Nowhere
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Balan Wonderworld
2021
If there was one typically maligned game that I had expected to get more out of than the average person, it would’ve been this one, after all, it’s a colourful 3D platformer with a lot of weird ideas thrown into the mix. The amount of discussion surrounding such games to make them purely out as these punching bags to point and laugh at in bad faith is a tiresome thing to witness time and time again and my hatred for such a mindset is ultimately one of the many reasons why I strive to approach art with optimism. Unfortunately, while I definitely think I have a bit more appreciation for this than I often see, there’s a bit too much about Balan Wonderworld that is downright baffling to me, which when combined with how utterly milquetoast other elements of the game are, makes for a very stilted experience that never fully achieves the grander heights that it’s going for.
I think that the one button control scheme that the game goes for is one of the biggest missed opportunities here, as a lot of the groundwork for something really cool is in place, but the level design simply isn’t strong enough to accommodate for the weird ideas in play. There are over 60 costumes in the game, and due to the simplistic controls, each of these will only have one function, with an occasional 2nd one that will be activated in a less conventional way, and unfortunately, jumping counts as a function, so in this platformer game, you’ll be in situations at times where you’re unable to jump. This isn’t as inherently bad as it may seem, but the level design doesn’t seem to be thoughtfully designed around the potential limitations that the player will face. Another aspect that doesn’t help is that even though there are so many costumes with a lot of different effects, a solid chunk of these exist to interact in a very lock and key way with the environment, having only one specific use that’s blatantly stated, with no way of utilising it in any other ways. This results in a lot of costumes feeling extremely underwhelming to unlock, as you know that the only thing it’ll be good for is to open the paths in specifically designated areas, making it feel functionally worthless and boring in any other scenario.
Adding to the frustration is that getting hit a single time will make you entirely lose the costume you’re wearing, forcing you to go and recollect it if you want to use it again. This doesn’t really do anything beyond add a layer of tedium to it all, since it’s not like it even returns to an inventory or anything, it’s just gone. This feeds back into the frustration with not being able to consistently jump, depending on your costume loadout, since taking a hit can straight up leave you in a situation where you need to backtrack and grab another costume since you can’t progress otherwise. Despite my issues however, there’s definitely something here with the idea in its current form, it’s offbeat for sure, but not a totally lost cause either. Rather than crafting each stage to feel like the most barebones, basic 3D platformer stuff out there, the game would work a whole lot better if there were a bunch of different, branching paths within the stages that took advantage of specific abilities, or at least multiple ways to reach the same location so as to not completely lock you out of progression by getting hit once and still contribute to a sense of exploration, as a collectathon should feature in some capacity. This would lead to a more varied set of obstacles to tackle and would also be a great way of more deftly incorporating some hidden collectibles, having multiple ways to approach a situation, with each of them rewarding you for doing so.
This would also tie into the boss fights of the game much more smoothly to create a more cohesive experience on the whole, due to how they function and reward the player. While these fights are very simple for the most part, they’re also conceptually my favourite element of the game for how they’re able to work both as something very easy and approachable for the kids that are going to play the game, while still requiring a bit of thought for those who want to collect everything. Each boss has 3 different opportunities to hit it in its attack patterns, often requiring different costumes to hit its weak points, and for each way you utilise in the battle, you’re awarded one additional Balan statue, the collectible of the game. This shifts each encounter into a bit of a puzzle, since some of the methods of hurting the boss are pretty tricky to work out, and it adds a lot of nuance and intrigue to what usually are the blandest, or at least most simplistic elements of a platformer in this vein.
Despite the stages also not utilising it super well in a lot of cases, I also quite like the game’s artstyle, it’s very colourful and cute and absolutely shines in the boss fights especially, along with the character designs of Balan and Lance, further making me wish that a lot of other elements of the game were more fleshed out and vibrant. The one exception to my distaste over the fact that everything looks very “gamey” in the stages, for lack of a better term, is that it contributes to a certain vibe whenever you have the snow fairy costume that lets you completely break levels and skip large chunks of them, evoking a very similar feeling of exploring the boundaries of a game in the way that a lot of my favourite platformers hone in on. Hiding more stuff like this in especially out of reach and unconventional locations is another way that I think I’d have enjoyed the game more, it’s a very specific brand of weirdness that appeals to me greatly, and this game has all the tools to be able to accomplish such things with a few tweaks.
