Lewisisphat
BACKER
1999
The moment it turned midnight, as we entered 2024, I for some reason felt an inexplicable urge to play Um Jammer Lammy for the first time. I think I saw a clip on twitter of Lammy going to hell and thought that was really cool. I really can't remember, I wasn't the most sober at the time. Either way, I browsed eBay, cried and then begrudgingly loaded up an emulator in that order and well...man.
It's rare for me to just love everything about a game on sight but Um Jammer Lammy just feels so confident in how strange and joyful it is. For a start, the music in the game jams hard (Stage 2 & 6 being my favs), the art and character design is bursting with personality and originality in its totality, the story has a lot of fun with itself in an incredibly nightmareish way AND the best part is that it gets it all done within a couple of hours. In & Out. One & Done. Also Lammy is cool. I can see why everybody wants to be Lammy.
The only thing that's really stopping me from calling it perfect is that it is SO damn hard! Like, granted, playing it on an emulator probably doesn't help with some of the timings but I was never fully able to grasp what timing the game was asking of me. Sometimes hitting the buttons a bit early would work, sometimes it wouldn't. After trying stuff out and looking on the internet I'm convinced this game just has really strict inputs that a mixture of emulation and lack of skill gave me a difficult time with a bunch of tracks, some of them being brick walls. Or maybe the input timings are just weird. IDK, all it does is make me wish I had a copy I could run on original hardware so I could do the game justice. Maybe someday.
Until then though, I'm happy to leave my thoughts as is. Um Jammer Lammy is a short, special game that I'm sure is gonna stick on my mind for the next 363 days of the year. Bonne année, jammys!
It's rare for me to just love everything about a game on sight but Um Jammer Lammy just feels so confident in how strange and joyful it is. For a start, the music in the game jams hard (Stage 2 & 6 being my favs), the art and character design is bursting with personality and originality in its totality, the story has a lot of fun with itself in an incredibly nightmareish way AND the best part is that it gets it all done within a couple of hours. In & Out. One & Done. Also Lammy is cool. I can see why everybody wants to be Lammy.
The only thing that's really stopping me from calling it perfect is that it is SO damn hard! Like, granted, playing it on an emulator probably doesn't help with some of the timings but I was never fully able to grasp what timing the game was asking of me. Sometimes hitting the buttons a bit early would work, sometimes it wouldn't. After trying stuff out and looking on the internet I'm convinced this game just has really strict inputs that a mixture of emulation and lack of skill gave me a difficult time with a bunch of tracks, some of them being brick walls. Or maybe the input timings are just weird. IDK, all it does is make me wish I had a copy I could run on original hardware so I could do the game justice. Maybe someday.
Until then though, I'm happy to leave my thoughts as is. Um Jammer Lammy is a short, special game that I'm sure is gonna stick on my mind for the next 363 days of the year. Bonne année, jammys!
2022
An Ode to Neon White:
Oh Neon White
Your levels are well designed and controls are tight
Before you I was never into speedrunning much
But now I've went and done every Hell Rush
Oh Neon White
Last summer all I did was play you into the night
Sweating in my chair at 37 degrees, hunched up to my knees
Replaying the first level to beat my friend's record
Accidentally entering the Top 50 world leaderboard
Oh Neon White
Your aesthetics are on point, character art is a delight
There's not much I can fault you for, if I'm to be polite
You're the game of 2022 as far as I can see
Oh and by the way, thanks for the Machine Girl LP
But Oh Neon White
Your story and dialogue could be better
I just wish it wasn't written by Twitter
Oh Neon White
Your levels are well designed and controls are tight
Before you I was never into speedrunning much
But now I've went and done every Hell Rush
Oh Neon White
Last summer all I did was play you into the night
Sweating in my chair at 37 degrees, hunched up to my knees
Replaying the first level to beat my friend's record
Accidentally entering the Top 50 world leaderboard
Oh Neon White
Your aesthetics are on point, character art is a delight
There's not much I can fault you for, if I'm to be polite
You're the game of 2022 as far as I can see
Oh and by the way, thanks for the Machine Girl LP
But Oh Neon White
Your story and dialogue could be better
I just wish it wasn't written by Twitter
This review contains spoilers
This is a game I'm glad I sat on for a while before writing anything about or rating because what initial strong positive feeling I had after just finishing the game have mostly faded away now. nirvanA Initiative isn't a bad game but it's definitely one that gets worse the more you leave it to stew in the back of your mind.
First, the stuff I liked! The writing in general, like the first game, gave me plenty of laughs over the course of the playthrough. Sure, there's the incredibly immature and pointed sex jokes about boning and boobs that I always appreciate but also some of the bizarre jokes and non-sequiturs that either have incredibly confusing punchlines or just go nowhere also had me laughing. I don't know if Uchikoshi just wanted to be Weird sometimes or if the translators just had an aneurysm trying to localise some of the jokes and just absolutely couldn't so they just left them as raw as possible...either way, the writing in that back department kept me entertained throughout.
The new characters are also generally good with the two BIG highlights being Tokiko and Bibi/Quartz/Oh No There's Two of Them. Tokiko is cool because mysterious unhinged simulation theory cult leading older lady who is proven correct is an idea that you write on a napkin to make a billion dollars with later and Quartz's reveal was probably the hypest moment for me. I really enjoy Mizuki's character in the A.I. Somnium Files games and so for there to be TWO of the exact same person but one is a bit more dry and sarcastic was the Lucky & Wild pairing that I didn't know I needed. The reveal was such a pop off and I really hope the two Mizuki's become the main focus of any potential future Somnium Files games. Heck, give em a spin off where they just solve crimes together. Fuck Date, fuck Aiba, fuck Ryuji; all the hands on the clock point to Mizuki.
In general though I wanna make it clear that nirvanA Initiative is good. Punchy dialogue, tap drop of twists, endearing characters and some more adventurous somnium gameplay sections keep the game going until it's finale where everything explodes and people use superpowered scooters to save the day against the evil menace. The problems with it though start to set in the more you think about it afterwards and ultimately make the game feel a lot more hollow. Like for instance, the big twist in this game.
If there's one key skill that Uchikoshi can put onto his CV is that he can write twists into his video-games. Guy loves em. He knows I do too! In general I think most of his big plot twists have been fruitful, if they aren't totally smart they at least affect the plot and the game itself in some way, the one in 999 comes to mind as being wonderfully done. The plot twist in nirvanA Initiative though feel likes it was written because Uchikoshi has to write some sort of twists into his games now as it all feels entirely empty.
So obviously massive spoilers ahead but the main set up for the game is that you play as two different characters who experience two different set of events 6 years apart from each other and their timelines are presented as being parallel to each other on the in-game menu. The big twist is that actually instead of being parallel, the two different timelines actually INTERSECT and so some of the events in the first timeline happen in the present day and some of the second timeline events actually happen 6 years in the past. When this got revealed I actually paused the game for like an hour and tried to defog my brain of the television static that suddenly buzzed into my mind, throwing up old cabinet files, looking over past events in a caffinated state trying to make sense of what I was looking at...it was a pretty cool moment in said moment. Problem is the more you start to play the game and see how the twist turns out the more you realise that it doesn't actually matter at all. The twist itself doesn't actually change anything ingame, the events still took place and everybody still experienced their own time linearly it's just that YOU the player (yes you) got duped! Except that...also doesn't really change anything! For you! At least in a major way, some events start to make a bit more sense looking back on them but the problem is that after the twist is given to you, the characters just completely ignore it and go back to finishing the story the same way they would've even if the twist never happened. It's totally irrelevant to the game itself! The game even seems to make this clear by having the twist be revealed not through some ingame discovery or plot drop by a relevant ingame character, they just dump it all on Mama to tell it to someone who isn't even a real character in the game during some side sequence. It's weird. I might be missing some grand revelation here that makes it all seem a lot deeper or affecting than it is but at the minute, from my memory of playing it last September, it didn't really do anything. Answers on a postcard if you have any corrections for me.
And one of the largest problems with the plot twist being totally limp, outside of it being bad, is that the entire game's structure suffers for it because the game has to be built around it so meticulously to the detriment of the pacing. There's definitely a point 2/3rds of the way through Ryuji's playthrough where I got a little tired of the sluglike pacing of the game that I might have dropped it for an entire week to get it out of my system before returning to it.
Also the twist implications mean that characters can't grow naturally over six years because they need to be the same as they were in both past and present as not to reveal the twist to early. Plus dudes just do some really stupid or illogical stuff to keep the twist hidden, like did both Mizuki's just so happen to have the exact same dress sense?...whatever, I know I'm talking a lot about the twist here but it has to be said how much it kinda ruins the game. Sure, the writing was maybe never that deep to begin with that even with the twist gone this wouldn't have been that amazing of a game anyways. There's a list of general smaller problems I have that I won't get into because this review is already too long (everyone just so happens to be related to each other, hey remember when we just walked into the super secret naix offices wtf), so yeah this game would always have been maybe a 7/10 max or something but it's upsetting how poorly handled the twist is to mangle the entire project.
The only thing I can think of that could really, genuinely save this game retroactively is if this whole simulation theory revelation feeds into a larger plot in a sequel where the twist in this game actually becomes something relevant going further. Like, maybe Somnium Files 3 is based around the character Mama reveals the twist to in this game and they're some sorta worker at the company that manages the Wadjet System and something something they also have tech that manages multiple universe or something idk.
All I can say is that if that ever happens, the Mizuki Twins better be there.
First, the stuff I liked! The writing in general, like the first game, gave me plenty of laughs over the course of the playthrough. Sure, there's the incredibly immature and pointed sex jokes about boning and boobs that I always appreciate but also some of the bizarre jokes and non-sequiturs that either have incredibly confusing punchlines or just go nowhere also had me laughing. I don't know if Uchikoshi just wanted to be Weird sometimes or if the translators just had an aneurysm trying to localise some of the jokes and just absolutely couldn't so they just left them as raw as possible...either way, the writing in that back department kept me entertained throughout.
The new characters are also generally good with the two BIG highlights being Tokiko and Bibi/Quartz/Oh No There's Two of Them. Tokiko is cool because mysterious unhinged simulation theory cult leading older lady who is proven correct is an idea that you write on a napkin to make a billion dollars with later and Quartz's reveal was probably the hypest moment for me. I really enjoy Mizuki's character in the A.I. Somnium Files games and so for there to be TWO of the exact same person but one is a bit more dry and sarcastic was the Lucky & Wild pairing that I didn't know I needed. The reveal was such a pop off and I really hope the two Mizuki's become the main focus of any potential future Somnium Files games. Heck, give em a spin off where they just solve crimes together. Fuck Date, fuck Aiba, fuck Ryuji; all the hands on the clock point to Mizuki.
In general though I wanna make it clear that nirvanA Initiative is good. Punchy dialogue, tap drop of twists, endearing characters and some more adventurous somnium gameplay sections keep the game going until it's finale where everything explodes and people use superpowered scooters to save the day against the evil menace. The problems with it though start to set in the more you think about it afterwards and ultimately make the game feel a lot more hollow. Like for instance, the big twist in this game.
If there's one key skill that Uchikoshi can put onto his CV is that he can write twists into his video-games. Guy loves em. He knows I do too! In general I think most of his big plot twists have been fruitful, if they aren't totally smart they at least affect the plot and the game itself in some way, the one in 999 comes to mind as being wonderfully done. The plot twist in nirvanA Initiative though feel likes it was written because Uchikoshi has to write some sort of twists into his games now as it all feels entirely empty.
So obviously massive spoilers ahead but the main set up for the game is that you play as two different characters who experience two different set of events 6 years apart from each other and their timelines are presented as being parallel to each other on the in-game menu. The big twist is that actually instead of being parallel, the two different timelines actually INTERSECT and so some of the events in the first timeline happen in the present day and some of the second timeline events actually happen 6 years in the past. When this got revealed I actually paused the game for like an hour and tried to defog my brain of the television static that suddenly buzzed into my mind, throwing up old cabinet files, looking over past events in a caffinated state trying to make sense of what I was looking at...it was a pretty cool moment in said moment. Problem is the more you start to play the game and see how the twist turns out the more you realise that it doesn't actually matter at all. The twist itself doesn't actually change anything ingame, the events still took place and everybody still experienced their own time linearly it's just that YOU the player (yes you) got duped! Except that...also doesn't really change anything! For you! At least in a major way, some events start to make a bit more sense looking back on them but the problem is that after the twist is given to you, the characters just completely ignore it and go back to finishing the story the same way they would've even if the twist never happened. It's totally irrelevant to the game itself! The game even seems to make this clear by having the twist be revealed not through some ingame discovery or plot drop by a relevant ingame character, they just dump it all on Mama to tell it to someone who isn't even a real character in the game during some side sequence. It's weird. I might be missing some grand revelation here that makes it all seem a lot deeper or affecting than it is but at the minute, from my memory of playing it last September, it didn't really do anything. Answers on a postcard if you have any corrections for me.
And one of the largest problems with the plot twist being totally limp, outside of it being bad, is that the entire game's structure suffers for it because the game has to be built around it so meticulously to the detriment of the pacing. There's definitely a point 2/3rds of the way through Ryuji's playthrough where I got a little tired of the sluglike pacing of the game that I might have dropped it for an entire week to get it out of my system before returning to it.
Also the twist implications mean that characters can't grow naturally over six years because they need to be the same as they were in both past and present as not to reveal the twist to early. Plus dudes just do some really stupid or illogical stuff to keep the twist hidden, like did both Mizuki's just so happen to have the exact same dress sense?...whatever, I know I'm talking a lot about the twist here but it has to be said how much it kinda ruins the game. Sure, the writing was maybe never that deep to begin with that even with the twist gone this wouldn't have been that amazing of a game anyways. There's a list of general smaller problems I have that I won't get into because this review is already too long (everyone just so happens to be related to each other, hey remember when we just walked into the super secret naix offices wtf), so yeah this game would always have been maybe a 7/10 max or something but it's upsetting how poorly handled the twist is to mangle the entire project.
The only thing I can think of that could really, genuinely save this game retroactively is if this whole simulation theory revelation feeds into a larger plot in a sequel where the twist in this game actually becomes something relevant going further. Like, maybe Somnium Files 3 is based around the character Mama reveals the twist to in this game and they're some sorta worker at the company that manages the Wadjet System and something something they also have tech that manages multiple universe or something idk.
All I can say is that if that ever happens, the Mizuki Twins better be there.
I remember when Wolfenstein: The New Order first came out, reception was surprisingly glowing for something I remember not getting too hot previews and just having generally low expectations due to the previous reboot from 2009, which got me interested in checking out both it and it's expansion-prequel-thingy The Old Blood! 7 years later, I've finally gotten around to making good on that interest and I think maybe waiting that long was a big mistake.
I'm talking about both New Order and Old Blood in this because I have very similar feelings towards both of them and first I'll start with the stuff I liked, which was mostly the setting! I really like the approach they made towards this reboot with taking the base of Wolfenstein (nazi killing sillyness) and placing it on top of this thought out alt-history fiction where the nazi's won WW2 and has access to ridiculous technology and ancient myth ghoulies. Stuff like the beatles songs that were recorded in german and the giant concrete cities they erected are all really cool touches and the setting rides the line between thoughtful and silly very well. They also did a good job humanising everybody and making me care about a meathead who was just a head in a box in the original's UI. AND shoutouts to whoever designed the nazi armour/tech in these games, they look super cool.
So whilst all that stuff is novel and generally the biggest pull for me, I think the rest of these games are kinda lacking in certain ways. Whilst shooting dudes with duel-wielded machine guns and blowing their limbs off with high powered rifles can feel nice in any context, there's just this stiffness to it that I can't properly explain and I think the levels just also don't accommodate that type very well. Kinda bland level design, sections that can melt you if caught off-guard for a second and forced stealth/puzzle sections really ruin the fun of playing these games for me. There seems to be this conflict with the game design where the game wants you to have fun mowing down enemies but not TOO much because either there's a stealth section that the game wants you to take slow or your forced into a cinematic section that you don't have much control over and are almost forced to appreciate the level of detail the designer put into the wall you're passing by.
In the end, it gets to the core issues I have with these games which is whilst the way they treat their characters and tone is unique to other AAA shooters on the market at the time, it also still stinks of that era of shooter in terms of the way they play. FPS games have come along way since 2014/2015, both in terms of AAA and indie, with much better level design, flow, feel and aesthetic across the board and games like The New Order/The Old Blood feel archaic to me now. Which isn't to say I still can't get something out playing something more simple and older like these but I just feel like that generation of console's FPS have aged the worst for me and I wish I'd just played them back in the day.
I'm talking about both New Order and Old Blood in this because I have very similar feelings towards both of them and first I'll start with the stuff I liked, which was mostly the setting! I really like the approach they made towards this reboot with taking the base of Wolfenstein (nazi killing sillyness) and placing it on top of this thought out alt-history fiction where the nazi's won WW2 and has access to ridiculous technology and ancient myth ghoulies. Stuff like the beatles songs that were recorded in german and the giant concrete cities they erected are all really cool touches and the setting rides the line between thoughtful and silly very well. They also did a good job humanising everybody and making me care about a meathead who was just a head in a box in the original's UI. AND shoutouts to whoever designed the nazi armour/tech in these games, they look super cool.
So whilst all that stuff is novel and generally the biggest pull for me, I think the rest of these games are kinda lacking in certain ways. Whilst shooting dudes with duel-wielded machine guns and blowing their limbs off with high powered rifles can feel nice in any context, there's just this stiffness to it that I can't properly explain and I think the levels just also don't accommodate that type very well. Kinda bland level design, sections that can melt you if caught off-guard for a second and forced stealth/puzzle sections really ruin the fun of playing these games for me. There seems to be this conflict with the game design where the game wants you to have fun mowing down enemies but not TOO much because either there's a stealth section that the game wants you to take slow or your forced into a cinematic section that you don't have much control over and are almost forced to appreciate the level of detail the designer put into the wall you're passing by.
In the end, it gets to the core issues I have with these games which is whilst the way they treat their characters and tone is unique to other AAA shooters on the market at the time, it also still stinks of that era of shooter in terms of the way they play. FPS games have come along way since 2014/2015, both in terms of AAA and indie, with much better level design, flow, feel and aesthetic across the board and games like The New Order/The Old Blood feel archaic to me now. Which isn't to say I still can't get something out playing something more simple and older like these but I just feel like that generation of console's FPS have aged the worst for me and I wish I'd just played them back in the day.
Cool game! Whilst I don't have real strong feelings towards the game overall, it's still something I appreciate as a passion project for the dev team with wonderfully drawn art, cute anthro designs and a lovely soundtrack set to their vision of a fake franceland full of cats and dogs at war. Ther fact they even chose a french dub over an english one shows how commited they were to their setting (and it's appreciated).
Whilst aesthetically the game is great, the gameplay felt a little to be desired. Battles kinda lost their luster for me after the ten hour mark and the S O U L C A N N O N was kinda a let down. When it got introduced, I was really excited at the possibilities of it, the gameplay narratives that would unfold from being put in situations where I might have to sacrifice one of the children, dealing with the consequences and just having that choice, that THREAT, looming over me as I played through the game! But in the end, the difficulty meant that I was generally steamrolling dudes so I never felt the need to use it at all. OP healing spells + just reloading a checkpoint if things get REALLY bad meant that the cannon was kinda wasted mechanically which is a huge bummer! I think if maybe the difficulty/gameplay had been tuned differently or something then they could've had something really special with it, in terms of both the soul cannon and just enjoyment.
Which honestly is the biggest shame, because the game is generally good and it wraps up nicely but apart from it's aesthetics it didn't really leave any lasting impression with me.
Whilst aesthetically the game is great, the gameplay felt a little to be desired. Battles kinda lost their luster for me after the ten hour mark and the S O U L C A N N O N was kinda a let down. When it got introduced, I was really excited at the possibilities of it, the gameplay narratives that would unfold from being put in situations where I might have to sacrifice one of the children, dealing with the consequences and just having that choice, that THREAT, looming over me as I played through the game! But in the end, the difficulty meant that I was generally steamrolling dudes so I never felt the need to use it at all. OP healing spells + just reloading a checkpoint if things get REALLY bad meant that the cannon was kinda wasted mechanically which is a huge bummer! I think if maybe the difficulty/gameplay had been tuned differently or something then they could've had something really special with it, in terms of both the soul cannon and just enjoyment.
Which honestly is the biggest shame, because the game is generally good and it wraps up nicely but apart from it's aesthetics it didn't really leave any lasting impression with me.
PUИX
2016
for jonathan blow's next game, it's just tetris except the board is upside down. when you reach speed level 5 a bertrand russell video plays behind the board where he debates god's existence on a single shot for 40 minutes. then when you hit level 20, the game pauses and Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) plays for three and a half hours over the top with an ending questionaire about how it made you feel. once you hit level 50, the game ends. the amazing twist is revealed that it was a pov shot of a man playing the game on a screen the entire time. he looks to the left and gets hit by a truck. metacritic 95
my favourite NieRlike
2019
ion fury feels pretty good to play and blowing up dudes is fun! only real bummer is that the game feels a little bloated and doesn't have enough new weapons, enemies or design tricks to keep the second half anywhere near as good as the first.
less focused than milk inside but the larger, more ambitious nature of milk outside brings along higher quality art, a 4 hour (!) long OST of doomy dittys and a more expansive look at milk girl's life through continued 1on1 dialogue and several differently styled vignettes (the field and mirror endings are my personal favs). they all come together pretty well and really enhance the ethereal, dark world that she lives in. overall the production is impressive and i really dig it!
obviously, flashier doesn't inherently mean better. i do still prefer the compactness of milk inside and i think the writing is less strong this time around but i can't deny that i still didn't get a lot out of this and appreciate the way milk outside expresses itself.
also i want that logo on a t-shirt
obviously, flashier doesn't inherently mean better. i do still prefer the compactness of milk inside and i think the writing is less strong this time around but i can't deny that i still didn't get a lot out of this and appreciate the way milk outside expresses itself.
also i want that logo on a t-shirt
This is such a dissapointing game. When I first finished playing through it, I had mixed feelings about it but in the end just wrote it off as being a "nice, chill game that doesn't try to do anything special". Over half a year later and the more I think about it the more I'm realising that I excused boring world exploration, weird design decisions and just a generally half-arsed game as "chill".
It's just bad. The overworld areas are bland and are all the same with just a different tile set applied to each one, the secret finding is annoying and the zelda dungeons aren't that great either. The character art still looks fantastic, the writing is nice and they made a good change to the movement transformations over Half-Genie Hero but the game itself is just a bore and nice character sprites and good music can only distract you from it for so long.
Maybe the reason why I turned so hard on this game is because this was my first Shantae game and I had no other real point of comparison. Then I played Half-Genie Hero afterwards and whilst that game also has its own problems, I was blown away at how it had actual interesting looking levels and set pieces that have unfortunately all been replaced by just a bad overworld map and boring dungeons in Seven Sirens.
Sad!
It's just bad. The overworld areas are bland and are all the same with just a different tile set applied to each one, the secret finding is annoying and the zelda dungeons aren't that great either. The character art still looks fantastic, the writing is nice and they made a good change to the movement transformations over Half-Genie Hero but the game itself is just a bore and nice character sprites and good music can only distract you from it for so long.
Maybe the reason why I turned so hard on this game is because this was my first Shantae game and I had no other real point of comparison. Then I played Half-Genie Hero afterwards and whilst that game also has its own problems, I was blown away at how it had actual interesting looking levels and set pieces that have unfortunately all been replaced by just a bad overworld map and boring dungeons in Seven Sirens.
Sad!
1996
For some reason I had always avoided Quake because I felt like most of the conversation around Quake came more from it's legacy than the actual game itself. The multiplayer and its engine obviously revolutionised the FPS and video-games in general but nay a word heard about the single-player portion of the game.
So I was suprised to find out, upon playing through the new remastered version of the game, that it's actually really good! Like good good! Movement feels great, the level design is more refined than that found in the first Doom game and it feels great to play! My only real complaint would be that the enemies feel a little bit too spongy, especially earlier on, and the weapon selecton is a little limited but other than that; banger of a game! The Genius Of John Romero!
So I was suprised to find out, upon playing through the new remastered version of the game, that it's actually really good! Like good good! Movement feels great, the level design is more refined than that found in the first Doom game and it feels great to play! My only real complaint would be that the enemies feel a little bit too spongy, especially earlier on, and the weapon selecton is a little limited but other than that; banger of a game! The Genius Of John Romero!
Had a nice little time with this! Astalon is one of those absorbing metroidvanias that you can just comfortably slouch down and go full butt city into for a good week because of just how good the exploration is and how impossible it can be to put down due to the regular flow of new paths, secrets and trekking oppertunities. Also add on some nice pixel art and some cool character stuff and you've got yourself a good time!
Just don't go into it expecting anything real in-depth or pushing your gaming skillz. The difficulty of the game and bosses aren't that bad to start and only get easier as the game goes along, the beginning is probably where it's the toughest. You have a limited health pool shared between all three of your characters with a scarce resource being the only way to get health back BUT when you die you can cash out the EXP you gained to level up your characters and also add some mechanics to the game world. Afterwards you get sent to the beginning of the dungeon and continue on. It's a neat way to deal with death but it also creates this situation where dying is kinda good and is how you progress. You level everyone up, you get full health again and you carry on back to where you were. I don't know if it was just me but it ended up making me go from trying my hardest to survive at the beginning of the game to taking less care of myself and not really caring about dying because I would get in a better state, y'know?
Idk, that stuff aside, I had a comfy time with it. If you like the idea of quality metroidvanias that give you the good brain juice for exploration and isn't too demanding then this a good one.
Just don't go into it expecting anything real in-depth or pushing your gaming skillz. The difficulty of the game and bosses aren't that bad to start and only get easier as the game goes along, the beginning is probably where it's the toughest. You have a limited health pool shared between all three of your characters with a scarce resource being the only way to get health back BUT when you die you can cash out the EXP you gained to level up your characters and also add some mechanics to the game world. Afterwards you get sent to the beginning of the dungeon and continue on. It's a neat way to deal with death but it also creates this situation where dying is kinda good and is how you progress. You level everyone up, you get full health again and you carry on back to where you were. I don't know if it was just me but it ended up making me go from trying my hardest to survive at the beginning of the game to taking less care of myself and not really caring about dying because I would get in a better state, y'know?
Idk, that stuff aside, I had a comfy time with it. If you like the idea of quality metroidvanias that give you the good brain juice for exploration and isn't too demanding then this a good one.
2021
this is what video-games will look like in the year 2012
2019
At the halfway point of my playthrough for this game I was totally ready to drop the same name pun that everyone else has and damn it to eternal abandonment but after sticking with it till the end, I will say that the game does pick up a bit in the back half with a lot better looking environments and more interesting level design.
It's just a shame that by that point, the game kinda feels numbing to play. You've gotten all the weapons by then, seen all of their super charged soul mode attacks a bunch of times and killed a whole lot of pretty uninteresting enemies hundreds of times and unfortunately that's all there is to it for the rest of the game, it's just the places you get around to killing said dudes is a lot better than the first part of the game.
I also think the Soul Mode mechanic feels a little bit inelegant, the weapon effects are cool but I never felt like I had a good flow with it, like there was never enough enemies in the game to use it constantly and eventually just wasting it on a few enemies and running ahead desperately trying to find other guys. Yeah.
Overall, it's an okay shooter. I think you can do a lot worse than Amid Evil and it does have it's own charm (the way dudes stick to walls after killing them with the Star of Torment weapon is pretty sick) but you can also do a lot better. In an age where 90s style PC shooters are coming out all the time and competition is hot, Amid Evil needs to step itself up so it doesn't become...Amid Other Games In People's Backlogs.
O_O
Edit: i almost forgot to say wow the music SUCKS in this holy shit
It's just a shame that by that point, the game kinda feels numbing to play. You've gotten all the weapons by then, seen all of their super charged soul mode attacks a bunch of times and killed a whole lot of pretty uninteresting enemies hundreds of times and unfortunately that's all there is to it for the rest of the game, it's just the places you get around to killing said dudes is a lot better than the first part of the game.
I also think the Soul Mode mechanic feels a little bit inelegant, the weapon effects are cool but I never felt like I had a good flow with it, like there was never enough enemies in the game to use it constantly and eventually just wasting it on a few enemies and running ahead desperately trying to find other guys. Yeah.
Overall, it's an okay shooter. I think you can do a lot worse than Amid Evil and it does have it's own charm (the way dudes stick to walls after killing them with the Star of Torment weapon is pretty sick) but you can also do a lot better. In an age where 90s style PC shooters are coming out all the time and competition is hot, Amid Evil needs to step itself up so it doesn't become...Amid Other Games In People's Backlogs.
O_O
Edit: i almost forgot to say wow the music SUCKS in this holy shit