profound air sucking DOOOOOOOOOOG!! That's my dog, except it's not the same breed, and huuh it's not my dog BUT he gets away with chicaneries as easily. So, the massive dad takes his kids to Belize, I think that's the story I can't read japanese (trial & error to find the language settings goes hard) and mom is in an highly comative state. That's a recipe for disaster. Here come dat boi, literal mud sponge marking his territory in the filthiest of ways. Press Reload button to reload and press Fire button to fire that's the gameplay loop, which actually is great foreshadowing of the minigun hat- what?? Psalm 37:13 - But the lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.

Little thing gets pampered with collectibles every 5 seconds, I know he's cute but that is a bit excessive. Dogs have that TikTok attention span tho and he can't get outside so he needs to be rewarded for doing tricks, which is more of a prank gone wrong in this case, which moreso went as planned, anyways there are a few environmental puzzles mostly for the sake of it, this game is very short it clocks in below an hour but in dog years its like 7 hours, I don't know why I said that when I was talking about the puzzles, they're pretty fun and obvious, that's about it.

Okay I don't know how high Pomeranians can jump, clearly this one is weighed down by all the mud so I cut him some slack, but he can barely go above a chair. I don't think I've seen a dog jump straight onto a table so that's probably for the best, my own dog cant even climb chairs but he does jump on beds. Closing parenthesis it's cool to see what the new employees could do as a quick project, it really feels like a game made by japanese devs, not so sure abt the Namco identity, unless the 300 pomerillions in damage property are a subtle reference to Blue Protocol. Bravo!

Oh please, pleaaaase bonk me on the head. Okay, it's not as bad as it looks I swear. Big boobies sure, no nudity also for sure! I'm not scratching the bottom of the barrel yet, and you're wondering why this is in your feed. Ok so it's gonna be a doozy but here's roughly what happened: I wanted to play a sex game since it's one of the only types of games I haven't had the pleasure to play yet, I scroll through a bunch and decide it's not the time yet (they're scary). Lo and behold, skip a few hours and I'm looking for cracked copy of Journey for my bestie (i dont want to make her pay games just to play with me) and there it is, obviously. I recognize it, check through Steam yada yada, one of the top tags is "cute" and the price is at its highest sale that settles it I'll play through this.

Seems I cooked up a long excuse for why I have played this. Don't worry, I won't go to such lengths for the gay porn game I have in my radar. It's quite easy, dont last too long, but when it gets harder it's very fair! It's too basic to really get a higher score, although unphotoshopping a picture is quite unique from what I'd done so far. They're risque, but they probably would look like normal pictures if she had normal proportions. That'd be less bang for the buck (flat women we love u)! Now go get that bag gurl. We goin through the 4 seasons stay fresh all year long.

What baffling decision however, is that there's no romance? Rina and even your invisible self-insert with your name go far to make sure the other knows there's nothing more than a deep friendship here. It's not that I am against it, but that's not what I expected for the target demographic. It dont have the sex gentlemen, maybe we ought to play Bald Gate III. Anyways look at that white woman she made me pay to edit photos I will never forget that night.

Chat is this real?? With this second entry, do we have a great time in our hands? It took so long! (0 further console generations) we get new insights into a world of politics, with charismatic new faces and dialogue that still hits as hard, and gamers are invited to go outside touch seagrass for the first time 🥶😱😱 go yonder as you play a force of nature. Playing a game as an enemy type has its perks ngl there is so much soul in that. You're no Big but you're still Daddy, with your very own Little-Not-Sister-Not-Little to scrounge up. Which leaves me puzzled as to why there's still the option to harvest little sisters, the way I'm treatin Delta like "he don't bite tho" i aint no pitbull sugar mama I sweaaaaar

Eke out a living with the sweetness of violence, for the first step to salvation is through the game's big arsenal. Thanking whoever made weapons and plasmids a dual-wielding bundle, next time I play a Pokémon Nuzlocke i'll name one of the critters after you. Huh speaking of critters, I guess I need to talk about new enemy types, Big Sisters and Big Uncles. Ok, not uncle but the big splicers. Who aren't splicing. They're lame who cares atleast we got sisters now and new daddies to toy with (pause). Any family tree is fraught with drama, gang.

Weapons? Well there's a hacking tool, hacking has been improved, it seems easy until you realise that actions have consequences ; game doesn't pause and your life is in very real danger. What else improved? Well, photos methinks, they're videos now. Outside of the lore implications of this technological marvel, it's also less punishing. Delta is loaded to the brim, most of the weapons are the same as good ol' BioShock but reskinned to fit la creatura, it's harder to run out of ressources to my mixed reception, I'm alluding to running out of special ammo effective against armored enemies or french enemies or other types like that, this doesn't seem to happen ever.

Errrm what the scallop! Did Mario make this? It's Made In Italy. The thing only has one purpose in this destitute world, and that is to watch you slide numbers and make big number. Is there merit in this? It's not that fun, even with secret ninjutsu tips you can get on the Internet. If I was on a plane and it crashed and fucking exploded, I would not think about this game at all during my final breaths. Maybe if there were 2048 passengers I probably would chuckle a bit, then again I'd probably be sleeping or some shit.

Now, the game has crazy mods that overhaul everything, it's like Skyrim! Anybody can do it even. Look up the plethora of clones that exist, some may shock you, some may whelm you, some may goad you further in the pursuit of knowledge regarding Obama's last name, but don't forget that the soup is cold and the salad is hot if it's a school lunch. Plus, isn't it better to replace the numbers by cooler things like cool cars because otherwise, you are very nerdy for playing 2048 i aint ngl imagine going "I reached a high score of 131072 🤓🤓" instead of "I reached nirvana on the highway to hell" have some self-respect you nincompoop. What would brock obama say if he saw all that "i suck dick and huuuuuh i eat pussy too" damn he's bisexual thats crazy alhamdulillah hope he enjoys the 2048 mating technique 👏

Are you telling me a high number happens to fall like that? No! He orchestrated it! Gabriele Cirulli! He slided in a chain of numbers that happens to be my IP address and he gets to be a lauded game designer? What a joke! I do respect the hustle though. There's a spin on the formula not available for logging on Backloggd called Nextagon and that one was cool huuuuuh I'm exhausting my options here, can I discuss the game without anymore ad hominems? How about the fact the game promotes incest values by only allowing us to pair twin numbers together! This wouldn't fly even in the joint. i delet myself. bye

I'm obsessed with this game. It's a brainrot that consumes me every waking hour. I binged the finale to Canto VI for 5 hours straight and was hooked the entire time. I've been working through reading the literary inspirations for all the Sinners, and what Project Moon have built off the back of Wuthering Heights is incredible. More than anything, the character writing is so movingly human despite the horrors and depravity of the City. Nobody's ever too "broken" to be worth love.

Love must be the reason why
I still believe in this lie
That you'll live a better life
Without me by your side

Quick prefix, I played this using the SNES thing on switch

I was always very interested in why this game is held as highly as it is. Still to this day being regarded as one of the best Zelda games and it came out 33 years ago. Needless to say this was one of the titles I was looking forward going into during this series replay I'm doing. Upon completion I do really get where the praise comes from, but it still unfortunately suffers from one big issue.

A Link to the Past is the first game in the series to properly nail down the format that the later games can follow. By that I mean that this game adds way more life into its open world through more NPC's, side content and slightly more detailed narrative. Comparing this to Zelda 1 its almost night and day, where that game was as basic as move from dungeon to dungeon, Link to the Past adds so much more to do. It also massively improves upon some framework started in Zelda 2 with towns and proper NPC's. This game is also the introduction of so many franchise mainstays being the first appearance of The Master Sword, Kakariko Village, Hyrule Castle and The Lost Woods. To sum up, this game is where the franchise properly kicks into gear in my opinion.

The dungeons are where this game properly shines. There is 11 dungeons in total if you include Ganon's tower at the end. Each dungeon feels very unique with varying enemy types and layout. The bosses are a big highlight for me as they provide a decent challenge and tend to get tougher as the dungeons go on and also as Link gets stronger. I like that most items are made useful throughout the game unlike in Zelda 1 where most were useless outside of the dungeon you got it in. Traversal is made less boring with the addition of the Pegasus boots letting Link dash across the screen, also allowing fast travel using the flute item which can annoyingly only be used in the light word.

This is also the first Zelda game to have a "Gimmick", such as how Majora's mask has the masks and Tears of the Kingdom has the ultra hand stuff, Link to the Past has the ability to switch between the light and dark world. The dark world is much more of a challenge with enemies dealing way more damage and being harder to kill with weaker weapons. I think this is a great feature for its time but I wish that you got to spend more time properly in the light world as outside of the three introductory dungeons, you spend the entire game in the dark world. Obviously you can jump back and forth to collect items/heart pieces but I wish there was more main quest to do in the light world.

Im a big fan of the SNES art style on a lot of games, something about it just feels nice. It keeps the retro aesthetic but adds in more colour. A lot of enemy variety with sprites and Links design is very unique when comparing to later games. Soundtrack wise it has a slightly more diverse track list than Zelda 1 and 2 but still ends up with tracks becoming repetitive. I also had this issue where whenever I would enter somewhere like Kakariko Village or The Lost Woods, the regular overworld theme would play instead of the specific theme which was annoying.

Now all the positives that I have said about this game come with this one massive * beside them. This game is borderline impossible without a guide. If you want to be on level with the dungeon you are going to, good luck finding the items/heart pieces you need as they are so well hidden that its a surprise people found them in the first place. I think a big reason for this is because of all the advances this game makes in its story and gameplay, it neglected to fix the biggest issue with the first Zelda which was "I don't know how to find anything" which is in turn made worse in this game due to its bigger scale. If it were not for the guide I would of had no clue how to get all the heart pieces I needed, how to get certain items or that you can upgrade the master sword twice. This problem comes with age as Videogames used to be designed with no hand holding whatsoever so that people would spend more time looking around and combing the game for secrets, unfortunately this has not aged well at all. I should also mention a few dungeons are like mazes with lots of unnecessary rooms just to throw you off. Its a massive problem that effects most games on OG Nintendo consoles not just this specifically. There is no shame in using a guide to play this game as you will have a 10 times more enjoyable experience that way and not be walking around lost.

That being said I will still give this game a decently high score. It properly starts a lot of trends the franchise follows from here on out. Besides the caveat of the aged game design, its still a great Zelda game and one of the best 2d Zelda's. For the love of God though, use a guide.

Retro-revivalism is no easy gambit. Look at a team like Playtonic. I genuinely find a lot to love in their games, but the Yooka-Laylee brand of revivalism is fundamentally limited. That first game is just too familiar. It takes very few strides to legitimately learn from what came before it, even finding new problems with bloat the original Banjo-Kazooie never had. The epitome of this is the quiz, a fine enough gag until you realise it's played straight. Including the least-liked level of the original game unchanged five times bares to the world Playtonic's refusal to learn lessons from its predecessors. Following on was Impossible Lair, a total delight, as good a Donkey Kong Country game as the Retro Studios reboots. So much like one of those. These are excellent modernisations of the classic DKC formula, but Playtonic hardly iterates on them. They're just doing the same kind of modernisation. The issue with Playtonic's current output is the lack of any real vision for retro-revivalism (or even just pastiche) other than extensions of classic games other people have already done. The few distinguishing features between Banjo-Kazooie and Yooka-Laylee, such as the sheer scale, are ideas borrowed from Tooie. I like their games (mainly just Impossible Lair), but on the whole, they have failed as revivalists. They have not made the old new.

This is all to say Yacht Club Games are in rarified air. As a work of throwback NES platforming, Shovel Knight is a master class. You can see sparks of Castlevania, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros and a billion other titles everywhere, but the summation is unique. They recognise what is aggravating about games of the era. They don't blindly include these, nor avoid them entirely. They work through them. Checkpoints are generous but don't remove the demanding execution. The moveset still uses a simplistic two-button layout but is its own, with tons of ability variation to accommodate a modern sensibility. Platforming is satisfyingly challenging as NES games were, but Shovel Knight moves with precision and consistency the original era never saw. Bossfights feel classic to the era but are far more complex and rich than 80s games could accommodate. The spirit is here, but the realities are far more modern than they may initially appear.

The ultimate test is this. If the retro-revival game came out in the context of its throwback, what would be said? If Yooka-Laylee had been released as Banjo 3 it would be seen as a disappointing sequel, failing to expand on its predecessor's ideas and strengths. If Shovel Knight had come out the year after Ninja Gaiden, it would be crowned the most impressive and complex platformer ever made, reaching levels of ambition and precision never before seen. But it wouldn't feel out of place. That's revivalism done right.

Except for the spikes. You can leave that shit in the basement.

I've scarcely felt so undecided on a game, this is genuinely an oddball experience. This is basically a retelling of Evangelion but in game form. The cutscenes and sound have incredible quality, but actually playing it - crazy shit. The first couple of stages set you up to think this is a 3D fighter as you control Eva 01 and fight angels, but just as soon as you get used to that, you're slapped in the face by an 8 second mission where you're fighting with the controls trying to aim a missile. Then you're mashing buttons hard enough to give yourself an aneurysm as you chase down Jet Alone - and then its a fucking rhythm game with Asuka. Your head will be spinning, but not for long, because you can clear this entire thing in like an hour. Is it even fair to call this a game? It feels more like something you'd play with at a museum exhibit

"A world where man can never stand... To actualize that world, I decided to engrave it within the canvas"



Heavenly Thread, Embodiment of Spirit. Casting glances at the paintings on the walls and feeling the texture of the crayon and paint that lines the floors. Ib presents a noticeably polished atmosphere, not one of explicit hostility (such as Witch's House, Ao Oni) but the art gallery in which our young protagonist finds herself lost is better depicted as another world entirely. The lonely paintings and dim hallways are endlessly empty, your safety is more dependant on something's impulsive whim more than the outright threat of some monster. And it's not some flat interpretation of an exhibit, the works of Guertena are as strong and consistent as its real life counterparts, the complexity of the man make the encounters in his exhibit even more unique. It is so visually varied and endlessly stimulating, despite the limitations of pixelization.

Standing proud 12 years later as one of the best classic rpgmaker games, there are very few flaws that this remake has not ironed out. The writing goes above and beyond- it has such a mystique and charm lent to it. The art style is so unique. Everything here is so smooth, never too much and never too little, everything examined and well thought out. Ultimately a perfectly crafted experience that cant be asked to give more or less. The outstanding child of the 2010s rpgmaker craze.

"Hmm... even if the lights are out, I can still water the plants and feed the animals.

But why does it feel like I'm being watched?"



A Pet Shop After Dark is a cute and short meta horror game made by the same people who produced A Year of Springs, a game some might be more familiar with. I'd heard good things about Springs before so I thought I'd pick up this game on a whim, as the latter seemed to appeal more to my tastes.

The game starts off with our nameless protagonist accepting an overnight job at a pet and plant store. All she is told is to water the plants, feed the (invisible) animals, and never turn off the lights. As it were, it is literally impossible to interact with the lights in the game itself so the loop continues of you performing these two tasks until you realize this is the kind of game where you have to mess with the files.

A lot of people seem to be over these types of games, but I find the unorthodox way of creating puzzles and scenarios to be pretty interesting and fun. Though this game also has the 4th wall breaking trope of characters talking directly to you, I never found it to be grating or immersion breaking. The game really plays to its strengths with presenting itself simply and having (most) of its puzzles follow up in a similar fashion. Each puzzle has an interesting answer, and it (mostly) never drags its feet too long to get stale.

My issue with talking about Pet Shop is this: I, obviously, dont own a computer. I played this on the steamdeck. And as anyone who owns a steamdeck knows: desktop mode is a fucking affront to this world. Basic actions like pulling up a keyboard are notioursly obnoxious and time consuming. And as most of this game's puzzles take place in the files of the game, it was obviously absurdly difficult and frustrating for me to play it. So, between the later puzzles becoming pretty tedious and the already annoying task of navigating the deck's horrible pc controls: I had a pretty bad time.

In general, I think this game is quite solid. If you like these types of games, I would recommend checking it out. Though... I said this before in my Unreal Life review, but when your gameplay is something of a one trick pony, it is good to never linger on it for too long. Amaze with your clever, but short, solution to a problem and move on. If something like this takes me more than 8 minutes to figure out, I'm pissed. Like I said, the later puzzles tend to do this and become too convoluted/repetitive to be fun. I know that personally, I hate puzzles with all my heart and I want to never look at another puzzle again, but despite that I can recognize that this is a cool, small game and others may not struggle as much as me.

-1 point for being on itchio