Game EXP: The Outer Worlds (NS)

 

The Outer Worlds
Release Date: October 25, 2019 - March 7, 2023
Systems: PlayStation 4/5, Windows, Xbox One/S/X, Nintendo Switch
Publisher: Private Division
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Ported By: Virtuous
Time Spent: ~68 Hours

First and foremost, the Nintendo Switch port of The Outer Worlds is not a pretty game.  The colors feel like they are muted and muddied, often with elements that are supposed to be integrated to some extent, like hair on a head, and feel like completely separate elements.  It's not a great-looking game and if you're someone who will only play games at higher than low graphical settings and are in the market for the PS5 Pro, then you'll probably want to look elsewhere both in terms of video game ports and at a different article altogether.  For the most part, the game ran at a steady I don't know how many frames per second, probably around the high twenties and maxing out at 30 and there might be a couple dips down to the high-mid 10s although there were never any sub-10 drops.  

That aside, I loved The Outer Worlds for what it felt like to me.  A Fallout-type game on a wide variety of science fiction worlds with an amazing set of characters as your crew, some with amazingly fleshed-out and endearing backstories and character side quests.  This makes sense since it was Obsidian Entertainment that developed Fallout: New Vegas, so there's plenty of character-building, world-building, humor, and severed body parts all over this game.  They very easily could have gone down the Firefly cookie-cutter route and at times it does feel similar with characters fulfilling certain archetypes like Parvati/Kaylee being the down-home mechanic from a backwater town, Vicar Max/Shepherd Book being the former preacher, Nyoka/Jayne being the muscle, Ellie/Simon is the ship's medic, and a couple of others who are all worth mentioning, but we'll do so later.  The point is, while some of the characters have similar foundations to those in Firefly, there don't seem to be any copycats and are each their own person.  There are specific quests for each crew member and if you have two with you out on missions, they will have conversations amongst themselves revealing both personal background and information about your current mission.  And it's not just generic banter either, but specifically directed at the other crew member.  It makes the game and world feel lived in and more real than random phrases from them only when you do specific actions; but there are those too, like when you trigger a crew member to perform a special attack.

Now that we're halfway through the article, The Outer Worlds is a first-person story-driven looter-shooter RPG with zero romanceable characters (because apparently, that's a big sticking point for a contingent of the gaming public).  You play as a person rescued out of a cryogenic pod tucked away on a spaceship previously thought lost 70 years after it set out from Earth to help colonize a new star system.  Your character is revived wherein you build them in typical TTRPG fashion by placing points into various stats (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Perception, etc) while also choosing a profession in your former life that can give minor stat bonuses (I was a "Cashier, Sub-Grade, Non-Supervisory" which bestowed upon me a +1 to Perception).  It was the closest I could find to "Accountant" or "Bookkeeper."  The whole process felt very tongue-in-cheek and I never felt that I needed to research everything in order to min/max my character build.

Without getting too into the weeds about the story, because there's a lot in terms of the main quest, the side quests, the crew quests, and the corporatization of the world-building that I wouldn't be able to cover very well, I'll just say that it's very much a right place at the right time while taking out The Man kind of story.  After you create your character, you're instructed to meet a contact on a planet, only to have your escape pod crush your contact on impact and then you take over his identity (which becomes an optional running gag throughout the game) and his ship named The Unreliable.  You talk in cities, kill bandits and wild animals outside of cities, then go back to cities to pawn all of your crap.  Rinse, repeat.  All while engaging in various quests.  It's that kind of game and I loved it because a lot of the writing, both in terms of character dialogue and item descriptions felt both genuine and hilarious.

I was nervous about this being a first-person shooter on the Switch since my experience with the finer movements in the 2016 DOOM felt less than optimized for controller controls, and my first couple of combat encounters seemed to lean into that fear, but by the time I left that first planet, I was very comfortable with how the game operated.  I took a sniper rifle approach to most situations as I would usually carry three ranged weapons and a melee weapon, so I could also have a close-quarter shotgun, a specialized handgun, or a machine gun, to go with a giant two-handed hammer.  There was a fair amount of customization as well for each of your weapons as well as your armor and helmet.  There was a hint of having a selection of different outfitted weapons depending on the situation and what you were fighting, but by halfway through the game, most of the time I would use the weapon that dealt the highest amount of damage.

One interesting mechanic was the ability to slow down time for a short period, referred to as Tactical Time Dilation.  This was explained in-game, "Due to complications stemming from being revived after an extended hibernation, your brain processes time differently."  This ability would slowly recharge over time so you couldn't just spam it during gun fights, although there were perks that would allow it to recharge faster and/or give you a small percentage chance to refill your TTD meter after a kill.  Healing was an interesting mechanic and one that I didn't fully grasp until late in the game.  Here you had an inhaler that you could mix different compounds to not only heal but also offer buffs depending on the combination of items used.  I pretty much just used whatever items I had on hand and relied on the game to pick for me if I ran out of one item or another.  The last mechanic that ended up being optional and that I never used was conditional on how you played the game.  If you receive too much electrical damage, you might develop an electrical weakness that makes you more susceptible to electrical damage, but you do get to choose any perk from your list that you haven't already taken.  The first one I got was from taking damage too often after jumping from heights that were too high.  I can understand why this mechanic exists, but the fact that it's optional kind of makes this potential character-building mechanic make the execution of this seem rather futile.  Maybe it existed in a forced form that you couldn't opt-out from early on in development but as more and more flaws were introduced, maybe it became such a hindrance that your character could be one-shotted by anything?  I also felt that a generic "1 Perk" didn't feel like a great reward for having my movement speed permanently lowered by 30%.

The Outer Worlds was a wonderful game.  It was an ugly game.  It was a hilarious game.  It was a beautiful game.  It was a game that made me want to have companions with me (it helped that they couldn't die but were only incapacitated until after all of the enemies in a combat encounter were killed).  When I found out that the DLC was only playable before you go into the final mission, I was a little sad because I did not feel like starting up a brand new character just to play through a couple of extra missions.  But I do have the game through the Epic Game Store so I might revisit this world again either on my laptop (or a future one, let's be real) or on the Steam Deck.  I was very excited when I heard that a sequel is still currently in development* and I hope that it involves all new characters as the main characters, maybe with a cameo here and there.  I could live with that.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
The Stories You Tell

*The narration in that trailer is another great example of the writing in the game.

P.S.  It video game me:

Game EXP: Light - Die to Survive [Part 2] (VSD)

 [Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Light - Die to Surive 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.]

Light - Die to Survive
Systems: Windows, Linux
Release Date: July 31, 2024
Publisher: NoteBuddy, Inc.
Developer: NoteBuddy, Inc.
Time Spent: 73 Minutes

Now that we've covered the basics and generalities in Light - Die to Survive back in Monday's article, I will go over three of my four attempts at playing and trying to pass the first chapter.  I technically have all four of the videos I recorded all of the playing I did in Light, but for some unknown reason, the second video ends up corrupted every time I try to export it from Steam on the Steam Deck.  I can watch the video on the Steam Deck, so I know it's a thing, but every time I try to export that one file, it saves as 1.4KB, so I'm not sure what's going on in the exporting process for this one file because all of the other video files come up as their actual video.  Not that there was anything overly revolutionary in that second video other than showing some progression in figuring out a couple of the solutions in what you're supposed to do for certain phenomena as you walk/run down the long road.

Playthrough #1: The First

I genuinely like the slightly messiness in this video.  It's not flashy or showy or really professional-looking.  It's just me starting up the game, technically for the second time but the first time was only for two minutes and to get screenshots of the title screen.  It shows the process of trying to figure out how to best get the game to run well enough to be playable and presentable on a system that the game was both not designed or optimized for and one that doesn't have a large enough player base to help guide new players.

So the medium settings were somewhat playable, but I honestly didn't feel that there was a significant difference on the Steam Deck between the Low and Medium settings, so I just left them on low for the slightly better frame rate; I'd rather have a stable 30, especially for YouTube videos.

As you can tell from this first video, I figured out how to make it past the mannequin, but was flummoxed by the phone which will be covered below.  But, the main purpose was to just start up the game and see how best to run it on the Steam Deck.

Playthrough #3: The Second

I'm a bit miffed by the fact that I seem to be unable to export my second video although there wasn't a lot of progression so maybe that's not a bad thing?  I'm just annoyed mainly from a completionist view in that there's a gap in my experience playing the game that I can't share, even if that experience wasn't productive.

Instead of doing a long-winded commentary, I'm going to bullet point the highlights from the video without hyperlinking any of the timestamps because I cannot afford a personal assistant to do it for me.  And there was a lot of progression that happened in this video.

• 01:42 - First viewing of the dumpster creature.
• 01:48 - Dead
• 02:55 - Thought I could try to sneak by, even with the flashlight lit.
• 02:55 - Dead
• 03:41 - I thought this time I would try approaching the dumpster but with the flashlight off.
• 03:46 - Dead
• 04:30 - The first time I saw a mannequin up on the hill and thought I should treat it like the first mannequin and keep it illuminated and hope that it would disappear.
• 04:37 - Success!!
• 04:55 - I thought this time I would completely ignore the dumpster with the light off.
• 05:06 - Now there's a portapotty and thought I should stop to have a look around.
• 05:44 - Blinking Road Closed Sign
• 06:13 - Dead
• 07:35 - I thought I would investigate the portapotty this time around.
• 07:37 - Dead
• 09:31 - First time noticing the object in the road.  I didn't recognize it as a hand at first.  After the screen glitch, I looked around for a mannequin and when I didn't see one, I thought it was safe to proceed.
• 10:23 - Dead
• 11:26 - I stopped here at the portapotty because of where I died last time.  I thought this was similar to the phone mannequin, that I needed to solve a puzzle to not die in the next area.
• 12:26 - First spotting of the ditch mannequin.
• 12:34 - Dead
• I think I died here because I went too far down the "Road Closed" dirt road.
• 14:19 - I got the mannequin to disappear using the same, "shine the light on it and walk away from it" technique.
• 14:29 - First sighting of the water tower
• 14:34 - A figure, similar to the dumpster creature, I briefly spotted hanging from the water tower but it disappeared too quickly to get a good look.  I turned the light off in the belief, this time around, that I should only illuminate things when I specifically needed to and not at all times.
• 14:50 - Road cone and road sign
• 15:16 - Dead
• 16:35 - I have no explanation as to why it took several passes for the mannequin to disappear, but this started happening more and more frequently.
• 19:02 - Unlit lamp post
• 19:05 - Dead

Playthrough #4: The Third

I'm going to keep a similar format to the previous video just to maintain some level of consistency. 

• 02:26 - I walk towards the ditch thinking that the mannequin will be there.
• 02:38 - The mannequin is located in a very different location, which I appreciate, but again, I wish that the game did this after every time you respawn to make each run/attempt slightly more interesting.
• 03:02 - Still a bit confused by the water tank at this point.
• 03:25 - At the road cone and sign, I actually take the sign into account and determine that you're supposed to walk around the cone (counterclockwise, yes?) before continuing.
• 03:36 - There's the sound of a mannequin appearing/disappearing I think, but I couldn't find anything.  The sound does crop up again in the same general area, but I never did figure out what it's associated with.
• 03:49 - An unlit lamp post.  I probably should have noticed that it being off was likely a hint as to what to do with my flashlight.
• 04:12 - The bus stop!
• 04:17 - A red arrow on the back right of the bus stop.
• 04:19 - Screen glitch
• 04:21 - Almost simultaneously after the glitch, there's an animal/creature sound along with a similar dust-up of animation on the right side of the road quickly followed by one on the left side of the road.
• 04:49 - Dead
• 06:43 - I thought that maybe with the mannequin now on the hillside, that maybe I was supposed to try something different, even if it meant going past the Road Closed sign.
• 06:45 - Dead
• 07:30 - Don't know why the mannequin didn't disappear here.
• 08:46 - I thought I kept the light on the hillside mannequin for as long as necessary since it had never disappeared before.
• 08:47 - Dead
• 10:09 - Apologies, I was trying out all of the buttons to see if anything happened that hadn't happened before and I accidentally hit the controller/hint screen, which doesn't really give you any hints.
• 12:33 - Dead
• 15:10 - I briefly considered maybe I should go down the hillside since the direction of the dust-ups went from right to left and happened around the area that the red arrow was pointing, but the drop down the hill looked too steep to be a thing.
• 15:38 - I did briefly think about heading up the hillside, but again, that didn't seem right either, mainly because the title of the chapter is "The Long Road."
• 15:47 - Dead

So this is where my current playthrough of Light - Die to Survive has languished, right after the bus stop with no idea as to what I'm supposed to do with the bus stop itself, the red arrow, the creature sounds or the dust-up on both sides of the road.  I only just saw that Kiki Cakes posted an annotated walkthrough, so I'll likely return to the game to see how far I can get with only the occasional handholding and see how much I can figure out on my own.  Maybe only to see what the other two environments are like.

But I still stand by my original conclusion from Monday's article, that I like the concept, but any sense of fear or dread drops off dramatically after having to repeat the same sections time and time and time and time again while trying to figure out the next piece of the puzzle.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

MIDI Week Singles: "Nostalgia" - Medarot 5 - Susutake Mura no Tenkousei Kabuto Version (GBC)

 

"Nostalgia" from Medarot 5 - Susutake Mura no Tenkousei Kabuto Version on the Game Boy Color (2001) and Medarot Classics Plus Kabuto Version on the Nintendo Switch (2019)
Composer: Kinuyo Yamashita, Iku Mizutani
Album: Medarot Game Sound Archives
Label: Imagineer
Publisher: Imagineer
Developer: Natsume Co., Ltd.

The first thing I want to point out is the quality of the music coming out of this Game Boy Color sound chip.  There's still that buzziness you often get with music from the Game Boy, which is just something that the composer and sound department have to deal with.

The melody here really sounds like there should be lyrics to it, like the credits music to a lot of anime from the 80s and 90s having a pop song that doesn't always fit with the tone for the rest of the movie.  But here, having only listened to the music from Medarot 5 and not actually played the game, I actually find that "Nostalgia" is a perfect name for this song as it does illicit a bit of nostalgia for a game and series that I have no nostalgia for.  

It could also be that the score (unsure as to who specifically composed this song though) was composed by Kinuyo Yamashita (Castlevania, Solstice) and Iku Mizutani (Family Tennis Advance)

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Cantus Satana Sanctus

Game EXP: Light - Die to Survive [Part 1] (VSD)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Light - Die to Surive 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.]

Light - Die to Survive
Systems: Windows, Linux
Release Date: July 31, 2024
Publisher: NoteBuddy, Inc.
Developer: NoteBuddy, Inc.
Time Spent: 73 Minutes

I have mixed feelings about Light - Die to Survive.

On one hand, I like the concept of a game where you have to be mindful of your surroundings and try to find clues and hints on how to proceed.  But then that begs the question of what to do if you don't notice a clue or fail to act?  You die.  And so then you start again, almost immediately without a "You Died" screen or a "Continue?" screen to give the player the maximum amount of drive to continue playing.

