DespicableCHUD
65 Reviews liked by DespicableCHUD
Balatro
2024
number go up, brain happy
Final Fantasy VIII
1999
A hodgepodge of systems that don't really complement each other and gaslight you into thinking they make a difference. When people say Final Fantasy is confusing, this is the game they're talking about.
Resident Evil 2
2019
guys i’m a pole dancer in raccoon city and mr x always comes in and just stands in the corner… he always orders a lemon drop from the bar then stands against the wall staring, goes in the bathroom for 10 minutes, throws a roll of nickels at us then walks out
god forbid women do anything
Sea of Stars
2023
had the same experience here as i did with okami: this is a game that designed around its style first. the team has said that it was built to be how we remember the old jrpgs, not as they actually were; in practice this means the thing that is prioritized is the setpiece, the spectacle, the feeling, over the things that might lend the game internal coherence, like story and character.
that's not to say it's bad! style-first is a totally valid way to build a game, and it can work; games are audiovisual experiences. but the games that it's recalling are primarily remembered for their stories and characters - chrono trigger's narrative is rich and beloved, super mario rpg's characters are vividly drawn, golden sun's worldbuilding is beautiful and detailed. sea of stars' writing is just.... so bad, so empty. characters make dramatic pronouncements and never follow through; there's no payoff for the main conflict. (in the standard ending, anyway. i'm not going back to get the true ending. i shouldn't have to.) zale and valere get it the worst: they have the same bland personality, the same odd subservience to the needs of the plot (such as it is). they have no interiority at all. what do they really think about all this? about their lost childhoods? about their relationship to each other, and to their party members? we will never know; they are only surface-level. much like the rest of the game.
that's not to say it's bad! style-first is a totally valid way to build a game, and it can work; games are audiovisual experiences. but the games that it's recalling are primarily remembered for their stories and characters - chrono trigger's narrative is rich and beloved, super mario rpg's characters are vividly drawn, golden sun's worldbuilding is beautiful and detailed. sea of stars' writing is just.... so bad, so empty. characters make dramatic pronouncements and never follow through; there's no payoff for the main conflict. (in the standard ending, anyway. i'm not going back to get the true ending. i shouldn't have to.) zale and valere get it the worst: they have the same bland personality, the same odd subservience to the needs of the plot (such as it is). they have no interiority at all. what do they really think about all this? about their lost childhoods? about their relationship to each other, and to their party members? we will never know; they are only surface-level. much like the rest of the game.
Sea of Stars
2023
This game has so much love and passion put into it that giving it only 3 stars hurts me.
However, it also hurts me to know how the incredible talent of the team wasn't properly invested in this project.
The pixel art Is genuinely the best I've ever seen. Every single frame is so gorgeous to look at, and I can't Imagine the time it took to realize all this. The character designs are really creative and some of them look really cool, I especially like the Duffy Duck looking guy near the end. The plot is generally pretty interesting and there is lots of world building that help the world feel real.
However, there are some really big issues with the game. The gameplay is pretty good for the first hours, but it just... doesn't change. Like, ever. Sure, you get some extra characters, but the Zale and Valere (the main characters) BARELY learn any new skills, no new mechanics are added through the game, and the puzzles feel like they were made for toddlers. The dialogue Is written pretty awfully, and most of the characters have cool designs but their personality is just so stereotyped and bland that I just ended up hating all of them, or at least finding them annoying. The plot also has terrible pacing, going from absolutely nothing to info dumping you in a single cutscene, and it's a shame because it could have bene a really interesting story, which is ruined by pace, bland characters and just overall poor build up/writing.
I REALLY hope this studio will try somethimg similar in the future because they are just incredibly talented, and I'm sure with this experience they could come up with a game that would have actually deserved to win the indie award in the TGA.
(Didn't bother with the true ending because it felt like a chore, but I was actually decently satisfied by the normal ending.)
However, it also hurts me to know how the incredible talent of the team wasn't properly invested in this project.
The pixel art Is genuinely the best I've ever seen. Every single frame is so gorgeous to look at, and I can't Imagine the time it took to realize all this. The character designs are really creative and some of them look really cool, I especially like the Duffy Duck looking guy near the end. The plot is generally pretty interesting and there is lots of world building that help the world feel real.
However, there are some really big issues with the game. The gameplay is pretty good for the first hours, but it just... doesn't change. Like, ever. Sure, you get some extra characters, but the Zale and Valere (the main characters) BARELY learn any new skills, no new mechanics are added through the game, and the puzzles feel like they were made for toddlers. The dialogue Is written pretty awfully, and most of the characters have cool designs but their personality is just so stereotyped and bland that I just ended up hating all of them, or at least finding them annoying. The plot also has terrible pacing, going from absolutely nothing to info dumping you in a single cutscene, and it's a shame because it could have bene a really interesting story, which is ruined by pace, bland characters and just overall poor build up/writing.
I REALLY hope this studio will try somethimg similar in the future because they are just incredibly talented, and I'm sure with this experience they could come up with a game that would have actually deserved to win the indie award in the TGA.
(Didn't bother with the true ending because it felt like a chore, but I was actually decently satisfied by the normal ending.)
Sea of Stars
2023
I will forget every character in this game in 1 week
I knew even before playing A God Who Lives In Your Head that it was going to be an intimate experience for me. Growing up queer and trans in the deep south, it’s inevitable that I’ll have religious trauma - a terrible thing that many other people, whether LGBT+ or not, have experienced as well. I was instantly drawn to the idea of a game discussing this difficult topic. A God Who… isn’t your average ‘game’ though; it’s instead a self-described interactive zine, made up of surreal collages and eerie audio, both equally beautiful and haunting.
I love ‘weird art’ like this so much. Abstract self-expression, a kaleidoscopic version of reality. A God Who… is a perfect example of this at its best. Its autobiographical story is told through a series of poems, the writing indescribably brilliant throughout. I appreciated that it never became too flowery or difficult to understand (this writer has autism) - yet the religious anecdotes were always so emotionally engaging and hard-hitting.
Although Yuen Hoang’s Baptist upbringing doesn’t relate exactly to my own, I understand firsthand how much this sort of shit can affect you. I strangely found a lot of comfort in A God Who…, being told by the creator that I wasn’t alone in what I’d been through. I’m sure many others who have played it feel the same way. I think that’s really powerful. I admire Hoang’s willingness to talk about these difficult things in an artistic setting - not to mention their incredible storytelling abilities and creativity.
Besides the amazing story, though, what makes this piece most captivating are its beautiful, bizarre visuals. Each page is crafted in an eccentric collage technique; all sorts of cut-outs, items, and patterns are fitted together in a perfectly messy way. I absolutely love when artists experiment with these real-world art styles in their games. Beeswing applies similar methods, and both it and A God Who… feel like living, breathing works of art to me.
The collage style isn’t just unique to look at, though; it’s the perfect format for the kind of simple interactivity present here. This extra layer of engagement makes the art and stories all the more impactful, as you directly play a small part in the narrative of each page. Small spoilers, but possibly my favorite example is the entire page dedicated to baptism. As opposed to the more chaotic style we’ve seen so far, this page is simply a single text box with a scuba diver as its scroll bar, set against a backdrop of water. As you scroll down to learn about the author’s discomfort with baptism, you must pull the scuba diver deeper into the water.
The artworks’ accompanying soundscapes are eerily beautiful as well - not only in a technical sense, but also in terms of the themes they represent. Their inclusion adds so much to the atmosphere and worldbuilding, to that point that it genuinely feels like they inform their own part of each page’s story. To go back to my previous spoilery example, the page about baptism is accompanied by the sound of an underwater current, which is interrupted by the occasional bell-like ding to temporarily pull your attention.
Everything about A God Who… just feels so intentional, down to the tiniest details like that. It's a handcrafted, personal experience with so much character, not to mention the unique subject matter. I found myself emotional multiple times throughout my ~ten minutes with it.
It may not be something that everyone can relate to as easily as I did - but I definitely think it’s worth trying either way, because you’ll still get to interact with a really fantastic art piece. The story it has to tell, and the ways in which it tells it, are worth seeing no matter who you are.
I will most definitely be checking out Yuen Hoang's other works in the future!
Visuals: 5.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Story: 5.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Worldbuilding: 5/5
Overall Game Score: 5/5
“no matter what you do
god still lives in your head
because to save your soul
they removed some part of you
and replaced it with the holy spirit”
I love ‘weird art’ like this so much. Abstract self-expression, a kaleidoscopic version of reality. A God Who… is a perfect example of this at its best. Its autobiographical story is told through a series of poems, the writing indescribably brilliant throughout. I appreciated that it never became too flowery or difficult to understand (this writer has autism) - yet the religious anecdotes were always so emotionally engaging and hard-hitting.
Although Yuen Hoang’s Baptist upbringing doesn’t relate exactly to my own, I understand firsthand how much this sort of shit can affect you. I strangely found a lot of comfort in A God Who…, being told by the creator that I wasn’t alone in what I’d been through. I’m sure many others who have played it feel the same way. I think that’s really powerful. I admire Hoang’s willingness to talk about these difficult things in an artistic setting - not to mention their incredible storytelling abilities and creativity.
Besides the amazing story, though, what makes this piece most captivating are its beautiful, bizarre visuals. Each page is crafted in an eccentric collage technique; all sorts of cut-outs, items, and patterns are fitted together in a perfectly messy way. I absolutely love when artists experiment with these real-world art styles in their games. Beeswing applies similar methods, and both it and A God Who… feel like living, breathing works of art to me.
The collage style isn’t just unique to look at, though; it’s the perfect format for the kind of simple interactivity present here. This extra layer of engagement makes the art and stories all the more impactful, as you directly play a small part in the narrative of each page. Small spoilers, but possibly my favorite example is the entire page dedicated to baptism. As opposed to the more chaotic style we’ve seen so far, this page is simply a single text box with a scuba diver as its scroll bar, set against a backdrop of water. As you scroll down to learn about the author’s discomfort with baptism, you must pull the scuba diver deeper into the water.
The artworks’ accompanying soundscapes are eerily beautiful as well - not only in a technical sense, but also in terms of the themes they represent. Their inclusion adds so much to the atmosphere and worldbuilding, to that point that it genuinely feels like they inform their own part of each page’s story. To go back to my previous spoilery example, the page about baptism is accompanied by the sound of an underwater current, which is interrupted by the occasional bell-like ding to temporarily pull your attention.
Everything about A God Who… just feels so intentional, down to the tiniest details like that. It's a handcrafted, personal experience with so much character, not to mention the unique subject matter. I found myself emotional multiple times throughout my ~ten minutes with it.
It may not be something that everyone can relate to as easily as I did - but I definitely think it’s worth trying either way, because you’ll still get to interact with a really fantastic art piece. The story it has to tell, and the ways in which it tells it, are worth seeing no matter who you are.
I will most definitely be checking out Yuen Hoang's other works in the future!
Visuals: 5.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Story: 5.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Worldbuilding: 5/5
Overall Game Score: 5/5
“no matter what you do
god still lives in your head
because to save your soul
they removed some part of you
and replaced it with the holy spirit”
Venba
2023
not too late to make sure your children aren't being indoctrinated by Canadians
Mother 3
2006
This review contains spoilers
with longer games, after a first playthrough, it tends to be harder to retain everything that happened even just immediately afterwards. there's a lot of games where i'll remember some big moments and then go 'oh yeahhhhh' when i come back to them later
so what really struck me about earthbound was how i could more or less list its entire sequence of events in chronological order, the pacing is quite relaxed but none of it feels like filler, there's a lot put into making ever segment something that stands out, the definitive game about some scrunklies going on an adventure
mother 3 retains this quality and then some, now with marked chapters that have names, and perspectives from different playable characters, particularly at the start of the game, chapter 1 makes such an impression juxtaposing lucas' introduction being a calm and typical day playing with his brother, with his father and the people of tazmily village dealing with a forest fire in the middle of the night, it's such a unique way to introduce the game's characters and the tragedy that befalls flint afterwards is so unexpected given the way game started out just an hour before. deftly balancing all sorts of light and dark tones has always been one of my favourite qualities of the series, and mother 3 might be the very best at it. there are instances where the game's humour crops up at inappropriate times, such as the funeral near the start having a load of puns on the headstones there, and i generally don't find it as funny as the first two games, but it also evokes some of the most euphoric joy and deep sadness in me out of all three games, and also most other games for that matter
there are so many parts of this game i know will be etched into my mind forever, chapter 3 starring salsa the monkey would be an amazing short story on its own, my favourite part of it is how in the combat, you're very weak on your own, and rely upon your abusive owner to get by in a situation that he's put you in, the way that dynamic comes across organically through gameplay is just really cool. i also love the part where you have to deliver the boxes, you have to find the recipients' houses yourself, and everyone other than them that you talk to sort of turn their nose up and want nothing to do with you, you're promised a reward of a 'luxury banana' if you can deliver them in under 20 minutes or something, and whether you achieve that or not, you're denied it once you return, and fassad proceeds to take one bite out of it and throw it away, it's great stuff and serves as a microcosm of the kind of place tazmily village is about to become
lucas never quite fit in, and still doesn't after the town he grew up in becomes a dystopian hellhole. (you have to pay for stuff) after losing his mother and brother, and growing distant from his father as a result, he's completely reliant upon himself (and his dog) and isn't led astray like the rest of tazmily, which ends up making him the hero, along with the rest of his band of misfits, a tomboyish false princess, and a handicapped thief
this theme of outsiders saving the world continues with the characters known as the magypsies, but they aren't nearly as successful at supporting it and are definitely my least favourite aspect of the game, with their designs and personalities all being based on stereotypes of crossdressers, and quite a few poor taste jokes made at their expense which can also come across as transphobic. as a trans woman myself i wasn't terribly offended personally but i was rolling my eyes at quite a few parts and it's probably the only caveat i'd mention when recommending the game
you experience firsthand the horrible mundanity the residents of tazmily now endure, with a day of backbreaking labour, pushing people molded from clay to go get electrocuted back to life after effectively dying from exhaustion, then being sent right back to work, and going to club titiboo at the end of the day which the workers seem to be addicted to, and then you go on to break into various facilities belonging to the pigmasks and discover the horrible experiments that are being conducted, the ones you see most often are animals being taken apart and combined with parts of other animals or machinery to make chimeras, under the juvenile premise that animals are boring and they're being made much more AWESOME now, and once you eventually you meet the man at the very top, you'll find that he views people in the same way
after you take a 'break' with a more traditional video game quest of finding the seven needles, returning to the now abandoned tazmily village, and then later being chauffeured to the nightmare that is new pork city becomes even more of a whiplash, and you discover that the source of all this is an old man, with the mind of a small, spoilt child, with all the time in the world and everything he could ever want, now acting only out of nihilistic boredom, the way this is all built up to and paid off is absolutely incredible, the final chapter of this game is simply just one of the best in a video game
i won't spoil any more of the ending than that, mostly because it's 1am and i'm very tired and feel like i'm rambling, but also because it'd probably be pointless anyway; the experience of playing it is far beyond the scope of any words i could write, mother 3 is every bit the game i was always told it was, and i'm very glad to have finally played it and count it amongst some of my absolute favourites
so what really struck me about earthbound was how i could more or less list its entire sequence of events in chronological order, the pacing is quite relaxed but none of it feels like filler, there's a lot put into making ever segment something that stands out, the definitive game about some scrunklies going on an adventure
mother 3 retains this quality and then some, now with marked chapters that have names, and perspectives from different playable characters, particularly at the start of the game, chapter 1 makes such an impression juxtaposing lucas' introduction being a calm and typical day playing with his brother, with his father and the people of tazmily village dealing with a forest fire in the middle of the night, it's such a unique way to introduce the game's characters and the tragedy that befalls flint afterwards is so unexpected given the way game started out just an hour before. deftly balancing all sorts of light and dark tones has always been one of my favourite qualities of the series, and mother 3 might be the very best at it. there are instances where the game's humour crops up at inappropriate times, such as the funeral near the start having a load of puns on the headstones there, and i generally don't find it as funny as the first two games, but it also evokes some of the most euphoric joy and deep sadness in me out of all three games, and also most other games for that matter
there are so many parts of this game i know will be etched into my mind forever, chapter 3 starring salsa the monkey would be an amazing short story on its own, my favourite part of it is how in the combat, you're very weak on your own, and rely upon your abusive owner to get by in a situation that he's put you in, the way that dynamic comes across organically through gameplay is just really cool. i also love the part where you have to deliver the boxes, you have to find the recipients' houses yourself, and everyone other than them that you talk to sort of turn their nose up and want nothing to do with you, you're promised a reward of a 'luxury banana' if you can deliver them in under 20 minutes or something, and whether you achieve that or not, you're denied it once you return, and fassad proceeds to take one bite out of it and throw it away, it's great stuff and serves as a microcosm of the kind of place tazmily village is about to become
lucas never quite fit in, and still doesn't after the town he grew up in becomes a dystopian hellhole. (you have to pay for stuff) after losing his mother and brother, and growing distant from his father as a result, he's completely reliant upon himself (and his dog) and isn't led astray like the rest of tazmily, which ends up making him the hero, along with the rest of his band of misfits, a tomboyish false princess, and a handicapped thief
this theme of outsiders saving the world continues with the characters known as the magypsies, but they aren't nearly as successful at supporting it and are definitely my least favourite aspect of the game, with their designs and personalities all being based on stereotypes of crossdressers, and quite a few poor taste jokes made at their expense which can also come across as transphobic. as a trans woman myself i wasn't terribly offended personally but i was rolling my eyes at quite a few parts and it's probably the only caveat i'd mention when recommending the game
you experience firsthand the horrible mundanity the residents of tazmily now endure, with a day of backbreaking labour, pushing people molded from clay to go get electrocuted back to life after effectively dying from exhaustion, then being sent right back to work, and going to club titiboo at the end of the day which the workers seem to be addicted to, and then you go on to break into various facilities belonging to the pigmasks and discover the horrible experiments that are being conducted, the ones you see most often are animals being taken apart and combined with parts of other animals or machinery to make chimeras, under the juvenile premise that animals are boring and they're being made much more AWESOME now, and once you eventually you meet the man at the very top, you'll find that he views people in the same way
after you take a 'break' with a more traditional video game quest of finding the seven needles, returning to the now abandoned tazmily village, and then later being chauffeured to the nightmare that is new pork city becomes even more of a whiplash, and you discover that the source of all this is an old man, with the mind of a small, spoilt child, with all the time in the world and everything he could ever want, now acting only out of nihilistic boredom, the way this is all built up to and paid off is absolutely incredible, the final chapter of this game is simply just one of the best in a video game
i won't spoil any more of the ending than that, mostly because it's 1am and i'm very tired and feel like i'm rambling, but also because it'd probably be pointless anyway; the experience of playing it is far beyond the scope of any words i could write, mother 3 is every bit the game i was always told it was, and i'm very glad to have finally played it and count it amongst some of my absolute favourites
Chants of Sennaar
2023
Chants of Sennaar is an awesome video game. There have lately been a few of these information-based puzzle games focused on language and this is among the best of them, standing (almost) shoulder to shoulder with The Gostak.
The basic premise here is that you are climbing a tower full of people whose languages you do not speak. As you go, you collect different glyphs and use logic and process of elimination to completely understand each language. Having multiple languages to learn puts Chants of Sennaar apart from its contemporaries, but it also has an additional clever twist in that you are meant to translate between the languages, letting the members of each floor communicate with each other. Your goal here is to figure out what is going on in this tower, why it is the way it is, and how to fix it.
The narrative and gameplay feed into each other excellently in this regard. The game is compelling to play the whole way through and completing each language is rewarding and fun. A lot of very well thought out UX makes dealing with the different languages and puzzles very easy and satisfying.
The controls and input can be a bit awkward and spotty at times. A couple of stealth sections make these issues even more apparent.
Additionally, I don't think the game gives you quite enough leeway in terms of defining these languages yourself. You get to write in your own translations of each word, but when you correctly identify them (matching a set of glyphs to a set of pictures) the game fills them in for you with the "correct" meanings. I would find it a bit more compelling if it let you keep the names you have put in, allowing your translation to be a bit fuzzier.
These weaker elements don't do much to hinder the rest of the experience, however, and the game is very successful despite them.
Chants of Sennaar has a very striking art-style, with bold colors that also allows each of the floors of the tower you are exploring to be well differentiated. Things are simply but effectively rendered, and the animation and characterizations of all the different members of each group of people you interact with are well done. Your character has a truly excellent goblinesque walk that makes him feel like a real outsider in the tower.
Chants of Sennaar is an excellent game. It is worth playing through, but especially if you have any interest in information centered puzzle games like Return of the Obra Dinn or Outer Wilds or in language deciphering games like The Gostak!
The basic premise here is that you are climbing a tower full of people whose languages you do not speak. As you go, you collect different glyphs and use logic and process of elimination to completely understand each language. Having multiple languages to learn puts Chants of Sennaar apart from its contemporaries, but it also has an additional clever twist in that you are meant to translate between the languages, letting the members of each floor communicate with each other. Your goal here is to figure out what is going on in this tower, why it is the way it is, and how to fix it.
The narrative and gameplay feed into each other excellently in this regard. The game is compelling to play the whole way through and completing each language is rewarding and fun. A lot of very well thought out UX makes dealing with the different languages and puzzles very easy and satisfying.
The controls and input can be a bit awkward and spotty at times. A couple of stealth sections make these issues even more apparent.
Additionally, I don't think the game gives you quite enough leeway in terms of defining these languages yourself. You get to write in your own translations of each word, but when you correctly identify them (matching a set of glyphs to a set of pictures) the game fills them in for you with the "correct" meanings. I would find it a bit more compelling if it let you keep the names you have put in, allowing your translation to be a bit fuzzier.
These weaker elements don't do much to hinder the rest of the experience, however, and the game is very successful despite them.
Chants of Sennaar has a very striking art-style, with bold colors that also allows each of the floors of the tower you are exploring to be well differentiated. Things are simply but effectively rendered, and the animation and characterizations of all the different members of each group of people you interact with are well done. Your character has a truly excellent goblinesque walk that makes him feel like a real outsider in the tower.
Chants of Sennaar is an excellent game. It is worth playing through, but especially if you have any interest in information centered puzzle games like Return of the Obra Dinn or Outer Wilds or in language deciphering games like The Gostak!
To the Moon
2011
Goofy story about two goofballs that make you achieve your dreams. Not goofy? Well, maybe there's a bit shoehorned in here. It depicts the kind of het relationship queer people love: people who meet for 10 minutes and become entangled /j it's a basic hook with basic gameplay and that game engine. You do ride a horse once ; why can't we summon it at all time? You can in Elden Ring? Clear oversight. After the game itself took inspiration in Elden Ring and went through the trouble to be released in 2011 via artificial memory technology (Author's note: it doesn't work like that).
Signalis
2022
Signalis has cool aesthetics and a lot of style. The gameplay is very close to being Resident Evil (which doesn't overly appeal to me) but not quite as successful.
The visuals and audio here are incredibly striking. This is one of the coolest renditions of an abandoned space facility I have seen. Rose-Engine has nailed the aesthetics and doing it with graphics that look like they were ripped straight from Metal Gear Solid is impressive and inspired. This facility creaks and groans, with intense music cues kicking in to warn you of encroaching enemies and heighten the tension in all the right ways. Though I found myself growing desensitized to the enemies themselves, the visuals and audio never stopped working.
I found Signalis hard to play in a few ways. This is gameplay that is a lot like Resident Evil -- equipment scarcity and puzzle solving through crest/key/socket wrench collection with the occasional environmental brain teaser.
Combat works fine and plays well but with enough friction that I was never quite comfortable. Enemies (especially bosses) feel like they take an arbitrary number of bullets to kill, preventing me from having a clear idea of the power of my weapons or character. This is exactly like RE.
Equipment scarcity makes expending bullets on enemies a weighty decision, but running by most of them is so easy that it soon becomes the obvious, repetitive strategy. The inventory limit is extreme and adds to this scarcity in a way that is more tedious than challenging.
The key/lock mechanics here never seem to be tied to anything, which makes fetching keys and opening doors often feel perfunctory and meaningless in a way that is unsatisfying. Keys are found sitting on a random desk or in a locker, giving no sense of place to the puzzles or sense of life to the people that were in this facility. This sort of level design works best when the player can make intentional plans based on information they are gaining and have those plans pay off. Through my time with Signalis the only plan I made was "I guess I explore the only place I haven't been."
The environmental puzzles were mostly cute little brain teasers that work well and are similar to things you have seen before. Connect fuses in a fuse box in a certain order, hit switches in a certain order, etc... The one exception is a water leveling puzzle that is a bit tediously complicated, though it seems like the developers identified this, since there is a note in the room that just gives you step by step instructions (!?!?).
The environments themselves, though evocative and cool, are too samey and feel too arbitrarily connected for me to ever really have any sense of place or direction. I never had a clear idea of where I was or the layout of the facility.
The narrative felt very overwrought to me during my time with Signalis. It seems like something interesting might be going on, but it is plastered over with no-context quick cuts, shaky-cam or glitchy footage that is meant to be disturbing, and heavy-handed references to tropes or other media. This type of 'horror' storytelling often feels like it gets in the way of whatever is interesting about the narrative, and I found that to be true for me here as well.
If you love survival horror games, this one may strike a chord and it is probably even worth checking out for an hour or two for the expertly crafted visual and audio experience. It is unfortunately definitely not for me, so I have abandoned it.
The visuals and audio here are incredibly striking. This is one of the coolest renditions of an abandoned space facility I have seen. Rose-Engine has nailed the aesthetics and doing it with graphics that look like they were ripped straight from Metal Gear Solid is impressive and inspired. This facility creaks and groans, with intense music cues kicking in to warn you of encroaching enemies and heighten the tension in all the right ways. Though I found myself growing desensitized to the enemies themselves, the visuals and audio never stopped working.
I found Signalis hard to play in a few ways. This is gameplay that is a lot like Resident Evil -- equipment scarcity and puzzle solving through crest/key/socket wrench collection with the occasional environmental brain teaser.
Combat works fine and plays well but with enough friction that I was never quite comfortable. Enemies (especially bosses) feel like they take an arbitrary number of bullets to kill, preventing me from having a clear idea of the power of my weapons or character. This is exactly like RE.
Equipment scarcity makes expending bullets on enemies a weighty decision, but running by most of them is so easy that it soon becomes the obvious, repetitive strategy. The inventory limit is extreme and adds to this scarcity in a way that is more tedious than challenging.
The key/lock mechanics here never seem to be tied to anything, which makes fetching keys and opening doors often feel perfunctory and meaningless in a way that is unsatisfying. Keys are found sitting on a random desk or in a locker, giving no sense of place to the puzzles or sense of life to the people that were in this facility. This sort of level design works best when the player can make intentional plans based on information they are gaining and have those plans pay off. Through my time with Signalis the only plan I made was "I guess I explore the only place I haven't been."
The environmental puzzles were mostly cute little brain teasers that work well and are similar to things you have seen before. Connect fuses in a fuse box in a certain order, hit switches in a certain order, etc... The one exception is a water leveling puzzle that is a bit tediously complicated, though it seems like the developers identified this, since there is a note in the room that just gives you step by step instructions (!?!?).
The environments themselves, though evocative and cool, are too samey and feel too arbitrarily connected for me to ever really have any sense of place or direction. I never had a clear idea of where I was or the layout of the facility.
The narrative felt very overwrought to me during my time with Signalis. It seems like something interesting might be going on, but it is plastered over with no-context quick cuts, shaky-cam or glitchy footage that is meant to be disturbing, and heavy-handed references to tropes or other media. This type of 'horror' storytelling often feels like it gets in the way of whatever is interesting about the narrative, and I found that to be true for me here as well.
If you love survival horror games, this one may strike a chord and it is probably even worth checking out for an hour or two for the expertly crafted visual and audio experience. It is unfortunately definitely not for me, so I have abandoned it.
Sea of Stars
2023
Disclaimer: I Kickstarted this game.
Sea of Stars is a game that takes obvious influence from RPG classics like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG. I had a good time playing through it, but grew tired of it before the end, and wasn't really compelled to put in the extra time required to get the true ending.
This is turn-based RPG gameplay with some clever twists. The characters have attacks and special abilities, each of which (along with defense) can be improved with a well-timed button press or a simple mini-game, as in Mario RPG. Characters also gain special combo maneuvers as you progress through the game, giving you a few more powerful options to leverage. Attacks and abilities also each have a type (or multiple types) that can match enemy special abilities to interrupt them. All of these options create a lot of variation and things to think about in each battle that make things feel dynamic and interesting. The well thought out resource systems also help things a lot -- special attacks use MP and regular attacks generate MP, creating a nice push/pull and combo power is generated by successfully completing the attack/defense mini-games.
I did find that I was getting a bit tired of the combat by the end. The mini-games get repetitive and the type matching becomes fairly rote. A few more abilities that mix things up a bit (one character has an ability to extend the timer on counter matching, but there isn't much else) would have gone a long way.
The art in Sea of Stars is amazing. Well done pixel art with great animations and great audio and effects to go along with it. The environments feel reminiscent of RPGs of the past while still having a charm and personality of their own. I liked exploring these places and interacting with the varied characters and enemies to be found within them.
The narrative has a lot of heart, but goes a bit too saccharine at times. A few major spoilery events are simultaneously extremely predictable and completely unmotivated in a way that stopped the finale from landing with me. Some of the characters are very flat (the main heroes especially) though the rest have some interesting aspects and cute or compelling backstories.
In the end, Sea of Stars overstays its welcome, stretching its systems and story over more game than they can support (as many RPGs do). Dungeons that are all a bit too long, mechanics that get a bit tiring, main plot events that feel unnecessary or vestigial, travel that is a bit too onerous. I liked my time with Sea of Stars but was more than finished by the time the credits rolled on the (non-true) ending.
However, if you want a nostalgic RPG that is well put together with some interesting mechanics, beautiful art, and a story that won't give you too many surprises, Sea of Stars is still a solid choice.
Sea of Stars is a game that takes obvious influence from RPG classics like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG. I had a good time playing through it, but grew tired of it before the end, and wasn't really compelled to put in the extra time required to get the true ending.
This is turn-based RPG gameplay with some clever twists. The characters have attacks and special abilities, each of which (along with defense) can be improved with a well-timed button press or a simple mini-game, as in Mario RPG. Characters also gain special combo maneuvers as you progress through the game, giving you a few more powerful options to leverage. Attacks and abilities also each have a type (or multiple types) that can match enemy special abilities to interrupt them. All of these options create a lot of variation and things to think about in each battle that make things feel dynamic and interesting. The well thought out resource systems also help things a lot -- special attacks use MP and regular attacks generate MP, creating a nice push/pull and combo power is generated by successfully completing the attack/defense mini-games.
I did find that I was getting a bit tired of the combat by the end. The mini-games get repetitive and the type matching becomes fairly rote. A few more abilities that mix things up a bit (one character has an ability to extend the timer on counter matching, but there isn't much else) would have gone a long way.
The art in Sea of Stars is amazing. Well done pixel art with great animations and great audio and effects to go along with it. The environments feel reminiscent of RPGs of the past while still having a charm and personality of their own. I liked exploring these places and interacting with the varied characters and enemies to be found within them.
The narrative has a lot of heart, but goes a bit too saccharine at times. A few major spoilery events are simultaneously extremely predictable and completely unmotivated in a way that stopped the finale from landing with me. Some of the characters are very flat (the main heroes especially) though the rest have some interesting aspects and cute or compelling backstories.
In the end, Sea of Stars overstays its welcome, stretching its systems and story over more game than they can support (as many RPGs do). Dungeons that are all a bit too long, mechanics that get a bit tiring, main plot events that feel unnecessary or vestigial, travel that is a bit too onerous. I liked my time with Sea of Stars but was more than finished by the time the credits rolled on the (non-true) ending.
However, if you want a nostalgic RPG that is well put together with some interesting mechanics, beautiful art, and a story that won't give you too many surprises, Sea of Stars is still a solid choice.
Cult of the Lamb
2022
This game is so unbelievably shallow. The aesthetics are amazing but almost nothing else is.