It is a cold hard fact of life: one can do everything right and still fail.


Or you can be like Arby’s and avoid the anxiety of doing a good job by never trying at all

As has been the case this year on Active Time Event, I’ve once again randomly stumbled into a rabbit hole of ill-repute, compliment with a fine array of time wasters and productivity killers. In the past, it was just the crushing weight of reality that more or less stopped me dead in my tracks from continuing to write everyday: this particular lull in my own writing schedule ended up being more of a depraved apathy of sorts; not quite fun, not totally without care…a thoroughly corrupted hypocrisy through and through. Some people bed rot to get through their rough spots, debauchmaxxing seems to be my idiotic self-sabotage of choice, though I hold no pride in this moment of acknowledgment, merely a sense of relief my rational core stayed intact enough to truly miss the majesty that comes with creativity, and all that follows suit thereafter.



That is of course my obtusely long winded and queerly cryptic citation related to my extended absence these past few weeks, which when one writes on the daily, such an absence represents eons of missed moments, and becomes an overwhelmingly obvious hole of lament in the world of the written word. As mentioned, ’twas not for positive reasons I remained incapacitated, though that time has passed, and my resolve remains intact, with the yearning to continue building my body of writing work unyileding, burning with a fervent passion, as does my concern for being an ardent advocate and fierce defender of literacy and thinking the world over; the fact I may accomplish this sacred charge through the tawdry use of dick and fart jokes, accompanying thoughtful philosophical deconstructionism of video games, is neither here nor there: it’s the thought that counts, god dammit, and what a slew of wonderful thoughts they can be.

To that point….



One of the crying shames about my most recent crash out relates to having been right at the end of Mina the Hollower, as opposed to a few other times this year, where at least in one instance, I was not in the midst of any serious on going project, only busying myself with random one off Words of Wisdom, which are treats in their own right and stand on their own merits as singular cognitive entities. My brief absence amidst my Super Meat Boy series didn’t feel all that disruptive, and at least when I was shot off my train of thought during Operation: Golden Standard, it was right at the beginning, leaving ample time for momentous recovery. Sadly, my far fall from consistent grace ended up leaving the greatest impact on Mina, sadly, as the finale was just left hanging in the air, with no excellent way to wrap things up with the same kind of electric energy the game had been building up with to that point.



Not to say I lack the ability to finish up my series of articles on Mina with a bang, and doing the game justice in the process , I think the appropriate moment for an explosive kind of finale has just already passed me by. I will say, however, that the style in which I approach writing about games affords me some graces in this regard, as I don’t ever make the story elements of a title my focus, as I’m not doing an approach more befitting of a literary analysis of characters and themes, as many within the space do, nor do I ever chase the narrative like some kind of hound of hell, only dwelling on the outcome and continued development of how the overall story meshes with the design standards. Anyone who has followed the site for any length of time knows I enjoy a dress down of the metaphyiscs of games above all else, and to that point, by the time I’m about a dozen articles deep, as I was with Mina by the time I departed from my musings on our magnanimously magnificent mouse menace, I feel as if the experience had been more than detailed in a respectful manner.



To wit; I am not entirely certain if these will be my last words on Mina, truth be told, I suppose I only reinforce the notion I was more than doting with my address of Mina, more so than most recent games that spring to memory, quite honestly, and a quality fetching enough that the title has entered into my pontifications involving a game of the year conversation, which speaks magnitudes, I feel. Thinking further on the matter, even beyond being undecided of whether or not this counts as my wrap up for writing about the game, I am not even sure I am done even playing the game, as both the 50% of the rest of the content I have not yet seen post-last boss, let alone new game plus, have me willing and raring to go. My only realistic concern is that in order to keep up a varied and briskly paced writing schedule of varied interest and constant progress, there are few instances I am able to dwell on any given title, even ones I greatly enjoy. A true lament, to be sure.



Since I am nearing both my word quota and the amount of time I have to spare tonight to reach said quota, I will at least leave one pearl of wisdom to marvel at before I depart, and it is that Mina acts as an ode to classic retro games without being derivative, which is a colossally tremendous feat. Though the game borrows heavily from Link’s Awakening, one of my favorite Zelda games, I would go as far to say that Mina may surpass that of any 2D Zelda game, and I’ve played all of the mainline ones, and beaten the grand majority of them, so this is a serious contender we are talking about in learning from the greats and showing them how it’s done, as I think Mina goes to radically bold places Nintendo never would, and very much reminds me of the similar shaming Stardew Valley effortlessly laid down upon the likes of Harvest Moon, embarrasing the series in the process.



I don’t think Zelda will suffer the exact same ridiculously cringey dunking upon mind you, and will ultimately remain fine in the humbling process, though it’s not everyday you get a front row seat to a legend being dethroned real time.

Just a damn shame Mina doesn’t have Nintendo’s marketing resources…such is commerce. Which means not everyone will remember “the legend that never was”…but the right ones will.

~Pashford