Recent reviews by shadowofthenerdtree

Spamtenna-hood is a spectrum

The first game of the duology, 999, in my opinion, is insanely good. Mind-bending, great mysteries are sown throughout the game to be slowly answered in different routes of the VN as you try to follow the main characters. I think all characters were pretty well-written too. The ending took a bit for me to understand and I didn't like the grand reveal as much as I thought I would, but the main game itself and the way it goes about dropping hints is just really really good. It does have, however, a lot of repetitive text at times due to its adaptation from DS (as I've heard, I never played the original), where the same details might be repeated over and over without particular reason and one might find that annoying.

VLR, the sequel, I did not like as much. I thought most of the twists were great, but the game ultimately dragged on for too long for me to like it. 999 revealed a bit about each character completely out of the blue in different parts of the story, but as for VLR's endings, each character gets their own, so it felt too...deliberate and somewhat inorganic to me. It felt like a tickbox exercise, trying to get through each person's ending before going for the grand reveal. Some of the endings were really good, but they also felt like a huge exposition dump a lot of the time too. The way the endings were split up as well, through a binary decision, just felt very meh to me. In 999, a slightly more nuanced decision was taken when being cooped into an ending and more choices were provided, so it felt slightly more mysterious.

The transitions and movement between rooms in VLR is also in 3D, and you cannot skip them unless you literally have traversed that route - so if you have gone from point A to point B, but point C was perfectly between them and you went C -> B in the same way, you could not skip that transition. Even though you had been treading that exact ground before. And these transitions all added up. It felt very frustrating to me :( as it felt like I was wasting time rather than playing the game and making progress.

Overall, I think both games are still worth playing, but as an adult with other things to do, VLR made the experience very frustrating and required a lot of patience. Meanwhile, I feel 999 was of perfect length and was never boring. The music in both was very good and really supported the suspenseful moments.

furry carpal tunnel syndrome: the game

This game is literally a Souls-like.
Heart, lungs, liver, nerves /10

While I have only played this game for an hour (for now - I don't think I'm anywhere near done! I just interrupted my playthrough to put some thoughts down), there are many things to say about this game. This review will be a few positives at the start, with some issues I have encountered during my playthrough at the very bottom.

As someone who considers Hollow Knight and Grime to be greatest metroidvanias ever, this game scratches that Hollow Knight-esque and parry-based gameplay itch quite well. The parries are smooth, the movement is smooth, I'm loving it. I also love the animations of all the characters! Visually, the game is so satisfying to look at, and the style is very much heavily inspired by Hollow Knight. There is plenty of exploration to do as well.

However (and as a person who likes easy games!), I would not say it is anywhere as hard as HK or Grime, since the checkpoints in this game allow you to deposit money at them (kind of like what Haiku the Robot did, but now it's an inherent aspect of checkpoints) which lessens the penalty for death (which makes you drop all money that you have left on you - but if you deposit most of it, there is no threat). Additionally, hitting enemies enough times allows you to enter a powered-up state that hits really hard and trivialises combat against normal enemies (and stays until you get hit once or twice). It is quite OP and I found that it is hard to leave that state once you get into it, which makes for a slightly unbalanced experience. Overall, I wasn't a fan of this and did not feel as endangered as I did in HK or Grime when I didn't know where to go, was on one HP and I did not really feel any suspense while playing this game thus far. Also, kind of like Grime, fighting enemies the normal way is a slog and will take tens of hits, as opposed to parrying and countering, which lets you kill within 1-2 counters - this is less of a complaint and more just pointing this out.

But I still completely recommend this game given that it will only get better. At this price point and quality at start, it looks like a wonderful game that will only grow in polish and solidify itself as at least a very good metroidvania.

That being said, I would like to mention that there are other very obvious faults with the game right now that the devs in the EA period should iron out.

Some bugs and general issues:
- 1440p resolution causes the movement of the protagonist to stall, both on keyboard and controller, randomly. The arrow keys and controller joysticks stop responding to input on some screens. Changing it to 1080p fixes the issue, but I would love to play this game in 2k if possible!
- The text is just in standard calibri-esque font - would love to have a more elaborate/custom font to suit the game more than its current font.
- There are no map markers, which is a crime in a metroidvania!!! Please add map markers, lack of them makes keeping track of exploration really difficult.
- I feel like the design of the jellyfish checkpoints really sticks out compared to the rest of the game's visual presentation. Not sure how to fix this, maybe add slightly thicker outlines like characters have?
- I'm not sure if the game introduced the rune system properly (I can't remember seeing anything like that) - perhaps a pop-up about that would be useful, as it felt very odd that I just got presented with a charm menu but with no instructions on how charms work, nor what currency they use for upgrades.
- I wish the characters introduced in the game got more a fanfare/exposition about who they are and what they do. I want to care about the shopkeep (not sure if he reoccurs after his first appearance), but I know almost nothing about him except that he loves money.
- The starting cutscene of the game is over veeery quickly and doesn't really give you a reason to play. I wish it demonstrated why our character needs to do what they need to do or why they went on a quest to begin with, how they got to the location at the start of the game etc. Just show us why we should care about our character in general.
- Enemies do not respawn at checkpoints - instead, they respawn upon leaving the room and coming back. I don't think this adds to the difficulty, but just becomes a frustrating experience as you need to refight the same enemies multiple times (especially since the first sub-area only has about 4 different enemies, it becomes a chore). However, this may be intended as everything in the game is super expensive and enemies are your only real source of income for the early game
- While enemies have really good SFX, the same cannot be said about NPCs. They do not make any sounds, and I feel like them having SFX would give them some personality.

I will try to edit this comment as I go through the game to add anything else that I think is a glaring problem.

Overall, I think this game shows a lot of promise, and I recommend buying to support the devs!!!

she animal on my well till I dunkey

I really wanted to like this game.

I have played many popular puzzle games, such as ones with meta content like Baba is You, Paquerette, Monster's Expedition (like this game is purported to be), and various others like Talos 1&2 and The Witness (stuff you've probably heard of, and if you haven't, definitely go play these).

Overall, I have to praise it for its knowledge-driven gameplay - the game is one of only a few unique games that reward going out of your way to decipher ancient inscryptions, give up resources or HP and make tough decisions for possible advice on how to advance more efficiently through the dungeon (or waste your hard-earned progress in trying to do so). This is not something you see often, and I have to give it credit.

However, the game's payoff is, in my opinion, not worth it for all the work that you have to do to get to it. I did a single run to the bottom of the void; then, started another one without dying to *possibly* advance the story (since the game obviously does not communicate what you have to do). Only midway through this run did I realise that, I had missed several key items on the way, which would therefore make my run much much more difficult (not to mention that I'd need to re-complete the same hundreds of puzzles since the game does not save your progress to get to the bottom again). Additionally, to get those items, I'd either need to almost complete the run to have the ability to restart it, which takes hours of doing the same puzzles I've already solved, or alternatively, use shortcuts and tricks to go back up, and then redo the run all over again regardless.

At that moment, I was so fed up of the game that I decided to quit playing it myself and watch a playthrough done by someone else (by Lunar Plexus on yt - hugely recommend as their runs are extremely thorough and show every piece of dialogue), as I was very keen on seeing the lore and following the story, and for me the repetitive gameplay was only dragging the plot down. However, having watched that as well, past the lore that is uncovered within the first descent into the void, the story takes a nosedive in quality completely (in my honest opinion). Suddenly, the entire plot and setting of the first run becomes redundant and almost 'like a dream', you have to do more runs of the game but this time they're much harder, and with less motivation as the plot has become less intriguing. Don't even get me started on the story of the ultimate descent, which has almost nothing to do with your previous trips down and favourite protagonists - it focuses on the most uninteresting characters this game has conceived, that previously are barely mentioned and shed no light on the vague plots of the previous runs.

To summarise, I think it is a shame as I enjoy the knowledge-based spin that this game offers, but the repetitiveness, lack of intrigue past the lore uncovered by the first descent, and, quite frankly, insulting twists and underdeveloped characters make this game a hard sell. I have barely mentioned the quality of the puzzles because, although they do become extremely creative as the descent into the void nears its end, and you never need more than the base item you get to solve every single one of them (which is a testament to their quality), the fact that you must repeat them several times until you realise what's going on has ruined my opinion of them completely.

The gameplay is good - until you realise that the game wants you to do the same hundreds of puzzles until you realise how to get out. The plot is good, until your first run is concluded and you realise that the game makes really questionable story decisions. After that, unless you're a super die-hard sokoban fan, there is not much left to enjoy. Overall, I do not recommend this game - maybe on sale to experience that first descent into the void, otherwise I'd recommend to firmly drop this game.

the depression at home:

Pontiff: (っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Aldrich honey, it's time to feast on poor Astoran orphans again! ♥
Aldrich: *inhaling gwyndolin ass* 𝓎𝑒𝓈 𝒹𝑒𝒶𝓇 🤤