Blind

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Generally good brickwork
2. Doodad: Surprisingly good doodad design
3. Voice Acting: I will accept that the voice acting, while bad, is amusingly so
4. Outro: The endings are quite silly
5. NPC Set Dressing: Towns are surprisingly lively and have people (voice acted) commenting on recent and local events
6. MSQ: The warrior story arc is surprisingly interesting and well done, showing hints of the mage vs. warrior bias plaguing the area

Story Negatives:

1. Outro: The endings are… too short and too poorly constructed. I legitimately had issues understanding what was even happening in several of them, and it feels like they chop off halfway through
2. Dialogue: The dialogue is… bad. It’s not goofy, it’s just bad
3. Cutscene Incompetence: There is a weirdly large amount of cutscene incompetence going on… for everyone, really, pretty equally

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro: The initial dungeons are pretty legit, well itemized and well tutorialized in what you should expect and how to interact with the world, and of course how to play your class
2. Level: The Mana Mine is a surprisingly well designed dungeon, with lots of strategically placed mana crystals, mostly enemies you are likely to already be able to charm, and a good spread of enemy encounters spattered with larger challenges
3. Music: Generally good music (and it changes fluidly per area too!)
4. Core Mechanic: Charming is a fantastic feature, allowing for a good variety of ‘pets’ who are of varying use throughout
5. Core Mechanic: Conjurer Bombers are an awesome bit of tech; setting up traps in advance and customizing what spells they trigger in what order really rewards the player with either combos or forethought
6. Sound Design: Some issues with spam aside, there’s some cool sound design
7. Sound Design: Also, each type of equipment gives a different sound effect upon looting
8. Kit: Conjurer is a reasonably fun class to play; the moment I shifted from ‘mage’ to ‘archer with some spells’ it clicked, and the pets are at least mildly useful
9. AI: AI in general is pretty decent
10. QoL Features (too many to list, but a lot of ‘smart’ decisions with regards to interactions and pathfinding)
11. Hyperbeam Moment: So getting the finished staff of oblivion is pretty sweet, and the game gives you plenty of ways to really enjoy it (lots of enemies, bundled in tight areas, with lots of mana crystals to refill on)
12. Outro: The final dungeon’s laser puzzles are unique, fun, and interesting
13. Kit: The Wizard’s array of spells is legitimately interesting, especially with the mark and recall
14. Replayability: Between the three differing classes and their respective unique areas, the game is moderately replayable
15. Encounter Design: With a few exceptions, there is good usage of which enemies are balanced against which to make for some fun encounters

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: The controls are… finicky. Movement is okay but attacking is awkward and looting is kind of awful
2. Audio Spam: It… it gets pretty bad
3. Difficulty Curve: Overtuning / difficulty curve issues (some pretty bad spikes here and there)
4. Level: The entire ogre village invasion kinda sucks. Lots of high health, hard hitting enemies with few recovery periods or tools to use, and dull music and visuals compared to the rest of the game
5. Itemization: So for the second time this week we have a game that has a nice long swath of gameplay with no vendor access. Which would work if designed around it, but it isn’t and it doesn’t
6. Enemy Design: The fact that some enemies can random into one shotting you is ridiculous
7. Difficulty Curve: A special mention for the friggin’ castle where you fight ogres (who can 2-3 shot you) and demons (who can 1-2 shot you)
8. Encounter Design: And on the same castle, they like to bundle up large groups of enemies that are hard to dodge that can 1-2 shot you with no real variety or design on display, in areas with no real dodging
9. Level: And finally just one big screw you to this stupid castle stage
10. Padding: Essentially every level in the game really should be a bit shorter. Too many floors, too many enemies
11. Outro: The Outro suffers the padding issue much worse than the previous dungeons…
12. Outro: …to the point of being honestly pretty boring
13. Outro: The final boss fight is… way, way too boring. The fact that she has healing is bad enough, the fact that she has infinite healing makes it much worse, the fact that she can teleport across a HUGE area randomly with no indications is even worse…
14. Outro: …earning it two negatives for a colossal waste of my time

Story Positives:

1. Doodads: Okay, the city is actually quite well designed overall visually
2. Background Lore: The actual story is presented piecemeal throughout the background elements of the game
3. Internal Continuity: The game does a very good job of keeping track of itself and its lies…
4. Internal Continuity: …earning two positives
5. Outro: The final trial was clearly the shining moment of the game, and really deserves recognition for it

Story Negatives:

