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FINAL FANTASY XVI

One of the games I was hyped for this year, go figure. It's one of the games I made the backlog for. The game this year I was going to play no doubt, and the one I wanted to finish as much of the older titles to get to.

Sadly, I didn't get longer than FFII, and a few hours into FFIII before it spiraled out of control, but the point being the backlog in general, and I've done quite a dent into that one, with 10 titles completed, plus the three that came out this year. So, 13, er, 14(with this one of course) now completed within 6 months. In my book, that's decent and a half.

So, on to the game. Because, boy, do I have a lot to say about this game.

Right from the get go, FFXVI lets you know, this is a game for adults. Unlike any other title in the series, be it mainline or any spinoffs, it doesn't shy away from dropping f-bombs, or nudity. Sure, the nudity is about as hardcore as the Austin Powers movies, but FF never did anything like this before. It's raw, in your face, and not afraid to do so. But then, at some points, it behaves like a child that's never been allowed to say things like cock before, and then it misuses it in so many ways. Sentences like "I'll fucking kill you" feels fairly well placed, sure, but "you cock" is uttered by a woman exiting a room after a man, in a seducing way, only to have him have his dry-humping ways with her against a wall.

Oh my. Adult themed indeed. And this, of course, only taking place within the first hour or so of the game, it's making damn sure you know the tone, before it sails off into it's nor-

No. Not normal ways. Because this game really, really doesn't deserve its namesake. There's pretty much nothing tying this to the Final Fantasy series.

Now, let's recap a tad, shall we? What is the Final Fantasy series? In as-short-as-I-can-put-it, it's a JRPG series. It's always been a JRPG series, with all that entails. An overworld, random battles, time/turn based battles, magic spells, various classes, different species, summon magics, recurring threads like Chocobos and Moogles, summons being mostly the same, but with a new design, a character called Cid somehow bound to airships, airships, a love story(although that's really only since FFVII), killer graphics for their time, absolutely breathtaking music, and a good story. For the most part.

Yes, it's a series very close to me, and yes, it's hard for me to recap it in a few keywords. My point, however, is that with the latter titles(specifically FFXV and FFXVI), all those things have been thrown to the side, to a certain extent. Yes, both XV and XVI have chocobos, summons, good music and, I guess magic spells, they both are so different from their predecessors, it's hard to call either of them FF games. Except for some reason, XV is a good title, and I absolutely loved playing it for 200 fucking hours. Gotta mean something. I could of course talk about it for paragraphs, but it's not todays topic.

FFXVI is so drastically different, it's nigh-impossible to even call it an FF title.

Overworld? - lackluster map with points you can teleport to.

Random battles? - No.

Time/turn based battles? - Not even close.

Magic Spells? - Technically yes, but they're so miniscule they don't really matter, and you end up not using them at all.

Various classes? - No. You could argue yes, but I'll get to it.

Different species? - No.

Summon Magics? - Yes. But also no.

Chocobos and Moogles? - YES! The former is a mount with personality, but the latter is reduced to being basically wall paper.

Cid? - Yes. But no airship. And his whole name is... Cidolphus?

Airships? - No.

A love story? - Actually yes.

Killer graphics? - Absolutely.

Breathtaking music? - Fairly forgettable music.

A good story? - Okay, yes.

