March(ing on the backlog)

Games that were gifted to me

I got into ENIGMA: not having a single idea of what the game was. Turns out it's a Visual Novel, a type of game I'm not very familiar with. I must say that I really enjoyed the experience and might dive a bit more into the Visual Novel genre in the future. Of course, it's consists mostly of reading texts for hours and even though there are more than 20 endings, there are really few moments where you're offered a choice but I really felt for the story which is quite melancholic and surprisingly unsettling sometimes. It reminded me of times when I was watching anime.

For those wondering, no boobs in ENIGMA:, but you'd still have to adhere to the Japanese anime style if you want to enjoy the game. It reminded me of times when I was watching a lot of those and I must admit that it's a nice feeling !

If you want to play the game, I recommend downloading the "enhanced graphic" assets.

I Looooved it ! The game has some flaws : the controls and animations are a little bit stiff but soon as you get use to that there's a real feeling of liberty and discovering lots of different environments. The focus is more on exploring and puzzles than on fighting, which is, in my own opinion, a good thing. The Bosses' fights are really well done and different one from another ! The game might be described as a Metroidvania (because you explore and must find new items/upgrades to get access to some new places) but it made me feel more like I was playing a Zelda game.

Treasure Adventure World really owns the "Adventure" of its title ! A great game !

Challenges

I was a bit reluctant before playing it because even though I really like the first two Samorost, I'm stuck in a Love-Hate relationship with Point & Click at the moment. Lucky for me, Samorost 3 falls into the "Love" category ! Jackpot for the Samorost series then !

To say a few words about the game : it's extremely cute, the atmosphere, sound-design and OST, the animations, everything is a pleasure to watch, everything is very lively. The puzzles aren't too far-fetched and you can solve most of them without having to wander between 53 screens not knowing what you should do next, so, well done game ! I'm glad I gave it a try in the end !

Definitively one of the best games I played this month ! It's a retro, slow-paced platformer with a big die & retry component.

You'll have to master the two jumps (one low, one high) to get through precise platforming stages, and you'll die a lot while trying to understand what path the game wants you to follow. It almost feel like a puzzle-platformer game sometimes. You should know that there is a huge peak of difficulty in the fourth world but even there 1001 Spikes is never unfair and you can only blame yourself for the traps you don't manage to avoid.

I know there's a lot of those retro-styled games nowadays but f you like platformers you should really look into 1001 Spikes, it a great and truly rewarding game !

A few years before I played Aragami, I had a lot of fun playing the first three Metal Gear Solid ; partly because I loved the cheesy, over the top storyline, partly because the gameplay just felt perfect. Since then, I did not play any other stealth game and I had some issues taking my first steps in Aragami...

Obviously, because the game is set in a fantasized feudal Japan, there's no radar here, which was really helpful when playing any of the MGS games... And the camera sometimes makes it hard to have a proper look around to see what could spot you.

It got me a bit frustrated at first but then I got used to it (and of course, it helps that the game, even in "normal" difficulty mode, is quite easy) and I must say that I quite enjoyed playing Aragami ! It's true that the storyline lacks subtlety and is not really fascinating but the cell-shaded world is really good looking and it's quite fun to play a ninja, teleporting from shadow to shadow and taking down dumb and short-sighted guards. You unlock a few useful and fun abilities as you go and feel more and more confident as you get to the end of the game.

Even though I can't say I didn't fall head over heels in love with the game, it's been a nice playthrough.

Ossuary was in the "bonus" list of my ABC Challenge : it was supposed to stand in for one of my missing letters for the challenge. But as I added Xeodrifter to the backlog, thus filling up one of those letter's gap, I decided to take Ossuary out of my bonus list and to play it right away. It was in my backlog for soooo long I don't even remember how it got there, probably thanks to one of the early Humble Bundle... ! Once again, good pick !

It is one of those games that totally look like they could have been made in RPG-maker and that you would pass without even looking at them but you'd be wrong ! For starters, I don't think it's been made in RPG-maker, and then, it really has a very peculiar atmosphere and you can tell it's been a really personal project from its creator. You died (or something) and suddenly appear in Hell were you're going to explore and discover various factions, each claiming that they have the solution to make up for the sins of this place's inhabitants : "using" each of the 7 sins onto the characters you'll be talking to, you'll force them to reveal their true motives.

Ossuary is a short and really nice narrative game which sets an unusual atmosphere and shouldn't be overlooked !

Other games I played

It took me four hours to reach an ending : I enjoyed the first two of them and was annoyed playing through the last two hours. Yes, taking your first steps into this Tinder-like role playing game will feel silly and fun, but after some time the goals that the game was setting for me just weren't enough to keep me interested as every reign seemed more or less the same as the last one...

I understand that you'll need to have a good knowledge of the whole "deck" if you're looking to reign for a long long time, hence the repetitiveness of the game to ensure your ability to choose wisely ; but a few hours in the game and the lack of variety just felt too boring to me...

Alwa's Awakening is a metroidvania-puzzle-platformer which can be quite fun to play but never really shines and unfortunately suffers a whole lot of flaws...

• Our character is slow, which was not that bad at first but started to get on my nerves later in my playthrough when I had to walk through large portions of the map.
• There's not enough upgrades ! Only 3 different abilities plus one upgrade level for two of them... Those abilities are used to solve puzzles which are kind of all the same and they allow you to trace your way through the world (without making it faster as you go though, unlike most metroidvanias...)
• Controls would feel a lot better if you could use your abilities by pressing B on your controller instead of UP+X... It's to easy for your finger to slip from UP to RIGHT making you fall to your death...
• Last but not least : Illusory walls. Way too many of them, even on the normal path to reach the end... I wandered for two hours before understanding that there was a door I needed to enter that as completely hidden by a waterfall.

It's a shame that Alwa's Awakening didn't manage to get those things right because it could have been a really nice game (not a masterpiece, but an enjoyable game). Instead of that I'm stuck with memories of imperfection that could have easily corrected for most of them...

Ouch ! Saying a few words about Environmental Station Alpha just after the previous review will seem hard on Alwa's Awakening but it took me about the same amount of time to beat the two games and still ESA feels so much more fulfilling !

It's rich, there's a great variety of environments ; you can find a lot of new abilities (the Hookshot ! :love: !) that actually are not only keys to new areas but upgrades that make it easier and faster to travel across the world ; the game provides a true sens of exploring and getting lost, with a lot of optional rooms/upgrades/bosses.

Environmental Station Alpha isn't a perfect game though. In some rooms you're likely to experience some readability issues (can I walk on this ? Is it an actual wall ?) but the world is huge and those issues not so abundant. And I'm not very fond of the soundtrack even though some "tracks" are really good (but some really seemed like a copy-paste of a Final Fantasy VII track... not that it is a bad thing in itself but... it was weird).

The game (in "normal" mode) is quite hard, especially when you're getting to the end or attempting to get an optional upgrade (but then... it's optional.) (and though, getting that upgrade would make your life easier for the following challenges...). Most of the time, I had no problem with it, but I must say that some rooms seemed filled with to many traps to me... That's one of the reason why I won't try to get the best ending, but I had a lot of fun playing through a casual run of the game and I really recommend Environmental Station Alpha to whoever likes metroidvanias !