Friday, June 13, 2025

Demo Time: Pestilence Demo (VSD)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Pestilence through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]

Release Date: TBD
Systems: Windows, Steam OS
Publisher: Kooky Studios
Developer: Kooky Studios
Time Spent: 33 Minutes

I have some thoughts about the Pestilence Demo, in part from a mechanics standpoint, but also from a story point of view, although the latter could be a moot point depending on the perspective of the playable character in-game once it's released.  The puzzles themselves, the setting, the jump scares, and even whatever you call scares that aren't jump scares but still make you not want to enter a room, were still effective.

I was at first a little confused when the game started.  I could hear a clock ticking, but the screen was black.  Maybe I made a mistake by increasing the graphics too high from the default low?  Was this another situation like Unreachable, where the opening cinematic stuttered so much that I couldn't always tell what was going on, except here I was just looking at a black screen?  Once the game started and you walked out into a hallway, I immediately got Silent Hills vibes, which proved true as the door you passed through sent you back to the same hallway, but from the opposite direction.  I get the idea of including something like this in your game, especially in the beginning, but for me, it kinda took me out of the experience, wondering if this was just going to be another hallway walking simulator where scary stuff happened around you.

Thankfully, this was not the case once your playable character blacked out, and then you woke up in a seemingly locked prison cell.  So not unlike Amnesia: Justine, kind of.  You then were able to explore a large garage structure, solving minor environmental puzzles like turning the power on by reconnecting disconnected wires, filling a generator with gas (after locating a gas tank), and remembering where the breaker box was located.  None of the puzzles were overly complex, although I did power my way through one code-based puzzle when I knew three of the four numbers.  My biggest gripe with the puzzles overall was that there were some parts that the game wouldn't let me solve out of order.  For instance, I came across some wires that were disconnected that were very obviously supposed to be connected, but because I hadn't connected the first set of wires located in another part of the room, I couldn't connect this second/third set first.

The story, I was a little less on board with.  Pretty early on in the game, it felt pretty obvious that the character I was playing was supposed to know the dingy garage with its empty liquor bottles, grungy couch, dirty sleeping bag, and blood-splattered footprints.  The voice-over narration that your character would interject with seemed more like the kind of person who would know this place than someone who was kidnapped by the owner of this garage.  And the violent and aggressive interrupting voice seemed too similar to the interior monologue to be a coincidence.  About three-fifths through the demo, a radio broadcast provided significant exposition, specifically directed at the player character, that cemented the theory that you were playing as someone who suffered from some type of schizophrenia-type disorder who had kidnapped and brutally murdered multiple people over an extended period.

I thought that I wasn't particularly okay with taking on the role of someone who violently kidnapped, murdered, and mutilated bodies because it was in his nature, but this isn't an entirely foreign concept in narrative storytelling.  Games like Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs involve kidnapping and mutilation.  In Layers of Fear, the Painter (the player) had previously physically and psychologically tortured his wife over decades while also being abusive towards their daughter.  If playing as those disdainful characters didn't bother me, why does this character in Pestilence?  The only thing I can initially think of is that, because Pestilence is a contemporary story, maybe even taking place as far back as the mid-late 1990s, based on the computer used, but maybe it's just a really old computer.  Maybe if GTA had the option to mutilate bodies in a bathtub after hours of torture, I might be more adverse to the series.

So this is where I lie with Pestilence.  The game ran perfectly fine on the Steam Deck without any modifications or compatibility settings needed.  I enjoyed the setting, the puzzles, the scares, but I'm somewhat iffy on playing as this particular character.  And I think that's really all I can say.  It will be interesting to see where the story goes in the full game and if there's an attempt to make the character either sympathetic or even somewhat redeemable.  Or it will just end with cops surrounding the guy's garage and being shot to death while spirits of all of his victims look on as the last drop of blood leaves his body, nodding in approval.

Roll credits.


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Lost in the Fire, the Fire of Hate

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

MIDI Week Singles: "Dragon Roost Island" - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (NGC)

 


"Dragon Roost Island" from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the Nintendo GameCube (2002)
Composer: Kenta Nagata
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EAD


I decided to use this theme for several reasons.  First and foremost, this is just a fun and upbeat song that I easily remember from the last time I played Wind Waker, probably 20+ years ago.  It's easily recognizable, it's hummable/whistleable, and therefore more likely to leave a lasting impression.  Lastly, it was featured on an episode of 8-Bit Music Theory two years ago.

