Recent reviews by kuoushi.com

Duration: 1 hour(s)

Is your daughter being weird again? It’s probably fine. Just leave her alone and she’ll come back to you like a full new person. Bet our late wife will love it.

So this is an adventure game that takes place in a small house in Japan. You wake up, you look around your house to see what's changing, then go try to talk to your daughter. That's it. There isn't a lot to the game. It is mostly about the aesthetic and atmosphere than anything else. It's cosmic horror, you know?

The aesthetic is pretty nice. Just black and white, with maybe a few little sprinkles of color for a treat. The models and stuff are nothing to write home about, but they weren't distracting or anything. Consistent. Adequate. Which is nice when the game comes with a photo mode. More games should have a random photo mode.

So since the made reason to play this game is basically just for the story, let's get into that here. The story is told through journal entries you find. The more you find, the more the mystery is unraveled. You know, normal in stories. And without spoiling too much, yeah, the daughter is getting into things she shouldn't be checking into. There are four endings as well, so try to get those and find more in the story.

And this game is very short. Even with the four endings, you're likely only to spend about 1-2 hours.

So if you get it for cheap and have an hour or so to burn, it's alright.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Fishing.

Duration: 5 hour(s)

If you're expecting a game to play, go somewhere else. Raige is just a story that should have been a short story than a game. A story I'm not particularly fond of. Let's get to that part later though. We're going to talk about the game itself and its mechanics.

The graphics and aesthetic are serviceable. The graphics are done in a faux PSX aesthetic, but way more retro and low-res than it needed to be. It’s not going to earn any awards, but it’s okay. If you like what you see in the trailers/screenshots, then what you see is what you get. Oh, and the animations are hilariously slow, but I guess that could be an aesthetic choice? They try to avoid showing those what they can, though. Mostly by teleporting the player to where it wants you to be and fades to black. So many fades to black. Oh, and the movement is pretty terrible and slow. Plus, every time you find stairs, you have to jump for each stair.

There is no gameplay. It's barely even a walking simulator thanks to all of those fades. But you basically walk (teleport) from Point A to Point B with no real exploration, wait for characters to just talk and talk and talk, then repeat. You might be thinking yourself, “Yeah, it's a walking simulator you dumbass.” First of all, yes, I am dumb. But secondly, remember the beginning of this paragraph. Every time it looks like you'll get a chance to walk around, you get immediately stuck in more dialogue. Surely there's choices that change what happens, right? In my playthrough, there was only one (1) choice made. Maybe there was something I missed, but there isn't much in the game.

Now, since the game part of the game is so bare bones, the story must be good, right? You would be wrong. The section comes with a lot of spoilers, so be aware. The start games with a kind of grim world, where humanity is starting to die off for no real reason. So far, so good. Our protagonist is called Raige, and he takes depraved pictures for food. But as you keep playing, it feels like none of that matters. The game shifts over to some fourth wall things that are basically just the game talking to you, the player. Before that, there was at least something interesting. It might not have been amazing, but it was at least interesting. The writing also really needed to be cut down a lot—every bit of dialog (and all of those monologues) needed to join the concising-machine. And, the game has more endings than The Return of the King. I really need to make this review shorter also, but let me just say that the writing was not my favorite part of this game.

After all of that, reading and reading, the game says you should play it in one sitting. Thankfully they still had saves, otherwise no one would never get to an ending.

Look, if I really want to read some Philosophy 101 term paper, I could go help a professor grade. It would be the same as what you're getting from this game. It's a game, but only barely.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Duration: 1 hour(s)

There isn't much to this game. You walk around in a dark pyramid maze and try to dodge enemies. And by dodge, I mean you run faster a second. The three enemies in the game will basically either just meandering around or chase you (for a couple of seconds), but nothing else. One makes the pyramid darker, I guess. And you don’t get any items aside from colored keys. Like I said, there isn’t a lot to this game.

The game does have some “replayability”, but you probably don’t want to play it again once you beat the game once. The game ends when you find all of the keys around the static pyramid, then find the escape. Since the keys are in random spots, you’ll have to keep trying again after you lose.

I don’t know, it’s all just okay. Very short.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Duration: 1 hour(s)

Vamp Night is like a demo that suddenly got thrown out into Steam and released. All the parts kind of work, but there really isn't much of a game here. You're basically put into this world without any real direction and just told to survive as long as you can. Beyond that? You've got to make your own fun from that point on.

