Cold_Comfort
394 Reviews liked by Cold_Comfort
Handshakes
2022
This mf is how I look like after giving my friends the single most infuriating, frustrating, and overly drawn out match they will ever have in their lives, in any given fighting game.
Venineth
2020
I Shoulda Never Smoke That Shit Now Im At Peshay Studio Set (1996)
A genuinely lovely and methodical puzzle platformer that leans into abstraction without sacrificing its internal logic for the player's sake. Much the same as The Witness, Popol Maya, and even Clutter 1000, Venineth is entirely atextual, its ruleset deduced purely through play. Whereas those other titles can lead to frustration and walls when their logic is not understood, Venineth makes every effort to delicately railroad the player towards their objective. These enormous levels might seem incomprehensible in scale at first, but clever design and the nature of the respawn system ensures that progress is always made, never undone. Patience can certainly be worn down -- one segment near the end of the game had me wandering in one locale for over an hour because I had missed an object -- but the experience on the whole is meditative enough to encourage slowing down and thoughtfully considering what lay before you. And if the atmosphere itself does not suggest such a pace, your immeasurable momentum does.
Gameplay isn't where Venineth shines brightest. Its landscapes are undoubtedly the best I have seen in possibly any game. The dev team's Polish background is abundantly clear through sweeping vistas and reflective corridors that seem ripped straight from the mid-2000's demoscene. Impossible geometric hyperstructures float above eternal seas of clouds, cubes intersect in perpetuity, hexagonal prisms stretch like unceasing columns of basalt. Yet even as an Unreal Engine 4 title, this feels less like a tech-demo and more like a set of playable Bryce renders. There is a specificity to its textures and lighting that encapsulates a simultaneously horrifying and heart-warming liminality. The abutting of perfect cones, cubes, tori, and spheres against the natural world exacerbates this. It is a (post?/hyper?)mechanical imposition on places not our own. The only evidences of life are those geometries, the occasional fleshy nodule, rare flittering yellow wings in the sky. All the while, space ambient music is your steady companion, sometimes puncuated by DnB. The absence of tracker music is to Venineth's benefit, as its presence would no doubt make the illusion err on the side of nostalgiabaiting.
By no means for everyone, by all means for me.
A genuinely lovely and methodical puzzle platformer that leans into abstraction without sacrificing its internal logic for the player's sake. Much the same as The Witness, Popol Maya, and even Clutter 1000, Venineth is entirely atextual, its ruleset deduced purely through play. Whereas those other titles can lead to frustration and walls when their logic is not understood, Venineth makes every effort to delicately railroad the player towards their objective. These enormous levels might seem incomprehensible in scale at first, but clever design and the nature of the respawn system ensures that progress is always made, never undone. Patience can certainly be worn down -- one segment near the end of the game had me wandering in one locale for over an hour because I had missed an object -- but the experience on the whole is meditative enough to encourage slowing down and thoughtfully considering what lay before you. And if the atmosphere itself does not suggest such a pace, your immeasurable momentum does.
Gameplay isn't where Venineth shines brightest. Its landscapes are undoubtedly the best I have seen in possibly any game. The dev team's Polish background is abundantly clear through sweeping vistas and reflective corridors that seem ripped straight from the mid-2000's demoscene. Impossible geometric hyperstructures float above eternal seas of clouds, cubes intersect in perpetuity, hexagonal prisms stretch like unceasing columns of basalt. Yet even as an Unreal Engine 4 title, this feels less like a tech-demo and more like a set of playable Bryce renders. There is a specificity to its textures and lighting that encapsulates a simultaneously horrifying and heart-warming liminality. The abutting of perfect cones, cubes, tori, and spheres against the natural world exacerbates this. It is a (post?/hyper?)mechanical imposition on places not our own. The only evidences of life are those geometries, the occasional fleshy nodule, rare flittering yellow wings in the sky. All the while, space ambient music is your steady companion, sometimes puncuated by DnB. The absence of tracker music is to Venineth's benefit, as its presence would no doubt make the illusion err on the side of nostalgiabaiting.
By no means for everyone, by all means for me.
Signalis
2022
This review contains spoilers
(Thank you to Cold_Comfort for basically buying me this game and to ConeCvltist for editing this)
The human mind is not something most can really comprehend. Its ability give life to the inanimate, to birth languages & actions, and to remember is something that most of us take for granted. Despite our own lack of understanding of ourselves, humanity has pushed on: we’ve explored space, made interplanetary discoveries, and created technological wonders. Gestalts & Replikas are shot out into the vast emptiness of space to explore the furthest ends of the galaxy for thousands of cycles. If they succeed, they get to rejoice in their successful expedition, but if they fail, they will have to accept the natural forces that fate has pushed upon them. And yet, the mind still goes unquestioned.
How does one deal with the acceptance of their death? It's recommended to have your Replika assist you in the swift process of death, but what if they too, fail? Would the human mind persist and prosper? It's an unlikely situation but the persistence of the mind has proven to be strong within the exploration of the infinite universes, and the creation of the complex yet refined Replikas. Our natural instinct to reject death would have the human grow older and older with every passing cycle, crying out for someone for comfort while staring into the cold face of death, their wails creating a beautiful symphony, one that contorts the perception of reality around themselves, corrupting the minds who can't take its wonderful composition, and creating twisted masses and amalgamations of flesh left to writhe where they shouldn't. A song that cries out for someone to fulfill a long forgotten promise, to dance to a long forgotten song. They project their memories onto others in desperate search for someone. The infinite vastness of space quickly becomes claustrophobic in the confines of memory, leaving those who haven't succumbed to the memory's symphonic nature cursed to relive the same day
over
and
over
again.
Remember our promise. Keep our promise. Make our promise.
