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 ;)

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 escha and 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

The description of 'it's like BotW but with the combat removed' seems to me a brokerage of the funds that we seem to take as an objective, inset currency in gaming without considering their confluence unnatural with the more intrinsically simulating mechanics broadly seen in games generally but open-world games specifically; why, with this understood by a mere moment's consideration, do we not call BotW Sable with combat added? Or Sable an open world exploration game and BotW an open world arcade game? The purity that is so often ascribed to Shigeru Miyamoto's transliteration of his adventuring as a child into the Zelda ethos is not critically understood as an impure alchemy when mixed with the necessary element of a combat loop to insure larger audience appeal by creating further petits win-states (or petits états de mort for the satisfaction angle if you prefer) to firmly emburden a tight gameplay loop. Now, BotW is probably a better game in my opinion than Sable, but I dislike the comparison of Sable as one of those '_______ but _______' games because it disengages with the critical element the community of critics and creators of other mediums have established as forms of representation and innervation in the engagement context we create with our art forms: that each climatological shift in a form is because of a new viewpoint observed by a style - so Sable being a combatless BotW is kind of frusturating, I guess.

I am not sure whether it's ever truly possible for a video game—at least not one with goals to achieve, metrics to manage, and items to hoard—to transcend the inevitable compulsion toward completionism, to halt the ever-present pull toward efficiency maximization, and to re-direct the player's energies toward less narrow-minded, less mastery-focused, less algorthm-aligned, more expansive, more observant, more convivial, more vibes-based ends... but damn if this one doesn't make a valiant effort.

I actually beat Rollerdrome back in March and was quite enamored at first, but I've since cooled down on it somewhat. A quick replay today has only confirmed my suspicions that there's unfortunately a lot left to be desired. Feel free to take my word here with a grain of salt: I'm not a particularly huge Tony Hawk fan and was more or less playing this as part of a warm-up via Jet Set Radio-likes (since Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is coming out in less than a week, and I replayed the original Jet Set Radio right before this). Still, if I had to put my finger on why this didn't hit the mark the second time around, my best guess would be that Rollerdrome doesn't understand how to create an engaging difficulty curve, and here are some of my theories as to why:

- Progression: Rollerdrome locks its stages behind completing challenges (collect all the tokens, do a certain trick while killing a certain enemy, rack up enough points, etc), with ten challenges per stage and sixty completed challenges required to unlock the finals. This is supposed to incentivize players to tackle as many challenges as possible while going through stages, but in reality what I found myself doing was farming the earlier stages for the easiest challenges to get the base completion requirement out of the way, and throwing away dry runs to farm the more manageable challenges at the beginning before resetting and running through the stages proper. This unfortunately feels like an artificial implementation of coercing me to explore its mechanics when I was usually more concerned with straight efficiency regarding combat.

- Tricks: You need to perform tricks constantly in Rollerdrome to restore your ammo, and tricks are also a way to quickly rack up points in-between shooting to exploit your current combo multiplier. Again though, I found tricks to be unnecessarily complicated and superfluous outside of doing the required tricks to complete necessary challenges: if you don't care about your score, then all you have to do for quick ammo restoration is to just hold the stick forward and perform the same grab/flip/spin while not in combat, or just spend your time grinding on rails/edges and firing since you'll automatically regain ammo for grinding up to a certain point. It also doesn't help that I found the inputs for more complex tricks a bit fiddly and perfect dodges refresh some of your ammo anyway, reducing the reliance upon tricks. Speaking of which...

- Dodge/Super Reflex: The dodge is a little too good in Rollerdrome. You can basically invincible frame roll at any time in the game (including in mid-air and while grinding), outside of a few frames right after the roll animation ends as far as I can tell. This not only provides a reliable method for quickly getting out of danger, but also you can roll in any direction to quickly alter your momentum and enter Super Reflex if you activate bullet-time right as you perfect dodge (that is, dodging in the first few frames of an active enemy attack). To summarize, this strategy easily gets you ammo refills, allows for relative invincibility when confronted by a barrage of attacks, and powers up your shots while in Super Reflex, which as a result makes Rollerdrome almost feel too reactive as opposed to proactive since it's far too advantageous to not abuse this to safely and quickly wipe out waves.

- Stages: Rollerdrome only has 11 stages, and quite a few of these stages are just repeated locales with few hazards outside of the enemies and a lot of empty, open space outside of a few trick ramps and grind rails/edges. A bit more variety in the set design (and more walls to wall-ride, which I thought was a little underutilized) would have been appreciated since by halfway through, some of the arenas started to bleed into one another for me.

