Review: Little Kite (PC) ~ Daddy…

Steam store page

Today, I want to take you on a journey. A journey that tells the story of an unsuccessful family of three. Beware, this game handles have themes that might trigger some people. This game contains family violence and alcoholism. So, if you are sensitive to that, I highly recommend that you proceed with caution since this game doesn’t back away from using these themes. Thanks to the developer, I got a review code for this game. This doesn’t mean that the developer censored anything about this article. This article is completely my opinion. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below!

The intro is strong in this one.

When I was playing this game and when I was taking notes, one of the first things I wrote down was that this game has a strong intro.

The game doesn’t have any voice acting, but the voice samples used in the introduction and the cutscenes between chapters make the game even more powerful.

For real, the game drew me in with the introduction alone. I’m quite a big fan of point-and-click games and this game doesn’t disappoint. The story takes some interesting turns and I really got interested in the characters.

The story is pretty well written and the pacing is good. The only thing that I would change is the fact that in almost all dialogue boxes, the final “.” or “!” is missing. It just something I found annoying while I was playing this game. Sometimes the “End” option to exit out of a dialogue tree was written in “end” instead of “End”. It’s those little details that can annoy me but I think a patch can fix.

Something that I really liked in the launcher was the fact it recognized that I had two monitors running and I was able to choose which one I was going to play the game on. One thing I didn’t like was that the game doesn’t pause when it loses focus. I was writing the article while I was playing the game and taking notes, and the game didn’t pause when I clicked on my word document on the other screen.

In some cases, I was also under the impression that the text automatically went to the next dialogue instead of waiting for a click. While I have seen it happening here and there, I wasn’t able to recreate it.

Pretty mess

Visually, this game is amazing. I really like the art-style in the game and the comic book cut scenes are just eye candy. If you enjoyed the games like Hotel Dusk or Trace Memory, you will love the artwork and gameplay of this game.

The UI is extremely handy too. The cursor turns red when you hover over something that is interactive. For some puzzles, you will have to pick some objects that are in the background. But don’t worry, you are able to click on the eye-icon in the bottom left corner to show all hot spots.

Speaking about the puzzles, they are all set in reality. Something I found really strange is the fact you can still interact with objects of puzzles that are already solved. For example, you need to trade something for an action figure. When you found the right toy and trade it with him, you can still trade toys you find with him later. I found this pretty strange. This could be fixed with either changing the dialogue to adjust the fact that the puzzle is already solved or make those objects not being able to be clicked. But let’s be honest here, this is a nitpick.

Something that could be disappointing to some players is that this game is rather short. If you know what you are doing, this game is only about an hour long. Personally, I don’t mind it. Since the story that’s being told is told in a pretty strong way and the message it brought is really memorable.

You would think that this game would be pretty easy since it’s over in an hour, but you would be mistaken. The puzzles are pretty clever and for some, you will need to use your point-and-click skills to the max. Thankfully, there aren’t any puzzles that require moon logic. Some puzzles also have an explanation on what you need to do to solve them, but they don’t tell you the solution outright. This is a good thing.

There isn’t a hint-system in this game as far as I can tell. But if you keep focusing on what you need to do and what’s stopping you from achieving said goal, you won’t get stuck too soon.

For the people who are interested, this game has Steam Trading Cards. You will need 7 of them to craft the badge and you get 4 cards dropped during gameplay.

Some minor tweaking

To be honest, I feel pretty mixed about the saving system of this game. While I’m glad that this game has an autosave feature; I’m pretty sad that I can’t save just after solving a puzzle.

But that’s a minor issue again since the game automatically saves when you start a new chapter and that happens frequently enough.

Speaking of saving, something I think would be nice is that when there is a save file present, that the default option is “load” when you enter the main menu. In the current version I played, v1.09 is the default selection “new game”.

This game has the same problem that Rogue Quest: The Vault of the Lost Tyrant has.  In some cases, when you double-click on an item that is on the other side of the room, your character teleports to that location, skipping the walking animation. This caught me off guard on several occasions. It just feels so unnatural since the animation in the game is pretty well made.

The soundtrack and sound design of this game are pretty good. The soundtrack of this game really fits the mood that has been set by the game. While there is nothing memorable, the soundtrack really helps the atmosphere of the game. Also, you can buy the soundtrack on Steam. You can be sure that I bought that directly when I saw it!

Something pretty strange I found is that the Steam Overlay bugs out when you play the game in full screen but not in the full resolution of your screen. My laptop has such an awkward resolution… But, this is another nitpick since when you play it at full resolution, this issue isn’t present.

Something I don’t like to say is that this game is made in Unity. I know that Unity has a bad reputation since a lot of bad games were created in it, but I think that this game is a perfect example of a good game created in Unity. So, please, don’t let this be a factor that makes you not want to play this game.

The game is also translated into various different languages. They are Russian, Ukrainian and Dutch. So, if you want to play this game in your own language, you can. Personally, I think it’s a strange selection of languages, but I’m under the impression that more languages are coming in the future.

Currently, this game is 7€ on Steam. To be honest, this is a rather cheap price. For real, this game is a steal for that price! And let me summarize why.

Conclusion

The bad:

-Some minor typo’s at the end of the sentences.

-No manual saving.

-The default option in the main menu is new game.

 The good:

+ Amazing story.

+ Great visuals.

+ Great puzzles.

+ …

Final thoughts:

I really enjoyed myself with Little Kite. I was a game I’m glad that I experienced and reached out to the developer to cover. Thank you so much for giving me a code for this amazing experience.

I bought myself the soundtrack and I hope that thanks to this article, other people are convinced to give this game a go.

While it handles some heavy subjects, that can be very sensitive to some people; I think it’s handled in a respectable manner.

You would think that this game would be bad if you look at the price of the game, but this is only another reason why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover or a game by its price.

Score: 80/100.

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 see you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

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First Impression: Golden Sun – Dark Dawn (DS) ~Sunny Weather

Wikipedia entry

It’s time that I talk about a Golden Sun game. I have been putting this off for way too long. After I listed it in my favorite DS games ever made, I never talked about it. Apart from some music tracks here and there. It’s time to correct that. This week we are going to take a look at a game, I honestly thought I talked about before. In any case, the title and the box art here already gave it away.  It’s the 3rd game in the series, Golden Sun Dark Dawn. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this game and/or the content of this article. 

(Note: to make this article more readable and understandable for everybody, I didn’t to use the lore of this game and used a generic term.)

Special powers

The story of this game takes place a few years after the original two games. The story starts out simple with two children getting into some trouble with a sort of magical hang glider. But rather quickly, this story changes into your typical “save the world from doom” story.

While the story is your typical RPG story, it’s the journey and the writing that makes it memorable in my eyes. Each main character and side character has his or her own personality.

But what I really like about the story is how all the lore is explained in a non-intrusive way.  As you may have guessed, this game is a JRPG and because it’s the 3rd game in the series, there is a lot of lore.

But instead of the characters explaining the lore in some dialogue or some boring exposition dump, it gets underlined. When you tap that word, you get an explanation on the top screen to get you up to speed. Also, all those words go in your encyclopedia so you read them at your own pace. This is something that all other RPG’s should do! That way, there can be more focus on the story instead of explaining everything so newcomers can enjoy the game. This mechanic can also serve as a nice reminder for hardcore fans when he or she has forgotten the meaning of a word.

Fighting like on the GBA

The gameplay, in general, hasn’t changed a lot compared to the GBA games. But in this game, some mechanics are tweaked for the newer hardware.

First of all, I want to talk about the exploration part of the game. The world this game takes place in is huge. I love exploring in this world. Since each town has it’s own unique feel to it.

The puzzles in this game are amazing in my opinion. The puzzles use the special powers you have in creative ways. I had to think outside of the box sometimes. And when you are stuck, one character gets a special power which allows you to see what objects you can interact with and which powers you should use.

Secondly, the battles are quite interesting as well. Since you have three possible attacks. You can fight with your weapons, use your magic and/or Djinn. Djinns are special creatures you find all over the world.

The mechanic of Djinn is one of the most interesting things in this game. I love trying to find them in towns, dungeons and in the overworld. But after you found them, a rather tricky meta-game starts. Depending to who you equip which Djinn, you can make a character even stronger or even weaker. Not only that, which magic powers they can use will also change. This makes for an interesting balancing exercise to make sure you have the perfect build to advance the plot.

When you use Djinn, they go into, what I like to call, the summing pool. When you have enough Djinn of a certain type, you can summon a more powerful creature. But beware, when a Djinn is in the summoning pool, the character it’s attached too, will lose its perks.

If this sounds interesting to you, this page on the Golden Sun wiki will explain it in more depth.

This world is golden

The presentation and design of this game are top notch. While some animations take a little bit too long, I have no other complaint.

The world looks colorful and really pops out. The visual presentation in this game is one of the best I have seen on the system.

There is one issue I have with the design. And that’s that the menu system can sometimes be very annoying. It’s difficult to explain, but I felt that could have been done a lot better with more traditional menus. An example is the inventory system. It’s quite messy in my opinion. When you are looking for example for some herbs and you forgot to which character you have given them too. But it’s something I got used to.

The music and sound design of this game are excellent. The sound design gives this game the right charm it deserves. And the music, well, I have the soundtrack in my music library and I play a track here and there. It’s a very nice soundtrack.

The controls are great as well. Since you can use both buttons and the stylus. So you can choose and use the playstyle you prefer.

This game isn’t easy but isn’t difficult. But, I will give my final verdict on that when I finish the game. Since I know that there is another DS game that is rather easy but the final boss is extremely hard.

Something that could have been improved in this game is the frame rate. In some parts of the game, I saw some great frame rate drops. It mostly happens when there is way too much happening on screen at once. But it doesn’t happen very often thankfully.

Something I have to mention is that I had this game crash on me twice at the same spot. In the first cave you visit, I had this game crash on me. It was a great lesson in saving this game often. Also, thumbs up for having three save slots. Really helps!

In any case, I think I said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. When I beat this game, I might write a review. I hope you enjoyed reading this first impression as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you at another article on my blog, have a great rest of your day and until then: take care and game on!

Gamer’s Thoughts: The curse of being a critic?

I’m NekoJonez, 21 years old. I live in Belgium and I have been writing gaming related articles for over 5 years now. It has been quite a ride to be honest. But nothing prepared me for the curse that you get even without you wanting it. Yes, there are downsides in being a gaming critic. And not only the obvious ones. Believe me. In this article I will introduce my new series. In Gamer’s thoughts I will talk about a subject in detail that isn’t exactly 1 game. Look at it as expanded game quickies as well. So, that is a sub-series of this series of articles. Anyways, that blog update aside, let’s dive right into my thoughts on the matter of being a critic. Feel free to leave a comment on this article about the subject or what I have written. Thanks in advance.

The road to success?

What exactly do you need to do as a critic to be a successful one? Review the latest of the latest? Then you might have just finished an article about Watch_Dogs. Or should you go looking all over the internet for that one flash game that is so bad, it’s good and everybody should play it?

It’s a tough balancing act. This is a part of the curse of a critic. What style are you going to choose to write your articles, make your video’s … From experience, I have one thing to say on this matter. You have one of two different possibilities here.

One, you stick with one specific area in the gaming world. For example: Nintendo, EA, puzzle games… etc. You follow that company like it’s your life savings. Each new pixel revealed of their next game is like a bit out of your favorite food. These guys are sometimes, if not all of the time, the hypers. They create the hype for the next big triple A game.

And the other possibility is like myself. I honestly don’t care about staying true to one style of games. I play (too) much games.  While I admit that I enjoy Nintendo games the most, I think I have proven on my blog that I can enjoy a PC game or a PSP game as well.

I have proof as well. This picture here are my latest catch at the garage sale I went to before writing this article. While there is a ton of Gameboy games and Pokémon merchandise. I also got a few big boxed PC games and some Playstation games.

So, it’s always a challenge. What do you do on your channel, blog or site? The video’s of big names on YouTube always say: “Do what you want to do.” or “Do something you want to do.” While that’s important, there are people easily getting views of playing those games that are extremely hyped.

Ever noticed that the Let’s Plays of those series have a weird drop in their views? The first view episodes have a big number of views. The following episodes have a drop in viewers. Why is this? Well, that’s because some people look up footage before they buy. Be sure of that.

Social media pains

A real struggle for me is how time consuming the social media is. You need to update your Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr… It piles up to a huge amount. Honestly, I can’t keep up with it.

In the past, I followed back all my followers. Now, one hot tip for the starting entertainers out there. Don’t do that. It’s just insanity waiting for you.

When I started unfollowing people on Twitter that either flood my feed with tweets, where in a language I didn’t understand or where inactive for years, I saw my follower number drop.

Now, you can argue that you should support your other small entertainers. But, is this really what you should do? Don’t get me wrong here, but we aren’t a publishing house. We are content creators. I write a gaming blog where I talk about the games I play or the gaming industry.

Only follow the people you find interesting. Don’t go following the big names to try and get attention. It won’t work in the long run. I wonder how many “dead subscribers” the big channels, sites and such have.

Do I care about the number of followers I have. Yes, in a way I do. But the most important to me is that I can interact with my followers. I hate people that just follow you to promote themselves. I don’t follow them anymore to avoid a messy Twitter feed. Now, I have a cleaner Twitter feed and I can keep myself up-to-date with the news I want. And this way I can be more efficient for my blog.

So you want to start blogging?

I haven’t fully finished talking about this subject yet. So, be sure that I continue this article with a follow-up. But before I sign off, I want to share some tips that I think are important when you want to start blogging. Since I have been blogging for 5 years. Maybe some of these things can help.

1) Don’t care about the numbers too much. Every start is rough. You will see highs and lows in the numbers. But don’t let it influence your writing. If one article didn’t do as well in numbers, it doesn’t mean it was a bad article.

2) Invite people to comment and don’t force it. Out of experience I have seen that the articles where I invite my readers to comment on my article, I see comments appearing. But don’t expect a comment on each article. Since the comment section should mean more to you, as the writer, then a place where people can “dump” their praise for the article. The comment section is meant to talk back and forth with the people who read your article. Try to use the comment section in that way instead of asking how they liked the article. You get better feedback this way.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading this first bit of my thoughts on things. This article replaces a creepypasta I was planning. It didn’t quite work out, so I had to scrap it. But don’t worry, one of these days you will see a new one from me. Like I said before, I will most likely come back on this subject. But for now, this is all. See you in another article.