Update Three Hundred and Sixty: 7 January 2020
One Day in London
270 hours playtime, ~20 hrs actual, 107 of 107 achievements
6.5/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
This game’s title is a misnomer - it’s not just one day in London, it’s more like one month, and it’s a month full of crazy shit happening to the main protagonist, Jeremy Mayers. Split up over 5 episodes, four of which are DLC, this game explores the occult and demonic possession in late-19th century London.
For all the time I spent in this game, I don’t have a TON to say. It’s closer to a hidden object game than a VN, which comes with all the issues that entails - there’s a lot of random puzzles that makes skipping difficult, and the lack of differentiation between text you’ve previously seen or new text makes it a challenge to replay chapters to get new routes and endings, which you’re going to have to do a lot. A LOT. That’s where a lot of the time ends up coming in. There were times where I thought I was going to just try to finish it without 100% clearing it, but my stubborn streak won through (and I jumped around to a lot of different games in December so my percentage took a hit).
Besides the engine complaints, the writing is peculiar, too. Originally a Russian VN, the English translation is… very unique, with a certain cadence that I saw people complain about but I realize that I liked. This game is surprisingly funny and wry in a way I don’t see a lot in VNs, and even though sometimes clunky dialogues ruins a serious scene, the plot is meandering and nonsensical enough where I don’t care, I’m just glad for the japes.
The art style is a lovely painterly one, though it can rely too heavily on shadows and gets a little boring to look at after a while. I like that they made Jeremy look kind of girly and be a little whiny - it doesn’t come off as annoying as I was afraid it would be.
Unfortunately, though, at the end of the day the game is a slog and with having to pay individually for each chapter it sets the price point a little higher than I would like. I’m glad I had ANY kind of fun with this, but it’s not goin on the masterpost.
Welcome to Tsupertsundere's "Hindsight is 2020" Edition!
I’ve mentioned it here and there over the past year, but now it’s official! This year, I’m playing (almost) exclusively games I’ve played in the past. I want to use this time to reflect on how my perspective has changed on these games, being a very different kind of person now than I was when I originally played them. I’ll also be mopping up some games I’ve set aside to revisit - some of these I’ll do quietly because I’d rather not do multiple reviews for one game on this site.
I’m really excited for this jaunt down memory lane! I have far fewer VNs to replay than standard games (though since one of them is the second half of Umineko it might take up a big chunk of time, anyway).
Next up: One of the reasons I was so looking forward to 2020 was so I can play these games again!!
See you soon!
Playing Spyro and Phoenix Wright seems so nostalgic. Did One Day in London at least make decent use of the setting? I could tolerate a somewhat mediocre game for fun London stuff.
Also, I noticed your GoodReads link. Do you mind if I add you? I don’t have any friends there, and I’ve been really into reading lately. We have almost no overlap in books, so maybe it would be nice for different stuff to show up on my feed. But you’ve probably read a decent amount of the stuff I have on there at some point, since a lot are classics. I’m here: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/45866865-jennifer
It is VERY nostalgic, though I’ve set Spyro aside for now! I think I’ll pick it up and do a level every couple of weeks or so. It’s not the kind of game that’s super satisfying to binge… let alone three full games worth!
Ehhh, I wouldn’t say so. They talk about some London locations, and the background art is pretty, but it’s way more focused on the occult stuff rather than the London stuff.
Oh, that wouldn’t be a problem… but I haven’t used my GoodReads in a year! I’d had to juggle a lot of time priorities, and unfortunately reading novels has fallen off hard. I won’t be up on your feed.
Oh, haha, I didn’t notice the dates. I got out of reading for a few years after graduating and starting to work…despite working in a library.
Yeah, I doubt I would want to play all the Spyros together, either. I kind of hate when games are packaged together as one game like that, because then I can’t really mark anything off as finished.
Ace Attorney is one of the very very few VNs I’ve heard off even before joining BLAEO. Have fun with it!
Very interesting strategy for 2020! I think our perception of games can change drastically over time, since we may notice things that went over our heads when we were younger for example. Also, I guess, society has a big impact on how we experience things. Society changes, sometimes quite swiftly. By that I don’t necessarily mean drastic changes, but more the subtle changes like the everchanging current topics everyone is talking about — e.g. Fridays for Future in Europe. It would be interesting to see how such changes affect our perception of games. I don’t have the ambition to test that myself, but I’m looking forward to hear how that works out for you :)
For the longest time, I never even considered it a VN because of how puzzle-heavy it is, but it truly was one of my first forays into one of my favorite genres. A friend let me borrow the first two games’ cartridges… and I remember I never gave it back… sorry, Drew.
Ooo, I never heard of Fridays for Future before! I looked it up and it’s good! Definitely things can age better or worse, from an outside standpoint (views become old fashioned) or an inside standpoint (your tastes get more refined, or you got tired of tropes you used to love).
Even if you only replay one game here or there, you can still experience that yourself! Thank you for the support, Vito c: