Fumio
2017
can't even lie when I say it blows most turn-based RPGs out of the water
2023
In it's current state I can say that this game delivers exactly what it promises and not much more, but it has an extremely sturdy foundation that has an insane amount of promise to it to be expanded upon. Really fun time as a sandbox, though the sandbox has become more engaging than the actual mystery aspects of the game to me currently.
2016
Honestly a pretty good series of puzzles as someone who's dabbled in this franchise but never really fully committed. Has plenty of unique ideas (though a bit dense at time), and makes for a genuinely enjoyable chill time. The macabre of the game is definitely the most engaging aspect, I feel. Well worth it at the price.
MAN the twist at the end of the true ending of this game is insane. Blew my expectations out of the water. Honestly among the genuinely enjoyable VNs that even people who don't heavily engage with VNs should give a shot at least once. Could it have been better? Maybe, imo some puzzles are extremely dense, but it's an extremely fun ride from start to finish.
1987
Went into this expecting the absolute worst and what I got was surprisingly "okay". Extremely frustrating at some parts for reasons that should certainly be surface level, but still a simply fun experience as I broke into hysteric mania trying to drag myself across the finish line with save state abuse and several dozen attempts at the Metal Gear fight.
I'm also still stuck on the harrowing "coward duck" fight.
There was also an incredibly key moment to the entire journey in which I realized that the SNES version in which I was progression walling on was a completely different game from the MSX2 version, at which point I had to switch and completely start over. This was around where my sanity began to break down and I think this really enhanced the experience for me.
Not particularly an experience I can recommend to anyone not willing to spam save the game because it really doesn't care about wasting your time, as is commonplace with these early gen arcade-adjacent titles.
I'm also still stuck on the harrowing "coward duck" fight.
There was also an incredibly key moment to the entire journey in which I realized that the SNES version in which I was progression walling on was a completely different game from the MSX2 version, at which point I had to switch and completely start over. This was around where my sanity began to break down and I think this really enhanced the experience for me.
Not particularly an experience I can recommend to anyone not willing to spam save the game because it really doesn't care about wasting your time, as is commonplace with these early gen arcade-adjacent titles.
2020
Steam achievement completion rates for Landlord's Super are particularly damning; just 18% of people have placed their first brick. For a construction simulator, placing just a brick seems awfully quintessential to the experience. Why is it that so many fail to even reach the literal building blocks of building?
When the job centre's got you down
And your face is full of frowns
Come and have a lovely frothy creamy pint of
Landlord's Super
From the word go; an admittedly catchy theme song aggressively leads into notice of debt. It lends itself nor the player any favors as it fails to explain much of anything. The depressing sight of a mobile home boxes you in and you figure out sooner how to unzip your pants and whiz on the wall before opening a menu - though it isn't as funny here as it was in Postal 2. You spend the next hour after being told to head to the local town meandering around trash decorated wilderness with no map - made nervous by the disorientation that comes with branching roads, and though they all lead to the same place you have no way of knowing this yet - before crashing into a town and finding the tutorial man a second time. He tells you to collect scrap for cash, and more notably he tells you this is the only way to earn with agency for now. Morally dubious heavy lifting is rewarded with a promise of money tomorrow, and you hope that it is enough to begin the game. You find your way home and the next day you feel betrayed by the pitiful pocket change granted to you.
This is the moment it becomes apparent that reaching a cashflow in which you can actually begin playing Landlord's Super is the difficult part, with no promise of fun to come after. Unapologetically does the game make you slog through the numbing tedium of transportation for nickels on the dime when the tools to work are comparatively for the bluest of blood only. Desperately seeking cash culminates into an inevitable tipping point where you become a cog in the machine who wakes up and drags itself to town only to wash dishes in a glorified time skip menu for nine hours out of your day, going home for the express purpose of doing it again the next.
Yet there is some catharsis as you learn the lay of the land; the world oozes charm in its attention to detail. I was captivated in some part by the way your surroundings interact with you, though only just enough to help me push through the quicksand of an early game. It grows stale once you realize the contents of the game world are so shallow and bite-sized, but it is exciting when it is still new. Maybe it's strange to say I craved more world building and NPC interaction from a construction simulator, but I consider this the key selling point that makes it stand out against contemporaries.
