So, not leaving you all hanging anymore, let me share some thoughts.

But before note, IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE GAME SPOILED AND/OR ARE INTERESTED IN THIS GAME, please play it first, because this will be very much a spoiler-filled article.

Why Fes and not Reload?

C) Money

B) Fes is the definitive version of the original game, and Reload is a remake made with fans of Persona 5 and/or folks who played Fes and Portable too many times in mind first

A) Before you even ask, Persona 3 Portable is a straight-up visual novel that takes 50% of the original game goodness and, in exchange, introduces the ability to play as a girl (Aka it’s a great way to replay P3, not start)

(For all people wondering about the order, here is an explanation.)

Story

Well, it’s a very well-written game that got very well-translated, that does all the pretentious art cliches (main theme being overpresent, having very philosophical question be the main point of one of the character and usage of forbidden art [read tarot] as main connection of one with mystical side of reality that’s acually very present) so well that it actually is good.

Each character, whenever it’s one of the Social-Links or a participant in the main plot, isn’t just their stereotype. A perfect example of that is Junpei, first shown as comedic relief, who everyone makes fun of, stereotyped “Gamer” who hates studying and doesn’t have any hobbies outside of playing games, reading manga, and eating ramen (the mid-late 2000s show up), who also is sad that, in the end, the goal of saving the world will require sacrifice of the power that allowed him to be “more” than most people. All that leaves you through most of the game with the thought that this person isn’t that deep, and yet the last few months prove quite the opposite. First, he develops a great bond with Chidori, a persona user who is hurt by her own power (both physically and mentally), making this person fear death for the first time (because of the possibility of not being able to see Junpei again), and then the tragic death of her (technically her sacrifice to save our “comedic relief” from death) that causes him to in following time be in great apathy from which only portraits of him drawn by her bring him relief. On top of all that, he later in the story reveals that his father is an alcoholic, and so his class clown personality has been a mask to hide his pain.

To say those characters are well written is not a diligent summary of the writer’s work, nor the translation team that poured more work than they actually were required to do.

But also, I do need to do some clarification, as this isn’t a master piece without any flaws, translation definitely has issues (which I will touch on in a second), not all interactions and dialogue are actually full-on deep and meaningful, but when it matters, it not only delivers but elevates the expectation.

So, the biggest gripe everyone could ever have with this game’s translation is some parts of the dubbing, most precisely anything involving Fuuka, which, on the surface, is correct. Her lines, in fact, are written very stiffly, as well as dubbed, but the problem is how to put it… Engraved into this character’s whole concept is that she’s a high school student with an inferiority complex who gets bullied by her classmates. This is already a hard character to write. In all honesty, with that context, Fuuka is way more understandable as a character, yet most people don’t even know anyone with an inferiority complex, so they assume incompetence instead of nuance.

But enough with that, the stories of both the main game and “The Answer“ are extremely good. If I were to describe this game’s story in a sentence, I would say: The worst translation of Memento Mori, Memento Lori (which isn’t that bad).

Systems

What I love most about Persona 3 Fes’s systems is how most of them are tied together with the cycle of days; it makes daytime feel fundamental to the whole game, both contributing to mechanical growth as well as bringing balance into the game between combat, exploration of Tartarus, and the life of a high schooler.

The one that makes Neo-Persona (all Persona games after the 3rd(Inclusive)) be what it is called: the Social Links.

Social links are fundamental in this game’s progression; without them, you are going to have a hell of a time. In them, you just talk with many different people: from classmate who wants to become the best sportsmen to the president of a huge corporation, each representing a different major arcana from the tarot deck, first in flawed form, progressing and growing to gain more “positive” traits of the card. Each social link has 10 ranks, and what makes it interesting is that each rank grants additional exp when fusing a persona aligned with the same arcana, tying both “Normal” and “Hero” lifes together. Also, on rank 10, you get the ability to fuse the “strongest” persona of said arcana, which brings us to another part of the systems: persona fusion.

