For sites like these, Sundays are typically a more relaxing casual time, in order to catch up on what the week's demands may have made one miss. Although this site is more DEEP HELL or tinymixtapes cosplay than anything, I feel it might be helpful to do the same, and round up the best things the site's "staff" have experienced over the week without having to give too much in the way of critical thought about them. Below is one recommendation from each member of the website's staff. Any regular readers are strictly required to check all of these out. In order to confirm that you have, please email us at holisticreview@protonmail.com.

Casey A. Malik (Lead Editor/Webmaster):

Soft and Hollow is a horror youtuber who focuses on recommending smaller games she enjoyed with her tiny terrors series, and giving some insightful analysis of big indie horror names, like Anatomy. Not only does she appear to play everything, she has a deftness with hot takes: each analytical video seems to have been written with a driving point. Her latest video, on how demaking a game can be as useful as remaking it, is incredibly solid to the extent that it could've come from large channels, like Jacob Geller. If you like video essays in general, even if you aren't too into horror, you owe it to yourself to watch Soft and Hollow.

Kit Riemer (Good Writer/Stealer of Valor):

Growing Pains is a band out of Oregon with like 1,200 monthly listeners on Spotify. They make noisy rock. There's nothing too weird about them, so I'm not sure why I like them so much. I think the music just slaps harder than pretty much anything else I've heard this year. Put them on your AOTY list and get that indie cred I guess!

Ashley "Dragimal" K. (Feral Biologist/Aspiring Cryptid):

Serre is a short n’ sweet visual novel by insertdisc5 on itch.io, which centers on the budding romance between a lonely girl (Arlette) and the would-be alien “conqueror” (Oaxa) that crash-lands in her greenhouse. While the romance between the two is very cute, I think the short length of the game unfortunately undercuts the bits of depth the game attempts. Without giving too much away, their argument at the climax tries to tackle both Arlette’s personal issues and Oaxa’s species’ colonization of other planets, which inadvertently equates the colonialism to interpersonal issues and brushes over the nuance the topic needs. BUT it’s still a cute game, and the characters are both lovable-- Oaxa in particular is so earnest and excitable that I found myself clutching my chest and cooing over her throughout most of the game. She also has a kickass design, like a sleek and fluffy robo-bee. The art style in general is incredibly charming, with simple lines, round/bubbly shapes, and beautiful palettes. I think the experience is worth the meager $5 it charges (or it’s in that Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality from back in June, if you already have that).

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