it also disappointed me that they went from a game w/ no verbal dialogue to a game where the voice actor wonders aloud 'hmm, what could be behind this gate?" yeah great question, if only the game was designed to make the player ask that question themselves.
feels like they’re ticking checkboxes of what prestige “indie” games should have rather than playing to their strengths.
I played some Viewfinder the other night. Hopefully seeing some random comment that it’s “the next Portal” won’t ruin it for me, because so far the writing sure isn’t on the level of Portal. (It’s not terrible, just kind of bland with too much talking like most video games these days, though at least the talking doesn’t pause what you’re doing.)
But the basic puzzle mechanics are fun and I’m curious to see how they switch things up. (I’ve completed only the first area so far.)
I play a lot of games and stop because I’m unenthused or unimpressed, or sometimes annoyed. It’s rare that I feel real antipathy toward a game or its developers but today that game is F-Zero 99. What a fucking pile.
Grinding cosmetics and tickets to participate in the actually intersting events? The fuck outta here with that mobile game shit. The skyway mechanic is pointless, I’d rather it weren’t there at all. The cooldown on the spin attack is too long, let me ice some more motherfuckers!
Also imho the controls are the opposite of what they ought to be, it should be A to accelerate and B to boost.
The only things I like are the (unfortunately not unlocked immediately) palette swaps for the classic cars, and the “lucky bumper” mode which is a fun way to stay involved after you get KO’d.
I renewed Switch Online for a month for this. Now I feel like I gotta go play something else to get my $4.99 worth. I guess I’ll finally check out Star Fox 2
I’ve played about an hour of this so far. Not sure about some of the humor but the game is pretty compelling and surprisingly elaborate. Obviously it’s going for look-how-weird-this-is but that’s fine with me as long as there’s creativity and an interesting world.
Maybe one day you’ll return to Radical Rabbit Stew.
Considering I’d completely forgotten about this game’s very existence until you said this… it’s not looking good. Pretty good game though! I think I just got to a point where I was like “I’m going to get very annoyed by the harder levels aren’t I”
Adventures in switch ownership continued from Games You Played Today Part 007 Goldeneye - #1523 by alfred
I can’t believe those fuckin joycons are $80! I thought that was the scalper price when I saw it. I guess because it’s supposed to be 2 highly sophisticated wireless controllers but cmon. They are kind of dinky. They get stick drift. I tried playing a game with them in handheld mode and it was so uncomfortable too. The Hori split thing is great though.
Clockwork Aquario The making of this port is kind of interesting. They found it and dumped it and it was missing a few graphics and all of the music. But there was music made for this game which was released on a rare game music CD years later. The guy who made Kega Fusion made a bespoke System 18 emulator for this release. Which I assume plays the music in WAV form at the right time (that part is me just guessing). They say it didn’t do well in the location test because of the FTG boom and all, and so it got shelved. Really though if this is what was shown, then it might have just been that the game is not very good. Sucks because I was ready to defend it very hard. Arcade platform action game is such a precarious genre (liquid kids, blue’s journey, marvel land ugh) It’s so hard to get the pacing right. In this game the levels are too long and just feel really underworked in terms of enemy placement and setpieces and stuff. And, I hate to use this complaint, but the whole game is way too short, maybe it’s OK to say that since it’s 20 dollars. I wonder if this is the real final build of the game that was shown considering it’s missing music and all.
Ninja Warriors Once Again I never got very far in the SNES version but I now consider this one of my favorite games ever. And it makes me appreciate the SNES version even more seeing how fully realized the vision was back then. The stage 5 boss keeps killing me though. What an oppressive and heavy atmosphere, it just feels like even though the player character is kicking ass things are completely hopeless…and the ending really drives that home. It also made me think about how stacked all the female robots are in this game and how that might actually make the game even more depressing. It’s like that disturbing image from Dodonpachi Daioujou with an engineer guy smirking at a computer monitor while working on one of the robot girls. Behind every sexy murder android is a grinning scientist dude…
Yurukill - This game sucks big time but I bet someone would enjoy how ridiculous the game design is. It’s an adventure game that is surely ripping off of something I haven’t played (zero escape?) a lot of murder & death & ironic game show atmosphere. After finishing an adventure sequence you play a vertically scrolling STG that represents you convincing somebody that you’re innocent. In between stages you make some dialog choices that give your ship extra lives and stuff (or hurt you if you choose wrong). The bosses are the other character’s ship. They are mad at you IRL so when they do boss attacks they yell stuff at you about what happened IRL. G.rev is not credited during the title screen or logo screen or even on the box, I think they are almost acting like a subcontractor on this game. It’s sad to see how much they’re struggling to stay alive. The STG parts are just barely holding together like a much much worse Strania and that was 12 years ago.
Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz This game suuucks. There is nothing jazzy or worldly or atmospheric about it. The music is just this barrage of tinkly piano shit. The whole game seems to take place in broad daylight. The prologue chapter is unbearably lame and slow (it takes place at a summer camp when jake hunter was a child). As someone who really liked the mobile phone ports of the jake hunter games on ds and 3ds, this game also doesn’t really have anything to do with jake hunter, other than a few measly references. It seems like that aspect was tacked on after the fact. The best part about this game and perhaps the selling point is that they used some kind of street view camera on location, mostly in NYC, for all the in-game backgrounds to show your POV. You can pan & tilt the camera around during dialogue and click on real objects inside the image to investigate them. But all the characters are hand drawn sprites and it completely ruins this great idea because the character art is like very amateurish and fucked up looking. urgh
I did learn something relevant though when I was trying to setup an asian eshop account, a lot of southeast asian countries don’t have an eshop? That’s why they release these weird little games physically in those countries I guess. Hopefully I can sell this one.
Fuga Melodies of Steel I wouldn’t have tried this game if were not for Xbox Game Pass. Even though that one guy said on the IC podcast that it was GOTY that year. It’s that fucking store page key art. It looks so bad. It’s so off putting. If the game looked like that I would have never played it. Fortunately the game itself looks pretty good. They learned their lesson on the Fuga 2 store page which looks like in-game art.
This game sounds really boring on paper. It’s a pretty orthodox JRPG but it’s been completely streamlined. The whole game is on kind of a candyland esque path. You can see exactly what battles and stuff are coming up. The main reason it works is because the battles are very fun and a reward in of themselves. Well maybe a jrpg murderhead would find them boring or pick holes in them. But there are a lot of neat little things you can do with attributes and statuses and stuff. But yeah the fast pace of the game really suits the story which is going for as simple & emotionally direct as possible. Maybe sometimes a little icky since it’s about children fighting in a war. But it does do a lot of things that make me feel like I’m the hands of some older & more experienced writers, like how after the first battle the characters are all just like holy shit we just killed people, and then the scene just ends with this point unresolved. The first battle also has an incredible and devastating “ludonarrative” hook that was what convinced me to later buy the game on switch.
The forces behind the making of this game (and the sequel I guess) are mysterious. It’s a japanese-western coproduction the likes of which haven’t been seen since the xbox 360 days. In this case we’re talking quebec. Some of the canadian guys have very high ranking titles like creative director, and some of the lower level stuff like art and animation are split between the two countries. There is a separate japanese choir and french choir in the credits and the french canadian guy wrote some lyrics. It’s puzzling to think about if the young canadian guys were pushing the old japanese guys out of their comfort zone, or the old guys were teaching the young guys restraint. There is one interview with the creative director out there and the original game was going to be a roguelike which was probably his idea and not the japanese guys. I wonder how he felt about the final product. I think the same week Fuga 2 came out, the CC2 montreal studio was shut down, and that guy works for Platinum now, so idk.
Ace Angler Fishing Spirits This is a port of an arcade medal game which is maybe unheard of? Have they ever ported a medal game to anything? It seems pointless if you can’t win anything IRL right? My wife’s normie coworker saw a video of me playing and said oh I love that game. I don’t think this game is even at Round One. There might be a ripoff of it out there at dave & busters.
Anyway very fun cool game. For a home release they added a bunch of mini games and places to spend your fake money, and on paper I should be against it, but I love it. Part of it is the fish models are very funny. The animations of them flopping around are hilarous. Especially when they are big enough to fill the whole screen. My goal is to catch 'em all (love crossing off checklists). There is online play which is interesting but I haven’t tried it yet. The crossing over into edutainment/real world knowledge is really cool. There are collaborations with actual aquariums in japan and taiwan, you have to catch that aquarium’s special fish and then you can read about the facility and get a tshirt for your player character. There are fish facts which is funny because the game also has a lot of fictional fish. The fact checking was done by the PRINCE OF FISH.
Finally the secret ingredient to my enjoyment of this game: I got the rod controller. The single joycon one with the reel, not the one with 2 joycons. It’s like one of those tactile/noise making toys for toddlers. It wouldn’t be so fun without that loud ass fishing reel. I had to import that shit from Malaysia. I should have waited! They did another manufacturing run.
I probably have just one more post like this in me, after that I will finally be trying big Nintendo published games like splatoon and zelda that are boring to post about.
Y u - n o R e m a k e (will this hide it from search?)
I was debating telling anybody that I played this game. Don’t play it…just keep listening to the soundtrack in ignorant bliss.
As I’ve said before, I am cursed to care about all things Sega Saturn. This was a pretty high profile release for the saturn. I’m not really interested in the NEC pc-98. I do like studying japanese adventure game design, especially when the game is boring and frustrating. And I’m also curious about anything that is considered a “masterpiece” of something. This is supposed to be the very best adult adventure game right?
I ended up playing this whole 40 hour-ass game. There were a lot of eroge things that made me wonder if I should stop. But the story and the characters were pretty damn compelling. The music did a lot of the heavy lifting. The twists are incredible for a video game. HOWEVER something sexual happens at the VERY VERY END of this extremely long game that completely ruins the whole thing and definitely ruined my day that day. Just makes me wish I could neuralize myself but I still wouldn’t get all that time back. In a way posting about this game is a way of letting go and moving on so I never have to think about it again. And it’s also kind of a warning for you all. Don’t worry, I won’t post the horrible thing that happens even behind spoiler tags.
So this game does all the gross stuff you would expect from a pc-98 eroge. (My frame of reference: playing snatcher, a bit of policenauts, and reading/watching a few people talk about these kinds of games.) There is your typical oogling/groping of everybody, including times where you need to do it to advance the story. But this is something that I kind of struggled with thinking about critically. Like in policenauts you’re a cop that can grope a flight attendant you just met. Here these characters all know you well before the events of the game. One of them you’ve even had sex with before! So I think it’s less about the giddy portrayal of fucked up human behavior (policenauts) and more the overall male centric porn fantasy atmosphere that’s the issue here, the extreme objectification, the way these women still like you no matter what you say or do, and that they’re all total freaks in their spare time. A lot of stuff made me feel more embarassed than angry or disgusted.
Key fucked up parts (minus the really bad one):
As far as Japanese Adventure Game Boredomology goes, this had a lot of stuff for me to digest…there is probably the most aimless filler banter in any work of fiction I have ever seen. It’s like the polar opposite of david mamet’s thing, “if two characters are talking about a 3rd offscreen character, or relaying information about the plot to the viewer, that scene is bullshit” the entire game is just scenes like that. But perhaps to obfuscate or liven up this situation, the characters have a lot of really drawn out filler banter. A lot of times it’s not even what I would call banter it’s like: “you know…” “yeah…” “it’s like that…” “i see…” Those aren’t 4 separate examples, I mean that it’s those 4 text boxes in a row. And that’s a short example. And then the game just does it over and over again. But it’s (boring in an) interesting (way) because like I said, these characters already know each other, and the way they talk shows they dispense with the formalities and don’t really talk like the reader is part of the conversation. They do also have fully formed banter sometimes and this is where a lot of sex talk and ecchi comedy happens. It certainly gives the game an interesting texture the way it jumps back and forth from this to intense scifi mystery stuff.
It’s also a time travel plot so you have to play scenes over and over again to trigger different routes. It’s interesting because your character doesn’t seem to have knowledge of other timelines. That’s good because he seems to actually fall in love with each character during each timeline, and that would make him kind of a psycho if he actually formed all those emotional attachments in such a short time. But you can pick up and use items from the other timelines. And sometimes he’ll say stuff like don’t worry about where I got this item from. It’s like that one time Crono spoke a line of dialogue in Chrono Trigger, they had to bend the rules a bit. The big problem game design wise here though, is that the main character has no foreknowledge of anything that happens, so the scenes play out exactly the same every time, and the game makes you repeat huge chunks of dialogue. Fortunately, thank fucking god, there’s an auto-skip feature for any text you’ve already read. I wonder if the original version had that.
So yeah in my life there’s always been stuff that I liked and could talk about, and stuff that is a “problematic fave” that I don’t talk so much about, but for the first time this game is just so beyond the pale I have to memory hole it, even though I had some good times with it and spent a couple days thinking deeply about the stuff that happens towards the end. (The plot stuff, not the sexual stuff.) Let this post be the last time I ever ponder this game & also I wonder if I have been warmed up for steins;gate now? Hmm…
I think I originally played that game because of something you said. It never gets too difficult but it does introduce some fun new mechanics later. Also, keep their follow-up game Core Keeper in mind as something to look at one day at if you haven’t already.
every time i think i’m stuck in Dysmantle, i find that i have missed an edge to press on and a whole new world opens up
this last time was the longest: i’m trying to go west, and I started in the north but kept getting blocked by various obstacles (literal walls, poison gas, uncrossable precipices). I also basically upgraded everything I could, but needed a resource I had yet to see (titanium), and had no idea where to get it.
I’ve poked my way slowly south, continually encountering obstacles. I found a new place but immediately got stuck again, locked behind walls of cars or closed drawbridges. But finally, finally, I found a road that lead west across the river.
And immediately encountered signs pointing towards “Sanctuary” with various messages about how great everything is, followed by fucking spike pits, a thing I’d never seen before. Once I arrived, it turned out there was an evil farmer who was luring people in and killing them, then taking their stuff. He was, of course, a zombie, so I murdered his ass. But this dipshit had also destroyed the tower there (which is the fast travel point (and also the thing that lets you permanently kill enemies)), and it needed titanium to get fixed.
Eventually I found a steel mill and discovered the recipe to make smelters, and that let me make titanium!! Finally!! I fixed the tower and upgraded basically all of my shit. I was powerful before but i’m unstoppable now (except by rivers, precipices, walls, and stacks of cars).
Anyway, this game rocks. It’s so funny how it sells itself as open world, but it’s really a closely guided experience that you just happen to be able to do in several different orders. And it never tells you explicitly where to go other than “you gotta go to the four corners of the map.” It really lets you get stuck!! But always, immediately after getting unstuck, there’s some weird little vignette or new situation that’s never occurred before. It’s just so generous.
Great game, full of surprises
EDIT: Wait these are the people who made crimsonland??? honestly that explains a lot, that game is the perfect example of “more than the sum of its parts”. i mean, i assume that crimsonland was made by like 1 or 2 people but still
Sorry you also suffered Yurukill. The host lady absolutely steals the show.
Thanks for talking about Fuga. War Orphan Strategy game is what I thought it was!
WHAT? Ok, now I’m interested.
just coming to say that I started up Dysmantle a few days ago based on half-remembering your original post. a perfect game, as soon as I stop playing, it completely disappears from my mind
edit: lol it was half-remembered, it was @meauxdal’s post back in July
I played Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
There’s something special about the character appeal in the game which I’ve struggled to explain but here’s an attempt. The game is a very lite SRPG and its small square battlegrid and balance are geared around very simple and breezy combat. Likewise, you don’t normally have to travel very far from moment to moment, and the overworld is nicely condensed. Even dungeons are quite swift by 90s JRPG standards. The scenario-to-battle balance is nice for just simmercosying with. You are a girl who plays a magical cornet to give life to puppets, and you got a mad crush on the prince, go.
The writing is similarly concise and doesn’t labour too much with its jokes or exposition. It stands in contrast to modern indie efforts to capture the 90s RPG. Everything has a lot of personality even if the story is simple. The conceit of a romantic comedy musical RPG is interesting compared to musical number gimmicks attempted by other games like Gat Out of Hell, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, or entirely musical affairs like Parappa or Um Jammer Lammy. Rhapsody integrates the music in earnest without the game being about it.
The inspiration is apparently 90s Disney and broadway, and I feel like the end result, mixed with slapstick and general comic leanings (I’d say manzai though I’m not familiar with it at all), reminds me most strongly of pantomime. Like, it’s not really pantomime, but the constellation of elements gives me that feeling. The fact that all the major characters are women, music intertwined with comedy, the jokey flirting with the carnal side of fairytale romance, constant riffing between characters, and strong and simple arcs. It’s appealingly ‘inner child’, dark in the right places, but soft and cute as a way into its deeper feelings.
I kind of like that there is no map the dungeons (they really saved a lot of money with those cave textures) and initially I feel like I was lucking out getting through dungeons so quickly, just by feeling my way around the cardinal directions with my gamer senses. In retrospect I think they designed it to help people who just brute force navigation since a lot of dungeons usually reward just going in one direction when presented with multiple branching rooms. There’s some progression headaches like the fake wall in the Tower of Ninetails or going back to Wonder Woods for like the fifth time, but I don’t think there’s many PS1 RPGs without these kinds of problems. I also over-levelled quickly thanks to some silver slimes so the game was never really difficult (I ain’t complaining).
Dark death follows in your wake as you gather stones to rescue the prince, and I’m glad the game didn’t get bogged down in morality. Like you end up killing a bunch of ‘guardian beasts’ but the game isn’t really about feeling guilty, more that there are mistakes for a daughter to make in her coming-of-age journey. Unlike Disney musicals, the mother is very present in the theming and payoff, she wants happiness for daughter. Wholesome games pay attention now.
Overall, I assume a varied media diet helps explain the stronger ‘appeal’ factor in many older games. The inspiration is not games but not exclusively musicals either. There’s a clear emotional story and throughput which so few indie efforts focus on, instead polishing the nostalgia replica. I think it’s what keeps someone like Toby Fox from feeling derivative. Rhapsody is good shit and I’ll probably get round to the rest of the Marl Kingdom Chronicles stuff sometime soon.
My main party was: L-Kun, Flare, and Sharte.
Oh, and my fav song:
unfortunate
Woof! This game feels bad to play. The attempt at what would later become Star Fox 64’s “All Range Mode” feels awful. I like what it’s doing on paper with the whole “defending Corneria in real time” thing. And having your wingmen have different attributes (and two new folks!).
I feel like this is really one where a “quality of life” remake might actually be called for. The base concept is good. The execution is just painful.
It looks like Star Fox Command sort of picked up some of this game’s general ideas but I still feel good about having mostly checked out on this series after 64.
lost judgement is ok, but it’s not as good as a yakuza. the city feels a lot less interactive than in the yakuza games. lots of locked doors and roped-off staircases.
also, the whole school investigation storyline would have been perfect for a sukeban deka game which would have been a million times cooler
The school stuff is very funny in a “how do you do fellow kids” way. You’re a 40 year old dressing like a cool dude posing as a hip school counsellor.
I think the game opens up more as it goes, although most of the side activities require a fair amount of progress in the school stories. I remember feeling like this rivalled Yakuza 5 for Too Much Content
On the bright side picking up my Switch again has lead to me picking up the Love trilogy again and diving into the final installment. These games continue to be a very nice little palate cleanser that wash the bad taste of other games out of my mouth. I’ll be a little bummed when I’m finished with them.
i picked up a dungeon crawler called quester. it’s pretty okay, i’m not a big fan of the combat, but the exploration is pretty fun. it has a nice dragon slayer aesthetic, which i like.
i’ve hit a point where there’s actually some lore happening and now i’m thinking, okay, where are we going with this, game? 
Lableakcore
