dandeyrain
56 Reviews liked by dandeyrain
I’ve played it entirely with my gf and our relationship survived. I think I’m gonna marry her.
Vampire Survivors
2021
The way people talk about this game on here is so funny. Dude it's fun. That's all a game really needs to be. Lots of my friends who don't care about gaming enjoy this game and have it on their phones. I appreciate Vampire Survivors for being simple, effective, and harkening back to the social element of arcade-like gameplay without falling into the modern mobile pay-to-win trap (granted, I only play the Steam version but per my friends who have the mobile version it's really fair and doesn't feel like a joke port that demands your money every 2 seconds). It's really fun to sink a spare 30 minutes into this game. Good time.
Alan Wake II
2023
I left a comment on my review of the first Alan Wake that it felt like a rough draft of some cool ideas that needed a lot of polish. Alan Wake II definitely feels like the final published version of all of those cool ideas.
Objectively if you spend some time with the story and how things fit together logically / narratively speaking, it does sort of bumble around a bit and some stuff doesn't get tied up in a super satisfying way, but for what the story is doing meta textually (which is arguably more important in a metafiction story like this imo) and trying to express, it delivers on every front and in such a deeply evocative and compelling way. Furthermore, every motif it touches on is something I really love in fiction, so I really can't help but fall head over heels in love with this game despite some of its flaws. So five stars.
I love the art direction, the FMV elements, the Echoes, Saga's playfulness and slightly deranged but straightforward logic, how much they acknowledged the 2010 Alan Wake and didn't try to retcon any of it even though it wasn't my cup of tea (I was worried they were going to rewrite Alan just to make him a sad wet cat of a man when it's established in Alan Wake 1 that he is pretty proud and has a big temper), I loved the dialogue, I loved how the game utilized loops, and so on and so forth. The game knows what it wants and what it's trying to say with its presentation, and I adore it for that.
But. The best part of the game. I could easily give this five stars for "WE SING" alone.
Objectively if you spend some time with the story and how things fit together logically / narratively speaking, it does sort of bumble around a bit and some stuff doesn't get tied up in a super satisfying way, but for what the story is doing meta textually (which is arguably more important in a metafiction story like this imo) and trying to express, it delivers on every front and in such a deeply evocative and compelling way. Furthermore, every motif it touches on is something I really love in fiction, so I really can't help but fall head over heels in love with this game despite some of its flaws. So five stars.
I love the art direction, the FMV elements, the Echoes, Saga's playfulness and slightly deranged but straightforward logic, how much they acknowledged the 2010 Alan Wake and didn't try to retcon any of it even though it wasn't my cup of tea (I was worried they were going to rewrite Alan just to make him a sad wet cat of a man when it's established in Alan Wake 1 that he is pretty proud and has a big temper), I loved the dialogue, I loved how the game utilized loops, and so on and so forth. The game knows what it wants and what it's trying to say with its presentation, and I adore it for that.
But. The best part of the game. I could easily give this five stars for "WE SING" alone.
Should have logged this in 2020 when I first tried this game. I tried Ever17 because I'd heard it praised amongst VN fans and especially those who like 999. Completed Tsugumi's route underwhelmed and uninterested in her relationship with Takeshi (that is his name, right?) so I decided to look up the rest of the plot and basically confirmed anything I liked about Ever17 was also later reused in 999 and fleshed out to a degree that I thought was more interesting. Glad it exists so 999 could exist, but I don't know how or why people could think this is an improvement upon 999 in any way. I do like the setting, but the borderline anime harem-y vibes of "guy stuck with girls who fight over his attention" is just......yeah, I can't do it anymore, guys.
Who's Lila?
2022
Really cool, really weird little game. This is a game that really benefits from you knowing as little as you possibly can before you play it, so this is the chance to click off if you're curious even though I don't really spoil anything at all in my review.
So with that out of the way here's more of my critiques/thoughts. I'm a little bummed that the face mechanic didn't feature as much as I thought it would--I somehow managed to get like 5 or 6 cards before I ever wound up in the interrogation room. There are a few endings that rely on the faces you pick, but it doesn't ever end up feeling like a "core mechanic" of the game to me in the way that the point and click or the ARG stuff does. Speaking of the ARG elements, at first I thought they were pretty cool since I like that sort of stuff but they did become a little taxing for me once I got further in the game.
