Everhood for me. It’s divisive, if you manage to connect with the game and don’t bounce off it, I think it’s one of the most emotionally powerful experiences I’ve gone through at least. The themes just happen to be intensely involved with most of my longest standing philosophical and existential struggles and the game was cathartic in dealing with them. Plus it’s psychedelic, eastern/buddhist inspired, and is fully capable of rendering you emotionally raw.
That the asynchronous musical real time combat works so well for me just sends it even harder. The OST is nearly 3 hours long and nearly every song is a banger. Quite intimate at times, as the game I think deliberately ties the song to the character’s very “soul” as you’re struggling to kill them.
The basic premise is this: You may know, if you’re in the right type of debate or philosophy communities, how often the topic of dealing with death comes up. Atheists I often find saying living forever would be absurd mental torture and maddening. Even though I agree I’d still choose to be ageless all the same as I’d rather that than not existing. Unpopular opinion. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me and that’s fine, I’m weird. Well, this game explores that scenario and certainly doesn’t agree with me either.
You’re orbiting the very last star in the entire universe, experiencing a later stage of Universal Heat Death before the last thing happening is evaporating black holes exploding in gamma ray bursts. With people who countless eons ago figured out how to become ageless. They’ve lived for so long they’re physically twisted, messing with their forms out of sheer boredom and they’re various flavours of insane.
Your character is pressured into finally ending the lives of the remaining survivors and then destroying the last star and reality itself. Truly ending it all. It’s muddy and the game isn’t going to let you go about that without feeling conflicted. The main character has tried before, failed, and lost their memory out of grief, laying dormant in the forest for who knows how long before this amnesiac second attempt begins with the encouragement of a frog man who very much wants to end reality itself. You can refuse btw, and get an extremely difficult fight out of it.
This is all played out with Undertale styled humor and characters. It’s certainly under the Earthbound branch alongside LISA but much less crass.
At the end, I walked away being far less afraid of death and that’s a big deal for me as an atheist who before this found zero comfort in the responses people gave online when it came to dealing wirh death when you’re unwilling to believe in comforting lies like religion. I’d still choose to be ageless if I could :p but at least I’m at peace with reality for now.
If I caught anyone’s interest I think it’s best played on Expert so the fights really feel like the narrative wants them to feel: tooth and nail struggles. If you end up enjoying it, the sequel is an utter travesty and the biggest disappointment in a form of media I’ve ever experienced.
!!! WARNING. SPOILERS. !!!
Everhood for me. It’s divisive, if you manage to connect with the game and don’t bounce off it, I think it’s one of the most emotionally powerful experiences I’ve gone through at least. The themes just happen to be intensely involved with most of my longest standing philosophical and existential struggles and the game was cathartic in dealing with them. Plus it’s psychedelic, eastern/buddhist inspired, and is fully capable of rendering you emotionally raw.
That the asynchronous musical real time combat works so well for me just sends it even harder. The OST is nearly 3 hours long and nearly every song is a banger. Quite intimate at times, as the game I think deliberately ties the song to the character’s very “soul” as you’re struggling to kill them.
https://youtu.be/IbHZngyTDZ0
The basic premise is this: You may know, if you’re in the right type of debate or philosophy communities, how often the topic of dealing with death comes up. Atheists I often find saying living forever would be absurd mental torture and maddening. Even though I agree I’d still choose to be ageless all the same as I’d rather that than not existing. Unpopular opinion. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me and that’s fine, I’m weird. Well, this game explores that scenario and certainly doesn’t agree with me either.
You’re orbiting the very last star in the entire universe, experiencing a later stage of Universal Heat Death before the last thing happening is evaporating black holes exploding in gamma ray bursts. With people who countless eons ago figured out how to become ageless. They’ve lived for so long they’re physically twisted, messing with their forms out of sheer boredom and they’re various flavours of insane.
Your character is pressured into finally ending the lives of the remaining survivors and then destroying the last star and reality itself. Truly ending it all. It’s muddy and the game isn’t going to let you go about that without feeling conflicted. The main character has tried before, failed, and lost their memory out of grief, laying dormant in the forest for who knows how long before this amnesiac second attempt begins with the encouragement of a frog man who very much wants to end reality itself. You can refuse btw, and get an extremely difficult fight out of it.
This is all played out with Undertale styled humor and characters. It’s certainly under the Earthbound branch alongside LISA but much less crass.
At the end, I walked away being far less afraid of death and that’s a big deal for me as an atheist who before this found zero comfort in the responses people gave online when it came to dealing wirh death when you’re unwilling to believe in comforting lies like religion. I’d still choose to be ageless if I could :p but at least I’m at peace with reality for now.
If I caught anyone’s interest I think it’s best played on Expert so the fights really feel like the narrative wants them to feel: tooth and nail struggles. If you end up enjoying it, the sequel is an utter travesty and the biggest disappointment in a form of media I’ve ever experienced.