Recent reviews by Littlepip™

This is a story about a man named Stanley..

Or rather, his game. Or should I say, The Narrator's game? Or even perhaps; yours? A semi-sequel / remake of the original game, which itself was a commercial version of a mod, there isn't too much I can tell you without spoiling things you aren't already seeing on the game's store page!

Just play it! Or, and I highly recommend this, seek out the first game's demo which is a completely unique & standalone experience, not merely a shortened version of the full product. While it's generally a bad idea to put faith into someone you don't personally know saying "trust me", I think you should on this! And remember, that the end is never the end, is never the end, is never the end...

EDIT: Added a standard link above, as Steam URLs don't work for security reasons.

A silly, cute and surprisingly heartwarming tale about a nerdy, introverted computer programmer and the dragon who comes to live with her in the modern human world. Due to how it relies heavily on cultural knowledge (both of Japanese life and various mythological tales), your enjoyment of this show will vary depending on just how much of it you "get".

On that same note, the major blemish on this anime are the interactions between another character and a little boy with the unfortunate (but appropriate) name of Shouta. As you might expect, it's shota-related jokes, but even the characters in-universe seem to acknowledge how uncomfortable & sometimes creepy it can be having a millenia-old former-goddess flirting with a young boy. There is some character development going on with the two as the season proceeds, which does eventually lead to an adorable moment with no subtext whatsoever; and the offending character also starts covering herself up more. Still, it's the one thing that would keep me from making this a recommendation to everyone, unless you're aware of this and the different attitudes of Eastern and Western nations' views towards such behavior.

There's never anything graphic actually shown or done (sexual OR violent) in any situation, and a lot of the humor reminds me of classic Ranma ½, so if you can go into this with the mental reminder that it's sometimes "very Japanese", I think you'll enjoy it. From what I understand, they've also made some major improvements over the manga, but some characters and plots still haven't been introduced, so hopefully there will be another season.

There's some heavy use of anime tropes and lampshading of others, and while it starts off slowly, the way they build things up and make excellent use of continuity means you'll likely start really liking almost all of the characters, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this series. Just.. take a grain of salt with a handful of (thankfully brief) scenes.

The power of friendship has never been so funny. Or as heartbreaking. And that isn't even getting into what happens when you throw that all out the window and go full-blown sociopath. Then you're really in for a bad time.

Undertale isn't the best game ever, but in a list of greats, it would certainly rank very near the top. Not only that, but it's the kind of story that makes use of it's medium as a video game to the fullest extent. It isn't a long quest, but it doesn't overstay it's welcome either, and multiple endings along with massive amounts of reactive dialog help with the replay value. I'm afraid to go into detail because of spoilers for this adventure where nearly everything you do (or don't do!) has a consequence. Best to go into it blind, with your only knowledge being these words and what the game itself tells you.

Just remember that, whatever your situation, in-game or otherwise, you can get through it; if you just show some determination!

2016: My nomination for Steam's “I’m Not Crying, There’s Something In My Eye” Award.
2017: My nomination for Steam's "The World Is Grim Enough Let's Just All Get Along" Award.

Well worth a few hours of your time, this free Visual Novel is a great peek into the sorts of challenges facing someone looking to become a professional gamer. There's some concessions of realism for the sake of story, but they don't hinder the game in any real way, and I found myself actually interested and even caring for/about the characters.

The interface is clean and responsive, and the medium is put to good use, as there's little things that happen, like interruptions which wouldn't be possible with a non-interactive book. Do note, however, that while you do get to make a few decisions here and there, this is less of a game than an experience, so the emphasis is on telling the tale of Mach and his/her journey. That's standard for many VNs, but it has to be noted, because this is a genre that will be new to many players.

I personally feel it's a better experience with the female protagonist, as then the issues of discrimination and sexism are more relevant, as well as some of the bonds formed between characters feeling more true to life, but it's not heavy-handed with either player choice. Although fictional, there's quite a bit of historic fact and character traits based off real people included, so, in a way, SC2VN is educational as well.

Recommended for anyone interested in eSports, StarCraft, gaming in general, or just a few hours of reading and enjoyment.

The Jimquisition: The Slaughtering Grounds - A Steam Meltdown Saga

The framerate drops significantly the moment you look at anything, your system essentially hard-locks whenever there's any kind of loading, and I can't even MOVE because assigning the movement commands to the arrow keys doesn't work at all. Oh sure, the config program will let you do so just fine, as it's a Unity standard, but.. the game itself doesn't acknowledge the button presses! What the hell?!

Plus all the stuff covered in the video above, concerning both the game itself, and it's developer. I'm not sure if this game is the worst title on Steam, but it's certainly in the bottom ten. Avoid at all costs.

