#backlog challenge

(final choice out of 10 random rolls)

Yes, another one from that same Square Enix humble bundle, the dice decided to roll 3 games from it out of the 100+ options... This time a game I couldn’t decide for the longest time if it really should have been on my backlog list, and the reason I waited for it to be my final choice of the 10 rolls I made.

I only own Episode 1 of Life is Strange (Steam store link, ep. 1 is free) so not having the full game was like... do I really want to play it then? Also, when I put it on my list, this episode wasn’t free yet, but now it is, so technically I felt like I didn’t have to add it to my list at all anymore.

But at the same time, this is a game I was genuinely am interested in playing... I just don’t like only owning part of a game (and why I also generally avoid demos.) Episodic games are a curse and I really hate the trend of these things.

But yeah, I decided to give it a try after much debating. The praise for this game is everywhere, and it does have timetravel elements which I have a love-hate relation with and am always interested in.

Fin or Bin?

Well, I finished episode 1 in one playthrough, so I finished what I own. Will I buy the other episodes and play them? Probably, but only when they’re on at least 50% clearance.

The game is fun, but it also has its problems that really annoy me. I like the slow pace. The time traveling part is acceptable, and it’s a very good way to actually let you go through all the “make a decision” options before making an actual decision on what you want to do to influence the game later. And I like trying to spot everything and finding the small things you can take pictures of (which are the achievements.) The art is nice, but the animation and voice acting combination is terrible. The mouth movements aren’t lined up at all and this is why voice acting often bothers me. If you cannot animate it right, don’t have voice acting. Plus a lot of the lines lack any emotion and just sound like someone read the script out loud. The animation is problematic in other ways too. The main character uses the “moving her bangs out of the way” animation too often but what’s worse is the hair doesn’t even move! If you include an animation like that, at least make the hair move then! Now it only distracted me every time it happens, and it happened a lot.

All this makes the game subpar to me and not worth the full money. But the story and gameplay is interesting and, as demos do, it makes me want to know how it continues. So I will end up buying the rest someday and finishing it completely, most likely.

EDIT 8 hours after writing and queuing this post: So... the game actually ended going on sale the day I wrote this, at 75% off. Amazing. So yeah, I own the full game now and will play through it.

(fourth choice out of 10 random rolls)

Little Inferno (Steam store link) is another game from the 8th Humble Indie Bundle I got in May 2013. This was one of those games I’ve been wanting to play, but waited for it to get achievements.

It never got achievements.

So I never played it.

Anyway, Little Inferno is an indie “game” where you buy things and then burn them. Not much else to it, so basically not much of a game. Sure, there’s a little bit of a puzzle element in it by trying to figure out all the combos, but they don’t progress the game or anything.

Fin or Bin?

(roll of the dice)

Another game from another Humble Bundle, Grim Fandango Remastered (Steam store link) was in one of the more recent bundles, the GameOn Bundle, which I got in June of last year. This is the first game I’m playing from that bundle though... still got a few to go there.

As the name says, it’s a remastered version of an oldie. In fact, it will celebrate its 20th birthday later this year. And yeah, you can tell this game is from the late 90s. It’s a point-and-click adventure (which were quite in abundance back then) and has those early 3D graphics, although they did an okay job cleaning them up to make it look good enough in this day of age, while still resembling the 90s style.

As with most point-and-click games, it suffers from the “I checked everything but of course that one spot I had to check because it was mostly hidden” syndrome because that is the only way to add some difficulty to these kind of games, without going into the “you have to use this random object to do this random thing” territory.

Fin or Bin?

Now, this game is definitely a Fin for me. And not really for anything of the above. It’s the story that got me, which is very unusual for a game. Generally, I don’t care much about the story in a game, I just want the gameplay to be good. This game has had excellent storytelling so far with great jokes, a good flow, and a very interesting plot. I would have loved to watch it as a movie. The gameplay itself isn’t too bad, and when stuck there are plenty of guides to help, though I try to do everything by myself first.

I have decided I am also going for a 100% finish here, which is actually quite tricky without guides. A lot of them are easily missed in a regular gameplay. So I’ve been playing each part by myself without guides, but with several saves, and then check the guides to see if I missed anything and if I did, I replay the part quickly from a previous save. And yes, I made sure I started the game with tank controls for the one achievement that requires that.

(roll of the dice)

I was tempted to just make this whole post out of the letter V, but the game deserves an actual write-up. So, let’s talk about VVVVVV (Steam store link). A game I actually bought myself, almost 6 years ago, in November 2012. It appears I bought 17 games/bundles that day (...not entirely sure if that was intentional or not) and this is actually the only game of all of them I had left that I hadn’t touched at all yet.

