So here's another blog of what I finished and played from 2023 games.
The games in the blog I cover - Undertale Yellow, Lethal Company, Small Saga, Pikmin 4, Friends vs Friends, Endless Dungeon, Knuckle Sandwich.
Some of those games I finished in 2024.
I missed out on the Mario RPG, but I'm thinking of playing it.
The Games
Undertale Yellow
An actual finished Undertale fangame that took 7 years of making? No way!
It's a fan made prequel to Undertale n you play as the yellow soul named Clover. There are multiple routes you can go for just like in Underale, I've only finished the pacifist n genocide routes (I do genocide routes n that's me getting really invested in the alternate storyline). I really liked the fact you get to explore more of the Undertale's world underground n it's other regions (thanks to flowey).
Design side of things - background art does vary a bit, but majority of it looks amazing.
The monster sprites were ok, well just that they didn't completely fit the undertale vibe especially with the main bosses. I did love some of the background n miscellaneous characters in this game, there's sometimes cool poses you might spot. Speaking of poses the animation was pretty good, more frames than Undertale lol.
Soundtrack is okayish, not R. V. Pine levels of genius good or any other similar game soundtrack artist. I liked the Snowfall track, reminds me a bit of "home for flowers (Daisy)" from Omori. The genocide route had some unique tracks that also progresses throughout how much you killed.
The gameplay it's similar to Undertale, tho can get pretty challenging with some bosses. It doesn't ease the battle at the beginings n gets you straight to the point of battle so u might panic with each new attack. I loved the part where you get to create a robot that gets used in a battle interaction (screenshot below from my stream). Also there's a big plus that this game has a run button for you to explore bigger spaces, so that's nice.
The story is okayish, could use some more refining. It fits for knowing more about the yellow soul's story n makes you contemplate on all the timeline n what different things n encounters the other souls had, also makes you contemplate on certain characters not being there. The new characters didn't quite peak my interest, like I dunno something was missing to them. Also Dalv for a momment made me remember the vampire character from Everhood (I didn't like that game lol).
I missed out on neutral ending and saw gameplay of it while checking what else I missed out on and holy shit Flowey's battle is hands down the coolest one I've seen in this game!
I noticed some games had a call/talk button feature in the menu (undertale, undertale yellow, knuckle sandwich, deltarune) for when you are in different areas and it has been bothering me that there is no feature which can auto trigger it or have a reminder about it that once pressed you can check the call/talk dialogue. Without the reminder it's hard to remember to check the talk/call feature. This feedback needs to spread, so do share this in a game review that has the similar call/talk feature.
Mosa Lina
Truly the masterpiece of Va Dinky
This is a fun little indie puzzle game that makes you improvize with the limited amount of randomized tools you get. sometimes it can get too chalenging depending on the level and how lucky you got with the tools. There's also a workshop for this game so you can try out different player levels
Lethal Company
A fun multiplayer horror game that has spread around the internet and got viral with the gameplay. In this game you have to work with your team to collect items in some abandoned buildings and get enough items to meet the quota, you'll be venturing out into different moons that have different difficulties n weather conditions. Also you have to do this in 3 days, you'll lose items if you and your entire squad die in one of those days. Along the way you'll encounter different monsters and creatures, you can scan on them and learn about them on the terminals.
What makes this fun is the proximity voice chat, you get to hear your pall yell before they die.
The game is still having updates, and maybe there'll be an end game for it since there are hints in the company building where you sell parts, that you might break into the building.
Small Saga
A small short turn-based rpg (13 hours or less). I have tried this RPG on a steam next fest, it was fun so I decided to buy it once it released.
World build of the game is awesome, I loved the little details of the rodents using all sort of items that seem small to us, but big and super useful to them.
The pixel art is really good on this game, I loved the battle sprites!
The battles are pretty simple, not hard tbh, could be a great start for people that want to try a turn-based RPG with less of a challenge.
There's some side quests you can do, but there's not that many of them.
I dunno what else to say about this game, other than gay rodents lol :v
Pikmin 4
This was my first Pikmin game I've tried. I wanted to try it after finishing Zelda on the Nintendo Switch emulator.
Pikmin is a strategy micromanagement game where you have to gather bunch of resources and do activities, play different minigames, kill bunch of alien creaturas with your pikmin army, plus u got an alien dogo on your side to help out.
It can be chill to play at times and sometimes intense with the minigames n monsters.
You do discover new pikmin, abilities, upgrades throughout the game tha help out deal with monsters and do activities throughout the day more proficiently.
The game kind of reminded me of 24 killers with doing activities in a day cycle of a time frame, except it's more strategic with having little minions help you out.
The game did feel quite lengthy with having a postgame.
Friends vs friends
A fun little shooter game that has 2v2s and 1v1 matches where you fight each other with guns and cards. There are quite a bunch of buff, debuff cards and some that change up the game.
Game's visuals are really well made, pure artistry on the game and eye candy! It's pixel art mixed with low poly models, the exception being that the UI is non pixel art.
So certain features and things I'd mention in the game:
Each character has a different starting card attached to them, example being one has larger health, the other has a different gun to start with;
Character skin, card, weapon charm, pfp customization;
Level up to unlock certain things like characters n the feature to buy random character outfits;
Not that many maps, but still a fun experience;
There are some cards that go well with each other when you combo them;
Make someone ragequit by outplaying and also uno reverse them by puting the "reverse gun" card when they have a good gun;
DLCs for unlocking cosmetics;
There's some unfair point when it comes to being matched with higher level players with them having higher level cards and more cards than you do.
My fav character to play with? Moose or Haru
There's bunch of more content coming to this game time to time. Would love to see more maps, cards and characters!
Endless Dungeon
I loved playing Amplitude's rogue-lite tower defense game Dungeon of The Endless and I was really excited to try out this game. It takes the gameplay from DoTE and turns it into a twin stick shooter with a bit of Hades mixed in. The 3D graphics in this game looks really great!
A bit too chalenging for me since it can get overwhelming with all the monsters and the resource management, but I still like this game.
You unlock new characters, lobby additions, upgrades, lore by exploring in the dungeons and also getting the resources for the upgrades. The saloon (lobby) can remind of Hades since you can interact with characters that might do something different each time you come back.
There are two character types - a character with a heavy weapon and a character with a light weapon. It doesn't have the melee type of character like in Dungeon of The Endless, I'd think it still might be a interesting to have a melee type.
Another difference between the Dungeon of The Endless n Endless dungeon is that the maximum character limit is 3 and not 4.
The base game is there, but I'd think it still needs more additions like monster, boss variety, additional characters and cosmetics, lore things, soundtracks.
Speaking of soundtracks, Flybyno makes really really great tracks for the Amplitude games, do listen to his soundtracks !! Endless Dungeon soundtrack is just breathtakingly beautiful with the chill synth sounds, there's also a bit of guitar added to the tracks that make it feel western. There's also songs in the game you hear while being in the saloon, those are beautiful tracks too, it's sung by Lera Lynn. My fav Song is "Endless" , I love the lyrics in this, it's quite chill and catchy.
There are a bunch of tracks that are essentially remakes or remixes of Dungeon of The Endless tracks and I love it! I got really hyped hearing a remix of the "Celluloid" from DoTE. I'd really love to hear more remixes/remakes of the tracks from DoTE if they'll actually add more soundtracks, HOPEFULLY IT'LL BE LADY SHAFT CAUSE THAT'S MY TOP FAV FLYBYNO TRACK.
Fav character to play with? - Shroom
Knuckle Sandwich
This is hands down my fav indie game of 2023!
The story goes wild - from ,killing a guy in a diner job, to teaming up with some dimensional goblin to investigate on what's causing all the anomalous activity in the world.
You have all these wario ware mini game battles with all these quirky enemies. Each enemy with their own mini games. You have your normal attacks where you have to use different sliders to time your hit button and you have your special attacks that each are on their own a mini game. The normal attacks can get affected by debuffs so attacking will be more challenging.
The game's visuals are super good - pixel art with a lot of ingame engine visuals, shaders, there's also some 3D cutscenes and sprites.
Soundtrack is awesome! It even has my favorite quirky earthbound inspired musician Nelward compose the soundtrack for it! You'll hear some bangers on this game.
The minuses I had with the game:
Running doesn't feel fast enough;
There could be more various soundtracks for regular enemies, it can be somewhat tiring to hear the same thing.
Summary & additions.
2023 games were pretty great! Visually unique too!
Additions I'd mention - though I didn't cover about the stories in each review, the game stories weren't the best, but there were moments here and there that were interesting and kept me wanting to find out what happens next. The stories I liked and would love to see in other games were games like Omori, Earthbound, Undertale, Deltarune. I like interesting, well written characters, world building, sometimes meta or multiverse naratives (tho not the ones that cram too much), stories that leave some sort of impact n make you question about it.
I do cover on more of the 2023 games in these blogs:
"Indie Games I've played through this year";
"Finished Zelda Tears of the kingdom (spoilers)".
If you want to know what I'm waiting for on what's coming in 2024. Here's a blog for upcoming games.
Report Blog Entry
Comments
Displaying 0 of 0 comments ( View all | Add Comment )