Legolas_Katarn
BACKER
1995
A poor lightgun horror game with some brief entertaining bloody moments. At around 45 minutes it overstays its welcome, mostly by dragging every situation or area out longer than it has to. Some very cheap enemy design as well as placement of civilians that if you hit will lose you health. Mostly dull powerups as you already basically have a shotgun and the pickups tend to have you firing the same kind of shot but doing more damage or with some minor effect differences. A later stage has an instant game over state if you miss finding some items or don't use them in the correct order at a door leading to the final boss.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1725427764642422834
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1725427764642422834
Front Mission 1st comes to modern platforms with a simple but good visual upgrade and the features of the two former remakes intact while maintaining the original odd mechanics that made the later games better.
This is the third remake of the original Front Mission that keeps the former remakes added gameplay elements while adding new game plus and more difficulty options while making changes to the visuals, camera control, and UI. The 2003 Playstation remake of the original SNES game added the second campaign that plays like one of the later Front Mission titles with each character that joins you having more characterization and more conversations between missions, more chances to talk with your squad members, more air and vehicle enemies to fight, gives more characterization to people you meet or fight in the main campaign, involves some characters from the then upcoming Front Mission 4, and is the stronger campaign in general despite being a bit shorter. The DS remake added some Front Mission 2 and Front Mission 5 cameos, equipable parts from later games in the series, and nine secret missions across both campaigns. The only thing I noticed missing here was that in the final after credit scene of the main scenario only the main story pilots show up at the end, with none of the side characters and one slightly main not appearing with a line or two like they do in the other versions of the game, odd thing to remove but not a big loss since they had almost no personality or scenes and never showed up in the next four games.
The gameplay is a fairly simple turn based mech game where each character pilots a Wanzer which has a has a body, left and right arm, and leg part with the arms able to equip both a handheld or built in weapon and a shoulder mounted missile launcher or shield that you can use to add to your defense when you are unable to attack or if you decide to defend instead of counterattacking. Pilots rank up their skills in short, long, melee, and dodge from 1-9,999 with them becoming more accurate (or better at avoiding) and doing more damage (never found anything that knew what exact calculations are) every time they are attacked or use a weapon type with them getting more experience when they destroy a body part. Destroying the body destroys the Wanzer, arms disable weapons equipped to it, and legs can reduce movement speed (and maybe reduce dodge, people didn't seem sure or how much). Every pilot has a certain weapon experience level where once they reach a certain point, that is different per character, they can learn a skill once they raise their main level (levels only add very small amounts of XP to every skill and unlock a skill if you reached the requisite).
Short ranged weapons give you duel where you are forced to use the skill every time and can choose a body part for all your shots or your one shot to aim at with a severe to no accuracy penalty depending on the skill level, switch allows you a chance to attack with your off hand weapon if they are both short ranged after your first attack and can chain multiple times while also allowing you to switch your duel target, and speed adds to the number of bullets you can fire. Melee gives you first that allows you to attack before an enemy when otherwise melee attackers go last, stun that can stun an enemy both stopping their attack if it goes off before they attack and stunning them on the map screen if other units attack them but with a chance they can wake up, and double which works like switch but with two melee weapons. Long range experience can unlock guide which works like the short range duel skill. These skills mean that short is significantly better than everything else just by the massive amounts of damage you can do, and means that typically the SMG style weapons are a much better choice than rifles or shotguns once you unlock speed (even more so since the weapons don't actually behave differently in Front Mission 1 even all having the same 1 tile range). Long is more of a weapon type just to have to weaken enemies and missile launchers run out of ammo. Close is good in the early game but massively falls of due to skills leading to a damage drop when compared to short weapons and the game just seemed to forget to add new melee weapons to the game for some time while all other weapons are getting multiple upgrades. You have no way of knowing but some pilots just can't unlock certain skills making some much worse choices than others. Once you get a skill raising its level from 1 to 3 is random and has a chance of happening when the skill is used. So when you first unlock duel and have a 50% accuracy drop you want that to level up quickly and that might rank up in one use or it might rank up after 100 uses. There is also some UI issues with the game where you just aren't always given information that you really want to know, like the damage status of units being attacked and enemy status when they are attacking you and what weapon is where on their mech before you switch to the combat screen after choosing your weapon or defense options (this was still also a problem in Front Mission 2).
It's a system that all works well enough but gives more options in future games with a few of them somewhat showing up in the second campaign that has things like a few rifles that can be used at a distance.
Outside of combat you can make use of an arena to gain money or experience, talk to a few characters at a bar in each town, buy new parts for your units (with new parts coming at an annoyingly fast rate in the main campaign, even worse when you are upgrading more total units and constantly running out of money unless you use the arena). There is a variety of different looking styles and even legs parts that handle movement differently but so many of them are just statistically worse options and the leg parts don't make a huge difference with certain movements types not being seen much or not being given as many upgrades to make them that viable. The second campaign adds the ability to speak to your squad members while in towns or at bases and that give them all a bit more personality that would be found in the later games in the series. The stories set up elements of later events and some of the themes and atmosphere of later games but there is not a huge amount of plot yet, especially not in the primary campaign where moments that should have a bigger impact or often quickly gotten through.
The remake also adds a great looking tactical map view you can switch to that could be used as the main UI for an entire type of game, while also serving absolutely no real purpose in this game and not allowing you to move units on it even though everything about it seems to have been made for it.
Front Mission is decent game with a good soundtrack and unique art style that adds a lot of personality and that all lead to more interesting and better titles that expanded on what this game started in the future (even the SNES spin-off Front Mission Gun Hazard is one of the best games on the platform) and if you are going to get into the series you might as well start here.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1724717342188572844
This is the third remake of the original Front Mission that keeps the former remakes added gameplay elements while adding new game plus and more difficulty options while making changes to the visuals, camera control, and UI. The 2003 Playstation remake of the original SNES game added the second campaign that plays like one of the later Front Mission titles with each character that joins you having more characterization and more conversations between missions, more chances to talk with your squad members, more air and vehicle enemies to fight, gives more characterization to people you meet or fight in the main campaign, involves some characters from the then upcoming Front Mission 4, and is the stronger campaign in general despite being a bit shorter. The DS remake added some Front Mission 2 and Front Mission 5 cameos, equipable parts from later games in the series, and nine secret missions across both campaigns. The only thing I noticed missing here was that in the final after credit scene of the main scenario only the main story pilots show up at the end, with none of the side characters and one slightly main not appearing with a line or two like they do in the other versions of the game, odd thing to remove but not a big loss since they had almost no personality or scenes and never showed up in the next four games.
The gameplay is a fairly simple turn based mech game where each character pilots a Wanzer which has a has a body, left and right arm, and leg part with the arms able to equip both a handheld or built in weapon and a shoulder mounted missile launcher or shield that you can use to add to your defense when you are unable to attack or if you decide to defend instead of counterattacking. Pilots rank up their skills in short, long, melee, and dodge from 1-9,999 with them becoming more accurate (or better at avoiding) and doing more damage (never found anything that knew what exact calculations are) every time they are attacked or use a weapon type with them getting more experience when they destroy a body part. Destroying the body destroys the Wanzer, arms disable weapons equipped to it, and legs can reduce movement speed (and maybe reduce dodge, people didn't seem sure or how much). Every pilot has a certain weapon experience level where once they reach a certain point, that is different per character, they can learn a skill once they raise their main level (levels only add very small amounts of XP to every skill and unlock a skill if you reached the requisite).
Short ranged weapons give you duel where you are forced to use the skill every time and can choose a body part for all your shots or your one shot to aim at with a severe to no accuracy penalty depending on the skill level, switch allows you a chance to attack with your off hand weapon if they are both short ranged after your first attack and can chain multiple times while also allowing you to switch your duel target, and speed adds to the number of bullets you can fire. Melee gives you first that allows you to attack before an enemy when otherwise melee attackers go last, stun that can stun an enemy both stopping their attack if it goes off before they attack and stunning them on the map screen if other units attack them but with a chance they can wake up, and double which works like switch but with two melee weapons. Long range experience can unlock guide which works like the short range duel skill. These skills mean that short is significantly better than everything else just by the massive amounts of damage you can do, and means that typically the SMG style weapons are a much better choice than rifles or shotguns once you unlock speed (even more so since the weapons don't actually behave differently in Front Mission 1 even all having the same 1 tile range). Long is more of a weapon type just to have to weaken enemies and missile launchers run out of ammo. Close is good in the early game but massively falls of due to skills leading to a damage drop when compared to short weapons and the game just seemed to forget to add new melee weapons to the game for some time while all other weapons are getting multiple upgrades. You have no way of knowing but some pilots just can't unlock certain skills making some much worse choices than others. Once you get a skill raising its level from 1 to 3 is random and has a chance of happening when the skill is used. So when you first unlock duel and have a 50% accuracy drop you want that to level up quickly and that might rank up in one use or it might rank up after 100 uses. There is also some UI issues with the game where you just aren't always given information that you really want to know, like the damage status of units being attacked and enemy status when they are attacking you and what weapon is where on their mech before you switch to the combat screen after choosing your weapon or defense options (this was still also a problem in Front Mission 2).
