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c7thetumbler · 10 months ago

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Quick Game reviews: 2023 (Part 1!)

Hey everyone! Apologies for the screenshots stolen from google; at the point I compiled most of this I deleted my Xitter account and didn't have the screenshots I typically share from there.

Additionally, since Tumblr has a 30 image limit this is going to be split into 2 parts! How exciting.

Let's get it goin

This group of 8 games were beat in the first week of 2023! Do not set such goals; games are made to be fun on your own time and turning it into a job is a lot like seeing how the sausage is made. But I digress;

Tinykin (Steam)

A very fun 3D puzzle-platformer collectathon. It has many pikmin-like elements in that you control a bunch of little guys to carry, push, or interact with various objects in fun ways, but I would hesitate to call it a full Pikmin like game because they really serve as collectibles which when you have enough of let you access certain areas. There's really not strategy element to it. But, it's still a fun 3D platformer, and I recommend it

Super Kiwi 64 (Steam)

This is a weird one. Another 3D platformer that will last you at most 1 hour, Super Kiwi 64 is an unsettling but intriguing little experience where you navigate a number of levels with challenges and items to collect. I say unsettling because the music has a very mysterious vibe, and the environments go from the bright forest above to some almost liminal, dark areas devoid of interactable characters and littered with strange skeletons and glyphs. It was interesting; I would say pick it up on sale if you're looking for a chill hour of playtime, but it's also only $3, so you do you

Toree 2 (Steam)

Another retro 3D platformer that's more like the PS1 era, Toree 2 is focused on quick, optimizable movements and levels design to be speedrun and 100%'d. This one is also only an hour, but also only a buck to play! Keeping with the unsettling theme, it's levels are nostalgic and bright, but the main antagonist seems to be drawing on some glitchy, bizarre power that causes some strange effects to happen in levels. It's a small but fun nostalgic experience that it's difficult and a well done series of levels

Toree 3D (Steam)

Same review as above, the sequel! Sure, the 3D may lead you to believe it's different mechanically, but it was already 3D so it's really just more of the same.

Dead Estate: Bombs Away Update (Steam)

This update added a new character, some new enemies, and some alternate rooms. Again, my Dead Estate recommendation is high for those who are into the rogue-like, top down arcade shooters, and this free update was more goodness to complete, though BOSS can very easily be broken with a number of explosion-based items.

Mechanibot (Steam)

Is this auto chess? I don't know what auto chess is as a genre. kids these days

Mechnibot is a top down tower defense like game with rogue-like elements. You start off as mechanibot, a tiny robot who has been tasked to fix the sun and has a number of robots to choose from. Robots act as "towers" that grant certain effects depending on their type and description, and can even have multiple types and effects. Your job is to keep these robots alive and attacking by frantically running around and placing them in and out of danger. You get money for each wave, which can be spent on given options at the end of each wave to upgrade robots, get new ones, and some upgrades for yourself as well. It's a lot of fun, a good 8 hours of content and replayable. Try out the demo and see if it's for you

Minit Fun Racer (Steam)

Another short game! This is a spin-off from Minit, and is much more arcade like. You start off on your little bike and have to avoid all the obstacles and collect coins to get to the end. You won't be able to progress very far for a while, so you get upgrade to last longer and get some upgrades for your scooter until you eventually can. Took me about an hour and a half to get all the achievements, but there was surprisingly a lot of cute hidden stuff along the way. Again, a fun arcadey experience with lots of charm for almost nothing.

Chico and the Magic Orchards DX (Steam)

This one was fun! I was on a big GameBoy kick this year, and the DX for this actually came out I was playing it. It was a little aggravating with some of the boss fights, but overall I had a fun time playing it! Recommended for a nice little nostalgic GBC puzzle game, would definitely be best on a portable console.

A Little to the Left (Switch DL)

I wanted to play more simple games, and this one seemed like a lot of fun as a recommendation from a friend. It's a little short, but it speaks to me as someone who hops between obsessing over doing things perfectly and finding it difficult todo anything at all. I especially like the way there are multiple solutions for several puzzles, which when compared with another player let you understand the different ways people can "organize" the same thing. A casual puzzle game that's worth a try, though don't expect hours and hours of entertainment from it

Game & Watch Gallery 3 (Switch NSO: Game Boy Color)

I owned Game & Watch Gallery 2 as a young'un, and remember playing it endlessly so it was nice to give this one a go when the GB/C update for Nintendo Switch Online Dropped. As the third entry, it contains a lot less common Game & Watch games, but the modern spin on them using Mario characters gives it a lot of personality. Honestly, I'm surprised we don't see more of these games remade in recent Mario Parties as homages or just high score games you can do.

If you've never played a Game & Watch Gallery, I'd give this one a try as its fun, addicting little bites of gameplay are very enjoyable and there's loads of unlockable bonuses to keep your attention, but if you find you don't like a game or two in it it can be a slog to get the 1000 points to finish the whole game.

Wario Land 3 (Switch NSO: Game Boy Color)

For those unfamiliar with the Wario Land series (and yet somehow found me?), it's a very fun series of platformers which focus more on puzzle solving/execution than your typical Mario platformer. Wario Land 3 specifically took Wario Land 2's "Impossible to get a game over" formula and ran with it, also making this a fun little Metroidvania in the process. It's definitely among my favorite in the sereis, though it's held back by an obsession with its own mini-golf game which it has you play one every level (every level has 4 exits). Overall it's a great entry in Mario spinoffs and a very fun time, but be prepared to be frustrated by some pretty annoying jumps and a silly mini game

Super Mario Land 2: The 6 Golden Coins (Switch NSO: Game Boy)

I have a love-hate relationship with this one. I never got to play it fully when I was a kid, but returning back to it I loved it. But it's way, waaaaaay too short. With 6 worlds with 2-3 levels tops, and with a frustratingly focused screen due to the resolution of the original Screen, it's not got a lot of staying power. Would love to see it as a pallette in Super Mario Maker 3 though.

It's fun, but short. Don't expect to spend a lot of time with this, but hey; you're probably playing this as NSO sub or for free online so no loss with this classic

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ (Switch NSO: Game Boy Advance)

The original WarioWare! It's fun, but again pretty short. Worthj a play if you've never tried out a WW game before, but the best WarioWare portable experience is Going to be WarioWare Gold on the 3DS and the more recent switch escapades. Additionally, this doesn't have the Wario World functionality, which obviously it can't but that was part of the reason I played it back in the day. Good for some random fun, doesn't stand out as an experience vs the more recent WarioWares

Dead Estate: Heaven & Hell update

This is the update the game needed; it drastically improved the floor spawning algorithm, added a lot more interesting playstyles for each character, and added more enemies and gimmicks to keep you replaying over and over again. There are more updates past this that improve the game further, but with this I can whole-heartedly recommend this as a very fun and addictive rogue-like.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (Steam)

What a wonderful April Fools game. My favorite game dev pranks are the one where they just silently drop a whole-ass spinoff.

A wonderful jaunt in the Sonic Universe! It's no secret that I love Sonic, and I've been keeping up with the IDW comic series (it's very good) since it started releasing a few years back and it's a wonderful fleshing out of characters and side-stories that main Sonic games will never address. This murder-mystery + special stage minigame was written and produced by the same writes on the IDW comics, and it's a very fun experience to see them get to make an interactive game with some humor while still getting to keep and flesh out the characters we never really get to see in Sonic Games. I highly recommend this for any Sonic fan, and hope this means we'll be seeing more in the way of sonic spin-offs in the future.

...

Also the IDW comic series is great! It takes a little to start with the first arc, but after that it's all I want out of a Sonic Comic. Tangle and Whisper are also cool as hell.

