Tag: slice of life

TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children is a Masterpiece I May Never Finish

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Gaming

I have pretty much narrowed down the games I prefer to play (read as: the only games I am even remotely good at). However, sometimes, my dumb brain decides to goof. For whatever reason, when I stumbled upon TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children on Steam, I was captivated. Being a strategy RPG, it was completely unexplored territory for me. However, with a high difficulty, insane depth, EIGHT HUNDRED ABILITIES TO LEARN, and a sprawling story that’s on par with Fire Emblem: Three Houses in scope, jumping into this was like driving a racecar without a driver’s license. This is gonna get… uuuuuugly… 

TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children is set in Valhalla, a place where crime is rampant. Fortunately, there are titular Troubleshooters to help out. This story stars an upstart named Albus Bernstein… among MANY others.

The plot of TROUBLESHOOTER is a lot, but it’s a good lot. It’s a traditional episodic cyberpunk, but with classic anime tropes. As you do missions, you learn more about the world and its denizens. They put a LOT of thought into the game, with detailed descriptions of pretty much everything, and loads of environmental details that really make Valhalla appear to be a real city. Being well over a hundred hours long, expect it to really ease you in before sh** hits the fan. Unfortunately… I didn’t exactly enjoy the story. For how much worldbuilding there is, what happens is pretty simple. You basically fight any gang that forms in Valhalla, along with the mainstay antagonists: the Spoonist Cult, and some guy named Carter. All this serves as stepping stones, so Albus’ group can reach Mythril Rank, and he can view classified documents about the classic “incident from ten years ago that everyone talks about all the time but never gives you any actual context until a hundred hours later” trope. It doesn’t help that, with my schedule, I didn’t exactly get to marathon it; that means forgetting what was going on in the first place.

Of course, the biggest caveat with something like this is the fact that the devs are a Korean indie team. Any small outfit that has to translate any foreign dialogue is destined to mess up… a lot. Many Steam reviews, naturally, criticized the writing, but to be honest, it’s not the worst. Some descriptions can sound vague, but a lot of the writing itself is perfectly understandable, even if it lacks poeticness. The game has some pretty good voice acting for what it is, although it only comes up during pure gameplay. It’s actually my first time ever hearing Korean (since I don’t listen to K-Pop), and boy, it really sounds similar to Japanese to the untrained ear. I can just barely tell it’s a different language. 

The characters, however, ended up being WAY better than I expected. Albus is a generic, reckless dingus, and is the weakest link in the game. Everyone else is actually pretty damn awesome, especially considering the translation. They’re pretty basic and trope-y, but I still liked them a lot. 

Where do I even start with this gameplay? It’s so deep it’s not even funny. Actually, I should start with an appreciation of the game’s U.I. It’s complex, sure, but it’s actually really well put together. There are shortcuts to other menus in just the right places when you’re trying to create builds or look up info on enemies and materials. Hovering over a character’s stats will show you the factors influencing their amount (i.e. equipment, skills, etc.). In battle, hovering over a move will show you the exact calculations, and of course, it shows you a preview of non-crit and non-block damage to the enemy’s health bar when targeting. Also, hovering over the different probabilities associated with your attack while targeting (i.e. hit chance, crit chance, damage, etc.) will also show the calculations for that as well; it shows the exact parameters that enemy armor, skills, status, and environment influence over the attack’s result. It also gives relevant descriptions of status effects as needed; you don’t have to look up a giant glossary of effects if you don’t remember what does what. 

As is tradition with strategy RPGs, you have your party, equipment, all that jazz. TROUBLESHOOTER, however, has Masteries. These are the aforementioned eight hundred abilities that can be learned. Most of these are dropped at random by enemies, and can be stockpiled like items. Masteries can be equipped to available slots for their desired effect, and consumed in research to acquire new ones. Mastery Sets come into play when the right Masteries are equipped. The game is kind enough to show you an indicator when you’re on the right track with obtaining a Set. Unfortunately, there is an annoying mechanic where each category of Mastery slots (Basic, Attack, etc.) have their own capacities that limit the value of which Masteries can be equipped AS WELL as there being a limited number of slots for Masteries to be equipped to. It doesn’t matter how many Training Points you actually have in order to equip Masteries with higher costs; if the total value of the Masteries exceeds that property limit in the category, you can’t do it. There are Masteries to increase those capacities, but they’re very rare and specific, and of course, need to sacrifice a slot in another category to be equipped. I think that system is really arbitrary and really hinders your ability to min-max your party.

Equipment is also VERY involved. You can obtain equipment in battle, and they come in various color-coded rarities, as well as an Unidentified or Identified status. Identified weapons will have one-to-four stars on their thumbnail, and have a title of some sort after their name; they are objectively better than Unidentified equipment. These have lower stats and no special effects, but you can pay someone to Identify them. The results are random, which makes for big dopamine when you get good results. 

Materials can be earned from battle, and used as ingredients for various items at the workbench. Even if you don’t get what you need, large amounts of materials can be crafted into the next tier of that same type of item. Conversely, rarer items can be dismantled into common ones. You can also outright buy materials and weapons, but doing this is quite expensive.

However, money ends up being VERY easy to accumulate and manage. Ordering food to maintain motivation, paying your landlord as well as your party members is pretty cheap. As long as you don’t splurge on the rare materials and weapons sold at the shops, you’re good. The only thing I buy a lot of are consumables. When equipping them, it—at a glance—looks like an equippable that comes with X number of charges per battle. In fact, it’s not. It pulls from your stock of that item, so you’ll need a lot of them if you plan to use them a lot. Many of them, such as grenades, are extremely helpful when used in the right spot, and of course, you’ll need potions, especially when you haven’t recruited the dedicated healer. Also, you really don’t need to buy equipment at all. You get SO MANY equipment drops naturally in battle, to the point where selling them is your main source of dough. You also don’t need to worry about identifying any of them, except for maybe a red-rarity item dropped by bosses, which can be identified into something even better. Furthermore, the powerful purple-rarity equipment you can get from sidequests and crafting can ALSO be identified for relatively cheap, and these—with their true potential unlocked—will be your best equipment in the long term. 

Combat is also as convoluted as you can expect. You have your movement, attacks, Vigor gauge, SP gauge, the environment, weather, time of day, enemy units, people to rescue, buffs, debuffs… yeah it’s a lot. Too much for me to describe in this post. Fortunately, while some reviewers criticize the slow start of the game, it does do a good job to ease you in if you’re a virgin of the genre. Scratch that, it does an exceptional job. Missions get more complex in the right way to get you in the game’s groove without throwing you at the wolves. A pro-tip from me is to not undervalue any back-up soldiers you get. They’re pretty basic, but rely on strength in numbers. Their items are really handy (especially when later ones have the Mastery that makes using items not consume their turn), and you can afford to lose them if absolutely necessary.

Oh, by the way, TROUBLESHOOTER is absurdly hard. Even with powerful builds consisting of three-plus Mastery sets across the entire team, really good equipment, and being at least eight levels over the recommendation for a given mission, I’ve gotten uncomfortably close to the jaws of death numerous times. On NORMAL difficulty. I don’t feel like I’m playing the game wrong, it’s just… hard. In fact, I saw one forum post say that they’ve had their characters die over two hundred times in total. I even read that the postgame DLC is borderline impossible. Cover is INSANELY valuable, because anyone not in it basically dies. Even with good equipment, an unlucky crit can one-shot one of our intrepid heroes from full health, especially if it’s from a boss, or a sniper unit. Bosses are generally a good chunk of your grievances, but there are some specific enemy units who are so bad, they are worse than a lot of the bosses. 

One aspect that I feel like should be divisive to strategy-RPG veterans is the Sight mechanic. In any other game of this kind I’ve seen, you get to see and evaluate the entire field, and plan accordingly. Maybe there’ll be an odd stage with fog where you can’t see enemies until it’s too late, and those levels generally suck. Well, with Sight, TROUBLESHOOTER is that fog level all the time. While this is a stat that can be increased, and abilities to reveal enemies in unexplored territory, it is consistently your biggest enemy. You don’t know what an enemy unit is doing until you’re close enough. There are SO MANY times where I sent one person to fight a single enemy unit, when it turned out that there were actually eight of them just beyond my Sight. This kind of misinformation makes missions particularly difficult your first time through; it’s kind of like old-school videogame difficulty, which relied on memorization more than ability to problem solve and adapt, and is generally considered bad game design by today’s standards. While taking time and not splitting up your heroes can be encouraged, there are some more urgent stages where you need to save people or defend a zone (or because the map is huge and it can take forever to complete some missions, although the game autosaves after every turn which is nice). Furthermore, you don’t get to look at enemy units in detail like in other strategy-RPGs, which means even more memorization, and—if it’s your first time facing an enemy unit—absolute terror from not knowing the best strategy to fight them. There is a database for enemies in the company’s office, but by the time you can see all the enemies’ abilities, you’ll already have fought them several times.

Speaking of the office, that’s where your center of operations is. Here, you can do all your crafting and stuff. You must also keep your reputation in mind in different districts. District jurisdiction is vital, because it’s how you get paid. You get the starting district as a free-bee, but you’ll need to satisfy various prerequisites (including money), to apply for jurisdiction and reap the unique benefits of each area. You can also cancel jurisdiction if you hate earning money. Unfortunately, this mechanic is extremely strange and inconsistent. Not losing cases isn’t enough; you need to keep winning cases in the designated district to maintain reputation, but sometimes there’s only one or two missions there—and well—nothing you actually need to do there (at least I think that’s how it works). There are also times where you satisfy the prerequisites to apply for jurisdiction, but your company will arbitrarily not want said jurisdiction. Some districts want you to have a variety of case experiences, which is annoying since 9/10 levels are simple arrest missions. I ended up looking this up on the Steam forums, and it turns out that you only get as many jurisdictions as you have Troubleshooters, and apparently, not all of your party members are considered Troubleshooters in a business sense. In actuality, you only get to have four by the end of the game. You also lose reputation for NOT doing missions in given areas, though this can be helped somewhat by certain Jurisdiction policies that increase the reputation of multiple districts at once. However, it doesn’t take long for your salary to end up being a pretty paltry sum; like I said before, selling unneeded equipment can give you the same amount and then some.

Mission control is where you set out to defend the peace. Story missions are self explanatory enough, but take note of Ordinary and Violent Missions. These are optional filler scenarios that are infinitely replayable, and this is where most of your grinding will take place if you either get stonewalled or want to undertake the daunting task of completion. After a certain point, story missions can be replayed infinitely without repercussions. This adds variety to the completionist grind, and you can skip cutscenes. 

There are also TONS of sidequests, a lot of which are either secondary objectives in existing missions or their own thing. The immediate problem with them is that the first quest, which happens to be the prerequisite to all the others, is uncharacteristically hard if you do it at the earliest opportunity; it’s tougher than some of the quests that come up after-the-fact. A lot of them are a pain, though. From having to prevent large groups of mobile, highly evasive enemies from escaping the level, to having to find a specific enemy unit who isn’t marked on the map… it’s a thing. However, they are well worth doing no matter what; you get REALLY good rewards, and it’s the only way that your company earns brownie points toward its reputation.

With a game this long and chock full of content, it’d be tough to find time to play it in this day and age. As addictive as it is, it is NOT good to marathon; you might as well go slow and steady. In fact, I have yet to finish it even as you read this post. A hundred hours in at the time of publishing and I’m not even CLOSE to done. I just really wanted to get a review out for this underrated gem, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to complete it. I’m at the fifth of what appears to be seven or eight chapters, and that’s EXCLUDING the two post-game DLC stories!

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Current (Possibly Final) Verdict: 9.65/10

TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children is a true testament to the capability of indie game developers… and it’s only part one of a planned series. If you can somehow find the time (and the computer powerful enough) to sink your life into this one, then I highly advise giving it a whirl. Meanwhile, I gotta finish this thing myself… boy, One Piece will probably be done before that happens.

Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction: Independence Day with Anime Girls

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Manga

Over four years ago (before the blog), I read through Inio Asano’s manga Goodnight Punpun. It was a bit pretentious, and VERY edgy, but for some reason, it was really good. Something about the panel flow and the unique artstyle of Asano (which we’ll get into later in this post) made Punpun a very hard-to-forget experience. So of course, I decided to start his newest “experience”, Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction.

In Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, the world is ending. A mysterious flying saucer has appeared over Tokyo, and everyone is in a state of panic. However, instead of focusing on the politicians and the military side of things, this manga instead focuses on Kadode Koyama, and her very strange friends, who just try to go about their lives.

Just like Punpun, Dead Dead Demon has some phenomenal and unique art, which forms the backbone of the whole experience. Asano complements hyper-realistic backgrounds with cartoony, caricatured people. Seriously… a lot of them look really, REALLY weird. Also, the panel flow is as sporadic as it was in Punpun, and contains a lot of desktop-worthy two-page shots. 

It didn’t take long for Dead Dead Demon to have the same strange sensations that coursed through my body during Punpun. Despite the whole alien invasion, Dead Dead Demon is—bizarrely enough—more lighthearted than Punpun. Well, at least compared to Punpun. There’s still stuff like hints of an illicit relationship between Kadode and her teacher, as well as the fact that Kadode wants the aliens to win, while one of her friends wants to be a dictator when she grows up. All that, along with a pervasive sense of misanthropy.

For the most part, Dead Dead Demon is—of all things—a CGDCT: Cute Girls Doing Cute Things. Like I said before, most of the manga is focused on the civilian side of things; the obligations of society don’t just freeze up because of an alien invasion (even if they did freeze over a virus). A lot of the chapters are just the girls hanging out, and well, that’s about it. Would this manga be a typical CGDCT if there was NO alien invasion? Yes, definitely, absolutely. Call it superficial, but that seems to be the nature of Asano’s work; after all, would Punpun be so unique if its main character wasn’t drawn as a bird-stick-figure-thing?

Another issue with Dead Dead Demon is the fact that it has overly on-the-nose writing. I had a similar problem with Punpun, where a lot of the characters seemed to be overly aware of how the world worked. One example is a scene where a character uploads a clickbait article to social media, and goes into some huge poetic speech about how he’s starting a cyber war and plans to be tried as the greatest criminal in all of humanity. I get that clickbait posters are definitely aware of what they’re doing, but it’s not natural to go into such a clearly pre-written speech off the top of their heads (it’s as if the manga is pretentious). 

Although a lot of the chapters are typical CGDCT interactions, there is some semblance of an overarching plot, even if it’s mainly in the background. Most of the main story is told through news reports and various signage. Things pick up at volume three, which follows a tragic event, and ends with the main cast’s graduation. We also get to learn about the aliens and their perspective during the incident. Eventually, we learn the true nature of the invasion and relevant parties involved. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t help that I waited months at a time for new volumes through Viz, as I most likely forgot what was going on. However, as I’ve made clear, you don’t read an Asano manga to know what’s going on; in fact, you read them just to enjoy being confused in perpetuity. It also ends very unceremoniously, which will likely leave you wondering what the point of any of it was. Going off of Punpun, that’s just another part of Asano’s brand.

I tend to not like characters in a CGDCT, and not even Asano can make that an exception. I found a lot of the girls to be pretty bland. In fact, (spoilers until next paragraph) one of the main characters is killed off early on and I felt like it was merely a means to get you to sympathize with the others. For a mangaka who was genuinely good at portraying a tortured soul, I found this to be kind of a downgrade from Punpun. 

Fortunately, I did enjoy one of the characters: Oran. She’s this snot-flinging moe blob, who happens to be the aforementioned girl who wants to be a dictator when she grows up. She’s a real sociopath, and would be the subject of much controversy if this manga’s upcoming anime adaptation gained enough traction in the community.

Similar to Punpun, the manga hard cuts to many other individuals, but I don’t find them to be that interesting, especially not compared to that cult leader guy from Punpun. The only other interesting character is this one kid who happens to be one of the aliens in the guise of a human. They’re just cool, man.

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Final Verdict: 9.3/10

It’s superficial. It’s ham-fisted. It’s pretentious. But man, despite all that, Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction is so damn good! I wouldn’t be surprised if some critics consider Asano a hack; in fact, I’d believe them. However, when compared to eccentric writers such as NISIOISIN of Monogatari fame, I’m much more willing to respect Asano, since he’s a talented artist and doesn’t just vomit words while intentionally committing writing sins. I recommend it to fans of Punpun, as well as anyone who wants a unique take on the slice-of-life genre.

P.S. back to Disney again after this. Next post on May 20th!

Tchia: New Caledonia’s Time in the Limelight

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Gaming

It’s rare for indie games to get a lot of press, and Tchia is one such case. It’s had trailers presented at all of the most prestigious gaming events, and acclaimed magazines like Game Informer have been dying to sink their teeth into it. I wanted in on it as well, and now, it’s finally here. I played it on PlayStation because I didn’t want to make an account on EGS essentially for just this game (and I don’t play games often enough to justify the free weekly games quirk).

In Tchia, the titular character is enjoying a life on a secluded island in a fictitious archipelago vaguely based on New Caledonia (but we might as well call it New Caledonia anyway). However, some military guy shows up and kidnaps her dad, taking him to the castle of Meavora, a malevolent god who cosplays as the Michelin Man. Well… time to get him back I guess.

So, this is an open world game, and open world games generally don’t have much plot, in order to account for freedom. I always need to throw that disclaimer out there, because a lot of people still complain about open world games for not having a plot. ANYWAY… it’s a pretty basic, harmless story, but we’ll elaborate on the specifics later in the post.

Of course, what the devs really poured their souls into is the worldbuilding. Well, I call it “worldbuilding”, but what I’m referring to is a presumably painstakingly perfect recreation of New Caledonian culture. Giving them the benefit of the doubt here (since it means their heads if they actually got any of it wrong), they do prove that Disney aren’t the only ones who can really sell you a foreign culture (is it a hot take to say that Disney actually does it right? I feel like everyone assumes their cultural appropriators despite numerous documentaries that prove otherwise). Before even starting the game, they literally have a five page exposition that basically says “Hey, New Caledonia is here, and this game is heavily based off of it!” 

As someone who—not to toot his own horn—likes being exposed to other cultures, Tchia is quite engaging. For starters, it has a beautiful and cozy look to it. The characters look very Pixar-y, and the world—despite not being all 12800p, is really breathtaking. The soundtrack takes you to those islands, and it even breaks out into a full song with lyrics whenever you spend a long time sailing on the sea. There are also rhythm-based music minigames, although you can disable the actual gameplay element if you want. Overall, the devs of Tchia did an impeccable job of making New Caledonia seem like a cozy and welcome place.

What makes Tchia stand out is its gameplay, inspired by Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. Once you are told to gather the first MacGuffins, you’re free to theoretically go wherever you want, and tackle objectives in any order. In fact, some collectibles are required for story progress. 

Maps are essential in open world games, and the one in Tchia is… interesting. While it marks a lot of points of interest on the map, it doesn’t exactly mark YOUR position. It marks your last known location, which is set to a new position by examining signs, and you just have to go from there. Fortunately, Tchia has a built-in GPS like a bird, for there is a command for her to give you a vague idea of where you are. You will want to use your compass and the pin feature a lot (although it can be enjoyable to wander aimlessly in this particular overworld). There is, of course, a mechanic to reveal all points of interest in a set area, and it might be my favorite ever; you literally climb up to the designated locations and scream. Tchia comes with both GPS AND echolocation!

The other big thing about exploration is the Soul Jump mechanic. Tchia can possess organic matter (as well as rocks, lamps, and jerry cans) and control them. The physics for this mechanic are amazing. When leaving something’s body, Tchia keeps the momentum that it had at the moment of the button press, meaning that if you charge forward with—say—a fast animal, Tchia will go flying out of it as if she was shot from a cannon. She can also perform a Soul Throw, where she somehow jumps out of something and flings it forward at the same time. The Soul Meter drains while in possession of something, and it only regenerates up to about the first half of the meter. You’ll need to rely on food stands throughout the world and storable food items in order to keep yourself topped off. Tchia also has a ukulele to play simple Soul Melodies on. These can change the time of day, and summon animals to possess. It’s really easy to remember what does what, because the letters that represent notes spell out a word that you can generally link to that power-up. There’s also a free-style mode that is insanely more involved, meant for the musically inclined who want to jam out at their leisure.

There are many collectibles and minigames in the world of… Neo New Caledonia? Wait, that’s just New New Caledonia… Anyway, there’s a lot, from fruits that increase stats to pearls and trinkets that are used as currency. Challenges include time attacks, rock balancing, and Totem Shrines.

When it comes to difficulty… Well, that’s for you to decide. The devs say in that opening bit that they want anyone to be able to enjoy Tchia. You can even set it so that you can’t die. However, if you want a challenge, then Tchia delivers in some regards. One big thing is that your stamina is also your health; you can die by climbing a tree if you really want. This makes those Stamina Fruits really valuable. The game gets really, REALLY easy if you go after optional upgrades, so masochistic gamers might want to do a minimal percent run.

There are also enemy camps containing the Maano, which can only be damaged by throwing lamps and jerry cans at them. These can get ugly. The enemy A.I. are very alert, and if you possess something, any movement makes them suspicious as well. After the halfway point of the game, bigger and badder bases spawn in. They don’t only contain more Maano, but they also sport Sentinels which can see you from just about anywhere and shoot lasers. I personally don’t blame you if you enable invincibility, because they can be quite difficult and would otherwise alienate people who just want to embrace New Caledonian culture via Tchia.

Speaking of that, I almost feel like having the conflict as well as the combat arguably detracts from what the game wants to be. There are numerous examples of tonal whiplash throughout the game, where you go from doing a really cozy musical sequence to seeing a baby get swallowed whole. The fact that they made a toggle for literally being invincible shows how arbitrary having any combat ends up being. The other thing is that the combat, mechanically, is arguably tedious. The Maano aren’t just hawk-eyed; there is also no stealth grass like in other games with similar combat. Also, the mobs themselves are even MORE lacking in variety than Breath of the Wild, and furthermore, there is no way to get creative with fighting them whatsoever. Additionally, the inability to see enemy positions on the map in any way makes some of the particularly large bases really annoying to clear. Just pray that you get certain optional Soul Melodies that make taking out the bases significantly less tedious.

With that being said, I also feel like the cast isn’t the strongest. Sure, the cutscenes are Pixar-levels of expressive and memorable, but that doesn’t mean the people onscreen are on that level. For the most part, Tchia herself and a certain race of mythological beings are the only characters I like. Everyone else feels like a half-assed plot device. They tend to be exposition dumpers, like Tres or Kevere. There is also Louise, a friend who becomes a lover over the course of five minutes with no organic buildup at all. Someone literally tries to shoot Tchia dead—with a SHOTGUN—and then she helps them cook crab for dinner. Meavora is also not too interesting. They basically take the Western approach and make him one-dimensionally evil, what with his appetite for infants, and the modern look of his city echoing yet another allegory to colonialism that seems obligatory in any media featuring marginalized ethnic groups.

One more minor complaint I have is that the devs very much misname Tchia’s postgame as “endgame.” It is, by definition, the postgame; it’s set after the final battle, and there are additional objectives to do as well as the rest of the collectibles. It supposedly replaces remaining enemy bases with a new type of mob, but since I beat all of them before rolling credits, I never got to see those mobs and don’t know if they’re any different. Again, it also kind of sucks that there aren’t too many ways to play the game. Most of the joy comes from its unique atmosphere, as well as trying your own custom challenges, such as traveling the whole perimeter of an island without touching the ground as a human… or recreating ‘Through the Fire and Flames’ in the ukulele’s freestyle mode.

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Final Verdict: 9.25/10

Tchia might’ve been a better game if it went all-in on the cozy, idyllic New Caledonian lifestyle. However, the game we got instead is nonetheless one of the best I’ve played this year. It might be lacking in a variety of playstyles, but it’s still probably one of my favorite open world games simply because I don’t play games often enough to feel tired of the genre. While it will likely be forgotten due to how our society works, I will certainly not forget about Tchia. I recommend it if you want a nice open world game that scratches the itches but doesn’t eat your time like the triple-A ones do.

SEASON: a letter to the future is a Bicycle Ride of Emotions

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Gaming

If you’ve read my review of Spiritfarer, then you’d know that it takes a LOT for a videogame to make me cry. SEASON: a letter to the future is another one of those games; narrative-driven art pieces meant to change your life forever. However, SEASON is more than just walking forward and watching the assets do everything for you like in What Remains of Edith Finch. Read on to see why.

In SEASON: a letter to the future, the world is about to end. Apparently this happens all the time, but it doesn’t affect Estelle’s idyllic village. Estelle decides to go on a spiritual journey to record the world in its current state before it ends. Thus, she leaves her home to accomplish this task.

While I normally don’t care about story, such a thing is vital to make indie games like this enjoyable. However, before getting into the plot, I need to preface this by saying that I personally don’t dig the core themes in the game. It’s partially about media preservation, which is something I’ve grown to care very little about for an admittedly dumb reason. I’ve forgotten much of my childhood, especially a lot of the really bad bits (specifically school).

However, much of my disdain toward my own childhood didn’t come until adulthood. A lot of the YouTubers I watch were kids and teens back when I was growing up, and through them, I’ve learned of some really cursed things that I was alive for. As an example, my first session on SEASON was on the day I watched the episode of the Disc Only Podcast where they talked about some TV commercials from the 1990s and 2000s that would be considered horrifyingly unhealthy by today’s sensibilities. People tend to laugh hysterically when harkening back to these, but I honestly feel really uncomfortable. To think that an entire board room of adults in a marketing department thought that this stuff was A-okay… it just makes my skin crawl. I know it sounds dumb, but it’s through this that I really don’t care for media preservation. This kind of extends to actual personal memories. While I’d like to remember the best part of my childhood while I’m alive, why would I care if a complete stranger in a post-apocalyptic world received those memories after I’m gone?

Besides media preservation, SEASON has a much bigger, obvious theme. You could probably tell from the fact that these seasons have happened multiple times that the game is an allegory to change. It’s pretty apropos, since we’re four years into the most recent season: COVID-19. Anyone who was born before the pandemic should immediately be able to relate to SEASON. After all, it really did feel like the entire world transformed into a different planet overnight, and we’re still feeling those changes. I have not gotten over the trauma from 2020-2021 to this day. And now, another season in the form of the war in Ukraine is occuring before we’ve even had a chance to recover from THIS season!

In terms of the story therein, SEASON is what you’d expect from this ilk. Every line of dialogue and narration is as poignant and poetic, as it should be. I normally call this writing pretentious, but I actually didn’t mind it in SEASON. It allows for open interpretation, and you could have some interesting debates with a friend over the themes brought up in this game.

In SEASON, there are more-or-less five characters, including Estelle. Estelle is basically the narrator, and she takes notes from Edith Finch; every sentence is super esoteric and poetic. You never really know anything about her beyond three objects you choose to imbue into a pendant at the beginning of the game, and you don’t know what she’s thinking throughout her journey. While it seems like a lack of character development, in a game like this, it’s probably better that she keeps her thoughts to herself instead of a lot of times when writers appear to impose predefined takeaways into the audience.

The other four characters whom you interact with for the bulk of the story are the last people to evacuate from the main overworld, Tieng Valley. They’re what you’d expect from an indie game like this; relatable in every way possible. They are no doubt the weakest aspect of the game’s story, basically being templates for the audience to connect with from every angle; loss, moving to a new home, uncertainty, etc. The reason is because you basically show up to do their quests, and then… that’s it. You can speak to two of them and show them some of the stuff you’ve found, but it’s just cosmetic (Matyora is actually pretty great though).

Before we get to gameplay, I must praise SEASON‘s visuals. Despite being a world about to end the next day, it sure looks nice. It has a lovely cel-shaded look that makes every corner of the place look like a painting. It’s not the most novel style, but it beats out any of those photorealistic games nonetheless.

There are many games, like Breath of the Wild, where I go into them telling myself to enjoy every detail of the world in order to appreciate it. However, those games, especially Breath of the Wild, have so much to do and collect that I just never had the time to do that. However, in SEASON, those details essentially ARE the collectibles.

The gameplay is divided into two sections. First, you freely explore the world on your bike and collect anything you can find. Theoretically, you can take any photo and record any sound you want. However, there are specific sights and sounds that are actually considered “collectibles”, and you generally want those. Fortunately, these are pretty easy to find, as long as you are explorative. Visual landmarks stand out very well, while the game’s excellent sound design organically points you toward relevant audio keepsakes.

I’ll admit that recording stuff in SEASON felt really engaging, exciting, and rewarding, despite the latter not actually existing in gameplay. Each area of the game is thoughtfully handcrafted to be rife with metaphorical roses to stop and smell. You are meant to just drop everything you’re doing and just do nothing for minutes at a time. This is also a relatable aspect of the game’s story, especially in events where you can choose to record a scene or just listen. As someone who used to bring a big fancy camera to Disney, I wholeheartedly understand the pros and cons of actually choosing to preserve a moment in time versus just living that moment.

After you collect enough stuff, you can place them in that area’s page in Estelle’s journal. This part is really fun, and highly customizable. When you fill the Keepsakes gauge by finding the relevant capture points, then it is considered complete (although it doesn’t take much to get the bare minimum). It also unlocks stamps for that page as well, so you can really make it look nice.

However, the caveat comes in the form of the most justified use of bad inventory management in all of videogames. Estelle’s journal is not a College Ruled notebook; it’s a tiny little scrapbook. To keep with the game’s themes, the devs intentionally put an excessive amount of keepsakes throughout each area. As a result, you must constantly decide what stays and what goes. It’s actually pretty tough, since a number of keepsakes come together to frame the full extent of the game’s plot. The biggest battle is with the text that comes with each capture; you can’t shrink the font size.

This deters you from getting everything. Don’t worry completionists; you don’t have to in order to complete this game! Getting 100% is so easy that even someone like me was able to do it just by naturally exploring around. There aren’t even achievements related to filling the scrapbook whatsoever. 

If there is any big flaw I find with SEASON, it’s the same flaw I have with pretty much every philosophical narrative like this: us. One of the things I really resent is that we—in a pop culture sense—are aware of so much about good, evil, life, death, capitalism, the corruption of the media, climate change, yet… as is pointed out in the Tomorrowland movie, no one bothers to fix any of it. We just consume the latest thing, maybe write a pretentious review of it to make us look smart (I actually went out of my way to read reviews of things game to confirm that they were pretentious, and boy howdy were they), and then move on; I at least know I’m not going to be “transformed” by my experience. I just couldn’t let that feeling go during my playthrough of SEASON. In a sense, it could be interpreted as an allegory to the rapidly shifting “seasons” of pop culture, where the new constantly eats the old alive. SEASON, a game about remembering and forgetting stuff, will probably be forgotten, perhaps this year. However, not to toot my own horn, I will make sure as hell I do not forget the unique experience that is this game.

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Final Verdict: 9.5/10

SEASON: a letter to the future didn’t make me cry, but it is still a fabulous game that has helped me appreciate the unique and important role that this type of game plays in the community. Other than some frame drops in specific spots, it is an extremely well-crafted little story rife with universal messages. The price of admission (24.99 USD on Steam, and 29.99 USD on PlayStation) might seem steep, but if you play it the way it was intended, that price is well worth it. Besides, you probably paid 59.99 USD for Metroid Dread which isn’t even ten hours long. This one really is a no-brainer.

Inu-Oh: A Japanese History Musical

by macksamson, posted in Anime Movies, Miscellaneous

Man, I really hate seeing adaptations of stuff before reading the source material. The phrase “the book is better than the film” cannot be truer in the anime world, a medium notorious for cutting corners and taking creative liberties that ruin the heart of the thing. However, I had no choice with Inu-Oh, based on one of the stories in a book called Tales of the Heike; a book not licensed for legal Western use to my knowledge. Thing is, though, that it’s by Science Saru, and they have a vision for it that’s only possible in the Twenty-First Century. 

In Inu-Oh, a blind biwa player named Tomona meets the titular Inu-Oh, a person who was disfigured because of a curse. It turns out that the latter’s curse can be lifted if he performs the stories of the fallen Heike soldiers from important battles throughout Japanese history (or, in the context of the movie, relatively recent news). Nothing left to do but to form a traveling theater troupe and become famous!

Science Saru really is an excellent animation studio. This is the third movie of theirs I have seen, and all three of them are drastically different visually. Ride Your Wave looked aggressively generic, while The Night is Short, Walk on Girl looked all weird and liquidy. Inu-Oh is like Ghibli’s The Tale of Princess Kaguya on steroids. It combines traditional ink-brush-y art styles with modern anime visuals to make a stunning visual experience. The mouths of characters might look off-putting to some, but that’s just manga legend Taiyo Matsumoto for you. Yes, the creator of Tekkonkinkreet did the character designs.

Speaking of characters, they are no doubt the weakest parts of the movie. The only real characters are the two protagonists, and they’re pretty simple for the most part. Honestly, there really isn’t much to say about them. However, that’s okay this time around, since the whole point of the movie is the music. 

By the way, Inu-Oh is a rock opera. It doesn’t take long for Tomona—hence known as Tomoari—to don garish makeup and glamorous clothes like someone who didn’t know whether or not they wanted to cosplay as Gene Simmons or a Buddhist priest. Inu-Oh’s dancing rivals that of Michael Jackson, while the troupe somehow manages to create show-stopping stage effects that match that of this century despite it being a thousand years before. Although there are only three musical numbers, they are long, intricate, and utterly moving. 

However, all of that is shallow compared to Inu-Oh’s voice actor… at least his Japanese voice actor. Inu-Oh is voiced by none other than Avu-chan, vocalist of Japan’s famous glam rock band, Queen Bee. I have spoken of them once or twice, and sadly, I ended up falling out of their music despite how much I wanted to enjoy it. Despite how little I care for Queen Bee to this day, I’ve dearly missed Avu-chan’s utterly amazing vocalwork. It was bittersweet and nostalgic to hear them again for the first time in years, and boy, they REAAAAALLY go ham in this movie. Inu-Oh is one of the reasons to never watch dubs. There is no way in hell anyone can replace Avu-chan in their role, and I feel sorry for whoever did in the dub.

If there is any real flaw with the movie, it’s that there isn’t much closure. To be as vague as possible, the main protagonists do find closure in a way, but for the most part, that’s it. I really can’t elaborate further than this. It has a bittersweet and anti-climactic end, but it’s thankfully not on the level of abrupt nonsense of Ghibli movies. 

~~~~~

Final Verdict: 9.75/10

Inu-Oh is a truly spectacular movie. It is an example of the creativity of animation and why animation is better than anything in Hollywood. It also shows the power and passion of a nation that actually cares about animation in the first place. I could pretty much recommend it to anyone… except for those who are triggered by gore. There are only a couple of scenes, but they’re still there.

Pompo the Cinephile: A 2D Movie About a 3D Movie

by macksamson, posted in Anime Movies, Miscellaneous

I always have to specify when I’m reviewing an adaptation of something without consulting the source material… mainly so I don’t look like some normie who just watches movies without knowing where they come from. According to MyAnimeList, Pompo the Cinephile is an adaptation of a two-volume webmanga from several years ago. It sure-as-hell doesn’t seem available over in the West, and honestly, something that short could probably be adapted with most of its soul intact. Hopefully. 

In Pompo the Cinephile, movie magic is made in Nyallywood. A classic underdog named Gene Fini works with the titular loli producer herself, Pompo, who specializes in skimpy B-movies. She’s young, but really talented, being the granddaughter of one of the most famous producers in the world. Anyway, despite the movie being named after her, it’s really about Gene’s spiritual journey through the world of film when given the opportunity to shoot a contemporary drama as its director.

Like in actual filmmaking, there’s a LOT to go over, i.e. the actual process of making a film. However…

We can’t talk about that yet! This is an ANIME feature film, so we need to discuss the visuals. As expected with the better budget and less time to fill, Pompo the Cinephile is gorgeous. The movie does all kinds of clever edits that fit with the filmmaking motif it conveys. Every minute of it is full of life and color. 

Anyway, as I said before I was so rudely interrupted by myself, this movie REALLY shows how hard it is to make a movie. You have to book all kinds of things, arrange for flights to the filming location, make sets (or use CG if you’re Hollywood), get sponsors to fund the movie, and… a LOT of editing. Gene’s movie, Meister, ends up clocking in at ninety minutes, but there was SEVENTY-TWO HOURS of raw footage to go through! Is that… realistic?! For the sake of whatever Earth’s resources are used in filming, I hope that’s a gross exaggeration.

With Pompo the Cinephile itself also being ninety minutes, you can expect the story to be simple, approachable, and concise; none of that mundane stuff that boomers get dopamine over. It goes through the whole Murphy’s Law laundry list of hiccups, and they really end up getting down to the wire with this one. Furthermore, it has layers in that Meister has parallels to Gene’s life.

Oops, I talked about Gene’s character arc, which means it’s time to discuss the cast! Pompo is great, in case it wasn’t obvious enough. She’s short, spunky, and eccentric, and is basically the Roy Disney to Gene’s Walt… or something (you know what I mean). We’ve already talked about Gene, but there are more characters than just him and Pompo Natalie is a young girl who seems wholly inadequate to act, yet her existence inspires Pompo to write the screenplay for Meister. She learns the ups and downs of acting, and gets a little spiritual journey of her own. We also have a sad banker named Alan, who ends up compelled to invest in Meister, and learn what it means to run a bank. Wait… then wouldn’t that make HIM the Roy Disney to Gene’s Walt? Crap… my analogies suck.

There are plenty of supporting characters with a lot of charm, like the sleazy other director who works in the B-movies. We also have the famous actors, Mystia and Martin Braddock, the latter of which is the lead role in Meister. The cherry on top with all these characters is that there is NO ROMANCE on set whatsoever. That’s my kind of movie.

We all know how hard it is to make a film, but Pompo the Cinephile never fails to be light-hearted at its core. There’s plenty of good humor while still hitting us in the feels. It also gets pretty psychological and philosophical when the characters dissect what a “movie” really is. I, of course, humbly disagree—at least where live action is concerned—but they do a good job with the dialogue when viewed in a vacuum. What’s important is that it gives a shout-out to introverts by claiming that they are inherently more creative than people who fit in.

Speaking of humbly disagreeing, I feel like the movie would start some interesting debates. Walking out of it, I interpreted that—due to the nature of some later scenes—it was trying to endorse that notion that there is no cost too great for living your dreams. Not even cutting away all of your loved ones, and having disregard for your own life. It’s ironic coming from a place like Japan, where that self-sacrificial lifestyle is leading it to its demise. Maybe there was something I didn’t get; I’m not exactly good at this subtext thing.

~~~~~

Final Verdict: 9.5/10

Pompo the Cinephile was an excellent movie, even if it didn’t make me appreciate live action cinema any better than I already do (or lack thereof). It does just about everything right, and I’d daresay it was one of the best anime of 2021 (which sure holds water considering how little anime I watch anymore). Do you like anime? Do you like movies? Do you like anime movies? If yes, then watch this one.

Oni: Thunder God’s Tale is Baby’s First Crash Course in Shinto

by macksamson, posted in Western Media

I’ve known about Netflix and Tonko House’s project, Oni: Thunder God’s Tale, since its initial announcement in November 2019. Over the course of the three years it took for the show to drop… a lot has happened, on both a global and personal scale. We have at least seen an explosion in diversity lately, but I feel like a lot of it just becomes clout instead of doing anything substantial for the good of humanity. Despite that, I decided to watch Oni anyway; it’s short, so it’s not like I had to worry about time.

In Oni: Thunder God’s Tale, a bunch of yokai (who are actually kami because the terms are technically one and the same) live together to protect the world from the Oni. A large dude named Naridon enters their domain with a child. He lives there and raises his kid, Onari, who trains to fight the Oni. However, she doesn’t exactly have any powers (referred to as kushi) because Naridon is a bit of an oddball. Sounds like the perfect setup for a coming-of-age story!

Before discussing the story at all, I must praise Tonko House for their absolutely stunning job with the visuals. Tsutsumi brings that experience as a former Pixar animator to the table for sure. Oni, being in brand with the studio, is an ode to stop-motion animation, and simply put, it’s the most beautiful display of the style I have ever seen. Every motion and detail is perfect and full of life. I can’t really express how visually appealing the show is; you’ll have to watch it yourself.

Furthermore, the show does a better job presenting a mythological world than almost any other case I’ve experienced in Western culture, especially compared to the literature department. It hits all the right notes, and teaches you the basics of Japanese culture and Shinto folklore in memorable ways, instead of mindless exposition dumps that insult the viewer for not having encyclopedic knowledge of the stuff going into it. If only there was more soulful stuff like this out there to teach children about other cultures.

As far as the story goes, it’s pretty straightforward stuff. However, it’s told with much more chutzpah than a lot of the crap that spews out of our screens these days. Oni isn’t exactly deep or profound, but it’s not mind-numbingly predictable either. It showcases the strictness of Japanese society all too well, with how much pressure the children are given to excel, especially for poor Onari, who doesn’t know what her power is. It’s not heavy all the time, though; there’s plenty of adorable humor sprinkled throughout.

Being only a four episode miniseries, Oni doesn’t exactly have time to tell its story. While it kind of sucks that I waited this long for such a short show, the length is to its benefit; if it was allowed to go on longer, it could’ve easily gotten boring. Oni, especially in the first half, is basically a character study. There isn’t much adventuring whatsoever, and there’s a lot of dialogue. Honestly, it would have been a REALLY bad show if it went on for twenty-four-plus episodes. Fortunately, it does what it needs to do in the time given.

As you can expect from a program aimed at kids, the characters are quite simple, and are hard-carried by how they are presented in execution. Unsurprisingly, the studio did a great job making them memorable and likable (well, except for the people who aren’t meant to be likable). Onari herself is plucky and full of energy, and as the main character, is the one who must find herself. However, the real star of the show is the tragic hero, Naridon. Although he’s doofy and the least expressive character in the show, I was somehow able to tell that he carries a lot of baggage. If Tonko House actually meant for you to pick up on that, then kudos to them. 

Out of Onari’s classmates, the only one who isn’t a jerk is her kappa friend… Kappa. He’s the socially awkward and sensitive kid that you just want to hug all the time. Unfortunately, everyone kind of exists to fill the class and be, as I said, jerks. Even her teacher, Tengu-sensei, is kind of one too. Once it’s found out that Naridon is a big hotshot, he puts too an unfair amount of stock into Onari; they couldn’t give George Takei a better character to voice? Even Naridon’s brother, Putaro, is kind of your typical jealous younger sibling. Holy crap, I said the cast was great, but in retrospect, a lot of them really aren’t. Well, props to Tonko House for clearly telegraphing whom the audience is meant to root for. At least the school principal is a cool dude.

If there is anything of note to add, it’s what you could argue is the show’s biggest flaw. In essence, it loses its whimsy by the second half. While still excellent all the way through, it’s… well… how do I put it? Basically, in some regards, Tsutsumi isn’t that much different from typical modern writers. Oni has social undertones that have been around since humans put pen to paper, and it kind of sucks that this is just another one of those cases. Fortunately, it’s one of the more respectable instances of it, and they kind of—as the kids say it—jabait you in a way.

Sidebar: I swear if The Dragon Prince becomes darker next week, I’m going to be really angry and sad. However, you won’t be hearing my thoughts on it until November 19th since I’m going to Walt Disney World again!

Actually, hang on, there’s just another small nitpick, and it’s this weird case where subtitles appear to translate text on various background objects that don’t really matter whatsoever. Well, obviously, they do matter as little details to make the world feel alive, but you know what I mean; none of it matters to the plot. Ironically, this DOESN’T occur during the one instance of actually relevant onscreen text.

Well… okay, there’s one more issue I have with the show; not really the show but its circumstances I guess. While it’s nice and all, it doesn’t do Japanese culture any favors. In this age of inclusivity in American pop culture, people seem to think that nothing exists unless observed by the American mainstream. As someone who’s read manga for ten years and studied Japanese culture directly for four, Japanese mythology is alive and well in its actual origin point: you know, Japan itself. From Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan to In/Spectre and beyond, Shinto is everywhere, much to the locals’ famous claims of not being religious. It is odd that, with how common Shinto is, most of those I.P.s fail to break through into the mainstream, with Spirited Away being the only one to have managed it. Not even Oni is mainstream; Netflix really didn’t do much to promote it at all, and I spent two years thinking production was axed by COVID.

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Final Verdict: 9.75/10

As far as representation is concerned, Oni: Thunder God’s Tale is by far the best portrayal of Japanese mythology in all of Western entertainment (at least out of what I know of). To be less hyperbolic, it’s just a really cute, amazing show that doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you wanna raise a kid who will swim outside of the mainstream, then Oni is an easy must-watch. In fact, if you’re a parent, you should probably watch it with them.

Dinkum (Early Access): A Farming Sim as Fresh as The Outback

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Gaming

One of the most contradictory genres in videogames is the farming/life sim. In theory, they are wholesome sandbox games with emphasis on relaxing and getting lost in their worlds. In practice, however, they are anything but that; instead, players must juggle massive laundry lists of daily tasks and NPC relationships with a suffocatingly tight in-game day/night cycle, all with the most punishing stamina system outside of Dark Souls. Animal Crossing in particular doesn’t quite suffer from these particular grievances, but thanks to real-world time being incorporated into gameplay, players are punished for not booting up the game EVERY SINGLE DAY, turning an escapist little world into the same stressful ritual you have to do IRL. However… one farming sim would appear in 2022, and win the hearts of thousands of users. Dinkum, while only in Early Access, is already being pegged as one of the highest rated games of the year. The reviews I’ve read seem to imply one thing: that it is, in fact, a farming sim that is ACTUALLY relaxing and quaint. I just had to know if this was true, so here we are.

In Dinkum, your customizable character notices an ad to accompany an eccentric old geezer named Fletch to an untamed land. Sensing your only opportunity to escape your dystopian life in South City, you join Fletch, and fly off to this land, seeking a better life. What awaits in the Australia-inspired wilderness?

What’s immediately noticeable about Dinkum is that it does absolutely nothing new for the genre in terms of gameplay. As a hybrid of Minecraft, Animal Crossing, and Stardew Valley, it has all the stuff you can expect. You gather resources, craft stuff, raise animals, plant crops, cook food, fight predators, bribe NPCs with presents, and try to fulfill a myriad of satisfying milestones as you do it all. There really isn’t much to say about these mechanics, since they’re more-or-less what you’d expect. The only novel thing are licenses, which are essentially your qualifications to buy and use various types of items. You spend Permit Points, earned through milestones and daily tasks shown in your journal, to obtain these Licenses. It sounds like an arbitrary gatekeeping mechanic, but I found them very satisfying to unlock over time. I’m looking forward to unlocking them all eventually. Keep in mind that the game has the time-honored tradition of setting yourself on fire if you touch a campsite.

What makes Dinkum so great is how all of these basic mechanics fit together. The most important aspect is how it handles the march of time. In-game days go about as fast as you can expect. However, here’s the real kicker. Similar to Garden Story, staying up past midnight FREEZES the in-game clock indefinitely, with the only penalty being a reduction in base stamina. Stamina, however, is much more tolerable. While it decreases in a manner similar to Stardew Valley, eating food will restore it, and unlike My Time at Sandrock, you have access to plenty of plants and cooking right out of the gate, so it’s no problem stockpiling a good amount of food. While it’s not recommended to do anything dangerous during the late night, it’s still a phenomenal security blanket for any last-minute tasks in town (even if your character looks miserable the whole time).

The other standout feature is its building mechanics. You decide the entire layout of the town, down to every single building and decoration. Right now, my town is a rinky-dink little splotch in the middle of nowhere, and I look forward to seeing it grow over time by my own hand. The building system is also intuitive and easy, plus you can relocate buildings and terraform the environment itself. 

As definitively amazing of a game Dinkum has been thus far, it’s actually tricky to recommend. After you recruit the first resident to the town, the game sets you free, which sounds great, but comes with the caveat of no more tutorials. This means you must learn how to do everything yourself. You pretty much need knowledge of games from three different genres; scratch that, it straight-up EXPECTS that knowledge. Fortunately, the brilliant design of the License mechanic is a great teacher. As you acquire licenses, new ones unlock in a logical order to introduce new mechanics organically. 

Unfortunately, there are still some early-game grievances. For starters, you can’t store most bugs and fish in crates (plus they don’t stack). Also, convincing visitors to move in permanently is an investment and a half. They only visit for one day, and since you can only do one favor a day, you’re not exactly going to win them over immediately, and have to wait until RNG decides their return. As per tradition, these guys can ask for items that are very rare or remote, plus they have specific food preferences that aren’t tracked in any way, shape or form, as far as I could tell.

Fortunately, these flaws actually feel justified ONLY in Dinkum. In fact, it might be programmed this way on purpose. Shops aren’t open 24/7, and they are always closed at least one day a week. Because of this, you can—and will—actually make mistakes in Dinkum; your only penalty is reduced efficiency. Because of how Dinkum is structured, you can actually take the time to learn its ins and outs (it took me over ten hours to learn how to grow trees). You have time to do things, or nothing if you really want to. Any frustration I felt from Dinkum was because the instincts from other games like it took over.

In any case, Dinkum wants you to take your time, so keep that in mind if you do gaming as a job, and are required to beat everything in a timely manner. Dinkum is straight-up not meant to be steamrolled through. Plants take a minimum of a week to grow, and those Permit Points don’t exactly grow on trees either. If you undertake this endeavor, you better prepare to enjoy a slow life of leisure! It’s actually quite the experience for me. Whenever I boot it up, I never really have a plan. Sure, there are goals to work towards in the long run, but because there’s no viable way to gun for those, I’m forced to take each in-game day as it comes. There’s something wonderful about it.

One of the objective flaws that I’m sure have been pointed out is that the NPCs are souless. They’re so unremarkable that they have the same EXACT text as one another. However, I kind of believe that’s a good thing. Romancing isn’t an option anyway, so why make NPCs likable enough in the first place? Also, again, the lack of depth in your relationships just removes another mountain of daily rituals that you would have otherwise had to do. Besides, is it even realistic in other games like this? All you do is grind up their favorite thing (which you generally need to find out through trial and error or a guide), and gift it to them over and over and over again, until—suddenly—they have enough of that same thing like Clark Griswold’s boss in Christmas Vacation to want to marry you. Platonic relationships are better!

Another caveat that I’m pretty sure is just unavoidable even for Dinkum is the inevitable emptiness from having nothing left to do. Eventually, you’ll be flush with cash that you have no use for, with crops and resources by the thousands that you don’t need to sell, and enough Licenses to fill a wardrobe. I’m pretty sure this will happen no matter what. The fun comes from progressing to reach that point more than anything, and it’s a journey I’m more than willing to make with Dinkum. Lemme tell you… it’s gonna be long. 

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Current Verdict: 9.65/10

Dinkum is well worth the hype and price. It’s the Animal Crossing/Stardew Valley that actually manages to be what it says on the tin. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the course of its Early Access period, and I suggest you hop aboard as well, especially if you’re sick of those other games.

Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 1 (Advanced Review): Liar, Liar, Heard you Lie Sir

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

Aaaaah… shoujo. The manga term for romantic relationships, giant sparkling eyes, and hearts being set a-flutter. Every time I read a shoujo manga, I didn’t exactly like it, including some of the household classics. Well, maybe that’ll change, thanks to Ritsu Miyako’s Usotoki Rhetoric. I was offered an advanced copy of One Peace Books’ first published volume (you know, the small team built on The Rising of the Shield Hero and a dream?), and I took it. You’ll know why once I tell you its novel premise.

In Usotoki Rhetoric, Urabe Kanako exiles herself from her rural village, because everyone hates her due to her psychic power to hear lies. In the big city, she runs into a financially unstable detective named Iwai Soma. Naturally, he has her help him solve cases so he can make fat stacks. Presumably, they’ll fall in love.

Oops, I forgot to mention the setting: Japan during the Showa Era, i.e. the 1920s. If you’re a real weeb, then Usotoki Rhetoric will feel quite interesting. People have the old-school hair and the kimonos. It also makes sense for Kananko to be discriminated against, since people would’ve been more superstitious at the time. 

Unfortunately, nothing is perfect, especially if you’re not a shoujo fan. On the bright side, the art is more tolerable than other shoujos, where characters have gems surgically implanted into their eye sockets and chins that can impale someone. However, it’s still shoujo art, trading intricacy for intimacy. The humor feels identical to literally all other shoujo manga I have ever read. There are plenty of the “person says something stupid and begets an overeaction from someone else” trope, but being a shoujo, the energy and spontaneity is toned down a lot from what I’m used to in shounen. Also, the constant running joke of Soma being poor just feels kind of unremarkable.

Furthermore, as a caveat of reviewing just the first volume, the duo already seems—as the kids say it—dummy busted. Kananko’s power is limited only to people who lie on purpose, and when dealing with criminals themselves, it’s not really that vexing. So far, they run into the perp immediately, and it’s only a matter of acting accordingly. Meanwhile, Soma is—you know—a detective. He latches onto small details and is actually more competent than his pockets would lead you to believe. As it stands, Kananko just seems to be an insurance policy.

So far, Usotoki Rhetoric is set up to be an episodic mystery series. They solve a case, and since malt shops weren’t invented yet, they just move onto the next one. They vary wildly in urgency, from attempted arson on a child to petty theft. I was hoping for a murder case, but that does not occur in this volume.

As far as characters are concerned, there are only three mainstays: Kanako, Soma, and Soma’s friend, Hanasaki (I think that was his name?). Well, if you know your shoujo, then you might as well have met them. Kanako is that weak and awkward girl who has to get used to not being hated for being unique. She starts to get more confident in this volume alone. Soma is handsome and aloof. He’s kind of a troll, and his willingness to swindle people in between cases—such as by using Kanako so he can read minds as a street performer—is supposed to juxtapose his hunkyness with some flaws. Of course, if you’re familiar with a lot of shounen and seinen, he’s still a saint by comparison to some OTHER people. 

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Current Verdict: 7.5/10

This volume of Usokoti Rhetoric lays the groundwork for what could be a decent mystery series, but that could easily fall apart if the cases don’t get complex enough. The portrayal of Showa Era Japan feels quite minimal to the point of seeming entirely irrelevant. The main characters’ relationship isn’t cringy, but I’m not exactly attached to them either. I’m sure shoujo aficionados would love Usotoki Rhetoric, but I am simply not that kind of person.

Atlas Shrugged: The Sci-Fi Dystopia Novel That’s Also a Self-Help Book

by macksamson, posted in Miscellaneous, Western Media

I have the longest story with this book. I’ve been battling serious depression over the past two years (longer than that by the time the post actually goes out) because it feels like human civilization is falling apart. Heck, you could argue it’s been happening longer than that; since the #MeToo movement in 2017, it feels like violent protests have been a way of life. Of course, 2020 set a new precedent of despair, when COVID took the world, and simple matters of health became political. That same year, George Floyd was murdered, and divided the human race amongst itself overnight. 2021 began with a terrorist attack on Capitol Hill, organized entirely by American citizens with a political agenda. At the time of writing this paragraph, Russia is invading Ukraine, laying the groundwork for World War III. To top it off, earth is being ravaged by climate change, at a rate that keeps increasing at an exponential rate despite all the efforts that have been put in to delay it. As of completing the book, Ukraine is still at war, and abortion is now illegal on a constitutional level following the result of Roe v. Wade, not to mention a spike in mass shootings.

This is where Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged comes in. I was at a point when I finally figured out how to enjoy life, but now I’m drowning in despair. I can’t begin to list the violent emotions and twisted thoughts I’ve felt. To give you an idea, my mother has considered sending me to the psych ward numerous times. After some intense discussions with her, she offered up Atlas Shrugged. According to her, it would—at the very least—expose the media and these new-fangled activists as the BS-spewers that they allegedly are. I was skeptical, but Atlas Shrugged is apparently one of the most influential novels of all time; second only to The Bible.

Atlas Shrugged, however, is massive. This is the kind of book that I can only read with the new purging of pop culture media that I have committed to. One chapter can take about an hour, and there’s a lot of chapters; over a thousand pages’ worth. I started the book in February 2022, and you’re reading this post not long after I actually finished the book. That’s how much of an investment it is.

Like any hard SF novel, completing it is a monumental task. One aspect of these kinds of books is that merely figuring out the basic premise is a headache that you’re meant to experience, and thus, it feels like discussing any aspect of the novel is spoiler territory, even though it’s super old. So… Here’s a spoiler warning then. Read on if you wish.

Right off the bat, Rand’s prose feels like what a lot of modern writers, whom I consider pretentious, try to be. A lot of Atlas Shrugged is very verbose, and at first, it feels like nothing is happening. However, unlike books such as Monogatari, I wasn’t mad. A lot of passages give you hints pertaining to the book’s worldbuilding and how characters think and feel. The writing is also very poetic, describing things metaphorically but in a way that can be understood by anyone with a basic grasp of the English language; unlike a lot of YA and light novels that vomit nonsensical similes at everything. 

You are given your first signs of how messed up the world of Atlas Shrugged is with the initial conflict centered around Taggart Transcontinental, a railroad company. The organization has always been run by Taggarts, and this generation is brother and sister James and Dagny Taggart. When one of their lines desperately needs fixing, Dagny is literally the only person to do anything about it. She orders an untested metal from a company that James doesn’t trust, while his “trusted” metals haven’t been delivered in over a year since being ordered. What jumps out is that she is the only one in the whole organization who’s proactive; everyone else, except a guy named Eddie Willers, sucks. 

The story also involves the creator of the aforementioned untested metal, Hank Rearden. He went from slaving away in the mines to owning his own steel plant, an achievement that he knows he’s damn well earned. Dagny’s order for his metal is the first big order his company has ever received. The reason for this is because everyone else is afraid to risk using it.

Right off the bat, Atlas Shrugged should resonate with just about anyone alive, especially these days. Heck, a lot of the stuff brought up in this book is stuff I’ve had internal debates about for years. I one hundred percent relate to Dagny and Hank, who feel like they’re surrounded by morons at all times. Well, I say morons, but a more literal term would be sheep; they just stick to doing what they’re told, with no drive to make anything better. This isn’t even remotely a new trope, but in Atlas Shrugged, it feels more grounded and real. Every writer and their grandma these days would chalk this up to how humans are wired to behave and there’s nothing we can do about it. Good ol’ Ayn Rand, however, presents this behavior as an unnatural, conscious choice that most people—unfortunately—decide to make. 

Words cannot describe just how vindicating Atlas Shrugged is. Every other scene, there’s something that feels like Rand literally wrote for me specifically. The inane ignoramity (professional term) of mankind feels like every day of my life since Donald Trump ran for President. On a side note, Atlas Shrugged is significantly easier to digest than what I thought going in. It’s lengthy, sure, but the actual content of the book is incredibly straightforward. If you could get through crap like Of Mice and Men in high school, then Atlas Shrugged will be no problem.

The plot starts off in earnest at the end of part one. Dagny and Hank go on a road trip and stumble upon a mysterious machine, abandoned in a junk heap in an equally abandoned factory. Turns out that this device, if seen through to the end, would literally solve all of humanity’s energy problems and save the world. However, its creator is unaccounted for, and she scrambles to find that creator or reverse engineer the machine, all while surviving the ignorant world she lives in. Survival is not easy, especially when the few smart people that remain start abandoning their businesses unannounced.

Of course, you could look at the publication year saying “1957” and chalk Atlas Shrugged up for yet another McCarthy-ist novel written during the Red Scare. The thing is, due to everything discussed up to this point, I would’ve never guessed this was a Red Scare book because it sure didn’t feel like it at all. Despite the difference in eras, I could attribute so much more about Atlas Shrugged to real life in this day and age than any other cyberpunk I’ve ever experienced. However, the fact that Atlas Shrugged feels even more relevant than it did at the time isn’t exactly a good thing.

If you couldn’t tell, Atlas Shrugged is meant to have only two likable characters, and they are Dagny and Hank. Let’s talk about Hank first, since I’m saving the best for last. He loves his career with Rearden Metal, especially more than the stupid people he’s surrounded by, including his stupid wife. He doesn’t let other people’s thoughts get in his way, including those in the media. It’s ironic that someone who cares so little about people contributes more to their lives than most… or at least he would be if there weren’t politically correct idiots trying to ruin his business.

Meanwhile, Dagny… ho-hoh boy, lemme tell you. I daresay that she is the Best Girl in all classic literature. She’s like Hank in not caring, only better. Her proactive personality feels so modern compared to any other character of classic literature. Dagny is unimaginably badass, and if you told me that girls like Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind or anyone from Little Women were better, I would absolutely not believe you. 

Among these two awesome protagonists whom you’re meant to love, and these wingnuts that you’re meant to hate, there is an anomaly named Francisco d’Anconia. You could argue he’s the main villain of the book, despite him definitely not being an ignoramus like the rest of mankind. He has iconic and inspirational moments that feel amazing, like he really understands how life works, yet he seems to be working against the human race with most of his actions. I’d say he’s the extreme end of Dagny and Hank’s personalities, but at the same time, he could just be a massive troll.

If there are any flaws in the book’s writing, it’s that I always had trouble telling where anyone was in 3D space. The dialogue is the heart and soul of Atlas Shrugged, and it’s so easy to get absorbed in it that they can seemingly teleport to another location. You could also argue that some of the big long passages that convey the book’s themes get redundant (including a seventy page speech that is more-or-less a summation of all the themes explored), but the way Rand thinks is so unconventional, that you kind of need to see it multiple times to really process the full weight of her words.

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Final Verdict: 10/10

Why does anyone bother with any classic literature other than Atlas Shrugged? I’ve read crummy books with blurbs that say “I’ll be thinking about these themes for a long time”, but Atlas Shrugged is the first time I truly feel that way about a book. It’s so insane that—scratch that—it’s saner than almost anything else out there. If Ayn Rand wrote and published it today, it would get canceled ten times over. Heck, the FBI would’ve personally hunted her down. Atlas Shrugged would be considered by many to be pure evil, and that’s precisely why it’s a must-read. Just keep in mind that it will not give you hope for mankind; it’s only meant to give you hope for yourself.