It's a system that all works well enough but gives more options in future games with a few of them somewhat showing up in the second campaign that has things like a few rifles that can be used at a distance.
Outside of combat you can make use of an arena to gain money or experience, talk to a few characters at a bar in each town, buy new parts for your units (with new parts coming at an annoyingly fast rate in the main campaign, even worse when you are upgrading more total units and constantly running out of money unless you use the arena). There is a variety of different looking styles and even legs parts that handle movement differently but so many of them are just statistically worse options and the leg parts don't make a huge difference with certain movements types not being seen much or not being given as many upgrades to make them that viable. The second campaign adds the ability to speak to your squad members while in towns or at bases and that give them all a bit more personality that would be found in the later games in the series. The stories set up elements of later events and some of the themes and atmosphere of later games but there is not a huge amount of plot yet, especially not in the primary campaign where moments that should have a bigger impact or often quickly gotten through.
The remake also adds a great looking tactical map view you can switch to that could be used as the main UI for an entire type of game, while also serving absolutely no real purpose in this game and not allowing you to move units on it even though everything about it seems to have been made for it.
Front Mission is decent game with a good soundtrack and unique art style that adds a lot of personality and that all lead to more interesting and better titles that expanded on what this game started in the future (even the SNES spin-off Front Mission Gun Hazard is one of the best games on the platform) and if you are going to get into the series you might as well start here.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1724717342188572844
1993
Vertical shoot em up. Good music, colorful. You can charge up three kinds of shot types by collecting powerups, gain two satellite weapons that follow you around, and can collect bombs that detonate in fairly small area around you. Nothing too interesting but a solid 20 minute playthrough.
Some likable characters and funny moments but a lack of choices that matter apart from getting people infected, lack of an ending that gives characters closure, and ends up not knowing what to do with most of the cast by the halfway point.
A group of camp counselor are stuck in the area for one extra night after everyone else goes home and sees them facing off against a strange family of hunters and werewolves with some nods to 80s horror films. For the most part has a likable cast where even characters that aren't often portrayed in the best light get a moment or two to humanize them a bit. There are some funny moments, and the whole things feels like it has a bigger budget and more effort than the studio's Dark Picture series.
On one hand you can get everyone infected by werewolves and that can cause changes based on when they get infected or if and how they might get cured and where a character might end up at certain points of the story, which is great, but in focusing on that there is a lack of choices and interactions that tend to matter and the survival or infection of character is typically just coming down to whether or not you hit or missed a QTE event as opposed to finding items, a build up of choices over time, or how the relationships between characters grow or change based on things you do or say. It does the Telltale style "this character respects this," "this character is disappointed," "this character is excited over this," etc and I'm pretty sure there is only one time where any of that ends up meaning anything and it pretty much amounts to did you upset the guy by shooting him or not which is a bit more obvious than the guy you will never see again being sad that you eavesdropped on his phone call.
Actually has a character you meet in between chapter that serves as a kind of narrator and confidant to the player that actually has a role in the story and tries to influence your decisions to the path she wants as opposed to the Robert Patrick looking curator of The Dark Pictures games who contributes nothing but wasted time as far as I can tell from the ones I've played. Lance Henriksen had no reason to be in the game, as his character says almost nothing and does even less. Jedediah could have been played by anyone or removed from the game entirely with no effect. The entire Hackett family, save for one member, all could have used more time in the game, more so for the ones you could have met in camp earlier on.
The ending sections of the game lack any real excitement or extended action for this type of story and it all ends too abruptly, ending the threat with no closure. Even the playable cast is half full of characters who just fall out of the story halfway through the game and contribute nothing. Even some of the more main characters end up not doing anything that really matters in the last two or three chapters. There's really a feel of, "oh you didn't fail the QTEs and get people killed or infected and written out of the game, well then I guess they just wait in the basement, sit in the woods for the last 1/3 of the game and do nothing, follow another character around and contribute nothing." For some reason the game has no wrap up ending. Based on some very specific choices or letting certain people die you might get a kind of ending for two sets of characters but most people won't as those achievements both seemed to have around a 1% and 3.5% unlock percentage. If characters had multiple sections or backstory worried about what they will do with their lives next, family problems, wanting to save their infected boyfriend, relationship issues or choices none of that is getting solved or mentioned again. It's like if Die Hard immediately cut to credits as Hans Gruber was falling and you never had the scene where you got to see Officer Carl Winslow get over his holdup over using a gun again after accidentally killing a child by shooting the last gunman, allowing him to move on and continue his life as proper cop away from deskwork with a new mentality that will allow him to kill more kids with toy guns in the future. Except in The Quarry, there are like 5-8 people who probably could have used a bit of an epilogue based on your choices who never get any kind of choice made or character growth from their backstory. That might work in a horror movie where the entire cast is dead except one, two, or a very rare three people by the end but when there isn't much reason for anyone to die and even getting someone turned into a werewolf might just save them by the end it doesn't work well.
The developers are clearly intentionally designing their games to have no respect for their players. The Dark Pictures series was bad enough in that you can't skip scenes or conversations that you have seen before but The Quarry does not give you a chapter select until you beat the game, autosaves immediately after everything you do, gives you one save file while not even allowing you to go back to a previous chapter after you beat the game on a new file like the Dark Pictures games do but instead erasing everything that comes after, and going back to previous chapters wipes out your collectibles to the extent that even the achievements don't keep track of what you found. Then there is the ridiculously slow movement speed of characters and camera issues. There is no excuse for this with this being the fifth game they had made exactly in this same style.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1716203607568351279
A group of camp counselor are stuck in the area for one extra night after everyone else goes home and sees them facing off against a strange family of hunters and werewolves with some nods to 80s horror films. For the most part has a likable cast where even characters that aren't often portrayed in the best light get a moment or two to humanize them a bit. There are some funny moments, and the whole things feels like it has a bigger budget and more effort than the studio's Dark Picture series.
On one hand you can get everyone infected by werewolves and that can cause changes based on when they get infected or if and how they might get cured and where a character might end up at certain points of the story, which is great, but in focusing on that there is a lack of choices and interactions that tend to matter and the survival or infection of character is typically just coming down to whether or not you hit or missed a QTE event as opposed to finding items, a build up of choices over time, or how the relationships between characters grow or change based on things you do or say. It does the Telltale style "this character respects this," "this character is disappointed," "this character is excited over this," etc and I'm pretty sure there is only one time where any of that ends up meaning anything and it pretty much amounts to did you upset the guy by shooting him or not which is a bit more obvious than the guy you will never see again being sad that you eavesdropped on his phone call.
Actually has a character you meet in between chapter that serves as a kind of narrator and confidant to the player that actually has a role in the story and tries to influence your decisions to the path she wants as opposed to the Robert Patrick looking curator of The Dark Pictures games who contributes nothing but wasted time as far as I can tell from the ones I've played. Lance Henriksen had no reason to be in the game, as his character says almost nothing and does even less. Jedediah could have been played by anyone or removed from the game entirely with no effect. The entire Hackett family, save for one member, all could have used more time in the game, more so for the ones you could have met in camp earlier on.
The ending sections of the game lack any real excitement or extended action for this type of story and it all ends too abruptly, ending the threat with no closure. Even the playable cast is half full of characters who just fall out of the story halfway through the game and contribute nothing. Even some of the more main characters end up not doing anything that really matters in the last two or three chapters. There's really a feel of, "oh you didn't fail the QTEs and get people killed or infected and written out of the game, well then I guess they just wait in the basement, sit in the woods for the last 1/3 of the game and do nothing, follow another character around and contribute nothing." For some reason the game has no wrap up ending. Based on some very specific choices or letting certain people die you might get a kind of ending for two sets of characters but most people won't as those achievements both seemed to have around a 1% and 3.5% unlock percentage. If characters had multiple sections or backstory worried about what they will do with their lives next, family problems, wanting to save their infected boyfriend, relationship issues or choices none of that is getting solved or mentioned again. It's like if Die Hard immediately cut to credits as Hans Gruber was falling and you never had the scene where you got to see Officer Carl Winslow get over his holdup over using a gun again after accidentally killing a child by shooting the last gunman, allowing him to move on and continue his life as proper cop away from deskwork with a new mentality that will allow him to kill more kids with toy guns in the future. Except in The Quarry, there are like 5-8 people who probably could have used a bit of an epilogue based on your choices who never get any kind of choice made or character growth from their backstory. That might work in a horror movie where the entire cast is dead except one, two, or a very rare three people by the end but when there isn't much reason for anyone to die and even getting someone turned into a werewolf might just save them by the end it doesn't work well.
The developers are clearly intentionally designing their games to have no respect for their players. The Dark Pictures series was bad enough in that you can't skip scenes or conversations that you have seen before but The Quarry does not give you a chapter select until you beat the game, autosaves immediately after everything you do, gives you one save file while not even allowing you to go back to a previous chapter after you beat the game on a new file like the Dark Pictures games do but instead erasing everything that comes after, and going back to previous chapters wipes out your collectibles to the extent that even the achievements don't keep track of what you found. Then there is the ridiculously slow movement speed of characters and camera issues. There is no excuse for this with this being the fifth game they had made exactly in this same style.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1716203607568351279
2022
Some likable characters and funny moments but a lack of choices that matter apart from getting people infected, lack of an ending that gives characters closure, and ends up not knowing what to do with most of the cast by the halfway point.
