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Immortallium's Blog Posts

Looking Back At Immortalliumblog

Before I say anything else, I think it’s important to tell you that Immortalliumblog is coming to an end. I set up this blog back in 2019 with the intention of running it for three years to see how it would be received. Unfortunately, even when many of my goals went unfulfilled, I persevered and continued to produce content until this year when I finally decided that the time spent writing and maintaining Immortalliumblog is needed desperately elsewhere. However, I didn’t want to stop without first explaining myself so I decided to write one final article in which I would not only be looking back at Immortalliumblog as a whole but also how you’ll be able to access this content in the future.

Let’s start with a brief look at what some of my goals were. From the beginning, I was hoping to foster a community who would hold active discussions with me and each other about the various topics I wrote about, helping to highlight potential subjects to discuss and expanding on any questions I’d have from researching for the article. Unfortunately, this was an area which failed to materialise over the lifespan of the blog with only the occasional comment.

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Looking At The Most Popular Games On Steam Deck

I’ve written two articles so far about the popularity of certain games on the Steam Deck, one in which it was based on information from the official Steam Deck Twitter account and the other being based on a list Valve released showing the most popular Steam Deck titles over a one year period. However, Valve have gone above and beyond and have now added a Steam Deck section to their stats page which updates on a daily basis and shows the top 100 games being played on the Steam Deck either by week, month or year. With that being the case, I thought it worth looking at some of the most popular games on the Steam Deck.

Looking at the monthly statistics, the top 10 don’t seem to be terribly surprising and fall in line with the information we’ve had before. The most played game of the past month has been Elden Ring but that makes perfect sense to me as the DLC just came out recently. Stardew Valley, Balatro, Baldur’s Gate 3, Hades, Vampire Survivors and GTA V are mainstays while Fallout 4 has been bolstered by the recent TV series, No Man’s Sky has received a new major update and Dave the Diver has also been updated along with a recent sale.

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The Surprising Power Of The Word Aishiteru

If you were to ask Google Translate how to say “I love you.” in Japanese, it will give you the word Aishiteru or at least a form of it. However, I think that if you’ve watched and, more importantly, listened to a bunch of Japanese media whether that be anime, tokusatsu, video games etc., you’re far more likely to be familiar with another term, Daisuki. So infrequently have I heard Aishiteru that I thought to look deeper into its use and soon discovered that this word contains a surprising amount of power, so much so that some people will tell you to never use it in any shape or form. This topic proved intriguing enough to me that I thought it might be interesting to discuss the differences and meanings as well as a few examples I’ve found.

Aishiteru, written as 愛してる in Japanese, uses the kanji for love and seems, at first, like the closest translation to the English phrase “I love you.” However, social norms and culture mean that this phrase carries far more weight in Japanese than it would in English. This is a perfect example of where a literal translation loses much of the subtlety and context of the situation someone’s in. Instead, the phrase Daisuki, written as 大好き, uses both the kanji for big, 大, and the kanji for like, 好, which results in being similar to saying “I really like you.” in English. However, I’ve seen many examples of Daisuki being translated as “I love you.” since it’s the closest English phrase for the situation.

Aishiteru written in Japanese.
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Why You Should Check Out Gamedle

I can’t quite remember the specifics of how I discovered Gamedle but I do know that it was through a recommended video on YouTube and it clearly intrigued me enough that I decided to go check out the website itself. Little did I realise how addictive I would find it and that is predominantly due to a particular game mode. Since I’ve been enjoying it so much, I thought it might be interesting to take a quick glance at what Gamedle is, what I like about it and why I think you should check it out.

Gamedle can be roughly divided into four game modes (with a fifth one on the way) with a few variations. The most prominent mode is what is affectionately referred to as Classic. In this, you are given an image of a video game cover which has been highly pixelated in a 3×3 grid. One part of this grid is clear from the beginning and each guess that you make clears another section, giving you more information steadily. However, guesses are limited and you won’t be able to clear the whole image before you run out of chances. Additionally, you’re informed about whether the games you’ve guessed are part of the same franchise or saga as the answer. For those wondering what the difference is, I’m going to use the Mega Man series as an example. All Mega Man games would be part of the same franchise but a Battle Network game would not be part of the same saga as the Mega Man X series.

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1989: The Year Western Animation Made A Comeback

I find myself occasionally thinking back to the year 1989, interesting given that I wasn’t born until 1993. So then, why does 1989 have any relevance to me then? The answer is rather simple, that being that I consider 1989 to be the year when Western animation finally made its comeback! Why? Good thing you found this article then because I’m going to go over the issues Western animation had prior to 1989, what the significance of that year was and the impact it has had ever since!

Prior to 1989, Western animation was in rather poor shape. In fact many now call that era the Dark Age of Animation! The box office failure of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty in 1959 along with the death of theatrical animated shorts and the rise of television, which necessitated cutting costs in order to be profitable and a pivot towards children who were more receptive to the simpler animation than adults, resulted in animation becoming disregarded as an art form. Of course, it’s important to mention that this term applies primarily to American animation as animation was thriving in Japan during this era and many other countries such as the UK and the Soviet Union were producing plenty of critically acclaimed animated media. Additionally, I also want to point out that there were still creative talents in the American animation industry at this time such as Don Bluth and Ralph Bakshi but even they struggled with financial issues and people’s distaste for animated works.

The poster for The Little Mermaid.
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King Yama And Japanese Popular Culture

I was watching Ultraman Taro when a kaiju, Enmargo, appeared that caught my attention. Bearing a sword and shield, his crown adorned with the kanji for King and his chestplate reading Great King, I immediately recognised the influence for this kaiju, King Yama. Of course, the only reason I recognised this in the first place was because of his prevalence in Japanese media. However, I thought that, at least in the West, knowledge of him was obscure enough that I should take a look at who King Yama is as well as some of his appearances in Japanese popular culture.

Let’s start by taking a look at who King Yama is. Yama has his origins in India, specifically within Hinduism, where he serves as the god of the dead. As Buddhism spread from India, he, along with numerous other deities, were similarly dispersed and reinterpreted by various regions and cultures. The Buddhist interpretation of Yama made him a dharmapala, a wrathful deity, who presides over Narakas, the Buddhist hells. When he reached Japan, he was named Enma, often King Enma or Great King Enma. As a result, his impact on Japanese culture with regards to the concepts of hell should not be overlooked.

Enmargo.
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My Issue With Celebrities In Video Games

It was with sadness that I saw an article recently stating “Embracer has closed Alone in the Dark studio Pieces Interactive“. The amount of layoffs within the video game industry currently is, quite frankly, disgusting and it’s sad to see the effort to revive an important franchise destroy an entire studio. However, I will admit that I had a problem with the way the game was marketed, that being with such an intense focus on the celebrities starring in it. Besides the fact that I didn’t immediately know who David Harbour or Jodie Comer were, I have problems with this strategy and the mindset in general. Therefore, I thought that I should take this opportunity to discuss my issue with celebrities in video games and why I think it’s a much bigger problem than most people realise.

The first time I ever thought about this issue was when I played Dishonored for the first time back in 2019. I knew that there were at least a few celebrities in the cast but I was quite surprised when I reached the credits and saw how many of them there were. However, a particular part of the credits ended up rubbing me the wrong way, that being the mention of a company called Blindlight and the specific term “Celebrity Acquisition, Casting And Voice Production”. When I saw this, it made me think about how these people had been sought out rather than being cast in a more typical manner. What did this mean? How much were they paid to star and, more importantly, how much did they ultimately contribute to the experience?

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The Obsession With Video Game Graphics Must Stop!

I was perusing the news recently when I saw a headline from PC Gamer called “Oof: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League lost Warner Bros. $200 million—which is $25 million more than the original 2016 movie cost to make“. This didn’t really surprise me as I could tell player enthusiasm was poor and that the game felt like a malicious attempt to milk consumers for money but there was one particular quote that stood out to me as being particularly infuriating. In the last paragraph, it notes “Despite the internal concerns among frontline workers, executives from Warner Bros. kept reviewing demonstrations of the game and sending laudatory feedback, praising the graphics and saying they expected Suicide Squad to become a billion-dollar franchise.” While I’ve touched on the topic in the past, I’ve felt compelled to write about how I feel the video game industry has an unhealthy obsession with video game graphics and why they need to stop!

Let me start with my personal issue with this quote and what it represents. I’ve found that when it comes to video game criticism, one of the easiest topics to discuss is the visual presentation. Ask nearly anyone who has only a passing interest in video games about their thoughts on a particular title and, in all likelihood, the first thing they’ll bring up will be the graphics. To some degree, this is understandable. You don’t even need to play the game in order to comment about its visuals and there exists an unfortunate tendency to break the old proverb “don’t judge a book by its cover” by judging games purely by graphics. If the biggest takeaway that these executives had was that they liked the graphics then it signals to me that they don’t have any clue when it comes to game design or what people look for in games.

I think the lesson to be learned about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is that game design should take precedence over graphics and spectacle.
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The Tragic Fall Of The Once Great Studio Gainax

It was only the other day when I took a quick glance at the news and saw something that I found quite sad. Studio Gainax, arguably one of the most important and venerable studios in the history of the medium of anime, was declaring bankruptcy. However, as I thought about their releases, I realised that I couldn’t name a single thing they’d done in recent years. In fact, the only news concerning them I could recall was a lawsuit which they lost to Studio Khara. Taking all of this into account, I thought I’d take a look at Studio Gainax, a bit about their history and releases and how their eventual tragic fall came about.

Originally formed in 1984 by several notable creators such as Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto as Daicon Films, their first commercial work was the 1987 film Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, an ambitious project that, due to its oversized budget, ended up being a failure at the box office despite critical acclaim. This nearly put the new studio out of business and it was only the success of titles like Gunbuster which allowed Gainax to avoid bankruptcy.

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A Quick Look At The Notable Blumhouse Productions

I’m not a big fan of going to the cinema and much prefer watching films from the comfort of my own home. However, I’d be lying if I said that I’d never seen value in the experience with perhaps the most memorable being when I went to see Paranormal Activity. The audience’s reactions made for an oddly engrossing experience, one that’s hard to replicate at home unless you had a crowd of people over. Paranormal Activity ended up becoming a megahit and a considerable reason came from the assistance of a then little-known studio called Blumhouse Productions. Given their impact on the modern horror landscape, I thought it might be worth taking a quick look at Blumhouse Productions, its history and why they are particularly notable.

Originally founded by Jason Blum and Amy Israel as Blum Israel Productions in 2000, the company’s original purpose was the production of low-budget films where directors had creative freedom. However, this method didn’t start out too successfully with Jason Blum remarking that the films he made were ones “that nobody saw”. Alongside producing the film “Tooth Fairy” which ran counter to the company’s style, he also came across Paranormal Activity in 2007. After a couple of years and a few hundred thousand spent on post-production, amusingly many times more than the cost of actually making the film, it was finally released in 2009 and ended up becoming one of the most profitable films of all time with an estimated gross of over $190 million worldwide!

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