I Let Reddit Inform Two Of My Video Game Choices in 2023

Let's address the skeleton in the closet before discussing a feverish and bizarre video game. Since college, I have been an almost daily user of Reddit. Now, before you ask for my username or aim to use this to discredit everything I have contributed to this site, a few disclaimers are worth mentioning. First, I am not now, nor ever have been, a user of the Giant Bomb Reddit. I might be a nightmare, but I'm not an outright monster. Second, I use Reddit for its foundational purposes: networking with worldwide communities for obscure or lesser-known hobbies and general news aggregation. I do not engage in backdoor trolling or harassment of vulnerable social groups, nor do I engage in anything related to video games or Giant Bomb when I use Reddit. The latter of those facts is why I have kept this account concealed from everyone I know on Giant Bomb. Certain parts of my daily goings-on are for my sake, and that's all that honestly needs to be said about the matter.

However, sometimes I dabble in the sectors of Reddit I should know better not to, and the subject of today's blog is one such case. As the title might suggest, I ended up in the video game-themed section of the Creepypasta portal of Reddit. To come clean, I was minutes away from filing an "I need help figuring out this game and only have a superficial recollection of it to go by" request and recalled I learned about the game from a Creepypasta I read during my college years. After running a keyword search, I found the post and figured out I was thinking of LSD. However, when I dug deeper, I discovered two things about LSD: Dream Emulator I had not known when playing a ROM rip of it years ago. Foremost, I found the lead designer was named Osamu Sato. Connected, Sato had at least one other game under his name, Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou, that sounded right up my alley in terms of being some adventure game goodness I would be interested in covering. And boy, did that game deliver! On only a handful of occasions, I played an adventure game recommended to me and said to myself, "HOT DAMN! I sure need to write about this game," but Eastern Mind is one such example. LSD, on the other hand, didn't scratch that same itch, but that's something I will discuss in a little bit.

The second and more shocking fact is that there is a SIGNIFICANT internet community that treats LSD and Eastern Mind like video game analogs of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the teachings of Muhammad. Seriously, check out the Fandom wiki dedicated to JUST LSD and be AMAZED at how every level, NPC, and pixel has been analyzed in what I can only describe as a joint exercise by a small but active sub-community. On the one hand, I LOVE seeing people in the gaming hobby coming together in a proactive and non-hostile manner, like in this case. Therefore, I don't want what I am about to say to seem as if I am admonishing this community. However, the theory-mongering rampant with the LSD fanbase reminds me of the people claiming that Stanley Kubrick was trying to warn us about the New World Order in The Shining. Osamu Sato advertised LSD as a multimedia interpretation of another co-worker's dream journal, which in and of itself, is incomprehensible. It's a video game adaptation of a Japanese Voynich Manuscript. In my book, trying to claim LSD is anything more than that should be equated with glorified navel-gazing. However, there's a chance this blog is the first time you have heard of Sato or Eastern Mind, and in that case, a short history lesson might be necessary before we jump into the game I want to discuss.

Let's Talk About Osamu Sato And LSD: Dream Emulator

I'm going to warn you right now; I'm not a massive fan of LSD or the cult following it has developed in the years following its release. Regardless, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater because Osamu Sato is a figurehead worth exploring. Sato is a polymath; his formal education prepared him for digital art, photography, and music composition. His informal training highlights the primary reason his games are as unorthodox and experimental as they are. Everything he touches tries to merge an assortment of his interests and areas of expertise into a single package. It's worth mentioning the peak of his popularity coincides with the rise of multimedia video game experiences. As a result, a door was wide open for him to pitch weird shit to companies like Sony Imagesoft or Asmik Ace Entertainment, and they were willing to foot the bill to make his projects happen. Eastern Mind predates D, but Sato and Kenji Eno are essentially cut from the same cloth. Fun fact, Eastern Mind got a proper Western release and English localization thanks to Sony Imagesoft, the North American video game branch of Sony, before Sony Interactive Entertainment America (i.e., SCEA). Sony Music Entertainment Japan produced the original game, but it is undoubtedly wild to think the game got the green light from suits in Sony to obtain a worldwide release. Also, while the internet might want to convince you Eastern Mind's sequel, Chu-Teng, was "lost media" until recently, they are full of shit. That is a myth the creepypasta community came up with for unknown reasons. Chu-Teng saw a limited release domestically in Japan and nowhere else, and there's no real conspiracy on why that's the case. Eastern Mind wasn't a prominent seller, and the novelty of multimedia video games was starting to wear by the time Chu-Teng was released. Also, when Chu-Teng came out, SCEA was entirely devoted to supporting the PS1, so Sato's Western localization contacts were unavailable.

For LSD: Dream Emulator, Sato relocated from Sony Music to Asmik Ace, a smaller but multimedia-focused outfit that, in the 90s, produced music, films, and video games. At the time, this label did everything from porting the original Civilization to the SNES and Saturn and distributing DreamWorks Animation films in Japan. Asmik exists to this day, but in a reduced capacity; they rarely dabble in producing original video game projects and are a wholly owned subsidiary. In 1998, Asmik had two things they were well-known for: 1) making Virtual Pro Wrestling and 2) funding weird Japanese arthouse shit. As the story goes, Sato had a small financial cushion after Eastern Mind but was skeptical about making another video game. However, after playing an arcade racing game, he got the idea of making a racing game that let players explore multiple dimensions. While experimenting with this idea, Sato struggled with this game and felt like his prototypes lacked the creative spirit that defined his earlier projects. Luckily for him, a fellow employee at Asmik published a dream diary they had been working on for over a decade, and that served as Sato's muse for LSD. If you are interested, the dream diary has been scanned onto YouTube and is an interesting, but HIGHLY NSFW read.

Before you read ANYTHING the internet has to say about LSD, let's get some core facts about it out of the way. It is an exploration game told through the first-person perspective and features an assortment of pseudo-randomly generated environments. Most "dreams" are pulled from a static list, but what one experiences in each playthrough, or even the order of the levels, is randomized. The environments you encounter are strung together willy-nilly, and you can explore alternative environments by moving into objects or things. Each level lasts ten minutes, but you can end your dreams prematurely if you interact with specific violent or aggressive NPCs or objects. As you interact with the game, it occasionally generates short movies that showcase weird visuals and tell odd parables or life lessons instead of dishing out a new level. Then, there's the Gray Man or Shadow Man, who is the closest thing the game has to a recurring antagonist. If you touch this villain, he resets your current dream progress and acts like the ghost in Spelunky. If everything I am describing sounds like the most scattershot arthouse nonsense, that's because it is. LSD is rightfully considered one of the most experimental games ever made, and I'd be hard-pressed to object to that part of its reputation.

After reading articles from Kill Screen calling LSD "one of the most unnerving and unpredictable weird video games ever made" and consulting the game's TVTropes page, which made it seem like it wages psychological warfare on its player, my interest was piqued. What I got instead, after playing the game for nearly seven hours, was a deep sense of disappointment. One could argue that expecting a traditional video game from Osamu Sato is a fool's errand. The man makes weird virtual sandboxes for you to revel in and discern Buddhist-inspired life lessons. My issue with LSD is that it is a mechanically limiting experience, and as such, I don't buy into any fan theories surrounding the game. Any claims that there's something special about it that warrants micro-analyzing it, like Joyce's "Finnegans Wake," or that Sato is being academically transparent about there being a "greater message" in the first place, always fall flat when I read them. When I ran into a rock and went from a Japanese village to a metropolis and died when a car ran into me, I didn't feel like the game was delivering on the haunting, uncanny experience everyone told me it would. Instead, it felt like a random visual generator wherein random shit would happen, and I had to deal with that.

While I played LSD, I felt like my response to its varying stimuli was the same. When my screen filled with static before the sudden end of a dream, I said, "Well, that sure did happen." When I died in the city, and the dream chart described my end experience as "A Downer," I replied, "Alright, and your point is?" And every time I ran into the legendary "Grey Man," I wasn't left shivering in fear. No, the evil hooded figure that is the source of many a creepypasta and online essay is a complete annoyance more than anything else. He's a pest that wipes out all of your progress on whatever level you're on, and in a game that is trying to capture the fleeting and psychedelic nature of human dreams, having this very video game-like mechanic rear its ugly head on you is awkward and frustrating. Likewise, by the time I neared the end of my playtime with LSD, the Grey Man's increasing presence signaled something that I thought was pretty obvious some on the internet apparently have failed to grasp. The Grey Man constantly popping up in LSD's late game is a flag that you have reached the point when the game has run out of new ideas, quotes, and visuals to show you. There are only so many random permutations the game can provide, and having a walking reset button chasing after you prevents you from immediately realizing that post-haste. Similarly, the cinematics are fun the first time, but after about hour five, I started noticing the base parts the game was allowed to work with and felt like I could see the haphazard stitching keeping the game together.

The Start Of Eastern Mind Is The Best Part

But what about Eastern Mind, the other game from Sato I played, thanks to Reddit? Well, I think I enjoyed Eastern Mind more than LSD, but only because my expectations of it were lower, and it had more of the expected conventions of a video game. Don't get me wrong; Eastern Mind is an utterly bizarre experience with a barely coherent story to boot. The game starts with two crude paper-doll figures laying the basis for its story. You control a young man whose soul has been stolen and journeys to the legendary island, Tong-Nou, where he believes a monster has eaten it. The protagonist discovers the island is the head of a different monster that is depicted as a giant green human-like face. While initially exploring the island, you encounter the five areas that the game uses and the myriad of monsters that populate those realms. This opening chapter is essentially a sandbox that allows the player to explore the game and its inhabitants without any time limit or structural constraints.

As the title of this section might suggest, this opening chapter, where the game functions like a travelogue, is the best part. The game provides a massive brochure you can consult whenever you meet a new creature in Tong-Nou. Meeting every monster before the story kicks into gear is a genuine challenge with an almost Pokémon Snap-like appeal. While the world of Tong-Nou might sound creepy or frightening, what with this being the place where monsters eat the souls of humans, there are not that many places or things that you need to worry about murdering you. As such, you can largely explore the maze-like world that stands before you without fear of reprisal. Getting lost is actively encouraged because hidden objects scattered throughout the game can aid in specific parts of the story. Those items, by the way, are the first portion of the game that rubbed me the wrong way. Some of them, like a goat's gullet, are meant to prevent the player from dying in particular circumstances. Worse, items like a translator make an alien lettering script readable, and if you fail to pick it up, the puzzles the thing is connected to become impossible.

When you have had your fill of exploring the game's world and denizens, its two most pressing shortcomings reveal themselves. Foremost, Eastern Mind doesn't tell you shit. For some, its freeform structure dovetails into its zanier sensibilities. However, even when quest givers tell you exactly where you need to go or what you need to do, the lack of any in-game signposting makes large swaths of it feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Worse, and this leads to the second problem, its attempts to translate the pre-rendered backgrounds of Myst into a multimedia lesson on soul transmigration lead to many environments where it is IMPOSSIBLE to establish your current location. There are so many times when the game plops you in a circular 3D pre-rendered environment, and you need to explore desolate wastelands in search of a single trinket. In those cases, the repeating nature of the background textures makes your missions only completable if you follow a guide. There's a temple on the top of an ice-covered mountain, and every door and wall in that temple looks exactly like the previous one. Therefore, when the game asks you to find a specific room, it feels like a taller task than it should. Likewise, with so many of the game's missions being simple fetch quests, the lack of ANY quest log, when the game already has an encyclopedia, feels downright unconscionable.

The Second Act Of Eastern Mind: Made Me Want To Puke

Let's now jump into when Eastern Mind becomes Eastern Mind. While you can explore the game's world without limits for as much as you want, there comes the point when you learn that the only way to progress the game's story is to die. Because this fever dream of a game is based on Sato wanting to reinterpret the Buddhist notions of soul transmigration, you have to get in on that spiritual Karmic wheel if you want to move forward. It's an exciting premise, but one the game only partially delivers upon as you struggle with its incredibly anti-player game design. The first annoying issue is that there are not that many ways to kill yourself, and the game even gives you an item that revives you after your first death. Therefore, you need to die TWICE to trigger the story's second chapter. Furthermore, the game does not tell you this; instead, you only discover this to be the case AFTER your second in-game death. Likewise, even if playing a fever dream version of the core tenets of Buddhism sounds appealing to you, the game is barely a partial success there. Most of the characters that jump in front of you say something entirely unrelated to what you are doing and then cease adding anything new to the game's mood or tone. It's not as if your interactions with the world around you are building towards a coherent gestalt. Unexpected shit happens, and you must have the mental and emotional fortitude to get through those random occurrences if you want to see the game's ending.

Nonetheless, when you pull off this feat, Eastern Mind cuts the shit and delights with some of its most iconic visuals. The current leader of the island of Tong-Nou reveals that they have been eating human souls for shits and giggles since the previous king was put into a crystalline state. The gluttonous pretender promises to hand your character's soul back after they perform a series of nine tasks in which you reenact previous failed attempts to revive the sleeping king. First, you need to make the bodies of these unfortunate individuals by using a machine that puts together the features of a face, and the game doesn't keep track of which facial combinations you have done or not; that's on you. The level of interactivity you have with each character ranges a wide gamut. Four of the nine vignettes take place in linear missions or are self-contained cinematics where you don't need to lift a finger. In one such example, all you need to do to watch the vignette's conclusion is look left and right while stuck on a wall until someone murders you.

Unfortunately, those limited missions were the highlight of the second chapter for me. I wanted to eat out my eyeballs for the more involved set pieces or sequences. Hopefully, with the handful of screencaps I have provided in this blog, you can tell that parsing what you are looking at takes a lot of work. However, the real difficulty is interpreting the game's riddles and turning them into actionable inputs that move things forward. To highlight, let me weave a tale of what I would describe as the worst journey you need to reenact in Tong-Nou, and that's for the musician named Sha. For this gremlin, you discover they were once a famous musician and will need to gather various musical instruments to free their soul. To collect the first of these instruments, you need to explore the "Land of Desire," take note of two gold pillars, and figure out that they can be moved. These pillars exist in a room with over a dozen similar-looking ones, and there's nothing to direct you toward the "correct" movable posts. The game genuinely wants you to search and peck and doesn't even have the courtesy of hinting the pillars are the key to finding the first instrument. Next, you apply a golden flower on a mummified corpse to reanimate it and learn the Enchanted Drum is in the "Land of Time." To find this, you need to locate a flight of stairs that, trust me, you get tired of after the first hour of the game. However, the enchanted drum is located on a random portion of the stairs. The only way you can discover this drum is to walk up and down the entire matrix and wait for a musical cue to play. When that happens, you need to shake a set of bells to make the drums appear because they are invisible by default. Now, imagine that kind of anti-player game design, but for two more instruments.

The Third And Final Act Of Eastern Mind Was The Weirdest Part

If it were not for how poorly the middle act of the game plays, I would feel more compelled to tell everyone reading this blog to stomach the pain to see its final chapter. After wrapping things up with the other souls, the gluttonous pretender king challenges your avatar to claim their soul. They also say you have a limited amount of time to accomplish this act, but from what I read, that's a fib, and you can take as long as you want. The first part of this task involves backtracking through every single level and screen in the game and finding symbols on the ground that reveal themselves as magical magatamas. Some of these you already have, but that depends on your actions during the first two chapters, but in all likelihood, you need to wander the same realms of Tong-Nou AGAIN in hopes of picking up random shit from the ground. It wasn't fun the first time the game asked you to do this, and it isn't fun the fourth or fifth time. If you check out my Let's Play of this game, you'll notice I was so exhausted with needing to do this that I had a friend read me the directional inputs for the last two remaining magatamas.

However, the game shines when you unlock the ability to enter a legendary tower containing a katana that can release the real king of Tong-Nou. While you journey up and down this tower, the game presents you with temptations meant to end your adventure precipitately. One of these rooms, the Room of Sexual Desire, offers walls covered in lactating female breasts and a gyrating bed with a giant animating penis that introduces itself as "Show-mi." This demon welcomes you to "have fun" with their wife, "Twei-twei," but if you talk to her one too many times, your character dies from a venereal disease. The one time you can create a fail state happens in the Room of Immortality. While there, the demon "Pu-ryao" welcomes you to drink one of their potions. If you agree, one of the potions kills you, another does nothing, and the final one makes you immortal, preventing you from finishing the game because you need to die to release the true king from his prison. If you don't have a save state from an earlier portion of the game, you're screwed. This next point is going to sound weird. Nevertheless, I respect the almost Hideo Kojima levels of audacity for deliberately including such a vicious middle finger to the game's players.

To be expected, the game's conclusion is a visual treat with an over-the-top, fully rendered cinematic that I cannot imagine was cheap to make in 1993 or 1994. Watching the game return to the cheap-looking paper dolls from the start was equally hilarious. The way the game handwaves all of its undeveloped plot threads to put a neat bow on top of your character getting their soul back perfectly captures the game's unevenness from start to finish. Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou is a messy video game. However, I honestly can say I enjoyed it more than LSD, and I know that safely puts me in the minority regarding people who have played Sato's works. Something about the game earnestly trying to cover the core religious beliefs of Buddhism in an acid-induced drug trip made me far giddier than whatever I encountered in LSD. Both games have undeniable rough edges, but the fact that Tong-Nou is a far more traditional video game experience means that the pieces inside it that do work have more of an opportunity to shine than the few times when LSD shocked me. So, if you got to the end of this write-up and want to play something that thoroughly earns its reputation as the weirdest adventure game ever made, I recommend you check out Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou.

Also, here's an archive of me playing Eastern Mind in a single three hour session:

Author's Note: This is part two of a three part retrospective on my experiences and thoughts pertaining to Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. If you misse dthe first part, here a link:

• Finishing Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII [Part 1] - Honestly, This Game Isn't As Bad As The Internet Says!

If you enjoyed this episode, here's a directory to the first episodes of every Final Fantasy game I have covered on this site thus far:

• Part 1 of Final Fantasy I series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy II series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy V series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VI series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy IX series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X-2 series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XI series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII-2 series

Part 6: The Execution-Based Gameplay Is Not My Cup Of Tea, And I Understand Why People Hate It

As the title of this blog might suggest, I have been thinking a lot about why I like Lightning Returns. Its many gameplay faults, which I will spend most of this blog highlighting, make it a dicey recommendation for all but the most die-hard Final Fantasy or JRPG fans. If you check the reviews for the game, you'll find that to be firmly the case. Something must be said about significant tentpole franchises that look pretty and have the right "name" getting more leeway by the reviews circuit in the video game press than other non-name brand titles. The surreptitious decline of review scores across the Final Fantasy XIII franchise indicates that. In hindsight, there's no logical reason for Final Fantasy XIII to review as well as it did and for each subsequent game to review significantly below it. In my mind, the Final Fantasy XIII sub-series started at a low point and then gradually elevated to marginal acceptability. However, I don't want any of what I am saying here to suggest there's a grand conspiracy at play or that the negative reviews of Lightning Returns are off base. When I encountered Kevin VanOrd's 5.0/10 assessment on GameSpot, I found it to be one of the most accurate assessments of the game ever written, even when I disagreed with the displayed numerical value.

There is a fundamental disconnect between how Lightning Returns plays and how it presents its story. This disconnect does not present itself at every corner or turn, but it's downright frustrating and a pain when it does. Despite all of its silly pageantry, Lightning Returns is an execution-based RPG. Every encounter or battle requires you to execute a plan or gimmick, or else you will spend way more time getting past simple combat-based gear checks. Regardless of how much time and attention you have put into your favorite goofy outfit for Lightning, you need to pay attention to subtle context clues constantly. For example, to counter the Earth and Wind-focused enemy types in The Wildlands, you must have dresses with opposing elemental abilities. Otherwise, you will be miserable. When discussing Lightning Returns' outfit-based combat, the gameplay has a weird disconnect between the spirit and letter of its gameplay "laws." With the game gracing you with superfluous accessory merchants at every corner, the game wants you to constantly explore your options and believe things are far more open to experimentation. On the contrary, each major set piece requires you to identify its elemental affinities and plan accordingly, and no matter what you do, if your preferred play styles or outfits do not fit that, you're out of luck.

Then there's the blocking mechanic. There were no less than three occasions when the game's blocking mechanic almost led to me quitting Lightning Returns entirely. There are a handful of reasons, and the first has to be the game's annoying camera. When you are up against a single enemy, it's not that big of a deal, but the minute there are two foes with magical spells or ranged attacks, everything starts to fall apart. The non-boss enemies that gave me a tough time were the large fire flans, usually in pairs or groups of three. I would typically only have issues with the first of these flans once the others would move to the camera's periphery, where I could not see them as they spammed fireballs off-camera. As VanOrd put it in their review, it's completely unacceptable to expect players to block what they cannot see. Furthermore, when the game begins providing its mid to high-tier magical abilities, the average battle screen gets filled with so many particle effects that it's impossible to track blockable enemy attacks at the peak of their window of opportunity.

This point reminds me of the other far more significant problem with Lightning Returns' blocking system: there's no visible prompt during battles to clue you into when to time your block command. Earlier in 2022, I played the bizarre Eternal Sonata, which relies as heavily on parries and timed blocks as Lightning Returns with two significant caveats. First, Eternal Sonata forces players to parry whole combos with several musically-inclined button presses. Lightning Returns only needs you to nail the timing for any enemy attack once to get a full block. HOWEVER, Eternal Sonata has the common decency of displaying a music symbol on the tops of the heads of attacking enemies, so there's at least some clue as to when you're intended to press your block button. Lightning Return has no visual clue whatsoever and instead demands players slog away on the same enemy encounters repeatedly before they notice subtle animation cues as to when they should block attacks. Also, with bosses like Caius or Bhunivelze, the spells or moves they use have individual animation cues you need to memorize rather than the characters exhibiting a common tell you can apply to everything they throw at you.

And when I say "subtle," I'm not joking. This problem is more an issue with the bosses than the moment-to-moment goons you come up against wandering the streets of towns, but the basic idea is still the same. Sometimes a perfect block can only occur at the first sign of an attack, and sometimes it can only happen at the mid-point of an enemy's warm-up attack animation. The game doesn't indicate when it's one case or the other; you have to find out on your own by grinding out the same enemy encounters and trying new strategies until you figure things out. This core mechanic is a perfect example of why there's such a disconnect between people who love and hate this game. In this case, you either find yourself fully immersed in approaching every encounter like a weird bespoke puzzle cube, or you end up feeling like you're banging your head on a brick wall. There are other examples of this lack of wiggle room, but Lightning Returns either strikes a fire inside your soul or crushes your spirit; there's no in-between here. When you look at the goofy nature of the story, having this almost fighting game-like mechanic seems antithetical to Lightning Returns' narrative goals. It's a bitter pill to swallow for most people who look at the rest of its rough edges and view this fundamental and problematic disconnect as the final nail in its coffin. However, trust me when I say this, the game is still worth it because of those rough edges.

Part 7: The Same Punishing Boss Design From Prior Final Fantasy XIII Games Strikes Again

But we are not done talking about the game's shortcomings as we need to get into the weeds of the game's boss design. All the issues I have with Lightning Returns' execution-based combat come to a breaking point with two or maybe three storyline bosses. To the game's defense, this bad habit is a bit of a Final Fantasy XIII tradition. Lest we not forget, the first battle against Barthandelus in Final Fantasy XIII is complete horseshit and one of the most challenging storyline-required bosses in franchise history. The final battle against Orphan isn't a slouch either, but HOT DAMN is that first fight against Barthandelus, just one of the most miserable bosses I have ever experienced. Final Fantasy XIII-2 has the final battle against Caius Ballad boil down to you fighting three versions of Bahamut that can swap in and out for each other and heal any damage you've made on them while fussing about in the background like they are Marvel vs. Capcom characters. I don't consider any of this "good" boss design by any stretch of the word or definition, but I am merely sharing these examples to highlight that if you have reached this point in the XIII sub-series, you've dealt with far worse bullshit.

So, let's talk about the Caius boss battle at the end of The Wildlands and why it might be one of the most fucked things modern Square-Enix has ever put into a video game. Right from the get-go, the dungeon where Caius resides is an absolute pain in the ass. We discover upon entering it that because Caius's corruption has gotten so advanced, Lightning takes damage per second while exploring it. With the game already limiting your healing options due to its item and Energy Point ability systems, this annoyance ratchets up the difficulty. For those confused about the latter, there are a handful of non-dress magical abilities that Lightning can unlock as she progresses the story or completes side quests. These abilities can include restoring her health bar, doing extra damage, or, best of all, slowing down time to allow Lightning to sneak in additional attacks that increase an enemy's stagger meter. Once I got past the game's mid-point, using EP for healing always felt like a waste, considering how slow EP would build up. More importantly, many of the late-game bosses require you to use the Overclock ability to make any notable progress in filling up their stagger meter. Caius is one such boss, but there are other quibbles with how he is designed that prevent you from popping off one or two Overclocks and calling it a day.

Before we get into that, how could I forget about the platforming sequences with Yeul? Looking back at my Final Fantasy XIII series, I made a consistent point about bemoaning the platforming sequences considering all you needed to do was mash a button when navigating a character into a hovering blue icon. They were entirely superficial and, I suspect, added to the game to create some form of variety to the linear corridor-based gameplay. Oh, how I wished for the simplicity of those platforming bits in the Temple of the Goddess! The Final Fantasy XIII engine was good at generating fancy high-fantasy assets that looked good in cinematics. It also excelled at allowing its player characters to do "flippy shit" when aiming for juggles or combos. It was never designed for fully 3D platforming bits, which shows in this game. During the starting level in the temple, the number of times I would jump and somehow misjudge the distance between platforms and end up two floors down was far too many to count. Also, while the story with Yeul is decent to interesting, needing to trigger Yeul to make platforms appear a second or third time almost made my head explode. The sad thing is there are exciting goodies and storytelling to explore here. Still, with the arbitrary timer ticking away, an insane number of random encounters, and platforming bits, I never felt comfortable engaging with either.

But the cherry on top has to be the Caius battle at the end, which is widely considered one of the game's "breaking points." If you check out GameFAQs when the game first came out, people complaining about this particular battle will be the first thing you notice, and there are a handful of reasons for that. First, Caius starts the fight by popping off Megaflare or Flare, depending on his stance, which, by the way, he has two stances, one being Commando and the other being Ravager. I NEVER developed any consistency about blocking Caius's Flare spells because his animations and windows of opportunity are so subtle and unforgivingly narrow; the best I could hope for was a partial block. With Megaflare, I was never clear if the golden window to block it was at the start of the spell, during its midpoint, right when the camera jumps to Lightning, or moments from when the spell hits her. Lacking any visible context clues or prompts, I felt my best bet was to stomach the nominal damage from a partial block and see if I could get lucky or kill Caius before he popped the spell off again. The game gives none of the tools to be successful in your first five to six outings and requires you to analyze frames as if you are playing a fighting game. That would be fine if the game were consistent about that being its gameplay mantra. Instead, this granularity is only expressed during this battle and the game's final boss, which makes them serious impediments. For the lion's share of the game, especially when you involve yourself with the game's side quests, you can slop through and almost pay no mind to this mechanic. As a result, it's not like the game is building a sense of fluency leading up to this battle or the concluding boss.

And considering how much the game values this blocking mechanic in these handfuls of scenarios, you'd think it would have the decency of you being able to use it on the fly more efficiently. Instead, blocking and guarding must be equipped to one of four possible ability slots on any given dress. This design decision is incredibly frustrating as the game progresses. The late and higher-tier garb almost always have one or two abilities locked onto them, which means you might only have one dress with a usable guard. Needing to swap to that dress might throw off your timing, which it almost always did for me when aiming for "perfect guards" against bosses like Caius or Bhunivelze. The other more aggravating issue stems from how wildly different the three types of guards are from one another. The ranges between perfect, partial, and no guard are incredibly punishing. The guard-focused bosses will even have forms or stages where getting a perfect guard is the only way to stagger them (i.e., Bhunivelze). For Caius, depending on the ability, a partial block would deal around one-third to half of Lightning's health bar, and missing a block entirely would be grounds for a restart.

Tangent: Making Min-Maxed Character Builds Becomes A Requirement

After ranting about a boss battle for five paragraphs, I briefly want to review how I got through it. The first thing I realized with the Caius battle was the occasional need to punch out of dungeons and call it a day. As I reviewed in the previous blog, the levels in Lightning Returns can be played out of order even if a "correct" order best fits the story's progression and difficulty curve. With Caius being the only boss in the game without an evolution or alternate phase, you can put him off until the game's final days so long as he goes down for the count before the last day triggers. The more important lesson I learned is the game's massive unexpressed value in min-maxing. A hyper-specialized magic outfit, followed by a tank-focused and a DPS-focused one, saved my playthrough. For the most brutal encounters, I would traditionally swap in my tank, which had the best shield and four guard abilities. That way, even if I did not perfectly block whatever bullshit was on the screen, I would have enough passive buffs to block about 70 to 90% of all damage. This leads me to a significant fact about the game: even the slightest bit of min-maxing in Lightning Returns results in ungodly busted-ass results.

Lightning Returns does not scale well. This fact is not up for dispute even among its most ardent defenders. After I had crested the hump that was Caius, I had virtually no issues until I got to the final boss and dungeon at the end of the game. There was a slightly nasty confrontation with an Earth Eater during the last story phases of The Wildlands. Still, beyond that, almost every battle evaporated in seconds when I began to hyper-optimize my character classes. The elemental weakness system cannot properly consider some late-game magical abilities that fill the screen with massive AOE damaging spells. Also, the passive skills that some of the more elite garbs bestow are busted and can even stack already ridiculous percentages in your favor. As I said in the above example, I don't know if I was supposed to be able to ward away 90% of Bhunivelze's elemental magic without lifting a single finger, but at the same time, I'm not judging. Lightning Returns doesn't play fair with its most challenging gameplay tasks. I forgot to mention it earlier, but Caius has an ability called "Eye of Bahamut," which does massive damage and inflicts Deprotect, Deshell, Imperil, and Slow. As a wise man once said, "There's no such thing as cheating in single-player games."

