#PS4 Games with Cute Graphics

[meatball-headache]

This is Meatball's Warframe Post.

As usual, it was @chiclet-go-boom who got me to play. Right around when Endwalker was on the horizon, Warframe also released a new trailer, and Chic gibbered like three rabid squirrels to rush off and drool over it. It seemed uncharacteristic, since Warframe was some kind of parkour PVP game, right?

It was, in fact, not a PVP game, and as Chiclet soon explained, had lore as deep and intricate as any Final Fantasy or Dark Souls. To be a good friend, I watched the new trailer, too—of course, nothing meant anything to me, but the visuals were cool and had quite a lot of mystique, so it was intriguing. So, I downloaded the game, since it's free and all—and that was that for now. Endwalker was coming!

...and so Endwalker went. Some months later, in a lull between patches, the conversation returned to Warframe. I think it came to mind and I was mooded to crack it open and give it a try. What I found was... profoundly confusing. It opens with a cutscene, and I'm thinking: this game is years old. Is this like Destiny, I'm supposed to know the story so far, I'm supposed to be familiar with these characters? It was all very confusing.

The opening cutscenes celebrate the Tenno, and give you three Warframes to pick from: Excalibur, Mag, and Volt. My impression at the time was that these spirits, the "Tenno," were something newly added to the game? Were these the three new Warframes or something? Or, are they starting me at the beginning of the years-long update cycle? No time to be confused, though, I had to pick a Warframe. I wanted to be the cute girl, Mag, but it said Excalibur was the best choice for beginners, even though he looked weird, so I went with him.

I have never played a game that moves like this. It's so... fast. But it's not jagged or janky or spastic, it's very smooth. It's hard to aim, though, since I was playing on PS4, and I suck at a) shooting games, and b) aiming with a controller. All was going well until, early in the tutorial, it teaches you how to "bullet jump." Oh, I thought: this is so weird and awkward. Bullet jumps? Wall latches? Ugh. I'll just play this game normal and not do that very much.

I didn't really like Excalibur; he looks weird. Aesthetics are important! I only played for an hour or two that first night, but I was disappointed with Excalibur... I wanted to start over, but it doesn't seem like you can reset your account. I was frustrated... but, then I learned that Chiclet plays on PC. Obviously, I mean, c'mon. Could my computer even run the game? It was a years-old laptop that I only originally bought to have Youtubes on the side while I played FFXIV on PS4. But, turns out it could run FFXIV... maybe I'll try Warframe? Start fresh, and be Mag this time—even if she's too hard for a noob?

So, I started over. I installed it on my PC and created a new account and started with Mag this time, and boy, things were different—by about 40 fps. My computer, it turned out, could run Warframe... in slideshow mode. I turned down the graphics, and I was still getting around 20-30 fps. Well... good enough, I guess, if it means I can play with Chic.

I don't know how long that first session lasted. A day or two, maybe a weekend, something like that. The game was very much to my liking in this regard: you just play it. It's got story and lore, sure, but pretty much you start the game, you go through a "Press X to jump" mission, and then you're on your own! In this regard, it's a Soulslike—you do what you want because you want to, not because the game tells you to. You go over there because you can see it and you want to know what's there, and when you get there, things happen; cf. the classic Final Fantasy setup, where you can't go over there, not until the story tells you to go there.

I didn't understand mods or ranks or 90% of the things in my menu. It was a very simple game where you just pop in, run some quick missions, shoot a bunch of guys and grind for loot. It scratched a lot of itches—although performance wasn't ideal, but whatever, I'd manage gladly.

So, I played for a couple days, and then I got to the first big turning point: Cetus. All of a sudden, I was in a town? With other players? And what players they were! My little, unadorned Mag looked positively naked next to these Warframes in extravagant costumes, with animations, flowing capes, glowing wings, all sorts of things. Of course, I didn't know a single one of these 'frames, could not possibly comprehend how any of these things were acquired—pay to win, I assumed. I could only wonder how long it'd be until I got cool stuff like that.

Now, Cetus, if you know Warframe, you know it's different. It's not just a normal mission, it's a town, like I said, connected to an open world region, the Plains of Eidolon. Naturally, I assumed this was my next mission, and figured out how to take on bounties from Konzu. And these... were a whole lot harder than normal missions! It said it was my level, but levels apparently mean something else out here, because these missions kicked my ass. I remember doing a side quest to unlock Gara's blueprint. Excited to get my first new Warframe, I ran to the foundry to start making it, and got confused when it seemed to need more Gara blueprints to make it. Eventually, I realized the bounties Konzu offered had a chance to drop these component blueprints... but, some of the bounties were way beyond my level. Even the ones that weren't were already too hard. My hopes of getting a new Warframe seemed to wither.

I think I got to Mars, and then stopped playing for a bit. I'm not sure, exactly. I spent a nice weekend or so trying out the game, it wasn't bad, the grind seemed very steep, and then it was time to move on.

Months passed.

Somehow, I was inspired to play again—maybe Chiclet gushing about another trailer, maybe seeing the icon on my desktop for months eventually wore me down, but I picked it up again. I was on Mars, which was much harder than Earth, and still had no clue what I was doing, but I plugged ahead anyway, clearing nodes on the map. I still had only Mag, with no cool outfits, no new weapons or anything fun like that. Well, eventually something would drop, right...?

Hm—if I remember correctly, and it's all kind of fuzzy, you can't go from Earth to Mars at first. You have to clear Venus and Mercury, right. So, no, I wasn't on Mars yet. I was on Venus, which of course means—

Fortuna.

I was prepared. I had seen the music video on Youtube, I'd already heard the song. In fact, I'd heard the song long before I tried the game, long before I met Chiclet, a real long time ago. It was good, I liked it—and part of what kept me going was wondering where this amazing song would crop up. As I played the game, it seemed more and more out of place. But then, all at once, it happened. Imagine my surprise when I learned that, no, that wasn't a cinematic music video just to promote the game, that was the cutscene in the actual game!

It was transformative. It was profound. Yes, I teared up, of course I did! And then the story in Fortuna has you helping the workers unionize to defeat a capitalist? Sign me the fuck up! So I was motivated to play, to be part of this world, to help them out. The only thing is—the mission turned out to be incredibly hard. I died again and again. It wasn't until I went into the arsenal and added mods to my Warframe and my weapons that I was finally able to win, and even then, only barely. The game was starting to get hard! Did I have what it takes to get harder?

Open world missions on Orb Vallis were much harder than the Plains of Eidolon, but by now I'd also learned that these were optional. It was more reputation quests, more vendors... This game was getting really complicated. All I was doing was clearing the map, and there was so much to this game... Not only that, but around here I decidedly to bravely try to do public missions, though I was afraid I'd hold everyone back... this turned out to not be an issue. Everyone was super strong, super competent, and they blazed through missions with ease, with or without my presence. Thanks for the carry, you thousands of online strangers!

But, by doing public missions, I saw the vast gulf between Warframe's and FFXIV's philosophies. FFXIV has rigid requirements for every duty, fixed party sizes, role requirement, level sync, all that jazz—so that everyone has the same experience every time. Warframe just lets you do whatever. You might do this mission and have an MR30 Saryn Prime nuke the map from the start and be done in seconds; you might have a MR2 Excalibur still leveling the starting gear and trying to learn how to double-jump.

Never was this more evident than what I choose to remember was my first time playing a public mission. It was a defense mission on Earth. I'd done it before solo, and it took a long time and it was very difficult, since I had to machine-gun each enemy individually, being generally clueless as I was. After that, I decided to try a public mission. I can't get lost and be too slow for everyone else, since it's defense, and it might help to have more, well, help. I got a full group, and, I have no earthly idea what Warframes they might have been, but I remember one of them clearly: as soon as the mission started, they all cast a bunch of spells and the entire map started exploding. Then this one guy jumped on top of the defense objective, whipped out a guitar, and just stood there playing music the whole time while all the enemies exploded before I ever even saw them.

This is what lies ahead of you, Meatball, I thought. This is what you might achieve someday.

So, back on Venus, I proceeded to the end of the map, and this time—there was a boss fight! The Jackal. Needless to say, I died and failed the mission. I didn't understand what the hell I was supposed to do. Perhaps this is where I finally went on public, to get carried a little by experts? Whether it was my first public exposure or not, it worked—some pro players annihilated the Jackal before I could understand what was going on. This paved the way to Mercury, and culminated in another boss fight—and the end of the road. But, with Mercury out of the way, I could go back to Earth and travel to Mars.

In order to unlock a new planet, you have to defeat the boss in the junction, a mirror match against another Warframe. The first few were easy, but Mars I think was spicier. For the sake of the narrative, let's say I couldn't do it for now. I slunk back to my ship in defeat, and went to tinker with my mods and foundry and stuff like that. Have I gotten any new weapons or anything? No, I don't think so, I don't have any weapons or Warf—what's this!?

"Rhino chassis." A Warframe component blueprint. Not Gara, which was out of reach, too high level—where did this come from? Tooltips soon revealed it: it dropped from the Jackal. Bosses drop Warframes! My eyes lit up, my heart raced. I'm going to get my first new Warframe. I raced back to Venus to tackle the Jackal again, and farmed that bastard to oblivion, again and again until I had all the Rhino parts. Finally, finally, it was time—

—to wait. Twelve hours for the component, then three days for the thing itself. Okay, that's fine. I could use a break. I'll come back next weekend and be Rhino.

Now, I did exaggerate, dire reader. I had some new weapons ready when Rhino came out of the foundry: the Boltor machine gun, the Frigor giant hammer, and some secondary weapons but who cares. At this point, I didn't even realize that's how you grind MR. But everything was exciting and new—and stronger. I had to level them up, and with Rhino's shield ability, now I was tough enough to handle the junction and get to Mars and beyond!

At some point, I got to Deimos. Unlike other planets, this time you start in an open world, and work your way to the town. There was some story missions here, but I don't remember the main beats, only that in the end you get to test-drive a Necramech. This game keeps adding new things—first you had normal missions, then open world, then Archwing, now Necramechs... I remember the story mission being monstrously difficult again, so I bailed on Deimos for now.

There was something else I finally had access to. Somehow, I had gotten to MR5, and could fight the boss on Earth. It irked me that I couldn't finish off Earth before moving on, but, I guess they didn't want you to start with finished planets until you'd done a little story and unlocked some new systems.

