Reseñas recientes de faelnor

I usually don't enjoy serious Visual Novels but I'll always make an exception for deep cyberpunk (last time was the interesting Eliza).

I very much enjoyed the themes of corporate appropriation of progress, of workplace dynamics, of the role of the individual in a corrupt society, the quest for meaning and all the humanist discourse around these points. They were always tackled in a tactful and meaningful way and, as a European, seeing something written from the perspective of the Chinese-speaking world was a breath of fresh air.

The presentation helped a lot, everything about the art and animation style, lighting, music was right up my alley: colorful, sprawling, industrial cyberpunk at night, what more can you wish for? Well, I would definitely have wished for more outdoors environments such as the one next to the main character's apartment. Just gorgeous! Character art was also a great success, loved the faceless style.
Also contributing to my immersion were the few elements of gameplay. As I said, VNs are not usually my thing as I think the medium (linear text boxes with unnatural dialogue, limited conversation choices) tends to limit the quality of the writing. By offering the player some degree of sidescroling control with a few quick-time events and the occasional object search, I felt less compelled to think about the way the text was delivered. These added elements were not perfect though, I especially regret that the idea of using the cursor to look at and interact with the environment seemed to have been abandoned pretty quickly: some of the later environments didn't contain any interactive elements which made the world feel less alive. I'm tempted to think that the game would have made a stellar point & click more than a VN, but I also understand the need to deliver a lot of dialogue for the sake of the story.

And the story was good, sometimes great! Most of the time, it felt like the brilliant narrative arc of a Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex season. I felt however that it could had been tighter and stretching it over 15 hours was unnecessary, especially as the finale felt surprisingly rushed and gasping for air, quickly wrapping up loose ends without revealing much about the story's greatest mystery.

But not to dwell on this, I had a good time and I wish the developers a lot of deserved success, I am looking forward to your next game!

A marvel of exploration, light puzzles and style. Loved it from beginning to end.

I have:
- restarted my computer several times
- updated my GPU drivers
- cleaned up the c++ library redistributables
- moved the install to another drive
- verified the game cache integrity
- launched the game as administrator
- added the game folder to the Windows Defender exceptions and reinstalled the anti-cheat
- deleted the configuration file in AppData
- disabled Discord
- disabled Steam input
- disabled the Steam overlay
- disabled all unnecessary Windows services

What I haven't done is manage to get in-game once. The game is broken on my machine.

Un jeu fort de concept et de cœur, j'ai beaucoup de mal à le reposer pour ne pas le finir d'une traite. Cela faisait quelques années que je n'avais pas apprécié un jeu d'aventure et de puzzle avec autant de ferveur. Pour soutenir cette expérience vraiment originale (quel bonheur, vraiment), j'ai apprécié la grande finesse et l'universalité de la narration et de l'art. Je finis par une petite mention à la musique, juste et claire, ainsi qu'aux musiciens de talent.

Merci !

There is an interesting story that doesn't always work but never gets in the way of the great and always fresh puzzles. The game tech is fantastic.

Surprisingly well-scripted campaign to play with friends, a LOT of work went into it and it's fun and pleasantly playable right out of the box.

If you don't care about that and just want your full IFA3 weapon/object pack, this ain't it *yet* but try to consider what you are getting instead.

Happy to see where all of the team's hard work went.

I had a really good time with LUNARK. If you come to this from the nostalgia angle and have been longing for a 2D platformer with slow and methodical buffered inputs like in the old days, then you will enjoy it. Even more if you have a particular fondness for Flashback, since the game is practically a love letter to it -- not just through the gameplay but all over the place, from the lightness in narration and worldbuilding, the consistent sound and visual design to the rotoscoped cutscenes. As far as I'm concerned, what I saw in the trailer was what I got. And about that, I want to give a nod to the developer. This was a perfect scope for a solo dev, doing exactly what they set out to do without overcommitting. A pleasure to experience.

I keep thinking about this game. I love this game. I love the unashamedly poetic writing that manages to avoid pretension, I love the idea of a slice of life in a magical realist post-cyberpunk deep south -- in fact that might very well be the best setting for a game ever. I love how effortlessly it manages to root itself in reality and society.

Be aware that the demo is not fully representative of the whole experience, the full story is a wilder ride than the first act lets on, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It's its own thing, a unique game which deals with mundane and current topics in a way I haven't seen often in video games, and while I've read reviews that state that it will never be as impactful as KRZ, in my particular case I disagree. Yes, its conclusion feels like there wasn't ultimately much to say, but it does so in a way that feels so true to life that I still can't stop thinking about it.

I consider this the definitive execution in any form of Giger's and to a lesser extent Beksiński's works, and I'm a disappointed they weren't credited, perhaps for legal reasons. The developers clearly took several core artworks and ran with them, trying to imagine how a linear narrative around these would look like. In that exercise, the game is a resounding success. It is otherwordly, it is bleak, it is gory, organic, sexual, biomechanical, grotesque, hostile, decaying and beautiful. And narratively obtuse in the best way.

Be wary of a couple of puzzles that may be frustrating if you're not expecting them, and don't expect any originality in the way you interact with the game: mechanically, it is standard exploration puzzle fare.

Lovely digital aesthetics, straightforward gameplay and narration, feels nice to play, very little hand holding while still keeping some of the rough around the edges. What can I say? This is my kind of stuff right there. Thanks devs!