April 28th

Welcome back readers.

Thanks once again to Julián Ramírez for providing the fish pic this week!

You’ve got about a week left to pick up the Palestinian Relief Bundle over on Itch. They’ve more than doubled the amount they’ve raised since we plugged the fundraiser last week, so let’s keep the momentum going, yeah?

This Week in Videogame Blogging is a roundup highlighting the most important critical writing on games from the past seven days.

Action/Reaction

Let’s start things off this week with a pair of critical examinations of new games.

• La sexualización de Eve en Stellar Blade | GamerFocus
  Julián Ramírez unpacks the curiously shallow and sexless case of Eve in Stellar Blade (Spanish-language article).
• Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Understands the Complexity of Grief | Paste Magazine
  Kate Sánchez observes the vibrancy with which Tales of Kenzera: ZAU captures the full emotional spectrum of grief.

“Loss has never been a neutral expression. Even when my grandmother died, we were asked to attend her wake and burial in our brightest purples. Surgent Studios’ debut game Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is the first time that I’ve played through a pain that wasn’t numb. Instead, it was vibrant and expressive. There was rage, sadness, guilt, fear, and even at times, joy.”

ArtPGs

Now let’s focus on games slightly off the beaten path–niche works and bootlegs–as our next two highlighted writers explore their artistic value.

• Why Play Final Fantasy VII Remake When You Could Play FFVII ‘Demake’? | Nintendo Life
  Lewis Packwood chats with Ian Larson about the history of Chinese famiclones, bootleg games, and the circumstances under which art is legitimized or delegitimized.
• The Caligula Effect is the internet. The internet is The Caligula Effect | cohost
  Eithi thinks about the value of mid games and the connections we form online.

“The Caligula Effect’s best aspect is how it approaches this infiniteness of the self. We see it through the eyes of the protagonist, someone who lives out this dual-life between their Mobius persona, their Lucid persona and the Player persona, as someone who’s commanded to respond through dialog options. This trinity is what makes the character episodes work as well as they do, because the player is primed to see the world through the lens of the world responding through what the party members want out of their lives. There’s a kindness in the episodes that feels human, realer than real. An understanding of the dynamics of people within spaces like the internet that I think is really effective..”

Bad Place

Climate change and surveillance guide this next section on dark worlds–sometimes absurdly so.

• Highwater’s Surrealist Farce and Lost Children | Gamers with Glasses
  Tof Eklund situates Highwater in a canon of absurdist eat-the-rich climate fiction.
• Surveillance Paranoia Where You Most and Least Expect It | Unwinnable
  Ruth Cassidy contemplates the voyeuristic tension of Life Eater.

“It isn’t a gotcha about the joys of maliciously invading someone’s privacy, but a creeping horror that when doing so is frictionless and mundane it can almost be mistaken for connecting with another person. With the access we have to information about other people’s lives, it’s enough to make you paranoid.”

Party Chat

This section is all about relationships–good, not-so-good, and hard-won.

• I’m not in love with Dragon’s Dogma 2’s idea of romance | Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster
  Kimimi identifies a distinct lack of consent to relationships in the otherwise agency-minded Dragon’s Dogma 2.
• Baldur’s Gate 3: The Real Brain Worms Were the Friends We Made Along the Way | Sidequest
  Cress focuses on the recuperative, liberating friendships of Baldur’s Gate 3.
• The Importance of Asking For Help: My Experience With ‘Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’ | Epilogue Gaming
  Flora Merigold contemplates friendship, self-love, and asking for help as she renegotiates her relationships with Yakuza and alcohol.

“There are so many occasions in Infinite Wealth where characters turn directly to face the camera and pontificate about their perspective on life, whether Kiryu’s brushstroke metaphor or otherwise. These moments are clearly the developers passing along their philosophical tomes to me, the player. Even when I trip and stumble, like in my fleeting retreat back into alcoholism, Infinite Wealth’s characters serve to remind me to get back up and keep going. And when getting back up seems too difficult, like moving forward is impossible, Infinite Wealth’s supporting cast claps me on the back and reminds me to ask for help. If even the Dragon of Dojima has to learn this lesson, who am I to pretend that I’m above such humility?”

Critical Chaser

; )

• The Tortured Poets Department Is The Dark Souls Of Taylor Swift Albums | Kotaku
  Willa Rowe finds the value in abrasive design–be it videogames or pop albums.

“If you’ve only played games that are about fulfilling player gratification and meeting your every need, Dark Souls will lay your ass out. It’s a lesson in being humble. So is The Tortured Poets Department. It’s an album that asks fans to consider that their parasocial relationship with Swift may not be for her benefit.”