Persona Fusion is simply your main way of getting new personas. Maybe after some fights, as a reward, you can get a persona, but from the rewards, only you get a very small portion of them, not even talking about the fact that most of them are “current level fusion fodder”. What is even more interesting is the fact that thanks to social links, you can easily get much higher-level personas than you are, which:

C) encourages players to often fuse and replace personas

B) allows players to grasp slightly higher power if they put enough effort

A) creates a somewhat interesting active level dynamic that is easily trackable by just checking at what level you can fuse a new persona

And so now we can go into combat without leaving people unaware of the systems behind.

Combat in this game is pretty interesting because it’s a mix of the classic “Press-Turn” system of SMT1 with the simultaneous turn system of Pokémon. As much as your agility stat defines the order each character can act again if they hit a critical hit or an enemy weakness (note that attacks that hit multiple enemies will not score, so-called “one more”), which, with a possibility of 4V4, creates quite a dynamic turn-based system, and I really like it a lot, gives all the fun features of press turn system without the snowballing unfairness of missing attacks in the SMT3 nocturne (PAIN).

(Honestly, I believe people overlook a lot of brilliance in the turn system of Pokémon.)

What is more interesting about those systems is the fact that how strong the boosts really are; Hellbiker can easily outclass Helel if you give Hellbiker good skills. But to note, in this game, it’s extremely hard to create strong personas because of “Peak Atlus Game Design”, aka random skill inheritance. Most personas have a very short move pool because the whole idea is to in fusion pass on skills from previous personas. The problem is that what skills are passed on is 100% random, with a caveat that each persona can inherit different skills at different rates; the only way you can affect that is through resetting fusion by quitting fusion selection and entering it again, and know: meta play of this game is required for beating the super boss of this game.

So, that is for systems; now let’s get over some of my favorite takeaways from this game.

My Look

This was a very unique experience that I believe deserves more attention, but what is saddening me greatly is the fact that how much this game is how inaccessible. This is a PS2 game that has only been released on PS3 in a select few regions, and with the PlayStation Store on PS3 already being halfway closed, the ability to play this game in the most accurate and expressive form is getting questioned. On one side, we need to preserve media because sooner or later, we will not be able to experience it again, not even speaking about younger generations, but at the same time, this game’s second story makes me question if we should always be just making everything accessible.

I know this will be a controversial take and that many will disagree, but what if true preservation isn’t milking the same game over and over, re-releasing the same unchanged version of it? What if we could make a new, better version of it that will not change the fundamental values, will not change anything to go against the original version’s values? Could we let the original version give the rest in its time? Let the art stay in its contemporary space? This is a question that doesn’t have a true answer (I swear this isn’t a dad joke), and in many ways, both sides have their own rightful argument of which we all should not ignore.

That said, neither P3P nor P3R delivers it; they scrap a lot of the original game in the name of making their own unique experience.

And so with this idea will end the valuable part of the article and start some of its goofier side.

One of my favorite bits in this game is the fact that the protagonist uses some cool personas; those personas are the representation of one’s psyche, and so my question stands:

HOW THE F@(&ING HELL DOES ONE’S PSYCHE BE SO F@(&ED UP TO THE POINT WHERE THE BEST REPRESENTATION OF THEM ARE: METATRON, BEELZEBUB, AND MESSIAH!!!!111!!11!11!!1

It’s a really funny bit; the same implications go for Succubus, Incubus, Satan, and Thanatos, to name a few.

And the final joke from me is a video I made that is a representation of what happened once in my original playthrough:

With some funny bits after a slightly philosophical take on game preservation, I will leave you all

Cheers from your Edgiest Man Alive™ -Karlox Dark

Bygone and Contemporary are the most antonym of the antonyms ever created, yet just like all umbrella words, these also love to smear their actual boundaries.

A new art can look, feel, and belong to a bygone era, yet a piece made hundreds of years ago can be as contemporary as a song or book released a week ago.

And so comes another question: Are we bygone or contemporary?

