Elijah Gonzalez
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elijahgonzalez.bsky.social
Elijah Gonzalez
@elijahgonzalez.bsky.social
Currently: Associate Editor @ Endless Mode. Formerly: Assistant Games & TV Editor @ Paste Magazine. Bylines: The A.V. Club, Game Informer, Fanbyte, The Gamer, Unwinnable, Uppercut Crit, & more. TCA member, Rotten Tomato-approved critic. he/him
Renako is truly one of the great thinkers of our time:
August 11, 2025 at 10:20 PM
I wrote about one of my favorite anime of the year so far, Rock Is A Lady's Modesty, and how the show fundamentally understands rock music's historical role as counterculture. It's "Be Gay. Do Crimes" but with a guitar, and provides some very good screen grabs like this:
August 7, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Also, sometimes she just looks like this, which is pretty cool:
July 31, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Even more than usual this year:
July 4, 2025 at 12:04 PM
LOZ Wind Waker: Again, this is my first one of these, but its aged really well. A timeless art style blended with the sense of adventure that comes from the open seas. Bright, but also melancholy and post-apocalyptic in ways BOTW would riff on. Some of my favorite versions of these characters.
October 23, 2024 at 11:56 PM
The House In Fata Morgana: Manages the very difficult task of putting you through all this dour, borderline edge lord gothic misery before coming out the other end with all these nuanced things to say about social expectations, forgiveness, and restorative justice. Definitely my favorite VN.
October 23, 2024 at 11:52 PM
Citizen Sleeper: Combines TTRPG systems with an affecting and deeply grounded take on people coming together despite living in a shattered world. Beautiful prose and Amos Roddy's score tie together this clear-eyed but optimistic glimpse at the future.

web.archive.org/web/20230508...
October 21, 2024 at 10:32 PM
Nier: RPGs are games about you and your little guys and this one has the best little guys.

Automata: A sweeping, brutal, mostly tragic, partially hopeful take on systemic violence and otherization.

Both: Incredibly memorable use of game mechanics as metaphor, and some of the best OSTs ever.
October 21, 2024 at 2:48 AM
Yakuza 0: The melodrama, hot-blooded earnestness, brotherhood, Kiryu fucking Kazuma, a guy who really wants to punch Kiryu Kazuma, hitting 8 billion guys who all have the same animations with a baseball bat, an incomprehensible overarching plot with the most wonderfully straightforward pathos: 10/10
October 21, 2024 at 1:34 AM
Resident Evil (2002): A masterful remake that cleverly tinkers with the original's scares and introduces reanimating Crimson Heads, an evil idea that makes backtracking hellish. Immaculate fixed camera angles and B-movie bliss. Still haven't recovered from seeing its boxart for the first time.
October 21, 2024 at 1:19 AM
Pokemon Silver: I'm not sure if this was literally the first game I ever played, but it definitely is the one that permanently altered my brain chemistry so that I'd spend the rest of my life playing way too many videogames. Added smart changes to this formula that's still going strong decades later
October 21, 2024 at 12:57 AM
Hey, let’s give this a shot.
October 20, 2024 at 11:21 PM