Finished in February (1-5)
I needed a break from long games so I took a bunch of smaller ones from my library and just played one after another. It was good for my backlog. Also - suprisingly good games.
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OVIVO
3 hours playtime
26 of 31 achievements
OVIVO
8/10
Very nice semi-platformer. It’s in black and white and instead of jumping you can change gravity, and which color is “empty space” and which is platform. Because you are saving your momentum during change, after a while you learn to jump off and on colours like a crazy dolphin. The difficulty level is challenging, but not too hard, the level design is imaginative, it was a nice three hour long ride.
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LEAVES - The Journey
5 hours playtime
14 of 16 achievements
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LEAVES - The Return
4 hours playtime
16 of 16 achievements
LEAVES
7/10
Both games are very similar, so I will threat them as one. It’s a surrealistic old school adventure game in Myst style. And by old school I mean “you need pen and paper”. The riddles were nice - there were a lot of “find the right order” or “click the right buttons”, also a few jigsaw puzzle. The story is almost non existent - You accidentally blew up leaves from a tree, now you need to find them. It’s just an excuse for puzzles and weird images. The first game is a bit longer, and a bit better. In the second there are a few puzzles “I know what to do, but now I need to spend 5 minutes actually doing this”, and an annoying labirynth you need to solve every time you want to go to the certain part of a game. But both were nice mind boggling fun.
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Old Man's Journey
5 hours playtime
no achievements
Old Man's Journey
7/10
Cute little game about an old man who received a letter and now is on a journey… somewhere. You need to unravel a bit of story to get to know, where and why he is going. A really like the main mechanic - you are moving parts of the countryside making paths for the guy, and totally breaking laws of perspective. The gameplay is quite easy, but enjoyable, the art is very nice, the story is predictible, but that didn’t bother me a lot.
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Seasons after Fall
6 hours playtime
20 of 21 achievements
Seasons after Fall
8/10
A platformer about a spirit who possessed a fox aand now is doing stuff for other spirit. This game has a very slow start, and it’s felling a bit off for the first half an hour and I was almost ready to drop it, but then it’s introducing a season change mechanic, which make everything click. You can change seasons, and every one has different effects on a world. In fall the mushrooms are groving and you can jump on them. In winter the water is freezing do you can walk on ice, etc. You are juggling those events to solve enviromental puzzles. There are only four regions to explore (+ kind of hub area), but you are visiting each one three times, each time with new abilities to unlock new paths. That was nice reuse of levels, I was afraid it will be annoying, but it had this metroidvania charm.
Sometimes you just need to mix things up a bit. Long games can be quite exhausting!
It’s very interesting to read your Seasons after Fall review. It was one of the first games I reviewed on BLAEO and it seems that some of the things you enjoyed, like revisiting levels, I disliked. It’s always interesting to read other people’s thoughts on games one has played themselves.
Maybe it’s because I really like metroidvania games, and I was just happy to see how new parts of enviro became useful.
I can absolutely see that, but never thought of it before. Maybe I had different expectations for the game. Still, it’s definitely one that I remember well!