Moving back in with your parents is often described as a step backwards, but maybe it’s more than that. If you put it in the context of a gaming genre I think it’s actually much more than an embarrassing circumstance that I really don’t want to talk about.
Of all the many gameplay genres that have been described, a few stand above the rest as lightning rods for some of the most passionate, yet inconsequential, arguments imaginable. To have an opinion on whether a game is or is not a roguelike, or a soulslike, or an RTS, is to invite the worst kind of terror on yourself.
Now I think we’re just limiting ourselves. Why does it even need to be a game I give a shaky evaluation of just to get death threats about genre? That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that, ever since I moved back in with my parents, my very life is actually a Metroidvania.
Of course, people’s living situations can change for all sorts of reasons. For example, I was driven out of the place where I was living by an angry mob after expressing my beliefs on what genres Dead Cells should be tagged with.
Finding refuge in my childhood home, I realized how much my new life circumstances made me feel like Samus. After all, I had ventured out from the place where I started my life to a new area (college), obtained new tools and abilities (a degree), and come up against obstacles that required further tools that I didn’t have (a plan to use that degree and the basic ability to support myself).
What could I have done but turn back and see if I could gain some new advantage by exploring the place where I started?
Now, admittedly, I’ve found myself running into a bit of a wall here, but isn’t that just even more evidence? My theory stalling out is just like my current place in life, which is not at all sad and pathetic and only temporary.
Who among us has played a Metroid game without spending hours at a time running in pointless circles looking for a way to progress, only to realize that the stupid bomb block was staring us in the face the whole time?
I mean, I don’t know, maybe you have? Maybe you have a high paying job and a partner who loves you? Your own place perhaps? An ounce of joy in your life? Well either way screw you!
In any case, I’m just running in circles looking for my will to live. Once I find it, I think my next move is to backtrack to college and get my master’s.
