Huh. Well, in a shocking turn of events, reaching the end of a calendar didn’t end the world, so I guess I have more posts to do. Maybe hitting the end of the calender in the kitchen this Dec 31st will have more luck.
More shockingly, my pokemon weren’t healed when I won, so I end up having to escape with no more than a poisoned serperior on its last few hitpoints.
Anyway, outside! The ice has melted, and the formerly frozen trees are now…
Anyway, back to catch pokemon.
The best Christmas gift is getting out of writing the day’s post! Enjoy a videogame review instead.
Fatal Hearts
Now for Victory Road.
Up top is…Iris, it looks like.
Last time, The End.
But this is Pokemon, and the end never really is the end!
The game restarts with me in my room, just like it began. Oh, the panic I’d have felt if this was my first game. I freaked out enough at being outside my house in Blue.
So now I have to get to Dragonspiral Tower. Luckily this map shows you major locations and I determine that it’s near one of the various cities that are still greyed out. I have the choice of going through a tunnel or crossing a bridge, so naturally, let’s see if I can get across the damn bridge now.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. From the game’s blurb, I expected lots of interactivity and a deeper exploration of the situation presented in the original fairy tale, and that’s exactly what I got. The writing is solid, the characters are believable, and the plot is a delicious mix of moral nuance and deep characterization spiced with a
dash of political intrigue. The whole thing looks very professional – the music is nice and the art is gorgeous. There’s a lot of interactivity, too. Cinders isn’t a complete blank slate, but her personality is malleable enough that I really feel that I have a good deal of agency in the story. I’d even say that her character hits that excellent balance where her few preset traits serve only to enhance the depth of the choices.
“Enjoy your princess raising sim & try not to get her killed too quick!” is my sister’s encouraging message for this game.
You play as Elodie, the crown princess of the kingdom, whose mother has just died. She is still too young to inherit, however, and so must wait a year before she can assume the crown.
Unfortunately for you, things get complicated fast.
(more…)
This game is an excellent case study in the expectations that one can assume depending on whether the protagonist of a visual novel is male or female. I don’t like to judge a book by its cover, but this game doesn’t do itself any favors on that front.
I remember Zoombinis from when I was younger. My sister and I would play it obsessively. I don’t think we ever finished it, though. Revisiting it now feels somewhat strange – I don’t really remember enough for it to be nostalgic, but it’s interesting to try and see what entertained me as a child (and by extension, most children – Zoombinis was pretty popular) from an older perspective.
Last Scenario is a Japanese-style RPG made in RPG Maker XP. This game is actually a bit special to me, because it was the first RPG Maker XP game (and one of the first RPG Maker games, period) I ever played, so it really introduced me to the concept in a lot of ways.
OFF is a free game that’s an okay entry into the odd indie game subgenre. If you like those, you should go download it, but it’s not so impressive I’d recommend it to everyone. If you’re going to play, you should do that before reading the rest of this. Also, I strongly advise that you use a walkthrough, as the puzzles quickly get annoying.
The Spirit Engine II is an interesting game. The title itself is a bit of a misnomer. It actually has nothing at all to do with the original Spirit Engine game – I guess the developer couldn’t think of any new title, so he just used the name brand of his previous game, a la Final Fantasy? I haven’t played the original game, though, so I have no idea how it compares and will only be discussing this one.