10 - Impetuous Impregnability

Alex hands me the controller, and gestures for me to sit down. So I do.

He turns the console back on, and the game loads.

Publisher logo. Developer logo. A shot of who I assume is the main character, kicking some punk-looking bad guy in the nuts. (The accompanying text superimposed over the image reads, This game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore.)

I'm not quite sure what we're doing, to be honest.

I say to Alex, "So, uh—the last thing you said to me was, 'Heat Death of the Universe'. And now we're playing video games. Was that just an end-of-chapter fake-out hook—"

"Yeah, yeah," says Alex, "I'm getting there. But this is important to set up the framework of what I'm going to explain to you."

Ugh, 'framework'? I'm already getting bored—my eyes start shifting toward the door. I wonder what Jessica's up to. Maybe she can tear off my fingernails or something, if she's not too busy.

The main title screen loads.

KAMI
HAND
PRESS START BUTTON

"Kami … Hand?"

"Yeah. Press the start button."

I do, and start a New Game.

"Uh … Should I choose Easy or Normal?"

Alex shrugs. "Up to you."

I choose Easy.

Immediately, the game insults me. "What," the TV says. "You need me to hold your hand or something?"

"What'd you say to me, motherfucker!?"

Alex holds me back. "Alright, alright, chill."

A cheesy cutscene plays of a man and a woman arriving in a town you might see in a Western. The man cries for water in a dramatic manner. The voice acting is, uh … something else.

And then I'm in control. I'm immediately placed in front of two thugs.

"Square to punch, X to kick," advises Alex. "Left stick turns you left and right."

"Uh … Oh. Oh. Tank controls?" I say, nauseated. "Seriously? They were still doing that in 2006?"

With a fair bit of difficulty, I manage to dispatch of the two thugs. I basically just mashed punch. I've lost a bit of health in doing so.

"How do I block?" I ask.

"You can't. You have to dodge, with the right stick."

"With the … right stick???"

"Yeah. Up on the right stick does a quick juke. Left and right have you dodge sideways. And back does a backflip. The amount of i-frames vary with each one. Oh, and try cancelling your attacks with up-dodge."

"What's up-dodge?"

"Not much, dodge, what's up with you?"

"Fuck you."

Alex laughs. "You can basically cancel most attacks, except for a few."

"This is a … batshit insane control scheme," I note.

Alex grins. His glasses glow opaquely. "I know, right!? Isn't it great!? Don't you miss the days when every single game had weird-ass, unique controls? Back then, you had to read the manuals. You had weird shit like in Ap* Esc*pe where right stick was freaking attack! The M*tal Ge*r S*lid games—don't you remember being able stand on your fucking tippy-toes in first person mode!?" Alex is sounding a bit manic now. "You could end up in situations where you were holding down four separate goddamn buttons just to AIM YOUR GUN! It was awesome! But now, modern games, you can pick up literally any 3D game and it will control exactly the same. Right stick controls the camera. Left trigger always aims. Right trigger, always shoot or throw. … Keep this thought in mind—we're gonna come back to this point later, in my upcoming dissertation which I will present, after you beat the first level."

"Uh … O-okay."

I keep playing. It's not easy, even on Easy. The enemies are relentless. And everytime they kick my ass, they declare that, "You're not Alexander!" ('You' referring to my player character.)

"Hey, this is the thing you keep saying. Okay, so I get that you made it your catchphrase—"

"(Catchphrase?)"

"—but who the fuck is Alexander? I thought I was playing Gene."

"Oh, they're referring to Alexander the Great."

"… What!? Why?"

"It's a reference to an old M*ke Tys*n interview. Where he says, 'I'm Alexander! He's no Alexander. … My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious!' …"

(In case you're wondering, yes, Alex does the lisp as well.)

"Man," I say. "That guy's just everywhere. You know, they quoted him when they dumped water on me."

"Oh, which quote?"

"The, uh … 'getting punched in the face' social media one."

Alex laughs. "Yeah, that one's great."

Alex shows me the 'Roulette' function, which makes you pick from a randomized, spinning list of powerful attacks like Dragon Kick, or Head Slicer, or Ball Buster, which does exactly what you'd expect. You can even dogeza while the characters says in broken Japanese, "oh-ne-gai-shee-mahs". This makes the enemies laugh at you, but makes the game easier.

"Also, you see when enemies are up in the air like that? Try pressing forward and triangle next time."

"Uh … Okay."

So I do. The enemy goes flying back a hundred yards, and hits a crowd of other enemies behind him, knocking them down like bowling pins. "HOLY SHIT! That's sick!"

"Yeah, but that's nothing. Wanna see something really cool?"

He takes the controller from me, and corners one of the bigger brutes near a wall. He kicks the enemy into the wall, mashes the up-dodge, and performs another high kick. He does this over and over again, trapping the brute in an infinite loop of wall kicks. Alex's fingers are a blur, they're moving so fast. The audio from the game can't even keep up, the hit sounds and enemy grunts cut short, each one clipping into the next before it can even begin.

"… Whoa. That's cool."

"Yeah, the timing on that is like, really tight. But it's super fun to do once you get the hang of it."

I give it a try myself. I can't do it.

"Eh," assures Alex. "You'll get it, just practice more."

I die multiple times as I stumble through the level, each attempt starting me at the beginning.

Just when I start getting the hang of the regular enemies, the game throws a curveball: some of the enemies, when defeated, spawn a super-powerful monster enemy, which is—

"—literally too fast for me to react! This is bullshit! How do you deal with these guys!?"

"Well, generally, you can use the Roulette wheel to dispatch them, or unleash your Kami Hand mode with R2. You're invincible in that mode."

"But I want to fight them regularly! I don't want to use those as a crutch."

Alex pushes his glasses up, smugly. "Heh heh … That's the beauty of the game. You'll just have to get good at it."

"But I can't react to the attacks! It's literally impossible."

"Yes—you can't rely on reaction time alone. You'll just have to internalize their attack patterns. Let me show you. Gimme."

Alex demonstrates. It's baffling to watch. Alex seems to anticipate the attacks before they even start. He dodges, jukes, baits. He's constantly moving, dancing left and right, landing punches, cancelling out of them before he can get interrupted. He juggles them in the air, not even letting the monster so much as breathe.

"See?"

I scratch my head. "Is this what they call a kusoge?"

"No, no—I mean, it's got some elements of it, in the voice acting and cutscenes … and the extreme lack of polish (look how the walls just disappear when the camera gets too close), but it's bit too good, mechanic-wise."

"This game shouldn't work on paper. The controls are obtuse, the difficulty is unforgiving—…"

"Yes? … Yes!?"

"—so why is it SO MUCH FUN!?" I yell.

Alex simply grins. "You're looking at the brainchild of the legendary S. Mikami."

"'S. Mikami'? Oh. … Oh, wait, I know her! That's, um—" I pitch my voice higher. "'Akkarin~! … (Haa-aaai!~) … **** ****, hajimaru yo~'! … Right?"

"N-no … I'm referring to the acclaimed visionary game director, Sh*nj* Mikami. (Though yes, I agree, Y*r*Y*r* is peak.)"

"(Too bad we never got a fourth season.)"

"(Meh—I'd only want one if D*g*K*b* does it again. I mean, sure, S*n H*i was a much more faithful adaptation of N*m*ri-sensei's original work, but it's severely lacking in that signature controlled chaos and comedic energy that cemented its legacy among otaku during those first two seasons.)"

"(I mean, at least the character songs were still good.)"

"(This is true.) … Anyway, the story goes, after the success of Res*dent Ev*l 4, Mikami wanted to make something that he wanted to play. When considering the audience for the game, he basically tailored it to one specific person on the development team, a programmer. He deliberately ignored the opinions and feedback of other people. If Mikami himself and that one programmer found it fun to play, that's all that mattered. All thoughout the development, he knew this wasn't going to sell. He thought they'd be lucky to sell even 100K copies in Japan.

"… And yeah, he was right. It didn't sell well at all. It scored terribly among so-called cr*tics." (At that word, Alex makes a disgusted face.) "In fact, the game even got a notorious 3/10 rating from a certain famous publication site. (Thankfully, they've been rightly mocked for giving out that score, since then.) But the people who saw the craft behind the gameplay mechanics—well, they really like the game. It's a cult classic now. And Mikami himself, reflecting back on Kami Hand after all these years, he says that in 30 years of his career, it's the only title where you could do everything that he wanted.

"… To me, Kami Hand represents the true, unfiltered vision of a creator, who was able to express himself without compromise. Today? This would've been focus-tested to death, every rough edge sanded off—along with every bit of personality or charm. We can't have anything that potentially alienates anyone with obtuse game mechanics, or any barrier to engagement. You picked up the game, Odd-kun, and got immediately demolished, because you weren't engaging with it in the very specific way that it wants you to. Fast punch, fast punch, guard break. You didn't have a bread and butter combo, you didn't know how to counter-hit. You didn't understand launching and juggling. Today such a game would be unthinkable. These days, where game mechanics are deliberately transferable between games.

"… If you're playing nu-T*mb R*ider you might as well be playing Unch*rted. If you're playing Unch*rted you might as well be playing H*rizon. If you're playing H*rizon you might as well be playing nu-As*Cr**d. And so on, and so forth. There's a homogenization that has formed over the past two decades. Why do you think"—pointing to his Pl*ySt*tion 2—"I never touch anything newer than this console gen?"

"I saw you play Bl**db*rne once."

"Okay, that's an exception. … (ONE GAME, I don't know why) …"

I pinch my forehead. "Right. Fine. I get it. Because of user accessibility and quality of life upgrades, game mechanics, control schemes—"

"Not just the control schemes. Even the controllers themselves. Look at all the controllers that came before the Du*lSh*ck."

"—fine, the game controllers too—all these factors tend toward sameness, and bland homogeneity. … How does all that relate to the Heat Death of the Universe???"

"Well, think about it. What causes heat death?"

I think back to my undergraduate thermodynamics class. (… Nah, that's a lie. I never took any such course. In truth, I think back to Yo*T*be pop science video essays I sometimes click on during dinner, on my phone.)

"… Entropy?"

Alex snaps his finger. "Correct-a-mundo! Check out the big brain on Odd-kun!"

I blush, not un-demurely.

Alex continues, "Our universe is on a constant tendency toward sameness. Because of entropy. Energy gradients—hot and cold, positive and negative charges, high and low potentials—even out as time goes on. As more 'work' happens. And eventually we reach a point of maximum entropy, where no 'work' can be done anymore. A state in which nothing interesting can ever happen again. We reach our most statistically probable state: complete and utter uniformity, in every sense. Total equilibrium."

His glasses turn opaque again, as he finally gets to his thesis statement.

"… In the same way that thermodynamic entropy drives our universe toward sameness, so does 'creative' entropy tend toward the same flat blandness across all creative mediums, products and processes." His voice goes low. "Don't you see? This goes beyond fiction and storytelling. This affects every kind of human creation we've ever known."