It's June! You know what that means. Happy Pride Month! And also, half of the year's over already, Jesus Christ.
I've put together a list of all the games I've played so far this year 'cuz I just wanna talk about them at length (and possibly recommend some to you, dear viewer). Listed in order I played them, not in any ranking order.
1) Another Code: Recollection
The remake of Two Memories is by all definitions pretty solid. The original was extremely short, so the expansion of it to about a 7-10 hour experience was welcome. At first, I wasn't sure about how they railroad you into discovering everything (for example, collecting D's memories to lead to the good or neutral ending is a thing in the original, but in the remake, collecting all of his memories is mandatory, so there's only one ending), but I think this works best to make your first playthrough a good experience. I would say this is the ideal version to play if you've never played the series before.
I can't really say the same about R, though. Most of this is because of the sheer amount of puzzles removed from the remake version of this game, which makes me very confused they would even remove some to begin with? I'm also mixed on the story changes, which are plentiful toward the middle and lead to an entirely different ending. I might have been more positive on these if there were more puzzles in the game, because taking some out made the pacing of the plot feel really weird, but it also just felt like they didn't want to write much either to back up some of the new plot and instead rush to the conclusions.
This makes it sound like I'm a total hater, but I'm really not. Recollection is a good game, but it could have been better. Seriously why did they remove so many puzzles it's like they're scared of giving you puzzles???
My weird advice is I do recommend this bundle, but I also recommend playing the original games too. The originals are pretty short and have that Cing soul, where they do gimmick-y puzzles like closing your DS or plugging in a nunchuk on the Wii. Recollection lacked soulful puzzles, probably to account for the Switch Lite users that had their joycons stuck to the consoles. The Switch Lite ruined the potential for a puzzle where I had to throw my joycon on the floor in Recollection. Boo.
3.5/5
2) Pikmin 4
3) Master Detective Archives: Rain Code
1/5
4) Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo 3 ODST
(JB described this as "It's like a bunch of bros accidentally got really into Star Trek", and yeah I agree with this.)
- Halo CE: I don't have nostalgia for this game (obviously), so playing it for the first time, I found the maps kind of really confusing and the difficulty was crazy, even with a friend to help out. While the story wasn't hard to follow, it didn't interest me much until later with Guilty Spark. Him and Cortana yelling at each other was really funny. I was surprised that the titular Halo are weapons of mass destruction, like ugh my problematic fav... The ending had me really tense, and when Foehammer died I was totally crushed. There goes my Cortana/Foehammer yuri. 3/5.
- Halo 2: This is where it got more fun for me. I think the addition of a lot of the humor plus the HD cutscenes made me way more interested. The fact it ended on a cliffhanger didn't bother me considering I was playing in 2024, but I tried to imagine how it would have felt back then... Honestly, I think it would have both bummed me out while also making me really hype. The Arbiter is by far my favorite character, but this game also introduced Miranda, who I liked basically just because she was a girl character. You have to understand that whenever there's a girl character in a male dominated game I will automatically become her strongest soldier. I was very happy she actually survived til the end. Too bad about Halo 3. 4/5
- Halo 3: This is a genius game. So hype the entire time. If you play visual novels this is basically the Utawarerumono Mask of Truth of Halo games. The Professor Layton Unwound Future of Halo games. You can shoot me for saying that but it's true. Just constant highs and payoffs. Sgt Johnson and Miranda's respective deaths had me totally gutted. I actually screamed and had my head in my hands for both. To quote myself after Johnson died, "Fucking kill that thing (Guilty Spark) now. Fucking kill him." I'm playing in retrospect, so I know he comes back, but the ending of this game's framing as possibly Chief's last adventure was so cool and powerful. I don't think any other Halo game will top this one for me, it's simply too good.
- My weird Halo opinion is I kind of don't care for the Flood outside of CE, I was getting so sick of them by this game. I think they were a really cool concept back in CE and were fine in 2 but in 3 it was just too much. I think nostalgia probably plays a factor in this, I was playing these games back to back, but a fan who waited years for Halo 2 and 3 might have been really hype to see the Flood again.
