Indecision.

I played a thing. It might have been a game. It's called Indecision. and it left an impression on me in the 40 minutes it took for me to finish it.
I would tell you more about this game, but I can't. For one, because that would spoil it. But also because there isn't much to say about this game. It's more of a collection of ideas, more of an experience than a proper game. It doesn't cost much anything, time- nor money-wise, maybe 2-3 hours to see everything there is.
It's really quite brilliant, and I simply had to give it a spot on my list. I wasn't really sure what to file it under, but it seems my "Story Puzzle" category is currently occupied by these "experience" types of games. As the creator also mentions, this game is not for everyone, but it was an experience I needed, and I would recommend you experience it too.

PS. I think there's potential in some of these ideas to be developed further, into something bigger. Indecision. gave me some weird, somewhat unfounded hope that we will not be running out of games that push the boundaries of what can be done in games, even if this game alone is not that remarkable.

Celeste

Celeste is a platformer. It has been described as having a great soundtrack and story. It is also comfortably among the 100 highest rated games on Steam at this point. So, naturally, I had high expectations going into it. Sadly, I was gravely disappointed. Partially my own fault, as I was swayed by what good I had heard about the game, but I must say I am very surprised about its popularity.

I think my biggest surprise was that Celeste really was just a platformer. It didn't promise much more, but I thus fail to see the appeal. I feel like repeating my thoughts from my I wanna be The Cat review, but Celeste perhaps deserves a bit better. It is also a very difficult platformer with relatively simple controls - moving, jumping, climbing on walls, and a mid-air dash replenished upon hitting the ground. Throw in some level-specific stuff like moving platforms, spring boards, dash refreshers, some others, and of course environmental spike and pit hazards, and that's pretty much the whole game.

The levels aren't that difficult at first, and again, I wouldn't really hold the difficulty against the game too much, especially with an existing easy mode. My main problem is that I fail to find the fun in this game. Maybe plain platformers just aren't my cup of tea, but I will echo my thoughts from before. It's not about figuring out what to do - the path and actions to the goal are generally clear after a short look at the level. Instead, the gameplay comes down to your platforming skill - your capability to press the right buttons in the right order, with timings often accurate to a tenth of a second. If you fail that, you do the same thing again, until you succeed. That is not my idea of fun, it's repetitive and tedious, and it is why I am astonished that there are so many people who want exactly this.
Regarding the other aspects... As you may have guessed, I didn't get very far, but I hear there's a bit more story later on. Don't expect to find any at the beginning though. The soundtrack? I didn't see it as anything special. Perhaps only the art and the environment somewhat caught my eye. To me, the game is quite unremarkable.

Maybe I'll think harder before deciding to try out a pure platformer the next time. Still, as just a platformer and nothing more, I can't fault it for much. The levels and mechanics were well-made, if a little bare in features for my taste. Considering how much others praise it, I can't in good faith tell you that you shouldn't play it if you like platformers. Still, as I personally fail to see the appeal, I can't personally recommend it either.

End-of-week Report

Well well, what's this? Progress? It's only temporary, I assure you. Next week is exam week, and the week after that I got to defend my thesis. Still, I'm glad I got to laze for a little while.

• Games in backlog: 291 (-1)
• of which Early Access: 58
• Games reviewed last week: 4

Rez Infinite

With the limited time I have, I sometimes just add games to my list because they are positively received. Surely hundreds of people saying something is good means it's not completely terrible, and there's at least some chance of me liking it, right? Well, sometimes I have no idea what people are thinking, and Rez Infinite is a fine example.

It's a game where you fly "on-rails" through some digital-glitchy-wireframe-looking world and the only thing you have to (and can) do, is drag your mouse over pretty much everything that moves to destroy it. That's it. That's the game. It's got all the excitement of a generic clicker game, for only a tiny fraction of the content and dopamine release. There isn't even much to bash here, since it's barely a game. How it has over 500 reviews for a >90% positive score, I'll never know. Don't... don't touch it yourself.

