A very novel concept executed well. Adult Swim seems to have a knack for publishing quality games. The gameplay is mix between a 2D brawler and a match-3 puzzle game. Going in I had trepidations about the match-3 aspect, general viewing it as too casual for my own interests, but the way the two types of gameplay are integrated makes a unique a experience; it is a seamless combination where you run out to hunt monsters for their ingredients, and then bring back your bounty to the kitchen to start cookin', all under the pressure of a ticking clock. It really captures the tone of "Iron Chef" style cooking shows have become popular in recent years, that tension and drama as competitors race against the clock to prepare their meals in time. "AH! They've forgot to add the carrots before they baked the dish! Can they still make it now? Oh, they're making a bold move to try and pull back, doubling the amount of sauce the recipe calls for!" There'll be lots of moments like this in BCB for you. The game also has a loadout system that lets you customize the cookware you take into battle. This provides for a variety of approaches, as many of these equipments have vastly different functions that can really change the way you prepare your meals. The hunting works well too. It is a bit overshadowed by the cooking aspect of the game, but combat feels fluid enough, and I don't have any real serious complaints with it. Of course I'd be remiss not to mention the game's fantastic art and sound. Both exceed the highest standard. VO is professional grade. The art? Well, let's just say it looks as good in motion as it does in stills. The campaign took me around 15 hours to complete. There are also daily cook-offs, which I was able to access even without GOG Galaxy(although no one was on the leaderboards but me? Could just be no one else was playing), and a hard mode, which I will probably play. The devs have expressed interest in adding additional content down the road as well.
Aer is a game of pure exploration. There are no enemies. There are no Game Overs. There are no upgrades. There aren't really puzzles (there sort of are, but they are so minor and simple and sparing that its hard to think of the game as having puzzle elements). The entire quality of your experience is going to be determined by how comfortable you are with this fact. The whole game world is open to you from the very beginning to wonder in. In this way it reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus a little; both games give you free reign inside their worlds. Particularly of note, the flight in this game is as exuberant as you'd imagine from the trailer. The soundtrack and art are both very suitable for the calm tone that this style of gameplay facilitates; the show is stolen, however, by the wonderful lore that suffuses the game. Forgotten Key has cultivated an original, beautiful mythology here, an accomplishment I applaud them for. Too many games today, I feel, take their setting and lore from preexisting materials, e.g. classic mythology, d&d, mad max, cthulu mythos... So to create something completely original that works as this does is a noteworthy accomplishment. There is also that same strain of wistful melancholy in this world that SotC has in it's own. One significant problem with this game though is that you don't get the same sense of weight to your journey as in SotC, and while the myths they've built are beautiful, I never felt I was really partaking in them myself. Also, since there is nothing to find in the way of upgrades or collectibles, the outlook that the journey itself is the reward is all but obligatory. If the prospect of walking around islands you know are empty just for the sake of having walked there doesn't appeal to you, or if you're a player who is always trying to rush from one game to the next, you might find this an unengaging, even tedious experience. Keep in mind the game is also very short; I completed in about 4 hours.
First, let's get the ugly out of the way. Memoranda suffers badly from one of the two chief iniquities of P&C adventure games: illogical puzzles (the other, pixel hunting, is not a problem here, thanks to a handy system that highlights all interactable objects on screen). Some of the solutions are so baffling that it's hard to imagine someone finishing the whole thing without a guide (I sure needed one). There are also problems with which specific item you must use to accomplish a goal, for example, at one point you must stoke a fire, but liquid propane is not an acceptable item for this, instead you have to use dried grass, because the liquid propane needs to be used to... combine with orange juice? Yeah. The game is also very goalless. There were many times when it wasn't that I was stuck on a particular puzzle, but that I simply had no idea what I was even supposed to be doing or trying to accomplish. Basically, if you don't use a guide, you will be forced to resort to the old P&C tactic of using everything on everything until something happens, and given that this is a fairly large game, that could become very frustrating. Now, the strength of this game is definitely it's mood. If you're wondering if they managed to capture the essence of Murakami's works, the answer is yes. There is a certain dream-like quality to his works that I hesitate to call surrealism, but the word that always comes to my mind is "floating". The narrator is superlative. The inflections and cadence of her speech are mesmerizing. The criticisms of the gameplay become boons to the tone. The directionlessness, the strange item combinations, serve to accentuate the "floating-ness." There is something so beautifully melancholy about wandering around, speaking to acquaintances past. There's more I want to say about the accomplishments of this game, but GOG's Draconian character limit prevents me from doing so. If you enjoyed the tone of the trailer though, you will probably enjoy this game.