1. Voice Direction: Infrequent voice acting and usual problems
2. Empty Text: As is honestly standard for games of this type, there’s a fairly large amount of repeat text all over
3. Atmosphere: Nonsense. The game is just… too nonsensical. Too surreal, too abstract, it makes it legitimately difficult to even process the game, and it absolutely reduces my enjoyment thereof…
4. Atmosphere: …earning two negatives
5. Intro: The Intro made me want to put the game down almost immediately

Gameplay Positives:

1. Guidance and Flow: Audio indicators of nearby items and roughly where they are
2. Options: Accessibility options are quite good in this one
3. All Roads Lead To Rome: The way the game has multiple crimes with multiple outcomes is already cool…
4. Core Mechanic: …but the fact that you can pull the trigger at any time on the trial is actually pretty interesting and well designed
5. QoL: The detect collectibles power up is rather useful, and the ability to see when people have something new to say is nice too

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Map: The map is… pretty bad
2. Overworld: So there’s a weird, ‘bad’ design to the overworld in how it flows into itself, leading to some navigation issues throughout that make it kind of irritating to get around
3. Pacing: The pacing of the gameplay is… absolutely awful. Huge swaths of exploration, talky sections that are way too dense, then tons of swaths again

Story Positives:

1. Voice Actor: Tony Jay needs to be mentioned in a vacuum by virtue of being Tony Jay
2. Storytelling mechanic: Narrator dynamic
3. Voice Acting: General voice acting plus
4. MSQ: The bureaucratic nightmare that is Bodb
5. Humor: So the joke around Bodb’s death is legitimately well constructed (oh, and it’s funny too). I won’t recount the whole joke here but it’s a repetition joke that’s well timed and has 4 other jokes layered on top of it to ensure no empty repetition
6. Humor: Everything around the Narration of the sword, falling into the pit, and the general humor
7. Moment: The absolute out of no where musical interlude of the undeads having a dance off
8. Humor: General well done humor throughout
9. Dialogue: Believe it or not the dialogue is surprisingly tight in most of this game
10. Humor: Speaking of which, the jerk answers for the Bard are almost always amusing

Story Negatives:

1. Atmosphere: Tonal issues. The game can’t decide if it wants to be full parody or full generic RPG and suffers for it
2. Cinematics: So the in game cutscenes are… rough. They’re really rough, and they often look more awkward or weird than anything good
3. Voice Acting: Unfortunately I really do need to give a voice acting negative for periodic weird bad voice acting
4. Outro: The endings all… kinda suck a bit. Too short, too underwhelming, too bleh

Gameplay Positives:

1. Core Mechanic: The entire summon system is one of the better ideas the game has, and the idea of balancing a ‘party’ of summons with their own abilities and AI tendencies is neat

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: The game is… rough to control. There’s a big, variable delay between attacking and the swing happen, and movement is weird and janky
2. Camera: Too low and weirdly angled
3. Encounter: The bug bear dungeon and fight caaaan go straight to hell. He can stunlock you, there’s no indication he’s going to pop out of the wall to hit you (not even a ‘hole’ he might be reaching out of), he hits like a TRUCK, and then the actual fight is boring
4. Level: The Fnarf Chase sequence is reeeally dumb. It’s the same thing repeated over and over and over again; Run up a few feet, have the guy yell at you, kill Trow ranged, rinse and repeat…
5. Level: …earning two negatives
6. Save: Infrequent (and selectable) rarity of save points, and limitations on saving
7. Level: The Forest Tower is honestly just kind of awful. I fear this is repetition on my part, but it’s just the same two enemies, and way way too many traps, in levels that are too long, and all combined with boring samey corridors…
8. Level: …so the level itself gets two negatives, but THEN it gets worse, because you then have to go all the way DOWN the tower, which would be a third negative in a vacuum…
9. Level: …but then they actually have the gall to make you fight jackass enemies and reset the damned map so you’re not even sure where you’re going so these ‘technically two’ dungeons get…
10. Level: …actually four negatives
11. Overworld: So then there’s the overworld, which… kind of isn’t, but the ‘random encounters’ are straight up DQVII problematic
12. Level: The tomb can go to hell. Oh it’s a decent enough dungeon, but the enemy spam problem was real
13. Encounter: Sssso the first timer spam enemy garbage at the beginning of the tower is a big flat open terrainless room with a timer and enemy spam
14. Level: Then there’s the mechanical tower. Small, boring, narrow hallways with terrain that’s easy to get stuck on, absolutely glutted with hundreds of enemies that melee swarm, move fast, and chain knockback / stun. This place ssssuuuucks…
15. Level: …earning it two negatives
16. Level: THEN you have to go back DOWN it and somehow they made it WORSE by swarming it with even more druids, who now have a ranged stun/knockdown attack that will hit you THROUGH the walls…
17. Level: …earning two negatives
18. Level: Aaaand then there’s the no magic tomb area. Doing a dungeon around reducing your kit or resources can work quite well if you design around it. If you don’t, you get the no magic tomb area
19. MSQ: You like escort quests right? Who demand you’re right next to them to move, move very slowly, while infinite respawns of enemies swarm him? Yay
20. Level: The underwater ferry section was less bad then most of the rest of the crap, but still retained that lovely boring touch
21. Combat: The combat in this game is extraordinarily dull…
22. Combat: …made all the worse with the severe Factory Worker Syndrome as a consequence of everything perfectly making the game a total slog to play
23. Enemy Design: A lot of this is down to downright unfair and arduous enemy unit design, many enemies designed to simultaneously annoying and still murder your face off…
24. Enemy Design: …legitimately making this some of the worst enemy design I’ve ever seen
25. No Music: This game… just straight up has no music (other than the musical numbers) aaand it suuuuucks…
26. No Music: …not the worst I’ve ever seen, but pretty bad
27. Interface: This is a pretty bog standard bad PS2 interface
28. Audio Balance: WHAT audio balance? Instruments are too loud, voices are too quiet, and the audio sliders barely help
29. Difficulty Curve: Ha! I’ve rarely seen a game this unfettered in its brutality for its curve. This is absolutely bonkers bad…
30. Difficulty Curve: …earning a full…
31. Difficulty Curve: …three negatives
32. Audio Spam: Good LORD. I’ve rarely seen audio spam this bad before, it’s kind of crazy just how bad and how often it is…
33. Audio Spam: …earning it a full…
34. Audio Spam: …three negatives
35. Outro: The final dungeon is… literally… the same room copy pasted 12 times. Enough said
36. Boss: Bleh boss design across the board

