Something Very Special

Let's Play NIER

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Kingdom Hearts 2 is where it all went wrong

Man, Kingdom Hearts.

I remember when Kingdom Hearts released and people in my circle didn't really know what to make of it for the lead-in. We all grew up with Disney. All of us had stumbled into Final Fantasy at pretty much the same time. But it was also released around the time when you weren't allowed to admit you liked Kid's Stuff. Even Pokemon had to be played in secret while the Cool Kids played Dragon Warrior Monster and Monster Rancher. To admit you were playing the Disney game was unconscionable.

But to admit you were playing the game that included Nightmare Before Christmas? You could get away with that.

Admittedly, that was what intrigued me about Kingdom Hearts. I saw Nightmare when it was first released in 1993, which means I was four at the time, and that's the kind of movie a four-year-old isn't capable of quite understanding but it wriggles into the psyche even if (like me) you had completely forgotten the actual experience. But I remembered it was cool. And I must have seen it again more recently, when I could actually comprehend the visuals. And I still thought it was cool.

Anyway, Kingdom Hearts was a great game, and by the time Kingdom Hearts 2 was around the corner we had matured enough to admit that KH was ballin', everybody was super excited for the sequel, and also Cool Kids at a Nerd School were a myth, let's play Pokemon.

I don't think it will come at a shock to anybody that I lovoe Kingdom Hearts 2. It's on the pantheon among games widely considered the greatest of all time for a reason, and it's not just a confluence of events and good timing. To go back to Kingdom Hearts 2 in the modern day is a wonderful experience. Universally perfect? No. But Sora controls like butter, the combat has no business being as nuanced as it is, and Critical Mode in this specific game is such a brilliant management of difficulty -- creating a high risk/high reward gaemplay tradeoff that is far more exciting and enjoyable than just 'enemies get more HP' -- that a joy to go back into, even if you're trapped in the endgame grind for the Ultima Weapon.

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

I remember the excitement the weekend before its release (admittedly less because of the game itself and more becauase we were at the state-level Latin competition, but we were still talking about how excited we were that KH2 would be releasing only a few days after we got backc). I remember the day-one speculation about Roxas' name seeming to be an anagram for Sora, and Xehanort for No Heart. i remember people thinking Axel and his chakram were awesome, people theorizing about the whole nature of the opening (nobody had played Chain of Memories), people wonering about Namine, about the Organization, about the ever-growing lore. Some of us were putting together wishlists for the KH3 worlds-- speculation that obvously would not come to fruition for several years, and which defied a list that I would have thought was rather comprehensive (although half the KH3 worlds didn't have movies when I put my dream team together(. Even a few years later, in college, I had a long conversation in the line to Space Mountain about the irrationality of the Nobodies and how silly the explanation that 'we don't have hearts but we remember having them' felt as a motivation-- can you really miss something and have the emotional experience of doing so when your soul has been carved out of your body?

I did not, at the time, appreciate how much sillier these questions could get.

The last Kingdom Hearts game I tried to play was Birth by Sleep, as part of the PS3 collection. I had previously tried to play Dream Drop Distance but the constraints of the 3DS made the game an unpleasant experience from the jump, even ignoring some of its more curious design decisions. I had hoped that my problems were dominantly because of the hardware, but when I played BBS I got through one story and found myself with an undeniable frustration:

The gameplay was not fun. The Command Deck wasn't intuitive, the characters felt clunky. I attributed this, at the time, to another limitations of the game having once been on the PSP and its gameplay having been optimized for that console. I do not hold this against BBS, but it did make the raw experience of interacting with the game unpleasant. Not so unpleasant I couldn't push through, were it not for the second factor:

I do not give a shit about any of these people.

I don't. And maybe one could argue, you didn't bother finishing the game, you didn't see their stories. I finished one story. I did not care enough to see the others.

And by the time KH3 was finally releasing its teasers, I watched the trailers, and I realized-- it didn't look fun. I'm sure the moment-to-moment is, but the focus on Keyblade forms and Attractions turned me off from the fundamental Kingdom Hearts gameplay that I had been hoping to return to since 2. The world lineup held no interest to me-- I had hoped for classic Disney, the tickling of my nostalgia, and instead saw mostly movies that had come out since I was in high school, two of which I don't particularly like. (I would pontificate further, but I think it's best to just Let it Go.)

What I heard afterward, from co-workers who had been waiting as long as I had for this sequel, confirmed my decision to skip it. Even now, sometimes, I wonder if I should pick nit up at a discount, but it simply doesn't look fun to me, and I have been thoroughly turned off by a story that is built on constant "But actually!" contrivances.

And yet, I did not find myself disappointed. Not by KH3, nor by BBS, nor by Dream Drop Distance. Why? Was it simply the passage of time and the natural maturation? The drift of my interests? But no. I replayed KH1 and 2 only the prior year, as part of the HD re-release. I loved the experience. I should have been disappointed.

But I had known since Kingdom Hearts 2 that I would not be.

I love Kingdom Hearts 2. To revisit it is a joy. I have a lot of great memories surrounding the game, and playing the game. But I remember, very distinctly, even then, that the world stories were weak.

And they didn't have to be, because you revisit every world and there's a new conflict, a new storyline, that you have to fight through and experience. But the majority of worlds in KH2 give you your first run by retelling the movie story, except Sora, Donald, and Goofy are just kind of standing there.

I know this isn't a revelatory observation. Most people who try to explain the story of Kingdom Hearts will skip over the Disney worlds entirely because they are irrelevant to the larger story. Which is fair, and which I think is a massive failing of the series.

Because they were not irrelevant to the original Kingdom Hearts. While the Disney worlds had their own stories, they were not irrelevant to Sora's journey. The fact that the villains were working together (and thus working toward goals beyond the limitations of their franchise) when a long way to uniting those storylines, but even individually Sora was usually learning something in each world. Something with broader impact was happening within each world.

Come Kingdom Hearts 2, Sora would enter a world and stumble into a story in progress, made even worse in worlds whose inhabitants he had met (looking at you, Pridelands). An that story would largely proceed as it had without Sora's involvement. At best, he might disrupt an unexpected Hearltess; at worst, he, Donald, and Goofy will stand in a corner and possibly express a reaction just to reassure the player that they're still here.

The problem with this is not just weak stories, either. It is a structural failing that gradually screams under the mounting pressure. In the moment, the game is, to put it lightly, stupid fun, an absolute blast to play. But even in the rush of a new game I found myself chafing under the storytelling decisions, to have Sora just kind of escort the actual main character through the story. At the time I just considered this a strange, possibly lazy decision (although understanding now how these things are done I suspect it was less 'lazy' and more a compromise between creative interests).

Now, however, I recognize why this was such a problem; it removes all agency from Sora, and thus from the character. Your presence in a world is ultimately irrelevant because the story will proceed with or without your interference. And once you realize you do not need to be here, something in the back of your head can't help but ask why you are here. I'm actually having a terrible time remembering what the impetus to world-hop in KH2 actually is.

Frankly, a lot of what happens in KH2 feels like a sequence of things Just Happening, and Chain of Memories not only provides insufficient context but should not be necessary to understand the individual events of this game. This brings me back to how the whole franchise is written on a chain of "But Actually!" contrivances, and it starts with this game. You defeated Ansem at the end of the first game, But Actually not only is he still alive, that guy wasn't even Ansem.

What this does to the story structure is change from a self-propelled quest which Sora chooses to pursue -- not just because the Keyblade told him it was his destiny, but because he was trying to find Riku and Kairi -- into a story about a passive protagonist who just kind of goes places because a guy told him to I guess, and this winds up deteriorating and arguably destroying Sora's character as the franchise soldiers on.

From a gameplay perspective, it also ruins the Disney World fundamental design. I completely understand why this is-- the larger rooms and more limited obstacles are what facilitates the movement and combat options that Sora has at his disposal-- but one of the things I most loved about the original Kingdom Hearts was exploring the game and all the stupid, ridiculous secrets and interactions that the level designers incorporated. Freezing the bubbles in Hollow Bastion? The Weird Room in Alice in Wonderland? I think just the other week I learned about a treasure chest in Hollow Bastion I didn't even realize existed, do you know how cool that is? KH2 streamlined the game considerably, which has its benefits, but also took away a lot of the character that the worlds previously had and eliminated not just reasons to explore, but capacity.

What you wind up with is a game that is insanely fun to play moment to moment, but struggles to give you a reason to engage with it beyond that fast combat. And that combat goes a long way. Like I said, Kingdom Hearts 2 is a game that I delight in replaying. But it's also a game where I sort of struggle to get through the middle (the TRON level specifically, not the Hearless assault on Hollow Bastion) and am completely checked out by the final boss.

And so, consequently, I was checked out when I tried to play Dream Drop, finding the worlds equally uninspiring the navigate and the gemeplay ill-suited for a tiny handheld screen. And thus I was checked out when I treid to play BBS, another game whose story mostly felt like character being pointed in a direction and having arguments and miscommunications because the story told them this is the time to have an argument and miscommunication. The story crumbles because it has been reduced to a sequence of events that you, as Sora, are just sort of bumbling throughfor the reward of watching other characters actually resolve the stories while you stand in a corner and nod.

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Sartre

This is a funny little thing that happened to me on the way to Automata.

Back in 2017 when the game was first released (I hope you all feel as old as I do), there was an inexplicable two-week delay between the Japanese and English International releases. Inexplicably because the two versions of the game were identical-- both had full English and Japanese language options, neither had apparently censorship needs.

I actually bought and played the Japanese version for a couple of weeks before my Collector's Edition arrived, confused as to why there was such a long delay.

Then I got my hands on the game and I realized-- they censored Sartre.

Not his dialogue. His name.

In the English release of the game, this particular philosophical machine is named Jean-Paul in the written dialogue, and for some reason when the name is spoken, he is referred to as [REDACTED STATIC SFX].

As best I can figure, there was some kind of legal issue with using Jean-Paul Sartre's name in the game that had to be hastily removed, so abruptly that the release date was pushed back and the voice actors could not record new line reads to fix the issue in spoken dialogue. I don't know if there were actual legal filings or they just wanted to avoid an infamously litigious estate, but the result is very confusing if you're not aware of the situation or the character's original name. Why is there an objection to Jean-Paul? Is it simply too French?

This is extraordinarily petty and extremely funny to me.

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The prologue of NieR: Automata

I made a kind of joking comment that, once you start up Route C, you're officially out of the prologue of the game.

I completely forgot that this is actually how the game is structured, using the destruction of the Bunker as the opening credit's roll and giving you a true title drop after A2 and 9S are damaged during the arrival of the Towers.

This is a pretty ballsy move.

It's actually relatively uncommon for players in general to complete a game once, let alone multiple times. To lock your true story behind two prior playthroughs is borderline insane. But those two prior playthroughs are necessary for the narrative. You have to understand 2B. You have to understand 9S. You have to understand why it hits so hard to watch her die, and why the revelation of her true name is such a betrayal.

Could you have accomplished this in a traditional narrative structure? Sure, of course. But for Automata, that's not really a story change that would be a simple fix; it's a complete structural upheaval. The game was built for you to experience these different perspectives. 2B's story is intentionally shallow, her orders unquestioned. 9S dives deeper into the depths of the questions that were raised (and ostensibly discarded) by 2B's experience. And then Route C takes the hanging questions, the unresolved tone, the strange sense of emptiness, and flips the whole table.

Welcome to the real story, bitch. Strap in.

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Freeform is showing All Disney All Month so I'm catching up on movies I haven't seen in a while and holy shit WALL-E?

That's a movie I mostly remember for the cute robot romance and the original commercials, which were just WALL-E playing with various pieces of junk. And the iconic line; "I don't want to survive. I want to LIVE!"

Watching it again, yeah, it's pretty cute, up until you get to the buildup to the climax and WALL-E just gets absolutely brutalized like jesus christ this poor robot. I feel like somebody at Pixar staff was like "We're too family friendly, we need to do something really violent" and Lasseter was like "Andrew, buddy, there's a ratings board" and he was like "Well what if it was a robot and we just crushed him in increasingly horrific ways?" and Lasseter was like "yeah that's still G rated" so now you, too, can subject your kids to a cute movie where the robot spends sixty minutes being super cute and goofy before being brutally maimed by HAL.

(And then they showed UP immediately after so that was a really jaunty thirty minutes of my life.)

Frankly it's like the movies I grew up with. First movie I ever remember seeing? All Dogs Go to Heaven, a film that opens on a prison break ten minutes before its lead character is run over by a car and later has an extended nightmare sequence where's he's in Hell. Like just straight up in Hell, lake of fire, tortured by demons. That was considered appropriate for 3-year-olds back in the 90s.

That probably explain a lot about me, actually.

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A very silly thought but I realize how much I miss Disney from a couple of decades ago. I'm watching the original Aladdin -- a movie I must have seen for the first time when I was no older than four -- and Jafar out here casually using the phrases 'pungent friend' and 'addlepated twit'.

Addlepated is a word that my browser's spellcheck doesn't even recognize.

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The Automata save system

This is actually my favorite little thing that Route C does.

The game initially introduce you to a robust but still limited save system, where you have to activate YoRHa distribution machines (disguised as vending machines) across the map in order to save. In practice this means that the man 'hub' of the man is generally filled with save spots such that you don't have to travel particularly far to save, although in most situations you do still have to manually save. You can absolutely forget to do so, wander off the in the wrong direction, and lose a lot of progress, although the game also kindly allows you to retrieve your body, which will give you the experience and chips you lost by being a dumbass. Hopefully you don't die on the retrieval run!

I know that some people complain about this, but in practice it kind of becomes second nature when you're in the area, and the penalty for death is usually fairly minor, unless you really got lost or decided to spend a lot of time out of save range. You get used to it. You might sigh and roll your eyes about the trek from the last save point, you might grumble about auto-saving and forgetting to do so manually for the last hour, but in practice? Not a big deal.

Then Route C happens.

And suddenly that tiny little note that 9S made about desynching himself and 2B from the network is the hinge on which the entire capacity for either of them to function rests. As far as the story goes, the implications are clear-- the logic virus that consumes the station cannot consume them because 9S hasn't bothered re-synching them to the server. They are inadvertently quarantined.

And then you land back in Tokyo.

The game doesn't make a single mention of the implications, but as 2B drags her failing body out of the firefight you realize-- there is no second chance anymore. When 2B dies (cutscene-dies), she is dead. There is no backup consciousness, there is no server sync. She is gone.

When you take over as 9S or A2, maybe you haven't realized what this means, but the first time you die you are not met with the 'Leave a Message/Continue' screen. It's game over. No body retrieval run, no casual slap on the wrist. Everything you have accomplished since your last manual save is gone.

Like 2B.

And suddenly, saving your game isn't just a thing you do because you're playing an RPG and you're probably not finishing it in one go so you set it aside for later. This is your lifeline. This is your living memory. This is necessary in a way that never was before. It's a tiny seed of paranoia now. You were, hours early, casually ready to throw lives away because you would just respawn and have to make the trek to get back what you lost. Now your chosen android is continuous, and finite. You do not get second chances.

Remember the opening mission? 2B's fury that she has 'lost' the 9S who accompanied her on the factory run? That even half an hour of stolen memory means he is no longer the person she loved by the end of that mission?

And how you, as a player, have never needed to feel that loss, because YOU, as the player, have contiguous memory? YOU, as a human being, have memory of that half hour, and of every half-hour when you accidentally wandered into the desert and go blown up by a suicide bot and had to try again, or every hour you lost when you ran down to Emil's house and grossly underestimated the enemies in there? How death was just a sigh and a grumble and maybe an expletive and a button press back into the game?

You'll never feel 2B's anguish in that moment. You can't.

But only now, in Route C, are you reminded that death means something, and throwing 9S or A2 away is no longer the casual option it once was.

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Lacuna (Preview)

L A C U N A

I'll not be inundating the blog with this but I think, if you're a fan of the Drakenier games, you'll enjoy what I've been working on

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Pattern breach

I've gone on about this before, but my absolute favorite decision in how Automata's story is paced is how Route C is handled.

