Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[Mori]

On 8/20/2023 at 2:37 AM, Cassylvania said:

Looks neat. I'm assuming it's by the same people as Shadow Tactics and that western game I haven't played yet?

 

Yes, it is from Mimimi. They just announced that Shadow Gambit will be their last game. :')

btw. Desperados III is on Extra.. just saying. 🥶

 

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

I heard it's really tough. I think I watched a playthrough once. In FACT, I think I bought it... It's somewhere in my backlog, I'm pretty sure.

 

I played Giana Sisters last year. My opinion of the game might be biased because I did it during a trophy hunting event and thought I could quickly knock this game out but it ended up taking way too long for my liking.

You have to beat every level at least 4 times.

 

1. On hard difficulty, 95% of all collectibles/gems with 5-7 lives in each level (depending on the lenght of the level) - to unlock the 5 star trophy

2. Score Attack

3. Time Attack

4. Hardcore (No death runs) - to unlock Über-Hardcore

 

Some of the levels are stupid long, I checked for a friend last month. The longest speedrun for a level is around 8-9 minutes, most of the levels are around 3-5 minutes. That are just the speedrun times. Getting most of the collectibles/gems is another tedium. Some are hidden very well and if you don't follow a guide you might be shy of 1-2% at the end of a level. The gems in a level are usually in the hundreds, I don't remember if some levels are even in the 4 digits.

 

The game itself isn't too difficult but the lenght and repetition combined with limited lives can become quite demoralizing. If you don't feel comfortable with platformers, this might not be the best game to start with. I'd actually recommend Rayman Legends instead as well. Never cared about that guy but the game is alright and not too punishing. The music levels are great and something I've never seen before in a game.

Edited September 3, 2023 by Mori

[det_gittes]

On 8/29/2023 at 7:44 AM, Cassylvania said:

but I'm riding a 540/540 win streak in Wordle.

That's really impressive, excellent job. I've only been doing Wordle for the past half a year and my longest streak was 64, which I lost some two weeks ago to VERVE - when I eventually got - - R V E on my 4th attempt, I went for CURVE and then NERVE - the word VERVE didn't even occur to me although there is a similar word in Polish (in English I don't think I ever used it).

 

I also had a selection of words at some point that I would try out first - and I did get lucky a few months back, with BEAST as my first lucky attempt  

[shadaik]

7 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I heard it's really tough. I think I watched a playthrough once. In FACT, I think I bought it... It's somewhere in my backlog, I'm pretty sure.

 

That it is. That other site rates it a 10/10 - I'd argue it's a 9/10 (not quite as hard as Super Meat Boy), but I can see a 10. It's up there. The final boss is downright unfair and then there is a trophy requiring to beat every level, including him, on one life each (Hardercore). And a time trial. But it's also really great and with the exception of the final boss, the difficulty curve is on point, though I might be biased - the first game on the C64 was the first videogame I ever played.

[ProfSeajay7]

On 9/2/2023 at 8:21 PM, Cassylvania said:

...uh, I won't have any kitchen appliances? Yeah, that kinda sucks.

Speaking to the 50-year old dude who lives in a house the size of a trailer with ZERO oven, only one kitchen cabinet, the kitchen being in the same room as the bedroom, and no room to have a litter box so he can't have a cat, which sucks because cats are the ultimate therapy. 😛

[ProfSeajay7]

DATE: September 13, 2023

PLACE: The Crystarium

 

Professor Seajay looked out over the flower fields on Lakeland, shadowing her eyes with her hand. "Accursed Primordial Light," she muttered.

 

Nemona walked up, Feo Ul flutering behind her. Seajay sighed. No doubt the stupid pixie was going to harass her again with questions about her world. "What is it now?"

 

"You've been looking over the fields forever, Boss," said the Lalafell, tapping her forehead. "Don't you think you should give up the search? This guy isn't like Hildebrand, you won't find him on the First."

 

"I know, I know, it's just... he's been dark for so long. I'm concerned." Just then she gasped. "Was that a... slugcat?"

 

Nemona sighed and shook her head, shrugged, and turned to the pixie. "Come on, there's no reasoning with the Boss. Let's go."

 

The two left Professor Seajay to pull out her binocs and look through them, cursing. "Gah, another Sin Eater. Nemona, you drip! Get your darn a$$ off your duff and kill Chaos! I mean, the Lightlords so these damn Sin Eaters go away!"

 

In rage, she tossed her binocs with herculean strength and they got eaten by a nearby ochu, which belched once and then collapsed dead from indigestion.

 

"I'm heading back to Kitikami." With that, the Mi'qote used Return to warp back to her house.

 

=*= I'm a bit concerned Cassy hasn't posted recently. I was really hoping to see the Trial of the Rat to tie up that fanfiction so we can get back to reviews.

 

Also, just started playing Pokemon Scarlet again and got into the new Teal Mask DLC with a wonderful new snekk friend in Arbok. And started MSQ for Shadowbringers in FFXIV. About time, I wanted to get that done before I got my (redacted for content) this Friday. Being middle-aged sucks.

Edited September 13, 2023 by ProfSeajay7

[Cassylvania]

What? Did you guys think I was dead? No, it just turns out that when I said I was moving into a new house, I forgot to mention the house wasn't even remotely finished yet and I was basically just forcing myself to live there for insurance logistical reasons. The good news is I might get a couch there this weekend, so at least that's one step closer to having a bed... (Did I also forget to mention that I only brought what would fit in my tiny car?)

 

Anyway, I'm typing this post on some crappy old laptop that I bought when I started college and I'm pretty sure I'm using the neighbor's Wifi, so I could lose internet any moment now. But it's like 2:00 in the morning and it's not like I have anything else to do but stare at unpainted walls, so let me tell you what I've been doing with what little free time I've had this month.

 

Platinum #397 - Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle

[Image not available because I don't know how to do that on this browser/computer. Use your imagination.]

 

Yeah, the real "unsolvable puzzle" is how I'm going to make this house look presentable before the inspector shows up...

 

Alright, so... I bought this game about a month ago for a community event that I'm in (and will ultimately let down everybody on my team due to my inability to play literally anything else during this time). Not even sure how I came across this one. I just like puzzle games, I guess. I figured it was something I'd be able to do for a few minutes or a few hours, without the need for a solid internet connection or, you know, stable sitting conditions. I'm not even sure the tin bucket I'm sitting on now qualifies as a chair.

 

So, uh... right. The game. This is essentially a sliding puzzle game. Every level takes place on a 2D grid. You play as Anne, who, much like me, is trapped in a large house that seems to want to kill her at every turn. All the rooms are jumbled up and it's your goal to move Anne through the maze of rooms. There are two ways you can do this. First, you can physically walk from room to room, as long as there's not a wall in your way. (That would hurt.) You need a ladder in the room to reach a higher floor, though, and Anne can't seem to drop down through floors. Sometimes there are doors that you need to unlock, which means you have to find the key first. None of this stuff is hidden -- the trick is figuring out how to maneuver the rooms so Anne can reach it. That's the second way you can manipulate the grid. When in a room, you have the ability to move the entire room either up, down, left, or right (as long as the corresponding space is empty). So if there's a key in the room directly above Anne, but there's no ladder to reach it, one option would be to move Anne's room either left or right and then up a space. Pretty easy, right?

 

Yeah, no. There are several things that make this game much tougher than it seems at first. For starters, it's not just moving rooms and unlocking doors. It starts out that way, sure -- and the game admittedly does a good job at easing you into new concepts -- but you're very quickly going to learn that even a simple looking puzzle can have a very complicated solution. Let's just go over some of the concepts the game introduces.

 

First, you have telephones. These teleport you to the room with the corresponding colored phone. So, a red phone takes you to the other red phone, while a blue phone takes you to the other blue phone. Then you have wardrobes, which...do the opposite. They cause the room of the corresponding color to swap places with the room Anne is in. So, a green wardrobe room that has a door on the left might swap with a green wardrobe room that has a ladder. Then you have chests with bombs in them. These will blow up weak walls, but they're stationary -- and they'll kill Anne if she's in the same room as them. (This is presented as a kid-friendly game, though, so Anne doesn't ACTUALLY die. Her face just gets covered with soot like Wile E. Coyote and you're forced to restart the level.) You're often trying to figure out how to put a room with a bomb in it next to a room where Anne can wait safely for the bomb to go off. But you also have magnets, which are stationary as well, and can either push or pull adjacent rooms. So, like...maybe you trigger a bomb, run to the next room, and have to activate the magnet to push the room with the bomb next to a room with a weak wall. That's the only time in the game where you're forced to act quickly, but you can see how these new concepts begin to add these various layers of complexity. You also have puppets that mimic Anne's movements (and kill her if they touch her), poisonous gas that can be turned on or off by a switch in a different room, and mirrors that cause two rooms to act simultaneously. Shit really hits the fan when the game introduces rooms that can ROTATE (and mirrored rooms that rotate at the same time).

 

As confusing as that might sound, none of these concepts are particularly hard to grasp. This is a much harder game to explain than it is to play. Your grandmother could wrap her head around how this game works. The problem is it's not enough to just BEAT the level. The developers decided that you should be limited in how many "moves" you can make. As long as Anne reaches the exit, you can move to the next level. But to get the best SCORE, which you need for the platinum, you must do so in under a certain number of moves. I was able to do some levels in less moves than what was required, but I'm pretty sure that was just an oversight by the developers. They really seemed to want you to play every level perfectly because there's almost always no room for error.

 

Now, what constitutes a "move" is a little weird. Anne can move, but that doesn't count. You're free to walk around the rooms as much as you want, climb every ladder, teleport back and forth on the phone, and continually hop in and out of the wardrobe like you're the kids from Narnia. It's only when you physically move a room that a "turn" is made. (Rotating a room also counts as a move, but using a magnet doesn't. I dunno why.) I kinda like this because it gives you something to do while you're thinking about your next move. I dunno. It's like in in Dark Souls (hey, I didn't think I was going to get it in this time!), where the game doesn't pause just because an NPC is talking. I like being able to move my character around at all times. It helps me feel in control. You're also not timed or in a rush (except for the few times you're required to act quickly because of a bomb), so the tracker isn't as bad as it could be... But it's still bad. I don't particularly like when a game says I did a good job but I need to do better. Beating some of these levels and beating them within the required number of moves is akin to beating a Souls boss and beating a Souls boss with your eyes closed and taking no damage. It's that big of a difficulty jump at times.

 

There is a "hint" system, but it's... unusual, to say the least. If you tap the touchpad, the game will highlight the "correct" room configuration for that level. When a piece is in the "correct" location, it will also go from being black and white to color. There are also stairs and columns and portraits and other background objects in each room that you can kinda use as a guide to figuring out which pieces go where. This is kinda helpful, but there are two problems. First, this only applies to the FINAL configuration. Just because a piece belongs in a certain spot doesn't mean you want it there right away. That might end up being the last move you make. Second, I can say confidently that some levels have more than one solution. I finished several puzzles with rooms not in the correct order when I got to the exit door. I say, if you're going to cheat, just use a walkthrough. (Although the colored pieces and highlights CAN be useful. I solved a few puzzles just by working backwards. If you know which pieces belong where, and you know how many moves you are allowed to take to get them there, you can sometimes deduce which moves have to be made.)

 

Each mansion has 24 levels and there are four mansions in total. You can do the math. Each mansion also has 12 additional levels (that I didn't even notice until I beat the game and wondered why the platinum didn't pop), which you access by pressing DOWN on the mansion select screen. (No, the game didn't tell me that.) These levels are where the developers really show you their disdain for the world. I won't spoil it by saying what new concepts these levels introduce, but let me just say that I challenge any of you to beat every level in this game (with the best possible score) without using a guide. No, really. I want to see somebody do it. I mean, somebody had to in order to create the guide, right? Why don't developers just make a game SUPER HARD and then write their own guide and make players pay money to use the guide? Oh, wait. They did that back in the 90s.

 

Anyway, what else...? There's a story, but nobody cares. There's a lantern that talks to you. That's kinda neat. He's sorta like a self-insert for the developers because he spends a good portion of the game mocking you. Uh... there's optional VR support, for some reason. (I struggle to think of a game that would be LESS suited for VR.) I'll be honest. This plays like a mobile game and probably is one.

 

I don't think I'd recommend this game, but only because I get annoyed when I feel a walkthrough is the best way to earn the platinum. That could be on me. Ten years ago, I might've had the patience to do this entire game on my own. I actually managed to do that on the first two mansions. Once I got to the third mansion, though, I started using a walkthrough AFTER I beat each level. (Got some of them on my first try.) By halfway through the fourth mansion, I couldn't take it anymore. I did a few of the bonus levels on my own, but I just wanted to be done. I want to be done with everything. I'm just... so tired...

 

Excuse me while I sleep on the floor now.

[Taruta13]

10 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

What? Did you guys think I was dead? No, it just turns out that when I said I was moving into a new house, I forgot to mention the house wasn't even remotely finished yet and I was basically just forcing myself to live there for insurance logistical reasons. The good news is I might get a couch there this weekend, so at least that's one step closer to having a bed... (Did I also forget to mention that I only brought what would fit in my tiny car?)

 

Wow, that sucks. When my dad had my shed-house commissioned and I had to move out so they could sell the townhouse to cover payments, I had to live n my parent's guest room for a month.

 

Good review, by the by. Also, in my post at my new account, I accidentally called the guys Lightlords. FFXIV quickly reminded me that they are called LIGHTWARDENS. Oops. Don't judge me, I was just starting Shadowbringers. I'm almost to the end, just have to kill one more Lightwarden, then take down Chaos... I means Hades(and not the gross blue troll with a blue fire for hair, I mean the Ascian).

Edited September 22, 2023 by Taruta13

[Cassylvania]

All I can say is... thank RNGeta that we rolled a short game this month. I would NOT have been able to finish most of the other games on the wheel.

 

Platinum #398 - Dandara

[Use your imagination again. It's Dandara posing on you.]

