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When struck by a creative funk, you sometimes just need to change your perspective and perceive the cause, all blockers, and your motivation from a new angle.
Creativity is an unusual thing. At the most inopportune moments the brain will churn out words that flow like a calming stream in the forest. Your fingers, in the meantime, are preoccupied with the shampoo being lathered into your hair, pen and paper absent from the rather soggy chamber you find yourself in. By time breakfast has been consumed and morning work rituals have been completed, the words are gone, left behind on your bedside table with that book you wanted to bring into the office to read during lunch.
This is the habit I’ve found myself in since pumping out Conflict late one Sunday. I had hoped to latch onto that burning desire to express myself in the days and weekends to come, but the daily rut interfered every time. There was also that lingering sense of pointlessness, the nihilistic belief that every word I put forward would be meaningless.
So despite having come forward and declared a progressive step forward, I still crave that acknowledgment and communication with those I would call peers. I struggle to be satisfied speaking with silence.
Learning to endure the frustrations of the seemingly endless conflicts that surround me.
“I want to stop determining my value based on what others think of me.”
This is the goal I gave my therapist during our first session last November. I wanted to reach a point where I felt free to speak my mind without being afraid of rejection. To find satisfaction in my videos, podcast, and writings even if no one watched, listened, or read them. To no longer be afraid of sharing my faith, to fear that I’d be rejected wholly for believing in the Christian God.
I’d be lying if I claimed to have succeeded in this goal. I’ve certainly made improvement, finding a satisfaction as a relative nobody on YouTube and the world of social media. I’ve become content with my day job, enjoying it as time away from my hobbies so that I could enjoy working on them all the more as a form of relaxation and relief of stress. I do not wish to be popular on the Internet. Nevertheless, I clearly wish to communicate.
I have a passion for many things, with video games, film, and anime being at the top. Like all human beings, I yearn to find a community with which I can share these thoughts. Unfortunately, by being a creator on YouTube and other such media, I feel an inclination towards other creators, craving to reach out or even be noticed. I desire not just validation of their praise, but a connection to be a part of what I perceive as a community.
Then I sign onto social media, and I am equal parts frustrated, frightened, and exhausted.
Chris and Steve discuss the latest Devil May Cry well after it is in season and others have talked it to death.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is a perfect sequel to what was already a perfect Spider-Man movie starring the perfect Spider-Man.
A game that is hard to recommend despite its ambitious combat design and excellent writing.
My brain feels “disappointment” is an accurate descriptor of Caligula Effect: Overdose. My heart feels the term is too harsh, and would prefer to impress upon you the nature of the game as ambitious but flawed. On paper, it is one of the best games I’ve played in years. In execution, its greatest elements are outweighed by its most simple and tedious of design choices.
The last time I felt this way was with Akiba’s Beat, a game whose story struck me at a vulnerable point in my life and resonated in ways no other game in 2017 could. However, it’s dungeon-design was such that I developed a strong loathing towards the game and its repetitive, back-and-forth side-quests that endlessly recycled the same tiresome corridors without end. It was a pair of extreme reactions, with a deep love for the game despite a savage hatred for its flaws.
Only I don’t feel so extreme towards Caligula Effect: Overdose. I enjoyed its writing greatly, and it should have resonated with me deeply. For whatever reason, however, it did not. Perhaps because I’ve grown more accepting of my life and no longer dream the sort of escapist dreams I had in my youth. The game implemented a lot of the same flaws of dungeon design as Akiba’s Beat, but under most circumstances the combat was easier to avoid and thus dungeons easier to simply skip through. So while I did not enjoy the gameplay as much as any player would like from a game they purchased, it also did not frustrate me to the point of absolute loathing.
In the end, Caligula Effect exists in some Schrödinger state of recommendation. There’s enough neat ideas and excellent writing to be enjoyable, but the actual playing feels so lukewarm that I am woefully uncertain I’ll even remember having played it by year’s end.
While I do not have the same love for Final Fantasy IX as others in the YouTube community, I still have a great appreciation for what the game manages to accomplish.
I am not as proud of this video as I was of Final Fantasy VI, but I’m not necessarily bothered by that fact. I’ve already expressed the thought, but ideally I’d have the time and ability to replay a game two or three times before I try and craft the script and compile my analysis together. As always, it was during the editing stage that I began to pick up on a lot of little elements I could have expounded upon, whole ideas I had repeated, and character traits and dialogue that I had completely forgotten about. In fact, my interpretation of the character Freya could be quite inaccurate based upon some of the footage I scrubbed through.
Nevertheless, I think the core of the video is still solid. While I could have illustrated the points better, I think the end result would have been the same. Final Fantasy IX has a philosophy about a life well-lived, and I think I do a suitable job exploring this idea.
Lots of yammering on about every company presentation at E3 2019 that's not Nintendo.
Atypical podcast hosts have an atypical discussion about an atypical superhero show.
Can you believe that neither Steve nor I once described this film as Super Effective?
There was a description for this episode, but it spoiled the podcast...
Wherein I try to comprehend why I'm the only person failing to be hyped up for the most fan-demanded recreation.
When I say that the footage shown of Final Fantasy VII in Sony’s recent State of Play broadcast “isn’t my Final Fantasy VII”, I want you to understand that I do not say so with outrage or condemnation. It is simply the most succinct way I can understand my own feelings towards the new trailer. After all, there’s simply not enough information to determine what the end product will truly look like. I’m not even entirely certain how the combat is supposed to work. It’s too early to judge this product based on what little we’ve truly seen of it.
But then I see my Twitter timeline explode in hype and excitement and I can only wonder… why am I so apathetic? I had one mildly snarky comment regarding one perceived plot detail and nothing more. Yet everyone else is discussing not just how pretty the game is visually, but how well they’ve managed to recreate classic beasts while maintaining the atmosphere of each environment. From a visual perspective I should be at least somewhat impressed or excited.
To put it another way, even though I think the movie looks like it will have an average plot and even some painful gags, Detective Pikachu has me fired up because I simply can’t believe how good they made these creatures look in live-action. It’s not just nostalgia, it’s an opportunity to see this fantastic world I’ve only seen in video game and anime form brought to life in a way I never imagined possible.
Theoretically, the Final Fantasy VII trailer does the same thing. It takes childhood elements and breathes fresh new life into them with vibrant imagery… only, I’ve seen that sort of thing before.
So 'whatever' just translates to Destiny now?
It's time I accept that my creative interests have once again shifted, and that I stop trying to force content onto this blog.
Spring is in the air! It took some time, but flowers are finally starting to sprout in southern New Jersey. Which means wasps also happen to be buzzing about, looking for new places to build themselves a nest. It also means days of cool breezes and warm sunshine are bound to swiftly become heavy with humidity, crushed by the sudden onset of summer.
While New Years is typically the season to declare goals for change, it is in Spring that we can see the world transforming into something seemingly new. After months of dead and thirsting grass, leaves the hues of a first-person shooter on the Xbox 360, and then the grey skies and pale snows of winter, the chromatic blossom of Springtime is more than welcome.
It’s a good time to stop and reflect on my own changes and transformations, and to recognize how resistant I’ve been for the past year or more. In particular, an end to the constant pressure to post on this website regularly.
Chris and Steve discuss the many games they've been playing in 2019, including Devil May Cry 5, Anthem, Final Fantasy XIV, and more
I feel like my devotion as a Christian and my identity as a Gamer has become an internal war.
The Christian-American Contradiction was perhaps the easiest time I ever had expressing my religious or political views. However, I also imagined that it would be the least challenged by my imagined readership. Or, to be more precise, the nonexistent readership I’m worried about discovering my website.
Perusing the number of content creators and fellow gamers I follow on Twitter, I see a lot of people of a more liberal, non-Christian persuasion. In College I was constantly being bludgeoned with jokes about how stupid us Christians are. I held my hands out defensively, promising that I wasn’t like those hypocritical Christians. No, really, I was different! So to sit down and write a piece critiquing the most common perception of conservative-Christian bore with it no challenge. The only people I was bound to disappoint were the people at my Church, and I was used to having different opinions from them.
It didn’t give me the courage to speak more freely about my faith, however. I instead continue to be frightened of offending someone with my beliefs. I fear that merely identifying as a Christian is enough to push others away. So I have strived to focus on writing about games and media. To speak positively about the worldly things I love.
But it has not lasted. I feel the two sides of myself twisting like a soaked towel, constricting until all of my delusions and distractions are wrung free from me. I am left with nothing but this conflict between my two identities. I am a gamer, yes, but I am also a Christian. One of these identities should come before the other, and yet frequently it is the world that wins.
I need to reconcile my two selves so that I might move forward with confidence and fearlessness.