Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: official review

Wanderstop (Ivy Road): my offical review

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I finished Wanderstop (Ivy Road) at roughly 16 hours, and I want to do my official review of it while it’s still fresh in my mind. In the past post, I was talking at length about my frustrations with the game, and I know it sounds like I hated it. I did not hate it. In fact, there were aspects of it I really liked. It’s just frustrating because the gameplay itself lets it down (in my opinion, of course), and I felt it could have been streamlined. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that there was a whole chapter (as I defined it, the time between each clearing) that just was not necessary. And coming on the heels of the big reveal, it felt as if it were added to deliberately make the game longer.

In playing Love, Ghostie (Jambeh Games), I really appreciated that one playthrough was three hours. It didn’t overstay its welcome, and if I hadn’t felt compelled to get the plat, I would have been completely satisfied with one playthrough. If this game had been a tight eight-hour experience, it would have sat so much better with me. I know the theme is burnout and learning how to lean into chilling the fuck out, but I don’t think the devs deliberately included a wasted chapter specifically to enhance the theme. I mean, I think it’s there to underscore that not everything has a reason, but I still think it’s poorly implemented.

We need to talk about the the hype surrounding the themes/story/plot. Look. I’m not going to hate on a game that tackles big issues. I would rather a game try to say something meaningful and fail than to not try at all. And I’m pretty sure that at least half the issue is that I think about things in a much different way than most people. This game, which people found so deep, was very much Pysch 101 for me. Which is fine! If I had known that going in, I would have lowered my expectations accordingly.

Side note: I think this is one of the problems for me in general. The more something is hyped, the better the chance is that it’s going to fall flat for me. It’s the same with movies like Brokeback Mountain. I went into it with my hype sky-high because of how everyone was raving about it.  I walked out of it thinking it was pretty good (the acting was solid), but it was so basic and riddled with issues. Including the fact that there was way more straight sex than gay sex, which was indicative of one of the biggest issues with the movie. (Which I’m not going to get into because it’s not the point of this post.)


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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33–the actual review (part four)

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I’m back, and I’m going to do an actual review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). This is the first day I’ve not played it since I started playing, and it’s with a sense of relief that I’ve put it down. I’m trying to decide what to play next because Nightreign (FromSoft) is dropping in three days. I have a feeling it’s not going to be for me, but of course I’m getting it. My only qualm is whether to get the Deluxe Edition or not. It includes DLC for sometime down the road. I’m going to get it at that point, sowhy not get it now?

By the way, FromSoft is one of the only developers I will pre-order unhesitantly anything they put out. Even if it’s not for me, I want to at least see it. If I can. Ahem.

Back to this game. In this post, I’m going to go over each aspect of the game and give it a rating. Then I’m going to give a number to the game overall. Why? Because I feel like I could muse about it forever, but I’m ready to move on. Oh, and there will be light spoilers in the post.

Let’s start with the good.

Art and music

I put these two together because they are linked in my mind. Plus, they both contribute to the mood and vibe of the game. Which, I have to say, is top-notch. Well, it would be except for a few things, which I’ll get to later. In general, though, the music and art do a lot of heavy lifting in this game in giving it a mood. The visuals are stunning. Each area has a distinct look and feel to it, but is still unified in theme.

The music, I’m a bit more fractured on. It’s all lovely and when I first heard several of the pieces, I was blown away. However, the more I heard, the less impressed I was. The pieces sound too much alike. It’s not just that they have a similar theme and feel to them–I literally cannot tell some of them apart. I can describe them as moody, lush, and redolent with cello (which is a good thing, the last. Cello is by far my favorite instrument). They’re all verging on/plunge into overwrought, and, in general, the OST is missing something to make it stand out in my mind.

I have included Lune’s theme song below. It’s the first time I have really listened to it. She’s my favorite character, but I’m a bit disappointed in her theme. It’s too ethereal for her. She’s pretty pragmatic. And, dare I say it? It’s pretty boring. I felt she deserved more than that, to be honest.Something more dynamic and fiery.

I will give the overall vibes (art and music) an 8.5.


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Spells & Secrets–my official review, part three

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Yes, this is my third post for my official review of Spells & Secrets (Alchemist Interactive). Why? Because I still have things to say about it. Here is the second post in my trilogy of review posts. This will probably be the last one, but who can say for sure? At the end of the last post, I was talking about the final boss. Also, about the stripping of artefacts in the boss fights for the harder versions of the school. Which, once I actually looked at the wards, it wasn’t that the artefacts get stripped, but the leveling of the spells? I think? It’s unclear from the description. At any rate, I’m not a fan.

Back to the final boss. Again, *SPOILER WARNING* for the rest of the post. I mentioned that the lock-on is one of the most frustrating in the game. Because of the physics of the game and how many things on the screen that you can lock on to, it’s really frustrating when you’re actually trying to lock-on to an enemy–especially a boss.

By the way, I’m crurrently doing a vanilla run (without the wards turned on) because I want to try to get the clothing for the fourth student faction. That’s the faction that is based on *sigh* parrying/deflecting. Which is another thing that irks me. That’s the thing that devs are taking away from Sekiro? That parrying/defelction should be the main combat choice? I really hope this trend dies out soon beacuse it’s my least-favorite FromSoft trend ever.