EDIT: The video link now goes directly to Youtube as The Jimquisition article unfortunately disappeared with that site's format change.

Interesting idea for a retro 80's-style "bad future" bike-based shooter, but very poorly executed. It seems like the entire development budget went into making it look like an Amiga game on a broken television and not a thought spent on actual gameplay, which is repetitive, shallow and buggy. The freakin' timer (which kills you when it runs out) counts down on the pre-load screen! You can Game Over before you even begin playing!

It's difficult to tell what is an actual hazard and what is merely part of the trippy background, and you don't seem to have any mercy invulnerability, so you can take a massive amount of damage in a short period of time when your screen gets "splattered" with pixels, which it constantly will. The camera itself barely lets you see ahead of you, too, so if you try going faster than a snail's pace, you're going to run into enemies or their projectiles. For some reason, you use the keyboard to navigate the menus but use the mouse to make selections; but cannot actually select things with it until you've moved the arrow with the keyboard! It's also inconsistent, letting you use the arrow keys in some parts and forcing you to use WASD in others, and of course, there's no key rebinding options, and hardly any options at all.

The music is the only part that seems to have any semblance of quality, but even that feels like it's "trying too hard", and the soundtrack isn't included so that kinda negates it, since you're still gonna need to actually play this awful game. It's not very expensive, but even for the little I paid for it (with a coupon), I feel like I was overcharged. And if you buy this, you'll feel the same way too.

Meh.

It'd be difficult to explain exactly why this game is so great without major spoilers, so I won't take that approach. Instead, I'll say some of the same things everyone else already has. It's like actually playing a season of South Park with your custom character, and the combat employs action commands ala the various Super Mario RPG titles and Shadow Hearts.

While some of the humor falls flat, and there's a certain thing repeated a few times early on, the vast majority succeeds in prompting laughter, which is more than I can say for most media which claims to be comedic nowadays. At the same time, it's brutally self-aware, not only of it's status as an RPG, but as a South Park videogame. The voicework and animation is spot on with the show, and, honestly, if you didn't know it was a game, you'd think it WAS an episode or movie.

Speaking of which, there's references to the movie along with the entirety of the show's 17+ year run, and yes, even music, which Matt & Trey are surprisingly talented at. The game's soundtrack takes on an absurdly epic style, with several of the main themes being very similar to that of "real" fantasy titles, like Skyrim, and with good reason. It also has a strong Earthbound vibe to it, because of the whole "kids using toys to inflict terrible damage to hostile and weird enemies" along the way.

It's not perfect; unless you turn the difficulty all the way up, you'll likely breeze through 90% of the battles, and it's very easy to hit the low level cap. There's also a number of game-breaking attack combos you can learn with every class, and debuffs are so powerful that they're practically mandatory. But it's all worth it. Despite these problems, I've spent nearly 100 hours in the game, as I went through multiple playthroughs, and didn't regret a minute of it. Well, except for those minutes with the repeated thing I won't mention early on, that is.

Oh, and no major spoilers, but I HAVE to share a minor one, which should tell you just what kind of game this is. The hardest boss, by far? Not the last one, or even the next-to-the-last one, both of whom can be tricky. But no.. it's Al Gore.

I'm super cereal you guys.

If you loved the original, you'll love this game. WayForward have reunited the voice cast and effectively remade the NES classic for today. Jake "virt" Kaufman has done an incredible job remixing all the original songs as well as creating new tracks that are just as memorable as the old ones. The controls are responsive and I never felt like a death was because of anything but my own bad decision or reaction to a foe.

There's some notable differences between the difficulty levels I appreciate, as well. Besides enemies dealing increased damage and your maximum health meter being lower, the (new) mapping function is disabled on Hard. Conversely, on Easy, you have infinite lives, so you never have to restart a level over unless you choose so yourself. There's a multiplier for the rewards found per level based on difficulty, however, and said money (as well as the art & music unlocks) are retained between playthroughs, so besides the achievements, you have something else to shoot for once you've completed it the first time.

If you want something that plays like the good ol' Nintendo days, but looks and sounds like it was ripped right out of the Disney Afternoon, then it's worth taking a trip to Duckburg. Woohoo!

Painfully mediocre, not helped by some severe graphic bugs (characters randomly changing models on respawn, hyperactive twitching in the item lists) and lack of customization options, especially in the accessability department.

There's also no controller support, even though this is a multiplayer-only platformer, and they have the gall to have a cash shop thrown in your face because everyone thinks they're the next TF2. A shame too, as I was really hopeful for the potential of this, but as of right now, it's not worth your time or money.