Reading List (March 2022) (Patreon)

The reading list has come once again! This time, it's all about the Elden Ring. This game was a pretty inescapable Cultural Moment, and unsurprisingly that means that a lot of people have already written many, many words about it. But if you're burnt out on Elden Ring, we've got a whole other half of the reading list to check out!

Second Opinions

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Modders Are Making Everyone Bald for Better Performance by Ishraq Subhan: One of the biggest things Stranger of Origin got blasted for was some pretty intense technical performance woes — so bad that the game has a mode to downscale the graphics to improve performance, even on consoles. And the culprit? Hair! Lovingly rendered, ridiculously unoptimized hair.

Stranger of Paradise is SO Dumb…But I Love It! By The Gaming Shelf: While a lot of people (myself included) came away a little underwhelmed by Stranger of Paradise, the game does have its true believers. If you want to see how the game clicked with people, check out Gaming Shelf’s review!

All Anybody Can Talk About is Elden Ring

Seriously. I had to go out of my way to find articles about anything else.

How Souls Games Save You | Psych of Play by Daryl Talks Games: DTG went into some of the psychological effects of Souls games, specifically their ability to improve one’s feeling of self-efficacy, which can in turn help people with depression.

The Boschian Horror of Elden Ring by Gareth Damian Martin: Martin analyzed the artistic inspirations behind Elden Ring, finding elements of Hieronymus Bosch, Brian Catling, and far more.

Elden Ring is a Reminder That Souls Games Get Elevators Right by Ed Thorn: Whether they’re well-paced moodsetters, tantalizing previews of future paths of progress, or cleverly placed shortcuts, Thorn talks about how Elden Ring has mastered the art of FromSoft’s trademark long elevator rides.

Elden Ring’s Platforming is So Bad It’s Good by Ed Thorn: Like other FromSoft titles before it, Elden Ring’s platforming is perilously clumsy. But Thorn digs a bit more into how it fits into the larger scope of the game, meshing well with its generally oppressive and tense atmosphere and making platforming sections as dread-inducing as a boss door.

For The Physically Disabled, Elden Ring is the Most Accessible Souls Game Yet by Grant Stoner: Stoner described the ways Elden Ring has become a little more accessible for people with disabilities thanks to its open world — and others in which it still lags behind the crowd.

How Elden Ring Teaches Us to Be More Open About Death by Steph Panecasio: Panecasio talked about Elden Ring as a tool for promoting death positivity through its repetitive, constant, and even in some ways gentle portrayal of the topic.

Elden Ring Is Still a Mystery by Gita Jackson: Jackson has been trying to dig into Elden Ring’s “plot,” which in standard FromSoft fashion is little more than a vague reflection seen through a half dozen mirrors a good few centuries too late, ruminating on what might have once been and finding characters to attach herself to along the way.

The Polygon Who Would Win Week

Polygon had a whole weeklong event hashing out some of internet nerddom’s favorite IP rivalries, covering comics, movies, and games alike. Many of these articles, like a tier list of most sexually charged villains, are just daft gutbusters. But many of the articles also took a more substantive angle than simply arguing who could beat who in a fight, often commenting on the underlying dynamics that make the matchups so intriguing in the first place.

Final Fantasy 7’s Tifa-vs.-Aerith War is Unwinnable by Holly Boson: What starts as a walk through the history of an incredibly long-running nerd spat over which FF7 girl is best eventually starts deconstructing itself, as Boson points out the many ways individual shippers imprint themselves on these characters, how we respond to stereotypes of femininity, and the many ways we gloss over the actual text to tell the story we want to hear.

Did Sonic Really Lose to Mario? By Nicole Carpenter: Sonic and Mario used to be directly pitted in popularity contests pretty regularly in their heyday, but Carpenter focuses primarily on the hedgehog, the many ways the series’ developers attempted to win that contest over the decades, and how the Sonic brand has evolved over its long tenure.

Behind the Samus-vs.-Master Chief Video That Spawned a Timeless Matchup by Ryan Gilliam: While he does spend some time actually playing out how these two would fare in a brawl, Gilliam’s article is mostly a recounting of the late Monty Oum’s infamous Haloid video from all the way back in 2007, giving both a snapshot of what internet culture was like back then and a glimpse at its creator’s process.

Everything Else

Investigating Three Indie Superstars Accused of Emotional Abuse by People Make Games: Allegations of abuse are almost commonplace at larger studios, but more and more often, these same hostile workplaces are being highlighted at indie darlings. PMG released the findings of an investigation that went across three studios: Mountains (Florence), Fulbright (Gone Home, Tacoma), and Funomena (Wattam). Despite the disparate studios, the stories of workplace abuse are all remarkably similar, and they all include the same publisher: Annapurna.

GoldenEye 007 (Children of Doom 1997) by Errant Signal: Errant Signal talked about the seminal work GoldenEye (and a whole lot of other shooters from ‘97), discussing how it started out as a light gun game, the many ways that heritage contributed to the game’s unique design, and how the game has aged over the decades.

Black Mesa: The 16 Year Project to Remake Half-Life by Noclip: Noclip detailed the long journey of Crowbar Collective from small outfit passionately updating the graphics of the original Half-Life to full company creating entire alien worlds and filling in the blanks in Valve’s magnum opus series.

The Biology of Subnautica: Below Zero | Part 1 by Curious Archive: Curious Archive did a sort of quasi-let’s play/video essay formatted like a fictional nature documentary, documenting the many ways these fantastical animals are rooted in real world counterparts. The series just wrapped up this month with another video interviewing one of Subnautica’s creature designers about the animals that didn’t make it past the concept phase.

The Only Battle Royale That Matters by Tehsnakerer: Tehsnakerer highlighted Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, the former April Fools joke turned actual real game that takes the battle royale genre and applies all the silly nonsense Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is known for. One of his main points is that TABG cuts a lot of the fat from the normal battle royale experience, making it exactly the game I try to highlight at First Five!

Taking Up Space by Philip Russell: Russell used Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s foray into describing homelessness as a jumping off point to talk about the larger craft of storytelling, how one balances serious or political elements with more lighthearted ones, and the value in taking time out of your narrative to explore these topics.

This Stunning Deep South Fable Isn’t the Next Kentucky Route Zero — It’s the First Norco by Alexis Ong: Norco’s been catching a lot of eyes in the indie space, and PC Gamer’s Alexis Ong got a chance to interview the developers about the game’s themes and its place in a small but outsized genre alongside other titles like Kentucky Route Zero and Night in the Woods.

You Don’t Know What an INCOMPLETE Character Looks Like by LordKnight: Taking a brief dive into some extremely technical fighting game territory, LordKnight highlights a fascinating piece of fighting game history talking about Anakaris from the Darkstalkers series. As is the case with most competitive game genres, fighting game players make a hobby of talking about which characters are most competitive and which are lacking in critical ways, but LordKnight points out how good the kids today have it compared to some of the truly unbalanced jank of ancient fighting games.

How Do You Improve Turn Based Combat? by Design Doc: If there’s one thing that drags me down about an otherwise good JRPG, it’s almost always the turn based combat. What starts fresh and engaging in the first few hours usually becomes a tedious slog by hour 50, having long since run out of novelty to throw at me.. But Design Doc did an overview of how numerous RPGs have worked to innovate and spice up the turn based combat system.