Revier's Stuff of Dubious Value

 Fiction is, in essence, distortions of reality, in service of conveying specific messages and narratives to an audience. It is little surprise then, that many works share tropes, ideas and even similar incidents. What is surprising, however, is when considerable similarities are found among works that look nothing alike. And so, we come to our topic here. Frankly, I was quite surprised to discover this, as, despite To the Moon borrowing some trappings of a JRPG, it clearly tries to be something else entirely, with its focus on its melodramatic relationship drama between a man and his autistic wife...huh, does it really? A commonly overlooked aspect of Johnny is his backstory. Specifically, the bit where he was jealous over his sibling, and then, post accidental fratricide, got brainwashed to act exactly like him, forever leaving his "true self" behind. "But it isn't a major part of his story!" you might think. That's simply not true. The brainwashing was wh

 Hello! Today we're going back to the past, and looking at a 2008 RMXP game made by Freebird Games, wayyyyy before they made TtM. Well, actually that's not quite right, I'm playing its second installment, which was made after TtM's release, but doesn't change much besides adding a TtM credit screen and a "Retro Vacation" option.  Said option just opens this: A weird Pac Man like parody of Quintessence: The Blighted Venom, which has Vikon, of all people, star as the main protagonist. He dodges the other protagonists of that game only to be caught in a comical army of Salories, and the game ends with a bizarre ad for To the Moon.  Now, it might seem like just a silly minigame. But this minigame originally existed in Did You Remember My Lullaby, the other side story they made back when they were still working on Quintessence. There, it had a fairly different ending. Lunair woke up from her sleep, commented on how she spent two months dreaming of "this c

 Now for the very final school of the game, the cold, clammy twin of the divine/deathly pair. DEATH Death is the realm of decay, evil and, well, death. Most of its spells either summon demonic creatures, turn foes to its side by raising them as undead, or weaken them. In this manner, it acts as the exact opposite to Life - that realm was all about strengthening itself, this is about weakening the world from within. Thus, it doesn't care about regular units much, choosing to fight either with its summons, or its curses. Common Tier 1. Skeletons: Cost: 25 MP Effect: Summons a skeleton unit to the overworld. Analysis: Death lays its cards pretty early with this summon - it's literally a spearman unit, but undead! Actually, they fight better than spearmen, having more figures, defense, the whole bevy of Deathly immunities(immunity to Death, Cold and Illusions), and Missile Immunity on top of that! That said, their stats are pretty horrid, and they definitely shouldn't be used a

 So, I've been watching the 1987 adaptation of the last of the Four Great Chinese novels, Dream of the Red Chamber.  While I certainly have my fair share of thoughts on the show, this post isn't meant to share them. Instead, I'm going to talk about one of the darkest pieces of humor ever. So, in episode 1, we get introduced to Zheng's family. They are depicted as utterly wholesome and idyllic, the very picture of a perfect family, really. Complete with adorable kid: But, plot twist: the Zhengs are not really big players in the main plot. In fact, they stay on the screen for like, 15 minutes, before the plot decides to move on to some stuff about Lucun and a weepy girl and some big aristocratic family. Fast forward to episode 2, and, during Lucun handling a case, we are treated to a mention of them, and how their little daughter was kidnapped. A while later, the whole affair is revealed: not only was the daughter kidnapped, but the neighborhood went up in flames, and onl