So what can you do in here? First, you can work on your computer. It's one of the first ways you can make money. Just go over to the computer and watch your vampire character sit down, then watch it type like a storm. Now that you've worked, you can head out for some blood. Just find the first dude nearby, and mash E and now you're all full of blood. You could take in the night life into the bar and have some fun. Vampires love to play awful implementations of arkanoid (bugged) or space invaders, or doing the worst rhythm game you've ever seen. Then, you can wander around aimlessly until you find the meat delivery guy and you can Uber those over to people as a bat. At that point, you might've gotten tired so it's time to ramble over home.

But wait, it's not your home. It's like a hotel or something. Not only that, it costs you $250 to just open the door to head back to your room. What's that, you say? Your character is too depressed to do work? Sounds like you have to go back to the bar and mash E at the arcade and come back to spend another $250 before you can do work again.

Sounds like being a homeowner is the way to go, right? So let’s talk about what you’ll be doing for that. Wake up, go drink blood from the same guy, ran over to the bar and have “fun”, run back to your room and work until from exhaustion, sleep. Then, repeat that. And again. And again. You get the idea? Is this your ideal vampire life? If so, you’ve found a great game for you. Sure, you could go figure out what’s happening in the church with the “crazy” priest or try to find some work from people at the bar, but you’re just wasting time until you own a house.

There’s more you could say here about the game like the fact that the music in the main menu sounds like they were played wrong, but honestly? If you’ve read the above, you know exactly what you’re going into with Vamp Night. But, I feel like you could have more fun in the real world, sadly.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Duration: 2 hour(s)

You like tourism? Strandzha Adventures 3D was made by a tourist agency! If you have a trip going to Bulgaria soon, you’ll want to play this game first. You’ll see some real places in the game first to help you pick where you want to go to. Let’s ignore that the game is basically made entirely with random asset store textures and models. Let’s ignore that the terrain was pretty simple. Let’s ignore that it is a linear collectathon. Uh, what else there is?

Oh right, gameplay. You can jump. You can club. You can wall jump. You can run. They’re pretty janky, but it’s very simple overall. Controls aren’t great, they’re okay. I think there are like, three normal enemies that you’ll see, plus maybe four or five bosses. Mostly you just club them quickly to get rid of them, since the enemy AI is simple. There’s not a lot here, but you could play it.

Look, it’s not a good game, but for a random Bulgarian tourist agency game? It’s okay. Just don't run out of lives.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Duration: 3 hour(s)

The original Playstation had a very great aesthetic, and people are still using low polygon art to this day. Sure, this is all they had back in the day, but nowadays it’s an aesthetic thing. Stay is one of those PSX-aesthetic games, complete with Resident Evil/Silence Hill tank controls. It also has a lots of things to say.

First, the story. You just got a job to clean a terrible motel as the night shift maid. Why'd the last maid quit? Don't worry about it. We just have to clean things. Why did some random creep just take a picture about us? Again, don't worry about it. The protagonist is, of course, curious about all of this, but she's got to make money and live. All of the characters in the game are awful in their own ways. The desk lady only seems to care that you clock in, and every single male characters is just awful. Your boss? He asks you to wear tighter uniforms in like the first thing you meet him, then casually asked you to go drinking after the workday. The main story tends to just move from bad to worse.

The game itself is basically an adventure game. You get some work, sometimes you have to go out and get like detergent or something, then clock out. Nothing like, simulation-y. You have a linear story with linear objectives. It’s all okay? Everything in the game is mostly just normal and you won’t find anything new here. You can hide sometimes, too.

While the game is focusing on the story and trying to say something, it’s actually decent. It’s not subtle, but it doesn’t need to be subtle with the content. It has a very consistent theme going and you pretty much you know what’s going on. The problem happens, though, is that the game enters into the last third of the game. It becomes a lot more “game”-like, and the story is just a slasher movie. Anything they were trying to say just kind of goes away. Maybe it needs a bit more focus on writing so make both sections are consistent. It’s not bad, but it does feel like very different games, story-wise.

At least Stay won’t waste your time. While I can’t say I “enjoyed” it, it’s a worthwhile game to play.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Duration: 2 hour(s)

Whispers in Paradise is a horror where you are trying to save your friend after a botched exorcism. Really, it’s just an excuse to find places for scary. Just to be sure, though, it’s not a scary game. Unless your idea of horror is terrible mechanic ideas or execution, that is.

So you’re at the park with your best friend, playing with a Frisbee as you do, when things go wrong and demonic. Then you wake up from a dream, because of course you did. So you go back to your friend’s grandma’s house which is a manor, but she wasn’t there. There’s a spirit there I guess. Oh, and like zombies and monsters. This is all in the first cutscene. Cliche after cliche after cliche. I guess the Frisbee was new. But basically what I’m saying is this game isn’t really breaking new story ground.

The game itself is basically a hash of different mechanics you’ve seen before. Run around to hit the candles, do some QTEs to survive, don’t let the monsters get you. I guess you get a neat chakram to attack the bad guys. What’s that, you say? A chakram is just another kind of Frisbee? Well, damn. And please make a maze in your games anymore. That’s not fun. Especially if your only enemy will spin you around. I will say that the last level is kind of neat. If The Exorcist ended in the same way, that movie would’ve been much, much faster.

The graphics are okay. I didn’t notice any badly optimized parts, and there weren’t any glitches or anything. The art direction is okay. The enemies don’t look bad or anything, and the levels themselves are passable. Just okay, but that’s it.

So, honestly, the game is just okay. It seems to work, and that’s something.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Goldenheart is an adventure game where you explore around so you can try to kill a wizard. You hate wizards? Yeah, me too. Pondering all the time. But really though, you find yourself sitting in a valley with you and your friends, mostly lost, and your team has decided you have to find the way out. On the way, you end up in a story that’s a bit more bigger than you expected.

The first thing that most of you’d like to know, is does the game look better than the trailer looks? So, the game is exactly as kind of jank as you’d expect. The graphics won’t feel better when you’re playing it. If that’s a problem for you, then you should probably stop now and go play something else. Honestly though, the graphics look fine for what they’re trying to do. The aesthetic and art direction is generally pretty good and consistent, even during some of the weirder portions. Really solid. Except Darah. Darah needs some food.

The story itself is pretty linear. You listen to what the NPCs tell you where to go next, find the puzzle or boss, then keep going. Pretty standard, but it all works well. Aside from a few puzzles, you’ll never need to get help from a playthrough or walkthrough. The main thing I can suggest is just explore around and take note of your surroundings.

As far as the content of the story, it’s there. I’m not the best person to review that side, but I was amused through out. The lore was pretty consistent, every thing seemed like it mattered, and there weren’t any rug-throughs. It’s nice. Nothing like, excellent, but nice. Oh and for those like me, it didn’t have too many (any?) typoes.

Combat in the game is decently fun. You generally try to rock-scissors-paper your way through with sword, block, dodge, or arrow. Each enemy tends to have a right way to defeat them. For equipment, you have a sword, shield, and bow-and-arrow. They can be upgraded through story stuff, but that’s about it. They don’t really do much other than a small amount of damage, but they almost don’t matter much. Basically, let’s just say the game is solid enough to play and have fun. The game also has a lot of platforming, but it’s not that hard even though platforming on FPS games isn’t that great.

All in all, we can just say that this is a solid game. Hope the devs keep making more stuff.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.

Duration: 2 hour(s)

The Unknown is one of many of those indie Unreal horror games. Thankfully it's more of a puzzle game rather than you've got a ghost/monster chasing you. Some of the art direction is nice. You're basically just letting the player character work through some things in a strange world as you do puzzles and platform around.

The game mechanics you work with are some light balls you pick up and move it to other places. That's about it. Pretty simple, but the puzzles are at least decent, though you probably won't ever get too lost. The platforming parts tended to be okay, but some were slightly difficult. Again, you won't get stuck for much long on them though. The game was basically a walking simulator, honestly. Also, I never did all of the achievements for it, but probably won't take too much work.

The main point of the game, then, is the story. Let's just say, the main character needs to really get some therapy. Spend some time productive with yourself or something. I guess this game is kind of therapy for the dev, but for me, the story didn't really catch me. And the horror stuff is pretty normal, but thankfully there wasn’t much there for jump scares.

The game runs well for the most part due to the fact that it's an Unreal game, but I did have one glaring issue I ran into. At some point about a quarter through in the game, I jumped trying to find a secret but fell to my death. Normally, you'd get a checkpoint or something and try again. This game, however, sent me back through nearly to the beginning of the game. Had to replay it all again, which sucked. Aside from that, the game plays okay.

Short game, but you could spend your time in worse ways.

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If you’d like to see the game in motion through my eyes, take a look at this archive of me playing it[kuoushi.com] here. It should give you a good idea of how the game plays and what to expect.