Automata establishes a cadence in its first two playtrhoughs-- Route A, you see the story from 2B's perspective. Then, on Route B, you see the story from 9S's perspective. The two are mostly the same, excepting for the first mission and the final mission (and discounting the 'storybook' flashes that 9S experience).

This is a really clever bit of gameplay design, by the way. The bulk of the second playthrough is identical to the first, but by leading with 9S's experience during 2B's factory descent (and, moreover, having the actual gameplay be so different from hers) it communicates immediately that the game isn't just a Round 2, even if it can sometimes feel that way once you get into the meat of it.

Both playthroughs together are probably... twenty five, thirty hours, if you're going at a moderate pace. That's long enough to establish expectations and pattern.

Then you finish Route B and you get a trailer for Route C, and there are pieces of that trailer that don't conform to anything you've yet seen.

But it's also very clever here, in that it basically telsl you nothing about the actual contents of Route C, and the new imagery is such that it's difficult to make out any context. And given the established pattern, my assumption about Route C is that we would play from A2's perspective and finally figure out why she stabbed the stubby little robot in the Forest Kingdom.

Which makes that moment you first boot into Route C and are greeted not with A2, or even another time rewind, but immediate forward momentum rather jarring. The nature of the first mission is immediately different from the feel of the first two routes, and from there, at last...

...we are out of the prologue to NieR: Automata.

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Immanuel's life must be hell

I had some life circumstances interrupt my Automata playthrough (my ability to play video games in general, really) but I finally picked it back up on Sunday and found I had stopped midway through the Forest Kingdom (Route B).

I'm sure the thought must have occurred to me previously, but finishing out the Kingdom and getting the flashbacks to the Forest King and his coterie, it occurred to me that the King's life must have been a living hell.

The flashbacks are, first and foremost, funny. The machines are dumb. They admit to being dumb. They're trying their best but they're just mimicking the broad sweeps of humanity and don't understand much of anything. It's cute. It's endearing. You murder, like, a hundred of those guys just walking through the castle. It's cute.

The core of their flashbacks in the Forest Kingdom are pertinent to their King. Originally one of the larger forms of the robots (although technically speaking all of the robots are actually just little guys in varying chassis), he eventually runs down and is rendered inoperable, and the Royal Knights, unaware of what else to do, decide to take his memory and plant it in an infant, intending to raise him to be the new Forest King.

But also they're robots so they don't, like... grow up.

The machines are obviously capable of individual development-- they're all based on the Stubby design and they get bigger by bolting different parts to themselves rather than any kind of literal organic development. You can witness a few peaceful robots do this over the course of the game. But they put the Forest King, Immanuel, in a body that requires outside maintenance. Like an infant, he is unable to do anything but lay on his back unless another machine were to put him on his feet.. He has no arms. He is trapped in a defenseless body, barely capable of independent ambulation, while the Royal Guard watches over him.

If he were actually an 'infant', as far as the Machine Lifeform meaning of the word goes, I guess this would be... horrifying in its own way, but at least you could understand he was programmed to be a child. Except we were told that he was installed with the original King's memory. So actually this is a machine who lived a full likfe as a monarch and then got slotted into the form of a tiny, helpless baby, unable to do anything but make cute noises and waggle its useless feet.

For over a hundred years.

NieR: Automata is a game about robots fighting robots, but it's a story about existential philosophy and the purpose of meaning in a world that is, objectively, without a grander purpose. The Forest Kingdom arguably seemed to find some kind of purpose, with the King ruling and protecting his people and his Knights finding meaning by in turn protecting their King. Now the Knights continue to fulfill their function while the King has been stripped of his, and moreover put inside a body that is almost totally incapable of communicating that he is still present and no doubt wishes to return to his function, to oversee his people, but cannot.

A2 stabbing him might be considered a mercy in this regard. I'm sure you're all at least passingly familiar with I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, where the evil computer AM's greatest torment is rendering the viewpoint character a helpless, blob-like creature, immortal by design and so soft and gentle by nature he is no longer even capable of taking his own life. So lies Immanuel in the prince's pram, stripped of voice and agency, his own Knights oblivious to the torment they have rendered upon him.

But he sure is a cutie!

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The moment you remember your novel's entire magic system, and therefore the core metaphysical conflict of your plot, is basically Drakenier fanfiction.

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The art of the final dungeon

For some reason I have been thinking about Metaphor: ReFantazio again, and while I know I mostly enjoyed my time with the game I find my reminiscence largely lukewarm. I mentioned previously that I think part of the problem is a thematic failure ont he part of the game, introducing one conceptual through-line and then kind of completing throwing it out the window for the final month, which massively impacted my investment in the story overall.

But then I also think about its final dungeon.

By the time I reached the final dungeon of that game I was kind of checked out and ready to just get to the final boss and the ending. Fortunately the dungeon isn't all that demanding, being only a few screens long with a collection of completely optional mini-bosses. Which is fortunate because the dungeon itself is sadly uninspired, being a floating rocky wasteland with a red filter and some pretty oppressive music (appropriately so, but still). At that point in the game I wasn't really in the mood for a lot of challenges and puzzles so beelining to the final boss was exactly what I wanted, but also...

...it shouldn't be.

I got to thinking about the RPGs I've played in the past, and their final dungeons, and it occurred to me that, by ad large, this is the same feeling I got in all of them. I'm tired, I'm ready to finish this story, I don't want to deal with this bullshit. Some of them are better. Some of them make the experience better. (The music doesn't have to be oppressive, one of my favorite tracks in any Persona game is P5 Royal's "Gentle Madman"). But I rarely find myself excited by the final push and oftentimes wind up trying to avoid as many fights as possible just to get to the end faster.

The first true RPG I ever played was Grandia, a game I still hold near and dear to my heart, and I definitely remember this phenomenon hitting me back then, when I entered the final boss (it's one of those final dungeons) and didn't so much fight my way to its heart as I did skirt around every encounter I could and focus on forward movement instead of the normal circuitous exploration I had become accustomed to across most of the dungeons' in the game.

Speaking of Persona, I did the same thing in all of those dungeons; do what's necessarily, make sure I grind up enough that I can kill the dungeon monsters easily, charge to the end. Most Final Fantasies are the same: make sure you're confident but minimize encounters and get to the final boss. Tales games? ...are actually pretty polite, as several of their final dungeons are basically a straight shot to the final boss with completely optional side content.

And then I remember when I got stuck in the final dungeon of Star Ocean 4 and wanted to shoot myself in the fucking face holy shit.

Even the beloved Clair Obscur, by the time I went for the final push, was more a matter of just getting to the end than really rooting around Lumiere and soaking in the atmosphere. Part of this was because I'd more or less cleared the map by the time I got there, but there was a massive different in feeling between ascending the Monolith -- test of endurance across all the game's major environments, including a shattered Lumiere -- and pushing through Lumiere proper.

Maybe, I thought, this is just a consequence of reaching the endgame. I don't head into the final dungeon until I'm ready to finish the story, so perhaps it's a sense of finality and impatience. I'm ready for this to be over, and now it feels like the game isn't so much on my side to carry me through the story but now actively fighting against me to allow me to see its ending. Which isn't how that should feel. It's a final challenge. It's the climax of the story. Why does it feel like a wall I'm forced to bash through instead of a mountain I want to climb?

The game that affected my storytelling philosophy the most was Threads of Fate, and that final dungeon is one I'm happy to play. Why? What sets it apart where so many other games collapse?

Story pacing.

Most final dungeons are built around one major story beat-- the final boss. You dock your airship (or whatever) at the mouth of their lair, you slog through their fortress and their final minions, and all of the story impact is dumped on you at the end. This is the phenomenon where all the characters come together and start yelling about their motives and the themes of the game and the villain makes his final appeal. On the way there, the gameplay may reach its crescendo, but it often just feels like a sequence of enemies with too much health and not enough challenge standing between you and catharsis.

Threads of Fate gives you a sequence of rooms with a few puzzles -- enough to tickle your brain but not enough to frustrate -- and some unique enemies, and one of my favorite final dungeon themes. It takes maybe an hour to get through the first time you try it, and once you know the paths, you can probably blitz it thirty minutes. It's just long enough to feel like a finale, not so long you wish you were dead. Star Ocean, take notes.

But more importantly, there are still story beats. There are two bosses before the final boss, both of them wrapping up story beats and contributing to the circumstances of the final battle and the inevitable escape. One of them is placed at about the midpoint of the dungeon, giving you a gameplay break (a pretty rough fight coming out of a puzzle section) as well as a moment of story catharsis. Plenty of final dungeons have midbosses, but usually they feel like oh, the final boss summoned a monster to stand in your way! This is a guy who's tormented you consistently for the last couple of hours. This is somebody you want to smack in the face.

Then there's a boss rush room, where you get to feel how much stronger you've become since you first encountered these enemies. Then the confrontation with the main villain who put these events in motion, and for Rue in particular this is the emotional catharsis he's been seeking since the start of the game (although they both have beef with this guy but Mint's confrontation is WAY funnier, he has NO idea why she's so pissed at him). Then, of course, the actual final battle, against a villain who's threat and power the whole game's goal has been circling around.

It's not too long, it's textured, it's emotionally satisfying.

NIER does the same thing.

Yeah, look at that, I got there.

NIER's final dungeon is longer, but it is relentless in the way it keeps yanking you around with different gameplay challenges -- enemy hoards, minibosses, a chase sequence -- and, far more importantly, in how it absolutely assails you with a sequence of story revelations. As soon as you enter the dungeon Devola and Popola are suddenly there telling you to leave (and also teleporting you back to the Village if you decide to, which is pretty funny). When you refuse, they engage in battle, and now you as a player are asking questions: why are they trying to stop me? What are they trying to keep me from understanding?

Even the first 'puzzle' (the dove on the fountain) raises some weird questions about why it's asking these particular questions, and what the right answers mean.

The dungeon has introduced not just an obstacle to the final boss, but events that are forcing you -- as you beat up enemies -- to start asking questions recontextualizing the events of the game as you understand them.

You find Shades dancing peacefully, so engrossed in their waltz that they ignore you. You kill them anyway and force a fight. They unify into the most powerful entity you have encountered on your quest -- a big angry boar -- and this boar turns out to be immortal. She chases you up a flight of stairs, forcing a different gameplay mode of evading obstacles on the stiarwell; nothing fancy, but it gives you a break from combat.

You're forced to face her again, but it's hopeless, until the next story beat activates and the King of Facade shows up with his royal guard, winding back to one of the most memorable characters from the story and finally allowing him to repay his debt. Nier and the party make it into the next hallway while the King and his men hold off the Shade. Big hero moment, swelling music, you feel pumped again. The emotional texture has changed.

Another hallway, and this time you're led to the Twins, who literally throw the backstory out you and then engage at a full-force fight to the death, forcing you to kill these two women who have been fixtures throughout the game, encouraging you, guding your quest. In Replicant, Popola is almost a surrogate mother for Nier and Yonah. And now it's Popola who forces you to kill them both.

You do. Popola responds with a catastrophic detonation, determining that if Devola is dead, there is little worth to anything else, and she's going to take you with her. Emil lets himself be taken by the explosion to allow Nier and Kaine to finish what's been started.

The story has crescendoed. The emotional texture has changed. Everybody involved is crying, except for Kaine, who is beating the shit out of Nier because she's bad at emotions. You have the choice now to read the documents the twins gave you. Or not. It doesn't matter. There is a hollowness to your journey now, and the game knows it.

Also the King died after finally killing your boar friend so if you weren't already upset here's another opportunity.

The final push is a single hallways filled with relatively weak Shades. They exist only to force you forward, toward the final door. If the game had lingered much longer, it would have broken its spell-- but it doesn't. This is just enough time to let you transition back into combat mode, just enough time to let you rest before you open those doors.

And the final monologue from the villain?

Never happens.

It doesn't need to. Nier doesn't need to tell the Shadowlord that he understands what he was doing but he has a Yonah to save as well. The Shadowlord makes no final appeals. You, as a player, are emotionally spent. All you have left is violence.

And in the middle of the fight your asshole talking book, your longest and most snide companion, sees fit to sacrifice himself, on top of everybody else you've lost. And then berates you for being sad about it. Jackass.

The game knows where you are, as a player. You are no longer psyched to kill the bad guy. You're gutted, you're tired, you may not even remember why you're here anymore, you just know that this is the final boss and you have to finish it.

This is not the same as trudging your way through a long, annoying hallway that seems intent on siphoning all the forward momentum you had approaching the final boss. This has been a cruel roller coaster intent on keeping you engaged on every level that a video game can-- the shifting interaction with the gameplay, the climactic revelations of the story beats, the emotional brutality of losing characters you don't just like in a passive sense but whom have been with you, fighting alongside you, know everything you've been through.

I can't speak with quite the same detail about the Automata final dungeon (I've only been through it the once) but I definitely recall it follows the same philosophy of pacing gameplay shifts with constant emotional and story revelations that keep you constantly engaged on multiple fronts. The story isn't over-- it's still twisting, it's still evolving, and it's still stabbing you in the gut.

[something-very-special]

Bioshock's story is broken

Bioshock released back in 2007 and sent ripples through the games industry. It was a phenomenal expression of technology, a solid to great first-person horror-shooter, and most importantly, one of the earliest examples of a game whose story and presentation broke through the long-standing mainstream insistence that video games were toys, and could never be Art.

The reason for this was rooted in its story, and just as importantly its storytelling. You are placed in the role of Jack, the lone survivor of a plane crash who manages to find his way to the underwater city of Rapture. Once an Objectivist paradise, you find it in ruin, its inhabitants either mutated beyond recognition or slaughtered. One of the few remaining sane citizens, Atlas, contacts you and leads you to the heart of Rapture, where you encounter the architect of this broken Arcadia, Andrew Ryan.

And then Atlas asks if you would kindly kill him.

Control -- control which you have had throughout the entire time, the uninterrupted ability to move your character thorugh every dialogue, through every scene -- is violently yanked away from you. Jack, without your input, yanks the golf club from Andrew Ryan's hand and beats him to death while you -- and, indeed, Jack himself -- watch helplessly, his own body no longer his own. Atlas reveals himself to have been a man named Frank Fontaine, a rival of Ryan's whom you've been hearing about thorugh voice logs throughout your journey thorugh Rapture, and who reveals that you were psychologically programmed as a Manchurian Candidate puppet, primed to respond to the phrase "Would you kindly?" Your journey has been directed by Fontaine this entire time, as he gently guided you with this command, and now that you have fulfilled your purpose he casts you aside.

You are fortunately found by Brigid Tenenbaum, another suvivor who has been asking for your aid in saving the Little Sisters, and after a (very annoying) section where you are sent to retrieve materials while your body is slowly shutting down in the wake of being deemed 'unnecessary', manages to de-program and restore you, and you become your own man for the first time in your life, turning your freedom toward seeking vengeance on the man who robbed you of your autonomy, dignity, and very nearly your life.

It's a really strong story, and one that uniquely demands it be a video game-- its very structure is reliant on the bond between you, the player, and your avatar Jack. You could certainly make a movie out of Bioshock, but the raw betrayal of having your controls stolen from you, watching your character -- the extension of you into this other world -- perform an action against your will, cannot be translated into a movie. You may be shocked and saddened to see Jack's autonomy torn from him, but there is a completely different emotional register when it is your autonomy that is stolen from you.

Anyway the story is broken, and it's broken because of this mechanic.

I did not play Bioshock when it first came out. I heard about it, and I certainly heard about the twist, so by the time I finally went to play it for myself (after I played Infinite and decided to see what the first two had) I was no longer in the right mindset to be blindsided by this twist. And I don't think that's a problem-- a story should be strong enough on its own merits that you can enjoy it without having to be shocked by the twist. In fact, the strongest stories benefit from you knowing the twist and allowing you, on a repeat experience, to see the clues that were woven into the fabric of the work. One of my favorite feelings when I go back through a work is seeing all the hints I did not understand before and just screaming "SON OF A BITCH IT WAS RIGHT THERE!"

Just so we're on the same page, I do not hold my foreknowledge against the game. Generally, it works very well. The problem arises...

...as soon as your bathysphere arrives in Rapture, and Atlas asks if you would kindly leave.

