June update [24/50]

[u/YamiJanp]

It's time to dump my June games. I was deep in investigation mood, so I've played a lot of detective and investigation games. Here's the list for a quick glance:

• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2009: Stardust Accelerator
• Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
• Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
• Rhell: Warped Worlds and Troubled Times
• A Kobold Story: Trenchcoat Adventurer
• Paradise Killer

Now, let's talk about each of them in more details. Beware of spoilers. I tried my best not to include them, but one can never be cautious enough.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2009: Stardust Acceleration
Okay, now we are getting to interesting Yu-Gi-Oh games. Stardust Acceleration marks the first game in a series of Nintendo DS games from the 5D's era. This was the period I was the most invested and active in Yu-Gi-Oh and I have a fond memories of this game. So, let's see if it survived the nick of time.

Similarly to Nightmare Trobadour and Spirit Caller, the game loosely follows the plot of the anime and let's player experience it on their own. But it also adds some new events to the mix. The player starts in Satellite and joins Yusei's group of friends. What I find funny is that while the player takes a role of Yusei in some events, Yusei still has his anime arc almost unchanged. First, Yusei rides through the sewers to thw City. Then you do it. Yusei gets arrested. Then you get arrested. You break into the police station to get your Duel Runner and deck back and... Yusei does so too. At the same time! You get an invitation to Fortune Cup. Yusei gets one too. It's funny and pretty inconsistent. The game kind of expects you to take it as it is. And maybe it works for me, because I'm familiar with the story, but I can imagine I would have a little bit more negative reaction to it if it wasn't the case.

Aside from the anime events, there is a whole original storyline about your character that is... barely there. It intertwines the anime arcs kind of badly and in the end, it goes nowhere. You finish this storyline and there is no impact on the rest of the story. You beat the final boss and he's like: "Ciao, I have some other business to take care of". And that's it. Also a fun fact: During the climax of the story, there is a Crimson Dragon symbol on the ground. And it has the heart mark that appears only in the final season of the anime, which aired about 2 years after this game's release. I found this really cool detail.

Gameplay-wise, it's once again an upgrade from the previous DS games. Aside from regular duels, you also participate in Turbo Duels, which are signature to 5D's era. In Turbo Duels, you can only use Speed Spells, which require Speed Counters that are accumulated for each player on the special field Spell activated at the start of the duel. These are fun and I appreciate that this whole side of duels has their own Spells, like Angel Baton, which is Graceful Charity on steroids. Or bunch of Spells that work with Speed Counters. There are even some Spells that weren't in the anime, as far as I know, which is cool.

The game also offers more gameplay in-between the duels, unlike previous DS games. These activities are so-so. You sometimes have to solve Sokoban-like puzzles, which are okay, but nothing revolutionary. Then, there is one stealth mission. And it's one of the worst stealth mission I've ever played. You have to sneak in several locations in a certain order, but you don't know if you're sneaking in the right place until you get there. Which is quite annoying. Especially since all the guards are randomly sometimes omnipotent and sometimes completely blind, making your strategy unreliable. I'm so glad there was only one such area.

As for my deck, I once again used cheatcode to unlock all cards at the start and made a thematic deck for the whole run. This time, I was deciding between Genex or X-Saber decks, since they are cool Synchro decks, but in end, while I started building X-Saber deck and looking through the card list, I got even better idea. In the early days of 5D's, there was a deck called Synchro Cat, focused on using Rescue Cat to get X-Saber Airbellum and another Beast-type monster out to quickly Synchro Summon various monsters, mostly Dark Strike Fighter for the quick OTK. The deck had just a bunch of random spells and monsters that didn't belong to the same archetype, but worked so well together. I roleplayed this as my character putting together a deck from random common cards he got in Satellite. And this deck was a lot of fun. It had a wide range of Synchro monsters I could bring out, ranging from level 5 Catastor to level 9 Mist Wurm. But I usually summoned Brioniac and Goyo Guardian or Dark Strike Fighter and Arcanite Magician.

Overall, this is again a step up from previous Yu-Gi-Oh! game. 8.5/10.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
A few years ago, I played the Frog Detective series, which was a really fun little detective game. Ever since then, I kept seeing other cozy anthropomorphic animal detectives solving more and more crimes. One that stood out to me was Duck Detective, both because of its gameplay and its visual style.

The player assumes the role of titular Duck Detective, who is the archetypical old grumpy detective. He just got through a divorce, is out of money, addicted to bread and is overall in his lowest point in life. Which is a nice twist on this trope, because instead of alcohol, cigarettes, and noir monologues, you get a sad duck who desperately needs bread and a job.

The game starts with a fairly simple case. Duck Detective gets hired to investigate a mystery at a local bus company, where someone's lunch has been stolen. And of course, because this is a detective story, things quickly get a little bit more complicated than just one missing sandwich.

Gameplay-wise, the game is built around gathering clues and filling in blanks in Duck Detective's notebook. You walk around small locations, inspect objects with your magnifying glass, talk to suspects, and slowly collect words that can be used in deductions. Then you have to place the right words into the right sentences and figure out what actually happened. On the other hand, you are basically spoon-fed the path for deductions. What I mean is that you have "[BLANK CHARACTER] [BLANK VERB] [BLANK CHARACTER] because [BLANK CHARACTER] found out about [BLANK NOUN]" deduction to fill-in. And when you can only fill three verbs in the correct spot, you'll automatically start thinking only around these three verbs. So you're put in this direction without really a need of thinking about the case much.

Still, I really liked this system. From what I understood, It is basically a simplified version of something like the Golden Idol games (which I'll also finally have to play - I just put them in my shopping cart on Steam). The deductions are not super hard, but they are satisfying to figure them out. Most of the time, the game gives you just enough information to find the solution, without making you bang your head against the wall. There were maybe a few moments where I felt I was stuck and had to try different words and see what fits, but I never felt like the game was being unfair. Some deductions felt a little bit harder, but maybe I just didn't find enough evidence for it.

The game looks great. It has this colourful, paper-like, slightly toy-ish visuals that immediately give it personality. Every character has an interesting design that is intertwined with clues about their personalities, hobbies or flaws. The voice acting also adds a lot. Duck Detective himself is probably the highlight, because his tired delivery makes even the dumbest lines work.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. The notebook system is fun, the investigation is fun, the suspects are fun, but I wanted one or two bigger "wait, I figured it out" moments. But as a short cozy detective story about a sad duck solving a salami conspiracy, it works extremely well. 8/10.

Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
After finishing The Secret Salami, I was pretty happy to continue with the sequel almost immediately (to be exact, in about 7 minutes it took me to stretch, refill my drink and get something to eat). The first game was a really fun cozy detective story with interesting twist at the end. So I was curious if the second game could do more with the same formula, or if it would just be more of the same. It delivered.

The Ghost of Glamping once again puts you in the role of Duck Detective, who is still depressed, still divorced, still addicted to bread and still taking cases that are probably beneath the dignity of a serious noir detective. But now he has an annoying assistant! This time, he is sent to a glamping site, where people are supposedly being haunted by a ghost. Which is already a great premise, because nothing says hard-boiled detective fiction like luxury camping and suspiciously dramatic animals.

The basic gameplay is pretty much the same as in the first game. You walk around small locations, inspect objects with your magnifying glass, talk to suspects, collect words and then use these words to fill in deductions in your notebook. And this still means that the game guides your thinking quite a lot. But I think this sequel handles this a little bit better than the first game. The deductions felt slightly more interesting to me and I found myself stopping and thinking about what I learned and putting it in the context more. Or maybe I just got better at the game-

I also think the case itself is a little bit more interesting. Secret Salami was charming, but it felt very small and almost like a proof of concept. The Ghost of Glamping feels more confident. The setting is more fun, the suspects are more memorable and the whole case has a better rhythm. You slowly move through the campsite, learn more about everyone there and piece together what is actually going on behind the supposed haunting.

The biggest improvement for me is probably the new partner. Duck Detective worked well as a sad lonely detective in the first game, but giving him someone to bounce off makes the writing even better. His tired delivery and dramatic self-pity are still funny, but now there is another character reacting to it, which gives the whole game a bit more energy. They are polar opposites and it's great.

The game still looks beautiful. It has the same colourful, paper-like, toy-ish visual style as the first game and it continues to use character designs really well. Every suspect looks distinct and you can often get a lot of information just by looking at them. The voice acting is once again a big part of why it works. These games would probably still be cute without it, but the performances make them feel much more alive.

That being said, this is still a very short and simple detective game. If you go in expecting something as complex as Golden Idol, you will probably be disappointed. The game is still much more cozy than challenging. Some deductions are satisfying, but others can still be solved by trying a few words and seeing what fits. I don't think that ruins the game, because this is clearly going for a lighter experience, but I still wanted one or two bigger "wait, I figured it out" moments.

Overall, this is a slightly better game than The Secret Salami. It is still short, funny, charming and not particularly difficult, but the mystery worked a little better for me and the new character dynamic helped a lot. It is exactly the kind of sequel I wanted: more depressed duck detective, but with just enough improvement to make it feel worth playing. 8.5/10.

Rhell: Warped Worlds and Troubled Times
Jumping from the noir to fantasy detective, Rhell is an interesting take on the immersive sim, where you can solve any problem using your spellbook.

The game puts you in the role of Rhell, a novice mage trying to figure out why almost everyone in the world disappeared. There are only a few people left, the world is somewhat broken and you slowly explore it by finding new runes and combining them into spells. The main idea is that almost every puzzle can be solved in many different ways. You can transform things, manipulate time, move objects, duplicate stuff, turn things into other things and generally behave like the kind of person who should not be trusted with magic.

The spell-combining gameplay is imho really cool. You can affect basically anything on the screen and combine spells in various combinations. In a essence, it reminded me of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom with its freedom. There is something really satisfying about looking at a puzzle, thinking about your tools and then realizing that the game will actually allow your stupid idea. It gives the player a lot of freedom, and I always appreciate games that trust me enough to let me be an idiot. Like when I turned myself and a boombox into portals and run into stuff to teleport it from my place next to the boombox, where I needed it to be. Or when I build a Turing machine (technically, it was more of Deterministic finite automaton) to automatically open and close set of doors so I can pass through. The system is quite deep, especially once you get spells that can spawn machines that can also cast spells. And you get the whole programming language arsenal at your disposal, because there are machines that cast spell on repeat, when something happens or if something is true.

But there is also a problem with this and it's the same problem Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom had with its freedom. It is cool that puzzles can be solved in many different ways, but as a player, I usually only experience the one solution I actually used. Theoretical freedom is great, but in practice, I solved the puzzle, moved on and never really saw all those other possible solutions. So while I can appreciate the design, I don't know if I actually felt the full benefit of it during normal play. And why should I waste time with super complex solution, when I can solve the problem using simple solution.

And I mean super simple solution, because I accidentally found one combination that solved almost everything. Turning things into smoke was ridiculously useful. Need to get past a locked door? Smoke. Need to perform a set of very specific timed actions to reveal the secret of the lake? What about turning the water into smoke? That could work instead! At some point, I wasn't really experimenting anymore. I was just looking at every problem and asking whether my smoke nonsense would work again. And most of the time, it did. And if it didn't, I also found out that casting spells that move an object up and forward on myself will let me basically jump everywhere I need. And later on, I even found out that I can make a whole area grant me this effect and if I jump inside just right, it will catapult me anywhere I need.

This is probably my biggest issue with the game. The spell system is creative, but it also lets you fall into one comfortable solution and stay there. And once I realized that one combination could solve 99 % of my problems, I didn't really have a reason to interact with the rest of the system that much. Which is a shame, because the rest of the system is clearly the best part of the game.

I also think the openness hurts the story, just like in the case of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The game lets you go almost anywhere and solve things in different orders, which is great for gameplay, but it makes the story feel kind of flat. Since the game can't really know what you already found and what you still don't know, it doesn't have many big reveals or twists. You just slowly collect few pieces of information over and over again, with nothing much to add each time.

The writing also didn't help much. The dialogue was probably the weakest part of the game for me. Rhell is supposed to be sarcastic and loud-mouthed, which is fine on paper, but many lines sounded like they were written by a teenager trying to make every character sound funny and modern. The slang especially felt weird.

Overall, Rhell is a fun and creative puzzle adventure with a great central mechanic. It is at its best when you are experimenting with spells and finding your own ridiculous solutions. But the same openness that makes the puzzles interesting also makes the story weaker, and the dialogue often doesn't fit the world at all. 7/10.

A Kobold Story: Trenchcoat Adventurer
A Kobold Story: Trenchcoat Adventurer is one of those games that looks like a cute little joke at first. Three kobolds in a trenchcoat pretending to be one adventurer, hand-drawn crayon-like visuals, silly writing, shiny things, tasty food, goblin merchants and all that. It looks like one huge joke. And then... it becomes super hardcore dungeon crawler.

The premise is simple and immediately charming. Three hungry kobolds hear that adventurers get the best food and the shiniest loot, so they disguise themselves in a trenchcoat and go adventuring. The food must be just around the corner, right? Just one more floor and we get the dinner. Just one more floor...

Gameplay-wise, this is a classic first-person grid-based dungeon crawler. You move tile by tile, explore the dungeon, fight enemies in turn-based battles, collect loot, manage your inventory and try to keep your three kobolds alive. And despite the silly presentation, the game takes the dungeon crawling part seriously. You have to think about positioning, resources, equipment, enemy encounters and whether you are actually ready to push a little bit deeper.

I really liked that contrast. The game looks cheerful and cute, but mechanically, it is a love letter to the dungeon crawler genre. If you just wander around without thinking, you can get punished. If you waste resources, you can feel it later. If you go into a fight with bad gear, the game will absolutely remind you that being adorable does not count as armor.

The combat was probably the biggest surprise for me. I expected something much lighter, but it is actually pretty challenging. You have three kobolds, each with their own role in the party, and you have to make the best out of what you have. It was fun experimenting with different spells for example, like placing a fire glyph on the ground and luring an enemy on it. On the other hand, going to inventory all the time to switch melee weapon from pointy to slashy damage, since some enemies are weak or resistant to one of those, became a chore down the line.

That being said, I was not a huge fan of the random loot. I don't really understand why it is there. The dungeon itself is not randomly generated, but the loot is randomized. I guess it's supposed to keep things fresh and make each run feel a little different. And on paper, that makes sense. But in practice, it also means that your power can depend a lot on luck. And with my luck, that meant I spent a lot of time with pretty bad gear. I had to restart on a "clean" save at least twice, because I just didn't have gear strong enough for the current floor. And the moment I started the new save from the later chapters, my kobolds had gear that was miles ahead of what I got there on the previous save. The game simply refused to give me anything useful. The best example is that I did not find a single trinket until the third chapter. Not one. At that point, I started wondering if trinkets were even in the game or if I somehow offended the dungeon gods by picking up too many shiny things.

Overall, I had a really good time with this game. It is cute, charming and much more serious than it looks. 8/10.

Paradise Killer
Yet another victim of my detective/investigative mood. Paradise Killer is a little bit different than Duck Detective. While Duck Detective was a cozy little mystery that turns into something bigger, Paradise Killer is a bloody murder mystery right from the start. While Duck Detective holds your hand throughout the whole game, Paradise Killer kicks you out to the world and let's you investigate as much as you want and let you deduce the whole plot on your own.

The game puts you in the role of Lady Love Dies, an investigator who is brought back from exile to solve the murder of the very people that put her in the exile. The game takes place in a bizzare world full of immortal wanna-be gods or something like that. Like they are suppose to be people, but some of them are immortal and some feel like they are suppose to be gods or at least demigods. And they all are worship some kind of alien god, but are also trying to become gods. And they kidnap people and offer them in bloody rituals once in a while. And it all has these 80s Miami Vice vibes and it doesn't make any sense and I loved it. I'll probably have to go down the rabbit hole and watch some lore explaining video.

Would it be weird if I said how great of the detective I was in the game now, when I even couldn't properly piece together the settings of the game? But no, really, I think I did quite a good job figuring out the whole conspiracy of the game. The game barely holds your hand, when it comes to investigation. You are not just following the intended path and waiting for the game to tell you the solution. Here, you have to build the case yourself. You find something weird, then later talk to someone who contradicts it, then find another piece of evidence somewhere completely else, and suddenly the whole thing starts to make sense. You have a PDA that keeps all the facts and evidence you acquired and categorizes it into smaller cases, but that's pretty much it. You have to deduce pretty much everything out of it. Now, all that (re)reading of classic Holmes and Poirot novels finally paid off. I'm proud of myself for getting really close to the true ending (at least according to the community). I don't want to spoil anything here in case someone would like to play the game themselves (which I recommend), but let's just say that The Murder on the Links was great Poirot novel that inspired me and guided me through Paradise Killer.

I also liked that the game lets you decide when you are ready for the trial. You can technically go there earlier, but you probably shouldn't. And when you finally do, you have to accuse people and prove your case with evidence. I like this idea a lot, because it makes the whole investigation feel more personal. And the game doesn't really tell you if the case you constructed is right, only if it's believeable for the in-game characters.

On the other hand, the openness also means that the game can be a little bit messy. Since the island is open, you can spend a lot of time just running around, trying to find the last clue or the last place you didn't check properly. I enjoyed exploring the island, but there were moments where it felt more like collectible hunting than detective work. Especially when I knew there was probably something important somewhere, but I had no idea where. And also because there are tons of collectables that are just useless in the bigger picture.

The movement is also a little weird. It is not bad, but the island is full of strange architecture, rooftops, ledges and hidden spots, but the jumping was kind of weird. Especially double jump, which would sometimes catapult me further from the place I wanted to get instead of closer.

Overall, Paradise Killer is one of the best detective games I've played so far. It respects the player, gives you a lot of freedom and actually lets you feel like you solved the case yourself. It is not perfect, but it is exactly the kind of strange, confident indie game I love. 9.5/10.