pseudoregalia
sybil made me feel things, and not the things you may expect
currently playing: their subdued history - potatoTeto (pseudoregalia)
trigger warning: discussion of chronic and mental illnesses.
pseudoregalia is sort of this dream game for me.
i have always wanted a game that has super fluid movement that feels wonderful to master, paired with a world that properly allows you to make the most of it. sure, super mario 64 might have great movement once you get to grips with it, but it's not really conducive to normal play nor is it needed. hell, i had a rude awakening when i tried to play that game normally that the two playstyles were nigh-incompatible; i enjoy mario 64 as a speedrunning game, but it is miserable as a regular game. a lot of the best movement-focused sonic games are restricted to 2D, with a majority of the 3D titles largely amounting to momentum abuse to clear entire levels without really interacting with the design. so, i've been on the hunt for something this ideal; something with a large, wonderful world to soak in, and a fun-ass way to get around it. well, finally, i found what i've been looking for. only took me nearly three years to get it off my damn backlog!
this game is, to me, the 3D evolution of everything that i love about metroidvanias. it's this sort of mysterious world that only leaves vague hints of what once was, and perhaps more foreboding, what remains. the world itself is split into distinct regions, clearly signposted by doorways that glow to denote them from the others. each one is filled to the brim with all sorts of little augmentations that you can collect to enhance your play experience, and those enhancements tie directly into improving your items. items which each influence how you navigate the terrain, and lend themselves well as light puzzle-solving tools. it's like, what if every single item gave you a similar level of traversability as the speed booster in super metroid, and you got several different moves of that ilk sprinkled throughout the game until you end up in this incredibly acrobatic form by the end? of course, with great movement comes great potential, and i had a lot of fun seeing just how far i could push my moves. what could likely be solved through a platforming gauntlet could also be solved through a well-placed high jump into wallkick into backflip combo, and one of those makes me feel like i just saw god in the mirror. case in point of just how stupid i pushed this: i went until literally the final stretch of the game, having collected 4 of the 5 keys without even remembering that there was a slide jump. i saw this game on a pariah095 video some time ago and saw the slide jumping and was like "woah that looks sick", so it's very funny that i didn't recall such a fact until like, the last fifth of the game. but why did i need it? why would i long jump when i could just high jump, kick across a wall a few times, and run across the wall for the distance? and then i got it, and then immediately felt that the slide jump is fucking incredible and feels so great to use. seriously, one slide jump can then carry you with such a degree of momentum that you can bunnyhop through three or four rooms and just slightly after the fourth one feel a bit of momentum start to decline. it's really fun, the movement in this game very much lends itself to being experimented and played with in order to see just how you can utilise it to get around certain challenges in entirely different ways.
this game has finally found it's way to me at the most appropriate time, i think. to get a little bit into the weeds, here, i've been gradually slipping mentally, getting closer and closer to the proverbial edge, losing track of who i am, what i am, and what i'm really doing. my disabilities and my sicknesses have been gradually ramping up in intensity to a high simmering point that burns me more every day. it leaves me unable to speak sometimes, and often leaves me unable to move. i have become very familiar with the stiffened, spine-altering feeling of my poor mattress beneath me every moment of the day save for hours-long excursions to perform basic functions. sometimes even those things are difficult to manage. all of these things weigh on top of me exponentially, and as a result of that, as well as my CFS, there is a strong requirement and, earnestly, a desire to simply sleep. to sleep and sleep, and to escape to a place that is at least a little better. unfortunately, this has led me to be rather depressed; the things that i do have in life, i sometimes lose track of, as i dissociate further and further, as i spend an awful lot of my time awake just wishing i would be resting more so i didn't have to go through the suffering of being awake. though, recently, that began to change. i've been experiencing these horrendous nightmares. anything from me getting enclosed in a tiny vent shaft with no escape, no food, and being surrounded by webs of spiders as the only things that will pay me mind, to me having to limp down a corridor whilst i am chased and then eventually gruesomely stabbed in grotesque detail, waking up feeling as though it was absolutely crystal clear clarity reality. these dreams start off as the whimsical escapism that they always used to, before... corrupting. hard pivots into these horrible situations that entirely compromise what the point of me being asleep is in the first place. to have these nightmares is to do more damage to myself mentally. and yet to be awake is so difficult, itself.
and then i saw the ending of this game. and i have no shame in admitting this: i cried! i cried like a bitch, because it just rung so true to me. my once fantastical dreamscape had been corrupted into this unrecognisable twisting amalgam of half-remembered things, all beginning to conspire against me to make a harrowing cocoon of malice, yet one still untethered from reality - where all of my true issues laid. sure, i was having to fight issues every single time i closed my eyes, but it was better than those things having any consequence from a confrontation in reality. i've been fearful, so riddled with anxiety and stress due to the compounding weight of every last little thing crushing down on me. however, something about the arguably quaint and small ending of pseudoregalia really struck a chord with me; in trying to form this defensive bubble, this... alternate world, whilst it was once something forged of my best memories, made of my innermost thoughts and hopes and dreams, to keep me safe in sanctuary, a place where i could truly rest, it became gradually more detached from that idyllic hope. it became something that hindered more than helped me, as a direct result of my underlying anxieties and fears, my traumatic experiences of the past, they all have been warping it, coating it in this dense fog of self-doubt and terror that i couldn't see past, to a point that, well... i don't recognise or remember half of what the shit is whenever i unfortunately fall into the delapidated side of my dreams. and yet despite that, because of how unfortunately marred my life is, there are times where i lament not being able to just sleep regardless. this game and especially its ending have shown me, at least in my own interpretation of what's presented, that i simply need to... well, let go of dreaming as a safety blanket. i can't just sleep everything away, i shouldn't be trying to just hide away from all of my problems by sleeping perpetually, and my dreams being corrupted into these horrendous nightmares should be signalling that to me. whilst it can be difficult, even escapism can eventually turn ugly in much the same way as these very real problems i face. and so, i need to remind myself of the things in my life that are worthwhile, the things that drive me forward. my lovers, my friends. and hell, fucked as it might be, video games.
pseudoregalia has reinvigorated me into finally beating a game again. a lot of my recent games have been replays, or multiplayer, or generally endless-type deals, and i forgot just how... well, nice it is to experience something new again. this might seem over-dramatic to some, but just by virtue of the fact that it has imparted these lessons upon me, helped me eschew and rediscover different parts of myself, pseudoregalia is nothing short of something wonderful to me. it's this extremely fun movement-focused metroidvania on the surface, and just beneath, there's this wonderful well of story to be tapped into. it's one of those games that has admittedly vague plotting, and a lot of the content is up to your own interpretation, up to your imagination. the fruits of your mind, much like a good dream, once again. i really love that. it's a game that is at once unconcerned with having some grand sweeping narrative, but is still invested enough in telling a story and having something to say that it sprinkles just enough for those willing to dig a little deeper into it. to me, this game has become symbolic in my mind of me being able to rise above the many monsters and enemies that litter my mind, that drive me to anxiety and nightmares, that make me want to just sleep everything away, and ground me in being awake for my life, and enjoying it, no matter what things may weigh down on me, because sometimes, you get so caught up in fixating on the monsters, that you forget why you even fought them in the first instance. pseudoregalia, to me, is a game about realising that a dissociative coping mechanism may not always be the most helpful, even in a situation of dire strife, and that you need to rely on the help of others, no matter who they may be, to find the joy in being alive again.
"so thanks, goat-bunny-cat lady... sybil?... i don't want to forget you, too."