Graciously there does come a point where you can actually achieve laying the first brick. At this point the game is mostly fine. It's not a clean game by any means - bugs and jank will interfere maliciously as you realize they eat your precious money with the vanishing or breaking of items - but it scratches a certain primordial itch to create and puzzle solve. Monetary issues are mostly resolved by selling your first house instead of renting it, at which point the earning tedium is discarded for a sandbox approach hindered only by the at times frustrating limitations of bulk purchases.
Landlord's Super is strangely a game I respect, though negatively personified in its mocking of the quality of life features it lacks through its boasting of passionate attention to detail. There is a pit in my brain that is filled neatly with the perfect ratios for concrete and the process of building scaffolding after my time spent on an in-game year. It is a focused and thorough game, if nothing else, but lacks regard for what makes a game fun at many points in pursuit of its particular shade of quasi-realism.
For the right type of person I believe this game works perfectly, I was only lucky I was in that category. Approach with caution.
P.S. A tip for anyone reading this who plans to play or is playing already and finds themselves frustrated with cashflow; I'd recommend getting good at the slot machine in the bar. It's worth your while if you can cash out, my first payout was $200 bucks for just a few in-game hours of playing and I was set. Definitely saved me a lot of time and sanity on the less than interesting dish-washing grind.
When the job centre's got you down
And your face is full of frowns
Come and have a lovely frothy creamy pint of
Landlord's Super
From the word go; an admittedly catchy theme song aggressively leads into notice of debt. It lends itself nor the player any favors as it fails to explain much of anything. The depressing sight of a mobile home boxes you in and you figure out sooner how to unzip your pants and whiz on the wall before opening a menu - though it isn't as funny here as it was in Postal 2. You spend the next hour after being told to head to the local town meandering around trash decorated wilderness with no map - made nervous by the disorientation that comes with branching roads, and though they all lead to the same place you have no way of knowing this yet - before crashing into a town and finding the tutorial man a second time. He tells you to collect scrap for cash, and more notably he tells you this is the only way to earn with agency for now. Morally dubious heavy lifting is rewarded with a promise of money tomorrow, and you hope that it is enough to begin the game. You find your way home and the next day you feel betrayed by the pitiful pocket change granted to you.
This is the moment it becomes apparent that reaching a cashflow in which you can actually begin playing Landlord's Super is the difficult part, with no promise of fun to come after. Unapologetically does the game make you slog through the numbing tedium of transportation for nickels on the dime when the tools to work are comparatively for the bluest of blood only. Desperately seeking cash culminates into an inevitable tipping point where you become a cog in the machine who wakes up and drags itself to town only to wash dishes in a glorified time skip menu for nine hours out of your day, going home for the express purpose of doing it again the next.
Yet there is some catharsis as you learn the lay of the land; the world oozes charm in its attention to detail. I was captivated in some part by the way your surroundings interact with you, though only just enough to help me push through the quicksand of an early game. It grows stale once you realize the contents of the game world are so shallow and bite-sized, but it is exciting when it is still new. Maybe it's strange to say I craved more world building and NPC interaction from a construction simulator, but I consider this the key selling point that makes it stand out against contemporaries.
Graciously there does come a point where you can actually achieve laying the first brick. At this point the game is mostly fine. It's not a clean game by any means - bugs and jank will interfere maliciously as you realize they eat your precious money with the vanishing or breaking of items - but it scratches a certain primordial itch to create and puzzle solve. Monetary issues are mostly resolved by selling your first house instead of renting it, at which point the earning tedium is discarded for a sandbox approach hindered only by the at times frustrating limitations of bulk purchases.
Landlord's Super is strangely a game I respect, though negatively personified in its mocking of the quality of life features it lacks through its boasting of passionate attention to detail. There is a pit in my brain that is filled neatly with the perfect ratios for concrete and the process of building scaffolding after my time spent on an in-game year. It is a focused and thorough game, if nothing else, but lacks regard for what makes a game fun at many points in pursuit of its particular shade of quasi-realism.
For the right type of person I believe this game works perfectly, I was only lucky I was in that category. Approach with caution.
P.S. A tip for anyone reading this who plans to play or is playing already and finds themselves frustrated with cashflow; I'd recommend getting good at the slot machine in the bar. It's worth your while if you can cash out, my first payout was $200 bucks for just a few in-game hours of playing and I was set. Definitely saved me a lot of time and sanity on the less than interesting dish-washing grind.
2020
This review contains spoilers
I don't believe House has a message to convey deeper than what it wears on its sleeve; a story of an abusive home and perseverance. It is reflected in a gameplay cycle that is repetition indefinite; alluring in promise of new opportunity, pushing you to seek a happy ending. Though antithetical to fun by design, a perfect solution can be discovered through the failure that brings understanding. Seconds skimmed from cut corners are as valuable as years of a life spared, though they ebb away in the same ways like the very ocean of information that threatens to drown. Things slip through the cracks so easily, time sifts through your fingers and carries with it those you meant to save.
At times it feels insurmountable; a game of chess played solely reactionary until mastered. The house, in turn, plays cruelly, personified by it - not indifferent towards the player, but terrible and spiteful. Somehow it is not unfair; foreshadowing clues you in to the house's next move at every opportunity, but you are helpless to know what it means. The twelfth stroke of midnight brings with it punishment for incompetency. Your father returns home and swiftly deals punishment. He can be defeated with the shotgun, as surely as his and your bodies are made of the same flesh and blood, but that's hardly an ending safe from lifelong trauma.
Death is not an option to win, this much is illustrated clearly. You only wake up to the same cycle again. You are not free from it; but a cog of it. You must persevere. Maybe you just need to be faster. You drop a bowling ball on the cat and watch it pop, justifiable by compromise of five seconds saved. You take the hatchet and cleave your family, cathartic that you can still influence fate.
Only with time does understanding eventually turn complexity into nothing but a fading façade. It becomes so simple once you've memorized the board. House can be solved; a triumph, readily transparent from the start and such an enthralling process it was. You spare your family, and a picturesque dream sequence of an ideal family life plays before you. Is this real, this time, the cycle broken? Can things so easily return to a state of normalcy? Regrettably, not likely.
The true ending of the first act of House is not so perfect, but strikingly more real. It is an escape. The light at the end of the tunnel; a reward for your courage in not resigning yourself to the ideal that life cannot get better. To not allow yourself to suffocate, to be strong in the face of fear.
It is only unfortunate that we are not all so strong as to be able to dig ourselves out. The second act is where I believe the imagery and messaging culminate where they are paired with a more bleak and discouraging atmosphere. Melody's side of the story; her sister gone and with her the reason for living. The state of the family has deteriorated. The clock begins restlessly at 12 AM. The piano has become something Melody fears. Yet once she recovers the flute it is only with memories of song do solutions begin to slowly unravel; the ghost of a kindly grandmother representing the last ounce of hope, represented cautiously by candlelight in the pitch dark.
There is only one ending for Melody, that which allows her to slowly dig herself out. It is forgiveness, and acceptance. It is revealed that the sister, too, was unable to do it alone; she is found at the finish line, clinging on. You take her by the hand and go together, dragging her with newly found strength, to face the unknown future.
House is not totally original or groundbreaking, but it is one that resonated with me. The project oozes charm from a place of passion. It is tightly executed, shortly and to the point. While it is far from profound, possibly not as ambitious as it could of been, it mirrored similar experiences from my own life near symmetrically. Overall an unforgettable experience, even if only because the chisel of repetition engraved it firmly in my brain.
Sometimes I find myself dreaming about this place. I can feel it pulling me back. Like I never even left. But I remind myself this time it's just a dream. An old memory.
At times it feels insurmountable; a game of chess played solely reactionary until mastered. The house, in turn, plays cruelly, personified by it - not indifferent towards the player, but terrible and spiteful. Somehow it is not unfair; foreshadowing clues you in to the house's next move at every opportunity, but you are helpless to know what it means. The twelfth stroke of midnight brings with it punishment for incompetency. Your father returns home and swiftly deals punishment. He can be defeated with the shotgun, as surely as his and your bodies are made of the same flesh and blood, but that's hardly an ending safe from lifelong trauma.
Death is not an option to win, this much is illustrated clearly. You only wake up to the same cycle again. You are not free from it; but a cog of it. You must persevere. Maybe you just need to be faster. You drop a bowling ball on the cat and watch it pop, justifiable by compromise of five seconds saved. You take the hatchet and cleave your family, cathartic that you can still influence fate.
Only with time does understanding eventually turn complexity into nothing but a fading façade. It becomes so simple once you've memorized the board. House can be solved; a triumph, readily transparent from the start and such an enthralling process it was. You spare your family, and a picturesque dream sequence of an ideal family life plays before you. Is this real, this time, the cycle broken? Can things so easily return to a state of normalcy? Regrettably, not likely.
The true ending of the first act of House is not so perfect, but strikingly more real. It is an escape. The light at the end of the tunnel; a reward for your courage in not resigning yourself to the ideal that life cannot get better. To not allow yourself to suffocate, to be strong in the face of fear.
It is only unfortunate that we are not all so strong as to be able to dig ourselves out. The second act is where I believe the imagery and messaging culminate where they are paired with a more bleak and discouraging atmosphere. Melody's side of the story; her sister gone and with her the reason for living. The state of the family has deteriorated. The clock begins restlessly at 12 AM. The piano has become something Melody fears. Yet once she recovers the flute it is only with memories of song do solutions begin to slowly unravel; the ghost of a kindly grandmother representing the last ounce of hope, represented cautiously by candlelight in the pitch dark.
There is only one ending for Melody, that which allows her to slowly dig herself out. It is forgiveness, and acceptance. It is revealed that the sister, too, was unable to do it alone; she is found at the finish line, clinging on. You take her by the hand and go together, dragging her with newly found strength, to face the unknown future.
House is not totally original or groundbreaking, but it is one that resonated with me. The project oozes charm from a place of passion. It is tightly executed, shortly and to the point. While it is far from profound, possibly not as ambitious as it could of been, it mirrored similar experiences from my own life near symmetrically. Overall an unforgettable experience, even if only because the chisel of repetition engraved it firmly in my brain.
Sometimes I find myself dreaming about this place. I can feel it pulling me back. Like I never even left. But I remind myself this time it's just a dream. An old memory.
I expected significantly less but wound up being surprisingly decent. Pretty hectic gameplay loop that doesn't really tend to disrespect the player's time or efforts by making it difficult to achieve a real fail-state while still creating urgency, though I almost wished for a more long-term progression of the life sim / job sim aspects. The story doesn't come across as taking itself too seriously while still being solid, though the ending could be argued as being a tad bit unfulfilling after a lot of build-up that seemingly had no real purpose.
Overall would play again, pretty fun.
Overall would play again, pretty fun.
Lost more time to customers walking through furniture and flipping it over than anything else. Pretty fun for the type of brainrotted people who like these games (me).
One of those games where you genuinely can't tell if anything you're doing has any relative impact on your progression or not because there's simply no way to view why, exactly, your numbers are going up or what any stat you're upgrading correlates to. They just do that. Maybe that's just like reality, though.
Enjoyable for a bit but a miserable slog if you're aiming for 100% for some bizarre reason.
Enjoyable for a bit but a miserable slog if you're aiming for 100% for some bizarre reason.
2023
Massively expands on and fixes the core issues of the original version of the game in a satisfying way, and so far the post-launch updates have been bangers as well. The addition of the RoR2 control scheme with intuitive mouse aiming is, while easier than what is maybe the intended experience of the game, something that I personally feel I desperately needed and enjoy using immensely to ease the natural clunk of the game.
While the core gameplay loop is admittedly showing its age a bit, in my opinion its still one of the greatest roguelites around and has perfectly captured the power scaling fantasy that the genre should aim to appease to.
The judgement trial grind is a pain in the ass though, still no clue how I'm ever gonna finish out Miner and Artificier.
While the core gameplay loop is admittedly showing its age a bit, in my opinion its still one of the greatest roguelites around and has perfectly captured the power scaling fantasy that the genre should aim to appease to.
The judgement trial grind is a pain in the ass though, still no clue how I'm ever gonna finish out Miner and Artificier.
2023
Speaking as someone who has now 100%d both this game and the first (crazy flex, I know.) As of right now I'd consider this game a fascinating improvement over the initial game that has a lot to offer in terms of QoL, new mechanics, improved level design, and a more compact but content-rich world by comparison to its predecessor. It's genuinely a massive improvement and it's clear the dev gave a lot of consideration for the complaints made towards the more tedious aspects of the first.
However, aside from being an upgrade of the first title, the game continues to very much offer what it presents; ultimately a unity simulator game with sometimes broken but mostly functioning stealth mechanics and some basic levels of strategy required. It's fun for the amount of time the game requests you invest but doesn't offer much beyond that.
I'm also genuinely shocked to say I'm kind of interested to see where the story progresses after the cliffhanger it leaves us on, but won't be holding my breath.
Overall a solid experience I can't complain about but far from something I'd recommend as a must buy for stealth fans. Enjoyable if you enjoy this kind of thing (which I do, and did).
However, aside from being an upgrade of the first title, the game continues to very much offer what it presents; ultimately a unity simulator game with sometimes broken but mostly functioning stealth mechanics and some basic levels of strategy required. It's fun for the amount of time the game requests you invest but doesn't offer much beyond that.
I'm also genuinely shocked to say I'm kind of interested to see where the story progresses after the cliffhanger it leaves us on, but won't be holding my breath.
Overall a solid experience I can't complain about but far from something I'd recommend as a must buy for stealth fans. Enjoyable if you enjoy this kind of thing (which I do, and did).
2021
It starts off pretty strong as you make meta progression (2v2, 3v3, 4v4, so on) but winds up lacking any real staying power by the time you actually go on to win worlds. It has absolutely none of the QoL polish that could make the experience significantly more enjoyable, and not to mention the fantasy of actually raising low level players and making them into pros is dashed when you realize its marginally more effective to just hire the next tier up as soon as you can afford it. Investing time into leveling players just doesn't pan out.
Overall a fun novelty but falls short at being anything greater than brief entertainment.
Overall a fun novelty but falls short at being anything greater than brief entertainment.
2016
Yakuza Kiwami is a good story with inconsistent pacing being its major downfall. It's a fun title on its own and worth playing if you're interested in the Yakuza series, especially as a follow-up to 0, but as a remake I feel as if Kiwami fails to successfully engage me as a player in its additional content and content directly inherited from Yakuza 0.
In particular I'd like to talk about "Majima Everywhere". Not only does this side story lose all of its initial charm after the first five hours of gameplay, I feel as if it's actually significantly detrimental to the story at times. It creates, with it, something of a tonal black hole in which Majima's character becomes a clustered mess of nonsense that feels undeserved as someone who hasn't played future entries. Coming off of Yakuza 0, Majima's character was played relatively straight the hole time and could hardly be considered a cartoonish goofball. He was grounded and tragic in many ways. Moving in to Kiwami, the opening introductory scene immediately has its tone set by Majima confronting Kiryu and threatening his life. He's established as a man with nothing to lose and a terrifying amount of power.
This is then immediately undermined by him popping out of trash cans and staging a zombie attack.
You then return to the story and proceed along and all of his appearances are played as being genuinely frightening and threatening, yet somehow he doesn't feel to be a threat at all. You already become aware that he's of no real threat to you because, well, he would never harm you or anyone around you because it would impede his overall goal of "fighting you at your absolute strongest" which is established and re-established constantly up to the very end.
I would argue its a total reduction of a character all in the name of shoving him down your throat for the sake of fan service. I'm not saying he had much of a role in Kiwami otherwise, because he truly didn't, he was mostly used as a "goon" type character, but once removed from the Majima Everywhere scenes you're left with a man who could be a legitimately psychotic threat to anyone around him. The scene at Shangri La was actually pretty unsettling until you remember this was the guy who you just got done playing Pocket Racers and MesuKing with.
This is, to be honest, a relatively minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things, but beyond that I think it's relatively lazy that all the side content in this game is mostly just recycled from Yakuza 0. It was nice seeing continuations of some of the substories from Kiryu's past, at least, but just the same they failed to introduce anything new of any interest. Other issues I had were how absolutely little damage Kiryu can actually deal to boss enemies - the game is borderline miserable to complete when it comes to bosses (and especially the endless Majima encounters) until you unlock tiger drop (thank god), at which point the game is trivialized.
Overall this game just felt pretty weak to me and left me feeling mostly empty upon completing all of the content it had to offer. The story was good as always but the gameplay failed to elevate it or accompany it in a satisfying way.
In particular I'd like to talk about "Majima Everywhere". Not only does this side story lose all of its initial charm after the first five hours of gameplay, I feel as if it's actually significantly detrimental to the story at times. It creates, with it, something of a tonal black hole in which Majima's character becomes a clustered mess of nonsense that feels undeserved as someone who hasn't played future entries. Coming off of Yakuza 0, Majima's character was played relatively straight the hole time and could hardly be considered a cartoonish goofball. He was grounded and tragic in many ways. Moving in to Kiwami, the opening introductory scene immediately has its tone set by Majima confronting Kiryu and threatening his life. He's established as a man with nothing to lose and a terrifying amount of power.
This is then immediately undermined by him popping out of trash cans and staging a zombie attack.
You then return to the story and proceed along and all of his appearances are played as being genuinely frightening and threatening, yet somehow he doesn't feel to be a threat at all. You already become aware that he's of no real threat to you because, well, he would never harm you or anyone around you because it would impede his overall goal of "fighting you at your absolute strongest" which is established and re-established constantly up to the very end.
I would argue its a total reduction of a character all in the name of shoving him down your throat for the sake of fan service. I'm not saying he had much of a role in Kiwami otherwise, because he truly didn't, he was mostly used as a "goon" type character, but once removed from the Majima Everywhere scenes you're left with a man who could be a legitimately psychotic threat to anyone around him. The scene at Shangri La was actually pretty unsettling until you remember this was the guy who you just got done playing Pocket Racers and MesuKing with.
This is, to be honest, a relatively minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things, but beyond that I think it's relatively lazy that all the side content in this game is mostly just recycled from Yakuza 0. It was nice seeing continuations of some of the substories from Kiryu's past, at least, but just the same they failed to introduce anything new of any interest. Other issues I had were how absolutely little damage Kiryu can actually deal to boss enemies - the game is borderline miserable to complete when it comes to bosses (and especially the endless Majima encounters) until you unlock tiger drop (thank god), at which point the game is trivialized.
Overall this game just felt pretty weak to me and left me feeling mostly empty upon completing all of the content it had to offer. The story was good as always but the gameplay failed to elevate it or accompany it in a satisfying way.
I spent the better part of half a decade in my teen years trashtalking this game. "It's artificially difficult just for tryhards and sweats to be able to lord over people who enjoying gaming as a casual hobby and say git gud" was my usual talking point when the game came up. My friend even bought me the game on Steam, which I tried beating the tutorial boss on Mouse+Keyboard before promptly quitting and whining about my lack of a controller.
Fast forward a few years; the technology has been developed to make Dark Souls PTDE accessible for even MKB players, even if only barely. A streamer I watch had swapped off of the game I found him through at the time and turned out to be a speedrunner of these games. I like speedruns, I thought, so why not. It actually even looked kind of fun! So I reinstalled the game, got DSfix and the MKB mod, and for the next forty hours I learned a valuable life lesson.
Turns out this game is peak.
This was the day I also discovered I love the sweet release of adrenaline and dopamine produced by triumphing over sometimes bullshit difficulty and repetitive tedium in pursuit of perfection.
There's a lot more I could say about this game. How it's a perfect analogy of depression, how its about triumphing over the self, and that it's okay to let go and to never lose sight of yourself. I think those topics have all been thoroughly covered before, so nah.
The moral of this story is teenagers are fucking stupid and never listen to them and especially not their opinions. They don't know what they're talking about ever. They just be making shit up.
Fast forward a few years; the technology has been developed to make Dark Souls PTDE accessible for even MKB players, even if only barely. A streamer I watch had swapped off of the game I found him through at the time and turned out to be a speedrunner of these games. I like speedruns, I thought, so why not. It actually even looked kind of fun! So I reinstalled the game, got DSfix and the MKB mod, and for the next forty hours I learned a valuable life lesson.
Turns out this game is peak.
This was the day I also discovered I love the sweet release of adrenaline and dopamine produced by triumphing over sometimes bullshit difficulty and repetitive tedium in pursuit of perfection.
There's a lot more I could say about this game. How it's a perfect analogy of depression, how its about triumphing over the self, and that it's okay to let go and to never lose sight of yourself. I think those topics have all been thoroughly covered before, so nah.
The moral of this story is teenagers are fucking stupid and never listen to them and especially not their opinions. They don't know what they're talking about ever. They just be making shit up.