A hugely endearing jank-fest from the days when the biggest companies in the business could afford to put major weight behind strange, experimental curios. An awful factory level at the mid-point drags it down, but otherwise, this is a riot. At just two or three hours long, there's no reason not to just sit down and give this thing a go.

I genuinely think a sequel would be an incredible time if they worked around some of the more awkward bits of design here. Unfortunately, the absurd cost of AAA development means that throwing the equivalent weight behind a sequel is a practical impossibility, which is just yet more reason to dismantle the entire games industry and start over from scratch.

It's also one of the most aesthetically pleasing games ever made and I'm not even remotely kidding. Possibly my favourite menus...ever????

Games don't have to be good to be great.

a more confident, accomplished, and nuanced use of deliberately tedious game mechanics than almost any other game yet made, that will struggle to be popularly recognized as such because it stars mickey mouse and tetsuya nomura OCs, and also because square enix have done their best to erase the actual game from existence and leave only a bad compilation movie in its place.

uses the framework of daily missions handed out by actively malicious older men exploiting the identity crises and ennui of teenagers to explore the simple but ever-present existential nightmare that is Work, the hold it has over our lives and the fact that we're just expected to Deal With It without any reason or justification, as well as the uniquely cruel violence of enforced identity society enacts on the young. all this and one of the medium's best accidental trans narratives. if this had Grasshopper Manufacture's logo on it instead of H.A.N.D we'd be neck-deep in thinkpieces every single day.

the co-op multiplayer is neat but also extremely baffling for a game that is Like This. imagine if Pathologic 2 had a separate co-op mode where the Bachelor, Harsupex, and Changeling ran through the termitary competing for a high score and that's the vibe

> Go to study
"Hmm....." (command rejected)

> Go to the study
"Alright, let's go inside"

---

> Show pendant
"Let's maybe talk about that after the interview" (command rejected)

> Show her the pendant
"Tell me what you know about this pendant"

---

The above is this game, pretty much. It's rigid like the original text adventure made in the 80s with only 7 or so actions you can do at any point so the remake didn't add more to it, but on top of that the NLP makes it a worse experience despite it being advertised as "AI-powered", given similar phrases and synonyms aren't parsed correctly.

I'd suggest to anyone to play the original instead, at least the limitations are understandable there.

Look, the problem is obvious: if you want to be able to type freely in a text-based game, then you need to be able to generate responses to whatever the player might say.

But that's not Portopia. Portopia is a game with a carefully defined set of words the player can use and asks for specific responses to specific moments. That's like the point. That's half the puzzle of the game.

So if you smash in this generative text thing only on the player's side.......it won't work! Characters won't have anything to say! You still have to be just ask specific here as in the original because if you don't then you won't get any answers besides "Hm? Huh?" And without the knowledge of what your limitations are--what you can and can't do--it's no longer a puzzle. It's just a brick wall to smash your face into.

Even at free, it is baffling they let this out into the public! The idea, in theory, is interesting! Keep it to yourself!

go to mansion
look at lawn
investigate lawn
look at grass
look at stairs
look at the lawn
reach down and touch the yard
investigate the thing on the lawn
look at the glimmer by the stairs
touch the sparkle
touch object by stairs
investigate sparkle
investigate object
get thing over there
get thing
tell Yasu to get thing
tell Yasu to get the thing on the lawn
tell Yasu to investigate lawn
reach down and touch the grass
please look at lawn
please look at the lawn
please look around
help
help me
help me please
slap Yasu

I was originally going to review a different game this weekend, but after randomly stumbling across the existence of this last night I knew I had to play it instead. Because seriously, WTF(ladoodle) lol? Look at that name! It sounds like it would be some fan meme crap, but it’s actually officially licensed by Sega! I was honestly so baffled until I remembered what day it was and realized this had to be some sort of early April Fools’ Day joke. To my surprise though, that only turned out to be half-true.

Let’s get this out of the way, the title is total clickbait. Nothing crazy, ridiculous, or lore breaking happens. It all plays very safely to be as canon-friendly as possible. While it’s a little disappointing that they didn’t just go full nonsense with this like I, probably foolishly, hoped they would, I still ended up having a good time with it. It’s a cute, charming, and legitimately funny visual novel that somehow manages to unironically be one of the better Sonic games I’ve played. The people behind it seriously tried to make a worthwhile addition to the franchise and they totally succeeded!

Overall, it’s pretty short clocking in at a couple of hours at most and the lack of any alternate endings means there’s no real reason to ever replay it once you’re finished outside of a quick refresher in a few years down the line. There are also some gameplay segments that consist of more than merely clicking through text scattered throughout. These are honestly pretty terrible. You’re basically just guiding Sonic down short tracks infinite runner style, dodging obstacles and trying to collect a set amount of rings before reaching the end. They suck because the keyboard controls leave a little to be desired in terms of precision and I resorted to using one of the assist features to lower the ring requirements around the midpoint of the adventure simply to hurry up and get past these parts as quickly as possible.

Ultimately however, these problems are largely offset by the fact that this was released completely for free. It’s a generous holiday gift that’s far better than it has any right to be. You can feel the care, effort, and quality that was put into it by the development team, who were clearly genuinely excited for the project (they thank Sega in the credits for letting them make it). I would truly love it if they would do more of these small, experimental surprise treats every once in a while, even if I have to pay for them here and there. There’s no reason for Sonic fans or the simply curious in general to not check this out.

GOTY 2023

8/10