Those composers know how to make sweet beauty in musical form
Wish they'd make games that chuds would think is embarrassing to play so we can hear music like this again

FFXIII-2 comes at a really interesting time for Square Enix. It's the era of the PS3, when JRPGs are having their reputation lambasted by any gamer that prefers to point and shoot, and they aren't totally wrong. It's also an era where JRPGs are losing their footing, with ballooning dev costs and customer appetite for high fidelity graphics at an all time high as HD TVs and formats are going mainstream. And FFXIII already came out, Square's big swing for the era, and reception was mixed At Best. I could go on about FFXIII without even having replayed it in recent memory, because I don't hate it nor love it, and think it's got a lot going for it and not going for it. But I'm here to talk about FFXIII-2...and man, haha.... FFXIII-2 is part of Square's ill advised attempts to make a franchise out of every mainline entry into its big franchise. While I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that every sequel to a mainline game is trash, cuz it's not, it does smack of trying to force virality and fandom. While FFX-2's efforts remained relatively focused on the girl power aesthetic while genuinely contending with a world at an uneasy peace, unsure of what order society would take from now on, FFXIII-2 takes on the approach of, uh.....throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. It mostly does not work and kinda feels embarrassing when it does try to be more than it is. Story beats are constantly undercut by inner monologues droning on about they've gotta find Lightning and hope for the better, the English voice acting work/direction sound like they're just here to collect a paycheck 90% of the time,

the side tangent adventures in different time periods often lack a feeling of relevance to the characters, themes, or plot, the plot itself is just a series of disconnected events until the main duo get to their stated destination, and the doomed damsel is a wallflower of no character whatsoever. Your little moogle companion somehow has so little dialogue in most of the sidequests and main story, and somehow becomes a chatterbox in just one series of sidequests? And god, I hate Chocolina. None of its disparate parts informs or improves the other. About the only synergy here is the time traveling premise and the nature of the doomed damsel's doom, which is an echo of the fight against fate of FFXIII. Now, FFXIII-2 does have its good parts. The monster collecting is neat, and thankfully not too in-depth, especially if you just want to see credits, but monster infusing gives just enough of an excuse to go all out making a cool strong monster if you want. There are interesting settings and alternate versions of said settings, building a (simplistic, and perhaps naively hopeful) world history spanning centuries that you get neat glimpses of. Most impressive of all to me is that the battle system is a definite improvement of FFXIII's battle system, and is perhaps the main reason to play FFXIII-2, to see the strategic possibilities of a real time system where you guide the overall strategy and momentum of a battle more so than the minutiae. Secondly most impressive is the soundtrack as well, making beautiful music akin to FFXIII sometimes, but also it gets frighteningly experimental, and most of it is a hit to varying degrees. And hey, the antagonist, Caius, is pretty good...for what's here, anyway. Helps that he's perhaps the best voice performance here in the english dub.

For all of that, it's easy to see that FFXIII-2 was beautiful on paper. A game about an adventure hopping up and down the timeline to defy fate at the end of time, to make a tragic fate right again, at the cost of someone dear to the protagonist. But when it's all out in front of you as this finished product, it's a mess, and it's easy to see why it's a miss to most people, and a hit to some. I initially thought I liked this more than FFXIII cuz I initially hated FFXIII on launch and FFXIII-2 gave me a really good jazz song, Caius' theme nipped at the heels of One Winged Angel, and time travel!! time travel is cool!! But time wasn't kind to FFXIII-2, yet kinder to FFXIII. By the time Lightning Returns came out, I just never got around to giving it a try. Thinkin....I might change that soon....

