Review: Danganronpa – Trigger Happy Havoc (Switch) ~ Extreme Education Surviving

Wikipedia’s entry – Danganronpa Wiki entry

I adore games like the Zero Escape trilogy, Corpse Party, Time Hollow, Ace Attorney… The story and setting are the strongest parts of these games, and they tend to stick with me longer. It has been over 5 years since I had beaten one of my favorite series in this style of adventure visual novel games, and I was hungry for more. I knew that Danganronpa existed, but I never really played it. And then, last summer, Nintendo suddenly dropped that for the 10th anniversary of the series… The games will be ported to the Nintendo Switch. Not too long after the games were released, I bought the first game and hoped that it lived up to my expectations. Well, I already revealed the answer to that in a previous article. The fact that I chose this game to be my game of the year 2021, does reveal a lot. So, why did I decide to select this game to be my game of the year? What did I like so much about this game? Is it actually good or did it just click with me? Well, let me tell you. But, before that, I want to invite you to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of this article and/or the game.

Editorial note: this review will be spoiler-free. Also, this review is written for the Anniversary Edition on the Switch.

Extreme Education Surviving

In this game, you play as a lucky student named Makoto Naegi. The reason why he is a lucky student is that he was chosen by a big lottery to attend Hope Peak’s Academy. A school for the most gifted students in their fields. From the best swimmer to the best fortune-teller. But, when school starts; something strange happens. Suddenly, he and his class find themselves in a locked school building without any way to escape. Well, the students do get offered a way to escape by a mysterious bear figure. If one of them is able to kill another student without being found out in a class trial, he or she can escape the school and the others… well, they won’t be living long. So yeah, it’s a game of life or death.

To avoid spoilers, I’m not going to go too much more in-depth on the story. The story works the best when you go in blind. If this game looks interesting to you, do yourself a favor and don’t use a walkthrough or look up the story in any kind of way. While I personally found certain things predictable, the execution and pacing of the story are wonderful. There is barely any unneeded filler to the game.

The writing of this game is one of the strongest I have seen in a while. I was pulled into the characters and story right away. It really felt I was playing through a thrilling anime series that sometimes made me feel I was part of that group. Something that really helped with that is how the game handled free time. Something I really liked in games like Time Hollow, is that there are moments where the characters just interact with each other, where there are moments of character building. Some downtime between the big action moments or story beats.

In these moments, you can choose with whom you interact. If you give these characters a present, which you can buy from the school store, you get extra information about that character. And these moments are optional. So, if you don’t want to do them, you can decide to sleep these chances away. At no moment in this game, this mechanic is forced on you.

There is a lot of voice acting in this game. Almost everything in the class trails is voiced by very talented voice actors, and they knock it out of the park. They add so much character to the characters and really made me root for certain characters. I enjoyed the voice work to the point that I even read the non-voice acted parts in their voice.

Counter with an objection

I already talked a bit about the gameplay. In between the investigations and the class trials, you’ll be able to have some free time. In this free time, you can investigate the school to find coins to buy presents. You can also interact with the other characters. This gives some replay value since there aren’t enough moments to see everything.

Now, in terms of keeping track of how far you are with each character… Well, that has been handled in the sequels a lot better. The UI is decent, but the sequels have improved the UI so much… Not to say that the UI is bad, but it could be better. It’s the same for how you can earn coins. That’s easier in the sequels than in the original. But, those are minor nitpicks to be very honest with you.

Anyway, let’s focus on the investigation first. When an incident occurred, you have a certain amount of time to search around before you start the class trial. At this moment, the game turns into a sort of Ace Attorney investigation style of game. A feature I really love in this game and I missed in the original Ace Attorney games is that you can highlight the search spots by the press of a button. So, you don’t have to “pixel hunt”. The game also stops you from leaving a location when you haven’t found all the information, so that helps in not being stuck.

But, the meat of the game is in the class trials. In these trials, the difficulty that you choose matters. The higher the difficulty, the harsher the game is with its penalties for messing up. Also, more additional mechanics are in play. During these class trials, you go through a non-stop debate. It’s up to you to shoot the actual contradiction with the right piece of evidence. Think Ace Attorney’s Cross-Examination, but you can’t flip through the statements AND there is a time limit.

Yes, there is a time limit for each section of the trial. The better you perform, the more coins you’ll earn at the end of it. So, do be careful. Now, you can also make the class trials easier or more difficult depending on if you unlock and/or use skills. These skills can be unlocked by spending free time with other characters and giving them the correct present. You can’t use them all at once, since some of them cost SP and you have only so much to use per trial.

There are several mechanics in play during these trials besides the non-stop debates. One of them is the white noise. These are basically comments from the other students that block statements you could shoot a truth bullet at. (A truth bullet is an evidence bullet basically.) If you shoot the wrong statements instead of the white noise, you’ll lose time. Shooting white noise, you’ll gain time. Oh, and truth bullets can’t go through white noise!

You can also memorize a statement. Sometimes, you’ll notice that during the non-stop debates, people contradict each other. So, shoot others’ statements at their statements. But remember, you can only shoot these statements once. If you miss or hit the wrong one, you’ll have to re-remember the statement.

On top of this, you have the Hangman’s Gambit. This is basically Hangman, but instead of you guessing the letters, you’ll have to shoot them down. A wrong answer you’ll cost you some life points. And just like the UI, the sequels made this mini-game way more fun to play. Making this version of the Hangman’s Gambit boring to play if you have played the sequels.

Then, you have Bullet Time Battle. I hated these sections with a passion. I understood what I was supposed to do but either I understood the timing wrong or my lack of rhythm did me in here. But, visually, the sequels improved this section a lot as well.

To finish the mechanics during the trials, you also have the closing argument. In this argument, you have to complete the sequence. The sequence is basically a retelling of the events with all the facts.

This game is quite forgiving. When you lose all your health points, you can choose to restart from that section right away. You’ll also get full health right away. The only consequence is that you’ll earn fewer coins in the end for that section. This means, fewer chances to buy presents for the other students and that means fewer chances to unlock new skills. But, after I unlocked the skills I’m happy with, I didn’t mind that too much.

In which dimension are we?

Visually, this game has a unique art style. While you can run around in this school in 3D, most of this game is in 2D. And, what’s in 2D stays in 2D. You’ll notice that every character is in 2D and during the class trials when the camera spins around, the backside of the characters is totally black. Just look at this screenshot here. You’ll notice that the characters don’t have any depth. If you don’t really notice what I mean, take a look at the chair and desk on the left side of the screenshot. See what I mean now?

This unique art style is also present in most of the cutscenes of this game. I really love the bold visual presentation of this game. It gives the game a unique character that really sets the tone of the visuals in the next games.

While this game tackles very grim and dark subjects, this game never loses its visual identity and the charm really worked on me. I really felt that I was in some sort of manga where I was having a huge adventure.

Add to this, an amazing soundtrack and great sound design… And you have a complete package. I already added the soundtrack of this game to my playlists, so I can enjoy it while I’m on the train to work or just during work.

Now, the controls of this game work pretty well. It didn’t take long at all before I was able to get used to them. There was only one moment when I wasn’t able to figure out how something worked. That was the first time I had to shoot a bullet. It took me some time to figure that out, but that might be just me. As soon as that clicked, everything fell right into place. Thankfully, you can see the controls at the press of a button. There are tutorials and those explain the game and the mechanics amazingly well. I just misunderstood the section of “how to shoot a bullet”.

There is one thing you should know. And it’s something that can trip you up if you aren’t careful. This game doesn’t really autosave. You’ll have to save manually. And you can’t save during the mini-game sections of the class trial. You can’t name your saves either, but the name of the save explains it quite well.

Speaking of saves, there are no separate save slots for the main game content and the bonus material. So, when you have beaten the game, there is additional content for you to enjoy. From character art to a music player. But, this is something the game doesn’t handle too well.

First, unlocking the additional content costs in game coins. This would be fine if there was an easier in-game way to “farm” these coins. Since in this game they are quite rare to find outside the whole heap you get at the end of a class trial.

Second, they are save-dependent. Basically, when you revert to an earlier safe, the additional content gets locked. And if you don’t unlock it again or spend your coins elsewhere… Well, though luck.

Third, because you can save over your completed game save, it’s also possible to lock yourself out the additional bonus game and content unless you “refinish” the game.

Fourth, but this is actually a good thing. You can’t unlock certain things unless you have progressed in the game far enough. Otherwise, the additional content could have been spoiler territory.

All in all, the bonus section isn’t as polished as the rest of the game. The bonus content and mini-game is amazing, don’t get me wrong but the usability could have been so much better and it would be so nice if you were able to avoid screwing yourself over.

One thing I want to mention is that I did mention some minor performance hits during the trial preparation. I felt that the visuals were a bit lagging in some menu sections. Thankfully, nothing else lagged so it wasn’t such a big deal. And it was only during that moment… So, yeah.

The final thing I want to say is that this game is quite lengthy. Playing through the game casually will take you give or take 30 hours. You can add at least 15 hours on top of that, if you want to fully complete it.

And that’s basically everything I wanted to say about this game. Before I ramble on too much, I think it’s high time for the conclusion no? So, let’s spin the wheel for the results.

Conclusion time!

The good:

+ Amazing story.

+ Excellent soundtrack.

+ Unique and fun visual design.

+ Quite lengthy game.

+ …

The bad:

-The additional content unlocking could have been handled better.

-The rhythm mini-game didn’t work for me at all.

-The game is a bit too forgiving for a game over.

Final thoughts:

Quite recently, I have beaten the final game in this trilogy and while I was reviewing this game… I always had something in the back of my mind saying… But the sequels improved such and such. While I highly advise you to play these games in order, I do want to say that it gets even better in the sequels. Especially the UI and things like that get a lot better.

Now, don’t see this as me saying that “this game is bad” or anything of that nature. This game deserves all the praise it gets. This game started an amazing series that I’m so glad that I gave a chance. Currently, I’m saving up to buy the anime on DVD.

If you enjoy games like Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, Corpse Party, Time Hollow, Professor Layton… You really owe yourself to give this game a shot. It’s an amazing ride from start to finish with a few minor blemishes that can be solved with just paying a bit of attention. So, it’s totally worth your time.

I’m so glad that I gave this game a chance. Since, it’s becoming part of my favorite series ever list and I’m silently hoping that we get new content in the future and if we don’t, I’m looking forward to more work of the creators of the series…

And with that said, I want to wrap up this article. Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 99/100

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The TEN best GAMES of 2021 – NekoJonez Edition

What a year, 2021 was. While I haven’t been able to write as much as I wanted to, I still had an amazing eventful year. A lot of incredible things happened, like the Pokémon collab, me blogging for 11 years, my start in speedrunning, and a lot more. Besides that, my personal life was quite eventful and in all the chaos of 2021, I did have a stunning year. I was able to realize a lot of projects and achieve a lot of my goals. I’m enjoying life more and more, and I’m personally quite excited for 2022 since I have various personal things to look forward to. But it’s high time that I make that incredibly difficult to make list at the end of the year. Which 10 games were my favorite games of 2021? And if this is your first time reading one of these end-of-the-year lists of mine, let me fill you in on what puts my list apart from the others. On this list, only the games that I have started playing in the past year count. The release year doesn’t matter. If I started playing this year and I thought it was amazing, it’s going to deserve a spot on this list. So, are you ready? Since it’s high time to get listing!

Editorial note: some of these games are multi-platform, but the platform between brackets is the platform I played the game on.

#10 – Age Of Empires IV (PC – October 2021)

It’s here and it’s a great game. After years and years of improving the original trilogy, expanding the originals with new DLC… We got Age Of Empires IV. But, I wish I was able to place this game higher on my list.

It does so much for the RTS genre, but there is one thing that frustrates me with this game. There aren’t enough unique mechanics for this game to stand out. It almost feels like a well-balanced mix between Age of Empires 2 and 3.

But, that is what 2022 is going to be for. There is new content coming for this game in 2022, and maybe it will make this game stand out a bit more. Now, don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a bad game by any stretch. This game is amazing, and I can’t wait to play even more. If only I didn’t get too distracted by the other games on this list.

#9 – World’s End Club (Nintendo Switch – September 2020)

My review

I have to admit, I didn’t get what I expected from this game. I expected a death game, but I got a mediocre platformer with hints of horror.

But, the atmosphere of this game is what made me fall in love with this game. I’m so glad that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously and goes overboard with being silly. This game has its flaws, for sure, but the great moments hold this game together quite well.

Just thinking about this game while writing this section of the article, I was smiling. Because of the joyful memories that were returning from this game. If only the game was polished a bit more and the game went a bit more in-depth with its mechanics, this game would be so much better.

But still, I enjoyed my time with this game enough to give it a well-deserved spot in my top 10 games list of 2021.

#8 – Lenna’s Inception (PC – January 2020)

My first impression

At certain moments, I just know what a certain game is going to end up on my top 10 games of the year list. While I don’t know on which spot yet, I do know it’s a runner-up.

While playing Lenna’s Inception, I was hooked right away. It scratched that itch of playing a new 2D Zelda-style game perfectly. This indie game did so many great things, like randomizing dungeons, co-op, and various other things. Since I got this game for free in an Itch.io bundle and I enjoyed this game so much, I decided to buy a copy on Steam, so I could support the developers.

And the developer is already working on their next game called Cassette Beasts, and it looks like it’s going to be even bigger and better than this game. So, I have my eyes on this indie studio for sure! And ByttenStudio, thank you for bringing this amazing top-down Zelda game to the table!

#7 – Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (Nintendo Switch, November 2021)

My article on the originals

Back in 2019, I wondered if we ever would see a remake of the 4th gen Pokémon games. A generation that has a lot of nostalgic memories for me.

The first time I played the game was on a family trip. I brought Pokémon Ruby with me, and another kid I met there brought Pokémon Pearl. He always wanted to play Ruby and I wanted to play Pearl. So, we agreed to meet in the lounge each evening and play each other’s games for the whole night. Which led to the creation of a Gameboy club. Before I ramble on about this for too much, I highly recommend you to read that story I linked there.

Anyway, I also remember buying this game and giving the rest of my Christmas money to my sister, so we could buy Nintendogs together. I could go on for hours and hours about my memories with the originals. So, I had high hopes for the remakes.

I think I’ll go more in-depth about the remakes in a future article, but I have to say that even when it’s a bit clunky sometimes, the remakes are amazing! I so love playing through the adventure of the 4th generation again.

#6 – Persona 5 Strikers (Nintendo Switch, February 2021)

Look, my article is linked here!

At first, I was afraid that this game was going to be another Dynasty Warriors spin-off game, but I’m so glad that it’s not. This game is just like all other Persona games, but when you enter combat… Then it’s a Dynasty Warriors-ish kind of gameplay.

I found the mix and cross-over of these two gameplay styles amazing. While I still have to beat this game, I know that I’m going to enjoy it. This game just made me fall in love with the Persona series even more.

I still have to beat this game. Currently, I’m over the midway point. I recently picked the game up again after being distracted by other games, and I still had so much fun. So, I know that I’ll spend those boring train rides to work with Joker and his friends fighting crime.

#5 – Prey (PC, May 2017)

This isn’t a link… wait, it is. To my article.

One of my favorite atmospheric shooters series is Bioshock. I just had so much fun playing through that trilogy. Now, this year I gave Prey (2017) a try, and I was brought back right away to that amazing feeling of exploring a destroyed world with special powers.

And not only that, anything could be an enemy. The number of times, I jumped from my chair by a mimic suddenly appearing. It isn’t even funny anymore. I was so glad that I could play this game throughout my summer break. Now, I just hope that the rumors of a sequel are true since I would love to play through even more of this concept, this style of gameplay. Oh, I cross my fingers.

I just love the atmosphere in this game. You never knew you were safe or not until it was, sometimes, too late. And the limited amount of ammo and resources made me always feel on edge. The only thing I didn’t really like was how there were a bit too many quests going on at once, and it was a bit hard to keep track of which ones you are doing. Oh well, pen and paper are handy in those cases.

#4 – The Survivalist (PC, October 2020)

This game came out of nowhere. Seriously, only yesterday I decided to claim all my Humble Bundle games from my subscription and I decided to give this game a go.

Well, I’m not ashamed in saying that I already played this game for close to 14 hours already. And because of games like these, I always wait until one of the last days of the year to finalize this list.

This game will get its own full article but let me tell you, this game hits all the right notes for me. While playing this game, I get so nostalgic for The Sims 2 – Castaway on the DS. (On which I still have to write an article.) Throw a few bits of Minecraft and Terreria in there and mix it with the unique monkey mechanic, and you have this game.

If you like survival games or adventure games which are a bit more slow-paced, give this game a shot. It’s really well-made, and I can’t wait for what will come of this game. Full article to come.

#3 – The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Nintendo Switch, July 2021)

I’m really holding myself back in trying to not go too in-depth about this game in this article. Since Adventure Rules and I are working on something special.

A special article about this game. An article where we shall explain how we feel about this game. But, that’s all I’ll reveal for now… We are currently aiming to finish that article somewhere in January – February. But, it will all depend on our schedules. It was supposed to be finished somewhere this year, but my personal life just got too busy and I got focused on too many other projects. Anyway, all I’ll reveal for now is that there are some reasons why I don’t put this game as number 1 and why it’s so high on the list.

For those who don’t really know me, I’m a huge fan of visual novel games that have gameplay and puzzle elements like the Ace Attorney series, but also like the Zero Escape series or Death Mark. But, there are two games that topped this game, which was going to be my number 1 until I played the following two games.

#2 – SuperLiminal (Nintendo Switch, November 2019)

Don’t have to resize this article link

Man, this game took me by surprise. This rather short game with amazing visual puzzles took me on a trip.

Not only did the ending make me cry and made me think about certain things, but it also made me happy that there is a game that dares to ask those questions.

If PillowCastle or the developers read this article by any chance… Please, make more content or a sequel to this game. The concept, the story, and the ideas presented in this game are just… The potential is through the roof. If you want to know more about my thoughts and opinions on this game, please read my article about it.

Honorable mentions

These are the games that just didn’t make my top 10 list. But still, I want to mention them.

Haven (Nintendo Switch), Going Under (PC), Blue Dragon (XBOX 360), The Ship – Single Player (PC), Mystik Belle (Nintendo Switch), Neutopia (Wii U – Virtual Console), Pokémon XD Gale of Darkness (Gamecube), We Happy Few (PC), There Is No Game (Nintendo Switch), Super Metroid (SNES), L.A. Noire (XBOX 360).

And let me tell you, it was a hard list to put together. I had re-arranged this list MULTIPLE times. Each game is amazing in its own right. And believe me, I’m certain that if you ask me to make this list at a later date, it’s quite possible that this whole list has another ranking. (Apart from a few titles)

So, yeah. Let’s just say that if you haven’t given these games a chance, you don’t know what you are missing out on. And I’m also sorry for the various amount of games I haven’t included in my honorable mentions list because I haven’t played them enough or just forgot that I started to play them this year…

But enough stalling, let’s talk about my number 1 of 2021.

#1 – Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Nintendo Switch, December 2021)

It’s no secret that I love adventure mystery games like Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, Corpse Party, Bioshock… And when I saw in a Nintendo Direct, that Danganronpa was coming to the Nintendo Switch in December, I didn’t hesitate twice.

As soon as I had the budget, I bought the three games, and I’m currently playing the final two cases of the second one. At this moment, it’s kind of hard to decide if I should put the original or the sequel here on the number one spot since they both deserve it.

After I finished Zero Time Dilemma way back in 2016, I always wanted to play another trilogy with just the same amount of amazing twists, well-written characters, and amazing gameplay. And this series delivers that in spades. I honestly don’t want to finish this series, since I’m enjoying it that much. I want it to continue. But then again, the saying: “Don’t cry because it’s over, slime because it happened” applies here.

So, I’m so going to enjoy the final parts of the Danganronpa series and for my full thoughts and opinions, you’ll have to wait for the full article next year on these games. But, these games provide everything I’m looking for in a mystery adventure game and hits all the right beats. So, yeah. I would be ashamed if I didn’t place this game/series at my number 1 spot.

Wrapping up 2021

Sadly, due to me writing less and also focusing on other projects like contributing to open-source software, speedrunning and such… I have seen a drop in the number of visitors to my blog. I actually halved the number of visitors this year compared to 2020. But, I’m not sad about that.

When I look at the data, it turns out that I have more returning visitors and that my articles are performing better compared to last year. Also, I broke various milestones this year, like beating my day record twice AND breaking the 100k views barrier. I can’t thank you, my readers, enough for that.

I want to thank everybody who made my 2021 such an amazing year. I find it mind-blowing that people take time out of their day to read my articles, where I just talk about what I think about the games I play. And also talk to me about it, ask advice or questions. Looking back at what I wrote in the past 11 years, I think I created something to be proud of.

So, thank you for making 2021 amazing for me. I can’t wait to see what 2022 will bring. There are a few things I know that are going to happen in my personal life, which makes me even more excited to start 2022. And with that, I want to thank you for reading this article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article! But until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

My favorite gaming music #27 – Restart playing it?

More selections via this hub page

Heavens, my life is still extremely busy. But today, I was finally able to do something I haven’t been able to do in such a long time! I was finally able to go to a garage sale. I posted a nice loot picture on my Twitter. During my walk on that garage sale, I started thinking on which games are prime article material and I have found a couple. But, I mostly started thinking… Now, that I’m listening to music while browsing the stalls; isn’t it time to write another article about music I really like from that games I play? Of course! That’s what I wanted to do when I arrived home before I started playing my new games. So, grab a snack and turn up that volume since I want to share some amazing gaming music. The rules of this series are simple, I have to pick the original version (remixes and game related music is for specials in this series), one song per article and per game series and try to never duplicate songs in the whole series. So, are you ready? I am! Let’s dive right into it while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below!

Electronic Super Joy 2 (PC) – Very Nice

My platform skills aren’t the best ones out there. Yet, the Electronic Super Joy series always pulls me back into trying to beat several levels and I have major trouble not trying since the music… The music in this game is such a blast to listen to.

One of my favorite music genres is electro and dance. And the epicenes that this track provides during gameplay is just mind-blowing. I have to admit that I have a hard time focussing on the game while this track is playing, since various amazing scenes are playing in my head of the little guy jumping his heart out from platform to platform.

There is another track in Electronic Super Joy 2, called “Cuts” that gives me a similar vibe. And for some reason, the intro… it reminds me of the start of a Sabaton song. Oh, well.

In any case, I really like the soundtrack of this game and I play it quite often while I’m working or writing for my blog. S give this track a listen and give the other tracks in the OST a listen. You might want to replay the games again, like me.

Dusk (PC) – Dusk

Imagine, you open a retro FPS and prepare yourself to explore a grim and dark world filled with enemies that want you dead. A metal track that is not only ominous but also pumps you up, starts playing. If only it wouldn’t be over the top that you see an action filled montage during this track.

That’s how the main menu of Dusk hits the player. If you want to know my opinions on the game, I have written an article on Dusk in the past. But, it was one of the first games that I played with Andrew Hulshult’s music, and I really fell in love with his work. I have recommended his work several times in the past, but he really deserves it, in my honest opinion.

The power his music brings to the game is amazing. The game is several times better with it. While playing Dusk, I really felt somewhat creeped out but pumped up and ready to defeat the Lovecraftian enemies that the game was throwing at me. And now, I want to play Dusk again… great.

Prey (2017) (PC) – The Phantoms

Prey is an intense game. It’s a game that has me on edge because of the mimic mechanic, everything that jump out at you. That innocent chair might be a mimic waiting to attack you.

So, you tiptoe around being careful that you don’t get jumped in that deserted spaceship when suddenly even larger enemies start to show up. The phantoms.

And then this tense and glitched out techno/electro track starts playing. I really love the battles with the phantoms, and the tense/glitched out music really add to the urgency of those fights and make them even more memorable.

Since I have written an article on the game, I haven’t gotten the time to beat it yet, but I’m really planning to do so since this game and the core mechanics are so enjoyable that I really want to see it through to the end. I’m currently about 60% done with the game so, I’m really surprised that I started focusing on other games while the story is getting pretty tense. Oh well, I’m sensing a theme in this article… Now, I really want to play Prey again.

The Great Ace Attorney (Switch) – The Core

There is this game I really want to write about and that’s “The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles” on the Nintendo Switch. Two games which first had no plans to get localized and out of nowhere, these two games with all the extra cases and DLC got localized in one package for us on the Nintendo Switch.

While I’m still bummed out that we don’t get a physical version here in Belgium, I’m still playing this game and making a lot of progress with my buddy Adventure Rules for our collab.

We are making something quite unique, and we want to do it good. It’s taking us such a long time because we are both busy people AND because the idea we have is a lot of work to pull off right. But, I’m certain you will love it when it comes out. Keep an eye out on our twitters to be kept up-to-date on our progress. But, for now, I’ll leave you with this amazing tense track from the game to hype the collab up again. 🙂

Conclusion

I have a list of music tracks I want to write about in this series but, when I looked at my list today, I noticed a few tracks to make a nice theme. So, the theme is the title, and it’s twofold. The idea is that I wanted to talk about tracks from games I still want to finish, and that I wanted to “restart” playing to listen to them again.

But, I think most of you have realized that play on words already. So, with that said… I’m going to wrap up the article here. Since, as I said in the intro, I went to a garage sale and I really want to start playing the games I found but didn’t want to skip another week in writing. That’s why this article is a bit shorter than my usual articles.

So, thank you so much for reading this article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

NekoJonez’s August 2021 Update

It’s almost that time of year again, the start of the school year here in Belgium. This year, I start my 3rd year as an IT-admin in the school I work for. So, that also means that my summer break is over, and I restarted working again. Also, I’m quite surprised that my latest update article was from December 2020. I mean, it’s quite usual that there are sometimes big gaps between these articles when not a lot of interesting things happen to collect together in an update… But hey, that’s totally besides the point. Let’s start talking about what’s happening in my life and what’s going on for my blog. And before I start, I want to invite you to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions in the comment section down below.

Fewer articles and more gaps

When you look at the numbers of amount of published articles, you’ll notice that since March of this year… I have been skipping more and more weeks. Apart from April, I have been able to write and publish 2-3 articles each month. While I see a decrease in traffic to my blog because of that, I honestly don’t mind that much. I still reach similar numbers in the end. Now, I know that numbers shouldn’t matter since writing this blog is still a hobby. I know that fact all too well, yet… somehow, I feel proud when I see the numbers raise. But, that’s something we all like, seeing numbers raise. It’s a physiological thing.

So, why are there so many gaps in the publishing of articles? Well, it’s because I have written about so many games that I’m as good as through my backlog. I still have several games on my backlog to write about, but most of them should be replayed for at least a little while, since it has been such a long time since I played them for the first time. Before I write an article about a game, I want to have at least played 5-ish hours of that game, unless it’s a game quicky or a small indie game (that’s shorter than 5 hours). And here are the reasons I’m having trouble with that.

First, due to the COVID pandemic and private matters… My day job is extremely busy. I love doing my day job, but it’s extremely draining. So, at the end of the day, I sometimes don’t have the energy left to play games, or I just want to play a game to relax and not having to take notes or prepare an article about it. So, that means I have been playing games I have reviewed before and finishing them and, yes, even replaying some of them.

Secondly, I’m trying to improve my writing style. After writing for about 10 years in a similar writing style, I want to challenge myself to write more in-depth articles with more research and more cohesion. So, I’m putting a lot more time into each article, and it shows. I’m prouder of each article that I publish, and I feel that I’m improving quite a lot.

Thirdly, due to the general business of my personal life and the work for my school… I don’t always have the energy to write. I also want to recover in the weekend or work on my huge to-do list. Furthermore, I’m writing a lot for other things I’ll talk about more later… and that also has consequences. That means I burn myself out of writing sometimes. And I find that sometimes taking a break is better for me. That way I can still publish an interesting and well written article instead of a half-baked article. I like “better quality over more quantity”. So yeah.

And finally, here in Belgium, the COVID restrictions are slowly but surely lifting. Especially for vaccinated people (like myself)! So, that means I can start doing things in my local acting group again and go to see theater performances and movies in the cinema. Man, I have missed that so hard. You know those things you do, to reward yourself after doing a good job? Well, that was theater and cinema for me. Of course, blogging/writing about games has the same effect for me, but variety is the spice of life.

So, what does that mean? Shall you see less articles on my blog? Bluntly said, yes. I might not write weekly articles for a while anymore. I decided that it’s a goal I would love to reach, but I’m not going to force myself to write 4 articles each month. Not only that, but I’m going to try to write at least 1-2 articles/month. And if that’s not possible, I’ll talk about that on my twitter.

Outside of blogging

So, what’s going on in my personal life outside of writing for this blog? Well, quite a lot, actually. I have been expanding my hobbies and skill set. The first hobby I want to talk about is something that’s related to gaming, actually. I started speedrunning Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. You can find my runs at my Speedrun.com profile. At first, I wanted to beat the PC times, but those are not only extremely optimized already, I’m unable to do the perfect movement.

That’s why I started to focus on the GBC version. While I’m keeping an eye on the PC version, I’m mainly focused on the GBC version. Not too long ago, I have beaten my ANY% GBC full game run I did live that one time. Whenever I feel like it, I have been grinding this run out since that 1h 40 m 08s, I’m certain it can go lower. In a matter of fact, I have found several small skips and improvements that is going to save at least 10-ish minutes all together. But, I’m planning to write an article about the strategies and such involved in the full game run in the future… So, keep an eye out for that.

Besides speedrunning, I’m also creating a new website for my local acting group. Currently, it’s behind closed doors, but I’m spending quite a lot of time on that site. I’m also working on a lot of technical stuff for my acting group to improve work flow and such. It’s something different and a fun challenge for sure. I love the stuff I’m learning since I’m able to use it for the website I maintain for my school and visa versa.

Speaking about the school I work for, I have two updates about that. The first update is that I have a fixed contract. Now, here in Belgium, it works somewhat different in schools. The contract I currently have is if the school has to shut down for what ever reason, a school from the district has to give me a job. In other words, I’m quite certain that I’m going to have a job for the foreseeable future. 🙂 And not only that, it’s in my dream job as an IT admin in a big school. I couldn’t wish for more.

The second update is that the school I work for is growing in amount of students. Currently, we have around 700 students, compared to roughly 600 students at the start of the previous year. This is quite mind-blowing for an art school, and that’s the biggest reason my day job is so busy. I’m so happy that the school I work for is growing so much since that means our school is quite healthy.

So, outside of having a busy day job, writing a gaming blog (semi-)weekly, doing things for my acting group, speeding running games… I’m also active in the development of WordPress. Now, I’m not a coder, so I’m helping that much in the actual development of WordPress outside of testing and reporting bugs… I’m more active in the translation department. I’m a translation editor for all the WordPress plugins & themes on WordPress.org for the locale’s nl_NL(-formal) and nl_BE, which means all forms of Dutch basically. If you want to take a look at my work, you can see it on my profile. And if I contribute to a plugin/extension, it’s mostly issues with strings which make things less easy for translation. You can see most of my contributions on my GitHub profile.

That means, that I do a lot of things in my free time outside of spending time with my family. While it might sound overwhelming and a lot to keep up with, honestly, I enjoy it. I’m expanding my skill set and learning quite a lot. And not only that, I’m giving something back to the community.

What’s next?

Now, you might think that I want to spend less time writing. Because I have so many other hobbies or things I do outside of writing. And, that’s not true. I found that spending time on other things like speedrunning, translations, working on websites… It actually helps me to not burn out on writing. Like I said earlier in this article, variety is the spice of life.

I do have a collab in the works with a good blogging friend of mine, but I’m unable to make a lot of progress due to the busy times at my day job. Thankfully, after next week, it’s going to become a lot less busy, so I can focus on a lot of other things and maybe write more.

I’m also playing around with a few major updates on my blog, but I think most of them are going to have to wait until I have another vacation. Since it’s going to help me in keeping certain things up-to-date here on my blog. And yes, I’m also removing typo’s and such from older articles. If you notice one, feel free to give me a shout, and I’ll try to fix it as soon as I can.

So, what’s the summary of this update? I’m going to try to at least write 2 articles each month, and 4 if I can. I also started speedrunning, getting more involved with the development of WordPress and doing things for my local acting group. On top of that, my day job is extremely busy… eating up a lot of my time. And I don’t want to have it any other way. Mentally, I’m doing a lot better and that’s what counts in the end, in my opinion… If you are happy with your life, than all is well.

With that said, I want to thank you for reading this article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impression: We Happy Few (PC – Steam) ~ Pop Goes The Joy

Wikipedia page – Steam page – Official website

Being happy is a wonderful thing. Now imagine that you can take a happiness pill that makes you happy and joyful all the time. And on top of that, imagine that participation is mandatory, and you live in bliss… That’s the situation we have in We Happy Few, the game I want to talk about today. Now, to say that this game had a rocky release with a lot of bugs and glitches is an understatement. But, now that the game isn’t in early access and out for several years and the last update being from 2019, I think it’s the best time to take a good look at this game and if it’s really worth our time or that we should pop a Joy to cover up this game. Also, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of this article and/or this game. Ready, let’s go!

Pop goes the Joy

In We Happy Few, we take on the role of Arthur. Somebody who is working for the newspaper and censoring unhappy articles. When he suddenly sees a picture of his brother, he gets a lot of flashbacks that makes him stop popping his mandatory Joy. What is Joy? Well, like I explained in the introduction paragraph of this article, it’s a drug that makes people extremely happy and that’s mandatory to take or else you will be killed or exiled to the slums. People who don’t take Joy and don’t see the dangers of the world be camouflaged by the drug’s effects are called Downers and are shunned by all the Joy takers.

Now, how did the world get to this place? Well, that’s something for you to find out. The concept and setup of this game is excellent and I personally think it’s amazing. I feel like I’m playing a game like Bioshock or Prey again. Somewhat open-world yet linear-ish games that take you on a journey through a deep and rich story. And from what I have played so far, We Happy Few certainly delivers upon that front in my opinion.

Couple this with amazing voice acting that really helped me to get even more immersed into the world and the game, I don’t have any complaints about the story and the delivery. The pacing is also good. Everything gets some depth, but it doesn’t stay on one subject for too long. Some sections feels a bit too small in my opinion but thinking about it again, it would ruin the great world building that this game does.

I can forgive the fact that there are a lot of lines repeated when you talk to the townsfolk because the way the towns are populated adds so much to the atmosphere, and it makes the game even more immersive. The fact I can interact with every person on the street, and they play a random line with the accompanying animation, it’s delightful. If this concept is tried again, I think it would be great if it had a bit more lines and variations between the townsfolk.

Anyways, that’s more then enough about the story and the setting. Let’s talk about the other aspects of this game. It’s possible that even when this game has a nice story and setting, the game isn’t fun to play. Remember that I talked about various technical issues in the opening paragraph of this article? Well, I’m sad to say that there are still several technical issues. Thankfully, most of them are visual oddities but nothing game breaking anymore. I once had a dead enemy instead of dying, t-posing and following me around the map.

Only I time during a mission, I was afraid that my save file got cursed by a technical glitch, but exiting and restarting the game solved that issue with me loosing only 2-ish minutes of progress, since that isn’t too bad. The auto-saving in this game works miracles! And you can still manually save whenever you wish in 10 save slots just in case you want to experiment in this game. Or want to make a safety save or make a safe you can use whenever you want to also finish side quests.

Emotional Telephone Booths

You could play this game without using any Joy, but I highly recommend against it. Simply because it isn’t that much fun always running from everybody, and the stealth in this game isn’t that good to hide away. Since, when you are seen, you can’t hide until you are off the radar, and you find a good spot. And if you think, let’s fight the enemies then… Do think again. Since, when you get violent, people act like Zombie Pigman in Minecraft. They make other people around you hostile, and you quickly get piled up.

In those moments, it’s recommended you find a telephone booth to pop Arthur’s favorite strawberry Joy and try to go to an area where the folks people aren’t angry at you. Since, the Joy is a timed mechanic. At the upper left part of your screen, you see a sort of timer that indicates for how much longer you under the effects of Joy. When that meter runs out, you better find a source of Joy OR hide from the surrounding people, since not taking Joy is a crime. Oh, and don’t overdose on Joy either since that’s going to be a bad trip.

So, how does this game play like? Well, this game is more a sort of adventure game. You can pick up various items to either play this game more stealthy, or play like me and go all in and don’t care about what happens. The difficulty of this game highly depends on how good you understand the mechanics of this game. Do you understand the crafting system and where each item spawns or do you understand how to skill tree works and how to use your points to buy the best abilities…

Something that you will have to understand is how the compass at the middle of your screen works. It tells you a lot about your situation and nearby quests. You can even select which quest you are tracking, like in the Fallout games. I wish other games had that too, since in Prey for example… You have several tracks on the screen that all lead to your active quests. Sometimes markers even say: “multiple objectives”.

There are several other mechanics in this game like a hunger, thirst and sleep system. While those meters can deplete, they don’t affect the game too much, sadly. Most of the effects in the game you have from this system is that your stamina depletes a bit faster, and you have to attack more. It’s a shame, really, since it could be an amazing mechanic. It feels undercooked and it shows. The fact that finding food and drinks in the world isn’t easy, or beds for that matter.

So, when you lose all your health, you get set back at the latest checkpoint, and you can try again. Overall, the game is somewhat forgiving in my opinion. I have seen games that are more difficult. I personally felt I was able to breeze through the game somewhat and if I did die or hit a roadblock, just trying it again from another angle seemed to help. During my playthrough, I didn’t have a lot of weapons, so I had to improvise and running in the open fields with a quickly recharging stamina bar helped me quite a lot. Since, most enemies aren’t THAT fast.

Something this game does quite well in the UI. I find the UI spotless and to the point. You get a lot of information without it having too much information or getting confusing. Some things in the UI are a bit clunky, like how you can’t multicraft or discard multiple items at once when you are overburdened, but I got extremely quickly used to it.

While this game has some minor negatives, I find this game quite enjoyable to play. I really like solving the puzzle in taking just enjoy Joy and the right items to craft the right things, so I can survive another mission and encounter. Since, experiencing the humor and world building that this game provides is so fitting for the gameplay and so enjoyable.

To Joy or not to Joy

I could start and go nitpicking on how certain animations look a bit weird or how some bodies ragedoll extremely weird, but honestly, I think it doesn’t really matter because the art team of this game did an amazing job on this game. Not only does this game run smoothly on my 1050Ti, it also looks pretty good.

I really have to applaud the effort in the difference you can see if you are or aren’t under the influence of Joy. It looks very differently depending on if you take or don’t take any Joy. And it even looks different when you overdose or take drugs. Speaking of which, I really like the intrusive messages that discourage drug use in real life. It talks about how your combat abilities in the game are improved, but it has very negative and different effects in real life.

Apart from some very occasional nitpicks, visually this game looks great, and I’m sure it’s going to hold up for quite a while. The lush fields and the amazing cities with a lot of attention to detail are really commendable. No wonder that with so much visual stuff going on, that sometimes residents are sitting on the air in front of a bench. You can’t simply account for every edge case. If I can give one sort of nitpick in terms of the visuals, I think a bit more character models for the citizens would be great since once I tried to get the whole city to chase me and I did see a LOT of duplicates… I don’t mind duplicates, but if you have 10-ish of the same guy chasing you… ah well, it ruins the good character model just a bit.

On top of this great visual design, you have some amazing sound design. The sound effects in this game are great. They fit the art style and the atmosphere quite well, and it gave me the right information to assess the situation. And not only that, it helped to immerse me quite a lot into this game. The little sirens for example to let you know you are caught and people are looking for you are a great tool to know you have to escape and hide until the sirens stops.

If you have read my blog in the past, you know I find the music in a game quite important. And does this game deliver? Yes. Yes, it does. The soundtrack is quite pleasing and fits the atmosphere quite well. It wouldn’t surprise me that I’m going to add the soundtrack to my playlists after I have played the game a bit more or if I have beaten it. Actually, I think I might just add it to my playlists after publishing this article.

All in all, this game highly surprised me when I saw the trailer, and I was afraid when I heard the news of the technical issues. But, then I gave this game a try and I have to say that I really like this game. It has its quirks that I had to get used to but it didn’t take long before I was running around with the fluent and responsive controls. I might have to learn the combat system a bit more, but I panic too easily in those sorts of situations and I tend to “mash the attack button and strafe” mostly. Whoops.

Do I recommend this game? Yes, I do. I highly recommend this game to everybody who enjoys playing adventure games in the genre of Bioshock, Prey, Alice in Wonderland… but might want to have a bit less shooting action in the game. It’s a unique game that really deserves a chance. It won’t be a perfect, flawless experience, but it doesn’t matter. And no, I didn’t take a Joy to write this segment. I really do enJoy … sorry, lame pun. I really do enjoy playing this game and can’t wait to see how it continues. Together with Prey, this game is going to fill my summer quite nicely. A summer full of joy and amazing adventures, one in space but this one… it’s an adventure on earth were not following the norm is going to move you forward and it teaches some nice life lessons when you think about it in that way.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Game Quicky: Archaica- The Path Of Light (Switch) ~ Pointing Lazers

Steam store page – Nintendo.com page – Official website – Drageus Games page

It’s no big secret that I love to play various types of games. From shooters to more relaxing games like Forager. Now, I enjoy playing casual games like the ones on Bigfishgames.com. So, when Drageus Games sent me a press release about Archaica and I saw it was based on one of the classic light and mirror puzzles you have to do in those games, it grabbed my attention right away. So, I took the press code I got, and I started working on this first impression/review article of the game that will have 100% my own opinion. Without further ado, let’s see how well Two Mammoths game got ported to the Nintendo Switch. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article. 

The good

The story in this game is pretty relaxed. The story is about you discovering the ancient secrets of an old and long forgotten civilization. Yet, since this is a puzzle game and in most of the puzzle games the story can be a bit… mediocre, the developers focused more on the atmosphere and tying the puzzles into the lore.

This is something they did quite well. The story is being told through various hidden collectables, and it’s a joy to play through a puzzle game that way. The only “ehrm” thing about it, is that it’s a bit ruined by the fact that there is no real “log” of the things you discover. So, if you want to read previous entries, you are out of luck.

Now, the gameplay is quite easy to understand. You have to place mirrors on the right location on the grid and get them in the right orientation for them to bounce the light right into the crystals. The really responsive controls make this game easy to pick up and play.

While this game can be fun in short and longer play sessions, the thing that kept me going was the atmosphere. The lore building storytelling combined with the amazing visual presentation and animation, it’s perfect for a first indie game project. Together with the mysterious Aztec-themed music, the sound design is pretty well done as well.

The difficulty of the game can be a bit frustrating, since it’s the answer is always a bit tricky, but the satisfaction of finally figuring out that level you were stuck on is such a great feeling.

The game autosaves your progress. It’s a joy, since it also saves the collectables you have found in uncompleted levels.

The bad

So, I don’t know who is to blame here, but on the official Drageus website, they claim that this game has a unique hint system and that it has dynamic boards.

I’m sorry, but this is a bit of false advertising. Let me begin first about the “dynamic boards”. Since it’s a term that I didn’t find anywhere else, it’s a bit up for whatever we make of it. And that can cause some expectations that aren’t realistic like randomly generated puzzles.

But the publishers aren’t native English speakers, so I can forgive that to an extent. Something I can’t forgive and found quite disappointing is the actual lack of a hint system. I’m sorry, but I was unable to find this “unique hint system”. Now, if they meant with “unique hint system” the fact that you get more explanation about a certain type of mirror when you find the three glowing pedestals hidden in the level, then I don’t call that a hint system but a tutorial.

Sadly enough, there are some other things I can’t let off the hook either. The menu UI, especially the method to return to a previous menu is a bit clunky. You have to hold B to go to a previous menu. But, the annoying thing is that there is no indication of the game registering your input.

Also, the options’ menu is a bit unpolished. You don’t go to the top option when you scrolled down to the bottom, and the game doesn’t tell you that the options autosave when you exit. So image my surprise when my game was suddenly in a different language because I was looking at the different options for this review.

The option to replay the intro is just filler. But the intro is just a few seconds long and has just one text box with a bit of the story.

So yeah, with that said, I think I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. Apart from my conclusion here. What is my actual conclusion? Let’s find out.

The conclusion

This game is a strange beast. While the game is really enjoyable to play, and I had a lot of fun with it… There are some things that just ruin the experience to a degree. From the lack of a promised hint system to unpolished UI.

I’m under the impression that this game tried to be something it isn’t. It could have been so much more when the story was more fleshed out, and you had some sort of log you could read previous entries. Or when you had a hint system and a reason to actually collect those shine glowing orbs.

I really wanted to like this game since the audiovisual design and the gameplay are excellent. Especially the audiovisual design is exceptionally well done for an indie title. But alas, it isn’t meant to be.

I can recommend this game to casual and hardcore fans of the puzzle genre. If the premise of laser and mirror puzzles interests you, I think that this game might be worth your time but don’t expect the next Talos Principle from this game.

I might sound a bit harsh in my conclusion and I do have a reason for that. I find it such a shame that such a beautiful game is pulled down by such simple mistakes. This is something the developers can fix through patches and content updates. So, please. Just polish up the game a bit more, and it can be a real gem. But for now, I think I’ll just enjoy my unpolished rough diamond.

Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope I’ll be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 60/100

NekoJonez’s May 2020 Update

Hello, there my dear readers. I think it’s high time to write an update article to talk about a few things that are going on behind the scenes. Since there is a lot going in the world and in my personal life. This update article might be brief, but I hope you will still enjoy reading it. Anyways, let’s get right into the news!

The amazing GIF has been made by the amazing Gao Li.

Personal life

So, due to COVID-19, the world is in a strange place. Currently, in Belgium (where I live), we are in the process of exiting our lockdown. The schools are going to somewhat resume, the companies will restart their production, stores will reopen… Of course, step by step.

During the lockdown, I didn’t sit still at all. I’m working on a ton of projects and putting in a lot of effort into my job. Speaking of my job, something amazing happened! My dream job since childhood has always been working in a school. When I started to develop my passion for computer science, I wanted to become an IT guy at a big school. In December 2019,  I started working in a school in Ghent parttime as my dream job. But, after the week after the Easter Holidays, something magical happened. I got that job full time now. So, yes. I’m now working full time in my dream job. I can’t honestly believe this happened to me. Thank you!

So, I have been spending quite a lot of time on my job. Since a ton of schools now switched to online classes, the IT staff has a ton of support work. There were days that I helped teachers from the early morning until late in the evening. That means that I sometimes didn’t have time to prepare and/or write an article for my blog.

On top of that, my theatre group started something quite unique. We are acting out our version of a popular TV game show here in Belgium called “De Slimste Mens Ter Wereld”. Freely translated, this means: “The Smartest Person on the Planet”. Sadly enough, there isn’t an English article to be found of the show, so I can’t link it to explain the whole format.

Now, the original person who was editing the whole show wasn’t able to continue working on the show. That means that somebody else has to take over. And I’m one of the only people in the group who has the skills and the expertise to actually edit the show. The show airs on Monday – Wednesday, and Fridays. Now, I work to give or take 10 – 15 hours on each episode. So guess what that means, even less time to prepare articles for my blog.

On top of that, there are a few things happening in my private life that makes my life even busier. Things like me studying a new programming language and developing a tool for some friends of mine. So yeah, I haven’t sat still these days.

Blog news

Now, besides working on all the personal projects mentioned above, there are a few things that are blog related as well. Currently, I have 3 developer requests in the pipeline and I have some friends who wanted me to look at their game to help them out in the next projects.

I’m going to try to write these developer requests first before I write about any other games. That means I have to remake my whole schedule. But that isn’t such a big deal.

Currently, I want to focus my time and energy on my job and my theatre group. I think that this isn’t going to come as a surprise, but I think that May might be a big light on articles. Since I’m working on so many things, I don’t always have the time, creativity, energy, and/or motivation to work on an article each week. With a bit of luck, I might be able to publish two articles this month instead of four, but we shall see. It’ll all depend on the time I can put into my blog and prepare myself. Honestly, I prefer delaying an article instead of rushing one out of the door.

To give you an idea to show you how busy I have been, I have published over 500 articles by this point and I haven’t written a special article about it yet. On top of that, I have been blogging for 10 years now! So yeah, there will be a special article for that in the (near) future!

Besides that, I’m also working on fixing a ton of things on my blog. From typos to fixing dead links, broken images, and things like that. Also, I’m toying around with the idea to move my website to a hosting service. But, I’m not 100% sure about that, and undertaking that project will be for the summer holidays at the earliest.

Apart from that, I currently own an XBOX360 now. One of my friends sold his one and I bought it from him. So, that means I might be able to write reviews and articles about XBOX and XBOX360 games in the future. Are there any games I should check out? Feel free to leave a comment about that.

And with that, I have said everything I wanted to say. I’m sorry for the shorter length of the article but that’s all I have time for now. I hope you still enjoyed reading this article and I hope to be able to welcome you to another article in the future. But until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impressions: The Hive (Steam) ~ War With And Of Bugs

Steam Store page

One of my favorite game genres is RTS games. The satisfaction that you get from building up your empire, setting up an economy, and preparing yourself to defeat the enemy. It can be such a rewarding feeling. Games like Age of Empires II, Rise of Nations, or Rise & Fall – Civilizations At War are just three of the amazing games I have played to death when I was a kid. Now, when I got a mail from the fine folks over at Skydome Entertainment with a press code for The Hive and full freedom with my article, I was extremely excited. This game has been under development for several years now. The first development blog posts on the Steam Store page date all the way back to December 2014 and the latest patch has been released on March 9^th, 2020, which is version 1.203. This is the version I’ll talk about in this article, so if this game got an update, it’s possible that some things in this article or no longer relevant. So, without further ado, I think it’s high time that we take a look at this game and it’s worth your time or if you should skip this game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article down below.

War With Bugs

Something happened to the world. The story of this game starts off in 2175, where our planet Earth got attacked and destroyed. Humanity was able to build a ship and leave Earth before it was completely destroyed and went off a journey to look for a new planet to life. After a human lifetime of searching, a new planet in a new solar system was found. The humans were taken out of their cryogenic sleep to start-up life anew in the harsh climate. But, something is alive underneath the crust of that planet. Something awakens in the City Of Ancients that might prove a big issue for the humans and the catch is, it’s you that takes control of the new species and try and help to find it’s old glory.

You play as The Hive and you are the leader of bugs living in The City Of Ancients. The story gets more interesting in the further chapters but I’m not going to spoil it. To be honest, I got some Overlord vibes from the story. Maybe because both games are about minions you control and have their own unique abilities. The atmosphere is similar to a certain degree. The plot of this game is quite enjoyable and it didn’t disappoint at all.

One thing I should mention is that this game has no skirmish mode as far as I know. So, that means if you finish the 12-ish hour-long campaign, you basically have beaten the game. You could try to beat it on a higher difficulty to challenge yourself but outside that, the game has no real replay value after defeating the campaign.

Now, this game also has voice acting. The voice acting in this game is quite impressive. The production value is impressive for being an indie title. It feels that the voice actors put their heart and soul into the characters and gave them a nice personality. I especially liked the effects they put on the voice for the Insect Advisor.

While this game takes place in a magical universe, there isn’t a lot of technobabble. For those who don’t know that term, it means that everything has its own name and there are a million exposition dumps. If you have played an RTS game in the past, you will know right what to do and the war of the bugs can begin.

War of Bugs

So, the gameplay loop in this game is that you have to explore the caves underneath the planet to find a way up. You learn a lot about the War and the fight against the other species that took place. While most levels use the usual RTS gameplay loop of build city, build the economy, build an army, find enemy, attack the enemy army, destroy enemy base; a few puzzles and unique twists are thrown into the mix.

In terms of gameplay and mechanics, I have a mixed feeling. There are things that I enjoyed quite a lot and there are things that baffled me. Let’s do a round of good thing – bad thing to sum a few things up.

So, while building your empire, you can not only rotate around the camera but the buildings as well. Man, I love features like these. It makes it less awkward when I placed a barracks in a corner and my units spawn out of a wall from the building. Alas, the building of buildings has one thing that I found frustrating. I have gotten so used to the fact that you can cue up buildings to build, but that doesn’t work in this game.

The gathering of resources works in a unique way. Food doesn’t rot away and workers don’t have to walk back and forth to the hive. A special cart rides out from the nearest gathering point to collect the resources. So, your workers put all the gather resources on a pile and these carts come and pick it up. The resources don’t even rot away and you don’t have to do anything for it to collect it. The only “downside” is that you can only use one worker per resource gathering point. Now, what’s the bad thing here?

Well, there is a soft-lock potential. The resources aren’t infinite. Now, imagine this scenario in the Age of Empires II. There is no more wood on the map but you need wood for your archers. What can you do? Well, you can build up a ton of farms and trade that food over for gold to buy wood at the market. This avoids the issue that if everything of one resource is gathered, it’s impossible to get. Now, in The Hive, there is no such thing as a market or a farm. Meaning that every decision counts. Thankfully, you really have to make bad decision after bad decision in order for you to soft-lock yourself but the fact that the potential is there always worried me.

The UI of this game is pretty impressive. The options menu is something that I can only praise. An explanation of what key does what? It’s a feature I’ll miss in other games. If only, a similar explanation appeared for the graphic options, but hey, that would clutter the UI of the graphics options a bit too much. Yet, I have two things that I disliked about the UI. First of all, if I may nitpick, I found the text on the buttons on the pause menu a bit hard to read since the text color and the color of the buttons are somewhat close to each other. And second, the visual design of the menu’s that you open using the pause menu are so different in design… I mean, the pause menu has a sort of cave theming like the UI in-game, and suddenly, a more space / modern UI appears for the options menu.

The fact that your vision cone appears on the mini-map is a great feature and it even rotates with you when you rotate the camera. Yet, I do have a complaint. It doesn’t change size when you zoom and/or out and especially, it always appears a bit underneath the place where you click on the mini-map. I can understand why this happens since the location of the camera isn’t where you click but a bit underneath that spot. But, it gave me a feeling I wasn’t able to click where I wanted on the mini-map.

It’s great that you can skip cutscenes and even have subtitles. But why aren’t both possible in the opening cutscene? A minor nitpick is that there are some minor grammar errors in the game (“Click of the paintings” instead “Click on the paintings” in the second level)

There is this unique mechanic where you can find treasures to upgrade your units to dissolve them for DNA points to unlock special upgrades for your units. It’s a perfect balancing act since you need to decide if you are going to dissolve the treasures and get an upgrade or use them to improve your unit(s). If only that would be explained in some sort of tutorial, which the game somewhat lacks.

Just a bit more

If you read the previous section, it might look that I’m ripping this game a new one. That there are so many things missing or wrong with this game, that it’s not a great game to play. Well, then I think you got the wrong idea. I loved my time with the game and I found it a bit disappointing that some features I expect weren’t there.

Also, the price for this game is only 15€. So, it would be wrong of me to compare this game to big titles with way bigger budgets behind it. The thing is that I enjoy this game so much, that it frustrated me that the potential that this game has is unused.

Take for example the visual presentation. The artwork, unit design, level design… they all look amazing. You really feel like being in an abandoned cave where an old civilization used to live. The animations really make the world come alive. It’s so adorable that your workers dig into the ground to create a building and that it rises up like a sort of mole hole.

The audiovisual design is outstanding as well. This game has an orchestral soundtrack that reminds me of the reboot Tomb Raider games, Rise & Fall – Civilizations At War, and other similar games. It sounds familiar on one hand but new and fresh on the other hand. It’s a blast to listen too. The sound effects only add to the great atmosphere. The audiovisual design is so well done that I can excuse that some things don’t have sound effects or voice lines like when you click on an option where you don’t have enough DNA points for or certain interactions in your inventory are silent.

This game is a blast to play but you have to take into account that there are some things that don’t really work or work in the way you expect them to work. I have given several examples in the previous section, but here is another one. Why does your cursor not change when you hover over a resource or why don’t your worker acknowledge that interaction is going to happen?

This is why I said earlier in the article that I feel quite mixed about the gameplay. I enjoy playing this game but the final touches are just not there in certain cases. Now, I’m not saying that this game is unpolished or anything since there is a lot of attention to detail in most mechanics but not in all of them.

I think that this game could use another major content update or update that just focusses on making the game a bit more accessible. I think if a tutorial is added, something to avoid the soft lock potential and the functions that miss sound effects or voice lines are added; that this game gets even better.

So, I can’t wait to finish the final 5 levels I still have left to play. Since I really enjoyed my time with the game. I highly recommend this game to everybody who enjoys sci-fi games, RTS games, and even to people who enjoy adventure games. This game is quite enjoyable to play and experience. It’s an enjoyable RTS experience that I won’t soon forget. Congrats to the small Finnish team of 6 people who put their heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into this game since I have to say, the end result is something to be proud of and it shows a ton of potential for future games and/or more adventures in the world of The Hive.

And with that, I conclude my first impression. I want to thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Preview: SpeedLimit (Steam) ~ Shall We Run Away?

Official website – Steam Store page

Remember “All You Can Eat“? Well, the people over at GameChuck are developing a new game and it’s called Speed Limit. A few weeks ago, a demo version released to test out the game and gather feedback for further development of the game. Today, I’m going to take a look at the game and talk about my 100% honest opinions on the game with the provided press copy. Now, do keep in mind that this game is under development and that I only played the demo. So, things mentioned in this article might be changed when the full version comes out in the second quarter of 2021. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

If you are interested in this game and you want to read more or even the press materials like screenshots, trailers and other interesting things, you can read the press kit right here. There are also dev logs on their YouTube channel.

Editorial note: I have written this review while playing the demo version released on March 16th, 2020.

The game

In this game, you play as a guy just commuting on the train. Suddenly, a strange man walks into the cart with a gun and collapses into your arms. The annoying thing is that it knocks out the phone from your hand and changes it with the gun. Well, this catches the attention of the secret agent on the train and send the whole SWAT Team after you. Now, it’s time to escape their grip and save yourself before it’s too late. Your goal is to avoid all their fire and dodge every last enemy that gets thrown your way since one hit kills you.

The extremely difficult adventure can easily be controlled by a few buttons. The arrow keys are for moving to sideways, the down key is for ducking and the up key is to aim up. The default keys for shooting it’s the space bar and for jumping it’s the control key. The controls are easily rebinded in the options menu. Oh, and let’s not forget to mention that this game also can be controlled by a controller.

Speaking of the options menu, the only other things you can currently do is change the volume of the music or reset the options. The consistency of the menu system sticks out and makes it easy to use. The color scheme is used throughout the whole game and that’s a nice thing.

This game also has an amazing audiovisual presentation. Let’s talk first about the visuals. If you ever played a game like Heart of Darkness on the PS1 or Another World on PC, the pixel art will feel extremely familiar. The animations and the visuals are extremely impressive for a game that’s still under active development and still has at least a year left in development.

Couple that with an amazing tense tech/dance soundtrack and you have the great audiovisual presentation that this game delivers. The sound effects get the same praise and I have to say that the immersion sometimes is extremely high.

Now, something that’s also quite interesting to know is that this game has several gameplay styles. The variety of this game is quite impressive. For the sake of surprise, I won’t spoil too much, but a motorcycle and plane play a role in this game.

The game also has achievements, this is quite interesting and gives a peek to the feature of this game. Currently, the demo has three stages for us to enjoy. And I have to admit, I have trouble reaching the ending of the first stage. But hey, I’m ready to try and try again, since the adrenaline kick will be amazing when I finally do it.

Comments

Now, it’s time to give my opinion on the game so far. If it isn’t clear from the previous section, I really enjoy the game and I think that the finished product will have a lot of potential. But, there are some flaws I think that could be changed.

Let’s start with a minor thing. The “Reset To Default” button in the options menu also resets the volume of the music and sound effects. I think an additional button to only reset the control bindings would be a great idea.

I can understand that this game is supposed to be difficult and that it’s a game of memorization. But, something that annoyed me to no end was the fact you can’t shoot while crouch walking. You need to be at a standstill and duck in order for you to shoot while crouching. I felt that it’s a bit unfair since sometimes your execution speed can mean the difference between life or death.

At the current moment, there isn’t enough feedback in the sound department. There is no game over sound and the animation can easily be missed. Just give a little sound effect that the player lost before you respawn. Now, the respawn happens quite fast so, it isn’t that big of a deal as soon as you get used to it.

Also, I think that the difficulty curve ramps up just a bit too fast. By the 2nd cart, you get swarmed from above, left and right. When you survive that, the next enemy has a shield that bounces your bullets back and because you barely have time to attack the enemies from above from the previous cart, they attack you from the previous cart while you are still trying to figure out how to beat the enemy with the shield. It can be quite overwhelming. Then again, this might be part of the charm, but it’s quite frustrating when you barely get the time to get used to certain enemies or patterns.

You might have read it earlier, I haven’t been able yet to beat the first stage. I think that I came quite close, but there is always something that I overlook that spells disaster. Now, because of that reason, I won’t comment if the game saves your progress or not, but the fact that there isn’t an option to reset the save file in the options menu has me a bit worried that this has to be done all in one go. And if you die, you have to restart everything from the start. Then again, you might just get an option to either continue or start a new game when you reached the second level.

And that’s currently all the feedback I can give for the demo I played. So, I think it’s time for my conclusion on this article and my final thoughts on this game.

Overall opinion

I know that this “review” is going to be out of date as soon as the demo gets an update or when the game fully releases. I’m fully aware that my reflexes aren’t quick enough to play this style of game optimally. But, that doesn’t stop me from enjoying this game.

Before I started to write this article, I had to keep in mind that this article is both a preview to introduce this game to my readers and it’s a feedback article. The difference is that this time, I shared my feedback for the developer in my article instead of in a mail.

The direction that this game is taking is interesting. In this article, I have talked about games like Another World and Heart of Darkness. And, this game seriously reminds me of those style of games, extremely difficult but rewarding games to beat.

While this game wouldn’t be my first choice when I’m buying games, I’m glad that the developers provided me with a press copy since I want to beat this game to try and get better at these style of games. The “just one more try” mentality got to me for this game. Maybe the fact that the soundtrack of this game is so catchy might have to do with it.

If the game gets even more polish and gets just a bit more balanced in terms of difficulty, I think this game is going to do great in the indie scene. The foundation is already there and if this is only the demo so far… I’m looking forward to the full version. And you may be sure that when I notice that this game gets an update, that I test it out and help the developers to polish up this game to be even better.

If this game sounds interesting to you, I advise that you keep an eye on the Steam Store page and wishlist it. Since this is a game you don’t want to miss if you enjoy games like Super Meat Boy, Another World, Heart of Darkness and games of that nature. Or if you enjoy highspeed action games.

Before I ramble on and on, I think it’s a great idea that I close off this article. I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then: have a great rest of your day and take care.

Game Quicky: The Touryst (Switch) ~ Vacation With Adventure

Nintendo.com microsite – Wikipedia entry – Official website

In the world we live in today, it’s not too advised to travel. To protect the risk groups from COVID-19 that is. So, that’s why I’m going to talk about a small indie game on the Nintendo Switch called The Touryst, where we can have a virtual vacation. But hold on, is this a holiday worth going on? Since, the holiday picture you see as cover art spells doom. It might go wrong pretty quickly. But, is that wrong as in, story-wise or wrong as in… a bad game? Let’s find out together in this game quicky article! And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the content of this article and/or the game in the comment section down below. 

The good memories

Just like in a vacation, the story of this game takes somewhat of a backseat. The story is there to explain certain things that the people of the island do. But what is the story of this game? Well, in this game you play as a guy going on a holiday. He discovers a way to enter a strange alien looking temple and when exploring that temple, his adventure is afoot.

While there is no voice acting in this game, the writing in the dialogue boxes is pretty good. Especially since there certain effects to some dialogue parts to put more character inside the dialogue boxes and on top of that, the characters of the game.

Something I really love about this game is the variety. There are so many things to do and puzzles to solve. While the main quest takes you on a journey through various temples and you solve various platforming challenges, the other puzzles and side quests take you on a journey through a beach party, jazz club, art museum and many other places.

It’s quite impressive that in a game that’s only 6-ish hours long, that there is so many different things to do. I have even seen speedruns of people completing this game in under one hour. So, this game is quite speedrun friendly.

The controls of this game are quite close to perfect. The are easy to understand and extremely responsive. I was able to understand all my abilities even after a month or so of not playing the game.

The UI and “TO DO list” is one of the best I have seen in a while. It logs almost everything and it’s easy to navigate and find. Per island you get a list of the tasks you still can do to progress either the main story or a side quest. The only minor complaint I have is that the load game feature is under the options menu. I just wish that this was it’s own menu with a sort of “save and quit” feature as the first save file or something.

The performance of this game is mind blowing. The game runs smoothly at 60FPS and I can’t tell you one spot where it dropped lower than 60FPS. Together with the impressive visual design, this game is a technical master class for other developers. The visual presentation of this game is something I really enjoyed. It reminds me of a sort of smooth Lego-ish vibe with the stunning voxel graphics.

The animations are wonderful to look at as well with the steady and high frame rate. To me, it was extremely immersive. I really loved going onto the islands and exploring around to see what the game had to offer. I loved how the footprints stayed in the sand or how the lighting of the sun changed when you moved the camera around.

Couple this with an amazing soundtrack and sound design together with the rather relaxing and sometimes tense atmosphere of this game and you have another reason why I feel that this game deserves a lot of praise. But, there is something… something dark lurking while I’m praising this game.

The bad memories

Sadly enough, this adventure isn’t perfect. There are some mistakes in this adventure that I think could have been better. The first thing that I found a big bummer is the fact that there can be only one save file in the game.

Speaking about saving, something I found a bit disappointing was the fact that when you choose save and quit in a monument, that you have to restart the whole monument. So, better put the Switch in sleep mode than choosing save and quit.

Now, something I talked about in this article earlier were the controls. Some of the controls still need some fine tuning like the aiming controls. I had to wrestle with the aiming controls more often then not. This is such a big shame in my opinion. Also, this might be just me but the ledge grabbing mechanic didn’t always work for me.

There were some mini games and platforming sections that were a tad bit too difficult in my opinion. Especially when some tricky jumps were involved. It was so annoying when I fell into a pit just because I jumped a bit too early. Thankfully, you do respawn quickly, but the whole room resets. So, yeah, if it’s a puzzle involving a lot of steps… Let’s just say it’s extremely irritating.

The fact that there is no real hint system is a bit frustrating. In some boss battles I had to find the solution by complete accident. There is some trail and error in this game. While I didn’t find this too big of an issue, I can see that this might be a turn off for some people.

With that said, I think it’s time we reached a conclusion. Don’t you think as well? Should you go to your nearest Nintendo eShop Travel Agent and book this holiday or should you avoid it?

Travel verdict

This game is a hidden gem. While it’s quite short, it’s a blast to play and explore the worlds that were created for this adventure. But, there are some cracks in this gem that might turn people off from playing it.

It feel like some parts weren’t polished enough and that made some sections a bit too frustrating. Thankfully, those moments aren’t too frequent and spread out quite a bit.

This game is a joy to beat but a nightmare to complete. I can only agree from what I have read from other reviewers, there are some (optional) sections like the surfing and soccer game that make this game almost a rage quitting affair.

Well, I think that this game is highly worth your time and money if you enjoy exploration games, puzzle games, platformers, indie games… There is a huge audience for this game I think. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if this game didn’t click with everybody. Since, this game can be frustrating but also a bit repetitive.

Thankfully, there is a demo. So, you can try before you buy. My advise is that you first give the demo of this game a try and if you feel that it’s your cup of tea (or coffee, or beer or …) then you buy this game. Since, it’s a joyful adventure with some weaker spots that’s a blast to experience.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 80/100