Well, it is that time of the year again when I throw in my lot with the members of the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run. Those who have been around this site for a while may recall the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run being a community-led Spring charity drive. It is something that got started years ago when electricviking noticed that after the Persona 4 Endurance Run, users would not stop asking the staff to do another one. He challenged the community to do their own with games of their choosing while also raising money for charity! These days, the Giant Bomb Community Endurance has stuck around, but with streaming gimmicks and the site's most significant users sharing their respective knowledge of a cavalcade of big and small games. Some still make an effort to finish what they start, and others treat their streams to create user-created Quick Look homages or video essays. I will be bucking a trend this year and will NOT be streaming any JRPGs. Instead, I will use this edition of the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run to revive one of my most neglected blogging features on the site, "The Quest For The Worst Adventure Game Puzzles!" So, for those asking me to return to my old tricks of complaining about pixel hunts in Myst clones or SCUMM-based or parser-based old-school design foibles, read on about what I will be doing from April 12th through the 14th!
This year, I'm fundraising for Feed the Children! Feed the Children is an OK-based US charity that provides food and nourishment to children in need worldwide. It operates in the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, the Philippines, and numerous areas impacted by natural disasters or war. With Feed the Children, even a $1 donation provides $9 worth of food and living essentials. Giant Bomb has continued to transform and change since the last time we hosted one of these Spring charity drives. All I ask is that for any of you who have enjoyed my blogging or thread-creating efforts, the Community Spotlights that I write on the site, with the help of Marino, or the work I do on social media to try and bring some attention to the magnificent works you publish on this site; please consider donating what you can spare to my donation page linked below. Even a single dollar is a massive morale booster, and if that's too much to ask, don't worry. You can help by sending the link to my donation page to people you know who might be interested in donating or spreading the word further. This year has been challenging for many, and I welcome you to sit back and enjoy what I will be streaming for your entertainment.
To start things off, I'm finally taking the time to explore a game from Coktel Vision, a former French game developer known in the past for its classic adventure games and penchant for making questionable edutainment games in Europe based on the Asterix and Playtoons IPs. However, they are also best known for developing the Gobliiins MS-DOS games, and many of you are most familiar with them being the studio behind Inca (i.e., that Inca People CD-i game). It would behoove me also not to point out that they had a WEIRD STREAK in which they pulled a note from the Leisure Suit Lary series and made a string of softcore pornography point-and-click adventure games, but I'm not going to talk about those in any way shape or form now or likely ever. Nonetheless, outside of "peak" Cryo Interactive, there was a brief one to two-year window when they were the second biggest European adventure game studio, occassionally outperforming larger outfits like Psygnosis by sheer volume. At one point, they even convinced Sierra to be their exclusive North American publisher for games like The Prophecy and Lost in Time, the latter of which might be something I have to cover on the site as it is widely considered as one of the most challenging '90s era point-and-click adventure games ever made.
Coktel Vision was also wild about its writing and production values, and Bargon Attack is one of their middle-era works that best communicates that. The game mixes FMV cutscenes with the expected pixel-based SCUMM-engine-like gameplay of the era. Bargon Attack is also one of many games that show that Coktel had a passionate love for the first generation of the SCUMM engine and viewed later engine revisions by the late '90s as a betrayal of the genre. Bargon Attack looks and plays like Maniac Mansion, with a few unique quirks here and there, but it is a game that was released in 1992. That means it was pitted against Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and came out AFTER Monkey Island 2. It was also released the same year as Sierra's King's Quest VI: Heir Today. This game got BURIED by its competition, and that's a shame because it's a wild and wacky ride. It's an alien invasion point-and-click adventure that borrows several notes from Sierra's Manhunter series and even has some brutal player death scenarios to find. Still, it also has the jaunty humor of LucasArts' Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. This game has some out-of-place live-action FMV cutscenes at the start, which feature actors who are CLEARLY the designers having a fun time, with some of the worst costumes I have ever seen from a game of this type from this era.
Wrath of the Gods
Here's a game I cannot wait to show you all if you decide to tune in to my charity stream. Wrath of the Gods is a pure edutainment FMV adventure game with green-screened actors, usually various designers and their family members, pretending to be Greek gods and goddesses. The acting is terrible, making it one of the funniest games I have played this year. The game is the only title from developer Luminaria, which means it was likely a passion project of a close group of friends, which are always the best FMV games to play. Last year, I played Gothos, and that game is truly something special. The weirdest part about Wrath of the Gods is the fact that you can still legally play it as someone from Luminara continues to renew the license to the game's official website, which now lets you play the educational version FOR FREE! As someone who teaches history/social studies and has played this game at least once, I can authoritatively say that the "educational" merits of Wrath of the Gods are highly dubious. Sure, the game has an in-game encyclopedia. Still, it is buried deep in the game, and most of your experience will involve butting up against random NPCs and marveling at the over-delivery of their lines.
For the most part, Wrath of the Gods falls into the "pick-up and delivery" format that was incredibly common in FMV adventure games of this era. The trick is not in solving puzzles or complex brain-teasers but through your ability to parse backgrounds and foregrounds and click on objects that are the size of a handful of pixels and then apply these items to quest givers or pieces of furniture that are several screens removed from where you picked them up. The act of playing Wrath of the Gods could be better, but that's not why we are here. We are here for the bad acting AND the stop-motion animation for all of the Greek mythological monsters and creatures you encounter. While the overall product isn't great, I have to give Luminara props for leaning into their material and providing some INCREDIBLE Ray Harryhausen-inspired stop-motion monsters that filled my heart with glee when I first saw them. There's a fight with a Medusa and a Chimera; both look how you would want homages to Ray Harryhausen's work on Jason and the Argonauts to appear and animate. It's stunning and nostalgia-pleasing stuff.
Soldier Boyz
What would any FMV streaming special be without at least one rail shooter? Here's the kicker. Soldier Boyz features some incredibly poorly compressed cutscenes produced by a future award-winning director. The cutscenes in Soldier Boyz were directed by none other than Darren Aronofsky. The guy who directed critically acclaimed films like The Wrestler, Black Swan, and The Whale directed cutscenes for a terrible FMV rail shooter. This game was released less than one year after Aronofsky made Pi, but shortly before he released Requiem for a Dream. While between those two projects, he decided to try making cutscenes for an FMV rail shooter that was essentially a re-interpretation of the almost wholly forgotten HBO Home Video film starring Michael Dudikoff, Soldier Boyz. I get that people have to eat, but alongside finding Nick Offerman in MTV's Club Dead, seeing Aronofsky's name pop up during the game's credits was the most glorious FMV surprise of my lifetime. My jaw dropped, and I began punching the air; I won't lie. The idea of Aronofsky directing something with popcorn movie action sensibilities with shmaltzy, hyper-charged acting is alien to me.
Besides the novelty of playing a cheap check that a famed director made to feed their family, there are a lot of layers to Soldier Boyz's awfulness. The film and game feature a troop of committed delinquents who must perform a rescue mission in Vietnam to make their case that they deserve freedom. How both Soldier Boyz products go out of their way to make you believe you are watching teenaged criminals slowly embark on a combat-based character change, at times, reek of racially-coded tropes that would make Daryl F. Gates blush. There are two Latino/Latinx gangster characters, and you can feel their actors struggle as their directors continually ask them to play up their accents to a painful degree. The gameplay is no different from the 3DO version of Demolition Man, but with one massive caveat. Soldier Boyz was filmed without using a blue or green screen and instead was filmed on real exterior sets. This point of differentiation means the in-game video compression is atrocious, and every cutscene is overblown regarding the gamma and overall brightness. It is downright impossible to play. As a result, I will be playing the game with an invincibility cheat. Without this assist, there is no other way I can imagine beating the game.
Quest For The Worst Adventure Game Puzzle SPECIAL
Saturday, April 13th ⋅ 10:35 am – 10:35 pm (PDT)
Commander Blood
There may be a handful of you who may recall that in the early days of the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, I would pick a single game to stream and play for nearly 48 hours across the three-day event. Those days are beyond me as I have come to respect variety and pornography as the spices of life that keep me going. I offer considerable props to users like @dixavd, @mattyftm, or @marino, who might still remember me streaming Final Fantasy VII and getting lost trying to find Kalm. Nonetheless, as a funny compromise, I tend to pick a single moderate-length game for the main event of the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run on the Saturday it takes place. On this day, I complete this selected game within ten to twelve hours. This year, I am playing the game I crowned during my 2023 GOTY awards, the "Best Use Of FMV," Commander Blood. On Friday, I plan to share some hilarious uses of FMV featuring less-than-professional actors doing their best, but have you ever heard of an FMV game using puppets on miniature sets? Let's talk about Commander Blood, one of the weirdest adventure games I have played short of Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou.
I flippantly mentioned Cryo Interactive during my pitch for Bargon Attack. Still, it bears repeating that for the longest time, they were one of the biggest developers for the adventure game genre, especially when LucasArts shuttered their investments in non-Star Wars game titles in the early 2000s. It is hard to pinpoint titles of theirs that have stood the test of time, but there's no denying that they really went for it with almost everything they made. Their Atlantis series copied Myst's formula but beat Cyan at making fully 3D worlds by over a decade. At a time, they even released more game titles in Europe than their early French-developer rival, Ubisoft, and some of their works, like Versailles 1685, even outperformed Ubisoft's contemporary best hits by a not insignificant margin. With Commander Blood, they decided to have a go at making an FMV adventure game, but outside of a handful of CGI character designs, almost all of the characters in the game were created using live-action puppets in front of a chroma key screen. And before you make comparisons to Farscape, be aware that this game came out in 1994, meaning it predates Farscape by at least FIVE YEARS! Commander Blood and its weird use of puppets was a germ in someone's brain that grew and evolved independently of any influences outside of maybe Thunderbirds. And HOT DAMN, am I desperate to show you all the majesty of Commander Blood's ending cinematic! It's AMAZING!
Welcome To The Weird World of Faux-Edutainment!
Sunday, April 14th ⋅10:30 am – 4:30 pm (PDT)
The Pink Panther: Passport to Peril & The Pink Panther: Hokus Pokus Pink
Both of Wanderlust Interactive's Pink Panther edutainment games are aberrations in the pantheon of edutainment games. Both tackle some serious topics, like the Indian Caste System and the legacy of colonialism in Australia and don't sugarcoat the facts. On the other hand, the game presents these sometimes bitter realities in musical numbers that have one-sixteenth the budget of classic episodes of Schoolhouse Rock! All the while, you have the Pink Panther, who talks in both games, getting into wacky hijinx and engaging in crass bodily humor. Wanderlust Interactive's heart was in the right place with their Pink Panther games, which ended up representing Parthian Shots in terms of their abilities. They did nothing of note after Pink Panther Hocus Pocus Pink, but unfortunately, their works are undeniably messy. Let's just say that when the second one of these games attempts to broach the topic of Arab-Palestinian-Israeli relations, it reflects widely held, and not sufficiently debated, '90s geopolitical sensibilities. "It tries" is the most apt descriptor of Wanderlust's efforts to provide an educational effort with each of their Pink Panther titles.
But both games have incredibly adult moments wherein they subject you to body horror, especially in the second game, which comes out of nowhere. The second game starts with a child performing black magic and transforming one of his friends into an ogre. And then he fails to prevent an evil spirit from possessing them. The first game has a genuinely frightening juxtaposition in which you see the summer camp the Pink Panther is attempting to manage completely descend into chaos as robotic doppelgangers of camp attendees shatter into pieces and reveal their inner machinery. These are both anomalous games with some of the most insane tonal whiplashes I have ever seen in video game history. I will be playing both games back-to-back as they represent the surreptitious rise and fall of Wanderlust as a developer. I can only assume they paid a decent amount of money to get the Pink Panther IP and did it a good service compared to other less successful children's games. Nonetheless, there are times when they attempt at the creative audacity of Jim Henson by ratching up stakes or eliciting non-traditional emotional reactions in edutainment, and I don't hate it for trying because that's what makes both of these games more memorable experiences.
If I Can Reach $750 Before The End Of The GBCER, THERE WILL BE A BONUS GAME!
Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X!
As a token of appreciation for your support, I'm offering a special donation incentive if I manage to raise $750. Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 is already a front-runner for the worst game I have played this year. With its Leisure Suit Larry-like sensibilities and its employment of the lion's share of the writing staff behind Infocom's Zork text adventure games, it is a video game oddity. At times, it errs every so closely to being a softcore pornography game, though it shies away from showing anything overtly explicit. It also features some "classic" humor writing from early PC game designer titan Steve Eric Meretzky. However, the end product is downright infuriating, and how you repeat your actions to complete the three different routes via its selectable player characters at the start of the game is downright criminal. I don't want to play Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2, but I will for the kids and in the name of charity. That is the cross I am willing to bear for the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run this year. Stay tuned to find out more!
2023 and 2024 were not kind to Sony's VR investments, but, as I hinted earlier, while they are not alone, the market for VR is growing, albeit in ways that do not benefit Sony's direction or approach to the technology. In Q4 2023, Meta shipped 1.3 million units, whereas Sony's PSVR2 only shipped ~325,200. Yes, that comes with the caveat of being "units shipped" instead of completed sales, but it shows what retailers are opting for and which software giants are starting to take the reigns of this likely niche market. Likewise, while Apple's Vision Pro is still pegged at the absurd price of $3,499, the International Data Group (i.e., IDC), a market analysis group specializing in technology, estimates "the VR market to grow on average 31.5% per year between 2023 and 2028." Now, there's a massive caveat to that statement: the IDC's estimate predicates almost all of VR's growth on enterprise market gains over consumer-based ones. While Apple's entry into the VR space is bound to net gains in the R&D side of things, which reviews of the Vision Pro seem to suggest, that does not change the fact that the entire world of VR and AR is undergoing a significant pivot to stave away the buyer's remorse some of these software and hardware companies are feeling after investing gobs of money in creating mixed-reality software and manufacturing divisions.
Sony's PSVR2 is not in a position to react to the seismic shifts in the VR market. It is a device with gaming in mind first and other entertainment applications and uses second. Nonetheless, they remain one of the most prominent figures in the realm of consumer VR, and let's not pretend their competitors don't have looming dragons to slay as well. While Apple's Vision Pro enamored critics and its most ardent supporters with great internals, including one of the best displays and a seamless video passthrough setup, it also launched without critical entertainment apps like Netflix and YouTube. Apps from owners that are drawing weary of toeing the line of Apple's closed ecosystem in light of Epic's lawsuit and are groaning at the prospect of making apps with consistent content updates to what many already know will be an infinitesimal userbase. And Meta's VR division is a money pit. Despite what Mark Zuckerberg and everyone else at Meta might say about their VR lab driving up record revenue, they also drew up record costs. There's no doubting if Zuckerberg weren't completely sold on VR being the future, Facebook/Meta would have pulled out of the market entirely.
Meta's Money Pit Is Slowly Becoming A Monopoly
If Meta isn't making money on VR, why would you expect Sony to?
But how bad is Meta's VR lab revenue situation? Every quarter, Meta/Facebook burns through billions of dollars to make progress in furthering its consumer and enterprise metaverse ambitions. Even after Meta called Q4 2024 a "banner year" for its VR division, which it calls Reality Labs, while it proudly advertised that it had generated $1 billion, it also was forced to admit its costs had ballooned to $5.72 billion, representing a total net loss of $4.56 billion in a single quarter. And what was its message to investors? Why it said bluntly in its earnings report, "We expect operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and our investments to further scale our ecosystem." Since 2020, Reality Lab, formerly known as Oculus VR, has not once generated a quarterly loss of less than $1.5 billion. And yet, they indisputably have the world's most extensive user base of any given VR ecosystem. But there's a method to Meta's madness. While firm sales data are fuzzy in tech these days, especially when it comes to VR and AR, Meta's strategy of throwing money at its VR problem has netted them at the lowest estimates, 55% of the VR/AR market share, and on the higher estimates, 75%. If someone will make money in the mixed reality space, it will likely be Meta.
Say all you want about it being a fool's errand, but Zuckerberg and Meta have something almost everyone else in the VR industry lacks: they have an end goal in mind. Meta plans to keep the lights on, regardless of how much money it may cost, as part of a grand strategy to have an almost complete vice grip on the consumer VR market. And with some of its competitors ducking out, scaling things back, or entirely leaving consumer VR in favor of enterprise VR, Meta is slowly but surely developing monopolistic control over the market. It's a small, niche market but still utterly dominated by Meta. Likewise, as it turns to enterprise applications of its VR technology, it increasingly views the consumer side of things as a way to make people less apprehensive about seeing VR used in workplace and industrial settings. For example, if a doctor has some exposure to playing around with Beat Saber at a friend's house, they may be more open to using more advanced versions of the same technology in manipulating projections of human body parts at their hospital. And let's also not dance around the issue of Zuckerberg's metaverse dreams. The play there is relatively simple. Suppose this hardware can be used to host digital meetings and business reviews, with additional tools that allow bosses to assess the engagement and diligence of workers. In that case, they will see an opportunity to sell Meta devices to every corporate business worldwide. It's also a play to inject youth into its social media platforms (i.e., Facebook) as the users of its current platforms, outside of Instagram, are showing signs of getting older despite reasonably steady growth.
There are a few messages to pull from this information. The first is, if a company as "in it" as Meta is still struggling to draw a profit from an unsurprisingly small clientele, why would things be any better for smaller efforts, or in the case of Sony? Is the PSVR2's target audience a fraction of what Meta works with? Probably. The cost of entry for a PSVR2 isn't just the $549.99 price tag of the device; you also need a PS5. Having a VR-ready PC may come to more than the cost of a PS5. Nonetheless, let's not pretend as if one of these doesn't have a massively larger user base with more in-depth software and app support out of the box. Oh, and Meta's Quest 2 is consistently below the PSVR2's price tag across the board and sometimes erring below a $200 price tag. Meta's overall strategy on the consumer side of things is to corner the budget VR headset market, costs be damned, and never look back. No one else is willing to do that because everyone knows it doesn't generate enough revenue to offset expenses. And with the demise of London Studio, it's not as if Sony has an upcoming title to point at to get people excited about the future, which makes their supposed confidence that things will get better with PC compatibility all the odder. All of Meta's VR devices are compatible with Steam via Steam Link at no extra cost and have more extensive libraries immediately. Is Sony's new PC plan for PSVR2 going to open the floodgates to allow third-party marketplaces officially without the use of outside apps like Trinus? If they don't, they don't provide a great value proposition to VR consumers. The Unreal Marketplace even has an officially sanctioned Meta plugin to make its software and marketplace compatible with Meta VR devices. I'm unsure if Sony would EVER allow that to happen in an official capacity.
No, Seriously, Everyone In VR Is Realizing The Money Is In Enterprise
When was the last time we got any new news about Nintendo Labo?
Let's return to that Bloomberg report, which stated that Sony had manufactured over 2 million PSVR2 headsets as of March 18, 2024. That number is well below the 5 million units sold Sony self-reported for the original PSVR in 2019, and AGAIN, with the PSVR2, we are working with the supposed number of units shipped versus units sold. This fact is undoubtedly a shocker, considering Sony was pretty immediate in championing PSVR2 at the onset when it sold 600,000 units in its first six weeks. It's not precisely BREAKING NEWS, but the landscape and appetite for VR have changed since Sony launched the original PSVR in 2016. And yet, Sony continues to have the same VR playbook or sales plan as it did in 2016: sell headsets to as many compatible console owners as possible. This next point is a fun mental exercise, and this only partially relates to Sony, but check out Steam's best-selling VR-only games list and look at how many titles are two years old or more. VR and AR may have had their "peak oil" moment four years ago, but no one talked about it despite all the signs and red flags. And yet, all of this aside, you might be surprised that Sony currently stands as Meta's most significant source of competition. Even if you want to argue that the prospective buyers for a $549.99/€599.99/£529.99 VR headset, alongside a $450 to $500 console, is small, it's still a more extensive workable clientele than what most non-Meta VR companies or subsidiaries are working with presently or in the past. Yet, even if we trust the highest estimates that state Sony has 25% to 30% of the VR market, the future of a VR device tethered to the ownership of a video game console is STILL incredibly bleak.
CNBC reported that in 2023, the overall sales of VR and AR headsets dropped by approximately 40%. When I said AR/VR had experienced its "peak oil moment," I wasn't joking. There may be untapped non-US, non-EU, and non-Japan markets to sell mixed reality headsets to, but the people who want one in the markets where these products have been introduced already have one, and those who don't aren't on the fence about the technology. VR remains relatively divisive and utterly bereft of consumer enthusiasm, as prices for the hardware are increasing, not decreasing. There's no "easy money" selling virtual reality anymore, and that's the main reason why the mixed reality industry is contracting and not expanding, even as profits seem to have risen year-to-date. The landscape of device providers and where they are now perfectly reflects that massive contraction. Valve updated its VR marketplace and OS in 2023, but they have been completely mum about any hardware sequels or revisions to their Steam Index headset despite registering plans for one back in 2019. Despite forging an alliance with Steam and initially making progress against Meta's dominance, HTC's Vive division announced they would mainly transition new devices from consumer VR in favor of enterprise and business endeavors. Despite reviving its XR division out of the ether in response to Apple, Samsung's Gear VR ended support in 2020, though Meta has courted many of these VR users with the Oculus Gear VR app. Finally, when was the last time we heard Nintendo offer any new variety packs or products with its Labo experiment?
This is never happening.
And what about AR? The AR landscape has tumbled down a schism of two enterprise-focused paths. Either a) AR tech is being sold to creatives and professionals to assist in the practice of social interactions and applications that benefit from having holographic pictorial supports in activities that cannot be done in person, or b) AR tech is being sold to business owners and bosses that hope to reinvent workplace collaboration to gain more buy-in as return-to-work initiatives are met with pushback or resistance. Those wildly creative Hololense demos at E3 with a person manipulating tiles and blocks in Minecraft using their hands? None of that will ever come to the consumer gaming sphere. Everyone with even a centimeter of skin in the AR industry has given up on making the tech affordable to the layperson or feature-rich enough for AR glasses or lenses to make sense to everyday consumers. Google Glass certainly made a splash when it was first introduced. Still, Google discontinued the consumer division of Google Glass in 2015 in favor of the product becoming enterprise-only, and in March of 2023, Google even discontinued that. Hololens is in an even weirder position, given that Hololens 2 was released in 2019 and Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, has continually affirmed that Microsoft, under his watch, will continue investing in metaverse application software. Still, late in 2023, Microsoft announced it would deprecate Windows Mixed Reality, the platform Windows 10 uses to work in AR settings. Furthermore, layoffs have gutted almost all of Microsoft's mixed reality and AR teams, including the military application division, which was presented as the most likely candidate to make money. This development says a lot about how ready AR is for the real world. So, Sony is basically all that remains if you are curious about jumping into VR or AR as a regular consumer and don't want to send money to Mark Zuckerberg.
So, What's Next? Nothing?
There's one unanswered question about the future of PSVR2 that I and anyone here cannot answer. When the original PSVR sold around five million units during its lifetime, did it make a profit? After factoring in manufacturing costs, R&D, and marketing, did Sony's most successful VR venture butt up against the same hazardous cost overruns others in the VR industry encountered? Regardless of the answer, when trying to discern why the first generation of PSVR worked and sold far better than its technologically improved successor, it's not exactly a secret. Sony's decision to make the PSVR2 have better fidelity, a higher resolution screen, and a better operating system inadvertently did them in as creating an improved VR headset is partly why the PSVR2 cost $100/€200/£150 more than the original PSVR. Likewise, 2016 was a very different market for a VR headset than where PSVR2 found itself in 2023. Is there an element of the first device being lightning in a bottle, something Sony should have known it could not replicate in the future? Sure, and there are hallmarks of the Xbox Kinect here, but at the end of the day, if the price of the PSVR2 was aligned more towards its predecessor, there's no doubt the adoption rate of curious PS5 owners would have been better than where it presently stands.
It provides me no joy to say that this man is winning at something. Will it make money I have no idea.
It's weird to say this point, but if Sony still wants to have skin in the mixed-reality game, they need to make a more affordable VR headset by creating a worse version of the current PSVR2. Hoping that things will improve after opening the PSVR2 to the PC market is a fool's errand unless Sony decides to make the device more open-source and officially allow for third-party apps and marketplaces like Steam and Epic. Otherwise, they're going to get annihilated by Meta. Why would I even consider a PSVR2 on PC to any of Meta's options unless I had enough innate hatred of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg that I was willing to ignore a more feature-rich alternative, often $200 cheaper? Was making a console VR headset a lousy idea from the onset? Maybe, but gaming and entertainment remain the lion's share of what drives VR sales even as the industry shifts. And as sales slowly move away from the United States and Europe and more towards Japan, China, and Southeast Asia, there's still a possibility of making a pretty penny. But even in markets that might know and respect the Sony brand more than Meta's, can Sony continue to stand against Zuckerberg's willingness to burn money to smote his competition? Also, with it not being a secret that Sony isn't in the best shape, do they have a war chest that can compete against the billions of Instagram dollars Meta is using to further its metaverse?
Sony is also in a terrible position to adapt to the changing landscape in VR, and I refuse to believe that they don't know that. Meta and others embrace a more gradual version of the phone industry's hardware revision timelines wherein new tech is introduced once every two years, and that's something a console-only VR headset cannot embrace. The closure of London Studio is a definite blow to the future as well, but it is increasingly apps, and not standalone VR games, that drive interest and sales. Again, when Apple launched their Vision Pro headset, they were excoriated by many not for lacking exclusive VR video games but for not having Netflix and YouTube support at launch. Sony might be a software and multimedia conglomerate. Regardless, its VR device is positioned to stand on the laurels of its gaming titles, which will not move emergent VR consumers toward their device.
Nonetheless, if Sony decides to leave the consumer VR market entirely, there will be immediate and swift reverberations in the VR industry. Not only would it take yet another consumer VR product line off the shelves, which has been dwindling since the technology's peak during the pandemic, but it would also further Meta's almost monopolistic control on the industry. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't say I like Zuckerberg's ideas for the future of collaborative work through the metaverse. With the possible demise of consumer-grade VR drawing nigh, VR being a tool for corporate oppression and monitoring is likely here, and the reversal and end of this is incredibly murky. So, console-based VR is in its death throes. Microsoft's Holonens project has spurned non-enterprise consumers, and it has been years since Nintendo uttered the words "Labo." Sony's SIE representative was unwilling to put up a front while being interviewed by a mixed-reality enthusiast site and instead called VR "not a core proposition" and a "challenging category" for the company. To me, that means the end is nigh for console VR gaming.
Well, this is certainly embarrassing. It's been almost a month since February's Next Fest event ended and I'm only now getting around to wrapping up my thoughts about the most prominent demos I played during the event. Since I published the first part to this series, some of the game's described in this post have released. Between getting a serious cold which has, as of the publishing of this blog, transitioned into a sinus infection, I haven't been in the best shape to be writing at my normal pace. Nonetheless, here's the second part to my series as well as a link to the first part if you missed it:
It's Bastions but now with anthropomorphic animals!
What is it?
Rotwood is a 1 to 4 player roguelike dungeon crawler with hack n' slash gameplay. It comes from Klei Entertainment, best known for Oxygen Not Included, Mark of the Ninja, and Don't Starve. Rotwood continues many of the graphical hallmarks of Klei Entertainment's earlier works. It features a pseudo-2D structure with you controlling 2D character portraits that still need to move up and down environments as if they have Y-axis and Z-axis movement. Think Don't Starve, but now it's an action RPG that features many of the same people who worked on that and Mark of the Ninja. This game combines Klei Entertainment's work on Don't Starve and the expected dungeon-based roguelike gameplay hooks, but Rotwood allows you to play with up to three additional companions. I could not check out that part of the game when I played its demo during Next Fest, but it is an intriguing premise. In terms of saving when playing with friends, I suspect it will be the same as how the multiplayer worked for Don't Starve Together in that your saves are attached to a host. When this host invites previous party members back to continue play sessions after a break, you pick up where you left off.
What's in the demo?
The demo for Rotwood features what I predict is the game's first "dungeon." You have a route to a final boss with plenty of forks that lead to randomized merchant and side quest placements. There are more dungeons beyond the starting forest, as it only took me about an hour to get to that dungeon's boss, though I was not successful in beating them. I also don't want to oversell the procedurally generated nature of Rotwood; after attempting to beat the game's boss, the merchants' placements did not deviate that much. But what did impress me, even after dying once or twice, was the depth of some of the weapon combos and synergies. As you encounter new weapon types, whether an ax, bow, or sword, they all have unique combos to discover, wherein your passive abilities and the character's weapon proficiencies work together to fill the field with damage-dealing attacks or projectiles. For example, in my first playthrough, I opted for an axe and discovered a fantastic combo with a cannon alt, which was a unique pickup, and after pressing one light attack followed by two heavy attacks, the canon would lob a trio of mortars. In my second and most successful playthrough, I created a "keep-away" style character that relied on projectiles and would even spew additional projectiles after dodging three times in a row. Finding new efficacious combat options is the best part of Rotwood, but much like any roguelike, you can't be too married to any of your favored choices for too long as they could be gone in a heartbeat, and Rotwood can be fickle.
The premise of the game is simple enough. You control a furry or scaly avatar decked out with starting equipment that you decide on at the start of the game. After creating a character, you learn about a forest that contains many riches as well as combat challenges, and similar to the works of Supergiant Games (i.e., Hades and Bastion), the game's dungeon features non-boss levels that spawn a finite number of enemies that you must clear out before moving on to the next level. Occasionally, you will have more than one option as to where you will go, and this will determine which merchants or sub-bosses you encounter during your journey. The game's roguelike element stems from when you lose equipment. Everything you bought during your trip disappears if and when that happens, though there are no hard caps on the number of lives you have with your playthroughs. It's a kinder version of Rogue Legacy in that your character will retain cosmetic changes, and any merchants you unlock in the game's hub world will persist. Still, when you respawn in the dungeon, it returns you to the same 1-1 level if you fail to defeat the final boss in that environment. Nonetheless, there are "chapters" in the game wherein particular boss fights act as capstones before you transition to a new environment or climactic change in the story.
There's no denying that Klei Entertainment's games definitely has a look.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
Maybe. Though this game is more in Mento's wheelhouse, I'll consider it. I was never a fan of Don't Starve and am still not entirely sold on Rotwood's multiplayer element, which separates it from an incredibly crowded field of indie 2/2.5D roguelikes. It has a look, and I don't doubt that, but as is the case with many of Klei's recent works, I'm already concerned about balance. Yes, this was a demo and a work in progress. Nonetheless, I'm not alone in saying that entire weapon types and passive abilities are immediately BUSTED or completely inert. Part of that might be the nature of the beast, but the swings in Rotwood are WILD, and there's something about its bizarre difficulty spikes that got on my nerves. While attending the first boss, I picked up on some fun combos and laid waste to nearly everything during this trek. Then, there was a massive plant-like mini-boss almost entirely immune to the weapon I was sporting. I felt pantsed, and that just sucked. If you give me the option of relying on projectiles or axes and even have buffs and passive abilities to strengthen those options, designing encounters that essentially feel as if they are playing an Uno Reverse card downright knocks the wind out of my sails. I'm optimistic things might change, but Klei Entertainment has been a bit mum since debuting Rotwood's demo.
Serum
Because I just love the idea of a survival crafting game borrowing from the Justin Timberlake epic, In Time!
What is it?
Goodness, remember two Next Fests ago when almost every game demo being promoted was a survival crafting game in the mold of ARK: Survival Evolved? I sure do, and that's part of why I go out of my way to play at least one survival crafting game every Next Fest. After completely dominating the event for two years, the world is finally healing. Serum comes from first-time indie developer Game Island, whose expressed mission is to be a "Game Development Studio with a clear goal - creating the best possible survival games." Serum features an objective-based narrative-driven survival experience wherein your character requires a life-saving serum within a finite amount of time, or else they die. The game is a semi-open world but grounds your character and their ability to progress throughout it using a hub location in the form of a shack. In this derelict building, you can craft story-required items, raise plants, refine resources, and engage in all your usual survival crafting game staples.
What's in the demo?
The game starts with your character attempting to conduct an investigation who inadvertently finds themselves at the whims of an evil organization that has injected a virus into their body. This virus can only be staved off if you inject a serum into their veins every ten minutes, though that time increases as you upgrade the potion's potency via new crafting items. Of all things, and this is going to be a stretch, but this mechanic reminded me of Dead Rising 2, where you need to occasionally drop everything you were doing to remember to give your daughter some anti-zombie medicine, or else your game was effectively over. And that shit was annoying then, and it's STILL irritating as all HELL now! There was one time when I was looking over blueprints and thinking about crafting new items to better automate an aspect of my base. While scanning over my options and calculating the resources I would need to collect, I noticed the music was suddenly getting louder and more dramatic. Still, I thought it was a glitch because Serum already has some weird audio issues. Lo and behold, that's how the game warns you while you are in a menu or mid-action that your ass better be taking some serum or else you die! And guess what? I did not know that and died. It's a lesson I learned the hard way!
Beyond making a solid first impression with its lush forest and surprisingly multi-layered shack, most of your time involves scouring the surrounding environment for materials that net new serums and tools that allow you to unlock more areas. For example, you need to craft a blunt object to break crates and another to pry open gates, and having spare serums is necessary if you wish to make long treks. Likewise, while you can rely on the plants and objects surrounding your dwellings for the start of the game, you'll eventually exhaust these resources. You will ultimately need to grow plants using a hydroponics system and engage with the game's recycling/refining mechanic. It's nice that there's something built into this game to make sure you don't accidentally screw yourself over by expending natural resources down non-viable pathways. Only some things in this base are available in the demo, but there's enough to it, and its gimmicks give you a good sense of how its approach to crafting works. Finally, this is a survival game with a story, which I was not prepared for, given the genre generally doesn't care about storytelling. Serum does an admirable job directing you to new locations while an unseen omniscient voice speaks to you through a walkie-talkie. These new locations opt you into building specific items and unlocking further tools. They also reveal another layer of its mystery and build upon the game's theme of you being somewhere that is not what it seems.
Yup. This game sure is one of those!
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
No. First, this problem may have improved, but Serum was one of the worst-performing demos I encountered throughout February's Next Fest. Serum chugged and repeated audio clips, my character clipped through objects and platforms, and worse, after completing a mission as instructed, the task would not tick off on my objective list. Again, it's a demo, and the developers of Serum are not precisely a large team, but I struggled to play the demo for more than thirty minutes due to many of these technical issues. Second, needing to worry about a timer while performing the usual survival crafting gameplay loops holds zero water with me. I get you eventually get improved versions of the magical death-avoiding elixir that almost render the time limit element of the game to an afterthought. Still, it's always there, and with inventory slot improvements locked behind typical incremental survival crafting build paths, needing to plan for serum-based wiggle room when making even the most basic environmental exploratory efforts is zero fun. Finally, the developer deserves some credit for trying its hand at grafting a story to a genre that typically doesn't care about that. Still, the voice acting in Serum completely ruins any of the intended effects of its more gripping moments. The line reading isn't just flat; it often elicits the opposite intended emotional reaction.
Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge
Trust me when I say this. Making a frog refuge this good isn't as easy as it looks.
What is it?
Kamaeru Frog Refuge is a frog-raising simulation game with a cozy pace and hand-drawn aesthetic. Kamaeru features a female player character attempting to bond with a male compatriot trying to revive a derelict frog sanctuary. As you assist them, you try to clear out weeds and rocks to make way for a new landscape that will be more inviting to your soon-to-be amphibian friends. The most straightforward comparison to make is to Viva Pinata. Like Viva Pinata, Kamaeru relies on animals passively visiting your park or sanctuary through what you build and create instead of through actions directly done in the immediate or surrounding world. Every species of frog in Kamaeru will only appear in your garden if you plant specific shrubbery or landscape the area a certain way. Even then, the odds of these new species showing up are determined by percentages. Your actions take place in two distinct fields, one where you place objects and plants in a wildlife refuge and another where you collect and craft items to unlock new things to put in that refuge.
What's in the demo?
The demo allows you to interact with a handful of storyline missions before it caps what appears in your game. Through a tutorial, you understand how to attract new frogs to your pond and craft new items and furniture, leading to new amphibians. The game also sports a day-night cycle, with your character unable to perform specific actions at night. Like Viva Pinata, the game divides your actions into different screens, though Kamaeru only appears to have two areas you need to worry about. The first is the actual wildlife sanctuary, wherein your ability to clear it out and plant new flora or place new objects requires you to budget energy resources or action turns. The other screen is where most of your crafting and resource collection occurs. On this second screen, there's another pond where you can plant even more flora to unlock berries and bugs that allow you to level up your character and spawn new items or tools that make way for entirely new types of frogs. You can also craft sellable goods here so you can purchase new items. Still, within the first ten to twenty minutes, you discover around a half-dozen currency types in Kamaeru, each with a different pathway you need to interact with to get more of it.
There's also a breeding mechanic in Kamaeru, but I will caution that the demo limits what breeds will appear in your game so severely that the mechanic doesn't make the best first impression when you play the demo. To unlock new colors or patterns of frogs, you need to interact with a Punnett square and place previously unlocked frogs to unlock new recessive or dominant variants. This process is made incredibly more challenging as your ability to place things where you want to is limited thanks to the game having half of your possible turns taken by a computer meant to represent "natural selection," which almost always works against your favor in that it actively attempts to limit your ability to unlock new things. If you forgot this part of middle school biology class, this part of the game is incredibly frustrating, but that's not all! As you collect raw materials, which include berries and other plant-based resources, you can craft them into goods that are sellable in a local farmer's market. However, the amount you produce is determined by your ability to perform a minigame, though even if you fail at these minigames, you'll still net a nominal amount of goods to sell. These minigames are, bizarrely enough, displayed in a small window at the bottom of your screen, which makes it occasionally tricky to figure them out the first few times you play them.
Don't worry, grandma is here to help you with middle school biology.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
Probably not. Looks can be deceiving, and Kamaeru is a cozy-looking animal-rearing game that commits the same cardinal sin as Viva Pinata. Despite its presentation suggesting that it is a breezy experience with waves of new content that will unlock at an easy enough pace, it's shockingly stressful. Throughout the demo, I felt like I needed to think about how to budget my time and actions before the end of the day, and with so many different systems that opt you into other currencies or upgrades, remembering how to do that isn't as easy as you'd expect. For example, one of the unlockable frog sub-species requires that you have a specific plant that only unlocks after you have collected three flies. These flies will only spawn in the second pond and require you to clear out space to grow a specific plant you can only get after you have sold enough goods in the farmer's market. However, that means you need to grow berry bushes, which spawn berries that you need to click, one at a time, to nab and then refine into candies and jams via a minigame. With barely a quarter of the game's content unlocked after my hour playing it, I felt dizzy, considering how careful I had to be about what I was doing and which plants and items I needed to grow and place in finite spaces across two screens. I genuinely worry that this will get frustrating and overwhelming in record time with the full version of the game.
Tales of Kenzera: Zau
This game definitely takes you through a journey even in its demo.
What is it?
Tales of Kenzera Zau is a game project led by actor Abubakar Salim, whom many of you might know as the voice behind Bayek in Assassin's Creed Origins and the father in the TV series Raised by Wolves. Salim set out to try to depict Bantu culture with Tales of Kenzera: Zau as well as convey his own experiences with death and grief following the passing of his father. Tales of Kenzera is a 2.5D Metroidvania wherein your character, Zau, is trying to kill three monsters as part of a ritual which will permit the god of death to bring back his father. Zau is gifted two masks, a Moon Mask and a Sun Mask. The Moon Mask will enable him to shoot projectiles and attack enemies from a distance, whereas the Sun Mask is a melee-focused brawler. Each of these masks can be upgraded, and you can switch between them without restrictions. While you help Zau navigate their surroundings in hopes of finding the three legendary monsters, you will need to shift platforms, dash into crevices, and wail away at enemies that populate the world. You know, your average Metroidvania stuff.
What's in the demo?
First, I must come clean and admit that I played Tales of Kenzera on a mouse and keyboard set-up, which the game advises you against. Also, while playing the game, I got a game-breaking glitch that ruined my playthrough and was only solvable if I started a new save from scratch. While trying to push a block so my character could navigate to a new platform, I caused the block to fly out of the screen and become unusable. Those two points aside, I still had a good time and have to join the rest of the gaming community in applauding the game's developers for lovingly depicting an under-represented culture and world experience. I LOVED how your character's relationship with the god of death was not an immediately negative one. Instead, Tales of Kenzera depicts a culture that views death as inevitable. Zau's struggles to come to terms with his father's passing are also incredibly relatable and wonderfully told. Obviously, the god of death has an agenda, but the life lessons and parables you experience are true highlights, and I did come away from the game wanting to see where this story goes.
Nonetheless, I wasn't super enthused by its core Metroivania mechanics and feel it wears thin even within the scope of its demo. The combos are relatively simple, and transforming between the two forms is much less dynamic than I thought it would be. The Moon Mask shoots projectiles, and the Sun Mask is melee-focused. While some areas and enemies encourage you to use one mask over the other, it's a basic rendition of the Ikaruga's dueling colors mechanics, with you almost always being able to skew towards whatever playstyle you prefer. Also, with each of these masks sporting its own upgrade paths, I hope and pray that the developers took the time to balance things because it would be shitty if you spent most of your time opting for one mask and the game punished you for that. I have my fingers crossed that there will not be a moment when the game starts kicking your ass because you have entered an area or found a boss that requires one over the other. Luckily, the upgrades are exciting and change how you approach combat and non-combat scenarios, adding an extra layer to the gameplay. Nonetheless, the 2.5D environments are pretty vanilla, and the puzzles, from what I played, are nothing to write home about.
This game also has some INCREDIBLE music!
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
Maybe. Tales of Kenzera is a game I will withhold my judgment until it launches, and I can read some reviews on how it shaped up. The demo is fine from what I played, but it was sometimes rough around the edges and lacked some of the gameplay depth that makes Metroidvanias able to sustain your attention for hours upon end. I'm most concerned about how Tales of Kenzera's endgame will pan out. Even within the demo, the combat started to feel mindless, and what impeded by progress, more often than not, was the platforming, which I did not enjoy. Again, that might stem from how I played the game, which I am willing to accept, but there's a floatiness to Zau's jumps and dashes that felt wrong, especially in a Metroidvania. There's also a linearity to Tales of Kenzera, which I did not mind, but it does feel like the game railroads you along a critical path more so than most games of this type. Nonetheless, with the game's heart in the right place, and considering it is a first-time project for its creative lead, I'm still willing to maintain an open mind should the final product prove all of my concerns or complaints wrong. I cannot help but root for this game.
Ultros
Ultros is already a strong candidate for Best STYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYLE!
What is it?
Ultros is a Metroidvania game on acid. It features psychedelic visuals while you explore an alien planet with wildlife that looks like nothing you've ever seen before. As you explore your surroundings, you discover your character gains new abilities and upgrades through eating plant life and defeating bosses. When combating enemies and bosses, the game provides bonuses to your kills should you use precision-based attacks or stealth maneuvers rather than if you defeat these enemies through direct combat. Power-ups and new abilities are also unlocked by planting seeds on the planet. As this is a Metroidvania, there's plenty of platforming to be done, and your expected dead-ends only unlock if you have a specific ability when butting up against that barrier. However, Ultros is a Metroidvania with a trick up its sleeve. Now, I will warn you that this "trick" is a bit of a spoiler, though the game lays this out to you before the end of its opening act. So, be warned if you decide to read any further. I can only discuss this game if I can go beyond saying that its graphics are evocative and stunning or that it has your typical Metroidvania ability collection systems.
What's in the demo?
Ultros's core Metroidvania trappings are solid, and your ability to draw levels from in-game actions is a refreshing change of pace. However, the big kicker with Ultros is that it is a game set in a time loop. This twist is only briefly touched upon in the demo, but when you "complete" the tasks and goals with any given day or setting, the game resets and thrusts you back to square one, with none of your previously unlocked abilities you just started to wrap your mind around available anymore. In the first playthrough, you get the double jump rather quickly, but that ability is ripped away from you after you complete the first chapter, and for the next one, collecting it is not as immediate as before. However, the environments and levels warp and wobble to match the subsequent placement of tools at your disposal while also making way for new ones. The time loop element is also where the plant seed mechanic comes into force in both a good and bad way. On the one hand, seeing your actions mean something significant as you progress through the story is incredible. On the other hand, those seed planting locations are rough. If you forget to do things at the earliest opportunity, you do a lot of backtracking to place a singular item in a faraway location. Ultros is a Metroidvania game that requires a lot of patience and won't be everyone's cup of tea as a result.
I'm on the fence about Ultros. You eventually get the ability to create platforms, which allows the game to throw the Metroidvania game design manual entirely out the window, and the times when Ultros deviates from your expectations are incredibly freeing and awe-inspiring. Nonetheless, many of its freeing moments stem from you breaking plants or picking up trinkets in one timeline and applying it to a part of the environment so a wall or impediment will disappear. What you need to use and where is not always clear, and the game devolves into trial and error more than I'd like. The game's fast travel system is even more groan-inducing because unlocking more than the few freebies it provides requires you to collect soil and apply it to areas with the space to make way for new plant life. But the game almost lost me when you needed to manipulate the plants as they grow. The clearest example comes when you enter the Greggamoja Refinery, where you have to use your character's spray ability to bend a plant's stems so it grows along with a stream of water. It's incredibly frustrating, but it does play into the game's overall environmental themes and the recurring storyline that your character needs to bring life back to a diseased planet.
Even when the game isn't monochromatic, its neon color palette makes parsing its foregrounds and backgrounds a chore.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
I have already purchased this game, but I want to share some caution with those interested in picking it up. This next point is a nitpick, but Ultros's sometimes monochromatic look was a problem for me. Especially in the starting forest and hub world, parsing out what objects and things are a part of the foreground and background was difficult. When the game transitions to its less bright environments, this problem completely dissipates. Still, sometimes, I lost track of gobs of meat or materials because they blended too closely with the surrounding environment. That aside, I loved this game. I enjoyed how the upgrades largely stem from your feats in combat rather than entirely being locked behind tracking down trinkets. The game has an incredible look, and the variety of locations and environments is stunning. There's something about the game that gives me Fantastic Planet vibes, with the aliens you encounter and their exotic culture and ways of life being a real trip. The time loop element also mixes up what would be a vanilla Metroidvania experience. The first time I lost my powers, I felt dispirited, but when I realized the game had plenty of new tricks and tools to try out with every reset, I started looking forward to the next time loop. As intended, finding out the latest "mechanic of the week" is the best part of Ultros. Now, if only some of those plant seed locations were not a complete pain in the ass.
Children of the Sun
This game manages to embody Devolver's entire milieu in a single package.
What is it?
Children of the Sun is a third-person puzzle shooter from indie game developer René Rother, whose previous work includes being the lead 3D artist behind El Hijo: A Wild West Tale. Children of the Sun is an often abstract mix between the sniper-based puzzle boxes of Sniper Elite and the grindhouse sensibilities of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. With each level, you are presented with a half dozen or so targets spread across a field or building complex, and using your character's unique abilities, which grow over time, you must take each of the targets down with a single bullet. The targets are displayed as glowing outlines of bodies, similar to how bodies look in Superhot and will move as you aim and eventually curve and pivot your bullets. As if this paragraph were not already chock full of comparisons to other games, when you complete a level, you discover your performance and ability to explode objects in the environment and assassinate targets in quick succession doll out points, which are ranked across global and local leaderboards which gives Children of the Sun a Neon White element that drives you to replay levels.
What's in the demo?
The demo provides the prologue and a set of levels from what I assume is the game's first chapter, which serves as a tutorial of sorts. Things start simple enough: you need to shoot bullets from distant positions and hold your controller buttons or mouse clicks to cause the bullet to bob and weave around objects so it can strike every single target in a given level. As you play, you learn how to bank shots and do other flourishes, which quickly become necessities in not just wracking up more points but completing the levels in the first place. The use of global and local leaderboards is a nice touch. Like Neon White, your desire to push your score up just a few more points leads to organically testing new strategies and exploring alternate vantage points. There's also a story about your character wanting to enact vengeance on people who wronged her, but the demo only deals with vagaries between your puzzle combat arenas. The comic book cutscenes in the demo are there even if they don't accomplish anything beyond setting the tone.
What I am less enthused by are some of the unique abilities. Due to the game's minimalistic art style, the visual clues and prompts that guide your actions outside of the tutorial could be better. It's sometimes not immediately apparent when certain skill shots and abilities are tantamount to a successful assassination. After completing the demo's tutorial missions, I was occasionally lost in looking at the placements and movements of enemies on a field and brute-forcing what I needed to do or what was even on the table. Sure, that's part of the game's charm. Still, I wonder if things would be better if explosive objects were highlighted in one clear color and signs that communicate the need to curve or pivot bullets in another. Over time, you get more comfortable playing with the game's tools, but within the demo, I started to feel slightly overwhelmed by the speed at which the game introduces new things. The fact is the game doesn't stick with abilities long enough for you to build what I call proficiencies. Rather than juxtaposing one cool thing to another, the abilities should have several tailor-made set pieces that make players comfortable with the new rules they are butting up against.
The starting missions are fine. The problems come when you get past chapter one.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
Maybe. This next point might sound a bit "mean," but this might be the most Devolver-ass video game of 2024. Between the game's minimalistic but evocative look, grindhouse-inspired cutscenes, and highly satisfying combat, it feels like something that bleeds Devolver's DNA. As suggested, I felt some frustration as I drew closer to the end of the demo, but not to the point where I wanted to dismiss the game outright. Likewise, with such an exciting world and premise, I hope there's more to the game's narrative underpinning than you being on a revenge tour to fight against the people who murdered someone close to your character. Beyond that, I genuinely wish Children of the Sun had remained committed to new mechanics and maneuvers for more than one level before transitioning to something new during its opening act. I still am not great at banking shots and struggle to tell apart explosive and assassination-ending objects. But that said, I'm not going to sit here and deny that I did not replay levels in hopes of jumping up one or two spots on the game's leaderboards, as was the case with Neon White.
Part 6: The Point When Things Start To Become A Blur
Instead of playing and talking about Rebirth, I'm here talking about something much older and worse.
Well, look at me dropping the ball on my writing goals for almost the entire start of 2024! After promising myself that I would set my blogs up to cover Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's release, here I am, scrambling to finish projects from last year. With my retrospective on Final Fantasy III, my writer's block stemmed from an unmistakable struggle with maintaining enthusiasm. It's not that I consider the game terrible, per se; it's just that so much of it feels like the Final Fantasy team going through the JRPG motions as they still try to figure out what they wanted the series to be. This mental exhaustion might come as a slight surprise to those of you who may recall where I left off in the first part of this series, wherein I was relatively enamored by its attempt at echoing the series' penchant for world shifts but, at the grandest scale, the series had seen up to that point. And it bears repeating that the game's sense of scale is impressive for a Famicom/NES game. Unfortunately, while the size of its many worlds is immense, there's no doubting how empty they feel, and the gameplay's repetitious template guts whatever favorable concessions I want to give it about its scale.
A Final Fantasy game about crystals? Who could have seen that one coming?
It's definitely "cool" when the game goes from its starting circular world to the "Flooded World," but it sure does suck using the airship to navigate to the three-ish locations that are explorable, which allows the game to make way to its final map. But before you can do that, you follow the same formula for how Final Fantasy III structured its previous dungeons: find a companion to tag along with you, buy new equipment and potions from a vendor, enter a dungeon, and keep going until you beat the boss at the end of the dungeon. Worse, the game still subjects you to that excruciating feeling when you realize you just aren't going to make it to the final level of a dungeon and likely need to punch out and make the walk of shame to an inn to restore your spell slots and HP as well as restock on items. The good news is that because Final Fantasy III has a job system, you have something to show for your exploratory efforts. Still, because this is a prototype of the Final Fantasy job system we know and love, the sense of progression here is not satisfying. The stat increases to your jobs are nice, but you still have to buy spells from magic vendors, and remembering where the best armor and weapons are for the different martial class types is a chore.
Luckily, the dungeons in Final Fantasy III are far shorter than what Squaresoft made in Final Fantasy II, and as I highlighted last episode, the Pixel Remaster has a handy mini-map that makes almost every single one a linear trek with no tricks to worry about beyond its random encounters. But that returns us to the unfortunate downside of Final Fantasy III's highly repetitious core design. In the case of the start of the Flooded World, the game hilariously transitions you from a mini-dungeon back to the overworld and immediately into another, more in-depth dungeon. As a result, what you are left with is a consistent but incredibly slow throwback to what JRPGs felt like over thirty years ago. These games felt like work, and that's because they were mainly abiding by the design philosophies of Yuji Horii, the man who gave the world Dragon Quest, who maintained that roleplaying games should not be a matter of if you reach the end, but instead, a matter of when as long as you kept putting in work. What makes Final Fantasy III hard to go back to beyond the fact that it enjoys stomping your teeth in is that there's very little in the way of variety. With the Cave of Tides, there are only five enemy types, one of which is a rare encounter, and the differentiator is instead what mixes of those five enemies you'll fight during random battles. The dungeon after it is a sewer sequence also with only FIVE enemy types, and the one after that is a haunted mansion with just SIX!
Some of the backgrounds just POP so much better in the Pixel Remaster of III.
There are two significant points with the need for gameplay variety in Final Fantasy III, one of which I will talk more about in the next sub-chapter. The first is that while there are a plethora of jobs for you to mull over, almost all of the levels, even well into the game's final act, have a gimmick that incentivizes one or two jobs over the rest of your options. That means you are forced to retool your parties to sport similar jobs and repeat the same moves ad nauseam. The fun work Squaresoft did to animate epic summons, cool top-tier spells, and flashy weapon-based flourishes only opens up at the end of the game, where you can fuss about in the overworld with the jobs you enjoy using. However, for most of the game, you watch the same moves repeatedly for HOURS because there are sequences that practically require you to use jobs like the Dragoon or Dark Knight. And it's way worse for the bosses in Final Fantasy III! Often, there are only one or two truly "correct" moves to do adequate damage to a boss, and deviating from those two moves is a waste of your time. As you attempt to get the Water Crystal, you fight the Kraken, which is weak to lightning-based magic, and hopefully, you have adequately leveled Black Mages with spell slots to spend on Thundara. If not, you're going to be miserable.
Getting blasted in the skies of Saronia is one of the more dynamic cutscenes in the game.
That leads us to the other problem with Final Fantasy III, which makes me comfortable calling it a "blur." When you realize a level or environment is not so ambiguously directing you towards a specific job or class, if you have yet to touch that job, you'll likely have to dedicate time, sometimes upwards of twenty to thirty minutes, to grinding away levels. If this were Final Fantasy V, wherein the jobs provide you with overlapping buffs and synergies, that wouldn't be a big issue, but this is Final Fantasy III, where every job seems isolated. Your character's core stats beyond HP seem largely irrelevant. The good news is that when you park your party at the entrance of dungeons with an assortment of new job assignments, you can get the gist of what you need to do for the rest of the dungeon with little to no risk of meeting an untimely demise. The issue is that this game's jobs progress at a snail's pace and still use the Vancian-inspired spell slot system. For the start of the game, those spell slots, more than your HP, limit how far you progress in a dungeon, as not having the appropriate magic abilities at your disposal slows every combat encounter to a crawl. It's slightly better with the dungeons that require job-specific special skills that don't use spell slots, but not by much because the damage those abilities deal is determinant on your equipment and your character's job proficiencies, which usually result in your parties being incredibly top heavy as you only have the resources and gil to spec two of your characters to deal satisfying damage.