#sfmt2026
50. FFXIII-2, replay
Experimental and ambitious, perhaps for all the wrong reasons, but hard not to applaud at least a little bit. But not for the story, or the time traveling, or the characters, god no. I'd still listen to the music unironically tho

FFXIII-2 comes at a really interesting time for Square Enix. It's the era of the PS3, when JRPGs are having their reputation lambasted by any gamer that prefers to point and shoot, and they aren't totally wrong. It's also an era where JRPGs are losing their footing, with ballooning dev costs and customer appetite for high fidelity graphics at an all time high as HD TVs and formats are going mainstream. And FFXIII already came out, Square's big swing for the era, and reception was mixed At Best. I could go on about FFXIII without even having replayed it in recent memory, because I don't hate it nor love it, and think it's got a lot going for it and not going for it. But I'm here to talk about FFXIII-2...and man, haha.... FFXIII-2 is part of Square's ill advised attempts to make a franchise out of every mainline entry into its big franchise. While I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that every sequel to a mainline game is trash, cuz it's not, it does smack of trying to force virality and fandom. While FFX-2's efforts remained relatively focused on the girl power aesthetic while genuinely contending with a world at an uneasy peace, unsure of what order society would take from now on, FFXIII-2 takes on the approach of, uh.....throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. It mostly does not work and kinda feels embarrassing when it does try to be more than it is. Story beats are constantly undercut by inner monologues droning on about they've gotta find Lightning and hope for the better, the English voice acting work/direction sound like they're just here to collect a paycheck 90% of the time,

the side tangent adventures in different time periods often lack a feeling of relevance to the characters, themes, or plot, the plot itself is just a series of disconnected events until the main duo get to their stated destination, and the doomed damsel is a wallflower of no character whatsoever. Your little moogle companion somehow has so little dialogue in most of the sidequests and main story, and somehow becomes a chatterbox in just one series of sidequests? And god, I hate Chocolina. None of its disparate parts informs or improves the other. About the only synergy here is the time traveling premise and the nature of the doomed damsel's doom, which is an echo of the fight against fate of FFXIII. Now, FFXIII-2 does have its good parts. The monster collecting is neat, and thankfully not too in-depth, especially if you just want to see credits, but monster infusing gives just enough of an excuse to go all out making a cool strong monster if you want. There are interesting settings and alternate versions of said settings, building a (simplistic, and perhaps naively hopeful) world history spanning centuries that you get neat glimpses of. Most impressive of all to me is that the battle system is a definite improvement of FFXIII's battle system, and is perhaps the main reason to play FFXIII-2, to see the strategic possibilities of a real time system where you guide the overall strategy and momentum of a battle more so than the minutiae. Secondly most impressive is the soundtrack as well, making beautiful music akin to FFXIII sometimes, but also it gets frighteningly experimental, and most of it is a hit to varying degrees. And hey, the antagonist, Caius, is pretty good...for what's here, anyway. Helps that he's perhaps the best voice performance here in the english dub.

For all of that, it's easy to see that FFXIII-2 was beautiful on paper. A game about an adventure hopping up and down the timeline to defy fate at the end of time, to make a tragic fate right again, at the cost of someone dear to the protagonist. But when it's all out in front of you as this finished product, it's a mess, and it's easy to see why it's a miss to most people, and a hit to some. I initially thought I liked this more than FFXIII cuz I initially hated FFXIII on launch and FFXIII-2 gave me a really good jazz song, Caius' theme nipped at the heels of One Winged Angel, and time travel!! time travel is cool!! But time wasn't kind to FFXIII-2, yet kinder to FFXIII. By the time Lightning Returns came out, I just never got around to giving it a try. Thinkin....I might change that soon....

#sfmt2026
50. FFXIII-2, replay
Experimental and ambitious, perhaps for all the wrong reasons, but hard not to applaud at least a little bit. But not for the story, or the time traveling, or the characters, god no. I'd still listen to the music unironically tho

#sfmt2026
49. Smiling Friends
man I can't even pretend to analyze this one or anything it's just straight up hilarity. Somewhere between a shitpost, a youtube poop, and an actual syndicated cartoon. Very understandable that this couldn't go on for much longer, this is lightning in a bottle type shit

#sfmt2026
48. Demon Slayer mugen train movie
It was decent :) I like the flame Hashira and I like the train setting, and the main trio didn't endeavor to annoy me as much as before. Didn't leave too much of an impression overall, but it got me to sympathize with the main trio a bit by the end

When I first played Nocturne, I honestly didn't get it. I'm not sure I do still, but this time, I have Ideas. Nocturne, for how sparse the cutscenes are, plays with A Lot due to its heady subject matter And heady scenario, and honestly can come off as tripe edgy shit despite all the airs it puts on if you happen to just watch a story cutscene out of context, but I really respect what they're going for because I still have the dissatisfied edgy teenager in my head that hates a lot about the state of the world. It comes with growing up in the 90s. I feel like the narrative partly comes from the hopelessness of the Lost Decade in Japan. While it came out in 2003, that's still early enough into the 00's that a whole decade of economic crash and retraction, compared to the heights of the 80's, would still be fresh in the country's spirit (and who know how long this game was in production). There's clearly other inspirations that are beyond me (I'm betting Buddism is a big one but I've never delved into actually formally learning what the heck Buddism means), but I feel that taking this perspective as a baseline makes character motivations, the tone of the story, etc. make more sense. It's a perspective that takes the society as broken, and in need of fixing. This makes the various Reasons make sense to me. The reason of strength and beauty is the reason of bullies, the reason that cannot tolerate things outside of its own conception of usefulness and beauty. It's not a perspective that is interested in strength for rule, or chaos as a method by which to be a tyrant like how other SMT games tend to portray the "rule of the strong preying on the weak" ideologies

- it's looking at the world, seeing it full of unnecessary conflict, people's petty troubles and grievances, and feeling like you've gotta puke. The reason of Musubi is quite a bit more straightfoward. It's the "fuck you I don't owe you anything and no one owes me anything" mentality. Every man is an island, so let's make that the reality. You can't fuck up my life with your rules, and I can't fuck up yours. The reason of Shijima is a bit more interesting. It's defined by "stillness", an absence of feeling or desire, or even individuality, and replacing it all with harmony. While it's got big Buddist overtones, I think it's no accident that it's the rich guy who harbors this reason. It would just be like someone who's already at the top of the world to want to bring everyone under one umbrella, and to destroy the world to make it happen. While the teacher fails to conceive of a reason, agreeing with her gets you an ending where you return everything back to the way it was, perpetuating the status quo. While it can be easy to take this as a "best" or "good" ending, especially since the ending is named the Freedom ending, characterizing the world of the 90's and 00's as a world in which you're free (and in a way, lots of people are indeed more free in modern society than in the world of any of the Reasons of this game), it's still a world in which suffering and despair is rampant. This all calls into question the kind of people that exist in a world of "freedom" and decide that what follows must be categorically different. The central idea of Nocturne isn't the ending you choose nor the merits and demerits of a world order that's different than what we've got today. Nocturne seeks to challenge the idea of

what it means to be a human...and what it means to be a demon. Only a human can have the conviction to create a new world, but the reasons to do so seem demonic, like you have to abandon empathy to come up with some monstrous reason the leaves behind so many people. You even need to pair up with a patron demon and gather up lots of Kagutsuchi (sp?) (i.e. commit lots of violence) to make this new world. Every person who conceives of a reason gains a demonic appearance. Meanwhile, the teacher, who fails to gain the conviction to conceive a reason, never sounds like she's gone off her rocker cuz she just wants a freer society, and the mud man Manikin who has the conviction to conceive of a world of true equality is barred from the creation process because he's not human. And meanwhile meanwhile, you, the protagonist, become an outright demon just to continue persisting in this world, and are similarly barred from creation, and yet has the strength to make a choice between the ones front of him. It's such an interesting dissonance that makes you confront the enormity of what it means to destroy what's come before and impose a new idea in its place. No solution is perfect, and yet, one must be put it in place. And there's one ending I haven't mentioned yet, the true demon ending. Truth be told, it does feel a little evil-laughter-I'm-so-edgy, in that you eschew all other reasons to fully side with demons and seek absolute true freedom by going after the Great Will, who established the cycle of creation and destruction in the first place. In a way it's also the most human ending, because it's also rejecting the premise of creation and destruction altogether to try to seek what's beyond that (at least that's how one might think of this ending in a positive light, there is

#sfmt2026
47. SMT Nocturne on Hard, replay
I went from true demon ending this time, Lucifer was easier than I thought he'd be, but I'm judging against SMTV superbosses on Hard, so maybe I just overprepared lmao
Anyway, yapping Incoming.

absolutely little to no yearning for a world beyond the cycle of creation and destruction in the text). At the same time, there is assumedly no place for humans in this ending, or maybe even life itself. Demons are established as spirits in stasis, incapable of change, in the extra content for this route, meaning to be human in SMT Nocturne is to be capable of change. That's a really interesting wrinkle in light of my previous analysis - the capacity to change is what makes humans both so good and also so evil. The cool thing about Nocturne is that it's also a great JRPG. It's the first game to have the press turn system, which is a staple of the series now, and it's easy to see why. By letting both your party and the enemy manipulate turn economy, and by tuning the numbers so tightly, it gives battles a savage texture to them. Being at a disadvantage is a shortcut to a game over, while you get to feel powerful and replete with power if you get to hammer an enemy's weakness or proc a lot of crits. Perfect for a game full of demons on both sides.

Something Nocturne does that the more modern games don't is to make the dungeons feel like Dungeons. There's actual anxiety as you make progress and try to reach the end or to the next save point, because there's always a small chance a random battle will make you eat shit. You can always stack the odds in your favor, and it gets easier to do so the farther you get, to the point of trivializing dungeon resource management, even, but until then the atmosphere meshing with the anxiety you're feeling about your numbers mesh together to give you a headspace only a video game could. Dungeon design like this only comes out in JRPGs for freaks these days, which doesn't include more modern SMTs somehow, so it's kind of a lost art in Atlus' toolbox. For all its edgy stylings and stellar dark punk-ish rock (REALLY stellar, I wish Meguro got to make rock music for video games again) and borderline nihilistic story, Nocturne is surprisingly philosophical when you get down to it, determined to make you question what it really means to be a human. It's more clear to me on this playthrough how groundbreaking this is, especially on the PS2. Nocturne rocks.

#sfmt2026
I like my turn based RPGs cruel and unusual

When I first played Nocturne, I honestly didn't get it. I'm not sure I do still, but this time, I have Ideas. Nocturne, for how sparse the cutscenes are, plays with A Lot due to its heady subject matter And heady scenario, and honestly can come off as tripe edgy shit despite all the airs it puts on if you happen to just watch a story cutscene out of context, but I really respect what they're going for because I still have the dissatisfied edgy teenager in my head that hates a lot about the state of the world. It comes with growing up in the 90s. I feel like the narrative partly comes from the hopelessness of the Lost Decade in Japan. While it came out in 2003, that's still early enough into the 00's that a whole decade of economic crash and retraction, compared to the heights of the 80's, would still be fresh in the country's spirit (and who know how long this game was in production). There's clearly other inspirations that are beyond me (I'm betting Buddism is a big one but I've never delved into actually formally learning what the heck Buddism means), but I feel that taking this perspective as a baseline makes character motivations, the tone of the story, etc. make more sense. It's a perspective that takes the society as broken, and in need of fixing. This makes the various Reasons make sense to me. The reason of strength and beauty is the reason of bullies, the reason that cannot tolerate things outside of its own conception of usefulness and beauty. It's not a perspective that is interested in strength for rule, or chaos as a method by which to be a tyrant like how other SMT games tend to portray the "rule of the strong preying on the weak" ideologies

- it's looking at the world, seeing it full of unnecessary conflict, people's petty troubles and grievances, and feeling like you've gotta puke. The reason of Musubi is quite a bit more straightfoward. It's the "fuck you I don't owe you anything and no one owes me anything" mentality. Every man is an island, so let's make that the reality. You can't fuck up my life with your rules, and I can't fuck up yours. The reason of Shijima is a bit more interesting. It's defined by "stillness", an absence of feeling or desire, or even individuality, and replacing it all with harmony. While it's got big Buddist overtones, I think it's no accident that it's the rich guy who harbors this reason. It would just be like someone who's already at the top of the world to want to bring everyone under one umbrella, and to destroy the world to make it happen. While the teacher fails to conceive of a reason, agreeing with her gets you an ending where you return everything back to the way it was, perpetuating the status quo. While it can be easy to take this as a "best" or "good" ending, especially since the ending is named the Freedom ending, characterizing the world of the 90's and 00's as a world in which you're free (and in a way, lots of people are indeed more free in modern society than in the world of any of the Reasons of this game), it's still a world in which suffering and despair is rampant. This all calls into question the kind of people that exist in a world of "freedom" and decide that what follows must be categorically different. The central idea of Nocturne isn't the ending you choose nor the merits and demerits of a world order that's different than what we've got today. Nocturne seeks to challenge the idea of

what it means to be a human...and what it means to be a demon. Only a human can have the conviction to create a new world, but the reasons to do so seem demonic, like you have to abandon empathy to come up with some monstrous reason the leaves behind so many people. You even need to pair up with a patron demon and gather up lots of Kagutsuchi (sp?) (i.e. commit lots of violence) to make this new world. Every person who conceives of a reason gains a demonic appearance. Meanwhile, the teacher, who fails to gain the conviction to conceive a reason, never sounds like she's gone off her rocker cuz she just wants a freer society, and the mud man Manikin who has the conviction to conceive of a world of true equality is barred from the creation process because he's not human. And meanwhile meanwhile, you, the protagonist, become an outright demon just to continue persisting in this world, and are similarly barred from creation, and yet has the strength to make a choice between the ones front of him. It's such an interesting dissonance that makes you confront the enormity of what it means to destroy what's come before and impose a new idea in its place. No solution is perfect, and yet, one must be put it in place. And there's one ending I haven't mentioned yet, the true demon ending. Truth be told, it does feel a little evil-laughter-I'm-so-edgy, in that you eschew all other reasons to fully side with demons and seek absolute true freedom by going after the Great Will, who established the cycle of creation and destruction in the first place. In a way it's also the most human ending, because it's also rejecting the premise of creation and destruction altogether to try to seek what's beyond that (at least that's how one might think of this ending in a positive light, there is

#sfmt2026
47. SMT Nocturne on Hard, replay
I went from true demon ending this time, Lucifer was easier than I thought he'd be, but I'm judging against SMTV superbosses on Hard, so maybe I just overprepared lmao
Anyway, yapping Incoming.

Also today: I got one of those fancy ice cream scoops that have a liquid core or whatever and while washing it today I discovered part of how it's able to scoop ice cream so well! it's cuz the edge cut my thumb a little bit!!

Unfortunate situation for me where my apartment warms up with the window closed even when it's temperate outside and Bad Smells come in pretty often if it's open. It's extra bad today cuz, well,

corporations responsible for way more waste than consumers etc. and all but I think there really is something that can and should be done about a lot of single use food packaging....it rly does feel Ridiculous how much of it there is

Persona 4's remake better not nerf mamudoon/mahamaon + their respective boost skills

I know most fans like the boar guy and hate the lightning guy but I honestly think both are annoying. As well as Mr. Nice Big Bro protagonist. The "overprotective big brother" trope is 9 times outta 10 annoying and just played for laughs in japanese media, while lightning guy is Mineta-My-Hero-Aca levels of annoying, and boar guy gets the benefit of being the least annoying and the chance to beat up lightning guy giving him points, but if lightning guy wasn't around to raise the boar guy's stocks? The "FIGHT ME" trope is another trope I usually find annoying. At least he shows amusing humility after barely surviving the waning moon family complex arc, and there's always room for these annoying tropes to grow, but god, getting through this series would not have been possible if I didn't have everyone telling me season two and onward is better, and if this series didn't have the huge popularity that it does, giving me the "well, being familiar with it would be good in anime circles" reason to watch it. The central idea of the anime magic (which is...sorta not magic? debatable?) being Very Good At Breathing really really does not work for me neither. And also Tanjiro's "I can smell REALLY good" quirk. He can smell that someone is sad? What?? His smell helps him avoid attacks coming at him faster than a sword swing?? Give me a break. Why can't the humans just tap into the same magic or whatever? I'll even accept "he's just naturally physically gifted", it works for Gon HunterxHunter and Yuji Jujutsu Kaisen. At least with the thinest pretense to suspend disbelief, I'd be happy to suspend the disbelief, I just need that thinnest pretense, man.

But even with all that, there's things I like. I like swords, and surreal combat arenas and abilities, and while the thing with Tanjiro extending empathy to demons is overplayed and doesn't even hit emotionally most of the time, I can see the potential in it. I liked the reveal of the Main Bad Guy and the overall vibe of the urban environments in this time period and how this anime portrays it too, it's cool to see this time period of Japan just starting to western-ize. And maybe among the Hashira or yet to be introduced side characters I'll see characters that I like and do not find annoying. Also, the messenger crows are cute. now I'm only one season into this, but...I suspect part of why this anime is so goddamn popular (especially in its home country) is that it makes Being Japanese look cool and worthwhile. The show takes in the natural beauty of more remote landscapes and the cool and unique vibe of cities at the time that is both filled with unmistakenly Japanese architecture and more modern comforts. And, of course, the striking elemental effects of the sword combat make for really good gifs, to sell the appeal of Ufotable's animation is easily sharable gifs. I just hope the characters and narrative find their stride sooner than later. Either way, I'm committed to reach the end. Anyway, I'll be watching the train movie soon and continuing with the series.

#sfmt2026
46. Demon Slayer season 1
Looks pretty, had one hype fight moment, but otherwise a pretty annoying shounen for a lot of reasons. I didn't see the merit in it until like 17 episodes in when Tanjiro utilizes fire breathing. Holding out hope that everyone is right and the series gets better

I know most fans like the boar guy and hate the lightning guy but I honestly think both are annoying. As well as Mr. Nice Big Bro protagonist. The "overprotective big brother" trope is 9 times outta 10 annoying and just played for laughs in japanese media, while lightning guy is Mineta-My-Hero-Aca levels of annoying, and boar guy gets the benefit of being the least annoying and the chance to beat up lightning guy giving him points, but if lightning guy wasn't around to raise the boar guy's stocks? The "FIGHT ME" trope is another trope I usually find annoying. At least he shows amusing humility after barely surviving the waning moon family complex arc, and there's always room for these annoying tropes to grow, but god, getting through this series would not have been possible if I didn't have everyone telling me season two and onward is better, and if this series didn't have the huge popularity that it does, giving me the "well, being familiar with it would be good in anime circles" reason to watch it. The central idea of the anime magic (which is...sorta not magic? debatable?) being Very Good At Breathing really really does not work for me neither. And also Tanjiro's "I can smell REALLY good" quirk. He can smell that someone is sad? What?? His smell helps him avoid attacks coming at him faster than a sword swing?? Give me a break. Why can't the humans just tap into the same magic or whatever? I'll even accept "he's just naturally physically gifted", it works for Gon HunterxHunter and Yuji Jujutsu Kaisen. At least with the thinest pretense to suspend disbelief, I'd be happy to suspend the disbelief, I just need that thinnest pretense, man.

But even with all that, there's things I like. I like swords, and surreal combat arenas and abilities, and while the thing with Tanjiro extending empathy to demons is overplayed and doesn't even hit emotionally most of the time, I can see the potential in it. I liked the reveal of the Main Bad Guy and the overall vibe of the urban environments in this time period and how this anime portrays it too, it's cool to see this time period of Japan just starting to western-ize. And maybe among the Hashira or yet to be introduced side characters I'll see characters that I like and do not find annoying. Also, the messenger crows are cute. now I'm only one season into this, but...I suspect part of why this anime is so goddamn popular (especially in its home country) is that it makes Being Japanese look cool and worthwhile. The show takes in the natural beauty of more remote landscapes and the cool and unique vibe of cities at the time that is both filled with unmistakenly Japanese architecture and more modern comforts. And, of course, the striking elemental effects of the sword combat make for really good gifs, to sell the appeal of Ufotable's animation is easily sharable gifs. I just hope the characters and narrative find their stride sooner than later. Either way, I'm committed to reach the end. Anyway, I'll be watching the train movie soon and continuing with the series.

#sfmt2026
46. Demon Slayer season 1
Looks pretty, had one hype fight moment, but otherwise a pretty annoying shounen for a lot of reasons. I didn't see the merit in it until like 17 episodes in when Tanjiro utilizes fire breathing. Holding out hope that everyone is right and the series gets better

it’s party time!!

art by @dazuresky.bsky.social!

#radiocabelcomms

I never unlocked that tech tree, playing a hybrid class sucks sometimes

That's a terrifying answer, have a good day

So losing your heart also means losing your bones, gotcha

What the fuck was up with the way Nobodies were animated in Kingdom Hearts 2 anyway

You're so right for ffX-2 being overhated

#sfmt2026
45. Project Hail Mary
REALLY enjoyable film, a real dudes rock vision of scientific progress and space exploration, got me emotional sometimes too. It won't change lives as it's still a Popcorn Flick type but there's artistry in getting this kind of film right, and this film Has It

#sfmt2026
45. Project Hail Mary
REALLY enjoyable film, a real dudes rock vision of scientific progress and space exploration, got me emotional sometimes too. It won't change lives as it's still a Popcorn Flick type but there's artistry in getting this kind of film right, and this film Has It

While I tried this game's obvious spiritual predecesor, Jet Set Radio, and found it to have fiddly controls and not actually be that fun for me, there's no denying that the soundtrack and visual style of JSR are generationally inspiring, lightning in a bottle. It's a great care to detail (and previous work in a similar visual art style in Lethal League) that Team Reptile has to pull off a game that looks like JSR would have if it used the Sega Saturn to its utmost (at least that's the feeling I get looking at it) and yeah It's Incredible. Fun to look at, fun to inhabit, effortlessly stylish, and the style sensibilities of everything rendered in the game makes a stunning love letter to graffiti art and hip hop, it's more than plenty to get a complete neophyte to these style sensibilities to change their entire personality. Even the character design pops off severely, the main character is cool as fuck and the rest of the cast would be The Coolest Designs Ever if transplanted into basically 95% of other video games. It's so easy to glaze this game up because it deserves it. AND most critically, it plays like how I imagined JSR to play. Easy controls, level designs that are canvases for big ass trick combos, blasting graffiti (which are all credited in game in menus and not just the credits scroll, which is a super cool move, same with the music tracks). In a game that's all about self expression to the point of defying authority, it's beautiful to have the gameplay reflect its attitudes even in the hands of someone like me, who's only played maybe 20 hours of Tony Hawk 3 or whatever it was on the PS2 when I was a baby child.

And of course, I'm a narrative boy. I like my narratives. And this game has one! And actually? It's pretty damn good. It's also efficient and doesn't overstay its welcome (and as a gamer who is getting increasingly allergic to character yapping, that's a big plus). I knew this game was special when cops yelled at the protag to "drop his weapon", who at the time was not carrying an implement of violence, and yet...after a few seconds of confused silence, drops the paint can in his hand. Speaks volumes. The rest of the narrative isn't as subtle by the time the credits roll, but thankfully doesn't spend a ton of time spelling out its themes; it only does so after the game has had a chance to Let The Events speak, which is fine. And what's there is a story of discovering and paying respect to your roots, to where you came from, to the voices and styles that got you to where you are today, and finding your own style and voice through the noise, to take what you got and make it your own. And I like that the game spends a lot time in the confusion of the main character's amnesia, not even aware of his strange metatextual state being in a stolen body, taken advantage of by a power hungry dickwad and the state sponsored violence he's appropriating (surely this doesn't reflect real world situations with some hip hop artists that have gone mainstream hahaha), cuz that process in real life is kinda like the whole thing. This is a narrative, so eventually we get out of that part of the character arc and move on, but in real life, that's the whole thing for a creative person. Muddling your way through, being inspired by others, learning more about the world and trying to reflect that in your art. It's pretty beautiful and maybe one of the whole points of this being alive thing. This game fucks. I love it. Buy it and play it, it's so worth it.

#sfmt2026
44. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
this time I played it instead of watching it! Pure fun, bomb ass soundtrack (some of the Best in the business, sincerely), with a surprisingly good narrative that's in conversation with the history it's building on and will hopefully inspire

While I tried this game's obvious spiritual predecesor, Jet Set Radio, and found it to have fiddly controls and not actually be that fun for me, there's no denying that the soundtrack and visual style of JSR are generationally inspiring, lightning in a bottle. It's a great care to detail (and previous work in a similar visual art style in Lethal League) that Team Reptile has to pull off a game that looks like JSR would have if it used the Sega Saturn to its utmost (at least that's the feeling I get looking at it) and yeah It's Incredible. Fun to look at, fun to inhabit, effortlessly stylish, and the style sensibilities of everything rendered in the game makes a stunning love letter to graffiti art and hip hop, it's more than plenty to get a complete neophyte to these style sensibilities to change their entire personality. Even the character design pops off severely, the main character is cool as fuck and the rest of the cast would be The Coolest Designs Ever if transplanted into basically 95% of other video games. It's so easy to glaze this game up because it deserves it. AND most critically, it plays like how I imagined JSR to play. Easy controls, level designs that are canvases for big ass trick combos, blasting graffiti (which are all credited in game in menus and not just the credits scroll, which is a super cool move, same with the music tracks). In a game that's all about self expression to the point of defying authority, it's beautiful to have the gameplay reflect its attitudes even in the hands of someone like me, who's only played maybe 20 hours of Tony Hawk 3 or whatever it was on the PS2 when I was a baby child.

And of course, I'm a narrative boy. I like my narratives. And this game has one! And actually? It's pretty damn good. It's also efficient and doesn't overstay its welcome (and as a gamer who is getting increasingly allergic to character yapping, that's a big plus). I knew this game was special when cops yelled at the protag to "drop his weapon", who at the time was not carrying an implement of violence, and yet...after a few seconds of confused silence, drops the paint can in his hand. Speaks volumes. The rest of the narrative isn't as subtle by the time the credits roll, but thankfully doesn't spend a ton of time spelling out its themes; it only does so after the game has had a chance to Let The Events speak, which is fine. And what's there is a story of discovering and paying respect to your roots, to where you came from, to the voices and styles that got you to where you are today, and finding your own style and voice through the noise, to take what you got and make it your own. And I like that the game spends a lot time in the confusion of the main character's amnesia, not even aware of his strange metatextual state being in a stolen body, taken advantage of by a power hungry dickwad and the state sponsored violence he's appropriating (surely this doesn't reflect real world situations with some hip hop artists that have gone mainstream hahaha), cuz that process in real life is kinda like the whole thing. This is a narrative, so eventually we get out of that part of the character arc and move on, but in real life, that's the whole thing for a creative person. Muddling your way through, being inspired by others, learning more about the world and trying to reflect that in your art. It's pretty beautiful and maybe one of the whole points of this being alive thing. This game fucks. I love it. Buy it and play it, it's so worth it.

#sfmt2026
44. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
this time I played it instead of watching it! Pure fun, bomb ass soundtrack (some of the Best in the business, sincerely), with a surprisingly good narrative that's in conversation with the history it's building on and will hopefully inspire

#sfmt2026
43. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
this movie looks INSAANE and would have blown my socks clean fucking off as a kid, but as a first time adult watcher it was a really fun and neat murder mystery while finding your whimsy again, this well deserves to be remembered and revisited

#sfmt2026
43. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
this movie looks INSAANE and would have blown my socks clean fucking off as a kid, but as a first time adult watcher it was a really fun and neat murder mystery while finding your whimsy again, this well deserves to be remembered and revisited

a lot of these come down to "I am a whore for what this game does" like, I debated putting 1000x resist in best story and it would deserve it but I am a whore for ace attorney to the point I even love the 3ds ones but I recognize peak when it's peak and that's Great Ace Attorney

OKay this is where my video game onions stand today

If you're gonna look so inviting I'll help myself...🐱