The game starts on an incredibly high note:
-Sets up a peaceful life in Hyrule
-All of the sudden everything goes to shit
-Your friends might be dead
-You wake up in jail god-knows-where
-You're a wolf
-You suddenly are femdom'd to slavery by a demon brat
-You realize the whole kingdom is in some deep shit
-But Midna doesnt' even care so, she sents you to retrieve pieces of a weapon of mass destruction to help her with a civil war in hell
Then the game decides that instead of being Femdom Drakengard the game should go back to being a very vanilla Zelda game (probably Miyamoto's fault, call it a hunch) so the whole wolf thing becomes anecdotical in an adventure game with some good moments that unfortunately is way too fucking long and doesn't have enough Midna (a shame since everytime she becomes the center of the game, it's genuinely great).
I had some good times with Twilight Princess, but as the game went on it didn't really push the stakes design-wise: it reverted all the things that made the initial concept so intriguing and I didn't feel like it managed to turn up the heat in any significant way outside of Midna's story scenes and some occasional cool setpieces/events. It slowly flatlines with the occasional surprise like the Snowpeak Ruins, which is the best 3D Zelda dungeon I've ever played, but aside from that the game feels like going through the motions. Everything is very masticated to avoid frustrating the player, which makes it free of the low points of Ocarina but also removes some of the magic of its high points, it's very predictable and formulaic in my opinion ( also feel the same way about other Nintendo games so, take it with a grain of salt) and considering how long it is, it ended up being frustrating seeing my savefile game time go up while my enjoyment slowly decreased.
I don't know, Ocarina has great moments but I found the moment-to-moment gameplay lacking, Majora's is really cool but has some shit, Wind Waker is lovely but it's way too easy for me, and I felt like Twilight Princess wastes its own concept for the sake of "Miyamoto please don't send Zelda to the graveyard of dead Nintendo franchises". I guess I'm not a fan. I'm saddened because everyone around me loves the series and on paper I agree that it has some cool stuff and aren't bad games at all, but I can't connect with them for the life of me. Hopefully your experience is better than mine.
-Sets up a peaceful life in Hyrule
-All of the sudden everything goes to shit
-Your friends might be dead
-You wake up in jail god-knows-where
-You're a wolf
-You suddenly are femdom'd to slavery by a demon brat
-You realize the whole kingdom is in some deep shit
-But Midna doesnt' even care so, she sents you to retrieve pieces of a weapon of mass destruction to help her with a civil war in hell
Then the game decides that instead of being Femdom Drakengard the game should go back to being a very vanilla Zelda game (probably Miyamoto's fault, call it a hunch) so the whole wolf thing becomes anecdotical in an adventure game with some good moments that unfortunately is way too fucking long and doesn't have enough Midna (a shame since everytime she becomes the center of the game, it's genuinely great).
I had some good times with Twilight Princess, but as the game went on it didn't really push the stakes design-wise: it reverted all the things that made the initial concept so intriguing and I didn't feel like it managed to turn up the heat in any significant way outside of Midna's story scenes and some occasional cool setpieces/events. It slowly flatlines with the occasional surprise like the Snowpeak Ruins, which is the best 3D Zelda dungeon I've ever played, but aside from that the game feels like going through the motions. Everything is very masticated to avoid frustrating the player, which makes it free of the low points of Ocarina but also removes some of the magic of its high points, it's very predictable and formulaic in my opinion ( also feel the same way about other Nintendo games so, take it with a grain of salt) and considering how long it is, it ended up being frustrating seeing my savefile game time go up while my enjoyment slowly decreased.
I don't know, Ocarina has great moments but I found the moment-to-moment gameplay lacking, Majora's is really cool but has some shit, Wind Waker is lovely but it's way too easy for me, and I felt like Twilight Princess wastes its own concept for the sake of "Miyamoto please don't send Zelda to the graveyard of dead Nintendo franchises". I guess I'm not a fan. I'm saddened because everyone around me loves the series and on paper I agree that it has some cool stuff and aren't bad games at all, but I can't connect with them for the life of me. Hopefully your experience is better than mine.
Sachijo's Birthday is the Corpse Party's "dream match" where every character in the series is put in the same spot for some good ol fanservice. If you only care about the regular/canon side of Corpse Party, you can skip to Blood Drive with no problem as it has no substance nor importance.
For the rest of you: Sachiko's Birthday starts strong with the shitpost levels off the roof but it quickly loses steam to the point where the majority of chapters are pretty uneventful nor fun. It briefly picks up towards the end but by then the damage has been done.
- The Prologue and Chapter 1 are the best as it's where Sachiko's Birthday is having the most fun with its characters and poking fun at Corpse Party's dumb idiosyncrasies. Lots of shitpost but in a good way.
- Chapter 2 has good intentions and a couple of good moments but it lasts way more than it has any right to.
- Chapter 3 is the most dynamic chapter with a quiz show gimmick but it's unfortunately tarnished by the presence of one character that's one step away from getting a restraining order and another one that should be in jail.
- Chapter 4 is a harem subplot. Has a couple of moments but overall it's very bottom of the barrell.
- Chapter 5 is the worst chapter by far because nothing, absolutely nothing happens. It's the characters fucking around trying to find ways to stall time and grope some boobs. It's so lazy I'm amazed this is part of a commercial product.
- Chapter 6 picks up a bit with a cooking contest and it's... not bad. It has a couple of good moments but the pacing feels overly stretched out.
- Chapter 7 finally does something creative and it's a whole "anything goes" chapter with a ton of references to oldschool horror. Pacing still feels too stretched out but it's the most creative chapter by far.
- Chapter 8 is the closer episode and it's well paced, well written, gets in, does its thing, and then ends. It's the only chapter written by Kedouin, I honestly wish he was more involved in the project because even if he isn't a great writer, he knows how to properly pace a VN segment.
- The Extra Chapter... I'm not even gonna pretend like I care about anything that's going on, it's the only "serious" chapter of the whole experience and it's quite a mess when it comes to character writing. Not a fan.
Overall the impression I get from all of this is that it was gonna be some kind of Drama CD or fandisc that somehow got the VN treatment using (mostly) assets from Book of Shadows. Even with the low bar of this being a fandisc in disguise I think it's still meh at best, I don't think I will go back to it. And not because this is on a radical different tone, I think when the game finally decides to do some whacky shit it's entertaining, but most of the time it's just filler character interactions.
For the rest of you: Sachiko's Birthday starts strong with the shitpost levels off the roof but it quickly loses steam to the point where the majority of chapters are pretty uneventful nor fun. It briefly picks up towards the end but by then the damage has been done.
- The Prologue and Chapter 1 are the best as it's where Sachiko's Birthday is having the most fun with its characters and poking fun at Corpse Party's dumb idiosyncrasies. Lots of shitpost but in a good way.
- Chapter 2 has good intentions and a couple of good moments but it lasts way more than it has any right to.
- Chapter 3 is the most dynamic chapter with a quiz show gimmick but it's unfortunately tarnished by the presence of one character that's one step away from getting a restraining order and another one that should be in jail.
- Chapter 4 is a harem subplot. Has a couple of moments but overall it's very bottom of the barrell.
- Chapter 5 is the worst chapter by far because nothing, absolutely nothing happens. It's the characters fucking around trying to find ways to stall time and grope some boobs. It's so lazy I'm amazed this is part of a commercial product.
- Chapter 6 picks up a bit with a cooking contest and it's... not bad. It has a couple of good moments but the pacing feels overly stretched out.
- Chapter 7 finally does something creative and it's a whole "anything goes" chapter with a ton of references to oldschool horror. Pacing still feels too stretched out but it's the most creative chapter by far.
- Chapter 8 is the closer episode and it's well paced, well written, gets in, does its thing, and then ends. It's the only chapter written by Kedouin, I honestly wish he was more involved in the project because even if he isn't a great writer, he knows how to properly pace a VN segment.
- The Extra Chapter... I'm not even gonna pretend like I care about anything that's going on, it's the only "serious" chapter of the whole experience and it's quite a mess when it comes to character writing. Not a fan.
Overall the impression I get from all of this is that it was gonna be some kind of Drama CD or fandisc that somehow got the VN treatment using (mostly) assets from Book of Shadows. Even with the low bar of this being a fandisc in disguise I think it's still meh at best, I don't think I will go back to it. And not because this is on a radical different tone, I think when the game finally decides to do some whacky shit it's entertaining, but most of the time it's just filler character interactions.
2023
2023 System Shock is smooth sex.
1994 System Shock is sex with a bio-mechanical deity from the Megastructure.
1994 System Shock is sex with a bio-mechanical deity from the Megastructure.
2023
The way they are managing content so that in the first few hours you see the same 5 dinos and only after (story event) you start to see some damn good setpieces and levels... is a bit backwards, specially for a multiplayer game that has the risk of alienating players early on.
