Niv M. Sultan
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nivmsultan.bsky.social
Niv M. Sultan
@nivmsultan.bsky.social
250 followers 64 following 190 posts
critic of videogames and other such things at Slant Magazine. he/him. nivmsultan.com
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nivmsultan.bsky.social
or its counterpoint: "older than 30? you're a DILF"
Dunban from Xenoblade Chronicles (long-haired, caped man holding a sword)
November 11, 2025 at 2:45 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
what a game to start the morning after Mamdani's win
Screenshot from Dragon's Dogma 2: "Conviction is the human will that reaches its greatest power." — Honoré de Balzac
November 8, 2025 at 2:21 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
stumbled upon the Dragon's Dogma 2 dap
November 8, 2025 at 2:19 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Screenshot from Dark Souls, featuring Kingseeker Frampt, a serpentine being jutting out from the ground Screenshot from Control, featuring the Former, an alien being looming on the horizon
November 3, 2025 at 9:24 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
colons you can FEEL:
"Before we get further, a Microsoft rep interrupts to note that the company’s latest statements on the matter can be found online, and that they wanted to keep the conversation with Obsidian “focused on the game.” So let’s focus on the game: Early on you can accept a quest that,"
October 30, 2025 at 2:37 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
digging into this -- it's wonderful -- and got to this caption under a collage of Ico imagery. perfect!
"Given the controversial nature of Ico’s U.S. box art, we tracked down the illustrator behind it and asked him if he was interested in a potential redemption arc by doing his take on Shadow of the Colossus for the game’s 20th anniversary. He politely declined."
October 14, 2025 at 3:43 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
I revisit this piece -- on Doom 2016, by @materialistjew.bsky.social -- at least once a year. it has become bedrock, and only more relevant

lareviewofbooks.org/article/doom...
"And yet DOOM wants to roll the dice on you. DOOM thinks you will learn to love rage again, to experience its visceral pleasure. DOOM wants you to unlearn all those lessons in civility, in comportment, in tone, in the “benefit of the doubt.” DOOM wants you to consider that when “they go low,” you will scrape the pits of Inferno to go ever lower. DOOM wants you to feel more."
October 9, 2025 at 5:24 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Chappell when she unlocks her upgraded class
Chappell Roan with a sword
October 7, 2025 at 5:45 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Final Fantasy XVII
Chappell Roan, Lil Nas X, and Post Malone in suits of armor
October 7, 2025 at 5:45 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
and we are most definitely talking about Sufjan
"In the morning, through the window shade When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade I could see what you were reading All the glory that the Lord has made And the complications you could do without When I kissed you on the mouth"
October 6, 2025 at 10:20 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
if we're talking lyricists, we're talking Neil Young

like, come on --
"Once I thought I saw you in a crowded hazy bar Dancing on the light from star to star Far across the moonbeam I know that's who you are I saw your brown eyes turning once to fire"
October 6, 2025 at 10:16 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
adding on this, I think often about Peter Schjeldahl's "The Art of Dying." if you like or love something, champion it; if you don't like or love it, be generous in your consideration of it (thoughtful and curious, not obsequious, deferential, or afraid)

www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
"I retain, but suspend, my personal taste to deal with the panoply of the art I see. I have a trick for doing justice to an uncongenial work: “What would I like about this if I liked it?” I may come around; I may not. Failing that, I wonder, What must the people who like this be like? Anthropology."
October 6, 2025 at 5:17 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Chris is, as always, an incisive and delightful read
"Love soon becomes another obligation, and thus a source of tension, shrewdly re-contextualised in each chapter."
October 6, 2025 at 3:57 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
reviewed the remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics, which remains an exceptional study of how history is constructed, revised, and weaponized. (even the choice to require the fast-forward button to be held down is a political one)

www.slantmagazine.com/games/final-...
"Directed and written by Matsuno Yasumi and first released in 1997, Final Fantasy Tactics is a treatise on historicization: its artificiality, its fickleness, and its capacity to abuse and be abused. What, then, does it mean for Square Enix to remaster the title? In an industry and culture bent on recommodifying the past—often with an airbrush in hand and idiosyncratic expression in its sights—this renovation could easily have betrayed the convictions of its source material. But be at rest: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is a gentle and thoughtful touch-up of a foundational work, a brushing of the text’s sharp teeth."
October 2, 2025 at 7:58 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
reviewed Hades II, whose roguelite structure evokes the oral tradition of Greek myth, and whose tone shifts away from the first game's soapiness and into tragedy

