Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[Cassylvania]

Did I platinum two games today or zero? I'll let you decide!

 

Not A Platinum - Observation

 

For the third time in as many months, a woman goes into space and her entire crew gets fucked. Fellas, think twice before you decide to date an astronaut. But is this quasi-horror sci-fi game from developer No Code OBjectively good or should you have some reSERVATIONs about it? (That's either my best or worst one yet.) Let's find out.

 

In our last two space adventures, we explored Mars as the nimble Kathy Johnson (Deliver Us Mars) and slaughtered an entire ecosystem as the tank top warrior Kate Ward (Scars Above). This time, our innocent harbinger of destruction is Emma Fisher. The twist is that we're not platforming or shooting guns. We're not even playing as Emma. In this game, you play as SAM -- essentially, the AI aboard the ship. You control the cameras and can hack into various pieces of machinery throughout the space station, with the end goal of helping Emma out of a very stressful situation. This typically involves opening or closing doors, solving simple puzzles, and interacting with objects both inside and outside of the space station to clear a path for Emma. Whether this is a unique reversal of traditional gameplay mechanics or a glorified escort mission is something you'll have to decide for yourself. I personally was too busy trying not to vomit to notice.

 

And that's problem #1 with this game. I do struggle with motion sickness. I've said this before. This game does a...number of things to make you queasy. The field of view is constantly through a camera lens. The lighting in the station is poor and the image often flickers because they're going for a realistic feel. There are a lot of reverberations and static. You're constantly flipping through menus, zooming in and out, and turning very slowly. When you take control of the sphere, it can rotate in every direction. You're in space, so you tend to drift when you fly, but you instantly come to a stop when you let go of the analog stick. From what I could tell, there's no way to simply move up or down, so you're often at odds with the controls. The corridors are very confined. The rooms are small. Bumping into anything, which happens a lot, causes the screen to flicker. The map flickers too. The font is very small. It's very easy to get lost. There's no way of telling what is up or down. Basically, this is one of the first times when I'd say when you should really pay attention to that epilepsy warning at the start of the game because I had to stop playing after about an hour. I'm not sure it ever got better, but I found I was okay if I played in short bursts. It's not a particularly long game and I suppose it does a good job of making you feel like you're in space.

 

Problem #2 is the horror aspect. So... space games don't have to be scary. Nothing Kat or Kate experienced got me rattled. Alien: Isolation, which is an amazing game featuring a female protagonist, is probably the gold standard. Here, there's the obvious threat of something onboard the ship, but the fact that you're playing as a computer... I dunno, I didn't really feel afraid. What's the alien (or whatever is going on) going to do? Unplug me? Now, Emma -- SHE has reason to be scared. Again, this goes back to the idea of role reversal. If this was a traditional game and you were playing as Emma and you had to rely on SAM to navigate you through the ship (keeping in mind that something is wrong with SAM -- I'm trying to keep the story out of this review, but a major part of the game is trying to rebuild your memory core, which is done by accessing various logs and data entries throughout the station), then yeah, I think this could qualify as a scary game. It has all the pieces there. It's just the threat doesn't really exist because you're not playing as the human. It'd be like if you were playing Five Nights at Freddy's, but you were the camera instead of the guy operating the camera. You know what I mean?

 

That said, I'm just shitting on the game unnecessarily. It's still good. I don't know that full-on scare mode is what they were going for. Unsettling is often good enough. In fact, in many ways, I think the best horror games are the ones that don't rely on cheap jump scares. I've said before that Alien: Isolation, despite being one of my favorite horror games and one of the best to DO horror, stopped being scary for me after a few hours. That's because I typically because desensitized to terror. There are only so many ways the alien can appear and kill you. Sometimes I'd just laugh when he got me or run right into him when I know there's no way out of my current situation. I get more scared when a game crashes and I can't remember the last time I saved. So, when a game comes along and just says, "You know what, Cass? I'm going to make you feel uncomfortable. I'm not going to give you the chance to adjust because you don't know what's coming. How about that?"... I can respect that. And I think anybody who has played Alien: Isolation would agree with me that the scariest part of that game is the beginning. It's not knowing that makes scary things scary. That's why space is scary. That's why the deep ocean is scary. That's why darkness in general is scary. And there is something to be said about powerlessness. When you can physically move a character around the screen, there's a sense of control there. But when you're confined to a small space or forced to watch together through a grainy camera lens, then yeah, it can be a bit nerve-wracking. For some reason, things are always scarier when you see them through a cheap monitor. That's why a lot of horror movies like those first-person shots. That's why Resident Evil 7 was scarier than the other games in the series I played. Especially the scenes that were shown on film.

 

The game's a bit glitchy. Besides Emma's, uh...interesting facial animations, her movements are sometimes very stiff, like she's skipping frames. She also requires you to do things in order to advance to her next animation, which can lead to immersion-breaking moments where she's just hovering in space while waiting for you to trigger the next flag. It makes sense if a robot is doing that, but it's a bit weird for a human to wait for her AI companion to catch up. (It's hard to say if this was done because of technical limitations or because the developers didn't want the player getting separated from Emma, but I think I would have preferred if the game fully embraced the idea of you just being a backseat passenger.)

 

The puzzles and mini-games are fairly intuitive. I can't complain. I like when I'm not given four pages of text to figure out how to connect two lines. I've always said a good puzzle in a video game shouldn't require a tutorial at all. (And if I haven't said that, I am now.)

 

And you know what? Emma's alright. This game's alright. I'll recommend it with the caveat that you don't eat beforehand and take frequent breaks. Use a collectibles guide too because there's some missable stuff and it'd honestly be very hard to find everything on your first go, given how the collectibles are either documents or laptops, but most of the documents and laptops in the game cannot be interacted with. But you're looking at a 6-8 hour game that's currently free on PS+, so... why not? It's probably better than Madame Web.

 

Not A Platynum - The Touryst

 

And on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, we have a chill little game about a guy going on a vacation. I can't say I ever thought the idea of playing as a tourist would be interesting or even remotely engaging, but hey, at least I'm not throwing up in space. I'm pretty sure that never ends well.

 

Let's get the basics out of the way. Graphics are cute and pixelated, music is bumping, and the story is just as silly and simplistic as you would imagine. Picture A Short Hike or Toem. This is actually very similar to both games. You're essentially tasked with exploring various islands (at your own leisure) and completing various platforming puzzles and mini-games. Or don't. You could just...I dunno, splash around in the ocean or take pictures. The game doesn't really care.

 

There's some progression. You collect coins, which allow you to buy various things, such as movement upgrades or travel guides, which unlock new islands. Each island is a little different, but they all keep to the same tropical island theme. On one island, you can surf... on another, you can play arcade games or fly a drone... It's simple, but it works. Just like Observation, these challenges are intuitive enough that the controls don't have to be explained, but I'd say they're a little harder on average than you might be expecting. In fact, some of them probably border on bullshit. They kinda need to be this way because this is actually a very short game, but I don't think they ever get to the point of wanting to put the controller through the screen. It's just some of them require near perfection, which COULD be problematic, but it's not really here because most of the challenges are over in under a minute. I guess surfing was the hardest for me (followed by the drums, because I suck at rhythm games), but there are actually some aggravating platforming sections because of the 2.5D nature of those areas. It makes it very difficult to judge where you are in space.

 

No missable trophies, which is cool, and you essentially just need to 100% the game for the platinum that doesn't exist. (Of course, neither this game nor the one above warrant having a platinum. They're simply too short.)

 

While I hesitate to call this is a relaxing game due to the difficulty of some of the challenges, I think the game is better for it. Still, this is a borderline recommendation. The reason I hesitate there is because while the easiest comparison to make with this game is A Short Hike...I mean, ASH is simply a superior game. Play that first. If you like that, then this is probably worth a shot. If not, I can't really see this game being more appealing. That's different than comparing, say, Observation, Deliver Us Mars, and Scars Above, which have similar themes but very different gameplay.

 

This, of course, will lead into my next platinum, which I may have as soon as tonight. Let me just grab some Thai first. I haven't eaten today because...well... Emma.

 

4 hours ago, Mr_Wright95 said:

I think you are the final boss of trophy checklist bro 😆 This thread is unbelievable.

 

Really loved the layout and the detail you go into! 

 

YOU HAVE NOT EVEN SEEN MY FINAL FORM!

 

But thank you. It's definitely been an experience tracking my gaming journey over the past seven (!?) years.

[Cassylvania]

The answer is one. I platinumed one game today, guys.

 

(Or would this count as a half...?)

 

Platinum #419 - Danganronpa 1-2 Reload

 

So, technically, I already reviewed Danganronpa 1. It was Platinum #417 1/2 on the previous page. Check that out if you want. This will just be my review for Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. I gave the first game a glowing review, which probably surprised some of you, but you know I'm a bit harsher when it comes to sequels. We'll see how this game holds up. Will this be another killer entry or should this series just be killed off? Yadda yadda. Let's do this.

 

So, we're on a tropical island for this one. (See how it ties into my last review? It's like I plan these out in advance.) For the most part, we have an entirely new cast of high school students here. Probably a good idea to do that, since not everybody survived the first game. Not a spoiler. It's literally the plot. And the plot basically continues in this game. This time around, though, a new character is introduced: Usami. She's a pink rabbit with wings who uses rainbow magic because Japan. And...you're probably going to get Flowey from Undertale vibes right away from her because she's way too nice for a game that you know is going to have kids murdering each other. But, for the first few minutes of the game anyway, things seem kinda normal. I mean, it's kinda weird that you go from being invited into Hope Peak Academy to being on a deserted tropical island. It's also kinda weird that most of the people you're with seem totally cool with that. But it's pretty obvious something is wrong. It's not until your character finally drops his guard that Monokuma shows up and puts these poor kids through the same trials as the first game. Whether Usami is working with him or against him is something that'll keep you guessing all game. I guess if you played through School Mode in the first game, you'd already know, so...thanks for that, devs. Please, put more spoilers in your games.

 

Unlike them, I'm not going to say anything about the story of the game after the first few minutes. I'll just reiterate the premise of the first game. You're on an island with fifteen other students. The only way off the island is to kill one of the students and get away with it. If you played the first game...and, honestly, after you've played a couple of chapters of this...you'll see that every chapter is essentially the same. It begins with a new area being open up to you. You'll spend a while exploring the new area, get some free time to hang out with your friends, and then a murder will happen. You'll get to investigate for a while and then a class trial will begin. During the class trial, you'll have to determine who the killer is by countering arguments and playing a variety of mini-games... just like the other games I finished today. If you're right, the killer will be punished. If you're wrong... well, in theory, the killer gets away with it and everybody else dies. In practice, Monokuma just asks if you want to try again. Because, you know, it'd be kinda dumb if the killer was revealed to you and then you could just reload the save. That would kinda defeat the mystery, wouldn't it?

