S'Tsung's Blog

7th Guest VR

2026-01-08T10:41:00.000-08:00

7th Guest VR is not the first game bearing this name. The original 7th Guest game is a point-and-click adventure from the 90s that told a dark story about a toymaker Henry Stauf who created toys for children. That wouldn't be bad if the children didn't start dying to a strange illness.

Vertigo Games reimagined this story and brought it to virtual reality in a spectacular way. One would expect the game to be a horror game, but it is not. While the game is very eerie there are no jump scares or scary elements (there are spiders though).

The game starts with the player being in a boat and urges us to grab an oars and paddle towards what looks like a very haunted abandoned mansion. Once we get off, we are told to grab a lantern and proceed towards the mansion. The lantern is a very important object as it has special powers which can uncover clues, shows us how the mansion looked like in the past, and also fix things. Upon entering the mansion we get to see spirits of six guests who were invited to the mansion in hopes of their desires to be fulfilled. None of the invited guests were ever seen again and it is up to us to find out what happened. Why did Henry Stauf invite the guests in the first place?

After a very immersive beginning that forced us to be active and during which we could see something revolutionary in VR - a volumetric video of real life actors projected on 3d models - we are left alone to wander. The game proceeds once we reach the first unlocked room - the dining room. Here we can start solving several puzzles the room offers. The first very obvious one is on the table. But once we observe it a little bit more, we find out that a piece is missing. This tells us that we have to look elsewhere - most likely we need to solve a different puzzle first. While looking around for clues and other puzzles we can notice that the lantern changes the paintings to ones that are way more ominous. Once all puzzles are solved we get to see another flashback from the past, the room changes to its former glory and new rooms get unlocked. Through the different rooms we get to know more about the invited guests, what happened that night, and about Henry Stauf's life. At the end we get to bring closure to this whole madness.

7th Guest is a puzzle game that is more like a series of escape rooms. Each room has a theme. The guests' rooms have puzzles that are linked to them - this way we get for example finance themed puzzles, jewellery puzzles, or overconsuming alcohol ones. Since one of the guests is a magician we even get to experience some magic tricks. The puzzles often have a given order in which they need to be solved so the player needs to distinguish them first. The puzzles themselves are fairly intricate and varied which makes progressing in the game fun. Different skills are needed to solve them but none are too difficult. If one would get stuck, the player can reveal up to two hints. There is also a possibility to skip the puzzle altogether by spending a coin, which are easy to come by as they are scattered all over the mansion. Apart from the hints there is also a narrator that keeps telling us what to look at and how to solve the puzzles (oftentimes literally giving us the solution). Honestly, I wish this kind of help was something we could turn off. I understand that the developers want their games to be accessible for everyone but when the game already has a hint system via a spirit board, this seems rather unnecessary.

The back story is told via several types of audio recordings (one being a paper document) that we can listen to so it is possible to completely miss them. I would recommend looking for them and listening to them as they will bring sense to everything going on in the mansion.

7th Guest VR is a reimagining of 90s classic adventure game. While the game fairly sticks to the story, it offers new take on puzzles that can be experienced through virtual reality.

Pinball FX VR

2025-08-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I wanted to check out new arcade locations just to see if there wasn't a Pinball machine. At the time Pinball tables were already being replaced by video game arcades. Home versions of Pinball existed but mostly lacked on all fronts. Pinball Fantasies released in '92 was the closest to a real experience but it was still very far. At the time Williams tables dominated the Pinball scene so there wasn't a reason to play at home and I have very fond memories from playing on them.

Through the years many people forgot what Pinball is. One game studio - Zen Studioes - didn't forget and wanted to recreate the best Pinball experience. They created Pinball games for different platforms and became known for their realistic tables and physics. In 2016 they ventured into the world of VR releasing Pinball FX2. As many Oculus titles from 2016, the game was way ahead of its time and probably didn't get as much praise as it should. This year, a new VR game was released for Meta Quest headsets - Pinball FX VR - taking it to the next level.

When I launched the game for the first time and appeared in a basement full of Pinball tables, I reminisced of old times. I walked around, enjoyed the 80s atmosphere. Then I stood by a Williams table, Star Trek TNG, took out a coin and put it inside the coin door. The machine suddenly came to life and I could start my first game playing on a virtual table. I put my hands on a real life controller, slightly bend over the virtual table and shoot the first virtual ball. The game provided me with real life physics, authentic sound, and various special effects reminding me that I was in virtual reality. Enterprise floated on the right side of the table and was attacked by a Romulan or Klingon ship when I lost the game. When I was about to shoot asteroids, they spawned above the table and when I shoot them in game they exploded. I thought the special effects would be distracting but they added more to the virtual experience and I came to appreciate them (but they can also be turned off for those that prefer to play without the effects).

Apart from spatial special effects the game also brings different kind of challenges and achievements that give players more reasons to come back to the game and experience it with a different perspective in mind than just getting a high score. There are leaderboards for all the high scores one can get and it is possible to see how your friends are doing and how well you do compared to the rest of the world.

The digitized real life tables are exact replicas as the machines were taken apart and scanned part by part. The audio also comes from the machines. The physics is as close as it gets which is very important as Pinball is a game of skill. In VR this is twice as important. Those not ready for a Williams table action might experience the harsh physics and quick game over. Thankfully losing a credit in Pinball FX VR doesn't cost money and one can simply start another game. Considering a credit of one traditional Pinball game can cost 1-2 USD nowadays instead of quarter from the past, buying a 10-15USD DLC is pretty cheap.

The base game features three Zen Studios tables - Curse of the Mummy, Sky Pirates: Treasures of the Clouds, and Pinball Noir. All of them are very well done and each of them has their own style both visually and game mechanically. Last month they released a DLC featuring two original Tomb Raider tables which both bring great unique experiences. Another DLC contains a selection from Universal Pinball: TV classics - Xena, Warrior Princess, Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider.

The game has several DLCs featuring a digital replicas of a selection of Williams tables like Indiana Jones, Twilight Zone or Star Trek TNG. The newest DLC, Williams Pinball Volume 9 - features another batch of Williams tables - PIN-BOT, TAXI and WHO dunnit. Since the non-VR game features many more tables we can assume that more and more tables will find their way into the VR version.

Pinball FX VR is a game made with love. Zen Studios worked hard to bring authentic Pinball experience into the digital world and this game was truly made for virtual reality. Seeing the whole table in front of you and playing the game as one should, brings the experience to a whole new level. I hope that many new players will discover the world of Pinball and will enjoy Zen Studios tables and replicas of tables from decades ago.

Ember Souls

2025-05-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

Ember Souls is a VR action adventure game by VirtualAge that caught my interest because it looked like Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed. The main selling point of the game was parkour in VR and I was interested in trying that out in a different game than Assassin's Creed.

You, as the player, are the last immortal, the only person that can wield all Ember Stones that grant unthinkable powers. To gain their powers one needs to find them first as they are scattered around in a Persian looking palace. The palace being also the home of a Shadow Sultan that you are meant to beat and save the inhabitants. The palace is a maze to be explored by parkour-style movement, there are traps like you'd expect from Prince of Persia, and some enemies wander around.

In the opening scene we are on a boat arriving at the palace. Upon reaching the palace gate, we find out the gate won't open. A blue falcon enters the scene and tells us that that we need to climb over the wall and sneak into the palace. That is where our adventure begins and pretty much that is all the story we get.

Primary gameplay element is parkour. The player can climb, wall run, jump, swing between poles/chandeliers or slide down tapestries/ropes. You can view the rooms in palace as puzzles that the player needs to navigate using this parkour-style movement. Unfortunately there is one set path so there is not much freedom of movement. It starts with very easy tutorial-like areas but the deeper we get the harder is to navigate the rooms.

The controls are good but the behavior of highlighting the next grabbing point and actually grabbing it does not always behave the same. One can easily miss and die and start over again.

Ember stones that we collect give us two abilities that can be used in combat or in our platforming adventure. The first abilities we get is air push that can destroy items or hit enemies. The second ability doubles as a grappling hook. Water stone will give us the ability to freeze water, Fire stone can help us burn stuff and Earth stone will gives us the power to produce our own vines that we can scale. These powers seems underwhelming and mostly not needed. When we get too creative using these powers the game will not allow us to continue as there is a certain path we are supposed to follow or we get completely stuck in the environment.

The protagonists presence in the palace does not go unseen. Enemies guard the palace and for that there is a simple combat system. It's more of a hack and slash, nothing more to it. While Ember stone abilities can make it more interesting, there is mostly no need to use special abilities or different weapons which leaves us with bland combat. Boss battles are a different story. Since they require you to do something specific but the combat is not fully functional, it can become very frustrating or boring to beat the boss (I was also losing weapons mid-combat which made it even more frustrating).

Enemies leave behind coins that can be collected and new weapons or armor can be bought. Nonetheless the weapons don't have abilities (except one weapon) and the armor is also not worth the money that is scarce. For me, as a long time RPG player, the new items or upgraded abilities are not enticing.

Ember Souls's atmosphere is definitely a strong point. The palace is very nicely looking place even though it gets repetitive after few hours of play. One can stop and enjoy the surroundings, feel immersed for a bit.

Soundtrack and sound design are nice. The voice acting even in its current non-AI form is not good and can break the immersion for many.

The game offers a campaign mode with the main story described above, sandbox mode and raid mode. Raids are procedurally generated maps that you can try to run through as fast as you can. They also contain treasures where rare items can be found. In sandbox mode you can test the combat.

Ember Souls is visually beautiful but also technically ambitious project that wants us to experience a smooth parkour-style movement, little bit of exploration, puzzles, and combat. Unfortunately the game is not that well executed and probably needed a longer development period. Considering the game was nearly unplayable before launch and very buggy after release, the developers did managed to fix many things and listened to the players' feedback.