And you can just sit there.

And he will get progressively more insistent. Would you kindly leave the bathysphere? Would you kindly pick up the wrench?

The whole reveal of the game hinges on the fact that Jack is programmed to respond to this instruction, no matter how minor or how severe it is. He physically cannot refuse it.

And yet the game, because of its adherence to keeping you in control at all times until the grand reveal, allows you to stand around staring at walls while Atlas (rather, Fontaine) gets progressively more annoyed with your dumbassery.

The game can't continue until you listen to him, but there is a great divide between the story's ultimate reveal that you were never truly in control and the feeling that you need to trip an event flag to move on. One of them is baked into the thesis of the story; the other is an arbitrary block that you, as a person who has played video games, knows you need to trigger.

This occurred to me most intensely as you're exiting the tutorial, which is marked by Atlas telling you that his family is locked in a bathysphere and would you kindly go help them? He renders this instruction at the start of a corridor, and you're supposed to wlak down the length of this corridor only to have the bathysphere blown up. Atlas will then scream about how they've killed his family and then, after he calms down, direct you into and through Rapture, where the bulk of the game will start.

I am a packrat, and when Atlas asked if I would kindly go help his family I looked over the railing of the walkway I was on, saw the very real silhouettes of his very real wife and child, and said, "Yeah, gimme a minute" and proceeded to scrounge every corner and edge of that rockway looking for possible supplies. While I was digging around the stonework, Atlas grew increasingly impatient; "I said would you kindly go help my family? I said WOULD YOU KINDLY?!" and yeah, look dude, I know they aren't going to explode until it's dramatically convenient, I'm looking for dirty needles.

Eventually I sauntered my way down toward the bathysphere, with Fontaine on the verbe of breaking character he was so pissed off at me, and finally triggered the bathysphere explosion. I actually don't know if I was aware, at the time, that the trigger phrase was 'Would you kindly?', only that Jack was programmed to kill Andrew Ryan, so I wasn't intentionally trying to muck up the story, but...

...anybody can do this. Honestly, I expect everybody did this, at least at some point. It becomes less noticeable later on, when Would you kindly? becomes a broader level direction than an immediate instruction, but I just couldn't help but reflect that, not only can you ignore the trigger phrase, but the game's own dialogue responses acknowledge that you are ignoring it, as Fontaine gets more insistent and pissed off. And yet, if you, like me, were just kind of whistling and enjoying the view while Fontaine was screaming at you, he acts like you've been his puppet the whole time, like this was all a brilliant plan, like you never had a choice when... my guy, I walked forward because a wall collapsed behind me. You're right in that I didn't have a choice, but it's because the hall was blocked, not because you told me to do this.

And it frustrates me because this was unnecessary.

Bioshock was made when it was still kind of unusual to be able to move during cutscenes. This was a technological advancement, having control when prior games would usually wrench the camera and lock your movement so you were certain to be watching what was important. It did not pioneer this, but it was still fairly fresh.

Which means that nobody would have batted an eye if Atlas said "Would you kindly leave the bathysphere?" and Jack automatically stepped out. "Would you kindly take the wrench?" and Jack automatically took the wrench. "Would you kindly save my family?" while you were already close to the bathsphere, and the game would take control to walk you the last few steps. All of these would be expected within the way video games work.

Instead, you were given control in moments during which you should not have had control.

And to do this would have paid off after Jack's deprogramming, which Fontaine would try and ask if you would kindly do something immediately... and you are, for the first time in the game, able to refuse. Not just bumble around until you finally give in and activate the event trigger.

This is obviously not to say that the story itself is bad, but the game is so close to understand the weaonization of its medium and taking full advantage of it, and the difference is as close as just not having Fontaine want to wring your neck when you ignore him.

[something-very-special]

I am so sick of the third-act low point

Last night, I found myself watching A Bug's Life. Some years back it was considered one of Pixar's 'lesser' films -- fine, but not a titan like Toy Story or the Incredibles -- and while that's fair when you're using those as a comparison point I actually think A Bug's Life is overall a really great movie. It is a little more generic than a lot of Pixar's more beloved movies (outcast from society uses his quirks to save the day, also there's a bug circus, pretty normal), but its a pretty well-handled take on the formula, I love that it's actually a retelling of The Ant and the Grasshopper, and Hopper is one of Pixar's best villains.

But there's a point at the end of the second act, after the circus bugs that Flik has brought back have proved themselves as warriors, rallies the ants around them, encouraged them to rise up and fight the grasshoppers, where PT Flea (the ringmaster) arrives and reveals that the great warriors are, in fact, just the members of his circus troupe. The ants turn on them as liars and doubt everything they've done, casting them out of the anthill (along with Flik) and scrambling to gather food to appease the grasshoppers. The characters are demoralized until the younger pricess Dot chases after them and calls back to an inside joke between her and Flik, which gives him the confidence to rally the circus and return to the colony.

But as soon as PT Flea showed up, I changed the channel.

(Yes, I still have cable.)

Hercules had been on earlier, another movie that I found, on revisiting it... was okay. A Bug's Life takes its generic premise and executes it really well. Herclues takes its generic premise and executes it competently. Herc is very milquetoast and generic 'find where I where belong' energy, Pegasus is kind of annoying, Phil is fun but the animation on him makes him weirdly gummy and kind of unpleasant to look at (wouldn't be a problem if the rest of the movie wasn't so solid and well-defined). But Hades is top tier, and Meg is fun, and I haven't seen it in years so why not? I get to Meg's big number, it's a great song, and then...

...I changed the channel. Because right after that is when she talks to Hades, Phil overhears the conversation and runs back to tell Hercules, and everybody spends the next few inutes being all moepy and upset before the climax.

I saw Wreck-It Ralph the other day, love that movie, but once again there's a point where Ralph has an argument with Vanellope and destroys her car, she's upset, he's upset, everybody spends a bunch of time being mopey and upset before the climax, and I kind of zone out until we get back to Ralph returning to his game (which is where it picks up again).

Point is, I watch a lot of cartoons.

But I also happened to tune in to The Bucket List a little while ago and wouldn't you know it, as soon as I realized the premise, I asked-- which one of these old guys dies and forces the other to be mopey and upset until they re-assess their life and make it up to their loved ones or whatever? (The answer was Morgan Freeman. Spoilers.) And I knew that because every single goddamn comedy, with very thin exceptions, has the same formula-- hijinx for the first two acts, then things get Serious, everybody gets mopey, we all learn a life lesson.

Hell, this is actually a structural beat that keeps me from completing Final Fantasy 9-- there's a moment near the end of Disc 3 where Zidane learns that he's actually a constructed entity whose purpose is to destroy the planet he's lived on all his life, and after he's been forced to confront this reality he kind of... wanders down a hall bemoaning his fate while being attacked by monsters as his friendsly gradually show up and start giving him a pep talk about how he isn't alone (this sequence is called You Are Not Alone, set to the track You Are Not Alone, and in retrospect his problem wasn't that he was alone it's that he thought he was a weapon of planetary destruction so I don't know how this is helping. Except for Vivi, who is also a constructed being made to be a weaon). And obviously his friends coming in to support him isn't at all bad storytelling or bad characterization but this whole sequence drags and kills the forward momentum and I just kinda... I don't want to play through it.

The third act doldrums suuuuuck.

And they don't have to.

I think about some of my favorite pieces of media and how so, so many of them also hit this nadir and yet navigate it in such a way that you stay engaged, and when I think about that break point I think my piroblem isn't just that the story has taken a turn (I am in no way opposed to the moment that Shit Gets Real), or that the characters are upset (because they probably should be), but that in that moment the characters themselves disengage.

Threads of Fate is the most formative game I ever played and when iti hits its third-act low point, with the lead character realizing... he is a constructed being whose purpose is ultimately to facilitate the destruction of the world (Square was just really into this twist at the time, I guess), his reaction is "Well, that sucks. But I got shit to do."

