Progress Report #2: February 2023
Played on Steam
Review: Hoooo-leeeeee moly. I mean, I knew Obra Dinn was gonna be good. Anyone who's played it will talk your ear off about how good it is. But I didn't expect it to be this good. The music, the ambience, the gameplay, the characters, the voice acting, the art style, the sheer attention to detail, that satisfying tune that plays when you get something right... I was utterly captivated from the very first moment of the game. It really is a masterpiece. I promise.
It's one of those games that everyone will annoyingly tell you, "Go in blind!!", but it's true. So all I'll say is that you're an insurance assessor for the East India Trading Company, and the Obra Dinn has floated back into port atfter being lost at sea for several years. Your job is to go onboard and assess the damages for insurance claims.
I played through the whole game together with my dad, and we had so much fun figuring everything out together. It's a great choice to play with a friend or loved one, especially someone who might not otherwise be interested in games. My only "complaint" about the game (and it wasn't really the game's fault), was that even after the final bit of info was revealed to us at the end, we were both like "uhhh....wtf just happened?", and it made the ending feel kind of underwhelming. And then I looked up a bunch of stuff and realized it felt that way because we didn't actually understand what was going on as well as we thought we did. That's what we get for guessing sometimes. Don't guess!! So you see, it's not really a flaw of the game. We're just a bunch of dummies XD (I kid...kind of.)
Lucas Pope is brilliant. Play this game!!!
Review: Hey, did you notice? I really like mystery games. And I'm really glad I picked this one up. I had been planning to wait for a deeper sale, but then the Mystery Fest rolled around (thank u Lord Gaben) and I wanted to treat myself, so I decided to grab Voodoo Detective. It truly is a hidden gem and a labor of love from a small indie studio.
Let's start with the art. The game is chock full of gorgeous, vibrant hand-drawn scenes. I was screen-shotting like a maniac. I'm a sucker for any games that highlight lesser-known countries and cultures. In this case, voodoo religion and the surrounding culture on a fictitious Caribbean island. We've got enough traditional high-fantasy RPGs inspired by medieval Europe; I love to see a new and unique setting. The game is also fully voice-acted, and the voices were good. The store page mentions that they used voice talent from prominent games and movies like Mass Effect and Star Trek. I can't say I recognized any voices, but they certainly did an excellent job of it.
I very much enjoyed the story and characters. You play as the titular Voodoo Detective, and in classic noir fashion, a lovely woman comes to your office asking you to take on her case. The game has a snarky style that pokes fun at common tropes in both low-brow detective novels and adventures games themselves. For example, when you put "fire" in your inventory, and the detective casually remarks something like, "I better use this before it burns a hole in my pocket!"
I would say the puzzles were not incredibly challenging. For a diehard point-and-click fan, they might be a disappointment. For me, who has very little faith in her ability to complete adventures games (Grim Fandango scarred me as a child), it was just perfect.
If you are looking for a refreshing comedy-adventure game that combines modern sensibilities with an old-school feel, and aren't too strict about your "dollar-to-hour" ratio in games, I recommend you give this one a look. It's lovely to spend an evening or two on Zo Wanga Isle.
Finished Games
As you can see, I went on a bit of a cat-game bender this month. I saw everyone else playing A Building Full of Cats, so then I wanted to play a Building Full of Cats. And then I wanted more, so I played the rest of the Devcats games (Sudocats will be in my March report), and then I played Hidden Office, which turned out to be only tenuously related to cats, but was still pretty fun. I also played a unique little puzzle game called Otteretto; basically, you have a tetris-like grid of squares and try to make the longest possible chain that is a palindrome (same both forwards and backwards). After many years, I finally completed 100% achievements in Plantera (just in time for the sequel to come out?), and I also re-100%'ed Vampire Survivors (and now a new DLC has already been announced, damn u poncle!)
Of the Devcats games, I think my favorite would have to be Castle. It had the same fun hidden object gameplay as Building, but also expanded on it and added a bit of a story, which really upped the charm factor and made it stand out from the others. Plus, the art was gorgeous. Zodiacats, while quite different and also rather easy, was still really enjoyable—again, mostly because of the beautiful art. If any one of them appeals to you, I'd recommend just getting the whole dang bundle, as they are all worth a try. I'm excited for their next game!
