Minamimoto

August 2019

Gotta Crochet 'Em All!





    The Darkside Detective

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    A really charming P&C game about the Darkside Detective McQueen and his sidekick Officer Dooley, full of spooky things like Gremlins and Zombies, humor and easter eggs. I'm not the big fan of P&C games anymore but this one really was lovely and charming. The humor is stupid but good enough for many smileys and without being too ridiculous. Also each case isn't longer than about 30-40 minutes and hence not full of locations and combinations that make your head smoke like 'how the heck is that suppose to work?'

    I'm rooting for the sequel!

    The Fan

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    I got this game from Indiegala for free I guess sadly Indiegala doesn't gift free steam games anymore. It's a full motion video with point & click and I bet it was a lot of work making all the pictures for it. Also it looks pretty well made. Still it was far too short. And I didn't get... why...?

    The Fan is a serial killer who stalks it's victims before capturing and eventually kill them. Nathalie is his most recent victim, tied up in his basement and you play the Fan.

    It's really disturbing tbh. He owns all those weapons for torture, a wall full of pictures of Nathalie, trash she threw away sometime and so on. There's blood and... liquids in buckets and ugh. As I said before; it's pretty well made. When you head out of your lair and into her flat you have to search for specific objects. I liked that you can look at almost everything, learn her story and her way to live only by watching her furniture and stuff she owns.

    There are three choices in total so six overall outcomes. The game is really really short. I completed two runs in 45 minutes but as the items to search don't change the second run was completed in about 10 minutes. Still the game lacks about a reason. I'm glad that you actually don't torture her onscreen but you also don't get any background information about the killer. The game ends with a newspaper article without many changes. E.g. You're able to kill her boyfriend. If you do so the article won't tell about her reaction to that. There's also the choice to kill her or to free her. And I just don't get why he would let her free...?

    Overall I'm impressed by the good quality of the pictures and how everything was made, but also Î am left confused. I got it for free so that's fine, still I don't know if I would want to buy something that short and without any context and conclusion.

    Fran Bow

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    Again Point & Click but this one may be the game with the best story I played so far. It's about the eleven year old Fran who lost her parents due a horrific murder and who finds herself in a clinic. But she has to break out to find her best friend the cat called Mr. Midnight and to return home. For that she takes some kind of medicine – red pills that open a door to another dimension.

    Imo the game did a really good job in presenting the horror. When Fran takes her pills she sees horrible things. Dead corpses, guts and blood everywhere. It's really, really macabre. Still Fran is a good girl, she is kind and sweet and nothing about her is dark or evil. So there's a huge contrast between her and the world she sees and probably she is not even able to understand it.

    Sadly the game doesn't have a clear explanation. Everything is up to you how you interpret the story. Because of the whole time you look for the murders of Fran's parents I thought that there will be an explanation in the end and haven't looked much for clues for interpreting it myself. I would've liked it better if there was a solution of everything but that may be my personal taste.

    What kind of bugged me was the role of the cat. Cat's are really stubborn and have their own mind. Of course not every cat is reserved but as an owner of a cat myself I just don't get why some stories show the cat as a loyal companion. Why not choose a dog in the first place? Catlovers love cats because they're not like dogs, that you have to be really patient to win her love and her trust and still they will never admire you as much as a dog would. So why create a character of a cat that is nothing like that?

    Nevertheless the game overall was great. Have you played Fran Bow yet? If so I'd love to hear your opinion and your interpretation of her story!

    Moon Hunters

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    This game had sooo much potential! It's very RNG based, you have to be lucky to find things you need and have the right stats. Most of the time it's just “You can't do this because you miss that. Better luck next time!” which was... disappointing.

    The game is really short. You choose your hero and your starting village, then rush through some dungeons, slash some monsters, gain stats and buy abilities, unlock more heroes and starting villages, boss fight, repeat. The game itself tells you it's meant to replay it several times and I did but I couldn't find anything to keep my motivation high enough to redo it again and again. There should be more than one ending but well. Maybe I'm too stupid or it's really that luck based to find those things you have to for those. Idk. This game left me overall pretty confused. Imo being able to level up and have more time than just five days wouldn't have hurt the game.

    Adventure Time: The Secret of The Nameless Kingdom

    dropped

    After about a year trying to like this game I finally give up on it. The idea is nice, because I love Zelda and clones are nice for me too. I love searching for secrets and mastering dungeons but this one was simply frustrating. The controls are so clunky I missed every direction at least half of the time. Enemies respawn rather quickly and after a short amount time I just tried to avoid them because they hit me more often than I hit them and playing always in the near of death can be rather stressful if there's no chance to improve yourself with these clunky controls.

    The map doesn't show any locations and while you have to do various side quests before being able to continue the story you have no idea what to do and where to go next a lot of times. I used a map from the community guides and a walkthrough but overall it just wasn't fun and not worth my time.

Also Played This Month

over 4 years ago 3 comments
Lengray

I can understand your frustration with the Adventure Time game. I played through it in July and I also had that “what next?” problem.
However, I really liked the rest of the game.

over 4 years ago
stef

I think they chose a cat in Fran Bow because of the Alice and Wonderland connections. I really liked the game but was also frusterated with the lack of explanations. Also I’m glad Darkside Detective is getting some love! I recently played that too and it was simple yet charming

over 4 years ago
86maylin

I didn’t play Fran Bow myself since I don’t have it and also am bad at horror(even though it’s kinda not typical horror), but I have searched and watched through countless playthroughs since I just enjoyed the art style, game and the reactions to the visuals of people very much. :3
I feel the same about Moon Hunters! Like, the few runs I had were very fun indeed, but I just can’t find any motivation to start new runs anymore. ><

over 4 years ago