#jakereviewsitch

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

An American Werewolf in LA

by PlayMedusa

Price (US): $1

Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, Bundle for Ukraine, Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds

Genre: Action

Pitch: An old-school beat-them-up inspired by motion pictures of the 1980s. Dodge, dash, and punch until the timer runs out or you die trying.

My expectations: If you're going to make '80s-nostalgia-sploitation, go all the way. I have as much affinity for that decade's pop culture as the next person, I suppose. What stands out most in the screenshots is all the movie poster in the background. I hope the references go a little deeper than "here is the famous poster from a famous movie." And I could always do with a little less reverence toward Michael Jackson, Bill Murray, and the Landis family. Your nostalgia shouldn't make me go, "Huh, relatively, the Republican governor isn't so bad."

Review:

Remember when Herschel Walker said, “Vampires are some cool people,” before telling us that werewolves are even cooler? That wasn’t just politics. He cited sources. A werewolf can kill a vampire. There’s evidence a werewolf can surf on a car and is permitted to participate in high school athletics (unless the werewolf’s trans; that would be unfair, dangerous, and difficult to explain to my children).

An American Werewolf In LA takes liberties with these creatures. Werewolf movement is herky-jerky, actions are delayed, and the werewolf’s range is laughable. There’s this huge Teen Wolf sprite, with massive jaws and burly arms, but he can’t connect a hit without practically standing on his target.

Punches have a long wind-up, but the stiff animation doesn’t sell the power, especially when the wolf’s jacket blends into the background. Long, slow combos continue to play out after enemies are defeated, with no apparent way to cancel them.

Blocking is more effective than dodging, but since they’re both the same button, it’s difficult. Attempts to turn and block typically result in a dash straight into an oncoming attack or a block without turning. Fighting feels bad, and there’s nothing to this game except fighting, sooooooo…

+ This isn't a typical brawler, where the goal is to defeat every enemy and then progress to the next wave. Instead, the objective is to survive long enough to run out the clock. I like that. + Big, bold sprites that never stop bobbing up and down. I like them. + I gave up on the second level, but assuming they continue to add new enemy types and environmental obstacles to each stage, you can expect a decent amount of variety and challenge along the road to L.A. + A limited set of mechanics that are flexible enough for both fast, masterful action and slow, careful strategy.

– Fighting feels bad, and it's all fighting. – Stiff animations. Actions are difficult to read. – Movement speed, action speed, jump height, button mapping, animation length, input buffer, projectile speed, hit-detection, character size, character shape, sprite/background contrast—these are boring nerd things that I don't think about when they're all in tune with one another. Fundamentally, mathematically, An American Werewolf In LA disagrees with itself. – I'm putting a lot of blame on the visuals, but the audio doesn't sell the action or provide adequate feedback, either. The music is what someone thinks rockin', arcade-brawler music is, but it is not.

🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: There's a good chance you're looking at clips of An American Werewolf In LA, and thinking, "Well, of course Jake doesn't like it. He's bad at it!" You're right. I am bad at this game, but not this genre. Give me a brawler with something to offer, and I'll learn to overcome every quirk. Give me a confused jumble of ill-fitting pieces and '80s nostalgia, and I'll recommend you trust me when I say it feels worse than it looks.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Alt-Frequencies

by Plug In Digital, Accidental Queens

Price (US): $4.99

Included In: Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: Interactive Fiction, Puzzle

Pitch: Pitch.

My expectations: From the developers of A Normal Lost Phone? You have my attention.

Review:

The first plot point you’re likely to encounter in Alt-Frequencies is that the nation will vote on the time loop at the end of the week. The second comes in the form of a blinding light and a radio repeating itself.

My big complaint about A Normal Lost Phone was that displaying a content warning on the first screen of the game, while necessary, spoiled everything for those without content sensitivities. Alt-Frequency also has a content warning on its first screen, which it hides by default. Small change; huge improvement.

I’ll not say another word about the narrative, except that they’ve nailed it. Alt-Frequencies is worth playing for the story alone.

Yet it’s the game part that appeals to me most: Record a snippet from the radio (that is, a single text box) and call in to another station to play the recording. Finding the needle in the red-herring stack can be a challenge, but once you get it, you’ll wonder how you ever missed it.

Each radio loop is just a few minutes long, with the option to skip forward one text box, so listening to / reading the full broadcast of every station isn’t asking much, besides which, getting to know the characters, their shows, and the music the play is entertaining enough that I was also happy to take a break from the mission and just listen. It’s the best part of Grand Theft Auto with a dash of Her Story. Short, unique, intriguing—check it out.

+ A miraculous fusion of text and audio, contemporary politics and science-fiction, tragedy and comedy, and puzzle solving and storytelling. + Character-driven writing that uses believable people with believable responses to impossible events to say something real. + Some natural, believable acting. + A simple logic puzzle made better through winning presentation and mechanics.

– The in-universe tutorial goes out of its way to explain that this is a special radio with special powers that must be calibrated. It's a dumb way to start. Everyone who's old enough to have used a radio has recorded something off a radio, and call-in radio stations have always been popular. These things do not need sci-fi explanations. Dumb! – Toys around with one additional mechanic, but never commits to it. There's a lot more to this game's ideas, and it's a shame they didn't take full advantage. – Having the right idea but getting the execution slightly wrong can lead to a lot of frustration. – Some not-so-natural, not-so-believable acting. Some embarrassing typos, too. Indie developers, I have experience as a director, frequently working with amateur actors, and I was a bug tester and copy editor at Nintendo for years. I'm available for hire. Lots of people with my skills are available for hire. We are always worth the cost.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 Bottom Line: Alt-Frequencies is a short game built on a fresh concept and righteous political anger. Play it. (It's available on everything. Judging by the controls, iOS and Android were probably the target platforms, but I think you'll get just as much out of it no matter how you play. Itch has the lowest MSRP, but it's often on sale for stupidly cheap on PC and elsewhere.)

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

An Outcry, prelude

by Quinn K.

Price (US): $1

Included In: Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: Interactive Fiction, Visual Novel

Pitch: The story of what happened before Outcry, which appears to be a spooky RPG.

My expectations: It claims to be 10 minutes long, and it costs $1. I got it in a bundle, but who is buying this at full price? Outcry fans who couldn't get enough, or people who want a taste of Outcry, but aren't ready to invest $10? Do either of those people exist? I feel like I'm about to play a demo from a couple developers who think they're the Hideo Kojima of indie visual novels.

Review:

“...they got a visit of terrific birdness.”

That is An Outcry, prologue. It is the story of a formless lump of clay getting a visit of terrific birdness.

A person who seems to be wearing a face on his face (à la Hannibal Lecter) says, “Kekekaykaykikikoo,” by which I mean you hear a recording of writer/actor Quinn K. speaking as if each of those syllables is a complete sentence, before talking about some bird things. You know, beaks and feathers. Their delivery is ponderous, leaving space for a bathroom break each time he reaches a comma.

Hannibal lets Clayface know that the world is poo, everyone stinks, and the only recourse is to embrace birdness. Clayface (voiced in a slightly higher, weaker register by Quinn K.) is given two “choices” over the course of the conversation, and neither affects so much as a single line of dialogue. Wisps of fog and a droning tone set an unsettling mood, and the credits music sounds like a filthy rave, in a good way. I don’t know what else to say. There’s a visit of terrific birdness, several minutes of inscrutable bird talk happen, and then it’s over. Don’t play it.

+ A visit of terrific birdness. + A visit of terrific visual elements. (Not a lot of them. Could be birdier.) + A visit of terrific music. + Kekekaykaykikikoo

– I have no idea what any of this is, and it's done nothing to pique my interest in whatever Outcry might be. – Allergic to apostrophes. – Fake choices. – No, seriously, what is this?

🧡🤍🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: Bird is not the word.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

as long as we're together: magical girls sweet & pure

by cloverfirefly

Price (US): Name your own price

Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

Genre: Visual Novel

Pitch: Bad magic is making good magical girls fight each other. The only thing that can save the day is the power of friendship!

My expectations: I super don't care about magical girls anime, and I'm feeling a bit grumpy this morning. Good luck, as long as we're together. The game was first published four years ago and is still listed as "in development," which doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence. I'm curious about how much visual variety there will be. The Itch page shows two screenshots in a row featuring the same characters in the same poses, but they're wearing different outfits in each picture.

Review:

Sweet and Pure are magical girls. Some evil force has possessed Pure. She attacks Sweet. A series of flashbacks remind the heroines of the power of friendship. Pure shakes off the corruption. Evil is no match for the power of friendship. Nothing can harm these two as long as they’re together.

At the default text speed, taking time to read all the dialogue without skipping anything, a single playthrough takes less than five minutes. That’s not a complaint—the laughable writing lost me in minute one.

At a few points, you’ll be asked to pick a card, which determines which flashbacks are shown. These are blind, arbitrary choices that have no bearing on the outcome of the story, and do little to flesh out the characters, their relationship, or their world. Each of my three runs felt equally pointless and unfulfilling.

The low-resolution, limited-palette, dithered aesthetic is appealing. There are only three characters, each locked in a single pose, but they change outfits and facial expressions often enough to maintain visual interest. If you’re going to keep saying there’s a sword in Pure’s hand, though, maybe draw the sword? As for audio… It doesn’t exist. No music. No sound effects.

+ Looks nice enough. + Ends quickly

– Poor writing. – No audio. – Arbitrary choices

🧡🤍🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: I don't know much about anime, but I'm pretty sure if you want magical girls to teach you about the power of friendship, you have better options than as long as we're together: magical girls sweet & pure.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Arigatou, Ningen-san!

by Michelle Ma

Price (US): Name your own price

Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

Genre: Visual Novel

Pitch: Walk through town finding and petting funny animals. A short, bilingual picture book.

My expectations: Looks super cute. I don't see a single written word in any of the screenshots, and its style is completely unlike any other visual novel I've reviewed so far. I'm feeling good about this.

Review:

If you have a very young child and an iPad, download Arigatou, Ningen-san! right away. It’s going to be a huge hit in your house. For those of us who aren’t churning through a stack of picture books every night, the appeal will be limited.

A bird named Tori-san (“tori” is Japanese for bird) lands on your house and explains that animals around town need love and attention, setting off a linear journey to find five animals across three screens.

A snake named Hebi-san (go ahead and guess the Japanese word for snake) is hiding behind a not-at-all-subtly rustling plant. The other four animals aren’t hiding at all, which feels like a missed opportunity.

Once an animal is found, it must be squashed and stretched, with animations that are guaranteed to send any toddler into paroxysms of giggles. And that’s all there is to it.

The two-finger controls are built for a touchscreen. On a PC, this is emulated by holding Ctrl while clicking. It works, but it’s inelegant. The writing is cute enough, but it’s not the star of the show. The music and sound effects are fitting, but again, they’re not spectacular. It’s all about funny, squishy animals.

+ Cuuuute. + Funny! + Perfect for tiny kids who are just starting to take an interest that flat, glowing thing you always have in your hand. + Maybe 5-10 minutes from start to finish.

– The animal-squishing scenes take a little too long for my liking. You squish and squish and squish, and at some point—I could never quite figure out the trigger—the animal says, "Cool, that's enough," and the scene ends. – Little variety. How about some more hide and seek? What if all the animals didn't have the exact same request? – Unintuitive mouse and keyboard controls. The game refers to two-finger touchscreen operations as "zoom and pinch"—wouldn't it make more sense to map these actions to the mouse wheel or the right mouse button? Take it easy on the toddlers. – All text is displayed in both English and Japanese at all times. I love that it's bilingual; I'm confused by the execution. As an English speaker who is trying to learn Japanese, it's too complex for me. Most text boxes contain multiple sentences, so I have a hard time comparing the two languages. A furigana option would be helpful, as early readers like myself will likely find the some of the kanji impenetrable. Since there's no recorded speech, I must assume everything's meant to be read by mommy or daddy. If said parent is already fluent in two languages—these specific languages—they're probably capable of translating the writing on their own, leaving me to wonder why all text is displayed in both English and Japanese at all times.

