Really feels like Uchikoshi let himself loose on this one, and I love it. Little bit of everything he loves all in one place.

After 999 I wondered how the format would work, and switching to a transparent flowchart with "surprises" is a reasonable evolution. I found myself missing 999's total lack of clarity of how it was structured, but I also know you can't really do that trick twice in a row.

I did find that the structure meant that there was a lot of repetition and that key plot moments were spaced awkwardly. Towards the end of the game, when I'd mentally pieced a lot of the plot together, I found myself ready for the game to be over but with several main branches to get through before the "true" final route became available. I wish it felt like the ending came when I was ready for it to come, because I'd love for the last parts of the game to feel like they came at the height of my excitement.

The escape room segments felt a lot weaker this time around. There were several rooms that were weakly designed or even boring, which is a big problem for a game like this where they're meant to be key pacing moments, and it's especially bad when the worst escape room in the game is the very final, climactic one. With 999, I couldn't imagine how the escape room-less iPad version would possibly work, but here I could actually see a version with no escape rooms being paced well.

This one didn't really click for me.

The idea of a golf 2D platformer isn't a bad one, but the two genres have very different gameplay flows and they don't mesh. In golf, you don't really end up going "backwards" - maybe you take a bad shot and have to proceed from a bad position, but at least you're somewhere new. Here, though, the stage design means it's very easy to either get stuck behind an obstacle and taking almost the same shot over and over, or fall down a hole to the floor you were just on.

I gave it a few shots hoping it'd click at some point and I'd settle into the flow, but it never happened.

TPM CO Soft Works still out there making the best games around.

If Tarotica Voo Doo was about "what's your physical relationship to space in an adventure game", this one's that concept applied to shooting games. "What if you only had one bullet and you had to catch it to keep shooting" is hilarious on its face, but what's special is making it work. And it works! It works so well. Doging bullets and enemies feels so different when you're dodging in all directions trying to get your bullet back, not the specific kind of movement that happens when you're always going forward.

With how heavily this gets memed I figured it was going to be awful, but it's actually just... fine? The core gameplay is a bit awkward but serviceable. I've played much worse single-screen platformers. Feels like they were trying to come up with something new to do with the old Mario Bros arcade game, and it's not great, but it's fine. It's fine!

The cutscenes are awful but in a way that's kind of funny to watch, while the rest of the game is just kind of bland. I'd struggle to tell you what the levels look like; they're not offensive, definitely competent, but not distinctive, and each level blurs into the next. The music's actually pretty fun, but it needs more variation. Guy has a way with a bassline though.

Absolutely love this. It's clear how much of an influence Zero Escape was on their storytelling; taking that style of twisting decision tree that turns back in on itself, but applying it to a graphic adventure type game, feels great. Making it about collecting nouns is great, and I genuinely love how many of them are playing on double meanings of the words to make you think twice about what new options you might have unlocked earlier in the game by having collected a noun later on.

The story itself isn't necessarily all that special - it's going for a Stranger Things-style "kids uncovering a mysterious conspiracy" type of thing. But it's told well, and fundamentally it works. It does struggle a bit in the ending, which wraps itself up a little too cleanly right at the moment that something like Zero Escape would be throwing in another few surprise twists. But this also seems to be its creators' first attempt at this kind of game - I'm excited to see where they go from here.

A sweet game that manages to be emotional despite some overly sentimental writing. I'm starting to sense a theme with Odencat's games - it's treading some pretty familiar territory, so players are likely to guess all the twists ahead of time, but it's told well and from the heart.

I found myself wishing the side characters weren't such one-degree stereotypes. The stories of their lives and deaths are meant to be heartwrenching, but it's hard to be very affected by such simple characters. The two main characters are better off because they're given much more time to develop as people. I'm going to be curious to see how Fishing Paradiso handles its side characters; it feels a lot like Odencat are growing from game to game.

Unlike Angel Road, I really appreciated the epilogue this time. It adds quite a bit to the story, and I'd say it's not complete without it.

This game is good?? This game is really good. Wow.

I was expecting this to be funny, but the script is way better-written than I was expecting from the demo. It's well-plotted, the minute-to-minute writing is excellent, and I was so invested in every one of the characters.

Combat is where a lot of indie RPGs fall flat, but SLARPG plays great. Although the battle system is mostly very traditional, the "star point" system that encourges you to play towards a character's strength works very well. The skill design and balance is very well-done; it's a joy figuring out synergies between the different characters' skills. The difficulty level is overall pretty easy for experienced players, but that's not a bad thing and it's easy in a way that still requires players to put in a lot of thought.

I've played a lot of "first RPG Maker" games that were good but not great. This isn't that - this is an exceptional RPG by any metric. Even if you don't like super lesbian animals.

CD-i LIVES FOREVER

Man, what a gem. This is so fun. Taking NES-style non-scrolling Zelda and joining it with Bomberman-like puzzles is such a great idea, and it works really well here. Every screen is its own self-contained puzzle, with some really stellar puzzle design. The world design is smartly considered, with world navigation opening up via new skills in a very satisfying way.

This is a pretty short game you're encouraged to replay and speedrun. My first attempt took two hours, but I didn't find all the secret items. I'm planning to go back for another try soon.