skeleseer
alan wake and ellie williams are my "literally me" characters
honourable mentions for top 5 games:
- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Metal Gear Solid V
- Resident Evil 4
- Death Stranding
- Shadow of the Colossus
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Yakuza 0
- Alan Wake Remastered
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No clue why they did this, but I guess at some point every ongoing game gets that treatment sooner or later. Real shame, used to be really fun, now I can't even progress the third levels naturally.
I think the conceptual approach is what really breaks this game. The first wasn't that heavy in the gameplay department, whilst taking place mostly in it, it was the almost episodic feel of each new and different adventure that made it feel refreshing and didn't overstay it's welcome. Road 96: Mile 0 completely looses that substance and feels like a single journey stretched out for 7 hours too long. Digixart tries something almost drastically different with tedious platforming that does not bode well for the game overall and serves as an episodic ending to the structure that is not that satisfying at all, hence the tediousness.
Narratively, it didn't gripe me as much as the first at all. What sold me on the original game was the intrigue of mystery, which is obviously completely lost here. If I cared about Zoe in the first game, maybe I would have cared about the narrative here, but Zoe kind of annoyed me initially and annoyed be doubly so here. As for Kaito, I am not familiar with this character at all so there wasn't much to work with. Adam unironically was my favourite character throughout the whole thing, that was how dull everyone else felt to me.
A definite fall from grace, even if the first game wasn't the best either. I honestly have a newfound appreciation for Road 96, though, so I guess this game had at least one positive thing to say about it.
Aside from that, it's a very relaxing, slow game that is nice to just chill to. The world isn't too big, it basically is what it says it is, but the atmosphere it presents is quite unique and eerie in it's own way. It definitely has a type of Lovecraftian feel about it whilst also feeling original to itself. It's essentially a fishing game, but with a twist, and probably one of the better ones in the genre. A great debut for an indie developer too, the soundtrack itself was very well done and added to the tone exceptionally well.
Whilst the gameplay can be simplistic, it has a certain level of depth as well. Very few games motivate me to grind, Dredge being the rare exception. Searching for different species of fish to upgrade your boat or even just doing random side quests was often at times more engaging than the overarching questline, which itself was very short, but with the added side content, feels like a complete experience regardless. The art style also constantly draws you back.
Praise for independent kiwi developers aside, on it's own it's a good experience and definitely worth the while.