ABC Plan Update #1

The cute and heartwarming story of a shut-in’s quest to make friends. It’s essentially a visual novel with a bit of adventure mixed in. It feels very high quality for its price, with great art and music and a smooth translation. I really enjoyed the writing, and there are some nice gameplay elements as well.

The game is split across several acts, each starting with a main story portion. In these linear segments the protagonist talks to NPCs and collects conversation topics. At key moments, there’s a conversation system in which you must use the right topic at the right point in the dialogue. I found it worked pretty well once I understood the game’s logic.

After comes a free roam portion in which the goal is to revisit previous areas and attempt to befriend NPCs by giving them gifts. This part of the game can get a bit grindy, as the money to buy gifts is obtained by repeatedly playing minigames. Fortunately there’s an easy way ingame to gain infinite money. Some of the friends’ stories are more interesting than others, but it’s worthwhile to befriend them all to unlock a special epilogue.

My only issue with the game is that it runs at a low resolution, and enlarging it results in some pixelization.

I was drawn to this game by the nicely animated battle sprites and a number of unique features not commonly seen in RPG Maker style games. In dungeons, enemies are represented as dark shadows on the field and touching one leads to a turn-based encounter. Turn order is based on speed, and is made very important due to a combo system. Hitting an enemy between its turns racks up combo hits that do progressively more damage. Certain skills are able to break the combo in exchange for dealing massive damage based on the number of accumulated hits. Factor in a stun meter that can be filled to make an enemy lose a turn or two, and there’s a fair amount of strategy involved. There’s also a skill point system that has a significant effect on how the characters operate during battle.

I was disappointed to find that these features don’t really matter, because the game is too easy overall. By fully exploring the dungeons I was quickly overleveled and never faced any risk of dying. The lategame bosses had no special mechanics and didn’t pose a challenge; they just had tons of hp. I did find the battles to be decently fast-paced and fun in the beginning, but the low difficulty eventually made them boring.

My main issue with Arelite Core was its weak storytelling. The plot is generic and there’s barely any lore to develop the setting (which is actually quite unique). I found the characters to be pretty one-note, especially the villains. They go through some dramatic ordeals during their quest, but I didn’t feel much incentive to care.

I don’t think the game’s quality justifies its price tag. Outside of the battle sprites it’s a mixed bag visually. The tilesets are pretty bland and one in particular is reused in at least five dungeons. The character portraits lack expression and the writing is grammatically questionable. There are no side quests and it took me about 16 hours to complete the story while exploring as much as possible.

I had a lot of fun with this game. The combat feels responsive and impactful, and the environments are a joy to explore. I appreciate games like this which actually reward exploration. I did find that the game dragged a bit toward the end, due to repetitive encounters and a number of guns/vigors that felt samey. Plus the upgrading system encouraged me to focus on only a couple of each, so gaining a new vigor quickly lost its excitement.

The story does a good job of building intrigue but a slew of plot conveniences and bland antagonists soured the experience a bit. I managed to miss quite a few voxophones despite seemingly exploring every inch of the maps, but the story wasn’t too hard to piece together.

The Burial at Sea DLCs were a refreshing change of pace with their more suspenseful setting. A higher emphasis on stealth makes enemy encounters feel more meaningful. The vigors and weapons, especially in the second chapter, feel more diverse and I used a wider variety of them. I’ll have to get around to playing the first two Bioshock games one of these days.

This puzzle platformer bases itself around a simple mechanic—balancing light and dark energy. Each has its own effect; light energy allows for higher vertical jumping while dark increases movement speed and horizontal jump distance. The balance of these elements is changed by interacting with a variety of environmental hazards, and absorbing too much of either type results in instant death. The main character must platform her way through a series of power plants while solving simple puzzles. Add in a unique setting and a strong emphasis on story, and Even the Ocean made a good first impression on me.

As it turns out, the game doesn’t handle any of its components all that well. The special attributes of light/dark energy are used in only a handful of puzzles. The focus is instead placed on standard platforming while keeping the energies balanced to avoid death. Platforming is easy and each stage has its own little gimmick, but I was expecting a little more out of the game’s unique setup.

The plot is generic until it suddenly throws in some heavy religious overtones. I thought they were handled poorly, and some heavy moralizing toward the end didn’t help. There’s an option to skip the plot entirely and just speedrun through the platforming segments, but I’m not sure the gameplay is good enough on its own to warrant a purchase.

Fumiko! follows the journey of the titular A.I. in a quest to determine her purpose. She’s equipped with some impressive mobility, and has some of the highest jumps I’ve seen in a platformer. The jumps are intentionally floaty, but I never found them unfair. As someone who rarely plays 3D platformers, I thought the game offered a good challenge.

There’s a compelling narrative and an immersive atmosphere, despite the low-poly world. Environments range from serene to broken and chaotic and the music fits the mood. It’s possible to rush through the story, but exploration is rewarded. Memory fragments are scattered throughout the zones and serve to provide more insight into the story. Many of them can only be obtained through careful platforming. Collecting them all was one of my favourite parts, and the game helpfully displays how many are remaining in each zone.

The developer has made a demo available; if you like it you should enjoy the rest of the game.

This really plays more like a visual novel than an adventure game. Controlling the protagonists is limited to choosing dialogue options and sometimes solving a simple puzzle. The game’s unique aspect is that it’s set up as a stage play, with moving set pieces and the occasional audience reaction. It keeps things visually interesting, but I would have preferred a traditional point-and-click where I could interact with things in the environment.

I never became interested in the story. The underlying mystery didn’t appeal to me, and the characters weren’t strong enough to make up for that. I’m not sure how much the choices matter, and I don’t intend to find out. My opinions aside, Knee Deep also comes with quite a few audio and visual bugs. I did like some of the music at least.

The story is set during a tumultuous time in Indonesia’s history, but it’s let down by a shoddy translation which goes beyond awkward grammar. There are typos galore, repeated lines of dialogue, and a few lines of text that trail off the screen. I didn’t mind the writing so much in the beginning, but it became particularly amateurish during the more dramatic moments.

There’s also a lot of verbose philosophizing about the nature of god and humanity. It’s within character for the adult protagonist, but not so much for a preteen child. I would have preferred more of a focus on character development or having choices that matter. I should note that the story ends on a cliffhanger, and the second episode is yet to be announced.

The art and voice acting are competent, but I don’t think Mayjasmine has many other redeeming qualities.