A group of camp counselor are stuck in the area for one extra night after everyone else goes home and sees them facing off against a strange family of hunters and werewolves with some nods to 80s horror films. For the most part has a likable cast where even characters that aren't often portrayed in the best light get a moment or two to humanize them a bit. There are some funny moments, and the whole things feels like it has a bigger budget and more effort than the studio's Dark Picture series.
On one hand you can get everyone infected by werewolves and that can cause changes based on when they get infected or if and how they might get cured and where a character might end up at certain points of the story, which is great, but in focusing on that there is a lack of choices and interactions that tend to matter and the survival or infection of character is typically just coming down to whether or not you hit or missed a QTE event as opposed to finding items, a build up of choices over time, or how the relationships between characters grow or change based on things you do or say. It does the Telltale style "this character respects this," "this character is disappointed," "this character is excited over this," etc and I'm pretty sure there is only one time where any of that ends up meaning anything and it pretty much amounts to did you upset the guy by shooting him or not which is a bit more obvious than the guy you will never see again being sad that you eavesdropped on his phone call.
Actually has a character you meet in between chapter that serves as a kind of narrator and confidant to the player that actually has a role in the story and tries to influence your decisions to the path she wants as opposed to the Robert Patrick looking curator of The Dark Pictures games who contributes nothing but wasted time as far as I can tell from the ones I've played. Lance Henriksen had no reason to be in the game, as his character says almost nothing and does even less. Jedediah could have been played by anyone or removed from the game entirely with no effect. The entire Hackett family, save for one member, all could have used more time in the game, more so for the ones you could have met in camp earlier on.
The ending sections of the game lack any real excitement or extended action for this type of story and it all ends too abruptly, ending the threat with no closure. Even the playable cast is half full of characters who just fall out of the story halfway through the game and contribute nothing. Even some of the more main characters end up not doing anything that really matters in the last two or three chapters. There's really a feel of, "oh you didn't fail the QTEs and get people killed or infected and written out of the game, well then I guess they just wait in the basement, sit in the woods for the last 1/3 of the game and do nothing, follow another character around and contribute nothing." For some reason the game has no wrap up ending. Based on some very specific choices or letting certain people die you might get a kind of ending for two sets of characters but most people won't as those achievements both seemed to have around a 1% and 3.5% unlock percentage. If characters had multiple sections or backstory worried about what they will do with their lives next, family problems, wanting to save their infected boyfriend, relationship issues or choices none of that is getting solved or mentioned again. It's like if Die Hard immediately cut to credits as Hans Gruber was falling and you never had the scene where you got to see Officer Carl Winslow get over his holdup over using a gun again after accidentally killing a child by shooting the last gunman, allowing him to move on and continue his life as proper cop away from deskwork with a new mentality that will allow him to kill more kids with toy guns in the future. Except in The Quarry, there are like 5-8 people who probably could have used a bit of an epilogue based on your choices who never get any kind of choice made or character growth from their backstory. That might work in a horror movie where the entire cast is dead except one, two, or a very rare three people by the end but when there isn't much reason for anyone to die and even getting someone turned into a werewolf might just save them by the end it doesn't work well.
The developers are clearly intentionally designing their games to have no respect for their players. The Dark Pictures series was bad enough in that you can't skip scenes or conversations that you have seen before but The Quarry does not give you a chapter select until you beat the game, autosaves immediately after everything you do, gives you one save file while not even allowing you to go back to a previous chapter after you beat the game on a new file like the Dark Pictures games do but instead erasing everything that comes after, and going back to previous chapters wipes out your collectibles to the extent that even the achievements don't keep track of what you found. Then there is the ridiculously slow movement speed of characters and camera issues. There is no excuse for this with this being the fifth game they had made exactly in this same style.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1716203607568351279
A group of camp counselor are stuck in the area for one extra night after everyone else goes home and sees them facing off against a strange family of hunters and werewolves with some nods to 80s horror films. For the most part has a likable cast where even characters that aren't often portrayed in the best light get a moment or two to humanize them a bit. There are some funny moments, and the whole things feels like it has a bigger budget and more effort than the studio's Dark Picture series.
On one hand you can get everyone infected by werewolves and that can cause changes based on when they get infected or if and how they might get cured and where a character might end up at certain points of the story, which is great, but in focusing on that there is a lack of choices and interactions that tend to matter and the survival or infection of character is typically just coming down to whether or not you hit or missed a QTE event as opposed to finding items, a build up of choices over time, or how the relationships between characters grow or change based on things you do or say. It does the Telltale style "this character respects this," "this character is disappointed," "this character is excited over this," etc and I'm pretty sure there is only one time where any of that ends up meaning anything and it pretty much amounts to did you upset the guy by shooting him or not which is a bit more obvious than the guy you will never see again being sad that you eavesdropped on his phone call.
Actually has a character you meet in between chapter that serves as a kind of narrator and confidant to the player that actually has a role in the story and tries to influence your decisions to the path she wants as opposed to the Robert Patrick looking curator of The Dark Pictures games who contributes nothing but wasted time as far as I can tell from the ones I've played. Lance Henriksen had no reason to be in the game, as his character says almost nothing and does even less. Jedediah could have been played by anyone or removed from the game entirely with no effect. The entire Hackett family, save for one member, all could have used more time in the game, more so for the ones you could have met in camp earlier on.
The ending sections of the game lack any real excitement or extended action for this type of story and it all ends too abruptly, ending the threat with no closure. Even the playable cast is half full of characters who just fall out of the story halfway through the game and contribute nothing. Even some of the more main characters end up not doing anything that really matters in the last two or three chapters. There's really a feel of, "oh you didn't fail the QTEs and get people killed or infected and written out of the game, well then I guess they just wait in the basement, sit in the woods for the last 1/3 of the game and do nothing, follow another character around and contribute nothing." For some reason the game has no wrap up ending. Based on some very specific choices or letting certain people die you might get a kind of ending for two sets of characters but most people won't as those achievements both seemed to have around a 1% and 3.5% unlock percentage. If characters had multiple sections or backstory worried about what they will do with their lives next, family problems, wanting to save their infected boyfriend, relationship issues or choices none of that is getting solved or mentioned again. It's like if Die Hard immediately cut to credits as Hans Gruber was falling and you never had the scene where you got to see Officer Carl Winslow get over his holdup over using a gun again after accidentally killing a child by shooting the last gunman, allowing him to move on and continue his life as proper cop away from deskwork with a new mentality that will allow him to kill more kids with toy guns in the future. Except in The Quarry, there are like 5-8 people who probably could have used a bit of an epilogue based on your choices who never get any kind of choice made or character growth from their backstory. That might work in a horror movie where the entire cast is dead except one, two, or a very rare three people by the end but when there isn't much reason for anyone to die and even getting someone turned into a werewolf might just save them by the end it doesn't work well.
The developers are clearly intentionally designing their games to have no respect for their players. The Dark Pictures series was bad enough in that you can't skip scenes or conversations that you have seen before but The Quarry does not give you a chapter select until you beat the game, autosaves immediately after everything you do, gives you one save file while not even allowing you to go back to a previous chapter after you beat the game on a new file like the Dark Pictures games do but instead erasing everything that comes after, and going back to previous chapters wipes out your collectibles to the extent that even the achievements don't keep track of what you found. Then there is the ridiculously slow movement speed of characters and camera issues. There is no excuse for this with this being the fifth game they had made exactly in this same style.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1716203607568351279
One likable badass character can't save the rest of the game from a terrible cast with some awful acting, poorly shot action scenes, and needless point A to B walks for tedious collectible gathering.
House of Ashes sees a group of people trapped in underground ruins in Iraq during the 2003 US invasion attempting to escape vampire like demons that have been down there for thousands of years. The main characters include a CIA operative with a hideous character model that is for some reason in charge of a small group of the most incompetent Marines I've ever seen who have apparently been existing in a combat zone in an unready state while hoarding some war crime white phosphorus grenades, until her husband that she has been away from for a year shows up to take over. Her husband being an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel whose satellite project is being used to try to find hidden weapons of mass destruction and is what finds the old ruins. There are two marines main characters with one being the guy the CIA agent has started a relationship with while away from her husband, and another one who is a racist with a 9/11 hat. The last character is a member of the Iraq Republican Guard who is there to be the only competent, badass, friendlier person, who might just be able to make the racist marine not as racist anymore and if the entire game was just about him fighting the Americans and the demons it would have made for a better time. Unfortunately, he can't save the game all by himself.
The previous entry in the series, Little Hope, wasn't good but it at least had some ideas and moments that could have lead to it being good if not for the terrible overarching premise, this looks like it might take the series into something the developer can do a better job with by making a more action packed faster paced ridiculous ride but it manages to mess even that up. While Little Hope had some very strong acting in a mostly mediocre script, Ashes doesn't even have that with the best actors giving just passable performances with the exception of Ashley Tisdale as the CIA operative who is always terrible. The constant finding of items and collectibles to slowly examine take you away from the immediate story as much as before, but even more so here in what should be a more dangerous fast paced situation.
