By: McKenzie Welch

Instagram has been around since October 6 of 2010, and it has changed more than ever thought possible when it was first launched. It was first created as a means to share life updates so friends and family could see what you were up to, but it has now turned into something more. However, Instagram turning into something more cannot always be perceived in a positive light.

Instagram can still be used to share life updates, but there are now more strings attached. You can shop off of Instagram, you can follow your favorite celebrities, you can track your likes and comments, you can get brand deals, and more. All of these things can have severe impacts on mental health, especially as you’re growing up.

Instagram has been proven to increase the amount of people with depression, concerns about body image, low self-esteem, socially anxious tendencies, and other mental illnesses and feelings. In fact, a self-reported survey from ‘The Wall Street Journal’ found that 1 in 3 teenage girls struggle with body image issues due to Instagram and social media as a whole.

The issue with Instagram is that, despite it being promoted as an app for sharing moments of your life, you only see people’s best moments. It is rare that someone will post a moment where they were at their worst, or where they were struggling. This creates unrealistic expectations for life that are extremely difficult to live up to. Especially when you’re young, and it’s hard to see that there is so much more to life than your teenage years.

From my personal experience, I can say there was a time where I felt that Instagram was detrimental to my mental health, and it most likely still has lasting impacts today. Whilst I just try to have fun with Instagram now, posting when I want, and whatever I want, I still struggle with the ideas of not living my life to the fullest, not being pretty enough, or missing out on important high school experiences.

The truth of the matter is that everyone lives their life differently, and I feel as though it is high time that users of Instagram start to express that. It is important for everyone to be who they are, and there shouldn’t be a need to put up a facade on social media, but society has made it out to be a necessity for many.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102615/story-instagram-rise-1-photo0sharing-app.asp#:~:text=The%20Instagram%20app%20was%20launched,25%2C000%20users%20in%20one%20day.
• https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/feature-minimize-instagram-effects#:~:text=Studies%20have%20li nked%20Instagram%20to,social%20anxiety%2C%20and%20other%20problems.

By: Daniel Kendle

Happy holidays!

While writing for JOYSTiCK, I’ve always enjoyed playing and reviewing games (good thing too; if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here). However, I thought it would be nice to take a break and do something a little… dumb. But fun!

Now, lately I’ve been writing a lot of ‘Minecraft’ related articles. My last one was on ‘Minecraft Dungeons,’ a charming spin-off title, and the one before that I’m unable to pronounce without dry-heaving. And lucky for me, THAT’S the one we’re going back to today!

Gaming challenges are always fun to check out. Whether it be minimalist challenges, pacifist runs, “not using ____” play through, you name it. All very fun and interesting ideas to spice up a game you’ve already played.

So what if we did that? How about we begin an annual holiday special dedicated towards doing a gaming challenge? How about we ask the following question:

“CAN YOU BEAT ‘MINECRAFT STORY MODE’ WITHOUT EXPERIENCING PERMANENT PTSD?”

This might be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life. And while it may seem daunting, I am prepared for the journey ahead. Will I survive? Will I defeat this arch-enemy of a game, never having to play it ever again? Will I sustain lethal brain damage by the end of this? (If you’ve read my review of this game, you’ll probably know the answer to that last one). Whatever may be the result of this alien idea I’ve come up with, I am ready. More accurately, I am ready…

…for war.

CHAPTER ONE: A DESCENT INTO HYSTERIA

Friday, December 2nd. 3:14 PM. I get out of my parent’s car, walking up the side steps to our large brick house. Unlatching the white gate, I make my way towards the locked door, waiting for my mother to open up. The weekend seems calm, peaceful, like I can relax.

It’s wrong.

After throwing my backpack into my cubby and unpacking my lunch, I look back at my bag and see the bulge of my iPhone and AirPods in the outermost pocket. A grim waft of hydrated air rolls my neck as I skulk over to the pack, unzipping the pouch. Picking up my phone, I do a face scan and unlock it to see my homepage, the black-and-red icon for Netflix just above my browser. I click on it, and tap my account with the rhinoceros on it. Looking at the picture, I remember it from a BBC documentary, which gives a bit of solace whilst dread creeps through my heart.

I head on up, sandwich in one hand, phone in the other. Lazily slouching down onto my parent’s bed, I flick through movies and shows, looking for the object I so desperately want to leave.

‘Stranger Things’? No.

‘MANIFEST’? Nah.

‘Don’t Look Up’? Not today.

Then, I see it. Its icon has an animal with a vague green shape, eyes square, face contorted into a silent scream. Cuboidal head, prism body, logo for Netflix Interactive viewable in the corner. A backdrop of a navy tint surrounds the abnormal creature, once part of a respectable piece of media, now a husk of decrepit life. I click, wanting to run, wanting to hide, but I know better.

“Daniel, you’re 14, practically an adult by now.’“The voice in my empty head says. “You’re at the age when smoking a cig wouldn’t kill you (probably), and yet here you are, frightened by ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ of all things. Press play, let’s get this over with.“

The voice in my head compels me; I watch the small preview shown on the game’s UI. It shows key moments from throughout the series, like a man watching a tape of his life before execution. Shuddering, the writhing animation is of a quality compared only to a horror movie, a work of fright. My hand is shaking, I can’t eat anymore. Hunger is drained while head is full – full of terror at the thought of going back to this. But I need to do this, for Ms. Lingofelt, for all the kids in Newspaper/Journalism, and for all the readers of JOYSTiCK. For those who are tired of hearing about this game, for those who love seeing my suffering.

I press play.

CHAPTER TWO: SIGNS OF DYSFUNCTION

My muscles contract. I recoil from a pose of curling fear, unraveling my arms and legs from my chest. The gentle tune plays during the opening, a misleading rope that could send me down a rabbit hole of misery.

“Well, this isn’t so bad. The music’s nice, the animations haven’t started yet, the actual ‘story’ hasn’t begun, maybe this won’t be so bad?“

And then the narrator starts talking.
Never mind.
Moving along, I hear the game’s introductory question, an old joke spiraling around Reddit a while back.

“Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized zombies, or 10 zombie-sized chickens?”

My flight-or-flight response kicks in. How foolish of me to go back to this game, I remind myself. Why couldn’t I have reviewed something normally, like… ‘Tetris?’ Such a sad sight; a man ensnared within his own creation, a moth fluttering towards a flame.

After forcefully answering the question at hand, the dialogue continues for a while longer, and I pause the video to recollect myself. Rubbing my temple I look out the icy-white window, snow pelting down against the frosted glass. I sigh, knowing that I don’t have anything better to take care of. No homework, no chores, no nothing. Normally this’d be a sign of joy, but I couldn’t help but wish I had work to keep me busy. Unfortunately, this IS homework, technically. I press the triangle again, and settle back down into the sheets.

…..

For the next good chunk of the game, this is how it plays. After maybe an hour of watching, I pause to take a break, a relief from the twisted storm I’ve caught myself in. I eat, I sleep, I go on walks, all to take my mind off the pain I’ve endured from this nightmarish experience. My sanity is numb; I can’t feel my fingers, with a creeping chill forming worse each time I subject myself to this creature of a product.

Once I reach the end of episode 2, I feel… better. I feel refreshed, like I can overcome this iron grip latched onto my soul. What the other 2 episodes will be like, I can’t tell.

CHAPTER THREE: THE BOY’S BREAKING POINT

Chapter 3 starts like the other 2 had before: me crying for about an hour. After retracting my tears and going through a couple hundred tissues, I sat down for the long stretch. I can smell victory, and it smells good (probably).

Lo and behold, the penultimate video starts without a hitch. 2 hours ago I would’ve been terrified of this image, this ancient, primal threat. But thou must see that I have dramatically matured since then! Yes dad, I AM self-sufficient! I can experience trauma, too!

While sitting through the opening narration crawl once again, I get the ping! of a text.

“It’s time for your daily French lesson. Take 5 minutes now to complete it. -Duolingo.”

This is a pretty standard Duolingo alert; since it’s an app for learning languages, these aren’t uncommon. However, in my glory-dizzy saga, it instead looked like this:

“Human child, you shall never be able to vanquish the ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ demon. Come now, let us continue the blood-letting ritual. Your soul is not fit for the realm of humanity; passing your spirit into our hands shall let the Elder Ones rejuvenate their aching bones. -???”

I know deep down that my mind is playing vengeful tricks on me, and I can’t blame it. In reality, my brain’s the one subjected to this torment, not me. I am merely a vessel, a carapace, my pink thoughts an alloy. It’s trying to make me go back to my old ways of thinking, but I won’t let it.

I won’t let it.
I-I won’t let it. No.
No, no, no. No, I won’t.
I-I won’t-t! No!

CHAPTER FOUR: NO MORE STORY MODE

THATS. IT. NO MORE.

No more ‘Minecraft’ reviews. No more slandering ‘Minecraft Story Mode.’ No more thinking that I’ve gotten past the treachery that has infected this serial.

When I started JOYSTiCK, I was excited to be able to review video games for school purposes. But now, 6 issues later, half have somehow featured the same game. And I need a break. I need to return to my roots, I need to review other games.

I made this jokey episode not to delve into the actual question at hand, but to just make a funny spin-off article for the holidays. But the menace of ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ still lingers. It’s not really even fun to criticize this game anymore; I’ve done it so many times. It’s time I move on in life, to new horizons, to new experiences.

Episode 6 (this one doesn’t count) will come in 2023. I hope to see you then!

By: Daniel Kendle

Log Entry No. 47

“It’s been months since the nuclear apocalypse began. After the ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ menace failed to heed by missile launch, it grew into a virus-like form, overtaking any poor being it touches. The lands around me are ravaged, the entirety of the US Midwestern-area decimated.

Now I am forced into this bunker, surrounded by both strangers and family alike. I feel cold, callous, like all of this is my fault. In reality, it isn’t, but that doesn’t lighten my heart.

Talking to others, I have discovered a way to vanquish the vile beast that stalks these lands. Ever since I’ve written that review, I’ve never wanted to touch my school iPad again. But now with this new information, I feel compelled to destroy the ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ menace, once and for all.

Using the creature’s DNA, scientists have found a closely-linked relative on its branch of the evolutionary tree. It’s been reasoned that reviewing this “cousin” could somehow allay the menace’s madness. And if it’ll save us all from impending starvation, that’ll be good enough for me.

After saying goodbye to Mother and Father, I’ve set out across the ruined ‘scapes in order to find this other title and review it. Everything now has an ugly tint to it, and it disgusts me personally.

This journey shall take much time; I’ll be seeing the leaves fall once this is all over. But as I watch the heavens for this monster, I creep closer to the goal of rebuilding this world.”

