Tales Seikyu Just: Latest Updates and Analysis

Tales of Seikyu is just your regular farming simulator, apart from the fact I've got shapeshifting abilities and I'm engaged to a pretty persistent kappa

Steam Next Fest always tends to be a thriving hub for farming and life sims, but. The demo of Tales of Seikyu takes you on a more magical adventure than your standard dirt tilling, seed sowing simulator. Instead, you're a shapeshifting member of the fox clan who has moved to an island infested with yokai and yokai-adjascent villagers. So as someone who already finds every excuse to try a new farming simulator and adores the weird and wonderful world of Japanese folklore, this game wasn't exactly a hard sell.

Tales of Seikyu starts by following the classic routine of moving to a new place and into a beautiful farmhouse that for some reason has been empty for ages. With your first task being introducing yourself to a rather eclectic bunch of yokai-related townsfolk. There's a pretty significant variation in characters which I appreciated rather than being lumped with the usual run of the mill edgy character, loveable brute, overly optimistic charmer. And the self deprecating nerdy sort. Everything from humans to anthropomorphic cats, birds, and otters welcome you in Tales of Seikyu. Even the playable character has magical abilities, such as shapeshifting into a boar.

When I was done introducing myself to the community, I wanted to spend some time exploring the limited section of the map to try and get as much out of the demo as I could and. Try to paint a picture of what I could expect when the game rolls into Early Access. It usually takes me a while to gather my bearings in a new game, yet even the small slice of map Tales of Seikyu's demo offered felt bigger than it actually was.

There's only so much you can get out of a short demo, and. With the game launching into Early Access (though we don't have a date for that yet) there are bound to be some gripes. Although there is something whimsical about the land of Seikyu, I couldn't help feeling like a lot of its rolling fields were lacking. You've got a few enemies to run up to and defeat, and there are a lot of forageable items to collect. But for the most part, the demo had me spending a lot of time wandering around looking for something to admire rather than actually enjoying what I was seeing.

One of the things you're asked to do at the start of the demo is find fox shrines around the map. Which become your fast travel points. These shrines aren't marked on the map, so there's an awful lot of walking around the empty spaces praying you might find one. This sort of mission always feels way more exciting in theory than it does in practice, especially when the map already feels pretty empty. So after a while I ended up heading to the bulletin board instead to pick up a quest so I at least had what felt like an achievable objective rather than continuing my somewhat aimless amble around.

Luckily this is where I got to experience the highlight of the demo, thanks to the fishing quest I picked up. Where the otter fishmonger Torleone asked me to collect two crucian carp. So, armed with my beginner rod, I cast my line into the river and immediately reeled in a cucumber rather than any sort of fish. Knowing this was a reference to kappa, one of my favourite yokai, this reference could've been a highlight on its own. I hadn't found one yet in Seikyu so I was a little worried they didn't have a place in the game. So when the cucumber morphed into a kappa in front of my very eyes, saying I was elated would be an understatement.

Almost immediately, the kappa insisted that we were soulmates since I'd been the lucky fisher to reel him in. And if I didn't agree to being together he would simply drown himself. A bit of an exaggeration if you ask me, but also not completely unrealistic for a kappa I suppose. It's little elements of personality like this which made me appreciate the demo of Tales of Seikyu more than I thought I would.

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Although my adventure was only short, this definitely made me excited to find more secrets when the game launches. But I'd like to see a little more life on the land before Tales of Seikyu comes into Early Access. As much as I like to think I'd enjoy my new life as a kappa wife regardless of its empty map. I know that it would lead me to feeling underwhelmed in the long run. With that mentioned, I know the demo only scratches the surface of what's to come, and. I'm overly hopeful that I can finally fulfil my dream of living among yokai in due course.

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The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies is built around a much-needed (but controversial) feature

When The Sims 4's dev team talk about the upcoming Businesses & Hobbies expansion pack, it's clear that – for all the overhauled tattoo system and. Introduction of a new pottery skill are clearly the centrepieces in terms of "what's new" – they know that cross-pack compatibility will be the big talking point for a lot of long-time players. It's been over a decade now since the TS4's original release, and even if you're overall a fan of the game, likelihood is that your wish-list has long included a desire to see DLCs that feel less siloed-off and more like holistic. Meaningful additions to the game world as a whole.

