To revisit Tangle Tower was event better than I could have imagined to be honest and works surprisingly well. I forgot big chunks of the mystery and was able to re-evaluate how well it tells it's story. The simple answer is: brilliant.

Tangle Tower is very well paced, very tested towards intuitive progression (which is surprisingly uncommon for most Point and Click Adventures). It manages to stay funny all the way through, with very snappy dialogue that is just excellently voiced. In my eyes, this even surpasses the mystery crafting of Thimbleweed Park, which I found to be one of the best the genre had to offer. Think of Tangle Tower of a mini Danganronpa Chapter, cut 90% of the horrible and weird and creepy gameplay and character-interactions and now pretend the case is actually graspable and not complete moon-logic bullshit. That's Tangle Tower. My appretiation for this only grew.

I thought playing Maniac Mansion would get me to understand bigger truths about the Point and Click Adventure game genre, aiding me on my quest to play a shit-ton of them this month.

Yeah well it didn't. Most of my impressions I already had from when my dad told me about it and how he and my mom have guessed their way through this messy moon-logic and easily jinxable mess. But hey I thought I'd try it for myself after all those years. Well after like 10 puzzles I pressed ALT + F4 and watched the rest, all the endings and all the character specific puzzles on YouTube.

It was genre defining and is without a doubt forged the path for later LucasArts titles to shine on. I don't even want to say that it's bad or has no qualities to it, that could get players to like it even today. I just really fell of this one, also because of the constant fear that I could easily get myself into an unwinnable state. It's a bit like with old King's Quest titles. If I'm scared to pick up or use items in your adventure game, I become scared to experiment. As someone who loves MI's dialogue for weird or wacky experiments during inventory puzzles, being scared to do those is just really discouraging me to have fun with this whatsoever.

Watching it on YouTube was rather painful though, because of the technical limitations, Maniac Mansion has next to no music and it makes the entire experience a slog to get through.
All of what I just wrote above comes from a super modern perspective with over 40 years of hindsight on the genre. This is why I don't necessarily want to shit on Maniac Mansion, although I personally really disliked the bit that I played. I wanted to do research and the genre and an insight I got. All good. It's really respectable to see just how big the shift for adventure games was after MM.

And so my adventure through the works of Joe Richardson continued.
Ahhh, these games. Maybe some of the humor is just not for me. Yet some jokes got the same giggle out of me that Four Last Things did.
This game does something interesting, because after Ending #1 it really opens up. Everything up to Ending 1 was all fun and games, until The Procession to Calvary opens up. At this point it got tedious in places. I don't know what happened to the rather straight forward Puzzle design of it's predecessor, but here it got messy, convoluted and frustrating to a degree. To part ways with the old adventure game trope of having the player pick up everything that's not nailed down, came at the cost of hinting you to very specific items you've already seen and make you fetch them. I would have had these in my inventory, come on, why the backtracking over these huge ass screens. Everything was smaller in his first Renaissance game. And although this game too is gorgeous to look at, the sprinting speed does not account for the landscape pictures this game has now. Also the quest to complete all 7 sins was more interesting than the motivation in this one. Also each quest here, feels a little to long and featuring too many steps to make you feel immediately rewarded. Goes well with my point from above, with the backtracking becoming really tedious at some point.
The humor of this one is also expectantly pitch-black and that just has to be your type of thing. I liked many jokes here, but you REALLY gotta be into this. The meta jokes all spoke to me though and I had a good laugh off those.

But I personally had enough of the
The Immortal John Triptych franchise for now and think I will pass on Death of the Reprobate in the near future.

