Even Tetris has a movie now.

 That one I didn't see coming.

I have been somewhat outspoken in the past about my feeling regarding video game movies, or adaptations of video games to screen in general. I think that they're inherently flawed from a deeply fundamental level simply because the thought process that goes into creating a piece of interactive media is distinct from that which goes into making a visual one and very few people seem prepared to bridge that gap. This strange sort of consensus has settled over the general populace that there are only a few static right ways to tell a story, which rubs off in such a manner that the perception of 'whoever doesn't tell stories in a way I'm used to do is doing it wrong' proliferates. (Itself an embarrassingly narrow minded perspective). Ultimately this means that 'video games to non-interactive media' tends to suffer from fundamental approach modulation and unshakable public stigma simply for the crime of where the source has come from. Making a movie around video games that feels natural and looks good seems like a herculean task at that point.

But I guess I never really took into account the possibility of a 'video game' movie in only the technical sense, such as the sense it is meant for this upcoming Tetris movie. Honestly, my actual stomach churned like a mill when I saw the name 'Tetris' on a movie trailer, instantly calling to mind horror-thoughts of the Emoji movie. Talking Tetrahedrons with eyes and mouths going on some sad adventure through an ugly and stereotypical Wreck-it Ralph clone world imparting some obnoxious insincere moral message about how "being yourself is the only way to be!" What a total load of crock that cookie-cutter children's trite message always is! Who ever made it anywhere in life being themselves? Everywhere you go and everything you attempt will be a balancing act of whether you can morphed into the image that someone wants of you, and if they consider that too hard a task then you're just not worth their hassle. That's the way of job's, social circles and relationships- being yourself is the greatest roadblock one can slap in front of themselves!

Wait- what was I talking about? I think I went on a rant... Oh yeah, the Tetris movie! So then here comes the Tetris movie and there was I, approaching the trailer expecting a rehash of the worst of animated movies before realising to my utmost relief: "Oh thank god, it's just a biopic!" It's actually both surprising and really-not-all-that surprising that we don't get more biopics focused around the world of games, considering they're the most profitable entertainment industry in the world currently. Off the top of my head the only other attempt I can think of would be the Daniel Radcliffe 'Rockstar' movie, which I believe was denounced by the portrayed parties themselves. Of course, then I think about it and remember that the video game industry is obscenely new when it comes to forms of art; less than 50 years old in the grand scheme of things. How many truly interesting stories with a wide appeal could have spawned in such a narrow space of time? And is the creation of Tetris one of them?

I'll admit, when it comes to Tetris my knowledge of the matter goes about as far as anyone elses. I know that it was one of those 'lighting in a bottle' mechanical ideas that has proven so timeless that the game hasn't been 'improved' upon in any ironclad way since it was first released. I also believed that the game itself was Russian, as I believe did all of the world. The visual theming, the music itself, the general premise of ill-shaped pieces fitting together to score points being itself a slightly skewered interpretation of the collaborative sentiments at the beating heart of communism. (Hmm? Was that last one a bit of a stretch?) All of which is why I approached the Tetris movie, starring a decidedly non-Russian sounding Taron Edgerton, with a fair bit of scepticism. But to be honest I have no deeply researched insight on the creation of Tetris, I'm as clued in as a quick Google search could make a man... Perhaps there is a deeply interesting tale of... international espionage? Okay, now you're pushing against my credulity!

What we've got here is a film designed in a style similar, to borrow the description of the film's main star, to The Social Network. And right away I have to admit that comparison makes my skin crawl. It's not that I don't like the film about Mark Zuckerberg's contentious early years, I can just easily interpret the way mimicking such an approach will end up painting the story of Tetris' creation and in turn find myself squinting my eyes ready to see some straight falsities chucked at the screen. And that was before I watched the trailer and saw Soviet car chases. Now to be fair, again I do not know the real story of how this game made it to fruition. But when a trailer turns around and literally tells me this is "The story you couldn't make up" I'm put on guard. You can probably count on one hand the number of historical movies that claim accuracy and deliver a pale insult to the very concept of it.

But divorcing the real story and taking the film for what it purposes to be; I will admit that I think the trailer seems somewhat fun. I like the idea of sprucing up an otherwise potentially drab biopic with stylisation and graphical motifs here and there, not sure if the 'historical jukebox' concepts from the trailer would make it into the movie as well but I honestly don't mind if they do. I suppose there's nothing wrong with the idea of a crazy and zany movie depicting a story 'we think we know'; but I just get worked up at the presumption of truth tied up there. And is Tetris really the be-all end-all game industry story? Why not depict a company that still has relevance in the modern day? Why not make a biopic which could be just as interesting, following the real history of Nintendo?

Yeah, I always come back to the big N with stories like this, don't I? But can you blame me? Nintendo literally got it's big break as a company by mass producing Hanafuda playing cards in the express knowledge that such cards were popular for the time because they circumvented Japan's strict anti-gambling laws and thus were coveted by the Yakuza. Nintendo directly profited off of the illegal operations of Japan's biggest criminal syndicate before the company took off to where it is today! That's crazy interesting! And you could find a way to tie SEGA up in that story, given that several anecdotal accounts exist linking some higher-ups over in SEGA with existing Yakuza family members. (So if you ever wonder why Kiryu from Yakuza is depicted as the single most honourable man in Japan, more so than the police; well... you can consider that a case of guerrilla marketing.) 

As is the case with a lot of these video game adjacent movies, I find my interest slightly more piqued simply for the subject matter than I would be for watching this straight up. Similar to 'Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves', objectively I would call the trailer a little ropey and eye-rolling. But knowing that this is going to be one of the lenses through which the general audience will inevitably view my world itself makes it almost necessary that I take the time out to go see it. Not necessarily to 'hate watch', mind you- I fully want the thing to be good... let's just say that I will approach expecting the worst but happily open to receive anything but. Who knows, maybe it'll end up another mindlessly fun romp like Uncharted.

I can't stand rage bait

 I've already lost, I know

I'm so darn tired of rage bait, I really am. Of course, that total exhaustion could be itself a reflection of my general emotional tiredness- which stuff like that only exacerbates, but that does not mean I hold 'rage baiters' as innocents in my situation. To clarify, by 'Rage Bait', I am referring to those who conjure up 'stories' simply for the attention they know they will bring by covering a topic in a bad faith or purposefully contentious manner. Not those who simply have their own opinion on a topic and will fight for it. I don't have a problem with someone's essay on why Fallout 4 is a better game than New Vegas, even if all the presented arguments are hilariously flimsy and ill-conceived, because there's a genuine passion behind the conceiver. (That's a genuine topic I've read by the way. Poor misguided soul- I know) It's those that know better, but know if they push the right buttons simply to infuriate and draw in those all important 'rage clicks', then that's all you need for that short term success.

Before I really got into writing myself I always tried to play a devil's advocate position in situations like that, reasoning that it's probably a situation of quotas and deadlines forcing people to write beyond their ability to conjure up good-faith ideas or at least genuine criticism. Today I'm sure that plays a role, but with over 1300 blogs under my belt, not one shooting under the belt for a quick rage click on a day when I just wasn't feeling it; I'm feeling a lot less charitable in my perceptions. I'm evolved from finding those sorts of articles annoying, to losing all intellectual respect I might have otherwise had for the writer- because clearly they lack the fortitude and resourcefulness to maintain any sort of professional standard with their work. Hell, I'm an unpaid independent and I have higher work ethics than them; that's crazy to think about!

Which is why I personally, just give no props whatsoever to the larger gaming industry; because all but a couple of their number fall into that mire of rage baiting out of desperation, and the couple that have integrity don't even write for any of the big industry sites anymore. At least I can kind of forgive the skewered review scores that slaps 9/10 to such trash as the Resident Evil Netflix show, because we all see the not-too-quiet corruptive elements of 'those who are too critical in the entertainment industry get blocked from entertainment events'. It is by no means a right or just situation; but I can't blame the 'journalists' themselves. Crawling around in the filth, slinging mud and trying to draw in anyone for the sake of watching the ticker on their site go up- that's just pathetic and desperate. I equate that much to internet gutter journalism.

Now typically I'm happy to avoid that sort of world, knowing how annoyed it makes me both for the state of gaming journalism and in the topic they're besmirching themselves; but damn it, I am not a strong man. The years have taken their toil on my willpower and sometimes I've just got to see what the pigs are cooking up in their sty to see how bad things have gotten- of course then I immediately recoil in disgust and go back to avoiding them- for about a week until I fall into the same trap again. See, that's the insidious thing about rage bait. It presents no integrity, talent or intelligence, but by god is it effective. It's the equivalent of taking the easy path to success by stepping on the heads of others instead of working diligently for your own self improvement. It's morally reprehensible I say; and because I have some small integrity that is a stance I'll actually stand up for.

