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i ain't sellin'
So I wasn't going to, but it looks like I am probably going to put in a pre-order for NEO: The World Ends With You.
I freaking love the original game. It's one of my favourites, ever. I've replayed it a bunch of times, and I never get sick of it. There's a lot of stuff about it I love (except for the pins with the gimmicky moves, like that one where you're supposed to yell into the DS' mic*). And...this is probably an unpopular opinion, but I didn't think it needed a sequel. I think it's a pretty good game all on its own.
So, like. My feelings about NEO:TWEWY are complicated. It looks good (I've always loved the graffiti style of the art), and it's nice to see it all in 3D. But, was it necessary? And it's been SO LONG since the original. As Aoife pointed out in the Eurogamer video she made about it, it's been fourteen years since the original was out! FOURTEEN YEARS!
I may change my mind once I get to playing it, but now I feel incredibly eh, although I feel like I should buy it because I love the original so much.
Oh yeah, and then SMT V is coming out in November! So obviously I will be buying that as soon as I can! Ordinarily I wouldn't leave a gap between the acronym and the number, but there used to be a kid's Saturday morning show in the UK called SMTV**, so it threw me for a loop once I realised that that's what number five in the mainline games would look like written down.
So, of course, I thinks to myself: I need to save money! This is nearly 100 quids' worth of games!
But then my brain is like: But we want to buy this book about lino cutting! And this ink! And these pens! and I have to stop and back myself the heck up because, although I'm working, I don't really have the extra cash lying around to justify the total amount I will have spent on new games by the end of the year, plus any other purchases I've made.
Although I do still have some birthday money left, so I could buy the book with that. And then be sensible about saving for NEO: TWEWY and SMT V.
I keep thinking I don't have FOMO and, for the most part, I don't. Except where certain video games are concerned. Which is really a small proportion because a lot of the time I resign myself to the fact that I will not get to play stuff. It's the way things have always been.
(I actually really don't understand FOMO, but that's because I've never had much opportunity to do much, so it doesn't bother me that I won't get to do X, Y, or Z).
So I either need to save (probably what I will do; I'm going to put money aside that I would have spent on Random Stuff in CEX), or I need to sell some art. Or both!
~
And then there is the book I read. I have finished it, although I'm going to talk about it a bit because certain things annoyed me, even though I enjoyed it overall. I'm going to put it behind a cut because spoilers and I need to talk about them!
So, as you may remember, I just read The Split, by Sharon Bolton.
Overall, she has a very readable style and, apart from a few missing commas, nothing about the text itself made me want to hurl it across the room.
My problems come with the plot itself. The main character, Felicity, has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, from here on). This is meant to be a huge plot reveal, but I knew it going in, because I read a few spoilers on Goodreads, but also the title bloody gives it away! It's not a clever title at all! I went looking for the spoilers to confirm what I suspected, and I was right!
The text mostly does handle Felicity's DID well (imo, but I do not have DID, nor do I know anyone with it), although she is suspected of murder partially because of it (because mentally ill people are a threat to everyone, *eyeroll*) and partially because she's found covered in blood at one point. Also she does actually knife someone, and the only reason is to set her up as "oooh, maybe she's the one what done it!"
There are also a lot of homeless people in the story, and they're treated with sympathy for the most part, though there is some blamey stuff in the text.
I did like that the actual murderer is given no excuses for being the way they are. And, in fact, we don't really find out that much about them (all you know at the end is what you find out when they're introduced, more or less).
I am extremely unimpressed with how the plot/framing device deals with Felicity and what is revealed to be her father, however. Like, I get Felicity is scared because all she remembers is that her father is a horrible person (which turns out to be wrong, although nothing in the text contradicts this). But the way he contacts her is ridiculous, as well! Admittedly, we never see all of the letter he sent her, but what we do see reads like he's stalking her! Which serves part of the premise well (she spends 80% of the book thinking he's her ex-husband who is stalking her), but falls flat when you know that's supposed to be her dad, who loves her, writing that. Also he acts stalkery again, once he reaches her which, not ideal! But I suppose if he'd acted not like a stalker, that part of the story wouldn't have worked, would it?
I did enjoy reading it, in spite of my gripes. I think it could've worked okay without the framing device, to be honest, but I also see why that was there.
I don't know if I would recommend it, but definitely not as your first Sharon Bolton (whoops, me). But it passed a few hours, and that's what I wanted.
~
Finally, I'm nearly done with Persona 5 again, which is good because I am actually starting to feel burn out on it. But I've spent ~170 hours playing it, so why am I surprised?
~
*You can get away with blowing on it, which is what I've always done, lol.
