The prologue of Dark Souls concludes with an enormous crow appearing out of nowhere to carry you in its feet to the land of the ancient lords: Lordran. Who is this crow? Why does it carry people from the Undead Asylum to Lordran, and back again? No item description in the game will resolve this mystery for you, nor does any character audibly wonder about it. For the rest of the game, the crow roosts atop a nearby ruin in the hub area, giving the player a chance to consider the crow’s mystery every time they return.

Near the end of the first issue of Dark Souls: Mother of Mourning, a crow who has been following our heroic knights speaks in human language, projected directly into their minds. This is a shocking event that requires several panels of dialogue to accept. “What sorcery is this?” “Kill it now, it is demon-spawn.” “This strange speech is a clever trick.” 

How does the crow speak? A blessed trick of the titular Mother. How does the crow know the location of the Mother’s soul, the great treasure which our knights seek? The Mother knew it in life, for it was her herald. “This is unnatural.” “No, it is blessed!” In two pages an arcane mystery has been introduced, debated, explained, and debated again, with little space given to ponder this strange event for myself.

Mother of Mourning has no obligation to mimic From Software’s obtuse approach to storytelling, which honestly started to wear on me by the time I saw the same old tricks yet again in Bloodborne. I welcome a fresh method that is unlike anything Hidetaka Miyazaki would produce; yet in practice, the exposition-heavy style that bookends Mother of Mourning is too conclusive for my liking. By the final issue, truths are unambiguously revealed, lines of good and evil are cleanly drawn, and the narrator even tells us the moral of the story.

Mother of Mourning promises a truly original Dark Souls tale, free from the gravity of that game trilogy’s characters and events, connected to the series only by shared thematic concerns: the magic of souls warmed by a world-sustaining flame, the crumbling kingdoms and accursed undead produced by the flame’s fading, and the powerful adventurers who seek to reignite the flame before the dark takes over. Then, there’s the most important shared theme of all: warriors seeking comfort in the embrace of a beautiful woman.

In this new take on Dark Souls, the Knights of Mourning quest for the lost soul of the Mother of Lilies. The Mother was a hero of a past age, but is now a holy relic-corpse guarded by the Knights. By returning her soul to her mortal remains, the Knights hope that the restored Mother can rekindle the fading flame and return their forsaken land to its past glory. Our protagonist is Lucadeus, a straight-as-an-arrow stoic knight who leads two companions on this quest that so many other knights have failed.

Tonally, Mother of Mourning distinguishes itself by emphasizing the horror and gore of Dark Souls, at the cost of de-emphasizing its quiet tragedy. This is most apparent in the treatment of the undead: rather than pitiable subjects doomed to slowly lose their sense of self, they are uniformly portrayed as hostile monsters to be righteously dispatched with bloody violence by non-undead knights. Although the story does eventually become critical of the Knights of Mourning’s reliance on heroic violence, the fundamentally monstrous nature of the undead, their eagerness to gruesomely attack any non-undead they meet, is never challenged. That concept shouldn’t work for me, but it does, thanks to Mother of Mourning’s greatest strength: the striking gothic horror artwork.

Maan House is primarily a horror illustrator, and he brings an unsettling terror to the monsters beyond what is ever present in the games, whose art direction is guided by Miyazaki’s concern for dignity and beauty. House’s monsters play on the primal visual fears of a predator’s gaze and a mouth that’s showing too many teeth, especially when attached to something that’s shaped like a human. That sounds simple, but it’s executed well enough to make me seriously consider the limitations of Miyazaki’s direction.

In general, Mother of Mourning is at its strongest when it allows the illustration, the color, and the panel design to communicate meaning without being crowded by text. The action is sometimes a little overindulgent in hyperviolence, but it flows propulsively from panel to panel, creating dramatic moments of tension and release beyond what the Dark Souls staple of “two hits and a dodge roll” can achieve. There’s strong contrast between dark stippled shadows and bold splashes of color: the green and purple of the ruined present, the red and orange of action scenes, and the yellow of the legendary past. Even in that golden age, the shadows always loom, threatening to swallow the light that the Mother of Lilies fought so hard to preserve.

