After a brief stop, the Gamesline Podcast returns as John, Lily, Lorelai, and Rose sit down to talk about what they’ve been playing. John’s been big into RetroAchievements with games like Community Pom, Hatsune Miku Bomb Squad, and Azure Dreams while also digging deep into Pokopia, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, and the new Umamusume scenario. Lorelai’s also been in that one when she’s not playing Monster Hunter Stories 3 or Nioh 3. Rose has been digging into Vital Shell, Resident Evil 9, and Crimson Desert when she’s not Playing Marathon with Lily whose been getting up to shenanigans in the Final Fantasy XIV Occult Crescent and Trails to Azure.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, Rose, Lilith, 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 and Produced by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 85: The Tale of Kliff McDuff appeared first on Gamesline.

In the weeks following Dawntrail’s launch, there were hundreds of thousands of voices talking about it on social media, on YouTube, in Discord servers, and on in-game chat channels. People shared their impressions and opinions about its story, pacing, characters; everything you’d expect. I cannot give a comprehensive portrayal of these myriad voices, at least not without conducting innumerable surveys and interviews, but broadly speaking, what intrigued me the most was how there was no consistency on which part or parts of Dawntrail were “good” or “bad.” There were players who liked the first half, but found the second half bizarre and jarring, and there were players who found the first half boring but thoroughly enjoyed the latter half. There were players who strongly felt that it did not have enough voice acting, while others enjoyed the performances and were highly enthusiastic about characters old and new. Dawntrail has certainly been a divisive installment, to say the least, something that I haven’t seen since the Stormblood days.

With the whole of Dawntrail’s story completed, and the narrative now shifting gears as it leads us into the next expansion, I feel ready to talk. I will only be touching upon the story of this expansion, as an all-encompasing review of its new gameplay additions, features, quality-of-life updates, and such would widen the scope of this piece to the point of losing focus. Furthermore, many such additions can and already have been altered from their initial state at launch, whereas the writing of the Main Scenario Questline is very rarely altered outside of typos or errors. I also won’t cover the story in its entirety so as to remain as spoiler-free as possible; this will make sense in a bit when I get to one of my criticisms.

[There are minor spoilers for Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Dawntrail in this article.]

Dawntrail is an expansion that excels in the details. Sure, it has a grandiose plot with mystery, drama, and epic set pieces the likes of which we’ve seen all across FFXIV before, but that’s par for the course, that’s what players expect. It starts with the uncovering of a mysterious letter from her grandfather, mentioning a “golden city,” and quickly leads into a Rite of Succession for Tuliyollal, a nation spread across two continents. In any of the other expansions, the whole story would revolve around the trials involved in that Rite, but Dawntrail concludes that arc halfway through its runtime, and for the first time in any expansion in FFXIV, the road is left open without any signposting about where the story will go. The northern continent is made accessible, and players go on a whimsical non-sequitur questline about troubles in a wild west frontier town. There’s a saloon, there’s a catboy sheriff, there are tumbleweed crabs, there are dinosaurs; it’s a whole thing and it’s incredible.

The first time I played it, I briefly forgot I was playing Final Fantasy XIV, the MMORPG. That’s how well the story drew me in. It felt like a breath of fresh air, like I was experiencing what this game would be like if it were taken off the rails and allowed to descend into the Beast Road; that is, allowed to break free of its constraints as a railroaded storyline and be a truly open-world experience. It still was a railroaded storyline at that point (hell, it even becomes a story about a literal railroad later on) but one could see, however faintly, an alternate version of this game where exploration and discovery were the driving force behind its story, and not the other way around.

Right at the conclusion of this leg of the journey, there’s an explosive earthquake that’s foreshadowed so lightly, you’d miss it if you weren’t paying enough attention. A giant purple dome suffused with lightning appears on the horizon, and flying futuristic airships start pouring out of it, heading for the capital city of Tuliyollal. This leads into the second half of Dawntrail, which goes into the mysterious dome, its denizens, and the conflict between them and Tuliyollal which seems all but inevitable.

One of my criticisms of Dawntrail is that what’s in the dome was spoiled in some respects through pre-release material. There’s a city in there that is unlike anything in FFXIV, and feels wildly out of place even among the more science-fiction locales of the game. It’s stunning and impressive and extremely cool… and it was shown off well before Dawntrail launched, denying tuned-in players a chance to experience it fresh and in its proper context. It’s the sort of thing that should’ve been kept secret, and FFXIV has often withheld certain locations in upcoming expansions from pre-release material to keep them as surprises. This city should have been one such surprise.

Be that as it may, this dual-nature of Dawntrail serves to reinforce many of its narrative throughlines and messages. Stormblood has been the only other expansion so far to be split in some capacity, but that story was still unified in its overall themes about the impact of war on people and land, why liberation is a cause worth fighting for, and how even the mightiest of foes, be they constructs of faith or machines of empire can be toppled and dismantled when pushed with many hands. The split was geographical, but not textual. 

This is not to say Dawntrail has two different messages, but rather that the first half tackles and searches for what it means to be a good leader for one’s community, and how communities can be strengthened within themselves and made even stronger by building bridges to other communities, and the second half begins by taking one possible answer to those questions and accelerating it to its logical extreme, with all of the horrifying consequences made manifest. After all, your communities, your people, need land and resources to survive and thrive; running out of either would mean that you did not take proper care of your people and thus are a bad leader, so it is only righteous and just for you to find new lands and new resources and claim them for the sake of you & yours. Even if they belong to someone else, the needs of your people must come first.

It is this duality which makes Dawntrail fascinating to me, as players have mentioned disliking one half or the other. The story works best when intertwined as it is, and yet some are quick to bring up complaints I haven’t heard since Stormblood. Stormblood itself was split between the region of Gyr Abania and the eastern continent of Othard, and several voices following its launch in 2017 expressed preference for something more monoptic. They wanted either an expansion solely within Gyr Abania, or one solely within Othard, and didn’t like that the story was separated across these areas. These old complaints always struck me as odd, because they seemed to dislike the presentation and not the actual story, as Heavensward did not receive any such criticisms despite being split across the regions of Coerthas, Dravania, and the Sea of Clouds (i.e. it wasn’t solely about Ishgard, from the Ishgard perspective). Echoes of these sentiments have resurfaced for Dawntrail, and while they do address the narrative more than just the setting this time, they still come across as being arguments on the principle rather than the material. All of the expansions and thus all of FFXIV’s story has been told through the connection to a wide variety of different cultures and peoples across all kinds of places, and this is why one of the prime questions that pop up in conversations about upcoming expansions is “where are we going next?”

This drew me to an understanding of Dawntrail which may explain why there are so many differing perspectives on it. I believe that Dawntrail is an amalgam; a combination of every previous part of FFXIV combined and condensed into one single expansion. It has the slower pace and worldbuilding emphasis of A Realm Reborn and the earlier parts of Shadowbringers; it has the trek into enemy territory and reconciliation between opposing nations present in Heavensward; its dual nature I’ve already likened to Stormblood, but it also has a bit of the “war story” and leadership soul-searching present there. To cap it off, it takes the triumphant, defiant answer given to The Question posed at the end of Endwalker and immediately perverts it, twisting it into a nightmare scenario that has far-reaching implications for the universe of FFXIV. It’s got a bit of everything from everywhere.