The action scenes end up being laughable incompetent with every shot seemingly being a tracer round that frequently show the bullets going nowhere near what anyone should be aiming at. The scenes where US and Iraq forces fight make Steven Seagal movies look well shot and better able to follow a logical event chain. The monsters don't even seem to react to being shot in the face multiple times in certain scenes but can apparently be stabbed and killed with old slightly pointy objects not designed to be used as weapons. The camera is completely unable to handle some of the confined or narrow areas you find yourself in. Characters mouths don't always move when they are speaking and there are frequent fast jump cuts in multiple scenes either like frames missing from action scenes or like it was possibly looking for a scene or line that might have happened if different choices were made then cut somewhere else when it couldn't find it. The characters apparently all have an infinite supply of ammunition (until near the end of the game when they finally start running out), though that doesn't end up being very useful to them. They find out UV light will set them on fire so when they start breaking through one of the doors they are defending they decide to shoot at the door instead of just shining the light on their hands or through the open cracks of the door (or shooting larger hold in the door that could then have the UV light shine through it). The dialogue is ridiculous, any soldier in the game tends to be written in the most stereotypes ridiculous way imaginable. A side character dies after seemingly being shot in the legs, making you think that the plot might understand that getting shot is actually bad, only for multiple characters to be shot later on only to have them completely ignore it and to go on with it never mentioned or considered a problem for them. Like all bad monster media the creatures are as fast or slow, strong or weak, and smart or stupid as the couple minutes needs them to be before deciding to do the opposite in the next scene.
Being that it stars characters that are CIA and marines invading a country outside of WWII I assumed I'd want them to die but these characters were nearly David Cage levels of unlikable and incompetent to the extent that I'd want them to die no matter who they are or what they were doing. It also makes it difficult to want to go back and see what changes different choices can lead to as it doesn't allow you to skip any of the scenes that you have already seen before.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1713804446118068427
House of Ashes sees a group of people trapped in underground ruins in Iraq during the 2003 US invasion attempting to escape vampire like demons that have been down there for thousands of years. The main characters include a CIA operative with a hideous character model that is for some reason in charge of a small group of the most incompetent Marines I've ever seen who have apparently been existing in a combat zone in an unready state while hoarding some war crime white phosphorus grenades, until her husband that she has been away from for a year shows up to take over. Her husband being an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel whose satellite project is being used to try to find hidden weapons of mass destruction and is what finds the old ruins. There are two marines main characters with one being the guy the CIA agent has started a relationship with while away from her husband, and another one who is a racist with a 9/11 hat. The last character is a member of the Iraq Republican Guard who is there to be the only competent, badass, friendlier person, who might just be able to make the racist marine not as racist anymore and if the entire game was just about him fighting the Americans and the demons it would have made for a better time. Unfortunately, he can't save the game all by himself.
The previous entry in the series, Little Hope, wasn't good but it at least had some ideas and moments that could have lead to it being good if not for the terrible overarching premise, this looks like it might take the series into something the developer can do a better job with by making a more action packed faster paced ridiculous ride but it manages to mess even that up. While Little Hope had some very strong acting in a mostly mediocre script, Ashes doesn't even have that with the best actors giving just passable performances with the exception of Ashley Tisdale as the CIA operative who is always terrible. The constant finding of items and collectibles to slowly examine take you away from the immediate story as much as before, but even more so here in what should be a more dangerous fast paced situation.
The action scenes end up being laughable incompetent with every shot seemingly being a tracer round that frequently show the bullets going nowhere near what anyone should be aiming at. The scenes where US and Iraq forces fight make Steven Seagal movies look well shot and better able to follow a logical event chain. The monsters don't even seem to react to being shot in the face multiple times in certain scenes but can apparently be stabbed and killed with old slightly pointy objects not designed to be used as weapons. The camera is completely unable to handle some of the confined or narrow areas you find yourself in. Characters mouths don't always move when they are speaking and there are frequent fast jump cuts in multiple scenes either like frames missing from action scenes or like it was possibly looking for a scene or line that might have happened if different choices were made then cut somewhere else when it couldn't find it. The characters apparently all have an infinite supply of ammunition (until near the end of the game when they finally start running out), though that doesn't end up being very useful to them. They find out UV light will set them on fire so when they start breaking through one of the doors they are defending they decide to shoot at the door instead of just shining the light on their hands or through the open cracks of the door (or shooting larger hold in the door that could then have the UV light shine through it). The dialogue is ridiculous, any soldier in the game tends to be written in the most stereotypes ridiculous way imaginable. A side character dies after seemingly being shot in the legs, making you think that the plot might understand that getting shot is actually bad, only for multiple characters to be shot later on only to have them completely ignore it and to go on with it never mentioned or considered a problem for them. Like all bad monster media the creatures are as fast or slow, strong or weak, and smart or stupid as the couple minutes needs them to be before deciding to do the opposite in the next scene.
Being that it stars characters that are CIA and marines invading a country outside of WWII I assumed I'd want them to die but these characters were nearly David Cage levels of unlikable and incompetent to the extent that I'd want them to die no matter who they are or what they were doing. It also makes it difficult to want to go back and see what changes different choices can lead to as it doesn't allow you to skip any of the scenes that you have already seen before.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1713804446118068427
A well made side campaign that keeps what makes the gameplay of the main game fun and allows for some atmospheric though more brief segments, while having the same expanded story elements when compared to the original PS2 mode.
For about $9, Separate Ways gets you seven chapters and about 3-4 hours of gameplay, Ada's path taker her mostly through the same areas as Leon but with a few differences, new enemy placement, and new boss fights. Her grappling hook has a fairly large role in the gameplay allowing her extra traversal options in each areas, fast ways onto a roof in some boss fights, the ability to launch or swing over obstacles. Ada has her own melee move set, one that can also make use of her grappling hook that she can use to pull herself to enemies or to pull away their shields, and she has access to a new sawed-off shotgun and crossbow that fires explosive arrows that can explode over a very large area once upgraded enough.
A lot of the new content are sections similar to things that were missing from the original Resident Evil 4. You get to see the laser wire trap room, the brief ride down a gondola as crossbow wielding enemies attack you, Pesanta who appear next to Verdugo when you meet Salazar then never appears again in the main game is a major antagonist multiple times through Separate Ways.
While you can get through it fairly quickly as the early sections can feel a bit devoid of enemies and are able to be more easily rushed through and the puzzle sections tend to be quickly and easily solvable in a way that makes most feel a bit pointless, most of the content is the same high quality as the main campaign while also expanding on its narrative and locations. We also get to spend a bit more time with Luis, which is never a bad thing.
For about $9, Separate Ways gets you seven chapters and about 3-4 hours of gameplay, Ada's path taker her mostly through the same areas as Leon but with a few differences, new enemy placement, and new boss fights. Her grappling hook has a fairly large role in the gameplay allowing her extra traversal options in each areas, fast ways onto a roof in some boss fights, the ability to launch or swing over obstacles. Ada has her own melee move set, one that can also make use of her grappling hook that she can use to pull herself to enemies or to pull away their shields, and she has access to a new sawed-off shotgun and crossbow that fires explosive arrows that can explode over a very large area once upgraded enough.
A lot of the new content are sections similar to things that were missing from the original Resident Evil 4. You get to see the laser wire trap room, the brief ride down a gondola as crossbow wielding enemies attack you, Pesanta who appear next to Verdugo when you meet Salazar then never appears again in the main game is a major antagonist multiple times through Separate Ways.
While you can get through it fairly quickly as the early sections can feel a bit devoid of enemies and are able to be more easily rushed through and the puzzle sections tend to be quickly and easily solvable in a way that makes most feel a bit pointless, most of the content is the same high quality as the main campaign while also expanding on its narrative and locations. We also get to spend a bit more time with Luis, which is never a bad thing.
Made as part of a contest for the PC-98 and inspired by Corpse Party.
Short RPG that has you exploring a trapped and cursed pyramid with other characters where most of them can be killed if you don't prevent their deaths leading to different scenes and endings. Good art and music, and like the game that inspired it, was something different compared to what else was available.
Short RPG that has you exploring a trapped and cursed pyramid with other characters where most of them can be killed if you don't prevent their deaths leading to different scenes and endings. Good art and music, and like the game that inspired it, was something different compared to what else was available.
The gameplay has evolved in positive ways, customization is a high point with a variety of options, the maps are large and beautiful. It's unfortunate that so many missions aren't even worth the time they take to load into because their design is either stuck in 97' or they waste time telling an uninteresting and rushed through story as you go around scanning wreckage targets.
You will customize the parts of your mech by selecting different parts for the weapons, leg, core, head, booster, targeting computer, and armor setting type before going out on fairly short missions that have you fighting against other enemy ACs and the much weaker mass produced models of mechs, stationary defenses, and drones that will go up against you. Arena battles against AI units from the game and online player vs player modes are also available. Enemies and your own AC can take a certain amount of impact damage before they are staggered opening them up to taking massive amounts of burst damage, making use of your quick boosts to avoid too many heavy or consecutive hits is important as is trying to keep a heavy attack, melee, or charging kick on hand for when you do manage to stun your enemy.
