Returnal is a Hell of Our Own Creation

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"They didn't have a can opener." That is the lamest, and yet most devastating form of torture i have ever heard.

14:58 “It still rains in the forest, but it’s day—“ But it isn’t. Yet another thing about this game that astounds me. Look up while in the fourth biome, and you will find not a star, but a moon lighting Atropos. And not just any moon. Luna; our moon. Selene’s moon.

The interesting part about I Have No Mouth is that AM un-intentionally put himself in hell too. Ted can no longer scream, no longer display his suffering, the one solace AM had to his existence is now gone.

The idea of watching an endgame cutscene and then being thrown back into the game is AMAZING. I'd never be able to play a game like this because of limited hand motion, so I love video essays so I can learn about cool things like this

Two things went through my mind watching this video. 1. "Wow. I respect the hell out of this game. Kudos to the devs for creating an experience around the themes they're going for and imparting that experience onto the player." 2. "Wow. I could never play this game without breaking my controller and giving up midway through the forest."

I played this entire game, but you're such a good storyteller that I felt like I was experiencing it for the first time again

An interesting addition to this read: the player not playing the game anymore is Selene releasing herself from guilt. Releasing herself from her attachment to what she did to Helios, to what her mom did to her and what she did to her mom and moving forward unwilling to be tormented a moment longer. She may dwell occasionally on the thought, represented through metaphor as a repeat playthrough, but she battles no longer.

I have a love/hate relationship with "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" It is one of the most depressing stories I've ever read, absolutely brutal from start to finish. It is a real bummer to read, and is often way too nihilistic for me, but there is something to it. It's beautiful in a weird way. Highly recommend listening to the audiobook read by the author, it's the one he kept using clips from, and on YouTube.

I love the choice in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (The game specifically) to have some characters be truly evil and seemingly deserving of punishment, and have some not be deserving of punishment at all. It fits with the idea of AM simply doing it all out of hatred for humanity. There may be the pretence of just punishment but really it's just plain hatred, ironically the trait that most defines AM being the most human one they have.

Looking past the story of Returnal, here's something I noticed: This game adresses a thought I had about roguelikes, a paradox in their nature - they are endlessly replayable, and yet they have an ending you can reach. In most of them, no matter what ending you get, whether you die along the way, you reach an ending, or the ending, it doesn't matter. The next time you start, you're back at the beginning, as if that victory never happened. In some of them it doesn't matter. But it is jarring when you play as a specific character, with personal stakes in winning - the game which made me first realize this was Slay the Spire. I beat it with every character, reaching the true ending. And what did I get for that? Nothing. A few images of the character fulfilling their goal, a few words from Neow and that's it. And when I start the game with this character again - which is actively encouraged by new levels of difficulty being unlocked each time you win - I'm once again at the bottom of the very alive spire, seemingly brought back to life, despite achieving the one ending that disturbs the status quo of the character starting dead and the spire starting alive. It makes the victory feel pointless, as the game just ignores it.

I still get chills from the don't fear the reaper reveal, something about that reveal that it's the melody you've been hearing all along is so powerful. I love that returnal's story is almost entirely metaphor, I can't think of many games that achieve that. It's a remarkable game. Gameplay as metaphor taken to its extreme.

Selene has heterochromatic eyes. The driver has brown eyes. I think Helios has blue eyes. To me that indicates Selene is the personification of the trauma both mother and child experienced. However, I haven’t completed the Tower of Sisyphus DLC and that adds a LOT more story. Do you plan on revisiting this?

This is actually the exact same twist that was supposed to occur at the end of the cancelled "Prey 2" (the version about the space bounty hunter) The idea was that Killian had a cloning tank in his apartment on the alien planet Exodus and every time you die it pumps out a new version of you, so you were supposed to spend the entire game finding a way back to Earth, return home, live out your life with your family and die of old age, only to wake up in your apartment on Exodus.

"There is no amount of mastery that will allow Selene to escape the circles of her own mind" those are truly, truly chilling words

“It just stands there, menacingly” absolutely amazing line delivery there. :)

This video legitimately terrified me. The editing, the storytelling and the narration combined with Returnal’s psychological and cosmic horror, which is essentially about a character dealing with the horrifying consequences of something any of us could go through in real life, had me on edge. Great game; great video.

“Don’t fear the Reaper” is an excellent thematic choice for this game. Pop culture may know it from the “More Cowbell” SNL sketch and its associated memes, but it’s entire theme is an allusion to the Medieval concept of Mementos Mori and the Art of Dying—that while death is scary, no matter how hard you try to escape it, it will come for you eventually, so it is better to simply accept that fact, live your best life without fear, and when the Reaper calls, greet him as an old friend at the end of a life well lived. That death is a part of life and the Reaper doesn’t care how much gold is in your vault or how well liked you are or how many soldiers will march at your command, in the end all humans are equal in this one way and thence comes justice and peace. How you react to death is up to you, you can merrily join in the Danse Macabre or pitifully plead for another day to enjoy your ill-gotten gains, but you’re dead either way. The cruelest part of IHNMBIMS and Returnal are that even the Reaper has abandoned them, left them out of the Danse Macabre, and so they must face eternity with only their cruelest tormenter—themselves—for company.

“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” has a special place in my heart. I took an introductory theatre class, our final assignment was to adapt a published short story into a 5 minute monologue, and after a week of intense searching, that is the story I decided to inflict upon my class. I can still recite my 5 minute section—the high emotional stakes make great material. Oddly enough, the piece of media that tangles in my mind with IHNMAIMS is Kevin Smith’s ‘Tusk.’ It has an unexpectedly similar kind of emotional desolation for an ending.

This felt vaguely similar to a short story published by Andy Weir called ‘The Egg’, where a man who died and is sent to meet God, who reveals that the man has been every person, ever, and he will continue to be so. The story is kinder to the protagonist, however, promising an eventual end to the loop with the character’s ascension to godhood, but the specifics are never revealed.