This admixture is necessarily diluted as a result. One of the antagonists of Dawntrail has a backstory that is all but absent, which makes his motivations flat and uninspired (especially in a game with impressive villains.) While this narrative lacuna was addressed in a post-launch patch, it would’ve had a more lasting impact if shown before his demise and not after, as it makes his final moments comical to the point of absurdity. There’s a historical faction introduced toward the end of Dawntrail, who are only brought up as a matter of trivia in the base expansion. This faction ends up being very important later on, so their mention serves as foreshadowing, but given the extent to which they impact the narrative, it again comes across as something that should’ve been addressed in the base storyline, but was held back in favor of ending the initial story on a high note. 

There’s also a case to be made that Dawntrail tips its balancing act too heavily toward the latter half, leaving the nation of Tuliyollal and many of its denizens (like the ever-charming Wuk Evu), who are the focus of the first half, out to dry in favor of the thunder dome and the many loose threads trailing out of it. Many of the threads left open regarding its first half are addressed in side stories and activities, but to put things into perspective for the main story: the thunder dome and the history behind it are responsible for five of the currently six major boss fights, with two of them taking place within the dome, two of them in a place previously attached to the dome, and the latest one in the region the dome came from.

It’s not that Dawntrail has a bad story, however, or that its foibles are particularly unique in FFXIV. Heavensward kills off two major characters through self-sacrifice, and while one of them is afforded intimacy in a tender final moment, who is remembered by fans over a decade after their death because of said moment, the other is blasted out of the sky to die a lonesome disintegrating death, and who isn’t afforded the same ceremony or reverence by fans all these years later, and you get three guesses as to which character is a woman. Stormblood arguably has the worst writing in the whole Main Scenario so far, with the baffling decision to bring in a comic relief gillionaire-type character to ask him, in earnest, how to help an ailing nation recently recovering from imperial occupation, to which his reply is “well you can’t just give them money because then they won’t develop the working mindset needed to make it in this economy!” Even the beloved Shadowbringers has some pacing issues leading up to the end of its second act, and while I can appreciate that crafting a mountain-sized golem takes time and many hands, that questionable pacing is why Dawntrail turns its homage to this exact sequence into a quick and cute montage.

One could argue that Dawntrail’s story tries to do too much in too short a time; it has to introduce several new characters, locales, and story hooks; it has to follow up on the impressive finale of Endwalker; and it has to set the stage for the next major story saga. All things considered, I find it was more than merely satisfactory, but impressive in its own right. From my viewpoint that Dawntrail is a combination of every other part of the story blended together, the result is something familiar yet refreshingly new. It’s still Final Fantasy XIV as I’ve known it. It’s still keeping in form and function with both its connection to the rest of the MMO as well as its place within the Final Fantasy lineage. It’s just told in a new light through a new perspective.

Previously, the story of FFXIV has built up the player character as The Warrior of Light; champion of the wronged and the weak, seeker of truth and justice, and ender of apocalypses. Every major story beat has been punctuated by a formidable foe who bars the path or threatens the innocent, who must be laid low by the player character. Often, the Warrior of Light is the only one powerful enough to contend with these adversaries for one reason or another, and while the powers of friendship, sheer determination, and hope do much to bolster efforts in vanquishing villains, much of the narrative is built around small acts of kindness, favors, and chores.

Much and more has been said and bemoaned about “the MMO fetch quest” wherein a player is tasked with collecting some amount of items and delivering them to someone, but even in the earliest days of A Realm Reborn, FFXIV has always used simple quests like these to provide context, build out the world, flesh out characters, and inform the player of details. Skip through the dialogue and you’ll miss that the bucket of water a bar’s owner asked you to fill up and dump on a rowdy patron, was done so because he was being incredibly racist to someone else, behavior which the bar’s owner tells you is unfortunately common in these parts but which he forbids in his establishment.

There are hundreds of examples like that one in the multiple quests throughout the game, and they serve to build up the player character as a true hero. The Warrior of Light isn’t someone who only appears when a battle needs winning, who is only known for violence. They’re renowned for their incredible acts of selflessness, kindness, and communal love, too. It is this focus on building up someone to be a champion of the people, who is driven by action and a burning desire to do right by their neighbors, which sells the concept of the Warrior of Light. This resonant fiber is stitched throughout every chapter of the Main Scenario Quest, and this extends into Dawntrail as well, only this time there’s a twist and it comes in the form of Wuk Lamat, the deuteragonist of Dawntrail. Even calling her “deuteragonist” doesn’t do her character justice, as Wuk Lamat’s journey is a core aspect of Dawntrail, and why she is one of the game’s most interesting characters.

Introduced at the tail of Endwalker, Wuk Lamat approaches the player character with a proposition: be her ally in the upcoming Rite of Succession for Tuliyollal’s head of government. She is the underdog (undercat?) of the contest, and the exploits of the Warrior of Light compel her to seek them out and request their assistance. She is earnest and eager, but out of her depth, and aware of that fact. While she has no selfish ambition to take the Dawn Throne for herself, she is driven to counteract the frontrunner contestant who plans to plunge Tural into a war with nations across Eorzea and beyond. She’s not strictly in it to win, but he must lose at the very least.

The Rite of Succession requires contestants to connect with several communities across the southern continent of Yok Tural, completing their requests as decided by community leaders in whichever manner they see fit. Some leaders use the Rite as a means of educating the participants in their local culture, while others have pressing concerns and see the Rite as an opportunity to have an urgent need met. This Rite is analogous to A Realm Reborn, wherein the player traveled around Eorzea meeting leaders of various communities, towns, and organizations, doing favors and services for them in exchange for information, cooperation, supplies, and support. The context is different but the motions are the same. There’s even an undercurrent of mystery; A Realm Reborn had the looming threat of the Garlean Empire and the shadowy machinations of the Ascians, while Dawntrail’s primary mystery surrounds the “golden city of Tural” and how to locate it, which is actually the final objective of the Rite of Succession.

It is through this Rite, and all the trials and challenges that come with it, that Wuk Lamat is sharpened and shaped into the leader she wants to be for her people. Much like how the Warrior of Light was forged from a simple adventurer into a true hero over the course of A Realm Reborn, Wuk Lamat is built up in the same manner. One of the earliest complaints about Dawntrail was that its story defocused the player character in order to put Wuk Lamat centerstage. While it makes sense that some players would have that takeaway, especially after how intensely Shadowbringers and Endwalker made the player character the central focus of their stories, such a perspective fails to realize the role the player character is given and how it complements the narrative of Dawntrail.

The Warrior of Light’s role in Dawntrail is that of the mentor. The example I’ve been using for over a year now is Auron from Final Fantasy X; an older, more experienced party member who can be relied upon both for their combat prowess as well as their wisdom and worldly insights. Dawntrail’s story is refreshing and exciting because it makes another character the focal point, allowing the player character to run support for them, and then maintains that shift throughout most of its runtime. Riding shotgun for another character’s story is done plenty of times in and out of the main story of FFXIV, but Dawntrail capitalizes on the concept by focusing on Wuk Lamat, Krile, Erenville, Sphene, Gulool Ja, and a few others all throughout. This paradigm shift enhances Dawntrail’s messages on communities and families and coming together to build a better tomorrow, by allowing the characters who can best convey those messages the proper attention and narrative respect.

But I want to focus on Wuk Lamat in particular, because this mentorship role the player character has with her left a lasting impression I still think about to this day. I said Dawntrail was a combination of every other part of FFXIV, and I see that in Wuk Lamat too. From her introduction and all throughout Dawntrail’s story, I see myself in her. I see a fledgling me, nervous about playing with random players but eager to learn how to tank so I could be ready when I got to Heavensward and could unlock Dark Knight. In Wuk Lamat, I see every new player; the ones to whom I’ve given advice, or assistance, or just some words of encouragement. As she grows throughout the story, I see the growth of every player, myself included. You see her confidence grow, her doubts subside, and her resolve crystallize, until she’s a warrior in her own light: A Warrior of Dawn.

There’s a part in Dawntrail where the crew has to board a hot air balloon to fly deep into the jungle, and Wuk Lamat is embarrassed but finally admits to the player character that she is nervous about the flight, and asks if they can hold her hand. Now, I’ve made several alternate characters in FFXIV, and when I come to dialogue options in the story, I’ll pick the ones that seem appropriate for the character I’m playing, or I’ll pick the options I’d never pick for my main character just to see the alternate dialogue. I have never denied Wuk Lamat a steady hand to hold. I cannot speak to the performances in other languages, but Sena Bryer does such a phenomenal job portraying Wuk Lamat as a character brimming with kindheartedness, strength, and sincerity, that my calcified skeleton heart is immediately incinerated with warmth when she asks for help.

That is what makes Dawntrail special to me. It is a story about what makes family and community important to us, and how to strengthen our ties to them. It’s about how to forge new bonds and reinforce old ones which are wavering or even broken. It’s about how to weather change, and to possess both the reason and the resolve to identify and act when the only sensible option forward is to sever the ties that bind us; be they to the past or to people who have wronged us. It builds up these ideas bit by bit in the first half, and then uses the second to test them, twist them, and ultimately make them more resilient. It’s not content to simply state “Wuk Lamat is a good leader because she cares about her people and that’s why she wins the Rite of Succession!” It demonstrates the strength of her character by building her up in the same manner as the Warrior of Light, turning the perceived weakness of her reliance on others into one of her greatest powers—a staple message of FFXIV at this point, but the perspective shift given to the player character makes it shine because she learns it from us—and then playing her off of another character who shares her virtues but who has taken them too far.

I believe Dawntrail to be an expansion story with flaws like any other chapter in Final Fantasy XIV. But for all of the divisiveness it’s seemingly instilled, I also believe it’ll be looked back on fondly. When we’re further on into this saga’s storyline, and the Dawntrail callbacks start hitting like waves of nostalgia; when Wuk Lamat, my third-favorite Dawntrail character, shows up with Mr. Baby President and Shale from IT to help us out of a jam, that’s when people will realize what I’ve known all along. Dawntrail was an excellent tale, and a solid foundation for the future of Final Fantasy XIV.

The post Dawntrail’s Duality and What Makes It Shine appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s a new year, which means the Gamesline Podcast is back from our break. This week, Scott takes over as host and is joined by Nikolas, Lorelai, and Jackson. Jackson’s been digging into The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, and Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker. Lorelai is just ahead of him there digging into the newest patch of Dawntrail when she isn’t obsessing about Unbeatable. Scott’s been digging into a bunch of different stuff while Nikolas has them all beat with Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade and Three Houses, Mother 3, Patrick’s Parabox, and Caveman World: Mountains of Unga Boonga. He also found a mysterious 3DS in his house. In the news, Swen Vickne really loves sticking his foot in his mouth and Limited Run Games co-founder Josh Fairhurst is leaving the company soon.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, Scott, Lorelai, Jackson, 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 and Produced by Scott

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 79: New Year, New Houses appeared first on Gamesline.

I am not immune to this kind of retrospective. This year has been a massive learning experience for me. I’ve started writing about video games beyond just talking at my friends about them; my novel, which sounded like an insane combination of words just a year ago, currently exceeds 100,000 words; I’ve made and kept a group of wonderful friends.

This is also the point where I begin reflecting on my relationship with media. My ruminations on media were extensive and my entire relationship with art has changed—or at least I’d like to believe. For a long time, I was a victim of my own bad habits: I would devour art. On the surface, that doesn’t sound bad. Devouring implies a ravenous appetite for sure, but devouring something can also imply appreciation, right? For me, I fear I would have to say no. Often, I felt like others were getting something out of this medium that I was not.

Watching my friends play video games, I was enamored with their greater sense of appreciation. They were not suffering from my own checklist-minded, objective-oriented approach to gaming. They lingered in these digital worlds, remaining for only as long as it pleased them to do so; the pleasures of the fantasy taking them to places unknown.

The change I wanted to manifest most in myself this year was to find the same sort of appreciation. This little hobby of mine isn’t food; it shouldn’t be something I suckle the bone marrow from until I’m satiated, moving ever onward to something else.

Put simply, I wanted to stop and smell the digital roses.

My success was mixed, if I’m honest. I tried many new games, and I had many new experiences. Some stuck with me, others I forgot shortly after playing them, surprising me when they reappeared in my 2025 Steam replay. But truthfully, it was never my intention to “remember everything.” I had only ever intended to find the things that mattered.

So, after this lengthy year, I have come up with something of a framework for myself, something for me to share with you; the journey I have been on this year, and many years before.

The conceit of video games which has resided in my mind and has colored the very framework of their existence.

Connecting a Dream and a Machine

The humble gameplay mechanic is, to many games, a skeleton which forms the foundation of the experience; the rules as the game—and to an extent you—understands them. The jump of the platformer, the inventory and resource management of survival horror, the spatial, projectile dance of the first-person shooter; these traits, where they exist, define the games attached to them. They are a series of personal choices defining the feeling behind the game’s actions. These decisions are the formation of a fantasy.

The fantasy of gaming is what drew you to it in the first place. A set of rules which enables you to experience things, internalize stories that aren’t possible or feasible in the real world; what it’s like to be an expert sword fighter, the leader of a solar empire, or an impossibly precise musician. A game designer dreams a dream and chooses to express it to an audience. When you and the game design are in sync—when you agree to the fantasy and its means of conveyance is well constructed—you feel the things the game intends. Sometimes, you transcend the dream and manage to find one of your own. A game’s successes or failures are determined by how well it manages to capture the dream it set out to convey.