So, with key points out of the way, lets look at the story/plot.
You are Clive Rosfield. A very bland and normal name, compared to other protagonists in the series(Terra, Cloud, Squall, Zidane, Tidus, etc), but sure. Clive, being the firstborn, should be the dominant of the Eikon known as Phoenix. But for some reason, it skipped him, and it went to his younger brother Joshua(again a strangely normal name, but I won't comment on it, because they all are in this game). Their mother shuns Clive, as she cares not for anyone that isn't important, and truly only wants to be a ruler. The story starts by establishing that Clive is the "shield" of Joshua, and they all live in this VERY GAME OF THRONES INSPIRED CASTLE THING IN THE NORTH. Joshua has come of age, and they are setting out to a place called Phoenix Gate, where Joshua will, I don't know, unlock his Eikonic potential or something to that extent.
-Side note. Eikons are this games Summon monsters. If you played other games in the titles, they usually go by a unique name in every game. Espers, Eidolons, Guardian Forces, Aeons, etc. Same thing, though, but in this game the Dominants literally turn in to them.
Of course, it all goes awry, the neighboring Empire(Kingdom? I seriously can't remember) invade them, and in a hissy fit, Joshua turns into his Eikon "Phoenix", can't control it, and it all goes to shit. Clive, suddenly unlocking HIS Eikon "Ifrit"(which isn't a spoiler, because it's obvious from the get-go) and.. let's say neutralizes Phoenix. I say Neutralize. He straight up murders him. And then the game skips ahead 13 years or whatever it was, and Clive still doesn't know he's Ifrit, and has spent all this time looking for him. Talk about a journey to find yourself, eh?

And that's just the plot of the demo that was released a week or so before the game came out. And I loved it. I was a bit iffy on the combat system, but I loved where the story was going.

I won't actually go much more into the story though, because for the longest time after this, it was utterly boring, and so inspired by game of thrones this game should've just been called Throne Fantasy. It's dark as hell, full of intrigues, politics and way, waaay too long cutscenes. But then, after awhile, it actually got good. There are twists and turns I didn't see coming, and once the credit rolled, I'd found myself enjoying the adventures of Clive and his gang. Even though their names were all just real names. I miss the quirky names, ok? The love story in this game, while taking anything but center stage, really worked for me, though. It's very easy to see coming, but I did enjoy the hours/years of will-they-won't-they, and felt it worked as intended.

On to the combat system, and, as I said, classes and magics.
FFXVI has no classes. I mean, it sort of does, but you don't get to play as any of them. Clive is a shield, as in a, I don't know, Fighter, for you DnD nerds. But since he's blessed by the Phoenix, and later Ifrit, he also does some magic stuff. Yes, you can technically cast "fire", but it's weak as hell, and you end up not casting it at all. Since the combat system is absolutely real time, it wouldn't make sense to include any of the traditional spells that you'd take your time browsing menus to find. Instead, you have combat abilities based on your Eikon powers. So for instance, "Phoenix Rise" is a fiery attack that launches enemies into the air. And you unlock more of these in various forms as you progress through the game, as well as a limit-break of sorts. Some of them could also be compared to changing classes to a certain extent, but your basic attack is always the same, your magic spell is always the same, but a different element. Abilities do change, and some of them drastically, but you don't get to directly play as any other class than whatever Clive is supposed to be. There are also companions fighting at your side, depending on where you are in the story, all with their own abilites that DON'T FUCKING MATTER BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CONTROL THEM ANYWAY.
I can't press enough how much I dislike the combat system. If I wanted to play a game like Dark Souls or Devil May Cry, this would be right up my alley. Really, it's tight, and fast paced, but it absolutely doesn't belong in Final Fantasy. And that's a deal breaker for me. I enjoyed the story enough to complete the game, but the combat system is at the core of the game, and I hated it. Thankfully, the developers sort of knew this might be an issue, and provide you with some equipment you can, er, equip from the very start, to make it bearable. So, for the majority of the game, I wore the Ring of Timely Evasion, which always evaded enemy attacks, unless I was diving head-first into them. Some may call it lame, some may even argue it's "noob-like". I don't care. I hated the core gameplay. Usually I don't mind a fight lasting 30 minutes plus in an FF game, but then it's also long because you take your time to assign commands to an entire party, some times to react to whatever hell the boss unleashed upon you, some times to unleash said hell yourself. But when an enemy is taking 30 minutes in real time, it's really just a bullet sponge, masking as "LOOK AT HOW PRETTY THIS GAME IS", and it is, sure, but like Guitar Hero's cool stage show, there's really no time to look at that when you're busy button mashing, is there. Even my kid reacted, having been to the shower, had supper, and everything, and I was still in the same goddamn fight as before he started.

