American Horror Story: Murder House (Season 1) | Thanks, I Hate it...

What do you do when you start a show and you don't want to finish it? Nothing really upsets me more than when I come across this feeling. Because when I get this feeling, it turns into a fucking dilemma. For me, there are one of three scenarios that can happen when I want to quit a television show: 

A.) I either quit immediately with no remorse. B.) I continue due to the expectation that it will get good later. Or C.) I force myself to finish the season because my form of self-harm is watching things that make me miserable. 

If the title didn't give away how I feel about this show, then certainly this intro will. 

American Horror Story (AHS) is a show released in the 2010s. I remember this show coming out around the time that I consider to be the beginning of the golden age of television. Television from the late 2000s to early 2010s had sort of a renaissance where almost every show was on the quality level of cinema. I swear from like 2008 to 2011, all of the shows that people foam over came out: Breaking Bad, Community, Parks and Rec, Modern Family, the Middle, BBC Sherlock, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and this show. 

I didn't watch it at the time since I was quite squeamish around horror when I was younger. And when I finally stopped being squeamish, I didn't watch AHS purely because I heard the show wasn't worth my time. However, now it is Halloween. This show is still around. And over the years, I've had a few people in my life claim that it is actually worth giving a try. So with that, I will try a sample with the first season of American Horror Story which is colloquially known as the Murder House. 

And then, I was thrusted into a Scenario C situation. 

To be fair, AHS also has a dash of Scenario B because this show has a lot of elements that theoretically work. You can say, it is a show with a lot of good ideas. The Murder House is about a random white American family that decides to move into a new house after a noted event throws the family into dysfunction. And because this is an American horror story, this new house is rather haunted...and American. And throughout the season, we get to learn about this house, its former inhabitants, and the fate of this family that you probably won't really care about.  

If I had to explain why I didn't find Murder House enjoyable down to a sentence, I would say that Murder House fails to makes its characters likeable making the scary elements that affect these characters ineffective, and also the story is bloated with too many characters, and yeah this sentence is starting to become unruly and grammatically incorrect. 

Never have I seen a story where practically everyone is so blatantly unlikeable. Almost all the characters either come off as self-interested, annoying, or plain moronic. It bothers the hell out of me because I am watching this thinking "I can see this working." Are these characters just poorly written? Are the actors just not great at portraying the nuances? 

No, I think the problem is that 90% of the drama is pure dramatic irony where the characters don't have access to all the information which leads to misunderstandings. Characters are acting horribly towards one another, and it could all be rectified by a simple explanation. It's worse than Romeo and Juliet because at least that story didn't have cell phones or whatnot. 

"What's that, the maid looks like an old person to you but a hot seductress to me??? Man, there is something fishy about this place." 

Speaking of the maid, can we talk about the social commentary related to her? I know I am jumping around. But fuck it, the show does the same thing, so I am doing it too. 

At this point, I will be spoiling the first season of American Horror Story. 

There is a layer of social commentary that discusses the sexual objectification of women and how women can be maligned through gaslighting and other abusive means. I admire its intention, but the execution is messy. It feels like there are times where the show is trying to undermine its own message. Moira (Frances Conroy/Alexandra Breckenridge) the maid complains about the gaslighting of men only to gaslight herself when Ben tried to fire her for the first time. I also understand part of Ben's (Dylan McDermott) arc is not to see women as sexual temptations and come to terms with his issues, but his rebuking of Moira  earlier on felt like a step forward, and I don't think sexually harassing someone who is going through the death of their child and other marriage issues is helpful, Moira! 

I suppose you can say it is the influence of the devil in the house that causes Moira and the other ghosts to misbehave, but that leads to my next thing. How does the house work? I understand they are going for ambiguity but like why? The show is eager to tell the audience practically everything else. We get the backstory of almost every former residence of the Murder House. You are told almost immediately that the people in the Murder House are ghosts when presenting that as a twist would have been better. They randomly establish a spirit medium who you would think would be established to give explanations about the house. But no, she barely has any payoffs throughout the entire season other than one subversion that I will get to later. I understand that horror has a element of ambiguity. However, that ambiguity should leave the viewer with a sense of dread and hopelessness not simple confusion. 

I suppose that is a good question to ask when talking about a horror story that happens to be American. How does AHS try to be scary?  

Well for one, the show has no shame in being as gratuitous as possible. If you find sexual violence, mass shootings, and people with mental illnesses scary, then AHS will be right for you. As for me, its depictions of such things were more pathetic than scary. Having a character with Down Syndrome isn't scary. I guess I admire their attempt later on to humanize her, but it doesn't really matter since she gets unceremoniously killed off before the season even reaches the halfway point. Having Tate (Evan Peters) being a mass murderer isn't scary, and the whole scene where he shoots up the library feels so out of place. Not that school shootings can't be used for horror, but they have to be more than just a cheap scare. Similar to the depictions of rape, if not handled with care, it can come off as cheap and gratuitous much like everything else in this story. Speaking of rape, there is a ton of it. Second question, do you want to be scared while also feeling the sensation of sexual arousal while doing it? Well come on down to AHS where the rape is half off for every purchase of a pointless jump scare or shot of gore. 

"God, I am exhausted. I am so regretting doing this review. Why did I decide to waste my Halloween on this? I could be watching the X-Files this year!!!!"

...Sorry I'm venting. 

What do I like about this show? After all, I did establish AHS having good elements. And to extend on that, the Murder House has some legitimately good things in them. The acting is great. I particularly like the main cast, specifically Connie Britton, Taissa Farmiga, and McDermott. 

There are a few instances where the casting is retroactively silly. For example, it is hard to see Matt Ross as a mad doctor without first seeing Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley. Likewise, the scenes where Kate Mara is stabbing people, which is already hilarious due to how many times she does it, was made even more funny by me thinking of Invisible Woman getting a little too frustrated by her circumstances. 

I really like the theme song. It is one of those intros that you don't want to skip. I like some of the visuals and neat horror ideas like Moira looking different to certain people. I liked when the girl ate the cupcake. I wish I could expand on that, but all I have on my notes related to that scene was "cupcake scene was cool." I guess that is on me for taking crappy notes. 

The major twist where the daughter, Violet (Taissa Farmiga), was actually dead for most of the season was actually pretty lit. Although, I don't know if the effectiveness was from the twist being well crafted or if the show was so just so unenjoyable that it put me in a false sense of security setting me up to get caught off guard. I actually was starting to like the two episodes preceding the finale. Because after the twist, the show shifts gears to focusing on things that were actually a mystery. How to stop the house? Why are the spirits trapped? They stopped dwelling on the pointless dramatic irony and instead focused on things that were actually interesting. For a moment, I thought this show might be a Scenario B type show after all.  

But then, you get the actual ending. 

In summary, Vivian (Connie Britton) has twins. One of them dies and the other becomes as psychotic as Tate (who btw raped Vivian, whoops!). Vivian dies during childbirth. Ben gets killed so quickly that it felt like they were trying to be a subversive in how anticlimactic it was. However, it doesn't work since they already did that when Violet tries to destroy a ghost after listening to some advice from a spirit medium. And just when you think it is going to work, it turns out it doesn't. I'm glad they like that subversion so much they tried to shoehorn it into another scene where it clearly wouldn't have worked as well. 

The season ends where everyone is dead. But hey, at least the family is together. It's happy isn't it? It would have been better if Ben and Vivian "I don't know" divorced like they should have. It would have been messy, but it wouldn't have ended with being stuck in a house with ghosts who don't know how to resolve their mental health issues. 

The final episode really highlights just how bloated this season was. There are so many characters it tries to resolve in this one episode. I wonder how much better this show would have been if a few of them were cut out. The gay couple is really only there to establish why the house has a gimp suit and to add a bit more conflict near the end. There could have been another way to throw in a gimp suit that didn't involve casting two people and developing backstories for each of them. The twins didn't need to be there other than for a few visual scenes. The female actor had very little purpose either. Why bother dedicating screen time to characters that have very little impact on the story? 

The number of episodes feel the same way. If I was feeling generous, I can see this season work with nine episodes, and it would have been paced a lot better. And honestly, Murder House certainly feels like a four episode mini series stretch out to 12. 

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that the AHS also ends with Ben going on an anti-therapy tirade that is one of the most misinformed pieces of writing ever. I won't go too much into it since this review is long enough, and this scene could easily be expanded into a blog of its own. But in short, no, therapy isn't some place where folks can wave off responsibility. It's actually the opposite. No, therapy isn't a place where people can claim their unaccountable for their actions by blaming their mothers. No, therapy can work, and whoever wrote this terrible monologue should be ashamed of themselves. 

It doesn't help that the monologue also gives Tate a very unsatisfactory sense of closure. Like everything else in this show, it ends with a whimper. It's not scary. It's frustrating. 

And people say the later seasons are worse? Oh God....

