currently playing: kaizo breeze

i’ve watched kaizo mario for a long time. generally speaking, i like to play games that offer the same test over and over. you get a little better every time, then you get a lot worse, then somewhere after you’ve banged your head against the wall more times than you can count - you break through. games have a unique quality in that progress is always immediately visual. when you get a little farther in the level, or reach a certain point with more health, you just know that you have made progress. i started playing kaizo breeze recently. deciding i was done being just a spectator of the sport.

with any deep, difficult skill, there are times where the crawl is painstakingly gradual. kaizo, and more generally speaking, games never reach this point. well, at least most don’t. i famously spent about a month between getting to guardian ape in sekiro, and actually beating it. it goes without saying that this isn’t the norm. in most situations, if you spend enough time with something, you will get past it. games, as it turns out, are designed to be beaten. they are designed to give the player that sense of satisfaction.

when i turned (some odd age) i made a promise to myself that i would take guitar more seriously. i have never been too dedicated a practicer. as many will point out, the progress that video games afford, the immediately sound and light explosion of success, doesn’t exist in the quiet rumination of the physical world. in fact, most of the time the progress is so slow that it feels absent. you have to trust that you are getting better. there is no level up, no checkpoint, just a slow and gradual climb towards a personal goal. i eventually went back to guitar lessons and i practiced. a lot. and strangely that dedication almost made it worse. for all of my guitar playing career, it was enough to get to “good enough”. but suddenly, with this renewed vigor, the top of that previous precipice was a small ledge. no matter how much i drilled the same song over and over, there were always mistakes. there would always be mistakes. i was in my head and desperately imperfect.

i thought in the deep practice i would find an absence of mistakes. i never did. and everytime i found a mistake it felt unfair. i had spent all this time and all this energy, why couldn’t i move my hand this way, or play this structure that way. i eventually fell back into my old ways, learning songs as i obsessed over them, playing not for perfection, but for fun. and i’d be wrong to say that the frustration wasn’t part of my lost motivation.

the thing is, when you beat a kaizo level, it’s not because you’ve perfected it. you’ve perfected parts of it. you’ve learned when to jump here, how to navigate there, but there are always mistakes. until that one beautiful moment where your brain shuts off and lets your hands take the reigns. once. just once. you do it right. and there’s the release of victory, and the immediate silhouette flash of the success screen. those who truly perfect it, push themselves past that point. but i never do. i move on. maybe that’s just who i am, and maybe playing those songs mostly perfect in search of that one, beautiful, blessing of a run-through is the true thing i should be searching for.

yes i know i’m not the first person to compare sekiro to playing an instrument ✌️