrative, it more feels like they're throwing random fanfiction prompts into a bag and mixing it around. "perfect mix of fanservice and random shit going on.
VINCED seriously, rosejade child causing rosemary marital strife?? and then davekat fanservice? dirk is just a douche now but he also alternatively committed suicide? whatever the HELL is/was going on with Jane, Gamzee, and Jake? ...transmasc Roxy is that even fanservice? the new kids who elicit nothing in me emotionally????
apparently just recently john/junes house burned down but they didn't do anything about it even though in the original comic they extinguished a planet wide fire? WHAT? when it was just original Homestuck, it felt like the comic belonged to the fans in a certain sense. Hussie had controlle the story's pace and content, but with input from the community in many different ways.
every ship was "canon" (NOT FUCKING INCEST OR PEDOPHILIA THATS A GIVEN), every fantroll was "canon" and although that still stands now its just kinda.... homestuck belongs to these few specific fan writers who have specific ship and character opinions which will now be embedded into the story, and they're not doing anything compelling.
there's a lot of good homestuck fan content out here, and pushing THIS one out on a pedestal is kinda wack.
SOMA
*This is one of my favorite narrative games of all time. This review does not reflect that*plz check this game out it's like 2 dollars on steam sale nd easily one of my top sci fi games. its worldbuilding is lone really well, the story fucks me up like nothing else (in a good way!) ....and the main characters aren't dumb or nsufferable like a lot of horror characters lol
i may also find simons "gentle silent hill protag with more emotional range" voice endearing but that's beside any point and more my own problem. voice goals brain worms
NOISE1
link to gameplayed and finished NOISE1 today. without spoiling: it has some seriously cool mechanics along with a neat story and a lot of tension for being so incredibly bare bones, it's impressive.
Metal Gear Solid
anyway what do I even say. its metal gear solid, it's great. nothing really like it, play it if you ever have the chance if I ever replayed I'd put it on Easy though, bosses were cool and fun but they took forever even on normal difficulty: I was really playing for the storyI got meryl ending bcz u kno. I wanted to save everyone, but tbh the otacon ending has some good development for him, and it feels a little more tonally similar to the rest of the story even if it's the "bad" ending. both have their merits
Metal Gear Solid 2
mgs2 is fuckin GREAT video games are so cool genuinely didn't expect the story to go in any of the directions it did but it all meshed together so well. honestly it feels ahead of its time for (mgs2 release date. 2000??) with all its talk about internet censorship and information flow. gameplay is janky in spots (swimming sucks ass) but the bosses were really fun and less aggravating than mgs1also I saw way more dude ass in this game than lady ass. which is a subversion of what's usually going on in this genre. absolutely funny to see very serious cutscenes with raiden and/or snake's butt in some skin tight jumpsuit. yes I am 12
*I will redact my MGS3 thoughts, because I was pretty fucked up mentally when I tried starting it the first time and did not have a fun time. I think it's good, I just haven't played it very much yet.*
2021
Hyper Light Drifter
*Not my first playthrough. This was like, my third.*the combat is satisfying and has weight to it, genuinely one o my favorite games to just. hack and slash around in the drift ability can be upgraded for use in combat which makes for more interesting horde battles.
music/sfx are by disasterpeace, who did music for FEZ and It Follows as well. absolute madman of a composer and his range was perfect for this game. there's a lot I don't know about the lore still, but the narrative in the game itself is poignant and holds weight despite no words being uttered.[spoiler]s' deaths make me sad
visually i just. look at it. but it has some really neat use of parallax and I enjoy the character designs a lot and there are some cool fucked up robots and giants also there is a dedicated sit button and you get an achievement for sitting by a snail
Marble Hornets
overall? it's good, I enjoyed it. yeah, it was a little cheesy in spots (the drawings...) but it doesn't go overboard on effects or depend on random jumpscares.the acting is never overly cringey, it is a little uncanny though. it doesn't feel overly scripted, yet it has a bit of a fake edge to it, at least in the first season, the second and third seasons either feel more natural or you just get used to it by then.
main characters jay, alex, and tim are all decently written, I think Tim is easily the most interesting/has the most depth though. I like him
it's really long, clocking in at around 9.5 hours total, and a ton of it is just. walking around. it took me 3-4 weeks to finish and I think that's a decent pace to watch it at to prevent fatigue
good classic web horror, has some great moments and also slenderman is there. idk if it's a must-watch in my book, but it's worth it if you're interested in a non shitty slenderman story, found footage films, or dudes just running after each other constantly
a couple days later:
I just...tim seeing through jays weird vouyeristic bullshit and actually yelling at him (cathartic), tim and jay working together and then JAY becoming mentally unstable after everything he's been through and dying because of his stubbornness (among other things)
the super cool and trippy editing in entry 83, tim finally killing alex and then laughing out of shock before collapsing. and then the final "everything is fine" but he's coughing is just... so good. I think what really makes it is the sudden decline into madness. like beforehand it's just slightly cheesy horror where slenderman and the other dudes are The Bad Guys... but then now it's a free for all and the emotions are so much more raw
don't get me wrong it's not perfect but I did like it a lot more than I initially thought. in a world of bad horror this does stand out as something good
The Murderbot Diaries
actually if im going to be talking about books on main anyway. ive been reading the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells and enjoying it a lot.maybe not groundbreaking sci fi in terms of setting (very mass effect esque sans aliens) but like. it's about a robot with a dark past, social anxiety, and a protective instinct it has to wrangle with. whats not to like. Murderbot my beloved
(not misgendering the bot here. it uses it/its intentionally)
thoughts on gender, etc, written later:
there's a very large undertone of "passing as human" in all the books. MB has to physically change bits of itself (hair length, height) in order to not look like a standardized security robot and to look more like a cyborg, even changes its gait and programs its own idle animations this is in my own thoughts is highly synonymous to both trying to pass (as cis) and masking autistic traits in order to make people think you're... "normal" (neurotypical/cis). and it's stressful and the books reflect that well
it has to pick a human name.it chooses a name from its favorite show. do I need to elaborate it has a lot of trouble with facial expressions, physical touch, and eye contact. it straight up gets sensory overload. do I NEED to elaborate
and another part is how characters talk about it, that also reflects the trans/autistic experience, albeit in a much more polarizing way, talking about it as if it's not there, being scared of it having freedom, not wanting to acknowledge that it's as sentient as them. fear of the unknown.
and yet amid that there are people who know what it is, and allow it choices and give it kindness and that fucking kills me and makes me cry a bit because if I'm honest if someone told me "you have options, you don't have to decide right now and you don't need to know what you want, we'll be here until you figure it out" would CRY
and some general things, i love MB's dry humor, the plot itself feels great tired hitchhiker robot finding out more about itself and how it apparently murdered a bunch of people, gets caught up in corporate drama, very inconvenient emotions ensue), the best fucking sentient spaceship friend (miss u ART), NO ROMANCE SUBPLOT. and a main character who is so relatable it rips into my very soul
Mass Effect 3
alright tonight I am going to finish my blind playthrough of mass effect 3, a game widely known to have a completely shit endingi won't post spoilers after, but I want to put on my clown makeup now. here are a few predictions, from partially realistic to unrealistic:
- kai leng gets obliterated
- shep dies
- none of the choices mattered and everyone dies either way
- the universe restarts
- the illusive man is a reaper. or he turns into one
- the reapers are defeated and femshep and garrus go live on a farm somewhere because I spent way too much time on EA's shitty multiplayer
-"[fucking a) reaper, that would be cool" - [my fiance]
(it is important to note this entry was posted at 5AM)
i... uhh ??????
not much I can say about the ending that hasn't been said by anyone else. it's pretty middle of the road, edging on bad. the extended cut DLC and the javik DLC should have been part of the original game
i chose synthesis because of edi and the geth, but it was a close call between that and destroy. extended cut DLC made that a good choice honestly, that little kid was bullshit though what was that
ULTRAKILL
*I have an entire story highlight dedicated to this game. No I'm not transcribing them all here. This was just my overview.* I know my incessant posting about ultrakill makes it pretty obvious i think it's cool but like, it's really hard to overstate how sick this game is even in its early access statehigh replay value, you can do wild shit with movement tech and gun combos (hit a coin with an electric railgun for massive damage. punch your shotgun shells to make them explode), sound design and music I want to eat it's so crunchy, genre bending bonus levels
if you like gun games or games that are easy to learn and hard to master you're sleeping on this
don't get me started on the lore. or the fact that you can configure your graphics settings before the game even starts (lifesaver for low end pcs) .....anyway. it has a free demo on steam, it's the first five levels. mankind is dead blood is fuel hell is full all that. man I love talking about shit
Silent Hill (movie)
watched the first silent hill movie (with [fiance]) pyramid head got FOUR minutes of screentime and none of it contributed to the plot. so damn funny go girl give us nothing. he was here to be seven feet tall and nothing elsethe first bit of it was nicely subtle and atmospheric, had some great homages to the games... and then it devolved into a bloated and mediocre horror movie cult movie with an ambiguous ending :/
White Hell (demo)
game linkWhite Hell is in early access today (+ has a decently sized free demo, which I played) neat little quake/goldsrc style game, the level design is nice both visually and playwise and it's distinct enough to not fall into stereotypical "winter game" territory
I can't speak for the gameplay too much because I'm bad at these types of shooters but the guns are balanced and I had fun with the gimmicks (kicking mechanic that lets you parry, and a bar that fills up as you kill enemies and eventually gives you special weapons) maybe not my style but I'd recommend it to people looking to scratch an old shooter itch and I might pick it up when it's done
also some may recognize the soundtrack composer lol
Silent Hill 3
visual/audio wise probably my favorite silent hill game, the story was a little under silent hill 2 for me but I think that's because I never played silent hill 1... I did tear up at the end though so who am I to talkthere's a lot less walking through fog and a lot more running through corridors avoiding enemies, which aint a bad thing but it is different. I liked it a ton, would definitely recommend
I played via pcsx2 (emulator), which was very smooth for the most part but there were a few areas in which it slows down, and the intro cutscenes and end credits are audioonly.
*do not watch silent hill:revelation before playing. it's awful
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
I'm sure it's not groundbreaking for the genre but it's just incredibly well written no filler episodes, cool twists especially in the fights, and emotional scenes that are well deserved even when they're sad as hell. not to mention well rounded female characters :) it's a nice 64 eps, fun to binge or to chip at. definitely a recommendation from mei don't particularly have fav characters they're all neat but on a more lighthearted scale I liked Envy and Greed's later arcs esp whatever was going on with Greeling lol
more music
Little Pieces Of Paper With "No" Written On Them by Car Seat Headrest is a collection of songs Will Toledo made around the age of 18.it's a raw, lofi slice of teenage angst, it's a little hard to listen to, but I've grown very attached to it. leave together and I CAN TALK WITH MY EYES SHUT are both good tracks
I've mentioned Flood by Boris before but seriously it's just a really sick piece of music it's a drone metal album, with barely any vocals and instead long sections of guitar loops melding into layers of ambience, eventually evolving into a huge crescendo of noise a little over halfway through. light a candle, do something relaxing, and listen to it in one go with some good headphones, it changed a few wires in my brain, I can't recommend it enough
i discovered Boris (and more recently, Swans) through Hakita (aka Heaven Pierce Her) who, before creating Ultrakill and composing music for it, did a few post/ drone metal albums of his own: Flowerworks, and Zen, or the Means without Ends.
