Yeah, I don’t understand why they didn’t put it out on all platforms at once, it is done and everything’s in english
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All Platforms equals Switch and PC Only in this case.
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New ATM machine, PIN number and LCD display spotted
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Perhaps more seminal than liminal
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I don’t want Monkeys in my pool!!!
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Six gym badges after 12.5 hours. At this rate, 26 hours might be possible. I like that N comes to talk to you without fighting you. Just wants to be diplomatic, understand a possible threat, pursue means of peaceful resolution. Very sympathetic.
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Yeaah, got me thinking of PC Engine CD-ROM^2 = “PC Engine CD ROM ROM” but it’s not quite the same
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SPIRITFARER
SHORT VERSION: I wasn’t sure about this one, as it was described as a cozy crafting game… but though there are “cozy” elements, it also has an honest, sometimes dark narrative about death, and the crafting and resourcing gathering is all tied together brilliantly with the story.
LONG VERSION:
I was hesitant to play this despite my partner insisting, as the words “crafting,” “cozy,” and “resource gathering and management” got thrown around with it, and that is all my kryptonite. But this game makes it all work together with a wonderful narrative about life, death, and letting go that touched me more than a few times as I could relate to many of the stories it tells.
Apparently most (if not all) the characters are based on people the developers actually knew, so that explains why it all feels so genuine.
Anyway, as the name suggests, you take over Charon and have to ferry spirits to the afterlife. This involves upgrading and building structures on your increasingly ridiculously sized boat to accommodate the spirits you take on board. You’ll get a garden on there, some cows, a furnace, a kitchen, blah blah… that usual stuff.
There are lots of minigames and activities such as fishing, farming, and such. Most of them are solid enough, with only a couple duds.
You’ll also stop off at various islands to grab more resources, buy/sell, find side quests, and find new passengers for the boat. These are explored via side-scrolling sections, and are like the towns in Wonder Boy games. The aesthetic also looks like Wonder Boy games, specifically the remake of Dragon’s Trap.
The boat is also 2D, and you end up with kinda like a SimTower thing going on. As a big fan of cross-sections, I loved how they did this.
There is a little platforming but not too much. OH, you’ll also unlock new abilities because of course.
ANYWAY, as I said, the point of the game is to get spirits to the afterlife… but only when they’re ready. You’ll have to get to know them first, do tasks for them, cook for them, and eventually each will have some kind of breakthrough and be ready to move on.
These characters are the heart of the game. They feel like real people, with real flaws. Most of them you’ll love to have around, while a couple are… less likable, but there is a reason for that. The game doesn’t judge any of the people… this is just who they are (or were), and YOU can judge them if you want, but they all need you to help them move on. Some of them were hard to say goodbye to, I won’t lie.
As more of the story is revealed, the reason why the game is the way it is becomes more clear, and it’s kinda genius. It takes all these different elements, but makes them all work together as a cohesive whole, and towards a story where it all makes sense for you to be at the beck and call of all these spirits.
The game also has a great sense of discovery as you explore new islands, full of NPCs with fun personalities. I laughed a lot with this game, and also got depressed a lot! It’s great!
There are problems, of course… it has most of the things I hate about these kinds of games, in that you’re constantly upgrading to progress further, all the maintenance stuff can get repetitive, and hunting around for the resources you need can be tiresome… but thankfully this game isn’t very strict, so the punishment isn’t harsh if you forget to feed people for a few days (oops), or don’t water plants for a while, etc, and there are lots of QoL stuff you can find to make things easier.
There were definitely some bits were I rolled my eyes at the work ahead, and yes you’ll be spending lots of time doing what feels like busy work, but overall I had a fun time actually playing the game… probably because it’s all paced so well with the upgrading, exploring, questing, talking, etc, and a lot of the actions feel good to perform.
It also slips up narrative-wise a few places, such as a character disappearing, and you have to go to a specific place to find her… except she’ll be on any island with a shop on it as usual during this event. Kinda breaks the immersion and emotional impact of the event.
Needless to say, this is my favourite “cozy” game that involves crafting, resource gathering, etc. I frankly think it’s a brilliant, sometimes even beautiful game.
NOTE: I played with the DLC, which apparently helps give more context to some of the characters (including Stella, the player character), adds a couple new QoL things, and adds a couple new spirits. I felt less of a connection with the spirits who came later in the game… not sure if it’s because of who they were as characters, how they were written, or because I didn’t get to spend as much time with them, or because I was too busy doing management stuff to focus on them, or because I was starting to feel like I wanted to wrap things up.
12 Likes
Undermine went on a very rare sale on Steam when they launched early access for Undermine 2, so I jumped on it and have been playing it obsessively since.
Maybe it’s the shorter load times (that’s probably exactly it), but I’ve been playing the hell out of it on my Steam Deck and got much further than I had playing the Switch version. Game’s pretty good…almost made it to the fourth floor…
Otherwise I’ve been playing the Foundation DLC for Control. It’s good…I kinda like Jesse’s whole post-game attitude to her job, too.
