Niandra
161 Reviews liked by Niandra
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood manages to tell a beautiful story with unique and diverse characters, full of friendship, memories, drama, love and magic. Despite the short time you spend with each character, the writer is able to prop them full of believable personality, background, hopes, dreams and nightmares.
The game hooks you throughout the entire game. You always want to see who the next character is, what happens next, and what the next tarot reading will predict. You really get the feeling of not being able to put this down until you see the end.
While this is definitely one of the best written, and therefore most enjoyable experiences of 2023, it is far from perfect. The game has several issues which I will get into, but know that despite these issues, you feel like you can look past them while playing because of how enjoyable the game is overall.
-There are a lot of characters. This isn't bad in itself, but this makes it hard to write detailed about everyone. There were multiple times I wanted to learn more about a character, only for me to never see them again once their issue has been resolved.
-The game brushes over you getting into a romantic relationship. They kind of just show up through your window, say "I love you", and boom, you're in the same bed together. While it was predicted using magic that you would find love, it doesn't feel authentic. It kind of just happened, OK I guess.
-The game does little to explain certain large events. For example, you get the option to essentially become as powerful as a God. The game never explains what this means, and there is seemingly no change after you accomplish that goal. It felt like you accomplished your goal, so now the game is kind of over.
-Generally, what happened after the game ends? You get a sentence or two regarding the important characters, but the game does not show you what came of the sisterhood, how the new leadership really affects the cosmos.
Looking at these flaws of the game, one thing is clear. The game leaves you wanting more. Which is really the biggest compliment you can give a game after finishing it. You get invested in the story, you want to know more about everything, and the game does not necessarily always give this to you.
That said, everything that is there is great. The music by fingerspit is an absolute joy to listen to, and it fits seamlessly into every situation in the game.
I should note that I am not the target demographic for this game. It is a very progressive game that explores a lot of struggles and ideas I cannot personally relate to, like coming out of the closet. I am as boring as they come, a heterosexual white male. Despite me not being able to directly relate to these characters, I found myself liking them a lot. They are written in a way that make them believable, and while you may not be able to relate to everyone's problems and thought directly, their thoughts, feelings, and internal struggles is something I think anyone can relate to.
Overall, I enjoyed this game a lot, and this is definitely a game that will live in my head for a long time.
The game hooks you throughout the entire game. You always want to see who the next character is, what happens next, and what the next tarot reading will predict. You really get the feeling of not being able to put this down until you see the end.
While this is definitely one of the best written, and therefore most enjoyable experiences of 2023, it is far from perfect. The game has several issues which I will get into, but know that despite these issues, you feel like you can look past them while playing because of how enjoyable the game is overall.
-There are a lot of characters. This isn't bad in itself, but this makes it hard to write detailed about everyone. There were multiple times I wanted to learn more about a character, only for me to never see them again once their issue has been resolved.
-The game brushes over you getting into a romantic relationship. They kind of just show up through your window, say "I love you", and boom, you're in the same bed together. While it was predicted using magic that you would find love, it doesn't feel authentic. It kind of just happened, OK I guess.
-The game does little to explain certain large events. For example, you get the option to essentially become as powerful as a God. The game never explains what this means, and there is seemingly no change after you accomplish that goal. It felt like you accomplished your goal, so now the game is kind of over.
-Generally, what happened after the game ends? You get a sentence or two regarding the important characters, but the game does not show you what came of the sisterhood, how the new leadership really affects the cosmos.
Looking at these flaws of the game, one thing is clear. The game leaves you wanting more. Which is really the biggest compliment you can give a game after finishing it. You get invested in the story, you want to know more about everything, and the game does not necessarily always give this to you.
That said, everything that is there is great. The music by fingerspit is an absolute joy to listen to, and it fits seamlessly into every situation in the game.
I should note that I am not the target demographic for this game. It is a very progressive game that explores a lot of struggles and ideas I cannot personally relate to, like coming out of the closet. I am as boring as they come, a heterosexual white male. Despite me not being able to directly relate to these characters, I found myself liking them a lot. They are written in a way that make them believable, and while you may not be able to relate to everyone's problems and thought directly, their thoughts, feelings, and internal struggles is something I think anyone can relate to.
Overall, I enjoyed this game a lot, and this is definitely a game that will live in my head for a long time.
The Red Strings Club
2018
Lately I've noticed a pattern in the type of stories I like - genuine, honest protagonists trying their best in a cynical, uncaring world. Arcane, The Boys, and this game - they all have this framework in common.
The thing is, The Red Strings Club goes full-in with this theme, putting empathy and ethics as its focus. Because yes, most of the time, you're using them as a weapon, as a tool... manipulating your clients to fish out information, and controlling their emotions to let their tongues slip.
But amidst its grandiose plot involving megacorporations, cyber-hackers and mind control... there are these small, intimate moments, when the game just asks: "What do you think of this? What is actually important to you, specifically?"
Because yeah, in the end, the city is fucked. It was fucked from the beginning. But are you going to give up, even despite that? When the moment counts, is that what truly matters?
Ethics, politics, emotions, relationships - it all comes crashing down. How right are we, really?
Play this game.
The thing is, The Red Strings Club goes full-in with this theme, putting empathy and ethics as its focus. Because yes, most of the time, you're using them as a weapon, as a tool... manipulating your clients to fish out information, and controlling their emotions to let their tongues slip.
But amidst its grandiose plot involving megacorporations, cyber-hackers and mind control... there are these small, intimate moments, when the game just asks: "What do you think of this? What is actually important to you, specifically?"
Because yeah, in the end, the city is fucked. It was fucked from the beginning. But are you going to give up, even despite that? When the moment counts, is that what truly matters?
Ethics, politics, emotions, relationships - it all comes crashing down. How right are we, really?
Play this game.
Storyteller
2023
Hard to grade something by what its not. What it is is a simple series of puzzles. Form stories out of images to get the intended ending. Under those basic terms, it succeeds. Its simple. Not a lot of variety. Hard not to be disappointed when you want a little more.
The latter puzzles are interesting in how it emphasizes what characters won't do. The earlier puzzles allows for any combination of romance, betrayal, what have you. But the latter puzzles enforce stricter personality traits on characters. The Butler and Barron are the only ones who kill without motivation- everyone else must be stirred to action by a different story prompt. It adds complications, but it limits outside the box solutions. Its a fun two hour of puzzles, but there's not a lot of replay value on the later puzzles compared to the earlier ones.
I thought I might refund it since it was just under two hours, but the offering of a free new September update with new puzzles and new options in old puzzles grabs me enough to keep the train going. I had straight-forward fun! I think others will have fun too when the game is $7 on sale instead of $15 full price.
The latter puzzles are interesting in how it emphasizes what characters won't do. The earlier puzzles allows for any combination of romance, betrayal, what have you. But the latter puzzles enforce stricter personality traits on characters. The Butler and Barron are the only ones who kill without motivation- everyone else must be stirred to action by a different story prompt. It adds complications, but it limits outside the box solutions. Its a fun two hour of puzzles, but there's not a lot of replay value on the later puzzles compared to the earlier ones.
I thought I might refund it since it was just under two hours, but the offering of a free new September update with new puzzles and new options in old puzzles grabs me enough to keep the train going. I had straight-forward fun! I think others will have fun too when the game is $7 on sale instead of $15 full price.
this game fucking sucks and i hate it but a video essayist said its good so i like it now
Exoprimal
2023
SUMMONING.... RAPTORS.
Cloud Gardens
2020
There is a weird paradox in trying to be a relaxing game and a puzzle game, and after a few levels it does not work as either.
It is not relaxing, because it gets difficult, and it does not work as puzzle, because there is a lack of clarity in its mechanics as to how the plants will grow with precision, so you end up getting frustrated not by your fault.
It is not relaxing, because it gets difficult, and it does not work as puzzle, because there is a lack of clarity in its mechanics as to how the plants will grow with precision, so you end up getting frustrated not by your fault.
