DeemonAndGames
10161 reviews liked by DeemonAndGames
Afterimage
2023
As I traversed the upside down castle with whip in hand fighting knights with my cool back dash I thought to myself Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a great game! I was however playing Afterimage, a Metroidvania made by Aurogon Shanghai. It's one of those games that I simply can't remember where I heard about it but It's been on my radar a while for it's gorgeous visual style...and I'll frankly play any Metroidvania you throw at me.
From a Metoidvania point of view it's kind of weak in a lot of ways though. The game is absolutely massive with about 20 locations to explore over the course of the adventure. Some of these locations are almost the size of other games of the genres entire maps and it took me over 30 hours to initially finish it off. The level design is expansive with various secrets to find with more skills and abilities unlocked as you would expect but backtracking is a nightmare and fast travelling uses a consumable item which just seemingly discourages it early on. The mid game I found it difficult to know exactly where to go and there is a weird difficulty spike due to the multiple directions which took a while to smooth out. The story equally feels it lacks cohesion. It's very dialogue, character and plot heavy but at the same time wants to be mysterious and lore intense like Dark Souls / Hollow Knight yet instead just leaves a lot of questions like it was never really finished. Playing the extra mode unlocked after several endings as a side story does answer some of it, as does the true ending but there are still many aspects of the plot that feel very incomplete or unsatisfying.
So why a 7/10 if you are luke warm on the level design and story Fallen? I hear you ask in confusion. It's simply because despite that, I had a lot of fun with it. The locations are varied and the artwork is really stunning throughout, the soundtrack is beautiful and sometimes haunting. The protagonist Renee's animations are smooth and combat for the most part is fun with a variety of weapons, accessories and magic to choose from.
Yes the game could have done with tightening up a little bit where I think they got a little overzealous but overall it's a fun little game.
+ Beautiful art design.
+ I liked the soft haunting melodies of the OST.
+ Combat is fast and fluid with some good options.
+ I just like exploring in Metroidvanias...
- Level's are a little too large.
- Story could be tightened up more, it wants both a lot of dialogue yet mysterious lore and doesn't quite work for either.
From a Metoidvania point of view it's kind of weak in a lot of ways though. The game is absolutely massive with about 20 locations to explore over the course of the adventure. Some of these locations are almost the size of other games of the genres entire maps and it took me over 30 hours to initially finish it off. The level design is expansive with various secrets to find with more skills and abilities unlocked as you would expect but backtracking is a nightmare and fast travelling uses a consumable item which just seemingly discourages it early on. The mid game I found it difficult to know exactly where to go and there is a weird difficulty spike due to the multiple directions which took a while to smooth out. The story equally feels it lacks cohesion. It's very dialogue, character and plot heavy but at the same time wants to be mysterious and lore intense like Dark Souls / Hollow Knight yet instead just leaves a lot of questions like it was never really finished. Playing the extra mode unlocked after several endings as a side story does answer some of it, as does the true ending but there are still many aspects of the plot that feel very incomplete or unsatisfying.
So why a 7/10 if you are luke warm on the level design and story Fallen? I hear you ask in confusion. It's simply because despite that, I had a lot of fun with it. The locations are varied and the artwork is really stunning throughout, the soundtrack is beautiful and sometimes haunting. The protagonist Renee's animations are smooth and combat for the most part is fun with a variety of weapons, accessories and magic to choose from.
Yes the game could have done with tightening up a little bit where I think they got a little overzealous but overall it's a fun little game.
+ Beautiful art design.
+ I liked the soft haunting melodies of the OST.
+ Combat is fast and fluid with some good options.
+ I just like exploring in Metroidvanias...
- Level's are a little too large.
- Story could be tightened up more, it wants both a lot of dialogue yet mysterious lore and doesn't quite work for either.
2048
2014
Errrm what the scallop! Did Mario make this? It's Made In Italy. The thing only has one purpose in this destitute world, and that is to watch you slide numbers and make big number. Is there merit in this? It's not that fun, even with secret ninjutsu tips you can get on the Internet. If I was on a plane and it crashed and fucking exploded, I would not think about this game at all during my final breaths. Maybe if there were 2048 passengers I probably would chuckle a bit, then again I'd probably be sleeping or some shit.
Now, the game has crazy mods that overhaul everything, it's like Skyrim! Anybody can do it even. Look up the plethora of clones that exist, some may shock you, some may whelm you, some may goad you further in the pursuit of knowledge regarding Obama's last name, but don't forget that the soup is cold and the salad is hot if it's a school lunch. Plus, isn't it better to replace the numbers by cooler things like cool cars because otherwise, you are very nerdy for playing 2048 i aint ngl imagine going "I reached a high score of 131072 🤓🤓" instead of "I reached nirvana on the highway to hell" have some self-respect you nincompoop. What would brock obama say if he saw all that "i suck dick and huuuuuh i eat pussy too" damn he's bisexual thats crazy alhamdulillah hope he enjoys the 2048 mating technique 👏
Are you telling me a high number happens to fall like that? No! He orchestrated it! Gabriele Cirulli! He slided in a chain of numbers that happens to be my IP address and he gets to be a lauded game designer? What a joke! I do respect the hustle though. There's a spin on the formula not available for logging on Backloggd called Nextagon and that one was cool huuuuuh I'm exhausting my options here, can I discuss the game without anymore ad hominems? How about the fact the game promotes incest values by only allowing us to pair twin numbers together! This wouldn't fly even in the joint. i delet myself. bye
Now, the game has crazy mods that overhaul everything, it's like Skyrim! Anybody can do it even. Look up the plethora of clones that exist, some may shock you, some may whelm you, some may goad you further in the pursuit of knowledge regarding Obama's last name, but don't forget that the soup is cold and the salad is hot if it's a school lunch. Plus, isn't it better to replace the numbers by cooler things like cool cars because otherwise, you are very nerdy for playing 2048 i aint ngl imagine going "I reached a high score of 131072 🤓🤓" instead of "I reached nirvana on the highway to hell" have some self-respect you nincompoop. What would brock obama say if he saw all that "i suck dick and huuuuuh i eat pussy too" damn he's bisexual thats crazy alhamdulillah hope he enjoys the 2048 mating technique 👏
Are you telling me a high number happens to fall like that? No! He orchestrated it! Gabriele Cirulli! He slided in a chain of numbers that happens to be my IP address and he gets to be a lauded game designer? What a joke! I do respect the hustle though. There's a spin on the formula not available for logging on Backloggd called Nextagon and that one was cool huuuuuh I'm exhausting my options here, can I discuss the game without anymore ad hominems? How about the fact the game promotes incest values by only allowing us to pair twin numbers together! This wouldn't fly even in the joint. i delet myself. bye
This review contains spoilers
When Rebirth released, it was clear that it was a smash hit. So of COURSE they would capitalize on Rebirth’s success. For the record, I've never played Afterbirth standalone until this review. It’s a good DLC, no doubt, but the quality difference between Rebirth and Afterbirth is a bit apparent. Rebirth is an incredible game, but Afterbirth is just a good one. It doesn’t really change the formula at all, instead adding more to the core gameplay, which is totally fine as Rebirth is essentially a perfect game in my eyes. So, let’s hop into the Basement once more, shall we?
Okay, right off the bat, Afterbirth sports some improvements over Rebirth. Numerous items have been altered, usually for the better. Numerous items, including Dr Fetus and Bob’s Rotten Head have scaling damage now, an inarguable improvement overall. Lost Contact now allows familiars to block shots as well. Numerous items can be stacked now, like Mom’s Knife shooting two knives. Head of Krampus now rotates occasionally. That’s sort of annoying, but I’ll take it. Flush now one-shots all Poop-based bosses, neat. Most importantly, a lot of new synergies have been added to the mix, most notably to Dr. Fetus and Brimstone. But, arguably, the most important rework; Troll Bombs now explode at random intervals, fuck you. Jokes aside, Afterbirth added a whole lot of tweaks to improve the gameplay of Rebirth, which is pretty nice to say the least. Sacrifice rooms are actually good now, there’s a fuck ton of new room layouts, and now if you’ve unlocked It Lives, a Deal door on Womb 2 now actually has a deal! It’s a lot of minute shit, but hey, it’s nice to see. The two major additions of this expansion come in an entirely new game mode, and also an addition to the already existing campaign. We’ll cover the latter first.
By killing Mom’s Heart in under 30 minutes, you gain access to the... Blue Womb? It’s not a major floor, which is a bit of a shame. It has 2 treasure rooms, a shop, and the Boss door, which houses... Hush. Hush... is in a weird spot. I don’t hate him all too much, but I don’t really like him that much, either. First off, you start off with a Blue Baby fight, and then after he dies... the real Hush spawns? Okay... He shoots a million bullets, which are decently difficult to dodge. God, when does this boss end? He has so much HP! And now he’s attacking really fas- oh, and I died. Okay... Hush has had an issue since Afterbirth that makes him ridiculously fast if he gets to 50% HP, and while it doesn’t make the fight impossible by a long shot, it does make the fight occasionally irritating. When you get a continuum attack combined with his eye lasers, be prepared to take damage, because I 100%, zeusdeegoose guarantee you that it will happen. Aside from that, the fight is okay I suppose. It takes a little long... Actually now that I think about it, Mega Satan takes a little longer now. What’s up with that? Well, this is called “Boss Armor”, a mechanic introduced in Afterbirth which aims to make fights more challenging for those who have higher DPS in a single run. Depending on your DPS (and actual damage stat), about 9% of your attack’s original damage can get cut to compensate for you higher damage. It’s a bit of a dilemma. Sure, it levels the playing field for those who have slightly less than desirable runs, but on the other hand, it doesn’t really make bosses “harder”. In the end, it’s not really something to knock against the game since it really doesn’t affect you too much in the long term, but it is something that I should note here. Hush is kind of disappointing, but he’s a harmless side addition to runs. Once you kill him at least once, you get an ending which depicts Isaac dying once more in the Chest, and then seeing his new life in Purgatory. After that, we see his Mom opening the Chest, only to find his skeleton. The ending is skipped on subsequent runs, and instead lets you go to the Cathedral or Sheol, just like in a regular Womb run. I really wish that the Blue Womb was a full floor, like almost every other end-game floor. In the files, there’s actually some enemies that go totally unused in the game, which is a shame. Having a big, open floor with a bunch of enemies to kill before you fight a boss would be cool. But as is, it’s just fine. Hey, at least you get 2 extra items for doing it! So... what else is going on in Afterbirth?
Well, the Basement also received some new renovations! Introducing, the Burning Basement, Flooded Caves, the Dankest Depths, and the Scarred Womb. These aren’t wholly new floors, but they attempt to change the fundamental designs of each floor, somewhat akin to curses. For example, the Burning Basement focuses on grounded enemies, rather than flying enemies. The levels have entirely new aesthetics and enemies, and I really like what they did here. All of the remixes slap HARD. Kave Diluvii is among my favorite tracks in the game. It’s pretty groovy and relaxed compared to the normal Caves track. Afterbirth’s soundtrack meets the bar of Rebirth’s, and fits in perfectly with the older tracks. Great stuff overall. Speaking of Basement renovations, there’s new room layouts!!! Uh... New achievements... Shit... Looks like we have to talk about the elephant in the room, right?
Greed Mode is a bit of a controversial game mode. Many dislike it, and believe it’s removal would be a net positive. Perhaps my spiciest take on this site, Greed Mode... is actually really fun! Yeah, it can get repetitive, and it does have it’s issues, but I think it’s a solid alternative to the main game. Essentially, you’re in a large ass arena, with a treasure room, boss pool item, and a curse room. You collect coins for each round you pass, and you spend them in a shop which holds various infinitely respawning pickups, and also items and trinkets. What I like about Greed Mode is that they try to keep the original Isaac spirit in-tact. Not only is there still secret rooms and the like, you can still earn deals. Whilst deals are no longer earned from no-hitting floors, as that’d be far too difficult, instead, you have to clear an additional round of harder bosses, which is a solid tradeoff. In fact, compared to the regular modes, Greed mode promotes defensive builds. Angel deals are EXTREMELY overpowered in Greed Mode, because you can get tons of more items thanks to the guaranteed chance. And since Angel deals tend to give more HP, Devil Deals are essentially irrelevant. Hell, even Devil Deals got NERFED. Now they have a bunch of... out of place items? Seriously, why is Technology here? Good item, but why is it here? And since red HP infinitely restocks in the shop, and are cheaper than soul hearts, why would you even go for a soul heart build? As I was making my way down, I noticed something odd. There’s 2 new floors, the Shop and... Ultra Greed? Shop is your typical Greed Mode floor, minus the treasure room and Boss item room; a weird omission but I’ll allow it. And then, Ultra Greed, the final floor... is seriously awesome! First off, you fight Regular Greed and a few other bosses, most of which you’ll clap within seconds, but Ultra Greed is the main attraction. He’s a fast and dynamic fight, spinning around, throwing hundreds of projectiles at you, and the slot machine attack always forces you to move across the arena, lest he gain a gajillion enemies to fight for him, or even heal. Also, this fucking song. It’s probably one of my favorite fights in the game, if I’m being honest. But once you kill him, he drops a Greed Donation Machine, and you can all tell where this is going. Yep, you gotta fill it all up for 100%. And don’t be so hasty with your spending in previous floors. Greed Mode challenges you to deliberately take less items in order to get more cool ass unlocks. Risk vs Reward, anybody? I would praise Greed Mode if it weren’t for one, small issue. The game crashed whenever I got to 109 coins in the Donation Machine. Yeah, I have no idea why, but they fixed it now. At least I can earn the new unlocks in Greed Mode. It’s pretty standard for the most part. Eve holds the Razor, nickel shopkeep- THE LOST HOLDS MANTLE NOW??? 10/10 DLC, BUY NOW. Wait a second, when did they fix this? 109 hours after Afterbirth’s release? Perhaps it’s a coincidence, or maybe they’re poking fun at themselves. What else is there in this DLC... Oh! What about the improved collection page introduced in Afterb- Wait, what about the 109th item? It’s Money = Power, that’s been in Rebirth for a while now. Maybe I’ll check over it one last time. “Where are you”? Wait... The Lost earns the Holy Mantle? He was datamined, right? How many hours after release? 109?! No... this can’t be! A NEW CHARACTER???
Yes folks, you heard me right. An ARG took place spanning the course of over a month after Afterbirth’s release, involving phone calls to numbers with pre recorded voicemails, to discovering Imgur links by converting Achievement text to ASCII code, to finding a Twitter account with a password by digging up a mini-statue with the account name and the password with it. THAT is fucking dedication right there, and really shows that they cared about Afterbirth’s release. But... who’s this new guy? Or, before I get ahead of myself, who’s this new girl? Lilith, unlocked by slaying Ultra Greed as Azazel, is a very familiar-centric character, who can’t shoot tears, but instead fights with an Incubus. She also starts with Box of Friends, which doubles all of her Familiars. Aaaand, that’s it! She’s not a terribly deep character to play. You essentially double your damage each time you use Box of Friends, and that’s it. Fighting with the familiar can be pretty disorienting at times, and exploding tears may as well be a death wish for those who dare pick them up with Lilith. If you unironically grab Dr. Fetus with Lilith, you are a US Marine, my friend. But, other than that, she’s decently fun. Anyways, the main attraction. The motherfucking KEEPER. Keeper is the Rebirth Lost of Afterbirth. The bottom-tier bitch that everyone hates to play as, except the Isaac die-hards who suck Edmund off daily. The Keeper has 2 “coin hearts'' and cannot gain anymore (he only heals with coins), which counts as red heart damage, meaning you cannot get hit for deals, and he has shit stats, but at least he has a triple shot. Yeah, he fucking sucks, Obviously. But the only reason I’m not raging out of my ass is that he holds the Wooden Nickel at a certain point, an activated item that has a 50/50 chance to drop a coin. The sad part is that he also has some pretty bad unlocks, meaning there’s no reason to play as him, discounting 100%. Sure, Deep Pockets is okay I suppose, and got a little better in Repentance, but the rest are kind of duds, and Sticky Nickels are effectively a downgrade. And of course, you have to do all of his marks in Hard Mode for 100%, as well as all of the other character’s marks. Now you have to do Hush, Ultra Greed, and now Mega Satan, from Rebirth. And hey, now once you get all of a character’s marks, you get a secret! Aside from the usual “pick up every item”, “do every challenge” stick, Afterbirth 100% is pretty relaxed compared to Rebirth. There aren't many achievements which you'll need a guide to get; in fact, the only miscellaneous achievement is Blinding Baby, which requires you to use Blank Card with The Sun. Sure, The Keeper may suck the biggest dildo imaginable, but other than that, this isn't too hard! In fact, they made some achievements easier, such as The Lost's unlocks, and getting Super Meat Boy and Bandage Girl! In fact, it's kind of… too easy? Now that The Lost is free-er than oxygen, not much stands between you and 100%. Keeper is mildly annoying, but if you can kill Hush as The Lost, you can definitely do it as The Keeper. Some challenges can be hellish, like Brains, but it's far from difficult. I'm surprised that they didn't double down on the difficulty, but eh, nitpicks, nitpicks. And with that, 100% in Afterbirth is finally ACHIEVED! Oh, yeah, 1001%! And the game called me a nerd, fuck you.