Hello hello, welcome back to JOYSTiCK, the HPSH serial that enjoys reviewing and exploring video games. On the docket for today is ‘Minecraft Dungeons’, another spinoff from Mojang, the creators of the base game. The difference between this and ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ is that one of these games is actually pretty good. Impossible, I know.

…..

‘Minecraft Dungeons’ was released on May 26th, 2020, originally being scheduled to release in 2019 onto PC, before being further expanded onto Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo consoles, and onto Steam in 2021. It’s safe to say that this is a game that was meant to be played across many platforms. Of course, this also means that ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ supports cross-platform play, allowing people to play together even with different consoles.

Generally receiving favorable reviews, the consensus on the game was that it was a fun, charming experience, though lacking in much depth. Companies like Gamespot and IGN gave ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ 7/10’s each. The game reached over 15 million players as of February 2022. Also, 6 DLC packs for the game were released over the course of a little over a year.

PART ONE: GAMEPLAY (AND A REVIEW OF ‘MINECRAFT’S’ COMBAT)

As mentioned above, ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ has a very fun gameplay loop, even if it is comparatively shallow against other dungeon-crawlers. Though in order to talk about combat in this title, we should probably discuss ‘Minecraft’s’ very controversial combat system.

As of the 1.9 update back in 2016, the base game’s approach to fighting changed dramatically from previous versions. Before, players attacked with a sword in quick succession, not having to worry about things like recharging between hits and timing attacks. There was also sword-blocking, which allowed players to decrease the damage taken if held.

But then, it all changed.

The most controversial addition came with the sword’s new “sweeping” attack. No longer could you repeatedly spam-click opponents, now you had to swipe, pause, then swipe again, waiting for a partially-invisible meter to fill up again. While this was great for PVE (Player Versus Entity) combat, this harshly degraded PVP (Player Versus Player) combat.

Axes also got “upgraded.” Before they weren’t very useful in a fight, doing worse than a sword. However, the ax’s power EXPLODED, with the stone ax, the second-worst ax in the game, doing 9 – yes, NINE – hearts of health, the same as a diamond sword, the second best sword in the game. It’s nuts.

Finally, shields replaced sword-blocking. While probably the least controversial of all these additions, it still has its problems.

Sword-blocking was fair. Hitting a button on your keyboard at the right time halved the damage taken, acting as a way to shrug off some hits. Now, you may be expecting shields to be useless by how I’ve been wording this, but it’s actually the opposite. Shields in ‘Minecraft’ make you a GOD.

Shields, for one thing, let you not take ANY damage from an attack. Swords blocked around half, which was fair. But when you hold up this wooden board you can negate all of an attack’s power. This would be fine if, say, the shield had a long cooldown between uses. It doesn’t though so… yeah. It’s basically a way to make you invincible, even if it probably wasn’t made for that.

Outside of those changes, combat in the base game of ‘Minecraft’ is pretty simple, with the complexity coming from putting “Enchantments” onto gear, acting as modifiers. Weapons include swords, bows, axes, crossbows, tridents, and if you’re feeling quirky, TNT and throwable potions. There’s also armor and shields, the latter mentioned before.

So, now with that section out of the way, let’s discuss ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ combat, and how weirdly simple it is.

In ‘Minecraft Dungeons,’ have 2 main weapons: a melee and ranged pair. There’s also 3 slots for “Artifacts” that give you special abilities. Finally, there’s been a decrease in armor slots, going from 4 (helmet, chest plate, leggings, and boots) down to one unified armor set. No shields, no invincibility.

This is boring.

While each piece of gear you find has unique properties, your variety of ways to deal damage is lame. There are probably hundreds of different gear available, but each functions in a largely same-y way. Armor gives you a higher health total, melee weapons let you attack close-up, ranged weapons let you attack with arrows. Artifacts are cool, but there’s far less of them, and you can’t enchant them, unlike armor and weapons.

Ah, Enchantments! They’re actually alright; each piece of gear can have up to 3 total enchantments on it at once, with 9 to choose from. They generally add interesting modifiers to your equipment. You can have something useful like Protection, which gives you even more HP, something stupid like Explorer, giving you a minuscule amount of HP for every 100 blocks crossed, to something dumb but fun, like all the enchantments that let you attack monsters with bees.

So, now that I’ve given you a run down of your available arsenal, let’s look at what dungeon-crawling is like in this game. You’re given an arcade-style map of possible locations to run through, each level being around 20 to 30 minutes in length. Pick one, adjust the difficulty slider to how hard or easy you want it to be, and head on in.

Upon running though a level, your first way to attack is with your melee weapon. Simply press or hold a button and you’ll let loose an attack, whether it be from a sword, mace, or great hammer. Every weapon in ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ has different speeds of attacks, with something like the Gauntlets having a lightning-fast flurry of punches, or the Anchor being so slow it hurts to use. This is a problem I have with weapons; some are just way too good, and others suck. Slow weapons are generally worse for wear than something that can dish out damage at a steady rate. While quicker weapons usually deal less damage per hit, you’ll never really notice this due to how easy this game is.

The first main level you pick, Creeper Woods, has enemies go down in 1-2 hits, max. Some more armored creatures take more, but that’s honestly just an exception. Like, yeah, mowing through enemies is part of the dungeon-crawling genre’s appeal, but you’ll normally only be able to kill 1 monster at a time without any Enchantments, so it’s basically just a slow-moving, sluggish system where you’re able to slay anything with a flick of a button. Lame.

Ranged combat isn’t much better. While you do have some fun in trying to manage your arrow supply, you never need to worry in the early game, as you can get arrows in the hundreds. I’m not lying when I say I’ve gotten over 1,000 arrows in my inventory at once. Using a ranged attack has you use 1 of these projectiles, streaking towards the opponent. These generally let you approach battles without having to get up close and personal.

Aside from that, artifacts add a little randomness to your experience. Some rely on souls, a collectible from fallen enemies. Filling up a bar lets you use ultra-powerful artifacts. Most don’t need souls, instead having a cooldown between uses. Fun, but nothing crazy.

My problem with ‘Minecraft Dungeon’s’ combat is that it feels so flat. No real complexity outside of Enchantments makes a slow-moving yet charming game that should feel very invigorating and fun. I don’t hate it, but I’d say I’m… disappointed.

Outside of that, there are much better aspects of gameplay! While the main gameplay loop of going around killing mobs is slow, it’s still fun. I enjoyed putting together a composition of tools to mow through enemy hoards. Like I said, this IS a fun game… just kinda weird in areas.

Now, you get items as drops from enemies, which is standard. However, you also have a hub-world of sorts, known as your camp. Here are several traders that sell you items, remove Enchantments, upgrade gear, and gift items to other players when playing multiplayer. These are nice additions to the game, though that’s all I really have to say.

PART TWO: BOSSES

The base game of ‘Minecraft’ has only 2 bosses, the Wither and the Ender Dragon. There’s also some mini-bosses, like the Elder Guardian, Warden, and Ravager. So, there really isn’t much material to go off of for a spin-off title, as you can tell. So, what did the developers add? Some pretty neat enemies, honestly!

The first boss, the Corrupted Cauldron, has a name in the literal sense: it’s a living vat of witch’s brews that spews out purple slime, random undead mobs and purple fire. It also harvests and eats the dead bodies of slain monsters to regain health through this dark, sadistic manner.

Cute.

The Nameless One is an undead skeleton king that can summon either clones of itself or skeleton soldiers to fight you, using a weapon known as a Glaive to strike. This is also an interesting fight; it feels very “Minecraft-y” without straying into the territory of weirdness. I like it!

My personal favorite boss, the Redstone Monstrosity, is the most ‘Diablo’ of all the enemies. It fights using an arsenal of exploding projectiles, heavy-hitting fists and mini Redstone cubes that chase you around.

One cool thing about this fight is that you have these interactable power cores along the sides of the arena you fight the boss in. Activating them lets loose a powerful shockwave, damaging anything within the 4 cardinal directions. These also hurt the monstrosity, making the battle even more interesting to fight.

And while this review won’t cover the story, I’m still not mentioning the final boss, as even though this game doesn’t have too much story, I feel like people would still be sad to have the ending spoiled. But all in all, these are some cool enemies, and I like them all!

I will say, however, that nothing feels super tough; I’ve never needed to grind for levels in order to beat something. This can be seen as a good thing – grinding for anything in a game is normally boring – though I wish that these were some more interesting bosses, compared to other reviews I’ve done.

PART THREE: GRAPHICS

The base game of ‘Minecraft’ has an interesting, iconic style. Using voxel-based terrain, the entire game is made up of cubes, squares, pixels, etc. while not having ultra-realistic lighting or any major notion of physics, ‘Minecraft’s’ artstyle is great. In fact, I’d say that the game would look worse for wear if everything had normal 3-D models. There would be a lot of clipping of models and architecture, so having everything have to conform to a voxel layout helps things feel very neat.

But what if you did put realistic lighting in ‘Minecraft?’

‘Minecraft Dungeons’ is a very VERY pretty game to look at. The lighting looks wonderful, the textures for new blocks and enemies are pleasant to see, animations have been updated from the clunky-yet-perfect movements of the base game to more high-fidelity work for this spin-off.

Luckily, the game doesn’t go into the uncanny-valley with them, meaning that they don’t feel out of place and creepy, contrary to ‘Minecraft Story Mode’s’ weirdly-psychotic animations. They also don’t feel like some kind of fan animation; you’ll never see character’s limbs flex and bend, keeping to a straight, box shape. While this may sound bad, this is actually great, in my opinion.

As I said, the lighting is superb, feeling like something straight out of a mod for the base game. It also has an interesting effect with the pixelated blocks, a beautiful clash of realism and… ‘Tetris.’

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION

‘Minecraft Dungeons’ isn’t perfect by any means. It has a very slow combat system, generally shallow – but still good – story, and is arguably one of the most kid-friendly dungeon-crawler games out there. However, I still think this is a very fun time, and I’d recommend it! I’m giving ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ an 8/10, because it’s one of the most chill action games out there, a strangely nice combination. Plus, it’s only $20 for the base game, a steal.

Log Entry No. 52

“After weeks of prowling humanity’s ruins, I’ve finally caught up to the ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ monster. A towering mass of dark antimatter and writhing clouds, it feeds upon once-lively lands in search of human populations.

I sprinted towards the creature’s back, leaped up, and with a single slash of my blade, I smited the creature’s core!

As the monster fell to the ground, the land around me began to change. From the caked rubble came again trees, flowers, grass. Nature returned, cities rebuilt themselves, and humans came back.

