Tumgik
#zmora screams
cosmologyofgaming · 10 months
Text
lmfao I think it’s SO telling of how stuck the horror game industry is in and how far the mighty have fallen that there is a new Amnesia game coming out this June and literally I have heard NOTHING about it. Hell I’m not even sure OGs like PewDiePie, Markiplier, and Jacksepticeye will play it.
Tumblr media
12 notes · View notes
likorys-shimenawa · 4 years
Text
Geraskier 2020
Day 6 – FOUND FAMILY
TITLE: Lullaby of woe
SUMMARY: Geralt's trying to keep himself and Ciri and the stray cat she clings to safe. But the girl has nightmares that shatter glass so they need money to keep moving, so Geralt is forced to leave for a hunt. He comes back to screams, then a song, then a zmora and an old-new friend.
WORD COUNT: 1,5k.
BOOKS/NETFLIX/2002 SHOW/VIDEO GAME: The Netflix show with gratuitous inserts of random lore found on the internet.
TRIGGERS/WARNINGS: character death, but it’s permanent, from a certain point of view. Kinda pre-relationship because I’m slammed with uni work today but tumblr post inspired me.
RATING: GEN.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/22819798
@geraskierweek
8 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 2 years
Text
Horizon Forbidden West's Plot Was Actually Not Great And Here's Why Thank You And Goodnight.
Alright, so SadJack and I just finished Horizon Forbidden West and…honestly, I feel really frazzled.
They made a good post a few days ago as I was still collecting my thoughts, parsing out the parts I liked, didn’t, and figuring out how it aligns with Zero Dawn and why this sequel felt like something was missing.
TBH I still can’t fully articulate if I enjoyed the game play, the main plot, the worldbuilding, or the characters. Its all just a silly little mess in my silly little head. So, here’s me trying to decipher those silly little thoughts.
This is 7376 words long. I’m not sorry.
Spoilers under the cut.
Main Plot
Okay so here’s the thing. This story has really weird pacing.
This game very much starts out slow like a drawn bow for the tutorial and prologue—which is ok! I don’t mind long intros especially when interspersed with cutscenes that lay the groundwork and almost “background knowledge” that’s a necessary foundation from which the story will bloom. And HZD did something similar in which after the opening cutscene where Rost does the naming ceremony with Aloy, we play as a young Aloy learning basic stealth techniques, saving a fellow Nora, and falling into the underground cave where she found her focus before finally getting to control Aloy as a young woman. However, that slow placing didn’t stop. In fact, I would argue that HZD is overall a slow burn—a mystery of sorts where Aloy is trying to
- Find acceptance amongst the Nora & Discover who her “mother” was (coming of age)
- Discover who the Eclipse were & why they want to killer her (vengeance quest)
- The world of the Old Ones & What Happened During the Faro Plague & What was Zero Dawn (mystery)
All these plot threads would eventually come to a head and that takes time—it’s not an easy narrative to craft and requires care to attention and detail, not just characters but character building, worldbuilding, and making sure the flow of information comes with that foundation of understanding to continue tying the pieces together in a coherent storyline. It’s almost a tapestry where multiple layers and loops of threads that becomes a collection overtime—a masterclass in narrative writing that HZD with the DLC achieved.
HFW in comparison is just. Hmm.
I honestly think it was rushed.
That’s being nice.
The prologue where Varl chases down Aloy and joins her, (re)introducing the plot of HZD, and setting up the situation where the Earth isn’t quite ready to self-regulate; especially with rogue subordinate functions doing what they will leading to rapid environmental deterioration that won’t stop unless GAIA harmonizes the terraforming systems and their governing AIs globally or else another mass extinction will ignite was really well done. It’s a fascinating plot line that fit with the worldbuilding and story as we knew it without feeling cheap or made up for the sake of dragging the story on—it tied in the concern, and consequences, of subordinate AIs gaining full autonomy soundly. I also didn’t mind the slower pace of catching up with old friends from the first game, seeing familiar sites, and the Daunt functioning sort of like the Embrace did in the first game as the “get good and find your bearings” area. It really helped build up the excitement for entering the “Forbidden West” and finally meeting more Tenakth and Utaru—the only tribes mentioned in the first game with characters that we never learned more about besides those whispers and rumours.
But TBH everything went to shit at the Hades Proving Lab.
As a spoiler for those of you who actually follow us on YouTube, yes. HFW is our current lets play. When this moment happened, SadJack and I had literally called out this plot a good 20 min before it happened and were like "pls don't do this pls don't do this" and cause I'm a blunt bitch, I said "if it's space people, I'm going to scream" and when it happened, I screamed, in rage, at the top of my lungs (rip in advance headphone users for those of you in the Void who watch our channel).
Anyways we had this super slow plot and in the span of like…5 minutes we learn that:
- The Odyssey survived
- Space people who are white supremacists exist
- One of them is in gamergate bro who mentions VR, sparkle sparkle means invincible shield situation, fashion choice looks like the bourgeoisie from the Hunger Games
- There are two (???) back-ups copies of GAIA
- There is another close of Elisabet Sobeck who clearly looks timid and mistreated (same age as Aloy or younger??? Undetermined.)
- Varl has a girlfriend who helped nurse us back to health who is Utaru???
This isn’t even to mention how 20 minutes earlier we spoke to whatever was left of Hades and found out that we are living on “biosphere 5” or whatever like dude I deadass had WHIPLASH from how much information this was in the amount of time we received it.
I was that overwhelmed, lowkey pissed, and frazzled that I stopped playing HFW for a month and had no desire to continue—which for comparison, I've platinumed HZD, played in through with the DLCs fully 3 times, and even based some of my MA thesis on the game.
Other than the obvious information overload, there were a few things that I personally didn't like about this:
1. TBH I’m not the biggest sci-fi fan (especially space exclusive sci-fi) and what made HZD different for me was that it seemed more dystopian post apocalyptic vibes grounded in Earth. The sudden genre shift sort of pulled the carpet from under my feet and made me feel icky (do you ever just get that with genres you don’t like? That cold, empty feeling?)
2. I was a big fan of HZD essentially being sexless. There’s so much oversexualization in video games (especially for female characters—and for those of you unfortunately on Twitter you’ll know that ever Aloy was roasted a few months back for not being “girly enough). There’s also so much push on romance and romancing that I really like the ambiguous nature of the game. There are TONS of hints, cute dialogue that is really left open to the mind of the player to be interpreted as whatever they please and I found this really innovative and refreshing so it focuses more so on platonic relationships—something severely lacking in modern media. Especially as someone into fan culture, I find this really freeing and gives everyone that creative boost of “no true cannon OTPs” for you to be flexible and do what you want. The thing with Varl and Zo was like…hmm don’t like this also was it necessary? And it made it WORSE that it deadass comes out of left field (TBH a detriment to Zo’s character but more on that later).
Honestly the only reason I picked it up again was because of filming obligations for our YouTube channel. And I guess, I did end up enjoying it again.
When I avoided the main quest at all costs and forced the game to slow down (And only cared about the Tenakth. Thank u Mr. Kotallo, sir).
Worldbuilding and the Plight of the 21st Century Things
Doing the side quests, exploring the clans and their environments, learning about their cultural differences, how they evolved within he world of Horizon; and how they adapted during in-game historic events (such as the Carja Red Raids) is the stuff that personally intrigues me. I was super excited with the prospect of learning more about the characters and the precise intricacies of GAIA and her functions. The Frozen Wilds DLC already did such a great job explaining HEPHAESTUS’ rationalization and how it began to evolve once becoming an independent AI gave me hope that the other AIs would be treated similarly to the makeup of the story as it was thus far—especially since I think HZD did such a great job explaining what AI is versus Machine Learning (still a contentious topic in academic circles even today), how bias is imbedded in the machine, and unethical technological consumption only leads to abuse and doom. And honestly, the main quests between the Hades Proving Lab and Gemini are good—but could be better. Capturing AETHER, POSEIDON, and DEMETER open up the world at large, give personalities to the AIs, and even creates wonderful and beautiful areas surrounding them. They're more cascading, with rolling effects that bleed into deeper character growth (Kotallo and Alva for instance) or create new areas all together (Las Vegas, the Grove). Yet at the same time these three AI missions very much fall into the "dungeon crawl fetch quest" stereotype. Go in, solve a puzzle, kill some machines, kill a boss machine, send the AI back to Mother Gaia. The change is also immediate. No more monster storms and the Blight disappears in the blink of an eye—which kind of makes sense…but the game was literally marketed with the Blight being a problem and is solved inconsequentially midway through the game. At least in the Utaru lands the side quest with the Land Gods helped push that thought forward (even though I thought DEMETER was the cause of the blight? Not terraforming machines abandoning tasks which is HEPHAESTUS thing? All in all, this part of the narrative was not well-resolved). Do they have personalities? Did they interact with GAIA peacefully? What other effects did they have?
