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Contact (DS) Review

Hi, I'm Suoly, and I review "Hardcore" video games for people with limited time and money.

TLDRFAQS:

Should I play this game?

No. It's a 3/10 game that manages to feel extremely time-wasting despite actually being pretty short.

Now stick around if you want to learn what I love about it. I have played Contact so that you don't have to.

Contact is a semi-turn-based fully-touch-controlled action-RPG from Grasshopper Manufacture, developers of Killer7, No More Heroes, and my personal favorite game series, The Silver Case. While most of Grasshopper's other games are known for being extreme and violent, Contact is a reletively quiet game very clearly intended for children. That said, it still feels like a Grasshopper game in a few important ways. Most-notably is the fact that you start nearly every session in the main character's bedroom, having just woken up. I love how their games go the extra distance to put you in the main character's shoes. This is also enforced by the games very colloquial and real-sounding dialogue.

Contact is also the most Earthbound-like game I have ever played outside of the Mother series itself. While nearly every modern 2D RPG not set in a generic high-fantasy world seems to get the "Earthbound-Inspired" label applied to it, Contact actually carries forward a lot of the more specific elements of Earthbound that it's contemporaries tend to abandon in favor of delivering on their own unique aesthetics. Contact is a humorous RPG, yes, but it's humor comes not from sheer absurdity, but from the distinctly Earthboundian combination of realism and game logic.

Take the game's fourth level (oh yeah, it's a level-based RPG like SMTV) for example. It's a desert area. It takes two in-game days of travel by boat to get there, during which time you... don't really do anything but sleep and wait. Before stepping off the ship, you're told that it's extremely hot out and that this island is a big tourist destination. You then make your way through the white-hot dunes, listening to this music that conveys a sense of the natural danger and beauty of the area. Eventually you reach town and find out that while this island may seem like a paradise to the tourists, the people who actually work here are struggling to survive, and live in near-constant fear of the corporate overlords who practically own the place. It's all the more powerful for being missable, as RPG sociology tends to be.

Then you go into a pyramid and find hieroglyphics that look inexplicably like the game's UI, and fight aliens in an alternate dimension inside the pyramid's tip.

Your reward is a power cell that might just help you get back to your home planet. You're not here to save this messed up world, you're just a kidnapped child trying to get home.

I just love it. That's what I mean by Earthboundian: you're a kid on a wacky cartoon adventure in a world full of adult problems outside your control.

Also, you can fix a girl's car and she'll take off her clothes. If you put them on, you unlock fire magic. Somehow this is required to solve the mystery of the UI hieroglyphs.

So yeah, it's obtuse, but in the charming (if utterly outdated) way classic adventure games were. Unfortunately, Contact is not an adventure game. It's the RPG with the worst RPG combat I've ever experienced post-NES.

The combat system is similar to .hack's, yet with even fewer options and only one party member. There's nothing to do but blow your skills right away, or save them up since they take forever to charge (like 1 every 3 normal battles). Other than that you're watching your character auto-attack the enemy and using a healing item outside turn order when his hp is low. Sometimes you can dodge an atack by running away quickly, but only when it's made really obvious that you're expected to. There's no skill to it.

Much like in a From Soft game, most battles can be completely avoided by simply running past them, and you don't really need to grind them to beat the bosses anyway, but playing that way makes time spent in dungeons feel even more time-wasting, like you're just fast-forwarding through the ads to get to the cutscene at the end.

In a world full of 10/10 games, there's just no reason to put up with poor gameplay for somewhat interesting writing anymore. There are so many games that nail it in both areas.

On the flipside, FF7 Rebirth takes it's time to a much greater extent, but manages to fill its world with so many unique encounters and thematic setpieces that what would feel like open-world-box-checking in other games, but end up feeling like THE REAL GAME. I much prefer this approach, a game which uses all its systems to the fullest and creates a great flow of storytelling through play, rather than a game with good dialogue and aesthetics that lets you mostly circumvent its boring gameplay. RPGs can be fun!