Why would you ask such questions? Some may ask, and to put it simply, I don’t really know, but I believe deep art tends to make us all think about things that aren’t so easy to answer. Yep, all this was just a lame buildup to the actual topic of this article, some of my experience with Persona 3 FES. (I’m very sorry)

But before the disclaimer, it’s more likely than not that I’m actually younger than You! Really, I’m pretty young (from here comes the title). And so I believe my outlook on this game is different from others, cause compared to most, I didn’t play this game when it was actually THE GAME, but just a game that existed, and now I checked out.

But here's the kicker… it wasn’t a game bygone time for me; it wasn’t derogatory to play something that is only inconvenient and aged so badly that you can’t enjoy it; the design mechanics and themes worked for me very well.

So maybe some introduction to the game that is today’s topic.

Persona 3 FES: Basically

Do you know Pokémon? SMT is just better Pokémon, and Persona is children’s first SMT.

But more seriously, Persona is a game about high schoolers being the only ones to be able to summon “Personas”, the reflection of their inner selves. Also, there are those monsters called shadows that are destroying mankind, so our ~17-year-olds are the only ones able to save everyone, FUN!

So yeah, classic anime game story that has been known ever since the inception of JRPGs, and as a matter of fact, also since anime itself, with some asterisks.

But to be honest, this game’s story is very good; it’s a very well-written game that has also been extremely well translated. Honestly, I believe this game is one of the outliers in terms of the “Sub vs Dub” discussion.

Will not spoil anything because this is a thing that must be experienced first-hand, just will say… IT’S F@*%ING GOOD!!!

The Realisation

And so here comes my tragedy that makes writing this article extremely hard, it’s a game that moved something in me, the relation with this game, whether it’s the combat system or story, or message, is hard to talk about because of how much emotion this game caused me to have. And so here I try.

If you ever played Pokémon and felt that it was too easy and wanted something more, play Persona 3 FES

It has all your favorite Pokémon Combat Mechanics, but in this game, you actually need to use more than your starter with 2 strong moves; to some extent, you need to understand all mechanics.

If you played any other Persona game, you should play Persona 3 FES specifically, even if you played Portable or Reload. FES is a completely different game compared to these two, not even talking about 4 and 5.

If you like turn-based systems, you need to play this game.

If you like Japanese games, you need to play this game.

Really, you need to, and I don’t say this because “this game is fun” but because it’s a dreadful, saddening piece that, as you read, is fading away.

But because I know this is not enough for some of you, next week there will be a follow-up with more spoilers than a playthrough of this game, with more analysis of this game than any 10h long YouTube video. (actually not, but there will be a lot of thoughts)

And so consider this article a tease of what is coming next week, where I will show you this game and all my thoughts on it.

Sorry, you all that this isn’t an actual release.

Cheers from your Edgiest Man Alive™ -Karlox Dark.

All things we “Love” aren’t easy or conventional; whenever they are, they’re also destructive to ourselves or others.

That’s why I wanted to talk about some of my favorite albums that aren’t the most conventional pieces; for some of them, it’s quite the opposite.

Let’s start with one of the most iconic Metal albums

Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

Okay, I know this is an Industrial Metal album, BUT out of all genres, Industrial Metal is the weirdest one to choose for a band with a lot of naturalist messaging. Not only that, but also the fact that this band switches around how heavy they want to go on this album all the time, once playing soft arpeggiated/legato lines (Unicorn), other times using tremolo picking more aggressive than anything found in all of Black metal (Backbone), or having an ambient intro with sounds of whales (that is whoping 2 minutes and 26 seconds long!!!) before heviest Metal riffs you heard in your life (Flying Whales).

A true icon in the history of Metal music that expressed itself without constraints, mixing up ideas of different subgenres (if sometimes not completely different genres).

I believe that the best album to follow up with would be of a band that, if you said, would be one of the most interesting Prog Metal bands 20 years ago, everyone would laugh the hell out of you.