 

Let's talk about the cast for a bit. I kinda glazed over this in the first game, but part of the enjoyment of this series (it's always cool when I can start talking like a regular of something instead of a newcomer) is the colorful cast of misfits that you're forced to interact with. All of the kids are considered the "Ultimate" something. (If you want to play the shortest drinking game ever, take a shot every time somebody says "Ultimate", "Hope", or "Despair." You'll be dead before anybody on the island.) This is the same as the first game, but their abilities seem even more useless this time around. For example, one guy's ability is "Ultimate Team Manager." What? Another is the Ultimate Dancer. I don't think she dances a single time. Another is the Ultimate Gamer? Pretty sure I already have that title. Another is the Ultimate Princess of some country that doesn't exist. I mean, guys. What. Only a few of them have abilities that I'd consider to be useful, and even less of them are used in connection with a murder. I almost think the game would be better off if everybody's "Ultimate" ability was a secret. Instead, only yours (you play as Hajime Hinata) seems to be unknown. That's very similar to the first game.

 

Without going into too much detail, I'd say the cast of characters is comparable to the first game. There are characters you'll like, characters you'll hate, and characters you'll like to hate. I'll put my favorite character in the spoiler below, but it IS a spoiler. If you've played the game, you probably already know who it is. If you haven't, I don't know why you're reading spoilers. Almost makes putting this here meaningless...

 

Spoiler

Nagito is a great villain. I'd say maybe even better than the main villain in the first game. I'm calling this a spoiler, but I don't know how much it really is. It's pretty obvious he's messed up from almost the very beginning.

 

I will say I had a harder time picturing most of these kids as murderers when compared to the first game. I think there were maybe two characters in the first game I was leery about. Here, most of them seem like they wouldn't hurt the fly. (Well, maybe except the girl who is literally murdering insects the moment you arrive on the island.) I got lucky with the first game that my favorites lasted as long as they did. I wasn't quite as lucky this time. Let's just go over each of them because I probably have a few things to say. Maybe skip over the next section if you want to experience the story yourself.

 

The fifteen other students (in the order of the in-game Report Card) are: Nagito, Byakuka, Gundham, Kazuichi, Teruteru, Nekomaru, Fuyhiko, Akane, Chiaki, Sonia, Hiyoko, Mahiru, Mikan, Ibuki, and Peko. The first seven are dudes and the latter eight are chicks. There are no romance options because these are kids. Although...I'm pretty sure you end up asking some of the girls out if you complete their Report Card.

• I was wrong about Nagito. I thought they were doing one thing with him, but they ended up going in a different direction. That's cool too.
• Same with Byakuka... I liked him, though. He put on a few pounds.
• Gundam has an interesting shtick. He's some sort of edgelord who breeds hamsters. He carries around four of them that he calls the "Four Dark Devas of Destruction." Cute.
• Kazuichi's portrait and personality don't match. That bothered me. At least being the Ultimate Mechanic is an ability that is actually useful, considering how many machines are on this supposedly deserted island.
• Teruteru is... wow...
• Nekomaru, the "Ultimate Team Manager", likes screaming about having to take a shit. I enjoyed this more than I probably should.
• Fuyhiko is a character I think you're supposed to really like or really hate. I kinda felt indifferent, but a lot of characters have a story arc and I think some people might like his.
• As far as the girls go... Akane is funny. When you're doing the class trials, she constantly says the STUPIDEST things. You really need to experience this for yourself, but like the characters will be arguing about what weapon was used or how something was carried about, and she'll blurt out something that's either so brainless or off the mark that I couldn't help but laugh. I'm not even sure it was supposed to be funny.
• I got Kyoko vibes from Chiaki. Just like I got Aoi vibes from Akane. I'm not sure that's what they were going for because she could also be like Chihiro from the first game, but...well, I really liked Kyoko, so Chiaki wasn't bad.
• Sonia is best girl. Is this the general consensus among Danganronpa fans? Tell me it is.
• We're supposed to not like Hiyoko, right?
• Mahiru... I finally get a redhead in one of these games... and she's a total bitch...
• I did not like Mikan. Probably the most annoying character in this game, and I'm including both Usami and Monokuma in that. And yet... as the Ultimate Nurse, she's probably the MVP of this team.
• Didn't really like Ibuki either. I haven't really talked about animations, but characters are generally presented as still frames, and some of the 2D portraits for her are weird. There's one where she's foaming at the mouth, which was disgusting, and another where her nose sticks out like Pinocchio. This might be OK if other characters had overly exaggerated poses, but I'm not sure they do.
• Peko needs a tan.

Like the first game, you can spend time with these characters to learn more about them. If you don't do that in the main game, you can do it in Island Mode, which is basically the same thing as School Mode in the first game. You basically have to do because you're not given enough time to befriend everybody during the main game. Plus... you know... some of them won't live long enough anyway... which kinda means some of their dialogue would be impossible to see otherwise.

 

The killings in this game are more hit or miss than the first game, I'd say. Some of the trials drag on too long. I feel like Monokuma interfered too much in this game. In the first game, it felt like he established the rules and maybe dropped a motivation or two, but he mostly took a backseat. Here, he's practically committing some of the murders himself, which was less interesting to me. The kill scenes aren't as good as the first game either. I didn't like the premise for Chapter 4 because, like a lot of things in this series, it was overexplained to the point of it being fairly obvious what was going on way before the characters got around to discussing it. Chapter 5 is fuckin' great, though. So is the last chapter. If nothing else, the game dragging on as long as it does at least gives you a decent payout. That was a worry I had going into this series, knowing how long some of these games are. It took me about 45 hours for the first game and 65 hours for the sequel. A good portion of that was spent doing the ridiculous mini-games in both games. I don't want to discuss those.

 

Finally, we should discuss a bit of the gameplay. Obviously, this is mostly a visual novel, but there are some things you have to do to make the trials a bit more engaging. One change from the first game, for example, is you can now use your Truth Bullets to "agree" with a statement. In the first game, you only used your evidence to punch holes in statements, but now you have to think even harder. This is a good change. The other changes... uhhh... well, there's an "Improved" Hangman's Gambit. I'd like to be alone on an island with whoever thought that was a good idea. It was actually my favorite mini-game in the first game, but it's too chaotic in this game because letters can suddenly explode without any warning because of stuff that happens off-screen. How is it fair that a slow-moving letter gets overrun by a fast-moving letter that I can't even see or shoot? Not to mention you're tasked with completing entire phrases instead of a simple word. Logic Dive is an interesting concept, but only for the first couple of times. Honestly, after reviewing two other games today that also have mini-games, I'm sad to say that Danganronpa actually does the worst job at making them interesting or fun. The joy of this series comes from the characters and the complex murders that take place. The trial is actually the most interesting part, but the forced mini-games kinda take it away for me.

 

That said, I don't think there's a clear winner between Danganronpa 1 and Danganronpa 2. There are things the first game does better, for sure, but the second does enough different things that I think it being slightly better in some areas makes up for it being worse in other areas. I haven't admitted this yet, but this was actually on my bucket list for this year. It's one of the reasons I like keeping that list a secret from you guys, because you really won't know which games I've wanted to play for a long time until I actually get around to reviewing them. And, um... well, I can now say I'm officially the owner of an anime figure. I mean, not technically yet, but it's in the mail and should be here Tuesday. That's right, guys -- after years of threatening it, I finally caved to buying an overpriced figurine. And it's not of a Souls game, Metroidvania, or Genshin. The first piece in my new gaming room will be a Danganronpa statue. I bet you didn't see that one coming. 2023 Cass sure didn't.

 

Now, the question is: should I count this as one game off my bucket list or two...?

Edited March 25 by Cassylvania

[Rally-Vincent---]

I quite enjoyed Observation's story and gameplay.  Except for the ending, I was entertained.

[Cassylvania]

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

I quite enjoyed Observation's story and gameplay.  Except for the ending, I was entertained.

 

Ending was kinda lame. I actually wrote the entire review before finishing. I'd play for a few minutes, type a few sentences, and repeat. I actually do that a lot with my reviews, but normally because I'm grinding out the last few trophies and I'm bored. There, it was because of how queasy the game made me feel.

 

Well... The next month or so is all about wrapping up the last few games on PS+ before my subscription runs out. I'm trying to do as many as I can that were on the wheel, but obviously Tetris Effect isn't going to happen. (Not yet anyway, guys! Don't think I'm not going to give that game the old college try eventually.) Paradise Killer is on the list and I'm doing that. Returnal and Chorus... I mean, they're women in space... I don't think I can avoid making that joke some more. I definitely want to do The Forgotten City. You can already see what I'm doing with FF. The rest... we'll see. It's not like I won't buy games on the store when they go on sale. That's probably how I obtained most of my games.

 

We're on pace for 60 games this year, so let's see if we can accomplish that.

[ProfSeajay7]

On 3/24/2024 at 11:54 PM, Cassylvania said:

The first piece in my new gaming room will be a Danganronpa statue. I bet you didn't see that one coming. 2023 Cass sure didn't.

I went to an otaku cafe and bought TWO anime girl statues which now adorn the windowsill over my computer - the left one is a girl wearing chef's attire holding a cooked steak, and the right one wears tight shorts and the boob-hugging strap dress that you see in award ceremonies worn by female celebs; and she also has bisected waist as for some reason she came in two parts and I couldn't force them together properly.

 

Luckily both were $25 a pop, but I think I will not go back to that otaku cafe, because it failed to get me to socialize. I need something like a book club. 😛 

[Grotz99]

I also liked the 2nd Danganronpa over the 1st, but not by much, they are both great. It's been a while so it's hard to remember some of the characters, but you're descriptions definitely helped.

 

I have the 3rd on my list to play as well as their new(ish) game on the switch, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. Are you going to play the 3rd one at some point?

[Rally-Vincent---]

The DanganronpaV3  isn't as much fun as the first two (in my opinion).  I stopped midway and haven't yet felt the urge to pick it up again. But I will someday, so I'd have to read the review very carefully not to spoil something.

[Cassylvania]

2 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

I have the 3rd on my list to play as well as their new(ish) game on the switch, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. Are you going to play the 3rd one at some point?

 

Like Rally said, I heard the third game (and spinoffs?) isn't as good. I feel like I stopped at a good enough point for now. We'll put it the same tier as Kingdom Hearts and Ys, which are series I probably will finish someday, but I'll need to space them out for the sake of my own sanity. Maybe in a year or two. We got too many other bucket list games to focus on.

 

My goal this month is six games, I think. If we can finish 20 games by the end of April, that sets me up pretty well for 2024. Unfortunately, I started Let's Build a Zoo, unsure of whether it was a 20 hour platinum or an 80 hour platinum. Numbers were simultaneously missing and all over the place with this game. I'm fairly certain I'll be blowing some bullshit whistles by the end of this one.

 

We also have Dicey Dungeons, which is going to take some time. Potion Permit is hard to say. Is it just games that are really tedious or is it my preference in games? That's the existential question I'll be pondering this month as I try to pretend I didn't just see an announcement for another Rain World DLC.

 

[Cassylvania]

So, guys... I've been thinking about this for a while, but I've finally decided I want to revamp the OP. I know it's cool to have the game images sorted by my attempt to put games into genres, but (a) I don't know how many people take advantage of this or care to click on the links, and (b) it's actually a pain in the ass to format. I think I came up with a pretty good solution to the square-shaped PS5 images, but it doesn't change the fact that it's taking progressively longer to load the first page with the more games I finish. I'm not sure if there's a limit to how many images I can fit into a single post, but I'd like to do something a little less intensive. I'm thinking of just a simple text list. I can still sort it by genre, but I think it'll be easier on your eyes -- and computer. I put a sample at the top of the OP to test it out.

 

Now, what we can do is color code the games in a variety of ways. I think I tried this once before, where I made all the games I really like one color (say, green) and all the games I hate a different color (say, red). We could also color code them according to difficulty or length. It might be kinda cool to have the platinums I really struggled with stand out like that. I could maybe do a combination of both, using colors for one thing and maybe icons or emjois after the game to reflect how the game made me feel. Like, I could put fifteen barfing emojis after Deiland. I think that will be a good way to get my message across if somebody doesn't read my review.

 

I could also organize games with a tier list instead of by genre, but... I dunno. I spent a lot of time trying to organize games into their respective genres. I also have fun moving them around from time to time.

 

I'm open to ideas. Easiest thing would probably be to just highlight the extreme plats. I think all you know my favorite games by now. They're the ones I mention in every post.

[Rally-Vincent---]

Best thing is to make sure fun does not turn into a chore. Goes for threads in this sub-board like it does for gaming itself.

[realm722]

On 4/2/2024 at 3:22 PM, Cassylvania said:

 

We also have Dicey Dungeons, which is going to take some time. Potion Permit is hard to say. Is it just games that are really tedious or is it my preference in games? That's the existential question I'll be pondering this month as I try to pretend I didn't just see an announcement for another Rain World DLC.

 

 

Finish Paradise Killer

[ProfSeajay7]

On 4/4/2024 at 5:21 AM, Cassylvania said:

So, guys... I've been thinking about this for a while, but I've finally decided I want to revamp the OP. I know it's cool to have the game images sorted by my attempt to put games into genres, but (a) I don't know how many people take advantage of this or care to click on the links, and (b) it's actually a pain in the ass to format. I think I came up with a pretty good solution to the square-shaped PS5 images, but it doesn't change the fact that it's taking progressively longer to load the first page with the more games I finish. I'm not sure if there's a limit to how many images I can fit into a single post, but I'd like to do something a little less intensive. I'm thinking of just a simple text list. I can still sort it by genre, but I think it'll be easier on your eyes -- and computer. I put a sample at the top of the OP to test it out.

 

Now, what we can do is color code the games in a variety of ways. I think I tried this once before, where I made all the games I really like one color (say, green) and all the games I hate a different color (say, red). We could also color code them according to difficulty or length. It might be kinda cool to have the platinums I really struggled with stand out like that. I could maybe do a combination of both, using colors for one thing and maybe icons or emjois after the game to reflect how the game made me feel. Like, I could put fifteen barfing emojis after Deiland. I think that will be a good way to get my message across if somebody doesn't read my review.

 

I could also organize games with a tier list instead of by genre, but... I dunno. I spent a lot of time trying to organize games into their respective genres. I also have fun moving them around from time to time.

 

I'm open to ideas. Easiest thing would probably be to just highlight the extreme plats. I think all you know my favorite games by now. They're the ones I mention in every post.

 

I might actually reorganize my OP as well. I don't think I can keep adding platinum trophy icons as I am past 110 platinums and I might have to delete the images and just put a spoiler tag with a text list of the games I have platinums in... that or force people to link to a blog I made with the list of icons as Blogger.com might have better bandwidth. Not crashing on this site but bandwidth is a precious ocmmodity.

[Cassylvania]

On 4/12/2024 at 9:43 AM, ProfSeajay7 said:

I might actually reorganize my OP as well. I don't think I can keep adding platinum trophy icons as I am past 110 platinums and I might have to delete the images and just put a spoiler tag with a text list of the games I have platinums in... that or force people to link to a blog I made with the list of icons as Blogger.com might have better bandwidth. Not crashing on this site but bandwidth is a precious ocmmodity.

 

Yeah, so what I decided to do was to trim down the OP to only include my absolute favorite genres. This is good for two reasons. First, it prevents me from having to contend with a lot of similar genres. It gets frustrating to consider what should be considered an RPG and what's not. Are Dark Souls, Skyrim, Atelier Rorona, and CrossCode in the same genre or different ones? But second, it means I can emphasize the genres I actually care the most about. You know, the ones I'm always talking about and the games I'm always circling back to because I want to complete the whole library of games within that genre. So, farming sims, survival games, and the like.

 

It's still a work in progress, but I think I prefer this.

 

On 4/9/2024 at 6:09 PM, realm722 said:

 

Finish Paradise Killer

 

Somebody's got a thing for Lady Love Dies.

 

Unfortunately, I've been a little preoccupied with...well, my profile gives everything away, but I do plan to get back to that this week. I mean, I kinda have to. April is halfway over and I'm 0-for-6 on my goal of completed games this month. It's going to have to be a whirlwind for the next two weeks to get that done in time. Can we do it?

 

Yes, we can!

[ProfSeajay7]

On 4/15/2024 at 6:43 AM, Cassylvania said:

Unfortunately, I've been a little preoccupied with...well, my profile gives everything away, but I do plan to get back to that this week. I mean, I kinda have to. April is halfway over and I'm 0-for-6 on my goal of completed games this month. It's going to have to be a whirlwind for the next two weeks to get that done in time. Can we do it?

 

Yes, we can!

 

I have goals to complete FFXIV up to Endwalker before the 7.0 drop date of June 28(and I have to log out on June 26 because they are taking 48 hours to re-work all the character models for the new graphical update as well as add Dawntrail content) and I also have to complete Pokemon XD before they announce the completion shutting down of Pokemon Bank. In hindsight, I wasted my money on old Pokemon games as now that Pokemon 3DS is dead in the water online-wise, Pokemon will eventually be trapped on their old systems. I know Nintendo had to do this, and you can still, probably, transfer Gen 1 Pokemon to your Pokemon HOME since they added those games to their Virtual Console on the Switch, but it's clunky and difficult to run Pokemon Red and Blue on the Switch.

 

Sorry, I just have a lot of work to do. I hope your enthusiasm rubs off on me as I have a lot of backlog to run through.

[Cassylvania]

Ask and you shall receive.

 

Platinum #420 - Paradise Killer

 

It's been a while since my Danganronpa 2 review, but would you believe this is yet another game set on a tropical island in which one or all of our friends may be murderers and it's up to us to solve the mystery by putting them on trial? I know I say I sometimes try to find a connection between the current game I'm reviewing and the last game I played, but this is a little too on the nose. Either way, let's breathe life back into this paradise. (That's something Lady Love Dies says.)

 

So, I don't know how to explain the plot of this game without you guys thinking I'm just making stuff up, so I'm going to need you to trust me here. Paradise Killer has you taking the role of Lady Love Dies, that lovely little lady in the platinum image (minus the whole Siamese twin thing -- I don't know why that exists). This whole story takes place on an island, which is the 24th iteration or sequence of that island. Basically, these islands exist until the gods or the people who live on them destroy them, and then they're forced to start over again. There's a lot going on here -- way too much to explain in this review or arguably the game -- but let's just say Lady Love Dies (we're going to call her LD for the rest of this review) made a grave mistake on the 13th island and was put into eternal exile. That eternity lasted about three million days. The only reason she's being called upon is because the 24th island is coming to an end and the entire council who is in charge of these islands was just murdered. LD is an investigator, so she's asked to find the guilty party, put them on trial, and execute them. Then I guess everybody else gets to move on to the next island -- "Perfect 25", as they call it, because they clearly haven't already fucked it up twenty-four other times.

 

If all of this sounds a little grandiose, I want you to triple that amount because it gets a lot more crazy once you meet the other characters on the island. Every NPC that you'll interact with has a name, an appearance, and a background story that screams for attention. For example, you have Crimson Acid, who is...I dunno, some kind of sex model with the head of a goat and sells secrets to the highest bidder? And Doctor Doom Jazz, who is definitely some kind of sex model, but also I think he's a real doctor? And then you have One Last Kiss, who is...wait, maybe that's a spoiler. Can you really spoil a story that doesn't make sense? Oh, and then you have Henry Division, who is the one everybody is accusing of killing the Council. He's the only one who is a citizen, I think. I'm pretty sure everybody else in the game is a demigod or something. I dunno because there's this one guy named Witness to the End, who is always talking about the gods and the coming rapture. It's hard to tell what's going on in the game because it sounds like the writers are just making it up as they go -- kinda like Square Enix.

 

But that, of course, is the charm of the game. It definitely...stands out. The developers' approach to this game was to make the characters and dialogue as flamboyant as possible. This will come across in one of two ways. If you're somebody who likes that kind of thing, you'll probably enjoy this world and its inhabitants. If you're not, I think this is going to rub you the wrong way. Just imagine Alice in Wonderland, but every character is the Mad Hatter. (Actually, I think just about everybody in that universe talks in riddles... Bad example.) I'm somebody who likes eccentric characters -- I mean, they're usually the best ones in any form of media -- but...I don't know about this one, guys. This story is a little too out there for my tastes. It doesn't help that voice acting is done in my least favorite way possible, which is where only bits and phrases are recorded and then occasionally played while a character is talking. This is done a lot with Japanese games. Usually, the VOs will only involve grunts or small snippets of dialogue -- just enough to give you a sense of tone in which the character is speaking. Here, you get almost complete sentences. This gets annoying when somebody like LD says, "It's time to breathe life back into paradise" for the eight millionth time. On the other hand, the music in this game is good enough that you won't want to put it on mute.

 

I'm not sure there's much more to say about the story. This game is essentially a visual novel, but you'll spend a good chunk of the time exploring the island and doing some light parkour, which you'll need to reach certain areas and obtain some collectibles. There are between forty and fifty billion collectibles in this game, and the way it's handled is simultaneously the greatest and worst thing I've ever seen. Once you get the appropriate upgrade, you can simply press a button on your controller to make all the collectibles appear on screen (not the mini-map, but the actual screen), and they show up as hearts that get bigger the closer they are. This makes finding them very easy. The PROBLEM is... well, there are three problems with this. First, they only stay visible for a few seconds. There's also an annoying delay between when you press the button and the icons actually appear. The second problem is the icons won't appear if you're too far away or if they're in a different zone, which is pretty rare, but it could happen when you get to the last few collectibles. Also, the third problem is the inventory system, which seems to track your collectibles in the order you pick them up. That's a really dumb way to do it. If you're looking for the all the vending machine cans you have, for example, you'll need to manually sort through every item in your inventory and try to identify the ones that look like a can. It's OK to make your game nonsensical, but don't do that with the UI.

 

Exploring the island is kinda fun. You eventually get a double jump and an air dash, which are not only necessary, but I'm pretty sure allowed me to sequence break parts of the game. You're going to kinda want to be Obi-Wan Kenobi and keep the high ground as much as possible here because it's obviously much easier to fall down than it is to climb up. You can use Blood Crystals, which are like the main collectible in the game, to fast travel, but I never did because they're limited and you also need them to buy certain items and secrets from Crimson Acid. I ended up with about 50 spare ones, so you're probably OK to fast travel a few times. It would definitely make the game go faster because some of the NPCs are rather far apart. (Especially that one chick who kept calling me a "nenorocito", which I'm pretty sure is an insult.)