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: The game is legitimately well constructed brickwork wise, further emphasizing the…
2. Spritework: …well done art for the people and monsters within
3. Deaths: The many Sierra deaths and their many snarks
4. Writing: Surprisingly tight writing
5. World Building: This is technically more exposition than anything, but the world is designed in a way that it’s clear someone(s) spent some real time and effort laying everything out and making it connect and make sense, so the world building happens simply by navigating said world
6. Dialogue: Amusing and reasonably well varied dialects in dialogue
7. Banter: Erasmus and Fenus’ banter is honestly pretty legit

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. MSQ: The core quest design is surprisingly good, with most of the progression and puzzles having the solution either well presented or something you can divine without much external influence necessary
2. Guidance: The game has surprisingly good overall flow to it and letting you know what you can interact with and how, which ties nicely into the…
3. Visual Distinction: …surprising for the genre, the visual distinction is actually quite well done
4. All Roads Lead To Rome: Most quests having multiple methods of progression is honestly pretty legit
5. Itemization: Good spread and usage of in game resources (gold being a big one)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Save System: Very cumbersome and generally frustrating
2. Interface: Clunky, cumbersome, and awful
3. Interface: Too many clicks for basic information
4. HUD: Lack of clarity and cross referencing
5. Audio Design: The audio balance is all over the place, but on top of that the volume slider resets with every reset
6. Bugs: Crashes and graphics glitches with the VGA version
7. Music: The songs that are there are entirely too short looped, and most of the rest of the game lacks any
8. Info In Game: The game has a very strong tendency to not explain… much
9. Map: The total absence of a map wouldn’t be as bad if not for the repeat usage of forest ‘tiles’ with little to no variation
10. MSQ: The bandit infiltration mission is… very trial and error design, in a very bad way. It’s designed to give you hints, but only as you fail
11. MSQ: Okay so then there’s Yorick’s Room. It’s counter intuitive, way too sketchy, literally requires switching between control methods, makes NO sense, and is literally bugged…
12. MSQ: …earning it two negatives

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: The game is legitimately well constructed brickwork wise, further emphasizing the…
2. Spritework: …well done art for the people and monsters within
3. Deaths: The many Sierra deaths and their many snarks
4. Writing: Surprisingly tight writing
5. World Building: This is technically more exposition than anything, but the world is designed in a way that it’s clear someone(s) spent some real time and effort laying everything out and making it connect and make sense, so the world building happens simply by navigating said world
6. Dialogue: Amusing and reasonably well varied dialects in dialogue
7. Banter: Erasmus and Fenus’ banter is honestly pretty legit

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Fast Travel: The in city fast travel (and warp back to town with your mount) features
2. Replayability: The different side quests and outro, and very minor changes to the elements, means a very small amount of replayability

