Quirky Indie RPGs - Depression is optional

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Lord of the Large Pants said:
I believe this is one of those games where nearly every option is viable in the right circumstance, which I love. I hate when a game has "dead" characters and abilities and items. Overall, REALLY liking it so far. There's a free demo, so go check it out.
Click to expand...

It's the same team that made monster sanctuary, a 2d platformer with 3 v 3 monster taming battles. The balanced that for pvp a lot so they should know how to make a mostly balanced rpg, check it out if you like that type of game.

btw mathair curse of scotland is coming October 9


I only just found out that Mathair means mother in scotland, in case you didn't think it was riping off earthbound enough.

Oh yeah, i want to play Silver Daze (its OUT) but i can't because the website i pirate games doesn't have it! I requested it multipe times and no signs.

Feels bad when the game you're interested looks cool but it's so unknown that no website bothers to pirate it 🥀
 
Cairn Mathair curse released and after almost a week i finally found it online to pirate it but still no silver daze nooo! The website even said he doesn't want to buy the game whyyy nigga you buy all these shitty porn games... It's hard to be a gamer...

Anyway, i played up to the Mathair game until the demo and it's mostly the same, seems kinda harder now. They removed the random enemies from starter area so it feels slower than before, and before was already fairly slow to get going. I think the changed the stun skill too so now a stunned enemy will recover if you hit them again which is a big nerf but better thought out. I'll play more when i have time but i'll be busy this week.

And since it's steamfest again, i tried to look for some quirky rpgs. Finding one was very hard this time as the rpg tag is everything except rpgs (roguelites, bullet heaven, porn visual novel, ai generated schlock, all at once etc.) but changing tags proved a little better.

First is You ARe NOT Bunnygirl, who has a fairly well edited trailer, demo and looks like an undertale-like.



This game is simple but has at least a pleasant asthetics and looks very quirky. It's also tagged as PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR and is a story about "self care" where you meet traumatized npcs so yea it better be a quirky indie rpg about depression or else i don't want it! Has some undertale like combat?



It looks a bit like the previous game but worse because you can tell these are amateur artists and devs working on rpg maker. Still, it looks trippy and has an interesting premise. An eclipse happened and it's been night for 13 years, and there is this giant mall that no one who goes in ever goes back. You and your friends went in and must find a way out. Does NOT have a demo but releases at the end of october.



I'm not sure what Pigbert is about but it seems to be some sort of subversion of jrpgs, where you were called by the supreme overlord to receive a gift for reasons unknown. Trailer has a mysterious aura and there is a demo.


This game looks quirky enough as it has a fairly garish artstle and looking at the devs channel they've been working on this franchise (this is a sequel??) for 15 years which is uh comendable. Dev is brazilian too.Has demo.



The title of the game seems very self explanatory, it seems like a parody game where the hero of the jrpg is overpowered and i think went evil or something and now someone has to fix that shit. Cool idea but production valeus are rather low (it looks fugly).


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This game has no trailer but has a demo. You play a cook in a space fast food who fights ingredients to obtain them or something.
 
I have played some demos so get ready for a long post. I forgot to mention in previous comment but there is a edmo for "The Remake of the end of the greatest jrpg of all time"


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Okay, so this game is hard to explain, as the trailers fail hard at it and i almost think it's intentional.

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For starters, this isn't really a jrpg, it's a meta puzzle / ARG hibrid. The combat isn't about combat and there is no actual equipment or rpg elements. You have an item menu with +50 items but using any of them simply says "localizatiion error" andnothing happens (unless one of them says something else which it might).

In this demo you start fighting the final boss and none of your attacks do damage and you die, then you can reload your save or "log off". Reload your save makes the demo start for real but log off makes you... leave the game and go into a different game.

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When you log you enter first person mode in this wooder maze where you can get back in the game or explore to solve puzzles that are done by... playing the game. I actually logged off from the main menu and got very confused.

When the game within the game starts for real, you walk around with "Jacob" and find pieces of the game's manual. You find a page for the main character who is clearly named "Rose Rynan" and half their moveset riped off but you can see elements of 2 attacks and a combo. A few enemies and one is a bat who is weak to fire. In the first fight we beat bat weak to fire by casting fire and a machine that requires the spin + axe + axe combo.

In this game you input 6 moves in a row but there is only directionals, confirm and cancel buttons, with 3 attacks being directions. If an enemy isn't weak to an element they take zero damage, but you can pause the game to check the manual during fight (i didnt know that).

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The joke here is that "Jacob" is clearly a player name inputed over the main character and we are playing someone's file. As we go, we meet our other party members who get a quick flashback and short emotional dialogues of the hero not giving up on them, but the boxes keep being cut. At first i thought the game was fucking up but now i see it has to be intentional because the game within the game is incomplete. At one point i walk through a table and go out of bounds where the music and vfx stop.

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We also find the first tape with the devs talking about remaking the game and it's a real documentary. They even say there is a place without collision and you can go there and fall through to see a "secret dev room" that is just a lame bridge and a burger but i can see this being a teaser.

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These guys, who are the names of the real life devs (or are they???) loved this old SNES jrpg (they even show a fake cartridge) and since the owner company is dead, they decided to remake it because they love it so much.

Anyways, as we go some weird shit happens. For starters, the last party member has a fully different artstyle. Even weirder, he does not call the MC jacob but Rose, who also changer their artstyle in response.

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This might seem like a fuck at first then a shitty joke second but i looked and "Darkhart" doesn't exist in any of the official art of the game (or meta art i guess) and it's cover. I only see a blonde guy who in the manual is describe as Rose's brother but he's never seen in the game itself. Another thing is how the ultimate move to beat the boss uses attacks from everyone except darkhart, almost as if he literally isn't part of the group.

We see Lorne who is seemingly an old rival who we fucked up and he glitchs out forcing us into a glitchy mob fight where the MC icons keep swapping and i found out i had to use opposite directions to damage them, and the robot couldnt hurt the glitchy enemy. The potion button will hurt you if you use twice but here it doesn't and you have to use it twice.

The game has a shitty quiz npc with commentary saying "i always used to write notes" (hmmm) and a block puzzle with dev commentary saying it was hard to make the "traditional style sokoban puzzle from 2d to 3d" which is kinda cringe but got me again cause now i realize this entire game's artstyle is a fucking reference to "2 sprite on low poly unreal engine 3D" popularized by octopath traveler and the dragon quest remake. The game looks garbage and repetitive too.

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In this final manual page of the boss, we see a hand drawn move chain that is necessary for beating the boss. After we do we log off automatically. In the first person mode we see the boss with a slot for powers and we input it to beat it.

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The second tape shows some recording of the devs saying someone stole their game and put it on steam and they can't pull it down because they technically don't own the game, which is kinda funny sure but i hope is an ACTUAL plot within the final game. Like, who the hell is Jacob?

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Ok so that was kinda of a weird experience. It's not bad but it's kinda anticlimatic from start to finish. I only realize now that the steam page outright says it's a deduction puzzle game but it doesn't look like that from trailers, which i kinda love and hate, as this works better blind but they also failed at explaining it.

I'll be honest here, these types of meta games about real life guy playing a game cartridge (usually haunted) are kinda cringe as they remind of creepypasta shit to me (it already has glitchy bullshit blergh) but i think this one has potential to be entertaining or even really funny if they

1-Make sure the puzzles are good and clever deduction all the way through. I'd dare say some out of game arg stuff but nothing too autistic that requires 50 people theorizing on discord.
2-Add more types of perspectives for subversions, maybe even a "game developing game".
3-Triple down into this out of game meta narrative of these 2 nobodies trying to remake a in an actual fun way. Not with edgy lore shit. Please don't pull an inscryption.
Bonus: Reveal "the greatest jrpg of all time" wasn't even good and flopped, which makes sense when you remember they said the company died.