it holds similar charm and weight as the UK soundtrack, but much of it is heavier emotionally, giving it a nice texture. the influence of Worlds End Girlfriend and Boris is apparent, but not in a plagiaristic way. also, listen to the ultrakill OST it goes hard
2022
SAYER
iamsayer.comcompletely mental little scifi/horror podcast centered around Als, check out episode 6 if you want a preview
it's like. unethical company practices (moon edition), "there are no bees on (the Earth's second moon)"; Theseus' ship, The Frogs Pick a king, and other fun stories, SAW but (redacted], the nature of the "self", knife roomba, Al mitosis, doing fucked up things with cleats, weird dog, stairwell cults, I cried at the season 3 finale and realized I'm kinda gay for an Al etc etc
Inscryption
well designed card game and cool story to boot. feels pony island esque (in the best way), neat characters and visual design as well. music fuckin rockssounds funny to say because like. it is a real game that I did just play but I also wish it was a real card strategy video game, will probably check out the beta expansion because the act 1 gameplay loop was just that good
(spoilers)
like, there were two entirely different gameplay modes for five minutes right before the entire game fell apart. I want to play more of those... I liked the visuals... also the ENDING with Luke holy shit. evil game company.
Everhood
everhood is fuckin great it's like playing guitar hero but they're hitting the notes at youit's Undertale esque at the beginning, making the twist a little over halfway through pretty jarring, but I liked it a lot. overall incredibly solid, I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a good story game, unorthodox bullet hells, or has 10hrs to spare.
Girls' Last Tour (anime)
post apocalyptic slice of life about two girls travelling around a wartorn world. 12 ep anime 6 volume manga really cute and intensely bittersweet at the end, the main characters had a great dynamic, and I liked the worldbuilding a lot. would recommendMTMTE (again)
I've talked about it before but more than meets the eyel lost light is a space opera about giant robots and it is one of my favorite pieces of sci-fi. good entry into TF comics.MTMTE/LL highlights:
- well written narrative with a lot of natural character development and and attention to detail - art that is so good to look at (especially lost light)
- super fucked up body horror + other fun things
- there are no straight couples and everyone needs therapy
Disco Elysium
*first playthrough, PSY build*I am attempting and subsequently failing to get into the harbor, I didn't know I was barefoot for most of the day until someone pointed it out, Kim is so cool and i want to be friends
(this was around day 2) the sheer amount of things to do combined with the lack of leads atm is a little overwhelming but that's part of the fun. actual book of a game, I'm kind of in love
just finished day 2. much to unpack here. I've been playing in 3+ hr chunks game is addicting Isnuck out after Kim had gone to bed to talk to Cuno and man. this sad little asshole kid I've been leveling up a lot, seeing all these guys chime in at once is funny. psy is fun
*my notes now after actually finishing the game: this is a fantastic fucking game, top-notch storytelling with interesting twists and a beautiful ending. there was a lot I didn't end up doing, which I'll probably go back for, but everyone should play this game. It and Outer Wilds have groundbreaking storytelling.
Evangelion Rebuilds
1.0 and 2.0 are a standard rehash of the first few original episodes, with some scenes added for pacing and to introduce Mari, but they differ right at the end of 2.0 with the whole berserk 02 thing and shinji doing that shit with 01they're fine, I think the new visuals are a little tacky and saturated but (shrug). I like new ramiel it's cool as fuck.
3.0 explained nothing but kawoshin enjoyers really win huh. the design for the Wunder and the new characters are a little weak and I could care less about them, eva 13 is so cool. this is easily my least favorite movie out of the four. too much useless infighting and not enough actual character development
3.0+1.0:
ok I hate to say it but the fight scenes in this movie are the weakest part to me. they're too over the top, they're not weirdly primal or fucked up, it's just "cool anime fights". it's fine, but not my favorite
that being said I really do love the character development, even if some of it didn't matter in the end. I love not-Rei in the first half, she's so fucking cute. I'm glad she got more screentime, I really like her character in general.
' first half of this movie was okay besides the gratuitous CG eva fights, but holy fuck the last half hour was incredible. Gendo development, META SHIT.... THE 01/13 FIGHT....... I like the original series the best, but this was an at least interesting way to pull this new series together.
tldr characters good, robot fights are wildly stupid (affectionate), I like the last half hour. solid 7.5/10
After a day, I'm putting my grade down to maybe a 6.5/10, it caught me off guard. I'd rather be watching EOE, but 3.0+1.0 wasn't as total bullshit as 3.0. What the hell is Yui even doing
DUSK
DUSK rapidly fluctuates between cheesy(affectionate) and terrifying for me, I chuckle at the scrawled warnings on the walls and then freak the hell out at dark rooms and invisible bitches. I'm in Episode 2 btw, enjoying it so farI also kind of suck at it, which is expected for me because i am sort of shit at fps games. UK doesn't count it's basically a rhythm game and I have the levels memorized
Promare
finally watched promare :) very neat movie. can definitely see hiroyuki imaishi's influence in parts, I'm a fan of his style (FLCL, dead leaves). I wasn't entirely sold on the 3D at the beginning but it grew on me, they didn't overuse it and it meshed well with the eclectic art style. the story was fresh for an action movie, and I enjoyed it. not as black and white as other movies in the genre tend to be. also yes that gayass scene near the end, good lirddefinitely recommend, wouldn't mind picking it up on bluray in the future. oh and the music went so hard, props to that composer because damn
Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
beat touhou EOSD (...on normal with 3 restarts. still have a long way to go before I get the good ending). it's a little BS in the later levels imo, I'll clock that up to it being a 20 year old JP bullet hell though. it's fun, music is great, I want to play more of them nowIron Lung
a review of Iron Lung (2022) horror video game for PC. really enjoyed the gameplay, it was technical enough to feel challenging but not annoyingly so. it almost outshone the horror itself, the first segments of the game were almost relaxing. until y'know. the whole [redacted].that being saaaaaid the horror aspect is good; the game's eerie atmosphere and the lore are very strong together. in true DUSK/Szymanski fashion, it is both cheesy (affectionate) and very fucked up
definitely worth checking out blind, go buy it. it's short but fun. also play the Gloomwood demo while you're at it. NOW
Gloomwood
(Sep '22, very early access) feels great to play, the atmosphere is immersive, mechanics are all well implemented and I can't wait for more. go buy it if you have not already. the level design is compact enough that I didn't feel lost or annoyed, but large enough to keep encounters interesting. everything's so well polished I almost don't notice how GOOD everything about it is.also its definitely a horror game but as with DUSK it's mostly atmosphere rather than DISCORD/NEW scares, which I liked (although dusk did have those fucking deer. no comment). gonna replay soon for screenshots, I hope they implement subtitles soon too. APD makes it hard to process what they're saying but I won't criticize the lack of inclusion because. it's EA
Haruhi Suzumiya
finally watching haruhi after deciphering whatever the hell is up with the watch order. I've seen 50/50 on chronological vs broadcast but I'm starting with the latter. it's good so far((what it looks like is that I need to watch season 1 twice, once in in broadcast order (1-14) then again in chronological order, which is basically eight episodes of S1 (2, 3, 5, 10, and so on), then S2E4, more S1, all of Endless Eight and the rest of S2 in chrono order, three more episodes of E1, then the movie))
last anime I tried to start was oregairu iirc which is funny considering they have a very similar initial premise (weird high school club with everyman protag) I stopped oregairu after e3 because I don't actually care about romcom anime and one likeable side character (saika. high chance you will recognize him by sight) did not salvage it
sorry for writing paragraphs about anime from 2006 it's because I'm hot or whatever
finished season one and only fucked up the episode order twice! didn't realize the titles on the site were wrong until e4 or so
broadcast order is definitely the way to go for watching the first time. the buildup is much more natural, the story is scattered but in an interesting puzzle way. I'm not a big school slice of life fan beyond Nichijou so I don't have a big frame of reference for "good" but I'm liking it a lot. pacing was noticeably well done
I'm tempted to watch the whole Endless Eight mat arc but I might value my sanity a little too
much to watch 8 near identical anime episodes in a row. we'll see
I did in fact watch every episode of EE while working on an animatic. I still haven't completed the rest of the series after finishing that arc LOL
2023
rhythm games
rhythm game rating chart, played a couple more recently and realized I hadn't updated or shared this yet. disclaimer(s) the placement is not entirely accurate and I have not completed all these games but it's a good general idea.