On to the setting.
Imagine a medieval Europe. Now add nothing. There. Badabing. That's the first half or so of the game, until you go to, what I would imagine the medieval middle east might look like. That's it. Yes, there are some "ruins" of an ancient civilization, some missions even taking you into these, but there's nothing exotic about the world itself. It's bland, boring, and Game of Thrones meets whatever new accent they can throw at you.
The world, while absolutely gorgeous to look at, is like a plague infested Europe, ca 1349. There's even a goddamn plague. The abscense of different species also threw me off. All of the games thus far(apart from XV, sense a pattern yet?) have had various fancy species you either play as, or interact with, outside of just battling. FFVII had a tiger-lion-dog thing you absolutely had in your party. VI had a Moogle in your party. VIII had several odd species in the world, and IX nearly didn't have humans. X was focused on humans again, but there were other sentient races as well. XI, the online game had playable races, as did XII and XIV. I'm actually a bit fuzzy on the XIII details, but I think it was mostly, if not exclusively humans there too. XIII is... weird. But XVI didn't even try. It's all people. WHITE people too, I might add. It's a very white game. In the aforemention middle-east bit, there are middle-eastern looking characters, but I can't recall seeing any black people. Sure, it is a game inspired by medieval Europe, but it's fantasy.

Again, if it weren't for the story, I'd probably stop playing this game long before I did. I finished the story, a slew of the UTTERLY HORRIBLE SIDEQUESTS, and, you know what, let's talk about side quests.
You ever heard of fetch quests? That's all they are. Yes, some of them are of course a bit more elaborate, story wise, and some of them do play in to the larger story, absolutely, but a big chunk of them are literally "I need ingredients for a soup I'm trying out. I know you're the boss of this small resistance community, but would you be a doll and fetch them for me?". Yes, in some of them you have to slay some monsters, but did I mention I don't like the combat system? I don't like the combat system. Don't throw more monsters at me! Where are the mini-games from the older games? VII had an amusement park you could go to. IX even had a rope jumping mini game that sucked, but at least it had them! X had some fun ones too. I think I may go back to that, just to dodge 200 lightning bolts in a row to forget XVI's battle system.

Okay, it's not all bad. The music, while forgettable, usually sets the tone(apart from a seemingly pivotal death scene, where the game found it logical to just play the current theme song instead of focusing on whatever was going on on the screen, which was off-putting) and works just fine, but no themes stand out in my head a week after completing it, and I'm still humming themes from FFVI every now and then. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous. The voice acting is more good than it isn't, and the story and cutscenes are mostly good(One bad thing with cutscenes, apart from being sometimes too damn long, is how our protagonists cut through mobs like they're nothing, but when you play, they take dozens of hits each, and as we know, I hate the combat system), and the story in general, was actually a breath of fresh air from the usual FF titles, with some very original baddies, and some.. well, let's just say unoriginal, but hey, it's FF, and it's still a very japanese game.

All in all, I finished the game in about 50 hours. The problem with this game, as opposed to Tears of the Kingdom, is I have no intention or interest of ever going back to it. I enjoyed what I enjoyed, and loathed what I didn't. Even FFII, which is widely known as the runt of the litter, was more enjoyable to play. I have no desire to complete the game 100%, nor getting a platinum trophy, and if it gets any DLC stuff, I won't be getting them.

I'm sad I didn't like it, because I was hyped through the roof. At the end of the day, it's not a horrible game by any stretch. It's just not what I wanted. A lot of people, including two colleagues love it. I don't. And that's ok. It was made to be more modern, and FF is a series known for changes. Hell, every game is different to a certain degree. This was just too different for me.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

When I was a kid, I loved The Legend of Zelda. At the time, the only one I knew existed was A Link to the Past, which my cousin and I rented quite a few times for the SNES, ultimately not even returning it. This of course being back in the mid-to-late nineties, I’m pretty sure he still has that game. The rental store closed down in the mid 00’s, so I think either we’re good, or we alone closed that store due to unpaid late fees.

