Genre: Experimental Political Message | Released: October 2016 | Platform: Web browser | Developer: Nicky Case! | Publisher: Nicky Case! | Language: English | Length: 15 minutues | Difficulty: None | Do I Need To Play Anything First: No | Accessibility Options: None | Monetization: It’s free | Microtransaction: None | Gambling Elements: None | Content Warning: Graphic, cartoon blood and gore. Extreme violence | Parenting Guide: Just… No. | How Did You Play It: On PC | Did you need a guide: No | Mods: None

Is It Good: It’s… something. Interesting?

Back of the Box: I think there may be a political message in this video game.

Play It Here: https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb

We Become What We Behold is a 2016 web game about news cycles, vicious cycles, and infinite cycles according to the creator. It’s very simple, not at all subtle, and is more an art piece than a game. I thought it was neat.

Follow me at The Pile for more reviews (including books and films)

https://thepile.substack.com/

I love this sullen, gangly, size zero interpretation of shinobi. I love the freezeframe bisection polyptychs, the d'n'b soundtrack, and the mobility. it's an exceptionally stylish, confident game, and while a lot of folks have already said it: when it works it really works

the big draw past the point when you're no longer in awe of its scarf physics and relentless bangers is the tate (殺陣; fatal wind) mechanic. it's like the chip BURST chip dynamic modern action games love, only instead of an mmo-grade phase rotation it's more of a split second setplay puzzle where the "burst" is seeing an entire health bar explode in a single hit while you go full vogue

each successive kill within a four second window builds power and prolongs the chain until it's ready to come together for the photogenic finish. it's the most shinobi shit on the planet, and when everything plays out the way you planned you immediately forget how much the camera made you wanna bite the controller as hard as you could ten seconds prior. you no longer wanna send magazine cutout letters to the guy who decided the wretched lock-on should only target stuff you've never seen before. you might even find it in your heart to forgive the paul ws anderson lasers (I actually kinda liked em!)

main knock against it's that the levels & encounters are borderline procgen. on 3A I was getting a bit dozy and for a second there you could've successfully convinced me I was playing persona 4. there's no discernable sense of structure or pacing to the stages; they go on, cycle through a handful of identical rooms with identical enemy setups, and then a boss shows up whenever the mappers felt there were enough empty boxes, shiba dogs, and bottomless pits to call it a day

but the one thing that puts a bullet in the idea of replaying it on higher difficulties is the final boss. I hate this hocus pocus motherfucker. iframes and teleports out the ass, flying minions with wonky hurtboxes, one of those long intro sequences where the real fight doesn't start til you're a minute in. the sighs and groans I made when he decided to spin like a beyblade every time I managed to get the 8-chain going were downright ancestral -- real cave creature shit. I never wanna do that again, and I probably never will

happy to have played it but happy to be done. I hate mages so much man, you don't even know

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is the third Metroidvania-style game in its series and the second to be produced by Koji Igarashi, and it shows.

Harmony of Dissonance takes a lot of cues from Symphony of the Night, for better or worse. Movement feels a lot better than in Circle of the Moon thanks to a regular dash button instead of that stupid double-tap method (if you’ve played CotM, you know what I mean). The classic Metroidvania gameplay is still intact and just as addicting: you explore, solve puzzles, find new items, and then use said items to explore even more.

All that is still solid, but unfortunately, IGA decided to emulate SotN a little too closely, because we once again have two castles. This was a stroke of genius in SotN, since the Inverted Castle being… y’know, inverted made it feel like a newer, warped version of the old castle, allowing them to reuse the map without it feeling stale. HoD, on the other hand, features Castles A and B. The problem? They’re exactly the fucking same. It feels like you’re just retreading ground instead of exploring a surreal new dimension. The map design shows that Igarashi was trying to recapture lightning in a bottle, but only managed to scoop up a few sparks.

On the bright side, combat is a little different this time around. You’re stuck using the Vampire Killer whip, but you can augment it with different items that give it different abilities (fire, ice, a steel tip, etc.). While not as good as SotN, it’s still a refreshing take on the classic whip combat from earlier games. On top of that, you can now combine spells with sub-weapons to create some badass screen nukes. There’s a large variety to experiment with, but my favorite is definitely the Ice Cross.

The story is nothing too special, but at least it tries. It also has multiple endings and a bit more screentime for Death than usual, which is always a plus in my book.

I’m gonna be a contrarian and say that I actually like this game’s visual style. Sure, it’s very bright and garish, but that helps HoD stand out against the usual gloomy aesthetics of Castlevania. Hell, I think the Chapel of Dissonance looks pretty damn gorgeous.

I can’t defend the music, though. It sounds like 8-bit fart noises.

Overall, despite its flaws, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is a solid Metroidvania that paved the way for an even better entry in the series the following year. Good game. Me like.

I knew I was going to get Fallen Aces the second it hit Early Access after playing the first demo a year or two ago. Now that it has it didn't let me down in the slightest.

Fallen Aces is a fantastic immersive sim FPS even if it’s early state of just having Episode 1 of 3 currently. The combat feels so good with a great visceral physicality to what you do. The basic hand to hand is fun and the melee weapons have a good variety to them, one of my favorites being the power drill. I'm usually not the biggest fan of limiting your inventory in a shooter but Fallen Aces does a great job of making it feel not limiting and instead pushing you to use what you find.

The level design is some true immersive sim quality, with a bunch of avenues of approach, with some of the levels being quite expansive, namely the docks. The game rewards exploration by having a wide variety of useful weapons and items such as painkillers which heal you and give you armor and a tonic that is essentially the Berserker Pack from Doom.

Visually the game is phenomenal too with all the hand drawn characters and the mix of film noir, pulp stories, and golden age of comics aesthetics. The cutscenes for example do an actual great job emulating the look of golden age comics, making what usually is considered to be a budget way to do video game cutscenes into something appealing and inspired.

The only thing that I can think of that might needs some expansion is that you can collect treasure for cash but the only use there is for money is buying soda from vending machines to heal yourself and you easily amass more money you will ever need. I don't think the game needs upgrades or anything, but maybe some rewards can be gained with your cash.

Overall Fallen Aces is a fantastic game and if it keeps it up may well end up being easily my favorite New Blood published game (Though Gloomwood may very much be its rival) For nine dollars the game is a steal in its current state and I’m already completely satisfied with it. I highly recommend and eagerly await for more.

God(and two friends) as my witness, I tried here. But it wouldn't stop crashing. Two different emulators. Three different ROMs from different regions. Hours of tinkering with settings. I'm not fucking dusting out my DS just to play this. Moving on!

(Even if it did work, you could not convince me to spend more than half an hour on a game that looks like this, sounds like this, and writing that immediately assaults me with Amy Rose's new boyfriend Dexter. There's NOTHING to see here. It wasn't even made in house.)

Now, imagine if Sonic ever got an RPG...

Who's telling the truth?

Having played QUBE 2 a few years ago, didn't expect too much from its predecessor, so expectations were in my favor.
QUBE 1 is a solid puzzle game, offering a nice challenging experience, starting with simple core mechanics (cubes with different colors, each of one having a specific behaviors) and increasing complexity over time, introducing more and more mechanics to complicate things up (using the cubes described earlier to interact and help a ball to reach its destiny). I did not get stuck in any room like I did once in the second game, but I did have to use my brain in some of them, so difficulty curve was fine for me.

Graphics are pretty good for the year and the propose, art design is simple but effective, really liked those sections where the blocks around the room are dancing, creating a nice "Doctor Strange" effect, I'm glad I do not have motion sickness.
Regarding the music, it's more ambient, adding to the atmosphere of the game, it works fine, I need to also point out the music of the extra stages (DLC), which are in another level, good job done there.

The lore here can be something not that important for a simple puzzle game, but they created a nice narrative to keep you wondering what is the reality after all, and what would be the twist, so it's something else to praise here.
After completing the main story, there are some challenge levels designed to be completed in less possible time, with even different mechanics from the story mode, it could be just "additional" with the same stuff, but they managed to bring new content.
There were a few moments that annoyed me, like small bugs or blocks placed in a way that could prevent your movement for some seconds, messing up with what you are trying to do, but those were rare, and I had a funny bug at the last trial level, where I got launched into the space, flying forever away from the space base. I guess that's the secret bad ending, who knows?

I'll let you in on a little secret. Whenever I see people acting selfishly or dishonestly, it's common for me to think, "that's not very Bushido of them". This is who I am.

Bushido Blade is a modest little game, and I think people who bought it at full price are still a little bitter about it, but it remains indispensable. Fights are often over in one hit. Attacks are fatal. The twist is that if you want to make it through Story Mode, you need to fight with honour. That means no backstabbing, attacking while an enemy's on the ground, or jumping in before they finish their pre-fight speech. It's a neat little gimmick, and one that's gone a long way in earning my respect.

There's not a lot of content here, gameplay isn't very technical and there's odd blemishes as the tone swerves between dour historical drama and 1997 PS1 fighting game with big hair and technicolour outfits. The controls don't go far beyond Nidhogg (or Great Swordsman, for all the Taitoheads in the audience). It remains unique, though, and it's always in the back of my thoughts. Time, ticking away, until I know I have to go for another 20 minute run through Bushido Blade.

It should be said, two-player gives no rewards for good conduct, and it completely changes the game. That's where brutality and opportunism win the day. It's brilliant for entirely different reasons. The game's no Street Fighter, but there's plenty reason to own a copy.

Live A Live is one of the most unique and wonderful gaming experiences I have ever had the pleasure of playing. I'm baffled how this didn't sell well on the Super Famicom in Japan and was never released outside of Japan. I truly believe if it was released world wide it would be thought of along the same lines as the great JRPGs of the Super Nintendo like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, and Earthbound. I feel it would have a very similar cult following similar to Earthbound. I'm so glad they decided to give it a second chance at life so it could have its chance to shine. There were two things that absolutely blew me away about this game. Firstly, it is one of the most unique games I have ever had the pleasure of playing. Secondly this game was so far ahead of its time with some its ideas.

What makes this game so special and unique is the varied, bite sized JRPG stories this game contains. There are 8 heroes from multiple time periods (my favorites are the Wild West, Edo Japan, and the Middle Ages) all with their unique stories but a few things (spoiler I'd rather not talk about) that become a common theme throughout each chapter. The chapters are very different too. Present day is basically Street Fighter 2. Distant Future is a Sci Fi Horror with no fighting. Middle Ages plays like a true JRPG with random battles and a full party. Edo-Japan can be played like a Metal Gear Solid like stealth section or guns blazing kill everything that moves segment. The only advice I have is I wouldn't start with Pre-Historic. It isn't bad per say but to me it is the least of the chapters (even though Pogo is awesome.) I played it first and was very reluctant to keep going on with the game until I started the second chapter. Each chapter is relatively short and sweet with my quickest run time on any of them being 45 minutes and my longest being 3 and a half hours. Once you finish all the chapters there is a final chapter and this is where the game truly shines. I don't want to ruin it but the story gets much better, the world opens up, and the game turns up the challenge in this final chapter.

Due to the short nature of chapters in this game there isn't a lot of room for character development. This doesn't mean the characters aren't loveable, enjoyable, or relatable because they are. We just don't get to spend as much time with them as you would in most RPGs. We see them 1 at a time in small doses and not collectively growing throughout a long adventure. All in all I still loved all the main characters with my favorites being Lei, Oersted, and Oboromaru. Similarly, the story is good but it's more of a buffet of appetizers than your usually hardy meal beef JRPG story.

The gameplay, as far as battles, remains mostly the same throughout the run time. It is a fun and engaging system played out on a grid. You can use your movement and abilities to try and manipulate the battlefield. The only problem I had with the fights is once you are of a certain level the strategy goes out the window and becomes spam your best attack as there is no MP in this game.

The 2.5d art is fantastic as it always seems to be. The music is elite level in every single chapter. Every character, storyline, time period all have their own unique sounds and tracks and I can't remember a single track that I wasn't a fan of.

This game deserved so much more than a Japanese only release flop. I'm so glad that it got its chance to prove itself and it did with both its sells and ratings and reviews.


It made my top 100!

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/my-favorite-100-video-game-of-all-time/

And heres this years rankings!

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

Delicious third-person shooting beset by questionable structuring and balance choices. Of the 20 or so runs it took me to complete this game, I would say that 16 or 17 of them ended either in the first biome or the first Act 2 biome. The game is as challenging as it claims to be when you're starting out and struggling to put your build together, but the large amount of drops per biome and relatively low item variety mean that you can quickly cobble together something that will carry you through the rest of the game as long as you don't get splattered from across the map by a fucking Titanops first. All it takes is rolling the dice enough times in the harrowing first twenty minutes of each run until you get Adrenaline Leech and/or a Hollowseeker with Portal Beam and then you're set.

I'm also not thrilled to be sitting through another story expressing "psychological horror" as a multivalent metaphor that's Actually About Trauma... does this stuff actually work on anyone other than the internet's most impressionable warriors anymore? It's exceptionally fertile ground for eisegesis; she has suffered and they have suffered and therefore the game is meaningful! Of course, the ability to understand (if not necessarily relate to) someone's circumstances is the fulcrum of character-based storytelling, but seeing Selene's threaded and rethreaded through Greek myth and Lovecraft and Dostoevsky and Dante and The Spooky Declaration of Independence is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book for the novice symbologist. Too much icing on the cake for me.

Also: top seed contender for the worst video game title of all time, right? It just sounds awful. Returdal. Returtle.