Going for a Hike With Death Stranding

Death Stranding happened to come out at just the right time in the year. Here in the Northern Hemisphere this really annoying thing happens around November where it gets cold for six months. I live in a great section of New Jersey where there's a lot of beautiful parks on hills with views down to Manhattan. On a clear day you can see the new skyscrapers going up that will one day be filled with the laundered money of Russian oligarchs. Anyway, that weird climate change thing we have around Halloween ruins hiking for me. Luckily though, Death Stranding is a hiking simulator. So if I can't explore nature in the real world, I can explore simulated environments on my PS4.

This past Saturday we had the last nice day of the year, and indeed the decade. It was a decent 50 degrees with no rain. I had to take this opportunity to use my legs. There's a spot not far from my house I just discovered. Take the outer trail and pass ponds and a sheer cliff face from where humans violently tore the ridge open to build some condos. (Also, if you slip through a hole in the fence, you can find a shack covered in graffiti where teenagers do weed.) It was while I was using my physical legs I had time to think about Death Stranding and why I hadn't reviewed it yet. Because while I loved being outdoors, I found myself a bit lonely. I was missing the single best thing of Death Stranding's experience.

Your main enemy in Death Stranding is steep terrain and your main tool is your body. It's a game where you feel the weight of a massive backpack. Carrying that weight down a steep hill is not a simple task. No, it's a complex strategic balance of knowing your character, Sam Bridges' limits. How much can his back can tilt before he falls over, how high can he hop other his obstacle, and when it is actually safest to run. He can twist his back in ways that horrify me while carrying 100 kilos of weight. But he can't safely jump down anything without falling over his ass. While the real me was inching down a steep hill with my non-digital meat legs this weekend, I was making the same moves as Sam. Do I dare slip on these leaves? Do I cut left to avoid this pack of mud? Do I grab this tree to steady myself? There's a full kinesthetic simulation within Death Stranding. That's impressive enough, but the game insists on also having a story and enemies.

Frozen II: A Bad Sequel, A Great Show

*No direct spoilers are coming, but I allude to spoilers, so you were warned*

Somewhere in the middle of Frozen II there is a solo song for Kristoff, Princess Anna’s reindeer-riding boyfriend from the first movie. It is the easily worst song of the movie. Kristoff has very little to do in the middle of this sequel’s complicated pile of plotlines. So Frozen II creates tension for him so he is not completely forgotten. His problem is an irritating running gag of being unable to propose successfully to Anna due to a variety of unfunny misunderstandings. (Think Spider-Man 3.) As Anna deals with her sister’s magical crisis and her kingdom’s colonialist legacy, poor Kristoff and his Disney Ending ambitions are left behind, forgotten. So, he feels bad. And he sings.

A better version of Frozen II would build something off this conflict. The Frozen II we got took this moment to do a five-minute parody of overwrought Nineties love ballads a la Richard Marx or Bryan Adams. Think that godawful song your mom might have listened to from the soundtrack of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I think I was the only one in my audience who got the joke, and even I didn’t find it very funny. It’s a waste of time.

But the thing is, while this whole plot and this whole idea are mistakes, it isn’t a terrible song. It’d be pretty damn great on its own. Kristoff gets shafted by the complicated web of Frozen II’s many plotlines, but of course he would. Kristoff is least memorable cast member. I had to google “Frozen reindeer boyfriend” to remember his name when I was writing this review. Frozen II’s audience of little girls and late twenties men who are little girls in their hearts want to see Else be triumphant and hit high notes.

Problems and all, goddamn me if she doesn’t hit those notes and my spirit still soared. Frozen II is a movie so well-made that comparing it to 90s Direct to Video Disney sequels is downright offensive. No, it isn’t perfect and it isn’t nearly as good as the original. But there’s something powerful here. It’s a messy mixed-bag of a movie that fills me with a lot of emotions, positive and negative. But whatever those emotions are, I feel A LOT THEM.

E3 2019 Steam of Consciousness

I always like to save my E3 reaction posts for slightly after the prime time for clicks. This could have been up two days ago and gotten a bit more traction, but I refuse to let hype overwhelm me. I will savor the E3 announcements for just a small time to get the most sophisticated #takes. I will hold out for the hope that somewhere there is news on the showfloor for some amazing game that wasn't wildly reported on.

But instead I'll end up talking at length about mostly the same shit that everybody does cause I'm not that special. We'll get to the Final Fantasy VII Remake, you can skip these intro paragraphs if you need.

The rule with these E3 Reaction posts is that whether it is here or not is not a sign of quality. I have one game here that I truly hate. But rather it is here because I can talk about it at length. If all I can say is "it looks like more Ori and the Blind Forest" or "it's DOOM again" that doesn't mean I'm not hyped. Hollow Knight: Silksong is my everything. But it does mean I don't have anything to say, so I'll not waste your time. It also means I can skip things that totally don't interest me on any level like Halo or to be brutally honest, Animal Crossing. Finally turns out I had nothing to say about that Kingdom Hearts III DLC except this: make Kairi playable. We do have dozens of games to talk about though, so don't feel left out.

And just to hold back on your anticipation for just one more moment, let us mourn all those exciting games that didn't make it to the show this year: Ghosts of Tsushima, The Last of Us 2,  that Metal Wolf Chaos remake, Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, The Last Night, Beyond Good and Evil 2, The Pathless, Solar Ash Kingdom, Gears Tactics, Shin Megami Tensei V, whatever Rocksteady is making, Celeste Chapter 9 DLC, that Switch port of Mother 3 that exists in all our hearts, and most tragically, my Game of E3 2018, Tunic.

Anyway, now to talk about that thing you want me to talk about:

Game of Thrones is a Game of Misery

The hype that was promised! The two Clegane brothers stand off. Finally after fifteen years of fan speculation and memes, we are here. The Cleganebowl. And could we have a more exciting backdrop? A city burning to ash under the fury of a mad dragon queen. The very Red Keep itself crumbling beneath their feet. But none of that matters compared to the raw anger within the hearts of these two knights, living and undead. This is a battle beyond life, death, justice, or sanity. Pure masculine hatred is all right here for your viewing pleasure.

And it is fucking miserable. All of it, just unpleasant and awful. What a waste.

There is no point to giving Game of Thrones any credit that the last episode could possibly redeem what has happened in Season 8. The latest episode, The Bells, broke whatever hope I had. There is no final episode that could possibly make me happy any longer. In some ways, that train left the station many seasons ago. Some shows jump the shark, Game of Thrones rapes it. Remember Sansa and Ramsay? That was real bad, and I still haven't forgiven you, show. But I've been along for the ride, through all the ups and downs. I still wanted to see how it ended. At this point, we're watching the ending now and it doesn't matter what happens anymore. I don't care. This is miserable, miserable by design.

We could spend thousands of words here going through every little detail of every little mistake that has piled up into this car crash of a season. You can take your pick really. The choice to cut these last two seasons down to thirteen episodes has been a complete disaster. This latest season has been a near total failure thanks almost entirely to the writing. Character arcs are total botches, plot points have been forgotten, major villains have been let downs, battle scenes have been so badly shot you can't even see them, and I could keep going forever. Everybody was excited to see how Game of Thrones was going to end. Well, everybody except for showrunners, Benioff and Weiss, whose decisions this last season feel like the halfhearted work of two guys who put in their two week notice already. The themes are lost, the characters are wasted, and none of it means anything anymore. All that's left are surprises, horrible horrible surprises.

Do Not Believe In Joe Biden’s Time Machine

In Joe Biden's campaign announcement video yesterday he used imagery from the "Unite the Right" fascist rally in Charlottesville, VA eighteen months ago. Biden wanted to show he was against White Supremacy and all of its evils. However, optics are very different from substance. Biden went on to call the entire Trump era an "aberrant moment in time". As in, not the culmination of any trends, but a sudden break away from the norm. Trump is not part of America, he is an invasive disease. You can "other" him and "other" those Nazis in Virginia. They aren't America, they're something else. Biden wants you to know that America is just fine. With him, we can easily sweep all this regrettable unpleasantness under the rug, then carry on with business as usual.

It is tempting to fantasize that we can just hop in a time machine back to 2016. For a lot of people, the Trump era is a time of exhaustion. I hear again and again this sense that time seems to have slowed. That every day is another horror. People are tired of the work and pain of following every calamity. This is wartime, every day is another battle. And I want you to get ready for the reality that the war won't end with the 2020 election.

As much as you may want peace, you can’t go back to 2016. You don’t want to go back to 2015 either or 2014. Because those were imperfect times too. People could tell they were getting a raw deal. Liberals may be nostalgic about a time when the president wasn't an embarrassment. And if you were a white American of enough means, living under Obama meant that politics was easy. It was something you could ignore, because things were fine. It wasn't fine for everybody else, but never mind that.

I want to specifically note that Joe Biden was willing to use Charlottesville as a campaign prop, but he wasn't actually on those streets counter-protesting the Nazis. Why would he be? His skin isn't in the game. He's been in the halls of power long enough that he'll be good and rich no matter what. To Biden, the problem with the Nazis wasn’t that they were Nazis, but they were loud and that he had to see tiki torches on the front page of the New York Times. The problem with Trump isn't Trump or real politics that affect real people, but how it reminds Biden of unfortunate things he'd rather ignore. Biden has lived his entire life fighting for a pretty okay America for those who already have, not the Have-Nots. Biden might as well campaign on "Make America Fine Again". That doesn't mean actually improving America. No Biden, is the man who will make it cleaner and less problematic for people like him. And is that the best we can do?

Devil May Cry 5: A Supercar Stuck in Low Gear

PSA: The author of this piece has never played a Devil May Cry game before. He jumped in assuming his experience in playing things like Kingdom Hearts, God of War, and all things Platinum Games would be enough. He also assumed that since he knew his anime bullshit, following the storyline would not be too difficult. All he knew is that there was a dude named Dante, he had an evil edgelord brother named Vergil, and hardcore fans of the series hated the Ninja Theory reboot. Also the author is adding that Ninja Theory reboot to his "to play" list.

Devil May Cry 5 is a gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting muscle car for an age where everybody has switched to hybrid engines and fuel economy. It wants to be indulgent and spectacular and something that will look great on a teenage boy's wall. I won't deny that it looks the part. The heroes are full of adolescent cool, the women have a funny habit of losing all their clothes, and the graphics are amazing. It even comes with a buttrock soundtrack. The valves and pistons in this big 12-cylinder engine of combat options are expertly engineered. However, Devil May Cry 5 is also an impracticable beast. It should be a joy ride but instead I found it very frustrating.

Last month I praised Kingdom Hearts III for being a PlayStation 2 throwback in the PlayStation 4 era. However, if Kingdom Hearts III is gaming's Amish Country, then Devil May Cry 5 is a Renaissance Fair. Capcom's devs act so behind the times they think "open world" means Grand Theft Auto III, that "Soulsborne" is a Metal band, and that "shlooter" is some kind of weird sex position. Devil May Cry 5 is a linear level-based game that is almost entirely single-player. You can use the word "arcade-y" when describing it. This was retro in 2009, and is outright transgressive in 2019. Devil May Cry 5 just wants to be a game, nothing more, god bless it. It has no deep ideas on its mind and has nothing to say about anything.

And sure, I love this kind of high-calorie fattening video game, but why am I still hungry after this meal?

Three Hours of Kingdom Hearts III Podcasting

If for whatever reason you want to hear my voice and the voice of other people, here's what I've been up to this week. I recently bought a new (overly expensive) microphone and wanted to try it out. 2,000 words in the Kingdom Hearts III review were apparently not sufficient. Instead I talked for nearly the length of 1997's smash romantic disaster hit movie Titanic about the game across two sessions on two shows. SPOILERS ahead.

First up, on a podcast called C&C Bros hosted by a former FFWiki friend of mine, I guest starred for the first time:

Secondly, on the FFWiki itself, I hosted a discussion with some pals:

Non-audio content is also coming at some point.

Kingdom Hearts III - A Happy Ending, Finally

We live in a year I'm told is called "2019". But you would never guess that playing Kingdom Hearts III. During the decade and a half wait since Kingdom Hearts II, we've jumped two console generations. Everything seems to have changed in gaming. AAA titles are now enormous open world leviathans. The big studios make multiplayer games with infinite loops built around loot and cosmetic microtransactions. The action-adventure genre is dominated by Souls-likes. Combat is now supposed to be punishingly hard yet sophisticated and precise. Kingdom Hearts III refuses to acknowledge that any time has passed. It is proudly a PlayStation 2 game on a PlayStation 4 disc.

You look back at all the hallmarks of gaming history and it seems like director Tetsuya Nomura hasn't played any of them. Dark Souls, The Witcher 3, Mass Effect, Skyrim, they've all had nearly no influence on the long-awaited final product here. Kingdom Hearts III's combat is floaty, button-mashing nonsense. The worlds are single-player, mostly linear, and lacking a galaxy of sidequests. Loot is not the goal, you barely craft, and there are definitely no microtransactions. Instead you jam on the X-button, beat up Heartless, watch a few cutscenes, and then break up the action with a minigame. You don't see games like this anymore, and I love that defiance of all trends that Kingdom Hearts III represents.

It was fitting that a game I cannot believe actually exists at all is one that is utterly inexplicable in today's AAA landscape. I've been waiting for Kingdom Hearts III for so long that the wait itself has become a fundamental part of my being. How many times have I complained in E3 posts about the lack of Kingdom Hearts III? Now that it is here, I feel like a whole phase of my life has passed. And considering the epic mountain of hype I build around Kingdom Hearts III, it seems inevitable that the game would disappoint. I waited eleven years for Versus XIII and got Final Fantasy XV instead. It's 2019, the Starbucks guy wants to be President Centrist, Tom Brady won the Super Bowl for the ten thousandth time, and Bohemian Rhapsody is about to win Best Picture. We aren't allowed happy endings.

Or are we?

'Dragon Ball Super: Broly' is Peak Dragon Ball

When I first started writing reviews ten years ago, Dragon Ball was a has-been. It had a place in history, but it had been long since superseded by younger, hotter shonen anime like Bleach. In 2019, however, Bleach is the has-been, and the Goku Renaissance is in full force. There are new episodes of Dragon Ball Super airing on a reborn Toonami, there's Dragon Ball FighterZ, there's Dragon Ball Z Abridged, and there's the All Systems Goku podcast. If you want fan or official releases, you are drowning in Dragon Ball #content. And the latest film, Dragon Ball Super: Broly has had what amounts to a major motion picture release and made millions at the box office. This is the greatest come-back tour in anime history.

I have been happy to see Goku and Vegeta put on new shows for the fans. But like an old band reuniting, they can play the songs but can they still rock when they were in their twenties? At some point you're just a cover artist of yourself. The previous movies, Battle of Gods and Resurrection F were fun little reunion shows. However, it never felt like the characters or the franchise were pushing themselves in any way. It isn't that I dislike the new Dragon Ball Super series, it just never felt relevant or important. Super is their retirement. I don't want to age-shame here, I'm glad the Saiyans are still in shape and can still work this late into their careers. But when you take away nostalgia, how much is left?

Dragon Ball Super: Broly is the first new Dragon Ball story that feels ambitious to me. I haven't been as excited about Goku since grade school. Broly doesn't push our favorite characters to new places.  Goku and Vegeta have done this a thousand times before and act like it. Luckily it isn't really their movie. And story isn't the draw here in Broly: The Movie. This is instead a grand showcase of modern anime techniques. Dragon Ball has never looked this good or been this experimental with its art design. The film's plot is just an excuse to watch nearly an hour of shonen brawling. This time, Toei Animation wanted to make the greatest Dragon Ball fights ever. They succeeded.

Ten or Eleven or Thirteen Good Games From 2018

This latest Best 10 or So Games of the Year List includes two JRPGs, one tactical RPG, one Metroidvania, one 3D action game, two platformers, two pretentious art games, and a Smash Bros. 2018 was not really a year where I branched out all that far in terms of my gaming interests. In other years I've put FPSs and visual novels and Souls-likes and competitive online games in my Top 10-ish Lists. That didn't happen too much in 2018. I did explore a bit and tried a roguelike and a Soulsbourne and a survival game. In the end Metal Gear Survive was the worst game I played last year, I decided Bloodborne was bad for me, and I got bored of Dead Cells. Not every experiment works out.

Instead 2018 was a year of going back to my bullshit. I bought a Switch this year, it made my life measurably better, and with it, I focused on my bullshit. I don't feel too much regret. I don't think this list is anywhere near as strong as the 2017 list, but 2018 wasn't nearly as strong of a year. 2017s don't happen every year. Maybe I indulged in too much comfort food last year and maybe I have a noticeable double-chin now and maybe I need to join a gym. It happens. 2018 was a stressful year for many people for many reasons, and you need a safety valve to find joy in your life. Maybe that safety valve is going back to your gaming bullshit and really enjoying a new Pokemon game. I can't help liking certain things.

What I do regret is the games I missed. This happens every year, inevitably. I was physically exhausted by the scale of most big AAA games like Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. I was repulsed by everything I read about Far Cry 5. I actually never played the biggest game in the universe right now, Fortnite. Red Dead Redemption 2 just didn't seem like much fun. Other stuff like Monster Hunter World scared me by their size. Then there's other stuff I meant to play at some point and never found the time: Dragon Ball FighterZ, Ni No Kuni 2, Hitman 2, the new Gwent game, Donut County, BattleTech, and like a million other games. Finally there were a lot of other games that I've put off thanks to the convenient excuse of "I'm waiting for the Switch release". (See: Dragon Quest XI.) But let's not dwell on the regrets or the rationalizations, let's dwell on the good parts of last year.

So here's ten or eleven or thirteen really good games I really liked in 2018. Enjoy.

Ranking Every 2018 Movie I Saw + Top 15

This year I want to do things a little differently. It's always a tough question every year of whether I should I rank Top 10, Top 15, or even Top 20. How about this time we go balls-deep and do a Top 60? The traditional Best of the Best Top 15 will lie at the bottom of this post in its usual bloated many thousands of words glory. But before that, there's forty-five other movies to talk about. Plus, I didn't review of most of thhese besides maybe a tweet somewhere, so there's a lot of unfinished business to talk about.

2018 was a very good year for movies. We are still deep in the Late 2010s Horror Renaissance. People are going to get nostalgic for this era once it ends. I bet in 2040 we'll see a new Stranger Things set in 2018. Superhero movies still rule all of existence to a frightening degree. And it seems like the traditional Oscar Bait studio drama circle has totally dried up, leaving only things like Green Book or Mary Queen of Scots, which were too bland for me to waste my time seeing.

But the most interesting stuff seems to be how movies are distributed versus how they're made. Netflix is a monster that seems to grow ever more monstrous as time goes by. They don't even need to market their movies and somehow #BirdBox will end up trending almost immediately. It almost feels like Netflix is the new mainstream and actually going out to see a movie is some kind of rebellious anti-social activity. It also doesn't help that Netflix movies are still mostly terrible. Sometimes you'll get a Roma, but mostly you'll get things like the No. 60 on my list. Also let us not forget the failure of MoviePass. I don't know where movies are going, or where society is going. But even as the world breaks itself apart into chaos, we're getting good shit at the movies. I already told you what my Favorite Movie of the Year is back in the winter, so don't be too surprised

Sadly, it's a long way down to that No. 1. We instead start with the Worst Movie of 2018: