Calcium2115
6 reviews liked by Calcium2115
Nightshade
2003
Mostly the exact kind of teenage bullshit we need to be fostering.
Every now and then I get into a mood. There's this feeling that rises in my chest and makes me feel like an animal in a cage. I look at my backlog for something to play, and then I leaf through the Steam store, and then I pull up some list somewhere for some "hidden gems" on some console, and then I give up. I sit there anxious and twitchy as the ennui sets in. It falls around me like wet towels. There is only one possible cure; I need to play some shitty PS2 game that nobody has ever heard of.
Nightshade ended up being a pretty bad pick for that, because it turned out to be something like the eleventh game in the Shinobi series. It's just one of those sequels that doesn't use the original name anywhere. That hasn't stopped it from largely slipping into obscurity, though, especially in the west; I'd never heard so much as a word about it before I stumbled across it on a masterlist of PS2 exclusives, and all it gave me to go off of was a title. I went into Nightshade essentially as blind as I could have, with no foreknowledge nor expectations aside from the vague hope that it would be good. At the very least, I hoped it would be interesting.
Nightshade is occasionally good, and significantly more interesting than I'd expected.
The game opens strong. Hibana must have gone through about six or seven different costume designs in her head and decided to incorporate all of them at once; she's clad from head-to-toe in gleaming white latex, she's wearing red gloves with blades on the elbows, she's got insect carapace boots, she's got what is incredibly obviously a Kamen Rider headband that descends down and over her face to act as an augmented-reality visor, she's got mandibles on the sides of her mask, fishnet stitching holding the entire outfit together, and the requisite Shinobi scarf that's about as long as the Mason-Dixon line and which flows behind her like water when she runs. When each element is listed individually, you'd expect her to look like an overdesigned monster, but it actually all comes together shockingly well. She looks kind of like one of those "what if a Pokemon was actually a human" fan drawings, in a good way. I imagine that if she'd been a supporting character in Shinobi first — the Akane to a Ninja Gaiden, so to speak — fans would be clamoring for her to be in a lot more games than just this and Project X Zone 2.
While I won't try to pit two bad bitches against one another, it does need to be said that Bayonetta 2 ripped the opening level of Nightshade completely the fuck off. Slicing apart monsters on top of a fighter jet as it weaves between buildings and keeps your feet glued to the hull even as it flies in a path perpendicular to the streets below is something Kamiya should have gotten a smack on the wrist for. Nightshade nails it, though, and it flawlessly pulls off the sequence a full decade earlier; you're kicking away missiles, you're spinning sai blades and slashing through Hellspawn, you do battle with a robot ninja who ends up ascending to humanity after he gets continued exposure to a shard of the evil red blade that eats souls. The tate system returns from Shinobi, too: killing enemies in rapid succession grants you an exponentially increasing damage boost, and if you manage to kill all of the enemies on screen in a short enough timespan, you get a cutscene of Hibana executing them all at once. What they don't tell you is that this works on bosses. Bosses will summon adds, and building a sufficiently long tate off of the mooks will open up the chance for you to charge a long Stealth Attack that will instantly kill the boss and give you a unique cutscene if you do it before the tate combo drops. It rules. It fucking rules so hard. It's probably one of the best rewards for playing stylishly and smoothly I've seen in a long time. Once you find an opening, you can kill any boss in a single strike.
Regrettably, though, the levels between boss fights can't hold up to the same level of quality for very long. A lot of the early stages are predicated on clambering around on rooftops and running through dark city streets, and those are all fun and good. Later levels can't help but put bottomless pits fucking everywhere that will instantly kill you and send you back to your last checkpoint, and a thirty-minute level might have two or three checkpoints at best. Getting across these pits steadily starts relying on bouncing between enemies with very few platforms you can actually stand on, and the armored enemies can only be bounced off of with a kick. You can only kick once while in the air, for some reason, so throw out one kick just a bit too early and it's back to the last checkpoint for you. I eventually just gave up on fighting every enemy and settled on running past them when I could, instead. It's possible to be a little too annoying with what you're asking the player to do, and this steps a few toes over the line.
