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A Normal Lost Phone is a difficult game to categorize. It isn’t an adventure game, a visual novel, or even a puzzle game outright. It has shades of all of them though. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting but that’s not meant as a negative statement. You get thrown right into the phone interface. You have just found this phone and can choose to go into different menus and apps. By doing this you can figure out what is required to progress. That’s the puzzle aspect. You not only have to find the info required but also have to find out what info that is even needed. Nothing is spelled out point blank and I like that. You are rewarded for curuoisity and reading through the various emails, text messages, etc. Every bit of info you find may be what you need to get to the next. It may sound complex or difficult but it really isn’t. Most of the puzzles are pretty straight forward. There was one that gave me trouble but in hindsight it was me overthinking it. The story is really the payoff. It is well done and worth the effort. I played A Normal Lost Phone on Linux. It never crashed on me. It did have a couple issues. It opens on the wrong monitor. Even if I set it to open on my main monitor in the preference file it always opened on my right monitor and had to be manually moved over. There were also no options in game to adjust things such as audio volume. The soundtrack was great except for it was very loud and I had to make sure to adjust my system volume before launching the game. I would have used Alt-Tab but it didn’t work with this game which was another issue. It does save every time you exit the game but it would have been nice to have a manual save option. That being said the game can be finished in an hour so it’s not the biggest deal. I paid $2.99 USD for the game and that feels like a fair value for what you get.
I enjoyed A Normal Lost Phone so I figured Another Lost Phone would be something I was sure to like but I just couldn’t come to enjoy it as much as the original. The story was better and the game play mechanics were much the same but the sequel managed to make the game more tiresome and convoluted in how you complete the objectives. In the original you had to figure out what info you needed and then go searching for that info. In the sequel you had to usually find multiple pieces of info and sometimes perform some math to figure things out. My issue was that finding these pieces of info seemed to be far less clear as well as having to juggle matching multiple peoples info to faces. Also there was one puzzle where once you were given the hint to it the process became very clear however you weren’t given the hint until you entered the wrong password once. I am not one to just enter things wildly and was trying to figure out what it wanted from me for longer than I had to just because the hint wasn’t given outright. Another time I needed to find an email but the email wasn’t going to show up until I read two specific SMS messages and two Notes. Well I did just that and the email still didn’t show up. It took me reading them three times before the email arrived. A look online at walkthroughs after showed many people had the same issue. One last gripe was I really wish I could have used the arrow keys to scroll down SMS or email messages or even drag the side bar down because using the mouse wheel was a very slow process for some of them. I played Another Lost Phone on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. There was just resolution and one graphics setting so nothing much to tweak. The game saves every time you exit the game but you can't save manually and can’t have multiple saves.
The Council has a great story that got more and more interesting as it got towards the end. I think the end itself was a little rushed and weak though. The game is divided really into two parts: conversations you have with others and puzzles that you encounter. The conversation system is fantastic. You can upgrade different skill sets such as science; manipulation; politics; agility; and many more by gaining XP and finding texts to study. Each character you converse with will have immunities and vulnerabilities that tie into your skills. You can find out these traits for characters through conversation; by finding out from others or by means such as searching their rooms for clues. The other half of the game was the puzzles and they were a real mixed bag. Some of them I didn’t mind but others required constant back and forth between clues. Some were just convoluted. It wasn’t so much I didn’t understand what the game wanted from me as I simply didn’t enjoy it enough to care. The map system also wasn’t very good and was poorly labelled. The voice acting was overall very good. I thought that the voice of Jacques Peru and Louis de Richet who were supposed to be French characters had distinct North American accents. Everyone else had appropriate accents for their homeland but those two stood out. The graphics were fairly good overall. The world detail in the mansion was well done as was the lighting; clothing and facial detail. The hair was a mixed bag that ranged from decent to poor though. Two things I found strange was the ability to pick the locks of peoples belongings right in front of them and they didn’t seem to care as well as after being physically deformed due to one of my choices almost no one seems to notice or act differently. If someone I knew to be fine and healthy a few hours ago suddenly shows up missing a limb I may ask if everything is alright. I am not bothered by those two issues, I just was amused by them.
I started out really not liking the main character of Izzy. She just got on my nerves being an idealistic idiot who criticizes people for things she does herself. There were no dialogue options available that made her more likeable to me. This started to change a little as the game went on and by the last chapter I’d say I had really made her into something I could be happy with. The last few missions of the game was simply fantastic from a story standpoint including some great twists. That is despite me not liking any of the endings very much. I will also say some of the politics of the story seem forced and shoehorned in to make it seem relevant to real world issues without seeming genuine in the game world. Luckily the game play was pretty decent which made me ride out the early issues I had to make it through and see the game mature and grow. There were a lot of goods characters and the game blended humour and drama well. It also had a great cyberpunk type of atmosphere as well as having some good lore built up for the city and it’s history. There is a good amount of variety to the game in terms of mechanics. You have to use drones; bots; hack cameras; all in order to navigate levels and achieve various goals. You also have to know how and when to use pieces of evidence in order to advance conversations and gather more clues. This part was hit and miss as I found some times it felt like the answer was logical and others it felt like trying everything until you found the right combo of items or dialogue regardless of whether it made sense. You also have to figure out navigating vents as well as avoid people or make them go where you need them to in order to access things they were guarding. The game play was pretty intuitive and while simple to figure out there were some decently complex puzzles to solve. One mechanic I didn’t like was the passwords. The first few were straightforward but after that it seemed to become more and more of a chore.
Lust Theory it is pretty similar to my thoughts of Summer with Mia in that I found it too hard to root for the main character. The game was all over the place with how he acts. For instance I’m pretty sure that some acts he commits could count as rape at worst or sexual assault at the least yet there is one optional story arc where he can blackmail a character into groping them but decides it is going to far and the game blocks that arc off. There is also little in the way of choices. You can’t choose to not be interested in a specific girl. You can choose which girls arcs to go through some times but in others the game even takes that choice away and lays out which order to do things in. I also didn’t like how there is little to no closure to the story. I understood going in that there was a season two so I expected some form of cliffhanger but by the end of season one I have no idea how the time loop got started; what causes certain glitches; or really learned much about the characters other than they all want a piece of the MC. The voice acting was decent to good. One thing I noticed was that, for obvious reasons, the girls never said your name. This wasn’t always a problem as sometimes they would use “he” or “his” instead which worked just fine but other times there was simply an audio gap which just seemed strange. The models and object details were well done. The animations were well done although there was a lack of actual sex scenes given the run time for the season. A lot of it was buildup and introductions as well as replays. One thing I will give the game credit for is that for a game that is basically playing the same day over and over it does a good job of actually progressing and introducing tiny details that show you how to learn more. The game could have easily been a grind and felt stale very quickly but the game allows many events to just auto skip so you can not have to repeat little things over and over and can get to the fresh content.
In the first few chapters I was amazed by The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante. The story branching was fantastic in that I could tell from a logical standpoint why certain choices were not available to me based on my actions and it did a great job of making me make tough choices. Chapter iv saw me take a dislike to the game though as I feel railroaded. No matter what I have tried to choose I end up by the 27th year with a true death and no way around it. This highlights the game’s poor save system in my eyes. You get one save slot and the game auto saves. It doesn’t tell you when it saves and if you want to restart from earlier you have to redo entire chapters. At this point I would have to pretty much start a whole new game and make drastically different choices to get into a different type of life. My problem with that is that if going into certain types of life you get result in getting stuck in chapter IV and not being able to get to chapter V then why even have them ? Proper story branching, in my eyes, should mean we all get to the end but our journey there is different and our outcome can vary. In this case though I can’t even get to the end. I will say that the game does it’s personality system very well. There are a great variation of traits and they can effect a variety of outcomes. The characters were for the most part interesting. I did feel that some of the side stories got a bit boring. I felt that too many side characters got introduced in chapter iv that didn’t see much use. It just made the story feel bloated. The presentation of the game was good. I liked how the game was basically a book with each scene a turn of the page. The voice acting for Brante was a bit wooden. The music was decent but repetitive as were the sound effects. One last thing I want to touch on is that the game has no skip option for text. For a game with no manual saves and that makes me repeat entire chapters to change anything this is unacceptable.
