donproject
2021
Bloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloop...
I wanted to love this little indie game. A little boy in a hoodie and jean jacket runs away to escape a clearly sad homelife (in the 90s?) with nothing but a peanut butter sandwich and a vacuuming backpack that looks like a proton pack for a weapon. The soundtrack is gorgeous ambient sadness and the graphics are YA indie comic cuteness. As you adventure farther into a magical wood vacuuming up trash and kicking stuff you're introduced to a horde of very twee little helpers and forgetful older folk as well as some other delightful characters. All of this should have added up to a classic in my library.
The main game mechanics are vacuuming, kicking, and throwing your little helpers at things. I think that last bit was the one that broke me out of the world. At one point, I learned to defeat an enemy simply by smashing the throw button a ton of times until my little spritelings knocked it out of the sky and then chomped on its stunned body until it exploded. It took a while to learn this and I thought this was a roguelike at first with how many times I was dying against certain enemies. But as I learned to chuck more tiny beings at things in order to win, I learned that this mechanic was kind of annoying, actually. For one, the strategy became just "throw more of them." Worse, though, the spritelings and the other character you control are stupid. They will not dodge on their own and only follow your exact footsteps. This makes them die pretty often if you're not precise or clever in your movements. I think they have health bars and there's a mechanic for healing them, but it is not in a tutorial. The isometric view made it difficult for this aging player to aim and dodge as well, so I found myself frustrated with controls more often than I should be in a game like this. Additionally annoying was the day/night cycle, since I would get close to solving a puzzle and then night would drop (with a very scary musical warning) and I'd rush back to sleep only to have a bunch of monsters respawn and probably kill me or my adventuring companion.
In general, everything else was very nice, but gameplay choices took me out of the chill, sad-ish magic and into annoyed, button-mashing land. If that's your jam, then maybe this game is for you!
Review from thedonproject.com
I wanted to love this little indie game. A little boy in a hoodie and jean jacket runs away to escape a clearly sad homelife (in the 90s?) with nothing but a peanut butter sandwich and a vacuuming backpack that looks like a proton pack for a weapon. The soundtrack is gorgeous ambient sadness and the graphics are YA indie comic cuteness. As you adventure farther into a magical wood vacuuming up trash and kicking stuff you're introduced to a horde of very twee little helpers and forgetful older folk as well as some other delightful characters. All of this should have added up to a classic in my library.
The main game mechanics are vacuuming, kicking, and throwing your little helpers at things. I think that last bit was the one that broke me out of the world. At one point, I learned to defeat an enemy simply by smashing the throw button a ton of times until my little spritelings knocked it out of the sky and then chomped on its stunned body until it exploded. It took a while to learn this and I thought this was a roguelike at first with how many times I was dying against certain enemies. But as I learned to chuck more tiny beings at things in order to win, I learned that this mechanic was kind of annoying, actually. For one, the strategy became just "throw more of them." Worse, though, the spritelings and the other character you control are stupid. They will not dodge on their own and only follow your exact footsteps. This makes them die pretty often if you're not precise or clever in your movements. I think they have health bars and there's a mechanic for healing them, but it is not in a tutorial. The isometric view made it difficult for this aging player to aim and dodge as well, so I found myself frustrated with controls more often than I should be in a game like this. Additionally annoying was the day/night cycle, since I would get close to solving a puzzle and then night would drop (with a very scary musical warning) and I'd rush back to sleep only to have a bunch of monsters respawn and probably kill me or my adventuring companion.
In general, everything else was very nice, but gameplay choices took me out of the chill, sad-ish magic and into annoyed, button-mashing land. If that's your jam, then maybe this game is for you!
Review from thedonproject.com
2021
When your grandma tells you to go and take pictures of stuff, you oblige her!
Listen, if you're a hard-hearted fool who disrespects your grandma, this game ain't for you, chum. However, if you're a person that lives for grandma's cookies, sacrifices some minor inconvenience for her comfort, and straight up loves your elders, get this game and prepare to have the strings of your heart tugged, my friend.
The plot of the game is, basically, "Go take a picture of a thing." The mechanics are, predictably, taking pictures of things, but also interacting with stuff and navigating a charming world in various clever ways! Your goal along the way to taking the final picture is to help out the world you're in and gain stamps on your community card, which you can then show to a person to get a bus ride to the next town along the journey. Simple, yet captivating due to the design and gameplay.
