In which I read formal research papers that involve e-koʊ heavily in their analysis and findings.
These are all papers you can find publicly available, in full, on Google Scholar and similar web resources, although I have found a couple that require the Wayback Machine to read nowadays. Regardless, I'll be sure to make all of the articles I review fully available to this site's users so you can read up on this stuff yourself.
I've decided to do this because a number of these researchers taking an analytical eye to the game have noticed a lot of the same details I did, but come to their own conclusions, and a wide variety of them at that. Where video essayists and podcasters of the modern day seem to have a very shared, homogenous understanding of what e-koʊ is, these academic researchers throughout the years have very different perspectives to offer to the discussion, and I think that makes them worth sharing here.
That said, I will be rating them poorly if I find their takes to be shallow or unfounded.
I've decided to work off a five star ranking system identified by a weapon/attack that e-koʊ can use.
If I truly hate a paper I've reviewed here, it will recieve 0 Stars, represented by the 'Insect Net', which, as a weapon that did not even make the cut for the game. It doesn't measure on the scale because no one can use it.
"Games about LOVE and TRUST?" Review (Published: 2008) (Review Date: 2/5/2024)