There does not need to be a tenth generation of consoles.

 Title says it all really, but as I tend to do, just in case you do not enter the videogaming space (in which case I envy you the peace of your existence.) a "console generation" refers to each time the major console manufacturers release the next in their line of hardware. the 7th generation came in the mid-to-late 2000s with Sony's Playstation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. 

 We're now in the 9th, with the PS5 and PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X and Series S, I don't even fucking know which one is supposed to be which, or what the difference is, and the Nintendo Switch 2.  which is the only one I thought needed to exist. Reason being, basically, in terms of raw hardware, Nintendo has been lagging behind since the Wii, but fortunately, the others hit the point of diminishing returns around the same time.

You've already guessed what I'm getting at with this post. 

I have a Switch, no Switch 2 yet, and a lifelong fondness for Nintendo IP, but I've mainly been on Playstation since the...well the Playstation. Everyone had a PS2, it's the best-selling console of all time to this day, I believe. Growing up with siblings, we usually ended up with all 3 of the major consoles in the house eventually. But after my second 360 Red-Ringed and died on me, as my dad had bought be a PS3 for my birthday that year, I didn't bother to replace it. (I wanted one for Metal Gear Solid 4 and God of War 3, and later discovered the Yakuza series, and never went back.) 

Fairly sure only one of the aforementioned is still Sony exclusive, and that's only until volume 2 of the Metal Gear Master Collection comes out, but the death of that particular reason to buy things is not what I'm here to talk about today. 

 

I still have my old PS3, it sits ready and waiting in the cabinet atop which sits the monolithic slab that is the PS5, and...well, I wanna talk to you all for just a second about a very particular phenomenon that I'm not sure there's a name for. In fact, fuck it, let's name it. How about...the "Retro Beer Goggles" or, RGB effect?

in previous console generations, it was not uncommon to load up an old game on old hardware, and be taken aback by how...bad it looks. I have many old favourites that I'd be prepared to swear looked better than they did. My memory had applied Retro Beer Goggles, and given the visuals an upscale in my mind. I could usually adjust once I got into the game and immersion took hold, but that initial shock would be there no matter how many times I revisited the same game if enough time had passed since I last did.

I say in previous generations because, as I mentioned above, consoles hit the point of diminishing returns on visuals at least fifteen years ago. I regularly fire up my old PS3, and not only is the RBG effect not really present, things still look, at worst fine, and at best, pretty damn good. 

 In fact, if anything, pushing higher and higher resolution has come at a cost that I question was worth it. 

 So, my PS3 is the slim model that has 300 od gigabytes of storage. Never needed more, honestly, the only time I needed to make space was redownloding God of War: Ascension and that was only because the way the PS3 downloads and installs things is ass-backwards in a way that requires you to have double the free space you actually need. The biggest game on my hard drive on the PS3 takes up 35GB. 

A much smaller, but more substantial one that I had on there, is Batman: Arkham City. which occupied less  than 8GB on that hard drive. For comparison's sake, I checked the PS4 version of that same game, which requires 49GB to install. That's six times the hard drive space, six. 

But surely the amount of space in the new consoles is bigger to compensate right? No, no it's not, the standard is 1TB now. I believe there was a PS3 model that could hold 500GB unless I'm mistaken, so, double the storage size, but roughly six times the file size. 

 This wouldn't be so much of a problem if games were still contained on disc, like they were back then, but they're not. With the exception of Yakuza 0 on the PS4, which takes up maybe 23GB and goes from uninstalled to playable in seconds, (it's also a really good game, just by the way)  the discs basically serve as something to keep on your shelf and let your console know it's allowed to download and install the game without you needing to buy it on the digital storefront. 

 So if you want to keep your library of games at the ready, you have no option, but to keep bloated files on your system, limiting your available options to about...maybe 10 games depending on scale, because you don't get the full terrabyte for installs, the system software takes a fair chunk of it. Unless of course you spend half again the price of the console to buy extended storage, or subscribe to cloud gaming services and hope that A) your internet connection can handle streaming the game to you, and B) the game you want to play is even on there in the first place, neither of which are guaranteed. Cloud Gaming is nice, but it's not a solution to those who can't get good internet like say, anyone who lives in an even remotely rural area. Point being, depending on online elements simply isn't an option for a lot of people.

For comparison's sake, the last game I finished, Death Stranding 2, admittedly one of the most ambitious games in terms of scale I've seen of late, took up 93GB of storage space. Red Dead Redemption 2 infamously took up over 100. There are smaller ones, sure, indie games especially can be tiny on the ol' hard drive, Balatro takes up about 150mb, I've got more hours than that logged on that one. But those are very much the exception and indie games are not what people buy consoles for. 

 Which, of course, prompts the question. What Do people buy consoles for in 2025? 

 This is a question the manufacturers have struggled to answer, with the exception of the Switch 2 because Nintendo finally has a console on the market that can handle third-party games without much compromise to the port, which, frankly, they could've done with making happen a couple of years sooner.

 Since the days of the NES console manufacturers have pushed visuals to the forefront as a way to sell the capabilities of their new console, the reason for this is pretty simple, it's the easiest kind of upgrade to communicate, and understand, you only have to look at it. But with the 7th, and especially 8th generations we reached the point where graphics weren't going to get much better. In fact, I have yet to see a PS5 game that I couldn't imagine running just fine on the 4...Maybe Death Stranding 2 but even that's a maybe, and I'm conscious of the fact that I am a layman here, and there may be a whole host of things I'm not considering or even aware of. 

So what then? The PS5 pushed it's advanced processing power and something called Ray Tracing, which, to be honest with you, it's been five years and I still couldn't tell you what that does, or the difference it's supposed to make. I basically never have it turned on and can't tell much of a difference when it is. 

I do notice one improvement between the 4 and 5, and it's loading times, or more specifically, the lack thereof. Loading times are all but gone, everything happens seemlessly. In Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 the fast travel system (which I seldom used anyway because traversal in that game is fun on it's own) simply zooms out from where you are, and back in on where you want to be, and there you are, no loading time at all, or sufficiently short loading time that it can be disguised by a quick zoom-out, either way, for a game of that scale with near photorealistic visuals that is impressive speed. 

 So, okay, we've found one thing the PS5 brings to the table to justify it's existence. But of course that promts another question

 

Now what? 

The PS5 Pro, is a thing that exists, a sort of, allegedly upgraded version of the PS5. I don't have one, nor do I want one really. The only sales pitch I've heard about it is that you no longer have to choose between "quality" and "performance" mode for your games. There doesn't appear to be much of a visual difference between the two to me and performance mode's higher framerate feels better nigh-universally. I've also heard some things actively look worse on the Pro, add to that the fact that there is no version of it that comes with a disc-drive, forcing you to go digital only unless you buy and expensive (and not to mention, fucking massive, if the one I saw in CeX is anyhting to go by) external disc drive to play any physical games you might own, or if you use yours as a blu-ray or DVD player. So to me it just seems like a worse, and also more expensive version of a thing I already own. 

But let's look past the halfway point of this gen, and ask, what even could a tenth generation of consoles even bring to the table? In terms of raw graphical horsepower, we're there, I'm not convinced we needed this generation for that milestone, let alone another. Processing power was a boon but we have that now, loading times are all but gone, the in-game worlds are already too big to effectively explore in many cases. hell, No Man's Sky a game that came out nine years ago sold itself on being so vast you'd never experience all of it. (That turned out to be a lie, but Hello Games did eventually give truth to it after launch following fan backlash, the game is procedurally-generated and literally infinite in scope) So scale isn't really a selling-point anymore. 

What else is there? The way games are played and developed is standardised enough at this point that any console relying on a gimmick would inevitably lock itself out of the vast majority of the market. That's only really an option for Nintendo and they're finally opting not to do that with the Switch 2. 

 I genuinely don't have an answer for this question. Graphics? We're there, Scale? We're there. Loading times? Gone. What more could consoles possibly need to do that they don't already? One of the selling points was the plug-and-play simplicity of consoles as opposed to PCs, but one could even argue even that's not true of them anymore. I'd still say it is, but less so than I'd like. 

 So yeah, in leiu of such an answer I am forced to conclude, that there simply does not need to be a tenth generation of consoles, feel free to tell me I'm wrong, I'd love a reason to get excited for new ones as opposed to just dreading the expense, but that's where I'm at with them.  

More ADHD musings born from compulsive experimentation.

 So, a formal diagnosis I may not have, but ADHD, I definitely do, and I can tell you how I know, I discovered the dopamine cycle. 

For those unfamiliar, one of the effects of ADHD is low dopamine production in the brain. Dopamine is, to put it as simply as I can, the "happy" chemical. It also gives motivation and focus. Point being, ADHD brains don't get enough of it. 

The results of this can vary wildly. ADHD has other symptoms too, more or less consistent with failing online dementia tests, (I took six different ones in one day and failed every single fucking one, which is slightly worrying.) But it does explain, among many other things, my always having been disorganised, unfocused, and having no working sense of direction at all. So, fuck it, I'm claiming it, because I've been asking doctors to look into a diagnosis for years, and what generally happens is they say they'll put you on a six year long waiting list and then don't even do that. If the end result is "fucking nothing" anyway, I don't feel like waiting forever on the off chance of being told something that as far as I'm concerned, I already know.

 Anyway, getting back to the dopamine thing, Your brain and body know when something is wrong, and they tell you, unfortunately we humans aren't always the best at interpreting what our bodies tell us.

A brain that doesn't get enough dopamine will have you seek more, and this can manifest in a variety of ways. Many ADHDers develop eating disorders, have addictive personalities, or have trouble regulating sleep, screen-time, or other such things that require, well, a level of control over your brain that you're not going to have when it's screaming at you to address an imbalance. 

 I didn't really understand this, until I started trying to spike my own dopamine levels. More on that later. 

 side-note, another common symptom of ADHD is that caffeine has a diminished effect on the person in question, pushing them, not to the usual "wired" state but something slightly closer to approximating regular functionality, at least temporarily, which, honestly, when I found that out, expalined so much.  

 the most frustrating symptom of ADHD is "Executive Disfunction." Executive Function is the process that happens in the brain where you transition from thinking about doing something, to actually doing it. If you imagine that process as crossing a bridge between intention and action...basically, my bridge is fucking broken. 

 It is really hard for me to make myself do things, especially important things, because they are important things, and I really don't know how to explain that to someone who doesn't already know what I mean.

To illustrate the struggle some, quick story, it was a while ago now, but it's still my best example. My penultimate assignment for my MA was a 4,000 word essay, that's not huge, but here's the thing. I had never managed to get anything down on a written assignment unless it was the night before it's due. Executive Dysfunction tends to outwardly manifest as procrastination. Not for lack of trying mind you, the amount of time I've spent sat in front of a screen determined not to move until something is done only to be completely unable to get my head around doing anything doesn't bear thinking about, not to mention the amount of energy wasted by stressing over it. This is one such situation.

 It was the night before the night before my assignment was due, I sat at my computer, determined that at least once I'd have something done ahead of time. I closed all social media tabs and left my phone on the other side of the room on purpose. 

Long story short, by the time the sun rose the following day I'd managed to write maybe 400 words. The stress of Master's in general affected me mentally in ways I'm only recently starting to feel like I've maybe recovered from, but this was the one actual breakdown I'd had in my five years of academia. Sobbing hysterically, I banged my head against the wall repeatedly, and slumped onto my bed, defeated. Shortly thereafter, my mum entered the room, didn't say anything, but implied from the attempt to comfort me that she understood the gist of what went down. Later, after sleeping, since I hadn't that night, I relayed the experience to a friend, remarking that the worst part of it was that I could've slept that night, and my position would not have appreciably worsened for doing so. 

I've been called "lazy" my entire life for my general lack of focus and organisation. I never really argued with it. frankly, I couldn't have disputed it if I wanted to, the evidence, or in terms of my schoolwork as a kid, lack thereof, spoke for itself, and perhaps I am still, to a point. But that breakdown in 2018 confirmed for me that, lazy or not, something else was wrong. Laziness doesn't keep you from getting to things you want to do, laziness doesn't stop you from doing things you actually care about. I wasn't simply unmotivated, (though that was also a frequent problem) I was unable. 