‘Hooray! They all shouted. ‘This random kid has saved all of our lives! ‘Tis a miracle!‘

And as I basked in the glory, I felt whole again. As if the world wouldn’t let me down, as if I had restored purity to the sanctum that is my heart, deep down in my organ structure.

I had defeated the ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ menace. My soul… was free.”

And that’s all for this episode of JOYSTiCK! See you next time, and feel free to check out other episodes thus far.

By: Semaj Carter

‘A Plague Tale Requiem’ is a horror fantasy game about a girl named Amicia and her brother Hugo set in the 14th century. As you can guess, this game is based on the Black Plague. The game opens up to Hugo and Amicia running away from Lucas, the alchemist of the group, because they are playing king vs the sorcerer. You start playing in the tutorial by playing hide and seek with Lucas; that’s how they teach you the basics of stealth in the game and how it works.

After the tutorial, Lucas leaves to go back to Amicia and Hugo’s mother, who is also an alchemist. In my opinion, I think the mom is the worst character in the game because she acts like she doesn’t care that much about Hugo, and when she does, she favors him over Amicia. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, in the first game, Amicia didn’t know much about her brother at all, he was basically isolated away from everyone including her, except for her mom and dad, who didn’t really pay attention to her.

This game is really depressing, so if you actually pay attention to the story, which I normally don’t do, be prepared and grab some tissues. 

Now let’s talk about Amicia and her overprotectiveness towards Hugo and Lucas, but mostly Hugo. Understandably, Amicia is, according to the prophecy, a protector to the Macula A.K.A. Hugo. If you don’t know what the Macula is, and no, I’m not talking about the thing in your eye, it’s a mysterious, ancient curse that runs in the bloodlines of certain families. It plagues the de Rune family, and in particular has awoken in Hugo de Rune’s blood.

Nearing the end of the game, Hugo and Amicia sail on to sea with their friend Sophia, and eventually reach an island where they suspect the pond that can save Hugo is present.

Overall, I thought the game was really sad, and I was upset with the ending. I still would give it a 10/10 because it was the first game that made me cry, and I was really invested in it. You can get ‘A Plague Tale Requiem’ for the PS5 and XBOX.

By: Manny Ochoa-Reeve

Game Freak has just recently come out with a new Pokémon game called ‘Scarlet and Violet’. This game is packed with a lot of new features and content.

If you don’t know what Pokémon is, it’s a video game franchise where you can catch creatures called Pokémon, and train them to be stronger, and level them up to have stronger stages of themselves called evolutions. There are over 1000 Pokémon to catch spread out in 9 different generations. Generations just tell you around what time these Pokémon came out.

One of the biggest new things in the new game is the new Pokémon. Generation 9 has just released 107 new Pokémon in the game. These generation 9 Pokémon are very well designed because they are simple but still have lots of detail.

Not only are there new Pokémon but Pokémon from old generations are getting new stages in their evolution. These Pokémon are Primeape, Dunsparce, Bisharp, and Girafarig. I would tell you about the new evolutions and Pokémon but I wouldn’t want to spoil them.

Something Game Freak has done with all of their games is they come out with two versions of the game. Both versions are the same game but the only difference is the exclusive Pokémon you can catch and the exclusive legendary you can catch. In the new game, you can choose between the versions Scarlet or Violet.

Violet is based on futuristic Pokémon and you will be able to catch more futurist Pokémon along with a really strong electric legendary Pokémon.

In Pokémon Scarlet, you get Pokémon from the past, so this game has more ancient Pokémon with a really strong fighting type Pokémon.

In my opinion it doesn’t really matter about the version exclusives because you can buy all of the Pokémon from trading online.

The story in this game is really good because of how much there is to do. In the story you attend a school where they give you a “treasure hunt” which means you go out and explore, and if you choose to you can complete 3 main story paths.

One of the biggest parts of the storyline is to defeat different gym trainers which are very powerful Pokémon trainers and once you defeat them you can become champion of the island.

The other part of the story is going to different hideouts to defeat bully’s across the island. This part of the story doesn’t really make sense to me and to me wasn’t really necessary.

My favorite path of the story is you go to defeat Boss Pokémon to find different plants so you can power up your Pokémon. This brings a lot of interesting fights.

This Pokémon is different from others because it’s open world. This game is really good because you can really do whatever you want. You can train your Pokémon, fight everyone, defeat the boss Pokémon, catch more Pokémon, and beat the bully’s. There’s also a bunch of towns you can visit to complete side quests.

Another part of this game is the different regions that have different Pokémon, for example, the mountain where you can find ice Pokémon or on the ocean you can find water Pokémon. There’s a lot of different areas and things to explore but the only way to find them is to explore it yourself.

In my opinion, this Pokémon game is definitely, probably, the best of the series. All of the things you can do in this game really makes it so you won’t get bored. The only bad thing I can think about from this game is the frame rate which can make the game slow at some points but it really isn’t that big of a deal. I recently beat the game and I can say that this game was a 10/10.

By: Daniel Kendle

Uh oh.

Greetings, and welcome back again to JOYSTiCK, the HPSH serial that enjoys reviewing and exploring video games. Today we’re taking a shot at our 4th game on the docket, eternal pain and suffering ‘Minecraft Story Mode,’ which I’m not even going to try to hide my disgust of.

…..

So, I really, REALLY like ‘Minecraft.’ Like, to an abnormal amount. And it being the prince of gaming giants in the industry, of course it would eventually get a spin-off.