Cyberpunk bartender action is a bit of a misnomer. Specifically, there is no action to be found in this game whatsoever. The gameplay consist entirely of a sort of mini-game where you mix drinks. But even this can't really be called gameplay, as there's almost no way to make mistakes, and even if you somehow mess it up the game simply moves on. Yep, it kind of makes you wonder why they even bothered putting the drink making in here. BUT. As you may have realized, this is more of a visual novel than a game. Now I must confess that I am definitely not the target audience for VNs. In fact, this is probably the first one I've ever played. It is my understanding though that this particular example is even less interactive than your usual VN. You see, there are no decisions or dialogue trees or anything like that here. You just listen to Jill, the protagonist, talk to the patrons of the bar. That's it. That's the whole game. As an aside, the music and art are quite nice, and set the mood well. Since the game is entirely dialogue though, it must live or die on it's writing, and it dies an atrocious, putrid death. The writing is abysmal. I'm not asking for Hemingway here, but I need SOMETHING to work with. It reads like what it is: a work written by people who's concepts of writing are pulled from anime and video games(two mediums notorious for bad writing). For example, one of the bar's patrons is an assassin, and he just comes into the bar and talks about how he's an assassin... Stupid. Memes are employed in attempts at humor with predictably embarrassing results. Seemingly all the female characters are lesbiens(I was starting to wonder if Vallhalla(sic) was a gay bar). It reeked of some creepy male fulfillment fantasy. That idea is even given some merit with the cringe-worthy "sexual" dialogue that's forced through the entire game in an attempt to sound mature. And by the way characters randomly get overly emotional over small things, you'd think they all have BPD.
I don't usually write reviews, but seeing as "Slain!" released today, I thought I'd go ahead and try and save some interested folks some money. With that said, where to begin? At the beginning, i suppose. So I load open the game, and BAM! Immediately I'm sitting at the menu screen, no production credits, no intro, nothing. Okay, a little non-traditional, but no big deal, right? You got a nice background art, the big "Slain!" title card, and some menu options: New game, Continue, Options, Credits. Seems fine. I scroll through each option and the first thing I notice is how unresponsive the menu control is. Yes, they managed to mess up the menu control. Often pushing the arrow keys doesn't change the highlighted option. And if you scroll down below "Credits", the menu highlighter will disappear all together, as if highlighting a secret, invisible option. But it's not, it's just gone. To make matters worse, several options in the menu don't even work. Selecting "Credits" simply causes my game to freeze. And inside of the "Options" menu, it does not allow me to enter the "Input" menu. But whatever, the menu is bad, who cares, right? It's all the about the gameplay! And man, is the gameplay terrible! Remember when I said the menus were unwieldy? Your character is even worse! The movement is incredibly strange: simply tapping or pushing the key does not cause you to move, instead, you must hold the key down momentarily. This makes edging forward (i.e. to the edge of a platform for a jump) or backing up (i.e. to evade an enemy) difficult. You do have a backdash though, although it is very sluggish as well, and only seems to work about half the time anyways. Running out of space, time for quickies. Vague tutorial tells you nothing. Soundtrack was pretty repetitive (I love Celtic Frost!). Combat is VERY simplistic (press Q, repeat). Lots of visual glitches. Spelling errors (though as tho). Lots of others If you're looking for a game in this style try Odallus instead.