[has played this game 5 times from 2020 to 2022] yeah it's alright
This review contains spoilers
wow, uhhh... i hate to be harsh on a game some of my friends clearly like a lot but this is not good??
the first playthrough is pretty miserable to sit through. if you were on the internet in 2017 and know the twist, it's a painful wait until the game gets "good". even ignoring that, none of these characters have any sense of depth (Monika aside, but at this point in the game she's still acting pretty bland). You can tell the game is trying to jab at dating sim tropes, but it doesn't mean anything when it just uses the tropes anyways. "Wow, isn't it weird that in dating sims every single person here wants to go out with you?" and then the game does exactly that without really expanding on it. The point of the first half is obviously to lull you into a false sense of security, but for me personally, had I not known the twist I probably would have dropped it before I even got there. Every day at the club offers basically nothing if you're not in it for the wish fulfillment, which I'm certainly not. And even then, as I said before, like none of these characters have any depth to them so I'd think it'd be pretty hard to really care about any of them (foreshadowing: this comes back to hurt the game later on!)
When you get to the second playthrough and the game goes into "hyperrealistic blood" mode, the game gets a tad better, but it's still really held back by the trope-laden writing. Even with an entire main character missing, a lot of the dialogue is recycled from the first playthrough without the option to skip most of it. There's a couple interesting moments around here, particularly when Monika starts overwriting the script and changing what other characters say, but 80-90% of the time the story's still consumed by boring and tropey dialogue. The conclusion of it, that being Yuri's death and the multi-day time passage that comes with it, is definitely the best (and boldest) moment of the game but it really doesn't justify the 2 and a half hours of mediocrity and eye-roll-worthy dialogue that precedes it.
This is the point where the game goes all out on breaking the fourth wall and Monika talks directly to the player. I don't think breaking the fourth wall this thoroughly necessarily dooms the game's universe and characters, but when pretty much the only thing shown of any of them doesn't broach beyond establishing that X character is supposed to be Y trope (shy edgy girl, childhood friend, cutesy but brash) it's not very hard to believe that they're programs and that they don't actually have free will. This extends to Monika as well; all of the characters, Monika included, are pretty obviously designed just to fall for the MC. Monika discovering the rules of her universe didn't "give" her sentience, she's just doing the exact same thing she's programmed to do, just with a new tool at her disposal. This makes deleting her character file (something she all but tells you to explicitly do) a pretty easy thing to do.
The last section of the game is just another repeat of the first day. Monika's gone but once again it pans out basically the same way (but not exactly so you're not allowed to click the skip button). Eventually Monika comes back and deletes everything again and plays piano and sings a song to the player. The end. I know there's some other minor endings but I'm not going to play them because this is as far as most people play anyways.
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DDLC, I'm sure, is better when you go in blind. But if the only draw in a piece of writing is the fact that certain twists happen, and not how they happen, how is the game any different than a Wikipedia plot synopsis? DDLC is a game that has some good ideas but utterly fumbles its execution time and time again throughout the whole playthrough. Horror is much like comedy in that it needs a buildup for the punchline to hit. DDLC could have used the first act to slowly build up the horror (and admittedly the only time this game really does this right is at the very end of act 1 during the leadup to the death of sayori) but act 2 is filled with punchlines with no leadup. The game is still happy dating sim whatever and then a character sprite is glitched out oohh spooky before things go right back to normal, just in time for the next scary moment 2 minutes from now. Things happen but there's no gravity to any of it and before you can blink it's all deleted anyways. I think a lot of people like this game because "oh look X fucked up thing happened that means its dark!!" but the game has no tact in handling these things. Two characters commit suicide but you don't even get a tangible reason why, just a vague "whoops monika sure did mess things up right?" (the most you get is sayori's confession that she's depressed, but it's clear that this is something Monika added, not something that has always been true). It's hard to sympathize with any of them when you don't really know anything about them. The game doesn't give the characters themselves the light of day, only the archetypes they're meant to represent, and as a consequence there's no gravity to anything that happens.
