Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[Puppeter04]

3 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

 

Huh, I'll try to fix it. The image is actually kinda cool... bee-lieve it or not.

 

...Sorry.

I was about to say congratulations and stuff, but nevermind...

 

naaaah, I smirked ngl. I'm sorry to hear about your frustration with Tropico 6 but at least you're already done!! and you are close to 365 which is a GREAT number, one of my favorites so I hope the next plat review will live up to my expectations ? if it's 13 Sentinels, oh lord, It will.

 

Good luck and congrats!

[Taruta13]

11 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Huh, I'll try to fix it. The image is actually kinda cool... bee-lieve it or not.

 

...Sorry.

Hey, don't apologize. It happens. As long as you fixed it, that's fine with me.

 

Just knocked out a ton of POWGI word puzzle games just to get enough platinum trophy title names for the Platinum Title club. Never expected to get the pun-cracking dog out but I could have done worse. I could have playing The Jumping Food games.

[gruffiiti]

On 2/12/2023 at 3:16 PM, Cassylvania said:

Platinum #361 - Green Hell

 

Nice writeup Cassy.. I have this one on the backlog for future and your reviews are always fun to read. I was surprised to find out this game is getting a PSVR2 version this year and now I might wait on this game as it just might fix the majority of the control issues you described. Never in a million years would this have been a game I would have thought would get a PSVR2 treatment though. Definitely interested...

 

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/02/23/dive-into-the-jungle-with-green-hell-vr-on-playstation-vr2-out-2023/

[Cassylvania]

50 minutes ago, gruffiiti said:

 

Nice writeup Cassy.. I have this one on the backlog for future and your reviews are always fun to read. I was surprised to find out this game is getting a PSVR2 version this year and now I might wait on this game as it just might fix the majority of the control issues you described. Never in a million years would this have been a game I would have thought would get a PSVR2 treatment though. Definitely interested...

 

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/02/23/dive-into-the-jungle-with-green-hell-vr-on-playstation-vr2-out-2023/

 

That's...actually horrifying. I don't know if I went into detail about this in my review, but some of the wounds you get in the game are really disgusting or uncomfortable to look at. I don't think that would be a game I'd want to play in VR.

 

On 2/21/2023 at 2:17 AM, Puppeter04 said:

I naaaah, I smirked ngl. I'm sorry to hear about your frustration with Tropico 6 but at least you're already done!! and you are close to 365 which is a GREAT number, one of my favorites so I hope the next plat review will live up to my expectations  if it's 13 Sentinels, oh lord, It will.

 

Good luck and congrats!

 

Your wish is my command. Hopefully I can finish tonight.

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 21.2.2023 at 8:17 AM, Puppeter04 said:

  if it's 13 Sentinels, oh lord, It will.

 

I am waiting for that as well, but I usually jinx it when I say something first.

[Cassylvania]

And now for the highly anticipated review of the year...

 

Platinum #365 - 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

 

If you remember from my review of CrossCode last year, I said I thought I did myself a disservice by either playing too many games at the same time or stretching my playthrough across several months instead of just powering through it. That applies ten-fold (well, I guess thirteen-fold) here. The difference is I kinda knew I was fucking up. There is so much to this game and its characters and its storytelling that I'm absolutely going to say right now that if you do intend to play this game, you shouldn't have any other major games going on at the same time. I would typically play an hour or two each night, maybe once or twice a week, and that's why it took me so long to finish. Because of the way the story is told, I don't think that's the best way to experience the game. At the very least, I would say you should at most have a mindless button-masher on the side, if you need something else to occupy your mind.

 

Now, I want to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. I've always debated how important that is to my reviews. I feel, for the most part, I play a lot of games that a lot of people have never heard of and/or have no intention of playing. That's why I feel I can "embellish" the plot of some games by describing them in horribly inaccurate ways. You know you don't actually play as Aaron Rodgers in Green Hell or a spaghetti monster in Carrion. That's just my way of getting you to see the game through my eyes, while still allowing you to enjoy the mystery or story of the game if you ever decide to play it for yourself. You can usually tell when I'm being serious about the plot or main character anyway. When I play a AAA game, I'm not usually afraid of spoilers because I either don't feel the need to talk about the story or I have too much else I want to focus on that you probably don't even notice I forgot to mention what the game is even about. But what do I do with a title like this, that a lot of people have played or might play, but is so plot-driven that I can't possibly talk about the game without going into detail about it?

 

Come to think of it, I watched several reviews of this game before buying it, and I'm not sure a single one really clued me into what kind of game it was. I'm not sure this review will be any more helpful. But I guess one thing we do is start with the box art. After all, I can't spoil anything if all I'm doing is talking about the image you'd see before popping the disc in for yourself, right?

 

So, here's the box art.

 

You can tell a few things right away. We'll start with the title because it gives away the overall premise of the game. There are 13 protagonists (don't actually count the ones on the cover) and they control giant sentinels -- one of which you can see in the background. You can also tell that they're all basically teenagers, but that's common in anything that comes out of Japan, and they're sporting a wide variety of school outfits. There's a reason they're not all dressed the same and it's not just so you can tell them apart.

 

Now, unlike a lot of games, there is no central protagonist here. I guess you could say it's kinda Juro (brown-haired guy in the front) and maybe Iori as the female protagonist (the skirt just behind him), but they all get a significant amount of playtime and each character has their own story. This is not dissimilar from Last Stop. I was actually hoping to platinum them around the same time because I would've liked to compare their approach to multi-character storytelling. In Last Stop, you had three unique storylines, with each storyline broken into five chapters. My biggest complaint in that game was that you HAD to finish each storyline in each chapter before you could move to the next chapter. That was stupid because the storylines were not even connected until the end. Here, however, these storylines heavily overlap. There might be two or three characters in one scene, but you're only seeing it from one character's point of view. Later on, you might revisit that scene from the perspective of a different character, and you'll now have additional insight into what's going on. Sometimes this is critical to the plot, while other times it's merely a coincidence that another character is there. Thus, it's understandable that the game doesn't let you finish one character's storyline before moving on the next. You don't have access to all 13 characters originally anyway, but you'll be jumping around their storylines a lot. That's why I said it's probably a good idea to only play this one game because it can be difficult to remember what's going on. It's the reason I can't watch episodic stuff like Game of Thrones until the whole season is complete because there's no way I could keep track of all the sub-plots at a rate of one episode per week.

 

There are essentially two "modes" in this game. There's the "Remembrance" sections, which is the story/VN element of the game, and the "Destruction" sections, which is the tactical part of the game. Obviously, I first heard about this game because of the tactical component. I've always looking for stuff like XCOM. This is not like XCOM. In fact, do NOT buy this game if all you care about is battling with giant mechs. Not only is it a very minor part of the game (I'd say less than 10% of my total playtime), but it's extremely easy because you can play on the lowest difficulty. I got the highest rank on every battle on my first attempt and I wasn't even trying. You can just pick random characters and skills and you'll be fine. You absolutely buy this game for the story component. It's the heart and soul of the game. It's sorta like when you pause your AAA game and play Angry Birds on the toilet. Angry Birds is just something you do until you can get back to the real game. Did it need to be in the game? Probably not, but it's nice to see your characters actually fighting. The story just provides context for those moments, but it ends up being the more engaging part of the game.

 

OK. I've been wearing my ballerina shoes so far so I can tiptoe around the plot of the game, but this is where I have to go into minor spoilers. This is a sci-fi story. Shocking, I know. But it's not just one sc-fi. story. This is like...every sci-fi story, movie, and trope all rolled into one. War of the Worlds, E.T., Inception, Transformers, Men in Black -- hell, even stuff you might not consider sci-fi, like Groundhog Day and Jason Bourne -- are all here. I don't think they ever directly COPY these things (except E.T. -- they're not even shy about this one) or mention their real world counterpart, but the writers were definitely aware that these things exist. It's OK. Forrest Gump is my favorite movie of all-time in part because it combined so many pop culture references in a unique, clever, and respectful way. I have no problem with a game paying homage to so many classics from the 80's and 90's. (Of course I don't. It's all I talk about here.)

 

They do something similar to Last Stop in that each character's storyline is essentially representative of one of these tropes. Going back to that box art image, take a look at the short shorts in the upper right. That's Natsuno. Her storyline is essentially the plot of E.T., right down to the size of the "alien" and the blanket over his head that she uses to hide him. You have aliens in this game, time travel, body-swapping, ghosts, parallel universes, giant mechs, talking animals... It's enough to make your head spin. It's not clear, though -- at least early on -- what's "real" and how deep the rabbit hole goes. I don't want to talk about Genshin again, but it's very similar to the new Sumeru storyline, where every time you think you have it figured out, they throw in another twist and keep you guessing. It's done very well (and, believe me, I would tell you if it wasn't) and the reason nothing I said so far is a spoiler.

 

To complicate things further, the story is told non-linearly. In fact, you'll be replaying the same scenes many times -- not just as different character, but sometimes as the same character, selecting different dialogue options. Sometimes you need a character to learn some "key word" that will unlock new areas or different dialogue options. Sometimes these can be obtained during that character's storyline, while other times you'll need to advance to a certain point in a different character's storyline so that character can learn it. It sounds confusing, and it is, but you'll rarely get stuck because the game simply locks out you of content you can't access yet. If you just exhaust all dialogue options, you'll usually figure out what you need to do. There's some light, VERY light puzzle-solving, but you're mostly just pressing X the whole time. This game does have an auto text feature, which I appreciate it, but my biggest complaint is that you're still required to press X too often. I don't know why some characters stop talking when they clearly have more to say. In fact, I'm tempted to say this game would be better if they got rid of the movement stuff altogether. There was usually very little reason to have me walk around as the character. It's not like this is a point-and-click or platformer.

 

That said, if there IS a reason to move around, it's to enjoy the artwork, which is fuckin' beautiful. You could tell this was a Vanillaware title right away. These characters look straight from Odin Sphere. Absolutely gorgeous models and scenery. They reuse a lot of scenes, which is fine and understandable, but I was actually stunned by how many unique areas are in this game. That must've been where most of their budget went, right? There's no way the voice acting could be that good. And yet...somehow, the voice acting is great. This is the #1 biggest surprise to me. Every line of dialogue is voiced over. Every. Single. Line. If you listen to every line, like I did, that's something like 35-40 hours of audio clips -- all done well, all done professionally, and not a single line that made me cringe, which is surprising considering some of the writing is...a bit too fan-servicey for my liking. You know how it is. I'd say this game takes itself seriously 90% of the time, but it's a Japanese game about school kids, so they have to throw in the obligatory boy-hides-in-the-girls'-locker-room-by-mistake kind of stuff. Some of it was funny, though. I liked the guy who was obsessed with yakisoba pan and the other who liked hemborger, whatever that is.

 

And since this IS a game with multiple characters, I know you're dying to know who my favorite is. Well, I'm currently in the process of renovating a house so that I can move in. I want to have a gaming room in that house and I've been looking up stuff I can buy to put in that room. One of the things I was thinking of buying is a statue. I've had one of Velvet and Cornelius (from Odin Sphere Leifthrasir) in my cart for six years, but never pulled the trigger because the price was too high. I thought they'd have one of every character, but the only one I came across was for Natsuno, who was by far my favorite character and I'm assuming a lot of other people's too. I also liked the hemborger guy a lot. If the price goes down a little on that statue, I'll buy it.

 

That should pretty much tell you my overall thoughts on the game. It was good. The PSNP guide says 35 hours to platinum, but I ended up just over 50 hours. I left the game idle a lot, though, and I had to play some Destruction maps a second time because I kept forgetting about the bonus objectives, so the guide is probably more accurate. I'm going to recommend this, but I will say that you really need to understand this is essentially a visual novel before going in. I might be interested in trying out the Destruction maps on a higher difficulty later on just to see what they're like. We'll see if I have time.

 

There you go. A platinum for every day of the year!

[Puppeter04]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS ok, let me read it ?

 

Superb, as always, it is difficult not to give spoilers away trying to explain a game like this. According to Vanillaware is their best game to this date and I'm a sucker for the mecha genre in anime so I gave this a try on switch. 

 

Indeed, the artwork and voice acting was amazing. My only complaint is that the combats lack difficulty and variety but its story and narrative are way enough to make me forget about that.

 

Thank you for your service! What's next?  

 

[Rally-Vincent---]

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

And since this IS a game with multiple characters, I know you're dying to know who my favorite is. Well, I'm currently in the process of renovating a house so that I can move in. I want to have a gaming room in that house and I've been looking up stuff I can buy to put in that room. One of the things I was thinking of buying is a statue. I've had one of Velvet and Cornelius (from Odin Sphere Leifthrasir) in my cart for six years, but never pulled the trigger because the price was too high. I thought they'd have one of every character, but the only one I came across was for Natsuno, who was by far my favorite character and I'm assuming a lot of other people's too. I also liked the hemborger guy a lot. If the price goes down a little on that statue, I'll buy it.

 

As for statues, I am afraid it'll be like it always is - that only the girls will get figures. There are others than Natsuno, have a look here (for prepainted figures).

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

To complicate things further, the story is told non-linearly.

 

That's the biggest appeal to me with this game. Bit by bit, you uncover more, and the next guy will discover things in a different order.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Rally-Vincent---

[Cassylvania]

1 minute ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

As for statues, I am afraid it'll be like it always is - that only the girls will get figures. There are others than Natsuno, have a look here (for prepainted figures).

 

That's why I like the Velvet and Cornelius statue. You're kinda getting a twofer. Same for Natsuno and B.J., which is why I'd probably get that.

 

Thanks for the link. I didn't see the other Natsuno statue. I might like that one more because it's a clear E.T. reference, which might fit my retro theme more. There was this really cool Resident Evil 2 metal print somebody did that was designed to look like an old horror movie poster. Can't find it anymore. I'll have to think what other characters and games I'd like to have represented in my gaming room...

 

Already have an XCOM poster. Don't worry about that.

 

18 minutes ago, Puppeter04 said:

Thank you for your service! What's next?

 

Hm. I kinda want to do Scarlet Nexus now that it's gone free, but I should probably get back to The DioField Chronicle. I have a tendency to sit on active games for too long. I'm not too worried about Elden Ring since I can obviously play that at any time and be fine, but I'm starting to see a bit too many unfinished games on my profile. New DLCs are killing me. (And yes, guys. I know The Long Dark is about to rear its ugly head again. I'm ready to finish that game once and for all.)

 

I do have a couple smaller indie titles that I'm close to finishing, so maybe we'll get those next. We also have to get ready for another immature milestone.

[Rally-Vincent---]

26 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Thanks for the link. I didn't see the other Natsuno statue. I might like that one more because it's a clear E.T. reference, which might fit my retro theme more. There was this really cool Resident Evil 2 metal print somebody did that was designed to look like an old horror movie poster. Can't find it anymore. I'll have to think what other characters and games I'd like to have represented in my gaming room...

 

Is it games before a certain era/age or also new(er) games with a retro feel you're looking for?

[Cassylvania]

1 hour ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Is it games before a certain era/age or also new(er) games with a retro feel you're looking for?

 

Eh, I don't even have the drywall up yet. I'm working on the color scheme and layout first. I'm debating between light purple walls with gray vinyl flooring (with white and black furniture) for a sleek modern look or cream-colored walls with brown fleck carpeting for a more cozy feel. (Yes, I've been watching too many videos on this stuff.) I'm leaning towards the latter. If I do that, I'm probably going to move away from the retro look altogether and maybe have a lot of plants and rustic-looking stuff. Not sure sci-fi anime girls will go with that. Maybe Ryza. We'll see.

 

Now, if I went straight up retro, I'd want stuff either from that era or designed to look like it's from that era. I actually kinda prefer modern stuff that looks retro, since I think traditional retro stuff is overdone and I admittedly grew up a little bit past the era of the true NES or arcade classics. But I'll have a basement in this house that I'll eventually convert into a sports bar, so I'm not against doing a retro theme down there. If flooding isn't an issue, I might even get an arcade machine or two.

 

I'll keep you guys updated and show you pictures when I'm done.

[Cassylvania]

Well, I guess we technically need one more platinum to have one for every day of the year. If this was a leap year, I would've waited a few more days. But it's not.

 

Platinum #366 - Yoku's Island Express

 

How do you guys decide what game to play next? I sometimes get so pissed at one game that I decide to play a similar but better game just to get the sour taste out of my mouth. Such is the case with Bee Simulator and Yoku's Island Express. I knew this was a unique take on the Metroidvania formula...and it's like $2.99 right now on the PSN store...so I figured it would be easier to justify than that mediocre bee game.

 

The title tells you exactly who you play as, where the game takes place, and the overall premise, which is that Yoku lands on an island after his boat crashes and becomes the new postmaster. Now it's up to you to...deliver letters or something? I guess? There's a plot here, but obviously it doesn't take itself too seriously. Just look how damn happy Yoku is. Dude is always smiling and the game is so chill with its colorful graphics and tropical soundtrack that I didn't care that the plot is the equivalent to my car breaking down on the side of a road and a gas station manager putting me in charge of his store.

 

Now, what makes this game different from most Metroidvanias is that Yoku isn't just any kind of beetle. He's a dung beetle. That means he always has to be rolling around a ball of shit. For whatever reason, Yoku is lassoed to this ball of shit, and I'm not sure whether you're really controlling him or the ball of shit for the duration of the game. It's probably a little of both. On flat surfaces, you're pushing the shit around, but go down a slope or enter a pinball arena and the shit's momentum takes over. Yoku is mostly just along for the ride. And isn't that just the perfect metaphor for our lives?

 

"Pinball arena?" you ask. Yeah, this is a pinball game. You use the trigger buttons on the controller to activate paddles on the screen, which you can use to bounce the ball of shit through targets, to collect fruit or items, or to reach higher areas. It's impressive how well-integrated this feels, because this game essentially sidesteps most of the usual conventions of Metroidvanias, such as jumping or combat. You have very little control of Yoku once he's in the air. I think you can lightly maneuver him left or right, but you're mostly at the mercy of the shit. How the game allows this to work in a platformer and not feel overly frustrating is beyond me. I don't even like pinball. The last time I played was when my dad took me to a bar when I was like six years old (don't ask) and I met the Cleveland Indians. Albert Belle gave me a quarter to play pinball. I was so happy that I didn't care the game only lasted two seconds.

 

Fortunately, this game isn't much longer. It's not because it's a bad game, but because the novelty does start to wear thin after a while. It's when you have to revisit older areas with upgraded skills that it starts to get aggravating. Two of Yoku's later skills (the slug blast and the hookshot) involve some precise controls that never felt right to me. The slug blast, in particular, seems random with what direction it throws Yoku (and at what velocity). I suspect it has something to do with the way the slug is facing and the game probably explained it, but it still seemed finicky to me. The hookshot, on the other hand, makes this game feel like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, which is NOT a comparison you want me making to your game. The developers seemed to realize they fucked up, though, because they put checkpoints near some of the more annoying sections. If you fall, you can just pause and select restart from checkpoint. Otherwise, it's a long way back to the top.

 

Yoku can't die, which is nice. If you fall down the gutter (or whatever they call it on pinball machines), you simply hit some thorns and lose some fruit, which is easy enough to get. You'll usually be maxed out anyway. There are also various targets in each pinball arena. There's usually one thing you need to do to advance the game, but you can mess around in the arena for a while to collect fruit or light up scarabs, which you need to do anyway for the platinum. I found this nice because it meant I was still accomplishing something even if I was having trouble making the shot I wanted. And that happened a lot because, despite its immediate charm, this is not that easy of a game. You actually need good reflexes. (On the other hand, I had to beat the final boss twice because I forgot to save the first time and I literally beat him with my eyes closed. Just to say that I did.)

 

One of my favorite moments in this game (OK, this is a bit of a spoiler, so skip this paragraph if you want) was this NPC who asked for fruit to upgrade my wallet. I didn't have enough at the time, so naturally I was annoyed that I'd have to go around the map, collect more fruit, and come back later just to get this upgrade. Instead, the NPC felt sorry for me and gave me the upgrade anyway, saying I can pay him back later. I don't even think you have to. But I was so happy that I didn't have to do what so many games have conditioned me to do that I immediately farmed all the fruit I needed and returned to the NPC to pay off my debt. I wish more quests in the game were like that, but they're not. Just standard fetch quests.

