DrBloodmoney's Super Scientific Ranking of Games!

[DrBloodmoney]

Ermegerd... what a nightmare trying to rank a comedy game is...

[DrBloodmoney]

 

  NEW SCIENTIFIC RESULTS ARE IN! 

 

 

Hello Science-Tonys and Science-Carmellas, as promised (and in some cases requested), here are the (first part) of the latest results of our great scientific endeavour!

 

 

 

 

Virginia

 

Summary: 

A Narrative Mystery Adventure game - and the debut effort from English developer Variable State - Virginia is a game that was always fated, (and ultimately proved to be,) divisive as hell! 

 

There have been several games that have served as lightning rods in the ever-churning, ever-tedious "what is a game" debate. 

That discussion has bubbled beneath the surface of online forums for decades - ever since Myst redefined interactive gameplay, and pissed off a million teenagers when they suddenly couldn't get on their home PC because their decidedly non-gamer moms were hogging it - and that conversation has remained oddly static despite the continual evolution of videogames as an interactive medium. While many games feed into it broadly, certain ones have been more catalyst than other - Flower, Dear Esther, Cow Clicker (or its more popular evolution, My Name is Mayo,) I suspect The Longest Road on Earth will join them soon... 

...and among them, Virginia certainly holds a place.

 

To its fans, Virginia is a genuinely original and peculiar take on the Walking Sim - removing dialogue, and replacing it with metaphor and curiously stylish cinematic mystery, of the Twin Peaks-esque Lynchian variety. 
To its detractors, it is a barely interactive series of incoherent scenes, wresting its questionable "gameplay" from the confines of sensible narrative, player control, explanation, logic... or common-sense. 

 

While I certainly fall in the former camp - I very much enjoy Virginia's curiosities and eccentricities and found the whole experience to be unique, memorable and at times downright fascinating - I do have to concede one point to the other side of the debate: If ever a game tested the boundaries of "Is this really a game, though?"... it is undoubtedly this one.

 

The game takes the Walking Sim as its primary genre jumping-off point, however, some of the staples of the genre are absent. The notable Walking Sims I have played (which as a fan of the genre, are probably a good portion of the notable examples within the genre, period,) - Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Gone Home, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, What Remains of Edith Finch - all share some common elements. 
High quality, often borderline photo-realistic visuals, player control of pacing, linear (or at least easily digestible,) narratives, a distinct lack of on-screen human characters... and significant writing and copious amounts of high quality voice acting.
 
Virginia has none of these. 

The visuals are painterly and abstracted - often very beautifully so - and characters (of whom there are many,) are very simply designed and drawn. There is an almost Nintendo Mii-style of simplification of facial features. Characters are recognisable and distinct - both from one another, and as the archetypes they play into - however, their emotive inferences are broad-strokes by necessity, and therefore somewhat down to player interpretation. 

 

Player control is curious, in the sense that while the player is free to move around as they would in a traditional Walking Sim, the game's pacing is independent of this. Scenes transition at a defined pace, relative to the music and the pace of the narrative, not the player. 
If, for example, the player chooses not to walk forward down a corridor, and instead stand still, the game will move onto the next scene after the same amount of time as it would if they had moved. the player has the illusion of control, but it is just that - an illusion. The narrative is playing out like a film, they are just free to move the camera - and sometimes the player-character- around as it happens.

 

The narrative is anything but obvious or linear too. There is a tale being told, of course - of a missing child, and the investigation of that disappearance by the player-controlled graduate FBI agent, and the old-hand, world-weary, internally maligned Agent she is assigned to - but it is anything but straight-laced. 

Not only does the lack of dialogue leave the player to interpret what is happening in the narrative during even the more pedestrian scenes - via the music, basic facial expressions and silent-movie gestures of the characters - there is also a huge amount of the narrative that is told via flight of fancy, on-screen metaphor, Lynchian absurdity and magical realism. 
A furnace burning in the middle of a road, or the UFO's sighted, or the secret society, for example, do make emotional sense - and a sort of logical sense upon repeat playthroughs - however, this is contingent on the player interpreting them, and I'd wager that in a first playthrough, it would be nigh on impossible for the whole narrative to be fully parsed. 

That is a style of story-telling I love (Lord knows, There is a reason I've watched Lost Highway, Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive upwards of 15 times each, and still find new elements each time I do,) but it is a style that is very much subject to taste. For the player who likes their narratives to conclude with a neat bow, and who only likes to play their games once, the confounding ending to Virginia is liable to leave them cold, confused, and probably a bit irritated.

 

This actually brings up the one genre element of the game that I think has been largely overlooked in criticism of the game, (and possibly gives some indication of why I enjoyed it as much as I did,) - for all that Virginia feels like a Walking Sim, it is also something of a Puzzle Game. 
Not in the sense of discrete puzzles - as said, there is little definable "gameplay" here of any stripe - but in terms of interpretation of the narrative. Because it is absurdly non-specific, and features no written or spoken explanation of its narrative arc, discerning what is happening throughout its winding, meandering narrative is a form of puzzle. Like a sort of narrative Outer Wilds, repeat playthroughs allow the player to consistently piece together different narrative beats, and discern more and more of the world they are presented with, slowly forming a more complete picture of the overall experience.
That's not, I would imagine, a narrative tract easily replicable, nor s it one that I think even I would enjoy as a constantly recurring theme in, say, a new genre, however, it is one that I think really works for Virginia as a singular experience, buoyed by the particular tone and story beats it has.

 

Audio in the game - a really key component in a game that relies on tone without dialogue - is, thankfully, wonderful. An eerie, tonally specific score is present throughout, and really helps to set the odd emotionality of the game perfectly. Specific character and emotional themes run through the whole score like operatic signatures, and help to guide the player through the labyrinth of metaphor, convolution and borderline confusion. 

 

Overall, Virginia is certainly not a game for everyone - and it isn't likely a style of game that is repeatable. There is an extent to which its place as an extreme outlier in videogames serves as both the strongest weapon in its arsenal, and the one it is most likely to be hoisted on - however, I cannot deny that the perverse peculiarity of the whole game appealed to me immensely.  
It is a game I have replayed more than a few times. Those repeat plays had nothing to to with gameplay, and everything to do with re-experiencing a great tone piece, some great music, and the knowledge that another playthrough of a narrative so steeped in curious mystery and metaphor is virtually guaranteed to yield some new element I failed to spot before. 

 

Yes, some folks will find Virginia baffling, confounding, or downright boring or irksome. I cannot deny that, nor can I really argue against their feelings. They have a basis, and I can recognise that. I'm just not in agreement.

In the end, some folks hate David Lynch films.
I can understand that... I can recognise where that loathing comes from...
...but I'll never be one of them.

 

 

The Ranking:

Oddly, despite the sizeable number of Walking Sims I've played, and the relative heftiness of the ranking list so far, there are actually precious few Walking sims on the current ranking. 

 

While I do think Walking Sims are the best possible comparison for Virginia, that gives little to go on. There are two games that could be argued to narrow down the field - Dear Esther, and Neverending Nightmares, but they are so wildly far apart, that it doesn't help much. 

Dear Esther is much higher placed than Virginia is liable to be (I like Virginia a lot, but Dear Esther is on a different level,) and Neverending Nightmares is much lower ranked than Virginia is ever liable to be, as it has significant problems that Virginia doesn't. 

 

That left me in a quandary, and simply looking for any games that I thought had any kind of similarity, however slight, where I could narrow the field - and the two I identified were curious narrative puzzle game Stories Untold, and other curious narrative puzzle game, Maquette. 

While I don't think Virginia's brand of oddness is in any danger of outpacing Stories Untold, I do think the effect it had on me, and the strange, winning combination of oddness and tone, is enough to ensure it outpaces Maquette on the rankings. 

 

That places Virginia in a narrower gulf, without any real comparison, and so I was left to simply ask, over and over, "did the cumulative experience of parsing Virginia's odd logic have a profound enough effect to outmatch this game?" 

 

Doing that while working upwards from Maquette, the first game to which the answer was No...
... was unusual, frivolous-but-not-too-frivolous happy-go-lucky genre mash-up The Touryst. 

Virginia and The Touryst have about as much in common as a toaster does with the colour purple... but that feels like the right answer, and with a game as odd as Virginia, that's all I got, I'm afraid!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Stop

 

Summary: 

The sophomore effort from Variable State - developers of singularly peculiar, dialogue-free Walking Sim Mystery Virginia - takes a rather more traditional approach to narrative story-telling.
It brings in straight narrative (albeit, across an interwoven 3-story tract,) dialogue, player choice player-directed pacing...
...and unfortunately, falls markedly short of the high bar they set with Virginia.
Supremely short, in fact. 

 

Have you ever seen Southland Tales - the epically terrible second film from Richard Kelly, writer director of Donnie Darko? 
That film had the incredible legacy of not only destroying the significant credibility Kelly had built on the back of his superlative first film, but was, in fact, also able to directly tarnish the film that came before it. So misguided was Southland Tales - on so many levels - that it not only relegated itself to the bargain bucket of Blockbuster within twenty seconds of release, it also sent many viewers (including myself,) back, scouring though Donnie Darko in a new light. Suddenly, the aspects of Donnie Darko that were mysterious, or metaphorical, or open to interpretation felt lesser. The assumption upon first watch was that Kelly was a genius. We were layering on our own interpreted cleverness onto a mattress of smarts that Kelly had created. 
If Southland Tales was that bad, however, the question became: "Is Donnie Darko actually clever, or did we just projected cleverness onto the canvas of budgetary constraint-necessitated vagueness?"

 

For what it's worth, the situations are, I think, different in terms of extremity. 
In the case of Kelly and Donnie Darko, I do actually think the question was accurate. As anyone who has listened to the director's commentary for that film will know - Kelly isn't actually smart. He's kind of dumb. That movie was smart and cool by accident, rather than by design. (I still like it a lot, for what it's worth, but still!)

In the case of Last Stop, I don't think the game misses the mark by anywhere close to the level that Southland Tales did. It did send me back to Virginia with the same idea, but I concluded that  Variable State were, in fact, smart in their creation of their original game. 
Last Stop didn't tarnish that...
...but to be clear, while Last Stop is not so bad that it destroys Variable State's credibility beyond any hope of recovery, it is bad enough that it made me seriously question Virginia's awesomeness.
Even if I ultimately chose to believe Virginia to still be awesome... that's still quite a feat.

 

The game begins in 1960's London, with a young couple running from a policeman, upon whom they have played an annoying, but harmless prank. When fleeing through the tunnels of the London Underground, they open a doorway, and are confronted with some sort of portal to another world. They cross it... and that's that. We see nothing more of those characters for the time being. 

The meat of the game, instead, takes place in the late 90's. Three separate stories are told in episodic form, with the player able to select which one to play first, second or third. Once a chapter of each is complete, the same choice can be made for the order of each second chapter, then third, etc. That allows the layer some choice in which story to play right away, but doesn't allow one story to progress too far, before the others have a chance to catch up.

 

All three of these stories have really only two things in common: they are set in the same areas of London, and they are all concerned, in some way, with the "Unexplained". 
There is the middle-aged, single dad, who's body in seemingly magically swapped with the young, physically fit dude who occasionally gets his mail by accident, the teenage girl who, along with her friends, goes to spy on a strange man they are suspicious of, and end up holding an alien hostage in a derelict swimming pool, or (in the best vignette,) the middle-aged, sexually empowered employee of shady governmental agency, who's secretive work-life, fractious relationship with her father, and extra-marital affair is wreaking havoc on her marriage and mental health. 

 

All these stories are fine on paper, but unfortunately, a combination of clunky writing, unbelievable plot-twists or character choices, and at times shockingly ham-fisted line readings tend to diminish any real investment the player has with the characters. This happens right from the start - before any of the unexplainable or supernatural elements come into focus, and that is really problematic. Without investment with the characters on a human level, it becomes difficult to care when they start being put under emotional stress or find themselves in unusual situations. 

 

The visuals are not too bad, but never very impressive either. The rendering of London is pretty good, shows a good mix of areas of the city, and seeing a narrative game set in London is refreshing. There are some good, cinematic angles used, and that makes the city feel quite lively - though it does throw up an issue I've not seen as prevalent than this in quite some time: the changes in camera angle losing the character.  Not since the tank-control PS One days have I so often had a character either veer off in the wrong direction, or simply take a moment to actually find on screen than here. 
When the camera changes angle, all player control is relative to that new direction, and so if running down a street (for example,) and the camera switches to an angle from a side-street, (as happens often,) the character will suddenly veer to one side, as the relative controls swing around. 

 

The look of the characters is quite cartoony - though not in a bad way, I'll say. 
Expressions are exaggerated, in a way that gives the feeling of sims from The Sims 3 / The Sims 4, and this is something of a double-edged sword. In the case of the more comedic stories, it is a benefit. Where the narrative is more serious it tends to be a hinderance - though not a major one. If Variable State's previous game Virginia taught us anything, it is that cartoonish character models are not a blocker to serious story-telling when used well... here, the story is what gets in its own way, the visuals are secondary.

 

Audio-wise, a very rough mixed bag. The music is good across the board - there is original score and (I think) licensed songs, and both are used well, and add to the tone nicely. (If the writing had the tonal consistency of the score, Last Stopwould be in a much better position overall!) 

Voice work, on the other hand, is patchy in the extreme. Sometimes it can be quite naturalistic in individual lines - there were several reads where I was markedly impressed - but joined together as a whole, the writing and voice work is all a bit clunkily connected. A lot of line deliveries feels very unnatural or stilted. In addition to the characters often doing things that feel ridiculous or unmotivated, the consistency of the written lines follows suit, and pulls the delivery along with it. Lines can feel out of nowhere, and the tone they are delivered in wildly out of place given the surrounding ones, or the situation the character is in.

 

The biggest issue in the game, however, is not visual or auditory, but in the writing. 
I don't like to get into spoilers, but with this game, I need to talk about it to some extent. I'm going to tread lightly here, and avoid spoilers (I learned from my Life is Strange reviews that doing spoiler reviews is a waste of time, as no one reads them!) - so I'm only going to talk in the abstract. 
Hopefully this still makes sense!

 

The basic structure of the narrative in Last Stop is sound, and actually a very good idea on paper. The introductory vignette - seemingly unrelated to any of the main 3 narratives - sets a suitably B-Movie-esque tone. The notion of 3 separate storylines, all seemingly unconnected but taking place in similar areas slowly becoming more and more intermingled, until they finally coalesce and explain the original introductory vignette has a lot of merit. 

The issue here though, is not the premise, but the execution. 

 

Because all three stories are not only narratively dissimilar, but also tonally distinct - from one another, and from the hokey, deliberately silly introduction - the finale, when they all conjoin and intermingle feels jarring on three separate levels. 

All three main narratives stay relatively 'grounded' throughout. Yes, each deals with a sci-fi or fantastical element, but that element is treated as the unusual twist in an otherwise very pedestrian world. When the finale happens, it whisks all three stories into the realm of such out-there, Saturday-Morning-Matinee sci-fi, that it simply loses touch with any sense of investment the player might have built up towards the characters or their earthly lives. 

There is nothing wrong with pedestrian stories, magical realism stories, or out-and-out sci-fi nonsense, of course - all three can be fantastic - but a game being entirely one, then hard-turning to the other at the very end is taking a massive risk with audience investment... and Last Stop is proof of why. 

Imagine if the characters from Heavy Rain, in the final act, opened a door, and found themselves in a city from Ratchet and Clank. That is the vibe here. 
Both Heavy Rain, and Ratchet and Clank might be enjoyable games (to different extents, they both are,) ... but the tonal whiplash such a narrative manoeuvre induces would require a level of sophistication in the writing that few developers could achieve without losing the majority of the audience. 
I'd wager almost no studio could pull that off successfully... but if there are some out there capable of doing it successfully... Variable State aren't among them.

 

What happens, unfortunately, is that a game already precariously balancing on the knife-edge of audience engagement due to rough writing and patchy voice-work, trips over its own feet and PLUMMETS. 

I really cannot describer just how hard my eyes rolled, and how quickly my patience dried up when the game took its final swing... and I never recovered. Even as the game played out, limply crawling to the finish line, my interest had dried up completely.

 

It's a shame, as there is merit in Variable State, and merit in Last Stop on a conceptual level, but the game never capitalises on any of that, and only seems to go from mediocre for 90% of the experience, to dismal for the final 10%. 

 

A whopping disappointment all round, and one I'm highly unlikely to ever replay... even after I inevitably replay Virginiain the future!

 

 

The Ranking:

With Last Stop being the second game from Variable State, the obvious comparison point is recently ranked Virginia... however, as is no doubt abundantly clear from the above review, Last Stop is a markedly worse game. 

 

The fact is, try as it might, and greater ambition than it has, the real reason Artifex Mundi puzzle games tend to rank low on this ranking is not because the games are bad, but simply because they are quite cookie-cutter, and fairly limited in scope. They are not actually bad games.

Last Stop, however, as hard as it is to say, is just a bad game. It has a fair few things of genuine interest going for it on paper, but virtually none of these pay off in any real way, and what is actually presented just... isn't good. As such, the question is raised: 
is ambition really worth anything, if all that ambition is squandered?

 

My feeling is, as much as I want to reward ambition, the game has to be evaluated on merit, and rewarding unexploited ambition is actually unfair to less ambitious games like Artifex Mundi ones, which don't aim for the stars, but deliver good, solid, easily digestible little games. 

As such, I think Last Stop has to fall lower than a lot of Artifex Mundi games, and really, I'm looking at the other games among that grouping that I would say have similar issues to Last Stop - unrealised ambition. 

Scouring that region of the list, the game that really pops out for a starting point is Need for Speed: Rivals. 
While no one is likely to accuse that game of being the most ambitious ever crafted within its genre, it did try some things... and none of them worked. The game fell flat on the floor. 

I think there is even less to enjoy in Need for Speed: Rivals than Last Stop so it provides a floor... but I would feel bad moving a game as flawed and disappointing as Last Stop above slightly higher placed Shape of the World, which was small, a bit dull, but not actively undercutting itself. 

