QuinnK
187 Reviews liked by QuinnK
Messy gay disasters on a road-trip to nowhere. The combat can be a pain but when the queer body politics hit, they hit like a motherfucker.
Eine wahre Tragödie.
An Outcry
2022
One restless night, "the unnamed" - enjoying a cigarette in the courtyard of residential building - heard an outcry... then a fascist crow spoke to them.
An Outcry is a RPGMaker game with multiple endings, where your inactions have consequences. Locking themselves out of their apartment and with no means to quench their nicotine addiction, "the unnamed" ventures through the residential building, asking for a lighter and a smoke. All while experiencing "the outcry" - a swarm of crows who seek to eradicate anyone that doesn't share their "terrific birdness". "The unnamed" is the emotional wreck of a protagonist we are playing. Coming off a terrible and traumatizing relationship, the agender individual must also struggle with nigh poverty, struggling to stay afloat and find a job in the "bustling and flourishing" city of Vienna. To top it all off, they also have to deal with being misgendered to straight up antagonized by their neighbors. Only Anne, a transgender woman and friend of "the unnamed" (and literal girlboss, slay 💅), acts as a beacon of hope and comfort for these dire times.
Basically, you wander the corridors, courtyard and apartments of this tenant building with the usual dialogue choices, combat encounters and branching storylines you tend to find in a decent RPGMaker game. The scope and exploration is kept fairly tight and lean, allowing the small cast of the game to flesh out and get explored quite nicely throughout its short playtime. I really enjoyed the way how the player can choose inactions/ignoring presented options without explicitly telling them. Narratively, the game wants you (the player) to take a stance and act against the literal fascist storm happening in front of you and ohh boy will it condemn you for trying to be a fence-sitter (good).
In it's setting and backdrop, the game doesn't shy away to draw a familiar and on-the-nose picture of Vienna: The run-down Altbau residential buildings (with generous room height and that's pretty much it), housing a melting pot of people, all right in front of the ever-so-busy Vienna city belt, where tons of election ads are plastered throughout the boulevard, imploring you to vote for the next dip-shit conservative fucker from the ÖVP or the FPÖ to join the parliament, while the milieu can only best be described as modern-day depression (aka, the U6-line). This is what basically drew me in, cuz' it's rare to see a game set in my country, let alone in my city and wow the vibes are correct.
In short: It's a good game, I encourage everyone to play it. The game has 5 endings, all results of the actions you take against the existential doom you're facing. Coupled with the dazzling art direction, really strong presentation and execution, this game is on all-fronts (politically, narratively, artistically) a banger.
Punch Nazis, Don't be a centrist, Trans rights!
An Outcry is a RPGMaker game with multiple endings, where your inactions have consequences. Locking themselves out of their apartment and with no means to quench their nicotine addiction, "the unnamed" ventures through the residential building, asking for a lighter and a smoke. All while experiencing "the outcry" - a swarm of crows who seek to eradicate anyone that doesn't share their "terrific birdness". "The unnamed" is the emotional wreck of a protagonist we are playing. Coming off a terrible and traumatizing relationship, the agender individual must also struggle with nigh poverty, struggling to stay afloat and find a job in the "bustling and flourishing" city of Vienna. To top it all off, they also have to deal with being misgendered to straight up antagonized by their neighbors. Only Anne, a transgender woman and friend of "the unnamed" (and literal girlboss, slay 💅), acts as a beacon of hope and comfort for these dire times.
Basically, you wander the corridors, courtyard and apartments of this tenant building with the usual dialogue choices, combat encounters and branching storylines you tend to find in a decent RPGMaker game. The scope and exploration is kept fairly tight and lean, allowing the small cast of the game to flesh out and get explored quite nicely throughout its short playtime. I really enjoyed the way how the player can choose inactions/ignoring presented options without explicitly telling them. Narratively, the game wants you (the player) to take a stance and act against the literal fascist storm happening in front of you and ohh boy will it condemn you for trying to be a fence-sitter (good).
In it's setting and backdrop, the game doesn't shy away to draw a familiar and on-the-nose picture of Vienna: The run-down Altbau residential buildings (with generous room height and that's pretty much it), housing a melting pot of people, all right in front of the ever-so-busy Vienna city belt, where tons of election ads are plastered throughout the boulevard, imploring you to vote for the next dip-shit conservative fucker from the ÖVP or the FPÖ to join the parliament, while the milieu can only best be described as modern-day depression (aka, the U6-line). This is what basically drew me in, cuz' it's rare to see a game set in my country, let alone in my city and wow the vibes are correct.