 Months later I was saying as much to a friend of mine, who said "It sounds like you have ADHD." They then proceeded to recount their own experiences of it to me, which essentially was them telling me my own school experience without my ever having gone into it with them, that was my first clue. 

Previously I had gone to my GP about my trouble getting myself to do things (the mess around, and left by, that GP is a story in itself, but that's not for this post.) I was told to "just stop it." and given the (in)famous "Eat That Frog" book. The productivity advice book that is just a fair few ways of saying "get it out of the way and you'll feel better." Well shit! I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT!

 Anyway, I bring that up because, well, getting back to dopamine, and the underproduction thereof in ADHD brains. That's just not good advice for someone with that type of brain. the low levels of dopamine make tackling tasks next to impossible, especially if they're larger, more daunting tasks. Which brings me to what I hope is the helpful part of this post. 

 

What is "The Dopamine Cycle?" 

 To put it simply, the dopamine cycle, is acknowledging 2 things, and putting them into practice, firstly, that those with ADHD or just executive dysfunction are at a disadvantage with their dopamine levels, and secondly, completing tasks, boosts dopamine. Unfortunately, tasks are exactly the thing we struggle to initiate. 

 The closest we have to a solution then, is to turn the "Eat that Frog" philosophy, on it's head. Don't try to do the hardest thing first. You'll only run up against a wall, instead, focus on crossing things off your to-do list for the day, start with the easiest thing, you'll build momentum, and dopamine with it. 

 A thing you have to acknowledge is that any given person only has so much energy per day. You also have the most you're going to have early on. The key then, is to start early, start small, keep momentum going. It doesn't matter what you do, or in what order, you'll be surprised how much of it you can get to. 

 Another helpful hint is, if you can, take cold showers, I read somewhere that they can boost dopamine production by up to 40% that is going to be crucial if you've got a lot to do that day. 

The first time I heard this advice, I decided to try it. Now, here's where I admit to something a little embarrassing. I'm a very untidy person. My room can sometimes look like the trash compactor from Star Wars and...well, I don't know if this is an ADHD thing, or a "me" thing, but I don't see it happening.

My room can go from tidy to bombsite over a period of time, and I could honestly not tell you when anything significant happened to aid this transition. When I enter a room, I see what has my immediate attention, and everything else is just part of the background. I don't see mess happening until it reaches critical mass, at which point, I don't even know where the hell to start. 

 So my first try at this dopamine cycle thing was to see how far I could get cleaning my living space. 

Over the next two days, one for my bedroom, one for my bathroom, I successfully cleaned for the first time in my life, using this dopamine cycle as a way to keep momentum going. Mum had to do a tip run, that's how bad it was, but I managed it, which is sometihng I've never been able to get my head around before. All it took was starting small, doing one thing at a time, and a thing I did that I found helped, was making a list of things as I did them, to cross them off, it's weird but there's a real catharsis to that. 

  It's also worth mentioning, the tasks can be tiny, the first items on my list every day are 

-Duolingo (as I can do that in bed)

-make bed

-take meds

-brush teeth

-shower

 and like that, you're already rolling, bonus points if it was a cold shower for that extra dopamine boost. It is important to note, however that, even if you do all this, you're still gonna have bad days. One of the biggest motivators for ADHD brains is novelty, which will quickly wear off. So you're gonna have to find a way to keep things fresh. As much as I hate the advice "find what works for you" because it tells you fucking nothing. You really do have to find what works for you. These are a few things that worked for me, at least for a while, I'm back to having a bit of a bad time recently, but hopefully, they'll work for you too. 

 A recent development, and one I don't recommend without reservation unless you're sure you want to try it. I read that caffiene tablets work similarly to ADHD medication, so I took one, now, at the time I was dubious about doing this because for several reasons I was in the middle of a bout of severe anxiety, but you know what? It helped even me out for a bit. HOW THE HELL DOES THAT MAKE SENSE!? HOW DOES MY FUCKING BRAIN TAKE "MORE CAFFEINE" AND MAKE IT A MODERATING INFLUENCE FOR ANXIETY!? 

That quickly lost it's effectiveness though, and caused a few stomach issues, so I wouldn't really recommend it, especially often, but...maybe for emergencies. 

 

 So yeah, if you have bad working memory, sense of direction, or can down a can of monster and still fall asleep soon after, you might have ADHD. You might also have real trouble making yourself do things, and that's okay. It's not your fault, you're not "just lazy" (even if you are, it's not necessarily the problem.) And even if you can't get medical help for this, there are things you can do, there are ways you can fight this, and hopefully I've let you know about a few.

I'll tell you this for free, I have Cerebral Palsy, and am a full-time wheelchair user. As much as that gets in my way (largely due to inaccessibility on the part of public spaces) if I could ditch one thing and keep the other, I'd keep the chair. ADHD gets in my way so much more. I can use a wheelchair, I can't use a brain that won't work with me. So yeah, if you're struggling...I get it. 

Thanks for reading.

Let's Not Lose Our Heads.

This post is just for me, really, but on the off-chance anyone finds it helpful, I'll publish it anyway. 

 

So, this Summer I've been thinking a lot, not been able to do much else amid the heatwaves, (which, I generally don't mind except for when I can't sleep at night) but I have got back into reading in a big way, which is always nice, I haven't been this able to read since before uni a decade ago. 

 

I started making a concerted effort to do that beforehand, because, as I get older (I'm still in my early 30s, which is not old, but it bloody well feels like it is sometimes) my attention-span, which, frankly, was never good, has only got worse. I started trying to read more again to remedy that, as I've developed something of a fear of mental atrophy, and what the logical conclusions of that might be. The mind is a muscle, and like any muscle, if you don't use it, you will lose it. 

