HereticSoul/Naux, Mid 30's leftist-something, currently in Ohio. Talk to my face about tabletop games and giant robots, and tell me about your fursona.

18+ over at https://cohost.org/Nauxxx


Sahoni
@Sahoni

Not to be that guy, but this was a weird year for me in that I actually got a chance to play games this year. Some bizarre alchemy of stability, financial independence, and learning to set better boundaries has allowed me, nominally a game designer, to actually play games. It even let me play enough games to have a top 5. Not that this has ever stopped me in previous years from having an opinion.

But being able to have a game in my hand and have that experiential and tactile experience first-hand instead of having to rely on watching along with friends or watch a let’s play has left me with some unexpected opinions. I found myself willing to put myself out there for the imperfect or a game that doesn’t meet the platonic gamer ideal. Not that this has ever stopped me in previous years from having an opinion.

But I’m certainly more secure in them.

The following list is a series of games I came away from still thinking about them. There is no real order to it all, just that I have thoughts and I want others to share with others the experiences they brought me in the hopes you can make your own, or tell me about games that made you feel the same way.

Scarlet Hollow a banner for the vn, scarlet hollow Scarlet Hollow is the game that finally cracked through my shell and got me to like visual novels. It’s not like I haven’t played any before. I love games Like AI: Somnium files and Ace Attorney. But for some reason, there has always been a giant mental disconnect for me on a gameplay level. Something about needing just that little bit of game just to let myself surrender into the sort of stories this medium can tell.

But I never felt that need with Scarlet Hollow. Scarlet Hollow, by Black Tabby Games, is a horror visual novel set in Western North Carolina. And as a North Carolinian I clocked that from the get. That’s my home. It might have been that familiarity which helped me make that connection, but the game has two major strengths that really kept me engaged.

The first is the strength of Abby Howard’s (of Junior Science Power Hour and The Last Halloween) heavy inky arts, making up the hand-drawn and tenuously detailed backgrounds and expressive character-first portraits of the game. I constantly found myself stopping to just soak in a character’s expression or at the reveal of a new horror. If comics are a narrative-visual medium, where the parts come together and blend to tell a greater whole, Abby Howard took that same lessons to heart about pacing and presentation into this visual novel, elevating it to something greater. This is a very comic book sense of each scene transition being treated like a page turn or new panel.

But I think the aspect I enjoyed the most was the dialog. This game has two big systems going for it. The first is, at the beginning of the game, you choose basically two powers for your character out of 7, including options like “strong”, “booksmart”, and “talks to animals”. But soon after that the game springs on you it’s second hidden system. Certain dialog choices you make will reveal and inform your character in the future.

Dustin, a possum, is hissing excitedly in a nest of clothes. A half-eaten slice of bread is next to him

Very early on there is a forced and awkward conversation with a guy on a bus who offers you a bag of boiled peanuts (one of those North Carolina touches) and you have the option to say “no thanks, I’m allergic to peanuts.” from that moment on, if you chose this, you are indeed, allergic to peanuts. Maybe it’s my infamiliarity with visual novels, but I found both of these systems novel. This is a game where I never felt like there was a bad dialog choice. All of these possibilities had potential to lead me somewhere interesting, scary, or emotionally revealing.

I was drawn deep into the world or a dying North Carolina mining town that understood how a small town actually works. With southerners that reflected the sort of people that make up my world and not some country music construct or white liberal nightmare. People of color, queer folk, the blue collared and deep rooted. It also acknowledges native folk exist unlike most Appalachian narratives I see where we tend to be an afterthought at best.

Only 4 parts of the planned 7 are out so far but if you end up craving more as I did you should also check out Slay The Princess, the studio’s other visual novel, which features the voice talents of Jonathan Sims of the Magnus Archives as a self-aware narrator urging you to kill a chained princess in a remote cabin and in order save the world.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns a banner for midnight suns featuring wolverine, iron man, your oc hunter, blade, and robbie reyes ghost rider in really ugly gold and black suits

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a hot mess. There is no other ways to describe it. It’s constant crashes, weird graphical bugs, and seasickingly uneven writing leaves a lot to be desired. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t some of the most fun I’ve had in a game in years.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a tactics game from Firaxis, the same folks behind the x-com games and you can certainly feel that. There is that technical grit that you should expect, especially on higher difficulties you can feel yourself gritting your teeth as you solve the puzzles they present you with, trying to maximize your economy of card plays and movements.

