Felvidek has a full Final Fantasy game's worth of story content told in about a tenth of the time, which averages out to a complete fantasy story, including companion moments, big reveals, and high stakes, told within the span of time that it would make sense to tell a story like this. Developers of longer games could stand to take note of how shorter games like Felvidek and Skald can build character and mood while at the same time cultivating a brisk sense of pacing and substance. It took me a couple of tries to get into this one, mainly because of its progression system, which is based entirely around the gear characters have equipped rather than XP or stat progression. This makes it so that there's no need for trash mobs or random encounters. Once I got over the initial hurdle of realizing that I couldn't/didn't have to grind to get through these very intentionally designed encounters, it was easy to basically play through the whole thing in two sittings. The story is a fun and witty horror fantasy adventure, and as another compliment to the game's short length, I was surprised by how much characterization and camaraderie it managed to achieve in a little over five hours, or how many decisions I was making that, unbeknownst to me, could have gone in completely different directions. And, as a final note, there are so many quaint human touches, like the stiff but well-directed cutscenes and the translation errors, that make this whole thing so charming and easy to recommend.
I love Faith for how it stays completely committed to a specific aesthetic while also going to great lengths to be unsettling and exciting using the boundaries of its art style. The result is a game that feels like it's doing something genuinely new with its graphics and sound, and it's worth checking out for that at the very least. That said, this is also a very successful horror game. Exploration is tense, combat is very simple but effective, and each chapter has a taut, well-paced story that's over in just the right amount of time. The beginning of the third chapter was a tiny bit concerning because it seemed like it would expand the scope of its maps and exploration beyond what this limited engine could handle, but it turned out to be the best chapter of three and featured one of the best apartment levels in a horror game since Silent Hill 3. Excellent game overall, and I really hope to see more from this developer.
This game's a blast from start to finish and feels incredibly cohesive and complete. There's a total, all-encompassing dedication here to the aesthetic, the pace, and the message in a way that even other short indie games can't often pull off, much less bigger AAA sprawls. The shooting feels tight and snappy, and the campaign is incredibly short (non-derogatory) and fast-paced. Even though I've never been a fan of this specific period of anime, the graphics and sound design are gorgeous and satisfying and ooze commitment and care. The story is fun and funny, and while it's not the single deepest narrative in the whole wide world, it punches up to AI, capitalism, and social media while foregrounding how important it is to enjoy things that are made with love by humans.
I was tempted to round this up in my head because it's an original work from an indie developer that stayed generally fun to play pretty much all the way through. My issue is that almost every good choice the dev makes is counterbalanced by bad ones. Take the writing: Most of the story is told in either moody monologues by James or very brief conversations between him and one other character. Most of these are well-written, but because they're short and limited in scope, neither the characters nor the plot felt like they ever took off and felt fully fleshed out, resulting in a character and a story that only ever felt like they got 2/3s of the way towards feeling substantial. Tonally, the game is consistently bleak and macabre, which is fun, until I found a radio out in the world or one of the game's many original rap songs started playing, subjecting me to some of the worst comedy bits and corniest lyrics I've heard in a modern game. The gameplay feels functional, tight, and Max Payne-y for the most part, but then there are decisions that an indie dev should really know better than to make: An enemy type that is small, can teleport, and one-hit kill you, a mid-game boss fight twitchy and undertelegraphed enough that I considered dropping the game for a while, a length of 8 hours and 50 missions in an engine that feels like it can support about half that for one solid playthrough. I did finish the game and had a good time. It is a shame, though, that a game with the promise of a tight, brisk action horror campaign couldn't resist reaching for some overindulgences and ultimately landed on a story that could have used 5 or 6 more cutscenes and about 10 or so fewer levels.
This is a really well written visual novel that explores an increasingly relevant topic very thoughtfully. It covers angles of the subject of AI-driven therapy that I hadn't even considered before, and does so with a lens that is simultaneous critical of the institution while also being very empathetic towards the people who work within it and, most importantly, the people who turn to it for help. The only real issue I had with the story is that while I think a lot of great work is done to explore the therapy-related themes, I feel like there could have been a bit more attention given to Evelyn, the main character. Obviously the whole story is viewed through her lens, and she gets some good character moments throughout, but she could have been a little bit more fleshed out and maybe had a few more verbose responses in interactions, and then I feel like there could have been a few more climactic scenes at the end to provide a bit more context for her making the decision that she makes and what ultimately comes of it. With that said though, this is still a very well-written, well-acted story that talks about a subject that will only become more relevant in time.
I'm not sure if this has to do more with my own technology or with the fact that this game is one of the few of its kind that uses the webcam as input, but any shortcomings this game has had to do with the fact that sometimes doing the input with blinking could be really touchy or sensitive, and it almost got in the way of my enjoyment of certain scenes just because I would either accidentally skip something or else it wouldn't register my keeping my eyes closed. I'm still going to give this five stars, though, because it is a really unique mechanic and it works really well with the themes of the story itself, which makes for just about the best way an integration like this could go. The story itself is sad and reflective and beautiful, the voice performances are great, and despite some issues I had with the tech, I think this is a really successful experiment.
This is not a 5 star game. It's the most mixed bag out of all the SH games, including Homecoming. SH:H was just consistently poor. SH 4 is a constant give-and-take between peaks and valleys. It's got some of my favorite parts of the series and some of the most frustrating. You've got an achingly dull protagonist but also an incredibly compelling villain. Some of the best aesthetics and atmosphere in the series but also some obtuse level design. Excellent creature designs, poor creature encounters. Clunky combat system that wants you to engage with more and stronger monsters than previous games, but also lots of tricks like utilizing the invincibility frames when performing strong attacks. Awful, just awful A.I. for Eileen, but also the candle trick at the end of the game (look it up, it might save you some frustration). Subway world is great, but escalator section. Prison world is great, but room rotating mechanic. It's a whole lot of good and bad, often within the same levels, within a few minutes of each other, and it makes it so that there's no numerical score that could properly express how I feel about this game. However. I've been waiting for the Silent Hill games to start coming back, or at least to become more widely available, for a long time, which makes SH4 releasing on GOG a complete net positive. If writing this review will help even a little bit to drag Konami out from under their rock so they can start releasing these games again, I will 5 out of 5 this thing to kingdom come. P.S. Another unqualified positive is that this PC version of the game works great. I was able to install it and play immediately, it scales to full HD, and the controls work well. All thumbs up on that. Take my money, Konami.
