Ratsune
Theres still a lot I haven't actually done yet but I have completed the main story and I did enjoy it but, like... 6 years? I really don't think there's that much that really makes this feel new. One of the main advertised gimmicks, the sky islands, are sick until you find out the one you start on is like 20x bigger than the rest of the others and there aren't that many other ones. And if you thought hyrule in the first one was just walking through empty planes simulator, wait until you see the depths in this one oh my god. If you're lucky you'll see some lava or water. There really is a lot I liked about this game, some moments nearing the end of the main story had me fully invested, and there's a few side quests that were really engaging, but this game does less to be different from it's predecessor than pretty much any other direct zelda sequel. Hell, I'd argue the oracle games have more fundamental differences than these two. It just pains me that it does pretty much nothing to be fully it's own thing, I'd say the glorified DLC worry was right. It's not that I even wanted a more traditional zelda, I just wanted a new zelda.
2008
I did play it but watched the vast majority of it in a playthrough. 2000's japanese freeware is something else. the music is phenomenal i will be listening to it regularly from now on. sucks that the gameplay almost wants the player not to play more, like on it's own it's a fine puzzle game but needing to get these exorbitantly large scores to see a pretty big chunk of what it has to offer is so bizarre to me. the vibes are immaculate too it feels like a forbidden game. very cool.
2010
Definitely my favorite game, it just gets everything right for me. This is the most personal and raw depiction of childhood I've seen in any media. It's also extremely funny? I wouldn't even say it balances humor and horror, it makes them intrinsic to one another in a way I've never seen done before. The way the battles are made fresh in the default turnbased rpg style is insanity to me. Also I really do have a soft spot for doujin product art, there really is something to admire like in higurashi when a creator who isn't primarily an illustrator does their own art for the sake of making a complete product.
2002
I played this a lot on 3DS as a kid and loved showing it to my sister and later she told me shantae was her bisexual awakening god bless the magic of video games.
The first few chapters were the best part (best of the game it isn't good) then it went "love is love if it's your sister but if it's another dude that's gross" why does nobody bring this up i feel like I'm taking crazy pills why does nobody bring up how seconds after showing a gay caricature the protagonist is talking about how he should be allowed to bang his little sister scadi why did you do this to me fuck you
Can't say too much about the story or themes yet but horrifically this might be my favorite gameplay loop in any game I've played, at least for rpgs it clears. You could probe my brain to only activate dopamine and serotonin receptors and I think I wouldn't be having half as much of a good time.
2015
This game keeps dangling interesting plot elements in front of you then cock blocks you with excruciatingly long hentai scenes. I literally started this game for the shock value but even then it gets boring because of how long the scenes are you can't expect me to stay disgusted for that long eventually it just becomes white noise.
2022
Apparently my perfect sonic game would be a nier-esque open world action but with platformer elements. This is not nearly that perfect game but playing frontiers put that idea in my head. A man can dream.
2020
Gameplay is really stiff but I do like the character interactions, I think the game is cute. I enjoyed it, don't go in expecting anything groundbreaking.
there's so much I could gush over with this game and make this into an incoherent mess but my main takeaway from this game was the characters. they're probably the most consistently compelling cast in any story for me personally. shout out to herlock sholmes i'm so grateful they had to change his name in the english version because it's so funny and he's funny and i love him. I cannot stress enough how much the characters just click with me, they're just fantastic.
Seems to be the most genuine denpa experience for english only speakers right now, which is fine with me this game rocks. Themes near the end very drastically change in a direction I never expect but I guess that is par for the course in this genre.
1995
after hearing tons of stuff about sierra games being bullshit this was surprisingly playable, I did use a guide but it wasn't that often. definitely fits into the b movie camp but I won't be caught dead complaining about that. I'll be honest I mostly played this one because the second one looks really fascinating, but I enjoyed this one for what it was. The 3d backgrounds with the live action sprites and the music that sounds chiptune half the time gave such an engaging (albeit unintentional) dissonance, i think it could be done well purposefully. also something I found out apparently adrian's outfit is like that because the actress showed up on set one day dressed like that and the director decided to make that the attire of the character, i am infinitely curious of what her original outfit was supposed to be. this is one of those games where you'll know if you'll enjoy it so there's really no point in telling you why or why not you shouldn't.
1995
I don't know what to say other than this shit is fire. I think anyone can enjoy chrono trigger, even if they don't like jrpgs.
I played this recently despite phantom hourglass being my first zelda over a decade ago... and I really liked it! I loved using the train, zelda as the companion was a really interesting decision, and the bosses were really cool. My main gripes were that most sidequests were delivery missions and those parts where you had to blow in the microphone to play the flute. It was fine for the most part except wuen you had to play it with the lokomos because it was very hard to gauge what it actually wanted and how to do it correctly in time. The beedle rewards thing seems horrendous to do so I didn't do it. Overall I really enjoyed the game! I don't really understand why it's so overlooked.
2019
Holy shit this was so over the top. Some scenes were really funny because of this, intentionally or not. Suffice to say, not for the faint of heart. If you get a kick out of extreme violence this'll be fun for you. At points you can hear the mic popping from the voice actresses screaming so loudly, every time it happened I was like "LETS FUCKING GOOOO". In the staff comments one of the voice actresses says she lost her voice from screaming so much. I hope this spells the return for black cyc, the fact this was so quickly translated was insane when no other cyc title (as far as I know) has even gotten partial fan translations. It's niche, but I sincerely hope it was a success in that fucked up niche.