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Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

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GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

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010

Total Games Played

012

Played in 2024

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Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Slice & Dice
Slice & Dice

Mar 27

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight

Mar 27

Sea of Stars
Sea of Stars

Mar 21

Persona 5 Royal
Persona 5 Royal

Mar 17

Balatro
Balatro

Feb 22

Recently Reviewed See More

I never thought I would play a metroidvania pinball game—yet here I am. Yoku’s Island Express, from the now disbanded two-man team Villa Gorilla, is so much fun. The game is charming, boasting a gorgeous aesthetic similar to the Ori series, but with the vibes of Delfino Island.

You play as Yoku, a tiny dung beetle tethered to and constantly pushing around the eponymous ball in this pinball adventure. When you arrive on the island, the former postmaster corners and tasks you with delivering mail to the islands' quirky residents in his stead. You scurry off to do the lazy pterodactyl’s bidding, traversing a beautifully realized 2D world using the left and right triggers to activate pinball flippers and navigate between platforms. It’s a lot of fun to explore, discovering secret areas, picking up collectibles, opening treasure chests, and completing quests for the local denizens. There are also dedicated pinball playfields which must be completed to unlock new areas and occasionally boss monsters to defeat in order to progress the story.

That story is fairly light, the deity of the island has been injured and it's up to you to gather the local chieftains so they can perform a healing ritual. It's very low stakes, Yoku can't take damage and the only fail states in the game are losing a bit of collectable fruit (i.e., money) or sending you back to the plunger in typical pinball style. That said, I appreciated the chill atmosphere and gameplay; it would have been frustrating to constantly hit a "game over" screen thanks to my abysmal pinball skills.

In terms of critiques, I experienced some minor graphical issues and terrain clipping—at one point I got stuck in a wall, forcing me to reset to the last checkpoint. Also, the controls do not seem to take pressure sensitivity into account, so you cannot lightly tap Yoku's ball with a flipper, which is a bit disappointing. As a result, I ended up having to brute force some of the more challenging pinball segments.

However, these minor issues did not detract from my overall enjoyment of Yoku’s Island Express. I've really come to appreciate small, but lovingly crafted games that can finished in a single weekend!

A riveting detective game from the mind of Lucas Pope with clever mechanics and a beautiful "1-bit" art style reminiscent of early Macintosh software.

Players assume the role of an unnamed investigator tasked by the East Indian Company with determining the fate of the Obra Dinn, which recently returned without its crew and passengers, in order to submit an insurance claim. That's right—this an insurance inspection simulator at heart.

Armed with a logbook (which includes the ship's manifest and drawings of the crew) you have to deduce each individual's identity, how they met their demise (or, for a lucky few, where they escaped to), and who or what was responsible for killing them. It doesn't seem like much to go on, but crucially you're given a pocket watch-like device, the Memento Mortem, which allows you to experience a corpse's fate through a brief bit of audio followed by an explorable scene in an area of the ship, frozen at the moment of death.

Initially, it's quite easy to identify folks based on first or last names shouted during cutscenes, distinctive attire or tools, and foreign languages spoken, but the challenge ramps up over time. Soon I found myself carefully exploring the still life dioramas produced by the Memento Mortem for clues (e.g., the direction of blood spraying from a bullet wound). Often players will need to follow the action across scenes, as grisly murders play out from corpse to corpse. That said, it never became so difficult that I wasn't making progress and I didn't have to rely on any hints or guides.

The game only validates identities and fates in groups of three, a clever mechanic that discourages pure guesswork, but can be leveraged by a savvy player. For example, I found myself "banking" two near-certain answers, then making educated guesses on a third before hitting the mark, instantly validating all three. I also took ample notes, since any information that isn't validated is wrong, which let's you learn something (and make progress) even when you guess incorrectly. It's a really satisfying gameplay loop that made me feel like Sherlock Holmes without the tedious evidence gathering and witness interrogating an Ace Attorney game might have.

The experience was soured slightly when, upon completing the game, I discovered two achievements (one a fail-state, the other a gag) that required a second play-through. I despise gag achievements and, for a game with zero replay value, a fail-state achievement was not appealing; thankfully, a helpful Steam guide provided a save file that could be easily loaded to acquire both.

Overall, I really enjoyed my 10 hours with The Return of the Obra Dinn; I also wish more creators would embrace the monochromatic "1-bit" aesthetic, which fits moody puzzle adventures especially well.

I've never played a Final Fantasy game before, other than bits and pieces of various GBA, PSP, and DS titles in the distant past, so I had little idea of what to expect from Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade—needless to say, I was throughly impressed.

(I have vague memories of visiting Midgar on the PSP, which must have been Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, but I can only recall the robotic minions and dystopian, industrial aesthetic.)
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FF VII Remake is a surprisingly complete experience despite being just the first of three standalone games remaking the 1997 PlayStation classic.

Players are immediately thrown into the action. Protagonist Cloud Strife, an ex-SOLDIER now mercenary, is hired by group of eco-terrorists know as AVALANCHE to help infiltrate and blow up one of eight reactors that power the futuristic city of Midgar. Unfortunately things don’t go as planned; the team is discovered and have to escape before the entire building comes down on their heads.

It’s a thrilling opening sequence that effectively teaches the game’s combat while setting up it’s main conflict—the Shinra Electric Power Company is using the reactors to harvest excessive Mako (i.e., spiritual energy) from the planet, slowly killing it. Despite this, in an obvious parallel to our own society’s reliance on fossil fuels, Mako provides substantial material benefit to the citizens of Midgar (although not to the underclass of slum dwellers with whom our heroes primarily identify). These folks are not particularly evil or malicious, which introduces compelling shades of grey into the plot.

The story continues building on this strong foundation, pitting Cloud and AVALANCHE against Shinra and its various corporate goons. It's largely linear, which works to the story’s benefit, in my opinion. Too often, games try to mimic successful open worlds (e.g., Elden Ring) and fall far short; the tailored experience that the team at Square Enix has created here feels far more purposeful—players are never left wondering what to do or where to go next and don't need to grind for levels, it all just works, playing out like a movie would. In fact, the pseudo-open world segements (e.g., Chapter 14) are the weakest parts of the story, padded with extraneous side quests that detract from the momentum of the narrative. The final sequence, from Chapter 15 onwards, is riveting, catapulting players to the credits through a high-stakes infiltration, motorcycle chase, and several epic boss fights.

We also meet a wonderful cast of characters throughout the roughly 40 hour-long story. Tifa, Cloud's childhood friend who wants revenge on Shinra, but is held back by her desire to avoid violence; the fiery and sometimes brash leader of a local AVALANCHE cell, Barrett, who wants to save the planet and protect his adorable daughter; AVALANCHE members Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie, who become friends with the apathetic Cloud and slowly draw him out of his shell. And of course the relentlessly optimistic Aerith; descended from the Ancients that originally inhabited this world and whose fate is pivotal to the plot.

The game features phenomenal combat that mixes the Active Time Battle (ATB) system of the original with real-time action using normal (X) and strong (Y) attacks. Characters can roll to dodge (B), guard (R1), and access a menu of special abilities, spells, and items (A), which slows time to a crawl letting you spend segments of the ATB bar. Alternatively, players can assign abilities to custom shortcuts and execute them in real-time. Taken together, these elements make for fluid and fun combat that preserves the feeling of a turn-based RPG thanks to the rhythmic nature of building and spending ATB segements.

Each of the four playable characters - Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, and Aerith - have their own special abilities as well as normal and strong attacks. Personally, I spent most of my time with Cloud, who plays in a traditional hack-and-slash style, switching to Barrett, who possesses potent survivability skills, on harder fights. The game encourages players to switch between characters to take advantage of boss mechanics and often restricts party members for story reasons.

This action plays out in a beautifully realized world. The team has pulled off a stunning aesthetic using Unreal Engine 4—the characters are realistic, but also stylized and cartoonish in their own way (e.g., Cloud's iconic spiky hair or Barrett's huge build). The monsters are often very quirky in typical Final Fantasy fashion, but they fit in nicely with the world seemingly due to exquisite texture work. Midgar is industrial, overbearing and claustrophobic, shrouded in perpetual night, while the slums beneath (where players spend most of their time) are crowded and dilapidated, but warm and welcoming. Perhaps my expectations were unreasonably low given lack of recent experience with AAA titles, but the graphics and animation work blew me away.

Finally the music. Original composer Nobuo Uematsu and collaborators Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki have crafted a truly magical score. There is an unbelievable number of tracks and the audio adapts based on the player's actions, fading arrangements in and out to match what's on screen. Some personal favorites are Tifa's Theme - Seventh Heaven and Aerith's Theme - Home Again, just beautiful orchestral arrangements.