When exploring desolate ruins in HZD, I never felt that I was doing simple fetch quests. I felt more like a detective sorting through tons of debris, collecting ALL THE DATAPOINTS to uncover what truly happened in those specific facilities beyond production…the people, their final emotions, the nuances surrounding the main time crunch of building GAIA, the burden of lying to the public that they were only fighting to buy time and everyone knew they would die…(seriously I feel like HFW had 1/4 of the datapoints). It was honestly…eerie and melancholic. I remember in a few of those you could literally see mummified remains (Aloy literally gets her focus as a small child pulling it off a corpse…and then listens to datapoints and literally hear how someone shoots themselves and how nurse Chana was offering cyanide pills). There was always that…almost horrific aspect of Zero Dawn when you realized just how dark the world was before it was born anew, contrasted with stunning visuals of booming, bountiful, blossoming life on the surface; sheltered from these underground bunkers and relics. Honestly it was more cauldron crawling than getting a chance to explore the bunkers thoroughly, uncovering how the people of California were coping with the Faro Plague. It’s surprising that this was overlooked, considering how extensively this was explored in the Frozen Wilds DLC where we learned more about the Climate Crisis of the 40s, experiencing nature facilities and national park museums (which I guess…kind of happens at the Grove where you realize the Tenkath are inspired by holograms from a War Museum) but overall, this point was…lacking. In HZD I felt like this split was 50/50 while in HFW it was 25/75 and considering how much they pushed the whole Odyssey, Far Zenith (now Zenithians?? Corporate countries and nationalities coming true??) and the creation of Nemesis?? It’s like they decided to completely forego environmental storytelling to enrichen the current world and the past that was lost.
Maybe they could have included another Zero Dawn facility, where say Elisabet reveals to Travis that she's not sure that the rumours about the Odyssey being destroyed are true…maybe opening up to him a little about Tilda and then dismissing it as irrelevant as all focus needs to be on Zero Dawn completion. Tilda's house is in California could have had more notes or information we could still not just art? Maybe Aloy discovers and explores Travis' home?? Idk anything other than the heavy handed datapoints about the Odyssey and Far Zenith in the game's prologue??? More info about the people in the FAS Biotech lab not just information on their studies?? Considering how much the game focused on Aloy's character growth in the first quarter of the game—realizing she's becoming an isolationist like Elisabet was who would turn her friends away in light of mission completion, realizing maybe how lonely she was and what her aspirations or regrets were. Since the first game focused so heavily on Elisabet’s story paralleling Aloy’s, perhaps this one should have focused on GAIA. Afterall, it’s hinted at in the first game that GAIA was partially inspired to clone Elisabet after remembering a conversation where she divulged if she had time, she would have liked to have a daughter.
And I think this is the crux of it. Wanting to push this space invaders plot asap, the game became really sloppy with the things that made HZD special…slow burn, world-creation. Not a linear plot from A to B, but a story full of heart. Beyond the lack of data points/simplistic quest lines of the main plot, beyond exploring for the sake of exploring and learning about cultures there's no big motivation to learn about the world. I remember spending hours collecting Banuk figurines and learning about Arnak that gave greater insight into the Banuk; random data points that weren't just military orientated but PEOPLE orientated; Bashar Mati's Vantage Points (lovingly dubbed the "Apocashitstorm Tour"); and even the metal flowers producing poetry—which most of the fandom speculated was DEMETER's doing after going rogue. There are no real collectibles in HFW. And speaking of the metal flowers, given the ones in HFW a stronger tie to HZD is literally not rocket science. It would have been easy to give the ones in HFW poetry as well, have GAIA speak to what Aloy experienced in HZD was the flowers first being deployed, and producing vines over time. Poetry could have still been included and tie it back to some algorithmic function…maybe one of the scientists at FAS Biotech uploaded a diary into the system that got mixed in with DEMTER once it made home in the facility—giving more personality to the AI, just like how we learned in Frozen Wilds that HEPHAESTUS is making killer machines because pesky humans won't stop hunting his terraforming children. It just felt like everything 21st century was ignored cause "Zenithians", and then since everything was based in the Tenakth territories, the Daunt and Plainsong quickly became irrelevant while I felt that in HZD, you had to return back to the Embrace on occasion (other then visiting Rost's grave, literally one of the final missions is there with that Heart of the Nora quest).
 Ok. What About the 30th Century?
Yes, I 100% enjoyed the side quests and learning about the Tenakth and the Utaru than the main plot, but I still think it could have used some work. TBH I think the collectibles I mentioned earlier also really helped enlighten how people are interpreting the past, as did the mass datapoints scattered across Meridian, in the first game. And honestly, blaming it on the fact that the Carja and Oseram can read and write while the Tenakth and Utaru can’t is a convenient excuse. When it comes to the Tenakth and Utaru, cultures that rely on tattooing and oral traditions, you need a different approach when crafting the narrative beyond dialogue and quests.
The game literally took the concept of "environmental storytelling" and yeeted it out the window.
Strike felt like a Gwent replica that didn't serve much purpose (but I suck at it so didn't really stick with it), cooking meals doesn't bring any new or interesting dialogue about how each clan cooks in different ways beyond intuitively reading between the lines, contracts are just to get better armour and dealing with more Oseram tinkers, and the racing I haven't finished yet but apparently the Easter Egg if you complete them all reveals Nil is alive? But these don't exactly enhance the story or create a more nuanced understanding of the world of "Horizon" or the cultures that inhabit the West. This game was much more focused on combat and "mechanics" than building up these cultures. Which is a shame!
Like there were little hints of some Tenakth things that we never really learn more about—their political structures, how they behaved pre Hekkaro unifying them, the Clan wars, KOTALLO TELL ME WHAT YOUR TATTOOS MEAN PLEASE, the idea that Commanders are only replaced when one kill's the other like the Yara/Drakka situation. I mean, there was that one quest in HZD where we fight Ullia who deadass asks us to drink her blood and I *think* there was a hint of this in HFW where they mention this was an old practice but not wide spread. Other Tenakth poke fun at Outlanders for believing it. Ok. So what was the problem in adding more dialogue options? Side quests? Maybe an elder at a fire talking to younglings that you could listen in on if their culture is oral? Talk to a tattoo artist? There was also the one quest in the Lowlands called "The Fog" where we deal with an elder Tenakath dealing with onset Dementia who is getting PTSD like flashbacks to the Clan Wars…and I think its implied Kotallo's parents were killed during the Clan Wars…but then we never really hear more about this. Or the Red Raids, even with Tenakth resilience. Despite the Chaplains being great sources of information, I was also kind of shocked that we didn't get to talk to Hekkaro as much and he would just…disappear when not needed. I felt like I could talk to Avad all the time or whenever I was bored, and he had a much larger impact on the game than Hekkaro ever did. Again, it comes back to this idea of rushing a narrative as opposed to taking the time and care to ensure all major/minor NPCs felt like fully fledged characters we could mostly interact with—especially with the heavier use of the "wit/heart/aggression" dialogue options that sometimes DID generate different response or outcomes. This is all to say, this game was heavy in the Tenkath lands with the Tenakth people. And yet I feel like I still know nothing about them in comparison to the Carja, the Banuk, Nora, and the Oseram (hilarious, considering we've never seen the "Claim" yet). And most of this I think, can be attributed to rushed storytelling. Sure, there are hints, but a whisper, if unheard, fades into the wind.
And then the game the devs were like "hmmm how do we creatively give players information and narrative?? INFO DUMPS AT THE BASE. THIS WILL REALLY GET THE PEOPLE GOING!"
I've seen some interesting perspectives here on tumblr and reddit about the base, the new additions, interesting dialogue that Aloy's companions reveal—especially if you visit them more often. For the most part, I agree. It actually gave you a reason to return to the base and I really liked that the dialogue would adjust, more or less, to what Aloy was doing in the outside world. It made the NPCs feel more immersed in the world and interested in what Aloy was actually doing to an extent and this was more successful with other NPCs more than others imo. But at the same time, sorting through all this dialogue and getting all the options? Exhausting. SadJack and I literally cut AN HOUR OF FOOTAGE from the eventual, final, episode of our HFW playthrough since it was all dialogue options at the base (and that's just the draft cut—not the final). That is insane. How is anyone supposed to retain that much information, let alone care about it. It adds no value to the story—again, pushing me to my "rushed" theory. It like "we have all this extra information and don't know what to do with it or don't have time to create more quests. LET’S HAVE THIS MASSIVE INFO DUMP AT THE END OF THE GAME." Which also comes back to pacing. There is minimal information, massive overload (we meet the Zeniths). Calm. Then the build up starts again, massive information overload (Gemini, Varl is Dead. Tilda. Zo is pregnant??? So much dialogue). And then the game is over.
And now the poor Utaru. I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but to my understanding from HZD, the Utaru were a secretive people, devout like the Nora but different from all the other tribes by living a mostly agrarian life. I was a little surprised that I could just waltz into Plainsong without fault considering its also part of the "Forbidden West" (and I also remember their being so much speculation that Plainsong wasn't even IN the West). Regardless, I felt really weird that in this supposed "Tenakth" controlled West, I could causally waltz into all things Utaru. I will say I think the side quests were really good—learning about their culture, the seeds they carry, worldview, and the complicated political stronghold the Chorus has (as well as that one shady murder of that one politically radical Utaru who caused "discord"). However, since the majority of main quests reside in Tenakth lands, I didn’t motivate me to return and seek out Utaru side quests…or their complicated politics didn’t feel connected to the larger story. And weird introduction aside, Zo's quest really returned to that storytelling element of characters telling us events from their memories so we can learn more about a society as a whole. My only complaint with that mission is that I think it taught me more about the Utaru than Zo as a person. Which leads us to our next point.
