Essay

Remaking Legitimacy in Final Fantasy VII

What the Remake Can Learn From a Pirate Demake

Ian R. Larson

Notions of legitimacy are often called upon within the Western gaming community to deny games that fall outside of the traditional video game industry their meaningful contribution to global franchises. In the case of unlicensed games and romhacks like Final Fantasy VII Demake, this denial devalues the productive forces of fans and independent laborers that went into their creation. To expand the definition of what labor is considered legitimate, I call for a more nuanced understanding of fan and pirate productions as hybrids of the modern glocalized gaming medium; one that factors in class, location, and access as defining markers of regional gaming identity. Continue Reading →

I learn through Paradise, or Disco Inferno?

A Brief Etymology of Disco Elysium

Francis Butterworth-Parr

The most important heritage Disco Elysium receives from disco is its deference to powerful emotion. Even Diana Ross (1979), whose command of her own sass was enough to “turn emotion, on and off”, collapses, eventually, into a different romantic victory: it was “love”, not a man, nor material things, that taught Ross “who was the boss” (fab70smusic, 2012). Ross’ singing typifies Dyer’s (1979) argued function for disco, to give “a glimpse of what it means to live at the height of our emotional and experiential capacities” (p.23). Continue Reading →

Rediscovering Politics in RPGs

The Case of Disco Elysium

Kacper Szozda

Players in Disco Elysium are presented with a different set of choices than those that prevail in conventional RPGs, but this on its face isn’t important if we don’t articulate how and why choice matters in the RPG genre. Player agency in RPGs always begins and ends with some expectation of choice. It is in RPGs where expectations of player agency are highest and where the idea of what constitutes freedom is most produced. Choice thus marks a common point of departure for RPGs and how they are received. However, it is important not to accept the notion of agency uncritically and question its significance based on its own conceptual ambiguity (Stang, 2019). Continue Reading →

There is No Escape

How Hades Connects Game Genre and Greek Myth

Jacob Hamill

So how does Hades fit into the history of refiguring Greek mythology? The theme of fate and the extent of free will is the connective thread. If roguelikes are designed around the experience of dying and restarting, then permadeath is a mechanic that makes players think about the decisions taken, what has led them to death, or consequence persistence. Procedurally generated content ensures that no two runs are exactly alike, making the weight of our decisions ever more impactful. Continue Reading →

Cinders and Fantasies of Womanhood

Gabriel Elvery

The figure of Cinderella has been divisive; its reception highlights oppositions present in feminist thought: namely the conflict between second-wave and postfeminism. Fien Adriaens (2009) describes second-wave feminism’s stance as “the idea that femininity and feminism are oppositional, mutually exclusive and that the adoption of one of these identities (feminine or feminist) can only be achieved at the expense of the other.” This positions second-wave feminism in critical opposition to “Cendrillon” as well as conservative retellings such as Disney’s 1950 film Cinderella. Indeed, critics have argued that fairy tales portray women as “weak, submissive, dependent and self-sacrificing” and that by example this encourages young girls to “adopt these desires, which are deemed appropriate within patriarchy” (Parsons, 2004, p. 137). Continue Reading →

Avatar Crossing: Self Representation in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Joe Todd

While it’s fun for players to dress their villagers up in different outfits alone, exploring avatar customization can also lead to reflexive experimentation and opens up a deeper understanding of the player’s sense of self. The extensive customization found in New Horizons provides a place for its players to experiment with their online identities. By creating and developing their villager, it will be argued that users are also able to play with their own personal identities outside of the game, showing how one’s avatar can be used as a point of introspection. Continue Reading →

‘This is the Fate I Choose’: How a Shakespeare-Hating Game Developer Made the Best Shakespeare Adaptation I’ve Seen All Year

Rebecca Lipperini

I argue in this essay, Elsinore’s use of branching and discoverable dialogue, multiple story paths as well as choices and consequences, construct a narrative mode that reveals the themes of racism and sexism and the ways in which systems of oppression reinforce each other in the narrative. Elsinore uses the video game medium to reorient Hamlet around the intersecting vectors of gender and race, and in doing so it offers an intersectional feminist reinterpretation of Hamlet. This essay will look at how Elsinore adapts Hamlet by focusing on the treatment of Ophelia’s sexuality, showing how narrative agency and discoverable dialogue can reinforce the intersectional commitment of the game. Continue Reading →