 

That leaves only Arcade Archives: Ajax to fight it out with Last Stop - and frankly, it has to win. One half of its gameplay is turgid, but the other half is pretty good fun, and so it somewhat balances out. Last Stop manages to sweep the legs out of every part of its narrative at the finale, and never recovers. I'd be much more likely to replay Arcade Archives: Ajax, than Last Stop, so Last Stop finds its placement. 

 

Now, Variable State, please do something good so this feels like the outlier, and not the projected direction!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manifold Garden

 

Summary: 

A virtual one-man-band developed indie puzzler from American artist William Chyr, Manifold Garden takes the infinite, impossible geometry of paintings by MC Esher, and applies their non-newtonian logic to a 3D spacial puzzle game - to pretty remarkable artistic and mechanical effect. 

 

I don't often start with talking about visuals, but Manifold Garden is a game where the visuals deserve to be mentioned right up front. 

Manifold Garden is STUNNING looking. 

The actual graphical treatment of the game is relatively simple - a geometric, blocky design, using pastel shades on magnolia and thin, stark black lines as definition - however, the intricate design of the geometry, and the infinite repetitions of it in every direction, combined with a slight anti-aliasing fog effect is mesmerisingly, hypnotically gorgeous to look at - static, and in motion.

 

The game explains nothing in text or voice over (indeed, there is remarkably little audio to be found anywhere in the game, outside of occasional cues to indicate movement of giant blocks, or cube connections,)  - all learning within the game is via visual cues, and the game does a remarkable job with this also. 
I'll get into the mechanical side of the game shortly, but for now, know this - Manifold Garden allows the player to "flip" the entire world in all 6 directions. The primary mechanic of the game involves flipping gravity around, and so requires the player to understand, at all times, which way is currently up/down/north/south/east/west. The way the game does this is smart - each of the six directions has a colour. The small reticule in the centre of the screen will change to the corresponding colour when facing a surface upon which the player can "rotate" the world, and when rotated to a specific gravitational axis, the whole world receives a slight change in hue to correspond to that colour. 
If the world is flipped to "Blue" gravity (Wherein blue cubes are movable, and blue rivers will flow,) the whole world has a slight blue over-sheen. If they then flip around to purple, or red, or green, the same logic applies. 
It's both a smart mechanical feature, (in a game as dimensionally confusing as Manifold Garden can be, a shorthand to remember which way is up is most welcome,) and also a nice artistic one - that the world looks great in all six variations of hue is an artistic feat in and of itself.

 

Mechanically, the game is pretty simple in nature, though anything but in terms of application. Manifold Garden works entirely on the basis of the aforementioned "gravity flipping". There is no jump button, and no fall damage. What there is is endless repetition of geometric space, and non-newtonian definition within that space.
If the player, for example, is facing a ledge, and wishes to move up to the top of that ledge, they cannot jump up. Instead, they can do one of two things - either flip gravity so the sheer wall is now the floor, then walk off it, flip gravity back to the previous orientation, to find themselves atop the ledge... or fall off the world, falling through the endless repetition of the geometry, to land on the upper section, above where they started.

 

While the game does introduce a few additional wrinkles into the puzzle solving as the game progresses - cubes that can be manipulated in one gravity axis, but not in others, or water that flows and can be redirected in one axis only for example - really, the fundamental core of the game remains consistent - the world flips at the player's whims, and they must traverse each of 7 worlds, placing power-cubes into sockets, until a special "god Cube" can be accessed, planted in its rightful place, to "grow" the next world from its seed.

It's a unique and interesting core concept, and one that works incredibly well when the game serves it with well defined puzzles, but can quickly become confusing when the game gets muddled.

 

The issue arises around establishing the definition parameters of a particular puzzle, rather than finding the solution to it. In some games (Portal, or The Turing Test, for example,) the parameters of each puzzle are clearly defined, and the player moves from one 'puzzle room' to the other, solving them. They are always confident when solving a puzzle what the limits of the defined area of puzzle is, and that anything they can currently access is a part of that puzzle. 

In other games, (The Swapper, for example) there are not discrete 'puzzle rooms', and instead, the whole world is there to be traversed, and traversing it is the puzzle - if you are progressing, then you are successfully solving the puzzles, and if you are not, then you need to solve something.

 

With Manifold Garden, however, there are both cases, and they can get easily jumbled together. There are discrete puzzle rooms to be solved, but the nature of the Esher-inspired style, is that traversing the world is also a confusing puzzle to be solved. Not only is there puzzle elements in simple traversal of the main path, there is also significant red-herring elements in both the discrete puzzles and the macro one - as well as the special, secret paths that make up the much more convoluted "Zero Percent" run throwing further spanners into the works.

Because of this, it can often be confusing for the player to actually discern what their goal is at any particular juncture. Without boundaries, (indeed, while there are some enclosed spaces where the puzzle 'rooms' are defined, most are open environments, endlessly repeating into the distance,) establishing if two puzzle areas are connected, or discrete, or simply steps in a single, traversal section is virtually impossible without significant trial and error. Getting lost in the labyrinthine maze of geometry is a virtual guarantee during this period. 

This in not an inherently terrible concept, however, it is an inherently confusing one, and one that can make traversing the game - particularly in the first playthrough - feel much more directionless and baffling than many players will likely enjoy. 

Often times, I found the most effective method of discerning a new space, was in fact to step off the world in a spot where I would not land on any geometry, and allow myself to fall infinitely, until I could establish where the "edge" of the world was, and where the repetition began. Doing this in all three primary axes would allow me to establish the rough layout of the enormous spaces... though of course, this becomes less useful once the game introduced non-newtonian elements, such as portals or pocket dimensions, where a door leads to a new area from one direction, but not from the other!

 

If the player is willing to give him/herself over to that confusion, however, and simply accept that feeling lost is a part of the experience, there is a lot to love in Manifold Garden... and for all the confusion, they will find the developer did go to some lengths to ease the burden somewhat. There are certain specific rooms, for example, with doors that can only be opened in a single gravity plane - forcing the player back to specific orientation for the next big puzzle, or areas where blocks cannot be carried through doors, thus giving a more clear definition of the boundaries of individual puzzles. 
This works cleanly for the most part in normal playthroughs... though the inclusion of the MUCH more convoluted and confusing "secret" solution (in which the entire game can, in fact, be traversed without the player ever placing the "God Cubes") means there is always the possibility for them to stumble into an area before the natural progression would take them there, and confound them!

 

This "Zero percent" run - to be clear - is stultifying. I played the entire main game without resorting to any guidance, and replayed it with a view to finding all the secrets for the "Zero Percent" run for many more hours... and as it turns out, found only a fraction of the secrets required for that run. 
When I finally relented and looked up some of the solutions, I was genuinely befuddled that anyone had EVER solved them. They are no joke - even for the puzzle enthusiast like myself - and given the relatively high completion rate of the platinum, I suspect the vast, vast majority of players have resorted to looking up some guidance when it comes to this particular run!

Overall, Manifold Garden is an absolutely wonderful artistic achievement, and a very solid, very clever core concept... which is put to use very well in some spots... but gets easily muddled or confused at times. Because the game is inherently confusing in pure mechanics, the mixing up of micro and macro puzzles, while interesting, tends to detract from both, rather than add to them. The sum of its parts adds up to more confusion than the game really needed to introduce.

 

That might sound like a call for easier puzzles, however, it isn't really. I actually believe all the discrete puzzles in Manifold Garden are pretty much perfectly pitched - not too difficult, and not too hard - however, the confusion tends to come not form the puzzles themselves, but from the bleeding of one puzzle into the other, and the player then being unable to define the parameters of either one.
That is not an insurmountable problem - a little trial and error, and a bit of time is needed, but it's not the most fun trial and error or time the game has to offer. In fact, it tends to get in the way of the best stuff the game has to offer. 

If a player is happy to deal with that though, they will find a truly unique, wonderful looking and extremely clever game in Manifold Garden - one that is filled with smart, fun puzzles, and sights unlike anything in any other game.

 

 

The Ranking:

There's a lot of puzzle games currently on the ranking, so I had expected this one to be difficult, but actually, it narrowed quite quickly. Conceptually, Manifold Garden is really original, and it is quite beautiful to look at, however, the most important part of a puzzler is the puzzles themselves, and as good as a lot of them are in Manifold Garden, that is the one area where some muddled design does occasionally get in the way a bit.

That rules it out of competing seriously with any of the true heavy hitters, but the issue is not extreme or totally debilitating, so the good elements (which are very strong,) are still enough to pull it back up from the low points.

 

As such, looking through the puzzle games on the list, there are two that provide an easy floor, and ceiling; The Pedestrian, and The Last Campfire. 

 

The Pedestrian is a less astounding looking game, but the actual puzzling is slick, smart and never trips on itself the way Manifold Garden occasionally does. While Manifold Garden would take it on looks and concept, The Pedestrian still looks very nice, and takes the mechanical side... and it's big twist is still a big help to it. As such, it holds its place.

 

The Last Campfire is a gorgeous looking game, and has a narrative element that works very well, however, it's visuals would still lose to Manifold Garden, and its puzzles are just a bit too easy across the board to really compete - challenge isn't everything, but the issue The Last Campfire has is that the puzzles are so easy, that the player never rally gets much sense of satisfaction in solving them. Combine that with the less interesting core concept, and Manifold Garden has to place higher.

 

There's only a few games in between, and as fun as they are, I think the the originality of Manifold Garden actually drives it above all three of them. As such, it takes a rightful spot, just below The Pedestrian!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

 

Summary: 

The 2022 "Ultra Deluxe" version of Crows Crows Crows' seminal work of comedic meta-gaming nonsense The Stanley Parable takes the original premise, re-builds it from the ground up in a brand new engine, adds a considerable wealth of new material to, enhance, further break down and cross reference the absurdity of the original game... and results in an experience that feels both old and new... and every bit as funny, pointed and absurdist as it was upon original release.

 

For those unfamiliar with the original incarnation of The Stanley Parable, the whole game was a funny, ridiculous take on the Walking Sim, taking comedic jibes at all elements of gaming - player choice, achievements and trophies, multiple endings, branching paths, secrets, content, the nature of repeat play, reviews... and most of all, the self-entitlement of us - the videogame players!

 

Essentially, The Stanley Parable functions as an iceberg of a game.
The visible tip is an incredibly short, relatively amusing yet fleeting "main" game, in which an office worker named Stanley is at his desk, gets up, notices his co-workers are gone, looks for them, then finds a mind control device beneath his bosses office, turns it off, then escapes into the sunlight. All of this is narrated by The Narrator - a soothing, English upper-crust voice, telling the player the rather dull story of Stanley. 

 

The hidden depths though, is where the meat of the game lies. When, upon completion of the short main game, the player is reset to Stanley's desk once more, and allowed to replay the game, they can opt to do things differently. 

When The Narrator states that Stanley took the left door, the player can elect to take the right one instead, resulting in exhasberation, or comment form the Narrator. 
When presented with a numeric keypad, the player can input the correct code, as learned in previous playthroughs, before The Narrator tells him the answer, resulting in comment. 
If they chose to consistently deviate form The Narrator's tale, more and more meta-conversation will ensue, with The Narrator beginning to comment and discuss the very nature of games, and player choice, and begin changing elements of the game to compensate for the players disobedience. 

 

This is all quite amusing, and often very smart in its skewering commentary on the ultimate pointlessness of much of the busywork of games in general, but what makes The Stanley Parable exceptional, rather than merely an amusing triviality, is the sheer depth of possible ways in which such a seemingly short game can be manipulated, and how many different actions have been accounted for with significant tracts of Narrator dialogue. 

Given that the game is seemingly so short - indeed, it can be completed in under 4minutes and 22 seconds, as one trophy shows - the wealth of different avenues of absurdity found via different combinations of actions is quite mesmerising. Stand in a broom closet without purpose for an extended period of time, and not only does The Narrator have lines of dialogue about it, he has LOTS of lines of dialogue about it - he will at first point out there's no reason for it, then sound exasperated that the player continues to do it, then go on a long diatribe about how it won't result in the "Broom Closet Ending" for you to tell all your friends about. 

Manage to squeeze into an unescapable section of the mind-control-room, and the Narrator not only has some dialogue about it - he has a whole composed song congratulating you for breaking the game before he resets it.

Keep consistently rushing through a section - in pursuit of a particular trophy - and The Narrator will know what you are doing, and talk to you about it.

That ethos - the idea that every possible thing a player might choose to do to "break" the game has been accounted for, and feeds into an overall meta-narrative on the pointlessness of game in general is incredibly well implemented and realised - to the extent that after 50 or 60 different runs, I am still able to consistently find new ways to upset The Narrator!

 

The addition of the Ultra Deluxe content, like the main game, also works on an iceberg design. After playing enough of the main game to see an "ending" of sorts, the player will find themselves able to access a previously locked door, to the "New Content" area. This begins simply enough, by taking a short route though some silly new concepts, primarily commenting on things considered "absent" from the original game in steam reviews by users. The inclusion, for example, of the "Jump Circle" in which the player is able to jump. 
This area, however, eventually opens up into a long meta-commentary on the nature of sequels, with The Narrator guiding the player though a sort of expose stall, showing off ideas for The Stanley Parable 2, and managing to skewer the nature of sequels and additional content with the same comedically barbed wit with which the original game skewered its targets. If anything, this area actually shows an even more absurdist and smart eye for detail, and continues the tradition of both addressing current concerns in the gaming industry, and being cognisant of the zeitgeist. 

 

The sequelisation aspect opens up the comedic stylings to other genres too - and to show off the developer's eye for detail. 
When, for example, The Narrator muses on potentially making the game more like other games, and temporarily transports the player to a near 1-to-1 replica of the firewatch tower from Firewatch, this is used to comment on the idea of Open World games... but is also a remarkably detailed facsimile considering it exists to serve a single joke. When, in reaction to that, he transports the player to a perfect recreation of a Rocket League stage, this is used to point out absurdities of challenge in sports games , but again, the attention to detail - in everything from the visual, to the physics of the Rocket League ball is pretty bang-on. As any fan of Zucker brothers films will know - parody works best when the thing being lampooned is recreated perfectly. The joke only really hits, if the same level of detail that went into the original thing, is present in the spoof.

 

The Ultra Deluxe content also feeds back into the main game, altering aspects of the main narrative in new ways, thus further extending the already hefty replay value of the original game. The gameplay remains roughly the same of course, but no one is playing The Stanley Parable for the mechanical gameplay. They are playing for the comedy, and knowing there is new lines to hear, or new elements to be uncovered is all the catalyst one needs to continue exploring the odd life of Stanley. 

Visually, the game is pretty basic - totally fine for what it needs, and often deliberately basic or "bad" in order to feed into the meta-jokes, though actually the few places where the game has the chance to flourish show that any time the visuals are bad, it is in service of the comedy. The game is perfectly capably of looking great when it needs to. The only difference here is, as opposed to virtually every other game, visuals are ONLY in service of jokes. There is never a flourish for the sake of pure visual engagement.

 

It's actually worth noting- and it is one of the real pillars that The Stanley Parable - virtually nothing about the office Stanley resides in is played for comedy. The actual office is deliberately, uniformly sterile and free of comedic flourishes. Comedy in the game comes entirely from parodying the game design elements, almost never from the situation. Unlike something like Jazzpunk, where the setting is as absurd as the game, the world The Stanley Parable takes place in is, aside form a few specific and fleeting flights of fancy in service of specific jokes, entirely ordinary. 
A big part of the comedic language of the game is that nothing in the game is inherently funny, but every aspect of game design is. There is no avenue of game design left unadulterated by jokes - from the settings menus, to the loading screen, to the sliders and tool tips upon loading, to the player choice elements - and particularly to the achievements and trophies - but having this all strung over such a pedestrian looking game is part of the joke. 

 

Trophies are a particular source of amusement, actually. The ridiculous things we gamers and trophy hunters are willing to do in order to unlock an achievement that is, to all intents and purposes, worthless, are a source of continual ribbing in the game, most pointedly via the trophy list itself. Trophies like "Super Go Outside" which requires the player to play the game after a 10 year absence (or, of course, adjust their system clock to fake that!), or "Get Your First Trophy" which is awarded for getting any other trophy are jokes on their own, while ones like "Click on Door 430 Five times" is used as the catalyst for a long, meandering fetch-quest within the game, where The Narrator will constantly dangle the carrot of the trophy, while getting the player to do a series of ever more ridiculous things, believing that trophy to be just one more task away!

 

Audio is minimal in terms of music - again, all music is purely in service of comedy - however, almost every joke in the game is heavily reliant on a good performance by Kevan Brighting as The Narrator - and he delivers every single time. His performance is brilliant - deadpan, syrupy smooth and consistent in not just hitting the jokes, but hitting them HARD. Without a good voice for The Narrator the game would simply fall flat, but it's virtually impossible, after playing the game, to imagine anyone doing it better. 

 

Overall, The Stanley Parable is really one of the true staples of comedy in games. It was upon release, and a decade of changes in the broad medium has done nothing to lessen its impact. The additional material added in the Ultra Deluxe Edition is of the same supreme quality as the original content, which is laudable in itself, but also adds cumulatively to the overall experience, resulting in a game that feels even bigger than the simple sum of it's two distinct parts. 

 

It hits comedically, consistently skewering the very things you and I love about games, but does it in a way that is pointed, yet ultimately good natured. It manages to point out the absurdities of an absurdity-riddled medium, while remaining a sterling example of it. 
That's hard to do, but The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe makes it feel easy.

 

 

The Ranking:

So, in terms of starting points, this is a damned nightmare! 

There are some comedy games on the ranking, but they are almost entirely comedic games that have a completely different flavour, and generally have much more active gameplay than The Stanley Parable does. The fact is, The Stanley Parable is parody, and so finding a spot among the things it is parodying is difficult to do.

 

My first thought was Accounting+ - that game also comes from Crows Crows Crows, and uses some of the same parody elements, but really it is working more in Rick and Morty style humour, and less in genuine parody of gaming. I also think, as funny as I found Accounting+, there is much more to The Stanley Parable, and what is there is more clever. Humour is entirely a matter of taste, but The Stanley Parable is very much to mine. 

 

That places The Stanley Parable above Accounting+, but there isn't a whole lot to go on otherwise. The best I could do was look at comedic games in general, and really ask whether the overall experience of The Stanley Parable left me hotter or colder. Where that ended up, for me, was somewhere between two games of the same series: Psychonauts, and Psychonauts 2.

I think the comedy of both is probably outshone by the wealth of stuff in The Stanley Parable, but there is also, y'know, a real game in both of those. Psychonauts is great, but it has ages pretty poorly. The controls and gameplay are not what they once were, and I feel okay about The Stanley Parable ranking higher. 

Psychonauts 2, on the other hand, is a great playing game, as well as being varied, funny and engaging, and so I think it has to keep its spot.

 

That places The Stanley Parable somewhere in between, with nothing much to latch on to, and so it comes down to instinct and taste. Virtually every game at that level is a banger to some extent, but the most natural place I found for The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe was just above Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and just below Rogue Legacy.

Might feel odd, but it's the least odd I could manage, and it feels broadly correct overall!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slay the Spire

 

☢️☢️SCIENTIFIC NOTE☢️☢️
I have never played a Deck Builder before. I wasn't even part of the crew that would play Magic: The Gathering or card games of its ilk growing up, and the closest I've come to a deck-builder in videogames prior to Slay the Spire was the marginal addition of deck-building elements in Zoink's genre-mash-up Lost in Random.
As such, I have little context for Slay the Spire's place within that particular genre. This review should be read in that context - the context of someone approaching the game as an entry point to a genre, rather than an aficionado of it. 

 

 

Summary: 

A rogue-like Deck Building game and debut effort of American studio Mega Crit, Slay the Spire was originally released by Humble Bundle for Windows in 2017 to much acclaim... and subsequently released wide on all platforms in 2019, to even more. (Including a nomination that year for best Indie Debut at the game awards, which it ultimately lost to Disco Elysium, but is still not to be sniffed at.)

 

Essentially working as one of the purest possible forms of both the deck-builder, and rogue-like genres, the player takes the role of one of 4 characters - each of whom features their own specific set of possible cards, their own eccentricities, and their own strengths and weaknesses. 
The Ironclad serves as the game's "soldier" class, with a pure offence / defence move-set, and cards based around pure strength or raw defence, 
The Silent acts as a "rogue" with decks built around multiple small attacks and damage-over-time poison, 
The Defect, who's deck is built around his unique ability to "store" and "Release" energy of varying archetypes. 
The DLC-added Watcher, whose ability to switch "stances" proves her deck with some of the most esoteric, yet often tremendously powerful cards - providing the player learns the curious ways in which she can be played effectively. 

 

The eponymous Spire consists of 3 floors (or 4, if the player unlocks the secret 4th level!) through which they must navigate a path through a randomly generated map of different room types (featuring enemies / elite enemies / events / campfires etc -in a similar fashion to Curse of the Dead Gods,) all the while building up from a starter deck of cards that provide his/her moves available in battle by adding new cards through various means, in the hopes of outpacing and outlasting the ever increasing difficulty of the enemies, and ultimately defeating the boss.

 

In terms of many of the core aspects of videogames, Slay the Spire is pretty basic. Most notably, in terms of visuals. While there are some very nice designs in therms of the enemies, the actual visual component of the fighting in Slay the Spire is very, very simplistic. 
The player character and enemies do not animate - their flat, 2D sprites simple shunt forward as they attack, in a rather early-Final-Fantasy-like manner, and there is little in the way of variety in background images. This might sound incredibly basic and un-nuanced (and in that regard, it is,) however, the fact of the matter is that the visual component of Slay the Spire is largely immaterial in the flow of the game. Beyond the initial few hours, the player is likely never to be paying a single iota of attention to the physicality of the enemies, or their own cypher - so absorbed will they be in parsing the symbolic information displayed on the screen around those elements. 

 

At any point, a single enemy might have 6-10 specific symbols below them, each with a numeric value, indicating their status. The player might have another 10-12 of these. The top of the screen will, by the end of a run, be stacked with 10-20 relic symbols indicating various buffs, and each enemy will have specific additional information related to their next move, the strength of it, the dangers they pose...
...and all of that is in addition to the most important information - the cards in the player's hand!

These are actually the most important part of the game to get a nice visual treatment, as it is important that the player is easily able to identify which cards are which, even without having to read the descriptions. (Particularly so, when going for the speedy run achievement, where the player must play blindingly fast!) 
These cards all feature a symbolic representation on them, and these are a source of some nice artwork. There's also a really nice little addition to the game, whereby the player can view the "Beta" artwork (the original designs, prior to a professional artistic treatment,) and i they chose to, even substitute one for the other for specific cards, if they find one easier to identify than the other. 

 

Audio is pretty great in the game - there is nothing in the way of voice work, and little scope for big sweeping musical soundscapes, however, the music for battling and the audio stings for different attacks are much, much more catchy and good than they would ever have to be for this style of game, and that's a welcome surprise!

 

All those elements are tertiary though. The real meat is in the gameplay, and mechanically, the game is, frankly, nothing short of sublime. 

I cannot begin to fathom the intricate level of care that a game like Slay the Spire must demand of its developer - to be able to balance a game so variable that every card is potentially useful in different ways, and where every card can be positively or negatively affected not only by other cards, but by a litany of available buffs and combinations of buffs, potions, relics, enemy tactics etc. Not only does Slay the Spire manage to find that balance on a level I have not personally encountered with such aplomb since playing Klei's ingenious Invisible Inc... they do it 4 times over. Each character is their own unique version of the game, and each plays with a different rule-set.

All 4 decks and characters feels incredibly balanced and smart - allowing for massive over-powering, or under-powering, but only through player action, and never by simply design flaw - that it can only be the result of utterly painstaking trial and error, play-testing and an absurd attention to detail. 

 

That the game manages to present essentially the same basic bones of a game at every run, yet feel so wildly different after only a few battles and events based on RNG offerings and player choices is really impressive - and the fact that a game with such basic visual trappings managed to hook me as hard as it did - consuming my evenings for almost 200 hours - shows how finely detailed and variable the mechanical gameplay is.
I opined at length during the Invisible Inc review, about how ingenious I believed the balancing act of such a variable game was, in managing to remain engaging - be difficult, yet never oppressive, and manage to avoid being able to be "broken" by any specific player build. While I do not think Slay the Spire is quite as variable or quite as expertly balanced as Invisible Inc was, and doesn't quite reach those heights, (that's a shockingly high bar!,) I did find myself consistently thinking about Invisible Inc when playing Slay the Spire, and that should give an indication of the level of mechanical and balancing finesse on show here.

 

I've heard a criticism levelled at Slay the Spire: that it is a game where the player is playing against the RNG aspects more than the enemies.
The fact is, the RNG elements of Slay the Spire do invite the criticism that the difference between a successful run, and a complete trouncing at the hands of its enemies - is purely down to the luck of the draw. Whether the player has made enough penance to RNGesus, and will be rewarded with the right card and relic offerings to complete their desired deck, and rip their way through the final bosses. I understand the notion, but this is not a criticism I personally give much credence to.
Yes, RNG drops are a major factor in determining the success of a run, however, to attribute the difference between success and failure to RNG alone is to fundamentally misunderstand the intended player relationship to the game. The fact is, if the player predetermines what kind of deck they wish to build before beginning a run, then yes, their fate is purely a matter of waiting for a favourable set of drops. However, this is not really the "correct" way to play. Navigating the whims of RNGesus is, itself, the game. The player is not intended to predetermine the kind of deck they will create... they are intended to work with the drops they get, and craft a deck on the fly. Solving the problem of the RNG is a part of the experience of each run.

 

I am unable to state with confidence whether every single seeded run the game is capable of presenting is technically possible to complete (Lord knows, I died enough times to doubt it in my more rage-filled moments!), however, after around 180 hours and across several hundred runs, I am inclined to believe the vast majority are. Some might require more outlandish decks to be built, or more unusual decisions to be made, but I suspect that most are "solvable" even if that chances of this happening can be slim.
What it not possible, however, is to craft a specific deck within the confines of every seed. If the player decides they favour strength decks, rather than defence ones, and sticks rigidly to that idea, even when presented with mediocre strength cards, ignoring the good defence ones, they are likely to find the game putatively punishing. In the same way that a player of an RPG who favours only one team might find certain bosses insurmountable due to a lack of understanding of how to use other, more suitable characters, a Slay the Spire player who learns only one way to build a deck will find themselves blocked more often than they aren't.

What that means is, like any good rogue-like, the player is not only required to master some of the mechanics of the game in order to beat it, they must master all of them. They have no guarantee of being offered exactly the same deck twice. Without any guarantee that the weapon they want will be forthcoming, they cannot simply train with that one - they must train with them all!

 

In terms of the trophies, (I know, I know, but here, they need at least a mention,) it's worth noting that this will be a long one. Most trophies are esoteric affairs -  while they might be crushing to go for individually, hoping for a perfect set of drops, they will happen naturally over time with enough patience. 
However, one specific trophy - for beating "Ascension Level 20" is the potential blocker - both the hardest trophy, and the most time-consuming.

 

The Ascension levels are essentially a set of compounding debuffs. Ascension Level 1, which unlocks after beating the final boss with any of the four characters, will add more enemies to a new run. Beating that, and unlocking Ascension Level 2, will keep these extra enemies, and make all enemies more deadly. Level 3 makes Elites more deadly, Level 4 makes bosses more deadly, etc. etc. with each one retaining all previous debuffs, and adding a new one.
Each of these ascension "ladders" is available for each character, but they are independent of one another. If a player reaches Level 15 with the Ironclad, but finds themselves stuck, and wishes to try with the Silent, they need to start again from Level 1. 

 

This means that, even if the player is fantastic at the game, the Ascension runs are liable to take at least 20-30 hours. For most average players it's more than likely in the 100 hour range. (For me, it was about 130... shitty gamer that I am!)

That is no small commitment for the trophy-hungry. I will state that I unequivocally believe this to be a more than rewarding time - this is a case, like with Curse of the Dead Gods, where the journey is long and hard, but fun every second, as opposed to, say, RAD, where the game wears out its welcome long before the grind is finished - but it is a long time, and worth knowing for anyone going into the game with a shiny platinum as the goal.

Overall, Slay the Spire is a great game - and one that has been revelatory to me personally. 
It would be ridiculous at this point to describe myself as a "Deck Builder Fan" - I have only played this one, of course, and so really, I should more accurately be described merely as a "Slay the Spire Fan"...
...but the fact of the matter is, I'm now such a fan of Slay the Spire, that I know for a fact I will be checking out some more Deck Building games on the back of it.

 

That says something pretty great about a game. If it can both introduce a new player to a genre, and guarantee that they want to seek out more of them to recapture the feeling, that's a hell of a thing!

 

 

The Ranking:

We're playing in the upper echelons here, as Slay the Spire's peers are other rogue-likes, and the two that provide an immediate floor and ceiling are clear to me: Rogue Legacy, and Curse of the Dead Gods.

 

I do feel that Curse of the Dead Gods remains the better game - it has all the best elements that Slay the Spire has, but also adds a more robust fighting mechanic to its variable gameplay. It doesn't feature multiple characters, but the actual moment to moment is so variable and so much fun, it has to hold its place.

 

Rogue Legacy is also a fantastic game, but I do think the raw mechanics of Slay the Spire has it beat. While I enjoyed Rogue Legacy immensely, the fact is, I spent less time with Rogue Legacy overall, and when I finished with it, I did not leave it on my system. With Slay the Spire, I did - so confident was I that I will be returning to it periodically. In a rogue-like, I really do think that desire for more, even after hundreds of runs and a platinum under my belt is the most important deciding factor in ranking. 

 

Hades falls in that bracket too, and while I probably do enjoy the moment to moment gameplay of Slay the Spire a smidge more than Hades', Hades does have it beat on all tertiary elements - Music, visuals, narrative etc. While that was true of Curse of the Dead Gods also, Slay the Spire is playing with more of a visual and auditory handicap, and there just isn't the force behind its overall package to propel it past Hades. 

 

That narrows the field further - and I think it can be even more narrowed by a new floor and ceiling: awesome metroidvania Dandara, and Twin-Stick Shooter Dead Nation. Slay the Spire feels right falling between those two games to me... and with so few games in the running now, finding a spot felt a bit easier.

 

In the end, the best placement for Slay the Spire feels like just below Dandara actually, and just above awesome action narrative game Control... and so there it shall go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there we have it folks!

Technically all but one game was a Bonus Game this batch - so didn't even flag them as such, but at least this catches me up to my own playing for now!

 

No requests this time - I'm actually caught up on those too, so any requests made right now are guaranteed to be done in a timely manner!

 

 Hitman 3 remains as 'Current Most Awesome Game'!

LA Cops stays as the worst-of-the-worst, with the title of 'Least Awesome Game'

 

 

What games will be coming along next time to challenge for the top spot... or the bottom rung?

That's up to randomness, me.... and YOU!

 

Remember:

 

SPECIAL NOTE

 

If there are any specific games anyone wants to see get ranked sooner rather than later - drop a message, and I'll mark them for 'Priority Ranking'! 

 

The only stipulation is that they must be on my profile, at 100% (S-Rank)....

 and aren't already on the Rankings! 

 

 

 

Catch y'all later my Scientific Brothers and Sisters! 

[Copanele]

On 5/23/2022 at 9:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

 

The Ranking:

So, in terms of starting points, this is a damned nightmare! 

There are some comedy games on the ranking, but they are almost entirely comedic games that have a completely different flavour, and generally have much more active gameplay than The Stanley Parable does. The fact is, The Stanley Parable is parody, and so finding a spot among the things it is parodying is difficult to do.

 

Not gonna lie, I did wonder myself how would you rank this one  because Stanley Parable is one of the most anti "normal" game out there. Not abnormal, that's a different word for different games ? regardless great job!

 

Also one day I will have to try Slay the Spire, it really got me curious. 

 

Now, I haven't done this in a while, but may I request a game? While browsing through your finished games (inspiration to find something that would keep me away from Catherine) I found a common game that wasn't covered so far - Bayonetta. If you remember it still (2013 is a while ago), could you include it in your scientific report? 

[DrBloodmoney]

On 25/05/2022 at 7:29 AM, Copanele said:

Not gonna lie, I did wonder myself how would you rank this one  because Stanley Parable is one of the most anti "normal" game out there. Not abnormal, that's a different word for different games  regardless great job!

 

I know right?

It felt a bit like trying to rank The Naked Gun in a list of serious cop movies... ?

 

Quote

Also one day I will have to try Slay the Spire, it really got me curious. 

 

You know, it's really hard for me to gauge if someone with like it, but if you're at all curious, I say go for it - I mean, I was basically completely clueless about the whole genre, and so all I had going for me was a vague, indefinable curiosity, and I ended up getting completely absorbed, so if there was ever an endorsement for Slay the Spire as an entry point to the genre, I am it! ?

 

Quote

Now, I haven't done this in a while, but may I request a game? While browsing through your finished games (inspiration to find something that would keep me away from Catherine) I found a common game that wasn't covered so far - Bayonetta. If you remember it still (2013 is a while ago), could you include it in your scientific report? 

 

Absolutely man, flagged for Priority Assignment with your name! ?

Edited May 30, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[Neef-GT5]

Back in these waters after several weeks away from the Internet & so glad to see the lord of this thread active once more ?

 

Many thanks @DrBloodmoney for the latest reviews, with a particular mention to Portal 2 - I can’t believe I had failed at requesting it earlier ?

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by Neef-GT5

[DrBloodmoney]

17 minutes ago, Neef-GT5 said:

Back in these waters after several weeks away from the Internet & so glad to see the lord of this thread active once more

 

 

Quote

Many thanks @DrBloodmoney for the latest reviews, with a particular mention to Portal 2 - I can’t believe I had failed at requesting it earlier

 

Haha- I can't believe it took me so long to get around to it actually - there was a while there where I was like.... "I know I've ranked most of what is likely to be obvious top 10... but theres something I'm forgetting..." ?

 

...despite the fact I must have actually mentioned Portal 2 in like 15 different puzzle game reviews prior to actually ranking it!  ?

Edited May 27, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

☢️☢️SCIENTIFIC METHOD UPDATE☢️☢️

 

Hey Science Chums - as the last few "split-batches" have evidenced... I'm having trouble keeping on top of the science lately! ?

The new S-Ranks being Bonus Games in each batch, coupled with the slower pace is meaning that by the time I've done 5 legacy reviews, there can often be 3-5 bonus games to add on - and those ones are often even longer reviews, as they are a bit easier to do... and I want to get thoughts down while they're still fresh in my mind!

 

I thought about cutting the "Standard" batch down to 3 games + Bonus games, but actually, my solution going forward  is going to be a little different...

...I'm just going to be a bit more fluid about it.

 

I'm going to wait a bit longer to actually announce what's in a batch, and base the number of legacy reviews on how many Bonus Games are going in it. If I've finished nothing, there might be 5 legacy reviews, but if I've been on a tear and finished 5 new games, there might be not a single one... though I suspect most will fall somewhere in between (hopefully)!

 

Obviously, I'll still do my darnedest to keep the requests at the top of the pile - though there are naturally fewer of them now, simple because the pool of available legacy games is shallowing a bit now!

 

 

[Beyondthegrave07]

I remember reading about this thread when it was created... I was under the impression that you were at 200 games completed... Not 500+, holy shit!

 

Best of luck on completing your scientific research. I'm sure the final results will be epic.

 

[DrBloodmoney]

40 minutes ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

I remember reading about this thread when it was created... I was under the impression that you were at 200 games completed... Not 500+, holy shit!

 

Best of luck on completing your scientific research. I'm sure the final results will be epic.

 

 

Haha, thanks man - yeah... this thread is pretty much the definition of biting off more than you can chew! ?

 

Some days I question if it's ever going to get finished! ??

[rjkclarke]

First off, another TWO batches of awesome reviews! Get in! I'm just going to write this comment now, before I have a repeat of what happened last time ?.... Essentially, I was about to post a comment about the batch before last, and then you dropped the latest batch the day I was going to do it, so I was all NOW I HAVE TO WRITE EVEN MORE

 

Okay, okay enough rambling (that's hard for me )

 

Sooooooo...... Batman: The Telltale series...

 

That was a pretty accurate rendition of that game, and unfortunately I found myself agreeing with a whole lot of it. That's a weird one from Troy Baker, I agree that he kind of half asses it. He does have the odd distinction of playing both Batman and The Joker in different games though... I think he plays Joker way better than he plays Batman in this one. I do think Troy Baker plays the Bruce Wayne side of the character far better than Batman though.

 

That being said - don't rule out ever playing the second Telltale Batman, it isn't reinventing the wheel or anything, it is better than the first one though, but it does do some genuinely quite out of the box things with established Batman characters. I really dug that version of The Riddler, because it is so unlike any version of The Riddler you see anywhere else, yet also remains true to the character in a way that I think a few people seem to overlook. 

 

I must say I'm kind of intrigued by those Doodle Devil/God games..... The thing is, from everything you wrote, they definitely seem like the sort of thing you'd probably need a Vita to get the most out of, as you mention, they seem very tailored to the pick-up and put down nature of a handheld. I did see the PS4 ones on offer recently, but it just doesn't feel right to play them on a huge TV, maybe some for if I ever do get my hands on a Vita.

 

Portal 2 though! What a fantastic review that was! That was an absolute joy to read through, I really enjoyed that. 

 

Man you've made me really feel like I missed out on that one. I really loved the first Portal, and for whatever reason I just never really bothered to pick up Portal 2, I'm not entirely sure why either. I love Stephen Merchant and J.K Simmons so that should be an immediate plus for it, I love puzzle games......

 

Yeah, looks like I made a big ol' screw up by not playing Portal 2 yet, so it looks like you might have made me try and find a dusty old PS3 copy of it, or at the very least play the PC version.

 

You also managed to put my mind at ease fantastically with that review of Virginia! Loved reading that one a whole lot too Man was that one I was worried about writing in the future - and also happens to be one I'd have to put off now for those plagiarism reasons you and I seem to worry about, when reviewing games we've both played, yet have very similar thoughts on.

 

It's such an odd game, but such a great one, if you let it be. Not to be too hippie, but "if you just like, open your mind man!" Or just don't expect it to be something it isn't I suppose. I really liked your comparison to the characters looking like the Nintendo Mii's too, very accurate, I hadn't really thought about it until you mentioned it.

 

I love that you brought up the fact there is an illusion of control. It's an underrated thing I think, to take that away from the player, yet still be able to provide a pretty intriguing and compelling experience.

 

Last Stop on the other hand... That sounds a little frustrating to say the least. I might be doing a bit old skiperoo on that one.So "You played it so I don't have to" seems to have reared its ugly head again. Let's hope their next game can hit some of the highs of Virginia, fingers crossed.

 

I think you may have got yourself another +1 to my backlog with Manifold Garden. That's one of those games I've been intrigued by so many times during sales, yet never quite gotten the urge to actually hit purchase, with that fantastic review, I might just have gotten a reason.

 

That sounds incredibly fun to try and unravel some of it - the notion of a zero percent run, or what that entails here, is also a pretty awesome one actually.

 

Quite possible a +1 with The Stanley Parable as well. I've heard so many great things about that game, even more now. I don't know why, but I've always had this sort of nagging doubt in my mind, that the humour would just make me constantly eyeroll instead of actually laugh. You pretty much put my mind at ease here. I like the sound of it. I had no idea you could complete the game in as little as 4 or 5 minutes, how odd.

 

Lucky for me, Slay the Spire was already on my backlog, as I quite like the few games I've played that incorporate deck building into them. You have made me want to bump it up the list a little further though, because that sounded like such a ridiculously enjoyable time, despite how much time you poured into it. The fact you still want to play it even after putting that amount of time into it says a whole lot about the quality of the game as a whole, so I'm looking forward to getting into that one in the future!

 

Now that my fingers are suitably bleeding! I suppose I'd better be on my merry way, but thanks again for another couple of doses of absolutely cracking reading material dude!

Edited May 30, 2022 by rjkclarke

[Zvetiki]

11 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Obviously, I'll still do my darnedest to keep the requests at the top of the pile - though there are naturally fewer of them now, simple because the pool of available legacy games is shallowing a bit now!

 

Well, then I hereby request a review of a game which undeservedly often flies under the radar due to lack of a Platinum: "Papers, Please". (Please note that I have utmost trust in your scientific method to come up with an appropriate ranking, Comrade. Glory to Arstotzka!)

[realm722]

On 5/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Overall, Manifold Garden is an absolutely wonderful artistic achievement, and a very solid, very clever core concept... which is put to use very well in some spots... but gets easily muddled or confused at times. Because the game is inherently confusing in pure mechanics, the mixing up of micro and macro puzzles, while interesting, tends to detract from both, rather than add to them. The sum of its parts adds up to more confusion than the game really needed to introduce.

 

Already had it on my Wishlist but now even more so! The banner images seen on the game profile on the website are super visually evocative and I'm glad to see that holds true throughout the actual game. I have zero issues using a guide for puzzle games so I'll def scoop it up! Also, thank you for teaching me a new word! "Stultifying" is fantastic!

 

On 5/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Slay the Spire

 

Woooo I'm so glad I finally got around to reading this! I always frequent some of the profiles on here to see what some of y'all are playing (Cassy's, Copa's, etc...) and when I saw you were playing Slay the Spire I couldn't wait to get your take. I also entered the game as a complete newbie to the deck builder genre. 

 

On 5/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

In terms of many of the core aspects of videogames, Slay the Spire is pretty basic. Most notably, in terms of visuals. While there are some very nice designs in therms of the enemies, the actual visual component of the fighting in Slay the Spire is very, very simplistic. The player character and enemies do not animate - their flat, 2D sprites simple shunt forward as they attack, in a rather early-Final-Fantasy-like manner, and there is little in the way of variety in background images. This might sound incredibly basic and un-nuanced (and in that regard, it is,) however, the fact of the matter is that the visual component of Slay the Spire is largely immaterial in the flow of the game. Beyond the initial few hours, the player is likely never to be paying a single iota of attention to the physicality of the enemies, or their own cypher - so absorbed will they be in parsing the symbolic information displayed on the screen around those elements. 

 

I'm glad you mentioned this point. One of the reasons I held off on buying the game for a while is because I honestly thought it was hideous. Hell, even having invested nearly 80 hours into it for the platinum, the game is far from a looker but the mechanical and strategic depth is so damn excellent that once you're grinding Ascension difficulties, the visual elements fall into the background for the real meat and potatoes of the game. 

 

On 5/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

That the game manages to present essentially the same basic bones of a game at every run, yet feel so wildly different after only a few battles and events based on RNG offerings and player choices is really impressive - and the fact that a game with such basic visual trappings managed to hook me as hard as it did - consuming my evenings for almost 200 hours - shows how finely detailed and variable the mechanical gameplay is.

 

Hahaha yes!!!! I warned on my own post that the game is remarkably addictive. I ended up playing it at the perfect time of March 2020 when the outbreak was starting(in the US) and being quarantined off meant getting sucked into its vortex wasn't too terrible all things considered. I'll also in my personal experience that once you get the hang of the game and know the basics of the mechanics and it all boils down to execution - Slay the Spire is a BRILLIANT game to play while listening to podcasts or watching TV/movies. I personally watched all of Ozark Season 3. 

 

On 5/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Yes, RNG drops are a major factor in determining the success of a run, however, to attribute the difference between success and failure to RNG alone is to fundamentally misunderstand the intended player relationship to the game. The fact is, if the player predetermines what kind of deck they wish to build before beginning a run, then yes, their fate is purely a matter of waiting for a favourable set of drops. However, this is not really the "correct" way to play. Navigating the whims of RNGesus is, itself, the game. The player is not intended to predetermine the kind of deck they will create... they are intended to work with the drops they get, and craft a deck on the fly. Solving the problem of the RNG is a part of the experience of each run.

 

Spot on. You are 100% correct. I too read that thread complaining about the RNG on the forums. The reality is, this is a game you're INTENDED to have several hundreds runs of experience with. Try to hamfist your way into a specific deck so you can specifically attain 1-2 very specific trophy requirements begging for the game to troll you and not give you what you need. I personally aimed for climbing all the ascension ranks first, and when I thought a situation may present itself to go for a trophy if I got 1-2 things in my favor (such as finishing the final boss Donu with "Feed) only THEN would I adjust my strategy to make it more of a feasibility. I managed to get that trophy on an Ascension 9. Playing it that way I think would make players a lot of the RNG frustrations. 

 

On 5/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Overall, Slay the Spire is a great game - and one that has been revelatory to me personally. 
It would be ridiculous at this point to describe myself as a "Deck Builder Fan" - I have only played this one, of course, and so really, I should more accurately be described merely as a "Slay the Spire Fan"...
...but the fact of the matter is, I'm now such a fan of Slay the Spire, that I know for a fact I will be checking out some more Deck Building games on the back of it.

 

You and me both! I personally purchased a game called "One Step from Eden" solely based on the fact someone described it as "something like Slay the Spire". I uh... played it for about an hour several months ago, didn't pop any trophies, and haven't touched it since due to being extremely intimidated by its complexities. I'll undoubtedly try to return at some point in the future but with so few trophy aids out there I'm hesitant to do so for a while. 

 

On 5/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

I do feel that Curse of the Dead Gods remains the better game - it has all the best elements that Slay the Spire has, but also adds a more robust fighting mechanic to its variable gameplay. It doesn't feature multiple characters, but the actual moment to moment is so variable and so much fun, it has to hold its place.

 

Wow! I know you said I may have given you a hidden gem in Going Under but to see you rate Curse of the Dead Gods THIS highly to comfortably reign supreme over StS is something. I'm glad I picked it up for free. The trophy grind is intimidating but I'm a complete sucker for roguelites. When the freshness of Hades wears off in my mind, I may have to consider it for my next roguelite itch!

 

I'm a little bit blown away at your final ranking coming in at 58th out of 320. I understand wholeheartedly why given the reasons you stated but that seems so low ?. I looked at my own and it's 13th out of 209 games. If I may... in an extremely strange and perhaps too personal request, would you ever feel comfortable sharing your final stats from the game? Slay the Spire has a simply immaculate stats tracker that lets you see what enemy killed you, all your relics each run, how long each lasted, etc... I included mine in my post but I love seeing how other people played the game and trying to see differences in strategies. PS5 also has a super convenient record button which you can upload to YouTube/Twitter with ease. If not, no worries! 

[DrBloodmoney]

13 hours ago, rjkclarke said:

Sooooooo...... Batman: The Telltale series...

 

That was a pretty accurate rendition of that game, and unfortunately I found myself agreeing with a whole lot of it. That's a weird one from Troy Baker, I agree that he kind of half asses it. He does have the odd distinction of playing both Batman and The Joker in different games though... I think he plays Joker way better than he plays Batman in this one. I do think Troy Baker plays the Bruce Wayne side of the character far better than Batman though.

 

That being said - don't rule out ever playing the second Telltale Batman, it isn't reinventing the wheel or anything, it is better than the first one though, but it does do some genuinely quite out of the box things with established Batman characters. I really dug that version of The Riddler, because it is so unlike any version of The Riddler you see anywhere else, yet also remains true to the character in a way that I think a few people seem to overlook. 

 

That's cool - it's been a long time since I played a Telltale actually - I think I have that Guardians of the Galaxy one they did gathering digital dust somewhere in my backlog, and might actually have the second Batman one in there too someplace - I'd have to check. To be honest, if I return to them, probably my first stop would be the final Walking Dead one, as I never did finish up that whole arc, but good to know that the Dark Knight is not down for the count!

 

 

Quote

I must say I'm kind of intrigued by those Doodle Devil/God games..... The thing is, from everything you wrote, they definitely seem like the sort of thing you'd probably need a Vita to get the most out of, as you mention, they seem very tailored to the pick-up and put down nature of a handheld. I did see the PS4 ones on offer recently, but it just doesn't feel right to play them on a huge TV, maybe some for if I ever do get my hands on a Vita.

 

Oh yeah - for sure they are not suited at all to the big screen - these are like Bejeweled or Threes or something of that nature  -perfectly suited as a secondary thing, or a passer of empty time, but not so good as a dedicated attention-grabber!

 

Quote

Portal 2 though! What a fantastic review that was! That was an absolute joy to read through, I really enjoyed that. 

 

Man you've made me really feel like I missed out on that one. I really loved the first Portal, and for whatever reason I just never really bothered to pick up Portal 2, I'm not entirely sure why either. I love Stephen Merchant and J.K Simmons so that should be an immediate plus for it, I love puzzle games......

 

Yeah, looks like I made a big ol' screw up by not playing Portal 2 yet, so it looks like you might have made me try and find a dusty old PS3 copy of it, or at the very least play the PC version.

 

Ho boy - you absolutely should check that one out - it's a wild ride, but so digestible and consuming, it's liable to spit you out the back-side of it without you even noticing the time has passed and it's dark outside ?

 

I think it can be rough now for Playstation players who haven't started it before, as (I think?) there might be some unobtainable trophies in it, but any way you can get a hold of the game, is worth doing. (Frankly, I think it's worth playing, even given the unobtainable, but that's one that can put folks off, and I understand that impulse for sure)

 

Quote

You also managed to put my mind at ease fantastically with that review of Virginia! Loved reading that one a whole lot too Man was that one I was worried about writing in the future - and also happens to be one I'd have to put off now for those plagiarism reasons you and I seem to worry about, when reviewing games we've both played, yet have very similar thoughts on.

 

It's such an odd game, but such a great one, if you let it be. Not to be too hippie, but "if you just like, open your mind man!" Or just don't expect it to be something it isn't I suppose. I really liked your comparison to the characters looking like the Nintendo Mii's too, very accurate, I hadn't really thought about it until you mentioned it.

 

I love that you brought up the fact there is an illusion of control. It's an underrated thing I think, to take that away from the player, yet still be able to provide a pretty intriguing and compelling experience.

 

Last Stop on the other hand... That sounds a little frustrating to say the least. I might be doing a bit old skiperoo on that one.So "You played it so I don't have to" seems to have reared its ugly head again. Let's hope their next game can hit some of the highs of Virginia, fingers crossed.

 

Yeah, man, Last Stop was a pretty huge let down after having loved Virginia so much. ?

 

I was really trying to love it, but it just kept doing things to undercut that, and by the time it was getting to its conclusion, it had just completely lost me. It's actually one of those odd ones - I felt it was such a disappointment, but most reviews I've seen are somewhere between tepid and good, so maybe I'm missing something?... but I can't say I relish the idea of ever replaying it to see if that was the case!

 

Quote

I think you may have got yourself another +1 to my backlog with Manifold Garden. That's one of those games I've been intrigued by so many times during sales, yet never quite gotten the urge to actually hit purchase, with that fantastic review, I might just have gotten a reason.

 

That sounds incredibly fun to try and unravel some of it - the notion of a zero percent run, or what that entails here, is also a pretty awesome one actually.

 

Oh, it's worth the play for sure - that Zero Percent run though - HOLY HELL, I am confounded that anyone ever figured that all out without assistance! 

 

That's one where I struggled for a long while finding some scraps of the solution, then when I finally looked up some help, a few of the solutions had me ready to hand over my Portal Gun and Rubik's Cube and retire from the Puzzle Game Force...

To paraphrase Lt. Murtaugh "I'm too dumb for this shit!" ?

 

Quote

Quite possible a +1 with The Stanley Parable as well. I've heard so many great things about that game, even more now. I don't know why, but I've always had this sort of nagging doubt in my mind, that the humour would just make me constantly eyeroll instead of actually laugh. You pretty much put my mind at ease here. I like the sound of it. I had no idea you could complete the game in as little as 4 or 5 minutes, how odd.

 

Oh, it's cool - I do think it skirts close to that eye-rolling line occasionally, but it never really crosses it, and while some bits are almost a little too cute or clever for it's own good, the overall is still accurate and smart enough to deal with that.

 

Having said that... I think the other game that falls in it's meta-camp I've played recently is Doki Doki Literature Club+ (to be reviewed soon... well, actually, I've written it already...) and while it does things differently, I think it will likely land even higher than Stanley did on the rankings...

 

Quote

Lucky for me, Slay the Spire was already on my backlog, as I quite like the few games I've played that incorporate deck building into them. You have made me want to bump it up the list a little further though, because that sounded like such a ridiculously enjoyable time, despite how much time you poured into it. The fact you still want to play it even after putting that amount of time into it says a whole lot about the quality of the game as a whole, so I'm looking forward to getting into that one in the future!

 

Ha - it's funny, I finished up Jett: The Far Shore the other night, and it was a bit late to start anything new.. so I celebrated by playing another run of Slay the Spire! ?

 

It's a ringing endorsement for a game where just playing a run for fun, after having got a >100 hour platinum in it is a comfort food, and not a chore!

 

Quote

Now that my fingers are suitably bleeding! I suppose I'd better be on my merry way, but thanks again for another couple of doses of absolutely cracking reading material dude!

 

Thanks dude - and I appreciate the comments, as always! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, realm722 said:

Already had it on my Wishlist but now even more so! The banner images seen on the game profile on the website are super visually evocative and I'm glad to see that holds true throughout the actual game. I have zero issues using a guide for puzzle games so I'll def scoop it up! Also, thank you for teaching me a new word! "Stultifying" is fantastic!

 

Well worth it, man!

I'd recommend avoiding the guides for the first playthrough - there's not much in there to really confound you in the "normal" path, but yeah, no shame in referring to one for the final couple of trophies, because DAAAAAAAAAAMN! ?

 

Quote

Woooo I'm so glad I finally got around to reading this! I always frequent some of the profiles on here to see what some of y'all are playing (Cassy's, Copa's, etc...) and when I saw you were playing Slay the Spire I couldn't wait to get your take. I also entered the game as a complete newbie to the deck builder genre. 

 

I'm glad you mentioned this point. One of the reasons I held off on buying the game for a while is because I honestly thought it was hideous. Hell, even having invested nearly 80 hours into it for the platinum, the game is far from a looker but the mechanical and strategic depth is so damn excellent that once you're grinding Ascension difficulties, the visual elements fall into the background for the real meat and potatoes of the game. 

 

Hahaha yes!!!! I warned on my own post that the game is remarkably addictive. I ended up playing it at the perfect time of March 2020 when the outbreak was starting(in the US) and being quarantined off meant getting sucked into its vortex wasn't too terrible all things considered. I'll also in my personal experience that once you get the hang of the game and know the basics of the mechanics and it all boils down to execution - Slay the Spire is a BRILLIANT game to play while listening to podcasts or watching TV/movies. I personally watched all of Ozark Season 3. 

 

Ha - that's true - I made it through like 4 seasons of the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast while playing that game! ?

 

Quote

Spot on. You are 100% correct. I too read that thread complaining about the RNG on the forums. The reality is, this is a game you're INTENDED to have several hundreds runs of experience with. Try to hamfist your way into a specific deck so you can specifically attain 1-2 very specific trophy requirements begging for the game to troll you and not give you what you need. I personally aimed for climbing all the ascension ranks first, and when I thought a situation may present itself to go for a trophy if I got 1-2 things in my favor (such as finishing the final boss Donu with "Feed) only THEN would I adjust my strategy to make it more of a feasibility. I managed to get that trophy on an Ascension 9. Playing it that way I think would make players a lot of the RNG frustrations. 

 

Yeah - this was basically my strategy too - I figured if I could get through the Ascension trophies, everything else would be a cake-walk, and in the end, I unlocked all but three trophies just while doing the initial "secret ending" playthroughs of the characters, and that ascension journey!

 

I can imagine that it's like most rogue-likes... if you decide to go for a specific trophy, you are going to have a miserable time, but if you just accept that they'll come when they come, you can just enjoy the game as God / the Devs intended, and will have a whale of a time!

 

Quote

You and me both! I personally purchased a game called "One Step from Eden" solely based on the fact someone described it as "something like Slay the Spire". I uh... played it for about an hour several months ago, didn't pop any trophies, and haven't touched it since due to being extremely intimidated by its complexities. I'll undoubtedly try to return at some point in the future but with so few trophy aids out there I'm hesitant to do so for a while. 

 

Well, I've got Griftlands on my system ready to go... I just need to ween myself off the afterglow of Slay the Spire first, since I suspect that game will have a long tail of memory about card combinations!

 

I suspect Griftlands will be excellent in it's own right (Klei have yet to do me dirty!) but I shall report the science as soon as I'm able!

 

Quote

Wow! I know you said I may have given you a hidden gem in Going Under but to see you rate Curse of the Dead Gods THIS highly to comfortably reign supreme over StS is something. I'm glad I picked it up for free. The trophy grind is intimidating but I'm a complete sucker for roguelites. When the freshness of Hades wears off in my mind, I may have to consider it for my next roguelite itch!

 

It's a hell of a game - quite a "pure" roguelike in a lot of ways - it doesn't have, say, the metroidvania aspects of Dead Cells, or the narrative and visual hooks of Hades, but all that energy that goes into the stuff around the edges in other rogue likes just seems to have been poured into great balancing, and systems upon systems upon systems ?

 

For my money, Invisible Inc probably remains the most systematically dense rogue like I've ever played (and also my personal favourite,) but CotDG is probably second in that particular interconnected-systems-arms-race!

 

Quote

I'm a little bit blown away at your final ranking coming in at 58th out of 320. I understand wholeheartedly why given the reasons you stated but that seems so low . I looked at my own and it's 13th out of 209 games. If I may... in an extremely strange and perhaps too personal request, would you ever feel comfortable sharing your final stats from the game? Slay the Spire has a simply immaculate stats tracker that lets you see what enemy killed you, all your relics each run, how long each lasted, etc... I included mine in my post but I love seeing how other people played the game and trying to see differences in strategies. PS5 also has a super convenient record button which you can upload to YouTube/Twitter with ease. If not, no worries! 

 

Ill have a look through to see if I can see my final ascension run - I knew that was a thing, but I didn't look at it too often, and I'm a total novice at taking screenshots and exporting them, butI'll see what I can do!

 

I was definitely Ironclad Strength-heavy build though (my final "double-boss" was Timekeeper followed by The Awakened one, and I do remember I had such high compounded strength, that I think I killed The Awakened's second form on the first hand after he appeared! Praise be to the Pyramid Relic!) ?

 

 

 

 

 

12 hours ago, Zvetiki said:

 

Well, then I hereby request a review of a game which undeservedly often flies under the radar due to lack of a Platinum: "Papers, Please". (Please note that I have utmost trust in your scientific method to come up with an appropriate ranking, Comrade. Glory to Arstotzka!)

 

Absolutely mate - added to the priority list with your name ?

 

The next batch is almost done, so probably will be in the one after that

Edited May 31, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

 

!!SCIENCE UPDATE!!

 

 

The next (somewhat) randomly selected games to be submitted for scientific analysis shall be:

 

 

Legacy

Bayonetta
Path of Sin: Greed

 

New
Road 96
Unpacking
Doki Doki Literature Club+
JETT: The Far Shore

 

 

 

Subject(s) in RED marked for PRIORITY ASSIGNEMENT

[Care of @Copanele ]

 

 

 

Can 'Current Most Awesome' game, Hitman 3, continue its glorious reign?

 

Is gaming stain LA Cops ever going to lose the title of 'Least Awesome Game'?

 

 

Let's find out, Science Chums!

[DrBloodmoney]

 

  NEW SCIENTIFIC RESULTS ARE IN! 

 

 

Hello Science-Don's and Science-Megans (that's right, screw you Science Bettys!), as promised (and in some cases requested), here are the latest results of our great scientific endeavour!

 

 

 

 

Bayonetta

 

Summary: 

A stylish hack n' slash, (of the Devil May Cry strain, as opposed to the God of War variety,) from Platinum Games, Bayonetta released in 2009 on PS3 and Xbox360, and while the franchise lived on beyond the original game with Bayonetta 2 in 2014 and Bayonetta 3 scheduled for release this year, the cancellation of Bayonetta 2 during development and subsequent revival of the project via a cash injection from Nintendo locked it up as a Nintendo exclusive from that point.  

In this original game, the player takes the role of the eponymous Bayonetta, a member of an ancient order of "Umbra Witches" who's eternal opposition to their opposing faction - the "Lumen Sages" - has provided a delicate balance to the universe, and maintained order and the passage of time. 
At the outset, Bayonetta awakes from a 50 decade slumber without her memory, having been sealed away for reasons she is unaware of, in possession of a mystical jewel - one of two Eyes of the World. joining forces with various tertiary characters - humans Luka and Enzo (who provides the comic relief, to some modest success, and, at times, clanging failure,) a young girl named Cereza, and a few other more ethereal figures in the eternal, cosmic war, she sets about to discover her past, the reasons for her sleep, and redress the balance of the universe.

The whole narrative of Bayonetta is decidedly bizarre and silly - deliberately, (and often quite winningly,) so. The whole grand tapestry of the narrative lore borrows heavily from Dante's Divine Comedy, and from the more cosmically-imbued elements of Old Testament lore. It is reliant on some prior knowledge of the divine hierarchy and descriptions of the choirs of Heavenly Angels, though these elements are generally by way of a heavy dose of tongue-in-cheek comedy, winking nods to pop culture, anime tropes, and more than a little bit of pseudo-sexualised bubble-gum-lipstick feminism. 
Imagine, if you will, The Christopher Walken film The Prophecy, as re-written by Joss Whedon and James Gunn, starring Lucy Lawless at her most Xena, then filmed by Stephen Chow.

It's a fun narrative foundation, and one that works pretty well. There aren't too many games out there that have dabbled in the cosmic Old Testament angelic lore so directly - Messiah, of course, and a few others before it, (and on PS3 specifically, I would argue that El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron did do it better) - however, most avoid that realm, or touch it only very lightly. Those that do have a tendency to get bogged down with explanations or exposition. 
Bayonetta avoids this, simply by opting to fire forward like a rocket, and let the player see if they can keep their hands on its lore as it does, knowing it doesn't really matter if they catch the nuance or not - the fireworks and bedazzling visuals will erase the confusion from their minds anyway.
For a game that is pulling from so much archaic scripture, it is remarkably light in terms of hanging a lantern on those influences - or investing any emotional stakes in it. Indeed, when Bayonetta does get bogged down in over long exposition or explanation (as does happen on occasion,) it is never for those reasons. Generally, it is simply in trying to explain its main narrative, rather than the lore that makes up its basis. 

That actually highlights the less good aspect of Bayonetta's narrative - the driving, cinematic part. The lore of Bayonetta is sound, but the "movie" aspect it layers on top is pretty ropey. It is continually reliant on plot twists and re-contextualisiation (as most narratives with an amnesiac protagonist are,) however, it suffers a little in terms of stakes, simple because the developers are so desperate to make Bayonetta herself feel "bad-ass". 
Because in every instance, she is made to be cool, "sexy", in control and never-a-hair-out-of-place in every scenario, and never anything else, she has no real human side to latch onto. When some massive reveal happens, it has a cerebral impact on the player in terms of altering their understanding of the plot as a whole... but there is no possibility of emotional reaction to it, because the character herself has none. Bayonetta has no visible or discernible emotions, and therefore no real stake in what she is doing, and so the game feels a bit shallow. Huge, seismic, cosmic things are going on, but beyond their relevance as a delivery mechanism for titilating semi-nude shots of Bayonetta as she does a special move, such as turning her clothes into weaponised hair (yes, you read that right)...  the player is often oddly disengaged from the relevance of them.

 

This isn't a crushing anchor on the game, of course - Bayonetta is not meant to be an emotional journey, it is meant to be a pseudo-religious blockbuster thrill ride. That it falls flat when it tries to coax emotion is forgivable, and actually, those moments when it tries to do so are relatively rare. 
What is less forgivable, and more of an issue,  is when it falls flat when leaning into what is intended to be a bigger focus - the comedy. 
There are numerous moments in the game that are meant to be laugh-out-loud - mostly featuring Enzo, the comedy side-kick moulded in the Joe Pesci-in-Lethal-Weapon-2 form. These are occasionally good... but mostly not. Enzo as a character is largely grating, and not a particularly good addition to the game. Bayonetta needs a comedy sidekick - the notion is sound - but she needs a more interesting one. In the end, if I were forced to come up with a list of "most irritating sidekicks", Zeke from inFamous would win... but Enzo would make the list.

Gameplay-wise though, Bayonetta doesn't suffer from the same issues it does narratively. The Hack 'n Slash gameplay is sound, moves fluidly and has a surprising variety of moves available to unlock and do. (It's worth noting, I have only had a very limited exposure to the Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden games that arguably form the foundation of this style of Hack 'n Slash. My experience is much more aligned with the God of War variety, so whether Bayonetta's extensive move-set is really as extensive within that genre as it felt to me is possibly up for debate. Certainly, as compared to Kratos, she has clearly been to more martial-arts classes!)

Combat feels good - and often great. It's fun to engage with on a surface level, but nuanced enough to provide a fair skill ceiling. While button mashing will suffice in early stages against more simple enemies, progression will soon require at least some nominal attention to be paid to the combo mechanics. On higher difficulties, even more so. These combos are both fun to do... and fun to look at. Say what you want about Bayonetta's design, the male-gaze, sexuality in games, feminism vs. objectification, and your personal feelings on the practicality of PVC clothing and stiletto heels... but she looks fucking great when she's kicking things in the face!

Level design can be a little odd in the game - visually, the levels are nicely varied, and oddly non-linear, which is a welcome change from something like a pre-2018 God of War, however, some can feel a little over long as a result. There are ample secrets to be found, and retreading old ground is important and can be fun, but with grouped enemy encounters so abundant, there are definitely some levels that can grate on the player a little and they might be begging for a change from after some time.

Overall gameplay is good though - there is some variety of gameplay, as certain levels will switch to an almost Kid Icarus style flying mechanic (which works a lit better than one might think, given it is not a primary genre mechanics,) and bosses (a big deal in the Hack 'n Slash genre,) are well designed, with unique and interesting fights that each feel distinct both visually and mechanically. 

Visually, the game is certainly of a certain era, and compounds that with the fact that Bayonetta is one of a small cadre of games that was ported to PS3 with sub-optimal finesse. The Xbox360 version looks distinctly better - running at a smoother frame-rate and with less of a muddy feel to the visuals, however, the downgrade is not fatal. 
Bayonetta still benefits form good art design - particularly in the enemy designs, which actually stick quite closely to old testament and religious scripture in their designs of the various choirs of angelic celestials. (That might be over the heads of many, but as someone who has written two novels involving blasphemous use of religious and angelic scripture, I can attest that Bayonetta's enemy models fit relatively well with my research on the subject!)

The design of humanoid characters is a little less impressive, I think though. Bayonetta herself looks great, as does her "Umbra Sister" Jeanne, however, a lot of the male characters are rather dull archetypal designs, who wouldn't look out of place in the background of a WildStorms or Image comic from the 90's. 

 

The combat looks great across the board, however. Action is the driving force of the game, and in that aspect the visuals are nailed. The cosmic grandeur of the scope of the game allows for some serious visual flourishes, and the game never misses an opportunity to capitalise on them, adding effect upon effect upon effect, and elevating the combat flourishes through the ceiling of ridiculousness, and almost into the realms of high art.
Aside from the likes of Asura's Wrath, I've never seen such overblown visual nonsense in my gaming life as in Bayonetta's most extreme moments... and I salute it wholeheartedly!
While I'd never accuse Bayonetta of belonging on a "Best Graphics" list... but if there was an award for "Most Graphics" it would win in a landslide!

Music is relatively pedestrian - fine, but not much more than than generally, though it does occasionally elevate to "pretty good" - in particular in intense boss battles, where the more overblown, operatic symphonics come into full flower. 
Voice work, on the other hand, is very hit-and-miss. A large part of why the comedy doesn't land for me is the poor line delivery on those lines, and I suspect that some of the reason I found the game less "cool" than it tries to be is for similar reasons. Again, Bayonetta and Jeanne are pretty great - seeming to fully understand the tone of the game they are in, but everyone else is a bit all over the place.

Overall Bayonetta is a very solid, well crafted action game, with a fair amount of depth and nuance to its combat - which is the most important element of the genre. 
It looks good in the important parts, it sounds fine, it is just a little let down by its narrative, and by its developer not quite having the confidence they should have in their own creation.

The narrative is too frivolous at times, yet not comic enough at others, and the whole game is altogether too concerned with looking cool.
Bayonetta IS cool, Platinum Games. 
She's cool as hell... 
...you don't need to force it.

 

 

The Ranking:

Hack 'n Slash isn't a particularly common genre for me, so there aren't too many on the list, however, the two series that probably come close enough for government work are God of War, and Prince of Persia.

God of War (pre-2018 God of War, to be specific,) actually suffers from some of the same issues as Bayonetta - a main character who is not particularly engaging, but who the devs clearly think is. In some ways, Bayonetta herself is actually almost the perfect female version of pre-2018 Kratos - she is made to be so competent and bad-ass, that all human connection is lost, and the player just ends up guiding her through scenes, disengaged from her plight.

I do think that element is more of an issue with Bayonetta though. Kratos made me hate him. Bayonetta made me nothing her. I'd argue that the combat in Bayonetta is more interesting, but the actual story is less good than any God of War, and God of War always benefits from the music and visuals, and so even the lowest current God of War (the original one,) still holds its place.

A couple of notches lower though, is Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. That game has a much more problematic principal character - he is not only wooden and unlikeable, but also fails to be even remotely engaging, despite clearly thinking (and being designed by people who think) he is the coolest cat in Christendom.
 I also think that game (despite being much older,) even in its day looked less good, played less well, and was generally less interesting than Bayonetta, so Bayonetta has to rank higher.

That leaves only Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus in between, and I think, on merit, Bayonetta's rightful place is smack in between them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Path of Sin: Greed

 

Summary: 

A fairly forgettable entry in the Artifex Mundi canon, Path of Sin: Greed applies their signature Picture Hunt / Puzzle-Lite formula this time to a cat-and-mouse parlour mystery in the vein of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, wherein a pair of detectives looking into a supposed suicide on a private island become embroiled in a dangerous family mystery.

The narrative is fine here - actually approaching the better end of the Artifex Mundi spectrum, and while voice acting is still in the same simplistic class they play in, it is perfectly adequate.

The issue with Path of Sin: Greed, however, is the artwork - or more specifically, the lack of variety within it. 
Much like Grim Legends 3: The Dark City, there is a distinct lack of varied locations, and virtually every screen uses the same blue/grey colour palate. As such, the game becomes a little dreary aesthetically, and actually remembering the way around the different screens become more tiresome, as there are few really distinct screens to serve as memorable beacons. 
While stylistically it is fun - a noir artistic sensibility, wrapped up with Agatha Christie-esque characters and suitably smarmy rich folks - but there just isn't much done with it.

The Hidden object puzzles do suffer as a result of this too - though not as badly as they did in Grim Legends 3: The Dark City. There are about the same number here, but AM do find ways to spice the art up a little more from one to the other. 

The actual puzzle variety is pretty good, though there are few unique puzzles, and (from a purely personal point of view,) there is a bit more focus on my less preferred varieties of AM puzzle staples.

No silly boss fights here - the ending instead is a more fun little object puzzle, however, there is also no bonus chapter, and given that Path of Sin: Greed is on the shorter side of Artifex Mundi fare, that's a bit of a let down. 

Overall, not the worst game in the AM canon, but far from the best either, and one that feels remarkably short and frivolous by their established standards.

 

 

The Ranking:

A quick and easy one here - It's very clear to me where Path of Sin: Greed falls in the Artifex Mundi list - below Grim Legends 3: The Dark City, but above Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden.

There is no games in between those two currently, and so, Path of Sin: Greed finds its spot!

 

 

 

 

 

Road 96

 

Summary: 

An unusual indie Narrative Adventure-Lite game, Road 96, from French studio DigixArt, takes some inspiration from 70's Euro avant-garde cinema, blends it with a very 90's Linklater-style teenage sociopolitical worldview, and wraps it all in a more digestible, somewhat Life is Strange, (or more specifically, Life is Strange 2,) style of road trip gameplay and adds a head-fake towards rogue-like elements, to sometimes mixed - but often curiously winning - effect.

The narrative takes place in the fictional totalitarian state of Petria, in which a (seemingly rigged and purely for show,) election between the dictatorial ruler President Tyrek, and his revolutionary rival Florres is pending. The player takes the role of multiple teens across the story, who are part of a nationwide epidemic of teen runaways, all trying to head for the border, to flee Petria ahead of the election. The outcome of each of these short journeys is fraught with danger, and the overall narrative continues, whatever the outcome of any individual teen is - escape, imprisonment... or death.

Along the way, the player will encounter various recurring characters - among them a politically conflicted policewoman, a couple of revolutionary (and moronic) criminals, a fellow runaway (and daughter of the totalitarian regime's Minister of Oil,) a shady killer, a slightly crazy Trucker, a boy-genius tech-savvy runaway, the vapid anchor of a governmental mouth-piece propaganda show and a few others, most of whom's stories each teen will only see a small sliver of. An overall "Completion meter" for each main NPC is shown across the whole game, letting the player know how much there is still to uncover of each character, and this fills in based on these semi-random encounters.

The game structure is interesting and quite fun. The player will, over the course of the game, play between 6 and 9 different 1-2 hour "journeys" towards the border checkpoint leading north, out of Petria.  Each of these journeys is with a new (unvoiced) teen as the player-controlled character, and their route towards the checkpoint at Road 96 is different. Each one encounters different locations and events along the way, which are part randomised, and part player-influenced, depending on how they choose to leave the previous one. 
If, for example, the player has little money, or choses to spend it (on food, for example, to raise their health meter,) they may need to walk or hitchhike from a location. That means their next event will be in someone else's car, or on foot. 
If, on the other hand, they pay for a bus ticket, the next event in that journey may be on a bus. If they manage to find a set of car keys, they might steal a car, and the next event will play from that eventuality.

It's a nice idea, as the randomness mixed with player influence gives both a freshness to each journey, and a feeling of some player control and agency within the the story. 

There is an obvious flight of fancy for the sake of gameplay, in the sense that the same NPC characters are constantly being encountered at different stages of these journeys by the different teens, however, this is perfectly forgivable as a narrative device, given that following these other characters - seeing their arcs (albeit out of order,) and piecing together the narrative of Petria, the election and the nature of the totalitarian state's relationship with the "terrorists" through them, is the meat of the game.  

The game also contains something of a contrivance - again, a forgivable gameplay one - in the sense that the player has cross-journey, cross-teen "power-ups". If the "Lock Picking" skill is unlocked by the first teen, it is available to all subsequent ones. This makes little narrative sense, but does allow for increased replayability in the game mechanically. When replaying, certain abilities will or won't be available depending on the random order different teens experience different events, requiring different methods to be employed to solve the problems presented along the way. I, for example, dod not unlock the ability to "hack" until near the end of my final play-through, but I had seen countless moments when such a skill could have been employed up to that point. Had I encountered that event earlier, it would have markedly changed the outcome of much of my previous experiences. 

What is a little less forgivable though, is the way the game undercuts its own narrative contrivances with something as simple as its "map" loading screen. While it's perfectly acceptable to have each character constantly running into the same eclectic bunch of NPCs (one could argue, since there are - according to the fiction - thousands of teen runaways making for the border, that this narrative is only concerning itself with the few who did run into these specific people,) it makes less sense because the game loading screens shows the routes these teens take. 
Because each teen is shown as coming from  wildly differing locations, from far and wide across Petria, and only crossing paths at the very end of their journeys, it feels a little odd that they all constantly run into the same people along the way. 
Contrivances for narrative sake are one thing, but something as simple as a map screen causing such a narrative problem is a little bit of a silly mistake. All it would have taken to completely alleviate this problem, would have been to show that all these teens are starting out from roughly the same area of Petria, and so are all journeying along a similar path, seeing similar areas, and meeting similar people!

Visually, the game is relatively basic in design, but works quite well. Locations are simple but evocative, and characters are broadly drawn and caricaturish in nature, but work fairly well given limited screen time. The overall effect is quite stylish, and lent extra visual flair by some very nice lighting effect, stylish camera angles, and a nice treatment on the UI and indicative elements, which do a lot to paper over the sometimes blocky character designs or simplistic elements of interactivity. 

Music is pretty great across the board - Road 96 is another game in the (now quite long) list of games I've played this year who's original soundtracks have been added to my Spotify rotation. It's a mix of electronica and folksy indie, and actually forms the game's only "collectible" - the player can find cassette tapes of the songs scattered throughout the game (in randomised locations,) and can change the background music in many scenes by playing these tapes in one of the many tape-players to be found around the locations.

Voice work and writing is - it must be said - a little hokey... however, Road 96 is a curious case.
Because the tone of the game is consistent and quite well done, the combination of the caricaturish visual style, the oddly B-movie writing and voice work, and the eclectic mix of music and eccentric characters, the overall effect is quite winning. 
While individual lines of dialogue or deliveries did make me chuckle on occasion, or even roll my eyes, I cannot deny that the overall pastiche of eccentricity won me over. I looked forward to seeing different stages of each of the NPC character arcs, and piecing together their journeys - even if these individual characters would probably not have worked as well if seen for longer periods, in a more straight, linear progression.

Because of this, I think Road 96 is actually one of those rare and peculiar cases, where I question whether a higher quality of writing or more subtle, realistic voice work would actually be a benefit. The unusual tone of the game is, I think, actively aided by the B-game trappings, rather than hindered by them. 

That's a difficult thing to define exactly - on paper, it might seem odd, considering the very same issue that hurts recently reviewed Last Stop helps Road 96, but I cannot deny that it feels the case. 
The salient difference is as indefinable in description as it is clear in experience: "Charm". 
The hokey aspects of Last Stop's writing and acting were grating.
The hokey aspects of Road 96's writing and acting are charming.

 

The "why" of that discrepancy is difficult to quantify - having to do with some combination of the overall presentation, style, tonal consistency and player engagement - but the fact remains, the effect is markedly different... in Road 96's favour.

 

 

The Ranking:

Narrowing down a floor and ceiling for Road 96 wasn't very easy. I started by thinking about Life is Strange 2, as both work as narrative road trips, however, as much as I think Life is Strange 2 falls short of the other games in its series, I do still think it is of a quality that beats out Road 96 - on narrative, visuals, emotional connection and character building. 
Road 96 feels more frivolous - I'd likely replay Life is Strange 2 long before replaying Road 96... though Road 96 probably wins on originality and music. 

Still though, looking further down, the two that jump out are both relatively recent reviews - Virginia, and The Longest Road on Earth. 

Virginia is also wildly original and narratively interesting. It wins on music and on emotional connection, and I actually think its overall tone is done in a way that makes it the more engaging game, despite the lack of straight dialogue or narrative. It is short, but extremely replayable, in a way Road 96 would have a tough time competing. 

The Longest road on Earth is something quite special, and I would argue easily beats out Road 96 for the hour it takes to play... however, it is only that. An hour. It is a very limited game (more so even than Virginia,) and while I think it's marvellous, that limitation does feel tough to put up against a game as varied and mechanically interesting as Road 96. 

As such, Road 96 falls somewhere between. 

There's not much common ground to till in the decision of where it lands, but simply asking "which is more likely to get a replay?" does find it a spot I'm comfortable with - Below Déraciné, but above Stick it To The Man. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unpacking

 

Summary: 

A strange little soft-puzzle game from Witch Beam Studios, Unpacking takes a task everyone is familiar with - unpacking boxes and sorting out personal items in a new living space, and turns it into a relaxing, meditative experience through which the player gets not only to indulge in the satisfaction that comes from such an endeavour without the physical exertion, but also comes to see the oddly specific and well drawn story of a young girl from childhood to maturity.

Essentially, gameplay is broken down in the different phases of the girl the player takes control of's life - from first getting her own room in her parental house, to moving into dormitories, then flat-sharing, moving in with a boyfriend and onwards, working towards her "forever home". In each vignette, the player's task is simple, unpack items from the boxes piled in each room, find a good spot for everything, figure out how best to store everything in an orderly and sensible fashion... and (if you are like me,) spend endless amounts of time sorting and re-sorting these items to give the best look to the room!

Once a room is fully unboxed, any items not in an appropriate place are flagged, and must be properly stored before the game allows the player to "complete" the level and move on, however, there is a lot of leeway in this determination. The game takes pains to ensure it only flags items for being in completely inappropriate places - a toaster in a bathtub for example, or a toilet roll in the kitchen cabinet - there is a fair amount of freedom in the actual laying out of each room, meaning the player feels a sense of attachment to the rooms they organise, and the life they are controlling.

Visually, the game is playing in a lovely looking pastel-shaded pixel-art.

Each room is viewed isometrically, and there is nothing in the way of fancy graphical flourishes or graphics-card-testing modern tech, however, the game is actually one of the very best examples around of pixel-art being able to evoke specificity, without the luxury of fine detail. Each item the player pulls form a box must be identified (there is no "item descriptions" to help,) but it's remarkable how few items there is ever any real question about. Not only are DVDs, Gamecube games, Books etc. identifiable as what object they are, but often what specific game or movie they are is discernible too! (The girl has pretty good taste from what I could tell, as displayed by her beloved copies of Donnie Darko and Jaws, among others, which followed her through her life!)  While there were a few items I struggled to identify, often these were more as a result on my being a man playing as a woman, than as a result of visual limitations.

(As it turns out, identifying boxes of sanitary products is not in my wheelhouse... who knew?!)

The whole game is presented as a picture photo-album, and it's a nice visual touch, lending selection of levels to replay exactly the odd nostalgia that recalling big moments in real life has.

The music of the game is quite pleasant and relaxing - for the most part, that is all the music is - a nice, cheery background to the simple game, though tonally, there is something there - when following the narrative of the girls life, moves that are exciting and happy do have an auditory tone to match, and moves that are perhaps less happy, and more forced by circumstance have a slightly more wistful score to accompany them.

The main point of discussion for a game like Unpacking is not these visual and auditory components though, it is the conceptual aspects, as those are where the game is most unusual.

The idea of the game feels, it must be said, like it couldn't possibly have enough variety in gameplay to sustain a game. After all, the act of unpacking and filling out a new house is varied only by the relative size of the available space, vs the amount of personal items to put there, right? 
Well... no. Not really. 

If you actually think about the different times in a person's life where they are unpacking their items and moving into a new space, they all have their own eccentricities that go beyond the space limitations.
When unpacking a room in your parents house, you only need think about that one room, but the space is entirely your own.
When moving into a shared dormitory or shared apartment with roommates, unpacking is less about making a space your own, and more about adding your signature, while not infringing on your room-mates.  In that scenario, the space is already filled, and touching the other peoples items is not allowed.
When moving in with a romantic partner, however, there is more freedom to alter their space, but consideration still needs to be given to their space needs, and their own preferences.

That lends the actual mechanical "puzzle" part of the game at least a little variety to distinguish each phase of the game. I'd hardly call Unpacking a difficult game, but there is enjoyment and occasional challenge in figuring out just how to fit all these items into a space either too small, or already lived in, and occupied with other peoples personal items.
Still, it must be noted that mechanically, Unpacking is very slight. 

What is much more impressive though, is the narrative.
Yes, you read that right.
The really fascinating thing about Unpacking is just how much of a story the game manages to have, given that it ostensibly doesn't have one.

There are game out theres like Dishonoured, Bioshock, Hitman and The Last of Us which make extremely effective use of "environmental storytelling" - of having the state of a room or a location tell the story of the occupants, simply through good design and placement of the contents of it. That's impressive, but for all that those games do that well, each one is still reliant on a robust main narrative to hold the players attention. The environmental storytelling additive, not the whole kit and caboodle.

In Unpacking, however, the game has no narrative other than environmental storytelling. There is no story, characters or cutscenes, nor is there any dialogue. Indeed, aside from a year that is given to indicate the girls age, prior to completion of a move there is never even any indication of what precipitated her move or whom she will be living with. 
Aside from what is shown in the rooms, and what items she brought with her, the player is left to infer that information. It is therefore incredibly impressive that not only is there a very clear through-line to the narrative of Unpacking, but that more than simply understanding the beats of the girls life, I also came to have quite an emotional connection to her, and to have genuine opinions about her choices.

As she got older, and moved and re-moved a few times, I felt a pang of sadness that she seemed to let her artistic side dwindle - then happy, when later in life she rediscovered it, and there were more art supplies and more desk space to make use of them. 

I knew the holidays she had taken, based on travel books and chachkis she had collected, I knew which childhood toys were the most meaningful to her, and that she held onto the longest. I had specific items I though she should let go of (hon, that fucking Brevel sandwich-maker is going to be the end of us! There's never a space for it, and you'll never use it!) and I was left asking "Hey, where's your little Transformer dude?", or "What happened to your Donnie Darko DVD? Did that messy roommate steal it?" when they disappeared in the shuffles.

 

When she moved in with her first boyfriend, I knew nothing about him at all... but by the time I had finished unpacking, I already disliked him. He hadn't made any space for her. He hadn't even tidied up - and I already felt uneasy about her relationship with him. She was happy enough to tidy his unkempt sock drawer (she had to, to make space for her lady-pants,) but when it came time for her to hang her prized, framed diploma, there was no space among all his rock band posters, and she didn't want to move them. Frankly, I think it says a lot about a relationship if the girl is uneasy about moving some of his posters to make space for something that meaningful!

Despite that though, I felt bad for her when the next move was back into her old room, with her parents. The same bittersweet feeling of nostalgia that accompanies such a move in real life works in Unpacking too - seeing the old items she once cared about, but not enough to take with her, still there, and having to move them into cupboards to make room in the too-small space for the necessities she brought back.

It's moments like those ones that make Unpacking much more than simply a too-easy puzzle game, or a frivolous home decoration game. Through gamifying a simple real-life task that is common to all people, in all walks of life, and which is repeated multiple times through any life, the developer is able to effectively tell the entire story of a life. 
Like seeing a painting with none of the lines, but all of the colour, by "checking in" at these key points in that life, we get almost none of the details of the girls circumstances, but almost all of the emotional baggage that comes with them.

Unpacking captures the feeling of those "big Life" events with a specificity and a sharpness that I would never have imagines a simple pixel-art sorting game could - and that's incredibly impressive. 

After all, when key moments in life precipitate a move, we are packing up more than things. We are packing up our life. 
When we unpack, we are not just finding a place for our stuff, we are finding a place for ourselves.

 
I'm just surprised a game managed to capture that.

 

 

The Ranking:

I wouldn't have thought this would be the case prior to playing it, by the main games that can provide a good comparison for Unpacking are not simply small games, light puzzlers or time-wasters, but honest to goodness puzzle games with emotional depth.

The two that came to mind very quickly to act as floor and ceiling are Gris, and The Last Campfire.

Gris is an emotional game, of course - its narrative is indirect (though certainly more direct than Unpacking's) but it plays to an emotional connection with the main character, and in an oddly similarly way. The gameplay is used to convey an emotional journey. Gris does it metaphorically, while Unpacking does it literally. 
Both work, though Gris has to remain higher, I think. There is more meat to its gameplay, and while Unpacking looks great in it's pixel-art, the visuals of Gris are in a league of their own. It also soars musically in a way Unpacking never tries to.

The Last Campfire is also a game that looks great - I'd say much better than Unpacking does - and there is more to the game, however, I'd argue that the emotional content (which is still there, and good in The Last Campfire) doesn't hit the highs Unpacking hits. 
Part of that might be the fact that emotional content in Unpacking is a surprise by its mere presence, but I think it's more than that. Unpacking may benefit from surprise initially, but it works so well that even once that is known, that it is still quite powerful.  I also think that, as good as The Last Campfire is, and as varied as it is, it never challenges the player enough to really capitalise on that, and it's narrative, while more obvious, is not quite as poignant.

That places Unpacking somewhere in between, with little to go on. I think The Pedestrian, which falls just below Gris has a closer fight with Unpacking - it ultimately wins out, owing n a large part to it's more challenging gameplay and great final act reveal, and Manifold Garden just below it also prevails, on the strength of visuals, originality and variety.

Below that though, is Detroit: Become Human. 
It might feel strange for a game as small as Unpacking to beat a game that big and splashy and graphically accomplished... but the fact is, Detroit is a game predicated on forming emotional connection to characters, and as much as it succeeds to a point, I'm in a genuine quandary as to which I felt a stronger emotional connection to. 
When you consider that Detroit is using every tool available to make that connection, and Unpacking manages to do what it does without a single line of dialogue, graphical flair, or a single on-screen character, that shows what an achievement it is...
...and I think it has to win on that basis.

As such, Unpacking finds its spot on the ranking!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doki Doki Literature Club+

 

SCIENTIFIC NOTE

Doki Doki Literature Club+ is predicated on some big reveals.  I'm not going to discuss them. 
There will be some references to the broad nature of them, and to the mere fact that they exist, but for the sake of avoiding spoiling anyone's experience, I'm only going to talk about the effects of these reveals on the players' relationship with the game, not on the specifics of what they are. 
That's going to make this one probably feel a little non-specific to those who haven't played the game, but I think it's necessary here.

 

 

 

Summary: 

Originally released in 2017 as a freeware game for Mac and PC via itch.oi, Doki Doki Literature Club, from American Team Salvato, gained a quick and large cult following via word of mouth, largely built on its reputation as one of the small handful of truly meta-contextual, mind-bending games to follow in the Frog Fractions design, of having a game be "hidden" within itself - one genre of game masquerading as another, with the revelation of the type of game being played forming a significant part of the narrative of the game.

The expanded re-release - Doki Doki Literature Club+ - was released for all platforms in 2021, adding new side content, and reworking the game, adding a fictional OS, to allow for some of the more meta-elements (which in some cases involved actually manipulating the game's directory files,) to work on platforms where the "back-end" directories are inaccessible to the player.

The game begins as something of a cross between a dating sim, and a Japanese visual novel, wherein the player - a school aged boy - is encouraged by his female childhood friend, classmate and neighbour Sayori to join a "Literature Club" as his extra-curricular school assignment. When he reluctantly accepts, he meets the three other girls who form the group - insular pseudo-goth Yuri, firecracker Natsuki, and competent and popular, (if slightly bland,) Monika. 

Throughout the initial part of game, the player gets to know each of the girls, and the interactive element - a poetry writing mini-game, in which specific words are chosen to form part of a poem, each of which appeal more to different girls ascertained personalities - allows them to tailor their playthrough to favour one girl or the other, with the game using this element to select different paths of dialogue to suit.

That is the crux of the game... at least, on paper. 
However, to use the games ancestral progenitor - Frog Fractions - as a protracted metaphor, that is only what is above the lake. After several hours of following the game straight, with the game only loosely and vaguely hinting at anything deeper, eventually, a specific incident violently pulls the player below the surface, to reveal the broken pieces of fractions lying among the silt... and the game heads into space!
(Sorry to anyone reading that who hasn't played Frog Fractions and who therefore could not make head not tail of that analogy, but if you are among them... 
...what are you doing reading this?! Go play it!  It's free, and you can play in a browser for goodness sake!)

It's interesting playing Doki Doki Literature Club+ for the first time, so soon after revisiting The Stanley Parable. Both games share similarities in their subversion of game tropes and expectations to carve out their bait-and-switch gameplay, but in some ways, they do it via directly opposing methods.
The Stanley Parable subverts a "serious" genre by going comedic.
Doki Doki Literature Club+ subverts a comedic genre by going serious.

In both cases that subversion toys with the player, taking shots at their motivations and their expectations, and usurping the traditional player-to-game relationship the "fake" genre each game comes disguised as traditionally invokes, however, the purpose of that subversion is starkly different. 

In the case of The Stanley Parable, it is more meta - the players desire for game elements like player choice, reward, challenge etc is being confronted directly. The actual effect on the narrative is purely by way of the player's relationship to the game itself. For all the ridiculous things that happen, the actual "character" of Stanley is never someone we are emotionally invested in particularly - all the emotional or cerebral connection is between The Narrator and the player, with Stanley the hapless cypher caught in-between. 

In the case of Doki Doki Literature Club+, however, the game makes much more hay out of manipulation of the player via emotional connection to characters. The game masquerades not as a Walking Sim (which is an inherently "solo" genre,) but as a Visual Novel and Dating Sim (two genres entirely predicated on emotional investment to characters.) Because of that, and because the amount of time spent prior to any "Meta" reveal, or even particularly unusual or outlandish behaviour, is so much longer in Doki Doki Literature Club+ than The Stanley Parable (around 2 hours go by before there is any real hint that something is afoot, as opposed to mere minutes,) the player has ample time to form some kind of emotional attachment to all 4 of the girls in the club.
In fact, because the game masquerades as the type of game where picking your "favourite" of the girls is the raison d'être, it is more than likely that virtually the ONLY part of the game the player is really concentrating on at that point is learning about the girls, and forming those emotional attachments. 

The game is actually something of a masterclass in slow build horror - and manages to enact it in a way that many straight horror games fail to capture. 
Part of this is only enabled due to the genre conventions of the games it is masquerading as, of course. 
Because dating sims - specifically Japanese dating sims - have certain cultural elements that can already feel a little uncomfortable to western gamers, (the heightened sexualisation of young-looking girls, the tendency to "categorise" girls into specific archetypes, the borderline obsessive tendencies female characters show towards male ones, and the assumption of perversion in male ones with regards to females, along with the over-emphasis on explaining in minute, almost painstaking detail, characters innermost feelings to one another,)  Doki Doki Literature Club+ is able to slowly wrong-foot the player into feelings of quite extreme unease, even before fully playing its horror hand. 
The first "act" of the game (which consists of a mostly "straight-played" dating sim, is constantly pushing the boundaries of acceptability with its narrative (no matter which girl the player chooses to favour,) but because of the genre, they are never really able to pinpoint exactly where it crosses the line, until it's already far behind them. 
Each girl has their own serious issues (and they are serious,) and in retrospect, upon repeat playthroughs, they are made obvious, but because the genre is one that steps into heightened and uncomfortable territory as a matter of course, the first time through, the player is likely to simply keep rationalising them. They are more than likely going to continually chalk these instances up to simple culture clash, rather than genuine red-flags.

That means that when the first truly horrific incident occurs, serving as a catalyst for the more meta elements of the game to take over, the game to go "full horror", and the first point at which the player can be left in no doubt as to the outlandishness of Doki Doki Literature Club+ within the genre to which it purports to belong, the moment has incredible impact. 

Not only is it horrific and obscene to see such a scene within the confines of a "cute", "sweet" looking game like the one played up to this point, but there is also something of an inverse catharsis - all the unease built up in the preceding hours by these red flags that the player has constantly been disregarding or rationalising or justifying in their mind are suddenly refocussed. The bubble of that unease is allowed to burst, and the player gets to finally say "Oh, God, I was right!  This is NOT okay!  IT NEVER WAS!"

From that point, the game becomes something quite different. It becomes the meta-horror that it always was, but now in the full light of day. The game works incredibly well on that level. There are multiple moments throughout the narrative after that which I won't even allude to, but will simply say still managed to wrong-foot me, and really have impact, even knowing what I was now playing... but I do think that nothing ever quite lives up to the sharp refocus that first big moment has. Not because they are lesser, but simply because that one is so good!

Visually, the game works very very well. The art-style is, of course, driven by the purported genre - the girls are all manga stereotypes, with genre-appropriate big-eyes and over-sexualised figures, but the actual art is very nicely done. It's not unique like something like Steins Gate - there isn't specific deviation from common visual novel tropes (as there shouldn't be, given that it is a facade,) but the example of the general art-style of the genre is very good. There a bit of similarity in the character and location designs (an in the UI, in fact,) to the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games.

Audio follows suit - the main music in the game is cheery and upbeat and catchy as all hell - with borderline schmaltzy elements that are almost deliberately grating. 

Both of these elements are, of course, serving a specific purpose - by aping the genres Doki Doki Literature Club+ is pretending to be so well, it keeps the game from revealing its hand too early - but both are masterfully used upon those reveals too. The incessantly cheering music is absolutely the perfect foil for the dark direction the game dives into at times, as simply playing the same style, but dissonant, or in a minor key, or out of tune is so jarring and off-putting that it can feel positively queasy. When, during the Act 1 catalyst, for example, a character theme is played slowly and out of tune, and the "pink and fluffy" visual style is shown muted, through static interference, it gives a nightmare effect that is really jarring, effective and impactful.

On the changes to the game to account for console porting, some issues do need to be addressed - as I think that element is pretty much the only area where a few minor negatives seep into the game.

It's something of a shame that the nature of console gaming requires Doki Doki Literature Club+ to reveal a little of its hand ahead of time. While I think the games slow, awful reveals are handled very well, console conventions mean that reveal cannot have quite the impact they might, simply because there is a fairly strenuous Content Warning upon first loading the game. 
That does mean the player is likely aware something is coming to subvert the cutesy, twee visuals and gameplay, and it undercuts the game to the extent it will never be fully able to pull a total Frog Fractions... 
...though on the other hand, someone like myself, who is the perfect demographic for what Doki Doki Literature Club+ actually is, would likely not have ever played it if the only information available was what it masquerades as.

I do also think that while I am very grateful for some of the changes made to the game in the "Plus" version that allow the game to work on console, and I think most of these are very cool and cleverly done... I do find the addition of the "Side Stories" to be a little baffling. 
These are prequel sections of narrative, which are used to show the formation of the Literature Club - the initial meetings of the girls, and their friendships forming... - and really, these feel wildly out of place. Because the whole point of the main game is not the narrative, but the tearing down of the narrative and the horror behind it, the fact that the side-stories only unlock to be played post-game is kind of strange. By the time the player is able to play them, they are fully aware of how meaningless they are - the narrative on the surface is only there to be destroyed, and so adding context to that surface narrative feels a bit redundant when there isn't a meta-horror element to add to them.

Overall though, Doki Doki Literature Club+ is a hell of a package - a great version of what is a really original, clever and wildly entertaining ride. The game works well enough prior to the reveal, and works incredibly well after it, and the whole experience is something quite unlike virtually all other games on the market.
Yes, the game has lost some of its surprise impact over time - I came into the game knowing there was more to it than meets the eye, as virtually any new player will now, so of course the rug-pull change of genre is not all it might have been to someone simply stumbling across it - and yes, the requirement on console to put up content warnings, and to feature the fake OS does somewhat limit the ability for the game to feel as immersive as it might have on PC. 
However, even accounting for those "softening" elements, the game still manages to have really impactful moments of horror, really smart and off-putting elements of surprise, and to really shake the core of a player, even with some prior knowledge of what they are in for.

 

 

The Ranking:

So... this is an odd one. 

There is an obvious comparison game - The Stanley Parable - but that is virtually the only one on the list to tackle the meta-contextual elements that Doki Doki Literature Club+ does... and while I love The Stanley Parable, and love even more the new Ultra Deluxe package...
...it can only provide a floor for Doki Doki Literature Club+, not a ceiling. 
I'm as surprised as anyone that I connected as much with Doki Doki Literature Club+, but it is the case - I think it uses the meta stuff more effectively than The Stanley Parable did - and up to this point, I considered The Stanley Parable to be the pinnacle of such game design. 
Frankly, I think not only is Doki Doki Literature Club+ my new high-watermark for meta-game design, it is also one of my favourite horror games I have played!

That propels it up the list then, looking for horror games with similar impact.

The first ones I find are the Little Nightmares games. Both are amazing experiences, full of queasy horror, smart game design and atmosphere seeping from every pore. Both have great, esoteric narratives... but the fact remains, there is only one specific moment across both those games that I would put on par with several of Doki Doki Literature Club+'s best moments (the Gnome / Sausage scene,)... and I don't think even that awesome part measures up to the way Doki Doki Literature Club+ handled its big moment reveals.

That puts it above Little Nightmares, and breathing pretty rarified air!

Working up, the first game to finally put a ceiling on its upwards momentum takes some finding - horror can't stop it, but emotional connection finally can. Anyone who's followed this thread for a while may be able to guess what was finally a blocker - Life is Strange: Before the Storm. 

Doki Doki Literature Club+ needs emotional connection to work, and while it manages it, and does a whole lot of other things that elevate it, the fact is, I had a stronger reaction to Before the Storm than I did to Doki Doki Literature Club+. No, they are not of an ilk, and yes, Doki Doki Literature Club+ does things Before the Storm never tries to - but that can't be the only consideration, as Doki Doki Literature Club+ is playing in it's own very small, very specialised genre. In the end, it has to come down to specific taste based elements... and to connection.

Y'all know how much I connected to the whole Life is Strange series, but Before the Storm in particular, as it has something of a meta-horror element to it too - or at least, tragi-horror, given the ultimate fate of the relationship being played is already known from the start... and it impacted me more overall.

As such, Doki Doki Literature Club+ find its very high spot, just below Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

 

 

 

 

 

JETT: The Far Shore

 

Summary: 

A Sci-Fi exploration mystery survival game from the Superbrothers - the team behind seminal 2011 iOS indie RPG Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery - JETT: The Far Shore continues the Superbrothers signature taste for large, mysterious open worlds to be explored, but this time applies to to a much more cinematic and grand narrative, and a polygonal, 3D environment.

After Sword and Sworcery, the Superbrothers team had quite a lot to live up to. That game was arguable the most instrumental in proving the viability of the iOS platform as a venue for more than simple time-wasters or minor puzzle games - featuring the kind of exploration and mystery that, up to that point, had been largely absent in the iOS/ Android arena.
Whether their success was due to the strength of the game in a vacuum, or whether the iOS platform had magnified it - whether Sword and Sworcery benefitted from a "biggest fish in a small pond" mentality - was a source of debate.

Personally, I fell on the the "no" side - I found Sword and Sworcery genuinely interesting and fun, and I believe I would have, regardless of the platform of delivery, however, even I have to admit that my initial curiosity with the game had a lot to do with the general absence of meaty games on that platform at that point. The intro sections of Sword and Sworcery give little indication of the depth or scope of it. Were it not for the lack of alternative options, and the generally lower level of expectation the iOS platform landscape of 2011 provided, perhaps I would not have stuck with the game long enough to come to realise how good it was. 

That element, at least - the requirement for a console game to get its hooks in early - is something the Superbrothers were clearly aware of when crafting their true "console first" game in JETT: The Far Shore.
There are some issues with JETT: The Far Shore, but none of them are its opening gambit. While I will get into some of the problems the game has (and there are a fair few,) I will say this: As introductory hours of games go, JETT: The Far Shore's is unimpeachable. 

That intro hour contains all of the strongest elements of the game, and so let's first discuss those - starting with the art-style.

The art-design of the game - of virtually all aspects - is as fascinating and unique as it is beautiful. The term "style over substance" is generally a pejorative, but in the case of JETT: The Far Shore's visuals, it is both apt and a compliment. JETT: The Far Shore is not a game reliant on graphical or technical prowess - indeed, in terms of fidelity and technical graphical capability, I would guess the game is on the lower end of 3D visuals, however, the design work, and the use of that limited technical palette is wonderful. Character designs are unusual and highly stylised, almost resembling pottery or dye-cast models, and the universe they inhabit is vast and grand and beautiful. The game concerns itself with a fictional race of humanoids with their own scientific / religious culture, and their technology, their architecture, their crafted objects and their clothing - everything is both unusual and interesting to look at, while still adhering to a common cultural design ethos set by their belief systems. 

Their society is driven by teachings of an ancient scientist, and deeply concerned with something called the Hymnwave - a sort of deified radio signal that they see as a calling to a better world for their people. The symbolic representation of the Hymnwave, as a geometric DNA strand, permeates their design ethos, and is found all throughout their created architecture and decorated objects.
 
This belief system - codified in the scientific teachings of Tsotsi, and collected as a spiritual set of dogmatic guidelines for their lives,  has been both the ruin and the salvation of the civilisation. In racing to devise spaceflight, in order to seek the Tor (the ancient pyramid emitting the Hymnwave,) the people have pushed their society to the brink of collapse, spending all their natural resources and decimating their home world. 

When, during the introduction to the game, the player takes the role of Mei - one of a small group of specially selected and trained scouts destined to be the first to establish ground-presence on the new world to set the table for the rest of the space-bound portion of their society, the overbearing grandeur of that narrative is really felt. The gameplay consists of little more than walking slowly forward, but that is immaterial really - the visual and audio elements are of such superior quality that they feel more akin to certain strains of sci-fi cinema than other videogames. Think Gravity, or Interstellar, or Ad Astra or Arrival, but featuring characters from Coraline or underrated animated movie 9.

In addition to the more Walking Sim or audio-visual elements in Mei's journey from her tribal home, to being praised in the cradle of religious and scientific glory, to the spaceship, to the 1000 year journey across the galaxy, to the vast, beautiful parachute drop into the new world, the intro also features a taste of what will become the primary gameplay mechanic - flying the small exploratory Jett. 
This can be a little deceptive however, as the intro demonstrates exactly what the game is great at, and no more. In the intro, the jett is simply required to be flown around at speed, and the different in-flight manoeuvres conducted. These are great fun to do. They remain so throughout the whole game - flying the jett at speed is really well done, and feels great.

The problem though, is when the player slows down.

JETT: The Far Shore, regardless of what the intro would have you believe, is not primarily a narrative game. Yes there is narrative - very good narrative, but the crux of the gameplay isn't narrative, it's exploration in an open-world sandbox. These elements do not work nearly as well at the narrative does.

The jett that Mei pilots has a fairly obtuse and often very fiddly control scheme. Whenever it is required to perform intricate interfaces with ground object (scanning, grappling, lifting etc,) or whenever tight evasive action is required, the game slows in pace dramatically, and becomes quite frustrating. There is a scanning and puzzling element to the gameplay on the foreign planet, whereby scanning the various things to be found reveals more and more interconnections and ways to affect them, and this is used to some light puzzle effect. For example, a particular resin, when flown near an activating ion pool, will become volatile, and can be used to break destructible elements. 

This is a cool idea, however, the actual controls required to do these tasks are often so finicky and convoluted - and occasionally downright irritating - in the jett, that I can't help but suspect the developers chose to limit how much of this puzzling gameplay is actually in the game, to avoid it completely throttling the pace. While all the pieces are there to make a sandbox game with a huge amount of secrets or inter-connecting or inter-playing objects, the actual use is limited to a few, relatively guided sections. There are so few, in fact, that the player may well be led to question the point in even filling out the world with such a litany of inter-operable elements. While scanning a majority is required for a trophy, this is, in fact, the only reason to do so. The information gained about which creatures, objects or elements affect which others, and how, is almost never used outside of those few specific, guided instances. 

That guidance brings up the other major issue with the game - the subtitles. 
The entire game is voice acted, however, it is all in a fictional language, and subtitled into English for the player. This element is actually really immersive and evocative in the first-person narrative sections - the fake language is well done, and clearly a lot of thought went into it. Picking out certain words or inflections within it has the same feeling as with deciphering a real language, and that has a cool, immersive effect on the whole game - and particularly helps alongside the unusual terminology that underpins the societal belief system of the people. It also adds to a "grown-up sci-fi" feel the game has, and works very well in that context. 

However, in the jett, all guidance is vocal, and similarly subtitled... and this is a HUGE problem. 
Piloting the jett is complicated. There is a lot of visual information on screen - fuel gauges to be managed, terrain to be read, navigation and tertiary elements to be constantly viewed and adjusted to... and so when the narrative and guidance is done in subtitles, it is simply not possible to read them all at the same time. This leaves the player either having to stop the action to read them, or ignore them, hoping they will be repeated when things on screen are demanding less attention.
I was constantly finding myself at a loss for what to do, and having to wait until the co-pilot would re-state what he had already told me, but I hadn't been able to read as I was avoiding a hostile enemy, or navigating rough terrain, or completing a puzzle element. 

This is dismaying, as it is a problem that feels entirely predictable, and could have been somewhat alleviated. If the game had some kind of "text log" where the player could pause and read back recent dialogue, for example. The game does, on occasion, slow the on screen action down to allow the subtitles to be read during frenetic action, but this is inconsistent, and appears to only happen when the player is being repeatedly scolded for exploring when there is a narrative beat to be done... which, by the way, is all the time. 

Exploring in the game is one of the primary elements of the game, but the narrative rarely ever gives the player permission to do so. Almost all exploring has to be done with the co-pilot constantly reminding the player of what the narrative wants her to do, and distracting from that exploration intermittently.  
It has the effect of really feeling like the game is pulling against itself - working towards opposing gameplay forces at all times. 

The strongest element is the narrative... but the game pushes that away with its much stronger focus on exploring.
The ship controls are best at speed... but the game want's fine control and slow movement most of the time.
The sandbox elements are neat... but the game focusses on guided use only.
The language use is cool... but the game trips over itself in the implementation. 
The audio visual elements are fantastic... but the game hampers enjoyment of them with over-complex controls, and by pushing the player not to engage in exploration.
 
It's a real shame, as JETT: The Far Shore actually has far more genuinely fantastic elements than most games that have this many problems. In fact, it has more great elements than a lot of games better than it.
The game ends up feeling mediocre, but not for the reason most games do. Most mediocre games are mediocre because all, or at least most, of their individual elements are mediocre. Nothing in JETT: The Far Shore is mediocre though. It becomes mediocre by average - because half of its elements are fantastic, and the other half are straight up bad.

Overall, JETT: The Far Shore is really a strange beast. It's a game with a huge amount to love in it, but undercut by fundamentally disappointing core mechanics, and a tendency to undermine good elements, in favour of elevating bad one. 

It is often visually stunning, uniformly auditorially excellent, and with a narrative that is both simple and effective in the immediate, and based on a core of well thought out and interesting background lore. It manages to convey complex and curiously alien societal ideals without the need for over-long info dumps or expositional cul-de-sacs, and is so interesting, in fact, that the promise of its continuation is often enough to propel the player through the less interesting mechanical side of the game.

 

While the fundamentals are never truly awful, they just aren't able to cope with the gameplay requirements when fine control is required... and in many ways, that is a metaphor for the whole experience of the game.
When it is moving at speed, and all coming together, it soars like an eagle. 
When it hits a rough patch though, it shudders and stutters to an undignified crawl. 

 

 

The Ranking:

Unfortunately, despite all the good elements (and that introductory hour, which I reiterate - is splendid!), JETT: The Far Shore's contemporaries for comparison have to be other games with sound premises and good elements, but serious flaws. 

Three come to mind - Dotnod's underwhelming Life is Strange follow-up Twin Mirror, interesting-but-continually-tripping-over-itself action game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and very good, but technically problematic strategy game Through the Darkest of Times.

I do think, for all its issues, JETT: The Far Shore has to rank above Twin Mirror. Twin Mirror had some good aspects to its narrative, and looked pretty good, but the narrative elements of JETT: The Far Shore are much better realised, and when JETT: The Far Shore is working, it works much better than Twin Mirror did when it was.

Through the Darkest of Times is a much simpler game, (and obviously visually inferior,) however, I do think there are less flaws than JETT: The Far Shore. Its problems are technical, and irksome, but JETT: The Far Shore's are design flaws, and more prevalent and dismaying. 
While JETT: The Far Shore elevates itself far higher in its best moments, I can't really see it beating Through the Darkest of Times overall.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow falls between, and while I'd argue it's flaws are less harmful to its overall game than JETT: The Far Shore's, the basic game of Castlevania is lesser than JETT: The Far Shore's is in it's best moments - so it has less going for it overall. As such, I'd place JETT: The Far Shore higher regardless.

That leaves us somewhere between those two, and in the end, I feel like JETT: The Far Shore can elevate above several of the intervening games based on its strong elements, but can't possibly elevate above flawed but still fully competent Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.

As such, it finds its spot, just below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there we have it folks!

 

Thanks to @Copanele for putting in a request!

 

 Hitman 3 remains as 'Current Most Awesome Game'!

LA Cops stays as the worst-of-the-worst, with the title of 'Least Awesome Game'

 

 

What games will be coming along next time to challenge for the top spot... or the bottom rung?

That's up to randomness, me.... and YOU!

 

Remember:

 

SPECIAL NOTE

 

If there are any specific games anyone wants to see get ranked sooner rather than later - drop a message, and I'll mark them for 'Priority Ranking'! 

 

The only stipulation is that they must be on my profile, at 100% (S-Rank)....

 and aren't already on the Rankings! 

 

 

 

Catch y'all later my Scientific Brothers and Sisters! 

Edited May 31, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[Xylobe]

23 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I'm as surprised as anyone that I connected as much with Doki Doki Literature Club+

 

All I can think of when reading this is the status you posted like a week ago, about the game's "All characters are 18+" splash screen disclaimer... ?

 

In seriousness, I'm familiar with the game's story, but have never actually played it myself. I'm not terribly surprised that it had an impact on you, but I am a bit disappointed that it sounds like (at least some of) the Plus additions are more like Minuses, not the excuse to pick it up and experience it firsthand that I may have been hoping for.

[DrBloodmoney]

7 minutes ago, Xylobe said:

 

All I can think of when reading this is the status you posted like a week ago, about the game's "All characters are 18+" splash screen disclaimer...

 

In seriousness, I'm familiar with the game's story, but have never actually played it myself. I'm not terribly surprised that it had an impact on you, but I am a bit disappointed that it sounds like (at least some of) the Plus additions are more like Minuses, not the excuse to pick it up and experience it firsthand that I may have been hoping for.

 

Not soo much minuses, as Zero sums, I guess  - they're fine, and of a quality that definitely matches the original game in the first act... but given what the game is really, behind the curtain, it does feel odd that they are added after the fact.

It makes me assume there must be people out there who connect more to the game on the surface than I did - who are legitimately into the characters as characters from the fake game, and not just as foils for what comes later.  For me, that stuff was fine, (all the characters are likeable and engaging enough, but without the meta level, I can't say I'd be yearning for more.

It's when it goes meta and crazy that the game really got it's hooks in, so adding to the "before the reveal" section of the game just left me a bit confused! 

Edited May 31, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[Slava]

I've had a similar experience learning about DDLC. The first time I heard about it (the PC version specifically), I learned that it's not what it seems. Basically, was semi-spoiled about the main reveals right off the bat, including the stuff that player has to do in the end. I've never played a visual novel or a dating sim game as well. One day, I was reminded of the game again. I thought "Ahh, I'm probably never going to play this, I'll spoil myself the rest to know what happens" and read the summary on Wikipedia. 

 

It's yet another game where I learn about the twists before I play it. One of them was MGS2 with the whole Raiden thing. I was too young when it came out. By the time I could get my hands on the remaster, I already knew most of the story beats and what people think about them.

 

Although in terms of horror, the twists might be even more impactful. I made a thread here in the "media room" section asking people if horror movies actually scare them. One of the points that I found interesting was something like "It's not scary when you expect it. But when you get horror elements in a movie or a show that isn't horror, it's more impactful". 

 

I don't think I've experienced such moment in a game before. DDLC would have absolutely made me feel real fear, if I'd played it expecting a date sim. 

[Together_Comic]

48 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Doki Doki Literature Club+

 

Played this on PC a few years back when a friend gifted it to me and they told me to at least give it till the end of the first act....   When the façade fell away, I have never noped out of a video game faster.  

[DrBloodmoney]

8 minutes ago, Slava said:

I've had a similar experience learning about DDLC. The first time I heard about it (the PC version specifically), I learned that it's not what it seems. Basically, was semi-spoiled about the main reveals right off the bat, including the stuff that player has to do in the end. I've never played a visual novel or a dating sim game as well. One day, I was reminded of the game again. I thought "Ahh, I'm probably never going to play this, I'll spoil myself the rest to know what happens" and read the summary on Wikipedia. 

 

It's yet another game where I learn about the twists before I play it. One of them was MGS2 with the whole Raiden thing. I was too young when it came out. By the time I could get my hands on the remaster, I already knew most of the story beats and what people think about them.

 

Although in terms of horror, the twists might be even more impactful. I made a thread here in the "media room" section asking people if horror movies actually scare them. One of the points that I found interesting was something like "It's not scary when you expect it. But when you get horror elements in a movie or a show that isn't horror, it's more impactful". 

 

I don't think I've experienced such moment in a game before. DDLC would have absolutely made me feel real fear, if I'd played it expecting a date sim. 

 

That's true I guess - the surprise element is the easiest and strongest way to be impactful, though I'd argue there are horror movies that still get me even knowing what I'm in for, but they are pretty rare. I think even then, it's often the surprise of how extreme the movie goes, that works - I remember knowing Martyrs (the french horror movie) rough plot before seeing it, but when the ending reveal is made, I still just about keeled over, because it was so jarringly appalling that it still caught me by surprise! ??

 

8 minutes ago, Together_Comic said:

 

Played this on PC a few years back when a friend gifted it to me and they told me to at least give it till the end of the first act....   When the façade fell away, I have never noped out of a video game faster.  

 

Ha - my new goal in life is to try and get my sister to play when I'm present. She is legit into dating sims etc. and I checked, and somehow she has apparently still not heard of Doki Doki Literature Club... so if she makes it to my next visit still in the dark, I'll get to experience what a completely blind playthrough is like through her eyes!

Edited May 31, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[Billie__227]

I'm so happy to hear you liked DDLC so much! I thought you might but I'll admit I didn't expect you to like it as much as you did haha. That comparison to Little Nightmares (another one of my all time favorite games I've played the past few years) is on point, and I never thought of it. I also played Little Nightmares before I played Doki Doki and until just now I didn't realize that the scene with the Gnome and the first big dark moment in DDLC are the only two times something in a game has really made me suddenly feel physically sick and emotionally drained. Despite how awful those moments were, I see it as a really great thing when a game is able to pull such a strong reaction out of me. I didn't know anything about Little Nightmares when I played it for the first time, but I went into DDLC knowing for a fact that there was some sort of dark twist to it and it STILL managed to lull me into a false sense of security and trick me into thinking it was just a cute little game and everyone (including the content warning) had been messing with me lol. I also think the side stories were a bit odd to add after the fact, but I took a lot of comfort in them when I was done with the game bc they were just cute and it was kinda nice. I do think it would've been even more impactful if we'd had time to get attached to the characters through the side stories first, but I also think a lot of people would've lost interest before all the twists if it were to be played that way, which is too bad. I haven't played The Stanley Parable so I can't compare them but my partner wants me to play it so bad lol so maybe one day I'll see for myself. Anyway, I'm glad I was apparently one of the people who inspired you to play this! I got super attached to it as well and I'm glad it doesn't take up a lot of space bc I don't think I will ever be able to delete it bc of reasons lol. I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but if you ever want something similar.. I cannot recommend World End Syndrome enough >.< 

 

Also, I always love to see another LiS fan! Those games will always have a special place in my heart, especially BtS bc AmberPrice is probably my favorite fictional ship of all time ?

[DrBloodmoney]

4 minutes ago, Billie__227 said:

I'm so happy to hear you liked DDLC so much! I thought you might but I'll admit I didn't expect you to like it as much as you did haha. That comparison to Little Nightmares (another one of my all time favorite games I've played the past few years) is on point, and I never thought of it. I also played Little Nightmares before I played Doki Doki and until just now I didn't realize that the scene with the Gnome and the first big dark moment in DDLC are the only two times something in a game has really made me suddenly feel physically sick and emotionally drained. Despite how awful those moments were, I see it as a really great thing when a game is able to pull such a strong reaction out of me. I didn't know anything about Little Nightmares when I played it for the first time, but I went into DDLC knowing for a fact that there was some sort of dark twist to it and it STILL managed to lull me into a false sense of security and trick me into thinking it was just a cute little game and everyone (including the content warning) had been messing with me lol. I also think the side stories were a bit odd to add after the fact, but I took a lot of comfort in them when I was done with the game bc they were just cute and it was kinda nice. I do think it would've been even more impactful if we'd had time to get attached to the characters through the side stories first, but I also think a lot of people would've lost interest before all the twists if it were to be played that way, which is too bad. I haven't played The Stanley Parable so I can't compare them but my partner wants me to play it so bad lol so maybe one day I'll see for myself. Anyway, I'm glad I was apparently one of the people who inspired you to play this! I got super attached to it as well and I'm glad it doesn't take up a lot of space bc I don't think I will ever be able to delete it bc of reasons lol. I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but if you ever want something similar.. I cannot recommend World End Syndrome enough >.< 

I’ve stuck World End Syndrome on my backlog gremlin list for sure - hopefully will get to it in some kind of a timely fashion!

 

You should absolutely check out The Stanley Parable if you dug Doki Doki  - it’s different of course, as the horror aspect isn’t part of it, but it’s clever in a lot of the same ways, and often very funny!

 

4 minutes ago, Billie__227 said:

Also, I always love to see another LiS fan! Those games will always have a special place in my heart, especially BtS bc AmberPrice is probably my favorite fictional ship of all time 

 

I’ve had Chloe, Rachael and Max on my mind recently actually, as the final(?) Trade Paperback of the comic was just delivered to me the other day, and so I read the finale of the comic book sequel arc… not sure if you’re aware of it, but I actually liked it a lot!

 

A different kind of story, but I thought it captured the characters very well - I certainly read every character in their game voices in my head, and it never felt incongruous with the original source material!

[Copanele]

On 5/31/2022 at 9:52 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Bayonetta

 

Hell yeah my recommendation! I am glad to not be the only one with the "I get it, Bayonetta is cool, you don't have to repeat that the millionth time PlatinumGames". Honestly the way she was shoved in every scene and with a zoom on her butt at every cutscene, she kinda...put me off as a character. And if I don't like the main character in an action game, then chances are I won't like the game either.

And damn, that was a correct point with Bayonetta never ever getting damaged. Gods, Demons, galaxies, nothing could stop her and...yeah the tension fizzled out. Not gonna lie, Dante in DMC is kinda the same, but he DOES lose some battles from time to time despite his coolness.

At least the enemies and weapons were cool in the game!

 

Also the story was stupid as hell ? 

Quote

 

Doki Doki Literature Club+

 

This however is quite an outstanding game. I too played the PC version and gotta say the game was shock after shock after aftershock  Whoever designed this game is either a genius, a madman or both.

 

Also why I asked you about the ending in that status update..

You don't get an extra fictional OS in the PC version(because well you wouldn't need it), so having to deal with "those files" on the PC version was a level of meta I wasn't ready for ?

This being said, I should try Stanley's Parable on PS4. I played it only once on PC, I was "ha ha funny narrator yells at me", I deleted it. Should retry it.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Copanele

[DrBloodmoney]

12 hours ago, Copanele said:

 

Hell yeah my recommendation! I am glad to not be the only one with the "I get it, Bayonetta is cool, you don't have to repeat that the millionth time PlatinumGames". Honestly the way she was shoved in every scene and with a zoom on her butt at every cutscene, she kinda...put me off as a character. And if I don't like the main character in an action game, then chances are I won't like the game either.

And damn, that was a correct point with Bayonetta never ever getting damaged. Gods, Demons, galaxies, nothing could stop her and...yeah the tension fizzled out. Not gonna lie, Dante in DMC is kinda the same, but he DOES lose some battles from time to time despite his coolness.

At least the enemies and weapons were cool in the game!

 

Ha - I was half worried about that one - we never talked about Bayonetta, so I didn’t know if we were going to have another Castlevania on our hands, given I had a fairly middling reaction to it… the story is pretty flat, and Platinum really need a “coolness editor”… but the combat was fun as hell, which is the main thing in a game like that!

 

 

Quote

This however is quite an outstanding game. I too played the PC version and gotta say the game was shock after shock after aftershock  Whoever designed this game is either a genius, a madman or both.

Also why I asked you about the ending in that status update..

  Reveal hidden contents

You don't get an extra OS in the PC version, you only get 2 nifty extra .ini files if I remember correctly. Having to delete those on the PC version was a level of meta I wasn't ready for 

 

This being said, I should try Stanley's Parable on PS4. I played it only once on PC, I was "ha ha funny narrator yells at me", I deleted it. Should retry it.

 

Stupid forum software spoiler tags!

 

Won’t let me open ? - full disclosure though, I did look up some of the changes from PC, and there are a few minor things that sound a little cooler in that version (mostly to do with mouse controls) that simply couldn’t translate… but overall, it still had a hell of an impact on me in console form - super glad I played it!

 

Absolutely check out Stanley Parable now - the new stuff has some really funny, quite astute stuff to say on the nature of sequels and the need for “content” that is well worth seeing, and if anything is actually better than a lot of the original content!

Edited June 2, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[Copanele]

2 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Ha - I was half worried about that one - we never talked about Bayonetta, so I didn’t know if we were going to have another Castlevania on our hands, given I had a fairly middling reaction to it… the story is pretty flat, and Platinum really need a “coolness editor”… but the combat was fun as hell, which is the main thing in a game like that!

 

 

Yep well if I were to say that Castlevania is a poor man's God of War, Bayonetta is definitely a poor man's Devil May Cry.

And yes, combat was fun as hell, that was one of the highlights of the game. I do like to have more control over my character (like, again, in DMC) but not gonna lie, switching between claws and bazookas then slicing everything with the laser katana was fun

2 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Stupid forum software spoiler tags!

 

Won’t let me open  - full disclosure though, I did look up some of the changes from PC, and there are a few minor things that sond cooler in that version (mostly to do with mouse controls) that simply couldn’t translate… but overall, it atill had a hell of an impact on me in console form - super glad I played it!

 

Absolutely check out Stanley Parable now - the new stuff has some really funny, quite astute stuff to say on the nature of sequels and the need for “content” that it well worth seeing, and if anything is actually better than a lot of the original content!

I edited the first comment, so no spoilers needed