When I play games, I like to do it just about as blind as possible. This does not mean that I tie a blindfold across my face or gouge out my eyes or anything—after all, simply taking off my glasses would function well enough—but rather that I like to know very little about any game before I start playing it. Pristinely unspoiled. Absolutely no clue what I’m getting myself into besides vague notions of “well, I heard it’s really good” and “it’s, like, a Metroidvania, I think?” To me, this is the most ideal way to play anything, giving the game the opportunity to surprise you at every moment.
Unfortunately, as is true with every topic, it would seem that not everybody agrees with me.
Now, I’m not one to police how people enjoy themselves. You can play games however you like. Other people can be different than me. It’s okay. It’s whatever. I don’t even really care. (...w-what do you mean you watched a bunch of Hollow Knight lore videos before getting the game when I specifically suggested going into it blind? Y-you don’t want to, y’know, play the game first? Oughhhh… I think I’m gonna be sick…)
Hahhhh… hahhh… okay, breathe… I’m okay, I’m fine. Just let me make my case here, alright? Why do I get so bent out of shape about this?
Perhaps it’s best to illustrate with an example. Recently, I played Tunic for the very first time, an indie game that clearly takes a lot of inspiration from older Zeldas (think the original or Link to the Past) and features a charming little fox as the protagonist. These two facts are easily discernible from the cover art, and so once I popped the cartridge in, I was ready for a lighthearted adventure involving a decent amount of overworld exploration, dungeon diving, and simple puzzle-solving that would finally culminate in me saying, “Well, that was a cute little game!” as the credits rolled.
Long story short, Tunic ended up delivering more than I could have possibly imagined. As the credits rolled, instead of feeling finished with the game, I looked down at my little sticky note I had jotted various observations down on throughout my playthrough, things that seemed important but I didn’t know what to do with yet, and thought to myself, “I’m probably going to need a bigger paper going forward.”
I can’t say too much, or else I’ll be working against my own point here—Tunic was such an engaging experience precisely because I knew so little about it, so little about where it would go. It really did surprise me at every turn. Perhaps the thing that I value most about Tunic is that it’s a game that rewards the curious, rewards you for paying attention, rewards you for taking the time to try and figure certain things out. If I have any regrets about my Tunic playthrough, it would be first and foremost that I played it by myself—once I started to realize that the game was so much more than I thought it would be, I wished I had been playing it alongside somebody the whole time, whether it be with a friend beside me in the room or streaming over Discord, just to share the experience. Secondly, I wish I’d had more patience in certain regards, not turning to the internet for guidance and instead savoring that feeling of “...what do I do now?” for a little longer. Sometimes a little nudge is all you need for a puzzle to click into place, but I wish I’d given myself more time to find that nudge within myself instead of searching elsewhere… or at least gotten a friend to put my head together with. Sometimes I feel like the internet is an evil machine that sucks out all patience and critical thinking with its temptation of instant answers, and in turn sucks all the wonder and imagination out of video games. Wikis are cool and all, but maybe sometimes it’s better to not know everything, y’know? After all, weren’t games so magical as a kid because they held secrets you never fully understood?
(My Tunic notesheet was inspired by the last time I played Wind Waker, years ago, as I jotted down the locations of interesting islands to possibly return to, and later on tried to piece together where all the Triforce shards could be. Tunic is perhaps the one game that has captured that sense of mystery in me again. I never came close to figuring out all the secrets those islands held.)
All this is to say that I really recommend you play Tunic. I’m sure I’ll be writing a lot more about the game here with a little time (a more formal review as is customary, and definitely a recommendation page at some point).
As I reflect on Tunic, I see my habits and motivations for playing games starting to shift. For starters, I don’t have nearly as much time to play games as I used to anymore—this is the first I’ve played anything since August. I’ve always played games fast, and with shrinking time, the urge to do so can feel stronger… but I find myself wishing I’d slowed down a little with Tunic instead. Savored the experience. Shared it with others. Maybe spreading a playthrough out over months (as scheduling nightmares would necessitate) isn’t so bad so long as you get to play it with people you care about.
