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chibivesicle · 1 year

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Trigun Stampede Episode 5 - subtle we are not; Monev the Gale, we only knew you briefly

Another Saturday morning has come and gone here and it means the next episode of Trigun Stampede. Still pushing that breakneck pace and jamming in more world building. For this week, I’ll start with the location map highlighting that we are in the Windmill Village. Which is the remains of a crashed ship that has a lot of windmills to provide power.

The episode starts with an establishing shot of the lack of wind at the Windmill Village. A man is speaking over the radio, clearly a sort of televangelist type with the fire and brimstone sort of pseudo-Christian worship. And if you’ve watched the original Trigun anime, you will immediately recognize that the radio preacher is Wolfwood’s VA, 速水奨, Hayami Shō, stylized as Show Hayami in English.

As his sermon continues there is a shot of two people kneeling in prayer before a sort of eye of god/cross banner in their home.

The two of them continue to listen to the broadcast, their hands clasped together and we get a shot of the younger child looking nervous before it cuts to the OP.

This opening segment establishes that there is a sort of hard line religious group and these two people are worshipping it, or at least the mother based on the awkward body language of the child.

Our next shot is of Meryl driving as a religious radio program is on the radio and she’s ready to change the station, also telling us that it is around 50 degrees C on this desert planet at the moment!

Don’t worry though, Roberto is here to info dump and tell us that the religious group around plant worship is newly established - only around for a few years in the Stampede timeline. While they discuss the social cultural context, Vash and Wolfwood are sleeping soundly, somehow Wolfwood is able to do so with a half smoked cigarette.

Since Roberto doesn’t want to really have an actual conversation with Meryl, he decides to mess with her and make up some story about the red desert sand around them - which of course scares the shit out of her and then she almost hits the carcass of a giant dead bug. Which when they inspect it, Wolfwood somehow is able to explain it was killed with a single one handed strike from a ‘person’.

Wow dude, way to try to cover that you aren’t an ‘undertaker’ and are a trained assassin. Are you even trying to blend in Wolfwood? I’m going to guess that Wolfwood likely knows who could have done this - perhaps not the specific individual but that he knows it was a modified human by the Eye of Michael.

They go onto investigate the ghost town further and conclude it died due to the lack of consistent wind. The entire exchange between Meryl and Wolfwood about it is just weird. What was the point of Wolfwood commenting that using wind power is dumb for Meryl to try to correct him that it is a flawed form of power if there is no wind?

The scientist in me has more of an issue with this set up of wind power is unreliable. If you don’t have a plant, your plan would be to have both wind power and solar. Since we don’t see any clouds at all on this desert planet. Additionally, when you do live in a desert it is almost super reliable that you will have wind power; I never got over how windy the desert is and how sunny it is when I lived in the desert. The solution for this plot point is a combination of wind and solar. You have advanced technology even if some of it is lost - you can have solar panels. Of course this then creates the issue of you need another piece of the puzzle to explain why plants are so important in this world.

It was always my understanding of the manga that besides generating power, the idea was that the plants also helped to stabilize the local environment for terraforming needs as highlighted in the anime episode and series of manga chapters around Little Arcadia (and the rest of the Nebraska family). Even if you had wind and solar power it was the extra special stuff that the plants helped to add to the local environment made it livable and arable for farming if one put in the time and effort. Little Arcadia implies that something from a plant sort of escaped into the land and the family that nurtured it were able to create a little oasis in the desert.

The group explore the area and Vash picks up a strip of cloth that is covered in dust before he’s shot at by gunfire. Someone is attacking him! Wolfwood rushes in with his weapon uncovered and yells at him to take an action.

I have to admit I’m missing the dramatic reveal of his Punisher from the original anime and manga, it always indicated that things are serious. Now, he’s just there and ready to go. The scenes keep flipping back and forth between the worried kid, Rollo and the action of the giant man in a mask with machine guns for arms. The kid overhears his mother talking with others about how he’s supposed to be the next sacrifice to god having been a child born on a windless day. Studio Orange is clear - being subtle is not their storytelling style in this. We know that young Rollo knows that he’s up next for some sort of weather/ritual sacrifice to save the town and of course he makes a run for it into the desert.

Vash gets cornered and Wolfwood shoots him only for the camera to make sure that we know that little vials inject something into him that allows for rapid healing. Wolfwood knows this man they are fighting has similar technology that he has so - yeah - it harkens back to his statement of punching the desert bug with a bare hand.

The two run away for the moment, with Wolfwood almost dragging Vash along. We get them in an alley catching their breath and Wolfwood is already insulting and muttering about how pathetic Vash is. And the fact that he knows that Vash is hiding something about this Windmill Village.

It cuts to what is for the first time clearly defined as a flashback. I get it, they wanted you to not be sure if you were seeing parallel actions between Rollo and Vash but with a heavy nudge that this is likely a flashback and that kid might have something to do with the giant monster chasing them and yelling “Vash the Stampede!”

Vash finds Rollo when he tried to run away from him and that he was bringing him back for his mother who was very worried about him. Rollo through his conversation with Vash is trying to decide if he should trust Vash’s [likely naive] advice and return to meet his fate of a certain death or continue to run.

Of course Vash is clueless to the dark sacrificial plot and instead promises that he will get the proper medicine to heal Rollo. Since this is full time perma-sad Vash, we know by time he completes his quest to save the kid, he would have arrived too late!

The flashback then has Rollo going alone with a lantern to some part of the structure where he encounters our fine Doctor, the blonde girl who is barefoot and is restrained by some sort of grunts for the Eye of Michael who knock him out with a drug.

The flashback has the girl stating that she’s not the same as Rollo, that she’s actually and angel and that he’s totally different. The statement that she’s angel would make me think plant, but the fact that she doesn’t have the weird markings on her bare arms imply that she’s not a plant like Vash and Knives but more of a rather confident girl.

Rollo gets strapped to an exam room table, injected with all sorts of stuff and the Doctor explains that he’ll age rapidly but won’t die of his sickness if he can regenerate etc etc.