A few years later, I discovered Ocarina of Time. Now, when I say discovered, it wasn’t like that game wasn’t known to me. It was absolutely, 100% very well known to me, as I was eagerly awaiting its release. I never did own a Nintendo 64, because I’m a PS kid through and through, but most of my friends did, and since I was the most advanced at English(Games are very rarely translated to Norwegian), I was usually there to help translating, essentially being the way through the game.
Ocarina of Time definitely stands as one of the major pillars of gaming. Being early 3D, it still managed to knock everything out of the park, basically dwarfing Super Mario 3D’s camera work and platforming, and adding combat and z-targeting(target lock) to the mix. Even ran on more or less the same engine. It’s still a very good game, albeit a bit empty compared to todays titles, it felt enormous and sprawling when we were kids. The story was amazing, the cutscenes epic, and the music, oh my god the fucking music. It’s been 25 years, and I can still hum all of those tunes, or at least identify them within a few seconds.
Suffice to say, Ocarina of Time is one of my all-time favorite games. I ranged it top 3 in a podcast episode we did years ago, and I stand by that. With a Link To the Past a close, VERY close second.

Since then, I’ve played a lot of the titles, but not all of them. Majora’s Mask is omitted from my resume, as I still haven’t owned an N64, and surprisingly few people around me got that game. But Wind Waker, Spirit Tracks, Phantom Hourglass, Twilight Princess, Four Sword Adventures, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, etc. I’ve played most of them. Never owned a Wii, so I skipped out on Skyward Sword, which I do own now on Switch, and it is in my log. Will get to it.

When Breath of the Wild released, I didn’t own a Nintendo, and I mostly didn’t care too much for it. For some reason, I was, I guess, done with the franchise, and Nintendo as a whole. I borrowed a Switch and BotW in May 2019, played it non-stop to completion and returned the system. A few months later, my girlfriend bought a Switch and BotW, and simply watching her play it, made me buy a Switch, and, you guessed it; BotW. I have 150+ hours worth of playtime for that title, and I can definitely say I love it. The one thing that held it back from taking top tier spot, was the story. Or rather, lack thereof. The story in BotW is severely lacking. It’s there, sure, but it’s told in tiny fragments, and unless you go looking for flashback sequences, you can easily clear the game without understanding much other than the fact that you’ve been “sleeping” for a 100 years, and now you defeat the big bad that essentially sent you to sleep. And the game knows that. It’s borrowing its story-telling technique from games like Dark Souls, and even the combat is influenced by FromSoft games. Sure, it may not be as extreme, but it’s a far cry from what Zelda used to be. As well as the gameplay. There’s no more dungeons(although they’ve been replaced by the many, many mini dungeons known as shrines), and no more standard weapons and gadgets we’ve all come to know and love. BotW just throws you out there with minimum explanations, and expects you to use what little you’ve learned to conquer the game.
And it is glorious. No doubt about that.

Which, of course, brings us to its sequel. Tears of the Kingdom.

I joked in my previous post, because of course there’s gonna be a review sort of thing about this game. And while it was indeed a joke, the “tldr” is absolutely 10/10 play this game. Hands down.
Tears of the Kingdom, is without a shadow of doubt top 3 Zelda, if not top 1(It’s hard to not be biased right after playing it for 115 hours), and possibly one of the best games of all time. Let’s just make that clear right up front, because there’s no denying that. TOTK is GOOD. VERY good.

Tears of The Kingdom is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild. (Not unlike Majoras Mask, Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks and A Link Between Worlds. Yes, you can argue that Twilight Princess is the sequel to Ocarina of Time, but… the timeline is complicated, and I’m not going into that now) It takes place an unmentioned amount of time after the previous game. It’s not explicitly said exactly when, but it’s obvious there has been at least a few years. Gone is the calamity, gone are the Ancient guardians, or any “Ancient” stuff, for that matter, and we’re introduced to what’s referred to as “The Upheaval”. An ancient Evil awoke, and as a defense measure, they land was split, and several large landmasses arose to the sky, forming Sky Islands(Yes, that’s what it’s calling it, because Skylands wouldn’t work, apparently), filled to the brim with Zonai ruins. BotW had Zonai Ruins, so there’s been talk about this ancient rase, but not to this scale. Link must complete this literal iteration of a Tutorial Island, which teaches you the basics of the game, the new abilities and doodads, and even teaches you stuff you will absolutely forget about until about 80 hours in, when you’re looking for ways to improve your stuff. I certainly did, and had to google “tears of the kingdom batteries”, only to find out the game literally told me about it in the opening hours.

