At first, I really pushed back against the climbing simulator game Cairn wanting to tell me an emotional story.

To be fair, some of that initial trepidation towards Cairn's narrative elements may have been my fault. I didn’t really engage much with the game’s preview material outside of knowing it was a game where you were climbing a mountain. And that’s basically all I wanted from my Cairn experience—a virtual simulation of an extreme outdoor sport that I have long been interested in but have zero desire of attempting in real life.

When I sat down to play Cairn on my PlayStation 5, I did get that experience. The developers at The Game Bakers have done an exceptional job crafting an outdoor climbing game that, while perhaps not an entirely realistic portrayal of the activity (it is still a video game, after all), certainly feels authentic to the spirit of the sport. Climbing routes need to be meticulously mapped out and hand/footholds thoughtfully selected. Your vitals and the elements are a constant consideration. And long stretches of meditative flow state climbing are broken up by sharp moments of panic as disaster—and the prospect of losing the last twenty minutes of gameplay—suddenly sneaks up on you.

Cairn gave me all of those things. Plus a pretty art style and the chance to catch up on some podcasts while gaming. What I didn’t expect from this game was ending up in a place where I cared so much about my character and this mountain.

Let’s start by discussing Cairn’s setting. Mount Kami is the fictional mountain you are attempting to summit in this game, and from the moment the camera first pans up to unveil its towering majesty, I knew I was in for the climb of my life. I expected daunting slabs of rock and drops so severe they should produce an album of EDM tracks. What I didn’t expect was the near spiritual connection I ended up forming with this peak across my playthrough of Cairn.

Mount Kami is dotted with the remains of past human activity—from the scattered equipment of previous summit attempts to the ruins of a bygone alpine civilisation. In many ways, it is a mountain of memories, containing the faint echoes of those who have lived and died on its slopes.

I loved how Cairn often presents you with the choice of which landmark you’d like to climb to during your ascent. Whether it’s an old chairlift station or a cave opening, I was intrigued to visit these areas of interest—not just to gather more items for my backpack, but to learn about how they relate to the mountain and the people who once inhabited them. Of course, I could have just spent more time climbing up and down Mount Kami to explore every inch of the mountain. But I find it fitting how, even after rolling credits, there are still secrets left on that peak, awaiting my next climb.

One of the most fascinating elements of Cairn is how it unashamedly presents its protagonist, Aava, as being rather unlikeable. She is an experienced climber who has long considered summiting Mount Kami as being her ultimate mission. It’s the moment her entire career has been building towards and nothing—not her agent, not other climbers, not even her own partner—will stop her from achieving this seemingly impossible goal. She will either reach the top of Mount Kami, or die trying.

Aava’s stubborn determination is portrayed as being single-minded and even a little self-destructive. These aren’t the traditional character traits you expect to find in a main character of a video game, but they are relatable ones and honestly quite refreshing.

I found Aava’s struggle with carrying on with her ultimate dream while damaging her relationships with her loved ones to be a powerful character arc to follow. I ended up empathising with her unshakeable need to summit Mount Kami, no matter the cost. It’s a powerful journey that revealed far more to me about human nature than I could have ever anticipated when I first started playing Cairn.

When I first caught on to the fact that Cairn was trying to get me to emotionally connect to its setting and character, I resisted. I just wanted this fun and challenging rock climbing simulator to continue as exactly that. But just like with Aava’s journey ascending Mount Kami, with each new step of the narrative that I was presented with, the more I felt comfortable soaking in all its beauty.

Have you played Cairn yet? What are your thoughts on the game? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Playing This Week

Two obscure retro games my Dad loved

It’s my Dad’s birthday this Friday. Birthdays are important to me, and his hasn’t lost its significance since he died. Arguably, quite the opposite. I think about him every day, but even more so in April, one month of the year when he and I had our best adventures together…

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a day ago · 9 likes · Katya Ryabova

I found this personal essay from Katya from Playing This Week to be a really moving account of family and gaming and how the two are often more intertwined than we first realise. A powerful read that I took a lot away from.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Ah, the metroidvania.

Gaming’s favourite portmanteau. Perhaps the only genre that predominately operates in 2D that has actually grown in popularity this century. This is the realm of locked doors and the keys that open them. Sprawling, blue-squared maps that slowly reveal themselves with time and knowledge. Devastating boss battles and punishing platforming. Items and weapons and secrets and mysteries galore.

Oh, how I love a good metroidvania. And I’ve played plenty of great ones in my day as well. Long ones, short ones, colourful ones, moody ones, thinkers, thumb-breakers, candlestick makers, and also Disney Illusion Island (which I actually think is an excellent entry-level metroidvania, but which sadly doesn’t quite make this list).

So I decided it would be fun to list my seven favourite metroidvanias. Why seven? Well… I don’t really know. When I sat down to write this list, I sifted through all the metroidvanias I had ever played and ended up with a shortlist of the ones I truly love. And that just happened to be seven. As a meta game, feel free to assign each entry to one of the seven deadly sins if you so feel inclined!

One game per franchise—otherwise this list would be bloated by the genre’s two namesakes.

And before the pitchforks come out, I should probably clarify that while I have started Hollow Knight, I have yet to finish it and therefore would feel uncomfortable placing it on this list just yet. I know. I’m a disgrace to my country.

7. Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse

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Consider Gilius Thunderhead.

The greatest fighter that was ever bred.

Let no other rival’s name even be said.

For none compare to Gilius Thunderhead.

The green dwarf from Golden Axe

whose might and power know no match.

His weapon of choice is sure to go whack!

Not golden, mind you, but a silver axe.

Jump

jump

jump

little Gilius.

Jump and land your killing blow.

The only method to fell a foe.

To bring the minions of Death Adder

a wave of woe.

Gilius’s helmet is adorned

with horns—

a warning

to the scorning.

Worn by the mourning: Gilius.

His only relative, Garī, slain.

His tears thick as rain.

Oh, the pain

for this soul,

this character,

this human,

this dwarf.

Neither Tyris Flare nor Ax Battler hold a candle

to the one fighter who can handle

the emotional weight of this daunting quest.

You can forget about the rest.

Gilius is up for the test.

The greatest video game character can attest

to the history of a medium that had been building up

to this.

He has head of thunder

and clothes of green.

Axe of silver

and beard filthy.

He is the greatest video game character

to ever exist.

And when else,

than on April 1st

can we celebrate Gilius Thunderhead

for the magnum opus

that he is.

Please don’t unsubscribe :)

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Your party of heroes have been all but decimated.

Three of them are already dead and your final character barely has enough remaining Hit Points to survive an enemy’s sneeze. But you must push on. Because just over the hill, you see the condensed model of a nearby town, shining on the overworld map like a beacon of hope. If you can just make it there, then everything will be okay. You can heal, you can regroup, and you can venture forth once again. So long as there’s no more pesky random battles between now and the safety of that town, this JRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game) has yet to conquer you.

I don’t know if this is a controversial opinion or not, but towns1 have always been my favourite parts of JRPGs. The reason I say that in a hushed tone is because when compared to the other two main sections of a traditional JRPG’s world—the field (or the overworld) and the dungeons—towns typically see the least amount of action. It’s a fact: battles don’t happen in JRPG towns nearly as much as in the field and dungeons. This strips these locations of a core gameplay layer that can leave them feeling like a place solely dedicated to restocking on health potions and talking to some annoying NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) in-between the real game.

So why do I love JRPG towns so much—often finding them to be the quiet achiever as far as settings go in many of the games I have played in this genre? Well, let’s gather at our local inn, grab a few hearty beverages, and discuss some of the reasons while the travelling bard plucks away a jaunty tune.

Let’s begin by acknowledging that the traditional limitations associated with JRPG towns mentioned above can actually be strengths when viewed from a different perspective. Yes, a lot of towns in a lot of these games have less battling and bombast than in the monster-ridden fields and dungeons. And yet, that’s precisely why I find towns to be such a refreshing change of pace when compared to other stretches of gameplay in a JRPG.

Moments of action need to be balanced out with moments of calm, otherwise they begin to lose their sense of excitement. One element of a great JRPG is how it can manipulate the player’s emotions to rise and fall across its typically lengthy playtime, and towns play a huge role in that. Entering a town in a JRPG is your chance to catch your breath and recharge after dealing with a barrage of enemy encounters. It’s a pause—a fleeting and necessary respite before you feel ready to step outside the safety of the town’s walls once again.

Of course, there have been plenty of JRPGs throughout history that cruelly subvert the town’s expected status as a place of peace. One of the most powerful examples that comes to mind is Ryube Village from Suikoden II. This serene settlement becomes your go-to destination for rest and restocking during the early hours of the game, cementing it as a reliable sanctuary from the war that’s spreading chaos elsewhere. Sadly, that war eventually finds its way to the leafy borders of Ryube, destroying both the village and its inhabitants, signalling that in Suikoden II, nowhere is truly safe.

Stories need people to drive them forward, and in a JRPG—as is the case in real life—if you’re looking for people, you should start by looking in a town or city. Yes, there’s the cliché as old as time (or, at least, like 1985-ish?) that a town NPC in a JRPG will say the same sentence over and over again as if they’re trapped in a time loop. Naturally, this cliché came about due to the limited memory space of older games, but the fact that the NPC is saying something at all is still indicative of a town’s greater purpose in a JRPG’s narrative.

These are the locations where the bulk of the game’s story takes place. Not all of it, mind you, as I’m well aware that key dramatic moments in JRPGs often take place at the climax of their dungeons. But the setup for that moment probably happened in a town. It’s here that you receive the quest, where you learn more about your characters’ purpose, where the greater narrative is further contextualised so that you find yourself caring more.

Towns also do a lot of the heavy lifting for the worldbuilding in a JRPG. Wandering through the streets of a JRPG town or city is where you’ll learn more about the culture, people, society, beliefs, and customs of this virtual world. Talking to NPCs may reveal prejudices or secrets that reframe your understanding of the world, or simply looking at the surrounding architecture can signal a lot about the town’s class, culture, and religion. If stories need people to drive them forward, then towns are the hotbed for narrative in a JRPG.

The final point I want to make about why I love JRPG towns so much has to do with their music. You don’t need me to tell you that this genre of games has a pretty high bar for its soundtracks, yet JRPG town themes usually don’t get as much attention as other tracks. While overworld themes are routinely adventurous, battle music adrenaline-pumping, and dungeon tunes filled with an air of danger, town themes are often defined by their relaxing, homely vibes. All I’m saying is that there are few better ways to lock in during a stressful work task than to have the Kingdom Hearts “Traverse Town” theme playing on repeat in the background.

My Top 10 Favourite JRPG Towns

Now that I have outlined why I think towns in JRPGs are kind of the best, I thought it would be fun to list my ten favourite (one per franchise, otherwise there’d be like six from just the Trails series on here):

1. Goldpaw – Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom: There are so many memorable towns in the Ni no Kuni duology, but my jaw literally dropped the first time my party entered the bustling, neon-lit streets of Goldpaw. Such a striking aesthetic and its culture of leaving everything up to the roll of a dice has always stuck with me.

2. The Kingdom of Zeal – Chrono Trigger: An iconic location from an iconic game. The Kingdom of Zeal is pure magic realised in 16-bit.

3. Fourside – Earthbound: The New York influence really makes this city stand out in Earthbound, and its dark “Moonside” counterpart is one of the more surreal moments in a game that isn’t short on them.

4. Alcamoth – Xenoblade Chronicles: I clearly have a thing for floating cities in JRPGs. Alcamoth gives me strong Coruscant vibes, with a neo-futuristic grandeur that always gives me chills.

5. Grancel – Trails in the Sky: It wasn’t easy choosing only one town from the Trails games, but in the end, I had to go with the capital of the Liberl Kingdom, Grancel. Mostly because the best chapters from both Trails in the Sky games take place in this sprawling metropolis.

6. Celestia – Radiant Historia: In a game filled with large, industrial military cities, the magical forest village of Celestia really leaves a strong impression.

7. Aiedo – Phantasy Star IV: I will always be obsessed with the fact that Aiedo has two weapon shops. Two! For a town in a 16-bit JRPG, there’s a lot of fun little details dotted around Aiedo.

8. Buccanham – Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past: I’ve said it before, but Buccanham has both the darkest and the most gripping story arc out of all the towns in Dragon Quest VII.

9. Dali – Final Fantasy IX: The quintessential cosy JRPG town in my mind. Out of all the towns on this list, Dali is the one I would most want to live in myself.

10. Caldislia – Bravely Default: An excellent starting city for Bravely Default that sets the adventurous tone for the rest of the game.

What are some of your favourite towns in JRPGs? More importantly, what are some of your favourite JRPG town musical themes? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Infinite Lives

Inside the Australian videogame magazine Kickstarter that raised over $70,000 in a week

Like most business ideas on the internet, it all began as a chat thread…

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23 days ago · 19 likes · 3 comments · Harrison Polites

No other Substack writer covers the Australian gaming scene better than Harrison from Infinite Lives. That’s why I was so thrilled he got to chat with Mark Serrels and Jackson Ryan about their wildly successful Kickstarter for CONTINUE?—a new magazine that seeks to pump some life back into the withered Australian games media landscape.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

A month ago, I published the article “Why I Write About Video Games” and asked my paid subscribers to comment any questions they had for me.

The plan was to answer these questions one by one in future paid articles, starting with “The First Great Antihero in Video Games”… a plan that I immediately forgot about!

To make up for my poor memory, I have dedicated today’s article solely to responding to that initial batch of questions that were so thoughtfully asked by my paid subscribers. I’ll be shouting out some of my favourite writers in video games, revealing what I do for work when I’m not putting together this Substack, and exploring a myriad of other great questions!

And if you have signed up to be a paid subscriber to The Video Game Storyteller, feel free to ask whatever questions you want in the comments of this post. Fingers crossed, I’ll stick to my original plan this time!

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I sat down with my wonderful wife, Virág, to have a chat about, well, all sorts of fun things!

Virág may not be a massive gamer, but she has certainly dabbled in them and has a lot of interesting thoughts about the art form, their storytelling potential, and how they fit into her life. We also discussed what it’s like being married to someone who writes about video games on a weekly basis, what narrative designers can learn from theatre, who her favourite Animal Crossing villagers are, the personal attachment she has to the game Boggle, and a lot about Glee.

Hope you enjoy, New Directioners! And a five, six, seven, eight!

HARRY: How would you describe your relationship to video games?

VIRÁG: My relationship to video games is that I married a video gamer who writes a Substack about them (laughs).

All jokes aside, I do genuinely love video games. I respect them for what they are. I think it’s amazing that there is an art form like video games that can take so many different shapes. You have narrative-driven games, RPGs, cosy games, puzzle games. There are so many different ways to experience them and interact with them. That variety is really cool.

HARRY: Can you walk me through your history with video games?

VIRÁG: I grew up with a Nintendo DS. I still have my pink Nintendo DS covered in Glee stickers, which I think says a lot about me.

One of the first games I played was Nintendogs, where I had a pet Labrador. I now have a real-life pet Labrador, so maybe video games predict the future. I also played a lot of Animal Crossing: Wild World. I loved it so much. I loved visiting my friends’ towns and seeing what everyone had built.

And then there were the High School Musical DS games. One of them was basically a rhythm game where you had to hit buttons along to songs from the first movie. There was also a High School Musical 2 game, although I cannot remember that one as well, probably because it wasn’t as good.

HARRY: Question without notice: what’s your favourite video game of all time?

VIRÁG: Animal Crossing: New Horizons is definitely up there. There is something so cosy and charming about that game. I am also very protective of my favourite villagers, Octavian and Lucky.

But honestly, the Glee karaoke games on the Wii would also be strong contenders. I would sing those for hours, probably annoying the neighbours.

And I cannot leave out Just Dance. I was very competitive with that game. When I was in high school, I would wake up early, play half an hour of Just Dance in marathon mode, then shower, put on my uniform, have my coffee, and catch the train to school. That was my morning routine.

HARRY: If you had to make a Glee video game in 2026, what would it look like?

VIRÁG: That is such a brilliant question. I think the game would be set in the choir room and it would take place in the period between Regionals and Nationals. So, it would follow the characters and all the chaos that happens during those months.

Sue Sylvester would obviously play a major role—how could she not?

There would also be a lot of singing mechanics where you would have to hit buttons in time to help the characters perform their songs. But I think the most fun element would be making it a choose-your-own-adventure-style game. Players could influence the characters’ decisions, the songs they perform, and the paths their stories take.

HARRY: Recently you have become obsessed with the mobile phone version of Boggle. Why has that become such an important part of your daily routine?

VIRÁG: I think it is nostalgia mixed with grief.

I used to play Boggle with my Nagyi. For those unfamiliar with the term, Nagyi is one of the Hungarian words we use for grandmother. She was really the matriarch of our family.

She passed away a number of years ago now, but when I was younger, we played Boggle together all the time.

Then one day we were listening to a podcast and one of the presenters mentioned that she starts her morning by playing Boggle on her phone. I had no idea there was an app version, so of course I downloaded it.

I think word games are just really joyful. Words are fun. I feel like Wordle brought word games back into the cultural conversation, and I also got extremely competitive with that.

There was a point early in our relationship when Harry and I were living in different places and we would text each other about our Wordle scores every morning. If one of us solved it in fewer guesses than the other, the competition was very real.

Playing a word puzzle is also just a great way to wake your brain up.

HARRY: When friends come over, we often end up playing the cooperative puzzle platformer Pico Park on the Switch. How would you describe your play style in that game?

VIRÁG: (Laughs) I am absolutely the mum friend.

There was one level where we were playing with Harry, his sister and her husband, my cousin and her partner. It was one of those auto-scrolling levels where the screen keeps moving whether you are ready or not.

I was at the front of the group and needed to press a button to trigger a platform so everyone else could cross. And I stopped and asked everyone, very politely, “Is everyone ready for me to move?”

The other five players started yelling, “Move! It is auto-scrolling!”

That moment probably describes not only my gaming persona but my personality in general. I like to make sure everyone is ready before I move forward.

HARRY: You work in theatre as a director, actor, educator, and playwright. Do you see any similarities between storytelling in theatre and storytelling in video games?

VIRÁG: Yes, absolutely. Both art forms rely heavily on storytelling, genre, and character. The core goal is still to engage an audience and take them on a narrative journey.

The main difference is the medium. Video game storytelling takes place through a screen and often through player interaction. Theatre happens live in front of you on a stage.

I do think immersive theatre has grown a lot over the past few years, and that growth probably reflects the influence of video game culture. If you are not familiar with immersive theatre, it means the audience moves through the performance space and chooses which characters or storylines to follow. You might walk through a warehouse or a building where different rooms contain different scenes.

Harry and I were very lucky to see a production by Punchdrunk in London, which is one of the leading immersive theatre companies in the world. The show was called The Burnt City, and it explored stories connected to the myths around the fall of Troy.

Experiences like that feel very similar to moving through a narrative-driven video game.

HARRY: What could video game writers and narrative designers learn from theatre?

VIRÁG: I think theatre is very strong when it comes to character. Good theatre creates characters that feel incredibly rich and real, often within ninety minutes or less. There is an economy of storytelling that forces writers to be very intentional.

The video games I love most also have beautifully written characters and stories you can become invested in.

So, if you are writing for games, it is probably worth going to the theatre and seeing how a playwright builds emotional connection with and between characters in such a concentrated timeframe and setting.

HARRY: What is it like being married to a gamer?

VIRÁG: Well, how much time do you have?

Let me start by saying I do not really know anything else because I have only ever been married to a gamer. Maybe I need to get divorced just to compare experiences (laughs).

There are nights when I want to relax in bed together and read or listen to a podcast, and Harry is in the lounge room playing a game instead. But I also think it is lovely to be with someone whose main hobby involves engaging with stories. My equivalent hobby is reading. I love books. There is nothing quite like finding a story you can disappear into. I imagine that discovering an incredible video game must feel very similar

HARRY: Any final thoughts you’d like to share with the readers of The Video Game Storyteller?

VIRÁG: My gift to the readers is the following information about Harry.

First, Harry is a massive pop culture girly. He listens to countless podcasts about pop culture and can tell you everything from Club Chalamet lore to the entire behind-the-scenes saga surrounding the film Don’t Worry Darling.

Second, Harry is a massive Swiftie. He could probably recite most of the surprise songs from the Eras Tour set list. Taylor Swift is easily one of the most listened-to artists in our household.

Third, Harry is actually a really good cook. Take from that what you will.

Fourth, Harry thinks that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a Christmas movie. It is not a Christmas movie as the movie does not take place during Christmas time. It has a scene set at Christmas, which takes up about 5% of the movie. It’s a wholesome movie, which one can consume at any point throughout the year, not just at Christmas. Most of my Play on Stage students have my back on this one…

And finally, I suspect that Glee is secretly Harry’s Roman Empire. He knows more about that show than he lets on.

I will never confirm nor deny any of those statements.

Thanks to Virág for agreeing to do this interview. And THANK YOU for reading!

Do you think Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a Christmas movie? Who are your favourite Animal Crossing villagers? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

The 8-Bit Perspective

Under the Influence: Metroid and Me Part 2

“Under the Influence” explores aspects of a game or series that influenced my perspective on video games. Details regarding specific years that something took place may be a bit wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. It is rather difficult to remember details I didn’t think I’d ever write about until today. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey…

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25 days ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · Jamie Alston

The 8-Bit Perspective explores their journey with Metroid, and what the game’s difficulty and obtuse nature taught them about gaming in general. I love reading these kinds of personal reflections on games of our past and this one certainly resonated.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

How would you define a video game spin-off? It’s not an easy thing to nail down, is it?

After all, you could make the argument that Mario Kart, Persona, Resident Evil: Revelations, Metal Gear Rising, and Donkey Kong Country are all video game spin-offs. And yet, there’s very little correlation between how each of those games relate to and branch off from their parent series. Unlike other commonly used terms in gaming like “sequel”, “prequel”, “remake”, “remaster”, or “reboot” that each have fairly established parameters we can (mostly) agree on, “spin-off” is a lot more open to interpretation.

A subgenre of video game spin-offs—or, a spin-off of a spin-off, if you’d prefer—that I believe is easier to outline is that of the portable spin-off. These were the games specifically made as side projects for a handheld system to help spread the reach of its home console and/or PC mainline series. These were The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the Game Boy and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP. Metroid Fusion for the GBA and Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe for the Game Gear.

I speak in past tense as the portable spin-off doesn’t really exist anymore as traditional handheld game systems have largely gone the way of the dinosaurs. I suppose the modern-day equivalent would be smaller mobile spin-offs of large series, but I’d hardly compare a loot box-engulfed Sonic endless runner to Sonic Advance for the GBA. Which is a shame because, at its best, the portable spin-off resulted in some of the most vivid, weird, experimental, and high-quality games to come from some of the medium’s most iconic franchises.

And twenty years on, Daxter is still as good a portable spin-off that’s ever been made.

