Lewisisphat
BACKER
2020
if u wanna control a cool blob through some boring levels with no map then this is it
2021
This review contains spoilers
hmmmmmmmmm. no more heroes 3 is a good enough game that i found to be pretty dissapointing in several areas that ended up making the overall product feel a little less than. namely the story and the way they handled the levels.
but okay, let's not try to start off being a negative nancy too hard because there's stuff I liked a bunch in this game! for a start, the combat feels great! the removal of the stance system kinda bummed me a bit at first but after playing around with the new death glove abilities and some additional refinements they made to the overall combat i'm pretty happy with it! i never hated the combat in the old games but it's appreciable to have the katana killing in 3 just feel a lot faster and cooler. travis' animations and swings feel satisfying, the new glove abilities are fun and the change to the dark step mechanic gives it a bit more risk/reward. oh and the focus on keeping them at 60FPS is incredibly welcomed.
also MAN, that "KILL!" screen with the blood splatter in the background and the guiter soloing in the background rules. fuck ye
i also liked the boss fights in this! which like ye, shocker, no more heroes has good boss fights but they managed to keep a good amount of variety, gimmicks and surprise "no, I'M the real boss!" encounters in to keep me excited for each ranked rumble. there's probably at least two bosses from this game that i would take into my imaginary, non-published "Lewis' Favourite All Time NMH Boss Fights" canon. very happy me and suda were in the same "hey, that boss design looks boring can you kill them off and replace them with someone else" hivemind.
speaking of designs, the last thing i really wanted to praise was just the art and look of this game. i really liked the different clashing presentation styles of this game from old Mac PC looking menus, to PS4 livestream windows, to cutscenes like the intro to Velvet Chair Girl's fight and having your screen pop up with a strong arm of A buttons and every literal way to say Accept on the planet Earth. it was good. colourful, pop and obnoxious!
so whilst i feel like grasshopper got the combat, bosses and looks right they unfortunately dropped ball in some other areas for me. mainly the story, which ended up being my biggest sticking point after finishing the game. i don't know if this is just my fault for expecting too much from a modern day no more heroes game but the game doesn't really have anything surprising to it or anything to really say. like i mean, yes there are weird things happening around the edges of the main plot and fakeouts on boss fights etc. but when it comes to the actual story and where it goes it's kinda...it kinda just plays out how you expect. alien invasion happens, travis must kill top ten ranking dudes, he does, you get your big final boss fight with who you think plus additonal palpatine's behind it all and...yeah! Which I guess isn't nessisarily bad but the introduction of people like midori midorikara, kamui giving his big kill the past, kill the life speech, henry cooldown having a personality change and being a part of a secret organisation (and also sylvia??), the constant boss fakeouts i mentioned, even the fact that Travis Strikes Again even managed to say something or go somewhere more than it's initial premise with the deathballs granting you a wish thing just made me feel a bit meh on where the game went in the end. kinda came away without really feeling much about what happened or what it said. i guess at the end of the day i didn't really care that much about Damon and FU so having the game sideline everything to focus on them in the end was a bit of a bummer.
also i feel like the cast of this game is pretty underused. like, the no more heores series has such a strong line-up of characters and designs and a lot of old favourites and new hotness appear in it! bad girl is back! shinobu is back! dr. juvenile is here! midori midorikara appears from another universe and kamui is also her bf and has some fuckin kurumizawa shit going on in those hands! like it's a stacked cast but in the end none of them really end up doing anything or impacting the story until right at the end. shinobu gets her arms ripped off immediatly, bad girl gets Depression, dr juvenile just...wasn't asked to do stuff i guess and kamui just chills with bishop and travis for one scene and that's about it. even sylvia feels pretty underused in this game. do you see what i mean about stuff not really happening and characters not really mattering? it just seems like a bit of a waste, which is sad.
also yeah, the way they handled levels in this game is bad because they removed them completely and instead replaced them with arena fights where you get teleported around and they have no real style or location and because of that they feel way less unique and more like an extention of the overworld in a bad way and BOY let me tell you about the overworld it su-okay wait i just noticed the length of this review nevermind.
in the end, i enjoyed my time with no more heroes 3 and it definitely holds some value in the overall series. it just didn't leave me with much in the end. who knows, this might be one of those things where in a couple of years i'll look back on it and wonder why i was high strung on certain things and why i didn't enjoy it for what it was. but for now, alas.
actually one more thing henry cooldown is so fucking cool in this game i love him
but okay, let's not try to start off being a negative nancy too hard because there's stuff I liked a bunch in this game! for a start, the combat feels great! the removal of the stance system kinda bummed me a bit at first but after playing around with the new death glove abilities and some additional refinements they made to the overall combat i'm pretty happy with it! i never hated the combat in the old games but it's appreciable to have the katana killing in 3 just feel a lot faster and cooler. travis' animations and swings feel satisfying, the new glove abilities are fun and the change to the dark step mechanic gives it a bit more risk/reward. oh and the focus on keeping them at 60FPS is incredibly welcomed.
also MAN, that "KILL!" screen with the blood splatter in the background and the guiter soloing in the background rules. fuck ye
i also liked the boss fights in this! which like ye, shocker, no more heroes has good boss fights but they managed to keep a good amount of variety, gimmicks and surprise "no, I'M the real boss!" encounters in to keep me excited for each ranked rumble. there's probably at least two bosses from this game that i would take into my imaginary, non-published "Lewis' Favourite All Time NMH Boss Fights" canon. very happy me and suda were in the same "hey, that boss design looks boring can you kill them off and replace them with someone else" hivemind.
speaking of designs, the last thing i really wanted to praise was just the art and look of this game. i really liked the different clashing presentation styles of this game from old Mac PC looking menus, to PS4 livestream windows, to cutscenes like the intro to Velvet Chair Girl's fight and having your screen pop up with a strong arm of A buttons and every literal way to say Accept on the planet Earth. it was good. colourful, pop and obnoxious!
so whilst i feel like grasshopper got the combat, bosses and looks right they unfortunately dropped ball in some other areas for me. mainly the story, which ended up being my biggest sticking point after finishing the game. i don't know if this is just my fault for expecting too much from a modern day no more heroes game but the game doesn't really have anything surprising to it or anything to really say. like i mean, yes there are weird things happening around the edges of the main plot and fakeouts on boss fights etc. but when it comes to the actual story and where it goes it's kinda...it kinda just plays out how you expect. alien invasion happens, travis must kill top ten ranking dudes, he does, you get your big final boss fight with who you think plus additonal palpatine's behind it all and...yeah! Which I guess isn't nessisarily bad but the introduction of people like midori midorikara, kamui giving his big kill the past, kill the life speech, henry cooldown having a personality change and being a part of a secret organisation (and also sylvia??), the constant boss fakeouts i mentioned, even the fact that Travis Strikes Again even managed to say something or go somewhere more than it's initial premise with the deathballs granting you a wish thing just made me feel a bit meh on where the game went in the end. kinda came away without really feeling much about what happened or what it said. i guess at the end of the day i didn't really care that much about Damon and FU so having the game sideline everything to focus on them in the end was a bit of a bummer.
also i feel like the cast of this game is pretty underused. like, the no more heores series has such a strong line-up of characters and designs and a lot of old favourites and new hotness appear in it! bad girl is back! shinobu is back! dr. juvenile is here! midori midorikara appears from another universe and kamui is also her bf and has some fuckin kurumizawa shit going on in those hands! like it's a stacked cast but in the end none of them really end up doing anything or impacting the story until right at the end. shinobu gets her arms ripped off immediatly, bad girl gets Depression, dr juvenile just...wasn't asked to do stuff i guess and kamui just chills with bishop and travis for one scene and that's about it. even sylvia feels pretty underused in this game. do you see what i mean about stuff not really happening and characters not really mattering? it just seems like a bit of a waste, which is sad.
