Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta

The Short

Pros
- For a game made on the Unity engine, it actually looks ok
- For a phone/android game, it also looks ok
- Shooting is somehow more precise than the Uncharted series
- The dialogue is so bad it borders on genius
- Has multiplayer...for some reason
- Only five bucks for "Episode 1"

Cons
- Everything else
- Also, it's only an hour long.

For a phone game, this isn't half bad. 

The Long

Have you heard of Asylum Films? I'm actually a pretty big fan. They basically look at what is popular (like Transformers) and quickly ham out a direct-to-dvd garbagefest that exists solely to confuse grandma when birthdays roll around (Transmorphers). They also made the Sharknado films. Despite their China-level disregard for copyright laws, I kind of find Asylum endearing, as their films have kind of a hilarious badness to them, and when put alongside the original films they're genuinely funny.

This, unfortunately, does not translate into games.

I could say a lot about Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta. I could say how it uses both a Tomb Raider and Uncharted joke in the first cutscene. I could point out that the main character is a direct ripoff of Nathan Drake, down to the facial structure, except his "witty" one-liners are so atrocious they make Nathan look like a linguist. I could point out that the hour-long "episode 1" has more different types of guns then it has enemy types. I could shed a single tear at the 5 minute "walk slowly around town listening to expository dialogue" scene, and the absolutely incredible "drive through a looping cityscape avoiding randomly spawning cop cars for five to ten minutes until the game decides you've done it for long enough."

But I'll just say this: Unearthed is such an incredible, glorious failure, I kind of love it. But not enough to ever, ever play it again.

Nathan Drake, meet Drathan Nrake, your long lost twin. 

When you first boot up Unearthed, you are rewarded with an opening movie that looks like it was made in Apple Movie Maker. Stock photos fly across the screen as text breaks down the backstory, screenshots from the game accompanied by character names zooming by until it cuts to the plageristic looking title screen. It's something you have to see to believe.

You are then introduced to our main character, Faris, and his obnoxious sister Dania. Well, to be fair, they're both obnoxious, but she comes off as particularly grating. Though if I had a brother like Faris, I might feel the same way.

Wait, somehow I forgot the actual opening scene. Which is important, because it constitutes roughly 1/4 of this entire games length.

You start out in some sort of military bunker. The game gives you a brief tutorial on how to shoot (read: it's a third person, cover based shooter) and oddly enough the guns are punchy and enemies aren't bullet sponges. You hear that, Uncharted? People actually go down without having to use two full clips in this game. Unearthed: 1, Uncharted: 0.

It then cuts to a "three weeks ago" flashback, starting the longest panorama alongside the pyramids I've ever seen, and finally resting on our two heroes, giving us a good five minutes of ungodly bad banter. My favorite line was when Faris, who has clearly been travelling for days to reach this location, asks his sister "What is here, exactly?" As if somehow when he was spending all the money, doing all the travel time, and driving up this mountain next to the pyramids, he never bothered to ask why he was doing it. I love expository dialogue without context.

Hope you like this temple, because is the only real place you get to explore in "Episode 1"

Anyway, you get into the temple, solve some puzzles, drive an RC car around, and get some treasure. Then, a rival gang of treasure hunters shows up. Now, I always bashed Uncharted because Nathan Drake was a murdering psychokiller, but Faris makes him look like Ghandi. You'll be gunning down these random guys who just showed up without remorse, until at last you make your way out. After that, Faris and his sister escape on an ATV, gunning down anybody who follows them and even shooting down a helicopter with a machine gun. Badass.

The rest of the game is considerably more boring. Some random guy calls up Faris and invites him to Morocoo. There he tells him of the Trail of Ibn Battuta (roll credits!) and how it's not at all like the Trail of Marco Polo from Uncharted, and how he should go find it. But oh no, the map is stolen from the dude's house! Luckily Faris can leap from roof to roof and grab the thief, but not before a sniper decides to shoot captured thief instead of just shooting Faris. Then it's a thrilling car chase around the city (more on that then) followed by an amazing FMV ending movie (yes, seriously. With Papyrus font explaining everything. I love this) and the game is over. Total playtime? 45 minutes.

Ocean's 11 got nothin on this

Let me say this: for how absolutely atrocious the story is, and how painfully awful the dialogue is (especially when it's trying to have "witty comebacks"), something about this whole thing is oddly charming. The broken English, awful sentence pacing, random pauses, and just straight up stupid things everybody says are cringe worthy but still worth laughing at. If the game had just been that for an hour, maybe I'd have liked it better. Unfortunately, you have to actually play Unearthed.

The game is all over the place in terms of stuff you do, but it's segmented very distinctly so that each section feels like an entirely different game. It starts out with just straight shooting in it's prologue, then moves you to more Uncharted/Tomb Raider style exploration. It's worth pointing out there aren't any actual puzzles; you just find the objects you need in the environment (either by climbing up to them or just...walking over to them) and move on. You do get to drive an RC car (which is pretty funny), but even that I wouldn't call a "puzzle" just like I wouldn't call the Legend of Zelda series "action games."

Following that you have to get out of the temple while gunning down dudes. This is fairly standard cover based third person shooting. I will point out that the shooting feels better than the Uncharted games. Yes, lynch me now, but Uncharted's gunplay is kind of garbage. Unearthed enemies at least go down when you shoot them in the head.

The driving segments are my "favorite" parts. 

Upon exiting the tomb, you're treated to what is essentially a turret scene, with you sitting on the back of an ATV shooting guys that try to chase you down. It's absurdly easy, but ends in you taking down a helicopter with a machine gun, so it ain't all bad.

Then you have my favorite part in the whole game: five minutes of you walking slow, following a guy and your sister, while he spots expository dialogue. The best part is you get to where you are going and hit a cutscene, and you think the game is going to kick up again, and it puts you into another slow walking expository dialogue scene. I love it.

Then you have a "rooftop chase," which is extremely simple and lasts less than a minute. I forgot the mention the game also has a "fistfighting" system, which is completely awful. Blocking is worthless, kicking is worthless, mashing buttons is all you need. After beating up the dude you're supposed to "dodge the cops," but in my playthrough I just accidentally fell off the side of the building and the game triggered that I'd escaped. So good.

Then you have the final scene, the best scene, the scene that will go down in history. You're supposed to dodge the cops in a car. Your sister points out that you have to "avoid them for some time." So what does that mean? It means you drive through a cycling city block over and over again, while police cars randomly spawn in (usually far out of the way so they have no hope of catching you), while you drive through this same area over and over and over until the game decides you've had enough. There's no indicator, no challenge, the car doesn't even go very fast, and even getting tagged by the cops just causes you to lose a tiny amount of life. It's so good.

Such lifelike posture. 

After that, the game is over. You get a final FMV scene and it tells you to wait for Episode 2. Which is not out. And I don't think will ever come out. For this whole freaking game you don't even start on the "Trail of Ibn Battuta." And I keep reading it as the "Trail of IGN Battuta." Maybe they were trying to suck up for a better review score. I have no clue.

What the crap else can I say about this game? It looks ok, at least the environments do. The characters look awful and move really janky, with tons of glitchy animations throughout. Controls are ok for the most part but not really polished (I can't imagine playing this on an touch screen phone) and the sound design ranges from "dull" to "grating." The voice acting is so, so bad that I have to actually rank it up for atrociousness, and paired with the abysmal script just makes things extra hamball.

Oh yeah, there's multiplayer. It's a wave based survival mode. Against zombies. Don't play it.

I see them rollin, I'm hatin...

