First Impression: Another Code: Recollection (Switch) ~ The Remembering Of A Remake

Nintendo.co.uk microsite – Wikipedia page

Next year, I’ll be blogging for 15 years. I have taken a look at quite a lot of games. Now, if you go back to the start of this blog, you might notice that I only started in May 2013. The three years before that, I wrote a personal life blog in my native language. I have since deleted that for personal reasons and started blogging in English in 2013. On my Dutch blog, I wrote an article about Another Code – Two Memories, but I haven’t written one for my English blog. Yet, I have mentioned it in 2014 in a top 25 list of my favorite DS games of all time. I have written an article on the Wii sequel called Another Code: R – A Journey Into Lost Memories in 2013. While my old articles aren’t up to my personal standards anymore, I still leave them up to see the growth I have gone through over the years. Now, these two titles became classics in my eyes. When Cing went under, I didn’t hold up hope of these games ever seeing a sequel or a remake. But, we got a big surprise this year. Suddenly, both games were coming to the Nintendo Switch and not only that, they were remade from the ground up. Did these two games grow like I did in my writing, or is it something that should be better left to the past? Well, that’s what I’m going to discover with you in this article. Feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of the article, but now, let’s dive right in.

Editorial note: shameless self-promotion: if you want to see me and my buddy Klamath playing through this title… We started streaming it. So, more opinions can be found in the streams. Here is a link to the playlist.

The Remembering Of A Remake

In this game, we follow the adventures of Ashley Mizuki Robins. In the first part of the game, Ashley got a letter from her presumed dead father to come to Blood Edward island to meet him on the day right before her 14th birthday. On that journey, she meets a ghost named D, who has lost his memories.

In the second part of the game, we fast-forward two years. Ashley takes a camping trip to a lake. When she arrives at lake Juliet, she gets flashbacks from when she was very little. Not only that, she meets a young boy whose father wanted to build a holiday resort at that lake but was blamed for the pollution of the lake.

Since this game is a point-and-click game and is quite story depended, I’m not going to talk more about the story than the two small blurbs above. In terms of the story, this game tells a very heartfelt story with very nice life lessons. The writing in this game is extremely well done. The build up towards the ending of the story is very natural and stays true to the themes of the game. The biggest theme in this game is memories and history. Overall, this game is quite relaxing, and the story is never really in a rush to move forward.

New in this version is that there is voice acting. While not the whole game is voice acted, most of it is and the non voice acted scenes have little grunts and vocalizations to indicate the emotions of what’s being told. I have to say that the voice acting in this game is fantastic. I wish the voice actors of this game had more of an online presence, since I had a hard time finding other works by these voice actors. The fact that these voice actors didn’t really promote that they worked on this game on their socials is a shame.

The voice acting in this game brings so much charm to the game. For this article, I replayed parts of the original DS and Wii game and I kept hearing those characters talk in the voice of the remakes. They fit the characters like a glove, which is a hard thing to do since when you have voiceless characters… Everybody has their voice in their head, and that doesn’t always match up with the official voice acting.

Now, in terms of differences between the original games and this remake… There are quite a lot of things. On the Cing wiki, there is a long list of changes. But I would highly advise you don’t read that before you finished the game. Since, it contains a lot of spoilers. I can say this without spoiling anything. The list of changes on the game article page has no real spoilers. If you haven’t played the originals, you won’t really notice a lot of the changes. Especially because most of the changes are done to improve the flow of the game and the story. Other changes have been done because some puzzles used the special features of the Nintendo DS or the Nintendo Wii in unique ways.

Arc System Works worked together with several members of the original development team, and I have to say that it really feels like this is the definitive way to experience these stories. Both stories now flow into each other, and it feels more like one big story. If you didn’t know better, you could think it’s just one huge game with those major chapters. They have done an amazing job of translating the story into a modern area without destroying the original messages and atmosphere of the story.

Fuzzy memories make imperfections

In terms of visuals, this game goes for a cel shaded look. This makes the remake of the original DS game look more in line with the Wii title. In the original DS game, the game was played as a top-down puzzle game, with some moments you could see a 2D scene that you could explore.

Visually, this game is quite detailed and looks amazing. Yet, I have noticed some rough models here and there. A book here, a window there. Some of them really stick out like a sore thumb. Now, I might be very critical on these things since I review games as a hobby. But let me tell you this as well. Overall, this game looks amazing. Timeless even. There are only a handful of objects that could use some touching up.

I have the same opinion on the animations. Overall, the animations are fantastic. Seeing the first game in 3D was breathtaking. It brought the game to life in such a different way, and I’m all for it. There were a few stiff animations, but if you aren’t looking for them, I can guarantee you that you won’t notice most of them. I especially love the comic book style cutscenes where the characters speaking go inside their own square next to each other. The animations in these cutscenes add some charm to this game, it makes the more relaxing nature of this game shine even brighter.

The controls of this game are excellent. Sometimes the motion control puzzles are a little bit wonky, but overall they work perfectly. The only thing I really don’t like is how, by the press of a button, you can see the orientation of Ashley. Now, what do I dislike about this? Well, it has a sort of build in walkthrough attached to it. This is something that’s too easily accessible, and I have pressed the button too many times.

Something I’m mixed about is how the additional lore spots are now somewhat easier to find. In the original DS game, you could find special cartridges with additional story lore on them. In this game, the hiding spot is located on your map. So, if you have missed one, you can quickly see on your map in which room you need to look. Now, some of them are hidden in very tricky places. During the stream, I have seen Klamath walk past two of them several times. If you want all the additional lore, you will have to keep your eyes peeled.

If you have played any point-and-click adventure game, you’ll know what to expect here. Personally, I compare this game quite a lot to Broken Sword 3, but without the platforming. You can explore the environment, and you have to solve various puzzles. Something unique is that you can also take pictures. And let me tell you, keep every mechanic the game teaches you in mind. The fact you can take pictures is something that is going to be quite helpful during the solving of the puzzles.

The only complaint I have is that solving some puzzles have a bit too much menu work involved. I especially remember one puzzle in the first part of the game where you have to weigh coins. Instead of them being all five on the table, you have to take them from your inventory each and every time. And the annoying part is that the last two you used, move to the last spot in your inventory. There are a handful of puzzles where some quality of life improvements would be very welcome.

Relaxing with puzzles

There are some amazing new features in this game as well. One of my favorite things is that you can access a big board where all the relationships between the characters are mapped out. Not only that, when you open the profile, you can read a small note about them. If you click on Ashley’s profile, you will read a small hint on what to do next. So, if you put this game down for a while, you can catch yourself up quite quickly.

Also, something I adore is the attention to detail in this game. For example, in one of the puzzles, Ashley digs into a building blocks box. After she found what she was looking for, you will notice a small building she built next to the box with the blocks she took out. There are various other moments like this, and it adds to the charm and realism of this game quite a lot.

The more relaxing nature of this game not only comes through the visuals and gameplay, but also through the music. The music in this game is a rather calming and relaxing soundtrack. The main motive is piano through the whole soundtrack. Other major instruments are violin and acoustic guitar. The soundtracks fit this game like a glove. Now, it is tense when it needs to be, but it never steps out of its lane. It keeps being that relaxing soundtracks that brings this game more to life, and I have no complaints about it.

The biggest strength of this game is the charm of it all. The writing, the music, the sound effects, the puzzles… It all flows together so well. While the game is only roughly 15 hours long, if you know what you are doing, it’s a very enjoyable time to play through. In this remake, the game also auto saves now but outside of cutscenes, you can save at any time in 15 different save slots.

Currently, I’m over midway in the second part of the game and I have been enjoying it quite a lot. While the game has it’s minor shortcomings like some rough object models and some annoying menu’ing during puzzles… I’m falling in love with these titles all over again. If you would ask me if the remakes or the originals are better, I’d have to say both. Both versions still have their charm but if you want to experience both these titles, I’d really advice to go for the Switch version. Since, it brings both titles together in a lot better way.

I mostly have minor complaints about these remakes. Like how silly it is that you can only have ten pictures saved and deleting them is a bit too fincky. But overall, the issues I have with this game are mostly minor. Maybe a bit more time in the oven or a polishing patch will bring this game to perfection.

A lot of other reviewers are giving this game lower marks since it’s slower paced or it’s a remake of a rather obscure duology. I personally disagree with these lower scores. These two games deserve another chance in the lime light since they are quite amazing games. I personally don’t mind the slower paced gameplay, since it’s refreshing to be able to wind down with a slower game. On top of that, if you look at the care the developers put into remaking this game and bringing it to modern audiences while not chaging too much to alienate fans of the original is such a fine line to walk on… And they never fell off that line in my opinion.

I can totally understand that this game isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. But, the complaints that this game is linear and doesn’t have a lot of replay value, I find ridiculous. I mean, does every game need to have a lot of replay value and let you explore a wide open world? No, it’s okay to play a game where you need to go from point A to B. It’s okay that the story looses some of it’s charm because you know how it’s going to end. It’s how that experience impacts you, that’s what matters.

The reason why I’m so happy to see remakes of these DS and Wii titles is because we now have remakes of amazing titles like this one and Ghost Trick for example. Now, because these two games have been remade, I’m holding out hope that Cing’s other titles like the amazing Hotel Dusk and it’s sequels are being remade as well. And if they are, I hope the same team is working on them since the love and care they placed into remaking these two titles is amazing.

I remember Klamath’s reaction when I suggested this game for streaming. He was worried that it was going to have low numbers and not a lot of interest. But, after our first stream, he started calling this game a hidden gem. I mean, if this game can have that kind of an impact on somebody who loves point-and-click games and the fact that we had a very high number of viewers watching our streams, it must mean something.

This game has a lot of impact and I hope that others who enjoy puzzle, adventure and/or point-and-click games give this game a chance. It’s something different especially since it’s slower paced but if you let it take you by the hand and if you walk along the journey, you won’t regret the powerful journey you are going on. It’s a journey that will stick with you and sometimes a memory will pop back into your head. You’ll remember the fun and relaxing times you had with this game. While the game isn’t perfect, the positives far outweigh the negatives and it’s one of those games where going along with the ride is the most important. Since, the ride of this game is one of the best point-and-click games I have ever played.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m curious to hear what you thought about this game and/or the content of this article. So, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below. I also hope to welcome you in another article, but until then have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: Spirit Hunter Volume 3 – Death Mark II (Switch) ~ Ghost and Ghouls in School

Nintendo.co.uk microsite – Wikipedia – Death Mark Wiki

It’s finally here! The 3rd game in the Spirit Hunter series. If you have read my blog in the past, you might know I have been waiting for this game since the studio launched the crowdfunding campaign for this game. Back in 2019, this game got successfully crowdfunded. The game came out in Japan in December 2022. The English version was going to come out in October of last year. But, it got pushed to this year, and we saw a release on the February 15th, 2024. While a lot of other amazing games have come out this month, I have been mostly playing this game. Does it live up to my expectations, or did it ruin the series for me? In this article, I want to talk about my honest opinion on the game, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article. So, it’s time to dive right into this new volume in the Spirit Hunter series.

Editorial note: to avoid spoilers, the screenshots will only be of the first chapter of the game.

Ghost and Ghouls in School

Unlike the previous volume, NG, we don’t play with as a totally new character. As the name implies, we continue the story of the first volume, Death Mark. If you are afraid that you need to play Death Mark again to understand the story in this game, don’t worry.

The game explains who the returning characters are, and the game doesn’t spoil what happened to them in the previous game at all. Some characters hint at their chapter in Death Mark, but not outright spoil it. The way how this is handled in this game is impressive. This way, you can play the games out of order without getting a lot, if any, spoilers on the previous titles.

While you can jump into this game without playing the previous games, it’s quite helpful if you have played the previous titles. The references won’t fly over your head, and it makes the writing that more enjoyable. In this game, you take on the role of Kazuo Yashiki, the protagonist of the first game. A few months after Death Mark, he gets called by the headmaster of Konoehara Academy since there are rumors of a spirit haunting the school. This spirit called “the Departed” is posting disturbing notices of killing a student at night. The investigation is started after the first student has disappeared, and the second notice has been found.

Compared to the two previous games, there is some more voice acting in this game. While not everything is voice acted, it’s more than the previous two titles. It’s not fully voice acted like Corpse Party, but the voice acting mostly happens when a character gets introduced or at very special moments. The voice acting in this game is quite well done, and I only wish there is more in the next games. Since, I honestly think that the voice actors really nailed the personalities of their characters and might make the game even better.

To really avoid spoilers, I’m not going to talk too in depth about the story in this game. But what I can say is that overall, the story follows the structure of NG quite a lot. I haven’t finished the game yet, but so far I have been enjoying the story. Surprisingly, this game is twice as long as Death Mark. If you know what you are doing, you can beat Death Mark in, give or take 11 hours. NG can be beaten in, give or take 16 hours. According to howlongtobeat.com, this game is 25 hours long.

Now, this game doesn’t feel like it’s taking 25 hours to complete to me. While I’m playing on my Nintendo Switch, where you can’t really see your playtime very well, I did write my playtime down for a while and honestly, I can totally believe this game can take you between 20 and 25 hours to beat. The story flows so well, that you get the impression it’s shorter. I think that mostly has to do with the lack of padding there is in this game. This game doesn’t waste your time and gets right into the meat of the game. This game takes you on a journey and doesn’t let go. It tries to keep you on the edge of your seat to see what’s going next, and it succeeds in that for the most part. But for a horror game like this, this breakneck pace is a knife that can cut both ways.

Tamer Ghosts

In some ways, this game is a lot tamer compared to the previous two titles. All the chapters in this game involve the student body of the academy in someway or another.

I can’t really put my finger on why, but I found this game less scary than the two previous titles. This game has its scary moments, but it’s a lot tamer in its scares.

Maybe the rather fast-paced flow of the game isn’t doing it any favors. There is not a lot of time for the actual scares to sink in and grab you by surprise. Thinking about it, padding is quite essential in horror games. Since it gives you the time to let it all sink in. The strongest moments of horror in this game are the cutscenes before the final spirit battle at the end of a chapter. The small cutscene of the spirit entering the room is something I want to see more of.

Another thing that isn’t doing this game any favors is how lame the actual jumpscares are in this game. In the original Death Mark, we had some very creative jumpscares and a lot of them fit the context of the story extremely well. Now, NG had a few cheap and easy jumpscares. But, it dared to even insert jumpscares and creepy moments in the pause menu. Now, I can totally understand people not liking jumpscares and I really like how you have an option to disable them in the options’ menu in this game. I left them enabled to see where the creative jumpscares are in this game.

I was extremely disappointed. Every jumpscare in this game is during scene transitions. And not only that, if you play on a controller, your controller rumbles several frames before. The tutorial actually tells you that it’s a feature so you can brave yourself. This is an extremely stupid mechanic and is a step back from the previous two games. Currently, I’m midway in the game and I have only seen a maximum of four jumpscares. And I can only remember 1, while I can remember several from Death Mark and NG. This way I’m less on edge and the actual scares have less of an impact on me.

It was really promising in the first chapter, where you get introduced to special events that can actually drain your soul (health) if you make a mistake in your investigation. The potential to make you think twice before you investigate something would make a player very nervous. Are you sure this is the right path forward, or will it lead to loss of your soul? Especially since a spirit interaction can happen at any moment, and you need your soul power to be as high as possible for that. I’ll talk about that more later.

Yet, this mechanic is extremely underused. After its introduction, it’s barely used at all. Apart from some forced moments, I have barely seen any of them. If we ever get a volume 4 in this series, this is a mechanic they surely need to develop further. Also, the penalty for these moments is way too weak. Especially, you have a button to quickly travel back to the save room to fill your health to the maximum.

Something else that makes this game tamer is the fact that it blocks off some exploration. There were several times when you were stopped from exploring the hallways of the academy because you get tunneled to the right location to investigate next.

I honestly felt that after chapter 2, this game got a lot tamer and the scares in this game are somewhat underused. It’s a shame since there are a lot of improvements in this title that will take the series forwards. A perfect example is when you select a wrong choice, you don’t have to replay the whole interaction anymore. You start right back at the start of the act with the loss of some soul.

Also, you don’t have to pick the right character anymore while facing the spirit. Since, you can actually choose the standby characters during your suspension acts and spirit fights. Granted, this takes away from the puzzle elements in this game, but it fixes that you have to go back to the save room to change character and go back to face the spirit. It saves a lot of hassle with juggling saves.

More game this time

There is a lot more game in this volume compare to the two previous games. First, the exploration is extremely different. This time, you don’t go from room to room or from scene to scene. You can actually walk around with your character. There are some moments where you explore a room, and it goes back to the style of the two previous games. And I love it. The controls are extremely responsive and easy to understand. The only issue I had is that the skip button sometimes didn’t work after the first press. But it’s something that didn’t really bother me that much.

Another major improvement and gameplay element in this game is how there are collectables in this game. Yes, in each chapter there are various teeth of lost souls you can find. These have two benefits for you to find them. The first is that when you collect enough of them, you can actually level up and increase your amount of soul power you have. Let me tell you, this comes in extremely handy since some fights can be brutal if you haven’t solved the puzzle in your mind yet.

Another benefit of collecting these teeth is that it unlocks more information of the characters in this game. It’s a nice addition, but not the main reason you should collect them, since the additional information is mostly for 100% completions and don’t really serve a gameplay mechanic beyond that.

Now, what can you do with these teeth? Well, this time the collectable is more than meeting somebody if you collected all the “D-Man Cards” in NG. Now you can purchase special items with them. These will help you in combat quite a lot and are somewhat essential if you don’t want to quickly get in a game over loop. But I’ll talk about the tense moments and spirit fights later in this article. Just like the D-Man cards, these teeth are chapter based. So, make sure you explored everything before you move on to the next chapter if you want to collect all the teeth.

Now, there are also blackend tooths that can appear. These curse a whole area and drain your soul power while you are in that area. You can’t leave that area before you have found and destroyed the blackend tooth. This is an amazing mechanic I would love to see happen more in the series. I would also love to see it being more creative, since after you found them, the puzzle is solved. I would love to see in a sequel that you have to use a certain item or interact with it in a certain way to destroy it.

The stats system comes more into play this time around. There are several puzzles where you need to have a certain character with you to solve. And it’s made even easier, since you can quickly see the stats of the other characters in the chapter from the pause screen. While it’s sadly underimplemented, it’s a step in the right direction and I would love to see more.

The tense moments like the Live or Die from the original return as Suspensive Acts in this game. Instead of your soul power being a countdown clock, you now how two things to worry about. The first thing is that you have soul power. Each action costs a certain amount of soul power. Not only that, each action has a chance to succeed or fail. If it fails, the next time you preform that action, the success chance increases by quite a lot. Also, a wrong action can give you a big penalty to your soul power.

While I can totally understand that this new system isn’t going to click with everybody, I honestly think it’s perfect. The only thing I dislike is that the options are a bit too limited. If you spend your time collecting the teeth and buying the items, the amount of choices you can pick from makes the spirit fights a lot easier. So, it’s a balancing act. How difficult or easy do you want to make it for yourself?

The biggest issue people have with this new system is that it’s based on RNG. I can totally understand that from a gameplay point of view, but it actually helps to make this game even more scary. Since, actions can fail and not everything can happen perfectly from the first time.

On top of that, this game has several endings. Like the previous titles, it depends on how good you purify each spirit. This time, you get even more tested upon how well you understand the spirit you faced. This time you don’t destroy or purify the spirit during the fight, you actually have to do one more interaction and depending on that, you get towards a certain ending. Honestly, I can’t really choose which system I like more. At one hand, now you are tested if you understand the grude of the spirit, but on the other hand… Now, you don’t have two ways to finish the spirit fight and you having to figure out if you did it right. Both systems are quite enjoyable and maybe in a sequel I would love to see both appear.

Visually, this game is really amazing. The game has a very similar style compared to the two previous games and the art this time around is amazing. Several times I was looking in awe at my screen at the spirit designs. Apart from the spirit entering the room, there are no real cutscenes in this game. A lot is done by big 2D drawings with the text describing what’s happening. To avoid me talking in circles, I’ll just say that the visual style of this game didn’t dissapoint. You can even choose between two outfits for the main character.

I really want to talk more indepth about the visuals and describe them more, but I’m not going to do that to avoid spoilers in this article. But let me tell you, this game has amazing design. You’ll get the most out of the visuals and the scares when you are playing this game not too far from the screen. There are some details on the spirits you can miss if you are setting too far from the screen. The first time I encountered the Departed, I didn’t notice some details since I was playing on my big TV and I set three meters away from that. But, the second meeting was while I was playing on the train to work. That time those details caught me off guard and I actually jumped a bit.

In terms of the audiovisual design, this game is pretty good as well. The sound effects in this game are pretty good. Some of them are re-used from the previous games but why change a winning formula? But the music is something that’s extremely well done. I already added the soundtrack to my playlist, I love it that much. The music is hitting the same atmosphere compared to the two previous games but it’s also standing loud and proud on it’s own two feet.

Now, there isn’t an autosave in this game just yet. So, don’t forget to save every so often. This time around we got 99 save slots. While the actual save file only tell you if you are at the start, middle or end of a chapter… We do have a lot more save slots now.

Also, we have a gallery in the main menu where you can see the different artwork, character profiles, play through the sound track and also watch the spirit introductions. You can even choose which partner is with you without having to replay that chapter. And there is also an “extra menu” that will unlock when you have beaten the game… What will that be… I’ll find out soon.

So far, I have been enjoying this game quite a lot. This game changes the formula of the previous two volumes quite a lot and makes it more like a scary game than a scary visual novel with some interactive elements. The biggest complaint I have with this game is that there are a lot of things very undercooked. Some mechanics are barely used or don’t have a lot of gameplay to them like the blackend teeth or some just fall flat on their face like the jumpscares.

But, I’m really loving what I see in terms of evolution through the series. I really think there is a lot of potential to make more volumes in the series. If this game was meant to test the waters with the new mechanics, then I have to say that is was extremely successful. I can’t wait to beat this game and see how the story will end. Now that there is more gameplay in this game, I even dare to say that this game might interest people who enjoy playing adventure games as well. The negative/weaker parts of the game don’t outweigh the positive and good parts of this game in my honest opinion. There is a lot of potential for growth. I look at it that way. And what we got is an amazing foundation, especially since there aren’t really any mechanics or things that don’t work. It’s just that they lack some depth.

Now, if you are a fan of the previous two titles, Death Mark II knockes it out of the park and then some. If you have never played any Spirit Hunter game, this game comes highly recommened if you enjoy horror and/or adventure games. Don’t let this series be a hidden gem and give it a shot. To me, this game was totally worth the wait. And honestly, I’m actually crossing my fingers for Spirit Hunter volume 4. Since if they can do this with the series, oh boy… Can’t wait to see where they go next.

And with that, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then… Have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (Switch) ~ Playing Around With Curses

Nintendo.com microsite – Square Enix microsite

How far will you go to revive somebody from the death? Do you believe in the paranormal, or are those just story mechanics for a great campfire story? Those are some questions you have to ask yourself while playing this game. A horror visual novel that got released in March 2023, developed and published by Square Enix. Currently, you can play this game on the Nintendo Switch and Steam. But, you can also play it on your mobile phone. But wait a minute, that might be a worrying sign. If this game is also playable on phones, it might be filled with microtransactions or might not have too much depth. Now, I have already played a bunch of this game so, I’ll tell you if you should play or skip this game in this spoiler free review/first impression of this game. So, let’s dive right into it while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Editorial note: this game is rated 16+ and covers some subjects that might be sensitive for some people. Digression is advised.

Playing Around With Curses

I have quite the weak spot for adventure visual novels. Games that take you through a tense and thrilling story with a lot of twists and turns. Games like the Zero Escape trilogy, Danganronpa, Trace Memory and Death Mark are just a few examples that come to mind. So, when I read in the flavor text in the Nintendo eShop that this game takes you on a journey to discover the truth behind seven folk tale mysteries… Oh man, I purchased the game right away.

And let me tell you, the flavor text isn’t lying in the eShop. The story of this game really delivers. The story is indeed about how far would somebody go to bring somebody back from the death. There is no voice acting in this game, but the pacing of the text and the sound effects really add to the atmosphere.

In this game, you also play as different characters. You’ll experience the story from their perspective. Slowly, but surely, you get more pieces of the puzzle before everything falls into place. The story is the strongest point in this game, and it took some fascinating twists. It left me puzzled several times, and it hooked me into playing the next chapter or trying to look for a solution when I got stuck.

That’s something that can happen. You can get stuck in a chapter because you need to finish something else in another chapter. Thankfully, we have a helper. The storyteller is there to help you when you reach a game over or a dead end. When you reach that dead end or game over several times, the storyteller gives some small hint to nudge you into the right direction to progress in the game. It’s an amazing system, since you don’t get the solution right away, but you don’t get frustrated because you are stuck or don’t directly understand what you need to do differently.

It’s more than a painting

You might have noticed from the screenshots, but visually, this game looks like a dark version of Okami. Everything in this game is hand drawn in a sort of manga/comic book style. And not only that, the environments are drawn with the help of the Tourism Division, the local museum, local community and the tourist association of Sumida, Tokyo. So, we are exploring places that are based or extremely close to how they look in real life.

Visually, the game looks gorgeous. Something that surprised me even more is that even with the few animations this game has during dialogues and gameplay segments, this game is still quite immersive. Together with great use of sound effects, camera angles and filters… the well paced dialogue really comes to live. Sometimes I really felt that I was standing next to the characters.

While I can totally understand that some people would want a bit more expression and visual stuff happening in their games, I think they found the right balance in this game. The only thing that sometimes looks a bit weird are the mouth movements of some characters. I felt like the mouth opened a bit too wide. But then again, I don’t speak any Japanese, so who I’m to judge?

In various places, you can look around in 360°. And sometimes that hides secrets. There are 20 hidden stickers of Mocking Birds in this game. And let me tell you, they are hidden quite well. You have to really investigate the area’s really well to find them all. In your overview of the stickers you have or haven’t collected, you can see a little hint on the ones you haven’t collected. And let me tell you, these hints are extremely vague. One hint even says: “Jackpot”.

Now, this brings me to the UI. Let’s first talk about the menu’s before we talk about the gameplay. The main menu of this game is extremely simple. You have a resume button, a button for the options menu and a button for the credits. Now, in game, the pause/inventory menu is opened by pressing “X”. Now, you can control this menu two ways. You can either use the left joystick as a sort of mouse pointer and the “A” button to click. Or, you can navigate it almost all the other buttons. It took a little bit of getting used to, but as soon as I got the hang of it… It was quite easy.

You can also see a dialogue log in this pause menu, which is sometimes very handy when you clicked something away too fast or just want to read up on something. There is also quite the extensive file system. There is a lot of information stored in there that also gets updated the further you get into the game. You always get a notification if something gets added or updated, and you can see the updated or added files easily in the “New” tab. The only thing I’m missing from these files is a sort of search feature. Since, sometimes I have to dig a bit too much… But then again, that’s half the fun of the game, too.

This game has an amazing autosave feature. When you exit the game and restart it, you almost always pick up right from where you left off. There is also a save and load system. You get five save slots, but you can load these from the main menu. If you want to use these save slots to share the game with somebody else… Be wary of the autosave, since it overwrites quite quickly. So, with a bit of using the manual save/load system you can have different profiles, but that isn’t built in.

Choose your words wisely.

In this game, you have to be on your toes. You really need to be careful how you approach each interaction, since one wrong move can mean the end.

Thankfully, this game isn’t a kinetic novel. There is some gameplay in this game. First, you have to look around for clues to progress into the story. Sometimes you can’t even progress in a dialogue when you haven’t found the right clues in the area.

Second, you have to choose the right dialogue options. Like I said earlier, be careful that you choose the right option.

Third, there are some puzzles. The biggest hint I can give you in these puzzles is that you really need to take note of what you learn. Sometimes, the answer to a previous puzzle or another chapter can give you a hint to solve the new puzzle.

Now, something that might put people off from this game is that this game is on the light side in terms of gameplay. I feel that this game could have benefitted from a bit more puzzles, different from choosing the correct path in a dialogue tree. While the game and story is still fun and a blast to go through, I feel like some chapters are more used as exposition dumps than as gameplay. But then again, if you’d ask me to give an example, I’d draw a blank. Maybe more puzzles would ruin the pacing? It’s something on which I’m on the fence about.

If I really have to critique something in this game, then it’s lack of a sensitivity slider for the mouse cursor in the options menu. The speed is perfectly fine in handheld mode, but if you play this game on a bigger TV, it’s a bit too slow. Another complaint I have read about this game is how you have to enter the dialogue tree after you finish a conversation, that might be annoying for some people, but I didn’t find that too big of a deal.

Something I can’t complain about is the music in this game. The music in this game is already a part of my playlist of amazing video game music. It really adds to the atmosphere of the game, and it’s a joy to listen too. It’s also used in very effective ways to make scenes more tense or scary when they need too. If I’d have to describe the soundtrack of this game, I’d say that it’s something like AI: The Somnium Files. I can’t really put a genre on it for the life of me.

Now, this game is only 20 euros on the eShop. For that, you get a 12 to 14 hour game. I have to say, that it’s quite impressive that we get a full game like for that price. It has no silly DLC or microtransactions. So, that’s another bonus for this game.

Just like how you have different control options in this game. You can play this game without your Joycons at all. Well, only in handheld mode that is. Granted, the point-and-click interface might be a bit slow on big TV’s with a controller and the menu UI needs a bit of getting used too, but those are the only complaints I have about the controls.

In general, if you enjoy games like I said in the introduction… This game is a no-brainer recommendation. It’s one of the better visual novel games that I have played recently and apart from a few slower moments, I have barely anything negative to say about this game that doesn’t go in the nitpicky category. Now, if you don’t like reading too much in your games or want more action in your adventure games… I can almost assure you that this game isn’t for you. But, it might be worth it to check out a let’s play online, since this story is really something. It really throws you for a loop sometimes and really takes you on a ride.

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Game Quicky: Cube Grid (PC – Steam) ~ Rolling Around On The Grid

Steam store page – Official website

To be honest, the mobile games that attract me the most are the simple and easy to understand mobile games. When I play a game on my phone, it’s mostly to waste time while waiting for my train or something along those lines. It’s rare that I play bigger mobile games. When the small German indie studio Alchemical reached out to me with a press code for their newly released Steam port of Cube Grib, I was directly interested. So, in this article you’ll read my 100% honest opinion on the game and if I would recommend it or not. Also, this isn’t the studio’s first game, so, feel free to look at their website if you are looking for other mobile games to try out. In any case, let’s start this game quicky while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Editorial note: I played v1.0.1 for this review.

The good cubes

There is no silly story in this game. This could be seen as a bummer to some people, but this game gets into the meat of the gameplay right away. The tutorial explains the game wonderfully, and you can dive right into the game.

The idea of this game is that you have to flip each colored tile while your cube is in the right color. Moving over a full colored tile flips it to a “square” tile (since there is a square drawn on it with that color). Moving over a “square” tile with the same color, flips it back to a full colored one. Which means, you have to reflip it before you can finish the level.

This game is a textbook example of being difficult to explain in text and better to see in action. Sadly, the trailer on the Steam page gives the wrong impression. There, the tiles turn black and this is something that doesn’t happen in the game. Since, that’s how it works in the mobile version. In this, somewhat enhanced PC-version, there are a few improvements that make this game even more enjoyable. Like more control options and being visual a bit better. Also, there are achievements in this version. Something that a lot of people adore, myself included. I find it fun to get these achievements when I do or reach certain things in games.

Now, the mobile version is free. This version costs 4 bucks. This is something you can look at in both ways. As a negative and a positive. Personally, I think this game is worth the price of admission, but I would love to see more features in the future to make it stand out more compared to the free version on mobile.

The controls are quite responsive. They are easy to learn but sometimes a bit tricky to master. For some reason, I messed up sometimes. But, quite sure that’s on me. Since the unique viewing angle of the stage made me mess up my directions sometimes. And to help with that, this game has an undo button that doesn’t count for one additional move. Sadly, you can only undo one move. So, if you want to undo more than one move, you are out of luck.

Visually, this game looks amazing. This game looks clean and isn’t “loud”. Even when you don’t understand English, you can play this game easily. The (UI) design is that good. In addition to that, the audiovisual presentation is great as well. The sound effects and music add so much to the game’s atmosphere. There are a few minor moments that miss sound effects, especially menu interactions but that’s so minor that it didn’t really bother me.

Speaking of visual presentation, you can choose the cube you play as. The amount of stars you earn at the end of each level are currency in the shop you can access from the main menu. In there, you can exchange your stars for a new cube you can play as. This is nothing more than just a visual change, but it is a nice feature that gives a bit of diversity to this game.

This game introduces the special mechanics in a pleasant way. The difficulty curve of this game is excellent, and I have nothing to remark about it. Each level provides a new challenge and the further you go, the more mechanics you’ll have to keep in mind. For example, around the 20th level you get introduced to the “timed tile”. So, when you touch that tile with the right color, you have a certain amount of moves before it reflips. So, keep these tiles as the last tile, so you can win the level.

The fact that there is no time limit or punishment if you take like “a million” moves to clear the level makes this game such an amazing title to wind down.

The bad cubes

There are a few minor issues in this Steam port. Let me talk about the controller controls first. You can control this game with a controller, and it works really well. But, controlling the menu’s and UI of the game isn’t possible. In the latest update, a controller button was added to rewind a move or restart the stage but going to the home menu isn’t possible.

Speaking of the controls, in during the levels you see a “WASD” lay-out. But the game doesn’t recognize another keyboard lay-out. So, I’m sitting here with my Belgian “AZERTY” lay-out being a bit annoyed that it’s not showing “ZQSD”. But that’s a minor nitpick since the arrow buttons work as well and that’s how I mostly played this game.

Now, there is no hint system in this game. So, if you are stuck in a certain puzzle, you can’t have any hints. Granted, developing a hint system for this type of game is quite tricky. How would you implement a hint system without it making the game quite easy or “play itself”. Here is an idea, just like in Quell, you have to pay a certain amount of coins to either see the full solution or set you on your way. And how would you earn these coins in this game? Well, maybe there is on or two hidden in each stage, and you have to click on a certain tile OR the amount of stars makes you earn a certain amount of coins?

Now, the tutorials in this game are excellent. Nothing to criticize about that. But, if you display a text box over the game, make it so that the game can’t be played in the background, or you can create weird edge cases that might break your game.

Something that’s really missing in this game is a colorblind mode. Take a game like Tetris Attack on the SNES, in this game each tile has a symbol on it, so colorblind people can easily recognize which tile is which color. In this game, each color can have its own symbol and the cube to switch color can be a similar shape, so it’s easy to distinguish. And if possible, make it an option so that people who find the mode annoying can turn it off.

There is one feature I’d love to see in a new update. In Invincible Cleopatra, there is a bar to the side of your screen that shows how close you are to perfecting the level. This is something that isn’t in this game. So, when you beat the level, it’s always waiting to see if you do or don’t get all three stars.

The conclusion

I might have written a lot of negative things about this game or things that are a bit broken/unpolished. Yet, most of these things can be patched out of the game with a (few) updates, making this game even more fun to play.

Maybe I’m a bit harsh on the game, and maybe I should look at this game for what it is. A love project where a small team of developers poured their hart and soul into. And that’s something you can clearly see.

While this game has a few shortcomings, I still would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys casual puzzle games. Or if you are looking for a simple but challenging (puzzle) game to wind down, this game is something for you.

If you are really interested in this game, I’d buy the Steam version. Since, you throw some money to the developers and that might motivate them to create an even better version or create more games. If you are unsure, you can give the mobile version a try and decide then.

In summary, this game is good and with some additional polishing it can become even better. Most of the issues I have with this game aren’t that big and can be implemented without a lot of effort. Overall, I think this game is an enjoyable time waster and I can’t wait to see which improvements the future brings.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 80/100

First Impression: House Flipper (PC – Steam) ~ Renovations On Top

Steam store page – Official website

Sometimes, you just need to give a game or a concept a chance. You’ll never know if it grows on you or not. When I got a Steam key for House Flipper by being a subscriber to Humble Bundle’s Humble Choice, I was intrigued and interested on how this game is going to work. Are we going to flip the houses ourselves or are we going to run a company that does house flipping? Well, it’s the first. We are going to do the house flipping and decorating. And today, I want to take you on a journey with me to talk about my first impressions of this game in my usual Game Quicky format. Where I first mention the good things, then the bad things to wrap up with a conclusion at the end. Oh, and any comments on my work on this article and/or the game are welcome in the comment section down below.

No need to renovate

In this game, you play as a handy man who cleans and renovates houses. The skill set of your character goes from being a painter, electrician, plumber, interior decorator, carpenter… And your character does everything which for some jobs a (whole) crew does.

Honestly, I knew that I wasn’t too good at interior decorating, and it shows. There are several Christmas levels where you have to decorate the house with a lot of decorations. In a lot of cases, my end result often looks like a quickly thrown together mess. But, here is the strange thing about it. I enjoy decorating the houses.

In terms of difficulty: if you want a challenge, look elsewhere. The focus of this game isn’t in being difficult or providing some challenge. It’s more a sort of sandbox-ish type of game where you have to do certain jobs for people and if you want, improve their houses with for example new furniture or nicer decorated walls. Also, the price you earn goes up depending on the materials used and the amount of upgrades you did to the house. This doesn’t mean that the game isn’t rewarding to play. The before and after pictures you get after a job well done are so enjoyable and rewarding.

There are a lot of things you can do around the house. At the start of the game, you’ll unlock each and every skill by tutorial jobs. After these tutorial jobs, you’ll be able to use these skills in your own house and other jobs. The game can get somewhat repetitive if you don’t use the skill/perk system.

The perk system is a great system that helps you do certain tasks more efficient and faster. Image being able to paint three sections of wall at the same time instead of one. Or being able to upgrade your broom to clean faster (To be honest, I wish cleaning worked similar in the real world. Just heaving to wave a mop in the direction of the mess and voilà). Each skill/category has 9 perks in 3 sections. Each time you preform said skill/category a certain amount of times, you get a skill point with which you can unlock an upgrade. Compare it to the skill tree in Skyrim. This system actually compelled me to 100% each job since that made me get closer to new skill points making the next jobs go more smoothly and faster to do.

The controls of this game work flawlessly. This game also works with a controller, but I honestly prefer the mouse & keyboard combo for this game. I find that I have way better control over the game with the mouse and keyboard compared to the controller.

Visually, this game looks amazing. The game looks somewhat realistic while keeping your typical “game” look. Sadly, there are just a few things that look a bit unrealistic, but these don’t really destroy the illusion too much. Something I really like is how this game takes certain possible phobia’s in consideration. There are cockroaches in this game. But if you suffer from Katsaridaphobia, you can disable them right before you see/hear them for the first time. You can change them in glass shards. And to be honest, I find that the mechanic to clean up the glass shards works better and is a bit easier compared to cockroaches, but that’s such a minor detail.

The music and sound effects in this game are quite relaxing. I feel right at ease and relaxed while I’m cleaning and renovating houses. It fits the game like a glove and the sound effects as well. I wish there were more sound effects for some things like for cleaning, placing wall tiles… But that’s always a delicate balance if you put more sound effects in your game or less. Since, too many sound effects can be overwhelming and make the game “too busy”.

There are two styles of gameplay. You can either do jobs where you have a certain requirement of things that need to do be done. This is sort of the adventure mode of the game. Honestly, I have spent most of my time playing this game with the job system. Since, you can use that access money with the other mode. In this mode, you can play on the housing market and really buy, renovate and sell houses. You always have a list of potential buyers and trying to match a house to their needs with their live reactions at the side is a real interesting puzzle.

Now, if you are interested in this game and want to get even more out of it… Well, you can expand this game with additional DLC. You can access most of the main content without the DLC and I can still tell you that this game is still a lot of fun without the DLC. Every DLC adds a handful of missions, new items and new mechanics and expand the game even more. The only negative I have is that the DLC’s are a tad bit expensive in my opinion. I would find a more fair price to be €9,99 instead of €12,5. But oh well, it’s clear that a lot of effort has been put into them and if you are really enjoying the game, I think the DLC is worth it.

This game auto-saves at the interval you set in the options’ menu. And if you leave in the middle of a job, you can continue it when you boot the game back up again. There are some bugs with the cloud saves, but one of the main forum threads has a solution for that. But, the amount of options and things like that in this game is just amazing. You can set almost anything to your hand and I love it.

Something I also really enjoy in this game as well are the achievements. They add additional challenges and charm to the game. They add some replay value, and they even make some jobs unique. Since, if you only stick to the requirements to finish the job… Some achievements can be easily unlocked by later jobs.

Now, something that is amazing is that this game also supports the Steam Workshop! So, if you don’t find what you are looking for in the base game or DLC… You can visit the workshop and look at the over 16000 items on it.

Renovations needed

Overall, the UI is close to perfect. But, at this moment of writing, the text entered into the tablet has some minor delay. It’s also not easy to remove everything at once. Something like a blinking cursor in the search field when you want to type in it would go a long way. Sadly, there are other minor things like that in the visuals. For example, the long grass at your home stops at a certain line. Near the hedges, actually. Another thing in terms of visuals and UI is that sometimes, it’s a pain finding the exact spot of e.g., dirt on the mini-map. In very rare cases, the task list or the mini map is saying that there is still stuff to do while there actually isn’t.

This game is translated in a lot of languages. I love this fact, since it makes the game a lot more accessible. Maybe, I might be extremely strict on this, since I’m an editor for the Dutch/Flemish translation of WordPress… But, the Dutch translation has various typos and inconsistencies. From wrong use of verbs to not using capitals in menu’s. Thankfully, the English version of this game works extremely well and still, I find it extremely impressive that this large game with so much text is translated in so many languages.

The overall quality of the translation is fine, but I honestly think that in an update, they should let various language experts go over the translation since I think there is a lot that can be polished up and improved. Since, if you aren’t well versed in English and know what everything means or what different objects are called, you might have problems with this game.

Overall, the camera works perfectly. Since, this is a first person game, you have full control over it. Sadly, in some montage sections, the camera dips quite weirdly. These moments are thankfully extremely rare and are mainly caused when you do the assembly in a different order. Knowing what the next steps are or going out of the assembly process and going back in usually fixes these minor camera goofs.

There are some minor things that could be communicated to the player better. The best example I can give is in the painting. In a lot of cases, like in the assembly process, you hear a little sound effect when you are finished with a step. You don’t get that with painting. When your wall is done, you don’t get a small notification in the corner or something. Of course, this might be because of the perk that you don’t waste paint on already painted walls but still… It should have more communication.

Like how tasks disappear way too quickly from the small to-do list on the right side of the screen. Give the player some time to see and realize which task they just completed. The task disappears when the jingle of task completed plays.

But the biggest offender of not communicating is the demolition. It’s not easy to fully destroy a wall and know what’s going to disappear or which pieces are waiting on you to hit with your hammer. I honestly think this should be improved upon since it makes this game a tad bit annoying sometimes. A great start should be unable to build a wall in that spot and have the offending still to destroy bricks flash or turn in red or another color. A similar fix would be helpful if you are unable to find that last dirty spot on the windows. Since, the lighting there sometimes makes it extremely hard to spot sometimes.

Sadly, some mechanics are a bit too finky sometimes. If you buy a shelving unit and try to place items on it without a ladder… Oh boy, it’s no easy to put items higher than eye height. Or that if you pick up tiles, and you want to change to different tiles, you first have to remember to lay the remainder down. Thankfully, as soon as I got “used” or knew my way around these little quirks, these problems didn’t annoy me that much anymore.

The invoice – Conclusion

I never expected this game to be so much fun. It’s an enjoyable relaxing time waster that fans of casual games, simulations should give a shot. I’m quite certain that if you enjoy building aspects of games, you’ll enjoy this game as well.

Now, this game isn’t perfect. There are some things that should be polished up. It’s such a shame seeing this amazing title with some rough edges. Especially when there is so much love and soul put into this game. And it pains me that most of the negatives are almost nitpicks. I think that an update where things are polished up, mechanics are made more consistent with the other mechanics… That would be a very welcome update.

Overall, this game is a relaxing enjoyable game. It’s mindblowing how the game handles so many combinations and mechanics so well. The expansiveness of this game is so broad that I can see myself coming back from time to time after a stressful day at work to wind down. (By doing chores in a way, but hey…) While the game has its problems, some textures, and models looking a bit too out of date… There are a lot of other things like two different game modes that more than make up for it.

It’s quite clear that this game is a passion project by the developers and the love and attention to detail is shown in the game. When writing this first impression/review, I had a really hard time finding actual negatives in this game apart from several technical things that can be improved by a few patches.

I found this game at the perfect moment. I was looking for a more relaxing game I could play to wind down when I’m over stressed or had a busy/hard day at work… And then booting up this game and hearing the calming music and being able to let my creativity flow and create and improve houses… If you got interested in reading this article or looking at gameplay video’s, give it a go.

If you enjoy games like the Sims or building in Minecraft or more relaxing games, I would highly advise this game. While I totally understand that this game isn’t for everyone, it did click with me, and I’m still so surprised that this €20 game has so much value and polish. Now I’m so curious to see where the active developers are going to take this game next.

And with that said, I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Game Quicky: My Little Universe (Android) ~ Gather & Dump ’em boys.

Google Play Store – iOS version – Fan subreddit

Finding enjoyable mobile games isn’t an easy task now-a-days. A lot of them have a microtransaction trap or are just filled with ads to the brim. And some of them, aren’t even that fun to play. But, when I notice that I start playing a mobile game for several hours and hours, play it on the train from and to work… Then, I know I found a mobile game that I want to talk about. In today’s article, I want to talk about My Little Universe. A game about grinding actually, something I honestly didn’t think I would enjoy this much. But, is it just me enjoying this game or is this game actually good? Let’s find out in this game quicky article where I talk about the positive, negative things about the game and the round it all nicely up with a conclusion bow. And if you want, you can leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Editorial note: This review is written while playing v1.16.x branch. There were 3 smaller bugfix updates during me playing and writing this article.

Worth gathering

The idea in this game is that you gather resources to expand your island and repair the portal to the next world. All the while, you can upgrade your gear, battle monsters and explore the world.

Something I really like in this game is how you can’t buy these resources easily through microtransactions. This means that you don’t have to fear that this game locks you into a microtransaction loop.

There is an owl in each world that offers either a huge amount of resources, but these are totally optional. You don’t have to buy them to progress in the game or to “make the game playable”.

This game is extremely easy to learn and master. In terms of controls, you only need to know that you can move your character quite well by moving a virtual joystick. Mining and attacking all happens automatically. This game is also quite forgiving. When you die, you respawn at the last entrance.

Which you can use at your advantage. For example, in the second world in one of the caves you need a ton of stone. Since, the stone supply wasn’t all that good to gather in large quantities in the cave, I went outside to the mountains to gather them. When I felt I had enough, I just jumped in the water and let the sharks eat me to respawn at the cave entrance, so I didn’t have to make the long trek around.

This game controls extremely well, and I highly advise you to learn the timing on when resources respawn. This can be quite helpful to gather huge amounts of resources easily. At the start, you’ll gather only small amounts of resources from each location, so that’s why my second tip is to upgrade your pickaxe and axe. Since, they’ll increase the amount of resources you get from each mining session or even the speed.

If you regularly upgrade your tools, you rarely to never have to fear that you get stopped because you can’t mind the resources you need since your tool isn’t at a high enough level. And in terms of tools, you only have three of them. Your sword, your pickaxe and your axe. So, no real need of fearing that you need to upgrade a lot.

While the visual presentation is close to very good, I really like how the UI works. The UI shows only what you need to know. It hides the amount of resources you don’t need to know about. For example, if you aren’t working with resources from the first world, they are hidden. You can still use your backpack to see how much resources you have of what. You can also use that to locate certain resources when you need them. A big arrow will appear above your head to locate them.

This game automatically saves. So, you don’t have to worry that you loose progress when you exit the game. You’ll also restart at the last entrance you started at when you start the game.

This game is quite optimized. I never noticed slowdowns nor lag. Also, the loading times between locations is incredible. The amount of assets that are loaded in such a short time is just impressive.

The music and sound effects of this game are amazing. I really like them. They add a lot to the atmosphere and feeling of the game. I find it a bummer that I’m unable to easily listen to the soundtrack outside the game.

There is no real story in this game. So, that means that there is no real need for translation of this game. So, you don’t need to know English to play this game. But…

Let’s dump this

There is no real story in this game. Now, why did I place this in the negative part. Well, while I do understand and enjoy the roleplay potential that this game has, where your mind is able to run free what the worlds are supposed to be… I feel like a lot of chances for more atmosphere are missed. When I started the 3rd world, I felt like this game was missing something.

I just wish there was a little more character in the game. Like danger signs when entering a cave or more set dressing. The idea’s in how the worlds are designed are just amazing, but it lacks a bit of immersion. And I think a bit more set dressing can go a long way.

Maybe this is only on my phone, but there was a lot of Z-fighting happening in the game. Especially on the edges or bottom of textures. For those who don’t know what Z-fighting is, it’s basically when the game doesn’t know which texture should be displayed on top of which texture, and you get blinking textures where they alternate and try to be on top. It’s quite distracting if it happens on a large scale. I have added an example from Minecraft here.

Z-fighting in Minecraft with the stone fences. Taken from the bug tracker.

While I totally understand that a free game needs to have ads, I do want to talk about them. In most cases, the ads in this game aren’t that bad, but they are currently dangerously close to being quite annoying. I don’t have problems with the ad banner on the bottom, nor do I have a problem with the big resource piles you can get for free by watching an ad or the chance that you get a short ad after dying or going between worlds/caves. I do have an issue with the ads that play after you unlock a platform. These are sometimes too frequent and have the potential to break the gameplay flow somewhat.

Also, you can buy tickets to skip ads. And here they decided to do something I really dislike personally. You can’t choose to watch an ad and save your “skip ad ticket”. Thankfully you don’t lose one when an ad plays during other moments. Yeah, when you have those tickets, you can only skip those ads during picking up resources. These, thankfully short, ads still play when you travel between locations or respawn.

Depending on how you are with repetitive gameplay, this game can be boring in longer play sessions. I notice that when I play this game, I often play it in short bursts. Since there aren’t a lot of different mechanics besides gathering resources and placing them in the right location.

Something I don’t know if it’s the fault of the developers or the ad engines, but some ads can be quite annoying. Some ads appear to be playable, but then aren’t playable and appear blank. Others have an unresponsive skip or close button and take you to the App store. These should be able to be blocked by the developer if they have the chance since it shines a bad light on the game.

So, what now?

Personally, I enjoy playing this game. This game is fun to play in a short burst and respects the player. The ads walk that fine line of being acceptable and quite intrusive. Honestly, it depends on my patience level for them on that moment.

The fact that when you upgrade your gear, it’s also shown on the character. Visually, apart from the sometimes quite aggressive Z-fighting, this game looks quite polished for a mobile game. Together with a great soundtrack and sound effects, this game doesn’t have a lot of negatives.

True, the game can be repetitive in longer play sessions… But, that’s not such a big problem since this game autosaves, and you can easily play this game in shorts burst because of that.

If you enjoy casual games or games where you can wind down… Or you need easy to pick up and play games, I really think that this game is something for you. I really like to play this game during my breaks, while crossing my fingers that the ads aren’t too aggressive that time.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also hope to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 4/5

First Impression: The Survivalists (PC – Steam) ~ Monkey Business

Steam store page – Official site

Sometimes, I just need a game to get lost in it. A game where I can dive into and play for hours upon hours. Games like Minecraft and Terreria come to mind. Since last year, a 3rd game joined that list for me, and that’s The Survivalists. But why did I give it a spot on my top 10 games of 2021? Did it deserve that spot, or did I change my mind already? So, let’s start monkeying around and let’s talk about this game, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Monkey Business

This game is an adventure survival game through and through. The game starts with you getting shipwrecked on an island, and it’s your task to escape. Now, you might think that this game is similar to other survival games like Forager for example. But, this game has a unique mechanic that I love.

During your adventures in this game, you can free imprisoned monkeys. As soon as you free these monkeys, they’ll join your party, and you can use them for anything you want. You can teach your monkeys to do stuff for you. This game slowly goes from a survival game to a micromanagement game. Since these monkeys can learn how to farm, craft, fight, gather resources… So, basically, you can leave the grind tasks to your monkeys. They can level up in these tasks, to complete them even more efficiently. Or you can have an army of monkeys following you around to battle enemies and such.

But I might be going a bit fast here. What’s the story in this game? Well, there is none apart from you shipwrecking and trying to find a way out. You do meet some taskmasters, but those don’t contribute anything besides being your quest givers. So, if you are looking for a survival game with a story of any sort, I think you’d look elsewhere.

Anyway, back to the monkeys. They are the game-changer, and micromanaging them is one of the biggest mechanics in this game. At this moment in my playthrough, I have freed 20 monkeys and trying to find the right balance in which monkeys are assigned to which tasks are an amazing puzzle. Together with an easy-to-understand tutorial, this game teaches you the ropes without holding your hand. After that, you are free to explore the islands.

The difficulty of this game really depends on the random islands you spawn on and in which order you tackle them. So far, I have two playthroughs running, and I have to say that the difference in difficulty makes the game fresh. To make an efficient base and craft the correct equipment to go exploring, is also a great mechanic in this game.

At the start, this game is overwhelming. There are islands to explore, crafting trees to unlock, resources to keep high, dungeons to explore, treasures to find… But, in its current form, the game lacks depth in some areas. There are a lot of mechanics that can be improved or expanded upon.

For example, the blueprint system. You can’t rotate buildings OR cancel blueprints once they are placed. Another example, why can’t you sort your monkeys by e.g. skill in your menu or see their names on the map? Once, one of my monkeys glitched out and got stuck in the middle of the sea without me being able to pick him up. I could use a summon-banana, but I had no idea of the monkey’s name.

If I list all the mechanics that could use a bit more quality of life features, I’d be here for a long time. But, don’t get me wrong here. The features that are here are amazing, but certain things would make the game even more enjoyable to play. For example, see the radius of where gathering monkeys will go to pick up materials. On the other hand, it makes the game a bit more challenging, since you need to plan your building quite well.

Open sea

This game was released in October 2020. Since then, it got 4 big content updates. These updates brought a lot of new things to the game. Sadly, since last summer, there hasn’t been a lot of development of this game. And if there is, I haven’t found any traces of it on the social platforms or on their Discord.

It’s a shame really since the potential of this game is huge. Currently, you can explore 5 islands. At first, I was afraid that it would make the world too small. But thankfully, that’s not a big issue. Each island serves its purpose and going from island to island takes up a lot of time. Thankfully, you can set up transport gates.

These transport gates are one of the best additions to the game in my opinion. They increase the game flow so much. I don’t like having a monkey with me that carries a big chest for storage. Since, when they get knocked out, they don’t re-pick up that chest, and it doesn’t appear on the mini-map. And with the small inventory, these transport gates are a blessing. And it’s also really helpful that items don’t disappear from the ground. On my adventures today, I found some leaves I have thrown out of my inventory when I first discovered the island over a month ago.

Exploring the islands can be quite tense. Since you never know where the enemy villages are. And let me tell you, some of these enemies can pack a punch. Mastering the combat in this game is essential to survive. I also bought this game on my Switch and I have to say that I highly prefer the controls on the PC version. Maybe that’s because I got so used to them with mouse and keyboard, that I have some troubles playing this game with a controller… Which is also an option.

That being said, this game controls amazingly. Sometimes, I had a bit of trouble canceling some crafting of my monkeys, but that was partly my own fault since I placed so many crafting stations so close together.

With these wonderful controls, we can explore the amazingly designed world of this game. While there are only a few biomes, they are all well-designed and have their own reasons to be explored. It’s really quite impressive how well this game runs. In some cases, there is a lot going on, and I barely see any lag or slowdown appear. Which is good, since you’ve to be on your guard in some areas to survive.

I always tense a bit up when I heard that battle music coming. I always look around to make sure if it’s safe to continue to gather the supplies I was gathering or if I should first go into combat mode. The music and sound design are really well done, and it adds so much to the atmosphere of this game. I didn’t hesitate to buy the OST DLC to be able to put the music on my playlists while I’m working.

Replaying

One thing that really tripped me up several times is that this game doesn’t have an autosave. To save your game, you have to sleep.

The loading of another world also isn’t quite easy to do. But, once you have done it, it’s easy to do. You just need to know that “Save slots” is your world select. And, you better have some sort of note system since you can’t give your world’s names. 😦

This game also has multiplayer. I haven’t played a lot of multiplayer, but from what I have played… It works fine. The limited communication options through emotes are somewhat disappointing to me. Sadly, the last two times I got bad experiences in multiplayer with a broken temple and a very spammy host with emotes.

Personally, I don’t regret putting this game on my top 10 games list last year. Yet, I can totally understand why people expected more from this. This game is from the same studio that brought us Overcooked and Worms. The charm in this game is huge, but charm can bring you only so far.

I love playing through this game in short bursts from time to time, trying to finish all the quests and explore everything my islands have to offer. I’m also trying to avoid all outside help from wikis and such since the in-game tutorial and hints are great enough to help you with that.

You can finish this game in roughly 20-ish hours, but currently, I have played this game for 35 hours and I haven’t beaten it yet. Since I want to see everything this game has to offer. In general, I think this game has the potential to become even bigger, but for that, the game will need more content and some major quality of life patch. Like, being able to choose the world you want to open when you start the game?

I wish this game wasn’t such a hidden gem. If the community was larger, I’m sure that this game would get more frequent updates. But, now, I rarely see other players online… I wish there were more online, so I could experience the multiplayer. Maybe I should invite some friends to play this game since I think this game is even more fun when you play it with others. And possibly then I could unlock those final achievements.

If you enjoy games like Forager, Minecraft, or Terrarria… to name just a few; I really think you’ll enjoy this game. At the moment of writing, this game is on sale and I highly advise you to pick up the digital deluxe edition. The additional cosmetic content is totally worth it and the additional hats you can find for your monkeys make it easier to tell them apart.

And with that, I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this game for now. In short, I really like this game. While it has some rough edges, those aren’t a dealbreaker. While this game might not please every fan of the genre, I think there is something here for everyone. Let’s go monkeyin’ around since this is a tense adventure. An adventure worth your bananas and monkeys.

Before I ramble on, I want to thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impression: Neutopia (Wii U – TurboGraphix16) ~ Is this Zelda?

Wikipedia entry

There are a lot of different Zelda clones out there. And to be honest, I don’t mind it at all. It keeps Nintendo on its toes in making the next Zelda game. If it’s not good enough, then the clones have a chance to be the next big hit. Recently, I took a look at some of them. Blossom King and Lenna’s Inception are two good examples. So, during my week off this week, I was browsing the Nintendo Wii U eShop and I discovered Neutopia. At first, I thought it was an indie developer creating another 2D Zelda clone, but I was quite surprised when I saw that the developer was Hudson Soft. So, I dug a bit deeper, and it turns out that this game was never released in Europe until the Wii and Wii U era. So, why didn’t we get this game, and its sequel over here in Europe? Was the Zelda clone not good enough, or did we miss out? Let’s find out, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of this article and/or this game.

Is this Zelda?

I find the story in this game quite amusing. It’s, to a certain degree, a cross between your cliché Zelda and Final Fantasy story. Change the Triforce with crystals. Sprinkle some Zelda II with a sleeping princess in a shrine, that instead of getting cursed… gets kidnapped Link to the Past style. Oh, and let’s not forget that the crystals are elemental crystals. The story is silly but oh so amusing to me. The story isn’t the main focal point in this game. Besides the main character, the villain, and the princess… There aren’t many unique characters in the game. Which isn’t a bad thing. The name of the villain is hilarious, actually. He is called Dirth, yes… dirt with an additional H.

In terms of gameplay, this game is everything I could hope for. This game is Zelda I at its heart, and I love it. It didn’t take long for me to get immersed in the game and start exploring the world. All the mechanics were clear to me right away. I had to explore the lands, find the dungeons and find all the medallions. I started out with a sword and started exploring. The controls are extremely easy to learn as well, so in no time I was in the action.

Something that took me by surprise is that there are only 4 dungeons. But, there are two medallions in each dungeon. So, you’ll have to explore them quite thoroughly to make sure you found everything. Speaking of exploring, I was afraid that I would have to look for ages for the various dungeons since the game also copied the “map” system from Zelda I. Thankfully, you have a Charmed Compass that points you into the general direction of the dungeons.

There are no keys in this game, so no locked door puzzles. Yet, the map system has a unique feature. It plays a special sound effect whenever you are near a boss or a medallion. This brings me nicely to the audiovisual presentation of this game. The music in this game, oh heavens. The music in this game is excellent! This chiptune soundtrack fits the game so well and is one of the best things in this game. It made the exploration and trying to beat the various challenges the game gives you even more fun. The sound effects are decent too, if only I wished there were a bit more of them to make the enemies and weapons come more alive.

Is this game hard? Well, if you know how to play Zelda I, it’s not hard at all. You have to know that you can burn bushes, push rocks, and that villagers are hidden all over the world that gives you VERY helpful advice. For real, read what the villagers have to say. The only nitpick I have is that when you accidentally press the skip button, you’ll have to exit and re-enter their location to know what they said.

This game is also somewhat forgiving. When you die, you go to the latest checkpoint you saved at. So, whenever you did something big or before a dungeon, remember to save. This isn’t your modern game with autosaves. The save system is unique, when save you get a very long password and the chance to save in a slot. But do yourself a favor, and only use that save feature to create checkpoints so when you die, you don’t lose too much progress and use the actual save states of the virtual console to save. I found that much more reliable than the load system. Especially since the save slots are RAM-based! Any RAM memory can be overwritten. The only thing you lose is a bit of gold.

The items that enemies can drop are the exact same as in the first Zelda game. Apart from having different sprites. From gold, bomb to even a time-stopping power up. And if you listen well to the villagers, you’ll know what each item does, since they hint at them pretty well.

Visually, this game looks amazing. The only thing I found a shame is that there were no real towns or anything in the game. But that’s a minor nitpick since, evener then, the map is quite memorable and great fun to explore. Of course, you have your typical locals from a forest, mountains, and desert, but they all fit the world so well. Strangely enough, there is no ice/cold area in this game. That’s something you don’t see ~~every game~~ every day. But, we don’t see perfect games every day either. Yet, is this game one of those?

This isn’t as good as Zelda.

Sadly enough, no. This game has some flaws. The first is the bombs. The big issue is that you need way too many of them to beat the game, and you can only carry 8 of them at the start. There is also no easy way to farm them, so when you require more… It’s enemy killing time, and cross your fingers they drop bombs. And bombs are one of the few items that stack. When the wings drop, to easily escape to the last save point, you can only have one. Even when you picked up two. … Okay, you can carry two health points.

There is something I feel a bit mixed about, and that is some villagers. Some villagers give you special rewards like money. But only once. That alone is just fine. But, here is the annoying thing. If you die and go back to that spot, you can’t get the money again. Yet, when I think about this… It makes a bit sense too. Since, if the reward of the villager is higher than what you lose when you die… It would be money exploit waiting to happen. If only you could decline the money before you get it, that would have been amazing.

Now, that it was difficult to create a good map system on an 8-bit system for Zelda I, I can totally understand. You only have so much RAM and resources to play with before the system starts to lag. But, on a system that’s at least twice as powerful, the map system can do more. The map system is a huge mess in my eyes.

First, there is no overworld map, so you don’t know where you are in the overworld. Something that the first Zelda game actually did! Second, after getting the dungeon map, it resets the visited rooms when you leave the dungeon by any means. And third, it only shows you the rooms for the first medallion. Which in itself isn’t a big issue, but it’s a big issue since when you die exploring the second part of the dungeon, guess what… The map is reset and the new rooms are gone! Oh, and I hope you remembered where to bomb to continue.

Sadly, this game has the same annoyance as the first Zelda game when it comes to hitboxes. During my playthrough, I felt that sometimes it was easier for the enemies to hit me compared to hitting them. The fact you can’t hit enemies diagonally is a huge issue. Since, when you aren’t lined up right… You don’t hit the enemy, but they hit you. Well, you can hit enemies diagonally but not with the sword. Just increasing the hitboxes of the enemies by a tiny bit would have solved this issue.

Something minor about this is that some airborne enemies were tricky to know when you were able to hit and not hit them. Speaking of iffy enemy design, I found some enemies a bit too cheap. Those mud crawlers are so annoying in predicting where they will turn up.

Now, I think I said almost everything I wanted to say about this game. I honestly think it’s time to wrap this up in a nice conclusion.

Is this worth your time?

For this conclusion, I won’t beat around the bush. If you enjoy any 2D adventure game like let’s say: Zelda I, Blossom Tales, Lenna’s Inception, Fairune… This game is right up your alley. This amazing retro title is an excellent time waster. It does have some flaws, but when you get used to the flaws, this game is stunning. Currently, I’m halfway done with the game, but I couldn’t wait in finishing the game before I started writing this review.

This game brought me back to the joy of 2D Zelda games. Which is one of my favorite types of games. Just keep in mind that this game is a retro game and the things I talked about in my review, and you are golden. I’m playing this game blind and not using a walkthrough at all. It’s a blast, and can’t wait to see what the game is going to throw at me next. And let’s not forget the sequel! Which improvements were made and is it going to be as much fun as this one?

Now, if you decide to play this game… I personally would advise you to play this game on the Virtual Console or PSN. If you want to play it on the TurboGraphix 16, be careful with saving in the cabinets/save files. Do write down your passwords. Since saving to RAM… I don’t trust it personally. And sadly enough, the passwords are long and complex. It’s case-sensitive even.

I highly enjoyed my time with this game, and I can’t recommend it enough to fellow 2D adventure game fans and retro game fans. But, I can totally understand that because of its age and quirks, this game might not be so enjoyable for everybody. But, give it a chance, I really think it is worth it.

And with that said, I want to thank you all for reading this article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you to another one, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Game Quicky: Colorful Colore (Switch) ~ It’s Sliding Time

colorfulcolor Steam page – Nintendo.com microsite

On the day before my 28th birthday, I want to talk about a game called Colorful Colore. A game developed by a small team of developers and ported by Drageus Games over to the Nintendo Switch. As usual with Drageus Games, I got a free press code to take a look at this game and I’m allowed to give my 100% honest opinion on the game. So, in this game quicky article, I’m going to take a look at the Switch port and if it’s worth it to pick it up for the low price of 3 bucks or if you should spend your money elsewhere. With that said, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Sliding just right

colorful-colore-switch-screenshot01 The goal of this game is quite simple. You have to solve sliding puzzles to get from the start of the level to the end point of the level. There are 50 levels in this game for you to go through. I think the best game to compare this game too is Quell.

There is an unique mechanic in this game where the blob and the tile it lands on has to color match. If you don’t have the same color, it’s game over and you have to restart the level. So, you have to find the correct way to the end before you get yourself stuck or make a wrong move.

It’s a great thing that this game has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese, but it shouldn’t matter that much since the UI is so clean, the language of the game shouldn’t matter. The UI is extremely simple to use and get the hang off.

Just like the responsive controls of this game. There is no input delay and the controls are fast and easy to learn. I don’t have any complaints about them since they allow to play my relaxing puzzle game in peace.

This puzzle game is so relaxing with the colorful art-style and the relaxing sound effects and music, it works beautifully. I could nitpick and say that the same music track loops throughout the whole game, but it’s rather relaxing and brings me into the right mood to play this game. This game has that “just one more puzzle” mentality and I’m still amazed that this nice little game only costs 3€ and it has this high quality in it’s animations, visuals, music and sound. It’s a joy to slide in these puzzles and to solve them.

Sliding towards doom

ss_e29449a5e0c4dea278a8256d4ff5f426b8904ff4.600x338 Sadly enough, there are some negatives I could say about this game. Things that could be improved or could be changed to make an even better game to play and to give it some more life.

First of all, I was a bit disappointed to learn that stats are lacking in this game. It would be so great to see if I finished the level with the least amount of moves or with the fastest time. And if you could reset those stats in the options menu, where you even can’t reset your progress by the way, then it would be even better.

Second, some of the teleport icons are too small. When I was playing this game, I had the most comfortable experience in handheld mode with the game at an arm’s length to my face. On my large 51-inch TV, I felt a bit more confused since I had to focus on the symbols on the teleporters for them to make sense which one is which.

