OneBadMouse
84 reviews liked by OneBadMouse
Growth
2023
Simple, but nice. There's nothing that ever really changes between runs, which would kill replay value for most people, but I still keep coming back to this. Perfect potato chip game if you need something to chill with.
Looking for Aliens
2021
A fun little Hidden Object game with a neat style/theme.
Probably a little on the easy side but still a lot to look for. Some big cluttered levels also pad the time if you want to get all the achievements. The few color tones and art style at times make it easy to spot things, but a few other times it hides an object well. It's a complete style that works. The little goofy narrative moves each level to the next. You even pick up some world building references along the way that helps you decipher later clues. It's all subtle but adds a lot.
The most comparable game would be Hidden Folks. This is a lot more straightforward and way less annoying. From the clues, to the searching, to the sounds; It's just a more relaxed and pleasant experience than Hidden Folks. But they're both fun and if you liked Hidden Folks you'll like this. And if you like this, I'd recommend checking out Hidden Folks if you haven't.
I switched back and forth between desktop and the Steam Deck with trackpad/tapping. Neither were as smooth as they could be. The biggest clunky thing is that the zoom works in steps rather than being smooth. This makes the L1/R1 zoom "make sense" on Deck, but feels clunky and flat out wrong these days when scrolling a mousewheel. Desktop gives you more viewing real estate/size though. So I honestly had more fun on desktop despite feeling clunky. Works out of the box with Steam Deck though. You can turn TDP all the way down to 4W (3W gets noticeably more FPS drops). Really do wish the Deck had better touchscreen implementation in Game Mode for games like this. Stylus compatibility would be nice too. Ah well.
Big thumbs up. 7~8hrs of casual poking and clicking around for some loose change. I can dig it.
[copied from my Steam review]
Probably a little on the easy side but still a lot to look for. Some big cluttered levels also pad the time if you want to get all the achievements. The few color tones and art style at times make it easy to spot things, but a few other times it hides an object well. It's a complete style that works. The little goofy narrative moves each level to the next. You even pick up some world building references along the way that helps you decipher later clues. It's all subtle but adds a lot.
The most comparable game would be Hidden Folks. This is a lot more straightforward and way less annoying. From the clues, to the searching, to the sounds; It's just a more relaxed and pleasant experience than Hidden Folks. But they're both fun and if you liked Hidden Folks you'll like this. And if you like this, I'd recommend checking out Hidden Folks if you haven't.
I switched back and forth between desktop and the Steam Deck with trackpad/tapping. Neither were as smooth as they could be. The biggest clunky thing is that the zoom works in steps rather than being smooth. This makes the L1/R1 zoom "make sense" on Deck, but feels clunky and flat out wrong these days when scrolling a mousewheel. Desktop gives you more viewing real estate/size though. So I honestly had more fun on desktop despite feeling clunky. Works out of the box with Steam Deck though. You can turn TDP all the way down to 4W (3W gets noticeably more FPS drops). Really do wish the Deck had better touchscreen implementation in Game Mode for games like this. Stylus compatibility would be nice too. Ah well.
Big thumbs up. 7~8hrs of casual poking and clicking around for some loose change. I can dig it.
[copied from my Steam review]
it’s the classic i played it a good amount when it released, but i’m just not the biggest fan of it. i like the story and art style i just couldn’t get into the gameplay as much. i’m not the biggest fan of rougelikes to begin with so that’s probably my downfall here
Elebits
2006
Interesting game. NGL I've always been interested in this game solely on just how nice the box art looked and had no idea what the actual game was about or how it played, so I'm happy to actually have seen what's behind that beautiful cover.
It's an FPS type thing where you use the wii pointer to aim and blast these little sprite-y dudes called elebits in order to capture em. Levels are set on a timer where there's a point quota that ya gotta meet and different elebits are worth different amounts of points. The main gimmick though, is that the elebits are hiding in various places and your gun happens to double as a phys/gravity gun that can freely lift and move all sorts of things. There are also specific elebits that level up your gun and allow you to manipulate heavier and heavier things, and every level pretty much ends up looking like a tornado went through it. There's a very visceral energy to playing this, just saying "fuck this tree" or whatever as you launch it into the stratosphere, or just ripping drawers out of desks and smashing through full closets looking for more mfers to blast. That being said though, this is a launch-window wii game that tries to deal with hundreds of dynamic physics items onscreen at once, and that much processing brings the wii down to its kniis as it struggles to keep any semblance of a smooth framerate going. The chunky FPS plus the fact that the sensitive pointer controls move the camera all around from all the shooting makes the game certainly a bit dizzying to play in long bursts. The later half of playing levels can also be a bit difficult to move around in thanks to all the shit that's thrown on the floor and the levels where you have to worry about not making noise/breaking certain things certainly add variety but feel antithetical to the games primal "fuck everything in this room up" vibe that the gameplay goes for. If anything, I wish this concept would be done again on modern hardware, especially in VR, as doofy make-a-mess-with-physics games are always popular there and the hardware can actually power it this time. Too bad konami isn't interested in doing anything cool anymore...
It's just some dumb mindless fun. If I had this game back in the day as a kid I probably would have enjoyed just throwing everything around, framerate be damned. Certainly worth a play, though you'd probably get a better experience playing this on an emulator or something where the game would run smoother and have widescreen. The OST is done by konami's A-team, with Bemani and Castlevania people working on it and it owns. There are even plenty of fun konami references strewn about, like how the arcades have real modeled bemani arcade machines (but no DDR cabs :C) and the creepy bunny thing from silent hill as the mascot of the amusement park levels (which I haven't played any silent hill games, but isn't that like not a good character to be a kids mascot?). The in-game visuals are pretty just existent for a wii game, but the key art and cutscene art is absolutely wonderfully drawn with an excellent dream-like use of color and lighting, like I said before the artwork was literally what drew me to the game in the first place. With how wholesome and pleasant that artwork looks, I sure bet the main artist went on to become famous for other absolutely pleasant and wholesome things!
It's an FPS type thing where you use the wii pointer to aim and blast these little sprite-y dudes called elebits in order to capture em. Levels are set on a timer where there's a point quota that ya gotta meet and different elebits are worth different amounts of points. The main gimmick though, is that the elebits are hiding in various places and your gun happens to double as a phys/gravity gun that can freely lift and move all sorts of things. There are also specific elebits that level up your gun and allow you to manipulate heavier and heavier things, and every level pretty much ends up looking like a tornado went through it. There's a very visceral energy to playing this, just saying "fuck this tree" or whatever as you launch it into the stratosphere, or just ripping drawers out of desks and smashing through full closets looking for more mfers to blast. That being said though, this is a launch-window wii game that tries to deal with hundreds of dynamic physics items onscreen at once, and that much processing brings the wii down to its kniis as it struggles to keep any semblance of a smooth framerate going. The chunky FPS plus the fact that the sensitive pointer controls move the camera all around from all the shooting makes the game certainly a bit dizzying to play in long bursts. The later half of playing levels can also be a bit difficult to move around in thanks to all the shit that's thrown on the floor and the levels where you have to worry about not making noise/breaking certain things certainly add variety but feel antithetical to the games primal "fuck everything in this room up" vibe that the gameplay goes for. If anything, I wish this concept would be done again on modern hardware, especially in VR, as doofy make-a-mess-with-physics games are always popular there and the hardware can actually power it this time. Too bad konami isn't interested in doing anything cool anymore...
It's just some dumb mindless fun. If I had this game back in the day as a kid I probably would have enjoyed just throwing everything around, framerate be damned. Certainly worth a play, though you'd probably get a better experience playing this on an emulator or something where the game would run smoother and have widescreen. The OST is done by konami's A-team, with Bemani and Castlevania people working on it and it owns. There are even plenty of fun konami references strewn about, like how the arcades have real modeled bemani arcade machines (but no DDR cabs :C) and the creepy bunny thing from silent hill as the mascot of the amusement park levels (which I haven't played any silent hill games, but isn't that like not a good character to be a kids mascot?). The in-game visuals are pretty just existent for a wii game, but the key art and cutscene art is absolutely wonderfully drawn with an excellent dream-like use of color and lighting, like I said before the artwork was literally what drew me to the game in the first place. With how wholesome and pleasant that artwork looks, I sure bet the main artist went on to become famous for other absolutely pleasant and wholesome things!
This was a great way to keep up with my gaming group during a time when we could not game together in person. Pretty basic UI but it's a functional digital version of the board game.
Feel like something like Board Game Arena or Virtual Tabletop would do in place of this just fine.
Feel like something like Board Game Arena or Virtual Tabletop would do in place of this just fine.
Metal Head
1995
This is the second 32X game I've played as the system had such a limited library in it's short life span. I may decide to try some of the many ports on it to see the difference at some point but otherwise there isn't really much else to try. It's a shame really because though pretty rough in a lot of areas Metal Head does show glimmers of promise for what the 32X could do.
Released in February 1995 this game is at the time of writing 29 years old. I played this on original hardware with a third party 6 button controller. The controller is kind of needed for the variety of options this has to my surprise in controlling your mech (You can play it on a 3 button as well). The mech you pilot is referred to as a 'Metal Head' though the role you play is part of the World Federation Police taking down terrorists. There is more of a plot but it's utterly drab in how it comes across. There is an intro sequence with the background story and in between missions you have a digitised head of your commander talking to you about your objectives to push the plot along. The audio quality for the dialog is just awful, like they have the microphone in their mouth when speaking but the worst aspect of this is the digitised head animations. Look at this (0.41 seconds in). It's like trying to make a real life Terrance & Phillip from South Park. I'll be honest I found it hilarious but for a game that mostly takes it's terrorist, war, military police themes so seriously it's kind of laughable.
