Gandheezy22
2017
I finished this game in just under 18 hours over 4 days, and I'm still not sure why.
I have had what could be called a very strange week with The Letter. After finishing the excellent AI: The Somnium Files, I was searching around for another visual novel with English voice acting. The Letter appeared over and over in my searches as one of the better ones, and so I decided to give it a roll.
The Letter is intended to be campy horror, which I think it does well, but it also strains itself relying on just one monster, a bloodthirsty ghost girl, for 18 straight hours. I saw so much of her that I stopped getting frightened about 3 hours in. Also, this visual novel is so, so much longer than it needs to be. After a while, I realized that all of the introspection text between dialogue was kind of useless. It's basically just people internally thinking the same thought in 15 different ways and then voicing it aloud. If there was a "skip to dialogue" button this would be getting a lot higher rating.
During the course of the story you'll play from the perspective of each of the seven main characters, one after another, reliving some events from different points of view and then moving the story forward a day. You make 5-6 decisions per character that determine how the story plays out, and to its credit your decisions make a huge impact. I can't even imagine how much writing went into this, because testing out different decisions with different save files led me to extremely different stories (not just endings). The voice acting was pretty good, for the most part, although there was a lot of discrepancy between nationalities and accents (Ash was born and raised in the UK and Isabella was from the Philippines, yet both had American accents).
I liked some parts of it a lot, despite the mediocre YA horror prose and numerous grammatical errors. The characters were sort of endearing; Zach, Isabella and Hannah especially I commiserated with. Luke is cheating on his wife, impregnating random women, emotionally abusive, racist, and narcissistic to a degree I've barely ever seen. He is actually the last character you play as, so I was expecting to be disappointed when they tried to redeem him. Well, they didn't. Getting inside his mind reveals that he's an even bigger piece of trash than I had suspected.
Watching the relationship meters change depending on my decisions and seeing the ramifications of that quickly after is more than I can say for most choice-based games of this nature. The save system and "skip to unread text" button allow for players to easily experiment with different decisions without wasting too much time.
I guess my biggest complaints are that the story wasn't very well-written, I wasn't a huge fan of the art style, and I truly hated many of the characters I had to play as (such as Luke and Marianne). Yet, despite this, I was hooked. I found myself staying up till 3 AM on Friday and Saturday night with it.
It was like... comfort food. It didn't require me to think, nor did it require me to mechanically do anything. I think I really needed that this week. I'm not sure that I recommend it, of even if it's good, but I had a good time with these dumb kids and I only got one of them killed. I think today, I am content to take that small victory as I leave this strange story behind me.
I have had what could be called a very strange week with The Letter. After finishing the excellent AI: The Somnium Files, I was searching around for another visual novel with English voice acting. The Letter appeared over and over in my searches as one of the better ones, and so I decided to give it a roll.
The Letter is intended to be campy horror, which I think it does well, but it also strains itself relying on just one monster, a bloodthirsty ghost girl, for 18 straight hours. I saw so much of her that I stopped getting frightened about 3 hours in. Also, this visual novel is so, so much longer than it needs to be. After a while, I realized that all of the introspection text between dialogue was kind of useless. It's basically just people internally thinking the same thought in 15 different ways and then voicing it aloud. If there was a "skip to dialogue" button this would be getting a lot higher rating.
During the course of the story you'll play from the perspective of each of the seven main characters, one after another, reliving some events from different points of view and then moving the story forward a day. You make 5-6 decisions per character that determine how the story plays out, and to its credit your decisions make a huge impact. I can't even imagine how much writing went into this, because testing out different decisions with different save files led me to extremely different stories (not just endings). The voice acting was pretty good, for the most part, although there was a lot of discrepancy between nationalities and accents (Ash was born and raised in the UK and Isabella was from the Philippines, yet both had American accents).
I liked some parts of it a lot, despite the mediocre YA horror prose and numerous grammatical errors. The characters were sort of endearing; Zach, Isabella and Hannah especially I commiserated with. Luke is cheating on his wife, impregnating random women, emotionally abusive, racist, and narcissistic to a degree I've barely ever seen. He is actually the last character you play as, so I was expecting to be disappointed when they tried to redeem him. Well, they didn't. Getting inside his mind reveals that he's an even bigger piece of trash than I had suspected.
Watching the relationship meters change depending on my decisions and seeing the ramifications of that quickly after is more than I can say for most choice-based games of this nature. The save system and "skip to unread text" button allow for players to easily experiment with different decisions without wasting too much time.
I guess my biggest complaints are that the story wasn't very well-written, I wasn't a huge fan of the art style, and I truly hated many of the characters I had to play as (such as Luke and Marianne). Yet, despite this, I was hooked. I found myself staying up till 3 AM on Friday and Saturday night with it.
It was like... comfort food. It didn't require me to think, nor did it require me to mechanically do anything. I think I really needed that this week. I'm not sure that I recommend it, of even if it's good, but I had a good time with these dumb kids and I only got one of them killed. I think today, I am content to take that small victory as I leave this strange story behind me.
2019
This game really, really wanted to be a spiritual successor to Portal and doesn't quite hit that level. It's an interesting enough narrative, but I don't feel like it ever earns its level of self-declared importance. Regardless, the co-op puzzles are very fun and do require you to think in new ways a lot of the time. I would give it more points, but Superliminal is also buggy as hell, at least playing co-op on PC. Regardless it's short and won't take up much of your time. I highly recommend bringing a friend or 3!
2022
Flying Wild Hog's ode to the samurai films of the mid-20th Century caught my eye from its first showing, evoking Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai (as intended). Trek to Yomi lives up to that initial promise, not just in aesthetics but in heart, narrative, and expert presentation. While the combat mechanics feel slightly off and the repetitiveness grows tiring quickly, the gorgeous and faithful dedication to the samurai and authentic Edo period Japanese culture holds this action game together.
Trek to Yomi is a narrative-driven action game that sees a young warrior, Hiroki, take up the mantle of a samurai after ravenous warlord Kagerou invades his hometown. Aoki, Hiroki's lover, is killed on his watch after he swears to protect her at all costs. On a rescue mission that ends in certain death, he follows the literal path to hell (Yomi) to bring her back from the afterlife.
This is a pretty straightforward action game, and while I would qualify it as a side-scroller if I had to, there's a lot more 3D movement than the trailers led me to believe. I also didn't expect a Silent Hill style fixed-camera that changes when you enter a new room, but it does wonders for controlling the cinematic stylings of Trek to Yomi. Most rooms without combat allow for 3D movement, where you might find collectibles or ammo for one of your three ranged weapons. Every few rooms, you'll hit a checkpoint shrine that refills your health and is a place to restart when you die. Much to its benefit, this game is entirely linear - there is no backtracking or picking which direction to go.
As this is an action game, combat is critical, and I must admit, I'm not impressed with it. Throughout the game, you'll gain new combo abilities using directions and the X and Y buttons as you naturally progress - you won't need to go out of your way to unlock any combos. My main issue is that most of them feel useless. But, as I reached Yomi, the various abilities started to make sense. By the end, I had two combos I stuck to and was able to tear through every enemy with barely any resistance.
In addition, the button press timing windows feel much too small. Almost half the time I would try to execute a combo, it wouldn't register. It was incredibly annoying to press the button in time, only for nothing to happen. When I played through the game, the parry windows were too small, and the hitboxes were not registering correctly. However, after a day-zero patch was applied, I found these features had been dramatically improved. Parry windows feel 100% accurate in the launch version.
I loved using the ranged weapons (kunai, bow and arrow, and a hand cannon) as much as possible, but I will confess it was to avoid actual combat when I could. It may seem damning to say that I flat out didn't enjoy the combat in an action game, but so many of the other elements of the game are so impressive that I ended up enjoying the experience anyway.
My other major complaint is that the first hour and a half of this roughly four-hour game is pretty mediocre. While the story kicks off hard and fast, and the excellent Japanese voice work for Hiroki evokes compassion for the character, you are basically running along a path fighting the same bandits repeatedly. Every enemy was the same, maybe with a slightly different weapon sometimes, and all of them required a perfect parry and two short strikes to kill. It is tedious and exhausting. I was worried that the entire game would be this way until I reached Yomi (hell), where the tone did a 180, and I was introduced to an amazing slew of mythological Japanese monsters with unique magical powers.
In this second act, I had to start utilizing some strategy to fight off ogres, wraiths, oni, and demonic beasts. In addition, while I loved seeing Edo Japan with the classic black and white vignetted film grain aesthetic, I grew tired of seeing the same buildings over and over during the first act. Yomi introduced grand, majestic structures, trees, rock formations, and weather systems that couldn't exist in our natural world. Flying Wild Hog's artists did a phenomenal job shaping this landscape, and during my time in Yomi, I wanted to look around each area just for the sake of seeing it.
If it weren't for doing this review, I'm not sure if I would have made it through the monotony of the start of the game. However, it takes a fantastic turn, leaving me feeling like the developers saved literally all of the good stuff for the back half of the game that few players will likely see.
Trek to Yomi is a powerful cinematic experience, and I genuinely feel like the themes echoed the ones I'd find in the old black and white samurai films. The music is gorgeous and, to my knowledge, utilizes traditional Japanese instruments from this time period. The sound design works greatly to the benefit of this game, especially with the intelligent use of the sounds of an old film reel turning.
