Super 13 Euphoria: Subarashiki Sky

If you want the short version I actually really liked the game despite my grievances with the last quarter and the tower defense gameplay merged with the weird gatekeeping system.

(+) Plot (not the ED)

The very idea of telling a story from 13 different perspectives is just absurd, its so easy to mess it up and have it all feel convoluted and even though the actual plot itself is very hard to follow for the sheer mish mashing of (spoilers) events over separate eras, the multi-perspective storytelling is done VERY competently. Some perspectives didn’t qualitatively add much for example Iori’s route is total garbage, but then other routes were REALLY good. The way I’ve described the quality of storytelling in this game is that its insanely difficult to design a story such that it doesn’t feel like you’re hearing the same facts again and again especially with 13 PERSPECTIVES.

13 sentinels is a culmination of so many of sci-fi tropes in JP media that I lost count, oh you want cloning? mind control? time travel? cyborgs? AI? Whatever you can name the story definitely puts its feet in it, and somehow all of these still felt fresh and (for the most part) fully realized.

The pacing is really bad at the prologue for everyone’s routes, not so much so that its slow infact quite the opposite, you are forced to consume so much information that doesn’t make any sense that its almost a complete turnoff.

I like the idea of sprinkling in story-bits out-of-context that make sense much later down the line but there’s so much happening in a single route sometimes that you can straight up forget where it picks back up when you revisit it after completing OTHER routes that have a lot happening in them. Even then the game still does a very good job of having such distinct events and outcomes occur in routes that you’re able to still have a mental log before you revisit it eventually.

I’m not going to split hairs about the actual plot, sure there are silly moments here and there and I feel like the story is too needlessly incessant on being convoluted especially with added jargon as JP media already does but I have nothing really negative to write about the plot, I just had a lot of fun after the first quarter up till the end. Well-paced and well delivered, as much as they could at least.

(+/-) Characters

All the characters in this game are exactly as 1 dimensional and follow character archetypes that have existed in countless JP media in the past, you ALREADY know these characters before they even properly get introduced in the game because both their design and their dialogue are reminiscent of the mold they were pulled out from.

I think most of the characters are likable but I don’t know what is wrong with the authors they could not write a single character that doesn’t get paired with another, it was such a massive turn-off I almost thought there was a plot-related reason why some characters would suddenly go into heat throughout the game, turning red as if they had a permanent rash on their face one itch away from peeling off their skins, this game has the WORST most POINTLESS romance it actively annoyed me holy shit.

(+) Presentation

Phenomenal, beautiful game

(-) (FORCED) Gameplay

There’s 2 types of gameplay, one is during the “Visual Novel” portion where you have to select actionable/thinkable items from your thought cloud (or on the rare occasion you’ll press a button to shoot) and then there’s a whole separate mode that is tower defense gameplay.

To be abundantly fair I haaaaaaaaaaaaated the tower defense but I had to only do 3-4 consecutive sessions on it up until the game gatekept me, so as inexcusably mind-numbing destruction is it doesn’t take up the massive percentage of annoyance the thought cloud takes up. I HATE THE THOUGHT CLOUD.

The game forcefully breaks up conversations so you keep hitting the interaction key with a character (or multiple) and sometimes it was so absurd that the game will go as far as to have “hello” and the main agenda of the convo require separate key presses to continue the conversation. The thought cloud is artificial interactivity added to the game, the game essentially probes you to select specific pieces of information from the cloud and highlights them out which makes it even STUPIDER… why even encourage the player like this to continue a stream of conversation when you could just continue the conversation directly? Oh right then it wouldn’t make sense why this is even a game rather than a VN.

The most absurd example of the thought cloud “gameplay” is when the game forces you to wander around school, listen to floating conversations and then go collect coins along the premises. BAD.

I don’t like the weird gatekeeping between destruction and remembrance but the gatekeeping within remembrance makes perfect sense. Remove destruction entirely.

(-) The Ending

As much as I will forever hate this type of ending, the game strongly hints it and it does make logical sense as the ultimate conclusion. I still do NOT like the ending but I wasn't melting with rage it felt very reasonable and its unfortunate that this type of ending is just... its tired.

(+/-) OST

It serves its purpose not much to say

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Immortal Difficulty)

Off the bat this is easily one of the best if not the best metroidvania currently out on the market. I don’t know how Ubisoft of all companies, the company that has an assembly line that pushes out the most smelly dirt chewing Assassin’s Creed titles, managed to make this game or even decided to have a dedicated division work on it with a budget.

As usual I’ll split the game into pros and cons,

(+) Bosses

There are mainline bosses then there are fodder (mini) bosses, and honestly the mini-bosses are just fine. Of all of them Alternate Sargon was the only one I genuinely liked because it really got me to learn how to play more aggressively and utilize launchers (which greatly help in the Menolias fight), others like the Prisoner that swings a pillar and the giant possum (Elrik?) are there to teach how to get behind enemies to maximize your damage.

The funniest one is the crab which is also a boss for a side-quest… why does this boss exist again?

(+) Mainline Bosses

(-) Jahandar is extremely mediocre

(+) Kiana just blew my mind, the fight feels like a dance where you’re constantly making decisions by parrying, dodging, jumping and the like. Kiana is one of the best early game fights I have EVER played

(+) Azdaha follows up with a very similar style to Kiana’s gameplay albeit this fight felt way easier and the switch-ups are very fun to learn, the music of this fight is fucking phenomenal as well

(+) Menolias is the first skill-check in the game where you really need to be fast on your feet, the fight requires you to clear the field and keep Menolias on his toes since he really doesn’t like to stick in one spot but he’s susceptible to launchers which puts the fight greatly in your favor

(+) Orod was the hardest fight in the game for me, the switch-ups threw me SO off, and he hits VERY, VERY hard, with large AoEs.