Businesses & Hobbies isn't really the first pack to try to make this a reality in some way. 2022's Werewolves game pack won many hearts and minds when it went out of its way to unify its lore with that of the previous two supernatural-themed GPs, Vampires and. Realm of Magic; while last Halloween's Life & Death expansion was so all-encompassing as to be truly game-changing no matter what other add-ons you owned (or indeed didn't). But with Businesses & Hobbies, it seems that cross-pack compatibility is finally ready to run where those others walked, with new variations on its central gameplay additions of small businesses and hobby classes unlocked by almost every other piece or prior DLC.

It's unfortunate – but. Not at all unexpected – for this news to come as a bit of a double-edged sword as far as the fandom goes. Any announcement related to The Sims at this point is guaranteed to generate controversy, and for every Simmer who's pleased to finally tick "robust pack interactivity" off their wish-list, another will be unhappy at the concept of attributes from one DLC being in any way gated behind another.

Which is not an inherently unreasonable complaint, but this really is a binary choice: either each Sims 4 DLC is entirely self-contained and. Stand-alone, or they include some unique interactions depending on what other add-ons you have installed. Both have their merits but on balance I'm on the side of the second team, although. For what it's worth, I understand where the mistrust comes from. Everyone who was there surely remembers the extremely contentious release of the My First Pet Stuff pack, which launched only a few months behind the Cats & Dogs expansion and was pretty transparently "a DLC for a DLC" – even including a handful of items that you needed to own both to unlock.

The debacle around My First Pet Stuff was indeed a low moment for TS4, and. The fact that the two packs concerned haven't simply been re-bundled as a single add-on even seven years later feels like a missed opportunity to regain some goodwill on EA's part. But while it might be reasonable on the part of consumers to approach Businesses & Hobbies with some trepidation based on that experience, that doesn't make it accurate to assume that B&H will repeat all past mistakes, either.

One of the selling points EA are keen to point out is that a brand-new player could download The Sims 4 base game, purchase Businesses & Hobbies as their first and only paid add-on, and already have access to 76 different, well. Business and hobby options – so even though almost every other DLC over the course of TS4's 10-year history that's introduced a new skill or craft has some level of interactivity with the pack, the idea is that there's still plenty to enjoy even if you only have access to the bare minimum.

That number sounds pretty good and all, but it's kind of hard to visualise without some context. Well, having played a base-game-and-B&H-only preview build provided by EA, I can tell you that – while it does undeniably feel limiting to go from playing with every single major DLC to having just one pack available – I never felt like I was short on things to do. Within 10 minutes of starting the game I was running the world's dodgiest cake shop out of my Sim's bare concrete garage. In what was honestly one of the quicker-paced starts I've ever experienced when beginning a new TS4 save from scratch.

Additionally, there's no denying that there were a few oddities. Naturally as an aspiring bakery owner, I spent a couple of nonplussed minutes looking for the "baking" sub-menu on the oven before remembering that separating it out as its own skill was something that came with the Get to Work expansion pack, and. Thus my Sim would have to simply "cook" her cakes like some kind of 2014 luddite. Similarly, I had to define my home business as a bar, since the café lot assignment came with Get Together and surprisingly still hasn't made it into the base game.

But in the end, not only could I still make and sell the cakes I wanted to. I could even customise them in new ways thanks to B&H's new "family recipe" creation feature, which is honestly very diverting in its simplicity. A moment later I was happily defining my Sim's secret recipe for birthday cake (base recipe) with cherries (secret ingredient) that includes an inherent mood-boost (bonus effect), my disappointment over the lack of technical accuracy in terms of baked goods and business terminology largely forgotten, if not entirely forgiven.

So some older packs – particularly the aforementioned Get to Work and. Get Together, which were in fact the two first-ever expansions to be released for TS4 way back in 2015 – certainly feel like they'll flesh out Businesses & Hobbies significantly, even if they're not really required. Indeed, parts of B&H do almost feel like an overhaul of and refinement on Get to Work's fairly forgettable and underwhelming retail business ownership system. While I won't go so far as to say that this should have been a free update, I do think it supports the idea that some older TS4 packs really should be permanently dropping in price, now that the cycle's been running for so long we're starting to see the sort of spiritual follow-ups to old EPs that used to come at the start of a new generation of the franchise.

But to be honest. At least in my opinion, the most fun to be had out of pack interactivity with B&H comes from the more niche edge-cases. Businesses & Hobbies is obviously going to pair well with Get to Work, but. I'm more excited about some of the examples drawn from packs that don't immediately scream "home business" until you get creative with it. Supernaturally-inclined Simmers will be able to open up vampire plasma bars with the Vampires GP installed, or run elixir shops with Realm of Magic. Cat cafés are on the table – if you own both Get Together and Cats & Dogs, that is. Part of the appeal here is pouring all your simulated LEGOs out onto the table and seeing what you can come up with.

Hopefully this doesn't leave Simmers who – perfectly reasonably – either can't afford to or simply don't want to be a TS4 completionist feeling left out. The Sims franchise in the recent past turned 25, which means we're also coming up on a quarter-century of asking ourselves whether the series' DLC practices are the reason this concept has been able to stay afloat for so long or a shameless exploitation of a captive audience. There isn't an easy answer for me to give to that (although I suspect it can easily be both), but I do favour the notion that if EA are going to release two £40 expansion packs every year until the heat death of the universe, then while I don't want those DLCs to rely on each other, I do really prefer them to be able to talk to each other in this way – especially if that conversation leads to some inventive new possibilities for Simmers to explore.

The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies releases on March 6th for PC, PlayStation 4. And Xbox One, and costs £35 / $40 / €40. As is now standard for new expansion packs, there's also a three-item digital bonus set exclusively for players who purchase the game before April 18th.

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The Ugly Stepsister finds a new angle for Cinderella: The Substance-style body horror

This review of The Ugly Stepsister comes from its screenings at the Berlin International Film Festival. It will be updated for the movie’s American release.

The broad strokes of Emilie Blichfeldt’s feature debut, Den Stygge Stesøsteren (or The Ugly Stepsister). Will be familiar to most viewers. There’s a fancy ball and an opportunity to meet a charming prince. There’s a lost glass slipper belonging to a woebegone waif, who becomes magically regal for one evening. And of course, there are her “ugly” stepsisters, who are jealous of her growing importance. In all but name, it’s Cinderella, the 19th-century Grimm fairy tale adapted for film and TV over and over in ever-changing forms, including via the 1950 Disney animated classic.

But Blichfeldt’s Norwegian farce leans into the story’s most unsavory aspects, turning them into a wildly visceral body-horror parable about beauty standards, deep self-loathing, and. The lengths one teenager will go to just to fit into her ballgown.

Best Picture nominee The Substance has likely opened the door to some previously averse viewers giving horror a chance, and they’re all the advanced for it. Coralie Fargeat’s acclaimed comedy (a more malformed movie than Blichfeldt’s) satirizes the limiting images of women propagated and encouraged by modern Hollywood. But The Ugly Stepsister goes further back in time, to stories that have long since infiltrated common understanding through cultural osmosis.

Image: The Berlin International Film Festival.

Prototypical Cinderella stories date back to Ancient Greece — like the tale of Rhodopis, a Greek slave girl identified by her sandals, who marries the king of Egypt — and. They’ve since come to share common DNA with many 20th-century Disney princesses, for whom grace and beauty are the ultimate virtues. The latter may not be a pressing concern for a modern filmmaker like Blichfeldt, but it makes for a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek framework, which she wields to tell a story about self-mutilation used to adhere to modern capitalistic standards and beauty practices.

