Tagged: written by Maya

Master of Time: Echoes of Buddhism in Breath of the Wild (or, is Link a Terton?)

I am extremely excited that Tears of the Kingdom is coming out! Too excited, truth be told. I’ve been getting pangs of desperation so bad that I’ve spent the past two weeks bingeing on its predecessor, Breath of the Wild (BotW). It’s somewhat working. The incredible landscapes, the effortless feeling of movement and adventure (a huge exception being climbing) and the unique ways it breaks the action RPG mould… it takes the edge off. And, as I’ve played, I noticed something that has truly delighted me. I’ve recently been researching Tibetan Buddhism for a creative project and I can see that BotW draws heavily upon one of the stories from Buddhist traditions. Let’s talk about it!

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Rule of Rose (PS2): what really happened?

To ask “what really happened?” after playing a fifteen hour game may seem strange. You might ask “what do you mean, what happened? Can’t you tell?”, but horror often relies on ambiguity to create tension and mystery, and Rule of Rose is no exception. Rule of Rose is all about the unreliability of memory and the differing perspectives one has as a child and as an adult. I decided to write this post because of an analysis I read which I didn’t find totally satisfying. In reading the plot of the game on the Rule of Rose Wikia, I realised that my interpretation of events was rather different…*heavy spoilers up ahead* Continue reading →

Rule of Rose (PS2): A loyal dog, a princess, and a rusty steel pipe…

A good horror experience will ask the important questions: what is the nature of evil? Is death ever truly final? What kind of hospital needs a zodiac sign puzzle-operated door? Amongst the various preoccupations of the horror genre is a longstanding fasination with children. Children are scary precisely because we expect purity and innocence from them, and yet they exhibit many of our worst traits unfiltered (cruelty, jealousy, narcisscism, idleness, fickleness…). I didn’t know I had been waiting for a game that explored the psychological dimensions of young girls’ friendships… until I played Rule of Rose. Continue reading →