You do remember why you are here, right?

Or have you lost something?

Something very important to you.

I want to start this off by saying straight up that I'd recommend this game to near enough anyone who's played a video game. Hell I think even if you hadn't played video games it's a good one to start with. I say this now for two reasons. Firstly - I want you to play this game. I think you'll like it a lot, and subsequently thank me later. Secondly because I'll spend a lot of this review going over the elements that I felt iffy on - and talking about the negatives of a piece of art has its way of staining the good and making me seem like I dislike something more than I do. This fact in itself - that we see criticism as overwhelmingly damning is interesting in its own right but not something I can get into right now. Just know that this game is one of my favourites I've played this year.

So what exactly is 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim? 13 Sentinels is part mystery adventure game, part real time strategy game. The game is largely split into two halves: called "Remembrance" and "Destruction". In Destruction, we find ourselves commanding an army of 13 mechs fighting off a Kaiju invasion. How we've got here, who the pilots are and what is going on exactly is the concern of Remembrance - where we follow the 13 pilots individual, but intertwining storylines, to answer these exact questions. There is, technically, a third section to the game: "Analysis". It's where you can review seen cutscenes and files on aspects of the world. We'll come back to this later. First - let's talk about Remembrance.

Remembrance is laid out as a side scrolling adventure game, with just the most jaw dropping visuals. Before I talk about the story I really just need to mention this upfront. Vanillaware are known for their visual direction and it shows here. I don't think I've played a game that looks like 13 Sentinels. The choice to stick with 2D characters in a 3D world gives it an almost storybook like quality - which really reinforces the idea that we're exploring the past. There were honestly moments where I had to stop to appreciate the fidelity and I just wish that more games looked like it did.

[Minor Spoilers Start]

Ok onto the story proper. Thirteen storylines intertwined certainly seems like a lot, huh? Now luckily it isn't as bad as it seems initially. You can sort of split the cast into a core group and an outside group. The core group have the most plot, and also contain a lot of intertwined segments but the non-core group have storylines that are mostly insular and therefore can mostly be separated from the main plot. Not to say they aren't story relevant - they are. Rather that they don't require juggling alongside the other plots. They usually deliver one specific core detail. That certainly lessens the load but we enter into issue again when you realise that the plot is actually quite complicated. The story isn't one to turn to the camera and explain things point blank to you. Instead, characters who know things you don't will talk with the knowledge already assumed. It's up to you to pick up the pieces. In fact - I quite literally made a document to jot down everything I learnt about the characters and the world. Don't worry, this isn't by any means necessary to enjoy the story - but I found that it made the first few hours a lot easier to digest and there was certainly a sense of pride everytime I was able to see a twist in advance simply by paying attention to what was going on.

[Major Spoilers Start]

I ended up very grateful by the end of my document however because the story goes into some crazy places. I'm not much of a sci-fi person, so I can't say how common it is for those types of story to reach the places 13 Sentinels does, but a simulated set of worlds based off eras of Japan used to incubate clones of humans to live simulated lives in order to restart humanity on other planets millions of years after extinction is certainly a lot. By the end so much ended up being revealed that I found myself having to go over it again and again just to make full sense of it all.

This is actually where the "Analysis" portion comes in. As stated before it allows you to review things you've seen already - and it was used extensively by me all throughout my time with the game. Whether to corroborate my notes or to refresh myself on key concepts - it's really no wonder they decided to include this. I will say though - I am a little disappointed that, despite being presented as a key third of the game, in the end there really isn't any test of your understanding. If I had played this last year, I would have excused the game by saying that lore puzzles seem hard to execute on conceptually but I played Void Stranger before this and that game thrived on mixing lore as keys to puzzles. 13 Sentinels could have totally capitalised more on the analysis section and I definitely felt let down when I kept expecting it to do something interesting with how its hinted without it ever delivering. Though I digress, back to the plot!

A lot of the story end up involving romance in one way or another between the characters. Sekigahara and Fuyusaka. Kurabe and Yakushiji. Kisaragi and Ogata. Amiguchi and Takamiya. Minami and Mirua. Hijiyama and Okino. To me all of these - minus the final pairing - felt wholly uncompelling to me. I was never really 'sold' on the chemistry between most of the pairs. Hell, in the case of Kurabe and Yakushiji it takes all of like a single conversation for him to go "yeah so the memories of how I used to think of you are seeping back and although I'm a different person (literally my whole character arc) I love you now". I genuinely felt like facepalming at that point I am being serious. I think that the writers were sort of backed into having to do this for all the characters since by virtue of the sci-fi premise they're meant to repopulate humanity together, plus having relationships blossom allows for more intertwining of characters between character plotlines. However because the story itself spans such a short amount of time in the world - and our attention is so heavily split - we are left with not much room at all within the narrative to develop anything worth putting stock into.

That is, expect for Okino and Hijiyama - the only couple that I was invested in (and the one I wish I wasn't invested in). To start we need to make something clear. Okino is clearly a trans woman. They don't come out and say is as such but the evidence to me is staggering. Firstly, they live as a woman for months in the 1945 sector. It's presented as being in some sense necessary to aid in disguise but for what exact reason this is necessary - it's never really said. And in any case - if a man were asked to have to live as a woman for a long stretch of time I'm promising you that they wouldn't last a week. Mind, this alone is no where near damning proof but then later after leaving 1945 - Okino is still seen from time to time wearing the schoolgirl outfit even when it isn't necessary to do so after all - and commenting on how it's something they like to do anyway (again - men do not typically like to live out their lives presenting as women especially in public with others). Finally, and the point that really drove it home for me, in the epilogue when inserted back into the simulated world, Okino seems pretty clearly to imply that they've used the fact that they're in a digital space to physically alter their sex characteristics to be that of a woman's. The fact that when allowed to choose what form they could take in this simulated space, they choose a woman's body and to come dressed as a woman is insanely telling - and if you are still unconvinced I seriously think you need to reconsider why you have such an aversion to reading them as a trans woman. From here on out I'll be gendering her as "she".

Now, despite sub-textually being trans, the writers are very much allergic to admitting as such outright (likely due to censorship laws is Japan surrounding queer content in media). Now this on its own is in itself disappointing but where it ends up impacting the narrative is the relationship between her and Hijiyama. Since the narrative cannot decide whether or not Okino is actually a woman, Hijiyama's relationship with her neither can decide if it wants to be a gay love story between two men or something more complicated regarding Okino's transness. You're left then with a story that leaves so much to be desired. They don't even get together in the end! It's a will-they-won't-they thats perpetually stuck at square one because they won't let Hijiyama move past the thought "b-b-but he's a boy." In a perfect world, the game would be honest about Okino and create a really moving love story between the two - Okino becoming more confident in the woman she is by positioning herself as someone that Hijiyama could legitimately love and exploring Hijiyama's character more deeply as a man brought up within fascist Japan, and how he has to wrestle with the ideas regarding queerness he's been taught and his own feelings for a trans woman. It's certainly be a more meaningful condemnation of fascism than anything else this game would offer.

I mention the above because despite the fact that WW2 features prominently in the game - as one of the possible locations in the game - the game seems very unconcerned that a) 2 of its characters are products of imperial wartime Japan and that b) in the year 2188 that WW2 era Japan is considered a mandatory time period for future civilisations to experience and have recollection of. The latter especially feels like it really ought to be a bigger deal than it's actually made in the game (which is no deal at all) and I feel speaks volumes as to the ways in which Japanese society seems to view their history - not with derision but with a sort of weird nostalgia. The game feels like it looks back fondly on the period and likes the aesthetic of the dedicated soldier. Hijiyama never really drops the insane levels of patriotism that he starts the game with. Patriotism for a nation that saw itself as superior to surrounding peoples. Once again I'm left feeling like the game is lacking - having all the pieces to say something interesting but opting to say nothing at all on the matter.

[Major Spoilers End]

You may have noticed that I've left discussion of the Destruction section to last and well, that was very much intentional. Much like my own experience of 13 Sentinels - the RTS battles were always something I left as an afterthought. Only something I'd do if I had too. Honestly, that ended up surprising me. I'm usually a fan of RTS games (I've played more Paradox Interactive titles than I'd like to admit...) but honestly the gameplay just stressed me out like crazy. It's not difficult mind you. I get S ranks on nearly every stage I played but I found myself entering the exact game loop that I find with games like Fire Emblem funnily enough. Open up the next level -> get overwhelmed by the thought of having to do it -> leave to do something else for a while -> come back like a few hours later -> do it and enjoy it -> open up the next level and repeat. I couldn't tell you why I feel this way with these games. Maybe the jerking between high mental effort and low mental effort exhausts my brain in a way it really doesn't like but the result is that I never felt compelled to get these done earlier than was absolutely necessary. I totally admit this is something on my end but it didn't make my experience any better when I got to the end of the game and had to play several levels in a row due to finishing all the story I possibly could as soon as I could. Made the final stretch more draining than it needed to be.

Don't let this mark down the experience however - when I did actually get into it, it was fun! Blasting kaiju with lasers never won't be a compelling gameplay premise and 13 Sentinels makes the process of doing so feel very rewarding. There's a mechanic of 'brain overload' meaning that after using a character twice, they need to sit out of a battle (this can be avoided - though comes as the cost of a score penalty). There's also another mechanic in the form of the optional objectives - extra constraints that act as challenges to test the player's grasp of the systems. I find that both of these mechanics serve to greatly heighten the experience - since it forces you into both a more interesting style of play and a more varied one. There are 13 pilots but only 6 you can have out at a time and this forces you to play around with everyone and really get a sense for their strengths in a fight. You feel like an expert commander by the end - and without spoiling anything I really do feel like the final fight really tests your ability in a way that is immensely challenging but not something the game hasn't been setting you up for the entire game.

[Minor Spoilers End]

In closing, I'll repeat what I said at the start - you ought to play this game. Do it. Fr.

[Major Spoilers Start]

I first played Depression Quest a few years ago. I came into it expecting to like it and at the time I did. It wasn't especially revolutionary to me - the idea that games can exist as a medium to express meaning or that games needn't be enjoyable to have value was a thesis I already agreed with. And as someone with a strong fondness and history with the visual novel genre its presentation never felt obtuse or boring like it apparently did to others. I ended up getting the best possible ending first try. I don't say this to brag - if you've played the game yourself you'd know its not really hard to do. The best choices are usually obvious and while yes often they're inaccessible through being crossed off (symbolising them being out of reach) there's usually a good enough option - and the better your mood, the more often the better option is available so it ends up a positive spiral. So if you can get the ball rolling you're usually fine. And yes - this does seem to mirror the experience of depression when on the up.

But what about the contrary? There's a reason I'm talking about Depression Quest here and now despite having first played it ages ago. I've recently replayed it with a friend. That friend wanted to see what would happen if we led the protagonist in the opposite direction. Bleak? Sure. But I admit, as someone who also deals with depression, I was morbidly curious about how it dealt with the less savoury aspects of the mental illness. As a game that ostensibly exists as a educational tool for those who don't suffer from depression - I feel it's important that it doesn't shy away from properly conveying this aspect.

One of the things I feel like Depression Quest doesn't capture is how easy it can be to backslide into getting worse. As stated earlier, it is very easy to "win", and a big part of that is that the difference in effort between choosing the best possible option and the worst possible option is nil. There's imply no incentive to do the "wrong" thing. To me, it sends the wrong message on those who's depression's gotten the best of them - as people who just actively made the obviously wrong choice over and over again. It's never that simple though. While doing the better option is often available and doable - it is never as easy to pick as the worse option. We know it isn't good for us (and often choosing it acts as fuel to further fan the flames) but choosing to do otherwise takes a lot of mental strain and effort which the game struggles to portray. It also can't really portray well the tendency to self-sabotage that many depressed people enter into - where one purposefully picks the wrong option as a way of "punishing" oneself for perceived transgressions they've committed. In some cases the crossing out of options can convey they - but not well enough to the point where I could notice that's what it was specifically going for.

As well as this, I found myself having problems with the narration. Simply put - it's too objective. The game utilises a second-person perspective to tell its story, and while it follows the depressed protagonist, it's not always in agreement with you. For example, when having lunch with a high school friend, the protagonist clearly has anxiety over how they must be perceived by said friend, yet the narration itself never assigns any ill-will to the friend themselves. Of course, this reflects the truth of the situation, but realistically this is not how the protagonist would see the interaction. In that state, it would be much more likely for them to read negativity into most everything they could possibly could. The problem here is that when we read the objective narration - we as the guide for the protagonist implicitly assume that how they see the world aligns with how the world is presented to us. Therefore, it makes their possible decisions to self-sabotage or generally pick worse, more depressed options, seem less sensical and clearly wrong - once more getting in the way of empathising with people with rougher depression. It really would have made much more sense to have the narration be unreliable - and force the player to experience the same detachment from objective reality that those with mental illness will often experience.

You may wonder, if we were going for the worst possible ending, if the game ends with suicide. It doesn't. You're life does get pretty bad however - with you losing touch with your friends, losing your girlfriend, and likely losing your job in the near future. Bleak? Yeah. But I also think the developer's knew that this ending really could only be reached by those strictly looking for it. As said above, it's very easy to "win". I'm glad that the ending wasn't suicide - as I feel like it'd feed into the exact sort of shock factor that people we're likely going for when embarking on this journey. Instead - you're left to sit in the ruins of what you've done to this person's life as they reminisce over how much better their life was half a year ago (before you intervened). I'm not sure if this was the intent, but I think it ends up a pretty strong commentary against the player who reached this ending - implicitly asking them if it was worth doing and why you felt the need to do it in the first place given you didn't even get what you wanted. In the end you just used a depressed person for your own entertainment.

[Major Spoilers End]

After having recently played Yume Nikki, (you can see my thoughts on that game here!), I decided I wanted to get back into RPGMaker games. While I certainly wasn't a prolific player of RPGMaker games back in the day - owing mostly to my low tolerance for horror titles - I still played my fair share as a broke internet-raised RPG-obsessed teenager. From the titles of Funamusea to the titles of Miwashiba I'd consider myself at least somewhat experienced. Hell, I even know what a 'vgperson' is.

Back then though, Re:Kinder was never on my radar outside of being another entry on vgperson's website. I was inspired to go ahead and actually play the game through a video by YouTuber Hazel (my personal favourite YouTuber). Unfortunately, said video is no longer on her channel - which is a shame since really she more adequately puts my thoughts into words better than I could (the video is still online but I won't be linking to it here). I ended up playing the game while streaming it to a friend, which also certainly changed a lot of the way I was taking in its tone and atmosphere. In this case I'm not 100% sure it was beneficial but I wouldn't say it ruined the game by any means.

[Minor Spoilers Start]

Coming off of Depression Quest, there seems to be a theme emerging. Specifically, Re:Kinder is also interested in the effects depression has on people. The world of Re:Kinder is one where mental illness isn't recognised by wider society, while still affecting many in society. The entire cast of Re:Kinder is affected by the spectre of mental illness in some way, whether it be directly or through how it affects people close to them. Unlike Depression Quest, Re:Kinder is less interested in what it is like to live with Depression but rather on its wider effects - how it can ruin the lives of those who have it and how it can push trauma and suffering onto others. The game doesn't push the fault here onto depressed people mind - rather the callousness of a society that refuses to give help to those who need it. For a game who's original (Kinder) released in 2003 in Japan, the social commentary seems apt. It is actually worth mentioning how interesting it is to play this in 2024. While I don't think that Re:Kinder's discussion of mental health is simplistic by any means, it really does say a lot about our progress on the front of mental health awareness that what it says doesn't strictly ring as revolutionary in this day and age.

[Minor Spoilers End]

I'd love to write more, but anything I try to write seems to me just to be paraphrasing whatever Hazel had put down in her video so I'll leave it here. Re:Kinder is certainly a worthwhile game to try - especially since it's free - just make sure to check the content warnings before giving this one a try!

What Dreams May Come is an movie I find myself somewhat mixed on looking back. If I analyse its story critically I'm left lacking. The pacing is weird - as if it's just trying to rush to its more impactful scenes. The plot seems bizarre on recollection. Its worldbuilding seems incoherent. If you read any critics assessment of the film these will often crop up as points of contention, and well, I cannot deny that these are true of the work. Yet, I cannot bring myself to care much about these when I think about my own experience. This film left me in tears. It's emotional beats hit hard. I don't usually find myself crying when watching media - the last time I can recall was during the Barbie movie (genuinely). I couldn't help myself here though, the emotional core of the film was so strong. There must be something to be said here - in response to the critics - about the way that media's resonance can drown out the analytical. This isn't to say that the analytic approach is wrong, again they are right to point out perceived flaws in the work, but it isn't the be-all and end-all. Sure, the plot leading up to the emotional climax may have not been 'earnt' but hell if I didn't empathise deeply with the pain of losing a loved one nonetheless!

It's pretty bizarre to me that a manga touching on trans identity, and touching on it well, would release in Japan in 2006. I really liked this one, and wished that it lasted for more than the 3 chapters it did end up running for. I am grateful for what does exist however, it was a great read!

I came into this comic expecting for it to hit me. It did not hit me while reading. It hit me very hard after I had finished it. I think this may be my favourite comic.