Source: Review Copy
Price: £12
Where To Get It: Steam

The GameBoy still has a treasured place in many hearts. Its simplistic graphics and its relative accessibility compared to other handhelds, its library, memories of playing it in schoolyards, and of its awful, awful screen sticking with many.

And so, someone naturally made an engine that can easily make gameboy games, with gameboy limitations. And so, someone in the modern day made a commercial indie RPG with gameboy limitations, in a gameboy engine. And so we have Dragonborne.

This is, right off the bat, a limited appeal. Gameboy limitations mean a limited palette, mostly greens, small, chonky sprites… And bitcrushed sound which will sometimes conflict with other sounds, like, for example, the music. It be beeps, boops, and noise, which can be used well, and are used well, with some cool tracks, but… It’s an acquired taste.

And, of course, it’s a homage to gameboy JRPGs, which were, it must be said, a somewhat limited bunch. For the early game you can attack, or use potions. Thems your lot until you learn magic, and get hold of at least one sword, each of which has their own special attacks. But until then, and even, to a lesser extent after this, everything’s a damage race. A low stakes damage race, because once enemies are defeated, they remain defeated, but… Combat doesn’t have much depth, and the progression is in items, not in levels or XP or whatnot.

The story, similarly, is low key, no massive worldbuilding, no grand stuff, just people giving hints, or chatting briefly, fetch quests, minigames (such as rock paper scissors), and puzzles, which often consist of our old “friend”, block pushing. It has stakes, but they’re gradually revealed, and what begins as “My dad is missing, and bandits may be responsible” grows into “Ohshit, dragons” (although this is heavily foreshadowed, as with many gameboy RPGs. Y’know, like Pokemon)

This isn’t a bad thing, by the way. These are “It’s a thing” things. But it’s a very specific experience, and it’s one for a pretty specific sort of taste.

And that, honestly, is what I really need to say. It’s not a bad game, although I do wish the combat was a little more than a damage race, and I wish there were less block puzzles, but it is something that appeals to a very specific audience, and I would say to watch the first part of a Let’s Play or something like that to see if it would be the kind of experience you’d want to play.

Hell, I advise that in general with any game, but moreso with games like this. A very specific recommendation, then.

The Mad Welshman played the hell out of The Addams Family way back when. He regrets nothing.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £49.99 (digital deluxe £59.99, Season Pass (argh) £36.99)
Where To Get It: Steam

Ah, we’re back to the Atelier series, and so soon! So yes, as a quick refresher, the Atelier series is a JRPG series about cute alchemists doing cute alchemist things, meeting people, getting ingredients, beating up monsters, synthesising new things, and, after a relatively slow burn, saving the world. It’s usually pretty good stuff.

Now, the other thing about the Atelier series is that it changes the formula up somewhat nearly every time. So, while time limits on the overall story still appear to not be here (yay!), the combat system is different from Lydie & Suelle, the alchemy system is different, maps are different… And I like most of these changes. One, in particular, I’m not a huge fan of.

There is a world map with shortcuts. There is a minimap both in the main city portion and the various biomes you encounter. You know what isn’t there? A minimap inside buildings. There is a fast travel menu in the city from the world map, but honestly, that feels a bit backasswards from the way Lydie and Suelle did it. I sorta get it overall, there are people who will have quests for you, so you need to be running through the city to meet them (and, as usual, alchemical ingredients can be found in town), but…

Look, I get lost easily. And, to rub a little salt in, there is… A colourblindness issue with the door type objectives. Specifically, it’s difficult to tell what is a door you need to go through for the objective, and what… Is not. There’s a small difference in shade. That’s it.

Not cool.

Otherwise, though, Atelier Ryza’s second installment has a lot of cool stuff, the grind remains as mellow and, honestly, low key as ever, and the characters remain charming and interesting, from the folks you meet around town (oh, Ryza, why do you keep getting in trouble like this, huh?), to the main characters themselves. It looks damn pretty, the story is a little higher stakes from the beginning (as the ruins information rapidly makes it clear that yes, things are afoot in ye ancient ruins), the soundtrack remains as chill as seems to be the case (until it needs to be otherwise, and it’s alright at that too)…

So, what about them lost legends, huh? Well, that’s one of the more interesting additions. Effectively, you’re piecing together the story of ancient ruins, with the help of a magic mcguffin and deduction, in order to learn more about the situation you’re in, and about the fairy wot hatched from an egg you got given at the beginning of the game. Called Fii. Who goes Fiii!

Shush, they’re extremely cute, I will hear no bad words against them. It’s honestly not a bad system, though, because it encourages exploration of the ruins themselves, and filling in blanks.

Gripes about the map aside, I can’t really think of any critique that would significantly improve the game. What little quality of life it lacks, is easily fixed, and the rest just… Works. It’s a solid game about cute alchemists doing cute alchemist things, befriending many, crafting stuff incessantly for various reasons, whaling on monsters for various reasons, with a relatively chill difficulty curve, and an equally chill lack of pressure. You take it at your own pace, and, so long as you don’t mind a fair bit of repetition in your routine, then yeah, this is a solid JRPG to play.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £24.99 (Expansion Scenario: £5.99)
Where To Get It: Steam

I just keep finding cheerily dystopian games with guitars in, don’t I? Well, this one’s particularly cheery in its corporate dystopia, and is a metroidvania style deal in which your abilities allow you to explore the world more, see interesting beasties, and get yourself wrecked by them, so it’s not like I can complain. All I can do is eat the monsters that look rich. Or, more accurately, drain their mineral contents so I can make sweet, sweet traversal items and upgrades.

And, just like a metroidvania, there’s a fair amount of being lost, because, apart from shortcut points, you’re basically relying on muscle memory and a few upgrades to work out what’s what, and where.

So, first things first, the humour. Oh god, the humour’s on point, and it’s clear which rich asshole(s) Kindred corp’s head are inspired by. They shall not be named, for they are also namesearching rich assholes. But it’s pretty obvious, and oh boy are they smug, clueless jerks who’d rather throw money and people at a problem than use resources efficiently.

That’s our job, apparently.

Aesthetically, the game is pretty clear, with a clear, unobtrusive UX, cool alien designs that make the beasties in question instantly recognisable (along with other features, equally clear), and a broken world that feels awe inspiring at times to travel in. Musically, well, it’s good, it’s frontier western guitars, and yup, dystopian future with space-trucker guitars again!

This is not a bad thing. This is, in fact, a good thing. Equally good is the world. The pufferbirds are very satisfying indeed to feed to the grinding maws, to punt, and to generally bully, the creatures are, overall, well designed, big glowy weak points and all, and they feel like they belong in this screwed up, shattered world. Which, like your journey, is one big, long WHOOPS.

But it’s an enjoyable whoops that controls well, has some good acting (and some delightfully godawful adverts), a dystopian story that nonetheless made me laugh, and an ending that I saw coming a few hundred parsecs away, but still delighted me in the details. I found some of the later stuff and some of the bosses a bit of a drag, mainly because said boss fights were multistage, but also relied on maneuverability with limited healing, but overall, I found it well paced, and likable enough that I wanted to 100% complete before hitting that lever to take me back home.

And after I do, what I’ve found will totally be used safely for the betterment of mankind. Right?

Oh. Yeah. Comedic hellscape.

WHOOPS.

This review sponsored by CAMPING CUBICLE, the portable office cube with a coffee maker in-built, so you can feel like an office drone even in the farthest reaches of space, as you should!

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Content Warnings: M/M, D/s, anthro/furry, maid costumes, oral, anal, facial, degradation, spanking, bratting, open relationship, size difference, dubcon(?), masturbation

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Source: Free
Price: Free
Where to Get It: Steam

At first, I had mixed impressions. A beautiful piano piece on the one hand, not making it clear the drawers are the menu, and the key the options on the other.

The piano remains good. And the opening crawl… Don’t let it put you off. Yes, it’s all text, but being that fits. Toma has no good pictures for this. Why should she, when she feels off, isolated, and feeling like her core, her identity, was stolen via the simple fact her aunt named her baby with Toma’s mother’s desired name for her daughter. And it’s affected her self esteem, to the point where she, a beautiful young lady (and she is) feels plain, weird, uncomfortable to be around.

A kinetic novel (where one doesn’t choose, but simply experiences the story), it revolves around two people, both young: Toma and Emmeline, and the fateful meeting they have in a graveyard. And it’s an emotional ride, where I found myself tearing up at one phrase early on:

“Every person has a story, and there is not enough space on a single tombstone to say it.”

But the story is told, and I teared up several times. That, in and of itself, says a lot. I sometimes tear up at the weirdest things (Like the SST arrange of Space Harrier, of all things. No idea why), but I don’t often do it overall…

But Toma’s story, and Emmeline’s struck a chord. They both loved a girl, and, in the end, they both got the relationships they wanted, and resolved, at least partly, the histories that plagued them.

You’d think that was a massive spoiler, but no. The details matter. The very British nature of the game matters, the small things matter. Just like a light brush of the hand, or a stammered set of words.

The Sad Story of Emmeline Burns is free, is hella gay, and it made me almost cry. If you want that experience, and don’t mind it being a kinetic novel… Go give it a go.

Oh, and the gallery is in the book, and the music box’s function is obvious.

And so we close our tale, the biscuits and milk all eaten, the night drawing in. Sweet dreams, one and all…

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