Games of 2022
Dec. 29th, 2022 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walleyeAh! Xbox game pass usage has been so great to me this year, i got to try a variety of games i otherwise wouldn’t have gotten the chance to play <3
As for using grouvee/whatever other game tracking apps exist...well...fuck all that lmfaoooooooooo
Mentions
Hollow Knight
I wish I could have continued playing this game but it was honestly too hard for me ;_; platform bullet hell is not my specialty...but the environment was so cool and the characters cute and interesting. I loved the grubs hehe.
Borderlands 3
The shooting in this game is significantly more fun than Borderlands 2 but that’s all it has going for it. Like I didn’t like the new tiny tina art, the story was nowhere near as good as bl2, IT WAS SO BUGGY SOMETIMES THE BOSSES WOULD JUST FREEZE IN PLACE DOING NOTHING and i could go on. L + ratio + siren ability tree was really boring to me + boring skins + having evil youtubers be the villains def made the game worse.
This is so fucked up fr.
Hammerlock and Jakobs are a very appealing couple though, i loved their questline.
Nobody Saves The World
I was obsessed with this game. At any idle moment of the day my fingers would start twitching and i’d be messaging kevin like “play with me. Play. PLAY!!!” i normally am not into this style of gameplay (struggled to get into hades...sorry) but i found nstw to have a great balance of whimsy and a variety of gameplay styles. In short, you can take on various “forms” that have different abilities and can switch between these forms pretty much at will, and proceed through dungeon style game play. Just smash and attack. The mob style enemies make kills satisfying, as is common per spam-attacking based games, and i actually really enjoyed the story as well. Really recommend! I miss playing this :3
All of the environments in this game are also so lovely...there’s a fun whale’s mouth and a radioactive wasteland and a witchy halloween village. The map feels huge and sprawling like there’s so much to explore and the visual style and gameplay adds to a feeling of excitement!
It Takes Two
Besides one segment that made me very motion sick, this game is very good, for beginner gamers as well. There were a multitude of game mechanics that were incredibly fun, and you could play them for the perfect amount of time to allow you to explore the gameplay without it getting tiresome. Unfortunately, the two main characters are annoying to me and the story is whatever but if we’re only focusing on the gameplay...then A+!
Okay i did love this fucking book dude tho
Monster Hunter: Rise
Deviljho was NOT in this game so WHY should i even care. All in all, after trying this, it was simply not for me. It lacks the beautiful environments/deviljhos/fun feast sequences that Monster Hunter World/Iceborne had, and I found that it got really monotonous after some time (that happened with MHW too but it happened much faster with this game). Like i can’t believe we went from a cute motherly cat cooking huge meals for you to...this small child making...DANGO OF DIFFERENT COLORS? There were so many new mechanics that I could not keep track of either so overall...not for me.
Thank u so meowch...
Oh the horrors...where is the protein..
Bugsnax
This game was so much fun but also made me descend to madness because i couldn’t stop being like BUNGER BUNGER BUNGER or SCOOPY...SCOOPY BANOOPY at any given point. I love how the story goes for a horror angle, but remains light enough to not come across as too self important/pretentious. I love all the bugsnax designs and the grumpus designs as well. Beffica is my fav.
She is serving Beffica realness
This game has fun gameplay (catching different bugsnax in a variety of different ways)...mystery...gay yearning...kero kero bonito on the soundtrack...what more could you ask for.
Bungers are so cute
These guys kinda fucked up tho
Gorogoa
A delicious, complex puzzle game. I enjoy a good puzzler from time to time, but i am often hesitant to go through the effort of purchasing and installing a puzzle game, especially because most tend to use the same mechanics that i get bored of. But Gorogoa had a great mechanic that really contributed to the story as well. It’s kinda hard to explain, so I recommend watching a trailer for it:
I definitely had to look up guides for a lot of the puzzles, but there was never anything that made me tilted or frustrated. The lore is a bit difficult to parse, but that proves to be part of the puzzle as well!
Kentucky Route Zero
This game is def good for some people...but unfortunately i don’t think i am that kind of person. I found it to be lovely, and it did a great job of evoking a sense of loneliness on the road and the desolate lives of those that have been left behind or forgotten. It is certainly an interesting insight into how much games have evolved to be story telling devices. But unfortunately, i think the gameplay left a bit to be desired, and some of the segments went over my head.