 Characters
I've already rambled a lot so I'm going try and keep this short and sweet (I say to myself. Like a liar.)
Avad, Uthid, Vanasha, Petra, Murad, Itamen: Really nice to see old friends and familiar faces re-appear. Wish we got to talk to them a bit more—Petra teaches us Strike and I never care to talk to her again. The one time I did, it was new dialogue after I completed the Daunt quests. TBH lowkey surprised Avad wasn't more involved since at the start it really seemed like he was going to be more in the plot, especially after making his intentions with his feelings more prominent (this time being like see Aloy. You are no longer a rebound from Ersa. Take this gold headpiece as proof that I love you. Please date me) and essentially getting us into the Embassy and Fashav's initial introduction. Then I never saw Avad again and never got to make more trophy husband jokes. Speaking of Fashav…
Fashav: I WANTED TO LEARN MORE. WANTED TO SEE HIM INTERACT WITH AVAD. AND HEKKARO. DISAPPOINTED.
Hekkaro: BENEVOLENT KING. WHY CAN'T YOU TALK TO ME. TALK TO ME. 
Talanah: I honestly thought she was going to become part of the GAIA gang. I know she's leader of the Hunter's Lodge in Meridian, but Kotallo's a Marshal and also important so like so what? Also, we have one of each tribe member in the base except for a Carja even though Talanah knew the base location? Wish we got to have the hunting queen with us she's a great friend to Aloy and could join Kotallo in roasting Erend. Also, after the Amadis break-up situation, why drink with Petra in Chainscrape when you can kill some space people instead? She'd march right up to Beta and be like "your attitude. Is shit. We're going to hunt now". Anyways, happy she was introduced, and we got at least that one mini quest line with her. It's literally more justice than what Varl got.
Varl: RIP Sweet Prince you deserved SO much better. Honestly? They wasted Varl's character, killed him in the most humiliating way possible, and justified it as a plot device to damage Aloy further into the hero “messianism” complex. Let me explain.
Then, Zo enters the field and out of nowhere, Varl is in a romantic relationship with someone who he's known for like 2 days and alskdjfal;skdjfasl we'll talk about that more later. But at first, Aloy definitely displays some hostility (jealousy?) for the situation, and I feel like it was meant as a kind of backstab to Aloy's character. Like "see? You didn't move fast enough on Varl you pushed him away and were replaced" vibes (which is honestly really gross and not fair to Zo's character). Although Varl does the best thing a friend can do (make them feel like they haven't been replaced, being able to balance friendship, duty, and newfound romantic partnerships) again, this is just bizarre pacing. I feel like his relationship with Zo should have been, if anything, a slow build up that climaxed (literally, figuratively) near the end of the game. And now onto his death. Which was pointless. Seriously what was the point? Especially the way it happened? To show how "strong" the Zeniths were? Imo, the only point was to push Aloy more into this "messianism" that most heroes embody—the entire weight of the world is on their shoulders, they shouldn’t involve people or they'll get hurt, etc. etc. but more about how this effects Aloy later. For Varl, it did nothing for his character. His death had no impact and I wish he at least put up a fight like Rost did against Helis to showcase some battle prowess.
Varl is one of her first friends, I would argue she's closer to Erend, but at the very least one of the first, alongside his late sister Vala and mother Sona, to accept Aloy before she was "the anointed one" and actually view her as a person. Besides Rost, Varl is essentially her only tie to the Nora that isn't rooted in resentment and disappointment. He's also one of the rare people to know how Aloy was treated, how far she's come, and who she was before becoming Saviour of Meridian who was hinted as a potential romantic interest in HZD. If we split the game up into three arcs (Part 1 The Prologue; Part 2 Daunt and Plainsong; Part 3 Tenakth Lands) than in Part 1 of the game, Varl was very much a friend tracking her down, showing her she didn't have to be alone and how far he would go for her. It could definitely be read as quasi-romantic for those who want to, or just a really loyal friend who highly respects Aloy. She shows him the world of the focus and even though it causes direct conflict with his Nora upbringing and faith, he never comes at her with anger, but rather with compassion and curiosity. Their relationship is very wholesome, and I feel like Varl was probably one of the only people Aloy could talk to about Rost—not just as her father who passed away, but as a Nora outcast. Varl could have been the perfect bridge to help the Nora eventually lose some zealotry. If anything, Varl could have been a conduit for the Nora (lowkey I also feel really sad that Sona has at this point, lost both her children).
Also why did we get to do a side quest with everyone except Varl. Main quest stuff doesn't count.
Zo: I feel bad for Zo. She was this spunky, rebellious character who I never cared for because of how she was introduced, and the way in which her story was presented to us. SadJack pointed this out earlier but Zo's fast romance with Varl and pregnancy reduce her to nothing more than a plot device incubator to carry Varl 2.0. I've also seen some interesting comments of her being the Harbinger since she is a "gravesinger" and gave Varl comfort before his untimely demise. Regardless, I honestly think if we had a side quest or two with her BEFORE she’s shacked up with Varl it would have made more sense for her character in a way that gives a connection to Aloy. Not just "my bff got a new squeeze when I was unconscious and now she has to come with us and I have to learn to like her what??". It also initially pits Zo and Aloy against each other which is such a toxic way to portray woman. And then, we get all these massive dumps about Zo's life from talking to her at the base, and finally a mission with her and the Land Gods. The mission was decent. Gave us some insight into the Utaru and Zo's life, but at the same time it felt impersonal since she was mostly talking to us over the focus. I don't mind having storytelling in the game—in fact earlier, I encouraged it, but there's something about this main character talking at us constantly, asserting herself as part of the team even though we barley know her, without having a direct connection with Aloy and therefore, the player. And its honestly a shame since it undermines Zo's character into this weird foil to Aloy in terms of toxic female tropes and I didn't really care for her, even though objectively she's really cool. Just wish the game nurtured that relationship a bit more. Again, the pacing of her story felt backwards and rushed. I think if we learned about her rebellious nature more, how she stood up amongst the peaceful Utaru to fight with the Tenakth against the Carja, before Varl even met her, it would feel like a more natural progression. This is to say, the only thing we ever learn about Zo is by her talking AT the player. There is no diversity to how her story is told beyond continuous lecturing and "info dumping". Even something as silly as the Land God quest, I think having Zo actually fight side by side with us, alone, and then adding some dialogue of Aloy asking Zo where she learned to fight like that and have a cutscene where Zo explains she fought the Carja, over having her talk through a focus while I'm getting rekted by machines would be far more impactful.
Kotallo: Alexa play Moto Luv by Seemee & Soda Luv. All jokes aside, Kotallo and Alva, imo are the two characters that got the best characterization. I'm not sure if this is because they were new to the gang (well…so was Zo but she just got the "careless love interest baby incubator" treatment). But overall Kotallo and Alva were both part of the main quest, we had missions involving them and missions just to learn more about them. It set their standing and importance in their respective communities, gave chance for them to connect with Aloy, and later they actually interact with what is happening and made them feel more real. Like after returning from Thebes? Kotallo is the only one who showed interest like "hmm I heard you went to see this Faro tomb so I googled him AND HOLY SHIT HE'S THE REASON FOR THE APOCALYPSE". SadJack's planning to write a more in-depth post on Thebes, but the point resides that this charismatic character is not only given complexity into his importance in the world in a way that poor Zo never was. With Kotallo, there is more of a story being told, mutual respect grown, the build up from him calling us "outlander" with spite to finally acknowledging us as his "commander". I also found his story of overcoming the massacre and losing his arm to be really inspiring of accepting himself, realizing he isn't "missing" or lacking, despite what Tenakth culture dictates, and proves himself not only to his friends, but to his Tribe.
Alva: Alva shares a similar story arc to Kotallo and behaves similarly in that she comments on in-game events at the base instead of "this are the cool things I learned today Aloy :)" Which I also liked! It was interesting to see characters learning about the old world and get excited about things (even though I was a little surprised that Aloy was giving focuses out like candy at Halloween) but again, their presence is more impactful the more they engage with Aloy beyond talking at her and diversifying the types of storytelling deployed. This also has me thinking that instead of just wasting hours talking to everyone at the base, systematically between missions, if there was some sort of "companion" option where we could take one character with us to complex side quests or errands, they could talk to us and reveal more in these instances. Also, would have really supported the "Aloy learn to rely on your friends and not to do things alone" plotline they really tried to push. The one thing I will say is that despite the way I like the mysteriousness of the Quen, their corrupt, draconian politics, and the hint as to why Ted was an ancestor (old focuses that don't have new data passed the 40s, when during the Climate Crisis Faro industries made atmosphere detoxifying robots design by Elisabet when she was still working for him) I'm honestly surprised, given Tenakth hostility towards outsiders, that more of them and they were fairly isolated (conveniently even) in San Francisco.
Erend: I think Erend was the happy middle between Varl/Zo versus Kotallo/Alva. He didn't interact with our missions much, but did show care for Aloy and wanting to prove his usefulness—almost like with Ersa, that he didn't need to be left behind and was capable in helping. Also, since Varl got the serotonin boost of *love* from Zo, Erend was truly the only character left that could actively criticize Aloy for how she treated her friends and abandoned them. I also wish that since Varl and Zo were just heart-eyes at each other, and Erend showed some discomfort, they elaborated more on his loneliness…maybe he also tried to chat with Beta and she spurned everyone except Varl…but then rekindles something with Alva and Kotallo. I will say though, I really liked that he joined us for the mission against Asera and we spoke to him about how he hasn't fully processed the death of his sister and does feel lonely (especially with Kotallo locking himself away to brood, forced to stare at the lovers flirting all day). I really wish that the pressure he put on Aloy remained (and highkey I wish Varl also put more pressure on Aloy for this…even in his own kind way) and perhaps help Aloy talk about the pain of losing Rost and help her work through this.
Sylens: I've always considered Sylens one of the most mysterious and fascinating characters of the game. He's morally grey, self-serving, and loyal only to his hubris. I think Sylens' introduction was incredible—tying in the final cutscene of HZD with how Sylens stole Hades and pulled a fast one on all of us, torturing an AI for information, and leading Aloy on another goose chase that almost results in her getting killed. Just good ol, classic Sylens stuff. And then…the end game with the Zeniths. It feels like lazy writing that Sylens caused a civil war. Again. And armed fanatical separatists. Again. We learned that he lied to the Banuk and might not even be Banuk in the Frozen Wilds DLC and I honestly wish it explored that part of his character more instead of being like "Sylens got a call from the Space People and is *enlightened*" and then has this weird parallel to Tilda (but far less creepy since lets be real, Tilda was essentially grooming Beta) involved with secrecy as a self-serving snake, but there was something about Aloy finally blackmailing Sylens to join her that…didn't seem as satisfying as it should? I think it's because he essentially did the same things, he did in the first game. Just this time around, Aloy isn't in the loop, and he doesn't call us occasionally.
Regalla: She should have been the main antagonist of the game. Period. And honestly, I think Regalla's character was also wasted when she could have had the same levels of complexity that Sylens possesses. Similarly to Helis, Regalla is marked with ferocious loyalty and fervent righteousness regarding what she believes is right. But unlike Helis who was like "Jiran is dead f u Avad" Regalla feeling humiliated by Hekkaro's mercy, blood-thirsty for vengeance against the Carja for their atrocities during the Red Raids was interesting since it doesn't necessarily make her "evil". I wish we learned more about her in the bandit camps just like with Helis, or at the very least, had more confrontations from her, learned more about her time as a Marshal, why she was considered the best, and how the Sky and Lowland clans viewed her other than the small information we learn about her from the Desert Clan fades away by the end of the storyline. It would have been cool to also see her effect more beyond Dekka's grandson joining the rebellion. More soldiers, or even rebels, arguing with the Tenakth about joining Regalla. She could have also been working with Sky Clan Commander Tekkoteh to learn of the embassy, more messy politics of the Tenkath. Send Fashav to Avad, and kill him in a third game later. I mean, the rebels didn’t even outwardly attack any major Tenakth cities.
I also found that this one instance of sparing her versus killing her was weird. There is also no real "neutral" option (just like with Yara and Drakka) and when you choose the "neutral/wits" option (which I personally leaned to in the first game). I think its right that you give Kotallo justice and allow him to kill Regalla since I felt there was no real reason to not kill her? She gives a—you GUESSED IT—INFO DUMP at the Base before getting this…weird quasi-heroic death fighting off a hoard of specters.
Asera: Very much felt like the…worse 2B version of Derval. I did not care for her cause she was this random side villain who we knew nothing about and had a vendetta against Aloy I guess. Like cool story bro, tell it again. Also, other than the weird fact that Asera and the Brothers of Prometheus (BoP) being more so influenced by Sylens than Regalla's rebels, why did we never learn about how Asera and Regalla started working together? Was their relationship business only? Cordial? Mutual respect? Or begrudging convenience? Was one planning to stab the other in the back? Considering the BoP were situated alongside Tenkath rebels at the bandit camp locations? This honestly could have been a fantastic plot. Two women, frustrated by how their tribes have come to quickly forgive the Carja, form an alliance through strange means and work together to take down Avad. Would have preferred that, and having a chance to interact more with Avad (maybe even getting Avad and Hekkaro to work together to further solidify peace between their tribes), than this Zeniathian space invaders bullshit. Especially since at the first bandit camp you can hear Asera and Regalla talking about their pact and Regalla reprimanding the camp for getting into a fight with BoP before asking Asera if that “line of discipline” was sufficient. I would have loved to see them interact together and again, gives me the impression they had more planned, but it was cut or rushed.
The Zeniths: Were also, ultimately, pointless. Their floating sucked. Their sparkly clothing was stupid. Most of them ended up being canon fodder. Their leader? Jeff Bezos wannabe? Forgettable. His name was Peter Tshivhumble? Deadass had to google what his name was. The fact that they were at one point a corporation and then became a colony and used that name to define themselves? Cancer. Erik Visser? Lil Gamergate bitch boy? Apparently, an ancestor to the Quen? Why. Learned nothing about him. Alva please tell me more, preferably not as an info dump at the base. But also, he killed Varl and deserved to die physically and spiritually in obscurity. Gave Zo some extra goodie points for her final murder of him. Tilda? True villain potential. Manipulative, self-serving, and an excellent foil to Sylens. But considering I hate the Zenithian plot device could go without her.
Also writing this out now I realize the three main villains that were treated stupidly were women. Go figure.
Aloy: The Queen herself. I think part 1 Aloy was better than part 2.
Part 1 Aloy was shown consequences for her increasing isolationism, her growing short temper and general smarminess as if caught between the frustration of none of her friends truly understanding the gravity of the situation, while also feeling the pressure of needing to save the world again. It set up the story as an arc for further character development from Aloy—showing that not all heroes need to work alone, how you treat your friends matters, and that some people are so loyal they will follow you regardless of what you want. After Varl was murdered this all went to shit. Part 2 Aloy behaves almost like end of HZD Aloy which doesn’t make too much sense since their story arcs are completely different. As if having done a 180 Aloy is suddenly compassionate and patient again, ignoring the awkward tension between her and Zo for full acceptance, suddenly seeing Beta as “sister” despite 5 minutes earlier being frustrated and wanting nothing to do with her and laskjdflaksjdflaksdjf;lkdjf all the things that were promised disappeared and Aloy’s growth arc either mutated or was totally dropped. I mentioned earlier how the response options significantly reduced in HFW and I wonder if that was to perhaps show Aloy’s increasing impatience and unyieldiness…especially since everytime you chose “compassion, aggression, heart” dialogue options it was only a guise for “yes/no” scenarios, while HZD very much leaned into the fluid nature of these three responses.   Lastly, Aloy got to glide but never got to use the shield she got from defeating Regalla’s champion. Why.
 Dystopian Futurism, Sci-Fi, and Trans-Humanistic Disaster 
So, AFTER ALL THIS and some reflection, I think my initial diagnosis of the problem being the game feels unfinished and rushed was correct. Its not that the game is bad per se, it was just really sloppily executed from what initially was a very promising plot. It's also really unfortunate that the first game definitely receive more developmental time, more care for the narrative, etc. and the direct sequel doesn't match it for the same level of storytelling if that makes sense and I do feel disappointed because of this. The story honestly, to me, feels downgraded from the first one.
Especially the Zenith and Nemesis plot. I still think that's the stupidest shit ever. And SadJack nailed it earlier—take out the Zeniths, leave them for game three, and you would have had a really solid plot. Expand the rebellion and in-game politics, expand exploration of the functions and maybe even add in some more Quen development. Hell, this game could have ended with a cliffhanger in which you can’t find 1 or 2 final functions and that’s when the hint of the Zenithians comes in (in which case, this game could have had more datapoints at potential Odyssey survival), etc.
This game cared more about mechanics than the narrative. The first game is the epitome of wabi sabi aesthetics—a melancholic hauntology that is contrasted with incredible beauty and hope. The poetry of the game, the slow burn of the plot, well rounded characters to a point where random NPCs for side quests had fully fleshed storylines. Instead, we had weird timing of space and compression, narratives dumps in dialogue that took hours to sort through, and a larger focus on battle mechanics (new weapons, all weapons are different, machine varieties, strategies), than exploring the world (collectibles, poetry, more dialogue decisions, etc.)
It's imbalanced. And is falling into so many tropes that the narrative is predictable. Like even in the future, let's be real, Nemesis will probably be absorbed by GAIA to become the new "Hades".
The end.
— Mod Zmora
116 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 10 months
Text
So I’m replaying RE8 for the third time (this time, it’s a completionist run LOL) and like…dude I have so much more to say and I’m noticing so much more than I initially did when SadJack and I made our video essay about how this is game is a high key disaster and now I’m like itS AN EVEN GREATER DISASTER THAN I THOUGHT AHHHH.
