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icon by @sinisterpeople! about page here. waga baba bobo.

[faultychips]

Old and New; The Moon, and 24 Killers

MOON. A classic “anti-rpg”, Influencing some of the most popular video game artwork of recent history, from Toby Fox, who said he... didn’t play it, but “(the game's) concept was an inspiration for UNDERTALE”, to Tony Domenico of Petscop, who doesn't know anything about it but notes perhaps he “saw a screenshot of that "catch" text somewhere and forgot about it”.

…In all seriousness, it’s really fascinating how even the vague idea of moon, in screenshots and summaries, has changed the landscape of video games. It’s hard to tell exactly how much it’s responsible for when the influence of its initial Japanese-only release in 1997 was of course very concentrated in Japan, and I wasn’t around to experience that era of video games myself… but there’s just so many novel ideas in moon that you can’t help but feel a spark of inspiration light up in your brain the more you know about it. The good news is that in 2020, they translated the game to English, and many people who only knew of the game from forum posts and anecdotes can now play the actual thing for themselves. So, let me tell you about my experience playing "moon" for my own self.

In moon: Remix RPG Adventure, you play as a young boy who gets sucked into his television and transported into the world of the stereotypical RPG videogame he was just playing. You don't have a proper body in this universe, but an old lady tells you that she is your "Gramby", and she happily welcomes you "back" into her home and gives you clothes to wear, allowing you to interact with the world around you. Now is when the game introduces it's main gameplay mechanic - a ticking clock, with both a daily and weekly schedule that advances whenever you're not in a dialogue or cutscene. There's a little arrow on this clock, and when the ticking hand reaches it, you will pass out and be given a GAME OVER. As a little bird Yoshida tells you in the town square: "If you ain't got love, you'll stop breathing and pass the heck out." If you want to be able to move around for longer before having to rest in a bed, you'll need to interact with the citizens of "Love-De-Gard" and catch the souls of the animals slain by the HERO to gain love and grow stronger.

The time limit is pretty harsh when you haven't gained any love yet, but thankfully there are a few easy ways to get around it and raise your level. Gramby gives you a task you can complete for love right away, and she will also give you a cookie every day. Eating food will move your time limit forward, giving you more time to move around, so you don't want to miss your opportunities to stock up here in the early game. There's also plenty of animals around to catch, though you'll have to follow the HERO around for a little bit first. Don't worry too much about the weekly schedule - it's really only important for getting all of the NPC related love, and you'll probably need an external guide for those anyway.

Speaking of guides, it should be noted that moon is pretty much impossible to play without one. You can go for a pretty nice long time without any help (I think I lasted about 5-10 hours on my own?) but inevitably you run out of answers, and to be honest, the game doesn't provide a way to get all of information you need to complete events or progress the story, so I don't think you should bother trying to struggle through figuring out everything on your own. That being said, I would go as long as you can without one, since lots of the things you can do in the early game aren't too complicated to figure out by yourself. When you do need one, I personally found this generally spoiler-free guide very helpful, and when I needed to understand how to progress the story (the Mushroom Forest in particular gave me some trouble) this speedrun worked nicely. There's a translated version of the official manual, too, which you can read before you start playing since it's good for a simple introduction.

One thing I appreciate about moon is that while it has some frustrating elements, the game sets itself apart from other obtuse titles from the same era in that it never absolutely requires you to do anything besides the main plot line. Once you reach the end of the main quest and reach love level 22, you are free to go straight to the ending, and there is no "true" ending to be gotten from catching all the animals' souls or doing everything the game has to offer. Still, I figured this was the case and rescued all 51 animals anyway, and stopped just a few hearts short of the max love level. Barring some few particularly annoying sidequests, moon is compelling enough that you want to experience and enjoy as much of it as you can. (...With a guide, of course.)

If there's one ultimate negative about moon's daily/weekly schedule mechanic, which causes certain events to happen only at certain times of day or even certain days of the week, it's that you will often be sitting around around waiting for something to happen, potentially for multiple in-game days...especially if you miss your cue and have to wait for the event to occur all over again. Thankfully moon has a really delightful way of making waiting pleasant: your character has a portable "MD" (Moon Disc) player, which you can get songs for and make a tracklist to listen to while you walk or sit around. I wish I had access to more MDs sooner, but save for two random discs, you can't get the majority of them until you get past the Rainbow Rocks area, so I recommend exploring that area as soon as possible and solving its puzzles so you can advance forward. You'll be able to get most of the obtainable tracks at an MD store afterwards, and thankfully, all the songs on my tracklist of favorites are sold there. You should give all of the tracks a try eventually –you'll have plenty of time to do so, trust me– but I think these are some nice, reliable ones to get you started. There were many times that the forced waiting, laying back while the music plays, was actually really enjoyable...it can be nice to slow down and pause sometimes, and not many video games take the initiative to actually abate tediousness like this. It should definitely let you use the MD player in more areas, though, since too many of them disable it completely, and still others allow it to play but have distracting background noises.

...Of course, you can only stand so much waiting before getting bored of even your favorite tracks, so when you start checking your phone during these musical breaks, it may be time to start wrapping up. When you are satisfied with your time in moon, you can probably go right ahead and see the main quest through to the ending. I had more than enough love to meet the endgame requirement when I was ready, so I went straight in, not looking at any guide for the final section. That...may have been a mistake. In "anti-RPG" fashion, the game throws a bit of a curveball at you in this part, giving you a choice to make after about 20 minutes of (unskippable) cutscenes. I chose effectively the wrong option, and the game ended abruptly. My first conclusion was that the last 20 minutes of dialogue was actually telling me that I had to 100% the game first before I could get a satisfying "true" ending, so I spent about a half hour in deep frustration thinking about all the things I bounced hard off of that I would have to return to, before checking an 100% playthrough and realizing that the game ends exactly the same there as it did in mine, and the ending depends entirely on that final choice from earlier regardless of your completion percentage. Ahhhhhhh. After going through the final cutscenes again, the true answer is a bit more obvious, but if you want to skip doing this ending twice, maybe check the guide before you lock in your answer. Regardless, the cinematic buildup is really well done here, both endings are fitting for the game, and on a broad level I like them both.

...So having played it, what is moon, and why does even just the idea of it inspire? It's a game about subverting the tropes of typical RPGs with knights in shining armor, calling into question the "inherent goodness" of an almighty, violent hero and the "inherent badness" of scary looking creatures. At the same time, it clearly loves the RPG genre; the world of moon is brimming with life, full of silly animals and goofy characters, all playing out their role in the narrative of the RPG, and it wants you to love and care for everything in it. I think I do love a lot of what moon is. You can feel its dated-ness in many, many ways, but there is –if you'll excuse me for this– a lot of love for videogames in its heart, and it offers new ways to think about and experience those games.

With this in mind, it's not at all surprising that moon was so influential - and clearly I'm not the only one who felt a spark of imagination light when they played it. Here’s a game that came out just last year that is truly, concretely inspired by moon, while being unique and quite modern; let’s take a look…

24 Killers initially caught my eye because, as the game's Steam page explains, it was inspired by moon. Since I was in the middle of playing moon when I heard about it, it seemed like a great followup title. And while 24 Killers implements some solid game mechanics and style from moon, like the daily energy allowance that refills with food, and progression centered around helping funky monsters, I found that the game's vibes and aesthetics also remind me a lot of something like Earthbound; it's a vibrant and whimsical world where anything can happen, and you're just settled in for the ride. There's almost a toy-like feel to how everything looks and sounds; it's got this upbeat "fun" energy at its core that's extremely charming. I have to admit I've never fully completed any of the Mother titles due to the grinding and the external guidance necessary, but 24 Killers offers up the same energy without either of those barriers.

