marukoto
2015
This review contains spoilers
In another review / guide on Steam someone remarked that "Because of his own internal fears of something that Coda likely finds comforting, he attributed his own internal feelings to Coda's intent." I think, in one sentence, you have really the whole story.
Love my introspective metatextual boys. Very Charlie Kaufman. Though I will say I first played this in 2015 and I couldn't for the life of me recall what this was about until I played it again now in 2024.
Love my introspective metatextual boys. Very Charlie Kaufman. Though I will say I first played this in 2015 and I couldn't for the life of me recall what this was about until I played it again now in 2024.
2023
This was initially on my backlog as "hell yea more Fate trash" because I can't help but be soothed by it. But then I stepped it up earlier in the backlog because people were saying it has a surprisingly good story!
And I agree, I think that for the kind of game it is, the story is really competently done. It's just done in the same way Fate/Apocrypha is -- and of course, the two share a scenario writer -- where the mechanics of the narrative framework are explored in a really interesting way, but the emotional beats are hit just for the sake of hitting emotional beats. Fate has a bit of a late Star Wars problem where as we actually define the mechanics -- "Saint Graphs" and "Spirit Origins" and so forth -- our characters themselves become aware of these concepts, and define themselves more mechanically. None of these words were in the Bible (i.e. Fate/stay night). At the time, they were handwaved concepts and gradually were made law based on the needs of the narrative for the emotional impact.
And like Fate/Apocrypha it sacrifices the emotional climax in favour of a more action-oriented approach. It is indeed quite Cool to watch, and our choice of Servants in this story are also well-picked. So why did I not really get all that into them as people? It kind of had a "damn...that sucks" feel whereas every moment in Fate/stay night ripped right through me. The setup for what these people were feeling was done in excruciating detail. We don't really have room for that in action games nor in 24-episode action anime.
All that said, the game starts out so strong. I think I spent the first 14 hours of this game in two long, long sessions of play. It's just that the loop is not deep enough to carry through the back half. There's mechanics, but they function more as ways of breaking up what is effectively button mashing. As you learn the later stances, you get a lot more from just hitting the X button than you do anything else. It's just walk in a room, see some spawns, hit X, go home. The bosses have some interesting opportunities for Ripostes, and one or two boss fights had me hitting reset and going in for another round (I tried facing Rogue Berserker kinda early).
Omega Force is in a great stride at exactly this: button masher tie-ins to narratively-strong IPs that deliver a great additional narrative within a real basic game loop.
But really I don't know what I'm complaining about. I had a great time! I think I just started out like "holy shit" and I felt sad that I was getting tired of it by the end. I didn't even want to NG+ to do the other story routes.
And I agree, I think that for the kind of game it is, the story is really competently done. It's just done in the same way Fate/Apocrypha is -- and of course, the two share a scenario writer -- where the mechanics of the narrative framework are explored in a really interesting way, but the emotional beats are hit just for the sake of hitting emotional beats. Fate has a bit of a late Star Wars problem where as we actually define the mechanics -- "Saint Graphs" and "Spirit Origins" and so forth -- our characters themselves become aware of these concepts, and define themselves more mechanically. None of these words were in the Bible (i.e. Fate/stay night). At the time, they were handwaved concepts and gradually were made law based on the needs of the narrative for the emotional impact.
And like Fate/Apocrypha it sacrifices the emotional climax in favour of a more action-oriented approach. It is indeed quite Cool to watch, and our choice of Servants in this story are also well-picked. So why did I not really get all that into them as people? It kind of had a "damn...that sucks" feel whereas every moment in Fate/stay night ripped right through me. The setup for what these people were feeling was done in excruciating detail. We don't really have room for that in action games nor in 24-episode action anime.
All that said, the game starts out so strong. I think I spent the first 14 hours of this game in two long, long sessions of play. It's just that the loop is not deep enough to carry through the back half. There's mechanics, but they function more as ways of breaking up what is effectively button mashing. As you learn the later stances, you get a lot more from just hitting the X button than you do anything else. It's just walk in a room, see some spawns, hit X, go home. The bosses have some interesting opportunities for Ripostes, and one or two boss fights had me hitting reset and going in for another round (I tried facing Rogue Berserker kinda early).
Omega Force is in a great stride at exactly this: button masher tie-ins to narratively-strong IPs that deliver a great additional narrative within a real basic game loop.
But really I don't know what I'm complaining about. I had a great time! I think I just started out like "holy shit" and I felt sad that I was getting tired of it by the end. I didn't even want to NG+ to do the other story routes.
2023
The presentation is just incredible. The translation is just unreadable. All that’s left is aesthetics. Also it crashed.
Honestly? Feels like a real return to form after Disagea 2.
I liked parts of Disgaea 2 — Rozalin's entire arc is actually really memorable to me, for example, since I didn't really predict where it was heading — but a lot of it dragged on. It felt too long; its experiments with geo puzzles were welcome but kind of difficult, it required a bit more grinding. It was a more serious story, but it didn't really let go of the comedy, so the tone felt muddled. At heart it's a romantic shonen plot.
Isn't all of Disgaea a sort of shonen so far, though? I suppose so, but the approach is different usually. It isn't purely "I must become stronger", it's the confused morality and irreverence that carries the story. Disgaea 1's cast was chaotic and mutually distrusting in a way that made you laugh. Disgaea 2's cast I barely even remember now! Disgaea 3's cast is comparatively really wholesome and loving.
The only outlier is Mao, our lead, who is being thrown through the psychological ringer. He starts out having long been in a state of regression, as though he is keeping himself a child because anything else would be too hard for him.
The story is a bit abbreviated — I think it's just the right length, giving me about 25h (whereas D1 was 45h and D2—was shorter at 22h? But man it felt long).
The difficulty curve is also just right, requiring really barely any grinding to proceed, depending on how tactical you want to be with your playstyle. And the story itself was silly enough to enjoy but had so much heart that I just fell for it more than I thought. (D1 also has heart and wholesome moments! I know! But it keeps it in the back half.)
Oh oh and I really like the new additions! Evilities are interesting to plan around; tossing geo cubes to remove obstacles is cool, tower swings are cool ... I don't recall the prior games showing you the attack queue, but maybe they did. Oh and the student clubs so you can split up your party into subteams and add bonuses to them! Those are also interesting to plan around and let you share EXP and mana in ways that streamline the game a bit. Honestly the QoL started feeling really good in this one.
If there weren't 700,000 Disgaeas I could be convinced to do the postgame in this one, but alas.
ps. Did they not rerelease this because nearly every chapter in the story has Mexican cariactures in the cast? It just felt like it was laying it on thick.
I liked parts of Disgaea 2 — Rozalin's entire arc is actually really memorable to me, for example, since I didn't really predict where it was heading — but a lot of it dragged on. It felt too long; its experiments with geo puzzles were welcome but kind of difficult, it required a bit more grinding. It was a more serious story, but it didn't really let go of the comedy, so the tone felt muddled. At heart it's a romantic shonen plot.
Isn't all of Disgaea a sort of shonen so far, though? I suppose so, but the approach is different usually. It isn't purely "I must become stronger", it's the confused morality and irreverence that carries the story. Disgaea 1's cast was chaotic and mutually distrusting in a way that made you laugh. Disgaea 2's cast I barely even remember now! Disgaea 3's cast is comparatively really wholesome and loving.
The only outlier is Mao, our lead, who is being thrown through the psychological ringer. He starts out having long been in a state of regression, as though he is keeping himself a child because anything else would be too hard for him.
The story is a bit abbreviated — I think it's just the right length, giving me about 25h (whereas D1 was 45h and D2—was shorter at 22h? But man it felt long).
The difficulty curve is also just right, requiring really barely any grinding to proceed, depending on how tactical you want to be with your playstyle. And the story itself was silly enough to enjoy but had so much heart that I just fell for it more than I thought. (D1 also has heart and wholesome moments! I know! But it keeps it in the back half.)
Oh oh and I really like the new additions! Evilities are interesting to plan around; tossing geo cubes to remove obstacles is cool, tower swings are cool ... I don't recall the prior games showing you the attack queue, but maybe they did. Oh and the student clubs so you can split up your party into subteams and add bonuses to them! Those are also interesting to plan around and let you share EXP and mana in ways that streamline the game a bit. Honestly the QoL started feeling really good in this one.
If there weren't 700,000 Disgaeas I could be convinced to do the postgame in this one, but alas.
ps. Did they not rerelease this because nearly every chapter in the story has Mexican cariactures in the cast? It just felt like it was laying it on thick.
1996
this game took my "put the PS1 disc into the cd player to listen to the soundtrack" virginity
1996
sony started throwing their exclusives onto pc early dohohoho
sorry i'm not a pundit i just don't remember a lot about this. it was 1999 for me. windows 98 could do anything at the time. we didn't know the limits
sorry i'm not a pundit i just don't remember a lot about this. it was 1999 for me. windows 98 could do anything at the time. we didn't know the limits
1997
I’m so bad at video games (good version)
This game is supposed to be like 15 minutes but I read it in French and it ended up taking me like two hours
I can't help but feel living in this game for like 10x the regular length changed the way it felt for me. It wasn't like a barrage of symbols and media before it was suddenly over; it was like living in the world
I don't understand why the game constantly pauses to let you be mean. I get that we often carry a lot of self-defeating thoughts or self-hating thoughts because we can't do normal things but I did not understand the point in attributing that choice to the player to perform?
