Underneath my yellow skin

Author Archives: Minna Hong

What ten games define me, part two

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I have been musing about the ten games that define me, and I made it to number four in the time I allotted to myself yesterday. Quite frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised I got that far, and let’s see if I can get four more today. I doubt it, but know hope!

Before I dive in, I want to say that this is not necessarily a list of my ten favorite games, but of the ten games that you need to know are important to me in order to know me. With that distinction in mind, let’s dive in.

5. Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall). This game broke me. I didn’t expect it, too, and it wasn’t an immediate break. I will be frank. The reasons I played it was because I dug the graphics, I dug the vibe, and I really dug that the protag was a small, awkward black cat. I will be honest. I did not gel with the game for the first few hours. I felt I was fighting the game more than I was playing it. And, I missed a very important mechanic of the game for my entire first playthrough.

I really liked the protagonist of the game. I identified strongly with her as a morose, depressed, anxiety-ridden, quite possibly neurospicy, bisexual, self-loathing individual who was convinced that everyone hated her. Plus, she was a black cat. Black cats are my favorite animal of all, so that was a plus in her favor, too. In addition, the relationships were so well drawn in the game, they hit me hard.

I played it through three times, and I fell in love more with the game with each playthrough. This game was genius in the way it opened up story-wise. Depending on how you play it, you could be given a story that while rich, was just a narrow strip of what the game had to offer.

I have not seen another game like it, quite honestly. And I have not had another game hit me as hard as this one did. I have not felt seen by a game like I have with this one. I full-on ugly sobbed while playing it, and I felt it deep to my bones. Not only did the game capture the personality of Mae perfectly, it showed how bleak it was in rust town, USA, how hopeless it can feel, what good friendships you can build, and how families can be fractious and loving at the same time. I related to so much of this game, I have it at number one of my favorite non-FromSoft games of all time. And it’s not even close. I have thought about going back to it, but I think it’s better to leave it as a very fond memory.


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What ten games define me

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There’s a meme going around in Instagram (I saw it on a video, not on Insta itself) about posting an image of you in a book author pose surrounded by the ten games you’ve played that you would tell people if you wanted them to get to know you. It’s emphatically not a list of your ten favorite games, but the ten games that define you. I was intrigued by the idea because I would have thought they were one and the same. The more I thought about it, though, thne more I understood the difference.

I decided to make my own list, and I think there are a few really surprising choices on the list. Several are what you would expect, and then there are a few that are just what they are. I’ll explain that more when I get to them. These are in no particular order. They might be loosely chronological, but maybe not. We’ll see!

1. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari). When I was a teenager, my parents would drag my brother and me to various Taiwanese events that went on for hours. It didn’t help that they NEVER started on time, so that added an hour to the wait.

The events were often at the local uni student union. In the basement was a bowling alley with a few arcade games. One of them was Ms. Pac-Man, and I would play it for hours to pass the thime. It was a comfort game, plus it planted the idea in the back of my brain that the protag of a video game could be a woman. Or at least female-coded. Yes it was just Pac-Man with a bow, but still! It was also a beacon of light during a very dark period of my life, and I will always appreciate it for that.

2. Pitfall! (Activision).  This was the first video game I played. Well, among the first video games I played and my favorite. We had an Atari, and I would play this over and over. This game really scratched the itch that my neurospicy brain has in that playing it over and over again soothed the savage beast within. I have fond memories of playing this with my brother when I was a preteen–one of the only pleasant memories I had as a child.

3. Torchlight (Runic Games). During my twenties and early-to-mid thirties, I only played casual games. I loved them, but I wanted to spread my wings. I asked my new buddy, Ian, what game he would recommend. He thought about it and said I might like a new game called Torchlight. I booted it up, saw that there was a choice of three characters. One of them was a woman who looked vaguely Asian, and the other two were dudes. I immediately chose the woman because that’s always going to appeal to me more. She was the ranged class, which also suited me. and I had a pet cat who took items to town for me, sold them, and brought me back the money.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): my actual official review, part five

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This is it–my true actual official review on Hades II (Supergiant Games). I will not write another post about this game. Ever! This, of course, is not true, but I am going to try my damnedest to make this the last post Here is yesterday’s post in which I mostly ranted about the ending of the game. I will briefly mention it in this post, but not to the same extent.