3/3 of my reviews of Joe Richardson's body of work so far

I found myself laughing at bits far and few between. This game's humor falls back into SouthPark-esque political relativism and stays entirely reactionary in it's comedy.
To point a finger towards a bad style of leading is all good and fun, until, a few cutscenes later you realize all these jokes lack any political substance. This game just goes: "Look, they're doing it poorly", without actually criticizing why a certain thing is done the way it's done or who it might benefit. The two candidates for example where portrayed as having absolutely no reason to want to stay in power outside of power being the end in itself. This is such a liberal observation and surface-level joke, that showcases how little analysis of power-relations and the reason behind them, went into creating this bit. Sadly, this is how a lot of the topics and themes this game dances around were handled.
I found myself laughing at the revolutionaries at first, but fell off the joke halfway through, where I realized that too was a very surface level view on leftism as a whole, with no intention of interrogating how they ended up on the beach as they were. Joe had comedy-gold laying at his feet and then decided to just go for making the point that leftism, revolutionaries are impotent to change anything and are just complacent.
Neither did I feel offended, nor did I see any even half smart observation being made here. If this really wants to be a satiric game, it failed for me in that regard. Because that is a problem I see with most of the actual jokes being made. This game too references Monkey Island quite heavily in parts and although MI's setting is not nearly as close to the modern and current world, as this one is, it makes so many smarter and overall just more great observation about politics, bureaucracy and discourse-culture than this game does.

My last point on this game specifically, but also on the two works of Joe Richardson I played so far:
1. This is the second out of three games (so far and only that I know of) if Richardson, where you use a woman towards your own means. That just rubs me the wrong way. In Four Last Things it was literally to have sex with a woman for a quest, without her having any meaningful dialogue. The only means of interacting with her in that game was to look through the window that had Peep here! written above it, and later handing her a piece of poetry to trick her into thinking the protagonist wrote it.
In this game, you take a picture of the naked chest of Helen, to hand it to the guy writing the newspaper on the island. Later you use her AGAIN, because you need a famous person behind you, while holding a political speech, in order to gain more votes. I could read some commentary in the latter, and am not against devs making you do horrible stuff in videogames in order to send a message, but these two were nearly unaccompanied by anything substantial or adressed ever after they happen and so I have to take them as very flat jokes, played only for laughs.

Overall this game just screamed 2016 at me and I felt that from playing Four Last Things, I have a pretty good guess at what The Procession to Cavalry could be. I can't deny, that what Richardson achieved here, is definitely an intriguing body of work, that I'm willing to engage with a little more. It feels like Four Last Things was an answer to this game in some sense. Many of the frameworks loosely resemble each other (getting the documents e.g.) and overall the newer one improves many of them over this game. I'm intrigued what the next two games have in store.

2/3 of my reviews on Joe Richardson's body of work

The vibe this creates is magical. The puzzles were surprisingly good for the most part and it's very well paced. Perfect length for me even. It's visuals are so goddamn creatively animated and I loved the musicians in every screen. It was charming from start to finish, funny and to the point.
I was also very happy with the MI references. I really enjoyed this one, perfect to play in one sitting, as it really shouldn't take longer than 1.5 to 2 hours.

Edit: As I decided to play all three games Joe Richardson released, this is review 1/3, which kind of spiraled into one another and expand my views on his general style of commentary and writing with the other games too.

This is great fun even in 1v1's with friends. The deck-building allows for interesting set-ups and strategies on a round to round basis. You could technically take this quite far and safe cards, pre-plan, look for your deck synergy, but... let's be real. The entire party is a little tipsy, you're having a laugh on discord and for the 80% of the matches you just spam E and strut over these maps like you own the place.
The devs seem to be pretty damn based judging by the game's content. HIGHLY recommend this!!!

I cannot believe how accurately a remake this is of the first open world portion of Final Fantasy VII. Effortlessly it made me sink hours upon hours in what I would dismiss in other games as nice to have's. I did EVERYTHING and 95% felt like an absolute delight. Remake's side quests were tedious, mostly uninteresting and filler content of which I also did every one, but would advice no-one to do the same. That's not the case for this sequel. I'm genuinely baffled by how the devs adressed almost every single complaint I had about Remake (which I also loved, I may only be 21, but my parents played Final Fantasy VII with me when I was a child so it was quite the formative experience).

Rebirth is not perfect, but almost perfectly what I wanted out of it. It feels like it was cut out of a dream of mine. And for that I will eternally love it. It's smart, it's beautifully detailed and crafted and equally if not more challenging than Remake was with it's ending. It is definitely not what you expect if you know and love VII, but it invites you to get the fuck over it and embrace passionately what these geniuses crafted. How much original music is in this, that are full tracks used for 3 minutes of a side quest is stunning. The love and care that has been put in all the distraction along the journey are mind-bending and so are the stories the devs are telling. For me personally it feels like one of the smartest meta-stories I'll ever have the pleasure of experiencing. And part of the magic is the waiting, the theory-crafting, the debates that break out in the culture surrounding the playerbase, which is directly and indirectly addressed through the games narrative. The fact they were able to one-up the ending of Remake and it getting better and better the more I think about it is magical.

I don't really feel the need to talk about the main story outside of that, because all that's relevant is how much it sparked joy and broke me at the same time. All of the events right before the ending hit me like a truck and are so so SO well done. The creators REALLY understand their characters and portray them all beautifully.

I don't regret a single hour spent in this world, cried more than 3 times and wish I could experience this again for the first time.

Sadly this game has a couple of technical issues and bugs that caused more than a handful deaths throughout my playthrough. It's sad to see the game released in the state it's in.
That aside, when it works, it WORKS. The controls feel great for the most part (except maybe for the second and final bosses), the designs are all cute and the music is really solid. Saw some people on here slandering it, but holy, they're wrong. If you don't like the main theme and tracks of the first couple of levels, just search for "Balearic Birds" on the soundtrack and enjoy having your mind changed.
I expected a little more out of this. I was never really blown away throughout the game, although I really enjoyed playing it over the course of one day. Came back hourly, because once the movement clicked, it got addictive. I'm mainly just upset by the technical issues, that occurred so frequently.

Also, and this is not to be taken so seriously, but I couldn't really get used to how flat the surfaces on characters looked. I really really liked the style of the game for the majority of it's runtime and think it's drop dead gorgeous in some levels (this backround-shader, that blurs stuff in the distance is very well excecuted), but I've always wondered, why they didn't give the character models that same normal-map that the backrounds got, to make them look a little less smooth and shiny (untextured). Because funnily enough, that would fit the style they went with in the cutscenes really well. Remember when the MK8D DLC courses all had the same normal map? I think the characters in Penny's would've benefited from exactly those.

Square Enix and their requirements to even play the damn DLC is what made me laugh out loud at 2 am. It's a fucking mystery how to get to the Jill and Joshua quests respectively and the only thing the DLC mentions, is that you have to have done those. Why do they these two even have requirements in the first place? Not that my communication with Clives brother is dependent on 3 random fetch items I had to collect earlier. Most mind numbing markers I followed in a while to play what I payed for.

AND YET, Echoes of the Fallen is kind of goated, because of how absolutely crazy it is that they gave Omega the chicken tenders. The way the Azys La and e-scape theme are woven into the (pretty forgettable) dungeon that builds up to the fight, is pretty damn cool.
I REALLY enjoyed the Omega fight too. The DLC ends up being pretty short, but if you plan on buying 'The Rising Tide' anyway, it's a nice appetizer for what the second DLC COULD be.
Echoes of the Fallen didn't blow me away, but was enjoyable nonetheless.

After 4 months of fucking ... no games, I beat one, let me tell you about it.

BRC made me feel ecstatic at it's highest highs, when I was dodging cops left and right, listening to 'DA PEOPLE' while battling the crew, who's territory I'm about to snitch through graffiti and street dancing.

When it's not that at these highs though... it's a pretty solid exploration game with great music and traversal that isn't really deep, but fun and second nature after an hour. Combat is pretty bland, but beating up cops is fun. I'm so glad combat really isn't a huge component of this game though and every single boss-fight is more mechanically 'challenging' instead of making you use your 3 attack buttons, that basically give you no feedback whatsoever on hit. It's not hard at all though, once you know how to keep your combo going for literally ever, which I'm super into don't get me wrong. I liked myself some THPS, but tbh not having to deal with all this extra shit just while traversing an area has something cathartic with the focus more on looking and feeling cool.

This was a lot of fun all the way through and is definitely something I will boot up again whenever I want to relax and listen to an audio book or podcast.

TL;DR: XVI feels like Heavensward but with a ‘more colours’- DLC, fantastic combat and the exact same mission structure

I love to love Final Fantasy XVI. So much about this hit the spot for me and yet some aspects of it leave me wanting for more. I want to focus on these aspects in this review. By my score it should be obvious how much I like the rest of the game.

My biggest compliment goes to the pacing of the second half of 16. This game moves at a break-neck speed at times and keeps hitting you with one great set-piece after another. Yet later in the game that speed is regularly halted by what feels like filler quests in between. I barely really disliked any of these, but it is the gut reaction when confronted with the fact that you won’t get to the cool thing, you want to do for another 20 minutes, that colours the impression. This for me becomes really apparent in the last zone. A reason for that may be found in how I approached my playthrough. I wanted to get the strongest weapon before fighting the last boss, which meant without googling too much, doing every single Hunt mission as they got available. How these are distributed is a another aspect I don’t like, because for a minority of them you have to complete side quests first. Other than side quests which unlock new gameplay features or gear, they are not marked with the typical + symbol in the quest-icon. So I had to google which of these quests I have to sit through in order to unlock the hunts to unlock the previously mentioned weapon. Add the sort of filler main quests between larger set-pieces and you will see how my progress later in the game basically got halted every 2 main scenario missions. If the hunt-board was unlocked earlier, they could’ve spread these out more throughout the game. That would have improved my enjoyment of the very cool and fun hunt fights for sure.

I'm also not a fan of most of the side quests. Some tell neat stories, others don't and just reward you with money you'll never need and reputation in your camp. All of them are fetchy af. The same could be said about the main scenario ones too. They didn't really get out of the MMO quest design. As someone who loves 14 for many years now I can look past that. I'm used to their approach to story-telling in these quests and felt right at home. Still, they could be a whole lot better and more interesting from a gameplay standpoint.

Now to the spoilery bit:
Why the hell is Jill not more in this game?!?! She is amazing throughout the first half, but basically gets her entire screen-time cut after a certain introduction of another character. Don’t get me wrong, Joshua and Clive have great chemistry and captivating arcs, but Jill could have added to that. She sort of gets side-lined and acts like the love-interest with no agency. I loved the beginning of their love-story just to see it unaddressed for most of the runtime right up to the end. That fact did ruin Jills character for me personally. She has so much potential to add to the themes of Clive’s journey and they should have capitalized on that.

The overall narrative and world are amazing though. I was sceptical at first, because the tone and constant name dropping of kingdom names, places and characters and their history could have easily made for a very confusing and uninspired backdrop to the action-focused gameplay. But it IS interesting. It is really well thought out and understandable just by paying attention to the story and pressing the Active Time Lore Button like twice when you happen to get lost anyway. Hell, the features that keep track of the events in the realm are really cool too! Not needed, yet I still wish more games had that so when I drop them for a couple of months, I can just go to an NPC who has neatly arranged visualizations for every major event, ready for me to browse. This is way more accessible than having to browse the massive entries in 13 for sure.

As I said, I love XVI and while by no means perfect, it scratches that certain itch Final Fantasy has been scratching for most of my life now. It’s a peak comfort game and I’m convinced that I’ll return many many times in the search for solace. Outside of the game I’m already addicted to Soken and his team’s compositions for this one.

My only wish for the future is that 17 will be written by Natsuko Ishikawa and again composed by Soken or the Team that’s working on 7R currently.

I have nothing but love for this game and only started playing it because i have been addicted to the soundtrack for half a year now. Something in it's visual and audio identity is making me feel really cozy and like this is where I belong, even tho except for listening to the music I had no ties with this game till now. Glad I decided to dip my toes into it after I seem to have finally managed to get into fighting games through GGS and SF6. 3rd Strike is something else though and I'll definitely make this my new comfort game.