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Save: Usual cumbersome save system
2. Interface: The fan remake is better about some interaction but it’s still the same core interface underneath
3. HUD: Same issues as last time with lack of info and cross referencing
4. Hub: What in the world were they thinking with this city map? Just getting to step one, the moneychanger, literally took a walkthrough despite having both maps from both manuals to help!
5. Intro: So because the option exists to simplify the streets, that city is merely going to get one negative for being literally the tutorial quest / Intro, because it’s no where near as bad in this version, but good lord is that an awful barrier to entry for your game. If I’d played this back in the day I would have put it down before ever even hitting the moneylender
6. Bug: The built in combat system is literally bugged
7. Interface: So you can change options, but if you reload a save prior to changing those options? They’re reset
8. Music: As with the previous game, the music inconsistency problem is real
9. Overworld: The desert can go directly to hell. The sameness of the tiles and the vast array of nothing make it legitimately awful to navigate
10. Encounters: Oh also there’s the random encounters which are a pain to avoid and honestly screw with your navigation
11. Bugs: Several NPC interaction bugs
12. Core Combat: I… get what they were going for but it’s a weird, janky version of rock paper scissors except it tries for complexity and it fails really, really hard
13. MSQ: So there’s flags for doing things, even when it makes ZERO sense (direct example; You cannot lockpick a door, it’s impossible, until you’re asked to, at which point it becomes possible)
14. Grind: Yeah so it’s the use it to level it system like in the first game, but the extended cap (200 instead of 100) and ‘speed’ of leveling make it worse… especially given how high some of the skill checks are
15. Boss: The Pizza Elemental fight can go straight to hell
16. Core Mechanic: So the game is set on a hard calendar… events can only happen on certain days. This is ironically bad in both directions; it’s too punishing if you don’t know what you’re doing, and too lax if you do, so you’re either panicky or bored
17. MSQ: Reseir really starts to get railroady pretty fast… more typical ‘one solution, multiple failures’ approach to design
18. Outro: The final challenge and final boss are… not good. They are, at best, trial and error and at worst, boring

Story Positives:

1. Characters: Some generally good supporting cast
2. World Building: As with the previous games, there’s a natural exposition that informs the game world
3. World Building: I actually rather like the different cultures and how they interplay off each other
4. Characters: Personal touches really help with some of the smaller side stories
5. Internal Continuity: The game keeps a pretty solid track of its own continuity
6. Plot: The core plot of the war itself is actually quite engaging
7. Brickwork: Generally good brickwork
8. Atmosphere: The general looming threat of war and the three tribes is great

Story Negatives:

1. Dialogue: Some really rough and bad dialogue, especially early on. Way too much repetition
2. Outro: So that Outro is… uh… it’s VERY rushed, even if you ignore the cliffhanger, and just sort of feels thrown together

Gameplay Positives:

1. Overworld: I do actually rather like the idea of the overworld and visible landmarks and random navigation
2. Replayability: Once again, with the three classes there is definitely some replayability there

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Save System: It’s just as bad as before
2. Interface: So yeah, the bad interface returns…
3. Interface: And is clunkier than ever
4. HUD: The HUD issues… the HUD issues never change…
5. Seconds In Minutes: Some severe delay problems throughout, especially with the interface
6. Combat: So you can interrupt yourself, the ‘timing’ aspect is barely there, and the delay is awful
7. Sound Design: Some very stock sound effects and, as usual, sound balancing issues
8. MSQ: The flag dependencies are back
9. Music: What in the world is this music
10. Music: The music is also very inconsistently presented
11. Grind: The grind is back (and mandatory)
12. Backtracking: So the game doesn’t have walkthroughitis, but the built in backtracking (learn what to do three full overworld screens away from where you can get the item kind of stuff) is awful
13. Leveling: Leveling certain abilities is a horrific combination of arduous and awful, which is made worse by the fact that…
14. Leveling: …leveling OTHER abilities is piss easy. To the point of being a joke. The whole skill system is hilariously lopsided
15. Bugs: A fairly buggy game
16. Bugs: And those bugs get in the way

Story Positives:

1. Voice Acting: The voice acting has a few issues, but there’s still some surprisingly good stuff (mostly from the side characters, like the trio of busybodies, or the skeleton head)
2. Voice Acting: John Rhys-Davies as the narrator gets his own positive for positively nailing it
3. Doodads: Some truly excellent doodad design in the backgrounds
4. Visual Storytelling: Lots of usage of the backdrops as a way to sell the story
5. Brickwork: Some of the better backdrops in the series…
6. Brickwork: …earning two positives
7. Spritework: Similarly a positive for the sprites and their usage and animation
8. Atmosphere: While I’m not a huge fan of the ghouly aesthetic, the game manages it quite well
9. Humor: More than a few times the game got a real laugh out of me
10. Writing: General writing quality
11. Character: Most characters don’t have the screen time for individual plusses, but they’re all good to some extent or another…
12. Character: …earning them two positives
13. MSQ: The entire quest involving saving Tanya is surprisingly moving, played surprisingly straight, and actually hit me in the feels
14. Internal Continuity: As with previous games, the game does a good job with keeping things tightly contiguous
15. Intro: A surprisingly effective ‘dump you into an unknown situation’ Intro
16. World Building: The usual good exposition situation

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Core Mechanic: The autoresolve puzzle option
2. Aggregate: Minigames / Health, Stam, Magic display
3. Party AI: Auto-Combat is surprisingly well designed, especially since you can adjust it (on the fly) to deal with the different types of enemies
4. Core Combat: To my shock, the core combat… isn’t all that bad
5. All Roads Lead To Rome: The usual multiple solutions quest design
6. Music: For the first time, I actually rather dig the music and it works for the game
7. Replayability: Yep, as per before

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Interface: The same interface issues of the previous games…
2. Interface: …as usual
3. HUD: Same HUD design problems as usual
4. Save System: Same save problems as usual
5. Controls: The game controls… weirdly this time
6. Visual Distinction: I know I’m blind and all but I had REAL trouble discerning things I could interact with (or things at all)…
7. Visual Distinction: …earning two negatives
8. MSQ: The flag / trigger problem returns
9. Core Mechanic: Somehow, pixel hunting has returned…
10. Core Mechanic: …and is honestly worse than ever
11. MSQ: The ‘rescue Tanya’ quest with the ridiculous maze (and trapped doors) is just kind of awful
12. Core Combat: So I know I gave a positive to core combat, but at the same time it is janky as hell, poorly timed, and awkward to control
13. Outro: Sadly the Outro continues to drop the ball, mostly with more of the same but it’s still irritating

Story Positives:

1. Voice Acting: Generally good, surprisingly well stylized voice acting (deliberately ‘off the cuff’)
2. Pacing: Weirdly well paced… if this took longer it’d fall apart, but it doesn’t
3. Humor: Yeah okay this one is self explanatory isn’t it? This game gets…
4. Humor: …a full…
5. Humor: …three positives to humor
6. Storytelling Mechanic: The audience sound effects really add to the plays themselves
7. MSQ: The entire woods segment
8. MSQ: The… entire city segment
9. MSQ: …the… entire village segment…
10. Atmosphere: This is a weird one but a plus for how… wholesome the whole game is
11. Banter: The way the actors play off each other is legit
12. Doodads: Surprisingly good doodad usage (this is technically an aggregate, for it also includes the visual storytelling in general)

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Choices: Weird for a game like this but there’s a lot of choices gameplay in how the actual plays turn out, forming the primary gameplay loop in fact
2. Core Mechanic: The ability to either dynamically adjust the playable notes to the sung notes on the fly or (more likely) math out all possible notes on both axis to harmonize with one another is not only impressive but actually makes the player feel like a part of the song
3. Core Mechanic: I honestly have to give a second positive for the interactive songs. The best part is they are totally optional
4. Music: What’s there is pretty legitimately good

Gameplay Negatives:

Story Positives:

1. Prime Opt: Anxiety Painter!
2. Dialogue: The dialogue is honestly very well written
3. Atmosphere: The chill atmosphere is honestly great
4. Brickwork: For how simple it is, the visuals really add to the work
5. Outro: The final phone call, the flight down, and sharing with our aunt

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Core Mechanic: Golden Feathers and how they tie into the…
2. Kit: …exploration kit as well as the…
3. Traversal Mechanics: …general flow of traversal
4. Guidance and Flow of Exploration: The game does a great job of helping you to find and explore, which is good especially since it’s the primary game loop
5. Music: The game’s soundtrack is honestly very legit
6. Yoshi Drums: And I love how it flows based on activity

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Camera: The camera really does not like me and likes to just sort of… do its own thing, actively getting in the way

Story Positives:

1. Dialogue: Hints and related dialogue
2. Storytelling Mechanic: Portraits and poses

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music: I mean there’s not that many songs buuut they’re boppers
2. Pacing: Between the restart mechanic, shortness of stages, and shortness of game, the game is well paced
3. Boss: There’s two, and they’re both quite fun
4. Cheats: Built in skip option
5. Core Mechanic: General puzzle design quality
6. Tutorialization: Through level design, which I’m always fond of

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Difficulty Curve: More like difficulty spike