this kind of deranged western style animation is something i always pretend not to like but it really grips me in a visceral, psychedelic kind of way. there's so much emotion. there's so much primal energetic physicality!!
during my playthrough the other day i kept thinking about the patrick gill video about how luigi's mansion 3 feels like a jackie chan movie and how peppino is so satisfying to play as because he is obviously struggling. on a level that even wario land 4 or wario world don't quite reach
the grotesque character designs add to this feeling i think. you can really go all-out with conveying emotion when you're not afraid to have it get a little ugly. i'm not the first person to make this observation but peppino's constant state of being stressed the fuck out is very courage the cowardly dog-esque...
he is also kind of wretched in the same way the protagonist of disco elysium is wretched. for some reason there's something satisfying about playing as a weird ugly guy who is pushed to his limit trying to survive a weird ugly world. maybe it just feels honest. like, finally the dysmorphia i feel when forced to play as any human video game character is acknowledged as an appropriate response. harry du bois, explicitly, would also prefer not to be harry du bois. i can agree and empathize with that feeling
when everything looks like this it also sets a bar for things to surprise you by being genuinely cute. even if in a different context you could only see the ugliness. in a world where everything is uncomfortable in some way, you're grasping for whatever brings you joy. i love that feeling!! i want to embrace ugly-cute more in my own art i think