Thirdly, and I can’t tell if this is a problem with this game or with these style of games but I found it quite annoying to “loose my character”. Since this game uses teleporters, I sometimes didn’t notice where my character was. Thankfully, you can hear a “tud” when the blob lands on a wall but here is the annoying thing. I fell that Quell did a better job with these teleporters. They are less instant, use some more sound effects and the player bubble has some minor animation when you loose it.

Now, my 4th complaint has to do with the unique color-matching mechanic. While I’m no expert on colorblindness, I can totally understand that this game might be quite tricky to play for people who are colorblind. One of my old class mates wasn’t able to tell yellow and red apart and that’s going to be tricky in this game.

My fifth point is that there is no hint system. While it’s a good thing that this game challenges you in trying to find the right solution, it’s quite annoying when you are stuck on a certain level just because you are unable to figure one or two moves out. I have to be honest, if the hint system in Quell didn’t exist, I would have put the game down in a few levels. I’m afraid that I or some other players will do the exact same for this game.

And my final complaint is a nitpick and something that this game can’t really solve. This game suffers from the “better played in short bursts”-syndrome. While it has that “one more level” vibe for me, I enjoyed the game quite a lot more when I played it in short bursts while going to the bathroom or while waiting for my food to cook.

With that said, it’s time for the wrap-up and the conclusion of this article.

Does it slide right?

ss_3904a05c6a4abd54c4e048d31f5b09a065e13d00.600x338 If you compare this game to similar games in the genre like Quell, this game comes close but not close enough. Yet, that doesn’t mean that this game is a bad game or has a lot of flaws.

This game does a lot right and most of the mistakes this game makes have to do with a lack of depth. There are no big flaws in the fundamentals of this game since it explains the game mechanics quite well without holding your hands as if you are a small child.

To be honest, I’m a bit conflicted on the platform that this game released on. This game would feel perfect to become a mobile game but that might have several ads and it would ruin the flow of the game. Yet, the small teleporters playing the big screen is biggest issue that this Switch port has. And of course the lack of something to aid the people who are colorblind of course.

Now, should you give this game a try? If you are looking for an enjoyable small puzzle game, I think you won’t be let down by this game. It’s sad to see that there is a lot of untapped potential in this game but hey, it would be quite rude to ask for even more when the game is so cheap. So, if you enjoy games like Quell, I think this game might be an enjoyable time waster while in the waiting room or in the bathroom.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: G String (PC – Steam) ~ Personal Robots Got Too Real

gstring Steam page

I won’t blame you if you look at the title of this game and wonder what I’m going to talk about today. Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about that sort of adult game and I hope that the SEO won’t bring in that kind of traffic either. Today we are going to talk about a game named “G String” developed Eyaura. This game started life as a Half Life 2 mod just like another game “The Stanley Parable” I took a look at in the past. Now, the Stanley Parable is an amazing game in terms of story telling in games so I have high expectations for this game. Is this standalone game going to live up to it’s expectations or is this game going to fail and disappear in SEO-hell with it’s name? Let’s take an 100% honest look at this game with the developer provided press code I got for this game and let’s talk about my opinion. Meanwhile, I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Editornal note: The latest patch for this game has been released on December 23th.

Personal Robots Got Too Real

human_waste60040 This game is a passion project of the developer Eyaura who worked on this game for the past 13 years. According to the press kit, this game is 10-ish hours long and is a single player Cyberpunk FPS game that aims to envoke the feel of old science fiction films from the ’70 – ’90.

In this game, you take on the role of a young Korean girl named Myo Hyori. After a sudden earthquake, she is able to escape in her standard issue biosuit into the dystopian world. During your exploration, you learn more and more about your missing parents, what happened to the world and the personal robots and much more.

Due to the nationality of the character, I think this game takes place in Korea. The reason I mention this is because there is voice acting in this game. Dialogue between characters is in English but the suit talks to Myo in another language. I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s in Japanese but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in Korean since the main character is Korean.

The voice acting is decent and adds a lot to the world building, tension and atmosphere of the game. But, on several occasions, the suit and a character were talking at the same time which made it a bit annoying to follow the voice acting. Thankfully, there are subtitles, so I was able to read what was being said.

During this adventure, you go through various locations. You also fight various enemies like soldiers and personal robots. You also meet various other characters that all play a vital part in the story. On the store page for this game, there is a beefy “Quick Reference” guide that contains quite a lot of lore and story details. Don’t read that if you want to go in the game blind. Yet, if you enjoyed this game, I would highly advise you to read through this manual and download it to add it to the collection.

Because I haven’t finished the game, I’m not going to talk too in depth about my opinions on the story. But, so far I have been enjoying the story. While I find it a bit cheesy at certain points, it’s still a good enough story to play through the game.

Let’s survive this world

20210118204153_1

So, due to a catastrophic event nicknamed the “Friday Floods”, the world got quite dangerous to life in. So, you need to be careful while exploring in this game that you survive the dangerous surface world.

While playing this game, I didn’t really know under which style to categorize this game. On one hand, I would call this an action packed survival horror and on the other hand, I would call this a story driven FPS. In the end, I would say it’s more an adventure game with heavy influences of the FPS genre. The best game to compare it too is Half Life in a matter of fact. In that game you also have moments of puzzle solving and moments of action.

During my playthrough, it was quite clear to me that a lot of love has been put into this game. But, it pains me to say that there are some things that are a bit rough around the edges. A first example is the controls. The controls are great and responsive and are quite quick to learn. But, sometimes they act quite strangely. I especially had problems getting up when I got out of a vent. Sometimes, I was unable to move and I had to jump to get into the right position. Also, ascending and descending on ladders is too fast in my opinion.

A second example of this game being a bit rough is that there is some cheap enemy placement. Especially those exploding floating balls. Some of them come in the most inconvenient moments when the game is quite tense or you are trying to avoid a sniper shooting at you. Speaking about these snipers, I have seen in a gameplay video that you are able to take them out. I was unaware of that because they barely give any feedback when you hit them. I wonder if I could destroy these turrets, but I highly doubt that since they don’t seem to get damaged when I unload a complete magazine on them.

So, a great advice from me is to quick save often. Especially after an encounter, since you never know when something happens and you need to load a save. Now, this brings me right to the difficulty of this game as a third example of this game being a bit rough. I started two playthroughs in this game. One on the medium difficult and one of the easy difficulty. Maybe it’s just my playstyle but I barely felt any difference between the two difficulties. Those flying orbs still gave me as much trouble on easy compared to normal. I think that if those flying orbs weren’t an instant kill, it would be a lot better.

Let’s talk about combat. You have two types of enemies. The robots and the soldiers. Only the turret and the soldiers don’t use melee attacks. All the other enemies use melee attacks. You can play this game without firing one bullet to an enemy since you have a fireball attack. Now, to be quite honest, I rarely used this attack since I found it a tad bit tricky to use and I always ran into my stray fireballs and got damage.

Most of the enemies are quite beefy and require more than one bullet to take out. Rarely I was able to kill an enemy in one shot. Apart from when I got lucky and found some explosive barrels around and use my telekenis powers to throw it at my enemies. The combat is quite enjoyable and if you are a veteran in the shooter genre, I think you will feel right at home here.

Destruction Of The World

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I don’t really recommend that you play this game with the default visual settings. I highly advise you to play around with the visual settings since otherwise you will have some issues like textures looking a bit rough or the lighting being too harsh.

It would be a shame since the visual presentation in this game is well done. Of course, you will see some area’s where it gets a bit rough or where it feels like you are playing a game from 2010 instead of 2021, but in my opinion, as long as the presentation of the game sets the right mood without having too much visual glitches or clashing art styles, I think it shouldn’t matter if the game looks like you need the latest graphics card or your old laptop from when you were younger.

Occasionally I had some moments where I felt that the visuals felt a bit more rushed or unpolished like the rest of the game. But, I didn’t focus on these moments since the charm of the world kept pulling me in and I didn’t stop enjoying this game at all.

In terms of animations, I was quite impressed. It’s a shame that sometimes small objects like planks do glitch out a bit but that’s more a problem with the engine then the animations. The only thing I feel that would improve in terms of the animations is a bit more visual flair when you are using your telekenic powers.

At first, I felt that the soundtrack of this game was totally disconnected from the game. I felt that it didn’t match at all. But, when I gave it some thought, I started to understand what the developer was going for. The soundtrack really fits the world before it was destroyed. Now, there are a lot of silent moments in this game that helps with the tense atmosphere but when the music kicks in, you get the feeling that you are destroying the world which gives an even more creepy vibe.

Let’s go from talking about the soundtrack to talking about the sound effects. The guns feel great to fire and they sound amazing as well. The only thing I would add to the game is a bit more grunts to the enemies since it was a bit jarring sometimes when I entered a room with a lot of enemies that after their first shot started with their grunts.

In terms of visuals and audio, this game does a lot right but it needs some polishing in some area’s to get the game to the next level. It would improve the game so much if there was a bit more visual polish and if the sound effects gave a bit more hints to the player on how to solve a puzzle or when there are enemies nearby.

Now, in terms of the visuals, I would like to mention one thing. I think the option & FX UI is somewhat broken. Sometimes I didn’t display the background, sometimes it didn’t even pop-up and sometimes it was a combination of the two. But, I think this something that can be fixed in an update.

In conclusion, I think that this game is a prefect example of a diamond in the rough. All the elements for this game being amazing are there. But, the rough area’s hold the game back. Thankfully, most of the issues have to do with the lack of polish in some area’s. The issues aren’t game breaking and shouldn’t hinder the enjoyment of the game. Well, unless you feel that jank in games is something you don’t want of course.

Would I recommend this game? Oh yes, I would recommend this game to everybody who enjoys more story based FPS games like Half Life or Alan Wake. This game is quite enjoyable and for the low price of 14€, I think you get more than your money’s worth out of this game. While the game is a bit rough in some area’s at the moment of writing but the future patches will improve the game quite a lot.

With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

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