i am a sord lol

So this was a thing.

Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows how big a giant fucking nerd for the original tactics-RPG styled Shining Force games I am. I kind of fell out of love with the series once it went towards more generic Action RPG stylings, but for a goodly amount of time I basically was so in love with the Genesis games that my original online avatar was basically a sprite-comic-recolored version of the SF2 protagonist. This series is literally my childhood and I will never hate it. I can't even bring myself to bash on it despite its faults (Let's be honest, the Genesis games are a pair of strategy RPGs that were trying SO AMAZINGLY HARD to muscle out Fire Emblem that it's not even funny, and SF3's non-localized chapters have some... really bad cultural barriers) so that should give you an idea of how quickly I hunted down this romhack when a friend told me about it.

Basically designed as an AU of the original game (as its name implies), SFA tries to streamline the experience, only drip-feeding you exactly enough party members to fill a team instead of flooding you with them like the first two games did. This allows them to do a little more with those characters, too - they're more than just portraits and stat blocks, and they stay relevant throughout the game, piping in at various moments to let you know their thoughts on the situation at hand.

Oh, and also since it's an AU, your protagonist is genderflipped and literally the only characters you have that were recruitable in the original game are in your starting party and the hot birdperson. Everyone else is either a side character or a serial-numbers-filed-off palette swap named after one of the hack crew. This part I didn't mind; the part I did mind is that the original cast that wasn't recruitable any more (save for the two aforementioned self-insert palette swaps) all more or less showed up and a decent number of them were assholes. One hits on you, two others are actually boss fights... it kinda falls a little flat. Honestly, the writing is the weak point of this. It's certainly functional, but in desperate need of a proofreader and has a few points where I thought the tone veered towards a bit overdramatic in a way that doesn't mesh well with the series.

Speaking of not meshing well, the character portraits kind of have a lack of cohesiveness to them; they're all good on their own, except some of them are the original SF1 art designs, some look like SF2 designs, and one of the NPCs straight has a portrait back-ported from the GBA remake, which had its own vastly different artstyle.

I have to say though, when it cames to original spritework, to level design, to enemy balance? God, it was like actually playing a Shining Force game all over again. I know some people have described this already as a difficulty hack, but honestly, it's not any more difficult than Shining Force 2; it is at least as punishing as that is (SF1 never quite felt that rough when I played it even as a kid, SF2 I had to wait about ten years to actually finish the last quarter of without cheating because of difficulty spikes) but you have a lot of tools at your disposal that you wouldn't see in the series until maybe 3.

Everyone has MP and skills. For some characters, it's spells, but for your melee fighters, it's little combat tricks to help out. Your archer can spend an MP to hit an extra square away. Your centaur can spend some MP to hit two enemies in a line. That sort of thing. It actually adds a lot of variety and actual thought to the gameplay. In addition, while the game does (understandably) lean a little too hard on bottomless enemy spawners, it uses them to good effect, both to harry (most battles en route to a new town are less "sorties" and more "rush through the gauntlet in one piece" now) and to apply pressure (in the endgame where you're basically more or less gods and can generally nosell everything with a finite number of warm bodies to kill). And it manages to do this without reaching SF2's levels of stat inflation where enemies are one shotting your squishies! (It takes two or three shots, of course.)

This was a good hack. Script needs some proofing and maybe touching up, and it won't be for everyone, but the gameplay is 500% solid.

Sometimes superstition is the weapon you need to use against depression. While I've been fine drowning myself in endless f2p games like gachas and digital TCGs (which are also sort of gacha-like, come to think of it), I've been letting games pile up in the backlog, especially with the slew of holiday giftings I've gotten from friends.

Then I noticed on my Backloggery that I had 666 games unfinished on Steam.

That naturally could not stand, even if Valve is ostensibly Satan. So I looked through what I had been gifted, grabbed something that seemed rather light and workable, and hammered through it.

Donut County is a relatively new indie game, came out in August of this year, about donuts.

wait, no. It's about that thing that makes donuts what they are. It's a game about holes. And naturally, anybody who orders a donut gets a hole, right?

In Donut County, you are the hole, a tiny little pit in the ground that slides around casually, sucking in rocks and grass and wadded up paper, getting progressively bigger as you do so. Then you can suck in crates, and tables... then people, buildings, the landscape, until you've left a vacant lot where a house once was. And then you repeat. Where does all this junk go? About 999ft underground, where most of the titular town of Donut County lies in shambles, subsumed by this hole and trying to get someone to confess to who did it.

Basically, it's Katamari Damacy, but with sucking things up into the planet's core instead of shooting them into space, set in a surprisingly Animal Crossing-esque world (what with its only one human and quirky animal cast, plus a healthy dose of Simlish 'voice acting'). Granted, it was only really made by a handful of people, so it's nowhere near as intricate or fleshed out as Katamari is... but it doesn't really need to be. It's not a AAA game, it's an indie title made with a lot of love and attention to detail, and quite honestly, if this came out for the PS2 instead of Katamari? It would have gone over just as well.

This year, admittedly, was a good year for indie games. I haven't given new stuff enough love and probably never actually will. But I've seen this on a few 'best of' lists alongside my personal choice Obra Dinn, and I have to say, if you're okay with the overall length of the game (I beat it in about 2 hours) then it's absolutely worth the price.

Just watch out for holes.

Don't let the cartoon animals and chipper music fool you: from beginning to end, Night in the Woods is a horror game, filled with nightmarish themes such as murder, eldritch gods, gentrification, and the awareness that the world is a tiny speck in a cold, uncaring universe and that everyone will die cold and alone. There's spooky things like ghosts and giant dream monsters and kidnappings, sure, but the real terror is just living life as a socially maladjusted young adult, staring at a world that expects you to do everything and gives you less than nothing to work with.

Night in the Woods is a game about being alive today, in 2018. (Or 2017, as the case may be.) It's about existential despair and rural-class obsolescence, it's about the way that everyone has mental health problems but only the younger generation has the energy left in them to care any more. It's about the way how life squeezes the life out of you, sometimes quite literally, until all you have left is your routines. It's about seeing those routines, and being willing to compromise them, to change plans. Night in the Woods is a game about learning to grow up and about how it's not just the immature/childish ones who need to learn to take responsibility.

There is no right or wrong way to play Night in the Woods. There's no such thing as 'game over' and life goes on even if you fuck up. You're destined to fuck up in some way or another, even if you try to do the best you can. Especially if you try to do the best you can, because that means interacting with people and trying to offer solutions when you can't realistically have the entire picture.

This game hurts, a lot. But, in the game's own words:

I want it to hurt. Because that means it meant something. It means I am... something, at least.

Try to play Night in the Woods if you've ever questioned what the point of it all really is. And do your best to play it as blind as possible.

gregg rulz ok

When it first came out, I took Can You Escape Love? as a cheap cash-cow ripoff game, the sort of things that algorithms generate and blarf out to fleece unsuspecting young children and get sweet sweet ad revenue. Something like Grand Theft SpidermanAmazing Strange Rope Police.

It's... well, I can safely say it's not that. It's very definitely patterned after Undertale, but the aesthetics and battle design are the only things they have in common. The same goes even harder for the sequels, Can You Escape Fate? and Can You Escape Heartbreak? which both settle into their own voice and feeling, while still somehow feeling like a connected series.

The plot of all three is relatively simple on the surface, and technically hits the same bullet points on all three.

It's the new year. The spirit of the old year - represented by that year's particular Zodiac Animal - is keeping you behind for whatever reason. Resolve that issue.

Whether you're being held against your will by a yandere who doesn't want to let go, are a victim of the someone's despair-fueled revenge, or what have you, the gameplay is simple, as well: bumblefuck around like an adventure game hero, solve the soup cans you need to solve, and get the hell out of last year and into next year. (Semi-relatedly, the soup cans tend to be a reminder of that year's memetic bullshit gone by - CYEL has Five Nights at Freddy's and JUST DO IT references, CYEF has social media/like comment and subscribe jokes, and CYEH openly has you dealing with a sentient fidget spinner. There's a fair amount of funy here, is what I'm saying. Get the hell out of last year.)

All of the zodiac animals are adorable (and/or psychotic) and I would fuck them (and/or get murdered by them). For those who are tallying.

All in all, not a bad use of an evening.

Another ambiguous span of time, another glut of games tackled and messed with. Only one out of the lot was beaten, but I'll definitely come back to them.

But I'm bad at shmups, you guys.


The Hurricane of the Varstray -Collateral hazard-

A bullet hell of CAVE-esque leanings, with by far the most wonderfully mangled translation imaginable. Interesting scoring mechanic/bomb mechanic where you can use your special gauge to either use a bomb (which generally clears the screen and sometimes gives you an invincibility mode afterward based on how many score tokens you can grab) or to soak up a lethal hit.

Music is just sort of there and even when the script isn't hilariously mangled, people obsess over the most surreal things, like coats.



DARIUSBURST Chronicle Saviours

This sure is a Darius game. I was never at all good at Darius, but I enjoy the series for what it is. Have to admit, I didn't expect a four-player mode in there, but that's apparently how the Another Chronicle machines in the arcades were really set up.

Playing in the arcade mode is a bit claustrophobic though, as it was seriously intended for dual-screens (and the startup options even have a dual-screen setup) so single-screen gets letterboxed to all hell and back. The new mode works just fine, though, even if I suck at it.


Jet Buster

Very much in the pre-CAVE (or at least Early CAVE - getting some major ESP Ra.De vibes here) bullet hell mindset, this is very clearly an earnest, heartfelt attempt at grasping both the aesthetic of Truxton and a scoring mechanic that feels more similar to Dangun Feveron.

Also there's furries.

It's really rough around the edges and you can tell the budget wasn't very high, plus it's the first game of the set that's actively made continues finite (until you buy the option for infinite continues... with the money you've been using for your continues). I'll probably come back to this one, but it's in that weird valley where it's too unpolished for hardcore fans of the genre and too rough for casual newcomers.


LUFTRAUSERS

I'm... not 100% sure what to think about this. On one hand, it starts with a brief cinematic featuring a face that looks entirely too much like certain fucksticks, and the name suggests German fighter pilots dogfighting. Am I a nazi now? I hope not.

Aside from that, it's a bite-size casual game where the idea is to get a game in, die, and then go on with your life, slowly racking up score and mini-cheevos to get new parts and abilities. The music (all one song of it) is decent, the aesthetic works, but honestly my biggest problem was dealing with the Time Pilot controls. I walked away from that series as a kid for a reason and it was because aerial tank controls and me don't get along.


Steam and Metal

Very Jamestown. Heavy on the Steampunk As A Force Of Good, one of those rare shmups where you can actually take several hits before you die. Unfortunately, that means contact damage is suddenly a million times more lethal than scraping a bullet. I'm... not very good at this one either, but it's absolutely good for what it is.

I'd recommend sticking with the keyboard, though, since it doesn't offer rebinding and doesn't tell you what buttons on a controller you need to press to do things.

What happens when you mix urban exploration, Katamari Damacy, Animal Crossing, and Half-Life?

Nothing, those things are nothing alike, what are you doing.

What happens when you try to mix them anyway and add in a few hefty bong rips? Then you get Jazztronauts. A new game mode for Garry's Mod (aka 'that wonky Valve physics box/thing that people used to make shitty youtube videos before Source Filmmaker existed'), Jazztronauts charmed me somewhere around March when I first saw TieTuesday streaming an early alpha and I'd been waiting with bated breath for its proper release.

It's really quite simple: while running through the eighty millionth map full of Extruded Half-Life Creepypasta Shit, you run across a crew of interdimensional cat burglars, pun intended. One of them bumblefucks their magical loot-stealing wand into a sewer and right down into your waiting hands, and you proceed to go mad with power and STEAL THE WORLD. Then they, impressed with your chutzpah, recruit you to steal the world for them.

The gameplay is very, very, rote, in a good way: You go up to a video screen in your home base and surf randomly through a selection of Steam Workshop maps for Garry's Mod. You load it into reality, and then hop on your interdimensional vaporwave trolley to jump into the map. Once you're there, you proceed to steal everything that isn't nailed down (and, with certain upgrades, most things that are), while specifically keeping an eye out for mode-generated shiny, humming, candylike mcguffin Shards. When you're done dicking around, you summon the bus out of whatever wall (or floor, or locker, or skybox, or toilet) you choose and it bursts through reality Kool-Aid Man style to bring you back to home base. Back home, you head to a magical chute and pull a lever, prompting it to blarf all of the trash you picked up all over the place, which gives you money for upgrades. Pick level, loot level, dump trash, repeat.

It's zen and incredibly relaxing (except when it's not relaxing because you warped into a jumpscare level because people are dicks) (and also when it's not relaxing because it's hilarious due to someone clipping through the world and finding out that the Combine base you were in has been wallpapered by pictures of Snoop Dogg) (and finally also when it's not relaxing because how the fuck do you get that shard like five miles up in the air suspended on a telephone pole without dying violently). It's worth noting that even though it's been publically released, it's still very much an Early Mod Release Work In Progress: text needs proofreading, there's plenty of bugs, and there have been times trying to run it with xyzzysqrl that the thing just flat-out crashed.

But it's still a chance for you to wander through pretty much any map on Steam's workshop and see what people did. And steal it. There's a lot of interesting stuff there and a lot of mediocre garbage and you can explore it all. And technically, it's all free - assuming you have Garry's Mod, of course. That'll cost you $NUMBER.

I'm gonna be playing this for quite some time, even if I've technically played through the "main story" once already.