(+) Vahram was the one I thought I’d have the most trouble with but since he’s also susceptible to some aggressive gameplay it was smooth sailing for me, easily the best fight in the game bar none, not only because it has responsive gameplay elements that are fun to learn but also because the fight IN context is just.. fucking cool

(+) King Darius is the best use of grappling for a boss and even though I got a little frustrated and annoyed at first, given that I played this on the Yuzu Emulator with a keyboard and mouse, his tells are so easily distinguishable from phase to phase that it makes the fight just as enjoyable as Kiana and Azdaha

(---------------) Final Boss, I HATE. THIS. FIGHT. THIS FIGHT DRAGS BEYOND BELIEF. IF I COULD REMOVE ONE THING FROM THIS GAME IT’S THIS FIGHT. HOLY SHIT THIS FIGHT IS ANNOYING TO LEARN. This fight has 4 phases (where the 4th phase is le MC powertrip), so essentially you have to survive 3 phases, if you die you do all the phases over again and its fucking grating. There are switch-ups in this fight I straight up did not care about as it added to my irritation and for each phase you have to hit this random ball to transition to the next phase like are you serious? This is a fucking waste of time. GARBAGE.

(+) Utility

PoP has this utility for exploration where it can explicitly mark the next objective on the map and this is just SUCH a relief I cannot even imagine playing the game without this, additionally you can add pins on the map and even screenshots for certain points-of-interest.

(+/-) The World Design

The way the abilities are used to flesh out a lot of the platforming segments is fantastic, some are better than others (mostly ones that involved the time mechanic), the areas where I truly hated the trial and error platforming is the desert and the snow area which are just ATROCIOUS.
Metroidvanias, by design, are meant to be annoying, the genre insists on walkbacks and opening shortcuts, which can honestly become insanely formulaic and often tedious. The early game is absolutely brutal in this regard since you’re working with a limited health pool and on Immortal if you’re facing two enemies on screen it can turn into a life and death scenario real quick. One important thing I want to mention is how beautifully interconnected the levels are.

What I can honestly say about exploration in PoP, however, is that… it isn’t that rewarding, I feel like I grew more and more exhausted as the game progressed because of the chorelike nature of the traversal, even with an entourage of enemies with carefully telegraphed movesets at best I just hated fighting them most of the time. It isn’t FUN to do additional platforming challenges in PoP, if what awaits me are Xerxes or gems. The collectibles aren’t interesting enough to warrant extra exploration unless you’re a completionist.

To compare it with HK’s world design, on the design and the interconnectivity of the layout PoP smokes HK, but HK does more with less complexity, and it also utilizes the world to tell the story of the game. HK’s areas are MEMORABLE, even if you’re in the pits of the abyss, each area has a distinct soundtrack, so walking into something like the City of Tears has a lasting impression. A complaint of HK has always been the grid like nature of the map making every single map feel the same, and while I agree with the reskinned map critique, traversal in HK just doesn’t feel as Trial and Error as PoP on Immortal sometimes.

With a challenging difficulty mode, comes challenging traversal, and I for one think that it tanked my enjoyment outside of the bosses.

(+) Gameplay

All the individual mechanics are fantastic… besides clairvoyance which was strangely never used in a boss fight, the teleportation mechanic is the most unique one and each time the game encouraged me to use it I was just thrilled. The game is also very intuitive so often times if a puzzles involves a certain mechanic its very easy to tell which one. Grappling is another one which I really enjoyed in late game despite hating the area where it is used the most (the ice area).

Athra Surges are just….damage bursts, not much to say about these but they do have different customizability options for levels of surge batteries.

Amulets are honestly great despite many of them being complete garbage (as is with other games). The amulet that I never took off was actually the one that healed me for every parry I did successfully, despite not healing a lot it made it easier to not use the heal for the any of the boss fights since that just instantly recovers 3 bars and you feel like you’re over-rejuvenated.

(+) Story

I like the story! I think its super basic but it works really well and it positions the protagonist in the story quite well, I feel like PoP wasn’t interested in pushing the narrative in any complicated direction which is for the better, and by fighting and besting most of the bosses I actually felt a sense of victory and accomplishment as I laid them to rest, more than any direct story-telling could accomplish.

(+/-) OST

I liked some OSTs

(+) Conclusion

Fantastic bosses except mini-bosses, Jahandar and the final CANCER boss, well worth it to play the game. I’m hot and cold on the exploration but the work they’ve put into carefully connecting multiple branching paths is no joke and I can only respect it. This is a game made with a lot of love for the genre, even though I find it funny the devs said they took inspiration from games like DMC5 which is one of the worst games ever made.

Amazing game. Also I think Vahram is hot.

Sekimeiya: Spun Glass

(Edit: After re-reading it with a friend, nosediving into the tips section and engaging with the extended mechanics I've revised the score because of the amount of complexity Adri tackles)

I’ve been waiting for a trapped in a facility game that would actually have a solid mystery for nearly a decade since I touched Ever17 as a kid, there’s been so many variations on the formula: E17,R11, Root Double, 999, VLR, death-game variants like the Danganronpa-universe, Raging Loop all the way to nukige variants like Room No. 9, DEA, Euphoria. Even though there have been a lot of different mixes with the trapped genre, Sekimeiya blows them all out of the water.