This boss... is where this play session ended. It was so incredibly difficult and incredibly frustrating. He's a tiny flying drone, only vulnerable for brief windows when his face is exposed, and he's impossible to hit. I was playing solo, so my suckitude doesn't waste anyone's time, which just made this boss nearly impossible. I kept dying, I ran out of ammo constantly. It was the most frustrating experience in the game by far—but, bosses have new Warframes. Except Mercury, for some reason. And Mar's boss just dropped Excalibur, who I'd already tried. Earth's boss had a new one, something called Hydroid, which was the dorkiest name in the world, but oh well.

To make a long story short, I farmed this boss for all the Hydroid parts, which infuriated me beyond belief. I threw him into the foundry, and it was time for a very big deal: Jupiter. Now, when I'd first started playing, I joked with Chiclet, something, "Can I do what I want? Can I just go to Jupiter and deal with high-level enemies and hilariously get my ass kicked?" She gave me kind of a wishy-washy answer, something along the lines of sort of, but not really, but you wouldn't want to anyway. I had, in fact, found a couple of blueprints that needed components from Jupiter. I was very excited when I saw I could finally get these things. So, while Hydoird cooked, I tried to go to Jupiter.

And tried.

And tried.

And tried.

But... I just couldn't beat the junction boss, at all. She had too much health, and if I got close, she's instantly melee me to death, even through Rhino's mighty shield. You have to do these solo, so no getting carried, and there's no map or any other enemies, so I can't go collect energy before the fight. I had basically one ability, and that had to get me through. Try as I might, I could not win—so I stopped playing.

Months passed again.

I picked up the game again around April 2023. Pretty soon, I remembered why I stopped—this damn Valkyr Specter. But, I had some other stuff to do now. I had a new Warframe, Hydroid, to level up, and a new gun, the Boar, to try out. I certainly didn't understand how to play Hydroid at first, but I got him to 30, and then... I guess I'll try Valkyr again. I'd have to do it on Rhino, because he has that shield. Would the Boar be strong enough to beat her?

No.

Okay, now I'm getting pissed. I just can't beat her, no matter what I do. I was, remember, still pretty dumb, probably less than a hundred hours in the game—I'm a slow boil, what do you want :p—so fusing mods, damage types, or anything other that clicking Automod was beyond me. But, I said, fuck it, if Rhino can't beat her, I'll try Hyrdoid. I ran in with him, with the Boar shotgun and Amphis staff, and—died. Take two, I ran in, used my 1 ability, barrage of water bombs, but that fell off her like so much rain. Died. Take three, I used my 2 ability, the tidal wave dash... all that did was get me into melee faster so she could one-shot me sooner. Died. Fine! Take four! I used my 4 ability, the tentacles—well, that was no good, she was a boss, so they couldn't grab her, and once again I died. Well, I haven't tried the 3 ability, the puddle? A roving dot? It doesn't sound like it does much damage, but—

Dire reader. I turned into a puddle, and Valkyr ran to me, and—sploosh. She fell into the puddle. She was gone. She vanished. The only thing on the screen was a puddle, and damage numbers popping out of it. There's no way this works, I said. There's no way this lasts long enough to kill her. There's no way this does enough damage.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tiny damage numbers poppped out of my self, and I watched first Valkyr's shield slowly faded, and then her health began to dwindle—until, just before I ran out of energy, her health bar fell down to zero—Mission Complete.

I'm sitting there slack-jawed, astonished. There's no way this ridiculous puddle move just completely annihilated this invincible boss. But, it did. It happened. I made it to Jupiter. All thanks to this absolute boi, Hydroid—my new main. With the power of Hydroid's puddle, I ran through the star system like a beast. Jupiter fell and I moved on to Europa; Europa was defeated and I went to Saturn; Saturn was finished and I went to Uranus.

"Operator, a new quest is available," said the Lotus. And I had a funny thing on top of my screen that just said "NATAH."

Hm! I wonder what that is. Oh well. And I returned to my delightful grind. Some of these planets had bosses, so I had to farm for new Warframes. I had finally figured out how to buy blueprints from the market, so I was making new weapons. All this stuff had to get leveled up, so I went back and ran missions, defense missions—I figured out how to do Void Relics (sort of), and also tried to finally do some bounties—Earth only, Venus and Deimos were still wicked hard. And whenever I got back to my ship after a successful mission—

"NATAH." Hm! What a meaningless word. Sounds like a main quest. No thanks! Why do MSQ when I could grind, explore, and waste time?

So another hundred hours passed. I was starting to get good at the game! I leveled up my weapons and my Warframes and finally figured out how to fuse mods, so I crammed all my weapons full of as much damage as I could. Orokin Catalysts and Forma were still years away from my mind, though—but, it seemed to me that I was as strong as I could possibly get. I thought about the guitar guy, blowing up the entire map constantly without even moving—how can I get that strong? I thought about the K-drive, the Archwings, the Necramechs—all the weird stuff this game has invented. Maybe there's more weird things later? Maybe I have to... do story to unlock things?

It was finally time. I had done as much as I could, but it was finally time to do the MSQ. So, I took up this new quest, NATAH. It was like the other quests—you do normal missions while the NPCs talk over you. It was kind of interesting, because it got into the Lotus's story a little bit. Neat! But, unlike other main quests or side quests, this didn't give me a new orbiter segment to unlock some new machines to let me do something different. This didn't even give me a new Warframe blueprint! But, it unlocked another main quest. Ah, so this is how it's gonna be? But one MSQ at a time. Let's let it digest a bit. So, maybe tomorrow I'll do this next quest...

The Second Dream.

Dear reader. Dire reader. Dour reader. Nothing could have prepared me for the Second Dream—and this was the best possible experience I could've had. Legions of fans telling me "Just wait till the Second Dream!" would've tipped me off that something big is going to happen, and my whole attitude would've been different. My expectations would've been high, and perhaps even the profound experience that it was wouldn't've been enough. I assure you, I'm getting the chills writing about it, just thinking about it.

The Second Dream was like nothing else in the game. The missions started normally—well, not really. It started with a cutscene. Had the game ever had cutscenes before? Other than Fortuna, that is. After the intro, you do normal missions with voice-overs, like before. It has to do with... things I don't understand. Did I forget the story? Is it supposed to be mysterious? Lotus talks about her father, there's a Sentient, there's a Stalker—we proceed with the mission, and then things really come unzipped.

From the beginning of the game, I noticed something wrong with the star chart: where's the Moon? Well, not every body in the solar system is represented; Europa's its own world, but Io, Callisto, and Ganymede are just individual missions on Jupiter. Ceres and Eris are their own worlds, but not Makemake or Haumea. But, it turns out I was right to wonder, because in this quest, we're teleported to somewhere we've never seen before: the Moon. It turns out there's a lot of lore surrounding the Moon, something special is there, and through the plot, the Moon is added to the star chart—a new world to explore, a new tileset to play in!

But of course, that's not all, because once we venture into the Moon, we find something very special: the Reservoir, the power source of the Tenno, the spirits that control the Warframes. Right from the game's very first opening cutscene, we saw the still Warframes, silent until the spirit of the Tenno entered them. We, the player, are the Tenno, controlling the Warframes. That's why, when you select the Warframe, you're not "putting it on" like armor, so much as you're activating it, and controlling it from afar—it's a little bit meta, the way Ordis always addressed you, the player, as "Operator," not talking to the Warframe itself. Lotus would say things like "Your Warframe is low on power," not "You're low on power."

There's another cutscene. Deep in the Moon, we find the Reservoir, a lotus-like set of pods. One comes out, and from it comes... a person. And—our Warframe drops dead immediately.

The cutscene continues. My nose is an inch from the screen. This is captivating. I've been playing this game for a couple hundred hours, and only now we're getting cinematic story like FFXIV started with. Imagine if you had been playing Tetris for years, and you finally get to the kill screen—and it zooms out and it was Karl Jobst playing at an arcade machine in a bar this whole time, and now you're watching him. Imagine if you've been playing Minecraft and terraformed a whole world, and then Steve turns to the camera and says, "Now... we can finally begin playing."

The human crawls over to the Warframe, touching it with a glow, and the Warframe picks them up. The Stalker appears—but hesitates. The voice of the Sentient threatens to attack, and then you're playing again. You're playing—but it's different. You're still carrying the person. Your Warframe powers are gone, you can't use your normal weapons, and these monsters are attacking you—what else can you do but point and click?

And it fires! The person you're carrying raises their hand a blast of energy annihilates these monsters. You carry them to safety as they blast hordes of these strange new enemies, and reach extraction—you're back to the safety of your ship.

Ah! Your beloved orbiter. You've been playing for hundreds of hours. You know this ship like the back of your syandana! Well, except for those weird closed doors at the back. Lotus instructs you to take the person to the back of the ship—oh, what? Wait—those closed doors? Really? We're going to find out what's in there? You go to the back of the ship, and then, all of the sudden, the doors open, as if they always could. Inside is a mysterious chamber containing one of those pods from before—and the Stalker! This time, he attacks you himself, and the person you're carrying fends him off with their power. You bring them to the chair, but he pushes you away, and you drop the person. The link is broken. You—your Warframe falls dead again, and the Stalker stabs it with his mysterious talking sword. The Stalker grabs the person, lifting them off the ground by the neck... and then you—your Warframe comes to life, grabs the sword—and breaks it. The Stalker is destroyed, and in a flash of light, both you and the person are out cold.

But then... someone picks up the person. It's not you, your Warframe is lying still. It's—the Lotus. On your actual ship. She puts the person in the pod, and then there's a pulse of light. The Warframe moves again.

"Now we fight on two fronts, my child. The war without—and the war within..."

This is mindblowing. This is beyond anything that's ever happened in this game. It's like if you were playing Pac-man and then suddenly after level 69, 2001: A Space Odyssey starts playing. This is a profound shift in everything about the game's... everything!

And then, and then, AND THEN...

...it dumps you into character creation.

This is what you are.

After hundreds of hours of gameplay, after traipsing across the entire solar system, after, for some people, years of playing—

Tutorial complete. Welcome to Warframe.

This is, bar absolutely none, the single greatest moment in any game I've ever played. You know FFXIV is my favorite game, but moment by moment, it doesn't have an absolute wham line like this. This is on the same level—beyond, really—but the only thing that comes close to holding a candle is the E ending of Nier Automata, Rom in Bloodborne, or the World of Ruin in FFVI. But even all of those were presaged by the game's tone, clearly building up to, and showing the potential for, a moment like this. FFVI had a map that teased the whole thing, in fact.

Character creation. Hundreds of hours into the game. Out of nowhere. Like I said, nothing could have prepared me for this—nothing should have, either. This completely blindsided me. It completely changed everything about the game. It turned everything I expected on its head. It's like fighting Psycho Mantis and finding out he knows you played Castlevania. It's like learning that the ghost is always behind you in PT. This is beyond "outside the box," this is in a whole different box factory.