Ok, let me just be straight with you here: yes, Unearthed is kind of garbage. YouTubers ripped into it fairly viciously, game websites that even bothered to review it shredded it, and the game became kind of a joke because of it. But if I'm being totally honest here...it isn't that bad. I'd more say it's misguided. The exploring portions aren't horrendous, the shooting is ok, and for being made by a small team the game looks good and has good setpieces. The endless driving and slow walking parts are a total miss, I'll give it that, but the awful dialogue is so charming I kind of want to forgive it's shortcomings and recommend it.

But then I remember it's 45 minutes long, which means I could have beaten the entire game in the time it took me to write this review. And they're charging $5. Eeehh...

Maybe if they actually finish the whole series and then sell that for $5, it might be worth a shot just for a laugh. But if I'm being totally honest here, this game is really pretty bad. I started off loving it (for the wrong reasons, but whatever), and then it wore me down until I just couldn't stand it anymore. If anything, the game is at least entertaining to just watch, so you can save yourself $5 and just head on over to YouTube in that case.

The fact this game made it on the PS3 is a laugh riot. Better luck next time, guys. I think you have promise, this just...falls flat.

One out of five stars. 

Or you could, you know, watch me play it. If you want. That could be fun. 

Crypt of the Necrodancer

The Short

Pros
- Clever roguelike that manages to actually make tired concepts fresh again
- Four stages, tons of unlockables, and a plethora of enemies
- Oh my gosh the music in this game is so good. Cause DannyB wrote it, so no big surprise there.
- IF YOU WALK BY THE SHOPKEEPER HE SINGS ALONG TO THE SONG. THIS IS LITERALLY THE GREATEST INNOVATION GAMING HAS SEEN IN THE PAST DECADE.
- Pixel graphics are charming
- "Digging" through dungeon walls adds a nice mix-up to an already mixed-up concept
- Bosses are challenging and tons of fun
- Absurdly addicting
- You can play with a DDR pad. My mad teenage DDR skills finally have a purpose again.

Cons
- Still in early access, so some stuff (extra characters, etc.) are lacking
- Only four stages can be cleared in a short amount of time if you're skilled
- In that same vein, eventually you'll run out of stuff to buy in only 8-10 hours
- Isn't on the Vita. This game screams to be a portable game.

Welcome to Just Dance: Dungeons

The Long

I'm gonna say a few words, and I want you to take notice of your reaction. Ready?

Indie. Rogue-like. Pixel art. Early access. PC only.

If you let out a sad, tired, dejected sigh, I really don't blame you. While indie games were obsessed with zombies and shooting with two sticks just a few years back, the success of games like The Binding of Isaac have made a shift into these permadeath, run-based roguelikes with "retro pixel art, man! Just like when we were kids!" There's so many I can't even start to name them off (Risk of Rain, Rogue Legacy, Hammerwatch, Dungeons of Dredmore, to just spout the first that come to my mind), and they've quickly begun to run out of ideas. While I agree Rogue was a classic and all (also an X-Man...or X-Woman, whatever), do we really need to keep mimicking it? Most gregarious in my mind are the ones that just straight up are the grid based, turn based thing without really mixing it up a lot. I'll cut Dungeons of Dredmore some slack because I secretly like (and am awful) at it, but the style is identical to what has been made a hundred times before. Why doesn't somebody like actually do something creative with this? Like...add funky disco beats? And dancing skeletons? And a genuine mix-up to the entire way we play these grid based, turn-dependent style of game?

Oh hey, Crypt of the Necrodancer, how you doin? You...you what? You're everything I ever wanted in a roguelike? You're a rhythm game disguised as a roguelike with actually good pixel art? Wait, DannyB did the music? Are you for real? You aren't for real, right? You're just another disappointment (like Risk of Rain...). This can't actually be...

Oh. Oh my.

It's time to get jiggy with it. 

There's a story in Crypt of the Necrodancer, probably because somebody told the designers they had to have one. It doesn't really matter, but if you were curious: the main character (whose name I can't remember nor be bothered to look up. REAL GARME JARNALRARMS HERE GUYS) is a raider of tombs, someone who enters uncharted territory, a treasure hunter not a thief or she'll rip your lungs out kind of lady. When digging into the aptly named Crypt of the Necrodancer, the Necrodancer shows up and steals her heart! Luckily, however, he infuses it with some hot hot dubstep beats rather than just straight up eating it or something, so now she has to move with the beat or else her blood stops circulating and she dies a horrible death. I may have made the blood part up; I don't know what happens to you biologically when your heart is magically removed by a Necrodancer. I'd guess death, but this game would say otherwise.

And here's where the game gets tricky, so buckle up because I got some splainin' to do.

Even the hub world is not safe from the funky fresh beats. 

At it's core, Crypt of the Necrodancer could be described as an old-school rogue game - read: one that is grid based and reliant on "turns," where everything takes it's action turn at the same time - hybridized with the new wave of "roguelikes" - games reliant on quick "runs" of areas, where playing more unlocks more options in dungeons but not necessarily character power ups. Everything is on a grid, and everything takes it's turn at the same time. It's very important to note here that a core element of these types of games is the fact that, if you stand still, time essentially freezes. Enemies in these games only move or act when you move or act. This means when you enter a room you have lots of time to access the threat, figure out on the grid who will move what if you move where, and judge your attacks and movements accordingly.

It kind of super bores me, but some people like it. So whatever, it's a free country. The Crypt of the Necrodancer guys, however, apparently thought this was boring too and injected it with 100 ml of dubstep drop awesomeness. 

These mushrooms, however, literally killed disco. I hate them. 

Rather than have turns be in the player's control (since nobody moves until you decide they do), all movement is done to the beat of the music. Meaning if you stand still, everything around you will still move on the beat as they attempt to hunt you down and brutally murder you. The beat is represented by a helpful heart on the bottom, with lines hitting it with the tempo, but most songs are easy enough to pick up the beat. That being said, though, there's a boss (Donkey Kongo, or something) who has pauses and stops in his song, leaving my OCD internal metronome seething with wrath. It's great.

The point being, not only are enemies confined to this rhythmic beat motion machine, but so are you. You are only allowed to move on (or near) the beat. If you attempt to do anything off beat, the action will cancel, and you'll have to wait for the next beat to move again. On the flip side, moving to the beat over a prolonged segment will rake up a gold multiplier for money drops, rewarding you for paying attention to piano lessons when your mom forced you to go as a child (thanks, mom! Now I'm godly at video games because of all that money you spent!).

Plus, if you combo then the tiles change color and it becomes a KILLER DANCE PARTY. 

This may sound like a little thing, but I kid you not when I say I think this is the best thing to happen to this genre maybe since it's inception. By keeping the core things that hooked people (the permadeath, item progression, tile-based actions, etc.) but forcing you to act not only on a timer, but to the beat is absurdly clever. It's one of those "why the hell didn't anybody thing of this before?" things that baffles and astounds me.

In the actual game, it's fairly standard minus a few twieks. The game has been adjusted to keep this perpetual movement idea in mind. Enemies often project both their attacks and movement, allowing skilled players to dispatch just about any enemy without taking damage (though they have to think quickly to stay on the beat). Most enemies go down in 1-2 hits, with the exception of minibosses, which means encounters are brief, violent, and satisfying. It also means you enter PANIC MODE when something starts hitting you and you didn't expect it, causing you try to move off the beat and making things worse. I love it.