Martial Law is a simple game but has a good story and blend of comedy and seriousness. The game play is basically you moving along the street and making choices about situations and people you encounter. There are faux choices in that some will end the game right there and then. I will also say that some choices are vague. For instance one person who stops you to take part in some old habit you had given up ends up with you waking up in the snow bank and a game over but I have no idea the old habit that got you there. I suspected drugs or alcohol but I read elsewhere that it was simply a debate that turned ugly. The text was vague and didn’t shed much light. The game does a good job of telling you little tidbits about Polish history from the 80’s from stores to customs and culture. The core story itself is also pretty heartwarming and it is nice to see a strong positive father figure in any media format. The graphics are pixel style but done well. The buildings; objects; and people have some detail to them. It isn’t a technical wonder but has a good style and shows why I am hard on pixel graphics games that are blurry and just look bad. The music was also fairly well done as well. The game’s opening scene auto scrolls the text instead of letting me advance manually but luckily after the opening scene this gives me control. I played Martial Law on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. You can’t manually save. There are auto save points though but the game never tells you when they occur. There is also only one save slot that gets overwritten each time. There are no graphics options at all although the game does seem to use v-sync and recognize my refresh rate. Performance wise the game ran fantastically although with the visuals I am not overly shocked. GPU Usage: 0-28 % VRAM Usage: 1129-1226 MB CPU Usage: 1-12 % RAM Usage: 4.1-4.3 GB Frame Rate: 139-165 FPS Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 | XFX RX 590 8GB | Mesa 22.3.6 | Garuda | Mate 1.26.0
A Short Hike can come off as a very simple game but it does have some unexpected depth to it. The overall goal is to make it to the top of the peak. In order to do so you must get a certain amount of golden feathers. Past this is where the depth comes in. In order to get these feathers you can find them or buy them. Either way you must explore the park. In doing so you will come across a wide range of characters with interesting stories as well as opportunities for additional game play. My favourite was following around a painter and finding out what troubles they are going through in trying to find inspiration. You will find a variety of items you can put to use such as a shovel which allows you to dig holes to recover money and other items. You can find treasure maps which will give you hints of where to find treasure. You will find a bucket which if you bring water to certain plants will help you scale some areas easier. This is all little things that added to the game play variety. There are some things the game could have done better. For instance there is no quest log so you have to remember what certain people wanted and where they are located. The game also could have used a proper map, there is a compass but that was of little help for me. The music was well done and added to the chill relaxation vibes that the game had going. The visuals were a mixed bag. While I thought colour palette was bright and was really pleasant the game was still a pixel game which meant not a ton of detail. It was better than ninety nine percent of pixel games but the style has limits. I played A Short Hike on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. The game auto saves on exit as well at certain points throughout the game. This wasn’t an issue but a manuals ave system would have been a nice option. There was just one save slot in the game that kept getting overwritten and you can’t have more than one save game going at once.
I started off with a pretty high opinion of Summer With Mia but by the end had some interesting issues. The biggest being that I see few if any characters to root for. The main character; Mia; Emma; the mother; the father; Sam; they are all in some way shape or form kind of scummy. I have played plenty of adult visual novels before this and I can’t think of one that I couldn’t find some common ground to relate to the characters before. The story itself also lacks much choice. It is not a kinetic novel but there is very little branching involved and let me tell you there were plenty of times I wanted some. Some of the few choices you get are even faux choices where really out of three there is just one you can pick. The models and animations were pretty good overall. There were few times where the graphics were weird such as in class where outside of the main character and Sam the rest of the students were black silhouettes. I would say that there was a time where the scene didn’t match the text in that after a party the room is described as trashed but it looks as clean as it always did. There was also very little music in the game and few sound effects. There was also a time where when there was music it started playing into the next scene and it really didn’t suit it as well as the previous one. I played the first season of Summer with Mia on Linux. It never crashed. I did notice six spelling errors. You can manually save whenever you want and there are fifty four save slots. The game did lack a lot of little options that other visual novels have such as not having the option to go back or skip text. I’d say that there are plenty of worse visual novels out there but also quite a few better ones. I finished the game in five hours and thirty eight minutes and paid $11.49 CAD for it.
I thought the turn based combat was fantastic. It was simple to get used to but had enough complexity and variety to keep me learning. I also loved the crafting system to upgrade your gear. There is a good variety of levels; enemies; characters. I think the range of difficulties will make sure that anyone can be satisfied. I thought the game kept a good management screen for listing your quests. The story was pretty good overall although it did drag a bit at parts. I also liked how there didn’t seem to be a level cap and how if you wanted to grind up your level the option was there. The enemies were also somewhat easy to avoid if you don’t like grinding. On the flip side I thought that the game could have done a better job detailing your quest locations. There is no quest marker and some times not even detailed objectives. For instance one quest I have to gain access to an area. In order to do that I have to find an unnamed amount of stone figures to help. I know this now but on the quest entry it just gain entry and leaves out how to do so or where they may be located. I also found the difficulty curve to be all over the place. Sometimes the mini bosses were easier to defeat than the random enemies outside of where they were. The game also does a poor job of giving you an idea of how ready for a quest you are. Some games flat out suggest certain levels you should be at to attempt it but Ara Fell does not and several times I found that my party could be one hit killed. One could say that I needed to grind more and wouldn’t be wrong but when you’re obliterating the local enemies it makes me think I am ready for the local mini boss or quest boss. Graphically Ara Fell is a pixel game so you either enjoy that or don’t. I will say that sometimes the game did a bad time outlying where you could jump or what can be climbed making me take longer than normal to navigate. I also didn’t like how you had to quit to the main menu in order to load a previous save.