Coelacanis
I didn't come here for excellence, I came here to satisfy a curiosity. This collection serves a very specific purpose so I am rating it based on that purpose. I streamed it for a bunch of friends and we got just over an hour's worth of laughs out it. That's what we wanted from it and that's exactly what we got!
As for the games themselves, they did scratch my brain in the way I thought they would. Most were actually decently engaging puzzle games if I didn't expect the world from them. While the levels were slow to present any challenges, that felt true to the mobile game experience to me where there's fanfare for the simplest of puzzle clears to make you feel clever before stepping up the difficulty faster than expected. This collection doesn't attempt to add any quality or integrity to "these games" (yes, there's even an IQ stat!) and I love them for it. It does add some of its own personality though; shout out to the gyrating ogre in Number Tower.
For funsies, here's how I rank the various games from most to least liked:
1. Pin Pull - An order of operations puzzle that I genuinely liked
2. Parking Lot - Higher levels actually required some effort
3. Color Lab - Hideous colors but satisfying to the lizard brain
4. Cash Run - Nonsense budgeting / platforming combo? I guess?
5. Number Tower - Just math... but gyrating ogre
I played Those Games and now I know what the skeezy ads are all about. The itch has been scratched. I doubt I'll play this collection again anytime soon but the concept is entertaining and honestly did me a service. $10 on Steam for a funny stream with my friends and immunizing myself against weird ads? Worth it!
As for the games themselves, they did scratch my brain in the way I thought they would. Most were actually decently engaging puzzle games if I didn't expect the world from them. While the levels were slow to present any challenges, that felt true to the mobile game experience to me where there's fanfare for the simplest of puzzle clears to make you feel clever before stepping up the difficulty faster than expected. This collection doesn't attempt to add any quality or integrity to "these games" (yes, there's even an IQ stat!) and I love them for it. It does add some of its own personality though; shout out to the gyrating ogre in Number Tower.
For funsies, here's how I rank the various games from most to least liked:
1. Pin Pull - An order of operations puzzle that I genuinely liked
2. Parking Lot - Higher levels actually required some effort
3. Color Lab - Hideous colors but satisfying to the lizard brain
4. Cash Run - Nonsense budgeting / platforming combo? I guess?
5. Number Tower - Just math... but gyrating ogre
I played Those Games and now I know what the skeezy ads are all about. The itch has been scratched. I doubt I'll play this collection again anytime soon but the concept is entertaining and honestly did me a service. $10 on Steam for a funny stream with my friends and immunizing myself against weird ads? Worth it!
1998
It is an honor to be the first gamer on Backlogged dot com to write a review for the 1998 licensed Game Boy Color game based on the box office flop animated film Quest For Camelot. My dad took me to see this movie in theaters when it first came out and I remember liking it a lot, enough to want the Game Boy game. But I admit that I was completely unable to find all five of the farmer’s chickens in the first level during my several attempts at this dinky little game and ultimately put it aside every time. When I saw it came to Nintendo Online’s emulator on the Switch this month, I decided to let my big adult brain have a go at it.
Now that I’ve played it through, I honestly cannot blame my childhood self for having trouble. Quest For Camelot is an adventure game with clumsy controls, big hit boxes, and poor presentation at best. When it was clear what I had to do, the game’s puzzles and mysteries were actually a little clever, but most of the time I was left scratching my head at obtuse or non-existent instruction (including during the game’s final boss, who is invincible in his final phase, the win condition for which is not even hinted at anywhere). More trial and error was required than I had the tolerance for so I was very grateful to be playing this on an emulator where I could freely rewind and load save states; I am not ashamed to admit that, this game made so little sense sometimes. Shout-out to Weasel_Bob on GameFAQs who wrote the only guide I could find online for this game 23 years ago. I only referenced the guide when I was really, truly stuck but that happened about four times in a game that took me maybe six hours to play. So thanks Bob, I hope you’re doing well out there.
Visually the game is unremarkable. The still illustrations during the narrative portions are clumsy but I admit they have their own charm in their old age. The text walls during those same portions were a questionable choice and I honestly don’t think I could have read them if I was playing on original hardware. The music is enough to drive someone batty; there are so few songs in the entire game that even boss fights share the same repetitive tune as villages and almost all of them were tonally inappropriate for what was happening. Fighting through a vermin infested cave full of blood pools? Time for the lullaby song.
I have very little good to say about this game, but I was weirdly compelled to play it. I can’t think of any reasons to rate it higher than two stars but… I had fun here, somehow, and that’s what matters.
Now that I’ve played it through, I honestly cannot blame my childhood self for having trouble. Quest For Camelot is an adventure game with clumsy controls, big hit boxes, and poor presentation at best. When it was clear what I had to do, the game’s puzzles and mysteries were actually a little clever, but most of the time I was left scratching my head at obtuse or non-existent instruction (including during the game’s final boss, who is invincible in his final phase, the win condition for which is not even hinted at anywhere). More trial and error was required than I had the tolerance for so I was very grateful to be playing this on an emulator where I could freely rewind and load save states; I am not ashamed to admit that, this game made so little sense sometimes. Shout-out to Weasel_Bob on GameFAQs who wrote the only guide I could find online for this game 23 years ago. I only referenced the guide when I was really, truly stuck but that happened about four times in a game that took me maybe six hours to play. So thanks Bob, I hope you’re doing well out there.
Visually the game is unremarkable. The still illustrations during the narrative portions are clumsy but I admit they have their own charm in their old age. The text walls during those same portions were a questionable choice and I honestly don’t think I could have read them if I was playing on original hardware. The music is enough to drive someone batty; there are so few songs in the entire game that even boss fights share the same repetitive tune as villages and almost all of them were tonally inappropriate for what was happening. Fighting through a vermin infested cave full of blood pools? Time for the lullaby song.
I have very little good to say about this game, but I was weirdly compelled to play it. I can’t think of any reasons to rate it higher than two stars but… I had fun here, somehow, and that’s what matters.
This review contains spoilers
Level-5 nailed the feeling of playing a Ghibli movie and I was charmed by it the moment I started playing. The characters, environments, and Wizard Compendium book are visually beautiful and the way practical spells are used to explore the world kept me engaged anywhere I went. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is super cozy on Switch, especially in handheld mode. I rated this game high because most of the time I spent with it was time I enjoyed, but I am also left with mixed feelings about some aspects. For every solid idea this game had, there was a failure to follow through as well.
Joe Hisaishi's music is at the heart of many Ghibli movies and he knocked it out of the park again with this soundtrack. The main theme that plays on the overworld is beautiful and it's one I'm going to be happy to have in my head for a long time. My only complaint is that there aren't enough individual tracks in the game. There seems to be songs for different types of situations with unique tracks only for the most important events. The battle theme in particular is a great track but it falls prey to a common RPG problem where the opening notes are the most repetitive and that's what you hear most often as you move about the world and run into fights. All non-boss fights had the same song and it was beyond irritating hearing those opening notes that lasted only as long as the fight itself usually did. I hate to admit it, but if I wasn't doing story related stuff, I would often have to mute it to save my sanity.
Most of the ways Ni no Kuni resembles a Ghibli movie are positive, but there were moments where it was a little over-referential and the game would momentarily lose its own identity. I noticed it most in character designs and isolated bits of the music. A nod here and there is expected and appropriate, but going so far to have Oliver be a near copy of Markl from Howl’s Moving Castle and Marcassin looking and acting like Howl during his introduction was a little much. It made the characters feel cheaper, like store brand versions of their Ghibli counterparts even though they weren’t really that similar beyond the resemblance. I didn't need to be reminded of specific Ghibli films to enjoy Ni no Kuni. The world and the story stand on its own two feet well enough. When it was doing that, the game excelled.
Besides Ghibli's involvement I was also drawn to Ni no Kuni for the monsters. The familiar designs are quirky and fun; there’s something for everyone here from animals to robots to weird objects and ghosts. Their metamorphosis often left something to be desired though. The first metamorphosis is always just a palette swap with the third and final form being a silhouette change with inconsistent degrees of departure. Sometimes the third form was really interesting, but often it was not. On one hand, the issue I tend to have with other monster taming games where creatures I like eventually evolve into something painfully over-designed is not present in Ni no Kuni. Every familiar has a comfortable simplicity and complete concept. But evolution/metamorphosis should be exciting. For how little some of these designs actually change through metamorphosis, it almost feels like it was a secondary consideration in the system. I don’t think the game necessarily needed it. If most of the designs were stand-alone or single stage, disappointment would have been a non-issue.
I was impressed with the battle system right away and really appreciated the versatility. It can be as easy as all out attacking with strong enough familiars and spells but there can be a lot to consider with monster types, genera, movement, and attack timing as well if the player chooses to approach it that way. I was very interested in all of it but I was also overwhelmed. Ni no Kuni trusts the player to experiment and learn through doing without holding their hand. In an age of overbearing tutorials, this can be a real blessing. But the chaotic nature of the battles and demanding reaction time to blocking meant that I sometimes couldn’t read what was going wrong when I was doing poorly (especially in the mid-game’s sudden difficulty spike). In an attempt to slow things down for myself, I changed the difficulty to Easy at some point. This didn’t solve my problem because it just eliminated the need to engage with the game’s more complex battle mechanics instead of making them more approachable. Either way I was missing something.
It took me a bunch of play hours to realize this, probably because I don't play nearly enough non-Pokemon RPGs, but Ni no Kuni doesn’t primarily act like a monster taming game. I spent a lot of effort trying to figure out team compositions, which familiars I liked best, who worked well with which character, which skills were most useful to me, etc. I struggled with how infrequently wild familiars join you and with having enough materials to metamorphose them in the late game. I wasn’t able to get the majority of the familiars I wanted simply because if I put the necessary time in, I would never be done grinding. And despite how deeply engaged I could become with the monster collecting, ultimately Oliver's spells took center stage in the game’s final acts so my familiar choices didn’t end up being that relevant beyond having adequate damage and healing. The monster taming ended up feeling secondary in Ni no Kuni despite how much I interacted with it. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on someone’s expectations I think. I certainly brought my own expectations to the table here. It’s better to not worry and just pick whatever familiars I think are cool, but I do wish I had understood the role of familiars in the game earlier. I also don’t think the game communicated its priorities well enough. Either that or the difficulty scaling on Easy is just that bad. I’ll share the blame on this one.
Narratively, the story in Ni no Kuni was compelling and I was grateful for the snappy pacing. I loved that I could sit down to play for an hour or two and have visible progress in the story - something you can’t always count on while playing a JRPG. It wasn’t overly complex and never took itself too seriously despite the themes of grief and anger being forces that consume people. The beginning and middle of the story sold itself the best, folding plot into the gameplay mostly seamlessly. The climax, however, felt disconnected from the rest of the game.
The ending was acceptable but nothing more. Casseopia wasn't a villain I could sympathize with and I think both her and Shadar before her would have benefited from more screen time before Oliver and friends were confronting them. If a villain is more than a cloaked entity, shortly before their defeat isn't an effective time to show the player their flawed humanity. A lot of games fail in this department so this isn't a problem unique to Ni no Kuni by any means. On paper these characters are compelling but in the game itself I wanted a little more from them.
I was also a little disappointed that the entire system of taking and sharing Heart that was used all through the game didn't apply to Shadar or Casseopia. Of course these characters were beyond such simple fixes, but it seemed strange to me that the act of magically sharing abundance with those who lacked would be dropped altogether. The White Witch's castle also had no mysteries or puzzles, just repeated curving corridors filled with plenty of fights for EXP and a handful of good items to help with the final fight. Compared to earlier dungeons like the Temple of Trials and the Vault of Tears, it felt purely utilitarian and uninspired. The final fight itself was somewhat simplistic as well. I enjoyed the great Final Fantasy-esque imagery and multi-stage combat, and it required near constant casting of Oliver's best spells - but not much else was being asked of me besides blocking at the right time and managing my consumables. I don't really feel like the game's final battle required any skills I could have developed while playing the game. Again I question that difficulty scaling. It certainly made it less trouble to roll the credits but also less interesting.
That’s most of my thoughts on Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. All of these complaints were ultimately tolerable. What the game does well, it does SO well that its shortcomings could always be put aside. I’m curious about the sequel and plan to check it out in the future.
Joe Hisaishi's music is at the heart of many Ghibli movies and he knocked it out of the park again with this soundtrack. The main theme that plays on the overworld is beautiful and it's one I'm going to be happy to have in my head for a long time. My only complaint is that there aren't enough individual tracks in the game. There seems to be songs for different types of situations with unique tracks only for the most important events. The battle theme in particular is a great track but it falls prey to a common RPG problem where the opening notes are the most repetitive and that's what you hear most often as you move about the world and run into fights. All non-boss fights had the same song and it was beyond irritating hearing those opening notes that lasted only as long as the fight itself usually did. I hate to admit it, but if I wasn't doing story related stuff, I would often have to mute it to save my sanity.
Most of the ways Ni no Kuni resembles a Ghibli movie are positive, but there were moments where it was a little over-referential and the game would momentarily lose its own identity. I noticed it most in character designs and isolated bits of the music. A nod here and there is expected and appropriate, but going so far to have Oliver be a near copy of Markl from Howl’s Moving Castle and Marcassin looking and acting like Howl during his introduction was a little much. It made the characters feel cheaper, like store brand versions of their Ghibli counterparts even though they weren’t really that similar beyond the resemblance. I didn't need to be reminded of specific Ghibli films to enjoy Ni no Kuni. The world and the story stand on its own two feet well enough. When it was doing that, the game excelled.
Besides Ghibli's involvement I was also drawn to Ni no Kuni for the monsters. The familiar designs are quirky and fun; there’s something for everyone here from animals to robots to weird objects and ghosts. Their metamorphosis often left something to be desired though. The first metamorphosis is always just a palette swap with the third and final form being a silhouette change with inconsistent degrees of departure. Sometimes the third form was really interesting, but often it was not. On one hand, the issue I tend to have with other monster taming games where creatures I like eventually evolve into something painfully over-designed is not present in Ni no Kuni. Every familiar has a comfortable simplicity and complete concept. But evolution/metamorphosis should be exciting. For how little some of these designs actually change through metamorphosis, it almost feels like it was a secondary consideration in the system. I don’t think the game necessarily needed it. If most of the designs were stand-alone or single stage, disappointment would have been a non-issue.
I was impressed with the battle system right away and really appreciated the versatility. It can be as easy as all out attacking with strong enough familiars and spells but there can be a lot to consider with monster types, genera, movement, and attack timing as well if the player chooses to approach it that way. I was very interested in all of it but I was also overwhelmed. Ni no Kuni trusts the player to experiment and learn through doing without holding their hand. In an age of overbearing tutorials, this can be a real blessing. But the chaotic nature of the battles and demanding reaction time to blocking meant that I sometimes couldn’t read what was going wrong when I was doing poorly (especially in the mid-game’s sudden difficulty spike). In an attempt to slow things down for myself, I changed the difficulty to Easy at some point. This didn’t solve my problem because it just eliminated the need to engage with the game’s more complex battle mechanics instead of making them more approachable. Either way I was missing something.
It took me a bunch of play hours to realize this, probably because I don't play nearly enough non-Pokemon RPGs, but Ni no Kuni doesn’t primarily act like a monster taming game. I spent a lot of effort trying to figure out team compositions, which familiars I liked best, who worked well with which character, which skills were most useful to me, etc. I struggled with how infrequently wild familiars join you and with having enough materials to metamorphose them in the late game. I wasn’t able to get the majority of the familiars I wanted simply because if I put the necessary time in, I would never be done grinding. And despite how deeply engaged I could become with the monster collecting, ultimately Oliver's spells took center stage in the game’s final acts so my familiar choices didn’t end up being that relevant beyond having adequate damage and healing. The monster taming ended up feeling secondary in Ni no Kuni despite how much I interacted with it. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on someone’s expectations I think. I certainly brought my own expectations to the table here. It’s better to not worry and just pick whatever familiars I think are cool, but I do wish I had understood the role of familiars in the game earlier. I also don’t think the game communicated its priorities well enough. Either that or the difficulty scaling on Easy is just that bad. I’ll share the blame on this one.
Narratively, the story in Ni no Kuni was compelling and I was grateful for the snappy pacing. I loved that I could sit down to play for an hour or two and have visible progress in the story - something you can’t always count on while playing a JRPG. It wasn’t overly complex and never took itself too seriously despite the themes of grief and anger being forces that consume people. The beginning and middle of the story sold itself the best, folding plot into the gameplay mostly seamlessly. The climax, however, felt disconnected from the rest of the game.
The ending was acceptable but nothing more. Casseopia wasn't a villain I could sympathize with and I think both her and Shadar before her would have benefited from more screen time before Oliver and friends were confronting them. If a villain is more than a cloaked entity, shortly before their defeat isn't an effective time to show the player their flawed humanity. A lot of games fail in this department so this isn't a problem unique to Ni no Kuni by any means. On paper these characters are compelling but in the game itself I wanted a little more from them.
I was also a little disappointed that the entire system of taking and sharing Heart that was used all through the game didn't apply to Shadar or Casseopia. Of course these characters were beyond such simple fixes, but it seemed strange to me that the act of magically sharing abundance with those who lacked would be dropped altogether. The White Witch's castle also had no mysteries or puzzles, just repeated curving corridors filled with plenty of fights for EXP and a handful of good items to help with the final fight. Compared to earlier dungeons like the Temple of Trials and the Vault of Tears, it felt purely utilitarian and uninspired. The final fight itself was somewhat simplistic as well. I enjoyed the great Final Fantasy-esque imagery and multi-stage combat, and it required near constant casting of Oliver's best spells - but not much else was being asked of me besides blocking at the right time and managing my consumables. I don't really feel like the game's final battle required any skills I could have developed while playing the game. Again I question that difficulty scaling. It certainly made it less trouble to roll the credits but also less interesting.
That’s most of my thoughts on Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. All of these complaints were ultimately tolerable. What the game does well, it does SO well that its shortcomings could always be put aside. I’m curious about the sequel and plan to check it out in the future.
This review contains spoilers
Every moment spent playing Dragon’s Dogma was suffering. Every moment away from Dragon’s Dogma, I could think of nothing else.
Despite constant frustrations with the inventory and quest management, I loved this game. I don’t think the story itself was bad, but the way it was told (or neglected) was ineffective at best. The tone and the music were perfect for this world though and the time I spent exploring on my own always felt good provided I remembered to save the game before I inevitably died to something cool and got sent back to my last save. Fighting big monsters I found along the path to a destination was exciting once my gear was upgraded a bit. The Pawns were the best part though. They are excessively silly with their repetitive dialogue and bizarre behavior. I was so endeared to them. Even when I was having a rough time in this game, the Pawns kept me coming back.
Unfortunately the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m all for subtle lore but I think pacing is doubly important if a story is going to pull that off. In Dragon’s Dogma, the dragon appears at the very start of the game and we don’t hear anything about it again outside of people being scared of it until the end. Maybe there’s quests about it I didn’t find, that’s possible. But the meat and potatoes of the game is all mostly unrelated to what this story is supposed to be about. For such an ambitious narrative, I needed more direct attention being paid to it for an ending like this to land. Plus the romance mechanics were barely able to be controlled and my “beloved” was one I actively disliked. It was awful seeing them in the cutscenes.
So nothing about the ending worked for me and I wish I could have just continued running around with my silly Pawns and getting thrown off cliffs by Cyclops. That part was great. Whenever I get around to doing Bitterblack Isle, I think I will enjoy that a lot.
Despite constant frustrations with the inventory and quest management, I loved this game. I don’t think the story itself was bad, but the way it was told (or neglected) was ineffective at best. The tone and the music were perfect for this world though and the time I spent exploring on my own always felt good provided I remembered to save the game before I inevitably died to something cool and got sent back to my last save. Fighting big monsters I found along the path to a destination was exciting once my gear was upgraded a bit. The Pawns were the best part though. They are excessively silly with their repetitive dialogue and bizarre behavior. I was so endeared to them. Even when I was having a rough time in this game, the Pawns kept me coming back.
Unfortunately the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m all for subtle lore but I think pacing is doubly important if a story is going to pull that off. In Dragon’s Dogma, the dragon appears at the very start of the game and we don’t hear anything about it again outside of people being scared of it until the end. Maybe there’s quests about it I didn’t find, that’s possible. But the meat and potatoes of the game is all mostly unrelated to what this story is supposed to be about. For such an ambitious narrative, I needed more direct attention being paid to it for an ending like this to land. Plus the romance mechanics were barely able to be controlled and my “beloved” was one I actively disliked. It was awful seeing them in the cutscenes.
So nothing about the ending worked for me and I wish I could have just continued running around with my silly Pawns and getting thrown off cliffs by Cyclops. That part was great. Whenever I get around to doing Bitterblack Isle, I think I will enjoy that a lot.
2023
As a full time office worker, me and idle games have been friends a long time. Usually I'd play these on my phone, especially when I commuted into a real office. When I started working remotely, it took me a while to realize that I could play them on my PC too. Enter Chillquarium. It's a simple and lovely thing to buy an idle game for under $5 and to never see a single ad or microtransaction that the genre is usually littered with. The art is cute, the music is nice. Same species fish seem to group together, which is a clever touch, even if it's not always realistic. I love fish (absolutely crazy about them) and I have real fish in my life, so I don't need a simulator in my games. Anyone looking for realism should look elsewhere. What this game offers is a casual collecting experience that scratches the gacha itch without any of the traps and is totally finite. You raise fish, make money, buy more fish, upgrade tanks, decorate them if you feel like it, and keep doing it until you've collected everything and/or customized your tanks the way you want. When you're done, you're done.
I play this game on and off when I feel like it and likely won't be truly done anytime soon but that's just how I'm choosing to play. I don't think binging or obsessively collecting rare fish would be a fun way to go about it, but some people do this and are usually the ones to say the game doesn't have enough going on in it. I don't think that's quite right, but it's not exactly wrong either. Chillquarium does what it does very well, but it is a simple game. More features would be a welcome addition, particularly in tank customization. The UI also leaves a lot to be desired; it functions technically but is far from intuitive. Those are my only complaints and it's why I'm rating this 4 stars instead of 5. I don't expect the world from a game like this and what Chillquarium promises, it does deliver on.
I play this game on and off when I feel like it and likely won't be truly done anytime soon but that's just how I'm choosing to play. I don't think binging or obsessively collecting rare fish would be a fun way to go about it, but some people do this and are usually the ones to say the game doesn't have enough going on in it. I don't think that's quite right, but it's not exactly wrong either. Chillquarium does what it does very well, but it is a simple game. More features would be a welcome addition, particularly in tank customization. The UI also leaves a lot to be desired; it functions technically but is far from intuitive. Those are my only complaints and it's why I'm rating this 4 stars instead of 5. I don't expect the world from a game like this and what Chillquarium promises, it does deliver on.
2022
This review contains spoilers
After 7 months of on and off playing, I finally rolled the credits on Pokemon Violet. There was so much of this game that I was in love with, but its visual performance issues gave me bad motion sickness that prevented me from playing it as often as I wanted. I had this issue in Sword/Shield as well, but I had a worse time with it in Violet because of how much I was enjoying myself (and therefore pushing myself to play) otherwise. I really wanted to immerse myself in this game, but I couldn't because I had to pace myself carefully so I wouldn't get sick.
For this review, I'm going to focus on the positive things about Pokemon Violet because truthfully I don't have anything else worthwhile to say about why the game frustrated me without being a broken record. If it was not so painfully evident how much this game was rushed, it could have been the best Pokemon game yet.
Paldea was a region I really enjoyed spending time in. I tend not to like open worlds but it was just big enough to feel like I was on an adventure but not so vast that I was overwhelmed by details. The landscapes were conceptually varied and beautiful even when the graphics fell short and the way wild Pokemon were incorporated into them was often very clever. I loved the music at every point, it was some of the best they've ever made for a Pokemon game.
The biggest advantage to the open world was the three story paths: Victory Road, Starfall Street, and Path of Legends. I was interested in all three and appreciated how they filled the map in a way that felt pretty natural. I tried my best to spread my exp over as many Pokemon as possible so I wasn't too over-leveled at any point but I inevitably ended up trivializing some battles anyway. It didn't feel as bad I feared because I was focused on the plot rather than how easy the battle was.
I loved the story's main NPCs (Nemona, Arven, and Penny) and it was easy to get attached to them and get invested in their problems. Arven's story made me actually tear up on more than one occasion and Nemona being her unhinged self made her a great rival. The way everyone came together in Area Zero paid off really well with their dialogue and banter. It really felt like me and my weirdo friends were getting into something good.
The side NPCs were even better and I was in love with the presence of adults of this world. There was an emotional undercurrent in this story about the loss of youth and struggling to find joy and purpose when the freedom of childhood is gone. With so many adult Pokemon fans who grew up with the original Game Boy games being old enough to relate to these feelings, it genuinely felt good to have these NPCs in the game. I'll never expect to be able to play as an adult in a mainline Pokemon game but it's cool to imagine that there actually is a place in these worlds for us as Pokemon trainers and students too.
The Pokemon that were new to Gen 9 were overall super cool. There were some exciting freak designs in this batch and while I didn't fall in love with every single one, I always saw what they were going for. A lot of them were very inspired and it was a delight to see them in motion both in battle and at picnics (even those rancid sandwiches grew on me).
I wish this game had gotten the development time and money it deserved and that they had prioritized patching the game more after release. For me it came down to a major accessibility issue. It was really disappointing to not be able to fully enjoy this game because I knew I could have. I don't see myself being able to play the DLC, nor do I think I should pay for it if they're not going to fix the base game, but I am going to hold out hope for Gen 10 being better. If I could ask for anything, it would be that they stop rushing these games.
For this review, I'm going to focus on the positive things about Pokemon Violet because truthfully I don't have anything else worthwhile to say about why the game frustrated me without being a broken record. If it was not so painfully evident how much this game was rushed, it could have been the best Pokemon game yet.
Paldea was a region I really enjoyed spending time in. I tend not to like open worlds but it was just big enough to feel like I was on an adventure but not so vast that I was overwhelmed by details. The landscapes were conceptually varied and beautiful even when the graphics fell short and the way wild Pokemon were incorporated into them was often very clever. I loved the music at every point, it was some of the best they've ever made for a Pokemon game.
The biggest advantage to the open world was the three story paths: Victory Road, Starfall Street, and Path of Legends. I was interested in all three and appreciated how they filled the map in a way that felt pretty natural. I tried my best to spread my exp over as many Pokemon as possible so I wasn't too over-leveled at any point but I inevitably ended up trivializing some battles anyway. It didn't feel as bad I feared because I was focused on the plot rather than how easy the battle was.
I loved the story's main NPCs (Nemona, Arven, and Penny) and it was easy to get attached to them and get invested in their problems. Arven's story made me actually tear up on more than one occasion and Nemona being her unhinged self made her a great rival. The way everyone came together in Area Zero paid off really well with their dialogue and banter. It really felt like me and my weirdo friends were getting into something good.
The side NPCs were even better and I was in love with the presence of adults of this world. There was an emotional undercurrent in this story about the loss of youth and struggling to find joy and purpose when the freedom of childhood is gone. With so many adult Pokemon fans who grew up with the original Game Boy games being old enough to relate to these feelings, it genuinely felt good to have these NPCs in the game. I'll never expect to be able to play as an adult in a mainline Pokemon game but it's cool to imagine that there actually is a place in these worlds for us as Pokemon trainers and students too.
The Pokemon that were new to Gen 9 were overall super cool. There were some exciting freak designs in this batch and while I didn't fall in love with every single one, I always saw what they were going for. A lot of them were very inspired and it was a delight to see them in motion both in battle and at picnics (even those rancid sandwiches grew on me).
I wish this game had gotten the development time and money it deserved and that they had prioritized patching the game more after release. For me it came down to a major accessibility issue. It was really disappointing to not be able to fully enjoy this game because I knew I could have. I don't see myself being able to play the DLC, nor do I think I should pay for it if they're not going to fix the base game, but I am going to hold out hope for Gen 10 being better. If I could ask for anything, it would be that they stop rushing these games.
2022
With the Dark Souls games being among my favorites, I was excited for Elden Ring but worried about one thing: the open world. I dislike open worlds in general so I was afraid of how that was going to impact my enjoyment of the game from the start. I was correct to worry. While I think Elden Ring is the best open world I’ve ever experienced, it still has everything I dislike about them, most notably the size of the world being burdened with fillers and distractions being placed around every corner. The game feels too big for its own good. On my way to find one thing, I’d be swept off course any number of times and end up not accomplishing what I set out to do. Getting off track usually wasn’t just a brief detour. That’s probably a fun adventure to some players, but I have always found it stressful. Much of my time in Elden Ring was spent being frustrated about where I was and not being where I wanted to be. The camera while riding Torrent being nauseating didn’t help my attempts to right my course. For these reasons, I ended up taking long breaks from the game periodically and that only made it harder to get my footing when I went back to it.
Most of the issues I have with Elden Ring stem from it being an open world. Everything else was as wonderful as I expected. The landscapes were stunning, the world-building mysterious and compelling, the characters strange and lovable in their classic FromSoft way. Some of the boss fights rode the line of how difficult I want these games to get, but none of them were impossible and the process of learning the fights was still immensely satisfying. The weapons were entertaining, sometimes even funny in the way I like from these games, and I had a good time with spells too. When I wasn’t hours off track from it, the story was one of the best of any FromSoft game. All the ways Elden Ring was great were exactly what I was hoping for.
The game being so amazing otherwise may have added to my frustration at not being able to enjoy it fully. It didn’t need to be an open world. I think FromSoft got it right with Dark Souls 3, a large game with branching paths that made it feel less linear than it is. I would have preferred this approach instead.
I finished Elden Ring about two months ago and I look back on it in a more positive light than I felt while I was actively playing it. I think NG+ is likely to treat me better than my first playthrough did simply because I know what’s important now and what I’ve already seen. I look forward to revisiting Elden Ring in the future on its own terms.
Most of the issues I have with Elden Ring stem from it being an open world. Everything else was as wonderful as I expected. The landscapes were stunning, the world-building mysterious and compelling, the characters strange and lovable in their classic FromSoft way. Some of the boss fights rode the line of how difficult I want these games to get, but none of them were impossible and the process of learning the fights was still immensely satisfying. The weapons were entertaining, sometimes even funny in the way I like from these games, and I had a good time with spells too. When I wasn’t hours off track from it, the story was one of the best of any FromSoft game. All the ways Elden Ring was great were exactly what I was hoping for.
The game being so amazing otherwise may have added to my frustration at not being able to enjoy it fully. It didn’t need to be an open world. I think FromSoft got it right with Dark Souls 3, a large game with branching paths that made it feel less linear than it is. I would have preferred this approach instead.
I finished Elden Ring about two months ago and I look back on it in a more positive light than I felt while I was actively playing it. I think NG+ is likely to treat me better than my first playthrough did simply because I know what’s important now and what I’ve already seen. I look forward to revisiting Elden Ring in the future on its own terms.
2023
I have been using the Pokemon Sleep app for 100 sleep sessions as of the time of me writing this review. It’s an updated version of a review I wrote after 30 sleep sessions. I feel that this game is better understood the longer it’s played and some of my thoughts on it have changed as a result.
Pokemon Sleep is a combination of a sleep tracker and a creature collecting game that doesn’t perform fully as either, but ends up inhabiting a unique place between fun and function. The gameplay loop fits itself neatly into a person’s natural daily milestones (sleeping and meals) and it feels nice to check in on my Pokemon throughout the day. Sleep’s 2D art style and the music is incredibly charming. I can tell a lot of love and imagination went into every aspect of this game’s presentation. The Pokemon on your team walk around the research site, react happily when you tap them, and perform tasks on timers throughout the day. It scratches the same itch that virtual pets do and that endeared me to the game immediately.
I am in love with the premise too: The Pokemon world’s dubious idea of research this time involves setting up camp on an island, cooking human food for a wild Snorlax according to its preferences, and then taking photos of the Pokemon that are drawn to its mysterious thrall overnight. You catch Pokemon like you do any wild animal (by feeding them) and in return they bring you berries and ingredients to give to Snorlax, some of which are packaged or processed foods that could not have been foraged. Nature is amazing.
Mechanically, the game has a lot more to it than one would expect. Some aspects are a little convoluted and it could probably stand to be streamlined, but navigating synergies between Pokemon and their Skills and Natures makes for genuinely interesting team building over time. Multiple zones means multiple teams that are always in need of updating if you’re the type of player who wants to engage with it. The RNG factors can be frustrating in the first few weeks of play (player experience can vary drastically for better or for worse) but it feels less punishing as time goes on and your Pokemon level up.
After 100 days with the game, the creature care and team building are what I’m primarily interested in. As a sleep tracker, I have found the novelty to fade. I like this app better as a game and at this point I kind of wish I didn’t have to deal with tracking sleep for it. Unfortunately, Pokemon Sleep requires me to interact with it during times I don’t want to look at my phone: bedtime and first thing in the morning. I was relieved to discover that putting my phone in Airplane Mode during sleep sessions was possible without compromising data (I sleep poorly with my phone next to my head), but I’d still prefer to put my phone anywhere but in the bed with me. This has grated on me over the course of 100 days, not the RNG factors in the game mechanics which was my primary complaint in my original review. This is ultimately why I think I will put this game aside at some point in the near future.
I commend the game for a lot of things, most notably its art/music, its low maintenance events, and the way it’s kept its monetization out of the way and completely optional for those familiar with the forward thinking and resource management required in free to play games. You can play Pokemon Sleep in peace, as it should be. If you’re against monetization on principle though, this game likely won’t be an exception. If you’re looking for a full featured Pokemon game or a full featured sleep tracking app, Pokemon Sleep isn’t any of these things either. If you can’t tolerate the slow no-binge pacing of games intended to be played daily, if you don’t enjoy idle mechanics, or if you are put off by multiple currencies and shops, this game probably won’t change your mind on any of that. Pokemon Sleep is a game that needs to be played as intended (casually, daily, and long term) to see and appreciate what it's really offering. It won’t be an app for every Pokemon fan.
Pokemon Sleep is a combination of a sleep tracker and a creature collecting game that doesn’t perform fully as either, but ends up inhabiting a unique place between fun and function. The gameplay loop fits itself neatly into a person’s natural daily milestones (sleeping and meals) and it feels nice to check in on my Pokemon throughout the day. Sleep’s 2D art style and the music is incredibly charming. I can tell a lot of love and imagination went into every aspect of this game’s presentation. The Pokemon on your team walk around the research site, react happily when you tap them, and perform tasks on timers throughout the day. It scratches the same itch that virtual pets do and that endeared me to the game immediately.
I am in love with the premise too: The Pokemon world’s dubious idea of research this time involves setting up camp on an island, cooking human food for a wild Snorlax according to its preferences, and then taking photos of the Pokemon that are drawn to its mysterious thrall overnight. You catch Pokemon like you do any wild animal (by feeding them) and in return they bring you berries and ingredients to give to Snorlax, some of which are packaged or processed foods that could not have been foraged. Nature is amazing.
Mechanically, the game has a lot more to it than one would expect. Some aspects are a little convoluted and it could probably stand to be streamlined, but navigating synergies between Pokemon and their Skills and Natures makes for genuinely interesting team building over time. Multiple zones means multiple teams that are always in need of updating if you’re the type of player who wants to engage with it. The RNG factors can be frustrating in the first few weeks of play (player experience can vary drastically for better or for worse) but it feels less punishing as time goes on and your Pokemon level up.
After 100 days with the game, the creature care and team building are what I’m primarily interested in. As a sleep tracker, I have found the novelty to fade. I like this app better as a game and at this point I kind of wish I didn’t have to deal with tracking sleep for it. Unfortunately, Pokemon Sleep requires me to interact with it during times I don’t want to look at my phone: bedtime and first thing in the morning. I was relieved to discover that putting my phone in Airplane Mode during sleep sessions was possible without compromising data (I sleep poorly with my phone next to my head), but I’d still prefer to put my phone anywhere but in the bed with me. This has grated on me over the course of 100 days, not the RNG factors in the game mechanics which was my primary complaint in my original review. This is ultimately why I think I will put this game aside at some point in the near future.
I commend the game for a lot of things, most notably its art/music, its low maintenance events, and the way it’s kept its monetization out of the way and completely optional for those familiar with the forward thinking and resource management required in free to play games. You can play Pokemon Sleep in peace, as it should be. If you’re against monetization on principle though, this game likely won’t be an exception. If you’re looking for a full featured Pokemon game or a full featured sleep tracking app, Pokemon Sleep isn’t any of these things either. If you can’t tolerate the slow no-binge pacing of games intended to be played daily, if you don’t enjoy idle mechanics, or if you are put off by multiple currencies and shops, this game probably won’t change your mind on any of that. Pokemon Sleep is a game that needs to be played as intended (casually, daily, and long term) to see and appreciate what it's really offering. It won’t be an app for every Pokemon fan.
Armored Core VI is everything a mech game should be. It has meaningful robot customization, challenging combat, a clean UI, and (most importantly) a great story with deeply interesting characters. This review is very short but it's not for lack of topics to talk about. I wanted to keep this spoiler-free and the story in Fires of Rubicon left a lasting impact on me that I highly recommend others experience first hand. I'm eager to jump back in and play again for other endings in the future as well.
The mission-based structure is such a breath of fresh air as games in general (including FromSoft’s last release, Elden Ring) feel like they’re only getting bigger and longer. They don’t need to be that way to give the player a substantial experience and Armored Core VI is proof. As a big fan of the studio’s other work, I think that this is their most challenging game combat-wise but its placement of checkpoints within missions made retrying fights again and again much less of a pain than it has been in the past.
Additional bonus: I’ve never played an Armored Core game before this and I never once felt like anything was missing when I was playing VI.
The mission-based structure is such a breath of fresh air as games in general (including FromSoft’s last release, Elden Ring) feel like they’re only getting bigger and longer. They don’t need to be that way to give the player a substantial experience and Armored Core VI is proof. As a big fan of the studio’s other work, I think that this is their most challenging game combat-wise but its placement of checkpoints within missions made retrying fights again and again much less of a pain than it has been in the past.
Additional bonus: I’ve never played an Armored Core game before this and I never once felt like anything was missing when I was playing VI.
This review contains spoilers
I’ve always loved the idea of dating sim games but I rarely actually enjoy them in practice. I inevitably get bored, frustrated, or burned out by repetitive scenarios that don’t go the way I think they will. Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side: 1st Love is the first game of its type that I actually rolled the credits on. It’s been years since a game has kept me up late on a work night the way this one did.
In Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side: 1st Love, you play as a teenage girl making everyday decisions about school, jobs, and relationships through all three of your high school years. Each week, you decide what to focus on (studying, club activities, exercise, etc.) and it either raises or lowers relevant stats on each day of that week. Your schedule is also something that needs to be managed and you can’t pay attention to everyone/everything you’re interested in at once. By prioritizing one activity, you are inevitably passing up on others, so your approach to raising certain stats or fostering certain relationships is important to your end result when you reach graduation.
As a game, I really enjoyed this system. The pacing had good momentum, the dialogue boxes were kept short, and I didn’t feel like any part of the game overstayed its welcome. I easily became invested in my life at the school (the voice acting and how it sounded in the DS’s tinny speakers made conversations feel more intimate somehow) and I looked forward to seeing how things would play out. At times, things even got pretty dramatic between me and my friends or potential boyfriends. I had a blast when it did, but it also made me hyper-aware of the parts of this simulation that were troubling.
As the year progresses and your relationships become more challenging, there is a demand put on you to succeed in all things. By about half way through second year, I was starting to feel like the story was an exercise in becoming the perfect people pleaser. By that point, I knew which boy I was hoping to end up with and the pressure was steadily rising to always say the right thing, touch them only at the right time, wear the right outfit for their tastes, and to consider the needs of everyone in my social life when deciding how to spend my time. Rarely was I ever given the same courtesy in return. Regardless of how well I thought things were going, the boys wouldn’t hesitate to say mean things if I messed up in minor ways. When you act the way you’re expected to, everyone likes you just fine. But if you take a risk on addressing someone with more familiarity too soon, inviting them to someplace new, or even if you have a different opinion on something than they would, it’s a setback in your relationship with them. They will express their displeasure directly to you for these things and you’re expected to adjust yourself for them if you want things to work out, but there are negative consequences if you are the one to reject them. The player character’s kid brother is your relationship “guru” and he shows up to let you know when you’re neglecting literally any boy and he tells you to get your act together before anything bad happens. Neglected boys will interfere with your successful relationships, so everyone must be placated.
To achieve the ultimate placation, you have to go on dates with everyone and act the way they want you to. The dates start to get grindy after a while because it entails repeating conversations and giving the same “correct” response every time. That was actually really funny because the boys show preference for consistent and agreeable girls but if you dare to wear the same outfit more than once, they will complain even if they approved of it before. All of these boys suck so bad, they’re the worst.
By succeeding in making everyone else happy, you get what the game communicates as a positive outcome. That part feels pretty yucky, but did I expect better from this 2007 DS game about high school dating? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I was loving the drama and the mess was genuinely a fun ride. “Failing” relationships and changing my approach was part of the experience and it made the narrative feel alive. The characters are reactive to your choices, so it was more entertaining to make different choices as I went along. I only played through a single time, but it’s apparent to me that there are many different approaches to this game and there is still a lot I didn’t see. I’m not sure I’ll take the time to play through again, but I am curious about what a new playthrough would look like now that I am familiar with the mechanics.
I'm happy with the ending I got, which was the friendship ending with Fujii. I met her after I rage-quit the basketball club because Suzuka was being a jerk to me (again) and my best friend at the time Konno told me ON MY BIRTHDAY that she had feelings for him even tho I had been going out with him for months by that point. So I joined cheerleading and Fujii was cool from the start. We were each others’ wingman on double dates, we sold crafts at flea markets together, and we had lots of “perfect weeks” hanging out and talking about fashion. By the end, we both failed in just about everything but we did it together. We failed to get into universities, we failed to get boyfriends, and we both got so-so jobs after graduation. All things considered, I think it’s cool we got to stay together and keep hanging out after high school. Too bad girls don't have a Love meter in this game because I definitely got the best relationship outcome. Fujii told me once at the flea market that she’d marry me if she could and that doesn’t sound like a bad deal at all.
In Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side: 1st Love, you play as a teenage girl making everyday decisions about school, jobs, and relationships through all three of your high school years. Each week, you decide what to focus on (studying, club activities, exercise, etc.) and it either raises or lowers relevant stats on each day of that week. Your schedule is also something that needs to be managed and you can’t pay attention to everyone/everything you’re interested in at once. By prioritizing one activity, you are inevitably passing up on others, so your approach to raising certain stats or fostering certain relationships is important to your end result when you reach graduation.
As a game, I really enjoyed this system. The pacing had good momentum, the dialogue boxes were kept short, and I didn’t feel like any part of the game overstayed its welcome. I easily became invested in my life at the school (the voice acting and how it sounded in the DS’s tinny speakers made conversations feel more intimate somehow) and I looked forward to seeing how things would play out. At times, things even got pretty dramatic between me and my friends or potential boyfriends. I had a blast when it did, but it also made me hyper-aware of the parts of this simulation that were troubling.
As the year progresses and your relationships become more challenging, there is a demand put on you to succeed in all things. By about half way through second year, I was starting to feel like the story was an exercise in becoming the perfect people pleaser. By that point, I knew which boy I was hoping to end up with and the pressure was steadily rising to always say the right thing, touch them only at the right time, wear the right outfit for their tastes, and to consider the needs of everyone in my social life when deciding how to spend my time. Rarely was I ever given the same courtesy in return. Regardless of how well I thought things were going, the boys wouldn’t hesitate to say mean things if I messed up in minor ways. When you act the way you’re expected to, everyone likes you just fine. But if you take a risk on addressing someone with more familiarity too soon, inviting them to someplace new, or even if you have a different opinion on something than they would, it’s a setback in your relationship with them. They will express their displeasure directly to you for these things and you’re expected to adjust yourself for them if you want things to work out, but there are negative consequences if you are the one to reject them. The player character’s kid brother is your relationship “guru” and he shows up to let you know when you’re neglecting literally any boy and he tells you to get your act together before anything bad happens. Neglected boys will interfere with your successful relationships, so everyone must be placated.
To achieve the ultimate placation, you have to go on dates with everyone and act the way they want you to. The dates start to get grindy after a while because it entails repeating conversations and giving the same “correct” response every time. That was actually really funny because the boys show preference for consistent and agreeable girls but if you dare to wear the same outfit more than once, they will complain even if they approved of it before. All of these boys suck so bad, they’re the worst.
By succeeding in making everyone else happy, you get what the game communicates as a positive outcome. That part feels pretty yucky, but did I expect better from this 2007 DS game about high school dating? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I was loving the drama and the mess was genuinely a fun ride. “Failing” relationships and changing my approach was part of the experience and it made the narrative feel alive. The characters are reactive to your choices, so it was more entertaining to make different choices as I went along. I only played through a single time, but it’s apparent to me that there are many different approaches to this game and there is still a lot I didn’t see. I’m not sure I’ll take the time to play through again, but I am curious about what a new playthrough would look like now that I am familiar with the mechanics.
I'm happy with the ending I got, which was the friendship ending with Fujii. I met her after I rage-quit the basketball club because Suzuka was being a jerk to me (again) and my best friend at the time Konno told me ON MY BIRTHDAY that she had feelings for him even tho I had been going out with him for months by that point. So I joined cheerleading and Fujii was cool from the start. We were each others’ wingman on double dates, we sold crafts at flea markets together, and we had lots of “perfect weeks” hanging out and talking about fashion. By the end, we both failed in just about everything but we did it together. We failed to get into universities, we failed to get boyfriends, and we both got so-so jobs after graduation. All things considered, I think it’s cool we got to stay together and keep hanging out after high school. Too bad girls don't have a Love meter in this game because I definitely got the best relationship outcome. Fujii told me once at the flea market that she’d marry me if she could and that doesn’t sound like a bad deal at all.
2020
Phasmophobia is a decent "sometimes" game. I’ve played a bunch of it with friends and had a good time, but I don’t get much mileage out of what the game offers long term. It has a lot going for it - It does suspense pretty well, opening doors or descending into dark basements with the terrible starter flashlight always made me uneasy. But if you’re playing to win, the game loses a lot of what makes it fun. This game is best played with people who are easily spooked but curious enough to take risks and interact with objects often. Interesting things can happen if you push the ghost’s buttons, but if you play it too safe then the game gets dull quickly. Just about all of what makes this game engaging is riding on how far the players are willing to go even when they don’t necessarily need to. It makes for good entertainment certainly, but as someone who likes ghost stories I find Phasmo’s theming to be seriously lacking. Ghost stories at their heart are about people, often isolated, exploited, and victimized. Even in the campiest of B movies, the idea of the tortured spirit is usually justified to some degree. But Phasmo doesn't care about people, their stories, or even ghosts all that much. Encounters with ghosts are boiled down to their barest bones: what gear to use and where. At the start of each round, we are given the name of the ghost but no information about how they died and why their spirit has stuck around to kill anyone who bothers it. The game's mission is simple: identify the ghost and leave it behind to continue its haunting. I can only presume that better spirit mediums than us and maybe exorcists will be on the way after we're gone. If it wasn't so evident that it was excluded intentionally, I would complain that the most fun part of dealing with a ghost is not a part of Phasmo's gameplay. Instead, my biggest gripe with Phasmo is that it pointedly refuses to acknowledge a story within the rich subject matter it's chosen. Phasmo is not a storytelling game but I would like it better if it was.
2021
Wobbledogs is a terrible delight of mad science and pet care. In this sandbox world of canine containment bays, you embrace the whims of “what happens if I breed this dog with a comically small head?” right alongside “what if I only fed this dog onion rings for its entire life?” The act of wildly irresponsible animal husbandry is richly rewarded with every generation as your dogs reckon with their own anatomy. I zoom the camera out and view my multi-room compound from afar. I zoom the camera in and focus on a room full of stumbling idiots biting each other, neon body parts from a fallen companion left uneaten, and wet stains from a dubious emergence scattered about the astroturf. I love each and every one of my profoundly incompetent Wobbledogs and I am not open to criticisms.
My biggest issue with this game is that I played it on Switch. It works well enough but the controls are pretty awful. Rather than being able to mouse over anything, there is a reticle in the center of the screen that must be lined up with whatever it is you want to click. Anything that walks or rolls away might take one or two attempts to “catch.” It takes some getting used to and the best it gets is mildly annoying. The port is pretty bad, so if you have the option then you should play it on PC.
My biggest issue with this game is that I played it on Switch. It works well enough but the controls are pretty awful. Rather than being able to mouse over anything, there is a reticle in the center of the screen that must be lined up with whatever it is you want to click. Anything that walks or rolls away might take one or two attempts to “catch.” It takes some getting used to and the best it gets is mildly annoying. The port is pretty bad, so if you have the option then you should play it on PC.
1992
I have really fond memories of playing Treasure MathStorm in my middle school computer lab. My class went nuts for this game, we would beg to play it constantly. Out of the many childhood edutainment games I played back then, memories of this one have stuck with me the most. I was curious about whether or not this game holds up, so I decided to emulate and it and give it a go.
I was honestly pleasantly surprised. Of course this is a very old game for children so I have to judge it based on that criteria, but I found it compelling nonetheless. The story is kind of nonsense but the art is charming and the music has solid hooks - it's not repetitive (for how long you spend hearing each song) or irritating like the music in a lot of these games can be. Each level of the mountain has its own sound and distinct appearance. Even the main NPCs on each level have subtle personality quirks suggested in their animations that are fitting for them; the Time elf on the first level will tap his watch if you take too long to determine the answer and tap his foot in time to your button inputs, for example. The prizes you get for completing each climb are also animated if you press their corresponding number while in the prize cave. These little details weren't necessary for an educational game to do its job but they do a lot of heavy lifting to make Treasure Mountain a place I wanted to be. I don't recall noticing all of these details when I was a kid but I definitely appreciated them now.
I streamed about 2 hours of this for some friends who are also nostalgic about 90s edutainment games and I figured I'd stop afterwards. But as I was ranking up and getting the prizes, I realized that I had never actually made much progress in this game when I was a kid. I was curious about what would happen at the end. So over the course of 2 weeks I chipped away at it. If there's anything bad to say about this game, it's that playing it with the goal of winning sure is a grind. Comparatively, mind you. I've spent longer in other games' repetitive tedium by far but the nature of the doing the same loop over and over with the moderate effort required to do middle school level math (if you were never a math wiz like me) certainly gets to a person. But this game was not made for me, an adult. Children tend to do much better with a structure like this because they have much more time on their hands and fewer expectations of how to best spend it.
I won't make judgement calls here on how good of a use of my time an entire play-through of Treasure MathStorm was for me or anyone my age. It's not the point. But I will say that I actually enjoyed myself. I didn't expect anything big from the ending and it was just satisfying enough. I got to see the end with my own effort and that's all I really wanted from the experience. It was cool to revisit a strong piece of nostalgia from my childhood.
I was honestly pleasantly surprised. Of course this is a very old game for children so I have to judge it based on that criteria, but I found it compelling nonetheless. The story is kind of nonsense but the art is charming and the music has solid hooks - it's not repetitive (for how long you spend hearing each song) or irritating like the music in a lot of these games can be. Each level of the mountain has its own sound and distinct appearance. Even the main NPCs on each level have subtle personality quirks suggested in their animations that are fitting for them; the Time elf on the first level will tap his watch if you take too long to determine the answer and tap his foot in time to your button inputs, for example. The prizes you get for completing each climb are also animated if you press their corresponding number while in the prize cave. These little details weren't necessary for an educational game to do its job but they do a lot of heavy lifting to make Treasure Mountain a place I wanted to be. I don't recall noticing all of these details when I was a kid but I definitely appreciated them now.
I streamed about 2 hours of this for some friends who are also nostalgic about 90s edutainment games and I figured I'd stop afterwards. But as I was ranking up and getting the prizes, I realized that I had never actually made much progress in this game when I was a kid. I was curious about what would happen at the end. So over the course of 2 weeks I chipped away at it. If there's anything bad to say about this game, it's that playing it with the goal of winning sure is a grind. Comparatively, mind you. I've spent longer in other games' repetitive tedium by far but the nature of the doing the same loop over and over with the moderate effort required to do middle school level math (if you were never a math wiz like me) certainly gets to a person. But this game was not made for me, an adult. Children tend to do much better with a structure like this because they have much more time on their hands and fewer expectations of how to best spend it.
I won't make judgement calls here on how good of a use of my time an entire play-through of Treasure MathStorm was for me or anyone my age. It's not the point. But I will say that I actually enjoyed myself. I didn't expect anything big from the ending and it was just satisfying enough. I got to see the end with my own effort and that's all I really wanted from the experience. It was cool to revisit a strong piece of nostalgia from my childhood.
This review contains spoilers
Over two decades later, this game still holds up pretty well for what it is. Nostalgia has always been hard for me to fully indulge in as much as I would love to let it determine my experience with old games, but I genuinely had a good time replaying this. The music and animated sprites are still just as charming as they were. Johto is an interesting region to traverse, even if they did go overboard with Water HMs; it's an effort to get to some places on this map which is a key part of the adventure in these games so ultimately I appreciate the intention there. The most difficult part of Gen 2 is the then-new split between special and physical Attack and Defense which makes some Pokemon less useful due to which stat their type uses and how limited their movepools are. This combined with the best TMs in the game being found post-E4 made building a mechanically interesting team more of a challenge than it maybe should be considering the introduction of two new under-utilized Pokemon types as well. The Kanto half of the game is just as disappointing today as it was back in 2000, but I give them credit for trying. It was a very cool idea.
Pretty much all of the old Pokemon games are improved with some imagination on the players' part, which is probably why I had so much fun with them as a kid. Despite how dated this game is, I still feel like it's possible for players today to make each playthrough their own. This time I beat the E4 with all stage 1 Pokemon, which is a really fun challenge in early Pokemon gens when the games were a little harder. What Crystal lacks in balancing and pacing, it makes up for in entertainment value. It's still a really solid game to spend time with however you choose to do it.
Pretty much all of the old Pokemon games are improved with some imagination on the players' part, which is probably why I had so much fun with them as a kid. Despite how dated this game is, I still feel like it's possible for players today to make each playthrough their own. This time I beat the E4 with all stage 1 Pokemon, which is a really fun challenge in early Pokemon gens when the games were a little harder. What Crystal lacks in balancing and pacing, it makes up for in entertainment value. It's still a really solid game to spend time with however you choose to do it.
2023
Freaky Trip was... a trip lol. I see what the game is going for. It's got a quirky art style and seeks to be a modern take on the old point and click style Flash games. I did enjoy its vibe. But the logic puzzles weren't entirely logical which made them less satisfying to figure out. A lot of them had cause and effects that were whimsical but also creative in a way that wasn't using a universal logic. I used the hints for nearly every puzzle because it wanted me to do something I would never guess to do. Even knowing the hint didn't always lead me to what I needed to do, but I do appreciate that it doesn't give you free answers either. I think this game would be good to play with children because the chaotic nature of their imaginations would agree with the not-logic of this game. I played Freaky Trip in one sitting and still had fun with it despite my complaints. I can't exactly recommend it, especially because the game does have some bugs that require you to quit to main menu to reset the puzzle, but I can get behind some nonsense when it's in an interesting package like this.