Whimsicalish
21 Reviews liked by Whimsicalish
Dredge
2023
This was a surprise! Didn't seem like my type of game when it first came out but it just hit PS+ and I'm glad I gave it a shot. The story was a bit underwhelming but the gameplay loop was insanely addicting (inventory management hasn't felt this good since Resident Evil 4) and the atmosphere was wonderful. The most surprising part of it all was that it was genuinely terrifying at times.
An absolute joy to get through! There’s some hilarious dialogue and voice acting here, and surprisingly great production value. It’s sadly a little too short though, and feels more like a “first case” than a full game. Looking forward to the Duck Detective’s second outing!
The Quiet Man
2018
i'm pretty sure i know one of the only existing fans of this game. he picked this for a game club that i participated in and it was only $2 so well... 🙂
didn't really know much about this other than the fact that it was infamously bad to an extent you don't frequently see these days. beyond that i didn't realize that this had actual combat/beat em up gameplay on top of the narrative based stuff. i wish i had stayed unaware but it's too late now.
the two gameplay formats are at complete odds with each other. the story has no flow to it because you're constantly being interrupted (in a jarring fashion) by another fight sequence. i could see a better execution of either the combat gameplay or the narrative itself appealing to fans of those kinds of things but given that they are both miserable slogs it doesn't make anyone happy.
i know there's a second run where you get sound and such but there's no fixing this for me. i'm not bothering.
didn't really know much about this other than the fact that it was infamously bad to an extent you don't frequently see these days. beyond that i didn't realize that this had actual combat/beat em up gameplay on top of the narrative based stuff. i wish i had stayed unaware but it's too late now.
the two gameplay formats are at complete odds with each other. the story has no flow to it because you're constantly being interrupted (in a jarring fashion) by another fight sequence. i could see a better execution of either the combat gameplay or the narrative itself appealing to fans of those kinds of things but given that they are both miserable slogs it doesn't make anyone happy.
i know there's a second run where you get sound and such but there's no fixing this for me. i'm not bothering.
Minit
2018
The repeating 60 second format is a great concept. It's also one that could've easily overstayed its welcome so I'm glad this game was brisk and didn't go on forever.
There's a surprising amount of replay value to be found between the two extra modes (New Game+ and the Mary mode) in addition to just the speedrunning factor.
Will definitely be coming back to this one here and there in the future.
There's a surprising amount of replay value to be found between the two extra modes (New Game+ and the Mary mode) in addition to just the speedrunning factor.
Will definitely be coming back to this one here and there in the future.
Last Stop
2021
This was a little wild! I would've normally hated where it went but the game is so incredibly charming and full of heart that I didn't care. Meena's the most interesting character out of the three (four if you count Jack) but her storyline was sadly the least interesting for some reason.
Scorn
2022
i came into this knowing very little of the game's actual content other than seeing glimpses of incredible visuals in the occasional image/clip and the polarizing reception from those who had been anticipating it. i never personally played any demos or followed along with the development, trailers, or anything of the sort so i didn't have any of the baggage that may have came with that.
when i started this up, i was expecting a horror tinged adventure game that veered closer to a walking sim with some unfortunate combat thrown in for good measure. my first surprise was the environmental design and puzzles. right from the beginning it felt like what i had been seeing in terms of difficulty and complexity had been ripped from Myst. was absolutely fascinated with the obscurity of the flow from area to area and the various puzzles themselves. i can see where some would've had less tolerance for this but i'm glad it clicked for me.
elsewhere i was pleasantly surprised with the combat even. there's no getting around it, the fighting feels like complete trash. fortunately for me (and anyone else who played similarly) you can avoid fighting anything a solid 80% of the time if you move your ass. lots of enemies and hazards are in places that you're passing through on your way to go elsewhere and won't be back so there's no harm in running. the occurrences of enemies in spots that i was returning to was infrequent enough that i didn't mind when i had to deal with them all that much. beyond that, the actual boss type encounter that shows is shockingly decent for how the gameplay is and as someone who will happily trash a decent 70% of the boss fights i play in games.
that leaves me with the aforementioned selling point, the aesthetics. this is visually one of the most stunning games i've ever seen. Giger influence isn't anything unique among games (or any media) but the absolute devotion to its design, even at the cost of everything else was refreshing.
it's over just as quickly as it gets started and it won't be making my faves list or anything (at least not upon this first playthrough, maybe in a few years with a replay?) but this feels like a truly singular piece of art. maybe this isn't what it was looking like during development or what people who were waiting otherwise wanted but i'm truly glad to have experienced it, flaws and all.
when i started this up, i was expecting a horror tinged adventure game that veered closer to a walking sim with some unfortunate combat thrown in for good measure. my first surprise was the environmental design and puzzles. right from the beginning it felt like what i had been seeing in terms of difficulty and complexity had been ripped from Myst. was absolutely fascinated with the obscurity of the flow from area to area and the various puzzles themselves. i can see where some would've had less tolerance for this but i'm glad it clicked for me.
elsewhere i was pleasantly surprised with the combat even. there's no getting around it, the fighting feels like complete trash. fortunately for me (and anyone else who played similarly) you can avoid fighting anything a solid 80% of the time if you move your ass. lots of enemies and hazards are in places that you're passing through on your way to go elsewhere and won't be back so there's no harm in running. the occurrences of enemies in spots that i was returning to was infrequent enough that i didn't mind when i had to deal with them all that much. beyond that, the actual boss type encounter that shows is shockingly decent for how the gameplay is and as someone who will happily trash a decent 70% of the boss fights i play in games.
that leaves me with the aforementioned selling point, the aesthetics. this is visually one of the most stunning games i've ever seen. Giger influence isn't anything unique among games (or any media) but the absolute devotion to its design, even at the cost of everything else was refreshing.
it's over just as quickly as it gets started and it won't be making my faves list or anything (at least not upon this first playthrough, maybe in a few years with a replay?) but this feels like a truly singular piece of art. maybe this isn't what it was looking like during development or what people who were waiting otherwise wanted but i'm truly glad to have experienced it, flaws and all.
This review contains spoilers
Setting and sound was really cool and I enjoyed that. That’s about it though. Story was a little frustrating with the plot twist only having two baby hints that could be easily missed. Weird that we did that in the last chapter and didn’t have a real build up to that bit. Also weird we didn’t condemn the creepy father for grooming a 16 year old and then her brother. Feels like the mother being the murderer seemed kind of wild too.
Gross. Even if you excuse the massive problems with this games story, the gameplay (if you can even call it that) is so banal and lazy it’s insane. It struggles to even be a walking simulator. About 50% of the gameplay is walking, with the other 50% being standing doing nothing while overly long dialogue plays out. Sure, you do sometimes get a dialogue option, but it basically always falls into the category of “option a” and “option a, but slightly different”. It makes no impact on anything.
There’s plenty of good videos that can critique this games story better than I ever could, so I’m not going to bother with that. All I’ll say is that the writer had absolutely no idea about the subjects they were attempting to tackle, and also has zero clue how to write an interesting female character.
There’s plenty of good videos that can critique this games story better than I ever could, so I’m not going to bother with that. All I’ll say is that the writer had absolutely no idea about the subjects they were attempting to tackle, and also has zero clue how to write an interesting female character.
Persona 3 FES
2007
This review contains spoilers
um, nurse? we have a category 6 meltdown over here. 😭
i have had a quite the history with Persona 3 and its scattered forms (multiple starts and stops for FES, a short lived attempt at Portable before wanting to avoid the VN presentation for my first go, and more) so it feels quite strange to have actually seen it through. i'm sure some of my distaste for the other Persona games i've played (much moreso for 4 than 5) wasn't helping anything with me getting around to this but i'm glad it finally happened. this exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations and then some.
this is a massive beast of a game size wise so i'm going to be a bit scattershot in talking about a few things that stuck out to me in a significant way and leave it be.
probably the strongest element of the whole thing was the presentation as a full package. visuals across the board are an absolute feast whether it's in the mundane of day to day life, the persona and shadow designs, or the FMVs themselves (have i already mentioned that i'm glad i played this for my first P3 experience? it can be said again.) beyond this, the music is an absolute stunner. the game snatching my ass with multiple daily life song swaps makes the prevalence of Your Affection and Beneath the Mask (i like the latter but P5 is a long ass game for just the one track) a massive drag in hindsight. the sound and vibe tackled across the soundtrack aligns the most with my general taste so it's probably my favorite of the modern Persona trilogy in that regard.
elsewhere i found myself particularly impressed with the cast (both SEES and elsewhere) and social links almost universally. i cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes that your dormmates feel like actual people with their own lives/things going on without centering themselves on you/the mc. scenes developing the characters by themselves or with each other away from the mc were among the best moments in the game. things like that either would've been shifted to include the mc or have not happened at all as most party member development is stuffed into the s links in 4/5.
the social links had a surprisingly solid batting average as well. kenji is a dumbass so his social link was a slog and the Hermit was a Mess (a bit of a gag but still) yet everything else ranged from passable to great. the Sun and Hierophant in particular were wonderful and my favorites across the series, i think?
before wrapping this up i'll mention the sense of intent behind most of game's design. things like the fatigue system, SEES members having their own availability, uncontrollable party members (the tactics system is fine, please spend 5 seconds playing around with it 💀), and even Tartarus itself might seem irritating in a vacuum or other experience but as it is here it gives the game such a sense of cohesion and personality. i 100% believe that all of these elements worked in the service of the story that the game told and made it hit all that much harder in the end.
not sure what else to really say, i could ramble on more but this is already disorganized and i think i've communicated how special this was to me in a sufficient fashion. never in a million years would i have expected to like a modern Persona game this much but i'm glad that i did. Portable and Reload are potential someday things but not for a very long time, The Answer is probably a full on pass because the dungeon crawling seems to be extremely difficult and i don't think this needs following up on in that way. or at least not how The Answer seems to go about it.
i have had a quite the history with Persona 3 and its scattered forms (multiple starts and stops for FES, a short lived attempt at Portable before wanting to avoid the VN presentation for my first go, and more) so it feels quite strange to have actually seen it through. i'm sure some of my distaste for the other Persona games i've played (much moreso for 4 than 5) wasn't helping anything with me getting around to this but i'm glad it finally happened. this exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations and then some.
this is a massive beast of a game size wise so i'm going to be a bit scattershot in talking about a few things that stuck out to me in a significant way and leave it be.
probably the strongest element of the whole thing was the presentation as a full package. visuals across the board are an absolute feast whether it's in the mundane of day to day life, the persona and shadow designs, or the FMVs themselves (have i already mentioned that i'm glad i played this for my first P3 experience? it can be said again.) beyond this, the music is an absolute stunner. the game snatching my ass with multiple daily life song swaps makes the prevalence of Your Affection and Beneath the Mask (i like the latter but P5 is a long ass game for just the one track) a massive drag in hindsight. the sound and vibe tackled across the soundtrack aligns the most with my general taste so it's probably my favorite of the modern Persona trilogy in that regard.
elsewhere i found myself particularly impressed with the cast (both SEES and elsewhere) and social links almost universally. i cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes that your dormmates feel like actual people with their own lives/things going on without centering themselves on you/the mc. scenes developing the characters by themselves or with each other away from the mc were among the best moments in the game. things like that either would've been shifted to include the mc or have not happened at all as most party member development is stuffed into the s links in 4/5.
the social links had a surprisingly solid batting average as well. kenji is a dumbass so his social link was a slog and the Hermit was a Mess (a bit of a gag but still) yet everything else ranged from passable to great. the Sun and Hierophant in particular were wonderful and my favorites across the series, i think?
before wrapping this up i'll mention the sense of intent behind most of game's design. things like the fatigue system, SEES members having their own availability, uncontrollable party members (the tactics system is fine, please spend 5 seconds playing around with it 💀), and even Tartarus itself might seem irritating in a vacuum or other experience but as it is here it gives the game such a sense of cohesion and personality. i 100% believe that all of these elements worked in the service of the story that the game told and made it hit all that much harder in the end.
not sure what else to really say, i could ramble on more but this is already disorganized and i think i've communicated how special this was to me in a sufficient fashion. never in a million years would i have expected to like a modern Persona game this much but i'm glad that i did. Portable and Reload are potential someday things but not for a very long time, The Answer is probably a full on pass because the dungeon crawling seems to be extremely difficult and i don't think this needs following up on in that way. or at least not how The Answer seems to go about it.
The Medium
2021
It's very pretty, but I'm gonna need developers who have no idea how to make games about trauma to stop making games about trauma, because it's more embarrassing than anything at this point.
The final part of the game is still absolutely fantastic but my god has the rest of it aged like absolute milk. The enhancements made to the combat system are great, but the extra amount of VO seriously hurts it because you get to hear some absolutely dreadful lines instead of just reading them. Also, it still has one of the worst super bosses in the entire franchise.
Bunny Park
2020
A cute game, but lacking any real substance.
The positives, the assets are well made – the bunnies and objects are super cute! It made decorating fun and my main motivation for playing was to buy different items. The actual art is very well made and cute.
Sadly, it's outweighed by the downsides.
There was no real sense of progression as I played. It didn't feel like I was earning money faster, or achieving any goals. The gameplay felt aimless. Even getting new bunnies didn't feel rewarding, since there was no obvious unlock requirements to work towards. Decorating was fun, but the options quickly felt limited and I found it hard to fill the space.
I also found the butterfly bots often got caught in the ice rink decoration, and I had to pick it up to free them. I ended up moving the rink mostly outside the fence to prevent this as much as possible.
There was several features that lacked quality of life polish. Firstly, the lack of hints on how to unlock the bunnies means there's still one I haven't unlocked (despite having full stats and multiple of each food farm.) I didn't like how picking up a farm didn't move the food items with it. Rotating the camera often wouldn't end up in the same angle as I started it, which was annoying.
Overall, a fun game to waste a few hours on. Probably best open in the background whilst you do something else. I might play in the different seasons to unlock those achievements, but I don't plan on replaying.
The positives, the assets are well made – the bunnies and objects are super cute! It made decorating fun and my main motivation for playing was to buy different items. The actual art is very well made and cute.
Sadly, it's outweighed by the downsides.
There was no real sense of progression as I played. It didn't feel like I was earning money faster, or achieving any goals. The gameplay felt aimless. Even getting new bunnies didn't feel rewarding, since there was no obvious unlock requirements to work towards. Decorating was fun, but the options quickly felt limited and I found it hard to fill the space.
I also found the butterfly bots often got caught in the ice rink decoration, and I had to pick it up to free them. I ended up moving the rink mostly outside the fence to prevent this as much as possible.
There was several features that lacked quality of life polish. Firstly, the lack of hints on how to unlock the bunnies means there's still one I haven't unlocked (despite having full stats and multiple of each food farm.) I didn't like how picking up a farm didn't move the food items with it. Rotating the camera often wouldn't end up in the same angle as I started it, which was annoying.
Overall, a fun game to waste a few hours on. Probably best open in the background whilst you do something else. I might play in the different seasons to unlock those achievements, but I don't plan on replaying.
Growing Up
2021
It's a pretty cute life simulator with good art and decent writing. It just slightly fails to fully stay novel and interesting throughout a full playthrough. You'll be doing a lot of the same thing and some game systems are more akin to a chore. But it's still a pretty wholesome game.
This was a cute little experience with a heartfelt story that actually got me a couple of times (god I miss my grandma) but I'm getting increasingly tired of the cinematic 2D platformer genre. I love me a good narrative-focused game, but if you decide to make it a platformer please, for the love of god, make it fun to play.
Omno
2021
This game was everything it needed to be, and more than I expected it to be. A short but sweet 3D puzzle platformer, with no combat and relatively tight controls, it was an enjoyable experience that did not outstay its welcome. The world was a joy to wander through, and the design of each of the 'levels' was done with an intelligence of game design that provides the opportunity for players of varying levels and experience to engage with. It doesn't take an intricate knowledge of how games work to see that sloped collapsed pillar will eventually lead into the orb collectible, but it was just enough to give me pause as I look for the next step in my journey.
The world itself felt vibrant and alive, as if an ecosystem was already doing its own thing before my character wandered past a peaceful habitat. The encyclopedia entries that we get for each new creature gave a small reward for exploring and trying to find out more at every turn. Omno did some of my favourite things I love to see in games, especially towards the latter end as a puzzle required you taking the time to stop, take a moment to breathe, and observe some flying creatures make slow, lazy loops around what would soon turn out to be the answer to the puzzle. There were no quest markers, no answers handed out, the answer itself was taking the time to relax, breathe in, and observe the gorgeous world as it has been laid out in front of us.
An enjoyable experience that was exactly what it needed to be - which in itself is part of the difficulty in rating this game. No matter what however, this has lead me to wanting to keep an eye out for the next game from Studio Inkyfox.
The world itself felt vibrant and alive, as if an ecosystem was already doing its own thing before my character wandered past a peaceful habitat. The encyclopedia entries that we get for each new creature gave a small reward for exploring and trying to find out more at every turn. Omno did some of my favourite things I love to see in games, especially towards the latter end as a puzzle required you taking the time to stop, take a moment to breathe, and observe some flying creatures make slow, lazy loops around what would soon turn out to be the answer to the puzzle. There were no quest markers, no answers handed out, the answer itself was taking the time to relax, breathe in, and observe the gorgeous world as it has been laid out in front of us.
An enjoyable experience that was exactly what it needed to be - which in itself is part of the difficulty in rating this game. No matter what however, this has lead me to wanting to keep an eye out for the next game from Studio Inkyfox.