Also, I feel like in this era of anti-intellectualism, A.I summaries, and regurgitation of misinformation, the act of doing the reading yourself, whatever that may be, is in itself, an act of defiance. I won't go too deep into that here, because...well, where the fuck to start? But all of this does contribute to the overall landscape I want to talk about in this post. This isn't all about A.I, but I am gonna rant about A.I for a bit.

Fact is, there's a mental decline happening on a societal level, and I hate it, but what I hate even more is that I can't really blame people for it. It's all very well for me to say "ChatGPT is not a replacement for research" but that doesn't change that it looks like one, and unless you've been taught how to properly research, which I've never even seen mentioned outside of university, how the hell are you supposed to know the difference? The only way you would is if you already know the answers you're looking for, in which case you're likely only using ChatGPT to demonstrate to someone else how wrong it is, and how often. To anyone else it just looks like if google was a chatbot, which sounds great, honestly.

Of course the problem with generative A.I is that the name is a misnomer, it's not A.I. There's no intelligence in there, artificial or otherwise. It's a word-cloud with an algorithm designed to use maths to spit out whatever response that algorithm deems the user most likely to want to hear. Companies have fed it the entire internet and a every piece of art under the sun, (copyright law, and the rights of artists be damned, apparently) just to turn it into the facsimile it currently is. This isn't even mentioning the impact on arts industries or the environment, but that's A, a whole other post that I haven't done enough research to make, and B, not what I'm here to talk about now, but I'm pretty sure we're all agreed that both impacts are bad. 

 And for what? An algorithmic simulation of the confident-sounding idiot at a party, without the personality that occasionally makes that experience bearable.  

I think the thing that fucks me off most about Generative A.I and what it is, and does, and I might lose a few of you here, is how much I love the idea of a potential good version. Frankly, I love the idea of what currently available A.I is being pitched as, the thing that pisses me off is that it isn't that and never can be. At least not without changing it on a fundamental level until it's something else entirely. 

A chatbot that can cut out the legwork of research for you and work as a sounding board for your ideas? Fuck yeah! sounds great! Unfortunately that's not what "A.I" is, and for it to become that, in it's current state would either require everyone on the internet to always be honest and correct, or a level of human oversight that would defeat the purpose of having an A.I in the first place. 

Well, I suppose there is a third option, you could narrow the data pool to only include reputable sources. But even if you were to do that, it would still hallucinate all the time because, again, it's a big word cloud with pattern-recognition designed to spit out whatever its algorithm says you're most likely to want to hear. There is no comprehension happening on the part of the "AI." 

 

 I'm gonna sound a lot like an old man yelling at a cloud here, but social media has a lot to answer for in all this. That whole thing has been one gigantic monkey's paw.  Social Media sites are designed to keep you on them for as long as possible. To this end, certain types of content get prioritised, those being devisive, or easily digestible posts, bonus points for both, I guess. 

 there's nothing that drives engagement quite like an argument, and nothing that keeps one scrolling quite like almost giving a person what they want. Which of course, ruins people's attention-spans as the latter thing engenders frustration, and therefore impatience, there's a reason TikTok is a bugger to use any kind of search function with.

 I heard once that Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, doesn't allow his kids to use it, or any other form of social media for that matter. Reason being he knows what it does to a person and their attention-span. The following is a screenshot I took from the Times of India from June 2024 (it was the first page I found, to be honest.)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-tips/bill-gates-mark-zuckerberg-and-other-tech-leaders-advice-on-limiting-kids-screen-time/articleshow/111321403.cms

 It makes sense that he, of all people, would restrict his kids' access to social media. He knows exactly what it does to your brain, because he's built his entire business on monopolising your attention.  

I noticed a while ago, I found myself wanting to "multitask" a lot, even during recreational activities. I listen to audiobooks or podcasts if I happen to be playing a repetitive videogame that doesn't require my full attention. Sometimes it's the other way around and I get up a match-3 puzzle game on my phone to give my hands something to do while I listen to things. It feels good to do things like that, honestly, it leads to feelings of productivity that I rarely approach. But I think doing things like that has come at a cost. 

 I can't sit through a film anymore, unless I'm at the cinema. (Luckily, I really like going to see movies on the big screen, so I do still see a fair few.) Not just that, one of my longest-standing obsessions, professional wrestling, no longer holds my attention like it used to. In fact, I typed up half of this post with it on in the background. So I assume then, that dividing my attention like this, while gratifying in the short term, is having some troubling long-term effects. (Incidentally, I've just discovered Brain.fm, for focus sounds and I haven't stopped typing for the last 20 minutes, so that's exciting.)

 I haven't done the research to say this concretely, and I'm not about to, because if I stop typing this to do that now, then my chances of ever finishing this post drop quite drastically, but my personal experience leads me to believe that multitasking like I've been doing has been killing my focus, which, again, was never exactly good to begin with. 

This is why I say social media has a lot to answer for, don't lie, you've probably checked at least one since you started reading this, haven't you? I've certainly looked at one or two since I sat down to finish writing it (I think this is about my fourth sitting, and it's not that long a post.)

 I'm not sure what it is I actually want to say with this post beyond that I'm actually quite worried about the prospect of mental decline, and I think it's being exacerbated in the worst of ways by things like Generative A.I, which gives the illusion of easy solutions and therefore allows people to avoid thinking, and social media, which has our brains chasing dopamine, along with every other kind of digital media which has our brains task-switching all over the place, and going a mile any given minute of the day. 

 I don't think things are gonna get better either, I think things are only likely to get worse as social media adjusts it's delivery method and algorithms for shorter attention-spans and "A.I" gets shoved into everything whether we want it or not. I'm not a neurologist, and I have no scientifc data to hand to base this on, but going off the assumption I made earlier, that the mind is a muscle, and you use it or lose it, I have to think we're gonna be looking at some pretty nasty mental health consequences in the next decade or so. 

Just...keep yourself sharp as best you can, yeah? That's what I intend to do. Whether that's trying to read books more or just doing a crossword or playing Sudoku every now and then, whatever works for you. Just don't fall into the trap of letting yourself not have to think, because the longer you stay in that rabbit hole, the harder it is to get out.

Let's not lose our heads, yeah? 

I have more Clair Obscur thoughts. (Ending spoilers)

 Okay, I recently finished my New Game Plus run of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Gotta say once again, I love how the story of this game is written, and specifically how the first and second go-through are completely different experiences, despite not a word being different. Particularly the conversation between Verso and Renoir inside the monolith before you fight him. Every single line of which carries two completely different meanings depending on whether or not you've finished the game before. Last time I talk in vagueries, so I encourage you one more time to go play this game unspoiled if you have any interest in ever doing so.

 

Okay, so. The point of this post, I wanna talk about the ending.

 

Quick rundown for context, just in case you are reading this without playing the game; the world you're in isn't real. 

I don't mean that in terms of the fact that videogames are fictional, which we've all, always known. I mean the world in which the characters live, is a painting. A magical canvas created by equally magical painters. Verso, the second player-character from the death of the first one, Gustave, is immortal because he was made so by the Paintress, who is using the canvas as an unhealthy coping mechanism in the wake of the loss of her son, the real Verso, who died in a fire. She painted her entire family into the canvas and made the painted versions immortal. Maelle, (party member throughout, and player-character 3) is actually Alica Desendre, who fell into the canvas and was accidentlly "painted over" and so has two sets of memories, as a resident of the canvas, in which she has lived and grown up for the last 16 years, and as one of the Desendre family. The latter memories resurface when she gets wiped out with the rest of the population with the defeat of the Paintress, who was actually trying to preserve everyone, it was the Curator, the persona of the real-world version of Renoir, who was bringing the gommage and trying to kill everyone to get Aline (The Paintress) to come out of the canvas

 To surmise, the Desendre family lost Verso in a fire, in which Alicia was disfigured and rendered unable to speak, and the canvas, belonging to the late Verso, contains a piece of his soul, and as such, is the last thing that remains of him, and his mother Aline has been hiding from her grief in it, while Renoir, his father, has been trying desperately to pull her out of it and destroy the canvas because of what it's doing to her, and the effects of being inside a canvas for too long which appear to be sickness, and eventual death. 

The problem here is, by any real metric. the residents of the canvas are presented as being every bit as real as those outside of it. Indeed, the first two acts of the game pass before we even know we're in a painting and everyone is shown to have lives, personalities, hopes and dreams. Even after the big reveal, their personhood is at no point called into question by the story, in fact, if it is at any point the subject of conversation, unless I missed every NPC who says otherwise, it's pretty much unanimous that the people in the canvas are thinking, feeling beings. The only time this is contradicted in any certain terms is the painted Alicia, herself a construct of the canvas referring to those ignorant of the reality of their world as "those who know not, that they are not." Even she displays emotion, agency and desires.  She even opts to be erased should you complete Maelle's relationship sidequest and find her. Aside from her, the closest the game ever comes to couching that they might not be real is in the raising of the question, by the shadowy boy. (Who is revealed at the end to be the last vestige of Verso's soul) who says he thinks they are. 

 So, basically, the painting powers that the Desendre family possess, are, essentially Godlike within the canvas, not to mention existentially terrifying to think about. Thankfully the game doesn't really dwell on the implications much. 

 

So. The ending I wanna talk about. 

 

After successfully beating back Renoir, Maelle promises to come home (leave the canvas) after "just a little longer." He promises to "Keep the light on" for her, and leaves. This immediately follows Renoir opening a visual portal outside the canvas to show Aline sick and coughing with paint running from her eyes. 

Verso steps through this portal and finds himself in what I can only describe as the core of the canvas. The game just registers it as part of Lumiere, but it's clearly not. He finds a small boy, the one you've seen a shadow of at various points throughout the game, and says "you're tired, aren't you?" The boy nods. 

 The boy in question is the last vestige of the real Verso's soul, and his painting in this place is what allows the canvas to keep existing and functioning as it does (at least that's the implication from the ending) 

 Maelle follows him through, apparently, the immortality he was given by Aline is what allows him to even exist there, he seems to be shedding petals as if about to gommage, but unable to do so. 

 

What I love here, is everything is visually set up beforehand, Verso's shock at the vision of an ailing Aline, as well as his face when Maelle tells Renoir he can trust her. She lied, and they both know it, she doesn't intend to leave the canvas, even knowing that it will kill her. 

 Verso begs her to reconsider, telling her that she can always come back, but she doesn't trust that Renoir won't erase the canvas as soon as she leaves. He tells her "This isn't worth your life." To which she replies "What life? My life of loneliness in a shell of a body!?" "In here I have a chance to live, Verso, to live! Out there, I merely exist." 

 Verso realises words won't reach her, and draws his sword. The game presents you with the choice. You can choose to fight as Maelle, and save the canvas, or fight as Verso, and erase it, along with everyone in it. 

 

 I am of the opinion that the game seems to expect you to choose to fight as Maelle. For starters, saving this world has been the goal since minute one, whereas the only experience we have of the outside world is the manor interior wherein we only see Alicia treated with disdain. Add to that the fact that "fight as Maelle" is the default option that the cursor begins on, and I do think the game subtly steers you towards choosing Maelle, that said, even though I don't think either ending is supposed to be strictly "canon" Maelle's ending is definitely the darker one. She rebuilds Lumiere, and revives it's inhabitants, including Gustave, but, and I want to give the animators credit here, there is a definite sadness hidden in her smile. Either that or the tone of the scene with the music is making me see that, but either way the scene is very well-constructed. 

That, of course and the two titles, "A life to paint" for Maelle, and "A Life to Love" for the Verso ending, during which the Desendre family lays Verso to rest and Alicia sees the people of the canvas (including Maelle) wave her goodbye before disappearing, is much more hopeful. 

 But that's not the only reason I think that ending is, for lack of a better term "the correct one." 

 

I've seen it argued a lot, that those in the canvas "aren't real" and therefore it should be a no-brainer to choose Verso and erase the canvas. But I find that argument wanting, for many reasons. 

 Firstly, as I said above, the personhood of the people of the canvas is never once called into question by the game. As far as the narrative is concerned, they are every bit as real as anyone outside it.