I do want to bring attention to the writing, though, because it’s wonderfully absurd. This is a game where your corrupt CO warns you over radio comms that "astral sensors are at Level 3", meaning that "there is a large-class Hellspawn nearby", and everything just keeps rolling along as though those are two regular sentences to say to a person. Hibana is on a revenge quest against her former master and the new side-piece he swapped her out for. She ends up rebelling against the orders of the Japanese government and the Nakatomi Conglomerate because she realizes that she's little more than a disposable pawn to them, fit only to reassemble and return the cursed sword Akujiki into their care. Every other sentence out of her mouth is “it’s not my day” or “it’s not your day” or “this really isn’t my day”, because the writers are trying to give her a cool catchphrase. It's the sort of heightened realism often found scribbled in the back of a teenager's math notebook and too-often derided when presented as art by the public due to being "juvenile" or "appealing to the lowest common denominator". I'd counter by saying that the biggest prestige video games on the market have been taking themselves a little too fucking seriously lately and could strongly benefit from reigning it in. This isn't a suggestion that we abandon all pretense and make everything a joke; rather that it's our idiosyncrasies which make us interesting, and to play it safe is to play it boring. You'll never embarrass yourself if you hide those strange little parts of you, but you'll never find anyone who likes you for your true self, either. How much of you are you willing to surrender to spare your precious ego?
Nightshade ultimately ends up stumbling too hard and too often in its second half for me to enthusiastically suggest that everyone play it, but it’s absolutely worth trying out. It’s nonsense, but it’s good nonsense. At the very least, it’s good for your soul to play something that’s just a little bit trash every now and then. It’s like sitting under a waterfall and meditating. Cleanse yourself of impurities by not holding games to a prestige industry writing standard that’s still lagging about twenty years behind shit that your dad would have watched on the SciFi channel at 3 PM on a Sunday.
This easily has one of the best soundtracks on the console.
Every now and then I get into a mood. There's this feeling that rises in my chest and makes me feel like an animal in a cage. I look at my backlog for something to play, and then I leaf through the Steam store, and then I pull up some list somewhere for some "hidden gems" on some console, and then I give up. I sit there anxious and twitchy as the ennui sets in. It falls around me like wet towels. There is only one possible cure; I need to play some shitty PS2 game that nobody has ever heard of.
Nightshade ended up being a pretty bad pick for that, because it turned out to be something like the eleventh game in the Shinobi series. It's just one of those sequels that doesn't use the original name anywhere. That hasn't stopped it from largely slipping into obscurity, though, especially in the west; I'd never heard so much as a word about it before I stumbled across it on a masterlist of PS2 exclusives, and all it gave me to go off of was a title. I went into Nightshade essentially as blind as I could have, with no foreknowledge nor expectations aside from the vague hope that it would be good. At the very least, I hoped it would be interesting.
Nightshade is occasionally good, and significantly more interesting than I'd expected.
The game opens strong. Hibana must have gone through about six or seven different costume designs in her head and decided to incorporate all of them at once; she's clad from head-to-toe in gleaming white latex, she's wearing red gloves with blades on the elbows, she's got insect carapace boots, she's got what is incredibly obviously a Kamen Rider headband that descends down and over her face to act as an augmented-reality visor, she's got mandibles on the sides of her mask, fishnet stitching holding the entire outfit together, and the requisite Shinobi scarf that's about as long as the Mason-Dixon line and which flows behind her like water when she runs. When each element is listed individually, you'd expect her to look like an overdesigned monster, but it actually all comes together shockingly well. She looks kind of like one of those "what if a Pokemon was actually a human" fan drawings, in a good way. I imagine that if she'd been a supporting character in Shinobi first — the Akane to a Ninja Gaiden, so to speak — fans would be clamoring for her to be in a lot more games than just this and Project X Zone 2.
