Been bingbonging around as always, and topped off a few surprising and maybe controversial moments of grittiness with some equally surprising little joys to take the edge off of impending US christofascism. I found the latter part (underworld) segment of Dragon Quest III HD-Tooie (and probably just regular Dragon Quest III) not very good. After having a great time boppin around the map looking at stuff, the last leg of what was previously a very digestible fairy tale becomes the Saga of a Million MacGuffins out of nowhere – we used to need orbs, but shit has changed and now we’re gonna need some stones, we gotta play a flute on a tower but first you will need a couple staves. Ay, gotta get that crest (I think?). There’s an amulet in there too, and nevermind the orbs, we gotta have a sphere for the new guy. Still a classic and the underworld is contextually important in video game history, but I’d have been cool with the game ending in the regular world. I have no idea what happened after we went underground so I didn’t get much out of it.
I also must confess that I don’t like Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Played all the way through all of the 2D Castlevanias but three or so in the past five years, but hadn’t touched this one even when it was new, and I was most looking forward to it (mostly because of the beautiful Masaki Hirooka art). I’m at Dracula’s doorstep because I can only do a little at a time as I reckon with the reality that I don’t like being here. I’m not saying Ecclesia is a bad game, far from it; it’s probably a very good game. But it is a game that exists strictly and exclusively for Castlevania sickos capable of and interested in performing high-level play, which I can’t get down with. I know there are all kinds of super satisfying synergies and rewards for that high-level play buried in there, and it’s of course OK for games to exist solely in that space. But when those games don’t bake in avenues for any other players to enjoy the experience on any other level of play, I can only respect the game, I cannot enjoy the game. Shortly: this game is dumb hard, all the time, everywhere. Enemy placement is the main issue, with a constant feeling of being a terminal pinball – dodge this thing, get hit by other thing, slide under thing, get hit by other thing, backstep danger into other danger. It’s relentless, and it pairs with extremely limited magic stock that strangles the experimentation it wants you to do. This all feels like rather than scaling in such a way that decent players can at least get by making decent choices, it rewards perfection and only perfection, which makes for a game the constantly makes me feel bad. I’m excited to put it to bed.
On the more joyous notes, living in the United States feels so bad and hopeless that I’ve been taking some long-weekend comfort in video games from earlier in the 2000s. Took a fat edible and played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) for the first time since my roommate had an Xbox 360 and I bought it for like $10 at Game Dude in North Hollywood. God, it’s charming. Kind of the last vestige of a time when high Western fantasy was unselfconsciously dorky. People would see this and yell “neeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrd” at it. Feels like the domain of chainsmokers in a local comic book shop with black painted nails playing D&D during business hours. I think the caverns and dungeons and stuff – still feeling that Ultima in the DNA, says man who has watched YouTube videos of Ultima – are still very pretty.
I also did some Red Faction: Guerilla (2009) today, because you earn points for beating fascists with a sledgehammer. That is the whole game, conceptually. It’s got a great remaster and is a wonderful thing to snack on, one potato chip at a time. The map gives you just enough activity dots, like a shoebox diorama version of an Ubisoft game, and the thematic wrapper makes the satisfying physics – which are like the dream uber-game of a child of the '90s, realized in the future of 2009 and nary iterated upon – spiritually satisfying too.
Then, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (2008) on the Nintendo DS. While I’ve played many many Final Fantasies, I’ve never touched a Tactics since renting it on the PlayStation at a friend’s house. Having wrapped Dragon Quest and Metaphor (it stuck the landing), I was wanting a JRPG (always need one) and yearning for the Nintendo DS. I play this on the chartreuse Japanese DSi waiting for the kettle to warm or just pacing around the house and I experience delight. Some of the UI feels like a strange oversight (why is comparing equipment and giving supplies to the bazaar for item development so mystifying?) and who knows when I’ll hit a strategic brick wall, but lord, the format of taking on all these mini-missions to develop my little band of heathens so I can do more mini-missions is what I need in my life right now. We strayed from god’s light when we left the Nintendo DS behind.
Late last night into the early morning, I also wrapped up Before the Green Moon, which is not from the first decade of the 2000s. I got to the very end earlier this year, and left it hanging for no reason despite loving every piece of it deeply, so in my drive to put a bow on a lot of games with my free time, I decided to end it in a way that didn’t line up with my original vision (the game only ends after you buy a ticket to the moon and leave, which is a process you can expedite or delay at will). Deciding to make a sloppy exit from a tenuous community among friends simply because it’s time to go makes an inevitably sad ending even more real in an unpretentious way, which is, I realize, kind of how the whole game operates. Whatever the opposite of “ludonarrative dissonance,” if that’s real, is, it is probably Before the Green Moon. Player choice is never a dialogue tree; it’s things like who you spend your limited time with, or letting your favorite chicken go because food isn’t in the budget (with no fanfare or cutscene, just you doing the action and sitting with it). I knew how brilliant it was when I decided that before I left, I would stand in an old friend’s house (now gone) to say “goodbye” like a little prayer, like people do, and the game was prepared for that, it had something nice to offer in that situation. It’s a gorgeously written and subtly executed thing all the way through.
Most importantly, expressing my love for Resident Evil 6 was one of the firsts posts I made on Insert Credit around 2021. That game is a party, stuffed, frozen and reheated like a jalapeno popper, fully processed and generous with its favors. Nothing changes.