I like project diva because of the simple arcade style and rhythm based on vocals, I dislike FNF because the charts aren't intuitive to me, ghost tapping is punished and that combined with lack of safe frames + weird latency issues makes it not that fun. YES before you ask I am playing the whitty mod, it's just that those mechanics shouldn't even be in vanilla. there are just better 4key games out there imo
have definitely talked about it before but megamix is the best project diva game in terms of sheer song count but it's by far the most soulless entry in the series. the handhelds (Extend/2nd/Mirai DX) all have cute little rooms you can decorate for the characters, Mirai DX (my favorite) even has Puyo Puyo and Reversi as minigames you can play with them. (miku gets mad when you don't play the game for too long and you have to apologize to her, it's adorable.); the PSP entries also have loading screens with art on them themed after game songs. the point I'm getting at is that they're unique and charming.
WHEREAS megamix over here has like five oversaturated renders of the main characters for menus and loading screens. the song menu is ripped from the previous PS games. there is zero graphic design fun over here and it is SO sad sega please you are killing me
anyway talk over goodnight, the PC port of megamix is good if you're getting into proj diva but please play Mirai DX too because it is better
Primordia
haven't played a point and click in forever so I'm feeling very smooth brained but Primordia is excellent so far. really good robots and a whole lot of banterfinished [it] today. please trust me and play this decade old point and click about robots it is very good (and it's like 2 dollars on sale so go wishlist it at the very least)
Swans talk
picked up My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky by Swans on CD today, hadn't listened to it before this. soundwise it's very reminiscent of its successor album The Seer, which I enjoy a lot. I'm noticing that pre-hiatus Swans had a stronger focus on noise OR folk, rather than a post-rock mixture of both like they have now. although I enjoy albums like Children of God in its own right, the balance of noise is much more stark. modern Swans focuses a lot on heavy rhythms and repetition, so it's hard to get a decent short sample. if you like what you hear check out the whole track(nsfw text(???) but is it common knowledge that Hakita's current Twitter name is a reference to their live album Public Castration Is A Good Idea? because it haunts me)
Pathologic Classic HD
enjoying pathologic so far, big fan of 2000s era pc/console graphics and the psuedo meta setup is intriguing, it really is half visual novel though. my brain hurts from information even while using a walkthrough. it's great but it is like, a books worth of info in an hourit isn't much like silent hill overall but it has a similar spirit of weird ass NPCs, wandering] around, lots of fog, and great music. really want to stick with it even if it takes me a while
Rain World
rain world is a 2D survival platformer set in a lush, derelict world that is trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, periodically ravaged by crushing rain, it is about exploration, learning how to think like an animal, and schmovement.it is intensely difficult, it is mean in a very "wildlife documentary" way, I fucking love it and you will like it too if you give it a chance and like a challenge. I've never felt fully roadblocked while playing the ai is also insane, the interactions it allows for are absolutely endless. don't get me started on scavengers.should also mention the LORE is about abandoned, dying supercomputers participating in intense discord server drama because one of them killed themself and the others can't figure out how they did it. it's fantastic. more people should know about Five Pebbles
My House
myhouse.pk3 true good ending completeI got a little jaded about it not being what I expected while playing through it for the first time, but I ended up enjoying it. it got the creepypasta aspect down very well while also keeping it subtle. I used a guide and godmode because I'm utter garbage at the old Doom games but that didn't retract from my experience overall.
it was well programmed and utilized the engine well to create non euclidean spaces, and although I generally dislike the overuse of ~liminal spaces~ as an aesthetic, I didn't mind it here and I enjoyed the visuals. and as much as I enjoy walking sim style games this felt like a Real Game, which was cool! neat little mod, very nicely made.