More positively though the visuals are actually pretty solid. Very early 3D and feels almost like it could be a launch PS1 game. You move your Metal Head through city environments and sometimes industrial warehouse / underground bases. You fight a variety of drones, tanks and mechs on these 3D battlefields. The buildings are all 3D models with a flat image in the horizon to hide the draw distance but with the slightly muddy rough visual style it all blends together surprisingly well. Much like the digitised talking heads though when the mechs are destroyed falling into their base polygons onto the floor shatters the illusion and the frame rate does tend to chug along a bit at times. These small caveats asides though I was pretty impressed overall with it's visuals.
Gameplay wise as mentioned above it's recommended for the 6 button controller. It uses a couple of buttons to look 90 degrees left or right, change weapons, strafe, fire, run as well as change perspective. It's got a pretty robust set of options for the time and a variety of views including two first person variations and two third person variations. Actually firing weapons at anything though just feels awful. Weapons lack punch regardless of which one you use from chain guns to rocket launchers. They may as well be spud guns. Aiming is equally poor due to the juddering frame rate and sometimes it's uncertain if you are even hitting the enemies in question lacking impact or having pitiful explosions. For each mission you beat you earn points that you can use in between to either upgrade or buy new weapons however this resets each time and isn't permanent. You can tell this is a grift as the merchant calls you a 'chump' each time. He can see us coming a mile away apparently.
So did I have fun playing this? In small bursts kinda? Would I recommend this? No, unless you want to experience a retro piece of gaming history on a failed console experiment. The 32X had a ton of potential that people are still showing to this day and Metal Head does show this but realistically, it's not a very good game.
Also standard for me, I need to comment that I love the cover art. I wish the game looked like that actually playing it.
+ Visuals show the 32X's potential.
+ Robust control and views.
+ Digitised heads are hilarious...
- ...but also the spoken audio and digitised heads are awful.
- Story is boring.
- Missions are stale.
- Weapons lack impact or punch.
Released in February 1995 this game is at the time of writing 29 years old. I played this on original hardware with a third party 6 button controller. The controller is kind of needed for the variety of options this has to my surprise in controlling your mech (You can play it on a 3 button as well). The mech you pilot is referred to as a 'Metal Head' though the role you play is part of the World Federation Police taking down terrorists. There is more of a plot but it's utterly drab in how it comes across. There is an intro sequence with the background story and in between missions you have a digitised head of your commander talking to you about your objectives to push the plot along. The audio quality for the dialog is just awful, like they have the microphone in their mouth when speaking but the worst aspect of this is the digitised head animations. Look at this (0.41 seconds in). It's like trying to make a real life Terrance & Phillip from South Park. I'll be honest I found it hilarious but for a game that mostly takes it's terrorist, war, military police themes so seriously it's kind of laughable.
More positively though the visuals are actually pretty solid. Very early 3D and feels almost like it could be a launch PS1 game. You move your Metal Head through city environments and sometimes industrial warehouse / underground bases. You fight a variety of drones, tanks and mechs on these 3D battlefields. The buildings are all 3D models with a flat image in the horizon to hide the draw distance but with the slightly muddy rough visual style it all blends together surprisingly well. Much like the digitised talking heads though when the mechs are destroyed falling into their base polygons onto the floor shatters the illusion and the frame rate does tend to chug along a bit at times. These small caveats asides though I was pretty impressed overall with it's visuals.
Gameplay wise as mentioned above it's recommended for the 6 button controller. It uses a couple of buttons to look 90 degrees left or right, change weapons, strafe, fire, run as well as change perspective. It's got a pretty robust set of options for the time and a variety of views including two first person variations and two third person variations. Actually firing weapons at anything though just feels awful. Weapons lack punch regardless of which one you use from chain guns to rocket launchers. They may as well be spud guns. Aiming is equally poor due to the juddering frame rate and sometimes it's uncertain if you are even hitting the enemies in question lacking impact or having pitiful explosions. For each mission you beat you earn points that you can use in between to either upgrade or buy new weapons however this resets each time and isn't permanent. You can tell this is a grift as the merchant calls you a 'chump' each time. He can see us coming a mile away apparently.
So did I have fun playing this? In small bursts kinda? Would I recommend this? No, unless you want to experience a retro piece of gaming history on a failed console experiment. The 32X had a ton of potential that people are still showing to this day and Metal Head does show this but realistically, it's not a very good game.
Also standard for me, I need to comment that I love the cover art. I wish the game looked like that actually playing it.
+ Visuals show the 32X's potential.
+ Robust control and views.
+ Digitised heads are hilarious...
- ...but also the spoken audio and digitised heads are awful.
- Story is boring.
- Missions are stale.
- Weapons lack impact or punch.
Kamiko
2017
A game fully designed to speedrun is up my alley. I enjoyed getting through Kamiko faster and faster and that's when the game really clicked for me. I think in my best run, I beat the game in 20 minutes.
Unfortunately, the game itself has a lot of minor annoyances that build up. The way enemies respawn drove me up the wall and i hated not being able to shoot diagonally as the archer.
I wouldn't recommend it unless you really want a short speedrun friendly game.
