Resonating with Bugsnax

I have recently beaten Bugsnax, and as is typical when I beat a game I really enjoyed and related to, I just can't stop thinking about it. This feeling of wanting to think about a subject gets in the way of me starting new games, and the feeling usually only subsides given time, if I ramble about it a lot intermittently, or if I get it out of my system in a structured method.  

While it'd no doubt be fun to ramble about it intermittently (or it would not be, as I get into later), I'd rather do the latter. Usually these game-specific blogs are very much review-esque affairs, but this time I had several moments of striking personal resonance with themes in Bugsnax, so I instead want to talk and reflect on that. So this blog gets much more personal than usual. Maybe that makes it less easy reading fare, but then it probably also makes it actually worth reading for once (another thing I'll get into later).

This blog does contain spoilers, keep that in mind.

But what is Bugsnax?

I feel I should at least give a quick summary of what the game is about so the rest of the blog at least makes some sense. Bugsnax is a pretty weird hybrid of several game elements, so it's not easy to pin down exactly. 

The general gameplay is mostly about using one's puzzle-solving skills, quick thinking and dexterity to catch the game's eponymous Bugsnax, strange hybrids of bugs and food items. These Bugsnax are needed to be captured to progress through the game's main plot and sidequests, though there's also a collect-them-all aspect to the game. There's no combat system of any kind, it's more of an interactive safari than Pokémon battles. 

More importantly to the blog here, there's also a townbuilding aspect to the game. The game's set in an expedition to a miraculous island filled with the eponymous Bugsnax, and for most of the game the protagonist is trying to gather all the expedition members back into the central hub town. The personal problems and interpersonal relations of the expedition members is the heart and core of the game's plot, and it's where the personal resonance happened for me. Characters discuss their wants, needs and fears as the game draws ever more closely to its conclusion.

Ok, but what ARE Bugsnax?

Ok, so it turns out the cute and lovable Bugsnax are actually addictive parasites that feed on people's personal weaknesses. They foster dependence and push characters to give in to their personal problems, and if the player messes up badly enough, the Bugsnax will wholly overcome the characters and kill them off, turning them into more Bugsnax. It's honestly downright brutal, and the game's excellent voice acting makes those scenes really effective gutpunches for me. Characters ramble desperately as they literally fall to pieces, their limbs falling off and their bodies dissolving into dust, with their surviving loved ones to react to it and reflect about it. Those reactions and reflections have the most harrowing voice lines attached to them.

Shelda explains it all

There's several readings of how to interpret this, clearly the Bugsnax are meant to be read in a metaphorical sense, the most obvious ones being addiction and drugs, though I believe it's also still possible to interpret this in additional ways, though for the purposes of this blog I'll try to keep more to the bits that personally resonated with me.

Shelda: Masked Obscurity

The last character to be recruited is Shelda, an old woman who has a habit of speaking only in vagaries and riddles. She earnestly wishes best for others and she turns out to be right with much of what she says, but her problem is that she consistently masks herself as a Respectable Wise Leader. Rather than outright say what she means directly, she props up all she says in metaphor in an attempt to seem more interesting and actually worth listening to. My understanding is that she did not act this manner before coming to the expedition, but that it is instead a mask she wears only for members of the expedition. She says herself she felt she needed to be Shelda rather than be herself for people to listen to her.

This behavior obviously causes friction. While there's some people who are enamored with her persona, there's many who find her mannerisms annoying and fraudulent. The protagonist is quick to point out how ridiculous she seems, and she's one of the most unpopular characters of the game. Throughout the quest more and more people get sick of her fake persona, and she herself gets disdainful about the situation and gets ever-quicker to drop the act with the protagonist. Her reflections should she survive are that her persona only created a barrier between her and other people, while if she dies she does it ranting at the top of her lungs in her persona that she is above Bugsnax while crumbling to bits.

I've seen people relate to this through the lens of religion, though for me the masked obscurity made me think more of how I regularly converse and act in the Discord server I'm most active in. I feel as the years have gone by, I've been isolating myself more and more in layers of irony, defining myself through the media I consume and 'quirky interests' I play up for 'comedic effect'. Acting like a ridiculous idiot, to whose amusement? I feel like the more time goes by, the less interesting and earnest conversations I have, the need to 'be Mania' exceeding the need to be myself and blocking off potentially interesting conversations.

Honestly, I don't know what to do about this. I worry I am creating a rift between myself and others, one that makes me less and less of a desirable person to actually talk with. Who wants to talk with the guy who'll make everything about Yu-Gi-Oh, or says pointless lewd stuff, or spams reaction images? Are any of these bits actually amusing, do they enrich anything? Are these just crutches to make myself 'more interesting'? How little do I ever actually talk about personal thoughts, scared that I'd just be met with a joking reply as I've done to others in the past, and as people might think I'm hoping to get in turn myself? 

I'd like to think this blog is at least a way to drop that mask a bit, I suppose. To talk about my insecurities, rather than just acting like a buffoon as usual as though nothing was going on. And speaking of insecurities...

Wiggle: Necessitated Audience 

Recruited in the early-middle part of the game, Wiggle is a one-hit wonder banjo-playing singer. She's come on the expedition hoping to get the inspiration needed to craft a new song that finally puts her in the spotlights again. Her only success has been a complete fluke in a trashy pop hit she wrote in a hungover stupor, and all her attempts since to appeal to the audience or to write from the heart were met with indifference. It's made clear that her motivation is not driven by need for fame or money, as she has both, but by the need to have an audience for the creations she feels truly represent her.

Ultimately her attempts to get inspired using Bugsnax all amount to nothing, she writes no new hit singles. The only solace she finds in the island is her budding relationship with Gramble, a relationship that gets questioned for its sincerity. Is Wiggle just using Gramble for his Bugsnax, he's the best at collecting them aside from the protagonist, or is her love sincere? In the ending where she lives and reflects, her feelings for Gramble are reaffirmed and she chooses to write from her heart and dedicate her song to Gramble. If she instead gives in to Bugsnax she chooses the Bugsnax over Gramble instead, giving her swan song to the uncaring Bugsnax instead as she unravels and turns to dust. 

There's a lot of ways one can read this, seeing it myself I thought of Tobias's relation with MARDEK, a past project one feels overshadowed by while new projects made from what currently drives and inspires them are overlooked and met with cold reception instead.

But a set of lines that really struck me was when Wiggle discusses her failure with Gramble and he points out that Wiggle doesn't need her creations to make money or garner fame, to which Wiggle replies that none of that matters if there's no audience. That if she writes for herself, nobody cares.

When I do creative works, I never do it wanting or expecting fame and money, but as a creator I've never been able to make something solely for myself, I've always needed the validation of having an audience that genuinely cares.

I won't mince words, I've been a needy child about the whole Alora Fane: Creation thing. Whenever I sink my teeth into AF:C, I feel like I'm putting so much of myself into my creations, and this creates a burden on myself where I need to see others notice this and validate me for it. I need people to laugh at the jokes, I need people to feel the feelings I'm trying to evoke and I compulsively want to monitor this by supervising their reactions through a stream. I push people to do this, and get so frustrated when it doesn't happen.

The reason I took a long break from making quests before the collaborative quest was my increasing feelings of irritation as people didn't play them, or didn't play them as I wanted them to, while they instead talk about whatever other topics constantly, topics I have never cared for. It was unhealthy, it was creating a schism between myself and others, and I never even told them about it, because there's nothing that could be done about it. To this day I feel like the server I am in has largely quarantined itself into a Mania-free zone, where I don't bother people with my persona or pester them about my creations. I'm fully aware of how utterly irrational all of this is, and this whole thing about quarantine zones has just become yet another stupid gimmick I've latched on to as a joke, making it into more of a deal than it should have ever been. 

And I cannot say I've been much better with my collaborative quest either, in some ways I've only been worse. I'm lucky that my contributions each have all had a sufficient positive reception from at least one person, but I've already had my overzealous nature regarding my creative process as well as my excessive persona drive a wedge between myself and someone else. While I do truly feel thrilled to put my ideas to paper after mulling over them in my head, to see my vision realized, I also still feel that pressing need for an audience when I finally put it out there. Only validation or time can cause this need to subside. I question whether it was a good idea to even begin this project in the first place, despite the highs I've enjoyed of creating and playing other people's creations. 

Honestly, even as I write this blog I am doing it hoping and expecting it to be read. It's never just about getting something out of my system with these blogs, even in this blog that's explicitly about that. I always want these blogs to be jumping-off points for people to approach me and tell me they appreciate my blog, or want to talk to me about one of the topics of the blog. It makes it so discouraging when that doesn't happen. I feel like that last blog I wrote, the 4-months recap one, was dropped into an uncaring void. It makes me scared to even post this blog, knowing I might be perpetuating the problem I'm talking about here. 

And yet this is again something that I know I cannot burden others with. One just cannot put effort into something and be owed interest from others in turn, it's entitlement to think one does, yet these feelings are still there, lingering and souring my mood.

Basically, I don't really have a Gramble to share all my creative stuff with, knowing his reaction will be enough to make me happy. And I'm not going to get one unless I go out there and find one myself. 

Chandlo & Snorpy: Wholesome Gays

Ok, these last two bits have been very negative. This next one will be positive instead, and indeed be the main motivator for why I even am writing this blog, or why I even got this game in the first place.

Bugsnax has been out since 2020, but it only recently got ported to more consoles/storefronts and it got a free content update as well. I might've heard about the game before, but when someone I followed on Twitter posted a video in a tweet that caught my attention:

https://twitter.com/VoidBurger/status/1524257142643077120

Honestly this is the cutest, gayest shit ever. This does everything for me, I could gush so much. The trope of the gay couple being unsure if they're dating or not pushed to ridiculous extremes, the trope of the jock and the nerd dating, the goofy but also convincing and professional voice acting, the silly visuals of the Grumpuses. This was the sort of fix that I rarely feel I get to enjoy in anything but the most obscure corners of the internet.

The tweet lingered in my mind, and spurred me to do some research on Bugsnax, and I kept coming across accounts of people about the game's excellent LGBTQ representation, and having played the game myself, I can honestly say I totally agree.

This whole idea of 'representation' is a controversial one as I am well-aware. Bugsnax itself has some negative reviews specifically because it unabashedly has a gay couple, a lesbian couple and a non-binary character.

But playing through the game myself, and meeting these characters and seeing them interact, I just had a smile on my face the whole time. Their scenes were all just so cute and wholesome. From the moment they are encountered, Chandlo is this brawny beefcake with a very gentle and positive attitude while Snorpy is this geeky, twiggy shut-in with engineering genius and a big conspiracy board linking everything that goes wrong to the 'Grumpinati'. The very first scene of the two has Chandlo literally lift their house to make Snorpy go outside, and it's such a ridiculous scene. The two have nothing but love for each other, which of course makes the 'twist' that they are dating hilarious when everybody but Snorpy already realized this while he's agonizing whether to confess his feelings or not. 

Pictured: Someone who figured this out already on day 1.

Of course there's still an arc for these characters, Chandlo's is about relying on Bugsnax to get strong enough to keep Snorpy safe, while Snorpy's is about foiling the 'Grumpinati-planted Bugsnax' while keeping Chandlo in the dark to keep him safe. Their arcs both center around each other, and the happy ending where they both live and reflect has them both realize how much they can do together and how much they underestimate the other, while the death endings have them sacrifice themselves to the Bugsnax under the deluded impression it's required to keep the other safe while the other falls deep into a doubtlessly misguided thirst for revenge.

Of all the bad endings, their is the one that made me the most glad I got the happy one instead. Their usual silly and cheerful dialogue gets downright miserable and vengeful instead. The vocal performances are really great. 

But the main point here to me is that despite there being some friction between them and the possibility of a bad ending, the game does everything it can to push the player to get the good ending instead, and just about everything else with these two is just so delightful. Every scene they were in just had me cooing, and I just about lost it when I got to the confession scene myself. It was all I could hope for, and more. 

This all made me once more realize how much I want to see these sorts of narratives, and also how infrequently I get to. While media is taking great strides in having more stories featuring LGBT characters and relationships, it still often feels like they are explicitly written for a non-LGBT audience primarily, with the show going out of its way to put in explainers and signifiers to the audience to make sure they 'understand' what is going on. Or these kinds of relations are pushed to the side, or are used as the anchor for a story about prejudice, or they are only referred to offhandedly. Rarely do I just get wholesome, cute gays who feel like real people who still go through a character arc without centering it around a cruel and prejudiced world. 

But Bugsnax has that, and it decides to have two of them as well. Two other members of the exploration team, the first ones the player gets to see in a videotape invitation sent to the protagonist, are Elizabert and Eggabel, who get adorably flirty in their introduction. Once again we still get to see these characters have frictions in their relationship, with Elizabert overburdening herself and going on dangerous adventures and Eggabel feeling like she's always being left behind. And what's more they also get their personal problems too, Elizabert feeling guilt over roping everybody else into the whole Bugsnax situation and not realizing soon enough their horrific true nature, and Eggabel dealing with what's all but said to be depressive episodes. But none of that takes away from them also just getting cute scenes together, and them reconciling in the final scene and averting what seemed like the set-up for Buying One's Gays and surviving their ordeals like as a lesbian power couple. Good for them!

Bugsnax is kinda out there.

Rounding things off there's also Floofty the Gastroentomologist, Snorpy's sibling. The game never states this outright, but from their pronouns consistently being they/them and Snorpy always referring to them as "sibling" it's pretty clear they're meant to be non-binary. And this never really comes up! Floofty still gets to be a sardonic mad scientist whose brilliance is matched only by their ego and lack of ethical standards. They still get to be an amusing character who gets their own arc of coming to understand that their desire to contribute to Grumpuskind with scientific advancements is hindered by their stubborn unwillingness to connect with and understand Grumpuses on a personal level.

While I may not personally relate to the experience of being non-binary, I can easily see how someone would gush about the ease with which the game implements Floofy without fanfare. The game doesn't sit the player down for a lecture about gender, nor does anyone need to correct themselves or someone else when they misgender them, they exist unchallenged and unquestioned by the narrative, in the same way all the characters do. 

While I played through the game and saw these things, it reminded me of my teenage years and the periods in which I questioned these aspects of myself. My attractions, my sexuality, these sorts of identity-related questions. Back then, long before I figured these things out for myself, I'd always latch on to LGBTQ themes in media I'd consume, I'd ravenously look this sort of thing up on sites like TVTropes. And I feel like if back then I had a game like Bugsnax, it would have really helped me to see a narrative like this where these things I'd think about and would seek out just exist. And it makes me glad when people can say that a game like this made them feel that way, that it in some way helped them, that it made them feel seen or represented in a way they rarely get to feel. 

And honestly, the game's two straight couples are both just adorable too. Wiggle and Gramble are a relationship where the question of whether the foundation of their relationship is truly solid is met with a resounding yes in the good ending, both of them finding what they were looking for in each other. Meanwhile Wambus and Triffany are a long-wedded couple going through a marital spat following the fallout of a big fight between the exploration team, and bringing them together again results in a legitimately cute scene. In the end I wanted all these four couples to be happy, which they all get to be provided you get their good endings.

I realize that to this day whenever I make quests, a large amount of the characters just wind up being gay, likely just because I want to see these kinds of narratives more but I don't get to really see them myself as much as I want. Of course I won't pretend those quests stands up to any sort of scrutiny like Bugsnax does! I get the impression the developers for Bugsnax themselves were a diverse bunch, so I'm not surprised Bugsnax turned out to do so very well in this regard, they clearly drew from personal experience for parts of the game, and the game never stumbles over itself in this regard. I honestly just love to see it.

Lingering Thoughts

Well, these were my main takeaways from Bugsnax, or rather, the points where the game really resonated with me on a personal level beyond being a compelling piece of fiction. Not bad for a game about muppet people eating googly-eyed fusions of foodstuffs and bugs and transforming their bodies into ridiculous shapes! 

There's of course still a lot of other characters and themes that are in resonant in some way, so I'll get briefly talk about some of them as well as some plot points.

