November 16th 2025 - November 23rd

Movies

• Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein - This movie is perfect. The artistic vision is cohesive for every single one of its 149 minutes of run time. It feels like a modern day Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with the perfect amount of self-seriousness and camp. Mia Goth is a figure of perfection every time she is on screen. Apparently it departs from the source material pretty heavily, so it’s a more modern take, but the acting feels like that of a bygone era. It feels ernest and artistic for the sake of art. It isn’t universally appealing, but it’s saturated with color and expression. I absolutely adore this film.

Music

• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Lumière - Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 is a game-of-the-year contender, which is cool. We love a JRPG-inspired banger. Even if you don’t play games, check out the woman behind the games score - she is the fourth-most-streamed French artist this year!

News/Essays

• Guild Wars Reforged - In hyper-topical news, Guild Wars 1 is getting a remake, bundled with all DLC. I might have check it out, though I only played 2!

YouTube

• Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 is a heartbreakingly disappointing game - For those in the know, Vampires: The Masquerade is an imperfect, but beloved early 2000s vampire RPG that has reached cult status in video game circles. Somehow, after 20 years of waiting for a sequel and 10 years of development, this game delivered a crushing blow to the Vampire: The Masquerade community. This video provides all of the historical context as to how this happened and an in-depth gameplay critique, all by a superfan of the original.

Books/Manga

• Princess Jellyfish | Omnibus Volume 2 - Still good, still getting on.
• The Fingersmith - Okay, I read another 100 pages, and the idea of a three act structure does not exist for this book. It’s a bit fascinating, the first part runs like standard fiction, and the second part is one character retelling the first part from her perspective. I must say, the first part was tense and thrilling, and the retelling - though having new insights - does feel like a lull in the pacing of the book. It’s interesting seeing the other half of conversations, dialogue previously out of earshot. I feel like the author knows what she’s doing because I am constantly yelling (in my mind) get on with it! Tell me about her side of the romance! Alas, we shall wait.

Games

• Pokemon Legends: Z-A - When I first booted up Legends Z-A, three hours passed like nothing. I actually double-checked the save time log because I thought there was no way that much time had already passed. This game is fun. In a simple way. It, to the chagrin of seemingly the entire Pokemon community, doesn’t really do anything to elevate the Pokemon franchise. However, it only took GameFreak 30 years to figure out a compelling day/night cycle that keeps players engaged. In the daytime you explore the city - a huge highlight because you can scale buildings and find secret areas - and run through side-quests which are simple, but adorable. Both add life to surprisingly small map. The music is pleasant and the discovery loop feels intrinsically motivated. The nigh is all about battles. This is perhaps the most significant change as this game is the sequel to Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Combat is real time, and they mostly pull this off. It’s a curious hybrid between Pokemon Go and the traditional formula. You can move freely around the map while locking on the opposing trainer’s Pokemon and your four attacks are mapped to A/B/X/Y, but each have cooldowns. I find that the battles are one, more engaging and dynamic and 2, incentivize more creative move pairings (e.g. actually using non-attack buffs). I’m about 10 hours in now, and there was a bit of a lull as I was kind of overwhelmed with how formulaic the day/night is, but the exploration thus far has assuaged those feelings. I’m really enjoying my time in Lumiose City!
• The Dungeons of Hinterberg - I saw this on sale for $7 and against my better judgement (aka my backlog) bought it. I’m in weird vibe with my games habits. I am falling off “me” games like The Thaumaturge and am in need of no-think games. Something to just play, in line with just finishing The Outer Worlds - though I did have to do way more reading than I anticipated. I was enticed by Dungeons of Hinterberg for its insanely saturated cell-shaded art style. Based on the game description, I thought it would be simple combat and puzzles. In that, you go around a beautiful world mostly solving puzzles with light combat dynamics. I’m only an hour in, but I’m already a little peeved at how significant combat plays into the levels. If the combat difficulty scales, I fear I will drop off, but we shall see. As a side note, this game looks so fucking good on an ultrawide monitor. I don’t get rolling shutter sickness like I did in The Outer Worlds, and it just adds to the whole vibe which is excellent so far.
• Final Fantast XIV Online - So, I’m playing this to live a fantasy I have always had, which is to go on MMO dates without ever having met someone irl. I just never got out of my mind the episode of Pure Pwnage when Jeremy and Taji kiss in WoW - when is it my turn?? On the game side of things, I am equally met with nostalgia, this is my first MMO in a looooooong time, and disappointment, I can’t believe how unchanged so much of the UI, systems, and quest structure are. I’m five-ish hours in, so I know I’m barely out of tutorial land, but goddamn. The map is useless, the navigation is miserable, and skills quite dull. And it feels just like home. I grew up absolutely locked into Halo, but anytime I could get PC time, I would be playing Runescape or Maplestory. I know I played Phantasy Star Online, Ragnarok Online, EverQuest, and Guild Wars 2 as well, but to a lesser extent. I replayed the free WoW “up to level 20” quite a few times as well. There was also Cartoon Network Universe: Fusion Fall that I will never forget and am quite sad it isn’t around anymore, with similar feelings for Disney’s Toontown, my cousin had a subscription and I envied her every time I visited.
• DEMO: inKONBINI - A really cute konbini (japanese bodega) simulator with narrative elements. I personally struggled a bit with movement, but it is pre-release, so I assume it will get better. If you like sims, but want something more paired down and more narrative oriented, then this is it!
• DEMO: Coffee Talk Tokyo - Oh how I wanted to love this game! The visuals are excellent and distinct enough from similar games. The simple coffee making mechanic(?), mini-game(?) provides a nice, visually appealing and satisfying small break from dialogue interactions. The soundtrack is cozy, lo-fi excellence. But… the writing. Unfortunately, to me, the main character(?), the first-person character you control is so cringe and lifeless. They speak like annoying white t*girls I know, and it was so deeply off putting that I am going to pass on this one. But, if the dialogue works for you, it’s the perfect time of year to check it out!
• DEMO: I Write Games Not Tragedies - If you were emo/alt in the 2000s, you need to play this game. It is a heartful nostaglia bomb wrapped in straight-from-your-composition-notebook visuals. The music is excellent, the writing all too relatable. It’s just good, and good for us. Maybe some hope can be found in the past.
• DEMO: death howl - THIS GAME IS PERFECT. The artstyle, jarringly beautiful. The sound design, moving. The characters, haunting. The gameplay, somehow makes me not hate card battlers. I am absolutely infatuated. It gives me the same feeling Princess Mononoke did the first time I watched it. The duality of wonder and fear at the spiritual power of the world, with the terror of loneliness and darkness. Just play the demo and you will know if you like it. But just give it a try because this game is going to be special. There is a decent likelihood that card battler mechanics will become too difficult in the later stage, but for now the world and art is enough to satiate me and make sure I buy it when it releases!
• DEMO: Duskpunk - I’m surprised. This is totally a me game. It’s a mix of two of my favorite titles and reminiscent of third that will undoubetdly top my all time favorites - those being Citizen Sleeper, Dishonored, and Disco Elysium, respectively. The demo just isn’t where it needs to be. It’s too jagged and each step you take feels disconnected from the next. These narrative RPG games are supposed to flow. They aren’t supposed to have resistance because narrative momentum lets you feel immersed in the world and buy into the stakes of the dice rolling mechanics. In its current state, I just couldn’t care about the world, my character motivation, or the stakes. I would say that I would check-in come release time, but this game is already out! And if this is how the demo plays, then it is a deeply unfortunate pass from me.
• DEMO: Looking Up I only See a Ceiling - The first vertical game I think I’ve ever played on PC. The constantly shifting pixel art design of the world plus the color palette is simply excellent. The music is okay. It feels foreboding, but ultimately generic. The demo is reeaaallllly short. Like I have 3 minutes of playtime. I would be hooked simply based on the artstyle, but the writing was so painfully dull that I am torn. It is only $2 so we shall see.
• DEMO: Saeko: Giantess Dating Sim - The intro cutscene and accompanying music really drew me in. The music is such a vibe! The pixel art is really unique and feels very cohesive. Another 2000s setting banger. The shaking animation and the scribbly text backdrop. All feel tactile and messy, its a grungy good game. All of the characters are distinct and charismatic in their own ways. It doesn’t mean they’re likeable, but I lovveeee a cringe girl and there are plenty so far.
• DEMO: Unbeatable - Banger of a game. Art style and direction is excellent and unique. It has this lo-fi dither and 3D distortion over the visuals. The animation of the 2D characters is distinct. The text bubbles are Persona 5-inspired in the best way. The music is excellent, the gameplay feels punchy. The writing holds up too! Even the small things like the idle animations are really solid, they feel like old Street Fighter sprites. I’m not a rhythm game girl, but this is close to winning me over!