Mind Game (released 2004) is an out-of-the box hallucinatory piece of animation. It’s unpredictable, unapologetically chaotic in the best way, and creative from start to finish.

I have never seen anything like this. It feels like a insight to the imagination of Masaaki Yuasa's (director) mind. It was his first feature film, which feels appropriate, his style bled through everything in it. The characters are abstract, exaggerated and/or realistic, given the situation. Yuasa's style is very bold, often mixes different styles which creates an uncanny feeling. Talking about the plot... it's abstract and very not linear, which is awesome because it doesn't restrict itself in any way.

Every minute the plot could change, showing different concepts like love, friendship for example. A whirlwind of memories being barraded on the screen. Having watched it for the first time last year gives a different perspective overall, it felt older than it was.

What I found interesting is that the whole thing is a cinemascope format (wider than usual movies), which, at that time, most directors had already moved on from. I think he used it to display a feeling of different timelines, all clashing together.

It is a shame that I haven't watched this movie up until now. Mind Game doesn't have time to care about logic, it just goes for it.

Recommending this to everyone who's a fan of weird animation :)

-Dino

of the Devil is a funny, sincere and twisted mix of the Danganronpa and Ace Attorney series. You play as Morgan, a defense attorney in a world that outgrew the need for that occupation a long time ago. There's so many indie games set in cyberpunk dystopias that rely entirely on the groundwork set by older, more iconic works. Sometimes, if we're lucky, they introduce a (gimmicky) twist on the formula. of the Devil is instead taking a step forward (inward) and probes the archetypal cyberpunk world for what its neonclad gutter smoke clouds hide from plain view.

The law enforcers, witnesses and suspects, apart from being a fun roster of memorable characters, are lighthouses used to elucidate different corners of the world. Through the lens of an attorney the game's writer can playfully reveal the ties between the state, free-market capitalism and organized crime, as well as the ties between this not-so-distant future dystopia and our current system.

Having played both major inspirations recently I can say confidently that of the Devil is a successful synthesis—an improvement on both formulas at the same time. The trials are more engaging than those of Ace Attorney and the game mechanics flow better than the out-of-place mini-games of Danganronpa; basically, these titles had to walk so otD could run.

One more thing. The demo is free. See for yourself. I highly recommend playing through the entire thing to get a good taste of what you might expect from the first two episodes that are out now.

-Emilia

Xenoblade Chronicles X (I am going to refer to the game as X from now on because the title is quite a mouthful) has always been one of my favorite games, ever since I first played it all the way back on the Wii U. This year, X finally got a rerelease titled Definitive Edition, which adds many new features and even a new epilogue story.

Now, the thing that makes X special to me, is the way the setting is represented. The game is set in the far future, where Earth has been destroyed and the last remaining humans must survive on an alien planet. At first, the game world feels impossibly huge and completely hostile towards you; despite your lightning fast movement speed, it seems to take forever to get anywhere, and even the weakest creatures you encounter are a threat. On top of that, you will often run into enemies dozens of levels above your characters, forcing you to find ways to avoid them. The environments you explore also just have this strange, otherworldly feeling about them. Often times you'll encounter grotesque ruins or impossible terrain formations.

For the exploration alone, I think X is more than worth playing. The atmosphere and open world this game has are truly unmatched, even more than a decade after its original release. Beyond that, the game also has pretty much everything you'd expect from the series, such as deep customization, great music, a memorable story and lovable characters, though I really cannot overstate how the game world itself is the highlight of this game.

If you have virtually any interest in open world games, Xenoblade Chronicles X is a title you 100% have to try.

-Paul

I don’t know how to write about food or music. I can talk about an image. I can judge a story. But I lack the words for most sensory experiences. So, I can’t really talk about what Lorde’s fourth album Virgin sounds like, only the story it tells. Luckily for me, it’s one we’re all familiar with, even though it might not be the most straight-forward one. I first listened to Pure Heroine at sixteen, a perfect time considering Lorde was the same age when it released. It was one of the first albums I remember experiencing deliberately, front to back, alone with my headphones, scrolling through tumblr.com, rehearsing a heartbreak I hadn’t yet lived. Melodrama arrived not long after in every sense of the word. As the waiting gave way to experience, I memorized them both, repeating every lyric like a rosary praying for some kind of release from the ache of adolescence. It’s hard not to cringe at myself now but my attachment to Lorde’s first two albums never wavered. Pubescent? Maybe. But the juvenile quality to both works remains intoxicating: “It feels so scary getting old”; “We were wild and fluorescent, come home to my heart.” Solar Power met me in my early twenties. It feels unkind to not have been able to connect with Lorde in what was supposed to be her moment of peace. But in its sunburnt detachment and attempted serenity it was difficult to feel anything at all. It somehow seems emptier now, as Lorde returned in 2025, not with any more answers but with a body; hers, and inescapably, mine.

While we saw Lorde leaping over us on Solar Power’s album cover, Virgin turns back toward gravity, collapsing every sense of distance. This cover shows her x-ray, featuring a clear view of her IUD. It’s an astonishingly intimate gesture, so close that it paradoxically becomes asexual again. Like when you stare at a naked body for so long it starts looking like meat. Similarly, Virgin is oftentimes about sex without ever being sexual. About the female body existing in the tension of subject- and objectification. There is no romance to lines like “I rode you until I cried”. It’s very matter of fact, brutal and almost comical too. Humor, embarrassment, desire, fear, and consequence are all tangled together in stand out tracks like Clearblue, where Lorde writes about the experience of a pregnancy scare. It’s grown up and adolescent at the same time.

Many other tracks play in that limbo. GRWM sounds like TikTok teen acronym speak but paradoxically stands for “grown woman.” In the line “Grown woman in a baby tee,” two extremes are juxtaposed the childish and the adult. Lorde is the Man of The Year. Lorde begs for her mother’s acceptance. Musically, Virgin reflects this tension: glitchy electronics push against lullaby-like melodies and vulnerable lyricism. Songs start and stop, textures overlap, and her voice turns from whispered intimacy to biting declaration.

In the last 5 years, we watched the internet develop an obsession with the vague concept of girlhood. There were “girl dinners”, “girl math”, the “hot girl walk”, the list goes on. Girlhood has meant everything from going to the bathroom together to seeing the Barbie movie. And it’s fun and mostly harmless, aside the needlessly gendered language. Everyone is fascinated by girls: what they eat, what they watch, what they listen to, how they dress. But as you eventually grow up you feel that while culture remains fixated on the girl, it has little interest in the woman. What would a “woman dinner” look like? That sounds disgusting and possibly frightening.

Virgin is when the teenage glow starts to flicker, when the whirlwind that were your teenage years, the Meldorama and Pure Heroine, start to wear off. It’s not as easily romanticized as your adolescence in the rearview mirror. A girl holds potential of becoming. As a woman you’re already supposed to be. If girlhood online is about aesthetic distance and ironic detachment, Lorde’s newest album is about staying put in the body, long after the novelty of being a girl has worn thin. There’s an aching viscerality to Virgin, something that insists on embodiment, forcing me back into myself: the softness of my skin, my aching limbs, my beating heart.

-Smilla