A side-scrolling action-RPG consisting of almost nothing but fetch quests. The gameplay loop of trekking into dungeons and collecting items to unlock town upgrades is mindless fun for a couple hours, but wore out its welcome for me before I even unlocked the third playable character; a more involved combat system might have helped, but I'm not sure it'd make up for the repetition of going through the same areas over and over again, even if new parts of those levels do gradually open up. the 3D environments look nice, at least

a major disappointment, after having seen and heard so much praise from many of the game critics I follow. the environmental storytelling might be great, but the photography game/walking simulator built around that storytelling requires putting up with a frankly unacceptable level of jank: basic movement and jumping are painfully clunky; there are major collision detection issues that led to me frequently falling through stairs, being catapulted into the air, or getting stuck on edges; and some of the objectives are particularly tedious and obscure (I could not for the life of me get the "10 solar panels with the telephoto lens" objective on the second level to register as having been completed, which was the straw that broke the camel's back here).

I have no doubt that this game is doing some very interesting and admirable things with its world-building and politics, but frankly, I'd much rather read an essay, watch a YouTube video, or listen to a podcast about those than attempt to actually play this again.

I didn't think I would find a game consisting almost entirely of menus, text, and a single 3D model of a space station to be this compelling. It does threaten to overstay its welcome a bit towards the end (once you have enough upgrades and have completed certain quests that take the major antagonists out of the picture, the tension in staying alive and getting through each day is largely gone and it sometimes feels like you're just killing time to advance the quest meters), but the wonderfully textured writing and world-building still made me want to help everyone I could survive the crushing weight of far-future capitalism.

One of the dullest and most tedious attempts at the Telltale/Life is Strange/etc. style of cinematic narrative game I've ever played. A fair bit of technical/budgetary jank (subpar optimization, uneven voice acting, animation issues), but most importantly, it's just really goddamn boring; a couple hours in, a compelling hook for the story has yet to emerge, and nearly every scene drags on significantly longer than it should, especially in the many stretches without any player input.

By some accounts, the story does pick up further in, but if HowLongToBeat et al. are to be believed, I'm less than a quarter of the way through at a bit over the two-hour mark, and I have better things to do with my gaming time than slog through this hoping it actually becomes engaging at some point.

And no idea what this has to do with the classic Hitchcock movie (one of his best, I just rewatched it recently) aside from the main character's vertigo being a plot point, but honestly, that's the least of this game's problems.

an absolutely beautiful Zelda-meets-Fez isometric adventure that wonderfully evokes the spirit (if not the actual letter) of what I imagine the experience of playing old-school games without a walkthrough handy on the Internet must have been back in the day. I don't think it's perfect by any means - I do wish that the developer hadn't gone for Soulslike combat (even with the accessibility settings that remove any challenge from combat, it's still annoying) and that there had been more non-meta environmental puzzles; there's also no denying that it can be too cryptic for its own good, and the central late-game puzzle mechanic isn't really to my taste and led me not to bother getting the true ending. But what it does well - the feeling of exploring that beautiful world with its amazing art direction, searching for hidden secrets in nooks and crannies, looking for clues in the manual - is too good for me not to recommend it.

A 3D puzzle-platformer with a time-shifting mechanic and minimalistic storytelling is a pretty good idea, but unfortunately, I think the devs bit off more than they could chew here (their previous game was a free first-person puzzler called Frame of Mind, which seems to have gotten a generally warmer reception). Platformer basics like the feeling of general movement, camera, and pushing blocks around are just horribly janky here, on top of a lack of feedback for puzzle-solving elements (you'll frequently flip a switch and have no idea what exactly it did); it all just feels more like a free student-made game made in a few months than a commercially released product, even one that's currently $5 at full price, and which I think I bought on sale for less than a buck. Enjoyed some of the platforming and puzzle-solving for a bit, but ultimately it's just too unpolished on a basic mechanical level for me to recommend.

Nice little modern-fantasy narrative game about a girl dealing with a variety of tween crises (first crush, her former best friend turning on her, grandmother's death, parents separated, etc.) with the aid of a magical flower. Has a few tropes you might recognize from other tearjerker games of this sort, but still a charming, touching, and short play.

A bit surprised to see the preponderance of Western names in the credits, given the very Japanese art direction and setting (apparently, the studio was founded by Western expats in Tokyo). Also odd to see the game give you a bunch of obviously "good" and "evil" choices throughout the story (i.e. should I choose to "heal" the girl who's been mean to me, or "poison her heart?" Hm, I wonder), since the latter don't really square with the narrative's overall tone or how the protagonist is written outside those moments; still, I'll have to look up how choosing to play as a psychopath impacts the ending.