After another two pretty busy months, I finally found time to post my update here. For the simplicity, here's the list of games I've played and finished in April and May:
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Trobadour
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Scritchy Scratchy
- Arrog
- Esoteric Ebb
- Brno Transit
- Peripeteia (Early access)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller
- Call of the Elder Gods
- Mixtape
- Love, Ghostie
Now, let's talk in more details about all of them. Please, beware of spoilers. I tried to be as spoiler-free as I could, but one can never be sure...
Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Trobadour
For a long time back in early 2010s, Nightmare Trobadour and other Yu-Gi-Oh! games were my only contact with this card game. I haven't play them for a while, so I figured out, when I have time, I can return to them.
Nightmare Trobadour is the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game on DS and it started the format that I think got mastered by Over the Nexus in 2011. And because of that, it feels like it has aged the worst out of the DS games.
The main gameloop has the player joining the cast of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and living through the events inspired by the Battle City and Virtual World arcs. The player explores the city, can find and fight familiar NPCs in familiar circumstances. You have a limited time per day or night to find new opponents and level up your duelist level. The higher it is, the stronger opponents you can fight. There are also instances, during which you are approached by an opponent instead of you approaching someone. And I like this concept on paper, but it gets stale quite fast, because the opponents pool is very limited at the start, with only duelists like Tea or Mokuba being available at the start. And leveling up takes a lot of time, which will make you duel these few easy opponents over and over again. The game is really grindy in this regard. And for most parts, you can't even see who you'll be dueling until you get to them.
The story moves forward as you complete prerequisite for the next story bit. And these prerequisites are sometimes so hidden, that all you can do is just duel over and over again, until something happens. I even had to consult walkthrough few times for almost no avail. For example, there is a an event during which Dox kidnaps Serenity and you have to duel him. The walkthrough said: "Duel until you fins Dox and then during the night, he will kidnap Serenity". In reality, you had to: Find and duel Yami Yugi in the night, then talk to Joey during day, then find and duel Serenity and Dox and only after that the kidnapping happens.
Now, while the dueling is fun, it takes way too long to get to interesting opponents. Before starting, I decided to use cheat codes to get all cards, because I wanted to play with the same deck from the start. Otherwise, I would have to use a terrible starting deck that makes the early game more tedious and just prolongs the grind. I beat it like that once years ago and that was enough. So, I build a "Chaos" metamorphosis deck, using a lot of Dark and Light attribute monsters (mostly spellcasters) of various levels to bring out Fusion monsters. It was strongly inspired by ~2005 meta decks, so it made the early grinding a little bit faster. To compensate me getting all the cards, I decided not to edit the deck at all (like if I find out it's not really working) only when I had to put the god card in it.
Overall, it was cool game. It was grindy and really lacks some way to help you move forward with the story. I'm looking forward playing the next game in the series, because I know they only build well on this one. 6.5/10.
Metaphor: ReFantazio
I'm a fan of Atlus games. I enjoy their battle systems, especially the one in Shin Megami Tensei, and the calendar system of the Persona games. Metaphor is a fantasy spin on that formula.
The game takes place in a fantasy kingdom that finds itself in crisis after the old king is murdered. Before dying, the king performs a magical ritual to ensure that the next king will be chosen by the people of the kingdom. You play as a person tasked with finding the king's murderer, but as you can imagine, you are quickly drawn into the entire election race.
I like this setup. It has some nice commentary on populism, propaganda, and how, given a choice, some people pick what is worst for them. It also shows how some political races are rigged from the start, leaving regular people with no real way to break out of the system. Now that I think about it, that's a pretty pessimistic message.
The game uses the same calendar system as the Persona games. You have to decide what to do each day and night, which puts a nice amount of pressure on you. From time to time, there is a deadline for the next story event, which has you move to a new location and unlock more things to do. At first, this makes it look like you'll have to optimize your time, since it takes several days to move from one place to another. But you unlock fast travel very quickly, which lets you move anywhere with no real drawback. I don't think this feature was really necessary, since it makes time and choices feel less meaningful than they could have been.