The world of Toem (a roughly Scandanavian place, it seems) is a rotatable, isometric 3-D world of hand-drawn characters, buildings, terrains, and more. The art style and feel of the world are similar to the great OlliOlli World with the cartoon style, mumble-languages, and jovial tone. Each NPC has a personality and charm that keep you going to get them ice cream or keep you from getting too annoyed when they splash mud on your camera. The stamp-gathering quests never felt stale or tedious, even when I felt I had to cheat a little bit to find that last plant to water or whatever (I got about 95% complete by myself, calm down). The soundtrack is varied and "chill", as the kids say, but the default option of a 4-minute gap of silence between songs was kind of weird. I did like the reminder to take a break every once in a while even though I staunchly ignored it as I devoured this game.
This game is a joy to play, look at, and listen to. Just about my only complaint is that I 100% completed the game in less than 7 hours and I definitely could have spent longer taking pictures of stuff and talking with the affable, delightful denizens of this lovely little world.
So, hug your grandma and get this game!
Review from thedonproject.com
Listen, if you're a hard-hearted fool who disrespects your grandma, this game ain't for you, chum. However, if you're a person that lives for grandma's cookies, sacrifices some minor inconvenience for her comfort, and straight up loves your elders, get this game and prepare to have the strings of your heart tugged, my friend.
The plot of the game is, basically, "Go take a picture of a thing." The mechanics are, predictably, taking pictures of things, but also interacting with stuff and navigating a charming world in various clever ways! Your goal along the way to taking the final picture is to help out the world you're in and gain stamps on your community card, which you can then show to a person to get a bus ride to the next town along the journey. Simple, yet captivating due to the design and gameplay.
The world of Toem (a roughly Scandanavian place, it seems) is a rotatable, isometric 3-D world of hand-drawn characters, buildings, terrains, and more. The art style and feel of the world are similar to the great OlliOlli World with the cartoon style, mumble-languages, and jovial tone. Each NPC has a personality and charm that keep you going to get them ice cream or keep you from getting too annoyed when they splash mud on your camera. The stamp-gathering quests never felt stale or tedious, even when I felt I had to cheat a little bit to find that last plant to water or whatever (I got about 95% complete by myself, calm down). The soundtrack is varied and "chill", as the kids say, but the default option of a 4-minute gap of silence between songs was kind of weird. I did like the reminder to take a break every once in a while even though I staunchly ignored it as I devoured this game.
This game is a joy to play, look at, and listen to. Just about my only complaint is that I 100% completed the game in less than 7 hours and I definitely could have spent longer taking pictures of stuff and talking with the affable, delightful denizens of this lovely little world.
So, hug your grandma and get this game!
Review from thedonproject.com
2020
They did it. Those bastards. They finally got me to play an XBOX game.
All they had to do was make a Diablo clone with cute and silly pixel art and I was in, I guess. The story is less captivating than the Diablo games (there's a bad guy, you gotta defeat them), but it is not terrible. The gameplay is pretty similar to Diablo, with spamming the attack button and different skills while bunches of monsters run around, but a little less varied. There are plenty of things to do and collect, just like Diablo games. So, if you don't want to support Activision/Blizzard anymore for all the reasons, maybe this would take the place of your Diablo needs?
However, if you're looking for a game that is just as good as Diablo, this ain't it. The dungeons feel randomly generated because they are basically randomly generated. There is lots of unevenness to them, with stretches of walking without purpose to being overwhelmed with arrows shooting at you without much predictability or reason to it. I've been finding it difficult to hit enemies on my first swing because I forget how far my weapon does or doesn't extend. I do like the variable difficulty for each area and the option for couch co-op. Having to discover the merchants is an interesting addition to the genre, I suppose. The weapons, armor, and magic systems are all very familiar and easy to master for a veteran isometric 3D action-RPG player like myself. Plus, you can summon a llama that spits at enemies. That's fun.
In general, it's a fun little game that I could probably play with my nephew whenever he comes over. Not ground-breaking or life-changing, just a bit of entertaining dungeon crawling! Pretty good for an XBOX game.
Review from thedonproject.com
All they had to do was make a Diablo clone with cute and silly pixel art and I was in, I guess. The story is less captivating than the Diablo games (there's a bad guy, you gotta defeat them), but it is not terrible. The gameplay is pretty similar to Diablo, with spamming the attack button and different skills while bunches of monsters run around, but a little less varied. There are plenty of things to do and collect, just like Diablo games. So, if you don't want to support Activision/Blizzard anymore for all the reasons, maybe this would take the place of your Diablo needs?
However, if you're looking for a game that is just as good as Diablo, this ain't it. The dungeons feel randomly generated because they are basically randomly generated. There is lots of unevenness to them, with stretches of walking without purpose to being overwhelmed with arrows shooting at you without much predictability or reason to it. I've been finding it difficult to hit enemies on my first swing because I forget how far my weapon does or doesn't extend. I do like the variable difficulty for each area and the option for couch co-op. Having to discover the merchants is an interesting addition to the genre, I suppose. The weapons, armor, and magic systems are all very familiar and easy to master for a veteran isometric 3D action-RPG player like myself. Plus, you can summon a llama that spits at enemies. That's fun.
In general, it's a fun little game that I could probably play with my nephew whenever he comes over. Not ground-breaking or life-changing, just a bit of entertaining dungeon crawling! Pretty good for an XBOX game.
Review from thedonproject.com
2019
Anime Dark Souls forgot one thing: a reason to keep playing.
Code Vein looks cool. You've got a pretty great character creation menu, gigantic weapons that Cloud Strife would be jealous of, and a kind of shimmery world with interesting enemies and friends.
Code Vein is relatively easy to play for a soulslike. There aren't a million different combinations of buttons to learn, the armor and weapons have a bunch of stats but not an unmanageable number, and the addition of a teammate (NPC or multiplayer) makes most monsters not impossible. I would say the game does feel slow, however, but that might be because I was using a giant axe for most of my play time.
However, Code Vein doesn't seem to have a compelling story line for me. Sure, you're cyberpunk vampire-like beings fighting in some post apocalyptic world for survival, but that seems kind of like the whole story. Perhaps I didn't play long enough to get to the good parts, but as far as I could gather from the typically cryptic anime-style dialogue, the whole goal was to get food for the emo vamp crew you gather, and that's about it. There is some flashback items you can find to learn the story of Kevin (and others), but if you watch the plodding flashbacks out of order (like I did), it never really gives you a chance to care about Kevin, or the steampunk vampy boy who remembered him. You just get your skill, go back out into the wild and die or kill some monsters.
I gave up after a few hours and found myself not really wanting to open the game back up no matter how cool my character looked.
Review from thedonproject.com
Code Vein looks cool. You've got a pretty great character creation menu, gigantic weapons that Cloud Strife would be jealous of, and a kind of shimmery world with interesting enemies and friends.
Code Vein is relatively easy to play for a soulslike. There aren't a million different combinations of buttons to learn, the armor and weapons have a bunch of stats but not an unmanageable number, and the addition of a teammate (NPC or multiplayer) makes most monsters not impossible. I would say the game does feel slow, however, but that might be because I was using a giant axe for most of my play time.
However, Code Vein doesn't seem to have a compelling story line for me. Sure, you're cyberpunk vampire-like beings fighting in some post apocalyptic world for survival, but that seems kind of like the whole story. Perhaps I didn't play long enough to get to the good parts, but as far as I could gather from the typically cryptic anime-style dialogue, the whole goal was to get food for the emo vamp crew you gather, and that's about it. There is some flashback items you can find to learn the story of Kevin (and others), but if you watch the plodding flashbacks out of order (like I did), it never really gives you a chance to care about Kevin, or the steampunk vampy boy who remembered him. You just get your skill, go back out into the wild and die or kill some monsters.
I gave up after a few hours and found myself not really wanting to open the game back up no matter how cool my character looked.
Review from thedonproject.com
2017
These kids are alright.
