2022
♡ December ♡
Dungeon Defenders
What is there to say. Sometimes it's just nice to play a game where you just kill and this game provides. Rosy saw a clown class and had to buy it since our friend likes clowns and then felt like she had to get me an extra class so I wouldn't be left out and got me the automoton one and it rules actually, I really like the way you play it. This game is enjoyable even though it is un-thought through fantasy game #1398428347293434545340524382734. It is the example of un-thought out fantasy game, literally everything about it, I've never seen more unoriginal sheer stock fantasy characters in my life.
Final Fantasy VII Remake
One of few games I think looks good with more realistic graphics (but not necessarily better). This game has much more time to linger where you can see that it doesn't really have a coherent/ strongly positioned and developped political stance, unlike the original where everything has to move so fast you don't have as much opportunity to notice. Playing this game after playing FFXV and Crisis Core makes the combat feel like they actually put thought into it to make it not feel like ass or get slammed through. This game feels like a lot more thought was put into how it's showing it's content and how the player experiences it. The citizens actually have conflicting opinions, other things going on in their lives, don't care, and you get to understand how they feel just by walking around instead of having to stop and interact with individual people for them to give you the most rote line you've ever heard. Some parts of fights are just cutscenes of Cloud doing a cool move, and it feels much better than the game giving you, like, a cool guy looking move to do sometimes -- although I think the limit break move works given how rare it happens. It feels well put together to explain its world, and the world feels thought through, even if the game's stance as a whole doesn't. I generally like this game. I will always wish this game to be more than it is and more than the devs are capable of, and it never will be, and each iteration of that will explain how and why it can never be that way canonically. But that's okay.
Also -- it's weird that when Aerith goes around Sector 8 telling the kids Cloud's ex-SOLDIER, and the kids then refer to him as the SOLDIER guy and gush about how cool that is or how they want to join when they grow up, he doesn't bother to refute it in any way, despite the fact that in every other situation in the game where someone refers to him as SOLDIER he immediately corrects "ex-SOLDIER." And, that this seems to be the general perception of Shinra and SOLDIER in Sector 8 despite that being very much not the case in Crisis Core Reunion.
Wuppo: Definitive Edition
The aesthetic in this game feels coherent and it's nice. It's so cute. It's a bit too open and that makes it hard for me to play it, and I have a hard time accessing the map (is there a map?) and I just cannot play this game because of it. Or at least if I knew better what I was supposed to be doing and how to go about it so that I could properly search. As I've been typing this I was trying to remember why I felt a bit off about it and then I remembered: the racist native tribe group, because of course. I am, again, begging game writers to try using their fucking head for once to think about why certain tropes exist, but god knows that's far too much more than can ever be expected of them. And again, this game is so cute.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion
This is the silliest game alive. The ultimate of what Final Fantasy games could be if they let themselves accept that they don't have any actual coherent and thoughtful politic. This is a game about a bunch of dudes being cool and that is it, there is nearly literally nothing else to it. They make all of the men pretty in this and it compelled me to keep playing it. Playing FFVII remake after this, makes it a little bit sad, because you can see all of the ways it's telling you it's sooo cool that is not followed through in the execution -- where FFVII remake makes use of things like select cutscenes during fights or different camera angles, Crisis Core Reunion just... doesn't. It says this is the coolest battle we have in the game this is the end, and then throws Zack in an arena with [spoiler] Genesis at a semi 3rd person/top view, and that's mostly it. But I can appreciate this game for not trying to be more than what it is and committing to it's own bit of literally just being a game about some cool dudes. I wish more games would know what they're trying to say and admit to it and not try and be more than that.
Super Kiwi 64
This game rules. The controls feel suuuuper smooth, it's gorgeous, the music is great, it's ridiculously easy but it doesn't feel unsatisfying to me? I'm not someone who grew up playing N64 games (and it's a console I frequently forget exists) so I don't necessarily have the ability to rate it on nostalgia but it's a game that just feels great and is generally non-offensive. I love this game
Beeny
After watching Rosy play Super Kiwi 64 I wanted to play this dev's other games (another friend also liked them and had streamed Macbat but I wasn't around to see it and forgot about it!), and while I've never played a DK game and can't really feel anything towards it around that, it's just such an enjoyable game. It's quick and fun and sweet and feels heartfelt, it doesn't give you too much punishment (and, like many have noted on Backloggd, I think it would be nice to be able to change difficulty to make hazards more punishing, take damage and die, or fall all the way back down), but it doesn't need to. It's just fun!! The controls again feel great!! It even offers some time trials! And it's neat to see how the games this dev's made have some continuum
DKC 2: Diddy Kong's Quest
I always forget DK games exist... I can't be mad at this even though the controls are kinda rough sometimes, since the sprites are just so nice and complex... There's so many characters and little side things and all those spaces seem so neat.... It just feels like a small and full game and I can't be mad at it for that. Even though I was semi inclined to when I first played
Macbat 64: Journey of a Nice Chap
Despite potentially having the most content and being more puzzle based (albeit with verryyyy easy puzzles), I think Macbat was my least favorite so far? But I still love it... not having as much control of the camera was somewhat annoying but I couldn't be upset given it felt accurate to the time they're going for. This game definitely felt the oldest of the games I've played so far... I still haven't fully finished since I entered the shadow corridor looking level and stopped :c but I do want to finish this game.... I also wonder what's with the horror-y levels!! I'm also learning.... when games have horror aspects but they can't actually affect you (can't kill you or harm you or take you back to start or cut to a jumpscare) I can force myself to play a bit easier
♡ November ♡
Please Don't Litter
Citizen Sleeper
I have more complex thoughts about this game but my main thought is good god, it's nice to be able to just fucking enjoy a game for once. Like, enjoy a game without having to make some asides about its terrible terrible politics or space where it trips up.
Six Cats Under
Deeply cute game that is pretty straightforward but was not straightforward enough for me, luckily people will just tell you what to do and it's pretty simple from there. I have no strong or special thoughts on it, but it's genuinely pretty great imo.
Last Train Home
I like the way this game handles suspense? I was expecting to have to [spoiler] go back and fight and then you just... don't. You follow the directions and you just make it out safe.
Her Story
Everything about how this game is was made for me to like it. I've been avoiding writing about this one because I have so many thoughts an feelings about it and they all feel unfinished. Maybe I'll come back to this if and when my thoughts unmuddy....
Her Story... is a game about using police footage to catch a killer in a lie. It's a game that wants you to understand why a killer would be so fucked up to do what they did, with all the assumptions that entails.
It is also a game that reminds me of my whole life, for reasons completely unrelated to the story. It reminds me of being in middle school and being told I could do my final history project on anything as long as it was within a certain geographical and time range and choosing to do linguistic change in Japanese during that period and desperately looking to find any information that could be relevant, no matter how small or in what miniscule way. It reminds me of project after project picking what was apparently the wrong topic and spending hours looking for information I just couldn't find. It reminds me of scraping a few sentences and some educated inference from an otherwise largely unrelated article. It reminds me of going to librarians and asking for help they were so confident to give and them finding nothing and apologizing, suggesting I should maybe do something else. It reminds me of this process repeating through high school and college and my daily life. It reminds me of doing a project on the value of human vs machine interpretation & translation and having a librarian apologize to me when she really couldn't find anything close enough to my topic. It reminds me of trying to find information about US-Hungarian relations during the Cold War and spending hours reading transcripts of embassy communications, displaying these high level actors as people who also just say dumb shit. It reminds me of looking for information on Black women in union organizing in the 1800s US, searching a dictionary's worth of terms in whatever configuration and scouring page after page of information containing nothing of what I needed at all. It reminds me of finding one sentence in one hyperlocal newspaper article and having to use that paper's general political stance, how they talk about related groups, information about the area the paper was in and it's history at the time, and information about other Black women at the time to attempt to construct something, anything, about who that person could be. It reminds me of looking through a variety of different sources to try and find anything at all -- oral histories, local museum websites, library of congress articles, podcasts. It reminds me of finding random trans people's personal blogs where they talk about themselves and trans issues and works they find, where you'd have no reason to have ever found this site at all, and you never will again.
It has become a personality trait for me that, for as long as I can remember, whenever I'd been given a choice to come up with my own project, it had always turned out to be ridiculous to try and research, and from very early on I have had to get used to relying on seemingly unrelated (although they have always felt somewhat obviously related, to me, perhaps because of this phenomenon) research to strain 2 or 3 sentences, if I'm lucky a paragraph or a page or two's worth of information from a handful of sources, mixed together with background information (what is the history of this place? this practice? this usage?), to attempt to make an educated inference on my topic. In all likelihood this is just what research is, and I am just exceptionally bad at finding information -- despite the repeated failure of even people who's advanced degrees are about the ability to find information to find information about my topics, I do believe this is the case. But when everything seemed to come so easily to others, they seemed so confident about what they found, it has always made me feel a bit off-beat. Teachers would squint at the sources I listed in my works cited, balk at the low number or too many of one type.
And I feel all of this memory so fondly, and that is what I mean by "this game is made for me to like it." This is a game where you have to see one video, your starting material, and from that try and figure out what keywords might pull up some other useful information, and you go in this rabbit hole until you have as much information as you can find to come to your conclusion. It's a game where you have to fucking guess which words will pull something up over and over again and half the time you're not getting anything or you're getting the same fucking shit you've already seen and razed for anything you can possibly glean from it. It is a game about research. And for that I can't help but love it. But I suspect if I were to play it again (not that this game has any sort of replayability -- which I think is a ridiculous concept to apply only to video games, as if books, comics, movies, TV shows, don't also all have the their own degrees of replayability) I would see more of it's faults, and I would not like it quite as much, or remember it as fondly. But, unfortunately, it feels far too familiar, and it has me in it's clutches for that reason alone.
Toontown Corporate Clash
The words this game chooses to censor... is very funny. This game is great to play with friends :) Ye Olde Toontown did make me not want to play it as much... it feels more sparse, confusing, and the sparseness makes it harder to complete objectives alone since all the buildings you need become bot buildings... But I still think this game is pretty good.
Baise Lesbienne
Iconoclasts
Silent Hill
Tank controls. But, I do not hate them as much now.... They still trick my brain every like hour or so. I don't think I could play this game without some degree of cheats... I just cannot play a game where my ability to live is limited in resources when I'm, this bad at video games. I would just stop playing because I would expect I won't survive past the next point and that I've already used too many healing items or bullets.... But I think it's interesting and fun, and with a friend telling me where to go I do still want to finish this game...
Torchlight II
Minecraft Dungeons
I have never played Minecraft and probably never will but I really do enjoy this game. First of all its areas are gorgeous..... and it is a game where you can just go in and kill without really thinking about it, but there's still little missions to clear and things you can get.
Cardcaptor Sakura: Sakura Card de Mini Game
A visual novel-esque story interspersed with a bunch of cute puzzle games, including a rhythm game!! Very cute, sad I can't read Japanese that well, I loooove playing these little games.
