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[Shoshon the Elegant]

I played a lot of escape room games.

Escape Simulator
Regular Factory
Tested on Humans
Mystic Academy
Palindrome Syndrome
Between Time
Pyramids & Aliens
Secrets of Blackrock Manor

[The Satellite]

I sorta went on a blitz the first month plus half-a-week of this year. Five games knocked out, 60% of it on my backlog, 60% of them metroidvanias, with about 33% overlap in both. Does that math check out, you know what, I don't care.

 

First up is Afterimage, which I'd had on my wishlist a while and nabbed when it was on sale for $5. It's a. Well. It's okay. It's a metroidvania that can be pretty to look at, but a lot of its level design is kinda meandering, winding, and very forgettable. A minimap would've helped a lot because I was opening the map a lot to remember my way. The combat and build options can be fun, and the movement as well was enjoyable, but the main problem is this game had absolutely zero business being thirty hours long. I do not tend to like long metroidvanias and it's worse when the game doesn't really give much to justify that length. That and the story, well... the translation is kind of clumsy and the dialogue is very wordy. Like, maybe it would've been more palatable if the translation were smoother, but I also can't help but think the amount of dialogue would still make me just not care. I don't want to put down detailed worlds, it's good to have a lot of thought put into your work of fiction, but at some point I'd like to get a move on, you know? Anyway, it's an okay game that needed to be ten hours shorter. Preferably more than ten hours.

 

Then to the backlog I went to cover Axiom Verge! This is one I actually started, on stream, back in 2018 but didn't play past that initial stream. I think this is an incredibly solid game whose only real downfall was combat, I didn't think it was very good at all in that regard despite the multiple weapon options, which on their own were good! But honestly without much incentive to kill enemies, I avoided combat where I could just because I found it unfun. I also kinda wish they'd let you fast travel between save points to make backtracking a little less annoying but that's more minor. The story is cool, and the music kicks ass. It also makes me wish more metroidvanias would create unique solutions to common navigational obstacles instead of playing them straight all the time, but it doesn't make (most) of those more "standard" entries less good.

 

Continuing the backlog is Freedom Planet, which I've actually mentioned in previous posts here. Started it in 2014, said I was "enjoying it," but never beat it. Tried again in 2017, only to say "I honestly don't feel the game that much." Third time turned out to be the charm! ... mostly. I played as Lilac and really enjoyed it this time, from the graphics to the music to the combat. The story... I'm unsure still if I like the tonal whiplash it does or if the darker aspects are just edgy for the sake of it. There's a lot of charm in the presentation at least, and I suppose it makes Brevon an effective villain. I will say that the difficulty balancing kinda fell apart toward the end and just got frustrating. It singlehandedly killed any interest in me trying to beat the game with the other characters, but it didn't stop me from ultimately enjoying the Lilac playthrough.

 

Lastly for the backlog, Journey probably needs no introduction, and probably doesn't need much from me to say. It's a good short game with a great art style. Ever been emotional over a rug?

 

Lastly, the third metroidvania of the list, Blasphemous. This one I also recently acquired on sale and knew little other than "Dark Souls style metroidvania." Honestly, that description doesn't do it justice, especially because the dodge isn't overpowered and there aren't corpse runs for your lost gear. There is a death penalty, but it's just a temporary reduction of your special meter and currency gains, which isn't so bad and can be cleared not just by returning to where you died, but at certain points on the map as well. It's a dark fantasy game, I suppose that's the main comparison, and there's other similarities to Dark Souls in storytelling, but it's a pretty damn good metroidvania. Almost perfect, honestly. I absolutely do not like having any sort of instant death hazard in a metroidvania, and progression could be a little obtuse. I also found out too late I was locked out of the best, canon ending, which was annoying but I got over it. I probably don't care to replay it to get said ending, and it did kill any desire to 100% everything else, but I mean, game's still good, probably the best one I've played so far this year.

 

But the year's barely begun... There's a handful of releases I'm looking forward to, like Pragmata and (hopefully) Mina the Hollower. Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement especially, assuming that makes it this year. There's at least one new game this year I'm interested in, that being MIO: Memories in Orbit. Honestly I've been trying to focus on my backlog lately so maybe I power through that some more, unless there's a new game that comes up I'm very much interested in. Maybe I can finally clear that "play these games this year" list I made. In 2022.

[The Satellite]

The chronicling must continue. I talked about five games last post, and now I've got seven more, covering through the end of February. Yeah, I beat four games in January and eight in February, making twelve already! I'm just cruising, and I'm gonna get sixteen done in March.

 

... oh wait, I haven't even started a new game in March yet. Oops. I mean I'm working on one... that I started in February. More on that... actually in the second game in this post. Anyway.

 

I'd had my eye on Astalon: Tears of the Earth for a while, but had wanted to play its predecessor Castle in the Darkness first. Until a friend outright gifted me the game, so I was like "fuck it." Anyway this game fucking rules? It's an excellent 8-bit metroidvania with incredible music and great exploration. It was difficult to put down because I kept just wanting to wander off every direction to see what I could find, how higher I could progress up the tower. I only had a few gripes. The bosses aren't exactly great, and I wasn't fond of only being able to swap characters at save points, though that got mitigated so fast I almost wondered why it was a mechanic at all. Also, on death, you restart at the beginning of the tower, but with all your progress and shortcuts saved, which made sense for story but was mildly annoying. These did very little to drag down the whole experience though, this game is fantastic.

 

Anyway, uh, February was also when Nintendo dropped the Virtual Boy Nintendo Classics on Switch. Yeah, I bought the peripheral, shut up. My singular experience with Virtual Boy before was an emulator for VR headsets, but I didn't play anything long because I had wanted to stream them. And never did, oops. Anyway, now I can finally experience the Virtual Boy, sans the strobing, and I picked Galactic Pinball as my first game... Uh, this might've been fine on Game Boy back in the day? The 3D effect can be neat, sure, but. Yeah the red-on-black kinda fucking hurts, doesn't it? Also the physics are definitely off but not sure what I expected. No, I don't regret the purchase, I knew I could end up hating it and am happy to have it as a collector's item. But yeah, damn, they weren't lying in 1995 when everyone said this sucks! On that note, it's Wario Land I'm still working on but I can't spend too much time on this thing without being desperate to stop, then I don't want to return for a few days, lol. Incredible.

 

Now for a game I mentioned wanting to play in the previous post! MIO: Memories in Orbit caught my eye and in fact released this January. I kept it on my radar and when it felt like the time, I snagged it. And honestly I'm super glad I did, right now it and Astalon are early contenders for my personal game of the year. It absolutely has a few flaws, but the weird part is I can't be assed to think of them because I enjoyed the rest of the experience that much. Like for certain, there were elements that were legitimately annoying or frustrating, and okay, I'll give one: I am so tired of games following the Hollow Knight example of "your map doesn't update until you use a save point" and that shit needs to be left in the past frankly, but I don't feel like my other issues really hamper the overall game. It's gorgeous, atmospheric, can be both charming and haunting, and goddamn, there's some tough but really fun platforming here. And the bosses are quite similar and feel good to overcome. Game keeps popping into my head every now and then and yeah, this was a great experience. Highly recommend.

 

Y'all know me and how much I fucking love Castlevania. And I made sure to make a post about the upcoming Belmont's Curse, which I hope will be good. So with that in mind, I wanted to do some "homework" and got Dead Cells. It was that or Rogue Prince of Persia, and if my only options are roguelikes, I'll pick the one with the Castlevania DLC since I have played exactly one Prince of Persia game (the 2008 one). Now, I fucking love the Binding of Isaac, but it's an exception because generally I don't enjoy roguelikes that much. Honestly, same held true for Dead Cells. Oh it plays good, has funny writing, looks great, has some good tunes, but roguelike structures just leave a lot to be desired for me. The game does have assist options such as infinite lives and adjusting enemy health/damage, but then it becomes too mundane. The Castlevania stuff was fun enough, and the Dracula fight was awesome, so ultimately I have faith Evil Empire will pull off Belmont's Curse well. But... yeah, roguelikes are just not for me. What? My undying love for Vampire Survivors? Look there's nothing else like that game (untrue but shut up) so shut up (so what if I said shut up twice in quick succession shut up).

 

Have you noticed three of these games are metroidvanias, after my previous post also was about three metroidvanias? The trend continues! Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is a fun game by the same team that made Touhou Luna Nights. I should check out their other works. I've never seen the Record of Lodoss War anime but I did start it after playing this. It's a short game but very fun, with a neat element swap mechanic that adds layers to the platforming and combat. The game could maybe have used another hour or two to really make it shine, but what's here is fantastic. The only flaw is a random stagger mechanic (or guaranteed on some attacks) that honestly kinda sucks. Didn't realize I was playing Street Fighter!

 

And then there's— Uh, well. Am I allowed to talk about this on PureZC? Will I get banned for talking about an NSFW video game?! Okay well be forewarned that FlipWitch - Forbidden Sex Hex is an 18+ game, big shock, right? Hey though, this game's honestly a fun metroidvania. Nothing amazing, but was worth playing. I honestly wouldn't have picked it up were it not for the buzz that it was actually a genuinely fun game. And the visuals are actually quite nice. No not those visuals, though yes those too. Ahem. Jumps are a bit floaty, the game itself is a little buggy, and the "flip" gimmick feels a bit underutilized, but it's fun. Although its idea of a difficulty curve seems to be "enemies deal way more fucking damage than necessary." Another "flaw" (and I don't know what else I expected) is that it does seem kinda aggressively targeted at straight men, and the, ahem, "scenes" are so numerous it borderlines on parodic, but yeah, I enjoyed the game.

 

Fuck I better talk about another game before I get banned for talking about porn on a public forum uh fuck have you heard of DORONKO WANKO? It's a free game about a floofy Pomeranian causing mayhem in a rich family's home, what's not to love?! ... there really isn't much to add to that. It's very short, like an hour. But genuinely, it's quite fun and has some funny moments. I also definitely played it on the 28th to ensure I made it to twelve games before February ended, it was all calculated.

 

... but yeah I'm halfway through March without having finished a single game, I'm washed.