As of writing this, there have been 4 ‘Minecraft’ games made besides the original. ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ is an isometric dungeon crawler based on ‘Diablo,’ ‘Minecraft EARTH’ was – I say “was,” as it’s been permanently shut down due to COVID-19 – an AR game similar to that of ‘Pokémon Go’ and ‘Pikmin Bloom,’ where you built stuff in the real world using resources obtained from resource deposits (similar to that of the base game), and then… There was ‘Minecraft Story Mode,’ which similar to the rest of Telltale’s games – the company that teamed up with Mojang, the creators of Minecraft – followed a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” format. There were actually 2 games, being season 1 and season 2. Each had the same characters, but different stories. For this review we’ll be looking at season 1 only.

So, to preface this review, this’ll be mostly about the story of ‘Minecraft Story Mode,’ as the game doesn’t have much to offer, gameplay-wise. It’s mostly focused on telling a narrative rather than actually having you move around and do stuff on your own merit, like most games. So, for this review, I’ll be discussing the story first, then eventually the music. If you’re looking for a review of a game with the player actually “playing” instead of just clicking through multiple-choice questions, then this isn’t the review for you.

So, ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ is a bad game, it’s not like I’ve tried to hide it in the title and introduction alone. But, why is it like this? Well, the answer is pretty interesting, actually.

PART ONE: STORY *Warning, Spoilers*

Settle down everyone, this might take a while.

For context, I don’t actually own a physical copy of ‘Minecraft Story Mode.’ However, the first game has actually been archived on Netflix, of all places, categorized in their “Netflix Interactive” group, a group made up of playable movies. This is because Telltale eventually shut down, and these 2 games were removed from production lines forever. Thank goodness Netflix was able to swoop in and save this insanely-bad experience.

But now, the game’s story. Keep in mind, ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ comes in an episodic format, having 4 episodes for the main game and 4 additional episodes after completing the first half. I’ll be covering the first half for this review.

We open on a bit of background The Order of the Stone, a group of legendary heroes that once defeated the Ender Dragon, a powerful creature that lived in a place known as The End. Afterwards, they disappeared into legends, where they have since split apart and gone their separate ways.

After this we open on our playable character, Jessie, as him (or her, you can choose their gender) and his friends prepare to head off to take part in a building competition in order to win tickets to Endercon, a festival that they’ve always wanted to take part of.

After a rival group causes a commotion at their 1st-place winning build, Jessie’s pet pig runs off into the forest. After saving him they’re ambushed by monsters – or “mobs,” as they’re normally called – being saved by another friend, Petra. The three go off to Endercon and meet up with Jesse’s friends in order to exchange a Wither Skeleton skull for some cash.

The stranger that they’re to trade the skull with ends up cheating them, taking the skull and leaving some dirty lapis in return. Jessie, Petra, the pig and the friends all chase after him. They reach the main convention hall and head down to a basement library, where they find the stranger’s been working on some sort of demonic summoning practice, constructing a statue in order to resurrect the Wither Storm, a monster capable of destroying entire cities with ease.

The group runs to warn the public, stumbling into a Q&A with Gabriel, one of the members of The Order of the Stone. They try to tell him of the plans, but Jessie is interrupted by the stranger, now known to be Ivor, another past member of the order. He uses the Wither Skull with 2 others and a machine known as a Command Block to summon the Wither Storm, though it’s revealed to only be a ploy to scare the crowd, as Ivor has the potion to subdue the beast. The problem is that one of Jesse’s friends, Axel, took the potion for himself, replacing it with one that turns out to be useless on the creature. It quickly starts destroying the town, and Jessie, his friends, his pig, and one of the members of the rival gang have to enter a portal to escape.

Now in a place known as the Nether, they travel across a minecart highway in order to travel away from the destruction back home, and reach another portal to get back to the normal world and end up far away from Endercon.

After finding The Order of the Stone’s past bunker, they split up to find 2 more members of the order. This is one of the game’s BIG player-made choices, allowing for Jessie to either find one or the other, which takes a large chunk of the next episode to do.

You go to find either Magnus or Ellegard, both being pyrotechnics and “Redstone” engineers, respectively (In the normal ‘Minecraft,’ Redstone is a kind of circuit-like ore. I wont cover it here, but I wanted to give context for the confusion). After some hassle getting them to come back, Jessie, a friend who came with them depending on the order number chosen, and the order member all leave after the Wither Storm reaches them again.

Upon getting back to the bunker, they find out that the friend Jessie didn’t go with got the other member, so now the group technically only have one more member to find: Soren, the group’s expert builder. He’s located in The End, a dimension surrounded by an endless void. After getting him, the gang has to make their way back to their normal world once again.

The main story ends with Jessie and Co. all defeating the Wither Storm through a series of inventions that let Jessie access the monster’s core, slaying it in the process. Unfortunately, his pet pig dies too, which is used as a sad moment in the plot. The past order is shown to be frauds and are either forgiven or not, and the new order becomes the guardians of their town, or something. The. End.

Wow.

So as I’ve said… this is a really, REALLY flat story, tonal-wise. It’s obviously meant for a smaller age demographic, seeing as Minecraft is a kid-friendly experience.

I’d say that my main issues with ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ is that it feels like it wants to more like an adult-focused adventure with mild swears and somewhat-dark themes, like death (in a “bad” way) and basically the genocide of hundreds of citizens, though its writing is so stupid that it feels like satire at times.

Characters in the game are just annoying, there’s not many I find decently likable. Pretty much everyone is either rude to our heroes or ARE the heroes, who are 10 times worse! The Order of the Stone has most of the 5 members be dismissive, weirdly paranoid or just a very mean character in general. When going off to find 2 of the members, Ellegard and Magnus, their characters are seen exclusively as these petulant whiners that only care about themselves and couldn’t give less of a thought towards the people they lead.

Looking at the actual story itself, it’s… fine? Like, I’ve seen worse, though I’d say that ‘Minecraft Story Mode’s’ biggest detriment is that, as I said, it feels like it wants to be both a kid friendly romp through a fictional ‘Minecraft’ world, and also a semi-dark take on the ideals of evil, not trusting those around you, etc.

The main message of the game is to not trust those around you. However, the moral doesn’t come off as many other kid-friendly media do, because whilst something like ‘Arthur’ or ‘Curious George’ can teach viewers that blindly believing in someone or something can be hazardous without proper reasoning, ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ says that trusting ANYONE is dangerous. Though unfolding events the plot has pretty much any character, unimportant or not, be these hostile, arrogant folk. It’s almost disturbing how there’s practically no one in the game that’s a genuinely nice person; it feels depressing. The characters save the world from an extra-dimensional deity, and what changes? Nothing. People still act callus to you and your friends, as if all you’ve done is prolong the drought, metaphorically speaking.

Going back to the characters, I do like a couple. I stated in the story that Lucas, a member of the gang, comes with you, and he’s actually decently-written. His arc is of how he’s arguably the nicest towards Jessie’s group, and breaking away from his toxic peers. Then again, this is an exception, not the rule. Or dare I say, THE exception. Outside of this, there aren’t many other characters that have somewhat-compelling motivations and arcs.

If I could change anything, it’d be ‘Minecraft Story Mode’s’ message. Having this sort of paranoid theme of trust and “stranger danger” is convoluted at best and dumb at worst. Instead, I feel like a message of “trusting others through conflicting ideals and thought complexes” would be a solid choice. Considering the source material is a multiplayer game where you’re able to literally make anything, a theme of adapting to another person’s different morals and beliefs could work well in what is basically a more story-focused version of ‘Minecraft.’

PART TWO: MUSIC
So, you’d expect that for such a bad game, the music would be too, right? Fortunately, no.

When I went into this review, I was only gonna talk about the story, and maybe the creepy animations too. However, I decided to write about the music because – and you might not want to hear this – ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ has amazing tracks.

The albums for both season 1 and 2 were made by Antimo & Welles, otherwise known as Skyler Barto and Andrew Arcadi. Looking at their YouTube channel, the soundtrack for ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ is arguably the most popular of their works.

If asked to describe the feelings the playlist gives me, I’d say “atmospheric.” This isn’t some kind of Lo-Fi soundtrack where it has these relaxing, calming beats. Instead, the game has a somber, almost eerie list of songs, though seeing as this game has an annoyingly creepy undertone throughout its duration, at least it knows it’s weird. Some of my favorite songs include the following.

• “Ivor’s Theme” is my personal favorite. If anyone had to ask me the perfect mix of a horror theme and Lo-Fi track, this would be one of them.
• “Wither Storm Theme” has a very fitting sense of dread and anger, seeing as the monster it’s named after destroys part of a city whilst this plays. I like it, as it feels very epic in scale.
• “The Finishing Blow” is from one of ’Minecraft Story Mode’s’ various DLC episodes. I have not played any of them, so I don’t actually know what this song correlates to. I do know that it’s very good, however.
• “Mob Grinder” slaps, and there really isn’t anything else to say about it.
• “Boomtown Suite” feels like it belongs in a completely different game than this, akin to ‘Borderlands’ or ‘Splatoon.’ Nifty!
• And finally, “Ivor Fight” isn’t as good as its companion, but definitely rivals it.

PART THREE: CONCLUSION

So, that’s that. The skeleton in the closet that’s been bugging me since September has been freed, and ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ has been reviewed.

No, it’s not a good game. No, my opinion hasn’t changed. And no, this review isn’t nearly as much as I could talk about it. Honestly, I could write an essay on this game and its tonal problems, story struggles, and beautiful soundtrack. A part 2 could happen, though I’d have to somehow buy the 2nd season off of Craigslist, seeing as the 2 games are no longer in print.

And finally, I can definitively say that ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ is a 3/10 game. The music entirely keeps this above a 1 or 2, which isn’t a good look. And seeing as I’m one of, like, 10 people who’s given an in-depth look at this game, I feel I need to warn the public of this menace to society. We need to stop this game from infecting the brains of children across the globe! But how? How could we destroy all the copies of ‘Minecraft Story Mode’ in existence? Hmm…

Well, shoot, now this fiendish game shall go on to take over the world with its hazardous mediocrity. And I will NOT let the game do this; it must be stopped.

Hmm. Oh, that’s it!

Everyone who has a copy of ‘Minecraft Story Mode, listen up. Go out and PURCHASE A NUCLEAR MISSILE AND UNLEASH IT UPON THE HORRID CREATURE THAT IS ‘MINECRAFT STORY MO-!’

…..