I thought the dialogue/translation was a little wonky--there are lots of typos (which is ok, but it was a little jarring with the amount that there are) and the inclusion of tildes during serious/scary moments just kind of made me giggle, which is honestly a shame, because the game can really be genuinely freaky at times. The characters, apart from Lila herself, are sort of whatever--but the game really isn't about them, so it's easy to forgive it for its sort of middling writing of the cast beyond her. It's almost like the game called Who's Lila is about Lila. And it's incredible with posing that question to you and the world she lives in. It's an ode to meta mystery, shared consciousness, personality, and fiction. The visual direction of the game is awesome too!! Truly nothing like it.
The game reminds me of Paranoia Agent a lot. Cool experience, definitely recommend to people who like this sort of stuff. I'll be mulling over the hidden documents and who Lila is for quite some time. Also the Milk Inside a Bag of Milk reference did not go unnoticed, thank you!
So with that out of the way here's more of my critiques/thoughts. I'm a little bummed that the face mechanic didn't feature as much as I thought it would--I somehow managed to get like 5 or 6 cards before I ever wound up in the interrogation room. There are a few endings that rely on the faces you pick, but it doesn't ever end up feeling like a "core mechanic" of the game to me in the way that the point and click or the ARG stuff does. Speaking of the ARG elements, at first I thought they were pretty cool since I like that sort of stuff but they did become a little taxing for me once I got further in the game.
I thought the dialogue/translation was a little wonky--there are lots of typos (which is ok, but it was a little jarring with the amount that there are) and the inclusion of tildes during serious/scary moments just kind of made me giggle, which is honestly a shame, because the game can really be genuinely freaky at times. The characters, apart from Lila herself, are sort of whatever--but the game really isn't about them, so it's easy to forgive it for its sort of middling writing of the cast beyond her. It's almost like the game called Who's Lila is about Lila. And it's incredible with posing that question to you and the world she lives in. It's an ode to meta mystery, shared consciousness, personality, and fiction. The visual direction of the game is awesome too!! Truly nothing like it.
The game reminds me of Paranoia Agent a lot. Cool experience, definitely recommend to people who like this sort of stuff. I'll be mulling over the hidden documents and who Lila is for quite some time. Also the Milk Inside a Bag of Milk reference did not go unnoticed, thank you!
Returnal
2021
Returnal. Is a great game, and I absolutely recommend it.
For my roguelite enthusiasts, I'll put it this way. Imagine a AAA game built loosely around the Commando and their kit from Risk of Rain 2. Give the bosses Dark Souls levels of difficulty. String the areas together as if it were an action RPG. Boom. That'll get your mind pretty close to how Returnal plays, and man, it is fun.
One reason to enjoy it: The gameplay is so tight and refined. I played on a PS5 controller and thought that might impair how I normally play with M&K but it didn't. Guns feel impactful and all the while the music increases in intensity as the tension rises, as you attempt to clear rooms and waves of enemies without taking damage. It creates amazing spectacle encounters in every room and can often make you feel the pressure of your potential demise. Sure, there are still times you can live out your power fantasy (as roguelites tend to let you do), as an unkillable god-being, but it's these intense runs facing death itself that make your spontaneous god-runs feel oh so satisfying.
The other part about Returnal that really made me fall in love with it is the mystery. The more you play the more you (think you) understand. You'll find glyphs in your run and slowly translate them into strange little conundrums. You'll find ruins of civilization and strange creatures inhabiting this odd world. Death is a part of the lore as well, so you're trying to understand the time loop. Just when you think you understand this game it gives you a well-earned reveal that changes your entire perspective. Not everything is as it seems. The twists in here go harder than freakin' Shamylan and I lived for them. I wish I could share more, but it's just best if you find these glorious moments yourself... and trust me. Understanding more about the game will just cheapen the experience. It is a wild and exceptionally good ride.
That being said there is more for me to experience in Returnal that I have not experienced quite yet (2023 has been unpredictably amazing in terms of releases which has pressed me for time), but I don't think completing these will change my opinion. I certainly intend to return (heh) soon of course. They can't just tout a "true ending" without me finding it. But just know my marked 21 hours isn't the reaaal end of the game.
I imagine most will complete the campaign in about 25 or so hours, and on top of that, you have the endless mode which is incredibly satisfying as well. Capitalizes on the speed and thrill of combat without the travel time that can make the "metroid-ing" around the campaign a little tiresome from moment to moment. Also has its own conundrum of a narrative it follows, which is quite cool. Aside, but co-op was something I wanted to try, but never got around to. Would probably be fun.