In short: It's a good game, I encourage everyone to play it. The game has 5 endings, all results of the actions you take against the existential doom you're facing. Coupled with the dazzling art direction, really strong presentation and execution, this game is on all-fronts (politically, narratively, artistically) a banger.
Punch Nazis, Don't be a centrist, Trans rights!
Omori
2020
I'm not ready to write this one off yet, but I gotta shelve it for now. I love the quirky art, the quirky music, the quirky quirkyness of it all (they're toast! Literally! Great stuff), but I am just finding the gameplay so slow and boring. It's a shame, I should be contemplating the story and the interesting juxtaposition of dealing with depression paired with cutesy visuals, but I cannot play this game without thinking of everything else I could be doing right now.
I'll get back to it one day. Who knows, maybe I'll load my save someday and realize I was mere minutes from turning a corner and realizing this is my new favorite game. I have my doubts though.
I'll get back to it one day. Who knows, maybe I'll load my save someday and realize I was mere minutes from turning a corner and realizing this is my new favorite game. I have my doubts though.
YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is a game I’ve felt a personal grudge against ever since it came out. Even back in 2016, I saw previews of what it was and felt excited. It’s style and approach to making a “Mother-inspired RPG” always really interested me. When I played it, however, I quickly realized all it had was taken in every wrong way possible. Everything I was interested in was mangled with, hamfisted, downright unfun. I hated YIIK, and only hated it more when I watched the public reception to it. How could a game I was so excited for, something that felt like I would get a lot out of, be so bad?
The game is still bad. Nothing I say means I think it was any better than I thought it was then. In a way, I almost thought it was worse. The combat feels painfully slow and thoughtless on top of being almost totally unnecessary, the dialogue tends toward being horribly boring, the story goes in places that feel like they contradict what it initially tries to do, the puzzles and dungeons are either horribly uninteresting or frustrating, and there’s a veritable host of annoying bugs I encountered on this playthrough. I gave it one star before I did this playthrough and I still stand by it. But, more personally, I feel like I’ve been able to open myself up to be more receptive to it, and more so the people behind it.
Until now, I had treated YIIK with a vile amount of hatred. I hated the game through and through, and I would speak bad at the creator’s expense. This is par for the course with a lot of people who talk about YIIK, and even if I didn’t intend to, I would tend to catch myself regurgitating that mindset when I spoke on it too. I wholly believed that the creators must have hated the kinds of people who played games like it. That they went in with the intention to make a frustrating, awful game. Over time, my memories of what I played were influenced by the people who trashed it, making an example of it as “the worst of indie games” and then people who never even played it and didn’t want to give it the time of day. But, as I played it, I looked more into the story behind the development of YIIK. I listened to interviews with the brothers who made this game. What I found was that although the game was incompetent, it was made with a true passion and honesty. It was a game tirelessly developed over the better part of a decade, even through the worst in their life. When they got mad at people decrying their game in interviews, I can understand where it comes from. My God, if I worked so hard and put so much of myself behind something just for it to be berated and treated like a laughing stock, I’d be infuriated. What an asshole I was to dismiss everything they worked towards.
YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is a terrible game. What it does is terrible, and what it says is bad on the outset and delivered even worse. What’s the worst part is how much it feels like it’s full of itself. But it is doing something, and it is saying something. It’s something that feels like it was made by a real person instead of just being churned from a factory, even if this kind of person is no one I’d ever want to meet in my life.
Even if it failed miserably, it really tried to make something that felt different and unique to it, and it came from a very honest place. For as bad as it is, I believe a game like YIIK is worth a thousand safe, market-tested, corporate games that are sure to please. I hope these developers learn and grow from their experience with YIIK and their previous work to make something better. I do believe now that they could.
The game is still bad. Nothing I say means I think it was any better than I thought it was then. In a way, I almost thought it was worse. The combat feels painfully slow and thoughtless on top of being almost totally unnecessary, the dialogue tends toward being horribly boring, the story goes in places that feel like they contradict what it initially tries to do, the puzzles and dungeons are either horribly uninteresting or frustrating, and there’s a veritable host of annoying bugs I encountered on this playthrough. I gave it one star before I did this playthrough and I still stand by it. But, more personally, I feel like I’ve been able to open myself up to be more receptive to it, and more so the people behind it.
Until now, I had treated YIIK with a vile amount of hatred. I hated the game through and through, and I would speak bad at the creator’s expense. This is par for the course with a lot of people who talk about YIIK, and even if I didn’t intend to, I would tend to catch myself regurgitating that mindset when I spoke on it too. I wholly believed that the creators must have hated the kinds of people who played games like it. That they went in with the intention to make a frustrating, awful game. Over time, my memories of what I played were influenced by the people who trashed it, making an example of it as “the worst of indie games” and then people who never even played it and didn’t want to give it the time of day. But, as I played it, I looked more into the story behind the development of YIIK. I listened to interviews with the brothers who made this game. What I found was that although the game was incompetent, it was made with a true passion and honesty. It was a game tirelessly developed over the better part of a decade, even through the worst in their life. When they got mad at people decrying their game in interviews, I can understand where it comes from. My God, if I worked so hard and put so much of myself behind something just for it to be berated and treated like a laughing stock, I’d be infuriated. What an asshole I was to dismiss everything they worked towards.
YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is a terrible game. What it does is terrible, and what it says is bad on the outset and delivered even worse. What’s the worst part is how much it feels like it’s full of itself. But it is doing something, and it is saying something. It’s something that feels like it was made by a real person instead of just being churned from a factory, even if this kind of person is no one I’d ever want to meet in my life.
Even if it failed miserably, it really tried to make something that felt different and unique to it, and it came from a very honest place. For as bad as it is, I believe a game like YIIK is worth a thousand safe, market-tested, corporate games that are sure to please. I hope these developers learn and grow from their experience with YIIK and their previous work to make something better. I do believe now that they could.
No Man's Sky
2016
This is probably a hot take but I liked it way more when it first came out lmao
EarthBound
1994
Beaten: Dec 13 2021
Time: 25 Hours
Platform: SNES (Emulated)
Whew that hit me harder than expected. Earthbound is legendary in the dual spheres of cult classic games and JRPGs and it’s so fully and completely earned. So many of my favorite games that've come out more recently, especially super indie stuff like Hylics and, of course, Undertale, don’t even try to hide how much they’re inspired by Earthbound. But, you probably knew all that, so I won’t drag on about it here. Instead, I wanna focus on how it compares to its predecessor.
Right so, I played Mother last week and just absolutely adored it. I’ve got a review up for it, but in the broad strokes I was really impressed with the ethereal tone, bold aesthetic, and raw emotional heart, but was a bit down on the structure and the battle system. Well, my thoughts on Earthbound are just about the same. Earthbound is built off the same blueprint, with lots of tweaks made to the formula. The ethereal tone is still there, but leans more heavily into comedy (some of the best comedy on the system, mind you. The aesthetic is a bit more fully realized here, but still is equal parts gorgeous in its simplicity and just a bit beyond what the SNES could really do. Emotionally, Earthbound is a bit less unique than it’s predecessor, preferring to draw its payout from atmosphere and more traditionally plotular happenings instead of pure 100% thematic resonance.
Now, lots of people will tell you that Mother isn’t worth playing these days, that Earthbound does everything it does but better, and while I understand that impulse I definitely don’t agree with it. Mother is smaller scale, but because of that it can feel more open, less packed to the brim, and ultimately I found it to feel more personal, at least from a modern perspective. Earthbound by contrast is absolutely stuffed full of locations and strangeness, and while it lets you catch your breath often, it never really “opens up” in the way you might expect it to. This isn’t bad necessarily, but about halfway through the game I was feeling a bit burnt out. That feeling was a bit exacerbated by the difficulty curve, which is fairly unforgiving until that halfway point. It’s still slapdash, and mostly unchanged from the first game. Maybe a little less squeaky, but really I’m pretty sure the only true improvement to the battle system is the menu system haha.
Luckily the last third of the game is just absolutely stunning, ramping up to literally the most satisfying final boss fight I’ve ever encountered. I don’t want to get into too many specifics, just in case you haven’t heard the details of this fight, but everything about the final dungeon sets it up perfectly. It’s not so hard as to be a trial, like many games of the time, but it still forces you to engage with the game’s systems. It’s not entirely based upon a new mechanic like Mother’s final boss, but has parallels to that fight nonetheless. But really the most stunning part of this fight is the visuals. Nothing else I’ve ever encountered in a game has ever felt quite so alien, so otherworldly, so fully incomprehensible. I loved it.
Earthbound is without a doubt a triumph, and absolutely one of the greatest, most influential pieces of art made in the last 30 years. But it’s also the middle part of a trilogy, and flawed in very human ways, like all great art. It’s monumental, yet approachable. It feels like a friend. Give it a shot, if you’ve ever even considered giving it one.
Time: 25 Hours
Platform: SNES (Emulated)
Whew that hit me harder than expected. Earthbound is legendary in the dual spheres of cult classic games and JRPGs and it’s so fully and completely earned. So many of my favorite games that've come out more recently, especially super indie stuff like Hylics and, of course, Undertale, don’t even try to hide how much they’re inspired by Earthbound. But, you probably knew all that, so I won’t drag on about it here. Instead, I wanna focus on how it compares to its predecessor.
Right so, I played Mother last week and just absolutely adored it. I’ve got a review up for it, but in the broad strokes I was really impressed with the ethereal tone, bold aesthetic, and raw emotional heart, but was a bit down on the structure and the battle system. Well, my thoughts on Earthbound are just about the same. Earthbound is built off the same blueprint, with lots of tweaks made to the formula. The ethereal tone is still there, but leans more heavily into comedy (some of the best comedy on the system, mind you. The aesthetic is a bit more fully realized here, but still is equal parts gorgeous in its simplicity and just a bit beyond what the SNES could really do. Emotionally, Earthbound is a bit less unique than it’s predecessor, preferring to draw its payout from atmosphere and more traditionally plotular happenings instead of pure 100% thematic resonance.
Now, lots of people will tell you that Mother isn’t worth playing these days, that Earthbound does everything it does but better, and while I understand that impulse I definitely don’t agree with it. Mother is smaller scale, but because of that it can feel more open, less packed to the brim, and ultimately I found it to feel more personal, at least from a modern perspective. Earthbound by contrast is absolutely stuffed full of locations and strangeness, and while it lets you catch your breath often, it never really “opens up” in the way you might expect it to. This isn’t bad necessarily, but about halfway through the game I was feeling a bit burnt out. That feeling was a bit exacerbated by the difficulty curve, which is fairly unforgiving until that halfway point. It’s still slapdash, and mostly unchanged from the first game. Maybe a little less squeaky, but really I’m pretty sure the only true improvement to the battle system is the menu system haha.
Luckily the last third of the game is just absolutely stunning, ramping up to literally the most satisfying final boss fight I’ve ever encountered. I don’t want to get into too many specifics, just in case you haven’t heard the details of this fight, but everything about the final dungeon sets it up perfectly. It’s not so hard as to be a trial, like many games of the time, but it still forces you to engage with the game’s systems. It’s not entirely based upon a new mechanic like Mother’s final boss, but has parallels to that fight nonetheless. But really the most stunning part of this fight is the visuals. Nothing else I’ve ever encountered in a game has ever felt quite so alien, so otherworldly, so fully incomprehensible. I loved it.
Earthbound is without a doubt a triumph, and absolutely one of the greatest, most influential pieces of art made in the last 30 years. But it’s also the middle part of a trilogy, and flawed in very human ways, like all great art. It’s monumental, yet approachable. It feels like a friend. Give it a shot, if you’ve ever even considered giving it one.
Beaten: Nov 26 2021
Time: 11 Hours
Platform: Switch
Between this and Disco Elysium, I feel a new maturity in games writing. Maybe it was always there, but prose like this has never gotten such attention before. Kentucky Route Zero confidently steps away from the puzzles that define the point and click adventure genre, opting instead to put its knotty intellectualism squarely in the written word. More simply, if you like the kind of books whose language doesn’t give itself to you easily, you’ll like this game.
KRZ is upfront with what it is. The game begins at a gas station shaped like a horse, where you have a meandering conversation with an attendant, talk to your dog, and try to get directions. It takes its time, loads you up with casual symbolism, and sends you on your way. You’ve only got street names for directions, so you’ve gotta look for landmarks and pay attention to where you are. The map isn’t too big, so it’s not too hard, but it does get you immersed in the world in no time.
As a game, it’s just a very simple point and click adventure. You walk around til prompts come up, click on em, and get started reading. It has a strong aesthetic sense, especially in the backgrounds, which are detailed and concrete as often as they’re composed of stark abstract vector graphics. The character models leave a bit to be desired in their simplicity, and personally I feel that a more expressive style might’ve suited the game a bit better, but what’s here is strong and gets everything across well enough.
KRZ is an enormously affecting piece of media. It stirred memories in me, good and bad, every couple of minutes. Sometimes I’d rediscover an old dream, or a newfound anger, or just a vague emotion. If ya like books and feeling things, check it out
Time: 11 Hours
Platform: Switch
Between this and Disco Elysium, I feel a new maturity in games writing. Maybe it was always there, but prose like this has never gotten such attention before. Kentucky Route Zero confidently steps away from the puzzles that define the point and click adventure genre, opting instead to put its knotty intellectualism squarely in the written word. More simply, if you like the kind of books whose language doesn’t give itself to you easily, you’ll like this game.
KRZ is upfront with what it is. The game begins at a gas station shaped like a horse, where you have a meandering conversation with an attendant, talk to your dog, and try to get directions. It takes its time, loads you up with casual symbolism, and sends you on your way. You’ve only got street names for directions, so you’ve gotta look for landmarks and pay attention to where you are. The map isn’t too big, so it’s not too hard, but it does get you immersed in the world in no time.
As a game, it’s just a very simple point and click adventure. You walk around til prompts come up, click on em, and get started reading. It has a strong aesthetic sense, especially in the backgrounds, which are detailed and concrete as often as they’re composed of stark abstract vector graphics. The character models leave a bit to be desired in their simplicity, and personally I feel that a more expressive style might’ve suited the game a bit better, but what’s here is strong and gets everything across well enough.
KRZ is an enormously affecting piece of media. It stirred memories in me, good and bad, every couple of minutes. Sometimes I’d rediscover an old dream, or a newfound anger, or just a vague emotion. If ya like books and feeling things, check it out
The Good Life
2021
Beaten: Oct 16 2021
Time: 13 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
I could probably have a whole life to think about this game and still not know exactly how I feel about it, but that's the nature of a SWERY game. That's right, this is the newest game from the only man who rivals SUDA51 for amount of cult classics created. SWERY's games are always a bit unpolished, but make up for it by leaning into that feeling of unpolishedness. If you've seen the first season of Twin Peaks, the lack of polish in SWERY games stands in the same place as the stilted, awkward dialogue stands for Lynch. It gets you in a mindset for weird shit to start happening.
Twin Peaks seems to be a huge touchstone for SWERY actually. All of his games (or at least the ones I've played) seem to have it in their DNA somewhere, the peak of which HAS to be Deadly Premonition, which is literally just outsider art Twin Peaks for people who like jank as fuck Xbox 360 games. The Good Life is much less of an homage to Twin Peaks, but it's just as obsessed with small, rural towns, and their secrets.
The town of note this time is Rainy Woods, a small town in rural England. All the buildings are made of stone or brick, and farmland surrounds the buildings, each plot bricked off with small stone walls. The town's got a lot of history to it, and as you're a New York reporter looking to pay off her debt, you're trying to find out all this town's secrets. Surprisingly, almost no attention is spent on the culture shock of an American living in rural England. Instead, the focus is on rural vs city life, particularly from a rather class-conscious point of view.
I mean, Naomi (the DOPE main character) is 30k USD in debt to her employer. That's why she had to take on a job in a small town in another country, right? And that debt traps you in almost every way that you deal with others from the city, but in the setting of this rural town? It's completely abstract, might as well not even matter. You're put up (in a kinda dingy little shack) for free by the town, and everyone is genuinely warm and welcoming to you. The secrets flow like water, and there's really only one dark secret in town.
That's the most unique part of this iteration of SWERY's Twin Peaks-isms: the dark underbelly of the town, that everyone assumes is there from the start, turns out to really just be old history. Secrets are better left alone. It's a much more uplifting take on this theme, and though I suspect it's less true to life, it's pretty heartwarming all the same.
ANYWAYS
IN THIS GAME YOU CAN TURN INTO A CAT AND A DOG AND YOUR MAIN MODE OF TRANSPORTATION IS RIDING SHEEP. THERE'S A RIVAL REPORTER FROM BOSTON WHO SHOWS UP AFTER EVER STORY BEAT AND SAYS "LOBSTAAAAAH"???? ONE OF THE MAIN MECHANICS IS "MARKING YOUR TERRITORY" AS A DOG??????????? AND I'M NOT EVEN GONNA MENTION THE STUFF ON THE MOUNTAIN BECAUSE SPOILERS BUT HOLY HELL WHAT THE FUCK SWERY
like I said i could talk about this game forever, which is funny because it's basically a dreamcast game that came out in 2021. the graphics are very "wow this would look better in 480p", but the game's massively strong (but also pretty baffling) art design and aesthetic sensibility in general just pulls it along.
It's like, a weirdly charismatic game for what it is. There's mechanics spilling out left and right (there's FIVE different bars you have to refill daily by sleeping, eating, and showering basiclally) and the game almost entirely consists of fetch quests, but it's so charming and so relaxing that I didn't even care. Walking out to the lake at 11pm, listening to the genuinely gorgeous (Nintendo DS Pokemon-esque?) night music, and snapping pictures of any wild animals I saw on the way was the best part of the game for me. It was relaxing in a way I wasn't expecting, but absolutely a way I needed right now.
Idk play it if you like weird shit
Time: 13 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
I could probably have a whole life to think about this game and still not know exactly how I feel about it, but that's the nature of a SWERY game. That's right, this is the newest game from the only man who rivals SUDA51 for amount of cult classics created. SWERY's games are always a bit unpolished, but make up for it by leaning into that feeling of unpolishedness. If you've seen the first season of Twin Peaks, the lack of polish in SWERY games stands in the same place as the stilted, awkward dialogue stands for Lynch. It gets you in a mindset for weird shit to start happening.
Twin Peaks seems to be a huge touchstone for SWERY actually. All of his games (or at least the ones I've played) seem to have it in their DNA somewhere, the peak of which HAS to be Deadly Premonition, which is literally just outsider art Twin Peaks for people who like jank as fuck Xbox 360 games. The Good Life is much less of an homage to Twin Peaks, but it's just as obsessed with small, rural towns, and their secrets.
The town of note this time is Rainy Woods, a small town in rural England. All the buildings are made of stone or brick, and farmland surrounds the buildings, each plot bricked off with small stone walls. The town's got a lot of history to it, and as you're a New York reporter looking to pay off her debt, you're trying to find out all this town's secrets. Surprisingly, almost no attention is spent on the culture shock of an American living in rural England. Instead, the focus is on rural vs city life, particularly from a rather class-conscious point of view.
I mean, Naomi (the DOPE main character) is 30k USD in debt to her employer. That's why she had to take on a job in a small town in another country, right? And that debt traps you in almost every way that you deal with others from the city, but in the setting of this rural town? It's completely abstract, might as well not even matter. You're put up (in a kinda dingy little shack) for free by the town, and everyone is genuinely warm and welcoming to you. The secrets flow like water, and there's really only one dark secret in town.
That's the most unique part of this iteration of SWERY's Twin Peaks-isms: the dark underbelly of the town, that everyone assumes is there from the start, turns out to really just be old history. Secrets are better left alone. It's a much more uplifting take on this theme, and though I suspect it's less true to life, it's pretty heartwarming all the same.
ANYWAYS
IN THIS GAME YOU CAN TURN INTO A CAT AND A DOG AND YOUR MAIN MODE OF TRANSPORTATION IS RIDING SHEEP. THERE'S A RIVAL REPORTER FROM BOSTON WHO SHOWS UP AFTER EVER STORY BEAT AND SAYS "LOBSTAAAAAH"???? ONE OF THE MAIN MECHANICS IS "MARKING YOUR TERRITORY" AS A DOG??????????? AND I'M NOT EVEN GONNA MENTION THE STUFF ON THE MOUNTAIN BECAUSE SPOILERS BUT HOLY HELL WHAT THE FUCK SWERY
like I said i could talk about this game forever, which is funny because it's basically a dreamcast game that came out in 2021. the graphics are very "wow this would look better in 480p", but the game's massively strong (but also pretty baffling) art design and aesthetic sensibility in general just pulls it along.
It's like, a weirdly charismatic game for what it is. There's mechanics spilling out left and right (there's FIVE different bars you have to refill daily by sleeping, eating, and showering basiclally) and the game almost entirely consists of fetch quests, but it's so charming and so relaxing that I didn't even care. Walking out to the lake at 11pm, listening to the genuinely gorgeous (Nintendo DS Pokemon-esque?) night music, and snapping pictures of any wild animals I saw on the way was the best part of the game for me. It was relaxing in a way I wasn't expecting, but absolutely a way I needed right now.
Idk play it if you like weird shit
Beaten: Sep 17 2021
Time: 1 Hour
Platform: Mac (Via Parallels)
This is a short one and a weird one that I kinda stumbled through. It's by one of my fav devs, Jack King-Spooner, who was behind Dujanah and Beeswing (both EZ 5/5s), and if you've played those this will feel familiar.
Broadly, it plays like an rpg maker walking simulator. You explore whatever location you're in, talking to everything you can, and then you move on. What makes this one different than his other games though is some rudimentary minigames placed throughout, and a new lighting engine. The minigames are fine, adding just a little bit of variety and supporting the dream-like theming of the game. They play like little vignettes, without a fail state as far as I could tell.
The new lighting is GORGEOUS. Basically all the models in the game are clay sculptures, and he used a software to generate sprites that react to lighting almost like a 3d engine would. As a result it feels less like collage art than Dujanah, and more like a small diorama, and it really lends a sense of space to these locations.
The locations are maybe better than ever also. The lighting helps, but also the fact that you switch off characters every so often helps. Every character feels tied to the world, and as such everything feels very well realized. It's all the expansiveness and political fire of Dujanah mixed with the concreteness of location that Beeswing had.
Also it's got the hallmarks of his games as well, namely surreal yet affecting writing and music. The writing is couched in this bizarre sci-fi world he's dreamed up, but still feels grounded in person-level issues. There's no invading armies or space stations, just people going through shit. I love it. The music is otherworldly and gorgeous almost the entire time, and in an interesting change, most of it has lyrics! Even more interestingly, they're.. funny lyrics? Like really funny. It caught me way off guard.
Anyways, I still need to play the other sluggish morss games I think for this one to fully click for me. For now it's a less "finished" game than I'm used to from Jack King-Spooner, but I'm glad I played it, and I really loved it.
Time: 1 Hour
Platform: Mac (Via Parallels)
This is a short one and a weird one that I kinda stumbled through. It's by one of my fav devs, Jack King-Spooner, who was behind Dujanah and Beeswing (both EZ 5/5s), and if you've played those this will feel familiar.
Broadly, it plays like an rpg maker walking simulator. You explore whatever location you're in, talking to everything you can, and then you move on. What makes this one different than his other games though is some rudimentary minigames placed throughout, and a new lighting engine. The minigames are fine, adding just a little bit of variety and supporting the dream-like theming of the game. They play like little vignettes, without a fail state as far as I could tell.
The new lighting is GORGEOUS. Basically all the models in the game are clay sculptures, and he used a software to generate sprites that react to lighting almost like a 3d engine would. As a result it feels less like collage art than Dujanah, and more like a small diorama, and it really lends a sense of space to these locations.
The locations are maybe better than ever also. The lighting helps, but also the fact that you switch off characters every so often helps. Every character feels tied to the world, and as such everything feels very well realized. It's all the expansiveness and political fire of Dujanah mixed with the concreteness of location that Beeswing had.
Also it's got the hallmarks of his games as well, namely surreal yet affecting writing and music. The writing is couched in this bizarre sci-fi world he's dreamed up, but still feels grounded in person-level issues. There's no invading armies or space stations, just people going through shit. I love it. The music is otherworldly and gorgeous almost the entire time, and in an interesting change, most of it has lyrics! Even more interestingly, they're.. funny lyrics? Like really funny. It caught me way off guard.
Anyways, I still need to play the other sluggish morss games I think for this one to fully click for me. For now it's a less "finished" game than I'm used to from Jack King-Spooner, but I'm glad I played it, and I really loved it.
Sonic Mania
2017
Hours Played: 5 (3ish of which were in this try)
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Date Beaten: N/A
I think I'm calling it, this was my second go at this game (for book club!) and I'm just way too bad at it to get past zone 4 (out of 12). It's polished to a mirror shine, plays exactly how I'm sure fans remember the original Sonic games playing (aka smoother than the originals by a wide margin), but is just as mondo difficult and frustrating as those original games, and I can't beat it, through no particular fault of the game.
Like sure, it's tough and a lil frustrating, and I don't blame people for not liking the game because of that, but to me it never felt like the game was any harder than it meant to be, just that it's meant for people who are used to the mechanics. It's a love letter to a series I'm not particularly a fan of, in a genre I generally don't jive with, and I just can't blame the game (too much) for that, like maybe there should've been a more gradual difficulty curve but idk.
One thing I do feel like I can call the game out for is it's staunch retro-ness. Mostly it works great, feeling like a game out of time, simultaneously from the 90s and built today, but some things got kept from old designs, whether it was for nostalgia purposes or just not questioning every mechanic brought over.
For example, the lives system is a huge perpetrator. Imo it should've been handled like Crash 4 handled it, a choice before you play between classic mode, three lives and you're done, and modern mode, where you just continue at your last checkpoint regardless. Technically there's cheat codes that allow this, but they're pretty complex to activate (at least on switch, it might be different on other versions), and this functionality shouldn't be hidden, it should be a feature!
Broadly though, it's a game made for fans, not for bringing people into the fanbase. I wish there was a better readily available starting point for 2d sonic though, the only one I've been able to get through is Sonic Advance, which is good but noooooot easy to play on modern machines.
like
at all legally.
Anyways it's good, but very much didn't quite gel with me.
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Date Beaten: N/A
I think I'm calling it, this was my second go at this game (for book club!) and I'm just way too bad at it to get past zone 4 (out of 12). It's polished to a mirror shine, plays exactly how I'm sure fans remember the original Sonic games playing (aka smoother than the originals by a wide margin), but is just as mondo difficult and frustrating as those original games, and I can't beat it, through no particular fault of the game.
Like sure, it's tough and a lil frustrating, and I don't blame people for not liking the game because of that, but to me it never felt like the game was any harder than it meant to be, just that it's meant for people who are used to the mechanics. It's a love letter to a series I'm not particularly a fan of, in a genre I generally don't jive with, and I just can't blame the game (too much) for that, like maybe there should've been a more gradual difficulty curve but idk.
One thing I do feel like I can call the game out for is it's staunch retro-ness. Mostly it works great, feeling like a game out of time, simultaneously from the 90s and built today, but some things got kept from old designs, whether it was for nostalgia purposes or just not questioning every mechanic brought over.
For example, the lives system is a huge perpetrator. Imo it should've been handled like Crash 4 handled it, a choice before you play between classic mode, three lives and you're done, and modern mode, where you just continue at your last checkpoint regardless. Technically there's cheat codes that allow this, but they're pretty complex to activate (at least on switch, it might be different on other versions), and this functionality shouldn't be hidden, it should be a feature!
Broadly though, it's a game made for fans, not for bringing people into the fanbase. I wish there was a better readily available starting point for 2d sonic though, the only one I've been able to get through is Sonic Advance, which is good but noooooot easy to play on modern machines.
like
at all legally.
Anyways it's good, but very much didn't quite gel with me.
Sonic Lost World
2013
A bafflingly designed experience which reduced my sanity and made me question all the life choices leading to playing this.
Also it's the third best Mario Galaxy game.
Also it's the third best Mario Galaxy game.
Untitled Goose Game
2019
Honk
I am still not sure what is happening in this game but whatever it was it slapped
An Outcry
2022
Beaten: Feb 01 2022
Time: 02 Hours
Platform: Mac (Via Parallels)
It’s wild that I went straight from FF8 to this.
An Outcry is an indie horror rpg I found out about when I played the 2021 Haunted PS1 Demo Disc. Even among that stylistically and presentationally varied crop of wonderful bite-sized experiences, this was far and away my favorite. Now it’s finally out, and my god it’s amazing. If you don’t know about the game, which, fair I guess but Fix That Now, just calling it an indie horror rpg doesn’t really tell the whole story. The horror is primarily conveyed through this.. foreboding atmosphere, and walls of cryptically written text that I could just read for hours and hours. On top of that, it’s got gorgeously realized full screen pixel-art just, everywhere. Honestly there’s some things in this game that I didn’t think you could do with RPG maker, let alone a version that’s 20 years old. One thing that’s very RPG maker is the battle system. It’s based in ATB, with your standard kind of moveset (some defensive, some damaging, some meta/support). It doesn’t have much (if any) of the progression and resource management endemic to these kinds of systems though, which feels very refreshing to me, personally (after coming off of 6[?] final fantasy games in a row lmao). The battles feel thematic, not unlike Undertale, but in a much different way? The game manages to get you into the head of the main character in a way not many RPGs I’ve played, even some all time favorites, ever have.
We can talk about the main character and the themes a bit too, but I really don’t wanna get into them too much. I think it’ll be the most effective for you the blinder you go into it. That being said, the way this game deals with issues and themes surrounding politics and trans identity is absolutely top tier, and if you’ve been looking for a game that handles all of that perfectly you cannot pass this by. When I played the demo last year it got me paying more attention to what I say and the way I say it, which is.. not really an affect I expected to feel from a game.
Absolutely check this one out. It’s nice and short (but has multiple endings that you’ll be driven to check out!) and just, so so good. It deserves your attention. Also birds :)
Time: 02 Hours
Platform: Mac (Via Parallels)
It’s wild that I went straight from FF8 to this.
An Outcry is an indie horror rpg I found out about when I played the 2021 Haunted PS1 Demo Disc. Even among that stylistically and presentationally varied crop of wonderful bite-sized experiences, this was far and away my favorite. Now it’s finally out, and my god it’s amazing. If you don’t know about the game, which, fair I guess but Fix That Now, just calling it an indie horror rpg doesn’t really tell the whole story. The horror is primarily conveyed through this.. foreboding atmosphere, and walls of cryptically written text that I could just read for hours and hours. On top of that, it’s got gorgeously realized full screen pixel-art just, everywhere. Honestly there’s some things in this game that I didn’t think you could do with RPG maker, let alone a version that’s 20 years old. One thing that’s very RPG maker is the battle system. It’s based in ATB, with your standard kind of moveset (some defensive, some damaging, some meta/support). It doesn’t have much (if any) of the progression and resource management endemic to these kinds of systems though, which feels very refreshing to me, personally (after coming off of 6[?] final fantasy games in a row lmao). The battles feel thematic, not unlike Undertale, but in a much different way? The game manages to get you into the head of the main character in a way not many RPGs I’ve played, even some all time favorites, ever have.
We can talk about the main character and the themes a bit too, but I really don’t wanna get into them too much. I think it’ll be the most effective for you the blinder you go into it. That being said, the way this game deals with issues and themes surrounding politics and trans identity is absolutely top tier, and if you’ve been looking for a game that handles all of that perfectly you cannot pass this by. When I played the demo last year it got me paying more attention to what I say and the way I say it, which is.. not really an affect I expected to feel from a game.
Absolutely check this one out. It’s nice and short (but has multiple endings that you’ll be driven to check out!) and just, so so good. It deserves your attention. Also birds :)