There are times in life where everything seems to be going okay for once…and that’s it. You almost get suspicious about the strangely calm nature of the general vibe and sentiment of normality that hangs in the air, that even the slightest hiccup tends to greatly alarm you, as at first paranoid glance, it seems as if the situation will be the apocalyptic nightmare scenario that begins to unravel this so called moment of peace and quiet, only for it to turn out all well and good and quite easily solvable with just a moment of slight endeavor.

The good old “off and on again” paradigm

In spite of my best efforts, I didn’t really do anything today. Like, today is still technically going, and I did “do things”, it’s just one of those moments where you look back on the last twelve hours or so of a day off and just think to yourself “was that it?” One is suppose to use their spare time to recharge and get in a good mood; the times for being drained and unpleasantly disappointed are deserving of the chunk of time one is clocked in and working; at least you’ll be getting paid for your misery on some level, which is what most paychecks tend to be anyways.

I’m kind of in the throes of another attempt at maintaining a long writing streak, much like each of the last two years I have done so. However, considering that my last streak lasted six whole months of an article everyday, I’d basically have to write till next June, clocking in a full year’s worth of posts to top myself. There is a place in me that has to ask “why?”, though. I don’t mind when things aren’t necessarily enjoyable, as I usually have more of a focus on self-improvement, sacrifice on some level to gain insight, hardship, etc, so if the activity is more of a legitimate challenge, I feel right at home. And yet, there is a part of me that finds some hesitation with the idea of it, as aside from a ridiculous amount of consistency in honing my craft, I don’t think much is going to come from it, which begs the question of whether or not the pursuit is worth it.

This whole post might end up being a piece of introspection, as I’m feeling more existentially ponderous than normal. Just to shoehorn some level of gaming related affairs into the mix, I did play Mina The Hollower today for several hours, which was a much longer period of time than I initially planned on doing so. In fact, the massive time sink kind of totally derailed the momentum for the rest of my day, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world, as I did spend ample amounts of time with a new experience, though the horrifying truth is, I’m not sure of how much I truly have to discuss about what was done within those several hours. As is the case with a lot of gaming sessions, without more of a fixation on progression or a goal in mind, things tend to devolve into hedonism rather quickly, and then kind of just stay there, as you stew about in your own broth of avarice.

In a strange fit of irony, I always seem to have trouble writing about a game when it happens to be a high quality experience, seemingly lacking any deep insights. As to my last point, when everything just kind of works, and taken a step further, works well, it feels as if I have to start getting quite nit picky, which has always been an exhaustive bore in my world. I’ve inadvertently developed this odd off the cuff mantra involving a “good enough” mentality, which feels at first like it’s self-explanatory, but I think has a lot more significant subtext then what it is initially being accredited for.

As mentioned, though I did play Mina for several hours today, I didn’t end up making significant progress, instead focusing on random exploring, side quests, unintentional treasure hunting etc. It was most certainly a case of “just one more thing” before I planned on quitting for the day, but one turned to several, several turned to too many, and eventually led me to having to peel myself off the couch so I could move on with my belligerent self. I suppose one of the biggest compliments one can give to a team of developers is not being able to put down their game, as that signifies they went up and beyond in their duty to deliver something irresistible, so in that regard, my extended play session of Mina implicitly attributes a mark of quality to the game in a way few other titles ever seem to generate within me these days.

In some kind of queer way, Mina’s unyielding quality kind of puts into question the whole idea of what drives me in the first place, and why I never seem overly thrilled, or at the very least, eager to share my experience, when everything is meeting or exceeding expectations. Would the game having more oversights, a larger number of glaring flaws, or some kind of unevenness about itself, would these notions of failing integrity feel more comfortable and lead me to feel inclined to go on and on about its imperfect identity?

I don’t know…the best I can figure it is, writing about games ends up being this weird dialectical process, where one has a conversation with the game, and then finds a way to share the interpretation of what the game offers, to any passerby within the realm. However, when the game ceases to be cryptic, and all onlookers are as fluent in the language as the regular interpreter is, the need for a dialogue all but vanishes in the process. This all might be a strange confluence of events, however, related to a number of warped notions involving some kind of absurdist expectation for what coverage of a game is suppose to be, vs personal desire of showcasing authenticity, vs the idea of how much a game is suppose to “say”, in order to set some abstract standard of what it means to be a game a cut above the rest.

This is just one of those weird moments where an old school, Zelda like game with some Dark Souls flair sets out with such a mission statement, totally nails it, and it’s really just a straight forward case of seeing it first hand and realizing that uh….yeah, that’s it.

This is good enough.

-Pashford