Kularian
This review contains spoilers
Minor spoilers only-
I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this review because the more I reflect upon this game, the more my viewpoints and thoughts continue to change and evolve. I had meant to write this immediately after finishing it, but decided to sit on it a bit and let it ruminate a bit. I wanted to see what would come from my thoughts on the matter as I had a chance to view the game as a whole, rather than in individual parts, which I will outline below. I will do my best to avoid spoilers, but there are several pieces that might come a little close, but that’s just because they are very important to the overall response that I have for this story.
This first part may have a few more spoilers than most, but that’s mostly just because this is all touched on fairly early on in the plot. The game opens with you coming to check out this highly popular video game ‘7th Encounter’ but you need a pass to get in. You don’t have one, but this random girl who shows up does, and since she doesn’t want to go in alone, you get the honor of joining her inside. As a note, she seems very ill, but earnest.
You get to create and name your own character, similar to an Etrian Odyssey game (which this series bears many similarities to) with several different designs for your character, as well as their own voice actor. Your main character doesn’t speak (although you get choices for responses and such) and so the voice actor chosen is mostly just for yelling during battle and victory blurbs. All of the audio is in Japanese, so mostly choose voices you think fit your headcanon or just whatever sounds the most pleasing.
Your initial choices are a Godhand (Kind of a Monk/Healer), Samurai (DPS with some tanking), Agent (Guns and ‘hacking’ skills), and Duelist (card-based caster). You make two more allies (in the same way as your main character) for a party of three, and then dive into 7th Encounter. Supposedly this game is incredibly realistic but very difficult and no one has cleared it.
So of course, you do on your first try and find out that this was all a front for finding people who are skilled enough to kill dragons for real, as the world has been under attack by dragons and there are several who are being killed by them or the ‘Dragon Sickness’ which causes a lot of severe cold-like respiratory symptoms. This is caused by a ‘Dragon Bloom’ which is a bunch of red flowers that are everywhere, and are basically constantly releasing this death into the air.
But as soon as you get all of this revealed, a real dragon shows up to basically shut you down immediately, but the military forces move in to wound it and scare it off.
This is basically the opening and sets the tone for the game. The characters in the game are generally all quite optimistic and cheerful, but it’s painted against an exceedingly bleak backdrop. Dragons are effectively steadily killing everyone on the planet, and people slowly consolidate toward this ‘7th Encounter’ game as it’s the only escape from the terrible reality they’re in. There are many vibes similar to Majora’s Mask, where there’s a hellscape out there and people are doing their best to make it through, day-by-day.
The plot goes on from here, introducing the idea of being able to move through time, and from my understanding, you’re working back in the previous game’s setting, to an extent. I haven’t played them, but I wish I had, as it seems like there are many callbacks to the previous games. Your task in moving through time is to hunt down the True Dragons, as putting data from all 7 of them together will allow humanity to have a way to fight back against the dragon onslaught as a whole. You have 3 at the start, and go to the past to get another. But at this point the game really starts, and so I’m going to get into combat here briefly, mostly because of how it changes throughout the game.
Combat is a fairly straight-forward Dragon Quest style. Enemies appear before you, your stat blocks are listed below, and you can choose to attack, use skills, or defend. The real interesting bit is as you fight, you get SP which are used to unlock skills. Each class has various skills that can be used, and so you can functionally build your whole team up as you like. The Godhand has tremendous single-target damage, or it can use healing skills. MP doesn’t replenish from walking around, but it does when you level up, and these games are heavy on the dungeon-crawling, so managing your resources is important. With that said, random encounters are (generally) a footnote. A few rounds of mostly basic attacks will win most fights.
The real challenge are the dragons. As mentioned, Dragons are rampaging about, destroying the world, killing people and so forth. They appear on the map and can be fought or avoided, but they are basically a boss fight on their own, requiring careful use of skills, items and even defending to ensure you can clear one. And there isn’t just one per area, but dozens, which can stretch your resources to the limit. But when defeated, Dragons drop DP (Dragon Points (clever, I know)) which can be used to upgrade parts of your main base, including better weapons and armor, so the game has a very incremental feel to its gameplay loop that feels rewarding as you get more comfortable with clearing the dragons.
I won’t get into the specifics of the plot of what happens in the first real arc, but you start by trying to help out the nobles who more-or-less ignore you, and so you move to the common people, who you save some and agree to help them in return, and this is where the game starts to get more interesting. You make a deal with the military who has a super soldier named Yuma, and he is immensely powerful- yet always seems to have an issue when you need to fight. His commentary provides a lot of foreshadowing into the plot but he stays consistently your ‘rival’ throughout, wanting to always best you in combat.
You also meet Aigur here, who is basically the Guard-Captain of the common folk. Aigur is hot-blooded but earnest and wants to save his people. In this agreement with them, you unlock the Rune Knight and Fortuner Class. Rune Knight is a paladin-like class with tanking and healing abilities, whereas the Fortuner is a weird status-focused class with a lot of healing over time for both HP and MP and a bunch of other odd bits. You also get to create a second team of three at this point, and so the combat that had been fairly straight-forward now gets a few extra pieces in being able to use your secondary team for back-up attacks and such, which adds a new layer of strategy.
I had neglected to mention as well that while here in the past with Aigur, they are also under attack by Dragons, which shows that this is just ongoing throughout history. Also, as you venture through the dungeons, you are rescuing this people as well, saving them as you go, and go at-odds with others in your heroic attempts to save everyone as everyone else is focused to kill the dragons, but your role feels greater in that you are trying to save as many lives as possible.
More tonal sets, more lore building upon the fact that entire civilizations had been wiped out by the Dragons in the past, and that you are basically the only thing that plans to stand against them. The plot beats are less-important than the framing of everything- everyone else sees people as expendable to get to the goal of defeating all of the dragons, but you are this icon of heroism that will save the world, past present and future and everyone in it and the game sets you up for that.
You and Aigur become friends. You save as many people of their kingdom as you can and meet with their Queen Ulania, and befriend her as well, having her step up and develop as a character. Your support team at your main base all have names, they all have personalities, and as you meet and talk with them (and there’s a quest system as well, which isn’t super important but it’s a footnote here) and do quests for them, you get to see how all of them grow as people.
