"Twilight Lepiota (Crepusculum Lepiota)
In the twilight, where shadows grow, take leaf and root and eye of crow. A plant of gloom and despair and dark magic.", from Strange Horticulture.
"I have a deadly nightshade.
So twisted does it grow-
With berries black as midnight
And a skull as white as snow.
The vicar's cocky young son
Came to drink my tea.
He touched me without asking.
Now he's buried 'neath a tree",
from Girls Skipping Rhyme, from Chokely in Wynterset.
Last night I played a couple times through the demo for Ambition: a Minuet in Power, a visual-novel with dating-sim and management-sim features. I hope the quirky little maid, Camille, is romanceable. Her response after you ask if she knows how to murder someone and make it look like an accident is amazing.
“In the distant, post-apocalyptic future, what is left of mankind lives in an enclosed citadel created to survive the harsh outside environment. Delve deep into this dystopian world and investigate what is happening to you and your friends. Solve puzzles, hack systems and plug in to explore other dimensions. Discover a truth that might tear apart your sanity and question your very existence.”
Horror and cyberpunk go well together and I think aesthetically, the game nailed it. The neon lights and the damp tentacles. This game absolutely presented a wonderful combination of cyberpunk and the Lovecraftian cultism vibes.
I found myself a bit disappointed in this game, at least story wise. It had a lot of potential, but really fell short.
The story fell flat. The characters didn’t feel fleshed out enough for me to really care about any of them. They just seemed to be a group of people who searched for trouble and suffered the consequences. It wanted to be a mystery but it had no motive or hook for the player to become invested.
The ending was vague which isn’t an inherent problem in the world of Lovecraftian horror, but in this case it’s the kind of vague that makes you think “...that’s it?”
The puzzles and mini games were simple enough and offered enough variety to be a fun experience. I didn’t find them to be super challenging, but the game also offers a means to skip a majority of this content. I really enjoyed some of the "games within the game" and the sort of nostalgic factor with the games.
One such minigame features the player playing an arcade game where they investigate a mansion and kill zombies. The controls felt a bit off, but this comes from the sudden change in perspective.
The hacking game, an apparent essential in an cyberpunk game, isn't annoyingly frustrating, especially since it is only seen once or twice.
Thematically, the game is lacking a strong footing. Which may be the main source of my disappointment as both cyberpunk and Lovecraftian (at least in its current state) has so much potential to explore.
I’ve also seen several complaints about the animation in the sparse cutscenes, but as usual, I do not rate graphics. I only will critique what I know best, which is writing and design.
Overall, Transient is a very beautiful game that had mounds of potential. It is by no means a bad game, but just a bit lackluster.
~~~
Overall Rating: 6/10
Is it Gay? No, sadly
Story: 5/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Do I recommend it? I’d say pass on this one or at least go for it at a discount.
Blades of Time is a rarity for B-games. This was an honest attempt by Gaijin to show how much they had grown since X-Blades, paying homage to that game with another action-adventure, treasure hunting romp, filled with slashes, shots, magic, and monster killing. Just taking a glance at the cover, though, shows that a lot had changed for them since 2007. Ayumi was back, but now with a realistic art style and, *gasp* HOT PANTS! This was a different age, where the team was still most certainly horny, but now in a more socially accepted yet boring way. Also, she was white and British now, and her personality was replaced with cocky idiot for mildly surprised board of wood. On a style level, Blades of Time was a huge step back, with even the music drained of personality, but it was a massive step above X-Blades in every way you could imagine. But, it was still a B-game, and that still brought problems.
While free 3D movement is available to the player in Zeno Clash, the primarily hand-to-hand combat the game employs prohibits the player from eternally keeping their distance from their opponent, or striking from afar without a ranged weapon. The game works around this issue by A) providing a 2nd character who often joins in the fights with the player, holding the attention of some of the combatants, and also B) setting the enemy the player is currently focused on to be the only one fighting them directly, at least for awhile. This prevents combat from getting too overwhelming, and allows the player to focus on blocking, countering, and waylaying their opponents point for point.
Great news if you're a 4x sci-fi strategy fan and loved playing games such as Stellaris, Rebellion, Endless Space or even Galactic Civilizations, as Iceberg Interactive and Greywolf Entertainment announced earlier their upcoming space game Pax Nova