Pokemon Puzzle Challenge
Shin Megami Tensei
I played this game for 5 seconds. I will likely never, ever play through this game fully. It truly recreates the sense of being lost in the city because I can't have a fucking map and every space looks the same and I have no idea where anything is or what I'm supposed to be doing.
Jackbox Party Pack 6
Jackbox Party Pack 5
♡ October ♡
Grounded
Enjoyed playing this game with others!! But, I had to set down the graphics so low it looked like my glasses were off all the time, and I couldn't fully tell what was were... I would get frustrated when others would just.... go off and do things and I wasn't sure what to do, and would die if I just went whereever on my own... But I like that it's about bugs.... I like the gameplay... I enjoyed it overall!! Also, we built our base on top of a weevil nest, and they kept fucking invading us.
Super Bomberman R Online
Games I should NOT play with others. Would like to NOT play again but RIP to the servers.......
Jackbox 1-4
Embr
Honestly? This game is great, it's a great multiplayer game for just hanging out and having a nice time c: Playing this individually feels soulless and like being at a gas station at midnight and no one's there off the side of the road, it's weird and not nearly as much fun, but playing it with friends? Great experience, want to play it again soon c:
Restless Soul
This game.... I'm learning what Unity engine games look like, and it's, like, fine, but I don't like it for reasons and also for Unity reasons.... This game seems very neat! And I like the concept, it's enjoyable enough... but it's a game that engages my fear that I need to look at everything and talk to everyone since it seems like it does want that to some degree, and ALL of the dialogue is ironic... and I just can't fucking deal with it. If the dialogue was fucking not like that I would love to play through it more... but idk that I will.
Gitaroo Man
This game is much harder then I was expecting it to be, for what looks like a game geared towards kids and that has a main story... I was playing it emulated and it kept getting slowed and skipping, and it didn't let me save, so I didn't get too far and I don't think I'll play again.... but I'd love to play it properly one day!! It was a fun experience and a neat system for rhythm and rhythm in adventure game!!
Kuma Uta
I wish I could've read what was happening... this game looks so neat, the idea is very silly and fun, and you get to make a song and have him perform it... but it was entirely in Japanese and between Rosy not wanting to sit through the dialogue and me getting overwhelmed by how much of it was fucking text, it just wasn't happening. But, this is a cool music game, if perhaps not a rhythm game? Wish I could play it with an English patch...
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
Playing this soon after playing Tales of Symphonia really is hammering in more and more things I dislike about that genre... why is child abuse always a funny joke? This game seems like it'd be interesting to play if you give it time and explore it's battling... but I don't think I'm going to. I'm tired. I was talking to Rosy about it... I was still playing it and she asked why the fuck I was bothering to, and I said there has to be SOME reason people like this genre... And she reminded me that there are other games that I think are good, in that genre, like FFVII or FFXIII, Caligula Effect 2, some SMT, Disco Elysium, Bug Fables... and it made me think, I don't need to put up with shitty RPGs. I can just leave them in the dust.
Cave Story Sex RPG 2007
Playing this game... made me think about how we treat the versions of ourselves that can't. That can't do anything, that lose all hope, that feel completely trapped and overwhelmed and doomed to stay that way. And about how to let them mourn things US society doesn't even think to... how something affects us, the loss of a version of yourself you identified with for so long... and having to redefine your relationship to that image, when you still want it but physically, literally can't... Which is not necessarily what the game is about per se. But I'd been thinking about doulas lately and that always makes me think about all the things we aren't given the space to mourn, that we need to... And it also made me think, is it just the way of things to suffer, realize you’re trans, suffer really intensely, feel better, become a person, feel real and like you exist in the world, and then go right back? To where you were when you didn't feel like a person? Anyways, maybe I'll play it again, that standard doesn't really apply to narrative or personal essay games, but sometimes I do like to go back to think more about what it makes me think about or feel...
A Musical Story
People reviewing this game on backloggd always say it doesn't have much story, which is true if you only take it for what it shows you on the screen while playing... But if you think about it, and it lends itself to interpretation, it can be about so many things relating to artists and creative work, how that work is valued and what it takes to survive in a world that refuses to value that art in a way that allows creators to continue to create and still make enough to survive, to the idea that you should monetize what you love and how it can harm your relationship to your art, about the societal pressures that exist around us and that we internalize and how they harm and restrict us... not to mention the way the different instruments and rhythms tell the story... It's a story with no words, only images and music, and this means the music plays a massive role in telling the story, and it does this wonderfully... I played it because I've been wanting to see what rhythm games can be and do, and I don't regret it at all. I want to go back and follow up with the other routes I didn't get to complete yet.
Hell is Other Demons
This was exactly the game I was hoping it would be. I played it when I needed to have a game that let me platform and kill and die and do it all over again and it did just that and was satisfying to play, I was in an emotional state where getting frustrated for doing bad would have been easy but I didn't get to that point at any time playing. I want to play more of this game. I am bad at this game. Also, it's just very pretty.
Tales of Symphonia
I am not a fan of JRPGs. I am not really a fan of RPGs in general. I do not have it in me to play a game for 20-40 hours just to finally get to understanding that something that seemed atrocious the whole time is slightly less so, and in my experience, I've mostly just been given "the bad is actually the very source of evil" instead of saying anything about it for playing that long. So perhaps this game gets better later on. And it's not that it doesn't have ANY indication that it could get better early on. I'm just going to copy my discord conversation about this: "but a lot of the characters are very casual about how they express like genocidal desires and the game doesn't seem to suggest that it's fucked up at all or that we should feel any way about it other than like this is just the lore of the place and from my limited experience of the genre it feels like a lot of jrpgs dont necessarily... have anything good or particularly thoughtful to say about their evil ? so like, idk, i think its reasonable to be like this might get better but i think its equally reasonable imo to not trust it to do so ?"