Night In The Woods is a bit of 2-D platforming, some mini games, and a whole lot of interactive YA graphic novel. I mean, there is an intense amount of reading in this game amongst the beautiful backgrounds and jumping around. The story is poignant, sad, and well-crafted. The characters are as lovable and personable as their cute animal representations and as complicated as the history of the small, dying town they populate. It is a grand story of friendship, exploration (both physical and metaphysical), and insight into the lives of young folk today. It's sad and heartfelt and pretty great, but I still fell asleep twice while playing this game.
I'm a big fan of exploring and finding secrets, but Night In The Woods requires visiting the same scenes multiple times and got a bit monotonous at parts. Part 1 was good, getting to know the town and the people. Part 2 was a bit of a slog, with some of the slower parts really highlighting some maybe too-chill sections of town. Part 3 picked it back up and I devoured Part 4 and the epilogue in a single session. Throughout the game, your gameplay mostly consists of jumping and hitting a button to advance dialogue. There are mini-games -- like a Guitar Hero clone, and a pretty solid roguelike called Demontower -- but they are a very minor part of the overall game and after an hour of advancing dialogue seem like very difficult tasks for some reason.
Youths will love this game as they will see themselves deeply in it, but olds will probably be in two camps: thinking it is too "woke" (they can all die mad) or appreciating a nice story. For this old, it was a nice story and looks and sounds wonderful. It was slightly nostalgic but not life changing, it was good but slow, and it was enjoyable but varied. Overall, I'm glad I finally played it but it won't top any lists for me, I'm afraid.
Review from thedonproject.com
Night In The Woods is a bit of 2-D platforming, some mini games, and a whole lot of interactive YA graphic novel. I mean, there is an intense amount of reading in this game amongst the beautiful backgrounds and jumping around. The story is poignant, sad, and well-crafted. The characters are as lovable and personable as their cute animal representations and as complicated as the history of the small, dying town they populate. It is a grand story of friendship, exploration (both physical and metaphysical), and insight into the lives of young folk today. It's sad and heartfelt and pretty great, but I still fell asleep twice while playing this game.
I'm a big fan of exploring and finding secrets, but Night In The Woods requires visiting the same scenes multiple times and got a bit monotonous at parts. Part 1 was good, getting to know the town and the people. Part 2 was a bit of a slog, with some of the slower parts really highlighting some maybe too-chill sections of town. Part 3 picked it back up and I devoured Part 4 and the epilogue in a single session. Throughout the game, your gameplay mostly consists of jumping and hitting a button to advance dialogue. There are mini-games -- like a Guitar Hero clone, and a pretty solid roguelike called Demontower -- but they are a very minor part of the overall game and after an hour of advancing dialogue seem like very difficult tasks for some reason.
Youths will love this game as they will see themselves deeply in it, but olds will probably be in two camps: thinking it is too "woke" (they can all die mad) or appreciating a nice story. For this old, it was a nice story and looks and sounds wonderful. It was slightly nostalgic but not life changing, it was good but slow, and it was enjoyable but varied. Overall, I'm glad I finally played it but it won't top any lists for me, I'm afraid.
Review from thedonproject.com
Woof. I knew it was going to be sad, but... dang.
A game about a fox with a name that includes "Extinction Is Forever" is going to be rough on the ol' feelings, for sure. The game drops you right in to the sadness for the fox family, adds in some frantic hopelessness, then you slowly realize the game is sad for basically every character in it, and then you remember that the skies outside are full of wildfire smoke and we're all witnessing the start of the end times for the planet as we know it... and then you get to the final ending you knew was coming... bummer, man, bummer.
The low-texture polygon graphics are nice and the sound design and music are pretty great. I did feel a little lost on a couple of the days and definitely said out loud, "Where am I supposed to go?" Otherwise, the gameplay was fine, but not particularly interesting. Apparently folks are finishing this game in an hour or two, but I took my time exploring and moping around so it took a bit longer than that. I also died a few times as some of the visual cues for danger were a little subtle for me, which seemed unfair, but that does fit with the brutal world that the game has designed for us to be sad in. The game over screen is a downer, as well, of course.
Well, if you need a game to help you lean in to your sadness about how we've treated nature, pick this up. If you are out there rollin' coal in your truck and/or don't care about the impending end of life on Earth, just stick with Call of Duty or whatever.
