popularsong
2021
finally done omg... 127 hrs to beat #127 game i logged on here...
coming off lobcorp i was really impressed by... everything really. the voice acting took me aback like whoa budget. the art is absolutely stunning (although given current limbco situation and how both wonderlab and leviathan artists spoke about their experiences, i wonder how much whoever drew this got paid lol). and expectedly the story about human nature, vengeance, living for ourselves yet needing to coexist and interact with others... /chefs kiss/
also seeing more details about the city was really enjoyable since lobcorp was mostly focused on l corp itself with some exceptions. the way the story is told is also fun. and ofc i enjoy the understated writing style where there aren't really any surprise shock twists, the writers don't treat you like some idiot nor go out of their way to make a Big Reveal, you can pick up on clues to piece the story tgt easily and it still feels satisfying to see it play out. i really liked that about lobcorp too, though i think it was more shocking since there isnt much you know before you can see the sephira's backstories, while here you get a lot of pieces of the puzzle. in a way roland even pokes fun at it in the end being like "you know what i must yabba dabba do" lmao. and ofc realizations are really cool, both in terms of writing and all the styled distortion appearances of the characters, theres so much excellent spritework here. i kinda wish there were more small stories abt librarians interacting </3
the gameplay is also pretty fun. unlike lobcorp where some parts of it felt like clunkiness and undercookedness, here the difficulty felt earned. im not great at deckbuilding so i started looking things up at around urban nightmare, but figuring what singleton etc do with others' help was fun. as well as eventually figuring out the unga bunga strats like msb gebura... i dont really have any major complaints this time like i did with lobcorp. theres def QoL stuff one could use but nothing as crucial as "more detailed info" was in lobcorp
this is a mix of gameplay and story, but seeing how each abnormalities abilities were shown in ruina was SO cool, i sometimes tried to predict what it would be like and was usually on the money, it was really fun and felt rewarding
oh and the ost goes hard too icb they removed it on spotify literally the day i completed this game God hates me run and tell that
my complaints are mostly minor stuff:
- to this day i do not comprehend why grinding is at all necessary in this game...? there are already limitations to how many times you can equip certain pages so like... just make all of them infinite... especially egregious since it doesnt even make sense in universe, those people are DEAD and BOOKS now??? i kept wondering if it would eventually make sense and it never did. waste of fucking time in a game that already takes around 60-80 hrs just to beat unless you are some kind of deckbuilding genius
- afaik some update broke the key page search function and it just doesnt. work. so the Key Pages and Passives page on steam was my only friend through all this lol
- moreover you cannot look up ranged pages in combat pages, nor does it have tags for stuff like ammunition for some reason?
- some of the later abnormality fights and realizations feel more like puzzle shogi... and while abnormality fights are at least short and not that much effort to replay, the realizations that had a new puzzle mechanic right at the end were just so evil. idk i didnt particularly enjoy that kind of design, it felt punishing in a wrong way. luckily at least the final floor saves progress between phases
- price of silence you are the worst wretched creature on this planet and im glad u r not part of the realization or id have to do something drastic
- the ending fatigue is real with this game omg. at some point i felt like this shit would never end. i guess they wanted to appeal both to ppl who like deckbuilding with the page lockout And to ppl who just want to go unga bunga with all the power they accummulated so far with all that effort... and that resulted in like 30 fights shitting christ by the end i wanted to be free more than angela did. and this doesnt feel like the kind of game where u can just play smth else and come back bc id just forget everything if i did that! so i had to soldier on. i still loved it but it really could have been a bit shorter... some of the fights were kinda lame too, like binah's... i expected more thematically. but well the abno fights and realizations were already generally so good, ig it would be hard to maintain that quality throughout
thaaaaaaats it i guess. no limbco for me so bye bye project moon i wish the ceo didnt double down on the worst possible take like a fucking idiot but he seems to be determined to burn that ship down. and its quite sad
coming off lobcorp i was really impressed by... everything really. the voice acting took me aback like whoa budget. the art is absolutely stunning (although given current limbco situation and how both wonderlab and leviathan artists spoke about their experiences, i wonder how much whoever drew this got paid lol). and expectedly the story about human nature, vengeance, living for ourselves yet needing to coexist and interact with others... /chefs kiss/