I really found satisfaction in how they expressed the various superheroes of their cast through the card based deckbuilding mechanics that make up your movement options. The best example I can think of is how Iron Man is a sort of high damage jack of all trades, but he’s expensive and likes to be the center of attention so he wants to clog up your hand with more Iron Man cards. Peak Tony Stark.

But everyone seems to have their niche, although some people don’t seem to feel that way until you unlock their passives. Spider-man is a low damage character that excels at bouncing around the screen pecking off minions and using environmental damages. Captain America is a tank character that specializes on building a resources called shield and the group shared heroism. Magik (from New Mutants, a personal fave) reposition and teleports enemies and allies both. Blade messes around with bleed. It’s satisfying and made to feel more empowering and accessible than x-come with things like your attacks always hitting (this, of course, applies to your enemies too). It feels good. I’m going to keep coming back to replay this.

The other half of the game is that you’re in this explorable campus, a haunted abbey transplanted from Europe in a pocket dimension outside Salem. (The game unwittingly makes a lot of assumptions that you’re white.) Your marvel OC, a very predefined in a commander shepherd sorta guy, explores this space for resources, costumes, and more between all the standard x-com prep stuff. There is also the social links which is probably the meat of the experience.

someone else's hunter hanging out with Nico from the  Runaways

The social links are your time to spend one-on-one time with each character. I remember notably when they first announced the game, they spent a not insignificant amount of time telling video game outlets “No. You can’t romance any of these characters. No. you can’t kiss them. You can just be...really good friends.” Par for the course for marvel’s weirdly defensive sexlessness outside of comphet. (something that feels reflected in the fashion of the game to be honest).

Marvel has always been weird about OC’s, even outside of the normal comic book company “lalalala, please don’t show us your oc’s we don’t want a plagerism suit.”

I genuinely think this is the first time they’ve allowed them in any form outside of a lego game since the 90’s. I certainly remember the surprising lack of character creation in their official Tabletop games. Or that one time they tried to make an official marvel fanfic site with the rules “no oc’s” and “no shipping”. I remember how long it took for them to embrace the concept of “spider-sonas”.

But despite this, all these hang-outs feel strangely intimate. Not always romantic, but definitely intimate. I’m talking about someone’s deep personal trauma deep in the woods and then gifting them a music box of a song that’s from their favorite album. I have no doubt in my mind my Hunter and Blade are dicking down hard in the woods. Despite some anne-riceian views on fandom, Marvel can not stop the fanfic. My half-demon is kissing the half-vampire right now.

The writing, while uneven, never doesn’t feel at least comfortably saturday morning cartoon at it’s worst. Which, honestly, is something I’m perfectly okay with for a supehero affair. Same with the quippy nature that seems to be grating some folk with this game. I don’t understand why we’ve suddenly decided to start blaming Joss Whedon for something that’s been a staple part of American theater and film since vaudeville. It’s not like quips and banter aren’t an established and recognized part of superhero fiction and there are plenty of very real things we can blame him for instead. It’s pulp y’all.

spider-man gets nerd-splained by  Dr.Doom

I will say when the writing is good, it’s excellent. It knocks it out of the damn park and the out of combat stuff and tiny little exchanges are some of my favorite things. Whether it’s the story about your immortal lesbian aunt that raised you to be a weapon, her wife (now a ghost that is hiding in the abbey), and the scarlet witch. Or Tony Stark having to learn humility and to give other members of a club space instead of running them over in an attempt to be the big boss guy. Or introducing other folks to Magik’s whole deal. It all just feels good and earned.

I came away from this just desperately wanting Firaxas to make a New Mutants game in this style now. Please. I’ll buy about 12 copies just by myself.

I’m a firm believer that about 90% of non-comic related super media doesn’t earnestly engage with the concept of superhero comics as a medium, either out of embarrassment or apathy. Superhero media is big, strange, and often high-concept weird. None of which I would use to describe most things post Iron Man. It’s a big reason why I think people have this big bland aftertastes after the past 15 years of so of being hosed down with the greatest afterswill of DC and Marvel.

A have a heuristic just for batman shit of “how easily can you see this man throw a batarang?”. Because if you can’t be willing to buy into the conceits and fantastical that much, how much can I trust you with anything else? How can I trust you to understand the underlying nature of the stories being told?

Midnight Sun’s understands a couple of things about superhero fiction better than most. One, that the strange and fantastical are vital to both the color of the world and greater humanity of these characters. Two, that a world of superheroics are very much build upon a conceit of duty and responsibility for others. You don’t see a lot of superheroes in movies and tv ever really doing anything superheroic. And while not all superheroes define themselves by some form of duty, it still defines their greater world. Superman in the Christopher Reeves movies takes the time to show him rescuing civilians. Into the Spiderverse shows Miles struggling to live up to this idea of doing right, even going to far to state the message of “anyone can wear the mask” directly to the audience.

Midnight Suns takes great care to tell you who all these characters are fighting for. It shows them stressed out and frustrated about not being able to respond to every situation, even the ones that are personal, after being stretched thin. Agreeing to help others do what they can when faced with tragedy. Even just being there for a friend when they need it. If you ask me, that’s marvel midnight sun’s greatest strength. I can deal with tony stark and bugs if it’s a story about that.

Signalis alt text I probably don’t have much to say on this that hasn’t already been said, but it’s so nice to see a game that wears it’s inspiration on it’s sleeves, but still is not afraid to be it’s own thing. I’ve been watching this game for a long time. Just the right amounts of alien, RE, silent hill, and anime. I was so pleased to see other pick it up with the enthusiasm I’ve been rooting for it with. It deserves it.

Signalis is quiet.

Yes, it has it’s share of space-y white noise and grinding Akira Yamaoka industrial, but it’s not afraid to just be quiet. It’s honestly refreshing in a world of games who can never shut up.

But Signalis wants you to feel that gripping sense of being isolated and alone. It’s precedented on being lonely and the only times you’re not alone are when you are in danger. Limited inventory leaves you with no room for something sentimental. No favorite weapons here. Not lockets you keep with you. It’s illegal to even be alone with yourself. Even when you do find someone to talk to there is an emotional separation that acts as a brick wall between you and them.

You are lonely. your gay little robot staring at a deep dark hole

It’s retro scifi style is made to evoke things like alien, but also the building genres and expecations of vhs horrors and our own nostalgia. VHS is a lonely technology. It’s use of ps1 aesthetics are made to push the feeling of playing a game by yourself late at night while a crt tv hums and scans.

I think the thing I like most is when the game stops to show you this, cutting from it’s gods eye third person view as you stomp about a metallic brutalist hellscape and pulls you into first person, made to experience this cold isolation first person as you explore a diorama or a dark snowy gap between buildings. It’s taking you, essentially, the main character’s only companion, and making that as non-existent as possible.

Soul Hackers 2 a banner for soul hacker's 2

It’s the best game Atlus has written since the ps2 and I will not be taking any notes on that. It’s pure objective fact. It’s a game about adults in a capitalist hellscape, dealing with adult problems and relationships in a very anime way. I once heard some youtuber describe this Atlus budget title as “the best vita game you’ve never played” and that still feels apt.

You can see this game struggling to make thew most out of what it’s be given with static backgrounds, bland repeating dungeons, and a combat system that just kinda feels like it needed to bake for about 20 more minutes. But what it made it’s choices to include put in so much work.

As a sequel to a ps1 game about detectives (and humanity as a whole) of a sort summoning demons on their cellphones/weapons in a cyberpunk dystopia experiencing the emergence of new life in the form of AI, Soul Hackers 2 decided to take a different approach. It’s a game about emerging AI experiencing humanity, while being detectives of sorts who can summon demons on their cellphone/weapons in a cyberpunk dystopia. Very different.

I found myself delighted to spend time with it’s characters in all the various ways the narrative designers found ways to inject scenes and story into the normal dungeon crawling loop. All fully voice acted of course. I got drinks with them. I listen to them bitch or praise food we got together. I listened to little skits every time I unlocked a new passive ability for them that revealed some new wrinkle in their personality. This limited cast felt like it had the chance to be full and fully realized characters. There was an emotional maturity there I have otherwise felt lacking in other Atlus titles.

Aion and her buddies are drinking at your cool future bar

People were allowed to have complicated and maybe even unhealthy relationships and not only does the story acknowledge that, but the characters too. But that doesn’t mean that relationship is solved. People are messy and that’s something our little ai fragment is gonna learn again and again. Party members had tension and buck against each other, but it always felt like it would be something understandable on either end. It trusted you to understand things, make inferences, and read it in good faith. Probably lessons I could learn myself when it comes to writing.

Tinykin tinykin banner Tinykin is cute. It knows it’s cute (maybe to it’s detriment at times).

In tinykin, you play a starfaring anthropologist looking for the ancestral home of humanity, only to end up in a house, frozen in time in the 90’s and you the size of a bug. You travel from room to room, collecting things to satisying chirps and navigating cities set up by various bug civilizations trying to get an answer to why...and to build yourself a new spaceship.

milodyne ,the main character in a farmland mate of spounges, making up the landcape of a giant kitchen

But it was a perfect bedtime game. Chill. Very little tension. You mess up and miss with a jump, you “died” with a little pop and reset to your place before the jump immediately. It’s a collect-a-thon that didn’t really track or gate things based on how much you collected. It’s the wort of game you could just set up and let a little cousin go to town without worry they’ll get frustrated or lost, because getting lost is half the point.

I wasn’t really biting any of the very high school atheist commentary on the nature of religion the game was throwing out there. Luckily the times it popped up were brief and inconsequential. What was much more appealing was all the ways you can move. You get a bubble to float off a double jump, a soap bar to slide and grind, and a collection of pikmin like critter to command and allow you to get to new places in an assortment of ways.

It felt good to move from one end of the room to the other like an off-roading borrower and you could feel just how much time the devs spent to make it so. Mid my playthrough they added challenge races which adds a whole new layer to how those tools can be used. This is a game I’m dying to see speedrun.

Games I didn’t get to play but wanted to

-Live-a-Live

remake of a rpg classic, finally in English. I'd play this for music alone.

-Kowloon High-School Chronicles

remake of a ps1 cult game, finally in english. I want to be a high school indiana jones dungeon crawling to solve the mysetry of why a bizarre omnitemple is underneath my high school filled with occult-y weirdos. Interesting dialog system.

-Inscryption

card game cool. genre-bending card game things by a guy whose previous weird expectation subverting games I found neat.

-AI: Somnium Files- Nirvana Initiate

I loved the first one and it just looks like more of the same

-Ghostwire: Tokyo

I don't want to play this out of an expectation of this being some horror or action experience that would be fulfilling in any meaningful way, but rather pure vibes. Like a VR chat world with actual shit to do.

-Norco

A cyberpunk game about the invisible south. I'm in.

-Citizen Sleeper

Cool cyberpunk game about a robot finally earning freedom for their indentured servitude, only to find out their warranty has expired and their body is failing...takes a lot of cues form solo journaling games.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @Sahoni's post:

Glad to see Tinykin get some recognition for being just a cozy delight. Nothing but exploration, and I had such a good time with it. Also seconding signalis being dope as shit.

I really have to get on playing Scarlet Hollow and Slay the Princess. I remember seeing the trailer for Slay the Princess and being sold on that immediately but haven't followed that up with playing it just yet.

As I've been getting back into card games, Inscryption scratched a very particular itch I had that I didn't realize was even there. Definitely one of my favorite games from last year for sure.

Tunic was probably my favorite from this year just for the experience of uncovering its mysteries alone. Such a lived in world and that feeling of having a puzzle slide into place in my mind was really intoxicating because I knew I would see the whole game differently from that realization onward.

A good read! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Pinned Tags