Afterbirth isn't as good as what came before it, that being Rebirth, but I think it was still a solid update to a phenomenal game overall. Sure, it might not be as groundbreaking as said predecessor, but treading new grounds wasn’t needed as Rebirth was already a damn good game to begin with. Afterbirth could only really add to said greatness, and I think that it works overall. Still as addictive as ever, and a pretty fun video game. But there’s one question that lays within everyone’s minds. What happens after a postpartum? A… postpartum… Plus… oh, I am in hell.
“The Keeper of fate / Greed overwhelms, grasps the helm / Much wealth harms the health” - “Afterbirth” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
Okay, right off the bat, Afterbirth sports some improvements over Rebirth. Numerous items have been altered, usually for the better. Numerous items, including Dr Fetus and Bob’s Rotten Head have scaling damage now, an inarguable improvement overall. Lost Contact now allows familiars to block shots as well. Numerous items can be stacked now, like Mom’s Knife shooting two knives. Head of Krampus now rotates occasionally. That’s sort of annoying, but I’ll take it. Flush now one-shots all Poop-based bosses, neat. Most importantly, a lot of new synergies have been added to the mix, most notably to Dr. Fetus and Brimstone. But, arguably, the most important rework; Troll Bombs now explode at random intervals, fuck you. Jokes aside, Afterbirth added a whole lot of tweaks to improve the gameplay of Rebirth, which is pretty nice to say the least. Sacrifice rooms are actually good now, there’s a fuck ton of new room layouts, and now if you’ve unlocked It Lives, a Deal door on Womb 2 now actually has a deal! It’s a lot of minute shit, but hey, it’s nice to see. The two major additions of this expansion come in an entirely new game mode, and also an addition to the already existing campaign. We’ll cover the latter first.
By killing Mom’s Heart in under 30 minutes, you gain access to the... Blue Womb? It’s not a major floor, which is a bit of a shame. It has 2 treasure rooms, a shop, and the Boss door, which houses... Hush. Hush... is in a weird spot. I don’t hate him all too much, but I don’t really like him that much, either. First off, you start off with a Blue Baby fight, and then after he dies... the real Hush spawns? Okay... He shoots a million bullets, which are decently difficult to dodge. God, when does this boss end? He has so much HP! And now he’s attacking really fas- oh, and I died. Okay... Hush has had an issue since Afterbirth that makes him ridiculously fast if he gets to 50% HP, and while it doesn’t make the fight impossible by a long shot, it does make the fight occasionally irritating. When you get a continuum attack combined with his eye lasers, be prepared to take damage, because I 100%, zeusdeegoose guarantee you that it will happen. Aside from that, the fight is okay I suppose. It takes a little long... Actually now that I think about it, Mega Satan takes a little longer now. What’s up with that? Well, this is called “Boss Armor”, a mechanic introduced in Afterbirth which aims to make fights more challenging for those who have higher DPS in a single run. Depending on your DPS (and actual damage stat), about 9% of your attack’s original damage can get cut to compensate for you higher damage. It’s a bit of a dilemma. Sure, it levels the playing field for those who have slightly less than desirable runs, but on the other hand, it doesn’t really make bosses “harder”. In the end, it’s not really something to knock against the game since it really doesn’t affect you too much in the long term, but it is something that I should note here. Hush is kind of disappointing, but he’s a harmless side addition to runs. Once you kill him at least once, you get an ending which depicts Isaac dying once more in the Chest, and then seeing his new life in Purgatory. After that, we see his Mom opening the Chest, only to find his skeleton. The ending is skipped on subsequent runs, and instead lets you go to the Cathedral or Sheol, just like in a regular Womb run. I really wish that the Blue Womb was a full floor, like almost every other end-game floor. In the files, there’s actually some enemies that go totally unused in the game, which is a shame. Having a big, open floor with a bunch of enemies to kill before you fight a boss would be cool. But as is, it’s just fine. Hey, at least you get 2 extra items for doing it! So... what else is going on in Afterbirth?
Well, the Basement also received some new renovations! Introducing, the Burning Basement, Flooded Caves, the Dankest Depths, and the Scarred Womb. These aren’t wholly new floors, but they attempt to change the fundamental designs of each floor, somewhat akin to curses. For example, the Burning Basement focuses on grounded enemies, rather than flying enemies. The levels have entirely new aesthetics and enemies, and I really like what they did here. All of the remixes slap HARD. Kave Diluvii is among my favorite tracks in the game. It’s pretty groovy and relaxed compared to the normal Caves track. Afterbirth’s soundtrack meets the bar of Rebirth’s, and fits in perfectly with the older tracks. Great stuff overall. Speaking of Basement renovations, there’s new room layouts!!! Uh... New achievements... Shit... Looks like we have to talk about the elephant in the room, right?
Greed Mode is a bit of a controversial game mode. Many dislike it, and believe it’s removal would be a net positive. Perhaps my spiciest take on this site, Greed Mode... is actually really fun! Yeah, it can get repetitive, and it does have it’s issues, but I think it’s a solid alternative to the main game. Essentially, you’re in a large ass arena, with a treasure room, boss pool item, and a curse room. You collect coins for each round you pass, and you spend them in a shop which holds various infinitely respawning pickups, and also items and trinkets. What I like about Greed Mode is that they try to keep the original Isaac spirit in-tact. Not only is there still secret rooms and the like, you can still earn deals. Whilst deals are no longer earned from no-hitting floors, as that’d be far too difficult, instead, you have to clear an additional round of harder bosses, which is a solid tradeoff. In fact, compared to the regular modes, Greed mode promotes defensive builds. Angel deals are EXTREMELY overpowered in Greed Mode, because you can get tons of more items thanks to the guaranteed chance. And since Angel deals tend to give more HP, Devil Deals are essentially irrelevant. Hell, even Devil Deals got NERFED. Now they have a bunch of... out of place items? Seriously, why is Technology here? Good item, but why is it here? And since red HP infinitely restocks in the shop, and are cheaper than soul hearts, why would you even go for a soul heart build? As I was making my way down, I noticed something odd. There’s 2 new floors, the Shop and... Ultra Greed? Shop is your typical Greed Mode floor, minus the treasure room and Boss item room; a weird omission but I’ll allow it. And then, Ultra Greed, the final floor... is seriously awesome! First off, you fight Regular Greed and a few other bosses, most of which you’ll clap within seconds, but Ultra Greed is the main attraction. He’s a fast and dynamic fight, spinning around, throwing hundreds of projectiles at you, and the slot machine attack always forces you to move across the arena, lest he gain a gajillion enemies to fight for him, or even heal. Also, this fucking song. It’s probably one of my favorite fights in the game, if I’m being honest. But once you kill him, he drops a Greed Donation Machine, and you can all tell where this is going. Yep, you gotta fill it all up for 100%. And don’t be so hasty with your spending in previous floors. Greed Mode challenges you to deliberately take less items in order to get more cool ass unlocks. Risk vs Reward, anybody? I would praise Greed Mode if it weren’t for one, small issue. The game crashed whenever I got to 109 coins in the Donation Machine. Yeah, I have no idea why, but they fixed it now. At least I can earn the new unlocks in Greed Mode. It’s pretty standard for the most part. Eve holds the Razor, nickel shopkeep- THE LOST HOLDS MANTLE NOW??? 10/10 DLC, BUY NOW. Wait a second, when did they fix this? 109 hours after Afterbirth’s release? Perhaps it’s a coincidence, or maybe they’re poking fun at themselves. What else is there in this DLC... Oh! What about the improved collection page introduced in Afterb- Wait, what about the 109th item? It’s Money = Power, that’s been in Rebirth for a while now. Maybe I’ll check over it one last time. “Where are you”? Wait... The Lost earns the Holy Mantle? He was datamined, right? How many hours after release? 109?! No... this can’t be! A NEW CHARACTER???