 

That's honestly all there is to this game, outside of the end-game trial, which seems to be dependent on how much evidence you collected during your journey. You have as much time as you want, and there's actually a speedrun trophy for just skipping right to the trial with zero evidence on hand. Probably won't convince the Judge of anything, but I'm not entirely sure there is a "right" answer to this game. I got an ending of sorts, but I couldn't tell you whether any of my assumptions were right or not. I think the story is supposed to be what you make of it.

 

Um... yeah. This is a rare instance where I did zero research into the game and I've yet to read, watch, or listen to another review. This is probably the purest review I've ever written in that sense. I'm now going to read realm's review because we're usually on the same page and I'm curious how he ranked this game any higher than a 5 out of 10.

 

*commence me reading an entire book -- wow, this puts my Plague Tale 2 review to shame*

 

OK, I have no idea how he took notes during this game. The game's journal actually does a decent job at tracking things like the timeline, alibi breakers, and evidence you've gathered. This helps during the trial because it means you don't have to rely on your memory. He actually took the time to reason his way through each mystery (yeah, there's the one overarching mystery, but you're asked several questions during the trial that require you accusing someone each time). I simply picked whoever had the most evidence against them. That said, I bailed towards the end of the game because I was tired of running back and forth between NPCs. I still think I unlocked 90% of the dialogue because, unlike realm, I actually found One Last Kiss fairly early in my playthrough. The red skeleton was the one I struggled to find, and he's actually on the map. He's also the first one realm claimed to find, so we're clearly not playing games the same way.

 

Spoiler time. For realm and non-interested parties' eyes only:

 

Spoiler

During the trial, anybody you accuse and successfully bring enough evidence against gets executed by LD's hand at the end of the trial. If you don't have enough evidence, Henry gets executed at the end of the trial. That means you would actually have to successfully accuse somebody else TEN times (because there are ten "mini" trials) to save Henry. Despite my amazing video game skills, the Judge wasn't convinced a single time, so Henry died. So did almost everybody else. In fact, uh... only Doctor Doom Jazz survived on my playthrough. There was like zero evidence against him for anything, except for some lump of flesh he had sitting in a fridge or something.

 

Realm didn't point this out, but you can actually talk to the NPCs who are still alive after the trial, when you're making your escape from the island. At least, I was able to talk to Doctor Doom Jazz. One of the options was "Execute" and...I mean...I had to press it. LD was like, "I know you're guilty, but I couldn't prove it." She then took out her gun and shot him dead. I can't tell you how hard I laughed. Not only was there (again!) ZERO EVIDENCE against him, but he's actually the most chill character in the game. It'd be like somebody killing Shaggy. Hands down, this was the best moment in the game. LD just straight up murdering someone for no reason.

 

I'm actually surprised realm rated this game as highly as I did, given he pointed out every negative thing I said AND several I did not (like how bad the platforming can be and how much of a letdown the ending was). I can't rate this game that highly because, I mean, I just got done playing back-to-back Danganronpa games. I have a Junko statue sitting on my desk. You won't see me shopping for Lady Love Dies merchandise. It wasn't a terrible game, but there's a reason I wasn't compelled to finish the story for a month. In short: good visuals, great music, solid character design, questionable writing, and mediocre gameplay. Can't recommend it.

 

Now, before you say, "Oh no, Cass, does that mean your streak of good games is at an end?", let me assure you it was never going to last. In fact, I've known for weeks it was over with my next platinum. I just thought it was going to be a different game than this one. Which game? You're about to find out.

 

May you never eat a bad burrito.

 

(This is when you say, "And may you reach the moon.")

Edited Tuesday at 02:51 PM by Cassylvania

[Cassylvania]

That's right. It's a double plat day. A pee-pee, if you will.

 

Platinum #421 - Let's Build A Zoo

 

Let's Build A Zoo is a...well, it's literally in the title. It's a zoo-building simulator. Somehow, it beat Planet Zoo to console. I suppose if I had waited another month, I could've played that instead. But here we are. Can we build a zoo? Yes, we can! Should we build that zoo? ... Let's find out.

 

The most notable thing about this game right off the bat is the 8-bit graphics. I loved them. One of the biggest problems city-building or -- more appropriately here, I suppose -- theme park-building games have is that you often end up with a lot of lag either as your park grows or you begin to attract more visitors. I think too many modern simulators try to use realistic graphics, which probably helps with sales, but it always seems to come at the cost of performance. It's true that these kinds of games are probably better played on PC, but I thought it handled well on console. I'm actually surprised how big you can make your zoo. In fact, I'm still surprised by that. There's actually a trophy for unlocking every available space and my eyes got wider every time I unlocked a new row, only to see there was another row I could purchase behind that. I'm honestly not sure it's necessary. I can't imagine the game performing that well if you tried to make a zoo at maximum size. It admittedly does start to lag even when you're trying to pan the screen from one end of the zoo to the other.

 

While the graphics are pretty simple, there are actually a lot of options when it comes to animals, buildings, decorations, and customization. There are actually 63 animals in the base game. More on those later. As far as buildings go, you get various shops, factories, farms, and facilities that serve a variety of purposes. So, yes, you can build a fry shop, load it up with the maximum amount of salt, and then jack up the price of your soda machines. I'm sure putting the bathroom in the back of the zoo to force them to walk by every shop and attraction would work too. I didn't find money to be all that difficult to get while playing, so I didn't really bother with that. (But I can assure you my fry stands weren't the only thing experiencing a maximum amount of salt. More on that later too.)

 

The game holds your hand for only a few minutes, teaching you how to open the radial menu, build your first pen, and obtain your first animal. This is done in a sort of Noah's ark kind of way, where you always receive a male and a female of that animal from the world map screen. The usual way you receive new animals is by trading with another zoo. So, for example, you're always given rabbits at the start of a new game. You can trade a rabbit for geese. Eventually, you might be able to trade a goose for something else. Each zoo has a predetermined order in which they offer trades, which I personally think is a missed opportunity to give the game more replayability. You're basically forced to accept every trade in order to unlock a new animal. That doesn't mean you have to keep that animal in your zoo, but... I dunno. It could be fun if your first animal is random every time. Maybe you roll a penguin and build an arctic-themed zoo. Just something to make it different from BUNNIES every time.

 

There are a few other ways to obtain animals, though. Obviously, you can breed them. This can happen naturally or you can facilitate the process with a nursery. Sometimes you'll end up with a baby that's a different variation. Every animal has 10 of these. Sometimes you need a variation to complete a trade. Sometimes developers are assholes and decide you need to unlock every variation of every animal in the game for a trophy. But getting these variations can be tricky. It's not like every parent can produce every variation. For example, two white rabbits may have a small chance of producing a brown rabbit. That's one variation. But now you might need a white rabbit and a brown rabbit to produce an orange rabbit, while two brown rabbits might produce a black rabbit. It's not only confusing, but it's time-consuming, and the odds of getting a variation can be 10% or lower. It makes sense to me for this to exist for trading, as it'd be too easy just to trade your newly acquired animal for something else, but there's no way in hell something like this should've been a requirement for a trophy. This is going to be 80% of your playtime if you play this game. You're just going to be breeding animals as if they're rabbits. But they're not all rabbits. AND SOME ANIMALS DON'T BREED VERY QUICKLY AT ALL.

 

Anyway... you can also take animals in from the shelter. You'll get up to five offers per day this way. This can be a good way to get a new variation without having to breed, or for replacing an animal that you've lost due to old age or because you thought snakes and rabbits can live together peacefully. (Honestly, I'm not sure if animals can kill other animals in this game. You're even given the option to throw customers into the animal pens and would you believe I never tried it?) Sometimes you'll get a random event that will ask you to take in new animals too. That can be a good way to unlock an animal that you usually wouldn't get until way later.

 

The game makes it pretty easy to tell what animals like and what they don't like. For example, there are eight biomes that you can choose from when building a pen. You only get a few when you start the game, but you can unlock more through the research tree. Some animals like the desert, others like the forest, and so on. You can even have some animals share a pen, which is nice. The game will tell if you if they get along. My original plan was just to build one enormous pen for each biome and then stick as many different animals as possible into each pen, but I'm not sure that's the best way to play the game. You run into several issues this way. For example, animals gotta...you know, eat, and you have to hire a lot of people to care for them. It's also annoying when you run out of food and manually have to order more. Fortunately, there's an upgrade for that. (That should be a motto for this whole game.) You can also GROW your own food, which means this is also a farming sim, and that would get me very excited if it wasn't for one thing: the morality system.

 

This is a bizarre choice for a simulation game. You're asked very early on to make a decision. You find a lost puppy. Do you (a) try to find his owner, or (b) dress him up like a lion and stick him in a cage in your zoo? Depending on what you pick, you'll be sent down the good or evil path. This isn't a permanent thing and your morality will go up or down as you play and make various decisions, but being good or evil restricts what buildings you have access to. For example, you can only grow crops if you have a high morality. Getting a high morality isn't just based on binary decisions, though. You need to pay your employees well, have lots of trees to offset the CO2 from the buses delivering people to your zoo, and you probably shouldn't be dealing with the black market trader who wants to sell you exotic animals. On the other hand, if you're evil, you can turn your snakes into belts and your pigs into bacon. For whatever reason, I had a much easier time making money by being evil than I ever did being good.

 

I didn't hate the morality system because it at least gives you multiple ways to play the game, but it is a little weird that you can still unlock the perks for the opposite morality on the research tree. This is actually annoying because it's one of those skill trees where you need to unlock an adjacent tile in order to not only unlock that ability, but to even see what's there. So, if you're doing a good playthrough and there's a locked perk that's only usable if you have low morality, you either have to waste research points on it or take the long way around the tree to unlock it. I feel a better way to handle this would've been to put "good" perks on one side of the tree and "evil" skills on the other, with neutral choices in the middle. The order and placement of the perks makes no sense. They're just randomly thrown in there, with no way of knowing what you might unlock next, even though some of them are critical to gameplay and others are useless decor items that you'll never use. It's arguably the worst designed skill tree I've ever seen.

 

Now, our favorite developer decided to design two more terrible trophies: one for having maximum high morality and another for having maximum low morality. These will make you want to peel your eyes out. There are so many mechanics in this game that aren't explained and you'll really have to do some experimentation to figure out how to achieve both of those games. I gave up on my first zoo. I had an essentially endless amount of money, but I couldn't get my customers to generate enough trash to maximize how well my recycling plant was working, which is necessary for the high morality trophy. I think it's a proportional thing based on the size of your zoo. So, I opted to do the entire trophy with the smallest zoo possible, which was only four or five land squares. (I mean, you might be able to do it with less, but I needed enough space to grow a large enough variety of crops.) I only had bunnies in my zoo. They did nothing but breed and then I'd release them or donate them to get my morality up.

 

The evil playthrough, which you think would be more fun, was actually MORE annoying because the game is actively fighting against you at every turn. See, a lot of values start returning to neutral over time. You have to constantly be firing employees, bribing protesters (oh yeah, when people really hate how you treat your animals, they'll show up at your zoo with picket signs and start marching), and dealing with the black market guy. This also leads into the game's biggest sin. Even if we put the trophies aside, because...come on, they're just digital achievements... it doesn't excuse the fact that this game NEVER STOPS BOMBARDING YOU WITH POP-UPS. AM I PLAYING A FUCKIN' FREE MOBILE GAME HERE!? It is SO... FREAKIN'... ANNOYING when you're playing a game and right when you're in the middle of decorating or tweaking the amount of recycled bathwater in your bathhouse, some stupid nonsense about an influencer rating my zoo or a janitor being upset he isn't paid enough keeps interrupting me.

 

Did I mention the game crashes about every 45 minutes? Yeah, it auto-saves at the end of every day. That's the only chance of saving you get. There's also a fairly good chance that every time it attempts to auto-save, it'll crash. Have fun with that. You know what? Don't have fun with that. If this game is in your backlog, just delete it now. It is not worth the aggravation. I get so flustered when a game has potential and it's absolutely squandered in every way imaginable. I want to keep ranting, but it's almost 2:30 in the morning and I'm exhausted. I'm screaming like Jerry Maguire at this game. HELP ME HELP YOU. Just let me ENJOY you. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS, ZOO GAME? WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE NORMAL?

 

You know the worst part? I still have another DLC to finish.

Edited Monday at 06:35 PM by Cassylvania

[realm722]

On 4/20/2024 at 12:25 AM, Cassylvania said:

If all of this sounds a little grandiose, I want you to triple that amount because it gets a lot more crazy once you meet the other characters on the island. Every NPC that you'll interact with has a name, an appearance, and a background story that screams for attention. For example, you have Crimson Acid, who is...I dunno, some kind of sex model with the head of a goat and sells secrets to the highest bidder? It's hard to tell what's going on in the game because it sounds like the writers are just making it up as they go -- kinda like Square Enix.

 

Hahahha, you did a great job of encapsulating a lot of the weirdness you'll feel when first starting off with the game. I probably should have prefaced that when recommending the game with such exuberance. Paradise Killer isn't like the other girls. I remember once we started getting to the casual mention of real demons in the universe as lore and a possible explanation for the murders it was like: "oh aight the game's just here fair enough time for me to get on board".

 

On 4/20/2024 at 12:25 AM, Cassylvania said:

But that, of course, is the charm of the game. It definitely...stands out. The developers' approach to this game was to make the characters and dialogue as flamboyant as possible. This will come across in one of two ways. If you're somebody who likes that kind of thing, you'll probably enjoy this world and its inhabitants. If you're not, I think this is going to rub you the wrong way. Just imagine Alice in Wonderland, but every character is the Mad Hatter. (Actually, I think just about everybody in that universe talks in riddles... Bad example.) I'm somebody who likes eccentric characters -- I mean, they're usually the best ones in any form of media -- but...I don't know about this one, guys. This story is a little too out there for my tastes. It doesn't help that voice acting is done in my least favorite way possible, which is where only bits and phrases are recorded and then occasionally played while a character is talking. This is done a lot with Japanese games. Usually, the VOs will only involve grunts or small snippets of dialogue -- just enough to give you a sense of tone in which the character is speaking. Here, you get almost complete sentences. This gets annoying when somebody like LD says, "It's time to breathe life back into paradise" for the eight millionth time. On the other hand, the music in this game is good enough that you won't want to put it on mute.

 

Very fair criticsm. I'll admit, I am somebody who will frequently grow tired of a lot of the vanilla takes or tropes you'll see in a lot of video game media. To the point where I will unintentionally just totally zone out of story sections and browse Reddit on my laptop or something while waiting for the cutscene to end. Paradise Killer ensured I didn't do that because everybody is cracked out and I just have an admiration for a developer just willing to GO FOR IT with this concept. They're taking 30ft 3-pointers every time down the floor and it's understandable why that approach won't be appealing for everybody. I also agree with the voice acting. It's about as close as you'll get to Pokemon-tier without just having the characters say their own name over and over again. Glad you enjoyed the music as I did.

 

On 4/20/2024 at 12:25 AM, Cassylvania said:

That's honestly all there is to this game, outside of the end-game trial, which seems to be dependent on how much evidence you collected during your journey. You have as much time as you want, and there's actually a speedrun trophy for just skipping right to the trial with zero evidence on hand. Probably won't convince the Judge of anything, but I'm not entirely sure there is a "right" answer to this game. I got an ending of sorts, but I couldn't tell you whether any of my assumptions were right or not. I think the story is supposed to be what you make of it.

 

Um... yeah. This is a rare instance where I did zero research into the game and I've yet to read, watch, or listen to another review. This is probably the purest review I've ever written in that sense. I'm now going to read realm's review because we're usually on the same page and I'm curious how he ranked this game any higher than a 5 out of 10.

 

While I'm a bit saddened you did not enjoy the game as much as I did, I'm happy to hear I was able to provide a unique experience if nothing else. I think at least partially one of the reasons I enjoyed the game as much as I did was the review afterward and being able to talk at length about somebody I've seen NOBODY else on the forum talk about.

 

On 4/20/2024 at 12:25 AM, Cassylvania said:

*commence me reading an entire book -- wow, this puts my Plague Tale 2 review to shame*

 

OK, I have no idea how he took notes during this game. The game's journal actually does a decent job at tracking things like the timeline, alibi breakers, and evidence you've gathered. This helps during the trial because it means you don't have to rely on your memory. He actually took the time to reason his way through each mystery (yeah, there's the one overarching mystery, but you're asked several questions during the trial that require you accusing someone each time). I simply picked whoever had the most evidence against them. That said, I bailed towards the end of the game because I was tired of running back and forth between NPCs. I still think I unlocked 90% of the dialogue because, unlike realm, I actually found One Last Kiss fairly early in my playthrough. The red skeleton was the one I struggled to find, and he's actually on the map. He's also the first one realm claimed to find, so we're clearly not playing games the same way.

 

Even rereading my own review... wow damn, that thing is long!

 

I love taking notes for games like these! As I wrote, it's not exactly necessary. But I enjoy seeing how much speculation evolves as I learned more and more about the case. There's also definitely a "meta element" at play with some of my accusations early on. The fact you and I had such wildly different experiences with who we found first and last is hilarious.

 

On 4/20/2024 at 12:25 AM, Cassylvania said:

I'm actually surprised realm rated this game as highly as I did, given he pointed out every negative thing I said AND several I did not (like how bad the platforming can be and how much of a letdown the ending was). I can't rate this game that highly because, I mean, I just got done playing back-to-back Danganronpa games. I have a Junko statue sitting on my desk. You won't see me shopping for Lady Love Dies merchandise. It wasn't a terrible game, but there's a reason I wasn't compelled to finish the story for a month. In short: good visuals, great music, solid character design, questionable writing, and mediocre gameplay. Can't recommend it.

 

Now, before you say, "Oh no, Cass, does that mean your streak of good games is at an end?", let me assure you it was never going to last. In fact, I've known for weeks it was over with my next platinum. I just thought it was going to be a different game than this one. Which game? You're about to find out.

 

Damn I totally forgot I lambasted the game for the entire back end of that review lmao. I think ultimately I just loved the concept, loved the ambition, and while I acknowledge the game is wickedly flawed, there's something in the sauce of the game that draws me to it. Thanks for playing it and giving it you honest take

 

Now, if you want to play an AMAZING murder mystery solver... The Forgotten City. It goes on sale for $14 damn near every month. There's NO WAY I can be wrong two times in a row!

[Cassylvania]

2 hours ago, realm722 said:

While I'm a bit saddened you did not enjoy the game as much as I did, I'm happy to hear I was able to provide a unique experience if nothing else. I think at least partially one of the reasons I enjoyed the game as much as I did was the review afterward and being able to talk at length about somebody I've seen NOBODY else on the forum talk about.

 

Hey, that's like me with EVERY review. One of these April Fool's Day, I'll remember to write a review of a game that literally doesn't exist and see how many people catch on.

 

2 hours ago, realm722 said:

Now, if you want to play an AMAZING murder mystery solver... The Forgotten City. It goes on sale for $14 damn near every month. There's NO WAY I can be wrong two times in a row!

 

You know, it was actually between that and Paradise Killer when I was debating what to play that night. I went with the game that only needed one playthrough. The other is on my list to do soon. Not sure if I'll make it before my PS+ subscription runs out... What date was that again? May 27? It's going to be close.

 

Alright. One more to close off the weekend... I can't be wrong THREE times in a row, right?

 

Platinum #422 - Potion Permit

 

Potion Permit is a unique blend of genres. It's a farming sim without the farming, an Atelier game without the cringe. On paper, this is probably the perfect game for me. But is this a potion for all the subpar games we've been playing lately, or should this permit...be revoked? (Take a wild guess based on the length of this review.)

 

So, the first thing you're going to notice about this game is the beautiful 16-bit pixel graphics. Literally the best era of gaming. Will never go out of style. The color palette too is so pleasing to the eye. I love the muted greens and browns. This isn't a farming sim, but it's set in the rural town of Moonbury, so you definitely get the countryside vibe. You take on the role of an aspiring alchemist from the city, who just moved in to help the residents with a recurring epidemic. You'll need to gather ingredients, brew potions, and treat patients in order to prove to the townspeople that modern medicine works. Otherwise, the local witch doctor will run your ass out of town.

 

Let me just say that the story here actually starts out promising. That usually takes a backseat in these life sim games. You're probably expecting to be given a house for free and all the townspeople instantly like you. Well, the first part is true enough (and just as lame as ever), but most of the residents of Moonbury do not trust you at first. You really do have to prove to them that you know what you're doing before they'll open up to you. It makes sense in the context of the game too because they had a mishap with an alchemist from the city before (something that drives the plot), but it also makes sense that, yeah, why would somebody blindly trust you with their life? If the writing for the rest of the game was as good as the first hour, I might've actually finished the story or read most of the cutscenes. Unfortunately, much like the graphics, this game struggles to build on the initial high.

 

Let's begin with how a typical day in this game works. There are no seasons or festivals on in-town events. This is the first sign that we're in for a bad time. Similar to Graveyard Keeper, this game operates on a weekly cycle. Days begin at 6 AM and continue until you feel like going to bed, which is also the only time the game saves. (You're probably going to want to remember that because the game is glitchy and you'll sometimes need to restart the game in order to, oh I dunno, let you actually treat patients.) One thing about life sims is that you'll often have too much or not enough time each day to complete your tasks. I'd say this errs on the side of having too much time, which is always what I'd prefer. You're really never in a rush because the town is very small and there's even a fast travel system that is not only free to use and can be used from anywhere outdoors, but it doesn't take any time to warp somewhere. It's not realistic, but I guess fast travel itself isn't realistic either. I do think the placement of some of the fast travel points is questionable, though. (Like, why isn't there one outside the town hall, where you're going to go a lot to turn in your quests?) During the day, you can wander around town and talk to the NPCs, who follow set schedules, or you can venture out into the wilderness and gather ingredients. You're automatically given an axe, hammer, and sickle in this game, which you'll need for harvesting trees, rocks/ores, and plants, respectively. You can also use these tools for murdering wildlife. Don't worry -- they fight back, so it's OK.