tl;dr: the first half is boring no gf wish fulfillment and the second half is creepypasta. ddlc half-asses both and they're both worse in combination because of it.
the first playthrough is pretty miserable to sit through. if you were on the internet in 2017 and know the twist, it's a painful wait until the game gets "good". even ignoring that, none of these characters have any sense of depth (Monika aside, but at this point in the game she's still acting pretty bland). You can tell the game is trying to jab at dating sim tropes, but it doesn't mean anything when it just uses the tropes anyways. "Wow, isn't it weird that in dating sims every single person here wants to go out with you?" and then the game does exactly that without really expanding on it. The point of the first half is obviously to lull you into a false sense of security, but for me personally, had I not known the twist I probably would have dropped it before I even got there. Every day at the club offers basically nothing if you're not in it for the wish fulfillment, which I'm certainly not. And even then, as I said before, like none of these characters have any depth to them so I'd think it'd be pretty hard to really care about any of them (foreshadowing: this comes back to hurt the game later on!)
When you get to the second playthrough and the game goes into "hyperrealistic blood" mode, the game gets a tad better, but it's still really held back by the trope-laden writing. Even with an entire main character missing, a lot of the dialogue is recycled from the first playthrough without the option to skip most of it. There's a couple interesting moments around here, particularly when Monika starts overwriting the script and changing what other characters say, but 80-90% of the time the story's still consumed by boring and tropey dialogue. The conclusion of it, that being Yuri's death and the multi-day time passage that comes with it, is definitely the best (and boldest) moment of the game but it really doesn't justify the 2 and a half hours of mediocrity and eye-roll-worthy dialogue that precedes it.
This is the point where the game goes all out on breaking the fourth wall and Monika talks directly to the player. I don't think breaking the fourth wall this thoroughly necessarily dooms the game's universe and characters, but when pretty much the only thing shown of any of them doesn't broach beyond establishing that X character is supposed to be Y trope (shy edgy girl, childhood friend, cutesy but brash) it's not very hard to believe that they're programs and that they don't actually have free will. This extends to Monika as well; all of the characters, Monika included, are pretty obviously designed just to fall for the MC. Monika discovering the rules of her universe didn't "give" her sentience, she's just doing the exact same thing she's programmed to do, just with a new tool at her disposal. This makes deleting her character file (something she all but tells you to explicitly do) a pretty easy thing to do.
The last section of the game is just another repeat of the first day. Monika's gone but once again it pans out basically the same way (but not exactly so you're not allowed to click the skip button). Eventually Monika comes back and deletes everything again and plays piano and sings a song to the player. The end. I know there's some other minor endings but I'm not going to play them because this is as far as most people play anyways.
==============
DDLC, I'm sure, is better when you go in blind. But if the only draw in a piece of writing is the fact that certain twists happen, and not how they happen, how is the game any different than a Wikipedia plot synopsis? DDLC is a game that has some good ideas but utterly fumbles its execution time and time again throughout the whole playthrough. Horror is much like comedy in that it needs a buildup for the punchline to hit. DDLC could have used the first act to slowly build up the horror (and admittedly the only time this game really does this right is at the very end of act 1 during the leadup to the death of sayori) but act 2 is filled with punchlines with no leadup. The game is still happy dating sim whatever and then a character sprite is glitched out oohh spooky before things go right back to normal, just in time for the next scary moment 2 minutes from now. Things happen but there's no gravity to any of it and before you can blink it's all deleted anyways. I think a lot of people like this game because "oh look X fucked up thing happened that means its dark!!" but the game has no tact in handling these things. Two characters commit suicide but you don't even get a tangible reason why, just a vague "whoops monika sure did mess things up right?" (the most you get is sayori's confession that she's depressed, but it's clear that this is something Monika added, not something that has always been true). It's hard to sympathize with any of them when you don't really know anything about them. The game doesn't give the characters themselves the light of day, only the archetypes they're meant to represent, and as a consequence there's no gravity to anything that happens.
tl;dr: the first half is boring no gf wish fulfillment and the second half is creepypasta. ddlc half-asses both and they're both worse in combination because of it.
