Cosmology of Kyoto is an odd artefact from an era in which the popularization of personal computers, and computer games, led to a wave of experimentation with the digital medium, which gave us a lot of very interesting pieces that don't always fit with what we currently think of when we think "computer game".

If we look at it with a contemporary lens Cosmology of Kyoto is a horror game, a point-and-click adventure, a walking simulator and an edutainment game. But I don't think that kind of labelling would do it any justice. What I would call it instead is an exercise in form. The odd, fragmented structure; the freeform almost museum-like quality of the play; the functional and mood-driving use of death, are all incredibly interesting takes on how a digital space could be structured. To an extent they feel like evolutionary dead ends, but that's not for any inherent failing of their own, but because adventure games moved from there in totally different (and more lucrative) directions.

But yeah, no, you should probably play this if you like video games.

And, like, content-wise it's super spooky while at the same time being quite interesting and informative. Perfect Halloween game tbh.

But also, I dunno, I look at Cosmology of Kyoto and its very purposeful design decisions, and I think about what could have video games been if that wave of computer games had been allowed to flourish. It feels like we lost quite a lot when the medium became this "ease of use modern fun design" monolith, and left this kind of structural experimentations, not necessarily rooted in videogame-isms, behind.

Ok so. You got: a plot that seems to be picked straight out of a quaint YA fantasy novel, aesthetics that are peak late-00s, and combat mechanics that desperately try to mimic the play aesthetic of seventh gen western action games while at the same time being also, like, sort of very fun in their own right. I'm honestly here from all of it.

Is The Last Story clumsy? Sure. I died laughing the first time I saw enemies hiding behind chest-high walls like this was Gears of War, despite everyone in the fight being armed with swords.

But, I dunno, I love how briskly is it paced; I love how it completely commits to its silly narrative tropes; I love the idiot main character having a full-on dissociative episode when he discovers that the military is actually bad; I love how creative the boss fights and setpieces get at times; I love that everyone in this high fantasy world sounds like they're from modern London; and honestly I just love its state as the historical oddity that it is. Being a full-fledged artifact of an era where the industry was Really trying to bridge the gap between classic jrpgs and modern action games.

While in the end, we realized that that gap maybe didn't need to be bridged at all, I'm glad those in-between years gave us games like The Last Story. As their exploratory nature makes them very unique and interesting.

But yeah, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It's a silly fun time. It joins Crystal Bearers on the short but ever-important list of "Wii games with unique vibes that have surprisingly detailed interaction design and are generally very good and fun and too few people have played". Which is not an actual list, but eventually I might have to make it an actual list.

Happy 2024!

Fantasy Zone MD's a great port of the original, and playing it side by side with Super on the same console really highlights the differences between the two. Never realized how heavily the feeling of bullet hell was evoked from the raw density of microscopic bullet waves - compared to Super, much more reserved and of its era but with larger hitboxes and less movable space. As always, M2's customization bells and whistles are greatly appreciated.

I guess my problem w/ this port is there's nothing new to see or do here? Hideki Konishi's other supported M2 port, Darius (and its upgrade, Extra) is this definitive version of a game whose quality varied greatly across ports: The 26 bosses, rebalances, and boss rush were all finally in one convenient spot. By contrast, Fantasy Zone is hardly different from any other versions you've played, and the portjob doesn't add any Genesis-y juice to its flavor. I would've preferred if they finally ported R Type Leo like they proposed in the past, or any other shmups that had been under-represented.

Ufouria/Hebereke 2 was developed by a small team from a new development studio called Tasto Alpha, the heads appear to mostly be Grasshopper Manufacture alumni. From what I can tell this is only their second game, the first being a card-based RPG from last year. The sound director for Ufouria 2 was one of the composers on Godhand, the director was one of several planners on Rule of Rose. The game has a charming aesthetic, great new remixes of tunes from the original game, and a good sense of humor. It's structured less like the "search action" style of the original, and more like a scaled down Amazing Mirror with extremely lite Rogue elements. The game is about 3 hours long and the last chunk is mostly mirrored versions of previous levels.

2 months into 2024, this is the most fun I've had with a new game this year. In fairness, there are a lot of games that I would be unsurprised if I had more fun with them when I eventually play them, and some of those games are already out. Maybe I'll like Infinite Wealth more than this, but I want to play other games in the series first. Maybe I'll like Relink more than this, but when that game launched it wasn't on my radar.

A couple weeks ago Penny's Big Breakaway "shadow dropped". I don't want to be too hard on it, because it's definitely an interesting game, because I think I could reasonably speculate on what could possibly be going on in the games industry climate for them to want to rush a sellable product out the door as soon as possible, and because some of the issues I have with it could be patched. One of the main things I've found myself thinking as I try to make more progress through the game is whether or not I would care about the game's collision issues, audio problems, and general "jank" if it were a PS2 game. Next to the latest Nintendo platformers Breakaway falls a little short, but it's clear sense of style and sheer amount of content for a game of its type would have made it a must-buy a couple decades ago. It's the exact kind of game you could imagine Treasure making if they were still around today, but the standards a lot of players have today are likely part of the reason Treasure's future exists mostly in rumors.

Ufouria 2 is a much easier game than the original, but could a game with those kinds of expectations still appeal to the intended audience of the IP? We're stuck with a classic problem of bringing back a piece of media like this, is it hard enough for returning adult fans while being easy enough for the possible new generation? A longplay of the original NES game is about half the length of my playthrough of the new one; even if the game's semi-random level layouts offer a bit of padding, it's definitely of comparable length, probably just a bit bigger. If Ufouria 2 was an NES game, or a SNES game like the many Japan-only spin-offs, would we remember it? Does Ufouria: The Saga already give us the answer to that question?

Would I recommend Ufouria 2? Do I think you should wait for a sale? These are absurd questions. If enough small teams existed around the world making games of this exact scope that one game like this released every week, I know exactly how I would spend Friday night every weekend. I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less. I hope these guys were paid well.

Amazing RPG. No two chapter feels alike, and (aside from prehistory) theyre all amazing. If I had to rank them, it would be as follows:
1. Near Future
2. Imperial China
3. Present Day
4. Wild West
5. Distant Future
6. Middle Ages
7. Twilight of Edo Japan
8. Pre-history

they turned granblue into an action rpg they turned granblue into an action rpg
only thing it's really missing is danchou's job system from the mobile game, I can see why they dropped it but if they had sprinkled a little more FFIII/V in here it would be even more insane, similar feeling towards summons being mechanically present but I feel like SBA fulfills a similar enough purpose. Only really one mission where I feel like they missed, otherwise it's all bangers, lots of fun bosses and I find it very easy to draw parallels to a certain Kingdom Hearts the Second (also peak). Honestly even just hitting the ground and getting into that opening mission, hearing granblue music in a real ass RPG had me feeling some raw emotions for a moment
also it's got monster hunter lobbies and postgame quest progression
simply put, it's peak, rebirth and destruction my dudes

Issue 13 of the Official UK PS2 Magazine, published November 2001, came with a demo disk containing a handful of levels from the then soon-to-be-released Klonoa 2. Playing this demo tens of times as a wean would be my only exposure to Klonoa 2 for nearly 23 years. Despite Klonoa 1 being a childhood favourite, and a formative cornerstone that had no doubt informed my tastes and passion for videogames; I only managed to get around to Klonoa 2 proper earlier today. I’d have gotten around to it sooner, were it not for the fact that Klonoa 2 was one of a few outlier cases of games that emulated horribly on PCSX2. Fugged to the nines until relatively recent revamps in compatibility were instated. Aptly enough, it was so surreal playing the levels from the demo once again - it all came flooding back like fleeting memories returning to me from a dream fighting to be recalled.

Soberingly, I don’t think I’m anywhere near as red hot on this game as I still am with Klonoa 1. Perhaps K2 had spent too long being gassed up, cooking and stirring in my head as an elusive cryptid. On many fundamental levels I think this is absolutely beautiful work. Demonstrating incredible emotional maturity in its final hours of the narrative representative of a slightly aged Klonoa, through heartfelt writing and vocal performances. A soundtrack brimming with disparate ideas and delivering them w/ confidence, grappling a wide array of influences and energies. For such an early PS2 game, these cutscenes are composited so brilliantly, giving characters illustrative frames to act in, staging the environments in striking ways… we still get things like this wrong!! I particularly love how the camera would move during boss fights, not only tracking the boss’ movements but also working to sell their scale and let them act on the stage! Incredible level design too, making great use of unique stage quirks to impose puzzle-like ordeals - the colour changing enemy was an enlightened addition. Klonoa 2 is the proud owner of an amazing final level, too - a true sum of all of it’s works with stellar level design, and thoughtful use of music and visuals.

I’m less keen on how weak a handful of the stages in the game are, both visually and in terms of level design. I’m even less keen on the repetition the game will impose on you, it’s not enough that they’ll re-use levels at certain points; you’d also need to run a few laps around some levels as you collect keys/activate elevators and such. It’s a bit more draining than it’s necessarily worth, in my humble, made worse due to the fact that levels in this game are wildly long and can be a bit plain. If I had to be brutally honest, I think Klonoa 1 does a better job at conceptualising its levels around its many disparate worlds, wrapping around and winding between the background geometry in a way that makes it all the more satisfying to explore. It would be nice if Klonoa himself had more of an active role in the story than an optimistic errand boy. It stands in stark contrast to the first Klonoa game where he’s incredibly emotionally invested in the proceedings, but I’m sure the plan here was to demonstrate that he’s an older and wiser character this time around, more clear on his Unico-like role in life and letting the world speak for itself. There’s tremendous merit to that and I can’t help but feel more of a relation to a Klonoa who isn’t thrashing out at the world when playtime is over, but I’m a theatre kid at heart I suppose oh god.

Admittedly I played Klonoa 2 in a bit of a goofy way, where I'd finish a level, and then skim a longplay of the same level from the 2022 remaster for comparison. I can only be honest here, but I think both of them have merit! The remaster fucks up the vibes in key locations with awful colour choices, blown out bloom and weird fullbright lighting. The level in sheer darkness, necessitating you to use a limited light resource to be able to see the geometry is ruined in the remaster because it’s already so well lit you don’t even need the light spirits! But I think the additions to the geometry and character models made in the remaster are really well considered, fleshing out the world enough for them to feel closer to realisation without diminishing their overt dream-like quality. My annoying brainwyrms are expertly trained to hate the aesthetic haemorrhaging that occurs from changes and concessions these remasters tend to make, but my ideal Klonoa 2 sits somewhere between the two versions..... (I want to know what the remaster changed the weird Full Metal Jacket cypher into)