Hustle your way out of a loan shark's 97k debt. Charming, neat little game during its early runtime when it was pulling its punches and i could enjoy the little joys of pickpocketing average joes and janes. Then it pulls the most maddening plot twist on you and i nearly gave up. It forced me to directly engage with all the narrative irritations that i had to mentally avoid just to find pleasure and tone from everything else.

In fairness, I really the 'framework' this game resides in - using pickpocketing and eavesdropping as an alternative to learning about NPC's and absorbing the world. I love the way your mc kicks shit when you inspect it, and the different reactions she has. When the art and object-oriented design is doing the talking, it's a good adventure game supported by fun low-key npc interactions! It's just that the core writing murders it. I went into this knowing it was gonna be peak contrived indie-not-really-indie writing, with all the 'talking directly at the camera' moments and unfunny 4th wall breaks - but for MOST of it, the lower-laying characters and vibe were enough to gloss it over. The main stereotyped conflict takes a backseat so you can focus on just living and surviving in the concrete jungle. But then 'the moment' happens - the one it's just SO fucking proud of itself for, - and the plot starts making shit up on the fly to justify whatever new revelations they've thrown at you, and you feel sick. I know I'm not the target demographic for this game, and my opinions are always gonna be filtered through general disdain for this side of indie writing culture, but it really cannot be said enough: A safe comfort food story is always gonna be better than a shallow self-serious ego trip.

And even outside the crux of the main conflict, most writing here is just annoying. When it's not throwing a cringy 'wow, did we just reference the thing you know from the internet??' punchline, it's using the worst possible interpretation of American 'wow, awkwaaaard' conversation pieces. It wants to be an overly-comfy, sterilized story at constant odds with the weight of its conflict. It wants to have its cake and eat it too. And you know? Maybe that's the point I guess?! I do think it's admirable how the game is able to use the contrast between its dramatic plot and the overly commodified interactive areas to replicate that feeling of the plastic bougie. It's a toybox-filtered interpretation of a weighted scenario with consequences that dramatically impact innocent people. Everyone around you is caught up shitting themselves over the small things while your financial stability is hanging on a thread. Again, it's a strong non-spoken narrative design style! But it's not a well-written scenario when I have to listen to the same annoying one-dimensional cast and their trope-by-trope woes. I can't remember ANYONE'S fucking name in this as-is. So overall, why should a decent person give a rat's ass?
Aalso, minor spoilers, but one of the characters that helps you later on in the story is a black-coded (I say 'coded' because everyone has neon-colored skin so you can't accuse them one way or another of being racially selective) woman, and the way she's written in implies she was some huge radicalist in the past, and that past influences her helping you out in the main story. You could kinda parse lesbian from her dialogue and design, or just general feminist. But she's also a cop. and, the relationship between those two character traits is never fucking addressed or contextualized, and it makes the character's involvement in the endgame act (after spending the prior parts being a comedy relief npc) completely forced in at the last moment. Again, what's the point of trying to be so self-serious if you're afraid as hell to get your hands deep in any genuinely touchy subject fields?

The more i think about it, the more this game reminds me of my experience with Going Under - which had the same strengths and problems. There's a cleverness to the interactive components that is constantly being undermined by shallow dialogue. The gameplay mechanics and experience you get out of the world and ludonarrative do infinitely more to serve its satirical messaging than its palatable script can. The people and trinkets that populate this game's runtime do more to invigorate emotions than any of the eye-rolling one-liners and smacktalk can, let alone the predictable tropes and hackish plot twists.

And godDAMN does this game run like shit for a 2D visual novel with tweened sprites. That's what you get when you drop a 10000x20000 PNG into your game as a background map I guess.

Anyway, this game is mid, I should've been more fucking suspicious when I got this from a fucking fanatical bundle of all things

I have put off re-reviewing this for months. Partly because I dont have the words to express the hold this game has over me, and partly because every time I start thinking about it I get too excited. I havent felt this way about something in a long time, likely since I was a girl in the height of my infatuation with Ace Attorney.

This game is just absolutely astounding, from all angles. There is nothing it does poorly and nothing I would change. I didnt really understand the draw of roleplaying till now, which was the downfall of my first experience, but it is absolutely incredible the things you can learn about yourself pretending to be someone else. Thats not something I can say about any other game, ever. And I can only feel just so grateful, because it's given me so much joy over the past 3 months. Its barely left my mind at all, which feels like an issue at times. I dont know if I'll have an experience like that ever again, after all I created the perfect character and ran through the campaign as him, twice. More or less doing the same thing because I just enjoyed what I had made so much. It grieves me that I kind of have to let go of it, its one of those games that was painful to finish because I just got so attached. It feels like mine, and its one of those autistic things where I cant stand it when anyone else brings it up cause you and I definitley dont see it the way, like a dog hyperaggressive over its food. Specifically dark urge, which feels like it was tailor made for me. Its all so special and I care about it very, very much.