 But even accepting and assuming from now on that they are thinking, feeling, sentient being, there is basically no way I think the Maelle ending...well, ends well. 

 Firstly, Maelle has made it inescapably clear that she intends to die in the canvas, after which, Renoir would definitely erase it anyway. Maelle would effectively trade Alica's life for a stay of execution. 

Even setting that aside, Maelle can never have the Lumiere she knows again. She knows, and can never forget, that she is a paintress. I think that level of power over the world you inhabit will inevitably engender detatchment from it. Can one wield nigh-godlike power without at any point becoming less human for it? I don't think she'd ever find the home she was looking for in the canvas at that point. 

 Tragic though the loss of the canvas and it's people is, we also have to consider the remnant of Verso.

The ending made me think of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.  A short piece of philosophical fiction by Ursula K. LeQuin of Earthsea fame. Essentially, imagine whatever your ideal utopian city is. Now imagine that it's function depends on keeping a small child in abject misery and suffering forever. Could you still stay? For me, that the last vestige of Verso's soul says he wants to stop, should really be enough. He deserves to rest in peace. I love the characters and I hate that this decision comes at the cost of their lives. (the very reason I originally picked Maelle) But, and I hate to say it, they're doomed anyway, as I said before, the only person whose fate changes with this decision is Alicia.  At least in one ending, she gets to live, and again, "A Life To Love" at least ends on a hopeful note. 

 

I've heard it said that the ending decision is in-keeping with the trappings of classic French melodrama, which has me interested in that genre now. 

 

I don't think Clair Obscur will ever get a direct sequel even though Sandfall have announced they'll be making another game. But in a way I think that's a good thing, we don't have enough standalone pieces in popular media of any kind these days. Sometimes one and done is good. 

Incidentally, after New Game +. and beating Simon again, my play-time on the PS5 dashboard is registering 200 hours, the actual playtime on the save file is closer to 150, no idea how that works, I didn't leave it running that much. 

 

Okay, I think I'm finally done, what a game this has been. Thanks for reading my idle waffling on, I'll probably do a ranking next, but don't hold me to it, see ya! 

Clair Obscur and the Cycle of Grief.

I recently finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (or at least the story) and the short version of this post is, it's good, really good. if you haven't played it yet and you have any interest whatsoever in turn-based RPGs, then I would advise you to stop reading this and fix that before you get spoiled because the story is worth experiencing sight-unseen and as free of outside influence as possible. No, no, stop right there, even if spoilers aren't usually a thing that bother you, I would encourage you in the strongest possible terms to avoid them if at all possible if you have any interest in this game. That being said, consider this your spoiler warning, because I'm going to discuss plot details and themes in this post. 

Here's how good this game is. I keep forgetting to cancel Gamepass, the upside of which is, I had access to this game for free. I bought it on PS5 anyway, because I felt more willing to support a game that is released at the £45 price point at a time the industry is pushing to price them at £80 minimum, and I didn't want my experience to be compromised in any way by the restrictions of cloud gaming. Basically, I paid 45 quid for consistent resolution because the art direction of this game is fucking sublime. Add to that the fact that the story gets going pretty quickly and the gameplay loop is basically immediately fun for me, and I knew within the first hour or two that I would not regret that decision.

Throughout my time with this game I see it wearing the development teams influence on it's sleeves. That overworld, and general structure of progression through the game just screams 90s era Final Fantasy, the dodge/parry mechanics put me in mind of a soulslike, as do the limited recovery items replenished by rest points (which, naturally also bring back the enemies in the area.) It has social links like Persona, the campsite reminds me, personally, of Dragon Age: Origins (I mention that one specifically as it's the only one I played.) 

 Yet, despite all these clear and often, disparate influences, it doesn't feel derivative in the least. Clair Obscur is a thing wholly unique to itself, any elements born of something else are seemlessly integrated into a whole that feels as cohesive as anything I've ever played. All of this to convey a story of exceptional quality for any medium, which makes it positively trancendent for videogame writing, and I wish that was saying more than it is.

This game has it's hooks in me in a way that I thought no longer possible. I could gush about the art direction, engaging gameplay or fun monster design all day, but that's not what I want to talk about. Suffice it to say that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 represents a modern take on a tried-and-true classic genre rarely seen in this form anymore. If your favourite Final Fantasy is numbered Ten or lower, you'll love it. 

Okay, so that's my glowing spoiler-free review of the game, spoilers beyond this point, you have been warned. If the above unadulterated fanboying has convinced you to give it a try, this would be where you stop reading, I'll leave some space below just in case, but from this point on, if you're reading I'll assume you already know the story.

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, so I've described the story of this game to a friend (in an attempt to get them to play it) as being "A bit Attack on Titan in a lot of ways". I liken the two mainly in terms of structure, both open by introducing us to a dwindling remnant of humanity at the mercy of a predictable, yet unknowable entity that has devastated the population and about which, despite repeated excursions to learn more, they still know frighteningly little to nothing. As we journey through this world we discover that the reality is far beyond the scope that the initial premise suggested, and eventually, that basically nothing is as we thought it was, and one of our number has a special link to the aforementioned unknowable entity.

That's about where those similarities end and I didn't even include that last part in my description to this person because I want them to be as surprised as I was about the twist. The battle with the paintress feels very much like a final boss, the area leading up to it being a facsimile of Lumiere, coupled with the fight with Renoir, the other antagonist, immideately before, the ascent to the highest point in the world of the game to fight her, it's all there. Only for the game to pull the rug out from under you immediately thereafter in a way that I had two completely contradictory opinions on in the space of an hour, before setlling on the latter, which I'll get to.

These kind of 11th-hour twists, are not uncommon across media, but one like this, could only really be done this well in videogames, for the singular reason that a game's runtime is indefinite, fluid, it lasts until you finish it. If this were any other medium, you'd be clued in by the number of pages, or amount of runtime left. This isn't even the first time this game takes advantage of the strengths of it's medium to surprise you. I'm talking of course, about Gustave. 