What I enjoyed about that episode, and most of the videos on that channel, is that I can kind of follow along as the dive into music theory goes so much deeper than you might expect.  It also goes to show that music composed for video games is more than ones and zeros on a computer.  The videos also make me feel like every song I've written is just utter trash because I guarantee you that I've never put that much thought into the intricacies of chord progressions and what business do I have even being around a piano, let around a blank sheet of notation paper?  What business do I have even writing about video game music once a week in a way that doesn't do a deep analytical dive into the inner complexities of the song itself to say why I've included it beyond, "I like this song and thought it was good."

But then, after such an in-depth analysis, the question of why this is such a catchy at memorable melody for this particular location at this point in the game remains.  "It's kind of hard to say how this piece of music relates to the island as a whole, though. [...]  To me, it seems this is just a really solid piece of music written by someone who really knew what they were doing" (source).  And sometimes, that's just enough for me too.


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

Friday, June 6, 2025

Game EXP: ARKERO VR

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for ARKERO VR through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]



ARKERO VR
Systems: Meta Quest 2 & 3, Steam VR
Release Date: May 9, 2025
Publisher: Interco Industries LLC
Developer: Interco Industries LLC
Time Spent: 37 Minutes 45 Seconds
Playlist on YouTube

Well, I finally got ARKERO VR downloaded, and this review is coming out weeks later than I had originally planned; my experience with the Meta store in regards to download keys prior to a game being officially released did not impact my feelings at all about the game.  What did slightly impact my review was seeing that there is still an "Early Access" banner on the title in the game, which seems to mean one of two things.  One, ARKERO VR is currently incomplete, and there will be more planned content added throughout the year.  Or two, that the game is complete but the "Early Access" banner is still on the title screen, which doesn't give me great feelings about the state of the game.  The fact that the Settings button didn't seem to work or lead to anything also didn't bode well in regards to this game being "complete."  But maybe I'm just overreacting after the feelings of bait-and-switch that was the main campaign in Ashen Arrows.  

Before I started, I knew that ARKERO VR was a combined MOBA and single-player game, so I knew going into it that I wasn't going to be focusing on the MOBA aspect since I was going to be playing mostly at work where access to facebook/Meta websites is blocked, but also because I'm not a particularly prolific MOBA afficianado.  But I did play one round of "Conquest" with each of the available player slots filled with computer-controlled zombie knights, which did give me a bit of a feel for how a typical game is supposed to operate; although I somehow missed the cue that the ballista was ready or however you're supposed to unlock the ballista.  I probably also should have played through the trials to get a feel for each of the three character types rather than jumping right in and not fully understanding the mechanics, but that's me for you.  So I decided that I would be the ranger coming off of my time with Ashen Arrows.

The ranger was fine, but then again, the Conquest mode was also just fine.  The most exciting part was going up against the giant orc/troll/champion creature and figuring out how best to dance around it while it swung at me with its flail.  I wish that there was a button to press that would spin your character 180 degrees or to be able to move backwards.  For all I know, there was something in the settings that would allow free movement with the joystick and not just targeted movement, but again, I couldn't access the settings menu.  I also don't know anything about the ents/treants that were wandering back and forth on the map.  Were they actually enemies or just creatures to get in the way?  They never attacked, but they did have a health bar, so it was never really clear.  The match was essentially over once our team had access to the ballista, which the Red Team grunts never seemed to target, but I'm sure it would've received a lot of enemy fire if I had been going up against real people.

The trials were a bit of a mixed bag.  For the mage, I really liked the different spells and how to select them by rotating your hand.  That being said, I didn't see a point for the lightning spell, which took a while to figure out, and even then, I'm not 100% how it was supposed to be beneficial.  It felt like it was an area of attack spell, where you selected the area, then triggered the spell, and then watched as dark clouds formed over the area before piercing down lightning bolts on the selected area.  Compared to the ice spell, which instantaneously cast out a line of ice that culminated in a burst of ice shards from the ground, which seemed to kill anything it touched, this spell seemed very overpowered.  The fire spell was more like a basic attack spell that shot out a small ball of fire with very little recharge time between shots.  But since you could duel-wield spells, you could essentially just cast an ice spell with one hand, wait a second, and cast another one towards any enemies that were out of range, then cast another with the other hand, and by that time, your first hand would've recharged.  The level itself was a basic dungeon/cave crawl and ended upon reaching a wooden door.  That was it.

