God of War, Terrace House, and the Complexities of Relationships
Hey there, happy pride month! I’m already a little late with this second weekly since I’ve been a bit busy with pride and have been a little less motivated than usual, but all’s well that ends well. Here we go.
God of War (PS4)
A borderline-embarrassing amount of my free time over the last week has gone into the new God of War after some genius marketing exec directly targeted me by building a widespread conversation around its one-shot format… meaning I ended up conceding and buying it much closer to release than I expected to.
Said one-shot format (meaning the camera never cuts away, except for the couple dozen of times you might die) means much of the game’s presentation is reminiscent of film, echoing massive-budget blockbusters with dynamic battles that revolve around gigantic set pieces and evoking arthouse cinema in the movements and angles that frame gentler conversations. These conversations are the primary device God of War uses to inform the player about the world and its inhabitants, exposition that tends to become irritating if not done well. God of War bets the success of its worldbuilding on its characters’ abilities to casually maintain this IV drip of information and, as far as I can tell, it succeeds with only a few examples of stilted or ham-fisted delivery. Overall, I’m floored by the sheer amount of dialogue that keeps the game moving throughout its 30 or 40 hour runtime, with more colorful personalities given plenty of chances to bounce off of and riff on Kratos’ grumpy standoffishness. Kratos’ hypermasculine facade only occasionally falters, but the love and concern for his family that shines through those cracks is really universal and poignant — especially in God of War’s context as a series.
Popping over to gameplay for a minute, God of War’s influences include elements grabbed from character action games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, adventure games like Uncharted, Metroidvania-style games, and RPGs like The Witcher. As I’ve played, I’ve found that this combination of mechanics has meant that each fight has been just as satisfying as exploring the area after you’ve cleared out its enemies. If anything, the game’s systems are just a bit too complicated, giving you fairly unguided control over skill slots, armor sets, powers, and other enhancements for two characters, leading to a bit more micromanagement than I ever want to do. Luckily, the amount of customization has become far more interesting in the last few hours I’ve played and has done fairly well on its promise to let me customize my skills and equipment to fit my playstyle, an accomplishment that tends to be impossible for games to fully deliver on.
For some unknown reason I expected the game to land closer to the 15 hour mark than the 35 hour mark meaning I experienced a bit of a lull when doing side content near the middle of the game, but as I gear up for the last few segments of the game I’m excited to see how the plot resolves and how the gameplay continues to open up going into its hardest encounters.
Rina Sawayama — Valentine (What’s It Gonna Be)
Praise to be to Spotify’s Discover Weekly for introducing my roommate and I to Rina Sawayama. Her first EP, RINA, is a wild, self-aware incarnation of the best parts of ’90s R&B and slickly-produced electropop. This year’s Valentine (What’s It Gonna Be), quietly released on Valentine’s Day, is an addition to the Valentine’s Day musical canon that champions more fleeting and ephemeral emotions than the everlasting love that the holiday regularly mandates.
The song itself? Imagine if Ariana Grande formulated the perfect pop anthem. It shares that vocally-driven, high-energy vein that Grande’s very best songs course through, unleashing an excessive and overpowering adrenaline rush that makes this the most energizing and cathartic song I’ve heard this year.
Terrace House: Opening New Doors
I’m on record calling Terrace House the best show on television, and I’m happy to continue defending that claim through this most recent season. I’m about halfway through Part 2 of the latest Terrace House season, Opening New Doors, and the current blend of personalities is on par with the very best combinations from Aloha State and Boys & Girls in the City. Terrace House’s unique appeal is offering, from a different cultural context, a peek at the inherent drama and conflicts that come from living with other people, a more subdued lens that is so far removed from the ones we’re so used to seeing reality TV through.
The very best Terrace House episodes come when each of its members are able to showcase their personalities, and in Opening New Doors’ most recent episodes these showcases are frequent, uplifting, and exciting. There’s really nothing else quite like it.
