PansyDragoonSaga
409 Reviews liked by PansyDragoonSaga
Signalis
2022
a quintessential 4 star 3.5 star (or 3.5 star 4 star?) "hey remember this thing you liked well here's More Of It" indie videoed game experience. loved the first and third chapters, kinda really disliked the second. aforementioned first and third chapters are generally excellent old-school Resi save box run-plotting goodness, but the unrelentingly slavish adherence to its influences throughout (e.g. the distressingly literal deployment of Silent Hill's otherworld aesthetic sensibility - capitalism is a literal meat grinder, geddit??) really makes me wish Rose Engine took some actual real swings of their own rather than just quoting power chords from their idols - also like, it's 2022 your survival horror game does not need boss fights and if you choose to do them anyway they don't need to be mid at best! also the narrative's signal to noise ratio is just enough to move my poor lesbian heart but one does kinda start to detect the tang of deliberate obscurantism for want of anything of substance to say with this material.
anyway this probably comes off more negative than I actually felt abt it, which is not dissimilar to how I felt about Norco earlier this year - this is Very Good but could have been Great, and I'm v excited to see what this team makes next! thumbs up, gets a rec, will def replay at some point for the secret/true ending.
anyway this probably comes off more negative than I actually felt abt it, which is not dissimilar to how I felt about Norco earlier this year - this is Very Good but could have been Great, and I'm v excited to see what this team makes next! thumbs up, gets a rec, will def replay at some point for the secret/true ending.
Immortality
2022
They really had a good thing going here. For an hour or so, there's some true wonder to unpicking the gorgeously filmed, intriguing trio of movies that has been put together here. The fims - Ambrosio, Minsky, and Two of Everything, are all gloriously shot and composed. Whilst you can see the cracks at some points, it's oh so easy to fall into Immortality's facade of the lost old media - The giallo inspired and notably horny Ambrosio in particular being an utter delight. And it's all filmed so well and with a degree of authenticity that just feels so right.
And those initial few hours, where you're both trying to piece together the plots of these movies, noticeing the flaws and trying to figure out the threads and what overarching story really is about is pretty great stuff. When clicking on each weird item in the background can send you to god know where. And the prospect of this all tying together with some cool allegorical narrative or whatever, some light horror and so on - god it could work.
Shame the narrative that you uncover is absolute trash. It is a very bleh fantasy/horror thing that I would feel would fall flat on your average creepypasta site - and it still could have worked even if it was mostly invested in exploring that immortality of art/people in cinema, the aspect of lost media "reviving people" so to speak but no. Its way too bogged down in the very literal mechanics of it's bad storyline and I hate it. It's bad enough to retrospectively make me feel like an idiot for wanting to pull on the threads, and care way less about the pretty well built up and interesting character relationships you learn through the snippets.
There's also some good old gamey issues to get in the way. Searching through clips, especially at the point where you'd probably just before getting to the big storyline hooks, is a pain in the arse, and bizzarely this point and click game works best by far with controller. It's also pretty buggy and in general way more finicky and less responsive than it should be. It detracts a fair bit from an otherwise incredibly immersive experience. The music is also quite bland and is constantly repeating the same shot clips as you go over the movies. And you can't turn it off because you need it for the sound cues to know how to find a lot of the secrets. Yay.
And its such a damn shame. It's probably the best looking FMV game ever released. The performances, particularly from Manon Gage and Hans Christopher, are spot on, and the way each of the movies captures their respective spheres of cinema - Giallo (mixed with hitchcock), 70s Neo-Noir and late 90s cheapo indie is absolutely spot on. And maybe if it was edited more consicely, the game more directed in terms of getting you to the right clips at the right time, and less navel-gazing in terms of it's very bad overarching narrative, it could have been incredible.
It's a better game than it's progenitor Her Story on account of the game not being so focused on a twist you'll work on in the first two seconds, and god knows it's better than Telling Lies, a game so shit even annapurna didnt try to push it, but I do think the end result is still a failure. Barlow has got the technical side of an FMV game absolutely down pat now though, and I think if he was given a competent writer, maybe then, this long project can bear some truly great fruit.
And those initial few hours, where you're both trying to piece together the plots of these movies, noticeing the flaws and trying to figure out the threads and what overarching story really is about is pretty great stuff. When clicking on each weird item in the background can send you to god know where. And the prospect of this all tying together with some cool allegorical narrative or whatever, some light horror and so on - god it could work.
Shame the narrative that you uncover is absolute trash. It is a very bleh fantasy/horror thing that I would feel would fall flat on your average creepypasta site - and it still could have worked even if it was mostly invested in exploring that immortality of art/people in cinema, the aspect of lost media "reviving people" so to speak but no. Its way too bogged down in the very literal mechanics of it's bad storyline and I hate it. It's bad enough to retrospectively make me feel like an idiot for wanting to pull on the threads, and care way less about the pretty well built up and interesting character relationships you learn through the snippets.
There's also some good old gamey issues to get in the way. Searching through clips, especially at the point where you'd probably just before getting to the big storyline hooks, is a pain in the arse, and bizzarely this point and click game works best by far with controller. It's also pretty buggy and in general way more finicky and less responsive than it should be. It detracts a fair bit from an otherwise incredibly immersive experience. The music is also quite bland and is constantly repeating the same shot clips as you go over the movies. And you can't turn it off because you need it for the sound cues to know how to find a lot of the secrets. Yay.
And its such a damn shame. It's probably the best looking FMV game ever released. The performances, particularly from Manon Gage and Hans Christopher, are spot on, and the way each of the movies captures their respective spheres of cinema - Giallo (mixed with hitchcock), 70s Neo-Noir and late 90s cheapo indie is absolutely spot on. And maybe if it was edited more consicely, the game more directed in terms of getting you to the right clips at the right time, and less navel-gazing in terms of it's very bad overarching narrative, it could have been incredible.
It's a better game than it's progenitor Her Story on account of the game not being so focused on a twist you'll work on in the first two seconds, and god knows it's better than Telling Lies, a game so shit even annapurna didnt try to push it, but I do think the end result is still a failure. Barlow has got the technical side of an FMV game absolutely down pat now though, and I think if he was given a competent writer, maybe then, this long project can bear some truly great fruit.
CW: Self harm, drug abuse, emotional abuse, honestly, you name it.
It has been a long time since i've played a game that has made me as uncomfortable as Needy Streamer Overload. It is grimy, blunt, and very arguably lands on the side of "in poor taste", like i've taken the wrong turn on DLsite and have found myself in the Rance section. All the while it presents events of clear distress and horror with this beautiful, bouncy, art style. And whilst "It's cute but actually a horrow game :O" is old hat by this point, the sheer glee with which NSO depicts what is essentially a torturous month of a woman's life is such a great horror hook.
If you force yourself out of the game's headspace, probably either later in your first playthrough or in subsequent ones, it's easy to see the deliberacy and commentary it's going for, but when I was sucked into it, it really got under my skin to the point that on my first attempt at playing i just had to shut it off after about half an hour.
And the game does a great build up of it's horror as well. Whilst the scenario clearly starts in a fucked up position, it near-inevitably gets much worse and throws a good handful of sucker punches your way, with a very cleverly balanced mixture of triggers based on days and values, and RNG-driven events. Stuff like the game throwing a straight up self-harm minigame at you is sickening, and a lot of the endings have odd triggers and come before the end of the 30 days of gameplay, which adds a very creepy spontaneity to it.
The writing and localisation is also surprisingly very good. Ame is essentially the game's lone character and if the presentation of her was off it would tank the whole thing, and it easily could have ended that way - but there's a great bluntness and relatability to what she says that makes her both someone you want to root for as well as truly nailing the "too online" side, for lack of a better term. It's a simple, obvious trick but the juxtoposition of her alter-ego k-angel and then her private account posting tweets after each other always works, and there's a cutting "realness" to all her DMs, etc.
Probably the most contentious thing of NSO is how unfiltered it is. It goes around slashing at a good pile of raw nerves with a machete - especially in a number of the ending sequences - and i think it's very reasonable to think this is crossing some lines. When things are being presented so matter-of-factly, in that same bouncy, eerily beautiful presenation, i wouldnt blame people for thinking it in bad taste or being shock-value/exploitative.
But the blunt presentation of the topics at play here really works for me. It see it as coming from a place of real anger - about abusive controllilng relationships, about youtube's policies encourange creators wringing themselves dry, relationships between creator and fan. On those repeated playthroughs where the horror inevitably fades, the commentary and grimness really takes up the slack. This incarnation of a fucked up relationship, a girl who's dissociated from a world that revels in her downfall. There's more twists down the tracks and down the 24 endings, but the core is what really resonantes. In particular, I really like how the game feels casts a shadow on to an extent, the whole raising game genre. I doubt this is untrodden ground, but looking at something like princess maker, and how much you control someone's life in that, feels almost tainted after.
Getting int those 24 endings is probably the game's only real problem in my opinion. They're very fiddly, a number of them basically demand a guide and doing multiple repeat playthroughs right to plan in these sort of things saps the game of it's spontaneity. It also just takes too long. Yes, the entire game can be beaten in about an hour, probably far shorter on repeats, but it still ends up way too much, and some are even tied to 1/100 random events proccing. I don't blame anyone for getting a handful of endings then watching the rest on youtube, which is probably not ideal.
The game's "main" ending, though, Internet Overdose, is just... horrifying. The game's true coup de grace and a fantastic way to go out. Its the apotheosis of what NSO - incrediblly presented and being confrontational with it's themes in a way thats hard to watch.
So if you can stomach it, and also go into it with some faith that's its not pure exploitational shock value garbage, I highly reccomend NSO. I'd honestly say its a truly great horror experience, the sort of thing that makes you feel like a gigantic piece of shit for even being involved with it at the time and has been living rent free in my conscience for too long after.
It has been a long time since i've played a game that has made me as uncomfortable as Needy Streamer Overload. It is grimy, blunt, and very arguably lands on the side of "in poor taste", like i've taken the wrong turn on DLsite and have found myself in the Rance section. All the while it presents events of clear distress and horror with this beautiful, bouncy, art style. And whilst "It's cute but actually a horrow game :O" is old hat by this point, the sheer glee with which NSO depicts what is essentially a torturous month of a woman's life is such a great horror hook.
If you force yourself out of the game's headspace, probably either later in your first playthrough or in subsequent ones, it's easy to see the deliberacy and commentary it's going for, but when I was sucked into it, it really got under my skin to the point that on my first attempt at playing i just had to shut it off after about half an hour.
And the game does a great build up of it's horror as well. Whilst the scenario clearly starts in a fucked up position, it near-inevitably gets much worse and throws a good handful of sucker punches your way, with a very cleverly balanced mixture of triggers based on days and values, and RNG-driven events. Stuff like the game throwing a straight up self-harm minigame at you is sickening, and a lot of the endings have odd triggers and come before the end of the 30 days of gameplay, which adds a very creepy spontaneity to it.
The writing and localisation is also surprisingly very good. Ame is essentially the game's lone character and if the presentation of her was off it would tank the whole thing, and it easily could have ended that way - but there's a great bluntness and relatability to what she says that makes her both someone you want to root for as well as truly nailing the "too online" side, for lack of a better term. It's a simple, obvious trick but the juxtoposition of her alter-ego k-angel and then her private account posting tweets after each other always works, and there's a cutting "realness" to all her DMs, etc.
Probably the most contentious thing of NSO is how unfiltered it is. It goes around slashing at a good pile of raw nerves with a machete - especially in a number of the ending sequences - and i think it's very reasonable to think this is crossing some lines. When things are being presented so matter-of-factly, in that same bouncy, eerily beautiful presenation, i wouldnt blame people for thinking it in bad taste or being shock-value/exploitative.
But the blunt presentation of the topics at play here really works for me. It see it as coming from a place of real anger - about abusive controllilng relationships, about youtube's policies encourange creators wringing themselves dry, relationships between creator and fan. On those repeated playthroughs where the horror inevitably fades, the commentary and grimness really takes up the slack. This incarnation of a fucked up relationship, a girl who's dissociated from a world that revels in her downfall. There's more twists down the tracks and down the 24 endings, but the core is what really resonantes. In particular, I really like how the game feels casts a shadow on to an extent, the whole raising game genre. I doubt this is untrodden ground, but looking at something like princess maker, and how much you control someone's life in that, feels almost tainted after.
Getting int those 24 endings is probably the game's only real problem in my opinion. They're very fiddly, a number of them basically demand a guide and doing multiple repeat playthroughs right to plan in these sort of things saps the game of it's spontaneity. It also just takes too long. Yes, the entire game can be beaten in about an hour, probably far shorter on repeats, but it still ends up way too much, and some are even tied to 1/100 random events proccing. I don't blame anyone for getting a handful of endings then watching the rest on youtube, which is probably not ideal.
The game's "main" ending, though, Internet Overdose, is just... horrifying. The game's true coup de grace and a fantastic way to go out. Its the apotheosis of what NSO - incrediblly presented and being confrontational with it's themes in a way thats hard to watch.
So if you can stomach it, and also go into it with some faith that's its not pure exploitational shock value garbage, I highly reccomend NSO. I'd honestly say its a truly great horror experience, the sort of thing that makes you feel like a gigantic piece of shit for even being involved with it at the time and has been living rent free in my conscience for too long after.
Vampire Survivors
2021
not morally egregious per se but rather a depressing culmination of a decade's worth of design trickery and (d)evolving cultural/social tastes and otherwise exists as insipid twitchcore autoplaying bullshit that should come with a contractual agreement binding its devotees to never speak prejudicially about mobile games or musou ever again lest they face legally enforced financial restitution. just play nex machina man. or watch NFL. been a fun season for that. fuck the review man let's talk sports in the comments
Signalis
2022
Better remake than several of the contemporaries, basically because it is a remix that assimilates the false -or more widespread- history of "survival Horror" (the genre names are a bit silly) that the magazines sold us here in the West batter than the last "new" games of the last few years. Think of essential pillar works of the horror aesthetic in gaming And you probably don't think of Laplace No Ma or Twilight Syndrome, god, names like Sweet Home, Clock Tower and contemporaries are probably starting to sound, but surely most say Alone in the Dark and already jumps into the golden era of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, White Day, Project Zero and all that.
It is natural, understandable due to the lack of a consistent canon in gaming, incapable of being properly created even in the puberty of a medium that is forced to a maturity that it could already reach (in fact it has already touched it).
Advertising and the Ludic factor have screwed up video games in many ways, but the worst is that accidental and unavoidable ignorance due to the lack I mentioned of a properly documented historical canon leads to constant redundancy in design planning and game direction. many "new" games. And it's not that I care too much about this lack of originality, this redundancy, nah, there are pre-rendered games with landscape Screen Orientation where the only thing you do is walk that take my breath away more than any "mechanical revolution" a-la Mario64. I don't think that quality is measured by originality, besides, bro, literally less than 50% of the mechanics that exist or were today are used expressively, almost everything is immediate gratification, fast food style.
We need more Historians in gaming, ASAP.
The adorable and beautiful thing about experiencing first works and recognizing influences on new authors is lost when they approach aesthetics with structures as closed as "classic survival horror", which always seems to result in the same sagas, with the same redundancy as I write these thoughts.
Well this brings us to Signalis. I recently came across a video on Youtube titled: SIGNALIS THE NEW FACE OF MODERN SURVIVAL HORROR
or something like that.
Modern? What ? in what sense? It is a remix of the supposed pillars of survival horror; RE structure, evocative images a la Silent Hill, hand holding sections in the first person, like horror graphic adventures or something from the golden era like White day. A Sci fi setting.
Martian Gothic.
DeadSpace.
Bro. Perhaps the only modern thing is the second round that works as a continuation and begins to suggest ideas about cycles and emotional attachment. But even in that I recognize other works.
It's not a bad thing as such. Remake and give your take, your version. I prefer it a thousand times to any remake of Vicarious Visions or BluePoint (May Arceus punish the shareholder meetings as they deserve) but Regardless of the intrinsic quality of SIGNALIS, you can see where it comes from and how little it can actually offer beyond entertaining hours: the product.
It is natural, understandable due to the lack of a consistent canon in gaming, incapable of being properly created even in the puberty of a medium that is forced to a maturity that it could already reach (in fact it has already touched it).
Advertising and the Ludic factor have screwed up video games in many ways, but the worst is that accidental and unavoidable ignorance due to the lack I mentioned of a properly documented historical canon leads to constant redundancy in design planning and game direction. many "new" games. And it's not that I care too much about this lack of originality, this redundancy, nah, there are pre-rendered games with landscape Screen Orientation where the only thing you do is walk that take my breath away more than any "mechanical revolution" a-la Mario64. I don't think that quality is measured by originality, besides, bro, literally less than 50% of the mechanics that exist or were today are used expressively, almost everything is immediate gratification, fast food style.
We need more Historians in gaming, ASAP.
The adorable and beautiful thing about experiencing first works and recognizing influences on new authors is lost when they approach aesthetics with structures as closed as "classic survival horror", which always seems to result in the same sagas, with the same redundancy as I write these thoughts.
Well this brings us to Signalis. I recently came across a video on Youtube titled: SIGNALIS THE NEW FACE OF MODERN SURVIVAL HORROR
or something like that.
Modern? What ? in what sense? It is a remix of the supposed pillars of survival horror; RE structure, evocative images a la Silent Hill, hand holding sections in the first person, like horror graphic adventures or something from the golden era like White day. A Sci fi setting.
Martian Gothic.
DeadSpace.
Bro. Perhaps the only modern thing is the second round that works as a continuation and begins to suggest ideas about cycles and emotional attachment. But even in that I recognize other works.
It's not a bad thing as such. Remake and give your take, your version. I prefer it a thousand times to any remake of Vicarious Visions or BluePoint (May Arceus punish the shareholder meetings as they deserve) but Regardless of the intrinsic quality of SIGNALIS, you can see where it comes from and how little it can actually offer beyond entertaining hours: the product.
Cid no longer looks like Robin Williams and Squall looks he's from a Star Ocean game.
You can take the game out of 1999 but you can't take the 1999 out of the game, come on
You can take the game out of 1999 but you can't take the 1999 out of the game, come on
Final Fantasy X
2001
after a lot of people died in sin's attack, yuna dances. this dance is called "the sending", where she makes sure their souls are not staying on this plane, wandering, with envy for the living and then turning into fiends. instead, she sends them to the farplane, where they can live in peace. a lot of cultures around the world have rituals for the dead where you dance to celebrate how great their lives were or to just be a kind of grieving. you see, our bodies express our feelings more than we could ever think they do. when you are anxious you are always shaking your legs, even grinding teeth sometimes. i like to believe that yuna's dance is not only to send those people to better places but also her cope mechanism to deal with everything -- spira's condition, her father's dead, her destiny.
then yuna finds a pair. this blonde boy that appears from nowhere, claims to be from a thousand years old civilization that does not even exists anymore. he is also constantly dancing. he has problems with his father, which calls him a crybaby -- and he is, really. he is constantly expressing his pain through his smile but you know he's not always happy. he just don't want to show his sadness or, as everyone, just don't want to be sad. yuna's not so different, too. and since her has a pair, it's important to say that when you are dancing with someone, at first it may not work -- your pair can be at the wrong tempo, overstepping you etc. when your steps synchronizes and you are connected, though, this is what we call love. not necessarily romantically, of course. yuna have a lot of friends with their own dances, grieving and trying to live their lives as hard as it can be. but, when everyone is together, even dancing with the dead, they can share their insecurities, being open about their problems and, truly, overcoming it. maybe not stopping dancing but dancing towards the truth -- the painfully beautiful truth.
the last time yuna dances, she's not only grieving, but also celebrating.
then yuna finds a pair. this blonde boy that appears from nowhere, claims to be from a thousand years old civilization that does not even exists anymore. he is also constantly dancing. he has problems with his father, which calls him a crybaby -- and he is, really. he is constantly expressing his pain through his smile but you know he's not always happy. he just don't want to show his sadness or, as everyone, just don't want to be sad. yuna's not so different, too. and since her has a pair, it's important to say that when you are dancing with someone, at first it may not work -- your pair can be at the wrong tempo, overstepping you etc. when your steps synchronizes and you are connected, though, this is what we call love. not necessarily romantically, of course. yuna have a lot of friends with their own dances, grieving and trying to live their lives as hard as it can be. but, when everyone is together, even dancing with the dead, they can share their insecurities, being open about their problems and, truly, overcoming it. maybe not stopping dancing but dancing towards the truth -- the painfully beautiful truth.
the last time yuna dances, she's not only grieving, but also celebrating.
This review contains spoilers
I have a lot to say, sorry—this one’s been absolutely haunting me.
I think this game is best if you are 100% aware of what you're getting into before you play it. It's easy enough that it's basically a glorified visual novel, and since its story's focus is very much on the characters and very concerned with giving you plenty of time to get to know and love them, as well as the value of our ordinary, boring day-to-day lives, the game's pace is very leisurely, and is enjoyed best played slowly or at your own pace. In other words: if you're going into this expecting an action-packed JRPG, you're likely going to be disappointed. (There's a reason this took me 2 months and nearly 83 hours to finish one playthrough.)
That isn't to say the combat is bad, though. I actually found it really fun—it was just that the game doesn't let you play on a higher difficulty than Normal until NG+, and the Normal difficulty is so easy it becomes pretty much mindless by the second half of the game. However, on the chances I did get to really dive into the combat, I had a lot of fun with it—but I'm also just a sucker for JRPGs and real-time turn-based combat, apparently. I agree that it would've been nice if at least Hard difficulty were available from the start, so that more experienced players would be able to complete the side content and actually experience the game's combat without just melting through every enemy it threw at you. (Seriously, even the final boss was laughably unintimidating due to how effortlessly it went down...)
However, I don't think it's easiness is necessarily a bad thing, considering the fact that it is, again, basically a glorified visual novel. Given the already slow pace, I feel like I might've grown frustrated with it if I'd gotten stuck on a particularly hard boss or something and so couldn't progress the story, or at least not until I'd grinded 5 more levels or something. Having to do so may well have made the game less leisurely fun, and more of a drag far past its welcome, so I honestly think it's probably a good thing that it can be pretty brainlessly easy, so that you can easily move from one story beat to the next if that's all you want to do.
(Also, if you’re playing on PC—for the love of god use a controller. It’s not unbearable with keyboard and mouse, but it’s clunky and you can always feel it. It’s clearly made with a controller in mind, although the keyboard controls are fine, and not nearly as vexing as the original Blue Reflection’s.)
Also, as a brief aside, I think the fanservice is negligible and very easily ignored. It's certainly present, but barely noticeable—and that's only if you're actively looking for it. Although there are a few unavoidable skeevy things, like the absolute Camera Angles on Shiho's Reflector outfit, a couple scenes where they're bathing in swimsuits, and more Absolute Camera Angles in combat, particularly 1on1 battles. The game goes to painstaking lengths to prevent you from upskirting the girls as well, which is a breath of fresh air after the original Blue Reflection, wherein Hinako's skirt went flying if you bumped her a little too hard. Everything else, you basically have to actively seek out, or have a sharp eye on the lookout for the tiniest glimpse of. This is all to say: if you're worried about excessive fanservice ruining your experience, I wouldn't sweat it.
An edited-in additional aside: some people call this game yuribait. I would really have to disagree. You can interpret it as such, sure, and I can see how it'd be an easy conclusion to come to, considering it can be kind of hard to tell whether the "I love you"s exchanged between Ao and your girl of choice on dates are intended to be romantic or not... But considering also the canon and explicitly romantic relationship between two of the girls, I highly doubt this was something intended to be taken solely platonically. Second Light explores and heavily emphasizes the importance of love—of all kinds, platonic, familial, and romantic alike. That being said, this is absolutely a yuri game. The extent to which it'll be for you honestly kind of depends on how far you're willing to go for a particular girl, concerning T. LV and dates.
The soundtrack is obviously gorgeous, and I think combined with the breathtaking visuals, I can only describe this game's experience as captivating. There are certain moments I wish I could experience for the first time again. Namely, when you first enter Kokoro's Heartscape. I adore "peaceful post-apocalypse" visuals and environments, so it felt like this game was made for me. I fell in love the second I first saw that place. (And I feel like mentioning, I had no idea what I was in for. I literally just saw a screenshot of the game, thought it looked pretty, and downloaded it on a whim to see what kind of game it was. I feel like going into this as blind as can be really doubled the effect it had on me in this respect.)
I adored the surreal, beautiful yet eerie feeling of the OST, in combination with the dilapidated surroundings making it feel like somewhere lost to time, somewhere I wasn't supposed to be in—which felt very fitting for what is a manifestation of someone's forgotten, very personal memories. It feels like an intrusion, like we're not supposed to be seeing these private, personal moments, like unearthing something from a long time ago. The atmosphere of every Heartscape is absolutely incredible, and I often found myself slowing down or entirely to a halt just so I could wander them and stare in wonder. I think where the environment and OST 1-2-punch combo hit me hardest like this was in Rena, Uta, and Ao's Heartscapes.
And now I have to get a little personal, because how could I not, with a game like this?
Uta's story hit me like a freight train, personally. As soon as she was introduced properly, behaving completely differently having lost her memories, and hints being dropped that "something in her past" must've made her the way they remembered her, I knew I was in for a sucker punch. And, god, was I right.
I have amnesia, so I can't remember the majority of my life. According to my family, I underwent a complete personality change after the event that gave me it as well. So, naturally, I immediately had a soft spot for Uta. The implication that she turned out the way she did because of a traumatic event also immediately had me hooked onto her. I also just love characters like her, what can I say? I think girls should get to go batshit. You show me a gesugao character, I'm sold instantly.
I'll admit I got a little worried when they started talking about Uta's "old" and "new" self, but I really like where they ended up going with it. I'm glad to see the emphasis on the fact that these aren't two separate people—they're both Uta, and only together can they make up who she is today. It also resonates with me, considering that the person I was before my amnesia feels like an entirely different person, even though I know that's still "me."
Yuki also hit me particularly hard, as I'm also chronically ill, and saw myself in how she felt about hospitals and her condition in general, the spitefulness but insistence upon forced smiles and "good lies." The sterile atmosphere of the hospital along with the maze-like, identical rooms and hallways, and the quiet but never-quite-silence of a hospital in the ost, left such a strong impression. I love her to death, and I'm so, so glad she and Rena got to have an explicit, happy romance together. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see real, genuine, romantic "I love you"s exchanged between girls, and not just endless "will they, won't they"s. (I adore Rena, too, by the way. She's everything to me.)
I guess this brings me to a point, that... I think Second Light does an excellent job of making its characters feel incredibly human. There's obviously an overly idealistic tinge to it—the girls are all best friends no matter what, even if they don't get along at first or occasionally, and the world needs to be saved with the power of friendship, after all—but it doesn't feel unrealistic. For the most part, all of the girls have extremely grounded, real issues, all of which I'd imagine many players can see themselves in.
The game spends a very long time simply establishing its cast and getting you accustomed to them, letting you get to know them and become their friends, grow attached to them along with Ao, without ever really letting you in on much of the plot. And I think this does it many favors—it does so very well, and you come to love every one of the girls, not just a select few you attach to as your favorites. I felt like the love Ao had for her friends, and the love I had for them, were one and the same. I wanted them to be happy so badly by the end, aha. I felt incredibly choked up in the final chapter, watching her fight so hard for a future for her loved ones that she knew she couldn't be a part of. In any other game, this may not fly so well, but I think it works here due to the game's heavy emphasis on the characters and their relationships to and love for each other.
I also think it handles the topic of memories, the loss of them, and the relationships those two things can have to your identity and life, and so on, very well. Which is always something I look out for with media involving amnesia—so often in fiction it's used as a fantastical plot device, to the point where some people don't even seem to realize it's a reality. (I've had people joke with me, "what are you, an anime protagonist now?" when I mention my amnesia, because their very first thought was that I must be joking, since that doesn't actually happen to real people, that only happens in fiction.) So it’s very refreshing to see it handled naturally, with a sincere consideration, even despite the fantastical circumstances.
This game has been haunting me ever since I first picked it up, and in the best way. It’s the kind of thing that stays on my mind for weeks afterwards, that I have dreams about and infects my inspirations for other works. I’m very, very glad I came upon it by complete random happenstance, and I got to experience it. Just, now I know I’m going to forever be seeking something to fill the hole in my heart this’ll leave for similar games… Now’s as good a time as ever to finish the first game, huh?
or, tl;dr: what if sayonara ponytail's discography was a game?
I think this game is best if you are 100% aware of what you're getting into before you play it. It's easy enough that it's basically a glorified visual novel, and since its story's focus is very much on the characters and very concerned with giving you plenty of time to get to know and love them, as well as the value of our ordinary, boring day-to-day lives, the game's pace is very leisurely, and is enjoyed best played slowly or at your own pace. In other words: if you're going into this expecting an action-packed JRPG, you're likely going to be disappointed. (There's a reason this took me 2 months and nearly 83 hours to finish one playthrough.)
That isn't to say the combat is bad, though. I actually found it really fun—it was just that the game doesn't let you play on a higher difficulty than Normal until NG+, and the Normal difficulty is so easy it becomes pretty much mindless by the second half of the game. However, on the chances I did get to really dive into the combat, I had a lot of fun with it—but I'm also just a sucker for JRPGs and real-time turn-based combat, apparently. I agree that it would've been nice if at least Hard difficulty were available from the start, so that more experienced players would be able to complete the side content and actually experience the game's combat without just melting through every enemy it threw at you. (Seriously, even the final boss was laughably unintimidating due to how effortlessly it went down...)
However, I don't think it's easiness is necessarily a bad thing, considering the fact that it is, again, basically a glorified visual novel. Given the already slow pace, I feel like I might've grown frustrated with it if I'd gotten stuck on a particularly hard boss or something and so couldn't progress the story, or at least not until I'd grinded 5 more levels or something. Having to do so may well have made the game less leisurely fun, and more of a drag far past its welcome, so I honestly think it's probably a good thing that it can be pretty brainlessly easy, so that you can easily move from one story beat to the next if that's all you want to do.
(Also, if you’re playing on PC—for the love of god use a controller. It’s not unbearable with keyboard and mouse, but it’s clunky and you can always feel it. It’s clearly made with a controller in mind, although the keyboard controls are fine, and not nearly as vexing as the original Blue Reflection’s.)
Also, as a brief aside, I think the fanservice is negligible and very easily ignored. It's certainly present, but barely noticeable—and that's only if you're actively looking for it. Although there are a few unavoidable skeevy things, like the absolute Camera Angles on Shiho's Reflector outfit, a couple scenes where they're bathing in swimsuits, and more Absolute Camera Angles in combat, particularly 1on1 battles. The game goes to painstaking lengths to prevent you from upskirting the girls as well, which is a breath of fresh air after the original Blue Reflection, wherein Hinako's skirt went flying if you bumped her a little too hard. Everything else, you basically have to actively seek out, or have a sharp eye on the lookout for the tiniest glimpse of. This is all to say: if you're worried about excessive fanservice ruining your experience, I wouldn't sweat it.
An edited-in additional aside: some people call this game yuribait. I would really have to disagree. You can interpret it as such, sure, and I can see how it'd be an easy conclusion to come to, considering it can be kind of hard to tell whether the "I love you"s exchanged between Ao and your girl of choice on dates are intended to be romantic or not... But considering also the canon and explicitly romantic relationship between two of the girls, I highly doubt this was something intended to be taken solely platonically. Second Light explores and heavily emphasizes the importance of love—of all kinds, platonic, familial, and romantic alike. That being said, this is absolutely a yuri game. The extent to which it'll be for you honestly kind of depends on how far you're willing to go for a particular girl, concerning T. LV and dates.
The soundtrack is obviously gorgeous, and I think combined with the breathtaking visuals, I can only describe this game's experience as captivating. There are certain moments I wish I could experience for the first time again. Namely, when you first enter Kokoro's Heartscape. I adore "peaceful post-apocalypse" visuals and environments, so it felt like this game was made for me. I fell in love the second I first saw that place. (And I feel like mentioning, I had no idea what I was in for. I literally just saw a screenshot of the game, thought it looked pretty, and downloaded it on a whim to see what kind of game it was. I feel like going into this as blind as can be really doubled the effect it had on me in this respect.)
I adored the surreal, beautiful yet eerie feeling of the OST, in combination with the dilapidated surroundings making it feel like somewhere lost to time, somewhere I wasn't supposed to be in—which felt very fitting for what is a manifestation of someone's forgotten, very personal memories. It feels like an intrusion, like we're not supposed to be seeing these private, personal moments, like unearthing something from a long time ago. The atmosphere of every Heartscape is absolutely incredible, and I often found myself slowing down or entirely to a halt just so I could wander them and stare in wonder. I think where the environment and OST 1-2-punch combo hit me hardest like this was in Rena, Uta, and Ao's Heartscapes.
And now I have to get a little personal, because how could I not, with a game like this?
Uta's story hit me like a freight train, personally. As soon as she was introduced properly, behaving completely differently having lost her memories, and hints being dropped that "something in her past" must've made her the way they remembered her, I knew I was in for a sucker punch. And, god, was I right.
I have amnesia, so I can't remember the majority of my life. According to my family, I underwent a complete personality change after the event that gave me it as well. So, naturally, I immediately had a soft spot for Uta. The implication that she turned out the way she did because of a traumatic event also immediately had me hooked onto her. I also just love characters like her, what can I say? I think girls should get to go batshit. You show me a gesugao character, I'm sold instantly.
I'll admit I got a little worried when they started talking about Uta's "old" and "new" self, but I really like where they ended up going with it. I'm glad to see the emphasis on the fact that these aren't two separate people—they're both Uta, and only together can they make up who she is today. It also resonates with me, considering that the person I was before my amnesia feels like an entirely different person, even though I know that's still "me."
Yuki also hit me particularly hard, as I'm also chronically ill, and saw myself in how she felt about hospitals and her condition in general, the spitefulness but insistence upon forced smiles and "good lies." The sterile atmosphere of the hospital along with the maze-like, identical rooms and hallways, and the quiet but never-quite-silence of a hospital in the ost, left such a strong impression. I love her to death, and I'm so, so glad she and Rena got to have an explicit, happy romance together. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see real, genuine, romantic "I love you"s exchanged between girls, and not just endless "will they, won't they"s. (I adore Rena, too, by the way. She's everything to me.)
I guess this brings me to a point, that... I think Second Light does an excellent job of making its characters feel incredibly human. There's obviously an overly idealistic tinge to it—the girls are all best friends no matter what, even if they don't get along at first or occasionally, and the world needs to be saved with the power of friendship, after all—but it doesn't feel unrealistic. For the most part, all of the girls have extremely grounded, real issues, all of which I'd imagine many players can see themselves in.
The game spends a very long time simply establishing its cast and getting you accustomed to them, letting you get to know them and become their friends, grow attached to them along with Ao, without ever really letting you in on much of the plot. And I think this does it many favors—it does so very well, and you come to love every one of the girls, not just a select few you attach to as your favorites. I felt like the love Ao had for her friends, and the love I had for them, were one and the same. I wanted them to be happy so badly by the end, aha. I felt incredibly choked up in the final chapter, watching her fight so hard for a future for her loved ones that she knew she couldn't be a part of. In any other game, this may not fly so well, but I think it works here due to the game's heavy emphasis on the characters and their relationships to and love for each other.
I also think it handles the topic of memories, the loss of them, and the relationships those two things can have to your identity and life, and so on, very well. Which is always something I look out for with media involving amnesia—so often in fiction it's used as a fantastical plot device, to the point where some people don't even seem to realize it's a reality. (I've had people joke with me, "what are you, an anime protagonist now?" when I mention my amnesia, because their very first thought was that I must be joking, since that doesn't actually happen to real people, that only happens in fiction.) So it’s very refreshing to see it handled naturally, with a sincere consideration, even despite the fantastical circumstances.
This game has been haunting me ever since I first picked it up, and in the best way. It’s the kind of thing that stays on my mind for weeks afterwards, that I have dreams about and infects my inspirations for other works. I’m very, very glad I came upon it by complete random happenstance, and I got to experience it. Just, now I know I’m going to forever be seeking something to fill the hole in my heart this’ll leave for similar games… Now’s as good a time as ever to finish the first game, huh?
or, tl;dr: what if sayonara ponytail's discography was a game?
Immortality
2022
Works about voyeurism that directly confront the viewer for participating are nothing new (Rear Window, Blow-Up, The Truman Show, Finding Frances, etc.), but I do think there's sincere eternal beauty-genius in the idea that everything we see through a lens - whether fact or fiction, consensual or non-consensual - constitutes a perverse one-way violation of the natural world in pursuit of wicked desires that we can never fully suppress, layers of cultural coercion that build like a coastal shelf of pressure upon everyone who participates with a camera from any direction.
Immortality is at its best when it's gleefully reveling in this idea, a sort of hypersexxxual Day For Night that permits and often encourages luxuriation in watching beautiful people be flirty and sexy and funny on, off, and mid-camera, poring over a grand archive of film footage that successfully evokes a variety of eras without putting tie-dye lampshades on them. The game could be accused of titillation, but the aforementioned genius of works like this is that the word "voyeur" acts as a creative shield behind which the footage can justifiably hide, cheekily asking its critics if they'd like to see one more clip of someone with their boobs or dick out. It's unlikely you'll say no - you're part of the problem, after all.
The ideas here aren't particularly original to anyone who's watched a "movie about movies"-type movie (it made me think of Boogie Nights a lot), but that doesn't mean they aren't worth exploring in a new mode of interaction - disjointed narratives in film can be a real pain when executed poorly because of their reliance on the audience "jigsawing" data-points together in real-time, but Immortality gives viewers the patient pleasure of being able to tap and spin the film reels (via a very satisfying interaction metaphor) at their own pace, bolstered by a helpful "find {noun}" match-cut feature that makes digging through each character/actor/person's tapes much more enjoyable than trying to piece a picture from Momentos in perpetual movie motion. At a dozen-or-so hours long, it's easy to spend a whole evening just silently researching a single participant in the puzzle, naively feeling yourself like Jack Terry in Brian DePalma's Blow Out.
It's unfortunate, then, that Immortality simply can't resist telling a video game story. Without spoiling too much: about two-thirds of the way in, all the psychosexual intrigue dissolves away to make space on the cutting room floor for a plot that is so corny and clunky that I think even the writers of Star Trek: Voyager would have passed it up in favour of another episode about that planet of Scottish ghosts. There's an unintentional sadness in seeing Charlotta Mohlin, a professional actress and beautiful interpretive dancer, gradually be reduced from an ephemeral alien to a static exposition device who speaks in the pronouns of Cromp and Wenbembo. When you're dealing with desire and bodies and valise of inner selves, why do you need to bring the fucking Chongo into it? What a shame.
Regardless, this is still absolutely worth your time if you, like me, like to write big pretentious essays on Letterboxd about all the ways dialectical Freudian analysis can be applied to Solo: A Star Wars Story or whatever. Haters and intermediary filmbros will claim the plot of Marissa's last picture, Two of Everything, is an almost point-for-point remake of Mulholland Drive, but true kinophiles know it's an homage to The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
Immortality is at its best when it's gleefully reveling in this idea, a sort of hypersexxxual Day For Night that permits and often encourages luxuriation in watching beautiful people be flirty and sexy and funny on, off, and mid-camera, poring over a grand archive of film footage that successfully evokes a variety of eras without putting tie-dye lampshades on them. The game could be accused of titillation, but the aforementioned genius of works like this is that the word "voyeur" acts as a creative shield behind which the footage can justifiably hide, cheekily asking its critics if they'd like to see one more clip of someone with their boobs or dick out. It's unlikely you'll say no - you're part of the problem, after all.
The ideas here aren't particularly original to anyone who's watched a "movie about movies"-type movie (it made me think of Boogie Nights a lot), but that doesn't mean they aren't worth exploring in a new mode of interaction - disjointed narratives in film can be a real pain when executed poorly because of their reliance on the audience "jigsawing" data-points together in real-time, but Immortality gives viewers the patient pleasure of being able to tap and spin the film reels (via a very satisfying interaction metaphor) at their own pace, bolstered by a helpful "find {noun}" match-cut feature that makes digging through each character/actor/person's tapes much more enjoyable than trying to piece a picture from Momentos in perpetual movie motion. At a dozen-or-so hours long, it's easy to spend a whole evening just silently researching a single participant in the puzzle, naively feeling yourself like Jack Terry in Brian DePalma's Blow Out.
It's unfortunate, then, that Immortality simply can't resist telling a video game story. Without spoiling too much: about two-thirds of the way in, all the psychosexual intrigue dissolves away to make space on the cutting room floor for a plot that is so corny and clunky that I think even the writers of Star Trek: Voyager would have passed it up in favour of another episode about that planet of Scottish ghosts. There's an unintentional sadness in seeing Charlotta Mohlin, a professional actress and beautiful interpretive dancer, gradually be reduced from an ephemeral alien to a static exposition device who speaks in the pronouns of Cromp and Wenbembo. When you're dealing with desire and bodies and valise of inner selves, why do you need to bring the fucking Chongo into it? What a shame.
Regardless, this is still absolutely worth your time if you, like me, like to write big pretentious essays on Letterboxd about all the ways dialectical Freudian analysis can be applied to Solo: A Star Wars Story or whatever. Haters and intermediary filmbros will claim the plot of Marissa's last picture, Two of Everything, is an almost point-for-point remake of Mulholland Drive, but true kinophiles know it's an homage to The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
Panzer Dragoon Orta
2002
Orta stands out from its predecessors, not just because many of Team Andromeda's original members had already left before the start of its development, but also due to the series success being much intertwined with the Saturn's ambitions and limitations. The low poly fidelity of the Saturn funneled the devs creativity into the presentation of the world of Panzer Dragoon, buildinga unique universe of bright and strong colors, exotic soundscapes and sci fi fantasy backdrops that forced the players to fill in the blanks with their imagination. But that's not to say that Orta doesn't have the craft to make it a worthy successor to the Saturn lineage.
Now a child of the tech powerhouse that was the Xbox, Orta had the opportunity to fully realize the potential of Panzer Dragoon's world without having to take shortcuts in its visual fidelity. For an early Xbox game, Orta is still an impressive display of vast mountain, forest and open sky landscapes, filled with swirling ships, monsters and gigantic bosses that the console just shrugs off as you shoot homing missiles at eveything on sight. Complemented by a serene and subdued soundtrack, Orta is able to turn a genre known for its bombastic action into a somber and introspective adventure.
It is also the most accomplished and fully realized rail shooting experience in the franchise. Not settling with being a simple callback to the series, it builds upon the ideas of the previous entries, like the evolution mechanic of Zweii and the dragon morphing ability of Saga, to give a highly replayable challenging campaign with a plethora of maneuvourability and combat options to the player that make aerial skirmishes engaging and never frustrating to master. Orta was one of the last hurrahs of a company who rarely sacrificed fun for its artistic endeavours, a feat which the Panzer Dragoon series most exemplified and which Orta continued on.
While not being able to significantly expand on the story and concepts of Panzer Dragoon beyond what Saga had already achieved, Orta still manages to effectively embrace the themes of land ravaging warfare, the folly of playing God with nature and the price that comes with forgetting the past. The unwillingness to learn from the mistakes that were practiced by the Ancestors and that fuel much of the conflict that happens in these games has been a major throughline of the series, shackling is inhabitants to a war they dont understand against forces they do not comprehend, and I think it's fitting that the franchise's ending note is one where the character Orta, the legacy of the two main opposing forces of Panzer Dragoon, bears the torch into an uncertain but possibly brighter future.
Ultimately, what you should get out of this is that it is now possible to play the whole Panzer Dragoon series from start to finish from the comfort of your PC without much hassle or hiccups. The world is finally healing.
Now a child of the tech powerhouse that was the Xbox, Orta had the opportunity to fully realize the potential of Panzer Dragoon's world without having to take shortcuts in its visual fidelity. For an early Xbox game, Orta is still an impressive display of vast mountain, forest and open sky landscapes, filled with swirling ships, monsters and gigantic bosses that the console just shrugs off as you shoot homing missiles at eveything on sight. Complemented by a serene and subdued soundtrack, Orta is able to turn a genre known for its bombastic action into a somber and introspective adventure.
It is also the most accomplished and fully realized rail shooting experience in the franchise. Not settling with being a simple callback to the series, it builds upon the ideas of the previous entries, like the evolution mechanic of Zweii and the dragon morphing ability of Saga, to give a highly replayable challenging campaign with a plethora of maneuvourability and combat options to the player that make aerial skirmishes engaging and never frustrating to master. Orta was one of the last hurrahs of a company who rarely sacrificed fun for its artistic endeavours, a feat which the Panzer Dragoon series most exemplified and which Orta continued on.
While not being able to significantly expand on the story and concepts of Panzer Dragoon beyond what Saga had already achieved, Orta still manages to effectively embrace the themes of land ravaging warfare, the folly of playing God with nature and the price that comes with forgetting the past. The unwillingness to learn from the mistakes that were practiced by the Ancestors and that fuel much of the conflict that happens in these games has been a major throughline of the series, shackling is inhabitants to a war they dont understand against forces they do not comprehend, and I think it's fitting that the franchise's ending note is one where the character Orta, the legacy of the two main opposing forces of Panzer Dragoon, bears the torch into an uncertain but possibly brighter future.
Ultimately, what you should get out of this is that it is now possible to play the whole Panzer Dragoon series from start to finish from the comfort of your PC without much hassle or hiccups. The world is finally healing.
Flyff
2005
i once found god in this game
i played it again as an adult and god was gone
i played it again as an adult and god was gone
ヴィーナスアンドブレイブスが素晴らしいけれど、その基礎となっているこれも素晴らしいゲームです。
Lifeline
2003
current pb: 2:46:13.10
literally do not give a shit about what anyone says, this is the best game ever made. it's got such a stupid gimmick and stupid controls and stupid story and stupid characters and i can't do anything but love it. i have played this like 5 times now and also i speedrun it. rio is my wife and we are in love.
literally do not give a shit about what anyone says, this is the best game ever made. it's got such a stupid gimmick and stupid controls and stupid story and stupid characters and i can't do anything but love it. i have played this like 5 times now and also i speedrun it. rio is my wife and we are in love.
After the first chapter I can safely say the game is as tone deaf as it initially seemed. This is a total vanity project that really begs the question of "who the hell funded this?" Since the author is basically just some random indie dev with a small resume. Some good stuff but nothing crazy.
This is essentially a parody game since its played so straight. Well, its not a parody, or a game, so that doesnt quite work. We Are OFK is just an aggressively smarmy, paid ad for a mediocre band of internet nerds. The blue haired character is basically a self insert fantasy for the mastermind of the project, who is just some dorky white dude.
The dialogue is so....annoying? Everyone is just a smug hipster with aggressive vocal fry and an obsession wirh sarcastic quips and saying internet words verbally. They're not people, they're characters, a band of 4 scrappy doos.
The beauty of We Are OFK is the trainwreck aspect of it. Since theres no gameplay to mess up, anyone can watch it on Youtube and cringe at the dialogue for free. Its not quite gaming's "The Room", its more the recent movie "Music". A tone deaf misfire of a vanity project that makes you embarassed for the band and the inevitable wheel spinning that will follow.
This is essentially a parody game since its played so straight. Well, its not a parody, or a game, so that doesnt quite work. We Are OFK is just an aggressively smarmy, paid ad for a mediocre band of internet nerds. The blue haired character is basically a self insert fantasy for the mastermind of the project, who is just some dorky white dude.
The dialogue is so....annoying? Everyone is just a smug hipster with aggressive vocal fry and an obsession wirh sarcastic quips and saying internet words verbally. They're not people, they're characters, a band of 4 scrappy doos.
The beauty of We Are OFK is the trainwreck aspect of it. Since theres no gameplay to mess up, anyone can watch it on Youtube and cringe at the dialogue for free. Its not quite gaming's "The Room", its more the recent movie "Music". A tone deaf misfire of a vanity project that makes you embarassed for the band and the inevitable wheel spinning that will follow.
Poinie's Poin
2002
Ever feel like a whole game is designed purely for you and your taste in gameplay, aesthetics and general vibe that you cannot even fathom giving it anything less than a perfect score? Like in spite of limited-even-for-the-time camera controls, slightly overambitious mechanics and repetitious objective design, there's so much appealing, hyper specific things of interest vying for your attention that you're consistently engaged from the get go, right up to the end screen? The sort of thing that you just know you'll be hyperfixated on for months, listening to the OST on loop, memorizing it's script down to the syllable and doodling all the characters for no other reason than for pure adoration for it all?
Well, I'm pretty sure that's Poinie's Poin for me right now. I'm losing my mind at just how at home I felt playing through this early 00's treasure trove of saturated colour, psychedelic pop/rock/IDM/acid fusion soundscapes and some truly off-kilter writing (with the VA to match)! Like, I keep trying to find some sort of flaw or catch or asterisk here that prevents me from recommending it to other 3D platformer/PS2 game/90's cartoon aficionados, but... no, it really is just that easy! Go play it somehow if this (or any of the other review here) intrigue you, it'll be 6 hours you won't forget!!
It's Coolio To The MAX!!!
Well, I'm pretty sure that's Poinie's Poin for me right now. I'm losing my mind at just how at home I felt playing through this early 00's treasure trove of saturated colour, psychedelic pop/rock/IDM/acid fusion soundscapes and some truly off-kilter writing (with the VA to match)! Like, I keep trying to find some sort of flaw or catch or asterisk here that prevents me from recommending it to other 3D platformer/PS2 game/90's cartoon aficionados, but... no, it really is just that easy! Go play it somehow if this (or any of the other review here) intrigue you, it'll be 6 hours you won't forget!!
It's Coolio To The MAX!!!