ResidentMelville
1255 Reviews liked by ResidentMelville
My Disney Kitchen
2002
I only ever figured out how to play the cake minigame but oh my god frosting those cakes was the most fun I ever had.
My Disney Kitchen
2002
they keep eating my food
Storyteller
2023
Pretty cute little puzzle game that plays well on the switch.
As a note, currently, it isn't all that long but the devs have announced more content is on the way in September.
As a note, currently, it isn't all that long but the devs have announced more content is on the way in September.
Exoprimal
2023
well that sucked
Strongest "immersive" triple aaa player vs Weakest licensed game enjoyer
Crash Bandicoot
2017
There's a guy below me who said "This shit rocks 5 stars" and I would like to, in the nicest way, tell him to take his meds
Marvel's Avengers
2020
Remember games before "games-as-a-service" was a thing? Same.
this is so much fun and i’m hopeful that the roughest parts of it could improve, things like the creation suite improving could cement this as an all timer, it would be a massive shame if it died before it could get to that point.
Cotton 100%
2021
I've been gaming for over 30 years. I spend all my spare time on gaming websites reading reviews, news, forums or documentaries. I like to think I have a great general knowledge about videogames old and new, even niche ones. Yet until last year I'd never heard of Cotton. To find out the series has like 8 games since 1991 that had passed me by was truly a pleasant revelation.
Many of them have now been ported as well as new games so figured I'd dive in with one at random, I chose Cotton 100% which is the second game in the series, originally released on Playstation and the SNES apparently. I'm not sure what version is supplied here but I'm guessing it's the SNES one. As far as ports go it's extremely barebones. It does have some quality of life features like rewind, cheats and save states but that's literally it. The challenge mode is literally the game without these as it was originally released and even has two identical sets of trophies for the standard and challenge modes but that's it.
The game is pretty fun though, a horizontal side scrolling shoot 'em up or 'cute 'em up' as I have vomit inducingly heard it called. That naming convention aside it genuinely was a nice change for something so colourful and whimsical instead of all the sci-fi shooters like Gradius, Arrow Flash, Musha and Eliminate Down I've played this year. The game attempts a story and while the early 90's scenes and art have their charm it's otherwise utter nonsense about Willows and Candy. This version just stapled some subtitles below without even removing the Japanese is how budget the release is but it's fine, not a single person cares about the story anyway. Literally not one. Even the original writers.
Gameplay wise this game is a pretty easy affair but I've had a crap week at work so it was a perfect chill experience. Cotton picks up crystals and kills enemies to level up powering her main attack. She collects fairy comrades to bolster her fire power and has a range of magic spells to choose from.
In addition. These spells can be selected in sets at the start of each level a bit like in Gradius and depending on the selected spell type the fairy minions will change attack formation around you.
That's pretty much it. There are 7 levels, each with two bosses, an easier mid boss and an end level boss. You can beat it in under an hour but if you go for the platinum it will take 2 or 3 playthroughs.The visuals are pretty cure though nothing spectacular, ok sprites mostly kept pleasant by colour and art. It's got a pretty great upbeat soundtrack with some really good songs but the quality here is crackly and sometimes pops. Port issue or like it in the original? I really don't know.
Will definitely try some of the other games after enjoying this. I hear Panarama Cotton plays like Space Harrier, pretty crazy change.
+ Short relaxing fun.
+ Easy to pick up and just play.
+ Cute art and great music.
- The sound quality is poor.
- Barebones content.
Many of them have now been ported as well as new games so figured I'd dive in with one at random, I chose Cotton 100% which is the second game in the series, originally released on Playstation and the SNES apparently. I'm not sure what version is supplied here but I'm guessing it's the SNES one. As far as ports go it's extremely barebones. It does have some quality of life features like rewind, cheats and save states but that's literally it. The challenge mode is literally the game without these as it was originally released and even has two identical sets of trophies for the standard and challenge modes but that's it.
The game is pretty fun though, a horizontal side scrolling shoot 'em up or 'cute 'em up' as I have vomit inducingly heard it called. That naming convention aside it genuinely was a nice change for something so colourful and whimsical instead of all the sci-fi shooters like Gradius, Arrow Flash, Musha and Eliminate Down I've played this year. The game attempts a story and while the early 90's scenes and art have their charm it's otherwise utter nonsense about Willows and Candy. This version just stapled some subtitles below without even removing the Japanese is how budget the release is but it's fine, not a single person cares about the story anyway. Literally not one. Even the original writers.
Gameplay wise this game is a pretty easy affair but I've had a crap week at work so it was a perfect chill experience. Cotton picks up crystals and kills enemies to level up powering her main attack. She collects fairy comrades to bolster her fire power and has a range of magic spells to choose from.
In addition. These spells can be selected in sets at the start of each level a bit like in Gradius and depending on the selected spell type the fairy minions will change attack formation around you.
That's pretty much it. There are 7 levels, each with two bosses, an easier mid boss and an end level boss. You can beat it in under an hour but if you go for the platinum it will take 2 or 3 playthroughs.The visuals are pretty cure though nothing spectacular, ok sprites mostly kept pleasant by colour and art. It's got a pretty great upbeat soundtrack with some really good songs but the quality here is crackly and sometimes pops. Port issue or like it in the original? I really don't know.
Will definitely try some of the other games after enjoying this. I hear Panarama Cotton plays like Space Harrier, pretty crazy change.
+ Short relaxing fun.
+ Easy to pick up and just play.
+ Cute art and great music.
- The sound quality is poor.
- Barebones content.
This review contains spoilers
In a way, I wish I could give this a netural Steam rating instead of negative because there ARE many moments of brilliance reminicent of the first game scattered through out - but ultimately, I can't really think of a reason why this sequel exists, besides just wanting more of the same and if that's what you want, good on ya
If you haven't played the first game, there's no point in playing this, because it relies heavily on events from it, while also being a much worse story/game. If you HAVE played the first one and already understand most of the mystery, did you really think an ending that intentionally and powerfully played with themes of purgatory in delicate manner needed further conclusion?
There's also a lot of technical hiccups that made the experience much more frustrating than it needed to be, which absolutely soured my mood and left me harsher than I otherwise would be. Note - there are NEVER autosave points where you'd think they would be. Let's say the protagonists are in a house and have a confrontation with people. You go through a 5-10 minute sequence, there's some gameplay, lots of dialogue etc and it's eventually wrapped up. The other people leave and our protagonists have a moment where they decide where to go next and exclaim that they should start heading over there now. You would think that's a decent place to quit the game - but nope, I had to redo the entire previous sequence :( now imagine this happening again lol
That's also not counting the handful of sequences I had to redo because things bugged out - like characters no longer being able to move. When I restarted after that, a radio conversation I had just had with Olivia never played? I had Jacob get stuck running in place at one point. Radio conversations reset themselves sometimes. Characters would ask questions they'd already asked before or knew the answer to. Certain action prompts like climbing ropes occasionally feel sticky - once I was required to stand in a pixel perfection position to climb a rope and I was like ohhh my god no dont tell me the game has bugged AGAIN (and at least this one time it hadn't)
The story and characters are....kind of a complete mess? Not an entirely bad mess, I'll grant you that. Riley and Jacob can be quite enjoyable - although, the relationship between them isn't super balanced, as Jacob will be the one that speaks/rambles while Riley interjects a lot less. It makes a lot more sense if you think of Jacob as having ADHD, which he's quite hard coded as imo. But anyway, I noticed this has already been pretty decisive in the other reviews. There are other characters scattered about on the radio who range from enjoyable and interesting (Nick!) to not really anything to uhhh well I completely missed one of them apparently lol
The story unfortunately didn't click with me, mostly because the antagonists are either 1. just stuff from the first game, which I'll admit is still really cool but also nothing new and 2. these really really boring and dull hollow teenagers. I'm not surprised that 80% of players let Olivia stay behind because why the fuck wouldn't you lol? She's a nothing character and WANTS it. We really don't interact with her much over the course of the game and the moments she is nice are so shallow and quickly over that they leave no impact, meaning it's a disappointingly easy choice. When I realized where things were going, I stopped picking dialogue choices and just let Riley be silent to avoid Olivia changing her mind lol
I just sorta feel like I was being pulled along for the ride with the plot, probably not helped by the main structure being "okay we need you to go to these 3 places to put down things and doing that will probably fix everything!". I just would have liked a bit more motivation and personal investment in things, I guess
So at one point, Alex and characters from the first game show up and fair play, it's initially really cool!! but then Alex just kinda immediately cowards out of her initial menacing demenor and is suddenly on our side? And it's just really whiplashy and undermines the point of her being here, basically relegating her to fanservice support piece imo
I realize this is a Me Being Dumb thing but I also found navigating the island so fucking tedious. I got lost a few times and having to backtrack with mildly slow characters with mildly finnicky button prompts really took it out of me. Listen, Jacob spending 10 minutes talking about his favourite yoghurt or whatever might be boring as shit, but it beats the long stretches of empty silence I got while backtracking across the map lol
