AlexaLily
A solid little point and click game. A very cool aesthetic style with some good music to go with it. It tells a sad yet hopeful story about a creation that is hated by her creator. My only real issue with it is that it's so short, but then again it's always better to be left wanting more instead of slogging through too much.
2006
On a technical level, this game is an improvement over Yakuza 1 in pretty much every way. It is genuinely incredible that they were able to make such a huge jump in quality in only a year between the two games.
The main plot of the game is kind of a mess all throughout but especially falls apart in the finale. The good bits of the story can be very good and it is compelling all the way through but I dislike the bad parts of it too much to come away from the game feeling positive about the story.
It's interesting seeing this game after having played the remake a year ago. There's an entire minigame (with its own subplot) about working as a host, the hostess management minigame is completely different, and there's even an entire third city (although it's tiny compared to Sotenbori and Kamurocho). Between the differences and how well the game holds up, I think this is genuinely still worth playing.
The main plot of the game is kind of a mess all throughout but especially falls apart in the finale. The good bits of the story can be very good and it is compelling all the way through but I dislike the bad parts of it too much to come away from the game feeling positive about the story.
It's interesting seeing this game after having played the remake a year ago. There's an entire minigame (with its own subplot) about working as a host, the hostess management minigame is completely different, and there's even an entire third city (although it's tiny compared to Sotenbori and Kamurocho). Between the differences and how well the game holds up, I think this is genuinely still worth playing.
2019
I really want to like Whimsy. It's got a good art style, some solid writing, good music, and great vibes. But oh my god the puzzles. They're way too obtuse. Even the hints they give you about the puzzles are obtuse. I got to a color-based puzzle with different colors that are so hard to differentiate that I had to quit. I'm not even color blind! I can see just fine! But the colors chosen for the puzzle are just indecipherable. The cool art definitely got in the way of the puzzles in this game and it's a dang shame. It felt like my only choice was to brute-force a puzzle with thousands of solutions and, no thanks, I value my time too much for that.
2021
I really love the first 90% of this game. Exploring this city, absorbing all the cool vibes, hangin' out and lookin' around. It's a great time. But that last ten percent was a rough time. If you play this one, just hang out in the city. Don't worry about what happens at the end. Spare yourself that. Just chill in this nice deserted city.
The vibes here are incredible. Hiking around a mostly-empty bit of desert while the sun is low in the sky with nothing and no one around for who knows how many miles. It's intended as an experimental tone piece and I think it absolutely nails what it's going for.
2011
Teleportower Plus is a delightful little puzzle platformer. Clever central mechanic that is used in fun ways. It's pretty short too, so it never overstays its welcome.
2021
I want to like this game a lot more than I actually enjoyed playing it but, dammit, it's just so cool. Cool aesthetics, cool music, cool style all over the place. I just wish the controls were a touch less clunky and the level design a bit less unforgiving. Having to do the same tough platforming section over and over again because of some annoyingly positioned enemy instant-killing you after making a jump really ruins the good vibes the game has otherwise.
2019
This game is a whole lot like Escape from Tarkov except better because you can actually play as a woman.
Edit: Okay okay I'll do a bit more of a 'real' review now that I've put quite a few more hours into Vigor instead of just being snarky about a different game.
I really like the idea at the core of this game of going into an area, looting things, maybe running into other people, and choosing between ignoring them, fighting them, or maybe even befriending them. That is such a cool idea for a video game! It combines the satisfying base of pickin' up things and using them to make other things with interesting social dynamics! Maybe you'll make a new friend while you pick up things or maybe you'll make a new enemy! Who knows! And it could be different every time you play. But that's only in theory. In practice, you loot stuff until a person sees you and you get shot to death because nearly everyone I encountered shoots on sight.
It wouldn't have been too bad if I had continued to be matched up with the people I was running into early on. They were just as scared and bad at shooters as I am, so it was a pretty fun way to play! Unfortunately, I eventually made my way into a higher matchmaking bracket and started playing against absolute killers. My survival rate tanked and the amount of loot I was able to get away with dropped precipitously which made my progress of rebuilding my Norwegian cabin slowed to a crawl.
I also want to note: this game is free to play and has several spots where you can stuff real money in for various things and it doesn't seem particularly better or worse than any other game with similar monetizations? A battle pass, cosmetic skins, lootboxes, all that stuff but it's all about as equally garbage as it is in any other game these days. I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus, so I'll let you decide on that one.
Between all that plus the long queue times (5+ minutes to get into a ~10 minute long match) means that I think I value my time too much to play any more of this. It was an okay time. I've played worse. But I could also be playing so much better. So I think I will.
Edit: Okay okay I'll do a bit more of a 'real' review now that I've put quite a few more hours into Vigor instead of just being snarky about a different game.
I really like the idea at the core of this game of going into an area, looting things, maybe running into other people, and choosing between ignoring them, fighting them, or maybe even befriending them. That is such a cool idea for a video game! It combines the satisfying base of pickin' up things and using them to make other things with interesting social dynamics! Maybe you'll make a new friend while you pick up things or maybe you'll make a new enemy! Who knows! And it could be different every time you play. But that's only in theory. In practice, you loot stuff until a person sees you and you get shot to death because nearly everyone I encountered shoots on sight.