Review from thedonproject.com
A game about a fox with a name that includes "Extinction Is Forever" is going to be rough on the ol' feelings, for sure. The game drops you right in to the sadness for the fox family, adds in some frantic hopelessness, then you slowly realize the game is sad for basically every character in it, and then you remember that the skies outside are full of wildfire smoke and we're all witnessing the start of the end times for the planet as we know it... and then you get to the final ending you knew was coming... bummer, man, bummer.
The low-texture polygon graphics are nice and the sound design and music are pretty great. I did feel a little lost on a couple of the days and definitely said out loud, "Where am I supposed to go?" Otherwise, the gameplay was fine, but not particularly interesting. Apparently folks are finishing this game in an hour or two, but I took my time exploring and moping around so it took a bit longer than that. I also died a few times as some of the visual cues for danger were a little subtle for me, which seemed unfair, but that does fit with the brutal world that the game has designed for us to be sad in. The game over screen is a downer, as well, of course.
Well, if you need a game to help you lean in to your sadness about how we've treated nature, pick this up. If you are out there rollin' coal in your truck and/or don't care about the impending end of life on Earth, just stick with Call of Duty or whatever.
Review from thedonproject.com
2022
This game is too many other games and not enough of itself, I think.
Grand Theft Auto but Borderlands and also Far Cry a bit plus Cyberpunk 2077... yet none of the above and not in a particularly good way. Saints Row is yearning to reach the heights of other titles but never quite sticks the landing of that very difficult trick. It is a detailed world that looks good with sufficient activities strewn about its open world. I played a later version, so the bugs weren't completely unmanageable (but still somewhat noticeable) during my playthrough, but it sounds like the early release was bad enough to taint the experience of a number of players.
I've played quite a few open world games like Saints Row at this point and I think Saints Row might have broken me of my love of the genre. Sure, it has a detailed character creator, but I'm getting tired of spending an hour trying to make a digital avatar of myself with some wacky feature, though I always do. Fantastic, you've got lots of fun outfits to collect, but I wish they did more stat-wise than looks-wise. Great, there are a bunch of different interesting weapons, but I'll always stick with a small set during my gameplay once I've found one that works. Yes, it has lots of side quests, but even the attempts at doing something different, like a quest where you just throw yourself in front of cars to commit insurance fraud, fall flat when you have to do them 8 times. Awesome, you can skip all the side quests and focus on the story, but the story is... fine if you've never played one of the over-the-top Borderlands games and can handle the exaggerated, cartoonish actions of the characters. Plus, the villain just kind of came out of nowhere, I felt, and wasn't a super satisfying twist or ending or anything. But maybe a story about building your criminal empire just isn't for me.
That said, I had a fine time doing some quests and contemplating whether I like open world games anymore or not.
Review from thedonproject.com
Grand Theft Auto but Borderlands and also Far Cry a bit plus Cyberpunk 2077... yet none of the above and not in a particularly good way. Saints Row is yearning to reach the heights of other titles but never quite sticks the landing of that very difficult trick. It is a detailed world that looks good with sufficient activities strewn about its open world. I played a later version, so the bugs weren't completely unmanageable (but still somewhat noticeable) during my playthrough, but it sounds like the early release was bad enough to taint the experience of a number of players.
I've played quite a few open world games like Saints Row at this point and I think Saints Row might have broken me of my love of the genre. Sure, it has a detailed character creator, but I'm getting tired of spending an hour trying to make a digital avatar of myself with some wacky feature, though I always do. Fantastic, you've got lots of fun outfits to collect, but I wish they did more stat-wise than looks-wise. Great, there are a bunch of different interesting weapons, but I'll always stick with a small set during my gameplay once I've found one that works. Yes, it has lots of side quests, but even the attempts at doing something different, like a quest where you just throw yourself in front of cars to commit insurance fraud, fall flat when you have to do them 8 times. Awesome, you can skip all the side quests and focus on the story, but the story is... fine if you've never played one of the over-the-top Borderlands games and can handle the exaggerated, cartoonish actions of the characters. Plus, the villain just kind of came out of nowhere, I felt, and wasn't a super satisfying twist or ending or anything. But maybe a story about building your criminal empire just isn't for me.
That said, I had a fine time doing some quests and contemplating whether I like open world games anymore or not.
Review from thedonproject.com
2023
I apologize in advance to the devs, but I fell asleep a couple times while playing Diablo IV.