This narrative centers around the choice between love and duty. Hiroki must make several tangible choices during the story that change its direction, choosing between his love for Aoki or his duty to his people. The well-thought-out narrative and impeccable atmosphere of Trek to Yomi are its great triumphs. And, if you can learn to love (or bear) the repetitive combat, I think it'll be a thrilling epic worthy of its cinematic inspirations.
[A review code was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.]
Trek to Yomi is a narrative-driven action game that sees a young warrior, Hiroki, take up the mantle of a samurai after ravenous warlord Kagerou invades his hometown. Aoki, Hiroki's lover, is killed on his watch after he swears to protect her at all costs. On a rescue mission that ends in certain death, he follows the literal path to hell (Yomi) to bring her back from the afterlife.
This is a pretty straightforward action game, and while I would qualify it as a side-scroller if I had to, there's a lot more 3D movement than the trailers led me to believe. I also didn't expect a Silent Hill style fixed-camera that changes when you enter a new room, but it does wonders for controlling the cinematic stylings of Trek to Yomi. Most rooms without combat allow for 3D movement, where you might find collectibles or ammo for one of your three ranged weapons. Every few rooms, you'll hit a checkpoint shrine that refills your health and is a place to restart when you die. Much to its benefit, this game is entirely linear - there is no backtracking or picking which direction to go.
As this is an action game, combat is critical, and I must admit, I'm not impressed with it. Throughout the game, you'll gain new combo abilities using directions and the X and Y buttons as you naturally progress - you won't need to go out of your way to unlock any combos. My main issue is that most of them feel useless. But, as I reached Yomi, the various abilities started to make sense. By the end, I had two combos I stuck to and was able to tear through every enemy with barely any resistance.
In addition, the button press timing windows feel much too small. Almost half the time I would try to execute a combo, it wouldn't register. It was incredibly annoying to press the button in time, only for nothing to happen. When I played through the game, the parry windows were too small, and the hitboxes were not registering correctly. However, after a day-zero patch was applied, I found these features had been dramatically improved. Parry windows feel 100% accurate in the launch version.
I loved using the ranged weapons (kunai, bow and arrow, and a hand cannon) as much as possible, but I will confess it was to avoid actual combat when I could. It may seem damning to say that I flat out didn't enjoy the combat in an action game, but so many of the other elements of the game are so impressive that I ended up enjoying the experience anyway.
My other major complaint is that the first hour and a half of this roughly four-hour game is pretty mediocre. While the story kicks off hard and fast, and the excellent Japanese voice work for Hiroki evokes compassion for the character, you are basically running along a path fighting the same bandits repeatedly. Every enemy was the same, maybe with a slightly different weapon sometimes, and all of them required a perfect parry and two short strikes to kill. It is tedious and exhausting. I was worried that the entire game would be this way until I reached Yomi (hell), where the tone did a 180, and I was introduced to an amazing slew of mythological Japanese monsters with unique magical powers.
In this second act, I had to start utilizing some strategy to fight off ogres, wraiths, oni, and demonic beasts. In addition, while I loved seeing Edo Japan with the classic black and white vignetted film grain aesthetic, I grew tired of seeing the same buildings over and over during the first act. Yomi introduced grand, majestic structures, trees, rock formations, and weather systems that couldn't exist in our natural world. Flying Wild Hog's artists did a phenomenal job shaping this landscape, and during my time in Yomi, I wanted to look around each area just for the sake of seeing it.
If it weren't for doing this review, I'm not sure if I would have made it through the monotony of the start of the game. However, it takes a fantastic turn, leaving me feeling like the developers saved literally all of the good stuff for the back half of the game that few players will likely see.
Trek to Yomi is a powerful cinematic experience, and I genuinely feel like the themes echoed the ones I'd find in the old black and white samurai films. The music is gorgeous and, to my knowledge, utilizes traditional Japanese instruments from this time period. The sound design works greatly to the benefit of this game, especially with the intelligent use of the sounds of an old film reel turning.
This narrative centers around the choice between love and duty. Hiroki must make several tangible choices during the story that change its direction, choosing between his love for Aoki or his duty to his people. The well-thought-out narrative and impeccable atmosphere of Trek to Yomi are its great triumphs. And, if you can learn to love (or bear) the repetitive combat, I think it'll be a thrilling epic worthy of its cinematic inspirations.
[A review code was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.]
This is definitely the best game Supermassive has made since Until Dawn. The story is a little more campy, though definitely not as much as Until Dawn, and at least somewhat interesting characters that dynamically differ where they end from where they start.
The multiplayer part (which is the only way to play) feels seamless to transition. You assign a player to take care of each of the five characters and make choices and actions for them. You can play online (the game includes only one Friend's Pass though), or there's a Movie Night mode where you can pass the controller to your friends if you're playing local. My friends and I jumped on a Discord call with video and I controlled the characters physically based on what each person decided, and it ended up working well.
If you enjoyed Until Dawn, I can't recommend it enough!
The multiplayer part (which is the only way to play) feels seamless to transition. You assign a player to take care of each of the five characters and make choices and actions for them. You can play online (the game includes only one Friend's Pass though), or there's a Movie Night mode where you can pass the controller to your friends if you're playing local. My friends and I jumped on a Discord call with video and I controlled the characters physically based on what each person decided, and it ended up working well.
If you enjoyed Until Dawn, I can't recommend it enough!
The only proper way to write a review for this game would be to screenshot my steam review from the original edition and then print it out on a big poster and staple it to my TV screen for the rest of eternity.
I love Pokemon more than anything, but since generation 4 it's been a strained relationship, to say the least. Pokemon Blue was my first ever video game, and I've played every one of them since then. This franchise was stale, repeating a set of old mechanics over and over again culminating in Sword and Shield, the most mediocre of mediocre games. I wasn't sure Legends was going to come through, but wow, it did. Pokemon Legends throws out the rulebook to the same degree Breath of the Wild did for Zelda, perhaps not to the same quality of a final product, but certainly with a similar gusto.
What an amazing game. Definitely the best from the franchise in over a decade. It's not perfect, and the next one could be better, but man I'm truly in love with Pokemon again. With a few exceptions, like not being clear on how to control turn order, the new battle system is superior to the one they've been leaning on for 25 years now. I have no real other qualms with the RPG and combat mechanics. I love the Agile and Strong style adding another layer to the tactics, so it feels less like rock paper scissors. And replacing EVs and IVs with ELs that are simplified to 1-10 was a fantastic decision.
Small things like changing movesets at any time, having the move tutor available from the start, a wide diversity of Pokemon at the beginning, mostly interesting sidequests, being able to take pictures and explore with your Pokemon in the overworld, alpha Pokemon, wild mons attacking the trainer, dodge rolling, Pokedex quests - this is just a small selection of improvements. I don't even miss things like held items and abilities. It's just not what the game is about anymore, and it's better for it. This is a game about creating the Pokedex, and each element of the game remembers that.
The new catching mechanic is the thing that ties it all together - sure, there are bits of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Monster Hunter in here, but the core addictiveness of Legends comes from Pokemon Go. The simple act of finding a Pokemon, physically working to catch it, and succeeding - this is a seratonin shot unlike almost any other in video games. Legends knows its strengths and leans on them hard, while streamlining the worst parts of Pokemon to make them totally fresh.
I cannot deny this game looks like ass. It is butt ugly almost all the time, with the one exception being the actual Pokemon models, and it genuinely detracted from the game from time to time. It bothered me to see the awful anti-aliasing, rectangular shadows and textures, and jagged pixels of clothing. Ordinarily I don't care much about graphical fidelity, but this is the first game I've played in a long time that looked so bad I have to acknowledge it affected the score. If this game was as good looking as Nintendo's other first party titles, it'd be a 10/10.
I love Pokemon now more than I have since middle school. Moreover I am excited, for the first time in a long time, about what the future could bring. Against my expectations, Game Freak put together a wildly innovative and competent game whose core gameplay succeeds so mightily you mostly won't care that the graphics are worse than most PS2 games. It just so doesn't matter. You throw a berry to distract an alpha Hippowdon, sneak up behind it with a leaden ball, and get mowed down by three Hippopotas you try to quietly dodge while you're sweating bullets. It's just pure fun. This is the way Pokemon were always meant to be interacted with, and what the Pokedex was always meant to be. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm much more excited for Legends 2 than generation 9.
What an amazing game. Definitely the best from the franchise in over a decade. It's not perfect, and the next one could be better, but man I'm truly in love with Pokemon again. With a few exceptions, like not being clear on how to control turn order, the new battle system is superior to the one they've been leaning on for 25 years now. I have no real other qualms with the RPG and combat mechanics. I love the Agile and Strong style adding another layer to the tactics, so it feels less like rock paper scissors. And replacing EVs and IVs with ELs that are simplified to 1-10 was a fantastic decision.
Small things like changing movesets at any time, having the move tutor available from the start, a wide diversity of Pokemon at the beginning, mostly interesting sidequests, being able to take pictures and explore with your Pokemon in the overworld, alpha Pokemon, wild mons attacking the trainer, dodge rolling, Pokedex quests - this is just a small selection of improvements. I don't even miss things like held items and abilities. It's just not what the game is about anymore, and it's better for it. This is a game about creating the Pokedex, and each element of the game remembers that.
The new catching mechanic is the thing that ties it all together - sure, there are bits of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Monster Hunter in here, but the core addictiveness of Legends comes from Pokemon Go. The simple act of finding a Pokemon, physically working to catch it, and succeeding - this is a seratonin shot unlike almost any other in video games. Legends knows its strengths and leans on them hard, while streamlining the worst parts of Pokemon to make them totally fresh.
I cannot deny this game looks like ass. It is butt ugly almost all the time, with the one exception being the actual Pokemon models, and it genuinely detracted from the game from time to time. It bothered me to see the awful anti-aliasing, rectangular shadows and textures, and jagged pixels of clothing. Ordinarily I don't care much about graphical fidelity, but this is the first game I've played in a long time that looked so bad I have to acknowledge it affected the score. If this game was as good looking as Nintendo's other first party titles, it'd be a 10/10.
I love Pokemon now more than I have since middle school. Moreover I am excited, for the first time in a long time, about what the future could bring. Against my expectations, Game Freak put together a wildly innovative and competent game whose core gameplay succeeds so mightily you mostly won't care that the graphics are worse than most PS2 games. It just so doesn't matter. You throw a berry to distract an alpha Hippowdon, sneak up behind it with a leaden ball, and get mowed down by three Hippopotas you try to quietly dodge while you're sweating bullets. It's just pure fun. This is the way Pokemon were always meant to be interacted with, and what the Pokedex was always meant to be. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm much more excited for Legends 2 than generation 9.
If Season 1 was a story about a good man seeking redemption for doing a bad thing, Season 2 is about a girl growing into a woman such a brutal, visceral way you can't help but believe it.
While it didn't quite reach the highs of Season 1, this game did just as masterful a job of tearing at my heartstrings. There is something so poetic and indescribable about how Clementine is simultaneously becoming her own person while every so often, you see Lee in her. Lee and Clementine are two of the best video game characters ever, full stop. The ending of this was inevitable; it was built up over and over and I think it was executed flawlessly.
I have some issues with the narrative decisions during the epilogue, but the last major deicison on the playground was perfect. Although I immediately knew what I had to do, I couldn't make my thumb physically hit the button. I hated it but I pushed through it, and felt sweeping relief and sadness. Clem's flashback reminded me how damn good the first game is, as well, and I dropped a good few tears on the way. I think the supporting characters may have actually been more interesting than in Season 1, but here and there parts of the script felt shaky with them adding and losing new characters so frequently. Still though, you MUST play this if you played Season 1.
While it didn't quite reach the highs of Season 1, this game did just as masterful a job of tearing at my heartstrings. There is something so poetic and indescribable about how Clementine is simultaneously becoming her own person while every so often, you see Lee in her. Lee and Clementine are two of the best video game characters ever, full stop. The ending of this was inevitable; it was built up over and over and I think it was executed flawlessly.
I have some issues with the narrative decisions during the epilogue, but the last major deicison on the playground was perfect. Although I immediately knew what I had to do, I couldn't make my thumb physically hit the button. I hated it but I pushed through it, and felt sweeping relief and sadness. Clem's flashback reminded me how damn good the first game is, as well, and I dropped a good few tears on the way. I think the supporting characters may have actually been more interesting than in Season 1, but here and there parts of the script felt shaky with them adding and losing new characters so frequently. Still though, you MUST play this if you played Season 1.
I believe the core tenet of Kirby is that finding things is fun, and there is perhaps no better game out there to showcase the unbridled joy of this simple action.
I have loved Kirby ever since my grandparents got me a copy of Kirby 64: the Crystal Shards back when I was just a few years old. The absolute joy of experimentation with powers, seeing wondrous creatures, and bopping music combined beautifully into what is still a childhood favorite of mine. As time went on I explored the rest of the franchise, falling in love with Triple Deluxe for the 3DS (I still go to it as a happy place) and loving most of the others. I thought my love of the pink puffball had reached its heights, and then - Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
Kirby makes perhaps the smoothest jump to 3D after 30 years in the second dimension that I have ever seen. Taking a LOT of inspiration from Super Mario, specifically game design philosophy from Odyssey and level design from 3D World, Kirby manages to be more fun than it has ever been with more wondrous levels than you'd ever expect, every inch of them jam-packed with more secrets than you will ever find.
Forgotten Land finds the core joy of Kirby and whittles it down to "there is a great pleasure in simply finding a secret." The entire game is built around this idea. It is rewarding watchful players every 10 seconds with something as small as a star coin, or perhaps something even more exciting like a hidden Waddle-Dee, but every second of it is about the player simply finding things. And Kirby has never, ever felt this good to control.
The number of powers has been reduced, but with the new upgrade system (and the fact that powers are available to change constantly throughout levels), it felt more like streamlining what was fun than reducing possibilities. I LOVED the powers this time around, especially the final iterations of them, and the power-specific challenges scattered around to earn the upgrades is genius. Every one of them is fun, and every one of them makes you want to try again just to see if you can beat the challenge clock. You will play every challenge level in the game not just because you need the star pieces to upgrade, but because it's just so goddamn fun.
Waddle-Dee town is magnificent. It grew at exactly the right pace as I traveled the forgotten lands, showing me tiny bits of progress between levels and rewarding me with simply more fun things to do and more residents for my town. There wasn't a lot of character work done besides Elfilin, and that is probably my only actual complaint with Forgotten Land. I'd have liked other characters like Clawroline and Dedede to be fleshed out a little more throughout the story.
Somehow every world was more memorable than the last one, each level impeccably designed both to work with literally any level of any power, which is unbelievable in itself, but to hold hundreds of simple secrets for you to discover. The music is perhaps the best in the series too, which is a hard bar to cross since The Crystal Shards has an all-time great soundtrack. Do yourself a favor and go listen to The Wastes Where Life Began - it might be one of my favorite Nintendo tracks of all time. And the environmental storytelling in these worlds! Unbelievable. There is a horrifying story of how the world ended to be uncovered, and hidden amongst the cute enemies and gorgeous scenery a dark truth lurks.
Forgotten Land follows the franchise-long tradition of unveiling an otherworldly entity at the end who seeks to use uknowable powers to end all life, and this time it's a doozy. This game contains some of the best boss fights in Nintendo history (Sillydillo is certainly up there), but it has one of my favorite final bosses of all time too. I actually started crying in the last 30 seconds of the last fight as I delivered the final blow because I just felt so happy. This game is pure love, joy, happiness, and determination bundled into a small pink boi. HAL Laboratory has outdone themselves this time and crated a stone-cold classic.
I have loved Kirby ever since my grandparents got me a copy of Kirby 64: the Crystal Shards back when I was just a few years old. The absolute joy of experimentation with powers, seeing wondrous creatures, and bopping music combined beautifully into what is still a childhood favorite of mine. As time went on I explored the rest of the franchise, falling in love with Triple Deluxe for the 3DS (I still go to it as a happy place) and loving most of the others. I thought my love of the pink puffball had reached its heights, and then - Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
Kirby makes perhaps the smoothest jump to 3D after 30 years in the second dimension that I have ever seen. Taking a LOT of inspiration from Super Mario, specifically game design philosophy from Odyssey and level design from 3D World, Kirby manages to be more fun than it has ever been with more wondrous levels than you'd ever expect, every inch of them jam-packed with more secrets than you will ever find.
Forgotten Land finds the core joy of Kirby and whittles it down to "there is a great pleasure in simply finding a secret." The entire game is built around this idea. It is rewarding watchful players every 10 seconds with something as small as a star coin, or perhaps something even more exciting like a hidden Waddle-Dee, but every second of it is about the player simply finding things. And Kirby has never, ever felt this good to control.
The number of powers has been reduced, but with the new upgrade system (and the fact that powers are available to change constantly throughout levels), it felt more like streamlining what was fun than reducing possibilities. I LOVED the powers this time around, especially the final iterations of them, and the power-specific challenges scattered around to earn the upgrades is genius. Every one of them is fun, and every one of them makes you want to try again just to see if you can beat the challenge clock. You will play every challenge level in the game not just because you need the star pieces to upgrade, but because it's just so goddamn fun.
Waddle-Dee town is magnificent. It grew at exactly the right pace as I traveled the forgotten lands, showing me tiny bits of progress between levels and rewarding me with simply more fun things to do and more residents for my town. There wasn't a lot of character work done besides Elfilin, and that is probably my only actual complaint with Forgotten Land. I'd have liked other characters like Clawroline and Dedede to be fleshed out a little more throughout the story.
Somehow every world was more memorable than the last one, each level impeccably designed both to work with literally any level of any power, which is unbelievable in itself, but to hold hundreds of simple secrets for you to discover. The music is perhaps the best in the series too, which is a hard bar to cross since The Crystal Shards has an all-time great soundtrack. Do yourself a favor and go listen to The Wastes Where Life Began - it might be one of my favorite Nintendo tracks of all time. And the environmental storytelling in these worlds! Unbelievable. There is a horrifying story of how the world ended to be uncovered, and hidden amongst the cute enemies and gorgeous scenery a dark truth lurks.
Forgotten Land follows the franchise-long tradition of unveiling an otherworldly entity at the end who seeks to use uknowable powers to end all life, and this time it's a doozy. This game contains some of the best boss fights in Nintendo history (Sillydillo is certainly up there), but it has one of my favorite final bosses of all time too. I actually started crying in the last 30 seconds of the last fight as I delivered the final blow because I just felt so happy. This game is pure love, joy, happiness, and determination bundled into a small pink boi. HAL Laboratory has outdone themselves this time and crated a stone-cold classic.