Fitting in with my recent experience, given that I've finally gotten around to playing Spiderman Remastered on PC, (Fantastic game so far) I want to rewind back to an article posted when Spiderman first re-released onto the Steam store. A certain site decided to review the game, the original versions of which they had already gone on record reviewing, and so this time decided to get a bit creative with their article. Rather than judge the game for the game it was, considering it was the review process and that is what you would expect, they made the first mistake of reviewing and compared it against something it wasn't and never was. Yes, I'm talking about the PC Spiderman review in which the game was critiqued for being 'Cop-a-ganda' because the narrative doesn't explore the corruption/systemic racial prejudice of the police department. It's a Spiderman game, based on the Spiderman comics- police corruption isn't typically that character's MO. Do I really need to break down the obvious flaws in that stance? Spiderman is a vigilante, doing the police's job for them throughout the entire game. There actually is a small plot point with corrupt police members working for Fisk in the literal first mission of the game, albeit it's a tiny part of the mission that is easily forgotten. And the Sable Task Force from Act 2 are quite literally designed to represent heavy handed and unjust law enforcement. Even by the narrow definitions the author wrote, their point falls apart like a CV dangling in a rain storm. Yet still, the very fact we have to unravel such trite is infuriating. 

Then there's the classics, like the general character complaints around design choices for video game protagonists like Cal Kestis and... whoever the main character was of Days Gone- that game just can't stay in my head for the life of me. Now this is a really insidious little stance, as it routes itself in a genuine game's industry foil; the lack of main character diversity. I ain't never see a protagonist with the same skin tone as myself, but that's because no one really thinks about Mixed-races, now do they? But there's a difference between noticing that problem and criticising Cal from Jedi: Fallen Order and Deacon from Days Gone (Literally had to look it up) for being "too white." First off, Deacon is an American Biker... duh. And secondly... they're both designed to look like the performing actor! I'll admit, I laughed a little when I saw how generic Cal looked, before becoming increadibly embarrassed when I realised that was Cameron Monaghan's real face pretty faithfully reconstructed for the game. If you're issue is with casting, aim at the causes of fewer actors of colour and diversity making it into the professional world- not the actors for failing to alter their own faces for acting and Mo-cap work they've been cast in. But games journalists don't want to do anything like that, because those topics take time to research.

A popular whipping boy of recent months has been Hogwarts Legacy, and this rage train actually has some visible real world consequences displaying the actual dangers of Rage Bait run rampant! Those who had their issues with the Harry Potter game due to it's link with J.K. Rowling were always there ready to pounce on the game, but their cause didn't become a movement until they got signal boosted by the only people who don't care about the consequences of their pot stirring: games journalists. By feeding into the vague rage of a people upset for reasons that seem clearer in their head before they start trying to voice them, and giving those people moral vindication, we reached a summit of outrage where so-called 'activists' were gathering up the names of people who played the game on Twitch to conduct a virtual witch hunt against them. Essentially turning a movement that was started in good faith into a degenerate rat fest no better than your average 4-Chan thread.

Lastly, and I'm sure I've at least mentioned this in another blog but it drove me to the depths of my sanity so I need to mention it- that Persona 4 article. You know the one; where someone who will remain anonymous coined their displeasure with the game due to it's 'apparent sexism' throughout the narrative. Yes, by their reckoning all female character's in the game exist only to be viewed and judged by the male characters and I can't go on because as I'm sure you'll be aware if you have any familiarity with Persona 4; the content writer rather obviously did not play the game. Or they did and for some reason decided to take a beloved game and pen a objectively untrue hit piece for rage clicks. He got mine, so kudos for that small victory; but it astounds me that a person that low and professionally inept is allowed to call themselves a 'journalist' with chops like that. Makes you wonder where the actual decent standards and integrity the games journalist craft get shipped off to. Forbes, I guess.

Rage bait is about as trashy as it gets within the Industry, fuelled by a faux-veneer of moral superiority and a hair-trigger victim complex that rears up everytime their braying picks up a crowd. Needless to say, I have very little respect for a decent number of the games journalists of today. Things have denigrated so far that I was actually somewhat impressed when I saw that IGN actually reviewed Hogwarts Legacy as the game it was, rather than waste their platform shooting for some fangless statement for publicity clicks. Doing one's bare basic job should not be a point for praise. (Heck, they're even calling that 'quiet quitting' over in America these days.) Let this be my weekly release of disgust at the rage bait culture we call 'modern gaming journalism' and have that cleanse be my excuse not to slap on the very next rage bait- wait, what is that site saying about the Last of Us TV show? Gimme a sec- I've got to click on this one...

Bloodbowl and the futility of longevity

 Greed for the greed god.

Blood Bowl always existed as the dreamer's answer to the dominance of Madden American Football games. Just as the Madden supremacy had stretched it's tendrils over every single club across the continent of North America, ensuring no other pretender could create their own simulation Football competitor; Warhammer was turning to one of it's most odd offshoots with a different approach to the sport entirely in order to satiate Football Fantasy Nerds. Blood bowl was an utterly bizarre mash-up of the various fantastical and mythical creatures and beasts from the Warhammer mythos, that were thrown together in a bloodsport-esque reimaging of American Football which has somehow been made turn-based with a threat of maiming and death slipped in there for good measure. When it came to turning that into a video game, what we got was a surprisingly fun little title that might have been slept on a little, but drew in the curious enough to keep going as a franchise.

As a fellow with absolutely no interest in American Football, I found the original Blood bowl game to be simply delightful in the way it remixed all the boring elements of the real-life sport and threw in an inherent level of carnage and drama through it's more thematically appropriate systems. "Oh no, this player is already on the back foot: if he rolls full failures again there's a chance he'll end up dead!" It's quite a bit more interesting than the set-up of 'plays' and 'lay-ups' or whatever. Whatsmore, there's a big reliance on the luck of the roll, which can be ever changing and interesting to rely upon as any tabletop lover will happily attest. And my interest was no outlier, as Blood Bowl, after many years doing the cult circuit, finally got itself an up-to-date sequel with Blood Bowl 2. (It only took the six years to get around to it.)

But there's always a problem with Sports games that get their sequels, now isn't there? Because you see, a sequel inherently, as a fundamental example of what a 'sequel' even is, requires the developer to improve upon pretty much every aspect of the original. But what can you really do to improve upon a sports game that captures all the rules and intricacies of the subject? Traditional sports games figured they could just 'sunset' older quality of life features and reintroduce them slowly alongside an agonisingly drawn out visual upgrade progress to justify their 'one new game per season' policy, but Blood Bowl is inherently atypical in it's approach. It's visually stylised, pretty much covers every important rule and sub-rule already and there's very little fundamentally to change beyond just making everything look a bit better. Blood Bowl has had some rules changes through the years, so the games do have the benefit of the ever-changing source material to lean on for ideas; but the generalised route for technical improvements has never been obvious.

That, by and large, is the folly of longevity; because just as nothing is supposed to last forever, little can sustain itself creatively for long. Creativity is just like the wick of candle, burning brightly and shrinking quickly, and once the fuel is gone that flame is snuffed out. In fact, that very example is the thematic heart behind the Dark Souls series, with all the spacial distortion of Dark Souls 3 itself being emblematic of the consequence of drawing out the life of the First Flame for generations too long. Cohesion begins to wear, sense starts to shatter, the strings that held that once beautiful thing together wither and snap and the dream can't stay as one whole forever. Every creative venture needs to be embarked on with a distinct sense of it's morality, because drawing out the inevitable for too long is a disservice to the art itself as well as it's audience. (Hmm? They just made a new 'Luther' movie? I rest my case...)

So if you've been keeping up with the news of recent releases then there's a good chance you know where I'm going with this: it turns out that Blood Bowl 2 was the end of the proverbial road. The point at which ingenuity powered creativity ran itself short and the team reached the zenith of what they could create with their idea. Now the funny thing about that point is you'd think that from there onwards the simple task of maintaining what existed before and doing basic touch-ups here and there for the next release would be child's play. But I guess everyone needs to justify their jobs and exsistence, because to a man, everytime a franchise hits that wall, the next entry turns into a total mess because the team decided to try and reinvent the wheel with match-sticks or something equally as stupid. Stubborn creatives' 'pride', it'll get you everytime!

Blood Bowl 3 is buggy, it's undercooked, it's lacking basic quality of life features such as being able to load back into matches after a disconnect. (A feature considered a milestone coming to the game in it's second season! How exciting!) There's no replay mode or spectator mode- another exciting late game addition. Also, season 1 has the promise of 'optimisation' listed on it's roadmap, which is a bit of a head scratcher. Shouldn't that be something done before the game is released? Oh but don't worry- stick around until Season 3 and you'll get Crossplay... as well as updated rules to match the boardgame. Wait... So Blood Bowl 3 doesn't even have an up-to-date ruleset? Have these people reinvented the game development process or is this game shipping mid-way through the Beta stages? What have the team been working on all these years?