911 Operator

911 Operator is a game that mimics the job of a dispatcher who answers various emergency calls. I could not tell you about how accurately the game portrays this, but it does at least have a serious tone about it and creates a somewhat believable atmosphere. Whether this supposed authenticity means something to you is yours to decide, but thematically, this is not a game that speaks to me. Form, however, is not something I would much grade a game for, so how's the gameplay?

Well, in the game you control a number of various police, medical, and firefighting vehicles on a city map. All around the map, emergencies can pop up, and it's up to you to quickly dispatch suitable vehicles to deal with them, depending on the nature of the emergency. Occasionally, instead of getting a direct request to send a police and an ambulance, for example, you get a call, and have to, through a fully voiced dialogue with different response options, figure out the location and nature of the emergency and perhaps offer initial help while sending the vehicles you believe to be right. After the day, you get your profits from that day and can use them to buy new vehicles, new staff, new equipment, and arrange anything you already have. Not really the job of the dispatcher in reality, but whatever makes the game more interesting, I suppose.

Now, the problem is that there isn't much to do in the game past the initial couple of hours. Starting from the last things I mentioned, the "squad" management aspect of the game is pretty useless. There's a lot of detail in the personal skills of the workers, speed and capacity of vehicles, and somewhat in their equipment, but it doesn't matter. More vehicles and people, if you can afford them, is better, so buy them. You don't have the time or need to consider the specialties of your vehicles and people, except for how many patients / criminals they can fit, just send whoever is the closest suitable one. So, really, that part could be tossed out in favor of improving the rest of the game.
The calls are quite interesting at first, and can actually somewhat teach you about actual first aid in emergencies. I particularly liked one where a man had just lost a leg to an accident with a machine and you not only had to give first aid help, but also provide psychological assistance like ensuring he doesn't just give up while the medics got there. These were the best part of the game, but sadly started repeating quite frequently after just 2 hours. The rest of the game is just a game of clicking the right colored vehicles to go to the right colored locations. Helps if you take a quick glance at how many people might need to be transported away, or if a heavier police team might be necessary, but it wasn't very stimulating nonetheless.

If you particularly care for the thematic of this game, then it might be a more interesting experience, but otherwise, prepare to run out of excitement a couple of hours in. You quickly familiarize yourself with all the concepts of the game, then soon all the dialogue, and then it just becomes a game of clicking through the right choices - not very exciting. I actually liked it for the first hour or two, and I feel like it could be improved by making the map and dispatch system somewhat more complicated. There should be some challenge in performing your duties, but right now, I just can't recommend playing this.

Unworthy

Oh hey, it's another game that basically blatantly rips off the core elements of Dark Souls but sticks to an overall simpler and smaller game and a 2D world. It is Unworthy, and it quite reminds me of Salt and Sanctuary, except it's shorter and simpler still. As I've said before, there's nothing inherently bad about copying the design of another game, but by doing so, you put your game at a direct comparison with what you copied. In the case of Dark Souls, there's some pretty big shoes to fill, and if you don't plan to do a better job, then there better be something quite unique about your game.

Sadly, Unworthy stays too close to the formula with not much new and exciting to offer. There's less enemy types, less equipment, less customization, worse lore, the maps are on the bland side... I'd say the biggest flaw however is the lack of choice in general. Too often did I find myself being locked to a path because there was some prerequisite I had to fill, often in the form of defeating a boss, or simply because the world was too linear. Or for example after acquiring a new weapon, a hammer, everything suddenly wanted me to use it to solve some platforming puzzle or break down a wall instead of offering me multiple ways to approach the problem. It may seem like nitpicking, as a lot of games have linearity and singular solutions, but I feel like it's worth highlighting this lack of choice as it's definitely not as good as the alternative that I've come to expect from these kinds of games.
Another big problem I had was with spending my Sin, which acts as a sort of currency for improving my character. As a direct copy of Souls, it was dropped on death, and lost if not picked up before dying again. And, you know, that's fine, but there was an alarming lack of places to spend it. The occasional places that would accept these as payment were so few and far between it was very difficult to not lose the majority of what you had gathered. Worse still, the ones I encountered did not allow using them again, leaving no reason to come back. Considering the lack of teleportation at save points, I feel the journey back to use them would have been a fine price to pay.

Overall, Unworthy is not a bad game. It's just not new nor original, and isn't good enough to not be eclipsed by the games that came before it. As such, I can't recommend it. If you want an experience like this, play Salt and Sanctuary, or even one of the Souls games. Unworthy just... isn't worthy.

Tales of Berseria

I believe it took me approximately nine months overall to finish Tales of Berseria. As such, what I remember of it is kind of smeared across a very long time, but I'll do my best to recollect it.

Tales of Berseria is the latest in the series of Tales games that has spanned 16 games since 1995. As most have not been available on PC (until the rather recent ports) I have only played the previous installment, Tales of Zestiria, and thus lack a good comparison point. Still, I can offer my thoughts on the game as something separate, and perhaps that's a useful viewpoint as well.
Tales of Berseria is a JRPG, and I've had a bad history with such games. They tend to have a massive focus on story, often spending more time on dialogue and cutscenes than gameplay. There is of course the story versus gameplay perspective to consider, where if one is better, you dislike having to do the other. And the final frequent issue of JRPGs is the needlessly complicated game mechanics, which devolve to some small subset of mechanics that turn out to be an optimal solution, leaving you with both a steep learning curve and a lot of unused portions of gameplay. To my dismay, Tales of Berseria is not an exception, not really at least.

To get the comparison out of the way, the previous game, Zestiria definitely had it worse. While it's fundamentally the same, with the gameplay consisting of running around a somewhat open world, entering battles, attacking the enemies until their HP finally drops to zero, leveling up, upgrading your gear, and being interrupted with neverending dialogue and cutscenes at every possible moment, Berseria did it better in pretty much all regards. A better skill system, a simplified (but no less useful) gear progression system, better characters, and a better story, to name a few.
The story was definitely the better half of this game, and what kept me playing. While the gameplay wasn't bad initially, it simply grew stale over time, as I figured out the optimal patterns by which to fight, and combat just became an obstacle. However, allow me to praise the combat for how effective and dynamic it looked. While it could have definitely been better mechanically, it was quite the eye candy.

The reason this game took nine months for me (aside from having a lot to do IRL) is that it took a grand total of 85 hours to beat. While I'm generally all for having longer games and more playtime, the problem here was that what made up the majority of that time were not the good parts of the game. I feel there was only enough story and "combat enjoyment" for maybe 40 hours, and that would have been enough and made for a better game. Condense the story, condense the fights, leave the player with a higher enjoyment per hour, which is what often really matters these days. Past about 50 hours, I was so tired of slogging through the game I considered quitting. The only thing that stopped me was that the game was enjoyable in all aspects at first, and by the time I had gotten to the point I didn't want to play anymore, I kept going just because I was invested in the story.

In conclusion - a good story with mediocre gameplay that drags on for far too long. If JRPGs in general are your cup of tea, then this might be quite enjoyable. All things considered, I would have to say I recommend it, but do be warned that it will take an eternity to complete. Tales of Berseria also earns a spot on the list of the best RPGs I've played, but rather barely. I guess you could say it's on the side of "good", rather than "the best", and might fall out someday. Still, I will await the next installment, and if it's as much of an improvement as Berseria was over Zestiria, I hope I'll be glad to play it.

End-of-week Report

There. Done. 85+ hours, but it's finished. The review will be up tomorrow, and the report of how all the accumulated games have completely filled my backlog in the meanwhile is down below. I got one more week of moderate relaxation, and then up to two more weeks of the hell of finishing uni.

Surprisingly, the amount of Early Access games still continues to go down, even as the overall amount increases. Perhaps putting your game in Early Access is no longer trending and people are back to publishing finished games?

• Games in backlog: 292 (+7)
• of which Early Access: 58 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week

Last week was an utterly draining experience of finishing my thesis. It is done now though, and I've had a bit of time to rest, so I want to complete some games at long last. Tales of Berseria will be finished in the next few days, end of the week at worst, and then I get to go on to others.

No report last week, and none this week, as I haven't caught up in looking through Steam's games. I could probably update in the next few days, but I don't see the hurry. The report shall resume next week.