So what makes this game special, and does it improve upon an already amazing formula that Nintendo started with its predecessor? There’s a lot to talk about here, but since this game is still not even a month old, I’ll stick to keywords, and not elaborate too much, and shy away from any major spoiler points.
1: Story. There’s a goddamn story here. It’s much bigger, and vastly elaborated since the previous title, and it’s a good one too.
2: Abilities. New abilities, playing on the old ones, and improving gameplay by a parsec. It’s not fundamentally different, but it’s so improved it’s barely recognizable.
3: Hyrule, and more. Hyrule may be more or less the same, but there’s been changes in the years since you saw it last. Firstly, of course, there’s the addition of the sky islands, but also something lurking in the depths.
4: quality of life. So much minor changes from the last game that improve gameplay, and streamlines so much. Things like opening chests now give you the option of discarding an old weapon if your inventory is full, rather than just closing again, forcing you to do it manually.

Tears takes everything from Breath and cranks it up to 11. It does, however, build upon the same foundation. The gameplay loop is primarily identical. Find major dungeons, defeat bosses. Get weapons, break weapons, find new weapons. Farm ingredients, make food, etc. Weapons still break, and are, in fact, much worse than in the previous game, but new this time is the ability to fuse literally anything to your weapons, altering their abilities, or improving their damage output and durability. For instance, fusing a Keese Eye to an arrow makes the arrow a homing arrow. Fusing a leaf to a stick, makes it a very powerful leaf blowe, and fusing a large spring to your shield makes a one-time portable mighty pogo stick. You can also build things now. Combining Zonai tech with whatever, you can make rafts, boats, cars, bikes, hovercraft, mech suits, tanks, automated death machines, or makeshift elevators. It’s limited only to your imagination, and while mine isn’t great, I’ve seen some absolutely bonkers builds online.

This feature, the building, actually took me a little out of the game. Nintendo saw what people did with the last game, and embraced it. Made it much more silly, and removed most limits from what you can do this time around. The beauty of it is that you’re never forced to do any of this. You don’t have to build anything if you don’t want to, and you can still keep it fairly “lore-friendly”.

I finished the main quest line at the 100 hour mark, and while speedrunners have already absolutely abused what they can and cleared it in less than 8 hours, unless you actually play it, you don't even know where to go. It's not like in the previous game where it pushes you off the cliff with a paraglader and direct you towards the castle and main boss. You actually have to figure out what's happened, and where to go.

After about 115 hoursI had to remove temptation, as it were, and hand it over to my significant other, as I thought 115 hours in three weeks is way too excessive, and I need a break. I’ll come back to it and finish all the side quests and what nots in there, but for now, I need to stop.
Not because I’m tired of it. Rather the opposite. Because 115 hours in, and 15 hours after completing the main story, I still couldn’t stop playing it, and it’s affecting my chores, sleep and whatnot. It’s just that good.

At the end of the day, my verdict is as follows:
Tears of the Kingdom may come across as “just more Breath of the Wild”, but it’s so, so much more. And even if it weren’t, isn’t “more BotW” good enough? That game alone was a 9/10 for me, and simply having more of that would probably gauge 9/10 already, which is ONE away from perfection.
However, TotK takes what made BotW great, and improved every aspect, and built on top(and below) that, to create a much larger experience, where there’s never a dull moment, and always something around the next corner to discover.
My only gripe with this game is that because it’s so much more story now, it felt like Link really, REALLY had to open his mouth this time around and actually say something. But at the end of the day, I understand why he doesn’t. He’s not supposed to. YOU are Link. Link is your avatar, and shouldn’t speak on your behalf.