A single-player action game typically should have a fantasy which synergizes with its narrative. If the fantasy of something like Cyberpunk 2077 conceived of something like augmentation being a metaphor for losing yourself to corporate control and then didn’t have an augmentation system, that would feel incongruous; in its presence, the story and the mechanics inform one another to create a copacetic fantasy. 

Fantasies can also exist metatextually. A multiplayer first-person shooter or fighting game grants the audience a fantasy of clear self-improvement. Learning a set of behaviors makes you into an ideal player and by agreeing with the game on what its own game is, allows you to be in sync with the conveyed fantasy. Fantasy, here, is more in the execution than in the narrative; by dedicating time and energy to this set of game behaviors, you can get constant feedback of improvement in a way real life skill development doesn’t tend to have. Even then, the core fantasy at the end of the day is still there: you may indulge in the dream of being a street fighter or a gunslinger, by engaging in game mechanics analogous with the fantasy. 

To better illustrate my meaning, I’ll use two specific, personal fantasies. These will be superficially similar—at least, similar enough that your grandmother might mistakenly purchase one for the other under duress.

Devil May Cry 5 is an easy example that allows me to talk about Devil May Cry in an essay. The fantasy of Devil May Cry, at its simplest, is about being an effortlessly stylish devil hunter. In the best entries, the synergy between the narrative and the mechanical intricacies are perfectly in sync.

The skillsets of each character differentiate them mechanically, but also add interest and appeal specific to how they orbit the central fantasy of being a hyper-competent monster killer. Stamina is never a concern because, core to the fantasy, the player character would never question if they have enough juice to get through a single encounter—they simply know they do. The character’s most effective tools, in accordance with the fantasy, are metatextually limited by the abstract concept of style. It doesn’t matter if a weapon is technically the dominant, most appealing strategy; if you are playing in an efficient but homogeneous way, you will not score well.

Death in DMC is typically a momentary, fleeting inconvenience. You die and—especially in DMCV—you are granted the ability to resurrect on the spot, albeit with less style points than if you had not. Damage isn’t especially frightening unless you are attempting to go for the best score possible.

By abiding by these mechanics and the spirit they carry, you become the ideal player: you become the devil hunter seeking your own personalized journey of self-expressive violence, and ultimately your own sense of style.

Compare this to something like Dark Souls 3.

Mechanically, Dark Souls 3 encourages, at least on first play, a far more conservative, pensive approach. The game is quick to punish missteps and will require you to adroitly use the right tool for the job. In microplay, you must manage your health, stamina, and encounter-to-encounter resources like magic; this includes managing the durability of your armaments, builds, and the ablation of your resources which determines the arc of an entire play session. There is no style gauge here, no punishment for exploiting the world, the enemy, or any advantage your accumulated bank of knowledge gives you access to.

The game primes you to become the person the narrative fantasy suits: a hardened adventurer surviving a world which has all but rolled over and died. The punishment inflicted by the narrative ideally shapes the game mechanics to punish you in gameplay.

Anyone who knows anything about either of these games would obviously be correct in saying these games could not be further apart in tone or feel. But consider why this is. The games are remarkably similar when stripped of their aesthetics: you are a primarily melee-weapon-equipped dispatcher of monsters in a hostile environment. Each location requires dodge rolls, parries, ripostes; each engagement requires the ideal tool for the job and the situational awareness to know what that is. Where they differ is their mechanical approach, which grows from the fantasy they are attempting to evoke, which in turn shapes their aesthetic, making them grow apart from one another.

This divergence does not indicate either branch as being superior to the other. There is a lot of talk around what makes “objectively good game design;” I would argue such a thing does not exist. When new games come out and their design is said to be a high watermark, there is an unspoken or spoken expectation that it should somehow supersede that which has come before.

“This is how all open worlds should be designed now.”

“This is how combat should work now; everything else is inferior.”

Not every game benefits from capitulating to the same fantasy. Trends can be useful for understanding what is common, or what is most desired on average; fantasies can be demanded by an audience as well, especially when no one is seen to be building it. This should not dictate what the fundamental building blocks of art must be however.

No, I don’t believe new designs are somehow objectively superior to the old in the same way I don’t believe this year’s smart phones are objectively superior to last year’s. There are different needs for different people, different stories; ultimately, some design is as temporary as the tech waste filling tomorrow’s landfill.

Paying attention to these Mechanical Fantasies has been foundational to improving my consideration this year. I feel I am better prepared to receive what games are telling me; I am more interested in coming halfway. Where I would have griped at a particularly frictive gameplay mechanic, I find myself more likely to identify whether it captures the spirit of the game’s dream.

Streaming Signalis back in October, I was vocal about my irritation of the oppressively limited inventory. In the moment, I found it cumbersome and a contributing factor in lengthening the game. Now, I am brave enough to admit I disliked it for how it forced me to feel the pressure of resource management and scary monsters—I am, after all, still a gigantic weenie.

Considering the exact fantasy of Signalis enabled me to say it works even if it’s unpleasant to play. You are a creation of a fascist government; the programming of institutional hegemony limits your language, stymieing your ability to articulate that which oppresses you—and in the video game also. Ultimately, you can still find it distasteful, too frictive to deal with, but it does suit the story Signalis wishes to tell. Without mindfulness I wouldn’t be able to say that; I’d be just another person saying, “the game should never inconvenience me” even if that inconvenience was thoughtful design.

For less mechanically frictive games, like the Trails games I’ve indulged in this year, considering the fantasy made me something of a better actor. I was able to slip into the role the story had planned for me. Slotting into the story in both tone and spirit allowed me to find a place for myself, which the game had helpfully left open for me. Fitting the role of the role-playing game makes the experience more thoughtful, engaging, more immersive. You care. This is the heart of my understanding of Mechanical Fantasy: the calibration process which comes from wanting to meet art where it’s at. 

None of this comes easily though; it is often an unintuitive process. Many outside factors can contribute to forcing you out of sync with a game’s mechanics. Let’s talk about those factors now.

The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts and Our Own

In this era of internet communication, we are more or less constantly burdened with the weight of other’s opinions or consideration. The moment a game releases, if you’ve shown even a passing interest and find yourself victimized by discovery feeds, you are burdened with an unrelenting tide of gamer opinions. They linger in comments, they post YouTube videos, they even live in your Discords: gamers are coming to deliver their opinion, telling you that your method of playing a game is stupid and wrong.

Elden Ring upon its release, back when I still used the dipshit website for morons (formerly Twitter), was a veritable mudslide of angry gamers in the mood to talk smack. I saw everything from Spirit Ashes to the concept of magic being stated as inferiorities in playstyle. 

Accidentally, in my essay about loving games, I have maneuvered myself into a gamer catastrophe: I might need to talk at least a little bit about difficulty in gaming. Let me get my opinions clear: regardless of the game in question, the best way to play a game is by maximizing the amount of fun you find in it. Completionism, difficulty, mods, they’re all distractions from the fact that this is a hobby. You are meant to be fulfilled and have a good time doing all this; let’s not pretend we’re Oakley-wearing dads yelling at the little-league mound, none of this shit actually matters, Richard.