Anyway not sure what else to remark upon, it's a simple game and a simple story that lives and dies by its portrayal of its subject matter which is extremely well done production wise and generally speaking feels Real without taking on the Empathy Mode circa 2010s. Milk
I can't help but feel living in this game for like 10x the regular length changed the way it felt for me. It wasn't like a barrage of symbols and media before it was suddenly over; it was like living in the world
I don't understand why the game constantly pauses to let you be mean. I get that we often carry a lot of self-defeating thoughts or self-hating thoughts because we can't do normal things but I did not understand the point in attributing that choice to the player to perform?
Anyway not sure what else to remark upon, it's a simple game and a simple story that lives and dies by its portrayal of its subject matter which is extremely well done production wise and generally speaking feels Real without taking on the Empathy Mode circa 2010s. Milk
2020
I'm so fucking bad at video games
1998
I went into this like "ok time to do all 365 days!", but after 6 or so hours and ~75 days (plus another 20 I had to play through again because the game hung? So ~95) I feel like to keep going over and over would just ruin the experience. I was starting to tire of it! And what a shame that would be.
It's not a "game" like that; you don't really "complete it", maybe eventually you get to a full year, but I don't think that's the point. It's like a nice bonus if you come back for a whole year of emulated dreams. The ending on day 365 goes through the traditional symbols of a Hatsuyume. That is to say, it's a dream journal. Your dream journal.
It was really fun after the fact to go and see how the procedural generation worked, but in the process of playing through it I found it really easy to just want to sit and look at the scenery. I ended up taking a lot of photos. A single batch of those is here.
I think it's a cool vibey piece of digital art. It's something you can come back to and revisit. It's something I could pull up for an hour or two with friends if I was entertaining and let the ambiance play with people. If you let the menu sit for 10 seconds a video starts anyway — it wants to keep the scenery going, to set and maintain its tone.
Finally I want to point out just how unobtuse it is. The game doesn't want you to get stuck. It doesn't want to be a puzzle. It puts the atmosphere and mystique first and foremost and designed the entire game around the surreal traversal of the dream world. So you can't "lose", you can't have an obstacle in your way; it's all just ways of moving to another image, another set of symbols. Within its constraints over time the maps felt repetitive but the textures didn't. I felt like I would occasionally be given an exceptionally rare symbol in a sea of patterns.
I feel like in a sense it got a lot of mystique in the late 2000s/early 2010s when I was young, and it felt overrated for a moment? But I don't think it's scary or creepy. I think it's cool. Neat. Etc. It runs at like 12 fps at best too but don't think too hard about that.
It's not a "game" like that; you don't really "complete it", maybe eventually you get to a full year, but I don't think that's the point. It's like a nice bonus if you come back for a whole year of emulated dreams. The ending on day 365 goes through the traditional symbols of a Hatsuyume. That is to say, it's a dream journal. Your dream journal.
It was really fun after the fact to go and see how the procedural generation worked, but in the process of playing through it I found it really easy to just want to sit and look at the scenery. I ended up taking a lot of photos. A single batch of those is here.
I think it's a cool vibey piece of digital art. It's something you can come back to and revisit. It's something I could pull up for an hour or two with friends if I was entertaining and let the ambiance play with people. If you let the menu sit for 10 seconds a video starts anyway — it wants to keep the scenery going, to set and maintain its tone.
Finally I want to point out just how unobtuse it is. The game doesn't want you to get stuck. It doesn't want to be a puzzle. It puts the atmosphere and mystique first and foremost and designed the entire game around the surreal traversal of the dream world. So you can't "lose", you can't have an obstacle in your way; it's all just ways of moving to another image, another set of symbols. Within its constraints over time the maps felt repetitive but the textures didn't. I felt like I would occasionally be given an exceptionally rare symbol in a sea of patterns.
I feel like in a sense it got a lot of mystique in the late 2000s/early 2010s when I was young, and it felt overrated for a moment? But I don't think it's scary or creepy. I think it's cool. Neat. Etc. It runs at like 12 fps at best too but don't think too hard about that.
This review contains spoilers
I think in the future we'll find that NSO is a spectacular capsule of this era. It's a little more than a tone piece, but not that much more. I feel like if you find yourself inadvertently hating this game, you may just hate the culture it represents and the material conditions that have manifested themselves through an entire generation of emotionally dysregulated, low executive function, slightly nerdy, slightly edgy, too online young adults (who will then age into emotionally dysregulated, low executive function, too online boomers — can't wait!).
In that respect, it really has little more to say than Emily is Away did; but while Emily is Away is a well-executed tone sketch, NSO has truly absurd production value and really builds out its premise mechanically. I kept finding myself blown away by how much work was put into the designs, the music. The writing is truly on-par with what you find on Discord on the late 2010s into the early 2020s; as I said, I don't think it has a grand message about what it's presenting, because I think what it depicts also doesn't have a message, either. It's low-key hedonistic and low-key nihilistic, but those terms both imagine a world where anyone enjoys anything or believes in anything. It's more like sex is medication, medication is medication, media is medication; and a constant, mutual effort toward intellectual, emotional, and finally, actual prostitution is the only salvation for a romantic unit.
The entirety of Ame's existence is to develop for herself what she is developing for other people: a soothing presence in another person. Something other than what life is: that is to say, to Ame, life has nothing to offer and so much to fear. She emerges alternative presences to protect herself, like consuming herself in flame to become pure image that might save herself not just financially but emotionally.
She can imagine a regulated self, a chipper, charismatic, idealistic alter ego — but it also needs, like any goddess, constant homage from worshippers. So she gives her entire life to it in the hopes other might give it dollars.
In that respect, I think NSO was spot-on. I have met many like this, in this, and for this. So many people see themselves in this story! And I think in that regard it's an amazing piece. I also think that it veers a little too hard into being mean-spirited at times — you have to basically insist you can break her to start the game at all. But maybe on some level that's what she wants. I don't know.
Oh, finally I want to say that unlike a lot of other resource management games and visual novels, I found the aspect of managing Ame's needs really fun and easy to master. I found the process of choosing the right things intuitive and I didn't find the endings arbitrary nor silly. They didn't seem random. They were different outcomes from the lifestyle. I also had to go out of my way to not respond to her five times for the Flatline ending, because I am a good FP for my BPD girl.
I'll say in sum that I am not sure a month from now I'll be thinking about this game nonstop or thinking it's formative or amazing. I had a lot of fun with it. I had a smile the entire time. I came back for half the endings. I think that it is an uncommonly good picture of what it is to date and produce a streamer girl. I think it portrays the ongoing stress and absurdity of the lifestyle. I think the references it makes to other works — there's a Sayonara o Oshiete pull in here? — are sparing and well placed. I am very happy it didn't DDLC-style try to meta-pontificate and subvert my expectations. It just performed within them well.
In that respect, it really has little more to say than Emily is Away did; but while Emily is Away is a well-executed tone sketch, NSO has truly absurd production value and really builds out its premise mechanically. I kept finding myself blown away by how much work was put into the designs, the music. The writing is truly on-par with what you find on Discord on the late 2010s into the early 2020s; as I said, I don't think it has a grand message about what it's presenting, because I think what it depicts also doesn't have a message, either. It's low-key hedonistic and low-key nihilistic, but those terms both imagine a world where anyone enjoys anything or believes in anything. It's more like sex is medication, medication is medication, media is medication; and a constant, mutual effort toward intellectual, emotional, and finally, actual prostitution is the only salvation for a romantic unit.
The entirety of Ame's existence is to develop for herself what she is developing for other people: a soothing presence in another person. Something other than what life is: that is to say, to Ame, life has nothing to offer and so much to fear. She emerges alternative presences to protect herself, like consuming herself in flame to become pure image that might save herself not just financially but emotionally.
She can imagine a regulated self, a chipper, charismatic, idealistic alter ego — but it also needs, like any goddess, constant homage from worshippers. So she gives her entire life to it in the hopes other might give it dollars.
In that respect, I think NSO was spot-on. I have met many like this, in this, and for this. So many people see themselves in this story! And I think in that regard it's an amazing piece. I also think that it veers a little too hard into being mean-spirited at times — you have to basically insist you can break her to start the game at all. But maybe on some level that's what she wants. I don't know.
Oh, finally I want to say that unlike a lot of other resource management games and visual novels, I found the aspect of managing Ame's needs really fun and easy to master. I found the process of choosing the right things intuitive and I didn't find the endings arbitrary nor silly. They didn't seem random. They were different outcomes from the lifestyle. I also had to go out of my way to not respond to her five times for the Flatline ending, because I am a good FP for my BPD girl.
I'll say in sum that I am not sure a month from now I'll be thinking about this game nonstop or thinking it's formative or amazing. I had a lot of fun with it. I had a smile the entire time. I came back for half the endings. I think that it is an uncommonly good picture of what it is to date and produce a streamer girl. I think it portrays the ongoing stress and absurdity of the lifestyle. I think the references it makes to other works — there's a Sayonara o Oshiete pull in here? — are sparing and well placed. I am very happy it didn't DDLC-style try to meta-pontificate and subvert my expectations. It just performed within them well.
I have half beaten this game like three times and I am just not a Zelda guy. This thing runs at 20 fps and feels like butt.
2015
I have a vague recollection of playing this. But it’s sad that I don’t remember much right? You slam your keyboard to type your response after you pick it I think.
2015
I played this before Downwell and honestly this is a cool challenge in its own right that then got me to go play Downwell too. Thank you Upsquid
Feels kinda wrong to play this one on the GameCube … but I’m an immoral man