The Arbalist trial was by far the most interesting in that it culminated in a boss fight and required destroying an object to complete the level.  Like the Mage, the Arbalist had three different bolts to choose from: a basic bolt, a poison bolt that does damage over time, and a fire bolt that does fire damage and explodes upon impact, possibly damaging other enemies in the vicinity.  I assume that the recharge time varies depending on the bolt, but I never noticed any significant delay between the bolt types.  Maybe in different trials or in Conquest, the poison bolt could be beneficial if there are enemies that have a resistance towards fire or the regular bolt, but I found that I was mostly drawn to the fire bolt since they seemed to do the most damage and even if I missed my shot, I still had the second crossbow to fire.  The boss fight at the end was pretty fun, even though I found that I didn't need to move around much, and from what I could tell, the only attack the enemy had was summoning more grunts on the ground to attack me.

The last trial for the Ranger was easily the weakest for several reasons.  First, the biggest draw for the Ranger class is that your arrows have an extended range compared to the attacks from the Arbalist and the Mage.  But when you're playing in a cave setting with frequent turns and cave walls that jut out, having a significant range advantage doesn't really feel like an advantage.  Second, after playing two characters that each had three different types of attacks, coming to a character class that had a basic attack and a charged variation of the same attack felt like a downgrade.  The stage didn't really feel like it took advantage of the Ranger class, and not coincidentally, was the fastest of the three trials.

As it stands right now, ARKERO VR feels more like a demo than a fully fledged game.  Maybe it's that there's still "Early Access" on the title screen, or that the Settings button doesn't work, or that there's only one stage in each of the trials, which each last for fewer than 10 minutes; or that what looked like a 10 minute timer to beat the trial never worked.  Maybe the meat of the game really is the MOBA, but it feels like asking a lot to have 11 other friends who also have the same type of VR headset as you (I couldn't tell if this is available cross-platform).  And unlike the wording in the description, I did not find or see any power-ups in Conquest mode, no PVE gameplay apart from the trials, no survival mode, and no swords or melee weapons.  As an early access game or even a demo, it has potential, but as a fully released game, there's just not enough here to keep me interested after playing for 45 minutes.


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
They've Already Died


P.S.  I I D P I D I Th?

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

MIDI Week Singles: "Staff Roll" - Bust-A-Move (SGG)

 


"Staff Roll" from Bust-A-Move on the SEGA Game Gear (1995)
Composer: Tamayo Kawamoto with themes by Tadashi Kimijima
Album: No Official Release


I'm not a particularly big Bubble Bobble fan, and adjacent, I'm not a big Puzzle Bobble, or Bust-A-Move fan either.  I get the concept of the games, and I'll play them, especially in two-player/co-op mode, but it's not a franchise that I'll seek out.  That being said, I like how Tamayo Kawamoto used the music from the first stage of the first Bubble Bobble as the closing music for this game.  As assumed, I can't quite tell if other themes from the original game were used or sprinkled throughout the rest of the music in this game.  To me, it comes across as a nice nod and send off for people who completed the game and are watching/enjoying the credits.  Sort of like a musical "Thanks for Playing" after nearly two hours.


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
I Lived Way At The Top

Monday, June 2, 2025

Monthly Update: June 2025

 


Holy damn it's June already.  How did that happen?  Where did the time go?  When did The Squire level up again!?  

I almost feel like I could copy/paste May for June and it would probably work.

I'm still playing through Fallout 4, although I've started fast traveling between locations, mainly because I maxed out the Strong Back perk that now allows you to fast travel when overencumbered, and I'm overencumbered around 80% of the time.  I've also started the Underground Railroad quest line, which I think I was supposed to have started before doing most of what I've already done because there's a lot of character dialogue about your character, the Sole Survivor, not having met a synth before and talking about Dr. Amari in Good Neighbor as if I hadn't already spliced into Nick Valentine's brain.  There was one bit of dialogue from P.A.M. that hinted that I had done a lot more than previously thought.  I might be nearing the end of the main campaign, too, as I'm delaying "transporting" into The Institute, which feels like one of those points of no return I've been hearing so much about.

I'm also definitely coming to the end of the Morrowind DLC in The Elder Scrolls Online because stuff is now falling from the sky, but only around Vivec city, so it's probably nothing to worry about.  Also, RIP Chodala, since we all know the real Nerevarine is Valgrin of Markarth.

There were a couple of games I acquired from Keymailer, Silverpine Creek and Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast, and I think something I gleened is that is a helluva lot easier to get long-form video footage from the Steam Deck even with all of the video exporting and uploading and downloading compared to the 30 second clips from the Switch.  I guess I just have used OBS and the Steam Deck dock to record long-form Switch footage after running into so many issues with OBS.