You finish what you need to do, and head to the future to track down the next True Dragon, which is a huge callback to the very first 7th Dragon game, interestingly enough, and here you meet a larger cast of characters. You assist them with helping to defeat the dragons, and you help each of them start to grow in their own ways. All of them are there to assist you in helping fight the dragons, providing the support in the way they can with new classes, new teams, and the situation repeats. Also, now you can go and rescue cats as well as people!
The problem is, at this point, while you get to see all of this great development and character growth amongst the NPCs (who you can also go on dates with, which is a whole new way to see their characters grow), the gameplay and plot kind of hits this weird stagnant state. While you have new classes to play with and new characters, the stakes are fundamentally the same. They do try to add some spice into it with an NPC who is so absorbed in her hate for dragons that she takes off on her own and you see some asides with her, but unless you’ve played the previous 3 games (she’s a mainstay) it falls a little flat here, and was definitely the low point.
A slight twist occurs here with the NPC and it helps somewhat but doesn’t really save it. I had taken more breaks here than any other part. But then the real twist occurs. I won’t get into exactly what happens, but the dark tone the game has had in the background suddenly comes to the front. Many of the lives that you tried to save over the course of the game are lost, and things just keep getting worse. Every scene is more grim than the last until you grasp at the silver strand of hope and pull everything out from despair.
The battle system’s requirement to handle resource management and optimize dealing with the Dragons, and the way that basically every single choice that gets made to further the development of the characters and the world comes back around to have an important impact in its finale. Its overall presentation is a little cartoony given that it’s a 3DS title and with a starker, more serious art direction, this would’ve seriously landed a home run.
But at the end of the day it’s a dungeon crawler with tight battle mechanics, a story that starts strong, dips in the middle just enough so that what comes next is unexpected and holds strong all the way through to the finale. It was recommended to me on a whim and it gripped me in a way I wasn’t expecting. It makes you as the main character important- it takes all of your actions and uses them against the grim and gritty backdrop of this shitty world. You FEEL like a hero and seeing everything come to fruition was a journey that I’ll likely not forget in a long time.
There’s so much I could gush about in this game but that gets into heavy spoiler territory and similarly, it’s not something I can properly convey in just words- it’s not a long game and one I would recommend people experience. But you need to delve in and experience it all. Talk to the NPCs, live in the world and watch it all grow and crumble around you as the Dragons loom ever-closer.
It changed the way I look at storytelling as a whole, and while its story isn’t necessarily riveting (“Go kill Dragons” “ok I do it”) the -way- the story is told is what really speaks to me. The game itself is well-balanced and fun, and the characters are great, with a lot of development time given to flesh them out so that you feel for when things happen to them. It’s a solid game and I haven’t had many experiences like it.
I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this review because the more I reflect upon this game, the more my viewpoints and thoughts continue to change and evolve. I had meant to write this immediately after finishing it, but decided to sit on it a bit and let it ruminate a bit. I wanted to see what would come from my thoughts on the matter as I had a chance to view the game as a whole, rather than in individual parts, which I will outline below. I will do my best to avoid spoilers, but there are several pieces that might come a little close, but that’s just because they are very important to the overall response that I have for this story.
This first part may have a few more spoilers than most, but that’s mostly just because this is all touched on fairly early on in the plot. The game opens with you coming to check out this highly popular video game ‘7th Encounter’ but you need a pass to get in. You don’t have one, but this random girl who shows up does, and since she doesn’t want to go in alone, you get the honor of joining her inside. As a note, she seems very ill, but earnest.
You get to create and name your own character, similar to an Etrian Odyssey game (which this series bears many similarities to) with several different designs for your character, as well as their own voice actor. Your main character doesn’t speak (although you get choices for responses and such) and so the voice actor chosen is mostly just for yelling during battle and victory blurbs. All of the audio is in Japanese, so mostly choose voices you think fit your headcanon or just whatever sounds the most pleasing.
Your initial choices are a Godhand (Kind of a Monk/Healer), Samurai (DPS with some tanking), Agent (Guns and ‘hacking’ skills), and Duelist (card-based caster). You make two more allies (in the same way as your main character) for a party of three, and then dive into 7th Encounter. Supposedly this game is incredibly realistic but very difficult and no one has cleared it.
So of course, you do on your first try and find out that this was all a front for finding people who are skilled enough to kill dragons for real, as the world has been under attack by dragons and there are several who are being killed by them or the ‘Dragon Sickness’ which causes a lot of severe cold-like respiratory symptoms. This is caused by a ‘Dragon Bloom’ which is a bunch of red flowers that are everywhere, and are basically constantly releasing this death into the air.
But as soon as you get all of this revealed, a real dragon shows up to basically shut you down immediately, but the military forces move in to wound it and scare it off.
This is basically the opening and sets the tone for the game. The characters in the game are generally all quite optimistic and cheerful, but it’s painted against an exceedingly bleak backdrop. Dragons are effectively steadily killing everyone on the planet, and people slowly consolidate toward this ‘7th Encounter’ game as it’s the only escape from the terrible reality they’re in. There are many vibes similar to Majora’s Mask, where there’s a hellscape out there and people are doing their best to make it through, day-by-day.
The plot goes on from here, introducing the idea of being able to move through time, and from my understanding, you’re working back in the previous game’s setting, to an extent. I haven’t played them, but I wish I had, as it seems like there are many callbacks to the previous games. Your task in moving through time is to hunt down the True Dragons, as putting data from all 7 of them together will allow humanity to have a way to fight back against the dragon onslaught as a whole. You have 3 at the start, and go to the past to get another. But at this point the game really starts, and so I’m going to get into combat here briefly, mostly because of how it changes throughout the game.
Combat is a fairly straight-forward Dragon Quest style. Enemies appear before you, your stat blocks are listed below, and you can choose to attack, use skills, or defend. The real interesting bit is as you fight, you get SP which are used to unlock skills. Each class has various skills that can be used, and so you can functionally build your whole team up as you like. The Godhand has tremendous single-target damage, or it can use healing skills. MP doesn’t replenish from walking around, but it does when you level up, and these games are heavy on the dungeon-crawling, so managing your resources is important. With that said, random encounters are (generally) a footnote. A few rounds of mostly basic attacks will win most fights.
The real challenge are the dragons. As mentioned, Dragons are rampaging about, destroying the world, killing people and so forth. They appear on the map and can be fought or avoided, but they are basically a boss fight on their own, requiring careful use of skills, items and even defending to ensure you can clear one. And there isn’t just one per area, but dozens, which can stretch your resources to the limit. But when defeated, Dragons drop DP (Dragon Points (clever, I know)) which can be used to upgrade parts of your main base, including better weapons and armor, so the game has a very incremental feel to its gameplay loop that feels rewarding as you get more comfortable with clearing the dragons.
I won’t get into the specifics of the plot of what happens in the first real arc, but you start by trying to help out the nobles who more-or-less ignore you, and so you move to the common people, who you save some and agree to help them in return, and this is where the game starts to get more interesting. You make a deal with the military who has a super soldier named Yuma, and he is immensely powerful- yet always seems to have an issue when you need to fight. His commentary provides a lot of foreshadowing into the plot but he stays consistently your ‘rival’ throughout, wanting to always best you in combat.
You also meet Aigur here, who is basically the Guard-Captain of the common folk. Aigur is hot-blooded but earnest and wants to save his people. In this agreement with them, you unlock the Rune Knight and Fortuner Class. Rune Knight is a paladin-like class with tanking and healing abilities, whereas the Fortuner is a weird status-focused class with a lot of healing over time for both HP and MP and a bunch of other odd bits. You also get to create a second team of three at this point, and so the combat that had been fairly straight-forward now gets a few extra pieces in being able to use your secondary team for back-up attacks and such, which adds a new layer of strategy.
I had neglected to mention as well that while here in the past with Aigur, they are also under attack by Dragons, which shows that this is just ongoing throughout history. Also, as you venture through the dungeons, you are rescuing this people as well, saving them as you go, and go at-odds with others in your heroic attempts to save everyone as everyone else is focused to kill the dragons, but your role feels greater in that you are trying to save as many lives as possible.
More tonal sets, more lore building upon the fact that entire civilizations had been wiped out by the Dragons in the past, and that you are basically the only thing that plans to stand against them. The plot beats are less-important than the framing of everything- everyone else sees people as expendable to get to the goal of defeating all of the dragons, but you are this icon of heroism that will save the world, past present and future and everyone in it and the game sets you up for that.
You and Aigur become friends. You save as many people of their kingdom as you can and meet with their Queen Ulania, and befriend her as well, having her step up and develop as a character. Your support team at your main base all have names, they all have personalities, and as you meet and talk with them (and there’s a quest system as well, which isn’t super important but it’s a footnote here) and do quests for them, you get to see how all of them grow as people.
You finish what you need to do, and head to the future to track down the next True Dragon, which is a huge callback to the very first 7th Dragon game, interestingly enough, and here you meet a larger cast of characters. You assist them with helping to defeat the dragons, and you help each of them start to grow in their own ways. All of them are there to assist you in helping fight the dragons, providing the support in the way they can with new classes, new teams, and the situation repeats. Also, now you can go and rescue cats as well as people!
The problem is, at this point, while you get to see all of this great development and character growth amongst the NPCs (who you can also go on dates with, which is a whole new way to see their characters grow), the gameplay and plot kind of hits this weird stagnant state. While you have new classes to play with and new characters, the stakes are fundamentally the same. They do try to add some spice into it with an NPC who is so absorbed in her hate for dragons that she takes off on her own and you see some asides with her, but unless you’ve played the previous 3 games (she’s a mainstay) it falls a little flat here, and was definitely the low point.
A slight twist occurs here with the NPC and it helps somewhat but doesn’t really save it. I had taken more breaks here than any other part. But then the real twist occurs. I won’t get into exactly what happens, but the dark tone the game has had in the background suddenly comes to the front. Many of the lives that you tried to save over the course of the game are lost, and things just keep getting worse. Every scene is more grim than the last until you grasp at the silver strand of hope and pull everything out from despair.
The battle system’s requirement to handle resource management and optimize dealing with the Dragons, and the way that basically every single choice that gets made to further the development of the characters and the world comes back around to have an important impact in its finale. Its overall presentation is a little cartoony given that it’s a 3DS title and with a starker, more serious art direction, this would’ve seriously landed a home run.
But at the end of the day it’s a dungeon crawler with tight battle mechanics, a story that starts strong, dips in the middle just enough so that what comes next is unexpected and holds strong all the way through to the finale. It was recommended to me on a whim and it gripped me in a way I wasn’t expecting. It makes you as the main character important- it takes all of your actions and uses them against the grim and gritty backdrop of this shitty world. You FEEL like a hero and seeing everything come to fruition was a journey that I’ll likely not forget in a long time.
There’s so much I could gush about in this game but that gets into heavy spoiler territory and similarly, it’s not something I can properly convey in just words- it’s not a long game and one I would recommend people experience. But you need to delve in and experience it all. Talk to the NPCs, live in the world and watch it all grow and crumble around you as the Dragons loom ever-closer.
It changed the way I look at storytelling as a whole, and while its story isn’t necessarily riveting (“Go kill Dragons” “ok I do it”) the -way- the story is told is what really speaks to me. The game itself is well-balanced and fun, and the characters are great, with a lot of development time given to flesh them out so that you feel for when things happen to them. It’s a solid game and I haven’t had many experiences like it.
1993
I can mostly say that I had no idea what I was getting into when I chose to play this game. I had just a long list of games to play through and was scrolling at random, and my 2 year old daughter said, "Daddy, play Clue!" while pointing at 'Ihatovo Monogatari.'
Immediately I was captivated by the charming spritework and the music just lulled me in like I was returning home after being away for a long time. The game is absolute pure comfy in an adventure game wrapping, and it was nothing short of a delight to play, to see the people in the town changing and adjusting with each season, each adventure and learning about their lives.
My daughter even started to recognize several of the NPCs with their portraits and kept wanting me to go and talk to the 'Stove Cat' and the 'Big Frog' as I was playing (which admittedly impeded progress sometimes as I had to backtrack to find those NPCs). But it became something of a routine ritual to play this for about 15-20 minutes after dinner before we started to get her ready for bed.
It's a wildly charming, enthralling game that has many direct ties to an early 20th Century Japanese poet and author who's works I'll certainly be looking into in the coming months. You can feel the love and care put into the game, and you almost feel as if you're part of the little town of Ihatovo by the end of it all.
I won't spoil the ending but it takes a wildly ethereal and spiritual turn toward its end and finishing it is like waking from a dream.
Immediately I was captivated by the charming spritework and the music just lulled me in like I was returning home after being away for a long time. The game is absolute pure comfy in an adventure game wrapping, and it was nothing short of a delight to play, to see the people in the town changing and adjusting with each season, each adventure and learning about their lives.
My daughter even started to recognize several of the NPCs with their portraits and kept wanting me to go and talk to the 'Stove Cat' and the 'Big Frog' as I was playing (which admittedly impeded progress sometimes as I had to backtrack to find those NPCs). But it became something of a routine ritual to play this for about 15-20 minutes after dinner before we started to get her ready for bed.
It's a wildly charming, enthralling game that has many direct ties to an early 20th Century Japanese poet and author who's works I'll certainly be looking into in the coming months. You can feel the love and care put into the game, and you almost feel as if you're part of the little town of Ihatovo by the end of it all.
I won't spoil the ending but it takes a wildly ethereal and spiritual turn toward its end and finishing it is like waking from a dream.
2018
This review contains spoilers
I have many feelings about The Quiet Man. Not all of them are bad, although most of them are. This will be laden with spoilers so beware if you're planning to play this game after reading this review (although I'm not entirely sure why you would).
The premise (I think- I'll get to that in a minute(1) ) for The Quiet Man involves a young deaf man, who for reasons never explained in my first playthrough (another thing I'll get to later(2) ), is supernaturally strong, fast and durable- to the point where getting stabbed is something you can relatively just walk off. I'm willing to give it a slight pass as it's an action game, but there are some mechanical things(3) that make this narratively dissonant. Your character's mother(4) was killed in an accident, and again, I think(1) that afterward a police officer takes you in. That police officer might also be your father, but I'm not entirely sure. You then spend the game going after your mother's killer, and then after a masked individual who stole your friend's girlfriend(4), culminating in a showdown on a rooftop.
1- Let's talk about the issue with the storytelling in this game. As I stated, your character is deaf. Due to that, whenever anyone talks, it sounds like their voice is being replaced with menu noises from a PS2. Everyone has this crystalline, floaty, echoing sound that replaces any actual words that they speak... meaning that you, as the player, has absolutely no idea what's happening at any given time. You start the game by taking out some thugs and getting a briefcase that you return to your friend, and then are either asked, or hired, or maybe force your way into (again, you have absolutely zero way of knowing.) going along with your friend's girlfriend(4) to some club she sings and plays piano at, before she's kidnapped and such.
In-universe, there's a degree of sense. Your character cannot hear anything and so everyone talking to him comes across as noise. That's fine. As a -player- it's nothing short of infuriating. You do a bunch of 3D beat-em-up fights(3) and then there's some characters that make noises at one another, and then you're beating up more people. The cutscenes are long and plentiful, using FMV real actor sequences interspersed with gameplay. But having zero context to anything doesn't add intrigue- it's just confusing. You don't know the motivations beyond 'save girl' for anything that's happening. There could be some potential context clues but they're all so minor that it's impossible to determine. It just makes trying to find a reason to keep playing a chore.
2- After you clear the game once, you do unlock a new mode where there are voice overs. This supposedly reveals more about the plot itself, but I cannot get up the care to try to play through the game a second time. Possibly this could increase the enjoyment of the game but seeing how things were handled in the other aspects, my hopes aren't high. The fact that there could be a mode that alleviates a major frustration with the game is still not enough reason to replay it is telling.
3- The core of the game are beat-em-up scenes where your deaf character takes on groups of thugs, gangsters and eventually what I think is a private security detail. Your footing on the ground doesn't seem to matter as any kick or punch you throw has you gliding forward with each movement, which makes your attacks feel as if they have no weight. Adding to that, and perhaps the LARGEST grievance I have, is that when you can actually play the game, there is no sound. No sound, no music, nothing. Just swinging your fists and feet into a soundless void. Nothing has impact, nothing has any real stakes.
Beyond that, the character has two attack buttons, and varying them can give you different combo strings. These never change (with one exception(5)) and you never learn new moves or techniques or anything, aside from a 'Focus Mode' which you only get information on if you lose a fight (which displays your mother(4) and then you're back in the fight with basically no consequence aside from restarting it) which is L2. Or LT, I guess, depending on when you started gaming. The worst part about these rather boring strings is that they are intentional. The developers wanted to tell a story and didn't want the player to get bogged down in extensive technical fighting so they made this weird, floaty, impactless, brainless system that never changes. Genuinely worse (SOMEHOW) than watching actors with PS2 voices talk to each other.
4- Sharp-eyed individuals may have noticed that I tagged both 'Your friend's girlfriend' and 'mother' with the same tag. For reasons that I cannot comprehend (although maybe it'll become clear to me if I replay this godforsaken game) they use the same actress for both your character's mother, and your sort-of love interest. She's with your best friend, but she clearly wants your character, and he has turned her down multiple times if the flashbacks and other scenes are to be trusted (although without being able to hear what the hell is going on at any point, it's hard to say).
It just gives the entire game a really gross feeling because of the very obvious sexual tension between this woman and your character, intermixed with flashbacks of his mother when it's the same actress. It just makes it seem as if he's protecting her and wants to be close to her because she looks exactly like his mother which yes, he did traumatically lose as a child, but there's still a great deal of incestual vibes that come up from it that just make everything feel...gross. Supposedly she also knows your police dad (who may or may not be your real dad) and so that almost makes it even worse.
5- The ending is a nonstop ride of batshit. Your friend turns on you (or maybe you turn on him, it's not really clear) and you end up getting shot, which is the first thing that really puts you down. However, there are flashbacks in dealing with a child psychiatrist where the child version of Dane (your character's name (which I just remembered)) is drawing a weird bird creature with his mother. It's the same mask that the kidnapper that took your friend's girlfriend wore, only kidDane tells the psychiatrist that it's him...and so then you put on the mask and despite being shot, you are now even stronger and faster and more durable than before. Then you go and fight your friend who is a muay thai expert for no real reason and you have to fight him multiple times before he shoots you more, and then doublets you in the head while you're on the ground.
Then you just...come back as some revenant of vengeance and you're even more stronger and more faster than with just the mask on and you murderkill all sorts of your friend's private security force. Then you do it to him before the super power wears off, but you're still alive, and then it turns out your police dad was the guy who wore the mask and did the kidnapping in the first place so then you fight him after you're exhausted (both your character and you, the player, for having dealt with this bullshit for this long) before it finally rolls credits once you've won.
-
There are few redeeming qualities, which I will highlight here-
-The transitions from FMV to gameplay are generally pretty smooth.
-Sometimes during the easier fights, there are flashes of things going on in Dane's mind that sort of replace the background. I thought these were a neat way to show what he was thinking while doing mindless button mashing.
-Dane has personality. Not much of one, but given everything else they bungled, I'm genuinely surprised to see that he does have a personality of his own and isn't just a blank slate.
-The transition into bird reaper of kicking ass -was- cool in an edgy way which I frankly enjoyed, but at that point I was so done with the game I really couldn't care less.
-
All-in-all, just watch a let's play. This game isn't worth playing and the only mildly interesting parts are the story anyway and even then there's basically nothing of importance here because of the fact that you have no idea what the hell is going on at any story juncture.
Final Rating: dirty stinky doodoo farts
The premise (I think- I'll get to that in a minute(1) ) for The Quiet Man involves a young deaf man, who for reasons never explained in my first playthrough (another thing I'll get to later(2) ), is supernaturally strong, fast and durable- to the point where getting stabbed is something you can relatively just walk off. I'm willing to give it a slight pass as it's an action game, but there are some mechanical things(3) that make this narratively dissonant. Your character's mother(4) was killed in an accident, and again, I think(1) that afterward a police officer takes you in. That police officer might also be your father, but I'm not entirely sure. You then spend the game going after your mother's killer, and then after a masked individual who stole your friend's girlfriend(4), culminating in a showdown on a rooftop.
1- Let's talk about the issue with the storytelling in this game. As I stated, your character is deaf. Due to that, whenever anyone talks, it sounds like their voice is being replaced with menu noises from a PS2. Everyone has this crystalline, floaty, echoing sound that replaces any actual words that they speak... meaning that you, as the player, has absolutely no idea what's happening at any given time. You start the game by taking out some thugs and getting a briefcase that you return to your friend, and then are either asked, or hired, or maybe force your way into (again, you have absolutely zero way of knowing.) going along with your friend's girlfriend(4) to some club she sings and plays piano at, before she's kidnapped and such.
In-universe, there's a degree of sense. Your character cannot hear anything and so everyone talking to him comes across as noise. That's fine. As a -player- it's nothing short of infuriating. You do a bunch of 3D beat-em-up fights(3) and then there's some characters that make noises at one another, and then you're beating up more people. The cutscenes are long and plentiful, using FMV real actor sequences interspersed with gameplay. But having zero context to anything doesn't add intrigue- it's just confusing. You don't know the motivations beyond 'save girl' for anything that's happening. There could be some potential context clues but they're all so minor that it's impossible to determine. It just makes trying to find a reason to keep playing a chore.
2- After you clear the game once, you do unlock a new mode where there are voice overs. This supposedly reveals more about the plot itself, but I cannot get up the care to try to play through the game a second time. Possibly this could increase the enjoyment of the game but seeing how things were handled in the other aspects, my hopes aren't high. The fact that there could be a mode that alleviates a major frustration with the game is still not enough reason to replay it is telling.
3- The core of the game are beat-em-up scenes where your deaf character takes on groups of thugs, gangsters and eventually what I think is a private security detail. Your footing on the ground doesn't seem to matter as any kick or punch you throw has you gliding forward with each movement, which makes your attacks feel as if they have no weight. Adding to that, and perhaps the LARGEST grievance I have, is that when you can actually play the game, there is no sound. No sound, no music, nothing. Just swinging your fists and feet into a soundless void. Nothing has impact, nothing has any real stakes.
Beyond that, the character has two attack buttons, and varying them can give you different combo strings. These never change (with one exception(5)) and you never learn new moves or techniques or anything, aside from a 'Focus Mode' which you only get information on if you lose a fight (which displays your mother(4) and then you're back in the fight with basically no consequence aside from restarting it) which is L2. Or LT, I guess, depending on when you started gaming. The worst part about these rather boring strings is that they are intentional. The developers wanted to tell a story and didn't want the player to get bogged down in extensive technical fighting so they made this weird, floaty, impactless, brainless system that never changes. Genuinely worse (SOMEHOW) than watching actors with PS2 voices talk to each other.
4- Sharp-eyed individuals may have noticed that I tagged both 'Your friend's girlfriend' and 'mother' with the same tag. For reasons that I cannot comprehend (although maybe it'll become clear to me if I replay this godforsaken game) they use the same actress for both your character's mother, and your sort-of love interest. She's with your best friend, but she clearly wants your character, and he has turned her down multiple times if the flashbacks and other scenes are to be trusted (although without being able to hear what the hell is going on at any point, it's hard to say).
It just gives the entire game a really gross feeling because of the very obvious sexual tension between this woman and your character, intermixed with flashbacks of his mother when it's the same actress. It just makes it seem as if he's protecting her and wants to be close to her because she looks exactly like his mother which yes, he did traumatically lose as a child, but there's still a great deal of incestual vibes that come up from it that just make everything feel...gross. Supposedly she also knows your police dad (who may or may not be your real dad) and so that almost makes it even worse.
5- The ending is a nonstop ride of batshit. Your friend turns on you (or maybe you turn on him, it's not really clear) and you end up getting shot, which is the first thing that really puts you down. However, there are flashbacks in dealing with a child psychiatrist where the child version of Dane (your character's name (which I just remembered)) is drawing a weird bird creature with his mother. It's the same mask that the kidnapper that took your friend's girlfriend wore, only kidDane tells the psychiatrist that it's him...and so then you put on the mask and despite being shot, you are now even stronger and faster and more durable than before. Then you go and fight your friend who is a muay thai expert for no real reason and you have to fight him multiple times before he shoots you more, and then doublets you in the head while you're on the ground.
Then you just...come back as some revenant of vengeance and you're even more stronger and more faster than with just the mask on and you murderkill all sorts of your friend's private security force. Then you do it to him before the super power wears off, but you're still alive, and then it turns out your police dad was the guy who wore the mask and did the kidnapping in the first place so then you fight him after you're exhausted (both your character and you, the player, for having dealt with this bullshit for this long) before it finally rolls credits once you've won.
-
There are few redeeming qualities, which I will highlight here-
-The transitions from FMV to gameplay are generally pretty smooth.
-Sometimes during the easier fights, there are flashes of things going on in Dane's mind that sort of replace the background. I thought these were a neat way to show what he was thinking while doing mindless button mashing.
-Dane has personality. Not much of one, but given everything else they bungled, I'm genuinely surprised to see that he does have a personality of his own and isn't just a blank slate.
-The transition into bird reaper of kicking ass -was- cool in an edgy way which I frankly enjoyed, but at that point I was so done with the game I really couldn't care less.
-
All-in-all, just watch a let's play. This game isn't worth playing and the only mildly interesting parts are the story anyway and even then there's basically nothing of importance here because of the fact that you have no idea what the hell is going on at any story juncture.
Final Rating: dirty stinky doodoo farts
2022
This is a game that I really honestly wanted to like a lot based on what it tries to accomplish but unfortunately, it ultimately falls flat in al to of ways for me. From reading the other reviews it does seem to be intensely hit-or-miss and so I'll sing my praises and air my grievances and allow one to draw their on conclusions.
First and foremost, the boss fights in this game are a thing of beauty, and honestly, a game designed around these would be beyond fantastic. The game does an exceptional job of showing you the various mechanics and how they interact amongst your party...and then using those boss fights to push that to the limit and make you really think about how to use what you've discovered.
Similarly the combat is generally fairly engaging and difficult, but all the enemies are on-screen so avoiding them can be doable. The stronger you are in comparison the less likely they are to give chase so you needn't really worry about having to fight weaker enemies while traversing through old zones.
However, the weak points in this game, for me, is exploration. If I were 15 or 16 again, back in high school, with an entire summer off to just immerse myself in this game I would absolutely love it, I cannot deny that in any capacity. But the exploration requires some very precise platforming and shifting of different animal mounts which do different types of movement and when you reach points without maps and you have no idea where to go, all you can really do is guess and see if you're right or wrong.
Beyond that, the game prides itself on its open world and to be fair, when I first started it was quite impressive to journey and to be able to find out where I was going and just learn piece-by-piece where everything was located, and getting to explore. But as time goes on, it becomes less and less apparent of -where- you need to go and -what- you need to do. You end up feeling kind of aimless, and that doesn't bode well for wanting to continue.
Lastly, while the classes are interesting, they all feel as if they're derived from the same cloth. They don't really feel distinct enough to warrant an interest in going to hunt all of the different classes out there and that leads to some complacency and lack of interest as well.
There are a lot of really good ideas here, and I'm shelving it for now but I will eventually come back and update the review, but I might be playing with a guide just to avoid the aimless wandering without direction.
First and foremost, the boss fights in this game are a thing of beauty, and honestly, a game designed around these would be beyond fantastic. The game does an exceptional job of showing you the various mechanics and how they interact amongst your party...and then using those boss fights to push that to the limit and make you really think about how to use what you've discovered.
Similarly the combat is generally fairly engaging and difficult, but all the enemies are on-screen so avoiding them can be doable. The stronger you are in comparison the less likely they are to give chase so you needn't really worry about having to fight weaker enemies while traversing through old zones.
However, the weak points in this game, for me, is exploration. If I were 15 or 16 again, back in high school, with an entire summer off to just immerse myself in this game I would absolutely love it, I cannot deny that in any capacity. But the exploration requires some very precise platforming and shifting of different animal mounts which do different types of movement and when you reach points without maps and you have no idea where to go, all you can really do is guess and see if you're right or wrong.
Beyond that, the game prides itself on its open world and to be fair, when I first started it was quite impressive to journey and to be able to find out where I was going and just learn piece-by-piece where everything was located, and getting to explore. But as time goes on, it becomes less and less apparent of -where- you need to go and -what- you need to do. You end up feeling kind of aimless, and that doesn't bode well for wanting to continue.
Lastly, while the classes are interesting, they all feel as if they're derived from the same cloth. They don't really feel distinct enough to warrant an interest in going to hunt all of the different classes out there and that leads to some complacency and lack of interest as well.
There are a lot of really good ideas here, and I'm shelving it for now but I will eventually come back and update the review, but I might be playing with a guide just to avoid the aimless wandering without direction.
1995
I don't have a lot to say about this one, mostly because I picked it up on a whim and there was something about it that was interesting enough to keep playing...but the game itself was simultaneously...lazy?
The basic premise is that there is some force that turns you into a little wooden statue, and you have enough willpower to break out. As you continue through the game, you get McGuffins (the Arks) that do different things, kind of like HMs from Pokemon. There's an Ark of Wisdom that if you use it whenever looking at a language you don't understand, it'll translate it, or provide insight into how something functions. Ark of Strength lets you perform a feat of strength, etc etc.
You eventually find other statues that you can instill these Arks into to create party members, and so you can kind of customize your party and switch them at any point, and while each has a very specific role and their own skills, it never really feels too different using one from another.
The ending also comes completely out of nowhere (the big bad is introduced in the dungeon before the last) and just kind of feels empty when you complete it. Nothing was particularly hard or difficult and so after beating it, it just kind of feels like 'okay.'
The basic premise is that there is some force that turns you into a little wooden statue, and you have enough willpower to break out. As you continue through the game, you get McGuffins (the Arks) that do different things, kind of like HMs from Pokemon. There's an Ark of Wisdom that if you use it whenever looking at a language you don't understand, it'll translate it, or provide insight into how something functions. Ark of Strength lets you perform a feat of strength, etc etc.
You eventually find other statues that you can instill these Arks into to create party members, and so you can kind of customize your party and switch them at any point, and while each has a very specific role and their own skills, it never really feels too different using one from another.
The ending also comes completely out of nowhere (the big bad is introduced in the dungeon before the last) and just kind of feels empty when you complete it. Nothing was particularly hard or difficult and so after beating it, it just kind of feels like 'okay.'
2021
This is a neat little math game that has a mild rogue-like element to it, which adds replay value. Effectively, you get a certain amount of numbers that you can place on the board, alongside math operands (+, -, x, /) and by placing one of these below two numbers, they will combine into a new one based on the one chosen.
If the number matches the number assigned to a monster, it's defeated and you earn stars. Every round there's 2-4 monsters that spawn with varying complexity in their number and you earn stars based on that complexity, from 1-3. The trick is, when you use the math operands, the original numbers don't vanish and you have a limited amount of space on the board.
Whenever you 'level up' with enough stars, you can clear the board to start again, so it becomes an efficiency race with your numbers and operands to achieve the math needed to clear the board as quick as you can and save as many board resets as possible.
There are also 'characters' which basically are all the same aside from each one gets a unique 'thing' they can do. The Warrior can increase any number by 1. The rogue can flip two numbers (12 to 21 or vice versa) and so forth, adding a fair bit of complex play. Gets a little repetitive, as rogue-likes can, but it's a great time killer.
Wish it was on mobile tbh.
If the number matches the number assigned to a monster, it's defeated and you earn stars. Every round there's 2-4 monsters that spawn with varying complexity in their number and you earn stars based on that complexity, from 1-3. The trick is, when you use the math operands, the original numbers don't vanish and you have a limited amount of space on the board.
Whenever you 'level up' with enough stars, you can clear the board to start again, so it becomes an efficiency race with your numbers and operands to achieve the math needed to clear the board as quick as you can and save as many board resets as possible.
There are also 'characters' which basically are all the same aside from each one gets a unique 'thing' they can do. The Warrior can increase any number by 1. The rogue can flip two numbers (12 to 21 or vice versa) and so forth, adding a fair bit of complex play. Gets a little repetitive, as rogue-likes can, but it's a great time killer.
Wish it was on mobile tbh.
2018
Pretty fun overall. Kind of like an ever-expansive version of Rimworld with more pixelated graphics and a lot more going on under the hood, or so it seems.
There's a lot of things all hitting at once with it, and honestly it's more than a little overwhelming. I didn't see any sort of tutorial (and if there was I missed it) and so I didn't feel as comfortable with starting it as I did with Rimworld.
It's still pretty fun but honestly between the two I'll just play Rim.
There's a lot of things all hitting at once with it, and honestly it's more than a little overwhelming. I didn't see any sort of tutorial (and if there was I missed it) and so I didn't feel as comfortable with starting it as I did with Rimworld.
It's still pretty fun but honestly between the two I'll just play Rim.
This was a game that I had dived into immediately after finishing Shadow Dragon and as such, all of the characters and everything were fresh in the mind, which helped a great deal. To begin with, this game has an enormous cast of over 100 characters that you can recruit into your army, and this is both a boon and a curse.
Of course, you have a very wide selection of characters to choose from and that's very fun, as well as getting to see all of the characters return from Shadow Dragon and all the new things that they do. But at the same time, there are an overwhelming number of people. I refused to let anyone perish and as such, my party was so large and so, so many characters went unused.
All the same, the story is an interesting one and has the first 'avatar' unit, allowing you to have someone fully customized for your run and being able to handle pretty much any role you need filled.
The maps are fun although there are quite a few too many caster enemies the further you get into the game so Resistance becomes far far more useful than Defense as it goes on, and some of the maps are so sprawling that your flying units are basically required...but all-in-all it's a worthy successor to Shadow Dragon and I enjoyed it immensely.
Of course, you have a very wide selection of characters to choose from and that's very fun, as well as getting to see all of the characters return from Shadow Dragon and all the new things that they do. But at the same time, there are an overwhelming number of people. I refused to let anyone perish and as such, my party was so large and so, so many characters went unused.
All the same, the story is an interesting one and has the first 'avatar' unit, allowing you to have someone fully customized for your run and being able to handle pretty much any role you need filled.
The maps are fun although there are quite a few too many caster enemies the further you get into the game so Resistance becomes far far more useful than Defense as it goes on, and some of the maps are so sprawling that your flying units are basically required...but all-in-all it's a worthy successor to Shadow Dragon and I enjoyed it immensely.
2009
So interesting story about this one. I had actually started with 7th Dragon VFD, the release that came out for 3DS first, and very much enjoyed the game, but was interested in a few of the characters and was curious to see where they had come from and so on a whim I went back to the very beginning of the series.
It's not directly connected to VFD as they are separate timelines (or worlds, maybe, it's never really clear) but all the same there are a great number of callbacks from this game in VFD which I was able to appreciate immensely, including several characters that have reprising roles in the future games.
Overall the game is fairly basic and nothing to really write home about, but it does handle its mechanics fairly well. There is one point which requires you to have a team of entirely female characters that you would have no foreknowledge about, and it's in a fairly advanced part of the game, and so having to create/recruit a team of newbies to raise up to be strong enough to get there safely was a bit of a drag, but overall there are very few hiccups along the way.
Fights aren't especially threatening although a few boss fights are interesting in how they present themselves. There is also a fair amount of things that you need to do in order to safely deal with said bosses, and if you don't, you just get a much harder version of the boss, which is an interesting way to go about it and allow for players to customize their difficulty as they go.
There is one series of boss fights which are very frustrating as the boss itself is just there to impede progress so it has high defense which it brings higher with buffs and makes for an ultimately un-fun set of fights, but as you learn the easier ways to clear it, each successive version of that fight becomes easier.
But with a wide array of character classes, and with some even working in tandem (there is a Knight and a Princess class which have overlapping abilities, for example) there's a lot of potential builds for the game, and through that, a fair amount of replay value.
All-in-all, while the game doesn't do anything stand-out or majorly unique, the charm of the title along with the references to VFD in particular made it feel nostalgic despite having never played this before.
It's not directly connected to VFD as they are separate timelines (or worlds, maybe, it's never really clear) but all the same there are a great number of callbacks from this game in VFD which I was able to appreciate immensely, including several characters that have reprising roles in the future games.
Overall the game is fairly basic and nothing to really write home about, but it does handle its mechanics fairly well. There is one point which requires you to have a team of entirely female characters that you would have no foreknowledge about, and it's in a fairly advanced part of the game, and so having to create/recruit a team of newbies to raise up to be strong enough to get there safely was a bit of a drag, but overall there are very few hiccups along the way.
Fights aren't especially threatening although a few boss fights are interesting in how they present themselves. There is also a fair amount of things that you need to do in order to safely deal with said bosses, and if you don't, you just get a much harder version of the boss, which is an interesting way to go about it and allow for players to customize their difficulty as they go.
There is one series of boss fights which are very frustrating as the boss itself is just there to impede progress so it has high defense which it brings higher with buffs and makes for an ultimately un-fun set of fights, but as you learn the easier ways to clear it, each successive version of that fight becomes easier.
But with a wide array of character classes, and with some even working in tandem (there is a Knight and a Princess class which have overlapping abilities, for example) there's a lot of potential builds for the game, and through that, a fair amount of replay value.
All-in-all, while the game doesn't do anything stand-out or majorly unique, the charm of the title along with the references to VFD in particular made it feel nostalgic despite having never played this before.
2005
It's certainly a game, I guess. You do things in order to prepare for a monster invasion and there are results from your actions but either it was not something I could wrap my head around, or I was vastly overthinking every piece, which honestly feels more likely.
In any case, I completed it and while I can't say for sure that I had fun I don't feel like I wasted my time. There's just not a lot of 'game' here to really critique.
In any case, I completed it and while I can't say for sure that I had fun I don't feel like I wasted my time. There's just not a lot of 'game' here to really critique.
2006
This review contains spoilers
Rule of Rose is a game that seemingly has everything going for it at the start. The game opens with a gritty, dark look to it and your character is riding a bus to a long-forgotten area where she grew up, and the resulting adventure is a deep foray into her fragmented, distorted memories.
The game does not use jumpscares at all, and the horror is completely handled through dark imagery, foreboding situations, body horror and a constant sense of unease. The cutscenes are often brutal, including things such as being buried alive, or contained in a bag where children take turns throwing insects and spiders down upon you.
Early on, you also acquire a dog as a companion who you can give items to 'track' and that becomes the waypoint system. You can't ever see where you need to go on the map, but Brown, your dog, will lead you to where you need to go at every instance, creating an interesting companion system.
The game itself is, unfortunately, hampered entirely by the movement and combat system. Bad camera angles as well are an issue, but those are fairly common in the PS1/PS2 era of horror games so I won't count those against it. But your character, Jennifer, is perhaps one of the most useless main characters in a horror game that I have ever seen. There is reason for it, as revealed by the plot, but it makes it no less frustrating when even the slightest aggression can knock you down, forcing you to wait for a several-second stand-up animation to occur, which can happen multiple times per encounter.
Both Jennifer and the enemies have full immunity frames while attacking, which means if you attempt to attack while an opponent does, you will not do any damage. Worse, nearly all attacks by enemies have a longer animation than yours do, which means if you both attack at the same time, your attack animation, and your immunity frames, will run out first and you will take damage.
The boss fights are frustrating due to the above reasons, but navigation around the area is hampered by legions of small children-like creatures that are unnerving for the first area or two... but as you find other weapons like a steel pipe and later an axe, it almost becomes comedic in watching this sickly woman all-but slaughter droves of children-like creatures.
The ending is bizarre, with both a 'good end' and a 'bad end' both erasable, although it's honestly hard to tell for sure which is which, as the 'good end' leaves off with what seems to be a rather mentally broken Jennifer, and the 'bad end' at least has her come to terms with her trauma, even at the loss of much.
There are apparently a number of film canisters as well that I never found any of, which may add more to the story but I don't foresee myself replaying this game anytime soon.
Overall, and this is a rating I rarely, if ever, give to games- just watch someone else play it instead. Preferably with no commentary, in the dark. It's beautifully disturbing in all the best ways...but the actual gameplay ruins what could otherwise be a horror masterpiece.
The game does not use jumpscares at all, and the horror is completely handled through dark imagery, foreboding situations, body horror and a constant sense of unease. The cutscenes are often brutal, including things such as being buried alive, or contained in a bag where children take turns throwing insects and spiders down upon you.
Early on, you also acquire a dog as a companion who you can give items to 'track' and that becomes the waypoint system. You can't ever see where you need to go on the map, but Brown, your dog, will lead you to where you need to go at every instance, creating an interesting companion system.
The game itself is, unfortunately, hampered entirely by the movement and combat system. Bad camera angles as well are an issue, but those are fairly common in the PS1/PS2 era of horror games so I won't count those against it. But your character, Jennifer, is perhaps one of the most useless main characters in a horror game that I have ever seen. There is reason for it, as revealed by the plot, but it makes it no less frustrating when even the slightest aggression can knock you down, forcing you to wait for a several-second stand-up animation to occur, which can happen multiple times per encounter.
Both Jennifer and the enemies have full immunity frames while attacking, which means if you attempt to attack while an opponent does, you will not do any damage. Worse, nearly all attacks by enemies have a longer animation than yours do, which means if you both attack at the same time, your attack animation, and your immunity frames, will run out first and you will take damage.
The boss fights are frustrating due to the above reasons, but navigation around the area is hampered by legions of small children-like creatures that are unnerving for the first area or two... but as you find other weapons like a steel pipe and later an axe, it almost becomes comedic in watching this sickly woman all-but slaughter droves of children-like creatures.
The ending is bizarre, with both a 'good end' and a 'bad end' both erasable, although it's honestly hard to tell for sure which is which, as the 'good end' leaves off with what seems to be a rather mentally broken Jennifer, and the 'bad end' at least has her come to terms with her trauma, even at the loss of much.
There are apparently a number of film canisters as well that I never found any of, which may add more to the story but I don't foresee myself replaying this game anytime soon.
Overall, and this is a rating I rarely, if ever, give to games- just watch someone else play it instead. Preferably with no commentary, in the dark. It's beautifully disturbing in all the best ways...but the actual gameplay ruins what could otherwise be a horror masterpiece.