And that’s all for this episode of JOYSTiCK. It was a little shorter than usual, though this is more akin to a special rather than a full-length story. (That also explains the ‘explosive’ ending). Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

By: Reed Morris

Preface

In my articles, I prefer to look at events in the form of a story, however, the disaster that has been Elon Musk and Twitter over the past year or so is something that must be attacked chronologically to fully comprehend. Musk’s decision to buy Twitter for $44 Billion has to be one of, if not the worst, financial decision since the Enron disaster at the turn of the century (see my previous article if you want to know more about Enron). People will lose their jobs, Twitter will crumble, and immense risk has been put on Musk’s other financial endeavors. Such a terrible series of decisions can only be tackled chronologically, so let us start at the beginning. 

January 2022 

Musk makes his first investments in Twitter. The exact amount is unknown, but his investing did begin in late January according to documents filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the following months. 

March 2022

Musk decides to take control of the company. His share percentage in Twitter reaches 9.2% which is the highest percent holding of any other shareholder. This is when the larger public became aware of the ongoing overtake. At the time, there was uncertainty if he would go further or stop where he was at. As we now know, he continued to buy up more and more of the company. 

April 2022

April was a wild month in the Twitter dealings. At the start of the month, Musk officially disclosed the amount of money he really had sunk into the company. His shares reached a whopping $2.9 Billion. After he disclosed his true involvement with Twitter, shares in the company rose over 27% the day of his announcement. 

A day later, Twitter officially announced that Musk would be joining Twitter’s board of directors. He was welcomed aboard in a tweet by now former CEO, Parag Agrawal 

Shortly after being invited to the board, he flipped direction and said he would no longer be joining. 

Only four days after refusing to join the companies board, he proposed an official offer to buy out the company at $54.20 a share, valuing the company at a laughable $43 Billion. The offer overvalued the company by 38% but he stuck to his guns regarding the price. 

Twitter immediately responded with what is called a “poison pill” which essentially devalues shares for current board members allowing them to purchase more, but making it extremely difficult for Musk to purchase the necessary shares to take over. However, this strategy never took full effect as only a week later, Twitter decided to accept Musk’s original offer. 

While this feels like a good ending point to the story, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

May 2022

In May, Musk buckles down and starts to look at how he would finance such an acquisition. He gathered $7 Billion worth of financing from several investment firms including Sequoia Capital and Binance, a crypto exchange (you’ll hear more about them in the next article.) To fill the $43 Billion price tag, Musk also had to sell $8.5 Billion worth of Tesla Stock, dropping the company’s value ever so slightly.

All throughout May, Musk makes several claims and promises with little to no basis. The biggest of which was the claim that he could increase Twitter’s yearly income four fold, up to over $26 Billion a year. 

With hindsight being 20/20, we can now see that was an absolutely insane claim. While during the writing of this article, Musk has not been in ownership of Twitter for long enough to make financial changes, however the business model he seems to be adapting to is currently losing more money than before he bought the company. 

Musk, soon after making these claims, and presumably finally doing research, he quickly realized he made a mistake. He quickly announces that the deal would be on “temporary hold”, the reasoning of which, Musk claims, was the supposed prevalence of bot and spam accounts on the platform. 

Not long after he announced a temporary hold on the deal, a Reuters report surfaced claiming that less than 5% of the accounts active on twitter were bot or spam accounts. Musk requested more information but seemingly never received it. 

Only hours after announcing the deal’s stallings, he announced that he once again had changed his mind and was going through with the deal. 

Summer 2022

The Twitter excitement slowed down in volume but exploded in intensity during the summer months, so June, July and August will be grouped together for continuity’s sake. 

Musk once again jumps back on an old train and demands that Twitter supply more information regarding the possible prevalence of bots. This time, he threatened a full retraction of contract and claimed he would no longer buy the company per the deal he signed. 

After the Twitter board essentially said, “You know all we know and what we know is the truth,” Musk still moved to terminate the acquisition. 

On July 12th, 2022, Twitter sued Elon Musk in a Delaware Chancery Court. They sued on the basis that Musk knowingly breached his contract and that Musk must follow through with his deal. 

With tens of billions of dollars, several massive companies, and gargantuan investment firms involved, the outcome of the court case would have extreme ramifications no matter which way it sways. 

The court date would be set for late September, later stalled for mid October.

October 4th, 2022

Musk finally agrees to follow through with the deal, and to acquire Twitter at the original stock price. 

October 28th, 2022

Elon Musk officially becomes the new private owner of Twitter.

Final Thoughts

In theory, Elon Musk can afford this whole Twitter debacle, however on paper, things are much different. The aspect of this that scares me so much is the fallout it could have on his other businesses and ventures. While I am not a fan of Elon Musk himself, the engineers and scientists he employs at Tesla and SpaceX are doing truly spectacular work. 

In making this $43 billion deal, Musk put a lot of risk on his other businesses. Tesla stock is the main collateral involved in all of his extensive loans, and SpaceX bends at the will of his other enterprises. The question is not if Musk can keep Twitter from collapsing, it is merely if he can make it profitable, and how fast. The interest on his loans float around a billion dollars a year and if the economy faces more struggles or Elon can’t pay it all back, there will be serious ramifications. 

Musk put everything on the line for this passion project, and we will see in the coming months and years how it all turns out. If in the next 15 years Tesla and Elon Musk are forgotten or infamous names, then he failed. But if Elon Musk is still kicking and Tesla’s are still zooming around, and Falcon Heavies are finally taking people to Lunar bases, then maybe this whole Twitter debacle turned out alright. As we can’t see into the future, all we can do is buckle up, keep your arms and feet inside the ride, and let’s watch some more billionaire drama unfold.