also seeing more details about the city was really enjoyable since lobcorp was mostly focused on l corp itself with some exceptions. the way the story is told is also fun. and ofc i enjoy the understated writing style where there aren't really any surprise shock twists, the writers don't treat you like some idiot nor go out of their way to make a Big Reveal, you can pick up on clues to piece the story tgt easily and it still feels satisfying to see it play out. i really liked that about lobcorp too, though i think it was more shocking since there isnt much you know before you can see the sephira's backstories, while here you get a lot of pieces of the puzzle. in a way roland even pokes fun at it in the end being like "you know what i must yabba dabba do" lmao. and ofc realizations are really cool, both in terms of writing and all the styled distortion appearances of the characters, theres so much excellent spritework here. i kinda wish there were more small stories abt librarians interacting </3
the gameplay is also pretty fun. unlike lobcorp where some parts of it felt like clunkiness and undercookedness, here the difficulty felt earned. im not great at deckbuilding so i started looking things up at around urban nightmare, but figuring what singleton etc do with others' help was fun. as well as eventually figuring out the unga bunga strats like msb gebura... i dont really have any major complaints this time like i did with lobcorp. theres def QoL stuff one could use but nothing as crucial as "more detailed info" was in lobcorp
this is a mix of gameplay and story, but seeing how each abnormalities abilities were shown in ruina was SO cool, i sometimes tried to predict what it would be like and was usually on the money, it was really fun and felt rewarding
oh and the ost goes hard too icb they removed it on spotify literally the day i completed this game God hates me run and tell that
my complaints are mostly minor stuff:
- to this day i do not comprehend why grinding is at all necessary in this game...? there are already limitations to how many times you can equip certain pages so like... just make all of them infinite... especially egregious since it doesnt even make sense in universe, those people are DEAD and BOOKS now??? i kept wondering if it would eventually make sense and it never did. waste of fucking time in a game that already takes around 60-80 hrs just to beat unless you are some kind of deckbuilding genius
- afaik some update broke the key page search function and it just doesnt. work. so the Key Pages and Passives page on steam was my only friend through all this lol
- moreover you cannot look up ranged pages in combat pages, nor does it have tags for stuff like ammunition for some reason?
- some of the later abnormality fights and realizations feel more like puzzle shogi... and while abnormality fights are at least short and not that much effort to replay, the realizations that had a new puzzle mechanic right at the end were just so evil. idk i didnt particularly enjoy that kind of design, it felt punishing in a wrong way. luckily at least the final floor saves progress between phases
- price of silence you are the worst wretched creature on this planet and im glad u r not part of the realization or id have to do something drastic
- the ending fatigue is real with this game omg. at some point i felt like this shit would never end. i guess they wanted to appeal both to ppl who like deckbuilding with the page lockout And to ppl who just want to go unga bunga with all the power they accummulated so far with all that effort... and that resulted in like 30 fights shitting christ by the end i wanted to be free more than angela did. and this doesnt feel like the kind of game where u can just play smth else and come back bc id just forget everything if i did that! so i had to soldier on. i still loved it but it really could have been a bit shorter... some of the fights were kinda lame too, like binah's... i expected more thematically. but well the abno fights and realizations were already generally so good, ig it would be hard to maintain that quality throughout
thaaaaaaats it i guess. no limbco for me so bye bye project moon i wish the ceo didnt double down on the worst possible take like a fucking idiot but he seems to be determined to burn that ship down. and its quite sad
2018
This review contains spoilers
lowkey feel like im never gonna beat this game im only halfway in Except itsn ot even halfway bc i need to reset anyway GRAHHH
edit: ok i think my spirit has been finally destroyed so i will stop now and watch the rest of the story elsewhere
it was somewhat fun for a while? it Is unfair and i think it's funny that even mechanics like cosmetic changes to your employees cost precious LOB points, and a lot of other mechanics are just out there to get you. like getting abnormalities is a blind guess, then figuring out what work the abnormality responds to is more trial and error, and it's just like that throughout for everything. but figuring it out and improving your agents and unlocking more and more features to deal with issues is fun!
