553 reviews liked by FranzMagitek


good hotel exploration game
hotel looks cool
big fan of the hotel
hoping the devs remove the pedophilia sympathy and re-release it as "check out this cool hotel"

Here's where I'm at with Pokémon Uranium: I think I'm someone who is more or less perfectly suited to discuss this game in a macroscopic sense. I am currently working on a PhD in Radiation Detection and Measurement, so I work with radioactive material, nuclear science, and even some energy and non-proliferation policy on a regular basis. I played this on stream with a number of peers who are all very well-educated in nuclear science, and we spent our time commenting on some of the nuclear-related things we saw. We did not finish the game, we dropped it around Gym #5, and I went and watched some of the gameplay on the internet to see what the rest of the game has to offer.

As previously noted, I have a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and I am working on a doctoral thesis related to radiation detection and measurement. I therefore, take umbrage with the way much of the science in this game is conveyed. It's a fictionalized game, sure. It's relatively unrealistic to expect the game devs to understand what the Klein-Nishina Cross-section is. But I really, really dislike how the "Nuclear Pokemon" are essentially just different Shadow Pokemon seen in the Gamecube Pokemon games. I think from a gameplay mechanic perspective, this is a really interesting take on the type chart, but from a story and flavor perspective, I just can't take it seriously. I understand it's not necessarily fair to critique a game strictly on its story and presentation, but the foundation of nuclear being presented as this mystical miasma of power is just plain faulty, and it really paints nuclear energy in a questionable light at best.

One example that generally stood out to all of us took place at Nuclear Plant Epsilon before the third gym. Not only is it entirely unrealistic that a new nuclear plant would be sited right next to an old site that had had a significant nuclear accident only 10 years prior, but the way that radiation is shown as this weird green gas is flat out wrong. I get that your player passes out from radiation sickness, and is later "treated" for it for the sake of a story, but that's just not how it works. If the game is going to lean into something that is extensively researched as nuclear science, I personally feel like there should be at least some responsibility from the devs to make sure that they get it a little closer to reality. It really feels like a few devs were really interested in what happened in Chernobyl and explored the idea of "what if this but in the Pokemon world?". I might be being a little too hard on the game for not being entirely accurate, but in a world where nuclear energy still struggles to be widely accepted by the general public through concerns of safety, Pokemon Uranium does little to assuage those concerns and instead leans into the idea of a modern "mystical corrupting ether power".

There's another factor that I want to bring up related to the presentation of "nuclear", the fact that there's an item that allows you to talk with Pokemon in English in this game. Generally, I feel as though it's a bit of a cop out to have the magical fantasy creatures to be able to suddenly speak English with the help of some device. I preferred the abstraction of people being able to understand their Pokemon through a serious of verbal cries. With the inclusion of the P.E.S., suddenly you can have Pokemon monologue which feels really weird. Then there's the fact that on Route 6 you have to knock out a series of Owten, that you can now understand. It gave me a weird ick feeling that I'll have to generally explore more, but in short I felt really uncomfortable attacking these animal-like Pokémon that could speak English. It's like if a Slime in Dragon Quest could suddenly demonstrate extreme intelligence. It's the exact problem Undertale demonstrates: "would you attack innocent creatures if you could understand them?". Ultimately, I won't dwell on this ethical concern too much, but I had to roll my eyes when I learned that Nuclear Pokemon (or "irradiated Pokemon", which agian, not how that works) are menacing killing machines who can only say something to the effect of "CRUSH KILL DESTROY".

As a Pokemon game, it's quite similar to the early 2010s Pokemon games where you REALLY have to grind to get Pokemon that can stand a chance. I think there's something to be said that the team was able to make a variety of relatively interesting fan-Pokemon, and it's great that they have a lot of ideas of what could be done to shake up the standard play loop. But at the same time, I really have to wonder why some obviously frustrating features were carried over, HMs being the prime example. Then there's also the fact that some Pokemon are hilariously intrinsically broken. Inflagetah, which I used for maybe an hour, is so obviously better than anything I had used up to that point that I have to wonder if it was worth using anything else, especially given how long I often took for anything to level up. I'm not expecting an Exp. All here, but fighting countless numbers of Smores and Minyans gets old quickly. I can't fault them for this too much though, this DOES feel like a Pokémon game, and quite impressively so.

From a pure Pokemon fan perspective, Pokemon Uranium is a really interesting and exciting fan game that presents a lot of interesting ideas, and creates a world that feels lived-in, and fleshed out. Design-wise the Pokemon are interesting, the world is interesting, and the story is nothing we had seen in a Pokemon Game until maybe until Sword and Shield. But I cannot get past my many gripes with the experience. It wasn't terribly fun to play, and I couldn't get into the story when it mattered most (mainly because of my own mental blocks).

Play it if you'd like, it's a really well-made fangame from a technical perspective, but I didn't really enjoy it.

It kinda sucks to play but it's charming in a way nothing else is because, I mean, fucking look at it? It's a Cartoon Network anime apocalypse MMO, possibly the most 2009 concept ever published as a video game. Surprisingly cool in some regards like the player outfits and enemies, but the gameplay is persistently dull despite some occasional challenge. It's something pretty much nobody would give a shit about if it wasn't for the aesthetics. However if they made this today it would probably end up being even more forgettable mobile gachashit so I'm glad you can at least take it for a spin thanks to a dedicated fan effort, because the novelty of the whole thing makes it a fun romp for a few hours. Playable museum of a bygone era.

Great survival horror rpg. Clearly influenced by sticker star with its lack of exp after battles

I change my mind making people unreasonably angry by calling myself "Can Drake Get Pregnant" on steam and pretending I'm 21 Savage desperately asking people if Drake can sue me for the unwanted child is great, even more so if I can say "Drake's my babymama" when I win and "I still won" when I lose. I only go mid and never gank.

Death Mark II dares to ask the question we’ve all been wondering: what if, after improving the series with NG, they made a Spirit Hunter entry where everything got worse?

Amateurish sidescrolling environments and character animations instead of the spooky, heavily detailed visual novel screens of the previous two games?

Live or Die situations but your chances of succeeding, even if you pick the right choice, are randomly generated?

Spirit encounters where your options are so limited it’s easy to pick the right one, but far more boring than the Death Mark and NG encounters because of it?

Sidelining new characters for the sake of using the Mark Bearers as the protagonist’s partners?

Constant back-and-forth exploitation of the misery (for player discomfort) and physical bodies (for player horniness) of teenage girls?

I can’t even say I was ever really scared as a player or absorbed by the intense atmosphere of the game, so everything I loved about Death Mark is out, and everything I found distasteful is in. Although the first Death Mark could get very horny about female bodies in horror situations, somehow they made it feel even worse in this game. It doesn’t help that almost all of these exploited bodies are of high schoolers.

Only one of the spirits in the game is male. His body is only a source of terror, and his backstory is the least explored. The rest are used for as much misery as possible, definitely adequately explaining their grudges, but also going over the top in depicting what someone with the role of “girl” in society can go through and (of course) resolving it with the violent deaths that made them a spirit.

Plus, if there’s a situation where they can make a living or dead female body sexy while they’re suffering, you can bet they’re going for it in this game. More than once the protagonist was about to see something “scary” and I could immediately predict how undressed the victims were going to be. I don’t know — it felt consistently disrespectful of situations they wanted to call terrible, scary violations of human rights. After NG went waaaay down on the horror-horny, I had decent hopes for this game that were crushed early and decisively.

At least I’ll always have the first two games to go back to. As for Death Mark II, I can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone. It sufficiently made me feel gross, but never afraid.

Reload is a really conflicting experience for me. At its core, it's still Persona 3, one of the most important games of my life. The message is still the same, the core character arcs haven't changed, all of the broad strokes are there. But there's a lot of small tweaks to the experience that really drag the game down for me, things that I can understand others seeing as nitpicks but for me are notable enough to comment on.

My biggest issue with the game is the characterization. Yukari's new voice direction makes her feel a lot less grounded, her snark is gone and is replaced with a much friendlier persona despite her dialogue being mostly the same. Akihiko is another character subject to a change in voice direction that leads to a vastly different take on the character, but he and Mitsuru are subject to a bigger issue: Persona 4 Arenafication. Akihiko lost a lot of his charm and has had it replaced with being a gigantic meathead who shovels protein into his mouth nonstop, Mitsuru going from a somewhat aloof rich girl into a full on ice queen; both changes that have been character traits since Arena/Q that weren't anywhere near as prevalent in their original appearances. I don't take any issue with the new cast, I think they all do an excellent job (especially Junpei, I have some issues with him being a bit friendlier at the start as well but his voice actor is a perfect fit), but the direction does make them feel fairly different from the version of the cast that I hold so dear. I do think Ken is an overall upgrade though, his new voice makes him a lot more sympathetic and his link episodes feel like natural additions to his character.

Beyond my issues with the character writing there are also changes in regards to the game's identity and visual direction that detracted from the experience for me. The menus are very pretty, yes, but the lighting outside of Tartarus feels very flat and boring, which is an issue when you spend the majority of your time in these areas. The new anime cutscenes, despite having a more polished artstyle than those of the original game, lack any sort of interesting direction and are all fairly static and bland to look at. A lot of the bigger scenes in the story went from anime cutscenes to in-engine ones as well, making me wonder why they even bothered this time around. The first cutscene you see is a perfect example of this, gone is the intrigue and tense direction of the original, replaced with a boringly lit sequence that opted to keep Yukari's dialogue from Portable (as this game's script is largely based on that release as opposed to FES) which takes away a lot of the intensity from the sequence. It's not just the anime cutscenes though, some of the in-game ones also feel lacking in execution. Akihiko and Ken's resolutions both have worse camera angles and cut out the characters getting frustrated and punching their nearby scenery, very tiny changes but ones that make the scenes so much less impactful.

There are some changes I enjoyed. Social links being fully voiced also adds a lot to some of the less memorable ones, with Strength becoming a lot more compelling due to how good Yuko's voice actor is, with the best ones such as Sun becoming even greater thanks to the addition. Also, despite my issues with the writing in some link episodes, I do think it's nice being able to spend more time with the members of SEES. The gameplay as a whole is also a vast improvement, with Tartarus being a lot more enjoyable to explore and party members feeling all around more balanced (although Akihiko continues to get the short end of the stick in this game, being absolutely gutted compared to his original toolkit). Speaking of balance though, this is the easiest Persona game bar none. In an already easy franchise, Reload takes the cake due to theurgies absolutely breaking any semblance of strategy.

Oddly enough, the one thing I believe the game was in most dire need of improvements towards went completely untouched. The story's pacing is still garbage. The first 2/3s of the plot contain absolutely nothing of note, with very little happening until October besides your once-a-month Full Moon fights. Considering how they decided to stray from faithfulness in regards to the characterization, it really baffles me why they didn't put any focus into improving the most glaring flaw of the experience.

Overall, I think it's a disappointing remake from the perspective of somebody who holds the original in as high regard as I do. If you've never played any earlier versions of the game, this is a great game. You'll still get the core story and the themes are all still there and still excellent. Characters may have changed a bit but the cast is still largely the same and you get to spend more time with them than you could before. It's a much more accessible experience and I'm not crazy enough to tell you you have to play FES instead, I know it's dated. But the tiny things lost were important things to me and part of why I found the game so cool before. I wish I could love this version as much as I do FES or Portable. I'm happy it exists because it will give a lot more people the opportunity to enjoy a story that means a lot to me, I'm just disappointed that some of what resonated with me the most was lost in the polish.

I am deeply saddened by the state of the series by the 6th entry.
While chapter 1 and 2 weren't anything to write home about, Banban 3 felt like the developers actually managed to create something that could be enjoyable, the puzzles were terrible, but the plot beats hooked us in with the sheer nonsense of the plot coupled with the ridiculous cast of characters but endearing cast of characters that had, at that point, been mythologied by random twitter videos spoiling their appearance. (I admit with no shame whatsoever that I got a bit hyped when Stinger Flynn showed up.)
The well was drying up by the fourth chapter and the bottom of the barrel was completely scraped by the sixth.

The game seems way more stable than before, the devs implemented a proper lightning system this time around, slightly more creative jumpscares and more variety in terms of puzzles.

And this isn't what I am here for, the game is limping to the finish line instead of failing spectacularly in every challenge, the series jumped the shark so repeatedly that having it decide not to do so this time around just feels insulting.

Euphoric Brothers, I know you hate your fanbase, please give us lower quality stuff next time around.

"In the terms of our Great Society the Mascot Horror games and their ilk are losers - dropouts, failures and malcontents. They are rejects looking for a way to get even with a world in which they are only a problem.The Mascot Horror games are not visionaries, but diehards, and if they are the forerunners or the vanguard of anything it is not the "gaming revolution" in vogue on indie developer spheres, but a fast-growing legion of young unemployables whose untapped energy will inevitably find the same kind of destructive outlet that "kino" like the Mascot Horror Games have been finding for years." -Poppy S. Thompson, Mascot Horror's Angels

I have been banbaning it so much recently I completely forgotified this shit can be good. Mob entertainment has proven two brothers that could or could not be euphoric can in fact make a pretty fucking decent horror game, for the kids at least. It's kind of amazing how much they have upped their A-game on this one. The wait was well worth it, if you ask me (I did not wait for this piece of shit, I infact forgot it even existed for like two years).
Everything just kind of clicks on this one, getting through an extremely solid experience with actual puzzle solving and exploring some arguably fun platforming situations. This fucking thing also has very good monster designs for the most part and an honest to god creepy atmosphere, getting a good scares out of me and the things I call friends who pestered me to play this on stream for 4 hours, most of which felt like actual game time and not padding. The game is still kind of buggy, with a lot of possibilities for sequence breaking and jumping out of line to skip sections of the game (sometimes unintentionally)


"The videogame sphere is crowded with devs who create as if their sole purpose in getting behind the keyboard is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and refunds.” -Poppy S. Thompson, Mascot Horror's Angels.

Quite possibly lightning in a bottle, I'm not confident they can top this one because of the track record of videogames in general, but if they do it right and hire me as a psychotic latino they might become a staple of this genre.

they made yukari less mean. is atlus stupid or something..