11 reviews liked by Reneeskitty


sates my hunger for more first-person adventure games rly nicely, before even all the obvious aesthetic draw. feels authentically folkloric and fableistic in its narrative structure, somehow up to and including the multiple endings, which all feel like plausible outcomes to a story mutated by oral tradition...makes me think a lot ab how much i love horror's central Thing of making u realize the world is More Then What U Thought It Was, ab grappling w/ the impossible, ab questioning the bedrock of "normal" reality, whats shaped it, whats going on behind the curtain. maybe not an all-timer but a rly nice little bundle of basically everything i could want from this type of thing...except perhaps pronounced emotional connection, but perhaps thats the price paid sometimes for the somewhat Distancing effect of fables. whats meant 2 provoke u is not any traditional narrative Thing, but the story residing in yr internal world later, ready for u to remember it the next time u see a big spooky stack of hay

a crossection of too many things i find evocative to not be entranced...lonely fog and repetitive tasks and cyclical horrors always going One Further Horrifying Layer then expected thru perfectly placed nightmare logic with a tinge of traumatic religion. the fact that i genuinely found the buildup stuff Comfy (i like repetitive tasks! i like isolation! i like islands! i like rain and thunderstorms!) is a rly good indicator as to how tailor made for me specifically this feels. i dont Understand everything obviously but i kinda dont want too...it feels evocative enough to get obsessed with without any fan theorizing. some amazing flourishes in here, esp anything involving the physical presence "monster." upset and disquieted me in a way ive been craving for ages !

features one of the greatest lo-poly rain effects ive ever experienced, fwiw

kinda infuriating how much i like this! its whole mechanical identity is more or less Stubbornly Refusing To Do Anything beyond a few fleeting formula twists and silly pastiches, and its whole thematic identity (from a birds-eye view) is a very shallow and condescending parody. but the charm is Everything, it is so incessant that it just wore down my defenses. and maybe its not so shallow and condescending: horror often counterintuitively thrives on predictability, benefits from establishing baselines of expectation or repurposing famous ones, so that even tiny disruptions to that status quo are adding color. being a Horror Fan often means , for example, watching enough generic slasher movies that u are fully capable of loving them, the beats of the genre so internalized that yr brain is free to pick up on whatever minor bits of strangeness and resonance u can find that are imperceptible to ppl who's brains are too occupied by being annoyed at the surface elements. it makes sense then that this concept that Should be a lame parody actually comes across more like a deeply insider note of appreciation and affection. god dammit i dont even think i hate the pastiches, i cheered when i saw that giant sickle! i like horror sue me!!

when discussing sable, jacob geller proposed it as the perfect Mid-Sized Breath Of The Wild, a comfortably sprawling point between the massiveness of BOTW proper and the bite-sized single-setting take on many of its aspects in a short hike. lil gator game sits between a short hike and sable on this imaginary scale and as much as i appreciate all these games (especially sable) this may very well be my fave of them all!! its kind of incredibly how expressively each game's runtime informs its overall feel but lil gator game is the absolute perfect Exhaustingly Joyful Afternoon, it somehow doesnt feel like a micro-anything it just feels like a real time day spent in exhilarating childhood antics. even more then breath of the wild or a short hike it reminds me of other works that concern themselves with Imaginative Play: the lessons in empathy across age gaps from spike jonze's where the wild things are, the whisperingly quiet melancholy of what drives reality into fantasy from calvin and hobbes, and the quiet radicalism re: the emotional and spiritual necessity of imaginative play from bluey.

it is very humble and warm, mostly lacking the overt quirkiness that characterizes a lot of the modern flavor of Indie Game Twee (which is something im fond of, if not entirely enamored with) in favor of calmer colors, both literal and emotional. when these types of games fold into an emotional crescendo my response is usually nice enough (i am quite open to these things) but i swear this one even tho its not insistent at all just hit me with tons of Inexplicable Feelings out of nowhere.

i feel like someday i have to take a real hard crack at writing ab Imaginative Play and art about it, prob turn it into something political and spiritual. but at the heart of any such thesis no matter how many big words i lay on top will be a relatively simple texture, an almost mundane ecstasy, and this game perhaps more then any other work ive encountered is essentially nothing but that texture and that ecstasy in its most potent, concentrated form

it's a lot of work to make a game. there are lots of better things our work could be used for then the things we do now. we must re-learn how to imagine things being different

hoping in the coming year to educate myself more in adventure games!! i dont quite have the internal or external vocabulary to talk indepth about them yet i dont think but this is certainly one of the most enjoyable ive yet experienced. my understanding is that if theres any Skill that one can Hone to get better adventure games, its not just logical thinking or even lateral thinking, but to slowly form an intuitive sensitivity to the genre's rhythms, taking clues from convention and tone and other precedents to comprehend the moon logic a particular title is likely to invoke. im definitely not far enough in that yet to make it through them consistently without assistance (this one was generally approachable to me but i didnt feel any guilt using a guide when my stubbornness run out), but theres a reason why Context and Vibes are so important to these games. and this ones definitely got something vivid in its fun and cartoony world of kitsch and color , with a seedy underbelly of apathy and lowkey sadism...i hope nobody was on that bus!

I've never played a game like this. A game that only tells you controls and nothing else, the rest is for you to discover, a game that isn't afraid to put you in unfair situation. This game is one of the hardest games i've ever played yet I found myself absolutely loving it. You are in this world where everything is against you and you must survive and avoid danger. The game rewards you for experimenting as much as possible, it rewards you for every small success. The AI is probably the best AI I've seen in any games, animals here don't act like enemies but rather as a wild animal would. The art is simply beatiful and gorgeous and immerses you into wanting to discover this dangerous world. The only problem I had with this game was the camera, that is the only flaw i could think of. Rain world is a game that everyone should experience for themselves, definetly one of the best games i've ever played

proof that a 7/10 game is still a great game (ignore my rating i use a diff scale). even though it is not the masterpiece it could be, it manages to do everything it needs to without reaching too far or becoming too ambitious. it's a strong yet shallow game with adorable art and solidly fun gameplay, but with the existence of future free updates (and potentially a steam workshop) this could easily become an 8 or a 9/10 game with time.

+it's first-person physics puzzler katamari, which an insanely bold concept on wii, and it's pulled off with relative aplomb. the goal is to capture elebits to charge up your gravity gun, which in turn can activate devices that spit out special elebits which increase the size of objects that you can move around to reveal more elebits. you're allowed to make such a mess turning rooms upside down searching for elebits, and by end game you can pick up some seriously large structures and toss them around easily.
+gorgeous hand-drawn art that's like trembling thin-line characters on top of a pulsating watercolor background. it's the main style used in the cutscenes and looks amazing
+in the latter half of the game there's no map repetition, which surprised me quite a bit. there are objects that reappear frequently, but as far as I'm aware basically every map past the house is unique. especially impressive given that there's 25 main missions.
+bosses are as solid as you could possibly get given the premise, and I didn't find any of them to be aggravating or dull. each one has a separate gimmick and strategy as well.
+there's plenty of content here, with a multiplayer mode where multiple people can compete to see who gets the most elebits, and an edit mode where you can make your own maps. I didn't dive into much of the extraneous content, but the game still took me a little over 9 hours to beat regardless, which was much longer than I was expecting (though that's including all my retries and such).
+being able to stand on your tiptoes or crouch is such a smart addition. initially I didn't think much of it, but I found it to be of great use later on.
+the game swarms you with temporary upgrades throughout the levels, and virtually all of them are useful. homing lasers especially are a must-have in the late-game
+I was initially worried about the turrets throughout the game that shoot at you, because it's not always apparent when you're being fired upon, and it's easy to get momentarily stuck on surrounding objects and not be able to dodge. thankfully their shots move very slowly and you can duck under them as well, making these much less of an issue than anticipated.
+absolute banger jungle/house soundtrack that flirts with salsa, big band, and other influences throughout. sometimes the MIDI-ness of the tracks is a little overly apparently, but there are def tracks that made me stop listening to a podcast in the background just so I could enjoy them. I'll just drop a little sampling right here, here,here, here, and here

-the framerate is never amazing and in the bigger end-game areas it really struggles to keep pace. not as annoying when you're just wildly wrecking havoc and picking up stray elebits, but very annoying when you're trying to do something precise
-the basic gun and movement controls are great but advanced techniques like turning handles, rotating objects, and pulling items towards you are frustrating, especially if you play this sitting down like I did. the wiimote is simply not accurate enough to facilitate these techniques, though at least they aren't necessary often
-elebits vary in how many watts they give you depending on their mood, and if they see you/know you're trying to catch them they get agitated and yield less watts. in theory this is interesting, but the implementation is so haphazard that it becomes a major nuisance. elebits across the map can somehow know where you are while elebits less than a meter from you will blissfully prance unaware of your presence.
-to use items you have to break them by smashing them against a surface, and I never felt like this was consistent. it's especially annoying when they bounce against the surface instead and go flying off.
-certain contraptions have more obtuse requirements for opening them once powered, which usually isn't a big deal since there are plenty of these throughout each level. some early stages (especially the kitchen) had me struggling to figure out how to operate these but ultimately moving on. however, mission 27 had me in conniptions for a bit because suddenly operating each machine is mandatory to power up the gun enough to win, and these puzzles made little-to-no sense to me. it's not intuitive for me to operate a map kiosk by putting a plastic rabbit on top of it...
-early game has a lot of repeated areas since you're within your house for each mission. it makes sense in context, but you spend so much time in the living room... there could've been more variety for sure.

I liked this game quite a bit, especially during the middle section where the levels opened up a bit and I felt like I could go a little crazy in each mission. what keeps this overall concept from being better is the paucity of elebits at times. in katamari, the main drive is to collect as much as possible and always keep picking up items, and it accomplishes that with items being everywhere conceivable. in this game, the mission pacing is much more choppy, and there are points in many missions where it feels like you're trying to squeeze blood from a stone scrounging up elebits to unlock a new contraption. that feeling of not being able to bulk up your wattage or gun power while the clock is ticking down makes my shoulders tense, and it kept me from wanting the do the bare minimum to clear each level. for the most part I'd exit the level as soon as my wattage hit the required amount instead of continuing to build my rank, and that feeling of not wanting to pursue more with the game caps how high I can rank it at the end of the day. it's flawed for sure, but it gets so much right in other ways that I can't help but feel a lot of affection for it, especially since it's a game I remember clearly from my childhood.

Ok so, I was originally going to give this a 4.5 because of some minor issues I had with the game, but I just... couldn't. This game is just too monumental and important to justify giving anything but a 5. Just thinking about the fact that this released before the 2000s blows my mind. I know it was a bit of a later release on the PS1, but still this is an early example of a more atmospheric, cinematic gaming experience.

Also just the fact that I haven't played anything else like this. The tank controls take some getting used to, but they add so much to the feeling of uneasiness. The game is fuckin freaky as hell too, plenty of incredibly memorable scares are here. It's just such an effective experience that really blew my mind in a lot of ways. Apparently Silent Hill 2 is even more groundbreaking, so hell yea I'm looking forward to that.

What this game does better than Skate 2: The overall gameplay. This is definitely the most balanced game in the skate series. Sure there are some challenge types I don't really like, but overall there weren't any challenges here that felt unfair. Also, the controls are the best they've ever been in the series, as there is even more to do trick wise in this game. I also want to mention the soundtrack, which is my favorite in the series.

What this game does worse than Skate 2: I kind of feel like Skate 2 had... more personality? I know it's kind of dumb to put this much thought into the story of a game in this series but this game feels really lazy in the department. Skate 2 has an interesting backstory to the world and that made it more fun to explore. The world in this game is good, but it pales in comparison to the city in Skate 2. Also, this game feels much less stable. I know it's cliche to talk about glitches in this game, and for some people they add to the experience, but to me they kind of hurt it.

These aspects of the games mostly even out in terms of quality, but overall, I have to say Skate 2 appealed to me more overall. That is not to say this is a bad game though, it's great! I had a ton of fun with this title and it absolutely blows Skate 1 out of the water. Definitely very glad I played through this and the series in general.