Some BLM bundle games on one hand, some shorter RPG’s on the other
Arc the Lad 1
System: PS3 (PS1 Classic)
I played Arc the Lad 1 (again) and did the 50F dungeon (again), bc I hate myself (aka I really want that completionist clear for Arc the Lad 2). There’s not a whole lot new to say about a game I’ve replayed about five times, but I do want to say: the environmentalism bent in this game just gets so much more depressing with every passing year... Oh and I guess I also confirmed my theory that Arc the Lad 1′s difficulty really depends on who you have over-leveled.
Basically... I’ve run into inconsistent difficulty spikes in all my replays of this game and for this run, I deliberately focused on making Arc very OP. This approach basically made the game like my first run (i.e. early game is hard, the rest of the game, up until the Ark Demon fight, is quite easy). If you don’t believe me, try a run where Tosh steals all the kills. You’ll basically get stone-walled by the Mt. Amaidar section (since Tosh is a sitting duck for the wizards at the top of the stage, over-leveled or not).
Anyway. I really, really, really, really, REALLY hope I can get a playthrough of Arc the Lad 2 (with a completed transfer save) done this year. As much as I like this flawed gem, I honestly know way more about this game than I’d like.
Imperishable Memories
System: PC (itch.io)
I picked Imperishable Memories up from the BLM bundle earlier this year (along with, no joke, 1000 other games). IM is a very surreal, artsy shmup that has very little to do with Touhou at all (beyond the title, which seems like a clear nod to Touhou 8, and the final boss, who has 1 line and 1 attack like a certain Fairy from Hell). The game itself was okay. Without spoiling anything, it’s pretty lite on gameplay, with the game itself being touted as narrative-driven on itch.io.
Personally, I respect and understand the type of narrative the game was trying to go for. My only qualm is that I kind of wish that the visuals played with your expecations just like the story did. Like I feel that if the game started with a more conventional artsyle and then, level-by-level, it’d turn into what we got, it would have just added to the interesting meta-narrative. Anyway... if you don’t mind an under-an-hour-artsy-experience, I’d say this game is worth checking out.
Risk System
System: PC (itch.io)
Another BLM bundle shmup. This one was pretty great. It’s definitely one of the most impressive itch.io games I’ve ever played (I know that sounds like faint praise considering I’ve played less than 10 itch.io games total, but seriously this feels like the type of game I’d normally have to buy on PSN or Steam for a lot more money than I did). The only bad thing is that visuals are a bit intense. Also, the requirements to get the true ending are a bit much.
Earth Defense Force 4.1
System: PS4
Decided to get this since 1) my kid brother was begging me to get this so we could play co-op (note: we did not actually end up playing co-op) and 2) it’s one of those famously “so bad it’s good” games and I’ve always had an appreciation of ‘not conventionally good’ titles. I’m personally not sure something can truly be “so bad it’s good” (I always felt the term should be so bad, it’s entertaining) and EDF 4.1 doesn’t really change my mind on this.
For what it’s worth, I did enjoy Earth Defense Force 4.1 up until a point. I think there’s a genuinely compelling gameplay loop here; the way the game will give you utterly overpowered weapons that are only balanced by the sheer number of enemies thrown at you is interesting. The way the game also plays with scale is amazing. There’s this level on a beach where you’re blasting at giant robots from beyond the horizon line (and you can actually hit them), there’s another where you fight off-brand Godzilla who is just tearing through a city, and all of it’s great. That’s not an experience you’ll find in a AAA game.
Yet for all the fun I had, I couldn’t help that the game was fun DESPITE itself. The core crowd control gameplay is fun, sure. But painfully walking between areas to activate the next part of a mission, or physically picking up all the loot after killing the enemies is not. There are like four classes, and yet only one of these actually feels decent to use (Wing Divers) and the fun is hampered by only having two weapon on hand at once. The game has compromised graphics supposedly so it can handle all the enemies on screen, yet the FPS of the game still tanked pretty consistently. Aside from the absolutely cheesy writing and voice acting, which I could see the “B-movie” appeal for, there was a lot here that was so bad it’s just bad.
Now that I’ve played a “proper” EDF (I played Insect Armageddon previously and apparently that wasn’t a “real” EDF title) I can understand the appeal of the series a little, but I’m not sure I’d call this series the shining example of a “so bad it’s good game” because I’m just seeing yet another unrefined game with a lot of untapped potential.
Okage: Shadow King
System: PS4 (PS2 Classics)
It took me a while to get through this (I originally posted about it many, many months ago). Anyway, I think I loved everything about this game EXCEPT for the actual gameplay parts. The writing is easily the strongest part; not only is full of personality and actually pretty funny but it‘s pretty clever too. I won’t spoil anything, but it’s not often a game can be as absurd as this while also fully justifying it in-story. The Burton-esque visuals, the charming characters and the underrated soundtrack are all lovely too.
The gameplay is pretty bad by comparison. Like at best, it only ever reaches the level of serviceable with a few tough bosses that require simplistic strategies. At its worst though, the game can feel random and downright janky at times. Responsible for the janky feel is the sort-of-ATB system and I... don’t think it’s possible to explain the why in words. I’ve spent at least 20 minutes writing and re-writing this one specific section, and every variation of this section sounds long-winded and insane. But BASICALLY, the ATB system is weird because the way the game processes in-game battle animations is also weird.
This battle weirdness isn’t super noticeable in the boss fights, since the boss fights always have a low number of enemies, but in random encounters where than can be up to 8 enemies at once? You’ll definitely notice this. You’ll definitely notice the way one of your characters takes FOREVER to actually get their first turn. There are all sorts of other ways that battles are weird (like the in-game targeting system) but the weird “ATB with lag” is the most noticeable. There’s also the dungeons which range from “very, very basic” to “very, very annoying”.
With all that said about the gameplay, this game is still worthwhile if you’re into JRPG’s. Don’t get it wrong; the game is absolutely carried by its writing, but that shouldn’t put you off because the writing is just that good. Okage: Shadow King is a lovely, 20-hour JRPG that is light, absurd and funny as it is surprisingly profound and I’d recommend it to any JRPG fan that can stomach a little jank.
A Hole New World
System: PC (itch.io)
Another game on the incomplete pile. Not only does this game nail the NES / SNES platform aesthetic, it also nails the annoying NES era gameplay too (...have I mentioned how much I dislike that era of gaming? Because I do). Much respect to the developers, they totally nailed the look (and also the feel) but this just *isn’t* for me. Anyone who has the BLM bundle and is into this type of game should absolutely give this a try though.
Risk System is a very cool and very tough side scrolling shoot ‘em up that rewards you for flying close to enemy fire by charging up your special weapon.
Read More & Play The Alpha Demo Build, Free (Windows)
Beam version 1. There is also a glimpse of the player increasing their Power by buzzing enemy fire as it passes by. Getting as close to enemy fire as possible is how the player powers their special weapons.
For ease of reference, in this post I talk about — Big Fish & Begonia (2016), Risk System (2019), The Boys Season 4 and Crank (2006).
Alright, it's been a hell of a couple of weeks so I've missed maybe an update or two, I lost count, and I don't particularly want to get into any of what's been keeping me busy so let's fucking do this shit. I have decided at this point that I am only going to be writing about media I have finished only. It feels dumb to keep posting about stuff that is ongoing and only updates once a week or month because I don't really have a whole lot to say at that point so it just feels like a waste to keep reiterating the same thing until it's over and just save everything to an overall breakdown at the end of it all. Okay, let's do this actually now.
Big Fish & Begonia
I decided I wanted to start including anime movies to movie night since I used Anilist to track animanga instead of Letterboxd, these movies wouldn't turn up during the movie roulette system I use to pick non-anime movies. Anyway, I am now alternating — one week anime movie, next week non-anime movie. This was the pick for the night! First of all, I want to say that I ultimately did enjoy this movie but I don't think that a lot of it had to do with the movie itself. The premise is a bit absurd. The plot summary reads as follows:
This is a mythic land where no outsider has ever set foot. The spirit-like dwellers there, however, know us mortals well. They are responsible for human emotions and desires, for seasons, weather, the elapsing of time. Our protagonist, a spirit girl named Chun, has just turned sixteen and goes in the form of a dolphin to explore the earthly part of the sea, to see what the human world is like. While cruising at sea, Chun gets caught in a storm and finds herself enmeshed in a fishing net. A human boy spots her and comes to her rescue, trying to free Chun from the entanglement. By accident, the boy drowns leaving Chun wretched and heartbroken.
Da Hai tells an absorbing and bittersweet story of sacrifice and redemption when Chun is determined to bring back to life the boy's soul, now in the form of a little white fish. Da Hai is about an adolescent coming to terms with her limitations, and a spirit, coming into possession of her powers, dealing with the difficult issues of death, love and maturing emotions with empathy and nuance.
What that summary doesn't encapsulate is how much of a "at what point into sacrifice for the sake of something do you back out and call a loss?" this movie is. The number of people, of friends and family, who die for the sake of this one girl's refusal to accept the death of a total stranger (no matter how charmingly this fixation the movie and its creator's try to pose it) is absolutely absurd. At one point, I had tears in my eyes from laughing over it. In all seriousness, I think the frustrating thing about it all is that the movie never truly confronts its themes. In the end, Chun makes it to the mortal world with the newly resurrected boy and there is no actual lesson to take away from it whatsoever. Death is not something to be accepted. It's something that can be manifested and compromised with. I understand that they might have wanted to end the movie on a high note but maybe don't make a movie majorly about grief and coping with loss if you don't want to reconcile with the weight of the narrative. And I think a lot of this could have been forgiven if the character writing was at all interesting or engaging or just. Anything.
This movie has some very cool and interesting character designs. It's unfortunate that none of them were reserved for any of the main characters. And a lot of this lack of effort also goes into their characterizations. The main group have no depth whatsoever. There is just nothing about them that really makes them feel like anything outside of characters in a thing we are watching. And this is where I have to draw some comparisons.
It's pretty clear that Big Fish and Begonia took a lot of inspiration from Studio Ghibli. That they had big pants to fill to compare is an understatement, and I'm honestly not at all a Ghibli fan. I've actually only seen two Ghibli movies and I fell asleep midway through one of them. But even then, I could see the inspiration. But was it inspired? Or was it derivative? In terms of writing, in terms of stylization, characterization, heart — the substance just was not there. That Ghibli films were made by people who care what they are making is something I can definitely agree with, but this didn't feel like a movie made by people who cared about what they were making. It was a movie made by people who were trying to make a Ghibli movie. Oh well.
Risk System
So I started Risk System back in October and I have played it on and off since them. Recently, I've decided to shelve it. It has an interesting premise, fun character designs and writing (though minimal). I enjoyed the music a lot and the aesthetic. It had everything going for it but ultimately, the gameplay was lacking. A grazing shmup with movement inertia and incredibly buggy hitboxes. I got a few levels in before I figured that if I dedicated a single additional month to this instead of the hundreds of other games waiting on my backlog, I'd lose my mind. It had incredibly mixed reviews with some people hating it, others loving it and some just content with it's addition to their repertoire and I think that very accurately captures the experience of playing the game. When it's good it's good and when it's bad it's bad and unfortunately, for me — it was mostly bad.
Maybe another time.
The Boys Season 4
Trigger warning — I will be talking about scenes in this show in which people have been raped in no explicit detail, but still. Proceed with caution.
I don't know, man. So much of this season was just sort of ... dicking around. I don't care about Starlight's abortion, I don't care about Hughie's mom, I don't care about whatever they're doing with Black Noir. So many plots just become so inconsequential — like why the fuck did Frenchie put himself in jail? I know, it's because he is an expert chemist and they wouldn't have needed to kidnap Victoria's boyfriend if he wasn't locked in a box somewhere. It lent no credence to his character whatsoever. It never really went anywhere. Everything in general for this season felt like just set up. A lot of set up for the final season. And what isn't set up, is just much of the same of what we've already seen. I just don't know. It doesn't really feel like they're milking it too, y'know. Like when shows just sort of go on for too long that they lose themselves, it just feels a bit like the writers are a bit lost on where to go. It just kind of feels like it's run out of steam. This tends to happen a lot with adapting series that deviate so heavily from their source material. Anyway, this isn't exactly even my biggest complaint with the season. As aimless as the plot feels throughout, it's always entertaining in one way or another and I could honestly spend hours just watching nothing but shots of Anthony Starr giving his Homelander stare. Starr just really brings exactly what needs to be brought to the character at all times.
No, my biggest complaint is the extremely weird stance the show has taken with rape all of a sudden. The Deep raped Starlight when he forced her to give him oral sex. This was treated with extreme weight and severity. She is a person who was victimized but she rises from it and fights for justice. Becca is raped by Homelander. This was treated with extreme weight and severity — though it also serves for good manpain fuel for Butcher, I guess. But it's still given the seriousness that an event like this deserves. But then, the Deep is raped. When this happens, I couldn't help but feel like it is treated with nowhere near as much compassion. As if the writers feel that he deserved this and it is morally justified to mock him for it. As a survivor myself, it made me feel sick — but I chose to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was a hiccup and I suppose that there are other victims out there who disagree with my perspective and lean into the "an eye for an eye" mentality. Fine, whatever. I was willing to shrug it off.
And then Hughie. Hughie is raped several times in this season. It's actually absurd to say this as I'm sure you know what's coming but yes — Hughie is raped several times in season four and the show treats it with extreme levity and even goes as far as to villainize him for it. Firstly, he's assaulted by Tek Knight. I know there's a very weird sort of grey area in the earlier parts of the scene because Tek Knight thinks he is someone else who has consented to this, as does Ashley but when Tek Knight discovers he is not who he thinks he is — he plans to torture and assault him. I also would like to remind everyone who doesn't remember from earlier in the season/series that Tek Knight was Hughie's favorite Supe as a child. This was someone he looked up to as a little kid and now this man is sexually assaulting him and the show thinks it's a fucking joke. He has a panic attack and cries and then it is swept away as the story moves on to the rest of the inconsequential bullshit it's churning.
Then, we have the Shifter. Shifter was a pretty interesting character. I actually was very intrigued by them. I loved the way they actually shifted bodies, that they had to do so constantly or their body would start rotting away, the fact that they had no idea what they even looked like, the fact that their brain is likely full of the memories of hundreds if not thousands of people. They were really fascinating, as a character. And they raped Hughie repeatedly when they took on Starlight's appearance and proceeded to seduce him under the false pretense that they were Starlight. It's rape. And it is infuriating that when Starlight learns about this, she immediately tries to make it into some bullshit faux-feminist "Wow, is that all you see me as? A sex toy?" argument and has absolutely no understanding that this was an incredibly violating thing to happen to Hughie as well as her. They were both victims. She's not perfect, no one is, so I just want to clarify that I think it's perfectly understandable for the show to have characters who are flawed and don't always say or do the things people would consider the "correct thing" to do and that the actions of characters aren't always in any way indicative of a writer's thoughts or feelings but it is extremely concerning that the rape of men in this show is never given any grace or compassion or empathy. It just feels so extremely callous and has left me with a really sick feeling in my stomach.
And it's also made me think about how regularly men experience other minor forms of sexual assault on the show that are always treated as jokes. MM is regularly poked and prodded at by Love Sausage's giant dick. That thing is around his neck so often, it's more scarf than cock at this rate. MM gets Web Slinger's webbing shot out of the little hole in his lower back and it goes on his face, an obvious "cumshot" joke and something that MM, a man with misophobic OCD, is distressed by. And then of course in herogasm, when he gets absolutely bathed in cum. I can't remember anymore off of the top of my head but I know in the back of my mind, I know there is more. But then meanwhile, Homelander's backstory is being treated as if it were one of the greatest tragedies on the planet. The nationalist genocidal psychopath is being granted more kindness than Hughie.
And we've seen them handle PTSD before. One of the things I most have liked about the show is how it has handled mental health, substance abuse, etc. There was always a degree of understanding but this season has felt ... devoid of that. Devoid of humanity. If you've seen the show, you know it's not subtle. When it wants you to know something, it tells you. Which is fine, that is the vibe it has always had. An over-the-top satirical spin. But that only makes this whole situation all the more jarring. We'll see what happens in Season 5, I guess.
Also, them changing the name of the last episode is some real wimpy cop-out bullshit.
Crank
Trigger warning — I will be talking about a scene in this movie depicting a sexual assault/rape/dubious consent situation in this movie in no explicit detail.
Last night's movie was a riot. This is definitely one of those I've been meaning to get around to for a while and was so excited to finally do so. The editing, music, acting, cinematography— it was just so stunningly produced. From the get-go, everyone in the stream was enamored. Now, for clarity's sake, it's a rough watch. There are a lot of slurs tossed around, some jokes that are meant to be pretty clearly offensive and a scene that has pretty much all watchers of this movie fighting a war that has gone on for almost twenty years. This is getting really long and I've been working on it for a little over two hours now so I'm gonna keep it pretty short.
I can get how this movie isn't some people's style. It's janky and gritty and stupid but it's such a good fucking time. I think it's probably one of the best action movies to have ever been created. A few things bring it down, a lot of which pretty fucking heavily dates it. I was bummed when Kaylo was sort of just used as collateral damage in the movie. I was pretty excited to see a trans/gay character in a movie like this but I guess that just showed a degree of naivety in me I didn't expect. I guess I thought that with the way the movie had handled such a fun and interesting character like Orlando, it would have done the same with Kaylo. Which brings me to say that I feel that a lot of the movie at times feels disjointed with itself. It was as if six different people were all trapped in a room for a week with nothing but a pile of cocaine to survive off of and came up with the script, which is both it's biggest strength but also it's biggest weakness.
It's not like the movie isn't capable of compassion. I was actually rather taken with these random moments of contemplative introspection littered in the movie. The scene in the hospital where Chev stumbles into the room of a (comatose or sleeping) sick man in a hospital bed and spend the time he can afford grappling with his own mortality. The scene where his doctor offers him an "easy out", a dreamful sleep into death and he once again finds himself in this fork where he must either break the cycle or turn the wheel. It is able to offer glimpses of humanity into the beast that is Chev. Even Verona, who struggles internally with the grief for his dead brother but the pride that disallows a semblance of vulnerability. It just doesn't really want to dig its fingers into that gaping wound, which is disappointing.
Movies like this, where the protagonist is a sack of shit is always very divisive, especially when those characters also show semblances of being good people. Some people strongly believe that only good people should be the main characters of thing and that those people can only ever do good things and that the people who stand against them are bad and can only ever be bad. You know, like real people in real life, I guess. I do not agree with this mentality at all but I do think that people who are writing characters like this sometimes lose the plot. It's a dangerous line to walk but not impossible.
Anyway, this is all to say that I don't like that they made Chev assault his girlfriend in attempts to goad her into sex so that he could keep his adrenaline up and not die. I think it was a severely mishandled scene that could have been fixed with more than two seconds of critical thought. My partner actually pointed out that he should have just started jerking off or something if he was that desperate. I don't know if it makes it less of an assault and more of a harassment situation but it's definitely a better option than him clinging to her legs like a pathetic horny dog and trying to knock her onto the ground. Many people argue that she ends up agreeing, which would I guess push this more into a "dubious consent" situation. I'm not here to argue semantics. I think anyone with a brain capable of rational thought can surmise that this largely contributes this the rape culture mentality that no does not always mean no and can then become a yes with enough grit and determination. That being said, I don't think it's the end of the world that a movie made twenty years ago has shit politics. I'm an adult that can watch a movie and say "there are some things about this I really liked and there are some things I really didn't." Which is to say, there are some things about this movie I really liked and there were some I really didn't.
It has been announced that the shoot’em up Risk System will be coming to the Switch. The game which originally was released on Steam will be launching on July 15. You can take a look at the game’s press release below.
Hidden Trap and Newt Industries announced today that the anime shmup Risk System is coming to Nintendo Switch on July 15. This handcrafted sci-fi adventure will be available…
