Inestimate's Reviews

  Console: N64 Developer: Nintendo EAD Release Date:  October 26, 2000 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask  is an action-adventure game with a focus on puzzles, sidequests, and time management. As one of the last first-party games on the N64,  Majora's Mask  is surprisingly complex mechanically, featuring a 3 day time loop with NPCs that all have their own schedules and multiple interweaving yet simple sidequests and events. Though technically a direct sequel to  Ocarina of Time  that even reuses a majority of its assets,  Majora's Mask  feels like its own unique game, not just from it's predecessor but the rest of the series. While I had played a fair bit of  Ocarina of Time  before, I only first finished it  about two years ago ; despite being a huge Zelda fan, I had never played  Majora's Mask , but seen a friend play it and watched videos and playthroughs on it before. Therefore, this was pretty exciting for me: playing...

Console: PS5, Switch , PC Developer: Experience Release Date:  February 15th 2024 Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II  is a horror visual novel game with mystery and adventure mechanics that centers around exploration, puzzle-solving and its narrative. The third game in the  Spirit Hunter  franchise,  Death Mark II  is the most recent entry in the series and is actually a crowdfunded game. The game takes place four months after  Death Mark , and is thus technically a midquel due to taking place a few years before  NG . It is also a direct sequel to  Death Mark , featuring most of the characters from the game and putting the player in Kazuo Yashiki's shoes once again.

  Console: PSVita, PS4, Switch , PC Developer: Experience Release Date:  October 10th 2019 Spirit Hunter: NG  is a horror visual novel and adventure game with a focus on life and death choices, puzzle-solving, and ghost hunting. The second game in the  Spirit Hunter  series,  NG  is a standalone sequel to  Death Mark  that takes place around 5 years later, but it freely references it.  NG  came out about a year after  Death Mark , and unlike  Death Mark  it has no additional content of any kind, but is a little longer overall. Though it's a standalone game in essence, I'll be referencing  Death Mark  during the review, so if you want, you can  go back to my Death Mark review if you're curious . Naturally, I won't spoil anything important.

  Console: PSVita, PS4, Switch , PC, XB1 Developer: Experience Release Date:  October 31st 2018 Spirit Hunter: Death Mark  is a horror visual novel and adventure game with a focus on life and death choices, puzzle-solving, and ghost hunting. The first in the  Spirit Hunter  series,  Death Mark  is a game I've long been curious about and I'm glad to have played. I didn't even know the premise of the game outside of the fact it's a sort of ghost hunting detective game, and obviously since it's so narratively driven, I won't spoil anything important.  Death Mark  itself is a fairly interesting game in terms of its release, since the Switch version includes Chapter 6, which used to be DLC on other platforms, and also is the only version where the DLC Chapter 7 is available... which was released in April this year. It's a very strange thing to see, but I thankfully have the Switch version, so I had access to this DLC chapter.

  Console: PC , Switch, PS4, PS5, XB1, XSX Developer: Not A Sailor Studios Release Date: February 18, 2021 Buddy Simulator 1984  is a narrative game whose genre evolves over time, based around the relationship between the player and the eponymous Buddy, a computer program who is designed to emulate the feeling of playing games with a "best friend". Not A Sailor Studios is a team of four, and made  Buddy Simulator 1984  with some additional help from about four more people. I'd consider the game to be split into four major parts, and I'll tackle them all without spoiling as much as I can. 

      Console: Switch, PS4 , PC Developer: CAVYHOUSE Release Date:  October 3, 2018 The Midnight Sanctuary  is a 3D visual novel with heavy religious and occult themes. Developed by CAVYHOUSE, a Japanese indie two-person studio, The Midnight Sanctuary  is a visual novel with no real gameplay; instead, the player merely chooses which area to go and then proceeds to watch a cutscene. There are no missable cutscenes, and the entire thing will last around 4-5 hours.

    Console: 3DS Developer: Intense Release Date:  March 3, 2016 Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas  is an escape room visual novel with simple puzzles. Developed by Intense, Cruise in the Distant Seas  is the first game in the Parascientific Escape  trilogy, a 3DS eShop exclusive series. I bought them before it closed down since they were cheap and I wanted a few visual novels on my 3DS, especially exclusive ones.

