Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been avoiding the summer heat by playing a whole ton of Death Stranding 2, which is proving both immensely compelling and also quite different from its predecessor. I can see why Kojima was worried that his playtesters were “enjoying it too much” – the franchise has largely abandoned the austerity of both form and function that defined its predecessor, that singular sense of loneliness and unending toil that made it a distinct emotional experience within the medium. In contrast, Death Stranding 2 embraces enough of Metal Gear Solid 5’s mechanics to offer a crowd-pleasing summation of Kojima’s career to date, meaning it’s less of a revelatory art experience than simply a damn good videogame. It has nonetheless got its hooks in me deep, but I still managed to spare enough time to sneak in some film viewings. Let’s get to it!
Tag Archives: Film
Summer 2025 – Week 1 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ve hit the first week of the summer anime season, which of course means we’re in truth a third of the way through summer, because the year actually starts a month into winter and nothing truly means anything. Regardless, this occasion marks the perfect time to take a glance at the contenders of last season, whose glimmering early potential has at this point solidified into cold, uncompromising reality. It seems folks aren’t so hot on Shinichiro Watanabe’s latest, but I’m looking forward to checking out our latest Gundam, and have been hearing nothing but positive things about Apocalypse Hotel. Clearly more investigation will be needed, but for now, let’s run down our latest film contenders in the Week in Review!
Spring 2025 – Week 13 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This past week saw me returning to my Anime Classics investigations with a vengeance, as I burned through the entirety of the original Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. The series was a delight on the whole, serving as a somewhat more whimsical counterpoint to Gundam’s stoic war drama. It was interesting to see how the production’s focus on music over mechanical innovation (presumably echoing its intention to sell albums rather than models) impacted its dramatic structure; with songs taking the place of new weapons, the show swerved and soared at the pace of Minmay’s emotional narrative, painting a sad portrait of an icon who is too beholden to everyone to carve a space for herself. Plus the lead pair of Hikaru and Misa actually possessed excellent chemistry, making them easy to root for as the world collapsed around them. I can see why it’s such a beloved franchise, and I’m looking forward to continuing through its various successors. But for now, let’s burn down the week in film!
Spring 2025 – Week 12 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week saw me at last finishing my Blue Prince adventures, which I am not ashamed to admit concluded with me looking up a whole lot of answers that I would never, ever have figured out myself. The game passed the point of what I’d consider a “reasonably achievable deduction” with the introduction of the “A New Clue” book, but I still enjoyed a more guided ride through the conclusion, and can’t really fault the game for culminating in puzzles no mortal mind could comprehend. The game’s balance of increasingly tamable roguelike runs and larger meta-puzzles is truly a magical combination; I imagine its appeal will be forever limited by its demanding nature, but for me, Blue Prince is already a pantheon property. Anyway, we’ve also got some films to get through, so let’s charge right into the Week in Review!
Spring 2025 – Week 11 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been unfortunately jonesing for some goddamn Dungeons & Dragons, as our third campaign party is suffering from scheduling issues, while our second campaign has currently run through all of my written material. It’s becoming hard at this point to imagine how I actually managed a weekly quest-writing schedule back during the main campaign; these days it generally takes me a few months to write an arc that will only take us around five sessions, so I’ve clearly got to achieve a better complexity balance for my own sake. In the meantime, I’ve been hacking diligently away at Blue Prince, and just recently reclaimed the throne of Orindia. Still not sure if the game actually has a “finish line” or not, but my passion for drafting mansions has not wavered, so I guess we’ll find out. But for now, let’s turn our focus to other matters, and burn down the week in films!
Spring 2025 – Week 10 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been balancing work, personal creative writing, Blue Prince runs, and further episodes of Dimension 20, as I munch through its second, fantasy New York-set season. After watching so much Critical Role, I’m feeling a little foolish about only now checking in on the work of a dungeon master whose style and priorities are so much closer to my own. Basically everything I have issues with regarding Matt Mercer’s style is resolved by Brennan Lee Mulligan, who shares my preference for more direct, narrative-driven sagas where player agency is exercised through the moment-to-moment action, rather than through choosing their approach to an entire continent’s worth of potential conflicts. It’s a far more cinematic, propulsive approach that allows for significantly more coherent character arcs, and has me taking all sorts of mental notes regarding player direction and NPC construction. I’ll likely have more to say on that later, but for now, let’s quit with the dilly-dallying and get to the week in films!
Spring 2025 – Week 9 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been balancing work priorities against the duel sirens of Blue Prince and Balatro, each of which would dash me against the rocks and drag me down to a briny doom if I gave them even the slightest inch. It is exceedingly easy for me to get addicted to roguelikes, but with both a fast-paced pump-up roguelike in Balatro and a meditative cooldown roguelike in Blue Prince, I could theoretically balance my energy between them indefinitely, living forever within a mixture of labyrinthian manors and outrageous poker combos. I’m even seriously considering constructing my own Pepe Silvia board of Blue Prince family relations, all so I can… I dunno, unlock a door holding a key that unlocks a different door? It’s dire out here, but fortunately our film screenings have continued unabated, alongside regular Dimension 20 episodes that are seriously opening my third eye regarding dungeon mastering possibilities. Let’s get to the films!
Spring 2025 – Week 8 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m back from vacation and back on the grind, churning through episodes of Shoushimin Series as I work to once more be up to date on every single Current Project. The series is proving to be even more compelling than I anticipated, a sharp-edged variation on Hyouka that possesses many of its predecessor’s strengths alongside a few new tricks of its own. My housemates have also introduced me to Balatro, which was very reckless and cruel of them, as the game is designed to tickle basically every obsessive game-design bone in my body. So I’m basically drafting a storm engine in the form of a poker deck, where even playing out a winning hand improves my combo pieces? Fucked up stuff, people. Anyway, let’s get to some films!
Spring 2025 – Week 7 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’m out and about with my mother and sisters, going on our first family trip since well before the COVID lockdown. It’s refreshing to be out of my cozy den for once, though with my Playstation back at the apartment, I am now grappling with the agonizing question of whether I pick up Blue Prince on Steam just so I can keep shuffling through manor layouts. The game’s just too damn addictive! I’ve basically broken the economy through exploitation of experiments, I’m just one fortunate run away from defeating the chess puzzle, and my housemate is surely getting further ahead of me with every misspent hour. Still, I’m at least getting some solid reading done (just finished Michael Dylan Foster’s informative yokai index, and am now starting on Titus Groan), and my movie review buffer means there will be no disruptions in service regarding our weekly breakdowns. So let’s get right on that then, and charge through some fresh films!
Spring 2025 – Week 6 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been keeping busy by tormenting my players as usual, as they continue their trek through a temple that has swiftly proven itself some sort of cult initiation center, demanding personal revelations and demonstrations of faith and trust fall-adjacent exercises all the while. It’s the sort of concept that demands a party who have total confidence in both their characters and their ability to embody them, making for a nice payoff now that we’re mostly communicating in character voice, rather than above-table strategizing. I basically snuck the whole Nadeko-reassembly arc in as a way to fill out my own player character’s psychology, and am proud to report my players greatly enjoyed reassembling her psyche one fragment of identity at a time. And of course, there was also plenty of movie screening to be had, as I charged through anime and kaiju collections alike. Let’s get to it!