☆20250208 2 years to beat a game is embarrassing... but to be fair i was just spacing out my playthroughs, since I completed all 3 scenarios. you know, i kinda really hate the reputation this game has. it pains me that this is probably one of the greatest games of all time and because of influencers it's been relegated to that weird depressing russian game that's like totally super hard and CLUNKY you guys. don't get me wrong, this is miserable to play. and it sucks that it is so obvious how they really wanted to nail that feeling of hopelessness and i still have to disclose that every time i mention this game to someone because they refuse to actually see computer games as art even if they claim they do. sorry but i'm going to have your gamurr card revoked! i hate the "good games with bad gameplay" meme that somehow always has pathologic as an example because i guess being in the middle of an plague town with fucked up bureaucracy should be fun because in the end that's what erry videogame should strive for regardless of the intent of the authors. not to mention how the difficulty of this one is so overblown, too, but that's a different story.

my little rant is over so i can continue to sing the praises of this game. it is difficult to see a game being so immersive, and by that i mean that every system, every miniscule design element works so well with what it's telling us. literally everything works together and aids the next part. everything, from the systems, the verbosity of its writing, or the pathing of the town's walkways, makes you feel like an stranger. everything starts getting more familiar once you spend more time in its world... it's amazing how every small detail that could potentially break this immersion is addressed by its more meta aspect. it's also crazy how the devs seem to always be two steps ahead, navigating the town with each day becoming harder felt like having a conversation with the Powers That Be.

i really liked it!

☆20250128 this bitches' entire wardrobe from amazon🤣 for real tho what was the point of this. what's it even trying to say, is it even trying to say anything at all. really polished and full of fun details though, i'd be proud to ship this as a dev from a production standpoint.

☆20250120 not much to see here, it is what is says on the tin. i liked the attempt at a music/kinda rhythm even based typing game. i didn't like that they rebalanced that other part, but it was pretty cute overall. it was funny seeing people on the steam forum crying about their skill issues though, omg you people can't do anything which makes sense since this thing's whole fanbase is mostly ipad kids.

☆20250120 it's cute esp after learning about its development but I don't think it makes much sense for an action puzzler to be both random and this slow, it feels like your skills as a player are limited from progressing because there's simply no room to score higher. has good style and terada's (only if you play jp version ofc) soundtrack slaps.

☆20250119 hiroyuki kanno's input is so recognizable here man it def feels like a proto yu-no of sorts. he really liked his daughter-like blondes in his games. i wish everything was a little bit more.... interesting though. like it all drags for too long and when you get to the end you kinda don't care, especially after makoto's route which is just wack. wish i had played it before yu-no, but i'll go back to the rest of his ludography.

☆20250118 surprisingly... alright? the naughty bits are trashy as hell but can be easily ignored (artstyle is pretty tho so i liked looking at them...). the puzzle gameplay is actually quite fun and if you stay with it for a while you'll find some level designs that are worth studying. i just love when the design gets self aware and asks the player to actually break and exploit the fuck of itself - when what seems to be a design oversight turns out to be a new dynamic. the last set of stages turned out to be quite bad, which was disappointing, since i feel like for most players it will become a test of patience by having them trap all the enemies one by one....

☆20250113 feels like a middle step between hypertext fiction and the multimedia cd-roms that would become popular after this was released. like all in all i didn't feel it was that groundbreaking but still enjoyed my time with it. though the use of video to represent the titular roland's madness felt like an attempt at this (and also what made this title for me), i still think it feels too restrained because of its own selfimposed structure of chapters/characters/text+media, refusing to actually take a greater advantage of the possibilities the medium offers to present each character's pov...

☆20250112 perfect game to play on yr psp/vita, though i cleared it completely on my laptop's emulator because i thought it was going to make use of analog controls. the story is... surprisingly cool? it takes place in a not so distant future where humans have started to colonize planets, so the gravity is all fucky wucky and doing the job of a papergirl is not easy. why still print newspapers in the future? the internet was already widely available in 2002 in Japan, right? of course! the main conflict in this work revolves around the disinformation and volatility of data in the internet era, which was a trendy topic at the time but still didn't expect in my silly bakage.

mechanically, though, the game was actually quite simple to play and reminded me of a way easier version of sonic 1's bonus stages. i didn't like that the hazards wouldn't let me go as fast as i wanted to, but it was pretty easy overall. i only game over'd once, but once i got accustomed to the controls and physics (there's a small surprise about this second aspect, but nothing too crazy. you'll manage) the only difficulty i had was learning some of the maps (and by that point i already had more than enough lives). as with other media entertainment titlles i played, i only wish the execution of such a fun concept went actually a little crazier!

☆20250106 brazilian edutainment cd-rom ordeal about the art movement known as surrealism. though i was looking forward to play this one for a few years now, in the end it left me unimpressed...! when i first heard of the concept of this game, my first thought was that letting the player ~experience~ surrealism through esoteric game logic (especially considering how successful cd-rom art has proved to be at this over the years - see tong-nou or haruhiko shono's ludography), but it's nothing like that. hell, we're talking about surrealism here, try to at least give me some nonsensical puzzles! but it ended up just being your standard walking game with some minigames sparkled here and there, and even then... i guess you could resume the whole thing as more of a teaching of surrealism from an art history angle, as evidenced by the eye stabbing minigame and a literal andalusian dog being the gatekeeper of the cinema (where you can watch buñuel's film - that was kinda cool), but then it feels like that whole vision gets contradicted by having the game creator's paintings plastered all over the game as if that was on the same level or context, which would otherwise be a good call to arms for the player to create their own art had the game done a better job of making you immerse in surrealist thought. that aside, i must commend the game for the fun visuals, characters and voice acting, which are highly engaging and would've definitely motivated me when i studied art history in high school!

☆20250103 another tale of tales banger, these two truly get it. thought the inclusion of cooperative play to be a great idea. part of me wishes this made use of controller vibration for feedback but, at the same time, seeing how we are the player and not the played, it does actually make sense that rumble is ignored.

☆20250101 radirgy 2 means radio allergy... 2. i need to play a bit more of this, since i only did a couple runs at some friends' house. I kinda miss the approach taken in older milestone titles to prevent credit feeding (awarding you extra credits for reaching certain scores, which in the end even become redundant due to the skill you've obtained going for the score). still, i found my short time with it to be quite fun! the risk/reward systems at play here are a little more creative than in the first entry but not too crazy either. i'll get back to you, i promise! (whenever i manage to obtain a physical copy...). i wish i could understand the text, though >.<