More so in the sense that like imo Dimitrescu was absolutely WASTED and there is SOOOO much worldbuilding and potential that was just thrown out the window. So, I kind of want to focus on that first arc of the game and if I have more to say I’ll make this a series I guess? Idk.
Before diving in the fleshy meat of things, I also want to point at that game writing is really fucking hard and like the developers have to kind of straddle this line of like giving people enough worldbuilding elements to engage them in the story and broader universe, while also not giving all the details so people can use enough of their imagination to self insert, feel immersed, etc. (more so than books and films do) but like RE8 simultaneously gives us everything and nothing and it’s so so so so so frustrating.
Like Castle Dimitrescu could have literally been the majority of the game—lemme explain.
Starting from the top of when Ethan gets to the village and its absolute pandemonium, and:
I’m really sad about Elena. I know the survival horror genre is like “step 1: isolate the player” but RE has never fully followed that formula and I’m so exhausted with people dying all the time and the lack of allies. For a storytelling perspective, it’s predictable. I think it would be cool if we manage to save her and she is Ethan’s guide to “local” stuff and remained in the series as a character who eventually joins the BSAA or something like Sherry did. I think it would be cool to story arc to explore her culture shock from being in a small Romanian village, a cultist, to learning about life in greater Romania (seeing where Miranda twisted their culture and folk practices) and later the world. She could have even appeared in the DLC with Rose or something.
Mother Miranda’s babushka persona is WILD. Like she half helps Ethan but also says some weird lines of like:
In life and in death, we give glory. – okay. This is one of the many pseudo-religious lines delivered and is ambiguous enough that it works.
Rose, Rose, yes! She is in great danger. Since Mother Miranda brought her to the Village, we have fallen into darkness! – like why would you say this to Ethan? And admit this child brough upon the apocalypse for them? Is there a prophecy about this or something?
The Castle bell heralds danger! They’re coming! – the lycans? Or Dimitrescu wanting fresh maidens?
The crests of the four bloodlines may open the path you seek. – Why are her 4 high-cognitive functioning bioweapon children important bloodlines? Tell me more.
Considering how Miranda is…mostly sane and capable of executing a convoluted plan I’m like why not kill Ethan immediately? There is a moment where she reveals that Ethan is also a bioweapon (How can a man be almost dead? That’s a question for the wise.) but it makes me wonder if Miranda doesn’t have full control of these shape shifting personas? I mean obviously from a developer standpoint the Babushka figure acts as a pseudo-guide and quest giver but narratively it’s not quite clicking with me. More so she’s dropping these random worldbuilding nuggets that are never explored later on.
We never really learn why Miranda, Dimitrescu, and the Village at large is obsessed with maiden imagery. This fades once you complete Moreau’s Reservoir level, but in this first arc of the story we have the statue of the young girl with a sword fighting this goat-hybrid demon situation, its depicted on the door to the castle and while the maiden stone is revered in their church (sanctuary? Temple? I can’t think of a neutral word), the demon stone is locked by Luiza’s house. There are also the goat’s of warding (connected to the goat demon thing maybe?) not to mention Dimitrescu’s castle is LITTERED with art about maidens, they only take female servants, etc. like why? And like…is Miranda considered a maiden with her baby having been conceived by “immaculate conception” or whatever? (She literally doesn’t care about anything other than reviving her dead baby so like alright Miranda spit it out. Who’s the baby daddy.) This could tie into more of the pseud-Christian imagery she depicts herself with.
Speaking of the castle itself there is also a lot of angel imagery like other than images of Mother Miranda as an angel, there is also the angel puzzle, paintings of angels, etc. and I wonder if this is tied more into to the Miranda philosophy or the maidens themselves. There’s also something really interesting about a vampire demon thing being fascinated with the angelic and angel imagery. I know Miranda views herself as kind of a dark angel (one of the babushka lines: As the midnight moon rises on black winds and awaits the light in life and in death we give glory to Mother Miranda; not to mention some of her photos look similar to Jesus/Michael Archangel) and I wish this was further explored. Like her early days in the Village? Coming back mutated as a young, grieving mother, and slowly becoming de-facto ruler?
Back to the castle and the maidens. The villages seem to trust Miranda wholeheartedly (like Julian is shocked when Miranda shows herself and eventually kills him) but Luiza seems to be calm and confident saying “one day, we were a quiet, devout village…” and not understanding where the monsters are coming from. There’s that scrap of info in the church about “monsters of old” but nothing more? Again maybe a prophecy about the child? Or link old Slavic mythology and monstrosity back to werewolves and lycans being people infected by the mold and happening once in a while idk actually work with the fucking source material Capcom??? You don’t really have a good history of that and its 2023 pony the fuck up (and don’t ask me how they constantly butcher Eastern European representation that is a rant for another day). Anyways, despite all this Elena is terrified of the castle saying that it’s nothing more than “blood and death” so how did this dichotomy work? Did the villagers trust the four lords or only Miranda? How did they interact with each other?
Which brings me to the interior of the Castle itself. In completionist mode to find literally the like 100 notes, items, crystals, breaking all the windows, etc. took me 2 hours. That’s a lot of information stored in those walls! It’s the longest part of the game! I also found the Castle remarkably empty. There are notes from scared maidens and even a chamber master and yet there’s no one there? You’d think those few slaves would be alive even during the lycan attack since they’re, you know, more or less safe from at least THAT in the Castle. I understand having the dungeons filled with Moraice (yes this is the plural form of Moraica) but like everywhere else? The lesser slaves seemed terrified in their notes but there’s this interesting tone in the note of the Master Chambermaid that denotes a sense of authority and trust? And she’s suddenly dead too? Like clearly the four lords more or less are aware of Miranda’s plans and the importance of the “ceremony” but what? Was there a kill order on the entire village? I doubt someone as bougie and princessey as Dimitrescu would agree to have all her servants murdered.
The history in the castle is WILD AND SO RICH AND ITS ALL WASTED. Dimitrescu says that she was gifted the castle ok who were the previous owners? There’s a massive carved wall of a war we never learn about, the random graves in the castle we find, the doors that look like the Virgin Mary who has her eyes plucked out , the red and blue eyeball rings, the chapel part of the Castle housing a body with the “Dagger of Death’s Flowers” that has the power to “kill demons and monsters” and we never learn more??? This literally could have been the majority of the game if not the titular final area of the game since its SOOOO rich in detail that is never used or explored further in the game. The ruins around the castle or having more textual objects for the player to engage with (aka environmental storytelling Capcom it’s a great storytelling device I swear) could have been used to build these points up to the conclusion of the Castle itself and the history of the area.
There’s also that pesky note about the wine—which uses real blood—and sounds like an article was written about it? So how much of greater Romania is aware of this small ass village or at the very least, the Castle? Is it warded so people don’t come to it? There are literally cars there etc.
So, like SadJack and I critiqued in our video, this game basically had way too many ideas and bit off more than it could chew. Imo Dimitrescu and the Castle literally could have been the whole game (maybe throw in Moreau and Donna since their levels are self-contained and actually point back to the Village). The player could have gone underground in that Lycan fortress but as much as I LOVE Heisenberg, he really was not necessary for this game. That fortress/castle could have been linked back to Castle Dimitrescu as like underbelly and ruins, we could have done more underground tunnels or found more clues about the area, etc. and Dimitrescu should have been the final villain before Miranda.
Idk man just so much wasted potential with this massive area of the game and although we haven’t played it yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Shadows of Rose DLC isn’t going to answer any of these questions.
 —Zmora
12 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 2 years
Text
Martha is Dead sucks.
Honestly Martha is Dead is probably one of worst—if not THE worst—horror game I’ve every played.
No, this is not an exaggeration.
Spoilers under the cut, yeah? But warning—I’m pretty pissed off right now lol. This is also super overdue, because I was really struggling to verbalize what exactly is causing my outrage.
Game Premise
The game’s exposition was very promising and set Martha is Dead to be a kind of Fatal Frame—meets—murder mystery vibes—meets—Silent Hill. However, the game’s setting, plot, and characters stitched together with the thread of poor story telling make this game unseam quickly into a tangled mess. Essentially, the player controls Giulia, a teenage girl and hobbyist photographer taking photos of a nearby lake in the early morning fog. She notices something in the water, and to her horror, realizes its her twin, Martha. Giulia rushes over, clutching her body only to realize her twin is dead. When Giulia’s mother rushes to the scene and addresses her as Martha, Giulia decides to run with the façade and then we learn 2 very important pieces of information—Martha is both mute and deaf.
This deranged impersonation is rooted in the fact that Martha and Giulia’s mother, Irene, was allegedly (and yes allegedly. The reality of the game is shaky at best and constantly changing) abusive toward Giulia while Martha was the favoured twin. After Giulia takes Martha’s moniker, strange things begin to happen. She’s plagued with violent dreams where she rips her sister’s face off and “steals” it, the local folktale of the “white lady” ghost begins to visit her, and Giulia beings to uncover secrets Martha never told her as she tries to uncover who murdered her sister. What is initially set-up as a paranormal detective game quickly falls a part with a style of world-building which can only be generously described as a toddler dropping acid and starting a dumpster fire.
The white lady and her ghostly story quickly become lackluster and irrelevant; we find out Martha and Giulia were both impregnated by the same village boy—the lover boy who became mince meat after stepping on a mine—and while Martha died pregnant, Giulia miscarried; and a single photograph after a wild and irrelevant goose chase shows that *spoilers* GIULIA WAS THE KILLER ALL ALONG. Except after cutting your sister open to figure out she was pregnant with a mutated abomination, trying to help her cheating lover’s partisan friends screw over your father, and hours of walking slower than a turtle—not to mention taking random photos of shit that doesn’t matter except for the final “incriminating” photograph that reveals what at this point is obvious—Giulia murdered her own sister in a fit of rage. But more on that later.
Game Setting
I feel like not enough people are talking about the game setting other than “horrors of war = very bad mental health and WWII the baddest of bad” and are so desensitized to learning about war, suffering, torture, and death (along with just cute horror game things like torture, gore porn, and jumpscares) that the historical seriousness doesn’t immediately punch you in the gut like it should. (I also have a lot of thoughts on how WWII history is taught, devoid of plurality, and overall, every country just talks about themselves and now the cohesive picture but that’s a rant for another day. Sigh.)
The game takes place in Italy during World War II—specifically, in Florence during July 1944. For some historical context on the Italian front during WWII, Italy under the rule of Benito Mussolini (fascist, authoritarian, dictator at the time) was part of the Axis Powers (supporting Nazi Germany). However, the landscape of the war in Italy is…complicated to say the least as soldiers were split in duties since:
1)    Some soldiers were supporting Germany and fighting other European nations (World War)
2)    The Italian partisan groups gained momentum and were rebelling against Mussolini (Civil War)
3)    Working class harnessed the chaos and rebelled against landowners (Class Consciousness and Peasant Uprising)
June 1944 would also mark D-Day which wasn’t just an assault on the beaches of Normandy by the Allies (which is the American perspective of the war), but an assault on all major Axis powers. The Allies pushed into Italy from the South and by the end of June 1944 Naples was captured, July would see Rome captured, and the start of August was when Florence was captured.
By all means, the player should be thrust into an active war zone. Yes, there are some hints of this with two-timing, lover boy stepping on a mine and dying and a smattering of planes coming overhead but absolutely nothing that would indicate “we are going to be in immediate danger soon if not already”. Especially since Martha, is the daughter of a Nazi General.
Oh, and all of this context I just gave you? None of it matters.
Let me repeat that: You are the daughter of a Nazi General. And it doesn’t matter.
Maybe its because I have family that survived and died in the Death Camps including Auschwitz. Or maybe that I know a lot more about WWII history than the average person from constantly having it hammered into me by Polish school and relatives leading to me taking courses in undergrad about it since the narrative was always “never forget what they did to us” and there’s a lot of really interesting thought-pieces out there that say when we forget about extermination, we allow for it to happen again. The War in Ukraine has also made me very hyper-aware of how we talk about wars since yea. I have family close to Ukraine and some in Ukraine and also as “lesser Slavic peoples” (*cough* anyone who isn’t Russian *cough*) I understand what it means like to fear Russian aggression for centuries and SadJack and I have been trying to help our Ukrainian friends (some who actually escaped places like Kharkiv—which FYI are actively bombed on a daily) deal with the trauma as asylum seekers in Canada.
Long rant aside, I think it is asinine and insane that the game devs chose such a hyper-specific period in time and it means absolutely dick all. You are literally playing as the bourgeoisie daughter of a Nazi. And it is 100% inconsequential to the game's plot. Why. What was the purpose behind this? How is it relevant to the plot? Do they realize Nazi Generals are still being tried and imprisoned today (yes, even as old ass men) for the horrific crimes they committed?!
I'm really struggling to verbalize just how in poor taste this is and why it's so horrifically bad.
I also feel like "Wartime trauma" is this foreign concept in North America unless you have family that has served or are immigrants who survived. And often in games, I feel its romanticized as an easy way to explain mental illness or justify horrific acts as "this was just wartime, the effects are really bad on the psyche" like no. This game completely erases the impact of World War II, what the war meant for the Italians under Mussolini's dictatorship with Nazi occupants to the North, and the war crimes these generals committed. Instead, this game makes you sympathize with him as a grieving father and I just aldskjf;ldskjfa like even to the point of the Ville they’re in? You realize its 100% stolen, right? They live in this peaceful Italian village while Italy was actively in one of the most chaotic battles of the century with three separate fronts of war happening.
If you cannot understand how ludicrous, insane, and disrespectful that is, I cannot help you.
Environmental Storytelling and General “Vibes”
The atmosphere of the game is confusing at best, and environmental storytelling is nonexistence, and if I have to play puppets for another minute since the developers were too lazy to incorporate the narrative into a more creative or interactive form, I’m going to McFricken lose it.
We keep hammering home about this in our video essays, but environmental storytelling is essentially the “spark” of the game; a spell so to speak that transmutes the player from the game world into a fully immersive ecosystem. It’s the “showing” of the book that makes you want to curl up in your bed and never put it down again. The game absolutely fails on all fronts to portray this more nuanced and natural level of storytelling and essentially suffers from “telling” without “showing”. Everything has to be spelled out for the player including Martha’s delusional view of reality showcased by an absolutely mental puppet show that takes over an hour to playthrough and basically made me feel like the plot had to be mansplained to us. And here’s the thing—Giulia is an unreliable narrator. We cannot trust a single word she says. And the fact that the player is forced to replay the puppet show as many times as it takes until they finally discover the “true” narrative of events that pleases Giulia, feels more like shoving the narrative of what “really happened” down the player’s throat.
I wish the devs took a page out of Silent Hill 2 to show how Giulia thought one reality was real, discovers a true one throughout the game play slowly with clues, and perhaps the puppet show at the end was 1) SHORTENED BY LIKE 90% and also 2) lead to different game endings. If the “show” the players chose all lead to separate endings than I’d understand the whole “she is creating her own reality and choosing what to believe in” vibe that I *think* the game devs were trying to go for. At this point I’m not questioning “huh, did Martha ever exist?” I’m more like “Giulia needs a full frontal lobotomy or something cause this bitch is a crazy murderer and an absolute danger to society”.
Psychological and War Horror
This leads us to the actual “horror” of the game. Imo the game tries to blend psychological horror with the traumas of war—which tbh has been an emerging trend from video game creators from Europe. However, Martha is Dead set’s up mass psychological trauma, compounding at the end of the game, after an improper build-up. The personal side of psychological trauma (family, friends, other relationships, the self) wasn’t executed properly because of the poor environmental storytelling and spaghetti noodle narrative. The impersonal (environmental factors, situation and circumstance) also fail since the game setting wasn’t properly used. Like. One blown up boy and three bomber planes flying overhead do not a war setting make. The ending where Giulia was beaten by soldiers also seems out of the blue and yes, despite being extremely traumatizing, felt jarring compared to tranquil bike rides around the Villa where fear of war was nonexistent.
And then everyone comes to a head in the final 10% of the game with the goddamn puppet show and the asylum hallucination. I think the devs tried to build of the tension and guilt, just like Silent Hill 2 does with James Sunderland, but some things were left unexplained. The tarot cards? Other than their connection to the Italian occult and experiencing a resurging vogue felt useless. The white lady? Homegirl barley haunted us and her lover’s story kind of connected to Giulia and then didn’t. The sister’s deformed child? I guess being like a twin not fully detached perhaps referencing Martha not existing at all and being a figment of Giulia’s imagination? Idk bro it gave me alien vibes instead. Also, the two of them being pregnant? Absolutely had no influence on the plot other than a weak motive for revenge that falls into a toxic way of pitting women against each other. Again, I think this proves that the devs were trying to do too much, got tangled in their own plot, and tried to de-tangle it and steer the player in the direction they wanted with the deranged puppet extravaganza narrative dump that made me spend $300 ish bucks on Sephora as SadJack played through it since I really didn’t care at that point. In fact, it didn’t feel like something traumatizing happened to Giulia (despite this very much being the case) but instead, that Giulia was severely messed up, pathological liar. I honestly believe there is no “true ending” and whether Martha exists? You cannot be sure. There is a lot of evidence in game to argue both—as there is for all the things Giulia finally concludes.
Concluding thoughts
This game fucking sucks and idk if saying “I’m insulted” actually conveys my emotions. I think more accurately is I feel disrespected. Fuck you for treating sensitive material like absolute hogwash, demonizing mental illness, and glossing over the actual horrors of WWII. Why the fuck did you think it was ok to make your protagonist the daughter of a Nazi and making it absolutely meaningless like you don’t fuck around with shit like that how dare you.
The nicer conclusion is the devs were trying to do too much. We learned from our Italian friend that the story of the white lady appears both in Germanic and Italian folklore, so they probably wanted to use this idea and blend the two cultures together. The WW2 element was way too much and then it turned into an uncontrollable snowball of just adding and adding and adding instead of creating a well balanced, single, idea and fleshing that out as much as they could. And then to fix their mess it was like…WHELP. SHE’S FUCKED UP. Was she telling the truth? WHO KNOWS! But let’s slap on this happy lil message about mental health since clearly the war had a toll on her. Get out of here with that bullshit.
  —Mod Zmora
8 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 1 year
Text
Pkmn Scarlet and Violet sucks lol
Now that all the hype has died down, I think its finally safe to say it:
1. I hate, hate, HATE Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
2. Sword and Shield deserves a big apology from everyone hating on its narrative
3. This is a disgrace of a Pokémon game in the year of our lord 2023.
Yes, hi, hello Happy New Year, Void and welcome back to Zmora being a lean, mean, monstrous machine in Villain Era mode.  
Spoilers and nasty thoughts below, yeah?
Honestly, I’m supremely disappointed with this game and I was trying to formulate my thoughts together until I realized that the majority of hardcore Pokémon fans approach these games in a totally different manner. As opposed to prioritizing the story, or even the mechanics, the majority of Pokémon fans and reviewers focus on the actual monsters themselves—their builds, designs, weather they fit in with the world, and the catching. The story is secondary, and flaws in it are usually ignored if the catching aspect is “fun”. For instance, a friend of mine is a hardcore Zelda fan—knows the lore inside out and has replayed Breath many a time. He prefers S&V over S&S for one simple reason—new and improved Pokémon to catch. When I started looking up S&V reviews, that sentiment remained pretty equal throughout.
So this lead me to a theory—Game Freak doesn’t give a fuck about improving the quality of their games when 1) the main players don’t give a fuck about the quality as long as they get a LOT of new Pokémon (case and point with S&S since the major critique of that game was not enough new and unique Galar Pokémon); and 2) they usually sell out in merch anyways which produces the majority of their sales so there is no financial motivation to actually improve their games.
But honestly if you break it down the game is…bad. On all fronts. And the quality level is truly unacceptable compared to previous titles. We’re gonna do a video about this soon but for now here is the TL;DR of my thoughts:
Story:
- Didn’t like Nemona—personal choice tbh she’s kind of the older Dora the Explorer lesbian love interest (and like girl you are 17 easily and I am a 10 year old child please. Leave me be.) so if that’s your thing go for it. She’s already a champion which like…didn’t motivate me? I was like why should I care about you and why you wanna be friends leave me alone and do champion things.
- She’s also. Like. Way too happy. YOU’RE MY RIVAL. HATE ME A LITTLE. HURT COMFORT 👏LETS👏FUCKING👏GO👏. ENEMIES TO FRIENDS TO LOVERS I MEAN PEOPLE WHERE IS THE DRAMA. WHERE IS THE NARRATIVE PRESSURE.
- She’s also a rich kid and we never learn about that until the end.
- Speaking of this Champion Time situation La Premiera? Also being a champion? Is this Leon’s fantasy finally we’re all Champions together like BORING. I WANNA BE. THE VERY BEST. THAT NO ONE EVER WAAAAS 💃.
- THIS STORY IS SET IN SPAIN. DID YOU GET SPANISH VIBES? I DIDN’T. Like yea sure there’s the setting and minor environmental storytelling but the world in general is so flat that it falls apart quickly—especially when Nemona is the only character to incorporate some Spanish into her speech.
- Speaking of which the fucking language teacher? Salvatore? WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU TEACHING FRENCH. IN A SPANISH GAME. IDK GAME FREAK MAYBE THE LANGUAGE COULD HAVE BEEN…SPANISH? VAMOS.
- Like literally maybe letting us go into stores? Shops? Make more café settings or evening dance nights or something? Or like I see what they were trying to do with making Iona a Twitch streamer and gym leader and Levenicia did give off some Ibiza vibes (maybe playing on the word for Valencia? IDK?) but like bro if you’re going to give Ibiza vibes then pepa y agua pa' la seca to' el mundo en pastilla' en la discoteca or just agua since this is a kids game.
- The stores things REALLY bugged me. Same with the food restaurants and I found no purpose in making the stupid sandwiches all the time. Like if you want to showcase this part of Spanish culture you should idk…put more effort into it?
-  The school was boring as hell. And a waste of time. I learned basically nothing about the main plot points of the game until the very end when I like max friendshiped the teachers which is dumb. Do you know where we also got information about the story??? AT THE DEADASS FINAL LEVEL IN AREA ZERO. IN—YOU GUESSED IT—BASES. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, VOID. UNECESSARY INFO DUMPS AT THE BASE STRIKES AGAIN.
- Literally Omegaverse vibes between the legendaries and AI stupid magic at the end of the game fuck off with that shit. And people have the gal to say the Eternatus plot was bad?? Compared to this S&S was rational and well thought out.
- What was the point of the crystals oh right none of that was explained until the end. Also the animations were dump with their dumb ass fucking plastic tiara’s of shame on their stupid little heads to make my monstrous beefy beast Garchomp look like a BabyGirl.
- Ploughing through Star Crew was literally a hate crime against the LGBT.
Mechanics:
- I hated picnics. Can’t play with my Pokémon only bath the dirty little monsters and make stupid sandwiches. Curry making was superior and I could stay in camps for HOURS and just level the fuck out of my Pokémon while picnics cap you. NEXT.
- The gym stadium atmosphere? Dumb. Felt like I was in the backyard with a few spectators staring from the fence.
- Also the terrastaralizing shit or whatever? Pointless. Dumb. Irrelevant. Just stop with the gimmicks like I rather just have a good old fashioned battle than this shit.
- The easy EXP stuff with auto battle was ok but when I’d let my pokemon out of its ball it was sooooo slowwww it would just auto get back into its ball which annoyed the shit out of me since they didn’t do that on Ilse of Armour.
- Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing was better. More drama and flair. Also the fact that they ported over the “crowd roaring” noise from S&S where we played in A PACKED STADIUM compared to the empty ass parking lot in S&V like was so jarring. This is some Avengers Parking Lot Fight Vibes.
The Glitches Holy Fuck:
- Bad
- Awful
- Game breaking
- Unacceptable
- In the year of our lord
-  2023
- Like this is seriously pathetic
- SadJack and I went back to S&S to check and like…that game is SMOOTH.
- To have it be this broken?
- That Nintendo was giving out refunds which it never does?
- Fuck off.
- Fix your game.
- Apologize to the Spaniards and Portuguese.
- And everyone apologize for hating on Sword and Shield when this game is a goddamn disaster.
Thank you and goodnight.
—Mod Zmora
3 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 1 year
Note
If I may ask; why the lack of videos recently?
HIIIIII
No problem at all viewer from the Void. Basically shit hit the fan 🥴
We're gonna add a funny intro at the next video (RE6 ep 4) to also explain this but the TL;DR is:
SadJack was prepping for their PhD comprehensive exams so Zmora was doing the bulk of editing to ease their studying woes.
Then SadJack had to actually write the exam and it took a week
Don't ask about the results.
Then Zmora's entire office got sick EXCEPT for Zmora (superior Slav genes, obviously) so she was then doing everyone's job on top of her own over a period of 3 weeks.
Zmora had to run 3 back to back events with basically no staff so she was just dead tired in the evenings. This includes SadJack who does part-time stuff at Zmora's work place.
Aaaaand SadJack's sickness of choice was laryngitis and sounded like a prepubescent school boy going through the mutation period (they also had the perfect voice for that "relax. I just wanna take some pictures." meme)
Zmora's grandpa flew in from the Motherland and got held by border control for 6 hours as a "random check" (he's 81. He stood the entire time and wasn't offered water or a chair to sit on). They got out of the airport at 2am. Zmora was furiously writing complaints for like 2 days.
Zmora is ALSO applying for PhD now jfc as if we weren't busy already.
Our friend's dad passed away. We've been trying to spend time with them just gaming in the evenings and keeping company so time for editing is down.
Then Zmora had an eye exam and got the drops of "high-eyes" were your pupils are shot WIDE OPEN and they gave her too many drops so her pupils were enlarged for 48 hours and screens were hard to look at lmfao
Holiday season madness. SadJack hosted a Friendmas and then we were doing Holiday things, other Holiday parties, and shopping in friend groups and trying to organize things before the Holidays. ugh.
As a child of divorce, SadJack's family social schedule just blew up they are v busy. Meanwhile Polish xmas is just. a literal nightmare.
FIFA 2022 BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
PROJECT BLUELXCK INTENSIFIED
THIS FIFA IS SO DRAMATIC????? THE BEST ONE IN FOREVER???? LETS GO MOROCCOOOOOOO FOR DEFEATING ALMOST ALL THEIR COLONIZERS.
ZMORA IS GONNA GUSH OVER IT IN ANOTHER VIDEO AND THE ENTHUSIASM FOR THE GAME, THE MALE COMRADERY, AND HOMOEROTIC TENSION WAS SO HIGH THAT EVEN SADJACK GOT INTO FOOTBALL (if you say "soccer" in this house I will find you and I will kill you.)
and then Virgil bodied the fuck out of Paderes jfc. Google it it's wild to watch even if you don't like sports.
WE ARE CHEERING FOR THE BAGUETTES CAUSE WE DON'T LIKE HOW ARGENTINA HAS BEEN PLAYING THIS YEAR ESPECIALLY AFTER WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE POLISH GAME AND THE DUTCH GAME WE MUST HONOUR OUR ANCESTORS.
i mean HOW CAN YOU NOT AFTER THIS FORBIDDEN ROMANCE BETWEEN MBAPPE AND GIROUD
Tumblr media
So now SadJack and Zmora are planning to marry a rich footballer and be set for life. SadJack will be the nonbinary sensation and hey if Mbappe is dating a trans model anything is possible. We are willing to pump out a child or two as payment if it means getting to sink teeth into thunder thighs and have money to help our families.
Then Zmora reinvigorated her, like, decades long crush on Neymar and then got super sad when she became aware he's a Bolsonaro supporter and then fell down the Brazilian politics and Bolsonaro v Lula and Car Wash Scandal rabbit hole.
Now Zmora has a mild cold - still superior since people were knocked out with like bronchitis and fevers of 39.5 degrees celcius, bladder infections, etc. - but she's grumpy.
🫠🫠🫠
SO WITH ALL OF THAT we have lots planned 😁 and will probably continue the hiatus until January so we can get all our eggs in a basket but some things include: - a new series called critical crunches! -SadJack has a secret Pet Vet video coming out???? Man wtf??? -ofc an end of the year chaos video - finishing off RE6 -a few video essays in the works -Scarlet and Violet first impressions (tldr Zmora HATES HATES HATES it) -RE6 remaining, Gotham Knights, Callitso Protcol, that cursed train horror game, dead space remake maybe?
2 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
For all the shit I spew about this game and feeling disappointed and befuddled with the narrative, Horizon Forbidden West is still a very, very, very pretty game.
3 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 1 year
Note
While We weren't expecting all that info thank you letting Us know, good luck with all current, future endeavors, and sinking your teeth into some thunderous thighs.
P.S: We figured if We are the Void We should write like it.
This pleases Us greatly, Void. You are finally finding your place amongst the Cosmos.
YES THANK YOU TIME TO BUY A PLANE TICKET TO BRAZIL OR IBIZA AND COZY UP TO A FOOTBALLER WISH US LUCK.
1 note · View note
cosmologyofgaming · 1 year
Text
Alright the Silent Hill Showcase today was WILD and I just wanna say I am extremely HYPED for this new era of horror games after we’ve had the longest dry spell since like 2012. 
Quick thoughts include:
Resident Evil: Overall I have tHoUGHts about Remakes, but considering RE4 is still a well beloved series (and boyo SadJack and I have a video planned about its influence since it’s the backbone for RE5 and RE8 LMFAO), and the Shadow of Rose DLC AND AND upcoming showcase I’m really excited about where Resident Evil will take us next.
Callitso Protocol: Honestly looks like a Dead Space Remake (which is coming out lmfao) but mixed with more Lovecraftian Horror and I am hype.
Silent Hill Mega Franchise Revival Goddamn: Dude this showcase, THIS SHOWCASE. Iconic SH2 is being remade, Silent Hill “F” looks like Ghost of Tsushima meets Crimson Butterfly, Townfall looks like a call to the OG roots of the series with strange cults and sacrifices and Acension appears to be a move to diversify the franchise and I’m HERE FOR IT.
LOOKS LIKE WE’RE EATING GOOD FOR A WHILE FOLKS.
The only thing I’m worried about is toxic “fans” who are like “thiS IS THe oG caNoN you”RE noT CoRRecT” or “ThaT doESN’T looK lIkE the ChaRACteR” like they did with Rings of Power and like... relax.
Touch some fucking ✨Grass ✨ you 🐮.
People already hate on Bloober Team for imo no reason, and I’ve seen the twitter hate mob already saying shit about how James Sunderland looks and like...this is a traumatized, sick, depressed, sad sad sad sad man. He looks grizzled and haunted...which like is his character? What were you expecting, Chris Hemsworth?
—Mod Zmora
0 notes
cosmologyofgaming · 2 years
Text
Can we talk about how Kotallo has it in him to be the biggest drama queen??
Like this behemoth man is so polite all the time and well spoken and just surpresses all this rage until he has that outburst scaring the living shit out of Alva when he screams DIE MACHINE FILTH and all that good stuff.
But all I can think of is after he and Aloy talk to Tekkoteh, Kotallo is just like “THAT’S IT. WE GOTTA KILL HIM. NO CHOICE. DIPLOMACY HAS FAILED US WE HAVE EXHAUSTED ALL OPTIONS. LET’S KILL HIM.” And all I can think of is him whispering this to Aloy Michael Scott style like:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
⁠— Mod Zmora
161 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 2 years
Video
youtube
HEY REMEMBER THOSE CURSED THUMBNAILS WE MADE? WELL HERE IS THE VIDEO THAT ITS FOR.
500+ clips, 100s of hours, and 5 months later, we've finally collected our favourite, mostly unhinged, moments from the games we highlighted in 2021.
Thank you everyone in the Void who joined us for all the insanity in our first year of YouTube! You've made it special and we can't wait to continue sowing constructive chaos in the gaming space.
✧ Chapters✧
00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:20 The Atrocities of ABO 00:07:04 Bane Impersonation Intermission 00:11:44 Parental Issues 00:19:19 Horrible Karaoke 00:30:30 The Curious Case of Christ Redfield 00:36:39 …Furries 00:44:16 SadJack's Scream Sesh 00:52:03 Zmora Rage Quits 01:01:22 Terrible Thirst 01:09:46 Conclusion
3 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 2 years
Video
youtube
Welcome back to literally the impossible, Void! Zmora screaming at the top of her lungs and it's all thanks to the abyss pit of bad ideas.   Join the Cosmology Crew as they continue their collection of subordinate functions in the Forbidden West! From talking about dystopian novels in Canadian high school circular, to guessing the game's plot beat for beat, the two eventually delve in a tale of sin and debauchery about Christian propaganda, Roman Emperor insanity, Caligula, and how Nero was once a comrade and then became the modern day influencer high on his own drama. All in the bowels of Las Vegas.  
0 notes
cosmologyofgaming · 3 years
Text
Tumblr media
OK. FUCKING HOLD-UP. SO ADA WONG WAS GOING TO BE IN RE8...BUT THEN GOT FUCKING CUT!?!?!?!
A part of me is kind of happy they cut her since the game narrative is complicated as is and I really did enjoy the game the way it was...but also there's that big gap about how Mother Miranda was tied to Connections, and Ada is a criminal mastermind so I feel like if she helped cause this entire mess with Rose, Chris would have McFricken LOST IT and I would be so here for him always going ballistic over the fact that Leon's forbidden squeeze just keeps fucking him over lol.
but wait...IF CHRIS IS HERE WHY NOT ADD LEON TOO. WHAT ABOUT THE PERPETUAL SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN OUR BOY LEON AND ADA?!?!
(also can we please talk about her fucking outfit design I'm salivating it's like Bloodborne Assassin means Neo Slavic Half Modern Half Medieval shit and I'm so here for it why do all the women get bomb outfits and Ethan is stuck with a bloody tan jacket and Walmart jeans like come on)
—Mod Zmora
68 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 2 years
Text
LMFAO WHAT ARE YA’LL SEARCHING ?!?!?!
Check out our analytics for our Spiritfarer review video....
Tumblr media
...compared to OUR RESIDENT EVIL 8 REVIEW
Tumblr media
All of you are going to horny jail. Immediately.
12 notes · View notes
cosmologyofgaming · 3 years
Text
RE7-RE8 Connection (a thread)
Alright so I just finished editing the final episode for our RE7 playthrough and my brain is going full fucking detective mode so I'm just going to vomit these ideas out here and eventually compile a thread of all the clues in re7 that connect the game to re8. Mostly regarding this new form of mold-zombie, Miranda, and Connections.
Once the final episode is out, I'll throw up a video of all the clue clips from our playthrough just for posterity's sake. For now, here are the initial set of clues.
Tumblr media
Let's just take a moment to look at the games covers. RE8 depicts Chris turning into a Lycan (which never happens, and probably refers to his ✨Alpha✨ status on his team) while RE7 has nothing to do with the game. The weird graffiti...who's hidden face is that? the weird circle?
Well, now that we've played RE8 I think it's pretty obvious that looks like Miranda—who remains hooded for most of the game. And the more I think about it, it looks like the weird cadou symbol on the door's in RE8 that required the winged-key
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
And even at the start of the game, when we first interact with Miranda's Babuszka form, she was also drawing her "logo" I guess you could call it, is this circle, on the ground. Almost like a protection symbol, Miranda's mark, that matches the halo around her head. The door logo...and even the one in the RE7 cover appears to be created from dried twigs to give it this thorn...almost "crown of thorns" vibe. So connecting the two games together? But also the biblical imagery?
Also the vague splotches around the masked women could be withered wings. I mean, I think even considering the black on beige is a call to RE8...and I think we also need to remember that RE8 and RE7 were literally in production at the same time.
Tumblr media
Anyways, will post more thoughts soon and eventually make a mega thread, but feel free to add!
—Mod Zmora
Read Part 2
19 notes · View notes