kurt__
14 Reviews liked by kurt__
Crow Country
2024
This review contains spoilers
I heard about this game incredibly recently. Came at an interesting time for me as I have started to work on game development myself. This is a throwback ps1 type survival horror game that leans very heavily on silent hill and resident evil for its gameplay inspiration and final fantasy 7(ps1) for its visuals.
Even though it borrows very extensively from its source material. I can’t help but find myself charmed by this game. It strikes the mark I feel it was intending to go for.
I find myself very drawn towards works that blend notions of cuteness with horror. There is a psychological phenomenon known as cute aggression(haven’t you always wondered why people say “ooo I’m just going to eat you up” when they see a baby? According to psycholgists the parts of our brains that appreciate cuteness is wired closely with our aggressive tendencies. I feel that this is why this game clicks so well together.
Resident evil and silent hill both have immediately hostile worlds but final fantasy 7’s world is equally hostile but feels less so partially because of its artistic direction. There is a sort of implicit uncanny feeling to early 3d modeling in video games, you can make something cute but with shadows and framing can make things seem very dark. The donkey Kong country game over screen immediately comes to mind when I think about this.
Well that whole feeling is encapsulated in this claustrophobic stuffy game. It leans heavily on it’s atmosphere which is aided by CRT filters and lighting effects to generate a game that feels like a Mandela effect lost ps1 title.
You progress through the game much the way you would through resident evil, keys scattered throughout the world. It’s one big map, with various areas.
Combat is about as fleshed out as it was in survival horror in the 90’s and 2000’s. It wasn’t the focus of those games and it’s not the focus here. You have tank controls, not as bad as resident evil or silent hill but still stiff feeling, no moving while shooting for you. Enemies never really feel like a challenge but the game will throw them at you fairly constantly but you will also never run out of bullets because the game hands it out like candy.
In hindsight, I don’t like that I didn’t feel as stressed about having enough ammo as I would in a game like dead space and also the enemies are genuinely not threatening enough. They are very scary and doll like to look at but they very easy to dispatch.
This game has ok puzzles, they are mostly basic logic stuff like look through word docs to find clues or look through a room to find a train that’s coloured blue or whatever. Honestly they are about as on par with resident evil or silent hill so that’s ok.
Story wise unfortunately, idk fellas I don’t think writing was the dev’s strong suit.
Survival horror will usually abandon lore story telling in favor of atmospheric story telling but the way this game is laid out makes me think the dev really thought he had something going.
No he did not, mining for gold and finding an interdimensional gateway that turns people into monsters is not really that interesting.
But I give a pass because honestly video games in the 90’s couldn’t really write for shit either.
The soundtrack is in my opinion, excellent. At times it does sound a little derivative of the obvious source material but the mystical, liminal vibes are held in tact.
Overall, def recommend this one.
Even though it borrows very extensively from its source material. I can’t help but find myself charmed by this game. It strikes the mark I feel it was intending to go for.
I find myself very drawn towards works that blend notions of cuteness with horror. There is a psychological phenomenon known as cute aggression(haven’t you always wondered why people say “ooo I’m just going to eat you up” when they see a baby? According to psycholgists the parts of our brains that appreciate cuteness is wired closely with our aggressive tendencies. I feel that this is why this game clicks so well together.
Resident evil and silent hill both have immediately hostile worlds but final fantasy 7’s world is equally hostile but feels less so partially because of its artistic direction. There is a sort of implicit uncanny feeling to early 3d modeling in video games, you can make something cute but with shadows and framing can make things seem very dark. The donkey Kong country game over screen immediately comes to mind when I think about this.
Well that whole feeling is encapsulated in this claustrophobic stuffy game. It leans heavily on it’s atmosphere which is aided by CRT filters and lighting effects to generate a game that feels like a Mandela effect lost ps1 title.
You progress through the game much the way you would through resident evil, keys scattered throughout the world. It’s one big map, with various areas.
Combat is about as fleshed out as it was in survival horror in the 90’s and 2000’s. It wasn’t the focus of those games and it’s not the focus here. You have tank controls, not as bad as resident evil or silent hill but still stiff feeling, no moving while shooting for you. Enemies never really feel like a challenge but the game will throw them at you fairly constantly but you will also never run out of bullets because the game hands it out like candy.
In hindsight, I don’t like that I didn’t feel as stressed about having enough ammo as I would in a game like dead space and also the enemies are genuinely not threatening enough. They are very scary and doll like to look at but they very easy to dispatch.
This game has ok puzzles, they are mostly basic logic stuff like look through word docs to find clues or look through a room to find a train that’s coloured blue or whatever. Honestly they are about as on par with resident evil or silent hill so that’s ok.
Story wise unfortunately, idk fellas I don’t think writing was the dev’s strong suit.
Survival horror will usually abandon lore story telling in favor of atmospheric story telling but the way this game is laid out makes me think the dev really thought he had something going.
No he did not, mining for gold and finding an interdimensional gateway that turns people into monsters is not really that interesting.
But I give a pass because honestly video games in the 90’s couldn’t really write for shit either.
The soundtrack is in my opinion, excellent. At times it does sound a little derivative of the obvious source material but the mystical, liminal vibes are held in tact.
Overall, def recommend this one.
What’s better than a game where you walk around and press one button? A game where you walk around and press no buttons!
I played this game back in 2006 when it first released and I really enjoyed it, then a power outage happened while I was saving and it was my only save file. I never had only one save file ever again and that’s a pretty big impact on me. I bring this up because this game is a massive time investment and I was very much not willing to get back into the mix, 60 hours down the drain. Zodiac age completely and absolutely fixes this. The game comes with a 2x/4x speed up mode that completely trivializes all the leveling and walkin around you have to do. Very much like the speed up mode on emulators, it makes the game accessible in a way it previously was not. I was able to beat this game in around 30 hours because of this feature.
Now I will actually talk about the game itself, like I said at the start. You essentially just setup menus and actions before you start combat and let the game play itself. It feels like a miracle that this game is fun. But the environment, story, characters, leveling system, license board, gambits, hunts all combine together to make this very enjoyable experience.
It was very cathartic to come back to this game and beat it. That’s all I got to say. Good times
I played this game back in 2006 when it first released and I really enjoyed it, then a power outage happened while I was saving and it was my only save file. I never had only one save file ever again and that’s a pretty big impact on me. I bring this up because this game is a massive time investment and I was very much not willing to get back into the mix, 60 hours down the drain. Zodiac age completely and absolutely fixes this. The game comes with a 2x/4x speed up mode that completely trivializes all the leveling and walkin around you have to do. Very much like the speed up mode on emulators, it makes the game accessible in a way it previously was not. I was able to beat this game in around 30 hours because of this feature.
Now I will actually talk about the game itself, like I said at the start. You essentially just setup menus and actions before you start combat and let the game play itself. It feels like a miracle that this game is fun. But the environment, story, characters, leveling system, license board, gambits, hunts all combine together to make this very enjoyable experience.
It was very cathartic to come back to this game and beat it. That’s all I got to say. Good times
Hollow Knight
2017
Animal planet meets dark fantasy meets studio ghibli Metroidvania game. I slept on this one, at the time I was bemoaning the lack of quality games coming out, turns out I wasn’t playing any of them!!
Hollow knight is not my favourite of its genre but I find there is a lot to appreciate about it. It’s cute light horror fantasy vibes kept me engaged with the world while playing through it. It’s got that apocalyptic last flame in the world type vibe, the world is ending and you are doing something, maybe not saving it. Idk you doing what you can, that’s fun.
Maybe besides smash bros melee or my beloved vanquish, my favourite movement in a game ever?? The game’s progression is held together by the various movement abilities the game gives you throughout its run time. The all the classic platformer moves are here but the execution and context in which they are given to you, is masterful design. Your little dude you play as is nimble and can do many fancy acrobatic and combat maneuvers. The combat is also quite fun, very simple, a lot like castlevania. You are given a few simple auxiliary weapons, very useful.
I still like blasphemous a bit more than this game, I do like the horror of it(very insect kingdom, escpailly deepnest absolutely intense) but I still wish for something more brutal. This game works very well for both children and adults, deepnest would probably scare kids but I think it’s appropriate enough for them to play, I like it.
Love the systems the game has for progression, 2 kinds of fast travel that work in different ways. Great map design, very cavernous and at times very similar to Metroid(long vertical tubes filled with platforms), no complaints about that.
This game to me also sets new standards for indie games, it’s very reminiscent of golden era 360/ps3 era indie games like dishwasher and shadow complex.
Overall love this game, no huge complaints just finnicky about the vibe but it’s not a game that was completely meant for me and I still appreciate it all the same.
Hollow knight is not my favourite of its genre but I find there is a lot to appreciate about it. It’s cute light horror fantasy vibes kept me engaged with the world while playing through it. It’s got that apocalyptic last flame in the world type vibe, the world is ending and you are doing something, maybe not saving it. Idk you doing what you can, that’s fun.
Maybe besides smash bros melee or my beloved vanquish, my favourite movement in a game ever?? The game’s progression is held together by the various movement abilities the game gives you throughout its run time. The all the classic platformer moves are here but the execution and context in which they are given to you, is masterful design. Your little dude you play as is nimble and can do many fancy acrobatic and combat maneuvers. The combat is also quite fun, very simple, a lot like castlevania. You are given a few simple auxiliary weapons, very useful.
I still like blasphemous a bit more than this game, I do like the horror of it(very insect kingdom, escpailly deepnest absolutely intense) but I still wish for something more brutal. This game works very well for both children and adults, deepnest would probably scare kids but I think it’s appropriate enough for them to play, I like it.
Love the systems the game has for progression, 2 kinds of fast travel that work in different ways. Great map design, very cavernous and at times very similar to Metroid(long vertical tubes filled with platforms), no complaints about that.
This game to me also sets new standards for indie games, it’s very reminiscent of golden era 360/ps3 era indie games like dishwasher and shadow complex.
Overall love this game, no huge complaints just finnicky about the vibe but it’s not a game that was completely meant for me and I still appreciate it all the same.
Sorry world, I don't like this game.
My favourite part of it probably was the shrine puzzles but to be honest I did not even really like them that much. This game has the illusion of creative problem solving to deal with situations but in reality there is very much a set solution to each problem.
I find the world completely and utterly uncapitvating much like breath of the wild before it. There is something about the way nintendo approaches open worlds that makes them completely uninteresting for me to explore. I don't know if it's the liberal usage of empty space or the fact that getting from point A to B is still boring for me even with the building option.
Speaking of this game's central mechanic, it's build system. In theory you should be able to build all sorts of things to help you traverse and defeat the enemies. I don't know if this is a skill issue on my part but I found the system to obtuse and unituitive to do anything other than what was completely obviously set up. Most of the time I did not find it to be the best way of working through the dungeons even though in theory you can do anything you want with it.
It's held back by batteries as a resource which I think are farmed by those gatchapon machines you find around. Yeah I don't like that either. I pretty much hate anything gatchapon related and even something as trivial as randomly getting machine parts annoys me. There should be a store you can buy batteries at.
But I digress, this one ain't for me. It's for the fortnite and minecraft generation bless their hearts. I miss the dungeon designs of majora's mask and ocarina of time, I wish they would find some way to freshen up those ideas instead of this open world slop.
My favourite part of it probably was the shrine puzzles but to be honest I did not even really like them that much. This game has the illusion of creative problem solving to deal with situations but in reality there is very much a set solution to each problem.
I find the world completely and utterly uncapitvating much like breath of the wild before it. There is something about the way nintendo approaches open worlds that makes them completely uninteresting for me to explore. I don't know if it's the liberal usage of empty space or the fact that getting from point A to B is still boring for me even with the building option.
Speaking of this game's central mechanic, it's build system. In theory you should be able to build all sorts of things to help you traverse and defeat the enemies. I don't know if this is a skill issue on my part but I found the system to obtuse and unituitive to do anything other than what was completely obviously set up. Most of the time I did not find it to be the best way of working through the dungeons even though in theory you can do anything you want with it.
It's held back by batteries as a resource which I think are farmed by those gatchapon machines you find around. Yeah I don't like that either. I pretty much hate anything gatchapon related and even something as trivial as randomly getting machine parts annoys me. There should be a store you can buy batteries at.
But I digress, this one ain't for me. It's for the fortnite and minecraft generation bless their hearts. I miss the dungeon designs of majora's mask and ocarina of time, I wish they would find some way to freshen up those ideas instead of this open world slop.
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
If I could give this 6 stars I would because I think this game is in a different caliber than almost every game over the last few years. Might be my second favourite game now next to bloodborne. I have played dnd, divinity 2 and dragon age origins. That’s about the level of experience I had with this kind of game. At a glance it’s similar to Larian’s other games, however it may have set a new standard for story presentation in games. It has superb voice acting, writing, enemy design, character design, world building, and map design. This is not even getting into the actual gameplay. It is in someways a step back and forward for Larian, I really enjoyed the environmental style of combat from divinity 2 but this game simplies that and instead refocuses on giving you a variety of abilities which can lead to a variety of creative ways of handling battles. You can still do trippy things like fill a box full of high weight objects and drop it on enemies using telekinesis, but you also have a variety of simple to complex ways to build different classes. The game’s power progression feels appropriately passed for what took me around 80 hours to finish and I was hauling ass to get through this game. I actually found myself dropping the difficulty halfway through as the fighting on balanced difficulty got a bit too much to handle for me when not min maxing my build.
The story takes a great amount of twists and turns as it goes on and is wound together with its unique and fleshed out cast of characters which have delightful backstories and quests related to them.
Overall this game reminded me of why I love RPGs so much and has given me excitement for what hard working passionate developers can put together in a time where large business is destroying creativity and quality in gaming.
The story takes a great amount of twists and turns as it goes on and is wound together with its unique and fleshed out cast of characters which have delightful backstories and quests related to them.
Overall this game reminded me of why I love RPGs so much and has given me excitement for what hard working passionate developers can put together in a time where large business is destroying creativity and quality in gaming.
I get really aggravated playing this game. I think I just played too much of BotW and got sick of a lot of the things you do and see in this game. I think I would have liked the game a lot more if it had a different protagonist with a different perspective on the world (thinking of the end of Red Dead Redemption). That and some more new music would have gone a long way to selling this as a new story in an old setting without it feeling like I had stayed at the party for too long.
I have strange vivid memories playing these boring and impossible mini games on this title
Mother mercy, they done fucked up bad making this one. I remember buying this and being so excited because I rented the other one for gamecube. HOLY HOLY shit dawg, this is not a port it's a completely different game and it sucks ass. You have to stop point and click to zipline web from one place to another and the game looks like shit.
Just play the other one.
Just play the other one.
0_abyssalSomewhere
2018
In Alfie Bown's excellent The PlayStation Dreamworld (2017) the author considers whether a videogame can truly be unheimlich. On one hand there is something unsettling about the malfunctioning technology of yesteryear. But then on the other, Bown notes, we have a way of smoothing over the gnarled edges of the past by designating things 'retro'. Maybe we can see this with the trend toward a self-consciously broken 'retro' style in videogames. For something to be unheimlich it has to reveal something about ourselves — perhaps if we call these things uncanny it's because they reveal hauntology's undesirable proximity to cheap nostalgia. 0_abyssalSomewhere doesn't have any answers, but it benefits by making a dual address to both the style and materiality of the past. What I mean is it pairs the ghostly trace with corroded industrial debris because in practical terms the two are the same thing. It comes from a future where we are dead but our technologies have survived, or, rather, have been programmed to await a human 'input' that will never arrive.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
Drakengard if it was bad.
visual novels are videogames and vns are not art but holy scriptures and channelings for the divine (the Bible was an eroge), all this was revealed to Yuji Horii in 1983, during a tarot reading at the Portopia Serial Murder Case launch party
My very first MMORPG. Countless hours idling in Valkurm Dunes LFP, the first treacherous trek to Jeuno. Finally unlocking Dark Knight after countless hours of grinding.
I was, maybe, 15 years old, a late night somewhere around 11pm in 2008 and I finally found a party, a special thing in a game like FFXI. We partied for a while and my uncle just got off work at the UPRR; he'd swing by to use my PC just to check the Huskers website. I told my party what was going on and I'd be back as soon as I could. He was on there for three fucking hours; it was probably 2 or 3 in the morning by the time I returned. My party was still chilling, waiting on me, doing nothing because I was the tank and they needed me to pull.
Partying in Final Fantasy XI made special moments, made you feel important, and as much as I adore FFXIV and its phenomenal lore & story, nothing can ever replicate that feeling of community FFXI brought me in my formative years.
I never saw much of this game's story, if any at all, and didn't play much past finally unlocking DRK. And I know it's not the same experience I had in 2009; that style, that era of MMORPG is deceased. World of Warcraft killed it, and we'll never get it back. But I will one day return to Vana'diel and see everything it has to offer, to experience what FF veterans heralded as one of the finest stories in gaming well before they were making the same claims about FFXIV.
I know an MMORPG can't exist like this in today's culture, but I still wish a game could feel truly community-driven like this game did once upon a time.
I was, maybe, 15 years old, a late night somewhere around 11pm in 2008 and I finally found a party, a special thing in a game like FFXI. We partied for a while and my uncle just got off work at the UPRR; he'd swing by to use my PC just to check the Huskers website. I told my party what was going on and I'd be back as soon as I could. He was on there for three fucking hours; it was probably 2 or 3 in the morning by the time I returned. My party was still chilling, waiting on me, doing nothing because I was the tank and they needed me to pull.
Partying in Final Fantasy XI made special moments, made you feel important, and as much as I adore FFXIV and its phenomenal lore & story, nothing can ever replicate that feeling of community FFXI brought me in my formative years.
I never saw much of this game's story, if any at all, and didn't play much past finally unlocking DRK. And I know it's not the same experience I had in 2009; that style, that era of MMORPG is deceased. World of Warcraft killed it, and we'll never get it back. But I will one day return to Vana'diel and see everything it has to offer, to experience what FF veterans heralded as one of the finest stories in gaming well before they were making the same claims about FFXIV.
I know an MMORPG can't exist like this in today's culture, but I still wish a game could feel truly community-driven like this game did once upon a time.
Siren
2003
"Siren, it's alright." - Lil B
Red Faction
2001
This is a certified hood classic