Avenged Sevenfold - All Is But a Dream

Yep, remember those guys from 2005 that made a song that is just “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”1? They have done very well ever since, and they even made some “Prog Stuff” in 2016, first took a break from doing prog until 2023, when they released not “just some prog” but the whole album that shook up the whole STAGE of prog music. (Yep, if you couldn’t tell, I’m very much a person whose whole music taste now can be described as “Dad Rock” and I’m very mad about it)

Honestly, it’s hard to describe how good this album really is. Just listen to it, you definitely have the means to do so, don’t lie, you can’t cause you don’t have Spotify, YOUTUBE IS FREE.

Okay… here’s the album.

Really, listen to it.

Check this Prog out

After this, Popular Prog Metal, I believe, we need some Niche Experimental Metal.

Deadlock - Manifesto

So, where to start… Intro is an EDM track that morphs into a MeloDeath song. Later on the album, you get a song against the consumption of meat and animal cruelty that, from a MeloDeath song at the halfway point, turns into a hip-hop, AND to top it all off, there is a song with a saxophone solo… a metal song… with a sax solo… if this isn’t experimental metal then I fucking give up!

This album, as you read, is quite wild, but I will say that all of that is done in quite a tasteful way, so don’t worry, it’s not just “Metal, but every 5 seconds we switch genre to something unrelated”

If you enjoy Children of Bodom or In Flames, you will most likely enjoy this album too.

Really, it’s so GOOD.

Honestly, listen to some niche MeloDeath, one of my favorite genres in its most individual forms.

With this Experimental piece, I will leave you all gotta write my EXTRA EXTRA BIG article, so cya till 2 weeks.

God, This Article Is So Odd

[On the other note, the idea for this article is very much tied to the next one]

So, Kids, stay weird.

Cheers from your Edgiest Man Alive™ -Karlox Dark

Tutorials are essentially one of the most important parts of games; this is the section of a game that welcomes you with all the necessary information to play the game. Today, I wanted to talk about some of the more invasive ones, so easy up, it’s not another over-analysis of 1-1 from Super Mario Bros (NES)! (Not to say it’s a bad one, just it got enough coverage that you can choose different flavours all around the web)

So why not get started with the masters of putting many different tutorials one on top of another?

Cyberpunk 2077

Yeah, those guys from CDPR know some stuff about good tutorials, not to say their tutorials are perfect.

If we were to graph it out, it would look something like this:

• Prologue - a small chunk of the game where you get to use to mapping and how the game feels, while also giving you a look into the world from the perspective of the backstory you choose in character creation.

• Basic combat tutorial - Half of it is skippable, while the other is a tie into the last tutorialisation segment

• Open world introduction - The CDPR's special of making a region of a game as a tutorial to learn all about how the game world works and what to expect out of it

Each of these tutorial elements creates one of the most expansive tutorials that has ever come into existence. On that note, all of these parts have a clear function and have no fillers.

But all that comes with a hell of a hefty price: Replayability.

Most of these segments are unskippable; not only that, but for the first hour of a game, you will be railroaded towards very predictable and boring parts of the game until you get to the “open world” tutorial, in which you can breathe some before getting railroaded again to a very boring dungeon that at best will test your ability to rememeber to make quicksaves when playing on Very Hard.

Also, the "Phantom Liberty” DLC somewhat fixes that issue by giving you an option to start the game at level 15 with approximately 10 hours worth of gameplay skipped, not the best choice to play the game, but if you have already beaten the game a few times, you might enjoy that option.

We are in a somewhat odd arrangement, a good tutorial that has a glaring issue: it becomes extremely annoying if you want to play the game more than once. Is there a way to fix that? Well, the same people made one of the best expansive tutorials in their previous huge RPG, some of you probably know what game I am talking about…

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Yep, that “Male Witch”1 game is the one with a better tutorial, how?

First off, construction:

• Prologue - Skippable part of a game with some story construction and all basics tutorials (WASD is for movement, spacebar is for jump, ETC. )

• Open World - Yes, in this game too, you get the “CDPR special” of the open world section of the game that is used as a tutorial before you can do anything else.

So we already cut down by at least 1/3 of the tutorial by just combining the “First Timer” tutorial with the prologue and allowing skipping the prologue.

Now it’s time to compare both Open World Tutorials, cause this is now the only overlapping part of both games.

Cyberpunk has 2 mandatory dungeons (each one with its own boss) and two mandatory long “sit-downs and talks”, while Witcher has… one quest line with a final boss. Yep, just one quest line that will be faster done than one of the two dungeons.

Witcher condensed the tutorial down to an optimal replay experience, whilst Cyberpunk expanded its tutorial to the point that replaying that game becomes a major commitment. Wish CDPR reverts to something like Witcher 3 when making Cyberpunk’s successor.

What do you think, did Cyberpunk overdo the tutorial, or was the Witcher’s tutorial too short, or maybe you have a tutorial that’s much more annoying? Please let me know!

Cheers from your Edgiest Man Alive™ -Karlox Dark

Sadly, this is not the article I intended to share with you this week. The one that I wanted you to read this week proves to be slightly more demanding, so I will give it some more time to cook. In the meantime, Radios in Cyberpunk 2077 f@*king suck, so here are 4(four!) albums that fit Cyberpunk 2077 very well!

Avenged Sevenfold - Waking The Fallen

Where to start? Hi-Fi style guitar tone on a metalcore album from the early 2k’s, what else would you want! Okay, but seriously, this album touches on topics such as suicide, depression, or disregard for the system/elites, all topics that cyberpunk revolves around, and add to this some songs questioning our purpose in this world and the meaning of being “human”, and you've got yourself a very good one.

Additionally, when the band plays the song “Unholy Confessions” at concerts, they many times add video artefacts, for example: “Blocking’ or “vertical smears“, two effects prominently used in Cyberpunk 2077. Coincidence? I think so, but it’s funny when you think about it.

Trivium - Ascendancy

Okay, I know “the guy talks again about his fave band like he can’t stop” but hear me out! This album extremely well aligns with topics of Cyberpunk: Pull Harder on the String of Your Martyr, is song about tyrants abusing their power, Like Light to the Flies, a song about how society is captivated by others’ vein, or Rain song about corruption within society. All that told with an extremely good scream vocal and the most aggressive gallop riffs I have heard in my life. Honestly, this one might be the best for everyone who likes melodic metalcore!

In Flames - Come Clarity

TIME FOR THE SWEDE BABE!!!1!!!1!11!!

No, but really, if you want a song about depression, the best one is written by a Swedish guy, and here you have songs about: Depression, the Immorality of society, the abusive system, or how society antagonises emotions.

Probably the best one if you can listen to Melodic Death Metal and not fear for your ears to explode (btw drop A# tuning)

Trivium - Shogun

Yeah, I know, I know, I already talked about trivium, but hey, this one fits in different ways!

So, in Cyberpunk 2077, a lot of Japanese companies “invade” Night City, probably at least half of the implants you install onto yourself are from some Japanese company, and the story of the game revolves heavily around one of these companies.

Shogun by Trivium, in my opinion, is one of the best metal albums, and it also uses Japanese mythology and culture to structure the album, regarded as one of the best storytelling albums in metal that has ever come.

Also, Down from the Sky is here

Also, the Title song is here

Also, Into The Mouth of Hell We March is here

Also… okay, this bit stopped being funny at the second song

But really, this one is very good!

Wish you all a nice stay in the city of broken dreams!

Cheers from your Edgiest Man Alive™ -Karlox Dark.

So, do you know a game called Metropolis Street Racer? If no, I will indulge, it’s an early open world racing game released exclusively on Sega Dreamcast (November 2000 in EU and January ‘01 in North America). But for our interest, the main reason why I’m even talking about this game is that it’s the first game to include a radio with changeable stations.

Now we know where that started, but where does that lead us? Let’s check some radios and see where they are playing the best bangers!

Fallout New Vegas

If you want to talk about in-game radio, you must include Fallout New Vegas; that’s the doctrine no one can break or ignore.

Okay, maybe I’m slightly overreacting, but the statement still stands: Fallout New Vegas has one of the best soundtracks that is also included as an “in-game radio”.

Where to start… Big Iron - Marty Robbins, an extremely great and iconic country song by an artist that you can’t skip when talking about country music. The lyrics of the song tell a story about the “Texas Red’s” downfall, a classic country song about an outlaw and a ranger. What hits so hard with this song is the setting of a game, a dark post-apocalyptic world of the Mojave wasteland. Scorching sands, traveling merchants who hold all their wares on the backs of Brahmin mutated cows with two functioning heads, a world that culturally stopped developing because of the cold world that elongated up to 2077, the year when the bombs fell, and all of the world had been ruined. The tragedy so well emphasized by this old country song, and the funniest, this is just the first song out of 40 tracks that play on all the radios, among which there are: Ain't That a Kick in the Head by Dean Martin, Blue Moon by Frank Sinatra or Mad About the Boy by Helen Forrest.

All that has an even greater impact thanks to the immersion of choosing the radio station and, from time to time, being interrupted by Mr. New Vegas.

This is a very strong in-game radio, but there is a problem… all radio stations have almost the same track list only exception is the mysterious broadcast, which is a Jazz station. That’s not an issue because of how many setlists are made within the same vibe and the main port of each station is just to be able to skip an annoying song (tho there are none of these) or not to listen to Mr. New Vegas talk again about his “nuclear winter wonderland” compilation available on holotape. But regardless, my only gripe is that different stations are not used to customize the experience, changing the genre and/or style of the music in the background.

Okay, after that huge, grim, and serious radio, let’s get less grim and more diverse.

Fortnite

So let’s be clear, I DO NOT LIKE FORTNITE, more precisely, all I like about Fortnite is that it’s an enjoyable free game that I can play with my friends as a guy in T-45 Power Armour from the Fallout (yeah, I like those games) BUT that game has cars and in those cars there are radios, and guess what Epic got the money from V-bucks.

Where to start… on the Videogame soundtrack wiki, they have 7 different extremely long subcategories that each represent a different radio station! Of course, that list also might not include all the music included on the radio because Epic regularly changes music on the car radio for some reason.

My favorite radio is Rock & Royale because there are songs I actually would listen to, like: Forgotten by Korn, Nowhere Generation by Rage Against (not Rage Against the Machine) or FOUR (4) MATALACA SONGS!!!1!!!1!!!! (I do not like Metallica, and I have some “very good” arguments on which, for now, I will not focus on)

Another station I like is Battle Bus Radio, which has some bangers such as: Hail to the King by Avenged Sevenfold (fucking love them), Gimme Chocolate by Babymetal or Breaking the Law by Judas Priest (also Sad but True by Metallica is here).

Honestly, I’m surprised how good some Fortnite radio stations are. If you are looking to play a Battle Royale with friends, this one might get some bonus points thanks to the music included.

After this showcase that sometimes money gives us an okay medium, let’s check something more serious on the topics it addresses.

Saints Row 2

Yeah… odd thing to say about Saints Row 2, but hey, in this game, topics regarding criminality, corruption, and abuse are everywhere, picking on everyone and not on a specific agenda. That said, it’s a wacky game that is hard to take seriously, especially because in some missions your goal is to… pour feces on buildings… yeah, it’s a stupid game that parodies everyone to a very odd degree. But we shouldn’t talk about the game’s premise or concepts, but on the radio, so how good is it?

I have picked 3 stations that I enjoyed quite a bit.

The Mix 107.77 FM - This one is quite fun, you can find here some good tracks, such as: Take on Me by A-ha, The Final Countdown by Europe, or Everyone Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears.

89.0 Generation X FM - Yep, I like the station with Teenagers by My Chemical Romance, Hole in the Earth by Deftones, or Misery Business by Paramore. Didn’t hate it that much (honestly, best time with Paramore and MCR I could ever have)

The Krunch 106.66- HELL YEAH, Nothing Left by As I Lay Dying, Bat Country by Avenged Sevenfold, Redneck by Lamb of God, or Anthem (We Are the Fire) by Trivium. I believe that explains why I think this game has one of the best in-game radios.

