#shadow complex

[tilac-f-f]

Get Listed Part 1- - 2.5 Metroidvanias

Your Favorite?

Kong Survivor Instinct

MIO: Memories in Orbit

The Last Case of Benedict Fox

Shadow Complex Remastered

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

GRIME

HunterX

Metroid Dread

More than one

None of them

Let's see part 2

Voting ended onJun 10

Previus -- Next(Part 2)

[nyxshadowhawk]

A Jungian Reading of Jekyll and Hyde

We finally come to the end of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I saw a comment that @gerrysherry left on another post asking for a Jungian reading, so I thought I would take the excuse to go off about my favorite psychological concept. Strap in, because I have thoughts.

Jekyll describes himself as “composite,” both good and evil, while Hyde is pure evil. In a Jungian reading, Hyde is Jekyll’s Shadow. This means that he is an expression of the repressed side of Jekyll’s personality. He is everything about Jekyll that Jekyll is ashamed of, not just his secret desires and pleasures but also his violent impulses and wanton cruelty. I argue that the reason why this ends so tragically for Jekyll is because he fails to integrate Hyde; and, in fact, actively attempts to segregate the halves of himself.

The first thing that Jekyll tells us in his statement is that he’s really, really repressed:

Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. 

The Victorians were already repressed, but Jekyll is even more repressed. He feels deeply ashamed about these nameless “pleasures” (which, let’s be honest, is probably just being gay) and distances him from his conscious personality. He doesn’t want these secret parts of himself to influence his public reputation, or otherwise interfere with the image of himself that he presents to the world. So, he buries them deep down, hiding them not just from the world, but from himself. He already feels like he has a dual nature even before the mad science gets involved.

Jekyll’s intention with the mad science is essentially to give himself Dissociative Identity Disorder, I think. He wants to separate the “good” self from the “evil” self, and have them live independently from each other. Honestly, knowing what I know of DID, I fail to understand how that would be much better. I don’t think he ever really thought this through. But he finds that he cannot do this. He doesn’t end up with a purely good self and a purely evil self, he ends up with his normal self and a purely evil self. The purely evil self, Hyde, is literally just Jekyll with his inhibitions removed and his repressed aspects brought to the surface. Apart from that and his changed appearance, Jekyll isn’t any different. He initially acknowledges this, that Hyde is just himself but in Shadow form:

I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.

Here, he’s talking about Hyde in the first person. He feels younger, more reckless, and more wicked, but he otherwise hasn’t changed. He’s still aware of and in control of his actions. Hyde, being a Shadow, is both everything Jekyll does not to be associated with and everything he secretly wants to be. So, he goes for it. He lets out all of his repressed crap, indulges in his “undignified” pleasures, and then returns to his conscience. Hyde is still Jekyll, but with a unique opportunity to resolve his midlife crisis and live it up with no consequences. 

A lot of adaptations portray Jekyll as an innocent victim of an evil alter rising up from within and taking over his body. I just watched Moon Knight, so I’ve been thinking about Dissociative Identity Disorder for these last few days. (If you haven’t seen it, Moon Knight is AFAIK one of the best portrayals of DID in media.) In Moon Knight, Marc and Steven are literally separate people that share the same body, to oversimplify a bit. Steven has no awareness of Marc at first, experiences amnesia and blackouts, and has no control over Marc’s actions at all. Despite how adaptations might make it look, Jekyll and Hyde emphatically do not work like that. Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. They don’t just share the same body, they are literally the exact same person. 

That means that there is no meaningful difference between Jekyll and Hyde. Everything Hyde indulges in is something that Jekyll already enjoys. Everything Hyde does is something Jekyll already wants to do. Everything Hyde is responsible for, Jekyll is equally responsible for, because they’re the same person. 

Jekyll never fully comes to terms with this, and that’s where he goes wrong. “It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired.” He never makes any real attempt to confront or deal with these dark desires of his, he just shoves them off into a secret double life. So, when the halves of his life start to overlap against his will, what does he do? He freaks out, and starts repressing Hyde again, even worse this time: “I led a life of such severity as I had never before attained to.” His answer is not to try to understand Hyde, take responsibility for his actions, or reconcile his shame. Instead, he locks his Shadow up again, with even tighter mental padlocks. But once the Shadow has been let out to play, it doesn’t go back in the dark easily. Jekyll “began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom.” Repressing Hyde has made him feel like he has an internal monster straining to break free and wreak havoc, instead of Hyde being a relatively superficial shift in appearance and mindset. 

One commonly accepted reading of this is as an addiction metaphor, especially because it’s followed up by a relapse in which Jekyll takes his drug again and commits an act of senseless violence. From a Jungian perspective, though, Hyde’s actions are worse when he finally breaks free because Jekyll’s repression of him had been so severe. Jekyll got scared and shoved down his Shadow, so when his Shadow bursts forth, all of the repressed desires and impulses that compose Hyde manifest themselves in the most horrifying way. The more Jekyll represses his darkness, the bigger it grows; the brighter the light, the darker the Shadow. It festers like a wound unattended. So, the pendulum swings all the way back in the other direction, and the violence feels good: “With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow...” 

It’s after the horror of having murdered someone that Jekyll starts intentionally dissociating himself from Hyde more and more. He speaks of Hyde in the third person, because he can’t bring himself to admit that Hyde’s actions are his own. He starts to speak of Hyde the way many adaptations portray him: as if he were an uncontrollable evil force, rising from within in an attempt to take over and destroy him. He even dehumanizes Hyde, describing him as a kind of beast: “He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.” Then he speaks of Hyde and Jekyll as if they’re different people entirely, with different motivations and desires. Then he speaks of Hyde as something “inorganic” -- not only inhuman, but unalive -- the “slime of the pit” and “amorphous dust.” He’s so desperate to disassociate himself from his Shadow that he insists his Shadow is inhuman dead matter.

Hyde is not actually becoming a separate being as the story goes along. Jekyll is slipping further and further into denial. As I said before, there’s no meaningful difference between Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll’s failure to realize this is his undoing. The more Jekyll denies that Hyde is himself, the more his Shadow manifests involuntarily. When he self-righteously pats himself on the back for the charity work that he did to assuage his own guilt, Hyde nearly takes over completely. 

So what should Jekyll have done? This is where the Shadow concept doesn’t fully line up with Stevenson’s worldbuilding. Hyde is literally pure evil -- everyone can see it in his face. The Shadow is not actually evil, it’s just the parts of you that you refuse to acknowledge. This is usually because you personally believe them to be evil, or because your culture has taught you that they are evil, but that doesn’t mean they actually are. Jekyll’s premise was flawed from the beginning. It’s not possible to separate a human being into good and evil halves. This is because there isn’t really such thing as inherent “good” or “evil.” Who decides what’s “good” and what’s “evil”? Victorians? Humans are nuanced. All parts of oneself are there for a reason and have value, because they can be helpful or harmful in different situations. Jekyll should have taken responsibility for his actions as Hyde, but he also should have found healthy outlets for his darker desires instead of beating himself up over them. Maybe fantasize about killing someone you hate and then move on with your life, instead of snapping and actually doing it! Jekyll should have integrated the two halves of himself instead of doing everything in his power to separate them. 

Your Shadow is half of yourself, and if you repress it, then you lose all the potentially positive aspects of it. If you repress pride, you lose your self-confidence. If you believe that power and ambition are the root of all evil, you may lose your leadership skills or ability to be assertive. If you believe sexuality is evil... well, that’s kinda self-explanatory.  The answer here is, ultimately, self-love.  Your Shadow is you, and it still wants what’s best for you, it just has a very different idea of what that means. The least you can do is hear it out and give a hug, instead of locking it back in your subconscious dungeon. 

It’s extremely difficult to admit to and then to come to terms with your Shadow. It’s a dark night of the soul. It’s a long and laborious process, in which you’ll have to reassess your identity. There are other works of media that I think demonstrate how to do it healthily, like The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin (although, just watch, I can make any story about Shadow work). You’re not alone, you’re not evil or sick, and you’re not a hypocrite for having a Shadow. Most people have them, and making friends with your Shadow is a genuinely wonderful thing. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I can’t wait to analyze The Picture of Dorian Gray next!

I leave you with this masterpiece of an animatic, by S.K. Michels. Speaking from experience, this is how Shadow work sometimes feels. (Also, this artist’s portrayal of Jekyll/Hyde looks scarily like an OC I use to represent my own Shadow, so this video hits particularly hard for me). 

[jawesomepossum-blog]

Welcome to Shadow Complex what the SHIT is happening

[jawesomepossum-blog]

Today in Shadow Complex, things just keep on getting better

[bytetrending]

How Playful Paper Prototyping Shaped Shadow Complex

A Blast From The Past: Designing Shadow Complex Danielle Riendeau, Editor-in-Chief at Game Developer, recently unearthed a treasure from the past: the 2010 GDC Talk ‘Designing Shadow Complex’. This talk offers invaluable insights into the development process of the critically acclaimed Metroidvania title. One technique particularly stood out – playful paper prototyping – and its lessons remain…

How Playful Paper Prototyping Shaped Shadow Complex

[z-raven]

Shadow Complex

Ok, so I finished the game.

Though I didn't find all the items, still missing 1 passkey and 1 defense upgrade

So, I don't know where those 2 things are, they have to be somewhere in the outside region that I haven't explored.

As I already explored all of the indoor areas and I see no question marks on my map.

Well, I never actually gotten all these items before in the 360 version, so I guess I have a higher percentage now

[z-raven]

Shadow Complex

Is a game I played on 360 and apparently I have it now on Steam, so I been playing that and yep still fun.

However, the main character really does sound like Nathan Drake.

Which I know it is the same voice actor, just I guess when I first played the game I never played Uncharted.

However, since then I have played Uncharted and that is what I hear.

[liugeaux]

The Best Games of 2009 | A Pivotal Year

2009 was the year I went to E3. It was one of the most exciting trips I've ever taken and with it, came a tiny sample of what it would have been like to work in the games industry professionally. The whole idea behind these lists was to fill a gap in my experience before and since I took this trip. 2009 was also a huge year for me personally as it was when I moved back to the Jackson-Metro area and switched careers to my current one (still not in the games industry). So much has happened both in and out of the industry, this post will be a fun snapshot to explore.

Remember, (I say like anyone is reading) this post will be written as if it were published in December of 2009, so all critiques will be from that perspective. LFG!

#10 - Left 4 Dead 2

The original Left 4 Dead defined a brand-new corner of co-op gaming and by no means is it old or boring, so the sheer existence of Left 4 Dead 2 is shocking. It tweaks and improves basically everything from the first game and gives us new survivors and new infected. Valve hit us with the surprise announcement of L4D2 at E3 this year and that surprise likely won't disappear any time soon.

#9 - The Beatles: Rock Band

It's Rock Band, but The Beatles. I kind of wish it was more than that, but having a beautiful tribute to the most celebrated band in history in one of my favorite games is hard to complain about.

#8 - Trine

What feels like a simple platform game is actually an intriguing physics puzzle box dripping with medieval charm. Trine takes familiar concepts and glues them together in a game that borders on the exact right amount of chaos for the genre. More than once my heroes accidentally sent a magic box careering off the screen as my little brain tried to cheese a jump well enough to hit a ledge. Trine earns it's wackiness and is a breath of fresh air because of it.

#7 - Halo 3: ODST

It's Halo 3, but Blade Runner. Ok that's a bit dismissive, but who knew the tried and true formula of Halo would graft so well onto a cyberpunk-esq world. ODST could've just been a pallet swap with Oribital Drop Shock Troopers taking center stage, but the changes were much more game-altering. Most importantly it is has a sleeker vibe than the previous 3 games. OSDT is cool, the way Blade Runner's dark and always raining aesthetic is cool. Will it age as well as the other Halo games, who knows, but today ODST is super dope.

#6 - Borderlands

Part irreverent joke, part Diablo-inspired loot-a-thon, part RPG, part first-person action, Borderlands blends so many different things so well, its hard to believe we haven't been getting games like this for years. Oh and did I mention it's class-based too? Borderlands is the entire games industry in a blender, and then cell-shaded. It's not without its fair share of jank, but there is enough meat on the bone to confidently say Borderlands is one of the best games of the year.

#5 - Shadow Complex

The Metroidvania genre is a storied niche with some of the most fiercely beloved games in it. However, publishers will tell you, while they play well and score high in reviews, they don't sell well. This means they aren't as prevalent as your FPSs or straightforward platformers. Shadow Complex mixes everything you love from the genre and brings it into the modern era with competent puzzles and action and the forever memorial foam gun. Will SC usher in a new generation of Metroidvanias? Who knows, but it definitely has defined what it means to be a modern one.

#4 - inFAMOUS

Sucker Punch is no stranger to great Sony first-party games. Sly Cooper was quite a dark horse of the PS2 generation. inFAMOUS is the studio graduating to the big leagues. Taking their knowledge of open-world design and grafting it onto what is essentially a superhero story, really makes this game pop. Not every open world will keep your attention long term, but inFAMOUS will gladly steal hours upon hours of time stringing together compelling story and non-story activities. I'm not a huge fan of Cole as a character, but the story built around him is more than adequet.

#3 - Batman: Arkham Asylum

Arkham Asylum is the best example of a 3D Metroidvania since the Gamecube's Metroid Prime. The puzzle-box nature of getting around the Asylum grounds works on both a structural and narrative level. Detective vision is legitamately a revolutionary mechanic and the visercal feel of the combat, is surprisingly satisfying. All of this being in a licensed game is mindblowning. The odds say Batman Arkham Asylum should suck, but it might just have ushered in a new direction for licensed games.

#2 - Assassin's Creed II

When the first AC game came out it felt like the official beginning of the new console generation. There was a revolution in the way games were being made and AC's potential very much out weighed its execution. AC2 is the realization of all the previous game's ideas. Gone are most of the clunky assassination plots, blown open are the open world maps, Altiar is a much better character and Italy is a much better setting. AC2 isn't just the sequel, but a true 2.0 for a frachise that's just beginning to stretch its legs.

#1 - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

So, here's where we are, video games are just movies now. Are we ok with that? It seems like we are, at least as long as the output is akin to Uncharted 2. Like Assassin's Creed 2, Drake's second outing is the realization of what Naughty Dog was trying the first time around. The story and action beats are as good as what you would find in the biggest budget summer blockbuster, and the characters are better. I've herd alot of chatter saying "Sony should make an Uncharted movie" and I say "nah, they already did." Dare I say Uncharted 2 is a perfect game? Maybe, but I will shout to the roof tops how perfect the already iconic train sequence is.

Noteable Omissions

Dragon Age Origins - RPGs and fantasy are not my thing, I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's probably great, but just not for me.

Demon's Souls - Nothing about Demon's Souls sounds appealing to me. A hyper hard Japanese developed fantasy action game that prioritizes frame animation over raw twitch timing? No thank you.

Bayonetta - I'm American, in America Bayonetta was released in 2010. Tune in next time to see if it makes the list.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Honestly, CoD:MW2 almost made the list. If this was top 11, you'd probably see it at the end of it.

Hmmm, I just noticed, there's no Nintendo on this list. Oh well, this was fun! catch you next time.

Cheers