♡ September ??? ♡
Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival
Secret Little Haven
Ok, so a friend streamed this to me... but it's a VN so I'm counting it. I want to say more about this game later. Sure the ending is deeply unrealistic but I'm still glad she gets a happier ending...
Project Heartbeat
I love community charts, I do, please, fucking make charts below extreme difficulty that are not just to be as much as possible, even though those are fun too. Also, adjusting back to X or F2 game mechanics takes some time for me.
Aokana
I've been playing so many queer VNs that I genuinely was surprised when it was some guy and a bunch of anime looking and acting girls... the story seems neat enough but also reminds me of playing games when you have to not think too hard or to seriously about what's happening to relax and enjoy it (harassing the main character about his trauma and nearly isolating him until he joins the FC club, for example) but it seems interesting! I also... forgot how fucking long some more officially published games are and honestly I don't know if I can keep at it through to the end... But I do want to see how the story progresses!! We will see.
Catgirl Truckers
Terranova
I really did enjoy this game.... a lot of the interpersonal drama and kind of shitty behavior of the characters felt very familiar to being a kid/ teen and online and having everyone you know being on the fucking edge, having shitty parents, being treated like shit by others and you can't do shit but joke around with them and talk to them at god fuck hours of the night or morning, being kind of jealous and shitty and mean and not communicating but just being angry and mean even though it makes everything worse.... the content warnings had me on edge every month it progressed scared that one of my friends would end up dead... and ultimately, you're a kid, and you can't do shit about the trauma your friends experience. But you just have to move on and live with all that.. also, I wasn't expecting this game to be as long as it was, which I'm certainly not upset about, and accidentally ended up getting the happiest ending which was nice... They do bring a certain character back into your life who treated you like complete shit before, which kind of sucks, since I mainly was only talking to her so she wouldn't [cw suicide mention] kill herself, but she's still a shitty person who treats you and your friend like shit and I don't want her back around... Also, everyone in this game treats you a little bit shit, and you can see the red flags a mile away, and you can see the blatant projecting and things that will cause drama later, and it's just, so fun.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
The Man From Medan
Game that feels very mediocre honestly... it sometimes treats shitty vacationing Americans as such and that's a bit refreshing, but otherwise, it's an ok game that's fine and fun to play with friends, and I don't feel too much else about it... like, I could think about this game more, but maybe later...
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
Honestly, I thought this wasn't a management game, and I kept it around because it seemed neat but it takes up so much space on my switch and I played it to kind of confirm that I wouldn't like it so I could get rid of it, which I finally did to make room for the new Taiko switch game, but I did kind of want to play more of it.... it seems very neat and fun and different actually, and if I had it in me to deal with the part of the beginning of farming that everyone says is rough, I think I would enjoy this game!
You and I and the Long, Long Drive
I wasn't expecting this game to be trans allegory and then it was... it was very nice and thoughtful and pretty and I really enjoyed it. I would have more to say, if I wasn't so tired.
♡ August ♡
This was a month where I decided I wanted to play as many of the rhythm games in my local Round1 as possible! I wanted (and still want) to better understand the range that rhythm games have to offer, and find what I like about each and through that what I like in rhythm games... Plus, that way I can see all sorts of rhythm games... Games with cool mechanics that give me a deeper understanding of the genre and what new things it can offer c:
If Found...
I wanted to play this game so bad.... and then I did and every time I played it it made me depressed and feel like shit.... I'm sure it's good, it's certainly creative the way it physically displays the story (even if waiting for the eraser and dealing with navigating with joycon drift could be mildly annoying -- I had to control my instinct to look everywhere for all possible world-building and trust that the game would lead me to where I'd need to be), but I just don't know if I'll be in a place to go back and finish it (I'm already like 2/3 through...)
Fall Guys
Ended up playing this because my computer STILL can't play taiko pc online... and after at least an hour of searching we just decided on playing Fall Guys. It was... fine. You're just running around. It's fine.
Pump it Up
I'm realizing I like side by side dance games better than front to back ones.... Playing this game was really nice and made me want to play dance games again, and I've been sad my ankle's been healing ever since the first time we played it (unrelated, missed a couple stairs getting food one night). Also, I forgot how deeply out of shape I am and how exhausting dance games are!! But it was very fun... adapting to feeling like an idiot while using the handrail but also, enjoying how it made the game easier in some ways... There was also a lot of kpop which is fun but also worked out well for Rosy I think.. it was nice to see her look for a song she liked. Would like to come back to this, the design being slightly different from DDR was nice! Also, we both noted the lack of space to come back to, since the middle space is also an input (whereas comparatively, DDR does not use the middle space).
Dancerush Stardom
It's neat that this game exists! It's neat to see how many like, kinnect like games what track your movement there are in arcades? I hadn't really thought they were big because I don't play a lot of dance games and hadn't really been in an arcade basically until 2021. I think it's cool that it lets you play with a friend and basically focus on making a cool dance with how simple its actual inputs are... But I don't like that! Because dancing at all or in front of others always feels just terrifying and barely fun at all, so I prefer when games tell me what to do and don't ask for my creative input. Don't really want to play this again... I'm not entirely against it, but I'd rather play a different dance game! Actually... I thought that I
Sound Voltex
Sound Voltex scares me a little bit because I've heard of people genuinely playing it to this day... and it doesn't let me make any kind of progress since it's not a Japanese server. But, I think it's very fun, the buttons feel nice and aren't too out of reach, I like that it actually does something with its inputs!! That it changes how the song sounds based on what you have to hit. And it has a good song selection... I'm definitely not great at this game, but it feels great and I'd like to play more of it... when I can.
