BLAEO — Backlog Assassins Extraordinaire

February Updates:

Pretty pleased with how many completed games I have here. Overall it was a great month with a lot of titles I mostly enjoyed.

Ashes of Immortality

17 hours playtime

no achievements
The Deed

4 hours playtime

17 of 17 achievements
Fix Me Fix You

5 hours playtime

5 of 5 achievements
Heart and Seoul

6 hours playtime

8 of 8 achievements
City of Chains

31 hours playtime

52 of 52 achievements
Outrage

19 hours playtime

41 of 41 achievements
Tibetan Quest: Beyond the World's End

6 hours playtime

18 of 18 achievements
Robin

19 minutes playtime

6 of 6 achievements
Lucy -The Eternity She Wished For-

9 hours playtime

no achievements
planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~

6 hours playtime

19 of 19 achievements
Heileen 1: Sail Away

6 hours playtime

3 of 3 achievements
Heileen 2: The Hands Of Fate

11 hours playtime

15 of 15 achievements
Heileen 3: New Horizons

23 hours playtime

22 of 22 achievements
Highrise Heroes: Word Challenge

42 hours playtime

36 of 36 achievements
Valentine Panic

5 hours playtime

15 of 15 achievements
Flower Shop: Summer In Fairbrook

9 hours playtime

4 of 4 achievements

Ashes of Immortality [02/01]: ★★★★★★✰✰✰✰
Decent. Honestly. I mean, I enjoy RPGMaker games and this one is a good one. No issues, interesting skills, good difficulty, just grindy enough, no complaints. Relatively straightforward and hassle free, if maybe a little too simplistic. I liked the gothic setting and premise a great deal. My biggest complaint is that while I completely get what they were going for, some of the dialog was soooo juvenile. I understand that while not a comedy, everyone being an extreme edgelord is kind of the point. Is kitschy what I’m looking for? Satirical? Not sure. But groaning and rolling my eyes and getting annoyed is only a good reaction when the cause is quality, like a well placed pun, lmao. That wasn’t the case here. And most of the biggest offenders in this complaint were old-as-dirt vampires. It doesn’t have to be all stuffy and pretentious but still, a bunch of ancient all powerful beings shouldn’t sound like immature 12 year old try hards all the time. I will most likely play the sequels though, especially since I already have them and I found myself oddly invested in some of the characters even with these complaints. Hell, thinking about it, the character I care about seeing in the future the most is one of the worst two tacky edgelords in the whole story. I guess it must have some charm, even as it annoyed me?

The Deed [02/03]: ★★★★★★★✰✰✰
Short, sweet, old time murder “mystery”, in a dark and dreary setting. Except it’s not a mystery at all, since you’re the killer. The point is to try to frame someone else for your evil deeds. The entire family is horrible and dislikeable, which makes all the combinations of things you can do, quite fun. I did feel bad for the servants though. They’re the only people in the game that I felt any remorse in framing. There’s enough dialog and backstory for atmosphere but once you have explored the mansion, you can complete it very fast — to try to figure out good combinations to implicate all the other characters.

Really fun all the way around. It’s sort of like playing Clue. Except its not. Lol. It’s more like making the detective play Clue and hoping you don’t get arrested for it. :D

Fix Me Fix You [02/04]: ★★★✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Just not good at all. No game breaking bugs, no huge problems but absolutely nothing that I enjoyed or grabbed me, either. I didn’t like any of the characters (especially the guy you play as, ugh) and the voices were all grating and annoying with no way to turn them down. The music was okay as was the art but it just wasn’t a good time. I have never felt as though a game this short overstayed its welcome like this before. However while I don’t recommend it I will say it’s not terrible, or trash, or shovelware. They tried, I just really didn’t like it. Now I have played some other VNs by this guy and the quality varies. I consider everything I’ve touched by the dev “junk food” level VNs but some I’ve had fun with. This one is the least enjoyable of the bunch so far and I hope it stays that way.