**Saturday Morning Television. Because, you know, calling a spade a spade and all that.
I freaking love the original game. It's one of my favourites, ever. I've replayed it a bunch of times, and I never get sick of it. There's a lot of stuff about it I love (except for the pins with the gimmicky moves, like that one where you're supposed to yell into the DS' mic*). And...this is probably an unpopular opinion, but I didn't think it needed a sequel. I think it's a pretty good game all on its own.
So, like. My feelings about NEO:TWEWY are complicated. It looks good (I've always loved the graffiti style of the art), and it's nice to see it all in 3D. But, was it necessary? And it's been SO LONG since the original. As Aoife pointed out in the Eurogamer video she made about it, it's been fourteen years since the original was out! FOURTEEN YEARS!
I may change my mind once I get to playing it, but now I feel incredibly eh, although I feel like I should buy it because I love the original so much.
Oh yeah, and then SMT V is coming out in November! So obviously I will be buying that as soon as I can! Ordinarily I wouldn't leave a gap between the acronym and the number, but there used to be a kid's Saturday morning show in the UK called SMTV**, so it threw me for a loop once I realised that that's what number five in the mainline games would look like written down.
So, of course, I thinks to myself: I need to save money! This is nearly 100 quids' worth of games!
But then my brain is like: But we want to buy this book about lino cutting! And this ink! And these pens! and I have to stop and back myself the heck up because, although I'm working, I don't really have the extra cash lying around to justify the total amount I will have spent on new games by the end of the year, plus any other purchases I've made.
Although I do still have some birthday money left, so I could buy the book with that. And then be sensible about saving for NEO: TWEWY and SMT V.
I keep thinking I don't have FOMO and, for the most part, I don't. Except where certain video games are concerned. Which is really a small proportion because a lot of the time I resign myself to the fact that I will not get to play stuff. It's the way things have always been.
(I actually really don't understand FOMO, but that's because I've never had much opportunity to do much, so it doesn't bother me that I won't get to do X, Y, or Z).
So I either need to save (probably what I will do; I'm going to put money aside that I would have spent on Random Stuff in CEX), or I need to sell some art. Or both!
~
And then there is the book I read. I have finished it, although I'm going to talk about it a bit because certain things annoyed me, even though I enjoyed it overall. I'm going to put it behind a cut because spoilers and I need to talk about them!
So, as you may remember, I just read The Split, by Sharon Bolton.
Overall, she has a very readable style and, apart from a few missing commas, nothing about the text itself made me want to hurl it across the room.
My problems come with the plot itself. The main character, Felicity, has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, from here on). This is meant to be a huge plot reveal, but I knew it going in, because I read a few spoilers on Goodreads, but also the title bloody gives it away! It's not a clever title at all! I went looking for the spoilers to confirm what I suspected, and I was right!
The text mostly does handle Felicity's DID well (imo, but I do not have DID, nor do I know anyone with it), although she is suspected of murder partially because of it (because mentally ill people are a threat to everyone, *eyeroll*) and partially because she's found covered in blood at one point. Also she does actually knife someone, and the only reason is to set her up as "oooh, maybe she's the one what done it!"
There are also a lot of homeless people in the story, and they're treated with sympathy for the most part, though there is some blamey stuff in the text.
I did like that the actual murderer is given no excuses for being the way they are. And, in fact, we don't really find out that much about them (all you know at the end is what you find out when they're introduced, more or less).
I am extremely unimpressed with how the plot/framing device deals with Felicity and what is revealed to be her father, however. Like, I get Felicity is scared because all she remembers is that her father is a horrible person (which turns out to be wrong, although nothing in the text contradicts this). But the way he contacts her is ridiculous, as well! Admittedly, we never see all of the letter he sent her, but what we do see reads like he's stalking her! Which serves part of the premise well (she spends 80% of the book thinking he's her ex-husband who is stalking her), but falls flat when you know that's supposed to be her dad, who loves her, writing that. Also he acts stalkery again, once he reaches her which, not ideal! But I suppose if he'd acted not like a stalker, that part of the story wouldn't have worked, would it?
I did enjoy reading it, in spite of my gripes. I think it could've worked okay without the framing device, to be honest, but I also see why that was there.
I don't know if I would recommend it, but definitely not as your first Sharon Bolton (whoops, me). But it passed a few hours, and that's what I wanted.
~
Finally, I'm nearly done with Persona 5 again, which is good because I am actually starting to feel burn out on it. But I've spent ~170 hours playing it, so why am I surprised?
~
*You can get away with blowing on it, which is what I've always done, lol.
**Saturday Morning Television. Because, you know, calling a spade a spade and all that.
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