Recent reviews by Tenshioki

I will revise my review as I complete this game, but I wanted to share my impressions at my current playtime, while addressing some common thoughts in the other reviews.

To begin with, this game absolutely knows who you are. Ushikoshi and Kodaka (The writers of Zero Escape and Danganronpa respectively, for those who don't know) are absolutely lampooning the audience with relentless banter, callbacks, and referential self-deprecating humor. Those not extremely intimate with Danganronpa and/or the Nonary Games will likely find these references corny at the best and off-putting at the worst. They're not the subjects or audience for the joke, so it makes sense to refer to the constant meta within the game as shoddy translation work.

However, I can assure you that all the back in the original Danganronpa game there was constant meta jokes and cultural references throughout the story, with Monokuma being the main zinger-machine. In 2, they up the ante by having Monokuma and Monomi play out two-man (Manzai) comedy routines every chapter. Meta jokes and references are part of the skeletal structure of making the characters both feel like sock puppets doing weird routines for your amusement without compromising their individuality. This is a delicate balance to strike, and it may fall flat for many. However, I think the balancing act of grim and goofy is a part of the uniqueness of Kodaka and Uchikoshi's writing, and I think the writing is worth a little consideration just for that alone.

Last Defense Academy is at its heart a game for the weird mix of enthusiasts that like its crazed creators. It is unapologetically itself, and doesn't care to branch out to suit a massive market. These characters are intended to play with your expectations and to create unpredictable actions and enhance the mystery they inhabit. They are intrinsically linked with the atmosphere of surrealism Kodaka and Uchikoshi are creating. It is a weird, weird atmosphere filled to the brim with itself. But isn't there something wonderful about that?

Just play it. Just
JUST PLAY IT.
DO IT.
PLAY THE GAME.
TRUST ME. IF YOU PLAY NO OTHER GAMES
PLAY THIS ONE

ONE DAY I WILL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE.
Every time thoughts popped into my head about playing Disco Elysium, I honestly would get worried. Because every time I opened the game and returned to the side of our grizzled mutton-chopped protagonist I felt the very nature of the game oozing onto me like a blob and pulling my helpless body into its disgusting mass of superb writing and brilliant atmospheric worldbuilding.

The game begins with typical adventure game stuff, a classic setup. You wake up so hung over that the whole of your mind and memories shattered like so many mishandled tea cups and the lizard inside your head telling you everything is ♥♥♥♥♥♥, you especially. After you emerge, bleary-eyed and dressed like a 70's hobo blessed by patron saint of alcoholics, you encounter your partner, Kim Kitsuragi, whom you are supposed to be solving a murder with. From there, near the entirety of the game including the vast majority of your character's personality is entirely at your discretion. As tends to be the case with RPGs, you will find some commonalities between your drunk ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cop and the core drunk ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cop, but its the little things that make him YOUR protag as opposed to anyone else's. Disco Elysium has a brilliant ability to tell a story with the smallest of details, to impress the hugeness of its world and the complexity of its history on you just with something as simple as a bubblegum wrapper or the mutterings of a demented ginger.

And that, baby, is what plays into Disco Elysium's strongest point, and something I personally find very integral to games like this: ATMOSPHERE. If I were to write a guide for making a good mystery game, the three most important words would be Atmosphere, Atmosphere, Atmosphere. Disco Elysium drenches you in vivid imagery and bookshelves of lore so easy to miss, but just as easy to understand simply by walking around and looking at ♥♥♥♥. Yeah, you can read the walls of text from the union rep or the racist cab drivers that give you the low-down, or you can just look at the craters and drink in the way people talk and what they care about and figure it out. The music bugles and drums, announcing key moments, but mostly you're just left with the gentle sound of the sea and the quiet din of a world slowly knitting itself back together after a tidal wave of violence and bloodshed. You, a detective, detect the world around you and figure it out yourself without the game having to give you an objective marker. That's subtle storytelling at its absolute finest, and that brings me to Disco Elysium's second strongest point: layering. The game has a "core mystery" of sorts and a common thread of the murder that ties tons of other tangentially related subplots and character stories together, but the detailed world allows you to solve the game's mystery in so many different ways and with so many different skills that no matter what you decide or what you began with you always have the means to keep soldiering on.