www.slantmagazine.com/games/hades-...
"Where roguelite design often feels tacked onto games, suggesting depth without doing much digging, Hades II’s use of the form compellingly evokes the oral tradition of Greek mythology. Each run—replete with delightfully varied boons from the gods, lyrical narration by Homer himself (voiced by the always transportive Logan Cunningham), and confrontations of both dramatic and mechanical intensity—becomes a fresh retelling of the legend of Melinoë." "Some say she slew Chronos with an axe so immense she had to drag it, sparking, along the ground; others insist she did the deed with dagger and sickle in hand, the blades booming with explosions like kindling in Hephaestus’s forge. (May we all enjoy the dizzying highs of the upgrade combo that leaves a fiery trail in Melinoë’s wake and hurtles a swirling orb of water forward when she hits the brakes. What a lovely mess.)"
September 24, 2025 at 3:36 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
not sure I've read a Lewis lede I didn't love
"To make a video game character move, all the player must typically do is press forward on the controller. Motion is abstracted, reduced to a single, seemingly instinctive thumb movement. But try doing this in the absurd and brilliant Baby Steps and your character, a tubby 35-year-old called Nate, will fall flat on his face. “Ow,” he groans, wearing a gigantic onesie now caked in mud."
September 23, 2025 at 5:20 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Joshua remains one of the most lucid interpreters of *the videogame* as an industry, a commodity, and an object of distinctly odd devotion
"If there is one unassailable truth about gamers as a demographic, it’s that the only thing they like more than a very good video game is a game that hasn’t come out yet."
September 15, 2025 at 3:10 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
reviewed Silksong, whose friction is fundamental to its humanism. (may we, twisted by this historical moment into alienated vermin, be like the bugs)

www.slantmagazine.com/games/hollow...
"But as you meet more of Pharloom’s inhabitants, and as you endure the trials they’ve long braved, the truth of things rings clarion clear: Silksong’s speed bumps are entirely appropriate, as well as admirable. You learn that laborers are forced to work until they drop dead, that poor creatures on brutal pilgrimage must pay to rest on certain benches along the way. Anything won or eked out in Pharloom is done so by tooth and nail. Of course bosses are going to summon minions to overwhelm you. Of course territorial ants are going to booby-trap the checkpoint nestled in their home. Of course this place is going to grind you into dust."
September 13, 2025 at 1:03 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
brief review of the brief but delightful Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound

www.slantmagazine.com/games/ninja-...
"It feels appropriate, when describing the delirious plot and set pieces of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, to channel Bill Hader’s Stefon from SNL. The year’s hottest fusion of retro vibes and modern comforts is Ragebound. This place has everything: a buddy cop partnership between two ninjas—the earnest Kenji and the sardonic Kumori—the latter of whom resides, in spirit form, within the former’s body; a sequence, situated in a construction site, where you outrun a demon-operated bulldozer before plowing through fiends with a forklift; another level in which you escape a C.I.A. battleship via jet ski, fending off bomb-dropping helicopters and shirtless soldiers who wield naginatas atop WaveRunners."
August 6, 2025 at 3:35 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
reviewed Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, a clarion case study in the difference between aping FromSoft and really getting it. (seeing mentions of strong level design, which is baffling. the world's a convoluted mess; areas looping back to hubs =/= coherence)

www.slantmagazine.com/games/wuchan...
Text: "It would be one thing if Wuchang were merely confusing, but it’s also rather confused. Like numerous games inspired by Dark Souls, Wuchang both misunderstands the ethos of that zeitgeist-defining work and fails to heed the lessons taught by its flaws. The result is an ambitious adventure that, betraying only glimmers of conviction, verges at times on parody."
July 23, 2025 at 1:41 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Death Stranding // Nightreign
Screenshot from Death Stranding: The Extinction Entity, a large, dark figure, standing in the distance, above a pool of water Screenshot from Elden Ring Nightreign: A large, dark figure, walking into the horizon over a body of water
June 15, 2025 at 2:40 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Kojima, barring a too-diplomatic answer about AI, is exceedingly relatable

www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/hide...
"It was good, these 10 years. It was the most important time… What I am most afraid of is time. I am afraid of dying and having dementia. I am afraid of forgetting things when I get old. I am afraid that I won't even realise what I am forgetting." "After my father died, I wondered, What kind of dad was he? Then I lost my mother in 2017. My mother raised me. She didn’t know about games. She played Metal Gear Solid 3, and it took six months – she had to cheat! When she passed away, [I spent time thinking,] How was she? I wondered about the side of her that I didn’t see. But I started to find out, all after I lost her." "[He shows me his film diary on iOS Notes. A thumbs up emoji or two = a like or love. An eye emoji = no comment. A heart emoji = he watched with his sons.]"
June 12, 2025 at 3:59 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
on TAINTED GRAIL: THE FALL OF AVALON, a flawed, deeply interesting RPG —

www.slantmagazine.com/games/tainte...
“ The Fall of Avalon pulses with a pointedly political spirit. Six hundred years after King Arthur conquered the island of Avalon, your journey through his crumbling settler empire confronts you with its founding myths, original sins, and destructive legacy. Few interactions with the open world’s communities and environments lack a polemical bent; even typically rote mechanics, like foraging for resources, are imbued with historical weight. When you visit a camp of the Dál Riata, a group beyond Kamelot’s grasp, you might look down at the ground and find burdock roots—the picking of which the game treats, in this place, as an act of theft.”
May 26, 2025 at 1:10 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
Final Fantasy, baby
May 13, 2025 at 5:52 PM
nivmsultan.bsky.social
when??? (from Lit Hub's interview with Andrea Long Chu)

lithub.com/andrea-long-...
Text: "No dungeon master can escape the delusion that she should write a fantasy novel. One of these days I’ll probably succumb to it. But I would settle for writing an official campaign setting. Sea of Fallen Stars, early eighteenth century, gunpowder, age of sail, monotheistic church, financial capital, rise of the nation state, imperialism, war, the oppressed slowly transforming, without knowing it, into the oppressor."
April 8, 2025 at 4:47 PM