FEAR 2 is such a downgrade bc while the original had some texture and variety to its pacing, 2 is literally Hallway>Arena>Jumpscare>Repeat and the formula becomes so noticeable it ruins the entire game.
5 Likes
Was that the one with the hardsuits or was that 3. That part looked cool
1 Like
That was 2, although iirc they make an appearance in 3. It looks cooler than it is.
2 Likes
Harold Halibut is trying my patience. Itās set after an expedition which tried to escape Earth during the Cold War and ended up sunk at the bottom of an alien planet after several centuries of travel where it has resided for about 50 years. People seem to want to leave for vague reasons but the game is much more interested in us getting to know Harold who is just a guy.
The whole thing kicks off with a protracted bit about receiving a ticket fine because of not keeping up with the bureaucracy of the transport department. Everyone is constantly interrupting each other in blustering huffing and humming and it gets a bit much at times. Characters say things like ādo not cause me further consternationā and everyone feels like a fussy, quirksome indie movie cast. The space station/generation ship it takes place on itās called the Fedora 1 which is maybe another clue to the tone. Sometimes it feels like Iām playing a Mr. Scruff album.
They have a good dialogue skip feature Iāve not seen in an indie. Skipping dialogue fast forwards the animation attached to the line. Itās Yakuza-esque but also suggests all dialogue animations are bespoke even if they use a lot of the same animation chunks.
Iām not sure what to call this genre of game where itās not really a point-and-click adventure game and itās not pure dialogue, but you are given a lot of busy work that has you navigating around a very basic layout of rooms just to go and talk to people. Like ābreach and clearā except youāre just doing a to-do list. Less āpoint and clickā and more āwalk and roomā. They do a fun joke that caught me unexpectedly: Youāre asked to drop off a sample rock to a scientist for a while which, like every other activity in the game, I assumed you had to return to the person to collect but instead they chastise you for wasting time and say that you could have used the shipās internal conveyor belt system instead of physically returning to them. It was fun for a second but then devolves into a long bit where they make fun of the game for doing the things they presumably had control over and could have made less tedious. Whatever.
Harold the character is a doofy goosh. Everyone hates Harold. They borderline imply that heās cognitively challenged or just careless? Itās never clear but everyone seems to hate him for it. Itās hard to get connected to any of the characters since theyāre either chastising Harold or just being weak bit characters. Even when the plot picks up and thereās a corporate conspiracy happening aboard the ship everyone doesnāt really seem to take things very seriously and I donāt think the writers can decide on the tone.
It also moves at a very sleepy pace. Part of the plot involves making first contact with a fish alien which feels like a huge deal until you play out several days of going back-and-forth to a pharmacy to pretend that you need fish medicine for a literal alien. The game makes you play this out at excruciating length and the scenes in this section barely move the plot forward. The game has a counter of days as they pass which I thought was one of the reasons why they constrained it but then they just skip a week randomly in a montage which they probably should have done many times before this.
The one character I like is the postman since heās not an execrable twat who speaks like someone who exclusively reads āBig and Fancy Words for Smart Peopleā. He has a questline which I thought was also worth my time. Because of a set of bureaucratic stipulations post can only be delivered directly to the person and can only be re-delivered for a period of 12 days before it goes into storage forever. He and Harold happen upon a loophole where they can read the letters as long as they are together since Harold is technically a company employee and has the free time. You get to read lots of letters from the previous generations in the ship which is a nice way of telling stories that are not tied to the main plot or constrained by the current situation of the ship being sunk underwater. My one complaint about it is when you walk past his office to read letters together you donāt wave at him even though both characters can see each other, it just looks like Harold is completely blanking him for no reason.
At first, I thought the VA were non-native English speakers, but this doesnāt seem to be the case? I think just the voice direction might not have been done that well. Characters put strange emphasis on words and feel very āseparateā from one another.
Oh and the visuals have a nice āphotogrammetry of real propsā thing going on. I think the devs like making puppets more than they like making games.
Iām not sure how much longer Iāll stick with it since itās almost making me fall asleep. Thereās brief flashes of something pleasant with the postman or a scene where Harold just starts adlibbing a song about how shit his life is. But itās mostly just jogging up and down the same hallway and using the same lift system to get from one floor to another.
11 Likes
played the demo and i found itā¦ tedious. the writing was surprisingly weird? it kind of comes down to what you said here:
i always assume something like this is going to be more irreverent in tone. when i played Octopus City Blues demo a year or two ago (another long awaited adventure game) it absolutely had that irreverent tone and did it really successfully. but this is just like people constantly hectoring Harold but also taking the nature of its plot very seriously. a real shame considering the massive technical undertaking this game was to make? is this a German adventure game thing? it seems like iāve seen multiple adventure games from Germany with this kind of tone. it just seems ill advised to make something so difficult to make with such a likeā¦ a half-baked story.
5 Likes
took a break from Metaphor (incredible game, might like it better than P5), to play a couple of Saturn games that I had put on a To Play list
Burning Rangers - I canāt believe itās taken me this long to sit down and play it, itās only like 2 hours. Took a while to get used to the shoulder camera movement from the pre-second stick days but I really kind of love the whole look and vibe, that kind of cartoony blocky 3D that theyāre only now trying to recapture for cynical nostalgia. Some insanely fun anime music coupled with some of the worst english voice acting Iāve ever heard in any media product. But I got to ride a dolphin so itās pretty good!
Clockwork Knight 1 & 2 - Some very slow pre rendered platforming, like an anti-DKC. I played the Toy Story genesis game when I was an actual child and this feels like it couldāve been up my alley (except that game was unfairly hard if I remember correctly) Music made me feel like I was going crazy in a bad way. First one was Piss Easy but the second one had a lot of little things that I liked (i like the look of the levels and itās whole Toy aesthetic) and was also Piss Easy but I had a better time with it.
Bulk Slash - I donāt know any japanese but it doesnāt matter because this game FUCKS. I love looking at it and experiencing it, even if it also had the clunky pre-second stick camera controls. It takes a second to switch between flying and ground but once I got it it was so fun. This is the ideal Saturn aesthetic to me
next Saturn games I might try to finally beat are the two Panzer Dragoon games since theyāre kind of short but oh so chunky and clunky so weāll see how far I get
15 Likes
thereās a fan translation for bulk slash
9 Likes
Clockwork Knight keeps coming up as a saturn game people like but its just kinda like playing cool spot, like its ok.
If ya like toys themed games on saturn Play lunatic obscurity: Steamgear Mash (Saturn) instead.
11 Likes
I am sick with a cold and laying in bed a lot these past two days so I have been playing the Final Fantasy 8 remaster on my steam deck in bed with the boost and the 3x speed toggle as needed. I would have loved it if it had explained junction system better and SeeD exams and switching what GFs learn but that doesnāt really matter much as I just buzzing through it as a comfort food game with some nostalgia for the FMVs from the turn of the century. I didnāt really understand what was going on 25 years ago and I still am having trouble. In Disc 2 at the moment and just fought NORG.
7 Likes
hope you didnāt forget to draw the sea serpent from your landlord
5 Likes
Funnily enough, I had to redo that battle because I only noticed he had it just as he was killed.
5 Likes
NORG is my favorite part of final fantasy 8 to think about because itās like āoh by the way I forgot to mentionā¦ Iām in some money troubleā¦ā like man what
7 Likes
Yeah, like what is the lizard tribe man living in the pod in the basement spending money on?
2 Likes
I think it was clearly a case of like, an inside joke the developers had about getting mad at their actual landlord or something, but I love that itās in there
9 Likes
found it, thank you for this, gonna really enjoy tearing through this
5 Likes
I will never not play a pretty good Metroidvania, so Iām currently playing Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist
The quality of life in this game is incredible, you can make the minimap large enough to cover most of the screen
13 Likes
Someone should make a dungeon scroller that is all minimap
12 Likes
Getting stuck in a loop in Shiren 6 of dying, waiting a couple days to get rescued, having to do rescues to build points so I can rescue myself, then dying again on the next floor.
I managed to get all the way to the final floor of the Kiki Island dungeon, literally standing right next to the exit. But it got blocked by a big froggy dude, and a fish guy was next to him. So I tried to flee to recover health and get in a passage way to deal with them one on one, but I forgot the frog guys can pull you back towards them with their Yoshi tongues and thus did I die with no more rescues left
10 Likes
ive been sick playing ff3 pixel remaster on switch
playing these older ffs where a bunch of stuff can just happen and it doesnāt drag out or prompt you to do minigames is refreshing and i am still bitter about ffvii rebirth
7 Likes