The thing with a game like this, I ended up googling "oxenfree 1 plot summary" about a quarter of the way in to refresh my memory on some things and upon reading it, I was like "oh man, the first game did have a really fucking cool mystery....I wish this game had that". When you, as a sequel, rely so heavy on the first product, you're inviting the audience to make comparisons, which is a dangerous game because it's very easy for them to end up wishing they were playing that instead. In fact, I think this might've ended up stronger with less ties to the original game, where it could stand more on its own merit
I did really wanted to enjoy this - the beginning is really strong!!! the spooky moments are awesome!!! the visuals/audio are generally great!! but in terms of cohersion, "mess" is the only word I have to describe it
If you haven't played the first game, there's no point in playing this, because it relies heavily on events from it, while also being a much worse story/game. If you HAVE played the first one and already understand most of the mystery, did you really think an ending that intentionally and powerfully played with themes of purgatory in delicate manner needed further conclusion?
There's also a lot of technical hiccups that made the experience much more frustrating than it needed to be, which absolutely soured my mood and left me harsher than I otherwise would be. Note - there are NEVER autosave points where you'd think they would be. Let's say the protagonists are in a house and have a confrontation with people. You go through a 5-10 minute sequence, there's some gameplay, lots of dialogue etc and it's eventually wrapped up. The other people leave and our protagonists have a moment where they decide where to go next and exclaim that they should start heading over there now. You would think that's a decent place to quit the game - but nope, I had to redo the entire previous sequence :( now imagine this happening again lol
That's also not counting the handful of sequences I had to redo because things bugged out - like characters no longer being able to move. When I restarted after that, a radio conversation I had just had with Olivia never played? I had Jacob get stuck running in place at one point. Radio conversations reset themselves sometimes. Characters would ask questions they'd already asked before or knew the answer to. Certain action prompts like climbing ropes occasionally feel sticky - once I was required to stand in a pixel perfection position to climb a rope and I was like ohhh my god no dont tell me the game has bugged AGAIN (and at least this one time it hadn't)
The story and characters are....kind of a complete mess? Not an entirely bad mess, I'll grant you that. Riley and Jacob can be quite enjoyable - although, the relationship between them isn't super balanced, as Jacob will be the one that speaks/rambles while Riley interjects a lot less. It makes a lot more sense if you think of Jacob as having ADHD, which he's quite hard coded as imo. But anyway, I noticed this has already been pretty decisive in the other reviews. There are other characters scattered about on the radio who range from enjoyable and interesting (Nick!) to not really anything to uhhh well I completely missed one of them apparently lol
The story unfortunately didn't click with me, mostly because the antagonists are either 1. just stuff from the first game, which I'll admit is still really cool but also nothing new and 2. these really really boring and dull hollow teenagers. I'm not surprised that 80% of players let Olivia stay behind because why the fuck wouldn't you lol? She's a nothing character and WANTS it. We really don't interact with her much over the course of the game and the moments she is nice are so shallow and quickly over that they leave no impact, meaning it's a disappointingly easy choice. When I realized where things were going, I stopped picking dialogue choices and just let Riley be silent to avoid Olivia changing her mind lol
I just sorta feel like I was being pulled along for the ride with the plot, probably not helped by the main structure being "okay we need you to go to these 3 places to put down things and doing that will probably fix everything!". I just would have liked a bit more motivation and personal investment in things, I guess
So at one point, Alex and characters from the first game show up and fair play, it's initially really cool!! but then Alex just kinda immediately cowards out of her initial menacing demenor and is suddenly on our side? And it's just really whiplashy and undermines the point of her being here, basically relegating her to fanservice support piece imo
I realize this is a Me Being Dumb thing but I also found navigating the island so fucking tedious. I got lost a few times and having to backtrack with mildly slow characters with mildly finnicky button prompts really took it out of me. Listen, Jacob spending 10 minutes talking about his favourite yoghurt or whatever might be boring as shit, but it beats the long stretches of empty silence I got while backtracking across the map lol
The thing with a game like this, I ended up googling "oxenfree 1 plot summary" about a quarter of the way in to refresh my memory on some things and upon reading it, I was like "oh man, the first game did have a really fucking cool mystery....I wish this game had that". When you, as a sequel, rely so heavy on the first product, you're inviting the audience to make comparisons, which is a dangerous game because it's very easy for them to end up wishing they were playing that instead. In fact, I think this might've ended up stronger with less ties to the original game, where it could stand more on its own merit
I did really wanted to enjoy this - the beginning is really strong!!! the spooky moments are awesome!!! the visuals/audio are generally great!! but in terms of cohersion, "mess" is the only word I have to describe it
Cafe Venus Flytrap
2023
a fly in a frog cafe what could go wrong?
A crossover that I never thought of but made all too much sense when I laid eyes on it. Actively changing the artstyle to match SpongeBob was such a good choice. This one oozes charm, and they were really allowed to go wild with references and fanservice, which is very appreciated. Initially was gonna hold back half a star because there were some minor annoying parts, but I think those are actually minor enough that it doesn't really matter.
A ton of love put into this one. It may be a bit short for the price but the only thing I could really imagine adding would be the tree dome. Everything else you'd expect and then some is included here
They made your model into a fish for immersion purposes. Top tier.
You play as a small Firefly with a big personality on a journey to find Mother in order to stop the devourers cloaking the forest in darkness. Along the way, you'll meet many other characters to help you with your task.
Visuals
She and the Light Bearer looks like a gorgeous storybook. Like with most games I play, it was the artstyle that initially drew me to it. It's just so bright and colorful and pretty. It made me happy just to look at it. The main setting is the forest which looks very lush and green and vibrant. The characters are all super adorable little plants and bugs. Everything just oozes charm and happiness.
Sound Effects + Music
The background music of She and the Light Bearer has a nice folksy, island vibe to it. It's quite pleasant and suits the visuals perfectly. I never got annoyed with it or found it repetitive.
The characters do have some voice acting, but they all speak gibberish. They sound cute.
Gameplay + Controls
She and the Light Bearer is a very simple point-and-click narrative adventure. I'd say the focus is on the narrative, and the point-and-click aspects are mainly there just to make it more interactive. Everything you need to click on sparkles, so you can't miss anything. And it's not done as a hint feature like in other games of the genre; everything is just sparkly from the go. You do still have to go back-and-forth between locations to pick up items to use on objects in previous screens, but it's never anything complicated. And you don't have to combine items into something usable.
Replayability
She and the Light Bearer took me a little over two hours to finish, and I did miss some achievements along the way. This is a game I wouldn't mind playing again in the future to complete it and just go through this sweet story again.
Overall
She and the Light Bearer is a very cute and chill game. It's a nice way to spend a couple of hours.
Visuals
She and the Light Bearer looks like a gorgeous storybook. Like with most games I play, it was the artstyle that initially drew me to it. It's just so bright and colorful and pretty. It made me happy just to look at it. The main setting is the forest which looks very lush and green and vibrant. The characters are all super adorable little plants and bugs. Everything just oozes charm and happiness.
Sound Effects + Music
The background music of She and the Light Bearer has a nice folksy, island vibe to it. It's quite pleasant and suits the visuals perfectly. I never got annoyed with it or found it repetitive.
The characters do have some voice acting, but they all speak gibberish. They sound cute.
Gameplay + Controls
She and the Light Bearer is a very simple point-and-click narrative adventure. I'd say the focus is on the narrative, and the point-and-click aspects are mainly there just to make it more interactive. Everything you need to click on sparkles, so you can't miss anything. And it's not done as a hint feature like in other games of the genre; everything is just sparkly from the go. You do still have to go back-and-forth between locations to pick up items to use on objects in previous screens, but it's never anything complicated. And you don't have to combine items into something usable.
Replayability
She and the Light Bearer took me a little over two hours to finish, and I did miss some achievements along the way. This is a game I wouldn't mind playing again in the future to complete it and just go through this sweet story again.
Overall
She and the Light Bearer is a very cute and chill game. It's a nice way to spend a couple of hours.