Developed by the sadly-now-defunct Ready at Dawn Studios for the PlayStation Portable in 2006, Daxter was designed to be one of the killer apps for the system during that year. The Jak and Daxter series was arguably at the height of its popularity and Sony was keen to give fans a new game that also fulfilled the PSP’s promise of being a PS2 in your hands. Naughty Dog was already busy working on the first Uncharted by this point, so the project was handed over to Ready at Dawn—a studio that was, in part, made up of former Naughty Dog employees who already knew a thing or two about how to make a Jak and Daxter game.

You could technically label Daxter a “midquel” given the game takes place during the two-year gap present in Jak II’s opening cutscene. A quick recap of said cutscene: Jak, Daxter, Keira, and Samos all get separated after flying through a mysterious portal that sees them crashing into Haven City. Jak is immediately arrested by the Krimzon Guard and undergoes a gruelling two-year imprisonment where he’s injected with Dark Eco, overcomes his mutism, and, most crucially, grows a goatee. You would think Daxter would immediately spring into action to save his best friend, right? Well…

Daxter’s opening cutscene begins with a rather comical monologue from Samos about how “behind every great hero, there is always a wisecracking, obnoxious, nincompoop”, before we cut to the game’s titular character telling one of his signature tall tales in a Haven City bar. Critically, he appears very unconcerned about the fate of the still-incarcerated Jak. Daxter’s bravado does capture the attention of Osmo, a kindly bug exterminator who is looking for a new employee—and the job opening is perfect for everyone’s favourite Ottsel.

The single best decision that Daxter makes as a portable spin-off is that it doesn’t try to be a scaled-down Jak game. Now, of course, from a literal perspective, there are elements of Daxter that are scaled down from the main series owing to the height difference in protagonists and enemy types, not to mention the fact we have moved from home consoles to a handheld system. What I mean is that Daxter feels like his own unique playable character, separate from the confines of Jak’s moveset (unlike the short sections in Jak II and 3 where Daxter played like a mini-Jak clone), and the game’s design reflects this approach.

Yes, Daxter is another 3D platformer like the rest of the series. But find me another J&D game where you use a fly swatter and spray gun as your main tools for combat and traversal. Daxter’s bug exterminating equipment in this game feels so finely tuned to the enemies and level design, that it echoes Nintendo’s renowned philosophy of squeezing as much creative juice as possible from just a handful of mechanics.

I especially adore the spray gun and how versatile it is as an aerosol-based wonder machine for damaging bugs, gliding over long distances, solving puzzles, and having attachments that genuinely add to its inventiveness. Chaining together a series of spray glides to cover a huge gap before barbequing a bunch of insects with the flame attachment is as satisfying a sequence of gameplay as you will find in any 3D platformer. The mechanical creativity of the tool—not to mention its technical execution by the Ready at Dawn developers—is the kind of thing you could build an entire series around, let alone a one-and-done PSP offshoot.

The level design and setting of Daxter also deserves special praise. Like the second and third Jak games, Daxter is set in Haven City. Yet I find this game to be far more playful in its choice of level locations when compared to those other depictions of the city, likely as an intentional choice to match this spin-off’s lighter tone. There are still some gritty urban settings—such as a metro station and fish cannery. But you’ll also visit a lush valley, an opulent hotel, and a brewery dripping in rustic charm.

While many of the levels are progressed in a linear fashion, a handful of them do open up a bit more. In particular, the Strip Mine and Lumber Mill levels offer enough player choice in direction that they wouldn’t look out of place in The Precursor Legacy. Regardless of their design, I find the vast majority of stages in Daxter to be a blast to play through, each bringing their own imaginative spin on gameplay—whether that’s jumping between zooming trains in a crammed underground railway or controlling a hovercraft while navigating picturesque islets.

All of these wonderful settings are brought to life through Daxter’s delightful art style, which I would say sits somewhere between a traditional Jak game and Sly Cooper. It’s certainly more stylistic and livelier than the more muted colours of the later Jak titles, really complementing Daxter’s more exuberant personality as a protagonist. The same can be said for the game’s soundtrack which—not sure if this is controversial or not—is my favourite in the entire series. The music of Daxter bounces along with a cartoony vibrancy that always fills me with a great sense of whimsy. There are so many wonderful tracks, but the highlights for me are the Brewery Theme and Strip Mine Theme.

If there is one noticeable weak element of Daxter, it would be the game’s story. Not a lot happens between Daxter’s decision to become a bug exterminator and his eventual quest to save Jak—although these two story threads are more linked than what they first appear. I don’t mind the lighter focus on plot too much, as we already know how Daxter’s journey will end given the game released three years after Jak II. And I’m okay with a portable spin-off focusing more on Daxter’s whacky shenanigans than on any real deep character analysis.

Speaking of characters, while there are a few familiar faces from other Jak games here, I actually got really attached to all the new additions as well. All except for the main villain, who is so unmemorable I cannot even be bothered to look up his name. But the aforementioned Osmo, his surfer-dude son Ximon, and the feisty Taryn each make for excellent scene partners to Daxter’s ever-captivating demeanour. It’s a shame there was hardly any J&D media post-Daxter for these characters to make a potential return.

Sony wanted Daxter to be a killer app for the PSP, and for the most part, that’s exactly what they got. The game sold millions of copies and was a critical darling upon release, setting up Ready at Dawn for a fruitful relationship with the PSP that would result in a pair of stellar God of War games, each of which are equally among the crème de la crème of portable spin-offs.

So why do I feel like Daxter hardly gets a mention two decades after its successful launch? I think part of the reason has to do with the general cultural erosion of the Jak and Daxter series. There’s also the fact that the other PSP J&D game, 2009’s The Lost Frontier (developed by High Impact Games), was so bad, it kind of engulfed a lot of the good will established by Daxter. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if Daxter has fallen victim to the same thing that many portable spin-offs do: it’s simply not a mainline game and therefore unworthy of much praise beyond a pat on the back and a patronising “good job”.

I believe Daxter is close to a perfect video game portable spin-off, capturing the essence of its main series while making several bold gameplay decisions that all pay off to establish its own brilliant, beautiful identity (I haven’t even mentioned the fun dream sequences that parody movies such as Braveheart and The Matrix!). Yet maybe I’m also part of the problem by boxing the game in with labels such as “portable spin-off”. Because before anything else, Daxter is a joyous gaming experience that any fan of the J&D series or 3D platformers should play. And I hope that in another twenty years’ time, that will be the legacy the game is remembered for.

Do you have any memories of Daxter? What are some of your favourite portable spin-offs in video games? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Mindful Gamer

An Unexpected Pause in Play

When I fell, the first thing I did was what most of us do instinctively. I put my hand out to catch myself…

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a month ago · 16 likes · 6 comments · Mindful Gamer

Wow. I mean really, wow. This is such a beautifully crafted article from the Mindful Gamer about the effects of physical injury on their gaming experience and the things many of us take for granted by participating in this hobby. Personal, powerful, yet also filled with the sensitivity that the topic demands. I could not recommend more highly!

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Everyone loves an antihero.

The morally ambiguous protagonist. The Byronic figure. The brooding, conflicted force of neither good nor evil. They walk the line and keep to their own code, performing questionable acts that may or may not be in the best interest of their so-called “allies”. Yes, they can be problematic. And, yes, they may actually end up saving the day. But you can never count on what their next move will be. Because they’re just as likely to rescue you from certain doom as they are to put a knife in your back.

They’re Batman and Heathcliff. Hamlet and Michael Corleone. Arya Stark and Catwoman and I guess Taylor Swift? You can find antiheroes scattered throughout all forms of fiction, including literature, theatre, film, television, comics, and yes, also video games. Because the only thing more fun than witnessing an antihero in action is getting to play as one.

There’s a long, proud tradition of antiheroes in gaming that stretches back at least to the golden age of the arcade in the early eighties. After all, the titular villain of 1981’s Donkey Kong would later appear as the lovably snarky Cranky Kong in Donkey Kong Country. But those early years of gaming were often light on story elements, as limited memory storage restricted developers from infusing their characters with any significant level of depth or nuance. And if there’s one thing a memorable antihero needs, it’s depth and nuance.

In order to examine the first “great” antihero in video games, we’re skipping forward a little bit to the early nineties. To the 16-bit era when cartridge memory was big enough for writers to cram more than a handful of paragraphs of text into games. All of a sudden, characters in video games had personalities and arcs and complexities that went beyond their physical design and bio in the game’s manual. The stage was set for a video game antihero to step… well, not into the spotlight, but somewhere in between the spotlight and the shadows. And of course it happened in a Final Fantasy game.

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Hi, everyone!

Many of you know me as a guy who writes about video games on the internet with too many opinions on the God of War series (I honestly didn’t hate the Amazon promo pic as much as everyone else). However, what you may not know is that I wear quite a few different hats as a writer. One of those hats is as a playwright—something that I’ve briefly mentioned on this Substack before, but never in great detail.

Well, I’m excited to announce that my incredible wife’s Brisbane theatre company, Play on Stage, has been the successful recipient of the Australian Cultural Fund’s Boost Grant. What this means is that over the next couple of months, we are undertaking a fundraising program to help fund an upcoming play that I will be writing and my wife will be directing. Tentatively titled The Bookshop Clique, this original work will tell the story of a group of young people as their lives are changed by a mysterious bookshop that always has the perfect read.

The ACF will be matching every donation up to $5000, which essentially doubles the value of any dollar that comes our way. It’s a great opportunity for us to fund original youth theatre—an enterprise that is hardly renowned for its profitability. If you want to check out the fundraising page that goes into more detail about the project, you can visit it here.

As a published playwright, I thought it would be fun to have this week of The Video Game Storyteller focus on a little gaming-centric play I have written. I published a short story on this Substack soon after I reached 100 subscribers last year, and now that I have passed 500 subscribers (albeit, a while ago now), I figured why not post some more fiction 😊

This short, one-act play is called Buying a Video Game in 2026. It is intended for two performers and has a run time of approximately five-to-seven minutes. It’s also entirely unserious and just something I had fun putting together over this past week. Hope you enjoy and feel free to grab a buddy and perform it yourself!

Buying a Video Game in 2026

By Harry Fritsch

CHARACTERS:

CUSTOMER (Male/Female)
WORKER (Male/Female)

A video game store in 2026. The WORKER is behind the counter with a laptop on it, aimlessly doomscrolling on their phone, hardly paying attention to the largely empty store around them. CUSTOMER enters looking a bit out of their depth and flustered, before walking up to the counter.

CUSTOMER: (Tapping the counter) Excuse me?

WORKER looks up from their phone.

WORKER: Hi. How can I help you?

CUSTOMER: I just wanted to pick up a copy of Curse of the Demon Lord.

WORKER: Ah, yes. The remake, I’m assuming.

CUSTOMER: (Bemused) Do you still sell the one from the nineties?

Awkward pause before the WORKER forces out a chuckle. They put their phone down and begin looking something up on the laptop.

WORKER: Okie dokie, let’s see. Which edition would you like?

CUSTOMER: Like, which system?

WORKER: Which system and which edition?

CUSTOMER: Er, the Switch edition.

WORKER: And would that be the Witch Edition?

CUSTOMER: Which edition?

WORKER: The Witch Edition.

CUSTOMER: For the Switch system?

WORKER: (Looking at their laptop) Which now that I’ve switched to this new system, I can see we have actually sold out of the Switch Witch Edition. My apologies. We still have copies available of the Day Zero edition for the Switch.

CUSTOMER: Day zero? Like, what, did it come out yesterday or something?

WORKER: Yesterday was the release day of Curse of the Demon Lord.

CUSTOMER: So, day zero was the day before that?

WORKER: No, day zero was also yesterday.

CUSTOMER: (Scratching their head) But that would make today day one, yeah?

WORKER: By that logic, yes. Today would be day one. Would you like to know what’s included in the Day Zero edition?

CUSTOMER checks their watch and is noticeably getting more and more impatient.

CUSTOMER: Look, I’ve really got somewhere to be/

WORKER: I promise this won’t take too much time. I just thought you might like to know what you’re purchasing.

CUSTOMER: Umm, okay. Sure. Tell me what’s in the Day Zero edition.

WORKER clears their throat and begins reading off the laptop.

WORKER: The Day Zero edition of Curse of the Demon Lord comes with a copy of Curse of the Demon Lord/

CUSTOMER: (Chuckles) You’d bloody hope so.

WORKER: /as a downloadable code.

CUSTOMER: What! The game doesn’t even come on a cartridge? It’s a one-use thing. And then what? I’m just stuck with a piece of paper that probably has some dodgy AI-generated artwork plastered all over it.

WORKER: Unfortunately, the publisher decided against manufacturing the physical release of the game on disc or cartridge.

CUSTOMER: Not really a “physical release” then, is it? That’s like claiming the 2019 Lion King remake is “live action”.

WORKER: I love that film!

CUSTOMER: Of course, you do.

WORKER: Would you like to hear what else is included in the Day Zero edition?

CUSTOMER runs their hands through their hair.

CUSTOMER: Fine. But I really do have an important four-thirty I cannot be late for.

WORKER: I completely understand. So, on top of the “physical edition” of Curse of the Demon Lord, you will also be receiving redeemable codes for special in-game items including a wooden cutlery set and a baseball cap that your character can wear.

CUSTOMER: (Sarcastic) How thrilling.

WORKER: You also get a rubber keychain and a four-foot tall, hand-made, entirely painted statue of the Demon Lord that doubles as a fully useable air fryer.

CUSTOMER: (Shocked) Sorry, what?

WORKER: The keychain has the game’s logo on it.

CUSTOMER: Not the keychain. The freaking air fryer statue! What am I supposed to do with something like that in my tiny one-bedroom flat?

WORKER: Reheat pizza?

CUSTOMER places their hands on their head.

CUSTOMER: Oh god, I’m going to my nephew’s first birthday party after this.

WORKER: You’re buying your one-year-old nephew Curse of the Demon Lord as a birthday present? Excuse me saying so, but isn’t that a bit of an inappropriate gift?

CUSTOMER: Of course it’s not for him! The game was a favourite of mine from childhood which is why I’m picking it up for me. But what will look inappropriate is rocking up to my nephew’s party with a giant demon oven in tow! Four-freaking-feet of it. My sister is going to kill me.

WORKER: I’m sorry, but the Day Zero edition is the only version we have of Curse of the Demon Lord in stock currently. And given it’s all boxed up, you have to buy it with the statue.

CUSTOMER: (Chuckles bitterly) Checks out. The publisher can’t fork out the cash to print the game on cartridge but are more than happy to spend big on a stupid piece of merch nobody wants.

WORKER: I am also legally obligated to let you know that the statue is non-recyclable and has a low, five percent chance of catching on fire.

CUSTOMER: Of course it does.

Beat.

WORKER: So… would you like to still go ahead with the purchase?

CUSTOMER hesitates for a few seconds before checking the time again.

CUSTOMER: Screw it. I’ll buy it. I don’t know when I’ll have time to pick it up again, anyway.

WORKER: Perfect! (Types away on the laptop) That will be three-hundred and fifty dollars.

CUSTOMER: (Shocked) Three-hundred and fif… you know what. I don’t have time to complain anymore.

Pulls out their card.

This freaking air fryer better be worth it.

WORKER completes the transaction.

WORKER: Thank you very much for your purchase. And I hope you enjoy the game. Especially after some of the reviews it’s been getting.

CUSTOMER: Wh-what reviews?

WORKER: You haven’t seen them? Apparently, the game isn’t actually a remake but just an up-ressed version of the original nineties Curse of the Demon Lord. Except, like, it’s somehow a worse version of the game even though it’s been thirty years. Lots of bugs and shit.

CUSTOMER: (Angry) You didn’t think to mention that before I just spent three-hundred and fifty dollars!

WORKER: I’m sorry! I figured you were across all the controversy.

CUSTOMER: You explicitly called it a “remake” earlier.

WORKER: So did all the preview material. Don’t shoot the messenger!

CUSTOMER: I’m such an idiot! If it’s just the same game, but crappier, then I don’t want to spend three-hundred and fifty dollars on it. Far out. Bloody rip-off, if you ask me. I would like a refund straight away, please and thank you.

WORKER: Of course, I can process that right now. I do apologise if you were misdirected in any way.

CUSTOMER: I don’t care. I would just like my money back. And quickly. I really am running late now.

WORKER: Certainly. (Looks at the laptop screen) So, confirming you would like to trade in your copy of the Curse of the Demon Lord remake?

CUSTOMER: Not a remake, but yes.

WORKER: Okie dokie. I know that you are hard pressed for time, but if you give me just a couple more moments, I will go and collect your twenty-four dollars and forty-three cents.

End play.

Thanks for reading my silly little script. Hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to perform it with a friend in front of loved ones and I will see you all next week!

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Stuff from the Stack

Margot Plays Video Games

Game Journal: Feb 2026

Every month I collate the games I played that are new to me, or I haven’t played in a long time and revisited. For 2026 I am adding a “continued section” at the bottom, as I am hoping to get through some bigger older AAA games too…

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a month ago · 19 likes · 20 comments · Margot

I always take great pleasure in reading Margot’s short and sweet writeups of the games she’s recently been playing. In the case of her most recent Game Journal, I am three-from-three in having not played the games she discusses, but that only makes me want to try them out even more! Hermit and Pig especially looks like the kind of game I could easily get into, if for no other reason than that slick GBA-style pixel art.

Read more about our ACF project.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

This article is also going to be heavier than what you would typically find from either of our publications. When Evan and I were discussing potential topics to collaborate on, we stumbled onto the fact that we both played God of War Ragnarök around the time that our fathers passed away. What began as a search for some kind of analytical angle to tackle the game now turned into a deeply personal one.

What you are about to read are Evan’s and my personal stories of what that game meant to us during a time in our lives when loss and grief dominated everything. The first story you’ll read will be mine, followed by Evan’s.

It goes without saying, but please take care when reading. If you’re not in the headspace to do so right now, then that’s totally okay. If you are currently experiencing grief or have done so in the past, be gentle with yourself and feel whatever it is you need to feel. Do what you can to receive the support you need, in whatever form that looks for you.

As Kratos’s wife, Faye, says in God of War Ragnarök, “To grieve deeply is to have loved fully.”

The Phone Call

By Harry Fritsch

I am chasing a giant wolf through hell when I receive the worst phone call of my life.

The giant wolf is Garm, a towering beast with blood-soaked fangs and the wild eyes of a predator. Hell is in fact Helheim, one of the Nine Realms where those who aren’t worthy of Valhalla spend their afterlives wandering in sorrow. It feels appropriate to acknowledge that I am not the one doing the actual chasing. That honour belongs to Kratos—the legendary Spartan warrior and demi-god—and his son, Atreus (AKA Loki…it’s complicated). I am controlling them in God of War Ragnarök, roughly halfway through the game, during a moment in the story where father and son’s relationship is threatening to reach its breaking point.

At this point in the game, Atreus has spent a lot of time away from his father, discovering more about his fate and identity, and making decisions that went against the wishes of his closest friends and family. One of those decisions was to release Garm from their imprisonment in Helheim out of pity for the colossal canine. It was a decision that, to put it lightly, could threaten the entire fabric of the Nine Realms and which Atreus, despondent with his own naivety, is desperate to put right with the help of his father. And so, Kratos and Atreus travel to Helheim to defeat Garm with no other companions—no Freya, no Sindri, not even Mimir.

The phone call? It’s from my Mum telling me that Dad had just passed away.

There are so many details in video game pause menus these days. Kratos’s bulking biceps fill up a not-insignificant portion of the screen real estate when you tap the touchpad in God of War Ragnarök. That leaves even less space for his stats, weapon and armour information, not to mention all the other tabs leading to skill trees, lore archives, and whatever else the UI team feels like cramming onto the screen. I wouldn’t say it’s overwhelming to the point of being illegible, but it’s certainly cluttered.

At this moment, however, the information in God of War Ragnarök’s pause menu may as well be written in Old Norse. Something’s stopped within me after that phone call and I’m just staring at the television. The screen is displaying that same pause menu of that same video game I had just been playing that same morning. But that experience already belongs to a past version of me.

Eventually I walk over to another canine. Not some hound from hell, but my beautiful pet labrador, at this moment appearing heaven-sent. The only other companion who is home with me at the time. I leash her up and we go for a walk around our neighbourhood. It’s a typically warm February day in Brisbane and the route is familiar, but the whole world has smeared around the edges. We return home and I send a message to my wife who is still at work. It’s only then that I notice I have yet to turn off the PlayStation 5. The pause menu is still up on the screen. Behind it, Kratos and Atreus are still in Helheim, still tracking down Garm, still dealing with their familial tension. I switch it all off, turning away from that old version of me and listen to one of Dad’s favourite songs.

A month passes and we say our goodbyes through a daze of shock and grief. The days mostly bleed into one another as we float through this shattered sense of reality. I’m away from home, spending time with family and loved ones, all of us trying to find some form of normality again. It’s mostly futile, of course. Everything is just too recent, too raw for anything to register as normal.

We’re stuck in our own cluttered pause menus. Life has stopped and we can’t make sense of any of it. There’s too much on our screens. Messages of condolences arriving from every direction, an ever-growing checklist of funeral logistics to tick off, memories poignant and painful flooding in. All we know is our stats have plummeted. Quality of Sleep = down. Clarity of Purpose = down. Expressions of Joy = rock bottom.

Gaming obviously isn’t front of mind when I do return home. There’s a readjustment period after what has been a harrowing few weeks, and the concept of finding pleasure through entertainment feels foreign, if not downright laughable. Eventually, though, I do turn the PS5 back on. I settle down into our apartment’s couch, my hands wrap around the DualSense controller, and I load up the most recent checkpoint on my God of War Ragnarök save file. The same one that I had been playing when I received the worst phone call of my life.

And there they are. Kratos and Atreus, father and son, in the exact same position I had left them before everything stopped. I push up on the analog stick and they begin moving. My life may be spiralling into a pit of despair, but there’s still a giant wolf from hell to catch.

Dad wasn’t much of a gamer, but he was always aware of the God of War series. He used to simply call it the “Kratos!” game, presumably because he found the hyper-masculinity of the main character both absurdly ridiculous and kind of epic. Which, fair. He would occasionally watch me play back when I was a teenager, and I wish he was with me in this living room right now. Undoubtedly, he would be repeatedly asking when “Thor is coming into the game?”—the God of Thunder was one of his favourite super-heroes.

I keep playing, moving Kratos and Atreus through Helheim as the two of them begin to work through their differences. Atreus admits to being in over his head while Kratos apologises for his often-suffocating parenting style. They both promise to do better.

Eventually, Garm is tracked down and a boss battle against the legendary beast ensues. I control father and son as they fight side-by-side, and for a brief second, I catch a glimpse of that old version of me. The one that existed before the phone call. And even though I know I’ll never be able to fully reunite with them, it’s good to know a part of the old me still exists in this save file.

Garm is defeated. But instead of killing the beast, Kratos and Atreus decide to infuse the soul of their deceased pet wolf, Fenrir, within Garm’s body. It’s a beautiful moment in the game. Rather than choosing death, the two of them have decided to bring something to life.

An Apocalypse Taught Me to Hope

By Evan C. Moore

In February 2022, my Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer in his hip bone. For now, I’ll skip the descriptions of his treatment. He died on July 1 of that year, at 58. During the months when I helped to take care of him, I read Pet Sematary and played Breath of the Wild for the first time (among other things).

Strangely enough, though I got incredible meaning out of these works during one of the most difficult times in my life, they were not the works that brought me to tears in grieving for my Dad. Neither were some artistic or expected games that were definitely supposed to affect me deeply: That Dragon, Cancer maybe, or pieces about grief and helplessness and complicity like Dear Esther, Firewatch, or Kentucky Route Zero. Instead, it was God of War Ragnarök.

I cried when Kratos, tired and uncertain, took off his armor and laid in his bed, the camera moving in on the cracked skin on the back of his hand. He flexed his fingers, as if remembering his strength, and I felt once again the last of my Dad’s breath. I reclined on my couch with some homemade egg nog; I begged Dad to eat. I held my controller to watch Kratos; I held Dad’s hand, withered in the same places, as the chemo and cancer teamed up to weaken him.

This piece is about the first time I cried during my initial playthrough of God of War Ragnarök, in November 2022. Thanks to The Video Game Storyteller for teaming up with me on this (and for patiently waiting for my drafts).

Why God of War Ragnarök?

Kratos and Atreus exist through God of War Ragnarök in defiance of prophecy and expecting certain doom. Vengeance, like other GOW games, is a constant, and we are asked to question its morality and its usefulness. See, in God of War (2018), the pair killed Thor’s sons Magni and Modi; these two, Snorri the writer of the Edda tells us, will survive Ragnarök and help establish the new world to come. In the game, they believed themselves invincible, guaranteed by prophecy to live through the end of this age.1 Thor seeking vengeance for his sons and Odin seeking at least a truce after the death of Baldur are the catalyst for the sequel journey.

Additionally, in the final moments of that first game of the Norse duology, Kratos and the player learn that Kratos is prophesied to die in Atreus’s arms. It is not unreasonable to go through Ragnarök believing that Kratos might very well die—both characters, though they do not admit it to each other at first, believe so.

So I was ready for a game about questioning fate and about grieving the loss of a father. I was already in that headspace. I knew that my Dad’s own death was fated upon diagnosis (I was hoping for a few years, not months; my Dad was more optimistic). Kratos and Atreus were a favorite of mine since 2018, and I knew the sequel could be just what I needed.

And it delivered. I loved being back in that world. I’d played 2018 no fewer than four times since its release, so this was special. I embarked on the next journey that I knew would include loss and melancholy.

It started fast. Freya appears very early on in the story, attacking the pair in vengeance for her son Baldur. Kratos and Atreus hold her off and do everything they can not to hurt her as they defend. They respect her tenacity; after all, we killed Baldur (after a couple warnings) for trying to kill her in his own vengeance. Her anger is understandable. There are too many interesting themes to keep track of. Let me move on. Revenge is something I’m thinking about when I play. What vengeance can I have for my Dad? What can I fight when his own body betrayed him?

But, of course, there’s nothing to be done against cancer, and there’s nothing to be angry at. Perhaps at my Dad himself for not going to the doctor sooner, but that feels…empty. Like I’m missing the point. Perhaps I could be angry at the world? God? Apollo? Some force beyond us that allows our cells to disobey their purpose? My Grandmother—Dad’s mom—was still alive when he passed, and she certainly took some anger out on God. Her anger was about her own sadness, not about the unfairness of cancer.2 I don’t think he heard her. No, in the days after his death, I was angrier with the cemetery office and the people who edited the obituary I wrote than I was with anything to do with his death itself.

Kratos and Atreus drift apart in the game. Atreus, identifying at times as Loki, is discovering himself away from his relationship with his father. I needed to figure out who I was without my Dad’s influence in my life. I’d moved out of the house; we talked on the phone every two weeks or so; I certainly had my own life and identity. But now I was “the guy with the dead dad.” I was still figuring out whether that was a description I was comfortable with.

I realized that, like Kratos and Atreus couldn’t escape Odin and Thor coming for them, I couldn’t any more escape being the guy with the dead dad. That was part of me now, and whatever came out of it might as well have been fate.

So, why did Ragnarök get me? Because everything leading up to that moment was connecting me with my perception and reflection on my grief. The game was asking me what the nature and benefits of vengeance are and whether I can turn myself into someone I haven’t yet been.

That Moment was Written, and I Did What was Necessary

There’s a part early on in the story when Kratos and Atreus need to hide out with Sindri and a couple others in the Realm Between Realms along a branch of Yggdrasil so that Odin cannot spy on them (or, so they hope). This is when Kratos takes a few long breaths, disrobes, and flexes his hand.

And, my friends, it got me. Just a hand, moving gently and softly. Nothing special about an older character (god though he be) feeling tired. Nothing unique about wrinkles telling the audience that the aged father must be replaced by the learning son.

But this game was priming me already to be thinking about my relationship with my Dad and what his death actually was—not just for me, but for him. More than anything else with a focus on grief or recompense or fatherhood, God of War Ragnarök encouraged me to interact with it by enacting and receiving the mundane tasks of fatherhood. At once, I could notice Kratos’s shortfalls while understanding his decisions and respecting his attempts. And I could feel the weight of his duty to his son crash down on him when he finally got a second alone.

Later in the game, in order to prioritize their agency and not succumb to the passivity of fate, Kratos tells Atreus, “Do what is necessary. Not because it is written.” One of the thesis statements of this game is, more or less, “Fate is the consequences of our choices, often predictable; to change oneself and improve is a constant battle, but one which changes your fate.” If you know me, you might know what I’ll say next: it’s pretty close to virtue ethics, the moral theory that our character is the source of our ethical decision-making, and we can change it through great effort and meaningful habits.

Heavy spoilers ahead!

And by golly do our main characters change fate. Kratos changes pretty drastically by the end and makes decisions out of compassion rather than simple strategy. Odin dies in the position Kratos was supposed to—rather than Kratos dying to Thor’s hammer, Odin dies to Sindri’s.

Vengeance won the day, despite Kratos’s disappointment.3 But just as importantly, and the reason to retain hope, is that prophecy did not define the outcome. Fate had no hold on Kratos. By saving all he could and not chaotically smashing through every bystander or innocent person in his way, Kratos allowed his old self (“Kratos of Sparta” as identified by the Norns) to die and crafted a new self (“Kratos of the Rebuilding”, as I like to think of him) to become as he leads the pantheon after Ragnarök.

Without death, there is no rebirth. Sure. Cycles and stuff, I get it. But, for me, there is no death that we cannot at least try to rebuild from. The end of an era means the beginning of a new one. The end game content in God of War Ragnarök features Kratos and Freya together moving around the realms, rebuilding and recovering from the war. Out of war, peace. Out of death, hope for those who remain.

The spoilers have ended!

This was what I needed to experience in the fifth month of my life after Dad. It helped me accept what happened and how I felt, including all the contradictions that came with it.

I would have worse and more long-standing episodes of grief going forward. And it’s not over, of course. This was one of many short highlights that fall that helped me deal with the world I still recognized but felt weird walking through.

My tears came suddenly and stopped quickly when I saw Kratos’s hand, mimicking my dying father. I hadn’t realized what the game was building up to become within me until that moment; I hadn’t realized what I still needed to let out.

This is a process all must endure, and I hope this experience meets you as well as it met me (if it yet remains ahead of you).

Thanks for reading, everyone. This was a hard piece to write, and a harder one to edit. When I talked to Harry about what we could write about together, I thought about God of War Ragnarök as a way to fit within the Ludonarrative Arcs series. As we talked about themes and critiques, we realized we had very similar grief stories to tell. I’m really thankful that it came together like it did.

There’s a scene at the end of the first episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel that shows the main character Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) asking legendary comedian Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby) a question. The night before, Midge had practically stumbled into doing a set of standup comedy at a dingy basement club and felt the kind of rush that she didn’t realise was missing from her life. Now that fate has made her cross paths with Lenny Bruce, she has a simple question for him: “Comedy—do you love it?”

In his trademark cynical, cutting sense of humour, Lenny responds with this:

“Okay, let’s put it like this—if there was anything else in the entire world that I could possibly do to earn a living—I would. Anything. I’m talking dry cleaners to the Klan, crippled-kid portrait painter, slaughterhouse attendant... If someone said to me, Leonard—you can either eat a guy’s head or do two weeks at the Copa, I’d say pass the fucking salt. It’s a terrible, terrible job. It should not exist.”1

While I’m not sure if I would go quite as far as Lenny proclaims he would in that mini-monologue, it still resonated with me. And I’m sure many others who work in the creative industries would agree. Committing to any kind of creative pursuit—including writing every week about video games—is often tough, unrewarding work.

So in today’s article, I’m going to be looking at why—despite all the doom and gloom I just mentioned—I keep returning to the keyboard each and every week to write about this wonderful medium.

I’ve also been thinking a lot recently about how I can provide more value to my dear paid subscribers. Which is why I have decided to do something a bit fun with this article and invite my paid subscribers to ask me whatever question they like in the comments below. I will answer them as thoughtfully and engagingly as possible in a future post. No questions are off limits. Except for the ones I don’t like 😊

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God of War has returned to its Greek roots, and I’ve been celebrating by eating lots of gyros and watching Bettany Hughes’ historical documentaries from the mid-2000s. Perhaps more appropriately, I’ve also started playing God of War: Sons of Sparta—yep, I’m returning the colon to its rightful place!

In case you missed PlayStation’s honestly-really-strong State of Play from last week, Santa Monica Studio has decided to celebrate the dying weeks of God of War’s twentieth anniversary through a pair of announcements. The first is that the original trilogy is receiving the full remake treatment—although, exactly what that means is still fairly vague. Far more concrete was the reveal of a brand-new God of War game, the aforementioned Sons of Sparta. Developed by Mega Cat Studio, this new game not only takes us all the way back to Kratos’s childhood in the Agoge but is also the first God of War game to be a 2D side-scroller with pixel-art visuals.

But that second statement’s not true, is it? Because while the retro aesthetics and gameplay of Sons of Sparta still carries a powerful novelty factor, this is hardly the first time that God of War has demade itself into the second dimension. Long-time fans of the series may remember the 2007 Java mobile game, God of War: Betrayal—an official, canonical entry set between the first and second God of War games that also adopted a 16-bit style of pixelated side-scrolling action.

And yet, the God of War demake I want to discuss today is neither official nor canonical. It is, however, one of the more fascinating side stories in the now two-decades-long-saga of this iconic gaming franchise. So let’s do a show of hands. How many of you have played, or even heard of, Bit of War?

Bit of War is a fan-made 2012 demake developed by Holmade Games that sets out to answer the question: what if God of War was made for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System? The answer is a surprisingly fun retro throwback that captures the spirit of the Greek God of War games, complete with satisfying combat, banger music, and a story that goes way harder than it has any right to. Oh, and you can still download it for free on itch.io right now. I promise this article isn’t sponsored. I just really like this weird little game!

Let’s start by looking at the story of Bit of War. Because if this game was released on the NES back in the late-80s or early-90s, I believe we would hail it as having one of the great narratives on that system. Bit of War’s story is an alternate retelling of 2010’s God of War III—the game that concluded the original trilogy with Kratos defeating the Greek pantheon of gods and releasing hope back into the world. Oops, spoilers, I guess.

Here, things are a bit different. The opening level of Bit of War still has Kratos scaling Mount Olympus and fighting Zeus. But instead of being defeated by the King of the Gods and sent to Hades like in God of War III, Kratos is actually successful in killing Zeus and ending the reign of the Olympians right there and then. Kratos’s victory is short-lived, however, as he is immediately confronted by a fleet of Viking ships and Norse monsters who have come to fill the power vacuum left by the fallen Greek gods.

And if that wasn’t enough, after the Vikings are sent packing, a mythological Egyptian army also shows up to claim the throne of Olympus. Kratos continues his god-slaying spree, not content until all deities—no matter their mythological origins—are dealt with. This rampage earns him the admiration of ordinary people who begin to worship him as their new god, resulting in the creation of a bizarro version of Kratos which, you guessed it, also needs to be killed.

Bit of War ends by showing the world’s belief systems transitioning from the ancient religions to those that are still prevalent today. As for Kratos, well, he is finally shown to be at peace with his wife and child in the fields of Elysium. It’s a remarkably moving conclusion for a fan-made God of War demake that features some genuinely reflective commentary around themes of faith and redemption.

If any of this story sounds kind of familiar, that’s because Bit of War is based on David Jaffe’s original concept for how the God of War trilogy should end. Jaffe was the director for the very first God of War game but had well and truly left Santa Monica Studio by the development of God of War III. And while Jaffe also didn’t have any involvement with Bit of War, it’s cool that Holmade Games decided to pay tribute to his vision of the story’s conclusion through this project. Jaffe may not be a fan of every God of War demake, but it’s hard to imagine he’d be too disappointed by Bit of War’s interpretation.

And that’s because, from a gameplay perspective, Bit of War really does feel like a faithful 8-bit portrayal of a Greek-saga God of War game. Controlling kind of like a mix between a classic Mega Man and Castlevania title, Bit of War sees Kratos slicing through enemies with his Blades of Athena, using multiple magic abilities, exploring levels to find secret chests, and battling epic bosses. Everything is here and as sharp as a Minotaur’s horn.

Bit of War is the kind of fan-made demake that has no reason to exist, but I’m so glad that it does. The game presents two fascinating alternate realities—one where God of War was released on the NES, and one where David Jaffe’s story ideas were implemented into the series’ finale. Both are a blast to experience.

So when you’re next playing through Sons of Sparta, don’t forget that this style of retro God of War demake is standing on the shoulders of giants. 8-bit fan-made giants, but giants nonetheless.

What are some of your favourite video game demakes? Have you had a chance to play Sons of Sparta yet? Let me know in the comments!

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What’s Coming Up Next

Next week I’ll be collaborating with the amazing Evan from Play Moore to share some stories about our time playing another God of War game—2022’s God of War: Ragnarök. We’ll be exploring how both of us played Ragnarök during a difficult time in our individual lives, with the game mirroring our pain while also giving us a means through which to escape. It’s going to be a more emotional piece, but I know both Evan and I are proud of the work we’ve done and excited to share it with you all.

Stuff from the Stack

1UP Vault

Nostalgia Bits - Blockbuster

Welcome to Nostalgia Bits, a new series of articles where I get to rant and analyze a bit about nostalgic things from the past. While the majority of these articles will focus on video games, I will, from time to time, write about something outside of gaming. As for today, we are talking about Blockbuster Video, a very important part of my childhood, es…

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2 months ago · 6 likes · JM Mendez

When I was growing up in the 2000s, Blockbuster and other video rental stores were in their final years of relevance. That’s why I really enjoyed this article from 1UP Vault that reflects on their childhood memories of visiting Blockbuster and all the wonderful experiences those rentals opened up for them. A very nostalgic read, not to mention a highly engrossing one.

This article was originally published on The Phrasemaker.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Perhaps the most “uncharted” aspect of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is that it shows a stable, long-term relationship in a video game.

Now, if you have played Uncharted 4, you know that the stability of said relationship does undergo some pretty arduous stress testing across the adventure (and we’ll get to that). Even so, there’s something remarkably fresh about the presentation of Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher’s marriage in this game. Specifically, that it’s being presented at all. Because even after a decade since the game released—which, firstly, how on earth is Uncharted 4 already nearly a decade old!—this particular illustration of marriage and its sweet mundanities continues to feel novel for a video game.

So, as we approach Valentine’s Day, I wanted to take a bit of time exploring why depictions of marriage aren’t more prevalent in video game stories. And by “marriage”, I really mean any form of long-term relationships. I’m simply using that term as a convenient shorthand to convey established romantic partnerships where a long-held commitment to one another is a core tenet of the relationship’s enduring success. There doesn’t necessarily have to be a ring on it.

Like with all storytelling mediums, romance has always played a big role in video game narratives. From Jumpman and Pauline to Geralt and Yennefer, witnessing the love between a pair of video game characters has long been one of the driving forces behind why we play. Naturally, because video games are an interactive medium, we get to not only experience these romances unfold but also participate in their construction. Several games even give us the choice of which character (or characters) we want to pursue a relationship with, only further cementing the agency we are awarded towards guiding these blossoming romances.

However, there are far more stories in video games about falling in love than there are about being in love. That’s not overly surprising. As audiences, we tend to be more captivated by the heightened tension and excitement of a romance building rather than one already established. We love a will-they-won’t-they plot, an enemies-to-lovers arc, the stolen glances, the suppressed desires, the caught breaths, the yearning—oh God, the yearning!

There are also plenty of video games where characters do get married somewhere in the story. But often, the wedding is the climax of their story. It’s the happy ending of their relationship, the fulfillment of their destiny together, the final moment of their quest. It’s the marriage that takes place after the wedding that I feel is lacking better representation in video game storytelling.

For Valentine’s Day last year, fellow Substack gaming writer Harrison Polites from Infinite Lives, curated the opinions of several other writers on what they consider to be gaming’s greatest love stories (including a contribution from yours truly). Looking through these takes now, it’s clear how much we’re drawn to burgeoning romances in video games. Sometimes these love stories end in heartbreak or tragedy, and sometimes we do actually see the characters get hitched by the end of the game. The handful of marriages that were mentioned in the list are those from Silent Hill 2, Gears of War 2, or Alan Wake, where the relationship has broken down or where one of the spouses has died or gone missing—let’s be real, almost always the wife. We are so invested in the beginning or ending of love stories in video games. It’s the bit in the middle that we don’t find as interesting.

I think that’s why I look back on Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher’s marriage in Uncharted 4 as such a fascinating exception to this rule. Ironically, there’s something almost subversive about how relatively normal their relationship is depicted in this game. We’ve already spent the first three Uncharted games witnessing this swashbuckling adventurer and plucky journalist cycle through the standard on-again-off-again romance arc. We’ve seen them overcome their initial trepidations, fall in love, experience some bumps along the way, temporarily break up, get back together again, rinse and repeat, until they eventually reach a point in their lives where they are willing to commit to one another.

By the time we reach the fourth Uncharted game, we don’t need Nate and Elena to fall in love again. We’ve already spent hours tracking the gradual development of their romance and now can simply enjoy spending time with them spending time with each other. The level early in the game set in their New Orleans home is honestly one of the most realistic portrayals of married life I have seen in any form of art. It’s just the two of them, relaxing after a long day of work, getting cosy on the couch with a good meal and some Crash Bandicoot. The whole scene is beautifully, hearteningly, sublimely mundane. And that’s what makes it so interesting to me.

And then Nate comes very close to blowing it all up. I go back and forth on whether the character choice for Nate to withhold so much from Elena in pursuit of helping his brother is a good one or not. Like, surely this guy would know to trust his wife after everything they’ve already been through. Just tell her about Sam, Nate! Don’t make up some lie about a fictional Malaysia job, Nate! How could you be so stupid, Nate?!

But the more I think about it, the more I do appreciate the way that Uncharted 4 navigates this wedge in Nate and Elena’s marriage. Elena is understandably mad about Nate’s continual lying, so she takes some time away from him, thinks about her own priorities, and makes sure that when she does return, she’s ready to talk. Nate also builds the courage to finally open up about his past to Elena, but perhaps more crucially, he’s willing to listen to her. And what he hears is someone who has always wanted to be there with him, whether that’s playing Crash Bandicoot on the couch or tracking down a mythical pirate utopia in the middle of the jungle.

That’s what a healthy marriage is all about. Falling in love with the same person, day after day, forming a partnership that grows together. It might not be as sensational as love forming anew or as dramatic as love falling apart, but when told with the right heart and passion, love that is settled and ongoing can be just as powerful a storytelling device. And it’s one I think more video games should explore. Who knows? Maybe they have commitment problems.

Who are some of your favourite married couples or characters in long-term relationships in video games? If you have a significant other, what game/s are you playing together on the couch on a lazy Tuesday night? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Press Any Button

Dragon Quest VII reviewed

Hello there! The past week has seen a lot of Nintendo news, as Ninty hosted a partner direct and had its latest quarterly earnings. I also had a chance to visit the Big N’s offices to preview some upcoming offerings. All taken together, the current era feels like a curious mix of unstoppable Switch Nintendo and quirky slow-times Wii U Nintendo…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · Tim Biggs and Alice Clarke

After my article last week on Dragon Quest VII, I’ve enjoyed reading all the reviews that have been coming out for the Reimagined remake. These thoughts from Press Any Button do a particularly good job conveying how the game balances the old with the new and what made the original game so special in the first place.

I can also honestly say I haven’t thought about Pikmin Bloom in a hot minute, but reading their experience with the game makes me wonder if it’s worth jumping on now five years later? Anything that encourages me to go outside more is a plus in my eyes!

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

It’s official. My wife and I are obsessed with The Traitors.

We’re only a handful of weeks into 2026, and the social deduction reality television series has already swallowed up dozens of hours of our ever-so-scarce free time. If anything, I’m slightly annoyed that I have to sit down and write this article as I could be spending these moments immersed in The Traitors’ drama, scandal, backstabbing, twists, turns, and Claudia Winkleman’s fringe. But only slightly!

Starting with last year’s season of The Celebrity Traitors UK (#JusticeForStephenFry), we’re now roughly halfway through Season Four of The Traitors UK and loving every deliciously suspicious second of it. If you’re unaware of the show’s basic premise, it works a bit like a game of Mafia or Werewolf, just blown out into a weeks-long reality TV structure. The contestants are split up between the Faithfuls and the Traitors. The Traitors are trying to murder each of the Faithfuls while planting as many red herrings as possible. The Faithful, meanwhile, are trying to uncover the Traitors and banish them from the game by voting on who they believe is most suspicious during a group round table discussion.

Now of course, when I use words like “murder”, I don’t actually mean that the contestant ends up with a knife through their heart in the middle of the night. That player is simply ejected from the game, after which they presumably return home to their loved ones, very much still alive.

Watching The Traitors brought to mind not only the social deduction games I enjoy playing with friends, but a video game that explores the same idea through frighteningly literal and rather gory extremes. Raging Loop is a 2015 visual novel that tells a story filled with secret identities and the gradual whittling away of characters. However, in this game, the wolves have fangs that do bite, suspicions do threaten to tear a village apart, and elimination does mean certain death.

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My introduction to the Dragon Quest series was through the Nintendo 3DS remake of Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of a Forgotten Past. And what a meaty introduction it was.

The seventh mainline entry in Square Enix’s iconic JRPG series is infamous for its chunky playtime. Even by the standards of its genre’s typically elongated adventures, Dragon Quest VII is one heck of a long game. I can tell you that my personal playthrough of the 3DS version exceeded eighty hours. From accounts I’ve read online, the original PlayStation game could easily crack the one-hundred-hour mark.

As much as I love this game, I’ll be the first to admit that Dragon Quest VII has some cumbersome aspects. The opening hours are notoriously snail-paced, filled with menial backtracking across the same stretch of condensed overworld with exactly zero enemy encounters. The ability to change your characters’ class only becomes available roughly a quarter of the way into the game. And the framerate during battles—at least on the 3DS remake—can feel as fragmented as the game’s eponymous stone tablets.

But in my opinion, all of these head-scratching and occasionally headache-inducing elements of Dragon Quest VII are worth it because of the game’s strengths. In no other game—Dragon Quest or otherwise—does Yuji Horii’s vignette approach to storytelling shine brighter than it does here. And it’s all wonderfully packaged within an adventure that champions a message of inclusivity and working together for a common purpose.

You see, Dragon Quest games have historically favoured shorter, bite-sized, and more episodic stories over the kind of character-centric, overarching narratives you would typically find in a JRPG. Of course, this isn’t always the case. More recent games in the series have structured their plots to be more closely aligned to the Final Fantasy model—where the story of your playable characters is intrinsically linked to the story of the game’s world.

Older Dragon Quest games were traditionally more interested in the hyper-localised stories you would discover in each town or location rather than the ongoing personal arcs of your own party. Occasionally you would get a DQ game that had a foot in both approaches—Dragon Quest IV’s opening chapters that spotlight a particular member of your party being a prime example. But for the most part, these games would place a greater emphasis on the smaller tales you’d find dotted throughout their worlds instead of the main story itself.

As I mentioned before, I believe this style of storytelling peaked with Dragon Quest VII. Sure, there is a broader narrative at play here, and your party does undergo their own personal journeys across the (stupidly long) adventure. But first and foremost this is a game about rediscovering, remembering, and eventually resurrecting the stories of others. Your party are only the stars of this game insofar as they are the ones witnessing—and to certain degrees, participating—in the past lives of people and cultures that have long faded from memory.

Let’s take a step back. Dragon Quest VII begins on Estard Island, a small landmass that is surrounded by an ocean of complete… nothingness. Yep, there are no other islands, continents, or even a colony of travelling mermaids here. Stranger still, there exists no memory of there ever being other civilisations that existed outside of this one isolated island. Beyond the shores of Estard Island, the world simply stops. That is until your character (the Hero) and his friends discover strange fragments of a stone tablet that seem to resonate with an ancient shrine on the island.

After finding enough fragments, your party is whisked away through space and time to the past histories of various islands they never knew existed before. Once there, it’s up to you to help solve an issue, complete a quest, and naturally, beat up a few Slimes along the way. Doing so will restore that island’s place in the present, helping to gradually rebuild this world to the way it used to be.

And it’s in these bygone islands’ past that you get to experience Dragon Quest VII’s story vignettes. Some are exciting, some are intense, and some are genuinely moving. Whether you’re helping a town where everyone has been turned into animals or fending off an army of robots, each island feels like its own mini-JRPG. My personal favourite is the kingdom of Buccanham where a curse has been placed on all the city’s infants, turning them into demon-like monsters during a full moon. It always gives me the chills and shows just how dark some of these stories are willing to go.

While the individual island stories do vary wildly in tone, length, and structure, it’s precisely this commitment to diversity that keeps the game feeling fresh. Playing through these islands is like discovering and reading a hidden book containing forgotten snapshots from history… but where you also get to help Alexander the Great defeat the Persian Empire or put the finishing brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa.

All of this means that once you return to an island in the present, you already have an established connection with its people and history. One of my favourite aspects about Dragon Quest VII’s story is how relatively chill everyone on Estard Island is about having to suddenly share their world with all these other islands—not to mention having their entire understanding of their own past completely shattered. Sure, it’s idealistic, but there’s something beautiful about how the game’s characters are so accepting of these different civilisations suddenly springing up in their world. Each island brings their own culture, customs, and traditions—which the writers could have very easily made a point of tension in the story.

But it’s because Dragon Quest VII devotes the time to telling the stories of the islands that it would feel incongruent for the end result to be anything other than mutual understanding and peaceful cohabitation between all parties. Video games have always been a great device through which to step into the shoes of others and develop empathy towards the experiences of the characters you are controlling. This game takes that one step further—having your characters step into long-forgotten stories of people who are in need of help, want to be remembered, and ultimately, wish for their ancestors to live side-by-side with everyone else.

The TLDR is that Dragon Quest VII is a one-hundred-hour long takedown of xenophobia. And in that sense, it’s worth every second.

Do you have any memories of Dragon Quest VII? Is it time for Square Enix to finally remake Dragon Quest VIII? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Alternate Worlds

Substack Gaming Yellow Pages

I wanted a central place where creators who focus on games can more easily find each other. If you’re into video games, tabletop games, TCGs, the games industry or etc., you’ll find creators related to your interests below…

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2 months ago · 42 likes · 37 comments · Brian Schneider

Yeah, I’m cheating here. But Brian from Alternate Worlds has done such an awesome job curating this “listing directory” of video game Substack writers, that I feel the need to give it another little shout-out here. Simply put, if you’re interested in reading across a wide-ranging collection of high-quality writers who primarily focus on gaming, check out these Yellow Pages.

This article was first published on The Phrasemaker.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

As I sit here drafting this article, it is currently 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) outside on a long, hot, miserable day in the middle of what has been a long, hot, miserable Brisbane summer. This writer needs an ice cream!

Of course, I could always risk adding to the oven-like interior of my home by turning on the television and gaming system of choice before escaping to a gloriously chilly winter level in a video game. Not that I need an excuse to play this specific type of video game biome. Whether you prefer to call them “snow levels”, “ice levels”, or “brrr levels”, winter-themed areas have, somewhat contradictorily, always made me feel warm inside.

Maybe it’s because I have spent most of my life living within an Australian subtropical climate where an alien invasion feels more plausible than snowfall, but as soon as I see the ground go white and the character’s clothing become fur-lined in a video game, I know it’s going to be something special.

Similar to my articles on the misunderstood delights of desert levels and the soaring sublimity of sky levels, I am interested in exploring some of the thematic reasons why I find winter levels so fascinating. Because despite the temperature always being cold, I find there is such a large range of emotions that a snow-covered video game level can make me feel. And getting to the core of these emotions—the icy heart of the mountain, if you prefer—is what I’m keen to investigate today!

Winter Levels as Precarious

While winter may conjure up images of Christmas trees and hot chocolate, the reality is that the cold can be a harsh, unforgiving environment. And video games have a long and proud history of expressing this sense of frozen hostility—from Metal Gear Solid to The Last of Us.

Of course, from a gameplay perspective, we can’t talk about the more precarious side of winter levels without discussing their most infamous mechanic: ice physics. If you’ve ever played a platformer that forces you to jump on and between platforms that look as though they’ve just been removed from an ice tray, you understand the pain I’m referring to.

Wintry locations in video games aren’t always going to be coated in festive spirit. A lot of the time you’ll be slipping off the same ledge after dozens of attempts or desperately be searching for a heat source as your character’s vitals plummet alongside the temperature, and all you can do is grit your teeth and keep trying.

Winter Levels as Mysterious

The first time I played the Snowpeak Ruins dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, I felt like I had been transported to a strange, distant universe separate from the rest of the game. And while the lovably odd yeti couple and the dungeon’s manor-like design certainly heightened this mysterious atmosphere, I don’t think it would have hit as hard if the level wasn’t also smothered in snow.

Again, this may be my Queensland bias shining through like an angry red sun, but snowy areas in video games have always held a degree of mystique for me. Often they appear in remote areas of the game’s map where civilisation and normalcy feel like a fading memory.

Other winter-themed levels that evoke this sense of peculiarity for me include the Mounts of Aroania from God of War: Ghost of Sparta (seriously, just listen to that unnerving music) and, of course, Metroid Prime’s iconic Phendrana Drifts.

Winter Levels as Exhilarating

The inherent extremities that accompany a snowy location—such as the temperature, weather, altitude, etc—ensure that such environments are like catnip to adventurers and thrill seekers around the world. And while I will never personally snowboard down Mount Everest nor surf on the icy waves of an avalanche, I’ll happily give it a go in a video game.

Whether I’m racing around in a big ‘ol truck in MotorStorm: Arctic Edge or speeding down the slope of a mountain in 1080° Snowboarding, these wintry wonderlands feel tailormade for extreme sports.

One of my favourite examples of this is the Mount Wario track in Mario Kart 8. The towering snowy mountain is the perfect setting for a race that is equal parts exhilarating and expansive. Who knew that driving on snow could be this much fun?

Winter Levels as Enchanting

I’m sure many of you will agree with me: few other video game biomes do vibes better than winter levels.

Often, when I’m playing a snowy area in a video game, I will just stand still and soak in the enchanting atmosphere. The soft light, the beautiful landscape, the soundtrack that inevitably has sleighbells playing in the background… there’s simply no other word for it other than magical.

Some standout moments of magic in video game winter levels that come to mind include Valak Mountain in Xenoblade Chronicles (especially at night), basically all of the Winter Isles in Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, and yes, for the second time in this article, Phendrana Drifts.

Winter levels are truly incredible. I just wish Brisbane would now turn into one.

What are some of your favourite winter levels in video games? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Cat's Controller Corner

The Game I Play During a Snowy Day

I love snow. Or at least I do when I don’t have to shovel it. Recently here in the states a ton of the country underwent a massive snow storm that dumped record amounts of snow (and super low temps, at it’s worst it’s been -20°F with wind-chill where I am). In my area we got, for the first time in a very long time, about a foot of snow. Which I had to s…

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2 months ago · 1 like · Cat

I promise there’s no secret coordinated effort from myself and Cat’s Controller Corner to both release snow-themed video game Substacks on the same day. With that said, I really loved this personal reviw of Steep—a game that, at its best, offers a nearly unparallelled sense of freedom and thrills. Cat’s personal anecdotes and expressive writing style really pulled me into this piece and made me keen to redownload the game later.

This article was first published on The Phrasemaker.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Today, we’re doing something quite different.

I am going to offer my paid subscribers the chance to read one of the chapters in a manuscript I have been working on for the past few years. The manuscript in question is for a young adult novel about a group of high school friends living in a fictional regional city in Australia, the various secrets they are holding from one another, and the one night in which all those mysteries comes to brilliant, blinding, biting light.

This chapter is currently the fourth in the manuscript, but I am confident that readers won’t need the preceeding three to catch up with the story.

As a brief summary, we join the main character, Kit, and his four friends—Chaya, Richmond, Brooke, and Alex—at his house on a night when his mother is out at a work conference. The five exhausted teenagers are using this as a rare opportunity to hang out and let off some steam after what has been a full-on term at school. After enjoying some pizza and dancing, the Switch has been turned on, Mario Kart booted up, and away we go…

Content warning: contains coarse language.

Chapter Four

A Festival of Mario Kart and Bowie

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There are few better ways to spend a warm summer evening in Brisbane—with the humidity as thick as soup and the squawking lorikeets as loud as an air-raid siren—than within the mysterious walls of Netherworld.

On the surface, Netherworld is just like any other arcade/bar/diner you can find popping up in cities around the world. But walking through its doors on the corner of Brunswick Street and St Pauls Terrace—located near the heart of Brisbane’s nightlife scene in Fortitude Valley, which, crucially for me, is only a five-minute walk from my workplace—truly does feel like stepping into another world.

“I was personally determined to create a space that combined games, community, craft beer, and vegan food into one space with ‘inclusion’ being the main philosophy of it all,” says Benjamin Nichols, one of Netherworld’s founders and self-proclaimed “Super Villain”. Nichols teamed up with some others to open Netherworld back in 2017, and the venue has since survived a pandemic, growing cost-of-living within Brisbane, and the fading relevance of arcades across the globe.

Yet “survived” feels too harsh a word for the success that Netherworld has seen over the past nine years. According to Nichols, this is because despite gaming becoming more and more centred within our individual homes, there is still a craving for spaces that champion community play.

“I guess we’d argue that it (in-person gaming) isn’t a thing of the past, as we very much see it in action every day,” says Nichols. “We believe that having one foot in history and one foot in the present day is the right attitude to have towards anything, whether it be games, art, beer, food or Brisbane itself. Context matters, history matters. Online gaming is great, but having spaces to maintain community is more important to make sure we don’t lose an integral good aspect of the human condition—particularly in a post-Covid world.”

All you have to do is step inside Netherworld to see its community-building ethos in action. The monster-themed venue is typically packed with locals and tourists gathered around arcade units, pinball machines, board games, or a glorious PlayStation 2 Slim in which a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater disc is seemingly perpetually spinning. It’s gaming in all its forms bringing people together for a fun night out in what Nichols describes as “a schoolyard playground, but where everybody just gets along.” It doesn’t hurt that the craft beer is always of a high quality and the all-vegan menu is secretly one of Brisbane’s best.

Beyond being an excellent arcade and dining spot, Netherworld has also opened its arms to Brisbane’s creative scene, offering various opportunities and programs to the city’s artists, musicians, writers, and more. Speaking personally, I’ve been lucky enough to have my short stories published in two of Netherworld’s Denizen’s Digest zines, but that’s only one example of how this venue’s team have endeavoured to support artists. Simply looking at Netherworld’s upcoming events for the next month, there is an animation festival, a writer’s group meetup, a fantasy-themed still-life drawing class, a sculpture class, multiple trivia, chess, and bingo nights, and a collage-making session. Did I mention the beer’s also pretty good?

According to Nichols, Netherworld’s embracing of local creatives has been “an extremely conscious effort and one that we get even more passionate about with the rise of AI.” He continues: “Almost all staff who work here come from some sort of creative background. Since the day we’ve opened, we’ve made sure to place a great deal of importance on having custom, locally produced art for our events, posters, and merch. Over the years we’ve been hosting no shortage of workshops, casual creative handcrafted events and submission-based content.”

As someone who grew up in the 2000s, I never got to live through the golden age of the arcades (I know, take out the violins). My childhood arcade experience would typically amount to whatever small selection of claw machines and Dance, Dance, Revolution knock-offs would be attached to my local bowling alley and laser tag venue. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the first time I walked into Netherworld and saw an old arcade cabinet of 1989’s Golden Axe in all its glory, I knew this place was something different.

When I asked Nichols what the most popular games at Netherworld are, he responded that the answer hadn’t changed in the past nine years. “Daytona and Time Crisis and all pinball machines get the most action which is probably for two reasons,” says Nichols. “One, the barrier to entry for these games is low. If you can shoot a light gun, turn a wheel, or flip a flipper, you can play. Two, these aren’t easily replicated at home.”

I would argue that a third reason is that the classics remain the classics. And in many ways, that also sums up Netherworld’s enduring charm. The venue may be less than a decade old, but it taps into time-honoured traditions of community building for the misfits, dreamers, and outcasts of this world. In other words, it’s a great place to be if you’re a gamer.

Netherworld has played host to multiple dinner dates between my wife and me, my brother-in-law’s bachelor party, visits from my friends and family from outside of Brisbane, and that time I wasn’t allowed entry because my license had expired—but that’s enough potentially incriminating details for now! Of course, that’s only my experience with the venue, but I know many others in Brisbane share my gratitude for what the team at Netherworld have brought to this city.

As Nichols puts it: “We’ve really appreciated how much Brisbane has come to take ownership of and support the joint. They get it!”

We really do.

What are some of your favourite local arcade spots? Have you ever made it to level two on Donkey Kong? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

The 8-Bit Perspective

Bowling Down Memory Lane

Genre: Sports…

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3 months ago · 8 likes · 8-Bit Jay

Stuff from the Stack finally returns for 2026!

I mentioned bowling alleys before, and this article from The 8-Bit Perspective about Ten Pin Alley for the PS One really immersed me both in the title it was discussing and memories of bowling in general. The tight shoes, the cheesy pizza, the sound of the pins colliding—it was all there. Reading this also made me want to pull out Wii Sports bowling and go a few rounds with my family again. A really great review for a game I had genuinely never heard about before.

This post was also cross-published on The Phrasemaker.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Time is always marching on.

The moment you are spending right now reading this article—while I can only assume catching the bus to work, enjoying a coffee break, or reciting this as your audition monologue for an upcoming production of Waiting for Godot—will be one you never get to experience again. So thank you for choosing to spend it reading my semi-coherent ramblings!

My point is that the clock continues to tick regardless of our actions. Time is an uncaring beast in that sense. Constantly moving forward in spite of how we choose to spend each minute, hour, and day of our lives. The best we can do is hope we are making the right choices that lead to those minutes, hours, and days feeling as fulfilling as possible.

I certainly felt like my time was well spent while playing Wayward Strand—a delightful 2022 indie game from Australian developer Ghost Pattern. At only a handful of hours long, the game was well-paced, making sensible use of its shorter playtime which allowed me to complete my first run in just a few sittings. I started, I played, I finished, and I left with a sense of contentment that the experience was well worth every minute. And really, that’s all you can ask for with a game of this nature.

What I found really fascinating about Wayward Strand’s relationship with time wasn’t how it treated my life’s schedule, but how it examined the movement of time within the lives of those in the charming universe it created. How it made me really think about my choices and how they would affect what I could and couldn’t do down the line. And how certain connections within the game would have to be compromised in favour of others, simply because there wasn’t the time to do it all.

But first, allow me to fill you in on the basic story setup of Wayward Strand. You play as Casey, a fourteen-year-old budding journalist who accompanies her mum aboard an airship hospital filled with elderly patients. Casey hopes to use her mum’s clout as the Director of Nursing to gain access to the staff and residents of this floating hospital so she can listen, learn, and eventually tell the stories of these people in her school newspaper.

Wayward Strand takes place across three in-game days, each taking roughly an hour of real-world time. The game functions on an internal clock that is always ticking, meaning that events, character movements, and possible interactions are designed to play out regardless of whether Casey is there to witness them or not. The residents of the hospital go about their day, talking to one another, enjoying a bite to eat, writing in their journals, sleeping, taking medication, or simply staring out the window at the world below, and it’s up to you to decide where to direct Casey’s attention.

During my playthrough of Wayward Strand, I began by attempting to spread my observations across as many of the game’s characters as possible, determined to fill out Casey’s notebook with a sweeping assessment of the airship’s inhabitants. I quickly discovered this approach was futile. There merely wasn’t enough time. Basic actions such as taking the elevator or walking down corridors meant I could never be everywhere, seeing everything, and talking to everyone all at once.

Instead, I focused my efforts on the characters that initially endeared themselves to me the most. I found myself trailing the eccentric writer Mr. Avery, taking in his warm but slightly peculiar wisdom about life and legacy. Ida Vaughan’s maternal tenderness and nurse Lily’s straightforward friendliness also grabbed my attention, and I would often spend hours of in-game time listening to their conversations around the airship.

Of course, this meant that I didn’t get to form as strong a bond with other characters in Wayward Strand. The enigmatic Tomi and the grouchy Dr. Bouchard didn’t receive as many visits from my Casey as I would have liked, but that’s a natural trade-off you have to make in a game where every second counts. As the kind of player who often likes to stick my nose into every corner of a level, uncovering every detail and reading every line of dialogue, this time-restrictive gameplay structure was a bit of a challenge to adjust to at first. But during my playthrough, I came to really appreciate the game’s insistence on using finite time as a mechanic through which to convey its message around connection.

The patients that Casey interacts with are elderly people in the twilight years of their life, while Casey herself is still just a teenager. This generational dichotomy already creates an interesting landscape for these relationships to grow, but the added urgency of time running out only builds on this dynamic in really fascinating ways.

As Casey—a young journalist seeking to interview these older hospital residents—I had to make the difficult decision around whose stories I would record and whose I couldn’t devote as much time to. These elderly characters may not have many more opportunities to have their lives chronicled in such a way, but with only three days for Casey to explore the airship, there is only so much life that can be told.

Naturally, I could always just replay Wayward Strand to fill in the missing gaps from my first playthrough. But a part of me thinks that would be missing the point. I like the note on which I left the airship hospital and will look back fondly on my time there with the characters I did get to spend time with.

Time is always marching on. I may return for a future playthrough later on, but if this is the only time I ever get to spend with Wayward Strand, then I’m satisfied with the connections my Casey built and the stories she got to tell.

Have you played Wayward Strand? What are some of your favourite games that operate on an internal clock? Let me know in the comments!

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

I gather that few people think about the Wii U as much as I continue to do.

And to be clear, that’s not me bragging. If I cared more about the potential audience for this article, I would base it around a far more popular system such as the PlayStation 2 or the Switch or literally any other console or handheld released by Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.

And yet, I can’t help but continue to hold a soft spot for this odd piece of misguided hardware. And a big reason for that is that, despite its botched messaging and bizarre design choices, the Wii U had no shortage of excellent games. My belief that the Wii U had a strong games library was validated by the fact that so many of them finally received the flowers they deserved after being re-released on Switch.

So, with the Wii U having a short—but in my opinion, memorable—five year stint of regular new game releases between 2012-2016, I wanted to explore which year was the best. In other words, in what year did Nintendo’s most polarising system achieve its greatest heights—at least as far as software releases are concerned?

Fetch your calendar and abacus and let’s dive in!

Caveats and Concessions

I am using the Metacritic “Best Wii U Games” list as my dataset for this project. This is similar to what I did for my “What Was the PSP’s Greatest Year” article, but if you need a quick reminder, here’s the reasoning and structure behind everything:

• The focus is only on Wii U games released each calendar year, with outside factors such as the launch of Amiibo or new apps being added to the system not factoring into how each year is judged.

• Sales figures of games are irrelevant to this project since strong sales do not reliably reflect how good a game actually is.

• User ratings are also avoided due to review bombing and the lack of consistent standards across player submitted scores.

• Critics scores from Metacritic were chosen as the most structured and reliable dataset available for Wii U software.

• The data only includes North American Wii U releases with at least seven critic reviews, which excludes niche and Japan only titles. That leaves a mere 187 games that can be considered for the purposes of this project.

While I would love to say that we can now move forward with the project, unfortunately given the Wii U’s, shall we say, truncated lifespan—after all, we are only looking at five years this time unlike the PSP’s seven—there are a handful of other notes I need to first address:

• The number one game listed on Metacritic’s dataset for the Wii U is, unsurprisingly, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. At 96 points, this game is a whole 3 points ahead of the runner up title, Super Mario 3D World. Given Breath of the Wild’s 2017 release, you may be wondering why this project cuts off at 2016. Well, simply put, there were no other 2017 Wii U games on the Metacritic list beyond Breath of the Wild. I therefore cannot justify including 2017 into this project with only a sole game listed—even if that game is arguably the greatest to ever grace the hardware.

• Unlike the PSP project, which looked at the top 25 games of each year, I will only be calculating the top 15 titles for the Wii U’s five years. This is because, as mentioned earlier, my dataset is merely 187 games long and certain years—I’m looking at you, 2016—didn’t have 25 games listed. As such, I will only be averaging out the top 15 games for each year while also listing their median score (which will always be game number 8).

• DLC such as the new tracks for Mario Kart 8 will not be included in this project as they represent extensions to pre-existing Wii U games and not brand-new games in their own right.

Alright, let’s travel back to 2012 and get this project started in earnest.

2012

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