this game. this fucking game. this game has forever changed my life.
in flesh blood and concrete, you play as lera, a woman whos car ran out of fuel in the middle of a mostly vacant russian town. she wakes up to find the singular resident, a girl named nika, standing at her window and trying to make sure shes alright. nika takes lera in to her apartment after finding out that her car ran out of fuel to try and help her find motor oil. she eventually does, but that apartment is not what it totally seems to be.
i loved this game. it took me about an hour to complete and really hit home as an eastern european living directly next to the hungarian-ukranian border. the game is heavily influenced by russian culture and is beautifully illustrated with some very well-drawn gore. the endings break my heart, and i loved seeing lera and nikas friendship progress throughout the game. i loved learning more about why these two ended up here, and the surreal elements of the game near the end are phenomenal. the talk about mental illness also shoved in is amazing and not horribly done. if yurucamp sees this i love your art and your games so much, youve inspired me so so much.
i wouldnt recommend it for anyone struggling with psychosis/derealization/depersonalization as theres a huge part of the game where the environments decompartmentalize and theres a lot of talk of losing your sense of self, but if youre a fan of beautifully sprited rpgmaker horror walking simulators then this is a game i heavily recommend. its so good and i cant even stress this enough.

While I’m not huge into any other pikmin games, this one absolutely clicked with me and I found myself unable to put it down, revisiting this one multiple times.

The game immediately manifests an intrigue with Olimar as a perfect medium, just alien enough to where the world doesn’t seem preposterous, but also functions as a normal guy with a wife and job that the player can understand.

The way the days work and the fear around nighttime beautifully creates a jarring sense of tension. Alongside this, the game isn’t like “oh god, if you don’t get the ship parts you’ll DIE!!”, you don’t know what’s going to happen, and it’s SO much more terrifying. Messing up in this game feels absolutely gut wrenching and dreadful, it’s entirely perfect.

The sound design is the icing on the cake, the serene music in places creates a false sense of security, and the silence that happens in some areas is killer. There is no way to mend mistakes, to just keep pushing and strategizing and praying you can get those ship parts.

There is a sense of tension, mystery, and world building that is entirely unique to Pikmin. A genuinely beautiful experience if you can get into the gameplay.

My major complaint, as I played on wii, is good god the controls are annoying at first. You get used to it, but it annoyed the piss out of me for a good while.

I reccomend this game to anyone who’s deeply into strategy or likes being stressed out. Fantastic.