The strangest blog I've done in a while.

Eversion

(And with that, I have finished Eversion.) (That, of course, refers to this, because I'm going to confuse you with pronouns instead of multiple links.) I gotta say, when I simply yelled "GIMME THIS GAME" at @Gamer_152 in his birthday blog, I'd no idea that I'd 100% it in a day. Now I'm not saying that in a bad way or anything. Far from it. Now, do you know that stereotype of indie games (or at least what I think is a stereotype of indie games) where people say there's just so much meaning to it, man, but it ends up looking like a fucking generic platformer? Well, that's exactly what Eversion is, and that's what I love about it so damn much.

Hell, I can prove all those words with the story. Of which there is none. It's rescuing a princess for reasons that are not clear, and absolutely nothing else. And what with the sickeningly cheery atmosphere and the music ripped from Cocoron (at least in the freeware version), it doesn't look like things are going to change anytime soon. But give it a bit of time, and you'll soon discover eversion. What the hell is that? Well, it's corrupting the world, but it's better than I could possibly make it sound. Everything eventually corrupts, and I do mean everything. Hell, even the system files can become corrupt and twisted, should you so desire it, so the game's always going to keep you guessing with what exactly it's going to screw with next.

But it hardly ends there. Remember what I said about the story? No, not that; the pretentious indie thing. Well, this is how it delivers in spades. Keep in mind that your goal is to rescue the princess, and your tool is eversion. That meas you must corrupt the world around you to save that dear princess. Nature does not want you to hook up with your sweetie. But wait a minute. The best ending the game gives you implies that the corrupted world is natural for them. Does that mean that we're all living a lie, and that Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is the true reality? Or d...OK, ow. My brain's starting to hurt. In a good way, but also in an "I need a fistful of Advil" way. Let's...move onto something else.

Oh, and it also leads to some cool level design, if you're the type of person who likes gameplay in their video games. In addition to creeping you the eff out, each layer also has different properties, like new platforms and enemies and stuff. I know it sounds simple, but trust me: it leads to some really clever level design, especially since you can't transport to Cthulhu Land whenever you want. (Though that may be because you'd never want such a thing.) It's actually rather surprising that the game manages to achieve this, given how mechanically simple it is. You get a jump, an evert button, and eight levels/a couple of hours worth of gameplay out of it. Then again, it's damn fine gameplay with just that, so who the hell am I to complain? My only substantial complaint would be that this game eats up CPU like it's a life or death situation, but since that's usually code for "I ran this thing on a TI-83 calculator", I'm almost certain you can ignore that one complaint. Just like you can't ignore my complaints about you not buying it already. I'll make sure to that.

Review Synopsis

• Earthbound: The Platformer! (That's all I really need to say to summarize this.)

This is the music you play whenever there's a Fire Emblem 4 thread, apparently. I DECREE IT TO BE SO.

Devil World

(Now that's more like it.) After a recent game that people have heard of, I need a slightly obscure NES game that was never released outside Japan, and this is almost that. Now why wasn't this game released in America, exactly? Well, I imagine many of you will say that it's because of all the Jesus in the game, but I prefer to think that with Pac Man already on the NES, Nintendo thought it would be unnecessary competition.

What exactly do I mean by that? Exactly what I'm saying: it's Pac Man with more Jesus. Or, to be more precise, Satan, and he's a wily bastard. While you're trying to collect dots (for Jesus, I guess?), he's moving the map around in a petty attempt to crush you to bits. Yes, it's hectic and complicated, but that's where you get the game's fun. You never know what that bastard's gonna do, and you have to adjust your game accordingly, especially when he's out to turn you into an accordion.

Unfortunately, I could say a lot of that about other parts of the game, only without actually complimenting them. Remember what I said about collecting dots in this game? Well, unfortunately, you have to collect temporary crosses to pick them up. I have no idea why, and it's hard for me to think of anything positive about them. They simply make the maps more complicated than need be (and they're not that complicated in the first place) and needless draw out the length of an already incredibly short game.

But worry not, dear readers, for there's more to this game than merely collecting dots. There's also collecting Bibles and returning them to the center, collecting books that aren't Bibles as part of an unwinnable bonus game.......OK, so there isn't a lot to this game, but like Eversion before it (and after it, confusingly enough), what's there is done well. So try it out, if you've ever thought that Pac Man could use more Christian symbolism. (I'd have left it at religious symbolism, but Pac Man's got Buddhism inspades.)

Review Synopsis

• It's Pac Man: Starring Jesus, if Jesus was a dragon.
• Think that's complicated? Well, that's Devil World for you.
• Look, after blogs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Tear Ring Saga and Persona 4 and Persona 2, I needed a break, alright?

Eversion

(And with that, I have finished Eversion.) (That, of course, refers to this, because I'm going to confuse you with pronouns instead of multiple links.) I gotta say, when I simply yelled "GIMME THIS GAME" at @Gamer_152 in his birthday blog, I'd no idea that I'd 100% it in a day. Now I'm not saying that in a bad way or anything. Far from it. Now, do you know that stereotype of indie games (or at least what I think is a stereotype of indie games) where people say there's just so much meaning to it, man, but it ends up looking like a fucking generic platformer? Well, that's exactly what Eversion is, and that's what I love about it so damn much.

Hell, I can prove all those words with the story. Of which there is none. It's rescuing a princess for reasons that are not clear, and absolutely nothing else. And what with the sickeningly cheery atmosphere and the music ripped from Cocoron (at least in the freeware version), it doesn't look like things are going to change anytime soon. But give it a bit of time, and you'll soon discover eversion. What the hell is that? Well, it's corrupting the world, but it's better than I could possibly make it sound. Everything eventually corrupts, and I do mean everything. Hell, even the system files can become corrupt and twisted, should you so desire it, so the game's always going to keep you guessing with what exactly it's going to screw with next.

But it hardly ends there. Remember what I said about the story? No, not that; the pretentious indie thing. Well, this is how it delivers in spades. Keep in mind that your goal is to rescue the princess, and your tool is eversion. That meas you must corrupt the world around you to save that dear princess. Nature does not want you to hook up with your sweetie. But wait a minute. The best ending the game gives you implies that the corrupted world is natural for them. Does that mean that we're all living a lie, and that Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is the true reality? Or d...OK, ow. My brain's starting to hurt. In a good way, but also in an "I need a fistful of Advil" way. Let's...move onto something else.

Oh, and it also leads to some cool level design, if you're the type of person who likes gameplay in their video games. In addition to creeping you the eff out, each layer also has different properties, like new platforms and enemies and stuff. I know it sounds simple, but trust me: it leads to some really clever level design, especially since you can't transport to Cthulhu Land whenever you want. (Though that may be because you'd never want such a thing.) It's actually rather surprising that the game manages to achieve this, given how mechanically simple it is. You get a jump, an evert button, and eight levels/a couple of hours worth of gameplay out of it. Then again, it's damn fine gameplay with just that, so who the hell am I to complain? My only substantial complaint would be that this game eats up CPU like it's a life or death situation, but since that's usually code for "I ran this thing on a TI-83 calculator", I'm almost certain you can ignore that one complaint. Just like you can't ignore my complaints about you not buying it already. I'll make sure to that.

Review Synopsis

• Earthbound: The Platformer! (That's all I really need to say to summarize this.)

This is the music you play whenever there's a Fire Emblem 4 thread, apparently. I DECREE IT TO BE SO.

Devil World

(Now that's more like it.) After a recent game that people have heard of, I need a slightly obscure NES game that was never released outside Japan, and this is almost that. Now why wasn't this game released in America, exactly? Well, I imagine many of you will say that it's because of all the Jesus in the game, but I prefer to think that with Pac Man already on the NES, Nintendo thought it would be unnecessary competition.

What exactly do I mean by that? Exactly what I'm saying: it's Pac Man with more Jesus. Or, to be more precise, Satan, and he's a wily bastard. While you're trying to collect dots (for Jesus, I guess?), he's moving the map around in a petty attempt to crush you to bits. Yes, it's hectic and complicated, but that's where you get the game's fun. You never know what that bastard's gonna do, and you have to adjust your game accordingly, especially when he's out to turn you into an accordion.

Unfortunately, I could say a lot of that about other parts of the game, only without actually complimenting them. Remember what I said about collecting dots in this game? Well, unfortunately, you have to collect temporary crosses to pick them up. I have no idea why, and it's hard for me to think of anything positive about them. They simply make the maps more complicated than need be (and they're not that complicated in the first place) and needless draw out the length of an already incredibly short game.

But worry not, dear readers, for there's more to this game than merely collecting dots. There's also collecting Bibles and returning them to the center, collecting books that aren't Bibles as part of an unwinnable bonus game.......OK, so there isn't a lot to this game, but like Eversion before it (and after it, confusingly enough), what's there is done well. So try it out, if you've ever thought that Pac Man could use more Christian symbolism. (I'd have left it at religious symbolism, but Pac Man's got Buddhism inspades.)

Review Synopsis

• It's Pac Man: Starring Jesus, if Jesus was a dragon.
• Think that's complicated? Well, that's Devil World for you.
• Look, after blogs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Tear Ring Saga and Persona 4 and Persona 2, I needed a break, alright?

Devil World's an odd one. It's one of those games that Nintendo made in the two years between the Famicom and NES releases, and they only bothered releasing half of those games in the States for whatever reason. Like, this was even before Japan "knew" what American gamers liked and deliberately withheld their most interesting games because no-one would be able to figure them out. There had been no precedent at that time. It was a weird process, but they were probably right to drop the game where a little dinosaur picks up bibles because every God-fearing American knows those two concepts are entirely incongruous.

(That directional Devil guy is a dick in Smash Bros Brawl though.)

As for Eversion, I think I saw the DeceasedCrab LP back in the day and never felt the need to play it myself. It's a cute gimmick, but I wonder how a 2D platformer with purloined music and a scant eight stages ever escaped from the Kongregrate/Newgrounds freeware flash game zone. I really have no head for the Indie market and what its various treasures are worth, because there's often a huge disparity between any given two equally-priced Indie games regarding their amount of content and quality. But then I suppose the same's true of retail disc games selling for $50 apiece. I guess the various digital distributors behind them are still figuring it all out.

@Mento said:

Devil World's an odd one. It's one of those games that Nintendo made in the two years between the Famicom and NES releases, and they only bothered releasing half of those games in the States for whatever reason.

It was because of the Je-wait, I said that in the blog.

It was a weird process, but they were probably right to drop the game where a little dinosaur picks up bibles because every God-fearing American knows those two concepts are entirely incongruous.

That works, too.

It's a cute gimmick, but I wonder how a 2D platformer with purloined music and a scant eight stages ever escaped from the Kongregrate/Newgrounds freeware flash game zone.

Probably because it does a lot with those eight stages.

OK, I feel like I'm just going to parrot what my blog's saying, so to prevent this, I'll write something I know I couldn't have written back then:

@Video_Game_King: What, are you going to suggest I ought to read your blogs before responding? However will I get to be the first one to post in time?

But yeah, I don't mean to imply that the developer of Eversion shouldn't be paid for their work, just thinking out loud how people put values to these things. The Humble Indie Bundle always seemed like the most honest way to go about things; if people don't believe those Indie games are worth anything, then that's their prerogative, but hopefully there's a sufficient number of folk who wish to support a game they enjoyed without being told they should be paying this much. And then there are those XBLA/Steam games that have so much production value behind them that I'm almost concerned they're under-charging for their game, just because it happens to be an outdated genre or doesn't have a particularly large file size. Playing 2D platformers like Rayman Origins and DKC Returns last year made me realize that as awesome as those games were, there's still a weird overlap between the retail market and the far cheaper Indie market for delivering that type of old-school experience.

Anyway, none of this really explains why there are so many dead cats in Rapture, or how they ended up there in the first place. I have to believe it's because a bunch of cats emigrated to Rapture because they assumed its name was a portmanteau of "Rat" and "Capture" and figured there was work there for them. Cats love portmanteaus; to a tragic extent as the case appears to be.

@Mento said:

Anyway, none of this really explains why there are so many dead cats in Rapture

That's the strange thing, though: that's the only cat I found in the entire game, and it was dead. The developers specifically modeled a cat for their game just so they could kill it.

But yeah, I don't mean to imply that the developer of Eversion shouldn't be paid for their work, just thinking out loud how people put values to these things. The Humble Indie Bundle always seemed like the most honest way to go about things; if people don't believe those Indie games are worth anything, then that's their prerogative, but hopefully there's a sufficient number of folk who wish to support a game they enjoyed without being told they should be paying this much. And then there are those XBLA/Steam games that have so much production value behind them that I'm almost concerned they're under-charging for their game, just because it happens to be an outdated genre or doesn't have a particularly large file size. Playing 2D platformers like Rayman Origins and DKC Returns last year made me realize that as awesome as those games were, there's still a weird overlap between the retail market and the far cheaper Indie market for delivering that type of old-school experience.

I feel like we're about to go down a philosophical rabbit hole, what with the discussions on the value of the intangible.

Has there been any news about Pandora's Tower ever coming out stateside?

I'm assuming it's likely too late now given the Wii-U is out. :(

@Video_Game_King: You mean "strangest" until the next one.

@Slag said:

Has there been any news about Pandora's Tower ever coming out stateside?

I'm assuming it's likely too late now given the Wii-U is out. :(

Wrong blog. Here's where you probably wanted that.

@mordukai:

Well, given that my next blog wasn't terribly strange, not really. My GOTY blog's probably gonna be the next strange blog out of me, if anything.

@Video_Game_King: @Video_Game_King said:

@Slag said:

Has there been any news about Pandora's Tower ever coming out stateside?

I'm assuming it's likely too late now given the Wii-U is out. :(

Wrong blog. Here's where you probably wanted that.

Hah whoops I was reading both of your blogs at the same time. But yeah your blog you linked was why I asked since you seemed to know more than I.