Yes folks, you heard me right. An ARG took place spanning the course of over a month after Afterbirth’s release, involving phone calls to numbers with pre recorded voicemails, to discovering Imgur links by converting Achievement text to ASCII code, to finding a Twitter account with a password by digging up a mini-statue with the account name and the password with it. THAT is fucking dedication right there, and really shows that they cared about Afterbirth’s release. But... who’s this new guy? Or, before I get ahead of myself, who’s this new girl? Lilith, unlocked by slaying Ultra Greed as Azazel, is a very familiar-centric character, who can’t shoot tears, but instead fights with an Incubus. She also starts with Box of Friends, which doubles all of her Familiars. Aaaand, that’s it! She’s not a terribly deep character to play. You essentially double your damage each time you use Box of Friends, and that’s it. Fighting with the familiar can be pretty disorienting at times, and exploding tears may as well be a death wish for those who dare pick them up with Lilith. If you unironically grab Dr. Fetus with Lilith, you are a US Marine, my friend. But, other than that, she’s decently fun. Anyways, the main attraction. The motherfucking KEEPER. Keeper is the Rebirth Lost of Afterbirth. The bottom-tier bitch that everyone hates to play as, except the Isaac die-hards who suck Edmund off daily. The Keeper has 2 “coin hearts'' and cannot gain anymore (he only heals with coins), which counts as red heart damage, meaning you cannot get hit for deals, and he has shit stats, but at least he has a triple shot. Yeah, he fucking sucks, Obviously. But the only reason I’m not raging out of my ass is that he holds the Wooden Nickel at a certain point, an activated item that has a 50/50 chance to drop a coin. The sad part is that he also has some pretty bad unlocks, meaning there’s no reason to play as him, discounting 100%. Sure, Deep Pockets is okay I suppose, and got a little better in Repentance, but the rest are kind of duds, and Sticky Nickels are effectively a downgrade. And of course, you have to do all of his marks in Hard Mode for 100%, as well as all of the other character’s marks. Now you have to do Hush, Ultra Greed, and now Mega Satan, from Rebirth. And hey, now once you get all of a character’s marks, you get a secret! Aside from the usual “pick up every item”, “do every challenge” stick, Afterbirth 100% is pretty relaxed compared to Rebirth. There aren't many achievements which you'll need a guide to get; in fact, the only miscellaneous achievement is Blinding Baby, which requires you to use Blank Card with The Sun. Sure, The Keeper may suck the biggest dildo imaginable, but other than that, this isn't too hard! In fact, they made some achievements easier, such as The Lost's unlocks, and getting Super Meat Boy and Bandage Girl! In fact, it's kind of… too easy? Now that The Lost is free-er than oxygen, not much stands between you and 100%. Keeper is mildly annoying, but if you can kill Hush as The Lost, you can definitely do it as The Keeper. Some challenges can be hellish, like Brains, but it's far from difficult. I'm surprised that they didn't double down on the difficulty, but eh, nitpicks, nitpicks. And with that, 100% in Afterbirth is finally ACHIEVED! Oh, yeah, 1001%! And the game called me a nerd, fuck you.
Afterbirth isn't as good as what came before it, that being Rebirth, but I think it was still a solid update to a phenomenal game overall. Sure, it might not be as groundbreaking as said predecessor, but treading new grounds wasn’t needed as Rebirth was already a damn good game to begin with. Afterbirth could only really add to said greatness, and I think that it works overall. Still as addictive as ever, and a pretty fun video game. But there’s one question that lays within everyone’s minds. What happens after a postpartum? A… postpartum… Plus… oh, I am in hell.
“The Keeper of fate / Greed overwhelms, grasps the helm / Much wealth harms the health” - “Afterbirth” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
Mothered
2021
To be a copy of a copy.
I'd like to apologize to Mothered, a game that I discounted as being shovelware garbage due solely to me confusing it as an entry in the Remothered series. Mothered has nothing to do with Remothered. They are very distinct games, namely in the fact that Mothered is good and Remothered sucks ass. I'm going to stop typing out these titles now before they lose all meaning. This work, contrary to what I was mistaking it as being a part of, is a well-written and stylish look at parental neglect and the definition of the self. While it certainly stumbles a bit as a game — a lot of tension-free wandering around and clicking everything to see what will advance the plot in the latter half — what is here works, and works well.
I suppose the only way to pull apart this story is by sharing some personal anecdotes. Growing up, I never felt particularly wanted by my parents. This is, broadly speaking, because I wasn't; they weren't ready for the responsibility of taking care of themselves, let alone a child, and they wound up retreating into some bad habits to cope with the loss of the little freedom they had. My mother parentified me, making it my sole responsibility to act as her therapist, saddling me with the responsibility of deciding what she should do about her problems at an age where I didn't have a clue about the world outside of elementary school; my father drank, and smoked, and snorted what he could find, and then he would turn a release valve and let off all of his built-up rage with yelling, and beatings, and by breaking whatever was in his path. I learned quickly that the best thing to be in this situation was useful, and the next best thing after that was to be quiet. Liana, the player character of Mothered, seems to have internalized this same lesson. Her mother remarks with genuine horror at one moment near the finale that Liana won't stop coming after them unless she has an objective. Liana needs busywork. Liana needs to be useful. Liana needs something to keep her quiet. I begin to notice some similarities.
It’s clear from the outset that something is very wrong, though what exactly that something is takes a while before you’re able to start deciphering it. There’s a grand linchpin of the plot that’s hinted to throughout the runtime of the game — error logs being printed to a console, strange commands that come in a voice that doesn’t belong to any character, ambiguity in places where there shouldn’t be any — but I ultimately don’t feel as though the ultimate revelation is the important bit. What Liana is matters less than what Liana isn’t, which is loved. The game, of course, agrees with me in this; the true ending of the game comes to the same conclusion where all is (mostly) made well. Where a sour taste is left in my mouth is in the sense that it’s up to Liana to become deserving of love rather than have it given to her unconditionally, based in no small part due to her family refusing to accept what she is. Then again, nobody ever said horror was supposed to be fair. Sometimes the scariest thing is not to be believed. I still have nightmares rooted in the fear of people not believing me, of thinking that I’m hysterical, all while some lurching evil grows closer with every passing moment.
That would suggest that this game is really only scary in a narrative sense, which would be incorrect. While I like to fashion myself as a big tough man who doesn't scare easily, there are a select few horror games that tend to make me curl up. This is one of those. While the daytime sections are very open, with these beautiful rays of orange light glittering though the autumn leaves, the same cannot be said for when it gets dark. Everything gets more wrong the more the sun sets. Your brother, tucked away so deep in his bedroom that you can’t ever see him, will start to tell you how your mother has been lying to you. Your mother will stand stark still at the far end of a pitch-black hallway, waiting for you in complete silence. You’ll try to sleep and get a warning that you can’t sleep with someone else in the room, and it’s not until you go to turn on the light that you find your mother shrouded in darkness, almost as though she was hoping you wouldn’t notice her there. Sometimes mother's animations are smooth, other times they're jittery, other times they don't happen at all. There are places that you're forbidden from going under threat (at least, implied threat) of death. Your father lies about talking on the phone with you to his co-workers, pretending that you're his wife rather than his daughter. This house is not a home. More importantly, it isn't your home.
The greatest twist underlying all of this is, in actuality, the fact that this all ties into a series of games that Enigma Studio are putting out. It's not just an anthology, either; all of these titles are connected and part of a greater ARG that links all of them together, with info being locked behind entirely different games and requiring certain registry files to access a secret portion of Haunted PS1's Demo Disk: Spectral Mall. I don't especially care about any of this, and the good news is that it doesn't detract from the base game of Mothered in the slightest. The pseudo-sequel, Mothered: Home, does require heavy investment in the broader idea of the Enigma Machine universe, so I wouldn't recommend getting into it unless you're one of either desperate for more of this or curious to dig your fingers into an ARG. It's ignorable, though, and ignoring it is what I'm going to continue doing.
My gripes are minimal. I do think that spots like the barn and the end of the road tend to be placed a bit too far away relative to how fast your character's maximum run speed is. The slow character speed works great for building up tension when you're inside the house, but when you're in a big, open field during the daytime and there's nothing going on, it serves only as a pace killer. People have complained about the apple collecting section enough for me to know there isn't much juice left in the discussion, but it does take too long and the apples are too hard to spot. None of this is terrible, but in a game that's so tightly paced everywhere else, these little missteps stick out all the more obviously.
Aside from that, this is a strong showing. I'm not certain if I'll dig too much deeper into the creator's related games — I don't really think that what's being advertised in those is going to be what I came to this for — but I'm very glad to have played this all the same. As a standalone project, this is impressive. It's in the Palestinian Relief Bundle if you've already bought that, and it'll be going for about another week from the date of posting if you haven't.
Be with mother.
I'd like to apologize to Mothered, a game that I discounted as being shovelware garbage due solely to me confusing it as an entry in the Remothered series. Mothered has nothing to do with Remothered. They are very distinct games, namely in the fact that Mothered is good and Remothered sucks ass. I'm going to stop typing out these titles now before they lose all meaning. This work, contrary to what I was mistaking it as being a part of, is a well-written and stylish look at parental neglect and the definition of the self. While it certainly stumbles a bit as a game — a lot of tension-free wandering around and clicking everything to see what will advance the plot in the latter half — what is here works, and works well.
