Next Fest June 2024 demo roundup/reclist
Jun. 21st, 2024 03:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hexmixit's that time again! been busier than i thought i'd be this month so i didn't have the chance to play nearly as many of the Next Fest demos as i'd been wanting, but i still got to try a handful of really great ones. if some of the other demos hang around a bit afterwards i'll try to get to what i can & update this post then c:
in the meantime, here's what i thought of the demos i did play!
Alters:
this was the demo i was most looking forward to. watched the trailer for it the same time i watched the trailer for Indika and was so immediately obsessed with the concept, which is:
trapped on a dangerous planet with the rest of the crew killed mysteriously in the crash, protagonist Jan Dolski has no other choice but to clone himself in order to successfully navigate the base out of the way of the deadly radiation of the planet's slow sunrise. it's a management sim where the characters you're managing are your own clones, each of which is created from slightly altering Jan's memories in such a way that they've each ended up at a different point in life with different skillsets (so you have Technician!Jan, Doctor!Jan, Botanist!Jan, etc.).
there are elements of resource acquisition and setting up supply chains, tho the demo only shows a little of this. i was honestly kind of surprised that the story was as prevalent as it was; i was kind of expecting much more of a focus on the management aspects. instead you get the beginnings of a conspiracy steeped in what will undoubtedly be the greed of Evil Space Corporation and the stress & tension that comes from one-on-one interactions with your clones.
this was really where the demo most impressed me, i think. Jan navigating the (understandably) prickly relationship with his clone is handled with a refreshing care and gravity that really centers the main concern of the game around Jan himself: like the demo left me thinking it might end up being much more of a character piece, as Jan is forced to come to terms with his own mistakes and regrets through seeing how things would have played out had he just made x, y, z choice instead. like as a concept this hits real hard, ngl.
compared to this, the management & resource acquisition aspects were pretty basic; nothing stood out about them. well, beyond the design of the base being pretty neat. but then the aesthetics of the game are really nice in general. i heckin' love the pink accents, the oilslick ocean, and the glitch effects from Rapidium. had some performance issues (multiple ppl pointed out the framerate), but overall there wasn't anything that i felt hit as a negative for me.
overall, i'm really excited to play the game once it's out!
Threshold:
this is one that i heard about first on twitter and then decided to stream the demo when i saw it was part of Next Fest. there's not a whole lot i can say about it bc the demo is VERY short, but is certainly does atmosphere very well. there's a dreamlike surreality to it that i really like. plus the retro style is just *chef's kiss* i couldn't tell you anything about what the final game will be like, but i do genuinely appreciate that the demo is it's own separate story, and i do think it's worth it to take a look at this one, or at least to keep an eye on it. very curious to see what the finished game will be like.
The Crush House:
this one was a lot of fun! it's very bright & colorful, just a really pleasant game environment to be wandering around in. the concept is equally fun: you play as a camera person for a reality show set in 1999. the gameplay is pretty simple: you're given certain audiences to appease for each episode filmed. each audience has different wants, so Film Students really like Dutch angles, for example, but Butt Guys just like for you to film, you guessed it, butts. the longer i played the wilder the types of audiences got (one of the last ones i got were 'Plumbers,' who just wanted me to film the plumbing lmao).
eventually you can also complete tasks for the reality show contestants themselves, which opens up what looks like a whole other plot line, tho as this is where the demo cuts off i can't say how important this aspect is. but it certainly did intrigue me!
you'll also be running ads in between filming segments of the show, and the ads themselves are pretty funny & very much spoof the hyper-consumerist hellscape the game is poking fun at. it also looks like you'll have more show customization options in the full game, including access to many more cast members and the ability to choose who to cast from the get-go.
overall, it's a pretty simple game that i very much enjoyed my time with. looking forward to the full release and finding out what's at the end of that elevator ride...
Skulltide:
oof. so this is one that i felt the concept was much better than the execution. like, tbf, i'm pretty sure it's one guy working on the game, so i want to cut them some slack, but the demo was unfortunately unplayable for both me and V.
it turns out that if u press too many buttons it exiles you to the skybox.
we also couldn't get the multi-player to work, which was the main draw for us. and then the little bit of single player gameplay i did manage was marred by an incredibly clunky and confusing control scheme.
i will say that the music fucking rocks tho, and i feel like the humorous lilt the game trailer was attempting does carry through (customize your bones!!). the aesthetics (like you know those ridic ''hardcore'' skeleton sculptures and art? it's like that. same vibes.) are really really good. the game feels a little bit like a dasharezone meme.
so i do really want to give the dev credit for that. the game feels like they had a vision, just not necessarily the skills to match it.