🧡🧡🧡🤍🤍 Bottom Line: Arigatou, Ningen-san is free, it's cute, and the picture book crowd will flip for its funny animal squishing. By the way, have to looked up "ningen" yet? That one will catch you off guard.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

AIdol

by ebi-hime

Price (US): $10.99

Included In: Bundle for Racial Equality and Justice

Genre: Visual Novel

Pitch: A Vocaloid fan is shocked when the virtual idol she adores sends her a DM—and says she's in trouble!

My expectations: Developer ebi-hime has published 39 anime-style visual novels to Itch in the past eight years. I can only see the date they were made available on Itch, so it's possible some were released somewhere else prior to 2015. Regardless, 39 games is a mind-boggling number of games for anyone to develop in one lifetime, and ebi does appear to be a one-woman developer. Okay, but anyone can throw something together at a weekend game jam and call it a game, right? Well, here's where it gets weirder. Many of the Itch listings include each visual novel's word count and estimated time to completion. Among the pages with this information, most hover around either 50,000 words (2-3 hours) or 100,000 words (4-6). At least one game is double that. And people are playing these. ebi has more than 3,000 followers on Steam. Three people I follow on Twitter also follow @ebihime, including one of my close, personal friends. AIdol was funded by a KickStarter campaign that raised $2,872. I'm not saying these are huge numbers, but these games have dedicated fans. I am beyond intrigued.

Review:

Hana is just a boring girl. She doesn’t have friends. Her hair is short. She doesn’t know anything about makeup. She can’t cook. She listens to music. And on top of all that, she can’t cook and she doesn’t have friends!

Maybe if Hana didn’t spend half of her time repeating this list of unremarkable characteristics to herself, she could develop a personality, but who needs to be a human when they could instead be a fan?

Her passion is “virtual idol” Aiko, a Vocaloid popstar who performs hologram shows and sells stomach-churning quantities of overpriced merch. She’s basically Hatsune Miku, except the Lyriq corporation has given her artificial sentience for some reason. But something sinister is happening at Lyriq. Aiko’s programmer has been fired. Her code has been changed, and her memory has been erased. Now Hana and Aiko must work together to solve the mystery.

This mostly involves oops-I-bumped-into-you-and-spilled-coffee meet-cutes and shirtless boys.

It all bores the heck out of me. After an hour of purple prose and static images of generic anime people, I started skipping dialogue, hoping to get to the end, but I couldn’t even put up with that. Not for me.

+ The intro sequence—lots of quick cuts and effects set to (I think) an original song. It's lively and well produced; not at all what I expect from a visual novel. + There are occasional typos and grammatical errors, but again, it surpasses my expectations for this type of game. + Professional-looking artwork. I don't know how much is original, but asset packs are made to be used. + Ditto, music.

– I brushed my hair away from my forehead. It's hot today, and I hoped it would help me to cool down. Mom thinks I should try a new style, but I don't know anything about hair. We disagree about hair, but I am lucky to have her. Sometimes when I look at her, I think she looks like she's the same age as me, except her hair is different than mine, and I don't know much about hair. Or makeup. I prefer Aiko figurines. I ordered one from AImazon, an online store that is very popular on the idol forms. Other people on the forums can be rude, which is why I'm thinking about cutting back to only posting for 14 hours a day. With my hair away from my face, cooling me on this hot afternoon, which feels as hot as yesterday, I leave the forum and turn my attention to Tumblr. "Now I understand how someone can write 39 visual novels," I write. – Aiko asks Hana to help her find her original programmer. Hana asks the idol forum if anyone knows anything. Then she hops on a train and visits Lyriq headquarters. She doesn't get any information there. She spends a few minutes commenting on every person she sees walking outside. (Throughout this scene, the only things onscreen are her internal monologue and a picture of a deserted city block.) She stops into a café and watches a young man order coffee, with all the pointless detail of that scene from The Room. The man bumps into her and almost spills the coffee. The game forgets about Hana and instead follows the man on his walk to his office, where he waits for an elevator, talks to a co-worker, goes up the elevator, and talks to another co-worker about his experience getting coffee. The perspective shifts again to this co-worker. We learn about her life for a few minutes, and then she sits down to do her work. Part of her job is moderating the idol forums. She sees Hana's post and closes the thread. Back at home, Hana reads every response to her question, until she finally sees that the thread has been closed. She texts Aiko to tell her the bad news. – No.

🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: Props for making a complete product with decent production value. Anime and visual novels with minimal interactivity don't usually do anything for me, but even if that is your scene, surely there are better options than AIdol.

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Arlo The Rabbit

by Joshimations, Crooked Beaker

Price (US): $2

Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: Platformer

Pitch: A beginner-friendly platformer inspired by the classics.

My expectations: Mechanically, I'm not sure what to expect, but tonally, Arlo shouts Kirby. The cute protagonist, the visual style of the backgrounds, the HUD; they're all Kirby. It's fairly common for indie games to emulate the monochromatic, low-resolution, dot-matrix Game Boy. Arlo has the Game Boy aspect ratio, with appropriately scaled sprites, but its resolution seems to be arbitrary. It has four-shade graphics in gray, not green, evoking nostalgia for Game Boy Pocket rather than the older model. Am I looking at a deliberately loose riff on Game Boy platformers, or am I just overthinking a sloppy, naïve copycat?

Review:

Arlo the Rabbit combines one half Kirby and one half Super Mario Bros. 2. The result is less than the sum of those parts.

Kirby provides the attitude and aesthetic. It’s an easygoing, nonthreatening platformer for all ages.  From the interstitial scenes between levels to the way Arlo gets launched into the background to the dance after defeating a boss, every part of the presentation points back to early ‘90s Kirby…which serves as a constant reminder that you could be playing the real thing instead of this drawn-freehand-with-a-mouse imitation.  It’s a shame that the homage hasn’t been seasoned with other references or better yet, some original ideas.

Arlo’s only means of attack is grabbing single-use rocks off the ground and chucking them at enemies,similar to the way turnips and radishes were used in Super Mario Bros. 2. While carrying a rock, however, Arlo’s maximum jump height is cut in half. It’s a neat idea, or it would be if the level design ever took advantage of it.

Stage layouts are uninspired and repetitive. All enemies behave identically, shuffling slowly back and forth across set paths. Bosses offer a nice reprieve, but they’re predictable pushovers.