Part 7: This Game Is Obsessed With Gimmicks
At this point, I will speed through most of the game's middle levels. After finishing things up with the Water Crystal, you eventually find yourself in the estate of a knight named Goldor. This mansion has three levels, and the gimmick is that everything, including the boss, is resistant to magic, and you are encouraged to opt for the game's martial classes. After wrapping things up there, the following required location is Saronia, one of the more impressive locals in the game, as it is a massive city. The game even sections Saronia into four distinct parts. There's even a fun cutscene when the defenses of Saronia shoot down your airship, which, again, is another example of the game pushing the technical limits of the NES. Saronia is also one of the more well-known gimmick levels in the game. If you press people to say anything they know about OG Final Fantasy III, some will tell you there's a boss in the game you can one-shot if you use a Dragoon's Jump command. This set piece is where that happens, and it's not as if there's any honor in playing that boss encounter any other way. The battle either ends in under three turns, even if you have yet to use the Dragoon class up to that point, or you have to miserably deal with Garuda spamming Lightning attacks that deal 300-400 damage per party member ad infinitum. But hey, at least you get to see Final Fantasy do its best impression of Wormtongue and King Théoden from The Two Towers.
While I understand why they exits, the number of levels where you are forced to limit yourself to two to three jobs is ridiculous.
Equally gimmicky are the themes of all the required and optional cities you can explore during the game's mid-point. I'm incredibly conflicted about this part of Final Fantasy III. On the one hand, the amount of content in here is astounding, and you can tell the Final Fantasy team finally started to grapple with the concept of side quests as a crucial part of the RPG formula. On the other hand, because all of these cities are tied to one or two specific jobs, until you get the final airship, which has a vending machine that mercifully sells almost everything in a single location, traveling to individual cities to equip one or two jobs properly for upcoming combat encounters is the worst. THE. WORST. The city with the sages (i.e., Doga's Village), which, until the Eureka Cave, has the best white and black magic spells, requires a complex procedure of going underwater and navigating a series of environments to get to its magic dealers. But, more fundamentally, it was annoying getting a new job or wanting to try something out for the first time and then needing to pull up a guide to know where the one place with even the most basic equipment for that job was located. Nonetheless, these locations usually have short dungeons with full-on quests that give you uncomplicated opportunities to try out the jobs they are connected to and grapple with their upsides in combat.
The Lord of the Rings influences for the Saronia stuff is undeniable.
The middle act of Final Fantasy III is not a tortuous affair, but it is annoying. The vexing Mini-based dungeons are not entirely gone, at least not until the game's final act. When you attend to matters with Doga and Unei, there's a three-dungeon sequence with a Mini-dungeon to boot, where none culminate with the expected epic boss encounter. Likewise, the Mini-dungeon is an irksome gate on your ability to progress as it essentially burns two spell slots by default. Other aggravating things crop up during this part of the game as well. The Temple of Time, rather annoyingly, doesn't drop a teleport on the final floor, which prompts you to either make the trek back to the surface manually or use an item or Teleport spell to spare you that misery. The game follows this level with the Sunken Cave and Ancient Ruins, which also do not have any capstone boss encounters, which is an odd omission. I get the Sunken Cave is an optional dungeon with nothing more than loot for you to enjoy. Still, it's curious that the Ancient Ruins, which is the location that requires the Dark Knight, does not have a boss encounter where you finally put everything you've learned about that particular job into a satisfying conclusion. Instead, you slog through many ooze-themed trash mobs that divide if you attack them with anything but the Dark Knights' Dark Blade. It's a seven-floor-long dungeon with one overriding gimmick that wears thin by the second floor and doesn't even properly conclude, and this is not the first or only example of that in Final Fantasy III.
But the annoying gimmicks apply to more than just the dungeons! Sometimes, gaining the full efficacy of a job requires you to perform additional side quests and tasks, with the most apparent example being the summoning-oriented jobs. The optional summons are all cordoned off to far corners of the map and don't climax to anything more than you getting some cool-looking monsters you can will into existence. Predictably, the dungeons leading to the new summonses, like the rest of the game, are tied to specific elements or strategies, which prompt you to use just one or two moves until you reach their end. More puzzlingly, the gimmicks of Final Fantasy III even extend to your ability to explore its overworld, as your final airship is by far one of the worst in franchise history as it is limited in what it can do. Unlike other final airships in the series, the Invincible can only "hop" over mountains but ones that are only one tile thick. Also, flying the Invincible doesn't turn off random encounters, and you have to enter and exit it using a ladder rather than landing it on the ground and immediately entering and exiting it. The game's final airship being unable to fly over everything and land means you must juggle the placements of your earlier vehicles to continue exploring previous towns and merchants. It also means that there are overworld maze levels where you are using the airship to navigate outdoor labyrinths that suck to play and figure out.
The outdoor puzzle maze with the final airship is not fun. Period.
Nonetheless, the intent of the designers is admirable. Their game is massive, with many jobs and character builds to mull over. As a result, they decided that the only way for people to be able to move forward was to force them to opt into systems and mechanics they might have skipped if none of these dungeons and sequences were there in the first place. Furthermore, let's not pretend this wasn't what Dragon Quest had done twice prior. Many of these annoying quirks I just groused about were genre hallmarks at the time. This shakable truth is why I disagree with the overriding sentiment online that this game is one of the hardest in the series. Until you get to its final gauntlet, which I will discuss in this blog, when you follow the game's script and do what it expects you to, it's no different than what you would experience in JRPGs of this era, especially when compared to its contemporaneous Enix, Atlus, or Nihon Falcom-made peers. When you figure out the most efficient path to beating a level or sequence, the game is cake, and it's less about if you'll beat the dungeons and more or less how long it will take and if you can complete them in one go. It is punishing when you have even one character in your party not toeing the line, and the puzzle-like railroading severely limits your ability to play around with its main selling point, its variable job system. Still, until you get to the Cloud of Darkness, most of your challenges have solutions that are a stone's throw away.
Part 8: There's A Story With The Expected Final Fantasy Twists, I Guess
Upon defeating Hein in his massive tree-like fortress in the sky, one of the most striking visual set pieces the game showcases, you learn more about the machinations of what is driving your character's call to adventure. Hein shares that they are taking orders from someone named Xande, who is dissatisfied with the world's current order and pantheon of mythological figures. After offing him and eventually making the trek to the Temple of Time to pick up a lute that someone named Unei desires, you get a crash course on what's driving Xande's quest to explode the universe. Unei and their companion Doga explain that they and Xande were once students of a great wizard long ago named Noah. As he trained his three disciples, he gifted Unei power over the dream dimension, Doga vast knowledge of magic, and Xande the gift of mortality. Believing he was robbed and fearing for his death, Xande has been on a mission to cover the world in darkness to reverse his mortality. The flooded world wherein most of the universe's living people are petrified was his doing, and he presently sits atop the Crystal Tower, where he continues to further this plan. They even explain that the floating continent that our heroes come from was once a part of the flooded world but was thrust into the skies when Xande drained the Earth and Water Crystals of their power. The monsters that we have been fighting as random encounters? Xande's been creating those beasts in his towering monolith, hoping they would off your party.
Oh, word? Let me guess, we are the only ones capable of stopping this guy?
In my last blog, I repeatedly used the word "quaint" when describing why I did not want to dismiss Final Fantasy III outright, even while I struggled with some of its systems. This story is familiar to those of you who have played other 16-bit and even PS1 entries in the series, and seeing which parts of the Final Fantasy DNA start in III is one of the most rewarding parts of playing it. While Final Fantasy I's plot twist with Garland is a fun surprise, the presence of over a dozen named characters in II makes it the first "real" attempt at storytelling from the Sakaguchi-era team. That aside, III is when the outline of the Final Fantasy formula feels thoroughly established. From this point forward, elemental crystals and a pantheon of gods and goddesses, which echo proper nouns from the previous games, feel forever intertwined with what we expect of these games. More than that, Final Fantasy III feels like the first genuine attempt at exploring themes of death and putting at least some sympathetic veneer over your overriding antagonist. Xande is a bog-standard fantasy villain, but the fact there's an understandable reason for his turn to evil is something few other RPG franchises bothered doing in 1990. I said I would avoid talking about the 3D remake during this retrospective, but I cannot dance around how the additional storytelling for Xande and your party members kicks into high gear at this point. In the 3D Remake of III, your party members start to transform into individuals with their own moral compasses and life experiences that you learn more about through character-specific story arcs and missions. I understand why the Pixel Remasters do not include those additional story bits. Regardless, part of me does wish they were included because the reality is that the world of Final Fantasy III shows promise that ultimately goes nowhere.
These battles are definitely cool, but you really can't help but feel like they could be better told or scaffolded.
It's frustrating, but Final Fantasy III's design and programming team buckle at the weight of the world they created. Because this game emphasizes scale and size, it has no other recourse but to send you off on ANOTHER MacGuffin chase so you can bust down a powerful barrier preventing you from immediately storming Xande's tower. Do the new environments that we go to following our long talk with Doga and Unei do anything more to address how the world of Final Fantasy III works or what evil lurks in the darkness? Not really. There's a single NPC in Replito that can tell you how Noah died, but he's incredibly easy to miss. By this game, the programmers understood that having NPCs say more than basic greetings can add to an RPG's worldbuilding, but this game does a terrible job communicating that point. Your non-story world interactions are incredibly inconsistent. For example, Unei and Doga mention that their master, Noah, was the one who sealed Bahamut away after fearing the legendary dragon would smite the world and its citizenry with its powerful magic. When you track down Bahamut, he says about two sentences, and then you smash cut to a boss fight. He does not mention their connection to the legendary Noah when you defeat him. The reason is that animating the summons and including them in the first place was the priority instead of making them feel like authentic in-universe additions. They are fantastic to look at, especially in the Pixel Remaster. Still, they feel skeletal due to their inauthentic connection to the story, a shortcoming that Final Fantasy IV and VI masterfully rectify. But credit to III for starting this series's trend of having epic summoning magic in the first place!
It's a bummer because the tools and resources for making the story in Final Fantasy III better are in the game and right there. The guest characters are another way that the game tries to opt you into viewing the world of Final Fantasy III as more than the sum of its parts, but these characters are also incredibly inconsistent. If you're playing the 3D remake, they are slightly better with new storylines and fun ways in which they help you in battles, but in the original game, they only have a few lines to spout as they follow you around in one or two dungeons. Worse, as is the case with Desch, you can miss what connection their part in the story has with the rest of the world if you don't take the time to talk with every single NPC in the game. It's a hallmark of the genre, especially during this era, but it's wild going back to this game and realizing you can altogether avoid his girlfriend and miss out on the one part that links his contributions to the story to Final Fantasy III's surrounding world. Nonetheless, in all versions of Final Fantasy III, most of these guest characters amount to you leading them to their deaths at the end of dungeons. Hence, the game can further an over-arching theme about not being afraid of death, but it's surface-level at best, and the fact the game employs this metaphor four times in a row is laughable. The death eulogies are sparsely written and unintentionally funny. One or two extra lines or an additional scene here or there would have gone the distance in making the guest characters feel like worthwhile additions to the party, but that's not the case, and it's frustrating.
The times when the game does try to be emotionally weighty are not a complete failure.
However, while sparsely told, there are times when Final Fantasy III's narrative works. The game's best storytelling moment beyond the initial reveal of the Flooded World and its ending happens at the finale of Doga's Grotto. When Doga and Unei accompany you briefly during your journey, they make vague hints about an upcoming challenge of your party's prowess. When you reach the end of Doga's Grotto, the two wizened sages transform into monsters and command you to defeat them in battle. As you do, the two share the last bits of their knowledge about how to defeat Xande as they enter the afterlife. They implore your party not to treat death as a punishment or form of torture as Xande does but as a certainty that frames the importance of living your best life. If it sounds like familiar territory, that's because it is, especially in the Final Fantasy series, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to claim that future Sakaguchi-led Final Fantasy efforts like VII or IX are not at least a partial continuation of the notions of death and the afterlife that Final Fantasy III started. Furthermore, what is notable here is that the music works with what Doga and Unei are trying to communicate to the player. It's one of the ur-examples of the Final Fantasy team making an explicitly melancholic cutscene. This point again leads to me wanting to challenge the common theme of people placing this game damn near the bottom of their rankings of the franchise. When a game is this foundational and vital to the maturation of the series, can you conscionably do that?
Part 9: Hitting Final Fantasy III's Wall And The Necessity Of Cheese Tactics
The good news is that the game's level design gets more creative.
Now, if that last section makes it seem like I'm going to waffle on Final Fantasy III's flaws and shortcomings, I'm not. While I made the case that this game is an RPG puzzle with optimal builds, making the combat almost trivial and repetitious, that all changes after you wrap up your business in Doga's Grotto. Outside of exploring the optional dungeons, collecting the summons, and exploring the Chocobo forests, all that remains is the game's final gauntlet. When people speak of Final Fantasy III as one of the most challenging games in the franchise, this last quarter of the game is what they are talking about. Like every JRPG, Final Fantasy III has a "point of no return," but what makes this version of the trope so heinous is how long it is and how little leeway the game gives you. First, let's talk about the set-up of the final dungeons because that's part of the problem. With the resources necessary to get past Xande's barrier, you must park the Invincible outside a retaining wall surrounding the Crystal Tower. This wall is treated like a separate environment, and it is a winding maze dungeon with the expected dead-ends and monster traps typical of a JRPG dungeon of this era.
When you make your way to the exit of this dungeon, there's a quick moment outside of the Crystal Tower in the overworld before you enter the second phase of the point of no return. You can't park the airship in this space, and remember, Final Fantasy III doesn't have tents and cottages, so you can't use this as an opportunity to heal up and rest your characters.If you want to do that, you must turn around wherever you are in the Crystal Tower and re-complete the maze dungeon before you can finally re-enter the airship and rest inside it. It's THE WORST! The Crystal Tower has SEVEN FLOORS, and the Ancients' Maze has FIVE! All the while, the game starts pulling some cheap shit as it puts you through your paces. In the maze, the final levels can spawn King Behemoths, who, when at low health, spam the Meteor spell for every one of their moves. Your reaction might be to off it with one of your high-tier spells, but considering you are less than a third through the game's finale, you don't necessarily want to use your best attack options. In the Crystal Tower, there's an enemy type named "Bluck," which is relatively easy to defeat if you use magic, but there are far worse things to fight here. However, if you don't act quickly, the Bluck will use every one of its moves to summon enemies until every possible spot for enemies on the screen is filled. So, what do you do? Do you blow them away and hope you get lucky with your subsequent random encounters, or do you pray your regular attacks are enough to get the job done before the encounter becomes a painful, drawn-out battle of attrition? And that's what makes the end of the game so brutal! Here you are with all these powerful items and spells, and you always hesitate to use them. If you use too many, you screw yourself over as you near the end because your spell slots and resources are not where you need them to be.
The stuff with needing to check for crack to find invisible walls sucked the first time and it continues sucking for the entire game.
And, OF COURSE, the Crystal Tower ends with a boss battle against Xande, but at least there's a conveniently placed save point to restore your magic and HP. In the NES and Pixel Remaster, Xande is a final "Gear Check Boss" and nothing more. When he attacks, he uses powerful spells like Meteor and Quake, which means the damage he inflicts overrides even your best healing spells, thus making this a timed mission. He's not weak against anything, either. The trick is to do as much damage as you can against him and hope your characters' levels are high enough that they can stomach the damage he gives before the battle is over. That's all there is to it! It's way worse in the 3D remake, as that version affords him two attacks per turn, and he can even buff himself with Haste and Protect. Regardless, if you get to him and feel like he's squashing you within two to three turns, that's the game telling you it's time to head back to the dungeon and start grinding! Part of the dread associated with playing old JRPG dungeons is gone with the Pixel Remaster, as it auto-saves your progress before every battle. Still, it's around here where all of my previous complaints about the combat being repetitious and your character progress being painfully slow can come to a head. If you have run away from even one encounter, the game makes you pay for it.
I have covered a lot of Final Fantasy games as part of this feature on the site, and I feel safe calling Final Fantasy III's final deluge of dungeons and bosses one of the most demanding and most aggressive in the franchise. Maybe you can list an individual Final Fantasy boss or dungeon that kicked your ass that sticks out in your memory stronger than what I am describing here. Trust me, I was there with you, whether it be Necron in Final Fantasy IX, Seymor Flux in Final Fantasy X, or Barthandelus in Final Fantasy XIII. The bullshit you have to do to have the pleasure of seeing the Cloud of Darkness is ridiculous, and it tops all of my previous examples. There's one mercy worth mentioning in Final Fantasy III's favor. It's the fact it has a job (i.e., Thief) that increases your odds of running away from combat, which means you only need to prep for the boss encounters and the optional elite jobs it locks in the Eureka dungeon. That last sentence leads me to a significant concession. Yes, I got the Sage and Ninja jobs. Yes, I spammed Shurikens to kill the Cloud of Darkness. No, I don't have any regrets. Considering how punishing the end of the game becomes if you don't do this, I don't regret leaping on an in-game pathway that cut out literal hours from my playtime.
Don't be a hero. You should get these jobs if you end up playing this game.
For those unaware, at the first level of the Crystal Tower, you can use a "Eureka Key" on a mirror to initiate a final optional dungeon, which leads to the two best classes in the game, Sage and Ninja, as well as merchants that sell the best items, weapons, and spells. And the game makes you work for these jobs, by the way. It's not as if you apply the key to the mirror, and the game gives you a cheat code. This dungeon has eight floors, each with zig-zagging patterns that make navigation a bother, and six boss battles, though only one is required. That said, the optional bosses are manifestations of elite weapons, so you are better off fighting them regardless. Exploring every corner of this dungeon is also advisable, as its loot is among the best in the game. There are even encounters in this dungeon that provide more significant and accessible EXP drops than what you'll fight in the Crystal Tower, and there's a save point leading up to the merchants. But the key to those merchants, which is not a secret, is to avoid the two you first encounter and find the secret merchant that sells Shurikens. Each one costs 65,500 Gil but has a base attack rating of 200, which far exceeds any of your other weapon options in the game. Shurikens are busted in all versions of Final Fantasy III, and it's great. Any RPG that expects you to play it for more than thirty hours should have at least one option for those who are done playing by the rules and just want to see the end, and that's precisely what Final Fantasy III does.
Part 10: The Worst-Designed Final Fantasy Final Boss Ever Made
So, you've got some cheesy bullshit to help you against one of the most notorious final bosses in Final Fantasy history! That must mean that everything is kosher, right? Well, not so fast! First, while the Sage can use White, Black, AND Summoning magic, they have fewer spell slots than the previous tier of magic casters that specialized in those schools of magic. Second, the equipment and armor sets for the Ninja are costly, meaning you'll likely only have the means to sport one or two at their full potential, and a third will pull one-third of its weight. Third, there is the matter of you needing to complete ONE MORE dungeon sequence with a final boss rush to boot! And this final dungeon does ye olde JRPG trope where it takes the previous bosses from the story and has them spawn as random encounters! Why? Because this game hates you! Typically, in JRPGs, there comes a point when you "turn the corner" on the game's difficulty and lay waste to everything the game has to offer by simply spamming tactical nukes whenever you have the option to attack. You can still do that in Final Fantasy III, but the game makes you work the longest in series history to get to that point.
The World of Darkness is such a great looking environment. It's just a bummer what you end up doing there.
Also, to no one's surprise, Xande wasn't the evil force in complete control over the story's direction! Upon defeating him, you are greeted by the Cloud of Darkness and are thrust into a forced loss boss encounter against them before being tossed into the World of Darkness. If you enter the World of Darkness down on items and important expendables, you are shit out of luck because there's no turning around and taking a rejuvenating rest in your airship. There's also no save point in the World of Darkness until the very end, which means that the last dungeon and all of the bosses therein are meant to be played in a single session, which is utterly absurd. Oh, and the treasure chests in the World of Darkness, despite having incredible armor sets and valuable trinkets like Ribbons, are all Monster boxes that lead to encounters against clones of Xande! Like the boss they are based on, those clones spam all party-hitting spells like Meteor and Quake. There's so much in this dungeon where if you cannot figure out the OP strategy or are running away, you just get worked. The good news is that the dungeon itself is a linear affair with bosses leading up to the final encounter with the Cloud of Darkness, with incredibly easy-to-read hints on how best to beat them. On the other hand, the Could of Darkness is one of the worst-designed final Final Fantasy bosses ever made.
Oh, hey, a Final Fantasy game did the thing where the ultimate evildoer was not revealed until the last level! Except this is one of the earliest examples of it done with direction and genuine storytelling.
As I mentioned earlier, by the time you start making a dent in the foes in the World of Darkness, the move is to drop nuclear weapons on everything you are required to face, and that's a bit of a genre convention because it makes you feel good seeing all of your hard work leveling characters mean something. In the original game and Pixel Remaster, all the Could of Darkness does is power up their Flarewave ability and then deploy it. In the 3D remake, she's more of a bother because she gets two turns and can even buff herself with Haste and Protect and force you to deal with negative debuffs, thanks to her having Bad Breath. Nonetheless, she has one pattern, and the correct response to this pattern means this big epic boss battle boils down to a singular cycle of abilities and moves. When she uses Flarewave, your healer drops Curaja, and the characters not on healing duty do attacks. There's no nuance. If your best attackers are martial classes, you select the "Attack" command, and if they are magic-based, you fan through your magic menu. Your victory depends not on you employing a clever strategy or using the game's dynamic job system; it's an elongated battle of attrition. That is why many people, including myself, turn to using the Ninja's overpowered Shurikens when reaching the Cloud of Darkness. Every ninja star you land on the Cloud of Darkness saves you at least three turns' worth of your time. As a result, they are worth every bit of Gil they cost.
There's no honor in tackling this boss authentically, as there's no dynamism with how they behave or act. It's just the cheapest shit imaginable. Not everyone is of the same mindset as me about this point, but the final boss in an RPG shouldn't be the most demanding required encounter in the game. Some people tremble at the idea of the final boss in a JRPG being a cakewalk, but I'm of the opposite opinion. It's okay if you want the final boss to put up a little fight, but let me see the end. When I praised the ending and epilogue of Final Fantasy VI, did it bother me that you can beat Kefka by casting Ultima three times? Maybe a little bit, but that's the reward for putting over thirty hours of work into a game. Can you turn the Cloud of Darkness into a heap of shredded paper with high-tier characters with the best abilities? You sure can, but that involves you walking through a museum of rusty knives while blindfolded, as it requires you to burn elixirs and toil away on random encounters until you get nigh-level 99 characters.
This boss sucks. There's no other way to describe it.
What is a shame is that the game's ending has its moments. The look of the World of Darkness is unique, and the stray bits of storytelling pull the narrative's threads together fairly compellingly. After the Cloud of Darkness murders your party, the game makes it clear that your characters are very dead. Still, the companions you encountered previously, including the ones who sacrificed their lives, return to remind you of their lessons about not fearing death. There are some fun callbacks before the game reveals that the World of Darkness isn't entirely a horrible place but an alternate world with its own set of heroes called the "Warriors of Darkness." To beat the Cloud of Darkness, your characters, the Warriors of Light, must free their dark counterparts from Cerberus, Echidna, Ahriman, and the Two-Headed Dragon. After summoning them, they bring your party back to life and encourage them to make the most of their second shot at the Cloud of Darkness, and this all involves cutscenes with relatively novel framing and direction for an 8-bit video game. And not to sound like a broken record, but Final Fantasy III's notions on life and death are a prototype of themes that become perfected in future entries in the series and the epilogue of the game wherein you see what everyone that helped you accomplish your mission does after the defeat of the Cloud of Darkness is also an example of that. The earnest epilogues of Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI owe a debt of gratitude to Final Fantasy III. As we near the end of this retrospective, I'll say the word "quaint" one last time before passing final judgment on the game.
Part 11: Is This Still Worth Going Back To?
Final Fantasy III is a crusty video game. The first game in the series still stands as the lone 8-bit entry in the series that I still feel comfortable giving to people and not feeling like shit after doing so. Nonetheless, there's a beauty to Final Fantasy III that is unmistakable. The bones of what defined nearly twenty years of the series' identity are here and sometimes for the first time. The novelty of seeing where those franchise traditions start is worth the price of entry alone. Likewise, watching the figureheads that dominated the highest of highs of the Final Fantasy series for three console generations trying to figure things out in a video game warmed my heart. Final Fantasy III's craft and care are there; you can feel the love its team of designers and programmers poured into it. The job system is far from perfect, but you have to tip your hat to the team for everything they did and for pushing the technical limits of the hardware they were working with.
What are going to do there? Play patty cake with Enkidu?
Unfortunately, Final Fantasy III is not an incredibly fun experience. There are times when it feels like a fun romp and other times when it feels downright malicious. The game's final act left such a sour taste in my mouth that I am still fuming about it to this day. When Final Fantasy III becomes a pain in the ass to play, it is a royal pain in the ass. The amount of grinding baked into its DNA is both tedious and disrespectful of your time. The job system, the game's main selling point, feels off. There's something profoundly dissatisfying about putting hours of time and attention into a job, only to have it become entirely worthless or succeeded by a different one you pick up at a later temple. The lack of passive buffs or a shared skill system means there are few opportunities for fun dual-classing or job synergies that future entries in the series would embrace. Likewise, everything progresses two or three clicks slower than it should, and you constantly feel like the game still has an advantage over you even when you do make progress. The lack of a satisfying moment where you can put all of the game's mechanical pieces together to stand victorious unless you put hundreds of hours into it is a bummer. There's no other way to say it.
Nonetheless, let's not be too hard on Final Fantasy III. The JRPG genre was still "finding itself," and the solutions to Final Fantasy III's problems were not entirely solved. Just last year, I decided to play Hoshi Wo Miru Hito (i.e., Stargazer), widely regarded as the worst JRPG ever made, and playing it was an "enlightening" experience. While it predated even the first Final Fantasy, it hits home how quickly one can foul up the "JRPG formula." Something as simple as having a sprite that displays towns in an overworld or ensuring that your walk speed feels right, don't sound like significant issues, but when they are even slightly off, they immediately sour the entire experience. Failing to display the final digit of your heroes' HP totals or forgetting to ensure your first purchasable weapon from shops does more damage than your fists? That might sound like a layup today, but they were real quandaries programming geniuses and experts only partially solved AFTER years of trial and error and experimentation. The fact that Final Fantasy III attempts as much as it does at the scale it operates is a miracle and showcases that the best and brightest minds in the video game industry have always graced this series.
You really get the sense that everyone that worked on this game really tried their darndest to make the best game they could.
