Report 48: Mishmash
Yet to play a bad game this year.
This is a game that’s really hard to define by genre. You’re supposed to spy on your apartment complex’ residents and write reports about them - you know, the usual antiutopian/totalitarian stuff. It also has strong resource management elements, communicating with your residents, sneaking inside their apartments for various reasons… While the game was clearly inspired by Papers Please in some ways (there is a quite obvious reference to it near the end), this is a very different kind of game.
It’s somewhat harsh with the resource management stuff. You’ll never be able to get the better ending while playing it for the first time. But it’s really interesting to play either way, since most of the obstacles this game provides can be overcome in different ways. While you’re supposed to take care of your family to get the best ending possible, losing your family members isn’t punishing at all for the gameplay (quite the opposite, actually). So yeah, Papers Please all over again, I guess. Man, I should replay it sometime, I think I only finished it once years ago.
Reporting your residents is a weird and somewhat inconvenient (due to interface issues) element that feels kinda underused overall. Maybe it’s just me.
Didn’t like this game’s attempts at humour.
I’ve also completed Blissfull Sleep DLC, that was more of the same, but still pretty good overall.
This is a neat and small stealth game with japanese setting. There’s no real japanese language involved, so all the characters are just muttering japanese-sounding simlish.
It’s really easy to learn and master, since the controls are pretty good and damn it feels satisfying to be teleporting back and forth in the shadows.
I’ve also beaten the Nightfall DLC which consists of 4 harder (but not much) levels.
Getting the “kill-all” medals was pretty annoying and tedious, ESPECIALLY in the DLC. It’s really not fun to waste the whole hour of your life beating the level and then realizing you missed just one enemy.
Overall, it was pretty fun.
This is a very short and surreal visual novel. There’s not much content in it and you can barely call it a quality one, so there’s barely any point in reviewing it. I wouldn’t call the artwork or the plot bad as it is so low-key you can’t even distinguish if it’s lazy or it’s just an intentional artistic desicion. Though I can say some of the dialogues reminded me of Monogatari-tier writing.
Despite everything, I kinda liked it.
It’s a direct sequel for the first game and it’s pretty much the same in every aspect. It’s kinda lacking on its’ own (the sequel is as direct as it gets, you don’t get any re-introductions whatsoever), and most of the puzzles feel way too same-ish, but it was still pleasant and fun to play.
Backlog progress status:
That’s really lucky! Hope your success in avoiding bad games continues :)
I’ve already did a blind pick (and finished some) of games for my second personal ABC short game challenge which I’ll be completing around December. There’s a very high chance I’ll lose my streak there anyway, since I’ve put a few stinkers in during the first one, heh.