This is singlehandedly THE most complex VN I have ever read, it’s the only VN where the game will spell out the solution and you have to spend a long time in the backlog to just understand how the solution even works. There is an art to misdirection and foreshadowing that shouldn’t feel very cheap and (for the most part) Sekimeiya manages to present sound solutions to the insane clusterfuck it paints with its first route. Before I ramble more about why I like the game, I have to start with some of the negatives:

Cons

(-) Production

Considering how much 3D work/ Hand-painting/ Photography that was done for the backgrounds, I’m surprised at the lack of actual character CGs in the game, most of them featuring Shiroya (which either works for promotional reasons or just because she’s the main pillar for the MC and poster child for the game.) There’s a reason why the CGs are limited which plays into a specific factor of the game but even then I think other moments definitely deserved more CGs.

(-) Character Writing

This is a popular complaint against the game, and I agree and disagree with it. Mainly, I have no problems if the VN puts center-focus on the mystery but sometimes the characters would behave in such a way that felt way so ridiculous in service of the mystery, there’s so many moments of confusion in the game which would have been perfect instances to add dramatic elements, and even though some exist they also feel robotic and too calculated in placement and design.

Often times characters would leave to the bathroom or go on one of the upper floors and would just not get chased because they insisted on not being followed, character “N” can just pull character “K” to a separate room with esper levels of convincing and keep the others upstairs, character “S” can just say “don’t follow me” and run to the attic, there was a funny moment where character “E” asks the time and the MC remarks that she was better off just saying she was guilty.

I have no qualms about the lack of character depth I seriously don’t care that hard about what plagues the minds of Erina etc outside the confines of the building, and if the game wants to use the characters as vessels to deliver an impactful story I can’t fault it really, it’s the way it executes the story that’s the fundamental issue.

(-) Schizoid Protagonist – Deduction Bot (The first 4-5 hours)

The issue of the game is in the first few hours, the MC is a deduction machine, the game doesn’t draw its first breath and he starts printing out theories after theories about stuff that aren’t all the interesting. The writing is dense, but it bleeds everywhere and it feels like its going to hard before the actual mechanics of the plot are introduced. Several reviewers voiced complaints about how everyone turns into theory-crafters, and I don’t align with this issue at all, I like the fact that the game likes showing you all the playing cards before it pulls its sleight-of-hand to fool you and it does this with heavy internal and external dialogue.

This problem however disappears very fast when there’s actually interesting stuff to monologue about.

Pros:

(+) The Mechanics

The trapped genre’s more forgotten priced jewel should always be the solution but I have never been satisfied with an overarching explanation in many of the games the genre is defined by. “I read this in phenomenon in a journal once and turned it as a plot-device for the game” was always Uchikoshi’s vibe and I’ve hated it for so long, another hallmark of his explanations is done by abusing bootstrap paradoxes and I cannot emphasis how much I HATE these explanations, especially in the ZE universe.

Sekimeiya has hands down, the most complex, well-thought out mechanics I have ever seen in a sci-fi mystery. I appreciate the fact that the origin of the mechanics is irrelevant which is another Uchikoshi weakness as he goes into page-length explanations about quantum-mechanics and the like. Sekimeiya only cares enough to have mechanics that works within the internal logic of the story, and its able to conceal the actual mechanics with so many cool misdirections. I was able to make some assumptions that were right on the mark but the way they are executed just completely obliterated me.

Unmatched, just WOW, I am honestly a bit disgusted how do you even write something this technical and then manage to even rationalize it completely with the events of the story?

(+) Sai

When I say character writing is scuffed, I leave Sai out of that equation. He’s one of my favorite versions of the “fucking up the game” characters in the trapped genre. Whenever he was on screen it was always so juicy to the extent that I was disappointed when he didn’t have a dedicated route (I would have loved for Sai to do the explanation part in Chapter 5).

LOVED. THIS. CHARACTER.

(+) Story

(+) Chapter 1:

Starts off too polarizing but then it turns into my favorite “question” arc of any VN I’ve ever played, manages to pile on the most confusing chain of mysteries for a brilliant cluster-fuck in this lengthy chapter.

(+/-) Chapter 2:

I liked the twist, the chapter is quite short and isn’t THAT interesting to me personally and sort of demystifies the story a little bit since it makes one of the mechanics very obvious.

(+) Edit: After going through the tips variant of the events there's so many layers to the protagonist's character, the different endings have so many interesting components to them and reading this chapter after seeing some events in chapter 5 also greatly re-contextualizes the events of this chapter. This is Adri's most risky chapter because of the omissions he does from the narration.

(+/-) Chapter 3:

I saw a reviewer like this chapter and all I’ll say is the first half was so boring I dreaded having to read through it, but then I enjoyed when it picked up on where the story had previously halted. I really liked a lot of the reveals of what actually happened and a huge “wtf” ending reveal.

(+) Edit: The tips variant of this chapter hides an entirely new perspective of the protagonist connected to the final events of Chapter 5, the protagonist also reminisces about how they got a lot of the details wrong and it really paints a picture of how far Adri and the team went to hide the twist

(+/-) Chapter 4:

Just an overview of what went down at the start, barely a chapter.

(+) Chapter 5:

As much as I HATE END-OF-GAME INFODUMPS, the mystery of the game was genuinely so complex and intriguing that I didn’t mind the wizardry by which the MC whisked together all the complex plot-threads. Additionally, this chapter kind of proves the point that the whole game is more centered on the you – the player, figuring out how everything fell into place, with a “MCQ”-esque segment where just before the reveal it will give you the chance to prove that you understood the greater complexities of the game.

Chapter 5 at one point just goes outside the MC POV and straight up you are being directly talked to in order to figure out the greater plot points. This is insanely polarizing but I have to really dock points for just having a 5-6 hour long explanation-to-explanation narration where I didn’t even have a moment to breathe and digest anything.

The explanations are just, fantastic, if someone said it took them a decade to write this game I’d believe them with the effortless-ness of how its able to explain every insane thing. But its done in such an inorganic way that it almost felt like I was being lectured with a powerpoint presentation by the devs themselves.