Tears of the Kingdom is an absolute 10/10, and if you played BotW and are on the fence, you absolutely should get around to this one. If you didn’t play BotW, you CAN play this game, but you really should play the first one.

And almost like in "Immortal" I can know say "I know what happened to Princess Zelda", and I can't stop thinking about this game. Play. This. Game.

-Tom Out.

you're french. You absolutely would.

And you'd make a fancy risotto of it afterwards.

RATCHET AND CLANK - RIFT APART

RATCHET & CLANK : RIFT APART

First things first: This game was not on my backlog at all. That's just the way things go sometimes. I've been hearing it's a must-play since the launch of PS5, and since I share libraries with a friend who owns it, I figured what the hell. Gives me something to play in the sofa.

Now.
I was in that age group that didn't play the original games. Just too old, and a few years to young, I guess. Back in '02, when Ratchet and Clank first came out on the PS2, I was busy playing Final Fantasy X, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Kingdom Hearts, Tekken 4, GTA Vice City, Tony Hawks' Pro Skater 4, Timesplitters 2, etc. Just in that age where I somehow enjoyed Wind Waker while everyone else didn't edgy enough to play Tony Hawk, and still murder-y enough to play Vice City. Needless to say, Ratchet & Clank didn't even land on my radar. I heard about it later on, but I never knew enough about the franchise to even name any of them. I learned last week that none of them even had numbered titles, and that a lot of them are wordplays on naughty things(Up your Arsenal, Going Commando, Full Frontall Assault, Quest for Booty, etc.)

But enough about that. I assumed as it's a "kids" game, I didn't need to get up to speed on the story, and just started playing it. I wasn't wrong. It's a sequel, by all means, but I didn't feel like I missed much. The evil Dr. Nefarious is apparently still at large. Our titular heroes are being celebrated in a huge parade, in which Clank gifts Ratched the aptly named "Dimensionator", so that he can finally travel through dimensions to find the rest of his kind. Neat. The aforementioned doctor(brilliantly voice acted, I might add) pops up, as is expected, and steals the dimensionator, and starts dimension hopping, in hopes of finding a dimension where he doesn't always lose. Cute! Nice touch. Bad guy being sick of losing, wanting to find a new home. Not bad. I get it.

Of course, everything then goes awry and the dimensions become unstable. It's up to our heroes, and newcomer Rivet, the alternate version of Ratchet( I see what they did there) to retrieve the dimensionator, and fix reality. Good on them.

"Rift apart"(Ripped a fart) is, essentially, a 3d platformer meets 3rd person shooter. No two ways about it. That's all it is. You have an entire arsenal of different weapons, from your pew pew gun to launching angry toads that eat enemies, from a pumped-up shotgun, to a snail that unleashes hellfire. The full monty, there, then.

While the game doesn't do anything revolutionary in the 3rd person shooter genre, it does have some fun elements, such as playing as up to 5 different characters(4 of them are really just 2, but different versions, and 1 is a completely different play style), adding mounts , and some fun traversal methods.
What really sells the game is that, while some would argue(myself somewhat included) that it's merely a beefy tech demo for the PS5, that's also why it shines. The graphics are absolutely solid, the load times don't exists, and it's flashy as hell. Classic "we made a new console someone make a launch game to see what it can do" type of game.

But.
The humor is on point. Everything from the juxtaposition of Dr Nefarious' over the top mustache-twirly kniving evilness, to his alternate, much more serious, but just as great written EMPEROR Nefarious. Ratchet, is a half-serious hero, Clank his logical sidekick, but some of the side characters, and even goons "I'm so ripped, my pecks have pecks, bro", and the hilarious Pirate robot "Pierre", because of course he's french, made me laugh several times.

All in all I spent something close to 12 hours on this game. Story wasn't too hard to finish, and finding collectables and unlocking new stuff is always a hoot to do. Will probably not finish 100%, as it isn't anything GREAT.

Unless you're a fan of the franchise, in which case I suspect you will enjoy this much mor than me, with it's 20 years of games to refer to.