So that is Murder House. In ways, with how this show went, it makes me a tad curious for how the other seasons turned out. As bad as this season was, it gave me so much to talk about. That said, I should not let morbid curiosity make me forget about the fact that this show is a Scenario C, and that I need to send a few stern text messages to the handful of people who recommended this show to me. 

So for now, I will avoid AHS. I'm glad I finally got this show off my list and can pass on to greener pastures. 

Oh, and of course, Happy Halloween.   

Additional Thoughts Too Unnoteworthy to Include in This Review But I'm Including Anyway

This show has a weird thing where a character will say something that's racist or homophobic, and the joke is that they're homophobic or racist. However, they don't get any repercussion for saying anything bad. It's just a lame awkward silence. It almost feels like the writers wanted to write racist or homophobic dialogue, so they presented it to be considered edgy???

Out of all the unlikeable characters on the show, the least likeable is Constance (Jessica Lange). She has no arc other than the constant reminder that she isn't a great person/mother. She makes the lives of everyone around her more difficult than necessary. There is a whole thing where she is investigated by the police, but that has no payoff. I feel the show wants me to sympathize with her, but why would I sympathize with someone who doesn't respect people's privacy or tries to poison people?

If I had to pick a second least favorite, it would be Larry (Denis O'Hare). Or as I like to call him, Plot Convenience: The Character. Need to keep Constance out of prison? Well Larry can take the fall for you for some reason. Need to get a character out of the picture to relieve the tension? Well Larry can hit that character with a shovel! 

As bloated as this show gets, at least most of what happens revolves around the house. That said, the Piggy Piggy subplot stands out really badly as filler. They really needed to give Ben something to do I guess. Oh yeah, that's another plot that resolved anticlimactically as a form of subversion. 

They establish really hard that the main couple will do everything they can to stay together, but why? I feel the show needed a few more scenes showing their family before they had started having marriage trouble. Maybe they could have replaced that aforementioned Piggy Piggy subplot. 

This is a minor thing. I watched this on Hulu, and I cannot stand the poster of the alien making out with the bald woman. I hate having to see this poster every day when I get on Hulu. The only reason I want a new season of AHS is so Hulu can update that stinkin' poster! 

Films That Didn't Click (Critical Flops Edition): The Love Guru, Tomorrowland, and MORE!

In this episode of "this premise explains itself in the title," we are going to do stuff a bit differently. Usually, I discuss films that are considered good that I don't like. But, what about films that didn't click with anyone? 

In this continually futile expedition, I am going to rewatch three of them to see how my opinions have changed. Were these bad films just misunderstood? I can tell you right now that they aren't. Honestly, I decided to watch these films as a form of impulsive self-loathing, and I figured writing about them would curb the remorse I feel having wasted my time. 

The Love Guru

There has been a lot of failed comedies. However, very few have failed as spectacularly as The Love Guru. It's one of the few movies to truly culminate every type of failure you can expect in a movie. It was a box office bomb, critically decimated, and single handedly destroyed an actor's career.

Surprisingly, I remember not hating it as a kid. But then again, I was extremely dumb. Like, I liked The Cat in the Hat movie dumb. I still like that movie...but that is for another review for another time. 

When I turned on the movie again for the first time since it came out, I thought my opinion was going to be the same as I found myself mildly chuckling a few times at the beginning. I thought, "hey, I might end up liking this movie." It was as soon as I said that that Love Guru would make one of the sharpest nose dives I've seen in a comedy. 

Sweet Jesus on a piece of toast is this movie bad. Where do I start? Should I start? Is life meaningless? 

Let's start off with the fact that this movie is the closest to a porno premise without the actual porn I have ever seen. Every scene feels like a set up for two people to start having sex. The premise itself feels like it can be used as a porno. The Love Guru is about a hockey player who seeks advice from a guru in order to win his girlfriend back because a dry pickle means he can't play as well. 

The writing feels very lazy and unfocused. The titular Love Guru, for example, is presented as the main character when it doesn't really make any sense for him to be. The Love Guru is set up to be well trained by his spiritual leader yet has the entitlement and crudeness of a Steven Crowder fan. It doesn't make sense that he has an arc at all, and it is distracting from the overall plot. The main character should have been the hockey player that the Love Guru helps as he experiences the most growth and change in the movie. It also would have ground the movie if we the viewer followed the hockey player as he was the most relatable. He would have at least been more relatable than Jessica Alba's character who is mainly there for eye candy and to serve as a plot device for the Love Guru under the guise of her own insubstantial arc. 

It's clear the bad writing is rooted in the philosophy that the story revolve around the jokes instead the other way around. And because of that, the Love Guru is lacking in self-worth so they can make chastity belt jokes. Likewise, they make the hockey player perform poorly via porn logic so they can make penis jokes and other jokes of that nature. 

I guess that segways into the actual jokes which are very repetitive. So repetitive, that I created a drinking game involving the humor in the Love Guru. Here's how you play. Take a drink after seeing the following: 

1. A joke using an acronym that is a sexual innuendo or a meta joke. 

2. A fake book title that is some type of pun or childish saying. 

3. Stephan Colbert says something morbid or disgusting.

4. There is a reference to Justin Timberlake's penis. 

5. There is a dated reference/celebrity cameo. 

This is not the worst comedy I have ever seen, but it comes very close. It isn't as racist or misguided as Biodome or Master of Disguise, but it gets very close. It isn't as unfunny or poorly written as the Disaster Movie or the Prom....but it gets very close. It is not Jack and Jill or Ghostbusters 2016. It is just a forgettable slog of a movie, and it was forgotten in the annals of time for a very good reason. 

But whatever, I am done with this movie. We are one review in, and I am already regretting doing this idea. Well I've committed to it, so let's move on...

Tomorrowland 

Ah Disney. You made great films, but you also made some weird ass flops. Even if you ignore the deluge of Disney sequels, there are a lot of contenders that could make it onto a list like this. So much so, that I might have to do a sequel of just Disney flops. However, I wanted to choose just one, so I went with this one. 

Shockingly, I remember anticipating this movie as it was coming out. I had a weird fondness for films and shows based on Disney Park attractions. But more importantly, this film was being directed by Brad Bird. By this point, Brad Bird had four amazing movies back to back. I was fairly confident he could get fifth under his belt. 

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Reviews were mixed, and I admittedly entered a stage of denial. I watched it saying it was pretty alright, and that the movie was underrated. Well now, I am several years removed from that incident, so I can look at Tomorrowland with more objective eyes.

In ways, this movie is still pretty underrated. Although, it would be more accurate to say it is conceptually underrated. There is an insurmountable amount of ideas. It definitely has the Brad Bird stamp where the ideas at play are immensely creative. 

The problem is that their execution is messy. 

The best analogy I can use to describe Tomorrowland is that the movie feels like a JRPG story. In a traditional JRPG, you get one goal the player has to reach. But just as the player starts to complete the goal, the story reveals another goal the player has to overcome. Rinse and repeat until the player is fighting God. 

While Tomorrowland doesn't have George Clooney fighting a deity in the final act, Tomorrowland changes the stakes and even the main character which leaves the movie feeling unfocused. It's fine for a JRPG to do it because you expect the JRPG to last over forty hours. Tomorrowland only has a little over two. For that reason, the movie is rather truncated. It has a lot of inventive ideas, but those ideas are crammed into this tiny movie, and it somehow makes the movie film simultaneously overambitious and underexplored. 

It's a movie that should be anything but a movie. This story would have worked perfectly as a TV show or some other long form story with its constant world building and ever evolving plot. Movies, however, lend itself to be focused and direct experiences, and Tomorrowland's greatest strengths tend to suffer from that rigid structure. 

There is some great stuff in here. I know movies that review poorly almost never get remade. Unless you are Dredd or a B-movie from the 50s, a film like this is resigned to the fate of obscurity and the dreams of "what could've been." I hope this premise gets another chance, but one can only hope. We could use more stories like Tomorrowland. A film about an utopia is something I feel society needs more of nowadays, and its theme of positive visions can motivate positive changes I feel reins true. 

Season of the Witch

You might have noticed that all of these films are films I have liked at some point when they came out but didn't click with pretty much with everyone else. The first time I recall this ever happening was the release of Season of the Witch, a 2011 film starring Nicholas Cage. I remember liking it only for me to be battered by awful reviews online. I've even seen a few videos listing this film as one of the worst movies of that year. 

I held onto that feeling of being the odd duck with Season of the Witch until this year. And you know, fuck those people who think this film is awful because Season of the Witch honestly isn't that bad. 

I think my surprise enjoyment of this film stems from really one thing, the premise. 

The premise is rather interesting. The movie follows two disgraced knights as they are tasked to escort a woman who may or may not be a witch, and they do a lot with that premise. They do a decent job establishing that witches do exist but that most women they prosecute aren't witches. It lends itself to some commentary of the many witch hunts of the past, but it leads to a clever mystery question throughout the film. Is this woman being escorted actually a witch or this another case where a priest is exploiting his powers during the height of the Catholic church? 

