Konic64
258 Reviews liked by Konic64
Soul Hackers 2
2022
Soul Hackers 2 is an anomaly. This feels like a game made by a small team for a lower budget aimed for release on the PSVITA or 3DS sometime around 2012 that somehow got stuck on a time vortex that caused it to end up as a multi-platform release on current generation home consoles. For all intents and purposes it should be a failure... Yet it is one of the most refreshing games ATLUS has released in the last few years.
Once you put aside the very obvious drawbacks like the limited presentation, minuscule scope and repetitive content, Soul Hackers 2 is a game that effortlessly breathes life into the genre by allowing ATLUS to use its smaller scale and budget to take bigger risks on elements that the company hasn't explored in decades. With a stronger focus on an adult cast and with a subversively uplifting theme that ties together technology and occultism, this game breaks free of the bland cynicism of current Shin Megami Tensei entries and instead presents players with a strong story that takes advantage of the complexity of an adult world.
Despite its limited resources however, Soul Hackers 2 is still an exemplary case of ATLUS' great attention to detail to the design sensibilities of their games. Despite being graphically outdated, the game oozes personality and charm in every scene, character and environment. With the help of outside artists like character designer Shirow Miwa and sound studio MONACA, the game even manages to stand out aesthetically from other ATLUS games in a way that makes it, once again, so very refreshing.
It is only a shame that the game is tied to the Soul Hackers IP. Not because it fails to live up to its potential, in fact, I think it more than exceeds the quality of the first game which is fairly mediocre for the time. It is a shame because it stands completely on its own while simultaneously alienating hyper fans of the first which reject anything that doesn't follow the same aesthetics as the first, or more mainstream fans that have little to no recognition or interest in the name.
Despite that however, the game may not achieve the heights of Persona 5, and it may be a while before it reaches the cult status of its predecessor, but Soul Hackers 2 is the little game that could. It is a game that leaves a lasting impact with so little to work with, and that, I find, is respectable and I would love to see ATLUS make more of these smaller and experimental games in-between their big releases instead of endless spinoffs. Hopefully as time goes on, the game's rating and fan reception will improve.
Once you put aside the very obvious drawbacks like the limited presentation, minuscule scope and repetitive content, Soul Hackers 2 is a game that effortlessly breathes life into the genre by allowing ATLUS to use its smaller scale and budget to take bigger risks on elements that the company hasn't explored in decades. With a stronger focus on an adult cast and with a subversively uplifting theme that ties together technology and occultism, this game breaks free of the bland cynicism of current Shin Megami Tensei entries and instead presents players with a strong story that takes advantage of the complexity of an adult world.
Despite its limited resources however, Soul Hackers 2 is still an exemplary case of ATLUS' great attention to detail to the design sensibilities of their games. Despite being graphically outdated, the game oozes personality and charm in every scene, character and environment. With the help of outside artists like character designer Shirow Miwa and sound studio MONACA, the game even manages to stand out aesthetically from other ATLUS games in a way that makes it, once again, so very refreshing.
It is only a shame that the game is tied to the Soul Hackers IP. Not because it fails to live up to its potential, in fact, I think it more than exceeds the quality of the first game which is fairly mediocre for the time. It is a shame because it stands completely on its own while simultaneously alienating hyper fans of the first which reject anything that doesn't follow the same aesthetics as the first, or more mainstream fans that have little to no recognition or interest in the name.
Despite that however, the game may not achieve the heights of Persona 5, and it may be a while before it reaches the cult status of its predecessor, but Soul Hackers 2 is the little game that could. It is a game that leaves a lasting impact with so little to work with, and that, I find, is respectable and I would love to see ATLUS make more of these smaller and experimental games in-between their big releases instead of endless spinoffs. Hopefully as time goes on, the game's rating and fan reception will improve.
Ultrakill
2020
watching gameplay of it feels very intimidating. to quote jerma, "humans aren't meant to perceive things like this, i should be on a farm moving dirt around" or something like that. but it's actually really approachable when starting fresh. ultrakill is a bit like doom with the resource management and fun (but intrusive) glory kills chopped off, but really the two games are good for different reasons.
the game feels slick and technical, and actually really visually striking behind the blocky ps1-style graphics' first impressions.
the game feels slick and technical, and actually really visually striking behind the blocky ps1-style graphics' first impressions.