As far as some lower notes go: Ran into one unavoidable bug that is 100% replicatable and happens every time (I posted about it in community forums and their website). Not the greatest PC port in general really. It worked for me way better than other reviewers but YMMV. I also... had a difficult time with the time allotment this game presents itself with. What I mean by that is... If I'm not sure I'll be gaming uninterrupted for like 2 hours I won't even bother to turn on Returnal paha. You can save and quit during a run at any time... but every time I do that in other roguelites I come back and die, so I'm incentivized per my own experiences to play one run all the way through to completion. Returnal is VAST. Runs can take hours. If you're stingy like me on saving and quitting you'll find it a bit difficult in that way as well.
But overall this is such an awesome game, with so many incredible high notes. The gameplay and progression feel great, the narrative mystery is excellent, and the presentation is absolutely top-notch. Because of the bugs and the lack of support on PC, it would be wise to wait for it to go on a bit of a deeper sale, but seriously, if you're looking for your next roguelite fix, I'm telling you right now, Returnal is a game you're not going to want to miss.
For my roguelite enthusiasts, I'll put it this way. Imagine a AAA game built loosely around the Commando and their kit from Risk of Rain 2. Give the bosses Dark Souls levels of difficulty. String the areas together as if it were an action RPG. Boom. That'll get your mind pretty close to how Returnal plays, and man, it is fun.
One reason to enjoy it: The gameplay is so tight and refined. I played on a PS5 controller and thought that might impair how I normally play with M&K but it didn't. Guns feel impactful and all the while the music increases in intensity as the tension rises, as you attempt to clear rooms and waves of enemies without taking damage. It creates amazing spectacle encounters in every room and can often make you feel the pressure of your potential demise. Sure, there are still times you can live out your power fantasy (as roguelites tend to let you do), as an unkillable god-being, but it's these intense runs facing death itself that make your spontaneous god-runs feel oh so satisfying.
The other part about Returnal that really made me fall in love with it is the mystery. The more you play the more you (think you) understand. You'll find glyphs in your run and slowly translate them into strange little conundrums. You'll find ruins of civilization and strange creatures inhabiting this odd world. Death is a part of the lore as well, so you're trying to understand the time loop. Just when you think you understand this game it gives you a well-earned reveal that changes your entire perspective. Not everything is as it seems. The twists in here go harder than freakin' Shamylan and I lived for them. I wish I could share more, but it's just best if you find these glorious moments yourself... and trust me. Understanding more about the game will just cheapen the experience. It is a wild and exceptionally good ride.
That being said there is more for me to experience in Returnal that I have not experienced quite yet (2023 has been unpredictably amazing in terms of releases which has pressed me for time), but I don't think completing these will change my opinion. I certainly intend to return (heh) soon of course. They can't just tout a "true ending" without me finding it. But just know my marked 21 hours isn't the reaaal end of the game.
I imagine most will complete the campaign in about 25 or so hours, and on top of that, you have the endless mode which is incredibly satisfying as well. Capitalizes on the speed and thrill of combat without the travel time that can make the "metroid-ing" around the campaign a little tiresome from moment to moment. Also has its own conundrum of a narrative it follows, which is quite cool. Aside, but co-op was something I wanted to try, but never got around to. Would probably be fun.
As far as some lower notes go: Ran into one unavoidable bug that is 100% replicatable and happens every time (I posted about it in community forums and their website). Not the greatest PC port in general really. It worked for me way better than other reviewers but YMMV. I also... had a difficult time with the time allotment this game presents itself with. What I mean by that is... If I'm not sure I'll be gaming uninterrupted for like 2 hours I won't even bother to turn on Returnal paha. You can save and quit during a run at any time... but every time I do that in other roguelites I come back and die, so I'm incentivized per my own experiences to play one run all the way through to completion. Returnal is VAST. Runs can take hours. If you're stingy like me on saving and quitting you'll find it a bit difficult in that way as well.
But overall this is such an awesome game, with so many incredible high notes. The gameplay and progression feel great, the narrative mystery is excellent, and the presentation is absolutely top-notch. Because of the bugs and the lack of support on PC, it would be wise to wait for it to go on a bit of a deeper sale, but seriously, if you're looking for your next roguelite fix, I'm telling you right now, Returnal is a game you're not going to want to miss.
Stray
2022
I have no idea if I would have liked this game as much if I didn't live with a cat, but I won't let that stop a 5-star review. The cat is a novel concept, yet at its core, this game masters the basics.
