You may or may not wonder why I have been inactive for quite a while, And to that I have to say I hadn’t really done anything worth reporting until now, So for post #19 I will talk about Days Gone!

First I’d like to talk about the story, I’d say the story was quite good, Characters were fleshed out and mostly realistic with good enough development, For the main plot itself it’s not groundbreaking, It’s a typical zombie game with a few twists here and there but it was not boring or repetitive, It was very compelling and I enjoyed advancing through it.

The gameplay was on the more fun side of things, It has it all, Shooting, Strategizing, People, Zombies, Animals and overall everything was there to keep you glued to your seat, leading zombies into proximity bombs, Planting traps, using sound to distract hoards, it really was well thought out and there are a lot of ways you can approach combat, It also had a generous armory of ranged and melee weapons which is really important in such games.

Other than a small number of funny and not game breaking bugs, I had zero technical issues with this game, And the optimization was amazing, with just a 3060 I not only maxed out the graphics but also got a mostly consistent 90 FPS on 1080p too! Just a few dips at the 75 range but overall very good performance.

Speaking of graphics, AMAZING! The whole thing was just a giant pile of eye candy, I’d just stand there looking at the scenery with disbelief, being glad I got to experience modern day graphics. And to go along with it we had the sound design, Music was good, Sound effects were nice, You have to experience it for yourself.

Overall an easy 8.5/10 Definitely try this one!

Edit: I forgot to mention how tedious some achievements might be for hunters, But I was more than happy to get the main game achievements on my 1 playthrough and drop the ones about “New game+” and “challenges”, My playthrough with 44/61 achievements took me 68.7 hours.

Post #18 will be another 2 in 1, Let’s go.

Deponia
It’s one of those games, The ones that you either love or hate, It has ups and downs but ultimately, I had fun.
It’s a point and click adventure game with an story engaging enough that after I finished the game, I wanted to play the other games in the series, The humor is hit and miss but I liked it most of the time, And the puzzles are barely comprehensive enough that you won’t go insane, Though I gotta say some solutions are far fetched as hell and I had to use a guide multiple times…. And you need 2 full playthroughs for 100% completion.
Overall a solid 7/10

Eternal Threads
So with this one, I have no clue how this is not more well known than it is right now, It’s a really engaging atmospheric game, The story is in depth and touching and the gameplay is fine as far as I’m concerned, The story is incredibly fleshed out and you can engage the situation at hand in a handful of ways and choices you make matter, the UI is user friendly.
The only thing I will say was leaning towards the tedious part was how much every small decision can have a ripple effect big enough that it might become confusing at times and leave you just standing there scratching your head trying to figure out how that certain outcome came to be, but that’s the whole thing with time travel, So it’s interesting, Definitely cool and intended that you experience this first hand. and that’s all about the endgame anyway, the first like 80% of the game was pure joy, The characters really felt alive and I was actually interested in the story, As a bonus point the game left some potential in there for further expansion in form of a sequel or a DLC maybe?
Overall easily an 8/10 from me.

Here’s post #17 and this one’s a banger, I have no idea why people only pay attention to AAA games when there are indie gems such as ABZÛ out there….

This is another one of those games that encourages your mind to shut off and drift away into the realm of the game, It’s simply astonishing, Visuals are beautiful, Sound design is really good and music is superb, One thing that is especially good about it was the controls, If I had to describe them with one word it would be “elegant”, Pacing was cool and the gameplay was pretty straight forward and comprehensible. Map design was AMAZING!

Another one of those games worth your time… The game from start to finish to replay (with chapter select) for achievements took me 4 hours and a half, So on the shorter side. 9.3/10

Post #16 will be a two in one, The Deed and Little Misfortune.

For the first one, You have to remember it’s a sub $1 RPG Maker game which has been free before, So keeping that in mind, It was one of the best experiences you can get for the price, it’s relatively short if you want to finish it once, But the whole point is going for multiple playthroughs because there are a couple ways you can finish the game with a few endings, It took me just under 3 hours to complete it. 6.3/10, Short text for a short game.

And now the one I was really interested in, Little misfortune! This is hands down one of the first experiences I’ve had in my history of gaming, yes I know I might have said this before for different games but it is true, One of my favourite games ever was Fran bow, These 2 games are made by the same dev, Just like fran bow Little misfortune’s gameplay is nothing revolutionary, Just a casual sidescroller with practically no challenge at all.

What makes it stand out is the superb, And I mean superb story telling, It’s right up there with narrative games like The Stanley Parable, the voice acting is out of this world, The story is amazing and totally surprising and/or dark at times and it is beautifully told, The graphics are cute and really go together with the theme of the game, This is a gem, An instant classic. You should be able to finish it once in 3-4 hours and spend another 2-3 hours getting the remaining achievements. Just do yourself a favour and try this one if you have it in your backlog. And don’t look it up, Best experience is going in blind. 9.6/10

For post #15 I will be talking about a game I totally did not expect anything out of, The only reason I got the game was because “it was cheap and looked interesting”.
That game is FAR: Lone Sails.

Imagine my surprise when immediately I was hit in the face with the superb atmosphere and beautiful scenery, It really sucked me in and kept me into it right up until the moment I finished it, AND left me wanting more! The map design coupled with an above average sound design was great.

It was a really thought provoking for me, The game was a big reminder to look at the bigger picture and constantly pushed me towards finding the hidden meaning behind it, Which is a quality I really appreciate in games.

The gameplay isn’t anything ground breaking, it’s a puzzle game that consists of light platforming, Management and one or two timed events, Overall not much challenge but totally fun.

The game isn’t long and can be completed in 2-3 hours if you really take your time and explore or just take it slow to soak it all in, There are several easy achievements but some require a second playthrough to get, One requires you to play almost 4 playthroughs to get, the game has a speedrun achievement which is not challenging at all, I did manage to speedrun it in around 80 minutes in my second playthrough (under 99 minutes for achievement).

Overall I would give this game a solid 8/10, Definitely worth your time IMHO.

Just remember, It’s about the journey, Not the destination…!

There are 2 types of games in this world, One is best enjoyed when you read up about it and understand it, Some are completely the opposite, You should not do ANY research before playing them and just get to it, In today’s post which is #14 I will be talking about another one of such games, From the creator of The Beginner’s Guide, I present to you The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe!

First of all I will be talking about the differences between the original 2013 version and the Ultra deluxe, The ultra deluxe has everything the original has (except for 1 ending that has been altered) and on top of that has extra content, It’s almost twice the content so you should just get the ultra deluxe; Even if you have played the original.

What’s the proper way of experiencing this game? The only piece of content exclusive to the original 2013 game is the free demo, You should start by playing that first through the original’s page.

The achievements are fun to get, But this game is at this point impossible to 100% since one of the achievements literally asks you to stop playing the game for 10 years….. What?

Great sound track, Fun story, Engaging map design, Cool characters… This game has it all,
and a bucket.

I’d rate this game EIGHT. (iykyk)

#13, I will be quick and to the point.
The Beginner’s Guide

This game is short, But it’s never about the length is it? I wanted to capture my feelings right after finishing it, I will not reveal anything about the game because not knowing anything about it is the proper way of playing it. One of the best games I’ve ever played, In every aspect possible, Just play it.

10/10

I was hesitant about this one since the game I will be writing about is free! And that’s a great price if you ask me, It’s none other than The Complex: Found Footage. #12 BTW.

The game is short, You can complete it in around 1 hour, As far as backroom games go, I like this one, It keeps you at the edge of your seat and it does not overstay it’s welcome, I believe it’s just a passion project made by a 17 year old which is nice, As far as backroom goes the map design is nice, The sound design is immersive and it’s visually pleasing.

However, there’s an elephant in the room, Quite a large one at that; The game runs like hot garbage, To the point that at some point people were questioning whether it’s a crypto miner, Which is quite serious but I seriously doubt it since it’s an unreal engine 5 game which uses Lumen for it’s lightning combined with the fact that a single person made it which can probably be written off as bad optimization, The game ran at 40-45~ fps on my RTX 3060 with maxed settings at 1080p.

It’s a solid 7/10, That’s all there is to it.

Today for post #11 I will be talking about the game previously mentioned in my NieR Replicant post, This game is none other than The Silent Age!

The game is quite short, You can probably finish it in under 3 hours and hunt down the remaining achievements in under 30 minutes, So it’s basically a game for one sitting.

It’s a point and click from 2015, So not much “gameplay” to be seen here, It’s all about the story, I’d say it’s quite chill and easy to follow, Is written well and is overall interesting.
It as a couple interesting twists and is just overall told well, The sound design is also nothing crazy and gets the job done, It’s hard to find anything bad with this game, Just a short game to chill out and pass an evening.

It is 11 chapters and has chapter select, as you can probably guess that makes it super easy and convenient for achievement hunting, Overall I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot, Go for it!
7.6/10

Hey! You may (or may not) have wondered where I have been, And to that I have to say it’s complicated, A combination of a certain medical condition I found myself in and also start of a more busy schedule, I only managed to complete 2 games in the past month and the second one was a 3 hour long game I started and finished today.

So what is that game you may ask? The one I spent (on average) an hour and 20 minutes a day in for the past 2 months and decided to make it my comeback post, It’s none other than one of my favourite games of all time, From the one of a kind (and also one of my favourite) series of all time, NieR Replicant™ ver.1.22474487139…! (Does anyone actually read that number? Apparently Yoko Taro himself doesn’t remember the number sequence.) Here goes post #10.

First thing I gotta say about this game is that it has hands down some of the most annoying achievements and sidequests in the history of gaming, Almost 90% of the side quests were annoying fetch quests that made you travel across the map multiple times…. There was one achievement that required +20 hours of farming for materials!!!!! I managed to finish the full game in around 65 hours including all 5, 5! endings and all sidequests then started my journey towards getting 100% completion which in the end got me up to 86 hours, Funnily enough there was a speedrunning achievement too which I despise in games, But this one wanted you to finish the game in 15 hours, I managed to speedrun it without any preparations in just under 6 hours, Talk about generous.

In case you are not familiar with the NieR series, I will open up like this, They have the best music, Ever. You will struggle to find a game with better sound production than these 2 games have, every second of it gets stuck in your head and boosts your gaming experience no matter how many times you hear the tracks.

This game is an updated version of the original “NieR” (the first installment of the series originally released in Japan) so the gameplay is at best 2010 grade, It’s a PS3 game with more modern graphics, An uncomplicated hack and slash that you can complete without much grinding but NEED to grind for achievements, I like the gameplay as I am totally biased, Sue me.

Where this game really shines, Apart from the music ofc, Is the story, It’s a general theme with these NieR games, They are generally dark, When you finish the game, You’ve barely seen 30% of the content in the game, As I mentioned earlier this game has five endings and each one is better than the one before it, It’s riddled with stuff to understand about the universe, The best way to describe it is as an “experience” rather than a game, I feels like I’ve lived a second life for 86 hours, All sorts of emotions are at play with this game and it’s hard to get in depth without spoiling it, So I’ll leave that part to you, If you just want to experience the game and not the grindy annoying part of the achievement hunting, You can ignore most side quests, You don’t need weapon upgrades to get through the game either, The level up system is enough in easy/medium.

Overall I would give it a 8.78/10, The only place I found this game lacking was with the slightly outdated gameplay, And 1-2 achievements, Overall it’s a definite yes from me!