In fact, one of my favorite things about 24 Killers is that I didn't have to look at a single guide to figure out any of the puzzles for my entire 11-hour initial playthrough. Everything in the game is pretty self-evident and figured out quickly through some decent thought and trial-and-error. moon offers a good point of comparison: for many puzzles there, you would have to open your inventory, select the specific item necessary, and then use it while standing close enough to an NPC to get them to react, requiring the player to guess at what item they would need to use to progress...assuming they had the item they needed in the first place, or that using an item is what they needed to do at all! In 24 Killers, you simply can't offer items randomly like this; if you talk to someone and you have the item they need, the game will ask you if you want to give the item. If you don't have the item, the game won't prompt you. Usually if characters need an item from you they'll also make it very clear when you talk to them. This, among other adjustments to old formulas, cuts out a lot of potential fumbling and blind guesswork, and I much prefer it above checking the guide for moon over and over. In this way and many others, the game feels very anti-esoteric, meeting the player on their level and making sure that even the grand exposition and lore doesn't go over your head. Even in the dialogue the characters regard you pretty plainly; "Bro please ferry me to the afterlife" is probably my favorite line from the whole game.

In moon, you would appease or disturb a monster, and then catch its soul so it can be revived and rescued. It's delightful to discover all these different creatures in that game, but you don't interact with them much besides grabbin' at 'em. In 24 Killers every monster is its own sentient person--and every one has something they'd love to yap to you about. You'll run laps, bounce balls, play games, and drive cars around with these guys, and I found that to be another much welcome deviation from moon's formula. moon frames its monsters as adjacent to wild animals, but the monsters of 24 Killers are just genuinely guys hanging out, and if you engage them, they can be your chill buds.

But why are you befriending the monsters? Because you are HOME, a cursed spirit doomed to wander in limbo until they are dragged into the corpse of a soldier and given a chance at escaping their affliction--as they befriend the monsters inhabiting the remote island of the game's setting, they lose the resentful bitterness that caused their curse to develop in the first place and can slowly heal themself. Basically, HOME is a lonely bro, and could use some good friends. We've all been there, you know how it is. Honestly, HOME is probably my favorite character of the whole game; their dual mixture of sarcastic attitude that can flip to genuine goofy dramatics and flair, based on essentially "if it would be funny, do it", was great and really made my time with the game; their personality a worthy selling point in its own right.

Now, I should mention the two small hiccups I encountered with this game. Somehow I made an extremely similar mistake to the one I made with moon - I assumed that "completion" of the game required a lot of extra steps and took a break, when in fact I was right at the finish line and just needed to step over it. To explain with relatively few spoilers: you need to collect three "Echoes" to reach the end credits. I collected two Echoes, which gave a cutscene with almost identical dialogue each time. I assumed that the repetition meant that you would be required to gather a lot more echoes to finish (maybe 24 echoes in line with the games namesake...?) but it takes a long time to get just one Echo, so I stopped playing that save file in order to check out the others. Whoops. Don't make my mistake; you just need three.

A quick explanation is also necessary for the save file gimmick; this is where the 24 in 24 Killers is actually relevant. You start the game with four save files, each offering a "blessing" that you obtain once you "meet the Husbandman" (i.e. progress to a certain point) on that file. Then, you can use that blessing from the start of your next fresh save file. For instance, I chose the file C-4 which has the "fast-forward" blessing; once I met the Husbandman in that playthrough I was able to start new games with that benefit, where it caused cutscenes and general animations to play much faster. If you get all the way to the credits on a save file, you then unlock another save file slot, with a limit of 24 available save files - 24 parallel universes with 24 "Killers", hence the title.

Once you know how to beat the game, you can get far enough in each save to get its blessing in about 3-4 hours each. I did this a couple times to see if there was anything new in these save files; aside from a few minor changes, the save files are identical to each other. I think the idea of having multiple different save files is fun, and the concept of creating a new "universe" (extra save file) every time you beat a session, which you can then also beat and then create another universe and repeat the cycle, is delightful fiction. However, I feel like it's mostly only substantial for the storytelling of the game; I can't really recommend playing the game over and over unless you genuinely just want more of the same experience you already had. Which is a legitimate draw of this title! I enjoyed playing around in 24 Killer's world quite a lot, enough to just go straight to replaying the game a couple times without extra fuss or worry that I was doing something wrong or right. I'm disappointed there wasn't much new to find outside of a few extra blessing-related lines of dialogue, but I don't regret the sidetracking; 24 Killers is just nice to play. Not necessarily “24 times over for 90+ hours” nice, but “extra time besides what's absolutely required” nice. ...Oh, and the other hiccup is that there's a little too many constant flashing lights in the game! Thankfully there's a "photosensitivity mode" option in the settings that works perfectly. Just worth mentioning because I think just about anybody would get bothered by the constant blinking lights in the UI.

Altogether, in its directness, (good) simplicity, and general vibrance and whimsy, 24 Killers is a genuinely "casual" game. It's a lot more appealing than many games I've seen that have grappled for the "cozy" brand; I hesitate to apply the same label to 24 Killers because it's usually reductive and honestly not that fitting here, but instead I found 24 Killers to be another game, like moon, that you can really enjoy just being in. If I had any extra criticism, I wish some dialogue and cutscenes played out a little slower, giving time to soak everything in just a little longer. I never really had this experience (my consoles growing up were all just Nintendo handhelds) but I can imagine it being the kind of game you could have purchased for your PlayStation back in the day, and you'd come home after school and plop down in front of the TV to mess around in it for a while to blow off steam. I hope that sounds like high praise, because it is, at least in my eyes. It definitely helps that the game picks up on the good bits of its predecessors, while making much desired quality of life changes to the old bits that needed work.

It can be a little hard to recommend moon for how old and hard-to-follow it can be; you might be better off watching a long-play online. I have no such issue with 24 Killers, and I encourage anyone who's remotely interested in the things I've mentioned here to check out the game on Itchio. (It's on Steam too of course, but the Itchio download comes with a Steam key anyway...!) Also as a final note, if you've got a switch and/or steam deck, both of these games are great candidates for handheld gaming; being able to pick these up whenever compliments their gameplay styles nicely.

moon: Remix RPG Adventure is available for $18.99 on: Steam, Nintendo Switch

24 Killers is available for $19.99 on: Itchio, Steam

[faultychips]

I <3 Catching MONSTERS and BEASTS!!

...Y'know, the more often you have to acknowledge something awkward, the more awkward it gets. So, I'm not gonna make a big deal about how long it's been since I last made a review again after this time. Finishing college and health complications got in my way for a little while, but I think I'm finally ready to get back in the saddle, and I'm very excited to write about games again, at whatever pace I need to take to do it. I've missed this. Let's get back into it already!

In my search for something that can measure up to my expectations and my nostalgia for Pokémon, I came across two games that stood out to me: Coromon and Cassette Beasts. Both looked like very fun games, but to know how good they really are, I had to try them out for myself. Let's start, then, with the game I finished first.

Coromon is, first and foremost, an extremely good "Pokémon Clone". It can be kind of exhausting to hear this said about any game that remotely includes monsters or creatures, but Coromon is very clearly trying to replicate the core features of the Pokémon games, and it does it very well. There are technically 124 Coromon to collect, but a few are variants on existing ones, so it's really closer to 110. Still an impressive number of original designs! I found myself thinking "Wow... this game's art is gorgeous!" over and over again; the game would not be nearly as engaging, as it indeed is, without the vivid backgrounds and beautifully animated sprites.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with Coromon. Everything that is fun about Pokémon is present and still fun in Coromon, and there are even a few improvements on the formula. For instance, capturing Coromon seems to have a much higher chance of success, making that whole process much less annoying while still not being a guarantee, and you'll be given plenty of free healing and capture items throughout the game that I encourage you to use freely (basically everything is available in shops by the end of the game, unlike items such as Max Revives in the older Pokémon games). There is also a welcome change to the "shiny" formula: there are instead "basic" Coromon, "potent" Coromon, and "perfect" Coromon, each with a different color palette and most importantly, better stats for rarer variants. This gives players an actually good reason to seek out "shiny" variants, and the midground Potent Coromon are relatively simple to find and you'll meet a nice amount over the course of your journey. (Perfect Coromon are... not so easy to find, but I'll get to that.) And most importantly the game is fun! Coromon Battling is unique in many ways--like how there are 13 types, but only 6 are available as Coromon Types, and the other 7 can only be used as Skills (attacks)--but it's just as entertaining as Pokémon battling and I enjoyed designing my team around the blend of new and familiar rules.

Of course, in a cruel bit of irony, Coromon falters in the same ways it triumphs: it is a lot like Pokémon, specifically the older generations 1 through 5. I hope you're the kind of person who likes grinding level-ups in RPGs, because you'll be doing it inevitably here. The story is also pretty forgettable, with mostly unremarkable characters... true to most Pokémon storylines. The "Perfect" Coromon replicate all the time-wasting problems of regular shiny Pokémon, typically taking multiple hours to catch just one, while adding on that the perfect ones are ideal for competitive play and therefore you're playing sub-optimally by not grinding out hours to get one; the double-edged sword of "a good reason" to get "shinies". Though honestly, for better or worse, you don't need to worry about competitive play because there aren't enough players online at any given moment to actually engage with the multiplayer features. There are no asynchronous options to cover for this, either. I found this a real shame, because it seems like the only way to get certain visual cosmetics (that the game goes to great lengths to make sure you know about) is through participation in multiplayer battles. It feels like you should be able to purchase them with actual real-life money; I wouldn't be willing to do that anyhow, but I couldn't even find a way to do that, so... Maybe on the mobile version you can. And finally, when Coromon's main story ends, you're basically done playing, same as many modern Pokémon games. There's an attempt at a battle tower equivalent of sorts, but I found it way too grindy for way too little rewards. It's hard to get excited about cosmetics and such when there's nobody else to show them to.

I think one thing that Coromon does that doesn't work very well that is unique to itself is that the player character has a good lot of dialogue, and oftentimes I found myself thinking "Wow... I wouldn't say that. That really takes me out of roleplaying as my character." Ultimately, it's a small 'problem', but I think it's an interesting example of why silent protagonists are so effective, because when the player character acts independently of the player, it can be distancing. ...Oh, and the game was made for mobile first and once you see that big glaring pause button at the top of your screen it's hard to unsee it, but ultimately I do like having the option to use just my mouse as a controller when playing. It would just be nice if you could toggle the mobile UI elements off.

Ultimately, Coromon was a game I enjoyed a lot, and nicely satisfied that Pokémon gen 4-5 2D itch I had, but while it makes a lot of the same good choices as Pokémon, it also carries over many of their flaws. I think it succeeds as being a generally equivalent experience, though notably lacking some of the perks that come with Pokémon's cultural popularity. As I was writing this review, they announced that they're in the process of making a sequel to Coromon, which will be titled Coromon: Rogue Planet. While I didn't feel like I necessarily needed more of the original game after the 50 hours I sunk into it, I think this is a great opportunity for the devs to learn from the creation of this first game and for the sequel to surpass its inspirations; I will be watching to see if it does.

Despite coming out about a year after Coromon, my Cassette Beasts review is actually much more overdue, because I started playing it in 2023 almost immediately after its release. I spent 30 hours in the game, did everything you need to do in order to beat the final boss...and then I dropped it in early May and never got back around to truly finishing it. After playing Coromon, I decided it was also time I put this other beast to rest. In all fairness it had been about a year and a half since my last playthrough, so I started a completely new file from the beginning to make sure I was refreshed on the full Cassette Beasts experience.

Cassette Beasts, like Coromon, has a really phenomenal amount of work put into its artwork. Every single monster is fully and energetically animated, with attacking, hurt, and sleeping animations for all 129 monsters (in the base game). There are also full dialogue sprites with a range of expressions for every remotely important NPC in the game, and it makes each bit of interaction feel more significant and engaging. There are some caveats to the visuals which I'll elaborate more near the end, but overall, the effort on display is incredible and all the 2D artwork looks great. The monster designs in particular manage to be unique in ways I really appreciate; it's really easy for mon-games to fall into the trap of just making most of their catalogue "just a real-life animal but... red, or maybe blue" and I feel like Cassette Beasts manages to avoid that trap and is consistently creative with their real-life inspirations.

One of the first things you might notice about Cassette Beasts is that all of its battles are in "Double" format; i.e. you control two different characters at once, facing one or two enemy characters; usually fighting 2-on-2. Those were always my favorite in the Pokémon games, and having an entire game of it does not disappoint. I also really like how much there is to the combat system; the way different types interact with each other is complex without being too hard to remember. Whenever you encounter a new mechanic you haven't seen before, like status effects such as Poisoned or Burned, a tutorial tip will show up to explain how the specific mechanic works, which helps a lot to evenly introduce the player to everything as it becomes relevant. In summary, the battling system is designed well and very fun to play around with.

One of the other things you might note about Cassette Beasts is that it boasts a "fusion" mechanic, something rather coveted in Pokemon spaces (so much so that there is a volunteer-driven fangame dedicated to the concept), making it a perfectly understandable feature of a game trying to go above and beyond the existing fusion-related ideas Pokemon has to offer. Unfortunately, while this idea is relatively well-implemented in gameplay, it wasn't anything very interesting either--every possible combination of monsters are fuse-able, and every fusion has a custom animated sprite, which is a jaw-dropping amount of work, but because of the huge amount of them these fusions tend to be very simple blob-looking combinations, often with "copy-pasted" elements. Shortcuts like these are extremely understandable given the workload, but aren't very compelling to look at. Since textually these "fusions" occur when the player character and a given NPC have a strong bond, maybe taking the time to design a single complex, unique fusion for each NPC instead of every single actual combination--quality over quantity--may have been a better choice.

The pacing...let's talk about it. The game doesn't waste any time hitting you with its complete premise and then throwing you out into the open world within the first hour. This feels pretty breakneck, but I suppose I appreciate that it seems to be trying not to waste your time...though I think a game should ideally make you enjoy even the starting tutorial-y parts of the game. Unfortunately, the game never really stops feeling breakneck, since it is an open world game with quests that you can technically complete at any time. Pretty much the whole map is accessible to you immediately, gatekept only by obtainable abilities scattered throughout that have no hard level or progression barrier. The game then becomes a series of frantic grocery check-listing: run back and forth from one destination to another, fast-travel repeatedly because it's the most cost-efficient option for healing, snap up every new objective the game puts in front of you...wander aimlessly until an NPC hands you another quest or hint about something you should probably be doing right now. This formula is what actually caused me to drop off of Cassette Beasts for so long back in 2023; once you reach the endgame, the quests dry out almost completely, and I just... ran out of momentum. Not to mention, that's around the time the game will start increasing your chance of finding bootlegs- the "shinies" of this particular title, which have a random typing and better moves than the average beast. My last hours on that save file were spent trawling the world map for these random bootleg encounters under some vague pretense of preparing for the final boss, before I realized how pointless it would be to raise a monster from scratch when I already have a fleshed-out team from the previous 25 hours of playing...and then I had no willpower left to cross the finish line, so I dropped it and moved on. On my more recent attempt, I was able to mostly ignore the bootlegs (still compulsively catching every one I found of course -- maybe one day shiny Pokémon just won't be a thing in these games and I can be free) and got all the way to the final boss and got to see the ending, which I enjoyed and wish I had just gone ahead and seen in 2023, but… it still felt like it was hard to really sit still and savor the world of Cassette Beasts; there's always something I ought to be getting over with instead. It could honestly sometimes be more of a nauseating chore than a thing I wanted to do.

...Actually, it took me two play sessions and a total of 50 hours to realize this, but I think the game actually made me motion sick for a majority of the time I was playing it. A previous version of this review was a bit more harsh (as harsh as I'm comfortable being, anyway) but I realized after looking it up and seeing some other reports of the same issue that it's likely more a fault of the way the game's lights and camera are functioning than anything else it features. I almost never get sick playing video games, so I'm honestly not exactly sure why it was happening, but I suspect it's something about the 3D backgrounds with 2D sprites, as well as the ways the camera shakes and sometimes swerves quickly in 90 degree increments. I feel like the game would have looked nicer (and been less nauseating) if the world map was in 2D with a stricter player movement limit, with less room for janky collision and puzzle malfunctioning, but I also understand that would have likely been much harder to implement. The music is a small part of this, but I also feel like the addition of vocals to existing instrumental tracks in certain areas and conditions made me get tired of hearing said tracks over and over very quickly; more songs to rotate through may have helped this, but I feel like the vocals were best isolated to the fusion battles, and even those ones start to get repetitive eventually.

