Lucky Thirteen

Update number unknown + 15, about the bad and the ugly.


Renoir Renoir
⌛ ~1 hour | ✪ 0/9 | ☑ In Progress
bad!
Renoir is supposedly a puzzle platformer that has one big flaw - the gameplay.
I really like the noir style and I could live with the ridiculously stiff character animation, but the gameplay is simply unbearable. The controls are extremely unresponsive, the movement extremely sluggish and then there are the puzzles. The puzzles go like this: You select a ghost, then you press ENTER to activate it, then you slowly perform the needed action with the ghost (mostly flipping light switches), then you press ENTER again to "record" the action, then you press ENTER yet again for a slow replay of what you just slowly did... What in the holy hell?
Yes, manipulating ghosts is a thing. No, the game doesn't explain why.


Catacombs of Undercity Catacombs of the Undercity
⌛ ~4 hours | ✪ 4/19 | ☑ In Progress
hmm
Catacombs of the Undercity is a gamebook set in the same universe as Assassin in Orlandes & Curse of the Assassin. Unfortunatelly, I played about half-way through and then kind of gave up. The game is brutally difficult because other than the fights with enemies, there's also a lot of scripted traps that are unavoidable and you have pretty much no way to heal. That, coupled with the RNG of the dice rolls, makes it a needlessly frustrating experience. I will be (hopefully) replaying the game on the easiest difficulty for the story and for a few more achievs.


Close Your Eyes Close Your Eyes
⌛ ~4 hours | ✪ 8/8 | ☑ Completed
hmm
Close Your Eyes is what I would describe as "right idea, wrong execution". It's a horror RPGMaker game that occasionally manages to build almost frightening atmosphere, but unfortunatelly the developer overuses long pitch-black corridors where nothing happens to stretch the play time, which often kills the tension (for me at least).


The Escape DLC Story Of the Survivor: The Escape DLC
⌛ ~1 hour | ✪ N/A | ☑ N/A
bad!
The Escape (DLC for the RPGMaker game Story of the Survivor) is an older SG win that I recently tried to play, but couldn't. I'm not sure what's the deal with the 3 positive reviews, because I encountered a game-breaking bug right at the first boss. As soon as the battle started, I got stunned(?) and the stun debuff just never expired. Couldn't move, couldn't fight... boss couldn't kill me either, because I was partially hidden behind some shelf. Tried again, the same deal.
The bit that I was able to play, before the first boss, was pretty bad as well - the protagonist has to constantly eat and drink, because the hunger/thirst meters go down super-fast, as is often the case with shitty survival games.
It's really baffling, as far as I recall, the original game (Story of the Survivor) was decent.


Labyronia RPG Labyronia RPG
⌛ ~14 hours | ✪ 6/6 | ☑ Completed
hmm
Labyronia is another RPGMaker game that I recently played. It's not bad, but there are several annoying things that make the game much less enjoyable. The worst offenders are two or three huge, mostly empty maps that are extremely painful to navigate through. Really, if you want to have huge maps, you need to fill them with content, dammit!

And a little bit of good, played for theme:

Labyronia RPG Please Close the Doors
⌛ ~3 hours | ✪ N/A | ☑ Beaten
good
Labyronia RPG Mini Ninjas
⌛ ~19 hours | ✪ N/A | ☑ Beaten
good
CSD Cook, Serve, Delicious!
⌛ ~32 hours | ✪ 43/52 | ☑ Beaten
good
Mystic Saga Mystic Saga
⌛ ~25 hours | ✪ 40/53 | ☑ In Progress
hmm
Please Close the Doors
Freebie. It's an RPGMaker horror/thriller in which you are trapped in an elevator with 7 other people and need to find out who the murderer is before it's too late. An alright game actually, though somewhat buggy.
Mini Ninjas
Freebie. One of the cutest games I've ever played. Enjoyable hack-and-slash-y experience with basic stealth. Beautiful in-game world. Has several flaws, but is worth playing if you own it.
Cook, Serve, Delicioius!
A gift, forgot from whom
🙁 A restaurant/cooking simulator. Enjoyable to play but some foods are perhaps unnecessarilly difficult/annoying to cook at later stages.
Mystic Saga
SG win. A hidden object game that was clearly meant to be free to play on Facebook or perhaps mobile devices, but costs 4,99€ on Steam. Kind of worth playing if you can get it as a freebie, though.

= Liked   = Disliked   = Mixed Feelings

Arbiter Libera

Catacombs of the Undercity

I completely overlooked this entire series. So they’re basically CYOAs with some dice rolls? Or more in-depth mechanics?

Lucky Thirteen

Pretty much CYOAs with dice rolls and some items to use in or outside of combat, yes ;)

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This comment was deleted about 6 years ago.

Lucky Thirteen

Oh yes, soups are the worst! I also kind of hate lasagna, always get the order of layers messed up when meat or vegetable gets thrown in the mix, hah :D
The “sequel”, as in CSD 2? I have to check it out, though yeah I’m a bit afraid that there’ll be just too much stuff.

Hmm yes, Mini Ninjas might actually be a mobile port, but it plays well on the PC :) It was recently free on the Squeenix store, maybe you noticed (hence the SG giveaways, or so I assume).

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This comment was deleted about 6 years ago.

Lucky Thirteen

Haha I still think of “PSCR PSCR PSCR” when I see lasagna now irl.

Lol yeah, I see how that can happen :D
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about CSD 2, I’ll keep an eye on it :)

Formidolosus

Funny how you had two RPG maker games this time with a bad use of empty spaces. I think it’s a hallmark of what sets apart a good game from a mediocre one. A lot of these RPGmaker games are made by one or two amateur devs and they haven’t got the memo that making a game seem bigger or longer by just having lots of empty space they need to get across doesn’t fool anyone into thinking they got more value for money.

Lucky Thirteen

I very much agree! A shorter game with a good pacing is way better than a long game that just drags on through boring fillers (or worse yet, through empty maps in this case) :)