Everyone who worked on bg3 is immensely talented. It's kind of staggering just how talented everyone is. There is not a single voice actor that preformed poorly or out of place, the text is immaculate, nearly every single decision one could make is neatly planned for and has a script. It is just perfect and I could marvel at it forever, cause it really is a feat of human accomplishment to me. The driving force behind my love for this game though is of course the cast. I adore absolutely everyone (minus you Minthara I will always kill you and take your clothes), there are so few games that manage to pull it off, that take you through a journey so long and so profound that you feel a sense of family. Withers' after party is the perfect amalgamation of all this, the joy I felt seeing everyone happy, finally grtting to live their lives was unmatched. Going through the letters of the people you met along the way and seeing that theyre all alright. Astarion specifically holds special meaning to me but I cant talk about that I get too protective. It never fails to make me tear up thinking about it and always makes me feel so grateful that this is in the world and that I got to experience it.

Immensely love all my friends and Scratch and Owlbear and that one weird ox I didnt get to see in act 3 because it glitched out. I will think about you all forever, an autistic girl's promise

Adam Smith, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
“Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own.”

Regardless of the critiques one could have for Adam Smith’s philosophy (such as the ones at the core of this very game), this is a concept I think about a lot, how only the noblest and fewest of us are as driven by real tragedy as by personal issues. The unfortunate fact is that most of us would have to lose a finger before we would raise one, and at the risk of revealing myself as a part of the morally inert masses, this is what made Umurangi Generation a total miss for me. The premise seems simple, just walk around and fulfill requests for certain photos, but the real appeal is in the tragic story that’s being told in the background. There’s no direct presentation of a plot, just location after location full of details to soak in about what’s happening to this world. The environmental design and the progression of this quiet narrative are handled well, but even in the worst circumstances depicted, my little finger is still firmly on my hand. Without any personal stake or investment in what’s going on, I have a hard time caring about any of it. My friends in this story may be in terrible trouble, but they aren’t my friends, they’re the stationary and silent 3D models that have just been labeled as such. The world may be going through horrible things, but this isn’t a world I know, and I haven't been given the time or the reasons to have any connection to it. The mechanics of the core photography widen the gap between me and the world even further by introducing layer after layer of abstraction, whether that be through a time limit to take all the photos, scattering tiny little collectibles to find, or having to use very specific lenses for each shot, constantly reminding me that this is all artificial. I imagine that the game works best for the people who can draw parallels between the world of the game and the world they see around them, and thus connect to it with the same sense of reality, but as someone unable to do so, I went through it, finished it, and took my repose and diversion with the same ease and tranquillity as if it had never happened.

Addendum: This was another game taken from my suggestions list from user Cold_Comfort. Apologies for sounding fairly negative, but if a game’s unique, I would say it’s worth a look just by default, and this one certainly qualifies. I also want to give a shoutout to the developer, who actually said hi on Twitter even when I was poking fun at the game. They mentioned they used to be an armchair game critic just like me back in the day, so it was wonderful to have some assurance that I may make something worthwhile some day.

this is a sentiment that has been echoed by many other people on this website, but omori and its fanbase are exactly what people thought undertale and its fanbase were like in 2015.

i think ultimately, omori's commodification and desire for marketability with a subject as touchy as childhood trauma and mental illness for the sake of making a shoddy attempt at replicating early rpg maker titles turns omori from a 5/10 mediocre horror rpg to one of my least favorite pieces of media.
you spend a good chunk in the game in a frustratingly obnoxious trauma induced headspace with a woobified cast that ultimately has no depth, and the other half in the real world which is barely much better, all of which to set up badly done, laughable horror while still making these sensitive subjects digestible to people who would otherwise be put off by them. the whole game feels like it was designed to sell merchandise of these uwu so sad teenagers and i wouldn't be surprised if that was 100% the intention with making this game, as the entire experience is deeply shallow.
if you want an actually nuanced depiction of childhood trauma and mental illness that doesn't try to make a dark and troubling topic marketable for teenagers, read oyasumi punpun.

i already made a review of omori that i will be keeping up since they were my thoughts when i had initially played the game, i just wanted to give my thoughts about the game now that i've sat on my experience with it for a few months.

Dokpaon Monster Hunter is a mystery dungeon style game that feels like a lazy copy and paste of their board game mechanics. The result is a game that feels slow, tedious, lazy, and poorly thought out.

The game is terribly translated, and not in the way that gives it character like in later entries, it's just barely understandable. The story is childish nonsense anyway, NPC's spout generic lines that repeat the same thing over and over, and then you go to the first dungeon.

There's no tutorial or explanation on how to play, the items you get have no use because enemies die in one hit and you take 1 damage if you do get hit, the combat transitions are very slow and enemies are very common so that gets old fast, and the combat music is a very annoying 3 second loop.

All the tactical variety is in small numerical buffs to attack, defence, or speed, as are the skills you start unlocking, and the bonuses from the weapons you discover. Not that you have any use for them. Enemy sprites in the dungeon also don't look anything like what you end up fighting, and the level designs are incredibly simplistic with no real features.

When I finally got to the boss it one shot me despite having found some 'prevent knockout' items. Maybe if I'd had a reason to figure out what the rock paper scissors mechanics do or if I'd gotten lucky and found better gear I might have survived? All I know for sure is I lost everything found so far and had to start the dungeon over from scratch. I didn't feel like losing another hour to playing more of this.

The copy pasted combat mechanics from the other Dokapon games feel ironically out of place in this rpg game, combat is tedious, poorly implemented, and unintuitive. Menus don't work how you would expect, the skills are numeric and boring, the items and equipment are lacklustre, the maps are dull, the enemies are generic, and the writing is terrible. Maybe mystery dungeons aren't my thing but the core loop was just very off putting. Low marks all around.