VVVVVV is a fairly unique platformer. In stead of jumping, you flip upside down to the ceiling or back to the floor, creating an entirely different way of playing, and quite challenging. While dying is pretty much a given constant, there are save points pretty much after every single challenge, so trying over and over until you get it doesn’t feel like too much work. Some levels do require some very precise skills and can be really tricky.

Fin or Bin?

Now here’s the thing... The game can get really frustrating at a few spots where you know how to finish the level, but lack the precise controlling skills to actually do it, so you just keep on dying and dying and dying and... well rage-quitting, pretty much. There was one particular level that did this to me, and after that, I was totally ready to bin it.

But right when I was about to start writing this post, I decided I should give it one more try before definitely binning it. So I did. And I managed to get through that frustrating level in 5 more tries. And then I kept playing. And then I beat the game. Whoops.

Which gave me an achievement, which meant my completion percentage was suddenly at less than 10% but counting for my Steam average... And I have a personal rule that once I have an achievement in a game, I must get at least 10% of the achievements. Which meant I had to get at least one more achievement before I could put the game away. But I didn’t feel like beating the game again. And then I found out there was this “no dying” option. Which is totally not the way to play this game and I highly suggest not to do it until you’ve at least beaten the game the normal way (or gave up.) But for achievement hunting... I’m not feeling bad to have turned that on. So yeah. I beat the game again, in flipped mode, with 0 deaths thanks to that wacko option. And now I can put this game aside forever.

(roll of the dice)

Quern (Steam store link) is one of the few games I actually bought straight from the Steam store myself. Of course, it was during a Steam Sale. To be more precise: last winter’s sale, so not that long ago.

This one got my attention when checking out the queue on Steam. It has everything I want in a puzzle explorer game, and on top of that it starts with a Q. How could I possibly say no to this game? Even if the dice hadn’t rolled me this game to try out, I’m certain I would have played it soon.

In this game, you’re stranded on a world where time has stopped. And someone was here before you, who left letters explaining you what this world has to offer and to guide you through the places. As the story unfolds, it will come clear this person elaborately made the puzzles to slow you in your progress while at the same time to teach you about this place. It is a very interesting and well done tactic to implement story to puzzles and to give reason to why there are puzzles.

Fin or Bin?

The game suffers a bit from not always finding the one piece you need to continue on in the game, because you forgot to check that one place or didn’t notice there was something over there in that corner.

But other than that this game was interesting, challenging, and fun, and kept me playing and well... I finished it. 100% even, including the few secrets this game has to offer.

Game Complete #19: Skyrim

Game Complete #7: Hitman 3

(personal choice, as well as nominated by @snapdragonsoda)

A few weeks ago, Spike Chunsoft’s games were on sale on Steam. And since I liked what I had played of the Zero Escape series, and I had been curious about Danganronpa (Steam store link) for a while, I decided I might as well get it. I went ahead and also got the sequel, as it was even cheaper for each to get them together.

If you know me, visual novels aren’t exactly my thing. I would rather just watch an actual anime or read a book than “play” a game that isn’t a game. But occasionally I can enjoy a visual novel if it has enough game elements, and the Zero Escape series had some actual gameplay mixed in between the story elements, with the overall story of that series being pretty good and interesting. So I was expecting Danganronpa to be a similar mix of gameplay and story.

I was wrong. Oh boy was I wrong. This “game” has pretty much no true game elements at all. It CONSTANTLY tells you what to do next and most of the time doesn’t even give you an option to do anything else. The class trials add in a few “game” challenges but even here you basically just follow the story and if you make a mistake you just gotta keep trying until you pick the right thing.

Only once in the whole “game” was there a true choice between two options.

Fin or Bin?

And yet I finished it. But that was solely for two reasons: The overall story really is good, and I wanted to know how it would end. And CJ was heavily invested in it as well, so I wanted to finish it for her too.

But man, did I also hate it. I spent 36 hours to complete it, while it should have been done in 12 hours top. SO. MUCH. REPETITION. “Let’s have the same flashback 5 times.” “Let’s go over this one more time. And another time.” “Okay, we solved the thing, so we should now tell the whole thing again, because we need more filler.”

And the game feels like it assumes the player is the dumbest human on earth, holding the players hand through the whole game, thinking there’s no way the player could figure out things by themselves. I had solved and figured out 90% of each murder way way way before the game told me "go check this and check that and you gotta check that one thing first why are you going to the part that has the solution you cannot go there yet you gotta go through these 17 things first you idiot!”

It was tedious, frustrating, and boring. Many times I just wanted to stop and watch the anime instead. Which is apparently the exact same thing but much much faster. I really should have just watched the anime. But I had started it as the game, and I was committed to finish it.

...and now I unlocked an alternate mode where I can actually have conversations with all the other characters without the game constantly telling me “do this” and “do that,” getting some background information on all of them.