Why is this title so long?!
This is the second game in the series which is the only one available on PC and the first game is only playable on the PS2. Supposedly the gameplay of the original is worse than this one, but the the second games story is a direct continuation of the first games. This is to say that I have no clue what is going on here and I'm essentially just here for the gameplay.
The game starts on a moon (I think) of Mars and we find a cool big mech that can fly around and shoot big lasers and the gameplay is really fun. combat feels good and so far most of the game is only combat. There's some flying around in between combat encounters but that's about it. I really like hack and slash games and this one, while showing its age, is good at scratching that itch.
Boss fights are fun, if a bit tricky to figure out at times, and there are some Puzzel-esque sections, though so far it's only been "hit a box with the letter A on it" and you just have to hope that you get the right one. It sucks.
This is actually my second time trying to play this game. I tried for the first time over a year ago and since I didn't get the story I quit. Could I just look the story up? Sure, but KONAMI decided to only port the second game to PC and to me this implies that I should be able to play it on its own. At this point I'm just ignoring the story. Not intentionally, but none of it makes much sense to me and I just can't keep up with it. Gameplay is still fun and that's why I keep playing, but doing it like this feels a bit exhausting. My play sessions have been much shorter than they are in other games and I find myself taking longer breaks too.
Anyway, I'm on Mars now I guess...
The Demo:
It took me about 79 minutes to beat and was great fun. Combat feel good and I'd love to have more of it. The menus are a bit clunky at times and I hope those get improved before the release in July. The highlight of the game for me are the designs of the dinosaurs. They look great and are at nice middle ground between science and coolness (not to say that scientifically accurate dinos aren't cool).
I don't usually like hard games. They just irritate me and I eventually quit in a bad mood and won't come back to it for quite a while, if at all. I quit Elden Ring after 3 hours of suffering and haven't touche it in four years. Dinoblade is a Soulslike and it is hard, but the difficulty in the demo isn't too bad. The final boss did kill 20 times, but exploring and fighting enemies for like 15 minutes was enough to boost my stats and beat that bit Trex.
Also, a Trex using an Ankylosaurus as a weapon is such an amazing idea! I love it!
I don't really play many fan games but I saw this on Youtube and since my boyfriend is a massive Undertale fan we decided to play it together.
This game is funny. Like really funny. The setup is great and the warped version of the underground feels familiar yet absurdly different. The rubber Homers are great. While I usually don't like turn based combat, I do like it decently in this game, mainly because of how entertaining the presentation is. Also it's pretty easy.
The games artwork and music, while mostly derivitive of existing work from Undertale, Deltarune and other games, is great for what this game is.
Sans is great in this. His puns are bad and everyone is fed up with them. Also, he turns into a cat-boy.
The fishing minigame is great and surprisingly layered.
Every time I think we're about to be done the games says there's another area to explore and more story to see. Also, more Homers to see.
To my surprise the story develops from a simply goofy fangame into an interesting and original premise. It actually made me feel for the characters quite a bit and I'm genuenly interested in where the story will go.
First (fake) ending reached.
Alright, game finished. We found the really broken combo that is using Mansai Buddies and All Out Attack. It made most of the game really trivial, even the Ra-Men, but not Spark (oh god Spark). We also got Monk-Key to max level and he remained as useless as he always was. Awsome!
The story is really interesting and has way more to it than I ever thought it would. I really love the section where you explore Seriphs website towards the end, especially since it really reminds me of a lot of the little indie sites I've seen on neocities since I joined myself.
We put in a few extra hours to get a better ending but there is still so much to do in this game and I'd love to do all of it, but it's kind of hard to find information about some of the more obscure parts of the game online, so it would be a lot of extra work and we've already spent way more time on this goofy little fan game than either of us thought we would.
I'd really recommend this game to any undertale fan. Even the casual ones like myself.
Java Edition is by far my prefered version of the game to play. It's probably just because I've grown up with it (asside from Pocket Edition) and therefor I'm more used to how it works. I mainly play creative mode and have been building in one world. I have a big mountain base, an unfinished amusement park, a small rural neighbourhood that's built in a way so you can never see the untouched world beyond it, and my current and biggest project: a massive city with a working subway, a labourinth-esque sewer system and a full two level city under the city. The whole thing has its own story and lore and I love working on it.
I usually play Minecraft in phases. Once or twice a year I'll pick it back up and then play nothing else for a month or two.
Maybe I'll eventually upload some pictures or videos of my world, or even post a world download if I'm daring.
Jurassic World Rebirth Expansion:
I've been waiting way too long for this to come out and am really excited. So far I've gotten far enough in the campaign that I got to move to the other two locations. So far I'm loving it. The Mutadon is the first and so far only new animal I have and the model and animations look great as always with this game. It does look a bit clunky when it's taking flight but it's good over all. The mission structure here is also really nice as you get to choose between which main missions you want to do when and there's even some side content to do here. There are also some new mechanics like the new energy system which make playing a lot more varied and the new building pieces make everything look so unique and capture the look of the movie well. Now that I'm moving onto the next map I'm excited to see the new chonky T-Rex and apperantly money is shared between all three locations, so that will be an interesting change compared to the regular campaign.
Kenshi is a weird game to me. I don't usually like hard games, and yet I love this.
Kenshi is about exploring, building a base, making a living and, most importantly, surviving. It is an unforgiving world that will kill you faster than you can think, and if it doesn't then you'll at least be severely crippled. You may make a character at the start of your run b ut they are no more important than anyone else in that world. If your little guy dies you just keep going as long as you have another person recruted.
Kenshi is a world rich with unique people, factions and history, much of which has been forgotten to time, but some you can once again recover. Choose were you settle down, which factions to side with (if any), how to treat this world and the people in it and what kind of mark you want to leave on it. Just watch out for the Beak Things while you're at it.
I don't think any game has felt so wonderous and yet real at the same time to me. No game has given me this much freedom to interact with it however I want while still being complex and filled with its own systems and NPCs that seemingly don't care that you're here.
Play Kenshi. Do yourself the favour.
Tunic is a really fun game over all, though it did annoy me every once in a while. I love the look of the game and how the gameplay feels. Combat is challenging throughout but you traverse early game areas over and over and seeing how much stronger you’ve become by beating those initial enemies is great.
The main draw of the game is its vagueness and while that was something that made me interested it is also part of where my frustrations with the game come from. A big part of Tunic is collecting the pages of the games manual as you go and most of those are written in a language specifically made up for the game. That language can be translated and it’s necessary to do so for some of the late game puzzles (though most of those are optional). Since the manual doesn’t tell you much in plain English you essentially just have to trail and error your way through the game as there is no tutorial for most thing. Not even for your controls and abilities. One of the neat parts was discovering the prayer mechanic that is unlocked from the start but since the game doesn’t tell you about it you could only find it through pressing and holding random buttons. On the one hand, this is fun. On the other hand, I like getting new abilities through actual effort and not just because I find out that I haven’t been using my controller properly. I don’t really know how to express this properly, but those moments of the game just didn’t feel as rewarding as they should have I feel.
Since you can’t read the most of the text there isn’t really a story to speak of. There are multiple hero’s graves to find and I think it’s supposed to be some sort of cycle where a new hero shows up and defeats the old one. Also there’s an extinct race pf fox people whose ghosts I met and I really don’t know what’s up with them. Like why is my little fox guy here but all the others are dead? Where did my little man come from? Why? All good questions that the game doesn’t answer, or at least I haven’t found those answers in my playthrough.
Also, the game is hard and I had to quit twice because it just got on my nerves.
I ultimately got the good ending and it was satisfying. It does however involve the potentially most obtuse puzzle in the game and I was really frustrated with it.
Additionally, I got all the trophies. Getting these does require translating the language but thanks to my boyfriend who’s a big fan of the game I was spared from the hours of work it would have taken. This allowed me to enter a secret room with more text to translate that leads to a youtube link which reveals that there is a second language… hidden in the music… throughout the whole game…
Yeah, I’m just going to be happy with the ending I got.
Big thank you to my boyfriend who sat next to me and gave me hints and advice while playing. I wouldn't have made it through without that help ♡
While I often say that I don’t like turn based combat, OFF is such a classic and well known game that I just felt like I had to play it, especially since it’s on sale right now. It isn’t the longest game and I beat it in a bit less than six hours all in one sitting.
It shows its age and that it’s made in RPG Maker, but don’t take that as a negative. Knowing what engine it was made in makes it more impressive. The games stand out feature is definitely the art style and animations. The game looks fantastic and it wouldn’t be half as good without them.
Gameplay wise it is basic and I can’t really find anything to praise, though I don’t really have complaints either. You have your basic attacks, special moves that consume a limited resource, defending and using items. You start off alone but gather companions as you go though here they aren’t characters but instead Add-Ons that each have their own specialization. One is good at attacking, the other is the healer and the last… I don’t really know since I got it so late in the game.
Before I talk about the story I want to mention the characters since they are the other big thing that drew me to the game. The Batter, who you control throughout the game but he’s his own character, is stoic and committed to his quest. His deadpan and short responses are often really funny to me. The Judge is the next person you meet. He’s a cat and helped out as I went along. He also delivers most of the necessary exposition. The shop guy (I don’t remember his name) is great and while other characters acknowledge you, the player, frequently he’s the only one who straight up recognizes that he’s in a videogame and acts accordingly. Meeting him was always a treat. The many side characters may all look the same but they bring so much life and personality to the world. The bosses do the same though obviously at a much larger scale. You do get plenty reasons to dislike them but as the story progressed I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for them. Finally we have the queen who only shows up briefly but has a really cool fight and delivers a lot more story during it, and Hugo who… I feel so bad…
When it comes to puzzles the game is stuffed full with them though most aren’t too tough. My favourite however has to be the one in zone 4 where you have to switch between save files to solve different puzzles in each one by getting hints from the others. It was fantastic and a lot of fun to figure out.
In terms of story there’s a lot here to dig your teeth into but I must admit that I’m just not really that kind of person. On the surface the Batter is a man on a mission he sees as holy and will not be stopped on his path. The world is split into different zones that are each guarded by their respective “gods” who, together with Hugo, rebuilt the dead world. Hugo is a young child who doesn’t like his father and would rather be with his mother, the queen. By the events of the game the father is no longer in the picture but during the queen fight she hints that the Batter might be him. The Batters ultimate goal is to literally turn the world off by flipping a switch at the end of it. Once you reach that last room you get the choice of the “official ending” where you help the Batter fight the Judge and reach his goal, or do the “good ending” where you help the Judge fight the Batter and stop the end of the world even if there isn’t much of it left anyways.
Ultimately, OFF is a fun game that made me laugh but also got me to think and feel things. While I’m not invested enough to dig into all the lore and story I did enjoy my time and wish there was more of it. Looking at the achievements there seem to be a bunch of secret bosses that I haven’t met, so maybe I’ll go back for those. We’ll see.
This game makes me sad, both because of the story but also because I don't enjoy it as much as I'd want to.
It's a metroidvania wxcept all the upgrades I've gotten so far are unlocked through skill points that I got by exploring and mainly fighting. So far I don't think that calling this a metroidvania is accurate. It feels like a survival game if anything.
Surreal and funny, Burden Street Station has you play as a little guy who sorts peoples moments that the inhabitants of the various planets experience into categories so that higher beings can consume them. One of the books that's ment to have such a moment documented inside of it doesn't actually have one however and when you inform your superior about this he instead sends you on a mission to a planet whos god has disappeared and therefor no new moments are generated.
The concept is really unique, as is the rest of the game. Gameplay is mainly running around talking to people and in pivotal moments linking up with them which unlocks new personalities in you. These personalities are then used to in conversations as each is represented by a body part and each allows you to give different responses to people. This also lets you customize your little guy which is fun. The cat head is my favourite.
And oh my god the character designs in this game are so fun and creative and I love every single one of them. you can tell what someone is about, even the most minor NPC, just by looking at them and it's great. They serve to make this world even more abstract and surreal while at the same time tying it together.
The first stop was at the titular Burden Street where the story mainly focusses on Lydia, a struggleing musician, and Goodboy, who is struggling with the dissaperance of their good since he devoted most of his life to serving him. As I talked to them it eventually came out that Goodboy had a brother who loved to play music and eventually left the families countryside home without notice. I imediately thought that this brother was going to be revealed to be Lydia and I was right. After a lot of back and forth with both of them and convincing Lydia that she doesn't need succes with her music and should be happy playing for a reason that's uniquly important to her (which she decids is her brother, shocker) and Goodboy that he doesn't need a god to know what's right and wrong and what he should do in life, the two reunite and it's a really heartwarming scene.
Also, woo for trans representation.
Right now I'm in the second area of the game after my train had to stop because it ran over some guy (don't worry, he's fine). Here I've met Ruth, and artist, who's friends with Lydia though they haven't seen each other in six months. Ruth hates her own art and can not understand why people would want to buy it and really wants to play chess, but since Lydia left her life she's had no one to play with.
I'll be honest, the game starts to drag a bit here. The writing is still good but Ruth is the only real interactable character, unlike in the first area where there where a decent amount of major NPCs besides the important story ones. It also doesn't help that I've been playing all this in one sitting so far and just got a little tired at this point.
I'll definately keep playing and we'll see if I come back around to loving the game as much as I did during the first part. I really want to.
Jumping feels cluncky. Swinging feels clucky. Game feels clucky. So far I've only gotten through the tutorial and the first stage but the first impression is not the greatest. I got it for free, so no money wasted and I haven't played long enough that I can make a definitive verdict here but it's not like the game is making me want to play more of it.
I like Megaman. I've played 11 and X and some other stuff and I enjoyed them a decent amount. This game is Megaman. just straight up, nothing else I can say here. Choosing between were to go, how the game controls and just the general vibe is Megaman and that's fine but it's not good Megaman. It's not new Megaman. It's just Megaman and it's not the best version of it. Like I said, to early to make a definitive conclusion but first impressions are important and mine aren't good.
I guess there is a sequel that just came out so there's something here that people like. We'll see...
Ever wanted to play Minecraft but you have no clue what you are doing or how anything works and the blocks somethimes grow legs and attack you? Well, then I have just the game for you!
Lucid Blocks is strange and when I say that I don't know what's going on then I mean it. i think there's a story here since the opening cutscene implies a sort of goal though I don't know what exactly it is ment to be. The only thing I've found so far is that I get experience points for crafting new things and doing some other actions and eventually I level up and can improve some of my stats or inventory space. I just did that for my third time and got the opportunity to increase my hate and I have no clue what that is but I did it. After stumbling around for a while I also found the first normal looking environment of the game with just dirt and snow and regular trees and it feels weird but also comforting compared to the rest of the game so far. The some little guy latched onto my head and started ticking and I went into the water which got he off of me and then a giant spider thing appeared and killed me in two hits so I respawned were I started and have no clue how to get back there. Yay...
It's a very unique and fun game and I'll definately keep playing but man, I still don't have a grasp on any of this.
I have found the titular lucid block and it looks like the trans flag.
I've also come across one of the leyline blocks and and failed the platforming challange but then found a second one soon after, cheesed my way through it by just building a path to the goal and got my first rosary bead which I would assume is sort of the goal of the game. Unfortunately it shows me that I collected the second bead and not the first one and I really hope that this doesn't mean that a failed challange can never be redone. Either way, I'm happy to have a more concret goal now.
Two more rosary bead challanges failed, one more successfully cleared and died shortly before getting to another. Feels like I'm making progress... sort of.
I also built a nice little house and planted some berries outside. I've settled down in a nice looking open grass field with some trees around and a beach close by. Sometimes I have humans and wilderbeasts showing up in the area but they tend to just fight each other and aren't too much trouble. Also, on the bright side, sheep and bubblebears spawn here so I'm in good company. I died quite a lot while building the house and it started to get a bit annoying but now that it's done it's a tranquil little place to call home and it makes me happy to respawn here when I die.
------------------------------------------PACIFIST ROUTE---------------------------------------------------
It's cute. While I thought it'd be more impressive since I had heard so many people talking about it since it came out it's still not bad.
The game looks fantastic. The art is great and the animations are so fluid and full of life. It makes the original game and even Deltarune look bad at times. This made the fun moments more fun and especially made the impactful and emotional scenes hit even more for me. The music is equally good and the characterisation of both the world and the people you meet feel right at home in Undertale.
Staying on the positive side: The story was enjoyable und surprisingly long. beating the game took me about 8 hours and I dies 9 times during this first playthrough. I decided to start off doing pacifist first and judging by the ending this might be the games canon way to play it.
The game starts you off essentially the same way as Undertale does. You fall down and land in a bed of flowers. This time you play as a little cowboy named Clover and their on a mission to find the other children that had previously fallen into the underground. Clover is the yellow soul from Undertale (as the title would imply) and the story takes place before the original game. Instead of meeting Flowey in the second room there is a Froggit that Toriel shoos off. After that you do the regular tutorial with her until you unexpectedly fall through the floor and end up in a new part of the ruins. Here you finally meet Flowey. He's nice. clearly still has some ulterior motives but he's kind and helpful. He's a sort of companion for the rest of the game as he essentially replaces the save points and talks to you whenever you go to save.
The new ruins area is cute. I met a bat and later a vampire, both of which had fun boss fights and neat interactions once I befriended them. The new regular enemies are also fun and fit the game well. Once I was done here the vampire guy let me out into Snowdin which felt familiar but still new.
The game does essentially follow the same structure as Undertale, which makes sense since you enter the same way and have essentially the same destination to get to. Snowdin gets expanded with some new areas characters and concepts and here we also meet our first important character. Blue bird girl whos name I can't remember because I'm terrible with names. She's cute and probably my favourite addition to the universe this game makes. She's a rooky at the royal guard and sets up a few homemade traps all over the place. Once I cought up to here there was a fun boss fight and eventually she decided that I'm just to cute and precious to be captured and killed and helped me along. So onto her boat I went and we were off to hot land by cruising through Waterfall. However, we get thrown off the path and I end up in the mines. Time for an all new area.
The mines are a little boring. No major characters. No major events. It's just an area you walk through and solve a few puzzles in. No much for me to say here, though the sandstorm being caused by a big fan was a fun bit.
Next is the Wild East and there are a lot of new characters to meet here. Mainly there's Starlo and his friends. They pretend to be cowboys. That's their whole thing. I'll be honest: Wild East last a bit too long for how little happens here. I get that the game introduces two of the most important characters here but it still drags. Anyway, Starlow is a big human nerd and throws blue bird into jail so he can spend time with me. Eventually he promoted me to deputy and his friends didn't like that so he ran away and then we fought and then everyone made up and I leave with Ceroba, Starlos childhood friend, to go tot the Steamworks. Her child is supposedly held at the Lab and this is the fastest way there.
The Steamworks are fun. Axis is great and I built him a hot girlfriend. This area also adds new backstory to the underground and it's neat. That's kind of it though.
Starlo and friends catch up at the end to take me away because Ceroba is actually evil. Going to her house and into a secret basement reveals that her scientist husband was expreimenting with fusing human and monster souls and doing that on himself killed him and then Ceroba, like the good mother she is, tried it on her own daughter which put her in a coma and that'S why she's at the Lab. Ceroba wanted to use Clover to either save her daughter or keep expreimenting or something.
After this is Hotland and it's essentially nothing but the hotel where I meet blue bird on the roof and then we go through New Home to fight Ceroba in a visually really cool boss fight. Clover sacrifices themselfs so Ceroba can take their soul to either do her experiments or bring it to Asgore or something.
The end.
Over all I had fun but thinking back on it the game is a bit shallow. A lot of areas feel needlessly drawn out and while they were fun to go through they lack substance. Battles also felt weird. The game started off easy enough to were I thought it tried to be its own thing and doesn't expect you to be an undertale combat expert, but the difficulty curve went up really fast and it caught me off guard. Additionaly the bullet patterns during the fights just aren't as well made as Undertales or Deltarunes are. There are some unavoidable attacks and it just seems like the game could have used more playtesting to iron out those kinks.
It's just very obviously a fan game and that's fine but it also makes it harder to recommend. If you like Undertake then go for it. It's fun and cute but just not much more than that. Clover is adorable though and I need to put that gif of them dancing somewhere on my site.