also yeah, the way they handled levels in this game is bad because they removed them completely and instead replaced them with arena fights where you get teleported around and they have no real style or location and because of that they feel way less unique and more like an extention of the overworld in a bad way and BOY let me tell you about the overworld it su-okay wait i just noticed the length of this review nevermind.
in the end, i enjoyed my time with no more heroes 3 and it definitely holds some value in the overall series. it just didn't leave me with much in the end. who knows, this might be one of those things where in a couple of years i'll look back on it and wonder why i was high strung on certain things and why i didn't enjoy it for what it was. but for now, alas.
actually one more thing henry cooldown is so fucking cool in this game i love him
2007
It's funny! It's fun! It's the correct length! It's Portal!
2020
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
2020
Man, this game was a bummer. I thought after how good A.I.: The Somnium Files was that Uchikoshi had gotten away from the days of Zero Time Dilemma but unfortunately this game just isn't good. It kinda falls apart in two big ways for me; the gameplay and the story.
The gameplay is just unfun and was trying it's absolute hardest to make me stop playing. For a start, the movement and jumping in it feels terrible, which for a platformer is a pretty bad start! Just the jankness of the animations and the lag coming off pressing the jump button isn't great. Also the game design in these sections is pretty dull and barebones, to the point where I was kinda auto-piloting most of the game and getting a little bit B Word (Bored). This was made worse by having the gameplay stop every few moments so a character can interrupt to be like "woah! that thing is huge! if only there was a way to get by it!" or something, not only constantly grinding the game to a halt but also stopping any element of discovery. The gameplay overall just seems like a huge missed oppertunity, I was pretty excited to see what a game with Uchikoshi and Kodaka working on could add to the platforming genre but none of the creativity usually associated with them is found in these sections. They do start to add a bit more variety and challenge later on in the game (as well as the use of multiple powers in one level! woah!) but it's nowhere near enough.
As for the story, it was fine for most of the game. In case you don't know, the game starts a group of school kids leaving tokyo on a trip when a meteor hits the city and they wake up in an underwater theme park and forced to do a death game by a creepy cutesy robot. After one round, the game is cancelled and the group of kids find themselves on the other side of japan and it's up to them to walk back to tokyo. Sometimes the dripfeed of information and mysteries could be a bit slow at times but the game ended up building up a few questions and I was definitely intrigued as to what was going on. Unfortunately, once the main villain shows up and starts to explain their plan it all starts to fall apart (hey speaking of Zero Time Dilemma). I won't go into spoilers but the reason behind the death game and walking across japan was too dumb and unsatisfying that it kinda just fell apart for me. Especially the explanation behind the meteor. Hoo boy.
So okay, if the gameplay sucks and the story blows then is there anything good left for this game? Well, honestly, the shining star for me with World's End Club was the cast. I really liked these guys. For a start, their designs are excellent and Takegarou really knocked it out of the park with how colourful and individual each character's look was. Overall I thought they were all pretty likeable and well written. A bunch of them got character development, the clashing of each other's personalities and them coming together to help each other was really nice! Like, it's all pretty simple stuff but it worked really well and I kept invested in the game purely to see where they ended up. Also shout out the dub voice cast for doing a great job. There were times during the story where they really elevated certain moments with their performances.
So yeah, overall this game was a big disappointment! For as much enjoyment that I got out of just seeing the cast interact with each other and do shit, at the end of the day they're stuck in a game that's at odds with them.
The gameplay is just unfun and was trying it's absolute hardest to make me stop playing. For a start, the movement and jumping in it feels terrible, which for a platformer is a pretty bad start! Just the jankness of the animations and the lag coming off pressing the jump button isn't great. Also the game design in these sections is pretty dull and barebones, to the point where I was kinda auto-piloting most of the game and getting a little bit B Word (Bored). This was made worse by having the gameplay stop every few moments so a character can interrupt to be like "woah! that thing is huge! if only there was a way to get by it!" or something, not only constantly grinding the game to a halt but also stopping any element of discovery. The gameplay overall just seems like a huge missed oppertunity, I was pretty excited to see what a game with Uchikoshi and Kodaka working on could add to the platforming genre but none of the creativity usually associated with them is found in these sections. They do start to add a bit more variety and challenge later on in the game (as well as the use of multiple powers in one level! woah!) but it's nowhere near enough.
As for the story, it was fine for most of the game. In case you don't know, the game starts a group of school kids leaving tokyo on a trip when a meteor hits the city and they wake up in an underwater theme park and forced to do a death game by a creepy cutesy robot. After one round, the game is cancelled and the group of kids find themselves on the other side of japan and it's up to them to walk back to tokyo. Sometimes the dripfeed of information and mysteries could be a bit slow at times but the game ended up building up a few questions and I was definitely intrigued as to what was going on. Unfortunately, once the main villain shows up and starts to explain their plan it all starts to fall apart (hey speaking of Zero Time Dilemma). I won't go into spoilers but the reason behind the death game and walking across japan was too dumb and unsatisfying that it kinda just fell apart for me. Especially the explanation behind the meteor. Hoo boy.
So okay, if the gameplay sucks and the story blows then is there anything good left for this game? Well, honestly, the shining star for me with World's End Club was the cast. I really liked these guys. For a start, their designs are excellent and Takegarou really knocked it out of the park with how colourful and individual each character's look was. Overall I thought they were all pretty likeable and well written. A bunch of them got character development, the clashing of each other's personalities and them coming together to help each other was really nice! Like, it's all pretty simple stuff but it worked really well and I kept invested in the game purely to see where they ended up. Also shout out the dub voice cast for doing a great job. There were times during the story where they really elevated certain moments with their performances.
So yeah, overall this game was a big disappointment! For as much enjoyment that I got out of just seeing the cast interact with each other and do shit, at the end of the day they're stuck in a game that's at odds with them.
2019
Visually creative game that runs the gambit of red doom and repetitive decaying to line-art suffering and some fleeting beauty. A short but simple game with a lot of heart. Even after the hype for this game (and me getting fidgety at having no way to play it for 2 years) I was surprised at how well done it was!
I hope the devs are doing okay.
I hope the devs are doing okay.
2015
A forgotten little gem, imo. A bunch of MOBAs I've played have come and gone but this was always one of the best, it felt like it was actually trying to carve its own place in the scene without trying to be just League of Legends But Not.
It was a smaller, streamlined MOBA type where the game wanted you to be more having fun playing and less dawdling back and forth and thinking about long term choices whilst also not numbing your brain completely through boredom. It's a very tight rope that newer multiplayer games seem to attempt but I think HOTS did it well.
Which was mostly due to the map objectives and heroes. Each map had it's own gimmick that you would fight over that made the game more about fighting and less about farming and they introduced some novel heroes to the game that I had a bunch of fun with! It also liked to have fun with some of its heroes, in perticular ones that ended up in the Specialist class where they had more of a unique role. Stuff like Lost Vikings, Medivh, Sgt. Hammer...they're pretty cool! I like weirdos in MOBAs! Also Cho' Gall is a really awesome idea for a hero that I want other series to have a go at.
Whilst you still can play it, it is a bit sad to see the game become more and more obscure over time as Blizzard guts the dev team and e-sport structures around it. It also doesn't help that the monetisation in this game is ridiculous and probably meant they didn't get nearly as much profit on the game as they would've hoped. Either way, less and less people are playing now which is a shame. Cus it's fun! If you want to play something chill with friends and more goof off than get salty, then HOTS might work for you!
It was a smaller, streamlined MOBA type where the game wanted you to be more having fun playing and less dawdling back and forth and thinking about long term choices whilst also not numbing your brain completely through boredom. It's a very tight rope that newer multiplayer games seem to attempt but I think HOTS did it well.
