I really really loved my time with Stray Gods and I definitely intend to return to check out some of the other paths the story could have played out (Although I suspect they won't be that different). It's a lovely visual novel with a moderate integration of player choice that really shines in the musical segments of the game! While your choices there don't feel like they change the course of the story all too often, they do heavily impact the style and tone of what's sung, which is a delightful thing to witness. The OST is really good and catchy, the voice performances are stellar and the visual style manages to tie each element together well enough. On the story side of things it's a bit messy sometimes, but always intriguing - Let's see what I can dig up in subsequent playthroughs! The entire experience left me wanting more and I think that's a good sign that they were onto something here. With a little more polish (the game crashed on me quite often), some more budget for animations and a tighter narrative and theming, this would've been even better, but I'm really glad the game's out there as it is.

It didn't take me that long to find Baseball after seeing the condition Tennis was in. I was surprised at first to see Baseball not by Tennis at first, as I thought he would want to take care of him in his time of need, as he looked to be in a pretty rough state. However, when I saw Baseball, it made perfect sense as to why he wasn't taking care of him.

He had also caught the sickness, albeit to a much lesser degree then that of Tennis, but he still looked pretty weak compared to what he usually looked like. Wanting to know more, I asked him about what this disease was, if he knew anything about it, and in response, he gave me some brief, yet helpful information.

In the month I had been gone, this disease had started to make the rounds, infecting numerous people across the city, and it soon started to spread like wildfire, infecting many across the world. There is no name for it, at least from he knew, but he knew that it makes people experience extreme pain when trying to accomplish the simplest of tasks, unable to move as fluently or clearly as they once were, accompanied also by their sickened appearance.

Somehow, out of all of this, I wasn't infected, even though I had heard nothing about this disease, and took no precautions to try to avoid it. We weren't quite sure why yet, but one thing is for certain: if things don't get much better from here on, this illness could cause destruction on a mass scale, and somehow, I figured I needed to prevent this from happening.

Game #204

After I had taken my month-long vacation, I finally arrived back in my home town, eager to see my friends and how things have been going without me around. However, when I arrived back in town, things seemed... different. There weren't too many people walking around the city, and there just seemed to be kind of an... eerie feeling around in the air.

It seemed like nothing to be too concerned about, so I just ignored it, and decided to pay Tennis a visit, and see how he is doing. However, when I did arrive at his place, I then realized that something was wrong.

When I found Tennis, he was in his bedroom, laying in bed, suffering from some ailment, which I could tell just from looking at him. His appearance had changed, being very similar to his regular look, but now a lot more... pixelated. It made him weaker, unable to do much other than wait for him to either live or die.

I had no clue what had happened to him, or how he got this illness, but judging from what I saw earlier, it must not have just been Tennis to be infected. But hey, maybe I am overexaggerating. He'll probably get better eventually. In the meantime, I may as well check up on Baseball as well. Since he and Tennis are dating, he must know more about what is going on.

Game #186

I mean... it's skiing. Do you like skiing? Skiing is pretty relaxing. He was an individual I met when I decided to take a vacation from everything thanks to Pinball's advice. I decided to head up to, well, a ski resort, and he was one of the heads of said ski resort.

He took his job pretty seriously, making sure that every one of the guests had a great time, nobody got hurt, all the equipment was safe and up to date, and believe it or not, he also pays his employees well! That is something I never thought I would see too often. Either way, we didn't really interact that much, but with the few times I did interact with him, he seemed like a swell guy.

I went ahead and decided to stay up near this ski resort for about a month, just to really let every bad feeling and negative memory flow from my body. And, to my credit, it worked wonders. Since I didn't have to focus on real life responsibilities, and since I was away from all of the struggles of my home town, I slowly came to terms with my father dying, as well as just overall gaining a sense of peace that I hadn't had before.

By the time I decided to return home, I felt pretty good about myself, and was ready to take on what lies ahead of me upon my return. Although, on my way home, I looked at my phone and noticed quite a good number of phone calls from Tennis and Baseball, all in good succession. It all happened in the span of one day, but this was a few days ago, and I just happened to not notice. Not sure what that could've been about, but if they haven't called again after that, the problem must've resolved itself. We'll see once I actually arrive back home.

Game #168

(9-year-old's review, typed by his dad)

(adopts old-sounding voice) My son recently began— Dad, type it.

My son recently began his wonderful journey into his nice, wonderful, bean-covered world, and also there's purple stuff underground, don't go in there. And in the sky, baby islands. Nonononono I said "they be islands".

(Drops fancy voice) And also there's this weird goat, who's name is ROAR-oo. And also there's a boat in the sky. You have to hop on rocks. Bye.

[Dad's Note: When he said "Rauru", he didn't say the word "ROAR", he roared as loud as he could, and then said "oooo".]

(6-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

I met a goat guy 3 times. He had a long beard and I just felt weird.

[Dad's note: She had her tonsils out the same day TotK came out, so she was in a semi-delirious state when she insisted on reviewing the game. I was very impressed that she still managed to get through a couple shrines on her own!]

I mean... it's pinball. Do you like pinball? Pinball is pretty fucking cool. I first met Pinball some time after Soccer and I caught Golf and had him arrested for murdering my dad. At this point, a month had gone by since that arrest, but I still hadn't quite recovered from the events that occurred. It's not just something you can comfortably walk away from, y'know.

Tennis took notice of the fact that I hadn't really been doing so well ever since the ordeal, so he recommended that I go see Pinball, as he was one of the most highly praised therapists in town, and from what I have heard, his methods have worked wonders. I wasn't much for therapy, but I decided it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot anyway.

And I'm glad I did. Not only was Pinball extremely nice, but he was able to help me in recovering at a much quicker rate that I was expecting. It didn't take too many therapy sessions to do so either, which was surprising to say the least, at least from what I have heard. At the end of my last therapy session, Pinball did suggest one thing that I should definitely do: take a vacation. I had been so stressed out not just from my dad's death, but just from life in general, that he thought it would be beneficial if I just got away from it all for a bit, and just went and had some fun for a bit.

I decided to take his advice and do just that. It had been a long time since I have taken a proper vacation, so this is just what I need to get myself back in good spirits. So, I will soon set out on that vacation, and hopefully come back a changed man.

Game #150

(9-year-old's review, typed by his dad)

'Tis be fun. Ye olde people fight over ye olde monsters. 'Tis good! 'Tis be knights 'n elves. I think they're archers.

'Tis goodbye.

(6-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

I like to call it "Mince Raft" now

Now goodbye forever mwahahahaha

I mean... it's golf. Do you like golf? FUCK GOLF. After we had gotten past Ice Hockey and his goons, we had reached that room, and we had uncovered Golf as the true culprit! The one who murdered my dad! I should've known from the beginning. No one actually LIKES golf! It makes you angry and ruins your life, just like Golf is doing right here.

Soccer and I started to then confront him, with Soccer ready to arrest him, with Golf retaliating immediately by swinging what feels like a million golf balls at us. Sure, it doesn't sound that bad, since the balls are very small, but he hit them hard, and they did quite a bit of damage. Eventually, Soccer decided there was only one possible solution to take Golf down.

See, the reason why Soccer became a detective in the first place was because he couldn't continue his career of playing soccer after suffering a tragic accident on the field in front of millions of people. It traumatized him for life, and his wounds never healed fully since that day, so he decided to pursue his passion of crime solving instead from there on. However, in this instant, he knew what he had to do to take down this criminal once and for all.

After building up the courage, Soccer then equipped his trusty soccer balls that he had with him the whole time, because why wouldn't he, and he fired them at Golf, colliding with his golf balls and breaking them upon contact. After a bit, it was all over, and Golf was knocked down and apprehended quickly afterwards.

After meeting back up with Tennis and Baseball, who had taken care of the Ice Hockey goons, we then had the police come and properly arrest Golf so he could spend the rest of his life in jail. It was finally over, after all this time. I finally found the bastard who killed my dad.

Wait, was I supposed to be reviewing these sports games? Oh shi-

Game #132

The learning curve for this game is incredibly steep and the game does very little to help you in that regard, and there's just generally a bunch of stuff that needs to be explained more clearly in-game. I enjoyed this a bit more than this score indicates in part due to having someone explain mechanics of the game to me in my early runs, but imagine I would have been pretty frustrated at points were I tackling this game on my own.

The gameplay itself is intense, challenging and punishing, but once you get into the flow of it it can be quite rewarding and exciting, the boss fights serving as highlights. That said I don't love some aspects of the deckbuilding (the motivation to take extremely few of the rewards you're presented with so you can maintain a stream-lined deck is fairly feel-bad, the requirement to build towards some scripted hyper-efficient archetype is frustrating for various reasons).

My motivation to play the game plummeted once I found the various endings, and the endings themselves tended to feel very anticlimactic due to the threadbare story.

I mean... it's hockey. Do you like hockey? Hockey sucks, not gonna lie. He was our next lead that Wrestling told us about after he proved he didn't murder my Dad, so Soccer, Tennis, Baseball and I went ahead and went to where Ice Hockey is so that we could confront him about this.

We found him drying off after a big match that he had just finished against a similar opponent, and when he saw us approaching, I could see his face turn into a nervous expression, which gave me confidence we were getting close to solving this mystery. It took us a good while to squeeze any info out of him whatsoever, but when Soccer started getting serious, that's when true fear struck him. It was also then at that point where we heard a sound coming from a distant room behind Hockey, which he then reacted to with fear, signifying that we had found or culprit.

However, before we could get past him to confront the criminal, Hockey then summoned a group of goons to block our path, but I wouldn't turn back now, and neither would my comrades. They shot hockey pucks at us, which did do a number on us, but then Tennis and Baseball started firing back, which gave Soccer and I the opportunity to run past them to get to the distant room.

I was afraid of the safety of Tennis and Baseball, but when I looked back at them, they fought with confidence in their face, working together to take down their foe. So, with that being taken care of, Soccer and I then ventured to finally uncover the murderer of my dad.

Game #111