This game can be fun for those who want to become masters running through raids but if platforming is not your cup of tea I would not recommend this game.

And don't forget to pet the spirit bird, he purrs.

Out of Sight VR

2025-05-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

Out of Sight is an atmospheric horror puzzle game developed by The Gang. The game is getting a VR version thanks to Flat2VR Studios and that is the version of the game I played.

In Out of the Sight VR the player finds themselves embodying a teddy bear belonging to a blind girl, Sophie. Through the teddy bear's eyes she can see again and it is up to us to guide her through a dreadful manor full of rooms filled with environmental puzzles. While Sophie tries to escape the mansion, she is being searched for by others. She needs to occasionally hide from them and there are, as expected from a horror game, chase scenes. During the whole few hours long adventure, the player and Sophie will learn about the secrets and happenings in the mansion.

When Sophie holds her teddy bear she can only walk around. The teddy bear can be placed on pink pillows from which the player can see the room from the second-person perspective. This allows the player to do more than just walk - Sophie can pull levers, drag or push items, climb furniture, grab items, open locks etc. These actions are needed to solve the puzzles.

Out of Sight is a very atmospheric horror game with great sound design and graphics. It evokes emotions, fear and relief being one of the strongest ones. The game tells a story via both dialogue and environmental aspects that can cause psychological discomfort which is often followed by disturbing emotions making us ponder what is real and what is not.

Out of Sight VR is another groundbreaking game that shows well how VR can be used. It offers us a dual perspective eerie experience that will makes us explore our own emotions.

Final Fury

2025-05-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

Final Fury is a long awaited 1-on-1 fighting game from Kluge Interactive. The developers are known for their music game - Synth Riders - that has become a hit. This game features a Force mode where one instead of touching colored orbs with precision one needs to use force (speed) to hit them. This alone could be used in a combat focused game but Final Fury is completely different beast. It is an unique game and if developed well it could become another hit.

When I talk about a fighting game, I mean a game like Street Fighter, Tekken or Mortal Kombat. It may feel like an impossible feat to do in VR. Nonetheless after playing a bit of the early access I can see that there most likely is a way to bring some of the fighting game experience to VR.

As one would expect, the game can be played solo against AI or against another player via online matching.

After picking a character the game will put the player in an arena where they will first see each character enter with little intro, Tekken or Soul Calibur style. Then they will embody the chosen character and fight.

The player can moves along 2 axes using thumbsticks, there's no possibility to jump or duck which feels very limiting. The movement along those two axes always keeps the player directly facing their opponent.

Moves one can perform are triggered by an actual move. For a punch one needs to simply punch forward, for a throw one needs to reach forward and hug the air, for a block one needs to lift both fists and have them in front of their face. Special moves are also triggered by a different motion each. When throwing an opponent the player is moved away and up in the air to oversee the throw - this prevents motion sickness but can feel very awkward.

There are 6 playable characters (one being an unlock) and each of them has two special attacks. Each character is different and has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, one character is slow, doesn't have much reach but is very strong. One character is fairly swift, both attacks have mid to long reach but she lacks raw power. Another one can shoot homing missiles and land timed mines which are both bad for short range. These differences can create favorable and unfavorable matchup.

One notable thing is about distance, even short range attacks are done from fairly far away from the character model. The basic punches are actually ranged attacks. It also makes grabbing a bit more awkward as it happens from a distance one would not be able to grab. The notion of distance than becomes a bit distorted but this will become something each player will need to learn.

The game couldn't be called a fighting game if timing wouldn't be important. I was surprised to see that having a good timing makes a difference in winning or losing (or being hit) and that alone gives me hope that this game can become functionally a fighting game.

Visually the game looks great. Vibrant colors and stylish graphics fit well with fast paced combat. Soundtrack is full of energy and brings up the tempo.

I believe that Final Fury can introduce VR gamers to a new game genre while providing little bit of workout. Will Kluge Interactive manage to set a foundation for fighting games in VR?

Trombone Champ: Unflattened

2024-12-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

I've spent a lot of time in VR and often I wondered if someone would come with a game that would feel natural fit for it. One flat game I hoped would be ported to VR was Trombone Champ. My dream came true when Flat2VR studio created their first 'flat to virtual reality' game - Trombone Champ: Unflattened.

Gameplay
Trombone Champ: Unflattened is a game simulating playing on a trombone, a musical instrument. In order to play a trombone one needs to hold the instrument in one hand, close to the mouth so one could blow into it, the other moving a slide closer or further to one's face. The further one slides, the lower notes, the closer, the higher notes. Similarly in VR, one hand will hold the instrument close to the face, the other one will use the slide. Instead of blowing into the instrument, a player will need to press and hold any button depending on note length. One cannot hold the button indefinitely as in real life one would lose their breath.

During a song, notes will come towards the player following lines on top of each other. The higher the note, the higher the pitch. The player needs to confirm the note by pressing a trigger and having the slide hand at a matching position once it hits a target line near the player. Notes are evaluated based on timing and pitch and a player will be awarded with a judgment for certain notes/parts and at the end of the song a resulting grade as one would expect from a music game.

Key sounds
A rhythm gamer would say the songs are key sounded and this is what brings the game to the next level - the notes you play, you hear, and that will quickly show you that hitting the exact note is not that easy. Any mistake you make can produce a sound that will make you squirm. This adds makes the game feel very real as you have a control over your virtual trombone.

Lots of content
The game has several modes. There is a Campaign mode that makes you play a series of songs on which you need to reach certain criteria to progress. This way you can unlock more songs and challenges along the way. If a player wants to hop right into playing everything, they can by playing in quick play mode where all songs can be played. There is one more mode, for the hardcore players that mastered their virtual trombone - improvisation mode. Here you can see a bar with lines in front of you and you are free to toot the way you want. A player will be able to toot within two octaves, each line represents a semitone (I wish there was a possibility to transpose).

As for the songs, there's about 50 songs and many of you will recognize majority of them as they are well known classics. Their melodies are (mostly) simple so you can play them from memory. Each song has 3 difficulties - simplified, original and turbo. Simplified difficulty is easier to play but you won't be playing the notes you should be playing if you wanted to play the song on a music instrument. While the simplified songs mostly sound well, I wouldn't suggest playing this difficulty unless you really can't complete a certain challenge. Original is the default difficulty making you play all the notes you should be playing. Turbo mode is the same but sped up.

After playing a song you are rewarded toot currency that you can spend at a store. You buy randomized packs of 4 cards. Collecting certain combination of cards allows you to trade them for a different trombone, that can sound differently. Thankfully you don't need to wait for the RNG gods to give you what you need, once you collect 3 or more of the same card you can trade them for 1 specific card you need.

Look and sound
Trombone Champ looks great, features a lot of fun elements and sounds great. The game is very nicely polished and it is a treat to play.

Verdict 5/5
Trombone Champ: Unflattened is a perfect fit for virtual reality. The game will give you an incentive to play a virtual trombone well as all the toots you make will be heard by anyone listening to you play. You will experience many fun moments and the game is very enjoyable to play. Anyone can play the game as the difficulty ranges from very simple to fairly difficult and beyond hard. There's a lot to explore and completing the campaign is rewarding. Improvisation mode where you can learn how to fully control a virtual trombone is for those with nerves of steel but will become very rewarding once you can play any song you want.

I hope that at some point we will be able to play custom songs but even if that won't be possible, this game is a nearly perfect VR game and I can highly recommended to anyone.

Palworld

2024-02-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

Palworld is the craze of today. Everyone is talking about this new addictive game and what I heard about it made me rather perplex. Some people claim it is a Pokemon game mixed with Breath of the Wild while others say it is a mix of Minecraft and Fortnite with Pokemon. Since the only game I played out of these is Breath of the Wild I could only wonder what the game was about and wanted to know for myself. If I were to compare it to something I'd say it is Ark: Survival Evolved with Pokemon.

The game starts with you waking up seeing several lovely creatures. They can be small and resemble a cat or huge and resemble a dinosaur. You will soon find out, after talking to another human, that you are on Palpagos Islands where Pals, the lovely creatures, live. The game tutorial will then lead you through different aspects of the game. You will learn that your character needs to eat or it will die, you will learn that you can capture these Pals and you will also be tasked with building a base. Gathering materials and crafting items is big part of the game and this can be automated by using the Pals to do the work while keeping their sanity.

Gameplay
One of the main aspects of the game is catching Pals. There are 111 different kinds of them and some of them have more variants than 1 making the total number even higher thus. Catching Pals is done by damaging the Pal, making it easier to catch, and then throwing a Sphere at it. The catch rate can be made higher by using a better Sphere, collecting Effigies or incapacitating the Pal in certain way (poison, knock them out, freeze them). Depending on the catch rate the Pal either escapes or gets caught. Caught Pal either shows in your party if there is a vacant slot or your Palbox accessible from your Base. Catching a Pal gives the player experience points. For the first 10 caught Pals of one kind, the player gets a bonus experience points that are not related to the player's level. After that the experience points are fairly low and depend on both the Pal's and player's level.

If one wants to collect all the Pals in the game, they need to explore the vast islands of Palpagos. There are different biomes - lush forests, snowy mountains, desolate desert - in which different kinds of Pals live. Desert is the home of electric Pals, snowy mountains are home to Ice Pals and fiery Volcano is where Fire Pals thrive. Apart from Pals, a player can find entrances to Dungeons that are suitable for different kind of levels. For example in the beginner areas they are for players of level 13, in the most dangerous areas, level 45 is recommended. In dungeons one can find Pals not living anywhere else and a boss Pal which is an Alpha version of Pal that we can find in the wild. Alpha versions are bigger and stronger versions of the Pals. After clearing a dungeon there is a period during which one cannot enter, but then it is available once again for clearing. Dungeons are good for grinding XP as the enemies will respawn after leaving each room - walking in circles thus gives endless Pals to kill or catch. They also contain treasure chests with fairly rare loot.