Lunistice (Steam)

This was a fun albeit short3D platformer, also looking like a PS1 original. I unfortunately didn't 100% it so I didn't finish the story and get the nuances of it, but as a platformer it was a fun romp. I'd recommend it as a fun labor of love, but not as something you can really dig your teeth into

Pizza Tower (Steam)

This game is really good! Feels great, first time in a while I've been like "Oh this is fun but really hard, I don't think I'll get good enough to 100% it" and then slowly but surely decided to. The only issue is some kinda old racist tropes being used in the western world which they really didn't need, but gameplay, visually, and musically this is a masterpiece. An essential part of any platformer fan's collection to have tried.

... If only they hadn't added more achievements I'd still have it 100%'d on Steam

Super Mario Bros. Peach's Adventure (SNES Classic romhack)

I saw this in a bit on Vinny's fullsauce channel about weird Mario hacks, and the only premise for this being weird was that Peach's design is nonstandard. It became apparent when he started playing that actually a ton of work and love went into it, so for the sake of the bit he moved on. I Proceeded to hack my SNES Classic so I could play this and boy was it worth it.

This romhack is adorable! IT's full of collectible's, has really fun levels, tons of references for any longtime Mario fan, and carries a nice aesthetic of the original SMB but with SMW's features so it's looks like a really amazing Mario Maker game. I loved it!

Across-Stitch (Itch.io)

It's Picross, but with colors! I'm a big running fan of Nintendo Picross games, and this came up on my recommended on itch so I decided to give it a try. Very fun, has a lot of puzzles, and is just a fun time waster. I got it on itch (linked), but honestly it'd be perfect for my phone had I done that

PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION 2 (Steam)

So this one's kinda weird; Pac-man CE was one of my favorite games on the 360 (I didn't have many), and I thought the sequel would be it but just better since they'd solve the scoring problems. It was actually just like more of the same but with some different styles of play, and I found myself getting tired of it pretty fast. I have nostalgic memories of 1 so I'm probably looking at it with rose-tinted goggles, but this is a very passable arcade experience.

STEREOGRAM (itch.io)

I cannot in good conscience recommend you play this game, as looking at both screen this closely to do the stereogram and crossing your eyes for extended periods of time can cause permanent damage to your eyesight.

... But as a concept it was really neat! I did beat it with frequtn 5 minute breaks, and it only took a couple hours. Very basic metroidvania with fixed rooms to make the effect work.

Charm Studies (itch.io)

A very cute mixed visual novel and picross game! I like picross and this caught my eye, so I gave it a shot. Fun, but a bit short. But also free! Maybe try it out if you're not sure about picross yourself

Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut

Longtime C7 fans will know I like Shantae quite a lot. And have an unhealthy amount of Shantae Merch. So when my Sister was visiting and I was feeling particularly self-conscious about playing games over the mic with friends, I decided to whip out this classic and finally 100% it. Shantae holds a special place in my heart for me, because I grew up an incredible prude with absolutely no interest in the kind of scandalous things that friends were starting to bring up. Whenever they tried to get me to watch Anime and watch stuff that had some fanservice, I felt wildly uncomfortable just because I didn't know how to process what I was seeing (and had undiagnosed anxiety and ADHD issues).

Shantae was the first time I saw something "suggestive" (read: cute girls in light outfits) tied with a style of gameplay I liked, and allowed me to kind of stop hating myself whenever these things came up. With this being a DSi game, meaning I could download it with nobody knowing I did, and the rave reviews it was getting by being one of the first DSi games available, I finally decided to purchase it. I loved the series ever since!

Getting back to this play-session, I decided to revisit this classic (my first experience with the series) and play it 100% with all the bells and whistles, including speedrun achievements. I got them all! For people who know what Shantae is, this is an essential entry into the series and a contender for top 3. If you've not played a Shantae game but like Metroidvania's, this or the recently released Seven Sirens are the best starting points

And yes, just to brag, that screenshot of the steam stats does mean I got the worst ending last and optimized my playtime.