The third issue is my favorite for how effectively its coloring and panel design contrasts the ruined present with the legendary past. Mother of Mourning emphasizes that history repeats itself, but also gets worse and worse each time. The current-day Knights of Mourning fight the same great monster that the Mother of Lilies did, and they are driven to precisely mirror the stories they so revere, but in a more dilapidated and darkly-lit monster’s lair. Even the monster’s coloring suggests that she has lost vitality over time. The Knights might be able to defeat this villain, but in the long arc of history, the darkness is winning.

The third issue also introduces the disarmingly bright blue of the Mother’s soul, reminiscent of the sorceries in Demon’s Souls. Through color alone, the comic communicates the overwhelming power of the Mother’s light, the only thing capable of lightening the shadows that otherwise dominate each page. Immediately, all the sacrifices of the Knights are justified. The Mother is different from everything else in the world, and maybe she really can save it.

We don’t review comics very often here at Gamesline, so let me close with a prescription for how to read comics. It’s really easy to glide quickly from panel to panel, reading the text boxes and skimming the images. But it takes an enormous amount of labor to make a single page of a comic, and it’s always worth your time to slow down and really digest what’s happening in each panel. Mother of Mourning is not very impressive as a read-the-text story, but as a series of sequential horror illustrations it’s a rewarding experience.

The post Dark Souls: Mother of Mourning Review — A Monster to Fear appeared first on Gamesline.

John and Crystal ease in with news about the bewildering VR remake of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. Then, we fill out on-mic The 9 Games That Shaped Who I Am, a recent games-listing trend that asks us not merely to consider what games are good, but to look deep into ourselves and connect who we are to the games we have played.

The 9 games that shaped John are:

The 9 games that shaped Crystal are:

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, and Crystal

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at gamesline.chat!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Crystal

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 108: The 9 Games That Shaped Who I Am appeared first on Gamesline.

Crystal, Lily, and Rose discuss Bungie West’s Oni, a 2001 third-person brawler-shooter with intense difficulty, intricate controls, and anime-inspired artwork. Please note that this is a full-spoilers episode.

Next month’s Game Club will be about Castlevania: Lament of Innocence!

If you like this Game Club format, let us know! You can voice your feedback and suggestions at our our Discord channel gamesline.chat or our email podcast@gamesline.net!

Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/gamesline

Follow us on Bluesky: @gamesline.net
Crystal: @crystal.undertow.cards
Lily: @gallowlessdatura.bsky.social
Rose: @fatamorgana.bsky.social

Review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

Send questions to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

Join our Discord channel at gamesline.chat!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Crystal

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 106: Oni Game Club appeared first on Gamesline.

Scott played The Duskbloods network test, and Crystal’s here to ask him about it! Learn about some of the unique multiplayer experiments FromSoftware is up to with the multiplayer-focused Duskbloods, such as an urgently ticking clock, incentives to maintain fragile alliances, and a massive reward for finding true love!

Click here to listen to the Sinclair Lore podcast Scott references!

Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/gamesline

Follow us on Bluesky: @gamesline.net
Crystal: @crystal.undertow.cards
Scott: @fkasocks.com

Review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

Send questions to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

Join our Discord channel at gamesline.chat!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Crystal

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 103: The Duskbloods Network Test appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s a new week and a new format for the podcast. This week, Crystal wanted to talk all about the lost art of DVD menus while Lorelai pondered why it is that the third game in a series sometimes loses it’s magic. In the news, we talk about Double Fine and Compulsion Games getting their freedom from Microsoft and being the sole publisher of their games. We also go over some of those mentioned format changes we’re going to see with the podcast moving forward like the games club.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, Crystal, and Lorelai

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at gamesline.chat!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 102: DVD’s Come In Threes. appeared first on Gamesline.

Welcome to a special Game Club episode of The Gamesline Podcast! Crystal, Lily, and John discuss ACE Team’s debut game Zeno Clash, a 2009 PC first-person brawler with brisk pacing, frenetic combat, and a uniquely grotesque art style.

Please note that this is a full-spoilers episode. If you’d like to play Zeno Clash before listening, it’s inexpensive and only 5 hours long!

Click here to read the Zeno Clash postmortem that Lily references!

If you like this Game Club format, let us know! You can voice your feedback and suggestions at our our Discord channel thegamezone.zone or our email podcast@gamesline.net!

Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/gamesline

Follow us on Bluesky: @gamesline.net
Crystal: @crystal.undertow.cards
Lily: @gallowlessdatura.bsky.social
John: @john.gamesline.net

Review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

Send questions to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

Join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Crystal

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 101: Zeno Clash appeared first on Gamesline.

Relooted introduces new members of the heist team every few levels, and makes sure that you feel the problems that they’ll solve for you. Trevor, who has the power to open and close doors, did not initially impress me during his tutorial mission. He’s a little slow to activate, he can only keep doors open before the alarm goes off, and he seemed to self-consciously embellish his unimpressive skill by announcing his self-given epithet “The Locksmith!” every time he was activated. I took Trevor for granted and failed to prepare him in the right position before my escape. I scrambled to call on him to open a door as the alarm blared and the timer ticked down, and he smugly highlighted my mistake: “It would have been faster if you had me ready!” I finished the heist in time, but Nomali had to bear the indignity of letting her chuuni little brother embarrass her.

That kind of clever narrative design kept exciting me throughout Relooted. Immediately after a level where an otherwise lightning-fast Nomali must break the momentum of her escape by slowly jogging up and down stairs, she echoed my thoughts in a cutscene: “We have to do something about those stairs.” Then came a tutorial sequence for the acrobat Ndedi, who swings and grapples Nomali across large vertical and horizontal gaps that would otherwise have to be cleared by taking stairs or pushing tables around. I smiled as I felt the dozens of seconds Ndedi was shaving off my run, precisely because Nyamakop made me use the stairs so much in the previous level.

So it is with additional team members Fred the Inventor, whose drone lets you case the joint, Cryptic the Hacker, who neutralizes robotic guards and turrets, and Luso the Muscle, who throws Nomali through glass barriers. Each of them facilitates one of the most fundamental satisfactions of video games: getting from point A to point B in as little time as possible. Even with a perfect plan, the escape sequences require technical execution from the player to maintain Nomali’s top speed, but Relooted never let me forget the value of each team member. Sometimes, a team member will be unavailable for a heist, and I always felt their absence while constructing my well-oiled platforming machine.

Higher difficulty settings decrease the time you have to escape, more severely limit the locations that team members can be assigned to during the prep phase, and reduce the amount of information that Fred’s drone Nunu shows you. The first two features demand even greater appreciation for your teammates and more careful planning, but I preferred to receive detailed information from Nunu, especially the recommended route which shows problem areas that need to be solved. Getting unsolicited advice from my team members made me feel more like part of a team, and not just an omniscient being that orders my pieces around. In real group projects I always cherish when someone takes care of a problem before I even notice it. Who wants to make every decision all the time?

The heists are organized by Nomali’s grandmother Professor Grace and her protégé Etienne, who provide information on what you are actually stealing: African artifacts (and some from other colonized regions) stolen by colonial powers long ago, and kept in museum basements and private collections to avoid an international treaty that demands the repatriation of any publicly displayed artifacts acquired illicitly. Loopholes like these have challenged the Professor’s decades-long campaign to repatriate this stolen cultural heritage with by-the-book methods, and she can’t bear to reach the end of her life having accomplished so little. Thus, she devises a plan to reloot stolen artifacts, and ultimately return them to their proper homes.

Indiana Jones, the fictional archaeologist who the most despicable character in Relooted compares himself to, once said “That belongs in a museum!” Complicating the claim of some reviewers that Relooted is opposed to that maxim, Relooted does believe in the value of the museum. More precisely, it believes in the value of The Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, Senegal. That is where the relooted artifacts get dropped off. Yes, the Museum of Black Civilizations will only hold the artifacts temporarily before sending them to their proper homes, but it is the Museum that is trusted to appropriately foster and distribute the cultural heritage of Africa.

In the case of the Akan Drum, its proper home is identified as an African-American History museum. But for the most part, Relooted carefully avoids the complicated question of where exactly the “proper homes” of these artifacts are, which does not necessarily have a straightforward answer in theory or in practice. That’s for the scholars and bureaucrats to figure out. The immediate victory is that those discussions happen in Africa, by Africans, without any conditions imposed by colonial museums. When 90% of the material cultural legacy of sub-Saharan Africa is found outside of the African continent, just getting 64 artifacts to Dakar is a triumph.

The movement to repatriate stolen African artifacts has seen momentum since Felwine Sarr and Bénédict Savoy’s 2018 report, as well as sympathy from popular culture. What sets Relooted apart from other pro-repatriation media is that the targets of your heists aren’t elven artifacts, they’re not from a fictional country, and they weren’t stolen by the Villains’ International League of Evil. Relooted is set in a sci-fi future with comicbooky characters, but the artifacts in the game are digital representations of real, physical objects that were really stolen from real human beings that really breathed air on this Earth. I’m emphasizing this point because it’s so rare to find a video game with a historical perspective that isn’t clouded by metaphor and artistic license. Assassin’s Creed will always bend history to fit its metaplot, Dragon Age will always flatten the complexities of political struggles to better suit a heroic narrative. Relooted’s Africanfuturist storyline is always anchored by real history, and might even spark you to look up more details than its quick art history lectures can give you.

Relooted takes a Pan-African perspective, but takes care to highlight the cultural diversity of Africa: the heist team is audibly multicultural, and artifacts are always traced not just to a general region but to a specific indigenous group. This is in contrast to games like Far Cry 2 and Resident Evil 5 that create fictional African nations as an excuse to deploy stereotypes of Africa as backwards, corrupt, and dangerous. As a bit of cheeky payback, Relooted refers to its late 21st century Europe as The Old World and the United States as The Shiny Place, except when recounting real historical details.

Nyamakop took a “thrones, not teacups” approach to selecting which real artifacts would be represented in Relooted: it’s not just that these artifacts happened to be objects made by African indigenous groups, but that they carry deep meaning to the people they were stolen from. It should be obvious why it’s unacceptable for funerary statues plucked from Mijikenda homes to exist in Andy Warhol’s house, or the skull of anticolonial leader Mangi Meli to sit somewhere in the archives of a German museum.

Despite the scope and cruelty of the colonial looting of Africa, Relooted takes a deliberately soft approach to the issue, and largely maintains a cheery atmosphere where the most destructive thing the heist team does is break a few windows. Without indulging in shocking depictions of violence, Relooted is still capable of clearly communicating colonial injustice and anti-colonial justice. Most importantly, Relooted can be enjoyed by all ages, and is particularly attractive to guardians who want their kid to learn puzzle-solving and history at the same time.

Nyamakop’s first release, Semblance, avoided distinctively African themes in order to appeal to Western markets. This is a common trend for South African games, even as developers elsewhere in the continent, such as Nigeria’s Maliyo Games, Ghana’s Leti Arts, and Cameroon’s Kiro’o Games consciously develop games that are immediately recognizable as African. As for why South African games tend to blend in with Western games, I’ll quote some members of Broforce’s developer Free Lives, from a 2016 Gamedeveloper.com interview:

“As white South Africans, our culture is Western,” says programmer Ruan Rothmann. “It’s not like we have a unique and segregated white South African culture that’s isolated from America or Europe. We watch the same movies, listen to the same music, speak the same language.” Most other South African indies are the same. “South African game development is something like 92 percent white male or something along those lines,” adds studio director Evan Greenwood.

In a 2024 Gamesindustry.biz interview, Nyamakop CEO Ben Myres affirmed the whiteness of the South African game development scene, and shared Nyamakop’s long-term goal of creating a more diverse generation of South African game developers:

“There are a lot of studios in South Africa [but] there are only really six major ones, and all of them are run and owned by white men. And I think that has a large knock-on effect of the inability to take that risk. I’m not going to tell their stories, but a lot of my ability to do Nyamakop is based purely on privilege and generational wealth, and the crazy safety net you have. I think the South African games industry, last time we did a survey, is like [80%] white men.”

Looking at South Africa’s 2022 census, Black Africans represented 81.4% of the population, followed by Coloureds at 8.2%, white people at 7.3%, and Indian/Asian people at 2.7%. The games industry in the country is in a sharp contrast with this reality.

Nyamakop is trying to bring some balance, with Myres estimating that around 80% of the studio is people of colour.

“Our leadership team is very diverse at least,” he says. “If you aren’t able to take the risk to start your own studio, how are we ever going to make the industry more diverse? And the only way you do that is by allowing stable employment for diverse folks to get into the industry. Because really, in the long term, where we need to be is PoC-owned-and-run studios. But if there’s no way for you to enter the industry stably and get good at making games, we can’t just jump there automatically.

“[When] a person of colour leaves Nyamakop to stay in the industry, that makes me happy. We haven’t really had anyone leave and not stay in the industry. It’s very sad to see them go, obviously, but the fact that they leave to stay in the industry means Nyamakop can become a place that’s stable, safe, and fun [for South African people of colour to enter the industry].”

Relooted is the largest single project by team scope, size and budget in Sub-Saharan Africa to date, perhaps only rivaled by Kiro’o Games’ ambitious 2016 RPG Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan. The African games industry is growing, and Relooted will likely be remembered as a milestone in future histories of the growth of African game development. The in-game heist team returns cultural heritage of the past to Africa, but the Nyamakop team is creating new African cultural heritage for the people of 2099 to remember. Perhaps more importantly than the status of Relooted as an individual artifact, it serves as the first project for a new generation of game developers who will go on to make something even better.

The post Relooted Review — Reclaiming the Future appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s another week and another episode of The Gamesline Podcast. This week, John is joined by both Crystal and Lorelai to talk about everything they can. When he’s not playing Hell Maiden John’s been going for those Retro Achievements in Okage: Shadow King and Mega Man Legends while Lorelai played a little more Moonlight Peaks alongside clowning around in the new Final Fantasy XIV content that dropped. Crystal joined friends to play through Kathy Rain, a bunch of DLE’s, Splatoon Raiders, and she completed the base campaign of Final Fantasy XI. In the news, we talk more about Sony and the elimination of discs.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, Crystal and Lorelai

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 100: Shadow Kings and Lords appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s a full house again this week as John, Lily, Crystal, and Nikolas sit down to talk about the Nintendo Direct and the games they’ve been playing. John’s been playing Resident Evil 4 Remake, Marathon, Boltgun, and the Parasite Mutant demo. Lily’s been stuck in PS2 purgatory with Bloodrayne, Shadow Hearts, Mercenaries, Dark Cloud 2, and Evergrace. She’s also been playing Alabaster Dawn‘s early access version and Sekitori. Crystal is in Final Fantasy hell with Final Fantasy XII and watching Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children while Nikolas dug into Etrian Odyssey.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, Lily, Crystal, and Nikolas

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 94: Rayman’s Giant Hog appeared first on Gamesline.

The Gamesline Podcast is back for another week at the Pikmin factory as John and Crystal sit down to talk about the week in games. John’s still just as Pikmin 4 obsessed as he’s been while Crystal has been playing Fuser and all the extra stuff from Final Fantasy X-2 like Last Mission and X-2.5 -Will-. She also attended the digital Endix Expo. In the news, we’re getting Kowloon’s Gate in english.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, and Crystal.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 91: Endix Cards appeared first on Gamesline.