Gold is plentiful, and you can use it in a shop, that appears once per level. There are also chests scattered around the dungeon (you can buy upgrades that drop more at more regular intervals) for you to find. They're well hidden, mostly because of another sort-of-new mechanic: the ability to dig through walls. Most minor walls in this game can be dug through with a shovel, while harder ones require finding or buying an upgrade. The item assortment is your usual modern rogue-like type: objects that let you see through walls, torches that give you a bigger vision radius, and a plethora of weapons that dramatically change how you attack. You wouldn't believe how helpful a little extra range can be in this game.

Red dragons can also burn in hell. Why do they hate music so much? 

There's a minor progression system outside of the actual runs. Diamonds are a secondary form of currency, and unlike gold aren't used in the dungeons. Instead they're spent in the hub world to add more available options as you traverse the levels (different weapon types, items, etc.). Be sure to spend them, though, as they'll disappear if you try to do another run.

There's a decent amount of content here for an early access game, including four worlds (each with three levels and a boss), the ability to unlock both bosses and enemies to practice on (though you can't pick the weapon you fight them with, which kind of sucks), and two characters that I couldn't unlock because I suck at the game. There's a promise of more to come: more characters, items, etc., which is great, but even as it stands I think this game has enough content to validate it's $15 asking price. What the game really needs is more floors and a ton more items to purchase; you can easily acquire the necessary diamonds to buy everything in just a few hours. Unlike Binding of Isaac, where I'm still finding and unlocking new stuff.

Point being: the gameplay is phenomenal. I am totally and absolutely sick of this genre, and this game brought be back in. It's hard to say if it's more music game or dungeon crawler, but I couldn't care less. It's one of my favorite genre's mixed with one I used to love and grew tired of, resulting in a happy camper over here. Oh, and if you think this sounds easy because the game starts out with slower beats, think again. Stuff gets crazy fast, and when you toss one of the excellent bosses in the mix (the Chessboard boss is my favorite), you're in for a world of hurt.

For a game so reliant on it's soundtrack, it's no surprise the soundtrack is amazing.

The game utilizes the common "pixel art" aesthetic which, if I'm being honest, I'm a bit weary of. That being said, I feel it's got the more "hybrid" approach that's been emerging these days (read: it looks like Rogue Legacy). Overall, the style works, so no complaints. 

Ok now the music, on the other had, is freaking the best thing ever. Yes, that's hyperbolic, but that's what you get when you grab DannyB to do your stuff. For those unaware, he wrote the absoultely excellent soundtracks for both Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, (and infinite runner Canabalt) but I might go so far as to say this is his best work. Danny always has an excellent way of fusing old, retro sounds with a more modern aesthetic, so his stuff isn't totally throwback city (like, say Shovel Knight) but doesn't feel weirdly modern while trying to still be old (Scott Pilgrim vs The World). The guy's got serious chops, and his music is so good it's been in my stupid phone's playlist since I bought the game. 

But the best part? If you happen to be dancing around the shopkeeper during certain sections of the song, he sings along. Not only sings along, but harmonizes! It actually makes the game better, because sometimes you'll be wandering around and...what's that? Off in the distance? Is that...the sound of a melodious baritone singing along? The shopkeeper must be near! According to the reddit AMA, this was Danny's idea, and it honestly is one of my favorite parts about the game.

Lastly, you can put in your own music! The game's software will attempt to find a beat (and it's been pretty reliable), so if you hate yourself you can toss in some Dragonforce and play the game on Super Sonic Speed Gotta Go Fast mode. Don't do that. It's painful.

Things get crazy when you enter the World of Ice and Fire, Jahn Snauuooo. 

I'll admit I went into Crypt of the Necrodancer with perhaps middling expectations. I'd heard a little about it and knew DannyB did the music, but that was about it. What I didn't expect was to get completely and entirely addicted over a several week period. Like...it was unhealthy. I didn't do important hobby things (like update this blog...) during that time. It was that bad.

But it could be worse, because they should totally put this out on the Vita. Like, seriously guys, this is a perfect Vita game. I'd buy it again. I'd buy it twice. I'd take it everywhere and lose my job and drop out of school. Actually, maybe this wasn't the best idea.

Point being: Crypt of the Necrodancer is insanely clever. It mixes up a tired genre in just the right ways, while still making a very solid game underneath it all. It's fun and hypnotizing and the soundtrack is amazing and I'm so good at staying on beat I am literally Scrooge McDuck cause I got so much gold, holy crap.

It's the first game to ever make me break my Early Access Rule (The rule is: "Don't buy Early Access"), and I don't regret it one bit. I can't wait for more content to show up.

Until then, I'll keep tapping my toes and dodging dancing skeletons and funky monkeys.

Five out of five stars. 

And here's a kickin' tune for the road. 

Long Live The Queen

The Short

Pros
- A "reimagining" of the old Princess Maker games...but more violent!
- Lots of varying events and activities help make multiple playthroughs different
- Single playthrough is relatively short; usually around 45 minutes to 1 hour
- Crunching numbers and min/maxing is surprisingly satisfying

Cons
- Not much to the game aside from stat raising
- Due to both the randomness and just how the game is set up, it's almost impossible to determine which stats to raise, and how high
- Emotions play a role in boosting/leveling skills, but nothing tells you what emotions do which things, meaning you can get stuck
- Deaths are frequent, and often appear random
- Only like two songs. Will drive you crazy.

Hope you like text. And bars. And numbers. 

The Long

The best part about video games is the massive range they can cover. The Stanley Parable, a semi-linear story-driven experience where the only "gameplay" is walking? Totally a game. Call of Duty, where you shoot dudes and it's like a summer blockbuster? Game. Wall Street Kid...let's just not talk about that one.

Anyway, Long Live The Queen is an interesting example of how games can be completely...different from each other. Based (sort of) on the old Princess Maker games that I never really played, Long Live The Queen tasks you with the princess soon-to-be-queen Elodie, who is a total blithering idiot when she comes to you. It's your job to decide what path her studies take her, and in that way the story will change. That's it. That's the whole game. Well, minus her dying. A lot. 

If that sounds interesting, read on!

Haven't seen this may bars since my trip to Ireland! (ba bum, chish)

The story is...well...honestly a bit mild, but it's also how you make it. Elodie is a fourteen (or fifteen? who cares) year old princess who will now become queen. Her dad, the King, is still alive, so...why do we need a queen again? Why is she so important? Is this a matriarchy, then? It's pretty clear from the get-go that your dad (usually) has to do what you say, but why is that? These things are never explained. 

While it isn't Game of Thrones levels of crazy political nastiness (though there is an army across the sea that can potentially invade, as well as a bunch of crazy in-house conspiracies), the game does a decent enough job of mixing up stuff that playthroughs feel mostly unique. And, when Elodie is failing every test left and right for poise, foreign knowledge, and even her own customs, you actually get a bit invested in trying to keep her afloat as she is completely overwhelmed. The game also has dozens of endings (most of them bad) and the paths to branch quite frequently. Play as a warlord and you'll see quite a different outcome later on than if you play it cool and simply exist to charm the court. 

The only downer is the beginning segments (before things can branch off) do tend to stay the same, though there are still enough random elements that it ends up being at least ok. Not the most compelling story ever, but interesting enough to get me invested. 

Expect to see a lot of Elodie making an idiot of herself. 

The "gameplay" segments are interesting, but often feel like random guesswork. To put it simply, there's 14 different categories where you can teach her stuff, and within these 3 specific focuses. That gives us a whopping 98 stats you can level, and with only 40 weeks in a game and the ability to raise two of those stats a week, you can't possibly max even a small percentage of them. Your first run (and maybe many future ones) will mostly involve dumb luck, failing every prompt that shows.