Yet, we are all burdened with the weight of other’s thoughts. Even speaking as flippantly as I have, I have second guessed my own ability to have a good time because of other people. There are games I have spent dozens, sometimes hundreds of hours on, because someone argued I had an obligation to calibrate myself to the whims of another person.  When calibrated to someone else’s whims, it’s easy to find yourself in positions of discomfort or pain. The desire to prove yourself to internet strangers, even those who don’t know or care that you exist, can cause you to contort yourself into positions where the fun becomes unfun.

Beyond society is our own personal inbuilt ability to carry bias. I am often embarrassed by the amount of times I just thought I knew better, or was somehow better than the game trying to instruct me. This could manifest as thinking I already knew the material and carried an in-built advantage, or just the smug certainty that I wouldn’t need to care.

This refusal to match with the fantasy of a game, either out of a misinterpretation of what the fantasy is or because of the dreams imposed by other people, leads to disconnection and friction. You throw yourself against the game’s mechanics; you burn yourself out doing the things the game isn’t demanding of you; you forget what you’re even doing this for.

This doesn’t even need to be out of bias; sometimes, our own prior experiences render us incompatible with a story. That is a topic one could discuss at length, but in short, sometimes it’s not anyone’s fault—there’s nothing to correct. The correct action is simply choosing to walk away and find something better aligned to your dreams.

I’ve made the mistake of not walking away many times myself. To illustrate how easy it is to fall into such mistakes, I shall share two such cases now. Mercifully, in these cases I learned from my mistakes with time; though, there is still the potential for me to make them again in the future. My intention is not to paint myself as a victim of circumstance. I am a fallible person but in making my mistakes public, perhaps you–and even I–might derive some meaning from it. 

Exhibit A: Beyond the Pale

We are once again forced to dwell in the bygone year of 2019 or so; forgive me, as an amnesiac I only have so many memories to call upon; we’re probably going to be here a few more times.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a 2019 FromSoft action game of some repute. I was not originally going to meet its release date—life circumstances being what they were—until a friend’s generosity saw my life’s trajectory once more altered. FromSoft had ridden high in my mind for years, hitting home run after home run; each of these releases from Dark Souls to Dark Souls 3 had compelled me into a hundred-hour transaction. I had expected Sekiro to be no different.  

To reiterate a rhetorical passage from an earlier review: I fucking hated it.

Sekiro, to my fascination, is simultaneously similar and dissimilar from FromSoft’s prior Souls offerings. The slashing of swords and the presence of bosses to slay is staple, yet there is only one primary melee weapon and no real “build-crafting” to its gameplay. “Stealth mechanics? In a FromSoft game? How odd!” many felt. Self-resurrection featuring prominently in its identity had many speculating if this wasn’t to be the easiest FromSoft game yet.

One internet firestorm and an incredibly funny copypasta later, it was determined this was not the case.

So, where did Lily fall on this?

First, some background context. Credits had been rolled on basically every contemporary FromSoft game in the Soulsborne sphere (even some Armored Core, but that is a story for yet another time). I was not immune to frustration or feelings of “stuckness,” but having played them some dozens of times to completion, I felt like I was well equipped for a new challenge. I don’t say this in the gross, gamer meritocracy way: a person need not have beaten the entire game with a plastic guitar or a banana before critiquing a game the internet likes. I say it primarily because it better articulates the mindset I was in. I was, I thought, someone at the best possible state to engage with Sekiro fairly.

I am not immune to the perspective-warping arguments that circulate around these games. I am mature enough to admit I had been subtly coerced into a mindset which did not suit growth. Playing the game with a big sword, no shield, no spells, no tools, without summons, friendless, very sweaty, made me hot or attractive or cool or all of the above, so said the internet; and up to that point, FromSoft’s games had not pushed back hard enough to disabuse me of that notion.

Then, I played Sekiro.

From the get-go, one could imagine Sekiro would be almost easier to fall into this mindset with. There were no summons; there weren’t any other weapons to make wrong choices with; there was no easy way to grind your problems away. The first few hours passed easily. The first enemies were dispatched with ease. I started appreciating the improved agility, the tactility of the audio queues of the parry system; I was permanently mutated into the plastic-plinking parry pervert who writes this essay now.

I found the first shinobi tool. Within moments, the previous web of connections and neurons in my fried, elitist brain drove me to an inevitable conclusion: this is to be discarded. Mentally, I cast it aside. It was something to distract me from the purity of my precious sword-fighting game. Even as the currency to use said shinobi tools accumulated in my inventory, I elected not to use them; I didn’t need it, so I wouldn’t use it.

The game, within a matter of hours, ceased to be particularly kind to me.

Enemies, now far greater in number, with far better weaponry for dealing with me, began to—phrased as delicately as I am able—kill the absolute fuck out of me. Bosses expanded beyond the scope of what I was capable of comfortably dealing with. Flailing, crab-crawling Voldo cosplayers; Headless corpses who would actually, literally, fist your soul out of your ass; a really, really fucked up bull.

How had my prior experience failed me so? I asked myself.

I managed, through immense effort and no small amount of mental-illness-induced refusal to give up, to get to the first Guardian Ape fight. I will not belabor this point. I got systematically and humiliatingly destroyed. I got destroyed in the way that makes you question why you even play video games. I got owned so hard it makes you feel like a child; like a bully has specifically targeted the load-bearing piece of your self-esteem and kicked it out from under you. I knew, even then, it was unhealthy to base this much of my self-worth on my performance in something as stupid as a game. I just didn’t care.

“I fucking hate this game,” I told anyone who would listen.

I dropped my controller and closed the chapter on Sekiro.

A year passed. A pandemic happened, and while I listlessly played what had been old comforts, Sekiro continued to gaze at me from my Steam library. I had nothing better to do, I reasoned, and I decided to take the plunge again.

The first chunk of the game passed in much the same way. I played, got frustrated, took breaks, came back. In lockdown, it wasn’t like I had much else to occupy my time, and the confidence-bruising boss fights couldn’t make my mental state much worse. Grinding away, I made many of the same mistakes and found myself descending the same path again.

Then, through sheer coincidence, I met a character I had not given much attention to previously. Isshin Ashina is an important character in Sekiro’s world. Mechanically, he is a vendor who grants you scrolls which improve your already robust abilities; narratively, he’s mentor, opposition, and provisioner of lore; but in that moment, he acted as a bridge between the narrative and the mechanics. He gave me the gift of a single set of lines.

“About the ways of the Ashina blade… It’s our school of fighting, but there are no hard and fast rules. You just win your battles. That alone is the most important rule of the Ashina style.”

It seems simple, but it was a revelation then—it single handedly broke down every wall in my way. “None of this honor shit matters, there are no rules,” he seemed to say, “just win.” The gears, previously grinding, found their tread; I had recalibrated.

Connecting to the fantasy of Sekiro—that of the Shinobi inured to bloodshed and willing to do anything to win—did not suddenly make the game easy. There were still fights to win or lose, there was still training I needed to grind into my fingers and hands. But suddenly, there were no rules to force myself to abide by. The game didn’t hurt anymore.