Of all the Diablos, this is definitely one of them. Likely the fourth one of them (if you ignore the mobile one of them). I mean, look, what are you really expecting from this game? Something different? Or just more Diablo? Because you're going to get more Diablo. That's not necessarily bad, it is just pretty uninspiring. It looks better than the previous Diablos, it has many quests and challenges, and it has a massive map. However, combat is pretty tedious and the quests are all just "kill x number of things" or "find a pretty obvious trinket". I FELL ASLEEP. (Full disclosure: probably because I'm old).
I played through the story as a Rogue because I tend to like stealth and shooting things from a distance. I must have messed up my build because there was no stealth and shooting things was supremely tedious. That's on me, since I didn't read anything about how to build a character or any of that because I figured winging it would be more fun. The character building was not particularly exciting but you're not overwhelmed with choices, so I think they found an okay balance there.
As with the rest of the Diablos, my main reason for playing is the story progression, so I was disappointed to be very bored for the first four acts. I very much liked the snake part of Act 5 and Act 6 finally hooked me in a bit, just in time for the big boss fight. Overall, the story wasn't my favorite part of Diablo IV. The combat wasn't either. Finding randomly generated items... not it. I'm struggling to find my favorite part, actually. After being a minor Diablo fan for 20-some-odd years, I'm actually starting to wonder if I like the Diablo games at all? I mean, this should have been the greatest one, right? But... I don't think it is!
Also, Activision Blizzard is on the naughty list for treating workers terribly, gender discrimination, and being owned by microsoft now.
Review from thedonproject.com
Of all the Diablos, this is definitely one of them. Likely the fourth one of them (if you ignore the mobile one of them). I mean, look, what are you really expecting from this game? Something different? Or just more Diablo? Because you're going to get more Diablo. That's not necessarily bad, it is just pretty uninspiring. It looks better than the previous Diablos, it has many quests and challenges, and it has a massive map. However, combat is pretty tedious and the quests are all just "kill x number of things" or "find a pretty obvious trinket". I FELL ASLEEP. (Full disclosure: probably because I'm old).
I played through the story as a Rogue because I tend to like stealth and shooting things from a distance. I must have messed up my build because there was no stealth and shooting things was supremely tedious. That's on me, since I didn't read anything about how to build a character or any of that because I figured winging it would be more fun. The character building was not particularly exciting but you're not overwhelmed with choices, so I think they found an okay balance there.
As with the rest of the Diablos, my main reason for playing is the story progression, so I was disappointed to be very bored for the first four acts. I very much liked the snake part of Act 5 and Act 6 finally hooked me in a bit, just in time for the big boss fight. Overall, the story wasn't my favorite part of Diablo IV. The combat wasn't either. Finding randomly generated items... not it. I'm struggling to find my favorite part, actually. After being a minor Diablo fan for 20-some-odd years, I'm actually starting to wonder if I like the Diablo games at all? I mean, this should have been the greatest one, right? But... I don't think it is!
Also, Activision Blizzard is on the naughty list for treating workers terribly, gender discrimination, and being owned by microsoft now.
Review from thedonproject.com
Another game in the blur of JRPG's I played in the early 90's.
I'm pretty sure this was a rental game in my youth and we didn't own this one. My goal as a young one was to play all the JRPG's on our consoles that I could and this game was... one of them. It looks generally a lot like your Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, but the battle menus look different and there are a number of advances to the genre, like tons of items and customization of the order of things and other menus. I don't have the nostalgia for this game like I do for the bigger JRPG's of the time, so... it's fine.
Fine.
Review from thedonproject.com
I'm pretty sure this was a rental game in my youth and we didn't own this one. My goal as a young one was to play all the JRPG's on our consoles that I could and this game was... one of them. It looks generally a lot like your Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, but the battle menus look different and there are a number of advances to the genre, like tons of items and customization of the order of things and other menus. I don't have the nostalgia for this game like I do for the bigger JRPG's of the time, so... it's fine.
Fine.
Review from thedonproject.com
1994
Wait, is this a horror series now?