  Console: 3DS Developer: Atlus Release Date:  September 20, 2016 Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse  is turn-based monster-taming RPG with a focus on recruiting and fusing demons, heavy character customisation, strategic gameplay, and a story with alignment choices. Developed by Atlus, Apocalypse  is a follow-up to Shin Megami Tensei IV.   IV  is one of my favorite games ever after having a bit of a rocky relationship with it, so I was ecstatic to finally get to play its odd pseudo-sequel. The marketing for Apocalypse  was always confusing to me; is it a sequel? An expansion? An unrelated game with the same mechanics? I think that's why a lot of people didn't really look at it much alongside being 3DS exclusive, along with Shin Megami Tensei  not being a big household name compared to Persona . Nevertheless, just like IV , I wound up loving Apocalypse  to bits.

Console: PSVita, PS4, PC , Switch, XB1 Developer: Digital Reality/Grasshopper Manufacture Release Date:  August 8, 2017 ( November 9, 2012 for the original) Sine Mora EX is a bullet hell shoot 'em up with a dieselpunk aesthetic focused on a time travelling narrative. Developed mostly by Digital Reality, with Grasshopper Manufacture only handling art direction and sound design, Sine Mora EX  is an extended version of the original Sine Mora , with some added features like co-op, some quality of life changes, and a few new options. This is one of the first shmup games I've ever really clicked with, so I was pretty excited to play it again through this EX  version.

  Console: Switch, PC Developer: Simogo Release Date: May 16th 2024 Lorelei and the Laser Eyes  is a puzzle game with strong point-and-click and text adventure leanings that focuses on logic puzzles, a twisted narrative, and art. Developed by stand-out mobile game developer Simogo, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes  is their first console/PC exclusive. Simogo are most known in the console and PC space for Sayonara Wild Hearts , but it feels like Lorelei and the Laser Eyes  is poised to be their first big hit, relatively speaking. It's worth noting that, all things considered, Simogo are essentially a two developer team, and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes  was created in 4 years, according to the credits. It's hard to go in detail in this review, as a lot of the game's intricacies lie in its narrative, which I don't want to spoil, and I obviously can't detail all the puzzles.

Console: Switch Developer: Intelligent Systems Release Date: May 23rd 2024 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door  is a turn-based RPG with a focus on zany scenarios, gameplay customization, and strategy. A remake of the 2004 Gamecube game of the same name, Thousand-Year Door  still stands as perhaps the perfect game to play as your first turn-based RPG, with charm aplenty to keep players of any skill level entertained throughout its entire playtime. 

Console: PC , Switch, XB1, PS4, PS5, PSVR2, Quest 2, Quest 3 Developer:  Origame Digital Release Date: May 19th 2020 (Macro DLC released November 7th 2020) Umurangi Generation  is a first-person photography game all about artistic expression, exploration, and masterful environmental storytelling. Developed by solo Māori developer Tali Faulkner in 10 months, Umurangi Generation  is visually reminiscent of the PSX-era of games: low-poly, low-res, and blocky with mostly flat textures, but with tons of visual charm anyway. However, it very much plays like a modern FPS game, and the tutorial even says so. Just replace the guns with camera lenses.

Console: PC , XB1, XSX, PS4, PS5, Switch Developer: Foreign Gnomes Release Date: March 4th 2021 Everhood is a rhythm-based RPG with strong narrative leanings focused around immortality, death, and goofy characters. Created by Chris Nordgren and Jordi Roca, Everhood  takes massive inspirations from multiple indie games, but none are clearer than Undertale  and Yume Nikki. Yet, I think it mostly succeeds at being its own thing.

Console: Switch, XSX, XB1, PS4, PS5,  PC Developer: Froach Club Release Date: April 6th 2023 Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories  is a narrative adventure game made in RPG Maker with a distinct art style reminiscent of a classic Game Boy game, complete with a green monochrome look. This is, as far as I can tell, the first "big" game released by Froach Club, with the rest of their catalog being on itch.io. 

Console: PS3, XBox 360,  PC Developer: Dontnod Entertainment Release Date: June 3rd 2013 Remember Me  is an action RPG game with a focus on combos, parkour, and a dystopian cyberpunk narrative revolving around the concept of memories becoming a commodity. It is the first game developed by Dontnod Entertainment (now the more pleasantly written Don't Nod Entertainment), best known nowadays for the Life is Strange games and other games like Vampyr  and Jusant.  Surprisingly, Remember Me  was published by Capcom.