Oh wait, I guess that effort went into Blood Bowl 3's flagship feature: the paid customisation shop. (Groan.) Yes, ontop of your half-baked nearly finished game you can pay extra for individual little customisation pieces for every single individual pawn for about a pound each. New helmet? One pound. New boots? One pound. Oh and there's rarities thrown in there too for some reason. I literally mean 'some reason' because there doesn't appear to be any sort of random loot system so the very concept of rarity makes literally no sense beyond justifying a slight price hike for the 'rarer' customisation pieces. All in all you're looking at probably twice the amount you invested into the game to buy every customisation piece, and those purchased pieces are the only customisation available in the game at launch. Now the team have come out and promised that these cosmetics can be purchased through match earned 'Warpstones' as well, (That's their premium currency) but honestly that just promotes these feature from a horrendously terrible idea to a pathetically under designed one. If you want people to 'earn' their cosmetics, why not build in a challenge system with custom tasks that players can complete for specific customisation rewards? You know, put a little bit of elbow grease into the 'game' part of the 'design' process?

It is stark how hand-in-hand general state games and cashing out to the lowest denominator of monetisation goes. As if the very point at which the decision is made to try and drain the literal blood out of the customer base, all the developers lose the will to motivate themselves anymore and the final product shrivels into a pebble of it's true potential as a result. Maybe that's the industry's way of protecting the consumer through unintentional self-sabotage- or just the very forces of common decency rising up and cursing all of these distasteful development process' for the good of everyone. Still, it's such a shame to watch a relatively niche property with a dedicated, if small, fan-base go the way of the morally bankrupt out of a bizarre surge of greed-blinded ineptitude. It make you wonder if anyone is safe from the avaricious phantom that scourges our community. What will be the next promising title to fall to it's whim? Final Fantasy XVI?

Again with the Suicide Squad...

 The crystal ball didn't lie.

I've been trying to be a lot more positive this time of year. Does it show? I don't know, but I want to see the silver lining clutching to the edge of every rain-cloud, or some such nonsense. (Seriously, what kind of cloud has a silver lining? What kind of visual delusions do I have to be under to perceive mineral silver glittering in the sky?) That is getting very hard with the more we see of one game that I had quite a lot of excitement for once upon a time. One game that was the much anticipated successor to the beloved Arkham Batman franchise, and which was going to remind the super hero genre of games how to do it right after two prominent live service failures- well, I guess we can't call 'Gotham Knights' a 'live service' can we? It was just a game which had it's online live service elements haphazardly gutted at the last moment and acted like it never happened so we could all be shocked in five years time when the developers reveal that secret during a behind-the-scenes documentary. (I think we may be a bit ahead of schedule on that one.)

We knew this was coming ever since the leak of the new Rocksteady Suicide Squad game a few weeks back hit 4Chan and everyone's spine shivered with a cold dread: gear qualities, item scores, lobbies, Battle Passes; everything terrible about modern gaming crystallised into one truly cursed genre. I wouldn't mind so much if the Live Service genre knew how to stay in it's lane, but nowadays we're seeing every other game adopt these pitifully redundant and under-designed gear equip systems that drip with miniscule effects and stat buffs that have no tangible effect on a gameplay model not at all built to cater for them. For all of it's success', even Hogwarts Legacy has a haphazard Gear score system! And guess what; it's totally inconsequential meaningless trash where all you do is pick the gear which makes the 'gear number' get bigger. Not that you even notice the improvement, because you never do in these games. It's a fundamental design principal adopted by so many game designers that have no clue what made it work in the first place.

Even if everything else about Suicide Squad was perfectly spot-on for a co-op superhero/villain power fantasy; and that's looking like a very questionable hypothetical right now, the gear scores alone would be little more than excess fat ontop of the package. RPGs pioneered the concept of incremental gear power growth in order to create a sense of physical progression beyond levelling and abilities, but even then the best RPGs of yesteryear knew how to temper the amount of loot and gear available in order to keep new pieces feeling relevant and special. Action RPGs changed up that balance to shower players in loot, but presented the collection and modification of loot as an intrinsic gameplay mechanic. By the endgame for those ARPGs, those tiny stat increases mean all the difference in the world and that's what makes the gear grinding loop of those games feel rewarding. Live Services have always struggled to reach that level of synergy, from their very inception to now; to the point where even at a mere glance the public feels utterly familiar with the oncoming systemic disconnect without having ever picked up a controller. And why would they need to? Nuance has been lacking from the start.

But again, the gear system is just the cherry ontop of the cake. The fact is that Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League was pitched as a co-op team based supervillian game where every character played uniquely according to their own abilities and move-sets, creating a collaborative smorgasbord of experiences to share between you and your three friends. If that is indeed the case, why are Rocksteadr struggling to display that uniqueness? In the most recent gameplay trailer we've been witness to supercuts of all 4 protagonists swinging through the air with floaty, weightless abandon firing boring guns at glowing purple weak points in what almost feels like a reskin of Anthem. Why am I getting Anthem vibes when watching a trailer for Suicide Squad? That is absolutely not what I should be taking away from this game during the home stretch of marketing! Btu at least we've still got those great Arkham-level cutscenes to propel a hopefully compelling story, right? Well... actually, maybe we don't...

Because get this, unlike Gotham Knights; Suicide Squad is a live service through and through. (Except the team refuse to come out and say it, probably because they're embarrassed to admit it out loud. Always a great sign for how much everyone believes in the dream, no?) We already have confirmation that the team is already going to support this game post launch with a battle pass, probably some more cosmetics and... new characters? Wait a second... so how can we possibly expect a well rounded narrative touching on the four player characters... if they can be easily swapped in with upcoming DLC characters? This is sounding less and less like a Rocksteady Superhero game and more like a Square Enix Superhero title as we go on.

What seems to have astounded pretty much everyone up until this point is the fact that almost universally the public appears settled on the fact that this live service approach doesn't appear to work with these superhero properties. And yet we keep receiving them. This piece-meal 'the story is never quite over' style of presenting the narrative has, historically, only really had a shot in RPG games with custom generated characters that players can place their theoretical psyche within and carry on across countless stories. Actual characters have a bit more nuance and wear to them, even when they're bullet fodder in the Suicide Squad. Although, even then that's no guarantee with a genre as prone to failure as this one. Anyone remember 'Babylon's Fall'? Like... anyone at all?

And I know the hatred isn't completely universal. There are people who love the idea of a co-op superhero game that must find the prospect of a continuously developed one just tantalising. I've also heard scattered praise for the character movement which I personally do not echo. I agree that it looks smooth animation-wise, but without hands-on I think it's impossible to say whether float-guiding whilst shooting is any sort of fun. I didn't particularly think Anthem's iteration of that exact style was all that long lasting and effective. I just wonder how it is that Warner Bros. can justify sinking so many years of development through a beloved single-player studio to create a game in a genre tailor-designed to alienate all single player lovers. It seems like a frankly backwards philosophy, which only leaves me confused.

I do know that the Rocksteady Team originally had another Batman game lined up, which was going to feature a playable adult Damian Wayne and a much older mentor Batman; for which I will be forever mournful we never got. Rumours are bubbling now that Rocksteady had actually moved on to that Superman game everyone claimed they were making all of these years, only Warner Bros. forcibly pulled them off that project and moved them to this Live Service mess of a project instead. Honestly, that makes a lot of sense- but also sounds like too neat and tidy of a story to be the whole picture, like the kind of narrative a disgruntled former fan would concoct in their morose musings. Personally I hope the game beats the odds and becomes that runaway hit Warner Bros. must be desperate for at this point, but either way I'm going to be parting ways with one of the most beloved action adventure game developers that used to be around so the well wishes are bittersweet to taste.

Western Versus Eastern Product Placement

Devil in the background details.

'Product Placement' is the term we give to a very specific type of advertisement as it exists within entertainment. What we see as the breaking of the sanctity fictional world to introduce real world brands and logos, usually in the pursuit of subliminally advertising related products to the audience. Sure, you can hire the current James Bond actor to star in commercials driving your cars and wearing your watches so that movie fans will equate the suave and cool Bond with those products and thus seek them out in emulation, or you can literally show James riding an Aston Martin in the movie and let the prestige rub off from there. It's a very pervasive and well acknowledged branch of the advertising tree, if somewhat controversial depending on where you hail from and the marketing morals you grew up with. 

