April 2023 report

In March I received Someday You’ll Return: Director’s Cut for free as the owner of the original. I thought it would be a good idea to try and complete it before playing the new updated version so I jumped right on it. With 53 hours on it, my most played game wasn’t Onmyoji for the first time in a few months. ^_^
Also, I have started Assassin’s Creed II on Uplay and I have really enjoyed it. I am currently in Venice.

Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in the new month and enjoy your games!

45.5 hours

9/9

5/5

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is simply a gem and it quickly became one of our favorite games! I am not familiar with any other game from the series (which will be corrected soon) and even though this game is fourth in the Momodora series (serves as a prequel) no prior knowledge of the events is required for full enjoyment. The 45 hours equal to 8 complete playthroughs (we played both)! :D

The story is simple. Evil is spreading through the country and slowly corrupts everything. Kaho, a young priestess from the village of Lun, arrives in the city of Karst to seek an audience with the Queen. Unfortunately, right on the outskirts of the city, Kaho learns that meeting the Queen isn't going to be easy because the corruption is particularly heavy here and the way leading to her is sealed off. Without any other option than pursuing her goal, Kaho needs to navigate through the different city locations to collect four parts of the city crest that have the power to break the seal. The streets are, thanks to the evil in the air, far from safe though and Kaho needs to stay vigilant as many enemies are lurking around and one small mistake can doom her and with her the whole country.
Despite the ever-present evil taint the city isn't completely abandoned and Kaho can meet a few individuals who are searching for their loved ones, answers, protection or they are just simply trying to survive - not that everyone is going to be so lucky.

Kaho isn't defenseless against the monsters and as a priestess, she has skills both in archery and swordplay… with a slight detail that she uses a Leaf for it. Yep, you read it right. XD Oh, I love this picture…

Jokes aside, as you progress you collect items with active or passive powers that will make you stronger in the long run and that's always a good thing. After defeating a boss you obtain upgrades for your bow or new ability; when you do especially well and manage to surpass the boss without a hit you receive a sweet item, which you can't get any other way. You can find other items in secret places or buy them from the few sellers that are still in the city. You can equip only three active and two passive items though, but you are free to change them anytime you wish even in the middle of the fight, which can be pretty useful! Active items, like the healing bellflower, have only a limited quantity of uses but do not worry, every usable item gets restored to its full numbers at every checkpoint, like your health. ;)

Fighting in Momodora is challenging, quick paced and extremely fun! The controls are responsive and don't hold you back. Except for one secret boss you have to fight them all and you need to learn their attack patterns well as a simple head-on tactic isn't enough for some of them even on lower difficulties! Every mistake you make gets quickly punished, but it doesn't turn into a frustrating chore. If you die you get transported to the last visited checkpoint, but nothing else, you keep your items and all money. As for the checkpoints, they are distributed across the map very reasonably and there are no too-long paths that you need to re-do in case you fail (except for the finale and that's because it's the finale). I also like the way you can save - you pray at the bell to open a menu or you just hit the bell with your weapon and it saves, neat!

I love the pixel graphics of both characters and backgrounds. The music is also exceptional, especially during boss fights. All of it creates a great atmosphere and in some moments I had goosebumps and my heart ached (oh, the fight with Pardoner Fennel felt almost like fighting the Pure Vessel in the Hollow Knight). All of the characters are introduced only for a brief time, which is a shame on one hand as I would love to know more about them, but on the other hand, it works well thanks to the shorter length of the game.
Aside from fighting various enemies, you have to overcome many obstacles in the form of traps that kill you in just one hit. Platforming is done nicely with a few truly challenging stages. But overall I didn't feel like being punished by it (like in Indivisible).
Momodora isn't anyhow long and you can get to the end in a few hours, there are two endings and getting the true one will open New Game+! Achievements are there to push you further through the rabbit hole and test your masochist's limits, so beware. ^_^

So what I am trying to say here is that Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is an excellent game with beautiful visuals and music, great gameplay and atmospheric and memorable fights. And have I mentioned that you get to play as a cat? =^.^= If you are a fan of the Metroidvania genre you won't be disappointed!

Endless Fables: The Minotaur's Curse

4/5

3.6 hours

33 of 33 achievements

The infamous Minotaur from Greek myths is threatening our world with his return. Only the descendant of Ariadne can use her thread endowed with mysterious powers to put an end to it!

Rather short HOG by Artifex Mundi, you can be done with the main game and extra chapter in under 4 hours, but still quite enjoyable. I have liked the whole Greek mythology setting, if you think about it it's a great theme for a game. ;)
The graphics are nice and colorful, and the music is fine. Puzzles are varied and of good quality, nothing too hard to get stuck on. Same way with the hidden object scenes. There are various collectibles to be found and they are surprisingly not so hard to spot, which is good! We also have at our disposal Ariadne's thread which can help us with melting various items, reviving creatures or dispelling magic. Pretty handy. ;)

It's a fairly good HOG and I can recommend it.

Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual

2.5/5

4.7 hours

no achievements

In this classic adventure game we follow young archeologist Sylvie Leroux. Her uncle, also a famous archaeologist, uncovered a hidden temple containing mysterious artifacts and invited her to Malta to consult his findings with her. These artifacts could be the missing link in her research about the Templar and Hospitalier Knights and some unworldly power that could destroy whole cities (like what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah)… I think? Anyway, as Sylvie arrives in Malta her uncle is nowhere to be found, artifacts as well and the excavation site is under police surveillance. In a search for her uncle, she has to overcome many obstacles on the way and use every bit of her wits to prevent the artifacts from falling into the wrong hands.

The main weakness of Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual is pretty short length and confusing storytelling. When you have the feeling that the story is finally going somewhere the game ends, quite abruptly. It's a shame because the theme is rather interesting and could have been further developed.

I liked the visuals of the environment and documents, very detailed and pretty to look at. Characters on the other hand were somewhat blurry. Voice acting is mediocre and is sometimes cut off in the middle of a sentence which disturbs the immersion, there are subtitles luckily.
There is a standard item combination and a few puzzles, which are mostly of good quality. Sometimes it was a little bit hard to progress as you needed to perform some actions in a certain order, which tends to be confusing.

If you are a fan of classic point-and-click adventure games I suppose you can enjoy it, just don't expect something bigger from it.

Faerie Solitaire

4/5

46.5 hours

30 of 30 achievements

Faerie Solitaire is a nice, addictive game great for casual playing with a little twist to the classic Solitaire formula.

The story is simple but serves the purpose well so you don't aimlessly repeat one solitaire game after another. I liked the card's visual and background graphics which change accordingly to the story progression. The music is fine, voice acting though a little bit mediocre. But all in all, it works together.

There are 40 levels in total divided into 8 "worlds". Each level consists of 9 Solitaire games and a set of goals that have to be completed before moving to the next level. If you don't meet the goals you need to repeat the whole level, which can happen occasionally. As you clear the board from the cards you can uncover collectibles - various materials and eggs of magical creatures. When you find an egg you can then keep it on an active spot, where it will hatch as you play. If you have enough of the desired materials you can then evolve it! The pets are just collectible for your amusement and don't serve any other purpose, which is a shame on one hand, but when we consider the overall amount of pets (32), it would be a bit too much of a hassle to give them some bonuses.
With every win, you are also collecting money which you can spend on getting sweet bonuses that are quite helpful in the long run.

My only complaint concerns the amount of grinding that is necessary for you to collect and evolve all the pets. Finding collectibles is random and I simply didn’t have enough magic most of the time. ^^

As I said, Faerie Solitaire is a good relaxing casual game. Just be prepared that one playthrough may not be enough for 100% completion.

Unsung Heroes: The Golden Mask

4/5

8.5 hours

10 of 10 achievements

Another game from GameHouse that brings us a compelling story, bright visuals, and challenging addictive gameplay. In Unsung Heroes: The Golden Mask we follow three young aspiring archeologists uncovering buried secrets of the past in the Far East and with more artifacts found the story of a young farmer girl Xi Niu will be told to the world.

As an innovation, we get to follow two storylines instead of one! In the modern age storyline, we play as the archeologists digging in the ground. When we find all parts of an extraordinary artifact we switch to the past to experience the hardships of young Xi Niu. And that's how it works.
Sadly, you quickly realize that modern-age levels require a lot of grinding and get somewhat boring because of that. On the other hand past levels are quite fun!

Archeologists - I liked the idea of uncovering the artifacts and then switching to see how the past events unfolded. Finding treasures is related to reaching certain thresholds on the progress bar at every level. You aim to serve your fellow workers the best you can to obtain golden hearts from them and yet it may not be enough for you to uncover all the pieces of the artifact and that means repeating the whole level. Occasional re-dos wouldn't be much of a problem for the "story mode", but as there are collectible artifacts (for achievement) that you can get only after you collect the story artifact you are bound to replay each level two or three, or four times. Checking their short description in the museum afterward is nice, but that's all.
There are three dig sites, which pretty much differ only in terms of background and a few extra challenges. All the jobs you have to perform remain the same. Upgrades of the stations that you can buy are scarce. Also, there is no music, only sounds of work… it's a little bit disturbing, to be honest.
Xi Niu has a bigger scale of jobs to perform, which is refreshing and fun. Her levels can be quite challenging to master and require precise and quick movements. There are no upgrades to buy, instead Xi Niu levels up slowly and opens skill bonuses… not that it's very apparent though. 😅

The story is rather interesting, you can find romance, danger, sadness, and thrill in it. What made me a little bit disappointed was the ending though… it seemed so abrupt and without any real conclusion. Not sure what to think about it.

So, even if it feels somewhat unbalanced in terms of story and gameplay I have enjoyed it. I would love to see more games from this series. ;)

Firewatch

4/5

7.3 hours

10 of 10 achievements

When your life is slowly going downhill it might be a good idea to take a step back from it. Taking a lonesome job out there in the Wyoming wilderness seems like a great idea. Just you with your thoughts, supervised by a similarly lonesome fellow far on the horizon and connected only with a walkie… what can go wrong, right? A simple job of a fire lookout gets twisted around when strange events begin to occur in close vicinity to your watchtower. You are then confronted with difficult questions about yourself, your previous life, even about your mentor Delilah on the other side of the walkie, and answering them isn't gonna be easy… just don't forget about the fire, okay?

Firewatch is an atmospheric walking simulator with a heavy concentration on visuals and story and most of the time it works pretty well. The visuals are beautiful and some of the sceneries are just breathtaking, one could spend hours roaming through the wilds. What surprised me though was the overall lack of animals you get to see when walking through the woods. Music is also exceptional and does a great job of creating a fitting atmosphere. Voice actors are very good and they bring us believable characters, which is important in this game as you don't get to know them by any other means than through their voices.
The story becomes rather mysterious over time with a few twists that do a great job of keeping you in suspense, but once you have all the hints the story becomes pretty clear. The ending is a little bit unsatisfying though… not sure why, I have just expected something more.

The story, the mood in the woods and the overall loneliness reminded me of Someday You'll Return, which I can only recommend. The music on the other hand reminded me heavily of The Flame in the Flood.

All in all, I have enjoyed my time in Firewatch and can safely recommend it.