It wouldn't have been too bad if I had continued to be matched up with the people I was running into early on. They were just as scared and bad at shooters as I am, so it was a pretty fun way to play! Unfortunately, I eventually made my way into a higher matchmaking bracket and started playing against absolute killers. My survival rate tanked and the amount of loot I was able to get away with dropped precipitously which made my progress of rebuilding my Norwegian cabin slowed to a crawl.
I also want to note: this game is free to play and has several spots where you can stuff real money in for various things and it doesn't seem particularly better or worse than any other game with similar monetizations? A battle pass, cosmetic skins, lootboxes, all that stuff but it's all about as equally garbage as it is in any other game these days. I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus, so I'll let you decide on that one.
Between all that plus the long queue times (5+ minutes to get into a ~10 minute long match) means that I think I value my time too much to play any more of this. It was an okay time. I've played worse. But I could also be playing so much better. So I think I will.
2011
It's really important for a tactics game to give you as much information as you need to be able to make informed decisions. If you don't have enough information then you're just guessing and it becomes hard to do anything tactically. Unfortunately, Ragnarok: Tactics hides or obfuscates too much information to be much fun to play. Too much of the combat felt like I was hoping for the best and finding out that, no, what I was hoping for wasn't going to happen because of information the game just didn't feel like giving to me. It makes combat very frustrating and when the first few hours of story weren't doing anything for me, it made me ask: Why bother playing this when there's so much else available. I could sit and play this (multiple times, as the game seems to suggest doing) but there are so many better things out there to try instead.
Y'know what? I was expecting so much worse. People talk about this game like it's a barely functional trashfire that has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And while it's not a good game by any stretch of the imagination, it's nowhere near that bad. The levels are too long, the combat is overly simple, the writing is pretty bad, and every other aspect of the game can be summed up as just plain "bad". But it's not unplayable. It's not a trashfire. It's not an unmitigated disaster like I was lead to believe it is. It was interesting to see it first hand and now I plan on never thinking about this game ever again.
The art is pretty good with a few particular screens that look very nice and the chill music compliments it well. I personally wasn't a fan of the rhyming writing and felt like had more than a few lines that were real clunkers, either stretching for rhymes or didn't fit any particular rhythm.
The puzzles made this the kind of adventure game that I'm not a big fan of. It expects you to go everywhere, click on everything, and use every item on everything else. If you try to think logically about what to do next you won't get very far because you need to think like an adventure game and occasionally poke a frog with a needle.
The choice to make the aliens so obviously racially coded is pretty bad! You have aliens come and abduct someone and still turned it into a white savior narrative! Bad!
The puzzles made this the kind of adventure game that I'm not a big fan of. It expects you to go everywhere, click on everything, and use every item on everything else. If you try to think logically about what to do next you won't get very far because you need to think like an adventure game and occasionally poke a frog with a needle.
The choice to make the aliens so obviously racially coded is pretty bad! You have aliens come and abduct someone and still turned it into a white savior narrative! Bad!
2007
It's actually impressive how dull this game is. The characters are all very bland and generic anime archetypes, the story is extremely predictable (evil church, magic stones, you can probably guess the rest), and the gameplay is downright boring. The combat has very few options so you end up just walking forward and attacking things all the time and the characters have essentially no customization to them.
The nicest thing I can say about this game is that there are some cute character designs but honestly games with cute character designs are a dime a dozen so that's barely even something in this game's favor when everything else about it is so weak.
The nicest thing I can say about this game is that there are some cute character designs but honestly games with cute character designs are a dime a dozen so that's barely even something in this game's favor when everything else about it is so weak.
2005
This game... kind of actually rules? Or, at the very least, I'm an absolute sucker for stories that reveal mysteries in two different times. The slow reveal of what happened to Ashley's mother and what happened to D's father was fun to work through and carried me through most of the game. Otherwise, the game is a pretty solid adventure game. The puzzles are never too easy or too obnoxious (aside from a few that required tedious backtracking). And it even makes good use of some of the DS's mechanics with the folding screen, built-in mic, and touchscreen, which is another thing that I'm a sucker for games doing. It almost feels like this game was crafted specifically for me.
2005
Good god, am I glad this game got remade.
I don't really have much new or interesting to say about it: the story is great, Kiryu is a treasure, Haruka is an angel, the combat is rough, the English dub is endearing but not necessarily good.
It ends up being a pretty fascinating game to look at after you've played the other games and see how different certain aspects of it are. Maybe the most interesting thing was the localization and dub and how much that can change the tone of the whole game to where it occasionally feels like a parody of a Yakuza game.
More than anything, this game made me appreciate the Kiwami remake so much more. I already really liked that game but now I like it even more. It adds several scenes that are critically important to adding depth to characters that are relatively flat or poorly characterized in this original version. Go play Kiwami.
If you've never played a Yakuza before, do yourself a favor and play Kiwami instead. But if you've played them all and are desperate for a little bit more then this game is a fun thing to check out.