there are also some features against the frustration, you can roll back to day 1 (this keeps your progress with missions and abnormalities, though it does reset your employees) or, every 5 days, the game saves your status so if you fucked up big time you can always reroll back. but the sense of being against shitty odds stays there until mid-game at least... Then you get used to it and becomes pretty tedious and annoying... but eh
the creepiness factor is also great, i like the designs and stories of the abnormalities!
everything else is... mixed bag. sound design is... okay. some of the sound levels seem a bit odd, but maybe it's on purpose? mostly just abnormality / weapon sound clips vs the rest of the music and ambience clashing. artstyle... it's good for abnormality designs, but the map is so colorful and my eyes would start hurting after a while, which is made even worse with one particular suppression level. and i don't like the goofy artstyle for the AIs. but oh god the worst part of everything is the TINY font that there is NO way to fix even if you want to mod the game. i eventually adjusted but if you don't have 10/10 vision good fucking luck
but most of my beef is ofc gameplay-related. like i said, at some point the difficulty levels out and then it just becomes boring loop of researching once you get a hang of all your little guys. gebura's missions threw in some entertainment for that eventually like trying to suppress 3 ALEPHs was fun? but oh my god waiting for a midnight ordeal is like pulling teeth and the ordeals themselves are such a mess even with good agents... and i'm sure it gets even worse with whatever else is in store for the remaining 2 weeks and i don't want to find out. the difficulty is generally balanced-ish, but some stuff just feels unnecessary. i think i can forgive clerks walking into death traps and the facility apparently not having a function to just close off corridors to stop them from doing that and pissing off the Clerk Rights Activists. it's funny that you have to evaporate them from existence with execution bullets instead of installing doors like a normal person. but not being able to properly control your agents in fights when kiting is an important skill with some enemies is just unnecessary jank and feels frustrating instead of difficult but fun. also i don't get why seeing how much agents are getting from working on abnos is not the default option. that mod is like my default recommendation. i don't mind HP/SP bars not being visible until you do specific research since you can work around that, but this is just stupid
spoiler territory:
another thing i liked is that the time rerolling is clearly not just a gameplay feature to reduce frustration but part of the story. who doesn't love a good meta-connection between a story game is trying to tell and the actual game mechanics! i don't know all the details yet but i will catch up nowwww hehe. also i figured that the manager and A were probs somehow related bc angela gets cryptic barely 2 weeks in lmao, but i thought it would be some tomato-in-the-mirror final reveal, and i am glad it wasn't? idk where exactly the plot leads and i'm not really a fan of the whole carmen subplot for now but eh i hope i'll enjoy it
edit: ok i think my spirit has been finally destroyed so i will stop now and watch the rest of the story elsewhere
it was somewhat fun for a while? it Is unfair and i think it's funny that even mechanics like cosmetic changes to your employees cost precious LOB points, and a lot of other mechanics are just out there to get you. like getting abnormalities is a blind guess, then figuring out what work the abnormality responds to is more trial and error, and it's just like that throughout for everything. but figuring it out and improving your agents and unlocking more and more features to deal with issues is fun!
there are also some features against the frustration, you can roll back to day 1 (this keeps your progress with missions and abnormalities, though it does reset your employees) or, every 5 days, the game saves your status so if you fucked up big time you can always reroll back. but the sense of being against shitty odds stays there until mid-game at least... Then you get used to it and becomes pretty tedious and annoying... but eh
the creepiness factor is also great, i like the designs and stories of the abnormalities!