The human mind is not something most can really comprehend. Its ability give life to the inanimate, to birth languages & actions, and to remember is something that most of us take for granted. Despite our own lack of understanding of ourselves, humanity has pushed on: we’ve explored space, made interplanetary discoveries, and created technological wonders. Gestalts & Replikas are shot out into the vast emptiness of space to explore the furthest ends of the galaxy for thousands of cycles. If they succeed, they get to rejoice in their successful expedition, but if they fail, they will have to accept the natural forces that fate has pushed upon them. And yet, the mind still goes unquestioned.
How does one deal with the acceptance of their death? It's recommended to have your Replika assist you in the swift process of death, but what if they too, fail? Would the human mind persist and prosper? It's an unlikely situation but the persistence of the mind has proven to be strong within the exploration of the infinite universes, and the creation of the complex yet refined Replikas. Our natural instinct to reject death would have the human grow older and older with every passing cycle, crying out for someone for comfort while staring into the cold face of death, their wails creating a beautiful symphony, one that contorts the perception of reality around themselves, corrupting the minds who can't take its wonderful composition, and creating twisted masses and amalgamations of flesh left to writhe where they shouldn't. A song that cries out for someone to fulfill a long forgotten promise, to dance to a long forgotten song. They project their memories onto others in desperate search for someone. The infinite vastness of space quickly becomes claustrophobic in the confines of memory, leaving those who haven't succumbed to the memory's symphonic nature cursed to relive the same day
over
and
over
again.
Remember our promise. Keep our promise. Make our promise.
Somer Assault
1992
What your ZODIAC SIGN says about YOU 😱
aries: you should probably play a better game
taurus: you should probably play a better game
gemini: you should probably play a better game
cancer: you should probably play a better game
leo: you should probably play a better game
virgo: you should probably play a better game
libra: you should probably play a better game
scorpio: you should probably play a better game
sagittarius: you should probably play a better game
capricorn: you should probably play a better game
aquarius: you should probably play a better game
pisces: you should probably play a better game
aries: you should probably play a better game
taurus: you should probably play a better game
gemini: you should probably play a better game
cancer: you should probably play a better game
leo: you should probably play a better game
virgo: you should probably play a better game
libra: you should probably play a better game
scorpio: you should probably play a better game
sagittarius: you should probably play a better game
capricorn: you should probably play a better game
aquarius: you should probably play a better game
pisces: you should probably play a better game
I'm glad Yuji Naka is in prison
Somer Assault
1992
Approximately five months ago I played Gate of Thunder (real fuckin' good game) and successfully gaslit at least 17 people into thinking I was gonna start exploring the Turbografix/PC Engine library, and proceeded to put more effort into the Atari Jaguar instead. Y'all should've seen your faces, I got you so bad! Calculated and just as planned.
It took BL game club and my pathetic want of needing to be a part of something to play another PCE game. One about playing as a toy made by an American naval engineer from my home state apparently, that was originally priced at one whole didgeridoo, I think that's like five-hundred didgeridoos these days adjusted for inflation. This particular Slinky toy was born from a Louie egg straight outta Bomberman dropped by...Christian God? At least that's the story for Mesopotamia, the Japanese release of Somer Assault. Did you get the pun? Hee hee ho. In Somer Assault the intro is just a boring villainous monologue from the sorceress as the Slinky inexplicably appears and goes "I WILL STOP YOU FOUL VILLAIN!!!" in an overly heroic voice as I like to imagine.
Afterwards you proceed to clumsily bumble your way through the Amiga-ass stages and hold down the turbo button to blast bosses in the noggin constantly after you find safe spots, or simply tank through everything with your humongous lifebar that you gained from the generous drop rates of the power ups from the eternally respawning enemies. I actually almost timed out in the first stage of Mesopotamia when I first booted it up, but Somer Assault makes things easier, which to me is almost unheard of. I'm so used to it being the other way around! I completely blame Konami for making their games harder overseas on that one, I'm still suffering from the fallout of Bayou Billy on that shit.
I think it's neat! Different for sure! Am I coming back to it? Eh...I think it's just kinda hee ho-hum. Go play Gate of Thunder instead. I'm gonna go watch Ace Ventura When Nature Calls for the 500th time.
It took BL game club and my pathetic want of needing to be a part of something to play another PCE game. One about playing as a toy made by an American naval engineer from my home state apparently, that was originally priced at one whole didgeridoo, I think that's like five-hundred didgeridoos these days adjusted for inflation. This particular Slinky toy was born from a Louie egg straight outta Bomberman dropped by...Christian God? At least that's the story for Mesopotamia, the Japanese release of Somer Assault. Did you get the pun? Hee hee ho. In Somer Assault the intro is just a boring villainous monologue from the sorceress as the Slinky inexplicably appears and goes "I WILL STOP YOU FOUL VILLAIN!!!" in an overly heroic voice as I like to imagine.
Afterwards you proceed to clumsily bumble your way through the Amiga-ass stages and hold down the turbo button to blast bosses in the noggin constantly after you find safe spots, or simply tank through everything with your humongous lifebar that you gained from the generous drop rates of the power ups from the eternally respawning enemies. I actually almost timed out in the first stage of Mesopotamia when I first booted it up, but Somer Assault makes things easier, which to me is almost unheard of. I'm so used to it being the other way around! I completely blame Konami for making their games harder overseas on that one, I'm still suffering from the fallout of Bayou Billy on that shit.
I think it's neat! Different for sure! Am I coming back to it? Eh...I think it's just kinda hee ho-hum. Go play Gate of Thunder instead. I'm gonna go watch Ace Ventura When Nature Calls for the 500th time.
Celeste: Farewell
2019
This review contains spoilers
Celeste is a game about climbing a mountain. From what I observe generally, people see that, play it, get to the Summit chapter, conclude with "yeah that was pretty good, a bit heavy-handed with the main metaphor, but it was pleasant enough" and move on. Maybe they'll try some B-side bonus content, maybe they'll play a bit of the PICO-8 original, but most people I've seen are happy enough leaving that as the experience. The story is over, right? Why keep playing? She had to overcome the mountain, and she did just that. That's the end of it.
But what if you kept going?
What if you came back with the 4 Crystal Hearts for Chapter 8, with Madeline revisiting the mountain an in-game year later? She had no real reason for being there in the first place, and now she's there again. Why are you still there and not playing something else? Was it the gameplay that was so intricately crafted, Maddy's still updating it years later to improve the feel on a microscopic level? Lena Raine's shimmering arpeggios? The friendly cast of faces Madeline met with, brought to life with voices that were actually ridiculously elaborate in implementation? A perhaps too simple and saccharine approach to mental health draped in pastel colours, that made for a warm and relatable enough environment you could maybe appreciate nonetheless? Even from this game's biggest detractors, I still usually hear "it's so polished tho". The amount of care that went into Celeste fires through on all cylinders.
Okay, but what if you just kept going.
What if you did all the B-sides. And now the C-sides. Every strawberry. The golden strawberries too maybe? That one achievement where you get 6 strawberries back to back? Speedruns? Custom levels?
Completionism is pretty normal territory for people that really like a game, and Farewell muscles its way in as one more thing to check off the list. Some time long ago, Celeste stopped being a game primarily about climbing a mountain for these people, as they had found themselves consumed in every bit of the experience. Trying to fill that cake Madeline bakes at the end with as many strawberries as they could. Really milking that climbing action.
Not moving on.
So isn't it funny that Farewell's a story about grief, pelting Madeline every few minutes with "hey, you should move on now"? Part of Her gives up with reasoning as to why she shouldn't be using her psychic mountain climbing powers to spend the entire chapter chasing after a bird. She met Granny, she climbed that mountain, these were events in the past. She should just move on now. You're still playing Celeste, named after the mountain you're meant to be climbing, even though you painstakingly covered every inch of it already. "The mountain looks like a molehill from here," she remarks, even though you're still playing Celeste.
Madeline contorts herself in dashes and obscure movement techs, in order to scrape through the most pulverising screens the game now has to offer, because you just can't get enough of the climb. Even when there's no mountain left, when she's lost in dreams of exploding puffer fish, flying jellyfish (...green moose, guava juice), as the game is throwing literally every gimmick you've seen up to this point while introducing new shit at the 11th hour, glitching out, putting up barriers, demanding wavedash finesse, it's hard to stop playing. I quite like it giving you a Crystal Heart that doesn't count at one point, to tie together the completionism with grief further. "Empty Space". Maybe depicting grief with even more shmovement thandysphoria depression and anxiety in the main game might be just as whitewashy, or worse. It still feels well-intentioned enough, ending on a really sweet note, and there's no "omg selfies #buzzed YOLOOO!!" talk going on this time. Sorry Theo.
Farewell is a message to those fans ultimately. Not the ones that just dipped after beating it, but the ones that really exhausted that damn mountain. It was originally intended to be played after beating every C-side, though it pops up innocuously for anyone newly done with Chapter 8, only unceremoniously gating them halfway through (and requiring 15 Crystal Hearts, as opposed to 23). This is maybe my biggest complaint, as the only warning sign here saying "hey, maybe don't play this until you've worked through all the content?" prior to that is the fact that Madeline is just chilling in the 7C scenery upon starting it — something only people that already played 7C would catch onto.
Despite the stellar rating curve on the left there (which I suspect has some survivor bias), I'd say Farewell is a bit more polarising in how it's been received, judging from people's reactions online. It's obscenely difficult and seriously expects you to master some fairly obscure movement, introduced with as much grace as exploding fish to the face, as per how I expect the average experience went for a lot of people:
"Oh cool, I unlocked Ch 9 after beating Ch 8."
"Why is this so fucking hard? What is all this shit?"
"I need FIFTEEN HEARTS to get past that gate? After all that?"
(if they actually went and did that) "This game has WAVEDASHING??"
Such a clumsy way of going "oh anyone can play this but uh, actually no, sorry. It's for the hardcore fans lol". Farewell just ends up recontextualising all that "optional" stuff as a much more integral part of the game. It's titled and presented in such a way that anyone can clearly see that this is now that resolving piano chord at the end of it all, giving Celeste an air of finality, but its deceptive title of "Chapter 9" just works against it when there's a sea of content directly preceding it.
Despite all of that though, I'm confident in saying that this is my favourite part of Celeste. The twinkly luminous environs, the music ebbing back and forth from foreign to familiar as new motifs are weaved in with old... Madeline's just zooming, wavedashing, wallbouncing off of the most disjunct objects in this spaced out dreamy... aquarium... techno-observatory? I love how that visual style comes together when there are like 4 different themes being patchworked together. Every 5 seconds you're demanded to do some nebulous, evil oneiro-parkour, but you can't stop. You made it this far and you're not missing that last screen, damn it. Dash, dash, scrape against spikes, die. Just in this zen stupor, set to these spaced out surroundings, retooling yourself again and again. This was my 3rd playthrough of this game over the last 5 years, and my 2nd time ending on Farewell. It really truly feels wrong to me to actually stop playing at any point before Farewell. It's one of the most beautiful endings to any game I've played, and one I keep feeling eager to come back to in spite of thousands of deaths.
Happy 5th anniversary Celeste. Farewell for now.
--------------------------
A couple notes:
- I don't actually know why this is listed separately on IGDB. It's literally a free update and part of every Celeste copy, and you can't play it separately lol. I appreciate it because it feels disconnected and separate enough to the main narrative, but it'd be like if the third semester in Persona 5 Royal got its own page. That shit would have like a 4.9 average. Scary.
- They're very different ultimately, but the whole experience of physics-platforming as a girl in a surreal dream world and constantly being met with the most devious screens makes me think of Umihara Kawase. That game/series is awesome and I'd recommend checking it out if you haven't. More games like this please.
But what if you kept going?