However, it's a game designed to be played this way. As you bludgeon your way through constant failures, never knowing what exactly you should be leveling, you'll revel in the small victories. And you'll being to understand how the game really works: min/maxing. Pick a focus, and burn all your time into it. Making her a jack-of-all-trades is a great way to fail early, even with many prompts being a bet more lenient and allowing you to pass if just one of a multitude of skills is leveled properly. 

Unfortunately, it's actually leveling these skills that Long Live the Queen's biggest problem emerges.

This thing is the bane of my existence.

See, the only way you can min/max her stats properly and with any sense of speed (only forty weeks, remember) is playing the emotions game. Based on Elodie's emotions, some skills will level faster than others. Being Angry, for example, gives a boost to Military should you choose to level it. Being Yielding adds a hefty chunk of points to her courtly mannerisms if you choose to invest (but will be cut down if she's depressed, afraid, or lonely). Every week you are given one chance to "flux" her emotions in a few directions, but there's so many and the amount gained so arbitrary, you have little to no actual control over it. 

What's worse is the game doesn't tell you what emotions govern which stat. For my entire first playthrough I couldn't level her poise because she started depressed (a -1 to it, meaning all experience gained is halved) and I couldn't for the life of me find out what to raise to make it work. There are no tooltips, no help options, nothing to give you hints, save perhaps taking extensive notes on the side or using a wiki. This lead to me basically just leveling the stuff that currently had the biggest boost, making her a bit one-sided (mostly in military) and ultimately bringing her to an untimely end because, while she was a sword master, she had no physical capabilities at all. Whoops?

You can also unlock weird clothes. 

The only other real "mechanic" is that, should you get any "set" of skills (read: the three that group together) to 30 or higher, you'll unlock a costume she can wear. This provides a decent boost to that category's skills, meaning you could (theoretically) equip it if you knew you'd need a boost the following day, but the only way you'd know that was via save-scumming, and at that point the game stops being fun. The costumes also range from "ok" to "absurd," with the "Magical Girl" outfit she wears upon learning magic completely stupid looking and not fitting the theme of the game. I get they're kind of trying to be silly, but it doesn't fit with the grisly death graphics and awful things going on to have her wear a tutu when she declares war on a foreign country because she was too stupid to study politics. 

Frustrations aside, it's addicting to level her up, and you sort of get into a groove after playing it a bit as to what you want to build towards. A big portion of the game is just giving up, realizing you will never know what the next week may require, and just pounding points into stuff randomly and hoping for the best. Not much of a game (there "strategy" here is near non-existent), but still oddly entertaining.

Oh I just can't wait to be queen.

Graphically...it's basically a visual novel, though I'd say it's a low-level one. The art is generally decent, especially of Elodie (and her weird "chibi" death scenes), but character portraits seriously look like the same people with different hair from time to time, and everybody is drawn in a style that makes them seem just out of high school, even the adults. It basically recycles the same 3-4 backgrounds for the whole game (you almost never leave the castle), so I'd imagine most of the graphical work went into Elodie's outfits. 

The music starts soft and carefree and quickly becomes intolerable, with one piano piece always playing during the portion of the game where you pick her lessons (and sometimes during the "plot" bits as well), with only two or three other music tracks breaking the monotony. My suggestion: turn off the music, turn on some dubstep, and have the most drop-tastic, bomb-bastic queen you can roll out.

SWORDED!

So...is Long Live The Queen worth your time? Well...I couldn't have gone over the game more (though watching someone play could help you get a better understanding. Keep an eye out on my YouTube Channel!), so if you like what you've been seeing than, by all means, give it a shot. The developers have a free demo on their site that's pretty extensive, and since the game is basically the same thing over and over if you like the demo, you'll like the game.

It's a hard sell, though, because mostly what I see is potential that isn't fully realized. With a better UI and more branching paths (And maybe less stuff to have to level and research, or lower costs to "pass" certain plot-wise tests) I could see this game being a very viable visual novel with a cool twist, and a true modern successor to the Princess Maker games. As of right now, however, it's more a toy than a game, something you play around in and mess with a bit, but don't really strategize or get too heavily invested in. Which is a pity, because it could be so much more.

It's running $10 normally on Steam and GoG, though I waited for the inevitable $5 price drop, which made it a much easier pill to swallow. For that price, it's a gleeful waste of time, and I'll confess I burned through it several times in my attempts to get Elodie on the throne. 

And most of them resulted in her death. Being queen suuuuuucks.

Two out of five stars. (but still recommended!)

What is this I don't even

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

The Short

Pros
- Beautiful world feels straight out of a fairytale
- Unique controls that require no tutorials; you learn as you play
- Achievements are clever and encourage exploration on an otherwise linear game
- Music is phenomenal
- The "burned house" scene
- Ending segment's fusion of learned controls with story elements is quite powerful
- Four words: Valley of the Giants

Cons
- The bigger emotional moments lack punch or proper buildup (the ending being the exception)
- Game's ending may frustrate some
- Stick controls can be clunky to figure out for basic movement (works well for climbing)
- Little to no actual gameplay here; sort of a "co-op Uncharted lite"
- 90% of the game's impact is on the initial discovery; replays seem pointless
- Will only run you, at most, three hours to beat it from start to finish

Brothers will take you some incredible places. 

The Long

Something that I feel is often forgotten in the gaming medium is it's ability to transplant you in the middle of something of great beauty. Movies can often do this with special effects or good art direction, but you're tied to the characters and your time is limited. Books can also do this to great effect, though there is no visual representation for one to admire; it's all in your head. Games have a unique position, as they can create incredible, beautiful worlds, and allow someone to traverse it at their own pace. It's something that, I feel, is frequently forgotten as we push for "better gameplay" or "more enemies on screen at once."

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a downloadable game that tries to bring that sense of magical wonder to you, the player. Controlling two brothers you traverse a world that seems straight out of fairy tales. You'll see some downright crazy stuff, from the rustic, warm village you start in to freezing ice caps. You'll soar over mountains and climb massive structures. You'll dive deep into caves and find unspeakable horrors there. In a sense, it's like the first time you read The Hobbit: you never know what crazy thing is going to show up next, and how it will bewitch you. But the question is, is that enough to justify it's $15 price tag? Well...maybe. 

If you're looking for a visual feast, Brothers has got your number. 

The story is one of tragedy. It opens with the younger of the two brothers (neither of which are named) watching his mother drown in an unfortunate boating accident. Cut ahead a few years and (unrelated to said drowning), now their father is dying of a really bad cough (the known Movie Killer of Important Mentor Characters). The doctor in the village gives them a scroll with what looks like the Yggdrasil tree, but I might be mistaken, basically saying they need whatever is in that tree to save the father. So the two brothers go off together, trying to save their father before it's too late.

The characters don't speak an actual language (it's been compared to "Simlish," but it's much less obnoxious), but they don't need to; most emotional moments are done via physical reactions and character expressions. In this manner, the game does that very well, but particularly at merging these emotions with the actual gameplay. While the story itself is a bit light (and the final two "big twists" are poorly foreshadowed and lack an emotional punch), it's still a whimsical fairytale and feels just like it, so you're mostly there for the ride.

That being said, there are two rather emotional story segments that got to me: the burned house (which is a "side mission") and the final gameplay scenes of the game. While I don't plan on spoiling it, let me just say that the game does an exceptional job of fusing learned gameplay elements with story to really pack an emotional final punch. It's unfortunate that the actual final scene is somewhat...lame, and the game doesn't really build up enough to justify the twists it presents, but no biggie. It's not going to set the world on fire, but the story is ok. But just ok. 

"You kids wanna go on a super-dangerous quest halfway across the world to a tree that  might not exist? It'll...uh...totally save your dad!"

The gameplay in Brothers is fairly simple. Each brother is controlled with a different analogue stick (meaning a controller is a must for the PC version), and the triggers perform actions with their respective brothers. That's it. Since 90% of the time you'll be climbing up stuff, triggers have to be held and released to jump (the pressed again to catch ledges) for each respective brother. The game mixes it up a bit during a rather fun segment where the brothers are tied together, requiring some dexterous controller pressing, but ultimately the control scheme feels...cumbersome. Even after beating the game I never got used to moving the two of them at once, still forgetting which brother was which stick more often than not. I ended up positioning them on screen so they'd match (older brother on left, younger on right) in an attempt to actually be able to walk, but since you have no camera control that didn't really work. For an inexplicable reason the game doesn't have multiplayer co-op (though, to be fair, it would diminish the ending scene a little if it did), so it feels like a co-op game that you're trying to force your way through single player. Regardless, nothing is too dexterous that you'll die more than a few times, but you might have problems walking them down narrow paths together.

As for the actual gameplay...that's pretty much it. Since you have just sticks and triggers, your actions are limited. Granted, you can interact with a ton of stuff (chickens, benches, doors, wells, etc.) and each brother will react to the same thing differently (nice touch), but 90% of this game is climbing up stuff. Climbing up obvious pathways ala Uncharted but somehow even more simplified. Point being: you aren't playing Brothers because of the gameplay. Just...know that going in.

This is what you are playing the game for. 

Where it lacks in gameplay and storytelling it makes up in the journey itself. Brothers may not be a technical powerhouse (though the draw distance they got on the Unreal Engine is impressive), it's warm and soft aesthetic and incredibly detailed vistas steal the show. The developers knew this, too, and put random benches just around scenic spots where you can sit and stare in awe at their pretty scenes. In any other game I'd consider that a bit pretentious, but in Brothers it works. It knows why you are here, and gives you the means to best engage in that.

Perhaps the best bit about the visuals is the parts that are understated. While you're crawling through the mines (arguably the weakest aesthetics in the game), far below you can see a glimpse of silhouettes of giants mining next to large forges, miles beneath. As you carefully slide through an icy shelf, frozen shapes of figures in a battle field, flash-frozen and snowed over, are alongside you as you pass. And the Valley of Giants...well...let's just say it's one of the most shocking yet still incredible scenes in a game I've seen (and the buildup/hints towards it are also clever). Brothers is a game all about the journey, and it doesn't fail to deliver on the visuals aspect.

Sound is also phenomenal, with the soundtrack being one of the best I've heard in years. Soft, with slight celtic undertones, it kicks in  at exactly the right moments, being both somber and (in some rare moments) jovial as necessary. The "voice acting" is just nonsense, but you'll know the word for "brother" by the end.

Don't go to the Youtube video and read the comments (spoilers)

So...in the end, is Brothers really that amazing? Does it really pack that emotional punch that several reviewers are raving over? Is it a journey worth taking?

Well...it depends, mostly on the person. For me, the final moments were very emotional, but mostly because of the brilliant way it fused the learned gameplay with a reoccurring story element (as well as the underlying meaning of said element as it applies to the real world). That being said, the emotional punches the stories tries to pull are frequently not well deserved, and while you will get an emotional bond with these two simply by playing (I would often have the older brother go first, then wait for the younger one to "keep up" in dangerous areas), the story doesn't foreshadow the biggest twists well enough for it to work.

That being said...

Brothers is still absolutely worth playing if you value games doing something different. I, for one, loved just exploring the world. I'd often take things slowly, staring in awe and shock at the things I was discovering, and cowering in fear at the genuinely creepy bits that popped up now and again. I wish I could have spent more time in it, fleshing out the story and seeing more amazing places, people, and creatures. But, with a running time of just under three hours (and the game's impact being on a first viewing, meaning replaying it is pointless), it's a very hard sell. In addition to having the clunky controls, the game is certainly not for everybody.

But for me, I still heartily recommend it (especially since you can grab it on PC for under $7 if you're deal-savvy). It won't blow your mind with crazy gameplay or a jaw-dropping story, but it will entertain, enchant, and entrance you for it's whole duration. Please, game developers, make more games like this.

It's worth it for the Valley of the Giants. That's...just all I'm saying.

Three out of five stars. 

Just have a seat, chew on the scenery, and play some Brothers.

Bioshock

The Short

Pros
- Dark, atmospheric shooter
- World and setting are phenomenal and very interesting
- Shooting that hybridizes guns and magic keeps things fiesty
- Side activities like vending machines, hacking, and other methods can mix up
- Graphics and sound design are phenomenal throughout
- Story's twist is interesting

Cons
- Last third of the game feels like a rehash, in both story and gameplay
- Switching between guns and plasmids is cumbersome, as is taking pictures for experience
- The number of weapons and ammo types seems a bit overwhelming and unnecessary (Shock Shells are all you need)
- Ham-fisted "morality" decisions lead to an equally lame ending either path you choose
- Final boss is a massive letdown
- Game ditches it's survival horror roots early on once you get better equipped
- Still feels a bit bare-bones when compared to it's predecessor, System Shock 2

Sander Cohen's moments are standout.

The Long

How does one review Bioshock on the eve of 2014? Released nearly six and a half years ago (yes, that long), and followed up by two successful sequels (one more successful than the other), it's hard to approach Bioshock now and offer up an opinion. Where do you even start? There's just so many options.

You could compare it to System Shock 2, which was a common approach shortly after the game's release, when all the hype and praise had died down and people actually offered critique. It's a simpler game, with points and levels and what-not stripped away and streamlined, focusing more on the world and the shooter than the number crunch.

You could compare it to Bioshock Infinite or even Bioshock 2, it's successors, which grew off the game's original systems in an attempt to streamline it further, evolving the series beyond simply Rapture and it's underwater paradise-gone-wrong and turning it into one massive, semi-coherent franchise. But, perhaps, making the first game look a little clunky in the process.

You could speak of it's industry influences, how it was perhaps (along with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) an integral factor in moving the shooter industry towards more showy, showcased adventures rather than simply basic shooters. One might even argue that it is a true spiritual successor to Half-Life, by creating a game that was both linear yet gave the illusion of openness, focusing more on the scenarios and experiences and flashy pomp rather than just running and gunning. A weird hybrid of what was popular in shooters at the time (Halo was very much in its prime) and the old, creating something wholly unique and never properly replicated.

Or maybe I'll just talk about what I think about it, replaying it six and a half years after I first bought the PC version. Bioshock was the third game I played after my two year gaming hiatus (after F.E.A.R. and the Dawn of War franchise), and it was certainly impactful. But what about now? As the generation moves and its first real flagship ages, is Bioshock really that phenomenal, world-shattering experience we all made it (and it's spiritual sequel, Bioshock Infinitie) out to be?

Well, I'll tell ya. 

Should've signed up for the Vita Chambers, dude.

Bioshock has what I consider the best opening of maybe any game, at least the best "on rails" opening (Half Life 2's opening comes to mind as a more "open" introduction). After a plane crash in the Pacific ocean, you seek refuge at a nearby lighthouse and dive down into the ocean below. There you meet Andrew Ryan (who coincidentally his sounds like Ayn Rand. "Coincidentally."), a man who believes a society can be built where one earns their own living and isn't required to give it up to others. Objectivist's, eat your heart out. Until everything all went to hell when they started bio-engineering themselves, leading to people losing their minds and murdering each other all over the place. Because, come on! Who would have thought that letting people toss fireballs and SPAWN HORDES OF ANGRY BEES could have possibly lead to abuse of power?