Heart and Seoul [02/05]: ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰
Ah, here we go. Cheesy, kinda shallow but fun. Same dev as above. Junk food subpar single session VN with two love interests. Nothing to write home about but well made, all the characters were likable enough even if a bit bland. Short, to the point — quick timekiller. And a huge improvement from the above game.

City of Chains [02/09]: ★★★★★★★★★★
Absolutely excellent cyberpunk dystopian RPGmaker game. A lot of parts reminded me of events in my old Shadowrun sessions. I really liked every bit of this game, and getting all the achievements was honestly enjoyable even in all the replays — since a lot of them were based around getting completely different outcomes in the story.

Interesting characters (love the design too), great plot, and a really fun time. I loved it.

Something of note, as well… I really liked every single person in my team, even though they were all a complete clash of personalities. That’s excellence in writing, right there.

And I love C.A.I. :)

Outrage [02/10]: ★★★★★★✰✰✰✰ [SG Win] (Re-visited and 100%ed)
Okay so. I won Outrage a long time ago on SG and beat it but I had absolutely no interest in 100%ing it since it meant at least 2 more playthroughs. However, it’s made by the same dev as City of Chains, and after playing and loving that one, I decided to revisit it.

It’s supposed to be a short and shallow dungeon crawler and I didn’t really enjoy it previously. I also found it way too hard.

However… playing it after City of Chains changed everything up considerably. It was like a supplement almost. The story is still brief and barely there but its functional and fun if you think about it like a sort of bonus story or side quest portion of City of Chains.

Also, after playing CoC, which is a longer and more immersive, deeper experience, I found the hardest difficulty of Outrage a breeze instead of constant frustration — because I understood what to do, what to avoid and had a solid understanding of stats, statuses and mechanics — something I didn’t really have going for me when I played Outrage the first time. And it completely changed my take away from it. Before I dreaded the mere concept of going back and getting everything and just left it beaten but far from 100%. After doing it post-CoC, the experience was fast and fun.

Tibetan Quest: Beyond the World’s End [02/10]: ★★★★✰✰✰✰✰✰
Sadly this is the poorest Artifex Mundi game I have experienced. So unenjoyable in fact, I didn’t even do the bonus quest (since there was no achievement connected to it, I didn’t have the motivation to slog through it). Normally I would have done the bonus and had fun doing so, since these things are typically epilogs or true endings, or story supplements, but no. I couldn’t wait to be done with this game. Also it took me several sessions over a few days, because I just didn’t like it. All the taking things, breaking priceless ancient artifacts and everything about the main character’s actions seemed ruder than usual too, to the point of disrespect instead of just par for the course in these games. I’m assuming this has something to do with the overall presentation though I can’t pinpoint it specifically.

All the weird little logic breaks in HOG tasks were here in extremes, a lot of it made no sense, and the Tibetan theme was so poorly done. To call it an aesthetic even, is giving it more credit than deserved and so much of it had nothing at all to do with Tibet. A lot of Chinese themed things though… and one bit I swear was Aztec, though I didn’t screencap it so I can’t go back and be sure. The story was uninteresting and really, all the cheesiness I enjoy in HOGs just got on my nerves in this one. Also the last collector object I found by purely clicking absolutely everywhere on the screen where I knew it had to be. I still have no idea if it was even visually there, honestly.

Giving it 4 stars solely on the fact it worked, no achievements were broken and it had AM level production values, but ultimately a disappointment. Which is a shame because I like AM, I like HOGs and I was really interested in this one because of the Tibetan theme.

Robin [02/11] ★★★★★★✰✰✰✰
Short (really short) free game about spoon theory and CFS. Hoo boy do I relate to this sentiment, especially in the middle of an MS flare up. Too short to be involved or get too attached but the BIRD. Feeding the bird daily is a must. :)

I don’t feel right giving something this puny more than 6 stars but it was relatable, aesthetically cute and did I mention the bird?