Caravan SandWitch:
this one was pretty cute. you play as Sauge, who has returned to her hometown to search for her sister, whose ship has been emitting a distress signal for days now. what's worse, Sauge's father has also gone missing. with the help of her friends from her hometown she sets out to find her family.
after we played it, V mentioned that it reminded him of Beyond Good and Evil and that's probably the best way i can think of to describe it. the gameplay is split between riding around the map in a jeep & exploring it on foot, platforming and collecting different components needed to craft parts for the jeep.
you don't get a whole lot of lore in the demo, so the majority of the world-building comes thru the environment/visuals. tho i will say i loved the frog ppl and am so interested in their whole deal.
but really, the character design was great as a whole. the same can be said for the environment design. the game is just very, very pretty.
i did notice some issues with the translation, but nothing that really took me out of the game. otherwise it was a VERY solid demo with the game itself seeming super promising. it's definitely one i'll be keeping an eye on.
The Crimson Diamond:
this one caught my eye immediately bc of the style: it's retro for one (intentionally aiming for that Sierra adventure game look), but like done in such a way that it looks EXACTLY like the genre it's recreating. it's just genuinely so beautiful to look at, and so very impressive, especially considering it's made by one dev.
the story follows the mineralogist Nancy Maple (an obvious Nancy Drew stand-in) as her boss at the Royal Canadian Museum sends her after an unexpected diamond find in a small, remote town. there she stays at the Crimson Lodge with a group of characters who all have their own motives for staying at the Lodge, and whose secrets you can gradually uncover as the demo progresses.
the gameplay is what i believe is standard for text parsers; i didn't have anything to compare it to as Crimson Diamond was the first text parser i've played. i streamed the game on twitch tho, and we all had a blast testing the limits of what the game would let you do, which did not, as it turned out, include kissing Jack (alas).
(of course then the dev showed up and everyone immediately shifted to their Best Behavior, which for me meant i stopped swearing, which was honestly a feat for me lmao. but fr tho, it was incredibly rad that she showed up and helped me out throughout the demo! it really made the experience super cool, and i lowkey feel bad that we all kept harping on the "unscented food" lol.)
but overall the story seems really interesting, the aesthetic is Top Fucking Tier, and the game itself is just a lot of fun. i'm really looking forward to this one too!
Hollywood Animal:
this time around it was this one that was the demo that like slapped me upside the head and made me instantly obsessed. the description reminded me a bit of the Lionhead Studios title The Movies, but i still wasn't expecting too much, like just basic management sim stuff, but i ended up playing the demo for like two hours straight or something? like it really just sucked me in and wouldn't let me go. finished the demo going "i NEED this thing NOW."
of course a lot of that is down to my obsessive personality + the addictive gameplay of management games like this lol. but like it was also just a fun game: you play as the new owner of a recently bankrupted movie studio in 1920s Hollywood. gameplay centers around both managing the studio lot as well as your actors, staff, etc., and in actually producing movies (this is absolutely not at all like The Movies, btw; you get randomized scripts and don't get to see the finished movies except in the tutorial). there's plenty of depth to the game, from what appears to be randomized events centered around your actors and staff and even randos from outside the studio (like the mayor??), to upgrades for all the different departments in your studio, to training your dang scriptwriters, or even setting up an advertising strategy for your new film.
if that sounds overwhelming...it actually wasn't. while i was a little confused about what certain things were going to do or how they'd work, the game did a good job overall of explaining it to me, and everything felt very manageable. there was a really good balance between the game giving you enough things to do that you weren't just waiting around with it on 4x speed for different tasks to finish, but so that you also didn't feel stressed by the game constantly throwing shit at you.
it also just looks really nice. the UI both matches the aesthetic while also being effective, and the little "cutscenes" that occasionally occur also have a really nice style to them. i was admittedly pretty worried about the "this game Contains Racism" warning at the beginning but i suspect that is likely due to the historical events that are slipped in during those cutscenes. there is also a "Racist" negative character trait that some actors/staff can get, but it's like shown clearly to be a negative trait that feels like it will carry with it an equally negative impact on gameplay. it's also entirely possible to just avoid using those characters at all if you want.
anyway, it was just a really addictive management sim that was seriously making an attempt to do something interesting with the setting/gameplay, and i'll definitely be looking forward to the full release.