EDIT: Also, it's worth noting for those with issues regarding such things, that the Jazztronauts-specific content features heavy casual talk of drug use as well as occasional contemplation about the sentience of NPCs and trippy, potentially epilepsy-triggering visuals.

Also, the Steam Workshop content is a steaming pile and features jumpscares, definitely epilepsy-triggering visuals, and very loud noises, along with flatgrass. so much flatgrass.

this... this was a game.

holy shit.

I don't have words, this is exactly the right blend of inexplicable and unsettling to basically be the most horrifying creepypasta. To steal the words from Vinesauce, "this is Revenge of the Sunfish fucking weird".

I saw credits. I think that means it ended.

If I die in seven days it is because of this game.

Holy shit.

I won't paste the link here but you can google it and die in seven days with me.

So I admittedly have only gotten a few hours into this, but... well, I have some good and bad thoughts on it.

( under a cut )



So, overall: game good. need play more.

A friend graced my Steam inbox this morning with a certain VN that just came out the other day.

That friend got keysmashed at, and I flailed, and then I played through it, knocking out the first route I gunned for in about two hours (plus an added hour of trying to overcome a technical issue that seems to be pre-existing.)

Let me start by saying: You already know if you want this. And this is 500% exactly what you expect it is.

You start in media res as Mila, a petite feline spice merchant who has been rescued by a band of pirates after a shipwreck. Said pirates are hunting after a series of magical coins of considerable power, one of which you conveniently own.

Suffice to say, you do not stay petite, given that these coins have magical transformation powers.

This is.... this is not just somebody's fetish, this is somebody's fetishes. Along with the obvious transformation, there's pretty heavy muscle and weight gain undertones going through a fair bit of it. An early choice sets you up to either avoid a conflict or take the element of surprise. Being aggressive leads you to buff out, turning sleeker, more toned... and avoiding combat makes you soft, in a quite plush, literal sense. There are other consequences than that, mind you, as I'm pretty sure that's one of the Major Plot Forks, but as far as transformation, that's about as spontaneous and egregrious as you should expect.

In other words: Yes, this is absolutely someone's fetish fic. Mind you, it's fantastic fetish fic. The characters are nuanced and have layers of depth to them, and even if I call it "fetishy" it's a safe for work sort of fetish. I wouldn't expect any more lewdness than you'd get out of, say, an episode of Totally Spies. (That, of course, also means it's about as worksafe as that horny-ass cartoon. Which is to say: only on the most technical "there is no porn" sense.)

Also, the ending I got (whereupon Democracy Might Have Been A Mistake But Hey, I Totally Banged A Curvy BatFox Princess) implies there's at least eight "routes" and at least twice as many endings there. There's replay value.

This game probably isn't going to convert you into a furry overnight the way Undertale did to people. This is a niche, and if you're in it, or interested in it, you already know. But if you're already there, then it's fun, pretty quick to push through, and at least compelling enough to play through a few times.

If I had any complaints at all, it's that the voices are... well, they're on the lower end of "just sort of there". They don't add much, and it's about the level of quality you'd expect from a Kickstarter budget. You don't miss much if you turn 'em off, at least from what I've seen.

So I caught wind of this little phone game made by an obscure indie company named HAL that people are gushing incessantly about. Little thing called Part-Time UFO.

It's not free-to-play.

Believe it or not, that's a good thing, because that means no microtransactions, no banner ads, no intrusive videos, none of that shit. Much like my earlier phone gushfest Love You To Bits, it's just you, the game, and whatever free time you want to devote to it.

There are two things to note about Part-Time UFO.

One is that it is goddamn adorable. You play as a little cartoon UFO with eyes and a giant crane claw. Your goal is to pick up objects and stack them in the Designated Area. There are medals for stacking them in a specific way, or under a certain time limit. You earn coins, which you then use on adorable outfits which minorly tweak your gameplay but are more importantly incredibly cute.

The second is that it is goddamn infuriating in exactly the addictive, "I have to beat this fucking level" way you expect it to be. You are a tiny UFO and that means you can't exactly move very well with heavy objects. Things swing and sway and knock into each other and there is some serious Physics Going On. In essence you are trying to pilot a sentient crane game into doing your bidding and it doesn't always (in fact very infrequently) work the way you want it to.

But you keep trying. Because you know you can do it if you can just nudge this pillar into the right position, or get these cheerleaders to stand on top of each other, or or or or

and suddenly five hours have passed and your phone is telling you that you have 2% battery left.

All in all? Probably the best $4 I've spent on a phone game for a while. It also makes me want to crush someone's skull.

You know. As you do.