 

There's also a clinic, right next to your house. You'll get an annoying siren every morning when a new patient has arrived. You're essentially given four days to treat a patient before your reputation drops. Do a good job and you'll be given some money and Moon Cloves. Do a bad job (either failing the world's easiest mini-games or not treating them in time) and everybody in town will hate you again. Oddly enough, it seems you only have to treat a single patient in order to get your reputation back up -- presumably no matter how many patients you failed -- so it's a very forgiving system. I'll let you decide if that's a good or bad thing. Believe me when I say this game has much bigger issues under the surface.

 

We're going to talk about treating patients more in a bit, but I want to get back to the daily grind. This tedium is why I love this genre. So, in deciding what you want to do for the day, I usually like to develop a round. Normally, I'd tend to my farm in the morning, but that's not really an option here, so I'd begin most days by killing the local wildlife. (It made me feel better about playing that zoo game.) There are no RPG elements here. You're basically just swinging whatever tool you've upgraded the most and dodge-rolling if you feel like you to avoid the single attack every enemy has. I tanked most hits because nothing hits very hard. I didn't die a single time while playing (except when I did it on purpose for a trophy). Everything in this game is static, including the spawns. So, yeah, while the enemies do wander around slightly, it's always the same enemies spawning in the same area and wandering around the same predetermined path. (This is ultimately the game's greatest and most recurring sin.) Certain enemies drop one or two specific items. For example, the bear drops a bear paw and/or honey. You'll need these for alchemy or sometimes quests. While you're out, you can also harvest ingredients, which you'll need to for alchemy and upgrades. Again, these are static nodes. You'll get the same plants in the same areas every time. They're not even spread out. There will be a little alcove where daisies grow, another where you can find sunflowers, etc. They show up on your map like this, which I guess is convenient, but it just makes the world feel lifeless. It's like you're at the grocery store and you're just going up and down the aisles to gather what you need off the shelves. Everything respawns daily too, so if you need marigolds, you'll know exactly where to go every day and exactly how many you'll be able to obtain. I know a lot of games are like this -- including my beloved Genshin -- but remember that this is the main source of gameplay. There is really very little else to mix things up. You can take a bath in the bathhouse to refill your stamina, but all that does it give you more time, which is essentially unlimited anyway.

 

OK. Next, the townspeople. Moonbury has around 30 residents, which is a good amount. The writers did the bare minimum to give them personalities. You'll get short cutscenes every now and then to let you know more about the characters. For example, Martha likes to bake cookies, but she's not very good at it. Because your character is a silent protagonist, you'll get an emoticon over your head to let you know what your character is thinking or feeling. The NPCs get these too. I actually think that's a nice touch, and it's also kinda cool that NPCs will talk to you as you're passing by. They'll just be like, "Hey, Chemist!", but you're free to ignore them. In fact, if you don't talk to them, they'll often storm off with fumes coming out of their ears. Not sure it affects your relationship with them, but it's funny.

 

Now, every character begins at friendship level 0, which is a blue "meh" face. There's an actual bar to track this. As you talk to them and give them gifts (more on that soon), that bar will fill up. When it maxes out, you'll be given a quest. Completing that quest moves to them friendship level 1, which is a green smiley face. Rinse and repeat to reach friendship level 2, which is a yellow happy face. Not sure it gets any higher than that. Yes, you can theoretically romance somebody, but the furthest you can get with them is first base, which makes me wonder why the developers even bothered. Also, not everybody is capable of being romanced. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered I couldn't date the nun. I went with Martha instead -- not because she's a redhead like you're thinking, but because she works at the local pub. The way I play these games, I always hit up the tavern at night because it's usually too dark to do anything else and it's a great way to boost a bunch of friendships at once, since a lot of residents seem to gather there. There's even an arcade in the basement, which is kinda cool.

 

I don't know if that friendship mechanic sounds good or not to you. It's just a more literal way of how it's usually done in these games, by actively showing you the progress bar. In fact, even Friends of Mineral Town did something like that, showing a colored heart to represent how a character feels about you. The difference is that Potion Permit does it in such a way that it feels cold and robotic. Remember how I said that you receive Moon Cloves and you didn't know what the heck those are? Well, boys and girls, Moon Cloves are the universal gift in this game. They are literally the only gift anybody can receive and everybody likes them.

 

...

 

What.

 

This...probably doesn't seem like much. An overreaction on my part, perhaps. Let me explain to you why this is just another example of how this game is creatively bankrupt. While it might SEEM like having a single collectable item that you can give to any character is a good thing, what it means is that you learn nothing about the character by giving it to them. Of course they like it. It's a Moon Clove. I find it hard to believe the developers have an honest passion for this genre if that was a conscious decision. Part of the charm of these games is giving characters various gifts to find out what they like and what they don't. It's funny to give a girl a bug to see if she'll scream. It's interesting to find uses for items that are easy to obtain. Maybe I find a good harvesting route that allows me to pick blueberries. There happens to be a girl in town that likes blueberries. Great -- now I have a reason to pick them. Maybe I'd rather use them for cooking, so I accept it'll take me longer to befriend that character. Maybe my in-game crush really likes eggs, so that drives me to wanting to raise chickens. Maybe I give that same character an eggplant and she slaps me. Later, I found out her mother used to make her eggplant soup before she died, and now I understand why she was so upset. Forcing me to experiment and try out different things is why I enjoy talking to characters in these games. Worst of all, all characters like Moon Cloves the same amount. Why is that bad? It means every character's friendship is going to level up at more or less the same time. So, once you unlock one friendship quest, you're probably close to ten or fifteen more. The pacing is so bad that I found myself just skipping cutscenes because I didn't feel I earned them. Not that they'll honestly that interesting anyway. The only two characters I liked were the witch doctor, who hates you, and the graveyard keeper, who is fittingly creepy. Well, and the nun too, obviously.

 

Oh, and you know how to make me hate a character instantly? Name the mayor Myer. If that wasn't bad enough, his wife is Mariele. What do you think the ranger's name is? Forrest. When I saw he had a girlfriend who is also a ranger, I said aloud, "I swear to God, if she has some kind of hippie name, I'm going to give this game the worst review ever." I'm now contractually obligated to do so. Thanks, Miss Bubbles.

 

We're not even to the worst part yet. I said we'd get back to it. Let's discuss the clinic and how treating patients works.

 

There are two stages to treating a patient. First, you have to diagnose them. Second, you have to apply the proper treatment. The diagnosis works like this: the patient tells you where on the body they hurt, you move the cursor over that spot (remember, their right hand is actually on your left), and then you get to play one of three mini-games. One of the mini-games is the world's easiest version of Simon Says. The second is the world's slowest version of DDR. The third, which is the rarest, just has you moving a ball up and down for a few seconds to avoid some objects. If you have a four-year-old in the same room as you, just give them the controller and go make a sandwich. It is so mind-numbingly boring to play these games that I'd honestly start letting patients die if they showed more than one symptom (because that means playing more than one mini-game). (OK, they don't actually die, but all the more reason to ignore them.) Technically, as the game progresses, you'll unlock harder symptoms and the mini-games will get slightly more challenging, but the only way you're ever going to lose one of these is if you fall asleep at the controller, which I did more than once. And somehow -- SOMEHOW, guys -- these mini-games are more involved than the other mini-games in the game. For example, you'll be asked to do odd jobs around town if you want to make some quick money. The mini-game at the post office is sorting items by clicking left or right. The mini-game at the church is just spamming the X button. The mini-game that you to do "research" items is...I don't even know how to describe it. You just click the question marks until the correct elements light up. What, what, what.

 

I WANT to give props to the alchemy system for being at least somewhat innovated, but it's not. It's just Atelier Sophie. Each ingredient you find has a Tetris block shape and you're trying to fit those shapes into a larger puzzle piece. Doesn't even matter what ingredient you use -- you just have to fill in every space. You're limited to only being able to use a certain number of ingredients, and sometimes you're restricted from using ingredients that belong to certain element, but it's not hard at all. After making a potion enough times (five... always five... because variety isn't something PP understands), the game lets you save that recipe so you can skip that tedious step. Thanks, game -- I was looking for a way to shorten my overall experience.

 

You can fish too, but it suffers from the same problem as everything else in the game. You don't press anything while the big angry red face is on the screen and you spam X when you see the tired yellow face. If there was some VARIATION in when these prompts appear, I might've actually had to try. But there's not. The prompts will appear at the same time...and last the same length of time...and appear in the same order...every time.

 

It's so uninspired. Even the trophy list isn't trying. Hell, you don't even have to beat the game to get the platinum. It probably helps to unlock all the foraging areas, but the trophies that are going to take you the longest time are foraging 1000 of each resource type and completing 75 community quests. The game will stop being fun long before that.

 

There are other minor things that annoyed me. When you destroy a resource node, you have to stand still for a second before the items will automatically be drawn to you. If you move, you'll likely have to go back for them. That destroys the already bad pacing. You get a tiny garden in your house that you can use to plant crops, but targeting the correct planter is a pain. When you unlock most cutscenes, the NPC has to "warp" you to the predetermined location that the cutscene is supposed to take place. This gets old and predictable. Also makes it kinda annoying if you were currently walking somewhere and now have to run back. And even though there's only a 1 in 7 chance of this, I feel like every time I wanted to use a particular shop, I picked the one day of the week that it was closed to go there. This isn't the game's fault. This happens to me in real life too. Not sure why so many restaurants close on Mondays.

 

The game does have some things I liked. There's a minor rock-paper-scissors element to some enemies. (I guess you'd call it axe-hammer-sickle. Sometimes you need to use a specific tool to break through an enemy's defenses.) That's a little creative. Uh... The music is soothing. I like that I never felt rushed. You can watch YouTube while playing. That's cool. You can play as either a boy or a girl. You get a doggy that follows you and sometimes digs up food. It'd be better if he fought enemies or gathered resources for you. I named my character Oscar and my dog Apollo, after the late great Carl Weathers. All in all, I felt like I was playing a prototype. This is not a finished game. This feels like a game that was on Kickstarter and didn't meet its goal, but the game released anyway. I understand the mixed reviews.

 

I normally feel bad when I give cozy indie games like this a poor review, but it was clear to me in my roughly 25 hour playthrough that the only people on the development team who cared about this project were the artists. For as much flak as I gave my last two games, Paradise Killer was at least imaginative and Let's Build A Zoo was a good game with a bad trophy list. This is just a bad game. I am horrified. They say bad things always come in threes, but this was the worst of the bunch by far. In fact, it was THIS game, not the zoo game, that I thought would break my streak of good games. I just couldn't bring myself to grind out the last few trophies until today.

 

This is worse than every SoS game I've played (including Doraemon), worse than Spiritfarer (it might actually replace that game for my biggest disappointment in this genre), and probably worse than Everdream Valley. It's not as bad as Deiland, but few games are. This is a game that's OK for a couple hours, until you realize you've seen everything the game has to offer. Do not recommend. Do not play. Did you know Sakuna is a game? It has realistic rice farming and fun combat and platforming. I swear, if we see Potion Permit 2 before we see Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin 2, we have failed as a society.

 

But what do you expect from a game whose initials are pee-pee? *ba-dum-tsh*

 

Anyway, against all odds, I'm now halfway through my goal for April. I haven't been slacking, guys. I've just been in a rut. These are not the kinds of experiences that I play video games for. The good news is I now have several unfinished games to choose from, and none of them hurt me as deeply as this one did. This was not worth $11.99. I can get a five-dollar sub from Subway for that. Speaking of which... dinner time. See you all next time.

Edited Sunday at 11:24 PM by Cassylvania

[Cassylvania]

Platinum #423 - Dicey Dungeons

 

...

 

*deep breath*

 

... Thank you. Thank you for stopping the bleeding. I know you guys just got a very skewed view of how I've been spending the past month, but it hasn't all been bad. This game has been an absolute delight to play and I'm glad I finally get to talk about it. Let's skip the usual corny intro and just get right into the review.

 

Dicey Dungeons is a deck-building rogue-like. I want to compare it to Slay the Spire, but it's almost the opposite in the way the mechanics work. In StS, you have a deck of cards and you draw a random assortment of cards from that deck each turn and use energy to play those cards. In DD, you equip your character with skills, but then you roll a set number of dice each turn to determine which skills you can play. Thus, the randomness doesn't come from which cards show up when, but how much "energy" you'll be able to distribute across those cards. This is actually going to be nearly impossible to explain in detail because there are a total of six playable characters in the game, and they each handle very differently. Instead, let's begin with the plot.

 

"The plot?" you say. Well, yeah. That lovely little redhead you see there is Lady Luck. Behind her are what were once people. She turned them into dice for...reasons...and now they're trapped forever in her dungeon, where she's forcing them to fight against the rest of her minions for the rest of eternity. This is essentially presented as a game show, where Lady Luck is the host and we are one of the six unlucky contestants. From left to right, there's the Inventor, Robot, Jester (a bit of a spoiler, but it's OK), Witch, Warrior, and Thief. In the beginning of the game, you'll only have access to the Warrior. The others unlock as you complete runs. In fact, they unlock one at a time, regardless of whether you win that run or not. I actually think that's a mistake on the developer's part. Like I said, each character plays VERY differently, and giving you access to all of them in such a short amount of time does a disservice to the player, I think. Still, you could just keep playing as a single character until you win a run. You're very unlikely to win the first time with any of them.

 

I'm going to just use the Warrior as an example. As the Warrior, you have six Equipment slots. Each "skill" takes up one or two of those slots. When you start a run, the number of skills you have is very limited. It might just be the "Sword" card, which does damage equal to the number of the dice you roll. So, if you roll a 2, 4, and 6, you'd obviously want to use the 6 on that card. Some cards can be played multiple times per turn, while others cannot. On the other hand, you might have other skills you play. There's a "Buckler" card that gives you a shield, but it requires a total of 7. Because you can't get a 7 with a single die, you'd have to put multiple dice onto that card. Thus, if you play the 6 on Sword, you wouldn't have enough to activate Buckler that turn (2 + 4 does not equal 7). On the other hand, you could play the 2 and the 6 on Buckler (yes, that adds up to 8, but it doesn't have to be exact unless the skill says so), and then you can use the 4 on Sword. You'd do less damage overall, but that shield will help prevent you from taking damage during the enemy's turn. Every character also has an ability, which doesn't require an equipment slot. For the Warrior, he's able to reroll a dice -- up to three times per turn. So, if you want to try to turn that 2 into a higher number, you could do that. You also risk it ending up as a 1. Higher numbers aren't always necessarily better, and sometimes the key to a good build is being able to make use of as many dice combinations as possible. Sometimes you want even numbers, sometimes you want multiples of the same dice, and sometimes you want to roll as many dice as possible. There are some really broken builds you can come up with, and the skills you find in the dungeons (usually in chests or shops) are randomized every time. The variety isn't super great, but I think that just helps with the overall balance.

 

The way that dungeons work is that you navigate through five floors, fighting a few enemies on each floor, and then face a boss. Sometimes you can navigate around enemies and avoid fighting them, but this is rarely a good thing because you need the experience to level up. Leveling up not only heals you, but it gives you bonuses, like an extra die each turn. Also, sometimes you're required to defeat an enemy in order to reach a chest or shop or the next floor. There are also apples on the floor that will heal you.

 

The enemies in this game are goofy and it's actually rather charming. For example, one of the enemies you'll often see on the first floor is an ice cream cone. There's this pink squid that always seems happy to see you and an alien with six arms that wants to give you a high-five...six times. You don't get a lot of dialogue from these guys, but the little you get is enough to give them a personality. Also, they always come equipped with the same skills, so you'll get used to learning their strengths and weaknesses. I suppose I should go over one as an example.

 

So, the porcupine with allergies is one of the scariest enemies early on. He has only two abilities: Sneeze and Spike, but he has four copies of Spike. Spike does 3 damage, but has a countdown of 6. That means playing a 6 (or any combination of numbers that add up to at least 6) would activate that ability. Sneeze, on the other hand, requires doubles to be played, but it reduces the countdown on ALL equipment by the number of dice played. So, if the porcupine rolls two 2s, he can play those 2s on Sneeze and all four Spikes drop down to a countdown of 4. If he rolls double 6s, that will activate all four Spikes at once, dealing tremendous damage.

 

Fortunately, there are status effects you can inflict. Freeze, for example, changes an opponent's dice roll to a 1. Very good for enemies like the porcupine who would benefit from higher numbers. On the other hand, applying multiple Freezes would ensure he rolls double 1s. Thus, a deck that works good against one enemy might not work so well against another. That's part of the fun of the game. With most characters, you can swap your equipment between battles, so you might need to experiment a little with different strategies. If you like save scumming, the game supports that too, allowing you to quit to the title screen if the dice rolls aren't going your way. It simply puts you back on the map screen, right before your last battle. I used this an embarrassing number of times because, despite the game's cute appearance, this isn't an easy game -- even on Relaxed Mode. Especially when you try to do runs as the Inventor (who must give up a skill after each battle) or Witch (or can't use skills until they're "prepared", making her a much slower and more methodical character). I don't want to get into all that here. This game is much deeper than it first appears and I'd bore everybody if I tried to describe all of the game's mechanics.

 

If you look at the trophy guide, you're going to see the 43 playthroughs required for the platinum and you might freak out. That's accurate. In fact, that's best case scenario. The reason is because you need to beat all seven episodes (six regular episodes, plus a Hard Mode run) with each character. That's 42 (6x7) playthroughs, plus an additional playthrough, where you finally get to take on Lady Luck. It will probably take more runs than that due to dying and possibly working towards specific trophies. That may sound tedious, but it's not. Not only does every character play differently, but every episode switches up the rules, to the point that all 43 runs will feel unique. Some are hilariously easy, but others can be quite tricky. Most of them strike a good balance.

 

It's getting late and it's been a long weekend, so I don't have much more to say other than I found every character fun to play and I enjoyed coming up with strategies. The PSNP guide is very good at pointing out what builds work well with each character, but it's up to Lady Luck herself if you get those exact cards. I often found myself having to develop my own strategies on the fly. One of my favorites was with the Inventor, where every enemy had upgraded cards. Like I said before, that character has to give up a skill after each battle, but what she does is convert that skill into an ability that she can use in the next fight. You can often use this to your advantage. I did this inadvertently by converting a skill into an ability that let me swap cards with my opponent. I didn't realize it would let me KEEP those cards after the battle. My opponent for that fight was the Wizard, who has several really powerful cards, but they each require a specific dice roll. Because I had all six of his cards, and I can equip all six, I basically had turned the Inventor into a powerhouse. Sure, I had to give up a skill after each battle, but I just gave up all the non-Wizard cards (or the worst ones I had stolen), and what could have been a difficult run was a steamroll. I had a similar experience with the Witch on Hard Mode, getting the Harvest Scythe card on the last floor. That thing absolutely wrecks bosses.

 

There's a lot more I could talk about, and maybe I will in the future when I'm comparing this to other games, but this is my first very strong recommendation in a while. I don't think it's on the level of StS, but this was a 33 hour platinum that I enjoyed from beginning to end, which is a rarity. If you like that sort of thing, you should probably check this out. It deserves more attention than it's been getting.

[realm722]

18 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

You know, it was actually between that and Paradise Killer when I was debating what to play that night. I went with the game that only needed one playthrough. The other is on my list to do soon. Not sure if I'll make it before my PS+ subscription runs out... What date was that again? May 27? It's going to be close.

 

If I may push the envelope, Forgotten City while technically requiring multiple playthroughs, ensures that for the most part, you're not exactly repeating content if that makes sense. I feel quite confident in stating that it has GOTY potential despite its brief length. I think you can knockout it out in a weekend in May while breaking it up between Elden Ring and lengthier titles.

 

Aside from that, elite work this week with the reviews.

 

I'm quite saddened to hear how Potion Permit was such a flop. I've gotta admit, I've had it on my wishlist for ages and it looked super promising. I can forgive a lot of grievances with a game but "creatively bankrupt" is a bit damning. If it goes on a DEEP sale in the future I'll consider giving it some run but it's been banished to Cassy Hell.

 

and I'm happy to hear you enjoyed Dicey Dungeons! Just a fundamentally damn good game. It finished as my 4th highest rated game last year and while that "felt" high, I couldn't exactly argue anything else over it.

 

[Cassylvania]

1 hour ago, realm722 said:

I'm quite saddened to hear how Potion Permit was such a flop. I've gotta admit, I've had it on my wishlist for ages and it looked super promising. I can forgive a lot of grievances with a game but "creatively bankrupt" is a bit damning. If it goes on a DEEP sale in the future I'll consider giving it some run but it's been banished to Cassy Hell.

 

Funny that you pointed out that exact phrase. It was the phrase I had in mind when I started writing that review and I wanted to make sure I got it in there. I really do think the game's charm begins and ends with the graphics. I don't even think it's worth buying on a deep sale because there's very little the game offers after the first hour. What are you going to do? Pound a bigger rock? Play Simon Says again?

 

And I probably erred in suggesting Sakuna over PP (even though Sakuna is clearly the better game). The best replacement for PP, if you just have to have your quirky indie fix, is Graveyard Keeper. It does everything PP does, but better.

 

1 hour ago, realm722 said:

and I'm happy to hear you enjoyed Dicey Dungeons! Just a fundamentally damn good game. It finished as my 4th highest rated game last year and while that "felt" high, I couldn't exactly argue anything else over it.

 

I think it's because it comes across as a rogue-like-lite, if there is such a thing. Like, it's a simpler version of Slay the Spire. If you're just comparing the two, then yeah, I could see how putting DD near the top of your list might seem "wrong" in some way. But when you realize it's a competent, well-made game in its own right, then maybe it makes sense to place it there.

 

That's how I kinda felt about Gal Guardians: Demon Purge last year. Even when I get done playing it, I didn't expect Pantyvania to make it all the way to the #2 spot. I just realized when it was very solid game overall when I was making that list.

 

Ready for this one?

 

Platinum #424 - Final Fantasy

 

Oh, shit. I'm doing the thing where I'm actually playing the games I said I would. First it was PP, then DD, and now FF. I haven't seen this many doubles since I started taking shots every time I criticize the writing of Kingdom Hearts in one of my reviews. Now the FF fans can hate on me too. (I jest. I love JRPGs. If it was up to me, I'd only make fun of AAA shooters, but I don't really play those. I gotta work with what I know best.)

 

I now need to make the conscious decision of whether to judge this game based on today's standards or the standards of the time in which it originally released. Well, if it's a remaster, then it's begging to be compared to today's standards, right? I mean, if I played those "new" Lara Croft games, you better believe I'd be comparing them to their modern counterparts.

 

Let's begin with this game's defense. It's old. One of the things you guys have to realize is that we didn't have any modern day conveniences prior to 1990. There was no electricity, the average life expectancy was 14, and the only way you could communicate long distance was shouting really loudly out your window. We even had to use our feet to pedal our cars. If you were lucky, you wouldn't get eaten by a dinosaur on your way to school. Hell, the first video game console didn't even have graphics.

 

What? You think I made that last one up? Oh, I get it. You're thinking of Atari or Pong. Yeah, Pong came out in 1972. But before that, you had the Magnavox Odyssey. (Briste and CJ know what I'm talking about.) This piece of shit, guys, is the most primitive form of video game you can imagine. All it had was two little squiggles that appear on the screen that you could control with what I'm guessing was the very first joystick. No, you couldn't bounce a ball between them -- that would require actual programming. Instead, you'd stick these cheap transparent overlays over your screen. Those would serve as your "graphics". For example, you'd slap a picture of a haunted house on your TV. There. You're in a horror game. Throw on a picture of a soccer field. Bam. You're playing football. The game obviously isn't keeping score and there's nothing preventing you from just ignoring the overlay and making up your own rules, but it was either that or playing charades with your sister by candlelight. AVGN did a really cool episode on this. And I remember he talked about how it was actually pretty innovative for the time, allowing you to visit many places and try out many things with just a little help from your imagination (insert Spongebob gif). Not bad for the first video game console. I think he was being sarcastic, but that IS what older games were like. Technology was limited, so developers were hoping you'd play along. You'd have to physically immerse yourself because video games at the time were incapable of doing it for you.

 

To be serious for a second, my first video game was the original Super Mario Bros., so I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. I was spoiled. In fact, I'm pretty sure Final Fantasy I came out after that. (Let me check. Yeah, Mario in 1985, FF in 1987. I was born between these.) I avoided the FF series for whatever reason my entire life. I think it was because it was on a non-Nintendo console and I didn't own one of those until much later. But I imagine playing this for the first time was actually very similar to what the Odyssey was going for -- it probably FELT like a real adventure. There are monsters and cities and dungeons and towns and tons of places to explore and treasures to find. I played with the remastered pixel graphics enabled, so I can't tell you how it probably looked back then to someone who was only used to crappy screen overlays, but I have to think it was mind-blowing. If the music was this good back then too (I don't know if anything was done to remaster it), that certainly helped to cement this series' legacy. I enjoyed jamming out to the battle victory song.

 

The unfortunate thing is that I'm not, for once, looking at an older game through rose-tinted goggles. There is no nostalgia here for me. If anything, I probably have a deep-seated resentment against this series because it wasn't Mario and it was on PlayStation, eww. (The console wars were real, yo.) Hell, it took me until my teenage years to accept that it was OK to like Zelda because more than one major video game series could exist. I don't know why I always gave Pokemon a pass. Bu I actually did play a few hours of FFX. I think I mentioned this before. I even played FFXIV (that's the MMO) on PC for a year, if you can believe it. And, obviously, I've played both the non-remastered version of FFVII and World of FF (if that counts) on this very account. I've also played KH, which... uh... yeah, OK, that might have influenced my feelings for this series too. *takes a shot*

 

What I'm trying to say in the nicest way possible is that I see what the game is doing and I appreciate it, but I'm sure this was a lot more amazing when it was new. It's weird to spend your whole life playing other RPGs and then go back to the game that I assume inspired a lot of them, including future games in that very series. It's like when you finally watch that movie that everybody has been quoting or making memes about for years and you're not thoroughly impressed because you feel you've heard it all before.

 

So, I'll talk a little about the game now. When you begin, you're asked to choose your four party members, among six classes. I don't think anything prevents you from choosing four of the same class, but I have 35+ years of experience on this game, so I knew to at least put a healer on my team. I ended up with a Warrior named Archie, a Monk named Betty, a White Mage named Veronica, and a Black Mage named Jughead. I thought I was pretty clever for that. I'm not sure what the best strategy is to employ, but I found most battles ended with Archie doing all the heavy lifting and everybody else dead. Considering I imagined Archie as the main protagonist and the other three as his AI companions, this isn't far removed from how most RPGs go for me. (In the late game, I realized Betty was the true MVP. I just needed to unequip all her gear because being naked somehow made her stronger.)

 

The game has modern accessibility options to make it easier, such as turning off random encounters or quadrupling the amount of money/XP you earn. A controversial take here, but I cranked those suckers on after the first few hours because I was already sick of grinding in zoo game and PP. I wasn't going to let my experience be tainted in a series that I'm determined to catch up on. This is probably a good thing because it seems very easy to get overwhelmed by enemies in this game. Obviously, combat is turn-based, but some of these enemies hit like a truck and it's possible to face up to nine (!) enemies at once. This is a game that, had I played it back in the day, would've gone something like this: fight one battle, run back to town to heal, repeat until I'm overleveled. Not the most elegant solution, but you'd do the same when it was that or help your parents with chores.

 

There's a plot here, but it's pretty standard for the time. Restore the four crystals to grace. Of course, each crystal has to be associated with an element, and you'll be exploring the land, air, and sea to find them. As you progress through the game, you gain additional modes of travel, such as a canoe and a ship. (I think I got the ship first, which doesn't really make sense.) Navigating is easy with the mini-map, but I struggled to figure out where to go next. This wasn't uncommon in games at the time either. I think developers did it on purpose to artificially extend the playtime of their games. Plus, what's an adventure if you have a giant red arrow showing you where to go? (And white chalk to mark the way, LARA.)

 

I resorted to using a walkthrough from time to time. I figured it was better than wandering around aimlessly. With the boosts on and a vague idea of what I needed to do, it was mostly a relaxing experience. You can turn on auto-battle if you want, but the AI is dumb and just repeats the last command, which doesn't work so well when spells have limited uses. It's actually a really bizarre magic system. I'm glad that didn't catch on. It'll be interesting to see how the combat system evolves as I play through these games. I'm curious when the idea of a mana pool will come about.

 

I realize I've been playing the devil's advocate for most of this review and you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but this is a perfectly fine game. Again, it came out in 1987. It's not going to blow modern JRPGs out of the water, but you gotta respect the OG. I love that Dark Souls spawned the Souls-like genre, but the Souls-like genre wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for RPGs being as successful as they were. I think this is a solid origin story for the genre, even if I'm pretty sure Dragon Quest came first. I don't know what features were present in the original game and which are quality of life improvements in the remaster, so I can't speak on that. (But it was fun trying to guess. I'm going to say the "auto-equip the best gear" button is a new one.)

 

I'll stop just short of a recommendation because you've either already played this when you were younger or, like me, you didn't for whatever reason. If that's the case, I don't think playing it now is suddenly going to make you come around to the series, and that's OK. You can still enjoy the newer games. I'm just glad I finally had a legitimate reason to play through the older titles in this series, before it culminates in you-know-what you-know-when.

 

One game left to complete this month and a whole week to do it. Not bad, huh?

[ProfSeajay7]

On 4/23/2024 at 9:14 AM, Cassylvania said:

Platinum #424 - Final Fantasy

 

I don't even need to read this review as I had gotten the platinum for this game a long time ago.

 

I recommend the other Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, they are very good.

 

Mini-Me: *GLARE*

 

Okay, I'll read the review. *reads it* Sheesh, Cass, you sure paint a grim picture of pre-1990 society. 1990 wasn't the dawn of modern society, that was 1972, when I was born. What was born in 1990 was Nintendo and Sega. Back in 1989, when I was seventeen, the closest thing to video games I played were Super Mario Bros in some dinky pizza parlor arcade or Dragon Warrior IV on the NES. The Super Nintendo came out when I was in early college. Playstation didn't show up until I was 35. I still recall staying up all night to play Phantasy Star IV because the copy I had rented had a damaged battery and couldn't save your game so I had to play the entire game in one go.

 

The first Final Fantasy I played was Final Fantasy IV and I recommend that game as it has aged well.

On 4/23/2024 at 9:14 AM, Cassylvania said:

To be serious for a second

Oh, my bad. I am terrible at taking jokes. That's why my parents decided to stop pranking me on April Fool's Day. 😜

Edited Wednesday at 07:15 PM by ProfSeajay7

[Rally-Vincent---]

4 minutes ago, ProfSeajay7 said:

Oh, my bad. I am terrible at taking jokes. That's why my parents decided to stop pranking me on April Fool's Day. 😜

 

Did they declare that on April 1st by any chance? 😶‍🌫️

[ProfSeajay7]

10 minutes ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

 

Did they declare that on April 1st by any chance? 😶‍🌫️

Nope, they didn't say they wouldn't do it, they don't do it anymore.

 

Also, Cassy, I also have no nostalgia of the original Final Fantasy. As I said, my first FF was FFIV when it was called FF2 on the Super Nintendo, and before that my first RPG was Dragon Warrior IV, which was Dragon Quest IV but they had to call it Warrior because D&D copyrighted "Dragon Quest" for their board game. Yeah, it's confusing. 😛

 

I did revisit FF1 on an emulator but since I had access to save states it wasn't as punishing for me. I do recall Dragon Warrior IV being punishing, though. This is where Persona 3 got its "companions do random sh** and you can't control them" BS from, the only person you could control was the hero, at least at the end chapter of the game. (This game had chapters where you played as the various companions. Gypsy's Dance is still my favorite BGM. )

On 4/23/2024 at 9:14 AM, Cassylvania said:

I don't know why I always gave Pokemon a pass.

Cass, as a Pokemon veteran who has been a fan of the series up to Generation 8, I can tell you that you were right to give Pokemon a pass. Modern Pokemon is not as great as old Pokemon used to be. Generations 3-5 were the Golden Age before they went 3D and started devising these ridiculous battle gimmicks. (To be fair, I do play Scarlet and Violet now and then but I'd like to be reborn in an alternate reality where Game Freak never went 3D with Pokemon and make Generations 6-9 into amazing sprite-based RPGs that survived over time and innovated. Not saying I hate 3D Pokemon, but the battle gimmicks, save Mega Evolution, are dull and stupid. ) Here's hoping that Legends Z-A is somewhat interesting.