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first glitch in an otherwise perfect game

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every game I played in 2023 in chronological order:

1. Persons 5 Strikers: see post

2. Octopath Traveler: played for 1hr11mins after trading my copy of Pokémon Scarlet for it with a friend. The dialogue is too unrealistic, long-winded, and expository. 1/10

3. Alundra: great writing, but not enough to stand out from 2D Zelda. I also don't care for how sepiatone the visuals look. 7/10

4. Wide Ocean Big Jacket: nice game. Could be a blueprint for something really special in the future. 8/10

5. 20 Minutes 'Til Dawn: wow, a run-based game that's actually skill-based. Super addictive, looks awesome, doesn't waste your time, works great on phone. 7/10

6. Vampire Survivors: boring game with uncomfortable controls and bad graphics. Someone was bound to come up with this idea, so I think this game gets too much credit because it was almost immediately bested by its copycats. 5/10

7. Into the Breach: a puzzle game skinned as a tactics game. Too restrictive for my tastes. nothing to it. weirdly good ost. 2/10

8. Oneshot: see post

9. Pokémon Unbound: ROM hack that delivers on everything we want but don't get from Pokémon, but the heart is missing. 4/10

10. Mega Man X: fun game, great ending, worst guitar samples on SNES (sounds like a car commercial), and plays more like an NES game than Mega Man 6 on the NES. 4/10

11. The Dark Spire: one of the best soundtracks on DS, great aesthetic all around, interesting turn-based battle system with many different ways to execute a normal attack (fast, accurate, strong, etc.) and it leaves a lot up to you to discover through play. drops off after not to long when it becomes clear the story wasn't really going anywhere, and the dark aesthetic is just an aesthetic. 4/10

12. Pokémon Sapphire as Nuzlocked: pretty tough!

13. Final Fantasy III (NES): excellent pace that never requires grinding until the very end, which pits you against a dungeon the length of nearly a third of the game length to complete normally. i save-stated the hell out of it, and it still wasn't worth it. maybe play the pixel remaster and just up the speed or lower the difficulty or something at that part, because there are actually some very beautiful moments, and it's definitely, up until that point, the best RPG on the NES that I've played. 3/10

14. Elden Ring: this game makes me feel like the sane man in an insane world. everyone says it's the best game ever, BUT NONE OF THOSE PEOPLE HAVE BEATEN THE GAME. what a padded and directionless game. also does not provide anything of value in the story/themes department that hasn't already been beaten to death by the developer in their previous titles. Dark Souls 2 does everything this game tries to much much better. 2/10

15. The Legend of Zelda: I played this to see if open world fantasy action adventure games were ever even any good. this is honestly, basically just Elden Ring on the NES. 2/10

16. Sonic Advance: hits hard and fast. gotta save those animals. my dad says sonic runs fast and goes through unnecessary loops and stuff to build kids' confidence. 6/10

17. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: ok so TOLZ isn't as good as I remembered, was its sequel any good? no! this is still an interesting game with absolutely garbage soulslike combat. 1/10

18. Dragon Warrior II: I keep trying to play through this and either dropping it for a different version or losing my save data. it's another early open-world game. i like the way the world is like one big puzzle for you to solve, but they SERIOUSLY don't provide enough hints, like hiding a necessary item on an unmarked tile of the overworld, surrounded by identical tiles. gets points for good npcs. Yuji Hori is clearly a man who gives a shit about stuff that matters. 3/10

19. Master Chu & the Drunkard Hu: another NES game for my commute. They give you infinite continues unless you lose to the final series of bosses, which they don't tell you. feels like a little life lesson to get used to it, then have it suddenly taken away. kind of a nonsense game otherwise. 1/10

20. Sonic Advance 2: even as a kid with the manual i didn't know how to do the aerial moves, and i didn't know about them this time until I finally looked it up because i kept dying on the parts where you need them. actually made it kind of far by being a little creative. the game really doesn't teach you about them. once you learn them though, oh man. i played through the whole game again because it's so much fun to use them. this is basically strictly better than the first sonic advance. AND IT HAS CREAM THE RABBIT, who is my favorite of the sonic crew. BRING BACK CREAM! 7/10

21. Omori: see video, 10/10

22. Pokémon Scarlet: see video and post, 4/10

23. Etrian Odyssey III HD: see post, EO3 has some kind of sloppy political metaphors dealing with racism and colonialism, but as someone who knows the other games in the series, which are more straightforward, I do think their head was in the right place here. excellent class system and world. the two benefit eachother a LOT. the rpg classes actually reflect class in a really unique and interesting way (examples: sovereign, farmer, knight, privateer, academic, indigenous person [these are not all the exact names used in-game]). I sat down irl and did lots of math on paper trying to come up with a fun yet powerful party. so addictive and enthralling. a massive adventure that I immediately started on NG+ to see the secret ending. 7/10

24. Pokémon White 2: tbh, still a game that didn't really need to exist. I think plasma in this game is a metaphor for old fans still clinging to the Pokémon series' past. Colress goes on Smogon. IRIS is the hero because she's just a kid who loves pokemon. 5/10

25. Sin and Punishment: crazy ambitious for its time. its influence can be felt today in games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which flow seemlessly between action and cutscene. what relentless pace. kind of awkward controls and an outright outdated continue system. would be strictly outclassed by Star Successor were it not for the love story and cutscenes in general, which have a really cool evangelion kind of feel to them. 7/10

26. A Short Hike: recommended to everyone. so easy to pick up and enjoy. real nice ending. 8/10

27. Drx Mario 64: actually very underrated: has a cute fun little story mode with really unique pop-up book presentation. 7/10

28. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2: excellent writing that utterly kicks Drx Mario's ass. WOW. kept playing all the way through the horrible ending just to see the story. this game was a portal into a whole world of compile that i never knew about before, and man, this is like their smash bros. there is so much crazy lore going on in this game, and they are so flippant about ALL OF IT, it's hilarious and cool. Satan is a character in this game. HE JOINS YOUR PARTY. CW, there is a chapter in which you play as one member of the party as they sexually harass another member of the party!! So yeah, I don't love the big themes in this game, but it's just so surprising and very modern. also gets way too hard towards the end. 5/10

29. Celeste: stressful game with stupid frustrating characters. I related more to Badeline than Madeline. seriously Madeline would be so dead were it not for infinite lives. also the way characters squish when they move is nauseating. Absolutely loved the ending when you make peace with your darkside and can practically fly around the game. I wish the whole game played that way instead. 5/10

30. Etrian Odyssey II HD: EO2 is honestly just not that great. it's way too basic. it's strictly outclassed by EO2 Untold, which is fun for the sheer amount of customization options, and the cozy vibes. 4/10

31. Pokémon Leafgreen: this game introduced me to the concept of a remake. as a remake it's pretty good. it plays it very safe, but adds a whole new area to the postgame which is the best content in the game by far. they really did improve after gen 1, and it shows, especially in the writing department. I experimented with a new nuzlocke technique in which I don't count deaths as a result of crossing the street and not looking at the game, allow myself to fight bosses underleveled without counting it as a game over if i lose, and sacrifice a new pokemon of the same family to revive an older one. it cut down on grinding significantly, while still pushing me to stragize and try new monsters. 4/10

32. Final Fantasy VII REMAKE: the most AAA game ever. so glad a developer made a AAA game that focuses on quality over quantity. it made me feel the way i always hope a AAA game will, like I'm actually happy people worked so hard to create this human achievement. even if the game is still padded, it's always got a great flow and almost never gets boring or aimless. also, the team clearly really loves FF7, and for every major scene they didn't quite nail, there is tons of interstitial dialogue, and new scenes that expand on the characters, world, story, and themes in a way that almost always feels right. I do think the ghosts are stupid. please do not add random ghosts into the background of cloud and aerith's first meeting, it kind of kills the vibe. 8/10