Unfortunately, the game itself has a lot of minor annoyances that build up. The way enemies respawn drove me up the wall and i hated not being able to shoot diagonally as the archer.
I wouldn't recommend it unless you really want a short speedrun friendly game.
Was expecting Team Hoshido to change the game up a bit, but they're basically a cosmetic skin. I already played dozens of hours of Awakening, I don't fancy doing it all again.
Hats of to Nightdive for bringing back an absolute classic!
Playing this brought an immesnse wave of nostalgia as I played this as a kid.
Good things first, FPS is great, had no stutters, gameplay as per usual with games like this is fluid! Story easy to understand, remastered cutscenes look great! and hello STAR WARS!
This also being the first instance of the Dark Trooper / Shock Trooper is awesome as well, especially the different MKs.
The Difficulty of this game towards the end is in my opinion a big difficulty difference, one minute I was mowing through enemies, next minute I was getting destroyed.
Some bad things, the puzzles have aged terribly! I found myself getting stuck at nearly everyone minus the last puzzle.
Level 14 is a bitch btw ;) Especially on Medium and Hard <3 Have fun!
Nightdive please remaster the sequels and Turok Evolution Thank you <3 ;)
Playing this brought an immesnse wave of nostalgia as I played this as a kid.
Good things first, FPS is great, had no stutters, gameplay as per usual with games like this is fluid! Story easy to understand, remastered cutscenes look great! and hello STAR WARS!
This also being the first instance of the Dark Trooper / Shock Trooper is awesome as well, especially the different MKs.
The Difficulty of this game towards the end is in my opinion a big difficulty difference, one minute I was mowing through enemies, next minute I was getting destroyed.
Some bad things, the puzzles have aged terribly! I found myself getting stuck at nearly everyone minus the last puzzle.
Level 14 is a bitch btw ;) Especially on Medium and Hard <3 Have fun!
Nightdive please remaster the sequels and Turok Evolution Thank you <3 ;)
disclaimer boys and girls and enbys I watched hazbin hotel and helluva boss as of late and what happened is that now angel dust singing poison is STUCK on repeat im literally gonna go fucking crazy also hi lucifer do you need a cumdump
so its not really a surprise that gust has this thing called godsent vision that lets them pump masterpiece after masterpiece out in the open and im really glad to be one of the 150 people on this site that actually gives a fuck about atelier as a series because wow this can possibly end up being a contender for one of my favorite videogame series of all times they just never ever miss its so weird how do they do that what drugs are they using in their headquarters i really need to know because im a university student i need some of that asap
all my fans (5 people considering my pookie) are well aware that atelier ayesha was a game that i really enjoyed coming straight off from rorona and seeing that the atelier formula was kept basically intact apart from some gamechangers here and there to spice the formula up a bit and of course i ended up loving ayesha serving the most cunt out of the entire atelier cast right below ryza
again ayesha was a pretty traditional atelier experience but this time with some incredible focus on intricate and emotional story beats that i felt retrospectively missing from ryza going back to the arland trilogy (totori has some heavy story beats but i gotta replay it to have a full opinion on in because of the shibuya incident aka my pc exploding) that to say that from the dusk trilogy onward the series probably will take a different direction narratively and in the good way for the most part
now escha and logy takes that premise and shatters it to the ground no more compelling storytelling just a lot of workload under capitalist consumerism trying to revert the world of dusk to a planet where you can actually live in wow this sounds like climate change how about that for you my little alchemists having to deal with the huge bs of the 2020s
so this is probably my one and only complaint about this game while the world of dusk is basically falling fucking APART the pacing of this game decides to take a chill maybe too chill approach at fetch quests little discovery and oh the so endearing power of somewhat sibling ish type of love that's edging right into the romance esque territory mh who said TITS if you know what I mean
now im not completely against this type of narrative stuff hell basically every single installment before ayesha was just character driven plot wise most of the time so it's not like I don't enjoy having some laid back tete a tete between two weird teenagers who waltz around words to convey the eros that feel for each other and fail REMARKABLY to the point that they prefer doing some scavenging or delivering or shit instead of talking about their feelings
all this to say that the pace wasn't really my thing it was way too uneven for my adhd ass and while the addictive nature of atelier was right up my alley the way the narrative is presented was always making me reluctant to continue this game which is probably the only reason why this won't get a full score because EVERYTHING ELSE is beautiful absolutely FUCKING beautiful
now escha and logy has this really weird structure where time limits are present but not really because what happens is that every 4 months you get an assignment like in rorona but the solution for the assignment is already present as soon as you start the term which means that you're gonna complete the main task in < than 10 days and youre gonna be left with like 100 days of playing with your hole and thats it
so you can ideally say time limits are nooooooot an issue in here since most of the time either the completion for the main task is instant or in the case of the final stretch youre gonna have so much fucking time left that you're gonna have to skip all the remaining 150ish days to see the finale because theres gonna be nothing left to do
now now now I like the fact that time limits aren't an issue anymore nobody likes to work on a time limit haha RIGHT ? but this weird segmented nature of the game probably added to the fact that I wasn't really feeling the groundwork for the story which to be honest is not even explored that much you got a decaying world which could present so many different topics scenarios and dramas and youre left with these 2 going like wow I wonder what another great day of work will bring us ????? tough shit