Wacca Reverse
Wacca is so much fun... I avoided this game at first because I associated it with Osu! players and Rhythm Gamers but it's fun as hell, it keeps me engaged in a way that makes it easier to rhythm game trance and the songs it has are fun... it took me a few plays to figure out how to navigate the different levels and genres and I regularly don't notice notes at the top of the circle but it activates my brain just right.
Museca
I'm sad this one is disconnected.... it's fun, it's neat, it's not too special and I didn't know how to use the foot pedal at first, but it's fun... I like Museca. And if I'm honest, the fact it's discontinued makes me feel like it won't be everywhere and makes me want to play it more like it could disappear one day.
♡ July ♡
Around this month, I felt like I would fucking snap if I didn't relax and goof off a couple days... And me and Rosy ended up going to Round1 late at night and I loved it.
Groove Coaster 4 Starlight Road
Project DIVA: Future Tone Arcade
Hitting the buttons on the arcade machine feels so satisfying.... I'm sad this game only lets you play 2 songs instead of they typical 3. Playing the arcade version of this game makes it very clear that this game is meant for arcade and then just... ported to other consoles without too much consideration of how playing on controller changes things... the way the charts are mapped are meant for arcade set up of the buttons and it makes it easier to read, easier to do multiple holds or multiple buttons at once, and more satisfying to play... One time on backloggd I saw a comment calling Mega Mix and Future Tone (PS) a lazy port of the arcade version and at first I was defensive, because I love those games and playing at an arcade is obviously not particularly accessible, but the more I learn about and play the arcade version the more obvious it becomes that they're right.
Chunithm Paradise Lost
Tetote x Connect
Sometimes it's hard to tell where you'll need to be in this game, and when you play a lower difficulty, they just remove some of the notes but the dancer continues to move as if those notes are there and it's very obvious... the feeling and noise of my hands dragging across the screen could be better (likely with gloves). But this game is fun to play, it offers progression, it's cute... I like it c:
Crow Sketch
You have to go to work
Yurivania: Uhaul of the Night
I'll respond to that later
One Shot
Multiversus
Maybe this game is fun to people who like fighting games! It felt deeply boring and strange to me... I think, a normal less gimmick-based fighting game seems more fun because the moves and how the characters interact with each other seems more thought out? But I don't know that at all.
Frogun
I really wanted this game to be nice, it's quirky! It's unique! It's a frog gun! How will we use the frog gun! And then the second it opens you're discovering undiscovered land. Fuck off with that shit, and playing this game with drift is hell and made it not worth playing for me.
Umineko: When They Cry
Good LORD this game has a lot of dialogue about things.... I'm playing with friends so I hope to keep playing this game, but good lord, it's so much fucking dialogue.
The Quarry
Played this with a group of friends and it was very nice! Like, the game is very mediocre... but it was fun to play as a group, and now we have a group playing games together regularly which is nice.... I'm glad I got to experience this game with others even if it's not like, a game I feel strongly about in the end.
♡ June ♡
This month I played a bunch of the games in the queer games bundle on itch.io, partially because I just wanted games that are a bit more thoughtful, partially because a lot of them are a bit shorter and I get overwhelmed with games that take longer and have more to do. I don't have it in me to write anything about them right now -- I've tried and it's just not there. I hope to come back to these -- either way they are logged.
Slasher Interrupted
Demon Turf
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
I accidently insulted a witch and now all of my clothes are sentient and they hate me!
cover me in leaves
Amelie
A Nightmare's Trip
We Should Talk.
Medusa & Medusa VN
Pebble Witch
Peyton's Post-Op Visits
Pokemon Crystal
Holy shit all the sprites in this game look so good it makes me want to use like every pokemon in my team. There's so many good bugs in this game. Trying to play it at the same time as a few friends/ others and I worry about being able to keep up what with school and all, and I've always struggled to play through all of HG/SS, but I hope to continue because it's a really enjoyable game honestly.
Do I Pass?
Undertale
Grafitti Kingdom
♡ June ♡
Around here I entered coding bootcamp hell and I have not yet returned. I'll put some recent games but I don't know what happened here
Lookouts
At a certain point I got kind of tired of reading and the music felt slightly repetitive but it's genuinely not a problem I just was playing the game all at once, also it was nice.... all the characters look very cool and the game itself is sweet and fun. I wish I had more to say because I really enjoyed this game but.... it's been so long and I didn't write shit at the time.
whenever you can breathe
FFXIII
I do not like Vanille's character and Sazh is obviously a stereotype, but this FF does what the other ones I've seen fucking refuse to give me: actual thought and not just a light/ dark theme with nothing whatsoever behind it. I'd have to have the time to go back to it to say more and I hope I do. This FF is the most enjoyable. Also the combat is really fun but I think if it was me and not Rosy playing it I would hate it a little.
Yume Nikki
Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon
Cowgirl Boots
It's been like a month so most feelings I had regarding this game have disappeared but it's sweet and nice.
Dragon's Crown Pro
Team Sonic Racing
Risk of Rain 2
I actually don't love the music... I think it's ok. And I think visually it's kind of pretty. And I enjoy playing it with others!! But also, it just feels like, overwhelming. What if everything surrounded you and attacked and all you could do was run forever, anywhere, having absolutely no idea where you are or where you've been before on the same map, to the point that you end up running in circles for what feels like a half hour accomplishing absolutely nothing? What if everything was flashing and there were 20 lines on screen and you had to try to aim through all this? What if the words on the screen were so so small that you had no idea what anything you got was, actually? It's colorful, it's nice, it's fun, it is also so fucking much, and as much as I do enjoy playing it with others, I dislike how overwhelming it feels to play.
♡ May ♡
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Every successive LBP game I've felt less attached to the series, and it makes me deal with my own inability to tell gimmick from new mechanic to make a different game. This game made me realize I really like 2.5D and dislike 3D in games. It's fine, I don't feel special about it.
Dragon's Crown Pro
I do not necessarily have positive feelings about this game and the overwhelming majority of reasons why have to do with the way the characters are made to look and the fact that it is another medieval fantasy that gives me nothing and operates out of an idea of medieval europe that does not exist. Playing a beat-em up with friends can be fun.
Helldivers
Again, rare game that I can play with others without screaming internally, and neat enough world and weapons for it to be fun even though it's just a game where you shoot things.
Mickey's Speedway USA
Racing game that definitely exists. It could certainly handle worse! The story seems kind of wild, I will never know because I will never play this game again except as a joke with friends. Surely someone out there loves this game, and I want to see them play it.
Crazy Taxi
Honestly Crazy Taxi is fun to play, and the controls make it easy to pick up. I could play this game for a while without getting bored even picking up the same passengers.
Team Sonic Racing
I'm realizing how many more games in each type of game I've been playing just by being around people who will just get games and play them.... Team Sonic Racing is a bit rude in leaving out Cream from Team Rose even though, I only ever want to play as the chaos. Game feels nice enough, the story is kind of wild in how the characters are portrayed, and I feel like it would be cool to have them on foot instead of in racing cars... I feel like Mario Kart has made me only want cartoon racing cars my general dislike and antipathy towards cars makes me not want games with car looking cars in them. The different types of races or trials in this game are kind of neat. It just feels like a racing game that mostly runs fine, but I think that's just because I don't care for racing games as a genre outside of the experience of like, playing mario kart. Also, some characters' handling is ridiculous. I feel largely ambivalent about this game, it is fine.
CTGP Revolution for Mario Kart 7
I have to say, playing mk7 made me feel better about playing racing games. The drifting feels normal and intuitive, and going back to playing mk ds afterwards or even the ctgp rev for mk wii felt like maybe it wasn't something I was uniquely stupid for not understanding. MK7 feels great and I like playing it by myself or with others, it's good for feeling anxious or depressed or overwhelmed and having something simple to focus on. Some of the tracks are... long, but I enjoy the creativity of the new tracks and the mashups of old and new courses.
Kururin Squash
Ok so granted most of this I just watched Rosy play BUT a) I love it and b) I did technically play a little, I love this game and I love games like it, games where its like, why the hell would this be a game?? Because they aren't the general idea of a video game, or are games geared towards children or that can be played in a physical form as well. They're perfect. I love the different spinners and TVs you can have, they're very creative and cute and just fun, the color scheme and music work well to create a certain atmosphere that matches the vibe of that type of game.
The Binding of Isaac: Repentence
There are few games I can play with others just because I'm so goddamn insecure about not being smart enough or knowledgable enough or good enough at games, but this game is very easy to play with others (depending oh how items are allocated) and I greatly appreciate it for that. It also has such a wide variety of items and ways you can mix them with other items or characters or whatever makes it consistently a fun time. I don't think I've played this game by myself yet, but being able to play it with everyone in our house, just feels nice. It's a nice memory I keep.
FFXV
FFXV is weird to me because like... I enjoy some aspects of it. Like I appreciate that the fighting feels like hell because it incentivizes not just fighting everything you see, as do a few scattered comments that expressed a negative feeling towards fighting creatures far weaker than you (characters saying they feel bad about it... of course immediately counteracted by another character saying thats "just the way it is out here" and "it's kill or be killed"). I'm trying to learn more about the world and characters and such from doing so many sidequests because I just... don't expect much of a game that's more realistic and open world -- and (granted, I'm only pretty early in the game) it seems so far to cut out the fun little bits that are such a large part of why I think ff is interesting (pressing A to get through a section and then just... having a normal fight). But some of the quests are fun too, and give you more experience than fighting random creatures (such as fishing with some guy you find, or catching and grilling a fish for a boardwalk cat), and those feel like they'll be a more enjoyable experience of the game. I'm conflicted ultimately because I do not like what the game represents as a shift in what big games are but I also end up wanting it to have something.
Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest
This game FUCKS. I love the music, I love the look, I wish the camera worked... differently but besides that and the weird way they talk about mating and perhaps the like, "oh no the king of carnivores is bad >:/ but I'LL become king and that is GOOD!" narrative and also like, the idea that nature is a separate entity who's purity is a real thing that definitely exists and also their concept of nature (the idea that nature is something objective and not something that's been interpreted over and over by humans living in human systems and overrep of killing/ death cycle over the communicatory/ affiliative aspects and such), everything else I love so much. I'm explaining this badly but if you want clarification Sunaura Taylor exists anyways god I hope I keep playing this game it makes me so happy
The Munchables
Played this as a kid on Wii and remembered it being nice, and it still rules. The soundtrack is outstanding, the creatures are great, it's fun and easy to play (a little too easy for me now as an adult to a degree where it's slightly less enjoyable but it's still perfectly fine). Also, didn't have a weird "nature" thing NOR a "on this undisturbed island this people have this silly myth they believe," which is an incredibly low bar but one that nevertheless exists. Good feeling like shit/ distraction game.
Pikmin 2
I always kind of thought that I wouldn't really like Pikmin but honestly? I love how many little pikmin they let follow you around, I really enjoy it so far and the creatures are fun, it just felt... fun to play? Which is so nice.... I don't fully know how I feel about the way the main characters treat the pikmin and the world they scavange on, or I guess the way they write the pikmin to kind of just be naturally given to helping/ working for this stranger. Maybe that's developed in the first game, I wouldn't know since it crashed LMAO, definitely want to keep playing :')
♡ April ♡
River City Girls
Extremely fun art and fun story, the fact that you can run makes it so that I might keep playing this game, but at the same time it makes me a bit sad to think I likely won't because I want to see how it goes and develops the fighting and story but I just don't like that kind of game. Want to keep playing but we'll see!
Stardew Valley
Liked how many options were in the character creator, it seems fun, but like I initially thought might be too much dry build in the beginning for me to get into
Speed Dating for Ghosts
This game is perfect for me because the variety of interesting characters keeps me wanting to play more and each date (2 rounds of speed dating and one final date) is so short I don't have to feel like I need to set up or prepare for it or otherwise block out time, which is a MAJOR reason why I have a hard time playing games I have access to. Also the stories are so unique and the character designs are as well, the dates skew more activity/ backstory than romance which I find more fun. Want to keep playing this game for sure
Monster Hunter Rise
I feel much the same about this game as I do about FFXIV -- offputting at first, but if I kept playing it with people I think I would get into it. 200/10 creatures, sucks you have to slay them because they are very cool. The amount you have to know to fucking play this game makes me not want to associate with people who are into it because I expect them to be dicks about it, which is how I feel about most games that get a reputation for being sooooo hard. Want to keep playing with others specifically (but not particularly invested as a solo game)
Celeste
I keep not playing this game because I want to hear the music and play it on a bigger screen/ with a pro controller because it feels like it'd make it a bit easier and seems just more fun overall, and the music is so good I can't bare to play it without, but I really want to keep playing this game, it's gorgeous and I want to see where the story goes
Bugsnax
I wanted to enjoy this game so bad, so so bad, the creatures are so good and the fact that they all have little quirks, ways they interact with the world (landscape, food, other creatures, grumpus, etc), they all feel very creative and are extremely cute, but it made me sad to have to capture and feed them to villagers... and that tied with the weird imperialist/ settler colonial sentiments in the opening with Lizbert put me off of it... I want to play this game to see all the different bugsnax but I really, really just wish that I could play one singular game about a fantasy land with fun creatures on it that didn't play off of colonialist or anti-indigenous tropes, just once
Monster Sanctuary
The creatures in this game are great which is really all I ask of a creature game, the art is cute, I am such a sucker for most 2d art (or some stylized 3d art), wasn't expecting the platforming? But it's enjoyable, it gives me a bit the same vibes of an open world -- I guess open world doesn't have to be 3D because it feels like it fits and that makes it overwhelming for me, so I have a hard time playing through it somewhat, but I do enjoy it and the creatures which is the point, hope I keep playing :)
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
I played, like, 40 minutes of this game at absolute maximum, and it made me think about how weird I feel about not portable kirby games, for some reason? Like I didn't enjoy the 3D space, but thinking back to Kirby's Epic Yarn I also felt weird about that game... Or maybe it's less about console and more about the powers kirby is given in each game? Because I don't love Mass Attack or Planet Robobo either... I don't know, I can't tell, it's perfectly fine but I don't especially like it personally, don't care to keep playing
Kirby: Squeak Squad
I have so many feelings about this game. I played it as a kid and it was very nostalgic but I never beat it because I found the final bosses too hard, this time I full cleared it with all the treasure, ghost kirby, etc etc. Got me through some anxiety nights or days, extremely easy to me now, reminded me that I like kirby games. Will probably play again in the future but not for right now.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Very glad that Rosy got this for me because I probably wouldn't have played a shin megami tensei game otherwise (there's so many and they seem kind of.. intense) but this game is nice and I really do want to keep playing it to see it through, for the creatures and the story and to get an overall vibe of a shin megami tensei game. Want to keep playing, please, please
GO Series: Pinball Attack!
Honestly? I think it's an interesting pinball game because it isn't set up like a machine, it scrolls up the whole time and just spawns things (creatures, obstacles, power ups) for you to hit before reaching a boss stage. I think the way it creates space with the boards is interesting, sometimes a section will be blocked off because of the walls of the board as it moves, or there'll be a pufferfish in a narrow space you have to hit a few times before getting through. The sections are fun and the creatures are okay, very easy and chill, I played this game when I felt like shit and it was great for that. Will probably play every now and again
Revenge of the 'Gator
I love this game, it's so silly, just pinball and gators. This one was the first one I played where the screen moved because it was for the gamebody advance not ds, or maybe it just was more jarring in how it moved between screens, but it's fine after a minute. Great pinball, definitely want to play again
The Pinball of the Dead
I do not especially care for the like ds pinball games that were like here's a man onscreen! Kill him with pinball! It's perfectly fine but I don't want it, I'm sad it was zombies because a game called pinball of the dead was so exciting but of course it's zombies, goddamnit
Pokemon Battle Trozei
God I love trozei, it's so good, being able to actually read about how things work was good actually, the new features rule, trozei is good. Want to keep playing and probably will whenever the mood strikes me or I am depressed
Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire Pinball
This game rules, I love little offshoot games like pinball games and trozei, the catch feature is fun, I am so bad at this game but it's very cute and relaxing and nice. Want to keep playing
Pokemon Pinball
Can't tell which pokemon pinball I prefer but this one is nice too, it's very cute and chill, I like it. Will probably play again sometime
Sonic Spinball
This game rules, it's a massive shame it runs like shit on my 3ds because it's very fun and very much feels like pinball, there's so many different sections and warps and different events all at the same time, it feels the most like a pinball game of all the pinball video games I've played tbh, want to keep playing and probably will at some point
It Takes Two
Game is fine, I was bitchy about it because I'm like that, obnoxiously heterosexual, please get help. Don't want to play again but would be willing to
Vampire Survivors
Also a good distraction game since I haven't gotten too into it, it's very nice and easy to understand coming in w/o tutorial, don't really care if I play it again but it is nice
♡ March ♡
Going Under
I genuinely enjoy this game, the art style is very nice, I've listened to the full soundtrack an obscene number of times because it's so good, the vibes are great, it will age like shit in the sense that it will be so blatantly of it's time in the humor it uses, but I love it, I want to finish it so bad, goddamnit. Want to keep playing please can I not stop playing this game
Everhood
Damn this game rules, I haven't actually played the brand of game that it is before but it's so much fun and it's also pixel-y and bright and colorful and those things will get me every time. I want to play this game so bad.... even though I am bad at it.... I want to play it....
Pokemon Legends Arceus
I'm still getting used to playing games and not finishing them, especially pokemone games (even though I very much have done that before), I want to finish this so bad. Feels deeply refreshing and not too open worldy but still so open worldy that I end up not doing the main storyline and get overwhelmed easily, crafting is a bitch sometimes, but I love that it actually makes me want to catch pokemon as opposed to how I usually play catching only my intended team, it's really cool that pokemon can interact in different ways and chase you down, I want to finish it please
Hades
Technically I played this game before closer to when it was released on switch BUT because I'll probably only start this log for the current year (2022), I'll put it here, Rosy got into it so I started playing again, I like making different builds to try and go faster, I beat EM4 this month while Rosy and her girlfriend watched anyways which was very nice :) Hope I play every now and again.... would love to complete some of the other things in it and improve my times
Bug Fables
Very neat, I love the premise of a game about bugs, I want to play through all of it but don't know how realistic that is for me. The paper/ 2D aspect of it is fun and the art is neat, the bugs have fun personalities and there's so many bugs to interact with... It seems neat... I think it's cute.... I want to like it enough to feel naturally compelled to go back to it.
Children of Morta
I am kind of sad that the story is... the way that it is in regards to gender roles, but I do generally enjoy this game and the fact that it can be 2 player hehe.... also again it's pixel-y and colorful and very pretty and I am a sucker for that, so I enjoy it, but damn I wish the writing was different. This is an instance where I'm like damn... I hope that changes as the story goes on because I want to give it the benefit of the doubt but I wonder if this is or is not where that should be given. Want to play kind of
Final Fantasy VI
I.... enjoy that this game is not 3d and it is decent and kind of fun... but I feel like I've been spoiled after playing FFVII and somewhat by having newer expansions? to FFXIV because now any time FF does a story I'm kind of disappointed about what it is :( Want to keep playing but like... it exists mostly
Patapon
God I haven't played this since I was a kid and I'm so sad it just uses tropes of indigenous people.... I just want the cute creature rhythm game why is there always the weird racism towards indigenous people... game devs learn to be creative or write fantasy without copying weird tropes about indigenous people I am begging
Loco Roco 2
Ok for context I played this right after abandoning Patapon, so it immediately leading with the bad characters being the color black and the big pink lips.... just put me off, like, I guess people who MAKE MEDIA just do not bother to learn about what tropes exist and where they come from and why, what they mean, etc... I just looked it up and apparently Japan Studio also worked on Patapon god it never fucking ENDS anyways kind of want to play it looks cute but hhhhhhhh please
Project Diva X
Rosy got this for me because she's an angel and thought I would like it, it was the first Project DIVA game I played on playstation and not on switch and I kept fucking up the buttons and being like why is it adding question marks??? And then realized it was because I kept hitting the wrong buttons LMAO, also it's like, a limited game with a few songs and you have to play through them all plus this like gift-giving dating sim type deal, Rosy ended up playing through all of it because she was convinced that beating the story section would get us the rest of the songs you'd normally find in a Project Diva game and was so pissed when it just. Ended which was very funny honestly, anyways don't really wanna replay this game because why would I when I can just... play the other ones with more selection
Project DIVA: Future Tone
This game rules also I am so bad at rhythm games that need you to be very close to perfect on the beat to succeed LMAO, definitely want to play again but don't feel pressured to :)
Final Fantasy VII
This game absolutely fucks but like... god it's so fucking long, I had a hard time even WATCHING Rosy finish it because I would get home from work so fucking tired and the game would be so heavy with plot and things happening that I just couldn't manage to get through it for a while, but we finally did and it was so good. I am sad about the way some of the lines are handled and such, especially when it feels like the opening is so strong, and it sucks that Aerith just... dies super early BUT I also think in a sense it's kind of cool that they actually do just... permanently kill her, and also that they still keep her a part of the story throughout? Also fuck Cid and fuck that they made him relevant, I'm glad Cait Sith got redeemed because I liked him, probably will not play again for multiple reasons but I'm so glad Rosy got me to play this because it rules.