FMTownsParty
2019
Gorgeous and graceful, Control's main issue is a lack of confidence. Despite a stark world of oddities worth seeing, you can't help but feel bogged down by the game's core loop, seemingly designed for those who wouldn't last a minute in The Oldest House without a breadcrumb trail of loot to the finish line.
2019
I like humming the theme of this game because it's catchy and reminds me of good times.
2010
what do you do dracula
edit for more serious review: What does RPG mean to you? Swords? XP? For me, and I can only imagine others feel similarly, RPG increasingly means the chance to brainstorm and terraform with friends. When my friends and I meet for RPGs, we aren't beholden to the tropes or strict rules of someone else's idea. We make it, we use it, we enjoy it. Us alone.
There are many reasons why I love this game, but to highlight the most minute (and beautiful) one: no game captures the chaotic specificity of a friendly tabletop campaign better than Space Funeral. Those who know the feeling must see bits of their friend group in the ridiculous names and on-the-spot dialogue. TTRPGs rarely exhibit the grandiosity that high-budget video games sell to you, but you know what they do have? Horses made out of legs.
In Space Funeral, there is a combat action called "Mystery" that causes something completely random to happen. I've been a GM to several campaigns at this point, and boy, let me tell you: there's no button that people love to press more than that one.
edit for more serious review: What does RPG mean to you? Swords? XP? For me, and I can only imagine others feel similarly, RPG increasingly means the chance to brainstorm and terraform with friends. When my friends and I meet for RPGs, we aren't beholden to the tropes or strict rules of someone else's idea. We make it, we use it, we enjoy it. Us alone.
There are many reasons why I love this game, but to highlight the most minute (and beautiful) one: no game captures the chaotic specificity of a friendly tabletop campaign better than Space Funeral. Those who know the feeling must see bits of their friend group in the ridiculous names and on-the-spot dialogue. TTRPGs rarely exhibit the grandiosity that high-budget video games sell to you, but you know what they do have? Horses made out of legs.
In Space Funeral, there is a combat action called "Mystery" that causes something completely random to happen. I've been a GM to several campaigns at this point, and boy, let me tell you: there's no button that people love to press more than that one.
2019
To not even speak on the paint-drying nature of this game's direction, I have rarely bumped up against a game's design as often as this one. Invisible walls and camera-yanking made this game feel like a minefield whose charges would explode any chance of finishing it faster.
A rare form of a common problem: the explicit ruins the ambiguous.
A rare form of a common problem: the explicit ruins the ambiguous.
This game is a damn mess, maybe the finest example of a “mixed” experience. It’s complex and beautiful and plays like a dream, but paradoxically loses its best traits the more invested you become. The open nature of the castle is rarely a benefit, with the shift in the mid-game pushing that flaw to its absolute limits. It’s also the easiest Castlevania that I’ve played by far, with only a few bosses providing friction in the experience. Worst of all, though? It ends so much lower than it begins, with a fatiguing slog through the castle climaxing with an overpowered weapon shredding the final boss into mince. Dracula didn’t stand a chance.
Scrutiny doesn’t do its airy complexion any favors. It’s a game best experienced almost offhandedly. If you’re like me, you’ve heard about this game for years through hushed tones that helped build its legacy far past what a ‘97 platformer should reasonably be expected to perform at. My advice to those people? Let it stay that way. It’s more interesting to wonder.
Scrutiny doesn’t do its airy complexion any favors. It’s a game best experienced almost offhandedly. If you’re like me, you’ve heard about this game for years through hushed tones that helped build its legacy far past what a ‘97 platformer should reasonably be expected to perform at. My advice to those people? Let it stay that way. It’s more interesting to wonder.
1986
Yeah, Metroid 1 really tries to punch above its weight, but it's evocative at a time when imagination was key to comprehension. In a world where early video game soundtracks win on their virtuosity, the simple and lonely bleeps of Metroid color this alien (and Alien) world better than the graphics ever could.
My favorite art game for the Game Boy.
1996
As much as I love it, this game is not solely responsible for its own brilliance. Emulation, fan efforts, and (critically) early Internet phenomena made this an endless stream of inspiration that continues to this day, and far past what I think Nintendo expected or intended.
The Doom of platformers. None shall pass.
The Doom of platformers. None shall pass.
FUCK. OOOOOOFF.
A game whose legacy is, and will continue to be, defined by its triumphs and failures in equal measure.
2016
The least enthusiastic masterpiece on the market.
2019
We've been up to our necks in Hotline Miami's brood since 2012, so the "post-violence neo-wave tactic-action" game rarely hits like it used to. With this in mind, Katana ZERO might actually be the best game of its ilk. I mean, I played Hotline Miami 2, so it's just short of a miracle I'm buying into one of these things again.
It is lively, well-paced, creative, and thoughtful. Barring my deadened enthusiasm, it sums up to be a fun time.
It is lively, well-paced, creative, and thoughtful. Barring my deadened enthusiasm, it sums up to be a fun time.
2005
"it's aged weirdly though!!" buhuhu SHUT UP! YOU CAN SUPLEX CULTISTS!
A runny yolk becomes inseparable from the egg. Your mother wishes you'd answer her texts.
2005
If all games were like Killer7, video games would be horrible.