it's not like optimistic people should kts oorrrrr that I didnt enjoy the lesser focus on the literal global warming buuuuut yeah I wanted some more spicy stuff to happen storywise apart from let's wake up do our job wait for someone to assess the situation in some part of the world explore that part of the world come back and realise that the world is actually dying wow shocker but we don't care lemme just create a blimp instead because I want to explore some ruins which are in floating in the air which are conveniently called laputa wait what do you mean they're not called laputa
whatever this can all be summarized in poor pacing mid story great worldbuilding great characters great characters interactions great characters designs did I say characters ok characters that I want to FUCK
so this is called atelier eschaand logy which means that escha is the only protagonist and you can't choose anybody else to play because that's what's happened since every single atelier game till now and it's gonna be like this forever no MAN can take the lead i hope this is clear now escha my widdle sweet oh how much I wuv you wow so escha is a blast she's quirky she's hilarious she's shy she's emotional she's cheerful she does what's best for others yada yada I love atelier girls AND she has probably my favorite design in all existence if shallistera wasn't a thing I think the dusk trilogy have character designs that are definitely up my alley plus hidari is a fucking genius you can't miss with the OG lord
escha is the absolutely driving force of the entire game she's so fucking charismatic it's such a weird decision for the developers to actually include a m …. m . sorry im gonna vomit a m a n n … m.. ok into the cast and particularly into the other leading role of the game now logyyyyyyy mmmmmmmmm I'm conflicted I like the guy i don't have strong feelings about him im more on the daddy side of things but I sent a pic of him to my bestie and she replied with a 30 lines mex with all the things she wants him to do to her so he's definitely a ladies man case closed AND while I dont particularly want to give him head I do LOVE the interactions between and escha they're so sweeeeeeeeeeet oh my god I love them every single interaction they have in this stupid game Is just so heartwarming so pure and so emotionally charged that it made me feel like a voyeur more than once get a room you two
so what happened is that my complaints on the story completely vanished as soon as I got to know this two this IS a character driven game and when I tell you these kids must have scoliosis due to the sheer weight of holding the entirety of the game on their shoulders because of their luuuuuuscious charismatic and full of life 2way lead UGH while I really am angry to admit this but half of the game charm is seeing this two interact with each other and with other people it's atelier what do you want me to say and I honestly cannot think of this game only with one protagonist in mind they're a pair they should go together never break them apart they will have separation anxiety and panic attacks
so yeah goated protagonists I love them a lot but I love ESCHA more I chose escha I want escha and only escha in my playthrough im so sorry logy but I don't make the rules
now while I think the character roster of ayesha was strongER the developers were intelligent enough to bring back fan favorites such as cunt server willbell queen of lesbians witch from birth jester by choice absolutely enchanting me even to this day I love her sosososososo much she's so special she's literally hilarious and this installment probably made me even more in love with her even though I miss her y'know zack zack scissors with former protagonist ayesha now vagrant drug dealer and nationally wanted criminal bless her heart
some more qu33rs make a comeback marion is the new head of chimney sweep division with her little slave linca coming along they're charming not my favorite character from xenodusk ep 1 but an interesting duo nonetheless and their interactions with escha and logy are absolutely priceless linca actually has a good outfit in this one who would've known and she's still sporting a 3kg cunt in there so brave
PowerPoint slideshow treatment for the other queers in the band im not a fan of awin I don't care for him I don't understand his gist and how he ended up being called big bro kitty eyes by escha when 1 that should be me and 2 all he does the entire day is jerking some machinery off / reyfer had a good start I was half thirsting for him I love some pseudo narcissistic over confident dumbass with muscles instead of brains but he's just too stupid for my liking still some of his events are so dumb to make me laugh my ass of so he has a spot in the gang / threia is completely neutral to me which is a shame because the ara are onee san were strong in her lost opportunity boo hoo / katla is an ANGEL and whoever dares to touch her it's gonna have to first go over ME it's not like I liked her that much in the beginning but she's so charming so fucking bad at her job which she should just quit to be a stand up comedian because wow she's hilarious what the hell also i don't understand if she's russian / lucille is fiiiiiiiiine I guess most of her events are interesting she has a nice personality I like her not in a sexual way because she's way underage but I do enjoy her company she's fun I like the girl / micie … exists , I guess … good for him
so verdict NOT as good as ayeshas cast but I learnt to enjoy each and everyone of these weirdos… apart from threia and micie i dont know their deal but it has to be said for clarity purposes that I did not put them in my party not even once which meant that the friendship level was like below zero and therefore i didnt unlock the real kiki spilling tea sis drama queen events . do i care ? no
wow umh watching hazbin hotel made me really rude im sorry
forgot to say nio also makes a return and I already loved her in ayesha and i ended up loving her MORE in escha she's just soooooo cute sososososo cute umh and thats it
