JMCristan
Eu achei a história chata e detestei o final, risos. Os gráficos são o ponto alto do jogo. Tanto as animações de rosto quanto os cenários estão no melhor nível que a franquia já mostrou. A jogabilidade, entretanto, piorou desde o primeiro. Aqui é muito forte a filosofia do "clique em tudo para progredir". Ainda, o mistério não funciona. Apesar de ter jogado no "brilho" de acabar de ter comprado um console novo, e de simpatizar com a série, não consegui curtir esse jogo. O final, mais uma vez, achei horrível.
2019
A Short Hike é um game fácil, tranquilo, bom pra toda família. Ele é muito bem escrito. O mapa é grande o bastante para ser legal de explorar e conhecer (há um prazer inerente em saber onde as coisas estão em relação umas às outras.) A mecânica de escalar, planar, e cumprir objetivos que te permitem escalar mais alto e planar mais longe é excelente.
Uma coisa que eu curti, e posso estar viajando sobre, é que um desafio pessoal da Claire, protagonista, é representado por uma montanha, e o que permite a ela escalar essa montanha e ter um fechamento é a amizade dos outros. O jogo funciona mecanicamente & como metáfora também. É bem show.
Visualmente, o game é muito lindão, também. Me lembrou de Twinsen, pela perspectiva e pelo jeito simples do 3D, lembrando os jogos de vinte e cinco anos atrás.
Recomendo mesmo fora da promoção. É caro pelo tanto de horas, mas não é caro pela qualidade da experiência. A Short Hike é um jogo bonito e competente que fica na lembrança depois de ser terminado.
Uma coisa que eu curti, e posso estar viajando sobre, é que um desafio pessoal da Claire, protagonista, é representado por uma montanha, e o que permite a ela escalar essa montanha e ter um fechamento é a amizade dos outros. O jogo funciona mecanicamente & como metáfora também. É bem show.
Visualmente, o game é muito lindão, também. Me lembrou de Twinsen, pela perspectiva e pelo jeito simples do 3D, lembrando os jogos de vinte e cinco anos atrás.
Recomendo mesmo fora da promoção. É caro pelo tanto de horas, mas não é caro pela qualidade da experiência. A Short Hike é um jogo bonito e competente que fica na lembrança depois de ser terminado.
2021
This game is okay. You play as Niko, a non-binary kid who possibly has some trouble at home because of their gender identity. The game never really specifies why Niko's mom has the unclear caring/judgmental traits towards them. Because of those problems, Niko leaves home and now needs cash, so they go on to be a professional friend for different animals in the islands of a cozy archipelago.
This is an easy platformer that plays similarly to A Hat in Time, although there is no combat and little stakes. You don't die for falling in the water, and there are no lasers or obstructions that damage you. The game is mostly about collecting stuff and doing little sidequests that play like minigames.
Although the islands are varied enough, the minigames repeat throughout the game. You mostly play the same minigames in different iterations, and each level also has some exclusive minigames.
It plays out like a less focused version of A Short Hike, comprised of 5 short hikes or so.
If you go all the way through, it isn't an experience that you'll write home about, but that's okay. It's an okay game. I didn't feel disappointed by it, I just felt that it wasn't engaging for long sessions of play. Played as intended, as an hour-long distraction to relax from having worked, it's actually a nice experience. It looks good and sounds good too.
This is an easy platformer that plays similarly to A Hat in Time, although there is no combat and little stakes. You don't die for falling in the water, and there are no lasers or obstructions that damage you. The game is mostly about collecting stuff and doing little sidequests that play like minigames.
Although the islands are varied enough, the minigames repeat throughout the game. You mostly play the same minigames in different iterations, and each level also has some exclusive minigames.
It plays out like a less focused version of A Short Hike, comprised of 5 short hikes or so.
If you go all the way through, it isn't an experience that you'll write home about, but that's okay. It's an okay game. I didn't feel disappointed by it, I just felt that it wasn't engaging for long sessions of play. Played as intended, as an hour-long distraction to relax from having worked, it's actually a nice experience. It looks good and sounds good too.
2017
Cuphead is a very good game. I wasn't able to enjoy it immensely from the get-go: I found the game to be too punishing, and that it had just too little downtime. Like, it was stressful. From the moment I booted Cuphead to the moment I put it down, it was all pain and suffering, with little to no rest.
The game looks and sounds beyond amazing, though, and that was a great incentive for me to keep playing.
When I kept playing, something happened. It happened around Beppi the Clown. I felt like the game induced a meditative state in me. I learned to look at very specific things, while responding to less demanding stuff by muscle memory.
This zen-like state was greatly magnified by the unrelenting difficulty of Dr. Kahl's robot. Damn, those couple of hours flew by as I tried to avoid all the thrusting blades as the projectiles came through the screen, spiraling and traveling outwards from Dr. Kahl's flying robotnik-like pod.
At the end, I played the DLC too and enjoyed it a lot. It is more of Cuphead at its best, and with a new character that changes how you play the game (because she parries differently and has different special moves).
I might replay this game sometimes down the road. It really feels like a would-be comfort game, for veterans. The laser focus that it demands has relaxing effects on the mind, somehow.
The game looks and sounds beyond amazing, though, and that was a great incentive for me to keep playing.
When I kept playing, something happened. It happened around Beppi the Clown. I felt like the game induced a meditative state in me. I learned to look at very specific things, while responding to less demanding stuff by muscle memory.
This zen-like state was greatly magnified by the unrelenting difficulty of Dr. Kahl's robot. Damn, those couple of hours flew by as I tried to avoid all the thrusting blades as the projectiles came through the screen, spiraling and traveling outwards from Dr. Kahl's flying robotnik-like pod.
At the end, I played the DLC too and enjoyed it a lot. It is more of Cuphead at its best, and with a new character that changes how you play the game (because she parries differently and has different special moves).
I might replay this game sometimes down the road. It really feels like a would-be comfort game, for veterans. The laser focus that it demands has relaxing effects on the mind, somehow.
2022
Damn, I really wished that I liked Jack Move. I bought it for a small discount, mostly because I'm prone to try new little JRPGs and I found the battle screenshots to be very appealing.
This is the kind of indie JRPG that is betrayed by its short length. Take a good look at the characters at the cover of the game: these are all the characters that you're going to see for the whole of the story. You have one friend, one mentor, a missing dad, and a couple of villains. All the characters are tropey and one-dimensional, and plot-wise, the story can't do much, because we don't have a lot of pieces to work with. (I'm thinking about red herrings, plot twists, you can't do this plot embellishment stuff without some extra characters to create distractions.)
The dungeon design is very basic, but I liked it. The upgrade system feels as undercooked as the quantity of relevant characters: you can buy everything the game has to offer in a couple of hours, and then just spam your best moves until the end of the game, a couple of hours later.
The combat makes a good first impression, but it is just a basic "triangle strategy" kind of deal. You have three different types of moves, and three different types of enemies (color-coded). You look at the color of the enemy and choose the skill that does the most damage to that one color. Worse, still: they use the color-code thing to reutilize enemy types, and the game does it too fast.
It's pretty basic stuff and the game does feel like a demo. I don't know, it's not like the game doesn't have any qualities. The art is great to look at (although it doesn't convey verticality well enough, making some traversal segments unnecessarily confusing). There is some cool music. But, all in all, it feels lacking and too expensive for what it is.
This is the kind of indie JRPG that is betrayed by its short length. Take a good look at the characters at the cover of the game: these are all the characters that you're going to see for the whole of the story. You have one friend, one mentor, a missing dad, and a couple of villains. All the characters are tropey and one-dimensional, and plot-wise, the story can't do much, because we don't have a lot of pieces to work with. (I'm thinking about red herrings, plot twists, you can't do this plot embellishment stuff without some extra characters to create distractions.)
The dungeon design is very basic, but I liked it. The upgrade system feels as undercooked as the quantity of relevant characters: you can buy everything the game has to offer in a couple of hours, and then just spam your best moves until the end of the game, a couple of hours later.
The combat makes a good first impression, but it is just a basic "triangle strategy" kind of deal. You have three different types of moves, and three different types of enemies (color-coded). You look at the color of the enemy and choose the skill that does the most damage to that one color. Worse, still: they use the color-code thing to reutilize enemy types, and the game does it too fast.
It's pretty basic stuff and the game does feel like a demo. I don't know, it's not like the game doesn't have any qualities. The art is great to look at (although it doesn't convey verticality well enough, making some traversal segments unnecessarily confusing). There is some cool music. But, all in all, it feels lacking and too expensive for what it is.
2017
A Hat in Time começa parecendo um Mario Sunshine indie e meio tosco no acabamento, mas competente e interessante. Depois da primeira hora, o jogo vai mostrando mais e mais ideias e usando a estrutura do jogo de plataforma pra contar pequenas histórias de jeitos interessantes. E ainda arrisca ainda mais um tipo de level design no final. As DLCs eu não joguei, devem ser boas, porque o time claramente foi melhorando conforme desenvolvia o A Hat in Time. O jogo é tosco mais pela engine, porque pobre de detalhes ele não é. Muita coisinha de capricho: skins pra personagem, vários tipos adicionais de objetivo, colecionáveis raros, hub dinâmico. Terminei o jogo base há alguns anos e recomendo sem pestanejar.
Esse jogo explodiu minha mente, na época em que saiu. GTA tinha diálogos e personagens de filme, um mapa gigante, um bilhão de pequenos sistemas de RPG. Rejogando, anos depois, eu fui surpreendido pelo tanto que as mecânicas eram "quadradas", e pelo tanto que o design das missões era meio chato. Na época a gente percebia que não era o melhor jogo possível, mecanicamente, mas um grande conjunto da obra. É uma pena que as versões mais recentes desse jogo tenham vindo com a trilha sonora depenada pelo vencimento dos acordos de copyright. Hoje eu sou produtor de hip hop e tenho um álbum de rap, e essas coisas só aconteceram porque GTA implantou em mim esse apreço pelo gênero.
I've played a lot of indie JRPGs, and didn't really liked most of them, because they were short in a way that also made them shallow.
Deathbulge is the best quirky, little JRPG that I played on PC. I can't rank it 5 stars because the game lacks some quality of life features (the most egregious one being the ability to keep saves and autosaves apart - the game autosaves all the time and you can totally find yourself stuck in a bad situation).
Apart from that, Deathbulge is beautifuly designed. I liked both the cities, and all the dungeons in this game. The enemy variety is good. Combat system is good. The story feels adequate, not an epic cut short, but a medium sized adventure that doesnt overstay its welcome.
The game plays like Mario RPGs do, but the combat is more in line with something like "Battlechasers Nightwar" or "Grandia". The fights are fun, and the upgrade systems are fine too.
The big thing this game have going on is its animation and music. Just stellar stuff, with lots of extra, unnecessary detail. Characters have a bunch of portraits, a bunch of animations, backgrounds are varied, the world feels lived in.
I really hope that a lot of people find their ways to this game. It deserves to be called a hidden gem by dozens of YouTubers on the years to come.
Deathbulge is the best quirky, little JRPG that I played on PC. I can't rank it 5 stars because the game lacks some quality of life features (the most egregious one being the ability to keep saves and autosaves apart - the game autosaves all the time and you can totally find yourself stuck in a bad situation).
Apart from that, Deathbulge is beautifuly designed. I liked both the cities, and all the dungeons in this game. The enemy variety is good. Combat system is good. The story feels adequate, not an epic cut short, but a medium sized adventure that doesnt overstay its welcome.
The game plays like Mario RPGs do, but the combat is more in line with something like "Battlechasers Nightwar" or "Grandia". The fights are fun, and the upgrade systems are fine too.
The big thing this game have going on is its animation and music. Just stellar stuff, with lots of extra, unnecessary detail. Characters have a bunch of portraits, a bunch of animations, backgrounds are varied, the world feels lived in.
I really hope that a lot of people find their ways to this game. It deserves to be called a hidden gem by dozens of YouTubers on the years to come.
1999
Meu primo tinha esse jogo, e a gente, junto, tinha os 4 controles. Que experiência maravilhosa. Os analógicos deles eram moles, e eu ficava com dó de deixar o pessoal jogar com meus controles, porque os analógicos eram realmente muito frágeis e precisavam de muito cuidado. Fora isso, que jogaço. Jogar Smash Bros de Pikachu, correndo e fugindo enquanto meus primos se batiam entre eles, é uma das grandes experiências da minha vidinha de moleque.
1999
Putz, Pokémon Stadium. Esse jogo vinha com um kit de minigames pra jogar com os amigos, e eu joguei mais esse kit com meus primos do que o jogo em si. Ainda lembro 100% da corrida dos ratatás na esteira, da competição de comer sushi dos licktungs, do siga-o-mestre das clefairies, do campeonato de magicarpa. O jogo em si era muito aquém da expectativa de Pokémon 3D que foi cumprida só no Switch, mas foi minha primeira experiência com "metagame". É outro jogo que eu não teria jogado inteiro nunca, em outras circunstâncias. Na época do N64, que nois tinha pouca fita, zerei tudo, Elite 4, Mewtwo e tudo. O grande segredo era começar com o Electrode, pra garantir um paralyze no primeiro turno.
A Nintendo Power estragou um pouco esse jogo pra mim: o hype foi tanto, que os caras estavam falando do jogo como se você fosse realmente viver na pele do Link. Mas foi uma experiência show, lá atrás, zerar com revista, cercado de primos, tios, minha mãe. Uma memória grande, de Zelda como uma grande fogueira ao redor da qual a gente se reuniu, passando controle de mão em mão, a coisa toda. No mais, é um jogo que eu sempre curti sem amar, mesmo naquela época, e ainda é assim hoje. Sou apaixonado, entretanto, no último templo do deserto, e na música do Gerudo Valley.
1996
É um game importantíssimo. E é um jogo legal, também. Na época em que saiu, eu e minha mãe zeramos com as 120 estrelas. Rejogando, eu não consigo nem conceber a ideia de completar as fases do relógio e do tapete voador, pegando todas as moedas. Fora essas últimas fases, que eu acho horríveis, tem outras fases que parecem redundantes (segunda fase de gelo, segunda fase de água).
1997
Eu ainda não consigo acreditar que eu zerei esse jogo com 6 anos de idade, no final verdadeiro, matando o Andross na versão "sistema nervoso" e tudo. É um jogo bem difícil, ainda mais pra pegar esse final verdadeiro. Tem pequenas missões em cada fase, detalhes que você não pode deixar de cumprir, pra seguir trilhando pela rota de fases "secretas". Chegar no final mesmo envolve não errar em nada. Nunca mais eu consegui repetir essa façanha.
1995
Esse game é um cometa, uma coisa especial que aconteceu. Possivelmente o melhor RPG tradicional, ainda mais na versão de DS. As músicas são muito fortes: aquela "Corridors of Time" é meu som preferido até hoje, sem exagero.
2000
Saiu num natal em que eu quase ganhei um PS2 de presente dos meus pais. Surgiu algum imprevisto, o plano não deu certo, acabei ganhando Majora's Mask e Paper Mario. Na época, eu não consegui enxergar toda a qualidade do game, acho que por ter estado de olho nos gráficos de filme do PS2. Jogando depois, mais velho, fiquei impressionado em como o Paper Mario é bom. Um dos melhores RPGs japoneses de estrutura tradicional. Acho que está pau a pau com a sequência, que é outro jogo muito acima da média.