There’s a bicycle which is basically a run button available in one of the surface-level dreams, but you need either get lucky/be patient or know which door and what landmarks to get to it in the big looping stage. Do yourself a favor and google how to find it. Then don’t look up anything else about the game
2 Likes
Will do. I want to like this game, I love the vibe but the slow movement kills me. I think it’s hilarious that, while there is no run button, there is a “sit down” button. Wondering if I’m going to have to like, sit down somewhere and wait for something to happen. Won’t spoil anything for myself beyond the bike though.
2 Likes
Finished Mutazione. I’d say it’s more than the sum of its parts. I wasn’t a huge fan of the art style or animation, usually a necessity in a game like this. The music was nice. I like the way the game’s schedule encourages you to get comfortable with the environment at the same rate as the protagonist, but hate how it encourages relationship completionism and how you have to set like boundaries for yourself (when I do my loop I will not go all the way out to the lighthouse or to the temple, even though I could be missing a conversation). Garden growing, the game’s only mechanic other than walksimming, is simultaneously nicely simple and insultingly dull.
But I just found all the personalities of the inhabitants of this close knit little island community, the way they bear the weight of their past trauma, authentic and affecting. I choked up at the game’s emotional climax. You can play with just the mouse so you can eat a snack. One of the better IGF style games I’ve given a shot.
8 Likes
that was my impression as well, glad someone else here gave it a go
GOTY
3 Likes
Painfully between games atm. I’m so listless when I’m not in the middle of a game.
Last night I tried out the first Alone in the Dark, and this afternoon I launched up Siren for the first time through PCSX2. Both seem intriguing. I think it could be really enriching, as a fan of Resident Evil, and that era of Japanese survival horror, to go through and finish both. Mechanically they are both a jolt to what I’ve been playing lately, which always helps me to shift gears after finishing a game and when I’m not sure what I’m looking for next.
7 Likes
Tried to play FF Tactics for the first time this week (in Japanese) since I figured it was time, given how much I enjoyed playing FFTA when I was younger.
It is kind of jarring how serious the tone is in FFT versus the Advance titles. FFTA goes to some very dark places, but overall it feels quite lighthearted by default. I’ve only played a few missions in FFTA2 but I got a very similar vibe from it.
FFT in comparison is this political bullshit snorefest I do not have the patience for. I kinda get having played bits of FFT, FF12, and Vagrant Story throughout the last year that “political bullshit snorefest” is the actual Ivalice, and that FFTA is kind of a bad introduction to Ivalice that is in no way representative of the rest of the games that take place in it, but Jesus Christ, if these games weren’t so interesting for mechanical/aesthetic/historic reasons, I would have quit them almost immediately.
Maybe I am just extremely worn down by Politics All Day Everyday and the last thing I want to do is come home and play a game that is absolutely dripping in politics. All I know is that it is extremely not the game I want to be playing right now. Made some sweet character build spreadsheets though.
9 Likes
ahem
6 Likes
and there it is
I highly hope that’s actually a joke and not a bug and you’re supposed to get the star with the vanish cap or something
I’d considered that and will report back if you’re right! The Chain Chomp kinda flails around differently each time, doesn’t always hit the wall but…there is a switch on a platform above the star. Maybe that’s it? If it is a joke, I admit it’s kind of a good joke.
dragon warrior 2 is like. really good.
10 Likes
no spoilers before March
5 Likes
in japan it’s actually called dargon warrior 4
7 Likes
What do you like about it? I enjoyed the beginning of the game where you learn about the characters. It’s pretty funny! But the dungeons start to feel really cruel at a certain point.
played the first chapter of gabriel knight 2, the FMV one, which is an interesting case study in how vgame screens are “read” - like every screenshot i’ve seen of it somehow looked both boring and grotesque at the same time but ingame it sort of works, because you’re looking at everything in this very fragmented way anyway? convinced me i need to try the tex murphy games later at least.
i was expecting to miss the lovely pixel art of the original but it turns out the new style does have some distinct pleasures of its own. i enjoyed seeing doofy live-action hunk gabriel knight wandering around annoying authentically cranky-seeming germans while making this stupid face
one accidental side quality of the photo graphics is that it makes pixel hunts more difficult since i guess real life has no obligation to be readable. i got stuck for a while on a puzzle which depends on you realising you can click on one particular dark blur on someone’s desk that turns out to be a walkie-talkie.
anyway the werewolf stuff isn’t too exciting so far but i do like the fish out of water aspect of the plot and the way the adventure game structure turns out to play well with the situation of living somewhere without knowing the language. will keep playing while trying to forget i’ve just noticed he looks exactly like one of the lesser kennedys.
20 Likes
Hotshot Racing: a slight, undemanding Greatest Hits of Model 1 Racers that feels like a visual presentation of the early 90’s unless tuning the difficulty to Expert. The AI rubber-banding brings a shallow sense of competition and makes placing 1st less of a fist pump and more of a ‘I win, I suppose…’
The key to getting the most out of the experience is to nitro boost while drifting for more nitro (gained through drifting) however the corners, as with the tracks in general, are far too wide to ever give a sense of skill or accomplishment
The characters and collectible vehicle skins are pure fluff and add nothing of value
Yakuza 0: walked into a Don Quijote and was transported 15 years into the past from the same song playing on the store radio in my aborted Yakuza experience on the PS2. I don’t know if I’m curious enough to stick with it but I might give it more time than a couple of hours
3 Likes
I picked up Inertial Drift since I’m on a really crazy racing game kick lately. It’s a lot of fun! It got me because of the review blurbs that compare it to Ridge Racer 4 but it’s got it’s own unique thing going on. The menus are stylish for sure, it’s got a future 90’s vibe going for it which may or may not work for you. Multiple story modes (might be where the RR4 comparison comes from the most) but the main gimmick is it’s a twin-stick drifter; i.e., you steer (barely tbh) with the left stick but the right stick controls your drifting. It works surprisingly well! It’s very arcadey of course, the twin-stick thing makes it feel even more videogamey than Ridge Racer but it’s a lot of fun. All of the cars feel unique to control. Definitely recommend!
I also dipped into Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 which is also very stylish and cool in a way that’s quite a step above, say, Xtreme Racer Zero. It’s also significantly harder. While Inertial Drift above plops you in a tutorial and makes drifting as easy as can be, Drift 2 offers zero assistance in this regard and Drifting is really damn difficult. I could also see it being extra rewarding so I’m gonna try to stick with it. What’s really cool is there’s a day/night system where during the day you do sponsored events, hit up the shops, check your email and BBS (it’s no Front Mission 3 here by any stretch but it’s still cool), etc. At night, the gloves are off, you can head to various parking lots and see who’s hanging out, chat and challenge them to duels. The whole hanging out in parking lots vibe is very unique to this and what’s really drawn me in. It got terrible reviews when it came out here but they look to be purely because of the difficulty so be forewarned.
6 Likes
Yeah TXRD2 is really on another level when it comes to trying to replicate the atmosphere of a moment in time (turn of the century Japanese mountain racing communities). It’s got so much heart and will always stick with me.
6 Likes
Planet Alpha plays similarly to Inside and Limbo but rather than being a child in a drab nightmarescape you’re an astronaut on a lush glow-in-the-dark jungle planet like the one from Avatar and it’s being invaded by 1950’s Sci-Fi movie robots. You’re stuck in the middle, puzzle-platforming your way through danger, avoiding the bad guys etc.
It’s pretty decent, and a real treat to look at. Damn shame my install seems to have hit some gamebreaking bug where it refuses to load further level geometry, leaving me only with a lethal void to jump into. (I’ve confirmed that in the spot where I’m at, I should just have a bunch of scenery to run through to get to the next section. Only for me, The Sidewalk Ends so to speak).
I have no desire to replay the whole game up to the point I’ve reached just to see if a new game will solve the problem, nor do I particularly feel like reinstalling it and seeing if that works. Sooooo I guess I’m done lol.
2 Likes