DolorousWthVines
BACKER
1994
Breezy and effortlessly charming + clearly historically important for the genre. The little touches of early 90s fashion are extremely aesthetic.
1997
Absolutely immaculate vibes.
2022
A lot of inconsistent and messy design all over, but tbh I had some good fun with it. The soundtrack rules.
2004
I really like how this game takes the basic framework of pinball and designs a whole mario-feeling adventure around it. I really hate how easy it is to accidentally enter rooms (or go back on the map) and completely reset the area you're trying to clear.
Just as funny and odd and charming as the previous games, while leaning even more on the absurdist sci-fi angle. The puzzles and progression have been streamlined, making the flagging less frustrating while still retaining a good amount of pleasant point and click interaction.
I unno, all the characters are very fun and it's a rly cute game.
I unno, all the characters are very fun and it's a rly cute game.
2020
Cute sci-fi short-story in puzzle-platformer form. Pleasant, even though the writing can sometimes be a bit too long-winded. Game looks absolutely gorgeous too.
There's a Coheed & Cambria reference near the end and I absolutely hate that I was able to recognize it.
There's a Coheed & Cambria reference near the end and I absolutely hate that I was able to recognize it.
I played some of this while I was sick and, if anything, I enjoyed it more than being sick. So, y'know, that's something.
It's your average jank-ass low-budget DS game, complete with incredibly awkward touch based mini-games, but it's also an rpg involving both Sonic and Bioware, so it's sort of funny that it exists.
Also the soundtrack sounds like farts and Sonic is in full renegade mode, being a complete dick to everyone he meets.
It's bad, but it's also sort of a weird/cool time capsule.
It's your average jank-ass low-budget DS game, complete with incredibly awkward touch based mini-games, but it's also an rpg involving both Sonic and Bioware, so it's sort of funny that it exists.
Also the soundtrack sounds like farts and Sonic is in full renegade mode, being a complete dick to everyone he meets.
It's bad, but it's also sort of a weird/cool time capsule.
I don't think there's much value in playing this game today tbh. As an rpg, it's extremely stripped down and doesn't have much going on¹, and as a tcg is... well, early pokemon tcg, as in you either make a casual deck and resign yourself to every game being decided by irritating coinflips, or build Haymakers/Rain Dance and just steamroll every NPC.
That said, if you were a kid in the early-to-mid 00s the collectable/perpetual nature of this game sort of ruled.
Anyhow, play Card City Nights.
¹That's actually a bit of clever design tho. I've tried playing some of the Nintendo DS Yu Gi Oh games and immediately gave up on them cause 3/4th of the game was walking around and talking to people, and it mostly felt like it got in the way of the TCGing. Pokemon TCG GB actually hits a good sweet spot of rpg-ness, where you still get the pleasant progression system and some flavour, but it never just stops to a halt asking you to do rpg things.
That said, if you were a kid in the early-to-mid 00s the collectable/perpetual nature of this game sort of ruled.
Anyhow, play Card City Nights.
¹That's actually a bit of clever design tho. I've tried playing some of the Nintendo DS Yu Gi Oh games and immediately gave up on them cause 3/4th of the game was walking around and talking to people, and it mostly felt like it got in the way of the TCGing. Pokemon TCG GB actually hits a good sweet spot of rpg-ness, where you still get the pleasant progression system and some flavour, but it never just stops to a halt asking you to do rpg things.
2010
It gestures at the kind of "big serious fantasy" of past games but ultimately lacks the thematic consistency of a Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre.
It's "just" a solid fantasy story, but it's, if anything, elevated by some really strong character writing (Stocke is an incredibly likable protagonist) and the extremely compelling time travel conceit (There's something very satisfying, both mechanically and narratively, in the loop of "witness bad thing that could be avoided" > "continue the story while being on alert for the means to avoid it" > "acquire such means" > "go back to fix the thing").
All and all this is really good. Could have been like, 40% shorter tho.
It's "just" a solid fantasy story, but it's, if anything, elevated by some really strong character writing (Stocke is an incredibly likable protagonist) and the extremely compelling time travel conceit (There's something very satisfying, both mechanically and narratively, in the loop of "witness bad thing that could be avoided" > "continue the story while being on alert for the means to avoid it" > "acquire such means" > "go back to fix the thing").
All and all this is really good. Could have been like, 40% shorter tho.
2020
I won't fault it for basically being "Slay The Spire but different" cause yeah, I'll play more Slay The Spire but different no problem.
I will fault it though for relying on the tcg trope of minion-combat-based gameplay though, which makes most of the mechanics feel a lot less original than in Slay The Spire.
It's fun tho, I'll probably sink a bunch more hours in it while listening to podcasts or something.
I will fault it though for relying on the tcg trope of minion-combat-based gameplay though, which makes most of the mechanics feel a lot less original than in Slay The Spire.
It's fun tho, I'll probably sink a bunch more hours in it while listening to podcasts or something.
If it isn't me spending 50 whole £s just to play Blinded by Light/Crimson Blitz over and over again.
I preferred the 3ds stylus controls tho.
I preferred the 3ds stylus controls tho.
The most PS1 game ever.
Tcg visual novel on the gameboy colour. Hell yeah!
I tried playing this with machine translation and had to stop because the tcg battles were unplayable without a proper translation.
Narratively though this is sort of bonkers and had me fairly engaged even through the machine translation awkwardness. Really hope this gets a proper fan-translation eventually (although it's probably too niche of a game for that to ever happen, sadly)
The protagonist is someone who's basically described as perfect and beautiful and talented and has done nothing wrong in her life ever but yet she still can't find a boyfriend and then five minutes in she dies, and i strongly identify/resonate with that.
I tried playing this with machine translation and had to stop because the tcg battles were unplayable without a proper translation.
Narratively though this is sort of bonkers and had me fairly engaged even through the machine translation awkwardness. Really hope this gets a proper fan-translation eventually (although it's probably too niche of a game for that to ever happen, sadly)
The protagonist is someone who's basically described as perfect and beautiful and talented and has done nothing wrong in her life ever but yet she still can't find a boyfriend and then five minutes in she dies, and i strongly identify/resonate with that.
2022
It feels like I should like this way more. Like, it mixes classic Resident Evil exploration, Silent Hill-ish environments and some big aesthetic inspiration from Square's CGs/FMVs... And yet I'm left sort of cold by it.
It could be the clumsy backdrop of nuclear-era anti-communist propaganda. But it's not like I haven't loved culturally clumsy games before. It could be that at this point Lovecraftian reference soup as an aesthetic has very much worn out its welcome for me. But again, I have liked lovecraft-inspired games before, and Signalis sooort of uses it as a metaphor more than anything else(?). I mean, the isometric visuals, for how pretty, I didn't think fully worked with the genre, but that's a nitpick tbf. It might just be that the game is neither as scary as the first Silent Hill nor as vibe-y as Silent Hill 2? I guess...
Honestly I think it's just too... polished? Too successfully big and cinematic? There's no underdog charm here, none of the counter-cultural kavorka that many micro-games on itch.io have when touching on similar themes and aesthetics. It has a that sort of, sterile big-game feel, and while it's overall a solid experience, I don't think that its, separately great, elements come together well enough to transcend that.
Also I think I would have liked it a lot less if I didn't realize that, playing it on steam-deck, you can limit the game to 30fps. The game is too smooth in a way I really don't like when running at 60fps.
Also the 3d bits are neat.
(P.S. I know that it was functionally made by two people, so it's not a big production per se, but that's the general vibe that the big level of polish of the game gives me)
It could be the clumsy backdrop of nuclear-era anti-communist propaganda. But it's not like I haven't loved culturally clumsy games before. It could be that at this point Lovecraftian reference soup as an aesthetic has very much worn out its welcome for me. But again, I have liked lovecraft-inspired games before, and Signalis sooort of uses it as a metaphor more than anything else(?). I mean, the isometric visuals, for how pretty, I didn't think fully worked with the genre, but that's a nitpick tbf. It might just be that the game is neither as scary as the first Silent Hill nor as vibe-y as Silent Hill 2? I guess...
Honestly I think it's just too... polished? Too successfully big and cinematic? There's no underdog charm here, none of the counter-cultural kavorka that many micro-games on itch.io have when touching on similar themes and aesthetics. It has a that sort of, sterile big-game feel, and while it's overall a solid experience, I don't think that its, separately great, elements come together well enough to transcend that.
Also I think I would have liked it a lot less if I didn't realize that, playing it on steam-deck, you can limit the game to 30fps. The game is too smooth in a way I really don't like when running at 60fps.
Also the 3d bits are neat.
(P.S. I know that it was functionally made by two people, so it's not a big production per se, but that's the general vibe that the big level of polish of the game gives me)
2011
Ok so. You got: a plot that seems to be picked straight out of a quaint YA fantasy novel, aesthetics that are peak late-00s, and combat mechanics that desperately try to mimic the play aesthetic of seventh gen western action games while at the same time being also, like, sort of very fun in their own right. I'm honestly here from all of it.
Is The Last Story clumsy? Sure. I died laughing the first time I saw enemies hiding behind chest-high walls like this was Gears of War, despite everyone in the fight being armed with swords.
But, I dunno, I love how briskly is it paced; I love how it completely commits to its silly narrative tropes; I love the idiot main character having a full-on dissociative episode when he discovers that the military is actually bad; I love how creative the boss fights and setpieces get at times; I love that everyone in this high fantasy world sounds like they're from modern London; and honestly I just love its state as the historical oddity that it is. Being a full-fledged artifact of an era where the industry was Really trying to bridge the gap between classic jrpgs and modern action games.
While in the end, we realized that that gap maybe didn't need to be bridged at all, I'm glad those in-between years gave us games like The Last Story. As their exploratory nature makes them very unique and interesting.
But yeah, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It's a silly fun time. It joins Crystal Bearers on the short but ever-important list of "Wii games with unique vibes that have surprisingly detailed interaction design and are generally very good and fun and too few people have played". Which is not an actual list, but eventually I might have to make it an actual list.
Is The Last Story clumsy? Sure. I died laughing the first time I saw enemies hiding behind chest-high walls like this was Gears of War, despite everyone in the fight being armed with swords.
But, I dunno, I love how briskly is it paced; I love how it completely commits to its silly narrative tropes; I love the idiot main character having a full-on dissociative episode when he discovers that the military is actually bad; I love how creative the boss fights and setpieces get at times; I love that everyone in this high fantasy world sounds like they're from modern London; and honestly I just love its state as the historical oddity that it is. Being a full-fledged artifact of an era where the industry was Really trying to bridge the gap between classic jrpgs and modern action games.
While in the end, we realized that that gap maybe didn't need to be bridged at all, I'm glad those in-between years gave us games like The Last Story. As their exploratory nature makes them very unique and interesting.
But yeah, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It's a silly fun time. It joins Crystal Bearers on the short but ever-important list of "Wii games with unique vibes that have surprisingly detailed interaction design and are generally very good and fun and too few people have played". Which is not an actual list, but eventually I might have to make it an actual list.