Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2021

~ Game Over ~

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus (Switch) – It loses a little bit of its punch once you know all the twists, but still a “good” time. The additional content was worth the purchase, and the way that it was made to work on console wasn’t nearly as janky as I’d worried it would be, and actually added a lot to the experience.

Robo Recall (Oculus) – Finished this one off at long last. That final stage has been outstanding for months now, but I finally did it. It’s a super fun game, though I don’t know that I’ll go back to complete the extra objectives.

Shutter (PC) – Boop.

Ys: Memories of Celceta (PS4) – One of four versions of Ys IV, and the most modern. While all the Ys games are fast-paced action RPGs, this one might be the ideal fast-paced action RPG. It’s an absolute joy to play, as movement and combat feel great, and there are so many completion percentage trackers. Not to mention that the main gameplay conceit is exploration, which I think is my absolute favourite thing about video games.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2021

Celebrity(?)

One of my brothers has a new girlfriend. She is -in his words- a “Facebook stalker”, and somehow that lead to her having watched all of my Ryan’s Pop-Tarts Reviews videos. Which is lovely. I already like this one.

I know I have a tiny and (questionably) devoted fanbase, but it always feels good to hear that something I made brought joy to someone else. You know, that feeling of validation and whatnot.

Though it always confounds me when I hear that somebody watched one of my Pop-Tarts videos, and then decided to watch all of the other ones. That’s basically the opposite of what I expect to happen.

And it’s the weirdest feeling to meet someone for the first time and learn that they basically know you already. Is this what it’s like to be be famous? Except that it happens all the time instead of once per decade?

More words about Ys

My “theme” for 2021 was playing through all the main games in the Legend of Zelda series. But somewhere along the line I also got completely hooked on the Ys series, and am now through five of the ten games in that franchise.

Most recently was Ys: Memories of Celceta, which, to put it in simpler terms, is a remake of the fourth Ys game. But then I was looking into the original, and… it’s not quite that simple. Apparently, there were two similar but distinct games bearing the mantle of “Ys IV”, one for PC Engine and one for Super Famicom. There was even a third version in the works for the Mega Drive, but that one got canned. And then a PS2 “remake” happened that deviated quite a bit from both of the previous versions. And now we have Memories of Celceta, which goes even farther out from the source material and probably is more of an original game that was inspired by the previous games, rather than an actual remake. Also it’s the canonical version of Ys IV, since it was the only one fully developed by Falcom.

See? It’s a bit messy!

But I have good news for you: Hardcore Gaming 101 has an unbelievably thorough write-up on everything related to Ys IV. It’s a very interesting story, and quite honestly, the whole history of Ys is pretty well worth looking into, if just for the sake of seeing how many console ports each title got and how different they all ended up being.

I don’t know if I’ve ever plugged HG101 before, but it’s an amazing website, and you owe it to yourself to check it out if you have even the slightest interest in video game history and/or localization.

WALL-E in Horror Land

It had been over a month since I last played and/or recorded an indie horror game. So that’s what I did last weekend.

Shutter is a tiny, little, bite-sized horror game where you drive a tiny, little, bite-sized drone through a haunted house. It’s not very long and could use a little polish here and there, but it wasn’t bad. If absolutely nothing else, it very literally offered a new perspective on the haunted house genre. My only real gripe is that it’s not always clear what you’re supposed to do next, and even that’s not so bad because there really isn’t a lot of real estate to explore or actions you can take.

So there’s a single paragraph that pretty well sums up the 56 minutes of words that come out of my mouth in that video up there. You don’t need to watch it now. Good for you! Bad for my YouTube analytics!

Comeuppance

I don’t often play dating simulators. There are a whole host of better ways to fill that need. But yesterday I “played” Beach Bounce for a short amount of time. I noticed it in my Steam library, and like most games in my Steam library, I wasn’t quite sure how it got there. I’m also not sure why I decided to install and play it, to be entirely honest.

As I understand it, dating simulators are games in which which you are tasked with making choices to seduce one or more potential mates. This is exactly what Beach Bounce is. And while I did not care for the narrative that was loosely draped over the one-dimensional “gameplay” I may have played it for slightly longer if not for the rather unsavory story path that I ended up going down.

Continue reading Comeuppance

PZ35/21 – July check-in

Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are now in the outbox, and I get a nice, little Zelda break until my copy of Skyward Sword HD arrives later in the month. I know that I suggested in one past blog post that I wasn’t too interested in buying SS again, but… I’m a consumer whore!

Not that I haven’t been taking breaks between Zeldas anyway. I mean, I spent a little more than an entire week playing nothing except Subnautica. Actually, outside of work and sleep, I barely did anything other than play Subnautica that week. For a game so broken, it really got its claws into me, and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

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Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2021

~ Game Over ~

Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PC) – The remake of Ys III, which is the game that made me want to learn more about the Ys series, after having randomly watched a speedrun. Wildly different from the original, but also very similar to Ys Origin, a game that I liked so much that I played it three times in a row. Felghana was… also very good in general, though it was a heck of a lot more grindy than I would have preferred.

Crooked Silence (PC) – A PS1-looking, horror-themed FPS that I purchased on Itch.io for seventy-five cents. It’s shockingly good, at least for that price. Needs some polish, but I had a good time with it. Plus it came with three extra DLC mini-games that were all fairly unique and fun as well. I’d recommend this one.

Picross S5 (Switch) – Completed all modes. So much picross!

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2021