While I won't try to pit two bad bitches against one another, it does need to be said that Bayonetta 2 ripped the opening level of Nightshade completely the fuck off. Slicing apart monsters on top of a fighter jet as it weaves between buildings and keeps your feet glued to the hull even as it flies in a path perpendicular to the streets below is something Kamiya should have gotten a smack on the wrist for. Nightshade nails it, though, and it flawlessly pulls off the sequence a full decade earlier; you're kicking away missiles, you're spinning sai blades and slashing through Hellspawn, you do battle with a robot ninja who ends up ascending to humanity after he gets continued exposure to a shard of the evil red blade that eats souls. The tate system returns from Shinobi, too: killing enemies in rapid succession grants you an exponentially increasing damage boost, and if you manage to kill all of the enemies on screen in a short enough timespan, you get a cutscene of Hibana executing them all at once. What they don't tell you is that this works on bosses. Bosses will summon adds, and building a sufficiently long tate off of the mooks will open up the chance for you to charge a long Stealth Attack that will instantly kill the boss and give you a unique cutscene if you do it before the tate combo drops. It rules. It fucking rules so hard. It's probably one of the best rewards for playing stylishly and smoothly I've seen in a long time. Once you find an opening, you can kill any boss in a single strike.
Regrettably, though, the levels between boss fights can't hold up to the same level of quality for very long. A lot of the early stages are predicated on clambering around on rooftops and running through dark city streets, and those are all fun and good. Later levels can't help but put bottomless pits fucking everywhere that will instantly kill you and send you back to your last checkpoint, and a thirty-minute level might have two or three checkpoints at best. Getting across these pits steadily starts relying on bouncing between enemies with very few platforms you can actually stand on, and the armored enemies can only be bounced off of with a kick. You can only kick once while in the air, for some reason, so throw out one kick just a bit too early and it's back to the last checkpoint for you. I eventually just gave up on fighting every enemy and settled on running past them when I could, instead. It's possible to be a little too annoying with what you're asking the player to do, and this steps a few toes over the line.
I do want to bring attention to the writing, though, because it’s wonderfully absurd. This is a game where your corrupt CO warns you over radio comms that "astral sensors are at Level 3", meaning that "there is a large-class Hellspawn nearby", and everything just keeps rolling along as though those are two regular sentences to say to a person. Hibana is on a revenge quest against her former master and the new side-piece he swapped her out for. She ends up rebelling against the orders of the Japanese government and the Nakatomi Conglomerate because she realizes that she's little more than a disposable pawn to them, fit only to reassemble and return the cursed sword Akujiki into their care. Every other sentence out of her mouth is “it’s not my day” or “it’s not your day” or “this really isn’t my day”, because the writers are trying to give her a cool catchphrase. It's the sort of heightened realism often found scribbled in the back of a teenager's math notebook and too-often derided when presented as art by the public due to being "juvenile" or "appealing to the lowest common denominator". I'd counter by saying that the biggest prestige video games on the market have been taking themselves a little too fucking seriously lately and could strongly benefit from reigning it in. This isn't a suggestion that we abandon all pretense and make everything a joke; rather that it's our idiosyncrasies which make us interesting, and to play it safe is to play it boring. You'll never embarrass yourself if you hide those strange little parts of you, but you'll never find anyone who likes you for your true self, either. How much of you are you willing to surrender to spare your precious ego?
Nightshade ultimately ends up stumbling too hard and too often in its second half for me to enthusiastically suggest that everyone play it, but it’s absolutely worth trying out. It’s nonsense, but it’s good nonsense. At the very least, it’s good for your soul to play something that’s just a little bit trash every now and then. It’s like sitting under a waterfall and meditating. Cleanse yourself of impurities by not holding games to a prestige industry writing standard that’s still lagging about twenty years behind shit that your dad would have watched on the SciFi channel at 3 PM on a Sunday.
This easily has one of the best soundtracks on the console.
Hi-Fi Rush
2023
Hi-Fi Rush don't mean a thing.
In the absolute broadest sense, I want more games like Hi-Fi Rush. I want more original IP, I want more studios to make games that seem outside of their wheelhouse, I want games to tackle new ideas and genre fusion can be a good place to synthesize something unique. I want more small-scale games that aren't structured with the goal of being the only thing I spend my free time on for the next year. I want more games that run at high framerates and resolution even if that means cutting back on the highest gloss new visual technique.