2021
This is probably as good as a car game could ever get.
2022
Elden Ring… ohhh , Elden Ring... From the moment we saw it at E3 2019, Elden Ring was the white whale of gaming. Where is it? Where will we see it next? Does Geoff Keighley have it? I know you have it, Geoff! With expectations that high, it would have been nearly impossible for the final product to match them. But here we are, at the end of the year, and not only did Elden Ring exceed expectations that it’d be one of the best games of the year - it truly became one of the best games of all time. Not since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild five years ago has there been such an industry shattering title, something that you know is the pinnacle of the art form.
Elden Ring embraces an individualized experience by building the entire game around the concept of wanderlust. Choose your own paths, choose a near infinite number of builds, choose how much you'd like to take advantage of the systems put in place to allow players to purposefully break the game balance. Elden Ring has somehow achieved the perfect balance of difficulty and approachability, letting hardcore Souls veterans face the challenge of a lifetime while allowing new players (like myself) to learn to exploit the world around them to win the fight.
Checkpoints are much more liberal than in previous From Software games, although they can be ignored if you're looking to grit your teeth and sweat through that next battle. Runes are so easy to earn back that losing them only occasionally feels like a true penalty, but when it does it stings. The world begs you to keep walking, and every time you think you've reached an impassable point, you simply can choose to walk in another direction. Stay and fight for your life, or ease up the throttle and hunt for a battle you know you can win. And all this done without a difficulty slider.
The combat is more finely honed than many of most celebrated action games ever. The RPG mechanics are so deep and every point put into a stat so meaningful that it at times outclasses the best of the best. The monsters are bone-chilling, wondrous, ethereal, harrowing, and gorgeous all at once. The masterful soundtrack composed by a dream team of Japanese composers communicates the harshness of the landscape, the beauty of the Erd Tree, the wonder of the crumbling capital city, the panic of seeing an Iron Maiden rushing towards you, and a hundred more feelings at once. A decade later, and finally a soundtrack for an open world RPG can look Skyrim in the eye with a cocky smile.
In a collaboration no one knew to ask for, George RR Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki have created one of the most wondrous and intelligently designed worlds in all of gaming. The music pounds, Alexander the pot man trains with you to regain his power, the stars fall from the sky, the world tree on its last leaf - Elden Ring is like experiencing the breadth and depth of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single game. From Souls veterans to new fans alike, Elden Ring has gripped the entire world by making the Dark Souls formula much more accessible, forgiving, and above all, malleable.
Surely, this is the magnum opus that From Soft has built from their years of work - the white knuckle challenge of Demon's Souls, the technical precision combat of Dark Souls, the abhorrent monstrosities of Bloodborne, the high-intensity action of Sekiro - everything has been a step building to Elden Ring. However, I suspect that Miyazaki and his team will find a way to outdo themselves yet. Stick around.
Elden Ring embraces an individualized experience by building the entire game around the concept of wanderlust. Choose your own paths, choose a near infinite number of builds, choose how much you'd like to take advantage of the systems put in place to allow players to purposefully break the game balance. Elden Ring has somehow achieved the perfect balance of difficulty and approachability, letting hardcore Souls veterans face the challenge of a lifetime while allowing new players (like myself) to learn to exploit the world around them to win the fight.
Checkpoints are much more liberal than in previous From Software games, although they can be ignored if you're looking to grit your teeth and sweat through that next battle. Runes are so easy to earn back that losing them only occasionally feels like a true penalty, but when it does it stings. The world begs you to keep walking, and every time you think you've reached an impassable point, you simply can choose to walk in another direction. Stay and fight for your life, or ease up the throttle and hunt for a battle you know you can win. And all this done without a difficulty slider.
The combat is more finely honed than many of most celebrated action games ever. The RPG mechanics are so deep and every point put into a stat so meaningful that it at times outclasses the best of the best. The monsters are bone-chilling, wondrous, ethereal, harrowing, and gorgeous all at once. The masterful soundtrack composed by a dream team of Japanese composers communicates the harshness of the landscape, the beauty of the Erd Tree, the wonder of the crumbling capital city, the panic of seeing an Iron Maiden rushing towards you, and a hundred more feelings at once. A decade later, and finally a soundtrack for an open world RPG can look Skyrim in the eye with a cocky smile.
In a collaboration no one knew to ask for, George RR Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki have created one of the most wondrous and intelligently designed worlds in all of gaming. The music pounds, Alexander the pot man trains with you to regain his power, the stars fall from the sky, the world tree on its last leaf - Elden Ring is like experiencing the breadth and depth of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single game. From Souls veterans to new fans alike, Elden Ring has gripped the entire world by making the Dark Souls formula much more accessible, forgiving, and above all, malleable.
Surely, this is the magnum opus that From Soft has built from their years of work - the white knuckle challenge of Demon's Souls, the technical precision combat of Dark Souls, the abhorrent monstrosities of Bloodborne, the high-intensity action of Sekiro - everything has been a step building to Elden Ring. However, I suspect that Miyazaki and his team will find a way to outdo themselves yet. Stick around.
2018
Life is Strange 1 and True Colors are two of my favorite games of all time. I got all the way through chapter 4 of this game and it was so boring I wish I could open another game on my second monitor. Unbelievably unlikable characters and completely railroaded decisions at every turn. I do not recommend.
2021
It’s rare that I come across a game that puts me at such unease, makes me so uncomfortable in my own chair, that I simply lose the will to stop playing. Doki Doki Literature Club is one such game that caught me like this, as well as Daniel Mullins’ previous outing, Pony Island. I have a soft spot for horror that follows you out of the game once you turn it off, and on that note Inscryption absolutely delivers.
In this psychological horror meets roguelike card game, you’ll wake to find yourself trapped in a pitch black cabin across the table from a demonic figure, shrouded in darkness. It beckons you to draw from a deck of cards. You do so. You have entered the game, and you will play until you die.
Eventually, one of your cards moves. The stoat motions to you not to react, and tells the player that there is indeed a way out. There are two other living cards in the cabin, and after you and the stoat find them you can make your grand escape attempt. Or at least, that’s the plan. At the beginning the stoat serves as the player companion, providing commentary and clues about the cabin and the demon that you continue to play cards with. After an hour he will be the only thing tethering you to sanity as you witness unexplainable horrors unfold.
What makes the setup so damn interesting is that you are fighting only one opponent, the demon, Leshy, for the entire duration of Act 1. As you continuously build and improve your deck during each run, it will improve and change its deck as well. Inscryption is a tabletop role playing game taking place in a locked cabin, with Leshy serving as both the game master and the only other player. Every NPC you meet along the way is Leshy, every opponent is leshy, every wicked event to befall your poor player is Leshy. In act 2 things change a little, but no spoilers.
There is something cryptically stressful about watching a real demon lead a tabletop game in which it role-plays as many different demons, obviously working hard to make sure the game is fair for the player. Between every encounter round, depending on how the RNG rolls, you’ll be able to either add a new card, power one up you already have, or pick an item to keep. You can keep three items with you at a time. The items range from helpful to horrifying to both, and you’ll likely need to stock them up for the exceedingly difficult boss battles. Which are, again, just Leshy wearing a different hat and doing a different voice. And it is freaky beyond description.
The meta-horror elements of Inscryption are what make it a must-play for me, but the card game itself is extremely innovative and addictive. Each card is a monster with HP, power, a cost, and usually a sigil. Sigils are special effects that add a layer of unpredictability to gameplay, since the same cards don’t always have the same sigils. The wings allow a monster to fly high and attack the opponent directly, the dive allows monsters to hide from attacks underwater, etc. Each turn, you begin by drawing either a card from your deck or a squirrel.
The squirrel card is a fascinating mechanic - you always start with one in your hand, and you can draw one every turn if you think it’s the right move. Squirrels have 1 HP and 0 power, so they are quite literally only useful for sacrifices, but it heightens the thrill of the draw. Similar to many games, like Yugioh, a more powerful monster with a blood cost requires a sacrifice of less powerful monsters. Most turns, especially late game, the real question is whether to draw a squirrel and play it safe or draw from your deck and risk getting a card you can’t afford. The real mind game is more often with yourself than the opponent, as you rack your brain about how to win this battle you can’t afford to lose. Acts 2 and 3 offer a very different card game, each one just as intriguing in its own way.
Each run, the player starts with two lives. Every time you deal damage directly to the opponent, that number of teeth drop onto a balanced scale on the table. Whoever’s side hits the table first is the loser. This means that the battle is truly not over until it's over - finding creative ways to stall until you get a better card is not only doable, but necessary. In essence, you don’t need to deal x number of damage points to Leshy to beat it, you just need to deal 7 more damage than it has dealt to you.
Between rounds, Leshy permits you to stand up and walk around the tiny 10x10 cabin and explore. There are puzzles to solve, codes to input, messages to be found, and friends to rescue hidden around strategically. But Leshy will be watching you the entire time, so don’t try any funny business like leaving. Solving these puzzles unlocks new cards to help you in battle. Make sure to get up and stretch your legs a bit, because you’ll need to unlock these things to progress the narrative. Standing up and walking around with its eyes on your back is viscerally frightening.
Now, you may be thinking “well I don’t much like card games or roguelikes. “ I’ve got good news for you. Inscryption is a total deconstruction of both of these genres, finding the most twisted and uncomfortable ways to alter their structures and tropes to make sure you’re constantly on edge. One of my favorite things about Hades was that the deaths were canonical, and every time you failed you made a bit of progress and moved the story along. The same is true of Inscryption, but perhaps in a much more frightening way.
When your player character dies (and they will die, a lot) and the run ends, Leshy gives you the last-rights honor of creating a death card out of the deck you gathered along the way. You pull the power and HP from one card, the cost from another, the sigil from another, and give it a name. Leshy then pulls an old-timey camera out to take a picture of your dying face for the card and finishes your run there. The player wakes up at the table again as a new character. Yes, each failed run means death for your character, and Leshy brings in another unlucky person to serve as his plaything. This cycle will repeat until the end of eternity… or until you can stop him.
Luckily, the one glimmer of hope is that your powerful death cards will appear in random selections to your future players. Your dying grasp is sad, yes, but not surrender. A piece of that character will travel forward to aid someone else, and so on and so forth, after your death. There’s a strange, sad power in that mechanic. We all fight not to escape, but so that one day the nightmare will end long after we are gone.
My biggest complaint with Inscryption is that I am not at all a fan of the art style. I understand it is meant to make players uneasy, but I believe this can be done without using this ragged 3D-pixel style that just looks flat out bad. Act 2 and 3 change up the art style, but it’s still just kind of unappealing to me. The cards look great, though, and I love the style of the monsters.
Additionally, I didn’t enjoy the actual puzzles around the cabin, nor around the other later areas, and after a long while I brute forced my way through them without figuring out how they were meant to be solved. My second complaint, without giving things away, is that Act 2 is a lot less fun than Act 1. I enjoyed the narrative, but the actual gameplay fell a little flatter for me. Act 3 was a bit more interesting, but I felt it dragged on a bit. Although a lot of the dragging on was my inability to play card games well and my being new to the genre.
Inscryption is introspective in all the best ways, asking players to make unspeakable sacrifices and decisions throughout its roughly 15 hour narrative. As you struggle to escape with your card-confined comrades from the cabin and unravel the mystery of who and what Leshy is, you’ll be treated to a wildly addictive card game that has you fighting yourself just as often as the opponent. The boss battles are tough as nails, adding extra layers and conditions upon the rules of the card game, and you won’t be able to stop playing for fear that the demon might just be behind your desk chair.
In this psychological horror meets roguelike card game, you’ll wake to find yourself trapped in a pitch black cabin across the table from a demonic figure, shrouded in darkness. It beckons you to draw from a deck of cards. You do so. You have entered the game, and you will play until you die.
Eventually, one of your cards moves. The stoat motions to you not to react, and tells the player that there is indeed a way out. There are two other living cards in the cabin, and after you and the stoat find them you can make your grand escape attempt. Or at least, that’s the plan. At the beginning the stoat serves as the player companion, providing commentary and clues about the cabin and the demon that you continue to play cards with. After an hour he will be the only thing tethering you to sanity as you witness unexplainable horrors unfold.
What makes the setup so damn interesting is that you are fighting only one opponent, the demon, Leshy, for the entire duration of Act 1. As you continuously build and improve your deck during each run, it will improve and change its deck as well. Inscryption is a tabletop role playing game taking place in a locked cabin, with Leshy serving as both the game master and the only other player. Every NPC you meet along the way is Leshy, every opponent is leshy, every wicked event to befall your poor player is Leshy. In act 2 things change a little, but no spoilers.
There is something cryptically stressful about watching a real demon lead a tabletop game in which it role-plays as many different demons, obviously working hard to make sure the game is fair for the player. Between every encounter round, depending on how the RNG rolls, you’ll be able to either add a new card, power one up you already have, or pick an item to keep. You can keep three items with you at a time. The items range from helpful to horrifying to both, and you’ll likely need to stock them up for the exceedingly difficult boss battles. Which are, again, just Leshy wearing a different hat and doing a different voice. And it is freaky beyond description.
The meta-horror elements of Inscryption are what make it a must-play for me, but the card game itself is extremely innovative and addictive. Each card is a monster with HP, power, a cost, and usually a sigil. Sigils are special effects that add a layer of unpredictability to gameplay, since the same cards don’t always have the same sigils. The wings allow a monster to fly high and attack the opponent directly, the dive allows monsters to hide from attacks underwater, etc. Each turn, you begin by drawing either a card from your deck or a squirrel.
The squirrel card is a fascinating mechanic - you always start with one in your hand, and you can draw one every turn if you think it’s the right move. Squirrels have 1 HP and 0 power, so they are quite literally only useful for sacrifices, but it heightens the thrill of the draw. Similar to many games, like Yugioh, a more powerful monster with a blood cost requires a sacrifice of less powerful monsters. Most turns, especially late game, the real question is whether to draw a squirrel and play it safe or draw from your deck and risk getting a card you can’t afford. The real mind game is more often with yourself than the opponent, as you rack your brain about how to win this battle you can’t afford to lose. Acts 2 and 3 offer a very different card game, each one just as intriguing in its own way.
Each run, the player starts with two lives. Every time you deal damage directly to the opponent, that number of teeth drop onto a balanced scale on the table. Whoever’s side hits the table first is the loser. This means that the battle is truly not over until it's over - finding creative ways to stall until you get a better card is not only doable, but necessary. In essence, you don’t need to deal x number of damage points to Leshy to beat it, you just need to deal 7 more damage than it has dealt to you.
Between rounds, Leshy permits you to stand up and walk around the tiny 10x10 cabin and explore. There are puzzles to solve, codes to input, messages to be found, and friends to rescue hidden around strategically. But Leshy will be watching you the entire time, so don’t try any funny business like leaving. Solving these puzzles unlocks new cards to help you in battle. Make sure to get up and stretch your legs a bit, because you’ll need to unlock these things to progress the narrative. Standing up and walking around with its eyes on your back is viscerally frightening.
Now, you may be thinking “well I don’t much like card games or roguelikes. “ I’ve got good news for you. Inscryption is a total deconstruction of both of these genres, finding the most twisted and uncomfortable ways to alter their structures and tropes to make sure you’re constantly on edge. One of my favorite things about Hades was that the deaths were canonical, and every time you failed you made a bit of progress and moved the story along. The same is true of Inscryption, but perhaps in a much more frightening way.
When your player character dies (and they will die, a lot) and the run ends, Leshy gives you the last-rights honor of creating a death card out of the deck you gathered along the way. You pull the power and HP from one card, the cost from another, the sigil from another, and give it a name. Leshy then pulls an old-timey camera out to take a picture of your dying face for the card and finishes your run there. The player wakes up at the table again as a new character. Yes, each failed run means death for your character, and Leshy brings in another unlucky person to serve as his plaything. This cycle will repeat until the end of eternity… or until you can stop him.
Luckily, the one glimmer of hope is that your powerful death cards will appear in random selections to your future players. Your dying grasp is sad, yes, but not surrender. A piece of that character will travel forward to aid someone else, and so on and so forth, after your death. There’s a strange, sad power in that mechanic. We all fight not to escape, but so that one day the nightmare will end long after we are gone.
My biggest complaint with Inscryption is that I am not at all a fan of the art style. I understand it is meant to make players uneasy, but I believe this can be done without using this ragged 3D-pixel style that just looks flat out bad. Act 2 and 3 change up the art style, but it’s still just kind of unappealing to me. The cards look great, though, and I love the style of the monsters.
Additionally, I didn’t enjoy the actual puzzles around the cabin, nor around the other later areas, and after a long while I brute forced my way through them without figuring out how they were meant to be solved. My second complaint, without giving things away, is that Act 2 is a lot less fun than Act 1. I enjoyed the narrative, but the actual gameplay fell a little flatter for me. Act 3 was a bit more interesting, but I felt it dragged on a bit. Although a lot of the dragging on was my inability to play card games well and my being new to the genre.
Inscryption is introspective in all the best ways, asking players to make unspeakable sacrifices and decisions throughout its roughly 15 hour narrative. As you struggle to escape with your card-confined comrades from the cabin and unravel the mystery of who and what Leshy is, you’ll be treated to a wildly addictive card game that has you fighting yourself just as often as the opponent. The boss battles are tough as nails, adding extra layers and conditions upon the rules of the card game, and you won’t be able to stop playing for fear that the demon might just be behind your desk chair.
AI: The Somnium Files was created by Kotaro Uchikoshi, the writer and director of the Zero Escape Trilogy. If you haven’t played those games, stop reading this and go play them. Quit your job if you have to. Do it .I happen to be an enormous fan of that series, and have been known for incessantly badgering everyone in a 100 foot radius into picking up the games.
I was excited that Uchikoshi was taking another crack at his signature visual novel/3D puzzle-style games within a new IP, this time as a detective story instead of horror. While I wasn’t quite in the mood to play it when it launched in September 2019, I pre-ordered it to show my support for one of my favorite game makers and finally got into it a few days ago. As one of the biggest fans of Zero Escape in the world, AI: The Somnium Files did not disappoint.
Read this review with pictures here: https://gandheezy.medium.com/ai-the-somnium-files-review-576b0350a2fd
Following in the footsteps of Zero Escape, AI is a twisting, branching story that leads to several different endings that are all simultaneously canon. Much like the second Zero Escape game, Virtue’s Last Reward, a flowchart can be accessed at any time to jump between timelines, scenes, events and dialogue. While many games offer the branching paths leading to different endings, very few demand that all endings be accessed before the player can even understand where to look for the true ending. As I said, all the branches are canon, and I can’t really tell you how without spoiling it.
Our story begins when Shoko Nadami, a former friend of protagonist detective Kaname Date, is found dead on a Merry-Go-Round with her eye gouged out. Things only become more complicated; Shoko is the birth mother of Date’s adopted daughter, the feisty and determined Mizuki. Date’s partner in this near-future sci-fi investigation is Aiba, an AI that lives in Date’s artificial eyeball. She is merged with his consciousness and serves as a faithful companion throughout the story, and her back-and-forth with Date leads to some pretty solid comedy. The game opens up with a visual novel section (fully voiced in English with great voice acting) and then turns us to our first puzzle.
I’ll be the first to admit, the puzzles are the weakest part of AI. The setup is rather complex, but essentially each puzzle sends Aiba into another person’s mind (their “somnium”) via the PSYNC machine, a secret project by the Japanese government housed in Date’s department, ABIS. Aiba physically manifests into a human girl, and the player controls her as she tackles the multilayered and multi-ending puzzles in dream-like 3D space. Entering the PSYNC machine has a catch though; it can only work for 6 minutes, or 360 seconds before deactivating. You only have that long to deactivate all “mental locks” to enter the subject’s dream.
When Aiba approaches an object, she’s given a choice to do three or four things, with a “time consumed” marker next to each one and what’s called a TIMIE. TIMIEs are bonuses that can be stored to decrease time consumed for later tasks; for example if you kicked a bucket and it consumed 10 seconds but awarded a 1/3 TIMIE, you could use that to fill the bucket up with water and decrease the consumed time from 60 seconds to 20. It actually makes for a pretty interesting mind game, choosing where to use your three stored TIMIEs and where to take the hit on time, but the puzzles kind of falter in making it clear what to actually do.
There are often five or more interact-able objects at once, each with several options on how to interact, so AI kind of encourages players to trial-and-error the puzzles. Every time you choose the wrong interaction, you lose precious time. You’re allowed three charges to restart at any of the checkpoints during the puzzles, but the farther back you go the more charges consumed. If you don’t make it out in time, you’ll start the whole puzzle over.
On the first few puzzles that were a bit easier, I had fun trying things out and seeing what happened. However, as time went on, I was less enthused about brute forcing the puzzles and started using a guide. Many puzzles actually have two solutions, leading to branching story paths, so it’ll definitely take a while to beat this game if you do it all organically. I think simply giving the player an infinite number of restart charges for checkpoints would have actually made the whole thing more fun; I understand the concept of introducing the fear element of running out of time, but I just got frustrated every time I couldn’t crack a puzzle on the first one or two tries.
The story ended up being pretty fascinating, and if you’re ready to give it the same suspension of disbelief you would to other near-future Sci-fi like Star Trek, Deus Ex, or Prey, you’ll find it’s a pretty tightly crafted script. Working with multiple timelines that must all remain distinct yet feed into each other is complex, and the fact that Uchikoshi managed to nail it again is certainly encouraging that more games of this type may appear one day.
I was a bit put off by some of the characters, such as Iris and Ota, near the beginning, but by the end of finishing my first timeline (of six) I was heavily invested in them. I suggest giving the characters a few hours to grow on you; Aiba and Mizuki are especially wonderfully written and very engaging right from the start.
The dialogue is wonderfully quippy almost all the time; but it does slow down to let the serious moments land. As I mentioned before, the voice acting is much better than I expected in English, so I suggest using that language option. While the mystery unfolds you’ll meet all kinds of people, from congressman to the Yakuza to a Minecraft streamer to a fabulous drag queen.
Also, interesting note, AI has found a lot of traction within the LGBT+ community; it features a few sexual minority characters and several conversations even take place about LGBT+ rights and public view. It was refreshing and totally unexpected in a Japanese visual novel, so kudos to Uchikoshi for being a little more progressive, I suppose.
I will also advise caution on the Nintendo Switch version of the game, as some pretty serious compromises were made to get it to run. Docked, it runs at 720p 30 FPS, and drops to even lower resolution in handheld. The FPS also isn’t stable in either method, and regularly drops to 20 or so. This isn’t really the dealbreaker it would be for most games, as it’s a visual novel for the most part, so I powered through. Being able to play handheld in bed was nice! But looking back I wish I had purchased it on Steam or PS4. The loading times were pretty egregious on Switch as well.
AI: The Somnium Files is a weird game in a weird transitional space, and clearly shows Uchikoshi’s willingness to branch off from what was successful in the past. Even though it doesn’t all work, I greatly admire what the team at Spike Chunsoft put together and am extremely impressed at how well they handled such an overly complex story. I had those moments of epiphany seconds before the reveal like you want in any good detective story, as well as the satisfaction of some of my theories being correct well in advance. Other theories I had were… not so correct, but that’s the fun of it. While the puzzles fell short for me, especially in comparison to those from Zero Escape, I had a great time after getting sucked in and couldn’t put it down all weekend. I legitimately can’t believe a sequel is coming next spring, and is still being directed by Uchikoshi even after his departure from Spike Chunsoft; the next game has the potential to be a mind-bender for the ages. I recommend AI to anyone who’s enjoyed Zero Escape or its partner series Danganronpa, or to anyone looking for a crazy mystery that will test the limits of their imagination.
I was excited that Uchikoshi was taking another crack at his signature visual novel/3D puzzle-style games within a new IP, this time as a detective story instead of horror. While I wasn’t quite in the mood to play it when it launched in September 2019, I pre-ordered it to show my support for one of my favorite game makers and finally got into it a few days ago. As one of the biggest fans of Zero Escape in the world, AI: The Somnium Files did not disappoint.
Read this review with pictures here: https://gandheezy.medium.com/ai-the-somnium-files-review-576b0350a2fd
Following in the footsteps of Zero Escape, AI is a twisting, branching story that leads to several different endings that are all simultaneously canon. Much like the second Zero Escape game, Virtue’s Last Reward, a flowchart can be accessed at any time to jump between timelines, scenes, events and dialogue. While many games offer the branching paths leading to different endings, very few demand that all endings be accessed before the player can even understand where to look for the true ending. As I said, all the branches are canon, and I can’t really tell you how without spoiling it.
Our story begins when Shoko Nadami, a former friend of protagonist detective Kaname Date, is found dead on a Merry-Go-Round with her eye gouged out. Things only become more complicated; Shoko is the birth mother of Date’s adopted daughter, the feisty and determined Mizuki. Date’s partner in this near-future sci-fi investigation is Aiba, an AI that lives in Date’s artificial eyeball. She is merged with his consciousness and serves as a faithful companion throughout the story, and her back-and-forth with Date leads to some pretty solid comedy. The game opens up with a visual novel section (fully voiced in English with great voice acting) and then turns us to our first puzzle.
I’ll be the first to admit, the puzzles are the weakest part of AI. The setup is rather complex, but essentially each puzzle sends Aiba into another person’s mind (their “somnium”) via the PSYNC machine, a secret project by the Japanese government housed in Date’s department, ABIS. Aiba physically manifests into a human girl, and the player controls her as she tackles the multilayered and multi-ending puzzles in dream-like 3D space. Entering the PSYNC machine has a catch though; it can only work for 6 minutes, or 360 seconds before deactivating. You only have that long to deactivate all “mental locks” to enter the subject’s dream.
When Aiba approaches an object, she’s given a choice to do three or four things, with a “time consumed” marker next to each one and what’s called a TIMIE. TIMIEs are bonuses that can be stored to decrease time consumed for later tasks; for example if you kicked a bucket and it consumed 10 seconds but awarded a 1/3 TIMIE, you could use that to fill the bucket up with water and decrease the consumed time from 60 seconds to 20. It actually makes for a pretty interesting mind game, choosing where to use your three stored TIMIEs and where to take the hit on time, but the puzzles kind of falter in making it clear what to actually do.
There are often five or more interact-able objects at once, each with several options on how to interact, so AI kind of encourages players to trial-and-error the puzzles. Every time you choose the wrong interaction, you lose precious time. You’re allowed three charges to restart at any of the checkpoints during the puzzles, but the farther back you go the more charges consumed. If you don’t make it out in time, you’ll start the whole puzzle over.
On the first few puzzles that were a bit easier, I had fun trying things out and seeing what happened. However, as time went on, I was less enthused about brute forcing the puzzles and started using a guide. Many puzzles actually have two solutions, leading to branching story paths, so it’ll definitely take a while to beat this game if you do it all organically. I think simply giving the player an infinite number of restart charges for checkpoints would have actually made the whole thing more fun; I understand the concept of introducing the fear element of running out of time, but I just got frustrated every time I couldn’t crack a puzzle on the first one or two tries.
The story ended up being pretty fascinating, and if you’re ready to give it the same suspension of disbelief you would to other near-future Sci-fi like Star Trek, Deus Ex, or Prey, you’ll find it’s a pretty tightly crafted script. Working with multiple timelines that must all remain distinct yet feed into each other is complex, and the fact that Uchikoshi managed to nail it again is certainly encouraging that more games of this type may appear one day.
I was a bit put off by some of the characters, such as Iris and Ota, near the beginning, but by the end of finishing my first timeline (of six) I was heavily invested in them. I suggest giving the characters a few hours to grow on you; Aiba and Mizuki are especially wonderfully written and very engaging right from the start.
The dialogue is wonderfully quippy almost all the time; but it does slow down to let the serious moments land. As I mentioned before, the voice acting is much better than I expected in English, so I suggest using that language option. While the mystery unfolds you’ll meet all kinds of people, from congressman to the Yakuza to a Minecraft streamer to a fabulous drag queen.
Also, interesting note, AI has found a lot of traction within the LGBT+ community; it features a few sexual minority characters and several conversations even take place about LGBT+ rights and public view. It was refreshing and totally unexpected in a Japanese visual novel, so kudos to Uchikoshi for being a little more progressive, I suppose.
I will also advise caution on the Nintendo Switch version of the game, as some pretty serious compromises were made to get it to run. Docked, it runs at 720p 30 FPS, and drops to even lower resolution in handheld. The FPS also isn’t stable in either method, and regularly drops to 20 or so. This isn’t really the dealbreaker it would be for most games, as it’s a visual novel for the most part, so I powered through. Being able to play handheld in bed was nice! But looking back I wish I had purchased it on Steam or PS4. The loading times were pretty egregious on Switch as well.
AI: The Somnium Files is a weird game in a weird transitional space, and clearly shows Uchikoshi’s willingness to branch off from what was successful in the past. Even though it doesn’t all work, I greatly admire what the team at Spike Chunsoft put together and am extremely impressed at how well they handled such an overly complex story. I had those moments of epiphany seconds before the reveal like you want in any good detective story, as well as the satisfaction of some of my theories being correct well in advance. Other theories I had were… not so correct, but that’s the fun of it. While the puzzles fell short for me, especially in comparison to those from Zero Escape, I had a great time after getting sucked in and couldn’t put it down all weekend. I legitimately can’t believe a sequel is coming next spring, and is still being directed by Uchikoshi even after his departure from Spike Chunsoft; the next game has the potential to be a mind-bender for the ages. I recommend AI to anyone who’s enjoyed Zero Escape or its partner series Danganronpa, or to anyone looking for a crazy mystery that will test the limits of their imagination.
2014
Transistor is home to the best video game soundtrack of all time.
I come to you, hat in hand, with my Gamer Card on the line — I do not like Final Fantasy, and Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade (hereafter FF VII R) is only the second game in the franchise I’ve played more than an hour of. With a few exceptions, I’m historically not a fan of turn-based battling, and whenever I start up one of the Final Fantasy games I’m immediately reminded why. I’ve tried the original VII, I, X, XII, XIII and XIV to no avail; however, I quite enjoyed my time with Final Fantasy XV and played it to completion. All this is to say, FF VII R had absolutely no business pleasing me as much as it did.
This remake caught my attention when I saw that it’d be live combat like FF XV. “Finally!” I thought. “I have a chance to really genuinely get into this game, one that people push as one of the all-time greats!” I purchased FF VII R last year on a sale with no intention of playing it until a patch for 60 FPS was introduced. I sat on the disc, and my patience was rewarded with Intergrade, the PS5 update that featured 60 FPS, enhanced lighting, enhanced sound, new particle effects and new textures. Just a few days after the next-gen edition launched, I began my journey into Midgar with that guy with the big sword from Smash Bros.
Like I mentioned previously, I don’t know the story of Final Fantasy VII. I absorbed bits of it through osmosis, such as the cat riding a mechanical gnome and Sephiroth killing Aerith, but largely I didn’t know a single concrete thing about the narrative going in. We begin our story in the dieselpunk city of Midgar, a beautiful and horrific collision of magic and industry. Our hero Cloud assists the eco-activist/terrorist group Avalanche as a mercenary in sabotaging the reactors owned by Shinra, a traditional cyberpunk mega-corporation that has a hand in everything and owns everyone’s lives. The reactors burn mako, a substance that is the “lifeblood” of the planet, to create power for Midgar’s many industries and citizens. The theming is heavy-handed right up front, which, as a fan of Hideo Kojima, you know I love.
The main players that we meet are Barrett, the head of Sector 7’s cell; Tifa, Cloud’s childhood friend; Aerith, a local florist; Wedge, who is Badger from Breaking Bad; Biggs, the cool upperclassmen; and Jess, who is trying just a bit too hard. I liked all of these characters are just a few interactions, but I really fell head over heels in love with the main quartet of Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Barret. Quintet, I suppose — Red XIII is part of the family too! The main positive selling point of FF XV is how well they nailed the realationships and dynamics between the main characters — FF VII R does it almost as well. It does basically everything else, however, remarkably better than XV. The overall storyboard, while prone to bouts of getting too “anime,” was largely interesting, well structured, and thematically coherent.
I feel comfortable saying that FF VII R is some of my favorite combat in all of video games. This is a near-perfect fusion of turn-based and live combat, and by appealing to the action-gamer in me I think it got me to appreciate turn-based combat in general a little more. I was literally wiping sweat off my brow while my brain was moving 100 mph in some fights, but I died less than a dozen times throughout the entire game (Normal difficulty). Almost every boss, however, left me right on the verge of failure when I snatched victory at the last possible moment. FF VII R is incredibly well balanced, so much so that I have had to rethink what the concept of “balance” even means for other games.
While it took me a little while to understand the materia system by just playing around with it, I was very happy with how it worked and that progression moved at this very precise pace to keep the difficulty ramping up every so slightly with each chapter. I used the auto-skill button to set up my characters stats so I didn’t have to worry too much about the nitty-gritty RPG stuff (maxing out Cloud and Tifa for Attack and Barrett and Aerith for Defense). This was great and left me to focus on moving materia equips around between characters to keep things fresh as my party constantly changed.
Shuffling my playable team between every possibly configuration of characters was a little bit forced narratively, but damn it made me learn to improvise and I loved it. The challenge I want from games is a demand for me to be resourceful, working my way out of fights by making stuff up while I go and flying by the seat of my pants. This is of course why I love Arkane Studios games so much — I’m not interested in mastering anything or getting mechanically better at fighting. Make me drag out every last inch of my resourcefulness, kicking and screaming, to stay alive.
FF VII R is perhaps the best looking game I’ve ever played. It’s certainly one of them. I played in performance mode (the correct mode) and the new lighting engine for Intergrade is still so outstanding that it looks better than nearly every game I’ve played with actual ray tracing. The particle effects are the prettiest I’ve ever seen, and even with thousands of them flying around every second I never felt like too much was going on at once on screen. The character designs somehow have found the perfect midpoint between anime and real life without falling into the uncanny valley, maybe for the first time ever. The reflections and beautiful, the colors are vivid, and save for some textures that still just wouldn’t load it was visually flawless. And not once did my game drop below 60 FPS. Thank god for the photo mode that let me capture nearly 600 pictures throughout!
I was upset last year when Final Fantasy VII Remake clutched the Game Award for best score, when I felt there was no way it could have topped Ghost of Tsushima’s phenomenal sound track. Well, here I am, admitting I was wrong. FF VII R completely blew me away with the score. Almost every track was exceptional in its own right, and hats off to the sound mixing and editing teams as well for their work with the game audio. Let the Battles Begin! might very well be the best combat theme in all of video games, not to mention One-Winged Angel from the Sephiroth boss fight. Nobuo Uematsu is truly one of the best in the biz, and with help from fellow Final Fantasy music veteran Masashi Hamauzu their rearrangements for the remake outdo the originals.
I’ve been putting it off long enough, but unfortunately I can do so no longer. Nearly everything wrong with Final Fantasy VII Remake is in its pacing and padding. I’ve thought about it, and FF VII R is the worst paced narrative-heavy game I’ve ever played. I could cut 10 hours of game out of the 35 playtime and absolutely nothing of value would be lost. But there wasn’t any one segment that should disappear; rather, every single scene in the game suffered from needless padding and forced slowing of the player. Dozens of times the player is made to just hold forward on the control stick to walk slowly for 10 unbroken minutes while someone talks to them about something.
In addition, there are long stretches of game where every 5 minutes another 2 minute-long cutscene plays and then throws you back into gameplay for 5 minutes before doing it again. It’s jarring, relentless and almost none of it is needed. The piss-poor pacing of nearly every action scene killed a lot of the excitement for me, particularly in the final stretch during the Whisper Harbinger boss fight. Every time I killed one of Whisper, a cut scene would play out, some character would get tossed away or added back to the party, and I’d fight them again but this time they’re a dragon. I died 40 minutes into this boss fight and had to redo the entire thing, which was frustrating to no end as I neared the finale of a 35 hour RPG and just wanted to be done.
Narratively, FF VII R had over a dozen moments that felt like “the end” and just kept going. Professor Hojo’s Lab Dungeon was so egregious it was almost enough to make me drop the game just hours from the end. “Release me, Nomura!” I cried in my dark apartment as I fought the 4th boss in a row that I thought was the last one.
This is not to mention all the unnecessary and boring as hell side quests, at least half of which you’ll be forced to complete if you want to have enough money for the necessary equipment and items. Slowing down a narrative and filling it with fluff does NOT have to be part of a game story, and I’m tired of people making excuses for padding like this because it’s just something that most JRPG’s do and they’re used to it. It’s bad. Stop it.
The last 10 hours of the game really soured my opinion on the whole piece, but it was indeed redeemed by the actual final battle (9th final boss battle in a row but whatever) with Sephiroth. This was one of my favorite final boss fights of all time, so perfectly paced and interspersing the cinematic narrative with my own gameplay so seamlessly. I finished the fight with no potions left, two of my characters down and Tifa on her last legs as she delivered the final blow with a Limit Break. It was so perfectly timed it was hard to believe it wasn’t choreographed. The victory and sense of accomplishment I felt in that moment almost made up for the offensively bad pacing of the entire rest of the game — almost.
A few months ago, I would have said that Final Fantasy as a whole was just a thing I did not like. It wasn’t for me. I think it’s unlikely I’ll go back to the old turn-based games still, but I am now excited for Final Fantasy XVI and beyond thrilled for Remake Part II. I loved the narrative decisions of the larger storyboard in this game, and it’s so much more interesting that Square Enix made this a sequel rather than a straight remake. Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, Barrett and Red XIII became real characters I actually cared about along the way. I want to play the next game so desperately simply so I can find out what happens to them, and that’s about as high praise as I can give. I’m glad it deviates from the original going forward, because I don’t think I could stop myself from popping open a plot summary to see what was coming otherwise. It’s not going on my all time favorites list after how much it dragged nearly every chapter, but it’s not one I’ll soon forget. With some of the best visuals and music in video games and unbelievably fun combat and characters, it’ll be hard to wait for the next installment. But hey, until then this is the only game where you can get mugged by a turtle with a knife. So yeah, go play it.
This remake caught my attention when I saw that it’d be live combat like FF XV. “Finally!” I thought. “I have a chance to really genuinely get into this game, one that people push as one of the all-time greats!” I purchased FF VII R last year on a sale with no intention of playing it until a patch for 60 FPS was introduced. I sat on the disc, and my patience was rewarded with Intergrade, the PS5 update that featured 60 FPS, enhanced lighting, enhanced sound, new particle effects and new textures. Just a few days after the next-gen edition launched, I began my journey into Midgar with that guy with the big sword from Smash Bros.
Like I mentioned previously, I don’t know the story of Final Fantasy VII. I absorbed bits of it through osmosis, such as the cat riding a mechanical gnome and Sephiroth killing Aerith, but largely I didn’t know a single concrete thing about the narrative going in. We begin our story in the dieselpunk city of Midgar, a beautiful and horrific collision of magic and industry. Our hero Cloud assists the eco-activist/terrorist group Avalanche as a mercenary in sabotaging the reactors owned by Shinra, a traditional cyberpunk mega-corporation that has a hand in everything and owns everyone’s lives. The reactors burn mako, a substance that is the “lifeblood” of the planet, to create power for Midgar’s many industries and citizens. The theming is heavy-handed right up front, which, as a fan of Hideo Kojima, you know I love.
The main players that we meet are Barrett, the head of Sector 7’s cell; Tifa, Cloud’s childhood friend; Aerith, a local florist; Wedge, who is Badger from Breaking Bad; Biggs, the cool upperclassmen; and Jess, who is trying just a bit too hard. I liked all of these characters are just a few interactions, but I really fell head over heels in love with the main quartet of Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Barret. Quintet, I suppose — Red XIII is part of the family too! The main positive selling point of FF XV is how well they nailed the realationships and dynamics between the main characters — FF VII R does it almost as well. It does basically everything else, however, remarkably better than XV. The overall storyboard, while prone to bouts of getting too “anime,” was largely interesting, well structured, and thematically coherent.
I feel comfortable saying that FF VII R is some of my favorite combat in all of video games. This is a near-perfect fusion of turn-based and live combat, and by appealing to the action-gamer in me I think it got me to appreciate turn-based combat in general a little more. I was literally wiping sweat off my brow while my brain was moving 100 mph in some fights, but I died less than a dozen times throughout the entire game (Normal difficulty). Almost every boss, however, left me right on the verge of failure when I snatched victory at the last possible moment. FF VII R is incredibly well balanced, so much so that I have had to rethink what the concept of “balance” even means for other games.
While it took me a little while to understand the materia system by just playing around with it, I was very happy with how it worked and that progression moved at this very precise pace to keep the difficulty ramping up every so slightly with each chapter. I used the auto-skill button to set up my characters stats so I didn’t have to worry too much about the nitty-gritty RPG stuff (maxing out Cloud and Tifa for Attack and Barrett and Aerith for Defense). This was great and left me to focus on moving materia equips around between characters to keep things fresh as my party constantly changed.
Shuffling my playable team between every possibly configuration of characters was a little bit forced narratively, but damn it made me learn to improvise and I loved it. The challenge I want from games is a demand for me to be resourceful, working my way out of fights by making stuff up while I go and flying by the seat of my pants. This is of course why I love Arkane Studios games so much — I’m not interested in mastering anything or getting mechanically better at fighting. Make me drag out every last inch of my resourcefulness, kicking and screaming, to stay alive.
FF VII R is perhaps the best looking game I’ve ever played. It’s certainly one of them. I played in performance mode (the correct mode) and the new lighting engine for Intergrade is still so outstanding that it looks better than nearly every game I’ve played with actual ray tracing. The particle effects are the prettiest I’ve ever seen, and even with thousands of them flying around every second I never felt like too much was going on at once on screen. The character designs somehow have found the perfect midpoint between anime and real life without falling into the uncanny valley, maybe for the first time ever. The reflections and beautiful, the colors are vivid, and save for some textures that still just wouldn’t load it was visually flawless. And not once did my game drop below 60 FPS. Thank god for the photo mode that let me capture nearly 600 pictures throughout!
I was upset last year when Final Fantasy VII Remake clutched the Game Award for best score, when I felt there was no way it could have topped Ghost of Tsushima’s phenomenal sound track. Well, here I am, admitting I was wrong. FF VII R completely blew me away with the score. Almost every track was exceptional in its own right, and hats off to the sound mixing and editing teams as well for their work with the game audio. Let the Battles Begin! might very well be the best combat theme in all of video games, not to mention One-Winged Angel from the Sephiroth boss fight. Nobuo Uematsu is truly one of the best in the biz, and with help from fellow Final Fantasy music veteran Masashi Hamauzu their rearrangements for the remake outdo the originals.
I’ve been putting it off long enough, but unfortunately I can do so no longer. Nearly everything wrong with Final Fantasy VII Remake is in its pacing and padding. I’ve thought about it, and FF VII R is the worst paced narrative-heavy game I’ve ever played. I could cut 10 hours of game out of the 35 playtime and absolutely nothing of value would be lost. But there wasn’t any one segment that should disappear; rather, every single scene in the game suffered from needless padding and forced slowing of the player. Dozens of times the player is made to just hold forward on the control stick to walk slowly for 10 unbroken minutes while someone talks to them about something.
In addition, there are long stretches of game where every 5 minutes another 2 minute-long cutscene plays and then throws you back into gameplay for 5 minutes before doing it again. It’s jarring, relentless and almost none of it is needed. The piss-poor pacing of nearly every action scene killed a lot of the excitement for me, particularly in the final stretch during the Whisper Harbinger boss fight. Every time I killed one of Whisper, a cut scene would play out, some character would get tossed away or added back to the party, and I’d fight them again but this time they’re a dragon. I died 40 minutes into this boss fight and had to redo the entire thing, which was frustrating to no end as I neared the finale of a 35 hour RPG and just wanted to be done.
Narratively, FF VII R had over a dozen moments that felt like “the end” and just kept going. Professor Hojo’s Lab Dungeon was so egregious it was almost enough to make me drop the game just hours from the end. “Release me, Nomura!” I cried in my dark apartment as I fought the 4th boss in a row that I thought was the last one.
This is not to mention all the unnecessary and boring as hell side quests, at least half of which you’ll be forced to complete if you want to have enough money for the necessary equipment and items. Slowing down a narrative and filling it with fluff does NOT have to be part of a game story, and I’m tired of people making excuses for padding like this because it’s just something that most JRPG’s do and they’re used to it. It’s bad. Stop it.
The last 10 hours of the game really soured my opinion on the whole piece, but it was indeed redeemed by the actual final battle (9th final boss battle in a row but whatever) with Sephiroth. This was one of my favorite final boss fights of all time, so perfectly paced and interspersing the cinematic narrative with my own gameplay so seamlessly. I finished the fight with no potions left, two of my characters down and Tifa on her last legs as she delivered the final blow with a Limit Break. It was so perfectly timed it was hard to believe it wasn’t choreographed. The victory and sense of accomplishment I felt in that moment almost made up for the offensively bad pacing of the entire rest of the game — almost.
A few months ago, I would have said that Final Fantasy as a whole was just a thing I did not like. It wasn’t for me. I think it’s unlikely I’ll go back to the old turn-based games still, but I am now excited for Final Fantasy XVI and beyond thrilled for Remake Part II. I loved the narrative decisions of the larger storyboard in this game, and it’s so much more interesting that Square Enix made this a sequel rather than a straight remake. Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, Barrett and Red XIII became real characters I actually cared about along the way. I want to play the next game so desperately simply so I can find out what happens to them, and that’s about as high praise as I can give. I’m glad it deviates from the original going forward, because I don’t think I could stop myself from popping open a plot summary to see what was coming otherwise. It’s not going on my all time favorites list after how much it dragged nearly every chapter, but it’s not one I’ll soon forget. With some of the best visuals and music in video games and unbelievably fun combat and characters, it’ll be hard to wait for the next installment. But hey, until then this is the only game where you can get mugged by a turtle with a knife. So yeah, go play it.