For some reason, I've played through a lot of video games this month. Last year, I finished eight games in total, the entire year; as many as I've played just this month. Not an entirely fair comparison, since I played but didn't finish Tears of the Kingdom last year, and started Fate/Stay Night last year and finished it this month - but it's still been an unusually active month for me in terms of games.
I enjoy writing down my thoughts on things after I've played/read/watched them, so here's some slightly-edited-but-mostly-stream-of-consciousness write-ups. The most famous spoiler in video game history is mentioned under the FF7 heading, but otherwise I avoid mentioning specifics like that.
Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Kirby's Dream Land 2
These games are near perfection. Short, highly polished experiences, with a relaxing-but-not-boring difficulty level, a lot of thought put into everything, and a lot of cute graphical flourishes that impress even today. I chose to play the "DX" rom hacks for Dream Land 1 and 2, which add color to the otherwise grayscale Game Boy games, which improved the experience even more.
My only two complaints are that the Dedede boss fights go on for too long, and that it's unfun to be asked to go back and find secrets throughout the levels in Dream Land 2 to unlock the final boss - other than that, this was just a really good time. I don't know why it took me this long to play them, given how much I played and loved Amazing Mirror as a kid.
Fate/Stay Night
So first off, I didn't start Fate this month - I began in late November, played it throughout December, took a break before the final route to play some Kirby games, and then finished it in January. Man, what a long VN this was - probably the longest one I've ever played, which is both a bad and good thing.
F/SN begins with a short common route, that then splits off in three separate stories - Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel - which seems like enough to justify its length, but... it wastes a lot of time on uninteresting stuff. I say this as someone who likes good slice-of-life and appreciates that it lets you get to know the characters: the slice-of-life in F/SN is mostly uninteresting, especially as we get further into each route and they become a recurring chore to get through to get back to the plot. The game would've been better for it if they had been cut in half (or even less than that).
Those aside, the story is mostly engaging, and I appreciate how each route builds upon what you've seen and learned in the previous ones. Fate, as the first route, is unfortunately saddled with having to introduce the setting and conceit of the grail war, making it the slowest of the three, but it has the strongest and most emotionally resonant ending. Tohsaka quickly became my favorite character, but Saber's story was also gripping. Great stuff. Unlimited Blade Works was the most engaging throughout, with exciting action sequences and a charismatic villain, and I liked getting to spend more time with Tohsaka.
Heaven's Feel, on the other hand... It felt needlessly edgy, and embarrassing in the way it handles sexuality. The stuff about how Zouken's worms treat male and female victims differently was so bad that it actually made me roll my eyes. I didn't dislike HF's ending, but overall this was easily the weakest route, and I'm grateful for the existence of the epilogue Last Episode, which connects to the first route and turns things around after a middling final route.
Looking forward to Hollow Ataraxia, I just need some time off from long VNs before diving into another one.
Final Fantasy VII, I, and II
I've tried to get into Final Fantasy before - it just felt weird that I as someone who generally likes RPGs hasn't ever gotten more than a few hours into one of these - and have started FF7 specifically probably three or four times. Well, this time I got sucked in, played through it in a week, and had a great time for most of it. If you're curious, I used the fan translation from a few years back, and recommend it.
The story and setting are what makes this game, and it was exciting to follow the developments, both on the personal level with Cloud and his friends, and on the larger scale with the Jenova mystery. It feels wild how the only specific plot point I knew of beforehand was that Sephiroth kills Aerith - there's a lot that I in retrospect would've expected to see spoilers for online, but I guess not! And I say "spoilers", but even though I knew what would happen, that didn't ruin the moment at all - it was emotionally effective, and had me sitting there for a bit, taking it all in, when reaching the "end of disc 1" intermission.
Maybe this is part of why FF7 became such a hit, but I was surprised by how simple the gameplay was. There is potential for advanced materia set-ups, but aside from in a few spots, FF7 barely gave me any pushback, giving me no reason to experiment. Sometimes it tried to spice things up by forcing me to use characters other than Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie, but the low difficulty meant little mechanical difference. I apologize for being this kind of person, but I wish the combat were more like Shin Megami Tensei III.
After finishing FF7, I was excited about trying other games in the series, and being the way I am, I wanted to go back to the beginning and play it all in order. I decided that the GBA version of FF1 was the option with the best balance of what I value in these games, and ended up blazing through it. Turns out that combat is even more simple here, and that the only real challenge is figuring out where to go! It was an okay experience, but (expectedly, as an RPG of that time) felt shallow.
Next, I started FF2 on GBA, and played it for a few hours, before dropping it due to how tedious its innovations are - you level up each character attribute individually, such as raising defense by getting hit, or sword proficiency by using swords. Dialoues also introduced a system where you learn of topics that you hear, and then get to choose what to talk about from a huge list of every topic you've memorized, slowing conversations down to a crawl. I see what they were going for with these, but it doesn't feel more realistic - it just becomes a chore, and so I watched the rest of the not-that-interesting story on Youtube.
Alan Wake
I don't typically play horror games, but my boyfriend recommended this one, and I'm glad I tried it - it has a suspenseful atmosphere, but isn't scarier than something like HL2's Ravenholm. I love a good occult mystery story, and AW's story and setting did keep me engaging throughout. I did wish that the game had let the non-action segments breathe a little more, though, and let me interact more with the characters. I liked sheriff Sarah, Cynthia Weaver, and to a lesser extent, the Anderson brothers (who are fun, but much flatter than the other two), and would've loved to spend more time with them.
The long action segments, mostly set in samey, dark forest environments, were the weakest part of the game (especially whenever you had to drive a car), and made me think "this could've been a visual novel". The combat was fine for the first bit, but never evolved much beyond that, and became repetitive - the only real twists were the birds and possessed objects, which didn't differ much in practice. I will say that I liked how having encountered possessed objects suddenly turned every 3D prop into a potential threat, though.
I also have to mention the camera, which is among the worst I've experienced in games. It moves awkwardly, and keeps Alan so far to the edge that it frequently pushes him off-screen. I think this was intended to look cinematic, but it just did not work for me. And speaking of visuals, the aged, attempted-realism look is kind of bland, and the character designs aren't very interesting or memorable - I could not tell you much about Alan's looks beyond "generic white man", and would have a hard time recognizing him outside the context of playing the game.
In the end, the flaws didn't prevent me from having a good time, though, and I got through it all. The ending was satisfying, while still making me curious and excited to check out Remedy's other games. The DLC episodes were fine - they shone some more light on the situation, and did a little to set up future events, but didn't feel too substantial.
And what now?
I'm currently replaying Higurashi 1 (a VN series I started about five years ago but never finished), and playing the GBA Rhythm Tengoku on the side. I'll start Persona 3 Reload when that cames out on Friday-Saturday, and expect that to take up most of my video game time in February, but we'll see.
Originally posted on Cohost.
Comments from the original publication:
Ben · Salvidrim @Salvidrim, 31 Jan, 2024
Nightmare in Dreamland is definitely the best, most polished Kirby game IMO. I'd fill out a top three with maybe KSSU and Triple Deluxe.
Alexandra IDV ✨💙 @AlexandraIDV, 1 Feb, 2024
I've only played a few, but it might be my favorite, too. I absolutely loved Forgotten Land as well, though... Hard to say.
Ben · Salvidrim @Salvidrim, 2 Feb, 2024
Right, Forgo and RTTD would probably fill out my top 5! But Forgo, like Amazing Mirror, is almost in a category of its own!