A lovely sidescrolling Action-Adventure that takes some time to get into. It's a short game, but it does have a brief warm-up period. When I first started playing, I felt that it was too hard, but I quickly found myself getting acclimated to it, and once I did, I couldn't put the thing down, playing until 3am one night, when I had to be up in 3 hours for work. It features a lot of modern conveniences, like fast travel, a map with completion percentage, and items that regenerate when you hit a save point. The visuals are lovely, and the music does a great job of creating atmosphere, whether it be macabre, relaxing, or wrapped in the breathtaking beauty of nature. It's surprisingly dark in quite a few areas, reminding me of a combination of Symphony of the Night and the first Cotton game, especially considering how cute the main character is. The actual gameplay is surprisingly solid, considering that you will find very few upgrades for this type of game. I don't know if it's because of the short length, but the basic gameplay remains engaging throughout the entire adventure. If the gameplay has a weak spot, I'd say that it's many of the bosses. They do telegraph some of their moves, but a frustrating few don't telegraph all of them, so you get used to these tells, only for them to vanish. The other problem with the tells is that they don't tell you which move is coming, so sometimes, you'll dodge the wrong way. Still, the dodge mechanic is neat, and something I'd like to see more of in games like this. If you're into the genre, this is definitely worth checking out, especially at such a reasonable price. This is actually the fourth game in the series; the first 2 can be found for free on the developer's website.
I admire what this Adventure was trying to do, but it missed the mark so badly. It's a story about depression and suicidal tendencies, which is a great theme that could truly use exploration. So many people get depressed because their dog died or whatever, and think that's the same thing as depression; it isn't; I've lived with it almost all of my life. There were moments when the game did an excellent job of capturing what depression truly feels like; moments that would shine like a full moon on a snowfield. Then, she'd have a psychotic episode, because reasons; that's not what depression is like. It did a pretty bad job of addressing the issue of suicidal tendencies, as well; even the parts where depression was addressed were few and far between. Not to spoil anything, but the ending (all of them, actually) was even worse; not to spoil anything the resolution isn't something that can realistically happen to help you manage depression. There were also all sorts of weird effects that the game had, like slowdown, jump-cuts, and a few chapters where you're jumping back and forth in time for no real reason, other than that it's "interesting". In fact, there's one entire scene that comes and goes, never having to do with ANYTHING else in the story. The whole thing comes off like some experimental film made by college freshmen, who were really just so excited to tell you about this revelation they'd had while smoking weed one night. Downfall was all over the place, too, but that actually fit the mental illness that it was portraying. The pacing was glacial, too; there's a LOT of stopping to talk, which would be fine, but most of the conversation isn't particularly engaging. The puzzles were often obtuse, as well. I do have to give it credit, though, for those few moments where they actually remembered to be engaged with the subject matter, and when they didn't forget the actual plot they'd spent so much time setting up, and the artstyle was wonderful.
I only played the Redux version, and I have to say that it was pretty good. This isn't a typical Adventure, because it's all played with the keyboard; there's no pointing and clicking, and it's all done without a text parser. The entire process is streamlined by these simple controls, which makes the game very fluid. The visuals are almost entirely monochrome, but there are occasional splashes of color, mostly red. The voice acting starts out really bad, but it gets to be pretty good a little while in; you just have to stick it out. The music was mostly very good, aside from a few poorly-placed vocal tracks that just made the game seem like it was trying to say, "Look at me; I'm a movie! TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!" That said, the story was actually pretty good; the plot unraveled very well, had good pacing, and even though I saw the ending coming a mile away, it was pretty well done, aside from the dumb vocal track at the end. I think this is trying to be very dark and disturbing, but the violence and gore never really made me uncomfortable or even unnerved at any point. The characters were mostly great; you get to choose Joe's responses, so you mainly get to dictate what kind of person he is, but in the prologue, where you don't have much control, he's an ass and I wanted to slap him. The only other character I hated was one that you're supposed to hate, and his role is quite satisfying. Ivy and Agnes were both excellent characters; I genuinely found myself caring for them like I usually don't in a game. There are some scenes toward the end that tie up the story, but they star an entirely new character who has no introduction, and they come out of nowhere, so while they're not bad, and do their job, they could very well be done better. Downfall is not without its flaws, but they are minor, and don't really hold it back; I'd definitely recommend this one.
The puzzles in this Point-and-Click Adventure are straight-up moon logic, but in this day and age, free walkthroughs are common, and any game with a drunken chainsaw is at least worth a look. The game doesn't take itself seriously, but it has consistency in tone, so it's pretty good. The humor is spot-on, and has good pacing, so it doesn't fall onto the obnoxious side of things, like so many things in the '90s did. There are a lot of typos, but the game wasn't originally in English, so it's passable. The environments are pretty and interesting, too. I wouldn't put this at the top of your list, but it's still worth playing.
This Point-and-Click Adventure isn't quite a masterpiece, but it is quite good! There are a few obtuse moments, but the genre is lousy with them; it's just something you have to put up with in the older games. The visuals are mostly nice, but occasionally, the sprites look almost like the cheesy digitized graphics you'd see in Mortal Kombat, but best I can tell, they're not; they don't have enough detail. The walking speed is a bit slow, too, and the climbing scenes just go on and on. All that said, the world, although small in terms of traversable real estate, has a lot of ecological diversity, as well as a rich lore with many different sentient species. Some of them are twists on old fantasy tropes, but some are completely new, and unique to this world. It also gets into the struggle of racial inequality a bit, and does it pretty well. This may not be a top-tier adventure, but it is absolutely worth your time, if you're a fan of the genre.
Everywhere, I hear that this is Frictional Games's magnum opus; one of the greatest Horror games every made. I didn't go into this with that level of expectation, but honestly, I liked SOMA, and even Penumbra a lot better. The game has an extremely slow build, which is fine, but it starts out very poorly. You have a sanity meter, which decreases when you see something scary. It's a great idea! What kills this right off the bat is WHAT scares your protagonist. He's scared because he saw a door blow open; he's scared because he saw some papers blowing around; HE'S SCARED OF THE DARK. I think being scared of the dark makes him one of the worst protagonists in the history of Horror. A big part of the problem with this is that it immediately killed my immersion. I wasn't being scared; I was being TOLD to be scared, usually by things that aren't all that scary. The monsters can be scary, but you're supposed to avoid them. Now, a smart strategy would be to watch them and see where they're going, and then avoid them, but the game actively tells you that doing so will scare yourself more (makes sense) and make them find you more easily (the design working against itself). I felt less like I was immersed in this world as a terrified protagonist, and more like an irritated mother, dragging a scared child back into his bedroom to show him that there are not monsters in his closet. The game does have some spots that got under my skin and into my head - it really does - but they happen so late in the game that it wasn't quite enough to save it for me. The Choir was incredible - unlike anything else I've ever experienced - and the Nave followed me around for days, but I found the horror elements to be a bit weak overall in this one, and the irritating mechanics really broke my immersion. For what it's worth, the end of the game is fantastic, and the story was very interesting, and I would recommend this to Horror fans; I just didn't see what all the fuss was about.
I was really enjoying this game, and ready for a great ending, and all of a sudden, the world basically explodes, and the credits roll. WHAT!? Let's start over. Celestian Tales: Old North reminds me of what would happen if group of talented individuals made a Suikoden fangame in Flash. The battle system is very similar, at least the way the enemies are placed and how targeting works, but it also has a stamina system a la Skies of Arcadia. Your characters learn new skills, both passive and active, and though it is very easy (most post-NES JRPGs are), it's all balanced very well. Your party levels as a unit, so if you decide one character sucks, you can easily swap him/her out. The artwork is high quality, and the backgrounds are all hand-drawn, which is neat, but it makes the sprites look a little out of place. The music is decent, but in the final area, it's framed extremely well to make a fittingly epic conclusion. There are a few characters that I really liked, but there are also a few irritating characters with a single personality trait. Where this game shines most is in its conversations and in its world building. Yes, it's a somewhat generic Iron Age world, under a feudalistic theocracy, but it works well enough, and what's interesting is that men and women are treated as equals; the issue of gender is never brought up, because it's just normal to them. The conversations are very rich with philosophy, and I'm impress how even the poorly-written characters are used extremely effectively to stage arguments and set up some pretty deep counterpoints. There are a ton of grammar mistakes, but it's a little more forgivable, since watching the ending credits, I don't think English was the developers' first language. Still, the actual content of the writing was superb. Oh, if only the game didn't shred its conclusion to tiny pieces, incinerate them, and blow them out of the engine of a 747 over the Bermuda Triangle in the last 10 minutes...
This is a bit different from the base game. The environments were generally more colorful, which I thought added a nice touch to the surreal nature of it all. The jump scares weren't as prevalent, but that works to its benefit. Most Horror gives way to something as it reaches its resolution. Maybe you find a rocket launcher and start blasting through hordes of the undead and punching volcanoes as it gives way to action. Maybe you start running toward the daylight into providence as it gives way to hope. My favorite works of Horror, however, give way to emotion. Now, I didn't think that this was as good as Theresia: Dear Emile or the movie, Mama, but this is a tale well-told. The last game's story was told from the perspective and shattered memories of a raving lunatic suffering from alcoholism. This, on the other hand, has a fresher, more neutral perspective of the daughter, caught between her two parents. No matter which ending you get, the story is a sad one, and beautifully written at that. Though its tone is different from the base game, this comes highly recommended if you enjoyed it.
This is a pretty solid Horror title. It starts off a bit slowly in a very normal house, but the atmosphere is beautiful; I explored every little corner just because I wanted to. Once the game starts in earnest, things get intense in a big hurry. I'm not one to startle easily, but for the first half of the game, I was jumping fairly consistently. In the second half, I stopped jumping, just because the scares are so consistent that I became acclimated to them. There is certainly a psychological element to the horror as the story gradually unfolds, but it does give away what's going on fairly early and easily. This also exposes some of the sillier elements, like those collectible rat doodles. Yes, I get that they're supposed to symbolize his descent into madness, but they're so over-the-top that I can't see them as anything but comical; often hilarious, in fact. The act of even having collectibles throws a sort of misdirection as to what the player should prioritize; in Horror, that should be SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP WHAT IS THAT!? KILL IT WITH FIRE OR RUN UNTIL YOUR SHOES GRIND THEMSELVES TO DUST!!! Instead, I often found myself missing some of the scares, because I was in a panic not to save my own flesh, but to find that photograph, doodle, note, or whatever. Immersion was also occasionally broken for me by the writing; this is supposed to be set almost a century ago, best I can tell, but the characters' lexical features are often more modern; I'm pretty sure that "nightmare fuel" originated in this century. So why did I still enjoy Layers of Fear through to the end? The surreal elements. Some truly bizarre spectacles unfold over the course of your experience, and that was more than enough to keep me riveted. If you're looking for one of those strange Horror experiences, where you have to question how much of it was even real, this game is for you!
I absolutely adored the first Legend of Kyrandia, and the second was very good, too, but this was a disaster. The visuals are still great, aside from some very dated rendered objects, but the places you go are very interesting to look at, and those scenes at the ends of the earth are phenomenally surreal. The music wasn't quite as good, and it has that irritating Red Book Audio thing where the track fades out and starts up again after a short silence, and it wasn't even of a high enough quality that it needed to be Red Book Audio, but it's forgivable. The characters weren't bad, either, even if the consciences are both really annoying, and Malcolm's humor was pretty hit-or-miss. Actually, most of the humor was pretty hit-or-miss, and there was an overabundance of it; too much humor can be annoying if not enough of it is good, and this game certainly straddles that line. What really drags this down is the gameplay. Sure, the others had some obtuse puzzles, but the vast majority of the ones in Malcolm's revenge are straight-up moon logic. Also, they often just won't work, because the game is a little different each time, so you can't really even learn what works and what doesn't by experimentation. If this wasn't enough, you are often required to have certain items, which is normal, but the items you receive from certain piles are also random, so you have to go back and forth, hoping to get what you actually need, and that's only if you already know that that will be! Worst of all, you'll often be randomly yanked out of the middle of the road, wherever you are, to perform some repetitive task, sometimes almost a dozen times in a row before you can continue, and this happens repeatedly; it's like playing with a 5-year-old running the game. If this had some bad enemy-dodging sequences and Lure of the Temptress's abysmal pathfinding AI, it would be drowning in every abominable Point-and-Click Adventure sin I know.