supporting cast is also fine the bartender and solles dad fuck solle is definitely gay i can feel it in me also he's funny as shit i relate to him being . him clone is literally lobotomised which is something that I'm striving to be this year and harry is the guy with the diamond stick up his ass from ayesha but I kid you not i realized it was THAT harry at roughly 20 minutes from the end of the game im so embarrassed rn
so as we all know some things are spiced up from one installments to the other and this game brings to the plates a lot of different stuff like the task grid thing completion = bonus whatever absolutely ripped from rorona herself which somehow also aid a random system completely ripped from totori bits and pieces here and there from other atelier but the skeleton is here task on tasks requests time limit ranks theres something for everybody
now everything else is completely different and or new and i gotta say the alchemy system in this game is probably one of my favorite one in my entire series the way you can completely exploit the different skills to make overpowered items is sooooo fun i would be there making items for hours non stop that being said making items is veeeeeeeey slow due to the fact that every time you make something you gotta choose the ingredients trying to avoid the high quality ones because you definitely don't want to use the 130 quality gold wax thing to make a piss jar then you have to add them or not if you're freaky and start using skills one after the other and if youre experimenting with stuff and combinations it's gonna take a while then when you're done with that you're gonna load the properties and at that point you also gotta make sure that you don't put a frame compress on a fucking non usable item it's a shitshow and I LOVE IT
all this can be said for making weapons too I love life
field work is mainly the same to ayesha I don't remember if field events were a thing too but yeah theres field events a lot of different parts of the world to explore lucky me they decided to make items restockable so I don't have to lose my mind and traversing all these different places is always fun and getting a shit TON of items is better than any carnal activity I've partaken in: none
combat is similar but better and now you have the ability to bring 6 people in battle which ends up being more chaotic than not but also super fucking fun and adds a lot of strategising yada yada attacks skulls supports super attacks zzzzzz mimimi not a lot to say when atelier battle system is already perfect imho
for as much as i love ayesha this game completely obliterates that games maps even though ayesha maybe has better maps artistically but these ones are just a technical wonder after ayesha and in general the art direction really got better all around you can see how they managed to realise what to actually make with the godsent illustrations of hidari making more polished character models and arguably every single part of the planet looks surprisingly polished and detailed lots and lots of different locations even though a bit undermined by the mute sepia thing (I get it the world is dying and shit can I have more brilliant colors now)
hub worlds cool I prefer ayeshas detailed world map the days you spend doing stuff can be better distributed alchemy is good imbuing is good homunculi home delivery is good tasks areeeeeee there ranks are there too and combat and gathering is perfect and the whole gameplay loop is great moving on
art direction as always is jawdropping hidari taking the lead in character design and CGs is always a fucking blast theres some really cool scenes out there and most of them have homoeroticism I know who you are then the music is STILL absolutely incredible but I prefer ayesha more sorryyyyyy uwu there are a lot of banger tho man
yknow I'm tired I should sleep everything is good it's atelier so it's fucking good only complaint maybe the final year was a bit of a stretch because I didn't even need that long to beat the final boss I wasn't joking when I said I was left with like 150+ days left and had to skip all of them by 15 days at a time or something bitch maybe I hate this game
the final boss took a while to bring down because apparently sending feathers with 9+ turns each to kill you is a thing that's legal in jrpgs nowadays and i still dont know whats flameus deal
at the end of everything I got the good ending for escha and I for the life of me did not want to replay as logy because I hate men and I was also done with the game so I just watched the true ending on youtube and cried my eyes out (not really) suck this gust and lemme just say wow what a fucking game this is definitely some of the highlights of the entire series and im glad I got these two hotties trying to work for whats really important: giving sweets to furry creatures
ATELIER SHALLIE IM COMIIIIIIIIIIIING
so its not really a surprise that gust has this thing called godsent vision that lets them pump masterpiece after masterpiece out in the open and im really glad to be one of the 150 people on this site that actually gives a fuck about atelier as a series because wow this can possibly end up being a contender for one of my favorite videogame series of all times they just never ever miss its so weird how do they do that what drugs are they using in their headquarters i really need to know because im a university student i need some of that asap
all my fans (5 people considering my pookie) are well aware that atelier ayesha was a game that i really enjoyed coming straight off from rorona and seeing that the atelier formula was kept basically intact apart from some gamechangers here and there to spice the formula up a bit and of course i ended up loving ayesha serving the most cunt out of the entire atelier cast right below ryza
again ayesha was a pretty traditional atelier experience but this time with some incredible focus on intricate and emotional story beats that i felt retrospectively missing from ryza going back to the arland trilogy (totori has some heavy story beats but i gotta replay it to have a full opinion on in because of the shibuya incident aka my pc exploding) that to say that from the dusk trilogy onward the series probably will take a different direction narratively and in the good way for the most part
now escha and logy takes that premise and shatters it to the ground no more compelling storytelling just a lot of workload under capitalist consumerism trying to revert the world of dusk to a planet where you can actually live in wow this sounds like climate change how about that for you my little alchemists having to deal with the huge bs of the 2020s