everyone go read house of leaves now btw. don't watch a video about it don't read a summary go buy the book (do not pirate it the only intended experience is book form) and READ IT
Needy Streamer Overload
got three endings so far and none of them can reasonably be defined as "good" beyond her quitting altogether. keeping her stress levels balanced is kind of a bitch too. there was a save file on day 2 that I saw right as I booted the game up for the first time which may be some inscryption type shit. there's a lot to explore here within the limited scope, which I'm enjoying so far
I'm still going back and forth about the art style of this game, for one I fully get the sort of vaporwave win98 visual novel aesthetic it's going for, it's a lot of fun, but I feel like Ame could have been depicted as less... impeccably groomed to make her whole mental illness feel more tangible on a visual scale.
this sounds a bit insane to say ooc but the weed/ paper/vomit looking cutesy compared to the pills also feels like a cop-out of sorts, like DDLC has its issues but the gross visuals felt more jarring in places and i liked that.
tldr it has good visuals but they could have been pushed more I think
My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected (Oregairu) Vol 1
reading oregairu (full title My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected) rather than starting the anime again and I'm still unsure if/ where I'll fall off but this is already a better time than the anime. personal opinion (on manga over anime) rather than objective, both are fine, although overall it feels like I get the premise better; the exploration of different types of students is better portrayed over text because youre relayed a character description and subsequent development through someone else's dialogue rather than just handed to you, which makes you take everything more at face valueI also might be going completely insane from fumes and exhaustion but yknow what. for a school romcom light novel this is okay. I also love to ignore every illustration and think of them in my own head which is much nicer
killer7
killer7 is so good I cannot for the life of me summarize anything that happened in the last four hours. it's fresh, it's vivid, I shoot the gun and switch the guys. big thanks to friend roll for guidinggabriel ultrakill rant
probably a better way to articulate this but anyway wish the character whose loss of religion was handled in a narratively interesting yet emotionally respectful way wasn't boiled down to nothing. fully aware this situation is not black and white and there is still good analysis of him but generally seeing a story where a man's faith and passion are misguided and abused only to see people call him like, a pathetic gayboy makes me sad. dude is my religious confusion brother in arms. good morning
Hypnospace Outlaw
finished my sort of scuffed hypnospace playthrough (used a tutorial). truly excellent game, feels like surfing old geocities sites but without all the broken links. ending caught me off guard though wowhoping to pick up Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer soon it looks pretty great. same universe
SIGNALIS
played signalis for four hours straight. fucking love it. was not expecting it to scratch the silent hill itch so well but I was pleasantly surprised the visual presentation is unique and varied but never jarring, everything is tactile and snappy, the combat is janky in that charming ps2 survival horror style way. I love robot women and I can't wait for them to make me cry at the end of this (or so I'm told by all my friends)had a lot of fun with the puzzles and haven't had to get a tutorial yet but. they made me think so hard you could probably hear it. also sugarflow gifted this game to me, thank you again :3 :3
usually don't like to generalize a story by comparing it to other media but this was... silent hill. evangelion. soma. the culmination of biomechanical/psychological survival horror with a healthy dose of good AND bad humanity and weird timelines it's everything I love in a narrative. and doomed yuri! already want to replay it just to look through all the lore with the full story context. god. um. play SIGNALIS right now
2024
Shimeji Simulation
finished reading Shimeji Simulation by Tsukumizu (girls' last tour). surreal four-volume slice of life manga with a lonely, philosophical, yet comfortable atmosphere. also there's yuri. there's no official English release, but there's an unofficial translation online; check it outPapers, Please
playing this game a decade late. it's goodalthough the RNG can get a bit repetitive at times, the story mode has been more than varied enough to be engaging, and it definitely holds up. the recurring characters are strong (sergiu and elisa's story was really sweet especially). my only crit is that your own family feels more like numbers management, and I barely cared about them as opposed to other characters, which feels like a gap in the game's otherwise really interesting quality of causing me to feel genuine empathy in the setting of this utterly miserable political system
Kirby 64
anyway beat Kirby 64 for the hell of it. still need to go back and get all the shards for O2 if I feel like it but wow miracle matter was a neat little boss with an insane themegeneral thoughts the game is fun, I like the powerup combos and the music, a lot of it is fairly standard Nintendo platformer fodder obviously but sometimes that can be a lot of fun