Skin Deep thrives on the comedic potential of the immersive sim (05/14/2025)
It revels in the playfulness of the immersive sim form and the ways it is inherently comedic, but it also shines in the ways you have to improvise in a difficult situation. It naturally leads to funny outcomes more often than not, but it doesn’t undercut the tension of being outnumbered and outgunned. It rewards you actively seeking out creative solutions and just poking and prodding around levels.
Death of a Wish is full of righteous fury (03/11/2024)
But Death of a Wish is more than just an incredible action game. It’s a heartfelt story of resistance, of fighting for your right to exist in a world that doesn’t want you. It’s a game born of looking at a world that is constantly doing harm and falling apart at the seams and figuring out what to do about it. Like Extreme Meatpunks Forever and Umurangi Generation before it, Death of a Wish is a game that feels so of the moment, so pointed in its anger, that it’s hard to see it as anything but a reaction to the current state of affairs.
Pseudoregalia plays like a dream (08/06/2023)
Traditionally metroidvanias are built around ability locks. If you don’t have the high-jump, you can’t access certain areas. Pseudoregalia is mostly no different, but it’s more lenient due to the flexible nature of Sybil’s abilities. When I had both the wall kick and high jump abilities, I was able to find ways to get around most of the castle. If I could find a corner, I could usually high jump and then bounce back and forth between the walls to scale almost anything. It took work, but it was doable. As I got more abilities, it led to plenty of moments where I wasn’t sure if I did something the “intended” way or if I found my own solution as I started experimenting to see just how far I could push them (and missed plenty of obvious easier ways to get somewhere in the process). It feels expressive in a way it only could by allowing that sort of freedom instead of locking you to doing things one way and one way only.
Signs of the Sojourner piece for Buttonhook (alt link) (05/28/2023)
The surreal, absurdist comedy of Betrayal At Club Low is a riot (10/28/2022)
Persona 5 Strikers wants to understand and redeem its targets but can't follow through (06/06/2021)
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine understands the power of stories (03/06/2018)
Hollow Knight understands the value of discovery (03/16/2017)
Flywrench Review - Test your limits (02/24/2017)
Fract OSC blurb for Haywire Magazine's Games of 2014 (02/18/2015)
The haunting brilliance of Demon's Souls' music (2012)
UNI2 and UNICLR wikis on Mizuumi. Both received contributions from other editors and the broader Under Night community (shout outs to everyone who's helped out; you all are the best). I wrote the majority of the content on the strategy, combo, and matchup pages, but the rest are more evenly mixed between myself and other editors