Which was mostly due to the map objectives and heroes. Each map had it's own gimmick that you would fight over that made the game more about fighting and less about farming and they introduced some novel heroes to the game that I had a bunch of fun with! It also liked to have fun with some of its heroes, in perticular ones that ended up in the Specialist class where they had more of a unique role. Stuff like Lost Vikings, Medivh, Sgt. Hammer...they're pretty cool! I like weirdos in MOBAs! Also Cho' Gall is a really awesome idea for a hero that I want other series to have a go at.
Whilst you still can play it, it is a bit sad to see the game become more and more obscure over time as Blizzard guts the dev team and e-sport structures around it. It also doesn't help that the monetisation in this game is ridiculous and probably meant they didn't get nearly as much profit on the game as they would've hoped. Either way, less and less people are playing now which is a shame. Cus it's fun! If you want to play something chill with friends and more goof off than get salty, then HOTS might work for you!
Underappreciated lil' metroidvania. Immediatley stands out from the rest with it's movement mechanics where you won't be using your legs to walk but instead to leap, as wall jumping is the only way you can move around the world. It's more than just a gimmick though, moving around can feel great and overall it adds a fast and kinetic feel to the game purely from basic movement and exploring. Later on the game starts to add some real bullet hell rooms/bosses where you're forced to use your movement skills and eyeballs efficiently and it's a keen challenge! Some of them can get a little too much but overall the game does a good job of making use of your movement options and making it feel satisfying!
Game also has a real look to it as well. Due to there being no "floor" to the game, it likes to play tricks with orientation and the geometry of the rooms with camera changes when entering and visual detail to the environments with some abstract looks, one of the earlier examples being a forest where trees are growing up from both sides of the screen. It really adds a cool visual look to the game and makes sure that it sticks out in your mind when it comes to metroidvania worlds, it's neat! The pixel art on characters and bosses are well done and give them an almost higher quality Sega Genesis kinda look? I can't exactly pin point it but a bunch of designs feel like they were inspired from select classic games. There's a character early on who's proportions feel off that reminds me of 80s games where character's sizes didn't mean too much and in the end you had these dudes who were unintentionally way larger or looked different in perspective, I also might be talking out my butt but I feel it!
It's got power ups although I think they made too many attack based ones that feel kinda situational, especially since selecting a specific one can be difficult by the end of the game since you have to constantly scroll through a list and in a frantic battle that can be pretty hard. There's a cool teleportation one that changes the game a bit but it's not used enough and in the end I just spammed rockets to kill everything lol.
ALSO one little thing that really impressed me was the game's use of HD Rumble in a perticular moment. There's a place where you're standing under a character that's known for singing and the controller starts to make a mechanical chirping noise using the rumble inside the controller and it's done so well that it took me off guard. A game using controller rumble as instrument with pitch changes? That's fucking cool! Honestly, games need to do more with this. Pls.
But yeah, good game! If you want a solid, not too long metroidvania that's a little bit different then by all means try this! You'll probably have a good time.
Game also has a real look to it as well. Due to there being no "floor" to the game, it likes to play tricks with orientation and the geometry of the rooms with camera changes when entering and visual detail to the environments with some abstract looks, one of the earlier examples being a forest where trees are growing up from both sides of the screen. It really adds a cool visual look to the game and makes sure that it sticks out in your mind when it comes to metroidvania worlds, it's neat! The pixel art on characters and bosses are well done and give them an almost higher quality Sega Genesis kinda look? I can't exactly pin point it but a bunch of designs feel like they were inspired from select classic games. There's a character early on who's proportions feel off that reminds me of 80s games where character's sizes didn't mean too much and in the end you had these dudes who were unintentionally way larger or looked different in perspective, I also might be talking out my butt but I feel it!
It's got power ups although I think they made too many attack based ones that feel kinda situational, especially since selecting a specific one can be difficult by the end of the game since you have to constantly scroll through a list and in a frantic battle that can be pretty hard. There's a cool teleportation one that changes the game a bit but it's not used enough and in the end I just spammed rockets to kill everything lol.
ALSO one little thing that really impressed me was the game's use of HD Rumble in a perticular moment. There's a place where you're standing under a character that's known for singing and the controller starts to make a mechanical chirping noise using the rumble inside the controller and it's done so well that it took me off guard. A game using controller rumble as instrument with pitch changes? That's fucking cool! Honestly, games need to do more with this. Pls.
But yeah, good game! If you want a solid, not too long metroidvania that's a little bit different then by all means try this! You'll probably have a good time.
2017
Strong game. Wasn't a fan of the original but the sequel improves on the game dramatically, where the metroidvania and digging elements marry together to create this pretty relaxing, wanderous experience where delving into the mines and poking its crevices was...nice. And in addition to that, the game also packs itself with neat upgrades and equipment, including!, a really good grappling hook. Dorothy's loadout is pretty powerful and fun to use, they did a good job of just making moving around and punching dirt to be as good as it could be. The challenge rooms littered throughout also helps you make the most out of them, especially the end game hell dungeon. Also, shoutout to the OST for this game and having probably the best town theme I've ever heard.
Overall, it's ROCK solid. Some easy slouch day entertainment with an even amount of challenge to keep you arching your back every now and again.
Overall, it's ROCK solid. Some easy slouch day entertainment with an even amount of challenge to keep you arching your back every now and again.
1993
it's DOOM
2019
Fun characters, top tier designs and a gameplay loop that scratches deeper than you'd expect all supplementing a simple yet sweet story that's part science fiction theatre stage and part love(?) story
Good game.
Good game.
2016
God damn, what a cool game! I went into playing this with zero expectations and came out of it with glowing praise! Well, that's not entirely true. I came out of it originally feeling positive about the game but a little unsure of what to make out of what I'd been told. What to make of the narrative and the many complicated "truths" different people had given me. Wait, what was the point of KamuiDrome again???
After spending several days mulling over it, either through careful wiki diving or sitting in a bathtub with my own thoughts for an hour, I've come away from this game feeling pretty satisfied and absolutely glowing. I think the click moment for me happened when I started listing all the different things Kamui meant or was to different people and factions in the world and how each one had a different interpretation of him from the next or contradicted others and realising that Kamui was the whole that brought everything together. Also, a part of me just learned to love things for what they were and not trying to seek an answer out of them. Man, I love the narrative in this game.
Or more specifically the way it presents it. It's one of those games where the main, boxart blurb crime of the game is over at the end of the second chapter. Kamui caught. Main perpetrator found. Case closed. So what do you do for the next 75% of your game? Well, you explore the setting of the 24 wards and what kamui means to that world without explicitly dealing with Kamui or him even being there. I really enjoy how each chapter just explores an entirely new thing wether it be the world through a child's eyes or a business man kidnapped and held random or The Internet. It just adds a lot of flavour and character to the game and its setting, like we're an unconcerned bird looking through into people's lives. I love the conflicting politics, I love the starkness of Parade and what it means for Sumio's entire character, I love KamuiDrome and its intense cyber chatroom sessions. Also just....everything in LifeCut. It's a blast. A colourful, dense, unsure ride.
Narrative wise I also really liked there being two halves to the story. You have the main half of the game being written by Suda51, which deals with the Henious Crimes Unit as seen through the eyes of the mute named protagonist. Then there's other side of the story written by Masahi Ooka which deals with another character called Tokio Morishima who is a journalist investigating the Kamui case at the request of another. These two sides compliment each other so well, at least for two major ways for me. One being that they kinda feel like Call and Answer where Suda51's side of the story is focused on showing the events through a more quickcut, lingering, ethereal kinda way that feels focused on emotions and madness whilst Ooka's side of the story deals more with the facts of what happened and helping fill in the blanks. I found it nice because it lets you experience the story first in a non-conclusive and more bizarre way before filling you in more concretely later in a character fitting way. Also secondly it's just nice to have two protagonists who are totally different from each other. The main named character is just you, personalityless and silent with a brooding edge to them...and then you have Tokio who is an actual character with a goofy, awkward but direct way of speaking and also has a pet turtle. Tokio is great, man...but yeah, overall the narrative is the main centrepiece of this game and it's fantastic in every way.
The presentation of this game is also top notch. The changing nature of the game's UI makes itreally stick out. The dialogue and picture boxes that change size and shape at will. The way the game mixes drawn art, 3D graphics, anime and FMV together. Most impressively though is the way each chapter of the game has it's own entirely unique UI and presentation, with the most ingrained ones being the black and white look of Parade and the green/black cyber dimension for KamuiDrome. They add a lot to the game and The Silver Case would be a lesser game without them.
Also the OST by Masafumi Takada is great. He would come more into himself on his later works but the tracks he did for the silver case give the right amount of late 90s atmosphere to them and it works well. I really enjoy the awkward synth on Tokio's apartment track.
Yeah...I dunno. I really like The Silver Case! It's a game that definitely sticks in your mind and it's great to see Suda having such a personality and grit to his work even as early as 1999.
After spending several days mulling over it, either through careful wiki diving or sitting in a bathtub with my own thoughts for an hour, I've come away from this game feeling pretty satisfied and absolutely glowing. I think the click moment for me happened when I started listing all the different things Kamui meant or was to different people and factions in the world and how each one had a different interpretation of him from the next or contradicted others and realising that Kamui was the whole that brought everything together. Also, a part of me just learned to love things for what they were and not trying to seek an answer out of them. Man, I love the narrative in this game.
Or more specifically the way it presents it. It's one of those games where the main, boxart blurb crime of the game is over at the end of the second chapter. Kamui caught. Main perpetrator found. Case closed. So what do you do for the next 75% of your game? Well, you explore the setting of the 24 wards and what kamui means to that world without explicitly dealing with Kamui or him even being there. I really enjoy how each chapter just explores an entirely new thing wether it be the world through a child's eyes or a business man kidnapped and held random or The Internet. It just adds a lot of flavour and character to the game and its setting, like we're an unconcerned bird looking through into people's lives. I love the conflicting politics, I love the starkness of Parade and what it means for Sumio's entire character, I love KamuiDrome and its intense cyber chatroom sessions. Also just....everything in LifeCut. It's a blast. A colourful, dense, unsure ride.
Narrative wise I also really liked there being two halves to the story. You have the main half of the game being written by Suda51, which deals with the Henious Crimes Unit as seen through the eyes of the mute named protagonist. Then there's other side of the story written by Masahi Ooka which deals with another character called Tokio Morishima who is a journalist investigating the Kamui case at the request of another. These two sides compliment each other so well, at least for two major ways for me. One being that they kinda feel like Call and Answer where Suda51's side of the story is focused on showing the events through a more quickcut, lingering, ethereal kinda way that feels focused on emotions and madness whilst Ooka's side of the story deals more with the facts of what happened and helping fill in the blanks. I found it nice because it lets you experience the story first in a non-conclusive and more bizarre way before filling you in more concretely later in a character fitting way. Also secondly it's just nice to have two protagonists who are totally different from each other. The main named character is just you, personalityless and silent with a brooding edge to them...and then you have Tokio who is an actual character with a goofy, awkward but direct way of speaking and also has a pet turtle. Tokio is great, man...but yeah, overall the narrative is the main centrepiece of this game and it's fantastic in every way.
The presentation of this game is also top notch. The changing nature of the game's UI makes itreally stick out. The dialogue and picture boxes that change size and shape at will. The way the game mixes drawn art, 3D graphics, anime and FMV together. Most impressively though is the way each chapter of the game has it's own entirely unique UI and presentation, with the most ingrained ones being the black and white look of Parade and the green/black cyber dimension for KamuiDrome. They add a lot to the game and The Silver Case would be a lesser game without them.
Also the OST by Masafumi Takada is great. He would come more into himself on his later works but the tracks he did for the silver case give the right amount of late 90s atmosphere to them and it works well. I really enjoy the awkward synth on Tokio's apartment track.
Yeah...I dunno. I really like The Silver Case! It's a game that definitely sticks in your mind and it's great to see Suda having such a personality and grit to his work even as early as 1999.
2020
Easy going. This was a nice game to have to just be able to pick up for a few hours and just relax by exploring, cleaning up some ground goop along the way and enjoying the several events and lovey dovey bantering between the two protagonists. Very light feeling game with an appreciated focus on two people in a relationship who are just enjoying themselves.
Whilst that stuff left me feeling positive on the game, I also gotta admit there isn't much else beneath that. The main story is irrelevant, the forced drama between the two at one point is boring, the few other characters you talk to are so 2D and barely in it that it makes the "choice" at the end of the game entirely laughable because the game gives you zero reason for ever thinking about wanting to ever go back to your home planet. Also if you play the game more than my recommended allotted time per day then you start to realise that you're mostly on the same biome for 80% of the game and you're doing the same stuff you were doing at the end of the game that you were at the start.
And it's a tough game to recommend because of all that. I feel like they did enough of a good job on the relationship between the main characters and the world exploration that I could forgive those flaws and come out feeling good but if one of those things don't click then the entire house starts to crumble.
Whilst that stuff left me feeling positive on the game, I also gotta admit there isn't much else beneath that. The main story is irrelevant, the forced drama between the two at one point is boring, the few other characters you talk to are so 2D and barely in it that it makes the "choice" at the end of the game entirely laughable because the game gives you zero reason for ever thinking about wanting to ever go back to your home planet. Also if you play the game more than my recommended allotted time per day then you start to realise that you're mostly on the same biome for 80% of the game and you're doing the same stuff you were doing at the end of the game that you were at the start.
And it's a tough game to recommend because of all that. I feel like they did enough of a good job on the relationship between the main characters and the world exploration that I could forgive those flaws and come out feeling good but if one of those things don't click then the entire house starts to crumble.
A miku picross sounds like a no brainer good game but the lack of options in this thing completely ruins my enjoyment of it, the biggest one being that you can't turn the assists off! If you fill in a spot that isn't correct, wether you got it wrong or you accidentally moved the sticks too far in a direction you didn't want to, "FUCK YOU" says Miku as she stares sadly at you for even thinking that was right, filling in the entire row for you unasked and denying you the no assist tick for the puzzle not because you didn't turn them off but purely because you triggered them.
Now I play Hatusune Miku Logic Paint S in abject fear, making sure to never make one mistake under Hatsune Miku's all seeing eye lest the entire puzzle is ruined. Hatesune Miku doesn't believe in second chances. Tread carefully. It might be your last mistake.
On the plus side though, it has really cute unlockable art!
Now I play Hatusune Miku Logic Paint S in abject fear, making sure to never make one mistake under Hatsune Miku's all seeing eye lest the entire puzzle is ruined. Hatesune Miku doesn't believe in second chances. Tread carefully. It might be your last mistake.
On the plus side though, it has really cute unlockable art!
2014
P.T. is a lot of things. It's a lil' game that used repetition and creepy imagery in a really well done way. It had cryptic puzzles that lead the final solution to be more of a community effort than anything intended for a single player to do. To me, it ended up being the most interesting game I'd played that year despite it also being a teaser for an entirely seperate game, where beating the game was more than just an escape from it's corridors but also the announcement of a BRAND NEW Silent Hill game!
P.T. is also the most influential horror game of the past decade that remain entirely unplayable.
P.T. is also the most influential horror game of the past decade that remain entirely unplayable.