60. Detention - Switch (4hrs?)

Interactive slow burn horror story set in 1960s Taiwan that gradually builds into something special.  A lot of the interactivity is dated, but after an hour or so the clunkiness became increasingly less relevant.  The dodgy monster dodging is mercifully kept at a minumum (which helps me describe the encounters as impactful rather than irritating, in hindsight) and the puzzles are mostly of the find item here/use item here breadcrumb variety.  Which is fine, especially when the puzzles up their game in chapter three. I'd call it a point and click at heart, but there's survival horror here too.  It's reminiscent of Lone Survivor in places (game not film), albeit a more chilling, less ambitious version with a better tale to tell.  As I've accidentally mentioned films, it also reminded me of the Under The Shadow with its effective use of time and place to underpin and intensify the horror element.

I actually started this a couple of years ago before binning it in a huff after realising I'd lost half an hour of play to a manual save system.  I'm glad I never bumped it from the pile of shame as it's one of the most arresting chillers I've played.  Some elements fall flat - I'd argue some of the severed hand/spooky face stuff overeggs things slightly - but on the whole the missteps don't dilute the creepiness.  After finishing I read about a second ending (the 'true ending'), and I'm satisfied that the grounded in real life horror story does enough heavy lifting to earn this an [8].  There should be more titles that nail the elusive 'good horror' vibe this permeates, but much like walking sims the misses and near misses are far more numerous than the games that get it right.  

A haunting experience that's at it's best when it lingers and echoes rather than jumps out from behind a curtain.  Novel, hugely atmospheric and well composed.  Non relevant postscript: it's also  probably the best late night horror I've enjoyed in a caravan since I shouldn't have been watching Long Weekend as a 10yr old.

61. Demon Turf: Neon Splash - Switch (2hrs)

Low priced spin-off to the supposedly quite-good-really Demon Turf that does away with all the non platforming elements the main game was criticised for.  I didn't play that and don't intend to after this; apart from the odd section where it feels like it kinda works it's pretty fucking woeful.  The haywire camera is the worst culprit, but the floaty controls make this feel like something that would've been worth ignoring on an OPM demo disk in 1999.  It's not a good mix.  We've all played 3D platformers where the camera goes goes astray on occasion (the mostly good Arise: A Simple Story springs to mind), but I don't think I've ever played one where it feels like someone's manually spinning it around in an attempt to hinder your progress.  It's a course based platformer that feels tricky in its easiest sections, simply because you're always one iffy view shift away from falling off a ledge.  You can mitigate the issues by rotating the camera manually, but the best of its peers keep their right stick teasing to a minimum.   

I quite like the Nintendo Life website.  They're not covered by Edge or GTFO game snobs and enjoy low fanfare non-pedigree indies on their own merits, but I just can't even begin to wrap my head around the opinion that this missed out on a perfect score by one point.  It's not a good platformer, and it doesn't do anything else.  I'm halfway through Super Lucky's Tale, which isn't widely considered a great game, but it's a solid effort and comparatively speaking feels like a mini masterpiece.  The decision to allow the player to place manual checkpoints on any safe ground in this is interesting, but I'm calling that as a red flag for the gameplay - there's no disguising the fact that this isn't good enough for the traditional harsh checkpointing of course based platformers.  

There are a few positive things I could say about it but I really can't be bothered.  There are plenty of worse games out there but not many that come with such big recs.  I played an 89p roguelike 3D platformer on Switch called Rogue Singularity a couple of years ago and the core mechanics - y'know, jumping on and over stuff - felt much better than anything on offer here.  Plus (don't let the gif fool you) the juxtaposition of flat sprites and 3D environs is fucking grim. [5]

12. Godfall Ultimate Edition - 10 Hours - 6/10 - Series X

Wasn’t too keen on this when I played it through on PS5 but got it dirt cheap and heard they’d fixed a lot of things. They haven’t really. It’s still a simple hack and slash needing little skill but it looks pretty and it’s fairly short…

Not a terrible game by any means, just a very simple A-B slasher without any real story or real depth. An easy 6 really, grab it for something to play through if you can get it cheap. 6/10.

regmcfly wrote:

8. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Ahh Kirbster, there when I need you. That's Kirby done, about 90% done. Still have a last coliseum and some gatchas to find, but what an absolute charmer.

It does the double whammy of hitting you with a new idea every level, in Galaxy fashion, and then getting utterly monstrously hard post credits with the after game stuff. That post game stuff is really some sadistic platforming, and I was absolutely here for it.

Having covid meant I've utterly caned this game and when I close my eyes I just see Meta Knight, but that's been about 15 hours of joyous exploration and platforming. Finding all 300 waddle dees requires some clever thinking and creativity and, man, I needed that.

Well, back to Hollow Knight and Elden Ring after that Ray of sunshine.

Just to update, the save file now says 100% and that feelsgoodman.

The post game stuff is proper shit and will challenge even a hardened Ori /whatever the fuck the new hard game is player.

That was some of the most satisfying platforming / bosses I've done outside of Odyssey.

17: Ori and the Blind Forest (Switch) 9/10

Great game, I was a little taken aback with it at first.  Hoped it would be a nice breezy metroidvania that I could cruise through and admire the lovely graphics.  It's pretty bloody hard though IMO, you need to learn a lot of skills and, as the game goes on, chain them together to get by.

Doom Eternal's expansion just got a Moot review here, and funnily enough that's what Ori reminded me of quite a bit!  You get a lot of skills in this game and every time I got a new one, I thought, oh no, not something else!  At most points in the game I felt like I was just barely fully in control.  Much like DE it's really well paced though and seems to know the right moment to add that new skill.  By the end you're really quite versatile and can get around around damn near anywhere without many problems.  It does help too at a base level the moving and jumping are absolutely on point.

Lets not beat around the bush the main draw is the lovely graphics and this looks as good as anything on Switch IMO.  Just the loveliest looking map/environments.  Really dense and colourful.  Big shout out to that giant Psygnosis-looking owl too.  Runs a treat.  I guess it would look even better on Xbox/PC, but I can't imagine how!  Top drawer stuff.

There's not much wrong with it!  I didn't care about the text bits that occasionally describe what's going on.  I didn't take in anything.  Also didn't care for the manual save system, where you have to use a little of your energy to save.  I found myself either forgetting to save, or saving too often, then not having the energy to save when it would be handy to do so.  Maybe the fighting could be better?

Keen to try out the sequel soon.

I do have Wisps (got the physical double pack), just thinking of playing something else in between in case I get a bit sick of the formula halfway through.  But definitely playing it soon.

Which one did you think was the best?

Love a bit of Ori chat.  I'm team Blind Forest.  Preferred the layouts for platforming and thoroughly enjoyed the chase sequences most people hated.  Wisps is amazing at times, especially when you're all kitted out, but the bosses are mostly shite and I dunno, BF edged it for me (fnar).

Some good reading there.

I thought the chases were quite good!  Didn't drag on + you get a checkpoint, and quick to restart.  Nice little exams.

lol I was initially looking forward to Wisps adding boss fights to the formula.  We'll see hopefully they click for me.

12. Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 2 (Switch) - 5hrs  

So the original Curse of the Moon was a near perfect homage to Castlevania III.

I was over the moon to hear that they were making a co-op sequel, but unfortunately its not really lived up my expectations.

It's just feels inferior in everyday compared to the first game, its not bad but it just feels like they made a game with the leftovers of what didn't make the cut originally.

On top of that is a real killer blow to the co-op experience. To cycle through your party of characters in this you use the L and R buttons, but doing so creates a slight pause to the action. If one of you is in the middle of some platforming whilst this happens it will often result in death. It really does spoil the fun.

Also it dies the old cheap Ghouls N Ghosts trick of having to completecit twice to see the real ending, I absolutely hate that, so cheap.

So a good but very disappointing sequel.

6/10  

My list

13. Thunder Cross (Arcade) - 30mins  

Very good Konami shoot 'em up that never saw a home release afaik.

Nothing out of the ordinary for 1988 really, R-Type and Gradius were both out by then but this does everything well.

As much as I like shoot 'em ups I'm not very good at them, this one seems a bit on the easier side than most I've played, actually felt like one I could get good at if I put more time in.

As usual, an absolute blast in co-op. Good stuff.

8/10  

My list

Didn’t realise Katana Zero was so short. I had it installed while it was on GP, but never got around to starting it. I would have done if I’d known it could be cleared in an evening.

Shame it’s not on GP any more.

Yossarian wrote:

Didn’t realise Katana Zero was so short. I had it installed while it was on GP, but never got around to starting it. I would have done if I’d known it could be cleared in an evening. Shame it’s not on GP any more.