- Also, weirdly Arbiter and Chief don't speak as much as I thought they would to each other. We played mutliplayer the whole time so it was fun to imagine Arbiter awkwardly standing to the side as his boyfriend (Chief) tearfully reunited with his wife (Cortana). The ending where Arby says "were it so easy" to parallel the beginning... Erm, yeah, Kino Department? You're gonna wanna see this. Master Chief is gaming's first straight man with a boyfriend and a wife. 4.5/5
- Halo 4: I think this one was overall a mess. After I complained about it a bit people said a lot of the plot elements that suddenly appear in this game are mentioned in the books, that it's like a bunch of diehard fans of Halo got to make their own game. I suddenly understood. It would be like if they let me make a Metroid game, my stupid ass would put in Samus and Joey references and hardly anyone in the audience would get it. Still though, I think they should have built up to a lot of the plot points better. Also, Master Chief talks way too much in this one. He's at his coolest when he's silent and occasionally dropping one liners. In 4, he is talking all the time, allllllll the time. It's too much, it makes every time he speaks feel less cool. They don't understand what makes Master Chief cool.
- Tangentially, I hate that you can see Master Chief's face in this game. Even just a brief glimpse. Some headass @'d me like "wow, you hate it because he's WHITE?!??!!", like, are you actually braindead? I don't care what race he is. I don't care because I don't need to know. Master Chief IS his suit. He is a cog in the machine. He has no individuality. That's what makes him so cool. The second you give me more information about him, when you let me see his face, now he isn't the Master Chief. He's some fuckin guy. 1.5/5
- Halo 3 ODST: We played this after 4, and the Bungie writing was definitely a breath of fresh air. It made me go "Now that's the Halo I know!" like Halo is my son or something. I think this was a cool concept to do, a storyheavy Halo without the Chief. It made the world feel more lived in. I also love Vergil so, so, so much. Probably my biggest critique is this game is so dark, you have to have the nightmode on half the time you play. That and why is that one guy there? Was he a huge Halo fan? You know the guy I'm talking about. I always forget his name.
5) Trauma Center: Second Opinion
If my nurse said this to me I would say "Bet" and kill myself in front of her to drastically change the course of her life forever.
(after a brief look on the web) it's possible they may have cut the entire last chapter of the original because the child experimentation stuff was too heavy. my bad yall
2.5/5
6) Trauma Team
Yeah, the Trauma Center games are good. But Trauma Team scratches an itch in my brain that the Center games can't.
Instead of just doing surgeries like in Trauma Center, in Trauma Team you're doing surgeries, diagnosing patients, setting their bones back, performing emergency rescue services, investigating murders spurred on by ghost phone calls (I like that Naomi gets this ability with little to no explanation, she can just hear ghosts now, fucking deal with it), and shoving an Endoscope down people's throats. Somehow, these scattered minigames weave together to create a kino experience.
I think Trauma Team is very much bursting with soul. Maybe the term "soul" is getting old, but you can really FEEL it in Trauma Team. It's so unique. I don't think any other game trying to appeal to a modern, Wii-playing audience would ever think "Let's make this guy's entire gameplay segment just questioning patients, examining their X-rays and MRIs, and loading up their symptoms into his computer until he finds a match" would make for compelling gameplay, but I loved it! They were honestly my favorite segments of the game.
If that didn't scream "soul", then the use of a Mii in place of Navel's actual face says it all...
I think the story can be a bit hard to follow at first if you're just playing the mini games however you want— I eventually figured out there was an order to things and kind of wish they railroaded you into playing in a certain order like they do in the back half of the game. If you give this a try, definitely clear each horizontal row of the flow chart first before moving onto the next instead of doing 5 surgeries in a row like I did. The central plot does lead into a story about a fast acting, super contagious, very deadly super virus, so that was very fun and wholesome to read about in our post-COVID world ("post" being generous). Funnily enough the story was influenced by the Swine Flu pandemic. Trauma series make a comeback game about super COVID please!
Something that was pretty understated in other Trauma Center games is the aesthetic of the UI and how the game is presented to you. I guess that works in their favor, the majority feel very clinical with how plain they are, and these are doctor games. But Trauma Team really livens things up with a great butterfly-comic-stained glass window aesthetic that's bursting with color. This sounds like nonsense when I type it out, but the visuals are stellar, you'll just have to trust me on this. It's a standout compared to every other game.
I've yet to finish Trauma Center: New Blood, but unless it pulls off something unreal like Markus getting naked onscreen, Trauma Team is my favorite of the games with no contest.
I wish Naomi would step on my throat
4.5/5
7) Spirit Hunter: NG
I enjoy scary things, so NG's jumpscare meter was set to high the whole time. And I did get seriously jumpscared once or twice, which was funny. You can turn all jumpscares off if you wish, but in NG you're still getting hunted down by grotesque spirits, running into dead bodies, listening to really gross sound effects, and can even get the occasional bad end where someone in your party dies— so if scary things aren't your thing, I wouldn't recommend this for you.
NG is only loosely connected to Death Mark through passing mentions of characters every now and then, not enough to distract you or make you feel lost. There's a proper sequel for Death Mark with the earthshatteringly great title of Death Mark 2 which I've yet to play, it's only come out within the last couple of months! I'll have to see how I like it whenever I eventually buy it. Need to clear more off my backlog. Regardless, I'd recommend NG both as a standalone game and as a game you should definitely try if you've played or plan on playing Death Mark.
Weirdly enough one of my biggest and only gripes with NG is the UI. I know, this is typical Lone shit to play something and notice something really stupid, but in my opinion the UI does not compliment the game AT ALL and it sort of clashes with the spooky vibe. It's giving pop comic book lowkey Persona 5 energy, not spooky at all. It's super bright. This takes place in the 90's, so I'd even welcome a 90's aesthetic, but no. Brightass yellow...
Here's an example of Death Mark's UI:
Sorry I might be the only person to care about this, but little touches can greatly affect a whole piece.
4.5/5
8) Undertale Yellow
9) Jack Jeanne
Jack Jeanne is what feels like the longest otome game I've ever played in my entire life. I should be awarded a purple heart for 100%ing this, fuck.
The game follows [Insert Name Here] Tachibana, a girl masquerading as a boy so she can enter an all-boy's acting high school to fulfill her dreams of acting like her elder brother did before he mysteriously disappeared. There are 7 main routes you can take, 6 featuring other boys in said high school, 1 heroine route, and a ton of other side interactions you can have that can lead to separate character endings and even bad endings.
The common route for Jack Jeanne is long. It is so, so, so long, and this game also contains two different types of rhythm game segments, and also you have to pick your schedule every day/week, and there are tons of random pop up dialogues you can get, AND along the way in the common route you get new scenes for the guy you're pursuing. This game is so fucking long, I have nearly 80 hours in it, I have never played any otome game that has lasted me this long. I have to keep reiterating this because it is the main thing that stuck with me once I had finished it. This is a commitment.
It's a good commitment, though.The individual character routes were fantastic, really engaging. I imagine Jack Jeanne's depiction of theatre/musical theatre might be horrendous for those who actually partake in it (for example, half the plays have the characters adlibing new lines/changing parts of their role on the fly, I don't think that shit flies on Broadway), but it was fun to read for me personally. Watching the characters learn their roles and describe how they think like who they're playing was like watching a spider make an intricate web.
The art is also to die for. I believe this is done by the Tokyo Ghoul guy? It's a really unique style, something I'm not used to seeing in the otome game sphere, but it's beautiful. It took an hour or two to grow on me at first with the sprites, I won't lie, but Jack Jeanne has totally gorgeous CGs. Probably some of the best in the business. I'd like to see another game illustrated by this guy... There's going to be a Jack Jeanne 2, so I guess my wish was granted!
As for critiques... I'm honestly divided on the rhythm game aspect, which is crazy because I normally love rhythm games. The songs are generally good, but I played this game over 6 times to get everything, and they don’t let you skip the rhythm gameplay at all! I feel like by loop 4 they should give you an immunity idol or something, the music becomes so grating and it totally pads the runtime. How you do in these segments does affect your ending, but like, man... I ended up playing the last 3 routes with the music muted.
You don't have to be a crazy completionist like me to try Jack Jeanne out, I think even just doing two or three routes is enough to get the picture of its greatness. I might write more on this in the future, I only just finished it two weeks ago and I have a lot of thoughts.
My route ranking: Mutsumi > Fumi > Mitsuki > Neji > Kisa (this was the first game I've played where the heroine route felt weirdly not focused) > Yonaga > Orimaki
4.5/5
10) Unicorn Overlord
This game is great if you're missing Fire Emblem 4 like I am.
Unicorn Overlord is one of the few games I've played this year that actually came out in 2024, the other being Another Code Recollection. I enjoy SRPGs, I enjoy fantasy, I like Vanillaware's artstyle. Picking this up was a nobrainer.
The story is your basic fantasy romp— evil has taken over, a prince hidden away for his safety emerges when he's of age and begins his conquest to take back the country from the evil empire. Along the way the prince meets new people and gets allies that aid him in his quest. It is very, very standard. I would put this in the Fire Emblem 6-8 sphere of fantasy plots where it's pretty basic and doesn't really surprise you in any way with a bigger element thrown into the mix (ie: FE9/Triangle Strategy racism element, Utawarerumono Oh Shit We In The Future element).
This isn't a big negative, though, because wow, is there a lot of worldbuilding and tons of character interactions to keep you paying attention. At the time of writing, I've beat Unicorn Overlord just a little over 24 hours ago, but I'm still playing in the postgame to unlock Rapport conversations between characters and finishing up the overworld quests. There's a lot of stuff to do, and it made it hard to put the game down because I just kept wanting to play...
I like playing SRPGs, but I don't know if I can qualify myself as being good at them. There's tons of ways to customize your units, from changing their equips, changing how their CPU strategize, all the down to being able to even change their entire color scheme and stat growth pattern if you've got the item for it— I imagine true strategyheads will get a huge kick out of this. My personal favorite element is how rather than maps being split up in separate places on a main map (think FE8), you're playing on the continents themselves (think FE4). Really makes the game feel like a proper adventure, and expanding across the land is a real accomplishment.
Possibly the only downside to how much content there is + the worldmap being the main play area is I wish the maps were more diverse or gimmicky in nature. There are some main story maps that have fun gimmicks like protecting an area for a short while, but the goal of nearly every map, main story or sidequest, is to capture the main base of the enemy. With the terrain also being pretty same-y and not posing much of an obstacle (there's a desert but such a small amount of desert maps), it makes me wish that more main story maps had fun bits.
I already briefly posted before about how Unicorn Overlord drops the ball in the back half with the Rite of the Maiden— a rite where the main character Alain exchanges rings with a maiden to unlock power. "Maiden" is kept gender neutral, and is meant to be anyone Alain has a close relationship with (he can only complete this rite with those he has three Rapport Hearts with, aka highest support with).
For some reason, despite Vanillaware writing gay characters before, all the male characters are locked into a strictly platonic rite with Alain, while a majority of the girls explicitly get married to Alain/he says he loves them and asks them to be his wife.
I genuinely do not care if the guys say shit like "I'm going to be with
you for the rest of my life", "I need you", etc. Unless Alain looks a
man in the eyes and says "I love you, be my husband", these rites are
all platonic, and it's really fucking dumb they did this. I am so sick
of taking scraps of representation, the fact that they're doing this in
2024 is so stupid. Not like their gay rep in 13 Sentinels was
that great to begin with when 30% of the time they went "Haha, you like a
boy!! With a dick!! That's so funny!!" but they got serious with it
when they needed to. Man I truly dislike 13 Sentinels's story
I married Travis anyways cuz idgaf. But the fact you can marry your cousin who looks exactly like your mom before you can marry a man honestly knocked half a star off my score here, this is so dumb.
Overall, I think Unicorn Overlord is worth checking out if you like strategy games and your favorite Fire Emblem game is Fates (not because of the story but because of the insane gigabraining you can do with the gameplay and customization. or maybe because of the story, who am i to judge). If you're mainly in this for a compelling story, unfortunately I don't think you'll find one that'll really wow you, but the bountiful character interactions you can pick up along the way may make up for that.
3.5/5
In Closing
Currently I am playing:
- Cupid Parasite: Sweet and Spicy Darling. Otome gamers unite.
- Halo Reach! With JB. This has been slow going and will probably be slow going for a while because the new Elden Ring DLC dropped and half of my friends disappeared overnight to go play it. Hope y'all are remembering to hydrate.
- Pikuniku. I got this in an itchio bundle. I should pick it back up.
- Trauma Center: New Blood. I think I ragequit after a really hard mission. I got to the part after they were kidnapped by terrorists. There are so many terrorists in these games what's going on at Atlus
- THE iDOLM@STER: ONE FOR ALL. An English fanpatch dropped a while back! iDOLM@STER fan excited to actually play iDOLM@STER (console game) for the first time.
- Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines. I wanted to 100% this but I can't get something in it to work... I need to pick it back up.
- Valkyria Chronicles 4. It is okay. I'm actually 3 chapters from the end apparently. I think I dropped this to play more Halo.
Feel free to suggest games to me so I can add them onto my infinitely growing backlog!
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