And this allows us to learn he is a ‘successful’ experiment living at least 5 years as his superhuman form. The girl still thinks he’s a possible failure but the Doctor seems pleased enough and is using his hatred of Vash not saving him to drive his anger. I guess. The experiment scene also wants to hammer home that he is indeed Rollo, as at least 5 years later, he returns home to visit his mother before destroying their home which Meryl and Roberto inspect. We can hear the radio is still on with the Wolfwood VA talking while they look around. Interestingly, Roberto states it looks like this all fell apart 20 years ago.

If that is the case, the incident with Rollo running away from home and being rescued by Vash happened ~25 years prior, Rollo became his unnamed form, went back home 20 years ago, likely killed his mother and destroyed the place and then went back to the base?

While they inspect the rubble, Meryl finds a photograph of Rollo as a baby with Vash holding him that clearly his mother had taken. Thus, the timeline that Vash is older than he appears is being confirmed but with all the info dumping that Roberto does - he’d know that Vash is older wouldn’t he?

While Roberto and Meryl are being good investigative reporters Rollo is fighting with Wolfwood and Vash, but Wolfwood is looking a bit rough and spits out his cigarette to pop out his own regenerative vial as he watches Rollo pin Vash against the wall.

These vials don’t appear into Volume 8 of Trigun Maximum with a full explanation from Wolfwood after he rescues Vash from Knives ark after fighting with Chapel, Livio and Legato. This was after the 7 month time skip when Vash is kidnapped and imprisoned by Knives and Wolfwood eventually is able to brute force get him out of the ark through the combination of sheer willpower, a tacit understanding of Vash and the regenerative vials.

Vash is trying to get through to Rollo’s humanity which shows a shift as his facial display goes from Venom-ish from Spiderman to a regular man. The reason this character looks like Venom is that Yasushiro Nightow is a huge fan of Spiderman and designed him as such in the original manga. Vash is there pleading about his promise but it is obvious that he failed to save him.

Wolfwood then cracks open the vial, heals himself and then shoots Rollo through the head with the laser beam function of his gun. The scene shifts to Vash pleading for Rollo to wake up as Roberto and Meryl watch and Wolfwood hangs back. Wolfwood finally breaks the situation by stating that he’s dead and that he is not waking up. Vash rushes at Wolfwood to grab him by the collar demanding why he killed him to which Wolfwood replies with ‘Mercy.’

He goes on to further admit that Rollo had become a monster, lost his humanity and even if he didn’t kill him, the man would not return to who he was.

This the starts the first of Wolfwood’s lectures/philosophical debates with Vash about how it isn’t always possible to save everyone and not hurt them. Vash is someone who is able to say what he wants to see have happen but has no way to implement it in reality. However, since we are going at a rapid pace there has been no time for Wolfwood and Vash to get to know each other as just friends; their debate both in the anime and manga only happened after they spent some time with each other for it to really show the differences between them.

This is an even more black and white interpretation of the difference between Wolfwood and Vash. We do get excellent animation of Vash’s own shock here in his eyes which I was very impressed with. Wolfwood’s facial expressions are a bit more muted in this episode, it seems if he glances to the side that is the most he can do for any sense of remorse/frustration. Furthermore, it sort of makes it a Vash versus Wolfwood, when in reality it is Vash versus Knives with Wolfwood straddling the middle ground in life philosophy.

The group silently leave the Windmill Village as the wind begins to pick up. With the sacrificial death of the child born on a windless day, the windmills are all able to spin and begin to light up the ghost town in the night.

Back at Knives HQ, Conrad is informed of Rollo’s death by Zazie, stating that he was killed by another one of them. The blonde girl states he was Nicholas, but Conrad corrects it to the Punisher.

Which makes it clear that he was involved in the creation of Wolfwood’s current state and abilities.

The episode then ends and the credits roll. The first thing I did was double check the credits this time to confirm the blonde girl’s identity since I didn’t think to do so in other episodes if she had made a ‘hrm’ sound or not. And there at the bottom of the first page she is and she’s indeed Elendira the Crimsonnail.

So, as of this point, Elendira appears to be a young girl, but since Rollo was ‘made’ at least 25 years ago in the current timeline she can appear to be a young girl at the moment. It also looks like she will not be a trans woman either - unless we get more backstory for her.

It is clear that the terminology for the Gung-ho Guns no longer is a thing in Stampede and they are popping up in a new order.

Rollo is Monev the Gale from the manga and anime. The whole association with the Windmill Village is more than enough to make that connection as well as the events happening over 20 years ago since the original Monev was imprisoned for ~20 years by Legato. He shows up to cause total chaos in hunting Vash for Legato taking out lots of innocent bystanders in the process.

In the anime the climax of the action is when Vash shoots off his face shield and almost kills him with his hidden arm machine gun at point blank. This was such an emotional scene where it is first the we really see Vash almost lose it in the slow build up to this point.

The manga makes it even more dramatic, with the close up on Vash’s face as he holds his long colt to his face as he’d had to break his arm off to escape the handcuffs/chains.

Both tense scenes end with Vash breaking down in tears by thinking about his past relationship and conversations with Rem. With that we get the total emotional release of all of his anxiety, sadness and fears in a very cathartic scene.

What sort of hero has to hold himself in a hug as he weeps in pure frustration and loss? It really was a great reveal of how Vash’s own moral compass and code is struggling with the reality of his own circumstances and existence and he does not know what to do.

However, it doesn’t matter that Vash is compassionate and merciful to Monev, he’s eventually killed by other Gung-ho Guns several days later; crucified of course.

Things to ponder and take away from episode 5.

Honestly, I’m sort of really trying to scrape together my conclusion. In a narrative sense this episode does nothing to advance the plot. Sure, they have some themes that occur but all we did was repeat episode 4. We introduce that Wolfwood is not good and Vash is good. Wolfwood chooses violence and Vash does not. Wow.

Additionally, the lack of inner monologues and thoughts from the characters is making it harder to understand them. Apparently, we are to infer everything from these characters through their actions alone. Can a TV show do that and succeed? Yes, but Trigun Stampede is not Black Sails. The original anime and manga have a lot of inner thoughts to show the conflict and issues characters are dealing with and it is completely missing from the story telling in this anime.

Themes:

1.) Religious groups prey upon and use desperate people - this is painfully obvious the entire episode. Rollo’s unnamed mother is willing to give him up in order to save the town by bringing them wind and salvation from God. Rollo clearly is questioning his faith and runs off into the desert to save himself - by likely dying from another fate. The televangelists over the radio started more than 25 years ago and continue to do their work - though Roberto refers to them as a new cult. In the manga, we know that the ships crashed ~150 years prior to the current events and the Eye of Michael state that they are ~130 years old working in the background for most of the time humans have been struggling to survive on the planet.

It also implies that the Eye of Michael sees no issue with taking unwanted children to form them into tools to achieve their goals - though I wonder if it is actually an independent group like in the manga or something else that Knives created and set into motion in this version?

2.) A pure pacifist cannot make impactful change - Vash convinced Rollo to return to his mother and Rollo wasn’t able to verbally state his own fears to Vash dooming him to his terrible fate. Vash, you really aren’t a good listener or you can’t read people’s body language after over 100 years? Vash at least is able to fire his gun again and works hard to defensively fight Rollo shooting at buildings and structures to slow him down or distract him but by not facing him head on, he is going to lose.

3.) Sometimes you have to pick the worst option - this is shown by Wolfwood killing Rollo. Granted, since Wolfwood is on the same side, it is in his own best interest to kill Rollo to conceal his own identity - though his blunt statements aren’t really helping him to not look like an obvious assassin. This is most likely supposed to mirror the moral conflict between Vash and Wolfwood when Wolfwood shoots Zazie the Beast in the anime and Vash and him get into a very heated argument about it. We also have absolutely no context for why Vash refuses to kill in episode 5 nor why Wolfwood feels obligated to kill.

Stampede is going through the motions, using specific lines and dialogue, but it isn’t working since we really don’t get that feeling that Vash sees all life as sacred. There is no declaration of this land is made of love & peace. Or how he freaked out when he shot B.D.N.’s lackeys and had to stop them from bleeding out. The manga does a good job early on of establishing his no killing rule and the anime takes it to the next level. Meanwhile, the manga and anime establish Wolfwood as a more compassionate and complex character.

We just have very 1 dimensional characters who seem to do one thing in the plot and that’s it.

4.) The mix of Buddhist & Catholic ideology that underpinned the original work is only at a surface level - Upon my recent watching and reading of the manga, it refreshed me on how the entire series is very much using philosophical and moral arguments that are a mix of Buddhist and Catholic ones combined. There is the idea of humans by nature existing in a state of suffering and that are naturally born with sin, thus requiring a religious way to deal with that sin. That Vash struggles to live an impossible moral code and that Wolfwood has crushing Catholic guilt through his own actions and decisions to protect others. Knives is clearly a fallen angel but that Vash can’t be a hands off sort of distant angel either watching but not doing.

I’m not here to make any sort of strong religious statement, more that the original work used these to religions as the foundation for the moral and philosophical struggles that the main cast face in the story. Vash has to actually become critical of his own morals while Wolfwood sacrifices himself not only to save the orphanage but he also saves Livio. Livio then also learns that despite all the terrible things that he has done is still a person worth saving and caring for and that he too is redeemable and can be forgiven. Meryl has to learn of her fear and bias toward Vash when he protects her with his angel arm and then accept him as is. It is just all these things worked well in the story and I appreciated how they were used in the manga and original anime.

Stampede instead is adapting these concepts on the surface level. Characters are saying similar lines and doing similar actions but that doesn’t mean it replicates the original feelings.

5.) Missing those dramatic sunglasses scenes - Due to the high octane nature of the action in this sci fi series, I find myself missing the ‘I mean business when I put my sunglasses on’ scenes with both Vash and Wolfwood. Wolfwood frequently dons his own sunglasses when he has to get down to business or is trying to appear cool and collected. But when the two of them are less stressed or in non-dangerous situations, they are without their sunglasses.

Escape from Pain is an anime only episode, but it highlights how Vash did his mock kill to allow Julius and Moore to escape. Wolfwood steps on his sunglasses that Milly slapped off of his face, likely because he himself is upset that Vash upset Milly. He won’t allow Vash to put them back on to hide his own emotions and look serious when he hurt Milly’s feelings through his fake actions.

Which is then balanced out with the humor where he reaches over, grabs Vash’s gun, pops out the bullets, squeezes it to show it is a rubber bullet before he rapidly reloads it with one, and shoots Vash at point blank range.

I’ve also realized how much I liked Wolfwood’s reveal of his own personal tools in the anime. You want to take me on, allow for me to show you that I mean business.

Characters, comments & observations:

1.) Vash - continues to be passive; but finally is spurred into feeling some sort of rage when Wolfwood kills Rollo. He apparently tries to do everything himself and trusts all adults at their word. However, since this version of Monev didn’t kill and harm countless innocent people, we don’t get the full emotional breakdown of Vash. This makes it hard for us to connect with his pain and suffering that his personal code has caused him. It doesn’t make us feel how much of a struggle it is for him to continue to hold himself to his impossibly high standards. Instead, he just looks sad and passive. Furthermore, I feel the longer they don’t have him explain his moral code the more muddied it becomes; they missed their chance to have him clearly state “I will not kill!” which is sort of ironic with how blunt the story is otherwise. This also fails when Wolfwood was a priest and Vash could always give him shit with “Thou shall not kill!” and he actually did not kill. 2.) Meryl & Roberto - do their best as the senior/junior reporter team. We don’t get a lot of development from them other than that Roberto knows how to scare her and she’s decent enough to find a pristine photo of a younger Vash. They honestly don’t do anything to advance the plot since they hide during the shoot out and are both info dumping for us. I’m also starting to get tired of Roberto’s perpetually half untucked shirt look. I get it, he’s supposed to be messy but can you at least switch between it being the right side, the left side or both? Instead, it has been consistently the right side for the first 5 episodes when we know they’ve at least had time to clean up a little. This isn’t a low budget anime from the 80s and 90s where you have no choice but to animate something out of order (I’m looking at you bus in Muder Machine where Wolfwood’s cross is on the top of the bus before they pick him up in the desert). At least the bickering between Meryl and Wolfwood is minimal at best, but they were only together for a short time during the episode.