Beffica's a self-described "Information Specialist" who came to the expedition following a particularly bad social falling-out where she lost all her friends. We never learn the specifics, but the game paints a clear picture of someone who's had friendships gone sour trap her in a cycle of becoming a toxic friend who's always snooping around to find somebody's bad side, because she's convinced everybody is secretly a bad person. One bit that stuck out to me was her saying that in her job as working for a gossip tabloid she realized that no matter how pristine someone seems on the outside, anyone can have horrible skeletons in their closet. While Beffica's pendulum swung too far to the other side, there's still a kernel of truth in there that one should be careful not to put others on unassailable edifices, especially with celebrities they don't know. I see this kind of thing happen a lot, and it's happened to some content creators I've followed in the past too. 

In the Island of Bigsnax content update, there's extra content with Shelda, Floofty, Triffany and Chandlo, and the game actually addresses the whole Grumpinati conspiracy thing Snorpy has going on. The Grumpinati thing is mostly treated as a silly joke during the main campaign, it causes some friction between Snorpy and others, but it's never really lingered on a specific issue that needs addressing. Conspiracies are obviously kind of a red flag these days, and while the game puts the Grumpinati conspiracy through an unproblematic and apolitical lens it does stick out in an era where conspiracy theories are actually getting to be a serious societal problem.

In Bigsnax Chandlo finally gets to talk to some people about how he feels his boyfriend's getting lost down a rabbit hole on conspiracies and the game gives some interesting insights about it. Shelda points out that Snorpy's obsession goes well beyond the realm of mental health, that Chandlo's well-intentioned but not equipped to solve this by himself and Snorpy needs professional help. Floofty gives extra context that explains but doesn't justify Snorpy's irrational anxieties and Triffica explains that while conspiracies do exist, even a correct basis of facts can still lead to incorrect conclusions being drawn due to personal biases. Once again, Bugsnax delves into a topic and does it gracefully, plugging something that was somewhat of a hole in the original release while also giving me more scenes with the Cute Wholesome Gays. Beautiful.

Scoopy Banoopy is a Bugsnax that's a walking banana split with googly eyes. It looks sad and constantly says "Scoopy Banoopy" in an Eeyore-esque voice. Shit's hilarious. It's also a horrific parasite that will exploit your weakness and convert you into more Bugsnax. 

It's easy to forget this game's really dumb, in a good way.

Closing Thoughts

Well, this was a blog and a half. I'm surprised myself I had this much to say. I feel like this was a much more interesting blog than if I'd just written a generic review. Game narratives like Bugsnax are always at their best when they manage to strike a personal chord, even if it might not be in a way the developer intended. I hope this blog was interesting to read!

I know things got kind of pessimistic in the bits about Shelda and Wiggle, but I'd like to think of this perhaps as a jumping off point to work on these things rather than wallow in misery. Basically, I won't eat the Bugsnax, to use a metaphor. Thanks for reading! 

2022 (1/3): A tale of Lords and Lasers

Quite unlike the yearly blogs I've written for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, I've decided to break this year's blog up in multiple parts. These blogs tend to run long, perhaps too long, so I figure it's better to do it segmented like this. This blog will cover the games and shows I've experienced from January to the end of April 2022. 

Life stuff

I don't usually have something interesting to say here, but this time I did have at least something notable happen in March and April... Which is that an annoying sebaceous cyst found its way on my back and had to be operated on. They cut it out and I've now got this open wound on my back... Thankfully it's healing pretty well so far, and isn't that annoying to deal with. 

All-in-all it's nothing major, but it was an annoyance. In retrospect I wish I'd contacted my GP earlier about it, but it doesn't help that once I did they had to postpone the operation for a week for no good reason. That certainly didn't help.

Ah well, on to the games!

Videogames 4⅓: Revisitations

Looking at the list of games I'll talk about here, it's rather striking that all of these are games I've either already played before, experienced before or otherwise are some kind of expansion of a game I'd already played. I've not gone much outside my comfort zone in these four months games-wise, it seems. Not much at all.

Memody Sindrel Song

I'd said I wanted to play this game again in my last blog, and I did! I'd written about it more extensively in 2019 too, so I was interested to see how my thoughts then stack up to my thoughts now. I also made a playlist of my playing the game's songs and getting decent scores.

Honestly, the game has aged well! I enjoyed playing my way through the songs and getting good scores on them all, as well as unraveling the game's plot. The game has a clear set of themes and every character has a well-defined personality, which makes for interesting dialogue during the game's seven days. 

Interesting dialogue

I'd still recommend this game in a heartbeat, as I've done before. What can I say but "BUY SINDREL SONG"?

Sam & Max: Beyond Space and Time

Just as I'd played the HD remaster of Sam & Max: Save The World in 2021, so too did I play the HD remaster of the sequel Sam & Max: Beyond Space and Time in 2022. Back when I played the originals I liked the sequel more than the original, and that still holds. I believe I ranked the episodes here as 4>5>3>1>2, and I'd say my ratings do hold. 

I still ship it.

This season really is just season 1, but more and better. And replaying it again also means there were less moments of just getting stuck, the only time I got stuck this time IIRC was a puzzle where you needed to boil tea to emulate the sound of a steam locomotive... Which still seems like a far-fetched puzzle! 

Can't believe they'd TONE DOWN the franchise like this.

I do hope they're going to give the third and final season a HD remaster too. It probably needs it the most out of the three seasons, and I'm wondering if my opinion of it will be better this time. It often seems like the second item out of a trio is the "more and better" one while the third is more experimental and hit-or-miss.

Inscryption: Kaycee's Mod

After Inscryption's highly successful launch, the players were quite clear about one thing: Act 1 is the best act, and there should be an infinitely replayable version of act 1. Well, they were half right about that. An infinitely replayable version of act 1 is neat, but act 3 is still my favourite. Sadly it seems more act 3 content is just not in the cards, so it's up to modders to make that a reality. There's people working on it, perhaps later this year I'll be writing about my thoughts on that mod?

The despair of not having screenshots of the mod.

Anyway, I did play various of the betas for Kaycee's mod and had fun with it, but the game isn't deep enough and content-rich enough to hold attention as much as other roguelikes. It's still good mind you, it's surprisingly good even, but there's only so often you can assemble the same few OP sigil/monster combos before you've seen it all. 

I do wonder what's next for Daniel Mullins. Inscryption was very much the culmination of The Hex and Pony Island, where is there to go from here? I look forward to it.

Resident Evil 4 HD Remaster

Resident Evil 4 is one of those comfort games for me, the sort of game I know like the back of my hand, a game I've played literal dozens of times and can just pick up and easily do a run of. I've fond memories of the game, so I was happy to see someone took on the humongous task of doing a full HD restoration of the entire game. Models, textures, lighting, everything got a glorious coat of HD love and care. The amount of effort put into this remaster is incredible, especially considering most of it was done by a team of two dedicated fans.

The result? Honestly, mind-blowing. The remaster excels in both quality and faithfulness. It's immediately recognizable as Resident Evil 4, there's no details that stick out as not fitting the original, yet everything is also made so much more crisp and clear. This is especially the case in the Castle area, where I loved to just soak in the surroundings, all the artworks and magnificent architecture... Sublime.

Me examining all the textures

And of course, there is still the actual game. No gameplay alterations were made, as no polish was needed. The game plays as well now as it did all those years ago when I first played it. It's aged, sure, but it's also clear to see why RE4 was such a revolution for video games of its era. Its impact can be felt to this day, and now with the HD remaster it even looks like a game that could've come out today, yet also with the aesthetic sensibilities of the early 2000's. It's a wonderful blend.

Card Hunter

While 2021 saw the release of the Eastpass expansion with new modules but no new items, the first third of 2022 included the beta test of the Celestial Forge expansion, which does in fact come with new items. I did some beta testing, and the expansion does look interesting. There's still more rounds of testing to come, so I look forward to that.

It's good to see that the Knights of Unity seem dedicated to keeping Card Hunter afloat. I still wonder to what end, though.

Telepath Tactics

I'd beta tested this in 2021, but the Telepath Tactics remake in the new engine actually released in 2022. I did three more runs of the game, I believe. That's probably enough runs to last a lifetime!

I also made a small little campaign of my own!

It's remarkable how far the game has come since its inception. The underlying design ethos was always good, but the extra polishes and flourishes really sweeten the overall experience. I'm particularly fond of the current aesthetic of the game, which uses the old pixelated look for the terrain rather than the 3D textures from the beta, it feels more cohesive.

Wario Land 3: The Master Quest

As a continuation of me playing Wario Land 4 Parallel World in 2021, I decided to see if Wario Land 3 had any ROMhacks as well. I did find one and jumped in eagerly... And, uh, it's not really good.

Whereas Wario Land 4 Parallel World felt elegant and expanded on concepts in the original Wario Land 3 The Master Quest feels more like one of those art restorations gone astray, painting over good level design with obnoxious and GOTCHA level design elements. Special note goes to the new tile that sends you to the main menu when you step on them, completely contradicting a core design aspect of the original, which is the lack of a lose state. It doesn't help that a lot of these are put in dumb spots, making for a cheap trial-and-error experience.

It's also notable how many aspects of the game are NOT altered, a significant number of rooms are entirely unchanged, which makes the experience feel wholly arbitrary. Oh, but the developer did change the story. I'd say the new story is a mess, but nobody should care about the story of Wario Land 3 anyhow.

The only saving grace here was that I could use savestates. Otherwise, the original is far superior to this mess. This is not worthy of the title "Master Quest".

Griftlands: Arint's Last Day

Ok, something more positive this time. Arint's Last Day is a mod that adds a whole new player character and some new campaigns to Griftlands. It's really impressive and feels like it could be an authentic update from the official developers, minus the recycled art assets.

Cool cover art

I'm really impressed by the consistency of the quality, both of the writing and the gameplay. The central gimmicks of the combats here are Martial cards that combo with themselves and reward focusing fire on a specific enemy, Beams that let you use powerful abilities at the cost of Charge you need to build and spend, and Strange Liquids which increase the power of Beam attacks and are consumed when triggered. There's some other supplemental mechanics as well, but these form the two core decks I believe.

The negotiation are generally grouped into either incepting weaknesses to the opponent or stacking bounties on yourself for powerful effects, a strategy compounded by the innate ability to get extra damage when you have bounties or inceptions in your argument ring. The gameplay feels like an alternate take on Smiths, with a lot of importance put on arguments, inceptions and bounties. 

Role reversal

I'm also impressed by the story campaigns here, which take place parallel to Rook's main story but from the perspective of one of his Day 3 boss battles. The story offers expanded insights into the characters from that campaign as well as dragging in familiar faces from Sal's and Smith's campaigns. The character writing feels as clever as the base game's and nobody seems to out of character. I do suspect the author much prefers the Rise revolution over the Spark Baron status quo, but that's simple the Correct Opinion so I don't mind. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links

I suppose I can't not talk about Duel Links... 

Honestly, the biggest think to say here is that Master Duel has released, which gives Duel Links stiff competition. Duel Links was basically the only official YGO simulator worth bothering with in recent times, so with big brother Master Duel on the block it's seen a stark drop in playerbase. The actual game itself seems to be doing well though, they're being more generous with releasing good cards for free and deals in the game overall seem better than they were before.

THEY ADDED BEST FACE SORA

As for my personal pet decks, not much has changed so far. My Yosenju deck did get better with the latest box, but I've yet to come across a new deck that's really wowing me. I also get the impression that the reduced playerbase has made ranked duels a lot easier, I'm guessing most of the competitive folk have jumped ship to Master Duel by now. Indeed, Duel Links is looking less appealing next to Master Duel's superior economy, though Duel Links seems to have caught wind of this and seems to be getting somewhat better as of late.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Master Duel's sudden launch back in February was a big surprise to all. Konami just dropped this bombshell out of nowhere, and suddenly Duel Links wasn't the biggest official YGO sim around anymore. 

And it really was, uh, not the greatest launch. Master Duel really just launched in what was clearly a 95% done beta release, with all sorts of small polishes and flourishes missing. But the core gameplay, the actual card game, that was there. And I guess that's all that needed to be there. 

AND OF COURSE ART FOR NEOS HEEEEEEE

While the card roster wasn't entirely up to OCG or TCG releases, it still had most cards up to about a year's releases after. And the actual economy of the game still strikes me as very generous, even after the honeymoon period should already be over. Cards are easily obtainable from both packs and by directly crafting them, meaning I've been able to already craft about six decks I could jump into ranked ladder play with. In terms of economy I have little complaints, really. I suppose they did make rogue decks way too expensive, but the flipside of that is that meta decks are unexpectedly cheap. It's not like Duel Links where there's a tax on deck quality.

The game does still suffer form jankiness though, but they've been ironing out UI issues and other assorted quirks. They've been releasing cards at a suddenly steady pace too, there's going to be a big update soon with a new archetype I've been wanting to try.

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying Trains a lot. CHOO-CHOO.

The biggest issue right now though is the game's banlist. They lazily copied an old OCG banlist, made a few small changes and called it a day. The recently announced banlist is the biggest heap of nothing ever. The game really needs to hit the biggest problem cards and better balance itself around a best of 1 format without sidedecking.

Regardless, if someone wants to play YGO using an official sim, Master Duel is the best pick I'd say. 

Chip's Challenge 2: Level Pack 1

Chip's Challenge has had a thriving community of people making fanmade levels and compiling them into level packs, so when Chip's Challenge 2 came out it wasn't a surprise that people would start making and compiling the very best of Chip's Challenge 2 fanmade levels. 

Whereas Chip's Challenge 1 was quite limited with its selection of objects, Chip's Challenge 2 blows the doors wide open with a myriad of new game elements, and oh boy did the level crafters get tricky with their elements. While the levels from the main game were made back in the late 90's, these levels were made much later by fans who've had years of experience with making levels from Chip's Challenge, and it shows.

One of 200 stages. Blue, blue, blue...

I'm currently 90 levels into the 200-levels long pack, and it's been a doozy. The variety of levels boggles the mind, and a lot of them are deviously clever in their set-up and cleverly-devious in their trickiness. A lot of these levels don't just play good, they are mechanical marvels of player ingenuity and often are nicely laid-out aesthetically as well. You can tell they got the best of the best to pick and select these levels, it all feels very deliberately crafted. Some of the levels even come from the Moby's Challenge level pack I'd played years ago!

Slay the Spire: Downfall

Another mod! This one is a compilation and congregation of several high-profile Slay the Spire mods into one big mod, adding a new character to the roster of 4 in the base campaign as well as a whole new campaign where you play as various bosses or enemies and descend the spire to fight the intruders, featuring 7 additional characters. 

Slime Boss

The card design quality of the characters is pretty consistent overall, each character has their own unique tricks and gimmicks, some of them are more diverse or distinct from the existing characters than others, but none of them stand out as a weak link I'd say. The visual assets do range in quality though, the Hermit has entirely unique art assets for all his cards, whereas most of the enemy/boss characters have a lot of recycled and recoloured artwork. 

Aside from that, the Downfall campaign features new bosses as well as a lot of new events. The game also has new relics and potions... There's a lot of new stuff, and these new features all feel right at home in the game. I will say that Downfall events generally seem better than the regular events do, particularly the character-specific events. These character-specific events are also some of the most interesting ones however! 

Ok, let's just review every individual character. Because why not?

The Hermit: Overall I think the most polished and well-realized character. The core gimmicks here seem to be a Curse-reliant strategy, a Strike/Defend-oriented strategy and Dead On cards that trigger a bonus effect when played while in the middle of your hand. The Dead On ones in particular are cool I think, it's a fun mechanic.

The Slime Boss: Probably the most polished of the villains, hence why I assume it's first. There's a lot of stuff here, there's orb-like slimes you can split into, there's a whole suite of powerful but self-damaging tackle cards and lick/goop cards that work similarly to Strange Liquid from Arint's Last Day.

The Guardian: An interesting character, the two central gimmicks are cards with gem slots and the Mode Changes. I'm not really fond of the Mode Change mechanic, when you take enough damage or accumulate enough brace you get some free block and counter damage, but it feels too finicky to build around. The gem slots are much more interesting to me, sometimes you find gem cards that are 0-cost cards with weak effects, and at campfires these cards can be slotted into cards with gem slots, which lets them apply the gem effect when played. This lets you make some really interesting and powerful cards, as you can guess!

The Hexaghost: Probably my least favorite of the bunch. The central mechanics are cards that have effects when exhausted and automatically exhaust if not played during your turn, as well as a set of commands you can perform every turn to get some bonus like extra damage or block. These commands follow a pattern and a lot of cards interact with them. There's also a rather funny Exodia-like set of six seals, which when all played in one battle are all permanently removed and give you a powerful relic for the rest of the run. Honestly, I'm not sure why it doesn't click with me. It feels like the exhaust cards are better to just not play manually and instead trigger for free, while the commands thing feels really finicky. It's just not for me, I suppose.

The Automaton: The Automaton is a strange character, I'd say it has only one defining gimmick, but it's also a really unique one. The Automaton can basically fuse together specific cards in battle, for example by playing an attack, block and draw card you can then form an attack/block/draw card. This lets you make some really powerful cards, obviously! Some of these special cards have effects when they are fused, and not all of them are good, many of them add bad status cards to your deck. That's why the Automaton also has some cards that mix with statuses, much as the Hermit has cards that rely on curses... But I dunno, I never like clogging my deck with those kinds of cards, so I've mostly just stuck to spamming cards that can be fused. Works well enough!

The Champion: The Champion's similar to the Watcher, having a stance system, but while the Watcher is about flowing between stances, the Champion is more about entering and exiting stances by using powerful finishers. Champion's pretty fun to play with, and definitely feels very powerful currently. 

The Gremlins: There are a really unique bunch, they're a set of 5 characters, each with a seperate HP bar, and you can swap between them mid-combat. Each gremlin has a specialty: Armor when using skills, extra damage when attacking, gain temporary strength when attacked, build up extra damage when using skills and applying weak when attacking. So far it seems like the best tactic with them is to focus on one of them, but I believe a frequent swapping tactic might also work. Very weird set of characters, this one!

The Snecko: Snecko's the wacky RNG chararcter. The two core gimmicks with Snecko are cards with a variable outcome and cards that change into a different random card from a different character at the start of every battle or otherwise adds random off-class cards to hand. Oh and a third theme of cards that randomize the cost of card(s) in hand, of course. Honestly, it's a lot more robust than it first seems, and makes for fun gameplay. 

So, I do like the mod overall. It adds a lot of extra spice to the game, which hasn't been updated that much in recent times.

Pokémon Blaze Black 2 Redux

There's always a Pokémon ROMhack, isn't there? And I already talked about Blaze Black 2 in last year's blog! Well, this is the REDUX, you see! By this I mean that the bosses all got their teams overhauled, Fairy type was added and some moves from later generations were imported to Gen V. There's also some extra new events on top of the new events already added in the original Blaze Black 2. The postgame in particular is apparently quite expanded, though I just beat the Champion myself.

The boss battles that were overhauled I am largely a fan of, compared to the original there's a lot more boss battles that are double or triple battles, which is always a good thing in my eyes. Boss battles should mix things up, having 90% of them be singles is repetitive. 

That one battle vs Pokéstar props was a lot of fun.

The biggest disappointment for me was the stuff that wasn't changed, most of the regular trainers are unchanged since Blaze Black 2, and while some trainers wee shuffled around, it mostly seemed to be to make some optional battles mandatory now. If they were going to do that, why not also let them be (optional) multi battles? It feels like a wasted effort.

The level and difficulty cap also somewhat plateaus after Reversal Mountain and it never really picks up again. As usual the hardest part of the ROMhack is the first half. I do hear that there's a new version coming that rebalances the game, I hope it can make the latter half more challenging. 

Mandatory team pic, Mono-Psychic!

Rayman Redesigner

Still a thing, people are still making levels. 

I like the lava jungle look.

The biggest change this year is the new version adding a variety of new level elements as well as blowing the door open on custom art assets. People can now import art assets into the game and pretty much make levels with any sort of visuals. Lots of levels already are conversions of other platformers into the Rayman engine, which are fun to play. Again, check this out if you're a Rayman fan!

Laser Lords

And so the titular Laser Lords presents itself... This must have been fated, yes. I've talked about this game at length several times before already, yet its status as a CD-i exclusive kept me from ever playing it myself. Emulation simply wasn't able to handle the game, so it was always out of reach.

Until it wasn't. Recent advancements in MAME technology made it possible to play Laser Lords! "YESSS! HEEEEEEEEEE!~", I exclaimed, like an utter fool ready to be slapped in the face by reality's long and girthy battering ram. For indeed, I failed to realize this: Emulation the CD-i is a real piece of work. God, it took forever. I had to join a Discord server, I had to enlist other people in my aid, I had to use third party software. I had to persist.

?!

But the light came, yes. Finally! I could play Laser Lords!

And then... It softlocked. It softlocked all the time. Screen transitions, dialogue, using items, menus... I kept getting softlocks! Oh, the pain. Oh, the times. But give up, I would not. I could not. I wouldn't yield. Not yet. 

There were songs to listen to!

So I saved. And I loaded. And I rebooted. Over, and over, and over. Softlocks were expected, around all corners they lurked, and so I adapted. Every nook and cranny I explored, I'd immediately warp up to that comfortable spaceship and I'd save. I'd save, save, save. I'd softlock, softlock, softlock. I'd reboot, reboot, reboot. And I'd load, load, load.

Sigma Male

It was arduous, it was slow, it was tedious. But it was worth it.

Luxor, Argos, Woo... These planets I explored, and conquered. 

Despite the setbacks...

And then I kinda ran out of steam. I did explore most of Fornax, but there's still Tekton, Hive and Ravanna left... Weren't it for those dreadful softlocks, I'd have no doubt finished them too, but I just kept running into them all the time. Ugh! GYAAAAAAGH.

Well, not THAT much of a bummer.

Oh well, I do cherish the time I spent with Laser Lords. I soaked in the Laser Lords juices, so to say, and bathed in the metaphorical palace of immaculate voice acting. Perhaps later I shall return and finish the rest of the adventure, or perhaps not. We'll see!

Exit/Corners

I haven't gone and replayed this game necessarily, but there is a about 99% complete Let's Play thread about it on Something Awful which I've been following.  

PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT

Honestly, this game still holds up really well. I really like how much more rooted and down to earth it is compared to the more bombastic Zero Escape series, it scratches the same itch but goes about it in a very different tone. I really do like the cast of the game, and the plot itself is very coherently written, the many twists and turns can largely be guessed by the trail of clues the game scatters about.

I'd recommend this to any visual novel mystery fan, it's free after all!

Ace Attorney

Another visual novel mystery game? Well, I didn't watch a Let's Play thread, but a series of streams instead. 

It's interesting to see how these cases do and do not hold up. 

Case 1 is short and sweet. Some of the character writing seems a bit janky, you can tell it's the very first case, but the actual case logic is sound and it's a good representation of what the rest of the game's court sequences will be like. It serves its role as a starting point for the series well, and that's all the case really needed to be.

Case 2 has a strong emotional core and has significant importance for both the rest of the game and the series... It's also got such a weak climax. The first day of investigation and trial are all fine, you get introduced to important recurring characters, but during the second day it all starts to fall flat. The villain is built up too much only to fall really flat. More than any case I feel this case could've used a rewrite to be more in line with later entries of the series.

Case 3 is the first filler case of the series, and it does a good job setting up what to expect of those. I'd say this case is solid, but it does just drag on, this should have been a 2-day case and they should've cut out the weird fetch quests. This case is also a surprisingly good turning point for Maya, Gumshoe and Edgeworth, who all really come into their roles here.

Case 4 sets the bar for future finale cases, both for the intricate murder plot and the dramatic undertone that lies beneath the case. It really is a good wrap to tie up the story arc of the first game, and to this day has the most overbearing and hostile a prosecutor has been in the series. The only regret is once more that the case is split into a 3-day structure, something I'm sure the devs agree is a problem as they'd never go on to make one again.

Case 5 is big. It's so goddamn big. It's a 3-day case that actually fills out all those days with a truckload of content and three separate yet heavily interconnected crimes to solve. And you know what else? It's so good. It's an all-time classic. Despite most of the cast being one-offs, they all feel right at home. The returning characters are also all in top form here, and the final antagonist is one of the best in the series. A stellar case to end things on, a worthy addition to the game's original 4 from the GBA days. 

So, a good start to the series overall. But you can definitely see instances of first installment weirdness, which makes it strange to see these games after playing later entries. 

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon ROMhacks

This one just kinda came out of nowhere thanks to the YouTube algorithm, but I've been getting into watching video playthroughs of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky ROMhacks. It was sudden, but like, the engine is so good actually it seems. It reminds me Alora Fane: Creation, I suppose, though obviously more full-featured, and with less Goblins but still with Goblin-adjacent Pokémon...

One that stands out in particular is Explorers of the Spirit, which is like a full campaign overhaul with a very peculiar relation to the base game. The biggest divergence is that the usual protagonist is replaced with someone much more aggressive, distrustful and capable of speech, but who nonetheless still cares greatly for the partner Pokémon. It makes for a much more interesting and compelling pairing, as the partner's growth makes more sense when spurred by such a protagonist, while the protagonist also gets to be an actual character with depth and an arc and personal growth. The villain's really interesting too.

When the protagonist beats the shit out of Zubat...
Based.

ODD TAXI

Of course there had to be one anime, right? Well, it was a very good anime.

ODD...

It was fun watching this one, it feels very tight and compact. No time wasted, no meaningless filler. Every scene advances the mysteries, plot or characters, and the cast itself is of course enjoyable to watch. Special shout-out to Odokawa for being such a compelling protagonist. I really enjoyed going through this one and speculating on the answers to the mysteries. I did manage to guess some of them!

Victory Fire

I could squeeze in a comic, too, right? I'm not gonna write about OotS or Goblins as there's not that much to say right now.

A few of the characters.

Victory Fire is a Pokémon fancomic that takes inspiration from... Basically the entire franchise. It's mostly Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, but there's also the Gamecube games, some anime tie-ins and plenty of stuff from the main series too. It all combines into a very compelling narrative for someone familiar with the sources, and it offers some interesting thoughts on the relationship between humans and Pokémon that the official content would never touch on.

Sadly the comic isn't entirely complete, as the creator kinda just disappeared off the internet during the comic's epilogue. A shame! But what's there is still a mostly full narrative, and an enjoyable read.

Closing thoughts

Well, that's a third of the year over already. Jeesh. I wouldn't think it, but that went by fast. Very fast. Well, we'll be here again in four more months, with another blog!