But what if I told you that somewhere out there, under the spectrum of differing cultures, some people don't just accept product placement but actually really love the idea of the real world infecting their virtual and fictional spaces? It's seems such a wild perspective in the West, where many of us are taught at a young age not just to recognise what we're being sold but to be actively weary of the idea of aggressive and subversive salesmanship. Remember how in the time before regulations were introduced, kids cartoons used to try to blend seamlessly with adverts in order to fool the child audience into the agency of the ad. Tell a kid that a toy version of the Transformer they were watching is in mortal peril unless they buy that very figure from the store, and the parents will have to endure endless nattering for the next few weeks. Nowadays we are sharpened to be more weary. Not only should I recognise the advertisers attempts to represent themselves and mentally separate it out of the contained story, but I should be aggrieved about the placement to begin with. I cannot speak for everyone, but that was a precedent I remembering being introduced and imbued into me during school; English Class. And yet I see that same sort of perception towards product placement all across America too.

And I think you know where I'm going with this, don't you? Over in the East, perception towards product placement tends to trend in the exact opposite fashion. Product placement isn't just accepted in films and games over there, but actually encouraged and preferred. In some small part due to the way that it works to ground fictional worlds that are supposed to be set within the recognisable and observable world we inhabit. Because afterall, if you're supposed to be watching a fictional story set within modern day Tokyo, wouldn't it make sense to see the same shops and brands that anyone would normally see when walking across Akihabara? That mindset doesn't just stop in places where it's fitting, however; as I'm sure most bewildered Western gamers came to see when they were confronted with Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding.

Now Death Stranding is a very emotionally intelligent game about forming connections across a bizarre post apocalyptic space seemingly purpose-built to encourage isolation. The America of that world couldn't be more conceptually distinct from the America of the real world in all manners except basic Insitutional fundamental values aped by the Bridges organisation. As such, there really is no reason on earth why Sam should have a replenishable stock of Monster Energy drinks at all of his bases. Nor is there any real reason why Sam should comment on 'Riding with Norman Reedus' when mounting certain bikes designed for tie-in promotion. They're both blatant slaps out of the immersion of the world which Western media consumers are taught to hate, but in inspection might actually serve some sort of artistic purpose. Really confronting the world of Death Stranding for what it is, and how it reflects the emotional state of a world drifting slowly apart, the fictional game world can actually seem dramatically heavy as it weighs on the soul with topics like extinction, repression and abject hope-crushing loneliness. Those small stabs of the outside world, shaking you out of magic box conceptual, can be seen as little lifelines by the designers, bringing us out of the world where everything seems so utterly insurmountable back to the real world, where things don't seem quite as bad in comparison. 

  

Of course, that is by no means the only style with which Japanese developers approach product placement. In Metal Gear Solid 3 you'll find many allusions to real brands among the tools you pick up, not least of which being Snake's favoured rations, his munch bars of Calorie Mate; a chronologically appropriate food item related to the role and world that character, as an American Green Beret, would have been part of. The Yakuza franchise too, smothers itself with brands and brand iconography in their wonderous depictions of various analogous Japanese districts. You'll find Sega Sammy branches, Don Quijote retail markets and innumerable in-print magazines and news rags stored in their isles. Yakuza even tends to feature real-life Japanese celebrities either in cameo roles or playing characters within or around their core stories, all just to sell the illusion that this is a Japan recognisable to the people who play. All in tune with a franchise quietly about celebrating modern Japanese culture.

Of course the Western world is no stranger to their own games seeped in a modern culture, but their approach to product placement is distinctly different. Look at Grand Theft Auto, a sardonic fun-house mirror thrown up across various aspects of America. Though the shape of the cities and people those games are set mimicking always bear some recognisable similarity to the real inspiration, you'll never find a real brand that has made the journey into the visual depiction unmolested. Instead you'll find parody after parody, brands depicted in a manner that is recognisable but slightly skewered to either fit a pun or just be legally distinct enough. 'Mustang' becomes 'Stallion', 'Ikea' becomes 'Krapea' (creative), 'Kawasaki' becomes 'Nagasaki', 'Sprite' becomes 'Sprunk'. (And there goes my appetite for lemonade.) And yet we don't see the world of GTA as an inferior depiction of a real-life location, to our sensibilities this all just makes sense.

It's so bizarrely common for Western games to conjure their own universe of similar sounding but crucially distinct corporate entities that I even see small scale indie games do it and I don't even think they know why. The amount of contemporary-setting indie games with their own version of Twitter and Instagram is so mind numbing that at this stage I'm actually more happy when the devs don't even bother and just reason neither company has the free time to sue their small studio over a literal nothing burger. And you can't tell me some part of you doesn't recoil everytime you watch a movie where a character has to look something up on the Internet and they scroll through a site that is the splitting image of Google but has a name like 'Goggle' or something equally as stupid. In some ways that sort of stuff knocks me out of the immersion more than the intentional product placement did.

At the end of the day I guess it all really comes down to the intention of the placement, which in turn informs the purpose of the set-up. If you go out to try and subconsciously get the audience to buy a Coke by placing that can in a scene with the logo conveniently turned in the direction of the camera, the contrived nature of that shot will shatter the otherwise carefully built moment. Litter the world with a sense of reality, using real brands as simply another means by which to convey that truth, and you'll have yourself a much more receptive audience to the brands present. Perhaps that is the key distinction between why the West intrinsically hates product placement and the East seems to love it. Of course, then I'm brought back to the Monster Energy in Death Stranding situation and it knocks me back out of understanding leaving me just asking 'why'. (I'd rather headbutt a Beached Thing than drink a Monster Energy myself...)

2PieceSnackbox Alternate covers

 Some rabbit-holes should remain unexplored...

Now, what exactly is an 'alternate cover' you might ask. Well, that is very simple within the context of gaming and even here; you see how most physical games come in your standard package of a plastic case with an image shoved into a sleeve? Well what if you changed that image? Similar to how the day-one edition of Mass Effect 3 featured a unique switchable sleeve that had Male Shepard on the front and FemShep on the inverse, except that was an official grift to encourage people to pick up the expensive early copies of that game. (Which I fell for: Hook, line and sinker.) What we're talking about today is a company that generates their very own image box art and sells it off for a neat profit for the benefit of people who are too lazy to just use a printer.

Now to be fair, this is quite a nice idea for a business model that I never really envisioned before. I mean think about it: high quality pieces of custom art work to slide into the plastic wallets of your favourite games, further exemplifying your adoration for the increasingly fading world of physical game resources. And to disparage my own point about being 'too lazy to use a printer', these alternative covers do come pre-stamped with all the studio and console logos that you would expect and even the back blurbs for some reason, even though I think those are the ugliest part of box covers; but it would seem that's just me. Now the further question we must ask ourselves is thus: Why on earth am I sitting here talking about this if it's just a nice and wholesome artist's outlet on EBay? We don't do wholesome here! Well... as you can guess it's not exactly wholesome...

I mean, not always. There have been times, fleeting though they may be, when the group have put together a piece of box art that isn't just an alternate image of a title character nabbed from promotional materials, but a genuinely visually appealing composite! Such as the image of the Sonic Mania gang plastered over the European cartridge cover for the original Sonic collection games. That's a great idea that looks genuinely fun and creative. Of course, the actual assets are still borrowed from here and there, but the creator mounted the ingenuity to bring these decades separated pieces of media together and smoosh them up onto a single cover. That's cool! And if they were doing just cool ideas like that, I probably wouldn't be shining a spotlight on them. Then again, if they were doing that I probably wouldn't have caught sight of one of their 'variation covers' out of the corner of my eye and do a double take so hard I nearly snapped my head clean off.

So, Resident Evil 3 Remake. A fine enough game. I was disappointed with the paired back zombie generation technology, but I understand the sacrifices that had to be made in order for the increased number of on-screen zombies. I wonder what our visionaries over at 2PieceSnackbox had in mind for changing up that boxart? Oh... OH... Yeah, I'm not posting that on my blog, you can look it up on your own. Yes... to describe what I've seen here would be perhaps a bit crass... I guess, it is the Jill Valentine character as modelled by Sasha Zotova, just like on the original cover, but this Jill is... well, let's just say that 3d model is not from the base game. In fact, I suspect that someone might have perused some of the darker, more libidinous, corners of the internet and procured an 'erotic' image to appeal to the lowest common denominator. And there the shoe drops.

If you were brave enough to put that on your search history, you'll likely have also noticed that this RE3 Remake was by no means the company's only foray into... 'coomer bait', to be frank. The Bayonetta cover replacement is just a lewd, the Resident Evil 8 cover appears to be a severely under-dressed Lady Dimitrescu without her signature hat or grey coloured skin, which is wrong on several levels, and worst of all- they've made a pre-emptive cover for the Resident Evil 4 Remake on Switch. Where do I start? RE4R hasn't been announced for Switch, and I'd be very surprised if that changed; it's labelled 'Resident Evil 4 V2' which isn't the naming convention of this new franchise of games at all, and the cover image is another lewd picture of Sasha Zotova's Jill! Excuse the heck out of me- since when did Jill Valentine feature in Resident Evil 4? Last I checked she goes AWOL in 'Code Veronica' and pops up again in 5! Yes, this is what I'm upset about for some reason, excuse me and my twisted priorities!

