Okay hello. I sent out one volley in favor of Sky Odyssey. Already, it has touched hearts. This is good, but it is not enough. I’ve got two salted leek pancakes with garlic, one glass of water, an empty bladder, and this busted-ass Chromebook I got off ebay for $40 so I didn’t have to type cover letters on my phone last year. I’m here to put in some work. I hope the passion with which I try to write all this can swing a few more votes.
FINAL FANTASY VI (A game I have played)
vs.
REZ (A game I have played)
Rez tangibly changed me. In my youth, still years away from the comedown from my DDR high, I downloaded the OST for Rez, desperate to get anything at the confluence of Music and Video Games into my brain. And in listening through it, somehow what got me wasn’t all the dance tracks, but instead the weird, clicky, empty songs written by Oval. It was unlike any electronic music I had ever heard – something contemplative, something with room for self-insertion. Oval’s “Textuell” can still bring me back to one of the few warm, happy spaces I occupied during childhood – in my room late at night, lit only by a computer screen, zoning out to these strange clicks-and-cuts, feeling like I had found something that understood me and the space inside me.
All these years later and I listen to ambient way more than I listen to any other genre of music. All because of Rez. So much more I could say, like the game’s beautiful final stage, and the absurd (unrealized) dream of creating asimulation of synesthesia – but all I’ll say is I’ll be writing the rest of this post listening to Oval, and that’s all because of Rez, reaching through all these years to still touch me in the present. With the sun slipping below the horizon as I write this, I can slip back into that space, in my room late at night, lit only by…
I played Final Fantasy VI (Advance) on a phone emulator while on tour back in 2015. I remember getting to the final dungeon while crossing through western Texas, starting to head into the desert. There was some mechanic about having to form two separate parties, one of which was so underleveled I felt like I had softlocked myself. I closed the emulator. I never opened it up again. I passed time the rest of that tour by talking to people. I think it was a better decision. I have no fond memories of Final Fantasy VI. I don’t really remember anything about it, actually, except for that experience at the start of the final dungeon.
I’m voting for Rez.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING (A game I have played)
vs.
MIRROR’S EDGE (A game I have played)
I think Link’s Awakening is a great Zelda game. I won’t say it’s my favorite, I don’t have a favorite. But I have a few that touch me in some very important ways, and Link’s Awakening is one of them – an exploration of the impermanence of dreams and the melancholy intrinsically tied to that. The idea that I can have an experience like that on an OG Game Boy (not that I would!) is really something special to me.
I really want to like Mirror’s Edge, but it failed me. I’ve beaten it. It’s really neat, and it’s an important release that rippled out into the industry for years. But it doesn’t feel good! Something about the movement in that game is too…something. Might be too floaty, or too gritty, strange sense of weight – I haven’t played it in long enough that I can’t remember. I remember doing some movement tech in Apex Legends a bit ago and thinking “damn, I wish Mirror’s Edge felt like this”. Yes, Apex came later. Yes, it has a more limited verb set. But that limited verb set feels better to me. It scratched an itch that Mirror’s Edge had left me with years before. I don’t like to be itchy.
I’m voting for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
SUPER MARIO 3D LAND (A game I have played)
vs.
SKY ODYSSEY (A game I have played)
I will start by saying I have 100% completed Super Mario 3D Land. I didn’t enjoy my time with it. Like, yeah, wow, it’s cool to have something like this on a handheld. But it’s so toothless. The one thing I count on in Mario games is that the movement physics will feel sublime, and I didn’t find that here. The only thing that has changed in my life since I 100%'d that game was being able to say that I 100%'d that game.
But god damn. Against Sky Odyssey? Sky Odyssey is something that hasn’t really been approached before or since. Sky Odyssey nails something specific and special – the moments of our species reaching out to the extremes of the planet, gripping the ice/stone/soil with whatever we can, and persisting only because of curiosity. Sky Odyssey understands the spirit of exploration. I don’t play Sky Odyssey for the missions, although the missions are legitimately enjoyable in both their execution and variety. I play Sky Odyssey for the chance to see a world most never will. Sky Odyssey is so many things I am genuinely not skilled enough to put into words. I hope someday I will be.
I’m voting for Sky Odyssey.
OUTRUN (A game I have played)
vs.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS (A game I have played)
Outrun is a game I want so badly to like, but it calls back to what I said about Mirror’s Edge – it doesn’t feel good to me. There is a disgusting pull to the outer edge of the corner when not drifting, and yet the drifts themselves don’t have the right kind of friction. It’s hard to nail that friction! I don’t think many racing games do.
I tried playing Final Fantasy Tactics many years ago. I bounced off it pretty hard. But I know a lot of people here like Final Fantasy Tactics, and I like a lot of people here, so I’m willing to put some faith in others. And it’s not just that, I do plan on playing Tactics at some point. I am interested in it. But I could live the rest of my life never touching Outrun again and I would be at peace with that. In fact, that’s probably what will happen.
I’m voting for Final Fantasy Tactics.
BABA IS YOU (A game I have not played)
vs.
BUBBLE BOBBLE (A game I have not played)
I have played neither of these games. However, I am someone who is always trying to learn and grow, pushing against the tide of mental health and socioeconomic happenstance. I think that I would learn more about problem solving and “thinking outside the box” from playing Baba Is You than I would playing Bubble Bobble. The Bubble Bobble dino buds are cute, but not my kind of cute.
I’m voting for Baba Is You.
WCW/NWO REVENGE (AKI N64 wrestling representative) (A game I have not played)
vs.
UMIHARA KAWASE (A game I have played)
Lotta wrestling heads in these parts. That’s cool. I respect that. My last partner was a wrestling head. We went to see wrestling live once and it was cool! I gained a new appreciation for it that day, a sort of ultra-physical theater, one in which I could really feel the level of trust that the performers place in each other. It expanded my heart. Plus, it gave me a real good memory: some dude being The Bad Guy was in the ring, riling people up by saying how much he thinks Virginia sucks, and a fella behind me shouted back “You’re right! Our cost of living is too high and our public transit is sorely lacking!”. I laughed about it for the rest of the night.
But I gotta say, I’m not a wrestling head.
What I am, however, is a loner at heart. And so is Umihara Kawase. A girl, lost in her dreams, but finding the most enjoyable way to navigate them. That’s me in a huge way.
I’m voting for Umihara Kawase.
YUME NIKKI (2004) (A game I have played)
vs.
GUNSTAR HEROES (A game I have played)
I’ve tried Yume Nikki a few times before, but I always bounced off. It’s all about exploration, so it’s something I’m predisposed to like, but I don’t, because the exploration is boring! Maybe the rewards are worth it. If they are, let me know. I’d love to hear an impassioned plea in favor of Yume Nikki. I remember walking around in strange landscapes and encountering a whole lot of nothing.
Gunstar Heroes feels like a Kool-Aid Jammer stuffed full of hot sauce. It’s real good. The first time I played Gunstar Heroes was when I was in elementary school, living in a trailer park at the edge of a college town in North Carolina. My mom had gotten involved with some vaguely-Christian cult. She took me with her to one of the cultist’s places to spend time there, but all I cared about was escapism from my god damn miserable life via video games. They had a Genesis, which I had never played before so I latched onto it and wow! Gunstar Heroes. Treasure does what I like – they take a concept, they make it feel good, and they explore it. No need for excess. Months later after my mom separated from the cult, there was a knock on the door late at night on Christmas Eve, followed by a car driving away. I opened the door and there was a wrapped gift for me – an action figure of Metal Cooler from Dragon Ball Z. Attached was a note: “Don’t forget that Jesus loves you”. Jesus doesn’t love me. And I never liked action figures. If they wanted to make something happen…they should have given me Gunstar Heroes.
I really fucking hate thinking back on that time of my life. It all sucked so much. But there are a few positive things nestled in the midst of all that pain. Final Fantasy VII and IX taught me how to read fast enough I literally always finished multiple choice tests first in school. Game Boy Advance emulators taught me that even though I was poor doesn’t mean I couldn’t make shit happen for myself. And Gunstar Heroes showed me that there were still so many cool things in the world for me to discover, and there always would be.
I’m voting for Gunstar Heroes.
DISCO ELYSIUM (A game I have not played)
vs.
SILENT HILL 2 (A game I have played)
Hey, this is a tough one! I have indeed played Silent Hill 2, but only a bit of it, and it was over a decade ago now so it’s all some hazy hazy memory that I can pull maybe two scenes out of. I haven’t played Disco Elysium, but one of my friends has been playing it when I was around for the past week or two and all the lefty kids of the family I rent a room from recommend it highly to me.
I think Disco Elysium will arouse my brain, but I think Silent Hill 2 will arouse my heart. I also plan to play Disco Elysium at some nebulous point in the future, but I plan to play Silent Hill 2 next month. The fact that I have a definite point at which I will play it says to me that Silent Hill 2 is the right choice.
I’m voting Silent Hill 2.
SILENT HILL (A game I have played)
vs.
KLONOA: DOOR TO PHANTOMILE (A game I have not played)
I’m sure Klonoa is a kind and lovely game but it takes a lot for a side-scrolling platformer to really light something up inside me. Mostly, they feel stuffy. But if you wanna really talk feeling, let’s talk Silent Hill.
Silent Hill showed me the potential of horror games. I spent so many teenage years immersed in horror. All the horror films I could get my hands on. Amateur Youtube projects. /x/ and the birth of creepypasta. So much of it (especially the latter) is a bust in hindsight, but it was a really memorable part of my development to explore this unpleasant emotion to a depth I never thought I would. A lot of that media scared me, yeah. But it was temporary – a jump scare, a paranoia I’d laugh about the next day.
Silent Hill, however, shook me. I played Silent Hill during that same time period. I played it (in the dark, in my room, with the volume turned up) for a couple nights in a row one summer. There is one distinct moment from that game that will always stick with me. I was exploring the alternate hospital, and the whole time I’m looking around there’s this clanging coming from the basement. I look around the whole hospital, finding the items I need, solving puzzles, but after I’ve been through all the rooms I know I have to go to the basement to progress. I opened the door, and I’m standing in the stairwell, about to descend. The clanging is louder. I move a step or two forward and I realize…I don’t want to go down there. I don’t want to see what’s making that noise. I’m scared. I’m scared to a point of paralysis.
But I push forward. I look around the basement. Clanging. I find a crawlspace or something. The specifics are fuzzy at this point. I mostly remember how it felt. I go into the crawl space. Clanging. I hate it. I find a ladder in the crawl space going down into the ground. I’m so unnerved and I really just don’t want to go down. I don’t want to keep playing Silent Hill. It has, through graphics and sound and crafted atmosphere, terrified me. I had to snap myself out of it and remind myself that it was just a game to keep going. And I did keep going, and I beat it, and I was tense the whole time, and I loved it.
Maybe my memories are faulty. Maybe a lot of that stuff isn’t what actually happens. But it’s how I remember it. And I remember it fondly. Getting to experience one of the true things that video games can leverage as a medium – the player knowing that their progress is under their own momentum. I’m really interested in games as a holistic experience – the interplay of the context behind their creation, their music, mechanics, art style, feel – and Silent Hill was one of the first games I played that touched on that.
I’m voting for Silent Hill.
DOTA 2 (A game I have not played)
vs.
ELEVATOR ACTION RETURNS (A game I have not played)
I really don’t know much about Elevator Action Returns. But I do have feelings on MOBAs. I have dated a few people who played MOBAs, one of them to a competitive level. You’d think MOBA players would make for great partners, right? MOBAs are all about collaboration, about communication and teamwork. So many concepts that would work great if applied to a relationship.
I regret to inform you that what many people get from MOBAs is a way to blame others for their own failures. And that does not at all make for a good relationship.
I say this like I’m on some high horse. My dumb ass is the reason those relationships failed. Maybe it would have been different if I had played MOBAs with them.
Also, I loved the Dota 2 thing that got put together here last week.
I’m voting for Dota 2.
SUPER MARIO BROS. (A game I have played)
vs.
ANIMAL CROSSING (A game I have played)
Super Mario Brothers is one of the few side-scrolling platformers that feels really, really good just to move around in. It also holds a special spot in my heart, remembering the nights I spent alone with a Famicom and Suupaa Mario Burazaasu and a big fuckin’ Trinitron some rich family had gotten rid of, devoting myself to finishing the entire game without warps. I made it to 8-4 Bowser multiple times. But I never quite clinched it.
Someday I will.
I’m voting for Super Mario Brothers.
OUENDAN / ELITE BEAT AGENTS series (A game I have played)
vs.
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE series (A game I have played)
I already really got on my soapbox in the last thread about Ouendan/EBA. I will make it short in this one: these games do not feel good to play. The meeting of Game and Music is unsatisfying.
I have dabbled in a little bit of the very first THE CHIKYUU BOUEIGUN but it wasn’t fun alone. I’m sure these games would be fun in co-op, but nobody I’ve ever asked would try them in co-op with me. Earth Defense Force offers me a dream in my heart that someday, me and that special someone will be squashin’ bugs together. That’s a dream I’ll hold onto fondly.
I’m voting for the Earth Defense Force series.
DRAGON QUEST III (A game I have played)
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA (A game I have played)
I made it about halfway through Dragon Quest III. That’s around where I stall out on every Dragon Quest I try (except the first, because it’s so short). People often speak of how “comfy” these games are, but I can’t relate. It’s like sleeping over at a friend’s house, getting under one of their blankets and having it be the opposite of what you’re used to at home. Maybe it’s heavy and itchy, soaking up all the summer humidity, or maybe it’s too light and the fabric is pilling. Dragon Quest is the heavy itchy blanket that others swear by that I can’t get any damn sleep under.
The Legend of Zelda is a beautiful exercise in collaborative exploration. I heard so many stories about what it was like at release – kids sharing their stories on the playground, helping each other find the dungeons, figuring the world out together.
Four years ago, when I was holed up in a tiny sharehouse room in the Osaka suburbs, I reached out to you all through my beat-up old phone to give that experience to me. And you did. I reflect on that fondly as one of my most treasured experiences in video games.
Not long after I beat it, I read in-depth for the first time about Japanese war crimes (and thought in depth about what that sort of history means in terms of how I relate to Japan as a country in terms of my own Japanese identity. Years later, where I’m at is: I’m proud to be Japanese-American, but I don’t know if I’m proud to be Japanese.) and had such a bad mental breakdown that all I could really do for the next few weeks was read stories and forum posts from the Final Fantasy XI launch and watch the sun rise. It was not fun. But playing Zelda with everyone’s help was. It was the last really positive memory I had for quite a while. And it still means a lot to me to have experienced that.
I’m voting for The Legend of Zelda.