3.) Wolfwood - is not doing a good job of hiding he’s a trained assassin with similar tools and tricks that Rollo/Monev the Gale had. We know that some religious organization that worships plants clearly recruited him as a young child and he was subjected to treatments and experiments. Hopefully, it will at least reveal that he was not directly involved with team Knives. With the obvious nature of this work, they will likely beat us over the head when we get to Wolfwood’s backstory as an orphan taken into the Eye of Michael and trained to work for them. However, since he doesn’t seem to be a compassionate and likeable guy trapped between his own unfortunate circumstances, who tried to escape his teacher and therefore those obligations it is hard to feel for him. He’s just angry, aggressive and bitter lashing out at everyone.

4.) Rollo/Monev the Gale - we only knew you briefly. This version gave us a new backstory for you. You are an explanation for Wolfwood’s own background and the technology behind the assassins. Does this work for me? Sort of. Rollo achieves the goal of being someone who knew and trusted Vash in the past to only be hurt by those actions; like Hopper the Gauntlet and Leonof the Puppet Master. But his character also has to do double duty to explain that there is biotechnology that can turn children into super killing machines by physically altering them, giving them rapid regeneration skills at the expanse of aging them quickly and we know that Wolfwood is using it as well.

What is lost in Stampede’s version is the humanity of Monev the Gale and Vash’s inner conflict to not stoop to the level of killing. Monev had no issue with killing innocents and lambasts Vash for not fighting him head on, civilians be dammed.

But it is when he’s defeated that Monev begs for his life that his humanity is shown to still be there - despite being forced to train in isolation for 20 years. Was he a deep character in the original manga or anime? No, but his own mortality and that realization of his own actions turned the tables on him showed that he still very much had basic human needs and emotions.

Instead, Wolfwood puts Rollo out of his own misery by killing him and we never get to see if he still had those human emotions only by him revealing his real face behind the mask as Vash apologizes. Which doesn’t have the punch the barrel of a gun to the eye socket does as you cry out for mercy.

My two cents on the rapidly aging sci fi aspect of the story

Anime Wolfwood was a normally aging guy who trained as a child to about adulthood before he fucked off to do his own thing for a number of years, but based on how he acts and looks it is safe to say he’s late 20s to early 30s.

Manga Wolfwood suffers from unclear retcon with a wishy washy timeline for his backstory. One reading is that he was recruited 6 years prior to the 2 year time skip - so, 4 years before the start of the manga he joined the Eye of Michael when he was 11-ish and did stuff and got shot enough to age him up to mid-20s ish when he first meets the group in the desert. This very condensed timeline for him means he dies around 17 or 18 at the end since the kids don’t recognize him. However, there are flashbacks with the young girl who Livio liked and we see her as a clear adult in the manga when Livio protects her implying that they were likely older when they entered the Eye of Michael and started the rapid aging bits. With this information it means Wolfwood and Livio are in their 20s instead. I’ve found support for both of these interpretations in the manga so I’m just not going to take one or the other and keep it unclear since it is vague.

Honestly, between these two scenarios, I preferred anime Wolfwood since his actions and words made more sense coming from a normal aging adult than a young kid who sounded so world weary at times it broke my immersion from the story when reading the manga. But that is my opinion. I’m not against the idea of him having a regeneration serum that has a karmic tradeoff. It was almost overkill when you realize he was a religiously trained gunman from a young age and trapped by his circumstances. Tug at your heart strings more that Wolfwood dies even more tragically young. . .

Anyhoo, that took me off course.

Predictions for the future: 1.) Another bad guy of the week for episode 6. Who will it be? Who knows? The introduction of all the characters is not the same as the original anime or Maximum so your best guess is as good as mine. Elendira, Zazie, Livio, Legato, Grey - any of them are possible. We still have a ways to go to reach July on that map and there is an orphanage at the halfway point. Does this mean Wolfwood will die by then? 2.) Characters likely dropped. Dominique the Cyclops, Rai-dei the Blade, Midvalley the Hornfreak. I very much liked all of them and how chaotic they were. Oh well, they would seem too campy in this sleek sci fi series.

3.) Moar action! Move frantically forward with no character development and only action. Action action action. Please let the story breathe - at least have them stop for donuts? Or have Vash mistaken for a cat? Or fight Wolfwood for spaghetti? You can’t keep up this level of depressing without some humor - that was key to the Vash-Wolfwood dynamic as well.

All in all, episode 5 was weaker than episode 4, which was weaker than the first three. This episode has not advanced the plot, explained anyone’s motivations beyond that Vash is running away and now sort of heading towards July, that Meryl and Roberto want their story and that Wolfwood has to make sure he gets there. I’m not sure who the intended audience for this is, but I’m pretty sure I’m not it.

Studio Orange continues to demonstrate extreme technical skills with their animation but the lack of a coherent understanding of narrative structure, character development and world building are killing this for me. The story lacks any sort of emotional core or heart. Just slapping a known series onto 1D characters and making them look pretty. And without character inner monologues we have to take what characters say at face value when interacting with others.

#trigun anime #trigun stampede #trigun manga #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #meryl stryfe #roberto deniro #monev the gale #rollo #elendira the crimsonnail #zazie the beast #meta #trigun stampede meta #trigun stampede episode review

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chemicalbrew · 5 months

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2023 game list, part 1: I love complaining!

Once again continuing what has become an honorable tradition thanks to @smash-64 💜

I tried to promise myself I'd be more organized this year, trying to take notes after I beat things, making lists and gifs and everything, as it has become a consistent yearly undertaking. In truth, what happened is that I felt more overwhelmed by this than I did the last three years. The best explanation I can give is a combination of two facts: this year, while not particularly worse than what came before, still saw my confidence in myself tank a bit (i.e. What does this matter when few people read it and I don't bring much things of value to the table?)...

And the fact that I played very few games that really stuck with me, that I enjoyed enough to see through to the end and feel like that had merit, for a lot of the year. When that wasn't the case, it was more than likely I'd been on my nth playthrough of Katana ZERO of the year (more on that in a later post, hopefully).

I probably need help, don't I?..

games I played, but don't have much to say about at the moment without being prompted, aside from 'I kinda liked them, I guess', ordered best to worst:

Purrfect Apawcalypse trilogy (2019-2021) - series of VNs that's genuinely just good fun as you find yourself attached to the characters before you know it. You'll know if this one is for you at a glance. Also, this is how I found out about Panel Royale! LOL

The Witch's House MV (2018) - good old RPG Maker horror with a few decent twists. The remake has good QOL changes.

Gunbrella (2023) - the plot might be forgettable, but you get a gun that's an umbrella! What's not to enjoy?

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995) - I played this game, but only in the most technical sense. Literally cheated the fun out of it - either that, or this platformer style is not for me.

Coffee Talk: Episode 2 - Hibiscus & Butterfly (2023) - the most upsetting entry on the list. The writer behind the original game has passed away, and his absence is felt keenly even if you're not aware of the fact - because this sequel lacks charm.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (2021) - yet another of those cheap and short indie 2D Zelda clones. The definition of the word meh.

Irisu Syndrome (2008) - a unique free puzzle timewaster. Tries to have a story and fails.

dishonorable mentions (the part with the most complaining)

2064: Read Only Memories (PC, 2014) [♪ Home (Not) Sweet Home]

Starts off decent enough, doing the bare minimum to string you along the mystery (which, for most people with standards, wouldn't even be good enough, but I was willing to stick with it for the sake of the neat audiovisual presentation).

As soon as the murder scene is revealed, however, the main plot starts to fall apart, and the longer you spend with the game's writing (which seems to go on and on forever) and characters (about as flat as a pancake fresh off the pan), the more bleak and yawn-inducing they seem (including Turing, who just took longer than everyone else to annoy me).

Do yourself a favor, play VA-11 Hall-A (which this game gratuitously references) instead. You'll get all the benefits of cute pixel art and upbeat soundtrack, but with an actually good story\character cast to match. I swear it says something about 2064 that one of its most exciting moments was seeing throwaway lines from a VA-11 character!

Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (PC, 2015) [♪ Climbing the Ginso Tree]

This is a game that won awards back when it came out almost a decade ago. Unfortunately, it feels like it was made to win awards and little more. While the credits scrolling up the screen tried to convince otherwise - with the usual special thanks given to families and pets of the developers - I sat there, unsure of what I was supposed to take from this experience (once again, the less words you try to use to tell your story, the more it usually suffers!).

The heart of any platformer is its movement systems - and, while eventually Ori's tools open up just enough to make you feel at least a little free and alive in its world, they also never go beyond what is almost painfully typical. Double jump, wall climb, ground pound, glide, charged projectile? None of that is going to wow anyone. The way it comes together is not too pleasant, either - Ori's too floaty and the obstacles before him, while painted with a talented stroke, are too unclear in their presentation to make for truly fun traversal. The exception to this is the escape sequences - sure, a lot of the time they're not much less frustrating than the rest of the game, but they're definitely more memorable, to the point where the accompaniment to one was the only part of the soundtrack I could think to showcase.

I don't regret the time I spent on this, per se, but what I can tell you is that it probably didn't deserve the awards. Also, the way the wall jump worked was annoying! Pushing towards the wall to do it feels very counter-intuitive, and with this I found that I much prefer when games have you face away from the wall to register wall jumps, or do not require you to press a direction at all.

Celeste (PC, 2018) [♪ Checking In] + Celeste Classic (2015, played as part of full game) :)

I was in high school when this made waves. I pointedly feigned disinterest as it splashed all over the internet, while making sure to download the soundtrack quickly and listen to it - more than occasionally - over the next three or so years. Lena Raine's work carried me through my school years and empowered me, and all the while I hadn't a clue what playing the game is actually like.

Those were the better days.

Now, the things about this game that seem to appeal the most to a lot of people are how refreshingly simple Madeline's moveset is and how much the game respects your time with death transitions and reloading, and the story it tells through heartfelt cutscenes and gameplay working in sync. To which I boldly say... none of those things are good enough.

Having to climb and manage your stamina adds another layer to navigating the rooms, sure, but to my simple ass, that's one layer too many. To the game's credit, there's a setting to make climbing toggleable instead of requiring you to hold down the trigger, and using that was the only reason I managed to push past the hotel and Oshiro (call me a scrub, it was genuinely overwhelming otherwise), but it still did nothing to change how I feel about this mechanic fundamentally.

I get it, it adds precision and verticality to your movement, and, seeing as you're literally supposed to be scaling a mountain, it's more than a natural inclusion... but its existence did nothing but add pressure for me, somehow. I would frequently forget it's an option at all before realizing the room in question expects me to utilize it. Instead of feeling like climbing expands my options, I felt constricted and awkward.

My second issue is much simpler. I'm a spoiled brat, and Celeste's respawning process involving that annoying whoosh sound effect and a transition that, yes, takes only about a second, but is still not quite instant, was not good enough. I recognize that having it be truly instant would not be ideal, either, but I can't help but wish that was the case.

As for the story... It underwhelmed me even back when I was doing surface level research at the time of release, and it's not impressing me now. It's okay, and I recognize why it would resonate with people - the themes of self-acceptance and resolve are plain to see (and just as plain to mull over). But in my time with the game, Madeline never began feeling less like an avatar for my failures and more like an actual character, never changed into someone I would truly like.

By the time I reached the Mirror Temple, I was certain that this game, in most respects, is just not what I would ever want. I pushed towards the summit anyway, and left it feeling profoundly... nothing.

However... Celeste Classic did not have any of those things! That little prototype gem of a game wastes zero time trying to set the stage and make you feel things with ~a story~, doesn't give you any opportunity to climb whatsoever, and neither does it waste your time having the screen fade to black when you die! And these three things, I reckon, are key to why this smaller version, that's supposed to just be treated as an Easter egg now, a relic of the past, and to be forgotten in favor of the project it grew into... resonated with me so much more! I beat it twice! It's lovely! It's what I actually needed Celeste to be!

IT'S COMPLICATED

AI: The Somnium Files (PC, 2019) [♪ MonzAI] + AI:TSF - Nirvana Initiative (PC, 2022) [♪ Nefarious Institute 1]

You know how they say not to judge the book by its cover? This is a story of me learning (once again) to judge a game neither by its reception nor by the credentials behind it. When I plowed through this duology, I came to understand that sometimes, lightning might strike just the once.

Of course, most of my bitter feelings about it stem from just how miraculous of a fuck-up Nirvana Initiative ended up being as a sequel (it's impressive how much it had to twist everything its predecessor stood for to even have a chance at making a mediocre point!), but a lot of the disappointment came from the way the first game carries itself in general, and maybe even from the presence this game has among fans. 'Oh, if you want more of the magic and mystery that you so enjoyed in Zero Escape, you have to try this! It'll be just as good!'

I should have had my doubts from the start, given how little I had enjoyed the ZE series after 999. AI1 flounders in many things, like its obtuse, deeply unfun gameplay loop - most of which is pressing random buttons until you see the most ridiculous shit present itself. There's also the overt reliance on stale and perverse jokes, and a story that can barely do much except trudge to the finish line and attempt to convince you the journey was worth it with a trite dance number, of all things.

But the thing is… even with all that, the first entry was somewhat compelling during its runtime, though most of that comes from its bold novelty. The idea of taking advantage of the surreality of dreams to find deeply concealed truths is fun to occasionally ponder, and there's just enough fluff to the places you visit and things you do to string you along for the ride (though having to check the same spots for flavor text on each revisit to very little results is a deep annoyance I have with both entries). The characters actually got a chance to grow (if not by much… this series' urge to be immature at every turn is nothing short of ruinous, sometimes), and their designs strike a wonderful line between outstanding and cringeworthy that makes them just… stick out in your brain, you know?

So while I thought the song and dance (both the literal and the metaphorical) were ultimately not worth much, I was still convinced, fooled by the magic just enough to see things come to an end; and the resolution itself was satisfying and believable, if nothing else. And with how exhausted I felt reaching this point, I figured that'd be enough.

To me, AI1 is all about finding shards of diamonds in the rough, and it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that its fandom runs away with what little they have to try and improve on it (and often succeed). As such, you'd expect its sequel to take advantage of how much room there is to grow, capitalize on this chance to refine things, and use the few strong themes the original presented (value of bonds and family made both by blood and by choice, finding those you can rely on to carry what you have done forward, etc)... right?

Um, yeah, turns out it twists over itself even more than I'd already thought possible in order to make sense (not to mention seemingly forsaking most of that mess right at the true end in order to approach the established universe from a contrived meta angle). If AI1 can be described as having extremely unrefined gameplay coupled with a decently intriguing story, NI is just about the opposite of that.

While I'm glad they bothered to make exploring the dream worlds enjoyable this go around, there's no way in hell that makes it worthwhile to bear witness to the innumerable ways in which this mess of a sequel sullied the already weak foundations laid down by its predecessor. When I had finished that game, I wrote, on impulse, that 'I haven't been this confounded by a sequel's existence since Chrono Cross'. It just… did not need to happen, like, at all.

Nirvana Initiative posed to me one of the worst questions you can have while playing a game, which is…

'Why am I doing this, again?'

Let's be real, it was mostly for the soundtrack. Unlike AI1, this game had passable music! Though having to watch ANOTHER dance number (like half a dozen times, actually! and no, there's no skip button!) just about had me gagging.

That's not even the worst part about that sequence, no - that would have to be the way it almost actively ruins and undermines what's probably the only passable character arc in NI (and even then, you have to squint hard for it to pass your judgement, given how it starts... gotta hand it to this game for managing to have multiple relationships with genuinely questionable setups involving uncomfortable age gaps).

I wanted to feel touched by the new, somewhat expanded narratives, I wanted to see the world grow a little, despite all the grievances I was certain I would have... But not even halfway through the plot, I realized that my true wish was to just move on. I think that's what I'll do here, as well, as even reminiscing on this chaos is quite dreadful.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch, 2022) [♪ Agnus Colony]

Don't become prey and victim to your own expectations - or to bad advertising.

Xenoblade is a special series, full of wonder and power. Words fail me this year, as they did the year before, when it comes to describing how much of an impact these games - the second entry most of all, a game I think about now and then with a bittersweetness on my heart that I oddly never can get enough of - had had on my mental well-being last year. They might as well have saved me back then, and while getting to experience them was something I'd been planning to do for a while, the specific circumstances it all had happened under were just so special, so exceptional, so wild, that it's hard to think of those days as anything but a gift.

And yet, there are plenty of things in this particular journey I still have to reconcile with. I never settled on what my impression of 1 is, in the end (or, some might say, I never properly played it); I could use a fresher look at 2, and… I never, ever, will finish Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It's a game I once had hopes for, but nowadays don't ever want to think about.

I thought it a privilege, of sorts - the fact that I was there to witness (and acquire) a brand-new release in a series that became dearly important to me. I ended up hearing many things - the trailers, the rumors, the leaks. They all spoke of a definitive resolution to the series, of levels of refinement never seen before, of intrigue so big you can barely take it, of key character appearances we were all dying to see.

Turns out most of what we were so eagerly expecting came with an extra price tag.

The base game of Xenoblade 3 is a mirage, a mere shade of what came before it. The environments are open and vast, but they look more drab than ever - and with the new autowalk feature, it takes even less time to get sick of it. The music takes you on a journey, but you forget what it sounds like far sooner than you'd prefer. The battle system promises lots of options and a nice learning curve, but it only overextends, overwhelms and forces you to grind. The cutscenes look every bit the part of a Xenoblade story, but meander and stretch things out to the point of boredom, which means none of the characters get enough time to grow on the player, either… Though a lot of them would probably go nowhere even given all the time in the world.

And the setting as a whole? Well, it's a simulation, so who cares about it feeling unique or fun? That's the point, the game says, you're supposed to empathize with these characters breaking out of their bonds, out of this miserable existence! Well, I say that things can be made appealing even in decay. You don't have to actively worsen things to make a point.

Future Redeemed is an impressive demonstration of how things could have been. It fixes practically every point where the base game falters - and it is in this part of the game where all those promises that once seemed hollow finally come true. Sort of. The exploration process is smooth as butter in the way none of the games before were, characters are at last back to having defined roles in battle, and all that teasing becomes a thing of the past as 3 acknowledges its own roots and past in full, and you think to yourself… 'If only we'd got this in the base game all along!'

But we didn't. And the credits on Future Redeemed roll far too soon to truly be satisfied. Is this how you wanted the saga to end?

honorable mentions

Butterfly Soup 2 (PC, 2022) [♪ Night Tourist] *I hope you'll forgive me for not finding a GIF for a mostly static VN...

It's so funny. For me it has been two years; for the creator, it'd been five. But I guess time doesn't matter when it comes to maturity, as I feel like both myself and this game have done plenty of growth. And for that, I love it all the more, just as I am now thankful to be able to call Butterfly Soup a short series.

Compared to the first game, the art is more refined, the tone is more consistent, and treatment of serious topics is more grounded - in more ways than one, this sequel is like a fond, yet melancholic look at what you once had, what changed since then, and what you hope to make of things. But between all that, it stays sincere and silly in the best of ways - the ones that make you feel cozy on the darkest of nights, the ones that endear you for a good while yet. Truly, this game was a ray of light in a sea of mediocrity this year.

Road 96 (PC, 2021) [♪ Hit the Road]

Yeah, I know. The fact that I have played a goddamn walking simulator at the behest of a good pal (who might or might not be reading this, hi on the off chance that you are!) is nothing short of a miracle. Not to mention the fact that I ended up having a good time with it!

I'll put it plain: the vibes of this game are almost impeccable. It wastes little time setting things up - it's the turn of the century, and a massively corrupt government is practically folding in on itself as it closes its borders. It's up to you, as you're literally put into a blank-slate teenager's shoes, to go on a desperate journey and see whether or not you make your way out.

Over the course of Road 96, you do this six times, and the people you meet on the way and choices you make with them may or may not shape not just your own future, but that of the whole country. There's nothing for it, then, but hit the road and see what awaits you, as you sit in a car that's probably stolen, blaring music from your carefully curated tapes… or are dropped off on the wayside with nothing but a paltry backpack to speak of… or find yourself biding your time near a gas station… or… whatever it is the game throws at you, as you hope that the strangers you run into actually deign to help.

Yes, the biggest way this game attempts to stand out is with our good old friend, RNG. Even reading blurbs about it, you cannot escape the all-too-typical claims of 'your own personal journey', 'a thousand unique paths waiting for you' and all that… months later, I find myself unable to decide whether this helped the game or harmed it more, as it's definitely smaller than it makes itself out to be.

As a story hook, this setup is clever and delightful, as I tried to illustrate a moment earlier, but the moment you begin to overthink it, you realize that the randomness aspect clashes hard against the continuity the game tries to establish. You, as the player, indeed learn more about the world and colorful characters in it each time you venture forth, but the avatar you control is supposed to be clueless as ever, setting out on a path that is, in fact, not quite their own any more. It's a weird gripe to have, and I found it an easy one to ignore, but I wish something could be done about it anyway.

As for the rest of the plot, let's just say it's... surprisingly binary, and the supporting cast small and not always compelling in turn. The game sacrifices some of the personal intimacy and uniqueness it has built up to make a sweeping, painfully boring statement of 'freedom good, suppression bad' before credits roll, but as damaging as that is to the overall experience, I feel like one can't deny the fundamental appeal of just being asked to go on a journey with sweeping stakes and truly, truly banging music. Seriously, it was meant to be put on speakers and blasted as the world passes you by!

In a word, Road 96 is ambitious, and in a sentence, it is ambitious, yet falling short of itself. Nonetheless, I was impressed by how it managed to worm its way into my heart for a while.

A Space for the Unbound (PC, 2023) [♪ Don't Have Much Choice]

Wouldn't you know it? I had actually played two games involving entering people's subconsciousness to solve their problems this year!

Truth be told, I'd been looking forward to this game for about a year, given that it was published by the people behind Coffee Talk (which, if you recall, I had quite enjoyed). The warm and inviting screenshots on the back-then almost empty store page, showing off awesome art and promising a sweet little journey with slice-of-life tropes and a mystery waiting to be solved… well, to say all of that was alluring is to say nothing, really. I just about jumped when I received a notification for this game releasing at last at the beginning of the year, and wasted little time trying to dive in.

The sad thing is, what you see is not always what you get. The cozy, comfortable, sensible vibes of the early game - running around the city, doing chores at your school, naming every stray cat you come across, watching the protagonist's diary fill up as he crosses all the little goals he had set in life off his precious list… Yeah, those things won't last - definitely not long enough to get you attached to characters living in this world.

As the plot begins to unfold, it fumbles over itself trying to introduce various cliches and supernatural elements, to the point where you recognize the whole experience as a tedious drag as you see exactly where it's heading, and think to yourself that you have heard all this before. It's yet another heartfelt story about self-actualization, and as the game hammers it in harder than ever before, you sigh and wish you could go back to the times of bottle cap collecting and cat petting. Sometimes, simpler is better.

Unfortunately, that's not exactly true when it comes to actually playing A Space for the Unbound. The gameplay is as simple as can be - basically all you do is walk around (quite slowly) and interact with things. I can appreciate how linear the game is, for the most part, but I wish it let us accomplish our goals without wasting too much time! Not to mention, if you try to see everything there is, you have to be prepared to deal with quite a few mind-numbingly repetitive mini-games for far longer than you have to. Don't do that. It'll just sully your impression of the game.

If you're somehow still interested in this after reading this messy opinion of mine, don't be too discouraged - you'll see plenty of beautiful sights, hear some cute music, and, maybe, be affected by the story far more than I was. (Besides, for a cat lover, it's always nice to see others appreciate them!) Just... try not to waste too much time with the game's superficial sidequests.

Tales of the Abyss (3DS, 2011 port of a 2006 release) [♪ The Distribution Base]

There's something ironic in how playing (most of) this game has been one of the best things I have done with my lovely 2DS since I homebrewed it earlier this year... and yet I quite regret not checking how (ahem) easily available the PS2 version is, instead. They may be functionally identical, but the hardware is not - you have no idea how hard some of the goddamn Mieu Fire puzzles become when your character is taking up a mere four or so pixels of an already tiny screen. Man, that was trying my patience at its finest.

These horrors aside, though, what kind of game are we even dealing with here? Well, it’s a Tales game first and foremost. I can’t deny claims that Abyss has a few strengths of its own (most notably, of course, actually bothering to have coherent character development arcs), but it’s not quite enough to obscure the ever-prevalent issues this series has:

exploration and side-questing is still annoyingly obtuse, not to mention traversal is painfully slow in the first half of the game,

some characters (in this case, Anise more so than others, but I'd argue Mieu's whole existence is part of this too) are obligated to suffer because Tales has to meet its unhealthy anime tropes\wackiness quota per game,

the skit system has not, unfortunately, evolved one bit (the amount of times I would skip a skit on accident, because any input halts its playback entirely…),

while I’m inclined to say the battle system is, for the most part, an improvement (the Field of Fonons mechanic is quite a nice change given the foundations of Tales gameplay, I have to admit), any goodwill you might want to give it gets shattered when you realize Free Run breaks bosses in half. And aside from that, it’s just your usual button-mashy fare.

So why did I push on with this game as far as I did, pulling the classic move of quitting right at the final boss instead of, well, any earlier? A lot of that is because I was just in the mood to mash some buttons in bed until I realized I was slightly underleveled for the finale and caught myself groaning at the mere thought of trying to even cheese it. A shame, that, because the ending of this game is pretty wonderful for what it set out to do, and it was the only bit I did not see on my own. It's like my experience with Final Fantasy VI all over again…

That's not all there is to it, though. Abyss has some of what's probably the most involved and curious worldbuilding (once you get past all the awkward made up jargon it loves to throw at you) of any Tales game I know! Not that this says much, because that's a low bar, and I'm not too familiar with the series at large, but it was enough to keep me engaged for a long while. And, as mentioned earlier, it puts in greater efforts than I expected to endear you to the cast as they slowly band together and uncover their own talents, purposes and aims in life - Luke in particular.

I liked him almost immediately - because I'm not too hard to please when it comes to this series, and his design is, I feel, particularly sweet and striking (especially given how nicely the game used the Important Haircut trope with him, and of course, the contrast between him and Asch). But that alone doesn't a good protagonist make - it's the fact that the story allows Luke to make mistakes (from small ones to straight-up catastrophes), get his comeuppance and grow from them organically, at his own pace, that makes him stand out in my mind.

As Luke sheds his sheltered ways of thought and accepts his responsibilities, those that were traveling with him, either out of obligation or by chance, begin to support him more and stand by him in earnest. It all comes together gradually and at a satisfying pace, and is definitely a highlight of the experience to me.

Growth and connection are probably among the biggest themes of the game, so it's nice to see that it applies pretty much equally to both protagonists and antagonists. Sure, it's the job of a Tales' Big Bad faction to be goofy and up to nefarious activities, but beyond that, the group has solid enough chemistry both among themselves and with the party that I actually ended up looking forward to most encounters with them, even if ultimately it felt a little predictable. As an aside, for a game this old, the voice acting was really good and plentiful (though there is none for skits, which sucks), and further piqued my interest in the story along the way.

To conclude, I'd like to say that the biggest thing I learned while playing this game is that I'm a sucker for grounded tales of (ha) self-actualization even this many years later. And also that once you play one Tales game, you truly, to some extent, know them all.

SANABI (PC, 2023) [♪ Warm Hospitality]

Do you want to know why I ended up playing this one? Of course you do, that wasn't really a question. I only bring this up because the answer can be revealed with a single screenshot:

...yep, the inspiration is that blatantly on display. I was expecting it, of course - the Katana ZERO community is the only reason I know of SANABI in the first place, and even as you read people's thoughts on it, the extreme similarity is practically all they ever bring up, be it in a positive or negative light. It pleased me and warmed my heart, while also making me feel wary - it's one thing to be inspired by something, and another to actually carve an identity of your own.

That said, KZ is far from the worst thing to try to replicate, particularly when it comes to visuals - SANABI has some awesome scenery that makes me feel right at home. And while the story at times feels so much like an amateurish copy that it leaves me confused more than anything (I'm sure the awkward English translation sadly does not help matters, not to mention the fact that I'd played this game in an unfinished state - you might expect me to write about it again next year!), the gameplay is anything but.

I'm sure there are quite a few platformers out there that have you use what's essentially a grappling hook to swing through the stages, but SANABI is my first experience with something like this, and in this regard the game absolutely manages to shine on its own. Movement is lightning-fast and responsive, enemy targeting is extremely generous - almost to the point of being handholdy (and, of course, they all die in one satisfying hit - as do you, if you set the game to the highest difficulty. It's nice to be given an opportunity to learn the ropes before engaging with the game earnestly!), and there's something to be said about how the level design has that extreme kind of clarity to it that I always appreciate and favors speed over precision, with how spacious everything is.

My only big issues with how the game plays are how it doesn't seem to be designed with a controller in mind (it is an option, but I found myself moving much more precisely with KBM! Me! Someone who never plays games with that!), and, once again, the just-a-bit-too-long death animation\transition. Being able to skip it helps, but I just yearn for no time to be wasted...

#celeste #aitsf #xbc3 #tales #abyss #zero.txt #yearly game list #flashing gif #.gif

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