Now of course, it's probably a little unethical to go around capitalising on the sex-appeal of various scantily clad characters in order to sell print-jobs, probably about as morally dubious as it is to actually buy them. But you know what else it is? Asking for a lawsuit. I can't speak for Capcom and how they want to go about handling their properties, I don't even know if Capcom realises there is a world outside their studio doors considering how little they interact with any of their loyal fans in a one-on-one capacity or respond to community fan pleas. But 2PieceSnackbox did mess up. How, you ask? Well they got a little comfortable, rode the seas long enough to assume they would be unendingly docile, and released one of their lewd alternative covers for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild featuring a lewdified Zelda. (Let us please host a minute of silence for the soon-to-be-removed company.)

What were they possibly thinking! Are these people insane, stupid, or some unholy sludge-like mix of the two extremes? Nintendo would have gone after these idiots even if the artwork was tasteful, they'll probably hire a cartel hit squad to visit them for this violation upon the sanctity of their beloved characters. Nintendo do not allow for fan modifications upon their image, even in the most docile sense. Do you remember when Nintendo clamped down on some internal marketing streamers for daring to propose a 'Nuzzlocke' challenge stream, simply because the prospect of playing a Pokemon game not to the exact parameters that the designers intended offended the gathered executives to their very core? Now imagine if those same streamers proposed to do that in Sexy Misty and Ash Ketchup outfits? We would never have heard of their story because their missing posters would still be in circulation on milk cartons.

I'm all for guerrilla marketing techniques, and going places where your competitors won't in order to get ahead. But lewding the protagonists? That's kinda weird, first off, and it's not really needed. The guys who do this are capable of making some really fancy and well designed alternate covers, albeit usually by mixing about existing assets rather than making something wholly new but you have to work with what you've got, right? I'm just primarily surprised and impressed about another seedy and vaguely degenerate part of our little industry that I totally brushed by until very recently. I wonder how well this catches on in the future. Who knows, we may be able to one-day custom order a new cover for the Switch copy of Skyrim Anniversary Edition with the Imperial Dragon emboss replaced with the Royal Thomas The Tank Engine seal in it's place. (We can but dream of such a day.)

Sewer Diving

 NFT = Bad

Are you tired of this? I mean deeply, in your actual tissue and sinew, wrapped against your very soul, don't you feel a deep exasperation whenever the topic of Non-Fungible Tokens rears it's way into the news cycle? In the day it used to be the hip and trendy new buzzword, with the sceptics simply being behind-the-times relics shouting at windmills and waving a mournful fist at the unstoppable wave that is the future. But what are we now? I guess we're the green blades of grass among the fields of millions who stare on in laconic amusement at the squabbling squirrels that make up the modern NFT market. It's a badly kept secret that the entire industry is held-up by wash-trading, around which every new 'renewal' project that is meant to spark the world back into loving the NFT trend shapes up to be much the same as the relighting of the First Flame with Dark Souls' famous Kiln. Each rebirth bursts less and less until the final dwindling splutter signals a flame prolonged too long, ready and far too eager to finally die.

But don't tell that to the holders of the famous Moneky NFTs. One of the first and most successful grifts, Yuga labs managed to ride along the frontal wave of this 'new tech' for far longer than they really should have, considering the alleged origins behind their motivation and ideas. Bored Ape Yatch Club (to misquote and bastardised Tennyson) am become a name, for always grifting with a greedy heart, Much have they seen and known, scams, rug-pulls and shockingly blatant racist dog whistles, themselves not least but honoured of them all. As such, one would have thought they would cool off on the rhetoric and noise and maybe make a quick exit out the back door with all the millions secured. But in a way I guess they've grown too big now, haven't they? The Yuga labs team is well known and out there, at this point running with the millions would be an even bigger hassle than just sticking around and sucking the life out of the stragglers until they all fizzle up.

As with everyone else with their brains stuck on a 2021 loop, Yuga are in production of their own Metaverse nowhere project, resplendent with low-quality pitch conceptuals and endless stumbling propositions for interconnected weaving games. I still remember their 'Otherside' MMO project which, of course, led itself with a 'landsale' for in-game plots before ever discussing the related game people were supposedly buying said-deeds for. (Because apparently no one has ever heard of ArcheAge or the genuine space shortage that games which sell land always come up against. Or heck, how about real life? We have that problem there too!) That grift ended in heart break and wallet break to the tune of supposed millions. So yeah, Yuga definitely seem like the kind of company competent enough to keep spending capital and time begging to, wouldn't you say?

Which brings us to their first 'new idea' of 2023. An actual gaming event tied to the Bored Ape Brand that would tie together the key marketing pillars of irreverence, blockchain integration and love of video games all up in one blow-out limited time 'competition' with monetary prizes! (Although that is blockchain money, so take that for what little it's worth.) Yuga labs devised for it's audience a small competition based around their ability to compete in an- endless runner? (Hey, I guess everyone's gotta start somewhere, right? At least this game was playable.) And, in an effort to keep explanations as simple as possible, those who ran through the game and ended up getting a high score (actually I think the rules dictate rewards for any score above 0- so I guess everyone is kind of a winner to some degree) would be awarded an NFT of comparative value which they could then sell to... well, themselves I guess; because the pool of NFT investors is so incestuous at this point the stakeholders are beginning to develop webbed toes.

Of course you have to give Yuga Labs money in order to make money is this Monkey Jpeg dominated future of ours; and as such you are only allowed to join in on this game if you have a Bored Ape already or purchase a second-hand ticket off an ape owner. Or a mutant Ape holder. Of course, having a doggo attached to that ape also increases the relative value of the invitational ticket, a ticket which provides a bonus on the score you earn in the game. If that made any remote sense to you whatsoever, please contact me so you can take over writing this blog because relaying that just made me want to curl up and cry. The point of all this was to drum up hype again about the money making potential of blockchain gaming, a concept that has been laughed at and mocked consistently by just about half the world at this point. If Yuga could pull one successful event where it's supporters made some serious, news worthy, gains; why, that would be the lion roar rally cry this prospective industry needed to get off that ground floor slump!

So of course they screwed it up. One might charitably ask what the team were thinking when they tied success in a simple endless runner game to actual potential real-world reward- especially given that their 'game' was being marketed exclusively to Monkey NFT holders; people who are already in this industry looking for get-rich-quick opportunities for the smallest amount of investment possible. And the truth is that they didn't think, or at least they believed themselves shrewd denough to be able to pick apart the bad apples from the bunch. But what do you do when it's not the crop which is rotten, nor the stem, nor the yield, but the entire decrepit vineyard? What do you do then: studio named after a miniscule side character from Zelda that no one remembers?

People cheated and they cheated hard. Services were chucked about for bot runners to get the highest possible score, straight-up high-score manipulation with the (as of yet unconfirmed) accusation of internal corruption, and cheaters impersonating other players in order to get their scores pulled from the leaderboard. And you know what? Despite all that the 'Sewer Pass' grift made Yuga over 10 million dollars; because we live in The Bad Place, everybody. You can expect this lazy mess of an event to go on and spark up a trend of like-wise fund raising for every two-bit mess of a 'crypto video game' in a desperate bid to suckle off the remnants of Yuga's success, because for a sub-industry that cries about how 'innovative' and 'forward thinking' it is; these projects don't half love to ape each other. (Oh, look at that: I said 'Ape'. I didn't even mean to do that!)

Dookie Dash, as the hilarious, so-funny, I'm crying laughing, game was called: is now over and done with, and in it's wake the Yuga team have the profits and encouragement to push more similar events in their diseased little cesspit they call a community. My only personal solace in this dire circumstance is that the affected probably deserve it. I know, 'what a horrible thought to have', but if I can't laugh at the people with too much money on their hands sinking their entire identities into some already-relic of a movement then I'm just going to cry about the state of the world. At the very least let us all agree to do everything in our collective powers to keep news of this event away from anyone who works at Ubisoft, else the fate of the next Tom Clancy entry will be irrevocably sealed.

Hatred and love for our art

 Looking in the mirror.

Entertainment is art. Hardly the spiciest take I've ever made, but somehow still a topic that has inspired endless cauldrons of debate to froth over and spill into the gutters of discourse. Because "Well, how do we bother define what counts as entertainment" and "If video games are art, then doesn't that mean anything can be art? If I defecate in the middle of Norwich city Centre; is that a public arts display?" To which my unequivocal answer is yes. Public defecation is perhaps the most daring art piece imaginable, some might even go so far as to call it "incarceration worthy" and "patently illegal". But in those last moments that the manacles clang around your wrists and you feel the rough hands of the law shove you in the back seat of a police cab, you can taste those last gulps of free air vindicated in the fact that not even Leonardo Da Vinci had the courage to unabashedly bare his inner soul like you just did. What an absolute hero.