The problem comes in when even the developers acknowledge that the game is designed to be bang your head against the wall level-challenging and equally frustrating and have this as part of a weaponless survival horror-styled game, therein lies the issue.  As of this writing, I have not completed the first of three chapters, but from what I've gathered from the Steam and Keymailer pages, the mechanics are all pretty similar.  You play as a nameless character who finds themself in a location armed only with a flashlight.  You will come across abnormalities within your environment, such as a mannequin in the middle of a darkened forest road, and you have to figure out what to do.  Do you shine your light on the mannequin?  Do you run past it?  Do you walk past it with your flashlight off?  The game almost immediately lets you know if you didn't do something correctly because if you pass an invisible line after not completing the specific action, you will be killed and then you start over from the beginning of the stage.  You then proceed back through the level, remembering all of the actions you took that allowed you to proceed until you solve all of the puzzles/riddles.

On its own, the survival horror portion of the game is pretty effective.  It is very unnerving to come across a mannequin off the side of the road.  It can be unsettling seeing a phone booth on the side of the road and only hearing it ring after you've passed it.  It can be upsetting to find a mannequin's hand in the middle of an abandoned highway.  Similar to the games in the backrooms genre, being somewhere that feels vaguely familiar along with something that is very out of place can be a bit unsettling.  Something in the back of your brain is telling you that something isn't quite right with this scenario, and that's when you find yourself on edge.  It's a great feeling to have when you're playing a survival-horror game because that's why we play survival-horror games.  But then mechanics kick in, and you die because you didn't do something correctly.  So you start back at the beginning by your truck with its blinking lights and you run up the road.  The screen glitches and you see the mannequin in the same place as before.  Then you see the phone booth, same as before.  Then you run past the dumpster with your flashlight off, same as before.  Then you illuminate the portapotty and run past it, but ignore it when you hear the banging, same as before.  You repeat the same actions until you reach something new, and the trial and error experiments start all over again.

And that's the flow of Light - Die to Survive and again, one of the inherent issues with this kind of game.  The first time you come across anything out of place, it can be scary, but the ninth time you pass the same mannequin, it's no longer scary, it's just a thing you run past to get to the next six anomalies because it's still unclear what you're supposed to do at the bus stop.  The further you get in the game, the longer it takes to get back to where you were to figure out what you're supposed to do.  And any real sense of fear that might've been present at the beginning has been replaced by annoyance and frustration.  And that's not what this game is supposed to be about.

Every time I have played this game, I've only been able to stomach about 15-20 minutes before I have to put it down.  I can only take dying nine times in a span of 19 minutes before I start to get weary of the whole endeavor; yes, I died significantly more and at a faster rate playing Celeste, but that's a completely different game.  One nice thing though is that the position and location of objects that appear/disappear will sometimes change, but only after you turn the game off and start it back up again.  On one playthrough, a mannequin (there're a lot of mannequins in the forest apparently) might appear in a ditch while the next day, the same mannequin might appear on a hillside.  If the game were to have that level of permutations after each death, there might be a stronger sense to replay after the third death because you're not running through the same actions time after time after time.

Which ultimately led me to consider how many times I had actually died throughout all of my playthroughs.  In one count, among three videos and 73 minutes, I had died about 18 times, which I admit does not seem like a lot, but a lot of it stems from the "I don't know what I'm supposed to do or look for, and I keep dying in the process."  So I decided to take my frustration and turn it into a bit of a joke with the video that I put out last week.

On Friday, we'll take a look at my actual attempts at playing Light - Die to Survive and how the game actually handled on the Steam Deck, now that we have a bit of context on the game itself.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
No Matter How It Ends

MIDI Week Singles: "Yoshi's Story" - Yoshi's Story (N64)

 

"Yoshi's Story" from Yoshi's Story on the Nintendo 64 (1997)
Composer: Kazumi Totaka
Album: Yoshi's Story Game Soundtrack: Music to Ground Pound To, & Yoshi's Story Original Soundtrack
Label: Nintendo of America, & Nintendo Sound Series/Pony Canyon
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EAD

Over the last weekend, The Squire has really gotten into Yoshi's Story on the Switch Online N64 app.  He's already known who Yoshi is for several years from Mario Kar 8 Deluxe, the Yoshi's Crafted World launch trailer, the Super Mario Bros. chess set I got him (it was cheaper than buying individual figures), the little Yellow Yoshi LEGO set, a Blue Yoshi that my in-laws got him, and a Green Yoshi that my parents got him a few years ago.  So he knows Yoshi, but I don't think he's ever played a Yoshi game before.  So this last weekend, he decided that he was tired of playing F-ZERO X and watching Conklederp and I bumble around in Super Mario 64 and decided to take up Yoshi's Story.  Kind of.

Keep in mind that The Squire is still only four years old so he's missing some of the finer points in this semi-puzzle-laden platforming game.  He'll either run through enemies or jump on them.  He'll ignore most of the fruit in the game, and he still needs help doing the ground pound and maneuvering around Pak E. Derm.  And will only play the first level, which is where this song is from.  So Conklederp and I have been listening to this stage one song, "Yoshi's Story" for a couple of days at this point, occasionally singing the first couple of seconds out loud to each other at random times.  I don't know what any of the other songs in the game sound like, because The Squire will get frustrated with the game, then exit out of the game/app and start up either Super Mario World or the demo for Yoshi's Crafted World.

