Bada Bing! 最近的评测

Here's a historical fact you might not know, during the early era of video games it was widely believed that story in games didn't matter. Well the developers of this game, to test that notion to its limits, decided to make the most god-awful sweat inducing embarrassing story with straight outta tumblr circa 2010 dialogue. Had they allocated the brain power required for this formula towards, for example alchemy, they would've found a way to turn lead in to gold. Each aspect of it evokes a visceral reaction from the nervous system.

It's a work of art, it's a pastiche of the worst times of the internet and the moldy crusty tropey underbelly of the anime culture. Apparently there's a hidden leaderboard in the game that only developers can see, which shows the percentage of players who tolerated the story until eventually succumbing to the sweet sweet relief of the skip button.

It's a speedrun game.
Speed through the dialogue, speed through the game.
Story, truly, does not matter in the end.

appeals to the ultimate male fantasy; murderfest on vast open plains, fueled and powered by the bits and viscera of thine enemies. locals worshipping the very ground you tread on, fornication as means of haggling or reward. besting many beasts and feasting on their flesh. also drugs.

however it's a buggy, unpolished and crashing mess that is more neglected than a crack den in slums of mumbai.

Beautifully designed arenas and tight refreshing gameplay systems that can somewhat feel underutilised due to lack of enemy variety yet serves nicely for the excitement to future titles and their potential.
All of it made bittersweet by the news of the studio's closure.

It's a tough yes.

Dungeon running gets repetitive with too same-y floor generations and unexciting encounters. Combat is serviceable yet lacks depth. Base building is charming at first but it denies you the satisfaction of reaching true automation. Decorations are nice but too little variation. Quests are funny but they are mostly one-offs, no continuation and very little reward for completion. Usually the true reward of a quest is not getting -40 faith loss you can get by denying any quest. Music is awesome but never allows for a moment of quiet. Fantastic art design. Weak mini-games.

This premise is a unique idea burdened by the tired features of similar games in colony-sim-base-building genre. Why do we need fishing again? Especially with so little fish to catch and failing to catch anything is a near impossibility?

Sex update was real nice tho.

More bug infested than a taiwanese crackhouse in mid-july. Laughable and uninspired puzzles. Lazy "art" direction to the point of being called directionless. Only horror is realising how succesful this game is. There are actual human traffickers more deserving of the money they earn.

World is worse with this game in it.

TLDR; Dialogue and the written story of this game is a disservice to its presentation, design and fun physics-based controls. Ultimately taking away from the motivation to uncover the story or even tolerating the time-loop mechanics.

- Spoilers ahead -
The game is made well, runs well, sounds and looks great and most importantly plays awesome. However, the one thing that should tie this game together nicely should be it's writing. It fails miserably. It is clear from the get-go that this is a solar system with mini planets, and the characters you meet during the tutorial sets the tone for a lighthearted experience. Fine so far. Then as you enter the observatory/museum place to get your ship codes you are introduced to this mysterious and powerful alien race's artifacts, which both serves as a way to explain some game mechanics and create questions about the central focus of the story the "Nomai".

From then on you learn of the death loop mechanic during your first venture into space. Whether by running out of the 22 minutes timer or dying. I like that you can explore freely and go wherever that grabs your attention, the codex in your ship gets updated and it tells you if you fully explored a place or not. A beautiful web of discovered information and places. What I do not like however is the writing of the game is godd*mn boring.

It's not fine to write a powerful alien race as if they are just regular human Johns and Janets doing random sh*t looking for the eye of the universe or whatever. The unfunny jokes, childish and stupid "witty" banter between the Nomai all translated by my scanner and read by my poor eyes when I am just looking for relevant, interesting and USEFUL information to progress. No sense of actual intriguing mystery I swear it feels like I am deciphering instagram DMs of bunch of nerdy middle-schoolers.

I am ANGRY because everything else in the game is perfect except for this alien-but-oh-so-dull race's mindless messages and the tick-tick-ticking of the clock both in the game and in my very real actual life inching closer and closer to my death.

Nomai? I do not know why they all died. I haven't progressed that far. Probably because they annoyed an even more powerful race of aliens than them. Also I don't know if I kept playing would I eventually meet a Nomai... but I am uninstalling this game wishfully imagining there'd be an option to shoot the c*nt.

I know this is sudden, but here is some trivia about Catherine Classic, now that you have finished the game;
Did you know? During the development of Catherine, ATLUS had to hire a team of expert psychologists for the character of Vincent to make him the most insufferable effete snivelling pus*y of a man possible.
...And that was the Game trivia for tonight.

This game has the intensity and the melancholy of a fifty year old man who, upon losing his wife, stopped shaving his nether regions.

Hard to recommend this ASMR induced nightmare trip. It's difficult to not recommend it either. Alas, there is no mixed option.

Right, cons first;
-For a game you spend ton of your time walking, movement truly feels ridiculously clunky and it's not uncommon to get stuck between two slight bumps on the path and have to restart the game from last checkpoint.
-FOV is so tiny that with ease I can count Senua's individual dandruffs, buddy I played with got motion sickness and had to stop watching couple of times.
-Puzzles are boring and Lorestones as optional objective messes with the flow of the game as instead of progressing naturally you walk, painfully slowly, back to find the ones you've missed.
-Combat is passable, I guess, though it's inconsistent and becomes confusing in groups of enemies as there's no way to disengage to reposition so you mash dodge in hopes that maybe, just maybe, game will let you move to a spot that let's you see whatever the hell is happening.
-Game runs bad. Not always, just one second for every twentieth second it will slow to a crawl. Disorienting to say the least (thankfully this happens less and less as you progress).
-Lastly, the story WANTS you to put the pieces together, I really like that it doesn't shove everything in your face and you naturally come to understand things leading to the game's events. Sadly, it's underwhelming.

Reading all this you might say, well I should stay the hell away from this game. Maybe, maybe...but hear me out.

This game has an amazing sense of design and pacing (forgetting about Lorestones). It has a way to grip you from the start and drip-feed you context and story bites. Graphics are delight to look at and environments are so superbly made that you can't help but mess around in photo mode for every new area you step in. Sound design is fantastic and it achieves a delicious sense of dread all the way to the finish line.

Tons of potential to this game, lots of great things in it, but as a standalone it bleeds out from hundred little cuts. So I will definitely check out to see if the sequel addresses some of the issues I've listed, mainly the story. So this review is subject to change.

**(if you like smoking a little giggle smoke, jolly green, la lechuga del diablo, dinkie dow, jazz cabbage; disregard all the cons listed and just enjoy the terrifying ride.)**

I can't begin to tell you how beautiful this game is but I can tell you how fun it is to destroy it all. From it's nicely paced, exciting campaign to cause incredible, at times even bestial, destruction to anything you set your eyes on in sandbox. Great experience, would recommend to attention deficit children and on-brink-of-meltdown nine-to-fivers alike.