Recent reviews by kaaos

Having played both of △○□×'s published titles before and especially after liking LiEat, I gave it a lot praise for its focused design - especially in the context of being developed with a very limited engine. I wish I could applaud 1bitheart for the same achievement, as it is almost impossible to notice the simplistic RPG creator engine underneath its gameplay elements and handcrafted visuals, but sadly it fails to execute its own ideas successfully.

As I mentioned before, I personally place a lot of value in the ingenuity of original design with such limited tools and environments. For its benefit, 1bitheart feels very unique with its mix of walk-n-talk narrative puzzles and cross-examination mechanic (almost identical to the one which Ace Attorney titles are built around). Combine this with the absolutely charming visuals and heartwarming writing that Miwashiba is known for at this point, and you wonder how you can mess this up. Well...

You always need to be aware of the perspective you approach a piece of media from. What I mean by this is that when I boot up a japanese indie developer's new project, I know it's going to feature elements of moe and deep psychological horror in variably heavyhanded amounts. As such, I'm not going to critic the absurdity, convolutedness or how filled with cliches the whole story was more than stating that the game's plot is indeed all of those things. 1bitheart's protagonist is a dorky, technomagical powers-wielding teenage shut in who's kicked into the streets to make friends, save mankind and understand themselves better - and all of this is somewhat tolerable along the ride because you get to meet amazing npc's along the way.

The reason why I decided to write this review at all is that 1bitheart's npc's left me with an impression. There was so much obvious love and care put into different townsfolk you can meet and befriend, with hints of their interpersonal connections, motivations and dreams. Of course not all of the npcs are as deeply written, with quality of writing dropping quite sharply through game's later areas. The actual process of unlocking all of the dialog with different npcs is tedious busywork as you spam them with different purchaseable items to max out the friend point system. Reason why this becomes a grind is that the main game is both pretty short and very linear, and that game's ending is directly linked to the amount of npcs you manage to befriend. (I don't consider this to be a spoilerworthy, as its literally the game's overarching theme and this goal is heavily implied through main storyline.) To put it on simpler terms, for me the most enjoyable aspects of 1bitheart were both underdeveloped and drained of enjoyment by its design.

Back when Okami first came out over ten years ago, it blew my teenager mind with its expressive and bold brush-mechanics that miraculously are actually fun to play around with a game controller. This combined with epic storyline that plays over memorable open areas and sprawling dungeons makes for one of the best and well-aged titles in its generation. Now in PC, I couldn't find any performance issues or design flaws with the port so I'd put this version right alongside the original in legitimacy.

The obvious and already mentioned highlight of the game is its brush technique-mechanics. You're able to freeze the game at any point to draw (or cast) different abilities the protagonist Amaterasu finds through the game's progress, reminicent of similiar mechanics in classic titles like Arx Fatalis or Harry Potter before it. These abilities are utilized fully through the game's level design and geniously piggyback real-life logic, making puzzles feel both logical and natural to solve. Most of the abilities involve channeling nature's elements, so you might be manifesting water or sunlight to manipulate flora to create new platforms or reveal new paths.

Otherwise the mechanical side of Okami is decent: there's a great variety of enemies to battle, all with different elemental weaknesses - even if its easiest to simply hack'n'slash through the common mobs. Bossfights are memorable, very creative and all have an obvious gimmick. Sadly, this made the endgame a bit tedious for me atleast when the game finally decided to recycle older foes in kind of a boss rush-fashion. I still wouldn't call Okami boring at any point: the world is full of hidden abilities and collectibles to find, minigames and just incredibly beautiful scenery that's a treat to play through. Lastly regarding mechanical side, I really love the implementation of 'faith' points that Amaterasu gains for progressing the game and doing good deeds in the process, which you use to buff your health and channel capacity. The game world is filled with optional sidequests and wildlife you can help out - this acts as a type of soft difficulty slider where more casual player is rewarded for exploration but its still easy to do a more challenging playthrough without modifiying rest of the game.

The story and visuals of Okami are its other highlights. The traditional japanese techniques and mythological themes are used to create a very universal yet cohestive story without untranslateable cultural pitfalls (anyone else tired of kanji-based wordplay or puns?) that deals with very archetypical themes such as respect for nature and taking responsiblity for your actions in a very folklore-y fashion: tragical flaws but with just a right amount of comedy. Only downside I can think of regarding the story is purely regarding the fatigue I experience when first playing through the game: what I assumed was the final climax and boss battle of the whole game turned out to be just one fourth of the whole storyline, which hopefully speaks about the level of writing in a positive way. Overall, Okami is a videogame I'd put on any pedestal amongs the greatest of all time, and I'd recommend everyone to give it a fair shot.

Circa Infinity is a decent puzzle-platformer wrapped into a very striking and thought-blending aesthetic. The game's literally all about running inside and outside circles, with a single trick for progressing (and survival) being well-timed jumps. Mechanically the game's actually not too far from the likes of 'The Impossible Game', as you're mostly expected to progress through every level as fast as possible without dying (atleast all of the achievements point towards that ideal). There's some variety (apart from the ever-increasing level complexity and enemy/obstacle variety) that comes in the form of boss stages and achievement-related alterate progression styles, but after the game's initial visual rush wears off it reveals itself as another 'execution test'-type of action puzzle game. I don't dislike that, and neither the very speedrun-friendly design of the game, but there's not enough technical freedom to keep me invested long-term. I do think the game's worth its price as a solid few-hour experience, but it lacks a lasting enjoyment factor.

NEOTOKYO° is a flawed gem of the finest kind. With a long and eventful past, the almost nine year old HL2 mod is still alive and kicking, and thats purely because of its merits - but is it something I'd recommend for everyone? My honest answer is "no", and I'm not claiming this just to go against the grain with many of the other great reviews this game's gotten through the years.

Instead of traditional review practice of describing the game with my own words, I'll go straight to the big question: What's the fun part in NT? I'll divine this into two parts: gameplay & the community. (I'm aware that some would recommend this game just for its wonderful aesthetic & soundtrack, both of which are amazing - but this review focuses on the 'game' part of NT)

1) GAMEPLAY
Underlying the game's CS-esque surface, I'd argue that NT has a lot in common with more freeform-ey FPS games like Quake, Tribes and Team Fortress. The rounds played on vastly different maps put the emphasis on learning the obscure movement tech, specific map quirks, rollout timings and unique class abilities to gain advantage over other players. Just like in the aftermentioned games, a total newcomer will get their ass handed to them by anyone else in the server. As such, my first argument for why I would NOT recommend NEOTOKYO is that: "In order to fully enjoy Neotokyo (as an fps), you'll need to dedicate time for observing, learning and practicing both from the mod and its community to gain success in-game."

There's also something that every newcomer should be aware of: this is indeed a stand-alone mod which isn't updated anymore. There exists a ton of known issues, some of which have solutions - others you'll have to accept as a part of the experience.

2) THE COMMUNITY
Like any multiplayer-only game, Neotokyo breathes in the pace of its playerbase. Enjoying a more-or-less stable active hours around 21:00 UTC (evening for West Europe) especially on weekends, the game's definitely not dead. That said, NT has understandably experienced large playerbase shift along its lifecycle, and most of the community architecture and resources are made & maintained by non-active veterans. As someone who started playing in 2015, I can tell that the besides the complete lack of organized activity, the active map rotation has also shrunk, effectively marginalizing the amount of mod content thats played. Because of these factors, my second main argument why I wouldn't recommend NEOTOKYO is: "To completely enjoy NT, you're forced to interact with a community that doesn't have a clear authority figures, has minimal organized effort and mostly daydreams of a better version of the current mod."

For the clarity, the community was initially what hooked me in, like so many others. If you manage to make friends here, or some of your friends already play NT - then you'll probably have a great experience. But what game isn't fun with friends?


As a footnote, and to clarify: I'm not saying NT is a bad game - it's just for a very specific type of people. While the unique mechanics and artstyle of the game deserve all the respect, the mod itself is exactly where it belongs: a hidden, decade-old multiplayer relic that's played by those who love it. Including me, sometimes.

Warframe is probably the best free-to-play multiplayer game I've experienced. It's not perfect, but the game packs insane amounts of content and depth without obvious paywalls, provides an enjoyable gameplay loop with more than enough variety and boasts one of the more unique and consistent visual styles in the market. While I never quite fell in love with it, Warframe provides a really high quality co-op experience and I'd recommend everyone to atleast check it out.

Technically while Warframe is free, everything ties into the basic loop of grinding missions to level up and gain resources. There's always something to upgrade or strive forwards to, and there's enough genre-defying optional content like fishing and pet-breeding along with single player quests to keep it all interesting for a long time. I personally enjoyed the optional content far more than I probably should've (such as snapping pictures of rare enemy types), but even then I was genuinely impressed of how many interesting designs there are among hundreds of weapons and warframes. The game's a literal timesink, especially as a 4-player co op where you can face actually challenging missions.

As a negative footnote, you can really tell that Warframe is slowly built on top of itself along the way. It still suffers heavily from confusing UI design and ancient progression systems which can really turn off a newcomer without any guidance. I feel like there's a lot that could be done to streamline the experience without sacrificing the depth of the overrall game.

For me, Rakuen is an amazing showcase of video games as an art medium. Combining the cinematic storytelling with the exploration mechanics of classic Zelda titles, Rakuen is an incredibly personal project and you can really feel its creator's touch on every aspect of the game. As a non-combat, story-focused game created with RPG maker, I'll try to focus my review on these elements specifically.

Thematically, it's probably easier to compare Rakuen to titles outside gaming realm such as the animated movie 'Spirited Away'. Rakuen's main themes are family, friendships and the duality of life & death, which it generally handles pretty well - even though the pacing, depending on the player may seem overly melancholic and in some instances even pushy. I've seen many people hype this game up mainly as a tear-jerker, what for me feels both as an overstatement and disregard to other parts of the story which I found great. I do think that Rakuen has a touching plot, but the real highlight for me was its amazing side characters and hilarious writing that acted as a good counterpart for the overrall sad tone.

On a mechanical level, Rakuen shines. The limitations of the engine and how the developer approaches them is often a good way of judging a game, and Rakuen feels like the framework was created for it and not the other way around. Completely dropping combat aspects works well, and the usually tedious puzzle-solving of RPGM titles is done in a way that entwines it well with the story. For me however, the enjoyability of said puzzles varied greatly. A classic Zelda-esque dungeon was an amazing experience, but some of the more cramped and ominous parts felt monotone and only times I wished for a peek in the walkthrough.
Graphically Rakuen is a treat with good character design, beautiful enviroments and fitting effects. The unique artstyle coupled with original soundtrack might not be for everyone, but they really nail home the creator's passion for the project.

Overall, Rakuen deserves the praise it's gotten - if it had been published to a handheld console ten years ago, it would be definitely praised as a classic gem by now. Even now, it's a great example for both what you can do with such a simple engine and the emotional complexity videogames are able to achieve.

LiEat is a simple RPG-maker game divined into three short stories that follow the lives of a young man and his dragon-girl companion. Each of these episodes centers around a single area where you mainly talk to people, solve puzzels and encounter fights. While these are all essential (and only possible) features of every RPG-Maker game (and usually how well you incorporate each of these determines the game's success), I personally enjoyed a lot how the fighting encounters were incorporated as more of story element rather than forcing them to play a bigger part in game's overrall flow. Granted, this means that the fighting part overrall feels very one-dimensional and easy, which can make the bossfights feel like a letdown.

The stories are mainly detective-like, where you spend most of the time uncovering what has happened. There's a lot of characters, and luckily those that you meet in all three episodes are the most with most substance. Since the game overrall is pretty short (It took me 4 hours to get every single ending & achievement), it does have quite a lot going on and its emphasis on exploring the background of the other MC can feel a bit tedious. On the bright side, most of the dialogue between charachers flows well and the game is sure to leave you warm-hearted after experiencing all of it.

I'd say that the biggest problem I had with the game was the fact that getting a neutral/good ending of the final episode is heavily obscured compared to earlier ones. Nevertheless, its a very warm and fuzzy game with a solid artstyle and writing, and totally worth the few dollars.

Zen Bound is a cute little game that focuses on wrapping objects with a rope, until you've covered as much topology as you can with it. The game looks beautiful and very serene, and has a pretty fitting soundtrack. At first impression, it all ties together pretty well, considering how the puzzles are presented. You don't have a time limit, and the actual challenge of the game comes from very trial-and-error progression where you feel your way around the object and try to think best way to cover every nook and cranny. While this itself isn't problematic, I feel the game's overrall progression where you have to hit certain percentages of object coverage in order to unlock more objects feels very much against game's Zen theme and forces you to grind through the game - in order to unwrap more objects.
So basically, unless you really want to tie objects to perfection, this game probably won't impress you for a long. I feel like the game isn't made to be fun, and the puzzles are too abstract and physics-based in the same time to appeal for people looking for analytical challenge.

LLTQ is not an easy game to review. I really enjoyed the combination of seemingly light-minded Princess Maker-like character development and brutal, merciless medieval (fantasy) politics, but the problems I had with the game mechanics overshadowed the complex storylines. Maybe it's a tradition for these type of games to be extremely grindy, but the constant need of either reloading savestates or incredible amount of trial-and-error drains the fun out from gameplay. For the record, I had fun playing through the game first five-six times, until I realized it wouldn't get me anywhere unless I made a perfect plan before starting instead of trying to react to whatever was happening.)
The game has beautiful art and lots of interesting plotlines, but you have to go through the same initial events over and over again to experience most of them. In other words, the overrall gameplay becomes more and more boring while you're searching for sparks of undiscovered content (in action games this would work, but in LLTQ you'll just end up starting over because you didn't know what skills you need in whatever situation beforehand). Still, it's probably the best game of its kind out right now, and someone with past experience with this genre probably won't find the mechanics so incredibly arduous!

"I'm sorry." -Hitman
This game boasts a big storyline compared to its older brothers, but sadly it's just a mess of uninteresting charachers, boring dialogue and mazey maps. The constant hide-and-seek felt tedious and interesting scenarios with total freedom are few and far between. After the first, most basic mission I kept wishing for more but instead the story arc took me to a dumb lone vengenace because our stone-cold anti hero's f e e l s. Overrall, the game focuses mainly on looking good which doesn't get the game far in my book.
On a possibly positive note (but something that left me with mixed reaction) is the fact that the mission rating system doesn't matter at all. It gives room for wacky youtuber-style of walkthroughs but at the same time undermines the idea that you're playing as the ultimate professional. I'd recommend the game for people who like movielike games or make gameplay videos for a job. Otherwise, and especially if you're looking for a polished hitman game, this game doesn't live up to its title.