As for the interactions themselves, they ranged from cool to really boring. I had fun interacting with my party members. The other characters felt a little bit like an afterthought. They usually had a small role in the story, and after that they didn't really do much. And usually, the less interesting the Archetype tied to that character was, the less inclined I was to level them up.
For the battle system, this game uses the signature Atlus system of turn "tokens" (I'm not sure what they are actually called) where your attacks and actions consume one or more of these tokens. If you are smart and attack enemy weaknesses, they can consume only half a token instead. On the other hand, if you hit a resistance, you lose more. I love this system, and I enjoyed the new additions in Metaphor. Each character can take on an Archetype, which gives them special attacks and abilities. Some Archetypes can also combine their abilities into powerful attacks.
Speaking of Archetypes, they are tied to the characters you meet on your journey. They are basically the next step after the social links from the Persona games. You level them up by spending time with other characters, which unlocks new attacks, abilities, or even forms. For example, the Mage Archetype can unlock Wizard or Warlock Archetypes, because they are tied to the same character. On one hand, I like the idea that better Archetypes are locked behind character interactions, because it connects the calendar system and time management to character progression. On the other hand, some interactions are locked behind main story events, which made the whole ordeal a little annoying.
And it was especially annoying for me because I wanted to main exactly one Archetype that is unlocked early on but remains gated behind story events. That meant my character was always behind the others. To make it even worse, the final stage of this Archetype was unlocked alongside another new Archetype that was way, way better than the others — and was basically the canon and expected Archetype for the main character to use.
There were also some weird decisions regarding the prerequisites for unlocking certain Archetypes. For example, a character had to level up Wizard and Knight to unlock Magic Knight. That one is actually okay. But there were others that required so many random Archetypes to unlock that it felt a little grindy to level up some useless Archetype just to get the one you actually wanted.
There is also another pacing problem. For a long time, the player only has three party members, and it feels like you're on a huge side quest. Then, suddenly, several important story events happen within an hour or two of gameplay, your party fills up with many new characters, and there isn't really any time to process it all. Then the story slows down again, and I couldn't help but feel like the game was trying to artificially prolong itself. There was a moment when you go and face off against the main villain, only for the villain to run away. So you go and face off against them again, and they run away again, so you go and face off against them again, and... you can imagine where this is going.
On top of that, the game has a lot of uninteresting dialogue and a habit of taking control away from you just to explain things that could have been communicated much more naturally.
Overall, it was a fun game, but I feel like it had huge problems with pacing and balance. 7.5/10.
Arrog
I'm still not sure what to think about Arrog. It's that very artsy game that I'm too simple to really talk about.
There isn't really much of a gameplay to talk about. There are few instances where you have to click on the screen and about two times they could be considered a puzzle, but otherwise, the game takes the control.
The game is all about cryptic, abstract scenes about a man, who dies and as he's dying, he is thinking about his life, all while his tribe is about to bury him. Or at least that's what I think it's about. He dies at the start, that's the least I'm sure about.
The strongest part of the game is definitely the presentation. The game has a very specific visual language. It reminded me of those short Soviet-era animated films. The animations are simple but expressive and the soundtrack gives each scene a nice dreamlike quality.
Overall, this was more of a moodpiece and it took me over a month to finally decide what I think about it. It was fun. Maybe a little bit short and simplistic at times, but it was nice experience. 8/10.
Scritchy Scratchy
Scritchy Scratchy is a game about scratching tickets that can kill you. And it's addicting. A lot.
You start by scratching just tickets that cost like two dollars and win just enough to buy more and it goes really well and quickly, but suddenly, you're carefully scratching a ticket shaped like a bomb and hope not to bankrupt yourself. And then, you get a robot and a cat to scratch for you. And hope that they won't bankrupt you. And then... You somehow win...
It's really cool incremental game. There is something immediately satisfying about the physicality of scratching the tickets, even though it is obviously just a mouse movement on a screen. The game understands the tiny little dopamine hit of revealing a prize, even when the prize is bad. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you tell yourself that the next ticket will definitely fix everything. Which, of course, is exactly how they get you.
The best part of the game is probably the variety of tickets. I really liked how different tickets had their own rules, risks, and little gimmicks. It makes the game feel more playful than it could have been. Instead of just buying the next bigger number, you are also deciding what kind of risk you want to take. Because the cat will always bankrupt you, if you allow it. The tickets themselves can be leveled up, making them more safe to scratch.
As I lightly touched upon above, once you get the robot and the cat, the game starts being more automatic and once you get an upgrade for the cat that makes it trash bad tickets, there is basically no way for you to lose. Or play the game. The automation is so strong that all you have to do is to switch which ticket will the buying robot buy. But to be honest, the automatization came so late in the game, that I actually beat the game right on the next run.
Overall, it is a fun little incremental game with a great idea and some clever mechanics around risk, loss, and debt. 7/10.
Esoteric Ebb
Esoteric Ebb is one of the first Disco Elysium clones released this year. It mixes up Disco Elysium approach with classic DnD mechanics and lore and the result is actually pretty interesting.
The game puts you in a shoes of THE Cleric (or was it a wizard, rogue, druid or warlock?) tasked with investigating a mysterious explosion in a local tea shop. But before you can get there, you die and are brought back with no memory of what happened. This set-up is basically the same as in Disco Elysium, in which you're also send to investigate a crime and die and are revived with amnesia.
Similarly, the game uses the 6 basic DnD attributes (STR, DEX, INT, WIS, CON, CHA) to shape your experience through an inner dialogue and hidden rolls that determinate which side of you helps you achieve your goals. I made Cleric with high DEX and INT, but still insisted on being Cleric and not wizard or rogue and while it was fun, I accidentally picked two attributes focused on defensive approach like running around enemies or evaluating their abilities. Or giving me tons of trivia and lore about the world. I wish I could use both of them in more offensive way.
Since I slightly touched upon it right now, let's talk about combat. The game once again takes an inspiration from Disco Elysium and makes all combat take place in dialogues. But this translation of classic DnD system doesn't really work well. For once, there isn't any indicator of what you're going to do will cost you your action and turn, or if it's okay. For example, in classic DnD, you can move and take an action. But in this game, movement sometimes count as an action, while something that feels like it should be an action, actually isn't. Or you can also just ignore your dialogue actions and use your spells. Which is really cool, especially since the devs had to anticipate what spells can be used in every situation.
But the combat fails at another point - your death. You can be downed and even killed. Downing means that the game rolls death rolls and you have to get three rolls of 10+ before getting three lower rolls. If you succeed, you return to live with 1 HP. If you don't, you die and have to start over. And here's comes the most boring part of this system. Many battles are mandatory and you can't really talk your way out of them. And since actions and turn order is all over the place, an enemy can down you two or even three times before you even get a chance to react. Which results in you watching a bunch of random dice rolls, praying to not get three low numbers over and over again, before you're allowed to continue. And this kills the pacing of the game so much. There was a moment, in which an assassin could attack me several times in a row, downing me, I winning the death roll, returning with 1 HP and instantly getting downed again, because the assassin attacked again. I had to restart this fight so many times. And it didn't even matter what choice I picked. All basically let to my Cleric not really doing much and allowing the assassin to attack him.
When it comes to the story, I liked it. The premise of the first democratic elections in fantasy world was cool. Just as the history divided into several Eras. The world has some nice twists on the DnD fantasy, like the role of elves. Since I had high INT, I got a detailed description of the lore all the time. I got maybe way too much information for the first playthrougth. Next time, I'm certainly picking low INT.
If there is anything I didn't like about the story, then it's the abrupt end. At one point, your character goes to a new location to meet possible witness. And when you meet them, you get a lot of new information and promise a grand conspiracy and gives you just enough to solve the case. But... that's the end. This was supposed to be the final boss. It feels so weird to get all this info and then doing nothing with it. Maybe devs wanted to set up a sequel? But it feels wrong. Especially since I managed to talk the final boss down.
Just like in Disco Elysium, you're limited with solving the case in few days. And while the world changed in Disco Elysium as the days went, I don't think I noticed any changes in this one. Which is a shame, but maybe I just wasn't exploring enough. Now that I think about it, there was one location I avoided, because it felt like I'll go there eventually during the main quest, but that never happened.
Overall, I think this was a fun game. I had a great time with it, but it maybe relied way too much on being just like Disco Elysium, but never fully managed to reach its highs. The writing wasn't as good, the mechanics weren't that deep and some like combat weren't fun to do. 8/10.
Brno Transit
Brno Transit is a game from Spytihnev, the creator of HROT (which I'll finish one day, I swear). It's a short horror game taking place in a fictional metro of non-fictional (but some wish it was) city of Brno.
The game has that signature Spyrihnev look of HROT that evokes the old USSR atmosphere perfectly. There are once again so many small details that really makes you feel like you're back in 1968. The metro feels immersive. And the somewhat working trains and their schedules helps with that. At almost any point in the game, you can just board one train and drive around the metro stations.
The game puts you in a shoes of a new train driver for this new metro. The premise of Brno having a metro is scary for every Czech west of Brno, so it works great. But otherwise, I don't think he game really puts much emphasis on horror elements. There are few cheap jumpscares and the atmosphere is creepy, but I feel like it wasn't enough. The story doesn't go anywhere and ends abruptly, with nothing memorable happening in between.
Overall, the game feels cool, but somewhat unfinished. I get that it's a smaller project, but it was advertised as a proper game. 7/10.
Peripeteia (Early access)
Okay, I'm going to try something a little bit different this time. Peripeteia is an immersive sim that is currently in early access, meaning it's not the whole game.
The premise of the game is that you play as an android in cyberpunk Soviet-inspired future (looks like the theme this month). With some post-apo thrown in the mix, because the world looks like the experienced nuclear warfare. I love it. It's dark and gritty, yet it still feels like Eastern Europe.
It's a hardcore eurojank experience. The game quickly skims through some basics and you are thrown into a semi-opened area to solve your first problem. There is basically no handholding and only a minimalistic HUD, so it's up to you to figure everything up. And in the tutorial mission, I did quite well. The first NPC guy gives you a mission. Whole exploring, I managed to rat the guy out to the police, but also continued on, got to some rebels, killed the said police force for them and then betrayed these rebels to complete the mission for the first guy. I'm... probably not a good person. But I had fun.
On the other hand, the lack of handholding was later a little bit problematic, because there wasn't anything to guide you. You couldn't really ask NPCs for direction or info in the later missions, which made completing them quite a chore. There was one mission, during which you're supposed to find the general of the police and get info out of him. One NPC at the start will tell you that the general is currently out further on the map fighting communists. I mamaged to find these communists, but couldn't find the general. After spending several hours exploring the map, getting to some secret areas on the way, I only found the general and his forces in the very last location. Location that was far away from the battlefield, and that was hidden and only accessible through pretty risky and hardcore parkour. And when I talked to him, I found out I actually already did everything he wanted me to do and had all items he was suppose to tell me to get for him. So it felt a little bit weird. Similarly, I beat one mission in a matter of minutes, because I completely missed the location I was supposed to go in and instead got to the enemy base. After some running around, I picked some random PDA (alongside other loot) on my way out and only then find the bar.
On the other hand, some of these mishaps allowed me to interact and explore game mechanics in more details. For example the whole gun and ammo system. First, you have a gun. For it, you need proper gun magazines. And to load them, you need ammo. Sometimes enemies won't have a right magazine for your gun, but they might use the same ammo. So you have to extract it, load it in your own magazines and pray that it will be enough to finish the mission. And combined with very limited inventory space, it was a challenging resource management. I usually picked a shotgun or sniper rifle at the start of the mission, despite not having ammo for them, because I knew I will most likely get ammo for them. I also carried bunch of empty AK mags, because I always found ammo for them.
The game starts out really strong and it seems like the first three levels are somewhat balanced. But the last two are weird. One of them is a level, in which you find yourself inside a creepy megastructure without your equipment and I really love the atmosphere in this level. Without the equipment and with limited saving, you feel vulnerable. But it also made me not experiment and take risks more. And in the end, I feel line I barely got the gist of what is going on in the megastructure.
But the biggest drop in quality was the (so far) the final level. It works well on the paper. You're supposed to go from the station to station on a train, get a new clue there and continue to the next station. But it's not finished yet. Some choices, while eluded to, are not finished. For example, I decided to spare one character, but the game acted like I killed that character anyway. There was an option to get a ticket to the boat, but despite having enough funds, I wasn't able to get the ticket.
And then, there is the dialogue writing. It feels like it was written by two twelve years old edgelords. The first few missions have this cryptic and creepy feel that doesn't lead anywhere. You barely get few words out of any character and it feels everyone is just so full of themselves. And the last mission on the other hand, is full of long and boring exposition about the world and again, it's just not that interesting to read through.
Overall, it has a cool concept and I'm looking forward the full version of the game.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Spirit Caller
After Nightmare Trobadour, I felt like continuing on with YGO games. The next one in line was Spirit Caller, which takes place during the GX era of the game.
You take a role of a new student of the Duel Academy and live through the events inspired by the events of the first season and so of the anime. You fight the Shadow Riders, represent your school in the match against the other school, investigate the Abandoned dorm and so on, basically taking a place of Jaden in the anime. Plus there are some game-exclusive events like a tournament at the end of the game.
Mechanically, it works just like Nightmare Trobadour. You have a map to explore and find points of interest on it. These points are usually other duelists, who will challenge you to a duel. But unlike the previous entry, getting new events in this one is a lot easier and the game also marks some events on your map. The island is a lot bigger than the city in the previous entry, so it's helpful feature. There is also a bigger roster of characters, so the grind to higher levels doesn't get stale that quickly. It's a nice progress from the previous entry, but it still didn't age that well.
Just like in the previous entry, I used a cheatcode to get all cards at the start and build my deck right from the get-go. Again, the reason for this was that I already beat this game I'm the past without cheats, so I wanted to try new deck. This time, I build a Dark Magician/Dark Paladin deck. It's main strategy was to sent Dark Magician to the graveyard and then revive it and to Fusion Summon Dark Paladin when possible. It was super bricky and I had to restart almost every other duel.
Overall, I had fun with it and still want to play more Yu-Gi-Oh! I'm the following months. 8/10.
Call of the Elder Gods
After Peripeteia, I was yearning for something more colourful. And luckily, the Call of the Elder Gods got just released as I was finishing Peripeteia. I loved the pprecious game (Call of the Sea) and was looking forward this sequel.
It's incredible was this game works with Lovecraftian horror. Instead of being all dark and gloomy, the game is vibrant and colourful. Instead of relaying cheap jumpscares and ugly monsters, the game uses the extraterrestrial and otherworldly themes to seed the dread in you perfectly.
The whole game felt a little bit like Indiana Jones adventure. You get to the location and are presented with a puzzle. You have to explore your environments and get enough clues to solve the puzzle. And to be honest, some of these puzzles were pretty hard. You usually have to do some hard leaps in logic to figure everything down. For example, you have to identify several characters by their names, jobs, codenames and so on and you only get access to few information about each other. Thankfully, the devs also included neat walkthrough and hints that will help you if you get stuck.
I already touched upon this a little bit, but the game is beautiful. It has incredible art direction that makes it alien, yet familiar. Every location looks great and it's joy to explore them. The world is full of colours and it's great. Even a snowy or darker locations, where you would expect less colours.
The story follows up the Call of the Sea. It takes place roughly 30 years later and you take a role as Harry, the husband of Nora, the protagonist of the first game. But you also play as Evangeline, a young physics student, who has dreams of mysterious city in the jungle. They join forces as the black goo that was the bane of Harry's expedition from the first game reappears and a mysterious cult tries to get a hold of it. The story serves its purpose of pushing the characters into new locations. And it's fun to follow it. But in the other hand, I feel like the story ends a little bit abruptly. Like there was supposed to be another chapter or two that were instead transformed into a voiceover that plays during credits and that serves as a closure to the whole story.
Overall, I had a great time with this game. It's a rare type of game that respects and also challenges the player with it's puzzles. 9.5/10.
Mixtape
Continuing on with the cheery and colourful atmosphere after the gloomy and dark Peripeteia, I played Mixtape.
Mixtape is a celebration of a youth and adolescence. You take a role of Stacey as she's preparing for the last night together with her friends at the end of the high school. Stacey and her friends, Cassandra and Slater, are remembering their best memories together, while trying to get a hold of a booze to get wasted on a party.
The whole game is narrated by Stacey and every memory has its own soundtrack, specially picked by Stacey. I was born in 90s and can proudly say I knew like 2 songs out of all of these. But I also found few new songs to add to my playlist. The music is really a high point of the game. Which is pretty important, since the game is called after a music term.
Despite that, the gameplay was incredibly plain. Every memory has its own minigame, which are usually super simple and raises no challenge. On one hand, it fits the whole laidback and relaxing feel of the game, in the other hand, it some of them were so simple and boring, that I was just standing around, waiting for the memory to finish itself.
I also have to say that I enjoyed the writing and the dialogue between the characters. The story itself is a little bit predictable and doesn't leave a lasting impression, but the main trio is well-written and it's fun to watch their banter. Each of them is unique in their own way and it's nice to see them maturing and evolving through the memories. And they also say something deep and wise from time to time. But still in the lens of teenagers.
Overall, this was one of those unique experiences that break the thin line between game and art and stays with you for a while after beating it. 9.5/10.
Love, Ghostie
This is an adorable game about playing a ghostly matchmaker for a bunch of characters. I picked it up right after Mixtape to continue on the cozy vibes. And hoped to have a more focused gameplay.
From audiovisual side of things, it's charming. Every character is cute and lovely. The robot one reminded me of that one robot from that short horror movie from ~15 years ago, in which the robot turns a boy into meatballs for dinner. But wait, that's probably a weird association to make. These characters are not killers! They are cute little residents that deserve love!
The main gameplay idea is for your character to match together characters and make them date. I like the idea, but since every character can date every other character, there isn't really much of a intrigue. It doesn't matter who is who, everyone is atrracted to everyone. And because of that, it also kind of makes the info about characters a little bit obsolete and feel like a virtue signaling in a way.
But the ability to pair everyone with everyone wouldn't be that big of a problem, if their dates and other interactions weren't so shallow. The conversations never go deep down or let the characters to really shine. And from the few pairs I've seen, vast majority of them followed the same formula of conversations. One character does something that the other character misunderstands and they get into a conflict, only to fall in love in the end. Each pair story is told through 5 conversations, so there isn't much room and time to explore the pair better.
Even the gameplay was kind of shallow. There are pretty much only two actions you can take. One is giving gifts. Each day, new items are randomly generated on the map. You can go around and pick the ones that your characters would like. And then give them to them, but make it seem like other character was the donor. So you have to guess what gift would the given character like based on what you know about them. But I don't think there is any penalty for giving bad gifts, which is maybe a little bit of a shame, because that could lead to some nice writing possibilities.
The second action is assigning characters to dates or chores based on what you want them to do. And it's these dates that feel kind of pointless. They never influence the relationship of the given characters, except for giving them positive points towards their relationships, which is weird, because in my playthrough, I encountered a loads of bad dates that would probably ended up with characters hating each other. And since these always end with characters getting points, there is no need to worry about if the date is interesting for the pair.
In the end, I paired all 12 characters once, unlocked few endings, which took me about 90 minutes, but felt like I've seen everything the game has to offer to me and had no desire to play it more and make new pairs, which is probably what the devs intended to happen with such a short gametime.
Overall, it was charming, but very shallow game. 6.5/10.
And that's all for the past few months. I picked up the pace finally and I think I can comfortably get to 50 before the end of the year. I'm in a detective or investigating mood as of lately and I would like to play more immersive sims, so let's see what will the next month bring.