This list has all the games I've finished in November. For the October list,
go here.
November 2nd: Gone Home. At a first glance, you get the feel this is a horror game. Everyone's mysteriously disappeared, there's a storm outside...and this was an Amnesia mod at first. But, it quickly becomes evident, this is mostly a hunt for scraps of paper explaining a teenage lesbian drama. What a weird turn of events. At first, the game's really interesting despite all this! I was actually pretty interested to search the house to find out what happened to everyone, and I loved the fact how it was advertised as a "trip down nostalgia lane for everyone who lived in the 90's". But... as the game was really nothing but rummaging through notes and papers, the gameplay began to get a little dull after only a while. Plus, the devs hadn't even gone all the way through with the genuine 90's thing: sure, the TV listing has X-Files and Matlock on it, but the Super Nintendo cartridges, for example, were of make-belief games instead of the real things. And how cool would it have been to actually sit down and play those games? Oh well, I know I'm reaching for the stars with that wish; they would've had never got the license and permission. I'm just a bit bummed there wasn't as much of that nostalgia I hoped. But I digress, some other issues: for 20 bucks, this would have been a major ripoff because of the trimmed-down gameplay, but also because of the length. My Steam clock says I played the game for 108 minutes. That's not even two hours. Luckily I got this for under 2 euros, and that price in my opinion, was just right. The main story (about the lessie sis) was alright, but the scraps explaining mom and dad's history weren't really engaging. I pretty much stopped caring after finding dad's JFK conspiracy books he wrote, his dirty magazine, and the truckload of tissue boxes spread throughout the house. Like, that already tells me more than I need to know about him. Before this review gets too long, here's my final verdict: overall, an okay game, but a big letdown in the sense that this could have been so much more, especially when it comes to all that nostalgia stuff. For 20 bucks, you will feel ripped off. But once the sales drop the price to 2-5 bucks, then I guess it's alright to try this one out and see if you like it more than I did.
November 3rd: Fairy Bloom Freesia. Such a Japanese game. I didn't know which button did what and therefor didn't even get past the language selection until I switched to a gamepad, because apparently "Accept" doesn't mean "Press Enter". Or any other key I pressed, for that matter. The plot was unbelievably shitty, and the whole gameplay was just basic button mashing, with some blocking in between during boss battles and while fighting larger enemies. I didn't understand the function of Magic skills at all; I purchased one but never found out how to activate it. The "optional skills" were also a little puzzling: I guess you could only equip two at a time? Even though there was a huge list for all kinds of boosts (more damage, more defense, regeneration, etc.) so I just stuck to the ones available from the start: more physical damage and more HP, because then I at least knew I wouldn't waste mana points which you use to upgrade those skills. Also, the music was pretty bad, or should I again say, pretty Japanese. Such mellow melodies while mindless violence is taking place, and some strange circus tunes during cutscenes. What?? Overall, the game was really nothing special, and they did a really bad job explaining how everything works.
November 6th: The Cat Lady. The atmosphere in this game was top notch, and the game even managed to pull out some good scares every once in a while. And not just jump scares, mind you, but the good kind of scares too. The story was really, really engaging, if a bit confusing at times (like, why were so many people, "the parasites" as the game calls them, after Susan? And of all people, why her?). As the plot progressed, it was really a quite beautiful story, if you look past all the emotional and physical torture Susan and the people around her had to deal with. I especially liked the ending: I did some research afterwards and my ending wasn't the best available, but still very fitting to the story and overall well written and satisfactory. The music during the credits was also perfectly selected. The only problems I can think of, lie in the sound department (technical issues): sometimes the characters sounded like they were recorded on a very cheap mic (hissing and popping), volume levels were occasionally inconsistent, a few times the characters' lines would loop, and not all voice acting was that great (mainly Eric Ashworth). I also think that Susan looked a lot older at the beginning of the game - you'd guess her age was around 50, 60 even, but after she has a shower and a change of clothes, she appears 30-something. The sound of her voice, which by the way was very pleasant to listen to, also supports this (in reality, she was in her forties). But anyway, these are really minor issues and didn't bother me much. Overall the game was a fine example of a horror adventure game done right: I urge any fan of the genre to try it themselves.
November 8th: Lone Survivor: The Director's Cut. Now, I'm not a graphics whore, not by any stretch of the word, but at first I thought this game might be a little bit too artistic even for me with its pixelated, mosaic art style, because it made text hard to read and background objects hard to identify, especially since the resolution was very low too. Eventually I got used to the style, but would've still preferred at least a little bit clearer graphics. That was not the biggest issue I had with the game, though: since it's a horror game, I would've expected it to be at least a little bit scary. Maybe it's because of the art style, I don't know: nevertheless this game was really disappointing in the horror department. I also didn't get the story, pretty much at all. Was my character just plain crazy? The ending came abruptly and didn't conclude anything, imo. Perhaps it has something to do with my stats (blue ending, mental health... F-), but I would've still liked at least some explanations to everything. Oh well...overall I felt the game's truly nothing but a poor man's Silent Hill: it blatantly copied lots of stuff from the series, but failed hard to be as engaging and good. It's as if the devs purposefully challenged themselves to create a Silent Hill -like experience, but for the Game Boy Color. I'm sorry, but for me that simply doesn't work and feels like an impossible idea from the start. One thing I liked about though, was the music. It was really well done throughout the game. That's about it though.
November 17th: XCOM: Enemy Within. Finished this on Normal Difficulty, Ironman Mode. At it's core, it's still the same old XCOM: Enemy Unknown - same gameplay and the same plot (for the most part), but the new additions were plentiful enough to make the game experience feel fresh. A couple of the new special missions were tough as nails, especially the one I think most fans had been waiting for... it truly stings a little when you lose more than half of your carefully trained squad... Anyway, I thought Enemy Unknown was one of the best games of 2012: with this expansion, it's now even better. Really hard not to recommend this to anyone who played and enjoyed Enemy Unknown, as well as to anyone who likes turn-based tactical combat and strategy games in general.
November 22th: Evoland. I really liked the idea of the game. Collect chests, and the game evolves (better movement, better graphics, etc.) The overall look of the game was also quite cute. But unfortunately, the actual execution of the game could have been better. First of all, while evolution is the main idea of the game, I think the game does the main jumps in evolution too fast. You'll have jumped from the colorless Game Boy era to 16-bit / 32-bit in maybe around fifteen minutes, or at least definitely in a half an hour. And because the game focuses on making things look and sound better in small steps, it forgets the gameplay entirely. Every area feels pretty same: swing your sword at the monsters, find chests that make the game once again look better, go to the overworld view, and repeat. And oh man, moving around on the map got really annoying by the late game because of random encounters. I know, I know, it copies/parodies Final Fantasy but the random battles were too easy, and they happened way too often. To sum it up, the game does a good job showing how games have evolved in about 20 years, but it does so way too fast, and the gameplay is too simple and repetitive.
November 24th: Long Live The Queen. I liked raising all these different skills of the princess and the minor events that took place in the castle, but all the mentions and appearences of dukes and duchesses, different factions, and Novan history made my head spin. There are so many characters with very little backstory, that I often instantly forgot who was who after they were done speaking. Also, (while it's probably the idea of the game) there's a lot of dying here. You won't know which skills are very important to raise, until you've hit dead end with no way to escape with your life intact. I eventually succeeded as a sort of a battlemage tactician: there are probably other ways too, but I don't think the game changes enough on each playthrough that I would try to find them out. Overall, I guess this was alright though, if you don't mind the unpredictability, the overload of characters, and the short length with questionable replay value.
More games finished in November
here.