My personal Shantae tier list, best to worst

Seven Sirens

Risky's Revenge tied with Pirate's Curse

Half-Genie Hero

Shantae GBC

Risky's Revolution, an unfinished GBA game in the series, was also announced to be resurrected and releasing next year, which is rad!

.. Anyway, onto another topic

TUNIC (Steam, played over steam link on the TV with a Controller away from the internet)

This was a hard one to get into, but a very fun one once I got the difficulty barrier and begun understanding the games' mechanics. I did end up getting the best ending, but not 100% all the achievements since that would've required more playthroughs, and the magic of figuring out the world would've been gone.

The use of the manuals, sudden realizations of mechanics, and really fun moments with some beautiful areas and items to figure out make this a wonderful game. Some of the bossess are.. not great, but on the whole I highly recommend this experience to people who want to feel what it was like in pre-internet days, having to solve a game's puzzles by charting out the world and coming to a deep understanding of its mechanics to find all the secrets. If you're easily frustrated or aren't a fan of 2D Zelda though, this is a pass

Cult of the Lamb (Steam)

This was one I was not expecting to get into. I saw it and thought "Hmm, I like games with a base-building aspect to them sometimes but a lot of the time that really gets in the way of the actual game." And to be honest, there were a few moments where juggling the two kinda did. Additionally, and this is a personal taste thing, the visuals of Don't Starve kinda don't appeal to me, so seeing a more cutesy version of that wasn't something I thought I'd love

... But this game is phenomenal! An incredibly fun rogue-lite game that mixes with base and resource management in a way that doesn't actually exclude someone who would like one over the other!

This was another one I 100% after a LOT of playtime and attempts at damageless bosses, but it was very worth it.

LEGO Builder's Journey (Steam)

I've been on Lego for the past few years, and this seemed like a fun little game that wasn't tied to any existing franchise so I gave it a go. It's an environmental puzzle game, where each micro-level has its own little puzzle where you need to figure out which pieces interact to (most of the time) get your little 1x1x2 lego guy to the other end of the stage.

It's very cute, and while a bit short ended up being the perfect length for this kinda game. The only thing I'd put against it is my computer had a rough time running it because they really wanted all the shaders and reflections to look great, so keep that in mind.

The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (Switch Online)

This is a weird one. I could've sworn I loved this game as a kid, and in fact this is what got me into 2D Zelda's because it was so much fun! Revisiting it though, I find it's one of the weaker entries in the series. The visuals look great, the story is as charming as you'd expect, and as someone who was really into windwaker and picked this up I was hooked, however it is by far one of the most tedious Zelda's I've played. The Dungeons are all relatively straightforward; while some offer an interesting mechanic from being small and making you think how larger objects affect the world, they still felt very linear.

Additionally, I had no idea just how grindy this game was at the time in comparison! Tons of the sidequests and rewards are visible fomr your first pass in an area, so as a result every time you get a new item you're tempted to go back and see if helps. The NPCs often block places as an obstacle that just move after a while (or a result of kinstone fusing), which made the game a lot more frustrating to remember things by. Kinstones themselves are annoying to find and even worse to use, as NPCs will randomly decide if they want to fuse or not. So to get everything you need to frequently visit and revisit the same places and NPCs over and over again, with no way of knowing if that random person has something you need to fuse with or is actually just a random person.

Additionally the figure collection, something I adored in WindWaker despite it being ridiculously grindy there too, has been reduced to a Gacha machine. A heart piece is locked behind collecting them all, which means for 100% completion you have to collect ALL the figurines, including ones only available after you clear your file, making the final heart piece effectively useless. Worse, the act of collecting them is a gargantuan time sink; it takes loads of time to go through dialog, even more to collect the rupees you need, and the "chance" system doesn't quite work how you'd expect. With me cheating to get 999 rupees in gambling all the time and going through all the prompts to get all these, it took me 3 hours. That's quadrupled at least if you play the game properly.