- Laser: I'm fine with most of the weapon balance in Rollerdrome, but the Z-11 (the in-game laser gun) is an exception. The main caveat to using the Z-11, aside from the three shot capacity (still more than the grenade launcher though), is that you can't use aim assist to automatically lock on to foes with it and thus must manually point your reticle at them. Not a very difficult task though, since Reflex gives you more than enough reaction time and the reticle turns red as soon as you hover over a target. Because the shotgun and pistol are limited somewhat by range for aim assist (especially the shotgun due to perfect slug shots), the laser is a godsend: it bypasses this system entirely and lets you snipe foes from across the arena, taking out most enemies after a double charge and can also pierce through multiple enemies at a time. It further disrupts this balance because the Z-11 is unlocked halfway through, meaning the game's earlier combat/combo challenges are a lot more difficult without it at first but often rather trivial once you've unlocked it.

- Boss fights: I've already mentioned that Rollerdrome's dodge roll is a bit overcentralizing, but nowhere does this become more evident than during the two boss fights, shifting the prevailing strategy from any semblance of ammo management/route planning to just basic bait and punish. Simply wait for enemy attacks, dodge to regain ammo/enter Super Reflex to finish off goons, and then approach the big robot to deal damage and enter the next phase. There's no scoring optimization or crazy tricks/maneuvering involved, and as a result, these tend to be pretty dry affairs that could have been removed from the game entirely with little value lost.

I certainly get the appeal of Rollerdrome, given its potential for optimization to maximize the combo meter and quickly speedrun stages, but unfortunately I find that the game doesn't get harder, but rather gets longer with more enemies that take more hits and throw out more attacks. Even so, I had enough fun constantly filling foes with lead in slow-mo, but even this thrill began to wear itself thin an hour in. I can't help but feel that the separate movement and combat mechanics are undercooked despite how promising "Tony Hawk with bullet-time gunplay" sounds on paper. More power to those who find the core gameplay engaging enough to try and complete all the challenges + the "Out for Blood" post-game replay with stricter margins: as for me, I'm content with putting this down after a few hours and completing Finals with a C rank. Rollerdrome is by no means a bad game, but I know Roll7 is capable of so much more.

While this game is impressive and rarely drops FPS, I cant help but want a better outcome when destroying bases of building etc, its a bit anticlimatic.
Sandbox is fun for a short while, but without unlocks I found myself bored, because to unlock more equipment you have to progress through the campaign mode which is sooo lacklustre, it had potential but it kept doing the same thing again and again, go here and collect these alarmed items and escape with a certain amount or all the items in 60 seconds.

The game is stunning though.

Unlike the vignette Swampstar by independent collective Geography of Robots, Norco is too much of a game to spare it from a rating in favor of an appreciation as a piece of art on its own and in that context, it might look like I disagree with a majority of critics, giving the interactive amalgam of an RPG and a Visual Novel raving reviews, but I will actually not be able to say much different about it. My astonishing conclusion though is, that I'm still not all that impressed.

In theory, alternate Louisiana in Norco could be a fictional alien world to me just like Neo Tokyo or a city on Mars. I was even joking if the title describes narcotics for Trollans until I found out it was actually a brand name for pain medication. Little did I know, however, that Norco is also an actual census-designated place in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana that derived its name from the New Orleans Refining Company and is home to a major Shell manufacturing complex. I'm learning every day.

You don't have to think much about why the company in the game Norco is called Shield and with the Shell facility having experienced catastrophic explosions twice the story sure appears less far fetched. I recommend reading the Honeysweat interview with GoR's Yutsi if you'd like to know more on his growing up in sight of that factory, comparing it to Midgar in the world of Final Fantasy.

Even without knowing Norco specifically, I was of course aware of the condition our world is in and I think it's hard to not see how close the narration stays with things happening in reality. It sure is condensed and emphasized, but we have everything from AI to ponzi schemes, messed up religious beliefs, unregulated capitalism or privately organized space travel. It's not like Orwell is predicting the future a couple of decades away, it's more like holding up a mirror, showing us the dystopia we're creating for tomorrow or a day after.

Born and raised in a small town bordered by the dilapidated ruins of an industry, having watched a company burning down to the foundations and knowing the history of a group buying out farmers to build a production plant in the area, I can nothing but relate to protagonist Kay returning to Norco. It's what you recognize best at a carnival. There are those who are too young to escape and those who never made it out, but then there are other people in their thirties or rather forties, returning to family business - taking care of parents or bringing up children of their own in an environment that appears at least more family friendly than the big city.

For Kay it's late. She has tried to cut loose and ignored her cancer infested mother trying to get in touch. Time doesn't stand still when you're away and as much things don't seem to change as long as you're there, everything is weirdly different once you turned your back and tried to start a life of your own independently.

Norco uses pixel art to illustrate this story and I don't really understand how this can be seen as innovation, because digitizing photographs for instance is something going back to the old Amiga days at least. It's not ugly at all, but, especially with the retro trend of recent years, something I'd rather call standard opposite to some of the reviews I've read. Recreating that off grid Amiga feeling especially with the first person solo adventure layout is another cup of Grog.

I've mentioned it before in my review for One Night Stand, when playing Our World Is Ended as one of my first actual visual novels, I was missing interaction with the screen other than clicking text. Despite being described as a point'n'click I was lucky to read up enough on Norco before to not expect it being the familiar third person story puzzle, so I was merely amazed at first that Norco was allowing me to dive into the scenery as much as I'd define the character by text choices.

One thing I also enjoyed was the use of a mindmap to elaborate a thought process and reflect on the information received via dialogue, even though it often rather bothered me as doubling what I already understood. That tracking though also led to me speeding up reading to pass the character's annoying mumble (doesn't have to be voiced, but please…) and therefore forgetting key information I would have needed to authenticate for additional lore via the follow up Shield Nights (available for free on itch.io) that seems to consist mostly from background information I dug out elsewhere or could make sense of on my own, so I'm not tempted to replay Norco just to read some more liner notes.

The reason I'm not keen on revisiting Norco, not even to check for different character developments rather than the endings I think I caught the best from anyway, is that despite its captivating atmosphere it wasn't that much of a revelation to me. The fictional elements are better seen as surreal than to be dissected for a consistent explanation and the mood isn't the most welcoming happy place, so that adding an awkward fight system (autofight available after patch), clumsy boat ride or text adventure staircase mechanics acts as a repellent on me.

From a standpoint of classic graphic adventure gameplay Norco isn't very good even after the added expert mode. Most of the time it's either just not challenging, which is fine as long the plot goes on, or it's nerve wrecking in execution, which is destroying the flow. What Geography of Robots don't understand is guiding the player through puzzles alongside with the narration to unfold information seamlessly.

Ironically the distributor Raw Fury also has Kathy Rain and Whispers of a Machine by Clifftop Games in their catalog and Norco would fit perfectly as the spiritual tie in I was wishing for between those two brilliant point'n'click adventures. It's almost frightening how precise Norco combines ethereal elements from the first and a probably more obvious futuristic technology from the latter to another mystery plot. It's possible that makes me biased, but I'm actually more dreaming of how exchange of expertise between those indie developers could be a benefit to all of us.

With a splendid post-industrial depressive black metal track scoring the rolling credits it was rather a relief to end this adventure. I couldn't stop playing but didn't really enjoy Norco in the true sense of the word. For that, it's too much a reminder how fucked up this world is, it's too close to the somber atmosphere of a rat's nest I tried to escape but always returned to somehow after traveling around no matter how long. It also causes awareness, not only for losses of the past, but also how my parents are becoming older, giving me a hard time deciding to move to the other end of the country for an actually awaiting future.

Told from both the perspectives of Kay and her mother with party members joining on and off Norco to me is a maelstrom that should at least offer satisfaction by putting some things in order, though it treats its puzzles rather as part of a minigame cocktail, so you won't just click text and look at some scenic pictures. I always appreciate media including toilet needs, but I would have required a little more than a few gags to possibly miss while exploring the environment.

It feels harsh to say after an otherwise enthralling story, but maybe that's what you get after spawning from a multimedia documentary by a pseudonym collective that might not yet have the experience to make a full grown game rather than a gaming part within the initial project. It's sad that Norco could have been the equivalent to calling Grave of the Fireflies the best anime you never want to watch again, but it wasn't meant to be. It's far from being comparable as a full emotional experience.

For that reason and hoping Geography of Robots can find a way to create a more wholesome product, I don't even think their demo End Millennium is a step in the wrong direction. Maybe writing is their strongest capability, so focusing on a text adventure would be a logical conclusion until they find support in puzzle design should they want to attempt the genre at all.

Sure, Norco can also function as an exercise for the collective to improve on, but then we should not hype for something that isn't present. I wouldn't mind supporting them with my purchase as much, had I been downloading the game from a niche indie platform, but I bought it from a major distributor for way above my average price.

My expectations weren't sky high and maybe I'm wrong when so many others seem to love it anyway, but I would rather have preferred the packaging to say "This is the best we can do at the moment, support us so we can improve on our promising art", because that's what it comes down to. And with that in mind it's something like an unpolished gem for an atmosphere of desolation and despair, justifying a generous playthrough.

Check out more of my backloggd adventure reviews for games like:

Full Throttle Remastered
Detective Gallo
Broken Age
Thimbleweed Park
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure

At first I thought it was an 8-bit port of the first game, but I was completely wrong
There was some bad ideas thrown in there, like an auto-scroller level (the idea itself isn't that bad, the problem is that it is on a Sonic game), but it still had some good ones like special stages being just bonus and to get the emeralds you search the stage
I don't get exactly the debate of which Sonic 1 is better, but I can confirm that neither one is bad

That being said, DON'T PLAY THE GAME GEAR VERSION

"Books are, without exception, factually inaccurate"
"Please, MysteryMonkey49 is my online name. You can just call me MysteryMonkey"
"Oh so the normal explosive ingredients then"

This game is a gem. Long no more than an hour, it's a mine full of incredibly quotable jokes. Now that all three cases are on Xbox Game Pass you MUST play it!