FFIII has incredible graphics, but I recall much less of the game than I do for FFII or FFI. That might be because it is substantially weirder and moves the series out of straight fantasy and into the weird techno-fantasy world that most of modern day Final Fantasy fans know. The battle mechanics changed a bit with a new variant of the "Active Battle" system and, as mentioned, the graphics were at the peak of late-era 16 bit JRPG's, but there's just not the level of nostalgia for this one for me as there is with FFII and FFI.
Chocobos, though. I guess that's worth it!
Review from thedonproject.com
FFIII has incredible graphics, but I recall much less of the game than I do for FFII or FFI. That might be because it is substantially weirder and moves the series out of straight fantasy and into the weird techno-fantasy world that most of modern day Final Fantasy fans know. The battle mechanics changed a bit with a new variant of the "Active Battle" system and, as mentioned, the graphics were at the peak of late-era 16 bit JRPG's, but there's just not the level of nostalgia for this one for me as there is with FFII and FFI.
Chocobos, though. I guess that's worth it!
Review from thedonproject.com
2020
A wonderful little puzzle game about just making a lil' guy move around!
Sometimes, when times are tough, you need a pretty game with lots of opportunity for success. The Pedestrian is very pretty. Not only does it look great, the mechanics are just the right mix of simple to grasp and difficult to master. The game adds complexity and charm at the same rate, somehow, as you progress through the levels and explore the world of signs and puzzles. I didn't find the game as challenging as say, The Witness, but it still had just enough challenge to make me feel accomplished after finishing a puzzle and moving the little stick person towards the next sign. It's a short walk through these sign-based lands that goes beyond puzzles and a well-crafted aesthetic, it touches on comfort and reassurance.
A game for tough times, indeed.
Review from thedonproject.com
Sometimes, when times are tough, you need a pretty game with lots of opportunity for success. The Pedestrian is very pretty. Not only does it look great, the mechanics are just the right mix of simple to grasp and difficult to master. The game adds complexity and charm at the same rate, somehow, as you progress through the levels and explore the world of signs and puzzles. I didn't find the game as challenging as say, The Witness, but it still had just enough challenge to make me feel accomplished after finishing a puzzle and moving the little stick person towards the next sign. It's a short walk through these sign-based lands that goes beyond puzzles and a well-crafted aesthetic, it touches on comfort and reassurance.
A game for tough times, indeed.
Review from thedonproject.com
2000
I know very little about Pocket Monsters, alright?
So, when I was working for Nintendo as a tester, I played this game for exactly one shift near the end of development. I had never played a Pokemon game before and I am pretty sure this game made it so I never played a Pokemon game again. It is definitely not the way to be introduced to the Pokemon world. I can remember early in the day wondering what the hell was going on and how the rules even worked. I did learn that Snorlax was my favorite because it was ridiculous to just have a character that fell asleep as a power. Anyways, I didn't log any bugs that day, for sure.
Anyhow, gameplay is sort of your standard JRPG turn-based fighting scenario with the monsters from your collection that you choose to bring? The plot seems to be... that you are in a competition of some kind? The graphics are fine, I guess, and the music is solid Nintendo style but not super memorable unless you play for 9 hours. I just needed something more to get me into this game when I wasn't paid to play it, and this version of Pokemon did not do the trick. It was clearly an add-on peripheral for a game series that you had to like first before you got this game. Maybe a way to get Pokemon fanatics to buy more stuff, I suppose. Well, that tactic was not super-effective on me (see what I did there?).
Pika!
Review from thedonproject.com
So, when I was working for Nintendo as a tester, I played this game for exactly one shift near the end of development. I had never played a Pokemon game before and I am pretty sure this game made it so I never played a Pokemon game again. It is definitely not the way to be introduced to the Pokemon world. I can remember early in the day wondering what the hell was going on and how the rules even worked. I did learn that Snorlax was my favorite because it was ridiculous to just have a character that fell asleep as a power. Anyways, I didn't log any bugs that day, for sure.
Anyhow, gameplay is sort of your standard JRPG turn-based fighting scenario with the monsters from your collection that you choose to bring? The plot seems to be... that you are in a competition of some kind? The graphics are fine, I guess, and the music is solid Nintendo style but not super memorable unless you play for 9 hours. I just needed something more to get me into this game when I wasn't paid to play it, and this version of Pokemon did not do the trick. It was clearly an add-on peripheral for a game series that you had to like first before you got this game. Maybe a way to get Pokemon fanatics to buy more stuff, I suppose. Well, that tactic was not super-effective on me (see what I did there?).
Pika!
Review from thedonproject.com
2019
Space: the time loop frontier. These are the voyages of a four-eyed alien. Your mission: to explore some planets and figure out a story, to boldly go where you've probably been before!
Outer Wilds is an incredibly creative puzzle/adventure game. I'm not usually a huge fan of time loop games, but this one had enough elements to make the repetition interesting. Plus, being blasted by a supernova after a nice little tune is probably how I'd like to go in real life.
While the visuals were purposely simplistic, low-polygon style, the story and diverse exploration tactics made the visuals seem more alive. Sound design and subtle music were also key to bringing life to this doomed universe. Though it was full of life, I did find myself just wanting to be done with the game after visiting all the planets a couple times, so online walkthroughs guided me through the deadly anglerfish towards the incredible and weird end scenes. Though, they chomped my ship a few times so I got to see two of the game's several endings.
Would I go back to explore some more? I don't think I would, honestly. This keeps the game at an excellent rating for me instead of bumping it up to life changing.
Maybe if I look away and look back again...
Review from thedonproject.com
Outer Wilds is an incredibly creative puzzle/adventure game. I'm not usually a huge fan of time loop games, but this one had enough elements to make the repetition interesting. Plus, being blasted by a supernova after a nice little tune is probably how I'd like to go in real life.
While the visuals were purposely simplistic, low-polygon style, the story and diverse exploration tactics made the visuals seem more alive. Sound design and subtle music were also key to bringing life to this doomed universe. Though it was full of life, I did find myself just wanting to be done with the game after visiting all the planets a couple times, so online walkthroughs guided me through the deadly anglerfish towards the incredible and weird end scenes. Though, they chomped my ship a few times so I got to see two of the game's several endings.
Would I go back to explore some more? I don't think I would, honestly. This keeps the game at an excellent rating for me instead of bumping it up to life changing.
Maybe if I look away and look back again...
Review from thedonproject.com
I'm not going to lie, most of this review is based on the absolutely groundbreaking power of the Sega CD system to deliver a fantastic soundtrack. The graphics are fine, the game play is fine, it's a bit silly, which is good, but the sounds are what set it apart. This is also one of my earliest memory of significant anime-style cutscenes and the CD-quality dialogue laid over them are just stellar (pun intended). Sure, there's the slow load times of the Sega CD to deal with, but listening to this game is a joy. It's actually one of the few game soundtracks I'd listen to on its own. It's probably the best Sega CD game I owned and played!
Review from thedonproject.com
Review from thedonproject.com
Everyone's played this game when their boss wasn't looking.
Minesweeper is a classic case of the advantage of a monopoly since the only reason you know this game is because it was included with Windows and Windows is everywhere. Is the game really that great? I don't know... it's a puzzle game, so it is what it is, I suppose. It was unique at the time, was free and included with many computers, and it looks alright. So, that's a significant advantage over most games.
At any rate, I'm sure you all have your techniques for playing this time waster. The goal is to find the bombs without blowing up and the only clue you get is how many bombs are close to the tile you just clicked. You have to think a bit and I'm sure there are some fancy algorithms to solve various cases. My method: click randomly a few times trying to get a big open spot and hopefully avoiding bombs, then go to work.
So, for me, this is a game of hope and logic.
And a smiley face!
Review from thedonproject.com
Minesweeper is a classic case of the advantage of a monopoly since the only reason you know this game is because it was included with Windows and Windows is everywhere. Is the game really that great? I don't know... it's a puzzle game, so it is what it is, I suppose. It was unique at the time, was free and included with many computers, and it looks alright. So, that's a significant advantage over most games.
At any rate, I'm sure you all have your techniques for playing this time waster. The goal is to find the bombs without blowing up and the only clue you get is how many bombs are close to the tile you just clicked. You have to think a bit and I'm sure there are some fancy algorithms to solve various cases. My method: click randomly a few times trying to get a big open spot and hopefully avoiding bombs, then go to work.
So, for me, this is a game of hope and logic.
And a smiley face!
Review from thedonproject.com