And I'm just talking about the meta impact! To say nothing about the lore—when Ordis was talking to the "Operator," when Lotus was talking the Tenno, they weren't talking to you, the player—they were talking to your real character, the Tenno who was asleep in the Reservoir this whole time. This is who you are.

This is who you are. When I got to the character create screen—I didn't change a thing. I couldn't. I wasn't just creating a character at the beginning of the game like some lesser game like Elden Ring, I have been this person the whole time. I did fix her voice, though, I admit that much. She looks like... Nathan Explosion. I didn't mean to pick a girl this time, either, that's just... what it gave me. (Can you even change their body and give them boobs? Or you just differentiate gender by voice selection?) This is who you are. This is who you've always been.

After the bombshell, I was hooked. I played nonstop, day and night, week in, week out, for months on end. Warframe shot to the top of my charts; I wasn't playing Chiclet's game just to humor my pal, this was my game now. I was into it. And, of course, I finally started to learn. I got into Forma, Lenses, started cracking open Void Relics left and right, started churning out new weapons and Warframes, did Railjack missions, tried Lunaro (lol), syndicates, bounties, you name it—everything, of course, except main story. I had to let this soak. And, Warframe is a horizontal progression game, unlike FFXIV. Every step you take unlocks a thousand hours of grinding to get your Rivens and Kuvas and whatever—I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

I was completely addicted to Warframe, not even FFXIV could pull me back. The only thing that got me to stop grinding MR was Lies of P, and after that, the furor had died out, so it was a little while before I got back into Warframe some more. When I did, I finally did the next story quest, the War Within—this was also excellent, better cinematically, but the bombshell could not compete with the Second Dream. However, with the War Within, I had some big new grinds unlocked: Eidolon hunts (actually this came with the Second Dream, but I didn't figure it out until then) and Kuva weapons. Kuva weapons. I'd heard of these! I'd seen millions of players with these special weapons that go to rank forty—forty!—and have a million words in their names, someone comes in with "Dax Thrall Suva Kuva Zarr" and just blows up all of Helene in one shot. Here, surely, lay the path to greatness! And with Eidolons, I could get Arcanes, which I vaguely knew about from glancing at builds on websites, builds which had lots of mods and these Arcanes I knew jack shit about. After the New War The War Within [typo], it was time to shelve story for a while; I had a lot of grinding to do.

Let me rewind quite a bit. All the way to the beginning. When I first began playing, I did figure out that if you press Equip on your Warframe in the Arsenal, you could see a list of every Warframe. For a very long time, every time I browsed that list I saw some names I was sure I hadn't seen before. I had to start with Mag, of course, but... which Warframe was the one for me? Which one looked the coolest, had the best powers, the most interesting lore? I instantly discounted some ugly ones, like Hildryn, and some with stupid names, like Hydroid. We see how that turned out. As usual, I was looking for a cute girl... but these were all very strange, weird, alien robot monsters. Lavos—he was the last boss in Chrono Trigger, maybe go after him. Sevagoth, that's similar to Sephiroth, but he looks weird. Ember, Frost, Volt... I don't really go in for these "elemental" things unless it's a superlative element. So like, holy or dark, that'd be a cool theme. Speaking of themes—music! When you click each one, it takes you to a page where you can see their skills, read their lore, and it also plays their theme music. Or, some music anyway, there's some repeats, I guess it's just some generic music. Yeah, Garuda, Gauss, Gyre, these all have the same music, Harrow—

Rap. Tap. Tap.

Okay well this is different. An eerie, industrial grind, haunting, strange whispers—this is very interesting indeed! I read his lore—he's a void priest?! Okay, now that severely fucks. I read his moves—whoa. This guy's got all kinds of support buffs? Well, that's certainly a lot more interesting than "This attacks in a cone, this attacks in a line, this attacks in a circle." Okay. I'm sold. How do I unlock this guy? According to the thing ingame, you have to do the "Chains of Harrow" quest on Pluto or the Void or something. Okay, well, then I just have to plow ahead to the Void and I'll be able to get him! Oh, neat, it looks like Phobos has a shortcut to the Void!

...anyway, that didn't happen, obviously. This was still my first weekend. Once I started to learn how to get other stuff, I forgot about Harrow, but still had him in the back of my mind. And, a while later—around the Second Dream session—I had finally gotten the hang of Void Relics. I had tried to get them before, way at the beginning, because I saw "Octavia Prime" and "Nezha Prime," and I recognized them as Warframes—a couple I thought looked pretty cool, in fact. I had no idea Primes were a different version, I thought it meant... "This is the primary part to make it," or something. Of course, day one player, I couldn't get all the things I needed from mere Lith Relics, and the higher levels were beyond me. It wasn't until much later, when I had access to more stuff, that I began to realize—oh, hey. I might be able to get a Prime Warframe! Wouldn't that be cool.

I jumped into Void Relics until I had exhausted my supply, went to grind more, and crack them again. I got so many parts for so many things, but never everything for anything. I just kept aimlessly grinding, getting 3/4 of everything, but something always eluded me.

Dire reader, you know what Void Relics happened to be in the rotation at that time? Why, none other than Harrow Prime's. I noticed it, of course, and grabbed the blueprints when they were available. And it wasn't until after doing a lot of grinding that I sat down and said, okay, what exactly do I have? I went through my foundry to see what I had, what I was close to, what I might be able to finish off—and, surely enough, I had three pieces of Harrow. All I needed were the Harrow Prime Neuroptics, which were the rare thing from an Axi, I think. But, I had some Axis. We had a mission, and from then on, I was grinding with focus, farming Axi relics, upgrading them for the maximum chance at the rare, and cracking them—in full parties, of course, in case anyone else had one. And so it wasn't long before it happened: Harrow Prime Neuroptics. I had all the pieces I needed. I had all the materials, I had the Argon Crystals—I was going to have my first Prime Warframe! And it was going to be Harrow.

I love Harrow—though, he is admittedly hard to use well, and having one "press this button to blow up the room" ability would be nice... but he's stylish, he's cool, he's mine. I used him a lot once I got him—he's a Prime! He's better than anyone!—but he wasn't my last Prime frame by far. Soon came Nidus Prime, Garuda Prime, Wisp Prime, Baruuk Prime, and more, and more, and more... Now, he's just one of dozens in my stable—but I still remember how he was the first one that stood out to me. In fact, dear reader, I reordered things a little—I got Harrow before I did the Second Dream, and it was as Harrow that I did it. He's my Story Frame—although another one I've had my eye on for a while, Baruuk, is really making a run for the top spot. Baruuk, the "patient monk," always caught my eye, being at the top of the alphabet as he is, so I'd always be starting at him when I was picking which frame to play today. I really enjoy his "neutral" theme, the commonality in his 1-3 abilities, and the absolute astonishing power of his 4 (my record is 2.3M damage). And Harrow did get stabbed through the chest with War (which is his "official" weapon now... every Warframe has "their" weapons to me, so if I want to use the Boar, I just have to play Hydroid, that's just how I am) so maybe he needs a break.

But, dear reader, this brings me back to the image at the very top of this brief post: the quest "Chains of Harrow" is my next story quest. Truth be told, it has been next for a little while—but it had to take a back seat, of course, for side quests like Octavia and Titania, and a little thing called, you know, Dawntrail. But Dawntrail is done. All my sidequests are done. There's nothing left. The way is clear. It's time to return to the beginning—to Harrow. And then...

...and then...

The New War— ...which, if the number of quests that have it as a prerequisite, and the fact that it doesn't even show up as a future quest, are anything to go by... this will change everything.

EPILOGUE

There's a few things I can talk about that I didn't include here. Duviri. Sevagoth. Lavos and Yareli. That one time I had six Warframes going at once and thought "whoa I'm finally getting this game!" And probably more... but these are the main beats.

Thanks for reading. Why do you keep doing that? I just don't get it...

[satoshi-mochida]

Marvelous PS1 title Milano’s Odd Job Collection coming west in 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, Switch, and PC - Gematsu

Publisher XSEED Games and developer Implicit Conversions will release original PlayStation title Milano’s Odd Job Collection for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam in 2025, the companies announced.

Milano’s Odd Job Collection first launched for PlayStation on July 1, 1997 in Japan, and was never released in the west.

Here is an overview of the new release, via XSEED Games:

About

School’s out, but 11-year-old Milano’s mom needs to go to the hospital and Milano is sent to spend the summer with her uncle. There’s one small problem—her uncle is away on vacation! Left on her own, Milano decides to make the most of her situation by taking up a variety of part-time jobs in town. Over the next 40 days, Milano goes all in—delivering pizzas, nursing sick patients, milking flying cows, and more—to make this summer unforgettable. And maybe she can spruce up her uncle’s place and have some fun while she’s at it. Previously only available in Japan, this charming classic now releases with a brand-new English localization. With nostalgic pixel art and animations, mixed with distinctive Japanese cuteness, Milano’s Odd Job Collection is a cozy experience full of retro charm. What’s more, the move to modern platforms adds quality-of-life improvements, trophies and achievements, improved loading times, and of course, fully localized English text, graphics, and voiceovers. Highly replayable and featuring charming characters and gameplay that retro and casual game lovers of all skill levels can enjoy, this recently uncovered and updated gem of the 32-bit era isn’t to be missed.

Key Features

Milano Meets the World – Full English text and voiceovers bring Milano’s pixel-art adventures to a whole new audience. Fans can rest assured that the original Japanese is also available, complete with all-new English subtitles.

Make Your Home Away from Home – Rest and relaxation are essential after a hard day’s work. Milano can enjoy quiet nights inside with her uncle’s cat, stargazing from her bedroom, making use of items purchased with her hard-earned wages, or styling the house with new furniture and decor.

It’s Not Work if You Love to Do It – Help Milano earn money in eight unique mini-games, including curing diseases as a nurse, catching falling fruits in an orchard, and more. Enrich Milano’s intelligence and other parameters in the evenings to unlock higher difficulty levels. The tougher the challenge, the bigger the payday!

Nostalgic Gameplay, Modern Conveniences – The charm and gameplay of the original release are intact, but improved load times, save states, and a rewind feature help update this classic title for modern audiences.

Watch the announcement trailer below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery.

Announce Trailer

[x--sinner--x]

I just recently completed playing one of my all-time favourite games called "Until Dawn" and it was a great experience.

I waited 9 years to play this game as it was originally a PS4 exclusive, but this year they remastered the graphics, and added some new plot points - but overall it's pretty much the same game.

