Ratings by millenia
Bugsnax
Charming and Funny
Bugsnax is a bit of an oddball title, but it’s very charming and I warmly recommend it to anyone willing to give it a shot.
The gameplay consists of catching these strange creatures and completing simple quests for the townsfolk. While one might think Bugsnax is Pokémon, in the end there’s really not much in common. There are no bugsnax battles or training and the catching is done with puzzles. The world is rather open, though initially new areas need to be unlocked by completing tasks.
The game isn’t too difficult. Some of the little buggers are a bit hard to catch, and might require some timing and/or aiming, but there are no limits to tries. There are also a few “boss battle” type of encounters, but most of them are not even required to finish the game.
The story is pretty light, but there definitely is one, and like the world of Bugsnax itself, it is pretty charming and funny.
The bugsnax themselves create most of the fun though, some of them are outright hilarious. Like pokémons, they repeat their name in many different tones, and the soundtrack is amazing.
The whole concept of these cute little creatures that the more humanoid creatures literally snack on, is incredibly silly - and also disturbing - and still the game is cozy and fun.
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Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Just Right
Four Last Things
AI: The Somnium Files
Disco Elysium
Jenny LeClue – Detectivú
A.B.C. Murders, The
Signifier, The
Leviathan: The Last Day of the Decade
Night Call
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure
Call of the Sea
Yoomurjak's Ring
Kathy Rain
Paradise Killer
Dig, The
Oknytt
Sexy Brutale, The
Astrologaster
Funny
Astrologaster is definitely a funny game, obviously taken some inspiration from Monty Python, including the silly songs introducing the characters. It’s based on real historical events, though I’m not even close to an expert to say how accurate it is.
The player is a quack doctor predicting people’s ailments (and many other things) from the stars. The gameplay consists of choosing the prediction from a few possible options. All the patients have their own little storylines and obviously the players diagnoses will affect their lives.
The visuals are simple but nice pop-up book looks. Voiceovers are good, though they seemed bug a bit when clicking through the dialogue, sometimes overlapping with other lines.
It’s a fun play but trying another playthrough with some different options seemed to offer very little variation, so I doubt there is any real replay value, unless one is determined to find all the good gags.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy
Observation
Carto
Demetrios: The BIG Cynical Adventure
Herald: Book I & II
Engaging story
The setting itself is already a very interesting aspect of Herald. An alternative history story about the colonial times, handling issues of race and class.
Herald is a casual game mixing point & click play style with a visual novel storytelling, emphasizing on the player’s choices.
The story isn’t casual though. It’s very compelling, and I played the two chapters in one sitting. The first chapter is very short but the second is already a decent length. Together it took me roughly 4 hours to complete.
The character art is stunning, and while the 3D surroundings don’t quite reach the same standard, they are still very much pleasant to the eyes.
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Time Played: 2-5 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy
Tormentum: Dark Sorrow
Detective Grimoire: Secret of the Swamp
Portal
Emerald City Confidential
AR-K: Episode 3 - The Great Escape
The More Polished 3rd Episode Delivers the Same Charm as the Previous Ones
Anyone who has played the episodes one and two will immediately notice the improvements to graphics and user interface as well as overall polish in this third part, which was published separately. The feeling of the world and the characters is the same, if not better than before.
There are still a couple of vague puzzles but people shouldn’t have many reasons to nitpick. If they like the comedic sci-fi setting, the spunky protagonist and have any interest knowing what will happen to the people of A-RK, they definitely should be very pleased to play this game.
Now it’s all about waiting for the finale to get the full experience at once.
This episode gets a 4+
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Cat Lady, The
Drawn: Trail of Shadows
Whispered World, The
Life Is Strange: Episode One - Chrysalis
Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today
Journey Down: Chapter One, The
Ars Harmonia
A Quality Freeware Game about Demons and Everyday Drama
For a freeware game Ars Harmonia is definitely very well done. The graphics are great and the story is interesting, the music is good and some of the dialogue even has voice overs. As for gameplay it is a visual novel with some light adventure game type of puzzles.
The setting of the game is the near future with weird and brutal murders, often done by demons, though people have even wilder theories about them. The game is short but obviously only a little piece of a whole - just one case as it is mentioned ingame too. Future cases in the same setting will surely be also interesting to play.
The game has some gory descriptions but barely anything is shown graphically. Overall it is not very disturbing even with the violent and demonic theme.
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Time Played: 1-2 hours
Maker's Eden: Act 1, The
A Sci-Fi Noir Title with Nice Atmosphere
The Maker’s Eden has been made with a motion comic technique and basically it plays a like an adventure and visual novel hybrid, having quite light gameplay with some puzzles and dialogue options to choose from.