33. Fire Emblem (GBA): Wow. Talk about a game that has earned its reputation. The game is very high in the kind of last-minute surprise reinforcement/ critical hit bullshit that I hate about this series most, but the story is so incredibly wholesome and pairs excellently with the crazy violent animations. They clash so severely in a way that really emphasizes how ahead of their time the heroes are. They want to be perfect, peacemongering leaders in a world filled with hate and oppression on every level. Deals with race, class and sexism in a way later games have probably done better, but was very surprising and very E-rated in a way that was extremely direct, which is how I prefer games to tackle those themes (basically succeeding where EO3 fails, even if it is overly-simplistic in comparison). Might be my favorite of the series if not for the cheap way they ramp up difficulty. Also, the music is totally forgettable. The scene in which you recruit Nino pairs excellently with Yuzo Koshiro's The Poets I from Streets of Rage 3. 7/10

^ 0:11 - 0:52

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Etrian Odyssey HD Origins Collection Review

This will be a review of the collection itself as a remaster/ remake.

TLDRFAQS:

Q: Are these games even any good?

A: Yes! Etrian Odyssey is the perfection of turn-based RPG combat design. If you want to experience a turn-based JRPG that’s actually worth playing FOR the gameplay, look no further. They also feature great music, and the original Etrian Odyssey ends with the best plot twist in gaming.

Q: Where should I start?

A: The original Etrian Odyssey was nearly impossible to recommend in good faith to people on the DS, but Etrian Odyssey HD streamlines its low quality-of-life with features from much later in the series. This game also has the best story of any in the series by far, making Etrian Odyssey HD my obvious recommendation for new players.

ETRIAN ODYSSEY ORIGINS COLLECTION REVIEW

While $80 is steep for 3 remastered Nintendo DS games, the original games go for like $80 each on ebay, and for a reason. The original 3 Etrian Odyssey games provide something you can’t get anywhere else, even from later games in the series. Even on the DS’s 256x192px display, the excellent illustrations by Yuji Himukai outshined their 3D imitations in later games. Out of the entire DS library, the Etrian Odyssey games were the most deserving of an HD remaster. I could feel the illustrations, and the forest folliage, trying their hardest to break through the low resolution and show their true beauty. These games were always more ambitious than their budget and hardware could handle, and with the HD treatment on Switch, I can honestly say this series has never been better.

The touch controls translate smoothly to the right side of the screen, enhanced by the mapping improvements made over 10+ years of iteration on the formula. If you think mapping with your thumb sounds awkward, you should feel how awkward it is to maintain spatial awareness across screens of the map in the original games. Not to mention, the enhanced auto-map options minimize the amount of drawing required, leaving you to focus on the more personal aspect of marking events, shortcuts, and puzzle mechanics.

As I said in the TLDR section, Etrian Odyssey HD is supremely easy to recommend as an entry point to this series, as well as an excellent stand-alone game. If you have the coin to shill out, get the international physical Switch Cartridge, and choose the English language option. It’s $80 down, but that thing has only increased in price since its release, so you’re likely to get your money back or more once you’ve had your fill of these games. If you’re poor, heck, just emulate the original (or 4 if you want to have fun), you have my permission.

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Why I’m Not a Pokémon Fan Anymore (2)

The heart of my issue:

Pokemon is uncritically reflecting back to me what I play video games to get away from, a society in which people are all more interested in consumerism than one another.

It’s unrealistic that we go into people’s homes and talk to them in RPGs, but that’s the fantasy I’m here for. The superficial beauty of Scarlet’s towns get my hopes up, and then I find myself dissatisfied drifting in and out without making a connection, or any reason to return. Just a bunch of places to spend money and gain nothing of value.

At its best, this series’ towns give you so much to come back to, you really feel like a local, and that’s how those games become the safe spaces I grew up with.

It’s clear from the increased emphasis on multiplayer that it’s meant to be about my real life friendships, but I’d rather maintain my friendships without pressure to buy and enjoy these games…

Also, to reiterate part one, you eat them.

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Transcription:

Omori is the story of our generation, told in the language of our generation: the ennui, the disappointment with reality, the awareness of social issues and the evils of capitalism, and the conflict between not wanting to repeat the mistakes of our parents, and nostalgia for a hyper-commercialized childhood we didn't know better than to accept at face value. Sunny's dreams thinly mask these issues in a way that actually draws more attention to them.

