This girl really thought she would've finished Persona 3 Reload by the end of March. No, of course not. I'll probably reach the end within the next couple weeks, and write about it for the April post. In the meantime, I've played a couple of other games on the side, but only a few this time. As usual, these aren't meant as reviews, and probably aren't all that insightful - just a way to organize my thoughts and an opportunity to write for fun rather than for work.
Otogirisou
Otogirisou is a bit hard to discuss as a game, to me. It's important and influential and genuinely cool for what it achieves - but at the same time a bit difficult to approach now. If you have the same brainworms as me, though, with a fascination for visual novels, JP-style adventure games, translations of internationally-obscure retro media, etc., I would recommend you play at least one or two runs of Otogirisou to see what it's like - and if you're enjoying it, maybe check out this walkthrough to find the remaining endings.
The thing Otogirisou succeeds the most at, to me, is its sound design, which is very impressive for an SNES game - I didn't realize just how fitting the "sound novel" name was until playing it. It's great at creating an atmosphere, and I can see this having a great impact on players back in 1992 - especially keeping in mind that they might not have played anything like it before.
When it comes to story and gameplay, it's interesting how much of it was crafted to communicate to the player who hasn't played VNs before that each playthrough offers new experiences - just the fact that there are multiple slight variations of the opening sequence, with different dialogue and options.
It starts with the player-named protagonist and his girlfriend Nami having car trouble and seeking shelter in a creepy old mansion in the middle of nowhere. The story then moves towards one of several endings, that are all very different - the choices don't just affect the protagonist's actions, but change the plot and backstory entirely, which typically involve curses, grudges, and revenge.
That's all very cool, but I do have issues with the stories. The writing too often wavers between unengaging and ridiculously melodramatic, with a few funny or striking moments throughout. The real problem, though, is structural - the game consists of modular scenes that can be reached through different paths, that seem written in isolation, without accounting for what happens in the preceding and following scenes.
This makes for a poor flow, with little weight given to seemingly-important events as plot threads are introduced and not followed up on. It also makes characters behave very strangely as they ignore danger and quickly forget about experiences that should've shaken them. The result is that each run feels incoherent - a parade of barely-connected horror/suspense scenes eventually leading into one of a number of endings.
This structure is also problematic if you want to experience everything. I have access to a walkthrough when I play it today, but 1992 players did not, and the way the game moves between modular scenes that don't always emotionally or logically build towards something specific makes it difficult to predict how choices affect the greater picture. I doubt most players back in the day managed to find more than about two thirds of the endings.
All that said, this was a very interesting experience, and I'm very glad that it's playable in English. Hoping to see a version of Kamaitachi no Yoru in English that retains its iconic blue silhouettes at some point - the remake with the more typical anime-style characters is an option, but it's just not the same.
20 Small Mazes
I like puzzle games, and I liked 17/20 of the mazes in this. Just some cute and cozy puzzle-solving. The remaining last three took up over half of my whole playtime.
I misunderstood how the valve maze worked entirely and ended up spending like twenty minutes on something that ended up not being relevant. And when I realized what I was supposed to do, there was something that was unclear about the presentation that still stumped me. ROT13 puzzle spoilers: Ng svefg, V gubhtug gur cbvag jnf gb nqq hc gur gvyrf gung yvg hc nf lbh jnyxrq ba gurz, ohg vg gheaf bhg lbh'er whfg fhccbfrq gb frr jung ahzore gurl fcryy bhg. Nsgre gung, V vagrecergrq gur vagraqrq 1 nf n 7.
The sliding puzzle maze where you move between tiles, and the multi-floor maze, both played into my great weakness of spatial thinking and mentally visualizing a complex space. I always hope something like this won't come up in dungeon design when I play an RPG, but I didn't realize it obviously would in a maze game, too.
Still a good time, and highly recommended.
Minit
This game was a delight. It is essentially an adventure game with some minor action elements, where the conceit is that you are reset to your starting position every time one minute has passed. This means that the progress you make is done very incrementally, and gives it that "just one more round" feeling that you don't normally see in this type of game - it did remind me of King's Quest III, but pulled it off much better.
The one thing I'll say is that some of the hidden stuff is just a bit too obscure - including the sewer area, which I don't think I would've found on my own in a hundred years, and eventually had to resort to a guide for, especially as you eventually move to new starting areas and will be much less likely to run into it by accident.
I saw some people online saying that it was so good that it "understayed its welcome", but I don't know that I agree. With this type of game, I think you could only keep expanding the world so much before the time limit becomes too much of an obstacle for the player to be able to stumble across hidden things, unless you want to create a bottleneck and move the player to a new world, isolated from the old... which kind of goes against the Metroidvania-esque appeal of the game. In my opinion, it's the perfect length as it is (and I really appreciate short games - this was a big part of why I played it when I did).
Anyway, I'm a big fan. I know I'm playing it years after release, but: give it a try if you haven't. I finished it in about 1h 40m, so it's perfect for 1-2 sittings.
Originally posted on Cohost.