Part 8: Despite These Complaints, I Can't Help But Keep Falling In Love With The Story And Characters

I want to take a step back and return to The Wildlands for this section. Beyond the shitty battle against Caius, it is by far the best part of Lightning Returns. Here, the goofy and earnest heart of the game and its tone shine the brightest, and it is here where you can appreciate its light-hearted sensibilities the best. The level starts with Lightning needing to find an isolated farming village and learning about the legendary "Angel of Valhalla," which Lightning finds is a Chocobo and heavily injured in a far-off part of the level. Spending upwards of ten to twenty minutes nurturing a near-dead animal might not sound like the most riveting content in the world, especially when it involves a bunch of fetch quests and aimless wandering in desolate plains. However, it worked for me for a handful of reasons; the first is that the game does a more than decent job of scaffolding the main quest with several side quests that end up being highlights in Lightning Returns. Sure, most of these quest givers and NPCs are the same auto-generated Unreal Engine NPCs you have seen countless times prior. Nonetheless, now that they have personalities, it's hard not to feel something as they brim with twee energy or convey heartfelt tragedies.

The Wildlands has a lot going for it that it rarely gets credit for from Lightning Returns' detractors. The level feels like a complete ecosystem with natural changes and transitions in climates and scenery. It's also one of the few levels that use the day-night cycle to its advantage, with the area the Moogles occupy only accessible at night. Sure, the other locals in the game have locked away segments you can only enter during specific times of day, but these unlockables continue what you have already seen in that environment. For example, in Luxerion, you can only enter the slums where Noel lives at night. Still, the bungalows and favelas you find are similar in appearance enough to the elite cafes and apartment complexes you have seen earlier. With the Moogle Village, there's a genuine sense of discovering something special, and that continues with the city of the apocalyptic cultists near Caius or the deadlands, where you can find Sazh. I would best describe all of this worldbuilding as "cute" and broadly referential, especially in the case of the Moogle Village, but, again, the lighter aspects of Lightning Returns work far better than they have any right to, and that's worth mentioning.

As I have said before, the subplot in Lightning Returns is Lightning slowly lowering her guard and learning to appreciate the world and people surrounding her. That subplot takes center stage in The Wildlands, and as a result, she and her voice actor shine through. With the Moogle Village, the game strikes a good enough balance between referential humor and humanizing Lightning. Maybe you don't remember Mog from Final Fantasy XIII-2, but I sure do, and seeing the ultimate payoff be that Lightning genuinely appreciates Mog and doesn't want to see them in any harm is heartwarming. That's doubly so when you help a grieving woman find her lost dog, play matchmaker at a farm, support a random chef in the making of revered but forgotten recipes, and craft a potion to cure a woman of a terminal illness. I'm not going to look any of you in the eyes and say any of these questlines punch at the weight class of series titans like Final Fantasy VI, VII, IX, or X. Nonetheless, you can tell the game's heart is in the right place, and I cannot fault it for trying.

However, the best example of this game knowing its priorities better than the games that preceded it has to be the side quest involving a young woman at the starting farm and helping her reunite her family. I have yet to find out who designed or wrote this storyline or side quest, but they deserve a medal. This game was made in less than two years, and its team of designers had to work with a highly problematic in-house game engine. But goddamnit, the people who worked on this game tried. When you first visit the farm, the veterinarian that initially helps you with the Angel of Valhalla directs you to a female farmer down on her luck. You find she never has time to grow the luxurious vegetables her father once did and asks that you seek out fertilizer in a nearby forest. As you explore a few dung sites, you learn that her father is possibly dead and penned a note to inform her of this tragedy. When you deliver this note, the storyline hibernates a bit until you can bring the Angel of Valhalla to full health and enter the plains that Sazh occupies. In a research facility across from Sazh's downed spacecraft, you'll find an old gentleman ready to dismiss the female farmer as a failure until you bring fruits and vegetables from their farm to prove the opposite. You learn the older man is her grandfather and that he has caught wind his son, the woman's father, faked his death. And do you want to know what you do when you catch the father red-handed? You host a family reunion at a comically large dinner table in the same dopey-ass research facility. The game doesn't even know to disable its NPCs to not walk into the scene as the cutscene plays or to stop the blacksmith from making the same loud metal clanging sound in the background. It's the dumbest shit, but I loved every minute of it. You can feel the game's cheapness, but that adds to its charm.

On a more serious note, the storyline involving Caius and Yeul is genuinely a narrative highlight. In the prior locations, you assist Noel, Snow, and Fang in opening their hearts to Lightning and, in return, gain a part of their soul to fend off the end of the world. When Caius reveals he has no soul and even if he did, he doesn't regret a damn thing he's done to Lightning; the story magnificently inverts your expectations. All this time, the game hints at Caius needing to redeem himself to free Yeul from her cycle of death and rebirth. To watch him say, "Yeah, that's not happening because this world sucks, and I support burning everything down to the ground," was a shock and a breath of fresh air. Likewise, finding out there's no way to save Yeul and that the gods from before have damned her to a lifetime of suffering and death is one of the few dramatic moments the game handles with tact. There are other heavier storylines the game does an admirable job of managing (i.e., Vanille's backstory). Still, this one stands out as one the game puts on center stage and adequately justifies being there.

Part 9: Seriously, The Side Quests And Characters Are The Best/Worst Part

Caius might be my personal character highlight in the game, but that doesn't mean Noel, Snow, and Fang are bad by comparison. As I reviewed in the first episode, Noel being a bitter anime shit boy, who starts a death cult to try and end the world, is the type of anime horseshit I can get behind. As a slight demerit, while Snow, Fang, and Caius each feel like they factor into Lightning's journey as it reaches its fantastic conclusion, Noel feels a bit out of place. As he serves Final Fantasy XIII-2's storyline involving Serah, and she's barely present outside of a few flashbacks, his return on the final day of the story feels abrupt and awkward. My guy started a death cult that would have made Jim Jones proud. Why isn't he using his disciples to fight against the evil church that has clearly brainwashed Vanille? Speaking of which, with the corrupt church that is pro-Bhunivelze blowing up the universe and killing everyone being such a focal point of the ending, I'm surprised they aren't more of a factor in the story or the non-Luxerion environments. Their sudden turn would have felt more earned if they had been a recurring antagonistic force hindering Lightning's efforts wherever she went.

However, things are not all bad regarding the characterization of the primary cast. Snow, by comparison, feels much more "natural" in the world of Lightning Returns. Finding out Snow has resigned to fate and gained control of the city of Yusnaan and placed it in an endless cycle of partying and excess fits the game's premise that everyone has been immortal for hundreds of years. You end up encountering a handful of NPCs that have given up hope of caring about the people around them due to the pleasures of Yusnaan no longer cutting it. Likewise, Yusnaan is one of the smallest environments in the game, which means it is far easier to navigate. Of the four dominant story locals, Yusnaan was the first where I achieved everything I wanted there in a single playthrough. Similarly, thanks to the smaller environment, the game, and its designers feel more comfortable putting on a show when you are there. For example, you discover that the gate leading to Snow's mansion is locked, and Lightning will need to break in by interacting with the city's black market. However, things climaxing in a cinematic battle against a giant dragon at the start sets it apart as the more action-oriented environment.

The main quest involving using fireworks to break into Snow's villa made me smile more than any other part of the game. You first meet up with a stagehand who is down a performer for his show's finale, and when Lightning offers to fill the role, you end up completing a series of whacky hijinks to use fireworks to cause a massive statue to crash into Snow's home. This mission includes completing a handful of temporary side quests in which you can pick up fireworks and collect a new dress that makes Lightning look like a pop star. The final performance is a cheeseball and cornball fest, but it's a goofy moment that perfectly fits the game's tone. Lightning's stilted line delivery work because her character is meant to be non-plussed by the idea of being a stage actor. Imagine the opening drama that plays during Final Fantasy IX, and add in an ungodly amount of snark and sarcasm, and you'll get something close enough to this cutscene. More critical to my enjoyment are the handful of NPCs, including the stage director, who reveal they know what Lightning's ultimate goal is and are happy to help. The stage director has a touching moment when he notices the enormous amount of fireworks put into his float and correctly surmises what will happen when they get lit up, but he goes ahead with Lightning's plan. That's because he earnestly wants to break Snow out of his depressed state. Likewise, when you navigate up to the door leading to your battle with Snow, Lightning will encounter a soldier that offers to sell healing and restorative items to her at a massive discount because, as they say, "I want my old, happy boss back." That's not a lot, but again, it's "cute," and the game takes the time to use NPCs to create a wholeness to its worlds, which is not something you could say about OG Final Fantasy XIII.

The battle with Snow is either one of the easiest in the game or the hardest. Snow is the boss that takes the most significant amount of advantage from the boss evolution system, wherein bosses transform and get increasingly more challenging and more corrupted as you get closer to the end of the game. While Noel and Grendel only have one alternate form, Snow has two, and Snow++ is widely considered miles harder than Caius. I did not know about this mechanic when playing the game blind, and the game only communicates this point AFTER you start a battle against an advanced boss form. As a result, I had to go toe-to-toe against Snow+ and didn't understand why he was hitting far harder than what I was reading in guides about how to beat him. The good news is that Snow's weakness, fire, is communicated to the player, and the garb you get from the performance, Midnight Mauve, is one of the best mid to late-game magic-focused dresses in the entire game. In terms of his characterization, your mileage may vary. We are now three games deep, and to see his character reset to where it was at the start of Final Fantasy XIII, might not be your cup of tea. Watching him moan and complain a third time about Serah being dead and not wanting to live without her initially got on my nerves. However, all is forgiven when Lightning Returns repeats the best part of the first game by having Lightning punch Snow in the face until he stops being a sorry sack of shit. It worked the first time, and it 100% works here.

But Snow's fun soft reboot isn't what I want to talk about the most when it comes to Yusnaan. I want to talk to you about my favorite side quest in the entire game and one of my favorite Final Fantasy optional questlines ever. I want to talk about the "Family Food" side quest. Things start innocently enough in that you run into a chef named Seedy selling food with a reputation for being unappetizing. The chef challenges Lightning to give one of their dishes a shot, and she discovers that looks can be deceiving and compliments the cook's flavors but states he needs to work on his presentation and requires some positive advertising. The chef discloses that both of those things were what his son was good at, but since he left, he's been having difficulty making up for their absence. He then directs Lightning to find a legendary food critic who is named, and I shit you not, "Gordon Gourmet." You track this food critic to a fancy cafe, and Gordon advises that Lightning find three ingredients so the chef can replicate their former signature dish. When you do and return a sample to Gordon Gourmet, you find out Gordon is Seedy's long-lost son. You reunite the two, and for the rest of the game, Gordon is seen championing his father's food and directing people to "Head to Seedy's!" He does this while jumping up and down while comically clapping his hands. They also give you their souls to feel to Yggdrasil as thanks. It's a cheesy affair, but it's the most adorable shit I have seen in a proper Final Fantasy game. If that's not enough to crack even the slightest smile on your face, then I do not know what will.

Tangent: Play This Game On Easy. No, Seriously, Do It!

I also want to clarify something before we transition to my final point on this blog. If you interact with other Lightning Returns defenders, you might find them discussing how they beat the game multiple times and on its hardest difficulty settings. While I enjoy this game, I tolerate its mechanics to get to its silly story moments. I cannot in a thousand years imagine a scenario where I play the game a second or third time on a harder difficulty setting. If you are going to get into my mentions about how the guard/blocking finally clicked with you on your second or third playthrough, I will wish you the best and say I have no intentions of replaying the game. I appreciate it in all of its messy glory, and that's it. I'm not in the mood, especially now, of replaying something that can, at times, make me mad when I'm not 100% on board with what it wants me to do.

I have some advice for anyone with a similar mindset of wanting to see a bunch of silly anime nonsense in a palatable timeframe. Play this game on easy. Please do yourself a favor and play this game on its lowest difficulty setting. By doing this, you take those brutal boss battles I groused about earlier and lower them to be just a few pegs above the random encounters. If you pushed me on this issue, I would argue the easy setting should be the default difficulty setting for the game. Considering the story's aims are goofy sci-fi fluff, there's no justification for it punching you in the gut until you start vomiting blood and doing things "its way." With grinding not available as an easy "get out of jail" card, playing the game on easy is the best way to guarantee you see everything this game has to offer, including its ending. Playing the game on easy doesn't prevent you from interacting with the job-specific mechanics that some of its fans point to as its best parts. Instead, they feel much more satisfying when you don't have to worry about banging your head on two to three gameplay-based brick walls. Likewise, Lightning Returns, being one of those games where you are locked into the difficulty setting you picked at the start of the game, is incredibly raw.

Part 10: The Art Of The "Right" Bad/Messy Game

Every single one of you has at least one "messy" or "problematic" game that is near and dear to your heart, and what I or any other person says about the game doesn't matter. This is not a phenomenon endemic to video games. All art and entertainment mediums can allow their audiences this splendor, and some like to use the term "guilty pleasure" when referring to these works. I don't feel even an ounce of guilt regarding my love for Lightning Returns. I still would not recommend it for those that cannot tolerate rough edges in their video games, but it's a game that exudes the mantra of being "more than the sum of its parts." It's an incredibly dumb video game. Some aspects of its gameplay made me want to pull my hair out. However, the times when it works are a marvel, and I don't regret putting over forty hours into playing it. You don't need to dedicate such a ridiculous amount of time if you decide to give it a whirl, but to those who want an emotionally raw JRPG experience from modern Square-Enix, this game is for you.

Playing Lightning Returns feels like a slog in parts. You still have to deal with the same fiddly and shitty menus that made the previous two Final Fantasy XIII games an absolute chore. On top of that, there are a ton of sub-mechanics that feel like red herrings. I ended up sinking a stupid amount of time into the crafting system and had almost nothing to show for it. After spending an entire section praising The Wildlands, I feel it is only appropriate to discuss the parts of that level that drove me up the wall. Of the game's different fast travel systems, using the Chocobo is by far the worst, and the level's sprawling design leads to countless minutes and hours of you running around in circles, wondering where you need to go. When you start to run into the issue of exterminating creatures and enemy types from any given environment, if you successfully clear out the Omega versions of enemies, then the game's world starts to feel even more empty, and it is far worse with The Wildlands. Worse, with the easy enemies dead, you are often left with the most brutal random encounters most people avoid until they tackle New Game+.

However, right when I was about to dismiss the level outright, it would give me something charming to push all those negative sentiments to the wayside. I mentioned earlier that Lightning doesn't end up redeeming Caius, but what she accomplishes at The Wildlands instead is even better. As she exits the temple with a heavy sense of defeat, her Chocobo companion arrives and reveals they are none other than their old Eidolon, Odin. After suspecting he was dead for centuries, we find out Odin has been a Chocobo waiting for Lightning to cross paths with him for hundreds of years. One of the most fundamental plot points and mechanics from the first game boils down to being a mount in this game. This series stopped giving a shit about narrative continuity ages ago, but to see this be how the game reconnects Lightning to Odin is downright bizarre and hilarious. Maybe this plot point pisses you off because you enjoyed the mythology and worldbuilding of Final Fantasy XIII. In that case, please continue to do what I advised you at the start of my Final Fantasy XIII-2 retrospective: pretend XIII exists in a vacuum and they never made any sequels. However, let the rest of us, including Square-Enix and tri-Ace, have some fun.

I will save the Dead Dunes and Sazh's storyline for the final episode, but both are absolute delights. There's an optional questline involving Bhakti the robot from the previous two games. When you encounter Bhakti, you find them distressed that their friends are trapped in a tomb in the Dead Dunes. Unfortunately, while Lightning can open the vault, she finds that the robot's companions are long dead. What ensues next is Lightning needing to teach Bhakti the concept of life, death, and soul theory. The game presents this character scene as a meditative moment, but it was fucking funny as fuck to me. In part, I found it endlessly amusing that Lightning Returns found a way to do what it took NieR: Automata to do in forty hours in about ten minutes. Finally, with this being the blog about The Wildlands, I would be remiss not to remind you about "the dog." You may not know what I am talking about when I utter the words "the dog" in the context of Lightning Returns. However, those of you that have played the game know precisely what the fuck I am talking about here. For those still confused, here you go, and I dare you not to laugh while looking at this picture.

Am I laughing at Lightning Returns more than I am laughing with Lightning Returns? Sure, but what difference does it make as long as I am laughing in the first place? With that, I will bid you farewell, and next time I will make an effort to get to the end of the game. And let me warn you right now; I think the ending of this game is a goddamn work of art.

What Exactly Was Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier?

On January 11th, 2023, Square-Enix shut down Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier. That date marked a game with a lifespan South of two years and spoke volumes on the sometimes shaky foundation of the mobile game market. It also came as a surprise considering Square's mobile division is, on no uncertain terms, the company's golden goose. Square-Enix's reliance on the mobile market to keep their fortunes bright while their other AAA console games struggle is nothing new to those following the company. If I were to ask you to name the biggest moneymaker for them in the last ten years, discounting subscription fees, which game would come to mind? It could be Final Fantasy XIV and its many expansion packs, even after you disqualify subs. Possibly it could be Final Fantasy VII Remake and its insane attach rate to the PlayStation ecosystem. Or what about Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a game we know makes millions every quarter? All of these are decent answers, but they're wrong. The answer is Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire, which has since made over half a billion dollars. That game is also still going strong and drawing millions every month. Despite what First Soldier may suggest, Square-Enix knows how to make a mobile game with a lifespan greater than that of a common fruit fly.

To see a branch of Square-Enix miss the mark after showing they have their finger on the pulse of the mobile market is, and was, wild. A mobile battle royale game? That should make money, right? Well, that's where things get spicy because the finer details about the game are not what they seem on paper. Foremost, Square-Enix's internal mobile team was one of two working on the game. Ateam Inc, a well-known name in the world of Japanese mobile games, was a co-developer of First Soldier. Likewise, Square-Enix cited an "inability to deliver their intended experience" as the reason for the shutdown. That might sound awkward or odd to some, but it's not an entirely novel justification from Square-Enix for a sudden mobile game closedown. When I returned to my blog about every Final Fantasy VII mobile game, I remembered this was the same reason Square-Enix issued for shutting down Final Fantasy VII: G-Bike only a handful of days after it launched.

You might have noticed how I spent most of my time painting a picture of the events surrounding and following First Soldier's closing rather than talking about the game itself. The reason is simple: the game is the least exciting part of this story. Players take control of a SOLDIER candidate in a unique Shinra program, where they battle it out against 75 other candidates to become a full member of SOLDIER. The game's story was set 30 years before the events of OG Final Fantasy VII and existed in the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" timeline, or original non-Remake timeline. The game's story structure echoed that of Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII in that it spans monthly windows of time or seasons. If you started the game months after its release, you could not play its introduction or opening chapters. That last note was a rude awakening, even if I understand that's a standard story structure in the mobile and free-to-play realm. However, so many of Square's current mobile games employ grid or map-based movement (i.e., Dissidia: Final Fantasy Opera Omnia), allowing you to experience every part of the game's story regardless of your adoption date. I would have much preferred that to what they did in First Soldier.

For a game like Fortnite, having timed seasons is a good design decision. However, with First Soldier trying to paint broad vinegar strokes of ancillary worldbuilding for an established IP, having its story utilize this format is downright awkward. For example, the game's first season ran from November 2021 to February 2022. This first episode framed the game's world, introduced a handful of named characters, and themed itself to Moogles as they exist in the realm of Final Fantasy VII. If you joined the game AFTER that end date, the game permanently transitioned to a new season where many chapter one characters are still plunking around in the world, but this time without any proper introductions. However, expecting an in-depth narrative from a battle royale game? What am I thinking?! If the game provides a fun shooty-shoot action experience, all can be forgiven, right?

The Game Was Awkward To Play And Never Made Sense As A Mobile-Only Title

First off, First Soldier had weird compatibility issues across the board on iOS and Android. When the game launched, people with new mobile phones couldn't get the game to run, and many others experienced crashing issues for the entire game's lifespan. Similarly, the game was a taxing application when it did work. I ran the game on my Galaxy A32 5G, which is by no means the best phone on the market. However, it has a decent battery, but you wouldn't know that if you attempted to use First Soldier on it. After about twenty-five minutes of playtime, it went from 85% to 32% on its battery. Even when I plugged a USB-C cord into it while playing the application, its highly detailed cinematics and intense multiplayer processes sometimes outspent the additional battery charge. Oh, and speaking of the multiplayer, lord have mercy on your soul if you tried to play the game while on your mobile data. I ran a test on the first of the month in which I disabled my phone's Wi-Fi while playing the game. After five online matches, I was inches from the halfway point to my 30G data cap. As such, with it being highly impractical to play without Wi-Fi, its ability to function as a "true" mobile game was seriously compromised. The game was a hog in every regard and did not feel or work like a typical mobile game.

But how did the game feel to play? For one thing, it used digital analog sticks, which I think are the bane of every mobile game. Worse, they decided to put your weapon's fire button next to one of your movement sticks. I cannot even begin to list the times when I was attempting to get the jump on another player and fucked up because, as I was going for a stealth kill, I prematurely tapped the fire button. After all, the real estate on your phone screen was incredibly cramped. This problem was a real annoyance considering a whole third of the game's playable character or job classes were stealth-based. Entire character types that the game encouraged you to explore never felt good and butted up against this single design quibble. Imagine spending real money on this game and thinking you got an excellent Thief, only to struggle with using them because the placement of the UI and UX was so unmistakably awful. And yet, I continued playing it because at no point did I feel like I wasn't having fun.

The core concept of the game was, and remains, sound. I'm not going to lie; it was a lot of fun to play on the rare occasions when I could get into a match with a full 75 players. Sure, it was utterly mindless, but I eventually got a handle on the arcade shooting and combat and ended up enjoying it. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the game would auto-fill missing slots with bots, which meant you had plenty of opportunities to get some nominal EXP regardless of whether you took the top prize. The game would start your first handful of matches with bots to allow you to figure things out, and that was a godsend. The game allowed you to play it with or without an auto-aim feature essential for the shoot-based jobs I enjoyed most. Likewise, while it was unmistakable that the best jobs were locked behind loot boxes, the game's starting ones covered most of its bases and gave you an idea of where you might want to go with your player character. The EXP progression wasn't the worst I had seen in a mobile game, and there were avenues for you to gain resources without paying money, though the process was significantly shorter should you decide to send the game five or more dollars. And even in the game's final hours, I felt a pretty active community was playing it. In every match I experienced, I saw more than five players running around decked in impeccable garbs that obviously cost fat wads of cash. Despite its short lifespan, this game had people who genuinely enjoyed playing it. This irrefutable fact makes Square-Enix's suggestion they closed the game due to it never delivering a satisfying experience all the more suspect.

However, there's been a narrative furthered by those that ended up enjoying the game that it would have been better served on the PC and that a PC release could have "saved" the game. While some of you might scoff at that notion, there is a weird precedent of Square-Enix mobile games eventually coming out as "Free to Play" on Steam. Mobius Final Fantasy saw a massive influx of new players when it came to Steam before shutting its doors in 2020. Also, with Epic and Steam already hosting a smattering of Free to Play battle royale or loot box shooters that are far more exploitative or nefarious about squeezing money from their player base, First Soldier would have been in good company. Almost every fiddly issue I had with the game would have disappeared if I were playing it with a mouse and keyboard setup. Therefore, I suggest that Square considered a PC port after the game's highly problematic mobile launch but scrapped it after mulling over other extenuating circumstances plaguing First Soldier. With the studio bosting one of the most capable mobile divisions in the industry and a game with decent ideas, it's clear something else caused them to pull the plug. Otherwise, Square-Enix walked away from a stable moneymaker. Say what you will about the company's current state, but they don't wilfully walk away from free money.

The Story Was A Companion Piece To A Still Unreleased And Perpetually Delayed Game

Author's Note: This section of this blog has mild to moderate spoilers related to Final Fantasy VII Remake. All other areas of this blog are spoiler free.

Before we jump into the muddy waters of rampant speculation, let's go back to when Square-Enix initially revealed First Soldier to the world. The year is 2021, and the company is riding high thanks to fans and the press still buzzing about Final Fantasy VII Remake. In February, Sony was even hosting a digital presentation, and the teaser for the keynote was some hint of the continuation of VII Remake. The company simply could do no wrong in 2021, and people were begging them to deliver on the slightest hint of what the future had in store. Instead, fans got two mobile games, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and short-haired Sephiroth. First Soldier was one of those mobile games, and the other was Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis. I almost wish I could go back to when people were confused about whether Intergrade was a "sequel" because of Square's terrible communication. Watching Square-Enix hem and haw over simple questions about how long the expansion was or how it continued Remake's storyline play in real-time was endlessly hilarious.

Regardless, these mobile games served a vital role for Square-Enix. Both games were advertised as connected to the original Final Fantasy VII continuity or the company's Compilation of Final Fantasy VII initiative. In other words, Square-Enix is currently attempting to do what Disney is doing with the Star Wars continuity. With Star Wars, Disney did not simply throw the entire pre-Disney Expanded Universe, like the Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy, into the trash. They instead re-labeled them as part of the "Legends" timeline. To this day, Disney still makes new content set in the Legends continuity, which in no way impacts the Canon continuity of Star Wars content you see in theaters or streaming platforms. Rather than throw away everything associated with the original Final Fantasy VII in the wake of Remake, Square-Enix is making content set in BOTH continuities. We just got Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII– Reunion, a shot-for-shot remaster of the original Crisis Core, which perfectly proves this point. The remaster wasn't rewritten to work in the new Remake timeline, but its existence does not impact what Square-Enix is doing with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

In many ways, First Soldier and Ever Crisis were to be olive branches to some fans still salty about Remake pulling the rug from underneath them. Using these games, Square was signaling that the timeline of OG Final Fantasy VII was still alive and doing well. With both games providing players a chance to see what it was like working for Shinra, Square-Enix was also trying to tempt fans of Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII. It was a decent idea, but unfortunately, foiled by one problem: Ever Crisis's development is cursed. Initially slated for late 2022, the game's beta has since moved to a Summer 2023 date, but even that looks fuzzy. We still need to find out the exact details as to why delay after delay has beset the game, but we do know the original team behind it had big plans and had to scale things back considerably as development has chugged. For pity's sake, at one point, Nomura was characterizing the game as " an alternate remake of Final Fantasy VII," and he even indicated that he wanted the character portraits to be 3D-rendered moving portraits. That sounded too good to be true then, and that hunch is proving correct. Likely, after the resounding success of Remake, Kitase and Nomura salivated over an opportunity to revive their Compilation initiative and shot for the stars without thinking about how to make a practical mobile game that doesn't cause your phone to burst into flames.

The impact Ever Crisis's problematic development had on First Soldier is two-fold. First, for a brief period between its release and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, it was the lone game keeping the torch of the Compilation initiative alive. It was doing a piss poor job of it, considering it was a terrible storytelling vehicle, even if the core game was fun. Without Ever Crisis, First Soldier lacked a companion piece to compensate for its lack of storytelling or worldbuilding. Second, the struggles with Ever Crisis likely drew warm bodies away from First Soldier as it is very clearly the favored mobile game son at Square. That left the lion's share of maintenance and future development in the hands of co-developer Ateam Inc., which has traditionally not had the bigger pie-in-the-sky aspirations of Square-Enix when it comes to mobile development. Season three of the game was primarily an Ateam-oriented affair, and sensing the game would never pivot in the direction they wanted, Square-Enix likely decided to pull the plug. That's PROBABLY the "answer," but there's one more possible complication we need to review before we close the books on First Soldier.

You've Now Reached The Part Of This Blog Where We Need To Talk About Yuji Naka

I might be an amateur blogger, but I am not a fan of the off chance of Square-Enix or Yuji Naka suing me. Therefore, I would like to issue a slight disclaimer that I am not suggesting Square-Enix as a company engaged in criminal wrongdoing while making and contracting First Soldier. Regarding Yuji Naka, his insider trading indictment is still a current investigation, and both he and his lawyers maintain he is not guilty of the charges made against him by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. You might be surprised to hear there's a connection between Yuji Naka and First Soldier, considering he doesn't have a formal credit on the game. Still, you can play a humorous game of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" that only requires three moves. Before we play that game, let's firm up some important dates. Square-Enix announced First Soldier would shut down on October 12th, 2022. On November 17th, 2022, Yuji Naka was first charged by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office for violating Japan's laws regarding insider trading. This case stems from him supposedly doing a stock pump and dump while using insider information about the contract for Dragon Quest Tact. Naka was arrested a second time on December 7th, 2022.

That's about a month's separation between the shutdown announcement and Naka's first arrest. However, it's important to note that Naka's initial indictment stemmed from him allegedly buying 10,000 shares of the developer of Dragon Quest Tact, Aiming, before the company's deal with Square-Enix was announced. His second arrest is where the plot thickens. At first, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office did not reveal the specific game or studio connected with his arrest. We now know it is connected to Naka purchasing 144.7 million yen of shares of developer Ateam days before they announced an upcoming contract with Square-Enix. The game at the center of that contract was Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier. Does this mean the game was always meant to be the centerpiece of a pump and dump? No, especially considering Ateam is a studio that has existed since the late 90s. However, when you understand Square-Enix wants nothing to do with Naka, you can get them wanting to cut bait on anything he might have corrupted. That's especially the case when you consider the Tokyo Public Prosecutors have connected his alleged insider trading to no less than two senior Square-Enix staff members. Likely before the charges were made public, Square-Enix caught wind of the situation and conducted a company-wide internal investigation that may have revealed Naka's shadowy involvement with First Soldier. I must admit I can't say that for sure. However, both of the charged Square-Enix employees came from the same Square-Enix mobile division that likely approved First Soldier, and that's not exactly a great look for the company.

Even disregarding the current insider trading situation, it is essential to note that the relationship between Yuji Naka and Square-Enix is "rocky." Naka was initially the leader behind Balan Wonderworld before he left, which is what Square-Enix claims, or Square-Enix fired him, which is Naka's claim. The breakup and subsequent controversy Surrounding Balan is the centerpiece of a multimillion-yen lawsuit between Naka and Square-Enix, wherein the former claims the latter wrongfully terminated them. This lawsuit is how we eventually get to Naka posting a picture of the Nights into Dreams team with Naoto Ohshima's face blacked out. Ohshima was the co-director of Balan as well as the vice president of Arzest Corporation and has continually taken Square-Enix's side in this dispute. Regarding Square-Enix, their side claims they hired Naka to make a retro-styled platformer, but the guy would not stop talking about wanting to make mobile social games. They have even pointed to Naka immediately publishing a free mobile game, Shot2048, a shameless 2048 clone, after he announced he was considering retirement as evidence of their point. Even if Naka's charges came AFTER Square-Enix announced they were closing First Soldier, there's a chance Ateam had to reveal Naka's investment in their company to Square-Enix, which made them squeamish about continuing their partnership.

But where does that leave First Soldier and its presumed short shelf life? Square-Enix wanted to cut bait with anything connected to Yuji Naka and not critical to their portfolio. Dragon Quest Tact has a far more overt connection to Naka, but that thing is well-liked and prints Square-Enix free money monthly. It does not help that First Soldier was always an awkward misfit that did not suit its platform of choice. It did not help that it was NEVER the favored mobile game in a revived Final Fantasy expanded universe initiative. It also did not help Square-Enix was working on the game with a co-developer that disagreed with their highly ambitious storytelling aims. Finally, it did not help that two people in the division that approved its development and contract are being investigated for insider trading. I'm sorry First Soldier fans, but this game never had a chance. It's a goddamn miracle it lasted for more than a month.

Author's Note: This is the second part of my retrospective on The Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge. If you missed the first part of this retrospective, here's a link:

• The Quest For The Worst Adventure Game Puzzles - The Legend of Kyrandia - Book Three: Malcolm's Revenge [Part 1]

If you enjoy this blog and would like to read my other adventure game retrospectives, here's a list of my previous episodes of this series:

• Episode 1: The Dig
• Episode 2: Atlantis: The Lost Tales
• Episode 3: Loom
• Episode 4: Drowned God
• Episode 5a: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 1 & Episode 5b: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Part 2
• Episode 6: The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime
• Episode 7a: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 1)& Episode 7b: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 2)
• Episode 8a: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 1) & Episode 8B: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 2)
• Episode 9a: The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One [Part 1] & Episode 9b: The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One [Part 2]
• Episode 10: D (The Game)
• Episode 11a: The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate [Part 1]& Episode 11b: The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate [Part 2]

But ZombiePie, What About The Multiple Endings/Routes?

I love this community. I say that from the bottom of my heart. To prove that, I played The Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge three times to see every possible puzzle in the game. Yeah, talk about dedication. For those that do not know what I am talking about, near the end of Malcolm's Revenge, it asks its players to pick one of three possible playstyles to finish the game. They can either opt to be evil, good, or neutral and selecting any route results in a unique way for you to get to the game's credits. It sounds interesting on paper, but the execution is ultimately superficial. You still visit essentially the same locations but instead perform different tasks or need to tackle them in a new order. In fact, the game outright recycles puzzles between these three routes. Similarly, the final sequence at the conclusion, where you need to prove Malcolm's innocence is the same across the three routes, and the ending doesn't change regardless of your choice.

However, how these varying playstyles can unfold is a more significant issue. First and foremost, there's virtually no connective tissue between how you played the first half of the game versus its second. The problem is that the second half of the game requires the player to toy around with specific areas or mechanics they might have skipped or missed depending on how they first tackled Kyrandia. For example, you can miss talking to Darm and completing his quest during the opening act, as he is merely a different alternative to Zanthia. However, talking to him and Brandywine is a requirement for the Evil Route, and that's a problem if you don't even know where he lives. Some of the end-game routes require Malcolm to use the toy factory near his apartment, and that, too, is something you don't necessarily have to tinker with when first exploring Kyrandia. The lack of connective tissue between the game's beginning and end can fuck over players that don't know what they are doing, and that's a bummer.

Malcolm's Revenge failing to deliver on a novel idea returns us to its core gimmick: changing Malcolm's moods. The mood system feels like an anti-climax after Zanthia's alchemy mechanic or even Brandon's amulet. At least in the first game, Malcolm was a legendary wizard-jester who could turn people into stone. I understand the need to bring him down, but having players interact with different "flavors" of magic always felt like this series' crease. And the mood mechanic culminating into three barely different end-game routes is a horrible disappointment. I am impressed by the additional writing this presented to the team behind the game. Having every NPC quip back positively or negatively to Malcolm's variable moods and one-liners sounds challenging. Also, the writing for the game is not a complete misfire. Malcolm is a fantasy shitlord, and when the story and writing revel in that, the game is at its best. However, a part of me cannot help but look at Malcolm's "redemption" and notice how it utterly undermines the first game. On that note, let's again review some puzzles!

Kyrandia (Neutral Path)

Preparing For The Journey Back To The Isle Of Cats - [Rating: 6/10] - As mentioned earlier, when Malcolm returns to Kyrandia after his brief descent into Hell, he will be presented with the return of the "good" portion of his conscious, Stewart. Stewart and Gunther (i.e., Malcolm's evil conscious) prompt him to pick one, but I always go with the third option and have both of them tag along for the final part of the game. After exploring Kyrandia for a bit, Malcolm should return to the castle and discover the pirates that transported Malcolm to the Isle of Cats have taken over and turned everyone in Kyrandia into mice. King Brandon and his friends beg Malcolm to do something, and when Malcolm tries to bargain with the pirates, they say they will leave if they are provided with a treasure equal to the throne of Kyrandia. Malcolm muses the six gems from the Isle of Cats will likely suffice, but his route to the island is murky, with the pirates unwilling to transport him.

Next is a Byzantine and long-winded journey that starts in typical Kyrandia form: item collection! No matter your route, the first part of Malcolm's journey will involve a good amount of collecting random shit, and it's probably the worst in the neutral path because it requires the most significant amount of back-and-forth navigation. Also, have I complained enough about this game only giving you ten inventory slots? Considering how item-focused the last two hours are, it is a massive oversight by the design team as it becomes a complete pain in the ass. In this case, Malcolm will first need to exit the castle, return to the dump, and continue searching until they acquire an empty flask and nail. As I mentioned in the last episode, pulling items from trash heaps uses RNG. As a result, your experience here can take seconds or upwards of ten to fifteen minutes! Next, return to the city limits, where you can collect two units of firewood before returning to the town square. From here, you need to find the Magician's Lodge, open the padlock on its door using the nail, and then use it again to free the citizens in jail cells. Then, you need to scan this screen until you find a sesame seed, a flask of water, and an eel.

This entire process would take about five to seven minutes on a good day. However, thanks to the RNG, fiddly inventory system, AND terrible digitized backgrounds and foregrounds, it took me about ten to twelve. I have said my piece about hating the MANY times when the game resorts to you needing to pull shit from a heap, but I must emphasize how the game recycles that puzzle format no less than five goddamn times. Likewise, the final part, where you need to pixel-hunt for stuff in a jail, sucks. Some people are nostalgic for this early era of 3D rendering in PC video games, but it's dog dick ugly in Malcolm's Revenge. The art team on this game was simply out of their element as the simple process of figuring out what parts of the screen are even clickable is a chore. Is this introductory sequence impossible? No, but it's annoying and a terrible way to start the game's conclusion.

Creating A Pegasus Potion - [Rating: 3/10] - The good news is that not everything in the end game is the worst. As you explore the town portion of Kyrandia, you'll eventually find Zanthia, who is busy working on a potion. When Malcolm brings her up to speed about his deal with the pirates, she'll reveal she can make a Pegasus Potion but lacks its final horse-based ingredient. If you have played the neutral route before, then you may remember spending a portion of the first act making toys in a toy factory and one of those toys being a rocking horse. Return Malcolm to the toy factory, adjust the levers so the left one is up and the right one down, toss a firewood log into the top of the machine, and press the green button to make a toy horse. Return to Zanthia's workplace, throw the toy into her cauldron, and then bottle the concoction using a flask. To return to the landing pad where Malcolm can use the potion, exit Zanthia's lab by going down some stairs and then climb up a pipe in a sewer. Then, click left, right, down, left, left, left, and left. Finally, use the potion on the platform to see Malcolm transform into a Pegasus and end up on the Isle of Cats.

I'm split on this puzzle. Zanthia tells you precisely what she needs and how to use the final product to get to the next part of the game. The issue here stems from you possibly not knowing where to make the toy horse because there are routes and paths in the game's first act that skip using the toy factory entirely. If you elected into the neutral course AND managed not to interact with the toy factory in the game's first half, the solution to this puzzle is a genuine head-scratcher. It also does not help that finding the platform to use the potion can be tricky because there's a high likelihood you've never seen it up to this point unless you went out of your way to interact with Zanthia. Again, that's a piggybacking design issue because the first act's routes do not communicate with the three paths at the end of the game.

Getting The Cheese Maker From Fluffy - [Rating: 8/10] - Oh, fuck me. Did you enjoy collecting bones in the jungle? No? Then don't do the neutral route because it recycles that puzzle for a second time! When you arrive at the island at dusk, you discover most of its inhabitants are gone, including the cart that would typically transport you to the dog fort without issue. So, grab the machete at the jungle entrance, and get to chopping as you move left, left, right, left, left, and up. Be mindful of snakes and pick up any bones on the ground. Eventually, Malcolm should find Fluffy, and he will offer to give him a cheesemaker if you give him ten bones. As you already have a handful of quest-required items in your inventory, it is impossible to complete this in one go, and you will have to make multiple circuits in the jungle before you reach that amount. The snakes can and will fuck you up, but the good news is that the fleas are gone. Additionally, navigating the jungle at nighttime is more challenging, which makes remembering how to return to Fluffy aggravating. I hated this sequence with every fiber of my being and wished it did not exist. However, at least one more part of the final act is somehow worse.

Getting The Six Gems & Returning To Kyrandia - [Rating: 5/10] - Have Malcolm walk back to the island entrance and then move left until he enters the acropolis with the cat-shaped statues. Use the cheesemaker on Malcolm to get a block of cheese and then apply that to a mouse statue in the center. This act causes the statues to revert to their earlier circle-like form and allows Malcolm to collect the gems underneath the figures. With all six gemstones, retrace your way back to Fluffy, and when you talk to him, he will present Malcolm with a magical can of tuna that somehow allows Malcolm to warp back to the main continent of Kyrandia. Technically, this puzzle is relatively straightforward, but I'm bumping it up a few notches because of the stupid amount of backtracking. The jungle is a purple and green blur, and it is challenging to tell if you are going in the correct direction. Needing to do that twice is simply unconscionable.

Defeating The Pirate King - [Rating: 7/10] - Back at Kyrandia, you might think it is time to make a beeline to the castle, but you would be wrong. If you decide to hand over the gems without finding one extra item, the pirates will backstab Malcolm, take the jewels, and refuse to leave Kyrandia. To avoid that, return to the castle trash dump. While there, continue to pull junk from it until you find the fish queen's collar. If you pulled this item earlier, you need to remember where you put it. Also, you might as well continue toiling away until you find the "Nut-On-A-String" because it will play a significant role in the final handful of puzzles after this one. With the collar, present one gem to the pirate king's assistant, and when he asks to see more, give him the collar, and watch the fish queen whisk him away into Limbo.

On paper, sending the pirate king to suffer in Limbo for eternity seems easy. However, knowing to find and collect the collar is a massive red herring that comes out of nowhere. It has been ages since Malcolm last used or was subjected to the collar, and you can be forgiven for not realizing it was even in your inventory in the first place. At no point does Malcolm or anyone else muse if there's a place to send the pirates. Likewise, how many goddamn times does this game have the crux of a puzzle be "keep pulling random shit until the right one comes up?" Did the designers run out of ideas? Because it sure feels like it, AND I'M SICK OF IT!

Kyrandia (Evil Path)

I'm not going to break down each puzzle for this route. Still, to highlight how completely superficial the multiple paths end up being, I want to show you that the vast majority of the puzzles are just recycled ones you encounter elsewhere.

1. *Preparing For The Journey Back To The Isle Of Cats - A complete recycle across multiple playthroughs. You even need to pick up the same items in the trash heap.
2. *Herman's Pawn Shop - The game's evil route forces you to interact with Herman earlier than the other two routes. That said, this puzzle is a recycle.
3. Collecting A Hypnotized Squirrel - This is an Evil Path-specific puzzle with a massive asterisk. You need to use a sesame seed from Herman to lure a squirrel and then use the Nut-On-A-String to hypnotize it. You do this specific puzzle once in the first act if you play the game on its evil route, which means it is "technically" a recycled puzzle. However, you might have avoided doing that, so I'll count it as "new." [Rating: 6/10; As I will review next, the quest giver that asks for the squirrel tells you precisely what they want. On the other hand, knowing to connect the sesame seeds and toy with the squirrel is a leap.]
4. Getting A Portal Potion From Darm: Finally, a puzzle exclusive to this route! When completing the Evil Route, Darm's help is needed to get Malcolm to the island. To accomplish that, you must hand over a Hypnotized Squirrel to their dragon companion, Brandywine. To the game's credit, Brandywine outright says what she needs, and you should know how to collect this item if you played the evil route during the first act. It's a bit fiddly getting the necessary inventory items to interact with a squirrel, but it's okay. [Raing: 4/10]
5. *Getting The Gems - This is technically a recycled puzzle. However, the evil route's version is significantly easier because Fluffy doesn't need bones and immediately gives Malcolm the cheesemaker when he talks to him. As a result, this is a simple "Pick Up And Deliver" mission. Also, returning to Krandia is the same.
6. *Beating The Pirate King - This is the same goddamn puzzle across all three routes.

Kyrandia (Good Path)

1. Breaking Out Of Jail - I'll give the game credit here and call this unique. Of the three routes, the Good Path is the only one that doesn't force you to start things off by pulling shit from the trash heap. Instead, the pirates immediately send Malcolm to jail, and he needs to free himself and those around him by picking the jail's locks using a nail. Unfortunately, getting that nail isn't logical as you need to use Malcolm's Jester's Staff on one of the mice near him three times to cause them to bump their head on a board that knocks out the nail. As I have said before, the game could be more consistent in using the staff. It's forgivable here, considering it's all you have, thanks to the pirates stripping Malcolm of his inventory before they send him to jail. [Rating: 5/10]
2. *Preparing For The Journey Back To The Isle Of Cats - You have to collect the same shit as the previous two routes, but the good route gives you a bit of a mulligan. Instead of forcing you to pull shit from the garbage patch, there's a treasure chest with most of what you need. In fact, it even has a few sesame seeds you can fertilize to limit the times you need to barter with Herman. Considering the chest is all but impossible to skip and makes your life a thousand times easier, I'm giving this my lowest mark. [Rating: 1/10]
3. *Making A Pegasus Potion - This is a complete 100% recycle of the puzzle found in the neutral route.
4. *Getting The Gems - The good route does not force you to collect bones to get the cheesemaker, but it's practically the same sequence.
5. *Beating The Pirate Captain - AGAIN, this is the same goddamn puzzle across all three routes.

Clearing Malcolm's Name

Preparing Malcolm's Inventory For His "Trial" - [Rating: 4/10] - With the nasty pirates out of the picture, Kyrandia's "Voice of Reason" announces it is time to determine Malcolm's guilt regarding his murder of Brandon's parents. Be aware this is the end of the game, and to the best of my knowledge, there's only one way to complete it. If you know I am wrong about that, feel free to send me a correction. Oh, and here's a fun question. How does the game start us off with this trial? YUP, WE HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE TRASH HEAP NEXT TO THE CASTLE AND KEEP PULLING SHIT UNTIL WE HAVE A HALF DOZEN QUEST ITEMS! You'll need to drop all the gems and the cheesemaker to make room for these new quest items, but take note of where you place these. From the trash heap, you need to have a Nut-On-A-String, two Empty Flasks, a Broken Flask, a Nail, a Bent Nail, and a Firewood Log. Some of these items, like the firewood, can be found elsewhere, but the issue of this possibly taking upwards of ten minutes still stands. Yet again, I must preface that none of this is complicated, but there's no denying it is a waste of time and annoying.

Convincing The Queen To Testify In The Trial - [Rating: 5/10] - Malcolm desperately needs as seal-tight a case as possible. To start things off, return him to a graveyard near the castle and locate the grave of Brandon's mother. If you completed the neutral route during the game's first act, you might recall that you can summon her spirit by placing two yellow flowers on her tombstone. However, the flowers will run away if you attempt to pick them up by hand. Instead, cut the yellow flowers off using the broken flask and place two on the tombstone to initiate a cutscene with Brandon's mother. She agrees to help Malcolm and informs him that summoning the ghost of the king will significantly help his case as well.

This is another puzzle where your mileage may vary. Interacting with the ghost of Brandon's mother the first time is not a required scene and knowing how to do this to ensure Malcolm doesn't get executed is not clear. I hate how it is not until AFTER you start the trial, the Voice of Reason states that you need at least two sources of testimony to prove Malcolm's innocence. That's what I would call a "dick move." Likewise, Brandon's mother is the only person in the game who guides you into understanding your real quest here, which is summoning the ghost of Brandon's father. Overall, it's a confusing mess of a sequence.

Dealing With Herman's Pawn Shop - [Rating: 7/10] - Well, it's time to do what I consider the most annoying part of the game! When Malcolm returns to the bathhouse area, he discovers it has been demolished and turned into a pawn shop run by Herman. The first thing up for sale is a crutch, and to get it, Malcolm can easily purchase it after handing Herman one of his remaining gems. Unfortunately, the rest of his interactions with Herman will not be so easy. Exit the pawn shop and discover the only thing up for sale are sesame seeds, and if you have any hope of completing the game, you will need at least three of these. The problem is that Herman is no longer accepting gemstones as payment. Instead, he is programmed only to want one randomly selected item for one sesame seed. If you exit and return to the shop, you can reset Herman and have the game select a different item. You have no control over what Herman wants, and there is no way you can possess everything he asks for in his script. To increase your odds of success, return to the toy factory, make at least one copy of each possible toy and dump as much shit as possible next to Herman before you start a conversation with him. You can only have ten items on Malcolm at any time, but if you exit a conversation with Herman to pick up some shit from the ground and return to him without leaving his store, he'll still offer the same bargain.

So, this shit sucks. For those who have played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, this part with Herman might remind you of the bullshit with Omar and the bazaar merchant during the Team Path. However, I can assure you this is 1,000 times worse because of the amount of fiddly inventory management Malcolm's Revenge forces you to interact with instead. Also, your feeling of getting closer to the end is worse in this situation. In my case, I had Herman ask for a toy rocking horse six times in a row. I genuinely thought something was wrong with my game file before he finally asked for an orange peel, which I somehow forgot to bring, even though it is one of the more common items to pull from the trash heap. Maybe you get lucky, and all three things Herman wants are ready to be handed over to him. However, the odds of that happening are incredibly low, and it's more than likely that your playthrough, should you play this game, will be miserable no matter what you do.

Making A Fish Cream Sandwich (AGAIN) - [Rating: 10/10] - The Kyrandia games do have a tradition of kicking the shit out of you the closer you get to the end, and this game is no different. Even after you prove your innocence, the Voice of Reason will refuse to clear Malcolm's name until he gets a fish cream sandwich. Therefore, you might as well do that now instead of starting the trial prematurely. First, return to the dock or cellar of the toy factory and capture two eels using the Bent-Nail-On-A-String toy. Combine two sesame seeds with these eels to make fertilized seeds, but do not fertilize the third seed, or you need to strike a deal with Herman again. While next to a source of fresh water, have Malcolm use an unbroken empty flask and then use the water-filled flask with a fertilized seed and repeat this step for the second one. The seeds should become a "Large Sprout," but before leaving, capture a third eel and track down where the cheesemaker was last placed. Use the trash heap next to the castle until you pick up another unbroken empty flask, and then find a dairy farm near the city limits.

When you attempt to use a milk spout, Malcolm will indicate it is empty. Use the two sprouts on a hopper to create enough feed to summon an army of cows which immediately fill up the dairy tank. Use a nail on the tank to allow Malcolm to fill the flask and then return to the tavern/parlor. When you talk to the barkeep, he will ask Malcolm for some cheese which you can oblige by using the cheesemaker on Malcolm. When you ask him to make a fish cream sandwich, he states the machine is busted. Use the crutch you got from Herman on the device, and Malcolm will quickly repair it, but the chef reveals he's also out of ingredients to make sandwiches. Toss in the eel, sesame seed, and cream; the machine should belch out the sandwich you need. It is time to officially start Malcolm's trial without needing to backtrack or worry about ancillary puzzles.

On a more positive note, there's more than one way to make this sandwich, including interacting with the barkeep at the tavern to help Malcolm. However, the basics of what I described above are set in stone across all playthroughs. No matter what, you need multiple eels, three sesame seeds, a flask of cream, and the cheesemaker. The steps involved with getting all these ingredients are bizarre and follow no semblance of logic the game has scaffolded at any point. Who in their right mind would ever think to apply seeds to eels to fertilize them? How does that make any sense whatsoever? Also, if you accidentally fertilize the third sesame seed and then need to bargain with Herman again, may god have mercy on your soul. And there's so much backtracking and using random inventory items on small bespoke pixels during this sequence! Fishing for eels wasn't fun the first time, and it did not get better the third or fourth time. Making this final sandwich is a comprehensive case study of how awry the Fables & Fiend team got when making Malcolm's Revenge.

Summoning The Ghost Of Brandon's Father - [Rating: 6/10] - Don't worry, the end is nigh. Be careful about not interacting with the Voice of Reason until you are 100% ready to prove Malcolm's innocence. If you don't have everything he's looking for when you start the sequence, you might end up screwing yourself over without knowing it. First, find Malcolm's apartment in the room beyond the toy factory and check his mattress. When you do that, he should discover a crumpled picture of Brandon's father, King William. Now, find the Voice of Reason in the town hall and use this crumpled piece of paper on a magical cabinet in the room. This will cause King William to appear and profess Malcolm's innocence. The Voice of Reason will teleport Malcolm into the parlor, where Brandon's mother first testifies in Malcolm's defense, but the jury demands more evidence. Once again, apply the portrait on the magical cabinet, and you can officially sit back and enjoy the game's ending.

First, the game's ending is a lot of fun, and the end credits sequence is worth checking out if you have never seen it. I love old-school video game credits that show you the team behind a game. Furthermore, seeing the developers treat Malcolm as an annoying pest never ceases to put a smile on my face. In terms of completing the trial itself, it's more of the same annoying fiddly shit that plagues the rest of the game. I have always found Malcolm needing to perform the same summoning action twice to prove he's innocent a weird choice. But that's ignoring that the one item you need to find to complete the game is hidden underneath a random mattress in a room you last visited two to three hours ago. While Brandon's mother directs you to find an image of the king to summon his spirit, nothing in the game points you to this mattress. That, at least in my books, is game design malfeasance, and it is the laziest possible way to put a capstone on the final puzzle in your video game. Having an entire point-and-click adventure game end in a pixel hunt is simply excessive.

Should You Play The Legend of Kyrandia - Book Three: Malcolm's Revenge (Answer: No, And This Game Is A Brutal Disappointment)

We are barely into 2023, and I already have a strong front-runner for my "Biggest Disappointment." Seeing a franchise pivot this hard in a direction antithetical to everything that made the previous games even remotely enjoyable is depressing. That this series is virtually dead, with no hopes of ever being revived, does not help matters either. The unfortunate truth, however, is that this happened years BEFORE EA acquired Westwood so that usual scapegoat doesn't fly in this case. What you have is a studio that was once one of the most diverse in the industry, forcing all hands on deck to lean into a niche that paid dividends until it didn't.

For those who read these blogs seeking my advice, my directions this time are easy. Play the first two games and avoid Malcolm's Revenge. The first two Kyrandia games presented fun SCUMM alternative experiences when Westwood Studios was at its peak and willing to test all parts of the PC game market. As I said when I published my first post on Book One, when EA bought Westwood, independent estimates claimed Westwood alone represented 5% to 7% of all PC game sales. Imagine every person in the world spending $20 on Steam and knowing $1 of that was going to one developer. It's simply impossible to fathom these days, but it highlights how dominant a player Westwood was in the PC gaming arena. You owe it to yourself to check out their non-Command & Conquer titles to see how much of a dominant force Westwood was. At the very least, check out Eye of the Beholder or Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos to see how they influenced a generation of CRPGs. However, the first two Kyrandia titles deserve to be on your shortlist of games to play as well, and with that, I bid you adieu.

Also, here's an archive of my livestream attempt to complete this portion of the game:

If you enjoy this blog and would like to read my other adventure game retrospectives, here's a list of my previous episodes of this series:

• Episode 1: The Dig
• Episode 2: Atlantis: The Lost Tales
• Episode 3: Loom
• Episode 4: Drowned God
• Episode 5a: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 1 & Episode 5b: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Part 2
• Episode 6: The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime
• Episode 7a: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 1) & Episode 7b: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 2)
• Episode 8a: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 1) & Episode 8B: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 2)
• Episode 9a: The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One [Part 1] & Episode 9b: The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One [Part 2]
• Episode 10: D (The Game)
• Episode 11a: The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate [Part 1] & Episode 11b: The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate [Part 2]

Preamble (i.e., How To Kill A Franchise)

Last year I belted out retrospectives for the first two games of The Kyrandia Series at a relatively brisk pace. Then, with the end of the year looming, I desperately needed to get the first part of my Lightning Returns retrospective out, so I put the third game on hiatus. I had almost zero enthusiasm for covering this game, partly because it is not just disappointing but a sad end note to a franchise I think could have been something. As I repeatedly stated in the previous two write-ups, by the time you get to the second game, the adventure game division of Westwood Studios finally found its stride. The complexity of the puzzles could have been more manageable at times, but the game's tone, graphical style, and characterization were all top-notch. Then, Command & Conquer happened. While The Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge ended up being the best-selling game in the series, according to lead designer Rick Gush "the brass at Westwood did not care about anything else" by this point, "except Command & Conquer." So, the series ended with its third title, although plenty of unresolved plot threads could have been expanded upon further.

Command & Conquer also had other undeniable impacts on the way Malcolm's Revenge's production progressed. The first two games were pixel-based and more akin to the works of LucasArts. However, with Malcolm's Revenge, the Fables & Fiends team was forced to use the digitized rendering engine from Command & Conquer. The game encodes all of its background visuals into the VQA (Vector Quantized Animation) file format and is one of the few in video game history to do that. The result is that Malcolm's Revenge looks like crap, and you can tell the game's traditionally trained pixel artists were uncomfortable using their new rendering tools. The other consequence is that it's challenging to tell where new paths or exits exist when navigating Malcolm from one location to the next. To underscore this problem, look at the image above one more time. Now, see if you can find the FIVE critical paths leading to new locations or screens.

If there is one positive aspect of the game I have to concede, it has to be its myriad of optional routes and directions. Unlike the first two games, there are upwards of six possible ways to move from one set piece to the next. Malcolm has an assortment of puzzles and character interactions he can make and discover depending on how you decide to play the game. Similar to Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, at least in spirit, you can opt into a more puzzle-oriented playthrough or a more cinematic playthrough. It's an impressive accomplishment but it does not change my underlying disappointment with the overall product. For this blog, I went with a neutral route and interacted with as many of the game's puzzles as possible. However, unlike with my Fate of Atlantis playthrough, I'm not going back to prior scenes or locations to detail sequences I missed. I played this game and saw the credits roll, so, in my mind, I did my time.

However, the bigger problem with Malcolm's Revenge isn't how it looks. The game is simply not a fun experience. For reasons I cannot understand, it reverts to the first game's penchant for murdering you. There are a TON of anti-player sequences that seek joy in offing Malcolm when you least expect it. Whether it's snakes hiding in bushes, trigger-happy pirates, or fleas on a tropical island, this game kills you in the most frustrating and annoying ways possible. That dovetails into the game's overall puzzle design being far more annoying and time-consuming than anything you experienced in the previous games. That's primarily thanks to the game resorting to RNG-based sequences and brute force more than the past two games combined. Additionally, there's a morality system in Malcolm's Revenge, and you will often need to toggle between having Malcolm speak to NPCs truthfully or facetiously to get past roadblocks. Unfortunately, the game provides no clear indications of when you need to interact with this system besides the one time it introduces it to the player. Be warned; you will repeatedly hear me call parts of this game "too long" or "annoying" in this blog! And with that in mind, let's review some puzzles!

Kyrandia

Pulling Up A Bunch Of Random Shit In A Trash Pile - [Rating: 4/10] - Well, isn't this game off to a rip-roaring and exciting start! After Malcolm breaks free from his petrified state, he finds the castle of Kyrandia locked up and in disarray. Before exploring the world, one must do what one always does in the Kyrandia games: collecting random shit! Near the castle is a pile of refuse to the right, and from it, Malcolm will need a broken flask, an empty flask, two nails, and Brandon's shoe. Any other objects from the pile are unnecessary, and this game wraps back to the first Kyrandia game by limiting your inventory slots to just ten. I can't get too angry at this specific "puzzle," considering the first two games would always prompt the player to explore random screens of new environments by forcing them to pick up crap for future puzzles. The complication is that the items you pull from the trash pile are random, and there's a hard cap on how many objects you can remove in a single attempt. Therefore, you are required to move Malcolm back and forth until you nab the needed things. It's not "difficult," but much like the rest of the game, it's an annoying waste of time.

Summoning The Ghost Of Brandon's Mother - [Rating: 5/10] - After rummaging through trash, it's time for Malcolm to get a brief rundown on his mission and how the world of Kyrandia has been doing since we last saw him. You can initiate a fun scene involving Zanthia by checking out a landing pad, but the center of our attention now is the grave of Brandon's mother. To summon her spirit, move left from the junk heap, down, and then left. You'll notice some flowers at a crossroads, but if Malcolm attempts to pick them by hand, they run away and make monkey sounds. To take them, use the broken flask and cut two flowers from the plants. Then, return to the graveyard and place both flowers on the correct tomb to summon Brandon's mother. Also, you need to talk to her with Malcolm's mood set to "Nice"; otherwise, you will have to repeat the previous steps! The task here is simple, and this is a clever callback to the first game, but knowing what to do in the first place is a bit of a tough cookie. Nothing in the game prompts you to know the tombstone is the key and that you need the broken flask to cut the flowers. This entire game has a HUGE problem with signposting and piggybacking, and this is the first indication of it.

Picking Up Malcolm's Belongings In His Apartment - [Rating: 2/10] - It's time for EVEN MORE item collecting! To get to Malcolm's apartment, return to the bluff by the castle and hop into a purple transporter. This device will send Malcolm to a town square where he can enter a toy factory after using one of the nails to pick the padlock blocking Malcolm's way. The nail becomes bent but should return to an inventory slot rather than be thrown away. Once in the toy factory, find a door in the back and locate a chest in Malcolm's bedroom. You'll find a "Nut-On-A-String" toy and can use the bent nail to make a "Bent-Nail-On-A-String." You can also acquire Malcolm's Jester's Staff after clicking on the bed and a photo album. Return to the town square, and feel free to have an optional scene with the "Voice Of Reason" statue in the town hall. There's not much to say here other than to highlight the importance of not throwing away the nail when it gets bent and remembering to use it on the toy as soon as possible. However, this is still one of the easier collection missions in the first half of the game, thanks to the town only having a few items for you to pick up and a limited number of explorable locations.

Getting The Leather Vest From The Public Baths - [Rating 3/10] - It's time to put Malcolm's mood mechanic to good use! First, pick up two firewood logs at the city limits when exiting the town square. I must emphasize how the game only giving you ten inventory slots leads to so much fiddly inventory management from beginning to end. No matter, walk down and then left to find the entrance to a public bath near a mime. Don't mess with the mime too much, and to break into the bathhouse, you'll need to switch Malcolm's mood to "Lying" and then use the toy with the nail on a payment box to break the lock. When you enter the bathhouse, the manager will recognize Malcolm and kick him out if he is not programmed to tell a fib. While at the bath complex, adjust a temperature gauge to the highest setting to cause everyone to yelp out in pain, which provides a short window for Malcolm to steal a leather vest.

Overall, I'm not a fan of the mood mechanic for reasons I have already listed. However, the game provides a tutorial here on how to use it and how it can allow Malcolm to get past checkpoints or roadblocks. There's nothing particularly wrong with this specific puzzle, and unlike later parts of the game, you switch Malcolm to his "Lying" mood and stay there for the entire bathhouse puzzle. I appreciate the added amounts of dialogue this mechanic must have presented for the writing team for Malcolm's Revenge, but that doesn't save it from being a bitter disappointment compared to the alchemy system in the second game. Also, the mime being a red herring is a fun but unexpected complication that might set you back if you are not careful.

Making Toys At The Factory - [Rating: 7/10] - With the "Leather Jerkin" in Malcolm's possession, it's time for him to return to the toy factory in the town. While in the main toy room, notice a large machine and a red book. When you click on the device and then the book, the outline of a toy soldier should appear in the air. Before you ask, the game does not signpost that this is how you find the toy recipes. Use one firewood log to get the machine running, then press a green button. A toy soldier should come out of one end of the machine, but there are more toys for Malcolm to make before he calls it a day. Take note of two levers on the toy-making device and set the left lever up and the right one down. A toy horse should appear when you toss the other log into the machine and press the green button again. Finally, reverse the levers with the right one up and the left one down, toss in Brandon's Shoe or the Leather Jerkin and then press the green button to make a leather ball.

There's a lot wrong with this puzzle, and it's hard to point to one reason. First, Brandon's shoe ties back to the shitty trash heap from the start of the game, and it's not like the Leather Jerkin is any better. Second, the game does nothing to communicate how you interact with the toy machine or even how to make the recipes appear. Clicking on two random environmental objects to make magical figures appear is decidedly not in the spirit of the previous Kyrandia games, as they emphasize using items on environmental objects. Finally, that part with the levers requires brute force. Nothing in the book or environment hints at which lever needs to be up or down to make the toys you need, so if you play the game without a guide, you are at the mercy of luck. Also, because the game only spawns a certain number of firewood logs at a time, you'll likely need to go back and forth to where they appear. It's not an impossible task, but it takes far longer than it should and is incredibly fiddly and annoying.

Getting A Fish Cream Sandwich - [Rating: 3/10] - You might be asking why Malcolm needs to take time out of his busy schedule to make children's toys. The reason is that he needs to pick up a fish cream sandwich from a kid that speaks an alien language. Trust me; it makes sense in context. Return Malcolm to the crossroads and exit and enter until the child in question spawns, which is determined by a random dice roll. To get the kid to surrender the sandwich, you need to present them with one of the toys, but the toy they want is randomized with every playthrough. When you place the correct toy on the ground, he takes it and hands Malcolm the disgusting hoagie. This puzzle is a gear check puzzle, with Malcolm moments away from the game's second act. If you took the time to make all three of the toys, you should be fine, but if you skipped a step, you might need to return to the factory and toil away until you make the object the kid wants. Likewise, having the kid's spawn rate be randomized is a terrible design choice.

Stealing The Mime's Outfit - [Rating: 8/10] - If you take the time to explore the remaining locations on the starting hub world, you'll eventually run into a ship captain that also happens to be a dog. When you ask to board their ship, they refuse unless you are a member of a circus troupe. With that hint, it's time to return to the toy factory. This time, jump into a pit on the floor to enter the factory cellar. Use the Bent-Nail-On-A-String on a small pool of water to fish out an eel. Return to the bathhouse's entrance and find the mime. Instead of talking to the mime, place the eel in their hat and wait for them to notice a fishy smell coming from them and watch them dart to the bathhouse. Now, it's time for you to do the same fucking steps you did to get the leather vest a second goddamn time. I'm not joking; you even need to use the bent nail contraption to fuck up the payment box to get inside the complex. They recycled the same fucking puzzle! After you adjust the water temperature to distract the manager, you can take the mime outfit. With it, you can convince the captain you are a circus member, but now they complain about being hungry. Hand them the sandwich, and you'll finally be sent away to the Isle of Cats!

You might be asking why I bumped up the rating between the first time you went to the bathhouse and this time. It all comes down to you needing to learn how to get the mime into the bathhouse. You can get eels from the ocean next to the captain or the pool at the cellar, but there's nothing in the game to logically clue you into knowing you need to catch eels in the first place. Furthermore, if you talk to the mime one too many times, he murders Malcolm and forces you to reload to an earlier save. As a result, the game presents this roadblock and provides zero scaffolding for getting past it. I know the first two games have some significant issues with red herrings and weird dead-ends, but this alone at least matches the second game not telling you how to make the indigo potion at the rainbow machine, AND WE AREN'T EVEN AT THE HALFWAY POINT OF THE GAME!

The Isle Of Cats

Collecting Bones In The Jungle - [Rating: 9/10] - This sequence is dogshit, and I'm not even making a funny joke about this tropical island being populated by anthropomorphic dogs! When you first land on the Isle of Cats, you'll notice cats are subservient to dogs. However, when you interact with a cat pulling a cart, you'll get wind of a possible rebellion brewing. Nonetheless, click on the dog driving the cart, and they will take you to a fort where you can find the island's canine leaders. Around this point, you'll notice Malcolm scratching his skin, which is your clue to either jump into pools of water or click on him to remove fleas. While at the fort, find the leader, Duke, pick up some sesame seeds from a pile, and find and collect a machete. What ensues next is one of the DIRT SHIT WORST PARTS OF THE GAME! You must explore the jungle labyrinth, cut down foliage, and hope a bone will spawn after removing the plant life. To complete the puzzle after this sequence, you will need at least six bones, but with the items already in your inventory, you'll likely not have enough space to collect the minimum amount of bones in one go. Also, it would help to find Fluffy, the cat leading the rebellion against the dogs, and have Malcolm lie that you are willing to help his revolution.

This sequence is when it hit me this game would not live up to the high bar the second game set for the series. Fuck, I think the cave sequence in the first game with the fire berries is better than navigating the jungle in this game. To give you a sense of how shitty this feels, let me share the most optimal way to play this puzzle I found on a random guide. First, enter the jungle maze, and hack the bushes on the first screen. The first screen can spawn as many as two bones, but after you reach a certain threshold, the bones will stop generating entirely. Move left, hack the bushes and check for bones and kill snakes. We will talk about the snakes shortly because they are such complete bullshit! Walk left and repeat the previous steps before moving up one screen. Set Malcolm to lie when talking to Fluffy and pick up the leather mouse he hands you. Depending on your luck, you might need to drop a unit of bones to make room for the mouse. Walk left, up, and up to return to the fort.

The spawn rate and location of the bones suck incredible amounts of shit. It's utterly anti-player game design and seems antithetical to the franchise's breezy sensibilities. Additionally, while navigating the jungle, some cuttable foliage will spawn snakes. If you click any part of the screen that is not the snake pile, even if you attempt to move Malcolm away from them, he dies. He will also die if you take too long to use the machete on the snakes. But that's not the only source of a "Game Over" you must worry about on the island. Because dogs and cats populate the island, there's a massive flea infestation, and if you fail to click on Malcolm from time to time to remove fleas, he will get eaten alive by the bugs. There is no more frustrating feeling than being halfway through a puzzle or sequence on the island and needing to stop everything you are doing to pick off fleas. It's like the designers took the concept of the gem spawning in the first game and thought, "What if we made that harder with a bunch of instant death-causing bullshit?" It sucks.

Getting Gems Using The Bones - [Rating: 8/10] - Now it is time to put those bones to some use! Not "good" use, mind you, but just "some use." When you return to the fort, you have two options for using them. You can directly click the bones on Duke and cause him to bury them at random locations, or you can manually apply them to the empty plot of land below him. Either way, Duke burying the bones may dig up a gem, and Malcolm will need six of these before moving on to the next puzzle. As you might expect, the location of these gems is randomized between playthroughs, and no matter your approach to using the bones, you are at the whims of Lady Luck. This design choice inevitably means you are bound to return to the jungle in pursuit of a new set of bones with the same death-causing bullshit gracing your adventure once again.

I mentioned earlier that you'll need more than the minimum of bones, which stems from this puzzle's "randomness." The sizes or ranges of each plot are not at all clear to the player, and there were times when I wasted a bone by clicking on what I thought would be a new digging spot, only to watch Duke dig in a location I had already twice checked. Trusting Duke is no better, as he has the habit of recycling previous dig sites more often than he should. There's no logic to apply here; it's pure trial and error, with the game's cruel design laughing at your face when you fail. The moment of dread I got when I realized I was out of bones and would either need to save scum or return to the jungle cannot be described in words. It's a shitty feeling and an even shittier puzzle.

Using The Gems On The Cat Altar - [Rating: 6/10] - Things only marginally improve when you move to use the six gems at an acropolis filled with statues. But before you do that, set Malcolm to his "Nice" mood, hitch a ride on the cart and find a nearby beach where pirates have taken residence. The captain agrees to transport Malcolm if he can perform a magic trick. With that in mind, click on the cart and return to the screen from when Malcolm first landed on the island. You'll find an altar to the left of the island's entrance, and you can use this to determine the elemental affinities for each gem. For example, the ruby represents fire, the emerald is wind, the diamond is the moon, and the list goes on. To the left of this altar is a complex with ball-shaped statues. When you use the toy mouse Malcolm got from Fluffy on one of these statues, the entire complex transforms, and the sculptures take the shape of cats. The gems need to be affixed to the correct statues, and then they will provide a crystal mouse that allows Malcolm to perform a magic trick.

As long-winded as this sequence might sound, it is far from the worst thing in the game or even on the island. When you get the gems, as long as you remember a quip about the ruins that Fluffy makes from a while back, you should know where to use them. Also, the game provides an altar that allows you to determine their affinities which is an appreciated mulligan compared to how the rest of the game functions. Unfortunately, that quality-of-life addition is all for naught because the game does NOTHING to help the player figure out where to place the gems. I have heard mixed reports if the game defaults to trial and error or if there is a tell to the symbols or designs on the statues. I tend to vote for the former, and even if the latter was true, the graphical fidelity of the background and foreground textures is so bad you can't see shit on the sculptures. Worse, when you place a gem in the correct spot, the game does not provide a helpful animation or clue that it's where it needs to be. The only time the game does anything to show you are doing things right is when you have fixed all of the gems in the right spot. Which, AGAIN, means there's a tireless amount of trial and error.

The Ends Of The Earth

Using The Vending Machine At The Top Of The Waterfall - [Rating: 3/10] - After hitching a ride with the pirate captain, he drops you near a waterfall and tosses three gold coins Malcolm's way. At the top of the waterfall are two vending machines. When you use the one to the left, Malcolm will get an "Insurance Policy Scroll," which allows you to continue playing the game at least once after making a mistake. Weirdly, this and the cat statue puzzle have player-friendly mercies, whereas other FAR HARDER parts of the game do not. When you look at the machine to the right, there is an assortment of options, but to complete the waterfall puzzle, Malcolm will need to buy an umbrella and a pool ring float. I don't hate this puzzle as much as I should. The game presents the waterfall, and you must use logic when buying tools and devices accordingly. Also, when you make it to the lower levels of the waterfall, the game outright tells you the correct tool to use in the form of helpful signs. There's some trial and error, but it is not the end of the world.

Reaching The Bottom Of The Waterfall - [Rating: 4/10] - With both of the required items in hand, it is time for Malcolm to hop into a barrel and go to a lower level of the waterfall. When you get down once, you'll notice a sign that says "No Pool Toys," which is your sign to use that item on Malcolm. Luckily for all involved, the toy has a pump to inflate and deflate it, and you'll want to use it on a nearby yellow flower to make it into a jump pad. Using the flower, you can enter a cave and watch a cutscene that I have never been super clear on if it is optional or required, but it's weird. Once that is done, you can go to the second level of the waterfall by jumping down. Use the pump to remove the pool toy from Malcolm and use the umbrella on a branch to get Malcolm near a jumping point. After using the umbrella on Malcolm, click on a rock to float to the third level of the waterfall. With the third level, enter a cave and jump into Limbo.

It's not perfect, but this waterfall sequence is the one time Malcolm's Revenge feels authentically like its predecessors. It requires you to use items on parts of the environment and prompts the player to pull context clues and hints from the foreground and background. It's fiddly, and if you enter one of the lower depths and realize you don't have the necessary item, you're fucked. However, the tone is solid, and the silliness of using a pool float to survive a waterfall is in the franchise's spirit. My only quibble stems from Malcolm's leaping points. You can have him jump down with the correct item in hand at any point on a given waterfall screen. Nonetheless, there's only ONE specific location where he can leap to a lower level without dying, and the granularity of where he needs to be is all over the place. With the first screen at the top, he can hop into the barrel as long as he is in the general area. With the third screen, where he needs to use the umbrella for the first time, he needs to be across from the rock at a very exact angle. It's still one of the better puzzles in the game, but that one part annoyed the Hell out of me.

Limbo

Playing Tic-Tac-Toe Against The Queen - [Rating: FUCK THIS GAME/10 (i.e., 8/10)] - Now it's time for THE OTHER WORST PART OF THE GAME! After reaching Limbo, Malcolm discovers a tyrannical fish queen is in charge, and they place a collar on his neck, which forces him to attend to her every whim. She asks that you leave her alone to get some shut-eye, which is enough time for Malcolm to move right and pick up a gold key from the ground. The queen then uses the shock collar to force Malcolm to return to her court, forcing him to play a game of tic-motherfucking-tac-toe. However, setting Malcolm to his "Lying" mood is essential. As you play the game, you need to purposely lose and tell the queen they are the best tic-tac-toe player in the world. Otherwise, she will force you to keep playing tic-tac-toe until the heat death of the universe. When you finally allow her to win and flatter her with compliments, the queen permits Malcolm to explore Limbo freely.

There's one problem. The fish queen is designed to play the worst possible move, which makes losing to her an especially tricky proposition. The only way you can have her win is if you can avoid making a winning move until she plays her last possible piece. Even if you set her up to win earlier by helping her to connect two similar colored pawns, she'll miss it and place her shit somewhere else. She can only win on her last possible move. That's how they designed this puzzle, and I hope you can sense the teeming anger emanating from the text I am writing. Also, LOOK AT THE ANGLE THEY MAKE YOU PLAY THIS GAME! THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE THE COMMON COURTESY OF LETTING YOU PLAY THE GAME FROM A TOP-DOWN PERSPECTIVE! I don't have enough fingers on my two hands to count the times I accidentally made the wrong move because I clicked on the wrong square, thanks to the shitty camera angle. And you have to play her at tic-tac-toe at least THREE TIMES! This shit is shit. This puzzle is well-regarded as the worst part of the game, and I full-heartedly agree with that consensus.

Malcolm's First Bout Of Freedom In The Fish World - [Rating: 8/10] - After exiting the fish court, move right once to enter a garbage dump. Pick up a sock on a fence and find a black flatfish named Benny. He buys junk, and you can pick up a gold coin when you talk to him a second time. Return to where you started and find the fish university on the upper left. Take note of the class in session, use the Jester's Staff on one of the students, and steal the apple on their desk while the teacher is not looking. From the classroom, move left, click on a portion of a water slide, and then a lever to quickly enter the garbage dump again. The goal is to pick up as much trash as possible and sell it to Benny until Malcolm has six gold coins. When you find a newspaper, keep it. When you have that amount, find a fish operating a circus cannon and offer him five coins to use it. The canon ends up sending Malcolm to the Underworld, and it is vital to have Malcolm set to "Nice"; otherwise, this will fucking take forever to complete. Talk to a man named Elvis and then interact with a woman behind a desk until she tells you how to perform a seance to summon the ghost of the fish king the queen murdered to become the leader of Limbo. Getting that tidbit will cause the fish queen to call Malcolm back to her court for ANOTHER game of tic-tac-toe.

Fuck me. If you enjoyed pulling shit from a trash heap at the start of the game, you're in luck because the designers recycle that puzzle again! However, this time it's even more punishing because not all the trash you gather is of equal value to Benny. Sometimes the shit you pull will get a coin, and sometimes it nets you jack-shit. Once again, you are at the mercy of pure RNG, and it sucks complete and total shit. Also, getting the apple is CRITICAL, but it has been FOREVER since you last used the Jester's Staff for ANYTHING! The game remembers the staff exists in weird and random spurts, and it never feels like a natural solution when required. It's not like it is on par with Zanthia's cauldron from the last game. Likewise, the timing of when to steal the apple and the lack of a visual cue that it's a stealable object could be better. Finally, you can accidentally sell the newspaper and not realize you've fucked yourself over because its importance is not discussed until AFTER you enter the Underworld! You can still pull it from the trash heap, but it could take a while. Oh, and how could I forget about playing tic-tac-toe a second time?

Summoning The Fish King - [Rating: 6/10] - After the fish queen summons you, lose to her the same way you did the first time. However, remember to have Malcolm's mood set to "Lying," or she'll force you to play her game perpetually. After that first match, it's time to perform the "Royal Séance" you learned about from the Underworld. However, you'll need a newspaper and one gold coin to perform that incantation, and if you lack either, you need to return to the trash heap next to Benny and be at the whims of RNG. If you have both trinkets, you need to set Malcolm to "Nice" and then talk to the queen until she agrees to play a new tic-tac-toe game. However, as the lady in the Underworld explained, you need to stop playing when there are seven characters on the board. When you get to that point, place the newspaper on the floor and the gold coin on top. This act summons the fish king, who scares away the queen and allows Malcolm to explore Limbo without restrictions.

I can't get too angry at this puzzle because the game outright tells you everything you need to do to chase away the queen. You know the number of people that need to be present in the room and which items you need to use. To a certain degree, it's another example of the game using an adventure game, "gear check," before it transitions you to a different chapter. Where I get a bit negative is the puzzle's structure and lack of gameplay piggybacking. When I first played this game, I needed to be reminded that the tic-tac-toe pieces counted towards the warm body requirement to start the ritual to summon the king. You also may need to backtrack to solve this puzzle. That sucks because getting trash from the heap isn't fun and restarting a tic-tac-toe game with the queen necessitates a different process or set of steps. Overall, it's one of the better puzzles in Limbo because it has some signposting, but it's far from flawless.

Returning to Kyrandia - [Rating: 2/10] - With the board game-obsessed queen out of the picture, pick up the gold coin and newspaper from the floor. Retrace your way back to the fish that operates the circus canon to initiate a sequence where Malcolm demands a refund. When the scene ends, set Malcolm's mood to "Nice" and click on the fish again. Instead of a full refund, the canon operator offers a one-time discount for a second ride for the price of one gold coin. Agree, and end up back at the entrance of the Underworld and ensure Malcolm is still set to his friendly mood setting. Get in line to enter the afterlife, but talk to the man in front of Malcolm, and eventually, he will let him go ahead. When you speak to the lady behind the desk a second time, she lets you move forward, and you are treated to a fun in-game cutscene where the residents of Hell happily greet Malcolm as one of their own. This is one of the few times I think the writing and humor of the game really "clicked" for me, and I was relieved it was a fun cutscene that didn't have any puzzles. When the gatekeeper of Hell announces it is not yet Malcolm's time, they kick them out, and he finds himself next to a vehicle that can tunnel back to the planet's surface. You click on this vehicle once to return to a familiar crossroads.

If there is one part of the first half of Malcolm's Revenge I want to sing praises for, it is this part. Like the Waterfall Puzzle, the game finds a fun balance between talking to you and you needing to figure out how to interact with your surroundings. It's one of the few times you need to repeatedly interact with Malcolm's moods to get past multiple checkpoints, but it works, considering everyone you are interacting with feels like they need some brown-nosing to get them to do what you want. Finally, the scene at Hell is excellent. The classic writing and humor of the Kyrandia series shine through during this sequence. So, at least we end this first blog on a positive note!

Author's Note: Hello there! My name is ZombiePie, and I am a Giant Bomb forum and wiki moderator. Every year I look at the various sources of entertainment I enjoy and dislike. During my awards show, I pit games, television shows, animes, athletics, albums, board games, and movies in a fight to the death! As such, my awards are more "special commendations" and are open to any medium I consumed during the last year.

Additionally, you can expect to see classic and current works of entertainment vying for the top positions of each merit and demerit on this blog. Oh, and one more thing, there are SPOILERS in this blog! Before reading any of my justifications for each award recipient, keep that in mind. Also, prepare your pitchforks as things occasionally get a little "spicy!"

Best New Addition To A Fighting Game - Neco-Arc (Melty Blood: Type Lumina)

Look, I get it. Bridget in Guilty Gear -Strive- is "probably" the correct award recipient in this category. It is terrific that Arc System took one of the more problematic characters in the series and made them a source of empowerment. It shows that Arc System is an industry leader in depicting characters and character experiences involving the LGBTQIA community. But GODDAMNIT, Y'ALL! Neco-Arc in Melty Blood: Type Lumina is fucking good! And before you ask, yes. I did end up buying the game because of the funny cat lady that also happens to be a chaos god. Bite me. Her special is a roulette wheel where the best version involves her using her phone to summon Saber from Fate/Grand Order. Then, there's the special where she fills the screen with a giant version of herself as she pretends to be a VTuber. Does this do any damage to the opposing player? No, but it is funny as fuck. What if I told you one of her other specials summons a Neco-Arc clone that drags a truck tire tied to a rope, and it is almost impossible to do any notable damage to your opponent and is more of a visual goof?

With Street Fighter VI set to be a significant 2023 release, I miss when fighting games had joke characters that were absolute dogshit in the meta. I miss mainstream fighting games saying, "Fuck it!" and putting in joke characters like Bad Box Art Mega Man in Street Fighter × Tekken. I'm not saying Street Fighter VI won't have some permutation of a "Dan-like," but in today's hyper-aware world of fighting games where every bit of the online meta needs to be examined with a microscope, I miss characters like Neco-Arc. To me, the genre as a whole has matured in a way where it's not as willing to laugh at itself, and that's part of the reason why I can't help but get the slightest bit happy at seeing Neco-Arc make a bold return. Neco-Arc's damage is awful, and that's why I love her.

Runner-up: Bridget (Guilty Gear -Strive-) -

As mentioned earlier, Bridget is the "correct" answer to this category. I will add that Bridget having a messy road to their current gender identity is somehow more empowering than the whitewashed trans experiences mainstream television and Hollywood tend to provide. She's also a fun character, considering she's one of the most "true neutral" characters in modern fighting game history.

Best Meme Game - Trombone Champ

The "Meme Game" is a nebulous term these days. Some games like Moonbase Alpha have gone on to become meme games, despite not endeavoring to do so, whereas dreck like Meme Run deliberately courts the internet into a cheap joke. Virality is also a factor, with most games in this category gaining mainstream attention thanks to out-of-context video clips, Tweets, or other social media postings driving engagement and sales. Regardless of where any meme game lies on that spectrum, they rarely have any staying power beyond a year. While some might dispute that last part, especially with the two games I have picked for this award, history suggests otherwise. And before anyone chimes in about PowerWash Simulator, I disqualified it because I don't think it is a true "meme game." First, the game falls in the well-worn "simulator" genre and delivers an experience that embodies that genre in totality. Second, the attention and love given to the game was an organic groundswell because people already understood its therapeutic gameplay and what it would provide. On the other hand, Trombone Champ came out of nowhere and GREATLY benefitted from a bunch of silly meme Tweets of people misplaying it. That's a "true" meme game!

Only time will tell if Trombone Champ will buck the trend of these sorts of games having a concise shelf life. Nonetheless, at least while the game was kicking, we all had fun playing it and laughing when we couldn't get past the second stanza of a song. Is Trombone Champ a "good" rhythm game? Shit, I don't know, but it made me fucking laugh. Furthermore, I played every song in it at least once, which I only sometimes do in rhythm games. To that note, one could argue Trombone Champ doesn't want you to play it well and that you'll derive the most significant amount of joy from it from playing poorly. Likewise, with the rhythm genre dead, it was a breath of fresh air to see some life in that arena get injected into it, even if that syringe was full of sugar water, and I'm still high on the placebo effect.

Runner-Up: Choo-Choo Charles -

With Choo-Choo Charles, you have the same idea as Trombone Champ, but with a different veneer. Choo-Choo Charles has one gimmick, and your ability to accept or buy into it determines your overall opinion. Unfortunately, the game maintains its highs significantly shorter than Trombone Champ and is far more frustrating.

Best Anime of 2022 - Chainsaw Man

2022 was an excellent year for video games, but it was also one of the strongest years for anime in decades. Each season this year had some venerable titans and straightforward recommendations for anime newcomers and veterans. One such easy recommendation from the year was Chainsaw Man. It's a masterpiece and a rare example of a new show that we will continue to cite and point at in years to come. This individual season isn't just a riveting ride but one of the best-paced manga adaptions I have seen in a long while. The main cast all get their flowers, and there are plenty of opportunities for the show to embellish ancillary and secondary characters as well. And as someone who read the manga before watching the show, the first season has thoroughly left me waiting with bated breath to see how it tackles some of the latter story arcs, with one of particular interest.

Also, I don't know how we as a society got to this point, but there's a new wave of backlash against the show that I find abjectly terrible. I'm not even talking about the people starting a petition to get a different studio to "re-animate" the first season because those are the sorts of people you don't make direct eye contact with under any circumstances. No, some people don't enjoy episodes seven and eight, and I don't "get it." To a certain degree, I understand the uneasiness with the show's natural horniness, but every character's actions are overtly consensual; I don't see how you can't find a modicum of personality with how it conveys intimacy. In the case of episode seven, it perfectly captures the awkwardness of an intimate kiss and then delivers on the comedy. I understand there's a grossness factor, but that was the modus operandi of the source material and everything leading up to that point. Also, if you don't like the worm in episode eight, then I don't know what the fuck we are even doing anymore.

Runner-up: Spy x Family -

I struggled between Spy x Family and Mob Psycho 100 as my runner-up. The conclusion of season three of Mob Psycho might be my overall favorite thing from 2022 across all media, but I still have to give it to Spy x Family for having three of the best and most fully realized characters in 2022. Watching the show's trio navigate one ridiculous premise or set piece after another never failed to entertain. The show also strikes a pitch-perfect balance between drama and zany anime hijinks.

Most "Mid" Thing I Enjoyed - Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is a video game platypus. It is a game that shouldn't work, as it has several awkward parts and pieces and is a technical shitshow. While its job system is highly rewarding and a delight to explore, the game doesn't offer enough enemy types, animations, or interesting locals to make them feel entirely fully realized. Most levels are linear corridors with a few bespoke branching paths that always lead to hidden treasure chests. Some environments are awe-inspiring re-treads of Final Fantasy classics, whereas others feel entirely phoned-in. The character models are sometimes ugly, and the format of how the game conveys its worldbuilding and story is an abject mess. However, it's a fun time, and when the game finally decides to deploy its plot, it strikes an exciting and wild tone.

I'm never in a hundred years going to argue Final Fantasy Origin is better than Elden Ring. I will, however, say that I think Origin provides a more "pure fun" experience than Elden Ring, and there are people who would seek more joy from it than From's latest outing. The game's many quality-of-life settings make for a more welcoming experience for newcomers and Souls skeptics. The game's malleable difficulty settings allow more stakeholders to wade their feet into its waters before jumping in. Unfortunately, the game also has a smattering of rough edges. The equipment and smithy systems are innately annoying to interact with and feel needless. The game also having critical parts of its story conveyed through tooltips and hidden treasure sprinkled throughout the world is equally shitty. Nonetheless, when the game boils down to Jack and his buddies having a good time punching things in the face, there's no denying it's a sight to see.

Runner-up: Digimon Survive -

I'll be short here as I have already expressed my disappointment with Digimon Survive on the site. However, the game's ending act is far better than what I characterized in that blog and does a lot to tie everything together and encourage players to invest in multiple playthroughs. That doesn't change the tactics portion of the game being very "average" and the lion's share of dialogue choices coming across as arbitrary trolley dilemmas.

Best Pick-Me-Up - Mystery Science Theater 3000 (2022)

2022 was an interesting year for Joel Hodgson. After Netflix axed the revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 2019, he and the new crew he assembled were left with no clear path forward to keep the show going. Yes, the 2017-2018 revival was jumpstarted on Kickstarter. Still, Netflix's budget and platform played a role in helping the show to differentiate itself from the now better-known Rifftrax run by Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy. So, when Hodgson announced "The Gizmoplex," wherein he and his fellow staff air reruns, host events, and post new episodes at a far more leisurely pace, I was excited but also prepared for disappointment. Familiar faces were set to appear alongside the fresh blood from the Netflix show, which tends to be a recipe for disaster.

Luckily, I was wrong. The thirteenth season of MST3K struck a delicate balance between showcasing old-school monster flicks with more modern 90s action films. It was a far more diverse spread than the usual output from RiffTrax or other imitators, which ensured the show felt both fresh and distinct in a now crowded field. Jonah Ray and Baron Vaughn are as good as ever with on-point witticisms and cultural references, and the crew's chemistry is still the best part of the show. It was refreshing to see everyone come together, sit in front of a movie screen, and riff shit like the good old days. They didn't do anything revolutionary with this project, and anyone with long-standing aversions to MST3K and RiffTrax is not likely to be swayed. However, this is an easy and pleasant recommendation for those of you that have one or two line reads from the original television program burned into your lexicon.

Runner-up: Kirby and the Forgotten Land -

This will sound mean, but Kirby games are the video game equivalent of "Oscar bait." The games are about delivering a known outcome or experience with a different package or wrapping. Kirby games elicit emotional reactions like they were designed in a chemistry lab. However, when you need a pick-me-up, there are few options better than a new Kirby game.

Most Disappointing - Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it (Season 2)

Trying to explain the appeal of Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it is virtually impossible to do in text. Reading a synopsis that the show involves two scientists trying to use experiments to describe their love for each other sounds like the worst shit imaginable. However, its odd mix of slice-of-life comedy, romance, and science education works far better than it has any right to, and the first season was a fun "filler show." It was a silly and upbeat exhibition that tugged on your heartstrings and mostly accomplished that task. That's partly due to its two primary characters being equal screwballs in a fanciful adventure. The show avoids the typical Manzai act, with one character playing things straight and the other being a zany anime-delivering mechanism. That template wasn't rocket science, and fans of the show, myself included, were incredibly vocal about that being why they enjoyed the show in the first place.

So, color me disappointed that the second season decided to pull the rug from underneath its fans, ramp up the melodrama, and pivot the light-hearted adventures of its two characters to be more like a soap opera. Seeing a show so dramatically shirk away from what made it even marginally novel is fucking bizarre. It's also not like the dramatic junctures lead to heartfelt moments of sentimentality or the characters refocusing their energies on each other. Instead, the show becomes a very "by the numbers" romantic dramedy with a cast of characters that feel poorly equipped for such a change in tone. As if that weren't bad enough, the second season even muddied the water by adding new secondary and recurring characters that distracted the plot from its leading actors. Again, part of the show's appeal was that it was so hyper-focused on its leads that it didn't waste your time with anime chaff. Backtracking on that feels like a complete betrayal of sorts.

Runner-up: Gotham Knights -

The minute more details emerged about how Gotham Knights would be commoditized, my interest in it plummeted. However, I was still disappointed with the final product when the game came out. The loot system remains poorly utilized, and the mission structure is often unsatisfying and cumbersome. The characterization was fine. However, the storyline involving two secret organizations vying for power doesn't congeal enough, which is a shame because the game uses the Court of Owls storyline, which remains one of my all-time favorite Batman storylines.

My Game Of The Year 2022 That Actually Released In 2022 - Pentiment

Breaking news, the team at Obsidian is good at writing video game stories. Shocking, I know, but after giving them a bit of guff over the last third of The Outer Worlds and their habit of releasing games "hot," it is worth highlighting their strengths from time to time. The way Pentiment makes you not only reconsider your actions and phases of investigation make it one of the most engaging experiences from 2022. Every clue or hint it provides is a double-edged sword because they very often have more than one logical path to lead you down, with only one "true" direction holding firm in the background. Also, when everything comes to a head at the end, you're once again left wondering what you could have done better and where you may have gone astray. At generously fifteen hours, it's something I had no hesitation in jumping back into after a complete playthrough.

Likewise, as Jess eloquently articulates in her 2022 GOTY list, the game makes you care about history. The game's director, J.E. Sawyer, is a self-identified history buff, and when he gets free reign to be nerdy with his worldbuilding, he goes all the way to eleven, and Pentiment is no exception. The game actively teaches you accurate historical vocabulary with pure earnestness, and I cannot help but love it for that. But the way the world around you evolves is where Pentiment truly shines. As your player character builds a rapport with even the gruffest of NPCs, they eventually come to their aid. Similarly, those you slight will hold that against you until the end. It's a tour de force of writing and a sight to see, even when it results in gnarlier situations. When I fucked another character over, and that came to bite me in the ass in the final two hours, I couldn't help but respect Pentiment's commitment.

Runner-up: Kirby and the Forgotten Lands -

After slinging a good amount of yang against Kirby, I cannot deny that I am the same rube that I was apt to pounce on in my previous diatribe. This pink marshmallow vore machine will always put a smile on my face, and the games they grace are always a joy to play. Exploring environments and testing out new outfits brought me joy in the 90s, and it is just as effective today. I'm a hypocrite; what can I say?

Most Improved - The Sacramento Kings

For the past two years, I have given my hometown sports franchise, the Sacramento Kings, a demerit. At the start of the 2022-2023 NBA season, that tradition seemed like a safe bet yet again. However, despite a few hiccups here and there, the Kings have accomplished two things they have not done prior for nigh twenty years. First, they have pioneered an offensive identity that, at times, has been the best in the league. Second, they have finally addressed their frequent chemistry issues by making De'Aaron Fox the team's centerpiece and doubling down on coach Mike Brown's up-tempo offense. It doesn't sound like much, and something the franchise could have recognized earlier to avoid maintaining the longest active post-season appearance drought in American professional sports. Yet, here we are; the Kings are fun to watch and not a national embarrassment.

I understand a lot can happen in the world of sports between publishing this blog and the official end of the 2022-2023 NBA season. That concern aside, the past three months have given me hope. It's an odd feeling I have not felt since 2006, the last time the Kings made the playoffs. The team is, at best, a "pretender" rather than a true championship contender, but considering how bad things have been since 2006, being in the playoff hunt is an appreciated improvement. And to the handful of you that do not give a shit about sports, let me explain why you should love the Sacramento Kings. At the start of this season, the Kings organization started a tradition of shooting a giant purple laser beam into the sky whenever they win a game. That's what the picture above is. I have yet to learn how this does not violate FAA regulations, but it is a giant pillar of purple light you can see from miles away from the arena.

Runner-up: Westworld Season 4 -

Westworld's fourth and final season was far from perfect. However, when you consider where the third season left its world and characters, it's a writing miracle that it avoided being absolute dreck. Yes, things end on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved, given the show's cancellation, but at least some of the better characters got to shoot the shit out of things one last time before the lights went off.

The Most "Fans Of The Genre Will Enjoy This" Thing I Played - Star Ocean: The Divine Force

As stated in the first episode of my retrospective on Lightning Returns, tri-Ace is an "interesting" developer, especially if you are a JRPG fan. They started things off with Star Ocean, Star Ocean: The Second Story, and Valkyrie Profile within three years. Following Valkyrie Profile, the studio decided to kick things back and take things noticeably slower with Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. And as I articulated before, Till the End of Time represents a turning point in tri-Ace's history as its highly controversial story choices flogged them into wanting to avoid taking high risks with a project ever again. And so, here we are with the studio lurching towards bankruptcy after losing millions in the gacha industry. This is why many people have characterized Star Ocean: The Divine Force as their "last ditch effort" not to shutter their office permanently. The studio took SIX YEARS to make this game following the highly anemic Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, and promised to deliver on the franchise's higher points. In that regard, they mostly missed the mark, but not severely enough to summarily dismiss Divine Force.

Divine Force is a perfectly good video game that feels like it is trying to be its own thing instead of chasing after other industry zeitgeists like Integrity and Faithlessness. The game utilizes a refined version of Last Hope's combat system with tri-Ace's love for rhythm and juggling thrown into the mix. However, I still can't call Star Ocean: The Divine Force a "return to form" for the series, considering how poorly it compares to the first three titles in the franchise. If you are in for anime wackiness and pie-in-the-sky storytelling, be warned, you are not getting that with Divine Force. In fact, Divine Force might be the most competently straightforward story the studio has ever told. It exists within the limits of your typical anime logic and heart-wrenchingly attempts to convey stories of war-torn countries and refugees like a serious Star Ocean outing. The plot twist of Till the End of Time continues to be a looming specter the series refuses to reconcile, and tri-Ace continues to refuse to take spectacular risks that made them a name worth rooting for in the past. But at the end of the day, the game is "solid," and that's at least worth something.

Runner-up: Soul Hackers 2 -

Remember how Atlus Co., Ltd. released a video game in 2022? Boy, Soul Hackers 2 sure came and went! And who can blame people for not being enthused by this incredibly workmen-like outing by the Devil Summoner series? The game has some fun story-related moments, but those are stuck between some of the most uninspired and frustrating level designs from Atlus since Tartarus in Persona 3. That's not to say Soul Hackers 2 is a bad time, but it compares unfavorably to practically every game Atlus has put out for the past ten years.

Best Tactics Game - Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters

As covered by ArbitraryWater, 2022 was an AMAZING year for tactics games. Since the reboot XCOM games struck a chord with audiences and players, a new batch of games has refined and redefined many of the genre's hallmarks to allow more stakeholders and studios to join the tactics game mix. Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters is a by-the-numbers XCOM clone on paper. It has random events, a turn-based navigable overworld, and tech trees. It also uses the expected hunkering down and cover systems that are now codified gameplay tropes. It has scripted missions that can feel punishingly difficult, and it enjoys talking directly at you more than and longer than it should. The game also has a severe issue with balance, wherein a few Space Marine classes far exceed others in the grand campaign. However, it still provides one of the more accessible entry points into the world of Warhammer 40K and even throws a handful of interesting new ideas into the tactics game stew to keep things spicy.

Chaos Gate has also taken many criticisms directed at Firaxis' modern tactics games to heart. One thing that makes Chaos Gate an improvement over XCOM 2 is how it incentivizes you to move forward in a battle. Often, it will provide scenarios in which the only winning strategy is to move forward. When it sends endless streams of foes, if you can waste them, it has the decency of refunding your characters their ability points, so it better maintains its free-flowing pace. Speaking of avoiding common Firxis pitfalls, the boss encounters in Chaos Gate are highly entertaining, cinematic, and a delight when they are not caving in your teeth. Even when shit goes sideways, I didn't feel as demotivated about trying again as I normally am when I run into what I usually perceive to be a poorly designed boss encounter in the XCOM series.

Runner-up: Marvel's Midnight Suns -

Midnight Suns is another game that falls into the "more than the sum of its parts" bag. Technically, the game has plenty of rough edges and has a ton of ancillary sub-systems and mechanics that reek of Firaxis playing Three Houses more than a few times. Nonetheless, the core gameplay more than delivers on a satisfying hero-based romp with plenty of twists and turns as well as fun shooting-the-shit moments with the likes of Wolverine and Blade.

The "Eh, Okay, You Got There Eventually" Award - Andor

The perceived "slow start" to Andor has many a would-be YouTube video essayist hot and bothered about whether the show justifies said slow start. I flip-flop on the issue considering the show's conclusion more than makes up for the first two episodes but concede the worldbuilding is poorly paced at times. The precise lengths the first three episodes go to paint a whole picture about the universe the show exists in and why the characters are doing what they are doing could have been spaced apart rather than entirely front-loaded. However, the show values a wholeness to its world we have not seen since the likes of the original trilogy, and its conclusion is one of the better Hollywood spectacles you'll see from 2022. It's weird calling a thing with the Star Wars label "art," but that's how I feel about the whole of Andor now that the dust has settled, and I think the performances put out by its cast are some of the best in the franchise.

If anything, Andor is another case of modern Star Wars showing how it works better as a series of one-offs rather than a collection of epic trilogies that need to work with each other in lock-step synchronicity. I never want to give Disney any credit considering they own an entire generation's childhood, but I wouldn't blame them if they put the kibosh on all future trilogy projects and stuck with one-offs or spin-offs for the next decade. That is, unless they are willing to work with someone that is willing to stick with a singular vision for three whole movies that can also thread the needle between mainstream audiences and intolerable super fans. That's never going to happen, so I'll continue to count my blessings that things turned out for the better with Andor. This universe works better when it is not beholden to a grand vision of being the most epic science-fantasy property in the world. Give me more stories of people trying to escape shitty situations in a world where space wizards carry swords made of light, and evil wizards have electric batons.

Runner-up: Total War: Warhammer III -

Hey, will you look at that? Do you mean to tell me a tentpole game from Creative Assembly launched hot and without many of the features that made previous ones enjoyable? Who could have ever foreseen this happening?! But in all seriousness, releasing Warhammer III without the Immortal Empires campaign was a mistake, and it is good that it's finally in the game, in some capacity, as the original story campaign has a severe replayability problem. That said, there's no denying that Warhammer III is a nigh inaccessible experience to newcomers, with no viable on-ramps for anyone who missed the first two.

Worst Thing I Saw All The Way Through And Should Have Stopped Earlier - The Rising of the Shield Hero (Season 2)

The anime "sophomore slump" is alive and well! Not since the second season of The Promised Neverland have I seen an anime community so viciously turn on a single season quite like the second season of The Rising of the Shield Hero. As someone who hated the first season and everything it represented, it was a sight to see and convinced me I had to see the fuss in person. And boy, did I fucking regret it! As I said, it's not like the first season wasn't an adherent nightmare that incel culture gravitated toward because its protagonist exudes the virtues of a player character generated for Fatal. And how could we forget about multiple characters engaging in slavery and the main plot thread involving an enslaved woman being presented with freedom but returning to a life of slavery because she needs the male protagonist to "complete her." It's disgraceful shit, and I knowingly went into the second season expecting the absolute worst and was shocked at what I saw.

First, the second season picks up almost immediately where the first ended and has the two female characters re-explain why they are okay with being enslaved by the male lead and why he's not a complete scumbag for practicing slavery. Seriously. At that point, I thought I was watching an anime for incel manlet edgelords, but things changed. The characters then spend two episodes reflecting on their behaviors, engaging with quests, and doing the opposite of what they would have logically done in the first season. The reason is that the characters have thought about their behaviors and realize they need to be better people while also still practicing slavery. The show doesn't even fully commit to the shitty audience it courted after the first season and decides to Third Way its heinous bullshit by humanizing its world and making its cast engage in acts that show "they have changed." It's the fucking Bill Clinton of anime, with a comparable amount of misogyny! All the while, there are still no less than two female characters that actively beg for the protagonist to place them under his ward to protect them from the cruelty of the outside world. It's the most "both sides" shit I have ever seen, and it doesn't bring someone like me on board because it's still putting a happy face on chattel slavery like it is Song of the South. But fans of the first season are pissed because all the characters did was talk about morals and engage in isekai fluff instead of continuing the edgelord shit from before. I have not seen a show completely misunderstand its audience to this degree in my life.

Runner-up: Star Trek: Picard (Season Two) -

Red Letter Media warned me, but I did not listen. Picard spending two episodes on the characters suffering in our present timeline was lazy shit, even if I agreed with what the show was attempting to put forth. Having black and brown characters have less than pleasant run-ins with border patrol, and that's the message the show is trying to impart, is somehow less clever than having half-white/black-painted people talk about racism in the original series. I will add that it is AMAZING that Picard continues to side-step and not address the plot twist of the first season involving Picard canonically being a goddamn android.

Worst Puzzle I Ranked Or Experienced In 2022 - Starship Titanic's "Tending the Titanic Titillator" Puzzle

Starship Titanic is an experience instead of a video game. The game is an adaption of the mind of Douglas Adams, both in spirit and heart. It features the likes of Terry Jones and John Cleese and is unrelenting in its "Britishness." However, at its core is one of the cruelest and most unusual adventure games I have seen in a long while. To the game's credit, that's part of its humor, as it falls into the same adventure game category as Discworld, where it takes pleasure in making you sweat. As I reviewed in the first part of my "Blogging About Failure" series, there's a puzzle that is impossible to solve in all digital re-releases because the only way to find the solution is to look at a picture on the physical release's game box. That's the kind of shit you sign up for when you play Starship Titanic, and you have to give it to the designers for not letting up on their wonton cruelty at any point.

Case in point, there's a segment in the game when you need to make a cocktail for a robot bartender. Sounds simple, but what if I told you this cocktail required four ingredients that each need you to find bespoke locations and grace you with several fiddly or annoying puzzles along the way? I don't want to burn my material because I want to write a proper blog for this nightmare of a game, but I'll at least share how you get lemons for this robotic concoction. First, you need to find a perch hiding in the "Parrot Room," and it in no way looks like something you can pick up in the first place. Second, you need to navigate back to a different location and use that perch to poke a button several times to make a vending machine bestow a hammer. Poking the button once does nothing, so you could be forgiven for not thinking this was the natural solution to this part. Third, you need to go to another location, find a closet, and use the hammer to break a false wall that has a stick hiding behind it. Then, and only then, can you use the bar to pick lemons FROM A RANDOM TREE for the fucking cocktail! AND THAT'S JUST ONE OF FOUR PARTS!

Runner-up: Return To Zork - The Swamp Bog Sequence -

The following sequence is the worst part of an already malicious video game. Return to Zork does a more than admirable job translating the innate cruelty of the original text adventure games into an FMV adventure game with Myst-like puzzles. However, the swamp bog puzzle is a low point with the player needing to navigate a randomly generated repeating maze with nothing to help them but a stick and a compass rose. I could only beat this puzzle AFTER I broke out some graph paper, and even then, it took me about twenty minutes.

Help I'm Trapped in Sisyphean Torment Award - The Tower Of Druaga

I had a hard time assessing if I wanted The Tower of Druaga OR Unlimited SaGa taking my Sisyphean Torment Award. Unlimited Saga has combat that functions on a roulette wheel, but Druaga has old-school quarter-sucking sensibilities. So, I went back and thought about what defines "Sisyphean torment" in the realm of video games. To that end, I don't necessarily want a game arbitrarily long or abjectly unplayable. I am looking for a game that feels like torture and bestows a sense there's no hope of ever reaching the end. And in that regard, The Tower of Druaga stands tall. With sixty floors and each of those floors having hidden items and quests, there's simply no world where I ever see myself finishing it. Even if the depths of the underworld gave me an infinite amount of time to wail away on it, I still think I would be stuck at floor eight or nine hoping the ghost wouldn't fuck up my shit.

I can imagine a world where I finish Unlimited Saga. It might take me ten years, but Unlimited Saga, even with its randomly generated bullshit, feels like classic Microsoft FreeCell. Like FreeCell, in every tableau the game gives you, there's exactly one way to win, and if you deviate from that critical path even once, you're fucked forever. Even when I used a guide and memorized what I needed to do in The Tower of Druaga, the game STILL managed to ruin me. Also, because it was designed to be a quarter-sucking son of a bitch, it sometimes doesn't play by its own rules and, instead, will employ cheap bullshit to throttle your progress backward. The game deserves credit for inspiring the people at From making the games that made them big, but there's no reason for even the most die-hard Souls fans to play The Tower of Druaga. Please don't do it.

Runner-up: Unlimited Saga -

Despite pleading the case of The Tower of Druaga, I don't want any of you thinking Unlimited Saga is a game worth playing. It is noted as a product that only makes sense to the person who made it, Akitoshi Kawazu. The moment you boot the game up, you are essentially at the whims of RNG. The whole game and your ability to play it depends on if Lady Luck is on your side, which leads to one of the most futile feeling RPGs. To see stats and characters I spent hours leveling and training, get wiped clean in a matter of seconds, fucking sucks, and that's what you sign up for if you play Unlimited Saga.

ZombiePie's 2022 Ostrich Moment - Elden Ring

Every year I award my "Ostrich Award," a unique commendation to any source of entertainment that resulted in an unwarranted hostile response on my part. As I have said, these works of art make me feel like a proverbial ostrich with its head stuck in the sand. I have three video game-related opinions that consistently get me into trouble on this site. One, I don't like Castlevania games because I have a personal aversion to backtracking. Before anyone chimes in about Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, I'm not too fond of that game either, and my reaction to it while playing it sealed my case on the series not being my shit. Two, Final Fantasy Tactics is a mediocre tactic and strategy game that is carried by an excellent story. And finally, I don't like Souls games. Of those three, the last always leads to the most significant amount of backlash, even after I have prefaced that I have no ill will directed at From and the people who like these games. Even when I did so in my blog about the need for people that are not Souls fans to review these sorts of games, I still got a handful of people that entirely missed that and called me a whiner. So, knowing I'm likely better off not saying any of this, here we go. Let's talk about why I don't love Elden Ring.

I'm tired of From's approach to open-world game design. I no longer have the time for a game needing 100% of my gaming attention for weeks, and the genre's anti-player and anti-pick-up-and-play design is not for me. I had a colon biopsy checking for cancer, which came out negative, but I was out for a week, and when I returned to Elden Ring, I was so goddamn lost. That's thanks in no part to From's insistence they don't need quality-of-life designs in their games. Likewise, Souls fans overbill the worldbuilding in these games. I find From's writing in their tomes and weapons bios incredibly rote and a slog to read at times. I would even contend needing to read these bios in the first place isn't a net positive and, instead, storytelling malfeasance. Additionally, I'm "done" with these games' clipping issues. I fucking HATE taking cover behind a large solid object and a boss's lance or axe clipping through the said object and killing me. Fuck that; it's fucking bullshit. I am 1000% done with the awful platforming in From's games where you need to make leaps of fate and don't know if you are jumping into immediate death or entering a new location. And don't get me started with From STILL not being able to design a goddamn fucking camera that can snap into place whenever you fight a giant boss. How are we this deep into their catalog, and they STILL do not know how to make a camera that shows you more than 50% of their boss character models?

Runner-up: Marvel Snap - I have nothing especially vicious to say about Marvel Snap. It's a game I played for a bit to see what the hype was about and enjoyed for a while until I felt like I butted up against players that obviously spent real money on the game when I did not. I wasn't angry at the game, considering that's how all mobile games operate, but when presented with that wall, I uninstalled it and moved on with my life.

Best Non-Video Game Thing I "Played" As Much As Most Of The Video Games On This GOTY Blog - Duolingo

Yeah, I know people love dunking on the owl, but I had a ton of fun fucking around with Duolingo this year. It could be the program helping me get into a routine with something that wasn't gaming related. Still, I have honestly come to enjoy the language and vocabulary exercises it employs, and I'm making progress with what I am trying to learn. And before any would-be Noam Chomsky-likes chime in I'm not developing the critical parts of language proficiency with Duolingo; I know that. I make no pretensions about my warm-up exercises in Spanish or Japanese ever translating into me being able to walk the streets of another country and kicking up a conversation with the people I meet. But that's not the point with Duolingo. It is excellent when you approach it as a fun mental exercise that always leaves you feeling successful or that you have learned something new. Beyond that, there's nothing else to say other than it's fun, and I'm happy I decided to try it.

Runner-up: Mexican Train Dominos -

Mexican Train Dominos is better than OG Dominos. There, I said it, and I regret nothing! It's far easier to teach, better allows for teams, and is incredibly fun when adult beverages are also part of the picture. If you haven't given it a shot and are still fucking with Liar's Dice as your party game, replace it with Mexican Train Dominos and immediately bring new life to your adulting efforts.

Best Thing I Discovered For The First Time In 2022 - Ogre Battle 64

Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber is incredibly slow, clunky, and not even the best game in the series. It takes time to get used to what it's trying to tell you on its battle map, and its tutorials barely cover the surface of its in-depth combat mechanics and its myriad of job classes. While the main story indeed progresses at a slow but deliberate pace, there are whole swaths of the game that might not present themselves in any given playthrough if you do not know what you are doing. It was not until I consulted OgreBattle64.net that I discovered how to get all of the Elem Pedras, how the Chaos Frame system works, or how to find the "Drakonite Magic." In terms of being a random event generator, Ogre Battle 64 is one of the better out there, but that also means your experience may diverge wildly from those that claim it to be a hidden treasure in the N64's catalog. I would hazard to say Ogre Battle 64 has more in common with Pokemon than some games bearing its namesake that precede it.

And yet, I had a fantastic time with the game, mainly thanks to using a guide. When I read more about the requirements for the Princess, Vampire, and Venerable Dragons units, a part of my brain got turned on, and I treated the game more like Viva Pinata than a proper tactics game. That same depth that I suggested earlier that might make the game a daunting challenge for some has endless depth and provides an ungodly number of options for players you rarely see in modern tactics games. That adds to its replayability and makes the game a timeless classic, even if it is an aberration compared to its predecessors. It is notorious for how expensive it is in the used game market and is well-known for being the only Ogre Battle game that did not have Yasumi Matsuno as its director, and that shows, but it is worth checking out nonetheless.

Runner-up: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link -

I have already said my piece about Zelda II, but all I will add is that as I interacted more with the Switch port, which features a ROM hacked version that bestows Link with max stats at the start, I have softened my stance on the game. There's a world where an overtly roleplaying version of The Legend of Zelda can work and exist, and the games Zelda II inspired are proof of that. Playing Shovel Knight or Hollow Knight proves this can work if love and attention are given to it.

Blogger Of The Year From The Giant Bomb Community - borgmaster

The Giant Bomb blogging community is a small but close-knit group of people. We don't just follow each other on the site but also know each other's addresses and social security numbers! While borgmaster is not new to the blogging game, to see someone introduce a new blog and text-based premise and fully deliver on it in less than a year is nothing short of amazing. If even one percent of every lurker on the site were willing to take such a risk and not care about the fear of reprisal or lack of viewership, things would dramatically change for the better. As I have said before, sometimes you should write, not because it can make you famous or even lead to greener pastures or new job opportunities. Sometimes you should write for yourself and be amazed at how creative and passionate you can get. If you have yet to let your thoughts flow, I strongly recommend it, even if you have hesitations about working with the written word.

But let's return to borgmaster and their two massive blog projects on the site. When I first heard they were going to explore the PS1's first year of video game goodness, I did not think they would be able to finish it at the pace they first set for themselves. And yet, they did. Not only that, but just like clockwork, they started a new journey looking at the Sega Saturn's first year on store shelves. I can barely convince myself to commit to a bi-weekly blogging schedule, and here they are, putting me to shame. I also give them credit for inspiring a non-zero number of people to join the fray in covering retro and classic games on the site. Again, fantastic stuff all around.

Runner-up: Mento/bigsocrates/ArbitraryWater -

While I was pretty dead-set on who to give my top props for, I struggled with my runner-up, so I settled for a cop-out in the form of a three-way tie. Mento is a name that needs no introduction as they continually find ways to publish upwards of three blogs per week. bigsocrates engages the community with riveting prompts and explorations with long-forgotten gems or game mechanics. ArbitraryWater falls into the same group of bloggers that developed a new gimmick and has used it to their advantage to cover many games and gaming topics therein.

Game Of My Year - Final Fantasy VI

What else is there to say about Final Fantasy VI that I haven't already said? I eventually settled on calling Final Fantasy VI a "forever good game" in that there's no logical head-space ever to claim it is a terrible experience. Does the game have its share of flaws? Indeed, and I will be the first to call the game's latter levels bullshit and its Relic system fiddly. Also, the game has Setzer, one of the worst overall characters ever to be included in the main cast of a mainline Final Fantasy game. Not all of the characters get full-fledged arcs, and some reach the end of the game feeling incredibly half-baked. Nonetheless, the ones that stand out are likely to be characters I hold on to until I turn to dust, and the broad vinegar strokes of Final Fantasy VI are among the most magnificent to grace the franchise. It is the quintessential Final Fantasy game in that it is the game that has everything that makes the series even remotely interesting to follow all in a single package.

But there's another reason I felt inspired to include Final Fantasy VI as the "Game of My Year" this time. Final Fantasy VI might be the most necessary game in the series and JRPG genre for everyone to play. Chrono Trigger is the usual title for the latter, but if you wanted people to know what defines the soul of the JRPG genre and why people still latch to it, Final Fantasy VI pleads those cases emphatically. People need to see the Opera House scene and the game's big mid-game plot twist. Every self-identified video game historian has to see these two things at least once. It also helps that playing the game helped me fight through one of the worst bouts of writer's block I have ever experienced and doubled my love for writing about games. That's always nice.

Runner-up: Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven -

With Larian lurching closer to Baldur's Gate 3's official release, I have increasingly come to miss games like Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven. Honestly, I miss when CRPGs had a level of silliness and were willing to lampoon their own bullshit. Yet, here we are in this post-Game of Thrones world where everyone needs to fight back against a monolithic evil, and everyone around you kind of sucks shit. Yet, here we are, and with Ubisoft sitting on the IP and not wanting to do anything, it does not look like that's changing any time soon. Of the many MS-DOS-based CRPGs you can play these days, Might and Magic VI is one of the most welcoming and pleasurable and magnificently showcases the gulf between console and PC RPGs that existed for ages.

Author's Note: This is part two of a two-part series in which I look at every game I played or tinkered around with during 2022 but did not manage to finish or failed to write about on the site. In part one, I discussed the adventure games that either "broke" me or were sources of writer's block. For this episode, I will review the RPGs that I played but struggled to jot down my thoughts due to a lack of confidence in my ideas or a scarcity of time. If you missed the first episode, a link is available below!

Also, there are moderate spoilers for some of the games discussed in this blog. You have been warned!

• Blogging About Failure - Part 1: The Adventure Games That Broke Me In 2022

I Played These Games And Want To Talk About Them in 2023

Dragon Quest I & II

To call Dragon Quest an "establishment" is an understatement. The franchise has informed the direction of the JRPG genre for over thirty years. Unfortunately, its recent penchant for "playing it safe" has caused it to be a target among the JRPG enthusiast crowd. Oh, and every modern Dragon Quest game takes over forty hours to complete, and its iconic soundtrack and melodies were composed by a war crime-denying pile of human garbage. However, there's no doubt it is a cultural landmark, and I decided to give the first two entries in the series a go to see when exactly Dragon Quest became Dragon Quest. The answer is probably Dragon Quest III, but I was immediately shocked by two things when I played these relatively basic and creaky games. First, they are amazingly well-made games that offer incredible "baby's first JRPG" experiences with a low barrier to entry. Because the sizeable open-world design of the series did not come into the picture until the caravan system in Dragon Quest IV, the first two games have incredibly straightforward exploration bits that don't always tire your nerves. Second, and this was the real kicker, the first two games clock in under twenty hours. The first game can be quickly completed South of ten hours if you don't get tied up in the dungeons, and that makes it an easy recommendation to any would-be video game historians.

However, the legacy of Dragon Quest I and II is not what I want to write about on this site. In the annals of JRPG companions, there have been some doozies. Ken Amada makes Persona 3 actively miserable, and I have consistently called Hope Estheim in Final Fantasy XIII the ultimate "anime shit boy in video game history." There have been some terrible JRPG companions, and when you think you hit rock bottom, the genre finds a way to lower the bar even further. However, I present the Prince of Cannock in Dragon Quest II as the single worst JRPG companion in video game history. The Prince of Cannock gets special commendations for being a nothing character, a total liability for the entire game, and only one of three playable characters. To continue from that last point, because he's a master of none AND a glass cannon, you essentially play the game with two characters with no alternatives. Also, you don't get revival options until much later. So, when he dies, you need to drag his ass back to a church to revive him. Oh, my second guy died halfway into a dungeon? It is time to turn around and lose all of my progress leading up to this point! Worse, the fact he's a wimp AND never improves is a fact the game and its makers knew because his official art depicts him in a coffin while being dragged by the Princess of Moonbrooke.

Gauntlet IV

I love the Gauntlet series. Something about the franchise always manages to tap all of the pleasure neurons in the lizard portions of my brain, and I have fond memories of wasting away stacks of quarters on the arcade games. It was the first cooperative game I played and genuinely enjoyed. The need to communicate with partners, and sometimes total strangers, led to an endless list of parasocial interactions I can't forget. Furthermore, I am, by my own omission, a frequent defender of Gauntlet Dark Legacy, even if I recognize the game doesn't stack up to Power Stone or even the original Smash Bros. It doesn't matter. I played a shit ton of that game with my brother and sister, and entire audio cues and environmental set pieces are forever burned into my mind. 2022 was when I took the time to play one of the few games in the series I had never played, Gauntlet 4, and it was one of my biggest surprises of the year. Gauntlet IV on the Genesis/Mega Drive might be the most lovingly made 16-bit-era console port of an arcade game, and yet, no one knows about it.

Right from the rip, the game has one of the best soundtracks in the Genesis catalog. Whatever you think about the console conversions of Namco or Sega classics of this era, Gauntlet IV trumps all of them. That's because it was done by Hitoshi Sakimoto, who would later compose Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII. When people say they think the SNES has better music than the Genesis, I roll my eyes at them and pull up tracks from this game, Strider, Streets of Rage II, and Revenge of Sinobi. The game also has two different modes of play. The first is a shot-for-shot recreation of the arcade game with all of the familiar trappings but with the added comfort of being able to continue. Alternatively, a new quest mode features multi-level dungeons, NPCs, upgrades, persistent stats, and a mission structure that culminates in a final fifth dungeon. If the idea of an RPG spin of Gauntlet didn't sound enticing enough, what if I told you it was entirely playable in co-op? It's a largely forgotten platform highlight that I want to discuss on the site in some capacity in the future.

Fallout: New Vegas

Including Fallout: New Vegas in this section is a cheat because I have an outline of what I want to write about for this game. Unfortunately, I did not have the time to proofread and publish it before we got to the maelstrom that is GOTY season. For years, I have been amused by the growing proportion of people that point to New Vegas as the "last true Fallout game." That's because I remember when the game was released, a swath of the internet wanted to have the heads of those that reviewed it positively and brandished the launch window version of New Vegas as "false advertising." After all, the game launched hot and was a buggy nightmare to play. That leads me to my possible blog premise of wondering when the CRPG community deified New Vegas. When did the apotheosis of another hallmark of "classic" Obsidian releasing a partially complete game happen, and why? I'm old enough to remember when the GameFAQs and NeoGAF boards put Obsidian in the same category that we often put modern Bethesda into today of constantly getting a pass on publishing games when they still needed an extra year or two.

And I don't get the mindset that New Vegas somehow represents a more "authentic" Fallout experience than Fallout 3 or 4. Go back and play Fallout 1 or 2 and realize that they have more in common with Bethesda's tabula rasa, fill in the blanks with your headcanon, template than the guided and linear approach of Obsidian. Sure, there's something to be said about liking Obsidian's writing and way of conveying a story more than Bethesda's. However, leaving dialogue choices plain and up to the player to discern their context was what the Interplay games did. Likewise, you wouldn't precisely exalt the first two titles in the franchise as storytelling masterpieces, either. So, I return to my central question. When did the apotheosis of New Vegas start? Was it after the game's mod community salvaged the game? Was it after Skyrim made millions of dollars and became an easy target for CRPG "purists?" Was it after people were disappointed with Fallout 4? Was it after the disastrous launch of Fallout 76? You tell me because I'm still sitting here scratching my head, and I think there's something to this idea worth exploring in more depth.

Xenosaga Episode I & Xenosaga Episode II

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 got a significant amount of GOTY buzz this year, and as someone who has been following the works of Monolith Soft for a while, I find it comforting. The studio has gone through a lot of upheaval in the lead-up to its buy-out by Nintendo, and it brings me a lot of joy to see them get the budget and PR support they deserve. However, while their continued success warms my heart, I still cannot help but lament the eternal purgatory their older titles seem to exist in right now. Case in point, I would DIE for a modern re-release of the Xenosaga games, but that's likely never going to happen with Monolith in Nintendo's camp, but the series is tied to Namco and Sony. It's unfortunate because the Xenosaga games, at least in my mind, prove that Monolith is pulling its punches with the Xenoblade games considering nothing in the latter series has come close to the pure anime-ass insanity of the Xenosaga trilogy.

Holy shit. The story highlights of the Xenosaga trilogy need to be seen to be believed. Did the Xenoblade games ever show an android robot lady opening their navel to shoot a laser beam to kill a giant space monster? Is there any overt Jesus Christ connection to the characters of Xenoblade Chronicles 3? Do any of the Xenoblade games have a comically evil anime-ass villain that takes off his head after cutting off his hand while torturing a child? What about Greensleeves playing while you explore a brain matrix? Is that in the second or third Xenoblade game? How many of you that profess love for the Xenoblade games have seen the cutscene in Xenosaga I depicting Cherenkov's backstory? I don't say this point lightly, but the Xenosaga games "out Kojima" Hideo Kojima. Every cutscene is dense, goes on for over ten minutes, and is steadfast in confidence that its heavy-handed storytelling can only be treated with deathly serious observing eyes. And I cannot emphasize enough how if you combine all of the first game's cutscenes into a single video, it clocks-in over seven hours and that number gets bigger with the second and third games. It's fucking astounding.

I Played These Games, But I Have Nothing To Add To The Conversation That Has Not Already Been Said

Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

As hinted at in the first part of this mini-series, I have a tradition of picking random video game genres and seeing how far back in time I can go with that genre before I no longer feel like I can have a fun time. Despite being DOS-based CRPGs, the Might and Magic series is the furthest I can go with any individual video game franchise. Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra is where I draw the line, but if you challenged me to play the first two games, I'm confident I could still do it. This talking point leads us to Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven, a game I thought I would dislike but did not. With VI being the game that trashed hex-grid movement and pixel art for digitized graphics, I thought I was up for a rude awakening but was pleasantly surprised to discover the contrary. This game was fun and breezy when it first came out and is still one of the more welcoming intermediate CRPGs you can give someone trying to ease into the genre.

One of my all-time favorite parts about this game is its pacing. Every storyline quest melds perfectly with the previous one, and the game uses gear checks to incentivize completing side quests or general exploration of environments. The job system is highly satisfying, with only a few that I don't enjoy using in a normal playthrough, and the way you draw utility from those jobs by finding trainers or random NPCs is far less fiddly than it might sound on paper. Also, the Might & Magic series often doesn't get credit enough for being fun, silly games with you defeating monsters that worship sheep or fixing computers by going on quests for RAM. I will never understand the outcry over The Forge for Heroes of Might & Magic III, considering Might & Magic VI gives you an alien laser gun at the end of the game. It's cool shit. If I have two niggling nitpicks, I wish the game were still grid-based and the real-time mode did not exist. If you have yet to play it, give it a shot, and I promise you will not be disappointed.

Legend Of Dragoon

For the longest time, I had a theory about the creation of Legend of Dragoon that I finally wanted to put to the test. For years, if not decades, I believed that Legend of Dragoon was a vanity project spearheaded by Sony to try and one-up Squaresoft after the latter moved more console units than their internal studios. Up to that point, Japan Studio didn't have a track record of making great RPG experiences and giving them the task of creating a JRPG to rival Final Fantasy VII reeked of executive meddling. A painfully "okay" game with such stunning production values couldn't possibly have any other reason for existing; at least, that's what I thought. As I played the game's first disc and did more research, I discovered my theory was utterly wrong, but that did not change my overall feeling the game is boring and unable to justify its long playtime.

To the people bound to fight me about my thoughts about Legend of Dragoon, I get it. The game's flashy visuals and intricate animations are still impressive today and perfectly exemplify the PS1 aesthetic. However, those animations slow the game to a crawl, and I would even contend Legend of Dragoon is more over-animated than Chrono Cross. I timed this, but the opening camera pan at the start of battles is six seconds, and the end battle animation is eight. That means after ten random encounters, two to three minutes of your life are down the drain, simply waiting for the game to transition in and out of battles. The Addition system is passable, but it's not enough to justify being the lynchpin of an entire JRPG, especially when its depth is lacking. Also, the fact Legend of Dragoon is optimized for CRTs means playing it on a modern monitor is not the best experience. But all of that aside, I think I "get" why people fondly look back at this game and understand why people want to see the game remastered. Nothing quite looks or plays like it, and it is very much in line with the 90s Saturday morning cartoons many of us still think about nostalgically.

Hydlide (Including Virtual Hydlide) & The Tower Of Druaga

This game falls into the "borgmaster beat me to it" category if we are being honest. Around November, I played every game in the Hydlide franchise, hoping to see if the series ever made a good game. I put the Hydlide franchise in the same group as The Tower of Druaga series. Both are essential and acted as formative titles that led to greater and better things. The entire Souls sub-genre is so indebted to The Tower of Druaga and Hydlide games that it is not even funny. However, there is no single game bearing either series namesake that you should actively seek out to understand that historical legacy because they are all the most miserable video games ever made. MAYBE, check out Hydlide 3 if you need to know why some in the JRPG development scene continue to hold on to the series as a legacy tentpole franchise, but feel free to punch out after the second dungeon. With The Tower of Druaga, you are at the mercy of the game not randomly caving your teeth in unprompted. Druaga never appropriately prompts you as to what it wants you to accomplish at each level, and even when you do know what it demands, you often end up doing random bullshit that leads to endless death spirals. I managed to get to level eight out of sixty and consistently struggled with the quest involving getting a magical sword. And by the way, the game throttles you down a story when you attempt to progress further up the tower after skipping a quest item or failing a mission. It's utterly fucked!

When it comes to Virtual Hydlide, what sometimes gets lost in the mix is the game's size. The in-game world is tiny, so its speed runs are hilariously busted. However, with the game lacking any leveling mechanics or sub-systems, you are better off avoiding combat entirely and saving yourself for the required bosses at the end of every temple or cave. The game barely runs at a stable framerate and is notable for what it doesn't have rather than what it does. It shit-cans the franchise's then-unique morality and magic systems and ties everything into equipment. However, because it relies so heavily on weapons, when you get a new sword or mace, everything around you becomes pointless until the next gear check. You spend large swaths of the game moving from one local to the next, wasting away everything that stands before you, leading to an incredibly monotonous and boring game. But again, if you want the definitive blog about all of this, check out borgmaster's post on the site.

I May Write About These Games In Two To Three Years, But I Make No Promises

NBA 2K16 (But Only The Story Mode By Spike Lee)

Whenever I say this to people who only play sports games, they get angry at me, but I'm confident about my stance. Sports games are RPGs. If you are playing a Madden or EA Football game and rejiggering the stats of a player or using cards to create a fantasy team for online play, you are playing a role-playing game. Stop and look at any online Madden player's thought process when drawing up a new offensive play or defensive scheme. You can squint your eyes and realize that's essentially the same thought process someone like me goes through when fanning through hotkeys or battle menus when selecting attacks against an ogre or dungeon boss. That's why when people give the NBA 2K series a hard time for having weird fantasy story modes, I don't get it. These modes are completely on par with the RPG sensibilities innate to all sports games.

However, NBA 2K16 is very special. As many of you might recall, the game has a story mode written by Spike Lee, and it delivers on its reputation of being one of the most harebrained sports stories short of Suda51's Super Fire Prowrestling Special. I know Alex detailed the insane plot twist at its end, but other bizarre story moments are just as praiseworthy. And I say "praiseworthy" the same way I would use that word when recalling Tommy Wiseau's The Room. How could one forget about the owner of your team being an overt racist that looks down on his players as nothing but servants to his million-dollar enterprise? What about the player character's agent, Dom Pagnotti, being a walking Italian-American stereotype? And what about the awkward car scene where it is revealed the player character was an accessory to second-degree murder, which the game does not scaffold toward or foreshadow at any point? It's SOMETHING, and I continue to be amazed the NBA gave it their seal of approval, considering how poorly it depicts the inner machinations in the league.

Eternal Sonata

As you might discern from my loving brief on Xenosaga, I love JRPGs that aim for the stars and miss. That's why I still hold Final Fantasy VIII in higher regard than most Final Fantasy fans and why I cannot help but love Chrono Cross. Eternal Sonata is a wild story and compares favorably to those two games by sheer metric tonnage of "weirdness." Reading the game's Wikipedia bio is enough to explain why that is the case. A game taking place in the dying dreams of a real-life musician, in this case, Chopin, and flinging you into a fanciful anime isekai world is fucking bananas. And the twists and turns that happen therein are beautiful and unique in their own right. There's a cutscene where a character you barely have met gets assassinated and slips in and out of consciousness to have a ten-minute death eulogy about how much they will miss their companions. There's a subplot involving the prospect of a time loop that never gets resolved. Then, there are the PowerPoint presentations about the life and times of Chopin that come out of nowhere. Finally, there's the villain, who is the most boilerplate anime villain you will see. It's A LOT, and I love it for that reason alone.

Unfortunately, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend you play Eternal Sonata. The game's dungeons are painfully linear but go on for hours at a time and add virtually nothing to the experience. The combat is also wildly all over the place and has too many sub-systems to be entirely enjoyable. There's a night-day system that is more annoying than satisfying, and fiddling with inventory items or equipment in the menu is never gratifying. The blocking mechanic, however, almost breaks the entire game for me. When you enter combat, it is vitally important to take note of musical cues or visual prompts emanating from random encounters or bosses. If you don't, you will either end up dead or so far back in health that you might as well restart. All this information is poorly communicated to the player because the camera is often pulled too far back from the action, which can lead to significant roadblocks that are no fun to get out of if you do not know what to do. That said, I genuinely need all of you to watch that death eulogy I mentioned earlier because it's the most incredible thing I have seen in all of 2022:

Quest 64

I'm not going to spend too much time talking about Quest 64, but here's where I stand regarding the game. The Angry Video Game Nerd lied to you. I know, shocking. Nonetheless, Quest 64 is better than its reputation might have you believe. That's because the game is clearly made for children and isn't even the worst "one of those." When you get down to brass tax, the game does a more than admirable enough job of providing RPG newcomers the basic idea of what the genre has to offer, and in an incredibly low-stakes package. The penalties for player death are non-existent, and the game's linear structure makes it impossible not to know what you need to do or where to go. The game's magic system and drawing mechanics are straightforward. It's not at the top of or even on my list of RPGs I would give someone new to the genre, but I can't fault anyone who would do so. The fact Dan and Jeff have spoken about the game in the same breath as Bubsy 3D or Sonic 06 as a future Spite Club pick has me moments away from writing a three-paragraph scree on why Quest 64 isn't what they are looking for for that series. Ultimately, as the kids on Fortnite like to say, the game is very "mid," but nothing more.

Unlimited SaGa

Calling certain video games a "roulette wheel" is a bit of a tiresome idiom. Every video game has a design philosophy built into it to keep you coming back for more. Even bad games have a kernel where someone tried to create an experience they thought would keep you entertained. However, Unlimited SaGa is a goddamn roulette wheel. It is barely a video game and has the noted distinction of rating lower than The Guy Game on Metacritic. And you know what? That's completely earned because, despite more effort going into Unlimited Saga, it is one of the least functional games to ever come out of Square-Enix. A board game guides the player's movement, and the structure of that board game is on par with a Jinsei Game with random events that inflict random bullshit on you when you least expect it. The combat is a slot machine, and that's all that needs to be said about why it sucks. Seriously, look at the screencap above. Whenever you want to attack an enemy, you must pray that the slot machine will land on what you want. Every. Single. Battle. Also, junctioning spells to any character is the most complex and Byzantine bullshit imaginable. I have played some bunk JRPGs in my lifetime, and I have to stop and think hard if this game is worse than Lunar Dragon Song. For those who understand the gravity of that last sentence, I tip my hat to you.

However, any discussion about Unlimited Saga cannot happen without a cursory examination of the mastermind behind it, Akitoshi Kawazu. Hardcore Gaming 101 put it best when it declared Kawazu as a brain in a jar in Square-Enix's basement that the company's leaders occasionally refer to when they are in a bind. However, while the brain doesn't ask for much day-to-day, it will pull owed favors to get the green light for games that would never court executive approval in any other circumstance. After striking relative gold with the SaGa series, Kawazu flexed all of his credibility within Square-Enix to make a game that only made sense in his mind after obsessively playing Ultima IV and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. That game ended up being none other than Unlimited Saga. Kawazu's "blank check" that he got for over twenty years of industry success got spent to make Unlimited Saga. The one time he got final-cut privileges was for this nightmare game, which explains a lot. This game is the video game equivalent of the Cones of Dunshire. It has everything, and that's a problem.

NOPE! THESE GAMES ARE A HARD PASS!

Secret of the Stars (aka Aqutallion)

Oh, Dragon Quest clones. They are a dime a dozen and rarely ever arise above middling filler. In my books, there are good DQ clones, there are bad DQ clones, and then there are weird DQ clones. Secret of the Stars is thoroughly in the second camp, though it sometimes oscillates into the third. Its central premise is that it forces players to take control of two parties and these two parties need to work in tandem with each other whenever exploring dungeons or towns. Regrettably, the synergy between these two parties is next to nothing, and if you are not careful, you can even have one group block the pathway of the other and be completely stuck. Also, the idea of needing to grind DOUBLE in an otherwise incompetently made Dragon Quest clone is the most fucked video game value proposition imaginable. Imagine you are playing Dragon Quest V, and now imagine needing to play every level or set piece twice just to keep two siloed groups on par with what the game is throwing at you. That is how Secret of the Stars operates. The only thing worth seeking out about the game is its hilarious scuffed translation which you can get an idea of from the screenshot I have provided above. Otherwise, after about five hours, I bounced off this game.

Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage

If you are interested in experiencing the slowest start to an N64 game, look no further than Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage! The game's starting cinematic and castle are mind-numbingly slow and do virtually nothing to prepare the player for the onslaught of mediocrity they are about to witness. Everything I said about The Legend of Dragoon playing as if it existed in a vat of molasses applies to Aidyn Chronicles. However, Aidyn Chronicles has the added detriment of doing one of my all-time most hated "RPG Cardinal Sins." When attempting to complete quests or explore new environments, enemies will spawn or move around in the world in real-time, and you will often physically bump into them. However, when you spawn into the game's battlefield, you and the enemy will suddenly inhabit two opposite sides of a fighting arena and need to spend two to three turns simply closing that gap. It fucking sucks, and I hate it whenever games do this. I highly recommend Mento's write-up if you want to learn more about this game and why it's not a great time.

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Remember when I talked about the Ultima adventure game spin-offs and mentioned I would talk about Ultima IV? Well, we have now reached that part of this blog! I respect Ultima IV. The game still stands as one of the few RPGs ever made where the player isn't aiming to kill a big monolithic evil. It instead asks players to learn about its code of ethics and then exemplify those ethics in everything they do in the game's world. Sure, there are goblins and trolls to defeat in battle, but even then, you must consider how much to press your attacks or otherwise build up a cruel reputation among the game's peons. For something made in the 1980s, it is an incredibly nuanced system and far more dynamic than you'd think. Unfortunately, due to it being such an old game, its systems are not easily determined, which also applies to its overall design. Dungeons and towns have entire bespoke pathways hidden behind invisible walls or trapdoors. The quest design is obtuse enough that you never feel like you have a grasp on what the game wants out of you. I do not want to call the game "directionless," but I cannot imagine a world where I complete the game without at least two to three game guides providing step-by-step directions. It's worth a cursory look for any adventurous video game historian, but not for the faint of heart.

My 2022 White Whale

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

I tried. I really tried to complete Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura this year. I even set out to finish the game as a 2022 New Year's resolution. I listened to interviews with Jason D. Anderson and Leonard Boyarsky about the game's design process to get my spirits up. I even used my favorite cheese tactic in the game by speccing my character to specialize in throwing and incendiary weapons so I could murder everything with nothing but Molotov cocktails. But, alas, I failed. Arcanum is too fucking long and too much of the same thing over and over again for my tastes. It is a game built tall, not wide, and is moments away from collapse. Many of the game's dungeons embark on frustrating design tropes like a Dwarven cave that arbitrarily snakes around in a serpentine pattern so random goons can charge after you ad infinitum. The story's first half recycles a "monster of the week" format that barely cuts it for nationally televised cartoon shows. On top of that, while there are some exciting subplots or side quests, the main story takes its sweet time to kick into high gear. It's simply too much game for too little gain for hours.

However, I don't want anyone to think I am calling Arcanum a "bad" video game. While playing it with the fan patch is incredibly important, its ambition is through the roof. The number of jobs, abilities, character customization options, and build paths available at your fingertips is astounding. That treasure trove of player options is a double-edged sword considering specific skills and build paths are better or more viable than others. Arcanum is guilty of ye olde CRPG trope of a handful of jobs and skills being outright useless. Discovering a character you have spent hours making will never get you to the end of the game is aggravating. All that aside, it is a remarkable world with larger-than-life characters that make most of the journey worth taking. Nonetheless, if you have managed to see its credits, you are a far better person than me.

Preamble

With feelings on the site at an all-time high, I decided to bring things back to Earth with a blog about failure. Contrary to popular belief, I only sometimes write about the games I finish or play. In fact, most games I play come and go without a single treatise or commentary about my thoughts about it gracing the internet. However, rather than let that potential source of angst lord over me, I decided to use it as a fun blog idea before I buckle down and annotate my favorite games from the year. Due to the pressures of modern society, thanks in no part to capitalism, we live in fear of failure. Nonetheless, taking risks and living with many of those risks not panning out is an essential part of life. Therefore, I don't view any of the problems or issues I am about to discuss in anger or frustration. Instead, I still pat myself on the back that I pushed myself to work outside of my comfort zone in the first place and that these risks all provide critical teachable moments.

For the first part of this self-reflection, I will exclusively look at adventure games. It's weird to think about this point, but next week will mark my first anniversary of starting my ranking of adventure game puzzles on the site. I started the series as an experiment after I needed something to write about that wasn't just the Final Fantasy series or the state of modern Square-Enix. I settled with my video game comfort food, adventure games, and the posts have become some of the more popular things I post on the site. Unfortunately, some games I play either push me to the breaking point or, halfway through, I realize they are not worth the effort to write about exhaustively. So, without further ado, let's review some of those games! Also, where possible, I'll provide links to archives of my playthroughs of games covered or discussed on this blog!

I Played These Games, Finished Them, & Still Plan To Blog About Them

Return To Zork

If ever there was a game I wish I could recommend for Vinny Caravella's descent into the world of FMV adventure games, this would be at the top of my list. When people hear "Zork," they think of the legendary text-based adventure games from Infocom. The original trilogy of Zork games are among the most important games ever made and informed the adventure game genre for over forty years. They are the source of many a grizzled boomer gamer joke due to their wonton cruelty and penchant for killing their players in the most ludicrous manner possible, but it was a different time. The fact the games would kill you if you didn't carry a torch when entering a cave or hallway was part of the charm. What people often forget is in one of their last gasps to remain relevant in the industry, Infocom rebooted the Zork series as Myst-adjacent 3D FMV adventure games. These games do not use the traditional text parser like most of Infocom's works and instead use a click-based inventory management system. They do, however, maintain the series' habit of murdering you when you least expect it.

This reboot trilogy starts with 1993's Return to Zork and includes Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands and Zork: Grand Inquisitor. We speak of remasters and soft reboots as if they are a new industry trend squashing the creativity of the designers, programmers, and coders that populate it. In reality, popular video game series and franchises have been remastering older works to be compatible with new hardware and software since the dawn of video games. The Zork series is proof positive of that. With Return to Zork, the game is well-known for being punishingly challenging. For example, you encounter a vulture at the start of the game on a signpost next to a plant. If you attempt to talk to the vulture, you die, and if you pick the plant, you'll inadvertently enter a fail state with the game not telling you that until you are three hours deep. I had the benefit of recalling an ancient playthrough I had with the game in the 90s, so my second rodeo was not as bad as a normal blind playthrough. The puzzles in this game are BRUTAL, and instead of employing my standard format, I was thinking of looking at the top three puzzles in each Zork reboot game in a single post. They should be covered together, considering the franchise's current irrelevance can be easily observed in the design and tonal shift experienced while you play them in chronological order. However, excuses are excuses, and this was a rare miss on my part.

Amerzone (aka, Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy)

I gave the man his flowers during my blog post begging people not to compare Scorn to Myst, but Benoît Sokal is a name you should respect if you enjoy modern adventure games. Sokal was a professionally trained comic artist before entering the world of video games and is best known as the director and figurehead behind the Syberia franchise. However, most people forget that the Syberia franchise and Sokal's video game career started with the video game buried treasure, AmerZone: The Explorer's Legacy. Unlike Syberia, Amerzone uses a cartoony art style characteristic of Sokal's comic books. However, the game laid the groundwork for the world of Syberia, and its aesthetical choices persist even in the series' most recent titles. It's an exciting experiment and an easy recommendation to anyone who enjoys the Syberia franchise but is unaware of Amerzone's existence. I decided against writing a post about it, not because I did not want to but because I felt it was appropriate to hold on to it until I got to the first Syberia game.

While the game feels more like a prototype than anything else, I ended up loving this game. The world you explore is abstract and fictional enough that its weirder sensibilities feel warranted, but it still functions within the realm of reason. The game has a genuine sense of discovery it primarily rewards as you explore the depths of a tropical forest. The underlying story is crude and nowhere near as compelling as the one in Syberia, but it gets enough right that you never feel like giving up on the game. The ultimate problem with Amerzone is that only some of its best ideas get the total commitment they deserve. In one case, at the start of the game, you discover a journal from a legendary explorer who begs you to deliver an egg of a now-extinct bird species to its rightful home. For the first set piece, you flip through pages in this journal to find the egg, solve puzzles, and even program directions into a flying craft. It might sound fiddly, but it works because the illustrations in the journal perfectly match your in-game roadblocks, and knowing to check the journal becomes an automatic reaction you develop. Then, when you enter the second location, the game completely forgets about the journal until the fifth level, where it makes a return.

Shannara (1995)

Well, here's a real "trip down memory lane!" If and when I cover Shannara (1995), it will be the crustiest game I assess in my adventure game series. The DOS era of adventure games is a black hole in my repertoire, and before playing this game, I was largely unaware of the Shannara franchise. Speaking of which, we should talk about the namesake of this game because it explains why it has become Abandonware with no hopes of ever getting a re-release. The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks is considered by some a seminal work of epic fantasy fiction that grew the commercial prospects of the fantasy genre but is also derided by critics as being highly derivative of The Lord of the Rings. Both statements are true. The Shannara series was a massive blockbuster, but I never found Terry Brooks to be an incredibly creative mind when compared to Tolkein, Ursula K. Le Guin, or even Anne McCaffrey. However, people LOVE The Sword of Shannara, which made it primed for a video game adaptation in the 1990s. However, that leads us to one of the weirdest creative decisions of Shannara (1995). The game features the Shannara characters and setting, but its story is not an adaptation of any book or short story and exists in its own non-canonical timeline.

I'm going to be honest; this game was a massive disappointment. That feeling is partly due to Shannara being a work from "The Coles" or Corey Cole and Lori Ann Cole, the figureheads behind the Quest for Glory franchise. The game came AFTER Quest for Glory III: Wages of War and Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness but is a massive step in the wrong direction compared to both. Because Shannara errs closer to the CRPG side of things, it's more complex than almost every Quest for Glory game short of Quest for Infamy but is running the same point-and-click engine, which doesn't cut it in Shannara's case. The combat is downright awful, and your best strategy is to avoid all optional battles whenever possible. So, imagine a version of Quest for Glory that requires twice the amount of grinding, has as many instant death traps as King's Quest, and has a combat engine that feels like refried dogshit. I still plan to write about this game because so much of it is utterly fucked, but it will be a while before I muster the strength to do so.

MTV's Club Dead

Fuck you @sparky_buzzsaw! Remember when MTV was considered a "counter-culture" television program and was hip with teens? Remember when Viacom gave a shit about making video games? Shit, remember Viacom? The main idea behind these questions converged together and birthed a video game called MTV's Club Dead. The best way to describe it is to imagine Total Distortion but with a corporate label and WAY MORE music videos to watch. Like Total Distortion, the game is a first-person surrealist adventure game with the player investigating murders at a cyberpunk hotel. As you explore the many wild residents at the hotel and crime scenes, you collect clues on who the murderer might be while watching music videos and playing MTV-themed minigames circa 1994. Likely due to the licensing and rights issues associated with some of those music videos and the game's use of the MTV label, this weird and wacky experiment is locked away into copyright purgatory.

MTV's Club Dead is BY FAR the weirdest game I have ever played outside of Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou, which I also desperately want to share with the Giant Bomb Community. Club Dead was also a colossal pain in the ass to get working on modern technology. I cannot say this for sure, but I have a hunch the game runs all of its music videos, FMV cutscenes, and MTV bits using separate executables and video players. When I tried to stream the game on OBS, my usual Game Capture setup could never detect the FMV cutscenes or music videos. My guess is it is using something like Windows Media Player or Quicktime to run these cutscenes separately from the base game. It does not help the game is programmed in DOS and bootstrapping it to DOSBox is more complex than you'd expect. It's a WILD journey, and I 100% NEED to cover it on the site. My only quibble is that there are large swaths of it where all you do is move from one location to the next and listen to NPCs or watch videos for five to ten minutes.

Starship Titanic

Near the start of my adventure game series, @bigsocrates suggested Starship Titanic as a possible future topic. When I found out the game had a GOG and Steam release, I pounced on the opportunity because I was "done" with rejiggering old PC games to make them work on my desktop at the time. What ensued next was one of the most miserable experiences I had with a video game in 2022. I will share another confession with everyone that might get me in trouble, but I am not the biggest fan of Douglas Adams' style of humor (don't tell @mattyftm). I understand the man was a master of his craft and that his witticisms of government bureaucracy are iconic and novel in their own right. However, his habit of having characters speak technobabble and that being "the point" or the butt of his jokes 90% of the time wears on my nerves after about fifteen pages. He's only one step above Rick and Morty when it comes to relying on verbal diarrhea as a comedic crutch. That's one of the biggest issues I have with the video game adaptation of Starship Titanic, and it does not help that the puzzles are none the better.

It is worth noting that Starship Titanic falls into the same category as the Discworld games. The fact Starship Titanic attempts to kick your teeth in with its bizarre sense of logic is part of the humor, and your ability to accept that determines your enjoyment of the game. However, there are a handful of puzzles where the game goes way too far. For example, in the picture I provided above, the puzzle can only be completed by looking up the answer in a guide. The reason is that the correct placement of every gear and knob is only provided to the player on the physical game box. That's right, when you run up to this puzzle when you attempt to use the in-game hint system, it says to you, "Have you tried checking the back of the box?" and upon doing so, you'll notice the version of the puzzle on the box has the solution. For owners of digital-only copies of the game, you are fucked! Even if you have the box, that being the way you solve a puzzle is fucking BANANAS! There's another puzzle where you must listen to a French-accented waiter and click on his butt twenty-five times! Why twenty-five times? Because the game thinks having you do the same thing over and over again is funny. I need to write about this game, so I can finally move on from it after it inflicted fifty points of psychic damage on me.

The Longest Journey

If I heard that I only had three weeks to live or a comet would extinguish all living creatures on this planet in seven days, I would use my time to buckle down and finish a retrospective on The Longest Journey as my final written work. I consider The Longest Journey and Syberia torchbearers of the adventure game genre in the late 1990s and early 2000s, alongside the Myst franchise. However, there's something about The Longest Journey that always feels timeless. April Ryan still stands as one of my all-time favorite video game characters, and her journey of self-discovery remains deeply relatable and resonates even twenty-plus years after the fact. Visually, while some of the pre-rendered skyboxes and backgrounds don't exactly hold up, the sheer variety of environments and locals makes the game a truly epic journey, the likes of which you rarely see today. As to why I did not write a blog about it, the answer is simple. This game is massive and I simply did not have the time to write blogs it rightfully deserves.

The gameplay also holds up remarkably well. That's because The Longest Journey rarely utilizes player death. Almost every puzzle, set piece, and combat sequence is designed to avoid the player needing to worry about quick saves or fail states. Without that worry, you can process the many characters and monuments that occupy every screen April Ryan inhabits. The exploration of lore and dialogue is why you play The Longest Journey, as its worldbuilding is insanely detailed, and there's so much of it. This point leads me to the first sign of the game's growing age. The story's reliance on in-game back-and-forth dialogue is overwhelming, and there are plenty of times when I thought a page's worth of dialogue could have been expressed in two sentences. Likewise, the puzzles run a vast delta from excellent to terrible. If you know, I plan to rip the rubber ducky puzzle a new fucking asshole, but the tiki statue telephone puzzle and underwater sundial aren't that much better either. All that aside, it's an underappreciated classic that everyone should play at least once in their life, and I do not say that lightly.

I Played And Finished These Games But Will Almost Certainly NOT Blog About Them

Return to Mysterious Island

I love Return to Mysterious Island, but I need to figure out how to write a blog about it. The issue at hand is that the game starts as a survival game with many possible ways for your player character to gather enough food to transition to the second phase of the game. If you ask me, the first survival part of the game is the best part. Then, the game transitions into a series of ghost tales and supernatural set pieces borrowing from the works of Jules Verne. While I do not hate these set pieces, the game's visual variety and sense of exploration take a massive nosedive. Most puzzles are clever and have good tells or clues. The issue is that the game requires a bit of trial and error during a few parts where a basic understanding of chemistry is necessary so the player character can make things like gunpower or battery acid.

However, Return to Mysterious Island is a struggle for me to write about partly because there are randomized elements, and no one playthrough is ever the same. Specific missions or quests pop off in different sequences, and the more elaborate puzzles have more than one possible solution. I have tackled adventure games that utilize open-world structures and more freeform puzzles, but not to the degree of Mysterious Journey. The game has an almost HILARIOUSLY bad final puzzle that I want to talk about at some point. However, I might look at both Mysterious Journey games together and, at most, write about their top three and bottom three puzzles. However, it's not exactly fit for that, considering there are only so many puzzles in the most traditional sense in each game. I don't consider gathering enough mangoes and nectarines to heal an injured monkey companion a "puzzle," but that might be me.

Botanicula

I'm going to sound a little like an asshole for this take, but I do not like any game from Amanita Design post-Machinarium. Their style of environmental storytelling has always come across as too "fuzzy mittens" for my tastes. Additionally, since Machinarium, their gameplay has erred increasingly on the player constantly clicking on everything on the screen to see cute stuff run around to move a block to open a new pathway or flick a switch to build a bridge. At this point, I feel like I know what the solution is to every single Amanita Rube Goldberg machine, and that is putting a massive damper on my ability to enjoy the things they make. Whenever I encounter a roadblock in their games, I know what I need to do and what the solution will look like when I put all the puzzle pieces into the correct spot. I find this a shame because their games are beautiful, and I respect any studio that takes the time to hone its craft to the degree they do.

Botanicula is also one of their less interactive games, feeling more like an art-house collage than an epic journey like with Machinarium or the last two Samorost games. Botanicula is also one of those games where I started to play the game and immediately was cognitively able to recognize it was not a fit for me or my writing style. I got pretty close to getting every single sticker in the game. Still, I knew there was no way I would break down meticulously every environmental signpost for those stickers or every example of piggybacking on every screen. It wasn't happening, and I knew it when I got to the game's midpoint. I already hate how close my adventure game blogs are moving towards becoming full-blown guides for the games I cover, and I did not think there was a way for me to write about Botanicula without that being the case. Maybe I'm wrong, and you all have ideas on what course of action I could take to avoid that, but for now, I'll put Botanicula in the category above "DNF."

Dragon Lore: The Legend Begins

Hey, remember Stonekeep? Remember how Stonekeep spawned a wave of knockoff first-person dungeon crawlers with pre-rendered environments and live-action actors? Dragon Lore: The Legend Begins is one of those but from an adventure game studio. I covered Cryo Interactive when I discussed Atlantis: The Lost Tales, but in short, they were a French adventure game studio at the cutting edge of 3D game rendering in the PC arena during the mid to late 90s. They also made a successful line of edutainment games that the Scholastic Book Club was happy to sell you. Still, when the novelty of fully rendered 3D character models waned, they put all of their marbles into a not-good Dune action game that bankrupted them into oblivion. Be aware that if the name "Dragon Lore" rings any bells, you are thinking of the second game, not this one. Dragon Lore II received a far wider release and even got a few console ports. Unfortunately, Dragon Lore II is a game lost to time, whereas Dragon Lore I has a GOG version readily available.

I danced around this topic when covering Atlantis, but while I understand Cryo is an important studio in the realm of adventure games, I need help to list a single work of theirs that is worth playing today. Some people enjoy their SCUMM-clones like Dune (1992). However, I find the odd marriage between strategy and adventure game in Dune (1992) to be oddly aggravating and incredibly frustrating, both of which are problems with Dragon Lore! Dragon Lore is an adventure game with one of the worst feeling first-person dungeon crawling combat I have ever experienced. Mercifully, the game rarely throws more than one enemy at you, but even then, everything moves at a snail's pace, and the feedback on your actions is nonexistent. The puzzles are almost always fetch quests where the player needs to find a far corner of a map, pick up a glowing trinket and deliver it to one of two people. The ones that are not are optical illusions that made me scream directly into my computer screen. Finally, the game is ugly and no goddamn fun to play. What more is there to say?

All of that aside, I need every single one of you to stop what you are doing and watch the introductory cutscene for this game. Seriously, stop whatever it is you are doing and watch this shit:

DNF: My Complete And Total Adventure Game Failures

Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire & Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams

Every year I like to play a game with myself. At least once every two to three months, I pick a genre and see how far back in time I can go with that genre before I feel like I can no longer have fun. I do not do this to belittle or insult those who grew up in a different era or are older than me. However, there comes the point in every generation when the rules and norms for that generation only make sense to those that were there when those rules were the norm. This rule of thumb applies to every video game genre. Hence, I can only go back to Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen or Sid Meier's Civilization III with those particular series. I draw the line at Ultima VI: The False Prophet when it comes to Ultima, but I can push myself to go as low as Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. In fact, not to spoil things, but Ultima IV is going to make an appearance in the second part of this mini-series. That is, of course, if we are talking about the mainline Ultima games and none of the spinoffs because I want to have NOTHING to do with the Worlds of Ultima games.

The good news with both games is that you get them free on GOG upon creating an account. They both run well enough on modern systems and are snapshots of when the Ultima series was king in the land of PC gaming. Unfortunately, both games are cumbersome and clunky, with their marriage between a CRPG interface and adventure game puzzles more likely to draw groans than oohhs and aahhs. Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire has the added bonus of a twinge of explicit racism. It takes place in a Mesoamerican village, and the characters in this village are depicted as respectfully as if the game was made by the director of The Birth of a Nation. And while Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams does not have this drawback, I found it to be even more unplayable as it attempts far more complex commands and actions but with the same interface as its predecessor. It also doesn't help that navigation in both games progresses slowly, and the combat is downright terrible. These factors converge into two games I bounced off in about three hours.

Time Gate: Knight's Chase

My thought process of playing this game will require a more thorough explanation than some of the other entries here. OG Alone in the Dark is an incredibly important video game, and that fact is not up for debate. It inspired the Resident Evil franchise and informed the creative design choices for many early survival horror games. However, developer Infogrames had difficulty refining the ideas of the first Alone in the Dark. They spread themselves too thin as they churned sequels at a breakneck pace and even tasked the team behind the game to try out unfamiliar genres. Hence, why Alone in the Dark 2 is a massive tonal shit from the first, and why Time Gate: Knight's Chase exists. If you look up images of Time Gate: Knight's Chase, you might be amazed to learn it came out in 1995 because it sure as Hell does not look like it. The game is one of the last to use Gouraud shading rather than 3D polygons or the more economical flat shading and runs the same game engine as Alone in the Dark 2. However, Time Gate emphasizes puzzles more than any Alone in the Dark games that preceded it, and that is to its detriment.

There were several reasons for me to ditch Time Gate. First, the puzzles in this game run a gamut of bizarre but expected survival horror fare of this era and the benign. That made for incredibly boring reading material as most of the difficulty in completing the game descends from its tank controls and static, fixed camera angles. As expected, a handful of quest goodies are hidden behind pillars. Thanks to the fixed camera, these are only possible to find if you constantly click the action button while running around every part of a given environment or are consulting a guide. But the more prominent reason for me not finishing the game was more related to self-preservation. Playing Time Gate would have opened up a slippery slope. If I covered Time Gate, then there's no stopping me from playing Alone in the Dark, meaning I would have to play and review the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. And while I love this website and its community very much, that isn't a can of worms I want to open with my puzzle ranking series.

Shivers

Shivers is "the one that got away." You may recall I ended up posting a blog about D: The Game as a fun tie-in to Halloween. I should clarify how D was a backup. I initially wanted to write about Shivers but couldn't finish the game and had to change course. Shivers has all of the fixings to be a game in my wheelhouse. It's a Sierra game, and I have made it reasonably known I was a Sierra Kid. It has FMV acting, and that's also "my shit." It has a crazy story that goes places and a kaleidoscope of wacky environments that would have been a joy to share with all of you. Alas, things were not to be. Before we review why that might be the case, I should mention Shivers has the reputation of being one of the more challenging games Sierra made during their heyday. Foremost, it has a punishing death system where it is easy to lose health but impossibly challenging to gain back. Also, you can only carry one item at a time, which makes the end goal of constructing ancient vases to capture evil spirits exponentially harder.

I need to explore that last point further. In the world of Shivers, there are thirteen evil spirits, known as Ixupi, that you, the player, need to capture. However, the vessels to catch these monsters have each been broken into two parts, and you need to find the lid and base of every single Ixupi pot to capture the spirits. Two complications make this process soul-suckingly miserable. First, each jar only matches a specific Ixupi, which means of the twenty-six pieces you will encounter, you need to check them first to the correct part and then to the accompanying Ixupi. Second, the location of the ghosts and pottery pieces is randomized. Worse, there are more searchable locations than there are lids and bases. Therefore, even if you consult a guide, there's a high likelihood that the searchable areas it mentions will net you jack shit. Finally, the puzzles to every environment, room, elevator, or significant set piece resets after you exit that location. In a game where needing to backtrack to search for trinkets is built into its DNA, I found that last quibble untenable. In my case, I got to the end of the game but got stuck trying to find a lid for a specific Ixupi vase. I checked every location in the game and realized I was either clicking in the wrong spot in the areas I noted did not bestow an item or placed the piece on the ground and forgot where it was. As I was not about to restart from the beginning, I threw my hands in the air and gave up.

If you enjoyed this episode, here's a directory to the first episodes of every Final Fantasy game I have covered on this site thus far:

• Part 1 of Final Fantasy I series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy II series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy V series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VI series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy IX series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X-2 series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XI series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII-2 series

Part 1: You Might Be Asking, "ZP, Why Are You Playing This Game?"

Don't ask me why, but I have been thinking about Final Fantasy XIII again. We are coming up on the game's thirteenth anniversary, and with it already in the "classic" games category in most video game databases, I could not help but think about it. As I said at the start of my thorough examination of Final Fantasy XIII-2, no game in the world plays, looks, and feels like Final Fantasy XIII with even half of its production values. Suppose you have found a game that merges tales of Norse Mythology with Hot Wheels-like Michael Bay Transformers and bosses that resemble Victorian-era chandeliers. In that case, I encourage you to drop a comment. Just be aware my first reaction is to call it "bullshit." I respect the game's hutzpah, even if I cannot in a thousand years imagine a universe where I proactively recommend people try it. I, on no uncertain terms, find it a narrative clusterfuck and an abominably dull playing experience. Unless this website opened up its wallet and paid me gobs of money, I do not have the gastrointestinal fortitude to go through endless linear corridors with streams of pointless trash mobs ever again. And I will go to my grave that everyone who says, "But Gran Pulse is where the game gets good!" is high on their supply.

And yet, I cannot deny the legacy of Final Fantasy XIII. As I mentioned, the game is coming up on its thirteenth birthday, and there's no denying a non-zero number of people on this Earth say XIII is the game that sold them on the franchise. Lightning, Vanille, Fang, and Serah are gaming icons for many people, especially in LGBTQ+ circles. I know at least two people who told me that Vanille and Lightning were characters that led them to discover or cement their current orientations and more power to them. However, another "legacy" of Final Fantasy XIII often gets unreported that we need to discuss before I get into the weeds of Lightning Returns. Square-Enix was in a technological bottleneck in the aftermath of Final Fantasy XIII. Against the advice of virtually every single developer at the time, they built a new in-house game engine, Crystal Tools, specifically for Final Fantasy XIII. While this engine allowed for stunning cinematics and still unheard-of production values, the initial investment was enormous and only partially paid off. The only titles to use Crystal Tools were the Final Fantasy XIII games, Dragon Quest X (i.e., the MMO), and the bad version of Final Fantasy XIV. Speaking of which, the "catastrophic meltdown" for Final Fantasy XIV at launch was revealed later in an internal review as primarily the fault of Crystal Tools. You might recall when Final Fantasy XV was known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII. The game's hard pivot was mainly due to the game's open-world structure being a complete pain in the ass to design using Crystal Tools. As a result, the internal team working on the game shit-canned their initial Crystal Tools-based prototype and transitioned the game into a different engine (i.e., the Luminous Engine).

RPGFan's Derek Heemsbergen describes Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII as "a desperate attempt to squeeze one last game out of the aging [Crystal Tools] graphical engine." That's correct on paper, but a handful of nuances are worth reviewing as well. First, it would be wrong to call Lightning Returns entirely a Creative Business Unit 1 production, even if that is what Square-Enix wants you to believe. Well-known JRPG developer tri-Ace assisted with XIII-2, and Square-Enix expanded their role with Lightning Returns to include working on the game's design, art, and programming. As we will review in a different section, you can feel and see tri-Ace's influence as many of their hallmarks take center stage and are more prominent than in XIII-2. Second, Lightning Return's production time was one and a half years. When I harp on the game's SHODDY graphical rough edges, that fact is reason numero uno as to why! Lightning Returns' empty or partially realized environments make a lot more sense when you recognize the people behind it had less than TWO YEARS to make it and were using an aging, flawed game engine on top of that. Third, Square-Enix wanted the game to react directly to many criticisms directed at XIII-2. Lightning Returns deemphasizes the episodic format of the previous game but doubles down on its widely praised bubblier sensibilities. It was obligated from the get-go to tear down all the mechanical work its predecessors had accomplished and, instead, went back to the drawing board.

And we must talk about what inspired this game because it might be my favorite underappreciated detail about Lightning Returns. In subsequent interviews, director Motomu Toriyama, who would go on to co-direct Final Fantasy VII Remake, cited three primary sources of inspiration for Lightning Returns. The first, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, should come as no surprise as Lightning Return's open world seems like a shameless attempt to get on the open-world conga line that existed in the mid to late 2010s. The second source of inspiration is the Doomsday Clock. For those who have played Lightning Returns, you know the game has a time limit that breaths down your neck every second you play it. The idea of the characters veering closer to an apocalyptic event that will level the world they know and love stems from Toriyama reading about this obscure attempt by scientists to graph how close we are to a man-made global catastrophe. Now, speaking of the game having a timer looming over you like a proverbial Sword of Damocles, that too has a direct provocation, and it's not too hard to identify if you have been playing games for more than a handful of years. Just think about famous video games that provide players with limited hours and days to avoid a worldwide disaster. Did Chrono Trigger come to mind? How about Majora's Mask? Well, both of those answers are wrong. Lightning Returns' story is the way it is because Motomu Toriyama saw 2011's "In Time," starring Amanda Seyfried and Justin Timberlake.

The film resonated so strongly with him that he thought its story could be the crux of an entire Final Fantasy game. I'm not joking. Why am I playing this game? Because this game is a fucking mess, and I love it. It should not exist, yet, it does.

Part 2: The Complete And Total Shit-Canning Of Final Fantasy XIII Is Undeniable But A Net Positive

In my preamble, I previously spoke of fans of Final Fantasy XIII, and I have it on good authority that Lightning Returns does not enthuse a portion of those fans. I have a pretty easy time imagining why that might be the case. Starting with Final Fantasy XIII-2, the core conceits and spirit of Final Fantasy XIII became largely deemphasized. In the first game, we had heady themes of large state-run entities stripping away humanity's destiny and a large pantheon of deities. Gameplay-wise, plenty of people like the Paradigm System, view it as a pseudo-rhythm game, and enjoy toying around with party compositions to add variety to the game. With Lightning Returns, we have three gods, one playable character, and the Paradigm System is a complete afterthought. The only named characters that get any love are the main party members (i.e., Snow, Hope, Vanille, etc.) from the previous two games, and Lightning Returns cares fuck all about any other ancillary characters. Barthandelus, and whatever the name was for his religious organization, might as well not exist on this timeline because the only place you will find them is in the in-game codex.

Some might call this a "rude awakening," but you should be aware there's some post-game DLC for XIII-2 that does a decent enough job of scaffolding the franchise's transition to Lightning Returns. In the Lightning DLC for XIII-2, you take control of Lightning without any companions, and your only way to change up her abilities is to swap out different garbs or dresses. It's also entirely built around a single boss fight, much like the combat arenas in Lightning Returns. It provides cinematics based on your ability to tackle the looming threat, in this case, Caius, in front of her. This format is basically what Lightning Returns employs across its four significant environments (i.e., Luxerion, Yusnaan, the Dead Dunes, and the Wildlands). I agree it is complete bullshit that Square-Enix locks their primary vehicle to on-ramp players on what to expect in the third Final Fantasy XIII game behind DLC. Worse, that DLC is no longer available on some digital marketplaces like PSN, but it's there. It exists and does a decent enough job of priming the pump.

And as someone who felt the main story of Final Fantasy XIII was glorified technobabble and impossible to follow, I am entirely okay with Square-Enix scrapping the game and committing to more character-based stuff in Lightning Returns. Final Fantasy XIII-2, despite all of the timeline bullshit, was a more straightforward story to process because, at its core, it was a character drama focused on two player characters (i.e., Serah and Noel). Lightning Returns is one giant step easier because, outside of the god shit, which I am not saying does not exist, all you need to do is follow Lightning and register her reactions to the world around her. This version of Lightning, by the way, while significantly different from her two previous performances, is more impressionable. That's because she's the center of the game's stage, and you don't have to worry about the out-of-place character or party transitions muddying the waters as you did in Final Fantasy XIII. I enjoyed the brutal simplicity of the narrative giving you Lightning's perspective, and just her perspective, because you can better see her character transformation throughout the story. She starts as a naive but pessimistic discipline of a god and slowly becomes more invested with the people around her and is more earnest in her interactions with the NPCs.

I also wonder why people get upset that the last two games in the Final Fantasy XIII series get campy. There were no fruitful plot threads to explore after the end of Final Fantasy XIII. If you wanted to re-enact Snow and Serah's wedding and honeymoon, MAYBE there was something there, but raise your hand if you think that would justify a whole game. If you enjoy the pie-in-the-sky worldbuilding of Final Fantasy XIII, you can view the game as existing in a microcosm. However, it says A LOT that Lightning Returns is more comfortable honoring and fulfilling the narrative plot threads of Final Fantasy XIII-2 than the original game. At no point does Rygdea or Hope's father pop out of the woodwork and say, "Hey, remember me!" because no one fucking remembers those characters in the first place. Noel is an anime shit boy, but he's memorable, and Lightning Returns is aware of that and has an entire set piece devoted to him instead of any of the named Sanctum characters. Caius is barely in a third of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and he gets more air time in Lightning Returns than 80% of the non-Lightning party members. These are good creative choices because the writing of Lightning Returns provides a more welcoming and trimmed-down set of named characters without the nobodies from the past two games, and that helps in dealing with the series' long-standing "Proper Noun Problem."

Part 3: The Format And Pacing Of The Game Is Its Greatest Attribute And Its Greatest Weakness

But how does Lightning Returns play when in motion? To the game's defense, it makes a stunning first impression. The opening level for Lightning Returns is shockingly blow-for-blow, the same as the opening concert of Final Fantasy X-2. Like Final Fantasy X-2, Lightning Returns invites players into a backdrop they have never seen before, even though it takes place in an established universe whose rules are already known. The new location is tonally unlike anything they have seen or felt. The recurring theme of Final Fantasy XIII was new-age space technology, and Final Fantasy XIII-2 went one step further by going into a distant alternate reality. Lightning Return plops Lightning, in a form unlike we have ever seen, into a medieval masquerade populated by Egyptian Anubis-looking monsters. If you accept that the game is silly nonsense, I can see this introduction working for you, and that was the case with me. Much like X-2's initial concert, everything you see and hear during this masquerade is glorified anime-ass horseshit, and just like the preceding example, it put a big dumb grin on my face. It's hard to get angry at video games that are as eager to please your senses as X-2 or Lightning Returns. Still, as I highlighted before, this introduction is infuriating if you are holding out on the Final Fantasy XIII series bearing to ANY of the deft severe tones of the previous titles.

While the game waits until the next set piece to spew its lore, the characters that populate this starting world are more than happy to shout the proper nouns you might remember. Lightning is on a quest to save her sister, Serah, yet again, and her target during the tutorial level is none other than Snow. Both characters are alien enough in their behaviors that they might as well be new characters, but that's a point we will discuss shortly. Right now, the important thing is what happens when you finish the tutorial and begin wrapping your brain around Lightning Returns' equipment-based combat. After Lightning fails to reach out to Snow, anime shit boy Hope (circa Final Fantasy XIII) warps Lightning back to what we discover is god's starship hovering over the world. Hope identifies four locations on the planet that contain significant sources of chaos that need to be dealt with and marks those locations on Lightning's map. And so, Lightning Returns reveals its format. For all intents and purposes, it is an open-world action roleplaying game with four explorable environments, each culminating in a final boss battle. These worlds are Luxerion, Yusnaan, The Dead Dunes, and The Wildlands.

You can tackle these environments in whatever order you want, and you are encouraged to leave an environment when you butt against enemies or bosses that pose too much of a problem. Each story local has a smattering of side quests that unlock depending on the time and whatever day it is in the game. This point reminds me that this game is similar to Majora's Mask in several regards. Every time you warp into the explorable worlds of Lightning Returns, a timer starts and counts down the hours, minutes, and seconds you have left for that day. The bosses in the game's four environments represent "hard targets" for any playthrough, and the eventual twelve days it poses start to become more tangible. Theoretically, a modest goal of beating a boss every three days with a handful of side quests to boot seems reasonable. Unfortunately, unlike Majora's Mask, whose pacing and structure fit its timeline-based storyline with almost surgical precision, Lightning Returns is a fucking mess. Depending on your playstyle, you will either end up with gobs of time with nothing to do or be frantically panicking on the final day. There is no middle ground.

There's no denying that the game's day and time limit might be off-putting for many people. If you scan GameFAQs circa 2013, you'll read about dozens of people reaching Caius or Snow and needing to restart their playthroughs because they ran out of time. However, this situation will only happen if you experience significant struggles with the game's combat and equipment system or dedicate too much time to side quests. If you want my advice on eliminating this risk, I recommend playing the game on its easiest difficulty setting. The blocking mechanic, which I will discuss next episode, is no fucking fun, and the two to three bosses that require you to execute this mechanic with pixel perfection suck ass. You get nothing from playing the game on its standard or more challenging difficulty setting. If you want an experience that melds better with its silly and over-the-top story, the lowest difficulty setting best accomplishes that. That said, if the very notion of a game limiting your completionist sensibilities even the slightest bit makes you uncomfortable, this game is not for you.

However, there's another common foible cited with this game's structure. Swapping between the prominent locals is more challenging than you'd think, and the different conflicting fast travel systems don't overlap. The fast travel system in the Dead Dunes doesn't communicate with the train system in Luxerion, and neither melds with the Chocobo in The Wildlands. Worse, the game presents itself as an open world, but it has a preferred order in which you tackle the environments and bosses. For example, in Luxerion, there's a side quest involving Vanille, and completing it sheds a decent amount of light on Fang's motivations in the Dead Dune. Yet, you can miss this entirely or experience it out of order. The bigger problem comes from the boss evolution system, which I praise as an exciting concept worth utilizing in the future. As you progress days, three out of the four bosses in the game (i.e., Snow, Noel, and Grendel) advance and become harder versions of themselves. The best example of this mechanic is Snow, whose Cieth corruption gets increasingly worse and his attacks more damaging as you near the end of the game. It's a novel idea sabotaged by the fact that it can completely fuck over players that end up saving the bosses in favor of side quest completion or other tasks. Likewise, the number of evolutions each boss has is all over the place. Snow has three forms, Noel and Grendel two, and Caius one. As a result, saving Snow for the end results in one of the most challenging bosses in the game if you don't know what you are doing, and that is wholly FUCKED!

Part 4: The Gameplay And Mechanics Are Flashy But Fiddly As All Fuck

I ended up coming around to the mechanics and gameplay of Lightning Returns more than I thought I would. I'm not going to stand here and pontificate about how it is the best playing 3D Final Fantasy short of VII Remake. Nonetheless, something must be said about its DNA's massive influence on VII Remake and how it is not as wretched as its critics might have you believe. Honestly, I find limiting players to a single playable character laudable. I always found managing Paradigms and party compositions in Final Fantasy XIII overwhelming. That's especially when the game calls you to utilize them with near perfection, and XIII-2 is only a marginal improvement. Lightning Returns uses the same stagger system as its predecessors but elevates it above paradigms. The mechanic is far more critical than it ever has been, and when you pull off a stagger, it feels far more rewarding. And if there's something I challenge even the most ardent Final Fantasy XIII critics to concede, it would be this same stagger system. The fact that it works so well in VII Remake proves that Square-Enix's insistence on sticking with it after decades of criticism was worth it. There's also more weight put on status effects (i.e., buffs and debuffs), and they even last longer. As a result, the "plate-spinning" usually innate to the previous Final Fantasy XIII games feels far less potent. And in terms of making Lightning feel like a complete badass disciple of god seeking to waste heathens and sources of corruption, it leaves you with that feeling, more often than not, with most of the combat resolving in seconds.

The first significant mechanic I want to review separately is the dress and equipment-based ability system. In Lightning Returns, jobs and classes are assigned to Lightning, not through the Crystarium, but through outfits you can don on her. Every suit or dress has specific affinities and stats that it increases or compliments; some even come with a move or two locked in one of four slots associated with that outfit. You can fill empty slots with any unused actions or commands you have gained from completing quests or downing enemies. For example, when you put a maroon dress on Lightning, she earns extra points to her MP bar and has a level-three fire spell. Right from the rip, this system is far more flexible and interactive than either version of the Crystarium. The most prominent downside to this system is immediately apparent. With only three outfits at your disposal in any given battle, and four possible moves to configure, you have a total of TWELVE options to select from on a good day. That's a far cry from the treasure trove of possibilities and moves you had at your disposal in the previous two games, and it conflicts with the sense of creative "dress up" the game seems to be scaffolding. Worse, the game's loot drops of better moves and commands are all over the place, and Lightning Returns' upgrade system is a carbon copy of the incremental upgrade system of Final Fantasy XIII.

I'm not going to lie and say I didn't discern any modicum of joy in dressing Lightning up with silly outfits and having her spew her lore-heavy lines while looking like a doofus. I enjoy how the accessories are purely cosmetic and add nothing to her stats, and they are there for pure roleplaying purposes. More games with character creation systems should consider having decorations be untied to the levels and abilities of player characters. However, this equipment-based combat system could be better. The first issue is that the game's menu system is the same as Final Fantasy XIII's, and editing and playing around with Schemata is no fun and feels fiddly. There are also many balance issues with this mechanic, but this is often an issue with any class-based RPG. However, there's no more frustrating feeling than, upon completing a long-winded side quest, Lightning nabs a new dress, and it turns out to be worthless compared to others in her possession. There are also a handful of outfits you get at the start and mid-point of the game, which feel incredibly overpowered and eviscerate any sense of difficulty for hours upon end.

This point leads me to a massive "make or break" aspect with this system that I consider neither a "pro" nor a "con." It is merely a fact of the game to be aware of if you end up playing it after reading this post. When the game eventually ratchets up its difficulty, it does so no differently than the odd difficulty spikes in Final Fantasy XIII or XIII-2. You'll often wander a random wasteland wearing the same three outfits that have done you solid for the last two to three hours until the game plops a new enemy, and none of these outfits do a lick of damage on them. In this case, the game requires you to pick up on the moves employed by this enemy, including their possible elemental affinities, and retool your outfits accordingly. On the one hand, having this in place keeps you on your toes and forces you to try out new wardrobes you might not have considered before. Additionally, the climates you are in provide subtle hints about what elements you can expect to encounter. On the other hand, getting KO-ed in Lightning Returns sucks, and there's a trial-and-error element to its random encounters that is incredibly frustrating. Sometimes, I would be in the mid-point of a dungeon, run into a new enemy type, get my ass handed to myself, and need to retool Lightning's shit from scratch to move three paces forward. These difficulty spikes happen out of nowhere, by the way, and pose massive impediments to any given playthrough. Also, this is incredibly selfish, but I HATED it when the game forced me to trash outfits I had spent a considerable amount of time customizing for min-maxed costumes I sloppily made in a few minutes.

Speaking of mechanics that I should mention but do not have strong opinions about, let's review how items work in Lightning Returns. At the start of the game, you can only carry five items, including potions, ethers, and Pheonix Downs. There are only a handful of item merchants in the game, with Hope being one of them, and as you complete side quests, you can increase Lightning's pockets to carry up to NINE items. As a result, this game forces you to either reconcile its execution-based gameplay sensibilities or accept that you will need more time to finish it. And by that, your playthrough will likely jump by five to ten hours. The fact that the game caps the number of potions and Phoenix Downs you can carry means that you can't just slop through its final bosses or levels like any other Final Fantasy game. If you fail to grasp the subtle blocking mechanic or never nail the stagger system, you might not be able to finish this game in the first place. As frustrating as that might seem, I have to tip my hat to the people behind this game for finally resolving a common complaint with the Final Fantasy games. Everyone likes to complain that the final levels of modern Final Fantasy games feel like a cakewalk. I wouldn't have gone the brutal route this title went with, but I have to give it to them; it is a solution.

Tangent: The DLC Is FUCKING BUSTED!

I want to classify this as a side tangent because I want to discuss this point only in a few paragraphs. In Lightning Returns, there are only two ways to increase Lightning's base stats. Unlike in most RPGs, you level up Lightning not through experience point assemblage but through upgrading and collecting new outfits and completing side quests. For now, I want to discuss the former of these two options. Lightning can improve or worsen her ATB meter, HP, MP, or core stats when she dons a new dress. It's a highly unorthodox system but think of it as an odd marriage between the junction system of Final Fantasy VIII with the Dressphere system of Final Fantasy X-2. For the most part, the game does a fine job of making sure the progression of the more advanced and capable outfits coincides with your story progression, but with one MASSIVE exception. If you have any DLC or pre-order bonuses, this gets thrown out of the window. The two most BUSTED outfits include the Cloud Strife First Class SOLDIER armor and the Yuna Summoner dress. For those of you playing the game on an Xbox platform, all of this is still available, and for those that buy the Steam version, it comes packaged in for free. Unfortunately, due to the shutdown of legacy digital marketplaces, PS3 owners are shit out of luck.

DLC and pre-order bonuses being broken is nothing new. Still, in this case, it is worth reviewing because the two outfits I listed above can get anyone through two-thirds of the game without even grappling with some of its core mechanics. The Yuna outfit has an "Elementa" ability that shoots out four orbs, each representing the elements, and hits all targets in a battle with every tier three elemental spell. This is usually a late-tier ability and one that requires a lot of questing to acquire, and you can have it at the start of the game. The Cloud Strife outfit is even more busted because of its unique ability if used when an enemy or boss is staggered. Its "Slayer" ability essentially one-shots all non-boss enemies or, in the case of bosses, halves their HP. The best way I can describe how big a deal these two garbs are is to compare them to the Drake Sword in OG Dark Souls. Like the Drake Sword, you can slop through to about the game's mid-point if you get these outfits early. However, in doing so, you avoid interacting with enemies and levels as intended and skipping possible on-ramps to core mechanics.

Part 5: I Love The Story In This Game?

Up to this point, you might suspect I am anemic on Lightning Returns. I have mostly been unenthused by its mechanics and other gameplay embellishments. That all becomes secondary when talking about the game's story because, on that front, the game is modern Square-Enix in its most potent form, and I mean that as a warning and compliment. This game is the most buck-fucking-wild story they have ever penned short of Final Fantasy VIII, Chrono Cross, or "peak" Kingdom Hearts. It was a fucking rush, and I think I loved it? After things settle following Lightning's attempt to reach out to Snow, Hope summarizes everything that has happened since the events of Final Fantasy XIII-2. With the death of Etro, the goddess of death, everyone in the world of Final Fantasy XIII is now immortal and can't die unless they starve or have some nasty magical shit hit them. All of the NPCs we have seen in the game? Yeah, they're all five hundred years old, including the children!

Lightning's mission is to perform tasks for the god of creation, Bhunivelze, to abate the incoming end of the world, which is set to start in thirteen days. She does this by completing tasks for NPCs, resulting in them giving their souls to Lightning so she can feed them to the godly flower of Yggdrasil. All of this happens in a big white spaceship in the stars called "the Ark," and whenever the characters talk about god and "salvation," you feel like they are one step away from knocking on people's doors and handing out pamphlets about Jesus Christ. However, as the story progresses, two complications develop. First, Lightning's role as the "Savior" is revealed to be oriented more towards shepherding humanity to a new world rather than altogether averting the destruction of the known universe. Certain characters, like Fang and Snow, call foul to this, which is why they are hesitant to assist Lightning when she reunites with them. Second, a specter named Lumina taunts her along her journey and encourages her to stop her quest to save humanity and give up on ever seeing Serah again. The game presents Lumina as this big mystery, which would have worked if the foreshadowing of her ulterior motives weren't so thick I thought I was being slimed in a live-action Nickelodeon game show circa 1999.

The schlock continues when you start the "real" story in Luxerion. When Lightning arrives, she walks into a murder scene. She discovers an apocalyptic cult is sacrificing women that look like her in the belief they can appease the god of creation to make a new universe where death returns. Next is a whacky series of hijinx to track down the headquarters of these cultists and identify who their leader might be. That leader is dramatically revealed to be none other than Noel, and I thought that was the funniest shit in the world. Noel has had hundreds of years to move on from the death of Serah and process his failure to protect Yeul, and instead, he started a death cult. He wants to end the world because the only two sets of tits he has ever seen are dead. That's his story arc. It's the dumbest shit imaginable, yet the game has Noel say all of this directly into the camera with deadpan seriousness. It's the best. And after Lightning beats Noel in a battle, she slaps him in the face and knocks some sense into him that there must be another way to bring Serah back, and then all of the cultists disappear without any pomp or circumstance.

It's worth noting that all the characters have the same motivations as they did in Final Fantasy XIII. Snow is sad that Serah is gone, and Lightning needs to punch him in the face to not be a sorry sack of shit. Fang is gay for Vanille but only in a PG-13 hand-holding way and needs to convince her not to perform a ritual to end the world so they can continue holding hands. Noel, Yeul, and Caius are thrown in to remind you Final Fantasy XIII-2 exists, but even they have been soft-rebooted to revert them to their original states. Caius is pissy because Yeul is stuck in a loop where she always dies, and Noel refuses to do anything about it because he's failed one too many times to have it in him to try again. It's the same shit you have seen before, and in some cases, this is the third time you have seen these character arcs. However, it works this time because the characters FINALLY have distinctive personalities beyond mad, sad, and happy. Caius has an impeccable shit-eating grin when he gets the last laugh, and Fang has a fun moment where she throws her hands in the air when she realizes all she's been doing for the past five hundred years is searching for MacGuffins. With this game not giving a shit about taking itself seriously, the characters and voice actors finally get to let their hair down. That makes the story miles better than any of the previous games set in the Final Fantasy XIII universe.

However, the greatest beneficiary of Lightning Returns' rampant silliness is its namesake: Lightning. While I could moan about how this is Square-Enix's third soft-reboot of the character with the same parts they have used TWICE PRIOR, it's hard to get that angry when things work as well as they do. From the onset, Lightning is the same stone-faced stoic she was in Final Fantasy XIII. However, as you interact more and more with the NPCs and the main quests of any given environment or level, you start to experience her recurring storyline. The initially gruff and spartan soldier becomes invested in the people she talks to and helps, making her "turn" at the end of the game highly believable. There are plenty of times when Lightning has this sense of "Oh, GOD, I hate this mission and don't want to be here listening to this guy talk about his problems!" but that slowly gives way to missions where Lightning sounds increasingly more earnest and even joins in on the fun from time to time. I have played the XIII games with English and Japanese voice acting, but Ali Hillis is better than her Japanese counterpart this time. I always felt that with a better script, she could have done wonders to elevate Lightning as a character in Final Fantasy XIII, and luckily she got to do that here. During the infamous "Meow Meow Choco Chow" scene, she does a far better job conveying a sense of "God, I hate my life and everyone around me right now."

Bonus: The Great Valkyrie Profile Conspiracy Theory

Let's return to how you level up Lightning. As mentioned earlier, there are no traditional levels in this game, and Lightning improves her stats by collecting newer and better outfits or completing side quests. When it comes to side quests when you complete one, a "Misson Accomplished" screen pops up and displays which stats that particular mission boosted, and the rewards are all over the place with little rhyme or reason. For example, at Luxerion, there's a mission titled "Suspicious Spheres," and it requires Lightning to run around the world, find three mysterious orbs floating around the city, and return to the quest giver after she has found them. Conversely, the "Girl Who Cried Wolf" quest requires Lightning to track multiple phone booths, talk to an NPC, and find a girl in a different location HOURS after you theoretically start the mission. The first mission, a short fetch quest, rewards HP +40, Strength +4, and Magic +2, and the second quest, a multi-part and even time-sensitive process, nets Lightning HP +40, Strength +2, and Magic +4. In this case, and endlessly throughout the game, the shorter side quests are better or on par with the longer ones that can take multiple in-game days to complete.

There are other issues to discuss regarding the game's side quest system, such as the lack of NPC quest markers, the mini-map sucking complete ass, and the utter lack of sign-posting for these missions, but that's a topic for the next episode. Overall, I enjoyed the side quests because they are cheaply made but emotionally honest. As I played the game, I couldn't help but respect what the game was trying to do. I don't know if assisting Bhakti to deal with the inevitability of death or conferring with Gordon Gourmet to reconcile his differences with his father will stick with me forever. Still, for now, I cherish them like they are otherworldly possessions that give me the spiritual strength to defeat Satan. The writers tried incredibly hard to put these big goofy-looking people and objects alongside the main plot, and while the result is bewildering, you have to respect their hustle. Outside of the game's ending, the side quests provide some of the best laughs you'll get and some of its most memorable moments. Every time I initiated a mission and saw a different Unreal Engine autogenerated NPC clad in the same shitty accessories I could don on Lightning, it made my heart flutter. When I noticed how the hats on the NPCs aren't even touching their heads, and there's a line of space the developers didn't manage to catch, I fucking whooped, I tell you, I whooped.

However, completing these side quests and interacting with NPCs to make Lightning stronger is a friendly reminder of a curious "conspiracy theory" associated with Lightning Returns that many have forgotten. Completing missions to increase your character's stats is not a novel idea. One such game that employs a similar concept to Lightning Returns is Valkyrie Profile, a classic game in tri-Ace's back catalog. In Valkyrie Profile, experience points are obtained from exploring dungeons and completing tasks either identified in the dungeon or prior. After completing a task or mission, these event-oriented experience points are divided among party members however the player sees fit. Also like Lightning Returns, Valkyrie Profile is divided into short arenas and chapters, with each chapter and day bestowing different items and pieces of equipment. The similarities between the two games are so uncanny that there's been a fan theory that Lightning Returns is a scrapped or rejected prototype for a Valkyrie Profile game.

As the theory goes, tri-Ace wanted to make a new game in the franchise after Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, but Square-Enix wasn't interested and needed the studio to tag along and assist with Final Fantasy XIII-2. Again, all of this is hearsay, but as the theory claims, when the time came to make Lightning Returns, tri-Ace offered up their prototype to serve as the game's skeleton. It is essential to say that Square-Enix maintains Lightning Returns is a Square Enix 1st Production Department project through and through, and tri-Ace assisted with visuals, cinematics, and engine-oriented programming. I prefer to give Square-Enix the benefit of the doubt. Also, this theory overbills the cache of Valkyrie Profile and how much tri-Ace even values it as an IP. There are as many similarities between Resonance of Fate and Lightning Returns as there are between it and Valkyrie Profile, but no one seems to be putting on their tin foil hats for that one. Still, I would also not discount them putting out feelers when they started working on the game and a tri-Ace employee describing Valkyrie Profile bleeding into the game we now call Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. No matter; it's a fun debate topic I wanted to bring up before I closed out this first outing. When we meet next time, I plan to get into the structure of missions, boss battles, and the wonderful time I had with Noel, Snow, and Vanille.

I'm A Myst Weirdo And Thought Scorn Was "Okay"

I'm too late to join the Giant Bomb Game Pass Game Club, but I finally played Scorn and have some thoughts to share. I gravitated towards the game thanks to its short playtime, which is increasingly becoming an asset with my advancing age. I was also intrigued by its impeccable environmental and level design. While I am the furthest from being a horror fan, I have a recreational appreciation for the works of H.R. Giger and the Aliens films. And for the first hour, the game delivered what I wanted from it. Its starting environment is a bit too big for what it is attempting to accomplish, but it does a great job setting the game's tone and atmosphere. The tutorial level even emphasizes exploring and observing environmental context clues to solve puzzles, which tickled me pink. And then I got to the first gun, and the game started to fall apart for me. I know there are alternatives, but every attempt I made to use weapons felt like absolute dogshit. Also, despite the game's compelling start, there's no real story, and its worldbuilding is virtually nonexistent. That quibble surprised me because many people compared this game to Myst after its release in either an attempt to rationalize its creative choices or pooh-pooh them. Still, I'm getting ahead of myself with that one.

My issues with the combat got marginally better when I discovered you could avoid virtually every combat sequence through stealth. However, at best, the stealth system is two or three pips better than attempting to use the pew-pew laser pistol. For example, if you gave me a choice between syphilis and polio, I would pick syphilis, but with no enthusiasm. However, from the game's mid-point forward, most puzzles feel disconnected from the game and exist primarily to show you new grotesque visuals or animations. Doing horrible things to a corpse or barely alive NPC felt like actions that exist for the sake of existing rather than scaffolding a greater sense of the world and its ecosystem. And while I like a good brain teaser or complex puzzle more than the average person, Scorn's puzzles are wildly unbalanced, with a few at the start being some of the hardest in the game and a few at the end making me want to bang my head on a brick wall. More bizarre is the large swath of puzzles that feel too simple to justify existing because you resolve them in only a few mouse or button clicks.

Again, my complaints are close to the general reaction most have had to the game. However, I jumped into Scorn with the best possible mindset the developers could have asked for, yet I still ended up mildly disappointed. Unlike most, I did not go into the game expecting a modern horror experience or a seamless visceral shooter. When I heard publications, and even some staff and users here, call the game "Horror Myst," I went into it expecting a game structured like Myst or Riven. As many of you can tell by the title of this blog, I emphatically believe that is not the case. In fact, I'm starting to suspect that people who said this haven't even bothered to play Myst, and I can tell you why I think that. Dear reader, I served with Myst in many battles on the internet. I know Myst. Myst is a good friend of mine. Dear reader, Scorn is no Myst, and we need to discuss why that's the case.

The Normalization of "Myst Slander" Is Something Everyone Is Okay With, And They Shouldn't

Scorn has become another opportunity for many in the gaming community to repeat the same rhetoric that drives many adventure game fans crazy. When an atmospheric puzzle or adventure game comes out, Myst is what it is compared to, and its observable shortcomings are Myst's fault. So, Scorn has instructible puzzle boxes or escape room sequences? Time to point your finger at Myst and the "awful" game design Cyan supposedly codified when they essentially ruled the world. This sentiment has even permeated into the game development scene, with some developers willing to feign praise for Myst and Riven for being important but calling perceived poor design choices in both "bullshit." There was also that weird period when Tim Schaffer started to dabble with Kickstarter and when people wouldn't shut up about Telltale's The Walking Dead. They heralded both as "THE RETURN OF THE ADVENTURE GAME!"

And let me tell you, whenever I see people say these things, I want to fucking puke. The fucking disrespect you must commit to, not just Myst but also to Riven, The Longest Journey, Syberia, Gabriel Knight 2, and Broken Sword is unfathomable. You don't need to like Myst; you don't. However, you should at least respect, and not denigrate, how the late 1990s and early 2000s were NOT an adventure game, "Dark Age," even if Sierra and LucasArts pivoted away from the genre. That Dark Age never existed. The Miller brothers, Charles Cecil, Ragnar Tørnquist, and Benoît Sokal, kept the genre alive and turned it into a massive money maker for the industry. If you don't believe me, consider this. The only Diablo to ever outsell Myst is Diablo III. No individual title in the Doom, Command & Conquer, and Age of Empires franchises, even when you account for re-releases and remasters, has ever surpassed the lifetime sales of Myst. Saying the 1990s was the era of arena shooters and CRPGs is demonstrably wrong. Adventure games were keeping the lights on, and it wasn't until the novelty of multimedia experiences waned in the late 2000s that things pivoted in the industry on the PC front. For fuck's sake, Riven HEADLINED Apple's keynote conference finale during MacWorld 1998 for a reason!

You may argue that Myst and Riven moved the genre mechanically in the wrong direction with obtuse puzzle design and inscrutable pre-rendered levels. Honestly, go back and play Myst, and you'll be shocked at how small that game is and how easy it is to grapple with its core reasoning with each of its brain teasers or logic puzzles. Things get dicier with Riven, but even there, you can't deny that it bore massive fruits and design lessons from which the industry and consumers benefited in the long run. For example, Myst and The 7th Guest are widely considered the "killer apps" that sold consumers on CD-ROMs. Myst and Riven captivated non-traditional game audiences and demographics, and the industry expanded thanks to that groundwork. Riven's then enormous production budget and casting forced many studios to take the quality of acting in video games seriously and consider paying actors a decent wage.

Some bring up the fact Myst was made using Apple HyperCard instead of a standard game engine as evidence that either Myst isn't a "real" video game or that none of its teachable moments in game design present genuine lessons to the industry. These people act as if that wasn't a monumental technological achievement or that it lacked widespread impacts on the industry. Both points are utterly wrong. A handful of you on this site might recall a time when Activision did not exist. There was a brief time when the company was called Mediagenic and began investing in business software and technology as much as they did in video game development. That happened because the company's leaders saw Myst and a HyperCard demo and were so impressed they decided to embark on a three-year experiment that almost bankrupted the company. That, in turn, led to the rise of Bobby Kotick. Only a handful of games on this planet can say they shook the industry to its core, and Myst and Riven are two that have that claim to fame.

Myst Is Not A Contextless Series Of Escape Room Puzzles, But Scorn Sure Is!

I want to return to my primary objection to Scorn. While instinctive and bound to get a rise out of the average person, the puzzles feel disconnected from building a wholeness to the game's world. Similarly, there comes the point in Scorn when it simply stops giving a fuck about telling a story and ebbs by on its atmosphere. I would go so far as to say Scorn barely has a story, and when it suddenly decides to drop all of its lore during its final hour, that is when I enjoyed it the least. That, for whatever reason, has been a primary reason for people to compare it to Myst and Riven. Push even the harshest critics of the series to say something nice, and you usually get the same one or two comments. You can typically get them to admit that the games were visually stunning and technological masterpieces at the time of their release. However, they will immediately contend that the Myst games are actionless and listless, with only a tiny percent of your experience providing anything that remotely resembles a cohesive narrative. The truth to that sentiment depends on what you want to get out of any playthrough of Myst or Riven, and I cannot deny it is impossible to avoid it happening to you. Where I push back violently is when people characterize Myst and Riven as Ur examples of "vibe games" that coast on their visuals and atmosphere to carry the entire experience. People enjoy forgetting that the franchise is based around a family that can travel to different worlds, or Ages, through magical books. Or that Riven features a ten-minute cutscene where Gehn lays out his reasons for attempting to establish an autocratic rule over his Age.

Or that there's a recorder in Gehn's office, and all it has is a single recording of his now dead wife, and there are hundreds of slots, and that's the only occupied slot.

The Myst franchise cares a LOT about you exploring your surroundings to learn more about the inner workings of its Ages and worlds. Maybe you didn't find everything in any given entry, but that leads to one of the series' most intriguing aspects: its multiple endings. You unlock different end routes depending on how you interact with the Ages. Contrary to popular belief, you don't actually need to solve every brain teaser in Myst or Riven to complete them. Some routes are faster than others, but seeking everything presented to you from the onset is a challenge only for those who actively seek it. It is a system far more complex and intricate than anything Scorn has working for it narratively in its background. Likewise, have any of you seen the time and effort Cyan put into the live-action scenes for Riven? You only spend time doing the backbreaking work of making sets from scratch if you have significant storytelling aspirations for your game.

But I get it. You want to hear a Myst and Riven die-hard defend Cyan's puzzle design! First, it is essential to take notes when playing any classic Myst title, especially Riven, which was at the time not beyond the pale of the adventure game genre. Sierra, LucasArts, Infocom, Westwood, and Virgin Interactive adventure games expected you to either use the "Notes" section of the provided physical game manual or your own notebook, and Myst was no different. Shit, even consoles with password save systems or cheat codes at the time still demanded as much. With notes and graph paper, most puzzles are exponentially more straightforward. That's especially the case when you must transcribe and transliterate alien languages and number systems. Second, the level design of the Myst games involves a proto-Souls template we are all too familiar with today. With much of this design now codified law in specific sub-genres, an argument can be made playing Myst is easier for certain people. Regardless of how far or minute it might be from the player's starting position, every observable monument or landmark is indeed explorable and likely the lynchpin to a puzzle or cinematic set piece. If you can see something, there is a way for you to get there, and if you can hear something, the game is trying to draw your attention. Pipes usually point towards cardinal coordinates, and wires track to other locations. There are subtle ways every screen allows the player to use scenery to map environments, and nothing you look at is ever a throwaway. Unlike Scorn and many imitators, everything in a Myst game has cohesion and tries to communicate context clues about what you need to do and how. It doesn't just plop you into a room full of hostile aliens that will murder you if you don't shift the pieces of a puzzle cube into the correct slots in a limited amount of time.

Yes, there are times in Myst and Riven when you need to engage in pixel hunts, which can expend your patience as quickly as anything in Scorn. The pre-rendered screens and backgrounds often take advantage of optical illusions and perspective work that can be hard to see. However, Scorn had twenty-nine years of game development to work from that Myst didn't. Let's also not pretend that even the legends of the "Golden Age" of adventure games were not immune to the same stumbling points that Cyan made in Myst. Raise your hand if you knew which stone to click for Full Throttle's Brick Wall Puzzle when you first encountered it. Do I need to say the words "Goat Puzzle" to activate the nightmares of Broken Sword fans? Gabriel Knight 3 has the Moustache Puzzle, a puzzle so byzantine and infamous that it has its own Wikipedia page. Now consider this fact: Myst predates all those games by a year or more.

The Way People Use Myst As A Catch All Justifiably Pisses Off Other Communities When It Is Their Game Of Choice In That Position

I'm not a fan of Souls games. I have completed two Dark Souls games and am busy at work on Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. All these experiences have made me confident that I am not capable or willing to derive joy from the Souls sub-genre and its mechanical quirks. However, seeing so many previews, reviews, and threads characterizing Scorn as "Myst-like" makes me more appreciative of Souls fans. I get it now. I finally understand why Souls fans bristle whenever they hear any role-playing game with open-world environmental storytelling or repeat player-character death described as "Souls-like." Just because Scorn is an atmospheric puzzle adventure game doesn't make it "like Myst." The same goes for challenging puzzles. Seeing every single adventure or puzzle game be called "Myst-like" because it has one or two tricky logic puzzles drives me up the wall.

A puzzle being complicated or relying on you fiddling around with weird gears for ten minutes doesn't make it on par with the ones in Myst. Again, what makes the Myst franchise so special is how much craft and care goes into piggybacking the player into knowing where to look for clues or how to find new locations or puzzles. Meticulous detail is injected into every frame and screen, and, as a result, every screen is distinct from the previous one. When Scorn drops you into a new area, and you don't know where to go because everything looks the same, be aware that doesn't happen in Myst or Riven. The Ages, or in-game worlds, always emphasize scale and scope and do tremendous work to communicate that to you every step of the way. In Riven, the player's starting position becomes a speck when they summit a mountain, and from that new perspective, you can notice scaffolds, walkways, and pipes snaking around to future locations in the game. That sense of scale was unheard of in 1993 with Myst and was still impressive in 1997 with Riven. If and when you get teleported or locked into a location, the game always moves to communicate a new batch of lore, context clues, and worldbuilding. The NPCs in the Myst franchise tell you precisely what you need to do and who you need to worry about as you do it. If that happened at least a half dozen times in Scorn, it would have spared me from so much frustration.

People cite the Myst games' characters sometimes speaking in an unsubtitled alien language as a demerit. However, a lot of consideration is put into the writing and acting of these scenes. Even if you don't take the time to bother translating anything, you can register the intent of the performances from their inflections and emotional expressions. However, if you take the time to rewatch scenes and audio logs to record and translate them, you will learn more about the world, characters, and story. Taking that step is optional and only for the most die-hard fans, but it is there, and the game even provides all the tools to make it happen. Even the most inscrutable puzzles in Riven often have context clues wherein the player can register the purpose of devices from the scenery and nearby objects surrounding them. A bear trap next to pellets is quickly discerned as a trap for frogs, and pathways hidden behind doors is the game doubling down on its general philosophy that everything is permitted when you want to move forward in the story. Myst and Riven's "everything and the kitchen sink" approach to environmental storytelling and puzzle design is easier to process than Scorn's "maybe, sometimes" approach. Once you grapple with the core logic of a Myst game, you are basically set for the entire franchise. On the other hand, Scorn exists in a microcosm where its core logic exists entirely in a vacuum.

Scorn Has An Identity Issue. Myst And Riven Have An Identity, And Cyan Knows Their Target Audience Perfectly

That last point in the previous paragraph is something I wish to discuss in more depth. Every area in Scorn has subtle but significant changes in how to play it from previous ones. That in and of itself is not why I think the game has an "identity crisis," but when combined with its awful combat and shooting sequences, it feels like a game that doesn't know what it wants to be. I don't know what motivated Ebb Software to include the stealth and shooting levels in Scorn, but considering how poorly they play and control, it feels like they were out of their element. The slow but moody pacing during player exploration and self-discovery sequences immediately clash against the action-oriented ones, making the game feel like a herky-jerky mess. And the lack of balance with the difficulty of the game's puzzles suggests another flaw. They either ran out of novel puzzle ideas after a certain point or rushed through certain parts of the game's development (i.e., Q&A or focus testing).

In this regard, I again press critics of Myst or those that reviewed Scorn and declared this issue endemic to the Myst franchise. Say what you will about Cyan, but they know their audience and have never prompted them to stomach uncomfortable combat sequences no one asked for, even when it was the zeitgeist in the industry. When everyone included stealth sequences in their adventure games (i.e., Dreamfall, Beyond Good & Evil, etc.), the Myst franchise remained true to its style and aesthetic. It and Cyan continue to do so to this day, even twenty-seven years after the release of Myst on the Macintosh computer. If the Dragon Quest franchise has proven anything, small evolutions to an established franchise can be as important as big earthshattering ones. From Myst to Myst IV, when the series introduced a new mechanic or aesthetic with a different area or Age, you could bet there would be cheap imitators that would emulate them. Myst V ditching FMV live-action actors marked the end of an era, and, again, the industry and genre followed suit.

I also don't understand why people speak of Myst sticking to its guns across decades of video game history as a bad thing. The Souls games span over ten years, and even more if you want to throw in King's Field, and have been praised for remaining faithful to what their audience has come to expect. Supergiant Games has aesthetical hallmarks that make it unmistakable that something they have touched is theirs. DoubleFine and Tim Schafer have a style of comedic storytelling most actively seek out when a new project of theirs gets announced. But, okay, it's cool to dunk on Myst and Riven because sometimes you have to click on levers while looking at pre-rendered backgrounds. Cyan and the Miller brothers are happy to no longer be on the "throne" of the cutting edge and are perfectly content with making games for the audience that got them through good times and bad. I fail to see how that's not an admirable accomplishment considering they have been making games for over thirty years.

The Myst franchise is no longer "that series," but the Miller brothers are still kicking around and happy to be making games, and so are their fans. To a certain degree, Cyan is aware of who buys their games, and they plan accordingly. When the Miller brothers and figureheads behind Myst retire and look back at their body of work, they will not suffer because of what their games are not or did not do. I feel confident that they will look back and say, "Yeah, we probably shouldn't have made an MMO, but everything else sure was a lot of fun!" To a certain degree, we will all say some permutation of that when we get to that stage of our lives, or at least I hope. When the recently restored Cyan announced a complete remaster of Riven this year, I could not help but get excited. I was only nine years old when Riven was released. Playing it was a formative experience in my life, and for that alone, it still stands as one of my all-time favorite games ever. I never used hint forums or guides, and it took me five whole weeks of almost non-stop playing to see the game's good ending. I consider it a masterpiece, and nearly every game in the series. But before I sign off, I recommend Dark Seed if you want to play an H. R. Giger-styled adventure experience instead of Scorn.