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A Building Full of Cats
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A Castle Full of Cats
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Zodiacats
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Hidden Office
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Plantera
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Vampire Survivors
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Otteretto
Unfinished Games
Looking back at the games I played this month, I'm honestly not even sure how I had time for all of this?? I certainly put a lot of hours into quite a few substantial games in February. Time to have an existential crisis about how I spend my days...
ANYWAY, I intend to post more complete reviews for these games once I finish them (I swear I will finish them!), so I'll just mention them briefly here:
Neon White: I wasn't too sure about the parkour-platforming-speedrunning style of gameplay, but when I found out it is mixed with VN elements I decided to give it a go (in no small part because the visuals heavily remind me of Paradise Killer, so it was bound to catch my eye). Overall, the parkour aspect is relatively forgiving, in that you don't need to get the best possible times to proceed. But the perfectionist in me got a little too caught up with trying to get gold/platinum on all levels and I think it started to make me go a tiny bit insane, lmao. Those 15 hours I played were all over the course of one weekend and then I abruptly dropped it because the rapid level-repetition was getting to me! I definitely intend to pick it up again later, as the story was just starting to unfold. But it will suck to have to re-learn the moves.
APICO: A beekeeping management-sim that gets fairly detailed in terms of cross-breeding to obtain desired genetic traits or produce new species, synergies between bees/butterflies and different flower species, solitary vs. social bees, and the nitty-gritty of how you actually obtain produce from human-made beehives. It may appeal to a pretty niche audience, but I absolutely love it! I binged it hard for the first half of February and even started drawing out floorplans by hand for expanding my in-game home to have dedicated "bee house" and "butterfly house" areas. I think I was getting somewhat close to the end-game, but decided to put it on hold when I found out the dev is planning two more significant content updates before calling it done! I'd rather wait till the next update comes out so there's some new stuff to do while I work on finishing my bee-/butterfly-/flowerpedias.
Eastward: This is another game I started playing on a bit of a whim and got totally sucked in. The pixel art is breathtaking and the dialogue is very clever. The story is weird, and I'm not quite sure yet where it's going, but I like it. From what I can tell, having not yet played Earthbound myself, it is very heavily inspired by Earthbound. It also reminds me a bit of CrossCode, but really just in a "general vibes that make you feel giddy to be alive" kind of way and not because of any similar gameplay systems. There is light combat, puzzle-solving, and dungeon traversal, but it leans much more heavily on story, visual treats, and heartfelt character interactions to win you over. The cooking minigame is also *chef's kiss* (see what I did there).
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Neon White
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APICO
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Eastward
Progress Report #3: March 2023
Review: Another game that absolutely deserves the glowing praise heaped upon it. After finishing Obra Dinn, my dad and I were eager to do more more sleuthing, so I suggested we play The Case of the Golden Idol next. Many people compare it to Obra Dinn, saying it's the most similar game they've found. That's true in that your investigative work consists of filling in blanks in a "Mad Libs" or "Clue"-like manner, and in that the game is also very clever and well-done, but I'd say the similarities mostly end there.
Of course, Golden Idol has its own unique story, and it's rather more "lighthearted" than what goes on in Obra Dinn. For me, the weirdly ugly artstyle was absolutely part of its charm. You start off solving cases that, at first, seem somewhat disparate, but it's not long before you begin to see the common threads running through them, and you can piece together the overarching backstory as you go. The way everything revealed itself to fit together in the end was immensely satisfying and entertaining, and there was even a straightforward little epilogue chapter to help us dummies tie up some loose ends (something that Obra Dinn was far too "cerebral" to have, lol).
Solving the mysteries in Golden Idol is made a bit easier by the fact that you typically have the context of a full paragraph to help you figure out what's happening, and you just have to determine which key words to put in the blanks. Not to say there's no challenge! Simply that it does help you to orient yourself with regard to what's happening. If you are looking to relive the thrill of Obra Dinn but also have a more casual and less emotionally-draining experience, this is the game for you! Or, screw the Obra Dinn comparison, it's just a great game in its own right and is most certainly worth your time!
Review: Well, well, well...what can I even say about Higurashi When They Cry? I certainly played a lot of spoilerific games these last two months, so it's hard to write much about them XD
I had stumbled across the Higurashi series on Steam a long time ago, but I don't think I even realized what they were really about, and just assumed I wasn't interested. The store page blurb is super vague, after all. Near the end of March, I went down a bit of a "spooky/paranormal/psychological horror VN" rabbit hole, because I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy Paranormasight. In the last couple years I've grown a lot braver when it comes to spooky stuff! I used to be the world's biggest scaredy-cat, but I guess I'm not anymore? Feels weird.
At the same time, I happened to see several people mention Higurashi on BLAEO, including a comment from Stef saying "the series messed me up (in a good way)" and now my interest was really piqued. I mean, it was fate, right? So I timidly decided to try reading the first chapter (it's free!).
Oh, MAN!! That first chapter was crazy. I wasn't really sure what to expect, since everyone's perception of "horror" is so different and subjective. I went in expecting something mind-rendingly horrific and disturbing, and I think my expectations were so over-the-top that it ultimately felt a little tame in the end compared to whatever I was bracing myself for. BUT, what this story really does, is it gets in your mind. It makes you start questioning reality along with the protagonist. I now feel I really know the true meaning of "psychological horror." (Or do I, I wonder... I wonder?)
Anyway, it was really good, and I immediately bought all 8 other chapters in the spring sale. So I'm looking foward to slowly losing my mind :-)
Finished Games
I played through a somewhat random smattering of other games during the month. I don't have much in particular to say about them, just that it felt really great to get so many completions! Capybara Spa is a nice mindless game to play while watching/listening to something in the background. I previously played Hero of the Kingdom III, so HotK1 was my second experience in the series. If you like them, you like them. It doesn't really make sense to me why they are so engrossing, lol. My hankering for hidden cats cannot be sated, so I bought a bunch more of those games in the spring sale on Steam. Nothing too exciting here :-)
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Tiny Lands
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Hero of the Kingdom
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Sudocats
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Capybara Spa
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Hidden Cats in London
Unfinished Games
I also recently made a list of "games to finish," i.e. those that I previously made significant progress in and would like to "clean up." So I worked on a few of those this month, including Darkside Detective and Daylife in Japan. I got momentarily re-addicted to some clicker games, like Harvest Seasons and Cookie Clicker (they'll be back), and finally, I devoted significant time to Cozy Grove and Patch Quest, which are both from my "2023 Games To Play" list. They are delightful and will certainly be featured in my monthly progress report once I finish them!
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Cozy Grove
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Patch Quest
14.5 hours playtime
no achievements
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Basements n' Basilisks: Storms of Sorcery
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Bear's Restaurant
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PomoFarm
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Daylife in Japan - Animated Jigsaw Puzzle Series
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Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.2 Watanagashi
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The Darkside Detective
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Harvest Seasons
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Cookie Clicker
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10,000,000
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Clutter 1000
1.2 hours playtime
no achievements
btw, Patch Quest does have achievements (I'm at 4/24)
Closure of the 3DS & WiiU eShops
In my year-in-review post, I wrote about last summer's handheld/retro game-collecting spree. I managed to track down physical copies of most of the games I wanted at that time, but there were still some I wanted to get digitally. And so, my last week of March before the 3DS and WiiU eShops shut down was spent in a frenzy of reading "must play" articles and paring down the list of games to buy until I had something I could actually afford XD
I was able to get a lot of great games that I will play...Someday!TM Including Virtual Console games on the WiiU (Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, Super Mario RPG, Harvest Moon N64, Pokemon Snap, and so on), as well as 3DS games that are too expensive to buy physically (like Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright or Yokai Watch 3) and some that are digital-only (Pushmo, Attack of the Friday Monsters, The Denpa Men, etc). I'll admit I'm a little nervous that it might be difficult for me to get invested in some of these older games, since I don't have nostalgia for them. But I'm still happy to have them as part of my collection, and to know I have the option to try them out when the right mood strikes.
With that, I just wanted to give a little shoutout to the old faithful eShops—I may not have grown up with them, but they certainly made this last year an exciting time for me, and I'm sad to see them go. I'll miss collecting badges with the Arcade Bunny and listening to the store music that starts off catchy but slowly makes you go insane. Farewell, little shopping bag dude. May we meet again someday!
The Backlog Grows...
Taking inspiration from EvilBlackSheep's post format, I wanted to highlight some of the new additions to my library that I'm most excited about! February was a great bundle month, plus there was the Mystery Fest on Steam, and March was the Spring Sale, so........my backlog grew quite a bit (it's fine, everything is fine).
Most Exciting Additions
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Technobabylon
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Garden Paws
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Sucker for Love
0 hours playtime
no achievements
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Heartbound
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Nine Witches: Family Disruption
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Frail Hearts: Versicorae Domlion
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AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES - nirvanA Initiative
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Beyond a Steel Sky
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Voodoo Detective
7.1 hours playtime
no achievements
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Hermitage: Strange Case Files
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Teacup
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Flynn: Son of Crimson
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Lighthouse Keeper
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Cris Tales
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Meg's Monster
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Orangeblood
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BIOMUTANT
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Research Story
0 hours playtime
no achievements
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Voltaire - The Vegan Vampire
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PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
0 hours playtime
no achievements
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Batora: Lost Haven
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Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.1 Onikakushi
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Weirdlands
0 hours playtime
no achievements
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Little Witch in the Woods
0 hours playtime
no achievements
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Veil of Dust: A Homesteading Game
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Backpack Hero
0 hours playtime
no achievements
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Timewreck Tales
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DAVE THE DIVER
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Coromon
25.5 hours playtime
no achievements
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The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
0 hours playtime
no achievements
PS COROMON DOES HAVE ACHIEVEMENTS!!! what da heck
these older games
…you’re only referring to the Virtual Console games, not the 3DS exclusives, right?
…right?
Either way, a game’s age should make no difference on whether or not it’s good. If you don’t like a game, it’s because your tastes are different than the people who wrote those articles. In fact, when The Denpa Men was relatively new, I remember hearing that it was pretty barebones as far as gameplay is concerned, so I’m kinda surprised it apparently made it on someone’s “must play” list.
the store music
Sounds like you’re implying there was only one 3DS E-shop theme, but there were actually several over the years. My favorites are the December 2013 theme and the May 2016 theme.
TOO MANY ＣＡＴＳ！
Can’t wait to see your review on Coromon next month :P
If I’ve finished it by then! haha. So many coromons to collect XD
Play all the Cats \o/ Congrats on your progress! And great list of interesting additions too ;)
I’m really curious about Apico, everytime i see its pretty banner I think i should look into it then I forget.
I’m pretty scared about your Eastward playtime and you not being done with it, cuz it’s on my currently playing pool (but i only had time for 5min and then got distracted by a few stuff i had to play before). I’m excited about it though, and your review make me even more impatient.
Lol, don’t be scared! I don’t really know why it’s taking me so long, probably because NPCs often have something new to say after certain events happen, so I’ve spent a lot of time wandering around talking to people over and over to get the new dialogue (and I’d say it’s worth it, if you have the patience to do so). There is also a game-within-the-game that is like a fully-playable retro Zelda-ish(?) kind of thing, and I spent quite a bit of time playing that because I think there are some hidden achievements related to it, and I started getting anxious about missing achievements that I would have to replay the whole game to get. So I’m being a bit silly about it. I’m pretty sure there will be a chapter select you can go back to after finishing the game. There are also a handful of mini-games that you can spend significant time on if you want to. It’s really a beautiful game and I think you’ll love if you go in with the right expecations (e.g., knowing combat is simple and not the main focus, kinda the same with puzzles).
I highly recommend playing Apico, it’s made by the sort of devs that certainly deserve the support and exposure imo. It has such an unusual and creative premise.
PS - All drop-down reviews are spoiler-free!! So I hope people do read them haha :D
You know what they say about having fun :P
Can’t have enough cats x) I’ll be playing the games from that cat game bundle as well… They’re just so quick (love HoG and seek and find style games), so I’m biding my time. I have Apico on PS5! I played a bit and it’s charming. You can tell a lot of love went into it.
Speaking of love… You should play Dave the Diver!!
Wow, that’s awesome they got Apico on PS5 as well! The dev team (2 people, I believe) is also working on a few other games at the moment, I’m excited to see what else they come out with :-)
Dave the Diver is definitely coming up soon!! :D