This post is about the 1984 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, and I would recommend watching that before this. This post contains full spoilers for that film, as well as for the film First Reformed. The contents of this post were originally written as my university dissertation, and have been minimally edited here …
toatali @ LFF 2021
For the first time in 22 years living in London, I have been able to attend the BFI London Film Festival. Waking up at 6am everyday so that I can queue up for hours to pack into press screenings of new films is a tiring privilege, but completely worth it - even just to say …
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
This is the surprise twelfth post in a series of Ace Attorney reviews, and I recommend reading the others before this. This post contains spoilers for The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and all other Ace Attorney games. Thanks for reading! Table of Contents: IntroductionPart One: A History Class & The Adventure of the Great DeparturePart Two: Sir Arthur Conan …
toatali’s musings Vol 2.
Bloodborne, the brain-child of From Software and Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, is well known and cited for its incredible labyrinthine story, detailed through NPC interactions, environmental storytelling and lots of encyclopaedic item descriptions. Following in the footsteps of Dark Souls and Demon Souls, which also told their stories in similarly obtuse ways, Bloodborne is …
Resident Evil Village
This post contains full spoilers for Resident Evil Village and its predecessor Resident Evil 7. I would recommend playing both games before this. I have tried to refrain from discussing other Resident Evil games in this review and judge this specific duology on their own terms. Thanks for reading. As many people have noted before, …
Satoshi Kon
This essay was not originally written for this blog, so the style might seem a little different. I'm currently busy with work so I've decided to lightly edit this and post it here. This post contains spoilers for Memories, Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent, Millennium Actress and Paprika and I recommend watching them before reading. Kon …
Cyberpunk 2077
This post contains full spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077, and I recommend playing before reading. A lot of “Triple A” games launch with controversy, but CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 launched with a litany of technical issues and even life-threatening features. Before I get to a proper look at the game, I’d like to address this …
toatali’s best films of 2020
2020 hasn't been a bad year for films, but it has been a slightly strange one. I was only able to see one of these films in the cinema; the rest had to be seen on my laptop, my TV or my shitty home projector. This isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's …
toatali’s musings Vol 1.
This post contains spoilers for Magnetic Rose and mild spoilers for Colour out of Space and Cure. The segments in this post are mostly unrelated, so feel free to skip out any that don't interest you. Satoshi Kon’s films mostly have similar themes, but what’s interesting about them is how they play with those themes …
toatali’s best games of 2020
2020 saw the launch of a whole new console generation for gaming, albeit one that a lot of people, including myself, didn’t actually get to experience. I’ve been searching for a PS5 since they came out, but I think games like Demon’s Souls and Spider-Man Miles Morales will have to appear on next year’s list …