I know, I know, but bias aside, this game is a prime example of how radio can be the best way to include music in a game, with a lot of coverage on many different genres. Additionally, this game uses radio to spice up different gangs and give them more personality, such as the Brotherhood listening to The Krunch while the Ronin listen to K12 (an electronic music station).

Okay, after this wild game, it’s time for something darker, serious, and unfortunately, the one showing off the “other” side of in-game radio…

Cyberpunk 2077

I honestly don’t think that the radio in Cyberpunk has any memorable tracks.

Like, it doesn’t have anything that caught my attention outside of Chippin’ In and Never Fade Away, which are songs of the in-game band “Samurai”. Yep, only 2 songs per how many? ELEVEN RADIO STATIONS, ALL OF THEM TOGETHER HAVE OVER 150+ SONGS!!!!!!!!! I do very much love this game for it’s very good story and characters, I like it for it’s personality, but for all of its music that it has, there are only 2 songs that are interesting for me, even more annoyingly, those two are storyline-related songs, so those have to be “Tip top perfect” and no other way around that’s just sad, wish that with their next game they will try to make more of interesting songs, but hey, they got a coverage and its not bad in any depth, its a good noise in the background when driving around the NightCity.

To close it off, I have a question for all of you: Do you have your own favorite In-Game radio? If so, please write about it in the comments. I will respond to every single one!

Cheers from your Edgiest Man Alive™ -Karlox Dark.

For Video games, music is an integral piece of the experience. Everyone has at least one title of music they listen to outside of playing that game. Everyone who watched any YouTube videos about games might notice how many songs from games become kind of “auto includes”, such as Delfino Plaza from Super Mario Sunshine. But many games are not blessed with as much integral to the experience or as memorable tracks as some other titles. With these games, most people will just pull up Spotify or any other music streaming service and make their own soundtrack. So I will touch on those “soundtracks” not because I think composers who worked on music of those games failed to make an interesting score, but because I believe some of these might surpass most other conventional soundtracks.

So to start it off, why not look at one of my recent favorites?

Shapez + The Rasmus - Dead Letters

Yep, indie game about automation that most of the time I call “Chill Factorio” and a Finnish Pop Rock band. Honestly, the reason why those two work well together is fact how both are the “chill among their kind”. I do implore you to give me a chance to explain:

Shapez is one of few automatization games where there is close to no difference between Sandbox and standard play, games like Factorio or Satisfactory have “local fauna” or other enemies that will fight against you, so the automatization has to include weapons and fortifications to defend and not run the risk of losing materials and/or clogging of system, where Shapez is a game where your only enemy is… You. All problems in Shapez are caused by “your” design flaws, not by some alien species that hate pollution, just “you from the past”.

What brings an interesting topic to discuss. Shapez allows you to do all that you want in time you want to do it. Only one who wants better optimisation here is you, and only you. So you can chill, work on other machines, have fun while everything else does it’s job.

And now, time for The Rasmus - Dead Letters

It’s a Pop Rock / Grunge a Pop depth of lyrics with heavy guitar tone of Grunge. Interesting album with many different sounds, sometimes dialed back with a lot of modulation and delay, sometimes screaming for attention with a tone that Kurt Cobain would use. Overall, one of the few albums that manages to use high-gain tone with a lot of distortion doesn’t overwhelm you and allow just to vibe with it.

Combining no pressure gameplay of Shapez with Finnish pop-rock gets you an interesting and unique experience.

With that lengthy explanation, we can move on to something less hyper-specific

Borderlands + Trivium - Silence in The Snow

Yes, Everyone’s Favorite Looter Shooter is here, and Everyone’s Favorite Hyper Produced Metal Album is also here!!!

But okay, no more jokes, interestingly playing as Mordecai in Borderlands and head shoting Psychos in rhythm of chugs in “The Thing that's Killing Me” is stressfully satisfying.