The enjoyment you get from Armored Core VI is going to be largely dependent on how much you like to edit your mech and try out the different styles of play available to you. You have access to a wide variety of weapons that you can equip on your left and right arms and shoulders and you can unlock the ability to store arm parts on your shoulders while rapidly switching between them as the stored parts reload and cooldown. Each type of leg part can change up the way you play quite a bit with the the normal set acting as a balanced type, the low weight supporting reverse joint legs giving you a lot of height when you jump without using up energy and being fast, quad legs allowing you to hover in midair for very little energy and to fire heavy weapons without stopping, tank treads limit your boost speed and can make it a bit more difficult to control your movement but gives high health and defense, the highest weight limits, and absorb recoil like the quad legs do. As you play through the game the first time, and in its new game+ and new game++ you will continue to unlock new parts as you do different mission paths for the first time and trying out those weapons and builds can be a lot of fun, which is good because many of the missions are terribly designed and are even worse when you have to replay them.
The biggest issue with the game is the wasted use of so many large and beautiful maps and a focus on an extremely uninteresting story that because it's From Software has no shortage of Youtuber's posting amazing hidden plot threads that the game blatantly spells out for you immediately after they happen. So many of the early missions feel like they are just their to get you up to speed and used to the gameplay, with almost nothing to actually threaten you during the mission. This would be great, if they changed those missions up when you start hitting the new game+ playthroughs but most of them don't change and many some that do don't change in a way that makes them any more mechanically interesting. There are missions where you just walk up to some targets to extract data from wrecks with almost no enemies, missions where you fall down a hole to shoot the core of a stationary device. The first time you play a mission where you take down a giant weaponized mining machine can be fun because it looks so cool as you destroy the back leg an watch it collapse after you climb it and blow up the core but, especially after one or two more playthroughs, you realize all you really did was walk up to something and shoot a few stationary targets while hiding behind a wall from to avoid its defenses a couple times.
What the game needs is some DLC maps and missions that completely ignore the pointless main story that often makes a slog of the main campaign. There's a fun change up late game mission in space where you shoot down an enemy fleet of battleships while making use of endless energy boosts. Make a whole mission or three out of that but with multiple sides in a massive battle with enemy pilots and wider enemy variety and some allies and give people their Gundam fantasy, a large number of the shared AC builds are already almost perfect Gundam unit recreations. Do an Ace Combat 6 style mission, drop a player on one side of a massive battlefield between different forces where you can go help out different units, maybe make a minor story of the battle with a chain of missions where choices or actions can effect one or two future missions. Have a mode where you can choose one of the maps and set the enemy placement and play co-op (since team based multiplayer is already a thing). Instead we get so many fight some pitiful enemies before destroying stationary helicopters, walk around a foggy city trying to find an object to scan as a couple drones occasionally annoy you, fall down a hole, try to locate drive cores in a maze like room with a time limit, a mission with multiple factions fighting somehow turns into blow up two ACs that were fighting some weak enemies then go fly to a boss fight. There are good missions in the game but there are also so many missions that aren't worth the time it takes to load into them and it wouldn't take much to make them much more interesting because everything else the game needs for them to work is there.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1710124544542097479
You will customize the parts of your mech by selecting different parts for the weapons, leg, core, head, booster, targeting computer, and armor setting type before going out on fairly short missions that have you fighting against other enemy ACs and the much weaker mass produced models of mechs, stationary defenses, and drones that will go up against you. Arena battles against AI units from the game and online player vs player modes are also available. Enemies and your own AC can take a certain amount of impact damage before they are staggered opening them up to taking massive amounts of burst damage, making use of your quick boosts to avoid too many heavy or consecutive hits is important as is trying to keep a heavy attack, melee, or charging kick on hand for when you do manage to stun your enemy.
The enjoyment you get from Armored Core VI is going to be largely dependent on how much you like to edit your mech and try out the different styles of play available to you. You have access to a wide variety of weapons that you can equip on your left and right arms and shoulders and you can unlock the ability to store arm parts on your shoulders while rapidly switching between them as the stored parts reload and cooldown. Each type of leg part can change up the way you play quite a bit with the the normal set acting as a balanced type, the low weight supporting reverse joint legs giving you a lot of height when you jump without using up energy and being fast, quad legs allowing you to hover in midair for very little energy and to fire heavy weapons without stopping, tank treads limit your boost speed and can make it a bit more difficult to control your movement but gives high health and defense, the highest weight limits, and absorb recoil like the quad legs do. As you play through the game the first time, and in its new game+ and new game++ you will continue to unlock new parts as you do different mission paths for the first time and trying out those weapons and builds can be a lot of fun, which is good because many of the missions are terribly designed and are even worse when you have to replay them.
The biggest issue with the game is the wasted use of so many large and beautiful maps and a focus on an extremely uninteresting story that because it's From Software has no shortage of Youtuber's posting amazing hidden plot threads that the game blatantly spells out for you immediately after they happen. So many of the early missions feel like they are just their to get you up to speed and used to the gameplay, with almost nothing to actually threaten you during the mission. This would be great, if they changed those missions up when you start hitting the new game+ playthroughs but most of them don't change and many some that do don't change in a way that makes them any more mechanically interesting. There are missions where you just walk up to some targets to extract data from wrecks with almost no enemies, missions where you fall down a hole to shoot the core of a stationary device. The first time you play a mission where you take down a giant weaponized mining machine can be fun because it looks so cool as you destroy the back leg an watch it collapse after you climb it and blow up the core but, especially after one or two more playthroughs, you realize all you really did was walk up to something and shoot a few stationary targets while hiding behind a wall from to avoid its defenses a couple times.
What the game needs is some DLC maps and missions that completely ignore the pointless main story that often makes a slog of the main campaign. There's a fun change up late game mission in space where you shoot down an enemy fleet of battleships while making use of endless energy boosts. Make a whole mission or three out of that but with multiple sides in a massive battle with enemy pilots and wider enemy variety and some allies and give people their Gundam fantasy, a large number of the shared AC builds are already almost perfect Gundam unit recreations. Do an Ace Combat 6 style mission, drop a player on one side of a massive battlefield between different forces where you can go help out different units, maybe make a minor story of the battle with a chain of missions where choices or actions can effect one or two future missions. Have a mode where you can choose one of the maps and set the enemy placement and play co-op (since team based multiplayer is already a thing). Instead we get so many fight some pitiful enemies before destroying stationary helicopters, walk around a foggy city trying to find an object to scan as a couple drones occasionally annoy you, fall down a hole, try to locate drive cores in a maze like room with a time limit, a mission with multiple factions fighting somehow turns into blow up two ACs that were fighting some weak enemies then go fly to a boss fight. There are good missions in the game but there are also so many missions that aren't worth the time it takes to load into them and it wouldn't take much to make them much more interesting because everything else the game needs for them to work is there.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1710124544542097479
Plays like a fast paced Hotline Miami that trades the melee combat and stealth elements for the dives, rolls, and slow motion filled shoot outs common in Hong Kong action cinema. Pick from duel pistols, a shotgun, rifle, or a single and later upgrade-able to duel SMGs. Base gameplay is a lot of fun, simple to control with exciting to watch gunfights taking apart the environments.
Suffers a bit from a lack of variety, four dull boss fights that all play the same, same three challenges on every level. Occasionally some movement issues, like diving over balconies to other buildings not working, or enemies that don't really react to things where they might just be standing around while you are shooting in the room or even right by them while you are in a different room.
Gameplay Montage:
https://youtu.be/xFIv0Hid4-M?si=AwLt6WxNfb9ti6ch
Suffers a bit from a lack of variety, four dull boss fights that all play the same, same three challenges on every level. Occasionally some movement issues, like diving over balconies to other buildings not working, or enemies that don't really react to things where they might just be standing around while you are shooting in the room or even right by them while you are in a different room.
Gameplay Montage:
https://youtu.be/xFIv0Hid4-M?si=AwLt6WxNfb9ti6ch
Strong character customization, even allowing you to choose different music scores as a type of theme change for your character, you can build companions how you want as nothing is locked to a class. Strategic combat with some of the best ability synergy in the genre. Great writing with a lot of small details to give the world and quest more meaning. One of the rare games with a crafting system that gives you some good options. Offers a variety of ways to solve many of the quests. Divinity has some unique changes to common fantasy races and tropes. The conversation options specific to a certain race, gender, character, etc and being able to play as your potential companions allow for different conversation/quest options and endings.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/994668948426711040
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/943979398646054912
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/995644208772857856
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/994670053873270784
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/994668948426711040
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/943979398646054912
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/995644208772857856
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/994670053873270784
2022
Investigate murders, town history, and the secrets of villagers in a small changing town in Bavaria from 1518-1544. Unique, well written, good use of art history, nods to period films and stories, and many details to discover as you see your seemingly small choices ripple through the community over time.
