DeVuego

Wax Heads ultimately shares the same central conflict as Empire Records, in which an independent shop is at risk of being bought up by a soulless corporation, but the interactive elements of this game really emphasize just how much there is to lose beyond one’s job. Music conjures powerful, immediate emotions, but it’s the game’s masterful story about how that music brings audiences together that produces all the lingering, magical feels.

Maybe it’s intended as a joke that you only get the trophy for “completing the tutorial” once you’re 80% done with the game—there seem to be multiple “ending” scenes—or maybe that’s a tacit acknowledgement of the game’s refrain: “It Never Ends in Everhood.” Perhaps the base game is just the tutorial and the real game is what awaits players after they return to the main hub and are reminded of the weekly battle arena challenges and the levels that can be accessed inside the Hillbert Hotel created by other players. So for those predisposed to wanting to see everything all at once, maybe that will be transcendent enough.

While the plot is occasionally predictable and the voice acting is a bit of a letdown, none of this takes away from the overall charm and mystery of Eden Genesis. Even when the final area, Node Zero, strips away all of the glamor of Eden’s districts, reducing things to a wireframe orange, it’s never anything less than exhilarating to find ways around obstacles, running along the safe underbelly of a fiery platform in order to double-jump up and slash through an enemy on the other side of it before finding another safe ceiling. If this is mental degeneration, then Disturbed had it right back in 2000: “Get up, come on get down with the sickness.”

It’s indicative of the game’s clear messaging that despite multiple car crashes, a delirious dream sequence, a high-stakes infiltration, and more, the moment that most stands out is a relatively quiet one: Trevor sitting at a piano, playing an original piece that he’s composed. For all the time spent controlling him up to that point, this is the first time where Angela, and by extension the player, can see him as an independent person, one capable of making his own decisions (in this case, his art). That glimpse of his humanity is a moving little flourish that attests to American Arcadia’s belief that we all deserve freedom from coercion and an unreal life.

Curse of the Sea Rats is ultimately a perfectly average game marred by some poor design choices, like instant-death chasms and repetitive forest and cave areas. The trap-filled final dungeon finds the game at its best and most inventive, and is a joy to fight through and navigate, but it also emphasizes what’s missing everywhere else. Rats!

The game’s eeriest moment is attuned to the politics of denial and unresolved emotions. The final boss, a manifestation of the existential crisis that faces the planet, is extremely hard. It’s far easier to accept The Knight Witch’s offer for Rayne to just walk away from this battle and enjoy the next few years, hoping that maybe one of her allies can stop the world from ending. But that leads to an unsatisfying ending, with Rayne haunted by the question: “Was there more that I could have done?” This narrative beat is a bleak and brutal reminder that if we all keep blithely enjoying our lives instead of fighting the toughest of battles, we may come to regret it.