Gustave is positioned, and presented as the protagonist, from the word "go." Everything an audience could be expected to know, not just about games, but about stories, would reinforce the notion that this is Gustave's story. So naturally, the game "Ned Starks" him at the end of act 1. I make that comparison because like Ned Stark, Gustave is, as things would transpire, a fairly minor character in the grand scheme of the story, presented as the main character from the beginning, which lends a lot of surprise and weight to his eventual demise, thanks to his relationship to the character whose story this actually turns out to be. 

I'm not trying to make a point here in likening what this game's story does to other examples I've seen, the points of comparison just make it easier for me to talk about, and contextualise in case, for some reason, you're reading this without playing the game first, in which case, I think you've lessened your own experience but I'd still like you to be able to follow what I'm saying.

Videogames as a medium, and I would argue RPGs especially, are uniquely positioned to attach you to your main character more easily than more linear stories, or less interactive media. This is because that character is the avatar through which you experience the world.  In essence, you are they, they are you, their journey is yours, and in the case of RPGs, you grow and cultivate their skillset yourself. it feels forever ago now, even though it's only been a week and a half at time of writing. But I distinctly remember the feeling of loss I had after Gustave died not just because I was close to learning the last skill in his tree, though that alone, is a pisser. But the other characters (all superbly-written by the way) make that sense of loss palpable, add to that the fact that he's never functionally replaced in-game. Verso, the closest thing to, can use some of his weapons and skills, but that's about it. Add to that the total number of five party members, the reserve team is always a man short, which I choose to believe is a decision made to remind us of his loss. 

Incidentally, in the post-game, I like to put the reserve team up-front, functionally serving as a mini-boss for the enemy, so I can feel them out, and hopefully beat them, but if not, have the main party come in after to begin the real fight.

But anyway, I bring up the sense of loss, because this is, fundamentally, a game about loss, and it's here I come to what I actually want to talk about most. The strength of theme in this game is nothing short of breathtaking. It is my opinion that theme is the most important part of a story, character comes second, then setting, and then plot. setting and plot are close enough that you might switch them in the order of importance depending on the story, but nobody is going to care about either without strong characters to experience them through, and theme is that all-important guiding philosophy that makes the whole thing work. Without theme, you don't have a story, just a sequence of events. 

All that to say, Clair Obscur is written to theme impeccably. Right from the off we're introduced to a world of loss, I'd be lying if I said the fact that these people are around my age didn't colour my experience somewhat. Seeing people not long out of their twenties coming to terms with their iminent deaths and those of their loved ones. The world immediately feels lived in and the characters relationships defined despite sparse dialogue outside the main three characters of the moment. We learn the fundamental difference that drove Gustave and Sophie apart was the question of children, and her refusal to bring them into "a doomed world." 

I think that speaks to another fundamental difference in their attitudes, from that difference alone we learn that Gustave is an optimist who sees a future worth preserving, whereas Sophie has resigned herself to the situation. Gustave's optimism shines through in the prologue, even in the face of the loss of the one he loves most. Not only did he invent the mechanism your abilities come from, but he's volunteered, in his final year, to lead the expedition, from which no one has ever returned, expecting to be the one to kill the paintress and save Lumiere. So confident is he, he agrees to let Maelle come with him, who still has at least a decade left if he fails. But therein lies a question, is he really that optimistic, or does he simply wish to die among friends and loved ones on their own terms.

Obviously his confidence comes in part from ignorance, no one has ever returned from the expidition, therefore by definition, he has no idea what he's up against. To say nothing of the scope of the journey, or anything that making it means having to do. Naturally, when he makes landfall, his expidition is immediately decimated by Renoir, whose age, at least twice his own, immediately establishes that the premise we've been operating under is not absolute. It might just be one anomaly but it lets us, and Gustave know, that not only do we know next to nothing about this world, we can't even trust the little we thought we did know.

 Gustave survives the encounter, but loses almost everyone. I could swear I saw Maelle among the dead at the time, but I must've been mistaken because Gustave doesn't seem to think she's dead when looking for her. But alone, among a pile of bodies, Gustave's optimism crumbles. He has entered a world of which he knows nothing and now, faced with just how far out of his depth he finds himself, he puts his pistol to his temple.

The contrast of Gustave being the most hopeful and then needing to be talked out of suicide by Lune is jarring in the best possible way, but it also betrays Gustave's naivety. He has been in the danger zone for all of about ten minutes, and he wants out in the worst of ways, as if he thought that Expedition 33, alone, would not only return alive from this annual expedition from which nobody in 67 years has ever returned, but that he would suffer no casualties in doing so.   With how well realised the world of the game is, it would've been easy for Gustave's optimism to come off as ignorance, or stupidity. But I think it's something else.

Clair Obscur is fundamentally, a game about grief, the theme of loss is ever-present and woven into every facet of the story and its world. Cycles of loss are perpetuated every year, with the gommage, and so grief is a universal constant. Gustave, therefore, I believe represents, not optimism, but denial. the first stage of greif. 

To expand upon this point, I'm going to have to fast-forward to the "ending" at which point, we learn the following things

 Maelle is actually Alicia Desendre, of the Desendre family of painters, artists with the, actually kind of existentially terrifying, power to create worlds within canvasses. 

The world we have been experiencing thus far, is one such canvas, belonging to Verso, who is not the party member from Expidition 0 by the same name, he is a facsimile of the real Verso, who died in a housefire to save his sister Alicia, who entered the canvas and was, essentially, overwritten by it, being reborn as Maelle in the process. (which, makes his canvas, which harbours a piece of his soul, the last thing that remains of him). it's implied, that the fire was the fault of "the writers" who are only breifly referenced, but it has me wondering what their beef is with the painters and how their powers might work differently.

Alicia and Verso are the son and daughter of Renoir, the real-life person who the Renoir we just defeated was a painting of, and Aline, the paintress we've been fighting to overcome since the get-go. It is revealed that the paintress wasn't killing everyone over a certain age each year, as we had assumed, she was keeping everyone else alive, and the declining number was due to her power waning. The reason for the gommage each year is because Renoir wants to destroy the canvas, for fear that greif, and the attempt to escape it in the canvas has consumed his wife, and may soon claim his daughter as well. 