Coffee Talk
Every time I make myself a warm beverage, this game comes to mind. You are a coffee shop owner, making drinks for customers as you hear them talk about personal conflicts/what’s going on in their lives.
thinking fondly on Ginger Cutting Animation.
The story is okay, not anything earth shattering but the gay tentacle girl indie game dev / orc lady triple A game dev arc did make me happy! I also like how this game takes place in Alternate Reality Seattle.
I wish the characters (besides the two above <3) were more striking for reasons other than them being other fantasy races, like on god i cannot remember anyone from this game or their story. There was some kinda boring relationship drama/kinda boring family drama/etc. But what matters is u can just keep making fun lil coffees.
Sable
Okay technically i didn’t finish this game oops.
I got a bit tilted towards the end and then it was removed from game pass so! Whatever.
I had some issues with the gameplay - the camera angles got real wonky real fast and sometimes traveling around was exhausting! It took so long! I wish there were more “progressive”/quest oriented ways to obtain upgrades for your hoverbike, especially as movement is a key part of the game.
However, i will say that there were many moments that were incredibly poignant and I’m glad i was able to play the game for those, at least.
The fonts and colors are nice too. Warm tones with accents of greenish blues. Wahoo!!!
Sable does farewells incredibly well, and takes great care in portraying the sort of tender bittersweetness that occurs when it’s time to Grow Up. Like when you first leave your home area, and the japanese breakfast song kicked in...oh my god. The way other npcs in the game speak of missing when they had the ability to glide, because it fades as you get older...a representation of the boldness of youth and the sense of feeling you will be okay even if you take big risks!
floady
There isn’t much substance in regards to quests/storylines, but i suppose that makes sense when the theme is about making your own choices/figuring out which path to follow. There was also a fun lil whodunnit quest which I enjoyed, and i do think the game could have benefited more from these longer/higher stakes quests.
I loved the layout of the “town”/village of Eccria, it was very compact but compellingly architected. I love exploring towns in video games (skyrim’s riften you will always be famous) and i honestly spent a lot of time just walking around pretending i lived here fr. like. I could go on about how i loved admiring the way various “buildings” represented an interior and exterior. like how everything could be considered “inside” because of the naturally protective nature of a village where all the walls are interconnected. But also how it’s all “outside” because much of the walking space is exposed to the sky above. The cafe in eccria was so cozy, i would just stare at it and imagine i’m sipping mint tea and lounging around for hours on end.so pretty...
This is kind of a bad shot but the cafe is slightly elevated above the main walkway , but still open to it. So cozy...
I know i’m insane for talking so much about this game considering i didn’t even FINISH but. I think if you can get this game for free/cheap that it would be worth trying out.
Beacon Pines
A delightful lil halloween time treat. The narrator in this has such a nice voice, i can’t recall a time i enjoyed voice acting this much!Oh and the soundtrack is great too! This song especially:
Okay but this is basically a mystery game set in a small town. The art style is Anthropomorphic Animals, but i think it is slightly Too Furry for me with the shading and anime style eyes. I find it a little disconcerting but that’s okay, i am sure it works for many.
The gameplay is interesting! Basically on your adventures around town, doing certain things/interacting with certain items grants you these tokens. For example, running around a field of dandelions will make you sneeze and you will get a Tickle token).
Then, at some point, there will be a “fork in the road”. You basically have an option to choose between some of the tokens you have found, like strange vs tickle in the example above, and they lead to different endings/paths. There is only one True path, but you are free to explore all combos of paths freely, as you can return to this tree and retry. I think it’s a very cool gameplay mechanic, I just wish there was More of it, because it was fun! Obviously it takes a lot of time to design/code all these possible paths but it would be interesting if there were more. I also think it would be cooler if there were actually multiple possible endings, because the game is more like “Oh you got a worse ending :( let’s try that again, shall we?”. I hope this game studio comes out with more games of a similar style and genre though!
Favorites
Omori
See my post on it here
Pentiment
Ooough i honestly do love the increase in (dunkey voice) Disco type games popping up, mostly because people actually try to make them good, unlike with Silent Hill PT style games. The reason for this (i think) is because when you have to Write A Lot, the writing will Probably be good, from the sheer effort of having to dedicate so much time to it, while with indie horror games, they don’t seem to be thinking very much about it. At all. anyways...
I LOVED THIS GAME SO MUCH!!!!
Set in the 16th century, it follows the story of master artist-in-training Andreas Mahler as he stays at a small fictional alpine Bavarian village called Tassing to work on his manuscript at Kiersau Abbey. It takes place over several years, and the gameplay primarily consists of talking to various people throughout the village/abbey as you try to solve...a MURDER MYSTERY!
The game is sosos fascinating because it is very historically accurate. As you play, when there are references made to Real Life Things (like the Poor Clares or martin Luther), the text will be highlighted and you can check the glossary to learn more about what that is. Like fine i guess i’ll learn about christianity if u wanttttt (guy who actually enjoyed it). Additionally, the game is drawn in the style of art from that era!
But what’s really cool is, there is a character from Ethiopia in the game, and he is drawn in an Ethiopian art style!
It really reminds you that the world is smaller than we think...i would love to see what other characters from other parts of the world would have looked like...more games from dis creator please...
Some of my other favorite parts of the game:
Being able to eat meals with people, so you can see what they ate then, and it differed depending on social status!
The font used for dialogue changed depending on a character profession - peasants wrote differently from members of the church who wrote differently from printers.
This game uses time as such an effective mechanic. For each portion of the day, you have multiple options for what you can do, but you can only pick one! You can’t both follow the stonemason around and go hunting with the miller - you have to decide, and it’s very scary knowing you might not choose the right thing.
Now for a spoilery discussion. Please come back to this once you’ve played the game (if you want)
Thematically, this game seems to focus a lot on legacy. What we leave behind when we disappear/die, who will remember us, and how we will be remembered.Andreas Mahler may not have achieved happiness once he mastered his craft - but he was remembered in the way Magdalene’s personality is based on the book Andreas picked for her, or in how Anna (baker’s daughter) keeps the hat she stole from Andreas when she was a young girl, and in how Anna + Paul name their own son after him. And that son goes on to become an artist, something his father Paul always wanted to do(and Paul was encouraged by Andreas Mahler to pursue it, even though his own father was very against it). But even though Paul wasn’t able to pursue that dream, his son is able to, and that’s Andreas Mahler’s legacy, and Paul Mullers, too.
Memory perseveres, but memory can also be altered/corrupted. And we have to consider not just the legacy of individuals, but also of the town, of what the town represents to the Holy Roman Empire it resides within as well as the people in it. What the town means to these people, and how they would give so much to see it prosper. How the town itself builds on past histories. The levels of unraveling are all so mfing cool!!!!!!!
Also like the ethical questions...as an outsider...is it right to interfere? Are you guilty for your choice of who to condemn? How have you touched the lives of so many of these people just by being with them for a few days? The implications are insane.
Second...Claus Drucker’s deathbed line of “Love is the only reason to do anything in this world” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. The way the line is delivered hits SO hard. And you see so many instances of that philosophy throughout the game. Like Caspar dying if you loved him and cared for him, because he sacrifices himself to save you. NO!!!!!!!!! Sometimes doing Well in a game (e.g. crafting the best build, forging the best relationships) doesn’t lead to the best outcomes, and that’s also a standard this game does a good job of subverting.
I think the only main downside is that at the very end, the penultimate sequence (before the Very Final Bit) goes on for so long and it feels like an annoying fetch quest. I wish they condensed that a bit, because it is redundant as you learn things about the town’s past that you...already knew and it’s a bit of a nuisance. But then the twist at the end...oh my gawd. I really did not see it coming the way it did but it was really so good!Magdalene druckeryn final girl i love you soooo much.
There are also a few bugs (wasn’t able to complete some quests) but i am hoping those will be ironed out soon as me and kevin played this as soon as it was released pretty much.
I do like how choices matter in this game, but not in the way you would Expect them to.It’s not so much about who you pick as the suspect for the murder, or what you pick to do with the mural as Magdalene, because these don’t have outright impacts on the ending of the game. There’s technically no correct solution to the murder mystery, and you don’t get to see the impact that the mural has on the town or surrounding area. But i think that’s part of the intrigue of the game, of making the best decisions we can in the time that we have, but not necessarily knowing if that was the best thing. Endings aren’t always going to be Bad or Good, and sometimes you don’t live long enough to see what comes from your work, but what matters is that you cared and you tried.
Games made with love and care and time and research ....mwah mwahwmwahmwah
Currently Playing(ish)
Persona 5: Royal
I was playing this by myself at first but then i got too anxious about there not being a lot of save points so I recruited kevin to play with me. We completed the first arc and i was really impressed with the story, at how the game seemed unafraid to tackle challenging topics/issues. I love the idea of teens fighting against adults who have consistently let them down in order to save the world! But as we played more...we ran into several Annoyances...and it seems most of them are honestly the fault of jrpgs as a genre. There is just SO MUCH busy work!! At first it was kind of fun to have to walk around shibuya station to find the train i need to catch, or to check books out from the library and read them, or to hangout with a hot goth doctor. But then that took so much time, and it became clear that if you want to do well in this game, it seems very impossible to play without a guide, so much so that i feel like i spent more time looking at a guide than the actual game ;_; it just feels way more work than play, and way more grindy than i would like! I think even though fe3h had these elements (like all the monastery time), persona 5 has it x1000. I also think the combat is like...okay. There’s just sooo much to it like fusing personas and switching between them and having to check what element does well against what, i find it can be a bit sluggish to get through at times. Oh my god and having to check the dialogue options to convince a shadow to give you their persona or whatever like aaaough i have so many tabs open for this game but not in a way i enjoy!! I don’t normally mind doing a lot of research for games but this is frustrating because it seems very set in stone kind of...I do want to keep playing because i want know what happens with the gang and the way the story is unfolding is very interesting to me, but, it will probably take some time lol. P5 also has such a striking art style and soundtrack like i truly see how it is iconic. I also love to slink around the palaces like a lil creeper...Hopefully we can finish it next year.
Gloomhaven
Gloomhaven is a tactical RPG board game (similar to DnD but much less complex), but recently i obtained a copy of the digital video game version. I’ve played both before, and i do prefer the video game version just because 1. You don’t have to control enemies yourself 2. It’s sleeker and the graphics are nice, but overall, as a game, it’s just okay i think. Part of the issue is all these games wanna be dnd so bad but they will never be dnd! And also...it’s just difficult to the point that it’s annoying to play lol. It’s very easy to run out of cards to play, so your character gets exhausted and basically dies, and it seems so strict in this regard that you feel like you have to optimize every move and there isn’t a lot of room for creativity. I was playing this with two diff groups of ppl and both seem to have taken a break from it for now LOL i do like how there is downtime between your turns so you don’t have to be On all the time (lets me have my Zone Out Time, much to everyone’s frustration <3), but i won’t say this is a Great Great game. I do think it’s kinda expensive considering it’s best played multiplayer so everyone needs a copy, so def get it for free if you can (like I did on epic games store lol)
Want to Play
Citizen Sleeper
Tori mentioned this game to me and it looks really interesting so i hope to play it soon. I actually downloaded it on game pass but just need to Get To It. the art style looks very cool and i’m intrigued by the concept...the idea planned obsolescence as something that will be more relevant to us as people as corporations take more and more control of our lives...the horrors of space capitalism...
Fire Emblem Warriors : Three Hopes
I heard from jessica the writing on this is wayyyy better than three houses so i await it eagerly. You also know i need to play this for dimitri too, but I am trying to exercise restraint by not buying this game until it is on sale for 20 bucks or less (which is how much i got three houses for. Digital too, isn’t that crazy!). I hope there’s no frame rate/camera issues like there were with age of calamity, from what i heard it’s much better in that regard.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Guys i wanna play this game sooooo bad LOL. it seems very well reviewed and i just miss this genre of game (high fantasy rpg), i just wish the co op version also went thru the main story instead of being a separate thing.
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Been watching kevin play botw lately and i am SOOOO EXCITED FOR TEARS OF THE KINGDOM!!! I am sad knowing mipha won’t be in it but we persevere. I also wonder what new mechanics the game will have, flying seems very interesting though! Botw has a very somber post-apocalyptic atmosphere and i wonder where totk will leave the state of the kingdom, especially as the environments and world are so important to botw. It would be nice to see hyrule slowly being returned to its glory days. Also...horror elements perhaps? :3c
Elden Ring
Kevin got this for me so we can play it together hehe. It’s his fav game of 2022 and it would be my first soulsborne game so im looking forward to it, though i do expect it to be a major timesink. Not that i’d be complaining! I’m ready to enter my maidenless era.
Case of the Golden Idol
Thank u my dearest neeta for gifting this to me <3 it seems like this is a murder mystery game (I think this may be my fav genre of game) with a very interesting visual style, and it’s highly rated by Lucas Pope, who made Return of the Obra Dinn (if you remember from my 2021 post...I loved that game!!). So please anticipate this in my 2023 post hehe.
Thank you all for tuning in, i love viddy games so much and i’m glad i could share some of my favs with you ;_; i’m surprised because this post seems so much shorter than last year even though i swear i played a lot more games! Ah well..Happy 2023 gaymers!
As for using grouvee/whatever other game tracking apps exist...well...fuck all that lmfaoooooooooo
Mentions
Hollow Knight
I wish I could have continued playing this game but it was honestly too hard for me ;_; platform bullet hell is not my specialty...but the environment was so cool and the characters cute and interesting. I loved the grubs hehe.
Borderlands 3
The shooting in this game is significantly more fun than Borderlands 2 but that’s all it has going for it. Like I didn’t like the new tiny tina art, the story was nowhere near as good as bl2, IT WAS SO BUGGY SOMETIMES THE BOSSES WOULD JUST FREEZE IN PLACE DOING NOTHING and i could go on. L + ratio + siren ability tree was really boring to me + boring skins + having evil youtubers be the villains def made the game worse.
This is so fucked up fr.
Hammerlock and Jakobs are a very appealing couple though, i loved their questline.
Nobody Saves The World
I was obsessed with this game. At any idle moment of the day my fingers would start twitching and i’d be messaging kevin like “play with me. Play. PLAY!!!” i normally am not into this style of gameplay (struggled to get into hades...sorry) but i found nstw to have a great balance of whimsy and a variety of gameplay styles. In short, you can take on various “forms” that have different abilities and can switch between these forms pretty much at will, and proceed through dungeon style game play. Just smash and attack. The mob style enemies make kills satisfying, as is common per spam-attacking based games, and i actually really enjoyed the story as well. Really recommend! I miss playing this :3
All of the environments in this game are also so lovely...there’s a fun whale’s mouth and a radioactive wasteland and a witchy halloween village. The map feels huge and sprawling like there’s so much to explore and the visual style and gameplay adds to a feeling of excitement!
It Takes Two
Besides one segment that made me very motion sick, this game is very good, for beginner gamers as well. There were a multitude of game mechanics that were incredibly fun, and you could play them for the perfect amount of time to allow you to explore the gameplay without it getting tiresome. Unfortunately, the two main characters are annoying to me and the story is whatever but if we’re only focusing on the gameplay...then A+!
Okay i did love this fucking book dude tho
Monster Hunter: Rise
Deviljho was NOT in this game so WHY should i even care. All in all, after trying this, it was simply not for me. It lacks the beautiful environments/deviljhos/fun feast sequences that Monster Hunter World/Iceborne had, and I found that it got really monotonous after some time (that happened with MHW too but it happened much faster with this game). Like i can’t believe we went from a cute motherly cat cooking huge meals for you to...this small child making...DANGO OF DIFFERENT COLORS? There were so many new mechanics that I could not keep track of either so overall...not for me.
Thank u so meowch...
Oh the horrors...where is the protein..
Bugsnax
This game was so much fun but also made me descend to madness because i couldn’t stop being like BUNGER BUNGER BUNGER or SCOOPY...SCOOPY BANOOPY at any given point. I love how the story goes for a horror angle, but remains light enough to not come across as too self important/pretentious. I love all the bugsnax designs and the grumpus designs as well. Beffica is my fav.
She is serving Beffica realness
This game has fun gameplay (catching different bugsnax in a variety of different ways)...mystery...gay yearning...kero kero bonito on the soundtrack...what more could you ask for.
Bungers are so cute
These guys kinda fucked up tho
Gorogoa
A delicious, complex puzzle game. I enjoy a good puzzler from time to time, but i am often hesitant to go through the effort of purchasing and installing a puzzle game, especially because most tend to use the same mechanics that i get bored of. But Gorogoa had a great mechanic that really contributed to the story as well. It’s kinda hard to explain, so I recommend watching a trailer for it:
I definitely had to look up guides for a lot of the puzzles, but there was never anything that made me tilted or frustrated. The lore is a bit difficult to parse, but that proves to be part of the puzzle as well!
Kentucky Route Zero
This game is def good for some people...but unfortunately i don’t think i am that kind of person. I found it to be lovely, and it did a great job of evoking a sense of loneliness on the road and the desolate lives of those that have been left behind or forgotten. It is certainly an interesting insight into how much games have evolved to be story telling devices. But unfortunately, i think the gameplay left a bit to be desired, and some of the segments went over my head.
Coffee Talk
Every time I make myself a warm beverage, this game comes to mind. You are a coffee shop owner, making drinks for customers as you hear them talk about personal conflicts/what’s going on in their lives.
thinking fondly on Ginger Cutting Animation.
The story is okay, not anything earth shattering but the gay tentacle girl indie game dev / orc lady triple A game dev arc did make me happy! I also like how this game takes place in Alternate Reality Seattle.
I wish the characters (besides the two above <3) were more striking for reasons other than them being other fantasy races, like on god i cannot remember anyone from this game or their story. There was some kinda boring relationship drama/kinda boring family drama/etc. But what matters is u can just keep making fun lil coffees.
Sable
Okay technically i didn’t finish this game oops.
I got a bit tilted towards the end and then it was removed from game pass so! Whatever.
I had some issues with the gameplay - the camera angles got real wonky real fast and sometimes traveling around was exhausting! It took so long! I wish there were more “progressive”/quest oriented ways to obtain upgrades for your hoverbike, especially as movement is a key part of the game.
However, i will say that there were many moments that were incredibly poignant and I’m glad i was able to play the game for those, at least.
The fonts and colors are nice too. Warm tones with accents of greenish blues. Wahoo!!!
Sable does farewells incredibly well, and takes great care in portraying the sort of tender bittersweetness that occurs when it’s time to Grow Up. Like when you first leave your home area, and the japanese breakfast song kicked in...oh my god. The way other npcs in the game speak of missing when they had the ability to glide, because it fades as you get older...a representation of the boldness of youth and the sense of feeling you will be okay even if you take big risks!
floady
There isn’t much substance in regards to quests/storylines, but i suppose that makes sense when the theme is about making your own choices/figuring out which path to follow. There was also a fun lil whodunnit quest which I enjoyed, and i do think the game could have benefited more from these longer/higher stakes quests.
I loved the layout of the “town”/village of Eccria, it was very compact but compellingly architected. I love exploring towns in video games (skyrim’s riften you will always be famous) and i honestly spent a lot of time just walking around pretending i lived here fr. like. I could go on about how i loved admiring the way various “buildings” represented an interior and exterior. like how everything could be considered “inside” because of the naturally protective nature of a village where all the walls are interconnected. But also how it’s all “outside” because much of the walking space is exposed to the sky above. The cafe in eccria was so cozy, i would just stare at it and imagine i’m sipping mint tea and lounging around for hours on end.so pretty...
This is kind of a bad shot but the cafe is slightly elevated above the main walkway , but still open to it. So cozy...
I know i’m insane for talking so much about this game considering i didn’t even FINISH but. I think if you can get this game for free/cheap that it would be worth trying out.
Beacon Pines
A delightful lil halloween time treat. The narrator in this has such a nice voice, i can’t recall a time i enjoyed voice acting this much!Oh and the soundtrack is great too! This song especially:
Okay but this is basically a mystery game set in a small town. The art style is Anthropomorphic Animals, but i think it is slightly Too Furry for me with the shading and anime style eyes. I find it a little disconcerting but that’s okay, i am sure it works for many.
The gameplay is interesting! Basically on your adventures around town, doing certain things/interacting with certain items grants you these tokens. For example, running around a field of dandelions will make you sneeze and you will get a Tickle token).
Then, at some point, there will be a “fork in the road”. You basically have an option to choose between some of the tokens you have found, like strange vs tickle in the example above, and they lead to different endings/paths. There is only one True path, but you are free to explore all combos of paths freely, as you can return to this tree and retry. I think it’s a very cool gameplay mechanic, I just wish there was More of it, because it was fun! Obviously it takes a lot of time to design/code all these possible paths but it would be interesting if there were more. I also think it would be cooler if there were actually multiple possible endings, because the game is more like “Oh you got a worse ending :( let’s try that again, shall we?”. I hope this game studio comes out with more games of a similar style and genre though!
Favorites
Omori
See my post on it here
Pentiment
Ooough i honestly do love the increase in (dunkey voice) Disco type games popping up, mostly because people actually try to make them good, unlike with Silent Hill PT style games. The reason for this (i think) is because when you have to Write A Lot, the writing will Probably be good, from the sheer effort of having to dedicate so much time to it, while with indie horror games, they don’t seem to be thinking very much about it. At all. anyways...
I LOVED THIS GAME SO MUCH!!!!
Set in the 16th century, it follows the story of master artist-in-training Andreas Mahler as he stays at a small fictional alpine Bavarian village called Tassing to work on his manuscript at Kiersau Abbey. It takes place over several years, and the gameplay primarily consists of talking to various people throughout the village/abbey as you try to solve...a MURDER MYSTERY!
The game is sosos fascinating because it is very historically accurate. As you play, when there are references made to Real Life Things (like the Poor Clares or martin Luther), the text will be highlighted and you can check the glossary to learn more about what that is. Like fine i guess i’ll learn about christianity if u wanttttt (guy who actually enjoyed it). Additionally, the game is drawn in the style of art from that era!
But what’s really cool is, there is a character from Ethiopia in the game, and he is drawn in an Ethiopian art style!
It really reminds you that the world is smaller than we think...i would love to see what other characters from other parts of the world would have looked like...more games from dis creator please...
Some of my other favorite parts of the game:
Being able to eat meals with people, so you can see what they ate then, and it differed depending on social status!
The font used for dialogue changed depending on a character profession - peasants wrote differently from members of the church who wrote differently from printers.
This game uses time as such an effective mechanic. For each portion of the day, you have multiple options for what you can do, but you can only pick one! You can’t both follow the stonemason around and go hunting with the miller - you have to decide, and it’s very scary knowing you might not choose the right thing.
Now for a spoilery discussion. Please come back to this once you’ve played the game (if you want)
Thematically, this game seems to focus a lot on legacy. What we leave behind when we disappear/die, who will remember us, and how we will be remembered.
Memory perseveres, but memory can also be altered/corrupted. And we have to consider not just the legacy of individuals, but also of the town, of what the town represents to the Holy Roman Empire it resides within as well as the people in it. What the town means to these people, and how they would give so much to see it prosper. How the town itself builds on past histories. The levels of unraveling are all so mfing cool!!!!!!!
Also like the ethical questions...as an outsider...is it right to interfere? Are you guilty for your choice of who to condemn? How have you touched the lives of so many of these people just by being with them for a few days? The implications are insane.
Second...
I think the only main downside is that at the very end, the penultimate sequence (before the Very Final Bit) goes on for so long and it feels like an annoying fetch quest. I wish they condensed that a bit, because it is redundant as you learn things about the town’s past that you...already knew and it’s a bit of a nuisance. But then the twist at the end...oh my gawd. I really did not see it coming the way it did but it was really so good!
There are also a few bugs (wasn’t able to complete some quests) but i am hoping those will be ironed out soon as me and kevin played this as soon as it was released pretty much.
I do like how choices matter in this game, but not in the way you would Expect them to.