To be clear, I’m not mad about parrying/deflecting being a part of a FromSoft-like game. I am mad about it being the only combat option in a game (looking at you, Lies of P. No, it wasn’t stirctly the only way to play the game, but the other way was not fun at all). And I hate that it’s bleeding into my cozy games. Yes, this game is a rogue-lite, but I would still consider it a cozy game. Or cozy-adjacent. Adding a whole student faction based on it is, ah, a choice. Yes, it’s a lot more forgiving than Sekiro, but it’s still annoying as fuck.

It’s a spell that you need to cast as the boss is casting their spell. If you do it right, you will stun them, and then you have to attack them and kill them while they are under the spell. If you do so, they will go back to home base, er, the…uh…schoolyard? I think? And then you can fight the bosses in the boss arena in that student faction’s area. Which, no thanks. I just want the outfits. No idea how to get them. I’m assuming I’ll have to fight the bosses in the arena, which does not excite me at all. Sadly, the outfits for this faction are my favorite ones. Bleah.

Back to the game itself. In my vanilla run, I’m blasting through the floors. I have beaten the first two floors with very little sweat. I did not get hit on the first floor, and the only damage I took on the second floor was when I was trying to get the deflection spell to work on the boss. I don’t think I managed to do it, though.

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Spells & Secrets–my official review, part two

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I have talked about the game, Spells & Secrets (Alchemist Interactive), before. In fact, I have, apparently, done an official review of it. This will be part two of that now that I have officially beaten the game. The first part of the review (which I have no recollection of writing) is here. I’ve also done two quick looks at it, so, obviously, I have lots of feelings about it.

Let’s just get something out of the way. It’s obviously influenced by Harry Potter. That’s all I want to say about that, but the similarities have to be noted. We can move on from that now that I have made the comment.

At the end of the last post, I was talking about one of the things that’s a bit misleading with the game. The devs have said that they want to make it so that a player can make their wizard be anything they want. Which, in theory, sounds great. But, and again, I fully admit this might just be me and my limitations, what it meant for me was that I just kept using the same spells over and over.

Here’s my thinking. I suck. That’s not me being self-deprecating; that’s me being realistic. Oh, and *SPOILER WARNING* for the rest of the post. I know that anything that is timing-related will not work for me. That means I don’t ever touch a few of the spells. The deflect one and the switch one (you switch places with the enemy) are the two I’m thinking of especially. 

Then, there are ones that are a bit more generous with the timing, but they’re still timing-based in a way. Or can be with modifierss (artefacts). An example of that is the spell, telekinesis. It’s not time-based in and of itself as it just moves objects/enemies from place to place. But, there are modifiers such as one that snaps the objects that you move into the direction you’re moving them. I figured out that if you don’t touch the left stick as you do it, you don’t get the snap motion, but it took me too long to figure it out.

Then there are spells that just take too damn long without the modifierrs. Bombard (hurling a fireball) is one of them. It takes forever to actually load up and itas too easy to be interrupted while doing it. Which is a shame because fire is my jam. I wanted to be a fire and ice wizard. Ice in my left hand; fire in my right. That didn’t last very long, sadly. Also, I know how true RNG works. I know this means that every time you get an artefact, you get an equal chance to get each one. But. I don’t like true RNG. I don’t know if this game had it, but there are some artefacts I haven’t gotten. And there are some that I seem to get every other run.


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Spells & Secrets–my official review

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Let’s talk Spells & Secrets (Alchemist Interactive). I’ve done two ‘A Quick Look’ posts about it, the latest one being this one. I have recently beaten the game once, which, like many rogue-lites/likes, is not the end of the game really. There will be spoilers all up in this post, so this is your official *SPOILER WARNING* for the rest of this post. I’ll do my best to keep it general, but I can’t say that I won’t let slip with a specific spoiler now and then.

I have been playing it a lot. That’s not a ringing endorsement of the game in and of itself because I will get absorbed in a game and play it compulsively, whether I like it a ton or not. That’s just the way my brain works. Once I’m in, I’m in. And I’m not saying that this is a bad game; it’s not. I’m just saying that how much I play a game isn’t necessarily correlated with how good the game is.

I also want to say that because of my dexterity and spatial issues, the game is harder for me than it really is. Oh, and because the target lock is frustrating and suspect. I get that this is two guys doing the work, so I’m not as harsh on it as I would be otherwise, but the collision dynamics aren’t great. It’s hard to lock on the enemy you want to lock on with everything running in front of you. Also, because there are so many things in the room that you can move about (props, essentially), and when the enemy runs behind the prop, the aim lock will break and latch onto the prop.

This is especially bad in a boss fight when the boss spawns ads. Which I’ll get to when I reach the end of the game big boss (who, spoilers, may be the reason I don’t play the game any longer). I have a lot to say about that fight–none of it good.

Back to the base game. There are three different floors and in every room, there is a secret that you can solve. Or, if you get frustrated like me, look it up. This is cool! I really liked that aspect of the game, even if I couldn’t always figure it out. When I did figure one out for myself, I felt so smart.

If you haven’t found everything in a room, there will be a purple question mark on your map until you find that last thing. The problem is that there are glitches in this game that means a purple question mark might not disappear when it should. As someone who can get obsessive about clearing everything up in a room, that’s frustrating. Sometimes, if you go out of the room and go back into it, the question mark will disappear. Sometimes, it won’t. And sometimes, you can’t do the thing you need to do in order to clear that room.


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