 

Navigation in this game is OK. There are fast travel "lines" you can access, but only from certain locations and only after you've paid the first toll. This speeds things up and makes the side quests more tolerable, but I wish there were more of them or that you could access the lines from any location. There are places where you can drop down, for example, but you can't get back up. I almost feel like the developers expect you to find a checkpoint before you go after a collectible that could send you plummeting back a lower location. It doesn't sound like a big deal to have to do a 20-30 second lap to get back to where you were, but it adds up and makes me feel like the game is mocking me instead of trying to provide me with a fun time.

 

Still, this is a solid recommendation at the current sale price and definitely worth a buy if you're going to skip the collectibles and optional side quests. I love the genre mashup. I have several more Metroidvanias on tap for this year, but I think this one's going to stand out.

[Taruta13]

Love the review. Not sure I can handle a pinball game but I am glad you enjoyed it.

 

As for me, I just got into Minecraft, downloaded it for my PS4 and Vita and trying to get started on a fair seed for the Vita version. I keep getting attacked by skeletons.

[Cassylvania]

Platinum #367 - The DioField Chronicle

 

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This is the second time in three months that I bought an SRPG on release day and got burned. The only real debate I have during this review is whether this game was a bigger ripoff than Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Let's get into it.

 

The DioField Chronicle is a real-time strategy game, where you play as a band of mercenaries in a war-torn kingdom called something generic. Your four main characters, the heads of the Blue Foxes, are Andrias Rhondarson (you), his bodyguard Fredret Lester, pretty boy Iscarion Colchester (I wanted to type these all out so you can see how ridiculous they are), and his tsundere Wyona...Wilma... *looks it up* Waltaquin Redditch. We'll be calling them Andy, Fred, Isaac, and Wyona. (Actually, we won't be calling them anything because I probably won't mention them again.) Now, there's a story here involving a precious resource called "Jade", but I want to start with the gameplay. This is a strategy game, after all, and that's the main reason I'm willing to throw $69.99 down as a preorder.

 

There are two parts to the game: missions (this is the actual gameplay) and your base, which you visit between missions. Your base is boring. There is very little to do there. Basically, it just serves as a location to buy or sell weapons, upgrade your characters, and talk to NPCs. All the upgrades in this game are incremental and your mini-map shows you who you need to talk to if you want to start a side quest, so your actual time spent here will be very small. For most of the game, you'll be completing missions. I don't remember if there's a tutorial or not. It doesn't really matter. After you complete the first mission, you've seen everything the game has to offer.

 

So, here's how battles work. You can deploy up to four characters, which is a disappointing amount. Enemies are spread across a mostly linear map in groups of two or three. Once you kill all the enemies, more will spawn. This happens on every map. In some cases, the reinforcements will charge you. In other cases, you'll have to move to them. Once you kill them, this process repeats until the mission is finally over. If you're lucky, it'll be after two waves of reinforcements. If you're not, there could be three or four waves. If there are 100 missions in this game, that's how 95 of them will play out. I'm not kidding. The most annoying part is that a unique cutscene will play out every time reinforcements arrive, as if your party members are somehow surprised that they’re being ambushed for the four hundredth time. It's like when you see a joke coming from a mile away and they just keep repeating the joke.

 

Now, it’s going to be hard to explain exactly why the combat is so boring, but I’ll do my best. For starters, four units is a very small number for tactical game. There are four classes in the game, so why wouldn’t you just use one of each? In fact, the four characters I mentioned represent all four classes, so there's practically no reason to use any of the other 15+ characters in the game. There's no permadeath or wounded system, and it's not like each character has unique skills or anything. I mean, some characters use different weapons. For example, the Scout class (or whatever they call it in this game) can either use a gun or bow. The problem is the developers forgot to program “strategy” into their strategy game. You can win purely by overpowering the enemy. In fact, that’s really your only option. The game wants you to think there are stealth mechanics or that you can lure enemies away from the main pack so you can pick them off one by one, but that's rarely an option. Most groups of enemies are static and are well within sight/attack range when you target one of them.

 

It's a little more complicated than that. Any unit you can deploy can be paired with a second (off-field) character. To my knowledge, the only purpose this serves is allowing your on-field character to use skills from the off-field character. They share a mana pool. If you’re anything like me at this point, you might be wondering why you don’t just deploy four strong melee characters and pair each of them with a healer, knowing you’ll get the benefit of restoration capabilities without the need to protect squishy mages. Congratulations – here's your platinum. You outsmarted the devs.

 

"There's no way it's that simple," you're probably thinking. "There's gotta be more to combat than that."

 

I'll admit. I played on the easiest difficulty. But let me explain how combat works first before you think that *I'm* the one that took strategy out of this strategy game.

 

Because you only have a party of four and you're usually fighting multiple enemies at a time, there are only so many mathematical ways you can break up your units. Yes, there's flank damage, but that's going to require having one character tank while the other maneuvers around the enemy and attacks from the rear. This takes time to set up. You have skills, which can do more damage, but they cost mana. So, would you rather do more damage and finish battles more quickly, or save your mana for healing the damage you take from an extended fight? I noticed very little difference. Enemies drop orbs that restore your health and mana, so I don't think it really matters.

 

Enemies have skills too. When they use one of these, a red cone-of-attack appears and slowly begins to fill up. If it fills up all the way, any of your units in that cone will take damage. You now have two choices. Option A: manually select your character(s) in the cone-of-attack, move them out of the range, wait for the attack to go off, select your character again (because the game pauses when you’re performing any action, so you have to unpause it first), and move them back into range to attack the enemy. This will happen at a rate of about one skill every 10-20 seconds. More if you’re fighting multiple enemies. Hope you like repeating that process eighty times per map. Option B: use a skill that stuns the enemy. This is the only reason I see for using a non-healing skill. Sure, there are skills reposition your character or the enemy -- and would be useful in almost every other game -- but the difference it makes here is minimal. If you can heal and stun, you've already won the mission. Eventually, I stopped opting for A or B and just took skill shots to the face. Even if one of your characters goes down, you can just use another character to revive them. Only takes a couple seconds and doesn't cost anything. It feels like the only decision you’re ever making in this game is how much effort you want to put into each mission. I purposely designed my team -- the characters I used, their abilities, the gear I gave them (which is only a single weapon and two accessory slots) -- with one goal in mind: to minimize the amount of time I actively had to "play" the game. Healing and stunning was simply more effective and cost-efficient. That said, if you always have Andy equipped with the best weapon, you can often one-shot or two-shot some enemies with Assassination or Shadow Step.

 

Bosses -- or mini-bosses -- are all the same. I mean, there are a few varieties of them, but the fights are the same. When their HP drops to zero, they'll roar, knock all your characters back a couple feet, and then proceed to use the same attacks as before. Just like reinforcements, this will happen once or twice before they're finally defeated. All this does is extend the battle out longer, which is aggravating. Obviously, if you can get a boss to zero HP once, you can do it again.