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
she Baldur on my Gate til i 3
Gris
2018
Absolutely heart shattering story with some amazingly impactful music and stunning environments. One of my favorite platformers out there
Dishonored 2
2016
the gameplay kicks ass and i love playable emily, so maybe my nostalgia for the first game is really why this one fell a bit short for me. i love the original's dlcs and the story of this game felt a bit like a rehash of those but with a less emotionally grounded plot. it's not a bad game at all, it just doesn't quite hit for me unfortunately. i love the world of dishonored so very much, so i don't even mind so much that i enjoyed it less, but i do hope that this is the last game in the series, existing dlcs aside.
Seventh Lair
2022
I was completely ready to just not write anything about this game but seeing it with only 93 plays I just can’t log this and move on. If me writing this even gets one more person to play a game written by Keika Hanada it’ll have been worth it.
Despite only being around 4 hours this game says a lot with its runtime but with the main message of it all being about the creation of art. How art acts as a reflection of a personal part of the artist at the time of its creation. Even if later on the intensity inside the artist takes a different form that work forever captures those emotions for others to feel. That’s what makes it such an immensely beautiful and uniquely human thing. Although it is easy to see games as just entertainment Seventh Lair is a poignant reminder that behind each game no matter how big or small there are people behind them trying to create something meaningful. And, at the end of the day, that work may not resonate with you personally but to complain about that would miss the point entirely. That’s why I can’t promise you’ll love this game but I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that felt more genuine. So, if you have $7 to spend on a visual novel from 2013 I can’t recommend it enough.
Despite only being around 4 hours this game says a lot with its runtime but with the main message of it all being about the creation of art. How art acts as a reflection of a personal part of the artist at the time of its creation. Even if later on the intensity inside the artist takes a different form that work forever captures those emotions for others to feel. That’s what makes it such an immensely beautiful and uniquely human thing. Although it is easy to see games as just entertainment Seventh Lair is a poignant reminder that behind each game no matter how big or small there are people behind them trying to create something meaningful. And, at the end of the day, that work may not resonate with you personally but to complain about that would miss the point entirely. That’s why I can’t promise you’ll love this game but I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that felt more genuine. So, if you have $7 to spend on a visual novel from 2013 I can’t recommend it enough.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
This review contains spoilers
Man this game was a mixed bag for me.
I wanna preface this whole thing with the comment that I don't have a PS5 so I watched my friend play; if I had been playing it for myself this could have easily added another star onto my review. The combat looks absolutely incredible and the SPECTACLE of it all, especially in the eikon fights, is second to none. However, I do not have a PS5, so any fun I might've had actually playing the game is, well, sadly irrelevant. It's a shame too because it looks really fun to play for yourself.
Another positive: the music! It's amazing, which is not at all surprising given Soken worked on it. Jill's theme and the pre-boss-prelude were my two favorites.
The line deliveries were amazing. Each voice actor really put their all into it. I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters by the end but I still did get a little choked up over the scene with Joshua and Clive and Jill's realization that Clive wouldn't be coming home.
If I talk too much about my problems with the story of the game this review would be a billion paragraphs long so I'm not gonna bother. It's frustrating to be given the broad strokes of something that, if it had only a little more time, could truly be great, but instead we're given a bunch of sort-of-fleshed out ideas that never really land. The story can't decide if it wants to be about Joshua and Clive, Clive's healing, or Clive's found family, so it tries to be about all three of these things and gets pulled in different ways that really hurt the story. We don't get to see Clive and Joshua reconnect much after their reunion, and any reasoning for Joshua being gone for so long completely falls apart when it's revealed that he never actually learned much about Ultima while he was travelling with Jote. We don't see any of the personal healing or self-doubt Clive experiences, he just gets talked at by Cid and any of his deeper growth happens off-screen during the timeskips. We don't see Clive form any meaningful bonds with the people he's supposed to be helping beyond doing fetch quests for them. It's a shame, because the game wants you to believe that his bonds are the backbone of his character, but it doesn't give the audience any real ways to connect to them until the very end with the completely optional sidequests, which were easily some of my favorite parts of the game. Why is Gav's backstory completely left in shadow until this very moment? Understanding that he was part of a big family that was taken away by the empire on the day of his little sister's birth puts his awkwardness with emotional situations (i.e. when Clive tried to hug him earlier on in the story) in an entirely different light, but you get this character note at the very end of the game--or not at all, if you didn't meet the prerequisites. Why do I learn that Jill promised herself she'd only cry in front of the moon only in her optional sidequest? Arrrgh!!!!!!
