Games Xbox should bring to PS5 or Switch, unless they're cowards.
Did you hear the news!? Xbox is probably bringing some of their previously exclusive games to PS5 and/or Switch and this will almost certainly bring about the end of humanity as a species.
But the games that have been rumored so far; Hi Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Pentiment, are boring. Those are lame. Worst of all, those make total sense and are probably the smart choices for games to bring to competing consoles.
Where are the wild swings? Where are the bombshells? Where are the games that make the fanboys seethe?
I don't work for Xbox, but if I did, here's a list of games I would recommend Xbox bring to PS5 and/or Switch to make infinite money:
3D Pinball for Windows - Space Cadet
Literally the best prepackaged pinball game for Windows of all time. Apparently the license is in all kinds of legal hell, but imagine the crowd popping for the reveal of this classic coming to PS5 at The Game Awards. 15 minute standing ovation, minimum.
Windows Phone
Despite Apple and Android having basically the entire market share of the cell phone space, NO ONE has the market share of cell phones on video game consoles! Imagine, if you will, Microsoft announces the return of Windows Phone not just on a new handheld Xbox device, but on the Nintendo Switch and PS5 too. It's an untapped market!
Microsoft Excel 2
It's been 36 years since Excel came out and fans are still waiting for a sequel. What better way to have a sequel for one of the most used programs of all time to reach more people than by making it multi-platform? Update it with new graphics, a new roguelike mode, and crossover skins with Halo and 3D Pinball for Windows - Space Cadet. Give the people what they want.
Xbox Games with Gold
Ok, so Sony and Nintendo have made it abundantly clear that they won't allow Game Pass on their consoles. Fine. That's fair. That's their choice. So offer them the next best thing: bring back Xbox Games with Gold, exclusively for PS5 and Switch. No one would see it coming! $5 a month from PS5 and Switch users in exchange for games players have literally never heard of. It's a STEAL of a deal.
So there you have it. Xbox is looking for the treasure map to a hidden treasure, and I've drawn a big red X on the map. Or maybe a green X because that's their whole thing. Yeah. Yeah I drew a green X.
After traveling through the grasslands for weeks, Pop decided they would settle here. There were just enough trees and rocky outcrops nearby to get them started on building the perfect place to live.
Pop set them up with the essentials. A crafting table, a campfire, a Pal Box.
After punching a couple of trees with his fists, Pop built a simple house out of wood in a matter of seconds. The pieces just snapped into place. “It's beautiful,” Mom said. “Our new home.” Soon enough, Pop had tools to make harvesting resources less time consuming.
Lorna couldn't believe all the animals roaming around. Pop told her they were called Pals. She saw Lamball and Cattiva and Chikipi wandering around. In the distance she saw a huge green elephant called a Mammorest.
Marie said “They look like pokem-” “They are PALS,” Pop interrupted sternly. “They are NOTHING like Pokemon and I don't want to EVER hear you say that word again.” Marie never said “Pokemon” again.
Every morning Pop would craft capture spheres at the workbench, every afternoon he would venture further and further from home, and every evening he would bring home new Pals. Lorna and Marie wanted to give them names, but Pop said they couldn't because they lived on an Xbox server farm. Lorna didn't know what that meant.
Lorna’s favorite Pal was a Foxsparks. She was afraid of being burned by its fire, but it was cute. The flames on its tail provided light at night. Lorna was afraid of the night. It was so dark and cold and she could barely see any of the Pals roaming around.
Lorna and Marie loved following the Pals around as they did their daily chores. If any of them were looking a little sad, Lorna would feed them berries, which perked them up. Marie would try carrying rocks to the storage chest, but they were too heavy. “Leave the rocks to the Lamball, dear,” Mom yelled out to Marie.
One day, Lorna and Marie heard a horn blow in the distance. “It's the Rayne Syndicate!” Pop said in a panic. “Lorna, Marie, go inside and stay there.”
Pop grabbed his bat and Lorna and Marie hid under their blankets. They were afraid. They heard gunshots, cries from Pals, and yelling. Eventually Pop came back inside. “You can come out. We fought them off,” he said. “Three of them were clipping on the ground and couldn't move. Not much of a threat.”
Lorna was shocked when she saw multiple bodies strewn about. “Don’t worry,” Pop said. “They'll disappear after enough time passes.”
Lorna felt like this place was going to be the perfect place to live. The trees and rocks reappeared every day, so they had an unlimited supply of resources. The number rod Pals seemed limitless too. Lorna was happy here.
Don't let being a coward stop you from playing Alan Wake 2!
Hey there! Are you a coward? Are you a little scaredy cat? A little baby bitch boy afraid to play scary video games?
I used to be, but now I'm Brave, all thanks to Alan Wake 2!
Hi. My name’s Tommy. You may not know me, but I play video games and then write about them as Experimental Build. I'm here to tell you that even if you're a coward like me, YOU too can play Alan Wake 2!
Here’s me before I played Alan Wake 2:
Jesus Christ, look at this guy. You can just tell he's a baby when it comes to scary games. He's got that look in his eyes that says “I couldn't play Fortnite after they added zombies that one time because the jump scares were too much for my weak, little heart.”
And it's true! I’ve always been a coward when it comes to video games! I struggled through parts of Batman: Arkham Asylum because some of the areas were too dark! The morgue section nearly made me quit the game!
The moment I heard the words “Alan Wake 2 will be our first survival horror game,” from Remedy in their announcement of the game, I was out. Survival horror is an impossibility for me.
But, son of a bitch, EVERYONE wouldn't shut up about how great it was! It was endless praise! “The greatest video game moment of the last decade,” people said! I had to experience it for myself.
Reader, I'm so glad I grew the courage to play the masterpiece that is Alan Wake 2.
Here's a picture of me after playing Alan Wake 2:
Holy shit. He’s growing a beard now! He’s so fucking cool. Look at that confidence just dripping from those icy blue eyes. This dude ain't afraid of NOTHING.
So what happened? How did I go from being a tiny little baby to a confident manly man?
The secret, dear reader, is that Alan Wake 2 is NOT that scary! …If you play on the easiest difficulty mode like I did.
Alan Wake 2 doesn't have traditional survival horror chase sequences. It doesn't have those moments where you have to hide from or run away from something chasing you.
You play as two characters with guns and a flashlight. On the easiest difficulty mode, all it takes is one flashlight blast and a couple of bullets and most enemies go down! YOU HAVE THE POWER OVER THE MONSTERS.
You’re not trapped in the Dark Place with them, THEY’RE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH YOU.
But what about inventory scarcity? What about running out of ammo? HA! On the easiest difficulty you are just SWIMMING in guns, bullets, and flashlight batteries.
“But Tommy,” I hear you say in your quiet, timid voice, “What about jump scares? They make me scream and then everyone laughs at me.”
Yes, there are jump scares that take up the entire screen and make a scary sound and a few instances of enemies bursting through walls to attack you, but 95% of enemies announce their presence with a voice line from dozens of feet away! They're practically saying, “Hey Tommy! Come over here and shoot me in the face!”
The only thing I was screaming while playing Alan Wake 2 was “I’M NOT AFRAID ANYMORE!” like Kevin McCallister at the end of Home Alone.
Listen, I'm a changed man after playing Alan Wake 2, a better man. Just ask my wife.
“Tommy is a changed man since playing Alan Wake 2,” she said. “He's a better man.”
Don't let your fears ruin your dreams of playing Alan Wake 2! As long as you play on the easiest difficulty, you can be just like me! Be strong! Be Brave! I believe in you! Go forth and experience the masterpiece!
Wait, where were the survival horror elements in Alan Wake 2?
I kept my distance from Alan Wake 2 the moment it was revealed as a survival horror game by Remedy in a reveal post about the game in May 2023. “Alan Wake 2 is our first survival horror game,” they said explicitly. I was instantly out. Survival horror games are just not for me.
I am an absolute coward when it comes to scary games. My problem is that I can't separate myself from the character. The creatures attacking the protagonist feel like they're attacking me. It's not just the playable character walking through a decrepit, spooky building, it's me walking through the decrepit, spooky building. With my limited time to play games, why would spend that time playing something that is going to SCARE ME?
What may surprise you, though, is that I LOVE watching other people play scary games on YouTube. Five Nights at Freddie's, the Amnesia series, P.T., I can't get enough of watching people play scary games. So despite me having not played basically any survival horror game, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what they are, why people like them, and what makes some good and others bad.
Unfortunately, after people got around to playing Alan Wake 2, they couldn't shut up about how amazing it was. I played through and loved Control, and I was itching to see what direction Remedy would take their new connected universe in. More than anything, I wanted to experience what everyone else was experiencing.
So I swallowed my fears and played through Alan Wake 2.
And you know what? It was a FANTASTIC video game! I genuinely loved it. The narrative, the world, the mechanics, the gunplay, on and on and on. Remedy created a superb video game and I am so, so happy I got to experience it.
But…it was in no way, shape, or form a survival horror game. Was it a horror game? Absolutely. But there weren't any mechanics that I attribute to being a survival horror game.
In fact, I have a conspiracy theory that the game originally had more survival horror elements, but they were cut at some point in development.
First, let me discuss some elements that make a game fit into the survival horror genre that Alan Wake 2 didn't have.
There needs to be, well, survival. There should be something chasing the player. The player may need to hide or evade the chaser. The player needs to feel overwhelmed, like they are on the verge of dying.
In comparison to other video games that generally give the player a sense of power over the environment and enemies, survival horror games excel at making the player feel like they are being hunted, like they have no power to stop what wants to hurt them.
Not once in Alan Wake 2 did I feel hunted. Not once did I feel like I was struggling to survive. Was I scared while playing? Absolutely! I screamed multiple times. I had to give myself a pep talk to walk into scary areas. But those were because of horror elements, not survival horror elements.
At first, I thought that maybe it was because I was playing on the easiest difficulty. I wasn't playing Alan Wake 2 for the challenge, I was playing for the narrative. And thankfully, the easiest difficulty removed almost all challenge from the game.
For most enemies in the game, I would shine my flashlight at them to weaken them, then pop them with a headshot or a couple of body shots and they'd go down. There were sturdier enemies that required more ammo to take down and I almost completely exhausted my ammo against a couple of bosses, but I almost never felt like I was struggling to survive. I was overflowing with ammo and batteries.
Not once did I ever have to hide from an enemy. There were two instances in the game where you are required to run from an enemy, more a force of nature than a singular enemy, but it's more of a bombastic scene where your attention is drawn to the destruction in front of you instead of the force chasing you from behind.
So after I beat the game, I went and found an Alan Wake 2 playlist from one of my favorite YouTubers. He played the game on a difficulty that certainly wasn't the easiest. I wanted to see if he faced more survival horror elements.
Unsurprisingly, the enemies took almost three times as much ammo to take down. But again, I wouldn't describe anything in his gameplay as survival horror. He was never hiding and never running from something. There were times where he would go behind cover to heal or reload, but he was always the one in power over the enemies.
Which leads me to my conspiracy theory: I theorize that Alan Wake 2 had more survival horror elements, but they were removed.
There are multiple area layouts that would be conducive to running and hiding, but there just…isn't any running or hiding in the game.
The best example of this is in a basement under a retirement home where you are sent in order to restart a generator. It is a super spooky location!
It's flooded almost up to your waist, and there's constant sounds and groans that could be something, anything, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The first thing you see after walking down the stairs is a corpse with an axe in it!
As I slowly explored the basement, looking for the fastest way to get to the generator and get the heck out of there, I memorized the layout so I could run away from whatever would chase me. There was a crawl space between rooms that I was confident something would chase me through or I would need to use to escape a fiend of some kind. The generator was, of course, in the back of the basement. After starting it, and creating a bunch of noise, I had to make my way all the way back to the beginning.
The sounds and groans were getting louder and more extreme. My fear was escalating. As if she could sense my distress, Saga says “keep it together, Saga” to herself. And then…I made it to the stairs and exited. I was fairly confident I had somehow accidentally dodged whatever was going to chase me, so I did a quick Google search to see what was in the basement.
Nothing. There are zero enemies in that basement. Zero threats. Nothing can hurt you in that basement. Again, yes, the horror was absolutely there and prevalent. But survival horror? No sir-e.
Much later on, Alan is stuck in a looping room of decent size. The rooms have doors that are sometimes locked and sometimes unlocked. A large cabinet of films sits near the middle of the room, perfectly placed to have a runaround with an enemy. My mind raced with the idea of trying to find the unlocked door while being chased by something. Alan even says “I'm not alone in here” when he first hears a sound.
Once again, there is no danger in this room. No threats. Just the foreboding feeling of an imminent attack.
There were so many of these instances in the game! The layouts of these locations seem like they could have been custom built with the purpose of running from and/or dodging enemies chasing you. There are multiple instances of dialogue or manuscript pages proclaiming that the Dark Presence is hunting Alan.
But this never happens! It's bizarre.
Personally, I think the game is better for NOT being a survival horror game, but it's weird that Remedy was so insistent that it was going to be their first survival horror game. I would not be shocked to learn that between that announcement in May and the release in October, survival horror elements were stripped from the game.
Fortunately, if that's truly the case, it was the right move to make. Alan Wake 2 is an achievement in video game narrative that everyone should experience. If you were pushed away from Alan Wake 2 due to it being described as survival horror, I ask you to push through your fears! If I can do it, you can too! It's well worth your time.
Chapter 4 of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is bafflingly terrible
For Christmas my wife got me a copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for the GameCube that she got me for my birthday in October. 2023 was a big GameCube year for me!
The Thousand Year Door always stood out in my memory as one of my all-time favorite GameCube games, but also one of my biggest regrets. I never actually beat it when I was younger.
But now, the time has finally come! Over the last few weeks I’ve been slowly working my way through the game. My first dozen or so hours were an absolute joy of a nostalgia trip. The characters, the humor, the story, the surprisingly deep turn-based combat, it all holds up!
When it came time to start Chapter 4 of the game, my memory of the events and story were suddenly fuzzy. I couldn't remember almost anything from this chapter. How exciting!
I then completed Chapter 4 last week, aaaaaand what the hell was that? Like, I wasn't expecting Final Fantasy levels of depth and storytelling, but even when compared to previous chapters in the game, Chapter 4 is surprisingly terrible. It's baffling.
Here, first let me briefly describe the first three chapters of the game to give you a sense of what the chapters are like.
Chapter 1: Mario embarks on a journey to collect the seven Crystal Stars. He travels to Petalburg where he learns of a dragon, Hooktail, nearby that is possibly hoarding a Crystal Star. You meet a koopa named Koops whose dad went to fight Hooktail and never returned. Mario and Koops go to the castle, solve the puzzles inside, beat up a collection of enemies, and defeat Hooktail! Koops’ dad emerges from the slain beast's stomach and gives Mario the Crystal Star that he had found inside.
Chapter 2: Mario and gang travel to Boggly Woods, a monochrome shaded forest, in search of a Crystal Star in the Great Tree. Inside the tree, they meet a tribe of little bug creatures called Punies who have been taken prisoner by the game's overarching bad guys, the X-Nauts. Mario frees the Punies and travels through the tree, solving puzzles that require up to 100 Punies to follow you around, before defeating the big bad X-Naut and claiming the Crystal Star.
Chapter 3: Mario and crew travel to Glitzville, an arena in the sky. This arena is home to a wrestling federation, and the championship belt holds a Crystal Star! Mario joins the federation under the name The Great Gonzalez and works his way up the ranks until he can take on the champion and claim the Crystal Star Championship Belt. After defeating the champion, he discovers the star is a fake! The federation's promoter was keeping the Crystal Star hidden under the ring, so he could use the power for himself! Mario kicks his butt and claims the Crystal Star.
These are good stories! Twists and turns, unique locales, and interesting characters.
Chapter 4 flat out falls well short of those first chapters. Let me take you on a journey through Chapter 4 from beginning to end to show you what I mean.
Mario and friends learn that the next Crystal Star is at a place called Twilight Town. Through exploring the hub area of Rogueport, the crew finds the pipe that leads directly to Twilight Town. Unfortunately, whenever Mario jumps into the pipe, it spits him back out! What a dilemma!
Mario and colleagues then learn that there’s a citizen of Twilight Town, named Darkly, in Rogueport! They seek him out to learn what the secret to using the pipe to Twilight Town is. …Friend, I would like you to guess what is needed to allow Mario to use the pipe to Twilight Town. If I gave you 100 guesses, you would never guess it.
Darkly tells Mario that he needs his name written on his clothes. No one can enter or leave Twilight Town without their name written on them. So Darkly takes out a pen and writes Mario’s name on his overalls.
What.
Ok, whatever. Anyways, Mario successfully travels through the pipe and arrives at Twilight Town to discover disaster! Half the townsfolk have been transformed into pigs! There’s a monster in a belltower at nearby Creepy Steeple that rings the bell at random intervals, which turns the Twilight Town denizens into pigs. The horror!
The group decides to head to Creepy Steeple via a forest path to stop the monster and fix the Townspeople. They’re also told of a star-shaped rock rumored to be in the Steeple, so, you know, two birds one stone.
*The trek through the forest consists of four connected paths with up to seven enemy encounters. That adds up to around 21 enemies to face in total. Three of these enemy encounters are all but unavoidable. These unavoidable encounters are against Crazee Dayzees, an annoying flower enemy that has the ability to put Mario and/or his companions to sleep for multiple turns, leading to multiple turns of taking damage. Things can get out of hand if you don't play it smart or run away.
After fighting through the string of enemies and solving some light puzzles, the crew arrives at Creepy Steeple and heads inside. This castle is surprisingly empty and void of much challenge, which is very strange considering the decent level of intricacies of the dungeons in the first two chapters.
The entire Steeple consists of a large main room, a small basement, a small back room, two side rooms, one secret side room, and the steeple itself. There's two enemy encounters in each of the side rooms and an optional boss fight in the main room that I didn't do.
The only “puzzle” consists of hitting a button in either of the Side rooms to move a staircase in the back room to line up with doors leading to the main room. That's it. That's the only puzzle.
After heading up the steeple, you come face to face with the “monster,” which isn't actually a monster, but is instead a small ghost-like creature. It explains that it's turning the denizens of Twilight Town into pigs for fun.
“Instead of wallowing in gloom, I figure they might as well wallow in mud!” He says.
Alright. That's technically a motive, I suppose.
The boss fight is pretty easy, all things considered. Near the end of the fight, the boss reveals he has a special ability: it can take the form of anything it wants. It transforms into a shadow form of Mario and continues the fight! No worries, though. It's still easily beatable.
After the fight, the shadow Mario collapses and out pops the Crystal Star, which no one actually mentioned up to that point in the fight. Mario holds it up and the chapter ends.
Weird right? Way too simple right?
Well the game has a genuinely surprising twist up its sleeve! The chapter isn't actually over!
Mario and pals jump down the steeple and the player resumes control as the just defeated Shadow Mario. The boss swapped places with Mario near the end of the boss fight! It’s now walking around with your buddies and the Crystal Star! You are the Shadow Mario!
This promising twist quickly becomes annoying and a complete waste of time, unfortunately.
Mario heads Back to Twilight Town.
Read the paragraph above with the * in front of it.
Right before you get back to Twilight Town, the boss, in the form of Mario, jumps you. It explains that it has taken Mario's body and name. If Mario can guess its true name, it will give Mario his body and name back.
Up pops the in-game keyboard, but the “p” is missing. How strange. After incorrectly guessing it's name, it starts a fight with you and says you can't run. No matter what you do, you can't damage the boss and the boss can't damage you. You are, in fact, able to run away from the fight despite what the boss just said.
Once back in Twilight Town, Shadow Mario discovers and aligns with a new companion character, Vivian. By listening to the local crows of Twilight Town, they learn that the name of the boss is in a hidden room under Creepy Steeple.
So Mario and Vivian head BACK to Creepy Steeple, but are interrupted by the boss in Mario's form AGAIN. After incorrectly guessing its name again, you then run away from combat with it.
Read the paragraph above with the * in front of it.
The pair go to the secret room underneath Creepy Steeple and find a chest holding the letter “p” to the in-game keyboard and learn the boss's name, Doopliss.
You see? You couldn't have guessed the boss’s name even if you knew it, because the “p” was missing from the keyboard. Why did Doopliss have the letter from the in-game keyboard in a chest? It's never explained.
With this gained knowledge and the “p”, Mario and Vivian travel BACK to Twilight Town.
Read the paragraph above with the * in front of it.
Doopliss once again interrupts Mario before he can get back to Twilight Town, but this time, you can tell Doopliss what its name is. When you do …it runs away to hide at Creepy Steeple.
So, Mario and Vivian ONCE AGAIN travel BACK to Creepy Steeple.
Read the paragraph above with the * in front of it.
Mario and Vivian then climb back to the top of Creepy Steeple to face Doopliss for a second time. You are literally doing a boss fight in the same place you did the first boss fight 45 or so minutes ago.
The fight is relatively easy. After losing, Doopliss is transformed back into his normal form and… runs away crying. The other party members apologize to Mario, and go back to adventuring together.
The end.
I hope I can put my thoughts on this chapter into words.
SO MUCH of this chapter was random bullshit that felt like it was made up to take away player freedom.
The idea that people can only enter or leave Twilight Town if they have their name written on their clothes seems completely out of left field, until Mario loses both his clothes and his name to Doopliss. Doopliss SPECIFIES “your body and name belong to me now”
“And name”
When has a body swap in any media specified that the thief stole the other person's NAME?
But without his name, Mario, and the player, can't leave Twilight Town. This is obviously for the players benefit so they don't head to places alone, but it's such dumb reasoning. Why not just have the pipe break or be blocked off by something?
And the multiple backtracking between Twilight Town and Creepy Steeple drags SO MUCH of the chapters momentum down! Here are the things you gain/events that happen with each trip to or from Creepy Steeple:
Trip 1: discovery of Creepy Steeple, exploration of Creepy Steeple, boss fight, and false ending plot twist. (Good!)
Trip 2: Gain a new party member, Vivian. (Good!)
Trip 3: Learn Doopliss’ name and gain the letter P for the in-game keyboard. (Waste of time!)
Trip 4: Tell Doopliss his name, which sends him back to Creepy Steeple. (Waste of time!)
Trip 5: Defeat Doopliss for the second time, ending the chapter. (Waste of time!)
Everything up to the first fight with Doopliss was honestly pretty enjoyable. But being forced back and forth and having to constantly run from enemy encounters is antithetical to what makes the game fun! And having to go back and forth along those paths FIVE TIMES is unbelievable!
Everything gained through the constant backtracking could have been given to or discovered by the player in better ways.
And then the fact that it is impossible to guess Doopliss’ name because the “p” is missing from the in-game keyboard! There's no explanation for that! The letter is just in a chest under Creepy Steeple in this chapter and this chapter only! You use the in-game keyboard in Chapter 3 to name your Yoshi party member and the “p” is there.
Again, it's just there so that players don't guess it's name before the story wants them to. It's annoying. Why have two run-ins with Doopliss where you can't guess his name? The first time gets the point across. And why can't they damage each other in those encounters, but they can in the first and second boss fights?
Why did Doopliss have a Crystal Star at all!? Why did the Crystal Star pop out of Shadow Mario after the first boss fight? That's never explained.
Where did Doopliss come from and why is he in Creepy Steeple at all? Who knows.
I never mentioned this, but there are 200 Boos in a box in the basement of Creepy Steeple that you can free. They can turn into an optional boss fight. Why are they there? It's never explained!
Everything in the chapter is just a mishmash of ideas that lack any cohesive theme and are used for cheap gags that hurt the player experience more than anything. The whole thing feels completely disconnected to what had been set up in the game already. It just wastes so much of the player's time.
But it's done. It's over. I've started Chapter 5 and I'm hopeful the story and characters pick back up to where they were pre-Chapter 4. I would hate for the later chapters to tarnish my overall feelings of the game I developed when I was younger, but we'll just have to wait and see.
I regret that I won't have enough time for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Ok so I adore the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, but I just don't have time for them. They are just so unbelievably dense. As a video gamer man, I have a problem where I try to clear everything in one area before moving onto the next area. If I have to choose between main story missions or side missions, I prioritize side missions every time. I HATE when I miss out on experiencing content in a game.
The Yakuza games bring out the worst of this in me because they are FILLED with fun, random stuff to do.
In my first Yakuza game, Yakuza 0, I spent hours and hours playing the dumb Pocket Circuit mini game. If there was a marker for a Side Story, I went there immediately. I wasted an absurd amount of time doing literally everything but the main story.
But then when I actually took a break from side stuff to play the story, the story was so unbelievably good! I laughed, I cried, I laughed and cried at the same time. After eventually completing the story, I had no choice but to continue on with the series. I had to see what happened to this Kazuma Kiryu guy!
I TRIED to play Yakuza Kiwami and Kiwami 2, modern remakes of the first two games in the series, with more of a focus on completing the main story first, but even so, by the time I started Yakuza 3, I was completely burned out on the series. The hours of gameplay in these games really get up there when you get even slightly distracted by the random goodies they offer.
And I hate that I haven't had the time to continue the series! The Yakuza games are so full of goofy, off the wall experiences and unforgettable characters balanced with intriguing and genuinely emotional storylines. There is legitimately nothing like the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series in the gaming landscape. Every time I’ve had a gap in new games to play, I’ve always considered going back to the series.
And then 2023 happened and erased any possibility of dipping back into the series. It was the Year of Endless Bangers. Forget about gaps in new games to play, I didn't even have time for some of the games I had been waiting years for! There were so many dang high-quality games that were released last year!
However, one game I DID get around to making time for was Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man who Erased his Name, a spin-off from the main series. I heard that the main story could be completed in 10-15 hours and that the ending was phenomenal.
“Oh, I can mainline the story since it's so short,” I said to myself.
I did not mainline the story.
The game has a twist on how you encounter Side Stories: the Akame Network. Littered throughout Sotenbori were people who needed simple tasks done. A girl's soccer ball is stuck in a tree. A homeless man is hungry for some takoyaki. A businessman is being threatened by hooligans. There's four or five people on every street that need help with something.
As you help people around town, you level up your Akame Network rank. The higher your rank and the further you advance in the story, the more Side Stories you unlock.
Boy oh boy did I get HOOKED on this gameplay loop. It's almost like the developers knew I was going to try to mainline the story and just couldn't allow that to happen. Ten hours into the game I was still in chapter 2! After seeing the 25 or so small tasks I had cleared out in Chapter 2 completely refresh in Chapter 3, I put my focus back on the main story and completed the game after about 21 hours.
Because of Like a Dragon Gaiden, I'm drastically behind in playing Alan Wake 2. And because I'm catching up on Alan Wake 2, I don't have time to experience the joyful chaos of The Finals. I put Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on the back burner in May and still need to go back to that.
Fast forward to the news cycle about the upcoming game in the mainline series, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Every single press release or preview talks about how unreasonably long this game will take to play.