Games made with love and care and time and research ....mwah mwahwmwahmwah
Currently Playing(ish)
Persona 5: Royal
I was playing this by myself at first but then i got too anxious about there not being a lot of save points so I recruited kevin to play with me. We completed the first arc and i was really impressed with the story, at how the game seemed unafraid to tackle challenging topics/issues. I love the idea of teens fighting against adults who have consistently let them down in order to save the world! But as we played more...we ran into several Annoyances...and it seems most of them are honestly the fault of jrpgs as a genre. There is just SO MUCH busy work!! At first it was kind of fun to have to walk around shibuya station to find the train i need to catch, or to check books out from the library and read them, or to hangout with a hot goth doctor. But then that took so much time, and it became clear that if you want to do well in this game, it seems very impossible to play without a guide, so much so that i feel like i spent more time looking at a guide than the actual game ;_; it just feels way more work than play, and way more grindy than i would like! I think even though fe3h had these elements (like all the monastery time), persona 5 has it x1000. I also think the combat is like...okay. There’s just sooo much to it like fusing personas and switching between them and having to check what element does well against what, i find it can be a bit sluggish to get through at times. Oh my god and having to check the dialogue options to convince a shadow to give you their persona or whatever like aaaough i have so many tabs open for this game but not in a way i enjoy!! I don’t normally mind doing a lot of research for games but this is frustrating because it seems very set in stone kind of...I do want to keep playing because i want know what happens with the gang and the way the story is unfolding is very interesting to me, but, it will probably take some time lol. P5 also has such a striking art style and soundtrack like i truly see how it is iconic. I also love to slink around the palaces like a lil creeper...Hopefully we can finish it next year.
Gloomhaven
Gloomhaven is a tactical RPG board game (similar to DnD but much less complex), but recently i obtained a copy of the digital video game version. I’ve played both before, and i do prefer the video game version just because 1. You don’t have to control enemies yourself 2. It’s sleeker and the graphics are nice, but overall, as a game, it’s just okay i think. Part of the issue is all these games wanna be dnd so bad but they will never be dnd! And also...it’s just difficult to the point that it’s annoying to play lol. It’s very easy to run out of cards to play, so your character gets exhausted and basically dies, and it seems so strict in this regard that you feel like you have to optimize every move and there isn’t a lot of room for creativity. I was playing this with two diff groups of ppl and both seem to have taken a break from it for now LOL i do like how there is downtime between your turns so you don’t have to be On all the time (lets me have my Zone Out Time, much to everyone’s frustration <3), but i won’t say this is a Great Great game. I do think it’s kinda expensive considering it’s best played multiplayer so everyone needs a copy, so def get it for free if you can (like I did on epic games store lol)
Want to Play
Citizen Sleeper
Tori mentioned this game to me and it looks really interesting so i hope to play it soon. I actually downloaded it on game pass but just need to Get To It. the art style looks very cool and i’m intrigued by the concept...the idea planned obsolescence as something that will be more relevant to us as people as corporations take more and more control of our lives...the horrors of space capitalism...
Fire Emblem Warriors : Three Hopes
I heard from jessica the writing on this is wayyyy better than three houses so i await it eagerly. You also know i need to play this for dimitri too, but I am trying to exercise restraint by not buying this game until it is on sale for 20 bucks or less (which is how much i got three houses for. Digital too, isn’t that crazy!). I hope there’s no frame rate/camera issues like there were with age of calamity, from what i heard it’s much better in that regard.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Guys i wanna play this game sooooo bad LOL. it seems very well reviewed and i just miss this genre of game (high fantasy rpg), i just wish the co op version also went thru the main story instead of being a separate thing.
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Been watching kevin play botw lately and i am SOOOO EXCITED FOR TEARS OF THE KINGDOM!!! I am sad knowing mipha won’t be in it but we persevere. I also wonder what new mechanics the game will have, flying seems very interesting though! Botw has a very somber post-apocalyptic atmosphere and i wonder where totk will leave the state of the kingdom, especially as the environments and world are so important to botw. It would be nice to see hyrule slowly being returned to its glory days. Also...horror elements perhaps? :3c
Elden Ring
Kevin got this for me so we can play it together hehe. It’s his fav game of 2022 and it would be my first soulsborne game so im looking forward to it, though i do expect it to be a major timesink. Not that i’d be complaining! I’m ready to enter my maidenless era.
Case of the Golden Idol
Thank u my dearest neeta for gifting this to me <3 it seems like this is a murder mystery game (I think this may be my fav genre of game) with a very interesting visual style, and it’s highly rated by Lucas Pope, who made Return of the Obra Dinn (if you remember from my 2021 post...I loved that game!!). So please anticipate this in my 2023 post hehe.
Thank you all for tuning in, i love viddy games so much and i’m glad i could share some of my favs with you ;_; i’m surprised because this post seems so much shorter than last year even though i swear i played a lot more games! Ah well..Happy 2023 gaymers!