The elephant in the room here is that yes, that means everything in this game and every character in it, is a painting, and therefore, not real, which is a revelation my feelings went on a fucking journey about.  Initially, I didn't like it, because I felt a little cheated for having got invested in this world, only to be told that nothing in it was real, and therefore, didn't matter. Don't worry, though, those feelings quickly dissipated. 

I found myself thinking of two things, a little after that revelation, the first was a question posed by Randy Feltface after his famous "Bookshelf on Gumtree" story. "Why is it that we feel so cheated when we learn that a story we've been told didn't happen, and yet so satisfied at the end of a fictional novel?" I'm paraphrasing a bit there, that might not be the exact wording. But more than that I was reminded of Hbomberguy's video essay. "Pathelogic is genius, and here's why" where, during a deep-dive into the game, Pathelogic, he brings up a part (spoiler warning, by the way) where the entire game is revealed to be a game of dolls played by children. Then, at a later point, you can have a conversation with an avatar of the game developers, whose response to any potential disappointment in this, is essentially "you're playing a videogame, you always knew this wasn't real, what's the problem?"

those were the two points of reference that counteracted my getting annoyed with this reveal after a bit, not that they were necessary, because the game goes on to say yet more. Essentially, going onto establish that, in spite of the nature of their creation, everyone inside the canvas is self-aware, with their own inner-life and is therefore, in my opinion, every bit as real as anyone outside it. Which makes the power of the painters that much more terrifying but if I go too far into the existentialist portion of the games themes this post will never fucking end. 

All this to say, that where Gustave represents denial, and not, the paintress, who I would argue represents Bargaining, Verso, represents Acceptance. (I think Renoir is anger, the painted Alicia is depression,) Maelle herself, in essence, replaces the paintress in the end/post-game, embodying bargaining through escapism into the canvas. I don't think it's any coincidence that Gustave is her guardian in Lumiere, nor is it coincidence that he dies as the painted Verso, who embodies acceptance, is introduced. After all, what is bargaining but the child of denial, and what is acceptance but it's death? (it is later established, during the relationship subquest for Maelle, that Verso could have saved Gustave, and chose to let him die. which, in my opinion, confirms this theory. As does Verso's ending. 

At the end of the game, Verso goes through a portal, to an area that I could only describe as the core of the canvas, and attempts to convince the last vestige of his counterpart's soul to stop painting, which would erase the world of the game and everyone in it. 

He is confronted, by, and in turn confronts, Maelle, who persuaded Renoir to let her keep the canvas, and stay a little longer, on the condition that she come home soon. Verso revels that he knows she was lying, and has no intention of leaving the canvas, which she does not deny. in the real world, Alicia is disfigured by burns, unable to speak, and, as she sees it, treated like a burden by her family. But in the canvas, Maelle can actually live, as opposed to "merely existing" outside. Therefore, unable to trust that Renoir, or Verso would not simply destroy the canvas when she leaves, she decides never to do so, even accepting that this will eventually kill her. 

It is here the game presents the player with the decision of the ultimate fate of this world, Verso and Maelle have come to an impass, and you choose who to play as in what will be the final duel. I believe that the player is guided by the game towards choosing Maelle, at least initially, for several reasons. Firstly, that saving this world, has been the goal since minute one, which Verso's ending runs counter to. Secondly, throughout the story, Verso has lied to the rest of the cast, a lot, and it seems odd that the narrative would elect to make him "right" to have done so. Thirdly, and this is a small thing, when the option is presented, the default choice being highlighted is Maelle, the player has to move it off her to choose Verso, which, I grant you, is a tiny detail, but I do think it betrays a certain level of expectation

 I don't think either ending is intended to be 100% good but I do think Verso is intended to be the right decision here;

If the player chooses Maelle, she rebuilds Lumiere, and resurrects its people, including Verso, despite his clear reluctance, but when he looks to her, he sees the signs of decline on her face. A clear indicator of the consequences of her decision. 

Verso sees what I think I needed to see the other ending to fully understand. The grief of the paintress has corrupted Verso's canvas, it's no longer an escape from the loss, it has become an embodyment of the bargainning stage of grief, as was the Paintress, and later Maelle. From the beginning we're introduced into this world of cycles. The annual tradition of the expedition and the aspiration of breaking this cycle of loss, but the world itself being all that's left of Verso's soul, reframes the paintress's attempts to keep it going as a refusal to move on, which the Maelle ending confirms. her refusal to move on will consume her. 

The Verso ending, by contrast, carries an uncertain, but ultimately hopeful note, we're meant to be sad in saying goodbye to that world, (I have my thoughts on the implications of an entire world and it's people being created and subsequently reduced to a therapy tool for a grieving family but that's another subject for another time.) but I think it is presented as the right thing to have done. The Maelle ending is entirely in black-and-white, and carries an unsettling tone to it, even apart from the colourlessness. Whereas the Verso ending sees the family standing together in the real world, coming to terms with his death, as Alicia sees, for the last time, the cast of characters from the story as they wave her farewell, and disappear. 

In choosing Verso, the player chooses acceptance, and lets the real Verso rest in peace, in choosing Maelle, we choose to bargain for more time in this world, knowing what the cost will be. Verso's ending is bittersweet, but Maelle's is haunting, and I kind of love that both choices are completely understandable. Ultimately though, the implication is clear, choosing Maelle would just perpetuate the cycle of greif all over again, as the canvas consumes and kills her, at which point, the world she's chosen will be lost regardless, and her family will have one more member to mourn. Only by moving on can she live, despite her insistence to the contrary. 

There's a big message about the value and dangers of escapism here, but this post is plenty long enough

 

God, I fucking love this game. It's served as a reminder of what I love about videogames in the first place and I think it deserves a place among the ambassadorial titles for the medium. Especially of the RPG genre. "are games art?" is not a question worth asking, the answer is yes, all games are art, but if you need an example of artistic merit in the medium, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a better one. 

 If you've read this far, thanks, it's been a while since I've been enthusiastic enough about something to write about it. Sometimes art is good.