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Late to the party: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

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It’s easy to be sceptical when a particular piece of media is held up as the saviour of a dead genre – especially when that “death” is an exaggeration in itself. Despite covering a few turn-based RPGs on this website, I don’t think that I’m the most avid consumer of the genre; nevertheless, I still raised an eyebrow when Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was a focal point in conversation that would make you believe that the genre hasn’t moved forward since Final Fantasy VII. As I’ll explain later on, there were a lot of things I enjoyed in Sandfall’s game – but I think that there have been enough critical success stories through the years to suggest that the genre is doing just fine. The world is subjective, and it’s genuinely hard to keep track of all of the quality RPGs being released when so many of them command tens of hours of your time – so I can forgive a certain degree of surface level ennui when people don’t look much further than trailers and blurb. Personally, I’m not here to make too many comparisons – I already try and keep other notable games on my radar and discuss them on their own terms – so I’d like to try and do the same for Expedition 33.

Expedition 33 – L’histoire

In a story that follows a group of expeditioners on a mission to slay an entity named The Paintress, Expedition 33 initially feels comfortingly familiar. The game is broadly structured as a series of objectives where you travel an open environment (following waypoints shown on a map) and enter dungeons that have various enemy encounters to overcome and loot to collect. Enroute, there will be light conversations between party members, and each dungeon will typically culminate in a boss battle, a cutscene, or both. What’s most striking is that so much of Expedition 33 is captivating and engaging – on the field, regular battle encounters demand your attention as you are tasked with studying attack patterns that can be dodged or parried with real-time button presses. Meanwhile, the main characters in your party are beautifully realised – they feel like regular people on an extraordinary mission, and not like actors in a dramatic storyline. When you set up camp you regularly have an opportunity to watch a heart-to-heart with the party members (not unlike “Drink Links” in Like A Dragon) – moments that often show an admirably human side to our heroes. Mechanically, these conversations are fairly shallow and it can feel like you’re going around the camp making sure that all interactions are exhausted – but they’re a fun inclusion nonetheless. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, however, as the characters truly shine once they begin a combat encounter. Expedition 33 has some of the most involving and demanding turn-based battles I’ve experienced in the genre for a while, and this approach to an RPG staple is something that could be very polarising: something that could make players shut the game off in frustration, or stay locked into the experience as they rise to each challenge.

“En garde”

The battle encounters generally combine turn-based decision making for your party’s actions, and real-time responses to enemy attack patterns. When it’s your turn, Expedition 33 feels a lot like other RPGs – you’re choosing to heal allies, provide buffs, or cast magic. (There is no mana or MP system in the game – instead, each special command costs Action Points, which can be replenished with each turn or by performing defensive actions.) However, as the enemy prepares their own action, you’ll notice that there are still commands that your party can use: a parry, a dodge, a jump. (The parry in particular grants a large counter-attack if you can parry everything in an attack string, but it often carries the most risk.) In a similar vein to Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (or various Mario RPGs), you can nullify enemy attacks by reacting with the appropriate button press at the right time. However, this regularly feels like an essential part of your toolkit rather than an excuse to show off – the vast majority of enemy attacks in the game can outright kill a party member from full health (unless you’ve put time into increasing party health, have set up defence buffs or are deliberately exploring a low-level area.)

Consequently, mastering the timing of these defensive actions ends up being the primary means of survival. You do end up obtaining certain skills that grant health to allies or revive them, but when you can be wiped out in a single combo then it can feel like you’re merely postponing the inevitable. There are two things that I took from this design philosophy. Firstly, the encounters are some of the most elaborate rhythm puzzles you’ve seen in a modern RPG. If you know the timings of the necessary jumps, parries and counters then you no longer have to worry about a particular puzzle. Secondly – players would have much less patience for this kind of system if not for the fact that, upon death, you can instantly restart the battle (rather than having to return to the title screen or reload a save.) The instant restart is nothing new – Metaphor uses it brilliantly when players are attempting its tougher encounters – but it’s an essential tool in Expedition 33. (Whilst writing my rough thoughts, I also played devil’s advocate and considered the alternative – if the battles weren’t as punishing as they end up being, I imagine that players would just eat the damage and be less inclined to engage with the defensive systems. So I can kind of see what they’re going for – but it’s a very particular mindset to demand from players.)

A still from a cutscene in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Supporting the combat of Expedition 33 is an admirable amount of customisation. Skill trees let characters open up new abilities to use in combat (although each character can only select a maximum of six), whilst Luminas activate bonus perks for characters during encounters – performing an extra attack in a combo string, for instance, or granting a chance for a status effect on enemies (such as Burn.) There are also more advanced effects that come to fruition through several turns – one of my favourite skills required a Burn status to be inflicted on an enemy so that a party member could enter a unique “stance” that opened up a damage bonus; another skill caused ice damage to enemies whilst automatically healing the party for a number of rounds. The generous freedom you have in customising your party takes a lot of the edge off the brutal battle encounters, as you will often walk away from a defeat wondering if there is a different setup that you could attempt for a given encounter. The aforementioned Action Points system plays into a lot of the skill properties, as some skills can grant AP back to party members, allowing them to re-use costly actions sooner rather than waiting for AP to build over multiple rounds. In addition to health, enemies and allies also have a “Break” gauge, and if this is filled then it will stall the subsequent action for one round. This becomes another essential part of the team strategy, as it offers a little more breathing room to build AP. Ultimately, the variety of builds available can inspire players to devise solutions that suit the occasion… but it’s an experience that you have to be prepared to throw yourself into. If this philosophy – the thought of going into encounters you aren’t familiar with, dying, and then building around the encounter – is something that interests you, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Expedition 33 – Le monde

Outside of the story and combat, Expedition 33 has a great world to sink into. Environments have an abstract and painterly quality to them, and the music is captivating without being overpowering. The architecture is fairly static and you’re rarely doing anything more complex than finding objects to shoot or grapple points that zip you across the landscape, but it serves as a game-wide arena for the main attraction: the combat encounters. Exploring the world map can be somewhat quaint as it often feels like a series of waypoints with a handful of curios and roaming encounters, but I always found the destinations more enticing than the journeys. When so many encounters have party members being KO’d, a lot of the content of Expedition 33 comes from the battles, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to come away from a session with no progress in the story but more knowledge gained about attack patterns and parry timings. After watching the closing scenes and credits, my final save at the end of the game had just under 53 hours on the clock, and I feel like the merciless battles padded out a lot of that hour count. (The intended destinations of Act 3 in particular felt like a steep rise in difficulty across many areas, after what had otherwise been a gradual increase in challenge, and it gives the impression that the player should take advantage of the sizeable experience rewards you receive at that point.) However, they were compelling enough for me to continue to the game’s conclusion, and I would recommend Expedition 33 if you have enough patience and a desire for this kind of ruthless experience.

Key art for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Disclaimer: it was reported that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originally contained placeholder assets created with generative AI, and that these were subsequently patched out. Whether this is an excusable practice is something consumers have to decide for themselves. Qazi ended up buying a pre-owned copy of the game for the purposes of playing it and writing this article. (Although to be honest, there’s hardly anywhere left in his local area where he can buy games new…)

Late to the party: Dark Souls Remastered

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Spoiler warning: this article is an account of my experience with Dark Souls Remastered and may contain references to characters, locations, items and/or concepts from the game.

It’s no secret that FromSoftware have made some of the most celebrated action RPGs of recent times, with Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring proving to be particularly popular with fans and critics alike. I’ve made attempts to try some of these games but with varying results. I ended up with two copies of the original Dark Souls for Xbox 360 (the second was a giveaway from Xbox Live) and never really saw anything beyond the Capra Demon. However, I reached the credits of the game’s sequels, earned the platinum in Bloodborne and dedicated nearly 200 hours to completing Elden Ring. With this in mind, Dark Souls Remastered was always something I wanted to pick up, and this year’s Steam Summer Sale provided the perfect opportunity. I particularly wanted to own a PC copy because it’s more likely to remain accessible when compared to the download that’s on an Xbox 360 in an attic somewhere, and I do a lot of browsing and streaming on my PC so it’s often running anyway. Thus, I’ve been pouring tens of hours into Dark Souls Remastered – and I’m delighted to report that the experience has been much more agreeable.

The plan

Whilst I have written words about how other From games should be celebrated for their individuality, I can’t pretend that my experiences with those games hasn’t helped me to enjoy this one. However, I can also feel a distinct lack of compromise in Dark Souls Remastered. Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne were snappier and more varied, and really allowed you to have fun in the environments. Dark Souls 2 was pretty bloated and you could feel a few cut corners, but there were concessions for players – such as limited enemy respawns if you were genuinely struggling in one area. Dark Souls Remastered is slower and more deliberate than Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3, and is less keen on compromising its experience than Dark Souls 2. However, this also made it one of the hardest games for me to get into, because I had to play on the game’s terms and not my own. Well, for a while. You do quickly level up and improve if you can retain your souls, and this helps to mould your character. Soon you can take more hits, carry heavier equipment and benefit more from damage scaling – as long as you can keep a firm grip on the souls you’re carrying. And whilst I’m usually terrible at memorising geography in 3D environments, I will say that the repeated runs through the same areas do help me internalise a map to an extent.

As with most of my other playthroughs of FromSoft’s games, I opted to build a tanky Strength character (my final stats had Endurance and Strength at 33, with Vitality bumped up to 35.) I would sacrifice a fast roll for sturdier armour, give myself the equip load to carry bulkier kit, and sometimes I even embraced the two-handed approach to fighting. My best friends were the Claymore, Zweihander, Man-serpent Greatsword and (once I could finally wield it) the fantastic Great Club, which seemed to be pretty good at flattening most things in its path. I also enjoyed the Elite Knight’s set and Gargoyle’s Shield for a bit, although I was compromising my roll of course. To its credit, Dark Souls Remastered does do a great job of making you feel empowered if you have been putting the work into your upgrades and levels. When you’re making significant dents in a boss health bar because you put the time into saving for those upgrade materials, or when you finally reach the stat requirements for a new weapon, it never stops feeling exciting. It’s like the loop of levelling and improving gear is its own secondary game that runs underneath the adventure.

The developing journey in Dark Souls Remastered

Dark Souls Remastered promotional image, showing the player character at a bonfire.

And what an adventure. Having finally progressed past the Capra Demon I can see what everyone was raving about, because the experience really does get better and better. The Undead zones at the start are a slog, and Blighttown and Sen’s get frustrating, but Ornstein & Smough was an unbelievable encounter (I discovered that letting Ornstein come to me whilst Smough chilled at the back helped a lot) and I felt like the subsequent zones flew by as I just wanted to see more and more. The likes of Nito and Seath were really nicely-tuned challenges, and the Four Kings saw me start eating Humanity towards the end as I just needed a little more from my items to push me over the finish line. Whilst writing this article I hadn’t quite beaten the game yet, but in the middle of drafting I went back in and dealt with the final boss – albeit in a bit of a haze as it was past midnight. (Said final boss was a bit anticlimactic as I kept getting his pathfinding stuck on a little tree in the arena, and would wait for him to whiff his command grab before punishing.) Looking at the whole experience, one thing that comes to mind is that the middle of the game was so much fun and some effort needs to be made in order to get past the first few zones, but the payoff definitely makes the effort worthwhile. After Ornstein & Smough, the likes of Nito, Seath and Sif were perfectly pitched in terms of challenge and I saw myself making a lot of progress; as if the game is at its most arduous at the beginning, but eventually accelerates towards the finish line. I’m even willing to criticise Bloodborne a bit for the same kind of feeling; those first few hours can be miserable. When you’re still getting used to that game and spending so long in that Central Yharnam map – running past the same bonfire and the same enemies – it can feel more like work than it really needs to. And the Undead zones in Dark Souls Remastered are just as repetitive and uninspiring.

It’s another one of those games where the satisfaction of making progress and switching off for the night battles with the desire to keep going and finding out what’s up next. I would have thought that the entire game would have been spoiled to death by now, but the firsthand experience still held value. The discoveries you don’t know about – a new blacksmith around the corner, a bonfire behind a secret wall – feel great, and even the things you’ve been spoiled on are shaped by your own skill and character building. My tank character can withstand a few blows in a skirmish, but he wasn’t elegantly rolling out of danger in any of the encounters, and any panicked escape from something like a Hellkite Drake’s fire breath was a comedic sight. On the other hand, my character was lopping chunks off the health bars of Ornstein and Smough, so the investment was worthwhile. I think Bloodborne’s the only game where I’ve really been invested enough to go through it again with different builds, but there’s plenty in Dark Souls Remastered to invite replay too, as long as you’re finding the experience enjoyable and worth the replay.

Enabling easy mode

And here’s where I make a confession – I’ve been getting a bit of help with my Dark Souls Remastered experience, and making it less of a struggle. I made two decisions pretty early on; one that was kind of tame and something a little spicier that could invite the rage-clicks. My first decision was that I would use the Notes app in Steam’s overlay to write down anything that I may forget after I put the game down. Weapons I need to upgrade, areas I need to explore, even notes on enemy attack patterns. It’s a bit awkward because my shortcut to open the Steam overlay shares keys with some in-game functionality and sometimes has me inadvertently healing my character, but if I open my inventory beforehand I can prevent this erroneous input. I do think that there’s an interesting discussion to be had about games that limit information and knowledge, and players that might not have a brilliant memory – one of the best features of Elden Ring wasn’t just the map you could open, it was the selection of symbols that you could stamp on the map for future reference. The equivalent in Dark Souls Remastered was me writing directions as if I was operating Google Maps. So that was the tame modifier. Next is the spicy decision: I started making backups of my saves. Particularly at a bonfire, or when finishing a play session – and I did this purely to keep my experience from falling apart. I had heard the horror stories of characters getting cursed and being in one-hit kill thresholds and not having a Lordvessel (allowing players to warp between bonfires), and I sympathised with players losing tens of hours of progress as their only option is to start the game from the beginning again. After playing more of the game I found that the threat of being “soft-locked” does diminish over time as you open up more shortcuts and obtain powerful items, but in the early game it can be brutal. Fans of Dark Souls want to evangelise the experience to newcomers, but if there’s anything that will ensure that a player won’t touch the game again, it’s the feeling of being permanently punished after what has been a large investment of personal time. Generally, however, the notes proved to be more useful than the backups as time went on, and the idea of quitting, copying a backup over, and reloading was so tedious that it quickly became a last resort.

(Addendum: whilst drafting this article I did some research and found that making backups in this manner will also protect players from hackers who can supposedly invade a game and start killing NPCs, and this practice of backing up saves was generally encouraged on Steam discussion boards, so even without my personal stipulations it seems to be worth considering if you’re intending to dive into the online experience.)

Not that the backups were really needed in the end. During the early game of Dark Souls Remastered you quickly unlock the Female Undead Merchant who sells items for curing curse, and if you have a few of those and a homeward bone or two then you can compensate for the situation. Another instance where I would just about forgive a backup save includes racing towards the next bonfire you can see and being too underpowered for whatever you’ve walked into, but the player has to take a bit of blame for that. It’s the kind of thing where you still have to be expected to take some responsibility for how you manage your experience with a game – and if a player misuses that responsibility, that’s on them. “You cheated yourself”, etc.

Dark Souls Remastered – in summary

Dark Souls Remastered promotional image, showing a view of Anor Londo

If anyone’s still here after reading such blasphemy, you’re probably keen to know what I thought about the experience as a whole. I feel like this playthrough has been thirteen or fourteen years in the making, and has been one of the largest outstanding items on my hypothetical “gaming bucket list” for a while. Ultimately, I probably liked this more than Dark Souls 2, but would be more willing to replay Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3 because of the way both games provide a challenge whilst also offering enough breadcrumbs to ensure that I remain engaged. (And Elden Ring is almost its own conversation, but it’s still a brilliant entry point and one of the better games.) At the same time, I can see this totally blowing minds if it’s someone’s first introduction to From’s “dark fantasy action RPG” formula. I think that picking favourites is always going to be a matter of personal preference; after all, the appeal of shared experiences is why I’ve published all of this – and why you’ve been reading it.

Also, I feel like any measures a player takes to be able to continue enjoying the game they want to play should be encouraged. Some players create safeguards against the fear of having to restart the entire game; others could spend time running up and down a zone for experience so that their character gets stronger, or they could summon help at every opportunity, or try to perfect a skip so that they can ignore part of a game, or – yes – download external tools and mods to tailor the experience. A conversation with someone who took steps to continue enjoying something is far more interesting than the conversation with someone who only saw a fraction of the experience. Furthermore, if a player isn’t skilled at the base experience, taking these measures will at worst change the experience from “impossible” to “challenging”, rather than “challenging” to “easy”. Anyway, that’s how I stumbled through Dark Souls Remastered, how I completed my adventure with the Dark Souls trilogy, and how I finally got to see everything beyond that Capra Demon who halted my progress more than a decade ago.

Dark Souls Remastered is available now for PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls announced for PS5 and PC

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In 2024, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics reignited a passion for the versus fighter series that many felt had faded away with the aftermath of 2017’s Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. Last year’s compilation saw the dedicated players and casual audiences reunite for these beloved games that had previously been locked away in places such as Xbox Live Arcade. However, the cause for celebration extended beyond the opportunity to play these games again. If a collection like this exists then it shows that the suits at Marvel are still open to the idea of offering their name to versus fighters. Immediately, the doors were open once more to the possibility of a new numbered title, Marvel vs. Capcom 4. However, Sony’s State of Play presentation on the 4th of June revealed something that nobody was ready for. The trailer for MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls unveiled a new 2D tag fighter starring a roster of Marvel favourites, with none other than Arc System Works at the helm. Disposable Media has experience with ASW’s gorgeous fighting games in the past, and I’ve gushed about Dragonball FighterZ and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax across several articles. Combined with the longing for a return to form for Marvel fighting games, this was one of the most exciting announcements of the State of Play presentation.

Brawling for eight

With the new game players will enjoy a roster comprising solely of Marvel characters, echoing vibes of 1995’s CPS-2 game Marvel Super Heroes. As with Dragon Ball FighterZ, the trailer shows off a heavy emphasis on movement and impact – from the players closing in and clashing at the centre of the screen, to Captain America launching Iron Man before super jumping to continue the combo. Team members join the action in a very smooth and swift manner, and the fighting carries plenty of flair with its giant slash effects and bold explosions as characters are punted into cars and debris. In addition to the game’s own trailer, the State of Play showed a behind the scenes segment with short interviews describing how this game came to be – from PlayStation approaching Marvel and Arc System Works to try and make a new tag fighter happen, to Arc System Works being encouraged to put their own identity on these character designs, and the agreement to design the gameplay around a 4v4 format. Generally, recent tag fighters have adopted a 2v2 format (Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite) or 3v3 (Dragonball FighterZ, Marvel vs. Capcom 3), so the team felt like this was the next logical evolution. (People are already speculating about whether this means that each individual character will have a simplified moveset, but this remains to be seen.)