Speaking of the Switch, still no Switch 2 pre-order yet.  I'm still kinda hoping that  I'll get a delayed email from Nintendo locking in that sweet-sweet-pre-Trump-Tariff cost of $499 because I'm not below paying $20 fewer dollars for a digital-only copy of Mario Kart World; and I don't need to have the Switch 2 on launch day.  Maybe just a couple of months after would be nice; kinda like when we picked up the Switch around July 2017.

I've also decided to go through my backlog of Switch games, and I'm handling this the easiest way I know how.  I'll sort the games by date of acquisition, and starting from the oldest, I'll look through the games and determine if it's something I can actually play and beat.  So now I'm jumping back into Car Quest that I picked up oh so many years ago.  So far, it's a low-stress puzzle game with an emphasis on exploration in a low-poly environment where you don't actually have to pick up everything on the screen, but you do have to pick up enough to unlock the next area.  Although I would still like to finish Triangle Strategy and that other queue I said I would work on.

I think right now we're TV show-less after finishing the second season of Andor.  My general, short-form thoughts are that knowing that each 3-episode arc this season was originally planned to be its own season (but then scrapped once Tony Gilroy realized how long it would take and how much specifically Diego Luna would age in an additional 8-10 years), that I wish that there was a little more meat in these story-condensed episodes.  Or at least, some storylines felt like they were condensed to get the important bits into each arc.  I also wasn't as excited about the acquisition of K-2SO, and not because I knew anything about the one-off comic, but because I felt like we were never shown Cassian to be interested in Imperial droids or his specific reasoning for lugging this one on his getaway ship when haste seemed more of a priority.  Even a quick, "What are you doing!?" "Its memory banks could have some useful intel!"  Simple as that, and I personally would've felt a little better.  But yeah, in the censored words of Marva from the first season, "Fuck the Empire!"


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

Friday, May 30, 2025

First Impressions: Goblin Slayer - Another Adventurer - Nightmare Feast (NS)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Goblin Slayer - Another Adventurer - Nightmare Feast through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.] 

Systems: Windows*, Nintendo Switch
Release Date: November 15, 2024
Publisher: Red Art Games
Developer: Apollosoft Inc, mebius
Time Spent: 5 Hours 17 Minutes


Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast,
 from what I've played, is a mashup of two genres: visual novel and tactics RPG.  Which really isn't too far off from a lot of tactics games that I've played, as most games are broken up between tactic battles and story/exposition.  The biggest difference here is that the story elements aren't conveyed using the somewhat standard pixelated characters that are also used in battles. Instead, it is more of a visual novel approach with one to three anime-style characters facing the player and talking while you press the A-button, progressing the dialogue.  The other added piece to the visual novel is that the majority of the dialogue is all voice-acted for the principal characters, with the occasional grunts and snarls for enemies that don't deserve to have their lines spoken out loud.  Thankfully, the tactics RPG side of things didn't seem to take a backseat at all.

When I started Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast (Goblin Slayer here on out), I was genuinely confused at how much of the game was just a straight-up visual novel.  It's not that there is an over abundance of visual novel exposition scenes that outweigh the amount of time you spend in combat, it's just something that threw me for a bit of a loop when I first started the game.  Even the trailer uses only seven seconds out of 68 to show the visual novel aspect and during that time doesn't specifically reference that genre.  But maybe my perspective is slightly skewed as I do make it a point to listen to all of the spoken dialogue instead of blazing through the text or just reading it faster than it's spoken.

The other thing that threw me was just how the game up-and-out uses the name Castlevania in the English translation.  During the opening sequence, I heard "Akumajō" spoken, which I know can roughly translate to demon castle, or Devil's castle, but Akumajō Dracula is also the title of the original Castlevania in Japan.  I can only imagine that whoever did the English translation, which apparently is currently only available on the Nintendo Switch edition, interpreted "Akumajō" to literally mean Castlevania.  Apart from the setting for game is in an idyllic village that was once in the shadow of a castle inhabited by an evil vampire, I never felt that what I was playing was supposed to be a side-story to any of the official Castlevania games.

Let's get to the meat of the game, which is the tactics RPG.  The mechanics here are pretty standard for a game in the genre.  You play as a group of adventurers, although you start out the game with only one member and slowly grow your ranks to the point where you have more characters than are allowed in a single battle, who fight a group of enemies on a square grid of varying elevations in turn-based fashion.  Like a good tactics game, the direction a character is facing is also important, as attacks to the side and the back can deal higher damage and at least seem to have a higher chance of dealing a critical attack.  Unlike a lot of tactics games I've played in recent years, Goblin Slayer lets you change the direction of your characters at any time during the player phase of the battle, so you don't have to worry about forgetting to rotate someone in the direction of an imanent attack or if you accidentally have someone facing the wrong direction at the end of their turn.  And thankfully, there is no permadeath for your characters, and we'll get to the death of the Guild Master a little bit later on.