Persona 4 Golden
2012
I have a complicated relationship with this game. Really enjoyable character writing and chemistry with very satisfyingly cohesive gameplay design, but oh man is it bigoted, like..really fucking bigoted (and this is with every main character being easily interpreted as or textually queer.)
I don't know, I want to give some conclusive statement over which side wins out, but overall the nastiness is a virus that bleeds into every part of it, so the good and bad are basically the same thing.
I don't know, I want to give some conclusive statement over which side wins out, but overall the nastiness is a virus that bleeds into every part of it, so the good and bad are basically the same thing.
Persona 4 Golden
2012
I drunk ordered a PSVita on ebay and skipped a week's worth of uni lectures to play this 10/10 zero regrets about any of it.
Loopers
2021
I love reading VNs with good pacing, ryukishi07 should learn from this.
...wait.
...wait.
No-one has to Die
2013
Recommended by a friend of mine over a decade ago and I never let him live it down, so this game is a minor (infamous) celebrity in our friend group.
Team Fortress 2
2007
A year or two ago, a Discord group I used to frequent chose this as their game of the month that they got together every Monday to play. Chasing nostalgia, I joined in. My expectations were low as every other time I had tried chasing nostalgia with TF2, it had been a sad shadow of what once was. But this time, despite all expectations, I had great fun, and for a few evenings that year I remembered why I used to love this game and had basically gifted my life to it.
It’s still pretty much dead though. But that’s fine. The main reason it worked back then so well was first of all that it was new and secondly because I had communities. For a while I was even in a clan made up of people who were in it not because they wanted to become good at professional gaming, but because they wanted to enjoy being in this one specific clan, made up of friends and acquaintances from one local server. My best buddy was our medic, I was our roamer soldier, the rest were people from the server, 3 of them friends in real life, and one who played with us often with his brother (who I hanged with a few times in real life). It was the kind of clan that you tell stories about later on and that you probably won’t repeat once it’s done.
After the clan inevitably died in a mixture of real-life barging in and unsuitable replacements, I tried a few other clans, but that part of the game was done for me. There was still so much fun before and after, back when the game was the coolest thing around, when people at Valve were as excited about working on it as we were seeing what crazy new stuff they came up with, back when the hat economy was a funny thing and not the building block of one of the worst things to ever happen to videogames, back when all my friends played it and I with them.
That’s all gone now, but such is life. As one person once told another, we’ll always have Paris.
It’s still pretty much dead though. But that’s fine. The main reason it worked back then so well was first of all that it was new and secondly because I had communities. For a while I was even in a clan made up of people who were in it not because they wanted to become good at professional gaming, but because they wanted to enjoy being in this one specific clan, made up of friends and acquaintances from one local server. My best buddy was our medic, I was our roamer soldier, the rest were people from the server, 3 of them friends in real life, and one who played with us often with his brother (who I hanged with a few times in real life). It was the kind of clan that you tell stories about later on and that you probably won’t repeat once it’s done.
After the clan inevitably died in a mixture of real-life barging in and unsuitable replacements, I tried a few other clans, but that part of the game was done for me. There was still so much fun before and after, back when the game was the coolest thing around, when people at Valve were as excited about working on it as we were seeing what crazy new stuff they came up with, back when the hat economy was a funny thing and not the building block of one of the worst things to ever happen to videogames, back when all my friends played it and I with them.
That’s all gone now, but such is life. As one person once told another, we’ll always have Paris.
It somehow manages to wear out its welcome despite only being like 10 minutes long.
IDK why this has such low reviews. It's funky weird. I think its incredible how it sets up the like, helping the animals thing with the cat, so you're like, ok this makes sense, cats like to knead blankets. And you think all the ones after are gonna be different. But it's not. Yeah the noises are kinda weird but I think that the way they contrast with the music, it's so good.