Well, being out of a job again has helped pushed me to getting back to my backlog at least, from the $team $ummer $ale to the Overwhelmingly Positive Humble Bundle and February Humble Monthly (XCOM 2 for $10.80? sign me up). Why not also post in a thread I occasionally read through but never participate?
VA-11 Hall-a: Gameplay elements are minimal. It's just a VN with your dialogue choices disguised as drink mixing and most "bad choices" lead to strictly less story/characterization as your customers leave early, so there's little need to experiment. The characters ooze charm though, and as long as you don't let the real-world implications of the existence of one particular character bother you like some reviews I've seen... it's a quaint little journey to nowhere. Gets a little weeby-memey at times but it stays grounded.
Bioshock 2: This didn't capture my attention like the first game but that's probably my age showing more than anything, or my general apprehension to FPS games. The game itself is great. It's kinda easy once you figure things out because everything is broken used to its full potential, but by that same token there's great replayability for those who want more because everything is viable. I like that each area is compartmentalized into separate levels to avoid endless backtracking, though at the cost of more organic exploration that others might prefer.
My only major gripe is that half the Steam cheevos are locked behind the dead multiplayer or the DLC Minerva's Den, the latter of which is supposed to be great but it's also still going to be full-price $10 fifty years from now because it never gets discounted. The main game doesn't even cost that much anymore, get with the fucking program Take-Two.
Plus the aggravation of the Remaster refusing to load on my five-year-old Windows 7 rig which definitely shouldn't have any compatibility issues, so I had to play the original.
Fortune Summoners: 2D RPG sidescroller not dissimilar to a typical Metroidvania, a little doujin game brought stateside by the guys who gave us the more well-known Chantelise and Recettear. It's not so bad that I'm going to struggle to finish it but it has clear and numerous flaws that I probably wouldn't recommend it. There are more good video games out there than time to play them, let alone other media.
The combat, the meat of the gameplay, is actually pretty fun. The main character is a melee fighter who (ideally) strings together swordplay moves like fighting game combos... but the controls are incredibly stiff due to no attack cancelling or buffered inputs. It plays like the Mana or Tales series, where you manually control one character and the AI controls the rest of your three-char-max party. The mage characters are well-implemented and the AI is very good, even showcasing the buzzsaw potential of the MC if you can ever get cozy with the controls.
Even the easiest enemies require strategy to defeat and the game ties your level cap to progression, so there's no grinding to cheese the very legitimate challenge this game offers, but there's also plenty of fake difficulty: the enemy AI, also like a fighting game, instantly reads your inputs. Multiple enemies can easily stunlock you to death; there are no invincibility frames and status resistance comes way too late. The melee range of the MC is absolutely pitiful on top of the stated stiff controls. Those problems alleviate as your party grows but, sadly, you spend as much time solo as you do with backup.
The platforming elements can sometimes be annoying due to imprecise controls, but they're not too intrusive and allow for simple puzzles to diversify the gameplay. More aggravating is the incessant backtracking you have to do through the same boring caves and dungeons to pad game length, with no map to boot. RPG elements are minimal, as stat growth is straight RNG (ugh) and skills simply unlock as you level. Limited space adds inventory management to the legit side of the game's difficulty, with no passive recovery to go with it, but ultimately it is somewhat forgiving in that a "game over" simply places you back on the previous screen like nothing happened.
I'm not done with the game yet, but from what I've spoiled myself with the game basically ends after Act One, so to speak. One-man dev crew simply being too ambitious, or an intentional hook to a sequel that will never come? It's a bit disappointing either way but at least the potential is there. For better or worse, the game
Tastes Like Diabetes even in a world where little kids have to fight dangerous monsters on the way to school daily
and adults are totally okay with this. Art is cute, music is unspectacular but functional.
Oh, the actual most aggravating thing about the game though is that it only renders at 640x480 resolution. -_------------ It couldn't at least be 800x600? The game isn't that old. You can play in 1280x960 fullscreen but windowed is stuck at 640x480 max, so good luck trying to play windowed on a resolution larger than 1080p... although at least it actually
plays unlike the BioShock 2 Remaster.
Damn, I wrote a whole review about it.