The idea of needing to synchronize with a game was certainly planted then, but had not grown. Arguably, it made a secondary, worse idea:

“I can’t trust my gut instinct. I need to give everything a fair shake or else I risk acting like this again.”

More to the point, it also made me hostage to the fear that I was “missing” something. People did not like things by accident; they were clearly seeing something you weren’t. This prompted me into the second parenthetical to come. A second revisitation and another anecdote; my apologies.

Exhibit B: A Perpetual State of Indifference

My partner is a superfan of Final Fantasy XIV. Over the course of about 3 years of our relationship, she tried to convince me to play it approximately 94,608,000 times. At the time, I smugly asserted—despite my previous and ongoing affection for the Final Fantasy series—it wasn’t for me.  MMOs were something I could not imagine the appeal of; the grinding, the social interdependency, and the general fantasy did not sit with me. The wrath of Counter Strike’s finest had ensured I wasn’t interested in environments where social conduct was something I needed to count on in others.

At heart, I’m still a romantic though. Seeing the excitement in her eyes during one of her visits from over 1500 miles away as she watched the world premiere of the Shadowbringers teaser trailer in 2018, I was inspired to give it a try.

To reiterate a rhetorical passage from earlier in this very article: I fucking hated it.

Once more, I’m emotionally mature enough to admit wrongdoing. I played Final Fantasy XIV wrong in just about every way possible to play it wrong. If Sekiro was the finger painting in the art of playing games wrong, this was me sculpting marble busts dedicated to playing them wrong.

I played the story singlemindedly, desperate to find these supposed “good parts” of this game. I walked when I could have rode, in a self-flagellating exercise in better hating this world I had begrudgingly paid money for. I pressed one button in a rotation, when I should have pressed three, all the while saying this game was brain-dead and empty for not forcing me to do better. I zoned out in dungeons and generally made my partner drag my limp body through slate-colored piss cave after slate-colored piss cave. I make myself sound more intentionally villainous in my misbehavior than perhaps is due; from my perspective at the time, I was trying; I simply did not understand how to make the gears click.

To me, the writing was pedestrian and slow, the worldbuilding was cool but constantly forcing me to run this-way-and-that doing favors for people. The coolest parts of the game, I believed, were inexplicably hidden behind hours of busy work. My partner put up with many thankless hours of my grumbling, intolerant prejudging to show me something she loved very much; and to spend time with me.

“Just get to Heavensward,” I told myself. “Just get there, and that’s where the game gets good.” That’s what I had been told, and I had no issues blindly believing it.

Imagine my disappointment then, when Heavensward gave me much of the same. Worse, it had introduced me to, at first blush, the exact sort of traditional fantasy that I went to Final Fantasy to escape from in the first place. Elves in a cold stone castle under attack by dragons.

“Babe. I can’t do this.”

“That’s ok. Thank you for trying it.”

And then we did something else. Even then, it made my heart hurt, disappointing someone I loved so much.

Then a pandemic happened. Then Sekiro happened. Then, as mentioned before, I doubted myself. I decided to give a game I maligned another chance.

So, I booted up Destiny 2. I played it for 500 hours during the pandemic in the most mentally ill state this body could manage and let me tell you: that game is still a piece of shit!

Then, after getting that out of my system, in 2021, I pivoted to Final Fantasy XIV.

It felt strange being back in this betrayed game. I reemerged into this virtual world in the same place, the same position now years later; time appearing to restart as I arrived. Overjoyed at my change of heart, my partner was once more along for the ride. Many of my grievances were still the same: stiff writing, banal world building, snow, dragons. Whatever.

Then, I found the Dark Knight questline. Then, I played the Dark Knight questline. I cried many incredibly complicated tears over the Dark Knight questline; an incredible number of mental-illness-related tears were shed because of the Dark Knight questline.  

Another set of clunking gears snapped into place. I found my calibration in the fantasy of the world. In a fashion, I discovered more than one fantasy could exist within the fantasy; if a dream was big enough, it could contain other dreams. Here was a class, a role in the game, whose writing seemed just as irritated at the banality of being a yes man to the whims of fate. Sometimes, you can’t help but express near vengeful derision at being used by people who don’t appreciate you. Yet, it is because you care about people, you care so much about being a protector for those the world would see fit to discard, you must care. Someone has to.

I wailed to myself. I had fucked up again. I had somehow managed to once again get a game completely wrong.

The game whispered, “I forgive you; I forgive you; I forgive you.”

After that, my avatar stopped being a polygonal cage and started being as real as the meat and blood I presently occupy. My calibration afforded me the ability to find a place in this virtual world. I could feel things about it; I could imagine that which the world did not stipulate. It wasn’t about difficulty or the right or wrong way of doing things. It was about reaching out just as far as the game reached to me; letting our gears intermesh until we could understand one another.

Final Fantasy XIV is now one of my most played games.  It’s something I still play frequently with my partner. This calibration to the fantasy of the game was not me somehow breaking or lowering my standards; I realized I just needed to be willing to allow myself to connect. The mechanics and the world design of XIV are often at odds. There are flaws in the way it presents the dream it wants you to feel—even I can admit that as a fan. But, even imperfect things can be worth finding value in, if you’re willing to try. Aligning myself, and discovering the dream that suited me within the fantasy, allowed me to care. I clicked into place and found my own in the many disparate dreams which make up this strange, slow, incoherent, beautiful world.

Force Your Way

My framework, my anecdotes, are not meant to convince you my perspective is correct. I have struggled for a long time to feel like I was enjoying things correctly; this is my little attempt to make this make sense to me. Finding the point of synchronicity between myself and a game was something I had to fight for.

Everyone dreams. Everyone has their little, illogical, private dreams. Maybe you imagine being the kind of person who can own a successful business or run an empire. Maybe you’re someone who dreams about brandishing a raw, impossible slab of iron, wielded to protect those who can’t protect themselves. Maybe you dream about just having the energy to clean your room or take care of yourself.

Our shared hobby has room for all these dreams. Allowing myself to sink into the dreams of others has allowed me to find and appreciate things I never knew were within me. Taking the time to think, “what is the fantasy the creator is trying to share with me?” has enabled me to find the stories that best sing to my soul.

I’m not saying thinking this way will liberate you from playing bad or mediocre games ever again, far from it. Playing many games just gives you much more opportunity to play something disappointing. For me, thinking this way is worth it. Games can succeed or fail at delivering a dream. They can do things badly or contradictory and you still endure the lost potential of what could have been. Trust me, I have been haunted by the thought of games just short of being amazing.

Really, this is not self-help. Art is profoundly useless; but it still might save you. This is an exercise for the soul. Feeling things is a muscle you need to exercise. Meeting a game halfway isn’t weakness or rule breaking. Sometimes, you just need to take your feelings out, rotate them in your palm, and find what you need right now.

Play isn’t something taught. You can’t intellectually get into a state of play. It’s something you find, feel, grow within yourself. In this hobby, and its attached parasitic industry, so obsessed with achievement and right and wrong ways of playing, it can be easy to forget this is something we do for fun. Even now, however, this is a part of you that remembers how to dream. This is a part, if you are like me, that you can grow, and grow, and grow; No matter what your age, it can grow. So, make it a pleasant dream, for your own sake.  

The post Mechanical Fantasies or: How I Made an Art Out of Playing Games Wrong appeared first on Gamesline.

Lorelai takes on hosting duties this week, and shares her thoughts on Ghost of Yōtei and Final Fantasy XIV! Crystal gives a disappointing report card to Final Fantasy IX, and reappraises Dark Souls III! Nikolas educates everybody on PvZ Fusion, the history of Plants vs. Zombies fangames, and their treatment by EA!

Plus, they discuss news and announcements such as the internal cancellation of an American Reconstruction Assassin’s Creed, a new mobile Dissidia game, and one more Goku for FighterZ.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, Lorelai, 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 and Produced by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 71: PvZ: Ghost of Dark Fantasy XXVI appeared first on Gamesline.

John, Lorelai, and Lily convene on this Gamesline podcast to discuss the quality of ex-professional wresters’ acting careers. Then, video games. This week, John and Lily tried to Trails in the Sky 1st Remake demo, Lorelai and Lily go in-depth on the Final Fantasy XIV patch, and the PVP event in Umamusume happened and was horrifying. In the news, Gamescom, Silksong, Kirby Air Riders, Bungie’s CEO leaving, and more!

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @TheGamesline, John, Lorelai, and Lily.

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 and Produced by Lorelai.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 64: You Don’t Get Better Than Dave Bautista appeared first on Gamesline.

John is joined this week by Crystal, Lilith, and Jackson to talk about all the games they’ve been playing. John’s been playing Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army while Jackson’s been streaming a lot of PEAK when he’s not playing Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. Lily’s been digging into the Lies of P DLC and playing the demo for Parkside: Decayed Soul Manipulation while Crystal started up Final Fantasy IX and has been playing Eastward. The crew also goes over the news from Warner Games, Sakurai getting heat, Dreamsettler being cancelled, and a whole bunch of Donkey Kong.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @TheGamesline, Scott, John, Lilith, Jackson, 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

Video Production by Scott

Here’s an excerpt by Crystal:

[Listener Question: Which Donkey Kong characters do you think could eat 15 ice cream cones at once without getting a headache?]

John: I don’t think Lanky feels… anything. I think that he would eat those ice creams and I don’t think he could process the concept of “cold.” He’s like a fucked-up homunculus.

Jackson: It’s not a real creature, it’s a clay golem.

Lilith: Monkey as imagined by Hunter S. Thompson.

John: I’m gonna be honest, I feel like that is just something that all Kongs would be able to do. I think Kongs can just eat whatever. They’re big apes.

Lilith: Are you implying that Kong is a title you earn after eating 15 ice cream cones?

John: No! They’re like… they’re apes. That’s just what they are. I don’t know, can a real gorilla eat a bunch of ice cream cones? I mean, they would probably get brain freeze because we get brain freeze. Diddy Kong is a monkey, he has a tail.

Jackson: Yeah, but he’s still a Kong. He’s still part of the group. I’m thinking Donkey and Diddy can’t, but Dixie and Candy can, and it makes them really mad. It’s something they passively work towards, and when they do it Dixie and Candy are like: “We don’t care. This doesn’t mean anything.”

Lilith: You’re describing an episode of that old animated Donkey Kong series.

John: I was about to say that is 100% just from the animated show, oh my god. Yeah, if we’re taking that into account then I guess Yeti Kong would be eating all the ice cream, cause he’s in the cold, he’s a Yeti.

Jackson: Yeti Kong??

John: Okay, so Bluster Kong can’t, but Leo Luster can.

Jackson: What are you saying??

Crystal: I’m learning so much!

John: Everyone’s saying “Oh John with the lore, he should be going into it more,” and now I’m out here talking about fuckin’ Leo Luster, oh my god. That series is all available on Youtube now. I don’t know if they did that to line up with Bananza or what. Donkey Kong is not one of my favorite Nintendo properties, okay?!

Lilith: Do you think Funky Kong could do it?

John: Oh, totally. 100%.

Crystal: I think Funky Kong would get a headache, but he would try to tank it and not show it.

Lilith: Oh, so he’s crying behind the sunglasses.

Jackson: He walks behind a corner so nobody can see him and he curls into a ball like “Ouughhhhh… oughhhh!!”

John: He’s trembling behind his surfboard!

Jackson: “Ohhhh, why’d I do this…”

John: Oh, Funky Kong is like the L.A. Beast of Kongs, I can see that.

Jackson: I was just thinking like, he’s not going to eat them one at a time, he’s going to put them all into a big banana float and then chug it. And he’s like, “Yeah, I’m fine!”

John: Yeah, exactly, and like ten minutes later he’d be yarfing like crazy, and that would be in the video. Oh yes, the new Bananza Kongs, we can’t forget them. Do you think Grumpy Kong and Void Kong and Poppy Kong could do it?

Jackson: Poppy’s not doing it. Poppy’s watching them and just shaking their head no, like “This is stupid.”

John: “Nah, I’m not participating in that.” But then Void Kong is like “I’ll do it for evil!!”

Jackson: First ice cream in, Void Kong headache, freaking out, tapping out. And then Grumpy’s on their 30th cone like, “What?”

John: “There was a contest? Okay.”

Jackson: “Okay, yeah, whatever.”

John: Donkey Kong… [laughs]. Thank you Ina for the question. Let’s do one last question from chat and then we’ll wrap this up. Maverick is asking, “Do you think that Banjo and Conker could also eat the ice cream?”

Lilith: Conker’s too hungover to do it.

John: Banjo? Absolutely. Kazooie? I think Kazooie would also be someone who’s above it, but I think Kazooie could do it. Kazooie wouldn’t want to do it, but Kazooie could do it.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 55: A Fleischeresque Hellscape appeared first on Gamesline.

John is joined by Scott, Lorelai, and Lilith to go over the goings-on in the gaming sphere! After a long talk about Western comics, the crew goes over Konami’s fashionably late not-E3 stream, and everyone had something to get excited about in it except John’s and his Yu-Gi-Oh expectations. The crew has all played Deltarune‘s new chapters, and they have thoughts! Plus, Lorelai and the Nioh 3 test, Lilith went deep on the Next Fest demos, Scott’s Nightreigning, and John beat Xenoblade Chronicles X.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @TheGamesline, Lorelai, John, Scott, and Lilith.

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

Here’s an excerpt by Crystal:

[Listener Question: What is your favorite evil choice in a game?]

John: Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t have a great answer. I’m never really inclined to do that. I’m such a goody two-shoes I just want to do the nice things.

Scott: Doing evil choices in video games is fundamentally unpopular, people only want to be good.

John: And sometimes in a lot of games it just sucks!

Lilith: Most of the time, an evil choice in a video game amounts to something that’s a bad option for literally everyone involved. You’re just doing it to be a dick.

Scott: Right, games that actually embrace what an evil choice would be are games where you gain something out of it that you wouldn’t otherwise, because you’re incentivized to treat people that way. Like, that quest in Pathologic 1 where you’re carrying a bunch of food around, and you can just steal that food. Because otherwise, what’s the point? You’re not going to get much out of this otherwise.

Lilith: Most evil acts that we understand in real life come from this—as silly as it is to say, the smallest scale of it is choosing not to return the cart at the grocery store. Real evil choices are just that exploded in scale, where it’s like “I could spend $300 million to give my employees healthcare, but then I wouldn’t have $300 million.” So, if we’re really answering it that way, the best evil choice in video games is giving a poor person a gold coin and then immediately pickpocketing it back from them.

Lorelai: That’s honestly what I was going to go with. There’s so many games where you can do it, like all of the games from Larian where you spend a ton of money buying everything and you just steal it all back. Or you just steal a thing, sell it to them, then buy it from them.

John: I’ll always love that clip where it’s a Khajiit that robs you, and then they turn around and you take it back and they’re just like, “It was worthless, I don’t care.”

Lorelai: In Divinity: Original Sin, there was this one plotline with a beggar who’s like, “Hey man, I’m gonna steal from that cart over there so I can get some food. Can you please watch out for me?” And you can be like, “Yeah man, I can do it.” and then immediately tattle on him to a cop. And then you can watch him get taken to jail, for the thing you said you were going to spot him on, and you can then go to that jail, and then murder him in jail, and take the thing he stole.

Scott: I love open-ended games. It’s nice that we’re having an actual exploration of what it means to be a shitty person. You obviously should never do something like this in real life, but the fact that you can simulate it in some way… that is an achievement on its own.

John: I will say, I don’t fully think that it’s a really amazing way to do it, but I do appreciate that they give you the Accomplice option in Persona 4. Figuring out what was going on, and being like, “You know what… I’m into it, let’s keep it going.” That’s interesting. I don’t think it fully pulls it off, but I think it’s an interesting concept and I would love to see that kind of stuff happening again. If Metaphor had a thing where it was like, “You know what, this Louis guy… I’m gonna team up with him, fuck y’all,” that could be interesting!

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 54: Whipping It Out! appeared first on Gamesline.

10: Metaphor: ReFantazio

It’s probably the best game the Persona team has made in over 10 years which is kind of a realm shared with only 1 other game given the Persona 4 and 5 spin-offs and re-releases, but still an admirable accomplishment all the same. Even though I think it’s incredibly weak with its anti-racism angle, it’s still doing much better than Persona 5 did (even if it still doesn’t escape several liberal trappings). The job system was great and a fun way to mix the Persona/SMT system up. I wish the pacing was better near the end but some of the last reveals are still pretty close to peak, and you can feel a lot of heart within.

9: UFO 50

I don’t like retro games that much, but I adore the presentation and layout of this collection. I think the blend of QoL features without losing the original sensation of booting up a Wii-ass Virtual Console game and being blindsided by how obtuse things were is really fantastic. I need to get back to the collection someday but, I mean, it’s 50 whole games. 

8: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

A fantastic Metroidvania with really great combat and traversal ideas. When you realize you can just ping pong yourself back and forward through time mid-combo, it feels like a dream. I also respect how much the developers love Vergil Devil May Cry because hell, me too.

7: Kill Knight

Exactly what I want out of a character-action style game. You’ve got weapons that change movesets, you’ve got modifiers, you’ve got incentive to maintain combos and do super sick stuff all the time that’s actively encouraged by a choreographed enemy cadence. I love Kill Knight so much and I can’t believe it actually manages to exist in a world that seems to love the most boring action games you could ever imagine.

6: Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail

Obviously disjointed through some poor pacing, but fundamentally I really don’t care since the world-building and smaller-scale moments continued to have the juice I enjoyed from the earlier FFXIV establishment without absurdist jumps. I appreciate that they hired cultural advisors this time as well, and utilized the mythos of a city of gold without falling prey to the typical colonial mindset, instead leveraging what the concept of a city of gold actually represented in our history.

5: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

It might not be the best Ichiban game, but this is the best that RGG studios have ever done Kazuma Kiryu. I was floored. I couldn’t believe it. When they start playing Receive You…the goosebumps. Thank you for actually finishing out his story with proper depth and characterization instead of whatever the hell happened in Yakuza 6.

4: Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

MY FRIENDS: should we go to the gold saucer?
ME: uhhhhh sephiroth tulpa help me pic.twitter.com/31cijdiBl9

— Rosarie Maria (@horngal) March 14, 2024

Even if some ending reveals fall flat, the ride that those crazy bastards take you on across The Planet is truly unbelievable. You’re left wondering the entire time, what the hell is going on with Zack! Who are any of these new people! What horrible mini-game awaits me around the corner! How did they do Cait Sith so good in 2024!!!!! Thank you to the writers of this game for understanding exactly why Yuffie and Barret would form an unshakeable bond as father and daughter.

3: Nine Sols

once again, swag, game feels good pic.twitter.com/8V8tQa6TEN

— Rosarie Maria (@horngal) June 10, 2024

They turned Sekiro into a metroidvania! 

I don’t know how Red Candle Games made two pretty straightforwardly designed horror games and then an insanely good action-platformer that’s better than 90% of what’s put out on their first go. This game is crazy. It has a story! An honest to god, super interesting, not just told through lore pages story! I love everything about it. When you have all three kinds of parries set up, they really truly expect you to know how to use them. It’s beautiful.

2: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak

Introducing a guy as "the thousand oath breaker" and having him immediately do this is peak. It's peak pic.twitter.com/hJKq0cHYV3

— Rosarie Maria (@horngal) August 24, 2024

They have orbal vape pens now. They’re making the JRPG protagonists ask what your pronouns are. The main antagonist has a horrible little twink on his leg at all times. This is the future of gaming.

1: Balatro

I hate card games but the crazy bastard really did it.

The post Rose’s Top Games of 2024 appeared first on Gamesline.

We’re back with another episode of the Gamesline Podcast. This week; John, Lorelai, and Maverick sit down to talk about Metaphor: ReFantasio. John and Lorelai have been Survivin’ with Holocure and the Vampire Survivors Castlevania update. Lorelai’s been digging into the Final Fantasy MMO space after deciding to dive back into Final Fantasy XI because of the new Final Fantasy XIV patch, John’s been digging into more Pokémon with Emerald Rogue, Black, and TCG Pocket. Maverick started playing Atelier Ayesha before he spent a big chunk of time in Japan and he’s here to tell us all about it.

In the news, Itsuno’s got a new studio, Half Life 2 got an update, and Sega is making a new Virtua Fighter. Private Division got sold to an undisclosed buyer while Zenimax workers are going on Strike and the SAG-AFTRA Union made an agreement with game localizers. We go deep into the most important questions from the community and I don’t think Lorelai is going to recover.

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

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 44: Gronkin’ The Rizzler appeared first on Gamesline.