The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

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4.1/5

( 13 Reviews )

4.1

13 Reviews

English & 7 more

Overall most helpful review

Posted on: March 16, 2020

myetech

Verified owner

Games: 133 Reviews: 1

An unexpected gem

I don't usually write reviews. However, this game deserves better than what has already been written about it. Are you into arcade-style brawl 'em ups, loneliness, and existential dread? Do you hate tutorials and enjoy being forced to find things out on your own? Are you a fan of subtlety, insomnia, and self-doubt? This game is an apparently linear story with excellent writing and fighting mechanics that slowly develop from the basic to somewhat more advanced. The pixel art characters and backgrounds are beautifully drawn. The music is fantastic, featuring deeply meditative acoustic guitar solos. The sound design is otherwise basic and functional. My complaints are few. The ending does not feel satisfactory. There are some loose ends that I wish could have been resolved. Most annoyingly, there are apparently no real choices to be made throughout the game; not even conversational choices. I say "apparently", because I started over after a certain point, and the story developed in the same way again; however, I may have missed something. I could not stop playing until I finished, which took 25 hours.

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Posted on: May 1, 2020

Firekracker

Verified owner

Games: 608 Reviews: 8

One of the best games you never played

I have no idea how this game completely flew under my radar until a week ago. The game is a decent retro brawl game, but the real meat of the game lies within the story of a group of friends and what they make of this autumn of their final year. The story itself is fairly grounded and will not sweep you off your feet with outlandishness, you don't save the world or become a crime lord. You're the leader of a school gang, but the focus on the story is on something much more existential and nerve-racking: Being a directionless high school senior who slowly realizes he won't be able to keep this carelessness up for long. For that reason it's more like a haiku, the strength and emotional depth of the scenes comes from resonating with you. While you most likely weren't a gang member or directionless in school, most of the events will ring familiar with you in some way. The gameplay is decent. Fights become quite fun once you get the hang of it. Otherwise it's a retro 2,5D action/adventure style game with some retro-esque lack of quality of life. There's no quick travel. There's not even a tutorial or manual explaining basic functions, and sadly the game didn't take off as much so there's little online help. This leads new players to feel overwhelmed and directionless for the first hour or two - weird, almost as if that were a recurring motif. Graphics are well done pixel art with lots of warm autumn colours. All characters look distinguishably different. Music is amazing. Lots of guitar tunes and sometimes some slight hip hop beats of the mid to late 80s, where the game is also set in. The tunes will ring in your ear for some time and do make you feel weirdly nostalgic. The only caveat is the abrupt conclusion of the story around what feels like the halfway mark and wrapping up of plot points into one ending. I get that this game was made by one guy and time/funds probably became an issue, so maybe this gets fixed in a definitive edition. Conclusion: Play this.

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Posted on: June 4, 2020

orphancripp1er

Verified owner

Games: 252 Reviews: 9

If you're on the fence...

TL;DR - Must get if you are a fan of delinquent mangas like Out, Crows, or Worst. At first, I thought the concept of this game was really cool, but I was on the fence about getting it because of some of the negative reviews here. So my review goes out to everyone similarly on the fence. I'll address the negative points raised in other reviews. This isn't a beat-'em-up or a brawler. To quote the description "[The game was] designed ... to make you feel this story. So it's not about rival gangs, or taking over turfs, or anything. You just live there and feel. And that's all." And it does this remarkably well, and you can tell that design choices were made to support this. There nothing wrong with the controls, there is just a learning curve to getting used to them. Unlike beat-em-ups where you can button mash and stunlock opponents your way to victory, here you need to work a bit more for it. And there is a very good reason for that. You're just a highschooler who can fight better than average, not a hero mowing through hundreds of fodder characters whose bodies disappear after they hit the ground. Even at the upper limits of your strength, there is a limit to how much you can handle. Which keeps the game grounded in reality and I absolutely love it. The extra narration gives depth to the world as existing independent of the protagonist. This, along with the slow pacing fits with the the theme of the game of being a life sim, as opposed to an adrenaline pumping button masher. For this same reason, there is no mini-map with a flashing icon telling you what to do. So if you are looking for a game that'll hold your hand, this isn't it.

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Posted on: March 28, 2020

Gylfe

Verified owner

Games: 1769 Reviews: 54

It could use a simple manual

I typically enjoy open world, non linear games. Thats the one good trend that came out of the past decade or two. This game gives you the feel of this, but with no direction at all. Its not overly complicated, but it has no tutorial or any direction at all, so it makes itself complicated in that way. I spent a few hours with it and Im still not sure what the point is. There is a prologue that doesnt give you much control and forces you to fight, then it goes to forcing you to go to school and a couple of cafes, but youre on your own to figure it out after that. I started gaming with the Atari and I know thats how older games were, but they also would tell you about necessities like eating and sleeping and give you some direction to the goal of the game. The graphics and sound effects are a perfect representstion of the 8 or 16 bit era and the music is great. As much as the aspects of going to school to learn, eating, sleeping, and training are frustrating with no direction, they also add to the complexity and give the gameplay depth. There is a 24 hour clock running and, as far as I can tell, you have to get to class on time, do your homework, eat, and sleep, and fit in your fighting and training in between. You can talk to and interact with most of the npcs, and it looks like there may be relationship building and fighting tournaments involved. Overall its a good game, you can tell they really loved this project and accomplished the look and feel they were going for. If they released just a text file with it to explain some of the mechanics, or put in more of a tutorial, it could easily be a five star game. Eventhe old school games came with a basic manual explaining the objective. If you loved the old brawlers such as Double Dragon, Battletoads, River City Ransom... you will find something to love here, but be prepared to either look up a guide or spend time figuring out what the point of this one is.

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Posted on: March 20, 2020

DeathLever

Verified owner

Games: 156 Reviews: 5

It's pretty good/alright/okay/eh

It's an alright game, it doesn't tell you jack squat of its controls, what to do or where to go but that does add to its charm. It's what an open world game should be. Though I must add this can go a bit too far for sleeping and eating. Like I couldn't tell if eating was a good idea or not since I had to spend like 12 bucks in order to go from starving to full each day even though I had no idea what the mechanic did (except possibly affecting my stats?) and sleeping is well turns out the most important mechanic in the game, in my most honest opinion, where if you didn't sleep for an unspecified amount of hours each day Ringo will just say out of nowhere "Oh I'm about to pass out" skipping everything in that day. It doesn't even tell you when this fainting spell is going to occur no indicator at all. In its defence you're play a teenager and a teenager in real life needs about 8 hours of sleep each day. The gameplay is nothing special though, press "the punch button" to do the majority of things in your life from holding it for studying, holding it for listening in class, holding it for mugging etcetera. The fighting is alright the more kicks, punches and throws you do the better those stats become and also never fight more than one guy at a time unless you know how to kite. Story is alright, writing can be really good and sometimes just pointlessly silly. The characters are okay, like the only ones that I felt were written well were Ringo and Ken, everyone else felt stereotyped. This review may be a bit negative but I gotta say the music is on point. You like Samurai Champloo music or anything from nujabes (or that type of lofi hiphop in general) you will like this soundtrack. Overall it's an alright game, my only real fault with it is the ending.

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