That, in itself, communicates another theme of the game, that the world itself is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ beyond belief but we must find the strength to keep on until we keel over. So many things are wrapped up in this game about drug-addled mystery solving and two cops just trying to do their best, I haven't even mentioned the unique and well-realized mechanic of your actual personality points and traits talking to you and giving you advice, some of which is good and some of which is bad and it's up to you to figure out what you want to trust and what compromises you're willing to make. I cannot possibly recommend this game enough to people who value storytelling in video games or real actual choices in your RPGs. I actually cannot think of any serious problems the game has, I had fun with it the whole way through and found myself craving more.

TL;DR
Pros:
• Stellar writing, funny and self-aware with a touch of sadness to keep it relatable
• Simple plot that stands out by being beautifully told and subtly indicative of the big picture
• Outstanding, memorable characters with deep nuance that makes even real ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ feel realistic and even empathetic
• Classic and well-executed buddy cop dynamic that adds to the genre in meaningful ways
• Funny as actual ♥♥♥♥, I cannot count the amount of times protag's brain said something and I laughed my ass off
• Unique mechanic of inner dialogue and leveling up "thoughts" keep the game fresh and push you to do more
• Fantastic soundtrack that knows when to keep it up and knows when to shut up and let the atmosphere do the talking
• Absolute 11/10 atmosphere, everywhere is drowning in lore and thematic elements that further the game's story
• Good mystery that feels satisfying right up to the end, and the twist added something meaningful while not cheapening the plot by being the only emotional tool the story has
• Touching and relevant themes that provoke good discussions and ideas
• You don't need a guide to do the game properly or get a decent ending
Cons:
• RNG does make the experience more thrilling and replayable, but it also feels a bit cheap when you lose out on a mystery just because of a bad roll, and save scumming defeats a lot of the game's purpose
• Sometimes it's really hard to tell what thoughts or clothes need for the next bit, and again without save scumming you might end up having the wrong bonuses equipped for an encounter and feel cheated out of a better ending
• Seriously, that's all I could think of. And those flaws are arguable. This game is great. Buy it. BUY IT.
OVERALL RATING: 10/10

OK, so, this review is going to be quick first impressions of the port, since talking about the game will require much more time. I'm playing this game on Windows 8.1.

For those PC fans expecting the Vita game lazily transferred (as is unfortunately often the case), I have very good news.

This IS an actual port, and a competently-executed one. It has:

-Fixed resolution and very well-done spritework
-60 FPS
-Controller AND keyboard support with clear work put into both
-Acceptable size (16 GB of space on your HDD, 8.8 in the install)
-Windowed, Fullscreen, Borderless Windowed/Fullscreen Support
-The ability to turn Vsync off (a personal big plus for me)
-Other useful graphical settings such as rendering scale, Anti Aliasing, and quality control to make it run easier
-English and Japanese voices without DLC

It also has the old TV listings, with more on the way.

For 20$ and no big fanfare, this is quite the positive development. Quick section of the review about the game itself now:

I personally consider it to be among the most influential and well-told JRPGs out there, and even though Persona 5 kind of stole the show and everyone's hearts (no pun intended) with its incredibly polished gameplay and atmosphere, Persona 4 has its own merits and things it does above even that a hallmark title like P5, such as its immersive and beautifully paced story, as well as its stellar atmosphere and gameplay that still holds up as a standout for typical-style JRPG turn-based combat.

TL;DR: Absolutely fantastic and worth your time. ATLUS showing us the gold standard for porting your games to PC.

It's an mmo you can feel good about supporting. Squeenix has its problems, but Yoshi-P does his best.

I'm not exactly an avid fan of the survival genre, and pretty much only found enjoyment in minecraft and a few other of the very basics. The Long Dark promised a more story-driven experience, which piqued my interests enough to give it a try.

It did not disappoint. When I crawled my way out of that first crash site, cold and nearly dead, I found myself drawn in bit by bit by the competent mechanics and the story that just began to peak a hesitant eye out between the blizzards and the wilderness. This game doesn't hit you over the head with exposition, and the setting and plot only barely comes into focus as you wander across the desolate, frigid wastes. This game knows how to pace itself and gives you juuuust enough to keep you struggling forward, even though when you've been mauled by the fifth wolf that day sometimes you just wanna hide in a cave and cry forever. The developers have a great understanding of subtlety, and a good bit of the story is told in the smallest of details. The atmosphere is where this game really shines; the landscape though simple and indicative of its Unity origins is very absorbing and oppressive, and feeds the genuine feeling of quiet dread that manifests itself as you slowly get hungrier, thirstier, and more tired, wondering if you have enough food and kindling to last the night. It says something when I'm more terrified of a garden-variety canine with anger issues than any shambling monstrosity in the last four horror games I played.

The survival mechanics aren't perfect, as many of the other reviews lay out quite cleanly. Sprinting is punishing and the world can be very unfair. I can't count the amount of times I thought the two-foot drop was safe enough only to found I had now broken both my legs, as apparently people of this timeline have knees made out of balsa wood. But the difficulty only makes scavenging and success that much sweeter, and overall I wouldn't call my minor quips with it anything that's anywhere near a dealbreaker. Even if a good survival game is all you're interested in, the gameplay here isn't just something to do while you let it tell its story, it's a tool both to communicate the theme and a way to impress the true isolation and unyielding harshness of this crippled world.

The story itself is a mystery that leaves some to the imagination without being lazy, giving you enough about the background while understanding that the most horrifying ideas are stuffed in our overactive imaginations. I found myself feeling for Will, and I grew to like him more and more as I played. His struggles and motivations are grounded and sympathetic, and the contrast between his realistic approach to helping others contrasts well with the hellbent selflessness of the person he's chasing, and the juxtapostion between their outlooks informs a lot about what may have soured their relationship. (At the risk of sounding floofy, it also serves as a competent metaphor for what may have gone wrong with this world in the first place.)

TL;DR:

Pros:
• Great story with great execution, told bit by bit and keeps you pressing on to find out what happens next
• Fantastic atmosphere, powreful sense of awe and fear
• Complex mechanics that feel realistic, but not enough to negatively impact gameplay (mostly)
• Very organic, and learning and painstaking experience is the most important tool to survive
• Responsive dev team
• Good, nuanced characters
• Dynamic difficulty with multiple settings to tailor the game to basically anyone
• Progression and pacing are near-perfect
• Immersive, you feel fear, sadness, panic, isolation when the game wants you to
• Clever visual style, remarkably detailed considering its engine
• Solid soundtrack, nothing superb but good (except for the Episode 2 intro, that ♥♥♥♥ is rad)
• Satisfying and addictive due to the immensity of the game's challenges

Cons
• Very unfair sprinting system that punishes you for urgency, even when the game itself forces you to be quick
• Fire effects aren't very good, even considering it's Unity, especially torches
• You can't fall from anywhere remotely high without hurting yourself BADLY, and the lack of ability to jump or climb anything that's not a cutscene makes this even worse
• Fatigue as a whole could use some serious retooling, and the amount of calories burned in your sleep doesn't make a lot of sense

OVERALL: The Long Dark is a harrowing and grim experience that put me in a fantastic mood, and there is a genuine quality and love that seeps through every crack it has. For all of its flaws, I can't recommend it enough.

9.8/10, I loved it.

In this game, Phoenix Wright attempts to defend in court a being intending to consume the earth like an oversized grape.

10/10

Being real though, when it comes to fighting games, I think it's difficult to measure exactly what makes one "good" or "bad". Enjoyment of fighters is based heavily in preference and what one personally wants out of a game, so I'm going to tell you what I got out of it and try and break it down as best I can.

First off, the character roster is diverse and interesting, and I think most people could find a team of three to have fun with. I'm not a sizable fan of Marvel characters, but there's enough of a variety of them and they play differently enough that they may grow on you. The Capcom characters are where I personally believe most of the fun mains are to be had, however. A lot of them have very interesting and unique mechanics and tend to be very true representations of their source games.

Additionally, if you're the sort to play arguably bad characters (like me) you'll be pleased to note that the ability to switch and to craft a team to support your questionable decisions in mains, and generally if you play well enough you'll not be left wanting. That's the real strength of this game, I feel; the ability to make anything and anyone work reliably through clever team play and combo-crafting.

There's also a very real ability to retaliate and do crazy comebacks, even at a massive disadvantage. This trait may sell people who enjoy high-octane, anyone's-game style of fighters like Melty Blood, Blazblue and Guilty Gear, and scare people away who prefer methodical, more advantage-pressing games like Soul Calibur or arguably Tekken.

The game has a great soundtrack and a nice visual style that's aged well; it hasn't lost much in the years since its release. The modes are interesting and you start out with all the characters which is always a plus in my book, since plenty of people have no interest in the story mode and simply want to play with their friends.

TL;DR

Pros: Good design, diverse cast, possible to make anything/anyone work, technically complex but not impossibly daunting to learn for newbies, good soundtrack, good voice acting, start with every character unlocked.

Cons: Repetitive and basically nonexistant "story" mode. Very complicated and difficult to get into if you're not experienced in other 2d fighters.

Pro/Con: Fast, Lots of Capcom/Marvel characters, comebacks are always possible, high-octane and aggressive.


Overall Rating: 9.1/10

An incredibly intuitive and fun FPS experience that oozes goofiness and personality. The simple visuals and straightforward gameplay remind me a lot of Halo 2 multiplayer in a very good way. And, hey, Free!

My review for Pathologic may change a bit upon replay. I've presently played through the bachelor and partially the haruspex, and changeling.

OVERALL: Pathologic has a narrative and flow that matches the town it takes place in - bewildering, foggy, and bathed in intrigue and personality. Lovers of adventure-style mystery games and the macarbe (things like the cat lady, fatal frame, silent hill, haunting ground) will be glued to the edge of their respective seats at the story's dangling threads. I was especially fond of the atmosphere, substantiated by the solidly grim visuals and the excellent soundtrack. The ending was the game's only true flaw, a flat conclusion that doesn't really change enough based on your character's perspective, as (without wishing to spoil) it doesn't really matter who you are as long as you make certain decisions the days previous.

PROS:

• Solid writing all the way through, dialogue being engaging and rather educational on the culture of the Steppe and Russia as a whole.
• A developed, unique, and nuanced cast of characters, all with their own traits and complex system of morality that distances itself from the polarizing ethics of most games.
• Stellar atmosphere, as I said before. The visuals, characters, story, and music all culminate thematically to create a very sordid and fantastical tone the story thrives on.
• DECENT gameplay with a caveat: The combat is awkward as ♥♥♥♥ and often very unfair, but this is appropriate for the characters we control, and serves the tone of the game.
• Choices have genuine, obvious effect on the progression of the story, and your understanding and completion of the events is very organic and self-reliant, creating a very satisfying feeling when you do the day just right.
• Amazing music, seriously.
• Playthroughs are all very different, and the game has obvious replay value.

CONS:

•Moving through the overworld is debilitatingly slow, and the game adds insult to injury by giving you a time limit in which all the days events MUST be completed within. The game is supposed to be hectic, but I believe mobility could have been a bit kinder.
•As stated above, the ending is very disappointing. The game's mysteries are inefficiently explored and in the end it all amounts to the same three outcomes no matter what the broad variety of choices made prior.
•The gunplay is awkward, and though it is mostly avoidable there are certain unavoidable encounters that are teeth-shatteringly obnoxius, particularly one late in the game where you are forced to shoot through a literal crowd of armed soldiers who kill you in little more than a single shot.
•Getting the day's events done even remotely correctly is impossible without a guide or repeat playthroughs.

FINAL SCORE 9.1/10, very worth playing.

Grisly, low-fantasy left 4 dead with fire and rat people. Definitely worthwhile.