TSUN we have talked about off before not on the forums but i gotta expand on your review just a bit because it's crazy. for a solid 50% of the time, off is nothing but dull, monochrome, dystopian landscapes with people who can't think or fight for themselves either dying or just having a bad day while the protagonist dryly inquires about how to get to the next place or kill the next thing
next 20% is things that are just indecipherable in the moment that the protagonist glides through without a word as if it were perfectly natural even when its ?? and sometimes !?!?!?. 15% battles that are usually pretty intentionally tedious to fit the scene but a treat to the eyes and ears. battle animations and enemies are slick and music is almost unfittingly funky. a whole 10% of comedy and a couple of secrets to stave off the ambient sounds of everybody dying or whatever. 5% finally knowing what is going on,
and a hundred percent reason to remember the name
spongelevator persono looks funny even if i know absolutely nothing about what i'm pretty sure is persona 3. dudes pulled out all the stops to change the battle ui so they could drop in some good ol early flash design, comic sans and all. not complaining that stuff is awesome
YOO it's got yu swagukami
lazulum "barkley, shut up and jam gaiden". i knew only two things about this before going in
- who charles barkley was
- "lazulum keeps calling video games vidcons. something about this game?"
i could not have prepared myself for the odyssey of this game, set it up so i could do almost the whole thing in one day. i played it about a month ago but hadn't had the chance to bring it up until now since schoolstuff but i now have the chance
game is stupid high quality. sprites are from a ton of sources but theres also a massive amount of original stuff. tons of dialogue, tons of secrets, buncha things i'm sure i missed since i only played it once. technically doesn't even fit in "rpgmaker games" because the thing isn't just not rpgmaker, it's custom engine. runs fantastically, goes big window goes small window, no grid-locked movement, cool battle gimmicks, all kinds of fun.
i don't even think i could compress a review on this thing to a decent-sized post so i will only briefly mention the cool battles and legit story because i gotta mention one thing.
{pump}
"pump". "pump" may very well be the most antagonistic, sharp-tounged, hatable character in any game i've ever played. "pump" is at every opportunity spouting dangerous ideals that make me wish i could take the guy into battle and destroy him.
this is impossible in the game because simultaneously, "pump" provides an ever-important service. he is there to provide it whenever you would need it, and does so endlessly and without complaint. i could not have beaten the game without "pump". and it is thanks to "pump" that i now understand what a vidcon is (elegant portmanteau of "console video game")
"pump" is the save point and he talks whenever you want to save. i listen to him fervently, hanging on every single of his 500+ words per save point, trying to learn. trying to fill the hole of justice any person is born with, the want to oppose evil. the want to be able to say "this is wrong!" wholeheartedly and without the regret of ever dabbling in it. to know you are on the right side of history.
his favorite vidcon is a game called "angelique tenkuu no requiem", an unpopular spinoff of an otome game that is exclusive to the ps1 in japanese only. he has a deep hatred for the west and its popular vidcons and music. he is probably real? it is so incredibly hard to tell but i'm pretty sure pumpposts are lifted from a forum somewhere up until the very end of the game
"pump" is an enigma i will not soon forget. so happy to understand what a vidcon is now though
SO huh too much pump not enough game
even though there are so many options i am burning the rest of my post on
lisa: the painful"a game about survival, sacrifice, and perverts"
play as former junkie and washed up karate teacher brad armstrong and go cause a lot of problems while doing your best. one of those games its best to just download and run without me saying too much beforehand. one main thing about this game though is that it does not pull punches. turn-based rpg, 4 member party, things that should be mostly normal gameplay stuff. but it is not
nearly every character is super niched and while brad is a decent jack of all trades everybody else is going to need to pull their weight and work together if you want a competent team, which you will want because the game is not easy. there's really no way to grind or anything so what you have is what you get in every department. xp, items, hp, sp, save points, it's all a limited resource that you have to ration. very fitting for a post-apocalypse setting. and following that realism, the game features death. "most games feature death" yes but usually it does not include your party members dying outside of cutscenes. some enemies can, even if you are very careful, kill your pals. they go out of the party, can't be healed, hasta la vista. you can usually tell what kind of enemy can do this to you so some battles have real tense decisions like "am i going to rush this guy with all of my items and special attacks so there is no chance of anybody dying or do i need to save my stuff for the less murdery but still very game over-inducing guy in the next room"
game breaks so many conventions while still having a generally normal style. only real advice i have is play on pain mode instead of normal mode. all the cool mechanics are ramped up to 11 there and you can find some extra secrets in exchange for the challenge
lisa is no touhou, but it has a substantial amount of quality fangames too. and due to it also not being under touhou license, they're all free so if you like painful you will not run out of cool stuff any time soon
