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This was a bit more of a productive month than last month, with the attached irony that it was even more stressful so most of my gameplaying was a desperate attempt to not be panicking frantically.
Unfortunately, that also meant my patience with games got a lot shorter than it had been in recent memory. Here's your end of month blooper reel.
EVOLAND 2
I wanted to like this. I wanted to like this so badly, considering Evoland almost hit the nostalgia button before it got lost up the "FF7 Is The Most Important JRPG So Let's Hyperfocus On Making FF7 References" buttcrack.
Evoland 2's writing is much better than that, to its credit. To its detriment, the game shifts genres way too quickly, violently, and relentlessly to really calm down and get a good flow to your gameplay. For the most part, it's a 2D action-RPG ala oh look suddenly a bullet hell segment Zelda, with mild now it's a street fighter wannabe, use your fireballs!!! puzzle solving and did anyone ask for a rhythm game oh now it's pseudo-3D and goddamn everything is a mess.
I want to like this game, but it is exhausting. I don't know if I can get through it even if I make a concerted effort. On a directly related tangent:
APOTHEON
On paper this is amazing, and the aesthetic is top notch. Apotheon is a Greek tragedy with the Greek gods in the style of Greek pottery and it's all Greek to me. The story is that the gods have abandoned humanity so you, some random dude, gets Hera's help to march up to Mount Olympus and start busting heads.
What follows is a somewhat neat exploration-platformer (a "metroidvania", if you will) with a giant albatross known as its combat system. Combat is clunky, awkward, and slow, which means you take a lot of damage if you aren't careful, and it never feels rewarding to get into fights even if fighting is more or less mandatory. I got through one boss and just kind of lost interest. I could probably push through this if I tried, but that combat really just sours the experience for me.
PIXEL SHOPKEEPER
Recettear and You Must Build A Boat had a baby. I really can't describe it any better than that. Like Recettear, you have to manage running an item shop, selling items to adventurers and passerby all to pay off a debt hanging over your head that you are required to pay on literal threat of death. Like YMBAB, all the "adventuring" is automated and focused mainly on puzzle-solving in an incredibly short timespan - though in the case of Pixel Shopkeeper, it's all about tetrising around those huge clunky piles of loot to make them all fit in your backpack.
It's interesting but, again, I kind of burned out on it. It gets repetitive, and unlike Recettear, the alternate gamemode in adventuring isn't quite enough to make the whole grind endearing.
LIBERATION MAIDEN
Back when I was buying a bunch of stuff on the 3DS eshop (like, a year or two ago, not recently) I picked up the entire Guild01 game collection one game at a time. Liberation Maiden especially caught my interest just because Suda51 was involved in writing the plot so I was expecting craziness.
The only problem? The game literally murders my hands and causes carpal tunnel flareups. The way the control scheme works, you have to aim and fire exclusively with the touch screen, while you use the L button and circle-pad to steer and strafe around. Trying to hold a 3DS stable in this position and still play competently involves a case of claw hands that are giving me flashback twinges just thinking about. I'd want to play this, but only after I get an indestructible robot body instead of this weak flesh shell.
NOITU LOVE 2: DEVOLUTION
This, on the other hand, I just don't have the skill (or patience) to clear. I played through to stage 3 and hit an absolute fucking brick wall I could not surpass, before ragequitting and deciding to play something easier and less stressful - a literal fighting game.
It's a shame, because the spritework and music is incredibly my shit. I'm just not good enough to push through.
TAILS ADVENTURE
Around the time I got the idea to try clearing Phantasy Star 4, I also gave this a shot. It's an exploration platformer! But Sonic! Except Tails moves super slow and you only have a single life! And you can't tell what your HP is all the time because sometimes the level geometry covers up your HUD!
Everything is slow and plodding and generally unfun and why did I spend two dollars on this when did I think it was good.
Join me next time where I invariably get angry again at being bad at games! (No, not really. Well, maybe not really. Maybe.)
Unfortunately, that also meant my patience with games got a lot shorter than it had been in recent memory. Here's your end of month blooper reel.
EVOLAND 2
I wanted to like this. I wanted to like this so badly, considering Evoland almost hit the nostalgia button before it got lost up the "FF7 Is The Most Important JRPG So Let's Hyperfocus On Making FF7 References" buttcrack.
Evoland 2's writing is much better than that, to its credit. To its detriment, the game shifts genres way too quickly, violently, and relentlessly to really calm down and get a good flow to your gameplay. For the most part, it's a 2D action-RPG ala oh look suddenly a bullet hell segment Zelda, with mild now it's a street fighter wannabe, use your fireballs!!! puzzle solving and did anyone ask for a rhythm game oh now it's pseudo-3D and goddamn everything is a mess.
I want to like this game, but it is exhausting. I don't know if I can get through it even if I make a concerted effort. On a directly related tangent:
APOTHEON
On paper this is amazing, and the aesthetic is top notch. Apotheon is a Greek tragedy with the Greek gods in the style of Greek pottery and it's all Greek to me. The story is that the gods have abandoned humanity so you, some random dude, gets Hera's help to march up to Mount Olympus and start busting heads.
What follows is a somewhat neat exploration-platformer (a "metroidvania", if you will) with a giant albatross known as its combat system. Combat is clunky, awkward, and slow, which means you take a lot of damage if you aren't careful, and it never feels rewarding to get into fights even if fighting is more or less mandatory. I got through one boss and just kind of lost interest. I could probably push through this if I tried, but that combat really just sours the experience for me.
PIXEL SHOPKEEPER
Recettear and You Must Build A Boat had a baby. I really can't describe it any better than that. Like Recettear, you have to manage running an item shop, selling items to adventurers and passerby all to pay off a debt hanging over your head that you are required to pay on literal threat of death. Like YMBAB, all the "adventuring" is automated and focused mainly on puzzle-solving in an incredibly short timespan - though in the case of Pixel Shopkeeper, it's all about tetrising around those huge clunky piles of loot to make them all fit in your backpack.
It's interesting but, again, I kind of burned out on it. It gets repetitive, and unlike Recettear, the alternate gamemode in adventuring isn't quite enough to make the whole grind endearing.
LIBERATION MAIDEN
Back when I was buying a bunch of stuff on the 3DS eshop (like, a year or two ago, not recently) I picked up the entire Guild01 game collection one game at a time. Liberation Maiden especially caught my interest just because Suda51 was involved in writing the plot so I was expecting craziness.
The only problem? The game literally murders my hands and causes carpal tunnel flareups. The way the control scheme works, you have to aim and fire exclusively with the touch screen, while you use the L button and circle-pad to steer and strafe around. Trying to hold a 3DS stable in this position and still play competently involves a case of claw hands that are giving me flashback twinges just thinking about. I'd want to play this, but only after I get an indestructible robot body instead of this weak flesh shell.
NOITU LOVE 2: DEVOLUTION
This, on the other hand, I just don't have the skill (or patience) to clear. I played through to stage 3 and hit an absolute fucking brick wall I could not surpass, before ragequitting and deciding to play something easier and less stressful - a literal fighting game.
It's a shame, because the spritework and music is incredibly my shit. I'm just not good enough to push through.
TAILS ADVENTURE
Around the time I got the idea to try clearing Phantasy Star 4, I also gave this a shot. It's an exploration platformer! But Sonic! Except Tails moves super slow and you only have a single life! And you can't tell what your HP is all the time because sometimes the level geometry covers up your HUD!
Everything is slow and plodding and generally unfun and why did I spend two dollars on this when did I think it was good.
Join me next time where I invariably get angry again at being bad at games! (No, not really. Well, maybe not really. Maybe.)