The one element of this game that I cannot really defend or appreciate in any major capacity is the Balan Bout however, these things SUCK in a way that very few game mechanics ever have to me. Having to do a QTE whenever you grab one of the Balan hats is tedious beyond belief, with a lot of the sequences that play out being over 2 minutes long and just, repeating sequences you’ve seen many times before, without any way to speed up or skip at all. The fact that you need to do these perfectly in order to get the Balan statue from them is a pain and a half as well, especially with certain telegraphs feeling borderline impossible to hit, and the fact that if you don’t get a perfect, the hat disappears and makes you beat the boss of the world if you want to respawn it, making each attempt at it an ordeal to get to. These made me genuinely mad and never stopped completely baffling me each time I had to think about them.
Overall, I liked Balan Wonderworld a bit less than I was hoping, the stages were dull and felt almost entirely lacking in progression, making the game feel stagnant, the weird mechanics were kinda just thrown into an otherwise extremely standard game, and the Balan Bouts are atrocious. With that said, I think the thing that disappoints me most is that there are elements of intrigue to be found here with how off kilter so many ideas truly are, even within the bits that I don’t really like in their current state. I love when a game is packed to the brim with idiosyncrasies, it just so happens that in this case, those idiosyncrasies do not gel well with the exceptionally standard foundation that the game is built around, it tries to feel dreamlike, but just ends up being either frustrating or pedestrian.
I think that the one button control scheme that the game goes for is one of the biggest missed opportunities here, as a lot of the groundwork for something really cool is in place, but the level design simply isn’t strong enough to accommodate for the weird ideas in play. There are over 60 costumes in the game, and due to the simplistic controls, each of these will only have one function, with an occasional 2nd one that will be activated in a less conventional way, and unfortunately, jumping counts as a function, so in this platformer game, you’ll be in situations at times where you’re unable to jump. This isn’t as inherently bad as it may seem, but the level design doesn’t seem to be thoughtfully designed around the potential limitations that the player will face. Another aspect that doesn’t help is that even though there are so many costumes with a lot of different effects, a solid chunk of these exist to interact in a very lock and key way with the environment, having only one specific use that’s blatantly stated, with no way of utilising it in any other ways. This results in a lot of costumes feeling extremely underwhelming to unlock, as you know that the only thing it’ll be good for is to open the paths in specifically designated areas, making it feel functionally worthless and boring in any other scenario.
Adding to the frustration is that getting hit a single time will make you entirely lose the costume you’re wearing, forcing you to go and recollect it if you want to use it again. This doesn’t really do anything beyond add a layer of tedium to it all, since it’s not like it even returns to an inventory or anything, it’s just gone. This feeds back into the frustration with not being able to consistently jump, depending on your costume loadout, since taking a hit can straight up leave you in a situation where you need to backtrack and grab another costume since you can’t progress otherwise. Despite my issues however, there’s definitely something here with the idea in its current form, it’s offbeat for sure, but not a totally lost cause either. Rather than crafting each stage to feel like the most barebones, basic 3D platformer stuff out there, the game would work a whole lot better if there were a bunch of different, branching paths within the stages that took advantage of specific abilities, or at least multiple ways to reach the same location so as to not completely lock you out of progression by getting hit once and still contribute to a sense of exploration, as a collectathon should feature in some capacity. This would lead to a more varied set of obstacles to tackle and would also be a great way of more deftly incorporating some hidden collectibles, having multiple ways to approach a situation, with each of them rewarding you for doing so.
This would also tie into the boss fights of the game much more smoothly to create a more cohesive experience on the whole, due to how they function and reward the player. While these fights are very simple for the most part, they’re also conceptually my favourite element of the game for how they’re able to work both as something very easy and approachable for the kids that are going to play the game, while still requiring a bit of thought for those who want to collect everything. Each boss has 3 different opportunities to hit it in its attack patterns, often requiring different costumes to hit its weak points, and for each way you utilise in the battle, you’re awarded one additional Balan statue, the collectible of the game. This shifts each encounter into a bit of a puzzle, since some of the methods of hurting the boss are pretty tricky to work out, and it adds a lot of nuance and intrigue to what usually are the blandest, or at least most simplistic elements of a platformer in this vein.
Despite the stages also not utilising it super well in a lot of cases, I also quite like the game’s artstyle, it’s very colourful and cute and absolutely shines in the boss fights especially, along with the character designs of Balan and Lance, further making me wish that a lot of other elements of the game were more fleshed out and vibrant. The one exception to my distaste over the fact that everything looks very “gamey” in the stages, for lack of a better term, is that it contributes to a certain vibe whenever you have the snow fairy costume that lets you completely break levels and skip large chunks of them, evoking a very similar feeling of exploring the boundaries of a game in the way that a lot of my favourite platformers hone in on. Hiding more stuff like this in especially out of reach and unconventional locations is another way that I think I’d have enjoyed the game more, it’s a very specific brand of weirdness that appeals to me greatly, and this game has all the tools to be able to accomplish such things with a few tweaks.
