Despite the header, All Our Asias is actually a pretty decent game with some Windows 98-age graphics. The story focuses on Yuito, a guy whose father ditched his family since Yuito was born, who wants to at least know what kind of person his father is as he lies unconscious and taking his last breaths. To learn about his father, he delves into his mind to try piecing together...though in the end, it only feels like his father got the last laugh as the worst father in the world, but maybe not the worst person...

Props to the developer, who's a professor at a university for making this game, but the moral comes in the form of "Don't just help people because they look like you, help them because they're people...also, try to have a solid plan if you want results that can change the world". Although the lesson is easy to understand, the way it teaches you the lesson only comes off as a spit in the face after surviving the acid trip adventure you were just on.

So...worth your time? Well, All Our Asias isn't bad, but it is really strange. It's a free game with some easy achievements. Not only this, but it's only about 2 hours long. Try it out if you have a spare 2 hours, but whether you like it or not, I can't say. All I can really say is "It's okay and it wasn't really bad".

6/10 Yuito's father is on par for worst father ever along with Goku...

PS1 graphics? Looking good. Dreamlike atmosphere? I can dig it. Made by one of the guys who made Anodyne? Well I heard that was good, so still on board.

So you think you're looking at like a LSD Dream Simulator? No, this is a walking simulator. Float along a path where you talk to people and admire the sights. Check out that gorgeous draw distance.

Well that's fine, we'll just judge it by the story and dialogue.

The dialogue is dry, dawdling, and some of the clumsiest attempts at writing in character arcs and moral messages I've seen.

- All Our Asias does not gradual transition from some obstinate doorknob's daddy issues into the role of racial sympathy in activism for niche causes, it veers off a cliff. Quite literally, about halfway through.

How much detail do you want?

The game is split into two halves, more or less, the first being about Yuito trying to learn more about his father and establishing nothing other than that Yuito is easily the least sympathetic character you could put in a game about relationships. Well that's a good setup for a payoff, isn't it?

And then it tries to focus on an incredibly muddied pair of messages, with pro-activism leading to a dead end, undercutting itself with an incredibly illplaced comical sequence, and anti-racial identity, which is just flatly monologued to the main character. Alongside vague alternate dimensions are introduced and discarded for the sole purpose of justifying including a secondary character vaguely related to the father.

Which results in nothing. Nothing is resolved, Yuito's character arc is just to become a passive wet towel of a character, and it ends on some weak conciliatory note that made me wish everyone had just died in the dream.

It peters out like a fart in the wind with most plot threads dropped, no mysteries or aspects of interest established, and even the PS1 aesthetic emulation is constantly showing what a Unity game it is with inexplicably detailed stock textures, clipping objects and things that are constantly "off".

This is a clumsy, dry, and completely unsatisfying game. It is the videogame equivalent of losing your virginity.

Can't find it in me to recommend a tepid and mildly frustrating experience. Ending with a 20 second plug of the developer's other work is the cherry on top.

Anodyne 2 looks pretty good though.

I highly recommend this game.

It's a short narrative experience exploring the meaning of labels we ascribe to our identity, whether they are unfathonably huge in scope, or more down-to-earth and personal.

It is worth playing for the story, but the sometimes abstract, sometimes grimy, sometimes clean art is extremely evocative and in combination with the soundtrack perfectly complements the game.

What a beautiful game. I really enjoyed the journey.

The only part I disliked was the ending... I want more!

This game was so GOOD. The atmosphere, the music, the minimalist graphics of complex life distilled down to the purest form of pixels...

I definitely got strong Anodyne vibes from this.

The post game features are pretty amazing, as expected from Sean Han Tani

Thank you for making this. And for making it free.

Definitely will be buying the Fan Pack

This is a hard experience to pin down. On the surface, this is a narrative story about a young man trying to reconnect with his estranged father before time runs out for that possibility. Threaded throughout are notions of self identity, of racial identity, of lineage and kinship, of one's place in the larger social structure, and our connections with others on a human level.

The framing story involves the main character entering his father's memories in order to better understand the reasons for his walking out on the family many years ago. Yuito's father is of course dying, and so the protagonist utilises experimental treatment to enter a Memory World.

The concept of using cutting edge technology to enter someone's memories is hardly a new concept. Rendering that process as a Playstation era 3D platformer is to the best of my knowledge, a rather unique presentation choice.

The gameplay is very basic. You will have a conversation with some NPC with text to read, then you will navigate the memory plane in your little flying saucer. You must travel deeper and deeper into your father's dying mind to find the answers to your questions. The presentation of all of this is nicely done. The surreal landscapes are all nicely rendered in a lo-fi polygonal way which are at time surprisingly beautiful.

The narrative structure eventually descends into some kind of absurdist essay on the struggle of small business owners in Chicago, which actually made me exclaim out loud "this is nuts" but I was enjoying the strangeness of it all.

I'm not certain if this is intended to be completely straight laced and sincere, but the wildly veering story led me to assume this is all just designed to be a surreal trip in both a literal and figurative sense. If not, then forgive my personal interpretation. Perhaps as I am not an Asian-American man living in Chicago, my life experience is just too lacking to understand the nuances of the story.

Music in the game is great. The composer (and writer, coder, animator, designer, artist) has produced a large body of work for the game. In keeping with the overall tone much of the music is quite dreamlike and strange, but often it is beautiful and serene. There are a few brooding and unsettling pieces too, just to add a little menace to certain sections.

The latter half of the game involves one large fetch quest with a lot of backtracking. Impatient players will not like this game, but I imagine that most people who will be made aware of this title are the kind of people who are open to meditative narrative experiences.

This is very much a case of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The narrative is chaotic, the graphics are super lo-fi, the music is eclectic, the control is a little janky, the freedom of choice is minimal, but this all produced an enjoyable experience that is certainly worth trying for the price.

One word of warning, this is not an open world game, and exploration is NOT rewarded. I managed to get my little memory pod stuck in the environment on a number of occasions when I went too far off the beaten track. There are no secret levels to be found!

It's a free game from a well established designer. Although I own all the other titles associated with the developer, I have yet to play any of them, but this has certainly made me very keen to finally get around to Anodyne. I also enjoyed the project enough to purchase the fan pack premium DLC. There is a very generous amount of music to enjoy, and a great making of book which I will definitely delve into deeper in the future.

Keep in mind that it's a walking simulator!
If that's your thing, by all means go for it!
Not my thing unfortunately.

Also, the clipping (invisible walls) is pretty poor.

This has a very surreal dream-like quality, similar to Anodyne. But this is a very minimalist linear narrative rather than a game. The audio is excellent with great music that's used in interesting ways. The story ponders a few ideas about psychology, race, and lineage. It doesn't tie up all the loose ends, and instead leaves them as an exercise for the player. If you like having your brain taken to strange places, you might like this.

Easy, free 100%

As for the game itself, take it or leave it. Excessive back-and-forthing to tell a story that I really hope isn't a massive revelation to most. If it is then 99% of those people wouldn't play this anyway so it's my H O that this is probably preaching to the converted, however I do appreciate what it's attempting to do so for this I will give it a thumbs up.

Walking simulator with lofi graphic

Good:
Music is relaxing

Cons:
Did not like protagonist
Story was boring

Even for a free game, I cannot recommend.

I will admit that the PlayStation era graphics of this game gave me a nostalgic feeling, but I spent way too much time traveling from one place to another without any interaction with anything. Maybe if the distances were shorter, I'd recommend it, but as that is not the case, I can't.