Some thoughts on random reading games I played in May [Reviews]

May is a great month. Especially in 2022! It was my birthday (I'm a Taurus bitch) AND my graduation month, plus I moved into a new place that's been way better for my mental health. Surely God will not punish me for living my best life!

...

...So I got Covid in the middle of the month and it ruined my birthday and I couldn't go to my college graduation. awesome hahahahshssajbfhdsbghsfdkgbhg

But while I lay in bed ill, and in the days before being ill, I played a lot of games thanks to my handy dandy Steam Deck. Side note, if you have the money to shell out, one of these is totally worth the investment. I got the cheapest model and a huge microSD card and I'm basically set for life here. Would definitely recommend it if you're someone who loves playing things handheld like me.

Without further ado... Allow me to give my general opinions on the many reading games I played last month. Not included in this is The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, which I think every person has played so why write about it but if you haven't played it then what is wrong with you go play it.

Marco & The Galaxy Dragon

So uh, this one of the best games I've played this year. Like, "If I had to make a list of my top 5 games I played in 2022 right now, this would easily be on there, and it wouldn't be squeezed in at number 5" level.

Marco & The Galaxy Dragon follows the aforementioned Marco and The Galaxy Dragon (Arco) as they get on a crazy misadventure to sell off some treasure they've found, while also searching for Marco's mother on Earth. Together, the two of them make a bunch of friends that are all varying degrees of insane people and save the planet from a variety of intergalactic threats.

Speaking honestly, the story isn't super important— it's definitely not bad, just a fun little adventure with some emotional developments along the way— but rather, the story is the vehicle for which fun things happen, and happen they do, oh man. This is very much a comedy over anything else, you can tell that the developers just wanted people to kick back and have fun. 

The Good— Everything about this game is top tier for me.

Music? Pretty great! Lots of fun tracks and some surprisingly emotional ones too.

Art? Pretty fantastic, and there are so many CGs it's actually alarming that they could pump this many out! This is hands down the most CGs I've seen in any single game and they're all very cute and well drawn.

Comedy? Genuinely hilarious to the point where I actually laughed out loud! On multiple occasions! 

Voice acting? Also top notch, perfectly nailed deliveries every time!

This game includes something that I don't really see super often, that being animated cutscenes, but it does a really good spin on them. For one, they can get pretty long, ranging from a minute to over five minutes on the more lengthy ones, but they also take a very interesting animation style. 

It's very clearly inspired by western animation, and I'm super obsessed with it??? These are all a joy to watch and they don't skimp on any action scenes, either. The interspersed animations and the comedy throughout makes this is one of the few games I would definitely recommend to someone who doesn't play VNs very often— it's almost just like watching an anime somehow??? Just trust me on this.

The Mixed— I think I've probably said a billion times in other critiques, Oh this game is good BUT there's writing issues or There's some plot discrepancies that are hard to overlook or whatever. Marco & The Galaxy Dragon is not immune to this— in fact, there are even some rather glaring plot holes. But despite all of that, this game was just so full of energy and fun that I couldn't even be mad at it. 

If you just close your eyes and imagine up some quick explanations to some of the issues, you'll be fine. They aren't are so bad that they turn the game into something I can't recommend.

I've only finished it a few weeks ago, but I'm definitely going to replay this in the near future. If you're going to try something new this month, let it be Marco & The Galaxy Dragon. It's an extremely engaging, funny game that also isn't very long either. Just a bunch of nonstop amusement.

Overall Score for Marco & The Galaxy Dragon: 4.5/5 stars

SeaBed

SeaBed is a yuri mystery VN by Palentology, localized by Fruitbat Factory back in 2017. Believe it or not, the main thing that attracted me to this game was its English website, which feels extremely old school. Check it out. 

Featuring a mainly woman-led cast (there is exactly one man that has a sprite in this game), SeaBed follows multiple protagonists— Sachiko, who's having some mental health issues after the mysterious disappearance of her girlfriend Takako, Takako, who's having her own story unfold in an entirely different setting, and Narasaki, a doctor that's friends with both girls and trying to resolve all the issues. Hey, what's with the LGBT and loving aquatic themes? SeaBed answers all your questions and even more.

I actually don't have very much to say about this game that isn't full-on spoilers, which I'm pretty against writing for things I label "Reviews". I mean, you wouldn't really be interested in playing a game if I spoiled the entire thing...

The Good— This is a very cozy game. Contrary to the Steam tag that labels it a mystery, SeaBed is less a heart thumping, twisty turning mystery game that you'd expect from a VN and more of a casual conversation that has a wild revelation now and then. If you don't like slow games then I don't think this is for you, but for me, I found that the story was consistently engaging enough for me not to get very tired of it. 

The romance between Takako and Sachiko is also very heartrending and realistic, and is hands down what makes this game so good. I dunno, I'm a simple woman, I see lesbians being happy together or longing for each other and I go "awwww fuckkkkkkkkkk". 

I'd also like to give this game points for something I rate LGBT content on, that being that, to my memory, this game does not bring up homophobia even once. Maybe it's wrong of me to be idealistic, but I like to imagine living in a world where that kind of discrimination doesn't exist. So big bonus points to SeaBed for not going into homophobia and making a good wlw relationship feel just as normal as any hetero relationship out there.

The Mixed— In my opinion, this game kind of trips over itself trying to stick the landing at the end, mainly because of how complicated things get as mystery gets peeled back. It doesn't do a very good job of laying things out for the reader and going "Hey, this is exactly what's going on." For people smarter than me, this is totally fine. For me, though, I was confused on some aspects and had to look to the Steam discussion board on this game. Remember11 but lesbians

For smaller nitpicks, the formatting of the text in this game can get pretty daunting at times, with gigantic paragraphs taking up the screen at times or the fact that there are no markers for when a certain character is speaking, leading to some interactions having me go, "Okay, who's saying what now?". The latter could be remedied by voice acting, if they ever decide to do that someday.

This is one of the tamer examples, but sometimes they really do put a shit ton of text on the screen that can make your eyes glaze over.

Depending on your priorities, you may want to spring for the Switch version of this game, as apparently there's extra content in that version that isn't on Steam yet. When asked if they were ever going to add that extra content in, the devs at first said yes, and then kinda went radio silent. Eh, it'll resolve itself, maybe.

SeaBed is a great game, and if you like chilling with some tea and reading in a little nook in your house, this is basically the best game you could ever play. Definitely would recommend it.

Overall Score for SeaBed: 3.5/5 stars

Necrobarista

Necrobarista is a game about death, grief, moving on, and opening up to others. It takes place in basically only one place, that being a coffeehouse called the Terminal that both living and dead can visit, the latter being for only a limited time before they have to pass on. Join the plucky characters of Necrobarista as they take in a new recently departed guest for the next couple hours and end up getting into some wacky scenarios!

I want to preface this by saying I went into the game totally blind aside from a friend recommending it when it first came out— basically, I was expecting nothing but "good enough to be recommended by a friend" quality.

And it is, in very certain aspects. Overall, though, this game is a really mixed bag, at least for me. Very high highs and very low lows.

The Good— The art direction and cinematography of this game fucks hard. I would genuinely put this on my "Best Looking Games" list. You can clearly tell that this was the aspect of the game the devs were most confident about, even going as far as to include an animation studio where the player can animate their own scenes with the characters (I did not even attempt to use this as my brain is too small, but the inclusion is awesome). 

Every scene is dripping with beauty, whether it be in the colors used in each shot or the way things are framed in said shots. I think I took around 100 or so screenies while playing. I would almost say that if you just need some artistic inspiration, this game is worth the purchase (if I recall it's $20, so if inspo is worth that much to you then pull out that wallet).

The music is also pretty great! Definitely peep some of that.

The Mixed— A lot of the characters have the same kind of voice (speaking mannerisms, slang used) within the story, which is annoying to maybe only me. This is what a Cartooning degree will do to a mf.

The Bad— The main story is genuinely all over the place, writing and emotional beat wise. Tension and suspense is never built right— a character will be told something like "You HAVE to do this by then or bad things are going to happen," and then that time comes and goes and there isn't any real change. You'll have a big scene that's supposed to feel important be followed by a very casual slice of life scene that in a way kind of pulls you out of the moment and feels like a cheap distraction. Sometimes characters will just sit around when it feels like they really should be doing something.

There are also a number of scenes very reminiscent of NieR Automata's cutaways when the Pods are talking with each other, but instead with robots that exist in the Terminal, and they more or less miss the mark when it comes to why the former's scenes were so important— Automata's used the Pods to further plot and their character developments, while these scenes in Necrobarista either exist to explain very obvious plot beats you just saw or say really unfunny jokes(? I don't know if they're even trying to be jokes).

If I had to put it into shorter words, the main story feels like the very first draft. Only toward the middle-end does Necrobarista manage to find its footing and a solid direction to take the writing and emotional beats, but by then it's just too late. 

And going back to what I said at the beginning, this makes me feel pretty frustrated, because this game could be pretty damn good if not for the weak writing. If the script was tightened up, if stakes were built better, if things that happened later in the game happened earlier, this would probably be a top contender for me for one of the best games I played this year. It's a game that made me sit back and go, "Dammit, I would have made this game my whole personality for a month if it stuck the landing".

I would still recommend Necrobarista for the sheer artistic prowess it has, but it's a bit painful for a game that has all ingredients to be a masterpiece to fall flat like this.

Overall Score for Necrobarista: 2.5/5 stars

Muv Luv Extra

I'm tacking this on here as a surprise. I didn't like this you guys. Tama rules though.

Did I kind of dig my own grave playing Extra? If you look online, it's almost universally agreed to skip the majority of this game and move onto Unlimited, and to definitely not 100% it because you're a sick freak who likes achievement hunting. But alas I did. And it wasn't very fun...

But at the same time, if Unlimited and/or Alternative are raw kino goat swag, then at the very least I was able to understand the characters better instead of jumping into the games following Extra completely blind. I played all the content age made for the audience to experience and I should be proud!

I'll keep telling myself that, anyways. I would really only recommend this game if you're cool with nothing really happening for 90% of the game and can read slow games.

Overall Score for Muv Luv Extra: 1/5 stars

In summary, getting Covid sucked, but man did I clear out that backlog!

I'd like to finish a game or two before AI Nirvana Initiative comes out, so let's see if I actually do that... Can't believe it's this month. It's actually eating me up inside how excited I am for this sequel, man.

Until next time, for my indepth AINI review that will shock the nation!