But the game is really fun! It's like a ménage à trois between WWZ, Overwatch and EDF while Dino Crisis 3 filming everything. It's very derivative gameplay-wise but also very solid. The concept is kind of insane but backed up by some surprisingly convincing worldbuilding.
There's not a whole lot to comment because you look at it for 2 minutes and you already know what it's about and if you're gonna fuck with it or not.
But the game is really fun! It's like a ménage à trois between WWZ, Overwatch and EDF while Dino Crisis 3 filming everything. It's very derivative gameplay-wise but also very solid. The concept is kind of insane but backed up by some surprisingly convincing worldbuilding.
There's not a whole lot to comment because you look at it for 2 minutes and you already know what it's about and if you're gonna fuck with it or not.
This review contains spoilers
Both gameplay-wise and story-wise this pretty much continues what I thought about The Assignment, so read my review of that if you want.
There's one difference tho and that's the fact that the writting has nosedived and is pretty lame. More precisely Kidman's character. The game tries to give her kind of an arch of independence from Mobius, but it's so weird because:
1. Kidman has no stakes in what's happening outside letting his coworkers live. So the whole "I'm not gonna obey your orders of protecting Leslie" has no motivation other than trusting her instincts, and about that...
2. Kidman knew she was getting into some shady Illuminati shit. Why the surprise of finding out that she's expendable? Is she that dumb?
3. The cosification of Mobius' control of her life is so lame as an enemy design, and the way it's written clashes with the writting of the main game.
You can tell that this was written and directed by someone else, and it is. It's directed and written by John Johanas and I'm sorry to say this but this is weak. I'll give the man props for one thing: the whole "we start as a Clock Tower throwback and it evolves into an action game as Kidman gains trust in herself" is a neat directing idea, but it wasn't executed well and the whole vibe seems like it belongs to a complete different game. This should've been a standalone thing with no ties to the main game, it would've made for a more powerful independence arc than this tied-in mess.
It doesn't help that it heavily rehashes a lot of stuff from the main game and some things that it does new just don't hit. The paintings with the face of Rubik that possess Leslie and you have to burn? Very lackluster. The scary Slenderman-type suit with the corporative themes? Too sterile and vanilla in comparisson to the main game, it doesn't even feel like it exists in the same visual universe. The cool glowstick section? It doesn't build up to anything of importance. The whole structure of "taking separate unconnected scenes to make a Kidman: Abridged Series"? Very disjointed and has a very abrupt sense of pacing.
Nah, very weak stuff. I'll give props for trying to deliver a whole character arc in a two parter DLC but they bit more than you could chew and in the process they ruined some of the cool mystique of the main game for the sake of spoonfeeding info that was already there if you payed attention. And again, in the process of trying to portray this Kidman independance arc, they made her look dumb as hell.
I'm actually furstrated because I had a damn good time with The Evil Within and I had my fill already, but I had to play this in case it had anything of importance to the sequel or had something cool. But no.
There's one difference tho and that's the fact that the writting has nosedived and is pretty lame. More precisely Kidman's character. The game tries to give her kind of an arch of independence from Mobius, but it's so weird because:
1. Kidman has no stakes in what's happening outside letting his coworkers live. So the whole "I'm not gonna obey your orders of protecting Leslie" has no motivation other than trusting her instincts, and about that...
2. Kidman knew she was getting into some shady Illuminati shit. Why the surprise of finding out that she's expendable? Is she that dumb?
3. The cosification of Mobius' control of her life is so lame as an enemy design, and the way it's written clashes with the writting of the main game.
You can tell that this was written and directed by someone else, and it is. It's directed and written by John Johanas and I'm sorry to say this but this is weak. I'll give the man props for one thing: the whole "we start as a Clock Tower throwback and it evolves into an action game as Kidman gains trust in herself" is a neat directing idea, but it wasn't executed well and the whole vibe seems like it belongs to a complete different game. This should've been a standalone thing with no ties to the main game, it would've made for a more powerful independence arc than this tied-in mess.
It doesn't help that it heavily rehashes a lot of stuff from the main game and some things that it does new just don't hit. The paintings with the face of Rubik that possess Leslie and you have to burn? Very lackluster. The scary Slenderman-type suit with the corporative themes? Too sterile and vanilla in comparisson to the main game, it doesn't even feel like it exists in the same visual universe. The cool glowstick section? It doesn't build up to anything of importance. The whole structure of "taking separate unconnected scenes to make a Kidman: Abridged Series"? Very disjointed and has a very abrupt sense of pacing.
Nah, very weak stuff. I'll give props for trying to deliver a whole character arc in a two parter DLC but they bit more than you could chew and in the process they ruined some of the cool mystique of the main game for the sake of spoonfeeding info that was already there if you payed attention. And again, in the process of trying to portray this Kidman independance arc, they made her look dumb as hell.
I'm actually furstrated because I had a damn good time with The Evil Within and I had my fill already, but I had to play this in case it had anything of importance to the sequel or had something cool. But no.
Story-wise what this does is delving a little deeper into Kidman's character outside the pitiful four scenes she has in the main game, one of which is a damsel in distress build up to an ass shot (don't worry, this one has an extended ass shot too in the very first scene, just in case you forgot this was a Shinji Mikami game)
Aside from that, it fleshes out a bit of the hidden lore of the main game, but I don't think it says much that a curious player wouldn't have figured out from the well placed breadcrumbs that were already there. In fact, that's what I liked from the main game: it ends so chaotically it forces you to remember all of the out of context oddities of the game and make you piece everything together. This just spoonfeeds the info to you, but... I already knew most of this.
Gameplay-wise this DLC's whole deal was to strip back the game's shooting mechanics and instead delve into the more fragile side of horror games. Avoid confrontation, even with low rate enemies. Lure them out of the way with distractions. I think it's a nice change of pace from the main game but it doesn't feel like it's building up to much. In fact, what I expected to be the slasher nemesis of the chapter just disappeared midway through. That's what made the first chapter stand out while the second one is like, whatever, let's just put Kidman running around in the church outskirts section. There are some cool puzzle moments with the safes, I would've really liked to see those in the main game to make the collectables juicier.
I'll see if the next DLCs manage to use what's here to build up something better, but as its own piece it's just OK. I would've much rather have more character moments out of Kidman in the main game than this separate thing
Aside from that, it fleshes out a bit of the hidden lore of the main game, but I don't think it says much that a curious player wouldn't have figured out from the well placed breadcrumbs that were already there. In fact, that's what I liked from the main game: it ends so chaotically it forces you to remember all of the out of context oddities of the game and make you piece everything together. This just spoonfeeds the info to you, but... I already knew most of this.
Gameplay-wise this DLC's whole deal was to strip back the game's shooting mechanics and instead delve into the more fragile side of horror games. Avoid confrontation, even with low rate enemies. Lure them out of the way with distractions. I think it's a nice change of pace from the main game but it doesn't feel like it's building up to much. In fact, what I expected to be the slasher nemesis of the chapter just disappeared midway through. That's what made the first chapter stand out while the second one is like, whatever, let's just put Kidman running around in the church outskirts section. There are some cool puzzle moments with the safes, I would've really liked to see those in the main game to make the collectables juicier.
I'll see if the next DLCs manage to use what's here to build up something better, but as its own piece it's just OK. I would've much rather have more character moments out of Kidman in the main game than this separate thing
Very unremarkable shooter with automated mechanics, spongy feedback, gacha stats and whatnot... Only played for a few hours until I realized that I just didn't care for it. It's not offensively bad but at the same time it's not like it offers anything of worth, specially not for something that is design to consume your time.
There's a lot of positive stuff to say about the game, but the camera is nauseating. It's waaaaaay too responsive to character movement so it's constantly going left and right. It's not a bad game but last time I tried it I got dizzy real quick.
The original is a masterclass is oldschool arcade weirdness, so when I found out about about a cellphone sequel I spent an enormous time trying my best to know more about it. How would a sequel play like? On old Japanese phones nonetheless! I've been fantasizing about playing this for the longest time and when I finally managed to play the G-Mode Archives rerelease it was honestly really... jank.
Momoko either goes slow as hell or dashes at mach speed so it's hard to have a grip on her movement; as a player you don't shoot as much as you toggle automated shooting with an option for autoaim (I guess it was probably meant as a speedrun type of experience) but it results in a lack of player involvement so I can't even describe the action of playing it because it was so devoid of everything, yet, it managed to feel like jank anyways. I think they were onto something because with some little arrangements this could've been an interesting experiment and, credit where credit is due, the presentation is pretty damn good for a cellphone of the era. But it's just not really responsive or fun and that's a huge shame.
Momoko either goes slow as hell or dashes at mach speed so it's hard to have a grip on her movement; as a player you don't shoot as much as you toggle automated shooting with an option for autoaim (I guess it was probably meant as a speedrun type of experience) but it results in a lack of player involvement so I can't even describe the action of playing it because it was so devoid of everything, yet, it managed to feel like jank anyways. I think they were onto something because with some little arrangements this could've been an interesting experiment and, credit where credit is due, the presentation is pretty damn good for a cellphone of the era. But it's just not really responsive or fun and that's a huge shame.
El Shaddai needs no introductions: one of the most beautiful and artsy games to come out of the peak 360/PS3 era that has a so-so combat system and a very unfocused and barebones plot that's also a reinterpretation of the Book of Enoch. Very easy to appreciate on the surface, but very hard to stay engaged with as it has a chronic lack of depth. Still, worth the ride if you're into these kinds of japanese oddities. I would rate it a perfectly good 6... ¿So how come that I'm giving it a 7?
The 2021 PC "Remaster" (AFAIK it's just a straight up port, but nowadays ports can't be marketed without some fancy words) is about what you'd expect from these types of rereleases but what I didn't expect is that it includes an extract of the El Shaddai novelization that coincidentally includes a new ending for the game. The prelude actually explains that El Shaddai faced a lot of development troubles and the novel was meant as a way to release the intended experience in some way or another.
The writting isn't top notch stuff, but I think the concepts at hand help a lot into giving a proper third act to the game that ties together the elements of the game for a pretty climatic payoff... and then the novel kinda just speedruns through a whole sequel. I'm not kidding.
It's pretty interesting, and it's sad that the original game couldn't really do everything its creators wanted to do. The director/writer/designer is still repping El Shaddai really hard to this very day, he actually just released a whole new spin off manga staring Enoch and Lucifer, so finding out about all of this just made me look at this weird little experiment in a much more positive way. This was someone's passion project, they got the one chance to make it a reality, and things didn't go according to plan... but they still pushed through and managed to finish it even years after the development ended and then bring it to a whole new generation.
When it's all set and done, even if I think the end result was lacking in some areas, I wish every release had the passion and ambition this had.
THIS WAS MADE WITH GAMEBRYO, THE ENGINE OF FALLOUT 3. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????
The 2021 PC "Remaster" (AFAIK it's just a straight up port, but nowadays ports can't be marketed without some fancy words) is about what you'd expect from these types of rereleases but what I didn't expect is that it includes an extract of the El Shaddai novelization that coincidentally includes a new ending for the game. The prelude actually explains that El Shaddai faced a lot of development troubles and the novel was meant as a way to release the intended experience in some way or another.
The writting isn't top notch stuff, but I think the concepts at hand help a lot into giving a proper third act to the game that ties together the elements of the game for a pretty climatic payoff... and then the novel kinda just speedruns through a whole sequel. I'm not kidding.
It's pretty interesting, and it's sad that the original game couldn't really do everything its creators wanted to do. The director/writer/designer is still repping El Shaddai really hard to this very day, he actually just released a whole new spin off manga staring Enoch and Lucifer, so finding out about all of this just made me look at this weird little experiment in a much more positive way. This was someone's passion project, they got the one chance to make it a reality, and things didn't go according to plan... but they still pushed through and managed to finish it even years after the development ended and then bring it to a whole new generation.
When it's all set and done, even if I think the end result was lacking in some areas, I wish every release had the passion and ambition this had.
THIS WAS MADE WITH GAMEBRYO, THE ENGINE OF FALLOUT 3. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????
2023
It honestly was a big letdown seeing screenshots and all the interestingly weird and obtuse architecture and then finding out that it's Getting Over It with but with no physic gimmicks or mechanical depth.
2018
This review contains spoilers
Very interesting exploratory demo. Yes, according to the author's twitter account this seems to be a demo, or at least part of a bigger game that was put on hold. I'm not gonna give this a rating because of it, but it's definitely interesting and I want to see more outside of this segment and the Chapel thing they also released.
2023
Caught my eye because of juicy anthro rat honkers, bought it because it looked like underground itch.io type beat game, actually liked because of the meta personal aspect behind of this game in particular and the story behind it. Even if it's pretty barren, I think that's the point, to keep those memories as they were.
2016
Jonathan Blow Deez Nutz
Also, despite the game having a touch based interface in the Android port, the Steam version flat out breaks when I try to use my tablet. A huge oversight considering drawing on panels is THE ONE THING THE GAME IS ABOUT.
Also, despite the game having a touch based interface in the Android port, the Steam version flat out breaks when I try to use my tablet. A huge oversight considering drawing on panels is THE ONE THING THE GAME IS ABOUT.
Quiplash 3 alone is the perfect excuse to go fully uhinged with your friends