Publisher: Red Nettle Studios
Website: https://wolfrug.itch.io/the-bottom-of-the-well-dev-version
Genre: Visual Novel/RPG
Summary: Alice recounts a strange dream of apocalyptic survival and doom.
Gameplay: After selecting Alice's traits, which will influence Alice's abilities and options in the game to come, you also make decisions that do likewise.
Style: The style of the game is extremely evocative, with all text being back-and-forth conversation between Alice and her friend online. This works well to convey the action and eerie atmosphere, as do the black-and-white blurry backgrounds. In fact, the only colors are red, black, white, making the game both stylized and dramatic while allowing the focus to remain on the text.
Story: Alice's story manages to feel creepy with its vision-dream of nuclear destruction yet utterly realistic in its details (which of course is creepiest of all, with the implication this is all preparation for a true future to come.) The combination of Alice's variety of traits with choices in the game offers plenty of story opportunities while still making for a difficult game.
Conclusion: "The Bottom of the Well" is a lovely and dark visual novel with some roleplaying elements that all combine nicely into a fun and fascinating game experience.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Friday, July 6, 2018
"Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords" Review
Publisher: Obsidian Entertainment
Genre: RPG
Summary: Returning to the Republic after war and exile, you must hunt down the remaining Jedi masters and discover the threat of the mysterious Sith Lords.
Gameplay: Much of the gameplay resembles its predecessor, but there are some additions. For example, there is a welcome button that allows you to switch between two weapon options, meaning you don't have to go to the equipment page to switch between melee and ranged.
Tactical options are more complex as well, as your companions have a range of combat behaviors to choose from. There are also new lightsaber forms and new force abilities.
Crafting is also more complex. There are more types of weapons and armor and most can now be upgraded. Everything can be broken down into components from which many things can be crafted (if your skill is high enough, of course.) Chemicals work similarly for medical supplies and demolitions.
While all of this seems neat, honestly I find it a bit overwhelming and too much of a hassle compared to the previous game. While having some more armor choices is nice, there's just too much to deal with.
Your influence with your party members is another element that is intriguing but struggles in the implementation. It's great to be able to influence some party members to become Jedi or Sith (and there are various other mechanical rewards), to say nothing of the roleplaying of gradually learning their hearts and secrets.
However, influence is so haphazardly scattered that it is possible to max it out in a first conversation or unknowingly miss one of the few opportunities and then suffer a monosyllabic companion for the rest of the game.
Style: As before, it's enjoyable to see the dramatic sights of the Star Wars universe (given the graphics of the time), but headgear is, as ever, unfortunate. The music is excellent.
Story: The Sith Lords has a great story but struggles to tell it. There's some wonderful characterization and dialogue, but there are still sometimes issues when obvious questions aren't asked.
And don't expect anybody to explain your character's background, which is pretty annoying on a first playthrough, given it's a large part of the game (I'm of the opinion things that are not a mystery to the character should not be a mystery to the player.)
This causes difficulties in roleplaying, as do the problems with the influence system described above. When one snarky comment might make the difference between a character being able to be a Jedi later, it's hard to find a good middle ground between roleplay and gameplay.
Plus, the stops and starts of the influence system mean party information is doled out awkwardly. The characters are all great, but it's difficult to work the influence system to find out why. I also wish the characters had more chances to interact with each other.
Speaking of stops and starts, the game is awful about pacing. There are far too many long drawn-out sections where you're stuck with only one character or forced to go from one dungeon to another with no choices or meaningful dialogue.
Of course, a lot of this is because the game was absurdly rushed, and not even the Restored Content mod can solve some of the subsequent lacks. This is clearest in the ending, which even with Restored Content is a slog and a disappointment (especially given it leans heavily towards the never-existent Knights of the Old Republic III) that lacks coherency.
Conclusion: The Sith Lords was always going to have a tough time following up the excellent (and my sometimes-favorite game) Knights of the Old Republic. Add to that its rushed delivery and it's no wonder it suffers from pacing and plot issues. Yet it still offers some memorable moments and characters.
Genre: RPG
Summary: Returning to the Republic after war and exile, you must hunt down the remaining Jedi masters and discover the threat of the mysterious Sith Lords.
Gameplay: Much of the gameplay resembles its predecessor, but there are some additions. For example, there is a welcome button that allows you to switch between two weapon options, meaning you don't have to go to the equipment page to switch between melee and ranged.
Tactical options are more complex as well, as your companions have a range of combat behaviors to choose from. There are also new lightsaber forms and new force abilities.
Crafting is also more complex. There are more types of weapons and armor and most can now be upgraded. Everything can be broken down into components from which many things can be crafted (if your skill is high enough, of course.) Chemicals work similarly for medical supplies and demolitions.
While all of this seems neat, honestly I find it a bit overwhelming and too much of a hassle compared to the previous game. While having some more armor choices is nice, there's just too much to deal with.
Your influence with your party members is another element that is intriguing but struggles in the implementation. It's great to be able to influence some party members to become Jedi or Sith (and there are various other mechanical rewards), to say nothing of the roleplaying of gradually learning their hearts and secrets.
However, influence is so haphazardly scattered that it is possible to max it out in a first conversation or unknowingly miss one of the few opportunities and then suffer a monosyllabic companion for the rest of the game.
Style: As before, it's enjoyable to see the dramatic sights of the Star Wars universe (given the graphics of the time), but headgear is, as ever, unfortunate. The music is excellent.
Story: The Sith Lords has a great story but struggles to tell it. There's some wonderful characterization and dialogue, but there are still sometimes issues when obvious questions aren't asked.
And don't expect anybody to explain your character's background, which is pretty annoying on a first playthrough, given it's a large part of the game (I'm of the opinion things that are not a mystery to the character should not be a mystery to the player.)
This causes difficulties in roleplaying, as do the problems with the influence system described above. When one snarky comment might make the difference between a character being able to be a Jedi later, it's hard to find a good middle ground between roleplay and gameplay.
Plus, the stops and starts of the influence system mean party information is doled out awkwardly. The characters are all great, but it's difficult to work the influence system to find out why. I also wish the characters had more chances to interact with each other.
Speaking of stops and starts, the game is awful about pacing. There are far too many long drawn-out sections where you're stuck with only one character or forced to go from one dungeon to another with no choices or meaningful dialogue.
Of course, a lot of this is because the game was absurdly rushed, and not even the Restored Content mod can solve some of the subsequent lacks. This is clearest in the ending, which even with Restored Content is a slog and a disappointment (especially given it leans heavily towards the never-existent Knights of the Old Republic III) that lacks coherency.
Conclusion: The Sith Lords was always going to have a tough time following up the excellent (and my sometimes-favorite game) Knights of the Old Republic. Add to that its rushed delivery and it's no wonder it suffers from pacing and plot issues. Yet it still offers some memorable moments and characters.
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