His reality is full of ordinary people, simply living life. He spends 3 days watching people try to fix leaks in their plumbing, finish an artistic project, save up money to move to the city in pursuit of a dream, play in the park, pay money to go on dates, collect seashells, and work as store clerks.

Somewhere amidst the noise of a mundane suburban life, we see how much has changed since the childhood of his dreams, and how much of that idyllic life could only exist in the eyes of a child.

As the days pass, the dreams catch up with reality. Aubrey goes from expecting more of the people around her, to merely lashing out at them for no one reason. Hero finds success at the cost of no longer being relatable or available to his friends. Basil becomes more of a memory than a person in the eyes of his friends, a martyr for everything our and good that our young heroes could never truly live up to. Could Basil have been saved?

Mari dies young, and is thus immortalized. She cannot be saved, but even in death, her victimhood overshadows the present struggles of everyone who still might be. Kel, the simplest and least connected ot Mari, is seemingly unchanged. One could just as easily call him innocent, ignorant, stunted, repressed, or mature.

Everyone grieves different.

"How can you go on being happy, Mari's dead!"

"Mari would want to see us smiling, wouldn't she?"

"I don't want to live without her."

"Please forgive me."

"You loved her, and you killed her."

In dwelling on how Mari might've been spared, we forget to spare one another.

We forget to spare ourselves.

"We wound eachother and we lick eachotehr's wounds" (~Nisioisin, Kizumonogatari)

Sunny became Omori, because Sunny had to die for his sins.

There is an Omori living inside everyone plagued by guilt. Maybe it's a persona used to mask one's true self, or a supposed true self that never quite makes it outside one's head.

Omori is the lie that we tell ourselves, that there is no hope, or that everything is going to be ok. Nobody is strong enough to live honestly under such weighty ideals.

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Devolver’s Showcase really did a good job pointing out how everything AAA at summer games fest may as well have been AI generated because of how completely devoid of love they were.

That said, nearly everything after that way-to-long break between the SGF and Day of the Devs (the real show), looked actually unique from a game design perspective, which is rare even of great video game art, and really exciting.

Also, super excited for the Grasshopper Direct next Wednesday. Might have to force my poor father to watch it live while he visits from out of town.

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I love being called out by the game.

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Looks like Gameboy Advance on a projector.

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Suzume is Easily the Greatest Film I Have Ever Seen.

This is our generation’s FLCL. Cutting-edge animation that captures the spirit of our time and rebels against conventions and the chains that come with them. A 50 wallpapers per second anime tiktok compilation that fuses all genres with total sincerity and a touch of satire. It is hilarious, ridiculous, wholesome, inspiring, breathtaking, heart-pounding, explosive, quiet, real, intimate, touching, frightening, relieving and ultimately healing, grounding and resounding.

I am entertained and fascinated by the film long after its conclusion. There is so much to think about and disect. Every scene is dense with meaning and emotionally distinct to the point of shifting from genre to genre, and each of those moods is so well executed, it is all so moving every step of the way. I was laughing at a romantic scene with a talking chair, and then completely bought into his character the next.

WE NEED TO KEEP OUR EMOTIONS ON AND OUR EYES OPEN AND EMBRACE OURSELVES AND ONE ANOTHER TO MOVE FORWARD!!!!!

So powerful, moving, and modern, I just have to give my letterboxd review here, despite being a gaming blog.

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To everyone missing Paper Mario, check out Puyo Puyo Tetris 2’s Adventure Mode.

It seriously is great in a lot of the same ways. It’s clearly, like, made for otaku children to play with their gamer dads. So much in there for gamer dad.

All the characters are made to represent different types of people playing the game. The story is about them playing the game together. Characters from the older games act more mature, the newest characters are children that understand the world might be ending, but would rather just play puyo than worry about it. They act bored when the dramatic overarching plot kicks in, and happy when it’s over, so they can get back to having puyo battles for fun instead of combat. Also the villain is just someone who is super good and takes the game too seriously, and is a bad sport when they lose, and also they’re summoning some catastrophic force or something. The first character to join your party (after the initial group) leaves in the next chapter to try saving the world with the scientists instead of hanging out with you and your friends. After you beat the boss of chapter one, the big cliffhanger/reward is that the S-piece from tetris joins your party! It’s hilarious, and very sef-aware, and brings to mind a funner era of gaming, when Nintendo, and the japanese games industry were still creatively dominant over video game culture, and the biggest AAA games were made for kids.

Also, there’s a male and female protagonist, and you just play as whichever one is most relevant in the current chapter; it’s awesome.

The details are there too, like how they use the arcade game design to tell the story, like how Tee acts all weirded out by Puyo around Ringo, and always plays tetris against her, but occasionally practices his Puyo against the other characters. It’s just shockingly well considered, but maybe not, if you actually know the series.

It’s crazy people just don’t expect fighting games and other arcade-style games to have a good story; like the story modes are literally just jrpgs where every battle matters to the story, like Disgaea, if its battles were breif and fast-paced, instead of taking so long that you almost forget what’s going on in that chapter.

Also, that soundtrack stands among SEGA’s best.

UPDATE ON THE S-PIECE: she’s like “nothing’s gonna change if we don’t do anything”, to the party, and spurs them back into action.

THEN YOU ALL LEAVE YOUR SCHOOL TO GO ON A STARSHIP!!

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Final Fantasy 3, Famicom

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YOU MUST PLAY ONESHOT!

YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY ONESHOT!

YOU DESPERATELY WANT TO PLAY ONESHOT!

IF YOU HAVE A CURRENT-GEN CONSOLE (PS4/XBONE INCLUDED), OR A COMPUTER WITH AN OPERATING SYSTEM THAT ISN’T TEMPLEOS, YOU CAN PLAY ONESHOT!

THESE ARE ALL REAL IN-GAME ASSETS FROM ONESHOT!

THAT’S RIGHT, EVEN THIS ONE THAT REFERENCES THE CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOK, “THE LITTLE PRINCE”!

THESE DEVELOPERS HAVE TASTE, AND A SOLID GRASP ON WHAT MATTERS IN LIFE!

You should play Oneshot. It’s the REAL Game Of The Year, 2022.

Oneshot respects your time, dropping your jaw, stopping your heart, jerking your tears, and scratching your head every few minutes.

The rest of the time you just get lost in the subliminal heaven that is this game’s aesthetic.

If you like Undertale, Deltarune, Yume Nikki, Off, Space Funeral, or even Lisa, you owe it to yourself to try this masterpiece.

You deserve it.

What would you give to save a lost child?

Would you end the world to ease their suffering?

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You guys are all listening to this album right?

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I Quit Persona 5 Strikers 29 Minutes In, and I Don’t Care if it “Gets Better”.

I am a major Shin Megami Tensei and Persona fan of 9 years at this point. Persona 5 is, to me, an unquestionably great game, as evidenced by the gamer-level-mainstream status it somehow managed to rise to through the power of supreme recommendability. Despite its flaws, Persona 5’s unique style and refreshing honesty made it feel like the first truly modern RPG experience to come out in a long time (in 2016/2017). With its release, Atlus managed to finally and definitively prove to the world that their more artistic approach to game creation was not inherently inaccessible to a wide audience, they had simply yet to strike the proper balance of strangeness, approachable mechanics, and the flourish necessary to make a turn-based game feel like an action game.

P5S is not, however, an Atlus game. However involved Atlus may have been, it is an ω-Force game, you know, those otaku that convince big IP-holders like Nintendo to let them play action figures with their most beloved characters?