Where was I? Oh right, art! Everyone has an opinion on what constitutes art, but even beyond that you'll find myriads of conflicting opinions and consensuses on what within that exclusive club of accepted art is actually good. Sure, the absolute scale and majesty of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel has taken the breath away of artists for generations since it's completion, but you'll still find the old snob today who looks up that cloudless sky of god touching the hand of man and declares "Cor blimey, that's a bit gaudy; ain't it?" Such is the curse of art, subjectivity and objectivity weave about each other like the twin snakes of Asclepius, always battling and never quite meeting. You'll forever have supporters and detractors for your every move in life. But do you want to know who the harshest critics are? Ourselves.

Yes, just like this is a children's animated movie the greatest trial any artist must overcome is that poisonous black bile that churns inside of their own mind called 'self doubt'. Because 'doubt' is the mind killer or something. I, for one, can attest to being ruled by such fears in my every life, such to the extent that I've regularly tried to run from my art of smother it as much as possible. I never tell anyone that I'm a writer, knowing the expectation it carries, search for any job that would permit me to leave it behind and battle with the quality of my finished work every single day. But here I am, four years later, still sticking at it. Why? Well, because at this point it's the only thing that feels real to me anymore. All the world seems a blur and adrift, and only when I put finger to keyboard and see the magical type blink across a blank canvass can I properly breath easily with myself. To one point of self medication; I've yet to experience a total panic attack since this blog began! (So there's that.)

And I am by no means the harshest of self critics. Even famously throughout the various ages of creation, you'll hear legendary historical figures doomed to forever wallow in their own doubting self-pointed hatred. Vincent Van Gogh is such a famous example of this that Doctor Who had to come along and bring the guy into the future just to see how his work came to mean something. (That darn episode always makes me cry.) The legendary '27 club' is full of musical artists who took their own lives despite the powerful impact each would have on their chosen medium of love. It seems that in baring one's own heart outwardly, the artist is forever locked into the cyclical art of judging their own worth and esteem by the merit of their output. Or rather, how they choose to judge that merit through the warped lens of the mind's eye.

Hate flows so easily out of our own eyes for the things that which we create, probably because it's our own cursed hands we saw in the product of creation. Weaving the most beautiful tapestry together means nothing when our fingers remember the feel of every thread conjoined in the process, because we know that final product for the parts that made it. For me, what grants me the ability to overcome the 'creator's disgust' is the space of time. Divorcing myself from the process of creation and objectively judging the product of my own hand is the only way to truly reach it's merits and failures. Of course, then I discover that I misspelt 'enveloped' in the literal first paragraph, and the paranoia and self doubt just creeps back into my heart.

Love is another aspect of that which we make, for the opposite side of the coin is an inexorable twin of the equation. So much of creation in art is based on literally tearing out facets of ourselves, our emotion and personality, and laying it on display for the world to see. After that it can be difficult, horrific even; to play and plod with that part of you, even for the good of the story. Often times you might hear famously voices in the world of authorship gleefully compare the maiming of story characters with actual infanticide, and whilst I find that comparison mildly concerning for how often it's raised, the effect is not lost on me. It hurts to break what you love, but it hurts even more to do a disservice to what you love by refusing to break it. Either side of the equation, hate or pain, the receptive artist can often be left feeling genuinely pained.

Health among the world of artists is very often a difficult and tricky aspect to track, not least of all because of the 'mental pain' versus 'physical pain' divide present in the world. For a lot of authors, specifically, the struggle of mental anguish can quite often be the fuel that drives our passion, and as gauche as it sounds, sometimes our greatest muses can be the pits of our own deepest depression. I myself can attest to genuinely finding the desire to make notes whilst in the throes of actual agony, which might speak something of my own warped sensibilities more than the general state of author's everywhere but I can say I wasn't like this before I started writing. Dying for one's art is quite probably, in most situations, not really worth it upon analysis.

Bridging out to the absolute juggernauts of team artistry that are movies, TV shows and games- all largely rife with conflicting visions and competing egos, and that environment can become a focusing lens for all the most destructive tendencies of the artist. Of course, not everything about creating art is negative, it can't be. Many use creating art as a form of self-therapy, which is in fact the very reason why I myself got to writing this ludicrously large log of letters I label a blog. The trick comes, I think, in knowing how to balance the good consequences against the bad and tilt yourself in the right direction, which comes with a degree of introspection and self analysis. It's probably worth the effort, as the consequences for not checking in with yourself every now and then have been know to be a bit... grizzly.

Burn your expectations

 Kill them, if you have to

Expectations are a natural part of life. From the moment we're throw into that sick pool of consciousness abroad this hellish floating space rock, we're affixed with expectations and hopes that will systematically be stomped out of us and wringed dry as life proceeds to mock and disappoint us to greater and greater degrees until it ends with tragedy. (Hmm? I'm bringing down the mood, am I?) Whilst everyone has their own way of approaching the world around us, it's an unshakable fact that expectation will play some major role in practically every part of our lives. Whether you hope for the best and flitter on the sleeve of your heart, or assume the worst so that you'll never quite be disappointed. It's part of the human condition to anticipate what hides behind the next sunrise and prepare for that eventuality. As such, it's only fair from a marketing sense to exploit those expectations.

For that's what marketing really is at the end of the day; expectation manipulation. An effective advert will worm it's way not just into your mind but also your perception, either changing your inbuilt priorities to convince your mind that you need this advertised product, or arranging your own sense of happiness to manufacture some internal gaping maw that can only possible be filled by an X-product. One of the most famous exercises in marketing, "sell me this pen", hides it's secrets not in conjuring up some false cornucopia of magical application that said-pen is apparently capable of, but by ascertaining the intended client's supposed needs and warping those to a preferred reality within which a purchase of your pen is merely a formality. "How long have you been on the market for a new pen"- is the typically accepted first question in such an exchange.

When we approach the ideas of games and expectations, we play out this same dance once more with the face of the interactive medium. Hopes and perceptions piled onto of one another and balanced in a game of 'Jenga' where the higher you stack the more you win- which I guess is only really circumstantially like Jenga now I think about it. Pile them too high, however, and the consequence can be brutal; a total crash of marketing or overabundance, or maybe you'll just start telling fibs. We've seen from Cyberpunk to No Man's Sky to Fable how a great vision can be tainted by a skewered marketing cycle, and even great final products may still be hampered by the marketing scars still just too present. I still can't bring myself to actually go out and play Cyberpunk because I remember all of that fervour and chaos we were led into. Also, I am absolutely lacking the free time what with everything else going on in my life right now.

Yet what of the titles to which we hold no expectations but which pleasantly surprise us nonetheless? Despite coming to it more than a year after the fact, I had totally ignored all content on Death Stranding and was determined to treat it as neutrally as I could, ascertaining what I would and coming away with only a solid understanding of the game. I ended up totally loving Death Stranding for all of it's weird idiosyncrasies, without trying to match it up either to other games of the age or even previous Kojima works. (Which is nice, because Death Stranding's gunplay and stealth action is total pits next to 'The Phantom Pain') I also remember approaching Hollow Knight with a similar sense of "I have no idea what to expect but I'm going to take it as it comes." And being knocked for six with how brilliant that title was. Expectation is not, therefore, a necessary ingredient in a great game.

But what about a successful one? Because how often does the great simply balloon to the top of the pile purely by the merits of it's own quality? I mean it's happened, sure, but sparingly... more and more so with the proliferation of new titles and the accessibility of development tools. Doki Doki Literature Club pretty much blew up from reputation alone, before being carried on the backs of streamers to immortal super stardom. There was also that incredible Dragon Ball Z fan animation from last year which glittered with creative ingenuity. And that's... man I know there's other examples! I'm sure there are! But when it comes down to it, the gift of the gab and mastery over the intangible world of marketing really lacks a substitute.

The very idea of an 'expectation' can be a writhing snake cutting off the lifeblood of surprise as it is, simply by the way it taints that virginal experience when embarking on a game. Jump up to the first boss of Elden Ring (Yes, I know I invoke the name of Miyazaki too much, I can't help myself!) expecting the speed and deflection mastery of Sekiro to infrom the playstyle of that newer game and- well, you're going to be disappointed; aren't you? That's no fault of the game in question, but the baggage you've brought to the experience. I skimmed over the screenshots of 'Tower of Time' and bought it very much expecting an isometric CRPG and getting a puzzle RPG game. My bad for not paying more attention, but it also ruined by attempts to genuinely give the game the chance it deserved because, at the end of the day, it just wasn't what I expected.

So how exactly can we be rid of our expectations, if we want to revert to our apparent innocence of baby youth? Well, unfortunately that is patently impossible as living human beings because that is simply the lot the human condition. But perhaps the fairest possible way to approach a new game is with a light 'cleansing' of expectation. Similar to how you are taught for yoga to dispel all thoughts and focus in the moment, an exercise which does honestly nothing for me even if I can respect the intent within it. At it's heart a product of entertainment should be judged purely for the product that it is, and all the evils and woes swirling around it are mere inconsequential set-dressing laying outside of the magic box of the world of escapism. Consider the whirring engine of your console switching on to be synonymous with the blasting pistons of a full-speed Isekai truck roaring towards your face, and the experience thereafter a world all of it's own. Divorce yourself from the world around yourself.

However, we can't really do that; now can we? To this day my Father finds it deeply confusing how it is I can be such a rabid fan of the work of H.P. Lovecraft despite the fact that the man was a deeply pseudo-scientific racist who would probably have seen someone of my complexion and immediate heritage as a degenerative abomination of phenology. Some can switch off like that, others just can't. And I won't pretend I still don't turn up my nose and sniff huffily everytime a well-known game agency commits the sin of reviewing a modern sports game with a largely favourable score, further propagating the poisoning of our industry. Objectivity is an ideal, and a goal to strive for, but just as world peace and a satisfied mind are ephemeral phantoms forever dancing out our grip, we can only strive to be the viewers that we want to be, and to give everything and one the chance deserved.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' Review

Hesitation is defeat

The prophecy has spoken. FromSoftware released Elden Ring which means that I had to, given the curse of being a guy always one game behind the times, rock up to Sekiro at some point; the only Souls game within the franchise to take a unique fundamentally story centric approach to the formula of the Souls-like whilst still keeping the core gameplay loop we've come to love with this franchise. Coming into it, I was expecting to get more of an experience akin to Ninja Gaiden, and ultimately I do think the game was kind of a mass-up collaboration between several conceptuals to deliver a Souls game both very familiar yet still distinct from what we've come to know. And in terms of Souls games having the reputation of being some of the 'hardest games to complete'- Sekiro is sometimes considered the single hardest because of it's distinctions. I have some thoughts on that I'll touch on at the end.

The composite of a Souls-like game is becoming quite whittled down given the rise in similar style games recently, as such we can define the subgenre thusly: A game wherein death is tied to some sort of punishment mechanic, which is usually recoverable. Yeah, that's pretty much the most we can nail these style of games down to at this point. Although if we're to compare with the grandfather's of 'Dark Souls' and 'Demon Souls', Sekiro naturally has a lot more in common them than mere happenstance of a single shared idea. Sekiro borrows the limited healing items idea from Demon Souls, Bloodbourne and Dark Souls 2, but intermingles that with the more static 'improvable and refillable healing items' concept from Dark Souls 1 and 3. Sekiro also features a non-linear world that is defined by routes, although given the new and unique traversal methods of Sekiro, jumping, climbing and the grapple hook, you'll find the lines of those routes softer than they've been in any other Souls-like up until now. Also, boss design is one of the key-most pillars of design and still the vast highlight of the gameplay experience; although the players relationship with those fights is fundamentally altered, again, within the peculiarities that only Sekiro boasts.

To start, Sekiro is the first Souls like game to really introduce itself in formal terms, not just with an esoteric intro cinematic designed to lay out the basics of the world in as vague terms as possible (Thank you, Dark Souls franchise for setting that precedent). For Sekiro we instead have an entire prologue intro section presented to explicitly lay out the important figures of the world of Ashina, the stakes at play with the dangers for Sekiro and the motivation of protecting the Divine Heir. Of course this is standard for a typical narrative, but very atypical for FromSoftware's previous games like Dark Souls. Previously FromSoftware revelled in titles where the exploration of the player's very surroundings is at the heart of the narrative experience, even if that isn't always mechanically obvious. (Which is why a lot of people barrel through those games with no idea what the main plotline even was) But by heading on a more traditional path, Sekiro makes it's story much more accessible to the casual observer.

This approach extends to Sekiro's genre-unique but industry-traditional approach to adventure game action. You no longer play a custom created RPG pawn built to the fighting standards of your whims or a list of archetypes. There is no 'spending 5 hours re-specing your desiccated hero to use magic because The Nameless King just won't die' there is the relatively static character of the Wolf and later the player-dictated set of tools he picks up and uses in his journey. Of course, narratively that does mean the man, later crowned 'Sekiro', has some more immediately noticeable stakes in the unfolding events in and around Ashina- but don't mistake this for a character driven protagonist focused drama plot: at it's heart you're still playing a Souls game, just one with marginally clearly and laid out plot parameters, which some might like. Personally, I'm a fan of exploring with a fine-tooth comb through an intricately laid out procession of in-universe clues uncovering the reality of the explored area, but then Sekiro's approach to it's world and characters were designed with enough 'uniqueness' to draw my care and immersion anyway, I suppose.

Because everyone who plays Sekiro adopts the same shoes as the One-Armed-Wolf, that means every player is going to have to get intimately familiar with the new sword combat which is the spine of all combat in Sekiro. This is fortuitous given that this combat is perhaps one of the most masterfully designed that FromSoftware, or any sword-focused game for that matter, has ever come up with. The key to Sekiro swordplay is speed and relentlessness wherein "Hesitation is death", to quoth the great Lord Isshin: Glock Saint. When striking, the player and enemy are beholden to two bars, their health and posture. Health is pretty self explanatory with the only change-up being the inclusion of 'deathblows' which act as additional health bars (and switch-up points for Boss attack Stages in the later game) but 'Posture' is where the genius lies. Acting like Stamina, posture builds up whenever an attack is deflected and releases slowly when not attacking or quickly when the guard is dropped altogether. If the posture bar should ever fill entirely, either the player loses their guard entirely for several crucial seconds, or the enemy is rendered vulnerable to a 'deathblow' attack that instantly drains the current health bar no matter where it is currently at; so you can see the appeal to deplete posture bars.

As such, Sekiro is designed around the types of encounters where the player needs to be attacking the enemy constantly, meeting each attack with a counter instead of backing off, in order to pile up that posture bar and hit a deathblow. As even enemy deflections add to the posture meter, no landed attack feels wasted and the advantage needs to always be pressed in a tense dance of 'question' and 'response' speed striking. But the health bar is no silent partner to this dance. Just as one might imagine from real injuries, the amount of health that either fighter has left in their current bar is directly correlated to the speed at which posture regenerates, meaning that if you've pressed the advantage and managed to sneak in a few nicks and cuts here and there, you actually can back off for a bit without watching your posture-bar progress vanish entirely. Of course; the same will happen to you, so keep on top of that health bar!

However what makes Sekiro a Souls game isn't just it's combat. (In that regard Sekiro actually lacks a traditional stamina bar system, which is godsend for sprinting about as much as you want and whacking like a lunatic.) It's the death system, and as the title might imply; Sekiro has some... interesting ideas here. As I explained with the 'deathblow' mechanic, although Sekiro can't be one-hit killed by any attack specifically, he does technically own multiple health bars thanks to the 'die twice' mechanic. Everytime you die, the player has the option to expend a 'deathblow' counter on a revive so they can get back up, with half their health, in about a 30 second grace period. (Wait any longer and you die for good and have to respawn at an idol.) This really works out as more of a 'last gasp' mechanic more than anything else, because you can't really surprise this AI by getting back up and slashing them from behind, aggro lasts too long for that.

Also Deathblow counters vary from valuable to frivolous, the basic type of counter is refilled everytime you rest at a shrine, the secondary counter is only refilled after you've slain a crazy amount of enemies. And even then, after you die for the first time you need to unlock the right to use a second token by either killing an enemy or hitting a deathblow on a boss; making it not just three extra health bars you can call on to win any fight. I was slightly worried the 'DieTwice' mechanic would turn out to be an 'auto win' button like Nioh's ultimate states (in the early game) but of course FromSoftware are characteristically discerning with their design. Ultimately, these death counters allow the player to experiment with getting killed checking out some minibosses moveset whilst not robbing the actual life-or-death stakes of reviving for the second time at a crucial moment in a climatic boss fight. But what about if you actually do let yourself die for good? What are the consequences from here in order to fully fulfil the 'Souls-like' mandate?

Well there's actually a gameplay consequence and a narrative consequence this time around. As it turns out, fully dying and coming back has the potential to inflict NPCs with a 'Dragonrot' plague that renders them into fits of coughing and can actually pause some questlines. No one can actually die from this Dragonrot, however, so you don't need to fret about how many times Lady Butterfly is turning you into a pin cushion. Within gameplay, however, death is a bit more brutal. In Sekiro you can expect to lose half of all your money and XP perk point progress with every death, which is about as eye-watering as it sounds. There are ways around this, filling an XP bar grants a perk point which is essentially 'banked' and cannot be taken away, and you can buy money pouches and bags to 'store' your gold away in the event of death. But sooner or later you're going to stumble into a surprise fog gate arena against a boss you weren't ready for and thus end up losing something valuable. Unless the game's 'Unseen Aid' random percentage save chance procs; but don't worry about that: It never procs when you need it to. (30% rate, my ass...)

