October 2020 Report!
This month was kind of crazy for me. I don’t typically add a bunch of games to my backlog, heck, in the past three months (excluding October.) I’ve only added two games, but this month, I actually added 8. Humble bundle is disappointing me lately, but Fanatical is on a roll! I bought Safe In Our World bundle twice (second time was for another copy of GRIS) and the Anime Tales bundle. I also completed two trades for Moonlighter and Everything!
I try to stay ahead of my intake, so this month was a bit hectic for me. I was only planning on finishing 3 games, I was going for a dragon theme, but I managed 10. I didn’t see anything off the Halloween Steam sale that I wanted enough to buy, but If you have any suggestions/recommendations, I would love to check it out.
I got tired of writing reviews, so while Everything and Hero of Many are complete, I opted not to add them down below because it’s already pretty long. I don’t recommend Everything because It lost any interest I had in it after 20 min of playtime. For Hero of Many, I actually finished it in 2016 but got 100% this month, and I do recommend it. It’s incredibly wholesome and enjoyable.
Elmarion: Dragon time
Elmarion: Dragon time, one of the few games you can be a dragon in, and there are many to pick from. Help or hurt humans as a Fire, Ice, Earth, or Electric dragon, each with their own unique perks and abilities. Go on quests, or just explore secrets and dungeons hidden throughout the maps. This world is yours!
Elmarion is a gem, an unpolished gem, but definitely a game worth checking out and playing, even during Early Access. Frequent updates, bug fixes, new maps and stuff added on, this is absolutely a labor of love. The worst part of this game is the first 10 - 20 minutes, getting used to the controls and flying. I am thrilled to announce this game has not given me motion sickness.
Dragon's Wake
Once, the world was ruled by dragons. Now, they are hunted until their last breath. In a sheltered cave one of the last remaining eggs tremble and hatch. This is their tale.
Dragon’s Wake is a unique 2D platformer that features no dialog. The decisions you make are important and a single playthrough can be done in an hour or two. Aside from the awesome fact you are an actual dragon, your character physically grows as it collects power ups, and is relatively easy to play and understand the controls.
However, it has a huge glaring flaw that I almost didn’t want to recommend this game, the save system. Most games feature a save system where you can save the game at anytime and re-visit the location later, Dragon’s Wake is autosave only and you have no warning when it saves. This can cause some difficulties if you do not top off your health bar frequently, as it is entirely possible to get stuck in a death-loop. As you cannot reload from another location, there is some understandable frustration at needing to restart the game. However, there was clearly a lot of work and love going into Dragon’s Wake and It is enjoyable if you are careful with your gameplay.
How to Take Off Your Mask
This story follows a baker named Lila! Her parents went missing long ago, and she only has her grandmother and childhood friend, Ronan, to look after her. When Lila goes to bed, she wakes up as a cat-human creature called a Luccretia! Can she hide this from her family and her friend? Luccretias are being exiled from the kingdom, will she be able to stay and find out the reason why?
While I did not enjoy How to Take Off Your Mask, I didn’t strongly hate it either. HTTOYM is very unremarkable, and both Lila and Ronan act like they are in a middle school bad romance. The plot had no real reason to exist, as the “bad guys” only purpose was to seemingly create friction between Lila and Ronan, and to lock them in a room together for “sexual tension.”
This whole VN was silly in an unfunny way, the “shocked” sound effect was overused and went off every 30 seconds or so, the mc got jealous of herself, and had plot twists you could see coming in chapter one. There is absolutely nothing to do with baking despite Lila being a baker, and I have no idea who was running the shop while her and Ronan were running around. I recommend skipping this one.
How To Date A Magical Girl!
Warning: Gore, dismemberment, blood, death, cursing, violence, 18+.
Upon awakening your own magical powers, you enter the Magical Girl Academy with your childhood friend Hikari! Meet Miyu, Kaori, Yui, and Rei! Your singular goal is to get a girlfriend before New Year’s Eve! Game start!
The longer you play How To Date A Magical Girl! You start to realize, “This isn’t about dating anymore, is it?” as it starts to get remarkably dark. Gore, dismemberment, bruises, disfigurement, and an extreme amount of violence with a rather unique ending. Although the management part of the game is rather difficult if you want to get all the girls affection percentages up in one playthrough, there is an incredible guide available if you want to do just that. One playthrough takes about 10 hours. Can you figure out who the killer is before your time is up?
Forgotten Trace: Thanatos in Nostalgia - Chapter 1 Complete Edition
Warning: vulgar language, blood, violence, nudity, death and suicide.
Forgotten Trace: Thanatos in Nostalgia was a rather big disappointment for me. While I’m sure it does have an interesting story, I genuinely do not know what it was.
What I do know, however, is that it’s poorly executed. The VN tries to be dark but the scenes last so long it was hard to hold any shock value, or any interest in the story besides “getting it over with.” The text is also incredibly slow, as you can read the same sentences five times before a new one appears on screen. I mean this literally. (Alternatively, spend the entire 7 – 10 hours clicking.)
Another thing that absolutely does not help, is how much of this story is dragged out. I can easily see this being three hours long, but too much extra text was added in to make it much longer than it should have been. “We kissed; I was embarrassed.” “The sensation of that woman’s lips.” “I can still feel the heat of her lips.” “The enchanting heat of that kiss.” “My body is getting all hot thinking about that kiss.” These are snippets of text that are one after another, after the opening scene. This is how the entire VN plays out.
A warning to achievement hunters, while it’s easy to 100%, it’s very tedious. You must replay the game from a certain point a guide explains this. and watch the ending a total of three times for three achievements. It’s also unskippable and 7 minutes long. That I timed. Total, 21 extra minutes.
TL;DR - If this review was too long you are going to hate this VN.
Magical Eyes - Red is for Anguish
In Magical Eyes - Red is for Anguish, The Disobeyers are a organization of people that protect their individual area from Variants. Variants are people who died leaving a fervent wish unfulfilled, or a material object that was so strongly influenced by emotions that it became supernatural. You play as Yuu, a member of The Disobeyers. Strange things are occurring and a stranger incident has happened in your area. Every day there seems to be a new body, gather the clues and find the killer!
Magical Eyes - Red is for Anguish can take anywhere from 8 to 11 hours to finish, and quite frankly I was very impressed by the music, characters, backgrounds, and the story. Definitely a murder mystery novel, but other than the occasional bloodstain, doesn’t depict any scenes of gore or violence. The only thing I would warn you about, is that this is part one of a two-episode VN. The second chapter is Magical Eyes – Blue Indigo Heaven. I spoke to a publisher in Fruitbat Factory about it and it was stated, “it hasn't been cancelled, but the circle doesn't seem to be active atm, so… stalled?” I would not expect part two anytime soon.
GRIS
GRIS, or “Grey”, is “Overwhelmingly Positive” and it’s easy to see why. Not only are the visuals breathtaking, so is the story. Despite having no dialog, GRIS easily manages to convey the story of a girl named Gris as she deals with tragedy and goes through the five stages of grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
This 2D exploration platformer is completely flawless, and it’s fun and easy to play. The music is enchanting, and the puzzles are simple and enjoyable, the entire game is gorgeous. Collecting all the mementos gets you an additional story piece and I highly recommend doing some extra puzzles to seek them out.
From my experiences playing GRIS, it’s definitely meant to be played in one run, which takes about 4 hours. Getting 100%, or every achievement, will take around 6. Overall, I cannot recommend this game enough, and even someone completely new to videogames will find themselves wanting to play again.
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Dear Esther is THE first Walking Simulator, and in an age where there are thousands of games to play, it holds up really well. Originally a Half-Life 2 mod, the developers sought to expand upon it due to its popularity, and after years of progress it was able and ready to be released as a fully-fledged game.
Dear Esther, despite its age, is still pretty unique. While it does leave a lot of the story up to the players imagination, every replay has different randomly generated items. Playing it once might leave you with some confusion about the story, playing it twice nets you new dialog and information as the narrator gets more unhinged, and re-playing it three times… Do it.
However, it does have a couple issues although it’s not game breaking. This game has achievements for finding all the voice overs and 4 urns. In my playthrough, one voice over for some reason was skipped and I got it in my second playthrough, and sometimes the Urns did not count. (When you touch them, the ashes scatter, which is the trigger for marking it as found. I had to do two, twice.)
I really, really enjoyed playing Dear Esther, although if you are not a patient person or interested in exploring, you probably won’t enjoy this. It’s pretty linear and the first playthrough took me an hour, and 45 min each afterwards. I recommend doing the directors commentary first.