Question: how do you make a visual novel fun to play? Not read. Play.
Ace Attorney resolves the age-old question by making you an active participant in the courtroom drama that unfolds: that is to say, the plot doesn't move until you make the deductions, talk to the right people, or point out a contradiction. It's part brain-teaser, part trying to guess the conclusion the game is trying to lead you to, and it works...for the most part. More on that later.
The highlights of this game are easily the characters. Given life by an amazing script (props to the localizers) and iconic designs, you get invested in the over-the-top sparring between Wright and Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. Every side character is distinguished with weird mannerisms, especially the culprits of each case who you get to sweat and break down over the course of a trial. The game also operates on the simplest, most theatrical interpretation of the law, but I wouldn't have this eccentric anime soap opera any other way.
As for the negatives, they unfortunately stem from the gameplay. Investigation is easily the more dull half of the game (and the trilogy as a whole), mostly consisting of point and click segments to find evidence and dialogue trees to get clues. It feels like moving from Point A to Point B and shoving evidence in the other character's faces until you hit the right flag and get to progress the plot. Compare that to the Court segments, which have an actual game over state for trying to brute force it (albeit easily circumvented by save scumming), and one clearly stands head and shoulders over the other. The court segments are much more animated and fun, but they sometimes suffer from feeling too "on rails" when you want to question something, but the game is clearly nudging you towards another contradiction that can't wait--alas, a constraint of the medium.
All this to say that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and its sequels Justice For All and Trials and Tribulations are a collective masterpiece that must be experienced for themselves. Capcom has re-released this sum'bitch like ten different ways now, so there's no excuse for not having played it.
Ace Attorney resolves the age-old question by making you an active participant in the courtroom drama that unfolds: that is to say, the plot doesn't move until you make the deductions, talk to the right people, or point out a contradiction. It's part brain-teaser, part trying to guess the conclusion the game is trying to lead you to, and it works...for the most part. More on that later.
The highlights of this game are easily the characters. Given life by an amazing script (props to the localizers) and iconic designs, you get invested in the over-the-top sparring between Wright and Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. Every side character is distinguished with weird mannerisms, especially the culprits of each case who you get to sweat and break down over the course of a trial. The game also operates on the simplest, most theatrical interpretation of the law, but I wouldn't have this eccentric anime soap opera any other way.
As for the negatives, they unfortunately stem from the gameplay. Investigation is easily the more dull half of the game (and the trilogy as a whole), mostly consisting of point and click segments to find evidence and dialogue trees to get clues. It feels like moving from Point A to Point B and shoving evidence in the other character's faces until you hit the right flag and get to progress the plot. Compare that to the Court segments, which have an actual game over state for trying to brute force it (albeit easily circumvented by save scumming), and one clearly stands head and shoulders over the other. The court segments are much more animated and fun, but they sometimes suffer from feeling too "on rails" when you want to question something, but the game is clearly nudging you towards another contradiction that can't wait--alas, a constraint of the medium.
All this to say that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and its sequels Justice For All and Trials and Tribulations are a collective masterpiece that must be experienced for themselves. Capcom has re-released this sum'bitch like ten different ways now, so there's no excuse for not having played it.
Samurai Shodown
2019
I NEED Iroha to be real. I would give everything to make that happen. The amount of crimes I would do just to even gain the opportunity to make this happen would be unholy. People would know my name. I would get newspaper articles about me. The news show would eventually be talking about me as the first report of the day. I would be a walking icon.
Fire game tho
Fire game tho
Signalis
2022
There is not enough words to describe my love for this game. Incredible and harrowing plot, gorgeous visuals, and an unforgettable soundtrack. It excels in every category and is one of the games that I wish I could play again for the first time. Games like this raise the bar for everything that comes after.
Signalis
2022
This review contains spoilers
Playing Signalis makes me feel sick.
This isn't a knock against Signalis, it's more the opposite. The repugnant stench of this world physically makes my skin crawl. A universe with a depraved government, deconstructing and dismantling the individual into easily trainable worker ants to benefit the government. The minds of what's left of humans being pumped into replicant bodies, reproduced and manufactured en mass. Controlling these minds through perfectly constructed stimuli to create manufactured responses, creating fetishes for their minds to latch onto and embrace, to hold dearly and continue to chase the rabbit down the hole forever.