I’m going to do something wildly different with this review. Why? Because there are three numbers I want to give it, and since it’s my blog,  I’m going to do it. In addition, I’m going to spplit categories in two because that’s just how the game felt to me. It’ll make sense as I go. First up, let’s talk about the caharacters. And, yes, there will be rampant spoilers from now on.

*SPOILERS*

NPCs: I am so spilt on this category. In general, the NPCs in this game are not as good as they were in the last. While I did not love all the NPCs, I did appreciate that several had good stories. (While also noting that some were half-baked. My poor Hypnos.)

I like the Olympians just fine. I don’t like that Athena and Ares don’t show up until after a certain point (I think you have to beat Typhon the first time? Maybe?) They are both still great in this game, but I wish they were available from the start. I grew to really like Poseidon in this game (who was meh in the last), and the rest were fine. Oh, I still love Demeter, in part because Ireally dig her ice abilities.

There are two NPCs whom I really adored–Moros and Icarus. I did not like Narcissus at first, but he really grew on me. Same with Scylla. At first, I jsut wanted to punch her in the face. By the end of the game, I really enjoyed meeting up with her. Some were fine, like Odysseus, Hecate, and Medea. Some were meh such as Circe, and two of them were horrible: Nemesis and Eris.

Overall, I thought the NPCs were weaker in this game than in the first. I give them a 6. If Nemesis and Eris were gone, I would bump it up to a 7.5 or maybe even higher. Yes, they annoyed me that much. I hated them by the end of the game.

Music/environment/vibes: This is perhaps the best part of the game. The vibes are great, the enironments are thriving (mostly), and the music is top notch. I can’t give these elements enough praise. Here, the homage to the first game really shone, and I have to give it high marks. The video below of Scylla and the Sirens is my favorite song, Bewitching Eyes. I really like that several of the songs are some iteration of the Death to Chronos song.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games); my actual official review, part four

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It’s been interesting to read the discourse on Hades II (Supergiant Games) because of the varying opinions. Most people agree that the gameplay is the star of the show. Many people agree that the story is shit, especially the ending. There is a near agreement on how terrible the ending is, which is oddly gratifying. Oh, by the way, here is the post from yesterday.

The interesting part is the two camps of thought on how important the gameplay is versus the story. Most people play the game primarily for the gameplay and the addictive loop. I am in the minority (once again) in that I play the game more for the story than the gameplay. This is because I’m not good enough for the latter, and I had to swallow my pride to turn on God Mode, otherwise I would never had finished the game.

Side note: I underestimated how amazing God Mode was beacuse I hadn’t truly thought about the scope of it. It cuts down the damage you take each run after you die by 2% (starts at 20% less damage). It caps off at 80% less damage, and the things that flummox me (not being able to see everything on the screen; being pelted with bullshit from all around; losing so much health per region, etc.) were so much less annoying. It’s a duh realization, but I never used God Mode in the first game so I didn’t know.

Anyway, I think the multiple runs to get the true ending are a bit much (especially since they extended it for the true true ending), but I understand why it’s structured that way. I’m glad they patched the true ending to be the true true ending, but, man. It was such a huge misstep in the first place. I am still not over how bad the true ending was and how

*SPOILERS*

they did Melinoë so dirty like that. It was so egregious, it shook my confidence in Supergiant in general. Seriously. The fact that no one in the company said, “Um, guys? About that completely taking away Melinoë’s agency at the veryy end of the game? Maybe we don’t do that?” leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Warning: I’m about to go on a rant (per usual).

What the fuck, sexism? It’s really depressing how prevalent it is in our society (Supergiant is an American dev) that this game, which was in Early Access for over a year (nearly a year and a half) was released with that ending. I know I’ve been harping on it, but I expected so much more from Supergiant Games. I’m not sure why, really, because it’s not as if they had a female protag before. At least not to this extent.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games); my actual official review, part three

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I’m on part three of my actual official review of Hades II (Supergiant Games), and I want to delve a bit deeper into the characters to start the post. Here is yesterday’s post in which I was bitching about how there are no good female characters in the game. Selene, the Moon Goddess, is too fey for me, whereas Artemis’s sprite is way the hell too cutesy. Aphrodite is the same from the last game (which, quite frankly, means I’m meh about her), and the new goddesses are meh as well. Circe is irritating execept for when she gets upset, and that’s about it for the women in the game.

On the men’s side, I really liked the addition of Apollo. He’s sweet and has a beautiful voice. He makes me smile every time I run into him. Odysseus is fine. I wish I could bang him for some no strings-attached sex, but he didn’t seem down for that for some unfathomable reason. He banged every other sorceress and goddess in the game, apparently, so why not me? I wonder if it was simply they ran out of time.

This is one of my puzzlements in general. There are several stories in which they seeded it so that I anticipated more story than actually happened. For example. In the first game (and, yes, I will  have to mention the first game frequently to make a point about this game), the training dummy was a skeleton named Skelly. He was a pompous yet-affable fool, and I got along just fine with him. It was immediately clear that he was a liar, but he was good fun.

In this game, the training dummy is named Schelemeus, and he’s clearly Skelly putting on airs. I just skimmed the IGN description of Schelemeus, and they said that he was promoted. I mean, that’s the story that yopu’re supposed to presume, but I think he’s just lying again. When I meet up with

*SPOILERS*

my father much later in the game, rescue him, and talk to him again, he says he doesn’t have an employee named Schelemeus. This is all played with a straight face, and I can’t quite figure out what Supergiant wanted to do with the character.

In fact, that’s how I feel about the characters in general. For most of them, there was so much more they could have done. There are a few characters who had a very satifactory arc. I’ll list them now. Moros and Icarus. not coincidentally, they are my favorite NPCs in the game. Moros used to be my favorite, but Icky (as I called Icarus) edged him out ever so slightly by the end.

When I returned to The Crossroad, I always visited with people in the same way. First, Dora because she was in my tent where I returned. Next, I skipped past Moros while saying hey (in the real world) because I wanted to save him for last. I went to Eris and gritted my teeth if she had something new to say. I mashed through her dialogue as quickly as possible before hurrying away. If Artemis was around, I’d sing with her a bit.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): my actual official review, part two

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I was going to call this my official official review in honor of the true true ending, but I thougrht thta would be too twee. Ignore the fact that true true ending is pretty twee in and of itself and just take what I’ve said at face value. Here is the first part of my actual official review, and I’m going to continue with the characters.

I’m sorry. I have to say it I absolutely loathed Nemesis, the character who was supposed to be likke Megaera–whom, I would guess, was one of the top three favorite characters in the first game. She was one of the three Furies, and she was the first boss you fight (at least initially). She’s so memerable, and I loved that I could talk to her back at the House of Hades. We got closer and closer, and she gave me Batty, her animal companion. And we (Megaera and I ) boned, of course. And, my absolute favorite story moment in that game which very few people got, was

*SPOILERS*

a threesome with Megaera and Thanatos, my two favorite NPCs in the game. I had romanced each of them individually throughout the game, and I had hoped that we could have a threesome. At some point, it became evident that the two of them had a romantic relationship themselves. That made me think it might be possible to bone both of them, but the game went on without that happening.

Then, very late in the after-the-ending game (can’t remember if it was pre- or post-plat), I got the situation I was hoping for. I got to have an actual threesome with Meg and Than. They faded to black as the action actually happened, but it was so emotionally satisfying. Nobody was talking about it save a random person on a forum here and there. It made me think that not many people saw it, which wasn’t surprising. Each individual relationship was so elaborate to max out on its own, so it made perfect sense that it would take that long to get the threesome.

I did not expect another threesome in this game, but I was hoping for some really good relationships, romantic/sexual or not. There were a few, but they all stopped less than halfway through the game. Again, that’s partly my fault for how obsessed I was with the game, but it was also that they made it much easier to max out the relationships in this game.

To be fair, it was way too hard to max them out in the first game. It really felt like grinding, so I can understand why Supergiant wanted to make it easier in this game. They overcorrected, though, and made it too easy. In addition, the relationships were not as emotionally satisfying in the sequel as they were in the original.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): my actual official review

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I am pretty much done with Hades II (Supergiant Games). I may do a few more runs to see if I get any more post-true true ending content, but I’m not much fussed if I miss out on a few new lines here and there. That’s so different than how I felt about the first game, dialogue-wise, and it makes me a bit wistful for OG Hades. Here’s the second part of my official review after 100%ing the game. I didn’t get that far into my review, but I wanted to show my work before continuing.

Before I review the game after finishing the true true ending, I want to state up front that I turned God Mode on after beating

*SPOILERS*

Chronos for the first time. Not right after, but when I could not come close to beating Typhon, I decided to give it a try. Then, for the next few days, I turned it off while running the levels and on for the bosses. After a few days of that, I gave in and kept it on. I liked the game so much better once I did that, and my only regret was that I did not tturn it on earlier.

I gave Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) a 7 when I reviewed it. This game is better than that game–or at least I enjoyed my time with it more. I was always going to give this game a better score than that one, but before the true true ending, I think I would have given this game a 7.5. I’m not going to say what I’m giving it now, but you can assume it’s going to be higher than that.

I struggle in talking about this game because my emotions are all over the place about it. In fact, that’s my theme for this year–games that I both really  like and deeply dislike at the same time. I would say that this game falls into that category, but I like more of it than I dislike. However, I can’t help but compare it to the first game, which I liked better.

Let’s talk weapons. There are six weapons with three aspects for each weapon. You start with one aspect for each, with is the Aspect of Melinoë (the main character). It’s the basic moveset and isn’t anything special, but I preferred it in at least one of the weapons. You have to unlock the other two aspects for each weapon in different ways. You don’t know how you’re going to do it, so basically, just keep playing the game with the different weapons and you’ll eventually unlock the other aspects. Then, you have to level them up, and it’s costly. I’ve written about it before that I thought it was too costly.


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Hades II (Supergian Games): thoughts after the true true ending, part three

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I have one more post to write about the true true ending of Hades II (Supergiant Games), the epilogue, and the one side mission that infuriated me. Let’s start with the last one because I watched a video of how it went down before the patch, and it’s pretty much as I remember it from after the patch. I can’t find a video for after the patch, and my memory is shit. Either way, though, I am so unsatisfied with it. Before I go on, here is my post from yesterday.

*SPOILERS*

In a nutshell, Hypnos is asleep the entire game. He became one of my favorite NPCs by the end of the first game, even though he was so bumbling and inept. Maybe because he was so bumbling and inept? At any rate, it was really endearing how he greeted me every time I (as Zagreus) returned from a run, and I came to look forward to it. Yes, he was bumbling and inept, but he had such a sweet and earnest heart.

In this game, he’s sleeping through the entirety of it. People comment on it, and I do what I can to wake him. The first time I use an incantation to awaken him, I am so let down when it doesn’t work. The second time, I’m let down, impatient, and upset as well. The third time is when you acutally can awaken him, and it’s after the true ending because you need an item from a freed Hades.

Then, when I finally woke him up, he babbles a bit, tells me he loves me, and then runs back to House of Hades because he’s so late for his job. Even with the added context and a few scenes of him in the House of Hades, I still did not like it. At all.

It felt like a cruel joke on Hypnos, and a few people in the forums mentioned it as well. There was one theory that put the decision in a better light, but I’m not sure it’s true. The theory is that the real ending was going to involve putting Chronos in some kind of permanent dream/nightmare and keeping him there. It made sense in that Hypnos was the god of sleep and Melinoë was the goddess of nightmares. There is some dialogue in the base game about how the latter had learned from the former something about dreams. So the theory did make sense.

Fans went on to surmise that Supergiant freaked out when they read that people had figured out the ending and pivoted to the current true ending. I dunno. I don’t see Supergiant being that kind of company, really. I mean, if they were set on that as an ending, I think they would have kept it and just fiddled with it to bring some twists to it.

Some other people maintained that it was like Supergiant to make the whole mission one big joke. I don’t agree with that. I mean, I could see them making a lengthy joke, but not something that mean. They seem to have genuine fondness for their characters, and I don’t see them doing a beloved character from the first game that dirty. It feels too much like punching down. I mean, yes, he’s a god, but at least how he’s portrayed in this world, he’s pretty harmless and pitiable.

Someone in one of the forums said that Hypnos was their favorite character in the first game, and they wished he had not been brought back if Supergiant was going to do him dirty like that. I have to agree. I would feel better if there had been an actual reason for it ending up the way it did (like time ran out before they could do something meaningful with it).

Back to the true true ending. Jade King from The Gamer wrote an article about the true true ending of the game with which I really agreed. She was the one who wrote an article about using God Mode to enjoy the game better, and it’s what helped me flip that (literal) switch instead of walking away.

I am pleased that King brought up my main issues with the true ending pre-patch. The biggest one was how it took all agency away from Melinoë and made her a nonentity at the end of her game. HER game, not Zagreus’s. By making it so he made the crucial decison, it was such a slap in the face of me as a player of this game.

Another was how the ending came up out of the blue. By adding new scenes of dialogue and changing it so it was Melinoë’s suggestion to Zag (saving Chronos) rather than his decision on his own took the bad taste out of my mouth, mostly.

King even mentioned how she was ‘still bummed’ at the original ending and wondering whether this was the plan all along (the rushed patch) or if it was in response to fans’ outrage. I feel the same. I can’t separate the two, either. Meaning, I can’t deep-six the first true ending as if it never happened because it did happen, and it was so fucking shitty. The added flavor texts made it better, but I still remembered the betrayal I felt at the first true ending. I know that’s a strong word, and it’s not quite the right word, but it’s close.

King was more forgiving of the actual true ending itself, saying it was a way of breaking the dysfucnctional family cycle. I get her point, and maybe I would not be so bitter about it if it hadn’t been done so atrociously in the first place.

Other people say that it was never going to end with Chronos being permanently killed beacuse that was too obvious. It’s the steady beat of the drum throughout the game, so of course Supergiant had to pivot at the last moment. That’s the defense, though. Supergiant could not actually killoff Chronos because that was too expected!

They could have, though. I say that with no snark. Wh the hell could they not have done exactly what was on the tin? There was no need to throw a twist in at the end. And, yes, they made it better with the patch, but I would have preferred a different ending altogether.

Still. I can’t fault the game for it’s “just one more run” feel, some of the characters, and the smoothness of the gameplay itself. I don’t like the weapons as much in this game as I did in the last, though. I felt mosttly meh about this batch. I also felt the cost to unlock each aspect was too steep.

I’ll go over each aspect (no pun intended) of the game in the next post and give it an official score. Then I’ll be done with it for good. Maybe.

 

 

 

Hades II (Supergiant Games): thoughts after the true true ending, part two

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I’m back to talk more about Hades II (Supergiant Games), the true true ending, the epilogue, and the one side mission that infuriated me. All of these were things that I did again because of the change to the true ending, although I didn’t know if there would be a change to the latter two. I chose not to read the patch notes because I wanted to be surprised in getting the true true ending. The epilogue and the side mission were items on the Fated List of Minor Prophecies, and they became un-crossed off when I went back to

*SPOILERS*

just before beating Chronos for the frist time.

Side note: I always go back and forth as to whether I can talk about this boss without spoiler tagging. Yes, he is the last boss of the downward path, but “Death to Chronos” is the mantra of the game, and it’s not as if it’s ever a secret that’s the final goal.

Back to the true true ending. Here’s the post I wrote on it yesterday. Now that I’ve had a day to think about it further, I have more thoughts on it. I’m saying this with no snark: Supergiant did the best they could with what they had. What do I mean by that? There was no way they were going to change the ending, obviously. That would have been way too much work and a complete restructure of the after cerdits game. Given that they had to stay with the ending they wrote, this was the best possible way to get there. The true true ending, Imean.

Instead of the out of nowhere feeling that the original true ending gave me (and how dirty they did Melinoë), the path to the true true ending made sense. I could see every step on the way there, and even though I did not like the actual ending, the game got there locially.

The biggest improvement is that Melinoë was the driver of the action as she should have been in the first place. She was the one who made the decision to try to reason with Chronos before eradicating him rather than Zagreus, even though the latter was the one who had to do the actual actions.

It remained her game, rather than suddenly ceding control to her brother. I’m still not over that, by the way. How deeply sexist the original true ending was, I mean. It just goes to show how endemic and deep the patriarchy reigns and that sexism can come from the least-expected places.

I was saying to Ian that it’s hard for me to judge the true true ending because I had experienced the true ending unvarnished. And it was, as I have said repeatedly, hot garbage. I think if I had experienced the true true ending as the only true ending, I would have accepted it as making sense (as a way to end the main game while allowing for continuing on with endless runs) without actually liking it.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): thoughts after the true true ending

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I have gotten the true true ending of Hades II (Supergiant Games) and watched the credits roll (again), and I have many thoughts about it. My first thought is this. Two seemingly opposing things can be simultaneously true. That was running through my head as I bashed out run after run. Why? Because of this. Oh, spoilers, probably, from here on out.

*SPOILERS*

The main premise: the original true ending of the game was hot garbage. I know that’s harsh, but I was expecting so much because of how good the first game was. Dialogue-wise and story-wise. Yes, the story was simple, but it was so emotionally satisfying. In fact, I think it was so solid because it was so simple.

In this game, the dialogue and story were…fine. For most of the game, they were both stridently fine. I liked some of the characters, but not nearly as many as I had in the first game. In fact, I actively hated two of the characters in this game, both of whom I romanced. I will not get into that because I have written so much about them already, but I had a hard time believing the same team wrote this game as the one who wrote the first.

Even aside from these two terrible characters, the dialogue was not as snappy or as engaging. I did not care as much as I did in the first game about most of the characters, and my biggest thought on the story was how were they going to wrap it up in a satisfactory way?

In short, they didn’t. The original true ending was bad. Shockingly bad. I keep saying it was shocking because in the first game, the writing was so good. In this game, the basic premise was Death to Chronos. That was the tagline, and characters greeted each other by saying it. Chronos, Time himself, had taken over the House of Hades, imprisioned everyone in it, set free Typhon, the Father of All Monsters to torment Mount Olympus, and this sets up the epic fight between Melinoë and Chronos.

I was down with all that, but I had a thought niggling in the backk of my mind the whole time–how would they be able to do that (permanently kill Time) and simultaneously make it so the player could continue doing runs? I was willing to trust Supergiant to get it right so I waited to see what they would do to bridge that gap. Even though there was some light questioning along the way (in-game), the basic feeling was that it would all work out somehow.

In the original true ending, and, seriously, spoilers here, Melinoë meets her brother Zag in the dreamworld, gets him to find their father’s weapon, Gigaros (a gigantic spear) and give it to her. She uses it to kill Typhon permanently, uses the essence of Typhon to kill Chronos in her time before meeting up with Zag again and giving him Gigaros to kill Chronos for good in his time.


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