But suppose you are interested in playing a game from this era with a job system and all of the hallmarks of 8-bit game design. In that case, I have a better suggestion that might be slightly sacrilegious on a retrospective of Final Fantasy III. If Final Fantasy III seems even remotely in your wheelhouse or a game you think will tickle your fancy, you're 100% better off playing Dragon Quest III instead. Despite predating Final Fantasy III by nearly three years, its class system is far more user-friendly, straightforward, and rewarding than the one in Final Fantasy III. The team at Chunsoft was running circles around the Final Fantasy team at this time as Dragon Quest III not only has a multi-character party system that allows you to swap characters in and out however you please, but it also has a day-night cycle, item sorting tools, AND a non-linear open world. All in a game that was published in 1988! Dragon Quest IV even precedes Final Fantasy III, which I'm still shocked by. It has all of the novel features in Dragon Quest III plus a shockingly in-depth caravan system for those of you who like worrying about rations in tabletop RPGs, as well as a programmable artificial intelligence system that informed the design and implementation of the Gambit System in Final Fantasy XII. There's much more to the progeny of the Final Fantasy series than the people who made the games. Whether it be Yuji Horii, Richard Garriot, Robert Woodhead, Gary Gygax, or Dave Arneson, the influencers that guided its many creative pathways deserve huge props, especially from those of you excited at where the franchise is today. So, go back and play one of these crustier games. See how far things have come and better appreciate what we have today in gaming.
For the past two years, I have penned essays about Steam's Next Fest event, usually highlighting the loss of helpful content filters and tabs that seem exclusive to the event. While Valve has addressed some of the more superficial issues with its current storefront, almost everything I have historically bemoaned in those write-ups still applies today, including all of the handy Next Fest tools that always disappear whenever the event ends. Not wanting to repeat myself a third time but still wanting to talk about this year's February Next Fest event, I have decided to mix things up. Rather than grouse about the fundamental issues plaguing the usability of Steam and how Next Fest highlights some possible solutions, I want to talk about the game demos I checked out while the event was live and whether anything impressed me! Gimmicky write-ups of this type are not generally in my wheelhouse, and the event ended weeks ago, but there's some fun stuff to mull over from the event nonetheless. Also, to prevent these from being massive blocks of difficult-to-read text, I'm breaking up this "compilation pack" into two parts, with this being the first.
If any Next Fest demos stuck out to you that I did not cover that you want to talk about, feel free to drop a comment. Likewise, if you disagree with some of my findings about what is covered here, feel free to share your take as well. Here are the games I will cover in Part 2 for reference:
Rootwood
Serum
Kamaeru
Tales of Kenzera: Zau
Ultros
Children of the Sun
Mouthwashing
It's about the vibes.
What is it?
Mouthwashing is a surreal psychological sci-fi horror game with a deliberately fifth-generation graphical aesthetic. This game comes from indie developer Wrong Organ, previously known for the similarly styled atmospheric horror game "How Fish Is Made." Mouthwashing takes place on a futuristic long-haul freighter that is aimlessly listing in space after a disaster struck it and its crew of five people. You control one of the freighter's crew members but not its captain, as they were the worst hit by the accident that caused the spacecraft to become derelict. While you attempt to scrounge for resources to survive until a rescue party arrives, you and your fellow survivors begin to uncover hints that there may be something afoot with the original mission and those around you.
What's in the demo?
This demo was one of the shortest I played during February 2024's Next Fest. If played optimally, the entire exhibition clocks in at under thirty minutes, leading me to believe the demo is a short vertical slice of the game's opening act. Most of your interactions are relatively basic, involving nothing more than picking something up at one location and delivering it to a recipient in a different location. There's a quick puzzle involving a scanner, but for the most part, this is an atmospheric, non-combat affair. The aesthetics and the game's weird CRT effects, especially the warping broken screensaver-like effect it uses to transition from one scene to the next, stand out stronger than any gameplay-oriented task you complete. However, there is one bit during the early phases of the demo when you have to manipulate the jaw of the ship's horribly disfigured captain to deliver their painkiller regimen. The game is horrifying to look at, but I wouldn't say I ever was scared. The start of the game has some faint P.T. vibes with its format and execution, but the vibes of this demo aren't entirely about spooking you out and are instead about setting the mood to this slightly off-kilter sci-fi survival affair where something seems off, but you don't know what.
Near the end of the demo, things get more surreal as you jump back and forth on the story's timeline. The flashbacks and flashforwards leave you with a good grasp of who the story's core characters are and what their future struggles might entail. The ship's doctor has self-esteem issues, the foreman has a possible substance abuse problem, and the player character seems like an absolute asshole. The demo leaves you with a strong sense that your main character is an unreliable narrator, which lends itself to some of the trippier visuals you encounter near the end of the demo. If there is one quibble, it involves the floor plan of the freighter being incredibly confusing, and even though the demo only features a few tasks where you need to explore it, the monotony of the visuals, which I recognize were deliberately made that way, make it easy to get lost. That may be to the game's advantage, considering its thematic aspirations.
Yeah, the end of this demo definitely takes a turn.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
Probably. Wrong Organ's last title, How Fish Is Made, is a delightfully surreal, disgusting, and depressive walking simulator that is the type of provocative art I can get behind. It also has a tongue-eating louse that does a musical number, which leads me to believe that the weirdness of Mouthwashing will be even better as the game has superior production values and far more creative ambition. In terms of PS1-inspired modern horror games, Signalis remains the high-water mark, and its first-person sequences still stand as one of the best surprises of 2022. Mouthwashing doesn't shirk away from its first-person perspective and doesn't quite make as many weird twists and turns as I would have liked in such a short demo. Most of your time after the game's incredible opening sequence involves you performing fetch quests and processing expository dialogue from the supporting characters. The time skips are thematically interesting, but the flashbacks give you little agency over your actions or responses. It's a shame the weirdness crank doesn't get turned earlier because things end just as you think the real Mouthwashing starts to peak its head.
Cyber Manhunt: New World
Oh no... what have I accidentally played this time?
What is it?
Cyber Manhunt: New World is a new entry in the Cyber Manhunt franchise from developer Aluba Studio. These games are often called "hacking simulators" as they task you with fishing through fake digital portals and websites to find incriminating evidence on mission targets. By my metrics, it would be more accurate to call them "social engineering simulation games" as you spend most of your time gathering information about others through various fake social media venues and digital platforms. While other games of this type have you play from the perspective of a blank slate hacker, Cyber Manhunt: New World changes things up by having you play through the perspective of a generative chatbot algorithm that is slowly developing a personality but is incentivized to assist a megacorp's efforts to invade on the privacy of its employees to find out who has been leaking trade secrets to the press. That was A CHOICE!
What's in the demo?
The game is short and straightforward, and the demo provides you with what I assume is the final game's first hacking target. To collect clues on whether or not a person needs to be terminated from the company's workforce, you must use your mouse cursor to navigate a bunch of fake work emails, click on the proper nouns and the names of authors and recipients of those emails, and then use fake social media platforms and search engines in the game to investigate them further. There are a few minigames to spice things up, but the lion's share of your time involves scanning documents, photos, fake Facebook posts, and emails and clicking on the one or two things the game wants you to click on these pages to move forward in the story. Despite us all knowing and accepting that the internet and the World Wide Web have many dead ends and rabbit holes, the online world of Cyber Manhunt: New World is incredibly linear. However, when you uncover enough clues on a suspect, each mission culminates in a social deduction phase where you must assemble clues to form an evidence-based conclusion. Of all things, this part of the game is reminiscent of Contradiction: Spot The Liar. The clues you locate during the earlier phases of your investigation appear as sentence fragments, and you need to piece together these fragments to create whole and true declarations.
If you enjoyed the hacking and datalog reading in the reboot Deus Ex games, MAYBE there's something here for you.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
HELL NO! I'm going to go ahead and say this might be the most morally repugnant game I played during this edition of Next Fest, and I made an effort to avoid the VR porn games this time! Playing a game as an artificial intelligence that is helping a corporation hack into the lives of its employees is gross. The developer might say this is the point, and they are using their game to discuss the possible uses of generative chatbots and large language models in the real world. Regrettably, the game's message is not entirely clear, and getting through the story isn't engaging. Almost everything you do involves clicking on the screen and seeing if you found the right tab or hyperlink to uncover a new page to turn to on the screen. It's not an incredibly interactive affair, which I wouldn't have minded as I am an interactive fiction and visual novel fan. However, the emails and social media posts are comically bad, so much so that I thought this was a parody game of what people think tech workers do for a living and how the corporate world operates.
Homeworld 3
When it works, this is the same Homeworld I know and love, but that's the problem.
What is it?
It's the third Homeworld game, though, that seems unfair as Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak now feels like it has progressed beyond being a sales pitch or proof of concept for a modern revival of the series. Homeworld is a legendary space real-time strategy game series dating back to 1999 and was initially tied to developer Relic Entertainment. The franchise went dormant for over a decade until Gearbox bought its rights, quickly remastered the first two games, and published Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak in 2016 after contracting the game's rights to Blackbird Interactive. Since Deserts of Kharak, Gearbox has been teasing a proper sequel to Homeworld 2 for AGES, and in 2019, they finally provided fans with a teaser trailer at PAX. With the February 2024 Steam Next Fest, Gearbox shared the first playable version of the game to the public, which included a simple matchmaking multiplayer option and a handful of introductory campaign missions.
What's in the demo?
This demo is hard to assess. When I played the Homeworld 3 demo, the game looked great, especially when playing the campaign missions, and it showcased an incredibly in-depth tutorial system. The campaign missions played like a dream and captured the spirit of the first two games perfectly. Homeworld, at least to me, was all about visually epic space battles over genuine, in-depth 4X or RTS systems. While I'm not going to deny that you can get into its non-combat systems, Homeworld was about designing giant spaceships and having them engage in massive battles with Star Wars's sense of epic space opera pageantry. If you wanted in-depth space empire building, Masters of Orion was the series for you on PC. Homeworld 3's demo already showcases that Blackbird Interactive understands that completely, and the ship-building tools are also there to get long-time fans salivating.
The issue with the Homeworld 3 demo stems from its multiplayer, which was utterly nonfunctional for the entirety of Next Fest. On five separate days, I tried to use the demo's matchmaking and even turned off all filters that might have limited the number of online games I could be positioned into. Every time, I got an entirely different crash or hard lock. Sometimes, I would get stuck in the demo's online matchmaking load screen and stay there forever; other times, the game would crash after confirming I was entering a new online match. Half of the demo outright did not work, and Gearbox and Blackbird Interactive have been on damage control, with both confirming the game is delayed until May in large part due to its Next Fest struggles. More distressingly, shortly after the announced delay, Blackbird Interactive confirmed that it had laid off staff due to "economic pressures" outside of their control. Even if I accepted that the game's demo was a work-in-progress snapshot, the news surrounding Homeworld 3 clouds my impressions and dampens my ability to get excited about its official release.
And this is not the first time Homeworld 3 has been delayed.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
I'm a massive fan of the Homeworld series, with Homeworld 2 being a game clearly in my top ten "Most Played Games of All-Time" list. Nonetheless, the Next Fest demo relayed some cause for concern, so I will adopt a "wait and see" approach for now. The online multiplayer isn't crucial to my enjoyment as the game's grand campaign is likely where most of my time and attention will be located. Nonetheless, there is a preponderance of evidence to suggest that the game is not quite "there," and pre-ordering it would be a dicey proposition. I still think highly of Blackbird Interactive's previous work, which includes Deserts of Kharak and Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Homeworld 3 plays into their strengths, but knowing the studio has been beset with layoffs leaves me wondering if they have the time and warm bodies to fix a game that we know needs more time in the oven.
INDIKA
Indika definitely makes a great impression at times.
What is it?
Polish publisher 11 Bit Studios has undoubtedly come a long way since its founders, former devs from CD Projekt and Metropolis Software, debuted their first game, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, in 2011. In the thirteen years since their first title, they have become a point man for smaller Polish and Eastern European studios getting on to Steam and the Epic Game Store, with a growing emphasis on weird narrative-driven games. Indika, stylized as INDIKA, is another one of those weird narrative-driven games but from developer Odd Meter, whose last project was the VR-only archery combat game Sacralith: The Archer's Tale. Indika is an alternate history walking simulator set in a Steampunk-inspired version of Tsarist Russia. The main character is a nun who rescues a frostbitten soldier as they make their way to their empire's capital city. While making that trek in the demo, you complete a few puzzle sequences, with the highlights being when the protagonist begins talking to the Devil and when both she and her companion need to fend off a beastly rabid dog.
What's in the demo?
This game is a walking simulator with simple exploratory bits and puzzle-solving to mix things up. Most of these tasks involve finding an object that helps the main character or their companion eliminate barriers to their progress. While you navigate the environments, you can pick up trinkets to progress the game's morality system and tech tree. I'm still unclear about the implications of that system because it comes out of nowhere after you pick up random tat in the levels and chimes weird 8-bit retro video game stylings, which do not meld with the rest of the game AT ALL. With the demo not being a substantial vertical slice of what this game entails, the leveling system may make more sense when Indika is operating as a multi-act narrative. Still, picking between leveling up the player character's "sympathy" or "guilt" was silly when there's no payoff to this at any point in the demo. Then there's the puzzle sequence in which your nun combats the Devil, which is another moment that is tone-wise entirely antithetical to the game's starting atmosphere and premise. It plays out like an indie takes on Portal 2, with you needing to oscillate between your character's mental states to make platforms move from different placements to get past a previously insurmountable chasm. All the while, the game plays weirdly out-of-place SNES-inspired music.
If you haven't figured it out yet, this game is a mess, but I don't know if that is a bad thing. Indika is clearly building towards something, and expecting a demo from Next Fest to lay out all of the goods is unfair. Nonetheless, so much of the game is a tonal and mechanical mess. There's a bit in the demo where you need to make icebergs bob after running up and down on them so your character can leap over a metal gate. The issue is that this puzzle is entirely environmental, with zero signposting on what you need to do. And then there are other bits, like when you use a ladder to enter an abandoned shed or the platforming sequence with the Devil, where the game tells you precisely what you need to do and what's happening on your screen. And some sequences are way too trial-and-error based. The demo ends with a chase sequence involving a horrible dog monster, and it is not fun. You have to avoid it by following a particular set of steps and movements within a perilous time limit, and if you mess up even slightly, you have to start from the beginning.
This system still seems incredibly out of place.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
Despite a relatively long hiatus, I am the site's resident puzzle-solving sicko, and I do have a penchant for playing messy Eastern European games. If priced at a reasonable rate, I might check out Indika before the end of the year, but I'm not holding out hope that the game significantly improves from what I played in the demo. This game will be released as a weird mishmash of conflicting themes and gameplay structures. The funnier debate is whether this or The Thaumaturge, another 11 Bit Studios published work, will be my "Tsarist-Approved Eurojank Game of 2024." Being a roleplaying game means that The Thaumaturge will likely be the more in-depth option, but Indika seems like it's trying to be more art-house and experimental with its odd mixture of themes and mechanics. So, who's to say?! I'll probably play this game and report on how things finally shaped up because I want to see how wild and messy this ride becomes.
Mullet Mad Jack
An animated .gif gives you a better sense of what kind of game this is far better than a static screencap.
What is it?
Mullet Mad Jack, stylized in all caps as "MULLET MAD JACK," is a first-person combat run-based game with a card-based roguelike inventory system. It is also an unfiltered take on 90s-era anime mixed with modern gaming jargon and slang. At the start, the game presents a premise where a female hostage is being kept at the top of a futuristic skyscraper by a robotic billionaire, and your mullet-clad police officer protagonist has to get to the top to save her. However, for "reasons," you only have ten seconds to clear every level of the tower, or else the hostage dies, which erases your current equipment and sends you back to the base of the building you are currently on. There are ways for you to increase and reset your timer, and at the end of every level, you can assess a randomized assortment of weapons and equipment that may or may not assist you in getting past your foes in the upcoming level. The best way to summarize Mullet Mad Jack is to describe it as a weird middle ground between the fast, run-based gameplay of Neon White and the visceral neon-drenched violent sensibilities of Hotline Miami.
What's in the demo?
The demo provides an early build of equipment and buffs, which the developer continues to expand upon, and an infinitely resetting set of towers. Like another game that took off during Next Fest, Balatro, the demo provides enough tools to get the conceit of its combat and determine which build paths you want to prioritize. As the end-of-level vending machines are randomized, you can't hold out for identical builds or strategies. Nevertheless, you can figure out the game's basics, like if you want to specialize your characters for melee or gun-based builds. Similar to Neon White and Hotline Miami, there's an almost rhythm game-like sense to Mullet Mad Jack, where you can get a feel for levels based on the placement of enemies. However, is it appropriate for Mullet Mad Jack to include roguelike hard resetting? For Neon White and Hotline Miami, you can reset the level and try something different when you meet an untimely demise after testing a new strategy. With Mullet Mad Jack, failure resets everything, and that's a bit brutal. For example, after comfortably blasting past enemies with a pistol and eventually a submachine gun, I decided to give the katana and melee weapons a shot and almost immediately discovered that they were not my cup of tea. Unfortunately, I had to quickly scramble to the end of the level so I would not lose my progress and had to pray the next vending machine would spawn my previously favored weapons, which it did not.
Also, this game's tone and style will rub some people the wrong way, which is immediately apparent when you start your first run. The premise on why you need to beat levels within ten seconds stems from your character being a cop for hire that needs to placate social media netizens who are watching their robotic murder spree on the internet. The game, especially its edgy female narrator, leans into 90s internet and anime culture, and that might be too much for some of you reading this blog. While I enjoyed it at times, it's going to make those of you that dislike schlocky anime horseshit and games using gaming terms in an edgy manner want to eat out your eyeballs. Likewise, your screen becomes incomprehensible within seconds, and if you have a sensitivity for flashing lights or loud overlapping audio, there is no version of this game you can play. This game deliberately sets out to provide a video game experience with a neon-based dopamine rush and makes no apologies. There's so much shit on your screen any given second that I can only ever imagine playing this game in short thirty-minute to one-hour sessions at most.
As I said, this game is obnoxious and not for everyone.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
I enjoyed my time with Mullet Mad Jack, but I'm a homer for schlocky anime parodies and run-based games. Even then, this game is way too overwhelming with its sensory overload for me to recommend it without caveats. It is a visual tour de force, but it might be too much for some of you to take in, and I want to respect that. Also, are its roguelike trappings to its benefit? With each level so fleeting and having a punishing fail condition, you can't strategize and consider alternate options in any given seeding as freely as you'd like. Without even a single "Do Over," you can genuinely screw yourself over and have to start from scratch, which is never a great feeling. Even if you enjoy the experiential elements of roguelikes, something about this game feels "mean." Furthermore, it will be interesting to see how the game attempts to sustain itself, as when I completed the first tower, I did start to feel like I was getting my fill with the types of weapons and encounters the game was providing. I'll keep my eye out for how this game shapes up, as that's what your Steam Wishlist is for, but I'm still skeptical.
Balatro
When you make a play in Balatro and it works perfectly, it feels incredible!
What is it?
It's the viral sensation of February 2024's Steam Next Fest!Balatro is a poker roguelike with a variety of ways in which you can modify your standard deck of playing cards. The game's scoring system is also a mix of traditional poker and Yahtzee. You need to create a suit or assortment of Poker-based hands but can re-deal cards that you don't want a limited number of times in hopes of getting more points. Your score is determined by the value of cards in the hand you played, depending on their rank. Your score is also influenced by a multiplier, which depends on your non-deck buffs, which usually come from Joker cards, and the card modifications in your hand. The Joker cards, buffs, and deck improvements are unlocked at a shop you can access at the end of a successful round. Some cards will modify your core playing deck, and you can also buff individual cards. Every three rounds, a boss encounter limits what you can do or how you can typically accrue points to meet the game's blinds for every round.
What's in the demo?
The demo provides an assortment of Joker cards and boss blind types that have since grown with the game's official release. Likewise, the demo caps out at five levels. Nonetheless, this demo provides a spectacular exhibition of what this game is like and if its gameplay is your kind of card-base tomfoolery. Despite the simplicity of its premise, Balatro has a surprising amount of depth. Your gut reaction at the start might be to always look for the highest possible poker hand you can assemble, but with the planet cards that increase the levels of your possible playing hands, you can invert those expectations. There were ways for me to wrack up thousands of points, simply by playing hands with one high card and other times when a three-of-a-kind drew a higher score than a four-of-a-kind or flush. The Joker cards are also a trip with some completely changing how you approach seeds or rounds. Sometimes, you play nothing but flushes or straights, as you have Joker-based or Celestial card buffs where that's your strategy. Other times, you might care less about your type of hand and instead worry about buying Tarot cards or more Jokers to boost your hand multiplier.
If there is one cause for concern with the demo, it is that it is slightly unbalanced and cuts out some of the final game's dynamism. The full version of the game has retooled the cost of certain card types and vouchers, which is greatly appreciated. Likewise, the deck types you can use in the demo could have done a better job of highlighting how much of an impact that mechanic has on your starting strategies. I almost wish one of the wackier starting decks were included in the demo so more people understood how crazy this game can get. Another shortcoming of the demo stems from it showcasing some of the more annoying boss blinds. Nonetheless, the game does a lot with a little. The CRT-like filter and simple fire effect that plays when you submit a high score dealing hand go a long way in making your brain receptors happy. Furthermore, even when you lose, you can copy and paste the seed you lost against to try things again but attempt a different approach. That leads me to suspect that Balatro is a bit like FreeCell, wherein every hand has at least one possible victory condition; it is just a matter of you playing the right cards at the right time with the appropriate buffs.
Balatro is maybe the most dangerous game to release in 2024 due to how addictive it is.
Will I buy the full game when it comes out?
I ALREADY HAVE! Balatro is heroin. It is a card-based game that taps all of the synapses on the lizard portions of my brain. Balatro is very dangerous. The final version of the game has even more playstyles and decks for you to try out and daily seeded challenges reminiscent of Spelunky. There's so much in Balatro to keep you coming back; even when you lose, you often have at least something to show for your efforts. Whether trying out new Joker cards you've never played before or rolling the dice on Spectral Cards, which can fundamentally change your deck, even when you repeat seeds, there are plenty of ways to make each run a unique experience. I'm not a big fan of digital card games, but I love Balatro. After you've spent hours on something significant, it's a great palette cleanser game, but there's enough meat on its bones to play it as a standalone game. Despite the demo becoming a bit "dated" with the release of the completed game, it's still worth a shot to figure out if the Balatro rush works for you.
Author's Note: Warning! This blog contains MAJOR spoilers for Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo! If you have even the slightest interest in playing this game, play it first before continuing on with this essay.
It Bummed Me Out Seeing Paranormasight Get Zero Love During Every Single GOTY 2023 Discussion
This game definitely understands how to make a first impression that sticks.
We may be outside of the realm of GOTY discussions at this present juncture. Still, there are a couple of 2023 gaming-related experiences I wanted to share in writing before I fully transitioned into other video game blogging efforts. One of these involves my general disappointment with Wo Long and exhaustion with Team Ninja's inability to progress beyond the above-average bar they set with Nioh. This time, however, I'm talking about a game I helped strong-arm onto the #4 spot on the Giant Bomb Moderators' Top 10 Games of 2023 list, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. Paranormasight is a game I wasn't too surprised to see not get mainstream attention from the gaming press during 2023's GOTY content maelstrom. Still, its absence in any awards talk speaks to the incredibly high barrier for visual novels to meet to get even the slightest traction from gaming awards-bestowing circles. As a longstanding fan of the genre, it always seems like one visual novel per year is allowed the courtesy of getting massacred by venerable titans in the industry, and they always come from the Western indie scene, which I'm not trying to slander. The vast majority of those games deserve commendations and praise, but I cannot help but question if there is a massive bias AGAINST non-Western visual novels in the mainstream gaming press.
In 2024, the remake of Tsukihime will get a worldwide release, largely thanks to the explosion of popularity surrounding Type-Moon's fighting game efforts. Melty Blood: Type Lumina is the game that broke the dam in getting Melty Blood and French-Bread on the main stages of major fighting game event. It has been a true blessing for us Japanese visual novel fans. While a lot of people are willing to talk to me about the absurdity of Neco-Arc, most are entirely at a loss when I start rambling about what happens with the lives of Shiki Tohno or Arcueid in Tsukihime. Things are finally improving the world of Fate/stay night thanks to the announcement of an official worldwide release of the remaster of the first Fate/stay night visual novel. All of this preamble is to clarify that Paranormasight's localization genuinely warmed my heart. Seeing Square Enix go the distance to take a smaller-scale game and give it a quality translation with multiple platform releases to boot was a welcomed change of pace.
As I said in my 2023 GOTY blog, the cast of characters in this game are great!
A wise person once said that beggars can't be choosers, but it also helps that there's so much going in Paranormasight's favor, and I believe it got zero credit for it. First, with everyone buzzing about "vibes" in 2023, Paranormasight's utilization of filters and a CRT-like look entirely flew under the radar. The tomes of compellingly written character biographies, Japanese parables, and myths were great scene-setters and expertly crafted into the game's structure, like 2022 hype pieces, Signalis and Elden Ring. If you enjoyed reading text logs in Signalis or weapon descriptions for fun worldbuilding clues in Elden Ring, Paranormasight scratches those same itches. The ways Paranormasight deviated from the standard Japanese visual novel conventions by having you dynamically scan its foreground and background as it plays with your perspective feel like one of its MANY tactical responses to those that dismiss traditional visual novels as being silted slideshows. If anything, its high point, its prologue, is a massive Parthian Shot to those who might be expecting that from it.
Paranormasight Is One Of The Greatest Representations Of Bubble Economy Era Japan
I have always bristled against the fetishizing of Japan on the internet. I have to say; if I see one more person on this website opine about Iwata taking a pay cut in light of layoffs in the industry, I'm going to lose my shit. Congratulations on finding the one CEO to grace corporate Japan with somewhat of a heart for their employees, but don't think that they represent the norm. But even then, Iwata was entirely acting in lock-step with government regulations that make it incredibly difficult for massive corporations to cut staffing as they do in the United States and elsewhere, and mark my words if those were not in place, those Iwata quotes would be a lot less cute. You are a goddamn idiot if you think corporations and business culture in Japan are more civil or less corrupt than wherever you live. If you want any evidence, you should read up on the "Iron Triangle" that dominated Japan from the post-war era until the global recession. And let's not forget that Japan has a forest notoriously known as a place where burnt-out business people wander into to kill themselves. That's not a stunning indicator of Japanese corporate culture. Suppose you are wondering why I'm spending an entire paragraph on the incredibly shady underbelly of Japanese corporate culture and politics. The reason is that it's a topic Paranormasight addresses head-on and with incredible tact. Some of its characters are born into the power structures and points of corruption that exploded in Japan at the height of the 80s and 90s Bubble Economy.
It's weird to admit, but reading these character bios is way more compelling than it might seem.
Before anyone pushes back on me for penning what some may perceive as having a pro-American or Western bias, let me share one part of my life that I might not have made clear in the past. I am part Japanese. My mother is the daughter of a Japanese woman who was raised in Hiroshima before moving to Kamakura, narrowly avoiding the dropping of the atomic bombs, and eventually fell in love with an American soldier during the occupation and conceived of my mother and uncle in an American military base. She eventually immigrated to the United States, where she ultimately became a naturalized citizen, and, upon the premature death of my biological grandfather, she re-married a Japanese-American man who lived in the internment camps during World War II. I grew up and was born into traditional Japanese cultural norms, even though I was and still am a primarily white, cis-gendered male. I also butted against Japanese expectations of cultural hegemony and its strict adherence to hierarchy, both of which I think are not social or economic substrates to aspire towards.
Nonetheless, only some sources of Japanese-made media tackle the seedier elements of the Bubble Economy era of Japan's history outside of the Yakuza games. In the case of Paranormasight, it does a phenomenal job of underscoring parts of Japan that were caught in a vice in trying to embrace modernity while also trying to preserve its cultural roots. The game's backdrop, Sumida, Tokyo, is leaping into post-war industrialization in some parts and gasping for air in others. There's a fun part wherein you can visit a Japanese candy shop or Dagashiya, and the game and its characters make the point that small family-run stores are a dying breed and the real "next big things" are chain stores and vending machines. There's another quick moment when two characters mention bonding over a game of bowling, which, in-game and in the real world, exploded in popularity in the 80s as the new hip thing to do because it came from the West. These are friendly callbacks to those who remember the 80s and 90s and might recall the "big in Japan" phrase and how much Japan was obsessed with conforming to Western notions of hipness and style despite the opposite effect happening in the West. Nonetheless, as the Japan in Paranormasight attempts to automatize its factories, commercialize every facet of its retail sectors, and explore new avenues for corporate dominance, it pollutes the waters of its canals, fosters cutthroat business cultures, and permeates a milieu of resentment and nihilism. But it's all in the name of getting a leg up on the West, and that's all that matters, right?
Jokes about child labor are definitely not great, but it oddly fits the timeframe the game's attempting to emulate.
Many characters in Paranormasight dream of leaving the city they reside in and have called their home. To them, their home acts like a jail, and it has existed for generations. Once you go beyond the surface with characters like Harue Shigima and Tetsuo Tsutsumi, you recognize that the worst elements of the city, while empowered by the supernatural, are a reflection of a dog-eat-dog world wherein people get left behind and desperately look for quick fixes to change that. The filth and grime that echo in the background quickly reveal itself to be a profoundly corrupting force, but one that rewards just enough for most to keep going, which makes the world of Paranormasight all the more open-minded to the supernatural. People want to wish away problems instead of facing them, and every character you meet has at least one issue they wish they could make disappear at the drop of a hat. You know they have baggage, even worse when you discover what they are hiding; some characters are monsters, even worse than the supernatural spirits they control.
Paranormasight's Prologue Is INCREDIBLE And A Best Moment/Sequence Of 2023 Candidate!
When discussing games that make a great first impression in 2023, Paranormasight is at the top of that list. When you take control of your first playable character, Shogo Okiie, you find them entertaining a woman they are attempting to romance. The woman in question is named Yoko Fukunaga, and she claims to be investigating ghosts, spirits, and a legend associated with bringing back the dead. During a night-time investigative effort, the two end up clashing with spiritual forces that your protagonist has doubted for almost the entirety of the game up to that point. Shogo can thwart what he initially suspects is an attempt by one of these spirits to possess him, but he turns to discover that his female companion is dead. Upon making this shocking discovery, Shogo gets premonitions, allowing him to capture souls and go on a murderous rampage. The premonitions reward him with a relic that will enable him to curse those who turn away from him, which allows him to collect souls from those he can curse and kill. He connects these to the "Rite of Ressurection," a legend he only recently learned about from his now-dead love interest. His desire to return to the past becomes an obsession; our friendly corporate salaryman becomes a cold-blooded killer, but he doesn't make the connection about the impacts of his actions having dire and dark implications. It's almost like he thinks he's thrust into a fictitious fantasy television show or video game.
Time to go on a reckless murderous rampage.
Scanning your surroundings, you notice a mysterious business-attire-wearing gentleman who locks Shogo into the first of many mental chess matches. If Shogo wants to bring his romantic interest back to life, this man must die, but for that to happen, you must engage with dialogue choices and puzzles that cause them to break their guard and allow you to accomplish your monstrous goal. It doesn't help that the people who inhabit the streets of Sumida at night seem to be more knowledgeable of the forces at play than you. The guard that demands that you surrender your relic understands what these objects can be used for and the myths and legends surrounding them. Worse, they know that you have limits to your ability to curse people, and as you attempt to cue them into your quirk, they are in progress in opting you into theirs. The dialogue is a mixture of a timed mission and a puzzle where you need to apply authentic intuition. After you find the correct prompts and cues to convince this lone figure to turn away from Shogo, you off them and absorb their soul into the ghostly vessel that beckoned to Shogo moments ago. With one use of Shogo's curse under your belt, it is time to become an unconditional serial killer. As I said before, Shogo still believes he's in the right as it is all in the name of him bringing someone he cherishes back to life, despite his actions very clearly resulting in further misery and death to others.
The style in this game just oozes character even if what you're looking at is incredibly basic.
The stakes ratchet up after this "trial run." With his goal all but crystalized, Shogo begins exploring his surroundings, hoping to find other "Curse Bearers" under the belief that cursing them will reward more soul dregs. The game becomes an open-ended adventure wherein you can encounter other characters however you see fit, albeit within limits. In execution, the prologue opts you into more one-on-one mental chess matches AND introduces characters that will persist beyond the game's prologue. The first time you run into Harue Shigima, she lays out her cards and immediately tells you that if you don't give her your relic, she's torching your ass, and she is being literal. For most of you, your failure to figure out what is allowing her to murder Shogo forces you to pick up on subtle context clues on what her curse might involve and what exactly you are doing to enact it. The real highlight comes when you encounter a shitty young adult whose curse involves you listening to a song before you are crushed to death. When you figure out that his curse only works when you can hear the game's audio, the solution involves going into the game's menu and revising the game's sound settings to 0. The game plays around with the fourth wall, thanks to its highly active omnipotent narrator that interjects whenever your playable characters meet an untimely demise, but authentically tying the game's basics into a puzzle skyrockets it well above most games that break the fourth wall with a wink or nod to the camera before moving on being the standard.
This is still one of my favorite puzzles from 2023.
Watching a typical salaryman become a murderer without connecting the dots is one thing, but what ramps Paranormasight's opening salvo to where I think it deserves more recognition for having a "Best Moment" candidate comes in how this all concludes. After laying waste to what feels like at least a dozen innocent civilians, Shogo's attempts at resurrection don't pan out as they hope. Furthermore, upon exploring an alternate route wherein they don't perform a ritual that ends up resulting in Yoko dying, the game cuts to dawn to show Shogo dead in the streets of a park. The person we thought would be our primary protagonist has been thwarted off-camera and likely by a different Curse Bearer. One mystery transitions to another, and the moment you see Shogo's storyline shut off on the game's hub world, only to make way for three new characters, two of which you just moments ago MURDERED, is such an effective use of the omnibus format that seems ingrained in the visual novel genre. Paranormasight is not the first game that offs the character it put front and center on its box art in its first act, nor will it be the last. Nonetheless, it is such an efficacious use of the Psycho plot twist you cannot help but applaud it. Leaving no stone unturned results in some wild and wacky non-canonical routes, but that's standard with the genre, and Paranormasight playing into that is one of its greatest strengths.
Yes, The Game Loses Its Tempo In The Middle, But The Characters Carry It!
Paranomrasight has often been criticized for being a top-heavy game. After making a phenomenal first impression, it slows its pace to introduce a flurry of playable characters, some of which work better than others. The game's second act completely removes the cursing gameplay element in favor of a more traditional visual novel structure. Outside of clicking on items in the foreground and background, most interactivity stems from placing characters in the right place at the right time and selecting dialogue prompts that opt you into new story branches and environments. There's no doubt that this is a rude awakening to those with qualms with the slideshow nature of visual novels, but there's more to Paranormasight than you may think. Nonetheless, I agree with the general sentiment that the game spends more time than necessary setting up its story and a cavalcade of plot twists with each main character. The number of fetch quests you complete with Yakko Sakazaki and Mio Kurosuzu is unconscionable.
Needing to parse through logic puzzles and dialogue prompts isn't as compelling as cursing people, but it's still a ride worth seeing.
Yet, there's once again more to Paranormasight than meets the eye. During my GOTY review, I mentioned being nonplussed by Stray Gods and disappointed with how inconsequential most of your choices feel. Worse than needing to stomach professional voice actors' strain under the demands of their singing responsibilities is how little a majority of your decision-making impacts the routes you get throttled toward. Someone off-site challenged me to consider that this issue also bedevils Paranormasight. And as I said to them, and will say here, Paranormasight makes good on presenting you as a participant in an investigation and making you interact with natural investigative gameplay hooks along the way. My absolute favorite comes in the handful of times when you reach deal ends in the storyline and need to reposition characters into matching backdrops in the correct timeline to unlock new paths in the game's branching storyline. Additionally, how Paranormasight surfaces its dozens of possible routes and conclusions is way more transparent and narratively honest than anything Stray Gods does. You can explore secret endings whenever you'd like and without fear of needing to restart a playthrough. In fact, the game outright encourages you to try different dialogue options and tutorials you on the importance of save scumming. It all causes you to feel like you are making an in-game detective board with the game's characters.
While it sounds a bit like a cop-out, Paranormasight needs its quieter second act so its characters can better inhabit its stage. Larger-than-life characters like Richter Kai don't get to be memorable goofballs if you are sweating over whether or not you should use your curse on a person you are interviewing. And for as much as I loved trying to get characters to flinch so I could off them and get closer to the game's next phase, there's no doubt that if that persisted for even an hour longer, Paranormasight would be too high-stakes and high-strung for most to stomach. Finally, the city and the myths that dominate the underpinning of the story need time to breathe, and that's what the second act does masterfully. You can watch character profiles and encyclopedia articles dynamically transform depending on the information you collect from your in-game prompting as you scour backgrounds and press people on every possible line of questioning. If you speed through character interactions and skip non-story critical choices, you'll miss out on codex entries that put peak BioWare to shame.
I love love love love how the game's overworld is a detective board and how you need to move characters on it.
But WAIT, The Game's Conclusion Is Also a Best Moment/Sequence Of 2023 Candidate!
However, quibbles with the game's middle act slowing to a crawl aside, when the narrative kicks into high gear during its last two movements, it definitively silences its critics. Not only does the game get more explicit about its blend of the supernatural with a gritty detective serial format, but it also lays out the cards to its heart. As you progress with the characters that populate the lion's share of the game's story, you explore a handful of ancillary narrative conclusions and what initially appears to be the game's canonical ending. In this route, the veteran detective Tetsuo Tsutsumi resolves his investigation involving a mass murder threat as well as his unresolved trauma with his estranged daughter. Doing so comes at the cost of his life, and as you walk away from an incredibly poignant monologue about his love for his daughter, you find yourself briefly exploring the game through the lens of his partner and a teenage mystic. However, as they set off to resolve the last niggling unresolved plot threads, Yoko, Shogo's crush from the beginning of the game, returns and reveals that she was the master puppeteer of the curses coming into existence as she is a distant descendant of their source from the Edo period of Japan. She murders both of your remaining characters before it is implied that she continues with a master plan that results in countless deaths.
Next is a desperate effort from you, the player, to see if there is any way to avoid this conclusion. There is an element of frustration here as the game only works in vagaries about where to start, and I don't want to sound as if I am equivocating that this is excellent game design; it isn't. Still, it is "trope appropriate" as it echoes a prevalent template regarding how you commonly find "true endings" in Japanese visual novels. And in the grand scheme of things, I think for as much people complain about how "cheap" this feels in Paranormasight, it works in practice. The "solution" to preventing the actual evil forces from reigning supreme is to dart back to the opening moments of the game's prologue and, after the death of Yoko, refuse to initiate the tutorial battle with the businessman. Instead, you must find a bright lantern-like spirit and jump into a portal. Here, the game's narrator returns and prompts you through a series of questions about who you are and what name you identify with.
The secret MVP of this game is the narrator.
If you remember what you clued into the game at the start, the narrator reveals that you weren't just viewing things through the lens of the characters. Instead, all those times the game played with the fourth wall were your hint that you were more than a cipher for the character's actions. The clicking and dialogue parsing that we completed for the colorful cast were us occupying the role of a different essence, the one prophesized to break the city of Sumida from its cycle of misery. This spirit once fought the evil priestess and Yoko's ancestor centuries ago. The game's narrator says that the proper "solution" for avoiding the tragedy you have witnessed is for you to shut down the spiritual element of Sumida and force the characters to realize there are no easy outs: coming to terms with death, grief, and trauma must be solved in the real world and without the help of legends of resurrection or spooky ghosts. This relief comes through hard work, wading through deeply uncomfortable life experiences, and working with those you trust. And then you watch as characters that previously sought comfort through the supernatural need to go through real-world coping strategies and work in the realm of reality in their attempts to get the conclusions they feel they are entitled to. While these end-notes are far less dramatic and fanciful, everyone is happier than when they resorted to myths and legends.
And before any of you claim that I'm making a leap with my blog...This game just outright spells out its premise and ultimate reason for being at the end.
The epilogue of Paranormasight makes so many incredible points about the topic of grief and how best to attain the truth. You watch as the characters come to terms with despair, regret, and trauma through coping strategies and truth-finding efforts; they do not turn to the supernatural outside of one exception. When they break down emotionally during this sequence, it feels cathartic instead of melancholic or tragic. The two schoolgirls wanting to bring their friend back from the dead immediately recognize that they still want to find the truth behind her demise, but she will remain dead, and they have to live with that. Likewise, the mother whose son was brutally murdered, at no fault of their own, earns her emotional resolution about the facts of what happened through working with others and understanding that the truth is sometimes upsetting. There's something magical about seeing characters that often act in flamboyant and animated ways finally become comfortable in their skin and about where they can go in the future. It's an uneasy and simultaneously relatable feeling.
Paranormasight Is A Great Case Study On Square Enix's Relationship With Small And Mid-Tier Developers, But They Have To AND MUST Do Better
So, for the handful of you who have yet to give Paranormasight a shot and willingly spoiled some significant aspects of the game's story by reading this blog, I hope you try it. Even if you go into it knowing where it ends up, there are a ton of compelling storylines in between that make exploring this game worthwhile. It is a true buried treasure that acts as an incredible mid-tier game in Square Enix's portfolio, which has had a relatively mixed record with games of this scale. On the one hand, you have quality titles like Paranormasight and Little Goody Two Shoes; on the other hand, you have The Quiet Man. With Paranormasight, there's no doubt that Square Enix deserves credit for helping the game clear development hurdles to get released on mainstream platforms outside of Japan with a high-quality localization in multiple non-Japanese languages. And huge props to the hundreds of Q&A personnel they added to the mix to iron out issues. Nonetheless, there's no doubt that it feels like Square Enix sent this game out to pasture and put in the least amount of effort to get this game any positive attention.
Getting to see characters be the best versions of themselves is a fantastic end-note.
Unfortunately, this problem is familiar to Square Enix fans, especially regarding their endeavors in the visual novel arena. In 2022, Square Enix played a massive role in localizing The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, which was an underrated gem the year it came out that Square did ZERO work bringing attention to. For pity's sake, they did a better job getting people to check out Various Daylife, a venerable piece of refuse, instead of The Centennial Case. The game was an amazingly compelling mix of FMV and traditional visual novel trappings, and despite all of that being very much in vogue thanks to Sam Barlow and the indie adventure game scene, Square Enix almost released the game in a manner that felt like it wanted to set it up for failure. That's even though The Centennial Case has a Playstation 4 & 5 release, something Paranormasight continues to lack, which sucks, by the way! For whatever reason, Paranormasight remains stuck on the Switch if you want to play it on a console. Likewise, Square Enix has traditionally not been the most voracious supporter of Game Pass, but both Paranormasight and The Centennial Case make so much sense on Game Pass.
I'm not going to sit here and claim that Paranormasight could have taken on Tears of the Kingdom, Alan Wake II, or Baldur's Gate 3. Nonetheless, this game and many others deserved much better than what they got from Square Enix. The company's CEO said they want to make its portfolio more diverse and less reliant on IPs "like the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy franchises." It's a hilarious notion, considering this is the same company that just a few years ago let IO Interactive walk for free and sold Edios for pennies after decades of mismanagement. Regardless, if Square Enix's leadership is being serious when it says that it views the virality of Powerwash Simulator as a possible direction for the company, becoming the point man in bringing high-concept and art-house Japanese visual novels to the rest of the world seems like a good bet. There's a growing and healthy audience, regardless of whether you factor in the meme games that always take the internet by storm. Still, the explosion of the PC indie scene and ubiquity of self-publishing have made the genre far more mainstream than where things were not three to five years ago. I know I am in an armchair right now, but it honestly feels like there's a prime opportunity here for Square Enix that they are sleeping on, and I know I'm not the only person who feels this way.
This is still one of my favorite visual novel tropes. 2 Comments
Author's Note: This is PART TWO of a two part series in which I discuss the new and old games, as well as anime, TV shows, and feats of athletics that I enjoyed in 2023. Please read the first episode if and when you have the time, but don't feel like there's a specific order.
There are minor spoilers here and there and feel free to share what your picks for some of my categories would be in the comments!
The Flat Out Worst Game I Played In 2023 - A.D. 2044
One of the absolute worst looking games I have played in my life.
In the previous blog, I tried to avoid repeating what I stated in greater detail on the site before the GOTY season rolled around. In the case of A.D. 2044, I'll make an exception because this contemptible work of video game entertainment deserves every bit of the dressing down I give whenever I think or talk about it. A.D. 2044 is a remake of an Atari S.T. game that is an homage to a popular 1980s Polish science-fiction film that envisions a post-apocalyptic world wherein all the men of Earth, outside of a few, have died and women are running the world. As you might expect, according to the film and the games that follow in its footsteps, without the moderating mindsets of men, women, upon gaining the ability to command armies, install a totalitarian state that hunts and kills the few remaining men left on the planet. In the case of A.D. 2044, the game also features a sophomoric sense of humor and fembots that run around in leotards. Outside of the time I accidentally played a game by someone who committed a murder-suicide, playing an anti-women manifesto is maybe one of my biggest gaming regrets for the sake of blogging on this site.
Not only is the game morally reprehensible, but it is butt-ass ugly, as well as zero goddamn fun to play. Most of the environments are the same dull and grey industrial corridors with a few color changes here and there. The vast majority of the puzzles are needle in the haystack affairs. Every single central environment or screen has you turning to find or move into obscure positions to click on smudgy or monotonous masses of 3D textures to pick up and then use on levers or padlocks that repeat the same Myst-clone rigamarole that was already tiresome by the time this game came out. Of the countless Myst-clones I have played, A.D. 2044 is among the worst, even if it is not the most arbitrary or challenging game in this crease. Nonetheless, the game does stand as an ethically dubious affair that repulses whenever it tries to make a point about why militant feminism poses this existential threat that needs to be fought alongside real threats to democracy like fascism. It's just an all-around drizzly shit of a game.
Oh, you don't say?!
Runner-up: Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo - Like A.D. 2044; while I have said my piece about Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo, I'm happy to give this game shit as it rightfully deserves it. Pendulo's best works are likely behind them as they appear to be stuck making tie-ins after they formed a partnership with fellow European game developer Microids. After taking some pretty big creative swings with The Next Big Thing and Yesterday, they seem stuck in mid-tier game development Hell, with their 2023 Tintin game doing almost NOTHING to improve their fortunes. With Vertigo, they not only sullied one of the greatest films ever made but also repeated several harmful and despicable tropes related to mental health and therapy. The primary character is a psychologist who seems to violate doctor-patient confidentiality rules at the drop of a hat, and the game's primary antagonist is one of the worst-written characters I witnessed in all of 2023. The game's ending brings up the dark specter of child sex abuse, without warning, as a cheap stinger. It goes without saying: do not play this game!
The Empty Calorie Thing I Saw Through To The End In 2023 - Anthem
Yes, that Green Goblin-like abomination is me. Yes, your custom armor can ruin every single cutscene in this game.
In approximately one month from the posting of this blog, Anthem is set to do something many online multiplayer shooters or games as a service (i.e., GaaS) dream of: it's about to celebrate its fifth anniversary. Oddly, one of Bioware's most significant missteps is moments away from crossing a threshold few in the industry accomplish, but here we are! Many people have subscribed to a popular fan theory that the game was forced upon Bioware by EA in an attempt to jump in on the growing popularity of Destiny and Ubisoft's online shooters. Still, upon doing some basic research, I discovered that not to be the case. The painful truth is that Anthem is a game Bioware spearheaded on its prerogative. It did so at the cost of burning out many of its veteran staff, hindering surrounding game projects, and plummeting its reputation. Despite being one of the most painful examples of a legendary developer operating outside of their element in recent memory, Bioware made this Anthem bed, and they will forever need to lie in it. While they continue to speak of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf as this self-righting project, Anthem represents a proverbial nail in the coffin of the old BioWare many of us grew up with. With massive layoffs impacting the company in 2023 that gutted it of the few remaining figureheads that had name recognition, BioWare is listing into irrelevancy and possibly encountering the same fate as Origin Systems, Bullfrog, Westwood, and Pandemic as it faces the ravenous EA maw.
Anthem today is an oddity. I played the game's entire story and was utterly flummoxed. The game is still an impressive visual tour de force with luscious forests and equally impressive climactic changes between its regions. The mech suits have some remarkable abilities, and flying remains its best feature, as it bestows a sense of freedom that has yet to be emulated. The game also addresses common issues with Mass Effect Andromeda in that you can tell BioWare shelled out heaps of cash to do Hollywood-level motion capturing with all of its significant characters and voice-acting talent. And yet, the game feels so incredibly vapid and dull. Playing the game last year was a brutal reminder that it barely got off the runway as the story ends on a MASSIVE cliffhanger, and several character introductions remain unresolved. Likewise, with the game never getting the proper roadmap that BioWare was hoping for, the end result now is a game that only partially completes what feels like a prologue as it spends hours upon hours of its time droning about lore and worldbuilding that you ultimately know is never going anywhere. And worse, the game still hits you with traditional always-online multiplayer shooter feedback loops! I logged into the game and was greeted by it rotating through the same calendar its dev team implemented before they were relocated to Dreadwolf. I saw its Halloween event trigger, but the in-game email announcing it dated back to 2022! I could have shelled out hard cash for in-game currency. Yet, with the story incomplete, the elite armor sets and weapons are only worth investing in if I wanted to play the PvP modes, which, based on my observations, topped out between sixty to one hundred-ish people on a good night! The sixty hours I invested in Anthem were visually pleasing and sometimes fun, but there's no denying how empty I felt when I did reach what currently stands as the game's "end."
For those of you on a reality television diet, I envy you.
Runner-up: The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist - For those above eighteen who have been around the block, the cat is out of the bag for reality television. It's almost entirely bullshit, and yet, many of us cannot help but continue to come back to it even after being presented with tomes of proof that what we are watching errs on intellectual dishonesty. With MTV's The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist, I saw some within the art community share that it was a largely inspirational piece about empowering people of color and minorities in the art space within the guise of a reality television program. While I cannot entirely refute that, with the show still engaging in chicanery and reality television editing to dupe you into believing in manufactured drama, I couldn't help but lop this attempt to draw attention to the plight of independent artists in modern society in the same boat as everything else produced by MTV these days. If the network and this show cared about fostering change in the art world, it would entirely drop the player elimination aspect. Instead, it commits the same foul as The Biggest Loser in trying to tap into the Survivor crowd.
The Most "Fans Of The Genre Will Enjoy This" Thing - Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
Okay... before you get your pitchforks out, hear me out on this one.
Some of you reading this blog right now are possibly moments away from saying that you put Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty on your personal GOTY 2023 list. Look, that's fine, but it speaks VOLUMES about how fast this game's stock fell when Lies of P came out, especially among the enthusiast press and Soulslike fans. Despite Wo Long's massive marketing push at the start of 2023 to coincide with its release, the game came and went. Sure, it made some exciting improvements to the smithing mechanic that Team Ninja has been attempting to make not an entirely worthless system after three bites at the apple (i.e., Nioh, Nioh 2, and Final Fantasy Origins), but that is one of the few exceptions to a general feeling that Wo Long is nothing more than "diet Nioh." Yes, I might be underselling the morale system, which is a godsend to those who want to see accurate difficulty ratings before jumping into bosses in Souls games. That said, besides a handful of quality-of-life improvements to a subgenre that already feels "solved" at this point, Wo Long doesn't do much else to differentiate itself in an incredibly crowded field.
Worse, Wo Long is another reminder of Team Ninja's bad habits that people have been hounding them for since Nioh 1. Yet again, they didn't adequately solve their issues of loot scarcity and how often their Soulslikes give you a bunch of bullshit. This problem is a carryover from the first Nioh and was in its most potent form in Final Fantasy Origin. Nonetheless, it still exists in Wo Long, and I hate it! Team Ninja's environments and background work are getting better, but there's something to be said about how dead the world of Wo Long feels compared to Elden Ring, which is an unfair comparison, sure, but it also compares unfavorably to the teeming metropolis of Lies of P. Despite the game presenting this massive world with a heavily advertised ecosystem of demonic animals and corrupted Chinese mythological figures, Team Ninja's understanding of writing narratives still falls into a "Needs Improvement" grade. There are a lot of big honking dragons that billow at you about blights plaguing the world, but even the larger-than-life figures feel like afterthoughts. With Elden Ring and Lies of P under my belt, Soulslikes need to do more than just have cool boss designs to keep me intellectually interested. Likewise, Team Ninja's post-game DLC for Wo Long is another series of grind-heavy challenges that lead to surface-level narrative-related clarifications. I think Team Ninja is at the lowest rungs of the Soulslike studio tier list regarding worthwhile and fun post-game content and DLC.
Samuel L. Jackson is as exhausted and tired in this show as I am thinking about even more Marvel movies and shows.
Runner-up: Secret Invasion (Season 1) - It's still amazing to see Disney be convinced that everyday people care about how the world of their Marvel cinematic universe works. Secret Invasion is not the only work in 2023 that attempts to peel back the veneer of big and epic superhero fights to show how the Marvel cinematic world works between major set pieces, but it might be the one that felt the most pointless. Despite it managing to pull Samuel L. Jackson back into the fold, who at this point is phoning it in and performing his Nick Fury role for a paycheck, I have reached the point where I do not care about anyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a show with its moments. Still, I barely care about the marquee Marvel movies, so the idea of investing hours into following side dish-like characters after eating a steak dinner has zero sway with me. If you like the direction Marvel is lurching towards, I have no doubt you can have some fun with this show, but for the rest of you, including myself, I think we have reached the point where we just plug our ears whenever we see a new trailer or commercial for a new movie or TV show in the modern Marvel universe.
Worst Anime of 2023 - KamiKatsu: Working for God in a Godless World
Don't adjust your screens! This is an actual 3D CG monster from 2023!
I'll admit that I only watched KamiKatsu after the internet denounced the show for its highly dubious CG work. And you know what? Anime Twitter was right for once! The CG in the anime adaptation of KamiKatsu is downright atrocious! Not since the Berserk 2016 series have I seen such terrible 3D animation pass muster in a mainstream, widely aired release. However, KamiKatsu is my pick for "worst anime of 2023," not entirely because it has rough production values and questionable 3D textures, though they help my case. It's also one of the worst edited animes I have seen in a long while, with its framing sometimes completely ruining the setup and execution of its gags and jokes. There are action sequences, and between the CG models and flat backgrounds, everything looks like shit. The fights are primarily blurry brown and grey sword fights against horned abominations or masses of tentacles that wouldn't even make the grade for episodes of Reboot circa 1998.
Maybe you're not going into KamiKatsu for its action sequences, which its animators know were bad; hence, they resolve in seconds. If that's the case, that leaves you with its edge lord sense of humor that largely seems tailor-made for people who have been opining for a humorous take on The Rising of the Shield Hero. With the manga and show revolving around an isekai protagonist attempting to force people into his sex cult for funsies, some real groan-inducing moments make KamiKatsu not for the faint of heart, as well as those with a properly adjusted moral barometer. One of the few jokes the show remains committed to throughout every episode is how one of the protagonist's allies is a pedophile who wants to have sex with a child-like-looking character. Yes, that character states they are a hundred-year-old goddess trapped in the body of a child, but Jesus Christ, how is this still a trope that will not die?! There's also an episode where the protagonist's party needs to shut down a competing sex cult, and they do so by having the white-shirt-wearing Soy Boy of a protagonist whip out their dick, censored for obvious reasons, which then results in several of the opposing cult's female members orgasming at the mere sight of it. Oh, and the lead priestess of this evil sex cult tries to fight the protagonist and, upon being defeated, orgasms and leaves a visible puddle on the floor. I have seen far worse animes, but no show quite captures the late 00s anime deluge of shitty and cheaply made manga tie-in shows that littered the shelves of mall-based Suncoast stores quite like KamiKatsu.
Something is VERY WRONG with the proportions even in this screenshot! Look at the bench and compare it to the size of the girl and dude!
Runner-up: A Girl & Her Guard Dog - I fault myself for giving A Girl & Her Guard Dog even two episodes worth of my time. The anime adapts a manga with an absolutely abhorrent premise with highly questionable implications. For those wondering, A Girl & Her Guard Dog follows an adult male, Keiya, who is in his twenties and fakes his age to attend high school so he can lord over his teenage lover, whom he has raised since she was a baby. It's one of the creepiest age-gap romance animes ever produced. Nonetheless, when I saw some screenshots of the show pulled out of context, and animated clips from it posted to social media, I knew I had to see at least a few episodes to confirm they were not faked. And boy, did I damn near piss my pants when I got five minutes into the first episode and immediately saw the characters deform and become off-model in the opening goddamn scene! In every animated sequence in this show, the animators either forgot to make model sheets for the characters, or everyone on the team had a different reference book with entirely unique proportions. Even during the first episode, you can observe people at the front and center of the screen warping and wobbling into different sizes and shapes as if you are watching something by Hanna-Barbera from the 1970s. It's amazing! To see a modern anime in 2023 make such a rookie mistake that you could only get away with during the Saturday morning cartoon boom is astounding.
Best Thing That Is More Than Its Memes - Lethal Company
DANCE FOR THE COMPANY OR BE JETTISONED INTO SPACE!
Lethal Company is one of the most inspiring games to come out in 2023. Not only was the game almost entirely a one-person outing, but its primary developer had no professional training in game development. Finding out that the lead designer for Lethal Company was a twenty-year-old whose only background with making games was playing around with stuff in Roblox leaves me convinced that we are entering into a new era of self-published works and that the indie game sphere will be fine until the heat death of the universe. Honestly, the kids are all right! However, some of its impressive horror designs are lost in the mix of the game becoming a meme magnet. Lethal Company's location-oriented sound design is genuinely remarkable, with people you are playing with echoing or fading in and out depending on your location in all of its environments. The game's core risk-reward gameplay hook is fun and rewarding, with you needing to opt into cooperative bargaining and strategizing with your partners.
How long will this meme factory last? Honestly, I don't care. I paid less than $10 to give in to pressure from friends to play it with them, and in less than five hours, I feel confident in saying I got my money's worth. Furthermore, with the game introducing new maps, enemies, and concepts reasonably regularly, it's something I plan to continue to return to in the coming years. The endless hilarity of screaming for a friend, only to pivot to face one of the game's many monsters, which proceeds to off you in seconds, is one of the most common things you see about Lethal Company on social media. However, it's not an experience exclusive to big-time streamers or the staff of a gaming site like Giant Bomb. It happens every time you play Lethal Company. Even when the rotation of maps you experience starts to feel rote or repetitious, the game has so many tools in its toolbox to ensure no scavenging effort is the same. And even if the game is far from the most complex or prettiest title I played in 2023, it is the one that always managed to make me chuckle like a maniac.
All rise to pay respects to a modern anime/manga meme titan!
Runner-Up: Vinland Saga (Season 2) - It was only a matter of time before the Vinland Saga anime would get to the famous "I Have No Enemies" scene, and in 2023 it finally happened! Yet, while seeing this iconic moment fully animated revived one of the most well-known memes from the Vinland Saga manga, the show's second season was a highlight of 2023 in its own right. It magnificently adapted one of the manga's best story arcs (i.e., the Einar Slave Arc) with grace and style. Season two of Vinland Saga captures the barbarity and brutality of the manga in shocking and visceral detail. Once again, the show's willingness to depict the Vikings as bloodthirsty killers instead of neat guys with cool-looking armor and magical runes is its best part. Also, the anime changes how Einar becomes Thorfinn's friend, and the added details about who Einar is are a massive improvement over the manga. The characters are ultimately the same as in the manga, but with more humanizing moments to make them feel authentic, the show's season two conclusion feels all the more harrowing.
Worst Puzzle - Timelapse
I have debated doing a Mento-like feature on this site titled Myst-like May and decided against it for my mental health.
My "Quest For The Worst Adventure Game Puzzle" feature on this site sure did not go where I planned it to go. I had a pretty ambitious plan for what I wanted to cover in detail on the site, and then I got COVID and was beset with brain-fog-related writer's block for months, likely stemming from my illness. The only thing I could find the motivation to write about were short one-off topics instead of my forte covering Final Fantasy games in excruciating detail or point-and-click graphic adventure games. I'm not discounting an eventual return to form on my part when it comes to talking about adventure games. However, the feature likely needs a format change because I still worry that where I was eventually going with it was a guide that paraphrased puzzle solutions rather than discussing what makes them intuitive or not. Also, the games with the most potent puzzles worthy of my highest marks overwhelmingly come from poorly-made Myst clones from the late 90s to early 2000s. If my blog about Atlantis is any indication, no one wants to hear me moan about long slideshows with pixel-hunt-oriented contraption puzzles.
However, Timelapse has one puzzle that I should have covered on the site in some capacity. Despite some wacky FMV cutscenes that were a delight when I was not toiling away on bunk-ass Myst-like mechanics, it subjected me to what I would now brand as the "worst adventure game puzzle" I have encountered. The game challenges you to warp between several ancient civilizations to stop an alien race from destroying Earth, and one of your stopping points involves the Anasazi civilization. To unlock a story-critical path, the game tasks you with shooting an arrow between two stone pillars. This puzzle also requires you to find arrowheads strewn across the environment and attach them to sticks you need to track down elsewhere. However, there are three possible arrowheads to pick up, and they have non-communicated weights that you can only figure out through trial and error. Also, when you get to the screen wherein you need to shoot the arrow, the direction, and strength of the wind are randomly selected, and every permutation requires a specific arrowhead to be aimed and shot at an incredibly unforgiving and nonvisible hitbox. The arrowheads are expendable resources that you must repeatedly pick up after three uses. If you fail to figure out the position to shoot the arrow after your third attempt, you are back to step one of needing to scavenge for arrowheads, and to add insult to injury, the wind's direction and strength completely change for your next attempt. Every guide I checked advised players to pick one arrowhead variant and stick with it and, after that, to shoot directly in the middle of the screen and keep trying until the game reached the variant where that was the solution. I did that, and completing this puzzle took me about two hours. I'm not joking.
This and Starship Titanic feel like perfect blogging material for me, but just thinking about them exhausts me.
Runner-up: The Feeble Files - I have hinted that there are two "secret" scores for my adventure game puzzle series that I have yet to use. A puzzle can get a "0/10" if I think it is a technical achievement in the genre that rewards intuition, has logical or clever context clues, and avoids using cheap tricks to ramp up the difficulty. I have also stated that a puzzle can get an "11/10" if I fail to complete it naturally and resort to cheating. The Feeble Files, a game I don't know if I will ever cover on this site as I found it emotionally and physically exhausting, has a sequence wherein I had to cheat by pulling up the console command to get past it. To my defense, this is a relatively notorious part of the game wherein you need to play minigames until you get hundreds of tokens in an arcade. When the game launched, these minigames were so difficult that the developer had to release a save file for people to download that took place immediately after the arcade so that they could continue and complete the game. If you play The Feeble Files, you may have better luck at one of the worst versions of Mastermind I have ever seen, but I had zero patience for this part of the game and resorted to cheating, and I don't regret it for a minute.
Best Use Of FMV - Commander Blood
YOU TELL ME, DOES ALAN WAKE II HAVE FARSCAPE-LIKE PUPPETS?!
Yes, people are still impressed by Alan Wake II's use of FMV, but let me try to sell you on Commander Blood! First, Google "Commander Blood" and marvel at one of the most bizarre games from Cryo Interactive Entertainment. Cryo is a forgotten name among most non-European adventure game fans, but undoubtedly, they were one of the biggest names in the genre post-Myst. On top of that, they were far and beyond some of the most ambitious Myst-clone makers, what with them creating fully-rendered 3D environments, despite how hideous they may have been, at a time when that was not the norm. With Commander Blood, they decided to revive an old Atari ST adventure game they had made years prior. However, instead of doing another fully-rendered 3D Myst-clone, they had a go at making an FMV-oriented graphic adventure game, BUT instead of real-world actors,they used puppets. Yes. This gritty science-fiction game from 1994 by a bunch of French people who fell in love with Myst made Farscape five years before the first episode of Farscape aired! And before you ask, no, none of the puppets look good, but that's what makes this game so magical to watch in action.
The world of Commander Blood has no bearing on any other supporting media other than a tangential and fleeting connection to Cryo's Captain Blood game from 1988. Every puppet, whether it be the talking cockroach prostitute you meet in a Blade Runner-inspired red light district, is an original idea that a grown adult thought would be passable in a science fiction production. And the cheapness of this game's production values is the best part. There are talking fish-like creatures that are pom poms ripped from a cheerleader's gym bag. Some of the puppets have pipe cleaners for eyebrows, and Cryo doesn't even try in the slightest bit to hide this fact. The handful of characters that are 3D renders are equally bizarre, and the outside spaceship shots are obviously them shooting footage using a poorly made miniature. The lone real-world FMV-based character that joins you is a woman swimming underwater, and it is clear Cryo could only capture about thirty seconds of footage because her animation loops constantly whenever you talk to her. Alan Wake II, eat your heart out, and don't come to me until you have puppets!
The FMV actors in Gothos are SOMETHING!
Runner-up: Gothos - When newcomers to classic FMV adventure games check out works from the 90s, many are apt to suggest that titles like Phantasmagoria, Night Trap, Ripper, or Spycraft: The Great Game pilfered a Spirit Halloween store, despite not knowing these games invested millions into actors, props, and cameras. On the other hand, Gothos does deserve to be a game that brandishes that label because not only are all of its costumes of the lowest and most unconvincing quality, but the real-world actors are obviously the developers and their supporting friends and family members. Gothos is from a one-time game developer that I could not uncover much information about, which suggests this was a passion project from a small team, and this was their best shot. And trust me, you get the sense this is their best attempt at a video game because everyone acting in it plays it up to the best results imaginable. It's a sight to see, and I would implore you to see if some video evidence of this game's existence is out there.
Game I Most Enjoyed Playing As A Part Of Giant Bomb's Game Pass Game Club - Signalis
This game hits you with vibes and then takes a turn you are likely never going to forget.
Even though I have been a reliable voter in selecting new titles for the Game Pass Game Club, I deeply regret my inconsistency in participating in its threads when things take off after the voting ends. With this award, I hope that anyone reading this will attempt to track down at least one of the threads from the group they can find on the first page of the forums. It's a fun group that drives attention to big and small games available on Game Pass. Of the games I played as a member, Signalis was the most alluring highlight. Is it inappropriate to call Signalis a "vibes game" when it has so much going for it? While evocative of PS1-era horror games, the game's look has much more detail than most fifth-generation console game homages. Likewise, the act of playing the game, especially with how carefully crafted the ammo and resource drops are, feels much more tactical than anything you could encounter from the era that inspired it. Nonetheless, there's no denying that the game makes you wistful about works from over twenty years ago, and its conventions echo a nostalgic tone for a bygone era from beginning to end.
If Signalis were a 2023 title, it would be in the clear running for my "Best Moment or Sequence Award." The game's ultimate reveal about your character's girlfriend's intents and plans, as well as "The King In Yellow" moment, are true shockers that had me gobsmacked. Certainly, you go into it expecting to be surprised as it starts with very little context about what is holding its world together, and such story-related pivots are the norm and expectation with the genre. Nonetheless, with "The King In Yellow" moment in particular, I was taken aback at how literature-oriented Signalis was with its storytelling aspirations, making the effect of its big reveals more impactful. And HOT DAMN, when this game's story kicks into action, does it ramp things up both in-game and narratively. It is an incredibly lurid and dark journey that you navigate with the lead character, Elster, but it is an adventure that will undoubtedly stick with you.
Hit me with your best QWOP-like climbing action, France!
Runner-up: Jusant - I know I was in the minority about Jusant among the Game Pass Game Club group, but hear me out. The minimalist storytelling and sparse but ever-evolving environments lead to a highly enlightening experience in Jusant. I like the slow burn on the Apocalyptic setting and the fact the game gives you only some of the facts about its world and surroundings. Sure, there's some frustration to be had with the rock climbing-based gameplay, but that's to the story's benefit. It presents you with this ominous spire as a challenge, and sometimes you feel as exhausted with climbing parts of it as the game's protagonist. The story also wants you to buy into the idea that there is a relationship between the nameless protagonist and the wall of rock you climb, and for me, the controls, even if they are slightly QWOP-like, work to establish that.
ZombiePie's 2023 Ostrich Moment - Fire Emblem Engage
Oh, hey, a tactics game where the tactics part is in-depth and challenging? Who could have foreseen that one!
At its heart, my yearly "Ostrich Moment" award relates to a game that provoked an incredibly hostile reaction on my part to either the work in question OR the community surrounding it. As I have said, these works of art make me feel like a proverbial stubborn ostrich with its head stuck in the sand. In a rare turn of events, Fire Emblem Engage is an example of a "reverse ostrich moment" for me in that my opinion of it is greater than that of fans of the series and the media circuit that covered it. Engage makes notable improvements from Three Houses and is a better overall tactics game than it by a wide margin. It has far more mission types and shakes up the map layouts from previous Fire Emblem games, which became an annoyance in Three Houses due to the frequency with which you needed to grind to make any nominal story-related progress without feeling like shit. The stealth missions are highly creative and engaging, and mission objectives finally incentivize more than two possible playstyles. I also appreciated Engage being something that does not entirely require multiple playthroughs to get the broad vinegar strokes of its narrative. Overall, I think it respects your time much more than the last three Fire Emblem games that preceded it.
And here's my real "ostrich moment" about Engage that I feel incredibly passionate about. Engage devolving into anime nonsense with its story isn't a big deal, despite that being the most common complaint directed at it. Three Houses was anime-ass nonsense, and I don't think Engage does anything as dumb as the "True Ending" path tomfoolery Nintendo did in Fire Emblem Fates. Three Houses has some fun and memorable characters, but its core story isn't especially great, nor does it fully deviate from the often fuzzy-mitten norms of the modern games in the franchise. While some stamped the "disappointing" label on Engage because they felt underwhelmed by its narrative ambitions, I felt moments away from screaming my guts out like Jacobim Mugatu from Zoolander. Every "sin" that Engage makes in ferrying aimless fanservice into your gullet, let's not act and pretend like that didn't happen in Three Houses or even Awakening. Since the Aed Massacre in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, the greatest Fire Emblem game ever made, most modern Fire Emblem games are about pantomiming the most rote and tired anime tropes under the illusion of you interacting with a drama that reacts to player choices. It's always been a superficial magic trick and not something unique to Engage, but if Engage is the game where you realize that, then I want you to revisit the rest of the DS and 3DS era games in the series!
I think for the past three years I have subjected all of you to my anti-Soulslike agenda with these blogs. This will be no different.
Runner-up: Lies of P - Yup, it's time for me to get back on my bullshit of complaining about not liking Soulslikes! Playing a game that repeats what I consider the same design flaws as the works of FromSoftware but with even worse production values and more technical glitches sucks complete shit. It sucked in Wo Long, and it really sucks in Lies of P. I'm also so done with all of these games having every one of their bosses employ an annoying "two phases" strategy. It's a fine concept when it happens once or twice, but it is utterly tiresome when it is virtually every single boss. But what completely ruins Lies of P for me is its speed. Everyone and everything, including your character, attacks so quickly that unless you can process Soulslike combat like a robot, even basic battles feel like K2 mountaineering efforts. I repeatedly found it tricky to keep pace with a flurry of offensive attacks during boss battles, especially those requiring perfect parries. Speaking of which, I still consider it complete crap that these games have multiple bosses, wherein perfect parrying is the only way to beat a boss. Doing this always feels like games of this type are railroading you into a few playstyles with long-term viability, even if there are far more at your disposal, and I have always considered that shitty game design.
Blogger Of The Year From The Giant Bomb Community - Gamer_152
Bakalar isn't the only pinball influencer on Giant Bomb!
There may have been other bloggers and commentators on Giant Bomb that were more active than Gamer_152, but I will give them the nod for this award, thanks to the vast diversity of what they did and covered on the site. From their monthly check-ins about Halo Infinite to a short comprehensive review about the history of pinball to a myriad of interviews with independent game developers or designers that erred ever so closely to professional quality work, fellow moderator Gamer_152 took all of their readers on a journey in 2023 that I think deserves more recognition than they got. Other bloggers on the site attempted to bring an air of professionalism to the userbase by penning comprehensive essays and reviews on Giant Bomb, and Gamer_152 is one of them. But rather than rattle off why I think you should consider reading their works, here's a list of my personal favorites of theirs from 2023:
I do not have this award in an attempt to make blogging on this site a competition. Nor do I have this section in my end-of-the-year review in hopes of reviving the on-site user content creation on Giant Bomb. As I have said before, sometimes you should write, not because it can make you famous or even lead to greener pastures or new job opportunities. Sometimes, you should write for yourself and be amazed at how creative and passionate you can get. If you have yet to let your thoughts flow, I strongly recommend it, even if you hesitate to work with penning paragraphs or whole essays. Hopefully, in directing you to some of Gamer_152's works, you will find a way to champion and challenge your voice to go where it has yet to go. Give it a shot! You are likely better at it than you give yourself credit for.
Runner-up: Everyone Else Still Writing And Publishing Stuff - I will warn you that this final section from me will sound like me on a soapbox. However, we are marching into 2024 on uneasy footing regarding the gaming hobby. The art and craft of writing and discussing games on the internet may be in the worst state it has ever been in, and that is not a unique phenomenon to Giant Bomb. All across the games press, we see massive layoffs that continue to gut gaming journalism, and in the void, it is transitioning to Patreons, self-publishing, and Discord servers. I don't want to sound like an "old head" who admonishes new generations for interacting with new or emerging platforms where they feel comfortable expressing themselves. Still, something is being lost in this transition that I think we all need to fight to get back or protect where it still exists. At the forefront of that is my firm belief that the written word needs to be protected. This may not be something you feel you need to fight for here or even with gaming, but mark my words: you should stand up for it where you feel like you should. I want to emphasize that I have no reason to believe that blogging or forum posting on Giant Bomb is at risk, nor do I hate or dislike what the current Giant Bomb staff are doing. I love the current slate of content Grubb, Jan, Dan, Mike, Tam, Lucy, and others are creating and want to continue to support them in their creative efforts.
Nonetheless, as I mull over the dozens of independent Patreons for gaming authority figures I value, things are getting overwhelming. I am not capable or in a position to support all of them, nor do I have the mental bandwidth to consume everything they are outputting. Likewise, while the scope of independent platforms is growing, no one is making new blogging or forum platforms. As prominent authority figures turn to streaming, Discord, and Patreon, the hobby increasingly feels like a one-way street. Consumers are no longer being directed to actively participate with communities to create things or works of their own. Instead, they are beholden to what they watch and see, which they rarely can influence. Web 2.0 is dead, and its legacy is only partially a positive one, what with it gutting physical press media thanks to Facebook and Google actively fudging their numbers to get everyone to consume information on news feeds and aggregators.
Nonetheless, I miss being able to Google tip threads and guides on performing a combo in a fighting game, not needing to join a Reddit group, and then having to scroll through reams of text using a different search engine to find one comment from two years ago. I also miss listening to podcasts or watching a livestream and being able to continue topics and ideas brought up during those productions with others in discussion threads that remain fixed visibly on a website. I opine for the days of reading a review and feeling like there was room for me to relay my own respectful rebuttal when I noticed I approached a game from a different viewpoint compared to someone paid to assess its qualities. I miss offering my desire to play games online with a single discussion topic with an accompanying date and time and not needing to scour eleven million Discord servers before nailing down which one has a community I think I would vibe with best. I miss that. So, to those of you keeping these traditions alive, regardless of how much support you got in return, I thank you.
Author's Note: Hello there! My name is ZombiePie, and I am a Giant Bomb forum and wiki moderator. Every year, I look at the various sources of entertainment I enjoy and dislike. During my awards show, I pit games, television shows, animes, athletics, albums, board games, and movies in a fight to the death! As such, my awards are more "special commendations" and are open to any medium I consumed during the last year. If you want a more "orthodox" GOTY list from me, here you go!
Additionally, you can expect to see classic and current works of entertainment vying for the top positions of each merit and demerit on this blog. Oh, and one more thing: there are SPOILERS in this blog! Remember that point before reading any of my justifications for each award recipient. Also, prepare your pitchforks as things occasionally get slightly "spicy!"
Also, after struggling with the editing of my capstone GOTY stuff, I decided to break this into two parts.
Best Old Game I Discovered In 2023 For The First Time - Panzer Dragoon Saga
An all-time banger that unfortunately no one can play without needing to resort to CRIMES!
I have already written and published an essay defending Panzer Dragoon Saga as a true gem that never got its due. However, it bears repeating that Panzer Dragoon Saga is a rare feat in gaming wherein the scuttlebutt from a ravenous fanbase that repeatedly claims to be misunderstood and maligned for their love of a thing is almost entirely justified. Panzer Dragoon Saga rightfully earns all of its hype. Its combat system is one of the most dynamic from the fifth generation of console RPGs, and it boots production values that blow peak Squaresoft and Enix Corporation out of the water. Suppose there were a legal version of the game readily available. In that case, it might even shoot to the top of my list of "Top Recommended JRPGs for Newcomers," as the combat is immediately approachable and has some interesting dynamics that set it apart and make for an experience more engaging than the then-standard turn-based alternatives. Not only that, but it manages to be a technical tour de force at under twenty or so hours, a fact that drew criticism at the time of its release, but today, with my growing age, it is a welcomed change from the genre norm. What should be an awkward attempt to merge a rail shooter into a JRPG doesn't just uncannily "work." It's one of the most fun experiences with the genre you can ever have.
Unfortunately, the Sega Saturn continues to be the console Sega wants you to forget about, with its only admission that it existed being a yearly Tweet commemorating its anniversary. What should be a work of art preserved for all to enjoy and experience has unfortunately become something only the most dedicated retro gaming enthusiasts know about. With significant improvements to Mednafen, Saturn emulation is no longer the formidable mile-high brick wall it once was. However, that remains your only out if you wish to see its artistry in person. The re-sale market very often puts this game over the $500 mark, and while I love this game, my love has limits. Does it also lack the sweeping narrative and verbose character work we now accept as established traditions with JRPGs? Sure, there's no denying that the game comes up short in that regard, but it is not a disqualifying attribute. Being able to experience a fully voiced cast of characters in a fully rendered 3D game from 1998 is a true revelation from top to bottom, and if you are willing to engage in some black magic to get it to work on modern technology, I strongly recommend it.
Oh. MicroProse! You weren't great at everything you did, but I always respected your hustle!
Runner-up: Dragonsphere - Hey, remember when the Civilization team briefly had a go at making point-and-click adventure games? No? Well, let me talk to you about Dragonsphere and Return of the Phantom while forgetting that Rex Nebular exists! Dragonsphere is MicroProse's Parthian Shot in the adventure game arena before they sold their game engine and double-downed on being a preeminent strategy and tactics developer. However, it is an absolute delight. Give it a shot to see what non-Sierra and non-LucasArts point-and-click adventure games were doing to stand out in a crowded field!
Coolest Unexpected Thing I Think Everyone Should Check Out - Thief: The Black Parade Mod
Anyone who likes Dishonored or Assassin's Creed should play Thief. You owe it to yourself.
MyHouse and SIGIL II are probably better experiences for the games they are connected to than The Black Parade. MyHouse, in particular, is a technical marvel that layers secrets and alternate paths to the degree that the game feels like something with infinite permutations to keep things fresh between playthroughs. Nonetheless, the Thief franchise remains a dead series despite it being a highly formative one in the arena of stealth-oriented games. Therefore, after seven years of development by a team of fans and Arkane Lyon designers, Thief: The Black Parade breathes new life into Thief: The Dark Project, a game over twenty-five years old. The Black Parade adds ten whole missions to the base campaign of Thief Gold and strikes a masterful balance between new-school stealth mechanics and old-school stylings. The NPCs are still deliciously chunky, but the engine has been updated to make the game run at a decent framerate without the need to run things through a virtual box. Thief is and has been a franchise with a flawless atmosphere, and this mod understands that perfectly. The original game's steampunkian setting and lush dark hues are here with intricate missions that leave players with plenty of outs.
And where I would insist on this edging out the popular Doom WADS of 2023 is the production values of The Dark Parade. I don't want to sound like I am demeaning the craft and care of Doom or Doom II, but Thief has so much more going on than even the most complicated mission or map in Doom. The Black Parade features a whole new prequel storyline with hours upon hours of new, fully voice-acted lines of dialogue. Not only is there a new character for you to control, but they are carefully crafted into the narrative of the Thief franchise in ingenious and artful ways. Likewise, The Black Parade is not the work of a singular person and, instead, is the by-product of the Thief community coming together and wanting to pay tribute to a franchise that means a lot to them on its 25th anniversary. People from across continents worked together to make something that took them years, and their intricate work shows. The franchise's horror and magical themes are here and feel as good as they did the first time, and there's something magical about the fact that it feels like something that came out in 1999.
Worthy of the hype surrounding it? Absolutely!
Runner-up: MyHouse.WAD/SIGIL II - It speaks volumes that even the great John Romero is baffled about how MyHouse got its level transitions and layering to work. The WAD that took the internet by storm deserves all of the attention it got in 2023. It's a true technical marvel that I suspect we still have yet to uncover all of its secrets, which is a hallmark of the amount of love put into it. With SIGIL II, the Doom community finally got a sequel to one of the greatest WADs ever made and miraculously managed to one-up its predecessor. I have yet to find every secret that closes off after thirty seconds. But more importantly, despite its retro engine and architecture, SIGIL II is one of the most thrilling adrenaline-pumping games to grace 2023.
Most "Mid" Thing I Still Managed To Enjoy - Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
Maybe the most I wanted to enjoy a game more than I did in 2023.
I want to underscore that I am not saying that I dislike Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, and if you put the game on your GOTY 2023 list, I will not fault you. The songs in Stray Gods are lovingly crafted and often well performed. I give all the credit in the world to the voice acting talent tapped for Stray Gods, as they are the true highlight throughout the game's story. I also think Stray God has a fantastic start, but my issue is that its middle act does not maintain your interest after its inciting action subsides. However, the game's best part, its musical sequences, is ALSO its Achilles' heel. When you get tapped into a sweeping musical bit and feel pulled between two logical and reasonable choices and don't know where to side, the game honestly shines, and the way you can mix disparate musical themes and styles is enchanting. Unfortunately, too often, there are times when the music feels weak, the voice performances straining under the weight of the lyrics and their evolving nature, or your choices are either arbitrary or entirely one-sided. During these musical sequences, you feel like you are forced to grin and bear it for three to five minutes in pure agony. When the game "works," it is a sight to see, but its inconsistency is an absolute game-breaker.
Worse, Stray Gods falls into a trap that the visual novel genre was starting to err away from after Disco Elysium courted so much GOTY attention a few years prior. Yet again, another visual novel puts players on a long ride, convincing them their choices matter during interstitial sequences when things ultimately boil down to a few binary options. It is the cardinal sin of adventure game and RPG storytelling that Telltale's The Walking Dead convinced a whole generation wasn't a big deal despite it being a massive break in video game storytelling immersion. Also, despite the game featuring an incredibly compelling premise and world, it doesn't allow for enough natural exploration. The story challenges you to investigate a murder after its prologue concludes, but you don't feel like an active participant in this investigation. Instead, you feel like a passive viewer that is locked into a movie. I know that sounds rich coming from someone with Paranormasight as their 2023 GOTY. At least Paranormasight forces you to logic out how curses work and has sequences where you feel challenged to explore your surroundings freely, unlike Stray Gods. Lacking any mechanical trappings to make you authentically invested in your character's journey means you are left with a game that primarily works as intended with a handful of awkward hitches and bumps.
People sure did forget about this game once Lies of P came out.
Runner-up: Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty -Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty will get its due in a different category next week, but I think there is something to be said by how vocally excited people were in the lead-up to this game and how quickly it fell out of favor when Lies of P came out. During my Stranger of Paradise blog series, I once posited that booms and busts have defined Team Ninja post-Itagaki. Team Ninjas does mercenary work to get passion projects like Nioh and Wo Long off the runway. As someone whose interest was piqued when the game was mere months away from launch, I now accept it as a diet Nioh with some novel mechanical improvements. Nonetheless, it is still a bottle rocket of a game with a world that feels like it never got a chance to shine and fails to compete in an incredibly crowded market.
Flat Out Worst Thing I Saw All The Way Through And Should Have Called A Quits Far Earlier - Squid Game: The Challenge
Welcome to Costco. I love you.
This admission, on my part, will likely require some explanation. Near the end of 2022, my mother began transitioning into retirement while my father remained a 9 to 5 worker. She has a part-time job at an appliance store, so she's not wholly by herself at all times, but she does have an almost endless amount of free time she's never had before. At some point, whilst streaming Netflix, she somehow discovered anime and Korean live-action dramas. It was never on my lifetime Bingo card that I would publicly admit that I have a sixty-plus-year-old mother who has fallen in love with One Piece and Sailor Moon, but here we are. Her newfound love for Korean live-action television programming has had some high points such as Squid Games, Queenmaker, and Daily Dose of Sunshine. Still, it also led her to this lamentable work of "entertainment" by virtue of its name alone. When she injured her ankle and required help at home, I took some time off to offer that and found myself on a couch with her binge-watching Squid Game: The Challenge while ordering GrubHub. It was a thoroughly miserable experience. This show is not only an absolute nightmare but also irresponsible and actively diminishes what the original Squid Games sought to accomplish.
Squid Game: The Challenge might be, short of comedy routines that stoke transphobia or wave the "woke culture" bloody shirt for cheap rage clicks, one of the most short-sighted and ill-conceived things Netflix has ever sponsored. Yes, even at the time of its release, Squid Games was met with a constant barrage of imitators that advertised themselves as being all about the game show and none of the political commentary. There were even YouTubers and streamers like Mr. Beast who set up their versions of the Squid Games that challenged people to run through their gauntlet sans messaging about modern class societal stratification to further their own ego-driven financial pursuits and monetary coffers. Nonetheless, a mainstream production label making a brand extension of Squid Games, which fundamentally misses the source's point, says so much about the state of media and entertainment literacy in general. There were always signs that Squid Games was becoming a modern-day "The Jungle," where people drew the opposite message intended for them from its author, but here we are. With Netflix announcing that the show drew 85.7 million watching hours globally, this reflects a form of late-stage capitalism we cannot stop.
Did this show truly deserve becoming the internet's punching bag for a month? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....
Runner-up: Velma - I gave Velma a shot only because the initial wave of vitriol directed at it came from some pretty bad online actors that typically leap at any chance to criticize female leads in media or people of color headlining upcoming releases. However, within minutes, I knew Velma was a different type of bad cartoon show. In one of the first scenes, you watch Velma emotionally rip apart Shaggy for having romantic feelings for her and proceeds to list his many failings in life as if he's committed a crime against humanity and was being tried by the Hague. Oh, and Fred's gimmick is that he's a man baby with a small penis, and isn't it funny that the good-looking guy in the cast is as dumb as a sack of potatoes and has a small dick. That's a joke Velma thinks is HILARIOUS and continues to tell you every episode at least twice. Yeah, it is NOT GOOD!
Least Improved - The Detroit Pistons
A cavalcade of sports-based embarrassments are to be had with the Pistons. At least the Lions are respectable these days.
I warned you that sometimes I delve into the world of athletics, and well, here we go! During the mid-point of the 2023-2024 NBA season, the Detroit Pistons broke a league record no one thought was possible. The Detroit Pistons lost twenty-eight games in a row and are now courting the dubious label of possibly being the worst team ever to grace the NBA. The term "rebuild" is used in sports to refer to when teams that know they can never contend to be league champions tear things down, trade all of their good players for draft picks, and play poorly on purpose to increase the value of their draft capital. The Detroit Pistons are in the fourth year of their rebuilding process and are still losing games like they are just starting. The people in charge of creating a decent basketball team have been doing this for four years and have repeatedly said that they are not purposefully losing games. And while Piston fans rejoiced when their record-setting losing streak stopped, right on cue, the team started and continues to be on a new losing streak that does not appear to be stopping soon.
To give you an idea of how bad the Pistons are right now, here are some "interesting facts" The Athletic's podcast recently highlighted. The Pistons are among year-one expansion teams, which I must underscore, were deliberately trying to lose, in terms of how bad their offense is. They are the worst NBA team in history in "clutch time," which means they are the worst-performing team in the final five to seven minutes of games that are within five points between two teams. During clutch time, they are making their shots 20% of the time and only 15.8% on three-point shot attempts. Their General Manager, the person in charge of drafting new players and making trades, continues to draft big centers and power forwards as if they think the NBA is about to ban the three-pointer. The Pistons have nine former draft lottery picks, and they continue collecting NBA draft disappointments and busts as if they think they are constructing the Infinity Gauntlet. They have the second best-paid coach in the league, Monty Williams, who makes approximately $13 million annually despite being incapable of fostering young talent and righting the ship. Likewise, Williams rejected the Pistons' original offer to coach their team, thus proving that if a person tells you "no," you should probably take the hint and NOT add some extra zeros to get them to join you. It's incredible. This team is terrible, and rather than show some signs of life, they keep getting worse.
One of the most relatable slice-of-life animes becoming just average is a complete bummer.
Runner-up: The Devil Is a Part-Timer! (Season 2) - This one hurts. The Devil Is a Part-Timer! is one of my all-time favorite fantasy-comedy animes. After almost ten years, a second season finally arrived, and rather than be a return to form, it was a slow, plodding mess that felt like it needed to re-establish its world and ground rules across four to five episodes. And even after the worldbuilding was done, the second season was split into two parts, one airing in 2022 and the other in 2023, and took a decidedly more romantic comedy bent. The show does find itself near the tail end of the second half of its second season in 2023, but it's simply too little too late. What was once a genre pioneer now feels like it can barely tread water in the world of comedy anime.
Best Anime Of 2023 - Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
An anime for those of you that want to be brought back down to Earth.
Frieren is a show that some people have kept out of their "2023 Anime of the Year" lists for two understandable reasons. The first and most pressing issue with the show is that it engages in a mid-season action-oriented storyline that attempts clumsily to explain that the demon people in its world should not be treated like genuine people and must be extinguished entirely. It is a story arc that goes on far longer than it should and, worse, justifies in-universe acts of genocide. Sure, one of the most iconic scenes in the entire show and manga (i.e., Aura's final moments) comes from this story arc, but there's no denying that it's far more disquieting than centering on the show's best themes and elements. My point about Aura leads me to the other problem plaguing the show: it is generating memes like crazy, and the goofier moments in the show pulled out of context lead to misconceptions about its heart and core conceit. I cannot deny that I wish the show had Frieren's ass-up while devoured by a mimic much less than it does. However, these are quibbles to what ultimately is a melancholic and enlightening journey about coming to terms with regret and the inevitability of death.
Not since the likes of Mushishi has an anime tackled the subject of death and moving on from a friend's passing quite like Frieren. The show's melancholic moments are the true highlights, not the action or comedic scenes. However, those lamentable action moments are necessary for Frieren's emotional payoffs to work. When the dower moments kick into high gear, you understand that these characters know and love each other. And when you watch them say goodbye, sometimes permanently, those farewells have true emotional weight. The show pins a lot of value on you, buying into its core characters being long-standing friends that have been through thick and thin, and it works miraculously well. Frieren's dry and "straight man" qualities are often played to comedic effect. Still, they also make her a common victim of being an outsider who doesn't adapt quickly to their surroundings, which makes some of her companionships so potent when you reach their conclusions. Given that there are plenty of heavy moments in Frieren, it's not a show I can advise you to watch freely. Honestly, you need to be in the mood for heartache and grief, which the memes from the show circulating on the internet do not prepare you for!
An anime I'm still surprised to see people forget came out in 2023.
Runner-up: Trigun Stampede - I think Trigun Stampede is a slight victim of coming out at the start of 2023. What many people have forgotten is one of the most energetic and bombastic action animes of the year, with a story with as many joyous characters and twists as the original. I get that some people would not give it a shot due to its 3D art style and animation. However, animation studio Orange is the best at what they do, and this show is another reminder of that fact. Trigun Stampede should not be disqualified because of people's prejudices against certain animation styles. That's doubly the case when the show's frenetic action sequences are as stylish and enjoyable as the ones in the original Trigun. So much of the spirit of Trigun is here that Trigun Stampede remains one of the easier-to-recommend animes from 2023.
Most Surprisingly Good - Twisted Metal (T.V. Series)
This show should not work considering the dark history of video game adaptations, but it does.
When I first saw the Twisted Metal television series trailer, I thought it would necessitate this community collectively penning essays on why it is one of the worst modern live-action video game tie-in projects ever made. And after I completed the first episode, I was left chuckling along with the wacky adventures of its characters. Everything from the trailer made it seem like Anthony Mackie and Stephanie Beatriz were phoning it in and waiting for their checks to cash. And yet, everyone in this show seems like they had a ton of fun making it, and it is infectious. Will Arnett is the voice of Sweet Tooth while wrestler Joe Seanoa (i.e., Samoa Joe) provides the body much like Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan's set-up as Robotoman in Doom Patrol. And you can tell Samoa Joe had a blast making this show because his stunts often feel like dream sequences he's wanted to do in the wrestling ring for over a decade. It's loud. It's dumb. But mercifully, it knows it shouldn't take itself too seriously, making it one of my guilty streaming pleasures of 2023.
I also want it known that I have zero love for the Twisted Metal games. I understand they are considered, especially Twisted Metal: Black, forgotten classics for the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2. I was always terrible about performing the more intricate combos and platforming bits in the Twisted Metal games and found the edgy storytelling downright intolerable, even as a kid. Twisted Metal (2012)'s story, especially what it does with Sweet Tooth, is downright impossible to go back to, and I'm glad to report that the Twisted Metal television series gives as little shit about "canon" as I do. Likewise, with David Jaffe unofficially persona non grata in the industry, I wonder if you even want him doing photo ops promoting the show these days. Nonetheless, at ten episodes, Twisted Metal knows to get its shit in and out without any pretensions of being more than a show about silly car combat scenes and the occasional fistfight. When I finished it, I was happy to hear that it had been renewed for a second season, but I wouldn't have been shedding a tear if the opposite were true.
This show isn't even in the running of 2023's best isekai anime, but the fact it's not entirely rote is kind of a miracle.
Runner-up: Reborn as a Vending Machine - I take no pleasure in saying this following statement, but the vending machine isekai anime is not bad. I went into it wanting to dunk on it but was moderately impressed. It's exceptionally average regarding looks and often wears its welcome even before its episodes end. Nevertheless, its heart is in the right place. I saw many "it's a deconstruction of the isekai genre!" claims on the internet when it first came out, and I disagree. It's pretty standard in terms of what it brings to the table. That said, it is a deconstruction of harem anime with people in a traditional fantasy setting fawning over a modern vending machine, and that's one of its more genuinely creative storytelling bits. It's an absurdist retelling of the same formula, and that's enough to get me to recommend it if you have nothing better to do and don't mind a bog-standard repeat of familiar isekai tropes and idioms.
Weirdest Game - Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou
This sure is a video game I played in 2023!
Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou was the first game I decided to stream in 2023. As I laid out in my write-up about the game, I continued to see it and LSD: Dream Simulator crop up in the Reddit creepypasta circles and decided to take the plunge on both games. While I was slightly disappointed with LSD, considering it is less of a game and more of a weird visual generator, Eastern Mind entirely delivered. It is the weirdest game I have ever played, and the sheer variety of its bizarre characters and set pieces make it an utterly unique experience. Instead of borrowing cultural landmarks or imagery from one nationality or religion, Eastern Mind takes from several. When you enter its world, a giant disembodied green head that you must enter via its cheeks or ears, you find Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist traditions intermingling with Jungian psychology. Its world is largely directionless to force you into encounters with demons that look like they were made using pipe cleaners or derelict Bionicle parts. It promises to send you to a dream-like world unlike any you have ever seen before, and it never fails to accomplish that goal.
And that differentiates Eastern Mind from most off-brand adventure games I play. The minute I think I have grappled with what philosophy it is trying to represent in a video game, it hits me with a new canonical rule that seems antithetical to everything else I've experienced. I have said it before elsewhere, but I will officially stake my claim here in writing. If I was ever invited to share a video game with the Giant Bomb staff and guide them through something I knew they would never naturally discover on their own, this would be my top pick, and Commander Blood, a game I will discuss next week, would be my number two. I don't want any of you to interpret that as a steadfast belief that I demand the right to do a video on Eastern Mind and that this website owes me the pleasure because it doesn't. Nonetheless, more people need to see this game in action, and I would leap at the opportunity to guide even ten additional eyes on it. If I were to crumble into a mound of dust after doing so, I would have known that my legacy has been firmly established as the internet's foremost expert on Eastern Mind. That's a legacy worth having.
Runner-up: The Pink Panther: Hokus Pokus Pink - I honestly could include both of Wanderlust Interactive's Pink Panther edutainment adventure games. Both Pink Panther Hocus Pocus Pink AND The Pink Panther Passport to Peril attempt to teach children 90s geopolitics and world conflicts without sugar-coating things. However, it does so in the most bizarre ways and manners. For example, both games have musical songs that teach historical concepts, but this is NOT Schoolhouse Rock! One of the musical numbers teaches the negative legacy of British colonialism in Australia, and another communicates the ills of the caste system that continue to persist in India. Oh, and did I mention that this 1997 educational game attempts to explain the Isreal-Palestine conflict with a very pro-Camp David Accords bias? It's such a weird mixture of a game. It's WILD, and I haven't even gotten to the part where both games have body horror moments, like people ripping out their teeth to reveal their facial plastic surgery or the dramatic reveal that all of the children at a summer camp have been replaced by androids!
Best Ensemble Cast - Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
There are some real character of the year candidates in this game!
Hell yeah! I bet you were expecting to see me pick Baldur's Gate 3 for this award! While I think Baldur's Gate 3's cast is excellent, it only partially solves a characterization-related trope that I feel is becoming tiresome in the RPG genre. Every time you get a new party member, it feels like your interactions become a countdown to a trauma dump. Everyone has a secret past or iffy predilection against a dominant faction in the world, and you need to pick away at their mental facade until they give you the details. In games less well crafted than Baldur's Gate 3, I have admonished such storytelling as "trauma/grief pornography." With Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, the facades the game's significant characters put up are deeply interconnected with the story's overriding theme involving a city-wide mystery. For many of these characters, you think you have a grapple on who they are or what their quirks might be, and as the story progresses, you discover you've only seen the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Also, credit where credit is due: I love how the in-game journal evolves and edits character bios as you progress the story and explore alternate paths and storylines. From top to bottom, the game makes you feel like a detective engaged in a deep research effort to find the truthworthiness of suspects and witnesses.
One of the more underrated aspects of Paranormasight comes in its beginning hours when it engages with other characters that play more prominent roles in later acts in curse-based chess matches. You have to suss them out and pick up on subtle animation cues and mannerisms, which they repeat throughout the game. Despite the game not sporting motion-captured 3D character models or fully voice-acted lines, you feel as invested in seeing these characters to their natural ends as much as you do with Alan Wake II or Baldur's Gate 3. During the second and third movements in the story, the ensemble is creatively forced to cross paths and interact with one another in some deeply evocative and thrilling settings. All the while, you can tell when the stress and stakes of the story begin to chip away at them, sometimes slowly and other times immediately. Furthermore, the underlying lore and use of Japanese folk tales to make each character feel like they are part of a century-long ancestry with a stake in the wellbeing of the game's setting is also part of what makes following its story such a riveting journey. Everyone feels deeply invested in the city Paranormasight takes place in, for better or for worse.
Who was the the BG3 thirst trap that got you? It seems everyone has a different answer to that same question.
Runner-up: Baldur's Gate 3 - And despite my previous screed, there's no denying that the characters of Baldur's Gate 3 make the experience well worth having. Everyone has their favorites, and the fact people do speaks to Larian's knack for creating casts with a diversity of life experiences and perspectives. Even if one character gets under your skin, you cannot help but wonder if that was the intent. Everyone is well-animated, and the voice acting sets new standards for ensemble RPGs to follow in the future. All I can say is that I'm NOT an Astarion person, and I betrayed his ass the moment I had a chance.
Preamble (i.e., What Does It Take For A Video Game To Be A "Sicko Game?")
This sure is a video game that was written by an adult.
What is the "sicko game?" With people flippantly calling Lethal Company 2023's best "meme game" and RoboCop: Rogue City the previous year's best "B-game," fringe gaming terms and labels are starting to shape up and take more definite and absolute qualifications. But one label is also beginning to crop up more and more with the advent of self-publishing platforms like itch.io and the barriers to getting games on Steam, GOG, and EGS at all-time lows. I am talking about "Sicko Games." What are these games? Let's review some examples before a random essayist you've decided to give your time to (i.e., me) rattles off a nebulous and incredibly subjective definition. Kenshi? Absolutely in the "sicko territory!" It's an open-world RPG that continually kicks your teeth in when you least expect it, and its monotonous brown and tan world makes navigation a bore. Fear & Hunger? Despite its unique creative choices, that game actively hates you and looks the part, and you have to be "sick" to play it for more than three hours; it is purely a sicko experience and exercise from top to bottom. Pathologic and Pathologic 2? You have to be a sicko to enjoy those games, and I'm one of them, and if you aren't convinced that's the case from just looking at those games, watch the Pathologic 2 review by MandaloreGaming. However, rest assured, when I call a game something for "sickos," it's a term of endearment as much as a label used to caution others on how they should proceed.
Authentic sicko games are not necessarily bad. Nor are they games that lack creative ambition or artistic merits. They are games with rough edges, sometimes deliberately, that actively make them intended for a small audience. And that audience often requires a part of their brain to fire away on its synapses incorrectly to make even half of the game "work" for them. Something in the game is very wrong, and something is very wrong in you. I would hazard to say that everyone has a sicko game they love. There's at least one video game in your catalog of titles you own that should not work and should not appeal to you, but it does, and it's equally your and the game's fault. There's nothing to worry about if your example immediately comes to mind. Accept it, you are a sicko! Wear that badge with pride! I want to explore that last point more before we continue so you understand where I am coming from for this particular blog. Cruelty Squad was on my 2021 GOTY list as an honorable mention. That game hurt my eyeballs to the point where I could only ever play it in ten to twenty-minute spurts, and I wouldn't say I enjoyed my time. The world of Cruelty Squad is ugly, and the NPCs that litter its vomitous world are equally immoral. Your actions and missions are often vile, and I would struggle to call the game mechanically a good time. Its UI and interface are deliberately designed to be repulsive and unhelpful to the player.
Masturbation jokes! This game is high art!
Nevertheless, that's the point, and I admire the game's unabashedly subversive nature. It's a sick game with a subversive arthouse agenda that would make John Waters smile. You look past its MANY repulsive attributes because you see its sicko beauty. It's a marvel. This point leads me to Eternights, the 2023 game I think embodies the sicko label to a tee, even though it might not seem to be the case from the onset. Many dismissed it as a B-Tier attempt at the Persona franchise's visual novel format with bland, repetitious combat. I'm here to tell you that while those criticisms are entirely valid, they are all the more reason to rejoice at the very fact that Eternights exist. Why would I defend a game that errs on creative bankruptcy due to how shamelessly it pulls its designs from other games or the fact that all its characters are walking trash people? Because I'm sick, and I'm not ashamed to say that.
The Sense Of Déjà Vu Is Undeniable
Eternights is a visual novel dating sim action roleplaying game. At its heart, it is a hack-and-slash game, with its story being told chiefly through visual novel-like cutscenes and dialogue choices not too far off from Persona 5 Strikers. Like Atlus' Persona franchise, in-between combat sequences and dungeon-based exploratory efforts, you are expanding your party and furthering relationships with your party members. By spending time with these characters, you increase your protagonist's stats and gain new abilities to use in combat. However, some choices that the story and these side adventures prompt you to make will advance social-based stats, which are crucial to progressing through specific roadblocks and skill checks with some character-based adventures. For example, when trying to further your in-game romance options, one requires you to pass "Courage" skill checks, and another requires you to pass "Confidence" based ones. Sound familiar? Well, I'm just getting started with Eternights's unabashed gameplay mime act! To further highlight how shameless Eternights copies Atlus's homework, it utilizes a calendar-based timeline mechanic that forces you to budget which relationships and social interactions you wish to pursue on any given day. Spending time with a character or advancing their character arc burns a day on this calendar, and you have a finite number of actions per day before your character needs to rest.
And before you ask, yes, every character looks like a badly rigged holoLive VTuber.
Now, let's make something obvious before continuing. I am not accusing Eternights of genuine "plagiarism." First, the dating sim mechanics that have come to define the core identity of the Persona series are not unique systems. They date back to Tokimeki Memorial and further back in time, and Eternights borrowing its formatting is not plagiarism because genre conventions are not copyrightable ideas. Second, Eternights adds some unique twists here and there to mix things up, and it is FAR MORE HONEST about trying to mimic otome or bishōjo dating sim sensibilities. Where Persona wants you to view intimacy as a distant end goal, Eternights wants you to revel in "getting babes" right from the rip. Also, one benefit of Eternights being a comedic adventure is that it is much more forgiving about being able to see and experience everything in a single playthrough. It mercifully limits the feeling of "the fear of missing out" AND clocks in at under fifteen hours in a normal playthrough. Yes, romance options bring something different to color your experience, but there are only four, and the base game isn't that dynamic that you should feel like you need to see everything in it to appreciate its vision.
Nonetheless, the fact that it heavily emulates the conventions of a well-known series and franchise makes Eternights's many shortcomings more readily visible. Speaking of Persona 5 Strikers specifically, when examined from an entirely objective lens, this game compares unfavorably to it and even Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, which pre-date it by a year and change. Indeed, comparing Persona 5 and Fire Emblem spin-offs to Eternights is unfair, considering Eternights functions on a fraction of either's budget. Nonetheless, the lack of depth in its mechanics is a solved problem and one wherein developer Studio Sai had plenty of reference material to consult to avoid. The biggest flaw is that Eternights fails to execute Atlus's risk-reward dungeon design. Typically, in games of this sort, you feel pressed to budget your relationship pursuits because there's a challenging dungeon with a completion date breathing down your neck looming in the background, and that limits the amount of time you have to mess around. Unfortunately, because there's a severe issue with the gameplay's power scale, you can blow through the dungeons in a single go and have an almost endless amount of time to fuss about before subsequent combat arenas crop up. The problem is that you see the game so painfully copy another established franchise's whole milieu and essentially fail at it at a fundamental level.
Oh, and boss fights usually have a lot of quick-time events.
But all of that's part of Eternights's claim to being 2023's "Best Sicko Game." It is a creatively bankrupt game that brings almost nothing new to the table, and there are plenty of better alternatives for you to play instead of it. Instead of improving on a solved formula, it adds unneeded complications that make things more annoying and less mechanically rewarding. It is BUSTED, and the relationships it promises to have these big climaxes ultimately don't pan out as epically as it endeavors. Many of the game's dower and quieter moments are unintentionally funny. However, I found all of that to be part of the game's charm, much like I find Neil Breen films to be an endless source of hilarity. During this game's most incompetent moments, it might be one of the greatest comedies of 2023. Furthermore, considering how often the game and its characters are in on its jokes, it's hard not to find some delight in its messes, at least most of them. Additionally, there are things that Eternights does well that are worthy of praise without an ounce of malice or sarcasm, which we should talk about shortly.
Mechanically, This Game Has Slightly More Depth Than Akiba's Trip, But Not By Much!
The mission structure and the topics the narrative in Eternights addresses are also problematic. The game occurs during an apocalyptic event where your character is unsurprisingly chosen to put an end to the source of destruction. Unfortunately, the issue with this game occurring during a disaster is that you walk through many ruined subway shafts and dilapidated city streets and buildings. As if the game's production values did not already lay the case that this is a "B Game" erring towards C-tier or even Z-tier categories, the missions are usually the same three to four types. You either have to kill enough enemies to rid an area of an evil taint, which inevitably spawns a boss. Sometimes, you hear a call for help and need to rescue someone before a timer expires. And other times, there's a MacGuffin the game's Igor-like tells you to fetch to make the final boss encounter possible. This returns me to the topic of the game's actual structure and formatting. There are two spectral walls in which you need to complete missions, and then there's the final location wherein the end of the game takes place. The two walls subject you to dungeons with culminating events that usually involve boss battles, and you need to bring these down before the calendar triggers the end, or else you reach a failed scenario.
Aw, cool! Look at all of these complex movesets you'll never use!
However, do not worry too much because, as I hinted earlier, these dungeons, which are meant to test your potency and competency in combat, can be one shot in a single day, which kneecaps the game's risk-reward stylings. The only real reason for you to return to the dungeons is if a character arc requires it. Otherwise, you can spend most of your time mucking about with people you want to get intimate with. Part of this problem stems from this being a hack-and-slash game, and like most hack-and-slash games, when you find a combo or weapon you feel comfortable with, there's no reason for you ever to give it up until the story forces you to use specific moves or items. Think less Persona 5 Strikers and more Dynasty Warriors or Warriors Orochi when trying to wrap your head around what type of musou this might be. There are combos to try out and a parry mechanic to test out as well. Still, the enemies are generally bog standard, and the window for parrying and blocking enemy attacks is so generous it is hard for me even to count the number of times I ever felt challenged. To that end, the game reminded me of the Akiba's Trip series. Those games knew that they had one gimmick to share to keep you occupied (i.e., stripping people of their clothes to defeat them). At the same time, you went on this over-the-top anime homage of an adventure with Japanese nerd culture bleeding through every part of its narrative. That's precisely the case with Eternights but with dating sim gameplay hooks and a more significant emphasis on pop music and pop music idol culture.
Don't adjust your screen! The motion blurring and bad particle effects are a constant issue in this game!
The only thing that keeps your attention going during these missions is the topics of your pursuits and character interactions during them. This is also where the writing most likely will make your toes crawl backward into your feet. The clearest example comes near the start of the game when one of your female companions experiences her period and begs you to find some menstrual pads. You then get thrust into a required in-game fetch quest, and she bleeds to death if you fail to retrieve these before a mission timer expires. I should also mention that during this, the game makes the point that she is grumpy, and all of the male party members act and say exactly what you expect them to say when this situation crops up. Look, I warned you. This game is a "sicko game," and there's a reason why I started this section with a comparison to Akiba's Trip. Like Akiba's Trip, Eternights knows its shelf life is short, and that's part of why there's a beauty to its near ten-hour playtime.
I still don't know if I like or hate the weird neon-inspired backlight effect in every level. Regardless, this game is not exactly a looker.
Nonetheless, the game's attempts to give you its best shot during this playtime are inconsistent. Eternights knows what it wants to do but only sometimes understands how. It was primarily written and made by a single individual in their twenties, making a game for other twentysomethings. They wanted to have a go at making their idea of a good Persona-like experience, and they missed the mark more than I'd have liked. Yet, the game gets the job done and does feel like something that would appeal to its intended audience. On that singular note, there's no denying the game is a success, as trashy and repulsive it might be in execution. It only does a little to keep you mechanically invested, and its only recourse is to present you with humor on par with modern-era South Park or Seth MacFarlane, which was a choice. But let's not deny those sophomoric sensibilities do not speak to an almost universal human sentiment or shared worldview, and rest assured, Eternights is a game for sickos. It is NOT a game made for and by scumbags. There's a difference between Eternights and YIIK: A Postmodern RPG, and that difference is the size of a canyon in Eternights's favor.
All Of The Characters Are Trash People And That Works In Eternights's Favor
Don't get me wrong, the characters are far from perfect. Most are stand-ins for the twentysomething experience, and others are cheap anime trope amalgams. To underscore, one of your romanceable options is a pop singer with a sheltered upbringing and doesn't understand how "commoners" live. The protagonist has zero personality as they are your cipher, and they are encouraged in-game to be a bit of a pervert. I want to emphasize that we live in a world where the self-aware and perverted multimedia universe of KonoSuba and its characters have, by hook or by crook, become some of the most immediately recognizable and mainstream in anime circles, especially isekai-based ones. Suppose you want to tell me something about Kazuma's tomfoolery feels compelling, witty, or humorous. In that case, you don't have that much ground to admonish Eternights for doing anything wholly unacceptable. Kazuma's comedic chemistry with his party members and lack of any noble cause guiding his actions are all things Eternights tries very liberally to copy. They are cut from the same "Look at me messing with the people around me as I wink directly into the camera, isn't that funny" cloth. And don't take that to mean that I don't think you are wrong for liking KonoSuba or viewing it as a refreshing inversion of the isekai genre. Nevertheless, let's not pretend that the idea of a comedic story featuring nothing but trash people doing trashy things is a new concept and has never been met with effusive praise and even end-of-the-year awards. Now, don't get me wrong, there's NOTHING in Eternights that even approaches the high marks of KonoSuba's comedic timing, cleverly ad-libbed lines, or meta-humor. Even with this, let's not pretend that the concept guiding Eternights's character progression and style is summarily without merit.
Gay people can be as goofy and weird as straight people? Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! That's the most unrealistic part of this game!
This game empowers you to be a forward-thinking college student on an adventure to lose your virginity during the opening prologue. It never stops reminding you about that goal, BUT even the perverts in Eternights have standards. You must earn your right to go to Bone Town by engaging with its dating sim mechanics; consent is part of the game. Even your Yosuke Hanamura-like (i.e., Chani_, who is a total "dude bro" that is constantly pressuring you to muck up with girls using dating apps, has an almost Austin Powers standard of not being a total and complete scumbag even if their goal is to be having sex all the time. Also, while it certainly isn't "perfect," everything is on the table in Eternights, including a gay relationship, which I was pleasantly surprised to see progress as goofily and KonoSuba-like as the heteronormative relationships. The gay romance option is as much a sex-positive and comedic weirdo as the rest of the cast, but don't let that suggest that they are not free from some incredibly dated anime notions of gay people and the gay experience. Equally interesting is the fact that the female characters are as horny and open-minded about sex as the male ones. There's a female companion who, when the topic of sex toys comes up, says something to the tune of "Of course I masturbate. Did you think we [women] don't enjoy masturbating as much as dudes?" When this happened, I'm not going to lie; I was utterly punching the air. The maker of Eternights gets women above the age of twenty better than 95% of all the writers attached to significant JRPG franchises. His female characters stand up for themselves and even probe the male characters, under the backdrop of an apocalyptic event, about what they expect women to be like in relationships and allow them to call them out when they are full of shit. Likewise, when the female characters feel engaged in a romance they consent to, they are as awkward about getting the ball rolling as the dudes. That and the decision to include a gay romance option that feels earnest are why this isn't some bullshit game like YIIK.
His arm is blue because a woman he was attempting to get along with during a blind date cut off his arm to start the Apocalypse. It happens!
Furthermore, I have to tip my hat to Eternights in another regard. The Persona games put you through these long relationship pursuits, and because they remain committed to tackling the "teen experience," they incidentally address the topic of intimacy. Eternights saw that part of Persona's playbook, scribbled it out, and wrote on top using a Sticky Note, "What if you just kiss the people you want to date in the game, and we showed you that?" That might sound creepy to some of you, but I must clarify that every character in this game is a college student. Mercifully, the lead on Eternights recognized that the Persona formula is less skeevy when you make the characters you are controlling adults. This is an appreciated change of pace, considering your best friend immediately starts things off with you making a fake Tinder account on a mobile dating app. Chani is a lot, but I would be lying if I told you I had not met real-world versions of him. What I will also commend is the fact that everyone in the game has a heart. For example, if you elect to make your protagonist homosexual, Chani still has your back and, without losing a step. Once you have a heart-to-heart with him about being gay, he immediately recommends ways to create a gay harem using a different but gay dating app and even chimes, "More power to you! Go kiss some guys!" He's your bro through thick and thin, and everyone in this world is a lovable goofball, and there's no homophobia or racist bone in anyone to speak of. I get that's not even the slightest bit realistic, but it was a breath of fresh air that a game let me be gay or straight and not have that romantic journey defined by trauma or tragedy. It's a romantic "power fantasy," yes, but I like it all the same.
The fujoshi will maybe enjoy this game. Maybe. Maybe not.
And therein lies the core heart of Eternights that has virtually every Atlus game beat. The characters are sickos, yes, but they are twenty-year-olds that are midway into their college educations. They are ciphers for a sleazy journey, but one that is, let's be honest, incredibly prescient and familiar. It's that weird moment when you finally realize your sexual orientation and intimate pursuits are finally "yours." You don't need to hold back; you're an adult; go buck wild as long as you treat those around you respectfully and always value the importance of consent. It's a freeing moment, and much like the characters of Eternights, it happens in those opening weeks of leaving your parent's home, and you're finally living away from their influence for the first time. Don't lie for this next part; remember that first party you joined after a dorm or roommate peer pressured you into attending, and during which you realized you didn't need to worry about a curfew for the first time in your life? Remember the people you tried to talk to during those opening moments of your adulthood because you were figuring out who you were and still deciding who you wanted to be around? This game is awkward, sometimes skeevy, and even made my skin crawl. However, that's what that weird period in your life was like!Sure, there are times when Eternights isn't all that well-written or directed. However, it may be the only game or form of media that even attempts to capture an almost universal moment in our lives and have fun with it, and that's worth something.
So, This Game Isn't "Great," But I'm Glad These Sorts Of Games Still Are Being Made
And despite all of this tacit praise, I don't know of a single person on this very website who benefits from playing Eternights. The combat isn't just weak; it is downright dull. The only mechanical high point comes when the game gets slightly more exotic about its buffs, but even that feels like plate spinning, like Final Fantasy XIII. You are mashing away on simple combos for hours upon end, many of which you discover and become comfortable with during the game's prologue. The minute the game gives you a designated healer, you feel ready to slop through almost all of the game, as the enemy variety is pitiful, and the moment-to-moment challenge is even worse. Some of your compatriots have impressive magical abilities, but you often forget to use them because mashing away on buttons with little thought or strategy in mind gets the job done much faster. It's hard to take a game of rock-paper-scissors seriously when rock beats the shit out of paper AND scissors without protest.
This game is trashy and only sickos will enjoy it. That doesn't mean it doesn't have heart!
The visual and mission variety is as bad as the gameplay variety. This leaves the characters and their weird relationship-based pursuits, which are all determined by you, all that remains to do the heavy lifting. And I have to be honest if I was looking at this from an entirely objective vantage point and I was not afflicted with a brain disease that makes me froth at the mouth when something revels in anime bullshitery, none of that is good enough. It's not, and worse, it's incredibly erratic. There are times when the game feels earnest and authentic, and there are other times when it feels like a bad Family Guy or American Dad skit. It's a mess that feels like something only a college-bound fraternity brother could enjoy because outside of that lone homosexual romance option, it feels like a game for dude bros. You are implored to view sexual intimacy as an end goal of sorts for any male character in life and are even rewarded with new abilities and RPG mechanics in making that power fantasy happen.
And yet, I do have that brain sickness. I'm sick. This game is sick. We are meant for each other. Eternights speaks to an authentic human experience despite how messy its execution might be. It fixes an annoyance I have had with the works of Atlus in that it elects to use young adults, instead of high schoolers, in the early years of their university efforts. It puts all its emotional intentions on the table during its opening and never lets you forget what it is about. It is one of the most emotionally and creatively transparent games of 2023 in that regard. The inciting action happens when the game's protagonist is murdered during a blind date, and even as the world crumbles to ash, both they and the weirdos they meet, both male and female, can't stop thinking about who they'd like to kiss when the dust settles. The game and its characters have zero chill, and it does not care.
Still more intimate than anything the Persona games have ever let you do.
It is subversive. Eternights took a formula I think almost everyone knows and somehow made it worse, less fun, more crass, and more perverted. There are dick jokes immediately after deeper conversations about the pressures of living up to one's self-inflicted expectations of how to live one's life. Still, there's not a single malicious bone in this game's body. Eternights is a modern-day video game doujinshi that got its bag and did it with a giant smile. On the issue of it being a derivative work, it's fan fiction that went mainstream, not unlike the Twilight books. But more than that, its messy and uneven structure, style, and writing is an almost perfect tribute to the shameful awkwardness of being a twentysomething. And in that regard, the game is ideal sicko material. No game quite captures those foolhardy days and years quite like Eternights.
Final Fantasy let you ride a whale to the moon. This game lets you transform a female character's bra into a glider. 9 Comments
WARNING: This blog features some spoilers! You have been warned!
Preamble
This game has styyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyle!
A handful of Giant Bomb Game of the Year staples returned with "Best Debut" and "Please Stop!" gracing the site's 2023 roundtable GOTY discussions. A personal favorite of mine, "Best Styyyyyyyyyyle," was not so lucky, but that's not to say what the site and the current staff provided and made wasn't in and of itself tremendous or entertaining; it indisputably was. Nonetheless, many other sites have taken it upon themselves to discuss the best technical and artistic video games of 2023. While these lists and discussions have done a decent to excellent job of bringing some genuine candidates to the forefront, one game has slipped to the wayside. That game, which should be evident from the title of this blog, is Little Goody Two Shoes, a video game outing I have been slightly surprised to see utterly unmentioned by virtually every major publication. Little Goody Two Shoes doesn't just have "style." This game is one of the greatest homages to a myriad of animation and artistic eras.
However, before we get into my "pitch" on why you should give this game a cursory look, let's talk about what Little Goody Two Shoes is on paper and execution. Little Goody Two Shoes is a horror adventure game and visual novel from Portuguese developer AstralShift. The game was published by Square Enix, which likely allowed the indie firm to bolster its budget and nab some incredible art leads and voice-acting talent. In the game, you control Elise, who was found abandoned in a forest by an elderly "maid of all work." Elise lives on the outskirts of a Germanic-inspired township from the post-Reformation. After a lengthy introductory cutscene, WHICH IS INCREDIBLE, the game plays out similarly to a traditional Japanese otome or 5pb/Mages-inspired visual novel. The game takes place over a week, with the town Elise inhabits preparing for a yearly festival. However, as the week progresses, suspicious things start to crop up. Elise realizes she must be careful in interacting with her surroundings or risk being accused of witchery. I want those of you interested in playing this game to know this blog will be mostly spoiler-free, and at most, all I will discuss are the game's thematics and structure, which it reveals to you in its opening act. This game starts as a vivid retro throwback and becomes darker in record time. The fact it is about witchcraft and delves into horror themes is no secret.
Be warned, this is not always a fun or happy tale.
The term "vibe game" was thrown around in 2023 to describe major AAA productions and cult indie releases. The term has been applied to Little Goody Two Shoes because as you play it, you feel like you have fallen into a nostalgic time capsule to 90s-era anime (i.e., Slayers, Rurouni Kenshin, City Hunters, et al.). That is true to a certain extent, but it also undersells the absolute creative heights the game reaches and the wide breadth of artistic ambitions developer AstralShift aims for. When you press me about the term "vibe game," I'm more or less inclined to think of a game that doubles down on one singular aesthetical choice or direction rather than seek to represent a kaleidoscope of styles from an entire decade as Little Goody Two Shoes does. Likewise, its ever-evolving story takes some stark turns, and the art direction morphs to communicate that. To me, that thoroughly cements it as more than the year's best "vibes" or a meme game pick for silly laughs. This game achieves so much with such a tiny team, and it is by FAR one of the most underrated new titles from 2023.
The Blending And Mixing Of Style Is The Best Part
The first thing that fans of Little Goody Two Shoes bring up is that the game utilizes over a dozen animation styles and mediums. It is an important point to bring up as the start of the game lays out all of its cards in fantastic fashion. The cutscenes in the game employ an expressionist painterly style meant to evoke memories of childhood storybooks. The character portraits and the in-game story moments use static character portraits, but they are in the style of 90s-era anime and old-school PC-98 visual novels. You complete tasks in the form of minigames, and these use a deliberately retro pixel-based art style. When you collect items, some of them are real-world physical objects or even puppets. There are musical sequences that come out of nowhere, and the game is forced to contend with all of these disparate art styles and aesthetical choices working together, and probably through dark magic or witchcraft, it works. Below, I will link the first of these musical bits when the protagonist discovers shiny red slippers in her garden, which still stands as a fantastic opening salvo.
It's also more than just that the game has attempted to emulate many disparate mediums like traditional animation, fancy digital paint, and even puppetry in a single package. At its heart, the game is an homage to the classic horror visual novels of yesteryear, like Ao Oni and Corpse Party. To make its slow but inevitable descent into lurid horror all the more authentic its cinematic transitions become more stark. If I told you a game from any given year juxtaposed from 90s-era anime homage to Claymation ala Neverhood, I think you get where I am coming from when I say I'm surprised more people are not talking about this game. Every time you go from the pastoral vista shots of the game's standard levels to its terrifying dungeons, it is SOMETHING, and the game manages to make those tonal and artistic shifts surprising and impressive even after the sixth or seventh time. This point highlights why Little Goody Two Shoes is much more than a game about incredible visuals. Its different styles convey narrative shifts and allow the game to make its mood and tone all the more intense. Trust me, as you progress in some of the longer dungeon sequences, Elise's return to "normalcy" doesn't just make Warren Harding happy; it leads to you taking a sigh of relief along with her.
There were a lot of games that tried to transport you to the 90s, but Little Goody Two Shoes and Lunacid were by far the best.
Then there are the dungeons themselves. They represent the lowest point in the game from a purely mechanical sense, but there's no denying that they accomplish several artistic goals. To highlight that Elise is being pulled in several directions by fantastical forces, her follies to meet with these forces feel as if you are transitioning into an entirely different game, and in many ways, you do. Nonetheless, the game tests itself in these dungeons and showcases an even wider breadth of art styles. The second dungeon is done entirely through a claymation-inspired style with enemies and foes that animate like stop-motion figures in a Wallace and Gromit film on acid. After that, the third dungeon utilizes a paper animation-like aesthetic in the style of Terry Gilliam's days during Monty Python with Astor Piazzolla-inspired bandoneon-based music to boot! The one after that has an ice and winter motif and uses an incredible painterly style wherein you can see the brushstrokes to make its background. Many games promise to take you off into alien and foreign worlds, but Little Goody Two Shoes is one of the rare examples wherein doing so furthers both narrative and artistic purposes and doesn't come across as a vain strut.
The Style Makes The Character Relationships Better
If you can think of a style or approach to animation; this game likely has it.
When you are not helping Elise harrow through trials to satisfy evil spirits and forces beyond her comprehension, you usually live on the fat of a happy and merry land. Like several games in 2023, a VHS-inspired filter occasionally plays to harken back to when animation was done on film rather than digital paint. I should note that the game's final build uses Unity, and while it emulates traditional animation styles, it does not actually engage in their processes. Nonetheless, your activities in the game's central hub, a quaint Germanic township, are a complete visual treat. There are a handful of minigames to increase Elise's coffers, and these pixel-based microgames harken back to the first few WarioWare titles. The production values are equally impressive when you uncover new locals or explore environments as the game rotates through its day-night cycle. The soundtrack in Little Goody Two Shoes peaks when it breaks into verse or shares a stellar J-Pop dance piece, but the rest of the game's soundtrack is no slouch either. The almost Persona-like day-based progression format means you must be especially careful about what you do and who you spend time with, as there's only a limited amount of time to see what the game offers. If that sounds frustrating, know that this game tops out under twenty hours and actively encourages you to save scum, which is a visual novel tradition at this point.
Little Goody Two Shoes is also unabashedly gay. I probably should have said that during my introduction, but the three relationships you can opt into pursuing are women, and the game is obvious that these relationships are not just hand-holding USA Sailor Moon nonsense. There's no explicit sex in the game, but these girls love each other. Each romance option (i.e., Rozenmarine, Freya, and Lebkuchen) evokes a different crease or subset of gay or, in this case, yuri media. There's something incredibly nostalgic about the innocence of these relationships and seeing them evolve and represented in evocative imagery. The visuals feel entirely earnest, and so are the game's core relationships. Nothing progresses too out of the ordinary, and the emotional heart-to-hearts the datable options have with Elise feel unpretentious. And Lord have mercy on your soul if you opt for the game's bad endings because those are where things get especially emotionally charged. Whether it be acceptance, betrayal, or sadness, they all play into the game's strength of this being a dark journey that you and Elise all understand how to avoid its worst conclusions.
I don't know... maybe they're just cousins.
Likewise, as Elise gets pulled between honoring her love interests and the dark forces in the story's background, Little Goody Two Shoes becomes one of the best tragedies of the year. As you uncover more about the story's core mystery, you are presented with heavy choices that unlock even more lurid cinematics and cutscenes, ranging from horrifying to melancholic to joyous. When I concluded the bad ending for Rozenmarine, I was left speechless because the game visually and audibly made me regret my decision. The epilogues you uncover are vivid reflections of your choices, which likely required a lot of planning and foresight on the part of AstralShift. Yes, their previous title, Pocket Mirror, is a prototype of Little Goody Two Shoes, which lends some credence to the claim that there's nothing too out of the ordinary in it. However, Little Goody Two Shoes' scale and production values dwarf AstralShift's past projects, and it is not fair to say it is entirely beholden to their previous works. Unlike The Quiet Man, this is a perfect example of Square Enix helping out a smaller developer to get more funding and better contacts to make their passion project shoot for the stars.
You Can Tell This Was A Pashion Project From A Small Team In A Good (And Bad) Way
We now need to transition to something slightly different, which are some words of caution to those interested in playing Little Goddy Two Shoes. As suggested earlier, this game is part minigame collection, part puzzle game, part adventure game, part visual novel, and part dating sim. That sounds like a lot, and it is. The visual juxtapositions are fantastic and impressive; the gameplay juxtapositions are often clunky and awkward. There are four minigames, two of which are acceptable (i.e., catching apples and chopping wood) as they harken back to WarioWare, but the other two are among the most frustrating things I played in 2023. One of them is like a baseball microgame wherein you need to time your button presses to bat an object between two children, and the timing for it is incredibly punishing. There's another one wherein Elise needs to collect chicken eggs, and it is the worst variant of Tapper I have ever encountered. These minigames are unavoidable as they are your primary source of income, and not having money might cause you to enter a weird fail state where you cannot progress through the game's dungeons. All that aside, the visual presentation of these minigames is outstanding, and how the game cleverly uses them during the story is a real treat.
I just desperately would have liked if more than two out of the four possible minigames did not play like garbage.
The traditional visual novel trappings are trickier to assess. Your tolerance of these mechanics will depend on your experience with more orthodox Japanese VNs. Depending on your actions, Elise has three meters for you to worry about that can decline and result in a Game Over. The first is her health, which whittles away during the puzzle dungeons, which are every day's capstone event. Plenty of lethal traps can cause her health bar to drop dramatically when you least expect it. The second is her "Sanity," which you only need to worry about if you choose to interact with looming specters or ghosts that let you in on some of the story's secrets or decide in favor of tackling the game's optional dungeons and puzzles, which unlock a secret ending. Finally, you have her hunger meter, which loses a whole point every time you complete an action during one of the phases of every day (i.e., dawn, morning, afternoon, dusk, and night). Needing to worry about three different item types to guarantee that Elise doesn't meet an untimely demise is undoubtedly overwhelming, but again, one of those three is entirely optional.
The structure of the days is one of the game's best parts, as it allows you to plan your activities and character-based pursuits more freely, but it is also a slight source of frustration. Again, experience with more traditional visual novels might cloud your adventure here, but Little Goody Two Shoes incentivizes and punishes you for exploring its world and interacting with NPCs. Some of the town's citizens suspect, and correctly, for that matter, that Elise is up to witchery, and if you spill the beans, she's toast. As such, attempting to strike up conversations with NPCs will prompt dialogue choices, and either you select the correct option and maintain Elise's low profile, or you pick the wrong option, and her "Suspicion" meter increases. I like this design choice partly because it makes exploring your surroundings a risk-reward proposition, especially during your first playthrough. You want to know the gossip going around town as it clues you into what to expect at the end of the day and what to expect in the future. Likewise, even if you fail a few at the start, you learn the character-specific techniques for brownnosing your way out of these sequences. What is more frustrating is when the game punches above its weight class in structuring multi-day-spanning missions. There's one, on Wednesday, where if you fail to interact with a half dozen NPCs by a barn during three specific day phases, and if you miss even one, you fail that entire day and have to load up a previous save! The game is downright terrible about communicating what you need to do at times and instead keeps its directions and signposting vague to a fault. As I mentioned earlier, there are three romance options. However, somewhat frustratingly, the game doesn't tell you that failing to attend two romantic events for a specific character in a row will lock you out of their relationship entirely.
If you have any nostalgia for 90s anime or animation, this game is a must play.
I also mentioned that this game is interconnected to a previous work of AstralShift, Pocket Mirror. While I would LOVE for this write-up to end with me imploring you to check out not one but TWO high-concept indie titles, that's not the case. While the idea of AstralShift having this related metaverse is quaint, you can play Little Goody Two Shoes and call it a day. Seriously, you're fine. Regardless of the version you play, Pocket Mirror is a fabulous concept that developer AstralShift fails to deliver upon. The bones of a compelling story about generational or shared trauma are there, but more often than not, the game doesn't have all that much to say beyond its spooky visuals and darker moments. Also, lacking Little Goody Two Shoes' respits from the traumatic sequences means it is a much more emotionally draining experience, which I know is not everyone's cup of tea. Likewise, while there are only a few hints of Little Goody Two Shoes starting as an RPG Maker joint from time to time, the telltale signs of that architecture are way more overt in Pocket Mirror. I swear to God, platforming in RPG Maker games has always sucked shit, but people keep trying, and it drives me goddamn up the wall every single time. Nonetheless, my point is that the promise of Little Goody Two Shoes' story triumphantly carrying on elsewhere is not worth the time investment it entails.
Unfortunately, Little Goody Two Shoes Has An Undeniable Achilles' Heel
Oh... sliding block puzzles. Hello darkness my old friend.
My previous cautionary criticisms are quibbles compared to the real issue plaguing Little Goody Two Shoes. I already mentioned that Little Goody Two Shoes ends each day with puzzle dungeons. The problem is that almost all of these dungeons are a complete pain in the ass to play. The first one immediately highlights the game's issues of being too obtuse with its clues and overall design. In a royal library, you need to find four keys, and while there are visible blue chests to open, one of them, instead of providing a key, shares a note that says to find something glowing the color gold. The issue for me was that the environment was so visually busy that finding the one shelf with a faint golden hue was challenging. However, things are all downhill from there as the dungeons become even more punishing and trail-and-error based. There are a handful of chase sequences wherein you instantly die if you let a giant lumbering monster or threat catch up to Elise. There are sliding block puzzles that are either poorly mixed or feel impossible.
The most notorious puzzle in the game comes near its end, wherein Elise finds herself in a predominantly black room with statues and broken checkerboard tiles. It is an incredible-looking environment, but the puzzle requires you to know moon phases, and if you don't know the difference between a waxing and a waning gibbous moon because you forgot that part of middle school science, you need to look up the answers. Also, in that environment are evil specters that will hit Elise, thus draining her health, but more distressingly, respawn her in a location sometimes far away from where she got hit, which makes establishing her bearings a chore. There are not a ton of boss fights in the game, and two of the three that come to mind involve you completing the minigames that typically reward cash but, in their cases, have a more demented bent. The game's only "true" boss is an absolute piece of shit. It is one of those bosses that reverses your controls from your established preferences for shits and giggles and even will invert the screen and camera while you need to complete precise dodging and platforming. It's a complete dick move by the design team.
Like I said, this game takes some dark turns and for completionists, is not for the faint of heart.
It's weird to praise a game when almost one-third of it is not fun. The worst part about many of these puzzles and dungeons is that they are a cinch once you figure things out. These dungeons are not dynamic, which makes the repeat playthroughs the game actively encourages a complete slog. Playing the puzzle dungeons a second time made me realize how irrelevant Elise's health meter becomes when you "solve" these puzzles and know precisely where all the traps are. The problem, as I highlighted with the moon phase puzzle, is that the game gives you almost none of the tools necessary to figure things out naturally. On top of that, it ramps up the instant death bullshit, which is infinitely not cool. However, there's more to these dungeons than just eye candy that makes me slightly understand their sometimes punishing design. When you reach the end of the game and are presented with its ultimate choice, you hate these dungeons. So, when the game offers two paths for Elise to take, one of them opts you into ANOTHER punishing dungeon that is a complete chore to complete. There's a narrative reason for that: the game wants you to know that path is THE BAD ONE! It is a clever inversion of the visual novel standard of the good paths and endings always being arbitrarily challenging to unlock.
I wish I could just dismiss the dungeons outright and that be it, but they are just narrative and visually so strong that I can forgive their gameplay not being great.
Even here, I must concede that AstralShift is not technically committing a grave sin in the arena of visual novels with its dungeon design. This topic is ultimately one for a different blog. Still, AstralShift is one of MANY horror outfits that pay homage and pull notes from indie self-published horror classics like Ao Oni and Corpse Party. While those games continue to be profoundly influential and still direct hundreds into game design and horror storytelling, they were never good. They are both terrible games. Corpse Party might be the video game industry's closest equivalent to Leni Riefenstahl. It is a profoundly problematic work that depicts certain groups of people heinously and has led to some nasty habits from indie developers who should know better. Nonetheless, it is a game that proves less is more and that you don't need the best engine or biggest name to make something that gets the internet buzzing. It was also an early pioneer of a work that taught people interested in game development that self-publishing was an entirely worthy and worthwhile route to take one's game.
To Little Goody Two Shoes' credit, nothing in it is deeply problematic. It is a game with wholesome and naturally evolving lesbian relationships that are a true highlight. The game is packed to the gills with style and utilizes many disparate artistic mediums and aesthetical choices to create a picture book-inspired world. It promises to transport you to far-off and alien worlds and does so magnificently. If the tax I need to pay is some crappy dungeons for heartwarming lesbian witches in the style of 90s anime with puppets, then so be it. I will gladly pay that tax.
Yeah, guys I don't know... I think they're just friends. 6 Comments
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