 

Normally I'd make some joke about the main character being named after the title, but that's actually the case this time. I also just Googled the name and realized the game was inspired by a real person born in the 1600s, so I don't even feel right making fun of that name. But did this game do her justice or should she be rolling over in her grave right now? (Actually, it says the real Dandara was a warrior who committed suicide to avoid returning to a life of slavery, so I'm really not feeling the jokes here... Let's just move on.)

 

So, Dandara (the game -- see, I italicized it) is a bit like a Metroidvania in the sense that you never know where the heck you're supposed to go. This is actually a pretty big problem early in the game because you'll come across numerous dead ends and it turns out the room you need to visit is actually hidden somewhere in the middle. Very annoying. But, like any good Metroidvania, you get power-ups and upgrades that make combat, traversal, and survival easier. Even better, you can just enable cheats so that you never run out of energy and revive in the same room you die in instead of back at the checkpoint. I, uh...abused this after about 5-6 hours of banging my head against the wall. Somewhat literally too. That's because this game has a unique mechanic that I haven't talked about yet. Dandara can't walk. She's had too much Red Bull. Dandara's only way to move is to jump, which immediately latches her onto whatever floor, wall, or ceiling you aim for. This is a bit like that Space Otter game I played before, except I think that one had some in-air maneuverability. You don't get that here. (Well, TECHNICALLY, if Dandara gets hit, she'll be suspended in midair until you jump again. This can actually be exploited if the enemies you're fighting can only damage you when you're on a surface.) This takes some time to get used to, but there is an aiming reticle, so it's not as bad as it could be. Also, you can't mis-shoot in the sense that you don't have to worry about shooting Dandara into a bottomless pit because she'll only jump when there's something to jump towards. This allows you to move through areas much quicker than you might expect.

 

Now, Dandara's only starting attack is a gun that you can either fire or charge up for additional damage, but you eventually get other long-ranged attacks (e.g. missiles) that require energy. I don't feel you have enough energy in this game, which is why I think you'e justified in using the cheats. Enemies seem to stay dead once you kill them, but they get revived when you either die or rest at a checkpoint, like some other game. And then are bosses, of course, which test your ability to maneuver around the map quickly while attacking and dodging bullets. This would be chaotic if not for the fact that you eventually get a shield that seems to last indefinitely (you just can't attack while using it). I probably would've died a lot less if I remembered I had that shield most of the time. It's MUCH easier to hold L2 than it is to try to jump around while in bullet hell. Most of the damage I took in this game was simply from jumping too quickly or getting hit by something in midair. 

 

I'll be honest about two things here, guys. One, I'm not really feeling this review. Two, I didn't really care for this game. Those things aren't unrelated. I'm not going to say this game was bad, but... well, there was a reason I platinumed this AFTER my last review (which was a game I didn't care for much either). The gimmick is fine, the music and art style are decent, and the story is forgettable, but the real problem is that it's just a slog to play through. The DLC doesn't really help either since it's just more padding. I think they introduced a few new enemies and some "timed' trials, but these were more annoying than they were fun. For example, there's a couple sections where you have to get through an entire area without taking damage or you have to go back and try again. I could see this being very frustrating for someone just wanting to move on with the game. This is also the anti-Anne game. If you remember from my last review, I said one of the things I appreciated about Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle is that you could move around the map freely, without it costing a "turn". This is just one of those quality of life aspects that I appreciate in video games. A lot of Metroidvanias are judged on how enjoyable the traversal is, since there is so much backtracking. Just being able to run, jump, and shoot while you're going through older areas goes a long time in making the game feel fun to play. Dandara doesn't feel fun to backtrack because your movement is so limited. It's probably fun if you're a speedrunner and have every map and route memorized, but it's a chore when you get stuck and have to keep revisiting older areas until you know where to go next. Again, though, this game had the misfortune to come across me during one of the most chaotic months of my life, so maybe I'm being a little harsher than I would have been if I had rolled this in July or August. (But no. Probably not. Because right now I'm thinking how much more fun Rain World and Monster Boy were in every way. THAT is how you do Metroidvanias.)

 

If we're ranking the wheel games, I'd put this slightly above Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot because that game was just a spam fest, but understand there's a sizable gap between that and the other two games on the list.

 

I forget if I'm supposed to assign a price value to the PS+ games. What's it matter when Sony is upping the subscription price anyway? I can tell you right now that it's not worth it.

 

See you Friday for the next rolling. Now would be the time to roll LiS2 or The Quarry.

[pelagia14]

Heads up that The Quarry is leaving the Catalog on October 17th!

Edited September 26, 2023 by pelagia14

[grayhammmer]

4 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

Heads up that The Quarry is leaving the Catalog on October 17th!

Ain't it some shit that one of the bigger horror themed games on the catalogue is leaving the catalogue during the spooky month.

[Cassylvania]

On 9/26/2023 at 5:09 PM, pelagia14 said:

Heads up that The Quarry is leaving the Catalog on October 17th!

 

You gotta be...

 

Deep breaths, Cass. Deep breaths.

 

...Fine. Since The Quarry WOULD be a fitting game for October -- and since I think it's reasonable that I could platinum it in 17 days -- I'll keep it on the wheel for this month only. (What are the odds of me rolling it anyway?)

 

How to Justify a PS+ Subscription in 12 Easy Steps

The Fifth Rolling

 

Knees weak, arms heavy, mom's spaghetti. Let's just do this.

 

 

I should point out I can barely see the screen right now because I haven't put up the curtains yet and there's a huge glare on the screen. You have no idea how much I hate that. As if it's not bad enough the windows are extremely hurt and I can see every bit of dirt on my keyboard. This house disgusts me. This wheel disgusts me. Dandara disgusts me too.

 

For the first time since I started doing this, I'm going to look at the wheel before I hit the RNG button. Looks like 13-18 is still the danger zone, even though I don't think Dandara should've been included in that. Not sure if I mentioned it in my review, but that game was NOT as hard as I expected it to be. (It would've been very frustrating without the cheats, though.) Losing Yakuza makes me feel a little more comfortable about my chances, but I see Tetris is just sitting there, watching me. And I really, really don't want Returnal right now.

 

RNGeta, you little twerp. I want to see an 11. Just give me the easy game, let me finish my game room in time for Halloween, and we can arm wrestle or whatever for one of the harder games in November. Deal?

 

Here we go...

 

4.

 

What the heck is that?

 

SPOODER-MAN? I mean, that's like a good game, right? And...kinda Halloween-y? I think I dressed up as him once for Halloween. I'm sure I did.

 

And it's fitting since this house is full of fuckin' spiders. I'm seriously going insane, guys.

[Cassylvania]

We're getting closer, guys. Only about another week or five before I can set up my computer in a room that is bigger than a janitor closet.

 

Have a review in the meantime.

 

Platinum #399 - Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising

 

A name you can't pronounce? An overused word when trying to make something sound epic? An unnecessary subtitle? It must be a JRPG! (Well, no. It's actually an action RPG, brought to you by the same people who destroyed the Harvest Moon series and published by the same people who screwed me out of my 100%. But close enough.)

 

In this supposed successor to the Suikoden series (something I've never played or even heard of), you take the role of CJ. (No, really.) This CJ is a little girl who likes collecting stamps. At least, that's what you'll be doing most of the game. I'll be honest here, guys -- I only paid attention to the story until I got to the halfway point, and that was over a month ago, so I don't remember much. I'm pretty sure she's collecting stamps because she needs them to prove herself worthy or something. You collect these stamps by completing fetch quests. That's basically all this game is. A long series of fetch quests. 160, to be exact. Hooray...

 

As you can see in the trophy image, there are actually three important characters. CJ is the one in the middle. You probably noticed the one on the right is a kangaroo. You're just supposed to roll with that. I think his name was Garoo. When I was paying attention to the story, I actually enjoyed the interactions between him and CJ. He's stubborn and grumpy, while she's spunky and energetic, and that leads to some pretty amusing dialogue. If it wasn't for all the tedious NPC dialogue, I probably would've kept reading. I don't want to sell the writing story because I could tell they put some time and creativity into what these characters were saying. The PROBLEM is there are times when somebody besides one of these three characters (Isha is the blue-haired chick and I liked her too) is talking, and none of them are interesting. Once you realize 95% of the game is talking to the same NPCs in town and then re-running the same dungeons you've already run twenty times before, you'll be skipping the dialogue too.

 

I wish I could make this game sound more interesting, but I can't. It reminds me of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, without any of the good stuff.

 

So, how does combat work? Well, CJ can attack with the square button. Uh, she can jump too. And R2 is dodge. I think that's literally the extent to her abilities. This game's gimmick is that each character is mapped to a single button, so you can alternate between CJ, Garoo, and Isha by pressing square, triangle, and circle, respectively (once you unlock the other two -- sorry if that's a spoiler, but they're literally in the platinum image). I'd say their playstyles are unique, but...again, that's like saying vanilla ice cream is different than vanilla ice cream with a Santa hat on. I guess Garoo can jump higher (I should hope so) and Isha can hover in midair for about half a second. You actually need to utilize these for some minor platforming "challenges", where you have to like...jump with Garoo, quickly switch to CJ because she can double jump, and then switch to Isha so you cover a bit of horizontal distance. I don't know if you're ever required to do this with all three characters, but it can help you to reach some chests or whatever.

 

There are about five hundred different shops in town. You can do various things with them, such as eating food to increase a character's stats, selling your garbage, buying potions, or upgrading your weapons and armor. Honestly, I only ever bothered with the upgrades. The game isn't really challenging and I only found myself using potions on the boss fights. These can be kinda tough the face time you face a boss, but you'll eventually get to the point where you're fighting that same boss again, only at a much higher level. It gets to the point where that boss you were kinda struggling with once goes down in a single combo. Some people might call that sweet revenge. I call that lazy game design.

 

The final boss was actually pretty tough, but I'm not sure why. Once you beat him, you unlock Hard Mode. (It's necessary for some trophies, but don't worry -- you don't need to play through the game again. Just switch the difficulty and challenge the boss again.) For whatever reason, I killed the final boss in about five seconds on Hard Mode, while it took me like ten minutes (and a whole bag of potions) on Normal. It's not like I was better or anything. He's only vulnerable some of the time and he went down in a single phase.

 

What else can I talk about...? The dungeons? There are five of them, I think. You can probably guess what biomes they are without me telling you. There's a forest... a cave... an ice area... and a fire area... and then, in an amazing twist... another cave... The originality is stunning.

 

I liked the ice area because it's not slippery. The fire area sucks because there are these slime monsters that spit fire and I swear I ran into it every single time. CJ is a magnet for third-degree burns.

 

The nice thing about this game is that it is kinda chill. There are no missable trophies, nothing is super tedious (outside of the main game -- which, admittedly, is not a good thing), and it's a good game to play if you want to marathon some movies because you're mostly just spamming the X button to skip all the dialogue and then the other shape buttons to attack.

 

Before I forget, I wanted to mention Garoo and Isha also have a defensive ability mapped to the R2 button. Garoo can block an attack if you time it right (he can kinda parry too) and Isha temporarily vanishes...? CJ's dodge is a simple dash. The reason this doesn't work well is that you're likely going to be swapping through characters all the time, a la Genshin Impact. You need to do that in order to combo enemies. The problem is, when an enemy is attacking, you essentially need to press two buttons at once if you want to dodge with a particular character (one to swap to that character and the other to dodge), or you need to be able to react quick enough to "dodge" with the character who is currently active. I don't know how good your reaction speed is, but I have a hard time mentally preparing three ways to dodge at once. This is one of those things that makes more sense in practice, but imagine playing Dark Souls (you knew I was going to do it) and you're constantly rotating through a tank build, mage build, and rogue build in the middle of a boss fight. Are you going to be prepared to dodge a sudden attack if the timing and abilities on each character are different? Probably not. Again, it's not a huge deal here because you can just face tank most enemies (I sure did), but it just seems like an odd design choice. You're instinctively going to want to attack as CJ because she's the fastest, but Garoo seems the best defensively since he can completely negate damage. Isha's dodge is terrible in comparison, but she can attack at range, so that's good.

 

Maybe somebody with faster hands and a more open mind can work with this combat system. I'd rather just spam buttons and go back to town when I need to heal.

 

Yeah, I'm not going to recommend this game. I finished in exactly 25 hours, which seems to be on the high end for most people. I also watched the entire Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy for the tenth time. I'm now onto The Amazing Spider-Man movies, which I haven't seen. The problem with those is I'm watching them at the same time as playing Miles Morales, so like, I'm getting the plots and the characters mixed up in my head. I don't advise doing that. In fact, if you guys have learned anything from this thread, I hope it's to not make the same mistakes as me. Don't play Eiyuden. Don't play the sequel that they're threatening to release either. Play Sakuna, play Odin Sphere, play Tunche, play Greak, play Dust, play Young Souls. If you really just want to beat up on enemies, there are so many better choices out there. This is not a genre that you should be starved for.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Cassylvania

[ElektrickRage]

Why you need to collate every game you play on the internet? Egotism or some other reason? That last post you wrote must of taken up so much time, lol.

Edited October 10, 2023 by ElektrickRage

[Cassylvania]

33 minutes ago, ElektrickRage said:

Why you need to collate every game you play on the internet? Egotism or some other reason? That last post you wrote must of taken up so much time, lol.

You’re asking why someone would want to discuss games on a forum about discussing games? I don’t know how to answer that. Let’s just go with egotism.

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my ego and I have to prepare for the next milestone!

[DrBloodmoney]

3 hours ago, ElektrickRage said:

Why you need to collate every game you play on the internet? Egotism or some other reason? That last post you wrote must of taken up so much time, lol.

 

I'd say jumping into someone else's (very popular) online blog, and snidely questioning why they write it, (without even bothering to check the grammar on your 3 sentence word-fart) shows a pretty healthy dollop of egotism on your own part.

[pelagia14]

11 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Platinum #399 - Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising

 

A name you can't pronounce? An overused word when trying to make something sound epic? An unnecessary subtitle? It must be a JRPG! (Well, no. It's actually an action RPG, brought to you by the same people who destroyed the Harvest Moon series and published by the same people who screwed me out of my 100%. But close enough.)

In this supposed successor to the Suikoden series (something I've never played or even heard of), you take the role of CJ.

