It took me three months to carve out the 45 hours I needed to play through the main story in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, but I finally did it. A few (spoiler-free) thoughts about what mattered to me the most:

The game focuses on its cast and relationship between its characters, which are its greatest strength. Though it tonally shifts all over the place from serious and brooding to funny and goofy (just like the original), the strong characters make it work. If you haven’t played the original, the cast can seem patently ridiculous, but for everyone who did, you spend less time thinking about the practicality of characters' appearances and more on how well-realized they’ve become.

By far, my favourite (unexpected) character pair is Barret and Yuffie. What starts out as a depiction of a cranky, middle-aged man (Barret) who doesn’t want to deal with a greedy teenager’s silly antics turns into a funny and heartfelt series of scenes of a dad treating his new companion like his own daughter.

Tucked into the margins of so many story moments are Barret and Yuffie horsing around as their friendship evolves. It’s really wholesome and endearing and I kept looking for it as the game progressed.

Next, I didn’t realize how much of the original game’s story I completely forgot. I was sure FF7: Rebirth was swinging wild as an interpretation at points, only to look up plot synopses online and realize that yes, that awkward story beat was in fact in the 1997 release!

And finally: boy, this game can be exhausting. I really only played the main story and ignored most of the side content for time’s sake, but I’ve read of people spending 140+ hours in this — the second chapter of a three-chapter series! FF7: Rebirth leans into its minigames pretty hard, but I wish it didn’t; it felt like it was stopping me and gating me unecessarily many times. (I really didn’t want to play Queen’s Blood, for example.)

But I’m so glad I picked this up and found the time to get through it. And I’m happy that in the absence of his own daughter, Barret found a new friend.

I’m a “creative professional” who runs a business — my wife and I make videogames, and have a studio (BancyCo) under which I do that. Sometimes we employ other people for our projects; at other times, it’s just us grinding away.

A significant percentage of my time is spent on bizdev — networking, keeping up with the industry, and trying to find opportunities for our games. I also have to think about marketing and sales a lot. How much should we charge for our games? How many copies can we sell? How do we get featured?

On and on it goes, burrowing into my brain, day and night, endlessly worrying about so many factors that are, in the end, largely beyond my control.

This spills over into my hobbies too. I write and draw comics when I have the time. But because of how my brain works, this has easily come to feel like work — like a grind — these past few years.

So I’ve made a decision; I want to decouple the art I make, as much as possible, from commerce. I want at least the personal work I do to be rewarding and “just for me” — like this blog is — to protect against that ever-present pounding in my brain to do more, sell more, see numbers go up.

So I’ve made all of my comics free online. If I go to a show like TCAF again or put our books in stores like The Beguiling, I’ll charge for those physical editions to cover costs. But online, I just want people to read them.

I’m tired of always selling.

What do two middle-aged nerds do to bond and get away from it all? We don’t go fishing, hunting, or play golf — we road-trip to retro game conventions, of course!

My good friend and fellow Twitch streamer AlfaTrion and I piled into my li’l hatchback and headed up to Barrie, Ontario, for the Barrie Game Exchange this weekend. It’s held at the East Bayfield Community Centre, and it’s popular! Each year the parking lot is full and the event is well-attended.

Both of us were in need of a break from work and life stress, so after arriving at Alfa’s to pick him up, I drove us to get some caffeine, began a playlist of videogame tunes, and we hit the road up to Barrie.

These drives are therapeutic for both of us; a chance to catch up, share stories, and make plans for game-hunting at the show itself. And, for the first time ever, we didn’t have to contend with torrential rain the entire way there! We took it as a good sign, even if some ever-present highway construction extended our drive a bit.

As soon as we arrived at the Community Centre, the buzz of the show began. A young man walked past us in the parking lot with his first catch of the day — a complete-in-box Super Nintendo — and we both nodded appreciatively at him, now eager to get inside.

The Game Exchange show floor.

Though the floor space is relatively small, it’s dense with tables, and seeing all those vendors and games in one place always feels overwhelming at first. So we employ a plan each time: one round to scope things out and take note of items that catch our eye, a second to make purchase, and (if necessary) a third to make any last-minute decisions.

We also employ “casino rules” — bring cash, and whatever you have is your budget; no cheating! It’s an important rule, trust me!

I usually only buy one or two games, so for me, half the fun is just soaking up the retro gaming atmosphere and admiring all the cool stuff. One table had a bank of BVMs (broadcast video monitors), which are now highly-sought-after retro gaming displays. You just know those were probably acquired for free to cheap before prices started to balloon, now sold for some eye-watering amounts.

A beautiful bank of BVMs.

And although many vendors will have similar items for sale, some of them create great table displays or specialize in particular kinds of games (for example, Japanese imports), which makes browsing fun. Seeing a rare game in excellent condition is always a delight, like somebody casually hanging the Mona Lisa on their living room wall.

Alfa checks out import Saturn games.

Alfa likes to shop for Sega games; Master System, Saturn, and Dreamcast especially. He has an incredible collection that I admire every time I visit his house. Since I downsized my physical game collection years ago, I focus on games for Sega CD, Wii, DS, and — if I can luck out on something complete-in-box — the occasional beloved title for NES or N64.

In the end, I scored two great finds for the Wii: Trauma Center: New Blood and Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love. I’ve been wanting to play both for a long time, and I was given good deals for them that let me stay within my budget.

My whopping haul of two Wii games.

Alfa found a few more titles than me, and we both left satisfied. We grabbed a slice of pizza to recharge, stretched a bit, and then headed back down the 400 to Toronto. On the hour-long drive back to his place, we swapped stories of our hunt and our plans for our collections.

It was a good day, and I’m grateful for having the ability to travel to events like this, and for having a friend with whom to enjoy the trip. Now, I just need to find time to play these games…

It appears that mangaka Inio Asano is referencing 1996 PS1 horror game Twilight Syndrome in his new series, Mujina into the Deep.

Twilight Syndrome is a side-scrolling horror title that mixes 2D, animated sprites with 3D environments to tell fairly linear, spooky tales. In it, three classmates sneak into their high school to investigate various urban legends and ghost stories.

I played this game back in college as far as I could in Japanese (I didn’t know any then) with my wife (then girlfriend), who could read the game’s kanji. Its earliest chapter features a scary ghost girl and a bathroom, which is a standard Japanese horror trope.

It scared the absolute shit out of me.

That game was stuck in my mind for years and would form the base inspiration for our first (and still most popular!) commercial game, Home. After playing that PS1 disc, I couldn’t get the idea of 2D, side-scrolling horror games out of my mind!

I love stories about scary things hiding amongst everyday places like schools and offices; about urban legends, local tales, and things just lurking around the corner that are better left forgotten.

In high school, I wrote a very cheesy novella that was, essentially, Twilight Syndrome — except in my overwrought story, it was also a clumsy teenage romance. (The loss of any backup or copy of this early foray into writing is a deep wound, let me tell you.) So when I discovered this game, it was like fate.

Twilight Syndrome’s developer, Human Entertainment, also holds a special place in my heart. They were a constantly-evolving Japanese studio that produced many hidden gems and concepts that have often gone overlooked. Sadly, they are no longer around as a studio, but their DNA can be felt throughout the industry if you’re paying attention.

And, clearly, Inio Asano is a fan as well, because who would reference such an obscure PS1 horror game in 2024?