so this is probably my one and only complaint about this game while the world of dusk is basically falling fucking APART the pacing of this game decides to take a chill maybe too chill approach at fetch quests little discovery and oh the so endearing power of somewhat sibling ish type of love that's edging right into the romance esque territory mh who said TITS if you know what I mean
now im not completely against this type of narrative stuff hell basically every single installment before ayesha was just character driven plot wise most of the time so it's not like I don't enjoy having some laid back tete a tete between two weird teenagers who waltz around words to convey the eros that feel for each other and fail REMARKABLY to the point that they prefer doing some scavenging or delivering or shit instead of talking about their feelings
all this to say that the pace wasn't really my thing it was way too uneven for my adhd ass and while the addictive nature of atelier was right up my alley the way the narrative is presented was always making me reluctant to continue this game which is probably the only reason why this won't get a full score because EVERYTHING ELSE is beautiful absolutely FUCKING beautiful
now escha and logy has this really weird structure where time limits are present but not really because what happens is that every 4 months you get an assignment like in rorona but the solution for the assignment is already present as soon as you start the term which means that you're gonna complete the main task in < than 10 days and youre gonna be left with like 100 days of playing with your hole and thats it
so you can ideally say time limits are nooooooot an issue in here since most of the time either the completion for the main task is instant or in the case of the final stretch youre gonna have so much fucking time left that you're gonna have to skip all the remaining 150ish days to see the finale because theres gonna be nothing left to do
now now now I like the fact that time limits aren't an issue anymore nobody likes to work on a time limit haha RIGHT ? but this weird segmented nature of the game probably added to the fact that I wasn't really feeling the groundwork for the story which to be honest is not even explored that much you got a decaying world which could present so many different topics scenarios and dramas and youre left with these 2 going like wow I wonder what another great day of work will bring us ????? tough shit
it's not like optimistic people should kts oorrrrr that I didnt enjoy the lesser focus on the literal global warming buuuuut yeah I wanted some more spicy stuff to happen storywise apart from let's wake up do our job wait for someone to assess the situation in some part of the world explore that part of the world come back and realise that the world is actually dying wow shocker but we don't care lemme just create a blimp instead because I want to explore some ruins which are in floating in the air which are conveniently called laputa wait what do you mean they're not called laputa
whatever this can all be summarized in poor pacing mid story great worldbuilding great characters great characters interactions great characters designs did I say characters ok characters that I want to FUCK
so this is called atelier escha
escha is the absolutely driving force of the entire game she's so fucking charismatic it's such a weird decision for the developers to actually include a m …. m . sorry im gonna vomit a m a n n … m.. ok into the cast and particularly into the other leading role of the game now logyyyyyyy mmmmmmmmm I'm conflicted I like the guy i don't have strong feelings about him im more on the daddy side of things but I sent a pic of him to my bestie and she replied with a 30 lines mex with all the things she wants him to do to her so he's definitely a ladies man case closed AND while I dont particularly want to give him head I do LOVE the interactions between and escha they're so sweeeeeeeeeeet oh my god I love them every single interaction they have in this stupid game Is just so heartwarming so pure and so emotionally charged that it made me feel like a voyeur more than once get a room you two
so what happened is that my complaints on the story completely vanished as soon as I got to know this two this IS a character driven game and when I tell you these kids must have scoliosis due to the sheer weight of holding the entirety of the game on their shoulders because of their luuuuuuscious charismatic and full of life 2way lead UGH while I really am angry to admit this but half of the game charm is seeing this two interact with each other and with other people it's atelier what do you want me to say and I honestly cannot think of this game only with one protagonist in mind they're a pair they should go together never break them apart they will have separation anxiety and panic attacks
so yeah goated protagonists I love them a lot but I love ESCHA more I chose escha I want escha and only escha in my playthrough im so sorry logy but I don't make the rules
now while I think the character roster of ayesha was strongER the developers were intelligent enough to bring back fan favorites such as cunt server willbell queen of lesbians witch from birth jester by choice absolutely enchanting me even to this day I love her sosososososo much she's so special she's literally hilarious and this installment probably made me even more in love with her even though I miss her y'know zack zack scissors with former protagonist ayesha now vagrant drug dealer and nationally wanted criminal bless her heart
some more qu33rs make a comeback marion is the new head of chimney sweep division with her little slave linca coming along they're charming not my favorite character from xenodusk ep 1 but an interesting duo nonetheless and their interactions with escha and logy are absolutely priceless linca actually has a good outfit in this one who would've known and she's still sporting a 3kg cunt in there so brave