The frame is often awash in a hypnotic haze, and. The soundtrack is buoyed by the distinctly 1980s sounds of dreamlike synths, yanking the movie out of time — and making it essentially timeless. Its story follows Elvira (Lea Myren), a frumpy 19th-century brunette whose scheming stepmother Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) marries the ailing father of the blond, blue-eyed. Conventionally attractive Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), the story’s Cinderella stand-in. Both parents believe they’re marrying into money, a dual deception that only comes to light once Agnes’ father dies, prompting Rebekka to figure out how best to doll up her daughters in time for the prince’s ball.

Learning to be prim and proper is a much shorter journey for the grieving Agnes, but. Her attraction to a local stable boy disqualifies her from partaking in the prince’s courtship rituals, for reasons both classist and deeply misogynistic. The entire premise of the ball is sexual and matrimonial in nature, but speaking these ideas out loud (or. God forbid, acting on sexual attraction) is a major societal no-go. This double standard leaves Elvira to shoulder Rebekka’s desperate hopes and dreams, forcing her to walk a careful line between recognizing her own adolescent libido — in a particularly sweet and funny scene. She’s brought to tears by the sight of a man’s toned buttocks! — and keeping a tight lid on her desires.

Myren is a notably pretty actress, and. The trope of casting conventionally attractive women as characters deemed “ugly” — usually because of an impending makeover scene — isn’t lost on Blichfeldt. Where Greta Gerwig’s Barbie hung a lampshade on the idea (a fleeting, joking gesture), The Ugly Stepsister makes it a key part of its text, and. Myren leans into it with her performance.

Her conception of Elvira is cartoonish in a fittingly Disney Channel way. She moves and reacts awkwardly in a modern, terminally online sense, as though the character’s discomforts were fueling an outwardly cringeworthy facade — which in turn fueled further anxieties, and. So on. Each time a bodily imperfection is pointed out (usually by her mother or her etiquette teacher), Elvira practically folds in on herself. Growing smaller in the frame, as though she were afraid to take up space. It’s a magnificently true-to-life flourish that captures the feeling of body dysphoria, and how it can hollow out someone’s very being.

Image: The Berlin International Film Festival.

Before long, Rebekka’s insistence that Elvira “transform” leads to deeply uncomfortable processes. Beginning with a cosmetic doctor breaking her nose and placing it in a metallic vise so it gradually changes shape. Myren’s performance makes each step of this methodical makeover both hilarious and agonizing to watch, because on some level, it’s what she wants. (More specifically: It’s what she’s made to want by those around her.).

Moving to another aspect, the horrors don’t stop at her nose. While she trains to walk with more poise, Elvira also has long, full eyelashes sewn into her eyelids, and she even swallows an illicitly acquired tapeworm egg. A sublot that builds over months, through uncomfortable gurgles, until it leads to an inevitable extraction. It’s a particularly wince-inducing scene, though not nearly the movie’s most disturbing one. Part of the Grimm’s Fairy Stories version of “Cinderella” involves her stepsisters failing to fit their feet into her dainty glass slipper, and. Cutting away parts of themselves to try to please and win the prince. But Blichfeldt isn’t content with leaving its tongue-in-cheek terrors to viewers’ imaginations.

The film’s watch-through-your-fingers sensation isn’t born from the alienness of body horror — it’s from the sheer intimacy of having ugliness foisted upon you as an identity, and. The complicated process of trying to break free from this suffocating label. Notably, there are few men in the film who insist on Elvira’s metamorphosis. Perhaps the most poignant narrative flourish in The Ugly Stepsister is the idea that all its women characters have been trapped by these standards for so long that they understand them intuitively, and. Are willing to reinforce their invisible walls if it means a chance at getting ahead.

So, even the most painful requests Rebekka makes of Elvira need no explanation. Their reasons feel second nature, as does the notion that Rebekka’s “evil stepmotherhood” stems from the interrelated struggle of being an aging woman with little financial recourse other than to commodify beauty and. Youth. For these women, the specter of class trickles down generationally, before congealing into body fascism. The result is a smart, wildly fun, and viscerally jolting work, one that becomes downright upsetting when every aspect of its premise comes crashing down on Elvira at once — or rather, comes bursting forth from within her.

The Ugly Stepsister does not have an American release date yet, but. Shudder has acquired it for distribution and plans a release later this year. Polygon will modification this review when a release date is set.

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