I like to imagine since this is an indie project they really were strained on developmental resources that might have impacted how they approached to tell the story of this VN, which ultimately I can’t fault them too hard for.

TL;DR: The best explanation for a clusterfuck I have ever read in a VN, very polarizing execution.

(-) Ending

There is none, when the game wraps up all the knots the game doesn’t really care to tell you what awaits the fates of people outside the building, and since the center-focus of the game WAS the mystery, at the very most it manages to clean-house on that front. It does feel disappointing that there is no ENDING-ENDING.

(+) UI

The fact that an indie team managed to make such an interactive and helpful UI where VNs in the genre can’t even bother to add this level of accessibility just proves how much love was put into the game. Hats off to the team for going above and beyond, I love the added chart that’s probably gonna be super helpful when I might dive into the game again in the future.

(+) Soundtrack

I was iffy on the soundtrack at first, to the extent that I almost thought it was a bit funny and its very evident that these are not tracks that belong to the same album, but once my ears got used to all the tracks playing I actually ended up REALLY really enjoying them. A lot of ear worms that I’m not gonna manage to shake out any time soon despite these being licensed pieces.

(+) Conclusion

If I haven’t exhausted my compliments for the mystery of this game, absolutely jaw-dropping game with the most insane “question” and “answer” arcs. Starts off too wordy but once the mechanics come into play the game transforms into an unforgettable experience. I wish Trinitite keep working on newer titles so they can just polish up the character writing since they’ve already edged out every other VN in the trapped genre.

Shockingly impressively and an extremely memorable game, but with a botched execution in the writing department and a lack of an ending.

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Ever17’s cousin

6 years and I finally finish this mess

Before I start this review I have to genuinely mention I am so sick of watching the same door animations and the map constantly showing you walk from A to Z a BILLION TIMES EVEN ON SKIP.

(-) Models, Lighting and Animations

Horrendous, ill-looking game and just completely confusing why they have an entire 2D sprite-set for the characters that matches the sprite aesthetics for the first game and then purposefully choose to never use it in favor of objectively uglier graphics. Literally BLOWS MY MIND. I originally started this game in Ramadan back in 2016-ish I believe and I remember just looking at the game back then gave me a headache, this is one of the ugliest games ever made.

Additionally, there is no concept of lighting everything is lit up exactly the same so there’s no depth of shadows or realistically any reason to even go out of their way to source 3D models for a story in which there’s such limited animations. Many times, there’s going to be a door or an elevator animation and you never see characters actually interacting with them, the doors open and close with default animations like old RE door animations.

The graphics of this game have aged like milk.

(-) Gameplay

The flow system is something I’ve supported in Uchikoshi games, it reduces walkthrough dependency that traditional VNs can have and it greatly streamlines the routing process the diehard VN enjoyers can probably have a court session on this topic I don’t really care, but what I do care about is the puzzle gameplay. It is bad. Holy SHIT is it bad. Oh, and I cheated like 40% of these I could not be fucked to care.

Throw darts to make a score of 91, connect voltage paths to generate 120V, move dice around, move ice around, move jellyfish around, Uchikoshi why don’t you fucking move your ass around and get a new job. Often times you have to remember a numerical pattern or combination (many times you are tasked with making calculations on the fly), its BAD gameplay, AI Somnium seems like the logical next step for Uchikoshi considering how the “puzzles” are far more intuitive and original

There’s an in-game explanation (spoilers) for the puzzles that allow the MC to be better at jumping between timelines and interacting with the 4th dimension and I was like shut the fuck UP its just there to fill airtime

Additionally there’s straight up quality of life stuff missing from the game, whenever you end a route if you accidentally click a box on the flow map (which WILL happen trust me), you can’t zoom out of it, so you are forced to press the return button, which means having to REWATCH sigma get gassed in his car 1 billion times. Other times when you use an item instead of putting the next item in your item-list in your hand you have to go to the menu physically and do it. In the crew quarters if you input the green password first you can get locked out of the room from entering the blue password afterwards…. Like WHAT? There’s a dice puzzle in the archives and both blue and green passwords have the same pattern the colored dice are supposed to be in, but the green password requires them to have a specific number facing upwards, the issue is if you fuck up just ONE die but get the pattern right it will consider it as you trying to get the blue password again and reset the dice. AMAZING.

BAD. -9999/10. Reason to not touch these games with a 10 meter pole.

(+) Soundtrack

I like some of the OSTs

(+) Story(i): Nonary/Ambidex Game (not the puzzles lol):

The Nonary game in 999 based its character grouping on numbers on the watch which was an extremely cool concept and I wish they continued it in this game, but the Ambidex game is also very interesting in its own right.

I like the idea of pairing based on colors or complementary colors, the dynamic between characters who don’t like each other being forced to pair up is a lot of fun, the watch switching colors after voting, the pair/solo combination of watches, a representative from each color being forced to vote or all people belonging to the color being penalized, it felt very different for Uchikoshi’s writing and I wish he added a few more layers to this to make it even more complicated and fun.

The real meat is definitely in the voting. I LOVE the voting concept, the only issue is that the game has so many repeating events in each route that the voting rarely ever changes too drastically, there’s also this weird mix of characters acting out-of-character for some BS reason in a few routes (the Bad Endings).

I do think Uchikoshi strictly put the entire voting aspect in because he just read about the prisoner’s dilemma and wanted to have it in the game but even the bland as fuck cast of characters have some cool friction with one another, expanding on the “bland” cast later in the review.