Anyway, the story's real strength lies in it's setting, which is phenomenal for the first two acts. Andrew Ryan's constant taunts over his dead city (not unlike SHODAN from System Shock 2) are haunting yet never dull, with plenty of weirdly scattered audio logs everywhere (I don't even v-blog; why did everybody in this old city?). For the first portions of the game there's plenty of drama, horror, and startling twists to keep it interesting, with plot bits paced nearly perfectly and the aforementioned audio logs filling up any dead air. The game really wants to be System Shock 2, and it might even outdo it in terms of giving you an overview of the world, even if it does it with considerably less subtlety. 

Exploring the creepy parts of Rapture are some of the best parts of the game.

It's a pity the last third of the game is utter hogwash. While the "big twist" is clever (and might make gamers question the whole "meta" of who is really playing who), they present it too soon and with nothing to follow it up with. The final act is a slog through waves and waves of enemies as you just sort of mow everybody down, fight a lame final boss (who has his own lame twist) and watch either the "You are Jesus" ending or the "You are Hitler Reborn" ending, depending on if you chose to kill none or any of the creepy demon girls you can harvest for more xp to do more lightning damage. Yeah, there's a "morality" system here, though it's so archaic it makes Fable look like Apocalypse Now. The choice whether to "Harvest" or "Save" the creepy little sisters is interesting, but considering if you harvest just a single one you get the bad ending (never mind if you saved all the others; you are SATAN) you'd better commit to your decisions. The argument is that harvesting them gives you more Adam (basically money for powers) and thus makes the game easier, but the game is 1. Super easy already and 2. Ends up giving you more Adam if you stick to your guns and just save the little brats, that the whole thing seems like a wash. Point being: third act spoils the goodwill in the first two acts (though not all of it) and both endings are so over-the-top they can't be taken seriously. 

But while you're in the world, it's certainly one crazy trip, and one absolutely worth taking. But what about the gameplay?

Mario, eat your heart out. 

Bioshock got mad rave reviews when it came out for it's setting and story, and people just sort of lumped the gameplay into that when giving their analysis's. There's  so much crap you can do in Bioshock I can't really spend much time on it, but let me just give you a rundown of how you could approach nearly any engagement:

- Look for stuff on the floor to burn to roast people

- Lure them to water to zippy-zap them

- Hack some turrets/sentry bots/ etc. to turn their own weapons against them

- Plant some mines and bait them.

OR:

- Shoot them.

- Shoot them some more.

- If that doesn't work, electricity plus the wrench will take out 90% of guys

Bioshock does well in presenting lots of options. Almost too well, in fact. One of it's biggest problems (and the one that resurfaces with a vengeance in Bioshock Infinite) is that you don't really need to use all the resources available. With the exception if the hardest difficulty and if you turn of the Vita-chambers (read: infinite free respawns at full  health, while your enemies stay at whatever damage you dealt them), 90% of the game can be beaten with the starting plasmid and the starting wrench. With a few minor augments and a dash of skill, you'll easily zap-whack your way through most Splicers you encounter, leaving the rest of your insane arsenal to burn in one fell swoop against the Big Daddy fights. It's that theory people talk about: if you give a player one really good combo at the start of the game, it doesn't matter how many other combos you give them later, people will just use that one combo over and over. Bioshock teaches you the one-two punch at the very start (shock+wrench), and it never becomes ineffective.

Well, it doesn't work against THESE guys.

That isn't to say you aren't rewarded in other ways for screwing around. Setting off an alarm only to hack five or six bots and have your own squadron of death is pretty funny, but unnecessary. Placing mines and then baiting people into them is a laugh, though shooting them with the mines directly (or just...with bullets) also gets the job done. Since the "dual-wield guns and plasmids" hasn't been invented yet, swapping between the two is a bit of a chore, meaning when I got tired of the one-two punch I just upgraded my shotgun and machine gun until everything got mowed down. Since you are a jack-of-all-trades (unlike System Shock 2, which forces you to specialize), you don't feel like you're building your own unique character. Instead you have a guy who is good at just about everything, so why hack something when you can just shoot it?

Point being: Bioshock has lots of options, but replaying it I found I hardly ever used any of them. I'd ignore tar pits to burn people with fire, usually only zap in water if it happened to be convenient, and just min-maxed my shotgun to Shock Ammo (the best weapon against Big Daddies) and crushed everything else with the one-two punch. Unfortunate? Perhaps. But certainly a flaw of the gameplay. At least the shooting feels solid. 

They really love Ryan here.

When you aren't zap-punching dudes in the face, you're usually rummaging through old trash cans to eat month old chips and pep bars. Yep, the scavenging mechanic from System Shock 2 is back, though it's a bit less useful this time around. Most stuff doesn't go to your inventory (except money, which is sort of important if you like just buying ammo to victory) and is consumed on use, and most gives you minor boots to health and Eve (aka MP), so you'll spend most time mashing X next to any consumables without even reading it and hope you get some health or magic or money. Multiply the dozens of things in any given room with the extra dozen enemies, and your X button will get quite a workout. It was novel at the time I suppose (though, again, System Shock 2's system had more of a point, if it was a bit more cumbersome about it), and the idea of my guy digging through trash cans to eat peanuts is kind of funny in and of itself, but considering the availability of health packs and Eve syringes, you could probably cut all the random garbage to collect and just give people money upon killing enemies and everybody would be fine. One might argue it's immersive, but honestly it's just another chore.

This game still looks great, especially the PC version.

If there's one thing Bioshock does perfectly well (aside from it's incredible setting) it's the detail and work done in the graphics and sound. The world itself is, as mentioned before, absurdly fleshed out, and this is only heightened by the phenomenal graphics and art design. Splicers, while their design does get old, are delightfully creepy, saying some disturbing things as they try to rip your lungs out. The juxtaposition of this dystopian insanity verses the paradise that Ryan keeps spouting at you (and the remnants of which are visible as you dig deeper through Rapture) makes for a disturbing dissonance that really shines. Something beautiful was here, and the art shows it, but now it's covered in blood and body parts.

The sound is also great, evoking the era through rustic background music that haunts the empty (or not-so-empty) halls of rapture. Big Daddies sound especially horrifying, their booming bass tones sending chills down my spine even when I can't spot them yet. The voice actors are great all around, with Ryan absolutely stealing the show every time you turn around, but the supporting cast (through audiologs) also excels. There is no doubting the insane production values in this game, and it makes for a memorable experience.

Atlas is a good counterpoint to Ryan throughout, though in the last third he becomes...boring.

With all my critiquing you might think I hate Bioshock. On the contrary: revisiting Rapture was, for me, a magical experience back into a world I'd forgotten I'd loved. The game is still genuinely creepy, with the first few hours of limited ammo and Eve making it survival horror-esque, and I still can't help but admire the insane attention to detail present in this dying world.

That being said, it is still unfortunate the actual gameplay can be boiled down fairly easily for those simply wanting to win. It is worth noting that the game does scale somewhat in terms of difficulty, though again...that last third you are basically just mowing down people. It's sort of the Resident Evil 4 problem where you have to get better equips or you won't feel like you are progressing, but then the game stops being scary and instead is just sort of busywork as you mow down people (to it's credit, I think Resident Evil 4 did it right all the way up to the helicopter fight). 

Is it the perfect game? No. It's aged and clunky and sort of loses sight of it's goals at the end. Is it still a fantastic experience and one of the best worlds to visit in gaming? Absolutely. In fact, it should be "required viewing" for anybody who takes games seriously, if only for it's unique setting and stunning production values. While it might not be the "Genetically Altered Shooter" it said it was on the box, Bioshock is still worth it for the ride, and what a ride it is. 

Four out of five stars. 

Moral of the story: If you're a cat, don't splice up. 

C. Kane

The Short

Pros
- It is the Citizen Kane of Gaming
- Finally proves that Games = Art
- If Roger Ebert were still alive, he would have given it a standing ovation and have finally loved video games as a medium
- Has perhaps the best gaming soundtrack of all time
- Jonathan Blow probably deleted all copies of Braid the moment this game came out because he couldn't compete
- Presented in Monochrome, which makes it better

Cons
- Ends eventually
- The moral choice might haunt you for weeks
- Could have used Unreal Bump Mapping like all the best games do
- Lack of Iron-sights ruins a bit of the immersion
- Doesn't include the soundtrack

The beginning of every great story ever told. 

The Long

Even the most dirty casual knows that Games = Art. This is a stone cold, rock solid fact permanently ingrained in the heart and soul of anyone who has ever played but a single level of Angry Birds: Rio. But, unfortunately, critics of other mediums often don't see game that way. People who review things other than games for a living and have maybe once played Wii Sports aren't constantly praising the latest Call of Duty or Mario game for it's artistic integrity or massive contribution to gaming, and this is straight up catastrophic. Seeing as gaming requires vindication for its existence from people other than those educated to give an opinion on the medium, gamers are frequently trying to find that one game, that one perfect game that Roger Ebert or their parents would play and finally understand that gaming has matured. That we can provide the sort of complexity and maturity a film like Citizen Kane brought to film back whenever the hell it came out (can't be bothered to look it up). And, despite all their efforts, despite Braid existing, this still hasn't happened.

Until now. 

Pictured: Art. 

C. Kane is a classic retelling of a familiar story, reinvented for the world of video games. As gaming is an interactive medium, it offers levels of storytelling and emotional investment that past media forms such as movies, books, and other stuff cannot possibly hold a candle to. By recreating this classic tale of good against evil, the media against the man, a sentient beaver against a dark wizard, C. Kane pulls the best of the old and combines it with the newness of the medium, creating a game that must be experienced to understand.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We still have a review to write. 

Pictured: Also Art. Think about it. 

C. Kane puts you in the shoes of the titular C. Kane, who is striving to become a media overlord from the scraps and dredges society put him in. Kicked out of his home at aged eighteen and without a father to provide patriarchal guidance, C. Kane is a man without direction, hope, or allies. Enlisting the aid of soldiers for hire, he realizes the only way he can truly expand the processes of Journalism and become the most important guy on earth is to overthrow the dark wizard Gettys, who is believed responsible for the destruction of the entire United States of America. Heavy stuff. 

The story is portrayed through simple text without voice acting, much like the classic silent movies of the time. It's a harrowing and riveting tale, filled with many moral choices along the way, including one that will haunt you and I will not spoil here, but you will not forget the sacrifice. 

Although we all know games don't really need stories to be good (which is why most game companies don't even hire actual writers to write their game stories [this is a true fact]), it's good to see C. Kane trying it's hand, and succeeding. With the sharp, often comical writing playing parody and contrast to the dark undertones of the story, you'll be laughing one moment and crying another. And when the end comes, the twist will make you want to replay the whole game over again, deciphering the secret codes scattered throughout the world and re-living the adventure in a whole new light. 

Truly a villain for our time. 

The game's styling are that of a JRPG, with a few twists. Charles, being a man of the pen, can fight with swords but prefers to let his words do the talking. By that I mean debuffs. He excels, mostly later on in the game, at stripping enemies of their dignity, pride, and (most importantly) their Magic Defense Stat. Other characters make up for C. Kane's lack of physical prowess: Marines fight for their country and for America, Leland the Beaver represents the woodland, and many other characters join the fray. Health and Magic are fully recovered after each battle, allowing the fights to be difficult but not overly challenging. Most enemies and bosses have (like real, breathing people like you and me) specific weaknesses and flaws to exploit, and finding these secrets makes battles much easier. 

There are also no random encounters: you simply punch a shark that appears to be living in Lake Michigan to fight him and get XP. Design progression at its finest: you choose the fights, when, where, and who. Masterfully done. 

From the mouths of babes. 

The game's graphics are presented in unadulterated, unsullied monochrome, ignoring the need to use color to convey emotion like some sort of crutch. I've only known one other game to do this as effectively as C. Kane, and this game lives up to all the expectations. 

But the soundtrack is the standout. Blending modern hip-hop themes with catchy lyrics about key events in the game, it's guaranteed to touch your heart and get stuck in your head. It's too bad that a soundtrack hasn't been released, but perhaps a Kickstarter would allow the creator to compile the songs and issue a public release. I'd imagine it would have to have a goal within tens of thousands of dollars to truly capture his genius and fulfill the price society owes in order for such greatness to be birthed into the world. 

Post Apocalyptic in all the right ways.

C. Kane is the Citizen Kane of gaming. Rarely have I experienced such a gem, filled to the brim with action, adventure, gripping dialogue, harrowing villains, riveting battles, unforgettable songs, and a story for the ages. If you are not some sort of gaming philistine, trapped in your fake gaming style of Madden 2013 and Call of Duty: Another One, then you owe it to yourself to experience this masterpiece for yourself. Put aside your expectations, your beliefs, your prejudices. Cast your soul away like the dirty rag it is, for you are about to be baptized in pure gaming light. Games have become art, and C. Kane is here to lead the way. 

I expect to hear the news about the movie industry shutting down within the next few weeks. Get this game for free at this handy address, or die like the swine you are.

Transcendental out of five stars. 

Is this a long-lost Monet painting? No, it's C. Kane. Games = Art. 

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

The Short

Pros
- A fun hybrid of shop management and action RPG questing
- The translation is surprisingly entertaining and appropriately silly
- Taking heroes on quests only to sell the best stuff they find back to them at 300% markup is pretty great
- A surprisingly long RPG quest campaign with multiple adventurers, dungeons, and secrets to find
- I sold month-old egg on toast for a thousand bucks. Take that, economy!

Cons
- Selling items becomes a bit formulaic; most new shop-related stuff (custom orders, etc.) show up early and don't introduce anything new later on
- Dungeons can be a grind for XP and items, and the limited bag space (which is upgradable) is a chore
- Music is fun at first, intolerable in large quantities
- Recette's Japanese exclamations when she does anything are incredibly obnoxious
- I pressed "Esc --> Skip Scene" more in this game than maybe any to date
- Made me feel like the Wal-Mart of the fantasy world when I would only sell severely marked up junk to housewives just before the market crashed and everybody was poor
- I hate little girls

Capitalism, ho, indeed.

The Long

Let me play a scenario out for you. Let's say you go to a store with intent to buy something, like a hat. You've gone to this store lots of times, and seen the hat in the window, so you know the exact price or at least an estimate of the price. So when you prepare to leave, you bring the amount of money you'd expect to buy the item with, right? No? You'd just bring like fifty cents and then complain when they didn't mark down a five-hundred dollar item down to match your level?

Congratulations, you are now the little girl from Recettear. I should put a sign on the door that says "No little girls, ever." We sell weapons in here, for crying out loud! One little girl wanted to roll out with a freaking Crystal Sword +6! I'm gonna get fined out the ass if that happens!

And that, in a nutshell, is Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale on PC. Little girls showing up, demanding low prices, and whining. Same with old grandpas. Recettear: Screw the young and the elderly.

I wish you were dead. 

Recette has a problem. Her dad just up and decided one day to become an adventurer, and since this is a JRPG Recette only has one parent. Next thing she knows he's just left her at home with his massive amount of debt, and then got killed by a dragon or something. I dunno, I couldn't be bothered to read all the text.

Anyway, Tear, some jerk-bag fairy, is with the collections agency and needs this absurd quantity of money paid off. Why she didn't bother to come earlier rather than like two months before the deadline is beyond me, but I guess it make the game more stressful that way. So you have to meet weekly increments to pay off this outstanding loan your jerk dad accrued, while having a shizzy job, getting trash talked by the elderly, other store owners, and basically everybody in town, and just trying to sell the damn toast back so you can make a minimal profit on it.

Basically, Recette is a generational trying to pay off the debt they accrued by going to college because their parents told them it would be ok, and now gets blamed for being lazy and useless because she sits around the house all day selling candy instead of "getting a real job." So, in all honesty, it's a parable for our times. 

Where was I going with this? I dunno. I sit at home playing video games because I want to, dang it! Now leave me alone, mom! When my YouTube channel gets big, you'll see who is laughing then!

I even marked it down to 50% what I paid for it, and the little twit couldn't afford it. BOOKS BE PRICEY, YO. GET A KINDLE.

Recettear is a fusion between two genres. In that sense, it kind of reminds me of Persona 3 and 4. The first portion of the game is in the title: selling stuff. It's pretty easy to make money in the game, as every store in town sells stuff for under it's base value, and you can usually get at least at 10-30% markup on that junk by just turning around and selling it. It's like that jerk at the flea markets who goes and buys all the good stuff from the other vendors really early, then slaps labels on them and makes a mint throughout the day. You are that person. Or rather, Recette is. She's a soulless creature driven only by capitalistic urges. 

But the real bucks come in market fluctuations. Remember that Sword of Pure Pwnage +239 that you bought for a fat price yesterday? Well too bad, idiot, because the market here bounces more than an ADHD kid in a bounce house, and now it's worth nothing. But don't worry, all those almond breads you've been hording are now worth triple value! Slap them on the shelves and giggle with glee as starving mothers have to pay absurd amounts of money for a candied apple!

The market fluctuations are pretty much guesswork, but a simple strategy also works well: buy low, sell high. Or buy medium, sell high. Just always sell high. If stuff isn't high, then go do something else, or just be sure to stock up on massive amounts of inventory. Or just stock your store with only books and see who shows up. You'll be out of business faster than you can say "Borders Books." 

SOMEONE PLEASE BUY THESE FREAKING WANDS.

The other half of the game is the adventuring. See, you're in a JRPG world, which means dungeon crawling for items with a limited bag to carry them in. There's a wide assortment of heroes you have to unlock via traditional or untraditional means. You have your generic swordsman guy, a thief girl, an elf archer girl, a punching monk, some airheaded spear lancer chick, a demon mage, an obnoxious whiny boy child, and a robot. Pretty much all they needed was a dog and they'd have covered all the JRPG basics. Maybe in future DLC.

Questing is simple and is done in the Secret of Mana style of action RPGing. You run around and stab/shoot/kill stuff on each floor, picking up precious XP and loot before going to the next one. Every five floors is a boss, and after you kill it you can either bail on the dungeon or keep going deeper. If you die, however, you can only take one item back rather than your full bag, so be careful! Luckily you can bring all that super-expensive junk you bought for your store that is now worth nothing because of the market crash, and the heroes can borrow them so they don't suck. Don't worry, you get it back after, and can sell it to them directly at massively inflated prices to save you time. Friends exist to be abused, people!

I'll take a hundred. 

The other Persona similarity is the time management. You have four blocks of time in a day. During these you can either open shop, go scour the town for hot deals, or go adventuring. You only have a week to meet Tear's rapidly increasing demands, so being certain you don't screw around during your day is essential.

I will say this: there is something exhilarating about making absurd amounts of money. I discovered pretty quickly that I'm da bomb at this game. Most of the time when debt collection came around I had more than double what was asked, the later ones having me have not just enough for that debt, but the debt after as well. I guess I was really good at taking advantage of the sudden metal shortage, selling that junk sword I bought when swords were more common than toothpicks like it was freaking Excalibur. 

The main issue I have with Recettear is no one point is particularly...well, fun. Is it engaging? Absolutely. Addicting? No doubt. But like grinding around in the dungeons in Persona, nothing was every quite good enough for me to be in love with it. When I was adventuring I wished I was back at the shop. When I was selling stuff at massively engorged prices...well, I was having a good time, but at the back of my mind I kept thinking about my inventory and when I'd need to go adventuring again. Not to mention if you miss custom orders because the bozos didn't bother to show up during the one block of time you were open, they'll come chew you out as if it is your fault and they couldn't just pick up the damn thing now since it's just the next day and if you really wanted your freaking three foodstuffs you would have showed up in the morning when we were open.

Pictured: A huge mooch.

At least there's lots of dungeons to keep you sated, even if their mileage may vary depending on how much you like repetition. Expect enemy pallet swaps a-plenty, with bees and bouncing mushrooms being the worst enemies to try and hit ever. Mixing up heroes keeps things a bit fresh, but since they start low leveled it's much easier to just commit to one person (read: the fast thief girl) and just take her the whole way. They're randomized, which is also a good thing, but tedium can set in once you get in a groove. Still, it's just as good as any other game where the whole game is dedicated to the crawling, and Recettear comes with a bonus Wal-Mart simulator, so I suppose I can't fault it too heavily. 

Point being: it's fun, yes, but also a bit of a grind. Like many Japanese games, they're addictive by nature, but rely heavily on your tolerance for repetition in order for them to be fun. You could argue it's an analogy for the repetitive nature of Capitalism, where we just keep working and working, making more and more money to make more and  more money, all in some fruitless attempt to meet some society-created goal that will never, ever tell us when we are finished, leaving us an an endless loop of dissatisfaction until we're all dead.

Recetetear has that too. It's called "Endless Mode."

It's just not the same without Recette screaming "AYEEE?!" because she swapped out a bread roll with a beef bowl on her display.

Graphically the game is dated, but you probably won't notice it. Honestly, this would be a great PSP (or now Vita or 3DS game), because it's low-graphics and perfectly suited for quick bursts of play. As a PC game it's a bit grainy, the sprites repeating and generally looking a little old (but it's an old game, so that's ok). The enemies have a massive graphical inconstancy, with hand-drawn pixel sprites alongside awful polygonally rendered knight creatures. It's like they just looted a bunch of other games and tossed them all in for their enemies. Alright.

The music is whimsical and generally unoffensive, but it will drive you insane due to the repetition. I found myself putting on some sort of metal soundtrack when I went through the dungeons (Nightwish works pretty good) and some Bob Marley when I was opening up the shop. 

Oh yeah, there's voice clips, and they're all in Japanese. Again: cute at first, annoying after repetition. 

Welcome to Applestop, would you like to pre-order a Granny Smith?

I might have sounded a bit harsh on Recettear, so let me end by saying this: it's a cute little game with a funny premise and great, addicting gameplay. Those looking for more depth in their RPGs (or shop keeping games) might want to look elsewhere, but if you're a fan of JRPGs, the Persona series, or Wal-Mart's power scooters, Recettear is a game for you. The story is silly (and text heavy...), the game whimsical, and loaded with enough to do to last you several dozen hours at least. Considering this game's usually on sale for like $5 on Steam, you could do a lot worse. Like, a lot worse. Have you seen the indie games on there? Get this instead. 

Now port it to a portable device, where it belongs. Capitalism, ho!

Three out of five stars. 

So...is his porn collection in the soup, or...?