This also lends itself to an interesting fellowship where they hire three knights, an alter boy, a priest, and a thief. All of which have their own motivations and backstories that are affected differently by the story. With this, plus a few cool set pieces, and the movie feels like a neat D&D campaign. 

So the premise is really rock solid. The twists involved are quite engaging, and I like how the story progressed. That said, I said this movie wasn't bad. I didn't say the movie was good, and that is sort of the problem with Season of the Witch. I feel Season of the Witch is the quintessential example of a movie with a decent script made by not-so-great filmmakers. 

The movie is schlocky as hell. You have Nicholas Cage as the lead. They fight monsters brought to life with horrible CGI. The action is rather boring as it lacks any striking cinematography and editing. The only exception is one sequence where they have to cross a bridge which was rather exciting. And I won't spoil the ending, but the ending is one of those things where you throw your hands up and reluctantly say "oh well." 

The movie just needed a little bit of ambition and creative talent to put this movie over the edge of being cult classic material. The film could have had more fantasy elements. The film could have added more political intrigue regarding the Catholic church. Instead, we get a watered down version of the Castlevania anime. 

So that is Season of the Witch. It is more interesting than most schlock that belongs on the History Channel, but it is still a film that belongs on the History Channel. At least we got the Castlevania anime to show the world how it is done. So if you want a cool fantasy story that is also an indictment on the Catholic church, it is that one. 

I gotta say. I left this experiment feeling not as bad as I thought. I guess Love Guru left me with a false sense for what's to come. 

But tune in next time for the last Films That Didn't Click of 2021 where I will stretch the definition of this format. 

Rambling about Ghost of a Tale & Stealth Games Again

Last month I reviewed Dishonored. And during my ramble, I mentioned Ghost of a Tale, a 2018 indie game developed and published by SeithCG. Thinking about Ghost of a Tale then made me want to play the game again, so here is a random sequel to a random idea that was used to pad out the September block of blogs and will now be used to also pad out the October block of blogs. 

If I considered Dishonored a "Game That is One of my Favorites But I Sometimes Forget Exist From Time to Time," then Ghost of a Tale is a "Game That is One of my Favorites That is so Obscure Within my Friend Circles That I Will Suck Dick in Order to Gush to Someone About it." I adore this game! It pushes all the buttons in being uniquely catered to my tastes. 

For starters, the premise is fabulous. You play as Tilo, a mouse minstrel who is imprisoned by a colony of rats, and you simply must escape and also find your missing wife. The game is an anthropomorphic fantasy in the same vein as Secret of Nimh or Redwall. Things I am a big fan of in the fantasy genre so to see a video game equivalent was hype when I first saw a build of this game back in 2016. 

The story is this game's strength. The lore is incredibly thick, and it gives a lot of complexity to the dynamics between the rats and the mice. Plus, it gives the plot more twists and turns than one might expect. I won't delve into them for spoiler reasons. All I will say is that a story about a mouse finding his wife quickly turns into a whole other thing by the end of the story, yet it is held together by Tilo's relatable quest to find his love. There are also so many endearing characters from a senile pirate frog to thieving mice. All the characters are distinct and memorable. There are several rat characters for example that look pretty much the same aside from their costumes. However, they each feel totally different because how each rat carries themselves in conversation. It helps that the dialogue between Tilo and the rest of a cast is super well written, and you meet each one at the pace of a nice fantasy movie. 

This translates into gameplay as the variety of set pieces is insane. I should begin by admitting that I was lying by introducing Ghost of a Tale as a stealth game. Yes, stealth is a major part of the game. But if anything, stealth is more an extended sequence in this game. A major mechanic is you can swap costumes for various needs. And quite early on, you can get access to a knight costume that basically makes you invisible to any rat guards. And by this point, your goals change as you have to solve puzzles and find certain items. In other words, it goes from a standard stealth game to a standard adventure game as soon as you get access to the knight armor, and I love it. Ghost of a Tale is a great example as to why we separate action and adventure as two separate genres. It's more about discovery and playing with the gears of this little world. There is no combat, aside from the occasional bottle thrown, incinerating spiders, or tricking guards into walking into bear traps. Aside from that,....! There is no combat. 

I love the overworld design of Ghost of a Tale. I feel overworld games have continually made the mistake that size is more important than content. And while it is impressive how gargantuan maps GTA and Far Cry have provided over the years, they lose the intimacy and engagement. There don't have the nooks and crannies like in Ghost of a Tale where every corner has something to pick up. 

But this blog is also a sequel discussion on stealth, so I guess I should talk about the stealth elements of this game. 

The stealth in Ghost of a Tale is rather unpolished for how varied your toolset is for maneuvering around guards. You can use empty bottles, sticks, and other random shit found on floor to either distract or briefly incapacitate enemies. You can hide in the shadows, cabinets, and barrels. You can climb on objects to elude your captors. The basic stuff. 

The problem is everything else. The process of stalking guards is incredibly tedious as even tiptoeing can raise their awareness levels, so your best strategy is to run, stop to lower their awareness level, and continue doing that to get around guards. And while I said your toolset is varied, you are using that same toolset in the same places. There is a lot of backtracking, which I don't mind per say, but that backtracking is worsen by the stealth. You either have do the aforementioned technique, which I mentioned is very annoying. You can merely run past guards getting caught left and right which doesn't feel within the spirit of the game. Or, you can equip the armor costume. Unfortunately, the armor is bulky meaning you are unable to run for most of the game. It feels like a pick your poison type gameplay decision, and what's worse is that it is binary gameplay decision with no depth or complexity. Either explore the world kind of slowly with some danger or really slowly with no danger. 

There is also a lot of almost unnecessary additions to the game's mechanics that make backtracking more tedious. 

So on top of Ghost of a Tale being a stealth and adventure game, the game also has tacked on RPG elements. Here, you can level up and your clothes can alter your stats, and most of it is useless. The only substantial stat that noticeably changes is your health/stamina from level ups, but the problem is that this is a game that doesn't even need a stamina meter. With how much running around you need to do, you will constantly run out of stamina regardless with how high your bar is. Really, there is no reason to have level ups or stat changes at all other than to reward players for completing missions. Even that's not a good reason as you get pretty nifty rewards such as better tools, skill upgrades, and costumes. I really wish there wasn't any RPG elements as the stamina meter made backtracking really annoying. 

Let me reiterate that I still think Ghost of a Tale is amazing. It goes to show how great the story and world is and what it means to me. Unfortunately, it's a game where you have to roll with the punches in order to enjoy these amazing things. Thankfully, you can curb some of the issues like the backtracking upon either playing a game second time or knowing a few tips before starting up the game. And because I am desperate and want more people to play this game, here are a few tips now on how to better enjoy Ghost of a Tale.    

First, the mushroom side quest is almost pointless unless you are going for 100% completion. In my opinion, it is not worth your time from both a gameplay and story perspective. 

Conversely, do both of the quests given by the character Duinlan as soon as you possibly can as you get two of the best rewards in the game from these quests. Use a walkthrough if you have to, just get these quests done asap. 

Go to the blacksmith if you feel remotely stuck. It will save the trouble of backtracking for some of the costumes, and a few quests require asking the blacksmith for his assistance. 

There is a basket attached to a pulley system near the character Silas that you can activate as a shortcut to and from the courtyard and the signal guard tower. 

Items that are highlighted yellow will eventually be used for side quests and missions. Pick them up. 

One side quest can only be unlocked when you talk to Gusto and Fatale at night. Of course, it is not really worth it unless you are going for 100%. 

Speaking of Gusto and Fatale, if you decide to do their side quests prioritize getting these skills: "Red Mist, "The Surge," and the "Long Drop." The rest are negligible. 

Burn banners whenever you get the chance. They help with a side quest later on and they give you EXP which can help build your stamina meter early on. If you want to do this while wearing the knight armor, simply take off one piece of armor, quickly burn the banner, and reequip it back on. The guard AI is really stupid. 

The footlocker keys each only unlock one specific footlocker. 

And finally, if you are going for 100%, there is a point of no return that can lock you out of certain side quests. I don't want to say what for spoiler reasons. My suggestion is to save after every major mission and use multiple save files. 

This game is a lot of things. It's unpolished and has design quirks that really hurt the experience. It's glitchy-yeah I forgot to mention the game glitches a lot and will crash on occasion at least on the PS4 version. However, this is one of those few games where it is worth playing in spite of that. Ghost of a Tale is one of the richest fantasy stories I've ever experienced. The game exudes every adjective related to the word adventure. 

And I pray to God that Ghost of a Tale 2 comes soon. Until then...well I guess I will just wander around...aimlessly. 

You know, I don't know why I thought a Conker's Bad Fur Day reference would be a good way to end this blog. You know, it's whatever. I don't know how to end blogs. It's fine. End Review.