I suppose the only way to pull apart this story is by sharing some personal anecdotes. Growing up, I never felt particularly wanted by my parents. This is, broadly speaking, because I wasn't; they weren't ready for the responsibility of taking care of themselves, let alone a child, and they wound up retreating into some bad habits to cope with the loss of the little freedom they had. My mother parentified me, making it my sole responsibility to act as her therapist, saddling me with the responsibility of deciding what she should do about her problems at an age where I didn't have a clue about the world outside of elementary school; my father drank, and smoked, and snorted what he could find, and then he would turn a release valve and let off all of his built-up rage with yelling, and beatings, and by breaking whatever was in his path. I learned quickly that the best thing to be in this situation was useful, and the next best thing after that was to be quiet. Liana, the player character of Mothered, seems to have internalized this same lesson. Her mother remarks with genuine horror at one moment near the finale that Liana won't stop coming after them unless she has an objective. Liana needs busywork. Liana needs to be useful. Liana needs something to keep her quiet. I begin to notice some similarities.
It’s clear from the outset that something is very wrong, though what exactly that something is takes a while before you’re able to start deciphering it. There’s a grand linchpin of the plot that’s hinted to throughout the runtime of the game — error logs being printed to a console, strange commands that come in a voice that doesn’t belong to any character, ambiguity in places where there shouldn’t be any — but I ultimately don’t feel as though the ultimate revelation is the important bit. What Liana is matters less than what Liana isn’t, which is loved. The game, of course, agrees with me in this; the true ending of the game comes to the same conclusion where all is (mostly) made well. Where a sour taste is left in my mouth is in the sense that it’s up to Liana to become deserving of love rather than have it given to her unconditionally, based in no small part due to her family refusing to accept what she is. Then again, nobody ever said horror was supposed to be fair. Sometimes the scariest thing is not to be believed. I still have nightmares rooted in the fear of people not believing me, of thinking that I’m hysterical, all while some lurching evil grows closer with every passing moment.
That would suggest that this game is really only scary in a narrative sense, which would be incorrect. While I like to fashion myself as a big tough man who doesn't scare easily, there are a select few horror games that tend to make me curl up. This is one of those. While the daytime sections are very open, with these beautiful rays of orange light glittering though the autumn leaves, the same cannot be said for when it gets dark. Everything gets more wrong the more the sun sets. Your brother, tucked away so deep in his bedroom that you can’t ever see him, will start to tell you how your mother has been lying to you. Your mother will stand stark still at the far end of a pitch-black hallway, waiting for you in complete silence. You’ll try to sleep and get a warning that you can’t sleep with someone else in the room, and it’s not until you go to turn on the light that you find your mother shrouded in darkness, almost as though she was hoping you wouldn’t notice her there. Sometimes mother's animations are smooth, other times they're jittery, other times they don't happen at all. There are places that you're forbidden from going under threat (at least, implied threat) of death. Your father lies about talking on the phone with you to his co-workers, pretending that you're his wife rather than his daughter. This house is not a home. More importantly, it isn't your home.
The greatest twist underlying all of this is, in actuality, the fact that this all ties into a series of games that Enigma Studio are putting out. It's not just an anthology, either; all of these titles are connected and part of a greater ARG that links all of them together, with info being locked behind entirely different games and requiring certain registry files to access a secret portion of Haunted PS1's Demo Disk: Spectral Mall. I don't especially care about any of this, and the good news is that it doesn't detract from the base game of Mothered in the slightest. The pseudo-sequel, Mothered: Home, does require heavy investment in the broader idea of the Enigma Machine universe, so I wouldn't recommend getting into it unless you're one of either desperate for more of this or curious to dig your fingers into an ARG. It's ignorable, though, and ignoring it is what I'm going to continue doing.
My gripes are minimal. I do think that spots like the barn and the end of the road tend to be placed a bit too far away relative to how fast your character's maximum run speed is. The slow character speed works great for building up tension when you're inside the house, but when you're in a big, open field during the daytime and there's nothing going on, it serves only as a pace killer. People have complained about the apple collecting section enough for me to know there isn't much juice left in the discussion, but it does take too long and the apples are too hard to spot. None of this is terrible, but in a game that's so tightly paced everywhere else, these little missteps stick out all the more obviously.
Aside from that, this is a strong showing. I'm not certain if I'll dig too much deeper into the creator's related games — I don't really think that what's being advertised in those is going to be what I came to this for — but I'm very glad to have played this all the same. As a standalone project, this is impressive. It's in the Palestinian Relief Bundle if you've already bought that, and it'll be going for about another week from the date of posting if you haven't.
Be with mother.
The Silver Case
2016
Like everybody else’s review, this is gonna be a wall of text
With every Suda game I play, I question more and more why I continue playing them. Before playing TSC, I had played Killer7, the three main No More Heroes games, and Killer is Dead with it being the only game I came out of with a fully positive feeling. I find Suda’s writing style to be obtuse, esoteric, and obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious. I don’t feel like he writes compelling characters as most just have a single gimmick they stick to for the entire story or their characterization feels like a mishmash of other characters from media he likes (he’s stated he’s inspired by everything he likes). I feel the worlds he writes tend to not live up to their potential, feeling like he either wasn’t able to finish all the background writing or he thought he did but there’s a lot missing. His newer works also feel masturbatory, he never stops referencing his old works and how freaking awesome! they are, which is funny to me because I think almost all of them aren’t very good
I was really hesitant to play The Silver Case. My friend @Kungfugloves spent weeks shouting about how insane and amazing it is, how “it doesn’t feel like a human wrote it” and how everything feels super unique and interesting. The thing is I hate visual novels. I do not find them engaging, I put gameplay and story on an equal pedestal and visual novels tend to be stripped of the former. As stated, I also do not like Suda’s writing and this is nothing but that. He tried to ease me in by saying one of the campaigns was written by someone else so I’d at least like that one. He bought it for me despite me telling him not to and so I bit the bullet and tried my hardest to go into it with an open mind
I remember watching my friend play this a few months prior to my playthrough and genuinely getting a headache from the UI and backgrounds. I didn't have as much of an issue with it this time around but I do think they're waaaay too busy and a lot of them seem like they're trying to be cryptic and weird for the sake of it. I also found the music to be largely uninteresting, very little of it being downright bad but there isn't a single song that ever stuck out to me and I couldn't even hum a single tune from the game if you stuck a gun to my head
But how did I feel by the end? I think “underwhelmed and frustrated” is probably the best descriptor. The story wasn’t nearly as complex or interesting as I was led to believe. I did have the context that the original release was 1999, but at the same time none of the concepts or story beats felt original to that time period. I’d definitely seen police procedurals of a similar nature as a child with my grandparents that followed a lot of the same beats. Mental clones had been done before in comics and manga well before this. Manic obsessions with serial killers had been a phenomenon for ages.
