I liked the plot and story. There are plenty of unique/memorable moments. It gets off to a lethargic start, unfortunately, though. The first like five hours at least are quite dull, and I don’t blame anyone for dropping the game based on that. But it improves massively after the intro, and the story is what kept me going.
The writing and storytelling are not good. There’s way too much dialogue and it’s constantly changing tone. One second there’s a meta 4th-wall-breaking joke and the next second it’s serious or sad. It takes me out of the world and many moments lose impact because of this.
The characters are mixed. The two protagonists have zero personality, which is partly a symptom of them being entirely interchangeable. But most other characters have great backstory and some are quite interesting
The combat and gameplay did its job, but lacked depth. The weapons and armor were just simple stat changes, and the stats are pretty standard (hp, mp, phys atk/def, mag atk/def), so character progression was uninteresting. The magic/type locks in battle were sort of more tedious than fun, but I appreciate that it requires some thought and is something unique.
I like the world design and the verticality that gives some interest to running around the world. There are unlockable shortcuts so that you don’t have to repeat long sections again, and there are plenty of rewards to make exploration somewhat worthwhile.
The artwork is amazing. There’s a ton of unique detailed pixel art. Admittedly, I do think some animations are a little rough or are simplistic - like a static sprite bouncing up and down - but this is pretty minor.
I’m mixed on the music. It’s technically great, but I don’t really want to listen to the soundtrack again, honestly. One thing that’s impressive is the music changes seamlessly during night/day cycles so actually every song has like two renditions (or something) which is kind of crazy.
The ending is rushed, though I only really felt it’s the last area (the tower) that’s rushed. You get to the top and the final boss is one fight with space shooter mechanics (???) incorporated, and then the game ends right after. It’s too quick. That actually did motivate me to unlock the true ending, because I felt like there must be more. And unlocking the true ending didn’t take me all that long, but it does suck that it’s a collectathon.
Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, but wouldn’t play through it again. It’s like a 7/10 for me.
This game looks good, and I’ve never played the old 2D Star Ocean games (the 3D ones I’ve played, Divine Force and Lymle Double Trouble, disappointed me)
I guess I need to start with First Departure which I bought at a sale recently.
I enjoyed it for a good while and found it really charming. I just ended up kind of losing interest for some reason. No idea how far along I was, but I had to be at least half way through.
The soundtrack was a standout to me, I’ll say that!
Huh. My siblings and I love the Trine games, and wanted to like Nine Parchments, but found it to be one of the worst games we’ve ever played. I don’t think we could find a single redeeming quality, and it just seemed like a total misstep.
So seeing it here on this list makes me think maybe there’s something that was okay about it? I’m curious what people liked…
(all the rest of these seem like good games, though, which honestly makes me even more confused about Nine Parchments’ inclusion…)
It’s okay not to like it of course. As you have seen it’s nothing like the Trine games, sharing only a bit of lore with them.
It’s basically a very pretty arena-based top-down shooter reminiscent of Magicka (which I also loved), with a good difficulty curve. There is not much of a story to carry the game forward, so it hinges on whether you like the gameplay and the challenge it offers or not. I for one really enjoyed Nine Parchments, doing multiple runs in single player and co-op with friends (even a “hardcore” one, which we usually never touch).
I think I’m almost done with Cyberpunk 2077. Cleared all Scanner Hustles and Side Gigs, most Side Missions, so I think I just have the main story, the Phantom Liberty story, and whatever Side Missions might need a day in-game to complete. When it’s done I think I’m going to find something much lower impact to just veg out in for a bit, but Cyberpunk has been a lot of fun to dive into and I can see myself coming back to it in a few years.
I also took the plunge into a gacha game for some reason on my phone. Reverse 1999. The art style was intriguing and I’m enjoying it a lot so far. We’ll see how long it sticks around.
I’ve finished the game, and thought it was a pretty decent experience. Pacing is a little weird, but the gameplay loop is fun, and the story is engaging enough. Grab it on sale
The solution is slow depletion of title power in order to drive competition. Basically, encourage each others and yourself to explore other games that aim for the same goals as the original property, ideally expanded with some vision of innovation.
For Pokémon, players could likely try out Casette Beasts. For Silent Hill, there are other survival horror properties examining psychological properties of their heroes, like Cry of Fear and The Park.
Oh, I thought that the conches were entirely a completionist thing, learning that they are required for the true ending puts a damper on my desire to finish this game… It was a fun game, but I got no desire to 100% it. Oh well, guess I’ll just watch the true ending on YouTube instead.
I know about the bird, I just have absolutely no desire to go hunting through the maps for the one chest I missed. I’m not a completionist, and this game was definitely not incredible enough to get me to become one.
Did the true ending (and then the extremely true ending). The game is so full of love for video games that it’s contagious for me and I really appreciated how much the game makers cared about it
Tunic was shockingly good. Looks like its for little kids but there is a lot of surprises and neat puzzles tucked away in there. Absolutely worth checking that out
a short hike reinvigorated my love for indie games! it’s such a beautiful game with a cute little story and fun things to do, and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.
“When you pre-order a game, you’re just committing to paying for something that some assholes in California haven’t even finished working on yet. You know what you get for pre-ordering a game? A big dick in your mouth.” -Eric Cartman, Black Friday
Play those old good olde games on the nes. Modern games just ignore all the EA games, ubishits, Anything first party, eurojanks, weird woo woo games, anything made by the japs and most non traditional ones like those netflix ones.
For anyone that likes horror, I can’t recommend Red Candle Games enough.
Detention takes place during the White Terror in Taiwan in the 1960s, and is about a student trying to get out of the school after a typhoon, but it turns into something so much darker and sadder as the story unfolds.
Devotion is probably the best PT-esque horror game out there, taking place in a Taiwanese apartment during three different years in the 80s, and is about a script writer trying to create his “perfect future” while he’s trying to figure out what happened to his young daughter. It is one of, if not the, best domestic horror I’ve ever played. And anyone against censorship should definitely get it, because the game was pulled from Steam because of an art asset that got left in by accident that called Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh, and then GoG said THEY would sell it, but it seems CD Projekt worried China might retaliate and not allow CP2077 to be released in China and backed out a day or two after they said they would carry it (they claimed it was because of “gamer response,” but refused to respond to anyone asking for more details).
Detention, you can get anywhere - it’s even on iOS and Android along with PC, PS Store, and Switch, but Devotion, you can only get from Red Candle’s website, and it is more than worth the $17 bucks: https://shop.redcandlegames.com/
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