 

Oh wow, Suikoden is a flashback to the past - I remember playing Suikoden II on the PS2! Considering that the series never made it to the PS3 console (despite going up to Suikoden V), it's definitely a lesser-known JRPG series nowadays.

 

I don't at all plan to play Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, but I'm curious about one thing - are you supposed to recruit 100-108 characters in the game, with Garoo and Isha just being the most prominent ones? That was the big thing with the Suikoden series since it was based on a classic Chinese novel called "Water Margin" about a group of 108 outlaws. The other reason I ask is that I'm a linguistics nerd and looked into the etymology of "Eiyuden". The Suikoden series in Japan called [ Gensō Suikoden | 幻想水滸伝 ], aka "Fantasy Water Margin". It seems the Japanese name for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is [ Eiyuden Rising | 百英雄伝 Rising ], and so Eiyuden translates to "Legend of the Hundred Heroes". If Eiyuden is supposed to be a 'spiritual successor' to Suikoden and doesn't include that core mechanic, I question why it would attempt to be a successor in the first place.

 

11 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I wish I could make this game sound more interesting, but I can't. It reminds me of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, without any of the good stuff.

 

...

 

Play Sakuna, play Odin Sphere, play Tunche, play Greak, play Dust, play Young Souls. If you really just want to beat up on enemies, there are so many better choices out there. This is not a genre that you should be starved for.

 

I've heard good things about Odin Sphere and Tunche, I'm glad to hear that Sakuna is also pretty good! It's been in my list of PS+ Catalog games that I was interested in, but I wasn't sure if it was worth playing - so hurray!

 

11 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Yeah, I'm not going to recommend this game. I finished in exactly 25 hours, which seems to be on the high end for most people. I also watched the entire Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy for the tenth time. I'm now onto The Amazing Spider-Man movies, which I haven't seen. The problem with those is I'm watching them at the same time as playing Miles Morales, so like, I'm getting the plots and the characters mixed up in my head. I don't advise doing that. In fact, if you guys have learned anything from this thread, I hope it's to not make the same mistakes as me. Don't play Eiyuden. Don't play the sequel that they're threatening to release either. Play Sakuna, play Odin Sphere, play Tunche, play Greak, play Dust, play Young Souls. If you really just want to beat up on enemies, there are so many better choices out there. This is not a genre that you should be starved for.

 

Oh gosh, TASM movies while playing Miles Morales actually sounds like fun, coming from someone who is a Spider-Man fan! The DC fandom especially has helped me learn how to separate different comic continuities of a single character, but I can definitely see it being a bit overwhelming if it's not something you're immersed in.

 

After you finish the Miles Morales game, I highly recommend you check out (if you haven't already) the animated Spider-Verse movies that feature Miles! Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out in 2018 and is a goddamn work of art, to the point where it (alongside the masterpiece that is Netflix's Arcane TV series) has heavily influenced recent animated movies that have moved away from Pixar-style aesthetics and into more stylized art styles like the recent TMNT: Mutant Mayhem movie (though I've not watched that). Into the Spider-Verse is not only stylistically beautiful, it has a fantastic soundtrack and is truly one of the best tellings of a superhero origin story and stories about finding one's sense of self/identity. The movie is masterful in creating a compelling hero's arc for Miles and has a complete story. The sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse came out this June and took the stylization to a new level, explained the idea of comic-book multiverses in the best way I've ever seen, and does an incredible job with a foil character, that can only really be appreciated on a rewatch in my opinion. The only "downside" to Across is that it is not a completely self-contained story, ending on a cliffhanger that will be resumed with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse when that releases next year(!!) - so it could be worth waiting to watch Across for after Beyond releases if you dislike waiting for a "Part 2" conclusion.

 

---

 

Anyway, thanks for another enjoyable read! I hope that your house renovation work continues smoothly and quickly.

 

[Rally-Vincent---]

2 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

 

Oh wow, Suikoden is a flashback to the past - I remember playing Suikoden II on the PS2! Considering that the series never made it to the PS3 console (despite going up to Suikoden V), it's definitely a lesser-known JRPG series nowadays.

 

I don't at all plan to play Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, but I'm curious about one thing - are you supposed to recruit 100-108 characters in the game, with Garoo and Isha just being the most prominent ones? That was the big thing with the Suikoden series since it was based on a classic Chinese novel called "Water Margin" about a group of 108 outlaws. The other reason I ask is that I'm a linguistics nerd and looked into the etymology of "Eiyuden". The Suikoden series in Japan called [ Gensō Suikoden | 幻想水滸伝 ], aka "Fantasy Water Margin". It seems the Japanese name for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is [ Eiyuden Rising | 百英雄伝 Rising ], and so Eiyuden translates to "Legend of the Hundred Heroes". If Eiyuden is supposed to be a 'spiritual successor' to Suikoden and doesn't include that core mechanic, I question why it would attempt to be a successor in the first place.

 

 

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a sort of "introductory game" to the spiritual successor of the Suikoden games, which is Eiyuden Chonicles: Hundred Heroes (release date currently April 2024). That one supposedly is going to have the core mechanics. Suikoden was a great series, and besides the five main titles, it also had a tactics game. Quite neat that was.

 

I didn't bother with Rising. I am waiting for Hundred Heroes.

 

---

 

Also, Cassy clearly is the the electronic greatest of all times (eGoaT).

Edited October 10, 2023 by Rally-Vincent---

[Cassylvania]

6 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

I don't at all plan to play Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, but I'm curious about one thing - are you supposed to recruit 100-108 characters in the game, with Garoo and Isha just being the most prominent ones?

 

Nope. Those are the only three playable/recruitable characters. There's some minor town-building, I guess. When you reach certain points in the game or complete certain quests, the town gets "bigger" and you unlock more shops or items in stock at those shops. But you can only ever use CJ, Garoo, and Isha.

 

Some NPCs are more well-developed than others.

 

6 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

After you finish the Miles Morales game, I highly recommend you check out (if you haven't already) the animated Spider-Verse movies that feature Miles! Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out in 2018 and is a goddamn work of art, to the point where it (alongside the masterpiece that is Netflix's Arcane TV series) has heavily influenced recent animated movies that have moved away from Pixar-style aesthetics and into more stylized art styles like the recent TMNT: Mutant Mayhem movie (though I've not watched that). Into the Spider-Verse is not only stylistically beautiful, it has a fantastic soundtrack and is truly one of the best tellings of a superhero origin story and stories about finding one's sense of self/identity.

 

 

Oh yeah. I think I mentioned it in this thread when I saw that movie (last year or the year before). It really blew me away. It's kinda neat the costume is unlockable in Miles Morales, but I don't think I could play the game with the choppy animation style that goes with it. (Was fantastic in the movie, but nauseating in the game!). Definitely my favorite Spider-Man movie. Arguably my favorite superhero movie. I'd have to think about that. I really liked Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

 

But an absolutely fantastic art style all around. Would've been worth watching for that alone.

 

 

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

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a sort of "introductory game" to the spiritual successor of the Suikoden games, which is Eiyuden Chonicles: Hundred Heroes (release date currently April 2024). That one supposedly is going to have the core mechanics. Suikoden was a great series, and besides the five main titles, it also had a tactics game. Quite neat that was.

 

Now that you mention it, maybe I have heard of that series. Maybe that's why I bought EC:R? I can't even remember now. Sometimes games just show up in my profile and I play them. It was kinda nice having a mindless button-masher when my arm is stiff from painting and I'm still high from the fumes.

 

Speaking of being high...

 

Platinum #400 - Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg

 

Would you believe this is my first and only Atelier milestone? For the most dominant series on my account -- now my 16th entry, completing the full suite of games with trophy support -- you would think I'd at least accidentally stumble into one or two over the years. (I was going to say there's not even one in my Level History, but Escha & Logy found a way when they revamped the trophy level system.) Either way, I like the platinum name Alchemaster, which is fitting for someone as egotistical as me.

 

This is obviously more paying respect to the series as a whole than the individual entry, as this is a pretty watered-down version of what the Atelier series has become. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I know many of you are desperate to play this series and are dying to know what this game brings to the table, so I'm going to give you a quick lesson in what it means to be an Atelier game.

 

The first thing you have to understand is that there are THREE things that make an Atelier game at Atelier game. First, the main character must be a young girl who wants to be an alchemist but is extremely bad at it. I'm assuming this all started with Marie because this is a remake of the very first entry in the series, so you have her to blame. Second, this girl's name must be ridiculous. The more syllables, the better. The game should open with the girl saying, "I am [ridiculous long name], but everybody calls me [shortened version of the ridiculous name -- also the title of the game]." You're probably thinking this game doesn't qualify as an Atelier game based on that, but you'd be wrong. Marie's actual name is Marlone. Not overly complicated, but come on. We have like twenty-five more entries to turn this into word salad. Finally, all Atelier games must make fun of how the word "barrel" is pronounced. This game gives you a trophy just for inspecting a barrel. It's not the first to do so. I don't know why this is a thing. I don't care why this is a thing. I just know when I touch a barrel and hear a clumsy alchemist cry out in joy, I'm home.

 

There's some stuff with crafting and battling too, but who cares about that?

 

Now, the plot of this game is about what you'd come to expect. Marie sucks at alchemy school and is given five YEARS to pass a test. (I mean, I had to do that when I got my degree in marine biology. But my candidacy exams didn't take five years to prepare for, so I'm pretty sure Marie will be fine.) What's the test, you ask? She just has to create the best item possible through alchemy. I don't even think you really have to do that. The "best" craftable items in these games is usually the Philosopher's Stone, but I'm pretty sure you can get away with any higher tier item. It's not a big deal. Unlike the Arland series (which was my first entry into the Atelier games), time is not your enemy here. It's save file manipulation.

 

This is one of those games that has like seven different endings, but you can only get one at a time. There's also a priority list. So, if you meet all the requirements of a higher priority ending, you're essentially locked out of the lower priority ending for that playthrough. This doesn't mean you have to play through the game seven times, though. The PSNP trophy guide does a good job of laying out how to beat it in only two playthroughs. I somehow took three and a half. (A "half" because there's this stupid enemy that only spawns if you don't beat the boss of an area, but the only way to encounter that enemy is to lose that fight and then return and hope the enemy spawns when you're walking back. You need to kill every enemy for a trophy, so I needed a quick fourth playthrough to make that happen.)

 

The other confusing thing are flag events. These are common in Atelier games -- and honestly a lot of JRPGs. Basically, you need to meet certain conditions in order for some event to trigger, which is needed to either advance a storyline or unlock something. Fortunately, this game has an in-game guide that helps you to track these things. It's not hard to keep track, but there's one event I found annoying. Might be a spoiler if I talk about it, though. Let's just say there's something that happens automatically in the fourth year, I believe, and it prevents other events from happening until it's resolved. The problem is that it's ALSO a requirement for some of the endings. So, if you go rogue like I did with the trophy guide, you could find yourself in a situation where you can't complete the requirements for one ending without meeting the requirements for a higher priority ending, thus forcing an extra playthrough.

 

Now, the reason two playthroughs are necessary is because there's a regular mode, where the game ends after year 5, and an "unlimited" mode, where you can keep playing past year 5. You need both to complete all the trophies (the second one because you need to complete ALL events, including seeing all the endings, in a single save file.) The guide suggests doing a regular playthrough first and then Unlimited Mode. I agree.

 

So, what do you do in the game? Just like every other game in the series, you recruit some friends, venture outside of town, battle some enemies, and gather ingredients to help you with your alchemy. You can also (eventually) hire fairies to do the work for you. Fairies and friends cost money, though, so you'll need to complete some quests at the local pub every now and then to keep the dough rolling in. It might sound like a lot at first, but believe me when I say this is by far the simplest Atelier game I've ever played. There are only about ten areas in the game to explore, crafting is as simple as clicking a jar of mayo, and there's a shockingly low number of craftable items. I didn't even bother with using items in battle. In fact, I didn't bother with battling at all. Auto-battling does a good enough job. I think each character only has a single regular and special attack anyway.

 

I think I usually mention my favorite character in the game in these reviews. I'm not sure I have one here. Maybe Schea, Marie's best friend? She seems chill. She doesn't even charge you a fee when she's on your team. You'll need to pay attention to their friendship rating, though. Getting their friendship to a certain number is required for triggering some events, but some events are only triggered when a specific character has the lowest friendship of all available party members. I'm also not sure why sometimes characters will just outright refuse to join your team on a certain day. Like, there's a chance they'll tell you they have something better to do, even though they're clearly standing around doing nothing. I hate when NPCs act all high and mighty.

 

Time passes when you walk to an area (except the Nearby Forest, for some reason), battle an enemy, and even gather ingredients. It's dumb how time also passes when you return to the atelier. I'm glad they changed that in future games.

 

To make the gameplay a bit more exciting, there are several mini-games that you can play at various points in the game. Like, when you go to make cheese for the first time, you'll play this really annoying game where you have to chase a mouse around a maze, using furniture to block his path. He runs like ten times faster than you, so you're forced to corner him. Then there's annoying mini-game where slimes fall from the sky and you have to bash them in the head with a mallet. Marie is the OG puni murderer. There's also a side-scroller game where you have to jump over punis. The blue ones are slow, the pink ones are fast, and the green ones are assholes. You'll know what I mean if you play it.

 

I also want to mention the elephant in the room. The art style. If you haven't seen screenshots of this game, the developers opted for chibi character models. I personally don't mind because I'm almost 38 years old and I have more important things in my life to worry about, but some people might be bothered by that. I think it makes the game look unique and a bit more simplistic, which is fitting for the gameplay. Would I say this is the first Atelier game you should play if you're interested in the series? Probably not, but it might be the most approachable.

 

I was going to do this whole thing where I was going to rank all the Atelier games/characters/alchemy systems from my favorite to my least favorite, but that seems like a lot more effort than I want to put into something right now, so let me just say this is probably pretty low on the list all around. The only Atelier game I think I disliked more is Nelke, and that doesn't qualify as an Atelier game. (No barrel.) That's not a knock against Marie or anything. She's actually a pretty cool character. Despite being terrible at what she does, she comes across as smug and condescending (I think it's the hand on the hip) and I like that. She's got some sass to her, which is something we wouldn't see again until Meruru.

 

My main complaint with this game is it's too basic. It might've been good if this was released after the Arland series, but Atelier games have already been simplified with the release of Ryza, the Sophie remakes, etc. And this is coming from someone who actually did pay attention to most of the story in this game. (It was that short.)

 

I heard you can beat this game in about six hours. That's probably true. I still put 70+ hours into it because I'm me and this is what I do. I play games. Sometimes I finish them. And you're here to read about my experiences.

 

Here's hoping for another 100 platinums. Cheers, guys.

[pelagia14]

Congrats on Platinum #400!

 

Also, this is my main takeaway for the Atelier series after reading your post:

 

14 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

The only Atelier game I think I disliked more is Nelke, and that doesn't qualify as an Atelier game. (No barrel.) 

 

😂

[YaManSmevz]

Yo congrats on hitting 400!

 

Your Eiyuden (yes I scrolled back up multiple times to make sure I spelled it correctly, picturing Cartman shoutin "JUDEN" also helped) write-up was a great example of "OH HELL YEeaa....no, no I'm not doing that." Reviews like this one are a public service for sure!

 

Also, is that Unpacking I see??

 

...I hope you're enjoying it, because if not my glee at seeing you playing it is gonna look pretty jack-assy.

[ProfSeajay7]

On 8/29/2023 at 1:37 PM, Cassylvania said:

I'd say most games these days either need to have solid voice acting or have really good music for me to consider listening to them exclusively.

 

While FFXIV does fit both qualifications... I still mute it and put LoFi music on in the background while grinding. Especially when I have to do raids or trials multiple times. One can only hear Hades saying "Scour and shatter" so many times before you just slam the mute to save your damn sanity.  LOLZ.

On 9/29/2023 at 4:52 PM, Cassylvania said:

And it's fitting since this house is full of fuckin' spiders. I'm seriously going insane, guys.

You moved to an ugly house. I'm so sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I think there is still a frickin' house fly buzzing around my windows. I really hate it when I live next to a house full of flies. (My parents have it worse off, the house is constantly so full of flies that they need a bug zapper. )

[ProfSeajay7]

On 10/10/2023 at 9:30 AM, pelagia14 said:

I don't at all plan to play Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, but I'm curious about one thing - are you supposed to recruit 100-108 characters in the game, with Garoo and Isha just being the most prominent ones? That was the big thing with the Suikoden series since it was based on a classic Chinese novel called "Water Margin" about a group of 108 outlaws. The other reason I ask is that I'm a linguistics nerd and looked into the etymology of "Eiyuden". The Suikoden series in Japan called [ Gensō Suikoden | 幻想水滸伝 ], aka "Fantasy Water Margin". It seems the Japanese name for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is [ Eiyuden Rising | 百英雄伝 Rising ], and so Eiyuden translates to "Legend of the Hundred Heroes". If Eiyuden is supposed to be a 'spiritual successor' to Suikoden and doesn't include that core mechanic, I question why it would attempt to be a successor in the first place.

I think that Water Margin was also the basis on the Pokemon Spiritomb as the lore behind that ghost type Pokemon was that its stone body was the prison for 108 lost souls. In Legends: Arcevus there is even a sidequest where you collect 108 souls to summon Spiritomb.

 

 

Giggity.

[ProfSeajay7]

On 10/10/2023 at 5:46 PM, Cassylvania said:

If you haven't seen screenshots of this game, the developers opted for chibi character models. I personally don't mind because I'm almost 38 years old and I have more important things in my life to worry about, but some people might be bothered by that.

 

Continuing the Pokemon analogy here, this remake is sitting at the local pub, getting drunk with her bar buddies, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl, and moaning about life:

 

Atelier Marie Remake: "So my characters are chibi SD models? Why they hate?"

BD/SP: "Amen, sister! Preach it to the crowd!"

 

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people incinerated their Pokemon fan cards when they found that some foreign company called Ilca came and ruined the Generation 4 remakes. The only thing I hate about BD/SP, mind you, is how they zoom in on a character's face and they flap their lips. I know it's supposed to represent the character sliding in on the originals and shout at you, but seriously, I would rather have chibi models of Cynthia than see Galatic Commander Mars screaming "What are you doing to my Pokemon?!" while seeing her ugly face. 👿

 

EDIT: Also, I had a nightmare where my wallet and phone got stolen and I got glomped by Sophie. Oh the horror. 😮

Edited October 13, 2023 by ProfSeajay7

[Cassylvania]

On 10/13/2023 at 11:40 AM, ProfSeajay7 said:

You moved to an ugly house. I'm so sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I think there is still a frickin' house fly buzzing around my windows. I really hate it when I live next to a house full of flies. (My parents have it worse off, the house is constantly so full of flies that they need a bug zapper. )

 

It won't be ugly when I'm done with it (I hope). The reason it seems I'm either really bad or really slow at moving in is because I'm determined to finish the living room (my temporary gaming/computer room) before I start filling it with stuff. And...well, let's just say that means putting up custom trim, crown molding, and now decorative walls because I'm pretty sure the previous tenants put their head through the drywall more than once. (I know what I'd like to do if I ever see them again...)

 

I'm also waiting for Black Friday so I can buy myself the biggest TV I can find that can fit on a 15 foot wall. Because I deserve it.

 

Speaking of...nah, this one's too easy...

 

Platinum #401 - Unpacking

 

Unpacking is a...simulation where you...unpack stuff? Why the hell would I choose to play this when I'm already... you know what? It doesn't matter. It's a game for people who suffer massively from OCD, that's what it is. But is this a game you should be unpacking from the Christmas tree this year, or should we just send this game packing? (I really packed that one in.)

 

So, obviously, I played this game because (a) I heard it was good, and (b) I really, really need to lower my blood pressure. (I actually don't. I had a screening last week and I'm rocking a 110/80. My HDL needs improvement, though. That's the good one. I chalk it up to not having a kitchen. Did I mention I went through five curtains and four curtain rods before I was satisfied with what when over my kitchen window? I'm probably the worst person ever to shop with. You don't even want to know how many color choices I went through for the walls.) What I'm trying to say is I need more relaxation in my life. I knew this was a game where you simply take stuff out of a box and put it somewhere in the room. There's no time limit, no enemies that want to kill you, no speedrunning, no annoying button combinations you have to memorize... Just a room, some boxes, and a chill soundtrack. That's all I need.

 

Now, this is a hard game to review for a couple reasons. First, it's unique. Think Coffee Talk, but without dialogue. Hard, huh? Second, there is a story here, but the story is told through the objects your character takes with him or her. (Before we go on, I would like to say I wish the game made it clear that your character is a female. It asks you for a name at the start of the game, and there's only a 50/50 chance that I'm going to pick a girl, so imagine my surprise when I named myself Harry and started pulling panties out of a moving box. Let's just say I got a VERY different impression of the story than I think was intended.) This is actually a really novel way to tell a story. It does that thing I always talk about in these reviews, by showing rather than telling, by not slapping you over the face with concepts that a six-year-old can understand. I always go back to Gary in Pokemon for a reason. "Smell ya later!" is three simple words that defined that character. The writers didn't need to tell me over and over again that he was my rival, that he was a jerk, and that I should hate him. I got that impression right away. I felt what the game wanted me to feel. There are various ways to do that in all forms of media, and I think video games have the greatest potential for it because of the direct interaction. In this game, you are physically taking objects out of a box, turning them around, and trying to find a place to put them. The game is pixelated, so it's not always immediately clear what the object you're holding is, but it's clear enough that you can usually figure it with the context. In some "levels", I guess you can call them, there are more than one room that have boxes, but typically the objects in those boxes are assigned to a room. So, don't expect to unpack a shoe in the kitchen or a toaster in the bathroom. (Then again, it seems your character is always in a rush when she's packing because you're constantly finding things that aren't where they should be... But that's part of the story).

 

Rather than talk about the story, I'm going to discuss the levels or maps. Your character starts out young (I believe in the year 1997, so I'm obviously feeling what this game is putting down) and you have a new level every few years in her life. She probably moves more than I have. This isn't a spoiler or anything because the game clearly states what year it is and you have context clues in each level to indicate either how old your character is (i.e. what the already unpacked objects in her room look like) or what stage of her life she's in. This is one of the first games that ever made me wonder how the age of the person playing it might affect their overall connection to the character too. I feel like I'm probably pretty close to the age of the main character, so I'm able to form a lot of those connections because I did things in my life such as dating and going off to college (well, one of the two), but then it also occurred to me that some other people playing might be experiencing those things right now or looking forward to them. Maybe dreading them, I don't know. But we rarely hear from the main character, except for a single line she writes at the end of her dairy in each level, which you can only complete by unpacking every object in the house or apartment. And putting them in the proper place. That's another thing. You can't just throw everything on the floor and call it complete. When every item is unpacked, the ones that aren't where they "should be" are highlighted in red. You have some leniency here, of course. Books, for example, can be placed on a bookshelf (seemingly in whatever order you want) or sometimes on a table or stacked on a shelf. But even though the game might let you place a book on the back of a toilet doesn't mean you can keep it there. (Cleary this girl and I have very different priorities...)

 

NOW, you might be thinking that red outline is cheating. It's actually used for storytelling purposes too. And this is where I kinda have to get into spoilers a bit, so I'm sorry, but I'm only going to use two examples. I haven't read any other reviews on this game, so I don't know if there are other more "important" moments in the game, but I want to discuss the two that stuck out to me. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want the spoilers. For those who are still here... there's a level where it's clear the girl just got out of a relationship and moved back home. You can tell that pretty easily because you just got done doing the level where she shacked up with some guy. More on that next. But for this level, some of the items you unpack are pictures, which you can hang on the bulletin board in her bedroom. Maybe on the wall or fridge too. I'm not sure. But one of the photos gets flagged at the end if you're like me and try to hang it on the bulletin board. The red outline appears and you realize it's not the game telling you the object is in the wrong spot. It's the girl. This can lead to some frustration as you try moving the picture around the house to figure out where she wants it. I ended up stuffing it in a drawer. And...that makes sense. It's a picture of her and what we can now assume was her boyfriend. Of course she wouldn't want it on the wall. And...doesn't that say a lot more than having the girl outright say, "I want nothing to do with him anymore!"? Because now you saw it, lived it, and understand it. It's that lightbulb moment that sticks with you. Along the same lines, on the previous level, you have to find a place for your college degree. The game intentionally has no good spots for it. There's no wall space because her boyfriend has his crap everywhere. Instead, you're forced to place the diploma in the only place it will fit -- under the dresser in the closet, where no one can see it. Damn. I'd break up with that fool too.) But you see what I mean, guys? And I could be wrong. Maybe those aren't the ONLY places to put that photo or the degree. But those were the two times in the game where I felt I was stuck and had to do things that either bothered me or didn't immediately make sense. This is helped by the fact that you're often unpacking the same items in each level. This girl takes care of her stuff. There are several items she always seems to take with her and these stick out to you. If I paid better attention to the game, or maybe played it through a second time, I bet there are other items she did NOT take with her to her next place. I bet those tell a story too. I feel like I'm almost doing myself a disservice by not playing through the game a second time, because I feel it wasn't until the fourth or fifth level that I truly started to appreciate what this game was doing. And that was beyond the halfway point because this is a rather short experience...

 

OK, we're all back together again. Good to see you. I'm glad you could read this review today. How are you? I hope you're doing well. I lost whatever hair I have left and I am going through an emotional crisis, but I'll be OK.

 

I'm going to recommend this game, but with a couple caveats. First, I feel like this would better be played on PC. I hate giving props to the PC crowd, but simulators in particular suffer on console because of the controls. They were actually pretty good here, but it can get very tedious to click on a box, look at the item you have, drag it to where you want it to go, and then go back to the box again. I'm not sure where the best way to unpack is. I actually found it easier and more relaxing to just lay the items on the floor or bed so that I could stack like items and get a full picture of what I was dealing with. Sometimes it's not clear how much room you'll really have on that shelf, and so you spend a lot of time moving items you've already placed. The kitchens in particular were annoying because of the limited storage space. (As someone with a galley kitchen now, I totally get that.) My second caveat is that you really need to take your time with this one. I had to keep telling myself this wasn't a speedrun. Not only does that defeat the purpose of the game, but it makes it hard to appreciate the story it's trying to tell through visuals and sounds. This is the kind of game you should probably save for some cold, rainy, or snowy weekend in the coming months. If you live where I do, that's like half the year. You have the time. You just have to make it.

 

I have another game to review, but even thinking about that game right now is giving me a migraine, so it'll have to wait until this weekend...

[ProfSeajay7]

10 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

It won't be ugly when I'm done with it (I hope). The reason it seems I'm either really bad or really slow at moving in is because I'm determined to finish the living room (my temporary gaming/computer room) before I start filling it with stuff. And...well, let's just say that means putting up custom trim, crown molding, and now decorative walls because I'm pretty sure the previous tenants put their head through the drywall more than once. (I know what I'd like to do if I ever see them again...)

 

Funny thing. I feel the same way about the guy who owned the townhouse two-story I used to live in before me. I mean seriously, the place was so full of cigarette butts that it could be mistaken for a red light strip club, and the upper bathroom... well, it was still leaking water on the living room before it was even fixed and had to be refixed.

 

Scenario: The Landlady next door came back from vacation to find the front lawn covered in used condoms and drug needles and evicted the snooker, then sold it to my dad. At least *I* left the place to my successors with a nicer place to live, though I'll miss the green dining room walls and the exercise I got from walking up and down the stairs to make dinner.

 

Great review on Unpacking. I really enjoyed getting the platinum for that game. Sadly, no more PS5 stack - my PS5 controller decided to croak. (I can start the PS5 because pressing the PS4 button doesn't provoke a response so I need to replace the controller. I tried to fill the time with Pokemon XD: Gales of Darkness... only for my memory card to corrupt and wipe my save file. Add in that my Nintendo Switch Lite borked and couldn't turn on anymore and I had to trash it.... seriously this house is cursed, every electronic game I have is doomed to die quickly. *throws salt over shoulder* )