Turquoisephoenix
2020
Short but sweet. This might be the first game about death I've played that can be accurately described as "cozy" without it sounding like a backhanded compliment.
You play as Morris Lupton, the recently deceased curator of the museum on the island of Shelmerston. After frittering about his new free time in the museum he once worked at (his old haunts, if you will), he reunites with his dog Sparky in the afterlife and Sparky reveals that A) she is now a talking dog and B) Shelmerston's dormant volcano is going to explode due to the waning powers of the island's protector, Aggi the Custodian. With the help of Sparky, Morris searches across the island for some more ghosts, uncovering their history, stories and secrets, in an attempt to find a new patron of the island before it's too late.
As a whole, I liked this little five hour experience. The two best ways I can describe the gameplay are "point-and-click Where's Waldo" and "art piece diorama". You're a ghost that can phase through objects and see the innards of things as you go about, collecting the memories of other ghosts. It's all just picking things up in the environment, rotating them around, and discovering their secrets, but it's also a beautiful and gentle contemplation of memory and loss, of the connections we form in life before we pass on, and about the odd ways you'll be remembered. But you can also gaze inside a thermos and see what color tea a sea captain was drinking.
The game starts out all jovial by having beloved pillars of the community like a yoga-loving lighthouse keeper or someone's husband, but then you also get to visit a campsite where a nature lover is remembered for being a prickly asshole. Ironically, the prickly asshole was the character that stuck with me the most. The other ghosts have family members and friends fondly remembering their loved ones (the second ghost in particular is a 37-year old woman remembered by her father, who tragically outlives her) but then you get to the campsite where a dead man's camper has been left abandoned to the elements and all the campers are mildly relieved that the weird owl-obsessed loner guy with all the strict rules is gone. It's this story - this tale of a guy remembered for being an asshole in life, even if he had a good reason for it - that keeps the game from feeling too saccharine. Sometimes, death happens to the guy that was just kinda annoying.
The game also gently eases you into its whole "this may LOOK like Earth but also there's weird fish people and bird people living alongside humanity, and also there might be fruit people?" setting over time, which I enjoyed. Sure, you're dead, the island might explode, and the dude in the camper is mainly remembered by people who hate him for confiscating their kite, but also you can find a four-legged pear man smoking a corn pipe in each level.
The ending is kinda underwhelming though. You spend the entire game looking for a Custodian to keep the island's volcano from erupting and wiping out the entire island but then, after talking to the Bronze Age woman who's the current Custodian (which, sidenote - I appreciate that this game didn't treat her beliefs as "primitive" and "wrong" or had her talk like a caveman), the game just kinda rolls credits without saying anything concrete. It is rather easy to connect some dots and come to a conclusion (that your main character and their dog are the new Custodians), but also it's weird that the sense of urgency that's been brewing for the entire runtime of the game just sorta fizzles into a lazy walk on the beach. I feel like "Does a volcano explode?" is one of those questions that shouldn't be left vague.
Ah well. It's cute, it's a fun little art piece, and I honestly think this particular game flew under the radar for a lot of people. I just wish the talking dog had a more convincing dog bark than "human-making-a-vaguely-dog-noise" and the weird goat man that looks like Discord from My Little Pony didn't give me such a strict time limit on his riddles.
You play as Morris Lupton, the recently deceased curator of the museum on the island of Shelmerston. After frittering about his new free time in the museum he once worked at (his old haunts, if you will), he reunites with his dog Sparky in the afterlife and Sparky reveals that A) she is now a talking dog and B) Shelmerston's dormant volcano is going to explode due to the waning powers of the island's protector, Aggi the Custodian. With the help of Sparky, Morris searches across the island for some more ghosts, uncovering their history, stories and secrets, in an attempt to find a new patron of the island before it's too late.
As a whole, I liked this little five hour experience. The two best ways I can describe the gameplay are "point-and-click Where's Waldo" and "art piece diorama". You're a ghost that can phase through objects and see the innards of things as you go about, collecting the memories of other ghosts. It's all just picking things up in the environment, rotating them around, and discovering their secrets, but it's also a beautiful and gentle contemplation of memory and loss, of the connections we form in life before we pass on, and about the odd ways you'll be remembered. But you can also gaze inside a thermos and see what color tea a sea captain was drinking.
The game starts out all jovial by having beloved pillars of the community like a yoga-loving lighthouse keeper or someone's husband, but then you also get to visit a campsite where a nature lover is remembered for being a prickly asshole. Ironically, the prickly asshole was the character that stuck with me the most. The other ghosts have family members and friends fondly remembering their loved ones (the second ghost in particular is a 37-year old woman remembered by her father, who tragically outlives her) but then you get to the campsite where a dead man's camper has been left abandoned to the elements and all the campers are mildly relieved that the weird owl-obsessed loner guy with all the strict rules is gone. It's this story - this tale of a guy remembered for being an asshole in life, even if he had a good reason for it - that keeps the game from feeling too saccharine. Sometimes, death happens to the guy that was just kinda annoying.
The game also gently eases you into its whole "this may LOOK like Earth but also there's weird fish people and bird people living alongside humanity, and also there might be fruit people?" setting over time, which I enjoyed. Sure, you're dead, the island might explode, and the dude in the camper is mainly remembered by people who hate him for confiscating their kite, but also you can find a four-legged pear man smoking a corn pipe in each level.
The ending is kinda underwhelming though. You spend the entire game looking for a Custodian to keep the island's volcano from erupting and wiping out the entire island but then, after talking to the Bronze Age woman who's the current Custodian (which, sidenote - I appreciate that this game didn't treat her beliefs as "primitive" and "wrong" or had her talk like a caveman), the game just kinda rolls credits without saying anything concrete. It is rather easy to connect some dots and come to a conclusion (that your main character and their dog are the new Custodians), but also it's weird that the sense of urgency that's been brewing for the entire runtime of the game just sorta fizzles into a lazy walk on the beach. I feel like "Does a volcano explode?" is one of those questions that shouldn't be left vague.
Ah well. It's cute, it's a fun little art piece, and I honestly think this particular game flew under the radar for a lot of people. I just wish the talking dog had a more convincing dog bark than "human-making-a-vaguely-dog-noise" and the weird goat man that looks like Discord from My Little Pony didn't give me such a strict time limit on his riddles.
2018
As someone who loved Sea of Stars enough to Platinum it, I'm sad that The Messenger didn't win me over in the same way. Instead I was mostly really annoyed that this game's plot connections to Sea of Stars were the exact opposite of a cinematic payoff. Sure, all the shared locations and music were really cute, but all of the villains that stepped through a portal and walked out of the plot of Sea of Stars all just come back as pretty generic demon monsters and that's a little irritating.
It genuinely adds nothing to know that the Demon King was once four reoccurring minibosses and a Dweller glued together by the Fleshmancer for the shits 'n' giggles. The villain who would later become Barma'thazël has his memory wiped so nothing about this character carries over between games beyond his facial hair. Could've just let me defeat all those guys in the RPG I was playing earlier instead of playing Keep Away.
Narrative connection gripes aside, it is what most people say - The Messenger's first half is probably the best Ninja Gaiden clone you'll ever hope to play with a gorgeous sprite art and soundtrack, an absolute delight of a 2D platformer that plays well and gives the player enough of a toolbox to do sick endless jumps through their environment...and then it decides to be a mediocre Metroidvania and just piss away your time with obnoxious backtracking as you comb the map for shiny things while Quarble is eating your time shards and making rude calls to your mother.
The Metroidvania part really is the iron shackle chained to The Messenger's ankle that drags the whole game down. The level designs in this game are not a one-size-fits-all for both pure 2D Ninja Gaiden bliss and explore-y, backtrack-y Metroidvania-ing. Scarce checkpoint placement that's forgivable for a tough action game becomes an absolute slog if I have to explore the same long stretch of map over and over again for a fetch-quest. Howling Grotto and Searing Crags in particular were revisited a good 4-5 times during my Platinum run and I was starting to get really bored of gliding through the same air vents over and over and over.
It's a shame too, because after you choke down the second half's backtracking like a leftover turkey sandwich and get all the magical MacGuffins, you're rewarded with an amazing final level that times the environmental hazards to the music, reminding you of the game that The Messenger could've been from start to finish.
Despite all of that, I'd say it's a decent game. It has extremely high highs but then trips and sprains its ankle for a couple hours because it needed that cool little hook to set it apart from its retro contemporaries. I stuck around long enough to Platinum it too; I just miss the cool game that it was until it decided to become tedious.
It genuinely adds nothing to know that the Demon King was once four reoccurring minibosses and a Dweller glued together by the Fleshmancer for the shits 'n' giggles. The villain who would later become Barma'thazël has his memory wiped so nothing about this character carries over between games beyond his facial hair. Could've just let me defeat all those guys in the RPG I was playing earlier instead of playing Keep Away.
Narrative connection gripes aside, it is what most people say - The Messenger's first half is probably the best Ninja Gaiden clone you'll ever hope to play with a gorgeous sprite art and soundtrack, an absolute delight of a 2D platformer that plays well and gives the player enough of a toolbox to do sick endless jumps through their environment...and then it decides to be a mediocre Metroidvania and just piss away your time with obnoxious backtracking as you comb the map for shiny things while Quarble is eating your time shards and making rude calls to your mother.
The Metroidvania part really is the iron shackle chained to The Messenger's ankle that drags the whole game down. The level designs in this game are not a one-size-fits-all for both pure 2D Ninja Gaiden bliss and explore-y, backtrack-y Metroidvania-ing. Scarce checkpoint placement that's forgivable for a tough action game becomes an absolute slog if I have to explore the same long stretch of map over and over again for a fetch-quest. Howling Grotto and Searing Crags in particular were revisited a good 4-5 times during my Platinum run and I was starting to get really bored of gliding through the same air vents over and over and over.
It's a shame too, because after you choke down the second half's backtracking like a leftover turkey sandwich and get all the magical MacGuffins, you're rewarded with an amazing final level that times the environmental hazards to the music, reminding you of the game that The Messenger could've been from start to finish.
Despite all of that, I'd say it's a decent game. It has extremely high highs but then trips and sprains its ankle for a couple hours because it needed that cool little hook to set it apart from its retro contemporaries. I stuck around long enough to Platinum it too; I just miss the cool game that it was until it decided to become tedious.
Benign and casual little puzzle game from India that'll take you around 1-2 hours to beat. Neither ground-breaking nor exciting in any way, but you can also tell that it's a labor of love from its small indie team based in Karnataka.
Also the level select music sounds a little bit like "To Zanarkand" from Final Fantasy X.
Also the level select music sounds a little bit like "To Zanarkand" from Final Fantasy X.
Those mad lads at Rare managed to pack one of the funniest NES co-op experiences and one of the worst, most grueling NES single player adventures into the same game. You can hang out with a friend and be silly little ball-gobbling snakes in the first four or so levels, but don't travel too far or else you'll be subjected to some of the worst level designs ever crafted by human hands and tricked into licking a regenerating human foot on the moon.
2020
I can't bring myself to get all the endings in this 30 minute visual novel because some of them would require being mean to the magical evil skeleton wizard named "Vulcuzar, The Lord of Crawling Bone".
2019
This is such an incredible experience because you would think the most terrifying part of the game would be the existential dread, the inevitability of death, or the cold unfeeling vacuum of space...only for the game to say "What if there were giant space fish with scary teeth, that'd sure be fucked up".