everything else is... mixed bag. sound design is... okay. some of the sound levels seem a bit odd, but maybe it's on purpose? mostly just abnormality / weapon sound clips vs the rest of the music and ambience clashing. artstyle... it's good for abnormality designs, but the map is so colorful and my eyes would start hurting after a while, which is made even worse with one particular suppression level. and i don't like the goofy artstyle for the AIs. but oh god the worst part of everything is the TINY font that there is NO way to fix even if you want to mod the game. i eventually adjusted but if you don't have 10/10 vision good fucking luck
but most of my beef is ofc gameplay-related. like i said, at some point the difficulty levels out and then it just becomes boring loop of researching once you get a hang of all your little guys. gebura's missions threw in some entertainment for that eventually like trying to suppress 3 ALEPHs was fun? but oh my god waiting for a midnight ordeal is like pulling teeth and the ordeals themselves are such a mess even with good agents... and i'm sure it gets even worse with whatever else is in store for the remaining 2 weeks and i don't want to find out. the difficulty is generally balanced-ish, but some stuff just feels unnecessary. i think i can forgive clerks walking into death traps and the facility apparently not having a function to just close off corridors to stop them from doing that and pissing off the Clerk Rights Activists. it's funny that you have to evaporate them from existence with execution bullets instead of installing doors like a normal person. but not being able to properly control your agents in fights when kiting is an important skill with some enemies is just unnecessary jank and feels frustrating instead of difficult but fun. also i don't get why seeing how much agents are getting from working on abnos is not the default option. that mod is like my default recommendation. i don't mind HP/SP bars not being visible until you do specific research since you can work around that, but this is just stupid
spoiler territory:
another thing i liked is that the time rerolling is clearly not just a gameplay feature to reduce frustration but part of the story. who doesn't love a good meta-connection between a story game is trying to tell and the actual game mechanics! i don't know all the details yet but i will catch up nowwww hehe. also i figured that the manager and A were probs somehow related bc angela gets cryptic barely 2 weeks in lmao, but i thought it would be some tomato-in-the-mirror final reveal, and i am glad it wasn't? idk where exactly the plot leads and i'm not really a fan of the whole carmen subplot for now but eh i hope i'll enjoy it
2002
i dont have any particular memories of it, except for daelan for some reason LMAO. it was just very. classic rpg. i enjoyed it while it lasted, but i don't remember anything that particularly wowed me
it was quite interesting but the first act had a bug with two quests being impossible to complete and idk it left me quite frustrated that this was not fixed in the years after the game was released, with me finding threads that were years old on the same issue and that had no solutions... just left a bad taste in my mouth and i kinda stopped after i entered the. uh. tomb maze thing? idk how to even describe it but i was just mindlessly going through levels hoping for something to happen and then just gave up. i do hope i pick it back up someday, the world and story it was giving were quite good, and i'd like to experience it in full, and maybe there's a fan patch that fixes the bugs idk
2016
the enhanced edition is significantly better than the og, and improves upon some of the issues of the cat lady such as the walking speed/animations as well. it didn't really have a draw for me story-wise especially after how much the cat lady resonated with me, but it was an interesting horror game experience. i just didn't know what to make of fat bodies being presented as smth monstrous ngl... and also susan's implied fate >:(
2011
it's mindless fun but quite repetitive and the story is... mostly funny. i tried not to take it seriously but the villain reveals were still just so silly... still i appreciate this game for ryuji with a huge mechanical arm and for giving rise to ryuji/akiyama for literally no reason except that they were together in this non-canon game. i think fandoms are amazing
2006
idek how i ended up playing this one considering sports games are extremely not my wheelhouse but all the different modes it had were so fun???
2012
it was very pretty but quite nonsensical. some of the audio logs were... bizarre and not in a good way. and yeah it really is just walking
simple but super cute. capitalism ho!
2008
i havent finished it but i loved rita and estelle... i will come back to you my sweet lesbians...
2009
oh i was obsessed w this when i was a kid though it also scared the shit out of me. the art direction is great, and the symbolism is interesting, though the mechanics do make it a janky, tedious game. i still remember the fey wolf's piano tune very clearly... i think the little girl's was most terrifying though :(
2013
it was fun... i've never heard of the fable comics before it but i enjoyed it
sarah i'm so sorry i am sooo sorry that ugly bitches like these would say something like that about you like oh my god
2012
back when telltale was still decent
2014
this was really pretty but honestly not fun or engaging story-wise