#does so much storytelling and character work in such a little space it's so *elegant* writing-wise

[vaguely-concerned]

the way all of anders' battle dialogue in da2 sounds stressed out right to the brink of hysteria is something that can actually be so personal. it's the real healer experience. anders you're herding moths constantly trying to launch themselves at any passing bonfire with your whole chest and your whole heart and you are so valid

#you can hear him all but tearing his hair out as he flits between them to get them back on their feet fhsdkjfa #obviously this is exactly what lands him in a fucking world of trouble but anders truly does just care so much at all times #dragon age #dragon age 2 #anders #for real tho the battle dialogue in DA2 is phenomenal in general #it's so in-character and so emotional -- it makes it feel so real for them to have all these ways to react to each other getting hurt #they're friends not an army! they react as if their friend or their sibling just went down in front of them! #(except fenris who delivers all his lines with the sort of dry absentmindedness you'd use for commenting on the weather #and we love him for that) #carver gets super small and scared when he gets injuries and lashes out at you because of it but he's just. afraid. #he just wants his big brother/sister to fix it and it makes him sound so young and vulnerable under the surliness ;____; #also there's so many -- and I cannot stress this enough -- EXTREMELY funny lines in there #it's the sort of detail work I'm kind of sad inquisition left behind #tho I DO understand why it's not a thing you can feasibly do when you have permutations of like nine different companions lol #but the mixed horror and disbelief whenever aveline or hawke go down -- like they are universal constants to the rest of them....... #does so much storytelling and character work in such a little space it's so *elegant* writing-wise

[dreaminpetals]

hope this isn't too specific but if possible can you do ronald of ness norton sfw/nsfw hcs? ♥︎

🎩 ronald of ness ー sfw & nsfw hcs

SFW ;;

♡ going off the atropos ropes event, ronald of ness has the personality of a commoner but lives his life disguised as a snobby noble. he hates how high and mighty nobles act and only makes pleasantries with those fools for the money and connections.

♡ from the way he holds his teacups to his posh vocabulary, everyone would assume he was a noble born and bred. yet when ronald is alone he's like a mole who lives in the dirt. all about vulgar speech and being unkempt; feral.

♡ he values wealth and status above all, likely because he grew up poor. so he's going to want to spend his life with someone from a good family that has their pockets lined with gold.

♡ his ideal s/o is a noble who doesn't act like a noble, so he has little to no experience in romance. nobody meets his extraordinary standards for a lover. he isn't one for flings and flirty interactions with strangers, he wants to settle down with someone who accepts him for who he is and can give him a comfortable life. he views his inner circle as shallow snobs who aren't worth his time so i doubt he'd be interested in dating someone from there.

♡ he's a hopeless romantic until he meets you.

♡ his first time meeting you was during one of his performances and you nearly stole the breath from his lungs as he belted out his lines.

♡ he's all about appearances. spotting you in the front row lead to him falling for you on the spot. your shimmering jewellery combined with your formal attire and extravagant hair had this man imagining a married life with you before you spoke your first words together.

♡ as if your looks weren't enough, he saw you guide a lost child back to their parents and didn't let them pay you when you returned their kid. you didn't care about the money, just the safety of others. he likes a selfless person to compliment how greedy he can be sometimes.

♡ ronald is a smooth talker. once the curtains fall he'll kiss your hand as you're gathering your bags and invite you backstage, eager to show you all the trophies that line the shelves of his dressing room. if you listen to him boast about his accomplishments then he'll never let you go.

♡ he finds you as radiant as the sun, you're a noble who's bent on supporting others financially but doesn't brag about it. it's just second nature to you. you handed him a tip worth a couple thousand dollars because of how enjoyable his performance was, which he used to reserve an elegant dinner date for you two.

♡ he feels so stiff around you at first because he fell in love with you before getting to know you. on your first date however, he learns about how you grew up poor just like him and sees you're more similar than he initially thought.

♡ although you know table manners, the way you eat in front of ronald is the same way you'd eat while having dinner at home. every laidback ministration of yours goes straight to his ice cold heart, the glaciers melting as he falls for you harder and harder.

♡ as a boyfriend, ronald of ness is... extreme. he burns thousands of dollars on you everyday. he never simmers down about how you're his entire world, he kisses you with vigor every time you enter or exit a room he's in. he's an arrogant romantic who's constantly spoiling you.

♡ he'll buy you the entire galaxy if you ask. lavish jewellery, a swim with dolphins, a yacht, backstage tickets to all of his shows. anything you wish for, he's delivering it wrapped in gold ribbons.

♡ the house you live together in? that's a castle.

♡ the bed he bought you was made for affectionate nights. his idea of a perfect cuddling session is you reading separate books snuggled up to one another. dozens of pillows and warm blankets keep you company when ronald is away, his scent still lingering on the fabric.

♡ ronald is a storyteller, so he'd love to read to you as you snuggle. he can do super convincing accents that always draw out giggles from you.

♡ he can be a bit hotheaded and jump to conclusions. if you aren't thrilled about a gift he buys you, he might take it personally and it'll wound his pride. if you're unhappy with one aspect of him the walls come tumbling down and he thinks you won't love him anymore.

♡ words of reaffirmation are how you can most effectively communicate your love to him. praise him and be there for him when he has episodes of extreme rage or sorrow.

♡ act casual with him. he'll know you love him if you plop your feet up on a nearby table or burp or something. hearing you make risqué jokes or swear when you stub your toe grounds him in reality.

♡ he doesn't like enclosed spaces or indoor areas much (ronald was never a miner so there's no accident, but norton's claustrophobia does carry over to all his skins.. a universal constant) so his favourite dates are exotic beaches or sprawling fields of flowers. he'll take you to a five star resort and give a toast to your eternal love as you clink your glasses together.

NSFW ;;

♡ this man is the most reckless spender to ever exist, so he's probably blown thousands on love hotel rooms, toys, and lingerie for both of you.

♡ he wants to be praised. no, needs to be praised. as an actor, ronald of ness' ego is maintained by critics worshipping him and his fans obsessing over his every move. when he isn't being showered in compliments his insecurities kick in and he starts to feel washed up, so he's developed quite the praise kink.

♡ tell him he's the sexiest man you've ever laid eyes on, that he makes you horny, and that nobody can fuck you like he can. every word you sing goes straight to his dick, especially since he knows you're being sincere and aren't acting.

♡ if you tell him that you've masturbated to one his performances before, his cock would ache from how badly he needed you. the idea of his love watching him perform and needing to touch themselves to his work drives him absolutely mad with lust. it doesn't just turn him on, it makes him feel a bit soft that you enjoy his acting and watch it in your free time too.

♡ he'll take you backstage in his dressing room every time you watch him perform. after a successful performance, there's no better way to reward him than deepthroating him in front of his vanity.

♡ huge voyeurism kink!!! let him jerk off for you. please. he does such a good job of exaggerating his moans and bucking his dripping cock into his hand, his hips shaking below him as he strokes himself. when he feels your eyes burning into his skin he couldn't stifle his whimpers even if he wanted to.

♡ loves being the center of attention. when he gives you oral, he demands for you to look at him as his nails dig into your thighs and his tongue licks you to euphoria. say his name if you want to feel him gasp with you in his mouth, he loves hearing his name drip from your lips like honey.

♡ he has a heavy oral fixation in general. when you're sucking his dick it feels like the spotlight is on him and he eats it up, not even trying to muffle his moans and grunts. the most vocal partner you could ask for, he can't help but hang his head back and let loose as you work your magic on him.

♡ swears like a sailor. the string of curses that you pull from ronald in his husky voice never fail to send you into a daze. if only the cameramen and supporting actors could see just how vulgar ronald is when he comes undone! they would chalk it up to a stunt double. "fuck, you take me so fucking well," being hissed into his lover's ear is the last thing they'd expect to hear from him.

♡ such a heavy breather. the way his chest rises and falls erratically with every pant makes waves of electricity pool in your lower stomach. when he tries to hiss out your name but can't catch his breath because he's so overwhelmed... goosebumps.

♡ ronald can afford to make a mess. literally. he's willing to break furniture as he rams into you, it's happened before. he can be very, uh, passionate.

♡ expect lots of roleplaying scenarios from him. ronald has starred in plenty of romantic productions, and he'd be lying if he wasn't turned on by some of the scenes he's filmed. two detectives getting dirty on a desk? you've done that. two soulmates reuniting on the train and not being able to wait to make love? yep, that too. he wants to share his wildest fantasies with you, and is open to trying anything you want.

♡ comment on how you like certain outfits or professions and when you come home after a long day you'll receive a surprise. ronald will be dressed in a uniform you fawned over, acting perfectly in character and ready to please you for the rest of the night.

♡ he'll take on any role you like, whether it's a bottom or a top. just ask. ronald leans towards a top but if you want to penetrate him or take the reins, he's excited to sit back and let you claim him.

♡ loves sex the morning after too. when you wake up with a bedhead and your skin is covered with nothing but blankets. he'd love to have a super tender session in the morning when you're both at your most vulnerable. the smiles he leaves on your skin whenever you yawn or stretch are contagious.

♡ ronald can thrive with elaborate, planned sex or just you two kissing in bed and things escalating from there. he loves the tenderness, and he loves having a muse to reenact his dreams and fantasies with.

#norton campbell smut #norton campbell x reader #idv x reader #norton campbell

[heinzpilsnergonewild]

Vegeta’s Character Analysis Looooooooooong Read

Oh my, what can I say? I just really love to write long essays in a language that isn’t even native to me, lol.

Well, nobody’s perfect, I guess. ... Were you expecting a Cell joke here? I may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean I have to be that predictable.

Ahem, anyway.

This isn't exactly a psychological analysis of the character - more like, hmm, a storytelling analysis. Or something in between, really.

You may not find anything fundamentally new in this text, but I definitely had fun writing it, haha.

It's mostly amateur. I have a useless psychology degree, but not a literature one.

My classic rant about vegebul fics is included, of course.

Summary: proper psychological analysis requires a single continuous personality, which Vegeta simply doesn’t have.

The more I think about Vegeta, the more I come to the conclusion that he is only pretending to be a consistently evolving character.

In fact, he's a bit like 10 different characters in one, which abruptly replace each other (and that's without considering the difference caused by the voice actors’ approach and the changes in his looks). Essentially, Vegeta's a collection of disparate images, arbitrarily lined up by Toriyama and hastily glued together. And the beginning of this line is so far from the end of it that these two extreme images cannot be perceived as belonging to the same person. Well, because human psychology just doesn't work that way.

(Not that Vegeta is unique in this respect – it’s a common feature of characters in long stories that authors compose as they write. Still, his case is quite extreme and interesting as example.)

I mean, take Vegeta in the Saiyan or the Namek arc. He's a complete psychopath. He clearly doesn’t suffer at heart from the unnecessary violence (as, for example, Guts from Berserk). His behavior looks like something natural for him, not an unhealthy defensive reaction. He enjoys it, he smiles happily, killing and torturing weak innocent people. And such a degree of psychopathy is not something that can be healed by a couple of deep personality crises or years of peaceful family life. Vegeta's redemption arc works through strong emotional impact and forgetfulness of the audience, but makes very little sense when viewed in retrospect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps the biggest, hmm, splitting of the personality occurred with Vegeta right after the Namek arc. Toriyama had already made a small retcon of the character’s motives before (to include Vegeta in the context of the Freeza army after the Saiyan arc), but it didn't feel that drastic.

You see, until Vegeta was invited to Bulma’s house…..

(Gosh, Toriyama, you could’ve done it more subtly, really. Vegeta killed Yamcha, threatened to kill Bulma, gutted Zarbon in front of her eyes, slaughtered an entire Namekian village... Oh well.)

…Ahem, anyway, right up to Bulma's invitation, Vegeta looked to me like a character who, hmm, has a life of his own? I mean, you have always felt that his motives and behavior were generated by the bizarre social system, not related to the little world of Goku and his friends. Simply put, Vegeta was a natural product of the big space civilization, an organic part of it. His whole personality was formed by it, all his plans, motivation and ambitions were associated with it. And although in the Saiyan arc, he gave the impression of an independent entrepreneurial chief at the head of a small hierarchy, in the Namek arc it was revealed that Vegeta is actually far from independent. He lost his throne and his people, he was in slavery to the tyrant all his life, and wants to take power for himself. So, his social background and the motives caused by it post factum get much more complex. But in short, Vegeta wanted a highest possible position in the hierarchy he knew. In this way, he was… social? His belonging to the Saiyan race was only a small (although important) part of the overall picture. Because the Saiyans were dead, but the Freeza Empire was alive.

But when Toriyama realized Vegeta's popularity and decided to keep him in the story after Namek, it came as a blow to the character's personality. Apparently, the author simply couldn't come up with an elegant way that could keep the character in all its complexity around, and therefore did a very clumsy thing. He roughly cut Vegeta out of his social context and almost forcibly glued him to the main character group like a poorly done appliqué. But although you see rough edges and glue drips, the story moves on rapidly, distracting you with Freeza and Future Trunks, and you don't stop to think about what happened. This is how, almost imperceptibly, Toriyama changed Vegeta's motives (and, consequently, the basis of his personality). Yes, Vegeta's saiyan pride was also significant part of his character previously, but when it became his sole and central motivation after Namek, you feel like a very big and important piece of him has been arbitrarily cut off. This wouldn't have happened if Toriyama had followed the logic of previously established social motives, rather than his desire to make Vegeta a convenient figure. Now, bound hand and foot by the author, the character is forced to behave as the plot requires.

Still, all this can be justified by the fact that Vegeta experienced a deep emotional shock as a result of death, which forced him to rethink his life priorities and wait for Goku (especially in the manga, where he just lived with Bulma for a whole year after Namek, without even trying to use dragonballs) ... And then he waited for the androids (despite the final death of Freeza and his father, which was an excellent chance to try to take over the decapitated empire). Anyway, this rationalization doesn't negate the fact that the character, as a result, has lost a significant part of the fire that he demonstrated in the Namek arc. His new energy, the energy of obsession with surpassing Goku, turns him into a new character – bitter, marginalized and focused on training.

(Ironically, the very splitting that made him a less attractive character in my eyes allowed vegebul to take place. After all, imagining the romantic relationship of the nice Bulma and Vegeta at the height of his villainous ambition is really difficult. That just would be a psychologically implausible story.)

In the Android and Cell arcs, after brief glimpses of the SSJ superiority, Toriyama turned Vegeta into a plot tool, whose personality flaws he could use to spoil the situation favorable for the heroes. As a result, Vegeta continued to be an angry and unhappy character who has lost most of his charisma, but on top of that, he also started to be really annoying. ... Still, also kinda amusing thanks to his truly impressive inability to draw obvious conclusions from the ego bruises he gets.

(If you ask me, the character's biggest contribution to the Cell arc was to ignore the existence of condoms, lol. Although strictly speaking even it was an achievement of Future Vegeta (RIP). But seriously, Vegeta's relationship with Trunks turned out to be one of the few things that I was really interested in about this part of the story.)

And then there was Goku’s death and the 7-year-gap. ... At the end of which Vegeta still didn't look like a happy man who has found his place in the world. Even though he had seven whole years (and a spaceship) to change something. I mean, this is the case when it'd be logical to expect changes in the character, but for some reason they didn't really happen (or they did, but veeery quietly and unstable). I mean, Vegeta trains with Trunks, yes. And he's married to Bulma now, apparently (which we learn only at the end of the arc though). And he hasn’t killed himself yet, which means that he sees some meaning in his existence. Hurray, I guess?.. The problem is that when we first see Vegeta after the timeskip, he keeps walking around with such a sullen expression, as if Goku had died just yesterday. (Remember Vegeta in the Saiyan arc? He smiled quite often. For the wrong reasons, but hey.) Basically, Toriyama tried to sit on two chairs at the same time here - 1) keep Vegeta as recognizable as possible (because he hasn't decided what to do with him yet) and 2) keep him around (which doesn't make sense for the character if he hasn't undergone significant changes during the timeskip). And the result of this hesitant approach is an undesirable effect - it feels as if Vegeta hasn't built a new life for himself all these years, but only waited for Goku to return.

As if the man is unable to evolve without Goku's influence. Until Kakarot does or says something, or is just around, everyone else in Vegeta's life and his own reflection has little or no meaning. Old social ambitions? His wife and child? New insights gained from life on Earth? Pffft. Goku is able to destroy the seven years’ worth progress (no matter how small it may seem) in one day, and at the same time, one fight with him is enough for Vegeta's character development to jump forward explosively. It sounds like a solid ground for shipping, but In fact it’s just a direct consequence of the author's poorly chosen narrative structure.

The thing is, Toriyama tend to avoid romance and slices of life, and shows Vegeta's personality mainly through fights and their consequences. And at the time Goku just turned out to be the only significant character for Vegeta, the fight against whom could be used as an excuse to develop the character in front of the audience. Well, Toriyama couldn't get Vegeta to fight Bulma or himself, you know.

I believe that the plot structure chosen by the author (rapidly changing action events immediately after a long timeskip) is not a very good basis for a redemption arc. For a good redemption, a character had to have screen time during which small changes accumulate gradually, between the big points. And Vegeta simply didn't have it. Besides, the scheme by which Vegeta develops is really messy. Because at first, Toriyama kinda froze his development at the neutral point (thereby partially devaluing the influence of Vegeta's family on him). Then in one moment, the author abruptly reversed even this the-end-of-the-Cell-arc development with Majin Vegeta (this time completely devaluing the family factor, because the betrayal was Vegeta’s conscious decision). God, how I hated the Majin Vegeta idea. And in the next scene, the author made a quick retcon, which gave the family’s influence the status of a ground for Vegeta’s personal growth again for no apparent reason. It's as if a huge bundle of family values was post factum squeezed into the character in defiance of everything that we just saw with our own eyes. This is a complete narrative mess.

But... oddly enough, Vegeta's redemption still manages to work, and work spectacularly. My guess is that it's because by that time the audience is already SO sick of Vegeta, frozen in his bitter anti-heroism, that it desperately wants the author to finally do something new with the miserable guy. Well, at least get him out of his misery. So people are willing to accept it in any possible form.

... And the author chose the form of a powerful emotional catharsis. The explosion was legendary, haha.

I don't even know if this is a good reason to call Toriyama a genius (after all, he found a very clever way out of a difficult situation, in which he found himself thanks to his own bad decisions.)

The only thing I'm sure of is that despite everything I was very sad because of Vegeta's death. I didn't even realize that I had become emotionally attached to this asshole until he made such a spectacular exit, lol. As if something had broken inside of me, and all the analyticity of my mind couldn’t prevent it. I was surprised when I found myself crying really hard - usually my emotions don't reach this level due to fictional stories. (Well, maybe it was due to the fact that my own father was dying of cancer at that time, and the moment just triggered my emotions. ... Oops, it seems a little too personal, doesn't it? Well, at the end of the day, this fact is an integral part of my unique dbz experience. Come to think of it, in dbz, fathers die regularly).

But while this scene greatly affects emotions and forces a new viewer (or reader) to truly reconsider their attitude towards the character for the first time, the absence of a neat gradual movement towards this moment weakens its influence somewhat.

At this point, Vegeta’s character splits once again (perhaps the last time within DBZ). You simply cease to understand who this man really is and who he was before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, when I look at all the images of Vegeta in general, I come to the conclusion that I like this character the most in the first two arcs and in the end of the last arc. Two directly opposite moral poles.

(Funny enough, because my initial reaction to Vegeta and Nappa was annoyance: "Well hello, the next stereotypical villains who like to chat and laugh maliciously instead of simply killing their victims." (Still, against the background of Freeza, Vegeta turned out to be a much lesser evil in every sense, haha). You see, usually I'm not a person who likes villains. Basically, I only distinguish such characters from others as a result of romance or redemption. It’s only after that I begin to see aesthetics in their villainous charisma as well.)

And now, in retrospective, I believe that at the beginning of the story Vegeta is at the maximum of his vitality and charisma. Especially compared to his ever-crisis moody version (who supposedly lives happily with a loving family). In the Saiyan arc, he's objectively the most powerful character (Freeza didn’t even exist in Toriyama's head at the time). Vegeta is domineering, playful and unpredictable, but most importantly - his self-confidence is fully justified. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. He's really in control. These are, if I may say so, quite exciting qualities in a man, haha. Even if he looks like an evil dwarf in stupid armor and bullies some weaklings. I'd even say his demeanor in the Saiyan arc (especially with the voice of early Horikawa) is suspiciously easy to translate into a sexual context (well, until he loses control and gets hysterical, lol).

The Namek arc, placing Vegeta in a broader context, somewhat spoiled his original image (after all the big words, it turned out that he was running errands for Freeza all this time), but gave him a more interesting background and a strong drive. He had ambitions and a socially significant goal, and he actively and passionately fought for them against a clearly superior enemy. In addition, his inability to defeat Freeza by brute force forced him to use his brains from time to time, and not just pull another power up out of his ass, as is now traditionally done in DragonBall. (Needless to say, I consider high intelligence to be one of the most attractive traits). All this made his position in the plot as interesting as possible. He literally sparkled with energy.

Well, we know what happened next. Brain Death, an eternal chase after Goku, and an off-screen family life on a backwater planet that Vegeta is supposedly happy with. Until he suddenly became a really beautiful character without a proper justification for this (well, at least the explosion was spectacular). Really, I like the general concept of redemption, and yet... the way Toriyama portrays it in the story just doesn't work convincingly enough for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another point I’d like to cover in this already too long essay ahhh I'm a monster is Vegeta’s personality in fanfiction.

Reproducing (?) Vegeta is a bit like playing with a lego set - his personality and behavior is always the result of a conscious reconstruction, which is based around a specific point on the long contradictory line. Depending on which end of the spectrum the chosen point is, the author is forced to shade facts related to the opposite end, or to give new context to Vegeta's past (or future) actions. It's always noticeable when the author extends the later, sympathetic Vegeta's image to an earlier segment of the story. Apparently, it's possible to kill the person who raised you (with an evil smile on your face) just because the situation was too stressful lol. Likewise, when the authors allow Vegeta to remain a charismatic psychopath, the story wouldn't work without ignoring some parts of the later canon.

(And, of course, there is always a "medium" type of Vegeta - Vegeta from the 3-year-gap, whose personality is almost entirely based on anime fillers. Yay, here comes the promised vegebul rant

Honestly, I'm pretty tired of this "gravity room exploded again woman grrr" type of Vegeta.

Because if you take the manga, we have no idea how Vegeta actually behaved with Bulma and her parents, what his training regimen was, and what he did in his free time besides unprotected sex. People elevate his rudeness and irrational self-torturing to the absolute because of all these filler patterns, but this is just one of the possible versions of the events and the character's behavior during this time (albeit partly canonical). But... there are also alternatives. There are smart Vegeta, curious Vegeta, civilized Vegeta. Honestly - I don't think Bulma would've married him later if there was nothing in his personality that’d make communication with him enjoyable. I mean, she's a rich modern woman, she doesn't need a husband just for convenience and Vegeta is a marginal freeloader anyway. And if we subtract good looks (which people often attribute to Vegeta) from the equation, then the idea that he has no interest in anything other than training and cannot maintain an interesting conversation becomes completely unconvincing. Toriyama clearly didn't attach much importance to the fact of their marriage, and generally avoided romantic scenes as if they were on fire (and, perhaps, did the right thing), but these two just had to be capable of adequate and mutually pleasant personal interaction in order to take this step.

In general, Toriyama's lack of attention to most aspects of the characters' lives other than fighting and training, on the one hand, can be considered a drawback of DBZ, but on the other, it creates a lot of room for fans' imagination. But not everyone uses it. Most authors generally repeat the same tropes over and over again and don't try to look at the three-year-gap from a new angle, although the canon provides all the possibilities for this. Because of this, fics in this genre often seem boring. But in fact, it's not the setting itself that is boring, but only dusty formulas in the heads of the authors.)

Ahem, so where were we?.. Oh yes.

Actually, Vegeta's inconsistency is a very handy character trait for the authors, as it minimizes the chance of accidental OOC. Indeed, it's quite difficult to make someone to behave out of character if he has many different canon versions of himself, lol. On the other hand, this leads to the fact that the character seems to... kinda disintegrate. You never see his whole face, because he simply doesn't have it. As a result, Vegeta turns into a mosaic that must be reassembled each time. And I keep staring at this crazy kaleidoscope like an idiot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, that's... quite a lot of contradictions in my relationship to Vegeta, haha. Still, life without contradictions would be somewhat boring, I guess.

Thanks for your attention I suppose?..... lol, as if someone really got to this point

The End.

P.S. 1: The antisocial version of Vegeta who doesn't understand stupid human rituals and hates crowds, but puts up with it for the sake of his family is my spirit animal, haha. This is just so damn relatable to my autistic personality. Maybe I'm an alien myself.

P.S. 2: Actually, my favorite dbz character is Piccolo. Yep.

#vegeta #it's really long #3260 words kind of long

[neoniverse]

heal me. | chapter III

disclaimer: this series is a work of fiction. any businesses, events or incidents are products of my wide imagination. all of the character’s personality does not reflect and has nothing to do in real life.

warnings: smut, angst, usage of strong language, mentions of death, alcohol & drugs, cheating issues and lots of flashbacks (read each chapter carefully)

pairings: jung jaehyun x reader

a/n: i want to thank y’all for sending me messages regarding this series, i’m so overwhelmed with the support i’m receiving. :( heal me is ending in four more chapters so the next update might take long to write again for i will write the last chapters longer than the usual. again, thank you sooooo much :’( 

song association: storm - ruelle

« CHAPTER II / CHAPTER IV »

“You’re taking my heart, by storm

I’m lost in your love.”

The cold breeze of the whole fancy floor embraced a minimal exposed skin of my shoulder, allowing me to fix my white fur shawl to its place. I make my way down the carpeted hallway, knees quivering, and my heart in my throat thumping an unusual differing beat.

I am going to have a dinner with Taeyong Lee, and I don’t even like eating dinner—not to a place like this. But he kept on insisting earlier so I had to accept his offer.

“Bonsoir. Réservation pour Lee,” Taeyong pleasingly said to the lady in the desk, her hair was styled in a neat bun.

“Par ici, Monsieur.”

Another woman escorted us to a private room. Everything inside the restaurant shimmers, screams elegance, and luxuriance. I feel like a mere outsider, knowing that the man walking casually beside me is known to be really well off.

When we arrived at the dining room, the plates were already set. As if it forethought that there will be two people dining in. Taeyong pulled the chair so I could sit. He sat in front of me afterwards.

“So, are you Jaehyun’s girlfriend or ex-girlfriend?”

Taeyong randomly asked before putting the spoon inside his mouth. Just as I was about to swallow, he drifted his dark brown eyes to mine—making me choke on the food.

He forthwith poured water on the tall drinking glass; I immediately drank from it, hand over the chest.

He smirked. “Sorry. Based on your reaction, I really think you’re damn indeed my brother’s girlfriend.”

I shook my head miserably and smiled. Taeyong is softer and light to talk to than his brother. Though he immensely intimidates my soul; those dark stares, brow raise and playful grin is really something.

“What made you jump to that?” I asked him while my eyes were on the utensils I’m holding.

He went silent for a moment, giving me his infamous stare. I gave him back a look and felt my face heated so bad.

“Oh—holy shit,” He cursed softly. “You’re the one from Johnny’s house party two years ago!”

I tried to hide my smile but then, failed. Taeyong put his utensils down to hold his chin, as if enthralling.

“May I also ask now?”

He leaned back. “Yeah, sure. As what you are allowed to do so, gorgeous.”

I remained silent for a couple of seconds, thinking of the question that has been bothering me since the day I met him.

“If Jaehyun is your brother, how come you’re not a Jung?”

His brow shot up and fixes me with his dark stare. Oh, God. Did I, in any way, offend him? His mouth quirks up, and he stares quietly. If I tell you I was terrified, I do mean it.

“I—I didn’t mean to uhm, nevermind. You don’t need to ans-”

“Well, he’s my half-brother,” His lips curls in a wry smile then continues. “Father introduced him to me when we were eight. And I know what you’re thinking. I don’t hate him, Y/N. Jaehyun being my half-bro, and hating him for that is just so shallow and childish. But of course, I did hate him when we were little ones but he ended up becoming my best friend.”

I felt bad.

“I’m sorry for asking such an insensitive question,” I muttered.

Taeyong slightly shook his head sideways and proceeded to eat. He even joked about something that made me laugh. After the fancy dinner, he drove me back to the hotel I was staying at, and apparently, he was also staying there.

“When will you go back to Korea?” He asked before sitting on the solo sofa inside my hotel room. I insisted him to stay for a while.

“The day after next,” I sighed. “I have plenty of works to do.” I answered and dropped my white fur shawl on the edge of the bed.

“There is something about you that keeps me intrigued, Y/N.” He squinted his eyes that made me chuckle.

I shot my brow up. “Yeah? What is it?”

“Are you really a human or some type of goddess that walked to this planet?” He says, like a curious kid.

“That’s a secret for me.”

“Ah, whatever. I’ll go ahead now. Might be ruining your supposed beauty rest already.” He shrugged and stood up.

“Taeyong.”

“Hm?”

“Thank you, so much, for tonight. I really had so much fun.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, gorgeous. Have a good night.”

He smiled widely and winked before walking out of the room. The day after next, I went back home. Johnny fetched me from the airport and welcomed me with piles of paperwork.

“And here are the papers from Mrs. Han’s office. God, she annoyed me for the whole two days you were gone!” He continously rants. “She even told me, ‘Why did you left my poor Y/N alone”, when I’m not even fucking invited!”

 I let out a laugh. “Well, Mr. Johnny, it’s because Mrs. Han treats me like Sodam. You know how much she misses her,” I smirked. “Besides, be thankful that she didn’t make you fly to Paris just for updates about me.”

“Hm, yeah. Really thankful,” He rolled his eyes.

“By the way, I heard you went out with Taeyong.”

I froze on my swivel chair. Did someone saw us and mistakenly thought we were out on a date?

“Nope,” He answered, as if he read my mind. “Someone just told me.”

“Ah, yes,” I glanced at him. “I accidentally bumped into him when I was about to leave the event. He just compensated.”

I went silent, thinking of who could possibly saw us that night.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep it as a secret.” He winked playfully.

I glared at him. He raised his hands—as if he committed. He probably thinks there’s something going on between me and Taeyong. I let out an exasperated sigh and before finishing the paperwork. Much for a productive day.

After Taeyong’s appearance on the site three weeks ago, I never saw Jaehyun again. Perhaps he’s also taking his distance from me. Which is something I should be least cared about. Until the following days turned into weeks then turned into months. April ended like a blink of an eye.

“Hey, you seem to be so occupied,” Rosé removed her hard hat and sat beside me. “What’s bothering you?”

I looked at her. I don’t even know what’s keeping me off. Maybe because time flies so fast.

“I really don’t know, Rosie. Something’s just bothering me lately.” I softly smiled. “It’s already October.”

She patted the top of my head and did a short storytelling of her embarrassing moments when she was still in college. She was full on energy and talkative. I listened to her jokes but I still felt like floating and tired.

“Let’s go out for drinks tonight,” She squealed. ”My treat, I swear!”

She pulled me to the near mall after work. Whenever I’m about to pay, she just hands me the paper bag and shows her black card. I wasn’t even dumbfounded about it. She came from a wealthy family, after all.

After the short shopping, we decided to go home and just meet at the club. I called Johnny to join us but he said he has to be somewhere else. While Seolhee, all I know is she’s in Chicago for a short leave.

The blasting music from the club was already heard from the parking. I took a quick glance to the rear-view mirror before going out of my BMW. I decided to wear a black lace bralette, short fitted leather skirt, and a pair of black opyum sandals from YSL.

“Holy shit, Y/N!” Rosé stood up when she saw me walking towards the reserved table. She gave me a kiss on the cheek. “You look bomb, babe, just so you know.”

I laughed. “And we both know you’re the head-turner here.”

She poured vodka in the shot glasses and gave me one. I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“Cheers!”

I was about to tale the shot when someone snatched the glass from my hand. My eyes widen up when I saw Taeyong straightly drank it. He placed the glass back to the marble table, making a noise.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Taeyong greeted. He’s wearing oversized stripped long sleeves, two buttons are unbuttoned, and his hair was dyed with color green. Which I find hideous.

I smiled and tapped the space beside me. 

Rosé cleared her throat and stood up. “I’m leaving you two alone, I’ll look for my boyfriend.”

I nodded then turned to Taeyong. “What brought you here? It’s been months since I last saw you,” I asked before taking a new shot of vodka. “Your new hair color is so fucking hideous, by the way.”

His brows furrowed then he pulled his hair down to look at his hair. “You’re such a bully, y’know.” He put his elbow to the table and rested his chin to his hand.

“And I’m not a loner,” He joked. “Come with me, I’ll bring you to our table.”

We went to the VIP floor of the club, and as we walk, he was greeted by different people, most of them are socialites or models. Taeyong swiftly placed his hand on my waist that I didn’t even notice at first.

“Meet my dumb folks,” He softly tightened his hold that made me look at him but he just winked.

Winking is his signature move.

The table was filled with five boys, one of them was familiar to me and one girl. I glanced at his friends until I saw Jaehyun in the middle, staring at me. Down to Taeyong’s hand on my waist. His jaw clenched and he looked away. The girl beside him placed her hand to his thigh.

“Y/N, this is Yuta, Lucas,” Taeyong said, looking at the two guys who were laughing on the left. They stopped when they heard their name.

I gulped nervously when I felt Jaehyun’s bored eyes at me again. My hands was trembling and it was probably obvious but they didn’t seem to notice it when I took their hands.

“Oh, right. Taeyong-hyung’s babe,” Lucas said as he took my hand and shook it. He pressed his hand.

“Doubt that,” I answered. Taeyong chuckled and guided me to sit beside the familiar guy. “He has plenty of ‘babe’ for me to add in and join the crowd.” I continued, and gazed to Jaehyun.

God, he makes me so fucking nervous.

“The two on your right are Doyoung and Mark,” He continued. “Mark is Johnny’s cousin.” He motioned to the two guys beside me.

I gave them a smile. “Yeah, I know Mark. Johnny introduced him to me before.”

“Don’t drink too much if you don’t want to make things you will surely regret tomorrow morning,” Taeyong whispered, making me chuckle. He just smirked.

Jaehyun suddenly stood up and left the table. His jaw clenched when he looked at me then he went downstairs. I excused myself for bathroom break but I just followed him.

I realized we were already outside, at the parking lot. He approached a grey Aston Martin. Even if the area was a bit dark, I can still see his ears turn red.

“Hey, Jaehyun,” I grabbed his arm.

“Fuck!” He hissed, pulling his arm back. “What is it, this fucking time, huh?”

I bit my lower lip. “Let’s just talk, please.”

He scoffed sarcastically before releasing his hand to the car handle. I gazed down.

“Why are you being like this? Are you drunk?” I said softly.

“Are you for real, asking me why am I acting out like this? You left me and you came back again,” He pushed his hair back in frustration. “Bullshit!”

I looked at him with disbelief. “I left because I had reasons, and I never wanted to be back. It was you who keeps on wanting me near you!”

“Then run away.” He looked at me with a mocking smirk. “Run fucking away. I’m so tired and done of this shit, anyway.”

My throat felt dry. I couldn’t talk. I wanted to slap him across the cheek but somehow, I just can’t. He let out a frustrated groan before kicking his car door that made me flinch. Tears are starting to form at the corner of my eyes.

“Run away from me, Y/N. Run until you’re far and unreachable for me to follow.” His jaw clenched, for God knows how many times already and shook his head.

“Why do you want me to be far from you then?” A fresh hot tear fell from my left eye.

“Because I’m so tired of the chase. I’m so tired of running for you,” His voice broke. “I tried to forget you, I tried to remove you out of my system. God knows what my fucking limit is, baby, and there’s nothing more painful to that.”

He entered his car and stayed inside. While I was left dumbfounded, someone pulled me. My traitor tears started falling—no one was even able to stop it.

Taeyong, being the great savior that he is, ended up driving me back to my condominium. He remained silent whilst I muffled my sobs inside his car. When we got inside my unit, he told me to get a nice warm shower before sleeping. He even got himself the cotton pads and makeup remover on my vanity just to remove the remaining makeup on my face.

“I will leave once you’ve fallen asleep,” He said while putting the damped cotton to my face.

I just stared at him with desolation. My heart weighed down with sadness, causing my eyes to burn with tears. He cupped my face and wiped the shed tears away.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” I remained my eyes to his. “But thank you, Taeyong. I’m really thankful.”

He just gave me a soft pat on top of my head as a response that made my heart thump hard. I slowly closed my eyes, begging for the darkness to fill and enclose me in.

February 9, five years ago.

Johnny’s 20th birthday bash was definitely boring—or atleast for you because you feel like you don’t belong there. Johnny is a really famous guy ever since you met him when you were freshmen. Most of his friends are either models or socialites. As you feel the boredom reaching out, you left the ballroom to go to the hotel’s rooftop to wind up and inhale fresh air. At first, you thought you were alone.

A tall guy was standing near the edge, hands inside the pockets of his black jeans, eyes gazing the view of city lights. You crossed your arms over your chest before walking towards the man. But he just remained his eyes to the busy Seoul.

Minute has passed and no one even dared to speak. You were about to leave when the unknown man finally had the guts to talk.

“Would you mind me telling a story?” He said, his back was still facing you.

You don’t know what pulled your shit together into joining and listening to him. But you decided to stay because you didn’t want to go back downstairs and act as if you’re sociable.

“My father, he got fucking mad at me just for a petty reason,” He smiled. “I left the home I thought I would claim as my own. I feel useless just because for a fucking small mistake. I hate him so much. He cheated twice, now he’s doing it again. A fucking manipulative cheater—something I will never do or even try to be.”

“You also got daddy issues. Nice.” You scoffed. He locked gazes with you. “I’m Y/N.”

He laughed and a set of deep dimples appeared. “Mhm, your name suits you well. The name’s Jaehyun Jung.”

An hour has passed without the both of you knowing. You both shared shitty stories that happened to your lives while admiring the city lights and night sky. Things like this bored you to hell before, so it was very unlikely of you.

“And you know what’s shittier than that? My father—my own father abandoned us. I have like, zero knowledge to that man.”

“Holy fuck, we’re so fucking broken,” Jaehyun scoffed sarcastically.

“I don’t feel broken, though,” You looked at him. “Did my fucked up life story atleast, helped you forget what happened to you?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Now I’m thinking if you’re some angel sent from above to heal me for a moment.”

“Allow me to heal you further, then.” You gave him a small smile.

The night was so young, and you never thought a mere stranger would also help you forget your own problems. You already knew it from the very start.

You were the reason why he wanted to be loved by people and you—to heal him as he also heal the wound of your poisonous past.

#nct #nct 127 #nct jaehyun #jung jaehyun #nct smut #nct angst #nct scenario #nct fanfic #nct x reader #nct imagines #jung jaehyun au #jaehyun fanfic #jaehyun angst #jaehyun smut #jaehyun x reader #jeong jaehyun

[frangelic999]

Resident Evil Time

As we all know, Spooky Season began on August 1st, as it does every year. Skeletons began to emerge from the earth, and we all joined together to help along the slightly unripe ones with just a knuckle bone sticking up out of the lawn. Pumpkins rolled down into town from the foothills, snuggling into piles of radiant leaves as they awaited their new, temporary keepers. Here on the west coast of America, ash began to fall from the sky, as it does every season of ash, and we all went out to frolic in the ash as we gasped for air in our newly toxic Zone. It never rains in California, except when it’s raining ash. As such, around August 1st I began my quest of playing every mainline Resident Evil game, and a couple of spin-offs. What follows is the book report that I wrote on this experience.

Resident Evil is a series that’s been on my radar in one way or another as far back as 1996, when I was a kid, but I never really took a very close look at it, or wanted to, until I played RE7 in 2019. My oldest memory involving this game is wandering Blockbuster with my older brother looking for a game to rent. Another kid was there, also with their older brother, and the little kid suggested Resident Evil, but the bigger kid sagely declared “Nah, the controls are bad,” and they left it at that. I don’t know why I remember this, but I do, and my general feeling about Resident Evil was negative, I think because I had played the demo and didn’t like it, due to the fact that it’s not really designed in such a way that a kid would like it much. My first actual experience with the series, outside of that, was playing Resident Evil 3 in 1999. At the time, I loved it, but I was 12, and wouldn’t have been able to articulate anything about why I liked it other than “cool videogame, Jill pretty. Jill me.” I also played RE4 and RE5 around the time they came out, and I enjoyed them as fun action games, but still didn’t think much of the series or really care about survival horror. My other experience with the genre pretty much only extends to Alan Wake, Dino Crisis, and Dead Space, all of which I played so long ago that I remember almost nothing about them. What kind of monsters does Alan Wake fight? Couldn’t say. Could be anything, really. I remember the main character of Dino Crisis, Regina. She had red hair. Regina pretty. Regina me? Strangely enough, wanting to play the role of formidable, independent, resourceful, attractive women in games was a running theme in my formative years. What could this possibly mean? We may never know. But anyway, I was very excited to go on this journey into the survival horror franchise, and one of the most iconic franchises of all time. It had its highs and lows, but it was well worth it, and I emerged with a newfound appreciation for the design and appeal of survival horror games. The intention here isn’t to give a full, thorough analysis of these games or a breakdown of every aspect of them, but to compile my various thoughts on them, so it’s more of an opinionated overview than a deep dive. 

Resident Evil (1996)

It’s actually really hard to place this game when making a tier list, due to the simple fact that none of these other games would exist without the conventions Resident Evil set. It was groundbreaking, and literally invented a genre. At the same time, it's impossible for me to not compare it to other, better games, because I have knowledge of the rest of the series. It was an experiment for Capcom, and it shows in the game's rough edges. It feels like it had good ideas that didn’t always live up to their full potential, due to some combination of inexperience, available hardware/software, and questionable implementation.

RE1 is... not very good at being scary. It does its best, but it's a fairly early PS1 game. I think a lot of this has to do with the atmosphere and graphics. Visually, it’s just kind of ugly in that early PS1 way, and the color choices are dull and lack cohesion. For a horror game taking place in a spooky dilapidated mansion, it feels a little too bright, and I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that no one really knew how to make darkness convincing on PS1 at the time. But it’s not entirely the PS1’s fault this game is ugly, as you can see from RE2 and RE3 being not ugly. The color choices and backgrounds just aren’t especially lush or interesting.

I don't really need to go into the voice acting and writing of this game, due to their status of legendary badness. The live action cutscenes are unbelievably cheesy and almost impossible to watch with a straight face. The live action ending where Jill and Chris hold hands as they fly away in a helicopter is incredibly dumb. If you correctly chose Jill as your main character, it just seems incongruous that after fighting her way out of a deathtrap of horrifying creatures, she's now laying her head on the big strong man's shoulder. It’s bad, but fortunately the game isn’t entirely bad narratively. It was surprising, in a game from 1996, to see the in-world documents scattered around that add to the narrative, telling you what's really going on and adding detail to the broader strokes of the story. This is a thing that's ubiquitous in games now, AAA or otherwise, and I'm wondering if this game helped to establish that facet of games. RE1 has a simple story of evil corporate experiments gone wrong, with the driving force behind everything the player/character does being escape from the mansion, and this simplicity really works in its favor. As we shall see in later RE games, convoluted stories don’t really lend themselves all that well to horror. 

If you look at other games released in 1996, there are a lot of fast paced action games, like 3D platformers and first person shooters, as well as RPGs, and it's clear this game was something different. It has that slow, methodical play that makes survival horror feel unique. The feeling of not knowing what's waiting for you behind the next door, but knowing you have to go anyway, and that balance between surviving and solving puzzles to progress. The backtracking and item hunts, the interlocking paths and puzzles, the environmental storytelling and documents, the sense of isolation, it's all here in the first game. Some players may not find inventory management thrilling, but it’s a key part of these games, and it’s mostly done well in the good ones. Inventory management and item scarcity are a big part of what actually captures that feeling of “survival horror.” Since items are needed to progress, your inventory is directly tied to your progress, and at its best this forces you to make tough decisions about what you really need to carry and by extension makes you play more conservatively and prioritize avoidance. At its worst, it forces you to go back to previous areas for no reason and wastes your time while hurting the pace of the game, which RE1 is only guilty of at one point toward the end. The more weapons and ammo you have, the less room you have to do the work of actually progressing in the game through item-based puzzles, so you often have to sacrifice some of your lethality to progress smoothly. There’s a fine line between giving the player too many resources and too few, and almost all good survival horror games walk that line very well. It's also just thematically appropriate that your character isn't able to lug around a hundred pounds of gear. The open-ended nature of exploration, or the illusion thereof, is also an important aspect of survival horror. In good Resident Evil games, you usually have multiple doors you can choose to open, multiple potential paths, and feeling out which one is right, and which places are safe to travel, is a big part of the game. That exploratory feeling of gradually extending your reach and knowledge of the place you're in, knowing how vulnerable you are but also knowing you have to keep going deeper, gives the player a much greater sense of agency than more linear horror experiences.

All of these good design elements are firmly established by RE1, but they're just not executed as well as in future Resident Evil and survival horror titles, and by today's standards, playing it can feel like a chore. I think it certainly deserves a huge amount of credit for establishing almost everything that's good and defining about survival horror. There were earlier horror themed games, and I'm sure there are online people who'd be strangely invested in arguing that it's not the first survival horror game, but Resident Evil was clearly something new, different, and more sophisticated. It feels like a beginning, a rough draft, but it established something special. In some ways, I feel like RE1 has actually aged better than a lot of its 1996 contemporaries. Not in terms of controls, visuals or voice acting, heavens no. But, in terms of things like a focus on atmosphere, good pacing, and elegant, focused design, much of it still holds up today.

-Monster Review Corner-

These are the monsters that started it all. Zombies, undead dogs, hunters, Tyrant, and the absolute classic, a big plant that hates you. And who can forget the most forgettable monsters, giant spiders? The enemies themselves aren't especially exciting, but honestly, they work very well for the style and slow pace of this game. The deadly mansion full of the living dead is a classic horror setting. Things like Hunters and Tyrant seem pedestrian by series standards now, but they would have been a surprise in a zombie game in 1996, and Hunters are terrifying when they first appear. Overall monster score: 7/10

Time to complete: 5:46

Games were shorter overall in 1996, but the short game length is another survival horror trait the game established, and that brevity is a trait I really appreciate about this series and the genre as a whole. 

Resident Evil 2 (1998)

I feel like I’m going to be using the word “better” a lot. RE2 is immediately more cinematic than its predecessor, which is a good thing. It’s an important element of establishing tension and atmosphere. All the best horror movies, in my opinion, have smart and artful cinematography behind them. I’m not going to say Resident Evil 2 has masterful cinematic direction, but it’s a vast improvement over the previous game. Gone are the super cheesy FMV cutscenes and the atrocious voice acting. The voice acting here isn't great by today's standards, but people do talk mostly like humans! This must be due to the fact that it was the first time Capcom ever outsourced voice acting to a studio outside of Japan. The writing is also much, much better. The soundtrack is much more atmospheric, and even the save room music is better. Visually, the game looks so much better. Character models are more detailed and lifelike, and backgrounds are much more detailed, colorful and cohesive. I vastly prefer the character designs to those of RE1. They’re very 90s, in a fun anime way. Even the portraits in the inventory screen look way better. Even the story and the documents you find are more well written and interesting, and Umbrella is established as a more sinister and far-reaching presence. 

RE2 gives you separate campaigns for Claire and Leon that are similar, but different in some major ways. Rather than being a super long game, it has a short campaign that can be replayed multiple times with different characters for improved ranks, unlockables, and short bonus levels. I actually really like this kind of replayability, as opposed to the much more common type of replayability of modern games, which is just making the game 100 hours long and filled with boring sidequests, trinkets and skill points. This is  partially because I inevitably burn out on that kind of game, even if I like it (Horizon Zero Dawn, Breath of the Wild) and never finish the game. Super Bunnyhop has a whole video (“Let’s Talk About Game Length”) about the advantages of this game’s style of replay value which is worth a watch. I’m much more likely to rank a game among my favorites if I’m actually compelled to finish it. I’m always annoyed by how persistently gamers thoughtlessly complain about these games (or any game for that matter) being too short. Gee, maybe that has something to do with why 4, 5, and 6 all feel so bloated and outstay their welcome. Funny how the three most recent games in the series that brought it back from the brink of total irrelevance are all under ten hours in length.

The level design feels less haphazard and boring than RE1, but retains the satisfying sense of interconnectedness that the original mansion had. The balance of the game is good, and it feels dangerous without ever feeling unfair, like all the best RE games. Distribution of healing items and ammo feels right - I rarely felt like I was in serious danger of running out, but I always felt the pressure to conserve ammo and remember where healing items were to pick up later. This game is also a sterling example of the kinds of boss fights that work in survival horror. Rather than being reflex tests, boss fights are more a test of how smartly and conservatively you’ve been playing. If you’ve saved enough powerful ammo by playing well, you’ll have no problem with boss monsters, and there’s also the alligator fight, which, if you were paying attention to the area you just traversed, can be ended with one bullet. 

Overall, it’s a huge improvement over RE1 in every way imaginable, and a genuinely good game even by today’s standards, if you discount the cheesy voice acting and dated cutscenes. I finished RE1 in two sittings because I wanted to get it over with, but I finished RE2 nearly as fast because it was hard to stop playing. This is where the series came into its own, and RE2 feels like the beginning of the series as we know it today, while RE1 feels more like an experimental rough draft.

-Monster Review Corner-

This game, overall, has some great monsters. Fantastic monsters, and this is where you’ll find ‘em. First, we’ve got your classic zombies. Classic. We’ve got your zombie dogs, two for one deal. We’ve got some evil birds who inexplicably burst through a window one time. Okay, decent. Giant spiders, boooring. But then, here comes a new challenger! It’s lickers, one of perhaps the most iconic Resident Evil monsters. These nasty wall crawlin’ flesh puppies have got exposed brains, big ol’ claws, razor sharp tongues and a complete lack of sight. Due to this last fact, you can avoid them by being very quiet, which is extremely survival horror. Lickers are great. RE2 also has a giant alligator, which even the RE2 remake team thought was too silly to include in the remake (but to the great relief of everyone around the world, he made it anyway). Personally, I love the fact that they brought the classic urban cryptid, the mutant sewer gator, into the RE family. RE2 also has a Tyrant who chases you around in the second scenario. He’s just Nemesis before Nemesis. There are also big plant monsters who look like walking venus fly traps, totally rad. And finally, all of the G-Mutation designs pretty much set the stage for the monster design of all future RE mutants, including Nemesis. They have this alien, body horror feel to them that’s become a hallmark of the series. Overall monster score: 10/10

Time to complete: 5:06

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999)

RE3 has a darker tone than RE2, a lot of quality of life changes, and the terrifying presence of an unstoppable Nemesis. It’s a more combat oriented game, not in that combat is more complex, but in that there are more weapons, more ammo, faster zombies, and in comparison to the two previous games there are more times where it’s safer to kill enemies than avoid them. Jill can also dodge and quick turn. Dodging is fine, and quick turn, was an excellent addition that’s been in every RE since then, minus RE7. It’s a very good game, but the fact that there are fewer moments of quiet exploration and puzzling detracts from the variety of the game and makes it feel more one note. It definitely feels more like an action movie, not just in its increased amount of fighting but also in its story beats and cutscenes. I think it’s important to make a distinction between the style of this game and RE4/5/6, in that those are action games with light or nonexistent survival horror elements, while this is a survival horror game with action elements. I played the game on hard mode, because this game only has hard and easy mode. Hard is essentially normal, it's what you'd come to expect from the series, and easy mode is easy and gives you an assault rifle at the start. 

The titular Nemesis is such a great way to change up the Resident Evil formula. The first time you encounter him, he kills Brad in a cutscene, and you run into the police station. You think he’ll just appear at certain times during cutscenes and maybe a boss fight, but then a little while later he bursts through a window and chases you, and he’s faster than anything encountered previously in the series. That’s when it becomes clear that you’re going to be hunted, and from that point on Nemesis is in the back of your mind at all times, injecting an undercurrent of paranoia into every moment of methodical exploration. Although, I do have complaints about Nemesis, too. If you’re familiar with the series up to this point, his appearances are undermined by that very knowledge. What I mean is that if you played the first two games, you start to get a sense of when events or attacks are going to be triggered in Resident Evil, and that makes Nemesis much more predictable. You start to think “whelp, it’s about time for another Nemesis attack,” and then he shows up. Also, the first time you’re actually supposed to stand and fight him is an awful boss fight, and the first really bad boss fight in the series. The game’s dodge mechanic is finicky and hard to time, and it’s an important part of winning the fight, at least on hard mode. He’s basically a bullet sponge, which is not interesting. 

Something that I like about three is it really expands on the setting by giving you lots of details about Umbrella and their relation to Raccoon City. You learn that not only have they infiltrated the city government and police, but a lot of the city's infrastructure was funded by Umbrella donations. You also learn that they maintain their own paramilitary force and are a far reaching, international corporation. Umbrella is really fleshed out as a more robust and powerful organization here. 

Another unique aspect of this game, that’s never been in another RE game, is the “choose your own adventure” system. Nemesis will be after you, and you can choose between two different options, such as running into the sewers or hiding in the kitchen. You have a limited time to make these choices, and they have positive or negative outcomes, but never outright kill you, as far as I could tell. It’s kind of neat, and an interesting way to change things up occasionally, but not especially important. 

Overall, this is an excellent Resident Evil game, though a good deal less original and groundbreaking than RE2.

-Monster Review Corner-

Honestly, most of the monsters are fine, but nothing to write home about. Nemesis is the star of the show, which you can already tell by the fact that the game is named after him and he’s on the front cover. He’s like the cooler, better, more deadly version of a Tyrant. Nemesis score: 10/10

Time to complete: 5:32

An Aside About Puzzles

I’ve been trying to figure out how to articulate what I like about the puzzles in this series, and this seems as good a place to put these thoughts as any. I get that not everyone likes the puzzles in this series, and that many of them can only be called puzzles in a very loose sense, but I think they add a crucial ingredient to the games.

The thing is, if they were more complicated or difficult puzzles, they would take up too much screen time, they would overpower the rest of the game, like too much salt in a dish. There are a lot of them where you have to follow riddle-like clues to figure out what to do, but they're all pretty easy. There are a lot of item hunts that boil down to finding item A and bringing it to point B, or combining item A with item B and using the result at point C, and I remember plenty of jokes over the years playfully lampooning this facet of Resident Evil. But, while playing through these games, I found myself dissatisfied with the view that these item hunts and simple puzzles are stupid, or bad game design. Because really, what makes these games good is not shooting or puzzles or atmosphere or good monsters, but all of these elements working together in harmony. It seems like the more harmonious that balance, the better the Resident Evil game. All these little parts make up the whole. The puzzles aren't hard, sure, but they aren't meant to be. They add an element of sleuthing and a sense of accomplishment and progression that would otherwise be lacking, and which could easily slip into frustration if they were any more difficult, and detract from the overall experience. If you just went around and shot at monsters and opened doors, it would be missing something big, and it would be a much poorer series. If you need evidence of that, may I direct you to Resident Evils 4 to 6. Without that exploratory feeling, without that aha feeling of figuring it out, it would feel bland. "If I use this item to open this, then I get this thing and I combine it with this, it frees up space in my inventory, and now I can take them back to the spot I remember from earlier because I was paying attention and taking mental notes, and I can open this path..." I'd argue that this feeling of things clicking together neatly, of attentive and methodical play paying off, is integral to the series and to the entire genre it spawned. The whole game is a puzzle that you’re figuring out, and things like item juggling, map knowledge, and carefully leaving enough space in your inventory are a part of that puzzle. 

The puzzles in the series are more representational than what might usually be called a puzzle. The item lugging, inventory swapping parts that I remember being maligned at one time are more akin to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, but those pieces are scattered across a monster infested, carefully designed, difficult to traverse map. What made RE7 feel so much like a revival of Resident Evil, despite it being a first person game that looks and feels very little like its predecessors, was returning to this approach to game design. It was a polished and well made return to the principles that made survival horror popular. The fact that Capcom brought back all those often complained about puzzles and item hunts, and slashed the current idea of game length to ribbons, returning to the roots of the series, and then those games being so highly praised, feels so right in part because it feels like the developers are saying "look, a lot of you were totally wrong about what made these games good."

Resident Evil - Code: Veronica (2000)

To me the most immediately noticeable thing about this game is Claire’s embarrassingly early-2000s outfit: high rise boot cut jeans, cowgirl boots, a short-sleeved crop top jacket, all topped off with a pink choker and fingerless gloves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen character design that so perfectly encapsulates the time period of a game’s release. It’s bad, and the game only gets worse from there. 

I really tried to like Code Veronica, at first. But after playing RE1-3, saying it's underwhelming is putting it lightly. I honestly don't think I have a single good thing to say about this game, and it's possibly the worst mainline Resident Evil game ever made (RE6 being the only thing that might take that crown of trash in its stead). It's pretty much not possible to take Code Veronica seriously in any way, especially not as a horror game. The visuals have no sense of darkness or atmosphere and manage to look much worse than the old pre-rendered graphics, the puzzles are uninspired rehash, the enemies and bosses are irritating, the character designs are a particular type of early-2000s bad, the voice acting is insufferable, the story is asinine, and the game is full of the bad kind of backtracking. It's not entirely the game's fault it's ugly, it's a product of its time, but it's weird to see in retrospect because it looks worse than RE3 from one year prior. Previous RE games had bad voice acting, but this is the first one where the voice acting makes you want to turn the game off. 

Up until this point, the storylines of Resident Evil games were very simple. Evil corporation caused chaos with a virus, get out alive. There are details scattered throughout about how the city and government were being paid off, but that’s the gist of it. Code Veronica is where the lore of RE starts to get convoluted and sometimes very dumb. I won’t go into all the ways the story is bad, but suffice it to say this is definitely when Resident Evil jumped the shark, and it paves the way for the stupidity of RE4. It also uses the “mentally ill people are scary” horror trope, which is perhaps my least favorite horror trope. The villain for most of the game, Alfred, has *gasp* a split personality and thinks he’s also his sister. Of course, at one point Claire calls him a “crossdressing freak.” I’ll just leave it at that. Of course nobody who writes this kind of thing bothers to do any kind of research into the mental illnesses they use as story crutches. I feel like I need to mention the voice acting, for Steve and Alfred particularly. Steve sounds like he walked off of a middle school campus, and Alfred sounds like your local community theater’s production of Sweeney Todd. They’re both absolutely atrocious and make the game that much more annoying to play. Claire’s acting is about what you’d expect from a Saturday morning cartoon of the era.

As though the fact that it's a bad game visually and narratively wasn't enough, it's also badly designed, not much fun to play, and way longer than the previous three. The game’s map, at least for Claire’s portion (most of the game), is divided into multiple small areas, each with one path leading to them, so you have to go over these paths repeatedly once you’ve retrieved an item from a completely different area, and it makes for a lot of very tiresome backtracking. The series always had backtracking, of course, but never over such long, samey stretches of space. On top of this, there are tons of blatantly bad design choices. To name a few:

-The hallway you have to traverse multiple times containing moths which poison you and respawn every time you leave and are really hard to hit on top of being a waste of ammo. It’s hard to see how they were unaware that this is bad since they also leave an infinite supply of poison antidotes in the same room

-The fact that there’s no indication whatsoever that you should leave items behind for the next character you have to play, which left me struggling to even be able to kill enemies as Chris

-Multiple times where in order to trigger progress you have to look at or pick up a certain thing, not for any logical in-game reason but just because it triggers a cutscene. One of these makes you look at the same thing twice, and I wandered around not knowing what to do for a while before checking a walkthrough

-More than one save room that contains no item box, when this game asks you to constantly juggle items and repeatedly travel long distances with specific items

There’s more, but I don’t want to write or think about this bad game anymore. This game is a slag heap that deserves to be forgotten, and I hope it’s never remade. Something I find really disappointing about Code Veronica is that the setting is ripe for a good Resident Evil game, but they botch it. It takes place in two locations, a secret island prison run by Umbrella, and an antarctic research station, both of which I can imagine a great RE game taking place in. I guess, really, the best thing that can be said about Code Veronica is that it’s a survival horror game. They didn’t totally stray from the principles that made the series good, they just implemented those things very badly, in a very stupid game.

Time to complete: who knows, I quit near the final stretch of the game. The internet says it takes about 12:30, which is far too long.

REmake (2002)

I played the remake first, and it’s the only game I played out of order, because when I started I had no plans to play the entire series. It’s a remake that fixes everything wrong or dated about the original while keeping the things that made it good, and I would say it’s the definitive version of the game and the one that should be played. 

Visually, a lot of it looks very good, and uses darkness much better than the original. I like this game’s high def pre-rendered backgrounds, because it’s like looking into an alternate reality where pre-rendered graphics never went away, and just increased in fidelity. I actually really like a lot of the backgrounds in this game. Pre-rendered backgrounds have their shortcomings, but I think they can play a role in horror games. They give the developers total control of how things are framed, and framing/direction are a big part of what can make things ominous or scary in horror movies. You can do this to some extent in games with free cameras, but without nearly as much control. I think over time the popular consensus became that pre-rendered backgrounds are inherently bad, but I think like any style of graphics they have their pros and cons. The late 90s Final Fantasies are great examples of how pre-rendered graphics can be used to frame characters and events in certain ways.

The strongest suit of this game is that it really feels like a horror game, and avoidance is encouraged over combat due to scarce ammo and healing. The pace is slow and thoughtful, the mansion is sprawling and claustrophobic, and even one or two zombies feels like a threat, especially before you find the shotgun. Even after that, shotgun shells are fairly scarce. Like the original, combat mechanics are intentionally very simple and limited, though this one sees the introduction of the defensive items that return in the RE2 and 3 remakes. One thing I really like is that if you kill a zombie and leave their body, without decapitating or burning it, it will eventually mutate into a fast and powerful zombie, and these are genuinely threatening to encounter. You constantly have to make decisions in this game about what’s more important, immediate safety or conserving ammo. The fuel that’s used to burn corpses is limited, and can be used strategically to eliminate threats from frequently traveled areas. It’s a great idea for a game mechanic, but in practice, I rarely did this, because inventory is so limited that it didn’t feel worthwhile to use two of my eight slots on a lighter and fuel. Another nice added horror element is the fact that doors aren’t always safe. You’ll hear monsters pounding on doors, see them shaking, and at multiple points they’ll be smashed open when you thought you were safe.

A lot of the ideas that made this game good and the original good are ideas that were returned to in RE7, the RE3 remake, and especially the RE2 remake, and a big part of what made those games so successful. 

Time to complete: 10:15

In my opinion it ran a little too long. It takes almost twice as long as the original, and I feel like the added areas pad out that length rather than improving the game. Even though I think it’s a very good game, it started feeling like a slog in the last few hours.

Resident Evil Zero (2002)

After Code Veronica, it was initially refreshing to feel like I was actually playing Resident Evil again and not some subpar knockoff. This one feels a lot more like classic RE, and in its slower pace it’s most similar to REmake or the original trilogy. I played the HD remaster of RE0(which changes nothing but the graphics) since it's the one I own on steam, so I can't speak to the original GameCube graphics, but the art direction itself is vastly better, and it creates an atmosphere that's perfectly Resident Evil. Highly detailed backgrounds, with rich dark colors, old paintings, dusty bookshelves, soft clean lighting, marble and dark wood, wind-rustled ivy, shadows and rain, creep dilapidated industrial spaces. The HD remaster is gorgeous, and one of the best looking games in the series.

This game adds two major new mechanics: playing as a team of two and swapping between characters, and the ability to drop items anywhere. Character swapping is an interesting gimmick, made more of a curiosity by the fact that it will probably never be used again in a RE game. Often it's pretty neat, but just as often, it's an annoying chore. I like the idea of controlling two characters, but I don't think what they attempted to do with it was entirely successful, and could have been better with a couple of simple changes. Ultimately all the inventory management required feels like more trouble than it's worth, especially since you have to carry weapons and ammo for both characters. Between inventory management and swapping off-character actions, I found myself in the inventory screen a lot more than in previous games. It seems like they could have alleviated these problems with more inventory space and buttons for switching off-character actions. Most of the time it ends up feeling like a chore to manage two characters and two separate inventories. In theory, the ability to drop items anywhere adds an element of player choice and planning, but in practice, I just found myself missing the item box that allows you to access the same items from different places.

This game is fine for the first hour or two, but ends up getting more and more frustrating the farther you get into it. After playing about half the game, I started feeling like I'd be having a less terrible time on easy mode. I died in it a lot more times than in any previous game. The combination of really irritating new enemy types and all weapons (even the grenade launcher) feeling underpowered means there are multiple enemy encounters where you're just forced to lose health. This wouldn't be so bad if there were enough healing items around, but there aren't. Every enemy in the game, even a basic zombie, feels too bullet sponge-y. I repeatedly found myself with very little ammo and no healing items, so in a lot of situations I would just die, and reloading with the foreknowledge of what rooms would contain felt like the only way to progress. Managing the health of two characters, one who has very low health, makes it that much harder. I played through all of the previous games on normal difficulty (RE3 on hard) so I know I'm not imagining the spike in difficulty. It's possible they wanted to make this game challenging for series veterans, but if that's the case they missed the mark, because part of what makes a good RE game is excellent balance of difficulty. In a good RE, you always feel like you're facing adversity but still progressing, and you really don't die all that often if you're being careful and using the right weapons for situations. In RE0, you just die a lot to frustrating video game garbage and feel irritated that you have to reload and repeat content. To make matters even worse, aiming feels weirdly sticky in this game and movement feels clunkier than previous games for some reason.

Just like Code Veronica, this game has a premise that seems like it should excel as a Resident Evil game, but it misses the mark. With the new mechanics, it feels like they were struggling to think of ways to further refine and reinvent a series that was getting a little tired. I love the formula of the first three games, but I can understand why after six games following that same formula, with a lot of very similar in-game occurrences and puzzles, they wanted to move in a different direction with RE4. This game feels like it's floundering, attempting to reinvent the series while being chained to the same rules, and though I have mixed or negative feelings about the next three games, it feels like the series was in dire need of a total overhaul.

-Monster Review Corner-

Whoever designed the monsters in this game thought that giant animals are absolutely horrifying. Giant bat, giant scorpion, giant centipede, giant roaches. There are also guys made of leeches, and they're pretty boring and annoying to fight, and it's hard not to find the way they move comedic. There are also hunters and your typical zombies. All in all, a lackluster offering of critters. Overall monster score: 3/10

Resident Evil 4 (2005)

Let's get the obvious out of the way: this game feels almost nothing like Resident Evil, and feels less and less like it the further into it you get. The devs made sure to do a lot of things that make RE4’s identity as an action game very obvious. It’s a game of series firsts: first in the series with an over the shoulder camera, first with weapon stats, first with such an abundance of enemies and weapons, first with QTEs, first where the primary enemies aren’t shambling zombies, first with currency and a merchant, the first where Umbrella isn’t the big bad, the first where you can karate kick and suplex enemies. It’s incredibly not survival horror. It might succeed as a 2005 action game, but it fails miserably at being Resident Evil.

I’m feeling generous, so I’ll start with the things I like about RE4. I really do appreciate that it’s a slower and more methodical action game than its contemporaries, and precise, thoughtful shooting is rewarded. I also like that the over the shoulder camera gives you a pretty narrow field of view, which makes it always feel like enemies could be lurking just off screen. This makes things more tense and is often used to surprise the player, especially in the early game. The almost identical perspective used in the exceptional RE2 and RE3 remakes shows that they weren’t off the mark with this element of the game’s design. However, in RE4 even this good thing is undercut by the fact that jarring, anxious combat music plays whenever enemies are anywhere nearby. The first 2-4 hours of this game, just about up to the Mendez boss, are actually a pretty good game, and provide most of the really tense and scary moments. Unfortunately, these opening hours aren’t really indicative of all the stupid shit to come. Something I grew to hate about this game is that it feels like it just goes on and on and on. It took me around 12 hours, which is short by video game standards, but long by RE standards. By the time I reached the end, it had long outstayed its welcome. Even in these early, decent moments, there was still stuff I hated, like the button mashing quick time events to run from Indiana Jones boulders, the garishly glowing item drops, the dumb kicks, the dynamite zombies.

The crux of a survival horror experience is the feeling of vulnerability, and this feeling is only scarcely captured in the opening few hours of RE4, when it’s still sort of pretending to be Resident Evil. But then, you keep getting more and more powerful, as you do in action games, you keep getting more and more weapons and upgrades and grenades and facing more and more enemies and bosses until it all feels trivial. It’s thoroughly an action game, and by the time you’re near the end, storming a military fort guarded by heavily armed commando zombies manning gatling turrets while you’re aided by helicopter support, it’s clear the game has entirely stopped masquerading as Resident Evil. On top of being a big stupid action game, it’s also extremely a video game. The glowing items that are dropped whenever enemies die, the tiny adorable treasure chests full of doubloons, the big garish video game markers for QTEs(and the most heinous kinds of QTEs: button mashing QTEs and mid-cutscene QTEs), the action movie window jumps and kicks, the cultists driving a death drill, Leon’s backflips, the dumb one-liners that scarcely make sense at times, a giant fish boss, a mine cart level. The absurd stupidity of this game never lets up, so much so that playing it in 2020, it feels almost like an intentional parody, which I know it’s not. 

The story is kind of silly from the start, and delves increasingly into the realm of asinine bullshit as it goes on, as though Capcom and Shinji Mikami sought out the dumbest ideas they could find. In RE2, Leon was a cop for one day during a zombie apocalypse, and now somehow he's working for the White House on a solo mission finding the president's daughter. It's quite the barely explained leap. One of my least favorite things in the narrative department is that Leon's voice acting and dialogue make him insufferable. The humble rookie from RE2 is gone, replaced by a heavily masculinized, aggressive, arrogant, misogynistic, backflipping action movie hero. We went from six consecutive games with women either as one of two playable main characters or the only playable character, with Jill Valentine in RE3 single-handedly destroying the most powerful BOW ever created, to a game where a gruff manly man is tasked with rescuing a literal damsel in distress, and has actual lines like “Feh, women” and “Sorry, but following a lady’s lead just isn’t my style.” It’s atrociously bad, and I hate the character they decided he should be for this game. It also doesn’t even make sense, because why would he even have that attitude towards women after seeing what Claire can do in RE2? It’s a huge step backwards for the series. On top of this awfulness, the actual plot points are just increasingly unbelievable and imbecilic, in a way that totally undercuts any way in which the game could theoretically be frightening. At the end of the game, it’s not Leon and Ashley sitting in silence as they contemplate their harrowing and traumatic experience, it’s “Mission accomplished, right Leon?! Please have sex with me!” and then they literally ride off into the sunset on a jet ski.

At first I thought they were aiming to turn a beloved survival horror series into a big dumb action movie, which is partly true, but then I realized what they had really made: an amusement park. It’s divided into themed zones, like an amusement park: there’s a spooky village, a deathtrap castle, a haunted manor, slimy sewers, an underground tomb, a Mad Max island. There are little coaster cars with purple velvet seats that carry you through the castle, there’s a mine cart ride, living suits of armor, there’s literally a giant animatronic statue of Salazar you can climb around on, there are trinkets and treasures everywhere and a merchant always magically appearing to sell you new toys to make sure you don’t ever get bored or think too hard, there’s a lava-filled carousel room with fire-breathing dragon statues, a haunted house section, a shooting gallery, a cave full of monster bugs, a hedge maze, a tower of terror where flaming barrels are rolled down the stairs(and then you get to pull the lever to roll them!), there’s a crane game, an evil villain lair with a deadly laser corridor, there is for some reason a subterranean battle maze in a cage suspended over a chasm, and your whole visit to this horror themed wonder park culminates in a jet ski ride through a collapsing cavern.

I find it baffling, but "a masterpiece", "the best Resident Evil game", and “one of the best video games ever made” are actual ways I have seen this game described. Multiple reviewers called it the best of the series, and people continue to call it that. Gone is the tense, atmospheric, resource management based survival horror gameplay, the harmonious balance of puzzles, survival and action that made this series so beloved. It’s replaced with a theme park of homogenous action gameplay and an incredibly stupid story. In my mind, it’s not Resident Evil at all, and may as well have belonged to an entirely new series that’s continued in RE5 and RE6. Another oft repeated bit of unquestioned conventional wisdom about RE4 is that it “saved the series from itself,” which is strange given that it marked the beginning of a slump that lasted over a decade. But, who knows? Maybe Resident Evil had to undergo this kind of transformation and decline to ultimately produce the four most recent Resident Evil games, all among the best of the survival horror genre. If these bad mid series games had to come first in order for the latest four exceptional games to come later, then I’ll gladly suffer their existence.

-Monster Review Corner-

Another thing I actually like about this game is a lot of the creature design work. The Mendez boss fight feels like a Resident Evil fight, and his insect-like true form looks like a classic Resident Evil BOW. Verdugo and U-3, likewise, feel like classically inhuman RE creatures, and they’d be right at home in a survival horror series entry. Regenerators and Iron Maidens are genuinely terrifying creatures – or they would be in a survival horror game. Here, they’re just another enemy to mop up. The Plagas that burst out of enemies are a shock when they first appear, and look like horrifying hybrids of The Thing and facehuggers. The chainsaw men are initially one of the best and most horror-centric additions to the game, that is, until you get powerful enough to trivialize them and they stop appearing. At least in the first two hours, they’re legitimately scary due to your narrow field of view and the fact that they one shot you. But it seems like with each thing this game may have done right, there comes something that it did very wrong. Toward the end of the game, you start fighting stuff like the zombies with huge gatling guns, and it’s very dumb. I hate these military zombies, I really do.

Overall monster score: 6/10

Overall monster score minus the merc zombies and dumb robed cultists: 9/10

Time to complete: 11:28

By around the 8 or 9 hour mark, I was practically begging for this game to end.

Resident Evil 5 (2009)

When I started this, I thought I'd like RE4 more than RE5, but it turns out 5 is a much better game. It's a big dumb action movie, but it's a much better big dumb action movie than RE4, or RE6. The action is better, the graphics and art direction are better, the controls are better, the story, characters and dialogue are all better. It's too bad they just couldn't let go of the QTEs. It's a very good Capcom action game, but again, not a great Resident Evil game. It's much more confident as an action game than RE4, and almost entirely stops pretending its gameplay is about anything other than action, to its benefit. The combat is faster and more responsive, but still feels slower and more methodical than most action games. It’s just overall a significantly improved action game.

RE5 Chris is so much better than RE4 Leon. Chris and Sheva are a likable duo who feel like a typical RE pair and play off of each other well. The dialogue likewise has much more natural localization than most if not all previous games in the series. I don't really like how they gave Jill and Wesker Kojima character designs, and this bad aesthetic continues in RE Rev.

The files unlocked in the menu are actually kinda good, and this game expands and fills out the setting in some interesting ways, setting the stage for the Revelations games and RE6.

If you read the files, you learn what happened to Umbrella and how they shut down. What's nice is that the files and in-game story actually go into the ramifications of a world where BOWs exist and can be sold to people with various agendas. It's a world of corporations, NGOs, political subterfuge, and black market dealers making profit off of human suffering, where a whole international organization was created to handle bioweapon incidents. It's disappointing that with this backdrop, the game's actual story is ultimately reduced to a battle in a volcano to save the world from a supervillain. It's a very comic book conclusion.

I know they're infected with a monster virus, but the visual of black people as writhing, animalistic subhumans is, uh... problematic, to say the least. Also, the image of Africa The Continent as a land of dead goats, megaphone-shouting lunatics and rabid, violent crowds. Also the scene early on where some brown savages are carrying off a scantily clad white woman. At least she turns into a tentacle monster shortly after instead of being rescued. It's hard to deny that they probably chose part of Africa as RE5's setting due to the misconception of the entire continent being a war-torn land of petty dictators.

Some parts of the game are much better than others. Generally, the early game is good. The ancient city level is... pretty bad. And it culminates in a laser mirror puzzle that some version of would feel at home in an older RE, but here feels out of place and rhythm-disrupting. I wouldn't necessarily say the game gets really bad toward the end, except for the two consecutive Wesker boss fights. The boss fights against Wesker are both bad and pretty dull. You don't really want your climactic final battle against a longtime series villain to be so boring. I imagine it's a bit less long and dull with another player, like everything in the game. I've played this game in co-op and alone, and you're really missing something by not playing co-op. Sheva's AI can be very frustrating and many parts are clearly designed for two human brains. Overall, RE5 ends pretty fast, and wears out its welcome less than RE4. The biggest problem with RE4, 5 and 6 is that they totally lose the spirit of survival horror. Because of that, I don’t have much to say about the gameplay of RE5 other than it’s a pretty decent action game. If you’ve played an action game, you’ve seen this kind of game design before, and it’s just not all that interesting. 

Neither of the D LCs missions are especially good or interesting, but I want to mention them because they do show the beginnings of Capcom experimenting with the episodic formula that they'd continue with Revelations, Revelations 2 and RE6.

Lost in Nightmares sees Jill and Chris exploring Ozwell Spencer's sprawling mansion, and is meant to be a throwback to the old style of RE. Unfortunately it doesn't have the spark that made those old games good, probably because it was designed by the RE5 team. It mostly ends up just being an extended and unnecessary reference to the classic games.

Desperate Escape is essentially just another level of RE5, but you play as Jill. Since RE5 already exists and is a fine length, this doesn't really need to exist.

Time to complete: 9:17

Resident Evil: Revelations (2012)

It's very rough around the edges, far from the production value you'd expect from the series, and definitely not something I'd call exceptional, but there are some good things going on. It definitely does feel more like RE than 4 or 5, but still only kinda feels like survival horror. It would be no great loss if this game didn't exist, but it's an interesting experiment.

This game was originally made for 3DS, and it feels very inconsistent, in a way you'd kind of expect a spinoff game made for a handheld console to be. It’s split up into episodes that usually take around half an hour, and have you switching between characters, and the short length was meant to be tailored to a handheld experience. Usually each chapter starts with a sort of interlude related to the main story where you play as other characters in another location, then it switches back to Jill exploring the main ship the game takes place on. The bite sized nature of the episodes makes it feel easy to keep playing. Some parts of the game are very fun and flow well, and other parts are just dull or frustrating. The game feels like a confused mix of survival horror and RE5 style action, and between that and the constant character swapping and hit-or-miss dialogue, it feels like a game that’s not very sure of what it wants to be. The bulk of the game where you’re playing as Jill aboard the Queen Zenobia, a BOW infested ship adrift at sea, tends to be the strongest part of the game, and it’s a great setting that’s perhaps underwhelming due to the graphical capabilities of the 3DS. You end up in a similar setting near the end of RE7, also directed by Koushi Nakanishi, and it looks a lot better there, and does justice to the concept better. Like so many things in Revelations, it was a good idea, but a bit underwhelming in its execution. This period of Resident Evil was definitely a time of trying out new directions for the series. Revelations, RE6, and another spin off I didn’t play called Operation Raccoon City were all released in 2012. RE6 is bad, Revelations is okay, and by all accounts Operation Raccoon City is not all that good. After a year like this, it makes sense Capcom went back to the drawing board. 

The writing in Revelations is not great, and is sometimes suddenly better or worse, but I appreciate what they were going for with the rapport between characters. I also feel like this game messes up that classic survival horror feel of exploring an intimidating place alone. You're always with a partner and always switching perspectives, so it never feels like you're alone, and because of that switching you never even really feel like you're isolated from the outside world on the Zenobia. It feels more like a TV show storytelling technique than something that works well for survival horror. Part of what makes survival horror work is that atmosphere created by feeling isolated and vulnerable, and it doesn't really work when the game is always cutting away between chapters to show what so-and-so is doing elsewhere.

Most of the characters get Kojima style designs, which I'm really not a fan of. Previous RE character designs were always very grounded without being too boring, and included classics like Jill's beret look, Jill's blue tube top look, Claire's magenta shorts look, and Ada's red dress look. I’m really not a fan of the skintight suit covered in tubes, straps and gadgets style of character design. It feels very “anime Rob Liefield.” 

I appreciate what they wanted to do by telling a story in multiple perspectives, and how they did it to suit a handheld game, but at the same time I feel like it disrupts the flow of exploration and the atmosphere of survival horror. Revelations 2 does a significantly better job of telling a story in different perspectives. Revelations was pretty fun to play, and had some decent ideas, but it’s nothing I’ll ever return to. It would be remiss of me not to mention my favorite bad dialogue of the game, so here are all of the best lines:

"Sorry, I don't date cannibal monsters."

"Me and my sweet ass are on the way!"

“Jill, where are you?”

"I dunno. A room, I think."

"These terrorists must be brought to justice... blast it!" 

-Monster Review Corner-

They went for an “under the sea” aesthetic for the monsters in this game, so almost every monster is a variation of a bloated pale humanoid. It does have guys that are like walking mutant sharks with arms that are swords and shields, which I’m not going to pretend isn’t sick, but they really, really don’t fit in a Resident Evil game. Oops, wrong game, these guys were supposed to go to Etrian Odyssey. The only kinda cool RE monster is the one that’s like a nightmare mermaid with spiny abdomen teeth. Overall monster score: 4/10

Time to complete: 5:12

Random fact: this was the first RE game where you could move while shooting.

Resident Evil 6 (2012)

I’m not going to have much to say about this one. RE6 is bad in many of the same ways the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy is. Abandoning almost everything that gives the series its unique identity in favor of trying to make a game that will sell a lot of copies. Obsessed with QTEs and explosive, loud set pieces, and resentful of player agency. "No no, silly player, look over here. Move at this speed. Go this way. We know best. Now that's entertainment!" It's a game that desperately wants to entertain and impress, dragging you by the wrist through loud, brash, guns-blazing action campaigns that totally miss the point of both horror and Resident Evil. Most of the time it just feels like an arcade shooter, and you're expected to stick to the script so closely that it may as well be a rail shooter. It really does take away everything that makes survival horror special: it doesn’t have a slow pace, it’s not about exploration, you don’t feel vulnerable or isolated, there’s no sense of map knowledge or pathfinding, it has overwrought combat mechanics, there’s pretty much no quiet time, the atmosphere is more goofy than scary, and it takes forever to finish. Sometimes it feels like this game really wanted to be Left 4 Dead 2: the way campaigns are set up like movies, the special zombie types, the co-op play, the sprawling levels. Except the devs seemed to have no clue as to what actually makes Left 4 Dead fun. The producer said the idea behind RE6 was to create the “ultimate horror entertainment,” which perfectly explains why it feels so much like a bad movie you’re being forced to sit through. It’s bombastic and stupid like a Fast and Furious movie, but doesn’t even have the idiot charm of one of those movies. Resident Evil 6 is a long, forgettable and stupid third-person action game that doesn't even have the common decency to be fun. 

Time to complete: Who knows. I'd finish this game if someone was paying me to, but they're not. People say it takes over 20 hours, which sounds unbearable. 

Resident Evil: Revelations 2

Finally some good fucking Resident Evil. I was actually kind of surprised by how good this game was, something the mediocre Revelations didn't prepare me for. It's a very welcome return to a more survival horror style of gameplay. From the start, it's dark, lonely and atmospheric. You do always have a companion, but it's still mostly very good at capturing that survival horror isolation feeling. 

It does have a few holdovers from RE6, most notably sprinting, skills and dodging, but it's the same style of dodge as RE3R, which doesn't feel totally out of place in a survival horror game, rather than the over the top rolls and dives of RE6. It doesn't have any of the dumb combat moves or the pointless stamina gauge or the action movie bombast. Skills are mostly passive and have only a very slight effect on gameplay. To me, this is a good thing, but it also means there may as well be no skills at all. It feels like something that’s needlessly tacked on, as though they wanted to convince a certain subset of their potential audience that it’s not just a classic survival horror experience, or perhaps they were trying to make it feel more modern, or extend replay value, or all of the above. In any case, it doesn’t need to be there and I’m glad it has little effect. 

The game has a good deal of combat, but combat is simple enough to fit into a survival horror game. It would have been fine with less, but it's still fine, because it actually has things outside of combat, unlike 4-6, and lets you play, explore, and figure things out without a lot of overbearing guidance. A lot of the puzzles and navigation feel like classic RE, and it’s a great return to form in that regard. Sometimes it has a bit too much combat for my taste, but this is made up for by long stretches with few or no enemies, and it has those survival horror moments of exploration and puzzle solving to balance things out. 

This game does AI companions right, for the first time in the series. Moira and Natalia are both really useful, and I found myself wanting to switch to them almost as often as I wanted to play Claire and Barry. You also don't really need to babysit them because it's pretty hard for them to die and they’re good at following behind. There are multiple good segments of the game where your characters separate, and Claire or Barry need to cover their partner while they traverse a room to gain access to the next area. Unlike in RE5, though, you’re not required to have a second player to have fun during these parts, and I don’t think it’s even possible to play the game co-op. At first glance this seems like a missed opportunity, but honestly, if someone had to play either of the secondary characters full time, it would get boring very quickly. I think it was a necessary sacrifice to make the two character system work well in a single player experience. I really don’t mind, since I think of survival horror as a single player genre. As a result, it lacks both the painfully slow character switching of RE0 and the painfully stupid AI of RE5. 

It’s funny that just as in RE5, Rev 2 ends in two consecutive Wesker boss fights, but this time against Alex Wesker rather than Albert. Also, these Wesker boss fights are much better. The final boss makes use of the character swapping, and actually does it really well. Barry is running from mutant Alex through cliffside caves, and you switch between him and Claire, who’s in a helicopter with a sniper rifle. It’s very much a Resident Evil fight, in that it’s more about positioning and survival than it is about fast shooting or burning the boss down with damage. 

I also actually think this game has a good story for the series, but mostly what makes it stand out is the characters themselves. I also really appreciate the callbacks to previous games. It refers back to things from RE1, Code Veronica, Revelations, and RE5. Alex Wesker, who I think previously only existed in lore notes, is the villain, and the Uroboros virus of RE5 plays a small role. It makes nods to the larger mythos without being so convoluted that someone who doesn’t know everything about every game would have trouble following. The central story is easy to follow: you’re trapped on an unknown mastermind’s monster infested deathtrap island, infected with a virus that causes you to turn into a disgusting, mindless monster if your level of fear gets too high. I love their choices of Claire and Barry as the main characters. Claire being a beloved series staple, and Barry being an unexpected but surprisingly great choice. I also love how you play in two different timelines, Claire and Moira on the island six months before, and Barry and Natalia searching for them in the present. You travel through a lot of the same areas, but fight different enemies, take different paths and solve different puzzles. Rev 2 also has the most naturalistic character dialogue and acting the series has seen thus far. It feels like the rapport they were going for in Rev 1, but done better, and both pairs of player characters play off of each other well. I like that Claire takes a matter-of-fact, seen it all before approach to the situation, because she’s been through two different self-contained zombie apocalypses, while Moira the teenager is always cursing and yelling and basically saying “what the fuck,” and she really acts like I think a teenager might in such a situation. Barry, the dumpy old dude with dad jokes who came prepared with his dorky backpack and cargo pants, and the fearless 10-year-old girl Natalia, also go together well. By the end, I found myself actually caring about what happened to these characters.

Between Rev 2's gameplay, dialogue, and visual style, it's easy to see how it paved the way for the third-person RE2 and RE3 remakes. It was a very good move for the series, and I'm surprised it's not mentioned more often. Despite being a sequel to a spin-off, it was at the time better at being Resident Evil than anything since REmake, which came out thirteen years prior. It has its highs and lows, but it’s a big step in the right direction, and a good survival horror game. It’s not quite the same quality of RE7, RE2R or RE3R, but I really liked Revelations 2. 

-Monster Review Corner-

Honestly, the monster designs are one of the weakest parts of Rev 2. The principal zombie-likes are just these kind of blobby, gross dudes who run at you, sometimes while holding wrenches or other makeshift weapons. Most of the enemies follow the same pattern, kinda blobby humanoids that look like bloated corpses or conglomerations of body parts, and I find it pretty dull. There are also some generic RE dogs that for some reason have pig heads. I never hold zombie dogs against a Resident Evil game, because you can’t have a Resident Evil without evil dogs. I don’t make the rules. As you progress you just get bigger, meaner blobby corpse guys with different abilities. There are only really two exceptions that I find less boring than the rest: Glasps, and Alex Wesker’s monstrous forms. Glasps are invisible, bloated flying insectoids that instantly kill you if they catch you. In order to kill them, you need to switch to Natalia, who can sense them and point them out, then switch back to Barry to take your shot. They cause this weird vision effect when they’re near, implying that their invisibility is something they’re doing to your mind, which to me feels less out of place than physical invisibility. If you had asked me before if I thought an invisible enemy was suited to RE, I would’ve said no, but Glasps feel like a creature out of a STALKER game, and I like it. Alex's final form is classic RE, like the Tyrant or G-Mutation designs, but with more of a disfigured crone vibe. Her unnaturally long spiky spine and humanoid limbs give her a creepy marionette feel. The heavily mutated humanoids, like Nemesis, tend to be among the best RE monster designs. Before she injects herself with Uroboros and transforms, she looks like an ancient haglike being with the air of a hunched vulture, with tubes and staples and half her face peeled off, a victim of her own T-Phobos virus.

Time to complete: 7:45

A practically perfect length. It feels like a long and satisfying experience that's paced well and wastes very little of your time. 

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)

I actually played this game in early 2019, before I ever conceived of this journey through the series, and I was as surprised as anyone at Resident Evil 7 being a good game. An oft repeated sentiment among RE fans who dislike RE7 is "it's not Resident Evil." In my mind, that's a very strange thing to say, since it borrows almost all of its design principles from the classic trilogy. I think the negativity some people feel towards this game is a knee-jerk reaction to the first person perspective. I've learned that like any fandom, Resident Evil's is full of idiots who just kind of say things, and barely make any attempt to understand the thing they like so much. (Not to say everyone who's an RE fan is an idiot. People like Suzi the Sphere Hunter and Critique Quest on YouTube have plenty of insightful things to say. Your average video game comment leaver or redditor is just a "whoa, cool videogame" meme). RE7 brings back so many things from classic RE: a slow methodical pace, save rooms, a classic style map, limited inventory space, item boxes, emblem keys, limited ammo and healing, a small array of weapons, a relatively small number of enemies, a creepy isolated mansion, a lone protagonist, survival horror puzzles, a focus on exploring in order to escape, item-base progression, simple mechanics, a feeling of vulnerability, environmental storytelling, a relatively simple story, a harmonious balance of all these elements, and a short game length. Even the character switch at one point near the end of the game is classic RE. The design philosophy applied to RE7 is classic survival horror, through and through. This is so much the case that I noticed myself playing in a similar way to the classic era games. Checking my map to carefully plan the safest, most optimal route. Managing inventory for the least amount of backtracking. Making sure I checked every room as thoroughly as possible for useful items. Slowly making my way through a small but interconnected and well designed map. Feeling that sense of tension every time I opened an unfamiliar door. Getting absorbed in the atmosphere and taking my time. It's weird to say playing a horror game feels comforting, or cozy, but RE7 does, in a way. All of this isn't to say it feels just like playing the old games. It's a reinvention, rather than a re-creation, and I think that was the right route to take. 

RE7 is the first game to use Capcom's RE Engine, and it looks extremely good, especially its lighting. The one thing that doesn't look exceptional is the models for people and their movements and expressions. People move and make facial expressions in that weird video game way that never looks natural, and it's kind of impressive how far Capcom has come since 2017 in that department. This is greatly improved in the 2 & 3 remakes, which also both use the RE Engine. The first thing I noticed while replaying this game is how incredibly detailed everything is, including the sound design. You hear your character's slightly hesitant breath, his footsteps, the creaks and groans of an old house, and other muffled sounds that can't possibly be attributed to a house's age. All of the visual details let you imagine how every part of the Baker farm slowly fell into disrepair, the toll that multiple floods took on the place, and the gradual disintegration of a family's sanity and normalcy reflected in the physical dilapidation of the house. Like the Spencer mansion in 1996, the Baker property is as much a character as it is a setting. The return to a seemingly abandoned, sprawling house as a setting really helps establish that this is a return to form, a return to slow, creeping horror. The house is a shadowy urbex nightmare of abandoned spaces and black mold. The washed up tanker and the mines you explore in the game's final stretch aren't nearly as memorable or characterful as the house. RE7 succeeds in actually being scary more than most Resident Evil games. It's very good at being a horror game, but has all of the survival horror gameplay that makes the genre so satisfying.

The RE7 team wisely created a new narrative that’s almost entirely disconnected from the convoluted mythos the series has been building on since Code Veronica, but used the ending to leave the narrative open to that connection to the larger story. This, combined with the first person perspective, makes the game feel more intimate and more focused, which really works for it. It's really more a story about the house and its inhabitants, about Eveline, Mia, Zoe and the Baker family than it is about its protagonist, Ethan Winters. In my opinion, he's one of the weaker parts of the game. This series isn’t exactly renowned for its brilliant character writing, but he’s just kinda there, like American cheese. At least characters like Jill, Carlos, Ada, Claire, Chris, Sheva, Barry and Wesker are likeable and/or memorable in a video game character kinda way. Ethan feels intentionally designed to be the most unremarkable mid-30s white dude you could think of, almost like he's meant for a target audience, and he drags an excellent game down a little bit. Even Nemesis, the monster whose only line is "STAAAARRSs," is more memorable. They can really do better. So while I’m very excited to see what they do with RE8 after the quality of the last three games, I was disappointed to learn I’d still be playing as Ethan. I'm hoping they'll figure out a way to make him less lame. The other thing is, almost every RE protagonist is a member of S.T.A.R.S. or the BSAA, or someone who knows how to shoot a gun, so they at least have some explanation for how good they are at handling these situations. Ethan is literally just some guy who goes into a swamp to find his wife.

RE7 is at heart an amalgamation of a bunch of horror tropes and references, even references to the series itself, and yet it feels more like a loving homage to horror than a hackneyed rehash. Meet the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre as you explore the mansion from Resident Evil/The People Under the Stairs and evade your wife who’s now a deadite from Evil Dead, meet the gross body horror man from From Beyond, shambling swamp monsters, an evil witch grandma, and the little girl from F.E.A.R. You also solve a puzzle from Saw in a serial killer’s murder maze. It's all bundled together and interwoven so well that it feels like something fresh and unique rather than horror's greatest hits.

Time to complete: 7:40

Like all of the best survival horror games, it ends right before it starts wearing out its welcome. The short length keeps any of its ideas from getting stale.

-Monster Review Corner-

There really aren't that many different kinds of monsters in this game, which I'm fine with. The principle zombie-likes of this game are slimy black sinewy humanoids called molded. Eveline, the bioweapon in the form of a little girl, is the cause behind everything bad that happened to the house and family, and she creates a black mold which infects those she wants to control, and which molded are made of. A lot of people think they're boring enemies, but personally I think they're perfectly suited to the setting of a dilapidated, water-damaged house that's being slowly reclaimed by the surrounding wilderness. The first enemy you actually encounter in this game is your wife Mia, who switches between normal Mia and evil deadite Mia. She also chops your hand off with a chainsaw, which is pretty fun. Jack is the Nemesis of RE7's early game. He's an unnaturally pallid middle-aged man who stalks you and has regenerative abilities which are later revealed to be... extensive. As you explore the house in the early game, you're always on edge because you know he could be lurking anywhere. In his later boss form, he's a bulging body horror monstrosity. Marguerite is another enemy who stalks you through the boat house with a creepy lantern. She creates bugs that attack you, so she's like a nasty bug crone. As a boss she employs hit and run tactics, lurking in the dark waiting for you, so slow and careful is the best way to fight her. Eveline is just the little girl from FEAR. No two ways about it. I'm honestly not a big fan of her, just because I kind of hate the creepy little kid horror trope.

Side note: I think this is the first game in the whole series without evil dogs.

Overall monster score: 7/10

Resident Evil 2 (2019)

To my taste, Resident Evil 2 remake might be the most ideal incarnation of Resident Evil that exists. It has everything that makes survival horror great, and it’s all implemented extremely well. Combine this with the gorgeous graphics and chilling atmosphere and you have a practically perfect survival horror game. It feels like the culmination of everything that worked in the series over the years, with the visual fidelity to do it justice. It’s a good remake because it does more than just faithfully recreate the original – it takes the best ideas from across the series. It has the methodical pace of classic survival horror, the backtracking and slow unlocking of new areas, the shadowy, eerie atmosphere of REmake, the highly detailed graphics and sound design of RE7, the item combining of RE3, Revelations 2 and RE7, the close over-the-shoulder view of RE4 and beyond, which notably feels like Rev 2. I’ve talked about how survival horror is a balance of things, and in that sense, RE2R is superbly balanced. Visually, it’s so detailed and nails the atmosphere so perfectly that it makes you want to move slowly just because it feels like you should. Moving forward feels foreboding. The way zombies look and move is scary, and lickers are terrifying. Narratively, it’s the same story but told better, and characters are much more human and believable than the original. Leon is just a regular dude, not the regular shithead he became in RE4 and RE6, and Claire is a great character. The Raccoon City police station is the strongest setting of the game, it’s all shadowed corridors, bloodstained walls and shattered windows. You really get the sense of it being a building that was formerly used as a museum, and the barricaded doors and aftermath of carnage everywhere help you imagine what happened as people fought for their lives, and lost, before you arrived. The sound design is extremely well done and detailed, which I never noticed until I played with headphones. (I wish I had paid more attention to sound design on this series playthrough. It can be an important part of survival horror). Gameplay is no slouch, either. Patient, precise shooting and tactical retreats pay off, and inventory management remains an integral part of progressing through the game. You eventually have much more inventory space than in the classic games, but it still never really feels like too much until right near the end of the game. Puzzles and item usage feel just how they should in survival horror. The Sherry and Ada portions, in Claire and Leon’s campaigns respectively, are both a nice change of pace and they’re short enough that they don’t wear out their welcome. 

Strangely, I don’t feel like I have much to say about this game, just because it so well embodies everything I’ve already cited as being good about survival horror. The police station especially is exceptional, in terms of atmosphere, map design, the layout of enemy encounters, methodical play, and balance. It’s very light on anything resembling fast paced action, and I love that. All in all, I think this is the most well-rounded and well-made Resident Evil game to date. It would be a great place to start the series, and a great way to show someone everything good about the genre. 

Time to complete: 

First run, Leon A: 7:49

Second run, Claire A: 6:39

Resident Evil 3 (2020)

Here are the common criticisms people have of this game, and why they’re wrong:

“It’s bad because they cut content from the original.”

First of all, these two are both excellent games, but they’re different enough to be completely separate games. Even the maps and the paths you travel through the game are totally different. Sure, it would be fun to see a clock tower area in the style of the remakes, but I’m not going to hold nonexistent content against a game, especially one that’s this good. If you want to relive RE3, it still exists. No one seemed to complain about how different RE2R is.

“It’s too short.”

It’s pretty much the same length as RE3, and it’s a fine length for a survival horror game. I like that the game is fast paced and concise, and this captures the spirit of classic survival horror. In this day and age I find short games refreshing, and brevity is a mark in a game’s favor rather than a mark against it. Also, when a game is short, I’m a million times more likely to want to replay it in the future. Case in point, this was the second time I played this game. If it took 20 hours, if it even took 10 hours, it would run too long. 

“It’s an action game, not survival horror.”

It’s more of an action game than RE2R, but even that is up for debate. I feel like throughout a lot of the game, you’re really not doing more shooting than you do in RE2R, and Jill isn’t really any more heavily armed than Leon or Claire end up being in that game. There are more boss fights, and more explosions, though, and by the end of the game you have a ton of ammo and resources, but they generally give you tons of stuff at the end of these games. I mentioned that original RE3 felt more like an action movie than the previous two games, and the remake is a lot better at being an action movie. It has a breakneck start where you’re almost immediately in a fight for your life against Nemesis as he bursts through the wall of Jill’s apartment and chases you through the streets, which culminates in the player ramming him off of a parking garage with a car. I’m normally not a big fan of explosive set pieces in games, but this one is really good and is great at setting the tone for the rest of the game. Just like the original, it’s more action oriented, but it’s just much better at action than the original RE3. I really wouldn’t classify it as an action game, like a lot of people seem to. Its pedigree and presentation are thoroughly survival horror, in my mind. Inventory management is an integral part of the game and most of the game has that slow survival horror gameplay. One thing I like less about this game than RE2R is that it has fewer puzzles. It’s not like it doesn’t have any, but they take a backseat, which is why I’d call it more action-oriented survival horror. 

“Nemesis doesn’t show up often enough.”

I really don’t know where this comes from, because I feel like if he showed up any more often than he already does it would get irritating and redundant. There are literally four separate boss fights against him, and multiple parts where he chases Jill around. How much more do you need in a five and a half hour game?

Now that that’s cleared up, on to other things.

The Resident Evil 2 Remake has a lot of noticeable similarities to the original version, but Resident Evil 3 Remake is basically a completely different game, and I honestly think that’s a good thing. Somehow, when you play the original RE3 in 2020, it feels more dated than RE2, and I thought RE2 was a better game. 

Back on the topic of action: this game does a thing video games do I don’t usually like, which is when the main character is often seen falling off of exploding things and staggering through corridors and burning buildings and thrown against cars and so on and so forth. Here, I don’t really mind it though, maybe because it’s not a long game and these parts take up little of its play time. It also makes the fight against Nemesis feel more immediate and tangible. It does often feel like playing an action movie, but it’s Terminator 2, not Michael Bay. Also, the bad Nemesis boss fights of the original are replaced with actually good boss fights. 

One thing I really like about RE3R is the way characters are presented. Jill and Carlos both feel like more relatable, human characters, with actual personalities, and this makes you much more invested in their fight to escape the city. They end up being two of my favorite versions of RE characters, and I hope we see them in future games, though I find that kind of unlikely. Resident Evil is really not great when it comes to consistency in characters. It’s a shame because I’d love to see a direct sequel with this version of Jill and Carlos. Apart from these two, even the rest of the cast are given a lot more character and feel human. 

The Carlos segment of the game in the hospital is much more atmospheric and interesting than the original’s Carlos section, and this one ends with a siege style fight much like the cabin fight of RE4. On the topic of RE4, this game has a document explaining that Nemesis was created by implanting some kind of parasite into a Tyrant, and the author of the document berates Umbrella for going the route of parasites due to their unpredictability. You also fight a few zombies in the game who were infected by Nemesis and grow alien-looking parasites on their heads. It can be assumed that this is tying the lore of these games in with the Las Plagas parasites of RE4 and RE5 and paving the way for the RE4 Remake. I think this is neat, even though I wish they wouldn’t remake RE4 on account of it being garbage. 

All in all, I really like this game, and it’s one of my favorites of 2020. It’s a very good survival horror game with tons of detail and character that can be finished in two or three sittings. I have pretty much no complaints about it other than the aforementioned lack of puzzles. It’s more fast paced survival horror, but it’s very good in it’s own right.    

Time to complete: 4:36 (2nd playthrough)

I don’t know the exact time of my first playthrough, but my old save file that’s right before the final boss was at 5:52. 

Final Thoughts

I feel like after playing all of these games, it should be asked: is the story of Resident Evil any good? The answer to that is… kinda, sometimes? But also no, not really? It’s often entertaining, scary, gory, tense and atmospheric in the way that a good horror movie is. It’s also a little silly, often in a charming way, like how you can always tell at any given moment that this setting is a Japanese interpretation of America. The story itself goes well off the rails by the time you reach RE4. I mean, you’re rescuing the president’s daughter from evil zombie villagers and space alien tentacle monsters and cultists and ogres and then the zombies get body armor and guns. (Let's just not ever talk about the story of Code Veronica.) But the story isn’t really the point, is it? I think the series is vastly improved because there is a narrative, and it just wouldn't be the same without it, but you won’t find anything too deep or meaningful in that narrative. The one saving grace is that a defining feature of the story is ultimately the fact that corporations and governments are evil and only care about profit, to the extent of sacrificing hundreds of people in multiple biological weaponry incidents. That aspect at least feels true to life, especially in the midst of a pandemic that neither our government, nor the extremely powerful corporations that exercise control over that government, are doing anything about. Umbrella is an international corporation that no one dares or bothers to oppose who maintains their own paramilitary force, has their own private prisons and research sites, and has their hands in every part of the government and infrastructure of Raccoon City and who knows how many other cities. The villain is always ultimately the unchecked corporation - even in RE7, the nightmare family that seems disconnected from the outside world is ultimately revealed by in-game documents to be directly linked to corporate experimentation.

In Revelations 2, as well as the new 2 & 3 remakes, the characters are at least likable and there’s nothing incredibly dumb like you’ll find in RE 4, 5 or 6. Some would cite the part at the end of RE3R where Jill uses a humongous railgun called the FINGeR (Ferromagnetic Infantry-use Next Generation Railgun) to kill the final form of Nemesis as something dumb, but they are wrong. The characters of RE2R, RE3R and Revelations 2 are likeable and human, so they seem to at least be going in the right direction in that regard. The storytelling of RE7, RE2R and RE3R returns to the more grounded approach of the original trilogy, which is a good thing, and I think a good sign for the future of the series and its setting. 

There’s something I’ve noticed about RE games, which might just boil down to my own personal preferences. In pretty much every game, you end up in an entirely new location in the final act of the game, and that last part is never as good as the rest. In RE2R, you spend most of the game in the police station, then go to the sewers (and the orphanage if you’re playing as Claire). For the last stretch of the game you end up at NEST, Umbrella’s secret underground lab, and this part is weaker than the rest. Likewise, the ship and mines areas in RE7 are weaker than the majority of the game, the lab in RE3 and its remake, the lab in REmake, even the last section of RE5. This isn’t to say these parts are necessarily bad, just that they tend to be worse than the rest. At the same time, I think they’re necessary changes of pace and locale. I think there are two reasons for this: one, the first locations of RE games tend to be very strong settings with lots of character, and two, it’s an an example of a problem all horror fiction faces, which is that the more you ramp up tension, the harder it gets to do it in believable and interesting ways. If horror goes on too long, situations become predictable and it loses its bite, and survival horror games are no exception. Ramping up tension and action necessarily compromises the things that initially make horror enjoyable, like slow and eerie pacing, the danger of an unknown threat, the vulnerability of character or player, and the slow unraveling of mysterious and fatal circumstances. At the same time, horror needs a final act, needs some kind of closure, otherwise the building of tension feels like it was for nothing and the story is unsatisfying. I have no idea what the solution to this is, except brevity, which good RE games are very good at. 

I liked a few RE games already, but playing through them all really made me realize I like this series more than I previously thought, and I like survival horror a lot more than I thought. The really bad and long mid-series slump that lasted about thirteen years can’t be ignored, but I really like more than half of the games in the series. It created an entire genre with a devoted following, and I feel like RE2R brought the genre back into the limelight somewhat. You can see the influence of the genre even on games that aren’t really in the genre, like Prey, Gone Home, Bloodborne, and Left 4 Dead. I’m really looking forward to playing through my list of other survival horror games. 

Things Resident Evil showed me that I love about survival horror:

-Slow paced, thoughtful gameplay. You’re rarely rushed, and action isn’t the focus. Generally there’s nothing dragging you along in a certain direction, forcing you to look at or interact with certain things. It’s up to you to figure out the way forward.

-An emphasis on exploration. This is tied in with the previous point. A lot of the fear and tension comes from not knowing what's through the next door or what will happen next, but knowing you have to explore to progress. These games have a lot of backtracking, a healthy sense of map knowledge and memory as a useful skill, and lots of item-based progression. As I mentioned in my note about puzzles before, the whole map feels like a puzzle to be solved.

-A feeling of vulnerability, reinforced by things like limited defense options, slow movement, scarcity of items, limited inventory space, and simple combat. This goes hand in hand with the sense of isolation usually found in survival horror games.

-Environmental storytelling. Setting details being revealed through documents, destruction, corpses, bloodstains, locales, and even puzzles. 

-They aren’t defenseless walking sims. It's on you to survive. Having a way to respond to threats, but not feeling like you ever have quite enough, is much scarier than being defenseless. It's because it's a game - mechanically, you know a game isn't just going to give you no defenses, then throw you to the wolves. Survival horror acknowledges its framework of video game, its limitations and advantages. It gives more of a feeling of success or failure hinging on your decisions rather than on scripted events. The player feels like they have more agency, even if it's not always strictly the case.

-Making use of silence, something games aren't generally good at. This ties in with quiet time, something I wish more games were aware of. That is, times when the player is just quietly left to their own devices, exploring alone, solving puzzles, reading notes. You're not in danger 100% of the time, which gives the danger teeth.

-Simplicity of play, or accessibility. These games generally don’t contain any difficult mechanics or concepts that need to be explained, have little need for tutorials, and are easy to understand and play. Things like difficulty settings, auto aim, and the assist modes seen in RE2R and RE3R expand accessibility too. I think difficulty goes in this category too. Honestly, most survival horror games aren’t all that hard, because if you died all the time, you’d get bored and frustrated. Survival horror games seem to actually want you to have a good time. Imagine that. 

-Mostly short playtime. A genre that's often good at not wasting your time. It’s very good for people without much time or people who like to actually be able to finish games and move on to other games, or replay games. It might sound weird, but also, sometimes I feel like really long games have something to hide under all that repetitive content.

-New weapons or abilities feel earned, because you generally go through a lot to get to them and they’re not handed out very often.

-A harmonious balance of elements. When a survival horror game is good, it elegantly combines all of the aforementioned traits.

RE Score Sheet

Endings where I flew away in a helicopter: 8 Crank or valve handles collected and turned: 16 Zombies or dogs or birds that burst through windows: 19 Object pushing puzzles: 14 Shaped indentations filled (including cogs): 71 Jump scares: 13 Puzzles where you configure shapes or valves or gears or numbers or lights a certain way: 18 Oversized animal types: 12 (Spider, Bee, Moth, Snake, Shark, Worm, Scorpion, Cockroach, Centipede, Bat, Salamander, A Different Bat) Rooms with monsters in tubes: 8 Gigantic mutant plants: 4 Times when it looked like a character died but they didn't really: 10 Secret subterranean labs: 10 Switches that change the water level: 5 Batteries/cables attached to things: 9 Clock towers: 4 Vaccines synthesized: 4 Self destruct sequences: 7 Helicopters shot down or otherwise destroyed right before they were used to escape: 6 Unique viruses: 9 (Progenitor Virus, T-Virus, G-Virus, T-Veronica Virus, Uroburos Virus, T-Abyss Virus, C-Virus, T-Phobos Virus, Mold Virus)

Resident Evil Tier List

Obligatory tier list disclaimer: tier lists are stupid and bad and fail to acknowledge the many nuances of things.

#resident evil #survival horror #game reviews #shinji mikami #koushi nakanishi #capcom #re #spooky season

[maydei]

What is it about Hannibal (the show + person) and his relationship with will that you absolutely love about? They do seem like an interesting couple (I haven’t seen the movie so I cannot relate much) but what about them? I genuinely curious and am interested with your thoughts and opinions.

Hi Anon!! This is a really big question, but I’ll do my best to answer it. I’m definitely gonna put most of this under a cut, because it got really, really long.

First of all, the relationship that I love in regards to the Will//Hannibal dynamic comes from the TV show Hannibal, which was written by Bryan Fuller and ran on NBC from 2013-2015. It was an extraordinarily unique and in-depth take on the Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham friendship that was based on the books, insofar that Will Graham was one of the few who deeply understood Hannibal Lecter prior to the revelation that he was a cannibal. Of course, Bryan took that concept several steps further.

My first suggestion? If you can stomach any kind of horror or gore, watch Hannibal. It is without a doubt the best television show I’ve ever seen, if only because it is visually beautiful, every character is complex and has clearly outlined motivations of their own, and is a really deeply intellectual piece of media. It’s not an easy watch, and I don’t mean that because of content. The story itself, the character drives, even the dialogue will challenge you. It’s not something you just sit down and understand, it really did take a lot of work for me to grasp the full spectrum of what was going on at any given time during my first watch. I’d never encountered something that pushed me that hard before, and even with a week between episodes or more (since I watched when it was originally airing), I was often left like ?????. Think of it like Black Mirror, except every episode is tied together. It’s gonna screw with you a little, so you’ll want to be prepared. 

The thing other than the fantastic writing that brings this show and these characters to life: the actors. Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter presents a character that you better not take your eyes off even once. Hannibal says things so smoothly and with such conviction, but it’s only if you watch his face at all times that you will see the micro-expressions of what he is actually thinking and feeling. There’s a reason he’s often referred to as the Devil, as smoke. 

Hugh Dancy as Will Graham presents a man who is haunted by his own desires from empathizing too closely with killers. He can feel what murderers feel, and that gives him a unique perspective. He puts himself inside their minds to recreate their thought processes as they kill, and that gets to him. It haunts him, and sticks with him. It puts him in the position of needing someone to help him find his way back to himself when he gets in too deep.

It’s such a unique dynamic. I really couldn’t tear myself away. And that’s only where their story begins.

It starts as a sense of curiosity. Hannibal by nature and necessity is a solitary creature, and he has been pretty damn happy that way. When Jack Crawford asks him to profile Will Graham and clear him for field work, it is a unique opportunity for him as an already-established killer to see inside the workings of the FBI. That’s advantageous for him, of course. He can then keep tabs on the investigation against him. But in the process, he discovers Will, who thinks like a killer. Will, who has forcibly shoved his own personality into a very safe box of isolation and rescued dogs and fly fishing, things that require control and perfection. Will uses these constructs as shields to keep the darkness inside him at bay. He absorbs killers to gain their insights, but once they are inside, he has a really hard time getting rid of them. 

It may seem backwards, but despite Hannibal meeting other killers who are very much like him, he ultimately rejects them because he doesn’t want someone exactly like himself. He wants Will because he is so incredibly human, but trying so hard to restrain his own darkness. What Hannibal wants above all is to set him free, come hell or high water. And fundamental transformations can be exquisitely painful, even in their beauty. Hannibal wants to see what will happen.

The Hannibal/Will relationship doesn’t stay stagnant, ever. There is a constantly shifting dynamic of power once we reach S2 and Will is aware of Hannibal’s nature. Will puts himself in a position to learn more about Hannibal, and in doing so, finds himself feeling the pull that Hannibal described, discovering the ways in which they are so alike. And the tension in these scenes is indescribable. If you’ve seen any of the gifsets I’ve reblogged, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Every molecule of space between them is charged with intent. Every word is carefully weighted. Every glance is measured to not be too soon or too late, hoping to glimpse beneath the other’s veneer of civility and see the creature inside. They are so cruel to each other as they learn one another, but in their cruelty, they push each other to higher heights, and the friendship never quite fractures. 

In a word, they get close. There are moments standing in firelight and shadow, genuine smiles shared, tension that builds and grows until every inch of darkness between them is thick with it. Flirtatious glances. Familiar, intimate touches that hold such rich subtext. They understand each other like no one else does. They stand on the very edge of becoming something more, becoming family, when everything collapses, and they are both devastated by it.

Their relationship is the very definition of “can’t live with him, can’t live without him”. They are described by others as being “identically different”, as being “nakama [friends, but more like… family. like a group of people tied together by life and circumstance who would not easily be broken apart]”. 

Hannibal’s revelation of love for Will Graham comes in their separation. It hits him like a train, to be honest. It’s the first time the viewer realizes that underneath the very polite and elegant and put-together man that covers the vicious killer, he really does crave companionship. Even in his solitary life, Hannibal has never been actually solitary. He fills the gaps in with friends and acquaintances, people he cares for to an extent, but mostly people he uses for their advantageous nature. Will is the first person who really sees Hannibal down to his bones, and the loss of him, and the loss of their mutual potential, deeply wounds him. 

Like. I can’t even fully explain all the things about these characters that get to me. I think the thing I like most is that, even as a serial killer, Hannibal is still so very human. He finds pleasure in art and architecture. He enjoys history and philosophy and educational pursuits. He’s a talented artist and musician and chef. He gets annoyed by rude people the same as the rest of us. The main difference is that he eats them. 

This show is visceral. It’s a game of cat and mouse, a chessboard of intellectual bad decisions, but every choice is born from emotional need. And the best thing about it is that Bryan Fuller fully accepts, welcomes, and acknowledges the love between Hannibal and Will canonically in the show. Not just “haha that’s gay” jokes. Everyone else can see it. Everyone has some sort of parting shot about it. But in the end, even Will is faced with the point-blank realization that, yes, Hannibal is in love with him, and has the question turned back on him: but do you ache for him?

By the end, there is no doubt that the call has been heard, and the draw between them culminates in what Hannibal has really desired all along: he and Will hunting together, fighting together. Achilles and Patroclus, as they have been described by Hannibal himself. 

This show is a masterpiece, honestly. It unfolds the confines of civility and sees predators set free. It sees them together, reunited. It sees them in love. It sees them from beginning to end, where even the end is not really the end. 

I dearly, desperately hope for a season four of this show. I’m comforted by the fact that all the writers, producers, and actors have voiced their support of doing so, if they can find a production company to pick them up and get the rights of the other Hannibal characters [re: SotL] the way Bryan desires.

The fandom is incredible. Everyone is a little bit older than my prior fandoms, and people tend to be well-seasoned to the concept of reading what they enjoy and silently passing over things that are not to their tastes. There’s… not really any fighting the way there is in other fandoms. Those who disagree have civilized discussions, because the first and foremost rule of the fandom is the first and foremost rule of understanding Hannibal Lecter: “Whenever possible, one should always try to eat the rude.” 

And the fandom is alive!! It’s actively creating new art and new gifsets and new fics and new everything every day, and not on a small scale, either. There are thousands of people still out here eagerly awaiting the revival of a truly groundbreaking show that showcased LGBT relationships (not just Hannibal and Will, mind you. Margot/Alana is real and alive and nourishes my soul to this day), a diverse cast, riveting and powerful female characters, and the kind of plotline and visual storytelling that the ancients would weep if they could see. 

TLDR:  I love this fandom. I love these characters. I love these monsters, and I see myself inside them in ways that is absolutely concerning to polite society. I love the imagery, the depth of morality. I love that it’s feasible for me to write a fic in which the characters can love each other and are constantly working around one another to achieve their own ends, and that every fic I read by everyone else has a different insight to their relationship. That every fic I read is a fucking masterpiece, seriously, oh my god, the quality of fiction in this fandom is so high, it’s amazing. 

Join us, Anon. The Atlantic is a little chilly this time of year, but you’ll get used to it, I promise.

#hannibal nbc #hannibal #hannigram #luc replies #Anonymous #long post #meta #i hope this helps anon i just. really love them. i cannot even fully describe but i tried!!!

[morkaischosen]

Some thoughts on Princess Fusilli as a miraculous character! Focusing on the arc-colours I thought she’d fit, mostly.

Let’s look at Knight Arcs first.

Allegory changes her a lot; she turns into a reincarnation or reawakening of an ancient mythic rat hero, like King Arthur or Jupiter Jones. Definitely on-theme, though! Her Role is Rat Princess (or later King or Queen), and her Failing is (Swashbuckling) Heroism. Her Truth will depend on game setup, but might be to do with defeating a monster, negotiating an important peace, or being found in a long-sealed cave and adopted by the Rat King. 

The powers mostly just fit. Wonder-Worker applies when she’s acting with royal authority; as a rat of rats, she can scamper anywhere through hidden ways; bring out the heroism within people; and awaken the world around her for a musical number. Stolen Form feels a bit odd, but we’ll deal. 

I suspect her miraculous weapon is a rifle so accurate it can hit precisely what you want to hit and nothing else, perhaps even metaphorically - the ability to aim a bullet to hit the connection between a possessing spirit and somebody’s head seems appropriate for the Elegant Rifle Princess. 

Her Taboo probably reinforces the formal role of a Princess - maybe she must give an audience to people who request one with the appropriate formalities, and is bound not to harm them while they continue to adhere to good etiquette. 

Become Somebody does a similar thing, but focuses more on the tension between the freedom of Adventure! and the responsibilities of a princess. Matching this theme, it feels a little more tense, a touch darker - Commanding Aura, in particular, sits in an uncomfortable place for a Rat, forcing people to conform to her story rather than simply bringing them into it. I almost feel this fits better for a Fusilli who’s at risk of that inner tension turning her into a Mystery, especially as the unpleasant side of Commanding Aura is so in tune with the tension between her Role and Failing here. 

Knave of Hearts, by contrast, feels like it works best as turning Princess Fusilli into a spirit of Adventure and Heroism, bringing people into a heroic tale. Could be fun! It’s not an arc I’ve ever got into my head that well, though - I always feel it seems to fit better as a Storyteller arc, since its whole focus seems to be on bringing others into the drama of your life rather than growing into that role yourself. 

Speaking of Storyteller Arcs! 

Creature of the Light has an interesting feel here. Fusilli appearing and disappearing through her connections, entrancing the eye with her beautiful Formal Arts, and bringing up long-forgotten memories does work, but I feel like it pushes towards a numinous, almost impersonal style - more spiritual presence than dashing hero. I could imagine her being played and ending up in a place where that made sense, but I don’t think it’s the core of what she’s about. 

Creature of Fable feels more like her sort of drama. Between the Boundaries lets her get things done by courtly intrigue or by being well-known as an envoy of the Rat King between scenes; she always looks elegant and stylish; she gets Superior Hunter to add another weapon to her arsenal of adventure, and one that covers a lot of ground the skills I gave her miss. Cut the Soul is, I think, an ancient ratly art for fighting Mysteries, allowing the greatest heroes to deny their foe-gods their powers even as the Mysteries by their nature attempt to deny ratness. The rest of the powers don’t feel quite so appropriate to me as things the Princess does but I do like them as author-stance tools for her player to shape the story - “aha, you thought that was Princess Fusilli you were fighting, but in fact it was your friend!” - but I could see it framed as an extension of those ratly mystery-fighting arts; the best way to avoid the Mysteries absorbing you into their context is to master the secrets that make you the author of the world’s story, so that you can be sure of having Drama, Adventure, Individuality and all the rest of what makes you a Rat. Again, this moves into a somewhat darker space; she can use these secret mysteries to manipulate the emotional truths of those around her, so I’d only go to Creature of Fable 2+ with the “Princess Fusilli gets miraculous author powers” framing if that was space I wanted to explore. 

Creature of Delirium… really doesn’t feel appropriate. Don’t think I’m going to waste my time. 

Onto Aspect, then! 

The Ace. Yes. Next question. 

Chosen One… I’m unconvinced; she’d basically need a full rewrite onto a more magical princess angle. Doable, but not where I want to take this. 

Reality Syndrome also doesn’t feel that appropriate to me; I think the closest I’d get is a kind of Dramatic Appropriateness Aura, and honestly Knave and Fable both handle that much better. It could probably be done but I don’t see a reason to try. 

While I didn’t consider Bindings as a starting arc for her, it does also seem like a good fit - she’s a bridge between the normal world and the Court of the Rat King, and of course to the world of Adventure and Mysteries - so I’ll look at those next. 

Gatekeeper is the story of Princess Fusilli’s role as a priest of the Mystery cult - which, as with everything else in rat religion, means fighting them. It gives her deep understanding of the Mysteries and allows her to trap them and their servants and draw on them for power. This feels like a pretty major statement about the setting, so use with care, but it also feels damn cool. I’m a sucker for a bit of religion in my RP and elegant rifle-wielding princess-priest defeating monster-gods and then wielding their power is one of the most incredibly awesome images I have ever seen. Yes please. 

Precise details depend too much on the exact Mysteries in play, the relationship of the Rats with them, and so on, so I’m not going to work on that too much more, but I’d definitely play this.

 (Shout-out to Oblivious as a fantastic extra bit of princess drama!)

 Princess Fusilli is one of the best Gatecrasher characters I’ve looked at. The world of the Rats feels tailor-made to be a Gatecrasher’s Hidden World - it’s alongside and throughout Fortitude (and the Far Roofs) but most people don’t really know what goes on behind the rat-sized doors.

 Her Speciality is Superior Princess. HELL YES.

 This gives her an Understanding of etiquette, diplomacy and romance, I think; getting the heroic angle in would be cool but heroism might be so much a part of the Secret World of Rats that it’s better to keep that for other abilities.

 Mind over Body is mostly really good makeup and it being impolite to bleed on the carpet; and of course everyone in the heroic world of the Rats can do things like climb walls, burst through windows at dramatically appropriate moments, and so on.

 Her plot devices certainly include diplomatic and social contacts, but I also like the idea of her having devices from the Three Formal Arts - a dance that entrances the eye or changes the weather, a formal plea for an audience that always grants a half-hour’s safe passage, or a rapier technique that can cut away a magical curse, perhaps.

 The last few abilities scale things up so that her princess-heroism is so princess-heroic she can work on the miraculous level more directly, which feels appropriate and excitingly flexible!

 Wounded Angel, by contrast, isn’t so much her style. Maybe an upsetting AU version, but I can’t be bothered putting the time into that one right now.

 Scanning over the other arcs, Impresario might be fun but feels like it puts too much focus on other people doing things; Indomitable looks amusing but not actually her style; and the rest don’t inspire me, so I’m pretty happy this is where I’m going with the Hypothetical Miraculous Princess Fusilli.

 No close matches on canon people-types, really; she’s not far off the hypothetical Zu but that’s on Light, not Fable, which was much less inspiring. Warmain Princess Fusilli also sooooooort of fits off the arcs but it’s a bit odd.

 Based on level of HELL YEAH I think I’d go Allegory, Creature of Fable, The Ace and Gatecrasher as pseudocanonical options, but with a well-disposed HG I’d be looking interestedly at Gatekeeper because of the whole mysteries-as-religion angle there. I think Creature of Fable 1 and Gatecrasher 2 would be where I’d put the default-ish Princess Fusilli, as that focuses in on the dashingly heroic rat-princess themes; Allegory brings in a reincarnation-y plot arc, while the Ace makes her super cool but doesn’t feel like it adds as much flavour, and Gatekeeper puts a very different twist on her social role.

 This has been a whole lot of entertaining thinking, and thoughts on this are very welcome, especially if someone’s inspired enough by my ideas to actually want to play this character!

#cmwge #princess fusilli #cmwge pc

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 13 reactions

Well, that was... well. in short I quite enjoyed some of what happened while din was there and I didn’t really care about what happened while he wasn’t there lol. I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that I just don’t care for the episodes dave filoni writes for this show, which is simply a matter of taste I guess. 

(if you loved this episode wholeheartedly -- probably look away now, I’m going to be a bit of a downer about it and I don’t want to shit on your joy haha)

- let’s just get this out of the way first: there’s a lot of stuff around rosaria dawson and transphobia in real life and yeah, of course that affects how I watch the show. I don’t even want to talk that much about ahsoka in this because of it. she was not that good in the role, after seeing how it played out I don’t think the character needed to be in this show at all, and she should never have gotten the role in the first place and that’s about it for what I’ve got to say. 

- dave filoni consistently does things with din’s characterization that feels off and weird to me, subtly out of place with what we see in other episodes (he’s... ruder? more short tempered/cocky/actively or aggressively interpersonal? more prone to express himself directly than he is usually? idk how to describe it but filoni!din always feels one step to the left of what he should be and I’m so hyper-attuned to this character that when something’s a bit iffy with him it throws everything else off haha. it feels like a shallower, more convenient read on him and I don’t like it)  

I also think filoni is almost too familiar with and in love with the source material sometimes? “A Mandalorian and a Jedi? They’ll never see it coming” is undeniably a great line that echoes in decades of deep lore and so on, but dave my good man din had no real idea what a jedi even is until literally this morning. we, the audience, know about this long and storied history, but unless ahsoka spent the afternoon explaining it to him din still only knows the faint outlines of it, he has no personal experience of or attachment to it. it’s not bad, as such, it just rings false to the character based tone of the show for me personally 

- positivity break: baby sitting perched on the dashboard to be close to papa while they’re in hyperspace........sd sdfskdjhfdsakjksdhfkasjd  

also this is some full on madonna and child in the manger shit and I am LIVING for it (odds he’s crying quietly behind the helmet here? pretty damn good if you ask me). the mundanity of what’s essentially the shitty spartan bathroom of the razor crest on one side contrasted with the light and tenderness and love on the other? amazing, a perfect microcosm of what this show does with combining the grittier everyday down to earth stuff in the star wars universe with myth and wonder and magic and through it elevating both

 - the idea of having an iconique samurai/sword duel standoff and a western standoff going on simultaneously is genuinely inspired, but in action it didn’t really work for me. (the sword duel stuff needs these moments of stillness with sudden outbursts of violence and then stillness again, the western standoff needs mounting tension until it’s nearly unbearable, and cutting between them the way they did you sort of didn’t get either to its full potential. again it’s a cool idea, though, I hope someone picks it up and does it better at some point)

- seeing a jedi and a mandalorian wander together through a burned out wasteland left desolate by greed and warfare should have hit me harder than it did but for some reason it didn’t, idk. thematically sound, though, I like it a lot on the metaphor level

- I LOVE that pure beskar makes a specific sound, and that it’s an almost ethereal noise like the high clear chime of a distant bell. also now din has something to fight light sabers with that isn’t the dark saber which makes me so happy because you guys I do not want him to be the mand’alor. keep that funky laser sword away from my dad, apart from killing him at the end that is literally the most boring way to end his arc pls do NOt 

- wow they really went in hard on the samurai stuff in this one huh! there is a part of my mchanzo-loving heart that thrives on seeing a space cowboy and a space samurai team up, *wild otp-fuelled whisper* they’re twin genres inextricably entwined okay they belong together if you see this spreadsheet I’ve made over here -- 

- even knowing it was just a trick I felt such intense distress seeing the signet pauldron away from din. like the attachment I have to these pieces of metal because That Armour Means Dad... wild  

- they really chose the dumbest name possible for the baby huh fsajdfhsaj I agree with din his name is ‘kid’ now (eh just give me a while to get used to it probably I’ll come around)

also... you know what I’ve said before about shrinking the big unknowable galaxy ‘the mandalorian’ has been setting up? wow did they do that big time in this one, and it makes me feel decidedly :/. why does the baby have to come from the jedi temple, is there truly no other tradition of force users in the entire galaxy he could be from? WHY do you have to pull thrawn into this when most people watching this show won’t even know why he’s such a big deal? is this a stealth tease for a rebels sequel? if so why spend an entire episode of this show that only gets eight precious episodes a season on it??   

- on a more fun positive note: baby’s clothes are clean again, so it’s confirmed that din does wash them (and I guess that he does have some means of washing clothes aboard the razor crest!). I loved... most of the dad and baby stuff in this one, but then don’t I always I’m easy to please that way haha (the ‘playing catch’ sequence felt a bit off to me but I don’t know why. din being like ‘he’s so stubborn’ wasn’t... eh. didn’t land right. “that would be a first” was fun tho lol) 

- having ahsoka state the baby’s feelings out loud like that felt... weird? and also kind of unnecessary in parts, like yeah he’s a baby who’s been passed along to different groups of strangers and experimented on by empire scientists, you don’t need to spell it out for me that he’s been scared and lonely, or at least spell it out more interestingly? it’s such blunt force storytelling where it didn’t need to be? there are more elegant ways to get the same things across, I am absolutely convinced 

- ...wow while I was watching the episode I was mostly like ‘okay this is Fine I can go along with it’ but seeing what I’m thinking about in hindsight... yeah probably my least favourite episode of this show full stop haha, it took the spot from chapter 5 which was also a filoni ep

- I did 100% genuinely adore the whole part of din approaching the town and meeting the magistrate. consistently hiding the baby behind his cape and his arm? being deliberately, teeth-grindingly dispassionate with everyone, just giving them nothing? getting to see a bit of professional bounty hunter din again? wonderful in every way, I love this man  

- lots of meaningful shots of baby in the middle with a mando on one side and a jedi on the other, it’s almost like they’re setting up some Themes here lol 

- ...do you think din told ahsoka about either the rhino-levitating or the force choking. because girl I don’t think not training him is going to make this just go away haha, he just won’t know what he’s doing  

- it makes me so sad that baby connects his force powers with being abused :( (also a heartbreaking sign of just how much he cared about din from the very beginning, since he used it on the mudhorn to save him anyway ;________; was that like. literally the first time he sensed kindness and affection in anyone in like twenty five years or... ) 

- I understand why ahsoka would feel this way because of her past and specific traumas, but tbh attachment in a baby? probably a good thing, he doesn’t really have the higher brain functions to cultivate non-attachment yet and needs a safe figure because again. he is a baby. 

good on her for realizing it’s not a task she can take on both for the baby’s sake and her own, and also that din is that baby’s Dad though. the way she smiled at the end watching them leave seemed vaguely hopeful/had a little bit of wonder in it, like maybe she felt the potential for something good there, something she couldn’t conceptualize from her background but could sense the tentative outlines of anyway?  

(also so much pressure on a lil bb to decide his path... his dilemmas should be limited to what colour socks he wants to wear today not the course of his entire life :( I know he’s a magic baby but.......) 

- idk maybe I’ll find more affection of this episode through rewatches, you never know

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta

[aion-rsa]

Sherlock 10th Anniversary: Behind the Scenes Set Secrets

https://ift.tt/3juJvKp

Two chairs. A fireplace. 17 steps leading up from the ground floor. On the mantelpiece, letters pierced by a knife, cigars hidden in a coal scuttle and tobacco concealed inside the toe of a Persian slipper… Sir Arthur Conan Doyle provided a few compass points from which set designers on screen adaptations of his Sherlock Holmes stories could work when creating their 221B Baker Street. The rest takes imagination, artistry, a storyteller’s eye and , in the case of BBC One’s Sherlock, the odd bit of mischief.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Sherlock’s arrival on the BBC, production designer Arwel W Jones lets Den of Geek in on the behind-the-scenes secrets of 10 sets. Over to Mr Jones…

221B Baker Street

Credit: Arwel W Jones

Though technically speaking it was a Hartswood Production and not directly through the BBC, because we were on the plot in Cardiff’s Upper Boat [Studios] where Doctor Who was being shot, there was a big old prop store there that had a lot of things from Doctor Who and I did borrow a couple of things from there which maybe I should have hired… including some music manuscript that ended up on set. I hadn’t actually spotted at the time that it had some Gallifreyan text on it! So there is that little moment of crossover for anyone that really wants one.

John’s chair is that homely chair that everyone can probably remember their grandparent sitting in. It was a chair we already had that we reupholstered it in a nice tone that complemented the room. For Sherlock, I wanted something that was a timeless classic, like himself. As soon as we saw an image of the Le Corbusier… it ticked every box. It’s low at the back, for the practicalities of shooting, and had exactly that timeless elegance.

The skull was something I’d seen in a magazine, a differently shaped skull sprayed glossy black, and liked. Everywhere you go now you see skulls or bison heads, they’re in every tattooist, every barber shop, even in nice restaurants. I don’t remember seeing them much before that.

Credit: Arwel W Jones

Often I won’t finish deciding on how to decorate a room until we know who’s been cast. The look of the actor affects what you’re doing. Once you visualise that person as that character, it makes it easier to visualise their space. 221B reflects the timelessness of Benedict. His outfits and his look would work in any era and that’s what I tried to do with the space.

It’s a transient space that had different levels of eras. No-one would really decorate their place like that! It did work though. Both Sherlock and John, no matter which wall you look at, if they’re framed against any section, with all those different styles and looks and textures, they look good against them.

Victorian 221B Baker Street

Credit: Arwel W Jones

I loved what we were able to do with ‘our’ version of the Victorian one. I was lucky it happened that way round, rather than do just another Victorian 221B, it was a Victorian version of my modern one, which is slightly surreal.

It was about finding shapes, finding little things that filled the spaces in a very similar way, like the oil lamp that had the brass reflecting around it that was bang-on perfect the same shape and size as the 221B moon lamp in the same space. They were all hints that it was [taking place in Sherlock’s Mind Palace] but there wasn’t anything out of time. We were so strict on it because they didn’t want the hint to be there before. There were clues in dialogue but they were scripted. I didn’t want to be the bad guy who let the cat out of the bag!

The stuffed deer head with the ear horn was quite cool. I was very happy with the skull painting too. It’s a real Victorian image called ‘All is Vanity’ and it worked so well in that spot. It was very of the moment because of that obsession with death that the Victorians had.

I can remember the exact moment where we said ‘what shall we paint over there?’ and I went ‘Aha! It’s the study! We’ll do it in scarlet!’  

Mycroft’s Office

Credit: Arwel W Jones

I wanted the idea that he was under your feet as you walked through Whitehall. The pattern on his ceiling is meant to be the underneath of those glass bricks that you walk over, that’s why that light comes in the way it does. We’ve always hinted that he ran the country, not the government and so he’s just there underneath, running everything.

When we did it the first time, it was the same time as doing the cell for keeping and interrogating Moriarty so we had that same feel.

If you look at the bare metal on the filing cabinets, everything is cold and calculated. The glass globe on his desk – world domination! All those things are there for a reason.

Eurus’ Sherrinford Cell

Credit: Arwel W Jones

This is about the coldness of the character and her calculatedness. It’s a smoother shape [than Mycroft’s similarly toned office], the curved ellipse of that cell, there are no edges so you don’t know what’s what. The colours and the textures obviously say coldness, but the glass and the concrete and the bareness were really about how dangerous she was, with no resource.

There are a few little Easter Eggs in there. If you look at the floor and markings on the wall, there are scratchings on the floor where the toilet and the shower would slide out. If you look at the table and the bed, they look like they can slide back into the wall. The idea is that if they wanted to, they could just leave her in a completely empty space and that she would never have to leave it. The round grate on the ceiling echoes the bottom of the well [where Eurus put John and ‘Redbeard’] but also the depths of the island. She was right at the bottom, on the bottom layer, the most secure. We played with the idea at one point of making it feel like it was underwater and there was an element of that in some of the lighting.

I was obviously looking at a lot of reference from Bond movies. That was a real nod to [Bond designer] Ken Adams, because he’d passed away that year sadly.

Magnussen’s Mind Palace

There’s a book [Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss] would reference all about helping your memory and it’s to do with associating things with particular memories. The weirder the thing you associate, the easier it is to remember it. So they told me to find weird and wonderful things! We had a fiberglass baby hippo in a dog bed in one corner, a rabbit pulling something out of a hat, rather than the other way around, a tree draped with gloves.

There was all manner of things on top of every corner of these ‘corridors of information’, including a painting of me at the end of one of them, which I don’t think you really saw. When we were doing The Sarah Jane Adventures years ago, we had a haunted house and there were things falling off the walls. We couldn’t let a hired painting fall in case of damages so I got one of the scenic artists to paint me as Rembrandt. That’s the one we knocked off the wall, so I had it, so I just put it in there as an extra bit of weirdness!

John’s Pilot Bedsit

Credit: Arwel W Jones

That was my favourite set from the unaired pilot. We were in the Coal Exchange in Cardiff that we were using downstairs for the therapist’s room and there was this little pokey room on the top floor. In the room next door they had that proper 1970s Sapele cladding, so I ripped that off one room and clad it around the one side. The tones of the bed covers and that Sapele and the lighting, it just felt like a miserable place, even though it had its own aesthetic.

This is what I keep going on about, even miserable places can have an aesthetic and look beautiful on screen. It added to his despair or his sense of not belonging. What we tried to do was recapture that in the first of the actual series. It was close, but I still think the one in the pilot was a better set in my mind. I didn’t quite get it right.

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The Baskerville Laboratory

This was a real space, a microcomputer lab that had recently closed, so a lot of that was already there. I had one of the glass cases shatter on me, so I was standing in a pile of glass at one point while we were dressing that.

One of the team said she’d seen something on YouTube about how you could melt a plastic bottle and twist it into a jellyfish. We said, let’s have a go and that’s what the glow-in-the-dark jellyfish are, they’re all plastic bottles!

The monkeys were quite frisky! The male monkey really took a shine to the Grip. Really took a shine to the Grip. They had a tracking shot that was bringing the actors out of the elevator and every time the Grip passed the cage with the male monkey, shall we say he got a bit overexcited in an adult way, which was quite amusing to everyone there and very difficult for the cast to keep a straight face.

Culverton Smith’s ‘Favourite Room’

This was trying to have something that was really modern, because it was meant to be this brand new hospital he’d built and done all sorts of things to. We tried to go as ultra-modern in its feel, with all the LED lighting and the suspended lighting grid above the beds and the bank of coolers. It was about that feel of giving it complete coldness and newness. And having a viewing area, which was weird, but they do actually have that in a lot of mortuaries.

The wallpaper [in Sherlock’s hospital room next door] wasn’t TARDIS roundels, that was just nice wallpaper to give that room something extra. That was a real space, we built that extra wall into the Student’s Union in Cardiff.

John and Mary’s flat

I don’t think there’s a shot that really reflects it in the series, but in that little Christmas teaser [‘Many Happy Returns‘] there was a shot of John sat on the sofa on his own and in that, there are reflections of 221B. The sofa’s in the same place, there’s a light on the left hand side that gives the same kind of lighting as the moon lamp in 221B and I put a little skull-shaped vodka bottle in the cupboard on his right in the same place that the skull image would have been in 221B, just little things. It was a very different type of wallpaper but still a feature wallpaper wall behind him. He hadn’t quite let go. It was the same but different, was the idea.

We did a similar thing in Anderson’s flat (see below) in ‘The Empty Hearse’. That was a dangerous one to do, because what we were trying to do was a 221B that wasn’t quite working, or wasn’t quite right. You could get that very wrong and just get a messy set that didn’t look right. That was a bit more challenging if anything. It was Anderson trying to create his own 221B.

Credit: Arwel W Jones

[In Rosie’s nursery] and the bedroom, the tree and the fruits and the birds were a little reference to the décor of the wedding venue. It’s a nice wallpaper, also in Mrs Hudson’s corridor. The [black fish] mobile may have been a reference to what happens at the Aquarium, because we were talking about the cold, dead eyes of a shark.

John’s kitchen – even though we’d done the reflections of 221B in the flat, we also wanted to do the antithesis of it. The clutter of 221B versus the tidiness of that house. I read somewhere – biggest insult possible! – that it looked like an Ikea showroom of a house, which it wasn’t. There was a lot of stuff in there that was bespoke, but at the same time I can understand the reference. There were deliberately not a lot of signs of life, even the child’s toys are tidied away.

Scotland Yard

Credit: Arwel W Jones

It’s been three different places over the years. The first time it was in the old HTV studios in Cardiff, which no longer exist. That was flattened and is now a housing estate. When we went to look at it it was in kind of a dark blue, which was never going to look nice on camera, but I was looking at it with [director] Paul McGuigan who is a very, very strong Celtic fan and he said there was no way he’d film anywhere that was Rangers blue! So that’s why I painted in green and white hoops like Celtic shirts. So that’s where that colour scheme comes from.

I walked him on there and he said ‘I like this’ and I said ‘Have you realised?’ and he’s going ‘What? What?’ So I tell him ‘Green and white hoops!’ And he went, ‘You legend!’

See many more behind-the-scenes Sherlock photos on Arwel W Jones’ portfolio website.

The post Sherlock 10th Anniversary: Behind the Scenes Set Secrets appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Kentucky Route Zero review – haunting drifter’s odyssey comes to an end • Eurogamer.net

And so a meandering journey comes to an end. Kentucky Route Zero, “a magical realist adventure game”, was funded, modestly, on Kickstarter back in 2012. The first of its five episodes released in early 2013, the second a few months later, the third a year after that, the fourth two years later still. Now, following the almost exponential trend, after a further three-and-a-half-years, we get the game’s conclusion – alongside a new console edition of the entire series.

Kentucky Route Zero review

Developer: Cardboard Computer

Publisher: Cardboard Computer (PC), Annapurna Interactive (console)

Platform: Reviewed on Switch

Availability: Act 5 released 28th January on PC. Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition released 28th January on Switch, PS4 and Xbox One

If you’ve been following this game since the start, then, it’s been a long road, and perhaps an exasperating one. Not that this wasn’t a fitting way to experience Kentucky Route Zero’s tale of a band of misfits getting drawn into a truck driver’s quixotic quest to deliver his load of antique furniture to an address that seems to get further away with every step. Some made their peace with the open ending of the fourth act being as good a place as any to leave it – and they weren’t wrong. But I doubt they will be disappointed in the fifth act that releases this week. Strikingly different in style, it’s a gorgeous epilogue that finds resolution while resisting the urge to solve any of the game’s many mysteries.

If you’ve been on this long journey with the game, I envy you. I have played Kentucky Route Zero from start to finish in the space of a week – all five episodes, plus the four interludes that developer Cardboard Computer released for free – and I’m not sure it’s the best way to take it in. Essentially a beautifully illustrated and animated text adventure, Kentucky Route Zero is slow, whimsical, interior, elliptical and at times deliberately frustrating. It is as inspired by theatre and installation art as film or video games; it’s dense with memory, digression and fragmentary, half-remembered lore. It’s not long, but it has too little plot and too much story to be comfortably consumed in one go. Like a meal composed of dozens of dainty side-dishes, it risks leaving you stuffed but unsatisfied. Better to give each portion its space (though three-and-a-half years of space might be overdoing it), to savour the flavours that linger long after you put the game down.

Conway, the truck driver, asks for directions at a petrol station decorated with a giant horse’s head. In the basement he has the first of many encounters with people – ghosts? – who don’t seem to exist in the same timeframe as him. He is directed to the Zero, a secret, underground, extra-dimensional highway; it’s the only way to reach his destination. Getting to the Zero won’t be easy, but navigating it and the spaces – and people – it leads to will be trickier still. He acquires a travelling companion, Shannon, who loves to repair old TV sets and sees visions of her vanished sister in the white noise. (This game has a strong retro fetish for analogue technology: cathode ray tubes, radio static, magnetic tape, theremins. The suggestion is that these old machines left more room for magic and mystery than the digital world does – a tempting, if heavily nostalgic, point of view.)

Searching for the Zero, Conway and Shannon explore an old mine, where he injures his leg. They find the mystical road, but it only leads them into a bureaucratic purgatory of dead ends, odd characters and illogical institutions. They keep getting sidetracked. There’s a huge bird that carries houses; a game-within-a-game, running on an ancient mainframe computer, that tells the story of its own making; a tugboat navigating an underground river. An orphaned boy joins them, and a cool musical couple, and other lost souls drift in and out of the scene. No-one ever seems to be fully present, being constantly pulled back to their own thoughts, their own reality. The ultimate goal of the delivery is not so much sought as drifted towards.

This is what Cardboard Computer means by magical realism: a recognisably real world where fantastical things can happen and where dream logic holds sway. Kentucky Route Zero is clearly inspired by David Lynch, though not in the totemistic way other video games quote his hugely influential mystery-horror-soap, Twin Peaks. (You know what I mean: red velvet curtains, sharp-suited investigators, torch songs in roadside bars, creeping unease in placid Smalltown, USA.) Plenty of games have indulged in this while pursuing their own more or less conventional concerns, from Deadly Premonition’s outsider-art survival horror to Virginia’s elegant procedural. Kentucky Route Zero gets closer to the unsettling core of Lynch’s work, where the things that ought to make the least sense make the most – where the unreal and impossible has an awful, implacable truth about it. (It does also feature a torch song in a roadside bar, mind.)

In this world, a band of distillery workers appear as glowing skeletons; they make everyone uneasy, but nobody remarks on it. The laws of space and time seem easily pierced or folded, to which characters react with, at most, a vague bemusement. The images and moments Cardboard Computer conjures from this dreamscape have a haunting power. The trouble is that there isn’t quite enough reality in this magical realism. In Lynch, the surreal and horrifying lurch suddenly from a landscape of extreme, almost anaesthetised normality. In Kentucky Route Zero’s middle episodes, however, it plunges into head-spinning concept after head-spinning concept, taking each as far as it will go – a very video gamey thing to do.

At times this is almost alienating, which is a risk when your game gives the player such a slender toehold in the narrative. For all its oddity, this is a pretty linear piece of storytelling in which the choices you make are less about what will happen next and more about the inner lives of the characters: where their memories lead, how curious they are, the song lyrics that haunt them. You spend most of your time in this game reading. The script, by Jake Elliott, is good, with a compassionate humanity that balances the occasional excesses of surreal southern Gothic. I loved the passages when there was a sudden shift in perspective and a voice from a different timeframe would cut through – such as the scene narrated by a couple of bored office workers from the future, reviewing old CCTV tapes.

Kentucky Route Zero is a game of words, but it’s Tamas Kemenczy’s vector visuals for which the game will be remembered. It is extraordinarily beautiful. Small, fragile, hazy figures pick their way through skeletal spaces. The lighting is dim and suggestive, using silhouette and negative space to leave your imagination room to breathe, and there are some startlingly lovely effects. It often looks like a flat, paper-cut diorama until the camera slowly rotates, revealing its surprising solidity and depth.

The game has many obsessions: death, memory, the decline of rural America. There’s a rather heavy-handed subplot about the entire region being in hock to the electric company. But above all else it is fascinated by art. It is full of artworks: videos, songs, installations, poems, and that primitive, fully playable adventure game. Half the characters seem to be artists or frustrated artists. If this sounds dangerously self-referential, well, I suppose it is. It does seem rather preoccupied with the hipster bubble within which it is all too easy to assume the game was created.

Yet some of the game’s most persuasive moments take place within this art-within-art. I’m thinking in particular of two of the interludes (which you can download for free at the game’s site). The Entertainment is a play, experienced from the point of view of one of the performers, that introduces a location and characters that will pop up in the subsequent episode; Un Pueblo De Nada puts us behind the scenes at a tiny community TV broadcast during a torrential downpour, foreshadowing the final act. Both use a single fixed camera point to brilliant effect, creating a strong unity of place and giving a much-needed shot of reality amid the magic – despite the air quotes they appear in.

This trick is repeated by the game’s fifth act, which breaks formally with the fragmentary, collage-like approach of the preceding four. It all plays out in a single location, with a single camera floating high above the action, following the player’s focus (rather sweetly embodied in a gambolling cat). Characters are discovered in different moments and attitudes as the camera sweeps across them and we stop to hear what they have to say. The sun warms the scene and, for the first time, the world of Kentucky Route Zero feels tangible, whole, held together. After a week drifting through Cardboard Computer’s elusive dream of a game, this was quite a moment. I can only imagine how it feels after seven years.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/kentucky-route-zero-review-haunting-drifters-odyssey-comes-to-an-end-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kentucky-route-zero-review-haunting-drifters-odyssey-comes-to-an-end-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net