The art, music and overall atmosphere in the game is very compelling. The story itself is also truly engaging, even with the quite common ‘protagonist with no memory’ gimmick.
The first episode is very short, it plays barely over 1 hour. To me it didn’t make a huge difference as I thought the episode made a great package with a marvelous ending. But if you demand a longer play time or heavier gameplay you can subtract a bit from the score.
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Time Played: 1-2 hours
Coming Out Simulator 2014
AR-K: Episode 2 - The Girl Who Wasn't There
A Good Continuation to the Story
The game continues a short while from where episode 1 was left off. Some changes have happened in the surroundings but the protagonist will meet the familiar characters again, and a couple of new ones. The second episode also has a narrator that interacts with Alicia directly, and can also be used to give some hints.
There’s a lot of humour and at least with me it mostly hits the mark. The characters and events are very over-the-top but I found myself enjoying many of the little misdeeds Alicia had to do. The bigger story moves forward kind of slowly but reveals enough to keep the player interested.
There are still a few polishing issues like unskippable dialogue and some minor bugs but nothing gamebreaking. A few of the puzzles are also a bit hard to figure out but overall the difficulty level is pretty good.
The game has a nice length for an episodic release (though I admit I did wander around quite a lot being a bit stuck here and there, straight playthrough is probably a lot faster). I am definitely waiting for the next episode and hoping it will be even better.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right
Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can
Very good casual game
The protagonist in the game is a murder investigator with a sixth sense. The murder case, which is set on two different times and places, is interesting and the gameplay is mostly fun with varying puzzles. There are some hidden object scenes, and perhaps towards the end there’s a couple too many, but most of the time puzzle solving and investigating is enjoyable.
The game looks and sounds nice, and Angelica gives a good amount of comments about the surroundings and the case. This is one of the best casual games I’ve played and I would definitely recommend it to people as an introduction to casual games. It also has a nice length for a casual game, definitely took me closer to 5 hours, if not past it.
Important notice: the Collector’s Edition includes a bonus chapter that is basically essential to the story. Without it the ending is very abrupt and doesn’t really give any explanations to why and how things were happening. One might say the game doesn’t even feel complete without it. So if you are purchasing the game, I strongly recommend making sure you’ll be getting the bonus chapter with your copy.
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Time Played: 2-5 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Wolf Among Us: Episode Five - Cry Wolf, The
Blackwell Epiphany, The
Moebius: Empire Rising
Not a perfect but entertaining story about an epic friendship
I am quite a die hard fan of Jane Jensen and I definitely enjoyed her newest game, but I have to admit it has some flaws which clearly makes it inferior to the Gabriel Knight series for example.
Jensen excels making flawed but likable characters and handling their relationships in very interesting and engaging ways. I think in this story the friendship between the two main characters was actually the main focus, and the trademark paranormal plot played only the secondary part. The plot itself was pretty good too though, but not worth 5/5 score like the relationship is.
What made me substract from the overall score was mainly the puzzles. While Malachi’s deduction puzzles were usually fun enough, the game had some inventory puzzles varying from quite bad to good. Personally I dislike (immensely) all kinds of fetching tasks - luckily there weren’t that many, and most of the time the game flowed forward quite nicely.
The graphics of the game have received a lot of criticism but they work well enough, backgrounds actually being quite beautiful here and there. And while the animation is rather awkward, especially in the beginning of the game, it’s not horrible by any means. Voice acting in this game I quite loved, especially Malachi.
I would definitely recommend this game to any adventure fan with slight warnings, mainly: don’t expect it to be Gabriel Knight.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Memoria
Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav, The
Broken Age
Wolf Among Us: Episode Three: A Crooked Mile, The
Wolf Among Us: Episode Two - Smoke & Mirrors, The
Wolf Among Us: Episode One - Faith, The
Gone Home
Edna & Harvey: The Breakout
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
BEYOND: Two Souls
Entertaining and immersive fun
At first I must admit that I am also a fan of Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain and I think the newest Quantic Dream release doesn’t pale in comparison. I know it has received some mixed reviews but honestly I can’t think of a reason (besides disliking the paranomal plot) why people who enjoyed the earlier titles wouldn’t also love this one.
I think the controls have improved still (Heavy Rain already was an improvement from Fahrenheit) as they are more intuitive. The gameplay is rather easy, the main character cannot die, and while you can still fail in some things, the consequences will not be as bleak as they were in Heavy Rain. Most of the time I thought controlling Jodie and Aiden was fun (and there were parts where the two-character-dynamic worked really well) and not frustrating at all (which was heavily the case in Fahrenheit).
The game is stunning and Ellen Page is brilliant as the main character Jodie. Some of the supporting cast is also excellent.
The story was very entertaining, some people can be turned off by the pseudo-scifi elements but I don’t take my scifi too seriously, this was nothing worse than what we’ve seen in Fringe or X-Files which are among the best paranormal shows there are. Many minor things are left unanswered (I’m also quite sure that different things can be found out playing the game differently) and this “other side” pretty much just is, it is not explained very thoroughly.
Jodie’s (and Aiden’s) tale is told in bits and pieces out of sequence which can seem a bit disorienting at first. Towards the end I started to really like it though. Needless to say that I played this game with one sitting as I did with Heavy Rain. (Yes, there were some toilet breaks.)
The game took me under 10 hours but experimenting with some chapters and different endings as well as completing the extra chapter “Advanced Experiments” my overall time with the game got pushed past 10 hour mark. And I am quite certain I’ll be going for another playthrough later just to see what can be done, even though the differences are mostly slight.
If you don’t straight out hate Heavy Rain, QTE or interactive movies, I would recommend giving Beyond: Two Souls a try.
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Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Obsidian
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller - Episode 4: The Cain Killer
Solid Conclusion
The final episode is a bit shorter than the earlier ones but a good conclusion and an entertaining game.
Gameplay is the same good old stuff mixing up different psion skills and regular detective play. Yet another twist is implemented (trust towards the player character) but one playthrough couldn’t really reveal how much meaning it had. At least it doesn’t add depth to the puzzles as much as the newer cognitive skills did.
Storywise we get some flashbacks and the conclusion with The Cain Killer, and even some hints towards possible future plotlines.
I am looking forward replaying the whole season at some point, currently the third episode is my favourite.
The Hangman: 4,5
The Wise Monkey: 4+
The Oracle: 5-
The Cain Killer: 4+
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Time Played: 2-5 hours
Difficulty: Just Right
Walking Dead: 400 Days, The
To the Moon
Drawn: The Painted Tower
Testament of Sherlock Holmes, The
Vampyre Story, A
Charming and funny
Years ago when I first tried the game I thought the jokes were just too awful and the game overall was a bit boring, but I gave it another chance now and found out it’s actually a good game, not far from excellent. I would rather rate it at 4- stars, but as there isn’t an option for this, it’s going to be a very solid 3 and a half.
A Vampyre Story looks beautiful and sounds good. Mona’s high pitched voice might be a bit of an acquired taste but it’s very suitable, kudos for not going for the basic bland protagonist neither with the voice nor with the other characteristics.
The game has loads and loads of things to interact with, one can easily spend many extra hours just trying all the combinations (look/talk/use/fly). Puzzles work pretty well varying a bit with difficulty - there’s at least one rather tough one. The silly sidekick bat adds some variety to the puzzles too.
The humour is stupid. It’s so stupid that at times it’s almost painful, but somehow after a while I really got used to it and found myself smirking and laughing more and more as the game progressed.
Overall this game is very well worth playing for any adventure gamer, though unfortunately it ends rather abruptly and the story doesn’t get a decent ending at all.
Everyone should note that AVS has a couple of game breaking bugs which can luckily be fixed by patching the game. I strongly recommend this. Also, saves from unpatched game will be unlikely to work properly in the patched version.
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Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Just Right
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller - Episode 2: The Wise Monkey
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller - Episode 3: The Oracle
Strong title getting stronger
I was pretty much instantly impressed and enjoying the Cognition series with the incredible music, pleasant detective gameplay and a serial killer plot.
The third episode improves from the two previous ones by adding depth to the story and to the characters, and introducing new kids of puzzles that are among the most enjoyable (at least) in the last few years.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right
Heavy Rain
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller - Episode 1: The Hangman
Resonance
Yesterday
AR-K: Episode 1 - Sex, Lies and Class Work
Remedy – A Carol Reed Mystery
Decent detective game
The game is somewhat short, moving around a bit disorienting and I had to struggle to get the sound working, but overall I still enjoyed this experience.
The slides look pretty and the investigating is pleasant. This is pretty much British Nancy Drew in Sweden, which is certainly good enough to make me go for the second game.
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Time Played: 2-5 hours
Memento Mori
Blackwell Deception, The
AlternativA
Wasted potential
I really wanted to like this game. It looks good, the cyberpunk setting is great, and the plot is interesting and full of potential. The game just doesn’t deliver what it promises.
The whole touch to the world seems very superficial - and artificial (not just talking about androids here). Puzzles are mostly just backtracking and some of them are annoyingly illogical. Great majority of them are plain boring. Overall there’s very little to interact with.
Voice acting differs from mediocre to horrible, and the characters don’t seem to have any layers, depth, or even charm.
The story could have saved the game from mediocrity but the game ends immediately when it’s starting to pick up and feel like we’re getting to the good part.
It’s not a completely bad game, just not really a good one either.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy
