The Beginning and the End - How Bloodborne and Extreme Metal Collide

When I played Bloodborne for the first time just last year, I found myself repeatedly traversing the streets of Yharnam and being handily dispatched by the game’s weakest enemies. I was floored at just how uncompromising the game was. It never made me feel like it was making allowances for me because I was still learning how to play. In Bloodborne, even the earliest of enemies will take every opportunity to punish your mistakes. It is a game that teaches you through failure. I couldn’t help but feel that fans of the game and games like it either took some sort of masochistic glee from repeatedly failing or maybe, I was forced to admit, they were just a lot better at games than I was.

Bloodborne is, as I imagine most From Software titles must be, an exercise in frustration. At first blush, I couldn’t imagine what most fans could see in the game. At the same time, though, I didn’t have the framework that others might have had to better understand what makes the game tick. I had briefly played Demons’ Souls and Dark Souls both many years before, but hadn’t invested enough time in them to really understand what made them good. Now that I’ve played through the entirety of Bloodborne and can comfortably claim to understand what it is and why it’s good, I can’t help but remember another time much earlier in my life when I couldn’t understand why people were engrossed in something for which I couldn’t see any appeal.

Almost as far back as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed video games. I was playing NES games with my dad before I was even attending school. This was an interest I carried forward through the rest of my life, but it wasn’t until age 15 that I really started to immerse myself in the hobby fully, and a lot of that had to do with the internet. That was the first time I had access to the internet at home and resulted in me joining a lot of communities that gave me an outlet to discuss the games I really loved, like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger.

Several of the communities I joined in this time not only affected how I thought about games and what I sought out in them, but it also introduced me to a lot of other new interests. I was in a phase of my life where I listened to music like any other teenager, but I didn’t consider myself an enthusiast of any kind. I mostly listened to stuff my family had introduced me to. I hadn’t really taken the time at that point to branch out and discover music for myself.

Before I became an avid user of the internet, I listened to mostly classic rock and some metal. The kind of metal I was listening to at the time was stuff like Black Sabbath and Metallica, which are relatively tame compared to some of the stuff you could find out there even in those days. The internet opened me up to a lot of new types of music, including more extreme types of metal that contained harsh vocals, whether those were high-pitched screams or more guttural growls. When I first listened to this kind of stuff, I had a pretty negative reaction to it. I thought it was silly, and even when I found myself enjoying the primal, heavy music accompanying those vocals, I had a hard time getting past those unintelligible roars.

Looking back at it now, I think about how radically my perspective has changed over time. It makes a lot of sense that I was turned off by harsh vocals initially because it was unlike anything I’d heard before. I thought about what they must have been trying to accomplish by screaming or growling in the place of traditional singing. I really enjoyed how heavy and punishing the music itself was, but to me, the vocals were just getting in the way.

Still, even at that young age (and in a number of years that followed), I was struck with the urge to understand why there existed a niche, but dedicated group of fans that really liked harsh vocals. Were they pretending to enjoy them, I wondered, to cultivate some sort of outsider persona? It made me think of what purpose music serves in people’s lives in the first place. It is there to entertain, certainly, and in many cases it enhances other media. It’s instrumental in games and in movies in setting a tone. But it’s also there just to make you feel something, and sometimes what it makes you feel isn’t positive. And that’s okay, because it’s still exciting when a creative piece of work provokes an emotion in you. People like sad or scary movies for a reason, after all. It’s cathartic. Extreme metal is similar in that it combines unpleasant or dissonant sounds in a way that provokes catharsis. The most extreme variants of metal abandon melody almost entirely in favor of blistering speed and noise, but the kind I ended up preferring tends to be a bit more meditative. Although the vocals continue to be dissonant, they are frequently combined with melody in a layered, pleasing way. The contrast is what makes these groups so satisfying.

There were a few groups I became familiar with in those early days when I was still finding my musical identity. My persona at that point had been built almost entirely on my love of video games and fantasy and sci-fi. Music played very little part in my sense of who I was as a person. I liked to listen to music, but I hadn’t listened to much that really resonated with me on a deeper level. I started listening to groups like Radiohead, and the Mars Volta, groups that really redefined how I felt about music. I started to think more about the texture of music and the kinds of feelings it provoked in me. I became a lot more open to music that was experimental or different from the kinds of things I was used to. Even so, when I first tried listening to groups like Opeth, Enslaved, or the unfortunately named Isis, I could barely wrap my head around them.

I was familiar with stuff like Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest already, so I could handle the dissonant guitar solos, driving rhythms, and howled vocals, but when it came to the guttural bellows of Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt or the ghastly gurgles of Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson, I couldn’t make that jump to understand their appeal. Even now, I understand why others are turned off by it, even if they otherwise like heavy music.

Vocals are always a big sticking point in whether or not someone is going to like a particular kind of music. I can’t count the number of times I’ve overheard someone make a statement like “yeah, I like the music, but I just can’t stand his or her voice.” It’s definitely an important factor because vocals are really front-and-center in the majority of popular music. I’m no music historian, but I imagine that’s been the case for the better part of the last century. A lot of folks really connect to the lyrical content of their music, too, so it’s easy to see why a vocal style that deliberately obfuscates the content being delivered to the listener would feel alienating.

As crass as it may sound, I’ve never been the kind of person that cares that much about lyrics. I will notice them if they’re well-written or interesting, but for the most part I don’t care about them. The feeling the words evoke combined with how they entwine with the music itself is much more important to me. This makes it clearer why I was able to get to a point where extreme vocals resonated with me. But it took time to understand that. It required me listening to music for awhile that I didn’t really enjoy all that much at first. And that raises a question: why invest that amount of effort to understand or enjoy something that demands so much of you? This question was also on my mind as I bashed my head against the brick wall of Bloodborne. I was sure there was a good game in there somewhere but I wasn’t sure experiencing it was worth the effort the game demanded.

There is a group by the name of Enslaved, a black metal group that has been around for many years. Their early material is very straightforward, lo-fi black metal with fast tremolo picking, shrieked and raspy vocals, blast-beats (hyper-fast alternations between the snare and cymbals/bass drums) and little else to distinguish them from other groups of that type. Those early albums are good, well-performed black metal albums, but, at least in my mind, there’s not much about them that’s particularly interesting or very different from other groups in the genre. As they progressed further into their career, they did begin to introduce more melody and experimental elements, but one thing about Enslaved since the group’s inception has remained constant, which is a focus on hypnotic, repetitive rhythms. One could almost say there’s an element of psychedelia to their music as well, particularly in tracks like “Bounded By Allegiance,” from 2004’s Isa.

The first album I ever listened to from Enslaved was 2000’s Mardraum - Beyond the Within, which impressed me in a number of ways but I found very challenging to listen to when I was still discovering extreme metal. Not only did the intensity of the music unnerve me, but the tonality of the production and the almost impossibly bestial nature of the vocals actually made my stomach hurt when I listened to it. Consider that album’s second track, “Daudningekvida,” its most direct and aggressive piece of music. It has a razor-thin, treble-heavy production with a guitar sound that slices through your eardrums. It’s grating, especially at first. This type of production wasn’t unique to Enslaved and I soon came to find that most black metal tended to give me a stomachache in those days. Still, after repeated listens, I started to understand that album and become very engrossed in the type of music they were producing, even to the point where I could enjoy not only their less accessible material, but the music of other extreme groups as well.

In the case of Bloodborne and its predecessors in the Souls series, there is a sense of low fidelity in the way the games are produced. The games definitely have good and interesting art direction, but on top of everything else I found frustrating about the game at first was just how unpleasant I found the game to actually look at, especially for long periods of time. Just as the Mardraum album gradually heightened my anxiety as I listened, so too did Bloodborne take a toll on me with its excessive motion blur and poor anti-aliasing. 

Now that I’ve played dozens of hours of Bloodborne, I can barely notice the graphical issues because my brain has become so accustomed to it. I’ve plugged into the experience in a big way. Enslaved (and other black metal besides) no longer give me that sense of anxiety, either. Both are more rewarding as a result. Again, though, it’s worth questioning whether or not these two pieces of art are better for the rough edges they have or simply serve as crosses to bear before enjoying something that is ultimately very engaging.

Another reason I enjoy harsh vocals and extreme metal in general is that they are darkly satisfying. Much heavy metal music demonstrates a fascination with horror, whether it be a brutal exploration of real world themes of war and violence, or in the case of death metal, a straight-up descent into gore. The themes that tend to resonate with me most are those that are more otherworldly and enigmatic. Although I couldn’t tell you much about the lyrical content of most of these groups (or indeed much about the specifics of the plot of Bloodborne), at the end of the day, it’s more about how these elements make you feel. Early 2000s Opeth is a good example of metal that evokes a sense of mystery, of magic, couched in the violent expression of death metal.

Bloodborne is, as one could probably guess by the name, a violent game soaked in blood. Grotesque enemies attempt to eat you whole, mercilessly gut you with knives, or even slit your throat. At the same time, though, it is a very mysterious, lore-heavy game, with secrets hidden around every corner. The disorienting contrast of careful and methodical exploration of ghostly, deathly quiet locales with the blood-pumping excitement of squaring off with battle axe-wielding behemoths is not unlike the way a group like Opeth or Enslaved repeatedly alternate between soft and bone-crushingly heavy passages to satisfying effect. They definitely scratch a similar itch.

One of the most defining pieces of music for me is “The Beginning and the End,” by Isis. It was incredibly influential to me in that it was largely responsible for deciding what I looked for in extreme music in general. To this day, it is one of my favorite pieces of music and it was the first song I’d ever heard from what is now one of my absolutely favorite groups. Although Isis disbanded many years ago (in fact, as I am quick to clarify, well before the terrorist group of the same name began making headlines), there is a hypnotic, otherworldly quality to their music, and particularly to their earlier material that continues to worm its way into my brain to this day. 

Heading up 2002’s Oceanic, “The Beginning and the End” is a piece of music that assaults you with barked, atonal screams over colossal, chugging riffs, before subsiding into a hypnotic rhythm that repeats for the majority of its 8+ minute runtime. Although the song is simplistic in structure, repeated listens reveal additional layers that flesh out the heft of the piece’s impact. Just the sound of the drums in that song, the soft female chanted vocals that follow the bassline, the tone of the guitars, the way they create texture--it’s incredible. More important than simply the rhythms being played is that absolutely perfectly bright snare sound, that perfect amount of reverb on the toms. The groove that it drops into is such a comforting place to be in once the song has penetrated your consciousness. But when I first listened to it, I could barely stand it. It was long, the vocals were incomprehensible and unpleasant, I felt it was repetitive, and it had very little in the way of melody for my brain to latch onto.

Just as with Bloodborne, when I was struck down repeatedly by ghastly townspeople in the game’s opening area, I couldn’t hear the melody. I couldn’t understand what about the game was fun until I forced myself to invest more energy into it. I played it actively, paid much more attention to every minute action I took. Just as I strained my ears to hear the intricacies at play in “The Beginning and the End,” I forced myself to invest in Bloodborne--and ultimately came away with a more rewarding experience.

In the game’s opening hours, I reduced the gameplay to a frantic game of hack-and-slash. Intimidated by extraordinarily aggressive enemies, I would close in on axe- and blunderbuss-wielding foes and mash R1 until my enemies fell. Frequently, I felt I’d taken down my opponents through dumb luck rather than any pretense of skill on my part. Every attempt I made to take a more measured approach was met with death, painful and immediate.

It wasn’t until I’d made many attempts to conquer enemies that I felt were above my skill level that I really started to get into that groove. Now, when I revisit those earlier enemies, I begin to wonder why I ever felt they were hard in the first place. And when I listen to those groups I first discovered in my teens, it’s harder for me to hear what made them seem so inaccessible, so uninviting.

The question I’ve repeatedly posited is: “Is it worth it?” Life is short, and music and video games are leisure activities. Why try to engage with something that deliberately pushes me away? I think that’s a valid take, but at least for me, it’s worth it because even though extreme metal and games like Bloodborne are inaccessible and difficult, they fill me with tremendous satisfaction. Getting past that barrier helps me not only to understand how others feel but to understand what it means to enjoy something that demands a lot of me. In the end, both forms of entertainment are much more engrossing and enjoyable because the door wasn’t wide open from the beginning.

Let's take a break from video game articles for a second.

Sometimes I struggle with the goal of this blog. It has been many things over the course of its existence. It was originally established as a dump of video game writing after I gravitated away from LiveJournal in 2011. Even then, that platform was pretty much dead. That little experiment only lasted for about two entries before falling through. I resurrected the blog the following year to document my ranked games in League of Legends, which is an interesting artifact of the past because it reinforces just how much a part of my life that game was at the time. It's not a game I think about often these days and haven't played it at all for a few years, but back then--man, I was invested. It's interesting how things change. I don't even like the idea of investing that much time in a game that I can't definitively finish.

Now that I'm writing about this, I'm looking back over old entries on this blog and of course it's sending me on a huge nostalgia trip. I begin to cringe a little over some of my old writing and particularly of those League of Legends entries because they're written by such a categorically different person than who I am now. It's very jarring. There are some old entries penned by a very depressed, hopeless version of myself. I see recurring themes of my personality that have persisted to this day. It makes me a little sad. Things have improved but they also haven't.

After I stopped cataloging the League of Legends stuff, I started a new experiment. I was going to update the blog every single day with absolutely anything I could think of. I actually really like that I did that because I kept it up for a very long time. I'm skimming through them now and finding some actually pretty cool insights about myself. One passage in particular from Day 4 really sticks out to me. I was talking about the crappy, dead-end job I had at the time and I realized that even though I was in a rough spot at the time, there was a sense of optimism in my writing that feels refreshing to me now. What I said was "I miss being a source of knowledge to people. I like to be able to answer questions and resolve situations." As it turns out, that's exactly what I do at my current job! And it's still true. I derive a lot of satisfaction from being able to help people in that way.

A common theme that I discussed then that remains true to this day is that I have this desire to create, to write. But I also want to share what I create with others. I want to promote discussions. I've never been able to do that in a meaningful or satisfying way, which also makes me sad. I'm not sure what the solution is, because if the answer is "just keep writing," then well, I've definitely done a lot of that. It's clear I need to be more proactive, to take more steps in making this happen. And maybe it won't, but I'd feel a lot better if I had more agency in that process.

This blog has, since its inception, been a repository for writing, about video games, about my life, and even for a time, for fiction. When I was blogging daily, I started to run out of things from my life to talk about, so the next logical step was to start making things up. I did a lot of that and amassed something like 50,000 words of the primary story I was working on, but there were a couple of other minor stories that sprang up alongside it. That was a really fun thing to do, even if the entire document ended up being a really disjointed mess, since I really was just making it up as I went.

Can it be more? Does it need to be more? Does it serve as a portfolio of writing or simply a massive catalog of how I've wasted innumerable hours? Is it even worth examining at this point? These are questions for which I have no answer, which is frustrating.

I think the only real conclusion I can draw is that no matter what happens, I should keep writing. I can't help the fact that it bothers me that I don't have the ability to reach an audience, though, because it's a reflection of my life. I feel I have interesting things to say, but one-sided conversations are rarely fulfilling. Maybe I wouldn't feel so drawn to the type of writing I do if there were more people in my life with which I could discuss these things in the first place. I write to get those thoughts out, but when there's no feedback or really any indication that I'm being heard, it feels... discouraging. Part of the goal in writing is to improve my craft, which is definitely a valuable pursuit, but the other goal is to reach someone, to promote a discussion. And that just doesn't happen. I've been doing this long enough and consistently enough to know that the path I'm on now won't cause it to happen. So I'm going to need to make some changes.

The Struggle to Be Just in Dishonored

I never played Arkane Studios’ Dishonored back in 2012 when it came out. In those days, it wasn’t really the kind of game I liked to play. I was much more likely to play a turn-based RPG than anything else and even when I dabbled in first-person games, I typically bounced off them in a couple of hours. Half-Life 2 and Bioshock spring immediately to mind, two games that I tried and quickly returned on the Xbox 360. Now, many years later, I’ve played a lot more first-person games, more shooters, and in general have broadened my gaming horizons. After playing through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and sneaking through many bandit camps in Ancient Greece, I found myself craving more stealth gameplay. Dishonored seemed like a perfect fit.

My first impression of Dishonored, having played very few true stealth games, is that the stealth is much more important and intrinsic to the game than modern Assassin’s Creed, where battles typically turn into full-on brawls where sneaking goes completely out the window. I found myself repeatedly reloading when spotted because it just wasn’t worth the hassle that would ensue if a guard alerted his allies. A lot of my desire to reload had to do with the way I played through the game. I decided early on that I didn’t want to kill anyone.

Very few games that involve combat give you the option to avoid taking lives. I guess there’s Spider-Man, but come on, those super-powered punches surely broke a few skulls. In the case of Dishonored, I stuck to the shadows and choked out anyone who was in my way, carefully placing their unconscious bodies out of sight in case others were patrolling nearby. I came to realize I was having a lot of fun plotting out my route to avoid being seen. There was always this sense of cautious excitement when I crept up behind an unaware foe, only to silence them and drag them into the shadows.

The most crucial mechanic in Dishonored that makes it a joy to play is the blink ability. Without it, avoiding being seen would be immensely more challenging and probably a lot less fun. With careful use of this ability, Corvo is able to close the distance to foes, over walls, to rooftops, and whatever else might be in his field of vision in the span of an instant. You can even chain these short-range teleports together provided you have the mana to support it. You’re frequently able to blink to locations you might not expect, like a chandelier, a light post, or the beam of a bridge. You can also just blink directly ahead to quickly zip past an enemy that might be looking the other way.

Even alone, the blink ability makes for a satisfying gameplay loop. The lionshare of my gameplay in Dishonored involved blinking past guards or sneaking up behind them and choking them out. The only other tool at my disposal for a pacifist run was a crossbow loaded up with sleep darts, my last resort if I’d been surrounded by enemies. As a result, I never got to use any of the many other tools at Corvo’s disposal, all only useful in the case of murder.

I had to wonder, by the time I’d arrived at the very end of the game, if I’d missed out on the full Dishonored experience. Sure, I was satisfied that I’d achieved my goal without shedding blood and the ending and events in the game went a long way toward reinforcing the positive feelings I had about that, but I had to admit--it might have been pretty fun to set deadly traps, throw grenades, and really fully utilize Corvo’s toolset in navigating my obstacles.

I’d been on the fence about whether or not I was going to play the DLC of Dishonored, but I had the Definitive Edition for PS4 which included all of that for no additional cost, so I figured why not? I loaded up The Knife of Dunwall, electing to skip the less story-centric Trials expansion entirely, fully intent on assuming the role of Daud, Corvo’s counterpart. Except this time I wasn’t going to spare my enemies.

When I decided to let go and murder every enemy in sight, the game unsurprisingly felt a lot different. Although Dishonored ostensibly gives you the freedom to choose your own path, the tools at your disposal certainly cater more to outright violence. As with the base Dishonored games, there are only a handful of tools that support a non-violent playthrough, but when you consider all of the tools that are designed to murder, it’s staggering. There are crossbow bolts, explosive bolts, grenades, arc mines, a pistol, and abilities that support continuous kills to build up melee finishers, among others.

It was easier, too, because I had less reason to reload if things went wrong, if I had miscalculated. If I alert an enemy, why not just slit their throat right then and there? Or just fire off a point-blank shot before they can tell their friends? That’s never an option when taking someone down peacefully. You can only choke someone out if you approach them unseen--of course there’s the option of using a sleep dart, but even that’s not a perfect solution since it takes time for it to do its work.

Helpfully, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches do add Chokedust and stun mines as pseudo non-violent diversions, but in both cases they seem designed to incapacitate enemies to make them easier to kill. I’m glad that I played the base Dishonored non-violently my first time through, because I might never have done it if I’d played the game in a more traditional way. It serves as a helpful comparison, though, and makes a lot of sense narratively, since Daud is intrinsically kind of a Bad Dude compared to Corvo. Whether or not I had more fun playing violently is up to debate, but it’s hard to ignore that you definitely have more tools to play with if you elect to kill, and the game is less time-consuming in general when you don’t have to worry about the unforeseen consequences of your actions. Sure, if I rewire a trap, it might prevent it from hurting me, but it could kill a hapless guard instead. It’s a lot easier to just not have to worry about that. The only thing left to worry about at that point is my guilt.

It's worth wondering whether or not it would have been a better use of resources to make a pacifist route as engaging to play as the more traditional violent approach. Every game gives you a set of tools and a list of actions you are capable of performing--and in a lot of cases, the primary action you can take to influence the game world is to defeat your enemies. Although many games may dress this up in a way that's less off-putting, it's no less true that the primary vehicle of expression in the majority of games is, well, murder. There's a lot to unpack about that statement that I don't necessarily need to go into here, but suffice to say that it's very nice to have games that offer the option of avoiding taking lives, especially in the context of an action game like Dishonored. I only wish that the game did a better job of making that type of play style as engaging or as interesting as the violence is.

Post-E3 2019 Conference Decompression

I guess it was luck that I just happened to have two days off from work during the first two days of E3 conferences, even if Nintendo's presentation was what stuck with me the most in the end, which I had to wait until after work on Tuesday to watch. Suffice to say, though, I watched a lot of video game trailers over the past weekend and I have some thoughts.

On Sunday was Microsoft's E3 press conference, the presentation for which I was least excited. I've never owned an Xbox One and even though I own an Xbox 360, it wasn't a console that had a lot of memorable exclusives, at least as far as my gaming preferences go. Project Scarlett, the code name for Microsoft's next console (which I'm predicting at this point will be rebooted as simply "XBOX") was revealed and although it looks impressive, it's not clear to me how it will distinguish itself from the upcoming PlayStation 5. Assuming the two pieces of hardware are comparable in terms of power, the real draw is going to be the software and it's clear that Sony has been winning that battle handily for a long time. It was also revealed that Halo Infinite would be a launch title for the system, which is interesting, but since I haven't played a Halo game since the original Xbox, that's certainly not a title that would win me over.

There was also a really thrilling trailer for CD Project Red's Cyberpunk 2077 that framed it as really exciting narrative experience. I'm reserving judgment on the game since I still haven't even gotten around to playing the game that really made the developer popular. Although I realize The Witcher 3 has absolutely nothing to do with this game, I'm a big fan of having context when playing a dev's new game, so I probably won't play Cyberpunk unless I end up enjoying their breakout hit. The internet's reactions to Keanu Reeves' surprise appearance as an in-game character was also hilarious to see. Of course, there's no reason I wouldn't just play this game on PS4 if it came to it.

Now, what I did find interesting about the conference is that Double Fine, the long-running independent studio helmed by Tim Schafer, was revealed to have been acquired by Microsoft. Now, whether or not this means their future games will be Microsoft exclusives is up in the air, but it's hard to see what motivations the company would have if that wasn't the eventual goal. I'm not that excited for Psychonauts 2 since I never managed to finish the original, but it's still a studio that I'm interested in going forward. The same goes for Obsidian, now also owned by Microsoft and responsible for the excellent Pillars of Eternity. Of course, the upcoming The Outer Worlds is also going to be available on PS4, which is puzzling from Microsoft's standpoint.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps looks incredible, as did the original Blind Forest from 2015. Above all else, I really admired that game's graphical style and it looks like the sequel is only going to improve upon that. If there's anything that would convince me to own a Microsoft platform again, it would be these games, since I don't have the ability to really jump back into PC gaming at this point. Still, though, these games alone wouldn't be enough to convince me to purchase a console. What might make me do it instead is Xbox Game Pass, particularly the Ultimate Game Pass that was announced during this conference. At $14.99/mo, you gain access to all first-party Microsoft releases on day one in addition to a pretty large catalog of games going forward. I have to admit that sounds pretty good since there are a ton of games I would normally not consider buying but would still like to try out. I could see a future where the Xbox One exists for me solely just for that purpose.

Bethesda had a presentation later that night that was surprisingly solid in retrospect, although none of it necessarily blew me away. The next Wolfenstein and Doom releases both look really good, but I stil l haven't gotten around to trying either of those series, though I've been meaning to do so. Deathloop, a new game from Dishonored and Prey developers Arkane also looks really good, even though I don't love that name. I'll definitely try it after I get through Dishonored 2 and Prey. Ghostwire: Tokyo looks horrifying and interesting. It made me want to go back and play The Evil Within, which I'll probably do.

I didn't see every single E3 conference this year but I did see most of them. Because I haven't touched my PC in probably more than a year, I skipped the PC conference (and also I just didn't know it was happening), but I did watch the Ubisoft conference, including several minutes of agonizingly boring pre-show material that I was momentarily fooled into thinking was the actual conference itself. I guess I got mixed up on the times. Anyway, the conference itself was not all that exciting since it was overwhelmingly stacked with dull Tom Clancy military shooters. Watch Dogs Legion did look very cool, though. I'm totally on board with the idea of being able to play as any NPC I can see in a city and in recruiting for a resistance movement. That's a game I'd love to try if I'm able to.

The most bizarre thing I saw all E3 was indie publisher Devolver Digital's video "press conference." Apparently they've been doing these strange, satirical videos for a couple of years now, but I was caught off guard by it. The actual real content revealed in the video was minimal as most of it was concerned with a ludicrously gory scene in which fictional Devolver CEO Nina Struthers was gunned down by a crazed fan (?) and then forced to give the presentation comatose, from within her own mind. In this wacky segment, Nina revealed an actual real-life Enter the Gungeon arcade cabinet; a collection of "bootleg" Devolver games with titles like Catsylvania and Shooty Boots, parodying Gato Roboto and Downwell; new DLC for The Messenger; and an interesting-looking "reverse horror" game called Carrion in which you assume the role of the nightmarish horror lurking in the dark.

Square-Enix got the ball rolling right out of the gate that same night with footage from the upcoming Final Fantasy VII remake. As I'm typing this, I've suddenly realized I planned on replaying the original game again before the remake released. Since it's arriving March 20th, I need to get right on that. The footage itself looked fantastic and honestly a lot better than I expected. If Square-Enix is planning on putting this level of detail into the entire game, we won't see the entire story until 2035 at the earliest. Cloud and Barret's intense battle with the scorpion robot from the very beginning of the game in the Mako Reactor so much more involved than the 30 seconds of turn-based combat from the original that it really speaks to the scope of this ambitious project.

Of course, they also (finally) announced the Final Fantasy VIII remaster, which I'm actually pretty excited to play. I was bummed when it kept getting left out of rereleases but I guess it makes sense now. Since I haven't gotten around to playing the Final Fantasy IX remaster either, I think it might be time for a marathon. I haven't seriously played those games in many years and I think a refresher sounds nice.

The biggest news from the conference other than the aforementioned Final Fantasy VII Remake was or course Crystal Dynamics' new take on The Avengers, which looks really nice. I'm only a casual Marvel fan, but I know enough about the MCU and about the comics to get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Fans are divided on the character designs used in the game (because of course they're not going to use the movie actors' likenesses) but I think they look perfectly fine and I'm excited to play it when it releases, and I'm especially interested in trying out the cooperative play.

The rest of the Square-Enix conference didn't wow me, especially when they showed off some spectacularly boring-looking military shooters in the middle. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered could be interesting because I never played the original, but my only potential co-op partner isn't very interested in it, herself. Oninaki, the new game from Tokyo RPG Factory looks decent, but neither I am Setsuna nor Lost Sphear were excellent games, so I'll wait for reviews on that one.

Although I'm now doubting my decision to publish these impressions in one entry since it has already taken me several lunch breaks to compose, there is still one "conference" left, and that was of course the Nintendo Direct released on Tuesday. The very first reveal got me excited, because although it had already been leaked that the Hero from Dragon Quest would be released as a DLC fighter, I'd had no idea that you'd be able to play as the heroes from various different titles in the series. I can't recall exactly which ones were featured but I know I saw the protagonists from Dragon Quest XI, VIII, and possibly even Dragon Quest V? That's significantly more interesting than just assuming the role of Dragon Quest XI's Luminary. Throwing Banjo-Kazooie into the mix is just icing on the cake, as far as I'm concerned. I'm eager to see who the remaining fighters for the season pass end up being.

There was also some more footage shown of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, possibly my most-anticipated upcoming game right now. It further reinforced the simulation/management aspects of the game, for which I'm totally on board. The idea of growing and developing my characters in an academic setting, recruiting new heroes, and getting to know them looks really fun on paper. I'm very much hoping the game executes on its premise. I'm also still very excited for the incredibly stylish Astral Chain from Bayonetta developers Platinum. I love the combat in pretty much any game they do. Daemon X Machina also made another appearance and is looking good. I enjoyed the demo when it came out and I still plan on grabbing it close to release as long as reviews are solid.

I never played the original Link's Awakening, but the remake is looking great, particularly with the new randomized dungeon creator mechanic this Direct's footage showed off. Of course, what I'm much more excited for is the Breath of the Wild sequel teased at the end, which I'm very much assuming won't be entitled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2. Nintendo has earned itself a lot of goodwill with the phenomenal job they did on Breath of the Wild so I think I'm definitely not alone in expecting very good things from another entry in that world.

Some of the more obscure announcements actually got me pretty excited, too. Although not a lot of people have talked about it, I played the recent localization of Romancing SaGa 2 and actually really enjoyed it. It was a game that's very rough around the edges but I'm wild about the concept in general. I had briefly considered tracking down a fan translation of the third game, but it looks like now I won't have to since Romancing SaGa 3 and another 3D SaGa game I hadn't heard of are being released in a bundle for Switch. If that wasn't enough, the much more shocking announcement was of not only the North American localization of Collection of Mana, containing the very first official release of Seiken Densetsu 3 (now called Trials of Mana), but a full 3D remake of that same game. And it looks incredible, too--much better than the  recent, disappointing Secret of Mana remake.

So, that's pretty much it. I watched a lot of stuff about upcoming games and I'm not sure how my wallet's going to handle it.

Now Playing Update

I've spent the past couple of days downloading the E3 video game zeitgeist directly into my brain--to the point that it's become more than a little overwhelming. I've yet to see today's Nintendo Direct but I'll be catching up on that this evening. I'm on social media blackout until that point in the hope that there'll be at least a couple of surprises. I'll update tomorrow with some of my thoughts on everything I've absorbed over the past few days, but in the meantime, let's talk about what I've been playing recently.

First up, I finished up a low chaos run of Dishonored: Definitive Edition. I didn't really play this type of game back when it first came out in 2013, but after finishing it, I was definitely pleased with the experience. I think it'll be a gateway toward more first-person games for me. I've traditionally had a real issue with first-person perspective games in general, whether they be shooters or something in the vein of The Elder Scrolls, because they've always made me feel a tad claustrophobic. I've played more of them these past couple of years, though, and I'm starting to become a lot more accustomed to them. It's easier now for me to get what makes them appealing.

In the case of Dishonored, it makes a lot of sense to play a stealth game from first-person perspective. Although I don't typically care that much about immersion, I can't help but feel captivated by leaping from rooftop to rooftop, blinking to far away locations to try to stay out of sight while looking through that character's eyes. There is a feeling there that third-person games just don't capture, even though it is occasionally disorienting. There's also the fact that aiming ranged weaponry and choosing spots to teleport to just works a lot better from that perspective.

I'm currently toying around with the DLC where you assume control of Daud, whose powers differ from Corvo's in a few important ways. I'll have more to say on that once I've played more. Although I was utterly pacifist in my runthrough of the game with Corvo, I've decided to be ruthlessly bloodthirsty as Daud for the sake of variety.

I also recently finished up the final (?) piece of DLC for Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a game on which I've already spent well over a hundred hours. The recently-released Torment of Hades takes Kassandra (or Alexios) to the depths of the Greek underworld, where she reunites with a few of her fallen friends. I have to admit that I wasn't as immediately engaged by this as previous AC Odyssey content if only because I'm burned out on the game in general. The gameplay is as solid as ever, but the grim, dark atmosphere of Hades didn't do much for me after becoming accustomed to the bright and beautiful fields of Elysium in the previous DLC chapter.

On a whim, I recently downloaded an indie game by the name of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, a tactical RPG very much inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics. It's not the first game to make that claim, but it's a lot closer to the truth than with a game like Children of Zodiarcs, for instance, an excellent game that would have benefitted from not inviting that comparison. In the case of Fell Seal, I also see a lot of influence from Tactics Ogre, particularly with the way it handles some of its secret classes. I like the game a lot, but I don't think my opinion of it will be crystallized until I've finished it. Once I've done so, I'll talk about it a bit more.

Another game I finished recently is Gato Roboto, a charming little Metroidvania in which you take the role of a cat piloting a mech. At the behest of its lovable scientist master, it traverses a series of subterranean alien passageways in order to assist him with repairing his crashed ship. The game's design is much in the vein of Super Metroid, with elements that I assume must have been inspired by Blaster Master, since the cat can leave the mech and explore smaller passages on its own. The game design is tried and true, but it feels so good to play that I really enjoyed my time with it. I also enjoyed that it was only about a four-hour game since I've played so many 80+ hour experiences this year.

Finally, I also started playing Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, a game that I've been looking forward to for a year or more since I originally heard about it. I was worried I wouldn't be too eager to play it after sinking a ton of time into Etrian Odyssey Nexus, but the style of Q2 is different enough that it feels like a breath of fresh air. The visual style is so much more striking and memorable that it significantly enhances the experience. And of course I am in love with the music of this game. I'm very eager to play more and to write about it more as time goes on.

The Perception of Video Game Play Time

I think my first impulse upon composing a new entry for this blog is to bemoan the fact that I haven't been updating as frequently as I'd like. I try to quash that feeling as soon as it comes because this blog isn't supposed to be an obligation for me in the first place. It's a place for me to hone my craft and to exercise my creative muscles so they don't atrophy. Any illusion that it's more than that is harmful. After all, I'm not going to write well if I feel like it's coming from a place of obligation. Okay, well, maybe that's not entirely true because if I were to be paid for writing I'd be writing constantly. I'm backing myself into a monologue corner here.

The month of May on this blog was concerned almost entirely with Bloodborne with a little Etrian Odyssey on the side. There's something about that game and the emotions it inspired in me that really sparked my imagination. I've written a lot more about that game that I have not published. There's a good chance I'll be sharing that at some point soon as well because although the premise of the piece I wrote might seem a little forced to some, it comes from a genuine place.

Since I last published an entry, I've managed to finish both Etrian Odyssey Nexus (just yesterday) and Yakuza 0, two games on which I spent a considerable amount of time. At the end of the day, the amount of time I spent on both was actually similar, but how I perceived that time was very different.

I first started Etrian Odyssey Nexus back in February on release day. I was really excited about it and posted an initial impression after I'd played 5-6 hours. At that time, I was very positive on the game, but as I progressed further and further, the cracks started to show. It became repetitive and frustrating in all the worst ways. There were sparks of fun and innovation here and there, but for the most part, the middle chunk of the game was a slog. As a result, it took me over three months to finish the game, chipping it away at it over the weekends. Looking back, I finished Etrian Odyssey IV in a similar fashion, while V was finished in a tight month.

My final playtime on Etrian Odyssey Nexus was roughly 89 hours, which, don't get me wrong, is a long time to play any game, but I've played a lot of RPGs in that range so it's not entirely unusual. Even so, the process of actually playing through it felt like an eternity. This is mostly because there are so many stretches of that game where nothing really changes. After unlocking my characters' core abilities, the ways fights progressed was almost identical from encounter to encounter for hours and hours of time. Boss fights spiced up the formula a bit, but when you spend 5-6 hours in a dungeon only to spend maybe 10 minutes on the boss fight, it's easy to see where that ratio solves very little.

On the other hand, I spent about 80 hours on Yakuza 0, which is much longer than I expected to spend on it after finishing Yakuza Kiwami in less than half that time. The crucial difference here is that it honestly felt like that 80 hours flew by. It helps that I finished the game in a much shorter timeframe overall, but the more important deciding factor is that it ended up being a game I just enjoyed a whole lot more than Etrian Odyssey.

Yakuza 0 is not a perfect video game by any stretch of the imagination. The structure of the game is entrenched in PS2-era conventions, both in terms of the way your characters interact with NPCs and the environment, and in how you navigate menus. Like many Japanese games, Yakuza 0 has a lot of menus, and they're just as clunky and annoying to navigate as any JRPG, even if this game is a straight-up narrative brawler. The core gameplay itself is not all that engaging either, since it primarily consists of roaming the streets and busting thugs' heads, but like many video games, Yakuza 0 is so much more than the sum of its parts.

I won't do a deep dive on it here, but what really sticks with me about Yakuza 0 is just how much I engaged with the story. It is a ridiculous, hyper-masculine soap opera in which business-suited crime lords spit envenomed words at each other with deadly seriousness. The game treats this story so seriously and gives it so much weight that it wasn't difficult to become invested in it--but then what makes the game so interesting and bizarre is that outside of these narrative sequences, the game is significantly more wacky. You'll find protagonist Kiryu Kazama racing what are essentially RC cars with a bunch of little kids, playing arcade games, chatting up anonymous ladies at a telephone club, and running a real estate business where he faces off against the appropriately named Five Billionaires, a group of increasingly extravagantly wealthy scumbags.

That disconnect between segments where you are free to roam around and participate in side activities and then the intensely structured central narrative is disorienting at first, but the more I played of it, the more I found I really enjoyed it. I was free to mess around and do whatever I wanted most of the time, but when I was ready to buckle down and watch this intense Japanese drama, I could advance the storyline. I really loved it and still wanted more by the time the game wrapped. Its a game with enough variety to sustain you for a very long period of time. I would never have thought I'd spent 80 hours on it. In the case of Etrian Odyssey, I felt it'd been far longer.