Lucy -The Eternity She Wished For- [2/11] ★★★★★★★✰✰✰
I’m so torn on this. I never thought I’d ever be able to say something as ridiculous as “hey I played a game that references Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, Schopenhauer and Theseus’s Paradox” -OR- then turn around and give it a lukewarm review, but here we are.

Lucy is a very endearing character, the idea behind the game is great, the production values are high, its a good plot and comes highly rated for a reason. I had an emotional response more than once, too.

But man, as much as I’d love to be able to rate this higher, I just can’t. The main protag is one of the most aggravating, nonsensical, rude, grating characters I’ve ever seen. It becomes fairly easy to see why he’s like this but he never really gets any better even when he should and the catalysts for character development are there. He just stagnantes in his own dislikable nature instead. Oh, he also contradicts himself way too much and too fast. I noticed more than once he’d make a strong statement about his opinion and then say he felt the opposite way in the next sentence. I don’t know if this was flat out bad writing or if we’re supposed to see the character as conflicted, but its not presented that way at all. And if it’s that hard to tell it isn’t doing the experience any favors.

And Lucy, as much as I love her, sometimes behaves in ways that go completely against her programming — and this is just a thing that happens here and there and not a plot point or anything examined in any meaningful way??? It’s like the writers forgot here and there that she’s actually a robot. Does she have emotions? A soul? Is she real? These are all such great points and existential meanderings worthy of the narrative. But — she did something completely out of bounds and we’re not going to use that as a plot point or explain why or anything, just roll with it — is a disservice.

I’m glad I played this but there are a lot of missteps. Still, you can tell it was made with a lot of heart. Just a touch more editing and polishing the story to smooth out these things would have bumped it from above average to absolutely stellar, though.

planetarian -the reverie of a little planet- [02/15] ★★★★★★★★★★
I picked this immediately after Lucy because I thought “hey, similar themes probably!”

I… I don’t know what to say. And I wouldn’t even if I did know what to say, because I really do not want to start sobbing again.

The only thing that’s ever made me cry harder than this, was SOMA. I don’t know exactly what I expected out of this title but it damn sure wasn’t this. I’m emotionally compromised.

Heileen 1: Sail Away ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰ [02/16]
Subpar sound, some horrible writing (I’m looking at you, Marie — she’s so grating and doesn’t even make sense, she falls apart and throws tantrums for no reason at all) and some huge huge missteps in several areas. And lord, some things were handled in a uhhhhh…. problematic, downright yikesy way — though I’m certain intentions were good. But I don’t think this hot mess would win any sensitivity points. This is my first experience with Winter Wolves even though I have lots of their games in my inventory (and while none were at full price I have spent a lot of money on their stuff according to my cheap ass gamer sensibilities, lol).

I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t deserve as many stars as I’m giving it. But its getting them. I somehow had a good time despite all the flaws. My reviews aren’t objective in any way, it’s solely based on my personal enjoyment. I can’t tell you why I enjoyed it this much. But I did. Maybe something that didn’t rip me to shreds after Planetarian is the key to this but still.

I do love this very different art style, as well.

And I have heard this is one of the first games WW ever put out, and the weakest. I just hope the rest aren’t quite this… tone deaf. I do look forward to playing more and seeing improvements though.

Heileen 2: The Hands of Fate ★★★★★★★✰✰✰ [02/18]
I enjoyed this one a lot more. A great deal of improvement in all areas, though there were some tropes here that should have stayed buried, yikes. The native tribe particularly. But I enjoyed the experience a lot overall, despite kind of gritting my teeth and rolling my eyes at a couple of parts.

Heileen 3: New Horizons ★★★★★★★★✰✰ [02/20]
Boy am I glad I stuck with it, and played all 3 together with nothing major in between them. I don’t know what to say. This game probably wouldn’t win anyone over who detests VNs or the earlier games in the Heileen series, but I loved the game (despite really really not liking some of the love interests). I didn’t expect to like this game so much.

The art, the writing and the soundtrack… man I love the soundtrack. I’m gonna by the special edition for the music, its great.