PowerPoint slideshow treatment for the other queers in the band im not a fan of awin I don't care for him I don't understand his gist and how he ended up being called big bro kitty eyes by escha when 1 that should be me and 2 all he does the entire day is jerking some machinery off / reyfer had a good start I was half thirsting for him I love some pseudo narcissistic over confident dumbass with muscles instead of brains but he's just too stupid for my liking still some of his events are so dumb to make me laugh my ass of so he has a spot in the gang / threia is completely neutral to me which is a shame because the ara are onee san were strong in her lost opportunity boo hoo / katla is an ANGEL and whoever dares to touch her it's gonna have to first go over ME it's not like I liked her that much in the beginning but she's so charming so fucking bad at her job which she should just quit to be a stand up comedian because wow she's hilarious what the hell also i don't understand if she's russian / lucille is fiiiiiiiiine I guess most of her events are interesting she has a nice personality I like her not in a sexual way because she's way underage but I do enjoy her company she's fun I like the girl / micie … exists , I guess … good for him
so verdict NOT as good as ayeshas cast but I learnt to enjoy each and everyone of these weirdos… apart from threia and micie i dont know their deal but it has to be said for clarity purposes that I did not put them in my party not even once which meant that the friendship level was like below zero and therefore i didnt unlock the real kiki spilling tea sis drama queen events . do i care ? no
wow umh watching hazbin hotel made me really rude im sorry
forgot to say nio also makes a return and I already loved her in ayesha and i ended up loving her MORE in escha she's just soooooo cute sososososo cute umh and thats it
supporting cast is also fine the bartender and solles dad fuck solle is definitely gay i can feel it in me also he's funny as shit i relate to him being . him clone is literally lobotomised which is something that I'm striving to be this year and harry is the guy with the diamond stick up his ass from ayesha but I kid you not i realized it was THAT harry at roughly 20 minutes from the end of the game im so embarrassed rn
so as we all know some things are spiced up from one installments to the other and this game brings to the plates a lot of different stuff like the task grid thing completion = bonus whatever absolutely ripped from rorona herself which somehow also aid a random system completely ripped from totori bits and pieces here and there from other atelier but the skeleton is here task on tasks requests time limit ranks theres something for everybody
now everything else is completely different and or new and i gotta say the alchemy system in this game is probably one of my favorite one in my entire series the way you can completely exploit the different skills to make overpowered items is sooooo fun i would be there making items for hours non stop that being said making items is veeeeeeeey slow due to the fact that every time you make something you gotta choose the ingredients trying to avoid the high quality ones because you definitely don't want to use the 130 quality gold wax thing to make a piss jar then you have to add them or not if you're freaky and start using skills one after the other and if youre experimenting with stuff and combinations it's gonna take a while then when you're done with that you're gonna load the properties and at that point you also gotta make sure that you don't put a frame compress on a fucking non usable item it's a shitshow and I LOVE IT
all this can be said for making weapons too I love life
field work is mainly the same to ayesha I don't remember if field events were a thing too but yeah theres field events a lot of different parts of the world to explore lucky me they decided to make items restockable so I don't have to lose my mind and traversing all these different places is always fun and getting a shit TON of items is better than any carnal activity I've partaken in: none
combat is similar but better and now you have the ability to bring 6 people in battle which ends up being more chaotic than not but also super fucking fun and adds a lot of strategising yada yada attacks skulls supports super attacks zzzzzz mimimi not a lot to say when atelier battle system is already perfect imho
for as much as i love ayesha this game completely obliterates that games maps even though ayesha maybe has better maps artistically but these ones are just a technical wonder after ayesha and in general the art direction really got better all around you can see how they managed to realise what to actually make with the godsent illustrations of hidari making more polished character models and arguably every single part of the planet looks surprisingly polished and detailed lots and lots of different locations even though a bit undermined by the mute sepia thing (I get it the world is dying and shit can I have more brilliant colors now)
hub worlds cool I prefer ayeshas detailed world map the days you spend doing stuff can be better distributed alchemy is good imbuing is good homunculi home delivery is good tasks areeeeeee there ranks are there too and combat and gathering is perfect and the whole gameplay loop is great moving on
art direction as always is jawdropping hidari taking the lead in character design and CGs is always a fucking blast theres some really cool scenes out there and most of them have homoeroticism I know who you are then the music is STILL absolutely incredible but I prefer ayesha more sorryyyyyy uwu there are a lot of banger tho man
yknow I'm tired I should sleep everything is good it's atelier so it's fucking good only complaint maybe the final year was a bit of a stretch because I didn't even need that long to beat the final boss I wasn't joking when I said I was left with like 150+ days left and had to skip all of them by 15 days at a time or something bitch maybe I hate this game
the final boss took a while to bring down because apparently sending feathers with 9+ turns each to kill you is a thing that's legal in jrpgs nowadays and i still dont know whats flameus deal
at the end of everything I got the good ending for escha and I for the life of me did not want to replay as logy because I hate men and I was also done with the game so I just watched the true ending on youtube and cried my eyes out (not really) suck this gust and lemme just say wow what a fucking game this is definitely some of the highlights of the entire series and im glad I got these two hotties trying to work for whats really important: giving sweets to furry creatures
ATELIER SHALLIE IM COMIIIIIIIIIIIING