>Pigbert

Pigbert demo is short. A lil too short and basic for it's own good. The combat is basically pokemon without elements so it's a battle of atriction where you literally trade punches with your enemies and if you respawn so you can refight until you get a luckier or rest to respawn them and farm exp to increase hp/spd/atk/def.

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But the real meat of the game is it's atmosphere and comedy qhich is done surprisingly well. You cant* run which sucks but the demo is short enough as it is so whatever. In this world there is a "supreme overlord" who seems to the a powerful ruler and everyone is afraid of him and obcessed with getting on their good side. For some reason, we were chosen to receive a gift from them for how hard we work and we are fprced by law to go there take it. There is clearly some commentary on overwork culture here. Our boss brags of how hard she makes us work to get that award.

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(there is no hours on this clock, only work and not work.)

One book you find in your work straight up says "sometimes you think the overlord isn't always right. This book tells you that these thoughts are dangerous and must be corrected immediately. Report to an overseer who will help you see clearly." Outside a guy is upset that we leaving means he will have to work our shift. If he wasn't exhausted he would beat us. Oh wait he straight up says "i changed my mind i'll beat you anyway".

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(thats a lot of mushrooms)

On the way we see a guy who is thirsty but he heard the pond water isn't safe and makes you go bald. Sounds true as it's pink. He throws a rock at it and it melts and he fights you. I guess the implication that this player fuckin sucks to live at. Oh yea, you work in what looks to be a hotel or restaurant and all the stored stuff is mushrooms and water. There is nothing else and there is almost no water.

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An overweer is upset about a lone mushroom and says it's an afront to the overlord and fights us.

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Overseer has 3 new moves in mushroom throw, roundhouse kick and hail mary. Ok so the player has 4 move slots like pokemon and they have base power and hit chance and secondary effects like pokemon. So the punch is 20 bp 90 hit while roundhouse is 30 bp 75 hit and a chance to slow. After beatin certain enemies you learn a new move.

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Inside the building we see a guy who has a plan to increase efficiency by making everyone work harder but not him. Another guy who screams about having no concern except farming mushrooms and obeying the overseer, he assumes we are mocking him and fight us. Another one is actually throwing shrooms at statues to "relax by doing a little vandalism" cause the overlord will probably never see it anyway. He gives us shrooms and fight for fun. After we turn the two leves the gate opens and if we go the first guy says he'll snitch us (he's basically the boss of the demo for some reason). Inside we find an old tool box with a note.

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The note says all things that can be used as weapon against the overlord are to be banned, meaning farmers cannot use any tools whatsoever and only hands, which ironically explains why people are throwing mushrooms and even the overseers don't have weapons. Inside we find a sharp stick that is our first real weapon, giving +5 atk. In the house there is +5 def armor. Simple stuff.

Near the end we see an overseer guarding a kart saying we can't take it because it would take a long time to wait for the kart to return and his armor is really heavy so he's tired, but he goes on about the armor being really fucking sick but makes him sweaty.


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(It doesn't look like that cool but i respect it)
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(he even goes "uh what was i talking about again? Oh right, you can't take the kart")

He's not that hard, then the demo ends. I think the gameplay is super basic, which will only be fine if the game is very short (i'd argue the demo has 2 enemies too much) but the world is interesting and the npcs are quirky. It might look dumb unfunny tryhard quirky game at first but i think there is an obvious theme of hard work out of fear and opression that ties into the gameplay.

It's shallow attriction at first but i think the repetition of the grind and waking up to fight again is what makes you a real hard worker? Maybe the MC, Adam, was never a hard worker at all but the thought of getting this reward made them work much harder and become stronger incredibly fast, maybe even matching the overlord. Ironic isn't it? Maybe i'm overthinking and giving the dev too much credit tho.