I don’t know why, but overall I really loved this series and enjoyed it, even if it is mostly some weird boring slice of life in odd situations sort of thing — with -some- pretty unlikeable characters (Marie and Sebastian take the cake), and some absolute sleaze balls in the romanceable men options. But. I loved the trilogy a lot.

Some of the final romance ends even made me tear up and I don’t know why.

The real reason I deducted 2 stars on Heileen 3 is the awful slog that is getting the last professions, when you don’t have any love endings left to break up the monotony. It’s a carpal tunnel clickfest. It was worth it to me since each profession has 3 scenes with one of the characters plus a conclusion and I wanted to see everything — but man I wish some quality of life improvements had been made on the stat raising. Its so many clicks per task, for no real reason. :/

Also I’m pretty sad Robert (and to a smaller extent, Jack) got sold so short. There wasn’t enough of either of them in the game at all, and honestly if Ebele was a romance option, Robert should have been too.

Highrise Heroes: Word Challenge ★★★★★★★✰✰✰ [02/20]
I played this game off and on for weeks, breaking up various VN sessions. As there are so few good word games on steam, I’m glad this one is great. Lots to do, amusing (if not serious) story and a good bit of variety. Collecting all the stars and bananas is fun.

However, the addition of number levels and timed levels (…and timed number levels) were usually more of a hassle to me than fun and relaxing, and I found them a little too stressful to give this a 10 star relaxing-casual-time sort of rating. Neither of the above are too bad if you just want to pass them, but the 3 star requirement and challenge bonuses of those types of levels were a headache. Still loved the game though.

Valentine Panic ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰ [02/26]
Short, sweet and cute VN which surprised me as I didn’t expect something this quick and cheap to have voice acting. Setting is working at a cafe and the work is handled through a mini game of drinks and sweets themed memory. Good art and characters, decent voice work mostly and competent writing. Its so short though, that you don’t have much chance to get too attached. Ultimately, like a couple of the other bite sized VNs by this dev, there just isn’t quite enough to have too strong of an option, though one of her games (a much longer one) was the first VN and first Otome I ever played. So I appreciate being introduced to a genre I love playing but I can’t recommend this one unless you want something that’s about as brief as possible while still being competent.

Flower Shop: Summer in Fairbrook [02/27]: ★★★★★★★✰✰✰
Okay so I really liked this but I didn’t think I would at all, and I was groaning and aggravated a lot at the start, so I’ll get why out of the way first.

The main character is supposed to start out as an asshole. The problem is, he’s too much of one and I hated him at first. I think this point was just hammered in a little too forcefully too early in the game and it made the MC way too unrelatable and unlikeable as a consequence. I think it came across a little more harshly than intended by the writer because it’s so strongly emphasized but once the setting changes and he gets sent away to Fairbrook, he starts quickly undergoing some character development, and fast. By the end I even liked him. Which gets me to the most important point of all. I liked every single character in this VN by the end, (except the dad and he’s not supposed to be likeable, nor is he around much) which was refreshing. While this game isn’t that long or deep, it got an emotional response out of me a few times anyway and the writing is quite decent all the way through.

My other complaint, and its a major one if you don’t look up a walkthrough — doing too well (which I did by more than double my first playthrough) at the farming sim part completely locks you out of all romance endings and as a consequence — all achievements. There’s a totally different ending for doing well at farming (oddly without an achievement) which is nice too but its not intuitive at all that you can’t start a romance with anyone if you make too much money while farming. In VNs, I always play unguided the first time, making natural choices, and then look up info after the credits roll. If I hadn’t done that in this case, I could have failed to get any endings endless number of times without understanding why. There’s absolutely nothing to clue you in that doing well in the sim means no time for love, especially as it’s not an optional task. You’re in the garden every morning regardless of what you choose to do in the afternoons. Once you get the initial loveless ending, it’s better to water an empty square of dirt for 6 hours a day than care for any plants, which is a downright strange gameplay mechanic.