Here's a story about a video game that saved my life.

It's called Moon: Remix RPG Adventure for Playstation 1, and you can download a perfect version on @Nintendo Switch right now thanks to @oniongames and Tim Rogers @108.

#Moon #Lovedelic #SuperMarioRPG #Petscop #Undertale
It’s so difficult to be a virtuous person. Callousness is an opt-out culture; choosing cash, leverage, or convenience over sacrificial love only requires you to stop fighting yourself. It’s the air we breathe, and swinging haymakers at it is about as effective.
I used to be pure.

A childhood of good choices had brought me from Wisconsin Rapids, my beloved factory town, standing on its tiptoes to breathe above globalism's tides, to @dartmouth.

It's intoxicating to think you defeated life when you were 18. Ivy League. Roll credits.
So, when my parents divorced and what Les Murray called "the Black Dog" mauled me, I locked myself in my room for four months, lying to those who loved me.

A 0.00 report card preceded a year's sentence at home. Watching your life get packed up in boxes is a bitter, mundane pain.
I came back to school desperate.

"You've lost your status. Work harder."
"Your classmates are beating you. Surpass them."
"You've shamed your support system. Hide away."
"People only like you because you can do something for them. Perform, deliver."
It didn't work. It couldn't work! Its moral emptiness bottomed me out, and I agonized as a silent, bitter survivor among elites.

Then, @wyrdwad_tom on @rpgfancom, Parrotshake from @GameFAQs, and @HG_101 wrote about Moon: Remix RPG Adventure by Lovedelic.
Geniuses from @SquareEnix who made Super Mario RPG the delightful farrago it is left to make indie art games before it was cool.

You may know their later work:
Chibi-Robo, Giftpia, and Captain Rainbow
Paper Mario, Endonesia, and Tingle
Little King's Story, Chulip and Black Bird.
Lovedelic's games never left Japan.

UFO: A Day In The Life fused Rear Window, Groundhog Day, and Pokemon Snap to affirming effect.

LOL: Lack Of Love got @ryuichisakamoto to soundtrack a creature's evolution against a dying environment.

But their masterpiece was Moon.
You're a boy marathoning the latest Super Famicom RPG. Slash at monsters! Talk to folks for flavor text! Raid their homes for equipment and cash! And go kill that damned Dragon!

Right at the final boss, your mother tells you to shut it off for bed. That's when you get sucked in.
You fall into the game world, an invisible presence, and realize the way you played is repeating itself before you.

The Hero's actually a brutal animal hunter, a manipulator, and a robber. He only cares about Experience through destruction.

Is this video games? Or is this you?
Your quest is clear: heal the harm you caused when you played.

1. Seek out the "monsters"' restless souls so that they can ascend in peace.
2. Help people with their problems so that they can live better lives.
There are no shortcuts. Like The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask, you learn routines over each of the seven unique days. You have to listen to folks, be around them even when it's unproductive, and puzzle out what or who would fulfill them.

It's a "being a good person" trainer.
You get tired and fade to death quickly at first, but the more animals and people you help, the more fortified you are to live in the world. Your aid to others strengthens your own heart.
I don't intend to spoil Moon, which means I can't explain how special it is.

Try giving a divorced father new hope and see how you feel. Maybe you'll help a writer with his comic or help keep someone's embarrassing secret private. Perhaps you'll even protect your Gramby.
If I wanted to sell you on the game, I'd tell you it was Undertale before Undertale @tobyfox, more Mother than Mother @itoi_shigesato, possessing the most overachieving soundtrack in gaming , actual good parody, and characters you'll love as your own.
But what matters is its culmination.

You spend thirty hours doing the opposite of what games tell you to do. You wait for things. You ponder dialogue. You risk death to help strangers.

You prioritize Love over Levels.
At game's end, you face down that final Dragon boss one more time. Near death, you confront deep questions.

Did Moon teach you anything? Did you learn its lessons? Has your life changed? Or are you still a gamer?

YES
NO

You decide.
Good art has something to say about how you relate to the world.

The best art compels you to improve that relationship, day by day.

So few video games even attempt it. Our culture favors twitch play, loot, and clout over skill, cooperation, and historical preservation.
You "beat" a game, don't you? Well, you can't beat Moon. You can only fulfill it.

It teaches you that, if you prioritize service over power, you'll one day be surrounded by your loved ones at the edge of something bigger than yourselves.

That's the only victory that matters.
I stopped searching inside for flawlessness that wasn't there. Screaming at myself had met its limits.

I ventured out, a known sinner and failure, and healed myself by healing others. The gestures started simple, but mattered. Only in relation to others did I find purpose.
And I kept doing it. Befriending the overlooked and donating to the worthy at college led to a life of labor on behalf of Black students in Milwaukee instead of securities trading on Wall Street.

People leave kids so quickly, but what's Moon say? Remain. Serve. Love.
Families and kids achieved greatness.

We brought our school's best to @dartmouthalumni and watched them soar. (I'm somehow a favorite son there.)


We explored the nation together.


We survived life's worst.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1io-XPmErrRcANksJJyVp8MP6-VLi1GAy/edit
In the eleven years since I built on others' Moon adoration, its international reputation grew, too. Search hits rose. A fan translation nearly completed. Places like @ReseteraForum wrote of it as a lost treasure. Its developers met to recall the old days.

Moon became legendary.
But, ultimately, it remained a bauble of the past. The video game industry went a different direction. Very few titles showed love like @StudioMDHR's Cuphead did.
A decade after the first time, my life fell apart. A true love seemed lost, work turned toxic, and every graduate school that could give me my dream rejected my 170/168 GRE due to my 2.50 GPA.

Is being a good person pointless? Why walk together slowly when you can sprint alone?
So, when my phone rattled off my bed during a weeping fit, I expected more bad news.

Instead, a 2019 Direct announced that Moon would come to Switch with an English translation by gaming's Cool Older Brother Intense About His Record Collection, @108.

My loved ones came through.
Today, I started at @Harvard @hgse so that I can help even more people someday.

Today, you can play Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, the greatest video game ever made, in English.



Life is as it should be.
I don't know why Moon's appeared when I needed it most.

I suspect it's because when you stop living your days pilfering short-term gains at the expense of others, you can fill in the unacknowledged needs of those you'll come to love. Made strong, they'll keep you strong, too.
That might mean your lost love returned, as mine did, or you received a miraculous windfall.

That might mean a purple prose post you wrote over a decade ago helped the art you love glow on screens on every continent.
If you've walked wearily for awhile now, I understand. We all bear more than we should, often unaccompanied.

Just know that the world is never really dark, even when it feels like that.

There's always a Moon to light your way.
Thank you, @yoshiro_kimura @Route24 @hatosen_vanpool @tanguch10 @masanof525 @A8quattro @kurashimakaz @oniongames @108, for fulfilling the online clamor for your masterworks.

Thank you, @HG_101 @retronauts @wyrdwad_tom @USgamernet @rpgfancom @LovedelicLife for keeping hope alive.
I hope that you play #Moon, adore it, and are changed by it.

...Ask yourself,

Have you found love?

Sometime, someplace, may we meet again.

Now, close out Twitter, for heaven’s sake!
🌚 https://twitter.com/oniongames/status/1299015420284936193
You can follow @GhaleonQ.
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