Recent reviews by blake++

Spent 15h in one day (two sessions).

• Used mouse and keyboard
  
• Aim Snap: OFF
  
• FOV: 90
  
• Graphics Preset: Very High
  
• Motion Blur: OFF
  
• VSync: OFF
  
• Difficulty: Survival 2

Story is mostly good, but there are quite a few decisions I find myself scratching my head at and that soured my overall experience. Underrated.

• The story can often be really compelling and intense; at certain points I found myself mirroring Deacon's emotions; I really felt like I was in his shoes, but he still had his own character traits. I even teared up a couple of times! Sarah's reveal was nuts. Grabbing the centrifuge at the lab and Sarah killing Jim was a real "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" moment, the latter for especially how it shatters this idea of Sarah making everything "normal" again, when the truth is that this is the new normal and they can't ever go back. Sarah has been changed just as much as Deacon has by the world around her.
  
• Dunkey painted the relationship between Deacon and his wife as weird but their banter is actually really charming. The wedding moment is actually really cute in its own weird way. You can tell they love each other. The game is also funny when it intends to be.
  
• Attention to detail in cutscenes: in a good portion of cutscenes, Deacon excercises trigger discipline. Nice touch!
  
• For the final big assault, it's cool that a high trust level with camps will result in them helping you and a special cutscene.

• Big spoiler here, but basically I was unsatisfied with some of the major elements of the main plotline of the game. Finding Sarah is not treated with the gravity it deserves. It feels so anticlimactic, and it doesn't feel like Sarah is really happy to see Deacon? It doesn't feel like they had the same need to see each other again, which I think is not intended. Deacon also never really opens up to Sarah on the things he's done to get here. Really would've appreciated that moment and seeing how Sarah would react to that. Their relationship was good for the most part but I really was disappointed that a lot of stuff I wish they talked about, they never did.
  
• The MC is sexist (something that isn't treated as a real character flaw and isn't really resolved, even though the game continually shows that most of the time women can absolutely hold their own)
  
• Radio Free Oregon is constantly spewing right-wing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at you, and while the game acknowledges he's a nutjob by multiple decent characters, it's still spewing it at you constantly and wanting you to listen. I can't turn the radio off so I stop hearing his ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I have to choose to skip it each time.
  
• From the above two points, I can only assume that most of the people involved in this project were against some of these ideas, but the infamously right-wing schizo game director insisted upon their inclusion and force-feeding.
  
• Did we really NEED to have Rikki cheat on Addy? It would be great if the notable queer character was just able to have a stable relationship with another queer person without cheating. And after resolving it with Addy, later she admits she still wants Deacon!!! WHY
  
• The ending for Boozer is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ass. The fakeout death is lame, and the way the good/bad ending for him works is also lame.
  
• Quite a few unresolved plot threads (Deacon being sexist, Boozer not ever being willing to get help, the girl we saved from Marion at the slave camp, what to do with the slave camp where they obviously overwork and bully)
  
• Intro's pacing is a bit too fast at first; initial cutscene spam is insane. First 50 minutes are basically a movie (the game later replays one of the cutscenes)
  
• I wish side jobs had more complexity and separate endings for some of them. His character doesn't really get challenged doing most of these side quests, which is a wasted opportunity. Side jobs are mostly one-note.
  
• Characters tend to be boring, but have good moments

The motorcycle riding is peak. Fighting enemies in general is fun, with lots of cool systems and mechanics that enhance the experience. Helps the world feel more alive. Sadly, boss fights are almost always bad, and some enemies/areas are really awful to fight. Mostly positive, but still kinda a mixed bag at times.

• I love the motorcycle riding. The game forces you to make decisions on when and where to fill up, and it can get you into bad situations that are very good for keeping the game feeling fresh. I've had to stealth my way into and out of infested gas stations just to get gas. Some of the best parts of the game is just knowing vaguely where your destination is and crafting the best route out of the terrain to get there.
  
• Stealth is EXTREMELY rewarding and satisfying
  
• Gunplay is actually fun for something that technically features random bullet spread on every shot
  
• Clearing out nests to lessen zombie influence in an area is a cool give and take
  
• The fact that gunshots can ACTUALLY attract unwanted attention and result in some bad outcomes is very interesting. I've been screwed over because I used my pistol and have had to fight my way out of a really bad situation
  
• Hordes have impressive AI that lets them feel smart while also feeling somewhat predictable. It's definitely not what I would buy the game for but it is a very nice aspect of it.