Never 100% this game, but as far as 2D zelda's go this is definitely not a terrible entry; just a bit uninspired. I'd recommend ALTTP, ALBW, or Link's Awakening over this myself.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)

I would have some fun screenshots but deleted my twitter so they're gone now, oh well.

I'm not gonna go too far in depth on this one; It's breath of the Wild but >2x larger with some wild building mechanics and a really good story. A fantastic game that may see age as the open-world genre gets saturated, but quite frankly one of the best games you'll ever see on the switch.

Annalynn (Switch)

I followed the artist on Twitter (when I still had one) and really liked the retro feel of it. It's a fun classic arcade game, however like some of those classic arcade games I found myself frustrated by its difficulty while still not grasping the hardest nuances of its mechanics enough to get good at it. It's fun, but I'd see if it's for you by watching the videos first.

Part 2 coming later today!

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bramblewolfbooks · 2 years ago

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“Critically acclaimed” game designer Sahoni’s mostly stream of consciousness list of top 5 2022 games I actually got to play this year

Not to be that guy, but this was a weird year for me in that I actually got a chance to play games this year. Some bizarre alchemy of stability, financial independence, and learning to set better boundaries has allowed me, nominally a game designer, to actually play games. It even let me play enough games to have a top 5. Not that this has ever stopped me in previous years from having an opinion.

But being able to have a game in my hand and have that experiential and tactile experience first-hand instead of having to rely on watching along with friends or watch a let’s play has left me with some unexpected opinions. I found myself willing to put myself out there for the imperfect or a game that doesn’t meet the platonic gamer ideal. Not that this has ever stopped me in previous years from having an opinion.

But I’m certainly more secure in them.

The following list is a series of games I came away from still thinking about them. There is no real order to it all, just that I have thoughts and I want others to share with others the experiences they brought me in the hopes you can make your own, or tell me about games that made you feel the same way.

Scarlet Hollow

Scarlet Hollow is the game that finally cracked through my shell and got me to like visual novels. It’s not like I haven’t played any before. I love games Like AI: Somnium files and Ace Attorney. But for some reason, there has always been a giant mental disconnect for me on a gameplay level. Something about needing just that little bit of game just to let myself surrender into the sort of stories this medium can tell.

But I never felt that need with Scarlet Hollow. Scarlet Hollow, by Black Tabby Games, is a horror visual novel set in Western North Carolina. And as a North Carolinian I clocked that from the get. That’s my home. It might have been that familiarity which helped me make that connection, but the game has two major strengths that really kept me engaged.

The first is the strength of Abby Howard’s (of Junior Science Power Hour and The Last Halloween) heavy inky arts, making up the hand-drawn and tenuously detailed backgrounds and expressive character-first portraits of the game. I constantly found myself stopping to just soak in a character’s expression or at the reveal of a new horror. If comics are a narrative-visual medium, where the parts come together and blend to tell a greater whole, Abby Howard took that same lessons to heart about pacing and presentation into this visual novel, elevating it to something greater. This is a very comic book sense of each scene transition being treated like a page turn or new panel.

But I think the aspect I enjoyed the most was the dialog. This game has two big systems going for it. The first is, at the beginning of the game, you choose basically two powers for your character out of 7, including options like “strong”, “booksmart”, and “talks to animals”. But soon after that the game springs on you it’s second hidden system. Certain dialog choices you make will reveal and inform your character in the future.

Very early on there is a forced and awkward conversation with a guy on a bus who offers you a bag of boiled peanuts (one of those North Carolina touches) and you have the option to say “no thanks, I’m allergic to peanuts.” from that moment on, if you chose this, you are indeed, allergic to peanuts. Maybe it’s my infamiliarity with visual novels, but I found both of these systems novel. This is a game where I never felt like there was a bad dialog choice. All of these possibilities had potential to lead me somewhere interesting, scary, or emotionally revealing.

I was drawn deep into the world or a dying North Carolina mining town that understood how a small town actually works. With southerners that reflected the sort of people that make up my world and not some country music construct or white liberal nightmare. People of color, queer folk, the blue collared and deep rooted. It also acknowledges native folk exist unlike most Appalachian narratives I see where we tend to be an afterthought at best.