(-/+) Story(ii): The Overall Plot (Spoilers)

I’ll start this by saying this is probably the 2nd most ambitious writing I’ve seen from Uchikoshi since R11, and similarly to R11 there’s some insane flops but similarly intriguing developments that really stick with you, the time stuff is exactly like Ever17’s time loop where there’s a system that’s at play and you have to force the future (as already experienced) to happen in a certain way in order for everyone to live.

After reading this type of story for so damn long I’ve grown extremely tired, its not a good explanation to say “We do XYZ exactly so that time keeps looping”, I’ll give an example: Zero Jr. does not NEED to exist at all in this game the game rules can be relayed by literally anyone else, but the game needs a Monokuma substitute despite not even being a sadistic killing game (much like 999). Additionally, this stupid bunny does not exist for 95% of the game. Oh, but Sigma goes to the past he has to learn advanced AI to make this specific bunny for this game because grandfather paradox logic. TIRED. TIRED WRITING.

I like the idea that he really went there for some twists, but it also feels like the plot exists to serve the twists. The thing about Radical 6 and how it works EXACTLY with the gravity in order to fool the reader feels extremely contrived, even when you see Phi jumping around you’d imagine she herself would come to the moon conclusion but she doesn’t, and anyone would to a certain degree find the physical world to be a bit strange in its interactions, had there been consistent enough foreshadowing I would have loved it, or in Alex’s criticism if Uchikoshi just made it so that the facility supported earth gravity it wouldn’t feel stupid.

Another weird thing Uchikoshi does to hide this twist is straight up make the Moon a brown desert, WHY? Anyways the twist was really obvious to me even though he tries extra hard to throw you off with the lunar eclipse article.

All being said I do find it funny that he explained the JUMP OF ALL THINGS. I thought its just because the game is fucking ugly as shit. Anyways.

Another example of contrived explanations is how Sigma doesn’t realize he’s old, he specifically has cybernetic limbs so that he can’t tell his age, but on several puzzle rooms you can encounter a mirror and it genuinely feels like ludonarrative dissonance.

Additionally, the puzzle rooms themselves always get solved but you’d encounter some roadblocks like Tenmyouji having to use a picture of a girl to open the door (how the hell would they solve it if he didn’t conveniently have that? Oh nvm grandfather paradox there’s no WAY they’d get stuck XDDDDDD nice writing Uchikoshi). Unlike the moon twist, THIS one has a lot of foreshadowing and dialogue that directly references your age, which I really liked.
Even when I criticize the existence of these twist and how the plot is based around the moon and the old man twist, I still think these twists are a fun read, I like the idea Uchikoshi was going for despite the wobbly execution. I HATED the overarching plot for 999 and I think Uchikoshi just does a way better job in VLR with some ambitious twists.

Similarly to 999 and other Uchikoshi games, however, it is very clear he CANNOT kill a single character, and for that reason I don’t even think he should write these <trapped in a life or death game> Visual Novels because he wants his stories to be contrived paradoxical pacifistic muck. It was so obvious to me Akane would be alive later because Uchikoshi just does this all the time, what is the POINT of a game that can kill you if it claims no victims? If the point is the game exists because it exists in the future that needs to come to be, then it could have been ANY game or event, nothing necessitates that it needs to be a life or death game despite the shitty explanation that it boosts your consciousness to the 4th dimension or whatever.

(-/+) Story(iii): Endings (Spoilers)

(+) K Ending:
There’s other portion of the stories I liked, I enjoyed K’s route where he kills Dio (funnily enough Dio manages to escape quite a lot in the game as opposed to Sigma since he gets apprehended almost immediately for slighting someone during the voting etc), his entire route is completed while you both are dying and I also liked the clone reveal, although again there’s very little explanation given for why this is even done in the first place with a special K true ending that is now apparently non-canon. I suppose this is handled in ZTD which I never want to play.

(+) Luna Ending:
This one was a lot of fun, it has some cool reveals with a sappy emotional ending which doesn’t feel all too bad. I liked how Uchikoshi rationalized all of the murders even though extremely contrived story telling with the “Sayaka Maizono” number twist (it genuinely makes no sense how blood would copy thigh to thigh its not like thick ink, also Dio is strangely opposed to killing them himself, but whatever it was fun)

(-) Quark Ending:
This is a non-ending actually Quark is just here for the SAKE OF IT HE GENUINELY HAS NO REASON TO BE IN THE GAME

(-) Tenmyouji Ending:
“I love my grandpa” that’s the ending Uchikoshi you are so jobless

(-/+) Dio Ending:
Because of the horrible graphics I thought this ending was actually extremely creepy, even though I was very adamant on the fact that they were on the moon it was still creepy the way they made it so that it looks like a wasteland. I’m neutral on this ending since I hate the stupid cult plot.

(-/+) Phi Ending:
Not necessarily a Phi ending but ehh I’ve already discussed at length how much I dislike this paradoxical pacifistic storytelling in ZE games

(-/+) Sigma Ending:
Its just there to explain the sperm in your arms

(-/+) Alice Ending:
Enjoy manually decoding shit anyways it’s a fine ending

(-/+) Clover Ending:
I thought everyone killing themselves was cool but also how the fuck does Radical 6 even spread, additionally isn’t everyone sick with this disease? Then why are only Quark and Alice affected in each route? I was so confused about this.

(-) Bad Endings:
With a minor exception of the Luna Ending which felt like it at least had some variety with her escaping with Quark, all the Endings are the same where sometimes someone will escape leaving you all behind or you would have the ability to escape but everyone restrains you, I thought it would have been very smart to have a variety of creepy Bad Ends and seems like an extremely missed opportunity.

(-) Characters

Horrible, Uchikoshi has never been good at banter its very clear from his games (now his protagonist is just a straight up pervert so funny guys) but yeah I felt like the cast of characters was extremely fucking bland and the voting game made them interesting if anything. Zero Jr. the rabbit wasn’t even a mainstay like nigga is the bunny there for merch? Shut the FUCK up.

