cheeseinthewind
4 reviews liked by cheeseinthewind
Katana Zero
2019
wish i could give this a 3.75. its not quite a four for me, but also ranking it lower than that feels... not right? so i guess we round up.
this was enjoyable, and i would recommend it to people generally, but i cannot see myself coming back for the dlc or even for all of the extra content in this game, which really disappoints me. i like the story, and i like the general feel of combat but there are too many things that just made it difficult for me to personally enjoy.
i got motion sick from this, which is INSANE because i dont think any other game has ever done that to me? maybe once or twice with powerwash simulator, but after tweaking one setting it was fine. i could not do that with this game. i dont know what it was about the death animations/resetting of the room, but it made my head hurt so bad when playing. i didnt deal with this too much in the beginning, but as the game got more difficult (like the last 3 stages), i felt sick. the options given DO help, but i wish that the death reset operated the way the rest - r button does. its smooth and helped a lot, but obviously i cant react and expect to push that right before i die in every screen. i think without this issue, i might have enjoyed this game a lot more. there was some issues with input delay/buffering and some wonky ass hitboxes, but overall it was really fun. i dont think i've played something like this (though i know hotline miami is famous amongst k0 fans for a reason), so i was happy with my foray into the niche.
final note, the final boss of the campaign was fucking sick. ended too quickly for my tastes, but she was great. super fun to learn and very hard at first, but i learned quick!
this was enjoyable, and i would recommend it to people generally, but i cannot see myself coming back for the dlc or even for all of the extra content in this game, which really disappoints me. i like the story, and i like the general feel of combat but there are too many things that just made it difficult for me to personally enjoy.
i got motion sick from this, which is INSANE because i dont think any other game has ever done that to me? maybe once or twice with powerwash simulator, but after tweaking one setting it was fine. i could not do that with this game. i dont know what it was about the death animations/resetting of the room, but it made my head hurt so bad when playing. i didnt deal with this too much in the beginning, but as the game got more difficult (like the last 3 stages), i felt sick. the options given DO help, but i wish that the death reset operated the way the rest - r button does. its smooth and helped a lot, but obviously i cant react and expect to push that right before i die in every screen. i think without this issue, i might have enjoyed this game a lot more. there was some issues with input delay/buffering and some wonky ass hitboxes, but overall it was really fun. i dont think i've played something like this (though i know hotline miami is famous amongst k0 fans for a reason), so i was happy with my foray into the niche.
final note, the final boss of the campaign was fucking sick. ended too quickly for my tastes, but she was great. super fun to learn and very hard at first, but i learned quick!
Spiritfarer
2020
I haven't cried at a videogame since I saw the end of the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games at 9 years old, and I didn't cry at Spiritfarer, either, but I came astoundingly close on multiple occasions. I find very few things are able to tug at my heartstrings nowadays, I've grown up on the Internet, am bombarded with tragedy and heartache almost every day and have found myself incredibly jaded as a result of it. There's a lot of media that claims to be - or attempts to be "heartfelt" or "emotional" and I feel never manages to deliver on that promise, but Spiritfarer does.
I don't want to spoil you because I truly think you need to go into this game knowing as few specifics as possible so I'll say this, it's a game about dying. Getting to know people in the last moments of their lives, and then having to let go. In doing so, you'll play around with a core gameplay loop not entirely unlike that of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, but not so similar that it feels derivative. Spiritfarer forges a very unique identity of its own and it genuinely takes a good few hours of playing the game before you realise what the core "loop" is, and even when you do, it won't get tired or uninteresting for a very long while.
One of the biggest problems with games like Animal Crossing or to a greater extent - Stardew Valley is that once you've maxed out whatever kind of "relationship parameters" you have with characters in those games, they stop being interesting. You know everything there is to know about them, heard everything they have to say. They stop being characters and instead become lifeless heaps of code that wander around repeating the same behaviours. This is why the fact that you eventually have to say goodbye to all the Spirits you welcome aboard your ship in Spiritfarer is so genius, as it is also heart-wrenching. You get to know these people, cater to them and enjoy life with them, and then they go away forever. It's incredibly powerful, and it's something you'll have to deal with countless times throughout the game.
Many games that attempt to be more narrative or emotional experiences are exactly that - "experiences" moreso than they are games, but Spiritfarer manages to be so artful and so evocative whilst also still having enjoyable, solid, and reasonably deep gameplay. The game largely takes place aboard your ship, which you'll upgrade in terms of size, travel speed, biomes you can navigate and other things throughout the game. The ship is where the Spirits you're escorting to the end of their lives will reside, so you'll have to build them houses aboard this ship as well as other buildings like kitchens and orchards to maintain the materials you'll need to keep them satisfied. In order to build things like this, you'll sail around a surprisingly large map to a bevy of locations gathering materials, talking to NPCs and often engaging in some quietly deep and well thought-out platforming puzzles.
There's a lot of times you'll see a faraway rock or a high ledge in Spiritfarer - realise that you can't make it there without an ability you haven't unlocked yet and have to keep it in mind for later so you can return with said ability and earn a reward. It's this kind of mindfulness of the game's mechanics, this kind of occasionally Metroidvania-like level design that makes Spiritfarer's core gameplay so fundamentally satisfying in moments like this, and gives it a huge leg up over both its life-sim game competition and its narrative game competition.
You watch your ship slowly expand over time and take all these wacky different shapes as you shift all the buildings and houses you've made around the place, the ship itself becomes a level of your own making as there'll soon be so many buildings that getting to where you want becomes it own fun, yet brisk and constantly interesting platforming challenge. It's a game you can take at your own pace, and mould in your own ways, the way any game looking to relax you should do.
Everything in this game is engineered to instil in you a feeling of serenity. From gorgeous visuals and environment design often taking inspiration from a variety of cultures like Feudal Japan, modern North America and the frozen Arctic to consistently glistening gold UI to a humble, quiet and charming soundtrack. Even its writing and dialogue is far beyond what you expect of most indie games - which often (understandably) show a disregard for writers compared to most of the game's other facets.
This is where one of my only two criticisms for Spiritfarer comes in; whilst its writing is detailed and consistent with the fleshed-out backstories for each of its characters, those specific characters' motivations and backstories themselves are often made a little bit too obtuse. Characters like Astrid & Summer's backgrounds will only really be fully understandable if you read up about them on the Wiki. Their dialogue is often vague and suggests some detail that you'll only really be able to find out if you do some extra-curricular research on the game. At many points the game will hint at its characters' backgrounds without ever really giving you the full picture even after you've seen their arcs through to the end. It has me wondering if the game perhaps respected its audience's intelligence a bit too much? Or if I'm just a monkey-brained idiot.
My other gripe with Spiritfarer is that I think it goes on for a bit too long. If it were 5 or so hours shorter, I think its length would be perfect but as it is, I think it drags a bit. Towards the latter half of the game, when you've begun to figure out what the game's loop is, you can quite accurately predict what the rest of the game will look like, and you've already been doing it for quite some time and it starts to wear a bit thin. If you're anything like me, you get a bit antsy about finally finishing the game and seeing the ending, but there's still a fair bit of trekking about the place and completing menial tasks. I do appreciate how packed full of content this game is though, as many indie games of its ilk often charge about the same price for a far less meaty package. There's no doubt in my mind that you'll get your money's worth when you buy this game, even if its soft demeanour may have you convinced otherwise.
Don't let these two minor grievances dissuade you, this is an amazing game. As I write this review it's late June 2021 and I've just seen the end credits and I can comfortably tell you that this is the best game I've played since I played Breath of the Wild for the first time in 2018. It's real. It's about something real by people who have clearly been through some harrowing experiences and made a shockingly beautiful piece of art to encapsulate what they were like, not just the bad parts, but the good parts too.
Spiritfarer is incredible, and it's hard to believe it was made by a studio considered "indie" and not a huge, triple A company considering the quality of its production value in every facet. It deserves to be held up as an indie game masterpiece alongside the likes of Hades and Undertale. It made me go upstairs and check on my Mum, who's been suffering with a litany of illnesses and conditions for the better part of a decade now. This game will stay with me for a very long time, and I'm very glad of that.
I don't want to spoil you because I truly think you need to go into this game knowing as few specifics as possible so I'll say this, it's a game about dying. Getting to know people in the last moments of their lives, and then having to let go. In doing so, you'll play around with a core gameplay loop not entirely unlike that of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, but not so similar that it feels derivative. Spiritfarer forges a very unique identity of its own and it genuinely takes a good few hours of playing the game before you realise what the core "loop" is, and even when you do, it won't get tired or uninteresting for a very long while.
One of the biggest problems with games like Animal Crossing or to a greater extent - Stardew Valley is that once you've maxed out whatever kind of "relationship parameters" you have with characters in those games, they stop being interesting. You know everything there is to know about them, heard everything they have to say. They stop being characters and instead become lifeless heaps of code that wander around repeating the same behaviours. This is why the fact that you eventually have to say goodbye to all the Spirits you welcome aboard your ship in Spiritfarer is so genius, as it is also heart-wrenching. You get to know these people, cater to them and enjoy life with them, and then they go away forever. It's incredibly powerful, and it's something you'll have to deal with countless times throughout the game.
Many games that attempt to be more narrative or emotional experiences are exactly that - "experiences" moreso than they are games, but Spiritfarer manages to be so artful and so evocative whilst also still having enjoyable, solid, and reasonably deep gameplay. The game largely takes place aboard your ship, which you'll upgrade in terms of size, travel speed, biomes you can navigate and other things throughout the game. The ship is where the Spirits you're escorting to the end of their lives will reside, so you'll have to build them houses aboard this ship as well as other buildings like kitchens and orchards to maintain the materials you'll need to keep them satisfied. In order to build things like this, you'll sail around a surprisingly large map to a bevy of locations gathering materials, talking to NPCs and often engaging in some quietly deep and well thought-out platforming puzzles.
There's a lot of times you'll see a faraway rock or a high ledge in Spiritfarer - realise that you can't make it there without an ability you haven't unlocked yet and have to keep it in mind for later so you can return with said ability and earn a reward. It's this kind of mindfulness of the game's mechanics, this kind of occasionally Metroidvania-like level design that makes Spiritfarer's core gameplay so fundamentally satisfying in moments like this, and gives it a huge leg up over both its life-sim game competition and its narrative game competition.
You watch your ship slowly expand over time and take all these wacky different shapes as you shift all the buildings and houses you've made around the place, the ship itself becomes a level of your own making as there'll soon be so many buildings that getting to where you want becomes it own fun, yet brisk and constantly interesting platforming challenge. It's a game you can take at your own pace, and mould in your own ways, the way any game looking to relax you should do.
Everything in this game is engineered to instil in you a feeling of serenity. From gorgeous visuals and environment design often taking inspiration from a variety of cultures like Feudal Japan, modern North America and the frozen Arctic to consistently glistening gold UI to a humble, quiet and charming soundtrack. Even its writing and dialogue is far beyond what you expect of most indie games - which often (understandably) show a disregard for writers compared to most of the game's other facets.
This is where one of my only two criticisms for Spiritfarer comes in; whilst its writing is detailed and consistent with the fleshed-out backstories for each of its characters, those specific characters' motivations and backstories themselves are often made a little bit too obtuse. Characters like Astrid & Summer's backgrounds will only really be fully understandable if you read up about them on the Wiki. Their dialogue is often vague and suggests some detail that you'll only really be able to find out if you do some extra-curricular research on the game. At many points the game will hint at its characters' backgrounds without ever really giving you the full picture even after you've seen their arcs through to the end. It has me wondering if the game perhaps respected its audience's intelligence a bit too much? Or if I'm just a monkey-brained idiot.
My other gripe with Spiritfarer is that I think it goes on for a bit too long. If it were 5 or so hours shorter, I think its length would be perfect but as it is, I think it drags a bit. Towards the latter half of the game, when you've begun to figure out what the game's loop is, you can quite accurately predict what the rest of the game will look like, and you've already been doing it for quite some time and it starts to wear a bit thin. If you're anything like me, you get a bit antsy about finally finishing the game and seeing the ending, but there's still a fair bit of trekking about the place and completing menial tasks. I do appreciate how packed full of content this game is though, as many indie games of its ilk often charge about the same price for a far less meaty package. There's no doubt in my mind that you'll get your money's worth when you buy this game, even if its soft demeanour may have you convinced otherwise.
Don't let these two minor grievances dissuade you, this is an amazing game. As I write this review it's late June 2021 and I've just seen the end credits and I can comfortably tell you that this is the best game I've played since I played Breath of the Wild for the first time in 2018. It's real. It's about something real by people who have clearly been through some harrowing experiences and made a shockingly beautiful piece of art to encapsulate what they were like, not just the bad parts, but the good parts too.
Spiritfarer is incredible, and it's hard to believe it was made by a studio considered "indie" and not a huge, triple A company considering the quality of its production value in every facet. It deserves to be held up as an indie game masterpiece alongside the likes of Hades and Undertale. It made me go upstairs and check on my Mum, who's been suffering with a litany of illnesses and conditions for the better part of a decade now. This game will stay with me for a very long time, and I'm very glad of that.
New Pokémon Snap
2021
This game is everything a sequel should be. It expands on just about everything the original Pokemon Snap does in all the right ways. Research levels that change things about the course and add new stuff between playthroughs keep the game fresh, alternate routes in courses demand replays, and filters and album management appeal to the hobbyist photographer bound to be lying dormant in a lot of this game's players.
Quite unlike recent Pokemon games, this one doesn't feel the need to pander endlessly to nostalgia. It shows off countless Pokemon from all generations in charming ways they've never been seen before. A pair of Clawitzer get into a fuckin' underwater shootout in this game, it's badass.
It's not for everyone, New Pokemon Snap's gameplay is as slow-paced and rudimentary as the original, but for long-time Pokemon fans or nerdish wildlife enthusiasts like myself, it's everything you could ask for from a game like this. I fear lots of people will overlook this game critically due to its arcade-y nature and simple premise, but you have to ask - what more could a game about photographing Pokemon do? The answer for me, is not much.
I can't tell if saying this makes me sad or not, but this is the most charming and enjoyable Pokemon has been in about 10 years.
Quite unlike recent Pokemon games, this one doesn't feel the need to pander endlessly to nostalgia. It shows off countless Pokemon from all generations in charming ways they've never been seen before. A pair of Clawitzer get into a fuckin' underwater shootout in this game, it's badass.
It's not for everyone, New Pokemon Snap's gameplay is as slow-paced and rudimentary as the original, but for long-time Pokemon fans or nerdish wildlife enthusiasts like myself, it's everything you could ask for from a game like this. I fear lots of people will overlook this game critically due to its arcade-y nature and simple premise, but you have to ask - what more could a game about photographing Pokemon do? The answer for me, is not much.
I can't tell if saying this makes me sad or not, but this is the most charming and enjoyable Pokemon has been in about 10 years.
Fallout: New Vegas
2010
Fallout: New Vegas is one of my favourite games of all time and I truly believe - one of the best games ever made. I say this whilst being acutely aware of its very obvious flaws. It's not a nice looking game at all, even for 2010. It's riddled with glitches and bugs that can cause extremely unnecessary deaths or even set you back an hour or so of progress, and the game has about 6 voice actors.
And yet...None of that matters at all in the face of storytelling and core gameplay as good as this. New Vegas's main story is one of the most unique and engaging I've ever experienced in a videogame. A breadcrumb trail of clues alluding to the game's central mystery is laid out to you from the very start and information is slowly dripfed to you with such masterful pacing that you're always satisfied with what you've learnt, but never entirely out of questions. You'll have questions right up until the end of the game, but fear not - they'll all be explained and they'll all make perfect, beautiful sense.
The characters and dialogue in this game are fascinating, and as an adolescent growing up and playing for the first time they genuinely taught me a lot. Mr. House educated me about the concept of autocracy, Caesar makes an earnestly compelling case for dictatorship as the ruling form of government in a post-nuclear war wasteland. I would quite literally rather listen to these characters talk than many of my real life family members! I would pay good money just to have new voice lines for characters such as these added to this game.
That's the thing about New Vegas, it has a culture in its writing that other Fallout games don't. Where games like Fallout 3 and 4 largely tread the same ground talking about survival and patriotism with the occasional interesting little nugget thrown in here and there, New Vegas dives into politics, history, psychology and so many other topics and almost always surfaces with something interesting to say, or even teach. Even the most insignificant of NPCs in this game might just say something that sticks with you for a long time, and while the game never forces you to - it encourages you to talk to everyone with writing of this calibre.
And as far as gameplay is concerned, New Vegas may seem like just an average-at-best shooter on the surface, but as a role-playing game? It nails everything. Think of so many recurring mechanics throughout the Fallout games and by extension - most Western RPGs, I promise you, Fallout: New Vegas quietly has some of the absolute best iterations of any of them. New Vegas ditches Fallout 3's awful % based skill checks and "good/bad" karma system for far more clean-cut "do you have this stat at this number" skill checks and a "reputation" system with each of the game's many fascinating factions that makes you far less limited in your role-playing than "am I a bad guy or am I a good guy?"
Because of this far more nuanced way of handling morality, you can role-play as - get this, a complex character with complex motivations! New Vegas gives you so many tools to be so many different kinds of character - you'd be surprised at how much the game is willing to let you commit to being a cannibal! Maybe you're a fucking idiot? New Vegas has got you covered! By giving you exceptionally stupid dialogue options specifically for when you catastrophically fail an Intelligence check, New Vegas not only lets you lean into role-playing, but it also makes failure fun! Something else that Fallout 3 and 4 practically never achieve.
On top of all of this New Vegas is a great open-world game. None of this half-hour intro nonsense that Bethesda RPGs put you through. Within 10 minutes of starting a new file you can have been given the setup, built your character and BAM, you're out in the world ready to do what you want. Pursue the main quest if you wish, but the world isn't at stake! It's not engineered to feel super urgent like so many other open-world games of its kind and so you can feel very valid to just be having fun out in the badlands. One of New Vegas's most important locations is a tall, glowing tower, shining a light that can be seen from almost anywhere in the game world and - particularly when you're out in the desert at night, beckons to you like a siren calling for a sailor. When playing this game, this and so many of the game's other monolithic landmarks filled me with a sense of wonder that I wouldn't feel for another 7 years, when Breath of the Wild came out.
Fallout: New Vegas was developed over the course of 18 months. This explains the repeating character models, often unsightly textures and litany of bugs. It doesn't explain how it's such a fucking masterpiece. Obsidian made this one Fallout game in 18 months and it absolutely blows anything Bethesda have ever done out of the water. New Vegas is funny, dramatic, tragic and insightful. I'm sorry, but if you truly think 3 or 4 are superior experiences to this, I have to seriously question your taste. After over 10 years of playing this game for the first time, nothing has yet topped it for me.
If you've never played it before, you owe it to yourself to do so. Let yourself experience it all for the first time spoiler-free. Just, do yourself a favour and pick "Wild Wasteland" as one of your starting perks. You'll thank me later.
And yet...None of that matters at all in the face of storytelling and core gameplay as good as this. New Vegas's main story is one of the most unique and engaging I've ever experienced in a videogame. A breadcrumb trail of clues alluding to the game's central mystery is laid out to you from the very start and information is slowly dripfed to you with such masterful pacing that you're always satisfied with what you've learnt, but never entirely out of questions. You'll have questions right up until the end of the game, but fear not - they'll all be explained and they'll all make perfect, beautiful sense.
The characters and dialogue in this game are fascinating, and as an adolescent growing up and playing for the first time they genuinely taught me a lot. Mr. House educated me about the concept of autocracy, Caesar makes an earnestly compelling case for dictatorship as the ruling form of government in a post-nuclear war wasteland. I would quite literally rather listen to these characters talk than many of my real life family members! I would pay good money just to have new voice lines for characters such as these added to this game.
That's the thing about New Vegas, it has a culture in its writing that other Fallout games don't. Where games like Fallout 3 and 4 largely tread the same ground talking about survival and patriotism with the occasional interesting little nugget thrown in here and there, New Vegas dives into politics, history, psychology and so many other topics and almost always surfaces with something interesting to say, or even teach. Even the most insignificant of NPCs in this game might just say something that sticks with you for a long time, and while the game never forces you to - it encourages you to talk to everyone with writing of this calibre.
And as far as gameplay is concerned, New Vegas may seem like just an average-at-best shooter on the surface, but as a role-playing game? It nails everything. Think of so many recurring mechanics throughout the Fallout games and by extension - most Western RPGs, I promise you, Fallout: New Vegas quietly has some of the absolute best iterations of any of them. New Vegas ditches Fallout 3's awful % based skill checks and "good/bad" karma system for far more clean-cut "do you have this stat at this number" skill checks and a "reputation" system with each of the game's many fascinating factions that makes you far less limited in your role-playing than "am I a bad guy or am I a good guy?"
Because of this far more nuanced way of handling morality, you can role-play as - get this, a complex character with complex motivations! New Vegas gives you so many tools to be so many different kinds of character - you'd be surprised at how much the game is willing to let you commit to being a cannibal! Maybe you're a fucking idiot? New Vegas has got you covered! By giving you exceptionally stupid dialogue options specifically for when you catastrophically fail an Intelligence check, New Vegas not only lets you lean into role-playing, but it also makes failure fun! Something else that Fallout 3 and 4 practically never achieve.
On top of all of this New Vegas is a great open-world game. None of this half-hour intro nonsense that Bethesda RPGs put you through. Within 10 minutes of starting a new file you can have been given the setup, built your character and BAM, you're out in the world ready to do what you want. Pursue the main quest if you wish, but the world isn't at stake! It's not engineered to feel super urgent like so many other open-world games of its kind and so you can feel very valid to just be having fun out in the badlands. One of New Vegas's most important locations is a tall, glowing tower, shining a light that can be seen from almost anywhere in the game world and - particularly when you're out in the desert at night, beckons to you like a siren calling for a sailor. When playing this game, this and so many of the game's other monolithic landmarks filled me with a sense of wonder that I wouldn't feel for another 7 years, when Breath of the Wild came out.
Fallout: New Vegas was developed over the course of 18 months. This explains the repeating character models, often unsightly textures and litany of bugs. It doesn't explain how it's such a fucking masterpiece. Obsidian made this one Fallout game in 18 months and it absolutely blows anything Bethesda have ever done out of the water. New Vegas is funny, dramatic, tragic and insightful. I'm sorry, but if you truly think 3 or 4 are superior experiences to this, I have to seriously question your taste. After over 10 years of playing this game for the first time, nothing has yet topped it for me.
If you've never played it before, you owe it to yourself to do so. Let yourself experience it all for the first time spoiler-free. Just, do yourself a favour and pick "Wild Wasteland" as one of your starting perks. You'll thank me later.