It's probably 4-5hrs for a first playthrough as it's quite tricky until it gets to the point where everything slots into place.  Worth picking up in a sale for sure.  

65. Pure Mini Golf - Switch (3hrs)

Currently £1.29 (iirc, might've been £1.79). I'm a sucker for disengage-the-brain mini golf games.  I'm convinced there are dozens of mobile titles I'd love if I ever bothered playing games on my phone.  This one doesn't require the ridiculous grinding of (the otherwise slightly better) Pocket Mini Golf.  There are 50 stages, and it's basically 35 stages of mini golf followed by 15 stages that feel a bit closer to the Tomy tabletop AAARGH! game from the 80s.  Power is handled by a ten point power meter that rises as you hold the button, so it's point and shoot stuff.  The holes are mostly well designed, despite the fact that the required shots count (referred to as 'shoots' on screen) rarely has much correlation to the difficulty of the stage.  I was whizzing through at a rate of knots until I hit level 39, which genuinely felt like joke at the expense of the player.  It took me well over an hour to fluke, and the tactics I ended up employing didn't really make any sense compared to the rest of the game.  It may be the worst stage I can think of in a game since the early 90s, including the minigame computer screen section in Battletoads 2020.  @acemuzzy, please buy this and let me know if I approached this hole like an idiot (i.e, there's a vital mechanic I missed).  You can get there in 90 mins easily.  Once I made it through it was plain sailing to the end.  So weird, so shit.  [6].  Ultra-troll stage aside it did what I wanted.

Wow. First game I've finished in 3 months.

4. Elden Ring (SeX) - 23/4 - 180hrs
This will be no news to anyone, but this is an incredible game. Average of 3 hours a day over 59 days, this took over my life for a while, and still does as I tackle NG+. No other game released so far or due to be released this year will come close.
It's basically open-world Dark Souls 4. That is a good thing. But also ever so slightly a bad thing. While I prefer Bloodborne and Sekiro for their tighter and more refined combat and less bloat (see below), this is now my favourote Souls game - despite Demon's having a special place for me for introducing it all.

I'll just do a list of postives and negatives.

+ Aesthetically, and artistically, this is possibly the most beautiful game I have played. I spent many a moment just looking around and gawping at the beauty of it all. Very early on, I found myself thinking that if they did a big artbook for this (and I'm sure they will), I'll be sure to buy it. And I'm hoping Cook & Becker do some art prints for this. Will happily have nice ones on my wall.
+ The world building is, once again, second to none. It seems to be FromSoftware's USP almost as no other developer does it this well. Individual areas with their own look and feel that seamlessly and cohesively joined to make a believable world, dungeons are mazes and a delight to explore and unravel with their hidden paths and shortcuts, beautiful architecture and surroundings that make you ooh and aah and wonder at the history and events.
+ Abundance of characters with their own stories and quests, again helps toward building a more believable world (within the context of the story and setting). But also gives plenty of distraction from the main quest and helps flesh out more of the lore and narrative.
+ Speaking of which, as always it is a great pleasure trying to piece together the story and history and the lore. FromSoftware give you enough to go on to think and hypothesise and discuss, and hold back just enough to leave the intrigue. Masters of the trade. Can possibly see the GRRM influence and contribution.
+ The moment to moment feel of discovering a new cave, tomb, hidden area, new map and lots more besides. I will never forget the first time I saw some of the things that I saw.
+ Combat and mechanics have been improved over previous Souls games.
+ Huge scope, as always, for repeat playthroughs with different builds.
+ Some great music.

- It's just basically Dark Souls! While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it can sometimes feel a bit too familiar.
- Suffers from the same bloat, with far too many weapons and items, most of which will never get used. Another reason why I prefer SekiroBorne.
- Too many bosses and reused ones at that. First time I fought someone, it was amazing. Second time, meh. Third and fourth time? Oh, come on!
- Some minor UX and UI issues, but not worth getting into here.

The negatives are minor quibbles. An easy [10].
[10]

Didn't you play MGSV on PS3? That's going back a bit.

I've bought The Witcher 3 on Xbox, I plan to give it a good go when the (supposedly free) next gen patch drops, but I already know I'll get bored chipping away at one game for months. Different strokes etc, love the abundance of quality short stuff available though.

At £18, it’s a [0]. If it cost £2, might push it to an [8].