Hollowbody:
i almost skipped this one!! which would have been a damn shame!! i'd downloaded it bc it was basically just an RE/SH clone and chat really likes those, so i thought it'd be fun to stream, but then i'd also placed it really low on the list of demos to play, bc it initially didn't stand out to me that much. HOWEVER i then watched this guy's Next Fest picks and his comments on Hollowbody really made me want to give it a shot. after telling V (resident survival horror aficionado) about it, he also encouraged me to play it, so i did! and i'm glad i did!
the game itself plays really well. i had my normal issues with fixed camera angles, in that i'd start getting fussy when i could hear a monster but couldn't camera my way to its location, but like honestly i can't think of any sincere complaints about it. you can turn tank controls off (praise be to yevon) and i'm not sure that there's inventory management at all, so that's like my main two survival horror gripes done and dusted.
the story follows Mica, whose hover car has crashed right in the middle of a truly hecked up village in the midst of her search for someone named "Sasha." the demo follows her as she attempts to find somewhere with a radio signal strong enough to call for help.
but like that's the thing that i thought was super interesting about this game: the little village is rife with Silent Hill vibes, but the game world itself is set in a dystopian cyberpunk future. the hover car is straight out of Blade Runner. this creates the coolest dang contrast between the menu screen (the background blinking eye seemed like another Blade Runner nod to me) and the occasional neon popups in game with the dark and dreary grayscale environments. i'm really interested in what the dev is going to do with that (and yep, Hollowbody is another game being made by a solo dev. devs rock, y'all.)
gameplay was very competently done, and everything felt like it was supposed to feel; in fact compared to some other survival horror games i've played recently, it actually felt a little easier (that was probably the no inventory management tho lol). there was also only a single puzzle i got to do in the demo, but, compared to RE puzzles which always end up stupider than i'm expecting, i actually had to use my brain for this one, and solving it really made me feel a sense of accomplishment. also in comparison to RE puzzles: the solution felt realistic. no ridiculously convoluted Spencer mansion puzzles here, just a straightforward "use the information you can find around you to figure out the code" kind of puzzle, but presented in a way where you actually had to activate some brain cells to solve lmao. like it wasn't impossible but i appreciate a survival horror that actually has you thinking (god Capcom has lowered the bar so much;;;).
now to the horror: it wasn't the scariest thing i've ever played, but it did a great job with the atmosphere and tension. being able to hear a nearby monster but not see it got me tense every time. those fixed camera angles really do ramp up the tension, and like the guy in that vid i linked notes, it creates this really claustrophobic feeling when you're fighting. vibes were A++ there.
combat was fine. i didn't really have any problems with it; it was pretty intuitive and easy to get the hang of.
overall, i am really glad that we did decide to play this one, and will def be looking forward to when it releases.
Judero:
gosh, Judero!!!!! i first heard about this game a few weeks back on Twitter, when the Sorry We're Closed twitter retweeted the trailer for it. the claymation/stop motion animation style grabbed my attention IMMEDIATELY so when i saw it was in Next Fest i downloaded the demo immediately. we ended up playing it tonight on stream and everyone loved it. it's genuinely such a gem, and i really can't recommend it enough!!
the big thing here are the aesthetics, and it's not just that claymation/stop motion style, but the whole damn game. you've got environments that look like a mixture between cardboard cutouts, models, and clay, and then the soundtrack! oh my god, the soundtrack!!! it's pretty much nonstop traditional folk music with modern arrangements the whole way down (with a fucking fantastic cover of "House of the Rising Sun" that plays whenever you enter Judero's house). the game looks good and it just feels good to play it. like i pretty much had the hugest smile the entire time i was playing it.
i can't really say much about the story beyond the fact that it follows the character Judero as he does "good deeds." i know that Scottish mythology is involved but other than that...???? i didn't exactly mind tho, i was mostly just happy to be there lol.
the gameplay involves exploring the map and engaging in combat with different enemies that populate it. you can buy skills for Judero to use from an incredible little shop (Yum Yum Pig's Bum) and while i personally struggled with remembering my buttons combat isn't actually that complex. in fact it relied way more on dodging than i personally prefer, but i think that's also a testament to how much fun the game actually is, just the fact that i just went with it without complaint lmao.
you can fight two bosses in the demo (one is significantly easier than the other) and they both have rad af designs. i played the much more difficult one first, and it took me quite a few tries, but at least it had the best boss theme i've ever heard, so there's that.
anyway, i really can't recommend this one enough. it might be my fave from the whole lot, which is really saying something because there were so many stunningly fantastic games this time.
in the meantime, here's what i thought of the demos i did play!
Alters:
this was the demo i was most looking forward to. watched the trailer for it the same time i watched the trailer for Indika and was so immediately obsessed with the concept, which is:
trapped on a dangerous planet with the rest of the crew killed mysteriously in the crash, protagonist Jan Dolski has no other choice but to clone himself in order to successfully navigate the base out of the way of the deadly radiation of the planet's slow sunrise. it's a management sim where the characters you're managing are your own clones, each of which is created from slightly altering Jan's memories in such a way that they've each ended up at a different point in life with different skillsets (so you have Technician!Jan, Doctor!Jan, Botanist!Jan, etc.).
there are elements of resource acquisition and setting up supply chains, tho the demo only shows a little of this. i was honestly kind of surprised that the story was as prevalent as it was; i was kind of expecting much more of a focus on the management aspects. instead you get the beginnings of a conspiracy steeped in what will undoubtedly be the greed of Evil Space Corporation and the stress & tension that comes from one-on-one interactions with your clones.
this was really where the demo most impressed me, i think. Jan navigating the (understandably) prickly relationship with his clone is handled with a refreshing care and gravity that really centers the main concern of the game around Jan himself: like the demo left me thinking it might end up being much more of a character piece, as Jan is forced to come to terms with his own mistakes and regrets through seeing how things would have played out had he just made x, y, z choice instead. like as a concept this hits real hard, ngl.
compared to this, the management & resource acquisition aspects were pretty basic; nothing stood out about them. well, beyond the design of the base being pretty neat. but then the aesthetics of the game are really nice in general. i heckin' love the pink accents, the oilslick ocean, and the glitch effects from Rapidium. had some performance issues (multiple ppl pointed out the framerate), but overall there wasn't anything that i felt hit as a negative for me.
overall, i'm really excited to play the game once it's out!
Threshold:
this is one that i heard about first on twitter and then decided to stream the demo when i saw it was part of Next Fest. there's not a whole lot i can say about it bc the demo is VERY short, but is certainly does atmosphere very well. there's a dreamlike surreality to it that i really like. plus the retro style is just *chef's kiss* i couldn't tell you anything about what the final game will be like, but i do genuinely appreciate that the demo is it's own separate story, and i do think it's worth it to take a look at this one, or at least to keep an eye on it. very curious to see what the finished game will be like.
The Crush House:
this one was a lot of fun! it's very bright & colorful, just a really pleasant game environment to be wandering around in. the concept is equally fun: you play as a camera person for a reality show set in 1999. the gameplay is pretty simple: you're given certain audiences to appease for each episode filmed. each audience has different wants, so Film Students really like Dutch angles, for example, but Butt Guys just like for you to film, you guessed it, butts. the longer i played the wilder the types of audiences got (one of the last ones i got were 'Plumbers,' who just wanted me to film the plumbing lmao).
eventually you can also complete tasks for the reality show contestants themselves, which opens up what looks like a whole other plot line, tho as this is where the demo cuts off i can't say how important this aspect is. but it certainly did intrigue me!
you'll also be running ads in between filming segments of the show, and the ads themselves are pretty funny & very much spoof the hyper-consumerist hellscape the game is poking fun at. it also looks like you'll have more show customization options in the full game, including access to many more cast members and the ability to choose who to cast from the get-go.
overall, it's a pretty simple game that i very much enjoyed my time with. looking forward to the full release and finding out what's at the end of that elevator ride...
Skulltide:
oof. so this is one that i felt the concept was much better than the execution. like, tbf, i'm pretty sure it's one guy working on the game, so i want to cut them some slack, but the demo was unfortunately unplayable for both me and V.
it turns out that if u press too many buttons it exiles you to the skybox.
we also couldn't get the multi-player to work, which was the main draw for us. and then the little bit of single player gameplay i did manage was marred by an incredibly clunky and confusing control scheme.
i will say that the music fucking rocks tho, and i feel like the humorous lilt the game trailer was attempting does carry through (customize your bones!!). the aesthetics (like you know those ridic ''hardcore'' skeleton sculptures and art? it's like that. same vibes.) are really really good. the game feels a little bit like a dasharezone meme.
so i do really want to give the dev credit for that. the game feels like they had a vision, just not necessarily the skills to match it.
Caravan SandWitch:
this one was pretty cute. you play as Sauge, who has returned to her hometown to search for her sister, whose ship has been emitting a distress signal for days now. what's worse, Sauge's father has also gone missing. with the help of her friends from her hometown she sets out to find her family.
after we played it, V mentioned that it reminded him of Beyond Good and Evil and that's probably the best way i can think of to describe it. the gameplay is split between riding around the map in a jeep & exploring it on foot, platforming and collecting different components needed to craft parts for the jeep.
you don't get a whole lot of lore in the demo, so the majority of the world-building comes thru the environment/visuals. tho i will say i loved the frog ppl and am so interested in their whole deal.
but really, the character design was great as a whole. the same can be said for the environment design. the game is just very, very pretty.
i did notice some issues with the translation, but nothing that really took me out of the game. otherwise it was a VERY solid demo with the game itself seeming super promising. it's definitely one i'll be keeping an eye on.
The Crimson Diamond:
this one caught my eye immediately bc of the style: it's retro for one (intentionally aiming for that Sierra adventure game look), but like done in such a way that it looks EXACTLY like the genre it's recreating. it's just genuinely so beautiful to look at, and so very impressive, especially considering it's made by one dev.
the story follows the mineralogist Nancy Maple (an obvious Nancy Drew stand-in) as her boss at the Royal Canadian Museum sends her after an unexpected diamond find in a small, remote town. there she stays at the Crimson Lodge with a group of characters who all have their own motives for staying at the Lodge, and whose secrets you can gradually uncover as the demo progresses.
the gameplay is what i believe is standard for text parsers; i didn't have anything to compare it to as Crimson Diamond was the first text parser i've played. i streamed the game on twitch tho, and we all had a blast testing the limits of what the game would let you do, which did not, as it turned out, include kissing Jack (alas).
(of course then the dev showed up and everyone immediately shifted to their Best Behavior, which for me meant i stopped swearing, which was honestly a feat for me lmao. but fr tho, it was incredibly rad that she showed up and helped me out throughout the demo! it really made the experience super cool, and i lowkey feel bad that we all kept harping on the "unscented food" lol.)
but overall the story seems really interesting, the aesthetic is Top Fucking Tier, and the game itself is just a lot of fun. i'm really looking forward to this one too!
Hollywood Animal:
this time around it was this one that was the demo that like slapped me upside the head and made me instantly obsessed. the description reminded me a bit of the Lionhead Studios title The Movies, but i still wasn't expecting too much, like just basic management sim stuff, but i ended up playing the demo for like two hours straight or something? like it really just sucked me in and wouldn't let me go. finished the demo going "i NEED this thing NOW."
of course a lot of that is down to my obsessive personality + the addictive gameplay of management games like this lol. but like it was also just a fun game: you play as the new owner of a recently bankrupted movie studio in 1920s Hollywood. gameplay centers around both managing the studio lot as well as your actors, staff, etc., and in actually producing movies (this is absolutely not at all like The Movies, btw; you get randomized scripts and don't get to see the finished movies except in the tutorial). there's plenty of depth to the game, from what appears to be randomized events centered around your actors and staff and even randos from outside the studio (like the mayor??), to upgrades for all the different departments in your studio, to training your dang scriptwriters, or even setting up an advertising strategy for your new film.
if that sounds overwhelming...it actually wasn't. while i was a little confused about what certain things were going to do or how they'd work, the game did a good job overall of explaining it to me, and everything felt very manageable. there was a really good balance between the game giving you enough things to do that you weren't just waiting around with it on 4x speed for different tasks to finish, but so that you also didn't feel stressed by the game constantly throwing shit at you.
it also just looks really nice. the UI both matches the aesthetic while also being effective, and the little "cutscenes" that occasionally occur also have a really nice style to them. i was admittedly pretty worried about the "this game Contains Racism" warning at the beginning but i suspect that is likely due to the historical events that are slipped in during those cutscenes. there is also a "Racist" negative character trait that some actors/staff can get, but it's like shown clearly to be a negative trait that feels like it will carry with it an equally negative impact on gameplay. it's also entirely possible to just avoid using those characters at all if you want.
anyway, it was just a really addictive management sim that was seriously making an attempt to do something interesting with the setting/gameplay, and i'll definitely be looking forward to the full release.
Hollowbody:
i almost skipped this one!! which would have been a damn shame!! i'd downloaded it bc it was basically just an RE/SH clone and chat really likes those, so i thought it'd be fun to stream, but then i'd also placed it really low on the list of demos to play, bc it initially didn't stand out to me that much. HOWEVER i then watched this guy's Next Fest picks and his comments on Hollowbody really made me want to give it a shot. after telling V (resident survival horror aficionado) about it, he also encouraged me to play it, so i did! and i'm glad i did!
the game itself plays really well. i had my normal issues with fixed camera angles, in that i'd start getting fussy when i could hear a monster but couldn't camera my way to its location, but like honestly i can't think of any sincere complaints about it. you can turn tank controls off (praise be to yevon) and i'm not sure that there's inventory management at all, so that's like my main two survival horror gripes done and dusted.
the story follows Mica, whose hover car has crashed right in the middle of a truly hecked up village in the midst of her search for someone named "Sasha." the demo follows her as she attempts to find somewhere with a radio signal strong enough to call for help.
but like that's the thing that i thought was super interesting about this game: the little village is rife with Silent Hill vibes, but the game world itself is set in a dystopian cyberpunk future. the hover car is straight out of Blade Runner. this creates the coolest dang contrast between the menu screen (the background blinking eye seemed like another Blade Runner nod to me) and the occasional neon popups in game with the dark and dreary grayscale environments. i'm really interested in what the dev is going to do with that (and yep, Hollowbody is another game being made by a solo dev. devs rock, y'all.)
gameplay was very competently done, and everything felt like it was supposed to feel; in fact compared to some other survival horror games i've played recently, it actually felt a little easier (that was probably the no inventory management tho lol). there was also only a single puzzle i got to do in the demo, but, compared to RE puzzles which always end up stupider than i'm expecting, i actually had to use my brain for this one, and solving it really made me feel a sense of accomplishment. also in comparison to RE puzzles: the solution felt realistic. no ridiculously convoluted Spencer mansion puzzles here, just a straightforward "use the information you can find around you to figure out the code" kind of puzzle, but presented in a way where you actually had to activate some brain cells to solve lmao. like it wasn't impossible but i appreciate a survival horror that actually has you thinking (god Capcom has lowered the bar so much;;;).
now to the horror: it wasn't the scariest thing i've ever played, but it did a great job with the atmosphere and tension. being able to hear a nearby monster but not see it got me tense every time. those fixed camera angles really do ramp up the tension, and like the guy in that vid i linked notes, it creates this really claustrophobic feeling when you're fighting. vibes were A++ there.
combat was fine. i didn't really have any problems with it; it was pretty intuitive and easy to get the hang of.
overall, i am really glad that we did decide to play this one, and will def be looking forward to when it releases.
Judero:
gosh, Judero!!!!! i first heard about this game a few weeks back on Twitter, when the Sorry We're Closed twitter retweeted the trailer for it. the claymation/stop motion animation style grabbed my attention IMMEDIATELY so when i saw it was in Next Fest i downloaded the demo immediately. we ended up playing it tonight on stream and everyone loved it. it's genuinely such a gem, and i really can't recommend it enough!!
the big thing here are the aesthetics, and it's not just that claymation/stop motion style, but the whole damn game. you've got environments that look like a mixture between cardboard cutouts, models, and clay, and then the soundtrack! oh my god, the soundtrack!!! it's pretty much nonstop traditional folk music with modern arrangements the whole way down (with a fucking fantastic cover of "House of the Rising Sun" that plays whenever you enter Judero's house). the game looks good and it just feels good to play it. like i pretty much had the hugest smile the entire time i was playing it.
i can't really say much about the story beyond the fact that it follows the character Judero as he does "good deeds." i know that Scottish mythology is involved but other than that...???? i didn't exactly mind tho, i was mostly just happy to be there lol.
the gameplay involves exploring the map and engaging in combat with different enemies that populate it. you can buy skills for Judero to use from an incredible little shop (Yum Yum Pig's Bum) and while i personally struggled with remembering my buttons combat isn't actually that complex. in fact it relied way more on dodging than i personally prefer, but i think that's also a testament to how much fun the game actually is, just the fact that i just went with it without complaint lmao.
you can fight two bosses in the demo (one is significantly easier than the other) and they both have rad af designs. i played the much more difficult one first, and it took me quite a few tries, but at least it had the best boss theme i've ever heard, so there's that.
anyway, i really can't recommend this one enough. it might be my fave from the whole lot, which is really saying something because there were so many stunningly fantastic games this time.
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Date: 2024-06-21 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-22 09:14 am (UTC)