There's Something About Undertale's Morality That Bugs Me

 I want to float an idea past you.

A videogame is a conversation between a player and a developer.

I think about that sometimes. I think you can classify most forms of art as a conversation between the artist and consumer. Art is trying to say something and hoping you'll listen. You might not get to respond personally to the artist but you can form a rebuttal, or a rejection, or an agreement.

And I think videogames can allow for the most input into that conversation just in the fact that for the conversation to move forward, there must be input.

And I think I hate what Undertale has to say.

Okay, well, that's hyperbolic. I really only have one small criticism of its approach to morality as an all-or-nothing zero sum game in which the onus is entirely on the player to be moral and it instills this idea where you can only truly be moral if you adopt a martyr complex and let tens or hundreds of monsters of various sizes punch you directly in the face and if you strike back at even one, no matter how much violence or aggression they show towards you, then you are put into the track of a middling ending.

I think the misanthropy also really gets to me, humans are usually the instigators, they wronged the monster population, they killed Asriel and children are the only ones with innocence. It feels very born of Christian values, the idea that people are born with sin and only through acting as Christ would are we able to find salvation and like, I just think morality is more complicated than that.

For one thing, I don't think Undertale is a bad game and I think some of the ways it approaches non-violence is fun and unique. And more games should allow for non-lethal playthroughs but I think rather than it being a developer's litmus test, let players choose for themselves.

If anything, I think it only bothered me so much because of the potential I saw within the game to create an experience that would have been, at least to me, an unforgettable playthrough.

Instead... The best I can do is voice my concerns over a blog post and hope it doesn't make me come off as a condescending asshole who was unhappy with the ending he got in a videogame.

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Film Review: Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone

Sometimes you just want to be kid again.

Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone is the first of eight Harry Potter films adapted from the book of the same name released in 2001. It's about an orphan boy and his first year at a magic school where he learns to be a wizard, plays a made-up wizard sport and then he handshakes the primary villain into the sequel.

There's a lot to like about the first film. It's really the most magical one, really feeling like you, the viewer, are stepping into a world as Harry serves as kind of an audience surrogate. To this day I still have fantasies of getting my first wand, choosing which owl I'll have, thinking about my Hogwarts House, walking the castle and its rotating staircases.

I think The Philosopher's Stone really does sell that fantasy and make good on that promise.

The film's weakest aspect is its CG, while some effects, such as the talking snake and disappearing glass in the opening scene are really good for the time, any render of a human being makes the eyes sad about having the gift of sight. There are also small hiccups in the plot, such as not learning the name of the eponymous Philosopher until almost 75% of the way into the film and practically in passing, Harry's final confrontation with his professor is entirely underwhelming and the film seems to drag until the very end where it sprints, going as far to reduce Ron's chess game to a montage of statues exploding.

Still, I ended up genuinely having fun with The Philosopher's Stone. I feel like these days we're so surrounded by discourse and discourse and discourse that it's easy to forget that going back to these films can be a good time and that is not helped by the author of the books slowly losing her mind and finding fresh new ways to disappoint her entire audience, from underwhelming sequels to her garbage ideology.

I still like these movies, I'm still going to rewatch my copies from time to time and while it is up to you, dear reader, to decide if you can navigate the complex waters of the ethicacy of their consumption, if this was a world where these films were given out for free and the author of the books never saw a penny, I would heartily recommend giving them a watch.

The rest you'll have to figure out for yourself.

Fuck terfs, by the way.

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Review: Crash Bandicoot (Playstation 1)

I was a playstation kid through and through but the PS1 just barely missed me. What can I say, the PS2 was my era. It's only later in life that I even got to play the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy and now the N. Sane Trilogy has basically made those games obsulete. But I think knowing what came before is important to improve what comes after. And to that end, I think it's about time I dug into Crash Bandicoot and analyze for myself its merits and its flaws.

So for the uninitiated, Crash Bandicoot is 3D platformer on the original playstation which served as playstation's unofficial mascot at the time. The story does its job, Crash is an escaped science experiment gone wrong and Dr Neo Cortex is experimenting further on his female friend, so Crash sets out to rescue her and stop Cortex's nefarious plans. Enough context to get you going and put you into the gameplay and that's where the Bandicoot shines.

Most platformers sink or swim based on their level design and this game surprised me with a bunch of really solid levels. The hallway level design works as an adaptation of linear 2D obstacle courses in the third dimension and the crates are a thing of beauty. It's a solid core gameplay loop, run down corridors, jump over pits, break boxes, spin into or jump onto enemies, repeat until done. The visuals also look great for the time, and you can see 3D models and animation starting to mature greatly on the Playstation. Musically it isn't my favourite Crash Bandicoot soundtrack, I'm very partial to Twinsanity's acapella tunes, but it's iconic Crash music. The game can be difficult, there have definitely been areas that have eaten upwards of 15 lives and sometimes the checkpoint placement could be a bit sparse but I found myself enjoying the challenge more often than not.

What I'm not so hot on is the lack of analogue control support. This is more the fault of Sony than Crash, considering the Dualshock 1 wasn't the first controller for the playstation, despite the N64 launching with a controller that had an analogue stick. Without that analogue control, the left stick can be used for movement but it simulates the d-pad, and it does not feel good to use. I ended up ignoring the left stick and played exclusively with the D-pad, but man, if that didn't end up hurting me. I'm not much of a completionist but the tedium of getting 100% put me off even trying on most levels, some I'd get 3 or 4 boxes shy of earning a gem but honestly, I wasn't going to go back. The save system is something that's also pretty unforgiving, we'd had perfectly functional save systems by that point and hiding the save points in bonus levels is pretty infuriating. Worse still, save points only save your progress towards the final level and gems, and not your lives tally, and booting the game up only to go from 26 lives to 4 was almost as big a disappointment as I am to my parents. Sometimes the hitboxes can trip you up, and there are some enemies which will murder you by entering your air space. A lot of the enemy design in general is kind of lackluster, not in the simplicity but the pure lack of imagination. The skunks that walk into the screen and then immediately die come to mind. And while videogame reviews stend to stay away from politics, the depiction of native island in the game can charitably be described as a bad look. The first boss, Papu Papu is like, just a fat islander trying to murder Crash for seemingly no reason. Also some of the level names are just like, woof. There had to be a better name than Native Fortress. And this might be a nitpick, but levels can start without any fanfare. Choose a level, hard cut to a loading screen, hard cut to the start of the level.

The overall experience could be frustrating at times and while there are a lot of missteps or missed opportunities, I'd generally recommend playing at least some of Crash Bandicoot on the playstation if you ever get the chance to. It's not the best platformer on the system, it might even be the worst game in the original trilogy but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have a good time.

Just take some of the quirks with a pinch of salt and you'll probably get through just fine.

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Review: The Rise Of Skywalker

I did not like The Rise Of Skywalker.

It's overlong, it meanders, it plays up all the worst aspects of the sequel trilogy and honestly, the final act was so uninteresting that I think the already-dry paint on my wall made for better entertainment.

But as a film I can't seem to bring myself to muster the vitriol towards this film as many others have.

In a word? It was fine, I guess? Alright if you've got nothing else to do for three hours and you're in the mood for a Star Wars film you've never seen but it's also nothing worthy of note.

Rise Of Skywalker left me wanting. Wanting more of these characters, wanting a better ending, wanting the film that I can see is in there but is just covered in so much unnecessary weight. How do you even communicate the feeling of wanting the thing you watched to be better?

There were these little golden moments that peered through the cracks at me, begging to be free of the cage that was the script. Moments that belonged in a better film. Moments that wished they could sit in the halls of great cinema, moments that will ultimately be doomed to obscurity.

This is a film that came out as less than the sum of its parts.

Hopefully we can take a break from Star Wars for a couple years and bring it back when we have a better idea of what we want to do with it.

At least we'll always have Clone Wars 2003.

All else I can say is rest in piece, Carrie. We'll miss you.

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Making Sense Of My Feelings For Kingdom Hearts 2

"My summer vacation... Is over..."

Those words have kind of stuck with me over the years. Kingdom Hearts 2 was the first game in the series I played.  I saw it on the shelf at a game store and I had some notion that sequels were usually better than their predecessors so I decided to try the second one first.

I didn't come in with any preconceived notions of what Kingdom Hearts 2 was supposed to be. To me, the opening prequel was just something I had to figure out. Piece it together.

And I think, experiencing Roxas's summer the way he did, with no memory of who he was before, is what made it strike such a chord with me. If I played Chain Of Memories or 358/2 days before playing Kingdom Hearts 2 I might have felt a lot different.

The bittersweet emotion, feeling the weight of what Roxas sacrificed, a life he had on borrowed time, with friends who were fabrications in a town that didn't really exist, watching it all come to an end, just so someone else's adventure could start.

It hit me hard.

I think that's really the defining moment for Kingdom Hearts 2. I know a lot of people who remember the poignancy of this moment and I'd probably say that this is the best-written part of the entire King Hearts franchise.

And the rest we kind of blocked out.

I've played Kingdom Hearts 2 a lot over the years but I hadn't completed it again since I was a kid. And a part of me knows exactly why;

This game is filled with so much bullshit.

I probably don't need to tell you about the convoluted storylines or the poor pace or the weird XP requirements for abilities that shouldn't be optional, but here we are. It's tough really describing the cognitive dissonance of this experience.

Powerful moments along with beautiful scores and moments of gameplay that genuinely teeters on being some of the best not only of its generation but of the next two generations of consoles. Juxtaposed with clunky controls and strange upgrade trees and filler content so sub-par that you'll be begging for a reprieve from the asinine story.

How do you make sense of those feelings?

Well, first you remember just how fun and sweet it is hanging out with Winnie The Pooh as he gets his tubby head stuck in honey jars and the genuine sadness of Pooh not remembering Piglet and you remind yourself that despite it all, Kingdom Hearts has some good moments, dammit.

Then you take a deep breath, grit your teeth and play through Atlantica again.

Then when it's all said and done, you sit back and think about it for a few days, really reflecting on the experience.

Then you decide to play something better until you feel enough nostalgia to go back again.

I'm not going to lie and say I like Kingdom Hearts for a lot of respectable reasons. Divorced from my childhood hours in Twilight Town there really are a lot of good parts but I think we've moved on as people, moved on as gamers. So much of the experience is archaic now and despite two re-releases on two separate HD collections there are still a lot of problems KH2 hasn't addressed over the years that future games have. When I picked up Birth By Sleep and you could just dodge roll, from the start, and this PSP game had a better sense of flow in its first five minutes than the big numbered entry of the franchise has in its first 8 hours, yeah, it's hard not to feel the nostalgia goggles crack.

I still think it's at least worth playing through once in your life.

After all is said and done it's still a game I have a lot of fun with and first impressions are everything. A lot of people are going to come away with this with a sense of awe their first time around.

And after that, you too can hate Kingdom Hearts the way only a Kingdom Hearts fan can.

Also KH1 is better than KH2 chaaaaaange my miiiiiiiiind.

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Goblin Slayer and Sexual Violence

Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is how problematic works can sometimes deny themselves the audience that'd love them most.

Anyway, so another pass through of Goblin Slayer and the gratuitous depictions of sexual assault had me wonder if there isn't value in releasing "censored" versions which, even if they have to be sought out, might make a work filled with trauma triggers more accessible to the people who might find the stuff under all the sexual violence really engaging.

I've heard some argue that Goblin Slayer's violence is necessary and crucial to the plot, and we shouldn't meddle with the author's original vision too much and I think there's room for a middle ground. While I personally would prefer that cishet men take a break from using gratuitous rape as a plot device until they can learn not to carelessly shove it in whenever the drama gets a bit dry, why can there not also exist two versions of this one thing where one simply blacks out the harder to read parts?

I really like Goblin Slayer. I like the pure unbridled fun of watching a stoic, dedicated, uptight warrior who can't ever see anything but his craft learn to lighten up and let in friends. There are all these cute moments like where Orcbolg introduces a friend to cheese, or when Orcbolg gets asked out on a date and while he shows up in full armour, because of what if a goblin attacks, he isn't immediately turned into a yammering idiot at the mere thought of a woman wanting to spend time with him. To everyone's surprise, he graciously accepts because he's trying his best to invite in the parts of life that aren't specifically his job. And despite having the equivalent of a plumbing job, there comes a moment where Orcbolg asks his fellow adventurers for help in beating back a wave of goblins, and while initially, it seems no one wants to do it because there's no prestige or monetary gain, because Orcbolg has let so many people into his life, his new friends help him rally a massive group of eager people.

There's so much to love in this story, so much genuine heart that it kills me that the first thing you'll see in the pages of this swan song to the power of letting people in is some of the most excessive depictions of sexual violence.

Perhaps the barrier to entry could be lowered, is all.

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Review: The Last Jedi

Rounding it off, here's my thoughts on The Last Jedi;

It's bloated, it tries something new but I ultimately find it has too many rough edges for me to really enjoy it.

The Last Jedi has some genuinely stellar setpieces going for it, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Luke this go around. Mark Hamill is older and much more matured as an actor so you can really tell how much better he's become at his deliveries since Return Of The Jedi. Carrie is great and I really found myself wishing for more of Leia and Holdo on screen, it just seems like The Last Jedi needed a little more time in the oven.

It's one of those scripts where all the conflict comes from people who don't talk to each other. I'm one of maybe three people who think the Kantobite scenes are the most necessary to the film but the third act is where The Last Jedi really grinds its own gears, where you can feel the script going through the motions.

It's a divisive film to be sure and while I wish I had more to say on it, the fact is, I think I enjoyed it less than any of the prequels. Rather than having some huge flaw, the problems with The Last Jedi are mundane, and as a result its just a less memorable film. Flawed in execution but in not a lot of big and obvious ways.

That said, I still respect the film for what it tried to do and there are still large parts of it that I did enjoy. I do think there's a way to cut it to get the tight pacing of the last film in there as well while also keeping the more subversive elements.

Guess sometimes, less really is just more.

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