Dio could have been an interesting dude but he’s so in-your-face evil that it felt like Uchikoshi wanted to hang a billboard on his body that read “I’M THE BAD GUY”, and even then there’s a fun way of doing that but Uchikoshi missed so hard. Clover was annoying straight up, Quark deserves to be boiled. Tenmyouji’s entire personality was “where is Quark”, Alice’s personality is being betrayed the first round and then killing herself, Phi is good especially with the lack of explanation about her origins but then you have Sigma making perverted jokes at her that ruin everything.

(-) Conclusion

I don’t like ZE games, puzzles are shitty browser games that have never been the appeal and I genuinely don’t get why Uchikoshi bothers framing these as survival-type games when he always saves everyone. Its annoying storytelling which I don’t enjoy, additionally I’m sick of the grandfather paradox storytelling methodology and I’m glad at the very least with AI Somnium he did not return to this format because he KEEPS writing them with the very purpose of making everyone survive. Kill one person for stakes, Uchikoshi, and not just the bad guys. With a horrendous cast of characters, dated garbage archaic gameplay elements, horrible graphics, an ambitious but extremely contrived story, I do not recommend this game to a single other person. I don’t like ZE and I think it’s the gutter of the trapped-in-a-facility games.

Disco Elysium

One of the most interesting games that I’ve played, politically rich and philosophically dense game which is definitely a huge standout. I initially assumed this would be a confusing experience but it has a surprisingly easy sense of direction while you make your way across many intertwined offshoots of the main plot in order to figure out the killer behind a murder mystery, a catalytic event ready to ignite a civil war.

Where I find the game’s sense of direction a huge positive I do think its also a polarizing title, the pace is in your control but the conversations you have often become too meaty or the dialogue feels overproduced sometimes, simple conversations double and triple in size and if you really don’t like absorbing long-form thinkpieces the game throws at you it may be a bumpy ride. There’s a LOT of worldbuilding and if you aren’t familiar with baseline communist history etc the game may feel confusing and at worst, a history lecture. In some ways I find the world of DE a weird kind of satire or parody of which it derives from.

In this way, the game tells two stories, one is on the surface, and one is on the back, I’ll only be tackling the one on the surface since in all fairness, I think I barely understood the story on the back myself in complete detail.

(+) Story (NOT CONCLUSION THAT’S THE CON)

I really liked the way the game tackles the story; you can take a non-linear approach and solve other problems which in one way or another tie around to the main story and you’re often times rewarded with some sort of acknowledgement having resolved a problem before its officially pinned as a to-do task. The first time I passed the check in the library and ventured into the abandoned commercial center it really felt like the game ticked the right boxes in my head, this compliment bleeds into the entire game, the way its able to keep you tethered enough to remember any tasks that have either a time-gate or a special tool requirement is fantastic, I knew exactly when I had to place a call, visit someone, wait for a bridge to be repaired, when to use a password, who to talk to, where to buy something, it didn’t feel like a web of tasks that was difficult to understand, the game is intuitive in how it hands out its tasks even if such tasks are sometimes inferred.

There’s a VARIETY of outcomes that come from your decisions, either you punch the racist meathead or internalize critical race theory, you forge signatures to fuck up the fat pig or don’t take that risk and get them from the source, the conversations can have so many variants and its honestly astounding how much effort it must have took to map it all out.

(+) Characters

Some good and some mediocre, its not that their quirky or something they just fit right into the world of DE, even the most annoying ones (Cunou). I enjoyed both Harry and Kim and their mini interactions (a mix of briefings, decision makings and jabs), Joyce is fun and the one who outlines the pale for us, Titus is a righteous man with platitudes that he holds dear, the military agents are erratic, spontaneous and violent, Gart is this annoyed manager who actually holds the rundown shed of a hotel dear, Klaasje draws you in with her charisma, blanketing her offenses effortlessly with a veneer of coolness, and many many more. The character writing is good, even as my aforementioned complaint about the dialogue being often times too meaty.

(+) Soundtrack

I like it a lot, its very atmospheric, somber (24 HOURS OF AMBIENT MUSIC)

(+) Gameplay

Sometimes the camera fucked up which annoyed me (in the last island), I found spending time via conversations and reading books to be a weird system but it also meant that I wasn’t risking anything with an in-game timer incase I wanted to step out for a bit and walk around and check places. I originally thought the map would be confusing but its actually so simple, I wonder if you can zoom out since most of the time the limited view was what threw me off a bit. I wish when I was outside that I could directly trigger fast-travel instead of having to go to a central hubspot to activate it which annoyed me, but walking around meant I got to see some faces again and check if they had newer dialogue and it doesn’t take that long to get from A to B in this game so all’s well I suppose.

The DND elements were very unique with these cacophony of voices inside your head being able to provide extra layers to every conversation, again my pre-conceived notion was that they’d fuck with the pace of conversation and make the game annoying, but it was the exact opposite, they were the often times the most interesting part of conversations and I enjoyed it when they went against each other which was particularly amusing. It also genuinely feels like you’re a madman that’s trying to navigate a role of a detective as if you’re animating a dead body.

I did infact cheat some checks, to anyone’s dismay, when I punched the meathead I succeeded but failed when I had to do a follow-up attack, annoyed me so hard because it was such a rare check to pass, other times I redid the check for the Klaasje door on the balcony a few times and got lucky even though it was another rare check but yeah even if I didn’t do that I knew how that I could just investigate the kitchen at a specific time and get access to that place. Another instance I had to paint a mural and got annoyed and redid it 3 times as well.