Ah, but we briefly touched on Perk points, did we not? Another new concept for the Souls-like team. Perk Points work in your typical RPG tree of skills only with many of the unlockable abilities being slot-able special abilities (Arts), some of which have some devastating punishment potential in combat. These slot alongside the 'Prosthetic arm' upgrade mechanic, more money and material based, which slots special 'shinobi tools' that Sekiro can deploy. A few of which, when used correctly, have the potential to totally trivialise the right fights. So there's your 'magic path' for those who say that Sekiro has no combat or gameplay options, which is what makes it so unrelentingly difficult. It absolutely does, you just need to pay more attention to the tools it gives you. Of course, there are consumables on top of that- and new to FromSoftware are mini bosses designed to be nearly invulnerable unless attacked whilst under the effect of  a rare consumable item. (Imagine Dark Souls 1 Phantoms, but as the bosses of their area.) This is perhaps the one design decision I think is actual bunk by FromSoftware and was regularly upset by. (At least make Divine Confetti drop more often if you're going to do that!)

Speaking of 'options' did I mention the game has stealth? It's not the greatest stealth system you've ever encountered, but it does permit for a single Deathblow from a stealth attack- even on bosses if you can get around them unseen! This opens up some unique approach concepts with some of the more difficult bosses, wherein you can zip around the battlefield before alerting the big boss, taking out their trash mobs, opening up the chance to start the fight with a major blow instantly eliminating one of the boss' health bars. Juzou the Drunkard is a great example of a mini-boss where you can take this approach, which can end up turning a painful slog into something akin to a puzzle stealth hybrid gameplay moment. Although these alternative routes are only possible in certain free-form locations- FromSoftware would never so much as consider giving you the chance to cheapshot one of their carefully crafted major bosses.

Which brings us around to the sparkling jewel of any Souls game; the boss battles. FromSoftware are largely considered the kings of boss fights and it's no idle crown that they bear, Sekiro's bosses feature some of the most interesting and creative designs that their studio have ever produced, and I think that is because of FromSoftware's approach to a largely set-in-stone protagonist. Unlike with other Souls games where FromSoftware gives you the mould to make a protagonist in whatever image you so choose, requiring the gameplay design team to create bosses that can theoretically be taken down by any playstyle with enough dedication and elbow grease- Sekiro's bosses are tailor-made to challenge the player's specific selection of abilities, opening up the team to focus on creatively stretching mechanics and pure unbridled spectacle. 

Battling Lady Butterfly in a burning temple which gradually catches more fire as the fight grows more intense is a sublime image, as is the dreamy cloud-top duel with a literal Chinese Dragon later on. But some of the most memorable fights can be those that don't even play out as you'd expect, such as the Horse mounted soldier who plays more like a classic Souls boss simply because of his sweeping attacks and movement patterns that just don't provide enough substantive windows of opportunity to wail on his posture bar. Or even the Armoured Knight who is impervious to all damage, which leaves you having to figure out how to overcome his challenge by paying attention to how your attacks actually do affect him. And if we're talking pure amazing set-pieces, does it get any more grand than the pale albino snake who stalks you throughout the game in several moments of 'cat and mouse' before you can finally get your own back?

Of course, there are some hang-ups in the boss department. For me, the repetition of some bosses really started to grate, specially the more challenging ones. The Guardian Ape makes for a spectacular, and frustrating, display during the first fight, but proceeding battles take place in less apt and cramped arenas. Even though he was a miniboss, the Shichimen Warrior fights were mostly utterly asinine in their placements, with the boss often being placed in odd location arenas where you're inevitably going to suffer from an attack made through a solid piece of environment. And the less said about the Headless the better. Screw the Headless. Still, then you get a breath-taking battle like the Demon of Hate and all the annoying points so seem to fade away and you're right back in the heat of an amazing Souls-style showdown. Being the David to a giant, burning, Goliath wondering how in the hell you're going to slingshot this one!

The world of Sekiro is itself another wonder of FromSoftware design, a Sengoku period fort set in the snowy hills that unfurls out into a lavish mountainous valley in one direction, a poisonous swamp in another (of course) and even the tops of the heavens nearer to the end. Of all the worlds we've seen From depict, Ashina has to be one of the least decrepit and dying, as rather than picking through the rotted corpse of a kingdom past it's glory you're traversing a fort teetering on the edge of an explosive collapse that you will be there to see. And of course, this world is populated with a mixture of period-themed humanoids sometimes with twisted and elongated proportions and straight fantastical creatures dotting the higher paths. Actually, I think Sekiro might have the most human swathe of enemies that the Souls franchise has ever seen up until now.

If there's one disappointment I have with the world, it's the severly underserved plot device of memory exploration. Once again we have a Souls game where one section is mired in a deeply unclear method of time travel or memory recovery (See Dark Souls III and II and the DLC for I) only this time I felt a bit cheated by the potential. My belief was that this was going to serve a neat way to explore the history of the various founders of Ashina, but as it turns out the entire section I witnessed was merely a one-off optional area purely for the benefit of Sekiro and his inexplicably spotty memory of the night where everything started going wrong. I understand you get to go back there under some very specific circumstances for the late game, but I just wish there was a little more done with that plot device.

Other than that I found the narrative of Sekiro surprising conventional and straight-forward for a FromSoftware game, albeit peppered with curious elements of world building here and there, and not all of it I can say I properly absorbed. I figured out some of the secrets hidden in backstories, but beyond that some of the more obvious story elements, such as who the Ministry even are, eluded me. The only point at which the game did a typical Miyazaki and left me feeling utterly bewildered was the final encounter. Firstly chucking a brand new McGuffin in the final encounter is a bit cheap; (I know it was referenced in one throw-away side document, but for the significance it played in the ending, that final 'tool' could have done with a bit more explanation) and what is done with that McGuffin is... I'll be honest I think it makes no sense whatsoever. The very reason for the final boss (of the normal ending) being the final boss makes no sense to me. I've read countless superstitions and fan theories, but the base game didn't do it's job in justifying that story move, which is kind of a strange note to end your narrative on if you ask me.

Finally, and though it's not relevant to understand for this review so much, I want to talk about the final boss. (Of every route apart from the bad ending. Because this game actually features consequential ending selection, surprise surprise!) I cannot, in good conscience, sanction a finale in which you are forced to fight a preliminary boss before the final boss every time you die. I understand the intention of reinforcing mastery, but dammit I need to learn move patterns. Move patterns make up the entire rhythm of a Souls game, especially for Sekiro; but as if to attack that specific subset of players Miyasaki decided "No- give them a pre-boss to trip them up." That final encounter wouldn't have been nearly as frustrating if I was focusing on the actual final villain.

Summary

Sekiro is considered the hardest Souls game for a few reasons, the manner in which it side-steps a lot of the core rules and movement lessons taught by the franchise and the fact that you can't just go off and grind to 'out level' the problem. There's one route to increased strength, and it's the critical path. But I actually find that tailor built balance to be the reinforcement I needed to stick out any challenge in the game. I was never left feeling totally helpless, because I knew I was supposed to be able to beat whatever foe I had wherever I was. Which of course meant I had to put my trust in the designing talents over at FromSoftware; but if one video game company has earnt the benefit of the doubt, it's them. And even when the game was at it's most tough, the fun of throwing about that robust and masterful combat system made even the most bitter failures fun.

In it's length Sekiro seems to expend every clever idea you could picture with the toolset available, leaving no ability under served or untested as you topple one creative obstacle after another. I think the world was very solid in it's Japanese fantasy whilst remaining staunchly grounded in that dour world-at-the-precipice style that Miyazaki loves, and the story which spurs us through that world is entirely serviceable. And after finishing the game, once again, I was left breathless in the glory of a game which equals up to another firm masterpiece under the belt of the FromSoftware team. In fact, I would consider this perhaps one of the most accessible FromSoftware games for it's relative sub-genre peculiarities, which makes it an easy recommend even for people just curious about Souls-likes trying to get into the spirit of the genre. It won't be an easy play, but it won't leave you feeling isolated or lost either. Which means that I'm going to come around to a pretty solid A+ Grade on my arbitrary grading system, brought just short of a legendary rank by my own personal hold ups with certain decisions made. Although I wouldn't at all be surprised if others consider it their best in the franchise, because as a robust game Sekiro really is just that good. Honestly, I came away slightly bummed out there was never any post-launch-DLC; guess I've got to wait for another 10 years until FromSoftware come back around to sequel this spectacular game.