One interesting decision that the developers made in the battle mechanics, is that regardless of your enemy, be they humanoid (humans, goblins, vampires, etc) or creatures (wolves, warthogs, gargoygles, etc), not all of the enemies will engage in battle until they're activated by the proximity of the characters.  I found this exceedingly helpful knowledge since when I first started, I played like any other tactics RPG where most, if not all, enemies would move on the grid when it was their turn.  In Goblin Slayer, you can tactically cheese individual enemies to follow a single character who's acting as a sort of scout, back to the rest of your waiting party, so your characters aren't overwhelmed, which can happen with as few as three enemies attacking at the same time.

As far as the list of characters in your party, there are definitely story-centric characters like Guild Master, Blood Princess, Squire, Conan, and Polar Bear Priest, but there are plenty of other characters you can recruit into your budding adventurers guild with names like "Gemstone Lover," "Generous Scales"(he's a lizard man), "Wise Friend," and "Inheritor of Ambition."  I have no explanation for some of the names of these characters, as they're not their titles, although for some, they do seem to be both.  I'm going to chalk it up again to something related to the translation from Japanese into English.  Just like in Final Fantasy Tactics, these recruitable characters are not included in exposition scenes or have much in the way of personality, and it's up to the player to imbue any of these characters with any kind of characteristics found in their character design and skills from their "pre-installed" class.  I actually really love this aspect of the game and wish that more tactics RPGs were like this and not as much like the Fire Emblem series, where every single playable character is the lead character in their own story, complete with a detailed backstory.  Sometimes I just want a faceless grunt to join my merry band of adventurers, whom I mentally develop their backstory for as the game progresses, and I get to know them.  But I recognize that I might be in the minority on that front.

The last thing I want to touch on is one of the things I'm not a fan of in tactics RPGs, and that's the main character during battles.  When the Guild Master dies, the battle is immediately over.  This is something that's bothered me since I first came across this specific mechanic in Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia, although I know the mechanic exists in other tactics games as well as Final Fantasy Tactics.  The difference with FFT, though, is that characters have a death counter when they are killed, and once that counter reaches zero, if they're not revived, they turn into a crystal, so the game is not GAME OVER level if Ramza is killed.  Once again, this means being very conservative with the Guild Master in combat lest you run the risk of them being surrounded and attacked by enemies at any time during a single battle that could last around 30 minutes.  That's a lot of wasted time when you know you're only able to dedicate an hour or so a day to playing video games.

At present, I've only played just over five hours, and I'm only in Chapter II: First Experience Point, but that's mainly because I've been grinding fights that are both side quests and training fights because I am hiring every single recruit who comes through the proverbial doors of our fledgling adventurer's guild.  I haven't been progressing the story very quickly because I am paranoid I'll run into a Wiegraf encounter that I'm not properly levelled for and that will be the end of the game, or at least the end of that save file, which is why I have 2-3 save files as back ups before I go into situations that become points of no return.  I still don't feel as invested in the Guild Master and her backstory being the driving force behind the game, but I do kind of wonder what will happen with Inheritor of Ambition and XXXX.  Like, what's their deal?


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
I Want Them Shaking in Terror and Shame

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

MIDI Week Singles: "Yellow Card" - Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 (PSP)

 


"Yellow Card" from Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 on the PlayStation Portable, and Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Game Cube, Windows, & Android (2005)*
Composer: Powerplant
Album: Unknown?
Publisher: EA Sports

I think why I enjoy this song so much is simply because it was included in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06.  I can't say if Tiger Woods himself had any say in the music that was selected for the game, maybe he had an intern go over EA's sound library and decided on a song; "Yellow Card" was also used in EA Sports' Total Club Manager 2004 released a few years earlier in 2003.  I also just chortle at this image of a 30-year-old Tiger Woods, at the top of his game, trying to find the beat in a flashing club circa 2004.  I actually couldn't find any videos of him dancing (I'm sure our IT guy at work might have some questioning looks for me the next time I run into him).

But you know, maybe it's end-of-the-game music as you reminisce over your 18 holes and how you could've done better?  It's an overly peppy tune, though, so maybe it plays when you watch your competition cry over their scorecards and trying to fish their $569 driver out of the water hazard they chucked it into when they only came in two under par?

I dunno.  This song just makes me happy in ways that I don't think it was written to do.  


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental