I live in a world where I have been disappointed by Garten of Banban. I am lost. I am unforgivable.

I hardly know what to say, even, since I enjoyed this way less than the other games. 1 was so bad it was good, 2 had The Cannon Game, 3 honestly had a few things. This game... has one decent voice actor who's overqualified for the job, and some genuinely good parts of the soundtrack. Nothing in the gameplay, nothing in the writing, even with those bars resting soundly in the mantle of the earth.

Front to back, this game is about as boring as a cashier job. There are exactly two neat ideas in this whole game: the setting of the kingdom, and spot the difference. The kingdom itself is fine, i suppose, though I have my reservations with the game's seeming lack of justification for it. This game justifies nothing, actually, just "oh yeah this is here by the way.” It feels like aiming in a black void, which is especially notable here because we're at game 4 now, yet with how little it actually builds on existing facets it feels like it should be the first game. Furthermore, the spot the difference is simply poorly executed. Apparently it can be quite difficult (according to LenaLesbian, citing Nightblade) but for me, it was (1) big things that a bathroom could simply not be without (2) like three very big boxes missing (3) the chairs in the sunroom, twice in a row. Unengaging, and beyond me why they'd give four minutes for it.

So, if not neat ideas, what's left? Well, uh, there's- oh fuck this I don't want to write more about this game. It's dialogue mush with padding presented in the form of stretching the crumbs of plot to the max (contrast with the "just keep throwing stuff" attitude of the last two games, which was much preferred,) it's a poor execution extravaganza, it takes itself seriously the whole time and cracks i think only one joke, it's a fucking waste of time and complaining more is a waste of time. It is as low as a 2/10 can go, only saved by a couple things along the way that kept it simply forgettable rather than outright miserable. I turned 21 years old just yesterday, I'm being asked to come to bed, it's nearly 3AM and I have to be up in seven hours, there's a beautiful life ahead of me and I can't sit here and inundate myself in a mascot horror lore game. It took just one game to get me absolutely sick of this. Let me out. Please do not buy me the next game.

As of writing, MarisaB Normal 1cc (my first of the franchise,) but not before a ReimuB run that ended right as the boss died, which got me the bad ending. Hell. Hell.

This felt like the first game that knew what it was doing, but along the way it loses a bit of charm. SoEW had good music and dialogue that was funny enough. PoDD is batshit insane and resultingly fun due to that chaos. HRtP sucks, but if you go through with a friend, it becomes an unforgettable experience. Though, the stuff that makes this stick out at all is retroactive--people didn't know what Touhou or Bad Apple was prior to release, let alone Marisa Kirisame. No game before this sold more than like, 200 copies. These things make it lovely now but that's by chance, really.

However, not quite by chance, there is at least a solid game underneath. Several steps forward were taken from SoEW's unintelligible graphics, and each of the 4 shot types make a surprising difference in gameplay--more than I was expecting, and more than Double Dealing Character provided me, to be honest. Of course there are some hiccups, like Stage 4, which is simply not fun to play, and the fact that the game's resolution is outright gated from you if you're not on a 1cc run. It did motivate me to play the game more, sure, but I'd rather be motivated by the game being fun enough to warrant a replay on its own merits, like PoDD and DDC and probably a stark majority of the franchise.

In any case, this is very clearly going in the right direction, and going off the franchise's ultimate success, I look forward to the rest.

See I was going to write a piece about how my girlfriend gifted me this game (as with the previous two games,) how much time in her visit has been spent on this franchise, and how laughter brings us all together as humans, but I am so shocked to find an actual game here that I feel like I can't anymore.

Like, really, the Euphoric Brothers have actually made a game here. The first GoB was a quick grab for attention that worked probably way better than they were hoping for, the second game was capitalizing on the attention they got and miserably milking it, but this game has actually had some time in the oven. There's developments in the story that are actually okay this time. There's gameplay—and not just one bout of it—beyond walking and simple puzzles. Puzzles aplenty, sure, but I enjoyed some of them. Hell, there isn't even too much padding. Several steps forward were taken, and that much is worth credit.

...no of course it's not a good game. The re-use of the Cannon Game is shameful and the part that was honestly fun for me last time was substituted with aiming. The boss fight (yeah, actually) just isn't well-made, though you can at least learn fairly easily. Having to spend like 3 minutes re-equipping the kabob guy every time you die is annoying, and on that note, my god are the pancreas jokes excruciating. Heehee, weehoo, memes, get it you guys it's like the original. It's crazy to say that it "takes me out of it" because it's Garten of Banban but it took an almost-tolerable experience and shat on it. It both takes itself seriously and turns itself into a meme, and it doesn't do either thing well.

But at the very least, they're learning a thing or two. I think the plot and writing are beyond saving at this point, but I am legitimately curious as to where the next game will go. I cannot fucking believe I am curious about where Garten of Banban is headed now. Something is deeply wrong with me. I blame Lena.

The original GoB is a 1-star game because it's so bad it starts to become good. An unintended hilarity found within the most desperate of grabs. This sequel, however, is a 1-star game because it just straight-up sucks.

Garten of Banban 2 expands upon the universe of its predecessor, which is precisely the problem. The impression I got from the first game (as much as I didn't want one, and didn't want another, but my girlfriend is a mischievous fiend) was more of a quick addition to the developers' pile of attempts at attention, like the various musings of Dingo Pictures. This time around, they take themselves seriously, trying to capitalize on the interest that'd been garnered. The consequences of this are immediate: no longer is there a bass drop when you put an egg in Opila's mouth. No longer is there an unpredictable Jumbo Joshing. No longer is there anything terrifying outside of what the developers intended, aside perhaps the incredibly loud sound of six lights turning on at once.

There's something to be said about the element of soul in wonderfully terrible works. The Room, Angelic 2 The Core, Philosophy Of The World. The sheer confidence that all of these people had is what makes all of them genuinely enjoyable (presumably, I haven't listened to the latter two in full yet.) Within games, I would love to point to Fallalypse Death or Cress, an unholy yet enlightening experience, but the only motivator there was a quick buck. Yet, I'm deeply fond of that game because of how absolutely gut-wrenchingly bad it is, and I have played more shovelware than the grand majority of people. It stands out. The original Garten of Banban doesn't quite compare, but it certainly fits the bill.

This, however, is just cheap shit. The second you start becoming self-aware about your reputation is the second you lose what little charm you had. Nabnab is pathetic. The story isn't worth caring about. Banban's voice acting isn't funny beyond his first appearance. The attempt at a proper ending sucks so bad that I forgot it after going to eat dinner. The Cannon Game is fun, but it's clearly just padding to get playtime over two hours, which this game also fails at. Banbaleena can go to hell. Opila loses his AI from the first game, which made him, admittedly scary, and instead makes a beeline for you, which can go to hell. So much about this is indistinguishable from the wafts and wafts of sewage that line Steam, that would have never caught the attention of anyone had this been the first, because the Euphoric Brothers are just lucky people that haven't yet found their creative expression

The snail is funny, at least.

I failed to beat Cut Man 11 years ago and have only now come to claim his head. There's tons of charm here, no doubt, but it's dampened by the level and boss design. Fire Man can be spammed at with any weapon, Cut Man is way too hard without rocks, which makes Dr. Wily Stage 2 aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh you've all already heard this shit I'm sure it's not what you want to hear me talk about so I'll use this time to confess to food crimes like dipping gummy bears in ketchup or butter in marinara sauce or adding cookies n cream ice cream to wine and microwaving it

This game is good. Surprisingly so when you look at it, as most of the game consists of dull checkerboard walls/floor/ceiling and mazes, but it turns out there's a lot you can do with that. The game doesn't ever scream at you (and I'd say there's no jumpscares at all but there is room for disagreement) yet still keeps you on the edge of your seat, even when you know damn well what you're doing and what consequences come about when you screw up. This especially comes about in Hide and Seek, where the game leans more towards the outright goofy when it realizes the horrors aren't landing (and the game knows when to be humorous,) yet I found myself always worried and cautious nonetheless. That isn't to say the game can't be scary, nono, Shutter Mode and Living Halls in specific consistently elicited the occasional whimper. It puts forth a bunch of diverse ideas with the same standard formula and they all manage to work!

Obviously that isn't without fault, though. The Phantom's AI is outright unfair at times, with it revisiting areas, and avoiding capture at plenty points is outright impossible. The maze design in Living Halls isn't the greatest, especially near Vault B, where the entrance is practically obscured. Classic Mode quickly ends up being a little too simple (though understandably so,) and its extra mode honestly just sucks. Doors are pointless, and a few of the ending cutscenes aren't necessary. I find myself wishing that it put a little less forth in that department, and just leaned in more with being a maze minigame collection.

But most of my complaints are nitpicks. It's not airtight, but it's solid nonetheless, which is impressive for how small the underlying formula is.

I definitely like it conceptually. Being able to see Serious Sam lower his sunglasses before saying "YOUR MOTHER IS STONE DEAD AND YOUR MOTHER IS STONE DEAD, MATE!" as he does 47 damage, especially as he's by far the loudest voice in the game, is something special. You can also say "THE QUEEN IS DECEASED!"

Though there's definitely a few things that bog it down for me, largely in the pool of insults you have to use. Stuff like "this conversation" "your house" "your hovercraft" "a duck hunter" "signed my petition" are not funny in any given scenario, and it makes up a wide enough portion of the pool that it becomes hard to chain together anything worthwhile. Most of the references that characters bring in fall under this too, like "never watched Star Wars" "can be found in Pokémon GO" or anything brought in by H.P Lovecraft, which sucks because the game comes to rely on them at times. Fighting the final boss as the final boss does not change the dialogue, even though the game is fully voice acted, which (for spoiler reasons) feels like a lazy blunder. Also, of the two black characters in the game—mind you, one of them is God—their weaknesses are 'wealth and poverty' and 'family issues.' I'm hoping that's just an oversight because, like, come on.

It just needs more time in the oven, though I can't see a game like this getting any higher than a 7 with all flaws addressed; the rating curve currently looks like a shark fin, which feels indicative of that ceiling. I picked up the sequel at some point (likely in a blind shopping haze since I only learned of it today) so I guess I'll see if things got any better, should I get around to it.