Frankly, I don’t like Dead Space 3. I think the ways it handles things, and especially the specific ways it departs from its older siblings, are ill-advised to the point of stupidity—and this article is a list of ways that’s the case.
Hollow Knight offers one of the most engaging and intriguing experiences in the medium. Its engagement comes in equal measure from its sweeping orchestral music; intricate-yet-open level design; grand-yet-unobtrusive narrative; precise-yet-flexible mechanics; and charmingly illustrated and densely layered art. Its intrigue, on the other hand, derives principally from the fact that Hollow Knight is an interrogative text, meaning that it asks many more questions than it answers.
Some of its deliberate mysteries pertain to the history and plot of its world, but others are open thematic questions. The former group has been combed exhaustively by the game’s community since its release, but the latter have received comparatively paltry attention. The focus here, then, will be Hollow Knight’s oft-overlooked thematic questions, which predominantly revolve around the topics of intelligence and consciousness. To draw out what these questions are, why they are important, and why so many of them remain unanswered (in both the game and reality), in this analysis we will be primarily employing resources from the philosophy of mind.
Philosophy of mind is the field that covers (obviously) the mind—what it is, what it does, and how or if it relates to everything that isn’t the mind. Frameworks and concepts developed by those working in the field will help us to clarify Hollow Knight’s treatment of topics such as intellect, memory, thoughts, dreams, and, well, hollowness.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past couple years running a fine-tooth comb through FromSoft’s recent works, with articles on Sekiro and Elden Ring which highlight an array of small issues and minor annoyances that crop up in those overwhelmingly great games. That’s not really what I’m doing here. The issues I’ll be discussing in this article feature in nearly every level or mission through the entirety of Armored Core VI, and detract from the game as a whole.
Don’t get me wrong: it is still a good game. I like both halves of its primary gameplay, the mech customization and the mech combat. But even those aspects of the game are far from perfect, and the issues don’t end there. For reference, at the time of writing this article, I have played Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon through three times (including two new game + cycles) in order to access every mission, every arena fight, and every ending, and have spent multiple entire chapters playing as each of the four principal mech archetypes in the game.
I’ll be avoiding story spoilers in this article, but will be showing screenshots of gameplay from throughout the campaign. So, let’s sortie . . .
The indie hack-and-slash action-adventure game Death’s Door is an experience about which I have a very mixed opinion. And in general, when I have a mixed opinion of a game and the bits I like are cleanly separable from the bits I don’t, I like to organize my review of it into a dedicated pro and con list.
Now, each of the previous three games I’ve covered with one of these ‘pro and con’ lists is a game I ended up recommending, for which I concluded that the good outweighs the bad (whether by a lot, like with Sekiro, or by a little, like with Crypt of the NecroDancer). This is the first time where that’s not quite the case. It is a close call, but I do think the bad slightly outweighs the good this time around. Nevertheless, I think you’ll initially be confused about me saying that, as I’ve got a lot of very nice things to say about Death’s Door.
Imagine sitting next to a friend and looking out over a majestic seaside vista. The sky is clear and there are birds in the sky. The sun warms your skin and occasionally a soft breeze sweeps through. Now, over the gentle sound of the waves, your friend turns to you and says, “Look, someone left some litter on the beach.” In this context, I am that friend. That remark is the equivalent of what I am about to do. Welcome to my article on Elden Ring!
Elden Ring overflows generously with quality, beauty, and entertainment.
Despite its incredible boss and enemy variety, it includes several of the best boss fights that are present in any game, FromSoft or otherwise. Despite the staggering number of weapons, weapon arts, shields, and magical abilities in the game, genuinely novel methods of attack and defense are found from the start of the game to the end. And despite the immense size of its map, it contains multiple individual areas, such as the Volcano Manor and Elphael, which stand alongside earlier creations like the Painted World of Ariamis and the Boletarian Palace as some of the best level design FromSoftware has ever done. But you don’t really need me to tell you that. If you’ve encountered any review or other type of media about Elden Ring since its release, then you already know all of that.
In setting out to write an article about the game, I wanted to approach it from an angle that would be different from the thousand others in existence, while also providing something valuable. There’s really no sense in me just throwing my praise on the praise pile. So, instead of talking about Elden Ring’s overwhelmingly large number of mechanical (and other) strengths, I’m going to dig into its vanishingly small number of mechanical weaknesses. For reference, prior to writing this article, I played through the game three times with drastically different builds, racked up well over a hundred hours of playtime, gathered 100% of the game’s achievements on Steam, and (as far as I know) beat every single unique and repeated boss that is present in the game.
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