The one element of this game that I cannot really defend or appreciate in any major capacity is the Balan Bout however, these things SUCK in a way that very few game mechanics ever have to me. Having to do a QTE whenever you grab one of the Balan hats is tedious beyond belief, with a lot of the sequences that play out being over 2 minutes long and just, repeating sequences you’ve seen many times before, without any way to speed up or skip at all. The fact that you need to do these perfectly in order to get the Balan statue from them is a pain and a half as well, especially with certain telegraphs feeling borderline impossible to hit, and the fact that if you don’t get a perfect, the hat disappears and makes you beat the boss of the world if you want to respawn it, making each attempt at it an ordeal to get to. These made me genuinely mad and never stopped completely baffling me each time I had to think about them.
Overall, I liked Balan Wonderworld a bit less than I was hoping, the stages were dull and felt almost entirely lacking in progression, making the game feel stagnant, the weird mechanics were kinda just thrown into an otherwise extremely standard game, and the Balan Bouts are atrocious. With that said, I think the thing that disappoints me most is that there are elements of intrigue to be found here with how off kilter so many ideas truly are, even within the bits that I don’t really like in their current state. I love when a game is packed to the brim with idiosyncrasies, it just so happens that in this case, those idiosyncrasies do not gel well with the exceptionally standard foundation that the game is built around, it tries to feel dreamlike, but just ends up being either frustrating or pedestrian.
Fallout 2
1998
the tribal stuff is awful and the sense of humour stinks like greasy 90s posturing and rank self-congratulation. bombards you with unbearably unfunny pop culture references, plays sexual assault for laughs, and couches all its insipid beerbong edgelord shit in THATS THE WASTELAND BRO because it has no conviction or insight whatsoever that wasn't set up in advance by cain and boyarsky
avellone + friends' worst work by miles and miles. the only thing I like here is My Chrysalis Highwayman which mark morgan probably plagiarized like (allegedly) half the music. everything bad bethesda did to the series' integrity (and worse) started here. this is ground zero and the common (delusional) notion that FO3 was a bolt from the blue tells me the classic fanbase doesn't know shit. Bro??? it's all right here. it's been here since 1998, inside this gross, smelly software that you (allegedly) played. imagine clutching your pearls about a fridge ghoul when FO2 canonized talking deathclaws and tom cruise — even pete hines unwittingly had you boneheads pegged. who the fuck cares about the world building in the knowyourmeme ass family guy rpg?
"this is worse than the time I got beaten at chess by a freaking radscorpion"
lower gen x into the ground already
avellone + friends' worst work by miles and miles. the only thing I like here is My Chrysalis Highwayman which mark morgan probably plagiarized like (allegedly) half the music. everything bad bethesda did to the series' integrity (and worse) started here. this is ground zero and the common (delusional) notion that FO3 was a bolt from the blue tells me the classic fanbase doesn't know shit. Bro??? it's all right here. it's been here since 1998, inside this gross, smelly software that you (allegedly) played. imagine clutching your pearls about a fridge ghoul when FO2 canonized talking deathclaws and tom cruise — even pete hines unwittingly had you boneheads pegged. who the fuck cares about the world building in the knowyourmeme ass family guy rpg?
"this is worse than the time I got beaten at chess by a freaking radscorpion"
lower gen x into the ground already
Going Down
2014
Genuinely the most creative set of fps levels I've got to experience <3
The full characteristics of cyriak videos + old-doom level design philosophy congealed into a rocking-rollercoaster of an Office Experience. Smile on my face from start to finish, from just, incredible use of space and wonderful level gimmicks. Big shoutout to the one messing with past/future, titanfall 2 could never /s /s
If anything, my only 'real' issue is that there's a lot of jumps in terms of difficulty (although a lot of the later breathing room makes sense,, some of these maps hold nothing back), as it does always make me giggle when the Hardest challenge was Well Before the halfway point for me. Then again I do feel like just experiencing this pack front-to-back helped me buff out a lot of my amateur-ness with running these maps. I feel more equipped than ever to tackle stuff like Sunlust again.
If you have even the remote interest in trying out a Doom WAD, I think this is the best place to start, just so you can experience the true 9-5 workerman perspective.
The full characteristics of cyriak videos + old-doom level design philosophy congealed into a rocking-rollercoaster of an Office Experience. Smile on my face from start to finish, from just, incredible use of space and wonderful level gimmicks. Big shoutout to the one messing with past/future, titanfall 2 could never /s /s
If anything, my only 'real' issue is that there's a lot of jumps in terms of difficulty (although a lot of the later breathing room makes sense,, some of these maps hold nothing back), as it does always make me giggle when the Hardest challenge was Well Before the halfway point for me. Then again I do feel like just experiencing this pack front-to-back helped me buff out a lot of my amateur-ness with running these maps. I feel more equipped than ever to tackle stuff like Sunlust again.
If you have even the remote interest in trying out a Doom WAD, I think this is the best place to start, just so you can experience the true 9-5 workerman perspective.
Balatro
2024
Indie GOTY 2024 Nominee
"Insanely addictive." -GameSpot
"Finally, my two favorite pastimes, roguelites and poker, reunited in one revolutionary hybrid." -IGN
"Thank god this doesn't cost me any real money, my wife said she'd leave me over what happened in Vegas. Oh shoot, it's 3AM..." -GiantBomb
"As a Zynga Poker fan, this is what I wished they would've done 10 years ago; excellent timewaster." -RockPaperShotgun
"Update: My wife left me, but I just got this sick tarot card." -GiantBomb
Music highlight: Tarot, Spell of Iron, "Things That Crawl At Night", 1986. (unrelated)
"Insanely addictive." -GameSpot
"Finally, my two favorite pastimes, roguelites and poker, reunited in one revolutionary hybrid." -IGN
"Thank god this doesn't cost me any real money, my wife said she'd leave me over what happened in Vegas. Oh shoot, it's 3AM..." -GiantBomb
"As a Zynga Poker fan, this is what I wished they would've done 10 years ago; excellent timewaster." -RockPaperShotgun
"Update: My wife left me, but I just got this sick tarot card." -GiantBomb
Music highlight: Tarot, Spell of Iron, "Things That Crawl At Night", 1986. (unrelated)
I played the console EVO game something like half my life ago and thought it was super average with some really interesting concepts, but was sad I didn't live in a reality where it shaped up to something more. Little did I know I was already living in a reality where The 4.6 Billion Year Story existed and I'm immensely blown away by it. Like genuinely, this might just be a top 10 RPG ever for me, and easily my favourite game on the PC98.
The in-game graphics aren't quite up to par with the wonderful mode 7 visuals of the SNES game, with fairly standard visuals for the system (likely to save on space) but the portraits and cutscenes very much make up for it 1000 fold. The depiction of the dinosaurs dying is unlike anything I've ever seen in media and it truly made me feel bad for the most predictable "plot twist" ever. I'm always amazed when PC98 artists manage to make screens that look like they came straight out of an old ass OVA.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1156847687476457492/1208832081619329124/image.png?ex=65e4b79b&is=65d2429b&hm=0ad2863e98a196b94910ec2b07733f44e02d92fc44099ddc35e2fb690628212a&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1177&height=662
In fact, the designs are just stellar all around. The portraits are colourful and feel like they had such an attention to anatomy, I wouldn't have figured some of them were original to the game if it wasn't pointed out in the in-game encyclopedia. And what a hilarious message indeed!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1208832199520952320/image.png?ex=65e4b7b7&is=65d242b7&hm=d4f6524b44cba88173918ca5be7ba85ec5ef59c719ecd005e49fd33144a1aee7&
There are 3 things that really set this game apart from Search For Eden. The first is that the encyclopedia teaches the player a lot about all sorts of different animals like dinosaurs every time they evolve. The second is that the timeline goes quite a ways beyond what is in the SNES game, with the human character actually feeling like a big deal instead of the weakest evolution in the game.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1209017264993599518/image.png?ex=65e56412&is=65d2ef12&hm=2838d37a715ce3ffc996eeeb9bf90db489aeebbaf74848b5e82570c76a5f29b3&
And the last thing, most importantly, is the religious and political elements. The epic wars are great, but the Biblical symbolism and use of Lady Lucifer as a villain truly elevate the experience. She is seriously one of the most fun villains I've ever experienced in a video game which is saying something. Even without any voice clips, her evil laugh haunts me.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1209002061601972304/10.png?ex=65e555e9&is=65d2e0e9&hm=82d991915c968d9691977d345525d735b5e7a06fdb5dad88204eac2b6ba4d4b7&
The story is just incredible. The joke endings are probably the one area where the console game wins, but seriously the story in 4.6 Billion Year Story is one of the best I've ever experienced overall. I was really flabbergasted watching all my frens die; there were no punches held whatsoever and it truly did a great job highlighting how vicious the life cycle was IRL for the animals of the past. The epilogue legit had me crying with how inspirational it was. Really insane how far the timeline went given it started with a fish running away from other fish.
As for the gameplay? I actually enjoyed it a lot! Though I will add the caveat that I played it with speedup via the NP2Kai core in Retroarch, complete with Joy2Key to force controller support.
4.6 Billion Year Story is a nice early example of a game with no random encounters thanks to everything being on the map, predating even the likes of Chrono Trigger by years. Escaping battles was reliable too! I loved grinding for EXP by just holding the speedup key and running back and forth until i triggered dozens of evolution events. It was strangely calming tbh? I also dig the lack of MP system and the fact there are no boss fights until the end; the latter especially reminded me of Wizardry. Unlike the console game, each evolution is just a flat upgrade. Literally the biggest thing I could complain about with this game is maybe that the combat itself is super average and I wish there were more overworld interactions depending on the player's evolution, but the final battle with its status ailment tug-o-war makes up for all that imo. After all, status ailments are rarely helpful in JRPGs so that really struck me as a memorable finale. It was also nice not having to worry about items or anything since the player could just stand still or find health replenishment spots where ever in the world maps.
Oh, and the OST is great. A lot of the music is shared in common with Search For Eden, but I just prefer how it sounds here. Not to mention how killer the final boss' death cry is.
I highly rec this game to any fans of classic JRPGs, Japanese PC games, or the console equivalent EVO game. Simply a masterpiece, all in all.
The in-game graphics aren't quite up to par with the wonderful mode 7 visuals of the SNES game, with fairly standard visuals for the system (likely to save on space) but the portraits and cutscenes very much make up for it 1000 fold. The depiction of the dinosaurs dying is unlike anything I've ever seen in media and it truly made me feel bad for the most predictable "plot twist" ever. I'm always amazed when PC98 artists manage to make screens that look like they came straight out of an old ass OVA.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1156847687476457492/1208832081619329124/image.png?ex=65e4b79b&is=65d2429b&hm=0ad2863e98a196b94910ec2b07733f44e02d92fc44099ddc35e2fb690628212a&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1177&height=662
In fact, the designs are just stellar all around. The portraits are colourful and feel like they had such an attention to anatomy, I wouldn't have figured some of them were original to the game if it wasn't pointed out in the in-game encyclopedia. And what a hilarious message indeed!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1208832199520952320/image.png?ex=65e4b7b7&is=65d242b7&hm=d4f6524b44cba88173918ca5be7ba85ec5ef59c719ecd005e49fd33144a1aee7&
There are 3 things that really set this game apart from Search For Eden. The first is that the encyclopedia teaches the player a lot about all sorts of different animals like dinosaurs every time they evolve. The second is that the timeline goes quite a ways beyond what is in the SNES game, with the human character actually feeling like a big deal instead of the weakest evolution in the game.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1209017264993599518/image.png?ex=65e56412&is=65d2ef12&hm=2838d37a715ce3ffc996eeeb9bf90db489aeebbaf74848b5e82570c76a5f29b3&
And the last thing, most importantly, is the religious and political elements. The epic wars are great, but the Biblical symbolism and use of Lady Lucifer as a villain truly elevate the experience. She is seriously one of the most fun villains I've ever experienced in a video game which is saying something. Even without any voice clips, her evil laugh haunts me.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1209002061601972304/10.png?ex=65e555e9&is=65d2e0e9&hm=82d991915c968d9691977d345525d735b5e7a06fdb5dad88204eac2b6ba4d4b7&
The story is just incredible. The joke endings are probably the one area where the console game wins, but seriously the story in 4.6 Billion Year Story is one of the best I've ever experienced overall. I was really flabbergasted watching all my frens die; there were no punches held whatsoever and it truly did a great job highlighting how vicious the life cycle was IRL for the animals of the past. The epilogue legit had me crying with how inspirational it was. Really insane how far the timeline went given it started with a fish running away from other fish.
As for the gameplay? I actually enjoyed it a lot! Though I will add the caveat that I played it with speedup via the NP2Kai core in Retroarch, complete with Joy2Key to force controller support.
4.6 Billion Year Story is a nice early example of a game with no random encounters thanks to everything being on the map, predating even the likes of Chrono Trigger by years. Escaping battles was reliable too! I loved grinding for EXP by just holding the speedup key and running back and forth until i triggered dozens of evolution events. It was strangely calming tbh? I also dig the lack of MP system and the fact there are no boss fights until the end; the latter especially reminded me of Wizardry. Unlike the console game, each evolution is just a flat upgrade. Literally the biggest thing I could complain about with this game is maybe that the combat itself is super average and I wish there were more overworld interactions depending on the player's evolution, but the final battle with its status ailment tug-o-war makes up for all that imo. After all, status ailments are rarely helpful in JRPGs so that really struck me as a memorable finale. It was also nice not having to worry about items or anything since the player could just stand still or find health replenishment spots where ever in the world maps.
Oh, and the OST is great. A lot of the music is shared in common with Search For Eden, but I just prefer how it sounds here. Not to mention how killer the final boss' death cry is.
I highly rec this game to any fans of classic JRPGs, Japanese PC games, or the console equivalent EVO game. Simply a masterpiece, all in all.
Muchi Muchi Pork!
2007
Pierce Brosnan's favorite game
Marking as shelved as I plan to pick up Another Code R's remake later.
Christ, whoever said this was a faithful remake I think is lying to you. They've changed so much. I'm a diehard fan of this series and especially the original game and I feel like this is a major letdown compared to what I think of the original. I feel the original was a perfectly fine game and I'm confused as to why so many things are different. Ashley seems like a very different person, missing the attitude and strong emotions she had in the original game (which made sense for her age). Some character's stories are so different (I can't get into who without spoiling, but the villain) that I feel like it just messes stuff up. The pacing felt really strange, it either felt like it was moving at super speed or extremely slow and events from the original game were shifted around. It's not that big of a deal, but ended up bothering me.
Major issue of mine is the fact I felt like I couldn't connect to any of these characters in the same way I did for the original, which I think is one of the major things that makes CiNG works so good, and what made this a huge letdown. I feel like you're going to be inevitably missing stuff from the story with this having a shift from 2d to 3d- its sense of scale is much larger and I found myself not at all invested in the story of the Edwards, which is something I very much enjoyed in the original. I did look and notice that they got new scriptwriters for these remakes, which might explain some of my dissatisfaction... but why change up the script of a perfectly fine game and not just focus on adapting it straight to 3D, no need to remake a soundtrack you can find high quality versions of elsewhere (speaking in Another Code R's case), and especially no need to change the script.
I do like the art direction and music here, they're both good. This just isn't my Ashley and sure isn't the Another Code I remember. This is definitely Another Code for a newer generation, but it won't live up to the originals. I can't confidently reccomend this to anyone who actually cares a lot about the original games.
Christ, whoever said this was a faithful remake I think is lying to you. They've changed so much. I'm a diehard fan of this series and especially the original game and I feel like this is a major letdown compared to what I think of the original. I feel the original was a perfectly fine game and I'm confused as to why so many things are different. Ashley seems like a very different person, missing the attitude and strong emotions she had in the original game (which made sense for her age). Some character's stories are so different (I can't get into who without spoiling, but the villain) that I feel like it just messes stuff up. The pacing felt really strange, it either felt like it was moving at super speed or extremely slow and events from the original game were shifted around. It's not that big of a deal, but ended up bothering me.
Major issue of mine is the fact I felt like I couldn't connect to any of these characters in the same way I did for the original, which I think is one of the major things that makes CiNG works so good, and what made this a huge letdown. I feel like you're going to be inevitably missing stuff from the story with this having a shift from 2d to 3d- its sense of scale is much larger and I found myself not at all invested in the story of the Edwards, which is something I very much enjoyed in the original. I did look and notice that they got new scriptwriters for these remakes, which might explain some of my dissatisfaction... but why change up the script of a perfectly fine game and not just focus on adapting it straight to 3D, no need to remake a soundtrack you can find high quality versions of elsewhere (speaking in Another Code R's case), and especially no need to change the script.
I do like the art direction and music here, they're both good. This just isn't my Ashley and sure isn't the Another Code I remember. This is definitely Another Code for a newer generation, but it won't live up to the originals. I can't confidently reccomend this to anyone who actually cares a lot about the original games.
I generally do not play hacks or fangames, but I made an exception for this. Really the only thing that holds this back from being as good as Zero Mission for me is a few aesthetic things like the higher-level Metroids being a bit too detailed compared to other assets. This is leagues better than the official Return of Samus on 3DS, which I have a pretty strong dislike for. I can't stand how much that game really wants to make Samus a flashy badass action game hero as opposed to the the traditional, more subdued style of previous Metroid games.
Persona 3 Reload
2024
Never played but obligated to give it a 10/10 because of how much enjoyment I get from joining a new MegaTen server, making a joke about how Persona 3 was the first Persona game, turning notifications on my phone, and then shoving it up my ass
Deus Ex
2000
a triumph for scenario design aficionados. hour after hour of slices of the real world perfectly aligned into a playground of roving militants and hapless civilians. rarely does a game ever make its missions feel properly explorable while keeping it taut and linear at the same time, and yet deus ex routinely weaves both together. for every point A to point B underground lair with traps laid out in sequence there is a completely open venue, such as the suffocating catacombs and their dimly lit hallways giving way to the Champs-Élysées avenue of paris, with a bakery to pilfer contraband drugs from, a hostel with full bar access, and an arms dealer's loaded apartment, all off the beaten path from your main objective. military bases and science labs retain the layout you'd expect had you ever toured one, and you'll find that locker rooms, rows of cubicles, and break rooms feature just as prominently in the dungeon crawling as warehouses with guards patrolling or tightly wound mazes of laser tripwires and turrets. the authenticity and legibility of these areas comes first, and yet more often than not the designers still manage to weave in appropriate challenges without violating each location's fidelity in the process.
and really, dungeon crawling is the name of the game here, more or less. at least half of the game takes place in some sort of complex with a destination and a set of non-linear gates along the way, all of which serve as hinge points for the player to choose which resources to expend. the "immsim" label comes from just how many resources have all gotten slammed together in your control: lockpicks and "multitools" for bypassing security, ammo for many different varieties of firearms, bio-energy for utilizing your augmented abilities, and a slew of consumable items meant for tanking bullets, running past enemies undetected, or breathing under water for long periods of time. at its most taut, the game generally puts some sort of barrier up in your way and then a way around it, with the direct option being something like combat or picking a lock and the indirect option being finding a vent or waterway to circumvent the barrier. with enough of these situations back to back, the game hopes that you'll avoid sticking to one gameplay style in order to preserve your resources in that area for later when they seem more necessary; you can't crack every door with lockpicks, so you'll probably have to get your hands dirty or crawl on your belly here and there if you want to keep your picks for when the alternative is, say, running through a irradiated area. the nice part of this is that it truly does work: I explored, snuck around, and fought off enemies all in equal measure throughout the game through entirely organic response to each of the situations. the downside is by endgame the resource economy has completely turned in your favor assuming you've been rotating all of your options, making decisions on resource expenditure past a certain point much more about cleaning out your inventory rather than rationing.
when the game is firing on all cylinders, you'll get something like bunker III from the aforementioned catacombs. the area is two large rooms with a camera and turret tracking you at the back of the first room right in front of a cell full of hostages, multiple floors connected by stairs with archways for cover in the second room, and a back hallway swarming with rocket-strapped operatives where the camera/turret controls and a key to the next reside; a waterway additionally connects the front of the first room with the back of the second room. here you have actual tradeoffs to deal with: just grabbing the key and skipping the whole area by going through the waterway, but the coverage in the back hallway can be intense depending on the AI's behavior, and your direct path to the key is blocked by strategically placed crates as soon as you leave the waterway. gunning for the security controls instead is feasible, and you can leverage the fact that hacking computers (sometimes?) pauses enemies for a bit to quickly run out, disable everything, and hop back in the waterway. you could also sneak in from the front and use an augmentation that hides you from cameras to avoid triggering the turret, and if you rescue the hostages with lockpicks instead of locating the cell key and leave the area early, you'll get the next area's key from their camp leader anyway. when the game constructs situations like these, they not only make the discrete tradeoffs impactful on the flow of a given level, they also weave it into the actual second-to-second movement, stealth, and combat as well.
at its worst it's the opposite: individual rooms with a guard or two and maybe a computer system or locked door stitched together by long hallways that inoculate each scenario from one another. in these sections the main appeal is exploration, either through finding nooks and crannies hidden from view or by reading the many "data cubes" with flavor text strewn around. it can still be exciting, especially earlier on when you don't have tools to detect enemies through walls and the suspense of moving around still persists. later in the game when one has more abilities at their disposal, breaking apart puzzles or barriers by jumping over them with enhanced height, moving large crates to use as stairs with enhanced strength, or shooting down doors with a mastered rifle ability can potentially make the monotony less apparent. some of the barriers don't fare quite as well due to a lackluster implementation: the hacking, for instance, is more or less free even with minimal upgrades, and for every camera you have to actually maneuver around there's at least four you'll disable without thinking just because the security terminals are easy to access. if the mission locations didn't adhere to the small details of real environments or didn't have cute little secrets in vents and lock-boxes, these issues would likely overcome the holistic experience and result in tedium.
the tiny details extend further than objects in the world as well. from early on when one of your augmented colleagues begins spontaneously complaining about getting the wrong can of soda from a vending machine, I had hoped that the scripting for the NPCs would stay high quality, and it absolutely persisted to the final moments of the game, when a civilian mechanic distraught by my actions pulled a gun on me behind my back. the tight pacing of the levels compared to a full open world experience allows for many of the individual NPCs to have unique dialogue, behavior, and even inventory when subdued. of these the most fascinating to me may have been a conversation with a chinese bartender in hong kong, who extolled the CCP's commitment to capitalist enterprise outside the purview of the new world order by emphasizing authoritarian nationalism against main character denton's idealized western democratic order. it's something you wouldn't see now in the xi jinping era and weirdly reflective of the game's almost non-ideological view of politics: people-facing organizations controlled by layers upon layers of shadowy organizations, each manipulating social behavior in a top-down way compared to the bottom-up class struggle and ideological superstructure of reality. not really a thought-provoking work unless you're particularly animated by vague gesturing towards "control" and "liberty," but at least you can tell the developers didn't take it too seriously either. there's roswell-style gray aliens running around for christ's sake.
and really, dungeon crawling is the name of the game here, more or less. at least half of the game takes place in some sort of complex with a destination and a set of non-linear gates along the way, all of which serve as hinge points for the player to choose which resources to expend. the "immsim" label comes from just how many resources have all gotten slammed together in your control: lockpicks and "multitools" for bypassing security, ammo for many different varieties of firearms, bio-energy for utilizing your augmented abilities, and a slew of consumable items meant for tanking bullets, running past enemies undetected, or breathing under water for long periods of time. at its most taut, the game generally puts some sort of barrier up in your way and then a way around it, with the direct option being something like combat or picking a lock and the indirect option being finding a vent or waterway to circumvent the barrier. with enough of these situations back to back, the game hopes that you'll avoid sticking to one gameplay style in order to preserve your resources in that area for later when they seem more necessary; you can't crack every door with lockpicks, so you'll probably have to get your hands dirty or crawl on your belly here and there if you want to keep your picks for when the alternative is, say, running through a irradiated area. the nice part of this is that it truly does work: I explored, snuck around, and fought off enemies all in equal measure throughout the game through entirely organic response to each of the situations. the downside is by endgame the resource economy has completely turned in your favor assuming you've been rotating all of your options, making decisions on resource expenditure past a certain point much more about cleaning out your inventory rather than rationing.
when the game is firing on all cylinders, you'll get something like bunker III from the aforementioned catacombs. the area is two large rooms with a camera and turret tracking you at the back of the first room right in front of a cell full of hostages, multiple floors connected by stairs with archways for cover in the second room, and a back hallway swarming with rocket-strapped operatives where the camera/turret controls and a key to the next reside; a waterway additionally connects the front of the first room with the back of the second room. here you have actual tradeoffs to deal with: just grabbing the key and skipping the whole area by going through the waterway, but the coverage in the back hallway can be intense depending on the AI's behavior, and your direct path to the key is blocked by strategically placed crates as soon as you leave the waterway. gunning for the security controls instead is feasible, and you can leverage the fact that hacking computers (sometimes?) pauses enemies for a bit to quickly run out, disable everything, and hop back in the waterway. you could also sneak in from the front and use an augmentation that hides you from cameras to avoid triggering the turret, and if you rescue the hostages with lockpicks instead of locating the cell key and leave the area early, you'll get the next area's key from their camp leader anyway. when the game constructs situations like these, they not only make the discrete tradeoffs impactful on the flow of a given level, they also weave it into the actual second-to-second movement, stealth, and combat as well.
at its worst it's the opposite: individual rooms with a guard or two and maybe a computer system or locked door stitched together by long hallways that inoculate each scenario from one another. in these sections the main appeal is exploration, either through finding nooks and crannies hidden from view or by reading the many "data cubes" with flavor text strewn around. it can still be exciting, especially earlier on when you don't have tools to detect enemies through walls and the suspense of moving around still persists. later in the game when one has more abilities at their disposal, breaking apart puzzles or barriers by jumping over them with enhanced height, moving large crates to use as stairs with enhanced strength, or shooting down doors with a mastered rifle ability can potentially make the monotony less apparent. some of the barriers don't fare quite as well due to a lackluster implementation: the hacking, for instance, is more or less free even with minimal upgrades, and for every camera you have to actually maneuver around there's at least four you'll disable without thinking just because the security terminals are easy to access. if the mission locations didn't adhere to the small details of real environments or didn't have cute little secrets in vents and lock-boxes, these issues would likely overcome the holistic experience and result in tedium.
the tiny details extend further than objects in the world as well. from early on when one of your augmented colleagues begins spontaneously complaining about getting the wrong can of soda from a vending machine, I had hoped that the scripting for the NPCs would stay high quality, and it absolutely persisted to the final moments of the game, when a civilian mechanic distraught by my actions pulled a gun on me behind my back. the tight pacing of the levels compared to a full open world experience allows for many of the individual NPCs to have unique dialogue, behavior, and even inventory when subdued. of these the most fascinating to me may have been a conversation with a chinese bartender in hong kong, who extolled the CCP's commitment to capitalist enterprise outside the purview of the new world order by emphasizing authoritarian nationalism against main character denton's idealized western democratic order. it's something you wouldn't see now in the xi jinping era and weirdly reflective of the game's almost non-ideological view of politics: people-facing organizations controlled by layers upon layers of shadowy organizations, each manipulating social behavior in a top-down way compared to the bottom-up class struggle and ideological superstructure of reality. not really a thought-provoking work unless you're particularly animated by vague gesturing towards "control" and "liberty," but at least you can tell the developers didn't take it too seriously either. there's roswell-style gray aliens running around for christ's sake.
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