Finally, I want to wrap up by talking about the story, because I feel like Cassette Beasts has a great story with an interesting cast of characters, but it's also very brief in total, and it often pulls its punches when it feels like there's something interesting about to take place. For example, one of the NPCs you can fight alongside in battles--I'll call these “companions”--is an ex-member of a cult that still actively occupies the island you're stranded on. Not only that, but she was essentially a high-ranking member with a good degree of participation and control over the cult’s activities; sounds serious and complicated. But dig deeper and you come to realize that the cult is little more than a paparazzi club for a guy who intentionally resembles a talk show personality, and the only real negative impact they have on themselves and others is the fact they hoard a small bit of land far away from anybody else, and are generally antisocial. Your companion will still act like she can never be forgiven for her involvement, to which your character will have two options of response that both say "it's okay, you're not a bad person"... which is true, because it seems like she never did anything of particular consequence. I don't think any of Cassette Beasts has to be gritty or serious or troubling; my favorite companion quest is the one where an artist's character from middle school has come to life and wants his validation, which is quite silly and fun, while also having real emotion to it. But it feels like sometimes the game dips it's toes into more serious topics with purpose--cults and depression/suicidal ideation being the standouts from the companion questlines--but then quickly retreats or covers itself with jokes before it can really make a proper impact, and I find that disappointing. (I do wonder if maybe these companions have their more potentially "undesirable" edges sanded off because 5 out of 6 of them are romanceable.) But aside from the companions, I really enjoyed the main storyline of the game, and the different "Archangels" you'll meet were the highlights of my visual and gameplay experience. The ending was satisfying and, in my opinion, nice and sappy in the best ways. I love a good story about alternate worlds and strange creatures and people rising to overcome any challenge. I really enjoyed the time spent exploring that with Cassette Beasts; my main criticism is that a lot of the rest of the game feels like a winding distraction away from this solid core conceit. Maybe in a more concise game a playthrough would take a nice 10 hours rather than 20...or maybe I would play longer instead in a game that makes you feel better about taking it slow.

Despite the criticisms I've had in this review, it is truly amazing to see the work small independent teams are doing nowadays, making titles that rival triple-A studio efforts. Especially when it comes to Pokemon, which has found itself producing increasingly unimpressive games over recent years, but also in general, as big game companies across the board rush to get messy products out the door, there's a great opportunity for indie devs to rise to fill the gaps of quality these studios have left empty. It is no small feat to do, but Coromon and Cassette Beasts shoot for the moon anyway, and I think they stick the landing quite well in their own rights. My criticisms are made partly in the hopes that they will be useful feedback for whoever comes along looking to make their own Pokemon-inspired title, be it these studios in sequels, or a newcomer to the game. These two games are fine candidates for someone looking to have a new, fresh experience with the classic monster-catching formula they enjoy; if either interest you, check them out below!

Coromon is available for $19.99 on: Steam, GOG, Nintendo Switch; $4.99 on App Store , Google Play

Cassette Beasts is available for $19.99 on: Steam , Nintendo Switch, Xbox / Xbox Game Pass

[mystri-stage]

Hi folks! I’ve recently uploaded my third Deltarune/Undertale-related video regarding the way that freedom and escapism are used in Deltarune and why! I put a lot of effort into it so I’d appreciate it if you gave it a watch!

[faultychips]

Your reviews are so good I think you deserve one million dolloer forevef. Do you like girls

[faultychips]

Unique AND Emotional; Game Soup For Your Gamer Soul

What do you mean it’s been over a month since last time!! Well anyway. I’ve been able to rack up three games (plus an honorable mention at the end) to talk about this time! They’re all pretty different in style and content, but I really enjoyed all of them, and I especially enjoyed the different ways they did their story-telling, so I'm gonna talk a lot about each of 'em!

First of all. Beacon Pines. Holy cow did I like this game more than I thought I would. I looove love love the artstyle and loved it from the get-go, but was wondering how much I would actually like the choose-your-own-adventure format. Turns out I loved that too!

I was uncertain about the narration at first, but I soon got comfy and accustomed to it, and I think the genuinely really good voice-acting really sells the performance. It also stands out nicely from the noise-speak of the characters (y’know, the Animal Crossing/Banjo Kazooie thing) and the difference in voices is a fun way to separate the layers of meta there. In general I really love the music, sound effects, and overall sound work of the game too. Together with the narration, the sound alone makes this one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever heard. And it’s a whole game on top of that!

It should be noted that while this game’s artstyle can be described as charming and cute, and it has immaculate storybook aesthetics, it isn’t necessarily a game for kids (or trying to disguise itself as such). I know gamers everywhere are already getting nauseous over the mere mention of the “cute thing is actually messed up” genre that’s risen to popularity as of late, but I don't think Beacon Pines sets out to pull that trick at all, and it’s more just an assumption one might make because of the art. Still, I don’t think any kid older than ten will have any issues playing this one, just something I thought was worth mentioning.

I also want to talk a little bit about the game’s central mechanic, which is basically a choose-your-own-adventure type system where you can choose different words (based on various phrases or ideas you pick up on during the course of your playthrough) to use to affect the branching path of the story. I really like how when you have an opportunity to affect the story in this way, the game only shows you the options that will actually do something in the situation you're in, and then lets you choose from that selection. It seems like a no-brainer design choice, but from other games I’ve played I can easily imagine a scenario where instead at these parts they would just make you plug in any and all of your charms at random to see what actually works. Sometimes it's good to figure things out by yourself, but these situations in specific can easily get aggravating and feel like a waste of time. Beacon Pines never once had me frustrated or confused on what to do next. I consider a smooth experience like that a rare and wonderful thing!

Overall, while it threatened to end a liiiittle anticlimactically, in the end I think Beacon Pines delivers on being a fulfilling and well-rounded story. It has plenty of interesting turns and twists while maintaining a thought-out solid plot structure, especially for something that branches off into multiple paths and timelines like it does. At a solid 6-ish hours, this game is the perfect length to be finished in one sitting on a free day or a nice long evening. That's what I went with, and still I think it’s the best option, but it can certainly be played in a few short sessions too. I was tearing up as the game rolled to credits, and that's a significant recommendation in itself, so go check it out if it sounds up your alley!

Next I played a game that I expected to be relatively simple but actually surprised me: Unpacking. To be fair a lot of this game is exactly what it seems to be; the gameplay is about unpacking a bunch of different boxes and filling a living space with all your various things. The game is gorgeous, just a glorious motherlode of colorful pixel-art, and it is indeed very nice, satisfying and relaxing to put things away in their proper place (until that last minute when you can’t figure out where some odd object goes, but you figure it out. Eventually). That’s really all I expected and all Unpacking really needed to be to be appealing; a cute little relaxing feel-good game is a demographic goldmine, and you don’t need to go beyond that to be successful, so some games just don’t. I was delighted to realize over the course of my playing that I wasn’t unpacking the belongings of random people in random situations, but was actually unpacking each chronological new move in this one character’s life. 

I can see getting a little disappointed that there isn’t as much variety as there might be in my first assumed scenario, but I’m really happy they took this approach, because it let me really focus on this one character and how they change over time. It made me introspect on how much of our lives are defined by the stuff we surround ourselves with, the clothes we wear, the cooking utensils we use, and to that extent, how much we can infer about other peoples’ lives just by looking at what they own. It also made me think about what exactly you do to a living space that makes it a home; what exactly makes it our home. (Something I've had multiple film class teachers enthuse about is the importance of a character's house, and more specifically, their bedroom, which is the space most likely to have things they chose and like in it. This game made me think about that tidbit a lot.)

Unpacking also invokes a crazy amount of… what I can only describe as nostalgia and longing, at the same time. It probably helps that the main character grows up in a timeframe that’s not exactly the same as my own but close enough that many of the things they own are familiar to me, and are things that I own/owned myself. The later sections, the ones where they get farther into adulthood than I have, are also similarly evocative, but these obviously invoke more longing and excitement than nostalgia. I try not to spoil too much, since half the joy is slowly uncovering this person’s life as they grow up, but there’s a level where the main character moves in with their assumed romantic partner, and that was something that really scratched a particular itch in my brain. I daydream about these sorts of simple domestic pleasures from time to time, but the idea of putting your shirts and socks next to those of the person you love and sharing a space in this way kind of made my brain explode (in a good way!). On that note, there came a point in the story where I forgot which characters' items were which (specifically clothing items). I worried momentarily about mingling the wrong clothes together, just throwing everyone’s shirts and underwear together. But in a little revelation, I realized that might be the point; the game never tells you it's wrong to put those clothes together, even when you do it intentionally (and believe me, it’s not too shy about telling you where stuff should go). I was struck with the impression of a relationship where it doesn't matter if I mix the shirts and socks together by accident, and they were close enough that things like those could be shared easily. It's enough to SHATTER A MAN!! I really liked it. <3

…Though, as you move from place to place, from apartment to a big ol’ house, I will admit a small pang of envy sets in near the end. How many of those who play this game and live a similar life, like me, will ever reach such a grandiose stage of housing in the future, and will share it with the people we love in the present? It's a sweet taste of wish fulfillment, but with a little bittersweetness to it. But I earnestly think it’s a wonderful dream to step into, one way or the other. No matter where I end up unpacking my things in the future, it will be home as long as I get to put my socks next to a pair belonging to someone I love, and that’s what I got out of Unpacking (especially the ending). I didn’t expect to feel or think about anything like this from such an unassuming game, but I’m really glad it put in the work to deliver that experience.

Speaking of unassuming, the last game I finished recently was The Eternal Cylinder! Just one glance at this will probably make you think of Spore, and yes, this game is very Spore-like in many ways, particularly in central mechanics and general style. You control a bunch of little aliens called Trebhum, and while you can’t throw them into a character creator and mold their bones like Play-Dough, you can obtain consumables that change their appearances and give them unique abilities. Also notably similar to Spore is the distinctly “alien-looking” world the Trebhum live in, which is strange and colorful and covered in delightfully weird creatures (I think you could also compare its similarity to No Man’s Sky, though admittedly I haven’t played much of that one myself). What’s unique about this game is, well, The Eternal Cylinder, which is the main antagonist of the game, and also is a literal giant metal cylinder that steamrolls the land for miles across as your Trebhum do their best to outrun it whenever it starts rolling again. As silly as this sounds (and to be fair this is all very silly and great for its silliness) there is actually a very heartwarming story at the core of it all. The game stresses the importance of family (not necessarily of blood but of friends and allies), and of surviving and keeping yourself and culture alive. 

Similar to Beacon Pines, there is a narrator here as well, and similarly I was worried that the voice-over would become annoying after a while. I’m very pleased to say that it, too, only enhanced my playing experience. Beacon Pines leans much more heavily into the storybook theme than The Eternal Cylinder does, but the narration here uses a very nice touch of those cozy dramatics to tie the strange wonders of the game with the more plot driven and touching narrative. I see mainly two common complaints when hearing about the game, and one of them is about the narrator; people tend to argue that the game tells too much when it should be showing, and the Narrator explains too much. While I sort of understand where this is coming from, I never really felt like this was a problem while I was playing? I felt like occasionally the game nudges you a little in the right direction when it could probably be fine leaving you to your own devices, but I actually felt that sometimes the game doesn’t explain enough to you, particularly when it comes to a couple puzzles and boss fights, though honestly I think these were pretty minor cases and I could figure everything out on my own pretty easily. The narrator explains a good bit of “lore” to you, for certain, but I could not fathom how they would communicate this level of knowledge to the player without outright saying it, so I never really felt upset that I did so, especially because it let me understand the circumstances of the story as it unfolded and helped me connect and feel for the characters of the story (including my little Trebhums). The second usual complaint is a little more grounded in my eyes, and that is the sort of janky difficulty that the game struggles with at times. I had my fair few moments of frustration with the game, and most of it came from struggling to deal with the various creatures that hunt you even when you think you can rest safely. I’ve also seen people get frustrated that certain enemies take your consumable abilities away, worrying that it will prevent them from proceeding in the game. While these elements can be, from my own experience, annoying, I found that a lot of this annoyance is very easily circumvented. The truth is that the game has a function to save and load almost wherever and whenever you want (except in certain areas, presumably to prevent softlocking), making it incredibly easy to retry over and over if you found yourself in a situation you don’t want to be in, or if you want a different outcome than what you got. This is both a blessing and a curse, since players tend to reload saves over and over to keep all their Trebhums alive when the game is best experienced by just going with the flow, even if you lose a few friends along the way (which you can actually resurrect at multiple opportunities later in the game anyway). The abilities, while being important to solving puzzles, will always be available when you need them, whether by being unlocked permanently without the need for a consumable item, or just because every time the game needs you to use one of these abilities to solve something, there will always be plenty of the consumable nearby, so you never really have to stress about losing them. I feel like understanding this can help you relax and really enjoy your time with The Eternal Cylinder, instead of stressing too hard about it. 

The only few things I really have to note personally on the negative side of things is that the jankiness and repetitiveness the game will display at times, in a sort of way that reminded me of my personal frustrations with trying to make functional 3D games with premade assets in Unity (imagine my surprise when I saw it was made in Unreal Engine 4! I’ve never used it though, it could be an extremely similar engine for all I know). I could tell there’s a bit of bugginess that, while not ruining the experience by any means, you may notice while playing when a Trebhum gets too close to the motionless Cylinder and randomly dies or something. Again, those easy loads and saves are really helpful. The repetitiveness isn't egregious but I did note that general areas and building structures in particular are kind of copy-pasted, and after 20 hours of seeing the same small interior or cave structure it just gets a bit boring. I noticed from the dev logs that they are continuing to update this game over time, mostly with a few new creatures here and there, so I would love it if they increased the variety in upgrade shrines and caves to help keep the game feeling fresh for all of its long runtime. Overall though, The Eternal Cylinder is a delightful and surprisingly sweet tale of perseverance against all odds, and I think it’s definitely worth experiencing. I say at least pop a nice no-commentary playthrough on in the background sometime if you get the chance, it’s worth your while.

And finally, my wrap-up…except surprise!! There's a random extra game I want to talk about, which is MOONPONG: Tales of Epic Lunacy! This one only gets a mini paragraph here because admittedly I haven’t beaten it completely, and I probably won’t be doing so, since while there are more difficulties besides the one I’ve beaten (normal mode) it seems like it’s all the same content but with less HP/more damage taken/etcetera. BUT I want to mention it here anyway because the game just looks and sounds fantastic. The gameplay is fun too, but with only about 7 short levels to beat (though technically 4? Because the first 3 levels are randomly picked before the boss level, which is the same each time) it’s not a lot to dig into personally. I just wanted to throw it out there because for like a week this game’s music was all I could think about before I fell asleep at night. “Ear candy” is one of the weirder turns of phrase out there but if anything deserves it (in a good way) it’s MOONPONG’s soundtrack. While I enjoy MOONPONG for the fun little game that it is, I’m admittedly a little sad the game is fairly short. I would have loved some more of what it had to offer, but from looking at the publisher page it seems like they publish a new game every month, so I guess I can’t be surprised that it’s not as fleshed out and realized as it could have been. Ah well! I only hope that game-devs who set themselves to such fast-paced schedules give themselves time to breathe in the midst of it all. <:-]

AT LONG LAST, THE GAMES:

Beacon Pines is available for $19.99 on: Itchio, Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox

Unpacking is available for $19.99 on: Steam, HumbleBundle, GOG (and just about every currently relevant game console under the sun)

The Eternal Cylinder is available for $24.99 on: Steam, Epic Games , Playstation 4/5, Xbox

and MOONPONG: Tales of Epic Lunacy is available for $6.00 on: Itchio, Steam !

[faultychips]

Skyward Sword....2!!! (Individual Review)

Hellooo, I’m back!! I haven’t forgotten about doing reviews I promise, but finishing Skyward Sword HD took waaaay longer than I thought it would. I only finished it yesterday and I’ve been playing it almost every day for like two and a half weeks! BUT it is done….but…I also haven’t really finished anything else in the meantime. So…what better opportunity to do a long-form single-game review! Just to preface, though, this game’s technically been out for a while, and Zelda games’ formulas are pretty well known at this point, so I’ll be less concerned about avoiding spoilers here than usual. Let’s jump in!

As is probably clear by now, I’ll be solely covering The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD for Nintendo Switch in this review. I’ll have a few things to say about my experience playing the original for the Wii in this review, but I’ll be very honest…I haven’t played it since I was about 10 years old…I deeeefinitely do not remember enough to review it in any real capacity. Take my comparisons as very anecdotal! This review is only really meant to cover my feelings and thoughts on the HD remake and how it stands on its own. I also opted to use button-only controls; no motion! I used one of the gamepad-type wireless switch pro controllers. In exchange for no motion controls, the sword swings are done by quickly flicking the right analog stick in the desired direction. Not too bad, but not too accurate…but I highly doubt the joycons were any better and I was never tempted to switch to motion for even a second. BUT either way, it’s another detail to take into account when I talk about my broader experience with the game.

I’ll go ahead and start with something I first noticed when I booted up the game, and kind of the whole point of this remake: the graphics. It is pretty obvious just by looking at the textures of the environment that this is a port of an earlier title, because a lot of the graphics have a very…’upscaled and rounded out pixel art’ sort of feel. Funnily enough, it reminded me of how older games tend to look when played through an emulator…and ended up actually finding a video comparing the original Wii game in Dolphin emulator to the HD release. What’s interesting to me is that in HD it looks like they actually created this look on purpose instead of directly porting the original textures; a lot of the detail that causes it to look overly detailed or grainy in the emulator has been replaced with a soft, blurred and smoothed-out look. It doesn’t always look perfect, and can feel a little off and washed-out, but I think overall it was a good and positive change. However…I can’t say there’s a LOT of difference between the look of the new and old versions, like on the characters themselves, whose models and textures look pretty much identical, especially through an emulator. But honestly? I think that was a pretty understandable choice. The characters are kind of the pinnacle of this title, with lots of expressiveness in facial expressions and animations, camera angles, cinematics, you name it…it’s always a treat when a cutscene starts playing.  It would kind of be a shame to throw all of that work out. I will preface that the character models can look a little uncanny at first (and maybe they should have upgraded them a little so they would not be…) but this was more of something I thought as I was adjusting to the game in the first 30 minutes or so and never something I thought about again, so I believe it’s mostly just a matter of adjusting to Skyward Sword’s particular artstyle. Overall I really like how it looks! Potentially room for more effort/improvement/etcetera etcetera for the lofty price it invokes but what it is, is pretty great.

Next I would looove to talk about…the controls. Like I said before, I used the button controls on a pro controller, and used the right stick to swing the sword. Already I can tell it’s a massive improvement over the original wiimote controls. As distant of a memory as it is I can still remember desperately swinging the wii remote in the original to little avail...though there IS plenty to complain about with these new controls too. You can tell the game wants you to be strategic, and to use your sword with tactical precision, but I can tell you right now that is. not going to happen for you (unless you’re enough of a big-brain god-gamer to handle it, which I am not, haha). I would be happy to be more strategic, but you can’t really be consistently precise with your swings, and if you’re like me you’ll do enough diagonal swings that end up as horizontal or fail the special moves enough times and just give up entirely. And then you’ll make your way through the game by just flicking the right stick all over the place at random. Even without strategy this is pretty fun, and the worst parts of the sword control experience are the moments where the game forces you to be precise. A good handful of enemies will force you to be very fast and very precise with the direction of your swing…including the recurring antagonist Ghirahim and the final boss of the game. Perhaps unsurprisingly these boss fights were the parts of the game I loathed the very most of all. Pro tip: like me, you might hope desperately that you can get away with never understanding how to do a “Fatal Blow” strike. Youuuu can’t. The last half hour of the game’s boss fights will require it. It’s ‘up-down-up’ on the stick. Good luck, brave soldier. Despite impreciseness, the versatile sword controls are a fun idea, and it is pretty great to run around swinging your sword wildly without a care in the world. JUST REMEMBER: the ZR lock-on button is your best friend in the whole world. Never forget it!

The controls overall are pretty extensive, and can take a good bit of memorization and adjusting…and readjusting when you come back from a break (which you will likely take!) but generally are very well done and feel good to use. Only real problem I ever consistently had with them was forgetting to hold down the L button in order to use the right stick to control the camera instead of the sword, and for some reason selecting something with ZR would often just switch to something adjacent during the 0.0001 seconds I stopped applying pressure to the joystick. Small things, nothing really crazy to report there. One sort of weird thing is that there’s no jump button; this is to prevent you from weaseling out of certain puzzles, I imagine. You can still jump though, since whenever you run to the edge of something you’re allowed/meant to jump off of, Link automatically leaps forward in that direction. You would think this gets annoying and there would be a lot of unintentional jumps, but honestly it never really gave me any trouble, though I did press the B button every single time there was a jump coming out of instinct even though it did absolutely nothing at all. (Of note is that when you’re locked on to something you can technically manually jump but...it’s more of an evasive hop, you’re really only gonna use it to dodge.)

As for the gameplay experience in general… really, really good! I guess it’s kind of predictable for a Nintendo first-party title to be good, but it’s still important that it is. I had a lot of fun with this game, and that fun runs pretty consistently throughout. …the first 30 hours anyway. It reaaaally takes a nosedive in the home stretch (my playtime was 47 hours total, for reference) but that first nice ½ to 2/3rds of it….perfect. Lovely. Let’s talk about that first, before I complain further.

First off, the dungeons in this game, as one might expect from Zelda titles, are really phenomenal. They’re all decently sized (not crazy big but not crazy short), and are chock full of various puzzles. The puzzles in this game are the perfect kind, imo, where you can usually figure out everything for yourself, but the answer does take some thinking and trial and error, and causes an “aha!” moment that makes every solved puzzle feel like a win (and the classic celebratory jingle only enhances this). I will admit I got stuck more than a few times, but in a change of pace, I usually didn’t have to look outside of the game to get help. Fi, your sword’s siri assistant, will often be ready and available to help you and give you hints on what you should try or where you should look next in order to solve a particular puzzle. That’s not to say she’s always helpful–there were a few times I called on her for help and she didn’t have anything relevant to say–but there was a good handful of times she helped me figure things out, and the rest of the times I think I solved the puzzles through extra trial and error. (The only things I think I had to look up online was help for boss fights and sword controls. Fi is generally unhelpful when you ask for boss details.) The puzzles aren’t limited to the dungeons, though, as there are many big wide areas for you to explore. It almost has an open-world feel to it, and while it’s far from being one, it has a nice similar open energy to it (and makes me especially excited to see how that Tears of the Kingdom game is gonna turn out). All the areas feel really nicely fleshed out and in 30 hours time, you’ll have them covered top-to-bottom, satisfyingly enjoyed and investigated. 

As a last nice point: the characters. I mentioned briefly their expressiveness, but there really is a lot to be gained from the general goofiness and charisma the game emanates through these characters. Groose is one character who you could definitely see becoming annoying fast, but by the end of the game it’s working hard to endear you to him, and I think it does a pretty good job. The only thing I would critique in this area is that you don’t really spend much time with these characters, and oftentimes the game will act as if you do, with dramatic high-stakes events revolving around a good handful of them. I do care about them, I just wish they were more involved in the story; we basically chase Zelda down through the entire game only to finally catch her near the end, and Groose spends the good middle 40 hours sulking out of sight just to be a main character at the last second, for example. However, whatever amount of involvement and screentime they did have, I greatly enjoyed. Link himself is very expressive and I loved every bit of that, from his sleepyhead grogginess and pleasant daydreaming in the beginning, to his fierce determination shining through at the end. The best part is that you spend the whole game with him! Good stuff, great characterization.

Now…THE FINAL COMPLAINING! This part can best be summarized as “the game is really good and fun overall but takes wayyy too long to wrap up and pads out with several hours of backtracking when you’re already very ready for the game to end.” The point at which I decided the game was losing me was abouuut the time I got all the various tools and was going through getting all the sacred flames to improve the master sword. It was here where the game just starts throwing whatever random thing it likes at you, and doesn’t really stop, starting with an escort mission…and then a hugeee underwater level…and then another escort mission…and then a level where you’re stripped of all your items. All in the three main surface areas you have already finely combed through, and which will surely be wearing on you by now if you’re trying to finish the game without any week- or month-long breaks. It would be a lie to say these weren’t any fun; they could be frustrating but they weren’t quit-worthy, but at this point I was really only pushing forward because I wanted to reach the end, not for my love of the experience. Apparently they’re a little unpopular, but I actually quite liked the Silent Realm trial areas, as they were the part of the game where I was the most focused, and running away from the Guardians was fun and exhilarating. I think they would work perfectly as conclusions to each area, as the last thing you would need to do in each one. To my disappointment, however, these occur and then you must return to these areas over and over again. Unfortunately you can tell when the game is running out of things for you to do, and this basically starts when you collect all the sacred flames. Now all of a sudden the game wants you to go back and learn...a song…from each of three dragons…and then a big whale…just to give you a clue on how to find the triforce, which is itself inside a tedious dungeon where you have to do… a sliding puzzle. Woof. The triforce is a common staple for Zelda games, but despite the 10-ish hours it took to get all the songs and actually obtain it, it doesn’t really…do anything in the story. Link doesn’t use it to become stronger or gain any advantages like with the sacred flames, the quest to obtain it is just kind of obligatory and convenient padding. Hell, despite all the emphasis on the importance and power of the triforce, in the final fight, it just takes a backseat while random lightning strikes will be what actually assists you here. Very disappointing. Like I said, not a dealbreaker, just. Disappointing. And just plain annoying. Don’t get me started on how much this game would improve with a fast-travel option! (Not including the amiibo-only dlc option. Which does exist and is very ridiculous to paywall but even then kind of sucks at its job. Yeesh.) But thankfully, this is all mostly just the back end. There’s still a whole lot of good stuff to experience here, and if you are expecting the lull and still want that good stuff, you can quit as soon as it gets Too Annoying.

And I think…that about does it! Before I conclude though, I’ll rattle off some extra mini tangents:

The designs can be sooo fun and I LOVE that even the staple monsters like chu-chus can be very distinctly different depending on what game you’re playing. My favorites have to be the Chuchus, Keese and Deku Babas. There are a lot of really good original designs here too; the Guardians for example are one of my favorites, but a lot of the non-human npc species, like the Kikwis, the Parellas, the Mogmas, and of course my favorite, the Ancient Robots. I would love to see these return again in future Zelda titles!

I forget if this is a common Zelda staple, but it is so refreshing to receive no fall damage or anything similar from endless pits. It still puts you back where you fell from, of course, but that's pretty standard. After dealing with games that take an entire life away for an endless pit fall (one of the reasons I won't be finishing and reviewing that PC Klonoa remaster anytime soon) it is really just a huuuge relief. Very nice. Two thumbs up!

Finally REMEMBER….this game is best played on a TV since it’s a Wii port and if you’re doing that I bet you’re gonna squint really hard and give yourself a headache from tensing up in general at some point. Whenever you’re starting to get frustrated with a puzzle, make sure to step back and make sure you’re not adding to whatever the game is throwing at you. Breaks to relax yourself and your muscles are important! This is gaming 101, but always a good thing to remind yourself of.  

That’s a wrap!! Whew. Hope you got a nice two weeks worth of review outta this one! I think in the future a weekly publishing schedule is a little toooo quick to always be able to review games, but maybe when I play more indies…which I plan to fill up on this week since I bought a bunch >:-]! Anyway…bottom line: Skyward Sword is really good. Controls are great but not perfect. It’s a little too long and gets too backtrack-y after a while. Despite its flaws it’s a great, solid, fun Zelda game. Maybe get it on sale since it’s just an HD port.

BUT OF COURSE, here’s the link:

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is available for $59.99 on: Nintendo Switch

Good luck and have fun <3 and see you soon!

[sinisterpeople]

Hi guys, I kind of really need around 200 dollars now. Long story will be under the cut. I know not everyone has money right now, especially during the holidays, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.

My kofi and paypal are sinisterpeople.

I moved to another country on my last money because living in my homecountry is very scary right now, R**sia bordering us and all, but also I want to transition socially and medically one day, and here it's much more available. Money's been tight overall, but I could manage with my savings.

However, my roommate that's been my friend of 11 years, with whom I agreed to live, has been acting very bad to me, to say the least. We lived with her abusive boyfriend (she never told me he would live with us, and she managed to keep him away only after several breakdowns of mine), and she also had a bad hoarding problem, as well as the problems with hygiene, so our place was literally rotting and smelling Very bad, along with having insects. I could try managing with that since I have an experience, but she decided to top it off with getting a kitten and a parrot several weeks before I came, both of whom she neglected and whom I had to care about. I have severe allergies and have problems with breathing (rhinitis), but I'm not diagnosed with asthma so she thought I made my allergy attacks up to get people's attention.

I decided to move out, and I successfully did, however I caught tonsillitis 2 days after moving in and had to buy myself antibiotics and other medicine, which was very pricey. I also couldn't take or even "fully buy" things we bought together with me, since I "used it more than her". I wasn't able to cook myself anything for 2 weeks and had to rely on small cafes near me (I don't have anyone who could cook for me sadly, and it was very hard to cook without a pot, or pan, or anything besides 2 cups). After getting better, I finally bought myself house utensils. It all took a big hit on my wallet.

I don't really like sharing my sob stories with you all, but it would really mean a lot if you could help me during this time.

[faultychips]

Back to Indies With Tidings and Tides

Hey there, and happy holidays! Breaks are always a bit more busy than would be ideal but I’ve gotten a couple good indies in during the past week. Stuff on the more emotional and personal side, though certainly in their own fairly different ways. Without further ado…

This first game is one I’ve been really itching to play for a while; There Swings a Skull: Grim Tidings. I got the first iteration of this game (now technically a demo) in some itch.io bundle a long time ago. It immediately caught my eye when I first saw it, but it fell into the category of “things I want to save for when I’m ready and in the right mood” which unfortunately caused me to procrastinate on it for longer than I really needed to. But fortunately for me, when I finally wrapped back around to it, it had gotten a full release!! Lucky me

I guessed that the demo was probably a little too long to get into and I would be annoyed to get that far in the game and then have to start over with the full release. As far as I can tell, I was right, though I think if you want to pick this game up for yourself, the demo can be useful for playing exactly how much of the game you need to in order to decide if you want to buy the whole thing. Personally I liked what I saw in trailers enough to just grab it outright, and I’m really happy I did. Grim Tidings feels like the rare kind of personal gem only indie RPGs can provide. The atmosphere is impeccable. Set in a town surrounded by dirt for miles, where everything is slowly burning under a malevolent sun, you play as married couple Anatoli and Pyotr as they try to keep themselves and their relationship together as the world falls apart around them. It’s a wonderfully done fictional setting and circumstance (the atmosphere almost reminds me of Welcome to Nightvale?) but it taps into real life sentiments of stress, despair, and in my opinion most importantly, love and connection. It’s hard to think of a more thoughtful way to say “god as a guy who likes guys, I love a good story about gay married men, and I love how this one feels so genuine, it really speaks to my own experience”, but just so you know. I’m also thinking about that too.

Grim Tidings really encapsulates the feeling of trying to face the weight of the world alongside your significant other, who you want to always protect, but aren’t always sure you can. This game says, to me at least, that no matter what happens, you can at least be there for each other, and sometimes that’s the best and most important thing you can do. That really spoke to me. I would be lying if I said I didn’t choke up at the end. Also, interactions between Anatoli and Pyotr (which make up most of this game) are so sweet, funny, heartfelt and emotional. Even in the sad and tense moments, their connection struck me. Generally everything about this one hits an RPG Maker game sweet spot. The dialogue flows nicely and I love when it gets especially moody and poetic. The art is also fantastic and really sets the tone, and the music is extremely RPGMaker styled and extremely good as well. Just on all artful fronts, this game is unambiguously quality.

If there’s anything I would say that surprised me, it would be the “true” ending. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t go into detail, but I felt the twist it pulls was a little jarring. I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it, but it was a shame to see some of the tone that was building up get tossed a little near the end. But ah well. The rest of the game is rich with it anyhow, especially right up before said twist. Also, there are multiple endings, but it will probably be very obvious what the “correct” choices are. Make sure to save often if you aren’t sure though! The “incorrect” choices will end up exactly how you expect, so unless you’re dead-set on *seeing everything* I don’t think there’s much use in checking them out. Even the game tells you as much if you boot it up again afterwards: most people don’t return to Pareildas (and you can rest now).

Basically, I really really really liked it. It feels more like a compliment than a complaint to say that I wish I could spend a little longer in this kind of game. Luckily for me, the dev of Grim Tidings also made An Outcry, which is *another* RPGMaker game with a nice looking aesthetic that’s been on my radar for a good little while now… hopefully sometime I’ll come around to playing it and reviewing it on here as well ... >:-] !

The second and decently longer of the two games I played this week was Perfect Tides, which I think describes itself quite well as “a point and click adventure game about the agony and anticipation of being a teen”. While it’s set in the year 2000, I find that (assuming a lot of this game is based off of personal experience) a lot of what being a 16 year old is like has not changed much in the almost-two-decades between then and when I was at that age. Especially the experience of building relationships online! Mara is in many ways a mirror back into the past, to a time of knowing fairly little and assuming you know everything. There’s an almost nostalgic feeling to seeing her make various mistakes and assumptions and thinking “Yeah, I remember thinking that way too”, but it also leaves a poignant sadness. She doesn’t get it, but you didn’t get it either. The game follows Mara around for around a year’s time, as she struggles with life in general, and relationships to the people around her in specific. It seems like the *point * of the game is to place you there beside her, and experience that with her, and I think the game generally does a wonderful job with that. There are really only two things that may get in the way of that weighing on my mind, so I’ll punch them out of the way real quick:

Firstly, the UI is…kind of painful sometimes. I wasn’t really tuned into the height of the 2000s point and click adventure game scene, so I can’t speak to how authentic it is, but boy it can be hard to figure out what the game wants from you sometimes! A quick few tips: save often and in many slots, the little different colored pixel on your hand cursor is usually where you are *actually* clicking on things from, you can use the right-click mouse button to switch through interaction options when you can’t open the toolbar at the top, and if you ever get stuck for more than a few minutes, just use a guide (like this in depth one I used for basically my whole playthrough; many thanks to Mason Blue!). These should make your game experience flow much easier and lead to less frustration.

Secondly, there are some parts of Perfect Tides that are obviously, pointedly, gross and/or uncomfortable, sometimes so much so that they tread into agonizing and painful territory. When these moments have service to the story and Mara’s feelings and thoughts, I feel like they are fine and pointed, but sometimes scenes like these (just a few in particular stand out in my mind) just feel like they’re there to make the viewer harrowingly disturbed, and they don’t seem to have a bearing on the story or Mara at all as they never really are brought up again after. I don’t want to say they have absolutely no place or purpose, and it’s not like they were “unrealistic”, but personally I don’t think I ever felt their necessity beyond their shock value. BUT! They’re not a dealbreaker for this game, not at all; just something I feel is worth mentioning, especially to people interested in playing themselves.

The reason I got this game in the first place is because it was sold to me as an incredibly emotional and honest story about being a teen, and I can confirm it absolutely sells on this premise. There are many and plenty of moments that tug on your heart, especially the ending (as long as you got the best one like I did; don't forget to develop your photos!) that owe much of their success to charming artwork and dialogue full of personality, especially the inner monologues. Like I mentioned before, you’re always right there with Mara. The experience is certainly not always a fun romp, especially not from her perspective, but it’s a very intimate one, both very unique and very familiar. I’m happy I got to participate in it, for both of those aspects, and I feel like there’s a lot of value in it that easily makes it worth recommending. If you’ll play it yourself, take note of what I’ve mentioned here, and most importantly: have a favorite song of yours as an .mp3 on your computer. Trust me on this. You’re gonna need it!

Annnd that's all I have for this week! Two decently sized games; not too short but not too crazy long! I hope to finish another switch title soon, but you'll find out if I have by the next blog post, heheh. I'll admit it...my dusty itch.io collections call me evermore...so see you next time!!

FINALLY, THE GAMES:

There Swings a Skull: Grim Tidings is available for $6.98 on: Itchio, Steam (+ EasyRPG non-Windows support!)

Perfect Tides is available for $14.99 on: Itchio, Steam

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

[faultychips]

It Begins (Again)!! Switching it up with Picross and Pokémon

Hello and welcome to the new format I'll be using to review game content!! (Those who know me outside of Tumblr know I have a personal site on Neocities where I’ve been posting mini game reviews for a while now. Thankfully this new format lets me start cross-posting to Tumblr, in addition to my own site!) While the old format was fun, it felt a little too restrictive. I want to be able to just talk about video games without putting them into categories; plus I realized it was kind of silly to have categories labeling games as "bad" or whatnot. I've decided that if I simply don't like a game, I just won't talk about it here. But almost every game has something I *do* like in them somewhere, and as much as I'm sure to complain and criticize, I'll include games here because they're worth playing one way or another.

Starting with something I wish I had checked out sooner (and definitely a game worth playing), Picross is a pleasantly fun puzzle game that I recently picked up (I'm playing Picross S8 on the Switch, but you can play it for free on sites like http://liouh.com/picross). Each Picross title will give you a large number of nonograms to solve, which reveals a cute little pixel art image when you've completed it! It's a fairly simple concept but the puzzles in Picross S are a fun challege and there's a variety of kinds of puzzles to choose from (such as Regular, Big Picross, and Color Picross) that keeps each type feeling fresh. I haven't played a true, pure puzzle game in a while so I was expecting to be a little bored with Picross but I think the straightforwardness actually lends a lot to how enjoyable Picross is; it's easy to pick up whenever, whether for a long session of puzzle cracking or for when you need a quick 20-ish minute break. There are a lot of different Picross games, but if you'll pick up any of them, I've seen it recommended that you start from the most recent title and then work your way backwards in release order. I think I agree with that, since Picross S8 has a lot of helpful tutorials and general gameplay polish that I really enjoyed having, and which might not be available in earlier games.

...And also, speaking of complaining, I finished the new Pokémon Violet game that came out last month. I'm in a place where I've decided I'm not going to be buying Pokémon games anymore because their release schedule and quality drops have really started to grind on me, but thankfully I have found ways to play Violet without...spending 60 dollars...so I did that. Without that price tag I was technically able to play the game without the pressure of large personal investment, but that didn't stop the cracks from showing on this one. Honestly it's a perfectly fine game; I had plenty of fun with it, and would end each session excited to get back to playing later. I sunk a good 30+ hours into this thing, so there's definitely something there. Any way you go about it, Pokémon has always had a pretty solid and enjoyable gameplay formula, and despite the new open world feature that element is still very much intact here. However, as much as I enjoyed it, I feel a fair amount of my enjoyment was centered on the story, my favorite parts being the animated cutscenes, which look genuinely amazing. In contrast, when I had to do Pokémon battles inbetween this unraveling story, I found myself getting increasingly irritated, as it started to feel like unengaging and unnecessary padding. The ending of the whole thing is brilliant, and generally feels worth the time I spend getting there, but I can't help but wonder if I could have gotten the same amount of enjoyment out of watching someone else play, or better yet, a highlight reel that cuts out all the slog and boring bits (which there is plenty of). I definitely did not run through all the content and side-quests, but after the credits rolled, any urge I had to ever pick it up again just kind of evaporated. If I ever do, it will probably be when the DLC is released, which I will maybe play, and either way gleefully not pay for.

Aaaand that about wraps it up for my games played over the last few weeks! Not much to talk about for now but with school workloads I haven't had a lot of time to play or to get into new stuff. Hopefully during the next few weeks I can get to some indies I've had my eyes on for a while.... >:-]!

AND LASTLY, THE GAMES:

Picross S8 is available for $9.99 on: Nintendo Switch

Pokémon Violet is available for $59.99 on: Nintendo Switch

or...cough...romslab...dotcom...or somethin...cough...

Thanks for reading!! And see you next week!

[citrusgender]

[slopaganda]

the key to being a hater and not have it be corrosive to your spirit is that you gotta balance it out by openly loving things too. trashing shit is only respectable if you’re also capable of joy and not just oozing negativity 24/7. also when you’re being positive you’re not allowed to do it with ironic detachment. all sincerity all the time babey

[faultychips]

if the new tumblr update is supposed to get me to turn off my adblocker it is NOT working you will have to drag me kicking and screaming to willingly look at an ad when i can Not. plus on mobile i dont get anything besides the balls razor

[eliasdrid]

I was feeding stuff to an AI generator for funsies because I’m waiting for class to start and I think I broke it

it went on for a bit

[faultychips]

I baked you a cookie but then i

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aahh...AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vernadskova-deactivated20230803]

[little-bender-things-blog]

[little-bender-things-blog]