Only 4 parts of the planned 7 are out so far but if you end up craving more as I did you should also check out Slay The Princess, the studio’s other visual novel, which features the voice talents of Jonathan Sims of the Magnus Archives as a self-aware narrator urging you to kill a chained princess in a remote cabin and in order save the world.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a hot mess. There is no other ways to describe it. It’s constant crashes, weird graphical bugs, and seasickingly uneven writing leaves a lot to be desired. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t some of the most fun I’ve had in a game in years.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a tactics game from Firaxis, the same folks behind the x-com games and you can certainly feel that. There is that technical grit that you should expect, especially on higher difficulties you can feel yourself gritting your teeth as you solve the puzzles they present you with, trying to maximize your economy of card plays and movements.

I really found satisfaction in how they expressed the various superheroes of their cast through the card based deckbuilding mechanics that make up your movement options. The best example I can think of is how Iron Man is a sort of high damage jack of all trades, but he’s expensive and likes to be the center of attention so he wants to clog up your hand with more Iron Man cards. Peak Tony Stark.

But everyone seems to have their niche, although some people don’t seem to feel that way until you unlock their passives. Spider-man is a low damage character that excels at bouncing around the screen pecking off minions and using environmental damages. Captain America is a tank character that specializes on building a resources called shield and the group shared heroism. Magik (from New Mutants, a personal fave) reposition and teleports enemies and allies both. Blade messes around with bleed. It’s satisfying and made to feel more empowering and accessible than x-come with things like your attacks always hitting (this, of course, applies to your enemies too). It feels good. I’m going to keep coming back to replay this.

The other half of the game is that you’re in this explorable campus, a haunted abbey transplanted from Europe in a pocket dimension outside Salem. (The game unwittingly makes a lot of assumptions that you’re white.) Your marvel OC, a very predefined in a commander shepherd sorta guy, explores this space for resources, costumes, and more between all the standard x-com prep stuff. There is also the social links which is probably the meat of the experience.

The social links are your time to spend one-on-one time with each character. I remember notably when they first announced the game, they spent a not insignificant amount of time telling video game outlets “No. You can’t romance any of these characters. No. you can’t kiss them. You can just be...really good friends.” Par for the course for marvel’s weirdly defensive sexlessness outside of comphet. (something that feels reflected in the fashion of the game to be honest).

Marvel has always been weird about OC’s, even outside of the normal comic book company “lalalala, please don’t show us your oc’s we don’t want a plagerism suit.”

I genuinely think this is the first time they’ve allowed them in any form outside of a lego game since the 90’s. I certainly remember the surprising lack of character creation in their official Tabletop games. Or that one time they tried to make an official marvel fanfic site with the rules “no oc’s” and “no shipping”. I remember how long it took for them to embrace the concept of “spider-sonas”.

But despite this, all these hang-outs feel strangely intimate. Not always romantic, but definitely intimate. I’m talking about someone’s deep personal trauma deep in the woods and then gifting them a music box of a song that’s from their favorite album. I have no doubt in my mind my Hunter and Blade are dicking down hard in the woods. Despite some anne-riceian views on fandom, Marvel can not stop the fanfic. My half-demon is kissing the half-vampire right now.

The writing, while uneven, never doesn’t feel at least comfortably saturday morning cartoon at it’s worst. Which, honestly, is something I’m perfectly okay with for a supehero affair. Same with the quippy nature that seems to be grating some folk with this game. I don’t understand why we’ve suddenly decided to start blaming Joss Whedon for something that’s been a staple part of American theater and film since vaudeville. It’s not like quips and banter aren’t an established and recognized part of superhero fiction and there are plenty of very real things we can blame him for instead. It’s pulp y’all.

I will say when the writing is good, it’s excellent. It knocks it out of the damn park and the out of combat stuff and tiny little exchanges are some of my favorite things. Whether it’s the story about your immortal lesbian aunt that raised you to be a weapon, her wife (now a ghost that is hiding in the abbey), and the scarlet witch. Or Tony Stark having to learn humility and to give other members of a club space instead of running them over in an attempt to be the big boss guy. Or introducing other folks to Magik’s whole deal. It all just feels good and earned.

I came away from this just desperately wanting Firaxas to make a New Mutants game in this style now. Please. I’ll buy about 12 copies just by myself.

I’m a firm believer that about 90% of non-comic related super media doesn’t earnestly engage with the concept of superhero comics as a medium, either out of embarrassment or apathy. Superhero media is big, strange, and often high-concept weird. None of which I would use to describe most things post Iron Man. It’s a big reason why I think people have this big bland aftertastes after the past 15 years of so of being hosed down with the greatest afterswill of DC and Marvel.

A have a heuristic just for batman shit of “how easily can you see this man throw a batarang?”. Because if you can’t be willing to buy into the conceits and fantastical that much, how much can I trust you with anything else? How can I trust you to understand the underlying nature of the stories being told?

Midnight Sun’s understands a couple of things about superhero fiction better than most. One, that the strange and fantastical are vital to both the color of the world and greater humanity of these characters. Two, that a world of superheroics are very much build upon a conceit of duty and responsibility for others. You don’t see a lot of superheroes in movies and tv ever really doing anything superheroic. And while not all superheroes define themselves by some form of duty, it still defines their greater world. Superman in the Christopher Reeves movies takes the time to show him rescuing civilians. Into the Spiderverse shows Miles struggling to live up to this idea of doing right, even going to far to state the message of “anyone can wear the mask” directly to the audience.

Midnight Suns takes great care to tell you who all these characters are fighting for. It shows them stressed out and frustrated about not being able to respond to every situation, even the ones that are personal, after being stretched thin. Agreeing to help others do what they can when faced with tragedy. Even just being there for a friend when they need it. If you ask me, that’s marvel midnight sun’s greatest strength. I can deal with tony stark and bugs if it’s a story about that.

Signalis

I probably don’t have much to say on this that hasn’t already been said, but it’s so nice to see a game that wears it’s inspiration on it’s sleeves, but still is not afraid to be it’s own thing. I’ve been watching this game for a long time. Just the right amounts of alien, RE, silent hill, and anime. I was so pleased to see other pick it up with the enthusiasm I’ve been rooting for it with. It deserves it.

Signalis is quiet.

Yes, it has it’s share of space-y white noise and grinding Akira Yamaoka industrial, but it’s not afraid to just be quiet. It’s honestly refreshing in a world of games who can never shut up.

But Signalis wants you to feel that gripping sense of being isolated and alone. It’s precedented on being lonely and the only times you’re not alone are when you are in danger. Limited inventory leaves you with no room for something sentimental. No favorite weapons here. Not lockets you keep with you. It’s illegal to even be alone with yourself. Even when you do find someone to talk to there is an emotional separation that acts as a brick wall between you and them.

You are lonely.

It’s retro scifi style is made to evoke things like alien, but also the building genres and expecations of vhs horrors and our own nostalgia. VHS is a lonely technology. It’s use of ps1 aesthetics are made to push the feeling of playing a game by yourself late at night while a crt tv hums and scans.

I think the thing I like most is when the game stops to show you this, cutting from it’s gods eye third person view as you stomp about a metallic brutalist hellscape and pulls you into first person, made to experience this cold isolation first person as you explore a diorama or a dark snowy gap between buildings. It’s taking you, essentially, the main character’s only companion, and making that as non-existent as possible.

Soul Hackers 2

It’s the best game Atlus has written since the ps2 and I will not be taking any notes on that. It’s pure objective fact. It’s a game about adults in a capitalist hellscape, dealing with adult problems and relationships in a very anime way. I once heard some youtuber describe this Atlus budget title as “the best vita game you’ve never played” and that still feels apt.

You can see this game struggling to make thew most out of what it’s be given with static backgrounds, bland repeating dungeons, and a combat system that just kinda feels like it needed to bake for about 20 more minutes. But what it made it’s choices to include put in so much work.

As a sequel to a ps1 game about detectives (and humanity as a whole) of a sort summoning demons on their cellphones/weapons in a cyberpunk dystopia experiencing the emergence of new life in the form of AI, Soul Hackers 2 decided to take a different approach. It’s a game about emerging AI experiencing humanity, while being detectives of sorts who can summon demons on their cellphone/weapons in a cyberpunk dystopia. Very different.

I found myself delighted to spend time with it’s characters in all the various ways the narrative designers found ways to inject scenes and story into the normal dungeon crawling loop. All fully voice acted of course. I got drinks with them. I listen to them bitch or praise food we got together. I listened to little skits every time I unlocked a new passive ability for them that revealed some new wrinkle in their personality. This limited cast felt like it had the chance to be colorful and fully realized characters. There was an emotional maturity there I have otherwise felt lacking in other Atlus titles.

People were allowed to have complicated and maybe even unhealthy relationships and not only does the story acknowledge that, but the characters too. But that doesn’t mean that relationship is solved. People are messy and that’s something our little ai fragment is gonna learn again and again. Party members had tension and buck against each other, but it always felt like it would be something understandable on either end. It trusted you to understand things, make inferences, and read it in good faith. Probably lessons I could learn myself when it comes to writing.

Tinykin

Tinykin is cute. It knows it’s cute (maybe to it’s detriment at times).

In tinykin, you play a starfaring anthropologist looking for the ancestral home of humanity, only to end up in a house, frozen in time in the 90’s and you the size of a bug. You travel from room to room, collecting things to satisying chirps and navigating cities set up by various bug civilizations trying to get an answer to why...and to build yourself a new spaceship.

But it was a perfect bedtime game. Chill. Very little tension. You mess up and miss with a jump, you “died” with a little pop and reset to your place before the jump immediately. It’s a collect-a-thon that didn’t really track or gate things based on how much you collected. It’s the wort of game you could just set up and let a little cousin go to town without worry they’ll get frustrated or lost, because getting lost is half the point.

I wasn’t really biting any of the very high school atheist commentary on the nature of religion the game was throwing out there. Luckily the times it popped up were brief and inconsequential. What was much more appealing was all the ways you can move. You get a bubble to float off a double jump, a soap bar to slide and grind, and a collection of pikmin like critter to command and allow you to get to new places in an assortment of ways.

It felt good to move from one end of the room to the other like an off-roading borrower and you could feel just how much time the devs spent to make it so. Mid my playthrough they added challenge races which adds a whole new layer to how those tools can be used. This is a game I’m dying to see speedrun. Games I didn’t get to play but wanted to... -Live-a-Live

remake of a rpg classic, finally in English. I'd play this for music alone.

-Kowloon High-School Chronicles

remake of a ps1 cult game, finally in english. I want to be a high school indiana jones dungeon crawling to solve the mysetry of why a bizarre omnitemple is underneath my high school filled with occult-y weirdos. Interesting dialog system

.-Inscryption

card game cool. genre-bending card game things by a guy whose previous weird expectation subverting games I found neat.

-AI: Somnium Files- Nirvana Initiate

I loved the first one and it just looks like more of the same

-Ghostwire: Tokyo

I don't want to play this out of an expectation of this being some horror or action experience that would be fulfilling in any meaningful way, but rather pure vibes. Like a VR chat world with actual shit to do.

-Norco

A cyberpunk game about the invisible south. I'm in.

-Citizen Sleeper

Cool cyberpunk game about a robot finally earning freedom for their indentured servitude, only to find out their warranty has expired and their body is failing...takes a lot of cues form solo journaling games.

#games #goty #goty 2022 #mostly just stream of conscious rambles #scarlet hollow #midnight suns #signalis #soul hackers 2 #tinykin

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