I don't really have much new or interesting to say about it: the story is great, Kiryu is a treasure, Haruka is an angel, the combat is rough, the English dub is endearing but not necessarily good.
It ends up being a pretty fascinating game to look at after you've played the other games and see how different certain aspects of it are. Maybe the most interesting thing was the localization and dub and how much that can change the tone of the whole game to where it occasionally feels like a parody of a Yakuza game.
More than anything, this game made me appreciate the Kiwami remake so much more. I already really liked that game but now I like it even more. It adds several scenes that are critically important to adding depth to characters that are relatively flat or poorly characterized in this original version. Go play Kiwami.
If you've never played a Yakuza before, do yourself a favor and play Kiwami instead. But if you've played them all and are desperate for a little bit more then this game is a fun thing to check out.
I played this a few months ago and have been turning it over in my mind ever since. And seeing as there are no other reviews on the site yet I guess I'll finally take a crack at putting my thoughts into words.
Saving You From Yourself is a game about the gatekeeping trans people face when getting hormone replacement therapy. The game puts you as a therapist who must decide if a trans woman is "trans enough" to start HRT. I wish I could say that it goes without saying that the idea of someone being "trans enough" is ridiculous and wrong and transphobic; that someone thinking about gender things and coming to the conclusion that they are transgender is enough and should be enough to get the medical care they want/need. But unfortunately, society is by and large cruel to us and thinks that making trans people "prove" their trans-ness in increasingly mean-spirited and arcane ways is actually good-hearted and caring. My issue with where this comes up in the game is that it leaves most of that up to you. The game simply presents with you the choice to give HRT or withhold it with little to no commentary on the choice you make. So, from that angle it isn't necessarily a game that I would suggest to any people who don't know about the process of trans healthcare but are willing to learn. And certainly wouldn't suggest it to people unwilling to learn. So the game doesn't feel like it could be any sort of educational tool to point out something wrong in society. But it also isn't something that I can look at as a trans woman and feel like there's much value in playing this. I am already extremely aware of how shitty the healthcare system is and how it's a fucking gauntlet that I'm surprised anyone is able to get through at all. So I wouldn't recommend any trans people play this, either.
The one thing that I think is thoroughly positive, though, is that the game does show the perseverance and the endurance of trans people and the trans community. We put up with a lot of shit but we're still here. We still exist. We care for one another in ways a lot of the world seems incapable of. No matter how unkind people may be, we are still here and we will always be here. And that absolutely rules.
All that being said, I think messy art deserves to exist and that it should exist. And this definitely falls into the category of 'messy art'. I am glad that this exists. I'm glad that this was a game I was able to play. Hell, I'm glad that this is able to be on Steam. I'm glad the creator was able to make the thing they wanted to make. But I'm not sure if I actually enjoyed it.
It's a messy game so maybe it's fitting that this review is a bit of a mess. I have no idea what rating to give this because, depending on when you ask me, it could be one star or it could be five stars, so I'll just give it a "I'm glad it exists" out of five.
Saving You From Yourself is a game about the gatekeeping trans people face when getting hormone replacement therapy. The game puts you as a therapist who must decide if a trans woman is "trans enough" to start HRT. I wish I could say that it goes without saying that the idea of someone being "trans enough" is ridiculous and wrong and transphobic; that someone thinking about gender things and coming to the conclusion that they are transgender is enough and should be enough to get the medical care they want/need. But unfortunately, society is by and large cruel to us and thinks that making trans people "prove" their trans-ness in increasingly mean-spirited and arcane ways is actually good-hearted and caring. My issue with where this comes up in the game is that it leaves most of that up to you. The game simply presents with you the choice to give HRT or withhold it with little to no commentary on the choice you make. So, from that angle it isn't necessarily a game that I would suggest to any people who don't know about the process of trans healthcare but are willing to learn. And certainly wouldn't suggest it to people unwilling to learn. So the game doesn't feel like it could be any sort of educational tool to point out something wrong in society. But it also isn't something that I can look at as a trans woman and feel like there's much value in playing this. I am already extremely aware of how shitty the healthcare system is and how it's a fucking gauntlet that I'm surprised anyone is able to get through at all. So I wouldn't recommend any trans people play this, either.
The one thing that I think is thoroughly positive, though, is that the game does show the perseverance and the endurance of trans people and the trans community. We put up with a lot of shit but we're still here. We still exist. We care for one another in ways a lot of the world seems incapable of. No matter how unkind people may be, we are still here and we will always be here. And that absolutely rules.
All that being said, I think messy art deserves to exist and that it should exist. And this definitely falls into the category of 'messy art'. I am glad that this exists. I'm glad that this was a game I was able to play. Hell, I'm glad that this is able to be on Steam. I'm glad the creator was able to make the thing they wanted to make. But I'm not sure if I actually enjoyed it.
It's a messy game so maybe it's fitting that this review is a bit of a mess. I have no idea what rating to give this because, depending on when you ask me, it could be one star or it could be five stars, so I'll just give it a "I'm glad it exists" out of five.