for the little things you might have missed
Your Name (Japanese title: Kimi no Na wa) is one of those rare pieces of art that defies genre classification—that breaks every assumption and expectation of science-fiction, fantasy, and coming-of-age narratives, and that takes our reductionist approach to film and fiction and shows that nice, convenient labels are never necessary in creating powerful works. It simultaneously melds body-swapping and time … Continue reading Your Name: A Film on Reality, Seen through Fantasy
So Breath of the Wild is the apex of open-world design. It's filled with secrets, and it makes exploration itself feel rewarding. Its narrative has depth and resonance, and its characters feel three-dimensional and relatably real. It takes the tropes of post-apocalyptic fiction to a new level—depicting a world not irradiated and destroyed, but retaken by wilderness. And in … Continue reading An Exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Part V: The Heroes’ Legacy
I've spent far too long now extolling Breath of the Wild as the best that open-world game design has to offer, but open-world games pose a huge narrative challenge for developers trying to tell a coherent story. Because the game's events can be played out in any order, it's quite difficult to build a satisfying, well-plotted narrative, especially … Continue reading An Exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Part IV: The Post-Post-Apocalypse
So Breath of the Wild is open world in the best sense of the term; it presents you with a vast world to explore, where everything you see can be reached, every mountain climbed, every river sailed, every canyon traversed... but so what? I've extolled its world design and its exploration mechanics and rambled about its well-crafted mapmaking, … Continue reading An Exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Part III: Into the Wild
In modern game design, "open-world" has become something of a buzzword; after series like GTA and Elder Scrolls popularized the genre, developers (especially Ubisoft) embraced it and began to churn out game after game after game in that mold. Open-world games, in short, discard the notion of linear progression and instead throw the player into what is … Continue reading An Exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Part II: “Open World”
Rarely, if ever, does a game like Breath of the Wild live up to its expectations. I still remember the first time I watched the trailer for what was then known only as "the Wii U Zelda"—a mysterious, supposedly open-world title that Nintendo had spent almost three years developing for its flagging console. It starts with a black … Continue reading An Exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Part I: A Genealogy
It's been almost three years since Yacht Club Games released Shovel Knight, a long-awated Kickstarter project featuring, well, a cerulean knight wielding a trusty shovel. From that whimsical, retro-inspired concept, they built a game that was simple yet not simplistic, zany yet never pretentious, and controller-smashingly difficult but always satisfying. The original Shovel Knight has remained one … Continue reading Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, or How to Make a Prequel
There is no such thing as a perfect film. But, at least in my view, there are films that are in and of themselves and as pieces of their respective genres the best they could possibly be. And as you can probably imagine, I could count all of them on one hand. That's not necessarily … Continue reading You Might Have Missed: The Handmaiden
There has been a recent spike in interest for what people sometimes refer to as "art games"—a subgenre of gaming that includes legitimately interesting pieces like Campo Santo's Firewatch, flawed yet thought-provoking experiments like Davey Wreden's The Beginner's Guide, and walking simulators of questionable intent like Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. But more often than not, the implications behind … Continue reading The Minimalist, Ethereal Storytelling of Hyper Light Drifter
If you're reading this, and have ever read many of the other posts I've made about games on this blog, you're probably aware that I spend more time than is physically or mentally healthy playing, thinking about, and writing about videogames. But all obsessions start somewhere, and for me, my love affair with games began Christmas … Continue reading Pokémon Sun and Moon: Finally, A Story Worth Telling
Sunset Over Ithaca 