Why is the boss fight against Hornet the hardest thing I've ever had to do in a video game? For context, I am a casual gamer. I play on normal mode across the board. I've beaten Star Wars Republic Commando 7 times and that is my greatest achievement to date as a mediocre player. I have never been so frustrated by a random boss only three hours into a game. I have never been humbled so much waking up on a bench after a character who looks just like me kicked my ass for two hours straight. When I started playing the side-strolling game Hollow Knight on my Switch, I enjoyed the level design, reminiscent of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, my first foray into side-to-side gaming. Hollow Knight had unique sound design, clever challenges, and an adorable little ghost with a sword as my playable character. But once I found my way to the furthest reaches of Greenpath, having to hit some tall skeletal knights with giant shields like twenty times just to get past them, I found the hardest video game boss in all of bossdom (this is a fact I can back up with no proof). I enter her little arena, a few shards of sunshine peering through the canopy to illuminate my lack of skill. With only 5 moves in her arsenal, she was able to obliterate me. Luckily I respawned at the way station just below the arena, so I hope back up and enter again, just to have her jump attack me to death. It's like she knows where I'm going to end up. After the third attempt, I sat up in my chair, clearly seeing the problem was in my relaxed posture., only to be fooled by my own narcissism and have her throw her sword into my neck. Again I hop off my bench and jump up to the arena. Right away, the ghost of my past life haunts me and takes one of my hits away before I can even face Hornet. It's humiliating to get hurt by the ghost of my pass self, especially when I needed every single of those to face her. It's like leaving the hospital after receiving open heart surgery to sprain my ankle on the curb. After the fourth or seventh attempt, I found the pattern to her attacks. If she jumps, run under her. If she uses her magical tentacles, use the time to heal. If she fuels up her dash, jump over her. I was acing the quiz on how to beat her, but she somehow could anticipate my anticipation and hit me, throwing me off my rhythm. Then, Hornet would get like three hits on me and render me useless. After the twelfth time, I thought I had her, knocking her down for her respite for the third time. Usually in games, the villains attack in threes, as if they all read Jesus Christ's Bible and knew that everything significant comes in a triad. By the twenty-fifth attempt, I had knocked her back for her fourth break, and she still kept going. How much does this lady have in her? I ended up goggling it just to make sure it wasn't a glitch or the game designers made the boss fight to make me feel even more inferior than I already do. Nope. She needs 45 hits. Forty-five! I'm not an expert on swords or anything, but I'm sure by the tenth or eleventh stab, a person couldn't endure any more. Then again, we are ghosts in a fictional game developed by sadist to make me feel bad about my gaming skills. I even went to message boards on Google to see if anyone else was experiencing the same issues. Despite the few people who had already asked the question I had, the majority of responses to our struggles were "if you can't beat Hornet after the first try, you should just kill yourself." I was less than hopeful. The Wednesday had already turned to Thursday and my resolve was nearly non-existent. I persevered a final time, losing count somewhere in the lower 30s, humming the Hornet theme that had already been seared into my skull. After five minutes of grueling precision, wearing out the A and B buttons on the controller, Hornet burst into light and disappeared. I had done it! I won some new power to dash or something like that and the gates of hell opened up to allow me to proceed deeper into Greenpath. The moral of this boss fight which I learned from anonymous users online with names like "Gamer696969" or "If**kedyomom123" is that I'm not shit and I should give up playing video games for the rest of my life.
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On Sunday evening, viewers of HBO's The Last of Us were treated to a beautiful, heartbreaking episode of the love story between Bill and Frank, two men who found their way to each other in the midst of a fungi-pandemic. The episode itself was one of the best episodes of television in years. Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett stole the screen in their single episode of the year's most highly anticipated series, along with moving direction from Peter Hoar and writing from Craig Mazan. Viewers of the episode were also treated to a familiar, tear-jerking musical score.
That would be Max Richter's 'On the Nature of Daylight," the six-minute minor-key ode to sadness. It's the second track from the British composer's album The Blue Notebooks, originally released in 2004. It's usage in popular media has made it one of the most recognizable orchestrations around today, mirroring the popularity of Lux Aeterna from Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream score. The song has been used to supplement the scores of many critically-acclaimed movies and series of the 21st century. One of the earliest examples was Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. Disconnect used it prominently as well as Denis Villeneuve's Arrival. Arrival's already wonderful score from Johan Johansson was unfortunately disqualified at the Academy Awards for the movie's use of Max Richter's score. But it's the use as book ends of the movie that show the narrative strength "On the Nature of Daylight" provides to a scene. Something about the haunting minor strings plays with our hearts in a way that elevates the action of the camera behind it. The rise and fall of reverb sends chills down our entire body, unlocking emotions as soon as the violin kicks into the most memorable part of the song. What makes Richter's song so attractive to use is its minor dissonance, the chords perfectly played to invoke emotions of melancholy despair. The trailer for the popular game Death Stranding used it to set up the tone of the game before players even bought it. But, when coupled with a narrative journey that has its own artistic merits, "On the Nature of Daylight" shines brightest. Like Louise Banks (Amy Adams) in Arrival and Bill and Frank in The Last of Us, what came before Richter's score ever hits our ears is the emotional involvement of a character we deeply care about at the end of their journey. The emotion of On the Nature of Daylight works best when it's employing the narrative power of bittersweetness. Characters that are at the end of an arc, dealing with a sad journey but are able to appreciate the beauty of what laid before. That's what makes the song it's most powerful. It may also be cheating to bring in music to a narrative that viewers already hold in our hearts, associated with another story that we are emotionally involved in. But that's the beauty of music, compounding emotional catharsis so it sits with us greater, continuing to make us feel things as we progress through life. The Last of Us itself is a cinematic piece of excellence so far. And the weaponization of "On the Nature of Daylight" that turned me into a blubbering mess as Sunday turned into Monday on a dreary week only stays with me longer and will highlight the season when it's ended. |
Rob EnglishJust a kid from Pittsburgh trying to figure out my place in the world and write some things along the way. Archives
February 2024
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