The point is I redid some checks because I wanted to have some narrative or gameplay control instead of the tedium of running around for alternatives which, I know, is very anti-DND of me. But overall, I faithfully committed to the checks since they led to fun outcomes regardless.

Before the end I got some advice from gappy to tie a few loose-ends so I could actually complete the game but it wasn’t anything too tricky I just refused a few tasks so I wouldn’t be locked into something that made the game conditional.

(-) Story Conclusion (SPOILERS)

The game’s conclusion is the biggest negative, I hate the conclusion, I hated the reveal of this X character on this X island that committed the crime, it felt counter-intuitive to the investigative nature of the game, where we spent the entire time ruling out suspects and fake claimers to be given a complete random guy at the end. This was the same for the person who took our gun, there’s so many old women in the game but nope its some X old woman who’s afflicted with some neurological disorder who took it. Ruby was faceless for the most part but at least you were already looking for her so I didn’t hate the fact that when we “catch her” we haven’t seen her before.

The conclusion is also bad because even though you ALREADY get the opportunity to investigate the trajectory of the bullet and its possible locations, there’s an X spot that Klaasje conveniently realizes before departing that allows you to single out the location of the culprit. There’re so many other ways to communicate this exact thing, had the MC himself come to that conclusion after re-investigating the place I would give it a pass but this was just such a bad plot device and it made any pre-investigation feel completely useless. You literally CANNOT guess who the culprit is because you don’t even know who they are. I enjoyed the idea of a mysterious X person, sanctioning themselves on an island for 40 something years and being the victim of this mysterious insulindian phasmid but the outlandish nature of the ending does not outweigh the nonsensical-ness of it. The complexity of the game does not beget an ending, which in my opinion (outside of the phasmid) was quite lame.
The game also wraps up with some mini reveals about you and your companions before the credits are rolled which don’t feel all that shocking especially for the final moments.

I quite literally cannot understand WHY this is how they handled the culprit, why not have multiple culprits or secret accomplices to spice up the game? Infact even Ruby would have qualified for a much better culprit than the one we got.

(+) Conclusion

Very good game and one of a kind, jaw-dropping level of depth to worldbuilding and conversations, it’s a bit fat in a lot of areas but I just happen to NOT be the target demographic for it. With a flop ending that left me just a little bit sour, I feel like this is one of the most competent detective games that genuinely make you FEEL like you are part of the investigative effort that ties everything together as you march around, barging into offices and crying on Edgar’s painful chair.

This game takes a lot of the hallmarks which define genshin and instead of transforming those elements it dumbs it down to a point which doesn't even make sense, instead of a lavish open-world you get hallways that are just reskinned for every new map,

You have "elements" but now they don't play interesting enough of a role like they do in genshin and most of the time you are picking an element just to break the shield on enemies, which makes essentially every element feel the same in some regard, there's a class system such as destruction where you sort of favor more "risk vs reward" gameplay (my interpretation of the destruction class also comes from the simulated world) but the MC is destruction at the start and they have no risk vs reward gameplay so the game doesn't have anything written in stone for these classes, the game's combat loop forcing you to break shields for the smallest vulnerability window makes it feel so fucking useless I don't even know why they even bothered making a staggering mechanic to begin with

This game is also leaps and beyonds more annoying for endgame content since there's an escalation for DPS that just feels annoying to meet, MoC is just a terrible abyss knockoff, simulated world is a very interesting idea and fun to play at the start until you have to do it like every other week for drops and filling out the battle pass bracket and you start to HATE it

The game has the same gacha system and the paimon shop as genshin, it has a way less interesting regional expansion concept than Genshin, with an evil organization that seems so stupid in typical HYV writing, it has the ugliest china I have ever seen and music thats a massive stepdown from what HYV can deliver

HSR fans love to point out that the game has an auto-battle system and I just have to laugh, the game cannot EXIST without one. The issue with the combat is when you want to burst you have to press 2 buttons for no reason, its not like you press 1 button and get to deselect your burst incase you change your mind, in reality it just does this to force player input and the only way to not be forced to do these useless inputs per rotation is to auto-battle. This isn't restricted ONLY to the burst, some characters have this double input attached to their skill, the game is simply UNPLAYABLE without auto, its too fucking annoying otherwise

The dialogue which I found funny and self-aware at the start becomes childishly annoying the more you play the game, in the world of hsr and especially one as bad as this game the charm wears off rather quickly

Even though I'm giving this game half a star, I actually wish I could give it a negative rating, a new coat of polish with some QOL changes mean nothing when the base game has no understanding of what made genshin great and translating none of the good to this game

Horrible

Witcher 3 carries story elements of the world-building done by prior entries in the franchise but you wouldn't bother playing those because they suck ass and have aged horribly.

The combat of this game is genuinely fucking horrible, and the start of this game is total garbage. It has some interesting quests with consequences on either end which I really like, but after the battle of Kaer Morhen the game just decides to end in a climactic battle immediately after, when the game rolled the credits I was genuinely like "oh its OVER over.... huh".

The actual good content is in both the DLCs, where the painted world has a better story and blood and wine has the better boss (I also like the storybook theme). All in all I get why people like this game, I just personally find it poorly paced on both the starting and the end.

Scooby doo ass game but at least it isnt doo doo ass garbage like Persona 3.

People carry a lot of fond memories of this game from their formative years so they are blinded to just how meaningless the "gameplay" side of this game is but if you're looking for le funny banter this game is decent, infact the "friendship" theme is the only thing going for it.

This is one of the worst games I have ever played, unlike other entries which limit your SP so you kind of know where to stop grinding levels, this game has a fatigue system that you barely know when you're going to hit, and this fatigue carries over outside of Tartarus and makes your tired, you can imagine how this effects the SOL elements which are also insanely bad.

