December 2024 media
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Infinity Nikki: An elevator pitch for Infinity Nikki might be: a Genshin Impact-style open-world game with a focus on fashion and platforming. I was unprepared for how much it would hook me! It gradually reveals itself to have an interminable endgame grind, and it doesn’t approach the polish of something like Genshin yet—I’ve rarely seen a game with such frequent hotfixes—but I’ve been having a great time so far despite everything. If you’re not susceptible to predatory gacha mechanics, give it a whirl.
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Dragon Quest XI: I finally caved and bought a Steam Deck, and for some reason this is the game I was most excited to play on it. I had played through nearly half of Dragon Quest XI on the PS4 years ago, tried a fresh start on PC once that fizzled out, and then restarted it again this month with the benefit of my new portable option. Turns out I can still get into a bog-standard turn-based RPG with no trouble! I’m really curious what’ll happen with the next iteration—there are vanishingly few series that still play this way.
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Casual Viewing: This essay by Will Tavlin is the best thing I read all month. It’s about the rise of Netflix and the subsequent dissolution of its artistic ambitions, so its focus is film and television—though it’s easy to find parallels with any medium you’d care to name. Reading it gave me one of those anxious twinges as I thought about how rotten the entire creative sphere feels today, its stability and vitality endangered by its utter dependence on giant tech companies. Increasingly, the threat feels existential.