absolute hall of fame endgame idec how rushed it was. mechanisms and items stripped of any intuitive meanings outside of feeling around in the dark w your verbs, harnessing adventure game puzzle indecipherableness to have you completely in tune w the total dissolution of curtis's semiotic world. and no one cared or even thought it was worth evaluating outside of "bad fmv game puzzle" so that proves i deserve video games more than most of you. MY denpa eroge, MY documentary of my life where curtis is literally me and all of this actually happened

Otocky is one of those games that's really special as you see it isn't just a shmup with a music theme. You actually give your own notes to the song with your own weapon and despite how awful that may sound, it works wonderfully with the added sound used for the Disk System.

Your objective is to collect enough notes for the boss at the end to show up and by the end it can get a little annoying but it's simple enough. The bosses are a little too repetitive for my liking but I'll take that over being frustrated.

Once you beat the game you can do a BGM mode and Music Maker to relax and think about how splendid the music is in this game and you can even set what instrument you want your weapon to sound. It's really nice.

It's a game that I feel like deserves more attention as it's one of the best games on the Disk System. Granted maybe my score is a little too low but it was still a joy to play regardless. Play this game if you haven't, it's worth an hour of your time.

There's all kinds of games that are a piece of the creator's childlike wonder, glee, beauty, et cetera. I'd find it difficult to name one that has the same kind of resonance this emanates from start to finish. Gentle, elegant, earnest and bringing you along the ride through a wonderfully crafted landscape of dreams. Sour, dance, play and gymnastics your way through the circus stage made for you. Fears and anxiety are formed only to melt away in the light.

I'll keep thinking about it as the music swells and shifts over the coming days. A lasting impression, of which Oshima himself noted that above all else, they wanted a character and an experience that someone would look at and think "the future looks bright." I'll dance atop that spire of hopeful joy they made.

Ketsui's scoring mechanic is my favorite so far, and it synergizes perfectly with how the game is meant to be played. I much prefer it over collecting gems (mushihime), or trying to chain kills and/or colors (ddp, ikaurga...). It's all about getting close to the enemies and killing them, particularly smaller ones, to increase your multiplier and then use your laser on bigger ones to cash in on it. Laser also has a lock-on mechanic apparently unique to this game, sadly. And the closer you are to an enemy, the faster you can lock on it as well. While your laser will always shoot in front of you, you also shoot bullets aimed to the target you locked onto. Though in a way it makes certain bosses and minibosses a bit easier, knowing where to target big enemies and knowing when to switch to standard shot, in order to get chips during long battles makes a big difference.

Like I said, it really rewards aggressiveness and encourages getting up close, high risk/high reward gameplay which eclipses those games that focus just on being bullet hell. It definitely has a lot going on in later stages, but still I'd say Ketsui retains a nice balance. Groups of fodder enemies even when you're up top, are easier to move around with macrododging, while the bigger bulkier ones will throw more dense patterns that you will have an easier time fighting with your laser (which lets you move slower, more precisely) and auto target (helps you focus on the bullets and not so much in hitting). I wouldn't say it's easy though.

When things go well, the game looks easier than it actually is, because often the best strategy is to kill stuff up close before it has a chance to overwhelm you. It does expect you to be pushing constantly and if you fall behind things can go wrong quickly. It's not as easy to remain up close to enemies and clear the screen when enemies start to pile up and there's a lot more bullets and targets onscreen that there should be. There's always using a bomb as a last resort, which I find not really as punishing as in other cave games (unless going for ura loop but i'm not doing that lol), lives always count more than bombs and there's no other penalties.

During my first hours of the game my problem was actually dying without using my bombs, my deaths being mostly due to playing kamikaze style and running into bullets without looking, rather than getting caught in patterns. In retrospective, it's actually very funny that the story of this game is about some pilots getting sent on a suicide mission. The difficulty curve in stages is gentle and ramps up very naturally, you may run into walls but never feel that the game is suddenly throwing bullshit at you. Because it builds up so nicely on previous stuff, you only feel even more determined to face new challenges in harder stages. And because they're so well designed, going through earlier stages again does not become a chore as you get better; they are also nice warmups where you can improve your chaining skills. By the end stage 5 feels basically like 2 stages rolled into one. Still, to me there's the same drawback as with all other shmups, there's some parts where you have to play a bit until you learn the stage no matter what, but there's a lot you can get away with if you do well.

Bullet patterns are great. It has a lot of unique stuff and often it leans into compositions that move organically and are able to overwhelm a lot without clogging up the screen, giving you a challenge but also room for moving around and getting close to different enemies. Bosses in particular are just mesmerizing. While for some the visuals may be a bit generic, everything else in the presentation is wonderful, especially the music. Plus, the new UI on PS4 is really gorgeous and in-depth even if you won't be looking at it much. I really hope they port this to PC sometime.

In short, I love Ketsui's philosophy. Fairly straightforward, it only has two ships differing in shot type and speed, and practically a single approach. It doesn't need any more because it achieves perfection in simplicity and accomplishes what it sets out to do. Only thing I'd say it's missing is that bosses turning into giant anime girl robots like in dodonpachi resurrection.

Want to know what this game is about?

Good.


Don't lose that curiosity, kid.

this game feels like hiring a master chef, but they have their budget limited to cook for less than 10 dollars: while the individual ingredients may not be the best by themselves, the craft and expertise used to prepare the final dish still give you a good ass meal.

i can't also help but think about actraiser, a game that has some reviews on this site praising its ability to mix genres with excellent results. while i do agree with these, sakura wars also acts as a good contender for that field, merging its srpg and dating sim bits without any issues, managing to provide an engaging experience that doesn't overstay its welcome. also, actraiser doesn't have sumire kanzaki.

Cool little store management game!
The store mechanic is really good, and while looking simple hides a lot of complexity. I also love its quirky dialogues, it has a pretty peculiar sense of humor. The game gets a little bit repetitive at times though, since the dungeon sections which should relieve us a little from the main game loop aren't that enjoyable or varied.

For now I have only played normal and new game+ modes, but I'm still missing a lot of the content and I'm sure I will come back to it at some point. I can only appreciate the range of ways it offers to play.

As long as dreams keep providing a subconscious creative outlet of jumbled feelings and emotions wrapped in absurdism, the motivation to interpret them in any attempt to shed light into the human condition right before they dissipate from our lucid grasp will always be a fascinating fruitless endeavor. Dr. Melfi once said said that you can't really determine the meaning of someone's dream, as "the meaning is illicit, it's re-verbalization", to which Tony understandably replied "yeah, and the gehoxtahogen is framed up by the ramistan".

It's a bit surprising that there really aren't that many videogames out there like LSD fully commited in recreating the actual feeling of being inside a dream. The barrage of familiar but alien imagery and mundane uncontextualized scenes that assaults the first half hour of LSD successfully transmit the hyper awareness of color and space that accompanies a lucid dream, and the allure of constant discovery through the mere act of touching anything sells the flimsy stability of dreams and their propensity to evade settling clarity. It sadly doesn't last long, as you quickly expend the limited set of wacky scenarios LSD has in store for you and the initial wonder of an ever changing landscape is ultimately replaced by a familiar comprehensible demystified 3D space.

Continue to push onward though, and LSD becomes a much more fascinating interactive painting of low poly deterioration. As the textures suddenly shift into an aesthetical mess of offputting and unmatching color and images, LSD becomes an interactive museum of early 3D counter intuitive beauty that doesnt stray too far from contemporary art like Cruelty Squad, ENA videos, or vaporwave aesthetic, and the landscapes that were previously exhausted turn into uncanny tone pieces that further illustrate the accidental artistry of old videogame technology.

LSD is not meant to be deciphered and you shouldn't play it as something to be "beaten". Created during an age where colaboration between the videogame industry and outside artists was simultaneously a novelty and a way to legitimize the artform, it constitutes a cultural artifact that has gained significantly more relevance over its "datedness", and will continue to elude its tourists by keeping its secrets so closely sealed. Refuse interpretation and let yourself get lost in its simulation of a dreaming PS1.

replaying this is after playing ~45 hours of it in 2015, never getting very far in the shameful main story, but... this is one of the greatest failures of storytelling bethesda have ever mustered. it requires nothing short of the total suspension of disbelief every second of playing it to give a shit about anything you're doing. to its... uh, credit? i enjoy a big open world game i can explore, and this one feels pretty good to move around in, but every single line of dialogue fills me with a mirthful disgust. nothing else presumed to be a "role playing" game makes me want to be an asshole like this one does. i cackle with delight when some npc spouts bullshit and an experience gain is triggered, activating my "idiot savant" perk and a dumb giggle from my character. i don't care about this world. i don't care about the must-find-babby plot. i almost want to see it through to its end just to hate it and shit on it in every way i can. my rating doesn't really reflect as much because i have my own fun with the game—i like to wander a big place and creep around in the smaller parts of it—but i think fallout 4 is an embarrassment and that bethesda should be shamed into making a better game next time around. i can only hope that's why they're taking so long...

play the english patch. this is one of the most ambitious games of its era and would be one of the most revered PS1 games of all time had it been localized by agness kaku, as was originally intended. perfect UI design, sleek aesthetics and extremely considered plane designs, cold and callous electronic sounds - one of those games where everything is designed with attention to detail. featuring a plot laden in transhumanism, corporate warfare, interpersonal drama, and a harsh futurist atmosphere, this is one of the all-time great 90s works of cyberpunk. it's a little on the easier side for my liking, even on its hardest difficulty, but there's really nothing else like it. this was a strong influence for yoko taro and co. in developing drakengard, with influences extending even to nier's development, and it shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXxk4FRdYrw you'll never get better than this, i'm not apologizing

hi every1 im new!!!!!!! holds up fork (of horriplation) my name is sheogorath but u can call me t3h D@3dRik pRiN¢3 of m@dn3$$!!!! lol...as u can see im very random!!!! thats why i summoned u, 2 meet random ppl like me_... im 1000000000000000000000000000 years old (im mature for my age tho!!) i like to eat cheese w my boyfreind haskill (im gay if you dont like it deal with it) its our favorite food!!!!!! bcuz its SOOOO random!!!!!! hes random 2 of course but i want 2 meet more random subjects =) like they say the more the merrier!!!! lol…neways i hope 2 derange alot of freinds here so give me lots of your body partses!!!! CHEESE 4 EVERY1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <--- me bein random again _^ hehe…toodles!!!!!

love and sweetrolls,
t3h D@3dRik pRiN¢3 of m@dn3$$