Our protagonist goes through searching for their partner, and yet as the entirety of this story unfolds, it brings me to the same headspace that Silent Hill 2 took me. In many ways, this game feels like a response to Silent Hill. James Sutherland is a character we identify with, feel his struggles, but come out the other side realizing he was just the same as all the others venturing in Silent Hill. Lost, confused, maddened by sins and desires that he attempted to keep hidden to himself. He breaks through this, since he was given the potential to change. He has the agency to. Elster doesn't have that. She seems destined to repeat this cycle over, and over, and over again, because she's after the same fetishized response. At least, that's been my reading on a single playthrough. Much of the game warrants the story and the world to be dissected with multiple playthroughs, and maybe some light reading of The King in Yellow. Each playthrough will bring a new ending depending on your actions in game, similar to Silent Hill. I managed to get the ending where Elster breaks her promise to see her lover again, breaking her arm attempting to pull open the latch off the ship and dying in the red apocalypse surrounding her mind space. I looked up the other endings to see if any of the other ones were more hopeful. They didn't seem to be. Each ending seemed to fit well like a glove, and to me, they appear to reflect that endless cycle that Elster has been performing. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to think about.
Again, I'm sure there's much I must be missing, misinterpreting, or just plain wrong from this reading. I write like I know what's happening, but I may just end up being the king of r/woosh. Signalis uses it's abstractions to leave many things up to your interpretation, and it's refreshing to see, but I am not the person who's going to enlighten you with all the answers. At least, not with a single playthrough.
What's more concrete is the gameplay. This was the first survival horror game I've beaten besides Silent Hill 2, so it's given me a slice of what the Resident Evil brand of survival horror can offer. Combat consists of managing ammo to kill mindless drones, inventory management, and running away if the times get rough. Dancing your way through enemies often leads you to rooms where you can solve puzzles, and the two dance in sync with one another, building on top of each other. Many of the puzzles within the game I managed to solve on my own, which is a shocking state of affairs on my part. The only one I had slight trouble with was the ring puzzle towards the end of the game, but that's because I figured I was missing a ring, as well as thinking the note to provide the correct order was a glyph only true blue Signalis lore experts who are much smarter than myself would be willing to take a crack at. As it turns out, all the words were just spelt vertically, and reading them meant reading backwards.
It's fascinating to see the clear inspirations within Signalis, yet the game manages to create something wholly it's own, with it's own voice to cast out into the world. It's a testament to this game's greatness. What's holding me back to proclaim my full and utter love for Signalis comes down only to my own preferences. Horror is not my thing. Horror that's effective and well done envelopes me with their sickly ideas and causes my skin to stand up and crawl away. The high tension bringing about highs of survival instincts become lost on me when all I can think about is just how deeply and profoundly fucked up it all is. There's a deep and caring appreciation for this genre that I hold in high regard, but I don't like thinking about what these characters may be going through within this game. All I can see is hell, and I don't like staring at it.
But Signalis is worth staring at. Even if just for a little bit.
This isn't a knock against Signalis, it's more the opposite. The repugnant stench of this world physically makes my skin crawl. A universe with a depraved government, deconstructing and dismantling the individual into easily trainable worker ants to benefit the government. The minds of what's left of humans being pumped into replicant bodies, reproduced and manufactured en mass. Controlling these minds through perfectly constructed stimuli to create manufactured responses, creating fetishes for their minds to latch onto and embrace, to hold dearly and continue to chase the rabbit down the hole forever.
Our protagonist goes through searching for their partner, and yet as the entirety of this story unfolds, it brings me to the same headspace that Silent Hill 2 took me. In many ways, this game feels like a response to Silent Hill. James Sutherland is a character we identify with, feel his struggles, but come out the other side realizing he was just the same as all the others venturing in Silent Hill. Lost, confused, maddened by sins and desires that he attempted to keep hidden to himself. He breaks through this, since he was given the potential to change. He has the agency to. Elster doesn't have that. She seems destined to repeat this cycle over, and over, and over again, because she's after the same fetishized response. At least, that's been my reading on a single playthrough. Much of the game warrants the story and the world to be dissected with multiple playthroughs, and maybe some light reading of The King in Yellow. Each playthrough will bring a new ending depending on your actions in game, similar to Silent Hill. I managed to get the ending where Elster breaks her promise to see her lover again, breaking her arm attempting to pull open the latch off the ship and dying in the red apocalypse surrounding her mind space. I looked up the other endings to see if any of the other ones were more hopeful. They didn't seem to be. Each ending seemed to fit well like a glove, and to me, they appear to reflect that endless cycle that Elster has been performing. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to think about.
Again, I'm sure there's much I must be missing, misinterpreting, or just plain wrong from this reading. I write like I know what's happening, but I may just end up being the king of r/woosh. Signalis uses it's abstractions to leave many things up to your interpretation, and it's refreshing to see, but I am not the person who's going to enlighten you with all the answers. At least, not with a single playthrough.
What's more concrete is the gameplay. This was the first survival horror game I've beaten besides Silent Hill 2, so it's given me a slice of what the Resident Evil brand of survival horror can offer. Combat consists of managing ammo to kill mindless drones, inventory management, and running away if the times get rough. Dancing your way through enemies often leads you to rooms where you can solve puzzles, and the two dance in sync with one another, building on top of each other. Many of the puzzles within the game I managed to solve on my own, which is a shocking state of affairs on my part. The only one I had slight trouble with was the ring puzzle towards the end of the game, but that's because I figured I was missing a ring, as well as thinking the note to provide the correct order was a glyph only true blue Signalis lore experts who are much smarter than myself would be willing to take a crack at. As it turns out, all the words were just spelt vertically, and reading them meant reading backwards.
It's fascinating to see the clear inspirations within Signalis, yet the game manages to create something wholly it's own, with it's own voice to cast out into the world. It's a testament to this game's greatness. What's holding me back to proclaim my full and utter love for Signalis comes down only to my own preferences. Horror is not my thing. Horror that's effective and well done envelopes me with their sickly ideas and causes my skin to stand up and crawl away. The high tension bringing about highs of survival instincts become lost on me when all I can think about is just how deeply and profoundly fucked up it all is. There's a deep and caring appreciation for this genre that I hold in high regard, but I don't like thinking about what these characters may be going through within this game. All I can see is hell, and I don't like staring at it.
But Signalis is worth staring at. Even if just for a little bit.
Never has a game gotten me so invested in its world surrounding it. Never has any piece of fiction, really. In most games, maybe only bar Horizon Zero Dawn, when you find a random note collectible or listen to an audio log, I almost always ignore them. They're usually just filler and ultimately unimportant. But Mass Effect proved to me that they don't have to be that way, and I read through and listened to just about damn near everything I could, stopping to exhaust all dialogue options whenever available. The worldbuilding is genuinely phenomenal and I can say with certainty that this is the coolest fictional universe I've ever experienced and likely will ever experience. Most of this is just do to the writing, its great. It can be humorous, witty, introspective or just about any other good sounding adjective you can think of and its just about always compelling. Characters like Liara, my love and Garrus, my bestie and Thane, my other love (and basically just about everyone else besides Jacob, fuck you Jacob) are fantastic to be around and really help make the world feel alive and The Normandy feel like a home. The combat is kind of shit, and the driving around in the Mako in the first game left a lot to be desired. The simplification of mechanics over the series was a little upsetting. The animations in dialogue/action sequences can be a bit jarring and mess up the tone of things. The ending had more potential than what was got out of it. All those problems are present here and a lot of it can be very noticeable. But even then? this series was still amazing and every of the honestly many problems mean jack shit in comparison to the sheer quality of everything else. This feels like I'm rambling now so this is the end. One final thing: The romance with Liara is the peak of the lesbian human-alien connection. Getting to tell her that you love her in the third game damn near broke my heart.
It was an honor serving with you Commander Shepard.
Nancyfly certified Top 10 game of all time
- 99/100
It was an honor serving with you Commander Shepard.
Nancyfly certified Top 10 game of all time
- 99/100
There's a lot that can be said about how the police chases that Cyperpunk's 2.0 update adds to the game can be genuinely thrilling (if you let them escalate enough and drive in first person) and how the car combat might be best-in-class in terms of its functionality. And I will let others say that for me because that's not why I'm giving this nearly five stars.
I never knew how much I needed a Stealth game where you have the ability to absolutely fucking yeet the shit out of the guards you knock out before this. Mix that with some absolutely comical gore, and it's damn near perfect.
That right there is the most fun I've had with a game all year. Typically, fist-only runs get written off as jokes because guns are more practical, and many of the setpieces you see in games elevate that from subtext to plain as day, printed in the NYT text. It's fun to see a developer not only encourage that but also make it one of the most entertaining ways to engage with their game. What makes it such a treat is that the new systems that add for cyberware here feel finely tuned enough to be rewarding as a separate method of progression without feeling needless in its implementation. Really, that's how I'd sum this entire update up: it doesn't feel like they've rewritten Cyberpunk here. Filler is still very much a part of the overall package; improvements and all, the crafting system remains a superfluous addition. But Cyberpunk has always managed to be better than the sum of its parts, and without running the risk of pushing that over the edge, they've delivered the most optimal version of that yet.
And it's still really fun to double-jump everywhere. I cannot emphasize that enough. Pair that with the ground pound (another reason to immediately dump all of your points into the Body tree), and the entire thing almost begins to resemble a beat-em-up that sometimes has guns in it, or something.
But mostly, my takeaway from this is that if more games let me throw bodies into walls so hard that hands pop off like corks, they'd all be ten outta tennnnnns
I never knew how much I needed a Stealth game where you have the ability to absolutely fucking yeet the shit out of the guards you knock out before this. Mix that with some absolutely comical gore, and it's damn near perfect.
That right there is the most fun I've had with a game all year. Typically, fist-only runs get written off as jokes because guns are more practical, and many of the setpieces you see in games elevate that from subtext to plain as day, printed in the NYT text. It's fun to see a developer not only encourage that but also make it one of the most entertaining ways to engage with their game. What makes it such a treat is that the new systems that add for cyberware here feel finely tuned enough to be rewarding as a separate method of progression without feeling needless in its implementation. Really, that's how I'd sum this entire update up: it doesn't feel like they've rewritten Cyberpunk here. Filler is still very much a part of the overall package; improvements and all, the crafting system remains a superfluous addition. But Cyberpunk has always managed to be better than the sum of its parts, and without running the risk of pushing that over the edge, they've delivered the most optimal version of that yet.
And it's still really fun to double-jump everywhere. I cannot emphasize that enough. Pair that with the ground pound (another reason to immediately dump all of your points into the Body tree), and the entire thing almost begins to resemble a beat-em-up that sometimes has guns in it, or something.
But mostly, my takeaway from this is that if more games let me throw bodies into walls so hard that hands pop off like corks, they'd all be ten outta tennnnnns
The motion controls are fine, the graphics and soundtrack are really nice, but holy christ in heaven above is it boring
Metal Slug 6
2006
[Free play on the Multi-Game cab in the hotel I’m at for 2 weeks]
It’s Metal Slug! What a fun way to kill some time. I didn’t love how you turn into an elephant when you get a power up and then like, your knife is a fork
It’s Metal Slug! What a fun way to kill some time. I didn’t love how you turn into an elephant when you get a power up and then like, your knife is a fork
im a simple woman; give me a game that has both fighting and titty jiggle physics and ill be happy
This game is SO ENTIRELY Leah Bait hahaha
- Genesis game
- Lady protagonist(s)
- Fun art
- Stylish
I mean it's just absolutely adorable and fun. Cannot recommend enough!
- Genesis game
- Lady protagonist(s)
- Fun art
- Stylish
I mean it's just absolutely adorable and fun. Cannot recommend enough!
Lethal Company
2023
For a game that essentially boils down to carrying shit back and forth, it's pretty fun, which is impressive. Nothing especially deep about it mechanically, but the proximity chat does wonders for immersion. I like the desolate, hopeless feeling in all the biomes.
I literally can't say anything about this game for the sake of spoilers, so being vague. This story is fucking insane. constant twists and turns, with differing protagonists too boot, somehow, amidst all of the chaos, there is beauty. By the end of it all, it all makes sense, and your hit with a beautiful message that moved me like few other games have. I also like the funny yakisoba pan man.
Batmobile Arkham city