Recent reviews by HunterN

Finished playing through AI: The Somnium Files last night and I was honestly completely blown away. I didn't have any expectations going in, I only knew that it was made by the same guy as the Zero Escape trilogy, but man is it a far departure from that while still being something that fans of ZE will enjoy. I was playing Conker's Bad Fur Day the other week and thinking about how it is so infrequent nowadays to have games where one of the main aspects is comedy, like it feels like there hadn't been one since Portal 2 and AI absolutely fits that description. When I first met a 'Twitch/Discord mod'-style simp who created four sock accounts to argue with himself on Twitter to both harass and white knight for a female streamer I knew this game was going to be a delight. Even going through the files and character synopsis notes has extremely funny gems, or inspecting things in the environment extremely often will yield recurring jokes or even allow you to repeatedly inspect or say something to a character to funny results. For example there's one police inspector character and you can just ask him what his name is over and over and over again every time you meet him and he progressively loses his mind, it reminds me of in Always Sunny how they pretend they don't know who the waiter is.

The game made me laugh so, so often, but it's not like it's exclusively comedy. In some ways it reminds me of Twin Peaks: it has that mix of humor, slice of life, horror, wackiness, wholesomeness and sadness; it has such a huge range. How insane is it that a game managed to make me cry multiple times while also featuring multiple wacky Rube Goldberg shootouts where you distract mindless mercenaries with underwear and porno mags? Like at one point you'll watch a simp get fed at a maid cafe and hear your robot AI eyeball (AI-ball *badumtish*) say "I now understand why someone would have the desire to kill a human" and then at another point you'll be going through the dreams of his dimentia-adled mom and be bawling at their situation.

By the way, the main way puzzles work in this game is you go through people's dreams and the puzzles all follow a sort of 'dream logic' and taking different actions takes up a certain amount of time that you have as a limited resource to solve the puzzles, and they do so many clever things with these segments. You'll go into a Minecraft dream, or you'll be lost in the woods, or you'll be seeing all these memories you heard about in stories unfold in dreams. It's a really clever system that is both fun and game-y (because you get ways to modify the amount of 'time' that actions take and get to try to be efficient) but also just a great way to continue telling the story during puzzle segments.

The game also has this knack of introducing cringey things and overtime making them feel just great genuinely. For example the main character I didn't like at first because he was doing the anime ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of constantly saying or doing cringey pervy stuff but the game would always immediately acknowledge them as being cringey and would play off it and make it funny, and with how dark some parts of the plot get the levity of all the silly parts makes for an awesome contrast, and as you learn who your character really is as a person you learn to appreciate them even though they're constantly making lame jokes. The streamer girl character will often do a dance and a song and it was really cringey at first and by the end instead it becomes genuinely enjoyable--to the point where I literally couldn't believe the way the game ended and I was so happy with what unfolded and have watched it several times since last night.

The characters actually pretty much all manage to be enjoyable by the end. The villains are good, the heroes are good, the important side characters are phenomenal, and even the unimportant side characters play enjoyable roles and have great running gags. I also loved how unique and wide the range of characters was: completely deranged murderers, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ parents, relentlessly dedicated parents, a NEET simp, a streamer, a tough-on-the-outside kid, a Yakuza leader who is secretly a simp, etc. They also had some gay characters in ways that neither felt like pandering/window-dressing nor a joke. Like there is a trans owner of a bar who is a funny character but who also feels like a genuine person and who plays an important role in the story as an ally and informant. Then there are both a gay and bi character who you literally wouldn't even realize it unless you're paying attention and actually finding that out and finding out about their relationship, which is never explicitly stated, actually explains part of the story and character motivations that may not be apparent otherwise. Just all around the game has incredible writing.

Really, my only complaint is that if you've played Zero Escape you know about the whole 'timeline' / 'flowchart' system which this game also uses, but this game's explanation for (being vague to avoid spoilers) 'how that works' is a little lacking. I had a lot of possible theories for what the explanation could be and instead it just kind of happens almost as a reference to Zero Escape. That said, they do play off of it and have a few funny jokes because of it, so it's not a huge complaint, but I was hoping for something a bit different or more interesting instead of it largely being written off and ignored as an unimportant aspect of the story. In terms of the twists of the game I can't say any of them surprised me but I wasn't disappointed in any of them either--they all felt like they had substantial hints but were still subtle enough that when they came to pass/be revealed I was like "Ok, yeah, cool, that's what I thought" rather than being like "um ok??". I also really liked how a lot of the interactions between characters were subtle but were there to pick up on if you paid attention to make their actions make sense, and I also like how there were jokes that made you think... "Is that really a joke? Or is that actually a plot point in disguise?" and sometimes they would be both!

I'm not sure if it is my absolute favorite puzzle + visual novel game but if it isn't it is extremely close. Like at the very least I consider it on par with the best of Phoenix Wright, 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, Virtue's Last Reward, and Professor Layton. I absolutely loved it. Right now on Steam it is on 60% off discount at $24 but I think it is also available on Switch. Cannot recommend it enough if you like mysteries, comedy games, puzzle/story exploration games. Absolute masterpiece.

Boring, simplistic combat (like a worse version of Zelda 2). Slow movement. No sense of direction or progression in terms of player power and barely any so far in terms of gaining more exploration abilities. Already tons of backtracking and obtuse mechanics where you will only figure out how they work by brute force rather than by any sort of intuitiveness. I like breaking away from explaining everything like so many modern games do but there is truly no sense of direction or purpose in anything. After you rescue 3 or so worms at dead ends for no discernible reason the whole thing starts to seem pointless. I decided to play this game because it is revered as the ultimate Metroidvania but it seems to have none of the things I like about those--fast pace, a steady flow of interesting items and upgrades that make you want to return to places you visited, flashy bosses and music, etc. Clearly I did not play this game for long, but knowing that this is a 20+ hour experience and knowing how little enjoyment I was getting coupled with the few complaints about this game people have being the constant backtracking and hardly ever getting things that speed up combat with the trivial enemies makes me realize that the game simply does not respect the players' time and instead is trying to artificially inflate the playtime a la FFVII Remake. The effect when you take damage is so jarring and annoying and unpleasant that it really makes it hard to play, I legitimately thought it was a glitch at first with the audio cutting out but it's just a disturbingly annoying design choice. I had this game in my library for years and was really looking forward to it, so I really am very disappointed. I am sure some will think my playtime is not sufficient to have an opinion but consider some of the classics of the genre like Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, or Symphony of the Night and realize how many upgrades and cool areas and bosses you would have fought in the first hour and a half alone. Meanwhile in here I have been in a depressing tunnel with lowkey music and fought two trivially easy but largely uninteresting bosses and my upgrades are some charms with effects that should come without taking the equivalent of an equipment slot and the ability to fire like 3 blasts before running out of 'Soul'. The game simply does not respect the players' time and will only be fun if you're in it for for the extremely long-haul and don't mind repetition. In a single player game, I see wasting the players' time as one of the worst things you can do.

My only complaint is that scrubbing to the beginning of videos can be a little tedious and there should be a "start from beginning" button. A fantastic successor to Her Story overall

This is quite possibly the best detective game I've ever played. If you liked Return of the Obra Dinn, you will love this.

Pretty medium. Some fairly profound moments, but mostly just very pretentious and overly self-indulgent. The game takes itself far too seriously and as a result feels very melodramatic when its source material is frankly not that dramatic. Some very creative and interesting moments, but by in large a boring journey into someone's psyche that I didn't really want. I am a huge fan of exploration-style games, so since I did not particularly enjoy this one, I have to say that I don't think most people would--but maybe you would feel differently. At $10, I can't recommend it, but if you're like me it may be worth it when it is on a 70%+ off sale.

The game is not complete, and they have not released a new part in over a year. I love pretentious story based games (I just played Ethan Carter and I'm in love), but this game has all the pretentious and none of the story. Your character is not interesting, nor are the other characters, and nothing makes sense. You get gas, then go talk to (presumably) a ghost. You hang out in a mine with the ghost's friend for 10-15 mintues for no discernible reason, and then go home to where the ghost was, and then drive onto a magical highway. That's literally all that happened in the first Act. Nothing to make me want to play the other two (and nothing to make me want to wait years for acts IV and V).

I would absolutely not recommend.

I'm really happy that Steam has the ability to refund now, because even at 50% off this game is an insane ripoff.

This game is sweet and has a great sense of humor. Very short, but definitely worth the buy whenever its on sale.

Each time I replay either FF8, FF6, FF9, or FFX I always think to myself "Wow, this is the best FF game.." because those four are amazing. This is a great port. My only complaints are the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ MIDI music and the slightly awkward controls (which is just how it has to be as a result of being on a keyboard.)

As for the super ♥♥♥♥♥♥ MIDI music, just download the mod Wine and Roses, and you'll be listening to Black Mages versions of the music even better than the original PS1 quality.

The junction system is very confusing at first, but its actually really sweet when you figure it out. Drawing does become tedious, but its almost unnecessary if you play Triple Triad and teach your GFs the abilities to "Refine" magic early. The CGI cutscenes that merge with the prerendered backgrounds are really one of the coolest things about FF7 and FF8, and they're especially awesome here (see the Parade sequence in particular.)

The story gets slightly convoluted, but nothing compared to the crazy nonsense that FF7 goes into (I also like FF7 so chill). The Laguna sequences make this game really stand out, and really make the world feel connected.

Overall, FF8 has always been one of my favorite games, and is quite possibly my favorite FF game.. I'd reccommend it in a heartbeat, but you're doing the game a disservice if you don't install a mod to fix the trashy MIDI music.

Only about 4 hours, and there's not nearly as much action (or even puzzles) as there were in the first.. and it had some awful crashes late on in the game.. BUT, I'd still give the game an 8/10 for the awesome, grotesque environments, sound design, and depraved storyline. (Also, similar to Dear Esther, some of the environments were actually just gorgeous, like the first time you leave Mandus' Manor and see London.. it looks amazing.)

Best Fallout / TES game since Morrowind.