This game has an extremely unearned positive reputation that will never make sense to me, its so outstandingly bad, I remember having to forcibly see it through to the end because I didn't have wifi for a month.

The AI is also fucking atrocious. Anyways, some of the music is good at least

Life is Strange 2

Where do I start, which point do I find contention with? It’s like you pull one corner of the bedsheet and the entire thing slips out of the bed frame, plot-ridden with so many holes that the game just oozes missed story beats, character stories that you wish wrapped the entire game in a neat little foil, but they become undone immediately as they are introduced.

There’s a story here that perseveres, it plays inside your head more than it does on your screen, a story of two brothers against all odds, making their way across a country, the game feels personal even if you don’t have familial bonds as you assume the role of a surrogate father figure while being the brother to a 9-year-old.

What I disagree about the popular criticism for the game:

-Right off the bat I want to say the game’s sense of time passing is captured well between each episode, people find issue with the fact that events feel disconnected when you’re usually experiencing a gap of multiple weeks or months between the ending of an episode and the transition to a new one, I think it works perfectly fine.

-Even though Daniel is an annoying kid, he is written as faithfully obnoxious as little kids are, their entire worldview is so fragile, and their sense of conflict is so lofty, they move the line that offends them back and forth, but they are also easier to make amends with. Daniel throwing a fit, being impatient or bratty, wanting to be an adult and being jealous of his brother finding new friends all make sense within a child’s worldview, you can criticize Daniel for being an obnoxious shithead, you can criticize the plot for writing contrived scenarios around him being the center of conflict, but he himself isn’t that poorly written in my opinion. Daniel’s biggest issue is that his character growth is all over the place, how much he matures is dictated by how much conflict he should be the ignition for, that’s why he seems like he is the same from the start all till the end with minor moments of levity and self-reflection.

-I don’t think the game is blissfully unaware of the fact that Sean running away from the crime scene with his brother is a little bit stupid if he’s truly innocent. I think it’s the other way around, the story is about a 16-year-old who makes a stupid decision out of fear of being implicated in a crime that he cannot reasonably explain or rationalize in any way whatsoever. He is just that scared, I feel like they could have played into this conflict way better instead of framing his entire adventure as morally good in the end.

-I don’t mind the grandparents being offended when the brothers visit their mother’s room, even though it feels childish of them to throw a fit about disobeying the house’s “rules” (thanks for making this the main theme of the episode and name it that guys!!!) what I did find more offensive was how you take the main road to escape at the end so the cops can make chase absolutely fucking blew my mind. What even.

Popular criticism I agree with:

-The game’s racism is too cartoonishly evil, in parts of the plot where it feels unnecessary and a juvenile attempt and chokes the plot up as a means to pad out the episode’s length, or an unnecessary addition altogether. Real life racism can be pretty baffling but in a plot that’s entirely fictional, you have got to be fucking kidding me, Sean can’t directly go to Nevada he has to be dragged out of his car and berated so you the audience can understand that this story is about racism. Oh, guess what? We’re finally at the border and instead of just having the police arrest you there’s 2 racists who get to you first inculcating the same “Mexicans bad … here to ruin country …. No work + come here give birth” racism anthem, it’s tired, and RUINS the game.

-Episode 4 is bad.

My criticism:

This is my biggest complaint; this story would work far better in a novel than it does in the game. Every scene feels like it’s too long, the points of interest for Sean to explore and comment on at any time are made completely insufferable by his lazy unimpressed voice, he seems like he never has energy or he doesn’t even care.

Speaking of slow, this game purposefully forces you to wait in so many moments that it was actually fucking insane. We just got done sightseeing in the canyon. It’s time to slowly pack up every object individually while Sean comments on everything so the audience can catch up to where they are since the episode just started!!! Oh joy we have to wash the clothes in the laundry as slow as the engine can allow, time to cook ravioli for my little brother…. The Agent just came in to question me she’s in the other room receiving a phone call I have to wait painstakingly for her to arrive, and the worst one, WEED TRIMMING, OH MY FUCKING GOD, WE GET IT YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE FEEL THE WEIGHT OF TIME AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN

-The part in episode 4 where you have to fetch a file on Sarah lee and Sean and the brother have a long conversation in the file room about gay conversion therapy fucking KILL ME

-Ending feels rushed and you must wallow in “its about the journey not the end” copium

The good:

-I like the licensed music LiS manages to have enough hippie music for you to add to your collection

-On paper, the story is very touching, even when it’s too misguided at a lot of times

-Episode 3 is the best and covers the found family trope the best but the ending is so fucking ??? why do they do the robbery anyway it makes no fucking sense to me that would’ve been a perfect point to majorly branch the plot

-I love the recollection of the events of the game up till the episode you’re playing as a sketched out storybook of the wolf brothers braving all the hardships they have gone through

-Karen basically saying the reason why she abandoned her kids is because she dgaf about being a mother and nothing deeper was funny as fuck and it was such a non-reason that it worked also her making amends makes somewhat sense and I feel like she manages to get redeemed in some weird way

Conclusion:

I want to say I outright hate this game, its characters that don’t stick around too long for you to care about them enough, its cartoonishly evil portrayal of racism, chores that make you want to jump into a pit of fire, attitudes that only exist to drive a sense of conflict…. But I can’t. I can’t say I hate this game, when you’re at some random park with your brother having to pretend like your father is alive, so he would think they are out in a trip, encouraging him to make traps while you prepare wood for a fire so you can barely spend the night, having to comfort him without having any hope yourself, the game feels hollow.

I internalized the story to a certain extent where I felt like it had meaning beyond what it did. The game felt personal at times, my mind was drawing up conversations happening off-screen, between episode moments that we don’t get to see.

I can’t promise that kind of experience for anyone.