My favorite gaming music #27 – Restart playing it?

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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!

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Preview: Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask (PC – Steam) ~ It’s A Holy Sin.

Developers’ site – Full game website – Kickstarter – Steam page for the prologue

Ah, point-and-click adventure games. One of the best game genres that there is in my opinion. I do love myself a good point-and-click game. Now, you could start a debate if games like Ace Attorney, Corpse Party, Zero Escape series are also point-and-click games. I know that they are visual novels but I find that there is a lot of overlap between both genres. But that might be an interesting topic for a gamer’s thoughts article. Now, today I want to talk about a game that Red Martyr Entertainment is developing called Saint Kotar. They have launched a Kickstarter to raise more money to develop this game even further, you can find the link to the Kickstarter at the start of this article and it’s ending this Friday, July 24th, 2020. So, if this game seems interesting to you, feel free to take a look at that page. But, how would you know if this game is interesting? Well, by playing the free prologue on Steam of course. In this article, you will find my 100% honest opinion on this prologue, as per request of the developer. So, let’s dive right into it. And per usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the article in the comment section down below. 

Reviewed version: v1.3.

It’s A Holy Sin

When you start a new game in this prologue, you get introduced to the main character of this game. Just by the opening quote, you know which themes this game will tackle. The game is advertised as a dark psychological horror adventure game talking about religion. The story starts in what looks like a hellscape or limbo. The main character feels that he is being punished for something is he is unable to remember.

I don’t want to give a more in depth explanation of the story in this game since the demo is 2 hours long and otherwise I might easily get into spoiler territory. But, if you are interested in games about the exploration of trauma and sins, I think that this game won’t dissapoint you.

The whole prologue is completely voice acted in English and only English. Now, the game got translated to German, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Brazilian, Czech, Spanish, and Chinese. Anything but the voice acting is translated and localized. Since I understand a small bit of German, I replayed the first section with German subtitles and I have to say that I’m quite impressed with the quality of it.

Before I continue to talk about writing, I want to talk about the voice acting. The voice acting is quite well done but it’s on the edge of overacting in my opinion. I can’t really put my finger on it but I felt that some lines weren’t natural enough. But, the fact that I have played in several theatre productions might have something to do with it, since I can get quite nitpicky in details when it comes to delivering lines.

The writing in this game is quite impressive. It strikes that fine balance of creepy and being realistic. Now, something that destroys the immersion a bit for me is the animations, but I’ll talk more about that in a later part of the article. To avoid spoilers, I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk more about the writing. But before we go on to the next section, I do want to talk about this. The pacing is sometimes a bit off. Sometimes there is some downtime where the game looks like it’s soft locked and doing nothing. Most likely, it’s loading the next voice line in the background, but it feels a bit off.

Where is my Bible?

The artwork in this game is amazing. The enviroments this game takes place in are amazingly detailed and feel realistic. The only complaint I have about the visuals is that it’s clear that somethings stick out a bit. The best example I can give are the charater models. Now, they aren’t bad but 3D characters on heavily detailed 2D image? It somehow doesn’t fit in my mind.

One advise I can give you is to set the brightness to max. There are some sections of the game I thought the game froze but it was playing an animation. That reminds me, I found it quite strange that when the screen went black to load the next scene in, there was no animation on the screen. It was just black with the sound and music where playing in the background. Anyhow, when I set the brightness to the maximum, I was able to see more of the game and some parts didn’t felt too hidden anymore.

When talking about the visuals, we also have to talk about the animations. Now, remember that I said earlier that it broke the immersion for me? Well, let me explain why. In the prologue, the animations feel unfinished and they are inconsistent. Let me give an example of them being inconsistent. In this prologue, you play as different characters. During the game, you meet Nikolay. Nikolay’s mouth moves when he speaks yet for some strange reason, the mouth of the main character doesn’t move while he is speaking. Maybe I’m overanalysing this since it’s quite possible that most of it are inner thoughts, then again, the mouth doesn’t move during dialogue…

What do I mean by unfinished animations? Well, it feels like there is so much more that can be done by adding more animations to the characters while interacting with things. The characters feel a bit to static, locked in their idle frames of animation. Now, I’m not saying that the animations are horrible or bad. Far from it. But, when I’m saying is that they aren’t there quite yet. Just let the character move a bit more and the game will feel a lot better.

It’s getting there

There is some minor pixel hunting in this game. This could have been avoided when sometimes hotspots just sprakled or something in that nature. Maybe this could be a difficulty option like a lot of hidden object games do. This could help people when they feel stuck. And then I looked at the “Help” section of the pause menu. This feature is in the game, but it gets never explained. Just press the space bar.

Also, I found it quite strange that when you started the credits from the main menu, you get a message as if you had beaten the game. This is quite strange, since I just wanted to check out how big the team as research for this article.

Overall, this game is really getting there. There are a lot of detailing and polishing work to be done. Thankfully, the developers are quite responisive and open for feedback so I think the full game will be a lot better compared to the prologue. But don’t misunderstand me here, I’m not saying that the prologue isn’t good. I had an amazing time while playing this game.

I’m very impressed by the quality of this game and I’m crossing my fingers for the Kickstarter to reach it’s goal. Since I honestly believe in this team and from what I can see in this prologue, I think this game is going to become quite interesting. So, that’s why I might come over quite harsh in this article in certain sections. I just want to see the game get even better then it currently is. Sometimes, it are just some small details that need to be changed.

For example, the color of the buttons in the main menu are too similar to the colors in the background. The “Options” and “Exit Game” buttons almost blend in with the background for me. Speaking about the UI, it’s extremely well done but it would be bettter if some sound effects would play and if the “ESC” key also exited you out of menu’s.

Speaking about sound effects, they are pretty good. They set the tone and atmosphere quite well. Including the soundtrack of this game, it sells the whole atmosphere without a lot of issues.

In conclusion, this game is pretty decent. I’m seriously impressed with the quality of the game so far. If this is the baseline level of quality that the team can deliver, I’m very excited to see the full game in the future. The game is scheduled to be released in the summer of next year when you look at the deliverly time on the Kickstarter page.

Thank you Red Martyr for this oppertunity and introducing me to this project. I’m going to follow it for sure and whenever the full game is released, you may be sure that I’m going to write an article about it. So yeah, if you are into point-and-click games, horror games and/or adventure games…. I can recommend this game.

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 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.