I am being flippant, but the whole pivot point -- where a character gets upset about what they've learned, doubts themselves, needs to be dragged back by their friends -- occurs in a single conversation and is self-propelled. He's had a goal since the start of the game and to decide to just abandon that goal now would not just slow the pacing but be a betrayal of his entire character. He hasn't doubted his purpose up until this point and this little complication isn't going to stop him now. His decision also winds up pivoting into the actual theme of the game (duty versus will), so rather than just functioning as something upsetting that the character has to rally behind, it turns into a declaration of self: I don't care what you have told me my purpose is, I decide what my life means.

(There's also a really fun twist that, at this point, you more or less have access to the final dungeon. If you want, you can talk to every major NPC and get unique dialogue scenes where you still get the 'everybody rallies behind you' moment and all of those thematic threads about their own decisions to take control of their own meaning get tied off. I really like this option because it doesn't slow the pacing down if you're gung-ho to fight the final villain, and more importantly, these conversations aren't there to bolster your character, they're telling you what your intervention in their lives has given them the strength to do. It's really nice. Play Threads of Fate. Rue's story first. Mint's is super fun but it's basically a parody of itself.)

That is so far up my alley as a thematic throughline, but when iti comes to FF9 that plot point is generally pretty relevant to the party... .but not to Zidane, who has always been a self-directed free spirit and whose origin and purpose has never been in question until you get to Terra and suddenly okay I guess this is happening? It breaks his character.

I'm just kind of rambling so forgive me but, having just said that... that's my problem, I think. It breaks the character.

This is a blog made to talk about NIER and I can indeed talk about NIER. When you reach the final dungeon in the original NIER you are immediately betrayed by Devola and Popola, forced to kill these two caretakers whom you have grown attached to through the length of the game, watch your skeleton buddy tell you he's been questioning the continued purpose of his life this entire time and then die sobbing in a void, and then learn the Shadowlord is actually just you and is also trying to save his daugther and also you're killing real people who are themselves just trying to live. And what does Nier do with this information? Does he reflect on the journey, on what it's cost, on what he's taken? Does he stop?

Nope! One last slaughter in the hallway, let's go kill the Shadowlord, I have not come this far just to turn around and go home now. In the immortal words of Kaine, "Fuck you."

In Automata, when we encounter the self-shattering revelation that the war has been meanigless, 2B died for nothing, and the machines and androids have been fighting each other for miellennia because they are incapable of formulating purpose beyond theiri endless fight? 9S doesn't wander off moping, he goes batshit insane and decides to kill everybody, everywhere. In the immortal words of Kaine, "Fuck you."

More recently, Expedition 33 has a massive revelation between Acts II and III that would absolutely jusiify the character getting moepy and upset. Instead they immediately turn around, collect a ghost army, and storm Not-Paris. Hell, there are multiple times in that game when it would be justified for the characters would be justified in giving up and instead they funnel those emotions into forward momentum. Absolute cinema.

That is the difference. It's not that you cant have a second-act low point, or that the characters can't be affected by it. The difference is that they remain who they have always been, rather than betraying everything that has co4e before and everything that they are for a cheap emotional beat.

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Cloud isn't cool anymore

And now that I've successfully clickbaited you, I want to talk about character design and its impact on a player's instant read.

Back in 1997, when Final Fantasy 7 was originally released, Cloud Strife was the epitome of cool. Look at this art:

Look at the pose. The sharp silhouette. The confidence with which he holds himself. The expression-- stoic, cold, serious. This design would wind up exemplifying the Cool Guy anime stereotype for over a decade; sharp hair, brutal weapon, just enough asymmetry to be interesting, At a glance, this is a very cool character, and tells you everything you need to know about Cloud.

Except, obviously, it does not.

If you are familiar with the actual storyline of Final Fantasy 7, then you are also familiar with the fact that Cloud is a broken man whose identity is something he wrestled with and who, by the end of the game, has reclaimed his original self, and his original self is kind of a giant dork. By the end of the game, Cloud is a fascinating, multi-dimensional figure who has transcended his stoic SOLDIER personality as we (and he) have understood it since the part of the game, and truth is--

--he is no longer 'cool' because of it.

At least, not in the sense of instant read gut-reaction 'cool'. I think his story is fascinting, his character growth intriguing, the fact that his battle cry for cconfronting Sephiraoth (also objectively a Cool Design) is "Let's mosey!" is undeniably charming. But he is no longer the cool badass that he presented himself as.

This is intentional, and very well done. Cloud is designed up-front to evoke that awe and respect only to spend the runtime of the game systematically dismantling your expectations and, more importantly, never trying to force you to think of him as 'cool' again. The game lets him exist as the person he is, overcoming his wounds, trying to do the right thing despite the lingering fear that it will all go wrong.

I would say that's still pretty cool, but it's a very different understanding of the word, and not at all the same feeling one gets the first time they open the instruction manual and see Cloud's icy glare from the pages.

This is Cloud in the Remake:

I thought there might be an equivalent rendered pose to his original artwork but I'm not seeing it, and I hate that this is the official render because look at this. This man is not cool.

I remember in the runup to FF7R's release that this design decision was explained as leaning in to Cloud's actual backstory, how he is suffering from chronic mako poisoning and he should appear somewhat sickly, and I don't think that's wrong in tthe slightest. It's not that I dislike that interpretation, at least not in context. In a vacuum, though? Understanding the point of the original's presentation was to shatter the illusion of his presentation?

His stance is casual, not self-assured. His head is bosed and his chin is against his chest-- a submissive pose. The colors are more standardized and the single pauldron on his left arm blends more easily into the overall design, reducing the asymmetric impact. And his hair no longer reads as severe spikes-- it's fluffy. Styled, but soft. This is Cloud as he is understood at the end of the game,

Part of this is a deliberate adjustment-- if they wanted Cloud to keep the same attitude all you would have to do is straighten his posture and lift his head and suddenly you've completely changed the way he carries himself. Part of this, however, is due to the decision to change the art style into something increasingly photorealistic. The original Cloud was designed pixel graphics and embraced anime proportions and style because, with the rudimentary 3D work of the series first PS1 entry, you couldn't afford to make him more realistic. He had to be instantly readable on a model that was maybe a hundred polys on the overworld, which in turn is why his hair is rendered the way it is; when you only have so much character model economy and you have to build them entirely out of triangles, the spiky hair is easy, instantly legible, and goes a long way to distinguishing the model for minimal programming investment.

When you start upping that into higher fidelity, more realistic proportions, you start to understand how goofy that is. Especially when you're still trying to err on the side of attractive and well-maintained. Cloud's hair is truly beautiful. He plainly uses a better routine than I do. Which, given that he staggered into the Midgar slums after surviving a brutal ambush (after having been dragged miles across a wasteland by a friend who pretty much died on top of him) following months of experimentation and torture, doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not something I would question if the art style had stayed within a more stylized register, but when it's this realistic I can't help but wonder if maybe he's born with it, or maybe it's Maybelline.

FF7R goes in a different direction with its storytelling than the original game (although the first installment pretended for some time that it was just an expansion, not a sequel), so maybe this is really intentional on how the audience is supposed to instantly 'read' Cloud, although I don't think that's entirely true, either. Remake also goes out of its way to amplify everything. The original could get pretty goofy, but given its presentation Midgar always felt pretty gretty, whereas Remake cranks the bombast to such a degree that Cloud's actual performance reads as 'cool' even while his character design and presentation are leaning toward the representation of Cloud as we understand him by the climax of the game, after he has been broken and rebuilt and is the kind of guy to say "Let's mosey!"

This isn't just me picking on Final Fantasy or Cloud in particular, but it was a good example of the design drift that I'm talking about (although Sora Kingdom Hearts is, for me, a far more offensive transformation). A lot of modern games feels like they're blurring into each other because the design philosophy prioritizes realism over stylishness. This is fine in certain circumstances, but in games with a more fantastical bent I miss the ability to look at a character's artwork and just understand them immediately. Character graphics aren't just about maximum fidelity and realism; they're about communicating character without uttering a word.

[something-very-special]

"I know what you are, and I don't need you anymore"

I really like Silent Hill 2.

Basic bitch opinion, I know. But I really like Silent Hill 2, and as I move forward I'm realizing what a formative impact it had on me as a creative entity. Which is weird because I didn't play it until last year. The remake.

I did experience Silent Hill 2 back in high school. If you want to get technical I did touch the controller in order to navigate James to the stop of a stairwell and then my friend and I sat there listening to the door breathe until the person who was actually playing the game got back. I did also try to get past the first enemy but freaked myself out on the lead-in to the tunnel.

I'm better now.

Not really an auspicious start to a relationship with a game, but my relationship with it actually started with Silent Hill 3, when I saw the commercials for that game. I had never seen visual language like that-- I wasn't big on horror at the time, so the body horror, the industrial grating, the use of lighting through slow-moving fans... actually I saw that one on Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and it also freaked me out. I'm going to give myself a break on that one, though, I was six.

Thinking back, though, it was still a hell of a visual. The twitching monstrosities, the walls covered in wormthreads of blood, the peeling insutrial wasteland, and a terribly normal teenager shakily wielding a rusted pipe while a mass of flesh that looks not entirely unlike a person turns its eyeless face toward her. Cut to black.

I had to know more.

I went down a rabbit hole that day. It was the third game, not yet out, so I found myself looking into information about the prequels. The original Silent Hill had some rad monster designs, but the fixation of the internet was Silent Hill 2, and my first exposure to 2 was not in gameplay footage, or commercials, or screenshots-- it was essays.

Reams and reams of words explaining the monster designs, the psychology, the progression through the town, James' inner demons, the symbolic importance of Maria's skirt. By the time a friend of mine said "Oh, I have those games, you want to play them?", I understood the meaning of everything inside and out, and when it came to actually experience it, it all fell into place.

Except for when you get near the edge of town and Mannequins are just, like, raining on your head? Like Pyramid Head is just on the other side of the facen firing them out of a trebuchet. I still don't know what's up with that but it was hysterical.

We did one playthrough of that game over the course of two nights, and I internalized it, and I moved on. We played 3 after that. We played 4. Together with a friend in college, we went through Origins and Homecoming. I went through Shattered Memories for myself a couple of times.

The remake came out. I picked up a PS5. Last February, I finally sat down and actually played Silent Hill 2 for myself.

I think it was to my benefit that my experience was so offhand; I didn't have the original internalized in a way that I think a lot of fans do, I didn't have the comparisons running through my head. What I wanted from that game was the same story, the same meaning, the same crawling dread from standing in front of a door listening to it breathe. I got the experience I wanted. I'm happy.

I noticed something.

Approaching the finale of the game, you encounter a final battle against the tw Pyramid Heads. They kill Maria (again), James is upset about it, but after he recovers, he looks to his judges and says:

"I know what you are. And I don't need you anymore."

I know what this line meant. I did all the research, I looked up all the old articles, I read all the essays and breakdowns. But in context of the game itself, in the experience I had up to that point...

What the fuck are you talking about, James?!

This is absolute nonsense. What do you mea, you know what they are? They're two buff dudes in awkward masks trying to murder you! I guess he's figured that out and doesn't need that shit in his life, that's fair, but we're coming off a pretty horrific revelation that James himself is still processing, presumably this statement is related to the storyline and not just James deciding oh yeah, these guys. These guys suck, I don't wanna deal with you, go away. :/

You will never get an answer in the game. You will not start a New Game+ and find old documents explaining what Pyramid Head is in any kind of solid way. You won't get a monologue where James talks himiself through his own psychosis. Mary doesn't turn to James and tell him what this has all been about. Maria doesn't psychoanalyze him during the final boss fight. The journey, the monsters, the puzzles, the Pyramid Heads-- you are never taken aside and told what's happening, why things were this specific way.

And it's brilliant.

There is a lost art in storytelling-- trusting the audience.

What Silent Hill 2 does is constructs its mythology in the background: the designers knew exactly what was going on, they chose these monsters for a reason, they chose these locations and these puzzles for a purpose, and if you as the audience step back and examine it holistically you start recognizing the patterns and rhythms that inevitably fold back on themselves into a coherent thematic framework. You can figure it out, and if you do, the whole story takes on a remarkable cohesion and care. If you apy attention, because it is very possible to reach the end of the game, look back on the experience, and think: "Wow, that was weird."

People sort of take for granted the embedded symbolism in a game like Silent Hill because we, in current day, understand what was being told to us. I remember seeing some essays about the obvious symbolism of the monsters as reflection of Jame's sexual frustrations and then I look at them again like... ain't no way you saw a Lying Figure and immediately thought "Ah, yes, a female form bound by a straighjacket, a tool which is used to suppress psychosis, this is clearly indicative of James' need for control during Mary's terminal decline". You saw a fucked-up vaguely humanoid figure staggering around in the fog and thought "oh hell no".

The reason Silent Hill 2 sticks in the mind is not just because the game's symbolism was intricately layered and carefully considered. It's not just because the twist lands so hard. If the game had presented its thesis at the end then you may have a better understanding of what it was saying in a tangible, clear way... and you would move on. Instead, it demands you sit back, and you think;

"What did he means, I know what you are? Why did he need them?"

A lot of media -- I see this in books, I see this in movies, I see this in games -- feels a need to not just present a story, but to be understood in that story. It doesn't trust that the audience will understand what they are being told, so it feels a need to explain. The characters will turn to the audience and tell them what the point was. The monsters will be explained by the end. The psycholgocial metaphor will be laid out clearly on the table. This isn't innately wrong, but in many stories, it feels like the creator (or creators) need desperately to be understood, and instead of presenting their narrative and leaving it up to the audience, they must reach out and say, "Hey, this is what's happening."

I can't blame people for wanting to do this. Being misunderstood is deeply aggravating, and to be misunderstood through art almost feels like an assault on the soul. You put so much thought and care into the constuction of this masterpiece and some dingus looks at it says "Huh, that was weird" and then keeps walking. Or worse, walks away with the entirely wrong lesson. Of course there's a compulsion to explain yourself. Of course you want your work to be appreciated.

I've seen people walk away with some real dumb takes. Trust me. I get it.

But in doing this, it makes it clear that the audience also can't be trusted to sit and stew in uncertainty, and that consequently creates an increasingly shallow and, honestly, nonsenical interaction with storytelling. Dialogue has to be twisted around so characters sound authoritative when talking about their own psychological journey. Notes about corporate secrets are kept in desk drawers. Journals are written in ways no human being has ever written a journal. Narrators gently guide you through the experience you just had instead of letting you settle into your own thoughts. You are not allowed to misinterpret, because you are not encouraged to interpret at all.

It takes no small amount of courage to put something out in the world that will, inevitably, be misunderstood. Silent Hill itself has failed to understand this in its recent offerings, both in games and other media-- the latest offering, Silent Hill f, is kind enough to provide you with a journal that explains the symbolism behind all of its monsters. The giant mass of nipples that squirts out smaller monsters represents the lead character's fear of being reduced to function as a mother? Thanks, I was really struggling with that one.

I have finished stories that have left me confused about the message, uncertain what to think, still mulling over the purpose or meaning or lesson or if there is one at all. I have no doubt misinterpreted stories, and no doubt been misinterpreted in kind. Sometimes you can't stand that; sometimes the message is the point, and it has to be said. But too often, I feel I'm closing in on the end and the author decides I can't be trusted to walk away without the questions being answered.

And sometimes, the world just is, and the story just is, and the character will say, "I know what you are", and it doesn't matter if you understand. Because even after it's over, you will keep asking--

What were you? And why aren't you needed anymore?

[something-very-special]

This is not a New Game+

When we play video games, we go into the experience with certain expectations built on the experience that we've had with prior games (or, equally, with some fun filmmaking shorthand, in the way the camera lingers or pans or using lighting to shift mood).

When we walk into a large circular room we know there's a boss fight ahead.

When we walk into a room with a save point we know we aren't going to be attacked.

When we see a big monster in the distance we know we're going to fight it.

When we see yellow paint on ledges we know those are climbable.

When we see a character with a special model, we know they're going to be important.

When we see a creature on the overworld that looks mean, it's an enemy, and we're going to fight it.

From a structural standpoint, we can make a lot of assumptions, too. When we enter a new area there's going to be a dungeon crawl and there's going to be a boss fight at the end. When we're in the tutorial we're almost always safe from our own mistakes. When we encounter a boss that's 50 levels above us IN that tutorial, we know it's a hopeless fight.

Automata actually breaches expectation out the gate by making it not only possible to die in the tutorial, but giving you a credit's roll. Mean! But also really funny.

Automata's initial gameplay loop coheres mostly to these expectations-- you enter a new location, you have some freedom to explore, you reach the far end of that location, you fight a boss, you've now opened a loop that allows you to return and explore this area at your leisure. Once you leave, you're given instructions to explore a new area that circumstances have opened up to you, repeat. Between these areas you may or may not get the opportunity to perform sidequests. Eventually the story reaches its climax, you have a fight that takes you across the City Ruins, you win. Roll credits.

After the credits, you're given a chance to start a New Game+.

This is a lie.

Automata does a lot of really clever things that both prey on your expectations while also subconsciously setting you up for those subversions. If you played the original NIER you already suspect something is going to happen with New Game+ because of the franchise expectations, but a lot of people found Automata in isolation and assumed it was a Platinum game, which are very well constructed but usually follow standard linear storytelling conventions. You are not necessarily going in thinking "This is all going to change in New Game+".

But the game does hint at it.

If you DO die in the tutorial, you get that credits roll, and that ending is stamped on your save file. If you want off in the wrong direction during the Engels attack you get a credits roll and an ending stamp. If you manage not to die but decide to do Jackass' request and eat her mackerel, you get a credits roll and an ending stamp. You are given ample opportunity, between booting up to killing Eve, to realize that the credits roll is fake.

And that includes the 'end credits'.

The NG+ information box is kind enough to tell you that there's more to the story, and if you jump back in you find things changing immediately, opening up not even on 9S as he performs his side of the mission but on a machine lifeform trying to revive its big brother, directly contiguous with 2B's musings at the end of Route A.

Route B then presents itself as, fundamentally, the same as Route A but with a perspective shift. 2B and 9S are together through most of the missions during the game, so you're performing the same missions a second time with a slightly different moveset. Another clever strucutral point occurs right out the gate, however; the two were not functionally together during the descent mission, meaning that while they are able to communicate, 9S is doing something entirely different in another part of the factory, informing you as a player that once they are separated again approaching the climax, you'll experience another, more important story division.

One could consider this a New Game+ 'bonus' in that you get to see what 2B didn't, but maybe it's not vital to the story. How much of what 9S goes through is really that different?

Other than the actual story being gated behind his perspective, I guess.

New Game+ functions structurally as New Game+, in that you are replaying the events of the game with harder enemies and all your gear intact, but narratively it is vital to understanding what's going on. Maybe it's not a universal thing but I personally felt much more satsified at the end of Route B than I did with Route A, and when the game offers you a Route C, well, I was all over the idea of seeing what A2 was up to while these guys were dealing with Adam and Eve.

Hoo boy.

[something-very-special]

Why we remember Lavender Town

I was listening to a video today about Pokemon creepypasta. (This is how I spend my time at work, I'm very productive.) While he was going through a unifying theme for a lot of these older stories, he brought up a sentence that really struck me:

"Lavender Town is the closest these old games feel to being haunted"

And the reason that struck me is because it's... true. Not just for the old games, either. Lavender Town is the closest the franchise has ever felt to being haunted.

Pokemon was a very different beast back in '97. It's hard to properly explain the feel of these games in Present Day, when the franchise has become so glutted and universal. I still enjoy Pokemon, but nothing has ever quite captured the magic of first booting up the old gray brick and seeing Blastoise slide across the green-tinted screen as I booted up Blue for the first time.

Or for the twentieth time.

Back on the playground, itching to take on my friends with the team of monsters I had assembled. Back when we were trading rumors as easily as we traded Pokemon.

I still remember when I reached Lavender Town for the first time. Fourth grade, end of day. Our classroom was on the second storey of the building. It was raining-- dark outside, soft interior lights of the classroom inside, kids all with their Game Boys out continuing our own adventures, nobody particularly in a rush for the rain to stop and for us to head home. It was a perfect atmosphere to step into the Pokemon Tower and have my first encounter with a GHOST.

Pokemon has had more ghost types introduced since then, and introduced more spooky locations in its games. There's a house in the Kalos region that's spooky. That one Hex Maniac who freaks you out in the office building. The abandoned store where you fight Mimikyu. The mansion where you find Rotom.

But none of them have at all the same bone-deep staying power of Lavender Town, and that sentence really exemplified what the difference is.

"Lavender Town feels haunted"

The other times Pokemon dabbles in the spooky end of the pool feel like events. Scripted. A little funhouse moment that you're lead to see, and then it's gone, and you carry on as normal.

But Lavender Town, in all its 8-bit glory, feels haunted.

The only indication the game can provide is a change in its music, from the adventure cords of the overworld to the slightly uncomfortable melancholia of Lavender Town (an impressive feat given the Game Boy's sound limitations). There are no tricks that the game can perform graphically except to surround you, as you ascend, with tombstones-- which don't reach particularly well on that tiny screen.

But if you go there before you have the Silph Scope, you aren't encountering Pokemon. You're seeing GHOSTs. Enemies that repeat "Get out... get out..." when you try to interact with them. You can't

If you continue ascending -- as you probably would as a child, unaware that this is a gatekeeping measure you have to resolve -- you start encountering other trainers. Strange sprites on the overworld, robed women with long straight hair and closed eyes, and when they fight you--

Ke... ke... ke... ke...

Be cursed with me!

Urf-- kwaa!

Threatening shouts. Inhuman noises. In the middle of the tower, a purification circle, just a group of strange white tiles that serves as a moment to breathe.

The game doesn't tell you what's happening here, and I think that's very much to its benefit. One Channeler tells you earlier that they can't identify the spirits and need the Silph Scope, but most of the others are already possessed, and you as the player don't get a warning, or have anybody prime you for this revelation. You see it in the dialogue when they attack you.

And because the game doesn't explain itself any more than it absolutely must, you are left to figure this out for yourself. The implications drip through the mind as you piece together what you're seeing (or fail to, if you're a seven year old, this all just comes across as really unnerving). They settle. This doesn't feel like an event that you walked into, nobody comes yelling "Our people our possessed, help us!" You've walked into the middle of a collapsing ritual and nobody is going to protect you.

When you come back with the Silph Scope and can actually see the Pokemon, that honestly don't help too much. Your Normal attacks are worthless against them, and the ghosts themselves are actually kind of freaky for that era. Gastly is a cute little gas ball but as rendered in the original Red/Blue it's a spray of pixels with threatening eyes and massive fangs. Haunter hasn't looked this cool since Gen 1:

And since I mentioned melancholia, that's the button the whole tower climb-- sometimes, you'll encounter not a ghost, but a Cubone, a sweet little lizard-guy wearing a skull and wielding a bone club. And at the top of the tower, the final, true GHOST-- the furious spirit of a Marowak, who was killed by Team Rocket and whose abandoned child now waits in Mr. Fuji's house.

I emphasize; you did not enter the Tower being told about any of this. You did not enter the Tower to avenge Cubone, you weren't told to put the spirit to rest. You're just some kid wandering into events he has no business wandering into and trying to understand what you've stumbled upon.

And what you've stumbled upon is a haunting. Not a scheduled event. not a moment to prove your heroism. A haunting in progress.

Later games will emphasize these moments. The house in Kalos gives you a tiny tour. The mansion in Sinnoh has little events going on to unnerve you. The Hex Maniac stops you in your tracks to mess with you. All fine, I have no problems with these places.

But Lavender Town never explains itself to you. It never demands you see how creepy it is. It does exactly what the rest of the game has been doing with fairly minimal ornamentation, but that's why it digs into your brain the way I don't feel the later-game locations do. It is as the rest of the game, but wrong.

I am a great advocate for show don't tell in many forms of storytelling and the restrictions on the original Pokemon games (indeed, many older games) enforce a level of restraint that many modern games (indeed, works of art in general) no longer demand and therefore people no longer feel an obligation to respect. It's not minimalism, but it is careful selection of what is important to communicate and how to do so in the most effective way possible, just because they didn't have the raw memory to write more text.

What it creates in Lavender Town is a strange note on an otherwise straightforward journey. Not dissonant or discordant, just off. Wrong. Haunted.