Pal drops and treasure chest contents are often materials or schematics that can be used for crafting. In order for one to craft, they need to setup a base and build different kind of machines. With each player level, you can unlock and build different kind of structures that allow you to craft items, produce materials or build a lovely home. At the beginning you will just need to get some wood and stones and special Paldium stone to build your first structure. There's plenty of stones and wood around to be collected but very soon you will need way bigger amounts than those you can collect and you will either have to do some logging and mining yourself or put your Pals to work to automate it. Each Pal is capable of different kind of work. There are Pals good for logging or mining. Then there are those that can cool, water or heat. Others can craft or they can even produce materials themselves - mostly food but it can also be wool, cloth or even gold coins! The more you level up the more advanced technology will be available to you. That includes Spheres for catching Pals - the higher the level of a Pal the better Sphere is needed to catch it. Crafting those requires more refined materials that themselves have to be crafted from even more rare materials. This way a need for more bases arises and those may have a sole purpose - mining. Apart from Spheres one will also need better weapons to deal more damage and armor to stay alive when fighting.

Combat is one of the main aspects of the game as well but is fairly limited. It is a real time 3d action combat that involves both melee and ranged weapons. You can attack and you can dodge and that is pretty much it. There is a roll move that can be used to dodge attacks but that drains a lot of stamina so I mostly just ran or walked away. One Pal, from your party of max 5 Pals, can also join the fight. You can throw a Sphere to the place where you want the Pal to spawn at will by pressing E (and recall it back at any time). Some Pals can be used as a mount. When mounted the player can use three of their abilities at will (they have a cooldown). Certain weapons and Pal abilities can take advantage of Pal's weak points and can deal more damage when a weak point is hit. Pals learn abilities when they level up. They level up when you do any activity, but gain most experience when Pal is being captured or killed. Abilities can also be learned by using an ability fruit that can be found somewhere on Palpagos Island. Apart from learning new abilities Pal's stats - Health, Attack, Defense, Work speed - can be augmented. For that player needs to collect lots of Pal souls. The player's abilities can be augmented by stat points gained (except defense) at each level up or with equipment (armor provides additional defense points). The range of weapons is not that big and some are different in fire power, what makes a weapon better is the time it takes to reload. I spent most of the time running around with a Crossbow as crafting any handgun or shotgun was not worth the damage output and resources. Letting Pal fight for you is often better as they can deal more damage and only resource they spent is food. Since you will mostly fight other Pals you can also pick a Pal of an element being more hurtful to that specific Pal. Fire Pals will make it hard for Grass Pals and Electric Pals won't be happy when they will get hit by Rock Pals. Pals can also be commanded even though the commands are very limited - they can be commanded to not attack, focus on a single enemy or attack aggressively. The last option doesn't make them attack nonhostile pals as one would suspect.

Verdict:
Palworld is a mixture of survival crafting game and monster catching. The game offers a big open world, over 100 different creatures and 50 level technology tree. This alone makes it worth tens of hours of gameplay.

Rat it: Plague Hunter

2024-01-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

Rat it: Plague Hunter is an early access VR first person shooter game in which you, an alchemist explore a dark pirate ship and try to eradicate all plague bearer rats with a magical slingshot. As you advance into each room there are more and more rats to kill. Many are just running around but the further you get the more rats you need to find or lure. This adds a puzzle element to the game as you need to find objects you can interact with - shoot them with your slingshot. Some interactable objects do not hide rats, they can hide treasures as well, be it potions to recover health, coins, or alchemical projectiles.

The gameplay is mostly this - enter a room and eliminate all the rats in it. There is a time limit before you die to poison and you can check your health on your forearm, but you can also hear it - the more you cough the less life you have (unless you take lots of damage in a single blow). Once you fail you can quickly retry. I found the slingshot mechanic fairly good. It behaves the way you'd expect. The more force you use to pull, the faster the projectile will go and the harder it will be to target. This also deals more damage and if you use maximum force the common rats can be one-shot. You can choose a playstyle based on this mechanic and you can also swap hands mid-game.

Not all rooms are about rat killing though, you can also end up in a room with a puzzle element which pretty much just requires careful study of the surroundings or a room featuring a boss that has a set behavior you need to learn. These rooms are very fun and I wish there were more of them.

Art style of the game is cartoonish and everything fits well together, sometimes too well as you can miss an object hiding rats. The rats are rather cute than something you'd want to shoot at first sight.

One of the things that may be rather negative for many players is the fact that the game uses teleport for movement and you can only move to specific locations. When having the slingshot in your hands, you cannot move which can add some frustration. During boss battles movement is needed though. Since this game is in early access, I believe it can still be addressed and should be from my point of view.

The UI is rather clunky. The most problematic is changing the projectile type while playing - it was the reason I rather did not use them at all, unless the game required it. It could be done in a similar way you choose emotes in VRChat as that is fast (or think Half-Life: Alyx) and can be comfortably done during combat without much thinking or looking at the UI.

Verdict: 3.5/5
Rat it: Plague Hunter is a VR shooter game that makes you use your controllers as a magical slingshot to eliminate rats. The mechanic of the slingshot is fairly good but the gameplay still gets very repetitive, the further you get the more rats you need to eliminate and that is not the kind of a challenge I'd be personally looking for. The puzzle rooms and bosses spice things up but I still craved for more of these to break the rat killing pace. The game is fun and has a good potential if more story and more mini-game rooms are added. Some glitches, bugs (falling down of the map), clipping (and being able to shoot rats through objects) should be fixed as well.

Neko Atsume VR

2024-01-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

Neko Atsume is a game about collecting cats. The VR version is similar to the mobile version - you need to put some food in the yard in order for a cat to come. You can also place toys with which the cats will play. When they show up you can play with them and take pictures. Cats will give you fish, currency used for buying food/toys. The more rare cat comes the more fish it gives you. With that you can buy more expensive toys or food to lure more rare cats.

Neko Atsume also has a mixed reality mode where you can create a virtual room using your own real life room as a reference. You can add a bed or table etc. Then you will be prompted to add door back to the VR version and a cat door so the kitty can come. After placing food, a cat will come and it will play with you. You can pat it, pick it up or take pictures.

The good about the game is that you can pat the cats, grab them, or simply watch them from afar. The cats will come pretty much instantly. You can also call a kitty to come to you and it will follow you for a while. Unfortunately the kitties walk only on the floor. It would be great if they could jump on the furniture as well.

The bad? The game is buggy and likes to crash. The UI, while copying the mobile game, is not the best for VR. When you have the menu open you can't do anything else in the game - for example you can't be walking around and taking pictures. Grabbing newspaper to get the daily password and entering it is not well implemented. The controls for both controllers and hand tracking is not particularly intuitive and the tutorial doesn't necessarily help that much (you can get stuck in it as well).

I think the worst is the fact that you can't really walk around in VR. There are several spots you can move to but then you have to use your legs if your room allows it. I saw the cats mostly from behind.

The game is cute and wholesome if you like patting digital cats. 20 USD is way too much for a very broken and hardly a finished game. If Hit-Point fixes the game so there is no graphics clipping, no crashes, better performance, working and intuitive UI, some more things to do or features, no redoing of the MR room etc, the game will be an enjoyable experience.

Talos Principle 2

2023-12-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

When I came across Talos Principle I had no idea what the game would turn out to be. I bought it as a puzzle game, hearing many people compare it to Portal, but as I played I discovered it was about way more than just the puzzles. The game posed philosophical questions, ones that are very hard to answer, ones we might never find an answer to. Introspection about one's existence was the theme of the game and for a good reason. As we would find out sooner or later, we were solving puzzles in a simulation which was created by humans to create a self-conscious AI with human values. Those who managed to leave would wake up as the first robotic human in the real world - post apocalyptic Earth.

Talos Principle 2 takes us thousand years in the future after the first human's awakening. The player wakes up as the 1000th human robot and becomes a witness to a strange projection, calling himself Prometheus, making a speech to the robots. You can then embark on an expedition to where the source of the projection was found. That is where you will discover a mysterious pyramid and 12 areas with puzzles similar to those from the simulation you all went through.

Talos Principle 2 is still a puzzle game in its core with philosophical questions but this time there is a fully voiced narrative. From the moment you wake up you will be welcomed by another human robot. You will be able to explore the city the robots built and also talk to them if you choose to (the dialogues are of philosophical nature). Even after leaving on the expedition, you won't be truly alone, as you will be able to talk to the members of the expedition who have different opinions on what their civilization should strive for. That is also about what the story is and your actions will decide in which direction the civilization will go. The questions you will get to ponder about are about morality of a civilization, technological progress, evolution of species and their extinction. Apart from talking to the expedition members directly, you also have access to the city's social media platform. You can join the discussions there and voice your own opinion on the topics.

The puzzles are the main focus of the game. They will feel familiar if you played the first game. The basis is simple, you will be connecting specific color beams with the same color targets, overcoming obstacles to do so can range from easy to difficult. This time around there are no bombs (or turrets) which makes it a calmer experience for those that do not like timing in games. Each area has 8 numbered puzzles, two lost puzzles and a golden gate puzzle which are all very well marked. In order to progress in the story you will have to solve 8 puzzles from an area. Unlike in the first game where the puzzles were getting more and more difficult since the beginning of the game, here the difficulty gets only harder within each area which gives the game a steady pace of progression. Puzzle marked as 1 is the easiest, it is more of a tutorial for a new contraption you can use. There are various contraptions, some fairly easy to use, some that can give you a bit of a headache. For example there is a beam shifter that allows to combine red and blue beam into a green one. You will encounter a quantum tunneler which you can use to create a hole in a specific material walls and use it for light beams to go through. Another contraption can create anti-gravity beam allowing you to move items or your body in the direction of a new gravity. All these contraptions will aid you in connecting the beams and unlocking door where you can find a mysterious blue fire.

Talos Principle 2 also has star puzzles - outside of puzzle area puzzles. In the first game, you could encounter a star somewhere in the area outside of the closed puzzle areas. In order to get to it, you had to come up with a way how to reach it. This usually required certain contraptions you could find in puzzle areas. Getting these out was quite a head scratching task. In general, they were very difficult to solve. In Talos Principle 2, getting a star is much simpler, there are three different kinds of 'puzzles' and once you figure out the first of each type you won't have that much of a hard time to solve them.

Each area out of the 12 has different scenery. I'd buy this game even as a walking simulator as it would be worth the money for the scenery only. It is truly beautiful no matter where you find yourself - be it mountaintops covered in snow, an endless desert, or a forested area. When you find even more beautiful spot you can take a picture using the game's photo mode. While enjoying the environment you can encounter secret labs and different collectibles, be it memories from the founders of the first human-robot civilization, ancient human artifacts, statues or other items. You can also encounter a fire of Prometheus. These once collected can be then used to skip puzzles.

If you played the first game, you might ask, are there tetrimino blocks still in the game? The answer is yes. Once a player collects 8 of the mysterious blue lights in an area a gate will open. To reach the other side a player will have to build a bridge out of the tetrimino blocks - that means finding correct order and correctly rotating the blocks. If the bridge building was limited to those 12 areas it would have been a pleasant experience. Unfortunately you will be forced to build way many more bridges, even ones that go up or down. For some this may be rather tiresome.

Verdict:
Talos Principle 2 is a masterpiece of a game, it is a thought provoking and well made mind-bending puzzle game with beautiful scenery that is well balanced and suitable for all players.

Room of Realities

2023-11-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

Room of Realities is a VR game that offers three escape room experiences that can be played either solo or with other players.

The multiplayer aspect is something many players wanted for a long time. Many could experience an escape room with friends in VRChat, but in standalone VR game that was not possible until now. Room of Realities features a cross platform multiplayer and up to 4 players can play. One player will host and others can join using a code. When in multiplayer mode, cooperation is required for certain tasks.

The game has stylized cartoony graphics that are pleasant to look at. While it is nothing spectacular it looks very good and is crystal clear. The items needed for puzzles fit well with rest of items and the environment which is something we don't see every day. Each scenario has a different theme and everything fits nicely and creates good (or scary) ambiance.

The puzzles themselves are not overly difficult nor too easy. Some need careful observation, manipulation and some will require a bit of thinking and memorization. I found the puzzles clever and also fairly unique. They are also very fitting and I found them entertaining.

If a player gets stuck, they can ask for a hint. What happens is that puzzle items get highlighted (similarly to Ubisoft escape games). You still have to figure out what to do with them.

Each scenario, is very atmospheric, has several chapters and tells a story. I felt deeply immersed in them and I really wanted to know more about what happened than just solve the puzzles.

While playing I did not experience any major or even minor bugs. I did manage to lose a torch in a wall (so don't drop items in areas you can't reach). Sometimes I had problems with item collisions but even those were rare compared to many other games I played.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes puzzles or atmospheric adventures. The scenarios are fairly short but of a similar length as a real life escape room - they can be finished within one hour. The game is totally worth the price tag it currently has and I believe they will have more content for us to enjoy in the future.

vivid/stasis

2023-11-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

vivid/stasis is a rhythm game with a story and fairly difficult puzzles. The rhythm game part is a vertical scrolling 4 key rhythm game with one gimmick - bumper notes. These notes take two lanes and you can just press a key within those two lanes to confirm it. This spices up the game play and makes the reading a bit harder.

The bumper notes are probably what rhythm gamers will get stuck on the most, since you can choose what key to press to confirm them. The good thing about them is just that you just need to hit them within a certain window. In higher difficulties, I just concentrate on confirming them be it early, on time or super late.

The songs in the game are great and if you are a fellow rhythm gamer many of those songs or artists will be known to you. The charting is very good in general at least until level 12 and contains long notes. I'm not a fan of long notes but the LN charts in this game make sense and made me even change my opinion about long notes in general (that require a release at the end). They are well placed and fit into the music. The higher level charts 13 and higher sometimes seem a bit chaotic, they seem less coherent. Still way better than many custom charts I played in other games.

The game can be played casually with no life bar or you can decide to pick a different life bar to make the game more challenging. The harder the life bar the more points/battery you will get (used for unlocking songs/story).

There are options to make the rhythm game part of the game more enjoyable with different kind of usual settings (speed, stats shown/hidden etc).

Vivid/stasis does not have different skins or noteskins though which may be a disadvantage to some. There is not even an option to change colors, which makes it harder for me to play as I can't see pink color well (and need color blind mode for games using pink).

The story part of the game is like a visual novel style game. It's about a group of girls going out on an adventure saving yet another girl. The story is for everyone to experience on their own. There is a lot of things that reflect how many people from the rhythm game community feel and that also may be one of the reason why many people can be very attached to the this game. Even if people won't enjoy the story that much, I would welcome if they would think about the behavior and feelings of the characters in the game.The game features unreal elements but the dialogues and thoughts are very real, realistic.

The story lets a player choose what to do in certain scenarios and depending on that the game will take a certain turn. At the end of the chapters there are puzzles (or locks) to solve and they can be quite difficult to crack. One needs to be attentive to details and use logic to solve them. I liked them very much (I stared at the screen for quite a while before I realized where I could even start).

The game has nice visuals and pixel art style ui. There are also many neat details (animations) that are enjoyable to watch.

Vivid/stasis is very unique game, a mix of rhythm game and a visual novel. The rhythm game part is suited for any kind of a player - be it a total beginner or an experienced player. Unfortunately for beginners, there is nothing like a tutorial and the UI elements and settings may be very confusing. For more experienced players it can still be a bit confusing, but if one doesn't simply try to figure out what does what, doing the puzzles may be a nightmare.

Difficulty-wise there are 4 of them and they start very easy and teach patters fairly well. I think the learning curve is good in this game (I played all difficulties, which I don't usually do).

I enjoyed the story a lot and also like the fact that both parts of the game are intertwined. On the other hand this fact can also be a downside for others.

Verdict: 4/5
I would recommend this game to anyone who likes rhythm games and wants a change from their regular rhythm game of choice. I would also recommend this to anyone who likes nice cryptic puzzles. As for the story, I would recommend it to everyone, because it gives a very good insight into certain people's minds.

Qwilight

2023-09-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

In general, Qwilight is a vertical scrolling rhythm game, featuring different key modes, with an internet ranking for 7k (+turntable) that requires a third party login.

For those more invested in VSRG, Qwilight is a BMS player as in, it lets you play BMS/PMS files. On the other hand Qwilight should be looked upon as a game quite different from what you'd expect from Beatmania IIDX or BMS players like Lunatic Rave 2 and Beatoraja. In fact, it's rather closer to Osu!mania.

The client feels more like an osu!mania one when it comes to settings, judgment windows and grading system (and look). Nonetheless, you can make it even more like osu!mania or make it more BMS player friendly.

First you will need to set it up. If you come from BMS you will be alienated by Osu! logic/settings and if you come from Osu! IIDX settings may confuse you. In either case recommend reading the manual first https://taehui.ddns.net/forum/qwilight/350. It took me an hour to setup without reading it, mainly because there are different menus and things I'd expect to be at one place (lane cover, sudden+, speed etc) are not. Just go through each menu and set it to suit you. Note that if you want to set lane cover, lift etc. do it while in-game not on the song selection screen.

What I like about the client is that it gives you a mania-like skin or more IIDX-like one and you can choose if you want gold notes or not. For speed you can either use the slider with both IIDX and beatoraja green number conversion or F3/F4 in-game (no possibility to change lane cover while playing?).

When it comes to gameplay you can choose from different key modes, that are either forced or native ones. For each mode you will have to set input, both keyboard and controller can be mapped. My controller is set in PS2 mode so I can play Infinitas and Beatoraja/LR2 but doesn't work with Qwilight though (I used joy2key to play).

The default windows are quite big compared to LR2/Beatoraja/IIDX. You can make them tighter (or wider) if you like or even set custom ones. You can use LR2/Beatoraja windows but your scores won't submit to the internet ranking.

EX score is missing which made me sad. What you can look at instead is a score which doesn't really say much to me. There is also percentage that can give you a better idea of someone's accuracy (which seems to be more or less a sum of Yell!, Yell and Cool, the three highest judgments). Based on that you are also given a rank. The ranks are D, C, B, A (90%), A+(95%), S(98%), S+(100%). The score is based on the accuracy primarily but it is obvious that other things affect it (type of clear for example).

The life gauge is very different as well. It is way more lenient compared to what IIDX/BMS players are used to (feels similar to the dan course one). There are several different types, similar to IIDX - very hard, hard, normal, easy and very easy (no idea how the easy ones work). In IIDX/BMS when using the normal groove gauge, you need to reach 80% to clear the song but it can go down to 0%. In Qwilight it just goes from 100% to 0%, 0% you fail.

Loading songs (if you already have them downloaded) is a breeze as you just pick a song folder containing them. Otherwise links for downloads are provided, but you still have to download the songs via a browser window that opens. I imported my BMS library of 300GB and it took about 30 seconds to load, this happens every single time the game launches (unlike in other BMS players where once you load it the first time, everything is fast).

Loading tables is easy as well. You can either enter the url of one or manually put it in Qwilight/SavesDir/Level/. The body should be named [filename].json and the header should be named #[filename].json. Then these can be loaded with few clicks. (Once the table is loaded though, you can only text search within the table)

Apart from what I mentioned Qwilight offers a myriad of settings that can make the experience better but one needs to get familiar with the (advanced) menus. I'm very happy what it provides and how well it performs.