On its own, this song is exactly what I would expect out of a game where you play a depiction of Yoshi as they jump their way through an arts and craft-riddled storybook.  After a while, the squeaky-horn can get a little grating, but that's where the rest of the in-game sound effects come in to help soften some of that harshness.  But you can't really get too upset about a melody that you envision is being played by a small trio of Yoshis.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

One Day I'll Face You All Alone

An Introduction of Four More, But Different

Last week over on Twitter (there he goes, deadnaming again), there was a post from Andrew Gilmour (Slain: Back from Hell, Valfaris) with one of those "post four things about yourself" posts.  Kind of similar to the #Gamestruck post that I turned into an article. . . checks notes. . . six goddamn years ago!?  Why is that still banging around in my memory banks!?  Anyway, there wasn't a catchy hashtag with this one, just a prologue of "Introduce yourself with" and then the prompt of:

One Show

One Movie

One Album

One Book

and the person would just list a picture of each of these, presumably their favorite from each topic.  

Now, this initially intrigued me because I took the screenshot at 12:43 am when I was not sleeping, but then I thought that 12 years into this little experiment in democracy, I didn't think that I needed to introduce myself as there are nearly 1,000 semi-helpful ways to know who I am based on my interests.  You're still here after all.  So rather than do my top/favorite/most influential show/movie/album/book, I decided to be oh-so-clever and just list the last thing from each of those four categories that I consumed.

So!

The Last Show I Watched (in its entirety): Star Wars: The Acolyte

I talked a bit about The Acolyte back when it was still going through its episodes, right as incels were shitting themselves about the age of Ki-Adi-Mundi (that week, to say nothing about anything they decided to hate on: fire is space, writing, 47 years of consistent never-changing lore, a black woman, lesbian space witches, dialogue for eight-year-olds, not having a cis-white male lead, not involving anyone from the Skywalker clan, etc, take your pick).  I liked that show for a lot of the reasons that I previously mentioned.  I liked the characters (including the fact that these were all new characters), I liked the storytelling, I liked the world-building, and I enjoyed how they handled the often implied infallibleness of the Jedi.  I was greatly saddened when it was announced that Disney was not going to renew The Acolyte for a second season.

The Last Movie I Watched: Star Wars

I may not have watched the movie in a single sitting during a single day, but I did finish showing the movie to The Squire back on Sunday (September 8th).  We had started the movie twice before and the furthest we got was Luke and Obi-Wan finding the Sandcrawler shot up by stormtroopers, then we officially lost The Squire's attention; he is only four after all.  But then on Saturday, we watched from Luke meeting Obi-Wan (where we had last left off) until Luke/Han/Chewy/Leia fled from the Death Star.  Finally, on Sunday morning, we finished watching the movie.  There were times when The Squire was very much distracted and was more focused on either picking up my feet or trying to somersault off of the futon, but I still think I can say that we were there for the entire movie, and now we can watch The Empire Strikes Back because we have to watch that movie before we get to the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi.

And because it bears mentioning, I did show him the 1977 version too, so there was no "Episode IV: A New Hope" in the opening crawl, there was no Jaba (human or slug), Han shot first, and everything else that has been updated/changed/altered since the movie first came out.  I made this decision not for any high-falootin'/gatekeeping reason, I just wanted him to see this version first, in the same way that I wanted him to see A New Hope before he sees Empire Strikes Back.  This is also why I haven't shown him anything from The Clone Wars animated series beyond the pilot/movie.

Last Album I Listened To: Jurassic Park - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Earlier this month, I started taking The Squire to preschool whereas last school year, it was Conklederp who ran the shuttle service.  I knew that on the first day, there might be some hard feelings on the Squire's part what with me now being the one taking him along with taking a new route because we were going to a new preschool.  I have a selection of CDs in our car (because my formidable growing-up years was in the 90s), but the one that I thought would allow for the smoothest ride was this soundtrack.  I had played it before, so The Squire already knew some of the music, but I needed to keep the music going for the whole 15-20 drive.  So I started on track 16, "End Credits" because it's just a reprise of the "Journey to the Island" fanfare and the "Theme from Jurassic Park."  Then I let the soundtrack look back to "Opening Titles" and play through "Theme from Jurassic Park", and "Incident at Ilsa Nublar", and we get anywhere between four to eight minutes into "Journey to the Island."  This is all really just a greatest hits of the entire album, minus some of the more intense pieces, although there is "Remembering Petticoat Lane" and "My Friend, the Brachiosaurus", but those are dab smack in the middle.  But it's great, every morning for the past two weeks has been spent listening to this soundtrack and it's great to hear The Squire singing along in the back.

Last Book I Read: The Hobbit: Or There And Back Again, A Hobbit's Holiday

Again, The Squire has influenced this list.  For the last six months or so I have been reading The Hobbit to him as he goes to bed at night.  Some nights we would read eight pages, while others I would get halfway down the first page before he fell asleep.  Don't bother asking him for a synopsis about anything that happened apart from that Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf were there.  And maybe Thorin and Bombur.  But the important thing is that I read him the entire book and he would actually request that I read The Hobbit to him, so it didn't end up being a forced thing on my part.  After reading two of his own books, we would then turn off the lights and I would read from my backlit Kindle.

Getting real time.

There were a handful of passages where I actually teared up and found it difficult to read.  When the Dwarves are singing, Gandalf and Bilbo are talking about how the song makes Bilbo feel.  How he pictures the wide world outside of the Shire, how he sees himself carrying a sword instead of a walking stick.  I can't really explain fully why that hit me so hard, but it just did.  I felt it in my eyes first, then in my chest, and found it hard to finish the sentence.  Then again at the end of the book when Bilbo is escorted to see Thorin in his tent after the final battle, I knew that I was going to have trouble reading Bilbo's goodbye to Thorin and Thorin's apology to Bilbo.  This fucking part when Thorin tells Bilbo:

"There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West.  Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure.  If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now.  Farewell!"

Then Bilbo turned away, and he went by himself, and sat alone wrapped in a blanket, and, whether you believe it or not, he wept until his eyes were red and his voice was hoarse.

Really that entire interaction destroyed me while I was trying to read it to The Squire, and even typing it out was difficult to accomplish.  And then it happened again when Bilbo bids farewell to the Dwarves, inviting them to tea and letting them know that they're always welcome; I lose it every time watching Martin Freeman's performance as Bilbo during this scene.  And then again when the Elves of Rivendell welcome back Bilbo and Gandalf with a reprise of their first song.  And then again when Bilbo sings "The Road Goes Ever On."  And then again when Gandalf and Balin talk to Bilbo about prophesy.  (Even now as I'm attempting to proofread).

I imagine some of this emotional response comes with having a kid that I'm reading The Hobbit to, but that's only a small part of it.  I think another part of it is the love I have for these books and the impact that this one author has had on my life in ways that aren't always clear or obvious.  I don't have any first-edition copies, but I do have copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that my Grandma bought me decades ago.  And now being able to share these works with my own child, something that I had imagined since Conklederp said she was pregnant.  And also the love of friendship that permeates all of Tolkien's books.  I could go on for a while more, but that would end up turning into its own article, so we'll end it here.

So those are the last things in each of the above categories that I've finished.  Now that I think of it, I probably could have added the last video game I finished, but I've already written about both Umbral (which I did finish) and DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia (which I didn't technically finish, but I did get at least one good ending).  We'll probably do another like-minded list in the coming future when I find another one after midnight that sounds intriguing, or maybe we'll just have to wait another six years.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

MIDI Week Singles: "Dusk of a Northern Kingdom" - The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC)

 

"Dusk of a Northern Kingdom" from The Witcher: Enhanced Edition on Windows and Mac (2007)
Composer: Adam Skorupa
Album: The Witcher -Role Playing Game- Original Soundtrack
Label: CD Projekt RED
Publisher: CD Projekt, Atari
Developer: CD Projekt RED

What I like a lot about this piece is that it's a great snapshot of the world of The Continent and The Witcher series.  There are themes here that are present throughout the pieces that Adam Skorupa wrote for the soundtrack along with Paweł Blaszczak, but it helps to make the world feel more cohesive than a solo stand-alone theme that you only hear at the beginning of the game.  With themes comprised of and dotted throughout "Peaceful Moments," "The Princess Striga," and "Do You Remember," (among others), you really get a feel for this world and its lore.

That's really it.  Great song that captures the essence of the first Witcher game that, at least I think, carries through through The Witcher III.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

Game EXP: DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia (VSD)

 [Disclaimer:  I received a review key for DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia 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.] 

DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia

Systems: Windows, Linux, PlayStation 4

Release Date: September 5, 2024

Publisher: Idea Factory International

Developer: Idea Factory, Compile Heart, Sting

Time Spent: 10 Hours 6 Minutes

Before we get into the game, I'm going to need to preface this entire article with some context.  

I don't usually play visual novels, although I have played a couple visual novels over the years, so I am somewhat familiar with the genre, just not intimately so.  I have also not played anything developed by Idea Factory, which includes the DATE A LIVE series, the Neptunia series, and the Death end series to name a few.  I also haven't watched any anime related to any of these aforementioned series, so I didn't know any of the characters or know if there was any kind of crossover before going into DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia, which is the sequel to DATE A LIVE: Rio-Reincarnation.  The game does include a library of sorts that gives a short description of each of the principal characters in the game which gives a little backstory, but not really enough to feel like I played through DAL:RR or read a Cliff Notes copy.  I could have also watched a walkthrough or a highlights video on YouTube beforehand, so that's on me going into DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia with as little knowledge as I did.

From what I have been able to tell from playing through six different scenarios in DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia, your playable character is a guy named Shido who is able to interact with potentially destructive angelic spirits who after dating and making them "fall for him," he is then able to "seal their spirits" in the form of high-school aged girls who all live in a collective house in a small town.  The girls don't lose their angelic abilities, they're just not in the forefront.  Or something.  There's also something about spacequakes, some backstory with Shido and Kurumi who traveled back in time 30 years to prevent the Spirit of Origin, and something to do with the spacequakes.  Oh, and there's something about Shido being able to change from a biological male to a biological female named Shiori; how this happens isn't exactly as clear as it is in Ranma 1/2.  There's also an organization that oversees the girls/spirits and spirit-related occurrences in the town/region, but they're mostly in the background.  I think.

So!  Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to this dating-sim visual novel!  Below I've included the first half-hour of the game if you decide to sit through and listen to all of the voice acting, which occurs significantly slower than I am able to read it, so it will likely take you fewer than 30 minutes.

A couple of things to note about this video.  First, I recorded this to be as complete as possible leading up until Shido's first decision, which lunch he will take that's offered to him.  I'm not sure how this specific decision affects all of the other potential choices you make in the game apart from those directly dealing with either Kaygua or Yuzuru, but since this is a decision-based visual novel with nine possible storylines and up to 15 different endings, it didn't make sense for me to even attempt to record all of the possibilities.  So from here on out we'll be going into generalities with some specifics here and there.

After you make your choice of lunch options, there's a few more minutes of dialogue, before you're taken to a map of the school and the city and you get to decide where you want to go and who you want to interact with.  This is probably the earliest that having knowledge from Rio-Reincarnation would be beneficial since at this point in the game, you decide who you want to focus your story on.  You can choose side characters to interact with, and while that's entertaining to help build up the world, I don't actually know if that has any effect on any choices later in the game.  For me, it was mainly deciding based on who I had talked to yet in my previous playthroughs.  Through all of my playthroughs, I was pretty disappointed that this option never came back, to decide where you wanted to go, unless it's unlocked after picking a specific character an making specific choices.

The basic version of the story is that a malevolent entity named Ren presents herself to whomever you've decided to have Shido interact with during the after-school phase.  Ren will appear in the dream of whomever you decide on and offer them a wish each night for three straight nights.  On the third day, Ren "collects her fee" and will kill the woman you chose.  During your dates/outings with the character you chose, you have to make choices that will affect whether you get the bad ending (character dies) or the good ending (character lives and banishes Ren).  

After playing five separate times and never having reached a good ending (every girl I picked was killed), I was starting to feel weary about the whole game.  I felt that my choices were having some kind of effect on the outcome of the game, but it really came down to nuance and likely how well I knew all of the characters and how my choice in whatever decision that presented itself would be interpreted by that character through past interactions that did not exist in this game.  That put a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, coupled with feeling exhausted about having to go through the entire beginning of the game each time and seeing every character fall for the same tricks and traps laid out by Ren, did not feel good as a player.

Something else that I wasn't thrilled about, and this is likely from having played Doki Doki Literature Club, is that while this game encourages replaying multiple times to either find your way to a good ending, finding the good ending for one particular character, or finding all of the good endings for everyone, there is a lot of trudging through the same repeated dialogue.  Yes, there is a fast-forward button (that I only discovered on my fourth playthrough) and you might be able to start a new story from a previous save file before you make any kind of choices, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of recognition from any of the characters that you might be going through this for the 12th time.  And while I do appreciate that a non-speedrun playthrough will only take about two hours, it does become mentally taxing not fully knowing if the choices you made will lead to a good ending.  If you make the wrong choice just one time, that will immediately lead to a bad ending, so unless you happen across a walkthrough, you are going to have to decide how much trial and error you want to sift through.

The story though, I liked well enough, and even the first two playthroughs I was becoming invested in the mystery surrounding Ren, her motivations and how everything was supposed to intertwine.  I was beginning to get a sense of who the characters were in Shido's life and more of the backstory that built upon what I'd already read in the Library.  But feeling utter helpless in my decisions having any kind of an effect on the outcome of the game, led me to look up a walkthrough for some kind of hint within the answer as to what I had been doing wrong.  As it turned out, I had made one bad choice (because of a character trait that I don't feel was adequately explained in this game) away from getting one character's good ending.  So I followed a walkthrough, got a good ending, and while the story didn't reach a satisfying conclusion, it felt like it could very well be the end for me.

I honestly don't know if I'll return to DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia either in the near or distant future, if only because I feel like I've not gone through various parts of the story six times, five of which choosing different characters to have the story focus on, and I'm kind of over the character of Ren at this point.  Maybe if I ever go back and play through any of the other DATE A LIVE games it might incentivize completing this portion of the story.  And maybe that's just my own fault for starting a series with the fourth game.  Ah well.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Tam odnajdziesz swoją śmierć

Just for shits'n'giggles, here's an in-game fast-forwarded version of the game leading up to the first decision:

Game EXP: Umbral - Chapters 5, 6, 7 & Epilogue (VSD)

   [Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Umbral 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.]

Umbral
Systems: Windows
Release Date: August 7, 2024
Publisher: MJR Games Studio
Developer: Walter O.M. Junior
Time Spent: 2 Hours 18 Minutes

Trigger Warning:  This article covers several sensitive topics from Umbral that some might find uncomfortable and/or disturbing in nature.  Topics such as suicide, self-harm, depression, rape, domestic violence, trauma and torture.  If you find any of these topics, related or otherwise, triggering in nature, I would recommend that you skip this article and the related walkthrough videos. 

Chapter 5:

I really enjoyed Chapter 5.  I liked the village location and I liked all of the other characters/souls you could talk to.  The Blacksmith was an interesting character that again, offered a little bit more world/lore building to the world of Umbral, and I also liked that despite being given the statues to place throughout the village, you could not place one at the forge, and help this character.  I was a little amused that the animation didn't line up at all with where they were swinging the hammer and that there was no sound associated with what they were hitting.

I also liked that the second closet house, belonging to the soul who yells "Suicide!!" at you, you can't help either.  That being said, I think the yeller's AI voice is just another instance where a better voice could have been used.  Maybe something raspier and less everyday-man-on-the-street?

When you find the first altar to place the statue, I would have thought that the soul who was crouching next to the woman would have either disappeared or transitioned to a position showing it cowering.  That was my interpretation anyway, that it looked aggressive and waiting to pounce on the woman, and that placing the statue at the altar was going to have some effect on it, but I guess not.  I also would have liked it had there been an additional line of dialogue from the woman after placing the statue, but again, I guess not.

The rest of the stage placing the statue plays similar to placing the first statue.  There's someone outside their house looking forlorn and you can engage with them or not, I don't get the impression that the dialogue changes if you've placed the statue before/after you've talked to them.  They do offer additional lore about Umbral, but nothing too groundbreaking.  Then you place the statue and move on to the next person and house with an altar.

After talking with the rapist, I did think that there was an altar attached to the Blacksmith's forge, partly because it seemed like houses associated with characters who had unique designs and extended lines of dialogue had their alter, so I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss one before getting too far into the stage.  There wasn't.

As for the horned figure in the center of the village, I don't actually know if it is supposed to be the Devil with a capital D, or just an upper-echelon demon playing tricks with Mateus.  As for the mourning woman/soul in the graveyard, I realize I probably should have talked to her before activating the statue on the altar as I think that was the last person I needed to talk to, but I didn't realize this was the last alter and that it would trigger a cinema scene and close out the chapter.  I mean, I know there was a warning about doing too much to attract attention, but I never felt that I was in any kind of danger of ending the chapter.  But I guess that's part of the message from the beings of light, that Mateus could potentially be redeemed on some level through self-sacrifice, by helping other people in the village, and in doing so was burned alive, he earned some type of second chance.  That's my interpretation anyway.

Chapters 6, 7, & Epilogue
Chapter 6:

Again, Chapter 6 starts at the end of the Chapter 5 video because of how the game saves, but I think at least for the first bit of the chapter, there could be the real belief that Mateus was granted a second chance and returned to his real-life body.

I'm not familiar with this custom of writing letters to living family members from the perspective of the family member who recently died, and I assume that this was included for two reasons.  First to show again that Mateus could still be alive since there was no letter addressed from him, but at the same time, that because there's no note from Mateus' family, that that only feeds into his feelings of loneliness, self-loathing, and depression.  

Then there's the old white-bearded guy wearing white, who if you're thinking that Mateus is dead, is a pretty strong indicator that he's God, especially when he says "This is an offering made to spirits and lost people like you."  And then with the lights and Mateus' vision flickering throughout the conversation.  And the guy definitely doesn't look like the bum that Mateus accuses him of being.

And then Mateus returns to his apartment to see his ex-girlfriend, sister, and niece looking over his corpse, discussing what happened.  I do kind of like how Mateus progresses from confusion to anger leading to his downfall again and the end of the chapter.  It probably doesn't help that the AI voice isn't able to articulate and emote in the same way that an actual voice actor could have delivered the lines. 

Chapter 7 & Epilogue :

I like that Mateus is still seething with hatred and anger when we see him back in Umbral, that his last emotion before being taken back is what he is feeling and might even be amplified upon his return.  Even the God-figure admits that this conclusion is not at all surprising.  Then the mentioning of Mateus' niece Laura (Laurinha) connecting the Umbral and the beings of light directly to her I thought was a nice touch that could potentially set up a sequel.

I'm kinda glad though that the last shot we have of Mateus is just him seething with anger and hatred and not of him being tortured or consuming corpses, or just wallowing in a puddle of his own putrescence, we don't need to see that as we get enough of what he's going through in the written epilogue.  I know it's telling and not showing, but in this instance, I think it's the best choice.

As a walking simulator, I think Umbral did alright.  The pacing was a bit off in the middle with Chapters three and four, but I liked and appreciated the information gained.  It's far from a perfect game with the limited character animations and the emotionless AI voices.  I understand wanting and needing to do indie game development on a budget when only two primary people are involved.  My takeaway from Umbral is a game to showcase what MJR Game Studio can do, the story (stories?) that they can make narrative games from, and the potential for what they could do with a larger budget.  Since Umbral is the first and currently only game, it will be interesting to see where this developer goes in the future.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
And When You've Got No Other Choice