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls – or, Marvel Super Heroes 2

Personally, I’m entertained by the idea of this serving as a Marvel Super Heroes sequel, and the beautiful animation and fluidity on display suggests that this is being treated with as much love for the IP as something like Dragonball FighterZ. I may be long past the point of being able to play fighting games with any kind of skill, but I still enjoy the design, the spectacle, and the hype – and I found that the MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls trailer was one of the most exciting announcements to come out of the State of Play presentation. In terms of a release date, the trailer offered nothing more specific than a “Coming 2026” (and logos for PS5, Steam and the Epic Store) but I’ll be happy to wait for something that looks as good as this does. Hopefully we’ll share more thoughts about the game when we know more, and as always let us know what you think of the announcement in the comments.

The worth of your entertainment

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Despite being deep into a digital future (which is pretty much a digital present now) I still enjoy physical media, and if you were to pay me a visit you’d see my music, films and games on display. If you cast your eyes over my small shelf of games you’d eventually spot a handful of Game Boy Advance titles, and right between Donkey Kong Country and (squints) some Tales game, is my copy of Wario Ware Inc. Not the copy I originally bought in 2003, but something I went out of my way to re-purchase online in 2010. I had sunk hours into my original copy of Wario Ware, and the massive regret I felt over flogging it (to fund a DS) prompted me to go and buy someone’s copy of the game – with the box, and manual, and in reasonably good condition. Not something I’d bother doing for a lot of old physical media I pick up, but sometimes I can make an exception. And now that you know about my own questionable purchasing decisions, let me talk to you about the worth of your entertainment and what it should mean.

The worth of your entertainment (for consumers)

Image from Wario Ware Inc, with Kat in front of the silhouette of Boneheads. Uploaded for the Disposable Media article "The worth of your entertainment".

What something is worth is a question that isn’t resolved simply by going to PriceCharting and searching for the going rate of your videogame collection – because if we just started measuring worth by potential monetary gain then we’d be living with the people who keep shrink-wrapped copies of their rare vinyl and obscure videogames. Worth isn’t just defined by an equivalent monetary exchange; “worth” can apply to an investment – monetary or not – that someone is willing to make in order to pursue a desired outcome; in this case, personal entertainment. In the seventh generation I had no interest in multiplayer shooters, so I would get much less out of a Halo 3 or a Call of Duty 4 – in contrast, I have tens of hours in Hotline Miami; a game that’s comparatively cheaper and yet is over in seven or eight hours according to the playthrough-tracking website HowLongToBeat. I’m not necessarily saying that people can’t wring more worth from those multiplayer shooters, but everyone finds different ways to enjoy their time with games, and so the “worth” is a much more personal aspect of an experience compared to the money you handed over in order to have that experience.

It extends even further beyond the people who play games for fun – there are professional gamers who wouldn’t want to waste their time with a product that is buggy, broken or imbalanced, and there are professional streamers and Youtube creators who will value something that they can wring precious “content” from. Sometimes the worst reaction from those people won’t be pointing and laughing at the game; it will be the lack of any reaction whatsoever. If a popular streamer is playing your game and visibly looks bored, will it really be worth their time to stream more of the game in future?

The worth of your entertainment (for businesses)

I bring this up not just to shed light on my questionable purchasing habits, but because I feel like this is something that the entertainment industry frequently risks losing sight of. We’re already in an environment where the service providers want to have a continuous stream of funds from your wallet. Movie streaming subscription fees, music streaming subscription fees, fees to remove adverts, downloadable content and season passes for videogames. (In the writing space, the feeling is magnified if you’re writing for free and buy all of the entertainment you review.) No amount of money you part with is enough for the people selling things to you… but for a consumer, certain amounts of money will be enough, and everyone has a threshold that can’t be crossed. The business dream of generating more revenue than last year – every year – only works if the entertainment is worth the increasing demands you make on those you sell to. Businesses will still chase the dream of infinite growth, but the amount a consumer can invest in a product or service is finite and often quite limited. And with that kind of caveat in mind we can find as much worth in the smaller scale productions as we do in the more ambitious releases – so now I’m going to make a point of including a picture of that Sonic meme below because I’ll forget by the time this is ready to publish.

Image of the Sonic meme where he is reclined and has a speech bubble: "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding.". Uploaded for the Disposable Media article "The worth of your entertainment".

(Credit: X users Jordan_Mallory and MsFeliciaRondo (Knowyourmeme))

The obvious point

I guess what I’m trying to say is that “worth” should be more important than revenue? If people sink hours into your product or service and feel compelled to buy future additional content and tell their friends how much fun they’re having, it’s an outcome that has lasting positive effects. To a lot of people most of this should be obvious – of course people only have so much time and money – but you wouldn’t think so if you look at the business practices of selling less and asking for more. There is only so much lasting positivity that can come from bleeding funds from your audience, and if it begins to negatively affect their enjoyment then it tanks the worth of whatever you’re providing. And I guess I’m also trying to say that you should go and play Wario Ware Inc. again (cartridge battery permitting.)

Backwards Dungeon Crawling – how not to play Metaphor

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I’ve been playing a lot of Metaphor: Refantazio recently. The game was released earlier this month and has pretty much consumed my attention whenever I have a few spare minutes to turn the PS5 on. With Atlus and Hashino behind this latest adventure, a lot of people were expecting a Persona game with a fantasy veneer – and whilst it’s a bit more unique than that, I was hoping that this might be a return to glory after I was left a little disappointed with Persona 5. Metaphor drops the player into a network of hub towns and explorable mini-dungeons, where shopping, fighting, sidequesting and dating (there is an equivalent to Persona’s Confidants and Social Links here) are all present and correct as your journey progresses through the weeks and months of an in-game calendar. Fighting is streamlined slightly with a hybrid of real-time and turn based combat, enemies have tiers of difficulty if you scan them (based on their level in relation to yours – enemies three levels below yours die in one swing), and the turn-based combat is given extra flavour through systems such as Synthesis (spend multiple actions on team attacks) and formations (you can move allies to the front or back row à la classic Final Fantasy.) In theory, it’s compelling, engaging and smart – ensuring that the player is always spending their time wisely. However, it’s the way in which Metaphor handles its climactic boss battles which has led me to consider the notion of engaging in backwards dungeon crawling.

Preparation vs completion

one image used for the article backwards dungeon crawling

Whilst I don’t like comparing Metaphor to Persona – when a studio announces a brand new series I try to avoid lazy parallels – it’s an interesting examination in the individual designs and how they lead me to play the games “wrong”. Your objectives for a calendar deadline in Metaphor may vary, but they often involve preparation rather than completion. You’re not necessarily completing a particular area or encounter before a deadline, but you’ll often be expected to prepare for a future encounter. This is comparable to Persona 3 and 5 – where you improve your party before a full moon or a calling card heralds an unavoidable boss battle. A structure that depends on completion is comparable to Persona 4 – where its calendar deadlines assess whether or not you’ve completed the latest dungeon. In P3, P5 and Metaphor, you’re preparing for an unknown threat that you won’t face until a defined date – and in the Persona games you could often measure your preparedness based on your progress in the game-spanning dungeons, Tartarus (P3) and Mementos (P5).

Metaphor has no definitive game-spanning dungeon. You might discover new dungeons through sidequests or story beats, but you kind of have to figure out the best way to develop your party by yourself. It’s why I went into each zone I could still warp to (without the fairy ally Gallica telling me “we don’t need to go there now”) and looked at the levels of the enemies to see where I could maximise experience gains in-between these unknown threats. On the other hand, maybe I was wasting my time with experience gains because the unknown threats were unknown. More often than not, I’d race through the in-game calendar with menial tasks that would push time forward just so that I could see what I’d be up against when the next deadline rolls around – and then I would reload my previous save and prepare accordingly. This is what made me consider the idea of backwards dungeon crawling: sprinting to a future boss battle with no preparation, and then building a strategy around what you found there. I can totally appreciate anyone writing in to call me insane for doing this, but the point is that I was permanently afraid of saving at a point where I would be underlevelled – because I had no metric for how prepared I should be. So what’s the solution?

How to dissuade backwards dungeon crawling

This isn’t an issue of difficulty – it’s a question of how soon a challenge could be presented to a player. Maybe an RPG could allow people to walk up to the front door of a dungeon and face an extraordinarily strong foe that represents the power of the dungeon’s guardian – just so that they have an idea of how to prepare. Maybe an RPG could, in the objective text, include the range of levels of the enemies within the next mandatory sequence. Maybe they could just make familiar areas more dangerous. One of my biggest question marks about Metaphor’s design is why you have (for example) open desert and forest areas where you can fight at any time, but the range of enemies stays the same forever – when instead the game could mix in stronger enemies as you pass certain milestones. Meanwhile, an extreme approach to the idea of open-ended challenges can be seen in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, where each district has a defined “threat level”, and there are some areas of the map that you have to steer clear of for a while. At the same time, there will be districts in Infinite Wealth where enemies are so weak that you can win a battle with a single button press. It feels like the whole gamut of difficulty is presented to you at once, and it’s brilliant.

another image used for the article backwards dungeon crawling

The backwards dungeon crawling continues

For what it’s worth, I am genuinely enjoying my time with Metaphor – it’s caused a lot of lost sleep, the battle system is excellent and the party members are generally likeable. According to the internet I’m closing in on the end of the penultimate dungeon, so I still have more to do, but I’ve been having fun. (I would finish the game a week after publishing this – the final boss was a resource drain, but being able to switch party members in the middle of a battle helps a lot if your current party is out of resources. Also, Bardon’s bond path has a perk where switching members costs fewer turns, which makes this more viable.) That said, I don’t know if my backwards dungeon crawling habits will change any time soon, at least when playing this game.

Metaphor ReFantazio is out now for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series and PC.

Origin Story: Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection

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In July I was keenly following news surrounding the upcoming release of Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics – a new compilation of Capcom’s classic “versus” games.  I had already written a few articles about the first three Marvel vs. Capcom entries, and I enjoyed those fighters on a casual, button-bashing level. I was aware that the versus games go beyond those titles with “Marvel vs. Capcom” in the name, and I had considered writing something about the earlier titles –  X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. However, in the end I only made time to talk about the three MvC games because I wanted the publication of the last article to coincide with the release of Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite (September 19th 2017.) History tells us what happened next – Infinite delivered a solid fighting experience that somehow felt flat and lifeless next to its celebrated predecessors, and even if you wanted to go back to the earlier games, you were limited by a lack of availability (Xbox Live Arcade was pulling titles from its store due to expired licences, and physical copies of console conversions were restricted to previous generations) – until this week.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection – the list

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics brings together each of those earlier fighters – X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, and the first two Marvel vs Capcom games – and throws in The Punisher for good measure, before putting the whole thing on digital marketplaces for £39.99. What’s more, it provides a great window into the world of those early Marvel versus games. X-Men: Children of the Atom may feel slightly tame next to a true “hyper fighter” like MvC2, but it’s also an easy way to get a feel for an early Marvel fighter without being overwhelmed too much. MSH has more lively presentation and brings in the gem system, but the gameplay remains relatively sanitised before you get to the 2v2 format introduced in X-Men vs. Street Fighter and MSH vs. Street Fighter. Needless to say, all of the games have great characters and fun systems to explore, but it’s also worth playing with the new “Light Reduction” setting for games such as X-Men vs. Street Fighter, which lets you tone down the game’s notorious screen flashing. Simply open Game Settings when the game is highlighted in the initial menu to find this option.

Technicalities

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection

I’ve only tried a few matches online – mostly via Marvel vs. Capcom 2 – but performance seems solid, with no connection drops, lag or stutters. Admittedly, I am playing with a wired Ethernet connection, but I’d be curious to hear from any readers who are playing wirelessly – leave a comment below about your multiplayer experiences. Outside of the netcode and online experiences, there is one weird aspect of the collection that I need to address for those planning to buy this on PC. At the time of writing, there’s a bit of an issue with the button symbols displayed in menus and the controller you happen to have plugged in. When I tried to use my Hori Fighting Commander 4 (designed for PS3 and PS4 games), I would still see Xbox symbols for menu navigation. Right now the community-sourced fix is to navigate to the game’s folder in Windows and open the config.ini before changing the “ButtonPrompt=X360” line to “ButtonPrompt=PS4“, but hopefully this issue will be formally addressed in a patch later on.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection – a convenient bundle

Otherwise, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics makes a strong first impression, and even if I’ll never be on the same level as the gods in ranked, it’s a pretty convenient package of some excellent games. As always, don’t forget to consider leaving a comment below – maybe let us know what you’ll be playing first in the collection, and which characters you’ll be playing as in each game.

FFVII Rebirth – late impressions

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They didn’t need to do this. I said this at the start of my FFVII Remake late impressions, but the sentiment is true here also. Picking up directly where that game concluded, FFVII Rebirth is a another chunk of reimagined adventures with Cloud Strife and friends, and the second part of a planned trilogy of games based on the 1997 classic. Following the escape from Midgar and Destiny’s Crossroads, the game covers most of the rest of the first disc of the original game – from the flashback at Kalm to the Forgotten Capital. It’s kind of refreshing to see such an honest continuation that picks up almost exactly where you would expect and feels like a genuine extension of Remake’s adventure (the 2020 game came in at around 37 hours for me (plus around 5 hours for Intermission if you beeline the main story); my FFVII Rebirth save at the final boss was about 49 hours.) However – just like Remake, this is a game that fleshes out many of those story beats and battle encounters to something much more involved. Again: they didn’t need to commit to such elaborate new sequences, but it does turn this into a genuinely new adventure.

FFVII Rebirth – event square

FFVII Rebirth

Since I had already played the original game a bit, I had a vague memory about the general locations and events that a player goes through between Kalm and the capital, and so I could feel myself making a mental checklist of story beats and encounters that I wanted to see. And generally, I think that FFVII Rebirth manages to cover most of the memorable sequences. You still take part in the Junon parade, you still find time for fun at the Gold Saucer, you still go through some pivotal sequences at the Temple of the Ancients. The events won’t play out exactly like they did in the PS1 game, but most of the time the interpretations in Rebirth remain enjoyable. And even outside of the events, it’s hard not to appreciate the feeling of walking through what used to be a couple of screens of pre-rendered backdrops, or a handful of NPCs – the bustle and chatter that goes on as you move from one waypoint to the next adds a lot to locations such as Costa Del Sol. Some of those NPCs might have quests for you to pick up, but it’s more likely that they will be keen to play you in a game of Queen’s Blood. A new minigame added to FFVII Rebirth, this duel of card decks has a deceptively simple score-based goal but enough depth behind it to make each play satisfying, and is definitely worth getting to grips with (not that the story lets you ignore the minigame for long…)

2024’s new balance update

Rebirth does feel a lot more challenging than the 2020 game, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m more familiar with Remake’s battles. When you were taking Cloud on a journey to escape from Midgar, I felt like there were only a small handful of compulsory battles that really stretched your abilities and demanded that you make the most of the systems on offer. In FFVII Rebirth, it seems like every other forced miniboss encounter is doing that. I ended a lot of battles with my whole party in the red and near-death, and I’ve been playing both this and Remake on Normal difficulty with active battles. (I did try one or two battles on different difficulties, but generally I liked to reload and retry encounters on Normal difficulty.) The game regularly puts me in situations where I feel like I have eight things to “fix” on the party and only one or two ATB stocks that are ready. I admit that a lot of this may be due to my own knowledge and experience of the battles (I’m already planning to go back to older saves and take a second look at some of the late-game encounters), but the learning curve still felt gentler in the previous game. That being said, I loved taking the time to break down a battle encounter and determine exactly what I need to be looking out for in each of the enemy’s phases. Also, your own offense is supported by a new system of skill unlocks, comparable to a licence board in FFXII, or perhaps the weapon upgrade screen in Remake. Each party member can unlock anything from HP boosts and increased attack stats, to new unique elemental attacks that don’t cost MP – which are especially welcome after Remake had you entering boss battles with the wrong elements equipped.

FFVII Rebirth – environmental awareness

FFVII Rebirth

Whilst I can appreciate an increase in challenge with most of the encounters, I was more disappointed with the environments of the late game – and this stems from something that many Final Fantasy games suffer. When stakes are raised, environments shift from relatable towns and factories and beaches to epic fractured apocalypse backdrops, and even though there’s still another game planned for this trilogy, I already feel like I’m kind of done with it as a late-game staple. Some games have successfully delivered these kind of environments with less bombast – a purely narrative sequence in the Streets of Madness chapter of Final Fantasy XVI was particularly memorable – but I am concerned about what the third game will do to “one-up” the late-game of Remake and Rebirth.

Outside of pure environmental design, the engine sometimes struggles in places. With the previous game, the graphics had difficulty rendering detail in time, leading to memes such as That One Door. Here, the lighting is the most curious aspect of Rebirth. The party can sometimes walk forward into total darkness before the lighting “wakes up” a few seconds later, and some slight camera movements in the wrong place seem to turn the lighting on and off like a lightswitch. It’s never frequent enough to ruin the experience, but it still seems a bit silly whenever it happens.

Despite those observations, this is a great extension and expansion of what FFVII Remake originally set up, and I’m excited by the idea of a conclusion that could expand the hour count of the “trilogy” into triple-digits. If you didn’t like FFVII Remake then there probably isn’t much for you here – if you did, you probably already made up your mind about picking this up. They didn’t need to do this, but I still appreciate the ambition.

FFVII Rebirth is available now for PS5. You can find out more about the game here.

The thing that nobody tells you about Jet Set Radio

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In the early 2000s I was still a poor student, and gamers were deep in the console wars of the sixth generation. The main competition took place between the PlayStation 2, Microsoft’s Xbox and the Nintendo Gamecube – with Sega‘s Dreamcast ending up as an early casualty. Here in the UK, shelves of DC hardware and games were quickly cleared out to make way for more PS2, Gamecube and Xbox games. In fact, this is actually how I bought my Dreamcast – a used console was in the bargain bin for around £20 of your early 2000s money, and as I never had the patience to save for the newest tech, I was content with staying one generation behind the curve. That being said, this meant that I already knew which games I wanted to try when I bought the console: Sonic Adventure, Space Channel 5, Virtua Tennis, Soul Calibur… Jet Set Radio. Magazine coverage had made the cel-shaded skating game look impossibly cool, and adverts naturally cast it in the best light. I was being sold the idealistic vision of what the game was trying to be, and I became that guy who tells you about Jet Set Radio. I was rambling about the game to my friends on the bus into college – even though they all played games on Xbox or PS2 – and I had fully bought into the dream. The thing is, it’s much easier to appreciate a game like Jet Set Radio when you’re a carefree youth without adult responsibilities and with plenty of free time, and playing the games today definitely requires a certain mindset.

Nobody tells you about Jet Set Radio and its intended gameplay

In Jet Set Radio you control one of several characters and complete missions where you skate around open urban areas, collecting spray cans and finding locations where you can tag graffiti through a QTE minigame or a single button press. When a given number of tags have been put down, police units will drop in and attack you – resulting in a game over when your health is drained. If you put down all of the required tags in a stage without running out of time or being defeated by the police, you complete the stage and move on. Later on in the game you unlock new maps to explore and new characters to use, and the story escalates until you have a showdown with the main antagonist. If you have youth and lots of spare time, the original game can be a fun waste of an afternoon – but what nobody tells you about Jet Set Radio is that failure is a natural symptom of the game’s design, and you’ll be hitting some excruciating lows before reaching the highs. From a developer’s point of view, the goal of every stage is to put down the tags before the time runs out – but from a player’s point of view, the objective is more like trying to create that euphoric run promised in the pre-release coverage where you’re flying down the street evading cops and completing tags. You know, instead of wrestling with the camera, running out of spray cans at the worst moments and failing to snap onto a rail that you needed to grind on, as you now fall down to street level and lose a chunk of health. Again.

The thing that nobody tells you about Jet Set Radio - image 1

For all the fronting of the characters being hip streetwise youths, the player drops into each new stage having to become familiar with the map layout, the placement of the tags, the requirements of the tags (which tags require one can and a single button press, and which tags require long QTE sequences in two places after you’ve restocked your spray cans), the locations of the spray cans and health pickups, and the timing of the scripted moments where the authorities arrive on the scene. Then, all of this needs to be pieced together in a route that covers everything whilst beating the clock. You’re not a carefree rebel moving to your own rhythm – you’re a member of Ground Force (a garden makeover show that aired on TV over here until the mid 00s, for our younger readers) meticulously crafting a plan to decorate an environment in the window of time you’ve been granted. And this might not be so frustrating if the rest of the game didn’t have such inconsistent quality, but this is a sixth-gen 3D game with all of the camera issues, clipping nightmares, twitchy analogue control and cheap environment transitions (later on in the game various zones are connected and you “travel between” them by skating into a flat image of the road leading into the horizon, as if Wile E. Coyote is trying to send you speeding into a wall) that come with that classification. Even when things are going to plan, the pacing of each stage shatters the dream of hi-octane action – with moments of slick tag placement and fleeing the authorities broken up with lengthy trips back to where the health and graffiti cans would spawn. It’s an experience where resource management and engaging gameplay are permanently at odds with one another. For the longest time, I just didn’t get it – why was this game looked back on so fondly when a player has to wrestle with so many dissatisfying interactions?

Nobody tells you about Jet Set Radio and its loop of failure

Today, I think I kind of understand. Earlier this year I finally managed to reach the end credits of Jet Set Radio. I failed stages many times along the way, but each failure brought knowledge with it – how many tags you can complete before the authorities arrive, which tags require the most amount of cans, where the cans respawn, how to reach certain areas of the map. I ended up making plans for each stage – Shibuya GG, Benten Boogie, Monster of Kogane… all the way up to the likes of Fight or Flight. And with each failure, I refined my plans. By the time I’d nailed an approach for every stage in the Steam copy I was gifted, I was so confident in my knowledge that I did it all over again on the Vita version I had bought years ago. This is what nobody tells you about Jet Set Radio – it’s intended as an experience of learning through failure and repetition right up until you know how to complete each stage, and then all of the associated frustration evaporates and you wonder what you were even complaining about. Which is why anyone familiar with Jet Set Radio will think that those who raise similar issues with the game are exaggerating – from their point of view, the issues don’t exist.

The thing that nobody tells you about Jet Set Radio - image 2

I’m confident that with a few variants of maps and mission goals, 90% of my “issues” with Jet Set Radio would never have existed. Let the player practice the same mission but with an unlimited timer. Let them practice a mission with infinite health, or without the police escape sequences. There was a time when Jet Set Radio Future used to be in my list of all-time favourite games, and its improvements over the original – the absence of a timer allowing for more pleasant exploration, the denser maps that were able to be designed, the one-button tagging preventing any lapse in momentum – shone through. Everyone’s had the experience of going to a new town or city for the first time in their lives and finding out where certain stores or attractions are, but they’ve usually been able to book the time they think they’ll need – rather than having to do everything in 900 seconds before returning home.

The revival

However, there’s still hope. Earlier this week, a new Jet Set Radio game was unveiled as one of several teases for “revivals” of classic Sega IP (including Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Shinobi and Streets of Rage.) To many people, the return of Jet Set Radio represents another sequel to one of their favourite games. To me, it represents another chance. I believe that the gameplay loop of Jet Set Radio can be harnessed into something both challenging and satisfying; something that can be admired by veterans and newcomers. More than two decades later, I’m still waiting – but I hope that the next game proves me right.

Opinion: Hire the experts

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Note: this article may loosely describe certain combat abilities unlocked in Final Fantasy XVI after a period of playing. If you have not played the game yet, please keep this in mind.

Prelude

Hire the experts - img 01

On June 3rd 2022, the X (formerly Twitter) account @finalfantasyxvi published a list of notable development staff who were working on Final Fantasy XVI. Much of it was as you would expect – Naoki Yoshida (FFXIV) was producing the game, Masayoshi Soken (FFXIV) was providing the soundtrack, and the full list included various other directors who’d previously had experience with the mainline RPG series in one way or another. However, there was one individual in the list who did not have Final Fantasy games credited to them. His entry on the tweeted list read:

Combat Director: Ryota Suzuki
Devil May Cry 5
Dragon’s Dogma
Marvel vs. Capcom 2

In any other series, this might have been a cause for concern – but after hearing other people talk about Final Fantasy XVI – and the trajectory of the mainline Final Fantasy series in general, many considered it a cause for celebration. More than a year later, having now completed the game myself, I have to commend the decision to bring Suzuki on board. Not for the first time, we find that when you hire the experts you can get fun action gameplay out of your RPG franchise.

Hire the experts – and make FFXVI a joy to play

Final Fantasy XVI has layers of RPG staples throughout – the experience points and levels, the unlockable skills, a lot of gear customisation, a job system (of sorts), chatty NPCs, vendors and a central hub, plenty of sidequests and areas to loot, and a story that takes place across an expansive world map with diverse regions to explore. Take away the combat and how it plays out, and what you’re left with is recognisable as a modern RPG template – and so I don’t think it’s strayed too far from its genre roots. Instead, the biggest change is felt when Clive swings his weapon. As we’ve seen modern Final Fantasy games lean towards action-oriented gameplay in Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy VII Remake, we’ve come to accept that traditional RPG combat is at risk of being left behind in this series. So when Final Fantasy XVI has action game talent informing its combat, we get to see this transformation in a form that immediately feels polished and satisfying.

Hire the experts - img 02

On the surface, nothing seems that extraordinary – there is a melee attack, a button to shoot projectiles (these have an elemental property based on the Eikon – this game’s equivalent of Espers or Summons – that is equipped), a lock-on, a jump. However, as Clive proceeds through the game he obtains more Eikons to “equip” – each of these Eikons has a unique action that can be performed at any time, a skill tree where more abilities can be unlocked, and two “slots” where those abilities can be bound to controller shortcuts. What makes this special is that a lot of the abilities don’t feel like the kind of commands you would select in a battle menu during a traditional RPG – instead, it feels more like the Eikons are fighting game characters and you’re unlocking special moves to bind to your shortcuts. Even as I played through the game, I found myself mentally referring to particular abilities as “the uppercut move” or “the gamma wave” – a special move from Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Just like special moves in 2D fighting games have applications for certain circumstances, there are a lot of combat abilities in Final Fantasy XVI that allow you to dictate the way these battles in 3D space are played out.

Hire the experts – but be sensible

RPGs have always enjoyed making the player feel powerful in new ways – every time you recruit a new party member in a modern Persona game, one of the first things you’re keen to know is what their persona’s full skill list looks like. In Final Fantasy XVI, it feels like each of the obtainable Eikons are as much of a party member as Jill, Torgal, or anyone else who might join Clive on his journey, and they definitely elicit the feeling of wonder as you’re keen to unlock each ability and work it into your combos somehow. When you hire the experts you can end up with memorable action experiences, but the gameplay structure is still sensible enough to stagger each Eikon acquisition so that you’re not overwhelmed with options. By the end of the game, you will have come up with some favourite abilities anyway (abilities can be upgraded for more potency, and even bound to ability slots of other Eikons) – consequently, you’ll already have decided what options are right for you.

So it’s taken this long for Square Enix to modernise the combat in one of its beloved RPGs? Not quite – because I feel like we have been here before. Just like Capcom talent revitalised combat in a new Final Fantasy, a lot of my time spent with Clive and co. led to me thinking about how Nier reinvented itself. The 2010 game had serviceable combat tied to some awkward pacing and dull sequences – several years later, another decision was made to seek action specialists (this time PlatinumGames) for Nier Automata, and it resulted in a spectacular 3D action vessel that still respected the roots of the original. And whilst it may simply be because Final Fantasy XVI is fresher in my mind, I daresay that it is even more accomplished than Automata was. Obviously we don’t need every 3D RPG to follow this evolution (Atlus is doing just fine with conventional turn-based combat, and even Yakuza managed to make it work for their own re-invention.) However, if real-time combat is a focus for an RPG developer, it helps to hire the experts.

Hire the experts - img 03

Final Fantasy XVI is available now for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5 and PC. Nier Automata is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch

The Lost Summer Editorial

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If you’ve been following this website for a while, you’ll remember that we never started out as a WordPress site. The original intention was to write content and create InDesign templates around it until everything could be put together into PDF format. And one thing we learned from doing so is that template production is difficult, and time-consuming, and often didn’t get completed until long after the plain text of the content had been written. This meant that we were sometimes reluctant to write features about “current” topics in entertainment when there was a risk of the conversation no longer being “current” by the time our features were published. Instead, we would sometimes try and discuss broader topics that were “always” relevant. Case in point: our summer editorial.

The Lost Summer Editorial – the brief

What we wanted to discuss in the article was simple. The entertainment experiences we covered in the magazine often took place in a dark room, in front of a large screen, and preferably with some quality headphones – and this is the last kind of situation you want to find yourself in during the summer months. This was understood within the industry as well; in particular, video game releases were known to “dry up” over the summer period, and there was often a shortage of new titles to talk about. (It didn’t help that we were active in the seventh-generation of consoles, when the Xbox 360 was put under the spotlight and the issue of overheating and the solder on your chips was brought into question.) I had a broad idea of what I wanted to achieve with the article – a general round-up of some of the best entertainment people can enjoy whilst at the park, under a parasol, or on the way to the seaside. What I didn’t realise, however, was that in the years that passed since the feature was conceived, enjoying new entertainment in the summer months would become easier – and more normalised – than it ever was when we came up with the concept for the summer editorial in the first place.

The tech effect

summer editorial

With the passage of time, entertainment become shorter, quicker and easier to consume. Your indulgent 3+ hour movies and epic 100+ hour RPGs were still being produced and were readily available in all of the usual places, but joining them were video shorts on social media, and polished, immediate games available on mobile app stores or dedicated gaming handhelds. We had moved on from the age of portables without backlights (a few years before conceiving articles for the PDF magazine I would have still been playing handheld games on an original Game Boy Advance, which was a good distraction during the summer months, but hardly ideal when you couldn’t see the screen), and the boom box (a summer staple for some garden parties) was quickly being usurped by the smart speaker, allowing hundreds of hours of summer tunes to be streamed during outdoor gatherings. (As mentioned in my Disposable 2022 article, I have since bought myself a CD boom box with radio and Bluetooth connectivity despite already having a standalone Bluetooth speaker – primarily because it serves as a better all-in-one solution.) Meanwhile, today’s e-readers allow anyone to take their entire library outside with them, whilst also offering useful bookmarking options and accessibility features to ensure that all bookworms are catered for with minimal hindrance. Crucially, none of this has to be costly anymore either; prices of consumer tech today open up more ways to enjoy new media releases without being confined to a single room (my own boom box might not have the best sound quality but it didn’t empty my bank balance either), and you won’t have to write up a budget for summer entertainment before allowing yourself to have fun.

The Lost Summer Editorial – the outbreak

summer editorial

As the UK government became more insistent on the precautions we had to take during the Covid-19 pandemic – staying at home if possible and sacrificing the get-togethers that would usually be in our social calendars – those who tried to comply with the guidelines found themselves confined to their households during the summer months, or forming a support bubble with friends, family or other trusted acquaintances. When introducing this article we began by saying that isolating yourself with only the latest entertainment to keep you distracted was as far removed from typical summer activity as you could imagine – but for a while some of us at least had to get used to the idea of this being a new way of living. And it’s not like there isn’t evidence that supports the fact that most of us tried to get used to this – the 2020s began in an environment where high street retailers were hit hard by a rise in online shopping, because everyone had been told to stay indoors when possible. The UK government’s advice at the time was “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” (this would later be amended to “Stay alert, control the virus, save lives”), and home entertainment played a crucial part in keeping us sane. Instead of heading out for spontaneous family picnics in crowded parks, we would dust off our summer playlists and portable consoles, or call up family and friends over FaceTime. The truth is that summer is just as good a time as any to enjoy the latest entertainment, and it only took a global event such as Covid-19 to provide some focus for the summer editorial we wanted to complete so many years ago.

Looking at today’s technology and the devices that will be available in the future, there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of ways to enjoy yourself without being confined to that dark room and large screen. Handheld gaming is becoming more ambitious, mobile internet plans are more widespread, and a smart speaker is part of the furniture rather than being an overpriced luxury. Our original summer editorial was conceived by myself and another editor on the team, and even after the PDF’s final issue it was something that I wanted to write. Irrespective of the final outcome, I hope you have a great summer ahead of you.

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