My first DQ, and it's been a long, long time since I've gone into an adventure game this blind. I just let myself get immersed, talk to NPCs, and... I think I like RPGs after all? Oh no I'm downloading Octopath Traveler 2, oh noooo-

It's SUPER basic but I think that's just something you have to accept with a game from 1986. I kind of appreciated that. No party members, and your only damage spells are obsolete by like level 8. Just wail on that sword button until the numbers go up enough for you to win. A simpler time.

I don't think I could tell you ANY character or town names from this. One of the towns was Ken or something. The hero was called Ehrlich? Very generic (as in genre) all around, but I think that is also something you have to accept from a 1986 video game. I'll play the second one. I hope there are no recurring characters.

Yeah, it's gotten a little lamer in the last 7 years, and it's clearly a French interpretation of what American high schools (? is this a college? what is this school??) are like, but. I dunno. This still really really works for me. Arcadia Bay has such a strong sense of place that helps build this really specific vibe. It makes me wistful.

I think, even now but especially at the time, there were so few games about a female friendship set in the real-world present day that it was almost novel. Any complaints about mechanics or certain choices being unequal feel nitpicky, and my issues with the story (the canon ending feels too unceremonious to me, for one) kind of wash away in the grander context. It does a great job making you feel the weight of certain decisions even when you know they won't matter all that much in the end.

I was so enamored with this back in the day that I still don't have a good sense of its general reception. Is this a milestone game of the 2010s, or did it just arrive at a pivotal moment in my personal relationship to the medium? Because I definitely started treating games differently after this.

I liked the ending. I bet a lot of people won't, but I'm into it.

Most of what I have to say is pre-empted by the developers' note at the end. All I have left is I wish the game was more about the stuff it's about, but Monkey Island is a particular breed of adventure game that can only ever be what it is. I guess, I only played the first two. That dev note does make me want to go fill in the rest though.

Also the art style RULES and Twitter is awful.

I've always been romantic about radio. Maybe it's just inherited from American Graffiti, but I think I would actually listen to modern radio if there was more personality. That feeling that songs aren't just being spit out by a playlist, they have to be physically started by a DJ, someone selecting the programming and keeping you company in between. You and them, alone together, before the internet made that our default state.

So a game about listening to and interacting with radio DJs is immediately interesting, and given the inherent limitations I think it mostly works. The messages you send have to be phrases heard elsewhere, which meshes with the hacker angle. The story keeps it simple and I found a handful of fun easter eggs.

But that story just didn't engage me. This should not have been a time loop narrative. I get those are in style now and it's an easy explanation for why the radio broadcasts are so short (a couple minutes per chapter) but it's a video game, no one would mind if it just repeated. Time loops are such fantastical plot devices that every time the DJs matter-of-factly discuss "the vote on the proposed time loop" it's hard to take seriously. I get the sense the writers weren't quite sure where to take that story, because it ends on an anti-democratic note that's just as disconcerting in 2022 as it should have been in 2019.

I played this on Apple Arcade and it took like an hour or two. Can't say it's not worth it for that time and price.

Full disclosure, I turned on invincibility mode maybe 1/3 through because I was really interested in the story but not enjoying the combat very much. The combat seems good, just not for me.

I love so much of what this game is doing which makes the let down harsher. The setting and background are intriguing, but the story built on top of it is flat and doesn't have an ending. The collectible memos are fun though I kept getting distracted by how nonsensical the censorship was.

What I will remember this game forever for is the visual style. I think this is the first Remedy game I've played but from what I understand the FMV incorporation is something of a signature for the studio. I love that. There was an FMV musical moment towards the end that almost got me fully in love with this game until, again, no ending for the story. That style is something I definitely want to see more of.

As someone who has played the Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy story modes a few dozen times, I'd call this a worthy successor. Both series (This is going to be a series, right? I hope so.) try to capture what it feels like to be a Jedi on an adventure. In 2002 the answer was "Do a Quake." In 2019 it's "Do a Dark Souls."

And as a lifelong Star Wars fanatic I'm going to say the thing Star Wars fans always say that probably doesn't make sense if you're not one but if you know you know: This game just feels like Star Wars, y'know? The art design of this game is just magnificent. I really really enjoyed this.

One of my favorite cuts in film is towards the end of La Jetée: the prisoner, and the camera, gaze on the woman he has spent his time in the experiment chasing and then it instantly transforms into the scientist's face. The dream is over, reality has come to collect you.

This is the first game in my memory that has replicated that feeling. I realize it's hyperbolic to compare this modest quasi-visual-novel to one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time but I'm being honest about that excitement it left me with. The "I've never thought to tell a story like this" excitement. Excellent.

Aside: The URL for this Backloggd page spells out "If Found Dot Dot Dot" and I will be sure to pronounce it as such from now one.

BT is my best friend and I want to invite him to my slumber party.

The moral of the story is to always trust computers, which I guess is a nice change of pace from the normal way stories about machines go. Like, yeah, this thing can do way more math than I can, why wouldn't I let it throw me across a chasm? I do wish the story had more... story in it instead of being the usual type of "here's your excuse to go to the other end of this map" shooter story. But as someone who admittedly doesn't play that many shooters I did really enjoy the game-feel of this one, especially some certain single-level gimmicks that made me sad to realize they were single-level only.