IRL, I‘m just your garden-variety university student and a notoriously chill guy. I love learning and art above most things, which led to me sidelining plans of working as a web developer (that's how I learnt how to make my site look so sick) in favor of English Studies, of all things. I skip class frequently tbf but I still keep up with the readings and I'm having a good time overall.

Other than that, I'm passionate about fashion subcultures, especially those under the J-fashion umbrella (visual kei, FRUiTS magazine, and brands like If Six Was Nine, Le Grand Bleu, Civarize, Gunda, UNDERCOVER, etc.) I don't dress extremely flashy myself — can't be bothered for uni — but a classmate once told me I looked like a Nomura character so make of that what you will...lol

Now, for those who are new and don't know what to expect from my writing, I thought it would be a good idea to write down a list of videogame crit opinions to get us on the same page. I don't have all the answers, so I'm more than happy to have productive discussions about them! I will add more as I remember/come up with them.

1. Review scores are not a problem, let alone the problem. I understand the concern when it comes to the hype-driven mainstream videogame media circuit (game companies effectively coercing these publications into defaulting to a high score), but beyond that scope? Every reason I've encountered so far seems arbitrary; a cop-out, if you ask me. I, for one, admire those able to abstract their arguments into numbers and stars. You don't have to, though. Just focus on the text itself!
2. I haven't been able to discern an imbalance in quality, critical insight, or even account of historical and socioeconomic issues between reviews and “cultural criticism”, for better and for worse. This division alone annoys me. In all honesty, I wish the majority of pieces on a game with a poorly applied summary of a theory I've read had been "intrinsically more meaningful" instead, but alas!
3. I love curation work! Curation, though, is not the same as criticism. And it's not like I believe these two practices to be incompatible, but you will never catch me going out of my way to take into consideration the limitations imposed by a videogame's time (some of the best videogames ever made are older than not — there's no excuse), production values (I will never argue that a game would have needed more resources to be better; the opposite, if anything), or risk-taking (I can acknowledge experimentation without valuing it for its sake; innovation means little to me). Even if we put my principles aside, I hope you understand how this condescension would be doing any game a disservice.
4. “You’re not taking into consideration the hard work involved in making this game possible!” You’re right: as I critic, I don’t, because I can’t. If that’s what I based my criteria on, I’d be singing praises of every shitty blockbuster that crunched its bloody way into videogame stores. “Think about the people who made this.” They’re neither my subject matter nor my audience! Both parts understand I’m not a cog in their marketing campaign, and is criticism with a baseline favorability requirement criticism at all? “Can’t you at least be constructive?” Sure, if I’m offered a position as an editor or consultant; those pay more than even professional criticism does. Otherwise, I’d just be writing fanfiction.
   
   I will always put the people who make videogames above the videogames themselves. Just not like that; not in that sense.
5. Are you a formalist? You can take inspiration from a diverse range of approaches. It's not like you have to choose.