Verdict:
Qwilight is a good game if you play it with the default settings and participate in the internet ranking. The way how Qwilight functions is unique and thus makes it incompatible with Lunatic Rave 2/Beatoraja Internet Ranking - you can't compare scores from the other BMS players with Qwilight ones.

I can see Qwilight as a brigde for player who want to start playing BMS but are too afraid to try other BMS players or find playing IIDX/BMS hard. Qwilight is easy (for a BMS player) to setup and offers a full experience right away.

I can highly recommend this to anyone who would like to explore the world of BMS but may not have the necessary skill or mindset for it. Qwilight can help beginners gain confidence. I would also highly recommend this to (7k) osu!mania players, as this is a very easy way to explore BMS without the need to change playing habits or gaining a vast knowledge about the whole BMS world prior setting a BMS player up.

(There is one negative thing I did not manage to solve. From time to time the input simply freezes. This can be a Cool gotten out of a Yell! but can also outright fail you. This may not be happening to everyone though)

Wanderer

2023-02-17T17:36:00.003-08:00

Wanderer is a VR time traveling adventure game that starts in the future where you, in the role of Asher Neumann, are on a way to discover his grandfather's apartment which holds many mysteries. There you discover a watch that can speak and which will accompany you throughout the whole game. Thanks to the completed watch you will be able to traverse time at will. You will travel into the past to different locations where you will be able to change the history and hopefully make the future more bright.

Gameplay

Gameplay-wise the game is more of a point-and-click adventure in the sense that there is only one solution (item) that needs to be used - something that seems like a logical solution, may not be an actual solution. The time traveling aspect of the game is pretty good in this game. You will be slowly uncovering stories from different times. In order to proceed you will need different items that you can find either at the grandfather's room you reach at the beginning of the game or other timelines. If you explore each area you will have a good idea what items will be needed (the only items you can grab) - each will be used at some point. Unfortunately, that is pretty much it for the puzzle game part, the whole game is mostly about this.

Immersion

Wanderer offers different environments at different times as well which makes the experience more enjoyable, from Nikola Tesla's lab to ancient civilization pyramid in the middle of a jungle. The game looks good in general but rather bare. The 3d models are not of a great quality, colliders are usually pretty bad and animations are hardly smooth which is something that often broke the whatever little immersion I had. The overall look and feel of the game is very good so if you don't mind flat looking textures and some artifacts (flickering) showing through objects you may enjoy the varied environments.

Sound effects in this game are rather immersion breaking, either there are none, they are weird or they come from where they shouldn't. Audio doesn't come from where it originates but rather is based on where you look at. The levels of different sounds, including speech, is not mixed well, so some sounds can get lost and some are simply too loud. Voices can overlap, and hearing what someone has to say is important and there is no going back (you can reload, or ask the watch for a hint). All this breaks the immersion even though voice acting and script is good.

Apart from these, you can also run into invisible walls that are often totally unnecessary reminding you painfully that you are in a game that tries to show you what needs to be done and where you should not wander. Why is the game named Wanderer?

Bugs, bugs and even more bugs

I've played games that were buggy at launch like Cyberpunk 2077 or Witcher but this game has been out over a year and is very buggy. When I started the game I already failed at a croc scene which I had to restart several times in order to be able to proceed. Few minutes later I got stuck right at the beginning of the grandfather's room as I couldn't get through the closed doors. I had to restart the whole game to get through them. When I was happy I managed to get past the issue I realized that some items I threw around the flat are no longer around. This followed throughout the game. I dropped a torch that fell off the bridge and didn't respawn even though it respawned several times when I simply dropped it on the bridge and could physically pick it up. Apart this I also got stuck in other items and had to reload. The colliders were also sometimes problematic when trying to just keep an item at one place. After time traveling sometimes things were not were I left them and it took me a while to figure out where they could possibly be (or remember where I first encounter them, as that is their respawn point). Having a persistent world including items is nice, but it would be great if it actually worked. I got hit by a tank 10 times because my RC car simply vanished.

Thanks to the time traveling system and that traveling puts you always back from where you jumped originally, backtracking is fast unlike in many other games. This is something I welcomed (and probably the reason I finished the game).

Controls and knuckles

If your immersion wasn't broken by visuals, sound, or bugs there is still one more thing to painfully remind you, you are playing a game - controls. The controls are very clunky and that only wanted me to stop playing. The primary action is grabbing items and using them. Each item grabbed has a forced position and you can grab anything from a distance. This may not sound like a problem but the way things are you will often grab the wrong object or immediately drop the grabbed object if the forced position does not really fit your hand position. I used knuckles when playing this game and the position and rotation of the VR hands and my hands did not match. This made any kind of interaction harder. Rotating knobs and pressing buttons was even more clunky. While this is not needed that often, it is often timed (you are being shot at and such).

Samuel

The watch - Samuel - apart from being your companion also allows you to store items. The inventory starts with one slot that you can make bigger (up to 5 slots). You can unlock those by collecting special crystals and solving a puzzle. The inventory idea is very good one as the game is about using many different items. The truth is that I rather did not use it at all, as the overlay it brings up still allows you to touch or grab items from the environment around you. It was difficult to hit the smaller than thumb eject button or even just grab the small object from the inventory (never managed to take out a mag and put it into my weapon). I resorted to just grabbing two items and jumping as that was less nerve wrecking than trying to force the inventory to work properly.

Otherwise, Samuel is very well written and voice acted. Samuel gives you some facts from the time/world he remembers (our own) and gives you hints when you encounter something new. Sam can also be ejected from your wristband which will make him give you a more specific hint for the task at hand - it will give the hint no matter if you are in the right place or time which may be a bit awkward at times. Thanks to Sam no one should struggle with finishing the game.

Verdict:

This game has a feel of a very early access version of a game. It is very buggy. The developers came with mysterious story, that will take you to parts of the history that some may consider perturbing. It is advertised as a puzzle game but feels more like point-and-click adventure game rather than a game where you have to actually solve something. There are puzzles in the game but you will most likely remember more all the hassle that comes to using items which the game is mostly about. Overall the game looks great and due to time traveling it offers different environments, that unfortunately you cannot really explore much due to invisible walls. Your watch companion gives you hints with his comments about everything that is important sooner or later in the game and can also be ejected to give you a hint about what you have to do.

Unless you have nerves of steel I do not recommend this game in its current state.

Ren

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

2023-01-10T14:28:00.001-08:00

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was on my list of games to play for a very long time similarly to previous Zelda titles which were being released on different consoles. This is what made getting to play them a bit harder since this was still pre-Wii U and pre-Switch time. Few years later after the game's release, I finally delved into the open world Breath of the Wild offers.

Open your eyes

The game starts with Link waking up after a regenerating 100 year slumber. After walking out of the Shrine of Restoration Link finds himself on the Great Plateau which is already relatively large area to explore. The Great Plateau is on a high cliff so Link can't leave it before he finds out what his quest is - to defeat Calamity Ganon a huge beast he failed to defeat 100 years ago that devastated Hyrule.

When you reach this point after hours of game play you might still think that this game will be similar to previous Zelda games but it is the moment when you will fully realize it is not as you are suddenly given a freedom that seems to be very rare in games.

Once you makes it out of the Great Plateau it is up to you if you will follow up on one of the main quests or you will just go explore. Each of the locations you are supposed to reach is marked on a map on your Sheikah Slate (one of ancient technology gadgets, helping you on your way). The blinking dots are, as you will notice, in unmapped areas.

In order to get a map you need to climb a Tower and scan the area. This may sound easy, and at first it is, but the further from the central Hyrule the harder it gets to reach and climb the Towers. Thankfully when you triumphantly reach the top of the tower and activate it, you will be able to use it as a fast travel point. From the Tower you can look around and find places of interest that you can mark on the map thanks to Scope function (by pressing the right thumbstick) and then just start a new adventure of getting there. It felt like going geocaching when doing this, just going straight in the direction of the coordinates. Reaching the destination this way may turn out to be a very difficult but it is doable as Link can climb and swim or fly over things on a paraglider. He can get anywhere!

Link cannot do these activities indefinitely though, they all depend on his stamina. When you run out of it, Link either starts walking if he was running, starts falling of a cliff if he was climbing, drowns if he was swimming etc.

Shrines

There is plenty of places of interest for you to discover but the obvious ones are Shrines - there's 120 of them or even more. In order to find some Shrines you need to complete a quest/puzzle. The Shrines on the Great Plateau serve as a tutorial ones each giving you a rune - an ability you can use. The first two runes allow you to create either spherical or a rectangular bomb out of a thin air and detonate it. Another rune gives you the power of Magnesis which allows you to move metallic objects. The fourth rune - Stasis - allows you to stop time of an object for few seconds. The Shrines outside of the starting area are some sort of mini dungeons that offer a trial - mostly physics based puzzles that usually take minutes to finish. Often you will need to use Link's rune abilities, sometimes the puzzles will be controller motion based and some are combat trials where you 'just' face a Guardian.

The Shrine puzzles can be solved in variety of ways so you don't need to find the one and only way to solve them which is good. Either saves you frustration or makes it more fun. At the end of each shrine a monk will give you an Spirit Orb. Four of these Orbs can be traded for a heart container or stamina container. At first finding Shrines will be easy but later on finding them or reaching them will become a puzzle of its own.

Surviving

The world you will be exploring has rules and if you learn them you will survive. Most of the rules you'd expect from real life. The first time you will try to enter a snow covered chilly area you will find out that Link starts to lose hearts while shivering with cold. At this point you might realize that the temperature indicator on the screen has a reason to be there. The first storm may be also a revelatory experience when a lightning hits you before you realize what is wrong (Link having a metallic object equipped).

Items in Breath of the Wild break. This will force you to change weapons often, discover their advantages or disadvantages or sometimes simply decide not to use them and save them for either different activity or different encounter. For example, if you want to chop trees you may want to use an woodcutter's axe, if you want to mine ore you may want to use use iron sledgehammer and if you want to break someone's shield you want to use a heavy weapon. There's plenty weapons around and enemies also drop them and I don't mean as a 'drop' when they are defeated. If you stun them, they will release their grips on weapons or shields so you can snatch them and use them against them.

Day and night are also different. During the night there are undead monsters lurking that will come out of nowhere (the ground). Note that undead monsters don't die. On the other hand flesh and blood monsters also need to sleep and you can sneak up to them.

Fauna and flora differs in different regions and some can only be encountered during the night or certain weather. If you think this is something for decorative purposes, you are wrong. One of the activities you will most likely do a lot in the game is - cooking. Eating food is what recovers Link's hearts. Cooked food can recover more hearts or even give him special abilities (resistance to cold, higher attack etc.) and for that you need to look for different kind of ingredients.

There is no cooking tutorial but each ingredient or monster part has a description which will give you a hint on what it does (it follows a simple logic). Once you figure out the rules for cooking you can prepare all the meals and elixirs you will need on your adventures. While trying you might end up preparing a 'Dubiously looking food' (that is actually edible).

In order to survive in the wilderness you will also need to learn how to fight. At first just picking up a tree branch and beating up Bokoblins with it will be good enough but for stronger enemies you may need to either come up with a combat strategy or learn how to parry. You have access to melee weapons and ranged weapons (just bows). There's a wide variety of them and you will always want to have certain types in your inventory. The inventory slots are very limited. There is a way to get more but at a cost - you need to find the creature that can give you more slots in exchange for Korok leaves that can sometimes be hard to find (mini puzzles).

Verdict

Breath of the Wild feels definitely like a Zelda game even though it is vastly different. It feels more like playing a game from decades ago when you were simply thrown into the game and it was up to you to figure out what to do and where to go next. There are no endless tutorials and you don't need to blindly follow a scripted story. Instead you are free to roam a huge open world and if you wish you can complete the 5 given main quests one day. I highly recommend doing the Divine Beast quests because those are nice little dungeons. The world in Breath of the Wild has its mechanics and it is up to you to adapt. While Link doesn't get any better in terms of stats for example, it is you who gets to know the world and mechanics better. The more you discover the easier is to survive. If by a chance you haven't played this game yet, go get it and play it.

And if by a chance you can't play BotW just yet, go visit Breath of the Wild world in VRChat. Honestly, the way how the game works this would be great in virtual reality. Doing backflips wouldn't probably work but there are many things that would work and I treated the game more like a VR one rather than a traditional one.

Ren (stsungjp on Twitter)

Stray

2022-11-25T07:58:00.003-08:00

Stray was a long awaited game by many cat lovers including me. When you first start the game you are shown a stray cat from the 3rd person. You can control it and your first task is to play with the other strays that are in the area. After watching several beautiful playful scenes including these kitties you embark on what seems to be a routine daily journey hopping from one pipe to another. At one point though the cat falls and lands in what seems to be an abandoned city. It turns out to be not so abandoned as the cat will encounter humanoid robots with human behavior. Your task is to get back to the Outside from which the cat came. The cat is joined by B-12 drone that helps the cat and the player to reach the goal.

Stray is a straightforward platforming game that includes several puzzles and offers additional sidequests. While the story and gameplay may be simple, the game bursts with life and cuteness even in this cyberpunk devastated and mostly abandoned city. You explore the world and discover more about the city and its history - about what actually happened.

While roaming you can also simply be a cat, you can scratch rugs, walk over keyboards, nuzzle robots, run under their legs, knock objects off, meow or simply sleep.

The platforming part is rather easy, you simply follow directions that the game provides in cues that are more or less noticeable and if you need help all you need to do is ask your companion robot. You use spacebar to jump and the cat does it automatically meaning that if you are really bad at jumping like me, you don't need to be afraid of playing the game. On the other hand it also takes the effort from you and for some this can be a downside as well. There are several chase parts in which you have to run and avoid mysterious creatures though.

The visuals of the game are wonderful. All the environments are nicely crafted. The combination of dark city with its neon signs blinking and with nature creeping in is wonderful to watch. The lightning all this creates is perfect for really nice shots but sadly cats don't take selfies.

The animations are what breath life into the game. This mostly applies to the cat itself. If you ever had a feline companion at home you will be able to see how truthful the digital cat's behavior is. You can truly feel like a cat playing this game.

Verdict:
Stray is a short (several hours long) puzzle platformer game that puts you in a role of a cat finding a way to its home territory. The game has a simple linear story but offers two open environments to be explored. The game is played from the perspective of a cat meaning that in order to traverse these environments the player needs to think like a cat - spotting a ladder and wanting to use it is not what a cat would do since it can simply jump. The player is free to behave like a cat and some of these cat activities will need to be used to solve puzzles in the game.

Recommended to anyone who just wants to enjoy a very well crafted beautiful game featuring a feline protagonist.

Ren (stsungjp @twitter)

Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode I

2022-09-30T16:09:00.001-07:00

Dyschronia is one of the games that caught my eye at TGS and there isn't many games that make me want to buy them on day 1, especially if they are for Quest (yay for my 1st review on this store). Since the name also involves 'Time' in it I expected a game featuring time travel and was very interested in how that would feel in VR, and the game delivered that.

The game takes place in an artificial marine city named Astrum Close where citizens are guarded from the contaminated outside world. All the citizens are connected via what is called Augmented Dreaming. Everyone shares their feelings there and whenever someone starts to feel bad a Supervisor can help them feel better. This way everyone lives in peace and crime practically doesn't exist - until day 1 of you - Hal Scion - being named a Special Supervisor. The city goes under lockdown when the city's founder is found dead, murdered. Hal is assigned to lead the investigation. Hal has a special ability that allows him to view memories linked with items he touches. Thanks to this ability you will have the ability to find information no one else can. These information though still need to be proven in order to be used at trial.

While the player is free to roam, the game progresses in a linear way. You could say that this game is a visual novel, but it is in 3d, in virtual reality, and you are the protagonist. It is a totally different experience and very immersive one. The story is very compelling. It may seem simple at first but with all the information you uncover, you will come to understand that there is way more going on than just 'almost impossible murder'.

Dyschronia also features one short 'stealth' part which is a nice refreshing - or frustrating - moment. It was handled very well from my point of view since it didn't feel forced but rather something you'd expect from that kind of situation.

The game play this is very easy, you walk around, talk to people by touching speech bubbles, scan objects, grab them, use them etc. You can also give headpats to Lily, little cute robot. The controls are simple and easy to use but they are meant for a right handed person and there does not seem to be a way to switch them to the left hand. The game offers free locomotion that is rather slow, teleportation and hybrid locomotion.

The graphics of the game are very good, the ideal kind that doesn't age (think Playstation 2 cell shaded Japanese RPG games) with time. The UI is stellar. I've played many games but this is probably the first game that made the UI feel like part of the world (which it is part of). It shows how we could actually use AR in the future - or at least how other games could use it. It added a lot to the immersion.

As for sound, there is music playing during the whole time which could make it less immersive for some. The music is beautiful but unfortunately is very loud compared to the character voices, especially when they are standing a little bit further away. I liked the voice acting a lot (Japanese), but sometimes it seemed to me that Hal was taking ages to say 'hmph' or something like that and these were always way louder than his usual speech level.

The only downsides of the game for me were constant load times (because of playing it on Quest?), floating in space (needing to recenter often) and sometimes not being able to hear what a character standing further away was saying. Apart from that, a truly amazing game.

Verdict:
Dyschronia is a story-driven adventure game, more of an immersive experience, in which you will truly become a Supervisor investigating a murder. The level of immersion is unlike from any other game I played. There is so much done right in this game, well chosen and done graphics, UI, story, characters, time travel. I highly recommend the game for the story and immersion to anyone who likes to experience being in someone else's shoes and just go with the story.

The game is much better than my review may make you think it is!

Big thanks to the developers. I can't wait for Episode 2 and 3. And thank you for thanking US.

Ren

DJMAX Respect V

2022-09-21T09:58:00.005-07:00

I was introduced to DJMAX what seems to be ages ago when a rhythm game player came to me and asked if I can try the game out. I was like 'sure, why not'. What I did not know was that he let me play the hardest song in the game and see how I'd do. I cleared the song to his astonishment. I asked what the game it was and that is how I discovered DJMAX. It became one of my most played games on PSP.

Wait, another vertical scrolling rhythm game?

DJMAX is a game that had a very big following and could have reached mainstream if it was released on more platforms earlier. That decision came rather late. Relatively recently DJMAX made it to PC, that is with DJMAX Respect V. DJMAX is a vertical scrolling rhythm game with several button modes. You can start with 4 button play, progress to 5 buttons, then 6 buttons and eventually end up playing 8 buttons. Apart pressing the regular buttons there might appear a slide note from time to time, there are two slide notes (mapped to Shift keys on PC) and they add little bit more complexity to the game. Since this is a game that was meant to be played with d-pad and buttons the song charts are made the way that it is possible to play them with these - players used to play rhythm games meant for keyboard play may wonder why there's just certain combinations used in the charts.

There are long notes in the game that you need to press as well, just hold them and release them on time. Each note be it a regular note or long note are being judged - you get judgment from 1% to 100% depending on how close to being on time you were. The timing windows are actually huge which makes it easier to hit a note (if you miss by a chance you can just press it again to still hit it).

The timing in the game is very lax (feels even more lax compared to the PSP games). It is the combo, as in many Korean games, that counts the most with you keeping max Fever going. There is a Fever bar that fills with each note confirmation, when it gets full you need to activate it to get a 2x multiplier. Then you continue to fill it again. When you fill it and activate it in time you get a higher multiplier for everything (3x). The maximum multiplier you can get is 5x which will stay for as long as you manage to fill the bar and activate Fever in time.

Each song has a difficulty shown in stars. It ranges from the easiest 1 to the hardest 15 for the 'playstation control' charts. There is another scale marked SC which is meant for keyboard play and starts around 3 and goes to 15 as well and will introduce a playstation player to more patterns and chord combinations making it even way harder - a PC VSRG player will find these SC difficulties more familiar. Note that a SC 3 charts is more like playstation 8 in terms of difficulty.

There are several modes in which you can play, there is Air that lets you play a randomly chosen song or just watch and comment on it. There's Freestyle mode where you can pick any song you want and get the best score. Then there's Online play where you play against other players either using a ladder system or just playing for fun. Lastly there is Mission mode in which you complete a set of songs with certain modifiers or conditions.

So much music
DJMAX offers a wide range of music styles. Many of the songs may be new to non-rhythm game players but there is a lot to choose from and the music is good. For rhythm game enjoyers there are DLCs from previous versions of the game including Technika but also from other rhythm games like Chunithm, Deemo, Muse Dash, Groove Coaster etc. The base game gives you over 150 tracks (there are free tracks added from time to time). All these songs have music videos that you can unlock and watch in the game as well.

DJMAX has style
Korean games tend to look great and DJMAX is not an exception. It looks simply great. It has a great style, and not just one. You can unlock more skins and also customize the look of in-game when you are actually trying to read the charts and pressing buttons. Not many games can rival the look of this game.

In order to unlock customizations including songs you need to fulfill certain criteria. There is a lot of achievements to get in the game and are neatly presented to you. Some may seem impossible to get but when you get them you will feel rewarded. There is no other game that motivated me enough to actually hunt the achievements!

Not everything is great...
DJMAX is a great game that offers a lot to the player but unfortunately there are few things to note. First the game uses anti-cheat Xigncode which requires an internet connection. There is no way to play the game offline or with a bad internet connection. Second thing to note is that the game is very expensive. To this date the total of the game including DLCs would total for me to 388EUR. It is for a lot of content though but there is even more content that is behind a paywall. Each season you can get 'free' stuff, even a skin if you finish all steps. That you can only get if you get a battle pass though. You can even pay for it to automatically unlock at the end of the season. Means throwing a lot of money at Neowiz.

The last thing I'm not fond of is the fact that Steam achievements expect you to have those expensive DLCs. Perfecting this game means a lot of money spent.

Verdict
You can clearly see that DJMAX was created with love. It has everything players could possibly hope for in a rhythm game. It is beautiful to look at, offers 150+ songs of various genres, has different button modes and game modes and gets many DLCs with more great music. So far it may be the only game coming from a different platform that runs without any issue on PC. Unfortunately the game needs constant internet connection and is rather expensive.

I can highly recommend this game to anyone who likes to press buttons at high speed.

Ren

The Smile of You piano sheet music

2022-08-13T03:00:00.004-07:00

The second sheet music I bring to you is for The Smile of You by NekomataMaster. It is a beautiful song that I know from Beatmania IIDX but it actually from a different game originally - Elebits.

Here you can watch a YouTube video MuseScore created of it. The link to the sheet music is in the description (if you subscribe, otherwise you can also contact me and I will send you the file, I believe you can figure out how to send me a message).

Enjoy!

Ren (stsungjp @twitter)

Blind Justice piano version sheet music

2022-08-03T04:27:00.000-07:00

A decade ago I created a midi files for several BEMANI songs because I wanted to try to play them using Synthesia. At the time I was sitting in front of my piano and writing down notes into staffs by hand because it seemed to be the easiest way to do so. Then I input the notes into Ableton Live (I believe) and exported it as a midi that I never used again. Nowadays there's MuseScore 3 that one can use to create great looking sheet music and it does not even take long. MuseScore lets you export a midi file, mp3 and the sheet music in pdf. Since it seems that the sheet music for some of the songs still does not seem to exist on the internet I decided to bring it to you. So if by a chance you are one of the BEMANI players who also like to play the songs on the piano I will bring you some of the songs.

The first one is Blind Justice by Zektbach, a simplified piano version. It is one of my favorite songs and I really like to listen to the piano version. Here's a YouTube video MuseScore created. The link to the sheet music is there as well (if you subscribe, otherwise you can also contact me and I will send you the file, I believe you can figure out how to send me a message).

Enjoy!

Ren (stsungjp @twitter)

Moss Book 1

2022-05-08T06:34:00.002-07:00

Moss VR is originally a Playstation title developed by Polyarc and the game was released in 2018. Moss is a VR puzzle adventure platformer but unlike most of VR games it is played from a third person perspective - which turns out to be your own perspective.

The game starts with you reading a book introducing you a fairy tale like story, eventually taking you into the story itself. Moss is a fully narrated story that makes you part of it. You play as Quill, a cute little mouse, full of enthusiasm. She finds a shard that calls a human sized ghost-like masked creature, a guardian angel of sort. This being is also you. You watch over Quill as she goes on her journey to save her uncle and the kingdom from an evil fire-breathing serpent.

Moss is a simple game that requires a bit of platforming. You control Quill and walk her through beautifully crafted environments that are joy to look at. The environments are single scenes and you have to walk from the place you appeared to the other end of the environment. Sometimes you can just freely walk through but mostly you have to solve an environmental puzzle to get to the other side. These get more and more complex as you progress and they require the intervention of you as the guardian. In the later stages of the game they can also span several 'scenes' and not just one.

You control Quill with joystick and buttons to jump and attack like in a traditional game. The guardian though has 'hands' - blue orbs. Those are where your motion controllers are so you can reach with them and physically move objects around, stall enemies, drag them around. You can also pet the mouse on the head, high-five her when she presents a hand or heal her when she takes damage by holding her for a while. You can even spook her if you wish to. It truly feels like you are a magical being doing magic.

There is some combat but it is fairly simple. At first you just hack at the enemies but later on you will find you that you can stall enemies, move them around (so they explode elsewhere), you can even shoot with the enemies you currently hold in your blue-orb hand. In some areas of the game there will be big fights requiring you to multitask a bit with both of your hands while still moving Quill around (stalling an enemy while controlling Quill and attacking the held enemy for example). This most probably is not necessary but adds more depth to the game and to me it felt natural.

Moss is a game that is about immersion and they did an excellent job at that. The game proves that in order to be immersed in a game you don't need a first person view. The environments are rich and beautiful and I spent a lot of time just looking around and waiting for things to happen. I was so curious that I also spend some time walking around and peeking around every corner. This way I also found out that there are hidden items you can collect (scrolls) that are often somewhere where they are either hard to reach or they are hidden if you are just sitting in the middle of the scene.

The sound is also excellent. There is everything you'd expect and the sound is also 3d. The sound effects are well chosen and they seem to be real be it a turning of a heavy page from the story book at the beginning, Quill's squeaks or her steps. You will hear background noises perfectly matching the environments (or not because it will feel so natural). Stop and listen to the sounds. You will discover how well the sound was done.

Verdict: Moss is a game that provides a unique experience that only VR can deliver. Moss is one of the most immersive games I played even when the game is played from a third perspective. The gameplay is on the simple side but it also means that the Moss is a great game to introduce people to VR and gaming in general. The only downside is that the game is rather short. You can finish the game in 3 hours and be little bit disappointed in how suddenly it ends. If you enjoyed this game and crave for more there is a sequel already out for Playstation VR and soon to be released for Quest.

Ren (stsungjp on Twitter)

Audica

2022-04-20T09:46:00.005-07:00

Harmonix is a studio you probably heard of already, which can't be said about most VR games studios. Harmonix is known for games like Amplitude, Rock Band, and Dance Central. All these games are rhythm games that became popular, and we even got a VR version of Rock Band and Dance Central. When Beat Saber, the first VR rhythm game, was still the hype, Harmonix released their new VR game named Audica (2019), but it may have been shadowed by the lightning saber slashing game.

Audica is a rhythm game that will make you shoot color-coded notes in time with the music. This may sound simple, but in practice, it is more complex. You will be standing in the middle of a beautiful environment in outer space. In front of you (or around), a colored vortex will appear quickly, turning into one of several types of notes represented by a white symbol. Also, depending on the type of note, a shape will appear around that note. It will quickly shrink, eventually becoming one with the note itself - that is the time you have to shoot the note to get a perfect score. Apart from normal notes, there are sustain notes that you have to hold the trigger, chain notes that you have to keep and follow the chain and slot notes that require you to hold your weapon horizontally or vertically. There are also melee notes that you have to hit with the blades attached to your in-game weapons.

The game's learning curve is steeper than any other VR rhythm game I played. Even though in VR, many things are simplified to make it easier and more fun for the player, Audica requires different skills to even play this game, which is why it may be challenging to get into Audica at first. If you haven't acquired these skills in other games, you might struggle at first since you will have to learn one, two, or all skills required. Shooting games often have some kind of aim assist that makes it easier to hit (they provide more giant hitboxes, even if you miss what you actually see, the hitbox may still be hit and counted, thus confirming the note). As for the other aspect, timing, the games usually provide a wider window for you to confirm the note or use a different way of judging. The most challenging skill you will need to learn is reading, which can take some time.

Audica offers 4 different difficulties and campaigns that will take you through the songs, from the easiest to the most difficult ones. The campaign will require you to get a certain amount of stars in each section before you can advance. Some of the songs have modifiers, making them harder to pass or more fun, but you may skip a song if you do very well on the other songs.

Audica judges your precision in two aspects - aim and timing - and you will be able to see more information about that on the result screen. A scoring system awards you a base score + another score depending on how accurate you were up to 2000 for a single note. Each song has thus a different maximum score. If you keep a streak after every ten notes, your score for a note gets multiplied by 2x, later by 3x, and if you still keep the combo going by 4x. Whenever you miss a note, the multiplier goes down by 1, which is unique to rhythm games as they usually reset.

The game features leaderboards, a single one per song (and also total one). The highest score gets shown there no matter the difficulty. You may not do that well on Expert, which can give you a maximum score, but if you get a nice full combo on Advanced, this score can be higher than the Expert one and will be shown on the leaderboard. This is another feature that makes the game more friendly to the players.

The music in Audica is relatively varied, offering 33 songs plus an additional 4 songs - album versions. You can buy several DLCs, but even if you don't, you can play way more songs in the form of custom songs. You can play this game for hundreds of hours! The game has a lovely community of people that create assets for the game and maps. The maps are enjoyable to play but will require a higher level of play than what is necessary for the vanilla game (not counting Highway to Oblivion on Expert, which happens to be a fierce song and closest to Expert custom song levels). After beating the campaign on Expert, you may find out that your skill still needs to improve to play customs.

The mapping in the vanilla game is good from my point of view as a beginner, but after playing some custom songs, I can see the potential of custom maps - there are great ideas people incorporate into their maps, and they will make you stare at the notes in awe.

An Osu! to Audica converter also exists, which is not actually bad, but you have to pick certain specific maps to convert to get the best experience. Players can find the best maps from around five star songs, but those will become more significant difficult than what can be seen in the vanilla game. Some of these maps provide a good shooting exercise as the songs have higher note density than Audica maps.

This is the only game that made me go 'wow.' The open space, particles, animation, and effects are great. The UI feels bland compared to it, but it works.

Verdict: Audica is a unique rhythm shooter game in VR. It is a fully finished and polished game designed to be fun for casual and competitive players. It can remind you of Osu! in VR, and the ability to play Osu! will actually help you get better way faster. While the game's learning curve is steep for those not invested in rhythm games, the developers made sure to make the game as friendly as possible. Aspects such as user-friendly timing windows, aim assist, maps getting progressively more complex, well-done campaign, leaderboards, settings to help you read well, etc. It has a friendly and active modding community that keeps the game alive, so there is a lot of content worth the money Audica costs. I can highly recommend this game to anyone who is not afraid of learning or hitting a wall in a game.

Ren (stsungjp on Twitter)

AGAINST VR

2022-01-11T15:54:00.001-08:00

AGAINST is a VR combat rhythm game from a Russian studio Joy Way that you might have already heard about because of their earlier VR parkour game Stride. If Stride is a VR version of Mirror Edge then AGAINST would be a combination of Pistol Whip and Beat Saber (even though there seems to be another game with similar concept named Cybrid).

The game currently offers a tutorial and a campaign consisting of 7 levels and credits. It tells a story of Detective John Black trying to track down and defeat an evil scientist Doctor Vice. The story is told in several comic strips between levels which are nice but don't tell a coherent story.

You as Detective Black will will be encountering enemies that will attack you with different weapons - a crowbar, revolver, tommy gun, brass knuckles. Four weapons will also be available to you too - a sword, a revolver, tommy guns and brass knuckles. You will have to touch the weapon in order to equip it and then you can use it to slash, shoot, punch you enemies or deflect bullets.

Sometimes you will also have to avoid attacks. Throughout the levels there will be obstacles you'll have to avoid, either stationary or moving (airplane shooting at you). You might encounter arrows that if you swipe you will move to the side or jump high etc. If you miss these you might be overrun by a car, hit a wall or simply take an alternative route.

Visually the game is beautiful but very different from what I expected. The beta version had a film-noir look which I really enjoyed. The developers decided that this may have not be the best idea so they changed the look considerably. The game is not as dark, is more graphically detailed, smoother, and red. This makes the game not look as violent as it is.

Each level is designed differently, following the story which is nice, and features a final battle or a boss. The levels are 3-5 minutes long and have 3 difficulties - Easy, Normal and Hard.

The game is described as a rhythm game and there is a rhythm game aspect in it. The enemies have to be hit or bullets deflected on time with the music's beat. Unfortunately the levels are not perfectly on sync. In fact it seems that the individual 'notes' are off in each level even which may be due to the fact that each enemy has an animation during which there is the perfect hit window that does not last long. This may be the biggest problem of the game currently and maybe even in the future. This makes creating custom maps way more difficult for mappers that can keep the game alive. There is no possibility to change audio settings currently which is pretty bad for a game of this kind.

Replayability of the game is something to be seen. So far you can finish the game in 35 minutes if you are a player used to playing rhythm games or active VR games. After that you might want to replay to see if you can get better scores and place higher on the leaderboards. Unfortunately the sync is off so this may rather make you want to stop playing the game immediately.

There are custom maps that you can download from https://againstmaps.com/ and beat map editor which you can use to create your maps. The mapping currently is bad since people are trying to figure out what can work. Playing some of the faster songs I realized that this game has some limits. While games like Beat Saber can just throw notes at high density, this game can't due to the rather long animations and size of the enemies. Players will have to find how to be creative to create distinct fun levels and also will have to figure out how to time each 'note' because the animations make it impossible to time them well without finding a correct offset for each of the enemies.

Will this be another forgotten and abandoned game with great concept by this studio or will they keep it alive? Will the community keep the game alive?

Verdict: AGAINST is a game that combines several concepts together and for me that worked pretty well but for many this can also be a reason why not to play the game. Visually it is pleasing, the story is short and nothing awesome but not bad either. The game will make you move with one arm and squat quite a lot which is always nice. The combat part of the game is solid if you welcome variety. Unfortunately as a rhythm game this fails due to the songs not being on sync. Games like this aren't often played by players as they cannot stand that. So far the same is true for custom songs but this may change in the future. If you are someone who can't stand offsync games with no possibility to change offset I don't recommend this game.

Otherwise it is a great experience, even though a playthrough takes 35 minutes.

More work needs to be done on the game. Visibility, sound effects and indicators should be improved apart from what I mentioned. Also a mirror modifier would come handy for those left-handed players like me. Also I played the game with knuckles controllers and the settings for the controller are wrong so it's quite a pain to play the game with these controllers.

Ren (stsungjp on Twitter)

Blind

2022-01-01T19:22:00.000-08:00

Blind is an adventure puzzle game with a dark story and unique concept.

You are Jean, driving your little brother somewhere. A man appears in front of you and you crash into a tree. You wake up in a unknown but familiar mansion. You open your eyes but find out that you can't see. After a while a voice guides you to a main room where you learn that in order to escape the mansion you have to solve all the puzzles it contains. As you progress you will realize that things are not as real as they seem to be at first and you will slowly realize what is going on.

Walking around the mansion can be a bit frustrating to those used to see all the time. If you stop and stand still, everything around you will turn dark (unless it makes sound). In order to 'see' you need to produce sound be it with objects you find or with a cane you get later on. Each sound produced will temporarily show you a certain part of an area around you depending on how strong the sound was. You will be allowed to explore the mansion and solve all kinds of different puzzles. Even though you are supposedly blind, the puzzles are often visual and do not use sound much even though one of the earlier puzzles is to put together a song. The puzzles are not difficult nor too easy. The thing is, you have to follow the instructions given to you. If you miss the hints you will have to figure it out on your own and the puzzles don't have the most logical solution. All you need to do is pay attention to your surroundings and to what you hear. If you do that you won't have problems finishing the game.

The whole game is played in the dark - the graphics being done in black and white. The louder sound you produce the whiter will be what you see. Too loud of a sound can make you go blind for a second. Light touches will illuminate just a very small area so you will need to figure out how much sound is needed to illuminate what you need to see. It's nothing beautiful to look at but works well to immerse you in 'darkness'. Since you can hear sounds from the inside of objects you are also capable to see cogs and wheel and tubes in the walls which is really nice.

The sound effects are great. The cane produces different sounds depending on what you tap with it. The sound can be sharp if you hit something metallic or stone and will be a muffled thud if you hit a carpet or something else that is soft. Other sound effects are good and can be used to orient yourself in the dark (on the other hand you will also see what produces the sound). Soundtrack is created from one beautiful song you will here in the credits. Voice acting is something I did not like at all and I think it could have been done better.

Verdict:
I would recommend the game to anyone looking for a narrative driven adventure game with exploration and puzzles. The game requires thus a bit of patience. The experience of using echolocation to walk around may be stressful to some. It is a unique experience though and I think it is worth exploring it. I orient myself by sound in real life and I had a totally different experience when playing the game. Honestly the idea of throwing objects on the ground to 'see' did not even come to my mind at all and I had no problem walking around without the cane. Everything you need to see can be heard or actually seen. So if you get stuck just stand still and listen/look around.

I would not recommend the game to people who are impatient and are used to quality of life features and games with good controls and stuff actually working as they should.

パラパラ　Spiderman

2021-12-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Not so long time ago I started recording Para Para videos again. This time around though I dance in VR. Today I was having some fun recording Spiderman. Enjoy!

There are more videos on my new Youtube Channel and there is even a Para Para playlist.

S'Tsung's Blog

7th Guest VR

Pinball FX VR

Ember Souls

Out of Sight VR

Final Fury

Trombone Champ: Unflattened

Palworld

Rat it: Plague Hunter

Neko Atsume VR

Talos Principle 2

Room of Realities

vivid/stasis

Qwilight

Wanderer

Gameplay

Immersion

Bugs, bugs and even more bugs

Controls and knuckles

Samuel

Verdict:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Open your eyes

Shrines

Surviving

Verdict

Stray

Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode I

DJMAX Respect V

The Smile of You piano sheet music

Blind Justice piano version sheet music

Moss Book 1

Audica

AGAINST VR

Blind

パラパラ Spiderman

パラパラ　Spiderman