I’ve gotten a little off-topic. The headline, promising a focus on other peoples’ gaming habits, has instead lured you into a trap where I mostly talk about myself. In my blabbering though, it is likely at the very least apparent that I care a lot about video games. Unlike any other art form, video games are unique in that they are a conversation between you and the developers. That interactive element is what makes video games so special. Now, if you do some digging before engaging in that conversation, and read the metaphorical script to find out every line the game can spew back at you, then… well, you’re not going to have nearly as interesting or thought-provoking an experience.
Plenty of people want to clearly know what they’re getting themselves into before starting a game, and I understand that. If that’s you, then we simply have a difference of preference. As a random person writing on the internet (that lovely machine that both gives and takes so much), I hold no power over you to change your habits. I hope you’ll consider, maybe just once, however, taking a leap of faith on a game, going in with nothing but a curious mind and a patient attitude. Maybe you’ll find it a really appealing way to approach games! Maybe you’ll have an unforgettable experience! Or maybe not, and you win. I won’t actually strangle you for having fun incorrectly, I just wanted to say my piece. Clickbait at its finest, eh?
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THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MODERATE SPOILERS FOR POKÉMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: GATES TO INFINITY
PROCEED AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION
(and if you are part of a certain Pokémon marathoning group... CLICK OFF THIS PAGE RIGHT NOW, you have to wait until we give this game a double take)
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity is not a particularly good game—this was abundantly clear to me when I set it down following my first playthrough earlier this year. In the months that followed, however, something curious happened… it had been so long since I’d played it, yet I couldn’t stop myself from continuing to think about the game incessantly, turning its characters and its plot over in my head. In all of its 59% Metacritic score glory, Gates to Infinity had managed to somehow do something that inexorably stuck with me.
The second I finished Gates, I started a “Rewrite Thoughts” document in my phone’s notes app that I continue to occasionally add to; I made stupid MS Paint comics of a handful of scenarios and still populate my sketchbook with doodles of the Paradise crew. And every single time I find that I’m adding to these again, I ask myself, “Why in the world am I still thinking about Gates to Infinity?”
The truth is that Gates to Infinity managed to articulate something that I myself hold very strongly and yet never knew how to put into words. Gates is a game about the battle between hope and despair (something that Spike Chunsoft has never done before, I assure you), enough so that the game’s main motif is literally titled “Theme of Hope”. When the end of the world is nigh, it is only prevented by the steadfast belief that the looming future isn’t truly set in stone—fate can be defied, but only if you wholeheartedly believe so. A defeatist attitude does nothing but generate self-fulfilling prophecies of destruction. A better future is within our grasp so long as we know that it’s achievable, so long as we don’t give up halfway through the journey. It’s perhaps fitting that I named my partner “Cringe” at the behest of a friend at the very start of the playthrough—I felt bad about it at the moment, but by the time I reached the plot’s climax, he was the single person trying to convince everybody to have hope in the face a desperate situation. In the end, the only way to save the world was to be cringe, to maintain hope when everyone else thinks it is pointless and naïve.
Yes, it’s a kids’ game. It’s cheesy, and the plot is in many places not nearly as polished as I’d like. I’m sure you could find a million other examples of media about the importance of perseverance. But the way the particular themes present in Gates to Infinity are spun (and the ways they could be expanded, hence the ever-growing “Gates Rewrite Thoughts” note), have found a way to deeply resonate with me. The stories of the other Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games may be much better executed (oh my god, Gates’ pacing sucks), but Gates has so much more of a message to it, exemplified when you start reading between the lines a little.
Playing Gates to Infinity for the first time in the spring of 2024 was… well, an interesting experience, to say the least. As United States presidential campaigns kicked into gear and a Biden vs. Trump rematch became apparent, I found myself surrounded on all sides by a hopelessness thicker than any I’d felt before. So many people seemed to have the result pre-ordained in their mind, and the sentiment of “it’s so over” only grew to echo louder and louder around me.
Needless to say, the election ended up not exactly being a 2020 rematch. Also needless to say, the “it’s so over” crowd was right in the end. I worked as an election judge all day on November 5th (as an aside, it was an incredibly valuable experience I’d recommend to anybody living in democracy) and plopped to bed exhausted as soon as I got back—it wasn’t until the next morning that I grabbed my phone, hastily searched up “US election results” and groaned at my screen. In a rapid-pace election cycle where one campaign laser focused on the central theme of hope, I expected November to bring a starkly different perspective than it now does when I look back on that original spring Gates playthrough held in such a climate of uncertainty. On the contrary, hope ran and lost.
And this is when I know that I’ve really lost it, that Gates to Infinity has actually driven me insane, when the one thing granting me solace, the number one thing I point to to keep my head on straight when all around me people are ringing the doomsday alarms, is some stupid, mediocre 2012/13 Pokémon spin-off game. Because the “it’s so over” crowd I’d been surrounded by might have been right about the outcome of the election, but one question still remains: what exactly is “over”? I still woke up this morning. So did you. We’re all still here, we’re all still alive! We can all still do things, so long as we have the will to act. What would Cringe do in this situation? I think he’d tell us not to give up on our values.
…Yes, I seriously just wrote that. Because to be cringe is to hold onto hope. And the world doesn’t end until hope does.
Here,
Fishy Fishy
After two months of ruthlessly applying for jobs everywhere I can think of and being either rejected or ghosted over and over again, my ineptitude has been solidified. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true, everybody. I’m cringefail. I’m never coming back from this one.
In a desperate bid to inflate my bank account, I’m doing it... I’m unleashing the great evil—I am... opening commissions. May Cod have mercy on my soul. So if you’re at all interested in little clay figures or music (and can pay me), I urge you to rush over to my commissions page while deals last (because I won’t be unemployed forever, ha ha, right?).
But seriously, major gratitude to anybody who decides to support me this way. Thus ends this public service announcement. Have a good day, make good choices, and don’t forget to make silly faces in the mirror.
Just swimmingly,
That Fish
Say hello to this wonderful new news section, where you get to read at length about whatever miscellaneous goings-on I decide to write about. Scary, I know. It’s okay if you need to take a moment for some deep breaths, I’ll wait.
In reality, I’m popping this section into existence in order to advertise the TRANZINE. It’s a little zine put together over the course of roughly two months, affiliated with the Transing the Internet webring (that thing I have a little widget for at the bottom of my homescreen, which mysteriously un-centered itself one day and I still need to fix…). The PDF is a fabulous 28 pages cobbled together by 14 contributors (including me! My page will actually jumpscare you really quick—you flip the cover and AUGH it’s here already!), and I’d recommend giving it a quick peruse if you’re interested. Not every page is necessarily about transness, but it’s generally an underlying theme. And hey, once you get to the end, there’s a nice little credits page and you can go on an adventure checking out some of the wonderful contributors’ websites. It’s unhealthy for me to keep you cooped up in here for too long—go explore somewhere else!
As a side note, it’s also worth mentioning that I might have vaguely suggested the idea in the first place? Though I didn’t actually know what a zine was at the time. For those also not in the know, zine is a shortening of magazine (yes, it rhymes with wean instead of vine, and yes, I was also devastated to learn this), and they’re essentially small little printed booklets. Sometimes they’re handed out for free, or sometimes they’re sold. I’m sort of new to the concept myself, so my explanation might not be fully fleshed out. As for the Tranzine, due to the digital nature of it, it’s a PDF rather than a physical booklet. It’s perfectly capable of being printed out though, if you’re really dying to hold it in your hands.
The gist: consider taking a couple minutes out of your day to marvel at Tranzine the Internet. There’s planned to be a second volume coming out in December, so hey, if you’re interested in contributing, check out the page on their website!
That’s all from me for now. Have a good day, make good choices, and don’t forget to blow some bubbles every once in a while.
Fishily yours,
The Tuna