(Reviewing the single player vanilla survival experience in 2023)

There's a certain charm to how difficult and fragile it is to progress when doing survival - you have to be so conservative with your runs and building beds/etc, trying to descend into caves is really fraught, it's so hard to find minerals, stuff is placed in the most awful places (iron on ceilings), combat is so broken and unbalanced, biomes seem to go on forever. Honestly the impression single player vanilla gives me is basically a tech demo with almost zero game design sense. It's interesting to think about the generations of games that built upon or were influenced by this game as a result. Dragon Quest Builders, Death Stranding...

Overall it's a little funny the single player survival mode even exists? Obviously the real draw with this game is the mods, the multiplayer. As a friend put it, the base game is like "rice". It sort of feels like Survival is there because "why not", but it's funny how the combat, movement, resource balance and map sizes feel like a broken (but charming) prototype in a lot of ways.

As a game designer playing this makes you think "this kind of survival sure is an interesting texture, I wonder how it would feel if it was some other way..."

Nevertheless it's still a super memorable game..4 stars it is!

(Written after playing about 10 hours and getting the 'paid your rent!' ending)

Catharsis simulator for anyone who's thought to authority "I hate You, please Suffer". but wasn't able to make them Suffer.

A clever, extensive, well-balanced and open ended RPG set in something of a modern American-but-urban fantasy setting.

a group of people just trying to get by find themselves pulled into a world full of unaccountable power and sad cults.

funny rpg where bosses come back to try and kick your ass out of nowhere

Something great for anyone who liked Persona 4/5, YIIK, Cart Life, Earthbound, those 2000s flash games where you wander towns doing quests, Dragon Quest, Mystery Dungeons, etc.. RPGs.. jokes... chainsaw man...

There's just a lot that's great about this game - so much detail, different events and little situations. And under it all is a fun 4-member RPG where the characters learn new moves to build out their combat role over the game, but enemies scale with you, keeping every encounter feeling engaging. Role-swapping to slightly change a character's playstyle is fun, as is trying out the different accessories. I love the way dying in battle is handled, and how the game finds expression in modifying your base stats.

it's good, man!!! play it!!

Historically interesting in the sense of how Symphony made it more approachable while kind of fumbling/copying design decisions blindly, and how the rhythm to it feels really like Souls's fighting styles and focus on arcade-esque perfection. Of course, Souls added a lot to the mix with exporation/customization but it definitely wouldn't be what it is without borrowing from the way precise enemy placements slowly gate your way through dense levels.

I like Castlevania's creative level variety and enemy varieties! It's neat to see Wall Chicken, hearts and subweapons in a context they really make sense. But, even though this is so well designed for what it is, it just lacks that special something that makes it really shine as exciting to me - it's just thematically dry to me like a lot of games (even today). The design is really straightforward - layers of mastery culminating to a performance of clearing the game without dying.

On a nitpick level there's a level of trying to guess the enemy AI that's required to succeed (e.g. sticking close to phase 2 Dracula to prevent fireballs) and that kind of AI design just isn't my preference... it's also hard to learn later sections without save states. But I think those design decisions made a lot of sense for a time where people would discuss and share strategies, so you don't want the game to be totally self-contained. And to some extent memorizing those little AI quirks is part of the charm of these games.

This game was made by Good-Feel, who helps out on first party Nintendo Titles like Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It's unclear what role they serve but after playing this my guess is they probably contribute contract labor, especially visuals/animation.

This game has the same camera as Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but has a really sprawling type of level design. Occasionally level design feels a bit 'denser' and reminiscent of something like a Super Mario 3D Land / Super Mario 3D World, but a lot of times it's just a visually stunning setting (a cruise ship roof, a beach, etc) with a lot of little visual candy - sandcastles with nooks, watermelon enemies, small caves.

Enemies are strewn throughout the levels, although they're usually dancing or walking around in circles... you're quite powerful, and gain extremely powerful upgrades to mow down the enemies. Getting hurt is usually from something coming off screen or being unable to see things properly. There is a dodge roll and parry.

The effect is it feels like we're slaughtering a bunch of monsters having festivals. In fact the goal of each level is to shatter 3 festival lanterns in order to 'repel the evil celebration!' But the power divide between you and these joyful enemies (imagine mowing down people dancing on stage or in a parade) creates a strange effect.

The levels have collectibles which tell you fun facts. These range from bad jokes to legitimately interesting facts - did you know Japan has underwater mailboxes?

I also like how the levels are organized so that there's one for each prefecture in Japan. Have Americans made a 3D platformer for every state yet? Let me in on that...

So is it good? It depends on what you're looking for. This doesn't feel challenging in the way older 2.5D platformers like Goemon did. At the same time there's a shocking amount of polish and visual stuff put into this game, and it feels a bit at odds with how simplistic and repetitive the design elements are. I feel like there's a weird story behind this game's development under the surface, but we may never know..

i got this on here nice... this is my first big game i made. it's a flash platformer... go play it hAHA https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595009 .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65KrnulRsgg

mechnically actually i still think it's cute. it's a simple stage-based platformer where you have to collect notes and reach the goal, but you also have this like... timed anxiety meter where you need to grab pills to reduce it, or you die if it fills. kind of bizarrely stressful but eh it's very playable!

if you can get all the notes and clear the stage fast enough you get medals.... please get my medals.

I feel like the puzzles are hampered by having to view things in 3rd/1st person. It's hard to keep and get a sense of all the information in the puzzle, I feel like I spend a lot of time just figuring out the layout and what I even have to work with.

There's a 3D Zelda-y feel to the busywork of rearranging objects, in the way this game engages with 3D space - sort of like a '2D sense of seeing everything' projected into 3D.

I feel like a big reason most puzzle games end up being 2D is that there's an immediacy to the puzzles - it's easier to take in all the information. Puzzles can work in 3D, but I think if they are phrased in a different language, e.g., a platformer with organic environments that require puzzly navigation (Jusant, Sephonie, presumably the upcoming Baby Steps, some Shadow of the Colossus bosses)

On the narrative side.. I'm interested in the SF story and the mysteries, and the android setting is neat, but the amount of puzzle work required to see it feels too high.

THAT BEING SAID, if you enjoy these kinds of 3D puzzles I think this would be a great game. The puzzle variety, solutions and mechanics are all fun on paper - I'm just not that big into all the work that goes into solving them in 3d space

Loved the cooking mechanics here - they actually felt like the process of learning a new recipe. And the integration with the story and the way cooking intersects with life and memories was great too. The story was pretty heavily tragic and it was interesting how it balances that with the lighter aspects of life!

While it doesn't go into detail, I guess for time's sake and the overall tone of the game, it speaks a lot to the waves of immigration from one country to the 'friendly first world white countries'. While this is a specific family's story, the general sense of helplessness the family feels as their kid negotiates multiple cultures feels very 21st/20th century to me - having your original identity ripped away from you as you're forced to adapt into Canadian/American society. I feel like it's a very 21st century condition to be feeling alienated from some sense of cultural roots due to how easy travel is nowadays.

What then is there to do? I liked how Venba's story ends - the mom moves back home, and the child reconnects with his mom. It's not framed as the solution but it feels right for Venba who was very isolated in Canada.