This game also plays like complete and utter shit. I go into further detail about it in Placebo later in this review but I cannot understate how little I enjoyed the simple act of playing this game. The little exploration you do isn't interesting and takes ages. The puzzles aren't interesting, fun, or engaging, searching every nook and cranny for what you can interact with is actively shit. I cannot and straight up refuse to understand anyone who says that playing this is a good time
The chapter I was most disappointed by was Parade, which my friend described as being “actually crazy, there’s explosions and kidnappings, it’s insane”. Those were present, sure, but the presentation of the game didn’t do the former any good and the latter felt like any other political kidnapping in any other media, topped off with Suda’s esoteric writing that I hate (I know the conclusion is very much easy to understand but the way it’s presented prior to the reveal really rubbed me the wrong way). Runner up goes to Spectrum which felt like an insane waste of time from beginning to end and Lunatics which doesn’t add anything except a miserable conclusion for the five fans of Moonlight Syndrome
I enjoyed Placebo more than Transmitter for the sole reason that the mundane life Tokio lived was more compelling to me than the police procedural of Transmitter. Seeing Tokio’s life descend and him slowly lose his mind as it becomes less clear what’s real and what isn’t was interesting and despite how much more fantastical parts of it were than Transmitter, the grounded tone felt less miserable than Transmitter. I did feel the gameplay was more frustrating though due to the constant back and forth of the three interactables in the room, not telling you which you should do first so you have to constantly trial and error which leads to reading the same lines over and over. I’m told this is a holdover from the original PS1 version but I feel they could have just cut out that spot in the room by the bed if they wanted to
The only other character I ended up liking by the end was Kusabi. I say this because he was easily my least favorite character for a lot of the game. Most of his dialogue early on felt like it was written around the profanity instead of the profanity being written in after, it felt like Suda just discovered the words “fuck”, “shit,” and “goddamn”. I do think he gets some nice development as the game goes on and he effectively becomes the protagonist due to how intertwined he is in everything, but I feel the way he’s more or less dropped at the very end (and how he’s used in the future games now that I’ve played them) is a major misstep
I understand TSC. I get what it’s trying to say. I don’t think it’s an interesting story, I don’t think anything it does is new, I feel it expects the player to never have even considered anything it says throughout its runtime which feels like an insult to the player’s intelligence. I do think the world of the 24 wards is really interesting and had me intrigued the whole time. This game’s world seems downright miserable to live in and the things they hint toward really had me itching for more, but unfortunately instead of any interesting developments I spent the final chapter going up and down ten buildings for some lore that easily could have been consolidated to a drastic degree. Maybe if I liked visual novels more I might have given this a higher score but I don't think that's the case
Most of the criticism I’m writing comes from during and after the playthrough but now that I’ve gone through Flower, Sun, and Rain (terrible) and MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY The 25th Ward (amazing), this game’s flaws mean much more to me because I can see what was possible in this world that has been created and how the establishing framework placed down in this game could have been so much better. I do think it’s interesting how prescient the writing is when it comes to the way government corruption and terrorism are presented, but I don’t think this game is very good in any way honestly
At least it got me to play The 25th Ward
With every Suda game I play, I question more and more why I continue playing them. Before playing TSC, I had played Killer7, the three main No More Heroes games, and Killer is Dead with it being the only game I came out of with a fully positive feeling. I find Suda’s writing style to be obtuse, esoteric, and obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious. I don’t feel like he writes compelling characters as most just have a single gimmick they stick to for the entire story or their characterization feels like a mishmash of other characters from media he likes (he’s stated he’s inspired by everything he likes). I feel the worlds he writes tend to not live up to their potential, feeling like he either wasn’t able to finish all the background writing or he thought he did but there’s a lot missing. His newer works also feel masturbatory, he never stops referencing his old works and how freaking awesome! they are, which is funny to me because I think almost all of them aren’t very good
I was really hesitant to play The Silver Case. My friend @Kungfugloves spent weeks shouting about how insane and amazing it is, how “it doesn’t feel like a human wrote it” and how everything feels super unique and interesting. The thing is I hate visual novels. I do not find them engaging, I put gameplay and story on an equal pedestal and visual novels tend to be stripped of the former. As stated, I also do not like Suda’s writing and this is nothing but that. He tried to ease me in by saying one of the campaigns was written by someone else so I’d at least like that one. He bought it for me despite me telling him not to and so I bit the bullet and tried my hardest to go into it with an open mind
I remember watching my friend play this a few months prior to my playthrough and genuinely getting a headache from the UI and backgrounds. I didn't have as much of an issue with it this time around but I do think they're waaaay too busy and a lot of them seem like they're trying to be cryptic and weird for the sake of it. I also found the music to be largely uninteresting, very little of it being downright bad but there isn't a single song that ever stuck out to me and I couldn't even hum a single tune from the game if you stuck a gun to my head
But how did I feel by the end? I think “underwhelmed and frustrated” is probably the best descriptor. The story wasn’t nearly as complex or interesting as I was led to believe. I did have the context that the original release was 1999, but at the same time none of the concepts or story beats felt original to that time period. I’d definitely seen police procedurals of a similar nature as a child with my grandparents that followed a lot of the same beats. Mental clones had been done before in comics and manga well before this. Manic obsessions with serial killers had been a phenomenon for ages.
This game also plays like complete and utter shit. I go into further detail about it in Placebo later in this review but I cannot understate how little I enjoyed the simple act of playing this game. The little exploration you do isn't interesting and takes ages. The puzzles aren't interesting, fun, or engaging, searching every nook and cranny for what you can interact with is actively shit. I cannot and straight up refuse to understand anyone who says that playing this is a good time
The chapter I was most disappointed by was Parade, which my friend described as being “actually crazy, there’s explosions and kidnappings, it’s insane”. Those were present, sure, but the presentation of the game didn’t do the former any good and the latter felt like any other political kidnapping in any other media, topped off with Suda’s esoteric writing that I hate (I know the conclusion is very much easy to understand but the way it’s presented prior to the reveal really rubbed me the wrong way). Runner up goes to Spectrum which felt like an insane waste of time from beginning to end and Lunatics which doesn’t add anything except a miserable conclusion for the five fans of Moonlight Syndrome
I enjoyed Placebo more than Transmitter for the sole reason that the mundane life Tokio lived was more compelling to me than the police procedural of Transmitter. Seeing Tokio’s life descend and him slowly lose his mind as it becomes less clear what’s real and what isn’t was interesting and despite how much more fantastical parts of it were than Transmitter, the grounded tone felt less miserable than Transmitter. I did feel the gameplay was more frustrating though due to the constant back and forth of the three interactables in the room, not telling you which you should do first so you have to constantly trial and error which leads to reading the same lines over and over. I’m told this is a holdover from the original PS1 version but I feel they could have just cut out that spot in the room by the bed if they wanted to
The only other character I ended up liking by the end was Kusabi. I say this because he was easily my least favorite character for a lot of the game. Most of his dialogue early on felt like it was written around the profanity instead of the profanity being written in after, it felt like Suda just discovered the words “fuck”, “shit,” and “goddamn”. I do think he gets some nice development as the game goes on and he effectively becomes the protagonist due to how intertwined he is in everything, but I feel the way he’s more or less dropped at the very end (and how he’s used in the future games now that I’ve played them) is a major misstep
I understand TSC. I get what it’s trying to say. I don’t think it’s an interesting story, I don’t think anything it does is new, I feel it expects the player to never have even considered anything it says throughout its runtime which feels like an insult to the player’s intelligence. I do think the world of the 24 wards is really interesting and had me intrigued the whole time. This game’s world seems downright miserable to live in and the things they hint toward really had me itching for more, but unfortunately instead of any interesting developments I spent the final chapter going up and down ten buildings for some lore that easily could have been consolidated to a drastic degree. Maybe if I liked visual novels more I might have given this a higher score but I don't think that's the case
Most of the criticism I’m writing comes from during and after the playthrough but now that I’ve gone through Flower, Sun, and Rain (terrible) and MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY The 25th Ward (amazing), this game’s flaws mean much more to me because I can see what was possible in this world that has been created and how the establishing framework placed down in this game could have been so much better. I do think it’s interesting how prescient the writing is when it comes to the way government corruption and terrorism are presented, but I don’t think this game is very good in any way honestly
At least it got me to play The 25th Ward
Let me tell you about a fly I once nicknamed Buzz. Two flies, as a matter of fact, because I couldn't tell them apart. Here I am, lying down on the couch of a moving RV. The thing's definitely a bit of an old spirit: the seatbelts tucked beneath, which I've chosen to neglect, are what you find on school buses across America. Old-fashioned, down to the way the logo on the buckle has been scratched off and spat on time over time. Now, if you lie down above the drivers, you get a glimpse of the world as it passes you by: gravestones in the middle of who knows, rocky nowheres, and once the West Coast has flown past you, great American dustbowls punctuated only by the wind passing through the small screen in front of you and the car radio down below. But, of course, you don't get that on the couch. For the price of comfort, I would argue, you get the ceiling. Only if you lean forward in a way you're really not supposed to does the world reveal itself in broader strokes. The problem with the ceiling is that it can't compete with your phone, and the problem with your phone is that there's only a finite amount of social media you can scroll through and music you can listen to before all of your senses go numb. In come two flies, almost innocuous in their immediate presence, willed into existence somewhere in a parking lot we stopped at, never at ease with themselves. I struggle to come up with ways you could keep a house fly as a pet since it'd always find holes in the cage you put it in. But more damning than that, you can't have more than one of them. You can have two black cats but never two flies. At which point does the second fly steal the name of the first? At any point in time you decide to notice them.
I left that trip short of the two flies I had acquainted myself with while staring at the ceiling. Not pets, not nuisances, just things that were there and made me feel... I don't know, relieved?
I don't see how the average experience of going to feed the ducks in your local park is all too different. There are more of them, they're larger, much slower, and less malicious in intent. But the reality is that you always leave the park having acknowledged the adorable creatures beneath you as little more than a temporary relief from day-to-day ennui and stress.
Plastic ducks don't fare the same way. They're a good middleground between flies and ducks: they're small and, in many cases, indistinct enough for you to impose your imagination on something that is decidedly real, and yet they float. They're slow and graceful, and best of all, they stick around. Down to the aggressively yellow color they sport, there's an undeniably charming sense of artifice to them that, expressions be damned, brings a smile to my face.
Placid Plastic Duck Simulator sits at ease in that artificial middleground as a piece of digital artwork, calm with the fact that you cannot feed its ducks more than your own politics and personality if you so choose. What going digital with this experience means is that the well-worn rules of what is both natural and artificial are discarded entirely. Through the use of save games, your ducks are as they were, rather than a natural byproduct of the environment they're in. No longer do two or three Buzzs' pass you by in the span of an afternoon.
But then, what do you achieve when you can no longer let go? What is the value of holding dearly onto something so obviously impersonal? What do you gain from it?
Quack.
I left that trip short of the two flies I had acquainted myself with while staring at the ceiling. Not pets, not nuisances, just things that were there and made me feel... I don't know, relieved?
I don't see how the average experience of going to feed the ducks in your local park is all too different. There are more of them, they're larger, much slower, and less malicious in intent. But the reality is that you always leave the park having acknowledged the adorable creatures beneath you as little more than a temporary relief from day-to-day ennui and stress.
Plastic ducks don't fare the same way. They're a good middleground between flies and ducks: they're small and, in many cases, indistinct enough for you to impose your imagination on something that is decidedly real, and yet they float. They're slow and graceful, and best of all, they stick around. Down to the aggressively yellow color they sport, there's an undeniably charming sense of artifice to them that, expressions be damned, brings a smile to my face.
Placid Plastic Duck Simulator sits at ease in that artificial middleground as a piece of digital artwork, calm with the fact that you cannot feed its ducks more than your own politics and personality if you so choose. What going digital with this experience means is that the well-worn rules of what is both natural and artificial are discarded entirely. Through the use of save games, your ducks are as they were, rather than a natural byproduct of the environment they're in. No longer do two or three Buzzs' pass you by in the span of an afternoon.
But then, what do you achieve when you can no longer let go? What is the value of holding dearly onto something so obviously impersonal? What do you gain from it?
Quack.
Pac-Man
1999
I recently purchased a "pack" of Oreo X PAC-MAN Limited Edition biscuits, and felt a tinge of impostor syndrome. Am I really a big enough Pac-Fan to eat these? I mean, sure, I can accurately identify Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde no problem, and I know all the words to Buckner & Garcia's "Pac-Man Fever" off by heart - a song that rips the songwriting traditions of the blues out of the Mississippi Delta and righteously appropriates them to discuss the real hardships (being a gamer) - but I don't really rate Pac-Man as one of my favourite Namco games. It's almost a little too elemental. Too primal. It's a chase game, and that clearly had influence on personal favourites like Dig Dug and Metal Gear, but it doesn't have any of that Dig Dug or Metal Gear stuff that I like in it, either.
I can't decide whether releasing Pac-Man as a standalone Neo Geo Pocket Color game in 1999 was an act of extraordinary hubris, or an earned confidence. I mean, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on the Game Boy Color was one thing, but this is fucking Pac-Man. No new modes or anything. Pac-Man. One step up from fucking Pong. Maybe if you're younger, all these 20th century years seem to blend together in a big "I don't care" grey area, but we were playing Quake III online by then (or at least, we'd heard someone's big brother did it once, but he had to get off the internet after one match because it was costing a fortune on the phone bill). Seeing this on the shelf below the Game Boys and Pokémon instantly lost all credibility SNK may have hoped to have gained with the under-20s crowd. In the 90's, "retro" was incredibly niche. Like, I was aware of the Street Fighter and Bubble Bobble collections on PS1, but when I imagined someone buying them, they were like studious historians, analysing the software like it had just been dug out of a pharaoh's tomb. These things weren't conceivable as "entertainment" for "people". Who the fuck bought this at launch?
Now, I am that decrepit auld bastard. NGPC Pac-Man is cool. A little obnoxiously so, actually. It kind of predicted the retro boom that would start to take hold in the following decade. Pac-Man is a gaming icon. Literally. He's probably the little button you press on your phone screen to get the emulators on. It's difficult to view him objectively as The Packing Man, unencumbered by the decades of cultural impact that followed, but having a little one-and-done cartridge like this helps.
NGPC's Pac-Man's big feature is a little rubber ring that comes in the box. You attach it to the NGPC's microswitch stick and it blocks off the diagonal directions. It's actually really effective, and makes the game feel much snappier, as you're locked to 90 degree turns. SNK are an arcade developer, first and foremost, and their approach in designing a two-button handheld is actually really cute. I think if you're happy to go along with that, and not moan about how naive it is to use this strategy to compete with the Game Boy Color, it's super cool that they put Pac-Man on here. And they set aside some of the budget to manufacture a little piece of rubber to make it as satisfying as it ought to be.
Pac-Man is fun. It's immediately speedy. You don't even press a button, and you shoot right out of the gate. All you can do is steer, avoiding the ghosts, attempting to squeeze into a corner of the map that still has power pellets on it, and seeing if you can keep dodging the baddies long enough to clear the board. Each ghost has their own characteristic, and theoretically, you should be able to use this to determine which direction they'll take at a crossing, but I've still to take the lesson of which one's "Speedy" and which one's "Pokey" to heart. Even ignorant of the specific attributes, it adds something to the game, to know that they're each subtly distinct, and it's a fun dynamic to have in the background, as you do your best to survive.
If you've played enough 80s arcade games, you'll know that Pac-Man can be done very wrong. Have you ever played Wizard of Wor? Fuck me, man. What a nightmare. Pac-Man was pioneering. Most games of the time were either about fighting, sport, or attempting to rip-off Star Wars as liberally as Lucasfilm's legal representation would allow. Pac-Man wasn't trying to be something else. It was proud to be a videogame, and it did something that could only really take the form of a videogame. It was praised for its original, non-violent concept (eating ghosts is not in violation of the Geneva Convention, apparently). It didn't assume anything of its audience. It opened up videogames to entirely new players. Anybody could play this. All the Nintendo oldguard see Pac-Man as the gold standard, and Miyamoto's even pulled the strings, buddying up with Namco bigwigs, to get his own four-player fangame bundled in with copies of R: Racing Evolution. Without a strong affinity for videogames, Keita Takahashi signed up with Namco because they made stuff like Pac-Man, and what other business was committing themselves to fun, novel ideas like that? We all benefit from Pac-Man's glow, and we ought to respect him.
Will you play it for more than five minutes? Probably not. But that's okay, too. We need little games like this.
I can't decide whether releasing Pac-Man as a standalone Neo Geo Pocket Color game in 1999 was an act of extraordinary hubris, or an earned confidence. I mean, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on the Game Boy Color was one thing, but this is fucking Pac-Man. No new modes or anything. Pac-Man. One step up from fucking Pong. Maybe if you're younger, all these 20th century years seem to blend together in a big "I don't care" grey area, but we were playing Quake III online by then (or at least, we'd heard someone's big brother did it once, but he had to get off the internet after one match because it was costing a fortune on the phone bill). Seeing this on the shelf below the Game Boys and Pokémon instantly lost all credibility SNK may have hoped to have gained with the under-20s crowd. In the 90's, "retro" was incredibly niche. Like, I was aware of the Street Fighter and Bubble Bobble collections on PS1, but when I imagined someone buying them, they were like studious historians, analysing the software like it had just been dug out of a pharaoh's tomb. These things weren't conceivable as "entertainment" for "people". Who the fuck bought this at launch?
Now, I am that decrepit auld bastard. NGPC Pac-Man is cool. A little obnoxiously so, actually. It kind of predicted the retro boom that would start to take hold in the following decade. Pac-Man is a gaming icon. Literally. He's probably the little button you press on your phone screen to get the emulators on. It's difficult to view him objectively as The Packing Man, unencumbered by the decades of cultural impact that followed, but having a little one-and-done cartridge like this helps.
NGPC's Pac-Man's big feature is a little rubber ring that comes in the box. You attach it to the NGPC's microswitch stick and it blocks off the diagonal directions. It's actually really effective, and makes the game feel much snappier, as you're locked to 90 degree turns. SNK are an arcade developer, first and foremost, and their approach in designing a two-button handheld is actually really cute. I think if you're happy to go along with that, and not moan about how naive it is to use this strategy to compete with the Game Boy Color, it's super cool that they put Pac-Man on here. And they set aside some of the budget to manufacture a little piece of rubber to make it as satisfying as it ought to be.
Pac-Man is fun. It's immediately speedy. You don't even press a button, and you shoot right out of the gate. All you can do is steer, avoiding the ghosts, attempting to squeeze into a corner of the map that still has power pellets on it, and seeing if you can keep dodging the baddies long enough to clear the board. Each ghost has their own characteristic, and theoretically, you should be able to use this to determine which direction they'll take at a crossing, but I've still to take the lesson of which one's "Speedy" and which one's "Pokey" to heart. Even ignorant of the specific attributes, it adds something to the game, to know that they're each subtly distinct, and it's a fun dynamic to have in the background, as you do your best to survive.
If you've played enough 80s arcade games, you'll know that Pac-Man can be done very wrong. Have you ever played Wizard of Wor? Fuck me, man. What a nightmare. Pac-Man was pioneering. Most games of the time were either about fighting, sport, or attempting to rip-off Star Wars as liberally as Lucasfilm's legal representation would allow. Pac-Man wasn't trying to be something else. It was proud to be a videogame, and it did something that could only really take the form of a videogame. It was praised for its original, non-violent concept (eating ghosts is not in violation of the Geneva Convention, apparently). It didn't assume anything of its audience. It opened up videogames to entirely new players. Anybody could play this. All the Nintendo oldguard see Pac-Man as the gold standard, and Miyamoto's even pulled the strings, buddying up with Namco bigwigs, to get his own four-player fangame bundled in with copies of R: Racing Evolution. Without a strong affinity for videogames, Keita Takahashi signed up with Namco because they made stuff like Pac-Man, and what other business was committing themselves to fun, novel ideas like that? We all benefit from Pac-Man's glow, and we ought to respect him.
Will you play it for more than five minutes? Probably not. But that's okay, too. We need little games like this.
Drakengard
2003
Ninth bar.
"My, my, my", you say as you take a sip from your 300$ cup of Dom PĂ©rignon, "what a misstep from a professional violinist that is..."
Little did you know that only a couple of minutes later you will get blown off orbit by Alfred Schnittke, inevitably staining your way-too-expansive-for-the-average-joe-huh costume.
For a (broad) genre that is so commonly associated with elitism and bourgeoisie, using atonality in classical music has always been a hell of a thing as it directly challenges orthodox forms of Western music but also goes against the conservatism way of seeing everything under the veil of """beauty""".
Most of the droning conversations surrounding Drakengard are about its janky (to say the least) gameplay and whether or not this was Yoko Taro's intent (as if meaning slipping away from the artist's hands would undermine all artistic value).
There's little to no room for discussion about these ear-scorching violins, making a soundtrack exclusively out of unapologetically aggressive sound collages in a world of grand melodramatic orchestras and nice subtle ambient tracks is a hell of a feast from Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara.
Heck, I'd even argue that it doesn't even serve as a mere companion piece for Drakengard, this is as much of an incredible exploration of the cycle of violence as the whole design use of detachment from death games usually provide, and both the soundtrack and the core game are much more effective at doing so than most works wearing their "so subversive" title up their sleeves I've experienced yet.
I want more abrasive and nightmarish soundscapes to drown in, this is pure hell through and through, I am crying, I am curled up in a ball, I feel like shit, I am gasping for air, I need more.
"My, my, my", you say as you take a sip from your 300$ cup of Dom PĂ©rignon, "what a misstep from a professional violinist that is..."
Little did you know that only a couple of minutes later you will get blown off orbit by Alfred Schnittke, inevitably staining your way-too-expansive-for-the-average-joe-huh costume.
For a (broad) genre that is so commonly associated with elitism and bourgeoisie, using atonality in classical music has always been a hell of a thing as it directly challenges orthodox forms of Western music but also goes against the conservatism way of seeing everything under the veil of """beauty""".
Most of the droning conversations surrounding Drakengard are about its janky (to say the least) gameplay and whether or not this was Yoko Taro's intent (as if meaning slipping away from the artist's hands would undermine all artistic value).
There's little to no room for discussion about these ear-scorching violins, making a soundtrack exclusively out of unapologetically aggressive sound collages in a world of grand melodramatic orchestras and nice subtle ambient tracks is a hell of a feast from Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara.
Heck, I'd even argue that it doesn't even serve as a mere companion piece for Drakengard, this is as much of an incredible exploration of the cycle of violence as the whole design use of detachment from death games usually provide, and both the soundtrack and the core game are much more effective at doing so than most works wearing their "so subversive" title up their sleeves I've experienced yet.
I want more abrasive and nightmarish soundscapes to drown in, this is pure hell through and through, I am crying, I am curled up in a ball, I feel like shit, I am gasping for air, I need more.
From Blaviken to Toussaint, I've followed The Witcher through all of his misadventures. These adventures have shaped Geralt over the course of seven books and three games, most of which are fantasy stories that I hold in the highest regard. The Witcher is one of the genre's crown jewels, in my opinion; its distinct brand of ethical dilemmas and its complex character writing drew me in as a teenager, and they continue to captivate my imagination and stir my soul to this day.
These adventures, however, cannot last forever; every story must end. The final expansion for The Witcher 3, Blood and Wine, aims to serve as an epilogue chapter in Geralt's story, and I must admit that it is one of the most fitting and satisfying ways this saga could conclude. Although the beautiful, lush mediaeval countryside and vineyards of Toussaint did not fully capture my heart on a second playthrough eight years later, I would be lying if I said I could think of a more suitable place to end Geralt's adventure in. Toussaint is large—almost shockingly large for what should be the setting of an epilogue chapter, but I believe its size works well in its favour. When compared to the previous expansion, Hearts of Stone, I discovered something interesting. Hearts of Stone demonstrates an impressive degree of restraint in its approach to storytelling, while Blood and Wine takes a hard left turn by expanding the scope massively and letting the chains loose, reminiscent of The Wild Hunt's massively complex narrative. What sets Blood and Wine apart, however, is how it refines and enhances the expansive and nonlinear storytelling approach of The Wild Hunt, which results in what I feel to be a vastly more enjoyable and satisfying narrative experience.Â
CD Projekt Red handles everything here with the utmost care, and I can feel the love they put into Blood and Wine. It’s incredibly commendable how much respect they have for the source material and how dedicated they are to honouring The Witcher’s history in this expansion. I would be remiss not to praise this expansion for the immense love and care that went into it. Serving as an epilogue to a multi-year-long epic, Blood and Wine stands as one of the most impressive storytelling feats of the past decade. Everything here is almost perfect, and despite not fully capturing my heart in the way I had hoped it would, I’m still deeply satisfied and moved by Blood and Wine.Â
This is truly one of the greatest expansions of all time.
These adventures, however, cannot last forever; every story must end. The final expansion for The Witcher 3, Blood and Wine, aims to serve as an epilogue chapter in Geralt's story, and I must admit that it is one of the most fitting and satisfying ways this saga could conclude. Although the beautiful, lush mediaeval countryside and vineyards of Toussaint did not fully capture my heart on a second playthrough eight years later, I would be lying if I said I could think of a more suitable place to end Geralt's adventure in. Toussaint is large—almost shockingly large for what should be the setting of an epilogue chapter, but I believe its size works well in its favour. When compared to the previous expansion, Hearts of Stone, I discovered something interesting. Hearts of Stone demonstrates an impressive degree of restraint in its approach to storytelling, while Blood and Wine takes a hard left turn by expanding the scope massively and letting the chains loose, reminiscent of The Wild Hunt's massively complex narrative. What sets Blood and Wine apart, however, is how it refines and enhances the expansive and nonlinear storytelling approach of The Wild Hunt, which results in what I feel to be a vastly more enjoyable and satisfying narrative experience.Â
CD Projekt Red handles everything here with the utmost care, and I can feel the love they put into Blood and Wine. It’s incredibly commendable how much respect they have for the source material and how dedicated they are to honouring The Witcher’s history in this expansion. I would be remiss not to praise this expansion for the immense love and care that went into it. Serving as an epilogue to a multi-year-long epic, Blood and Wine stands as one of the most impressive storytelling feats of the past decade. Everything here is almost perfect, and despite not fully capturing my heart in the way I had hoped it would, I’m still deeply satisfied and moved by Blood and Wine.Â
This is truly one of the greatest expansions of all time.
Froggo's Adventure is a fun little time! Really liked the neat mechanics behind the tongue.
I ran into this game last night as I was buying another game on Steam, decided to grab it cause it's 99 cents and yeah wow. No regrets at all. You can beat this game in under an hour and its just a quick n chill little time. If you want something short and sweet, pick this game up!
I ran into this game last night as I was buying another game on Steam, decided to grab it cause it's 99 cents and yeah wow. No regrets at all. You can beat this game in under an hour and its just a quick n chill little time. If you want something short and sweet, pick this game up!
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