Rynling R&D

For the sole purpose of low-stakes escapism, I started playing Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster on Nintendo Switch again. I picked up where I left off, which was right outside Zozo. Zozo has always been something special, but the remaster team really went out of their way to polish it even more.

I guess I've lost a sense of the pacing of the early Final Fantasy games, and I was surprised to be in and out of Zozo in fifteen minutes.

I wanted to spend more time in that sort of grungy postmagical rustpunk world, so I started Ender Magnolia again from the beginning. The game is still in early access on Steam, so only the first three hours are available to play. But man, what a marvelous three hours. I think I like Ender Magnolia even more the second time around. It's so nice to have such a meticulously constructed Metroidvania that's moderately challenging without being brutally difficult.

I went through all of the available content in Ender Magnolia in one sitting, and now I don't know what to play next. I'm thinking about Animal Well: https://www.animalwell.net/

I'm finally writing my essay about Ender Lilies! It's happening!! Here's the lede:

In Binary Haze’s 2021 Soulslike Metroidvania Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, a young girl named Lily navigates a hostile postapocalyptic world with the help of grotesquely mutated undead monsters. As the game progresses, Lily becomes increasingly reliant on her monstrous companions as she becomes more monstrous herself. Ender Lilies functions as an intriguing model of mutual aid, especially in relation to its gradual descent into fungal horror. As the world changes around us, Ender Lilies asks, is it really so horrific to develop radical new relationships with the environment?

And here's my pitch:

I will admit that there may not be much SEO power in an essay about Ender Lilies, a Japanese game whose fandom seems to be concentrated in China and South Korea. Still, the game is a gorgeous piece of art with a sequel coming out later this year, and I think it's an interesting vehicle to highlight some of the themes common across many of the essays on Sidequest, which involve looking at mainstream games from a different perspective. Specifically, I want to use Ender Lilies to talk about disability and mutual aid, and I'd like to tie this specific discussion to broader East Asian conversations about how the accommodation of human difference is connected to environmental justice.

Please wish me luck! 🌿