Pentiment is an adventure roleplaying game set over three acts each taking place between 1518-1544 in the small town of Tassing and the nearby Kiersau Abbey in Bavaria. You play as Andreas Maler, a university drop out and soon to be master artist, who is working on a commission for the abbey before returning home to enter into an arranged marriage, as a requirement to be known as a master of his trade is to be married. Shortly before you have complete your masterpiece you become involved in a murder investigation that can put you at odds with the local abbot. Whether you help convict the right suspect or not, your investigation seems to imply that there is something bigger going on and a person working to attempt to influence your suspects to become killers. After the initial act is over, you return to a town that is both the same and changed seven years later as a now disillusioned master artist with a young apprentice. Both of you quickly being caught up in even more dangerous events as the rift between the peasants, tradesmen, and abbot have deepened. The final act takes place 18 years later with you controlling a different character as you put together parts of the town's past and learn how those remaining from that time and the newer generation look to that past both the events Maler was involved in and people who lived in the area during Roman times and before.
Early in the game you will make a series of choices for Maler that tell what he has done and learned through his life so far. You will pick where he has traveled (Basel, Flanders, or Florence) to influence the languages he knows and his knowledge of other cultures and their artwork. A background to describe how you have lived your life (hedonist, bookworm, rapscallion, craftsman, businessman). What your primary area of study was (theology, imperial law, or medicine). Finally you can choose two other areas you studied on the side (Latinist, logician, orator, occultist, or heaven and earth). Knowledge of other languages, books, artwork, and the occult all can become important or shed more light on events when dealing with certain characters or objects while your background and certain fields of study can open up new options when dealing with people or when examining objects or books.
The game deals with the exploration and relationships you build with the townsfolk and brothers and sister of the abbey based on your choices, knowledge, and background. You learn the town and people's histories, secrets, traditions and a large thematic parts of the game deals with people trying to come to terms with pasts and how they are dealing with them now and what grows from the ruins of history and you witness the effects of your seemingly small choices that can have more or just as large of an effect on a character's life as the major decisions you make, and how those choices change the lives of those in the town in the years to come. It's very well written, you get more of a feel of who your character is and what befell them between acts 1 and 2, your background choices can lead to a lot good or amusing moments, and there are a lot of minor details to find out about a lot of the characters or just things that add to the setting like what you see and hear when you spend your meal times with different people or families or about character's hidden relationships. There is some excellent music at more major moments of the story. The history of the setting is handled in simple interesting ways without taking up too much of the game's content or requiring too much explanation, and the art style of the game unique and fits both its more lighthearted and its darker moments.
There are a few negatives to the game. It doesn't feel like a game that really benefits from a time limit and what events pass time are not always clear, not much seems to come from being made to replay the game when a lot of the primary scenes and story beats aren't going to change or not change that much. Act 3 is odd because it suddenly becomes more railroaded and there are two obvious characters that you would play as one being the young daughter of the family you stay with that you can have some influence on or your apprentice who is with you for 99% of act 2, you end up playing as a girl who wasn't born in act 1 and is only around three years old in act 2 who you can buy a book for that later influences her background knowledge of the world before you can choose three other things she is good at during a conversation. A little strange that you are constantly told that you are pretty by people when you seem to be one of the least attractive young women in the game and for some reason look both haggard and closer to 40 than 20 based on how everyone else has started or aged. You end up playing as one of the kids that probably made the least impression on you, though your past influence is still effecting other aspects and characters in the village. Dealing with the village and how things have changed is a good fitting element to the themes of the game but the actual ending that ties into everything that has been happening since the start of the game is one of those all too common parts of games where the exploration and side content tend to be the best parts, the ending works and makes sense but it's just not very interesting for all the build up. Exploration can also become a bit tedious once you start hitting multiple moments where you run into, "ok I need to go here now, to do that I need to run through these ten screens then I can run back nine screens to do the next thing, etc." Could have at least used that common double click on an area divider to move to that next section.
The game keeps your one save file for a playthrough but it is fairly easy to fix a mistake made or change something you now don't want to have done by going back to the main menu and being able to scroll through a list of previous auto saved. So if you want to see other options, go back and try to pass a persuasion check, get achievements that are exclusive to one another you won't necessarily need to replay the full game.
A lot of great unique elements to the game that make it an easy recommendation despite some minor issues and the main plot ending not hitting too hard.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1690584244622606336
Pentiment is an adventure roleplaying game set over three acts each taking place between 1518-1544 in the small town of Tassing and the nearby Kiersau Abbey in Bavaria. You play as Andreas Maler, a university drop out and soon to be master artist, who is working on a commission for the abbey before returning home to enter into an arranged marriage, as a requirement to be known as a master of his trade is to be married. Shortly before you have complete your masterpiece you become involved in a murder investigation that can put you at odds with the local abbot. Whether you help convict the right suspect or not, your investigation seems to imply that there is something bigger going on and a person working to attempt to influence your suspects to become killers. After the initial act is over, you return to a town that is both the same and changed seven years later as a now disillusioned master artist with a young apprentice. Both of you quickly being caught up in even more dangerous events as the rift between the peasants, tradesmen, and abbot have deepened. The final act takes place 18 years later with you controlling a different character as you put together parts of the town's past and learn how those remaining from that time and the newer generation look to that past both the events Maler was involved in and people who lived in the area during Roman times and before.
Early in the game you will make a series of choices for Maler that tell what he has done and learned through his life so far. You will pick where he has traveled (Basel, Flanders, or Florence) to influence the languages he knows and his knowledge of other cultures and their artwork. A background to describe how you have lived your life (hedonist, bookworm, rapscallion, craftsman, businessman). What your primary area of study was (theology, imperial law, or medicine). Finally you can choose two other areas you studied on the side (Latinist, logician, orator, occultist, or heaven and earth). Knowledge of other languages, books, artwork, and the occult all can become important or shed more light on events when dealing with certain characters or objects while your background and certain fields of study can open up new options when dealing with people or when examining objects or books.
The game deals with the exploration and relationships you build with the townsfolk and brothers and sister of the abbey based on your choices, knowledge, and background. You learn the town and people's histories, secrets, traditions and a large thematic parts of the game deals with people trying to come to terms with pasts and how they are dealing with them now and what grows from the ruins of history and you witness the effects of your seemingly small choices that can have more or just as large of an effect on a character's life as the major decisions you make, and how those choices change the lives of those in the town in the years to come. It's very well written, you get more of a feel of who your character is and what befell them between acts 1 and 2, your background choices can lead to a lot good or amusing moments, and there are a lot of minor details to find out about a lot of the characters or just things that add to the setting like what you see and hear when you spend your meal times with different people or families or about character's hidden relationships. There is some excellent music at more major moments of the story. The history of the setting is handled in simple interesting ways without taking up too much of the game's content or requiring too much explanation, and the art style of the game unique and fits both its more lighthearted and its darker moments.
There are a few negatives to the game. It doesn't feel like a game that really benefits from a time limit and what events pass time are not always clear, not much seems to come from being made to replay the game when a lot of the primary scenes and story beats aren't going to change or not change that much. Act 3 is odd because it suddenly becomes more railroaded and there are two obvious characters that you would play as one being the young daughter of the family you stay with that you can have some influence on or your apprentice who is with you for 99% of act 2, you end up playing as a girl who wasn't born in act 1 and is only around three years old in act 2 who you can buy a book for that later influences her background knowledge of the world before you can choose three other things she is good at during a conversation. A little strange that you are constantly told that you are pretty by people when you seem to be one of the least attractive young women in the game and for some reason look both haggard and closer to 40 than 20 based on how everyone else has started or aged. You end up playing as one of the kids that probably made the least impression on you, though your past influence is still effecting other aspects and characters in the village. Dealing with the village and how things have changed is a good fitting element to the themes of the game but the actual ending that ties into everything that has been happening since the start of the game is one of those all too common parts of games where the exploration and side content tend to be the best parts, the ending works and makes sense but it's just not very interesting for all the build up. Exploration can also become a bit tedious once you start hitting multiple moments where you run into, "ok I need to go here now, to do that I need to run through these ten screens then I can run back nine screens to do the next thing, etc." Could have at least used that common double click on an area divider to move to that next section.
The game keeps your one save file for a playthrough but it is fairly easy to fix a mistake made or change something you now don't want to have done by going back to the main menu and being able to scroll through a list of previous auto saved. So if you want to see other options, go back and try to pass a persuasion check, get achievements that are exclusive to one another you won't necessarily need to replay the full game.
A lot of great unique elements to the game that make it an easy recommendation despite some minor issues and the main plot ending not hitting too hard.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1690584244622606336
Mech combat action game. Decent flashy visual style and a good soundtrack, mechanically does just about everything you would want in a game of this style while offering some of the varied styles of missions you would see in something like Ace Combat, it just does it all badly with a rushed tropey unfocused nonsense story that drops entire characters at random and for some reason includes a horrible attempt to have Metal Gear Solid 3's boss fight against The Sorrow as one of the stages.
Gameplay has you piloting a variety of mechs where you can rotate and fly in any direction while boosting forward, back, sideways, and up and down while locking onto and engaging enemies with a small number of different weapons and a few defensive abilities. You can cycle through weapon that include different version of a rapid firing gun, different types of missiles that you can fire in a group or lock onto the current locked target, a longer ranged high damage rail gun, a very high damage slow to recharge particle gun more for larger enemy ships, and the defensive items include energy shields, decoys, and flares. A few of the units you can pilot have the ability to switch to a flight mode that I never found useful and some have melee weapons with better ones being able to chain attack more quickly, how useful the melee weapons are was based entirely on how the game was feeling at any given moment as an sword icon has to appear to use it (when it will appear is questionable), then you have to actually hit the enemy with it (even though you do a magical lunch towards them that you would normally be incapable of doing if they are moving at all you will probably miss), and then even when you do clearly hit them about half the time it just does no damage (as opposed to many other ranged weapon that can just decide not to do any damage closer to 1/4 of the time).
The controls are awful (both in the overly floaty movement and in terms of button placement) and unintuitive. The lock on system that you have to engage with constantly is one of the worst I've ever seen in a game like this, it has an on and off mode that when you turn it on will target what you are currently looking at and sometimes switches to other targets nearby when you shoot one down. When you play a game like this ideally you want options like swap target to aimed at, swap to nearest, next, or previous not on or off. Enemy "aces" are barely noticed and some entire missions and capital ship fights can be over in a minute before characters even finish talking. The most and only difficult battles, meaning cheap nonsense you have to exploit the game to win comes when the two most main characters you control fight two times during the game. Ground targets are a mess with your hit doing nothing a much higher percentage of the time than aerial targets, as ground targets are never really a threat the amount of missions that need you to shoot them just wastes times and adds to frustration. While there is a variety of units to pilot it isn't like planes for different roles in Ace Combat or mechs for different roles and with entirely different styles to them like in Armored Core, here it mostly just comes down to can the mech do more, less, or a lot less and once it gives you more it's not much fun to go back to less especially when ideally the game should be getting more exciting as it goes on with more and wider varieties of enemies (never really happens).
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1688818356848377856
Gameplay has you piloting a variety of mechs where you can rotate and fly in any direction while boosting forward, back, sideways, and up and down while locking onto and engaging enemies with a small number of different weapons and a few defensive abilities. You can cycle through weapon that include different version of a rapid firing gun, different types of missiles that you can fire in a group or lock onto the current locked target, a longer ranged high damage rail gun, a very high damage slow to recharge particle gun more for larger enemy ships, and the defensive items include energy shields, decoys, and flares. A few of the units you can pilot have the ability to switch to a flight mode that I never found useful and some have melee weapons with better ones being able to chain attack more quickly, how useful the melee weapons are was based entirely on how the game was feeling at any given moment as an sword icon has to appear to use it (when it will appear is questionable), then you have to actually hit the enemy with it (even though you do a magical lunch towards them that you would normally be incapable of doing if they are moving at all you will probably miss), and then even when you do clearly hit them about half the time it just does no damage (as opposed to many other ranged weapon that can just decide not to do any damage closer to 1/4 of the time).
The controls are awful (both in the overly floaty movement and in terms of button placement) and unintuitive. The lock on system that you have to engage with constantly is one of the worst I've ever seen in a game like this, it has an on and off mode that when you turn it on will target what you are currently looking at and sometimes switches to other targets nearby when you shoot one down. When you play a game like this ideally you want options like swap target to aimed at, swap to nearest, next, or previous not on or off. Enemy "aces" are barely noticed and some entire missions and capital ship fights can be over in a minute before characters even finish talking. The most and only difficult battles, meaning cheap nonsense you have to exploit the game to win comes when the two most main characters you control fight two times during the game. Ground targets are a mess with your hit doing nothing a much higher percentage of the time than aerial targets, as ground targets are never really a threat the amount of missions that need you to shoot them just wastes times and adds to frustration. While there is a variety of units to pilot it isn't like planes for different roles in Ace Combat or mechs for different roles and with entirely different styles to them like in Armored Core, here it mostly just comes down to can the mech do more, less, or a lot less and once it gives you more it's not much fun to go back to less especially when ideally the game should be getting more exciting as it goes on with more and wider varieties of enemies (never really happens).
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1688818356848377856
Update to a classic Saturn rail shooter that looks decent for an update to an old title and keeps the same level design but loses the otherworldly feel of the original, has a lack of extras, and a poorly handled "modern" control scheme that is disabled by default.
The game plays like a normal flight rail shooter where you move a reticle around to target enemies and your dragon moves in the direction you are aiming to avoid the obstacles or shots that you can't shoot down. You can rapidly push multiple fire buttons for a very fast rate of fire that can be good for more damage on one target or to shoot down enemy shots, or you can hold the button while you scroll over targets for an auto lock laser shot that fires at its targets when you let go. You can rotate the camera your view to the left, right, and behind you where your dragon will lose it's maneuverability while it allows you to deal with threats from those angles. A radar identifies which side enemies are on by showing them in yellow and can show more active attackers in red. For an update of an old game it looks good and mostly stays in line with the style of the old by just greatly expanding on what was already there and removing the frequent obstacle and texture pop in of the Saturn title, the gain of clarity and having a much wider, brighter, and detailed environment does make the game lose the otherworldly feel of the original game though. The soundtrack is good and there are some enemies and moments that make use of the ability to shift facing in a way that is interesting compared to a lot of other rail shooter.
It is a very short and easy game, setting it to medium difficulty I beat it in under an hour without ever losing a life and shooting down about 95-99% of enemies on each level and I believe dying would have just used one of the 11 or so continues I ended up with that could put me right back at a boss fight. The modern control style when used will allow you to aim and move separately from one another, which should be a less awkward way to control the dragon and make the game even easier but the severe decrease in movement speed and for some reason the choice in turning off the ability to rapid fire your weapon by quickly hitting multiple fire buttons make it both a poor choice and not really how the game was designed. As you aren't flying a ship but riding a dragon the original way also makes it feel more like you are attempting to guide the dragons movement rather than just flying a ship that reacts in the exact way you want it to. Beating the game unlocks a few minor options like a stage select, god mode, most helpfully a rapid fire button option where one of your fire buttons can just be held down to shoot quickly saving the need to quickly mash them. Nothing that will change the game in a way to make it last longer though or make new playthroughs any more interesting.
For a likely quickly done remake of what seems to usually be considered the worst and most basic game in the four game series it's a fine playthrough but it's not going to be as interesting as it was on release and hard to justify buying at the full $25 price.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1688379991950766080
The game plays like a normal flight rail shooter where you move a reticle around to target enemies and your dragon moves in the direction you are aiming to avoid the obstacles or shots that you can't shoot down. You can rapidly push multiple fire buttons for a very fast rate of fire that can be good for more damage on one target or to shoot down enemy shots, or you can hold the button while you scroll over targets for an auto lock laser shot that fires at its targets when you let go. You can rotate the camera your view to the left, right, and behind you where your dragon will lose it's maneuverability while it allows you to deal with threats from those angles. A radar identifies which side enemies are on by showing them in yellow and can show more active attackers in red. For an update of an old game it looks good and mostly stays in line with the style of the old by just greatly expanding on what was already there and removing the frequent obstacle and texture pop in of the Saturn title, the gain of clarity and having a much wider, brighter, and detailed environment does make the game lose the otherworldly feel of the original game though. The soundtrack is good and there are some enemies and moments that make use of the ability to shift facing in a way that is interesting compared to a lot of other rail shooter.
It is a very short and easy game, setting it to medium difficulty I beat it in under an hour without ever losing a life and shooting down about 95-99% of enemies on each level and I believe dying would have just used one of the 11 or so continues I ended up with that could put me right back at a boss fight. The modern control style when used will allow you to aim and move separately from one another, which should be a less awkward way to control the dragon and make the game even easier but the severe decrease in movement speed and for some reason the choice in turning off the ability to rapid fire your weapon by quickly hitting multiple fire buttons make it both a poor choice and not really how the game was designed. As you aren't flying a ship but riding a dragon the original way also makes it feel more like you are attempting to guide the dragons movement rather than just flying a ship that reacts in the exact way you want it to. Beating the game unlocks a few minor options like a stage select, god mode, most helpfully a rapid fire button option where one of your fire buttons can just be held down to shoot quickly saving the need to quickly mash them. Nothing that will change the game in a way to make it last longer though or make new playthroughs any more interesting.
For a likely quickly done remake of what seems to usually be considered the worst and most basic game in the four game series it's a fine playthrough but it's not going to be as interesting as it was on release and hard to justify buying at the full $25 price.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1688379991950766080
2022
A simple and enjoyable game system with a well written and interesting setting, but a lack of real threat and waiting can hurt the pace and ability to do and to excel at everything with lack of consequence can hurt the themes.
Citizen Sleeper combines a tabletop RPG style system with visual novel aesthetics that has some minor survival elements. You play as an escaped Sleeper, a sentient robot body with a mind emulated from a scan taken from a live human body. Your rights to be seen as a human signed away, memories of your life as a human fragmented, and the Essen-Arp corporation views your body as their property and wants you back and if they can't get you back your lack of access to the supplements now required by you will see you drained of power soon enough. You and many other Sleepers attempt to escape your poor treatment by stuffing themselves into cargo container, the one you were in landing on the run down and partly lawless space station of Erlin's Eye.
You have a choice in character creation where you will start with a negative one when using one of the five skills but a positive one in another skill, as well as a passive perk associated with your positive skill. Every day will be given 1-5 dice that are rolled on the start of each day valuing from 1-6. Attempting to complete tasks will either require you to assign an item or money or to assign one of your dice to a challenge, any positive modifiers based on your skills (from -1 to +2) will be added to the die and that will decide on your percentage chance of positive, neutral (a weaker success or a success with additional bad effects), or negative results. The number of dice your receive each day is based on your current condition level that will drain each time you sleep or if you are damaged in some way, finding or buying food is also necessary as reaching a low enough energy state will cause you to lose additional condition each day. Exploring the setting is a large part of the game as meeting certain characters, traveling and opening up new paths on the station, and performing tasks like asking for directions or searching a new location will unlock new points of interest. Your skills are Engineer (fixing mechanical devices), Interface (hacking and remotely controlling things), Endure (withstanding harsher conditions or repetitive labor), Intuit (awareness and consideration of problems), and Engage (more direct and physical solutions to problems) and their associated passive skills will allow you to more easily manage your decaying condition, haggle better when spending money, reroll your daily dice rolls once a day, etc.
Your goal is going to be to get yourself to a point where you become self sufficient enough to manage your condition and energy needs while also being able to complete the game's tasks and quests (called drives). When a drive is complete you will gain an upgrade point which can be used to increase your five skills enough to get up to a +2 in rolls associated with them and each skills two passive perks. You might decide a life on the station is freedom enough for you going through all the tasks you can while living day to day, especially if you have been making friends, working to improve the place, and feeding a stray cat each night, or you might find people that you can travel off of the station with or an entirely different way to leave your current existence behind. Deciding if the life you've managed to build is enough or if surviving day to day isn't as interesting as the possibility to find something more is a large part of each of the game's endings (choosing to leave will allow you to then reload your save right before you left so you can instead choose to stay allowing you to continue with your other goals without needing to go through the entire game again, also nice since the free DLC requires you to be on the station).
It's a simple and enjoyable game system, very well written, a nice art style, and gives an interesting setting to explore but a lack of real threat and waiting for things to happen can hurt the pacing. When you start the game your failing condition is a threat, you don't know what's going on at the station, events are constantly happening, and there seem to be more branching paths to minor events as even one of your first jobs can take a more negative route for your relationship with the first person you meet if you keep failing or putting work off with the limited starting dice you have. What will soon happen though is that you will get to a point where money is no longer an issue and fully repairing your condition and raising your energy is also easily taken care of once you have more locations unlocked, with those threats gone you will also frequently have multiple events where you are either waiting a few days for timers to run out so they can continue or you will just slowly pick away at the ones you want to do first as almost none of the events have any kind of real time or failure state.
Early on you learn you have a tracker installed on you and someone is coming to the station to find you, this would get you to think you might die or have some large penalty if that happens. Instead it has to happen, you meet a bounty hunter who ends up letting you stay if you pay the bar tab he runs up over the next week, and if you don't pay the tab he will just show up to steal all your money with no penalty if it was less than what the tab was anyway. The events and the characters you meet through that situation are all written well and enjoyable to go through but the constant ability to do everything in the game and to never be in any real danger seems to be a bit at odds with the feel and themes of the game. Nearing the end you can even come close to maxing out every single skill so it's not even a game where you are forced to specialize for certain tasks in a particular playthrough, there are a couple tasks that you can't do without having a +1 in the skill but by the time you reach them that's not much of an issue. On the other hand, there are multiple people having tantrums about their inability to complete the first part of the DLC successfully in the 12 or so days the event gives them after they start it, and as I completed the event without really trying (because, even though you are locked to one save, you can definitely make use quits to the main menu before the auto save triggers on skill checks or dice rerolls) of in six days I suppose I can't really say what in the world other people do in games like this to cause themselves so many problems.
It's a great game, just a little odd and feels a bit against message when technically in one playthrough your character is a savant in all areas, is basically every factions friend and the friend of an AI now influencing major station systems, inherits a ship repair business, improves the food quality of the station, joins a commune but also has three other places to live, etc, etc, etc. Is the daily grind of life enough is an easier question to answer when you are rolling in money, friends, and allies.
Screenshots:
Citizen Sleeper combines a tabletop RPG style system with visual novel aesthetics that has some minor survival elements. You play as an escaped Sleeper, a sentient robot body with a mind emulated from a scan taken from a live human body. Your rights to be seen as a human signed away, memories of your life as a human fragmented, and the Essen-Arp corporation views your body as their property and wants you back and if they can't get you back your lack of access to the supplements now required by you will see you drained of power soon enough. You and many other Sleepers attempt to escape your poor treatment by stuffing themselves into cargo container, the one you were in landing on the run down and partly lawless space station of Erlin's Eye.
You have a choice in character creation where you will start with a negative one when using one of the five skills but a positive one in another skill, as well as a passive perk associated with your positive skill. Every day will be given 1-5 dice that are rolled on the start of each day valuing from 1-6. Attempting to complete tasks will either require you to assign an item or money or to assign one of your dice to a challenge, any positive modifiers based on your skills (from -1 to +2) will be added to the die and that will decide on your percentage chance of positive, neutral (a weaker success or a success with additional bad effects), or negative results. The number of dice your receive each day is based on your current condition level that will drain each time you sleep or if you are damaged in some way, finding or buying food is also necessary as reaching a low enough energy state will cause you to lose additional condition each day. Exploring the setting is a large part of the game as meeting certain characters, traveling and opening up new paths on the station, and performing tasks like asking for directions or searching a new location will unlock new points of interest. Your skills are Engineer (fixing mechanical devices), Interface (hacking and remotely controlling things), Endure (withstanding harsher conditions or repetitive labor), Intuit (awareness and consideration of problems), and Engage (more direct and physical solutions to problems) and their associated passive skills will allow you to more easily manage your decaying condition, haggle better when spending money, reroll your daily dice rolls once a day, etc.
Your goal is going to be to get yourself to a point where you become self sufficient enough to manage your condition and energy needs while also being able to complete the game's tasks and quests (called drives). When a drive is complete you will gain an upgrade point which can be used to increase your five skills enough to get up to a +2 in rolls associated with them and each skills two passive perks. You might decide a life on the station is freedom enough for you going through all the tasks you can while living day to day, especially if you have been making friends, working to improve the place, and feeding a stray cat each night, or you might find people that you can travel off of the station with or an entirely different way to leave your current existence behind. Deciding if the life you've managed to build is enough or if surviving day to day isn't as interesting as the possibility to find something more is a large part of each of the game's endings (choosing to leave will allow you to then reload your save right before you left so you can instead choose to stay allowing you to continue with your other goals without needing to go through the entire game again, also nice since the free DLC requires you to be on the station).
It's a simple and enjoyable game system, very well written, a nice art style, and gives an interesting setting to explore but a lack of real threat and waiting for things to happen can hurt the pacing. When you start the game your failing condition is a threat, you don't know what's going on at the station, events are constantly happening, and there seem to be more branching paths to minor events as even one of your first jobs can take a more negative route for your relationship with the first person you meet if you keep failing or putting work off with the limited starting dice you have. What will soon happen though is that you will get to a point where money is no longer an issue and fully repairing your condition and raising your energy is also easily taken care of once you have more locations unlocked, with those threats gone you will also frequently have multiple events where you are either waiting a few days for timers to run out so they can continue or you will just slowly pick away at the ones you want to do first as almost none of the events have any kind of real time or failure state.
Early on you learn you have a tracker installed on you and someone is coming to the station to find you, this would get you to think you might die or have some large penalty if that happens. Instead it has to happen, you meet a bounty hunter who ends up letting you stay if you pay the bar tab he runs up over the next week, and if you don't pay the tab he will just show up to steal all your money with no penalty if it was less than what the tab was anyway. The events and the characters you meet through that situation are all written well and enjoyable to go through but the constant ability to do everything in the game and to never be in any real danger seems to be a bit at odds with the feel and themes of the game. Nearing the end you can even come close to maxing out every single skill so it's not even a game where you are forced to specialize for certain tasks in a particular playthrough, there are a couple tasks that you can't do without having a +1 in the skill but by the time you reach them that's not much of an issue. On the other hand, there are multiple people having tantrums about their inability to complete the first part of the DLC successfully in the 12 or so days the event gives them after they start it, and as I completed the event without really trying (because, even though you are locked to one save, you can definitely make use quits to the main menu before the auto save triggers on skill checks or dice rerolls) of in six days I suppose I can't really say what in the world other people do in games like this to cause themselves so many problems.
It's a great game, just a little odd and feels a bit against message when technically in one playthrough your character is a savant in all areas, is basically every factions friend and the friend of an AI now influencing major station systems, inherits a ship repair business, improves the food quality of the station, joins a commune but also has three other places to live, etc, etc, etc. Is the daily grind of life enough is an easier question to answer when you are rolling in money, friends, and allies.
Screenshots: