[Like Dating Someone Unafraid of Being Themselves]

"'[Linda] has this combination, this dangerous combination, of being an anime girl with capable skills who also knows exactly how hot she is. That is not- uh, that is just not a good scenario for any mediocre dude to get himself into." - Tim Rogers [1]

There is no one perfect, attractive person that can attract every other single person. And yet, for every person, there does exist a match, somewhere out there in this universe. What might be considered a physically attractive feature to one person might be an absolute turn off for another. But what matters is that for a given human, there exists someone out there on this weird, strange, wacky planet of ours that will be a compatible match, someone who loves every single little imperfection and curious trait owned by another, that makes a complete pair. They just have to be found.

Linda Cube Again defies genre both in story and in gameplay. Its story is broken up into three primary Scenarios, each with its own story beats and retellings of potential events that could take place. Scenario A involves rescuing Linda from Ken's evil twin brother, Nek who is clad in a Santa suit, Scenario B, features an unfortunately designed mad scientist who really really wants you to like his daughter, and Scenario C throws all of that character-driven drama to the wayside and tells you the tales of the planet of Neo Kenya (yes, the planet is called Neo Kenya) itself. By the end of Scenario C, you'll be rolling at just how many self-indulgent reference the game makes at its own stories. The gameplay is also one that that defies classification. At points it's an animal collecting game with an open world (eat your heart out Palworld and Pokemon), the point of the game after all is to collect a certain number of animals (one of each sex) on a giant Ark that can travel the cosmos sent by GOD HIMSELF. At other points it's a traditional turn-based menu-focused, Dragon Quest-y-Shin Megami Tensei-y puzzle role playing game with a half baked set of attacks. Yet still it is a psychological horror game with thrilling moments of suspense, disgusting body horror, considerations of life in the shadow of a looming apocalypse, and traumatic themes and events that constantly leave the player on their toes. But in full, this game is about Linda.

Linda! Linda! Linda!

Linda Cube Again is not a game for everyone in the same way that Linda herself is not for everyone. Linda is zany and crude, but utterly confident in herself and her ability to do what must be done. Likewise, Linda Cube Again is a game that wears its own quirks and design decisions with such confidence, that one cannot help but be attracted to it even if only for a moment. Linda defies a classification of a person. She is a wholly deep, fascinating human character, with her fair share of flaws.

The player's relationship with Linda over the three story scenarios is one of a blossoming relationship. While Ken knows Linda from their childhood experiences, the player has no context of who this "Linda" character is, or what she's supposed to mean. Therefore, her amnesia in Scenario A allows us, the player, to develop a more organic relationship with her. By the end of the scenario when we rescue her from Nek, the Santa Claus costume-garbed antagonist of the scenario, the player and Linda have had the opportunities to each mutually write upon their otherwise blank slates. In Scenario B, now Linda is your (read Ken's) fiancee, complete with a simulated marriage ceremony. But again Linda is taken away by intruders, and is physically deformed. In parallel, the game and the antagonist of the scenario introduces a second, more submissive and traditionally appealing, lady, Sachiko. Sachiko is a temptation for the player, but the player quickly realizes that Sachiko, both in the story and in combat, pales in comparison to Linda. The scenario continues on with Ken and Linda reaffirming their relationship to fix Linda by whatever means necessary, and continue their promises made as children to be together. By the third Scenario, Ken and Linda are married (albeit with some slipping-on-banana-peel-blacking-out-and-entering-a-coma-and-getting-married-during-this-period hijinks), and the gameplay reflects this union through a consistently powerful party both in combat, and through playful and friendly dialogue options throughout various gameplay circumstances. You're supposed to fall in love with Linda.

But maybe you don't like Linda that much. Maybe she doesn't appeal to you. Maybe her bombastic declarations of emotion and passion are a bit too much for you. That's okay, she appeals to Ken at the very least. But at the very least, Linda is a reliable party member in whom you can place your trust over the course of the gameplay. You can trust her to be exciting, yet rational when it counts. You can trust her to hit you on the back of the head with a two-by-four by then nurse you back to health.

Linda Cube Again is a lot like Linda. Linda cube Again is a wholly deep, fascinating game with its fair share of flaws.

The process of collecting animals takes on a variety of forms which range from mindlessly mashing the O button to do a basic attack to chip down an animal's HP to under 10% of its maximum HP to capture it, to carefully executing a plan so as to not do damage that exceeds 150% of an animals health, lest you destroy the animal, fail to capture it and gain no experience points. This mechanic of essentially destroying the enemy is unique to Linda Cube Again, and forces the player to be considerate of their strength and how it compares to the world around them. For example, animals like Monkeys might chase after you in the first hour of play and pose a significant threat, but after Ken's level surpasses 7, these monkeys will now pose minimal threat, and by level 15 the player has to take care that Ken doesn't just annihilate these monkeys with a basic slash of a weapon. While there are no other mechanical changes from what is otherwise a pretty standard turn-based RPG, the game presents a constantly changing gameplay loop on a micro level that forces that player to think about what they want to do on an encounter-to-encounter basis. Remember: the goal of the game is to RESCUE animals, not kill them. The game is about preserving life. If you want to kill the animals, just leave; there's a giant meteor coming to wipe out any forms of life in about eight years. But hey, if you find this gameplay loop of hunting down animals boring, I don't blame you. The game is essentially turning grinding into its core gameplay focus.

But that diminishes one of Linda Cube Again's greatest strengths: its unpredictability. I promise no spoilers in this review, but the quantity and quality of depth of exploration I've encountered in this game rivals almost no game I've played before. Capturing each animal is its own puzzle: some animals are basic and found on the overworld, but others are a bit more tricky. One species of animal only appears when Ken's HP is below half of its maximum. another only shows up once you've exterminated 20 different from of a different species during a specific season. Even more complex, one species of animal is thought to be extinct , but as it turns out there's an old man who collects endangered species and has them cryogenically frozen but he's also on his deathbed and craves turtle egg soup to recover, and then will also ask you to somehow find eggs of a protected species, and then after that will accidentally BOIL the animals, forcing you to find a flower that revives any animal, but can only be obtained from completing a DIFFERENT sidequest which involves finding "Hot Dung" (not Warm Dung, mind you), yes HOT DUNG to act as a fertilizer to revive a garden of wilted Cherry Blossoms so that a young girl can help convince her grandpa that he should leave the planet with her and not die alone on the planet when the meteor crashes in eight years. Then, and only then, can you obtain this species of animal (assuming you can't find it anywhere else on the planet), oh and by the way you'll need to somehow find a second set of this specific species to unlock access to ANOTHER HIDDEN ANIMAL. For what its worth, you can figure all of this out just from talking to NPCs and playing with every skill in Ken's arsenal, but hoo boy. Let me tell you, 100% completing this game is not for the faint of heart. But this all returns to the idea of exploration and unpredictability. It is the player's duty to explore the world placed before them to save the lives of at least a pair of every animal, no matter how big, small, useful, dangerous, cute, or ugly, and the game has to make this process feel exciting and surprising when and where possible so as to not make a task of this magnitude not feel overwhelming nor boring. And really, it's best to play this game without guide, as scary as that might seem in the year 2024. You're supposed to fall in love with Linda Cube Again.

(also it's important to note that there is a dogfighting area but actually doing dog fights is entirely optional and I did not partake in any myself. If dogfighting is against your morals even in video games, the game respectfully allows you to abstain, thanks Linda Cube Again, very cool).

I'd be remiss if I did not compliment the fan-translation team for their efforts on adapting everything in this game into English. It is clear from my near fifty hours in my initial playthrough that Cargodin, Esperkinght, Mr. Nobody, Mono, Gwendolyn, MatatabiMitsu and Radicaldreamerr but an incredible amount of care into translating presenting the game's absolutely bananas textual presentation. NPCs are as informative as they are hilarious to talk with (that is to say they actually made me have to pause the game from regular fits of laughter), and that's not something that any uncaring translation team could dream of accomplishing. Beyond the work of the original creators, this team's efforts help propel an otherwise menial game about collecting animals to new unhinged heights, and I must applaud everyone involved.

So take Linda out on date, see if you're compatible. Play Scenario A, it takes no more than 10 to 12 hours to play if you play with intention (you might even want to take notes while you play). See if it's for you, and if it is, play through Scenario B and C while keeping track of what you find in the world, and where you found it. And if you decide the game's not for you, that's okay. There is no truly perfect game that will appeal to every single gamer on the planet, so it falls to the gamers of the world to find the right game for them. If you're not compatible with a game or a person, it's better not to force it. I know this game will not appeal to everyone, but it doesn't need to. But with all of its inspired design choices and imperfections, I found myself absolutely obsessed with and devoted to this game. And to that end, I'm lucky enough to declare I've found a new favorite game.

Linda! Linda! Linda!

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[1]: This is where I'd link to the source of the quote, but Mr. Action Button said he'd yell at me if he ever saw me if I did link the source and I don't want that to happen. So I'll just say that this comes from a Patreon-specific backer reward and leave it at that. Maybe you can make like Ken and go exploring for yourself, maybe see what you can find.

Here's where I'm at with Pokémon Uranium: I think I'm someone who is more or less perfectly suited to discuss this game in a macroscopic sense. I am currently working on a PhD in Radiation Detection and Measurement, so I work with radioactive material, nuclear science, and even some energy and non-proliferation policy on a regular basis. I played this on stream with a number of peers who are all very well-educated in nuclear science, and we spent our time commenting on some of the nuclear-related things we saw. We did not finish the game, we dropped it around Gym #5, and I went and watched some of the gameplay on the internet to see what the rest of the game has to offer.

As previously noted, I have a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and I am working on a doctoral thesis related to radiation detection and measurement. I therefore, take umbrage with the way much of the science in this game is conveyed. It's a fictionalized game, sure. It's relatively unrealistic to expect the game devs to understand what the Klein-Nishina Cross-section is. But I really, really dislike how the "Nuclear Pokemon" are essentially just different Shadow Pokemon seen in the Gamecube Pokemon games. I think from a gameplay mechanic perspective, this is a really interesting take on the type chart, but from a story and flavor perspective, I just can't take it seriously. I understand it's not necessarily fair to critique a game strictly on its story and presentation, but the foundation of nuclear being presented as this mystical miasma of power is just plain faulty, and it really paints nuclear energy in a questionable light at best.

One example that generally stood out to all of us took place at Nuclear Plant Epsilon before the third gym. Not only is it entirely unrealistic that a new nuclear plant would be sited right next to an old site that had had a significant nuclear accident only 10 years prior, but the way that radiation is shown as this weird green gas is flat out wrong. I get that your player passes out from radiation sickness, and is later "treated" for it for the sake of a story, but that's just not how it works. If the game is going to lean into something that is extensively researched as nuclear science, I personally feel like there should be at least some responsibility from the devs to make sure that they get it a little closer to reality. It really feels like a few devs were really interested in what happened in Chernobyl and explored the idea of "what if this but in the Pokemon world?". I might be being a little too hard on the game for not being entirely accurate, but in a world where nuclear energy still struggles to be widely accepted by the general public through concerns of safety, Pokemon Uranium does little to assuage those concerns and instead leans into the idea of a modern "mystical corrupting ether power".

There's another factor that I want to bring up related to the presentation of "nuclear", the fact that there's an item that allows you to talk with Pokemon in English in this game. Generally, I feel as though it's a bit of a cop out to have the magical fantasy creatures to be able to suddenly speak English with the help of some device. I preferred the abstraction of people being able to understand their Pokemon through a serious of verbal cries. With the inclusion of the P.E.S., suddenly you can have Pokemon monologue which feels really weird. Then there's the fact that on Route 6 you have to knock out a series of Owten, that you can now understand. It gave me a weird ick feeling that I'll have to generally explore more, but in short I felt really uncomfortable attacking these animal-like Pokémon that could speak English. It's like if a Slime in Dragon Quest could suddenly demonstrate extreme intelligence. It's the exact problem Undertale demonstrates: "would you attack innocent creatures if you could understand them?". Ultimately, I won't dwell on this ethical concern too much, but I had to roll my eyes when I learned that Nuclear Pokemon (or "irradiated Pokemon", which agian, not how that works) are menacing killing machines who can only say something to the effect of "CRUSH KILL DESTROY".

As a Pokemon game, it's quite similar to the early 2010s Pokemon games where you REALLY have to grind to get Pokemon that can stand a chance. I think there's something to be said that the team was able to make a variety of relatively interesting fan-Pokemon, and it's great that they have a lot of ideas of what could be done to shake up the standard play loop. But at the same time, I really have to wonder why some obviously frustrating features were carried over, HMs being the prime example. Then there's also the fact that some Pokemon are hilariously intrinsically broken. Inflagetah, which I used for maybe an hour, is so obviously better than anything I had used up to that point that I have to wonder if it was worth using anything else, especially given how long I often took for anything to level up. I'm not expecting an Exp. All here, but fighting countless numbers of Smores and Minyans gets old quickly. I can't fault them for this too much though, this DOES feel like a Pokémon game, and quite impressively so.

From a pure Pokemon fan perspective, Pokemon Uranium is a really interesting and exciting fan game that presents a lot of interesting ideas, and creates a world that feels lived-in, and fleshed out. Design-wise the Pokemon are interesting, the world is interesting, and the story is nothing we had seen in a Pokemon Game until maybe until Sword and Shield. But I cannot get past my many gripes with the experience. It wasn't terribly fun to play, and I couldn't get into the story when it mattered most (mainly because of my own mental blocks).

Play it if you'd like, it's a really well-made fangame from a technical perspective, but I didn't really enjoy it.