Atlus sent Toru Yorogi, a living embodiment of the company’s above-average treatment of its staff (the man went from QA on P4A, to planner/writer for its sequel (too bad P4AU’s story was such a disappointment compared to P4A though)), and Yusuke Nitta (a planner on P5 very difficult to find more info on, he might be the same guy who wrote the light novel “If The RPG World Had Social Media”, which is very P5S) to assist ω-Force’s Takaaki Ogata (one of the guys they typically have in a game design role in one of their Warriors games with essentially copy-pasted design) in writing the game’s script. Now, most people may think it’s silly to focus on the script in an ω-Force game, and yes, it is. However, the first two words of this game’s title are “Persona 5”, you know, that masterpiece gamer-bros put down their NG+7 runs of Dark Souls III so they could “actually play just for the story”? The Phatom Theives are the current standard that the current generation of game-enjoyers will likely be comparing all future JRPG parties to. They are powerful modern archetypes that managed to resonate with players their own age. While not the brightest or most tactful group of misfits, the Phatom Theives live on in our hearts because of their honesty and sincerity, despite the cynicism and toxic adultism of the society they were born into. It is, therefore, not unfair to say a large portion of the audience for P5S, as with any Persona spin-off, plays the game as little more than an excuse to see these characters again, and experience the next chapter of their story. Such is the case for myself and literally everyone I know who has played the game.

It was incredibly warm and inviting at first. Excellent opening theme by Lotus Juice and Lyn (with great work from the ω-Force staff as well), followed by 20 minutes of that ooey-gooey Persona 5 slice of life. Just seeing Ann again made me nearly cry, and I yelled at my character to “huge her!!”, platonically (Ann is my P5 bestie). When my character said “I missed you” to these people, it felt, more than any dialogue option in P5, like something I was saying myself, through the character.

However, after we’ve finished our hellos, the first thing The Phantom Thieves do is download an AI assistant and agree to buy everything it tells them to for their camping trip… At least they do their shopping at real in-person stores, but come on. This whole “Emma” thing is so stupid. Like, I know the Phantom Theives are goofs, but you’re seriously telling me they went from exposing/combatting the evils of capitalism to this? Not only is it out of character, it’s outside the spirit of the original. I saved and quit at 29 minutes and proceeded to watch the excellent documentary on the making of the game’s opening theme instead.

I was sure the game was only setting up Emma to somehow subvert it later on, mind you, I just didn’t want to see that story play out. I didn’t want to see the heroes fall for some stupid fad and have a shocking reveal that actually, it wasn’t that simple - not after everything we learned together, from eachother, in the past.

My own friends, however, really let me down here. Refusing to teach me anything, or even level with me, they hardly acknowledged my opinion:

This is a different guy:

And my irl friend just kind of laughed or whatever (he’s kind of shy). Seriously, what the hell is this? All these people willingly start conversations with me, and have more experience with this game, they should be willing to talk about this! I’ll give you my impressions:

First guy is poor so he watches Let’s Plays of games like this. His life is kind of rough; he lives in a small town in Texas that doesn’t see his intelligence through his blunt honesty, and it’s cost him jobs. Pretty much all this corpo media stuff is a very important escape to him, and he will vehemently defend even the stupidest aspects of games he hasn’t played, but is a fan of, because video games are the light of his life. Dude should just get offline and emulate one of the hundreds of games he’d be able to form a proper opinion on, and have a more genuine experience with.

Second guy is a sad, all too common story. He bought the game at launch, and got a ways into it, but has had the thing sitting on his shelf for a lomg time now, unbeaten. He’s paid his $60, and the greater price that comes with it, real life investment in a video game. Now, sunk-cost fallacy dictates he must beat the game some day, in order to ensure he gets his money’s worth, even though there are hundreds of games he could have more fun emulating for free. He doesn’t want to talk about the game, because he doesn’t want to think about the game. He doesn’t want to have to decide whether to sell it or finish it, so he says he’ll finish it, but puts it off, and would much rather continue our conversation about Pokémon Unbound, a well-made ROM hack that he’d much rather play than fork over another stupid $60 for Scarlet or Violet versions.

And like I said, third guy is kind of shy and awkward; we’re still leveling up our social-link.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, don’t be like these people. Don’t buy everything your phone (or Amazon Echo, throw that garbage out and learn to flick a light switch yourself!) tells you to. Don’t shill out to these stupid companies. Don’t pay grown men $60 to play with action figures on your tv. Don’t waste your breath defending people that don’t care about you. Emulate that old classic game you’ve heard of, and if you don’t like it, emulate the next one. Or like, watch an anime or go for a walk or volunteer or something, just don’t give away your money/power for the vaporware we call video games.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Peace and love.