i think saga emerald beyond is still winning out rn... it's just gripped me So Good with the combat and weirdness that i had to actively choose to step away to play other games. could come back to this baby forever

hell, close to the end of the game there's literally (rot13 for spoilers) puvyqera erfrzoyvat arff, yhpnf, n zvk bs wrss & gbal, naq cbxrl zvapu sebz gur ZBGURE frevrf gung encvqyl tebj vagb gur yvirfgbpx-ohfvarffzra byqref

they weren't exactly being subtle here lol

if you play sc i recommend trying to save as many olders as possible. that attempt -and more often than not, failure- to communicate & connect is profound. whether you succeed or not doesn't affect the ending so don't worry, what matters is you *try*

stray children feels like the opposite of escapism- it wears its inspirations on its sleeve with direct references to lull you into nostalgia, to put you in the mindset it's "just a game," but then forces you to see the face of human failings that hurt YOU and make YOU hurt others directly

i can see how it'd be easy to read stray children as cynical with the difficulty & messages but i don't think it is at all. it's frank & critical, bleak at times, but so deeply empathetic towards both children & the adults they grow to be that it's bursting with enduring kindness. this, too, is LOVE

being someone so shaped by video games i'm the target audience for the game yet that also puts an intentional divide between me & the protag. i'm an adult guiding a child through a world whose rules are familiar to me & completely foreign to them but we can't meaningfully communicate with each other

to be frank i've been struggling with Something myself for quite a long time... i can't imagine a better time for an experience like this to come to me. it hurts. it's hard. facing it is part of life we can't avoid or else it grows stronger. there's always a choice

same, i only watched a couple of the promo trailers so the blatant moon connection caught me totally off-guard. seeing the ruins of the shops legit made my heart hurt

the older is literally incapable of communicating anything other than its own name until it's saved, speaking only in "kiki"s, symbolizing the stripping of the work's message and voice. this was a cynical joke but now i think i'm kind of building a case

"Dr. Stein Hager's New Theory on the Metaphysical Qualities of Love" is a short comic based on dialogue from the 1997 game Moon RPG, by Onion Games. short sweet and to the point, just like the game :] curlytsunami.itch.io/love-theory

"lightbulb turning on above head" is classic shorthand yeah, but combined with the word "spark" (glimmer used to be localized as spark) & the comically long ridiculous attack name it's too on the nose