TophatGeo
9 reviews liked by TophatGeo
Persona 4 Golden
2012
For a while now, Persona 4 Golden has been in the back of my mind as one of the most special pieces of fiction for me. So this review is a poor attempt to verbalize what this game means to me.
In the middle of 2022, I was at one of the lowest points of my life. Through my own admission, I had lost the people around me. My days felt empty, my future looked bleak and I struggled to get out of bed, let alone take care of myself. In an attempt to make my life a bit better, I purchased a new PC, to delve into new games that I previously wouldn't be able to play. To at least get out of bed.
Luckily, my best friend stuck with me through these tough times. He introduced me to Persona 4 Golden, a series I had previously been aware of and been mildly interested in through Persona 5, but never got the push to quite get into it. Ironically, I could've easily played Persona 4 Golden on my older PC, but nonetheless it felt like the mark of a new beginning.
I would love to say that starting the game and playing it was a magical experience, but it was a struggle at first. But it was a reason to talk to my best friend, it was a way for me to keep going so I managed to keep going. Through the daily struggle to keep up, I got to know the characters slowly, but surely. I started to pick a favorite, get invested in their character arcs, try to figure out the mystery of the town and most importantly, feel a bit better every time I saw that friend group that had started to mean so much to me.
Of course, the characters of a video game cannot replace any real friends or any real interaction, but the bonds that were being forged in front of my eyes were enough to fill that temporary emptiness in my heart. The perseverance of these kids, to have the courage to keep moving forward when it all seems so bleak, gave me hope in my darker hours. To be able to share that with the only person close to me at the time was a special time and allowed me to keep the hope that life would get better.
And it did. Because of Persona 4 Golden and my best friend Goh, I was able to persevere myself and keep faith in the future. To me, they saved me.
I usually like to close off a review with a quote that meant something to me in the story that I experienced, but here I would just like to thank Persona 4 Golden and Goh to be there for me and I'm grateful to anyone who took the time out of their day to read what this game means to me.
In the middle of 2022, I was at one of the lowest points of my life. Through my own admission, I had lost the people around me. My days felt empty, my future looked bleak and I struggled to get out of bed, let alone take care of myself. In an attempt to make my life a bit better, I purchased a new PC, to delve into new games that I previously wouldn't be able to play. To at least get out of bed.
Luckily, my best friend stuck with me through these tough times. He introduced me to Persona 4 Golden, a series I had previously been aware of and been mildly interested in through Persona 5, but never got the push to quite get into it. Ironically, I could've easily played Persona 4 Golden on my older PC, but nonetheless it felt like the mark of a new beginning.
I would love to say that starting the game and playing it was a magical experience, but it was a struggle at first. But it was a reason to talk to my best friend, it was a way for me to keep going so I managed to keep going. Through the daily struggle to keep up, I got to know the characters slowly, but surely. I started to pick a favorite, get invested in their character arcs, try to figure out the mystery of the town and most importantly, feel a bit better every time I saw that friend group that had started to mean so much to me.
Of course, the characters of a video game cannot replace any real friends or any real interaction, but the bonds that were being forged in front of my eyes were enough to fill that temporary emptiness in my heart. The perseverance of these kids, to have the courage to keep moving forward when it all seems so bleak, gave me hope in my darker hours. To be able to share that with the only person close to me at the time was a special time and allowed me to keep the hope that life would get better.
And it did. Because of Persona 4 Golden and my best friend Goh, I was able to persevere myself and keep faith in the future. To me, they saved me.
I usually like to close off a review with a quote that meant something to me in the story that I experienced, but here I would just like to thank Persona 4 Golden and Goh to be there for me and I'm grateful to anyone who took the time out of their day to read what this game means to me.
Undertale Yellow
2023
This review contains spoilers
I'll start this review by saying I don't really care for fangames normally. For the most part they're pretty mediocre to straight up terrible. But every few years there comes out one that transcends the term and sort of becomes an unofficial part of the franchise to the community, Pokemon Uranium, AM2R, and now Undertale Yellow. And I'm shocked that fucking UNDERTALE is one of the games that had one of these, the same fandom that has like 20 different Sans OCs and 3 different takes on edgy Papyrus. I wasn't going to check it out, but I had nothing better going on and heard the game was pretty short so I said fuck it. And I learned that Yellow really understands what makes Undertale special and really does it's best to emulate and enhance on the original experience.
Like everyone I did Pacifist first, The game starts as I saw the froggit and Toriel and rolled by eyes. But a minute in and I realize this is the exact reaction the game WANTS me to have as it snatches that blanket of nostalgia away. And for the most part this game is VERY restrained in terms of using characters from the OG game and I respect the hell out of it for that. Aside from Flowey who I think is utilized differently enough to be justified as a major character, especially when if you really think about it, he's barley in the original game. But the rest get a scene at best like Asgore while others like Papyrus and surprisingly Sans aren't even mentioned at all.
The new characters that do replace them like Ceroba, Martlet, and Starlo are fun in their own right, I don't think they're AS memorable as the OG cast but they're well developed and work well within the game's setting. I will say some of them felt like they really didn't get enough screentime, especially poor Dalv who after the ruins shows up in the epilogue and that's it.
The gameplay is a pretty contentious topic in the community from what I've seen but I'm ngl I think the difficulty is overblown. It's harder than OG Undertale overall for sure but, and I say this who hasn't played a single Undertale fangame before this, my only interactions with this gameplay systems were the games made by Toby, it's really not that bad. Pacifist Ceroba's not that bad if you're decently prepared which is easy to do since you can backtrack almost anywhere in pacifist. And the game gives you checkpoints after every phase. A majority of the genocide fights were about on par with undyne the undying which i think is fair. Martlet is the only one I'd consider bullshit hard, not refreshing your items between phases is brutal especially since you can't save after phase 1 so if you fuck up you have to start all over. However this was before the patch, post patch I honestly think she's fairly easy compared to Sans, being able to heal phase 2 makes a massive difference and I was able to beat her in 50 minutes.
The writing is on point, they feel very Undertale. Stuff like Flowey getting mad at you for not saving, or Toriel actually coming to save you if you wait long enough are such nice little touches. On top of stuff like the secret froggit fight, the pole man sidequest, etc, I think this game touches on the little things so well. The serious moments also hit, giving proper tone and set ups to a lot of the tragedy especially in pacifist and the extensions on the lore, and the way it connects with canon are fun. I get they don't make wholly sense but I think the changes that are made are for the better, like yeah Clover doesn't really meet Toriel despite her saying that she saw all the humans leave her safety, but we really didn't need a reenactment of the ruins from the base game.
Finally I really like the whole theming of JUSTICE in this game, from Pacifist ending either in Clover giving their soul in a bid of self sacrifice for the justice of monsterkind, to alt pacifist where Clover views their killing Ceroba as just due to it being a mercy kill and respecting her wishes. To Genocide where Clover goes on the killing spree for the justice of the 5 dead kids, it's a really nice way of differentiating it thematically from the base game despite it's similarities.
The soundtrack is also really solid, it's not as good as the base game, but it's toby fucking fox, they were never gonna top it. But what is here is pretty awesome, from the cool remixes like the enemy theme and snowdin, to the new areas like steamworks, to the bloodpumping battle themes like pacifist ceroba and genocide martlet. This game has a ton to offer in terms of music.
Overall I'd suggest any Undertale fan old or new play this game. It's an increadibly fun experience and more importantly, in a world where Undertale is the punchline to a lot of jokes because of it's reputation, Yellow made me look back on the game in it's hayday and reminded me why I loved it in the first place.
Like everyone I did Pacifist first, The game starts as I saw the froggit and Toriel and rolled by eyes. But a minute in and I realize this is the exact reaction the game WANTS me to have as it snatches that blanket of nostalgia away. And for the most part this game is VERY restrained in terms of using characters from the OG game and I respect the hell out of it for that. Aside from Flowey who I think is utilized differently enough to be justified as a major character, especially when if you really think about it, he's barley in the original game. But the rest get a scene at best like Asgore while others like Papyrus and surprisingly Sans aren't even mentioned at all.
The new characters that do replace them like Ceroba, Martlet, and Starlo are fun in their own right, I don't think they're AS memorable as the OG cast but they're well developed and work well within the game's setting. I will say some of them felt like they really didn't get enough screentime, especially poor Dalv who after the ruins shows up in the epilogue and that's it.
The gameplay is a pretty contentious topic in the community from what I've seen but I'm ngl I think the difficulty is overblown. It's harder than OG Undertale overall for sure but, and I say this who hasn't played a single Undertale fangame before this, my only interactions with this gameplay systems were the games made by Toby, it's really not that bad. Pacifist Ceroba's not that bad if you're decently prepared which is easy to do since you can backtrack almost anywhere in pacifist. And the game gives you checkpoints after every phase. A majority of the genocide fights were about on par with undyne the undying which i think is fair. Martlet is the only one I'd consider bullshit hard, not refreshing your items between phases is brutal especially since you can't save after phase 1 so if you fuck up you have to start all over. However this was before the patch, post patch I honestly think she's fairly easy compared to Sans, being able to heal phase 2 makes a massive difference and I was able to beat her in 50 minutes.
The writing is on point, they feel very Undertale. Stuff like Flowey getting mad at you for not saving, or Toriel actually coming to save you if you wait long enough are such nice little touches. On top of stuff like the secret froggit fight, the pole man sidequest, etc, I think this game touches on the little things so well. The serious moments also hit, giving proper tone and set ups to a lot of the tragedy especially in pacifist and the extensions on the lore, and the way it connects with canon are fun. I get they don't make wholly sense but I think the changes that are made are for the better, like yeah Clover doesn't really meet Toriel despite her saying that she saw all the humans leave her safety, but we really didn't need a reenactment of the ruins from the base game.
Finally I really like the whole theming of JUSTICE in this game, from Pacifist ending either in Clover giving their soul in a bid of self sacrifice for the justice of monsterkind, to alt pacifist where Clover views their killing Ceroba as just due to it being a mercy kill and respecting her wishes. To Genocide where Clover goes on the killing spree for the justice of the 5 dead kids, it's a really nice way of differentiating it thematically from the base game despite it's similarities.
The soundtrack is also really solid, it's not as good as the base game, but it's toby fucking fox, they were never gonna top it. But what is here is pretty awesome, from the cool remixes like the enemy theme and snowdin, to the new areas like steamworks, to the bloodpumping battle themes like pacifist ceroba and genocide martlet. This game has a ton to offer in terms of music.
Overall I'd suggest any Undertale fan old or new play this game. It's an increadibly fun experience and more importantly, in a world where Undertale is the punchline to a lot of jokes because of it's reputation, Yellow made me look back on the game in it's hayday and reminded me why I loved it in the first place.
Undertale Yellow
2023
This review contains spoilers
i have a few complaints about this game, but let me be clear: it is a VERY good fan-game. this game is incredibly high-fidelity: it's a full-length experience, completely for free, which introduces new regions of the Underground, new characters, battles with unique bullet-patterns and enjoyable mechanics, underscored by beautiful art assets and a fantastic soundtrack. there are unique endings and boss battles in not only the pacifist and genocide route, but also the neutral route, which i think really shows the amount of love and effort (i should emphasize, the SEVEN YEARS of love and effort- which is crazy for a fan-game!!!) that went into producing the final product. alongside the game's little secrets and fun value surprises, Undertale Yellow has a lot of unique detail and charm. if you haven't played it already, i absolutely recommend it.
(spoilers ahead)
i'm speaking from my perspective only having finished True Pacifist, but i really struggled to connect to the characters in the first half of the game- specifically, Dalv and Martlet. i know Martlet has a whole other layer of complexity in the Genocide route, but the humor in her dialogue just didn't land for me and i never felt closer to her after interactions, which there were relatively few of. Dalv, the player barely talks to at all before he lets you into his house, lets you out of his house, and never interacts with you again until he's attending your funeral (which no disrespect to him, you just met somebody who you want to build a relationship with and a couple days later they've exploded. very sad!). i really enjoyed Starlo and Ceroba (especially Ceroba, i absolutely cried in the final fight with her. a really complex and interesting character with probably the best fight in the game) in the latter half of the game, but that's also because you're given more time with them to explore them as characters. when you end up friends with them, it feels more natural than it does with Martlet and Dalv.
altogether though, it's a great fan game! i think what let me down was the expectations i had for this game based on what people told me about it- saying it was better than Undertale, how it should be canon, etc... and while it's a very good game, it's ultimately its own thing. the mindset i went into the game with caused occasional disappointment with the game's writing and humor, because i wanted it to be on-par with Toby Fox and it wasn't. which is not bad! i think this game is fantastic and creates its own identity while expanding on Undertale's existing property, and that's very impressive for a fan-game to do.
(minor pet peeve though- why are the main monsters you befriend so tall!!! no love for the shortstacks?)
(spoilers ahead)
i'm speaking from my perspective only having finished True Pacifist, but i really struggled to connect to the characters in the first half of the game- specifically, Dalv and Martlet. i know Martlet has a whole other layer of complexity in the Genocide route, but the humor in her dialogue just didn't land for me and i never felt closer to her after interactions, which there were relatively few of. Dalv, the player barely talks to at all before he lets you into his house, lets you out of his house, and never interacts with you again until he's attending your funeral (which no disrespect to him, you just met somebody who you want to build a relationship with and a couple days later they've exploded. very sad!). i really enjoyed Starlo and Ceroba (especially Ceroba, i absolutely cried in the final fight with her. a really complex and interesting character with probably the best fight in the game) in the latter half of the game, but that's also because you're given more time with them to explore them as characters. when you end up friends with them, it feels more natural than it does with Martlet and Dalv.
altogether though, it's a great fan game! i think what let me down was the expectations i had for this game based on what people told me about it- saying it was better than Undertale, how it should be canon, etc... and while it's a very good game, it's ultimately its own thing. the mindset i went into the game with caused occasional disappointment with the game's writing and humor, because i wanted it to be on-par with Toby Fox and it wasn't. which is not bad! i think this game is fantastic and creates its own identity while expanding on Undertale's existing property, and that's very impressive for a fan-game to do.
(minor pet peeve though- why are the main monsters you befriend so tall!!! no love for the shortstacks?)
Undertale Yellow
2023
Definitely the best Undertale fangame by a large margin. The music and writing is generally incredibly faithful to the original game. However, not all the characters are created equal (sorry Dalv), and the story takes a weird turn to almost entirely focusing on Ceroba after she is introduced in the pacifist route. The bosses are also somewhat unbalanced, though Yellow is not nearly as bad in this regard as many overly difficult Undertale fan projects. Very much worth playing if you enjoyed Undertale.
Undertale Yellow
2023
I can barely manage to put into words just how fantastic this game is. Nearly surpasses the original at times, honestly. I fell in love with the characters, Clover, and this new side of the Underground.
My only real criticism is that the game's difficulty is a bit too high for my liking, definitely more difficult than UT itself imo, but I don't mind it too much and it doesn't really take away from how great it is.
My only real criticism is that the game's difficulty is a bit too high for my liking, definitely more difficult than UT itself imo, but I don't mind it too much and it doesn't really take away from how great it is.
Super Mario Galaxy
2007
Wonderful game. A beautiful melancholic atmosphere backed by one of the best soundtracks ever. Touching story and presentation, great level design and great gameplay. Truly one of the best games ever.
The Dream Machine
2012
Oh, hey. It's that game you heard about from the early indie boom and then forgot about because it was episodic and the last episode took literal years to come out.
Final judgement? Absolutely worth the wait, the game taking its claymation and cardboard aesthetics down a grimy, desaturated path that instantly becomes a look so singular it could not be mistaken as anything but itself. Rough, cubist faces and skillfully kludged environments are punctuated with lovingly crafted, abrupt stop-motion movements and restrained sound design that perfectly fits the borderline oppressive air the game carries.
The Dream Machine is not a whimsical game, despite the focus on dreams and clay. It is, instead, about grim realities, pasts that cling, futures that terrify and the choices we make, big and small, our lives unfurling around them. It's a game that doesn't so much as go for the emotional jugular as it places its teeth against it. There's little in the way of easy heartstring tugs here, emotional jumpscares that aim for easy points. Just a relentless, somber background noise made all the more poignant by the color-sapped stillness of its eerily unreal architecture and the unavoidable feeling that you are being irrevocably drawn into the end.
Final judgement? Absolutely worth the wait, the game taking its claymation and cardboard aesthetics down a grimy, desaturated path that instantly becomes a look so singular it could not be mistaken as anything but itself. Rough, cubist faces and skillfully kludged environments are punctuated with lovingly crafted, abrupt stop-motion movements and restrained sound design that perfectly fits the borderline oppressive air the game carries.
The Dream Machine is not a whimsical game, despite the focus on dreams and clay. It is, instead, about grim realities, pasts that cling, futures that terrify and the choices we make, big and small, our lives unfurling around them. It's a game that doesn't so much as go for the emotional jugular as it places its teeth against it. There's little in the way of easy heartstring tugs here, emotional jumpscares that aim for easy points. Just a relentless, somber background noise made all the more poignant by the color-sapped stillness of its eerily unreal architecture and the unavoidable feeling that you are being irrevocably drawn into the end.
The Dream Machine
2012
‘The Dream Machine’ is a game whose concept is built around entering people’s dreams and exploring their unconscious. The selling point of this particular point and click is its artstyle - environments and characters are physical objects created by artists using materials such as clay and cardboard. It is reminiscent of adventure titles like ‘The Neverhood’ or ‘Armikrog’, although it is distinct enough to stand on its own and be instantly recognizable. The visual side is also the strongest point of the title - the levels are wonderfully realized with the enchanted forest being the absolute highlight, both in its scope and detail. The character models are equally impressive - I can’t really think of anything similar in the gaming world. There is one, quite significant, chunk of the game that takes place in a level looking like taken out of the movie ‘Cube’ which left me unimpressed, but other than that the presentation is very strong and often I found myself looking around the levels, appreciating all the little details the artists left for the player to enjoy.
Does the story support the impressive visuals? Mostly yes. The plot is chiefly a pretext to throw Victor, the protagonist, into other people’s dreams, but what kept me engaged until the very end was the wide array of well-written NPCs that Victor encounters during the 14 or so hours it takes to finish all six chapters, my favorite being a knight who doesn’t realize he died centuries ago. I was really surprised at how dark the game gets as it progresses, with flashbacks into Edie’s past evoking the strongest emotional response. This didn’t prepare for the ending, however, which features perhaps the most disturbing scene I’ve ever encountered in a video game. I did feel at times like the final chapter was rushed and too much content was squeezed into too few levels and I definitely would’ve liked more space to fully process the last hour which was very abstract and filled with inventive metaphors.
Another thing that all point and click adventures have in common is the inclusion of puzzles. And in ‘The Dream Machine’ they’re quite uneven. There were a number of times where I felt like they were too obtuse and required scanning every single pixel on a given level. Some of them required re-learning how to use specific objects - an example I can give without hopefully spoiling too much is when finding a book for the 4th time or so the game expects the player to figure out he’s capable of tearing a page out of the book, while in the previous instances of using this type of object it was never possible. Also, some puzzles - especially towards the end of the game, where a larger portion of the game opens up - required quite a bit of going back and forward to get very little done. At one point Victor receives an object that he can use to manipulate his size - this was fun at first, but got tiresome very quickly and I was looking for a way around the level where I could use it as little as possible.
I need to mention a couple of technical problems that the game unfortunately isn’t devoid of. I’ve encountered two permanently corrupted save files (out of ten slots available) which is quite a serious error in any game, however the autosave feature in ‘The Dream Machine’ is quite generous and seemed to be working fine. The game also had problems running smoothly on my Steam Deck - the animations would sometimes freeze for a moment before continuing, the dialogue appearing on screen (the game isn’t voiced) also would appear and disappear in too few frames making it less fluid than it should’ve been.
Does the story support the impressive visuals? Mostly yes. The plot is chiefly a pretext to throw Victor, the protagonist, into other people’s dreams, but what kept me engaged until the very end was the wide array of well-written NPCs that Victor encounters during the 14 or so hours it takes to finish all six chapters, my favorite being a knight who doesn’t realize he died centuries ago. I was really surprised at how dark the game gets as it progresses, with flashbacks into Edie’s past evoking the strongest emotional response. This didn’t prepare for the ending, however, which features perhaps the most disturbing scene I’ve ever encountered in a video game. I did feel at times like the final chapter was rushed and too much content was squeezed into too few levels and I definitely would’ve liked more space to fully process the last hour which was very abstract and filled with inventive metaphors.
Another thing that all point and click adventures have in common is the inclusion of puzzles. And in ‘The Dream Machine’ they’re quite uneven. There were a number of times where I felt like they were too obtuse and required scanning every single pixel on a given level. Some of them required re-learning how to use specific objects - an example I can give without hopefully spoiling too much is when finding a book for the 4th time or so the game expects the player to figure out he’s capable of tearing a page out of the book, while in the previous instances of using this type of object it was never possible. Also, some puzzles - especially towards the end of the game, where a larger portion of the game opens up - required quite a bit of going back and forward to get very little done. At one point Victor receives an object that he can use to manipulate his size - this was fun at first, but got tiresome very quickly and I was looking for a way around the level where I could use it as little as possible.
I need to mention a couple of technical problems that the game unfortunately isn’t devoid of. I’ve encountered two permanently corrupted save files (out of ten slots available) which is quite a serious error in any game, however the autosave feature in ‘The Dream Machine’ is quite generous and seemed to be working fine. The game also had problems running smoothly on my Steam Deck - the animations would sometimes freeze for a moment before continuing, the dialogue appearing on screen (the game isn’t voiced) also would appear and disappear in too few frames making it less fluid than it should’ve been.
Goes on for far too long without anything of interest keeping you locked in. In fact, it makes it worse by seemingly throwing your choices out the window. You are in a plethora of ridiculous events with sometimes hard choices (fun), while an overarching "story" plays through each Act but also interacts with each other and doesn't change regardless of what you do (not fun).