The map is three times the size of the map in Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon.
There's a separate island that will play like Animal Crossing.
There's an infinitely repeatable randomized dungeon with roguelikes elements.
There's a Pokemon-like mini game where you collect, evolve, and battle with humans.
And none of these things are being teased as small one-offs. In typical Like a Dragon fashion, these offerings appear to be far more in depth than they have any right to be.
I DON'T HAVE THE TIME FOR THIS.
I know for a fact I will get hung up on each of those dumb mini games and completely ignore the main story line. I won't be able to help myself! Days will turn to weeks and I'll fall even further behind in other games I want to play. I’m still trying to catch up to the games I missed in 2023! I can't stress enough how unappealing “hundreds of hours of content” is to me at this point and time.
Everything being shown to me about Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth looks AWESOME, but is also pushing me away from trying it at the same time.
And that sucks, because I bet it's gonna be a really awesome game. It's gonna have a ton of cool things to do. It's gonna have moments that make me laugh and cry. It's gonna have unique gameplay mechanics that you won't be able to experience anywhere else. It's gonna have my boy, Kazuma Kiryu, kicking all kinds of ass.
And I won't be able to experience it, because it's unreasonable for a game to expect me personally to have that much time to commit to it.
Video game journalism is in a weird place right now. A lot of the biggest gaming websites are living in a profit-driven world that is ceasing to actually exist. Back when good old fashioned websites were the go-to places for news, reviews, and analysis of video games, advertising revenue reigned supreme. Websites were propped up almost exclusively through that sweet, sweet ad revenue.
However, over the last few years, the internet has been changing. With alternatives like YouTube, Tik Tok, Twitch, and Discord, website readership in general is dropping. If fewer people are reading articles, fewer people are seeing advertisements. If advertisers aren’t getting the same return on investment that they used to, they’re going to spend less money on ad space. If the websites aren’t getting the same ad revenue they used to, they can’t afford to pay their staff.
It would make a lot of sense for websites to adapt or change their business model right? Right! Yeah, that’s not what’s happened, though. Unfortunately, many games websites have instead adjusted the kind of content they offer in order to try to maximize what little ad revenue they still have coming in.What kind of articles bring in the most readers eyes these days?
Clickbait.
Guides.
Reviews.
Actual analysis or essays are few and far between because those don’t get nearly the same number of views as an article that makes an audacious claim or a guide to where to find a rare item in a popular new release.
Is there a place for games writing on the internet independent of ad revenue? I think so. Others think so, too. Late 2023 saw the formation of multiple new games websites (Aftermath, Remap Radio, and Second Wind are some examples) who are being funded exclusively by readers instead of advertising. That’s great! …If it works. The scary thing is…no one knows if that can actually work long term.
I genuinely hope for the best for them. The best case scenario for games journalism is reader funding giving writers the freedom to write the stories they want to write.
So that’s where games journalism is at right now. Big websites trying to get readers to view ad-littered stories and new outlets being funded by the readers themselves. Where does Experimental Build fit in? What does it bring that’s unique?
I’m glad you asked!
Experimental Build won’t exactly fit in with anything else out there. I have a slightly different idea for what games writing can be. The big websites can handle the reviews and guides, the new outlets can handle the interviews and essays, I wanna get WEIRD. I wanna get CREATIVE. I want to push the limits of what games writing can be.
When I browse YouTube or check out streams on Twitch, I gravitate towards creators who create unique experiences. I adore seeing people bring clever ideas to life. I love seeing people experiment with the media itself and create something special.
Can that be done with games writing? I’m going to find out. In the same way that a YouTuber can make a video with a wacky, off the wall premise, I want to do the same with games writing. I want readers to see a clever idea for an article I wrote, read it, and say to themselves “That was so fun!” I want games writing to be FUN.
The articles you find on Experimental Build will be, well, experimental. They’ll be unique. I hope you like them. Not all of them will be great, or even good, but they will hopefully always be fun.