Basically, all of my interest in the characters was extremely limited to my fondness of their archetypes from previous JRPG experience. I wish there had been more meaningful scenes interspersed through the game. Everyone, even Joshua, feels incredibly underbaked compared to Clive, and even Clive's motivations just seem to come from a place of "I got talked at by a father figure so I'm good now." Sometimes he mentions he's doubting himself, but we never see him act on that doubt in a conscientious way (i.e. the 1 minute part where Joshua has to travel into Clive's mind to remind him of who he is--imo this would have landed much better as a short playable section as 'Wyvern' Clive like the beginning of the game). He just says "I'm not sure if this is right," and we go, "Oh ok."
Jill gets some interesting stuff about halfway through, but they hardly elaborate on her personal feelings beyond "I have to kill the guy who made me into a monster," and then they shelf her immediately to get kidnapped a few times.
The other characters, notably Dion and Barnabas, are obviously designed to be foils to Clive in some way, but they go so painfully unrealized that they don't land at all. Also, how can Eikons just make dudes? Does this not parallel what Ultima did to make humanity in a way? But I digress. Anyway, Barnabas had me reflecting on my time with FFXV and when people were calling Ardyn the most boring villain...augh!!
Do not get me started on the way the game talks about Elwin. Fuck that guy, I don't care, stop making me hear about how he was a good guy because he was "nice" to his slaves.
The tone of the game is all over the place. I'm fine with swearing but every time someone said "fuck" in this game I could not stop laughing. If you're going to show us some naked people in bed getting jiggy with it then stop with the funny camera angles to obscure a woman's boobs. We're adults here, we can handle a little nipple. Stuff like this makes the tone of the game feel a little weird, like XVI wants to be "grittier" but it's too embarrassed to commit to that. And then we get Clive punching Ultima in the face at the end of the fight (which admittedly was awesome but something I would more expect from, well, Devil May Cry).
I know this review is mostly negative so I just wanna stress that I really had a lot of FUN with the game and hanging out and watching my friend play it (#CLIVEHIVE), but I don't think it's very good, and I'm glad I didn't buy it. In comparison to the previous entry, FFXV, which I think is a similarly bad game, at least FFXV got me attached to the main cast, and that attachment made me cry at the end--in XVI's case I was mostly left feeling empty, and wistful for something more that it just didn't deliver.
Cid is so fine. Thank you
I wanna preface this whole thing with the comment that I don't have a PS5 so I watched my friend play; if I had been playing it for myself this could have easily added another star onto my review. The combat looks absolutely incredible and the SPECTACLE of it all, especially in the eikon fights, is second to none. However, I do not have a PS5, so any fun I might've had actually playing the game is, well, sadly irrelevant. It's a shame too because it looks really fun to play for yourself.
Another positive: the music! It's amazing, which is not at all surprising given Soken worked on it. Jill's theme and the pre-boss-prelude were my two favorites.
The line deliveries were amazing. Each voice actor really put their all into it. I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters by the end but I still did get a little choked up over the scene with Joshua and Clive and Jill's realization that Clive wouldn't be coming home.
If I talk too much about my problems with the story of the game this review would be a billion paragraphs long so I'm not gonna bother. It's frustrating to be given the broad strokes of something that, if it had only a little more time, could truly be great, but instead we're given a bunch of sort-of-fleshed out ideas that never really land. The story can't decide if it wants to be about Joshua and Clive, Clive's healing, or Clive's found family, so it tries to be about all three of these things and gets pulled in different ways that really hurt the story. We don't get to see Clive and Joshua reconnect much after their reunion, and any reasoning for Joshua being gone for so long completely falls apart when it's revealed that he never actually learned much about Ultima while he was travelling with Jote. We don't see any of the personal healing or self-doubt Clive experiences, he just gets talked at by Cid and any of his deeper growth happens off-screen during the timeskips. We don't see Clive form any meaningful bonds with the people he's supposed to be helping beyond doing fetch quests for them. It's a shame, because the game wants you to believe that his bonds are the backbone of his character, but it doesn't give the audience any real ways to connect to them until the very end with the completely optional sidequests, which were easily some of my favorite parts of the game. Why is Gav's backstory completely left in shadow until this very moment? Understanding that he was part of a big family that was taken away by the empire on the day of his little sister's birth puts his awkwardness with emotional situations (i.e. when Clive tried to hug him earlier on in the story) in an entirely different light, but you get this character note at the very end of the game--or not at all, if you didn't meet the prerequisites. Why do I learn that Jill promised herself she'd only cry in front of the moon only in her optional sidequest? Arrrgh!!!!!!
Basically, all of my interest in the characters was extremely limited to my fondness of their archetypes from previous JRPG experience. I wish there had been more meaningful scenes interspersed through the game. Everyone, even Joshua, feels incredibly underbaked compared to Clive, and even Clive's motivations just seem to come from a place of "I got talked at by a father figure so I'm good now." Sometimes he mentions he's doubting himself, but we never see him act on that doubt in a conscientious way (i.e. the 1 minute part where Joshua has to travel into Clive's mind to remind him of who he is--imo this would have landed much better as a short playable section as 'Wyvern' Clive like the beginning of the game). He just says "I'm not sure if this is right," and we go, "Oh ok."
Jill gets some interesting stuff about halfway through, but they hardly elaborate on her personal feelings beyond "I have to kill the guy who made me into a monster," and then they shelf her immediately to get kidnapped a few times.
The other characters, notably Dion and Barnabas, are obviously designed to be foils to Clive in some way, but they go so painfully unrealized that they don't land at all. Also, how can Eikons just make dudes? Does this not parallel what Ultima did to make humanity in a way? But I digress. Anyway, Barnabas had me reflecting on my time with FFXV and when people were calling Ardyn the most boring villain...augh!!
Do not get me started on the way the game talks about Elwin. Fuck that guy, I don't care, stop making me hear about how he was a good guy because he was "nice" to his slaves.
The tone of the game is all over the place. I'm fine with swearing but every time someone said "fuck" in this game I could not stop laughing. If you're going to show us some naked people in bed getting jiggy with it then stop with the funny camera angles to obscure a woman's boobs. We're adults here, we can handle a little nipple. Stuff like this makes the tone of the game feel a little weird, like XVI wants to be "grittier" but it's too embarrassed to commit to that. And then we get Clive punching Ultima in the face at the end of the fight (which admittedly was awesome but something I would more expect from, well, Devil May Cry).
I know this review is mostly negative so I just wanna stress that I really had a lot of FUN with the game and hanging out and watching my friend play it (#CLIVEHIVE), but I don't think it's very good, and I'm glad I didn't buy it. In comparison to the previous entry, FFXV, which I think is a similarly bad game, at least FFXV got me attached to the main cast, and that attachment made me cry at the end--in XVI's case I was mostly left feeling empty, and wistful for something more that it just didn't deliver.
Cid is so fine. Thank you
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
This review contains spoilers
#CLIVEHIVE
for starters, i don't have a ps5 so i watched my wonderful friend stream this game in full. i also have a preference for story-based games, so most of my reviews focus on this already, but since i can only go by what i saw, this is my rating.
i have so many problems with this game. i generally like so many characters in this game. this game has no idea what it wants to be about and proves that square enix is really struggling to capture the intimacy of human relationships—until they feel like it and throw it all in at the very end of a game that takes tens of hours to finish.
this game gives up on so many of its characters that it makes you feel like you were silly for expecting something with more detail. joshua is a ghost haunting clive until he's alive again and is a hooded-guy haunting clive until he joins clive and becomes almost irrelevant. then he dies again! and don't even bring up jote or dion or terence, characters who are so underwritten that they're simply placeholders. barnabas is a non-character until his fight which fucks and also he has a sentient horse man his side who can carry super buff men as if they're sheets of paper. i sure wish i knew any more about them at all. benedickta is the object of constant sexualization, talks about her past of being sexualized and abused, and then dies so. not great. hugo is obsessed with her and that's most of his writing after her death.
jill and gav really tied as my favorite characters and even among them there are issues. square enix typical misogyny runs rampant in jill's presentation but she still has moments of real beauty as a character, even though it's hard to feel like we really know her when she and clive can only rarely speak to each other. gav has a fun presentation, but i don't get why his backstory comes right before the final fight. doesn't make sense.
clive is an interesting case. he's the main character and everything revolves around him but he also is almost always fully reactive. many of the times he might need to make a choice, something happens to decide for him or he lets someone else's feelings/sentiments guide him. there's nothing wrong with that and it would honestly track for the story if clive is relying on others because he feels unprepared for the responsibility he's accepted as cid, but. the story never says that. it never lays any foundation for complex emotions about his current situation outside of his reactions to it, and only his past and loss get any kind of contemplative cutscenes. which, again, would be fine if the game wasn't trying to say his bonds with others are why he wins in the end. it feels unfocused. where are the conversations after every mission one on one with his allies? how does clive feel about his brother being alive but never revealing himself? why the hell does the game care so much about clive's dad in the last third of the game????
the structural issues of the story definitely don't harm the gameplay itself. this game is gorgeous and the combat is beautiful. i especially love the garuda, odin, and shiva movesets, and every effect that comes with the phoenix. the boss battles in this game go CRAZY HARD, i have no clue how these artists made that possible but sooo many props because it's terribly impressive.
music, A+ of course. soken is immensely talented. once i get to listen to the whole soundtrack on its own i'll update with my favorite tracks iirc.
in the end, i think if you have fun with the game then good. if you love final fantasy, i bet this will be really enjoyable. i'm newer to the franchise so i don't have a long history with it, so i'm not sure if that would have impacted my views. i don't hate this game at all, i just think that square enix often gets away with mediocre writing because that's just their reputation, so i wanted to say my piece. i had so much fun watching this game and hanging out with my friends, i'm so glad i could experience it with them! i'm so sleepy so i'm cutting off my review here TuT
square is not seeing heaven but jill is.
for starters, i don't have a ps5 so i watched my wonderful friend stream this game in full. i also have a preference for story-based games, so most of my reviews focus on this already, but since i can only go by what i saw, this is my rating.
i have so many problems with this game. i generally like so many characters in this game. this game has no idea what it wants to be about and proves that square enix is really struggling to capture the intimacy of human relationships—until they feel like it and throw it all in at the very end of a game that takes tens of hours to finish.
this game gives up on so many of its characters that it makes you feel like you were silly for expecting something with more detail. joshua is a ghost haunting clive until he's alive again and is a hooded-guy haunting clive until he joins clive and becomes almost irrelevant. then he dies again! and don't even bring up jote or dion or terence, characters who are so underwritten that they're simply placeholders. barnabas is a non-character until his fight which fucks and also he has a sentient horse man his side who can carry super buff men as if they're sheets of paper. i sure wish i knew any more about them at all. benedickta is the object of constant sexualization, talks about her past of being sexualized and abused, and then dies so. not great. hugo is obsessed with her and that's most of his writing after her death.
jill and gav really tied as my favorite characters and even among them there are issues. square enix typical misogyny runs rampant in jill's presentation but she still has moments of real beauty as a character, even though it's hard to feel like we really know her when she and clive can only rarely speak to each other. gav has a fun presentation, but i don't get why his backstory comes right before the final fight. doesn't make sense.
clive is an interesting case. he's the main character and everything revolves around him but he also is almost always fully reactive. many of the times he might need to make a choice, something happens to decide for him or he lets someone else's feelings/sentiments guide him. there's nothing wrong with that and it would honestly track for the story if clive is relying on others because he feels unprepared for the responsibility he's accepted as cid, but. the story never says that. it never lays any foundation for complex emotions about his current situation outside of his reactions to it, and only his past and loss get any kind of contemplative cutscenes. which, again, would be fine if the game wasn't trying to say his bonds with others are why he wins in the end. it feels unfocused. where are the conversations after every mission one on one with his allies? how does clive feel about his brother being alive but never revealing himself? why the hell does the game care so much about clive's dad in the last third of the game????
the structural issues of the story definitely don't harm the gameplay itself. this game is gorgeous and the combat is beautiful. i especially love the garuda, odin, and shiva movesets, and every effect that comes with the phoenix. the boss battles in this game go CRAZY HARD, i have no clue how these artists made that possible but sooo many props because it's terribly impressive.
music, A+ of course. soken is immensely talented. once i get to listen to the whole soundtrack on its own i'll update with my favorite tracks iirc.
in the end, i think if you have fun with the game then good. if you love final fantasy, i bet this will be really enjoyable. i'm newer to the franchise so i don't have a long history with it, so i'm not sure if that would have impacted my views. i don't hate this game at all, i just think that square enix often gets away with mediocre writing because that's just their reputation, so i wanted to say my piece. i had so much fun watching this game and hanging out with my friends, i'm so glad i could experience it with them! i'm so sleepy so i'm cutting off my review here TuT
square is not seeing heaven but jill is.
In a game filled with tragedies the biggest one is that despite being the best writing and story I’ve ever experienced in a game I can never recommend it to someone because I’ll have to say with a straight face that it doesn’t get good until fifteen hours in…
I think I've now found some of the words for talking about this game. So I’ll now make an effort to describe why Season: A Letter to the Future might actually be my absolute favorite video game concurrently. An effort I’ll probably return to sometime in the future.
As a person deeply interested in the topic of the archive, the base premise already resonates with me. I think the way a society preserves its history, memories and legacy is very indicative of how that society is structured and which values it upholds. History is not a given, it’s a process of writing and re-writing, at least loosely informed by the archives that hold traces of the past. But those traces aren’t a given either. Whose history does a society decide is worth recording and safeguarding? Whose history is neglected or even getting erased? The archive belongs to the ghosts - but we need it to know who we are and where we came from. There’s an intangible feeling of sadness and loss that comes with these questions, especially when talking from a queer perspective. I’m non-binary – and I do rarely find myself anywhere in what the west calls its history. Season: A Letter to the Future sits somewhere in this entangled mess of historiography, softly and calmly singing its own song.
You'd think that gamifying the process of writing about history would result in a game that you could "100%", in which you could collect all the collectibles and “win” at historiography. But Season isn't that. It's as much a game about what you do not or cannot record as it is one about what you end up recording. The tools you are given to do so are a camera, a microphone, and handwriting (or rather: handwritten prompts). What you record with them is stored in a notebook, which you can freely customize – one page per area or topic is all you are given. It’s way too little to store every information you find. The player is put in the position to center what parts are important to them and what aspects of the current season they want to preserve. They also have the power to assign moral judgements to some events, influencing if and how the next season will remember what happened. The game also adds a clever twist to its setting: It’s set in the context of already having happened. It starts with a person already reading the “finished” notebook. The parts of the game you play are narratively already in the past – this re-focuses who else might be reading the book in the future and what they are taking away from it.
Season is also about what can’t be recorded or written down, about a lot of small or big moments and their atmosphere. The roadtrip-setting of the game is one filled with endings without closure, fitting for a game about recording history. In that aspect, it’s not just about history, but also about living in it. About the people you meet and their right (not) to be remembered. But also about the people you can no longer meet, about the absences felt in this game’s world – which is brilliantly crafted. Through careful sound design, it manages to have a tangibility to it that few games will ever reach. A tangibility that makes you feel the absences even more intensely.
Season’s writing is also incredibly strong and poetic. It uses every inch of its dialogues and monologues to think about history, memory and the emotional depth that reside in those concepts. It’s beautiful. And I think that is the note I want to end on, for now. I don’t want to get into spoilers yet, as I think this game benefits from having no idea what happens next – it’s a roadtrip, after all. But I’ll return to this space, sometime in the future. Because I have so many more words to find and sentences to form about Season: A Letter to the Future.
As a person deeply interested in the topic of the archive, the base premise already resonates with me. I think the way a society preserves its history, memories and legacy is very indicative of how that society is structured and which values it upholds. History is not a given, it’s a process of writing and re-writing, at least loosely informed by the archives that hold traces of the past. But those traces aren’t a given either. Whose history does a society decide is worth recording and safeguarding? Whose history is neglected or even getting erased? The archive belongs to the ghosts - but we need it to know who we are and where we came from. There’s an intangible feeling of sadness and loss that comes with these questions, especially when talking from a queer perspective. I’m non-binary – and I do rarely find myself anywhere in what the west calls its history. Season: A Letter to the Future sits somewhere in this entangled mess of historiography, softly and calmly singing its own song.
You'd think that gamifying the process of writing about history would result in a game that you could "100%", in which you could collect all the collectibles and “win” at historiography. But Season isn't that. It's as much a game about what you do not or cannot record as it is one about what you end up recording. The tools you are given to do so are a camera, a microphone, and handwriting (or rather: handwritten prompts). What you record with them is stored in a notebook, which you can freely customize – one page per area or topic is all you are given. It’s way too little to store every information you find. The player is put in the position to center what parts are important to them and what aspects of the current season they want to preserve. They also have the power to assign moral judgements to some events, influencing if and how the next season will remember what happened. The game also adds a clever twist to its setting: It’s set in the context of already having happened. It starts with a person already reading the “finished” notebook. The parts of the game you play are narratively already in the past – this re-focuses who else might be reading the book in the future and what they are taking away from it.
Season is also about what can’t be recorded or written down, about a lot of small or big moments and their atmosphere. The roadtrip-setting of the game is one filled with endings without closure, fitting for a game about recording history. In that aspect, it’s not just about history, but also about living in it. About the people you meet and their right (not) to be remembered. But also about the people you can no longer meet, about the absences felt in this game’s world – which is brilliantly crafted. Through careful sound design, it manages to have a tangibility to it that few games will ever reach. A tangibility that makes you feel the absences even more intensely.
Season’s writing is also incredibly strong and poetic. It uses every inch of its dialogues and monologues to think about history, memory and the emotional depth that reside in those concepts. It’s beautiful. And I think that is the note I want to end on, for now. I don’t want to get into spoilers yet, as I think this game benefits from having no idea what happens next – it’s a roadtrip, after all. But I’ll return to this space, sometime in the future. Because I have so many more words to find and sentences to form about Season: A Letter to the Future.