Tag: Fault

Steam Sales!!

Steam’s Summer Seal is raring to go once again, much to the dismay of backlogs everywhere. I haven’t taken any damage to mine yet (although I am eyeballing 3 or 4 different 50+ hour RPGs…), but here I am nonetheless to encourage you all to take a lot of damage to yours, like I did last year.

New here? Read this and join the fun!

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Pyre

Pyre! Pyre, get Pyre. Get it. Go get Pyre right now. I’ll wait.

Congratulations! You just bought what is currently my GOTY, and one of my favourite games of all time. The cosmic basketball might not be to everyone’s tastes (as someone who shirks sports games entirely, I actually really enjoyed the Rites), but the real treat is in the family of misfits you find and, hopefully, liberate. It’s beautiful, and I’m not just talking about the visuals. Even weeks after finishing it, thinking about the ending has me wailing. I’m an absolute sucker for found families- and I’ll never forget the time The Nightwings welcomed me into theirs. (Steam / BBLC)

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Invisible Inc.

I so nearly binned this, but something told me to just give it one more shot… and it swallowed me whole. Fantastically tense strategy/stealth game, it’s a little bit rogue-like which is what turned me off to start with. You have never before, nor will you ever again, be so aware of doors being left open. Story gets kinda weird, but as long as you have a passing knowledge of cyberpunk tropes you’ll have a good time here. (Steam / BBLC)

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fault

Official word states the title of this series should be presented in lower case. I don’t like it, but fault’s earned enough of my respect that I’ll acquiesce. Holy crap, it’s hard to explain without spoiling anything, but if you have any tolerance for visual novels at all, and a strong stomach for terminology, these games will blow you away with their presentation alone- and you’ll stay for the plot. First five minutes of milestone two had me staring agape at my screen. Next level stuff. (Steam / BBLC)

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Wonderboy Girl: The Dragon’s Trap

A gorgeous refreshening of the Master System’s best game (controversial!), I already gushed about this at tedious length in my original post. It’s got some retro trappings that are moderately eased by optional difficulty settings, and the inclusion of Wonder Girl is handled with absolute elegance. (Steam / BBLC)

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Hopefully I haven’t done too much damage to your backlogs, but also I really hope everyone checks these titles out and gives them a chance!

Fault- Milestone Two Side:Above

image

Holy shit.

It’s highlighted a weakness of my format- I played Milestone One some time ago and my initial impressions were positive, if muted. Further play revealed a story that went places I wasn’t at all expecting and I ended up having a really great time with it, with no real way to go back and update that “6/10″-feeling post.

So, let me fix that here- Fault Milestone One is great and if you have any kind of stomach for kinetic VNs and probably-too-much-impossible-to-pronounce terminology, you should definitely go experience it.

Milestone Two, then, and already I can’t really say anything about it. The story starts hard, and I couldn’t possibly explain anything about it without spoiling what made it so great. Let it suffice that I was left open-mouthed gawping at the screen just five minutes into Milestone Two. Legit mindblown. This isn’t a VN that is happy to stay constrained within the usual limits of the genre, and that’s commendable.

Fin or Bin:

Yeah, I’m on this ride until the end. There’s another part of the story that hasn’t come out yet, titled Side:Below, so I’m sure this one is going to end on a big juicy cliffhanger. Can’t wait! Fin!

(Edit: I should probably re-read old posts if I’m gonna link to them, huh. I remembered being kinda “meh” when writing up Milestone One, but having actually read it again it seems I raved about that one too. Well, let it be testament that this series is really good, even on first impression.)

(Steam link, but get Milestone One first)

Fault- Milestone One

Apparently I’ve bought a lot of visual novels over the many Steam sales I’ve been through, only to then always say “nah, not really in the mood for that” any time I’m looking for a new game to play. Certainly, the first time I tried this BBacklog Challenge, I was matched with Analogue Hate Story, a game I know for sure I’d never have played if not for it being nominated, which I ended up loving to death.

Having rolled Fault, that same “wehhhh I don’t wanna play this” feeling came up. Maybe I should stop buying VNs, but that’s another matter. So, then, I gave it an hour…

This is some next-level shit right here. The presentation is off the charts, far beyond the usual static anime portraits- there’s camera pans, dramatic zooms, and CGs are used in such a way that parts of the story almost feel like they’re fully animated. There’s a LOT of artistic skill on show here, above and beyond the visuals by themselves.

It’s pretty heavy-handed with terminology, going so far as to include an excyclopedia that can be referenced at any point during the game. A lot of not-really-mainland-european-language words too that are hard to read, with lots of Ks and Vs and Hs in places they oughtn’t be. I haven’t made much headway into the story yet but I do enjoy the two main characters, one a blonde princess who is obviously my fave, and her bodyguard Ritona who is too badass for words.

Fin or Bin:

I really don’t think VNs as a whole are for me, despite wishing they were. This one does have the advantage of not being played from Generic McNiceboy’s perspective, which is something I dislike about the genre. It’s kinetic too, so there aren’t a hundred story branches to go back and follow. I’ll be Finishing this one, then.

Recommended to:

VN fans, and fans of cute princesses.

(Steam)