But if I look just a little closer at any part of this thing I just don't get it. As an action game it feels sluggish, stiff. As a rhythm game, I mean, come on; you get 8 licensed songs and they're all corny bullshit from over a decade ago, not new enough to be fresh, not old enough to be revered. Half the songs are from 90's acts who had certifiably entered a "washed up" or "sellout" phase by that point, and mixed in you get things like a Wolfgang Gartner novelty Mozart remix. People praised the original soundtrack (i.e. "streamer mode") when the game came out, saying that playing without the licensed tracks was no real loss, and I just really don't know how anyone listening to either score could interpret this as anything but an insult to both.
The game is full of platforming segments, but between the player's complete lack of momentum and how completely ineffectual both jumping and airdashing are, every single obstacle is a clunky chore. During combat the game practically plays itself; in fact, the idea that you don't really need rhythm to play this rhythm game was a selling point (although "selling point" may be a poor choice of words since everyone's playing this on GamePass). The entire experience feels like a checklist, there's just not a single moment of joy in playing this. There isn't even much extrinsic motivation because it always seems that even if I keep my style meter at S for an entire battle I end up getting a B. The only difficulty curve this game has starts at "win sloppily" and goes up to "win skillfully" but when the ranking gives you such an unclear idea of how well you're actually doing, why should I care?
This game has the misfortune of being the next high-profile action game after Bayonetta 3, and looking and feeling a whole lot like a worse Transformers: Devastation, and that's Platinum at their absolute most milquetoast. Its style could be best described as "inoffensive", the main character is just a regular guy, the robots you beat up are just regular robots, and everyone else looks like what I see in my mind's eye when I try to imagine "a RWBY character who only shows up in one episode", or "dollar store Promare". There's a guy who does JoJo poses, when you pick up collectables an announcer says "Excellent!" following by some electric guitar noodling. It's an original IP in the literal sense of not being directly based on an existing license, but it feels so attached to pre-existing media that I don't think it stands particularly well on its own. A game referencing Xenogears is not a replacement for new games as interesting as Xenogears.
The game has rhythm but it has no bounce, it gives the player no medium of expression, it's a consistent, plodding march. I don't even know what's "Hi-Fi" about it, it's an MP3 player and some earbuds!
In the absolute broadest sense, I want more games like Hi-Fi Rush. I want more original IP, I want more studios to make games that seem outside of their wheelhouse, I want games to tackle new ideas and genre fusion can be a good place to synthesize something unique. I want more small-scale games that aren't structured with the goal of being the only thing I spend my free time on for the next year. I want more games that run at high framerates and resolution even if that means cutting back on the highest gloss new visual technique.
But if I look just a little closer at any part of this thing I just don't get it. As an action game it feels sluggish, stiff. As a rhythm game, I mean, come on; you get 8 licensed songs and they're all corny bullshit from over a decade ago, not new enough to be fresh, not old enough to be revered. Half the songs are from 90's acts who had certifiably entered a "washed up" or "sellout" phase by that point, and mixed in you get things like a Wolfgang Gartner novelty Mozart remix. People praised the original soundtrack (i.e. "streamer mode") when the game came out, saying that playing without the licensed tracks was no real loss, and I just really don't know how anyone listening to either score could interpret this as anything but an insult to both.
The game is full of platforming segments, but between the player's complete lack of momentum and how completely ineffectual both jumping and airdashing are, every single obstacle is a clunky chore. During combat the game practically plays itself; in fact, the idea that you don't really need rhythm to play this rhythm game was a selling point (although "selling point" may be a poor choice of words since everyone's playing this on GamePass). The entire experience feels like a checklist, there's just not a single moment of joy in playing this. There isn't even much extrinsic motivation because it always seems that even if I keep my style meter at S for an entire battle I end up getting a B. The only difficulty curve this game has starts at "win sloppily" and goes up to "win skillfully" but when the ranking gives you such an unclear idea of how well you're actually doing, why should I care?
This game has the misfortune of being the next high-profile action game after Bayonetta 3, and looking and feeling a whole lot like a worse Transformers: Devastation, and that's Platinum at their absolute most milquetoast. Its style could be best described as "inoffensive", the main character is just a regular guy, the robots you beat up are just regular robots, and everyone else looks like what I see in my mind's eye when I try to imagine "a RWBY character who only shows up in one episode", or "dollar store Promare". There's a guy who does JoJo poses, when you pick up collectables an announcer says "Excellent!" following by some electric guitar noodling. It's an original IP in the literal sense of not being directly based on an existing license, but it feels so attached to pre-existing media that I don't think it stands particularly well on its own. A game referencing Xenogears is not a replacement for new games as interesting as Xenogears.
The game has rhythm but it has no bounce, it gives the player no medium of expression, it's a consistent, plodding march. I don't even know what's "Hi-Fi" about it, it's an MP3 player and some earbuds!
Saya no Uta
2003
Finished this yesterday and i can't stop thinking about it.
This story is dense, gruesome and you need to have some gut to read it, if your not into visual novel, try this one, it's short enough to make you want more and more VN.
Saya no Uta makes everything turns upside down, makes you thank whatever you believe that you see everything perfectly.
This story is dense, gruesome and you need to have some gut to read it, if your not into visual novel, try this one, it's short enough to make you want more and more VN.
Saya no Uta makes everything turns upside down, makes you thank whatever you believe that you see everything perfectly.
LCD Dem
2010
This review contains spoilers
i've always loved Yume Nikki fangames as a whole, but something about this one always stuck out to me over the others. played it for the first time about 7 years ago, and i still find myself replaying it from time to time. it's been an integral part of my life, to say the least, and i found it at a time where i desperately needed some sort of escape from the real world, and suffice to say Chie and her dreamscape gave me exactly what i was looking for
the gameplay is the same as any other Yume Nikki-esque game, but with an added element of gathering orbs to obtain the ending, rather than only requiring the player to obtain the effects. i enjoyed this greatly, as it both adds an extra reward for exploration and allows the player more time to experience the beautiful locations and events
i also appreciate the added emphasis on free roaming that the game has. this is not to say other YNFG titles discourage such, as i believe it is a central theme of the genre, but i found LcdDem's beautiful locations and apparent lack of chaser enemies to make me feel more inclined to take my time and enjoy the exploration portion of the game. in general, the lack of any genuine horror made me lean into the game a lot more than i did with games like .flow or Yume 2kki. while i do enjoy the terrifying atmosphere the latter two examples have at times, i found myself even more unnerved by the lack of any of the typical YNFG scares: almost like i was being lulled into a false sense of security. the creepy areas that LcdDem DID have still succeeded with what they set out to do as well, so i do appreciate that horror was not deserted entirely for aesthetics
the story is as vague as any other YNFG plot: Chie is blocked into her room with nothing but her bed, a game console (which i never got to check out, as interacting with it crashed my game), a journal, and a route to the balcony. i enjoyed the subtle hints the game drops about Chie's personality: lots of areas are centered around typical childlike interests, the effects are equated to art materials in the real world, and we even get hints about Chie's family (at least, depending on your interpretation of some npcs and areas). the only real solid story we ever get is that in the ending, with Chie sobbing over the corpse of a woman most presume to be her mother. the buildup to this is brief, but i appreciated the extra effort of creating details like a blood-spattered hallway and a dimly-lit room to add to the atmosphere. they're small changes, but they made all the difference going in my first time.
i'm a very emotional person at heart, and as much as i'd like to pretend that i'm some sort of brick wall when it comes to videogames, i'll gladly confess that LcdDem's ending was the first game ending to make me truly upset. not in a crying, bawling, messy sort of way, but a silent one. i remember vividly how it left me speechless for quite awhile. i can't particularly say WHY it hit me so hard, as it was nowhere near my first rpgmaker horror game, but something just made it feel different to me at the time that years later, the ending theme still makes me feel broken on the inside.
i won't say this game is a masterpiece or anything, as i can't fairly put it on the same pedestal as other games of much higher caliber, but the effort and emotion put into this game is something i will always be grateful i paid attention to in my younger days. it is a game very close to my heart, and had the creator not stated previously how much they dislike the attention this game received, i would urge everyone to go out and play it immediately. overall, the reasons why i love this game so much are incredibly perspective-based and subjective, but my love for it will remain the same regardless of anything
the gameplay is the same as any other Yume Nikki-esque game, but with an added element of gathering orbs to obtain the ending, rather than only requiring the player to obtain the effects. i enjoyed this greatly, as it both adds an extra reward for exploration and allows the player more time to experience the beautiful locations and events
i also appreciate the added emphasis on free roaming that the game has. this is not to say other YNFG titles discourage such, as i believe it is a central theme of the genre, but i found LcdDem's beautiful locations and apparent lack of chaser enemies to make me feel more inclined to take my time and enjoy the exploration portion of the game. in general, the lack of any genuine horror made me lean into the game a lot more than i did with games like .flow or Yume 2kki. while i do enjoy the terrifying atmosphere the latter two examples have at times, i found myself even more unnerved by the lack of any of the typical YNFG scares: almost like i was being lulled into a false sense of security. the creepy areas that LcdDem DID have still succeeded with what they set out to do as well, so i do appreciate that horror was not deserted entirely for aesthetics
the story is as vague as any other YNFG plot: Chie is blocked into her room with nothing but her bed, a game console (which i never got to check out, as interacting with it crashed my game), a journal, and a route to the balcony. i enjoyed the subtle hints the game drops about Chie's personality: lots of areas are centered around typical childlike interests, the effects are equated to art materials in the real world, and we even get hints about Chie's family (at least, depending on your interpretation of some npcs and areas). the only real solid story we ever get is that in the ending, with Chie sobbing over the corpse of a woman most presume to be her mother. the buildup to this is brief, but i appreciated the extra effort of creating details like a blood-spattered hallway and a dimly-lit room to add to the atmosphere. they're small changes, but they made all the difference going in my first time.
i'm a very emotional person at heart, and as much as i'd like to pretend that i'm some sort of brick wall when it comes to videogames, i'll gladly confess that LcdDem's ending was the first game ending to make me truly upset. not in a crying, bawling, messy sort of way, but a silent one. i remember vividly how it left me speechless for quite awhile. i can't particularly say WHY it hit me so hard, as it was nowhere near my first rpgmaker horror game, but something just made it feel different to me at the time that years later, the ending theme still makes me feel broken on the inside.
i won't say this game is a masterpiece or anything, as i can't fairly put it on the same pedestal as other games of much higher caliber, but the effort and emotion put into this game is something i will always be grateful i paid attention to in my younger days. it is a game very close to my heart, and had the creator not stated previously how much they dislike the attention this game received, i would urge everyone to go out and play it immediately. overall, the reasons why i love this game so much are incredibly perspective-based and subjective, but my love for it will remain the same regardless of anything
a crossover of two of my absolute favorite series that ends up being a showcase of everything i hate about the direction both of them have ended up taking
Psycholonials
2021
none of you freaks have reading comprehension
psycholonials is a mixing pot mess of authorial self hatred, pandemic and lockdown issues, the slow collapse of the government to fascism as the world burns, fandom and parasocial relationships eating away at you to the core. its a work both deeply autobiographical and tuned into the larger desire for change. a fucking desparate singular need for escape with the chaos of trying to make a world even possible to escape into. it feels pretty clear that the intent is for someone to go in having knowledge of hussie and his work and most likely for you to have a mental image of hussie, and hopefully at least realise that at the end of the day you dont have a picture of hussie in any way and that you dont know him and its weird to assume so from his work. pyscholonials is full on a fucking mess but its one that wants you to go in knowing that and pretty much does the most it can with what it offers you.
psycholonials is a mixing pot mess of authorial self hatred, pandemic and lockdown issues, the slow collapse of the government to fascism as the world burns, fandom and parasocial relationships eating away at you to the core. its a work both deeply autobiographical and tuned into the larger desire for change. a fucking desparate singular need for escape with the chaos of trying to make a world even possible to escape into. it feels pretty clear that the intent is for someone to go in having knowledge of hussie and his work and most likely for you to have a mental image of hussie, and hopefully at least realise that at the end of the day you dont have a picture of hussie in any way and that you dont know him and its weird to assume so from his work. pyscholonials is full on a fucking mess but its one that wants you to go in knowing that and pretty much does the most it can with what it offers you.