 

Have I mentioned how dull the maps are? There is no discernible difference between them. I think maybe your characters more slower on some terrain than others. I know your flying units move faster. It doesn't really matter. Again, four deployable units means you're either fighting in pairs or trusting one of your units to solo one side of the map. This isn't even an option most of the time because a lot of enemies will just bull rush you. My favorite character in the game ended up being Catherine because she required zero babysitting. She'd essentially heal faster on her own (equipped with items that would assist with that) than the enemies could hurt her.

 

There is no discernible difference between an early game battle and a late game battle either. The few times they try to shake things up are forgettable. I think it happened twice that I was limited to less than four characters or couldn’t use a specific character for a mission. Compare this to a good SRPG, like any of the Fire Emblem games. Show me a map from ANY of the older FE games and I’d probably remember not only playing it, but what characters I used, what I struggled with, and my overall strategy. You wouldn’t even have to show me the enemy placement on the map or what characters I had access to. That's because those maps felt individually crafted to engage and challenge the player. Nothing in DioField feels hand-crafted. I don’t even think the developers play tested individual maps. It feels like they let an AI choose where to place enemies and then used an algorithm to balance out the difficulty. It feels soulless and empty.

 

And it doesn't just stop with the gameplay. The characters, guys. The characters are so dull. I don’t want to blame the voice actors because they do a decent enough job, but there’s no energy at all in the way they talk during cutscenes or the way the story is told. It’s like that bit Aubrey Plaza and Jenna Ortega did at SAG. That was funny because they're known for their deadpan humor, but it works because they have something to play off. If every character is dry and uninteresting, it doesn't work. And they tried, with characters like Rickenback who at least have some personality, but the main cast is boring. It's even hard to tell the characters apart.

 

Like a lot of games, the characters talk during battle. This gets old fast. Every character has a single line of dialogue that they'll use for an action. So, I hope you like hearing "Here... I... COME!" every time Rickenback uses her stun attack or the healer who says "This isn't really my style" every time you use a heal. (Like, what?) Props to the VA for Izelair for being the one character to not annoy me by the end of the game with her repeated dialogue. I recommend using her for purely that reason. She's not a good character otherwise.

 

"That's not a big deal," you say. "You could just, you know, NOT use that skill or character. Mix it up a little!"

 

Oh, you think that only applies to your characters? No, no, no. Enemies ALSO have repeated dialogue. Kill a soldier? "LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" Kill another? "LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" And since you're usually fighting five or six at a time... LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!" All with the same inflection and tone. I would've preferred the Wilhelm scream.

 

If there's one good thing about the game, I guess it's the graphics. The cutscenes are pretty, but most of them take place around a table. That's about as exciting as it sounds. I liked the portraits and character models, but it's a lipstick-on-a-pig situation. There's no getting around the fundamental flaws in this game. I would know. I spent the better part of 30+ hours trying to think how I would fix it.

 

If you can't tell, I'm pissed at this game. This was the most money I think I've ever spent on a video game (Genshin Impact and DLCs not included). If I had bought this game at the store instead of online, I would seriously try to get a refund. I don't care that they probably wouldn't take it back because it's been opened. It would be worth it for me to try. This is a disgrace to strategy games and I don't think it's a question of whether this or Tactics Ogre: Reborn was a bigger disappointment. TOR at least had heart. I have many, MANY issues with that game, but I can understand why people think fondly of it. I love my Ogre Battle 64, warts and all, but THIS is just dull and uninspiring. It is definitely not worth a buy and an absolute robbery at full price.

 

I'm watching the ending now as I type this (thankfully, you only need one playthrough for the platinum, even if you will have to grind for levels to get there) and it seems they're gearing up for a sequel. I can assure you I won't be buying that. DioField? More like DioRhea.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Cassylvania

[Grotz99]

58 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Platinum #367 - The DioField Chronicle

 

Someone mentioned this game to me before it was released and it's one of the rare times I tried the demo of a game. This was probably a mistake on their part as I couldn't even get through the whole demo because I didn't see much depth there and I have pretty good tolerance for tactical RPGs.

[Rally-Vincent---]

2 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

 

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This is the second time in three months that I bought an SRPG on release day and got burned. The only real debate I have during this review is whether this game was a bigger ripoff than Tactics Ogre: Reborn.

 

Oh no, I have both games in my backlog. Hopefully, my standards are lower.

[Cassylvania]

3 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

Someone mentioned this game to me before it was released and it's one of the rare times I tried the demo of a game. This was probably a mistake on their part as I couldn't even get through the whole demo because I didn't see much depth there and I have pretty good tolerance for tactical RPGs.

 

If the demo had you select a character, move them, and use a skill, you've played the entire game already. No need for the full 40 hour borefest.

 

2 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Oh no, I have both games in my backlog. Hopefully, my standards are lower.

 

Hm. You'll probably like TOR. I feel like I'd be in the minority in not liking that game. I feel it does a better job at being a TBS than DioField does at being an RTS, if that makes sense. DioField has mixed reviews, though, so I know I'm not alone in feeling this way.

 

To think I could've per-ordered Ryza 3 instead...

[Taruta13]

Sorry you paid $70 for a game that is brain-dead. Also I noticed that you have Forma-8 on your card. Probably de-tox?

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 2.3.2023 at 11:05 PM, Cassylvania said:

Hm. You'll probably like TOR.

 

I could make a Fry meme out of this: Don't know if encouragement... or backhanded compliment.

 

Well, it'll be a couple of months until my first playthrough of Pathfinder: WOTR is done, until then I'll maybe have forgotten that those games may (or may not) be bad.

[Cassylvania]

22 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Well, it'll be a couple of months until my first playthrough of Pathfinder: WOTR is done, until then I'll maybe have forgotten that those games may (or may not) be bad.

 

I'll be interested in your opinions on that game. I was debating on playing Kingmaker sometime this year. (Not so sure now...)

 

On 3/3/2023 at 8:45 AM, Taruta13 said:

Sorry you paid $70 for a game that is brain-dead. Also I noticed that you have Forma-8 on your card. Probably de-tox?

 

No, I'm still feeling pretty toxic. Let's get into it.

 

Platinum #368 - Forma.8

 

Forma.8 is a sort of Metroidvania that has you taking the role of...I dunno, some little black ball with eyes. Let's call him Domeguy. Like most games in this genre, Domeguy begins with very few skills (literally zero), but eventually picks up a couple abilities that help with traversal and combat. What sets this game apart from most Metroidvanias is how nuanced everything is. Domeguy isn't a fighter. Domeguy isn't even a central figure in this world. From what I could tell (because there's no apparent plot or dialogue), Domeguy is just one of many little black balls roaming the universe. The developers intended for you to feel insignificant, as Domeguy is smaller and far less powerful than the creatures you will come across. Your attacks feel like little more than mosquito bites, with Domeguy only filling up a tiny fraction of the screen at any one time (even less when the camera decides to pan out) and the extent from his bombs/bloops not being much bigger.

 

Atmospherically, this game is good. The music and graphics are both minimal and subtle. I like the overuse of black. It reminds me of those "silhouette" levels in the newer Donkey Kong games, where you can only differentiate between background objects due to their shape and relative size. It really makes the areas that are colored in pop out. There's also some good use of lighting. I don't think games need to be more complicated than this. There's also some ASMR stuff going on when you pick up multiple energy orbs in a row. They go bleep bleep bleep at increasingly lower frequencies, like running your finger across the keys of a piano, and it's so satisfying.

 

The controls are pretty good too. Domeguy is always flying and there's a realistic momentum to his movements. He can't just turn on a dime like some protagonists. He has to stop and regain his speed. This makes the bomb + bloop attack (dropping a bomb, moving slightly away from it, and then blooping to launch it in a particular direction) a bit tricky to pull off. I don't know if that's a better strategy than just dropping bombs randomly and hoping your target runs into them. In some cases, you have multiple ways you can kill some enemies. In others -- particularly boss fights -- it seems only one strategy works. Much of the game is a puzzle and it's up to you to figure out the best way to approach enemies and sticky situations, which is not always a good thing in Metroidvanias because you're never sure if you even have the correct skills to defeat that enemy. In this game, it's sometimes not even clear if an enemy is taking damage. I wasted a lot of time backtracking because I reached an enemy I thought was unkillable, but was actually necessary to advance to the next area. In another instance, I thought an enemy was taking damage because I got auditory feedback when I hit him, but I realized I was wasting my time when he was still alive after 20 or 30 hits. I know this game is going for the minimalist approach, but I would've appreciated an enemy health bar.

 

That's not my biggest complain, though. I actually disliked this game for one simple reason. Domeguy is TOO. FUCKIN'. SLOW. I get that the developers wanted you to feel small, but did they have to make you feel as slow as ass too? It is infuriating, and makes what could be a relaxing experience into an absolute slog. I'm not kidding when I say it could take several minutes to cross a single room. Imagine backtracking. Imagine searching for collectibles (which you WILL have to do). Imagine dying, which sends you back to the start of the screen you were just on, resetting all of the enemies. There's this one room, guys, where you have to bloop (or bomb) an object about a hundred times in order to get it to its destination. The whole game is a maze too, so it's very likely you'll take the wrong path. And it's not like other games, where it's no trouble at all to scout ahead. It could take you two minutes to fly all the way down one path, make sure it's the right path, and then another two minutes to get back. All this with very little to do along the way, mind you. You're very rarely "fighting" enemies. It's not satisfying to kill them, like in other games. It's more like a chore or a necessity. The only thing they ever drop is health, which you only ever need because you took damage from fighting them. It's an odd design choice and I'm not sure why the developers thought any of this would be fun.

 

Most of my other problems with the game are only compounded because of the movement speed. Some of the puzzles, for example, are obscure. I don't know how you would think to do some things that the game never teaches you. You would be fucked without the compass, which I don't think you'd ever find without a guide. The compass highlights any room that still has at least one collectible. Keep in mind you still have to get there and slowly navigate the room. Some of the collectibles are hidden passages, which have no indication that they even exist. At least two required me to ram myself into the wall repeatedly, probably a few hundred times before I found a path. How's that for a metaphor of my life? If I didn't have a second TV in my room so that I could watch other stuff while holding a single direction on my joystick for several minutes, I would've gone insane.

 

The nicest thing I can say about this game is that out of all the games I've played and disliked, this would be the easiest one to fix. Just make Domeguy about five times faster. That would make finding collectibles and backtracking a lot more enjoyable. The obscure puzzles wouldn't bother me as much. I might even consider this game a hidden gem (well, as hidden as a game with 44k+ owners on PSNP can be). Unfortunately, my biggest pet peeve is when I feel a video game is wasting my time, and this is just the latest and greatest example of that. I can only recommend this game if you're on a business trip or something equally boring and need a way to occupy yourself in the hotel room.

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 5.3.2023 at 6:22 PM, Cassylvania said:

 

I'll be interested in your opinions on that game. I was debating on playing Kingmaker sometime this year. (Not so sure now...)

 

I loved Kingmaker. It's really gets the pen & paper feeling across. What I love most about is that one level can make a difference between being beaten to a pulp and sweeping that fight (on hard or unfair difficulty). You'll yearn to gain a level.

 

As always, I made a blind first playthrough, on the second haredest difficulty, which is why it took me almost two months, and I loved it. It was really satisfying to play through the story, learning the system. Unfair mode really is unfair, you can and will get one-shotted quite a lot. (Unfair has padded enemy base stats and damage and all the nonsense that goes with it). You'll start to catch up at level 5, it gets easier then. Up to this point, though, some fights are hair-rippingly annoying. And you'll need to think about which stats and abilities you'll pick. It really matters on higher difficulties.

 

Battles have two modes: turn-based and real time with pause.

 

Besides the MC-plus-party section, Kingmaker has a realm mode, where you develop your land, annex regions, appoint advisors and steer your fiefdom to where you want it. Not everybody likes this section (you can lose the game if something goes awry there). I liked it and found it not to be diffcult.

 

You'll need to invest a serious amount of time in this game, and naturally it is story heavy. If you skip reading, you'll regret it later, because some decisions are crucial later on. Depends on how you judge: Either you need soooo much time to plat it, or you get hundreds of hours of gameplay for small bucks.

 

Three warnings:

 

1. Kingmaker has timed quests. Failing those will lead to a game over. I liked the urgency and found the time limits to be reasonable enough to be able to explore and do everything, but some people hate timed quests.

2. Kingmaker has a rogue-like dungeon, and one nasty trophy is tied to running through over and over until

       a. the RNG gods drop you the needed items of which you need to collect four sets of four

       b. after getting the full set the RNG gods spawn the matching Boss to drop a fifth item to this set (you bet the won't).

3. There is a secret ending

4 of 3: One trophy is tied to the unfair mode.

 

With the exception of the dungeon trophy, I loved the game. I will not recommend it, though, because whenever I recommend a game, people don't like it. If trophies > gameplay, probably too much of an investment. Anybody who just wants to play a nice cRPG, here's your game. Play at your own risk.

 

If you don't mind spoilers, find a let's play and watch the intro to get a grasp on how the game works (the first couple of hours is a tutorial quest intro, so there isn't that much to be spoilered). Find one with character creation, though. If that turns you off, it's not the game you want to play. Cohh's (unfinished) let's play, although on PC, would be one: here

Edited March 6, 2023 by Rally-Vincent---

[Taruta13]

4 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I can only recommend this game if you're on a business trip or something equally boring and need a way to occupy yourself in the hotel room.

No thanks. One, the trip I'm taking on the 20th is not a business trip, it's a vacay because two, I'm using the trip to Universal Studios and the Harry Potter theme parks there to supplement my playthrough of Hogwarts Legacy to get a real life feeling of wandering Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. (My mom gets to see her siblings in Orlando so it let me save on hotel fare, though I'd be sharing a room with my parents even though it's a two-bedroom suite.) So I already have something to occupy myself in the hotel. In fact, that's why I want to be in a hotel instead of camping in my uncle's house for the four days. (Also, I doubt they'd have room for me and I'd have to share dinner with them. )

 

Three, I think I have played Forma-8 and I sort of agree that the game wasn't really great. I never understood why, but now you'd revealed the flaw - movement is sluggish as hell. So thankfully I am not touching that game ever again.

 

I hope your next game is positive. I'm running Wild ARMs and if you haven't played it yet, you can just use a dupe glitch on the apples to buff everyone's stats so that you one-shot everything and six-shot all bosses.

[Cassylvania]

On 3/5/2023 at 3:23 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

If you don't mind spoilers, find a let's play and whatch the intro to get a grasp on how the game works (the first couple of hours is a tutorial quest intro, so there isn't that much to be spoilered). Find one with character creation, though. If that turns you off, it's not the game you want to play. Cohh's (unfinished) let's play, although on PC, would be one: here

 

Thanks for that. I watched the first couple episodes. It does look like my kind of game...but two things worry me. The first is the controls. I wonder if it would be better with a keyboard and mouse. The second is the difficulty. I think I could get around it, but I'm not sure I need more frustrating games in my life.

 

The time component doesn't bother me. I have nothing but time.

 

On 3/5/2023 at 4:51 PM, Taruta13 said:

Three, I think I have played Forma-8 and I sort of agree that the game wasn't really great. I never understood why, but now you'd revealed the flaw - movement is sluggish as hell. So thankfully I am not touching that game ever again.

 

 

There are some sections where the slow movement makes sense, but I think that kind of thing should be saved for more linear games. I don't understand why they thought it would be a good idea in a Metroidvania.

 

Alright, well. You probably knew this was coming.

 

Platinum #369 - Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry

 

Leisure Suit Larry is an adult-themed point-and-click series that has spanned essentially my whole life. But is this newest take a dream come true or should it just be hung up to dry? Yeah, I still got it.

 

So, I have two confessions to make. First, I've never played any other Leisure Suit Larry games, so I don't know how this compares. Second, I totally would've played them if I knew they existed. It's not like point-and-clicks from the 90's weren't full of sexual innuendos anyway. In fact, that whole era was about people in the video game and cartoon industry trying to see how much shit they could get away with on TV.

 

When you start up a new game, the first thing it asks you is how old you are. I don't know what happens if you say you're under 18. Regardless, you have to answer a series of questions to prove you're an adult. I don't know if they're being serious or that's part of the joke -- I mean, you can just Google the answers if you're not sure -- but I almost failed. How would I know what organization disbanded on April 20, 1998? In fact, this game came out in 2019. There's a very good chance you're old enough to play but were still in diapers in 1998. Also, imagine if other games quizzed you before playing them. You start up the next Soulsborne game and Miyazaki asks you, "Are you a little bitch?" The only choices are variations of "Yes."

 

Anyway, the "plot" of this game is that Larry wakes up in the 21st century and wants to shag some cougar who works for Prune (this universe's version of Apple). Reminds me of the Rocko's Modern Life movie that came out a few years ago. I know they're just feeding on nostalgia, but I've always liked the concept of a conservative everyday man taking on a radically progressive world. It's why King of the Hill remains my favorite show to this day and I have my fingers crossed for a successful spin-off. Fortunately, Larry, like Rocko and Hank or even Johnny Bravo (yes, I'm going to reference the 90's a lot in this review), isn't a dick about his views or his beliefs. He's just out of touch and seems oblivious to his own ignorance. That's where the humor comes in. Almost every character in this game besides Larry is obsessed with modern trends, like vegan foods and social media. Since Larry's been out cold for several decades, he genuinely has no idea what they're talking about.

 

I think what makes this game work is that Larry is a likable protagonist. It's my biggest complaint with the Deponia series. Rufus was TOO much of an asshole. Personality-wise, he's a selfish, bumbling anti-hero who just wants to get laid, but the shtick got old after the first game. I'm actually surprised I played that series through to completion. Larry, on the other hand, has almost the same personality, but he doesn't destroy lives to get his way. It was actually a little strange for me because I kept waiting for Larry to make everybody around him miserable, but he actually seems like a helpful chap...most of the time. I wonder if they toned him down for the revival. (Also, I noticed the Rufus reference in the "Timber" app. You can't pull one over me, devs.)

 

That's actually one thing I wanted to discuss. The humor in this game is less risqué than I expected. It's mostly just dick jokes. I normally don't like that kind of humor -- not because I'm a prude or anything, but because I'm not a 13 year old boy -- but it's surprisingly tame and inoffensive. I'm not sure why, since it's everywhere. It's like modern AVGN episodes, where the Nerd still swears and says disgusting things because that's what's expected, but the reviews have become a lot more about the games and the crude remarks just serve as a backdrop. Here, I feel like dicks were sprinkled everywhere because you'd expect that in a Larry game, but the parts of the game I actually thought were funny were more about the craziness of the modern world and meta humor. The death scenes were good too. Laugh out loud funny? Maybe not, but only Lair of the Clockwork God has made me do that.

 

This wouldn't be a point-and-click review if I didn't bitch about the puzzles. They're not as obscure as other games in the genre, but it's the usual bullshit that leaves me groaning. For example, one of the early tasks you're given is to hang up posters all over town. There's a spot on a brick wall to hang a poster, but the wall is too moist (don't ask) for the poster to stick. What solution would you come up with? Well, if you're anything like me, you'll be thinking to either use something sticky from your inventory OR something cloth-like to remove the dampness from the wall. No, the game wants you to stick darts into the brick wall. It's logic like that that makes me glad this genre is dead. You have third-person adventure games out here that feel the need to pause the action to tell you, "Hey, don't touch the lava or you'll take damage," but I can't get a tip that darts can go through brick walls in this universe?

 

To be fair, it can't be easy to design a point-and-click. You'd need to come up with solutions that make sense but aren't too easy to figure out. You'd also have to consider all the items the player might have in their inventory at the time and how they might think to use them. And I don't know whether the storyboard or artwork comes first. Someone would need to convey to the artist, "OK, Larry is going to attach the poster to the wall with darts" before the artist draws a brick wall. If the wall was drawn first and then the writers decided what Larry would do with it, I can see how it would be too late to correct it. That doesn't explain why it's sometimes hard to differentiate between background/foreground objects and selectable objects. There's a tiny piece of chewed gum in one of the bars that I never would've seen without a guide and I completely missed the sewer grate in the first area. This led to the usual brute force method of trying every item in my inventory on every selectable object until I caved in and looked up a strategy guide.

 

It wasn't only the writers or artists who dropped the ball. Quality assurance must've been asleep behind the wheel too because this game is riddled with typos. There are several times where what the character says doesn't match the subtitles. I'm not going to pretend I'm somehow better than this because I know I make my fair share of typos, but the difference is I'm not trying to pass these reviews off as a professional product. (Watching the credits now for a trophy and I can confirm there was no QA.)

 

It seems all the talent went to the audio department. The VAs in this game do a solid job. Larry carries it, but the rest of the cast is good and so is the music, with every area having its own swanky theme. My favorite character is the AI on Larry's phone, who is just as disgusted as me with Larry and his actions. I'm going to consider that a self-insert for the player.

 

In all seriousness, this was a competent point-and-click with a decent cast of characters, some clever writing, good character model and background artwork, and just enough humor to get a rise out of me. Would I recommend it? Well, no, but I'd rarely recommend any games in this genre outside of Lair of the Clockwork God and King's Quest. If you played both of those and enjoyed them, I'd say this is a maybe, but it's only slightly better than the original Deponia. I give it a 6.9/10.

 

...I'm kidding. It gets a 4.

 

P.S. Game froze on me three times when trying to exit a screen too quickly. It doesn't auto save either, so I had to replay several parts over again. Very annoying. Also, I didn't know you could use the trigger buttons to highlight selectable objects on the screen until near the end. That's on me.

[Cassylvania]

D-D-Double platinum night.

 

#370 - Time on Frog Island

 

Is this game worth your time or should it just hop away now? OK, I'll stop.

 

I wasn't sure what to make of Time on Frog Island when I came across a review a few days ago. It looked cute. Sorta like a mix between Animal Crossing and the ten thousand survival games I keep saying I'm going to play. But it was short (and, more importantly, on sale), so I figured it'd be a good break from forma.8, which was seriously pissing me off due to its slow movement speed. I figured it'd be a relaxing game and, you know, frogs are kinda fast. How bad could it be?

 

You already know if I'm asking that, it's pretty bad. But let's give it a fair chance, shall we? It looked promising enough.

 

So, the plot here isn't that different from Bugsnax or Yoku's Island Express. You play as a kid (who sounds like a man) who crashes on an island and needs to fix his boat in order to escape. Much like those other games, the island is full of furries (or whatever you'd call frog people -- scalies?). Unlike those games, though, there is absolutely zero dialogue in this game. Yes, we're back to that theme again. It does the Tails of Iron pictures-over-the-head kind of thing to tell the story, as well as single still frames every time you go to sleep. The latter is kinda neat because you only get one frame per night, so it takes about a full in-game week to get the entire story. After that, the cycle essentially repeats. This is going to be how most of this review goes, but I liked the idea -- just not the execution. There really isn't much of a plot here beyond what you'll probably figure out for yourself in the first hour, and none of the "bubble" dialogue is interesting either. See, this had the potential to be a decent puzzle game. The frogs obviously don't speak the same language as you, so trying to decipher what they want based on a series of pictures could've been fun. Instead, it's as basic as it gets. If a frog wants a strawberry, a strawberry will pop over its head. If a frog wants a feather, a feather will pop over its head. If the frog is offering you a reward in exchange, that object will appear over its head. Not only does that suck every ounce of creativity from the game, but that's what you'll spend the ENTIRE game doing. This is nothing more than a series of fetch quests. There are no survival mechanics, no farming mechanics, and no furniture or wardrobe customization mechanics. There aren't even random townspeople. There are just a dozen or so pre-made NPCs who each offer you a single quest. You only need to do a few of those to fix your ship. That's all there is to the game.

 

Now, I kinda knew it wasn't going to be Animal Crossing when I was going in. That was just hopeful wishing on my part. I knew it was reliant on its puzzles, but I had no idea how dry and boring it would be. The most complicated "puzzle" is when you're asked to find a blue worm. You come across these worms near your starting location and you'll notice they turn the color of the fruit they eat. I bet you don't even have to play the game to figure out what you need to do.

 

There's technically exploration here because the island is sorta big, but that's a lie too. The only reason the island feels big is because the kid suffers from the same problem as Domeguy -- he's TOO DAMN SLOW. Like, holy shit. I played this game to get AWAY from forma.8, but I actually think Domeguy could do laps around this kid. And it's not like the developers couldn't make him go any faster -- there's literally a potion in this game that dramatically increases his speed. The problem is that it only lasts for 15 seconds and you can only get it in town. Even worse, you have to BREW it yourself (which requires finding the ingredients) AND you can only carry a single potion at a time. In fact, the kid can only EVER carry a single item at a time. It doesn't matter what it is. He has to hold it proudly over his head until you either drop it, throw it, or give it to someone. This makes some of the side quests infuriating because you can never do two things at once. Oh, and if you spill a potion because you threw it instead of dropping it (since they're literally the same button)? Yeah, go back to town. If you accidentally drop an item over a cliff or have some bird break it? LOL, do it over again. Why is this a thing? When did "wasting a player's time" become synonymous with modern game design?

 

It's not like all the ideas in this game are bad. There are just so many questionable decisions. For example, there are some light Metroidvania elements here. You can plant mushrooms that allow you to bounce higher. Great, right? The problem is almost all of these are in the middle of nowhere, so they don't actually accomplish anything. The kid can get a skill that lets him jump further, but not higher. There is only a single time in the game that I found the ability to jump further useful, but many, MANY times when jumping higher would've been nice. This is a potion too, so why couldn't the speed potion be a permanent upgrade?

 

I cannot recommend this game. I paid $8.49 and I feel ripped off. The ONLY good thing I'll say about this game is that the graphics were nice. That's what suckered me in. I can't remember the music, but maybe that was OK too. But the gameplay and story are absolutely not worth your time. I'm pissed at myself for expecting this to be something good. I'm tired of being let down. It's like, "LET ME LOVE YOU," but developers keep shitting all over good ideas. This would be such an easy game to fix too. Make the kid run faster, put some more interesting fetch quests in there, have a minor skill tree so that you have something to work towards, and put in some basic base-building. You kinda get that with a house later on, but maybe that should be something you get right away with a game this short.

 

I will say there are some clever objects you can interact with. There are giant leaves you can use as a parachute, which is neat (even if Zelda did it first), and there are whirly flowers that give you a temporary speed boost (even if they are restricted to one area). A promising game, but a complete dud. Yes, this one should hop away.

[Taruta13]

Two more disappointments. It's like "Sorry, {indie game developer}, I'm going to have to take away your license to make games. You suck."

 

Well, for the record, I was playing Minecraft and I have my own scathing review about that. ?