What if you came back with the 4 Crystal Hearts for Chapter 8, with Madeline revisiting the mountain an in-game year later? She had no real reason for being there in the first place, and now she's there again. Why are you still there and not playing something else? Was it the gameplay that was so intricately crafted, Maddy's still updating it years later to improve the feel on a microscopic level? Lena Raine's shimmering arpeggios? The friendly cast of faces Madeline met with, brought to life with voices that were actually ridiculously elaborate in implementation? A perhaps too simple and saccharine approach to mental health draped in pastel colours, that made for a warm and relatable enough environment you could maybe appreciate nonetheless? Even from this game's biggest detractors, I still usually hear "it's so polished tho". The amount of care that went into Celeste fires through on all cylinders.
Okay, but what if you just kept going.
What if you did all the B-sides. And now the C-sides. Every strawberry. The golden strawberries too maybe? That one achievement where you get 6 strawberries back to back? Speedruns? Custom levels?
Completionism is pretty normal territory for people that really like a game, and Farewell muscles its way in as one more thing to check off the list. Some time long ago, Celeste stopped being a game primarily about climbing a mountain for these people, as they had found themselves consumed in every bit of the experience. Trying to fill that cake Madeline bakes at the end with as many strawberries as they could. Really milking that climbing action.
Not moving on.
So isn't it funny that Farewell's a story about grief, pelting Madeline every few minutes with "hey, you should move on now"? Part of Her gives up with reasoning as to why she shouldn't be using her psychic mountain climbing powers to spend the entire chapter chasing after a bird. She met Granny, she climbed that mountain, these were events in the past. She should just move on now. You're still playing Celeste, named after the mountain you're meant to be climbing, even though you painstakingly covered every inch of it already. "The mountain looks like a molehill from here," she remarks, even though you're still playing Celeste.
Madeline contorts herself in dashes and obscure movement techs, in order to scrape through the most pulverising screens the game now has to offer, because you just can't get enough of the climb. Even when there's no mountain left, when she's lost in dreams of exploding puffer fish, flying jellyfish (...green moose, guava juice), as the game is throwing literally every gimmick you've seen up to this point while introducing new shit at the 11th hour, glitching out, putting up barriers, demanding wavedash finesse, it's hard to stop playing. I quite like it giving you a Crystal Heart that doesn't count at one point, to tie together the completionism with grief further. "Empty Space". Maybe depicting grief with even more shmovement than
Farewell is a message to those fans ultimately. Not the ones that just dipped after beating it, but the ones that really exhausted that damn mountain. It was originally intended to be played after beating every C-side, though it pops up innocuously for anyone newly done with Chapter 8, only unceremoniously gating them halfway through (and requiring 15 Crystal Hearts, as opposed to 23). This is maybe my biggest complaint, as the only warning sign here saying "hey, maybe don't play this until you've worked through all the content?" prior to that is the fact that Madeline is just chilling in the 7C scenery upon starting it — something only people that already played 7C would catch onto.
Despite the stellar rating curve on the left there (which I suspect has some survivor bias), I'd say Farewell is a bit more polarising in how it's been received, judging from people's reactions online. It's obscenely difficult and seriously expects you to master some fairly obscure movement, introduced with as much grace as exploding fish to the face, as per how I expect the average experience went for a lot of people:
"Oh cool, I unlocked Ch 9 after beating Ch 8."
"Why is this so fucking hard? What is all this shit?"
"I need FIFTEEN HEARTS to get past that gate? After all that?"
(if they actually went and did that) "This game has WAVEDASHING??"
Such a clumsy way of going "oh anyone can play this but uh, actually no, sorry. It's for the hardcore fans lol". Farewell just ends up recontextualising all that "optional" stuff as a much more integral part of the game. It's titled and presented in such a way that anyone can clearly see that this is now that resolving piano chord at the end of it all, giving Celeste an air of finality, but its deceptive title of "Chapter 9" just works against it when there's a sea of content directly preceding it.
Despite all of that though, I'm confident in saying that this is my favourite part of Celeste. The twinkly luminous environs, the music ebbing back and forth from foreign to familiar as new motifs are weaved in with old... Madeline's just zooming, wavedashing, wallbouncing off of the most disjunct objects in this spaced out dreamy... aquarium... techno-observatory? I love how that visual style comes together when there are like 4 different themes being patchworked together. Every 5 seconds you're demanded to do some nebulous, evil oneiro-parkour, but you can't stop. You made it this far and you're not missing that last screen, damn it. Dash, dash, scrape against spikes, die. Just in this zen stupor, set to these spaced out surroundings, retooling yourself again and again. This was my 3rd playthrough of this game over the last 5 years, and my 2nd time ending on Farewell. It really truly feels wrong to me to actually stop playing at any point before Farewell. It's one of the most beautiful endings to any game I've played, and one I keep feeling eager to come back to in spite of thousands of deaths.
Happy 5th anniversary Celeste. Farewell for now.
--------------------------
A couple notes:
- I don't actually know why this is listed separately on IGDB. It's literally a free update and part of every Celeste copy, and you can't play it separately lol. I appreciate it because it feels disconnected and separate enough to the main narrative, but it'd be like if the third semester in Persona 5 Royal got its own page. That shit would have like a 4.9 average. Scary.
- They're very different ultimately, but the whole experience of physics-platforming as a girl in a surreal dream world and constantly being met with the most devious screens makes me think of Umihara Kawase. That game/series is awesome and I'd recommend checking it out if you haven't. More games like this please.
Somer Assault
1992
‘Go, my dear slaves; trample and ruin the world, then it will belong to us!’
Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (Jan. 24 – Jan. 30, 2023).
At the beginning of the 1990s, Atlus was still going through a period of experimentalism, before focusing on their most successful franchises. Among these titles, there is Somer Assault, a strange platformer concept: the player controls a Slinky, which can fire projectiles, depending on its position – stretched or retracted. This surprising gameplay is supported by a esoteric monster design that prefigures Kazuma Kaneko's work on Shin Megami Tensei (1992) and the subsequent games of the series. Somer Assault thus emerges as a somewhat arcane title, whose genesis or ambitions are difficult to trace, but has a unique status in the PC-Engine catalogue.
The player goes on a crusade against the Sorceress, who has released twelve monsters to conquer the world, each representing one of the zodiac signs. Each level consists of a maze and ends with a boss fight. While Somer Assault's gameplay is interesting, it is still caught between two conflicting philosophies. On the one hand, the title tries to unfold as a puzzle game, with an emphasis on deliberate movement to navigate obstacles; on the other, it seeks to create hurdles by adding enemies for the Splinky to destroy with its projectiles. Torn between these two approaches, the level design never manages to create anything cohesive. The levels are simply labyrinthine and barely feature any interesting ideas involving the Splinky's motion spectrum – perhaps because it would be too difficult given the timer, which in fact should not exist –, and the enemies never constitute a substantial threat, as the player always prevails thanks to the generous power-ups placed in their path. Bosses are also disappointing, as Angel_Arle pointed out, either by being slayable in a mindless rush or because the Splinky's gameplay is not designed to deal with them at all – this is particularly the case with Aquarius, who is moving far too quickly.
The result is a game that has no idea where it is headed. Every good idea is discarded before it is properly implemented, causing monotony to set in quickly. The Pisces level is interesting in that it forces the player to choose the right route to jump from platform to platform, but the difficulty is non-existent: the puzzle has no real reason to exist. More often, the player moves along long linear stretches while shooting, until finding an opening in a wall. It is an empty experience. As if to illustrate the inability to consider the game in more ambitious grounds, the confrontation against the Sorceress is preceded by a boss gauntlet. The issue with this sequence is that it is too cheap an expedient to extend the game's playtime and offers no interesting variation for any boss. Instead of having rooms with different block layouts, which can alter what strategy to use, the gauntlet takes place in empty spaces, hampering the ability to have interesting shooting angles. Perhaps it is the result of my own ineptitude, but the fight against the Sorceress was mostly a matter of doing as much damage as possible by mashing as fast as I could, before my lives – accumulated over the previous twelve levels – reached zero.
Somer Assault is perhaps more interesting in what it foreshadows, at least visually. The various monsters have a very delightful demonic quality to them, and the title seems to be sincere about its use of Babylonian mythology: the choice to write their names in the credits in Boustrophedon is amusing, if a little rogue. The game is an enjoyable curiosity, but fails to rise above that modest status.
Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (Jan. 24 – Jan. 30, 2023).
At the beginning of the 1990s, Atlus was still going through a period of experimentalism, before focusing on their most successful franchises. Among these titles, there is Somer Assault, a strange platformer concept: the player controls a Slinky, which can fire projectiles, depending on its position – stretched or retracted. This surprising gameplay is supported by a esoteric monster design that prefigures Kazuma Kaneko's work on Shin Megami Tensei (1992) and the subsequent games of the series. Somer Assault thus emerges as a somewhat arcane title, whose genesis or ambitions are difficult to trace, but has a unique status in the PC-Engine catalogue.
The player goes on a crusade against the Sorceress, who has released twelve monsters to conquer the world, each representing one of the zodiac signs. Each level consists of a maze and ends with a boss fight. While Somer Assault's gameplay is interesting, it is still caught between two conflicting philosophies. On the one hand, the title tries to unfold as a puzzle game, with an emphasis on deliberate movement to navigate obstacles; on the other, it seeks to create hurdles by adding enemies for the Splinky to destroy with its projectiles. Torn between these two approaches, the level design never manages to create anything cohesive. The levels are simply labyrinthine and barely feature any interesting ideas involving the Splinky's motion spectrum – perhaps because it would be too difficult given the timer, which in fact should not exist –, and the enemies never constitute a substantial threat, as the player always prevails thanks to the generous power-ups placed in their path. Bosses are also disappointing, as Angel_Arle pointed out, either by being slayable in a mindless rush or because the Splinky's gameplay is not designed to deal with them at all – this is particularly the case with Aquarius, who is moving far too quickly.
The result is a game that has no idea where it is headed. Every good idea is discarded before it is properly implemented, causing monotony to set in quickly. The Pisces level is interesting in that it forces the player to choose the right route to jump from platform to platform, but the difficulty is non-existent: the puzzle has no real reason to exist. More often, the player moves along long linear stretches while shooting, until finding an opening in a wall. It is an empty experience. As if to illustrate the inability to consider the game in more ambitious grounds, the confrontation against the Sorceress is preceded by a boss gauntlet. The issue with this sequence is that it is too cheap an expedient to extend the game's playtime and offers no interesting variation for any boss. Instead of having rooms with different block layouts, which can alter what strategy to use, the gauntlet takes place in empty spaces, hampering the ability to have interesting shooting angles. Perhaps it is the result of my own ineptitude, but the fight against the Sorceress was mostly a matter of doing as much damage as possible by mashing as fast as I could, before my lives – accumulated over the previous twelve levels – reached zero.
Somer Assault is perhaps more interesting in what it foreshadows, at least visually. The various monsters have a very delightful demonic quality to them, and the title seems to be sincere about its use of Babylonian mythology: the choice to write their names in the credits in Boustrophedon is amusing, if a little rogue. The game is an enjoyable curiosity, but fails to rise above that modest status.
Trip World
1992
Year of the Rabbit #2: Rec'd by Detchibe
What a cute side-scroller we got here, everything here is cute. The protagonist is cute, the enemies are cute, and the length is an adorable 20 minutes tops. You're gonna wanna give the Game Boy cartridge a bunch of head pats and tell it how cute it is. Maybe I'm biased, but Yakopoo is more adorable than Kirby. Sorry pal, get some long ears and I'll reconsider.
Yakopoo's main method of attack is a very close-range kick to the face (or nuts depending on the target), but thankfully Sunsoft had a bit of mercy and let the enemies deal no collision damage. I've always enjoyed the idea of no collision damage in a sidescroller like this, not just because it alleviates headaches with big boss characters, but I also feel it helps give more incentive to give bosses bigger and more devastating move-sets. Freedom Planet springs to mind immediately. Now are you going to get the adrenaline-pumping action of fighting Lord Brevon in Trip World? Oh god no, though there is a phase in the final boss portion where you fight a smarmy shithead version of yourself that enjoys insta-sliding into you once you're in range.
The morphing gimmick is pretty neat even if a bit odd at times, the ball one feels like speedrunning tech and the fish one is only useful for like one stage, and after that it's just a comedic ability to use a Magikarp Splash. I actually quite liked the flower power up that pacified my enemies via temporary sunflower lobotomy. It's quite a telling sign when you play as Yakopoo and kick everything in sight only to find out that some enemies are actually innocent and will only attack in retaliation. What kind of Yakopoo will you play as? The martial pacifist Yakopoo who only beats others up in self-defense, or the chaotic Majin Buu-esque force of nature that nutshots everyone they meet regardless of their allegiances?
I think it's probably just me, but this music reminds me of Sesame Street. I feel like I made that observation not long ago, and I really wouldn't be surprised if I was just losing it. Fuck it, everything is Sesame Street now!
This is also one of the few times where I massively prefer the western cover art to the Japanese one. Take a gander at that majesty! Don't work too hard boys, it's only the first thing the kids see at the game store. By the way, don't look up the price of this, you can't afford it and you're gonna blow your top especially at the difference in price and game length.
Apparently Yakopoo made an appearance as a mid-boss in Galaxy Fight, so I guess that's some interesting trivia for ya.
Can I commission someone for a Yakopoo plush? Yakopoo Yakopoo Yakopoo. Where art thou Yakopoo?
What a cute side-scroller we got here, everything here is cute. The protagonist is cute, the enemies are cute, and the length is an adorable 20 minutes tops. You're gonna wanna give the Game Boy cartridge a bunch of head pats and tell it how cute it is. Maybe I'm biased, but Yakopoo is more adorable than Kirby. Sorry pal, get some long ears and I'll reconsider.
Yakopoo's main method of attack is a very close-range kick to the face (or nuts depending on the target), but thankfully Sunsoft had a bit of mercy and let the enemies deal no collision damage. I've always enjoyed the idea of no collision damage in a sidescroller like this, not just because it alleviates headaches with big boss characters, but I also feel it helps give more incentive to give bosses bigger and more devastating move-sets. Freedom Planet springs to mind immediately. Now are you going to get the adrenaline-pumping action of fighting Lord Brevon in Trip World? Oh god no, though there is a phase in the final boss portion where you fight a smarmy shithead version of yourself that enjoys insta-sliding into you once you're in range.
The morphing gimmick is pretty neat even if a bit odd at times, the ball one feels like speedrunning tech and the fish one is only useful for like one stage, and after that it's just a comedic ability to use a Magikarp Splash. I actually quite liked the flower power up that pacified my enemies via temporary sunflower lobotomy. It's quite a telling sign when you play as Yakopoo and kick everything in sight only to find out that some enemies are actually innocent and will only attack in retaliation. What kind of Yakopoo will you play as? The martial pacifist Yakopoo who only beats others up in self-defense, or the chaotic Majin Buu-esque force of nature that nutshots everyone they meet regardless of their allegiances?
I think it's probably just me, but this music reminds me of Sesame Street. I feel like I made that observation not long ago, and I really wouldn't be surprised if I was just losing it. Fuck it, everything is Sesame Street now!
This is also one of the few times where I massively prefer the western cover art to the Japanese one. Take a gander at that majesty! Don't work too hard boys, it's only the first thing the kids see at the game store. By the way, don't look up the price of this, you can't afford it and you're gonna blow your top especially at the difference in price and game length.
Apparently Yakopoo made an appearance as a mid-boss in Galaxy Fight, so I guess that's some interesting trivia for ya.
Can I commission someone for a Yakopoo plush? Yakopoo Yakopoo Yakopoo. Where art thou Yakopoo?
Parodius
1992
S&P:SS is a rock solid rail shooter, albeit a much more crowd-pleasing affair than its predecessor, which was akin to an iron-deficient recollection of End of Evangelion as reflected through the lens of a fever dream. Star Successor takes a more generalised approach to the rail shooter formula, with fewer gimmicky segments and an easily digestible rosary of stages that begin & end in the ways you could predict. Being the sole game Yasushi Suzuki has expressly worked on as Art Director, their calibre of style and pageantry in Star Successor is absolutely off the hook - I doubt I’m being controversial in my assessment of their skill as an artist being some of the most refined aesthetic sensibilities to have blessed the medium yet. The level of planning here for boss variety is particularly impressive, I’m convinced the bones are here for a knockout boss rush title. Huge fan of the guy that turns into dolphins that bounce beachballs and jump through hoops which all become dangerous projectiles. As a whole, I’m fairly convinced that this game is more smartly designed overall than its predecessor, as the consistency with which it dolls out mindful bullet patterns that compound effortlessly on the mental stack, and contextualisations for the multi-layered hazards are nothing short of impressive.
Where things turn sour for me is in the dodgy hitboxes and how drawn-out the stages feel, as the excursions buckle under their padding and turn into fairly languid drifts across locales and enemy swarms. Nothing lasts as long as I’d feel they should, and I repeatedly find myself sighing with fatigue when another mob corridor is punctuated with another miniboss as opposed to a more meaningful perspective or narrative shift. Credit where it’s due, it’s ultimately a good thing that Treasure took a very different approach for this sequel, one that effectively showcases the ways their aesthetic and design tenets matured in the span of a decade. My preference for the original is just a consequence of it winning me over in the battle of appeals - in the personal and artistic fulfillment I gain from “imperfect” games that scan as confused little miracles. Star Successor is solid, but far too articulately concocted to give me any real sense of impact - feeling more like a product, and therefore more prone to being scrutinised over the mechanical minutia. Ultimately a miss for me, but a stunning little simulacrum of a game I still find otherworldly.
Where things turn sour for me is in the dodgy hitboxes and how drawn-out the stages feel, as the excursions buckle under their padding and turn into fairly languid drifts across locales and enemy swarms. Nothing lasts as long as I’d feel they should, and I repeatedly find myself sighing with fatigue when another mob corridor is punctuated with another miniboss as opposed to a more meaningful perspective or narrative shift. Credit where it’s due, it’s ultimately a good thing that Treasure took a very different approach for this sequel, one that effectively showcases the ways their aesthetic and design tenets matured in the span of a decade. My preference for the original is just a consequence of it winning me over in the battle of appeals - in the personal and artistic fulfillment I gain from “imperfect” games that scan as confused little miracles. Star Successor is solid, but far too articulately concocted to give me any real sense of impact - feeling more like a product, and therefore more prone to being scrutinised over the mechanical minutia. Ultimately a miss for me, but a stunning little simulacrum of a game I still find otherworldly.
Poinie's Poin
2002
What do you look for in a game YON?
Fun mechanics and engaging gameplay YON?
Interesting story with twists and likeable characters YON?
Metroidvanias, castleroids, search actions, loseyourwayers, indy jones platformers YON?!
Fun? Amusement? Enjoyment? Entertainment? A simple quality for simple minds who require simple things in a simple medium. Have I got the recommendation for you from me, of which was given to me from someone else and is now given to you.
Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!! This isn't some boring grey-brown shootbang garbage. It's got more character in it's pinky than the crap these days! La-di-da-di-da. 🎵
Sometimes all you need is an ultra-colorful platformer about finding your house as a silly little kid, with off-the-wall dialogue that will make you recite it for weeks. It's as childish as the kid you're playing as, but... goddamn was I a happy childish person by the end of it. Seriously no reason not to play it, it's short and as sweet as sweetarts with English readily available everywhere. There's even no problems on PCSX2 YON! No excuse YON!
So either pee or get off the pot. /treyparkervoice
YIPPIE YO! YOU CAN'T TOUCH THIS!
Fun mechanics and engaging gameplay YON?
Interesting story with twists and likeable characters YON?
Metroidvanias, castleroids, search actions, loseyourwayers, indy jones platformers YON?!
Fun? Amusement? Enjoyment? Entertainment? A simple quality for simple minds who require simple things in a simple medium. Have I got the recommendation for you from me, of which was given to me from someone else and is now given to you.
Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!! This isn't some boring grey-brown shootbang garbage. It's got more character in it's pinky than the crap these days! La-di-da-di-da. 🎵
Sometimes all you need is an ultra-colorful platformer about finding your house as a silly little kid, with off-the-wall dialogue that will make you recite it for weeks. It's as childish as the kid you're playing as, but... goddamn was I a happy childish person by the end of it. Seriously no reason not to play it, it's short and as sweet as sweetarts with English readily available everywhere. There's even no problems on PCSX2 YON! No excuse YON!
So either pee or get off the pot. /treyparkervoice
YIPPIE YO! YOU CAN'T TOUCH THIS!
okay so we take the first game, right?
and we add... required combat arenas.
and open ended level design that just feels like shit
with none of the interesting characters of Spider-Man since we blew em all in the first game
Oh, and 90% of the bosses and story are almost one-to-one from the first game, just with different names.
Also no one gives a shit about Electro! Die!!
...really cute credit sequence tho. ups for that.
and we add... required combat arenas.
and open ended level design that just feels like shit
with none of the interesting characters of Spider-Man since we blew em all in the first game
Oh, and 90% of the bosses and story are almost one-to-one from the first game, just with different names.
Also no one gives a shit about Electro! Die!!
...really cute credit sequence tho. ups for that.
The Norwood Suite
2017
Outstanding as a showcase for Cosmo D's musical talents, ineffectual in every other regard. The Norwood Suite represents a turning point for Cosmo D's oeuvre towards commercialisation and an acceptability for the gaming masses. The wide-open amorphous slapdash spaces of Off-Peak have been cast aside in favour of regimented, interconnected spaces which ultimately refuse the possibility of wasted time and effort on the part of the player. That isn't to say that earning money for your labour is bad. Rather, there is a sense of sterility in presentation and experience.
Though Off-Peak allowed the player total freedom in their approach to collecting their ticket pieces, The Norwood Suite has a fairly prescriptive path in place for progression. Some items may be found off the beaten path, but the primary objective feels at times like railroading -- ironic given it was the previous game which featured trains. The widespread, warm reception of The Norwood Suite in comparison to the non-coverage of works of Oleander Garden, TIMEframe, or 0_abyssalSomewhere exemplifies my issue with the former; it is off-beat, 'outsider' art presented in a manner which is palatable to non-outsiders.
To pilfer the thoughts of our greatest mind, "Cosmo D reminds me of Mr Brainwash." Like Mr. Brainwash or Banksy, there feels to be a sort of appropriation of the work by those on the periphery of the core game/art world. Cosmo D's human are of malformed flesh less to make some grander point of bodily discomfort and dysmorphia, but to come across as too weird to be uncanny, too ordinary to be anything but human. This holds true throughout the experience, striking me less as the autonomy of the self as actualised in Second Life, and more like the interpretation of that digitised Other by one who exists as an observer, a trouble maker, a mocker. By way of example, The Norwood Suite is Griffin and Justin McElroy's intentional grotesqueries made for their corporate sponsored, lampooning of the Other in their Second Life Monster Factory videos. It is insincere. Superficially about something, but altogether hollow.
Though Off-Peak allowed the player total freedom in their approach to collecting their ticket pieces, The Norwood Suite has a fairly prescriptive path in place for progression. Some items may be found off the beaten path, but the primary objective feels at times like railroading -- ironic given it was the previous game which featured trains. The widespread, warm reception of The Norwood Suite in comparison to the non-coverage of works of Oleander Garden, TIMEframe, or 0_abyssalSomewhere exemplifies my issue with the former; it is off-beat, 'outsider' art presented in a manner which is palatable to non-outsiders.
To pilfer the thoughts of our greatest mind, "Cosmo D reminds me of Mr Brainwash." Like Mr. Brainwash or Banksy, there feels to be a sort of appropriation of the work by those on the periphery of the core game/art world. Cosmo D's human are of malformed flesh less to make some grander point of bodily discomfort and dysmorphia, but to come across as too weird to be uncanny, too ordinary to be anything but human. This holds true throughout the experience, striking me less as the autonomy of the self as actualised in Second Life, and more like the interpretation of that digitised Other by one who exists as an observer, a trouble maker, a mocker. By way of example, The Norwood Suite is Griffin and Justin McElroy's intentional grotesqueries made for their corporate sponsored, lampooning of the Other in their Second Life Monster Factory videos. It is insincere. Superficially about something, but altogether hollow.
Kaze no Notam
1997
Collective longing for a by-gone era. A faded memory. Life distilled. An unwitting oxymoron.
I've never 'completed a goal' in Kaze no NOTAM. I doubt I ever will. I don't think I need to.
From the outset, Kaze no NOTAM does not read to me as a game that needs extensive play, or completion, to be understood and appreciated.
Hiroshi Nagai's Hockney-esque artwork graces the box art and title screen. Since his summer trip to the United States in the summer of 1973, and his vacation in Guam the following year, Nagai has been enamoured by idyllic Americana-infused seascapes. His paintings evoke the phenomenological sensation of the Californian coast as imagined, lived vicariously through Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero. They drip of capitalist excess with their unbounded pools, Barragánian architectures, and designer cars. Nagai is also inseparable from Japan's Bubble Economy and concordant tech boom. His 1979 collaboration with Eiichi Ohtaki on a picture book inspired Ohtaki's 1981 album A Long Vacation, itself a staple of the City Pop genre. His work became so renowned that other City Pop and AOR artists sought Nagai out in droves. Though Nagai's output continued and continues through to the present day, it is intensely emblematic of the 1980s in reality, as imagined, and in the cultural zeitgeist more broadly. The resurgence of City Pop as informed and influenced by the nostalgic reminisces of Vaporwave and Future Funk makes this self-reinforcing.
Listening to A Long Vacation or any number of its progeny and siblings is an exercise in misremembered and falsified nostalgia. I did not live in mid-century America or Japan. My understanding is informed by the memories of others. My constructed and artificial memory sees only the good of that time, supplemented by the noteworthy. I have this mental image I know to be untrue and unrealistic of life as slow and transient, something that simply occurred. An era of what might as well be no information compared to today, marked by deliberation and intent.
Kaze no NOTAM is much the same. I certainly have input here, and while my actions and decisions are not made lightly, they are ultimately unimportant. Approaching a goal, a destination, is effectively happenstance. Opportunity comes when it wishes, not when I reach for it. This is a loss of control not in the sense of a mistake in Getting Over It, or things going to hell in HITMAN, or the physical chaos of BeamNG.drive. It is an understanding that control was never, and is never had. It is the Stoic coming to terms with the fact that what may happen, will happen. Our choice is whether or not we make peace with that fact. We are to appreciate what we have, what we had, what we will not have, what we never had, what will never be. I can't go back to my past, or anyone's past, but I can luxuriate in the wind and in their memory.
I drift through the city, over the valley, betwixt the haves and have-nots.
Whatever will be, will be.
I've never 'completed a goal' in Kaze no NOTAM. I doubt I ever will. I don't think I need to.
From the outset, Kaze no NOTAM does not read to me as a game that needs extensive play, or completion, to be understood and appreciated.
Hiroshi Nagai's Hockney-esque artwork graces the box art and title screen. Since his summer trip to the United States in the summer of 1973, and his vacation in Guam the following year, Nagai has been enamoured by idyllic Americana-infused seascapes. His paintings evoke the phenomenological sensation of the Californian coast as imagined, lived vicariously through Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero. They drip of capitalist excess with their unbounded pools, Barragánian architectures, and designer cars. Nagai is also inseparable from Japan's Bubble Economy and concordant tech boom. His 1979 collaboration with Eiichi Ohtaki on a picture book inspired Ohtaki's 1981 album A Long Vacation, itself a staple of the City Pop genre. His work became so renowned that other City Pop and AOR artists sought Nagai out in droves. Though Nagai's output continued and continues through to the present day, it is intensely emblematic of the 1980s in reality, as imagined, and in the cultural zeitgeist more broadly. The resurgence of City Pop as informed and influenced by the nostalgic reminisces of Vaporwave and Future Funk makes this self-reinforcing.
Listening to A Long Vacation or any number of its progeny and siblings is an exercise in misremembered and falsified nostalgia. I did not live in mid-century America or Japan. My understanding is informed by the memories of others. My constructed and artificial memory sees only the good of that time, supplemented by the noteworthy. I have this mental image I know to be untrue and unrealistic of life as slow and transient, something that simply occurred. An era of what might as well be no information compared to today, marked by deliberation and intent.
Kaze no NOTAM is much the same. I certainly have input here, and while my actions and decisions are not made lightly, they are ultimately unimportant. Approaching a goal, a destination, is effectively happenstance. Opportunity comes when it wishes, not when I reach for it. This is a loss of control not in the sense of a mistake in Getting Over It, or things going to hell in HITMAN, or the physical chaos of BeamNG.drive. It is an understanding that control was never, and is never had. It is the Stoic coming to terms with the fact that what may happen, will happen. Our choice is whether or not we make peace with that fact. We are to appreciate what we have, what we had, what we will not have, what we never had, what will never be. I can't go back to my past, or anyone's past, but I can luxuriate in the wind and in their memory.
I drift through the city, over the valley, betwixt the haves and have-nots.
Whatever will be, will be.