For those uninitiated, this game is about a group of friends who return to a mountain ski lodge after a year to lend support to one of their friends - whose twin sisters went missing last year. It's an interactive choice based horror game which took the world by storm and there are multiple possibilities you can achieve. You can get the best ending where everyone survives, or everyone dies and anywhere in between.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, this game is primarily inspired by classic horror slasher tropes like Friday the 13th, Cabin in the Woods etc. This really got me thinking.

What if - instead of the group of friends being a mix of male and female, I'm reimagining them to be an all girls group - and I'm the serial rapist who is hunting them all down. The fun part is their own choices will lead to them getting raped by me and the endings can range from all characters get raped by me or no one can. How cute.

[doubleddenden]

Nintendo finally revealed the Switch 2 in an official capacity, after everyone, their mom, grandma, brother, sister, cousin, father, aunts, grandfathers, and of course their their Uncles that Work at Nintendo TM did it for them. The trailer has such "ALRIGHT ALREADY GET OFF MY BACK" energy with what little it reveals, but there's still info we know that can be gleaned from the trailer and stuff other sources have said

So first off, I genuinely thought those controllers would be 3rd party, but they're official apparently. I love the accented colors, although I was kinda hoping they'd swap to white this go around. No biggie though.

Second, that looks like a new Mario Kart project. There's 24 starting lines, there's a slight redesign to DK, and the graphics appear higher res, so this is either the first official first party game quietly announced for the system, or a heavy update to 8.

Third, the joycons moving around seems to tease the potential pc mouse-like capabilities due to an optical sensor on the inner side of the joycons. Of course this is strictly a guess based on 3rd party info revealed, but it would potentially open doors for certain pc games or touch only DS/3ds/Mobile games to come to the system. Potentially, anyway. I'm more or less expecting it to be used for something like FF14.

The last bit is something that seems to be a correction on their part- they had previously said that Switch 2 would have backwards compatibility. Most, like me, assumed 100% because it's literally the Switch but stronger- Nintendo corrected by saying *certain* games may *not* be playable. Imo, this is probably a small number and most first party titles will transfer over, but I'm not an expert.

We can also see the two systems side by side here, showing clearer size differences and how the system will fit in hands. Personally, as someone with bigger hands, this feels like an upgrade.

The only other thing I think is worth noting is the top mounted C-port in addition to the bottom one. That probably makes hand held charging easier, but I'd imagine that may have some kind of purpose in the future. The extra button on the lower right controller still could be anything I guess.

The next Nintendo Direct will be in April, but there could potentially be other tid bits dropped between here and there. Last I saw, the system will probably go for about $400 American, so it might be time to squirrel away some change before it drops potentially around Christmas 2025.

Other thoughts:

The name Switch 2 in official capacity might sound a little plain, but I think they learned from the Wii U not to get cute with the title. If they had named it something like "SwitchAroo" or "Super Switch," people would probably assume it to just be a Switch pro. Likewise, a completely new name such as the "Nintendo Click" probably would betray the fact that it is essentially just a better Switch. Basically this indicates the clear goal in mind to developers and customers about what it is: a successor you can easily see with name alone.

Certain games coming to or on Switch already have built in support for higher res, so it seems like you can expect certain visual and/or performance upgrades when playing those. Paper Mario remake is probably more on the visual angle, and if older Pokemon dlc leaks are to go by, then SV would be the performance angle.

Speaking of, specs reveal this thing is about on par with a ps4 in power. I'm not a graphics snob, I just care about performance- that being said, a hand held console that's expected to be about as powerful as a system that ran Red Dead Redemption 2 or Horizons Zero Dawn while still probably selling for cheaper than competitors (as Nintendo usually does), that is not bad. Not bad at all. Let's just hope they've finally fixed long standing issues with joycon drift.

As far as launch titles... good question, but I'd expect MK9, Smash Bros- the basics that sell the system to casual players. But also some name 3rd party games you'd see run on the ps4 and Xbox One, potentially PS5 and Xbox S/X games- basically something higher on the graphics angle to really push what the Switch 2 is capable of. I could potentially see Red Dead Redemption 2 coming eventually, if not at launch. Otherwise, potentially Zelda Wii U port ports. That'd be neat.

Closing thoughts:

THE ONE PIECE IS REAAAAAL

*also I am not an official reporter, I just like Nintendo games.

[chevvy-ryder]

[NC_RES]_27022048-NCA steyr_j_portraits_008_LC_MB.file ///core:_jaysen_steyr.file\\\ —

⚠️ READ: Please do not repost/reupload any of my art here or to any other platform, or I will be forced to do anything to get it annihilated. —

Jaysen had to hold back long enough, right? So have a bratty rowdy netrunner gunslinger! <3

Spontaneous pics as always. I've tried to re-outfit JayJay yesterday. Was a bit complicated since I'm thinking about giving him a different tattoo ate most of the time but this is a task for another day.

As always I didn't feel comfortable closing the game without taking at least some random pretty pics. See it as a first attempt to venture further into his netrunner cowboy/gunslinger theme. Not sure if the outfit stays as it is because the cyberdeck clips minimal into the coat but it def looks like I could let it stay there — like it's made to be clipped onto the coat in some way? And the belts could as well be a holster underneath the fabric x)

The gun is wrong though. Jaysen prefers to use revolvers (Malorian e.g. the Overture a.k.a. Crash but dunno if I make him a Techie or not, so far all have Power weapons because I love Power Weapons uwu). Jaysen stole borrowed Arki's glasses when Arki was too busy helping his lil' twin brother V.

My goal with Jaysen is to bring out his chaotic good character in the best way possible in future vp. And somehow I find it funny because Jay is in fact something between Arki and Vijay. His color scheme is close to Arki's, though Jay wears more red and orange instead of black with gold and red details (I wish there was more copper in the game though so he often has gold elements too now). He's the aggressive offensive runner, Vijay is the reserved defensive one.

In fact Jaysen is how I wanted Vijay to be first but couldn't make him because V was so cute and I loved the 80s theme for him once I did that graphics posts. But Jay is more like I have played PS4-Version Vijay and imagined him to be if I could use mods: Hack n blow em up, if RAM needs recovery; just bullseye 'em all.

Here's another two: one with the awesome golden glasses. But I prefer the red round glasses more I gotta say.

[miharuhebinata]

monthly game tag time!

this is going to be a veryyyyy long post, so buckle in

may

1. Hollow Knight

[played on ps4.]

thoughts: i know i literally just replayed hollow knight back in like, what, last august? but i had a strong urge to play it again and after the shitshow that was my life in march/april, i decided what the hell. i'm probably going to be doing a yearly replay anyway, though i won't hold myself to any kind of strict schedule in regards to that. i'll just play it when i feel like it and keep track of when and how it goes with these posts.

but anyway, on to my thoughts (yes, i still have thoughts on this game lmao): the game is definitely getting easier with every replay, which makes me very very happy. don't get me wrong, there are definitely still plenty of challenging bits (looking at you, trial of the conqueror. bane of my fucking existence -_-), but apparently i've managed to memorize a good chunk of the attack patterns for most of the boss fights. hornet and the mantis lords are the most obvious example of this, as i literally beat both on my first try. which was a tiny bit disappointing, just because those fights are so fun, but also extremely satisfying. literally had me feeling like a pro gamer LMAO

2. Princess Peach: Showtime! (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: i've been so excited for this game ever since i saw the first trailer, and the demo certainly didn't disappoint! the two levels you get to play, as swordfighter peach and patisserie peach, were very fun, and just everything from the level designs to the gameplay to, of course, the costumes are so cute. i definitely want to play the full game! ....unfortuanately i've heard the game is actually pretty short overall? supposedly it's around 6-8 hours of playtime, which honestly just seems absolutely ridiculous considering it costs fucking $60 for a game i could (theoretically) knock out in a day but hey, that's nintendo for you 🙃 so, yeah. not entirely sure when or even if i'll get to play the full game. which is a damn shame.

3. Agatha Christie - Murder on the Orient Express (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: seems like a fun game! although i will say, it was quite jarring to realize it takes place in the modern day. hercule poirot does not look like a character who should know what a smartphone is, i'm sorry 😂 but yeah, i'm definitely interested in playing more, although i'll probably wait for it to go on sale. i liked it but i don't need to play it right now or anything lol

4. NOX

[played on mobile.]

thoughts: a quick little better-than-average mobile puzzle game. tbh i enjoyed the first half more than the second half. by the end i was just like meh, but i guess i still recommend it if you're looking for a decent puzzle game on mobile

5. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

[played on mobile.]

thoughts: i've been wanting to play this for a while, and it did not disappoint! such a fun, silly little game. pretty much my only complaint is that i wish it was longer, but apparently now there's a sequel? so i guess i can always try that! :)

6. Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: seemed fun but also the demo was extremely short so idk. i liked the obvious zelda inspiration, but it mainly just reminded me of chrono trigger. honestly i think i'd be more interested in replaying that than in playing this, but who knows. maybe someday!

7. OneShot

[played on pc.]

thoughts: I ABSOLUTELY ADORED THIS GAME!!!!!!!!! everything about it is so beautiful, from the story to the graphics to the soundtrack (which, if you know me at all, i'm a sucker for a good video game ost and this one DOES NOT DISAPPOINT 🥰). i don't want to say too much, because i really think everybody should play this one for themselves, but i will say it is EXTREMELY meta. which is not a spoiler, as you find this out very early on, but again, the less you know the better. so i'll just say this: make sure the name on your computer matches your real name! i believe the game *does* give you the option to input whatever name you want (i'm not 100% sure, but i think so), but i feel like the story will hit harder if you use your real name. plus, if you've changed your name recently but forgot to update the name on your account (like i had), this is at least a good reminder to do so :)

8. Ib

[played on pc.]

thoughts: while i played the remake, i can definitely see why this is a rpg maker horror classic! like honestly, idk what else there is to say about it that other people haven't said already? it's not super long and though it's not pants-shittingly terrifying or anything, it's got a very strong, creepy atmosphere to it. now that i think about it, it actually reminds me a lot of alice in wonderland.... which is such a huge plus to me, you guys don't even know :3 i especially adored the character design, particularly ib who reminds me of one of my oc's <3

9. A Short Hike

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: i want to live in this game <3 seriously, if you're looking for a nice chill game to play this one should be right up your alley! it's not long but i promise it is still so, so worth it. beautiful pixel graphics, lovely soundtrack, and a surprisingly poignant story....yeah i loved this one a lot. my one and only complaint is that the beachstick ball minigame can rot in hell LMAO

june

1. Moonlighter

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: idk about the pc version, but PLEASEEEEEE DO NOT BUY THIS GAME ON THE SWITCH. IT SUCKS ASS. for as enjoyable as the actual gameplay is (which honestly, was not even that fun after the first couple hours), the game is buggy as hell. especially when rolling. do NOT roll near walls, or you risk getting stuck inside them. which is especially annoying inside the dungeons, getting stuck inside a wall on some random floor long before you ever meant to have to leave.... pretty much ruined my whole experience. i could barely even bring myself to finish the game, but i forced myself to do it, because i had been meaning to finish this game for forever, and i just wanted to be DONE with it, and so i did, and i was so SO happy....aaaand then i discovered there was a whole new post-game storyline to play through in new game+. -_- at first i felt obligated to finish that before i could say i completed the game, but after playing a few hours, i just said fuck it. honestly the new game+ stuff wasn't even that bad, but i was just so ready to be done with it by that point. fuck this game. absolutely adorable graphics and a nice soundtrack, but buggy-as-hell gameplay and an anticlimactic story. completed ruined it for me. boo. boooooooo. such a disappointment.

2. Another Code: Recollection (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: seems like a very fun game, and i really do want to play the full version! …just not for full price. especially because, after playing the demo, i already had some gripes:

the controls are kind of wonky and by that i mean this just feels like a game that would be better played on pc (yet it's a Switch exclusive).

the (english) voice acting is… definitely not my favorite, to say the least. (that scene of ashley crying as a kid was so fucking annoying, and it went on for wayyyy too long.) ashley does not sound like a 14 year old. which ties into my next point:

okay so i actually FULLY admit this one is mostly on me, but i legit thought ashley was college-age until she explicitly mentioned being 14. like, obviously i understood in retrospect that the story literally said she was 14 long before that (i believe the letter from her father mentioned her 14th birthday?), but because i was pretty tired when i played and also because the character model does not look like a 14 year old girl aside from her being shorter than the adult characters, the voice does not sound like that of a 14 year old, AND she was wearing a university sweatshirt, i thought she was, like, 19-21 and that she for some reason had only recently received her dad's letter? IDK DUDE I'M A LITTLE BIT SLOW 😭

honestly this just kind of made me laugh but i did think it was a bit silly how ashley made a big deal of "yeah sorry D, but i can't help you get your memories back. i've got my own problems. sooooo... yeah, bye." then literally she walks down some stairs, he helps her open a door, and she's immediately like "okay i'll help you and also we're besties, obviously 🤗" like, i'm not saying the game has bad writing (i didn't get to play enough to truly make an accurate judgement) but that felt like the kind of contrived thing i would have written when i was in middle school ngl. but maybe that's the point, since ashley's so young? idk

anyway, i know i've kinda been ragging on it, but like i said, i do still want to play it. the story seems interesting, and i really want to see where it goes! just definitely not for the price of $60 lol

3. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: it was fun! like a mix between immortals fenyx rising, hades, and trine. all of which are right up my alley! but also i was not very good at the combat, which definitely detracted from the experience a bit. i imagine if i was playing the full game i could eventually get used to the combat, but there just wasn't enough time for me to do that in the demo. but i did like it, and i'll definitely consider picking it up if it ever goes on sale for a more reasonable price.

4. Chants of Sennaar (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: i enjoyed it so much i actually bought the game. stay tuned for my thoughts on the full game!

5. Growing Up

[played on pc.]

thoughts: so, full disclosure, i only played through one of the routes in this game (richard). when usually i would play through all the route's (or at least more than one) before counting it as finished, honestly i just cannot be assed this time. which isn't to say it's a bad game! it was a very fun game (at first), with interesting stat-building mechanics. i especially enjoy that my previous character + whoever i ended up with become the parents in a new playthrough. however, despite the fact that i had already started having new events when i started a second playthrough, i don't think the gameplay is interesting enough for me to want to replay it multiple times just to see the new events/meet new characters, at least not any time soon. at the very least i wish there was some kind of carry-over bonus. for example, since my character ended up with richard, maybe my current player character could have a boost in empathy? or intelligence, since my previous character's intelligence was so high. something like that.

also the parents sucked, they had nothing to do with anything unless they were giving me their stupid parent expectations goals, which got really annoying by high school age because the goals often took up desperately needed schedule slots. also especially bitter because literally right after i had completed a goal of tutoring 10 times in a row, they gave me a goal of helping out some neighbors (aka buying groceries ten times in a row) and when i had my character be like "will i get paid?" stupid fucking idiot dad was like "omfg why are you so selfish??? 😤" BITCH I JUST TOOK UP A BUNCH OF MY VALUABLE SCHEDULE SLOTS TO DO TUTORING FOR ONE OF YOUR STUPID FUCKASS GOALS????? KYS YOU ANNOYING BITCH OMFG

6. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: of the few (spoiler-free) reviews i've seen, reactions seem kind of mixed overall, but personally i really enjoyed what i got to play! the art is beautiful and the game mechanic of the augural is definitely unique and interesting. unless the story really starts to branch out though, i don't see there being much replayability; which makes me just a tad reluctant to buy it, even on sale, especially seeing as it's apparently only ~10 hours long. speaking of, i am VERY surprised the demo is as long as it is. hard to put it into hours, since i'm a slow reader, but you get to play 2 out of 5 chapters, i believe?? it certainly got me hooked and invested in the story, but that also just seems crazy, letting you play that much in the demo. so i guess, taking all of this into account, i think i'll just wait for a really good sale. like, i do want to eventually see where the story goes, but not for more than $10 lol

7. AI: The Somnium Files (Demo)

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: seems like a fun game, but also kind of weird. one of the characters blew up a balloon to comical size and the main character's response was something like "i wish your boobs were that big" whshgsjsjlskdj ???????? still planning to play it eventually lmfao but i'm gonna play it on pc. definitely seems like a game that's better on pc

8. Chants of Sennaar

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: ah, what a fun game, and such a beautiful artstyle too (it actually reminded me a lot of sable!); however, while i did really like the game overall, i will say that— as with most people who have played both games— i can't help but compare this against heaven's vault and, personally, even with all the issues i had with it, heaven's vault is definitely the better game in my eyes. while i wouldn't say the translation mechanics in this game are at all easy, it was easier than in heaven's vault. in this game, all you really had to do was match the right glyphs to the right pictures. which, obviously was often a challenge, don't get me wrong, but it was at least somewhat easier than i originally thought it would be: i thought i had to get my guess at the translation right too, but that part of it mainly seems to be so you can remember what the glyph means (or approximately what it means) before you actually verify it. so that was a little disappointing, although it certainly helped make things easier in the long run. which turned out to be a good thing that was actually a bad thing, because i'm not gonna lie, i played the majority of the game over the course of a single day. this was not a good idea (obviously), because it resulted in sleep-deprivation and me hurting my wrists/palms from holding the Switch for so long. clearly this was my own fault, but it did still detract from the experience, unfortunately. the inability to fully concentrate really kept me from fully immersing myself in the latter half of the game, which is likely why the ending fell a tiny bit flat for me. also, i have to mention. there was one puzzle i had to look up a guide for how to solve it, and even now i still don't get it and idk if i ever will. so, i'm kind of bitter about that 😭 but yeah, i don't want to keep ragging on the game, because overall it was great! definitely worth the hype imo. and if the core game mechanics of translating made-up languages sounds fun to you, i definitely recommend checking this one out! just maybe remember to take breaks and get some sleep so that you don't ruin your own experience like i did mine :/

9. The Roottrees are Dead

[played on pc.]

thoughts: if you like mysteries, difficult puzzles, or even just family drama, this is the game for you! it's actually been compared to the likes of return of the obra dinn and the case of the golden idol, and that definitely holds up imo. not in terms of graphics, but just in that you are given a mystery that you need to solve (or an extensive family tree that you need to fill out, in this case) and the game does not hold your hand. i will say, although it's been a while since i played either return of the obra dinn or the case of the golden idol, i think this game was definitely easier than those two (shorter, too). but it was still very rewarding! like i said, it was easier, not easy. honestly i really hope this game gains some traction, because we definitely need more difficult mystery puzzle games like it!!!!

10. Unpacking

[played on pc.]

thoughts: don't really have much to say except that it was a nice chill game 👍

11. Tunic

[played on nintendo switch.]

thoughts: i actually started this soon after chants of sennaar, but i finished it last (the roottrees are dead and unpacking serving as breathers). i really REALLY liked this game at first. it was different than i thought it was going to be, but i was still enjoying the challenge even when i wasn't, you know? aaaaand then i kind of hated it, because certain parts of the puzzle you have to solve in order to achieve the true end were extremely frustrating and overly convoluted imo. but overall, after seeing the end credits you get after the true end, i think i left off on a good note. at the very least i would definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a difficult challenge not just in terms of combat, but in solving deep intricate puzzles as well <3

started but not finished yet:

Sea of Stars (Demo) - started in june. won't be finishing, but only because i decided to buy the full game!

Neo: The World Ends With You (Demo) - started in june. won't be finishing, because the gameplay just seemed a bit monotonous.

Paleo Pines (Demo) - started in june. won't be finishing, because the artstyle was not very appealing to me.

Tangle Tower (Demo) - started in june. won't be finishing, but only because i think i'd prefer to play it on pc.

Who's Lila - started in june. probably won't be finishing, because it just didn't seem like the game for me. which sucks, because i had been looking forward to playing it for a while :(

[1eos]

Miss kendra would u reccomend getting a switch? Ive been think of getting back into video games but im not sure if i should get a handheld or a home console.

if a majority of the games you're interested in are switch exclusives its worth it, but if you want to play games that are also on steam, ps4/5, xbox etc i would recc getting a console bc the switch is the worst abt planned obselescence. like its the least durable system ive ever encountered in my life its actually infuriating.

good points:

if u like handheld gaming the switch lite is excellent. you can save $150, there a cute colors, and the battery life and graphics are excellent. going back to my ps vita after the switch is like whoaaa the display on the lite is just that good.

memory cards for switches arent too expensive and u can get a big sized one for a good deal and not have to worry about space

good game library. i got the switch to play persona strikers, botw, animal crossing, and god eater 3 and it was worth it....and most of these games were worth it

since the switch is super popular its easy to get pre owned units for a decent discount from reputable places

bad points:

the joycons on the switch WILL go out. like no ifs and or buts they get terminal levels of drift in a year, year and a half of any kind of regular play. nintendo knows this and they don't give a fuck. if you have a switch console they used to send u joycons replacements for free but if u have a lite they have to fix it and YES they will charge you :) i got a discount only bc i said i wasn't gonna pay $80 for their negligence.

also 4 or so years later the flap on the game slot has broken and the left trigger doesnt work on my lite. mind u my first ps vita is almost 12 years old and had NO hardware issues (only a memory card issue) and i put more work into that vita in one year than i have in 3 years w my switch. so just be mindful that you will have hardware issues guaranteed

-game prices. switch games rarely if ever go on sale even if theyre 400000 years old and its actually evil. if there are a lot of games u want to play im honestly gonna recommend getting a ps4/ps5 first bc u can get games on sale digitally and physically at a MUCH better price

-a LOT of switch exclusive games drop half baked. this is true of a lot of consoles but with the switch its even more egregious bc of the insane price point. i regret getting animal crossing when it dropped out of nostalgia bc it arrived w virtually no content. one of the newer story of seasons was wayyyyy too empty too easy etc etc. with switch exclusive games in particular you should always wait for unbiased reviews bc most of these games beyond botw dropped bare bones as hell

[schismusic]

In the shadow of the horns: meditations on Team ICO's works – 1. Shadow of the Colossus

[DISCLAIMER: Since I cannot assume you people are all in the know and have played the game like five times, have gotten every extra item and found every last secret location, got all the achievements on the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game, have taken all seventy-nine steps to enlightenment, and are so obsessed with intersecting points that your bedroom wall looks like a re-enactment of the Pepe Silvia conspiracy theory, I have to tell you that the following article includes HEAVY, HEAVY, OH-SO-HEAVY SPOILERS for Shadow of the Colossus. Reader discretion is warned.]

[DISCLAIMER 2: you can absolutely bask safely in the knowledge that I have not done any of the things listed in the first disclaimer. I mean, I have played the game more than once, the first time on PS4 and the second on PS2. Whatever.]

It has at this point been a good five years or so since I'd last played the Team ICO games, so as I went to dust off my ol' trusty PlayStation 2 Slim I got reminded of how the world is a fucked up place and decay exists as an extant form in life, by way of the PS2 no longer reading discs. I mean, nothing I can't fix with a 1mm x 1mm square of duct tape or some isopropyl alcohol in the best case scenario, but I wonder: for fuck's sake, did it have to be now? At any rate, I decided to bite the bullet and finally download PCSX2 so I can play the games (and I promise, the BIOS and game ISOs are all mine, so no piracy involved this time). Playing these particular games on a PC feels especially weird to me, in that I can see the blocky ass graphics meant to be seen and blend in on a CRT in all of their squared glory, but not even that is immersion-breaking or ruins the aesthetics – which is a testament to the strength of the team's art direction and design philosophy. This is especially true considering I'd only played the PS4 Shadow of the Colossus before.

Since I can already hear the raging crowd under my window, let me clarify before I get drawn and quartered by an angry mob of PS2 purists.

I did, of course, get my first exposure to Shadow of the Colossus when it was but a humble PlayStation 2 technical marvel (and, later, a PS3 remaster of that same PS2 technical marvel). It was, in all likelihood, through an unofficial PlayStation magazine that was published here in Italy – even though the original format was technically bought from a Spanish publisher – by the name of PlayGeneration. I was always one console generation behind the rest of the world around me, so the magazine allowed me to stay in touch with new technological developments and new titles coming out. I ended up remembering the original critical reaction to, I don't know, your Deus Ex: Human Revolution or your Dead Space or even your Yakuza 4 (which was actually my first exposure to the series, about fifteen years before I actually got to play it myself) better than the actual games themselves, in a lot of scenarios. But what this magazine had, especially, was a whole two-page spread in every issue where they re-reviewed a number of PS2 games, usually showcasing relatively hidden gems – one that stuck with me particularly was their review of Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, a game that I went on to never play due to my absolute ineptitude at JRPGs. Every issue also included an archive of their older reviews, which for the longest time would reserve a cute little half-page to PlayStation 2 games, with the editors' definitive scores and one-sentence opinions on them. Among these was Shadow of the Colossus, 92 out of 100. I was fascinated by how, well, plain and effective the title was – a non-descript sequence of words that tells you nothing and, as I would later learn, still tells you everything you need to know about the game.

Symbolism of light and shadow, stories that seem to be coming out of children's books (it's always fascinating and, admittedly, quite funny to recall that the original Japanese title of the game is ワンダと巨像, "Wanda to Kyozou" i.e. "Wander and the Colossus"), a unique capability of striking the player in the teeth with a sense of anemoia welling up from somewhere deep within. A friend of mine who's currently playing ICO for the first time mentioned a great emotional response on his part upon revisiting the prison area of the castle – considering exclusively gameplay time, this is a place you're only shown once, about five hours before you come back to it. To better define this feeling for the purposes of this piece, I decided to replicate the closest thing I could achieve: nostalgia. Specifically, I pulled up some old articles I wrote for a gaming blog I helped run between the years of 2020 and 2022, re-read my old impressions of these games, then realized the more I read those (quite pitiful) articles, the more I was thinking "fuck, why don't I just play these again?", which of course led me to what I was saying at the beginning of this article. Running in circles already, aren't I?

One thing I will say: I still believe some of the points I made in those articles to be valid. Specifically, I like the idea of focusing on what the gameplay means. Story and lore analysis of these games is inherently encouraged by the games themselves and their presentation, and therefore way overdone, but I will recommend Leadhead's recent analysis of ICO as a metaphor for escaping an abusive household and Folding Ideas's classic on Shadow of the Colossus as "a game about letting go", as well as admit a certain fondness for the theory of the shared narrative universe as espoused and exposesd by Max Derrat. None of these things will necessarily be central to my own piece, but it's cool to have them, y'know? My main point will have to do with what the games themselves present as their case study. This means analysing and pointing out game mechanics, in and of themselves, as carriers of meaning and implications. As a consequence, for my own ease, I will borrow quite heavily from the old articles (the originals are in Italian, you can find them compiled here, and they are better read in order of release). Lastly, I had originally meant to make this only one article, but it seems to me like there's already enough material for me to stop yapping about methodology and start getting my hands dirty.

God's a short guy, you know, he started in the mail room and, y'know, worked his way up, invested well.

(Tom Waits, in this commercial for Franks Wild Years, directed by Chris Blum)

You're a short guy, as well: too short for your horse, anyway. You carry a special sword – which you stole – and a bow. There's a dead body bundled up in a big ass heavy blanket and you've got that with you, too. It takes a really long time and some seriously deranged route choices to get there, but what do you know – you're good enough to reach the Forbidden Lands, a land that is, well, forbidden, so you probably shouldn't be there. There's a creature, unseen, shouting orders at you out of a window that physically makes no sense architecturally, in two different voices. You have to destroy the statues on this temple's wall, but you can't do that directly, so you have to repeatedly stab gigantic, half-rock-half-flesh creatures that can and will swat you off their back like a mosquito. Only then you'll be able to bring this girl back to life – despite her cursed fate, and the fact that you're in a place called the fucking FORBIDDEN LANDS, and the fact that it hurts more and more to breathe with every colossus you beat.

Every core mechanic in this game is a display of strength: to hold on, to stab, to eat. As Mono – that is, according to the manual in the PS2 version of the game, the name of the girl whose corpse you brought here – cannot, in all likelihood, want anything anymore, it's safe to assume that all of the actions you, the player, undertake in the game are to be understood as the explicit will of Wander, the protagonist. This is a relevant distinction to make. Wander is not you, you are not Wander: why else would he refuse to jump off cliffs, or hesitate when you push him off of ledges? I've always liked thinking about Team ICO's work as a sort of hyper-stylized version of what games like Another World or the original Prince of Persia for the Apple II (even though Fumito Ueda probably played the Amiga port of the game, all things considered). Seeing it this way, the more evident influence these titles have had on Team ICO's game mechanics lends itself quite well to what I'm trying to say. The Prince and Lester Knight Chaykin are both painstakingly animated, frame by frame, in order to achieve a lifelike quality, but where both Jordan Mechner and Éric Chahi attempted a crude imitation of rotoscoping by frame-advancing VHS recordings of themselves or other models and model figures, Ueda and his team usually turn to hand-animation of their characters (or, in particularly bonkers cases like The Last Guardian, write up an algorithm to calculate feather motion in real time and burn a hole through your PS4). This seems to me like Ueda & Co. might be more interested in lifelike behaviour, as opposed to lifelike movement, and as such may be trying to conjure up a more psychologically driven type of narrative experience. And like all the best character pieces, there's usually very little people to deal with.

Let's look at it, and to do so we have to delve into spoiler territory, so reader's discretion is advised.

Agro, the only conventional living being other than Wander throughout a good 99% of actual game time, is a literal horse. As such, she does right by you, by virtue of you being, for whatever reasons you can think of, crucially important to her. Seriously, somebody else has already pointed it out: why is Agro so much bigger than Wander? Is it perhaps because they just happened to grow together and ended up adapting to one another, in ways more organic than getting a horse assigned to you by height? Judging by literally every single minute of game time, the two of them seem almost telepathically locked into each other's thoughts, and Agro goes so far as to allow herself to get killed (functionally speaking, at least: there's a reason they shot broken-legged horses in Western movies, and that reason is it hurts like a bitch and the horse simply never fully recovers for that, at least not with veterinary techniques from the eighteen-hundreds) in order for Wander to fuck off and turn into Dormin. Speaking of which, Dormin are the only other character who speak to Wander for a good 99% of cutscene time, and their only motivation seems to be coming back to this godforsaken earth to wreak havoc on those who sealed them – Emon and his guards, who also seem to be mostly interested in fucking you up specifically so that Mono does not get resurrected. Then again, who the hell asked Mono what she wants? I'm not exactly in the habit of directly asking questions to the dead.

…okay, I was lying, considering what my last two long-form posts were about. But I guess what I'm saying is: Wander is literally the only person who intentionally refuses to be open about his motives. Sure, he wants to resurrect Mono. But why? Had they ever met before she had to die? Did she openly express to him how she did not want to die? I hate myself for even considering this question, but what if her fate actually is cursed? How did Emon kill her, anyway – actually, did Emon kill her himself? What did Wander even do to steal the sword, since – considering Emon and his men literally rode all the way to a place they themselves have religious prescriptions not to defile – it must have been heavily guarded or kept in a secure area? A good number of the colossi are not aggressive unless provoked, too, so this means Wander intentionally goes out of his way to fuck with extra-planar powers beyond human comprehension. Ultimately: what if, beyond all the ad-catchphrase rhetoric of "how far will you go for love", this guy was just being a self-centered prick?

It's as good a guess as any, really – here's a piece analysing Shadow of the Colossus as a trans allegory, for instance. But since it's as good, it's worth entertaining it. I also don't plan to present it as an inherent stroke of genius: not per se, at least. What I like about considering this game a metaphor about pulling your head out of your own ass is that – in a spectacular demonstration of understanding what the fuck you're talking about, the likes of which are unprecedented (and nigh-unsurpassed, apparently) in the gaming world – the game never hits you with the "YOU SHOULD STOP PLAYING TO WIN" argument. This is Wander's doing, not yours, which is why the guy goes to the Forbidden Lands in the intro cutscene, before you have any agency at all. Now this guy's stuck in this (stunning-looking) pimple in the middle of the planet's buttocks, where a dark supernatural force's physical manifestation has been torn asunder into sixteen rock-and-flesh mechas and it's his ass on the line to give the dark supernatural entity whatever the fuck they want, otherwise the lady won't be reborn and wouldn't that be awful?, but that also means that you are, essentially, just invited to sit in, scream at the screen for a good ten hours or so at this motherfucking idiot climbing moving mountains, and partake in Fumito Ueda and his gang's own study on negative interaction in videogaming.

Negative as opposed to positive, of course – that would be The Last Guardian, which we will be talking about when I can be arsed to open up my PS4, drive the literal soot sprite motherships living amidst its circuitry out of the case, and then play the console-disintegrating performance-tanking game again. I swear I actually like that game, for fuck's sake…

Like I said, the game has mostly actions aimed at offense (admittedly you can, thank fuck, pet Agro both while standing next to her, and when you're on her back and she's standing still, which I think is actually a key mechanic to explain what The Last Guardian would later try to do), and it says a lot about Wander as a character. There is no contextual command near Mono, there is no interaction with any of the other animals in the Forbidden Lands (I think I saw a tortoise in the PS2 version a while back – did I dream it up?) that isn't hurting them or killing them or maiming them for your own personal gain or just as an accident on your journey to the next checkmark on the list or, potentially, just for shits and giggles. Essentially this guy barges in and destroys everything in his wake – including, whether he wants it or not, his sole companion. The immense irony of this is that Agro, essentially, sacrifices herself for some element of affection towards Wander: no special destiny, no sudden understanding of Wander's motives. Literally just the fact that this guy is her favourite human. But the game itself has to be taken to its gory, bloody end, through trials and tribulations, for it to reveal its actual statement on the matter.

Dormin is banished again in violence, the bridge pylons collapse by magic in on themselves as Emon and the guards make a hasty retreat out into civilised land. Wander is now a bawling, screaming horned baby – the first of his kind, some would argue: like a mark of Cain of sorts. But sure enough, the reborn Mono has no problem picking him up and, if we are to give credit to the special illustration in the Japanese PS3 re-release of the game, helping him grow into a healthy, beloved horned kid. And Agro, despite her broken leg, still finds her way back to the shrine of the cult, and climbs to the secret garden on top of the building, finding a fawn. An animal that means rebirth.

[alfredopizzaluver151]

Looking for game recs

I hope we get more English-translated Chinese fantasy games in the future. The cultivation genre, like Wuxia and Xianxia, is such an interesting fantasy genre that I'm sure more people would be interested in it if they just knew about it. So many are action games that a lot of gamers are missing out!

Though I've been looking for a game that I'm not sure has been made yet. I'm looking for a cultivation game that focuses on medical cultivation? Like helping people with ailments and defeating demons that are directly hurting people. Basically a game similar to Potion Permit but less grindy and more interesting. (Sorry to Potion Permit devs)

I'm def getting Amazing Cultivation Simulator cause its been described as like Rimworld (and it looks cool). The Leviathan's Fantasy looks good, but I'm not sure my laptop can handle all the graphics so I wish it was on ps4. I've considered Sword and Fairy: Together Forever but it has mixed reviews and it looks like it specifically has just fighting? Immortal Life looks cute, but it seems like its mostly just farming? I might wait until it's completed to try it.

How much does this make sense? lol

[jessjustplay]

I finished playing Kena: Bridge of Spirits

October 30, 2023

Game: Kena: Bridge of Spirits First Time/Replaying: First Time Game Time: 18 hours Console: PS4 Started: October 12, 2023 Finished: October 28, 2023

It's been a wild ride trying to play Kena: Bridge of Spirits, but I finally finished it over the weekend! The story is a very powerful tale of letting go and moving on. The world is both beautiful and sad, with vibrant colors and so much detailed foliage that you really feel like you are wandering through the forest. The music helped create a relaxing atmosphere, making each session an enjoyable time. I loved it so much!

The gameplay was very nice; moving about while exploring was so smooth and the battles were challenging but not too tough. I played on Story Mode which likely helped make it an enjoyable fighting experience. Like I said, the battles had their challenges but I never felt like a boss with impossible to beat.

Kena is a wonderful character who is strong and caring. Her job is to help the deceased cross over to the spirit realm. In this game, you guide 3 spirits while uncovering the mystery of what caused sudden corruption in the villages and forests outside your destination, the Mountain Shrine.

You also collect little creatures called Rot. They are very silly and, even though they have an odd name, very cute. The game lets you find a lot of hats for these Rot creatures to wear. The hats looked so goofy on them, I loved it. My favorite one was a cowboy hat!

I mentioned that the music helped create a relaxing atmosphere, but it wasn't just the music, it was the sound effects the game developers used, too. The game incorporates things such as bird noises, moving water, and leaves rustling in the wind. It was such a nice audible experience, and tied with the graphics it felt very special.

The puzzles of the game were so much fun. I had trouble with some, but the satisfaction of figuring them out trumped any annoyances I felt. The game definitely requires you to explore EVERYTHING - above, below, and around you. It was pretty insane how they designed some of these puzzles, I couldn't help but be in awe!

Overall, this game was awesome. Great music, great story, great characters, great battles, great puzzles! I don’t really have endgame stats because there isn’t a leveling system, but one day I’ll edit this post to include some screenshots of the abilities I unlocked & how many Rot I was able to find.

[beatthegame]

Just beat Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade. The original FF7 was first released on the Playstation One back in 1997. Considered by many one of the best video games of all time. FF7 was the gold standard for role playing games for a long time. It was remade again just a couple of years ago in 2020 on the PS4. During a time of perpetual remakes, Final Fantasy 7 Remake seemed to live up to the hype and made a great gaming experience even better. Remake Intergrade is the PS5 follow up that appeared shortly after the PS4 release. Not a sequel. More like the "Super Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition EX Plus Alpha Turbo HD" of the Final Fantasy world. A loaded statement for sure. But is Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade a good game? Let's break it down like this...

In a nutshell: Young steampunk Super Saiyan Goku with a big ass sword becomes an eco-terrorist for hire to blow up electric power plants with this crazy dude with a minigun for a hand and a karate hooker, who just happens to be Goku's childhood sweetheart. Don't worry parents; this is an evil corporation, so blowing up their power plants is ok. You hack & slash & punch & shoot your way through hundreds of robots and monsters trying to stop this evil corporation with your dirtbag friends and a cute flower girl. Seems like a simple premise. That is until Goth Albino Axl Rose starts whispering riddles into Goku's ears. Getting all up in your business. You would THINK that was cool, but you find out that Axl is trying to destroy the world. Which is the opposite of cool. At that point you're fighting to save the Earth. Again. But seriously, this game is a lot more layered than how I'm trying to summarize. It's a nutshell full of awesome.

The Good: The original Final Fantasy 7 was pretty amazing. So you're already starting off with a good premise. But the developers took that premise and rebuilt it from scratch with modern developer tools. The end result is pretty fantastic from every aspect. The graphics are simply gorgeous. The assets are so insanely detailed, I would often stop progressing and just look around. The details in the environment. The non-descript chatter from the NPC's made the city of Midgar seem alive. And the characters! The Final Fantasy 7 cast has become almost iconic through the years. Popping up in several other games, movies, comics, etc. We were somewhat familiar with these characters. But the remake really brought them to life. Shout out to the voice acting cast, by the way. Just about everyone played true to their characters' personalities. The quirky banter between  certain characters were amusing at times. Which leads to the actual gameplay. Final Fantasy was always about quick turn-based battles and item management with pretty graphics. The remake takes it a step further with more pro-active arcade brawler style battles. All while preserving the quick item management aspect of the original games. It often feels like a juggling act at times. You have to attack, block or parry and dodge enemy attacks like any other 3-D action game. But you also have to manage two other teammates on top of the action. You can add quick commands from their arsenal or let the AI automate while you focus on kicking ass. It's definitely more proactive than the original game. Even the music is fantastic! The original soundtrack was already legendary. How on Earth could they possibly top it? Well, this modern day production crew took something great and added a layer of delicious frosting on top. Taking classic melodies from the original game and giving them full instrumental productions spanning several genres: pop, jazz, EDM, metal, hip-hop, reggae remixes. Amongst others. I had the damn chocobo song in my head ALL DAY. The Happy Turtle jingle is burned in my mind forever. Which is a testament to the greatness of this game's soundtrack. Controls were smooth, responsive and simple. The games menus and materia system might have a bit of a learning curve for unfamiliar players. Definitely not a typical beat em up. But you have tons of options! The UI is simple and provides easy instructions to guide players through. There are so many other good details about this game. I can seriously keep going. But let's flip the script and break out the table salt...

The Bad: If you're getting into this without any prior knowledge of the Final Fantasy experience? You might find yourself a bit confused. There is a LOT going on, with plenty of gaping plotholes from beginning to end. Which I now realize were placed intentionally to throw off fans of the original timeline. They are trying something new and different, which is GREAT! But from a tourist perspective? It's all super-fucking-weird! LOL! I can see the average Fortnite kid getting bored with this game really quick. Not a lot of gamers are patient enough to sit through all the cut scenes (which ARE skippable by the way). There were plenty of cringe inducing scenes that gave me douche chills. Speed Demon Roche and The Honeybee Inn were annoying, amonst others but I respect the developers trying new things and adding more substance to the Midgar experience. And speaking of adding to the experience... I don't like how they added to the game by subtracting 3/4ths of the original narrative out of the presentation. Back in 1997. Final Fantasy 7 came with 4 discs. Different parts of the saga split up, mostly because you can only contain a finite amount of game data on a single disc. Despite the 4 discs, you got the WHOLE STORY. The remake only covers the first quarter of the timeline. Like getting served a whole deep dish pie at first. Now you're only getting a slice? Which raises a LOT of questions I'm not willing to remember in-between the countless games we'll be playing before the next disc comes out. It kills the flow of the narrative. But from a business standpoint, you can see exactly why it would be more profitable to stretch the games out. And add as many spin-offs and DLC's as possible before you shell out another $80 bucks for the next disc. Unfortunately for me, I'm that hardcore Final Fantasy fanboy that will begrudgingly burn another $80 bucks for each stupid disc and download they crank out. Like a true Final Fantasy cuck. God help us if the introduce micro-transactions.

I also don't like how linear this game is. For a role playing game, especially with the freedom of other sandbox RPGs, this game seems pretty shallow. You really can't do much outside of what your character is tasked to do. Pretty weak compared to what's offered on so many other games. But you know what they say, "compare & despair". If it weren't for the iconic characters, the game would seem pretty weak when you're not invested in the lore behind these people. But fortunately, there are millions of fans who went all in on this franchise. The next installment is supposed to offer more freedom? Which seems ideal. But is it the same kind of freedom like you get in Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption? Very unlikely.

Overall: These son's of biscuits at Squeenix took a legendary game. Made it better. And added a Intergrade cherry on top, with more bells and whistles on the side. When you start getting caught up in the mini-games more than the actual story (hello Fort Condor!) you start to get a good video game Inception going on. The best games will make you want to play them again after beating it. But I'm already looking forward to unlock more features on Hard mode. It's Final Fantasy at its peak form.

S-Class

[satoshi-mochida]

Umbraclaw launches May 30 for PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC

Gematsu Source

Side-scrolling action game Umbraclaw will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam on May 30, developer Inti Creates announced. The PlayStation and Xbox versions are newly announced.

In Japan, a physical standard edition of Umbraclaw will be available for PlayStation 5 and Switch for 5,280 yen. A limited edition will also be available for 9,980 yen, which includes an art book, two-disc soundtrack CD, and an acrylic key chain.

Get the latest details below.

■ Release Date Announced

Today, January 23, 2024, Inti Creates has revealed extensive details, including the release date, for their newest 2D action game, Umbraclaw! A demo will be available during the Steam Next Fest February 2024 Edition. Umbraclaw tells the story of Kuon, a house cat who has died in the mortal world, after she awakens in the Soulplane, a realm of the dead. She must challenge the perilous underworld to return home to her owner in this 2D action adventure. Taking the helm of development on Umbraclaw, Blaster Master Zero director Satoru Nishizawa will show that cats are not just cute, but cool heroes as well. The game also features an enchanting, art-book graphical style with a hint of darkness that reflects its story. Will Kuon be able to break through the Boundary to return home safely…?

■ Find Hope in Death

Kuon has died. Shortly after this simple house cat leaves the mortal world, she awakens in the Soulplane, realm of the dead. The player controls the cat Kuon as she searches for a way to open the “Boundary” to the mortal world and return home. The dangerous terrain and frightful fiends of the Soulplane present a near impossible challenge for a mere house cat. Any single hit to the tiny feline means instant death. However, it also means a new chance—Kuon has the power of “Anima Revive” to revive her with a new skill, once again challenging the trials that await her. Kuon’s story can meet a multitude of endings depending on her and the player’s actions and choices. Her struggles to break the cycle of life and death may even touch your very soul.

■ Story

One life has come to an end. Life is a fragile thing. It can be snuffed out in an instant through any number of means. This life belonged to a simple cat that lived with her owner. Her owner may have been devastated. They may have given her a formal burial. They may have scattered her ashes. Or perhaps they were not even aware of her death. she just disappeared one day, never to come back. Regardless of the circumstances… One life has come to an end.

Having died in the mortal world, the cat Kuon awakens in the Soulplane. In order to return to her owner, she sets out for the only exit available, the “Boundary.”

■ Features

◆ (1) Find Hope in Death with “Anima Revive!”

Kuon is a mere mortal cat. Any damage in the Soulplane is enough to kill her instantly. However, the mysterious “Anima Revive” power will bring her back to life with new skills by absorbing the soul of another animal.

—A mere cat, Kuon dies easily.

—Anima Revive brings her back with a new skill.

—Overcoming her weakness, she can now defeat enemies.

Animal Skills—Elephant: The Elephant’s trunk snatches enemy projectiles from midair.

—Crow: The Crow’s wings grant 1 mid-air jump.

—Tyrannosaurus: Transform and roar to attack with a powerful shockwave.

Kuon can become even stronger by transforming into a humanoid form, but… Kuon can only revive up to 9 times. “Cats have nine lives,” after all. Will Kuon be able to escape the Soulplane before all nine of her lives are lost?

—Feline Kuon with “Dodge and Flee” Action

Transforms into all-new gameplay…

—Humanoid Kuon with “Full Fighting” Action

After repeated deaths, Kuon will absorb a “human’s soul.” transforming her into a humanoid form built for fighting. Gameplay transforms along with her, from a focus on “avoiding enemies to fighting them.

◆ (2) Traverse an Enchantingly Dark and Stunning Underworld

Kuon’s journey home is lavishly rendered with hand-drawn art, in a style of paper cut-out art. Each twisted enemy and environment has been lovingly crafted by the Inti Creates art team.

◆ (3) A Story That Will Leave a Mark on Your “Soul”

A single cat’s “death” begins a cycle of rebirth.

As Kuon struggles to return home, she will cross paths with other souls fallen to the underworld, both like and unlike her.

Kuon’s story can meet a multitude of endings depending on her and the player’s actions and choices.

Will you be able to keep your humanity, and Kuon’s felinity, until the very end?

■ Characters

Kuon: Feline

A house cat who has died and awakened in the Soulplane. In order to return to her owner, she must find a way to open the “Boundary” between worlds. While she appears to still be a normal cat, she has revived in the Soulplane as one of the fiends who live there. This has granted her the ability of Anima Revive, bringing her back to life when she dies, along with other mysterious powers.

Kuon: Humanoid (voiced by Jenny Yokobori in English, Rie Kawamura in Japanese)

After repeatedly using Anima Revive, Kuon absorbs the soul of a human and transforms into a new body. Honed for combat against the fiends of the Soulplane as it may be, this transformation also affects Kuon’s heart and soul. There is a danger that she may forget her owner and true goal, becoming something closer to the other fiends around her..

Tsukumo (voiced by Christina Assaf-Costello in English, Yuko Natsuyoshi in Japanese)

Kuon’s owner back in the mortal world. She found Kuon as a kitten and has lived with her ever since. Tsukumo’s parents are rarely home due to work, and their relationship suffers as a result. She is shy, has few friends, doesn’t really enjoy school, and has no clear dreams for the future. Low in self-confidence, she’s a typical gloomy teenager. She becomes a total goof around Kuon, perhaps thanks to the emotional support she provides.

Watch a new trailer below. View a new set of screenshots at the gallery.

Release Date Trailer

English

Japanese

[yeetspace]

Science side of Tumblr, would anyone know what the fuck is wrong with my STG Aubron PC that I got literally yesterday that refuses to give any display no matter what court or what monitor has been used, including a TV along with three other separate monitors...

Like nothing was done to it literally fresh out of the box, plugged it in and fuck-all happened.

Tried all three of the normal ports AND the hdmi...

And then magic side of Tumblr, do y'all have any insight into this;

Cuz I'm not exaggerating, I'm so used to worst case scenario i wasn't even exited for this PC, and honestly im only seeing this as karma for daring to fix my ps4 like cuz i dared to do something for myself- as has happened literally every time i can recall, to an extent that i can not explain- and so now the generosity of someone else is completely nullified.

I feel like i live in a constant negative zone of "filled buckets", and the things that aren't that are only allowed to happen individually. Like -

"oh you finally got out of that abusive relationship- you're childhood dog's dead."

"Oh cute a new cat- you're other dog's dead."

"Oh yeah i finally got a place to set up a second PCs- a literal fucking hurricane destroyed the newer of the two"

"Oh shoot wait i think I'm trans- transphobic legislation gets worse"

"Oh nice you just got the elden ring DLC- PS4 literally stops working for a year and a half not even a week later, perfectly making it impossible to ever play at it's peak of co-op"

"Oh wait i have an idea, I'll buy these games that i wanna play- only fucking functional pc literally doesn't have the graphical fidelity."

Like what the FUCK

[sl33py-g4m3r]

fell through the floor for a second time~~

how annoying would it be to send a bug report every time I fell through the ground?

happened once right when starting the game while emptying out one of the corrals of plorts; I walk backwards a bit and clip through the ground into the slime sea~~ that I sent a bug report for...

also verified steam files and they were fine~~

this time I was going from the main area into the overgrowth ranch expansion; I run to check lemons and the saber quantum largos that are in there, clip through the ramp stair thing and again, straight into the slime sea~~

Can't wait until I get teleporters to hopefully have fast travel points to everywhere so that doesn't happen~~ or if it does, I don't lose all the plorts I'm carrying.

the only thing I've lost at this point is (luckily) heart beets....

I've also had boxes and things that spawn from boxes (like the oca oca's I just found, had to find them the hard way) not be interactive with or vac'd up at all. just nothing. so I had to find some further into the indigo quarry and hope that slimes didn't eat them before I noticed them...

how rare are these bugs? how do I prevent them? had never had this happen on the switch at all~~ and I hope it doesn't happen on the PS4~~

got my copy of PS4 slime rancher today and the disk looks so cute~~ little gold slime blue ray (? or cd?) happy to be put into my PS4 and played~~

I hope the PS4 runs better than the switch, and doesn't have the "fall through the floor" and not interactive items from boxes glitches that are on steam~~

I mean I want to send a bug report every time these things happen but also I don't want to be annoying~~~

got my game on lowest possible graphical settings~~ is that the culprit? how do I fix this? or does it just randomly happen?

edit to add: checked steam files integrity both times~~ they were valid~~ and I don't mod so it can't be that.....

[mochlus]

Been playing the trials of mana 3D remake and it's fun, but the fact that it's, like, fundamentally an SNES game but with the presentation of a PS4 game, it just feels like something is missing. Like it's shallow, or not expansive enough. Which it's not. It's not shallow, it's an SNES game. The HD 3D graphics just trick my brain into thinking I'm playing a PS4 game. I kind of wish it had the same graphical style as the Secret of Mana 3D remake tbh, that was so cute and didn't feel nearly as shallow... And Secret had the adorable inn conversations with your party too... I get that that's a logistical nightmare with the amount of party combinations in Trials, but if they just gave like, each possible pair (not even trio! Just pair!) like 3-4 conversations the characters would feel SO much more fleshed out... But no... Instead there's... Boob jiggle physics