• Boss fights are always meh and buggy. Results in super unsatisfying conclusions to arcs
  
• Wolves have WAY too much health and have ZERO headshot hitbox. They suck to fight and they pop up somewhat often
  
• Clearing out nests became so boring that after the first few after setting fire to a nest, I would run away, save, then reload so the zombies that spawned from the nest despawned
  
• Horde-killing is a storyline that unlocks stuff, but it isn't mentioned to you until the end of the game when you probably already have the best weapons and thus all hordes are extremely trivial

Quality of life is something that can easily not be noticed, but when it's not there, it's bad. Game needed more testing on the best mode, which is Survival 2. NPCs can be extremely annoying with the whole "come back to camp for a quest" shtick. Definitely would appreciate a patch for this stuff. Not sure if you can fix some of this stuff with mods.

• Game lets you know when you are entering a point of no return

• Autosaves WAY too often; can lead to encounters feeling cheap because there's not as high of stakes
  
• Due to Surival mode, you have to press M every few seconds to check your map to make sure you're going on the right route. You also have to get off your bike to check your gas tank, which sucks.
  
• Game would've benefitted from a radio with licensed songs. Without the option of fast-travel on Survival, you end up driving to places a LOT so some backing music would be nice
  
• The map doesn't have clearly defined borders around the edge, so it's hard to tell what areas you can explore and what is just not accessible
  
• The classic open-world system of "I've got a job for you; come by when you can" *goes by* "I could've told you this over the radio, but instead I made you come all the way here for no reason!"
  
• Quest givers will also wait for you to leave their camp, and then call you to come back so they can give you a quest in person lol. It's agonizing.

Review continued in comments. (char limit)

If I could leave a neutral review, I would.

I think I've just gotten to that point in my life where games like these are just too much. I can deal with immersive sims, I can deal with psychological horrors, and I can deal with puzzlers, but a combo of all three of those? I think it's just too much for me to handle. This is an extremely intense game IMO, and for someone like me whose favorite type of horror game is kind of light on horror and doesn't have all this ♥♥♥♥ to juggle, I think this game just wasn't made for me. But I think I'm pretty safe in recommending it to those who are really looking to be challenged and terrified.

I suggest buying The Frictional Collection, which tends to go on sale often I think.

mp3 @ 256kbps offered as well as lossless WAV files. Metadata included on mp3s but not WAVs. No album cover included.

For $10 and the amount of tracks offered, this feels like a ripoff (compared to other game soundtracks I've seen on the Steam store).
I would say buy on sale, but it hasn't yet gone on sale since release.
I would put "Mixed" if I could instead of "Recommended".

EDIT: You can get the album cover and everything else on Bandcamp for the same price. The files are probably properly tagged too. If I could go back and do it again, I'd just buy it on Bandcamp. Trying to get a refund to buy it on Bandcamp is just too much work though, so I'll just fix the tagging on my end.
https://camginex.bandcamp.com/album/arctic-eggs-original-game-soundtrack

EDIT2: If you want to grab the album cover for the Steam release (which is different from the Bandcamp release) it's available here: https://steamdb.info/app/2954800/info/

While the second one is probably a lot better, this is still a lot of fun. I really only like the mono modes though. I don't have as much willingness to put hours upon hours trying to get good at games anymore, so Audiosurf is a great alternative to games like osu! for me. Plus, I'm always playing music I like. It's a great tool to keep your hands busy while you listen to an album without detracting from the experience. It definitely feels like the music algorithm isn't as good as it could be though, as some fast songs feel underwhelming.

This is great, but just spend the extra cash to buy the second one, which goes on sale often.

• Voice acting is still amazing
  
• CG art is improved and anatomy isn't off most of the time
  
• Fancier menu than the last game, effort was put in there
  
• Best intro by far
  
• Some killer social commentary and the comedy can be really good
  
• The mystery plotline is a lot of fun until the end
  
• The Nicole suicide route is actually really good and one of the best routes of the series, albeit insanely depressing

• $15 dollar pricetag for the same amount of content as the original?? The original was never worth $15 and this isn't either. Took 3.4 hours to 100%, and I was kinda slow.
  
• Nicole is just totally evil now; in the previous games at least she gave a little bit of ♥♥♥♥ about Jecka but now it's all just gone. She seems mischaracterized
  
• Katz is just wasted as a character. SBN took the most boring option possible with him
  
• The message from SBN3 at the end of the game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane. "Everyone who criticizes the game is a pedophile." WTF? It's fine to make jokes about it in private, but putting it in the actual game is too far.
  
• The joke about the Palestinian slave trade is just not it right now
  
• The feet plotline is just absolutely insane. In, like, not a good way. At the time it was like "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ haha this is insane" but now I realize that half of the time was just spent on it. Is there seriously no better plotline we can do here? I don't think I would note this if the game was longer and had more endings, but with what we have, the fact that an hour and a half was spent on THIS? Just feels totally wasted.
  
• Barely any choices at all. To get 100% you only need to use TWO save slots. Like, wow.
  
• Some REALLY weird angles for a lot of the CG. I excused it last time but this time it seems more intentional.
  
• Counselor changed VAs
  
• Same UI as usual

The game isn't bad, but compared to the others it's definitely a miss. Entire routes feel weird and characters are like Katz and Nicole feel completely changed just to make Jecka's life worse. I would be lying if I said I didn't find many aspects of it funny, but there's too much off-color ♥♥♥♥ to where I can't help but leave The Flip Side with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe buy if it drops to, like, $7. You should probably just invest in The Re-Up and the original though. As a huge fan of the series, I'm sad.

EDIT: SBN3 is so obsessed with money that he just outright tells his fans that he "didn't put a lot of effort in". https://i.imgur.com/TxBhHyD.png
I wish I was making this up. Wait for reviews until you buy future stuff from this guy.

EDIT2: I refunded this game after 3.4 hours. Others have reported success with similar playtimes. Mention how the game wasn't like it was marketed and some of the more dark content and that seems to work for most.

• Changed max FPS to 180
  
• Changed gamma to 30%

• Movement is overall really solid, flowy, and floaty. Feels sorta like Titanfall 2? I think?
  
• Lots of smart mechanics and features that make the climbing feel freeform but you never feel truly lost
  
• Optional collectibles are preceded by challenges that require genuine thought most of the time
  
• Base game keeps a decent skill progression (until the very end) to where you never feel like you're truly out of your league
  
• The fall system is good; you can't fall too fast or you'll instantly restart unless you have tools to cancel out your momentum. It stops catastrophic falls from happening but still allows you to lose a decent amount of progress, resulting in a good challenge. Most of the time the system works well, but sometimes it doesn't.
  
• Integrated buttons to disable UI features on the fly to better soak up the environment
  
• Chapter 3 is the best chapter in the game. Each chapter is great and has its own feel and challenges, but chapter 3 totally shook up the game for me in very many interesting ways. It's simultaneously open-ended and totally claustrophic, and I love it.
  
• Sometimes you are required to go back to places you've been before, but the game makes this easier by introducing lifts to save you the trouble of going back manually.
  
• Each chapter introduces new things that kept gameplay feeling fresh (except the final chapter).
  
• Dev is very open to feedback and is actively working to address issues post-launch

• The last chapter sucks hard due to issues with unclear design and introducing a new mechanic at the last minute without giving the player enough challenges beforehand, while being extraordinarily difficult and time based. It'll take you way more time than it should to clear it. The dev is aware and is looking to change it.
  
• Cutscenes are amateurish. Both the camerawork and animations are severely lacking and could use some work. It can take you out of the immersion.
  
• I have zero clue what the ♥♥♥♥ this game is trying to say. Zero idea.
  
• You can abuse the hell out of a dash mechanic. Going UP slopes regains your stamina so you can just forever dash into an upward slope and infinitely gain height. I could only majorly abuse this a couple of times, but each time it felt dumb.
  
• You can hide the UI, but the UI is essential for the game. A more subtle UI option would be beneficial to allow one to still play the game but to not have the huge crosshair on their screen at all times.
  
• You can change the gamma, but there's no reference image to tell you what the game should look like. I have no clue if the gamma I played at was the look intended by the developer.
  
• 100%ing this game with all the collectibles, optional dialogue, and 30 minute deathless runs of each chapter genuinely seems like a nightmare. Would take you hundreds of hours probably.
  
• Chapter 4 overstays its welcome and drags on for too long.
  
• Low replayability. A lot of each chapter is walking and slower paced exploration, so I don't see myself really replaying this like I would Celeste. A game doesn't NEED to be super replayable and I don't think this one needs to be, but some people really care about that.
  
• There's a bug in one cutscene where it just loops and loops. I think it's an intentional design choice but the way it's done is so unclear as to it's purpose.
  
• Doing precise falls can be awkward.

I only completed the base game and mainly went for story completion; I occasionally got collectibles if I could figure out a solution, but it wasn't something I focused on.

Lorn's Lure is an extremely well built 3D platformer with a lot of cool exploration. Besides some missteps that'll likely be fixed soon (and some that won't), I can safely say to pick this one up and you'll have a lot of fun exploring and doing cool stuff. You should definitely look out for this developer's future titles. Was genuinely a lot of fun and very impressive for their third title..

Issun, your sidekick, ruins anything good about this game.

Issun is introduced as a cocky and perverted bug, who quite literally pops out of the top of the Wood Sprite Sakuya's kimono during the insanely long introduction cutscene. He's meant as a comic relief character while also being informative, but isn't funny and overexplains everything.

The writers of this game think that you're genuinely an idiot (I guess this game was marketed towards kids upon release?) so Issun goes to the trouble of laboriously explaining things to you several times in the most annoying Banjo-Kazooie-esque voice possible. Any subtlety of moments or possibility for accomplishing tasks via exploration is instantly removed with a long drawn-out explanation that MUST state the obvious and MUST put a big arrow on the screen showing exactly where you should go. I had moments where I wanted to revel in the silence and explore the beautiful environments myself, but my immersion was destroyed each time.

Within the hour that I played of this game, I experienced around 6-7 moments where I had to put the controller down because I found Issun so insufferable; both because of his perversion and tendency to obliterate any peaceful moments.

If there was a mod to remove Issun entirely from the game and replace him with something more subtle, I'd be willing to try this game again. Given that that's probably not a thing, it looks like this is where my journey ends with Okami.

EDIT: Since it wasn't clear, the main thing that bothers me in this game is Issun's regular creepy and disgusting comments/actions towards women. Constantly sexualizing them and being gross completely shattered the experience for me, to the point where I felt I could not play anymore because I was so put off by his degeneracy.

Received for free as a gift from a friend.

A collection of utterly phenomenal tracks given in lossless quality. It's perfect.

Do it yourself, with your left thumb.

The game lets you increment the counter by holding left mouse button or holding spacebar. Use the spacebar. And don't hold it down.

Every. Single. Click. All ten thousand of them. Feel it yourself.

Let yourself become one with the protagonist. Feel every click as the proboscis monkey watches you. How its heaving chest somehow both struggles and thrives with each breath. How its eyes watch you but don't. Feel how it feels to exist in that moment with it.

Do every single click yourself while he watches you. Do it in the hallway. The bathroom. Turn the TV on. Feel the static wash over you. Turn it off. Keep clicking. Stay close to him. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

CLICKOLDING is a game about incrementing a counter. About satisfying an urge. About being a ♥♥♥♥♥. It's a short experience and for the price, I'd say it's a pretty good deal. I enjoyed it. I think you should do it too.

And if you leave? Don't come back. Seeing that counter reset, for you and I, is a once in a lifetime experience. Enjoy it while it lasts, and when it's over carry that moment with you. Let it fade and decay over time. Click.

Foreword
I got 100%
Before I played this, I had already seen clips of gameplay on YouTube.
After I got most endings, I used a guide to make sure I experienced every line of dialogue.

The Good
The Re-Up is thoroughly hilarious; characters from the original Class of '09 have their personalities cranked to 11, making for absolutely hilarious and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane interactions with every character. This is enhanced by the god-tier voice acting which flows wonderfully and make the game worthwhile.

Every ending is thoroughly entertaining to get to, to the the point where I find myself replaying different parts of the game (because it's just that good). The Re-Up finally utilizes its underused side characters from the previous game, giving them much more personality and screen time, resulting in both hilarious and simultaneously sad endings. Each route is the length of a movie too, resulting in about 6-7 hours of insane yet comedic content.

In terms of story, I think this video by Author Function does a much better job analyzing the actual writing of this game than I ever could, but I'll say this: The Re-Up is a fantastic companion piece to the original Class of '09. Both show how Nicoleism, a fictional movement where women remove all emotional attachment from anyone (coined by and after the games' main character), can affect others in both hilarious and morbid ways. While it is a primarily comedic game, the characters have real depth to them and there are distinct and complex motivations that drive every character to act the way they do. It's really satisfying to look into and it adds another layer to the game beyond just comedy.

The Bad
In terms of QoL, there are mild improvements with the UI. There are still issues with the Steam overlay being super laggy. The issue where ambient noise during scenes noticeably loops still hasn't been fixed, and there are some improperly subtitled scenes (whether it be the wrong words or spelling errors), but this is an improvement over the previous entry. Any bugs that exist in the original Class of '09 are still here pretty much, but it's nothing major enough to ruin the experience.

Like I said in my Class of '09 review, the game could benefit from more poses for characters to let users more easily picture how a scene is playing out. The save system should allow you to delete saves. There should be a decision tree so you can see what paths you haven't taken.

Notes

• First ending I got was bullying Ari into being straight
  
• Second ending was Ari's house burning down
  
• This game is probably more like 6 hours; I took my time replaying with friends and letting them pick because it's super fun

Class of '09: The Re-Up is absolutely worth your time and money. It's a great piece of comedy with enough depth to it that rewards those who decide to look deeper with a rich cast of characters with complex motivations. Minor bugs and issues aside, you'll have a lot of fun with this regardless.