Game Thoughts: June Random Plays
I have two general personal modes of operation: Input and Output.
When I'm in Output Mode I feel good. I make art, I go places, I talk to people. I learn stuff and try new things and have energy.
During Input Mode, on the other hand, I become a recluse consumed by doomscrolling and content ingestion, filter-feeding dopamine as I listlessly float from screen to screen.
Since my last 0dd company post in May my job has been sapping the life out of me, causing me to spiral deep into Input Mode. I spend my evenings listening to non-challenging scifi and playing whatever games are in the Steam family library.
Normally there's a little part of me -- a tiny Output Mode parasite -- that feeds on the scraps of media I'm inhaling to filter out inspiration for the next time I switch over. That feels absent right now, leaving me to pointlessly dig through games and books that might normally spark something.
While I'm not particularly keen to write a whole post on anything I've played recently, I think it's worth noting the things I've gone through, and which ones I've bounced off of in my current headspace. I may want to return and revisit some of them in the future.
Citizen Sleeper 2: (9 hours - complete)
Finally got around to this one! I don't feel like it did anything to significantly improve over the first, and I found the story a little less compelling this time around. The first game was very unique, and this one didn't get out from under that shadow. The ending was also pretty flat.
Still a good game with great character art, and still a great concept for a minimalist narrative RPG.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (30 hours - incomplete)
I played Yakuza 0 a while back and found it pretty fun, though I didn't beat it. Like a Dragon is in the same universe with an all-new cast (with eventual crossover with the characters from Yakuza 0-6). Instead of brawling mechanics the game cheekily uses turn-based RPG mechanics while joking about it and making many references to Dragon Quest. "Like a Dragon" indeed.
The game takes a very long time to get into the "good stuff," and almost lost me before I got there. The initial story is several hours of yakuza melodrama without access to much in the way of mechanics -- after that, however, you get dropped into a new city and things get weird and fun. I think my favourite moment in the whole game was the first time my new party member -- homeless man who is your party's "wizard" (he even puts his hood up) -- "casts a spell" by throwing a bunch of crumbs at opponents who are then swarmed by pigeons. Brilliant.
I didn't finish the game because there were too many battles which got really repetitive and the story was starting to drag. Ended up watching the remainder of the story cutscenes on someone's youtube channel at 3x speed.
I did have a lot of fun with what I did play, and I managed to run a damn good candy business on the side.
Esoteric Ebb (20 minutes - incomplete)
"It's like Disco Elysium but less pretentious so you'll like it way more," I was told -- however the starting sequence of my several organs arguing with each other was too much like Disco Elysium. I had passed / failed like 20 skill checks before my character opened their eyes.
Dropped before I left the first room. It really just isn't my style of game.
I do wonder about this -- I like tabletop RPGs, but something about a videogame version of it rubs me the wrong way. I think it stems from the inherent difference between the emergent crowdsourced story and gameplay of a tabletop VS the illusion of this in games like Disco Elysium. If I'm playing a single-player game I want to know I'm getting the best possible experience during my single playthrough and not missing out on it due to some arbitrary dice roll that puts me on a different set of pre-written railroad tracks.
Final Fantasy VI: Pixel Remaster (2 hours - incomplete)
This is the one to play, I've been told, out of all the pixel Final Fantasies. I ended up bailing on V, and VI didn't manage to hold my attention. I did like the vibes -- the opening scene is great, Figaro castle scene was good, but that first dungeon just had me rolling my eyes -- the disconnect between the battles (here's some random bugs to fight) and the story in these older JRPGs just completely breaks my immersion. This sucks because I've been craving JRPGs for some reason, but they all annoy me in my current headspace.
Norco (6 hours - complete)
This one was good! I really enjoy text-heavy games when they're more linear, as I don't spend all my time wondering if I've fucked up the whole story due to a digital dice roll.
This is a super gritty point-and-click adventure with great visuals and world-building I can only describe as "Oilpunk". It got real weird at the end and I'm not sure I fully follow what happened, but I had a good time.
In Other Waters (30 minutes - incomplete)
The first game by the Citizen Sleeper gang. Very cool premise, very cool colour palette, but I bounced off of it like a forcefield.
Blue Prince (7 hours - complete enough)
This is a really great game. Not entirely my cup of tea, but just a great novel concept and execution.
Essentially a roguelite puzzle mashup where you travel through a house where the blueprints (ha) change every day. Each room you open you pick from 3 options and try to figure out how to get to the last room (and then figure out how to open the last room)
I think I got really lucky with my playthrough based on the things I've read online. I ended up lucking into the right combination of items to build a tool on day 13 or 14 that let me blow open some walls and find some seemingly important stuff; then it only took a few days more to get into room 46. I missed a lot before getting there, as I didn't end up figuring out much of the mystery, didn't get much of the storyline, and only found like half of the room types.
I'm done with it, however. I know there's a lot more but I got my credit scene. My experience with Tunic and Animal Well have shown me that I don't enjoy delving into these multifaceted extra-complex mystery depths that take whole communities to solve.
SANABI (1 hour so far)
I'm playing this, now. Fast paced grappling-hook platformer with absolutely gorgeous pixel art and animation. Story and character design has me hooked so far, though I'm not much of an action gamer so we shall see if I can keep up in the later parts of the game!