+ An inoffensive and functional game that can be completed in one sitting. + Walk, jump, throw—just the right level of complexity for anyone who's just learning to play action games. + The chipper soundtrack captures that Kirby feeling. + Pos

– Not much design in these levels. Secrets, dead ends, and bottomless pits all look the same as the critical path. Enemies, rocks, health-replenishing items, and 1UPs are just sorta tossed wherever. – Platforming is only ever tricky because the camera is locked to Arlo's vertical position. Jump, and the camera jumps with you. Here, I have a visual demonstration:

– Boring enemies. Some move on the ground. Some move in the air. Some move up and down. But they're all slow, and they're all completely oblivious to the player's actions. – Crummy hit detection. Or maybe they're just serious about COVID prevention protocols. Get within six feet of an enemy, and watch your health drop.

🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: So simple that it might actually be more beginner friendly than Kirby. With only a fraction of the charm and attention to detail, however, Arlo the Rabbit isn't likely to inspire a life-long love of platforming in anyone.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

March 2023 Game Awards

#JakeReviewsItch Game of the Month Archives

You know how this works: Every day, I review an Itch.io game, and on the first day of each month, I give prestigious awards to the previous month's games. There is no reason we need to acknowledge that I've been on hiatus for more than two weeks. We can just pretend that everything is normal. This month's award categories come courtesy of Steve Kim, whose Tweet was the first hit when I Googled, "1 like = 1 game". Thanks, Steve! He also has a long-abandoned Tumblog, which is pretty fun if you want some silly goofs about things that were happening on Giant Bomb 5+ years ago.

March's Games:

Akurra 🖤 Akuto: Showdown / Akuto: Mad World 🖤 The Alabaster Donut Farm 🖤 Alfal's Grove 🖤 Alien Life Lab 🖤 All Haze Eve 🖤 All You Can Eat 🖤 Alone With You 🖤 Alt-Frequencies 🖤 Ambidangerous 🖤 Amelie 🖤 Amethyst Hearth 🖤 An Airport Game 🖤 An American Werewolf In LA 🖤 An Outcry, prologue 🖤 Anarcute 🖤 And All Would Cry Beware! 🖤 And Yet It Moves 🖤 Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe 🖤 Animal Lover 🖤 Annwn: the Otherworld 🖤 Anodyne 🖤 Anomalies 🖤 Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story 🖤 Antecrypt⚡ 🖤 Antistatic 🖤 The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human 🖤 Arachnopunk

1 - Very first video game. Akkura

Ah, the first of March 2023. Who could the forget the day I played the mostly decent demo of a Sokoban game?

2 - Your favorite character. The cute cute cutey l'il aminals from Anarcute

Bunnies and froggies and foxies and even platypuses! They're all cuuuuuuute, and they cheerfully work together to topple fascism!

3 - A game that is underrated. Animal Lover

I went back and forth quite a bit before settling on Animal Lover's score. It's currently the highest-rated 3/5, but maybe it should have been a low 4/5.

4 - Your guilty pleasure game. Anomalies

There were quite a few big, worthwhile games in March; games that take a lot of time and effort to review fairly. Anomalies is a procedural generation toy that turns a bunch of numbers into a random mess of polygons. It took very little time and effort to review, and I feel guilty about how much pleasure I got from that.

5 - Game character you feel you are most like (or wish you were). The Angry Video Game Nerd from Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe

The character I wish I were? No. The character I feel most like? He chooses to play bad games and complains about it on the Internet. Hello.

6 - Most annoying character. Right Stick from Ambidangerous

Trying to play both characters in a two-player co-op game on one controller? "Annoying" is putting it mildly.

7 - Favorite game couple. A man and his diner from All You Can Eat

In a month with a number of solid dating sims, none touched me quite as much as the story of a man who'd spent ten years living in a diner to get the most out of an all-you-can-eat coupon. It's a love story for the ages.

8 - Best soundtrack. Anarcute

Its infectiously poppy sound fits the look and feel of the game perfectly, but I'm listening to it now, removed from the game, and this is working, too. It's music that's suitable for writing, dancing, or smashing the state. I must remember to bump these tunes in my headphones next time I go Rollerblading.

9 - Saddest game scene. Putting it together in Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story

A moment that will come to different players at different times, so I won't go into any more detail. I'm still feeling it, weeks later.

10 - Best gameplay. Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe

Originality is great. You know what else is great? Mega Man. Castlevania. Contra. If you're going to steal, steal from the best. AVGN does just that, and it's a blast to play.

11 - Gaming system of choice. Steam

In mid-March, I wrote about my beef with Steam. Here's the link, though you can safely skip it. I don't believe I made my point very well at all. In a nutshell, I think Valve's monopoly over computer games stinks. For all its frustrating issues, though, Steam's controller support is an invaluable tool.

12 - A game everyone should play. All You Can Eat

All You Can Eat is what indie games are all about. It takes one idea—What if an adventure game were presented as a newspaper comic strip?—and turns it into a funny little thing that takes, like, half an hour to complete. Short, simple, and totally ingenious.

13 - A game you've played more than five times. Alien Life Lab

I've played through Alien Life Lab twice, which is close to five times.

14 - Current (or most recent) gaming wallpaper. Anarcute

I used care about the background on my computer, but some time in the last decade, Windows gave me the default scuba diver image, and then I changed it to an image of my choosing, and then it reverted to scuba again, and after two or three times, I just gave up.

I'm pretty sure my last desktop wallpaper was a picture of Synergy, the hologram computer that allowed Jerrica Benton to become Jem. What would everyone think if I gave up on writing about video games and turned this into a full-time Jem fan site? Anyway, Anarcute is cute. I don't think I have to explain this.

15 - Post a screenshot from the game you're playing right now. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

"Has anyone ever successfully copied Super Smash Bros.?" I asked in my Antistatic review. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl answers that question: Yeah. I guess?

16 - Game with the best cut scenes. Alone With You

You'll see them 10,000 times, each, and get sick of them long before that, but there's no denying that this game's a looker.

17 - Favorite antagonist. Conservative politics and corporate overreach from Alt-Frequencies

If only such powers were confined to sci-fi video games.

18 - Favorite protagonist. Laura from Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story

The entire game is built around empathy for a stranger who's lost her phone, and it succeeds. I don't love Laura. I don't hate Laura. I don't want to be Laura. I understand Laura, and that is powerful.

19 - Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in. The level based on the Crossfire commercial from Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe

You'll get caught up in it!

20 - Favorite genre. Let's treat this as an excuse to talk about how much interactive fiction I played in March

Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story and Alt-Frequencies easily top the list, both of which are discussed elsewhere in these awards. If you haven't gotten the message yet, allow me to be direct: Play them. Now. Animal Lover is sweet, funny, and well-written. It's not at all what I expected from a dating sim about people who have been cursed to spend eternity as animals, only returning to human form when a clumsy, anxious young woman gives them a kiss. Amelie is a bit shallow and underdeveloped. The plot is unoriginal, it seems visually incomplete, and calling this fiction "interactive" stretches that word's definition to its limit. In spite of all that, I actually had an okay time with it. Amethyst Hearth is a cheesy Christmas rom-com turned visual novel by way of RPG Maker, and also the love interest is a robot. It's such a bizarre novelty that I couldn't help but give it a passing score. My review of An Outcry, prelude was so negative the game got pulled from Itch.io, and yet, it's stuck in my mind more than most of this month's games. "Kekekaykaykikikoo" and "they got a visit of terrific birdness" are powerful phrases. And finally, there's Arcade Spirits, a dating sim that takes place in an alternate-near-future video game arcade. I was severely messed up by a bad antidepressant prescription toward the end of the month. Is that the reason I didn't like this game? I don't think so. I could revisit it and update my review with new, sober opinions, but that period was a miserable experience, and I'd rather leave it in the past.

21 - Game with the best story. Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story

These categories are a little heavy on story, no?

22 - A game sequel which disappointed you. Akuto: Showdown

It's a bummer that it stripped features from Akuto: Mad World. It's cool that it focused on one mode and made it better. The best part is that you get both games for the price of one on Itch.

23 - Game you think had the best graphics or art style. Anarcute

No, but really, where is the merch? These characters need to be toys. And key chains. And erasers. They need to be printed on shirts and folders and... Just put them on everything. Who do I need to call to set up a meeting with Sanrio?

24 - Favorite classic game. Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe

AVGN contains remasters of two games that are, themselves, homages to classic games.

25 - A game you plan on playing. There Swings a Skull

And if that goes well, I might have a date with An Outcry. Oh, plus the hundreds (thousands?) of games that are already sitting in my Itch library.

26 - Best voice acting. Alt-Frequencies

Alt-Frequencies is played by switching between radio stations, recording and playing back snippets of speech. It wouldn't work without quality acting. I don't get the impression this game had the budget for top-tier vocal talent, which makes its accomplishments even more impressive.

27 - Most epic scene ever. Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe

28 - Favorite game developer. Accidental Queens

I will follow the developers of A Normal Lost Phone, Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story, and Alt-Frequencies wherever they want to take me. The Lost Phone games follow the same format, telling worthy stories in a lightly interactive but effectively non-linear format. Then Alt-Frequencies comes along, trading the phone interface for a time-looping, call-in radio sim, and that's brilliant, too. I can't wait to see this team continue to stretch and grow.

29 - A game you thought you wouldn't like, but ended up loving. Alien Life Lab

It's so janky. It seems bad. Maybe it is bad. I've played through the whole thing twice and loved it both times. I don't understand.

30 - Your favorite game of all time. Donkey Kong

This has nothing to do with the Itch games I reviewed in March. I've just always loved playing Donkey Kong on a proper arcade cabinet.

Thirty categories, and I didn't find a single place to mention Antecrypt⚡. Let that be my parting thought. Antecrypt⚡: It's worthy of mention.

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

The Arcade Tower

by Ungamed Studios, Aurpheus

Price (US): $2.99

Included In: Bundle for Ukraine, Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds

Genre: Puzzle, Adventure, Platformer

Pitch: Jump, double-jump, punch, shoot, and think your way through side-scrolling puzzles and combat.

My expectations: Despite having "arcade" in the title, this looks like an old PC platformer. For whatever reason, the screenshots are making me think of, like, Secret Agent and The Amazing Spider-man, and I wouldn't be at all disappointed if those comparisons are right.

Review:

The Arcade Tower is a peculiar title. There’s a lot of vertical movement, but there’s significantly more horizontal traversal. Greater width than height does not a tower make. “Arcade” is a word with several definitions. In a video game’s title, it’s usually safe to assume it’s an abbreviation for “video arcade,” implying the game in question has some similarity to games found therein. Video arcades, and penny arcades before them, take their name from the architecture, where an arcade is a long, arched building or gallery”—a structure that is distinctly not a tower.

Anyway, The Arcade Tower is a puzzle-platformer with a pinch of action RPG. Hit a switch to open a door. Jump across narrow platforms over lava and spikes before the door closes. Kick a monster. That kind of stuff.

Progression usually depends on correctly using power-ups that, for example, flip gravity or increase movement speed. These power-ups can be activated as many times as needed, but only from set spots, and they last a limited time. Puzzles, right?

Fighting is super basic, but it’s made tolerable by the experience points earned for each enemy defeated. That’s the game, really: Unremarkable, but not a bad time.

+ There are coins scattered throughout the levels, like you'd expect from a platformer. While coins usually mean extra lives and points, which don't mean anything in a modern game, these are XP coins. Leveling up means permanent attack and health bonuses. Coins have a purpose! + Fast, smooth movement. + Some tricky observation puzzles. + A button to zoom out at any time—simple and incredibly useful.

– Sloppy, tedious combat. – Shaky collision detection. It shouldn't be this hard to hit a lever. – Aesthetically and thematically uninteresting. – Repetitive level design.

🧡🧡🧡🤍🤍 Bottom Line: I'd never considered mixing a puzzle platformer with an action RPG. It's an intriguing idea. Unfortunately, The Arcade Tower doesn't pull off either half especially well. But it's not bad, either. A respectable effort, and one I generally enjoyed, but nothing I would recommend to others.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Anodyne

by Melos Han-Tani, Marina Kittaka

Price (US): $9.99

Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid

Genre: Adventure

Pitch: What if Link traded his sword for a broom?

My expectations: If I'm not mistaken, the Anodyne series is well regarded. I've played a chunk of both games and liked this one better than its sequel, but I still found it underwhelming. Were my first impressions correct, or will it finally win me over today?

Review:

In the original The Legend of Zelda, protagonist Link stabbed Zols and Kees with a sword.

Anodyne’s protagonist, Young, stabs slimes and bats with a broom. Not, like, the sharpened handle of a broom. He just walks up to monsters and stabs them with bristles.

All subsequent, top-down Zelda games had Link swing his sword in an arc, which not only looked less awkward than the slow stab, but added nuance to combat. I won’t go into a thorough analysis of Zelda combat through the ages, but while I’ll concede that cloning the first game’s basic sword attack is a valid choice, it’s an odd one. It worked in that game because the sword was one of many tools, meant to be used in concert with shields, boomerangs, and bombs. The sword could shoot laser swords.

In my time with Anodyne, Young picked up keys, health pips, and eventually a pair of jumping boots. I explored vast swaths of the world, conquering dungeon after dungeon, and everywhere I went, I stabbed the same slimes and bats with the same broom.

It’s a dreary, wearying slog, tragically devoid of nuance and wonder.

+ On rare occasions, fighting monsters, solving puzzles, and collecting keys in a dungeon creates a sense of progress, and a fleeting glimmer of Zelda magic shines on Anodyne. + In addition to functioning as a broom, the broom can be...a broom. Puzzles that involve sweeping up dust and depositing it elsewhere are generally successful. + Simple controls. + Occasionally gets dark and weird. More of that, please!

– If you're ripping off Zelda, rip off Zelda! Where are all the items? – To quote that Zelda commercial, "Which? Way? To? Go?" I want to get a little lost in a game like this, but give me some direction. The map and the fast-travel system are invaluable, but they're not at all user friendly. – Combat stinks. Movement is generally is slow and clunky. – Miserable music that sucks all the joy out of adventuring. If the rest of the game were oppressively depressing, maybe it would work. Instead we have a light, goofy, broom-stabbing Zelda adventure that's determined not to have any fun.

🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍

Bottom Line: Play a real Zelda game.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Animal Lover

by Trainwreck Studios

Price (US): $9.99

Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

Genre: Visual Novel

Pitch: A Frog Prince story. Lots of kissing. Lots of cute boys.

My expectations: The Itch page boasts, ">150,000 words!" which sounds more like a threat to me. There's no way I'm reading all of that in time for a review. Another choice quote from the description: "No furries! Don't let the title fool you!" If you're concerned people are going to be misled by the title, maybe dig into your >150,000 words for a different title, rather than hoping they'll click on the game and look for clarification.

Review:

Lucy is a veterinary intern.She still has more to learn, but she knows that the pets her clinic treats might carry diseases. She knows there’s a strict policy against kissing the patients. When she was younger, she loved to kiss her pet hamster. Muscle memory is a powerful force, so who could blame poor Lucy for getting swept up in the moment and laying one on the irresistible Hamchop?

Lucy’s magical kiss reverts Hamchop to his true form, a naked, hunky, anime prince named Edmund. He doesn’t know why he turned into a hamster centuries ago, but he knows he’s not alone. He once saw a cat who was certainly more than a cat.

Thus begins Lucy’s quest to kiss more animals and collect more anime hunks. It’s stupid, but it’s a stupid story told well.

The hunks aren’t the most fleshed-out characters in all of literature, but there’s more to them than I expected, and I love how they play off one another. Political debates between an early-’80s anarchist and an old-world monarch? Hot tub truth-or-dare that leads to everyone correcting each other over gender roles and attitudes toward “reefer?”

Don’t judge Animal Lover by its fluffy appearance.

+ Every character is unique, layered, and likeable. + The ensemble works well together. Their relationships with each other are all natural and nuanced. + The overarching mystery isn't takes a backseat to character moments, while still being taken seriously. I always wanted to know what would happen next. + Pacing could be tighter, but considering how few poses these men have, and how much time they spend in a small set of static environments, I thought I'd quickly get sick of looking at this game. There are just enough character entrances and exits, scene changes, insert shots, and musical cues to stave off boredom.

– Five men is a lot of men. I love them all, but even the game acknowledges that no one should be responsible for that many people. – When Lucy's introduced, she tells us that her defining character trait is that she hates lying. When she meets the hamster prince, she immediately hides him and then lies to her boss. It's non-stop secrets and lies with Lucy. Each time she confesses the truth, people surprise her by being totally cool, but she continues to lie at every opportunity, and for what? Cheap, stupid drama? No, thanks. – I was, on average, 45 minutes ahead of every twist in the story. – I played through the first nine chapters, which took about three hours. I then rapidly clicked and speed read up to chapter 15 (another 45 minutes). I don't know if I'm anywhere near the end. It would benefit from being a bit leaner.

🧡🧡🧡🤍🤍

Bottom Line: While I don't find much allure in the promise of shirtless cartoons, the rapport between this cast of dorks hooked me, and their ridiculous story kept me engaged for hours—though I admit, I hit my limit before reaching the conclusion. As traditional, linear visual novels go, this might be the best I've reviewed, but it still left me feeling like my time would have been better spent reading a book or watching a movie. If you think you'll like it, you're probably right.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe

by Retroware

A review in two parts.

See Part I for The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures.

For The Angry Video Game Nerd II: Assimilation and The Angry Video Game Nerd In Tower of Torment, read on.

Review:

If AVGN I was Mega Man, AVGN II is Mega Man X. This is still a game that laughs at your attempts to skirt its deathtraps, but it’s mellowed slightly. Fewer lasers; more health pick-ups. And like X before him, The Nerd can slide down walls.

It’s all thanks to a pair of “Grip Loafers” that appears in the tutorial. In later stages, you’ll find additional enhancements in the form of NES accessories, like a Konami LaserScope that reveals hidden platforms or a Bandai PowerPad cape that slows descents. These permanent upgrades replace the first game’s character-swapping; a change for the better.

The first AVGN was seven distinct levels. The sequel has four worlds (three levels and a boss fight), plus a shorter fifth at the end—an improvement in some ways, but the theming is hit and miss.

Mouse Trap mice and Hungry, Hungry Hippos attack in a Crossfire-themed level. Awesome! Enemies in the horror world are…ghosts? Mummies? Yawn.

AVGN has covered plenty of Japanese games. Why is this “Tokyo” so reliant on broad sushi jokes?

Fortunately, Tower of Torment splits the difference, throwing assets from both games in a pot and mixing in an inspired Big Rigs joke.

+ Almost everything you loved from about the first game, with enough new twists to give it a unique identity. + Excellent challenge. So intense it makes my hands sweat and shake, but after having cleared several levels without losing a life, I can attest that this game is always fair. Slightly less demanding than the original, but no less rewarding. + Mega Man X-esque upgrade system. Looking every piece of hidden equipment is a fun; returning to old stages with new powers is even better. + Assimilation's final boss is a bit anticlimactic, so I'm glad I have the Deluxe edition, and no the standalone release. Tower of Torment is an excellent ending that calls back to both games and a few other iconic AVGN moments.

– Nerd commentary still falls flat. – Boss fights were a little too difficult for my taste in the first game, so I'm glad they've been toned down, but there's been a slight over-correction. – Mega Man and similar games have conveyor belts. Sushi travels on conveyor belts. Cinemassacre is home to a lot of videos about Godzilla. I get how these three concepts were combined into a sushi/neon/ninja level, but the execution feels out of place in an AVGN game, and borderline racist. Make jokes about specific ninja media! Get the Toho creatures out of the background and into the stages! – AVGN I took hard swings with its jokes, references, and themes, and a lot of them missed. The sequel comes across as more timid and less inventive, without being ant more consistent. There are no "I can't believe they did that" moments.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 Bottom Line: If 8- and 16-bit action games aren't your cup of tea, Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe probably won't change your mind. I don't think you have to be a fan of the Web series to appreciate the game, but if all things crass and crude rub you the wrong way, keep your distance. Don't play this one in front of the kids. For anyone else, this is a no-brainer. Which game is better? Who cares! Individually, they both get a strong recommendation. The best versions of two great games, packaged together, complete with a worthy epilogue? Go for it.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Alone With You

by BancyCo

Price (US): $9.99

Included In: Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: Adventure

Pitch: The sole-survivor of an off-world terraforming colony must work with an A.I. to scan the wreckage and build relationships with hologram reproductions of deceased colony leaders in order to escape the inhospitable planet. Inspired by Sega-CD adventure games and described as "Space Quest-meets-OK Cupid."

My expectations: A romantic, Sega-CD-style point-and-click adventure with a gorgeous art style? Um, yes, please! My only hesitation is that the developer calls this the follow-up to Home, a critically acclaimed game that I'm pretty sure I played and didn't like at all. It's possible I'm misremembering, though.

Review:

Alone With You is one of the best-looking games I’ve reviewed for this page.

Now that I’ve said something nice, let’s move on to the rest of my thoughts.

Here’s the short version: No. Alone With You is beautiful, and it knows it. While most of the game is displayed from a distant, three-quarters view, many actions cut to dramatic, tightly framed, full-screen animations. They look outstanding!

The first time.

The first 10 times, even.

I can’t watch the same unskippable clips more than that. I can’t.

A typical in-game day consists of waking up, walking through several rooms to a vehicle, watching a few animations while getting in and out of the vehicle, walking to an abandoned facility, tapping every object in every room (accompanied by a whole buncha words, saying nothing of interest), maybe solve one “puzzle” (a generous term), tap more stuff, and head back.

By night, there are dialogue scenes with dialogue options. One or two choices might be vaguely meaningful. In all other cases, you have to go through every option, one by one. Folks, I give you…video games. Boring environments. Boring story. A game that practically plays itself. Torturous repetition. But it looks nice.

+ It looks nice. + Good controls. The "initiate dialogue button" is never a "choose dialogue button." Even high-budget, high-profile games from major studios routinely get that one wrong.

– Repetitive. – A visual novel with no writing chops. A dating sim without dating or characters. An adventure game that plays itself. – Every facility looks the same except for one thing. Did the person in charge like books? Then her building has books. Did the person like plants? Then you guessed it, plants. This doubles as the character's entire personality. "Hi. I like plants. Do you like plants? What an interesting thought. It's kind of like me with plants." – Repetitive.

🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍

Bottom Line: Gosh, it looks nice. (Except for the faces. I don't like the faces in Alone With Me or Home. Anyway, the rest of it looks amazing.) I gave it a couple hours. Skipping all the text, I'm sure I could have powered through to the end in one or two more, but no. I don't care what I missed; I can't spend another minute with this game. Don't waste your time.

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

The Alabaster Donut Farm

by AfterglowGames

Price (US): Name your own price

Included In: Bundle for Racial Equality and Justice

Genre: Interactive Fiction

Pitch: Read and listen to poetry in a mysterious wasteland.

My expectations: The title sounds weird for the sake of weird. The screenshots look like the sloppiest kind of walking simulator. I assume this whole thing is intended to be a joke. I hope it's intended to be a joke.

Review:

Remember that thing we all used to love where we’d copy song lyrics, run them through Google Translate a few times in different languages, and then translate them back to English and let the robot voice read the funny nonsense words? Man, we loved that, didn’t we?

Add a crudely modeled, sparsely textured environment, and you get Alabaster Donut Farm.

Exploration is almost standard first-person stuff, except the left/right or A/D keys turn instead of strafing. It’s awkward, but since there’s nothing to do except wander a barren space and occasionally click on a low-poly primitive shape for more gibberish poetry, it doesn’t matter.

Moving forward and backward is quirky, too. The character has weight and momentum, so there’s usually an extra step after releasing a movement key. Again, this makes no difference, but it sure is odd.

As a joke, Alabaster whiffs. Despite the somber score and dusty wasteland, there’s no grounding. If a human with a rich, ponderous voice read the text, it might be a successful send-up of pretentious walking sims. If the environment better evoked the words of the poetry, that could be something. Instead it all comes off as random and directionless.

The developer replies to comments on the game's Itch page.

+ Only takes a few minutes to see and hear everything. + I called this Google Translate poetry, but I don't have any evidence that's true, and I don't really believe it. Maybe it is, or maybe it's free-association, straight from the subconscious. Whatever it is, I like some of these poems...

– ...I just don't like their presentation. Using a text-to-speech voice was a bad call. Everything about the environment was a bad call. – Funky controls. They're not that bad, but I don't understand why they're the way they are. It's occasionally difficult to line up with an object in just the right way to click and activate it. – The on-screen script and text-to-speech script are incongruous. Sometimes it's only a difference of a few words. One object displays one poem and reads another. Is this ironic intent, or is it a lack of quality control?

🧡🤍🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: There's a hint of promise in its surreal world of dadaist poetry, but nothing more. Brief and meaningless.

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

After The End: The Harvest

by Elushis

Price: $AUD 7.50

Included In: Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: Role Playing

Pitch: It's Secret of Mana and Pokémon and and and, um, also you get to have a space ship, and you can go to a hundred—no, 200 planets! Plus also you can do crafting and get lots of cool stuff.

My expectations: Ohhhh, boy. I'm nervous. First of all, this is the banner image on the Itch page:

That's followed by 24 (!) screenshots and images explaining this game's mechanical systems and characters. Too much! Especially for an RPG that looks like typical Game Maker junk. This release includes DLC and "the official 300+ page Official Strategy Guide." The download is 3.1 gigabytes. For a Game Maker RPG with stock pixel art. I never go into a review looking for a bad time, but oof. I am not excited.

Review:

This map, taken from After The End: The Harvest’s strategy guide, depicts the game’s galaxy.

Within that galaxy are solar systems.

Within those solar systems are planets.

And on those planets is a slow, awkward action RPG.

The tile-based,eight-directional movement is mushy, especially when attempting to dodge incoming enemies. Attack range is inconsistent. Menus are cluttered. Weird scaling issues make text ugly and difficult to read. There’s a menu for remapping controller buttons, but it doesn’t work. I could type the dialogue faster than it appears on the screen, and there’s always a too-long pause afterward before accepting button presses to move to the next line. The same button is used for backing out of menus and for attacking, so I accidentally shot several shopkeepers. Visual bugs are everywhere. The technical performance is a joke.

Most of the strategy guide’s 246 pages (not 300+) describe items, locations, and fake Pokémon, but it doesn’t matter how much there is to see, do, and collect when every interaction is this grating.

+ Constantly getting new gear and reaching higher experience levels might make you feel a sense of accomplishment. Crafting materials are everywhere. + There sure is a lot of it. + I don't know if it's an original score, but they got the RPG music just right. + If you're willing to accept the consequences. you're free to kill anyone you like.

– Everything feels bad. Action, menus, advancing dialogue—atrocious. Don't even try to use a controller. – Boring, stock Game Maker tiles and sprites. – Boring, stock sci-fi/fantasy RPG story with boring, stock sci-fi/fantasy RPG characters. – A technical mess. Opens on an unnecessary, seemingly in-engine cutscene where nothing happens. This scene is just over one minute long, and it takes around two minutes to load. The rest of the game is a non-stop assault of stuttering, slowdown, and visual bugs.

🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: There's ambition, and then there's naïveté. Indie developers with a minimal budget, working in Game Maker, trying to make a massive, loot-heavy action RPG with elaborate crafting systems that's also Pokémon and a space shooter? That's not admirable. It's denial. There's some fun to be had from watching numbers get bigger and stuffing virtual pockets with every loose item in sight, but enduring After The End: The Harvest doesn't make sense in a world where hundreds, in not thousands, of other games offer that much and more.

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Aerannis

by ff

Price (US): $4.99

Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

Genre: Action

Pitch: A stealthy action-platformer with a 32-bit pixel aesthetic about a pink-haired assassin in a purple-drenched, matriarchal future.

My expectations: It's incredibly hard to stand out in the crowded world of indie, pixel-art metroidvanias. I hope that's the only reason I've never heard anything about Aerannis. If the game matches the quality of the screenshots, this could be something special.

Review:

Reviewing a different indie game every day can be exhausting (see: most of the reviews on this page), but then, out of nowhere, comes a game like Aerannis.

Aerannis claims to be a game like Metroid or Castlevania, and I can see the connection. It’s a side-scrolling platformer where new powers are acquired, which can be used to reach previously inaccessible areas, but that’s only a sliver of the pie.

Most of the action takes place in discrete, linear stages. Some focus on fast-paced jumping and shooting, along the lines of Metroid or Mega Man, while others are strict stealth challenges. Most often, they’re a blend of the two—stealth is the safest approach, but a quick trigger finger is usually a viable alternative when things go bad. Just don’t expect to make it through a fair fight without taking some hits.

Aerannis ate most of my day, and if I hadn’t forced myself to stop and write this review, I wouldn’t have quit until I reached the end. It’s a successful blend of genres, with terrific variety and style, and it hates bigots who think we can’t tell the difference between feminism and fascism.

+ An incredible blend of stealth and action. I haven't even mentioned the boss fights! + Looks great, sounds great. + I'm hesitant to comment too much on the story since I haven't finished the game, but I can't wait to see if it answers all my questions. If it ends up with some kind of both-sides, horseshoe-theory garbage, I'm coming back and re-writing this whole review, but I think it's commentary on fascism—whether it's addressing litigious transphobes or the Bush administration—is going to land on the correct side. + New abilities, new environments, new enemies, and new types of stages give the game fantastic momentum, hour after hour.

– Despite nailing a million little details throughout its enormous world, there are a few basic oversights that really bother me. The main character should have one more animation pose when launching into a jump. There's a stamina bar that recharges after dashing, but it's this teeny thing way off in the corner—it should make a noise when it's full, or the character could blink, or anything that would let me know she's ready to dash again. Switching between different types of grenades through a radial menu makes the character walk left and right. – Navigation. Characters tell you where to go next ("west of here"), but if you don't retain that dialogue, good luck making sense of the pause menu's clue ("go to the office"—okay, but which office, in which city?) Fast travel locations are often in weird spots. The radar's useless. The space between action levels provides a nice reprieve and good world building, but a map would have been nice. – Could probably stand to be an hour or two shorter. I can't think of a specific section I would cut—none of it's bad—but i know some of these rooms could go, and I wouldn't miss them.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 Bottom Line: Play the danged game. This isn't "good compared to most of the Itch games I play." It is good. Play it. Buy it for your friends. Jumping, shooting, sneaking, and making fun of bigoted fascists—Aerannis has it all.

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre