Shymain
This review contains spoilers
Since every chapter is on this site individually, I may as well review them one by one as I play them. I'll start by noting that I am, in fact, playing these in Japanese, and frankly I'm pretty shit at Japanese. I can make it through Ace Attorney games without much issue and with a very high degree of comprehension, but that's because a) I've played them in the past and b) they're much simpler on the writing side, specialized legal jargon aside. (Seriously, from this episode alone I've mined like 500 vocab words, and I'm sure I could have mined another 200 or so that I chose not to mine.) So take this with a massive grain of salt.
That being said, if I were reading this in English, I probably wouldn't have made it through the first 30 minutes. That's not because of the pace -- this game is slow as anything I've ever played, which I'll return to later -- but because of the writing style. I clicked over to the English translation every once in a while to make sure that I wasn't egregiously off-track with my understanding of what was going on (I wasn't, thank god) and every single time I did, the god-awful stylization made me want to tear my eyes out. I'm sure some people find it charming, but it was truly painful.
I can't say much about the quality of prose in a language I'm still very much learning, but I can definitely speak to the plot, pace, and characters. The plot of this game is good as fuck, once it starts to be real. There is a ton of time in the early game where almost nothing happens apart from children doing children things and living a normal life. I think the game justifies this very well with the moments of meaning slowly sprinkled in throughout the first several chapters, and each of the tiny little plot teases was very impactful for it. That being said, I feel like the time could have been used better -- the characters are pretty one-note, and after an interaction or two you know everything there is to know about them. I think the game is really aware of this, too, as after a few chapters it starts omitting a lot of the everyday stuff to just hit you with the key points.
Once the game gets going? Incredible for a few chapters. The festival had some of the best atmosphere in any VN I've read, and the next couple chapters were very tense and had me on the edge of my seat. Unfortunately, the encounters end up being very same-y, repetitive, and frankly stretched my belief further than I'm willing to extend it (as far as the behavior of non-possessed humans goes, specifically) and so the game really loses its spark towards the end. By the final chapter I was really wishing I could read as fast as I can in English so I could just be done with the episode already.
I want to say that the mystery was good in this episode, and maybe later on I will find out that it is. But for now, I feel like I have no fucking clue what's going on apart from some vague thing about the village being cursed (I did actually pick up that the possessed Mion and Rena specifically knew when people left or entered the village, which I was proud about when that was mentioned later on) and, er, everyone dying? Okay, in fairness, that's an exaggeration. I get the whole "there are three possible theories" thing that the game was going for with possession vs conspiracy vs delusion, and I'm almost certain that the game telling us those are the three options means it will be something completely different revealed later on. Of the three, I'd certainly lean towards the former with a bias to the "well-technically-it's-not-possession-it's-weird-medical-technology-or-something-that-lets-us-brainwash-people" school of Professor Layton-style bullshit. Which I hope I'm wrong about, because Professor Layton is campy enough to get away with it excellently, and this game decidedly is not.
I guess now's a good time to say that I'm going in, like, 98% blind on this -- I have a number of friends who are really big fans of this game series, so over the course of years of discussions that I didn't pay attention to, I know that somehow there's something like a time loop involved, and I was really expecting that to be set up towards the end of this episode. As it stands, it wasn't -- instead, everyone fucking dies, the end. Which is honestly cool as hell, but I don't get what is left to read? Like, there's the obvious cliffhanger with Ooishi presumably having the vial and doing an investigation on his own, but somehow I doubt that's what happens next just based on the fact that all the chapters in my steam library have pictures of the main five kids as their cover art. What the fuck is up with that?
This all sounds like I'm being critical, I'm sure, but I'm not. I'm very confused and tentatively very excited about what is to come, and I hope it lives up to the high expectations that this chapter has set. It's clear there's some sort of superstructure to the way this series is going to work, I just have no clue what it is. As such, that makes it really hard to give this game a fair and proper rating, so I fully reserve the right to come back and completely change it later based on whether I think it does its job in the overall scheme of the game well.
Actually, you know what, I lied earlier when saying that I can't evaluate the prose quality. I definitely can on one specific point: repetition. Holy fuck. I do not need to read Keiichi saying the same line four times in different ways and then thirty seconds later doing it again and then next chapter thinking back to the same line four times in different ways and then summarizing the same line four times in different ways by saying it in four more different ways and JESUS CHRIST unless this game gives me a very, very good justification for why it's doing this, I am just going to assume it's poorly written low-quality filler. Great for language learning, though.
Anyways, all said and done, this game feels like it has left me with a ton of questions, and I have a feeling they aren't going to be answered any time soon. It has an excellent tense atmosphere for half the game, it rewards you for making it through for a handful of chapters, and then becomes a slog. It stands to be seen whether future episodes can justify some of the contrivances in this episode well enough to make it really good, but even as a standalone work, I'm fairly happy with this. Would tentatively recommend.
That being said, if I were reading this in English, I probably wouldn't have made it through the first 30 minutes. That's not because of the pace -- this game is slow as anything I've ever played, which I'll return to later -- but because of the writing style. I clicked over to the English translation every once in a while to make sure that I wasn't egregiously off-track with my understanding of what was going on (I wasn't, thank god) and every single time I did, the god-awful stylization made me want to tear my eyes out. I'm sure some people find it charming, but it was truly painful.
I can't say much about the quality of prose in a language I'm still very much learning, but I can definitely speak to the plot, pace, and characters. The plot of this game is good as fuck, once it starts to be real. There is a ton of time in the early game where almost nothing happens apart from children doing children things and living a normal life. I think the game justifies this very well with the moments of meaning slowly sprinkled in throughout the first several chapters, and each of the tiny little plot teases was very impactful for it. That being said, I feel like the time could have been used better -- the characters are pretty one-note, and after an interaction or two you know everything there is to know about them. I think the game is really aware of this, too, as after a few chapters it starts omitting a lot of the everyday stuff to just hit you with the key points.
Once the game gets going? Incredible for a few chapters. The festival had some of the best atmosphere in any VN I've read, and the next couple chapters were very tense and had me on the edge of my seat. Unfortunately, the encounters end up being very same-y, repetitive, and frankly stretched my belief further than I'm willing to extend it (as far as the behavior of non-possessed humans goes, specifically) and so the game really loses its spark towards the end. By the final chapter I was really wishing I could read as fast as I can in English so I could just be done with the episode already.
I want to say that the mystery was good in this episode, and maybe later on I will find out that it is. But for now, I feel like I have no fucking clue what's going on apart from some vague thing about the village being cursed (I did actually pick up that the possessed Mion and Rena specifically knew when people left or entered the village, which I was proud about when that was mentioned later on) and, er, everyone dying? Okay, in fairness, that's an exaggeration. I get the whole "there are three possible theories" thing that the game was going for with possession vs conspiracy vs delusion, and I'm almost certain that the game telling us those are the three options means it will be something completely different revealed later on. Of the three, I'd certainly lean towards the former with a bias to the "well-technically-it's-not-possession-it's-weird-medical-technology-or-something-that-lets-us-brainwash-people" school of Professor Layton-style bullshit. Which I hope I'm wrong about, because Professor Layton is campy enough to get away with it excellently, and this game decidedly is not.
I guess now's a good time to say that I'm going in, like, 98% blind on this -- I have a number of friends who are really big fans of this game series, so over the course of years of discussions that I didn't pay attention to, I know that somehow there's something like a time loop involved, and I was really expecting that to be set up towards the end of this episode. As it stands, it wasn't -- instead, everyone fucking dies, the end. Which is honestly cool as hell, but I don't get what is left to read? Like, there's the obvious cliffhanger with Ooishi presumably having the vial and doing an investigation on his own, but somehow I doubt that's what happens next just based on the fact that all the chapters in my steam library have pictures of the main five kids as their cover art. What the fuck is up with that?
This all sounds like I'm being critical, I'm sure, but I'm not. I'm very confused and tentatively very excited about what is to come, and I hope it lives up to the high expectations that this chapter has set. It's clear there's some sort of superstructure to the way this series is going to work, I just have no clue what it is. As such, that makes it really hard to give this game a fair and proper rating, so I fully reserve the right to come back and completely change it later based on whether I think it does its job in the overall scheme of the game well.
Actually, you know what, I lied earlier when saying that I can't evaluate the prose quality. I definitely can on one specific point: repetition. Holy fuck. I do not need to read Keiichi saying the same line four times in different ways and then thirty seconds later doing it again and then next chapter thinking back to the same line four times in different ways and then summarizing the same line four times in different ways by saying it in four more different ways and JESUS CHRIST unless this game gives me a very, very good justification for why it's doing this, I am just going to assume it's poorly written low-quality filler. Great for language learning, though.
Anyways, all said and done, this game feels like it has left me with a ton of questions, and I have a feeling they aren't going to be answered any time soon. It has an excellent tense atmosphere for half the game, it rewards you for making it through for a handful of chapters, and then becomes a slog. It stands to be seen whether future episodes can justify some of the contrivances in this episode well enough to make it really good, but even as a standalone work, I'm fairly happy with this. Would tentatively recommend.
The base game is my favorite piece of gaming media of all time. This expansion is mid enough that I couldn't be assed to finish it, and I honestly think its inclusion in the game makes it moderately worse (and potentially MUCH worse if you are a first time player who somehow stumbles upon the DLC before beating the game). It's baffling that this came from the same people that made the base game. Cool lore expansion, though.
2022
This review contains spoilers
it was very brave to have the final boss be the most clunky bullet hell of all time. glad i beat it on attempt one because i would not have had the patience for a runback. otherwise it was a banger game. frustrating in all the right ways for a survival horror
why the FUCK did they remove friend areas?? my favorite thing in games are weird little niche areas that are pretty and have no purpose other than to wander around and interact with things. i want my goofy little places back! please!
Being a Yugi-Boomer is legitimately a skill issue. Could never be me — I know how to read.
2020
Outrageously short. Maybe 30 minutes of gameplay, and the entire thing felt like a tutorial. Hoping that I can get a refund for this on Steam after leaving it open for a couple hours while doing chores. Really disappointing, given that the mechanics and general gamefeel are quite good in a vaccuum. They just forgot to make the actual game.
Also, let's be completely honest -- how do you make a mystery/detective game and entirely forget to have any interesting mysteries whatsoever? This felt like the worst bits of every Ace Attorney etc. investigation section stuck together.
Also, let's be completely honest -- how do you make a mystery/detective game and entirely forget to have any interesting mysteries whatsoever? This felt like the worst bits of every Ace Attorney etc. investigation section stuck together.
2023
The best part of this game is that you can pick up any random office chair and hurl it at random citizens to instantly crumple them with zero consequences, which comes in useful during stealth, when you're being chased, when you're dealing with witnesses to the other chair-assaults you've committed, when you can't really figure out what to do next, and most of all it comes in useful when the game entirely breaks and locks you out of completing a mission so you have nothing else to do anyways.
Wait, this is a detective game? What the fuck?
Wait, this is a detective game? What the fuck?
Upon finally beating Sword Saint Isshin and completing the game for the first time, I was insistent that this was an easy five star game. While doing a couple NG+ runs for the platinum, it became obvious just how much of the game is superfluous and mediocre at best. You could largely cut out much of the first half of the game (and try not putting the least fun mini-bosses in the game towards the very beginning) and it would be a much tighter and more polished experience.
That being said, the combat system and boss fights are so incredibly satisfying that it would be hard for me to give this game anything less than a near-perfect score. Sekiro is at its best when it focuses on getting everything it can out of its combat system, and it hits those highs in nearly every single boss fight, keeping you on your toes all the while without losing sight of being fair and well-designed.
That being said, the combat system and boss fights are so incredibly satisfying that it would be hard for me to give this game anything less than a near-perfect score. Sekiro is at its best when it focuses on getting everything it can out of its combat system, and it hits those highs in nearly every single boss fight, keeping you on your toes all the while without losing sight of being fair and well-designed.
GRAHHHHH THIS GAME FUCKING ROCKS SECOND BEST IN THE SERIES ONLY TO AAI2 AND ALL YOU NERDS WHO DISAGREE ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2017
I don't get why people keep trying to tell me that this game has a great story. It has a terrible story! It just has really good lore (albeit lore that you've seen several times over if you're into sci-fi at all). Hunting the robot dinos is, however, fun as hell, and I platted this game in a weekend like a complete loser.
I love being spooked and I love tall goth women who will literally kill me. This is the first game to combine both of those so expertly.
This is my most embarrassing game opinion. I had a blast with this game somehow, despite my recent replay exposing just how shallow this game actually is when you actually use the sprint button. This is such a messy, buggy, unfinished piece of shit game that was CLEARLY intended to progress in real time rather than in some weird story-gated segments, and that hypothetical real-time game would have actually been a good game. This one is not. And yet I had such a good time with it in an incredibly campy way that I can't give it the 2* it probably deserves.
2021
I cry like a baby every time I think about this game. I have played it twice and I can't fucking wait until I've spent another year intentionally forgetting everything about this game so I can experience it anew again. Have I mentioned I'm a sucker for existentialist themes before? This game fucking hits right in that specific niche of feels. It deserves a much better and more thorough review than this but I am doing everything I can to forget it so I can play it again ASAP, so this is all you get.
2020
This game almost convinced me to not play any other FromSoft games because of how shit the balance is -- every boss is either trivial or an un-fun pain in the ass, and the optimal way of engaging with the world is to not. Just run past everything to the bosses. Great game design! Pretty much the only boss I enjoyed was the final boss, and even that was offset by the fact that in the like 9-10 attempts it took to beat him I had to either fully reset the game or sludge through an incredibly annoying sequence of enemies on the way back.
Thankfully, this game didn't convince me to not play any further, because Sekiro is incredible and I'm glad I didn't miss out on an actual good game because of this one.
Thankfully, this game didn't convince me to not play any further, because Sekiro is incredible and I'm glad I didn't miss out on an actual good game because of this one.
2020
Incredibly shallow and repetitive. I don't even see how this is appealing to the suspiciously fascist fanbases of these kinds of games. Maybe I have a skewed opinion coming hot off the heels of my fourth playthrough of Suzerain, though.