Should you play this game?
If you have a PS5, I highly recommend it. I wouldn't go as far as buying, or even borrowing a console for this title alone, but I'm biased, and God Of War: Ragnarok is why you should buy a PS5. It's a fun title that I wasn't bored at all while playing, a game that isn't too complicated, nor is it too simple. All in all a fun ride.

-Tom out.

LIFE IS STRANGE

This wasn't on my backlog either, but it popped up on my Playstation, and after my brother couldn't stop recommending it, I figured I'd give it a shot anyways.

Life is Strange is a weird game. Kind of in the title, I guess, but critically acclaimed "choice" indie-ish game from 2015. I say indie ish, because while Dontnod made it on a very limited budget, Square Enix published it, and they are anything but indie.

In any case, Life is Strange follows Max Caulfield. An 18 year old girl who's recently moved from Seattle to Arcadia Bay, her hometown, to pursue an education in photography. Chloe left some years ago, after her best friend Chloe's father was suddenly killed in a car accident, and they hadn't stayed in touch. We come into the story right as Max is in photography class, and after a little "choose your own story" type of tutorial, she heads to the bathroom. As she's in there, a boy named Nathan, clearly not all there, enters the bathroom, followed by a blue-haired girl who he shoots and kills over, what seems to be money. Max is traumatized(as you damn well should be), and is suddenly gifted the power to reverse time. She reverses time to before the gun fires, and hits the fire alarm, which sets of a series of events. It's revealed that the victim was her best friend Chloe, and they reconnect. Max, after a few more events, let's Chloe know about her gift, and we use the aforementioned powers for good or bad, to find out what's happening in this small town, slowly unveiling a mystery of murder, disappearances and love.

Life is Strange isn't a very long game. It's an episodic game with 5 episodes, all at roughly 2 hours each, which means you can complete the whole story in one sitting, or have natural breaks every 2 or so hours.

The story is essentially a coming of age story, with teenage angst and love taking the main stage after awhile. Of course, also including the murder mystery little by little. By the end of Episode 3, I was completely hooked, and figuring out what was actually going on towards the end of episode 5 was beautiful and heartbraking. I got attached to Max, Chloe, Chloe's mother and very trying Stepdad, their friends and problems, and discovering love at a young age.
Life is Strange is definitely a pretty story, wrapped around a bizarre, but engaging plot. I could definitely mentally go back to being 18 and in love, with 18 year old problems and world views. It reminded me of being a teenager, in all the positive ways, and some negative. Could absolutely relate to it, and would heartily recommend it to anyone.
It's also included in Playstation Plus Extra, so it's easy to obtain. There's even a remastered edition of it and the prequel, both of which are recommended. But we'll get to the prequel in the next post.

All in all LiS is a solid game. It explores themes that games usually don't deal with, and instead of gung-ho shooting and mayhem, it's an intimate experience that leaves you mentally not the same after. It's hard to talk too much about it without spoiling too much, and if you want to play it, I'd recommend, like me, having very little knowledge about what it really is before delving in to it.

-Tom Out.

GRIS

DISCLAIMER:
I managed to click "edit" instead of quote for Immortality post, and thus deleted my post about Gris.
This will be more or less the same I wrote a month ago, but with a month to think about the game too.

GRIS is a french 2D platform-puzzle game. But don't let that premise fool you.
Sure, at its core, it *is* a 2D platformer and puzzle game, but it's also a journey through colour, sound and music. It's hard to really write anything about this game, other than it's a 3-4 hour voyage that left me crying tears of joy in the end. Simply because of it's absolute beauty. It's not a hard game at all. I got stuck a few places, but not for longer than I'd get aggravated by, and mostly because I didn't pay enough attention, and had to backtrack a few places.

The premise is pretty straightforwad. Gris, a girl-type-almost-person-thing loses her voice, and colour. You have to venture into the world to restore order, which is represented in sound and colour. The style is an almost hand-drawn/painted style, very water color-y type, and it absolutely works. I think the game is stronger because of its style. As you get further, you access new "powers" that will help you progress, and ultimately, restore balance.

Gris is an absolute masterpiece at what it does. It may not be the greatest platformer, or puzzler, for that matter, but as it's only 3-4 hours long, that never bothered me. Instead, I was in constant awe of what the game did: bedazzle me.

Should you play this game?
Yes.

Now, moving forward, that's 5 games completed. In a longer time frame than anticipated, yes, but I've had other stuff to do as well.
Such as play the, I guess infamous "Hogwart's Legacy". And while it isn't a bad game at all, I quit after a few hours because there are other games in that genre that does everything HL does, but better. I'm also not that interested in the Harry Potter universe to care enough about the game. I also have absolutely no stance on the Rowling controversy, for what it's worth.

As for my next game, that's also what's been stopping me going forward. I don't know which one to pick. There's a bunch of Final Fantasy games, but I can't play all of them at once. Certainly not the Pixel Remasters, because they're all near identical in terms of art.
But we'll see. My next post shouldn't be too far away, and it will be whatever I choose to complete next.

-Tom out.

MILKMAID OF THE MILKY WAY

Surprise!

As it turns out, I don't have a third Final Fantasy game in a row in me right now. Roughly 30 hours is what it takes for me to need to play something else for a little while. Will get back into it, but thankfully, there's other games in my list.

So, starting on this little gem from 2017.
Milkmade of the Milky Way is a point and click adventure game. It's pixel art reminiscent of the 80s, done very beautifully.

You're Ruth. A milk maid in a Norwegian fjord in the 1920's. Ruth lives in a cottage up in the mountains, with her cows, making cheese and butter for a living, selling it to the townspeople, through her friend Erlend, who hikes to her home on his horse.
One Night there's a terrible storm, and a rock fell from the sky...

And that's all the information I could give without spoiling this absolute gem of a game. It's roughly 2 hours long, depending on how stuck you get, but like most point and click games, it gives you just enough information to solve all the puzzles, given you pay attention.
The story is short and sweet, but heartfelt and beautiful. The soundtrack is absolutely mesmerizing, and the mood is perfect.

If you've a couple of hours to spare, definitely check this game out!

I can' really give this game a score, and I don't think it's something I can keep doing either. I'm not a video game reviewer.
It's very hard to justify why one game is given a 5, and another a 6, or an 8. Especially considering how vastly different some of these games are.
Instead, I'll stick to the latter part:

should you play it?
That's a hard yes. If you like puzzles, gorgeous art direction, and a solid soundtrack, this game is definitely for you. If not, play it anyway. It's nice.

3 games down, 19 to go.

Next up? Not sure yet, something short and sweet.

-thanks for reading this far:

I like that you keep reading these, and I don't want to seem self-indulgent. I'm only writing these things because I like to write and share my thoughts, and I don't have another outlet to do this where I feel comfortable doing so.
So, seriously, thanks.

(I like you.)

Fuck it.
I'm in.
But you probably have to remind me.

«But fear is their greatest ally". Mark Hamill always complained about the damn dialogue xD

This... doesn't count as Karaoke.
I haven't sung for over a year. And while it's not because of some traumatic experience or anything, the band broke up in January 2021. Too much creative differences, crammed in a quintet that managed to get two songs out there, and then couldn't agree on a third one, let alone an album. Very happy we turned down an album deal
Although said deal was turned down for different reasons. In that it was expensive as fuck for us too, and required a lot of traveling on our end, which, with kids, is difficult, and when you're not creating anything new for almost a year... we quit.
It's fine. I'm working on something new, but it's gonna take time.

In any case, sort of segwaying back to Karaoke, and that of course I want all the attention I can get because, I'm vain, I called everyone up, and asked if they wanted to do one final hurrah, as it were, as the rehearsal space/demo studio is getting torned down, and to my surprise they all said no.

I jest of course, we're doing a live thing on March 19th, on facebook, from said rehearsal space. It's on facebook, and I'm not gonna put a link, because nah.

We're called Fold Decay, and I'd love to see any of you there before we call it quits for good.

(Yes, there will be covers, so some form of karaoke, and yes, I'll be singing because people call me a vocalist)