Original review: This game gets one very important aspect right: it knows what it means to be a delinquent. Everything else follows. Ringo doesn’t have constraints on how he spends his time, but he also doesn’t have much in the way of direction. You can fuck up relationships, get a job and lose it, spend your time getting better at pool or fighting. Ultimately, the plot revolves around Ringo’s titular friends. Slightly unlike it’s semi-namesake in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Ringo does actually seems to have real friends. The trouble is, he doesn’t know how to embrace them, fit them into his life, or move on together with them. All the same, when the plot moves, it’s because Ringo and his friends are involved in the world. Ringo reacts in his limited capacity, leading to a lonely end.

Replay: An interesting game to replay. Knowing my way around the town, as Ringo already would but players do not the first time out, made a huge difference. By the end of the replay, I had maximum health and Ringo's full moveset, which seemed like the apex of the game mechanically. I could finally understand some of Yeo's frustration that his combat isn't particularly well regarded, but, well, it is locked behind hours of working in Ringo's open schedule. Even at their best, though, collision in fights and multiple object interaction doesn't work terrifically well. It does lend to a chaotic feel, but that's almost incidental. There's a ton that I like about the game aside from that, from the art to the choice of royalty-free chill beats to beat faces to, and Yeo's writing works for an overly-dramatic teenager whose friends get into real trouble. The ending lines up very well with the title and Yeo's various inspirations. As I've said elsewhere, this is more Night in the Woods than Persona 3-4-5, and it's the better game for it.

Los amigos de Ringo Ishikawa juega al despiste constantemente con las expectativas. Tras su apariencia de beatem up clásico se esconde un relato íntimo y existencialista sobre un grupo de adolescentes que no sabe qué hacer con su vida una vez que lleguen a ser adultos.

Y lo hace con una filosofía de diseño de mínimos y con mecánicas que nunca se molesta en presentar que nos deja descubrir, experimentar y combinar por nuestra cuenta. ¡Y que satisfactorio es cuando eso pasa!

Es el anti videojuego en el mejor sentido de la expresión. Uno en el que puedes estar minutos pulsando un botón para que tu protagonista esté leyendo un libro, mientras pasan las horas del día y que, tras terminar, tras haber perdido tu valioso tiempo, la recompensa sea… ninguna. Y parece una decisión de diseño horrible pero no lo es, porque Ringo Ishikawa es una de esas experiencias que no pueden ser definidas por palabras, si no que tienen que ser vivida. Porque a veces está bien perder 6 horas de tu vida en jugar a un simple videojuego.

ideia boa, execução daora
palmas em especial pras músicas e pro visual em pixel art, mt bom mesmo, ambos
gameplay não é ruim mas tbm não é ótima, dá pra tankar
a história parece ser meio paradona, leve, contemplativa, isso não é ruim, parece ser justamente a proposta do jogo

n to na vibe agora mas um dia com certeza vou zerar, enquanto isso, fica a recomendação pra quem curte jogo de não fazer muita coisa ala stardew valley (sim, senti semelhança K), japão e seus deliquentes, e pixel art bem feita :)

This is the most authentic game I've ever played. The way it sets up all of the characters through casual dialogue, introduces the player to the open world by showing Ringo making his way through the different screens in short cutscenes and then leaving the player to explore, the way it lets you do so many things while not forcing you to do anything... it's much more of an experience to live through than a game to beat.

I wasted my first run having Ringo sit in his room and study all day — I would not advise you to do this. Instead, explore; Have some fun. Go and have Ringo read a book, watch a cool movie, learn a new fighting style. Get into the feel of living out the last days of high school before graduation. With your best friends.

As a guy who loves Crows and Kyou Kara Ore Wa, and who hates Tokyo Revengers, I can safely say this game was good.

While I kind of wanted a little more to it (like perhaps the ability to join the basketball team or something, idk), I understand that the scope of a game like this has to be relatively small. It's a game where everything is inevitable.

The only thing I would probably change is the music that plays when you enter the school, and the fight music interrupting that beautiful guitar on the west-side of town.

A gorgeous and deeply intimate game about growing up in a small suburban japanese town. Some people complain that it is boring… And I mean, it is, but it’s one of those games were that’s intended, and as purposely numbs you through its gameplay it transports you to the banality of its characters lives, with nothing really important to do and not much more on the horizon, seemingly trapped in this monotonous existence forever.

I think the story just works well with the mechanics, your day to day being occasionally interrupted by a couple handcrafted events that don’t really change anything but it kinda give you new perspectives of Ringo’s friends and acquaintances. Again, is not much, but is not meant to be much.

And as you fight your way through meaningless opponents, and discuss the books you read in class (you can read James Joyce’s Ulysses!) I was reminded of the uber famous first page of Blood Meridian “and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence”, and it just clicked with me in a way I wasn’t expecting, it became a more vivid experience. Also, McCarthy’s also commonly criticized for being boring, granted in part in the sheer brutality of what he depicts but also because even his elaborated, epic, almost biblical prose tends to get repetitive, but, as with this game, that’s also by design. Hell, The Road is, in my opinion, an extensive exercise on repetitiveness.

Any way, even if it can be dull, I really think thad adds to the experience, and the writing and visuals are good enough to justify it.

Picked up this game when it came out on a whim, and it took me around three and a half years to stop getting filtered by the mechanics - But when I did I found something truly special. The mechanics are still kinda ass but their obfuscation and how you have to make your own little schedules and keep track of stuff work wonders for immersion, and definitely strengthen the idea of how you spend your time the game goes for.

Play it if you want something poignant and unique. It'll take a bit of getting used to, but it's worth it long term.