So Borderlands is a game about you being a “vault hunter” person seeking… “The Vault” (Duh 🙄) place with technology and resources beyond anyone's imagination. All of that just to explain why our characters like to collect a lot of weapons on the way there. Also, there are Psychos, people who are well… Psychos (Duh 🙄 🙄)

Yeah Borderlands is a game that is about all and nothing, the all of its depth is just you kill a lot of people and find loot, looter shooter (DUH 🙄 🙄 🙄) but it's a very good shooter at that, very satisfying and as much as it is a “shit show of stats and rarity” with skill tree on top of it all (on that note reminder that nice Assassin's Creed Origins that series selling point became that it's “Role Playing Game” which is great and all, but it's just meaningless stats and colour coded rarities)

Now time for the album, Silence in The Snow is a 2015 metal album made by this point iconic Trivium metal band that since 2005 has been one of more important bands in Metal scene, and for their decade of great success they made… hyper produced album with not even half deep as rest of their discography… yeah, it wasn't received great and it's considered one of their worst performances among The Crusade and Ember To Inferno, and well interestingly the funniest bit of them all is that this is a very enjoyable and interesting album to listen to, very heavy rhythmic yet very articulate with a lot of confidence. (Which just proves how Trivium is an extremely great band that is so good that their worst performances are still very good)

A not-that-deep game with a lot of numbers, colours, and guns combined with Bad Performance of an Excellent Band together gets us an Oddly Unique and Enjoyable Experience™

So, do you know what is best in any kind of journalism and blogging? That if you can't figure out a thing to write about, you can just throw your burden onto all your friends and family, and they will do your work for you!

So I asked a friend of mine if he had some kind of dynamic duo of album and game. He provided me two answers I could've figured out he would have because those two are VERY IN CHARACTER for him.

So let's check out what my friend has cooked for us

Tony Hawk’s Pro skater 1 + 2 Remastered + Lana Del Rey Honeymoon + Release of Destiny 2

Yes, this is his answer to my question. Honestly, I love that he likes this album, but it only partially works with Destiny 2 in my view. But I still want to share that cause I believe my Friend has a great time listening to Honeymoon and playing some definitely fine games. But really, I will say that he, compared to me, has more chill combo™, and with all understanding, I will say that I see how you might love some low-energy pop while skating around. Also, I believe he might be cooking something more tasty than all my "killing people in rhythm of chugs.”

So after this Skater Lana Space Cowboy 2 combo (I will prove that I'm more interesting than my friend by pulling up another Trivium combo)

So here comes, I believe, the most fitting album and game theme- and vibe-wise, and if you disagree, you are wrong, completely fair

Shogun Showdown + Trivium - Shogun

Yes, the dynamic duo of Shoguns, the game & album combo, so well fitting that one includes another, but let's get to the more factual side of things

Shogun Showdown is an indie turn-based deck-building Rogue-Lite. The premise of the game is to “seek and destroy” (yes, you should hate me for my dad jokes) corrupted shogun and save the world. Game’s combat system has very great flow, all of your attacks are in form of “tiles” that you can add to your attack que and perform all of those attacks one after another allowing you to find many different combos of attacks, through out your run you will find many different tiles with other effects, damage and range, the key to get to the shogun is to understand how to use all of these tiles and find synergies that can excell your combat capabilities.

And well, Trivium - Shogun for a change of pace is considered one of the best albums of that band, on par with Ascendency and In Waves. Extremely strong thematically with one of the best technique performances, songs like “Kirisute Gomen”, “Into the Mouth of Hell We March” or title track “Shogun” fit perfectly with the game’s style and somewhat ties with it more by sharing themes such as corruption, carving your own path or abusive nature of being in power.

This combination of album and game is so great that it's hard to even explain how good it is. To emphasize this point, I will say that this is what initially inspired me to delve into this topic, and without it, this article would not exist.

Okay, to wrap this up, I have a question for all of you: Do you have a game and album you love to play together?

Cheers from your Edgiest Man Alive™ -Karlox Dark.

(In all honesty, my friend was very much cooking with that Honeymoon. I can't stop listening to it.)

(All trademarks were used for comedic purposes, and I do not claim ownership of any of these trademarks.)