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The transition to PS2 for Ace Combat 4 gives a sense of welcome fluidity but really drives home just how much this (and armoured core pre 4) are games of Turning. Turn to catch the plane, turn to get a lock-on, turn up to do that one move from lylat wars that’s about 0.00001% as satisfying. The anime stills are digressive enough but a BIG step down from what 3 was attempting and continues this series’ weird pattern of throwing out mechanics and reintroducing them games later.
5 is the nadir of this, 20+ missions of the illusion of choice as real life peter griffin tells you what bomb factory to take a picture of. Also devalues the cathartic thrill of the series at its best through non-standard objectives and even more Filler. I’d call 0 the best of the trilogy as sky crawlers before sky craWIIlers and the missions move at a brisker pace but whatever novelty 4 brought to the table is long gone. I’ve enjoyed the first two missions of AC6 a lot more than anything in this trilogy, 360isms and all but I’m excited to see how much the later games try to break the one step forward two steps back design thesis these have had since Air Combat.
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Ultimately I just don’t think I can persist in Vampyr. I dislike the combat too much, and can’t find much motivation in the plot/dialogue/lore or anything else. This game has too many systems. I’d probably like it a lot more of it was like, in the style of the Telltale games.
Funny that it outright tells you some people’s blood is more valuable (yikes), and this frequently seems to align with occupation/social status (double yikes). And you can make their blood more valuable by… getting to know them? So people who are likeable/sympathetic are more valuable too (yikes again). It’s darkly amusing to me to see that the sort of transactional love-bombing that other games with social links encourage you to do is in service of turning them into XP instead of like, romance subplots or unlocking their own abilities.
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The Nameless City. It’s got that low poly walking sim thing that Kitty Horrorshow does really well but not done as well as she does. It doesn’t immediately hook me but I’ll keep at it.
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That new 7800 version of Tiger Heli is pretty impressive.
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7 badges at 13:43. Climactic final battle with Team Plasma seems to be right after this. Maybe this will be done much faster than I thought. Level cap is now high enough I can think about trading pokemon from other gens. I apparently already have a druddigon from X. Maybe I will just trade it.
Edit: I got the Zekrom stone. Apparently the next stop is the eight gym badge, and then the final confrontation with N is at the elite four, which I guess saves some time but just strikes me as silly. And I think there’s a battle with Ghetsis afterwards, but that still probably won’t involve navigating a new route or two, or dealing with any other major setpieces beforehand (hopefully? Fingers crossed!).
I may have actually beaten this game before and forgotten about it. Still haven’t traded Druddigon from X, but also failed to catch a new Druddigon at Dragonspiral tower, so I will probably have to.
Editedit: 8 badges, 16.5 hours. This will probably take longer than X. Dragon type pokemon do a lot of damage. It will be good when I have two of them. Audino now knows Hyper Beam and Thunder
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playing ff2 (gba) and the encounter rate is really something
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Okay I issue an apology after minimal research this shimmer, which isn’t even the right word in this case, does seem to happen on real hardware, just the game boy would do a much better job of hiding it. There’s a delay to the environment redraw when scrolling that is very hard to describe. I can’t stop noticing it when I play.
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If you are doing it emulated, there’s a setting to emulate that screen effect that is super necessary for some games.
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prolly hidden by the GB’s ghosting
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I finished Labyrinth of the Demon King this past weekend and want to give it a strong recommendation. It’s kind of an incredible and still distinct feeling facsimile of Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Siren and King’s Field. One of my favorite things about its more reverent qualities is just how close it gets to achieving the same disgusting feel that Silent Hill 4’s shakey cinematics conveyd. But the game is short, beautifully ugly and quite scary. I’d say my only real issue with it is the bosses are not complex enough to prove any real challenge. But that is kind of par for the course with the games it’s emulating, so it wasn’t like a disappointment I guess you could say. Outside of the bosses you’ll find plenty of challenge, and ways to mitigate the challenge through different weapon types and an upgrade system. The combat is simple but there’s enough depth to engage with that makes mistakes feel avoidable and punishing. There is some really fun level design that you’ll become gently familiar with as you explore, backtrack, are chased and wander confusedly. It’s broken up into a few dungeons that all nest very nicely within the context of a feudal Japanese fortress. Very clever, slight, and competent in being nostalgic and refreshing at the same time. Plus, the audio and visual spectacle is just immaculate in every respect. There is more Silent Hill 1 to the soundtrack, more Silent Hill 4 to some of the presentation, more Fatal Frame 2 in the environmental dilapidation, and more Siren in the enemy design than any other pandering survival horror homage has achieved, to my memory. Amidst a pile of games inspired by that era, this is mechanically and spirtually and in presentation the most accomplished.
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