>Saveseeker

This game had a demo too, i played it. It was kinda mid, mostly cause it felt unfinished. The art is fine but the forest is incredibly repetitive copy pasted hallways and you fight the same two enemies with higher levels as you level so it feels like the illusion of rpg, which would be fine if it was trying to subvert that but i dont think it is.

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(its soooo far away.)

It starts with Emmer and her magic dragon toy saving the game in the forest. They're looking for Claw Tember, the strong cat that was defeated by emmer father, in hopes of getting him to join us to beat her father who went evil. This is hard to grasp at first so you better watch that trailer or else it sounds nonsense. The toy does repeat often how Emmer can go back in time to the last save if she gets hurt.

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(Will this girl get traumatized by her death loop? She better be or else what is the fun?)

It's wacky to me how Emmer doesn't seem scared of death at all so it gives this jokey family friendy vibe, but Tipleton is both careful and protective but also cold and self aware about it. At one point he says "If you're unsure if this is poisonous, i can eat it for you so if i die you can just return" and it's weird to see the funny mascot be so detached.

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(i am so tired of generic early level forest man. This isn't even the final game i'll say here with one)

As you go you fight enemies in simple turn based and it's very simple indeed. Emmer has a normal atk, or double shot at half power, while tip is a support that can buff her or debuff enemies with a cooldown and has no hp himself. I find the defense buff to be obvious choice as the demo seems to have flat atk-def calcs so the defense buff makes the match solved. It doesnt seem anyone can miss so battles are kinda braindead and level up after 1 fight, then after 2, which is so fast it's weird again and i don't know if it's to subvert later or not.

You beat enemies and get drops that can upgrade your weapon and armor. There is one armor you find near a empty chest because your father looted but "dropped later to save space" (good joke i guess) and one if you beat the boss and go talk to the npc instead of teleporting to the end. There is this light self awareness of rpg tropes, like when the vendor is on the forest tipton is surprised and wondering why anyone would do that, and i thought he would be the opposite and say to not think about it. He says we dont have times for sidequests to the npc but its still a sidequest.

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(The cat being crippled is funny but i wonder how long he was defeated? I thought it was before emmer was born)

Anyway we run the hallway until we find taum and he joins; His gameplay is different cause he is crippled so he needs time to charge his attacks (single or aoe) but he can lower defense to charge faster. Cool at first but bland on practice, as you heal after every battle. There is some coins or drops you can find under trees. But you get 10 con per dead enemy and items cost 1-3 and i wonder if that's a demo privilege, bad balance or another subversion (i'll have a theory later). The item that gives +10 damage and costs 2 coins is particularly busted.

Tipton admits the dad was too violent with taum (hmm) but this is his chance for revenge so he joins as long as we kill this bird that ate too much magic and went giant. There is some cute gags with the vendor and Emmer saying her mom is a vendor too (so the hero married a vendor?) and she shouldnt buy his products. The boss fight is kinda lame cause there isn't much depth tbh. Emmer does get a magic skill that lets her rewind her hp 3 turns back at least.

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(SHOW ME THE BLOOD GAME! I WANT BLOOD!)

After the boss Emmer even says "i got a bloody nose look" proudly which makes me think the game won't be that dark. We go the tavern and find the "permanent save spot" that you can rewind whenever you want. You see, the minor saves are more like checkpoints of short duration, range and limited to one but the big ones are forever, allowing you to technically do long term back time travel. We must save over the dad's save file so he cant use it anymore.

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You see, this line from tipton is the most interesting in the game to me as it goes back to him being coldly aware of how powerful rewinding is. Tip explicitly says "There is a chance we literally can't win and if that happens i need you to go back and tell me." It raises the dark implication that they can fail completely and it's unclear if tippleton would straight up give up or has a plan. Or maybe this is Tipton trying to prevent Emmer from entering a non stop death loop spiral.

You don't usually see characters say this because the only one that savvy is usually the time looper. But here the traveler is a stupid beginner and the pet is the one who worked with a veteran time looper. And this veteran might've already broken down under their time loops and is the reason why they turned evil.

Either way the demo was fine but like i said, it felt unfinished in some areas due to lack of polish. Visuals are good but lacks polish in sound design with hits and proper musical timings. It needs a victory fanfare, and to change songs when a climatic thing happens. The combat is weak and grows repetitive fast but i have theory for it...

Ok, so here is what i think (and hope) will happen. The game will be a cliche jrpg until you reach your dad and then either one of these 2 things will happen

1-You cannot beat your dad. You can only die. You will die and die over and over. Emmer will think she got it but she cant. She'll refuse to tell tipton and try different aproaches and it will fail. Enjoy your time loop trauma. It's In Star and Time again.

or

2-You WILL beat you dad. You kill him. But then the game doesn't end. It looped again. Except now you're playing as the father in his original quest. And HE had time loop trauma. Time for the real game.

What i'm saying is, there has to be a twist. It's a time loop / travel game. It cannot be this simple and wholesome. The gameplay is too shallow so i want to believe it's to drive a point or will change later to either a different protagonist or mechanic. It doesnt have to go super dark but it needs a twist cause right now it's kinda lame.

The demo itself is ok enough but also repetitive. It didnt have to be 43 minutes. I like that it's not cringy metagamer humor but honest. Needs more polish in some areas, the sound effect are weak and the direction overall is bad and lacks delivery.

Now fow a NEW game i spotted at random, KARANEKO, an undertale/omori like or something. It has the tags PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR so it got me interested.



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Ok so i'll clarify before, i did not finish this demo because

1-It kept freezing over and over. I got at least 4 freezes and one hard crash.
2-It has no reason to be this long other than bad pacing. I played this for 2,3 hours wtf.
3-I do not know how to finish this. I simply cannot find the npc i have to talk and my game doesnt match a youtube video. Idk what went wrong.

So going to how much i cleared, i think Karaneko is an undertale like mixed with omori. You start the game in real life with you (Karam) and your brother (Nayan) that loves you very much and you take care. Examining stuff shows how you used to have a group of friends that you grew distant after you mom died. You have some choices here and there like being nicer to your bro or not, but nothing too bad (you can eat his sandwich for example).

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(i thought this feminine kid was a girl at first, as he has such a "big bro obcessed" energy i also thought it was one of those little sister fetish games*)

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(there are lot of drawings like this, really sells the artists effort)
You play not!Touhou pvp with him and he dies instantly so i wonder if you can intentionally die earlier to make him happy. You find some scrapped music notes in the thrash and it's clear he was trying to compose something for you.

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("you are my hero oniichan uwu")

From the drawings you'll see that Karam is either embelishing these memories or is kinda of mary sueish because he keeps remembering him being the cool guy who teached everyone, was best at games, took fault for his friend breaking the window etc. He comes across as hyper responsible with a slight tinge of depression over his dead mom. One curious detail is that Karam names all his friends but one girl is only called "X", which i assume was his girlfriend and he has a note with her phone in his inventory that says "why do i keep this?". He also has a fuckton of water bottles in his room which is a gag i don't really get.

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(What are we, some kind of OMORI?)

Eventually Nayan sleeps and you go the market buy christmas decorations. There you find your old friends, some are cool with you, some wish you'd go out more, some are a bit resentful for not talking with them again, some moved out.

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(I apreciate how almost every npc has a portrait)
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(oh oh, this girly smokes and dyes her hair, this means she became a delinqueeeeent)
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(that's a lot of twinks...)
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(At some point it feels like the dev has created too many OCs because it feels dumb how many friends he meets in the span of a few minutes)
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And then there is THIS GUY who sounds like he was madly in love me and i backstabbed him for my brother. Any nuance in this story was lost because he has to explain everything and suddendly i realize i'm in OMORI but shit.

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(whoa calm down there you're giving me strong yaoi vibes here)
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(ok this line was unnecessary after the previous one, you don't have to explain my feelings).
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(was it your heart too?)
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(oh... OH... That's a lot darker. Karam said "the accident" but i didnt think it would be something that killed multiple people...)
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(Wait was X that girl? Was that my ex girlfriend then? oh boy)

Then the combat gameplay start and we fight Ark (who is this guy). We can talk or fight.

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(he throws some punch projectiles that are slow. I wonder if i can die in this fight?)

You have the option to calm him down, tell him to stay quiet or ignore him. Some make him mad, one ends the fight.
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(i like the battle portraits between talk attempts but wait- FOUR MONTHS? That's all? I thought he ignored you for years or something. Don't you guys live close, are you telling me no one ever visited him? Did he not go to school? what?)

I refused to punch him and ingored him until he left in frustration. Kinda want to retry and punch him to see what happens. Anyways, we do more fluff with our bro like bake cookies and play chess. But then they need milk for the cookies and he goes to the store at this hour in the rain.

Wait WHAT? That's retarded. Why wont Karam go there? This feels extremely out of character and contrived. And it is because we get surprise red flags.

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(They have a black cat named Yurim. I forgot to mention it but that name is important)

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(haha it sure would be perfect if mom was alive. I miss her so much big bro. I want to stay ith you forever big bro)

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OH GOD OH FUCK IT'S OUT NOWHERE GLITCHY EFFECTS! THAT MEANS I'M GETTING-

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I GOT MOTHERFUCKING ISEKAIED!

Turns out i changed clothes to something weirdly omoriesque (socks and cape?) and i'm apparently in some kind of magical academy where i'm a student now. The room besides me has a very pretty boy who uses THOU like he's an ol knight or something and he's really nice and polite and wonders why i woke him up, as if he already knows me when i have no clue who he is.

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(This fucking twink is overloading my yaoi radar and i do not like it. I feel like it's only a matter of time until we see a cat boy).

We walk more the academy that is shaped suspiciously like my house. That boy whose name i forgot because there is no name in the portraits calls me to "train magic" with our friend laskha. Because apparently we dont know magic.

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(*yaoi radar explodes*)

Laschka is a cat boy. He's eager to play with us (oh no). But the way hat boy talks feels like he is hiding something and knows a lot about us and that laska is also hiding someone in the room. He says he's in the room with his sister but laska tries to correct and hat boy goes on. Then turns out that a cat woman comes out of the bed and yells at us for waking her up.

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(Lady this room was locked before with this catboy inside. Mind explaining what you two were doing?)

In this fight she taunts us for wanting to train magic so she'll show us how it's done. In a fight!

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(for some reason you can chose someone here. Karam name is now "??????" which i find bizarre as hatboy calls me Karam and i ask him about my brother so i remember my own idendity so what???? I picked myself.)

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(i think hatboy name is Luminyan which sounds too cat like to not be intentional)

In this battle we have a full party and there is a mechanic where i pick random energy drops that fuel my friends magic. Hatboy gives a shield and catboy throws a projectile, each has their button press. This is interesting but hilariously never comes up again the demo i leave them after this.

Oh yeah, i got a new weapon in the academy a useles magic wand. If i fight with it i throw a shitty stick that bounces and i must get it to shoot again. Otherwise i can punch where random prompts appear in the arena and i mess step and press. Both weapons feel garbage to use. This boss fight is really hard and feels like you're supposed to lose and i lost.

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(Fucking LOL you mean, this is the only time they say fuck in the demo)

After this fight we must go to our rooms but then i invade hat boy room and he's not there. I find a key in his tablethat opens the closet in my room, where i go in and get... Isekaied AGAIN! Now to a forest with a cat girl.

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(hope you enjoyed those oldschool kawaii desu ne neko neko roleplay girls cause you'll have to endure this one)

I meet a catgirl who is named Yurim aka the name of my black cat. She asks my name and i find it retarded. I input Karam and she says it sounds familiar (hmm). I go back and try others, using Nayan also says the same but others she doesnt mention so i kept Karam.

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We go explore the pink forest and Yurim will comment on fucking everything. This is the devs favourite oc and you must love her too. This game is tagged psychologocial horror so i already know this girl will be a boss and/or have a mental breakdown later. She created everything in the forest, every sign, every bridge, planted every tree, etc. It starts getting creepy and you'll see why. We go to her house and tell her our story and she doesnt believe it. She says we should talk to some strangers who also entered the forest the other day.

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(girl has waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to many portraits)

We can also fight random enemies now, they're funny quirk animals and they seem to be upset at yurim eating or pranking them. But i dont know why would pick peace over fight as there is seemingly no difference, no exp or response or anything, despite the steam page saying choices have consequences.

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(Karam looks like a fucking loser now wow)
Oh yea, let me get this out of the way first. I did not like the combat. It suffers the same problems with every recent UT-like i played, where there is literally no reason to fight as you only get gold that you dont need if you dont fight. This game doesnt even have exp or a victory screen (seriously it just fades back to map).

But the main problem is that balance is wonky as fuck and enemy attacks are a too long. You can legit lose all your hp within an enemy first attack which is absurd (i think undertale prevents that). Some are also much harder than others and the battle music is this wacky ass clown thrash music.

Anyway there is one interesting bit where the librarian is missing and there is a poster. Yurim says we should move on. We must visit the libraby and she goes there and finds nobody and is sad.

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(this was a lil sad but then it crashed my game and i felt upset)

One of those strangers is rose, who looks like a white mage girl. She is ambiguously nice and kinda bland but nice and we have a long talk about the stuff yurim built and i forgot.

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Oh yeah, there is actually normal people in this forest and it's WEIRD. Why are there normal people, it's not really explained but i guess there is a teacher and as chool and kids but also talking creatures.

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(this guy is a teacher who loves milk i guess)
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WHY ARE YOU GIVING ME MORE YAOI FUEL? STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP

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These ladies ask who is this "handsome young man" and shit and it gives me safe "ara ara pedo mommy" comedy. Yurim says she will bite them first if they touch us.

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(the game froze again! fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck)

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(I respect how many npcs have portraits but this girl in particular feels like a fucking kickstarter OC which is weird as there is no kickstarter yet).

Anyway we go talk to the fisherman to get a fish (wow). On the way back we fight a bee. After fighting a bee a character that looks like a deviantart OC is impressed and challenges us.

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This guy thinks he's really hot shit and the shadow coolest and we should be his servant, but in reality he's kinda dumb. You know what this is? It's fucking GREAT PAPYRUS again! In another undertale clone! He keeps ruining a generation of videogames!

As we fight Oskos (what a fucking dumb name) he throws me a shadow knife and tells me to use against him. The knife is an ACTUALLY GOOD WEAPON as it fires a fast projectile up so you can play a normal schmup game. But i didnt do that and i kneeled until his sister appeared.

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(Ophelia is a cool vendor who likes money and gives more dommy mommy vibes, presumably to compensate for her himbo brother)

They are together with Rose anda girl dressed as shark who is apparently Ophelia's servant, we talk more and decide to go spend night with them in their cabin. It becomes night and i realize that when i go into this other zone with a portal and back the music loops and stacks on top of itself becoming a demon cacophony.

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(actually this girl might be some kind of sex slave or something as she barks for ophelia and calls her lady ophelia with heart portrait)

Inside we have some good talks and Oskos says i should use the knife so it gets stronger while rose says i shouldnt use that shit as Oskos is retarded and his weapons are dangerous. Anyway we have dinner and oskos gets drunk and vomits. Then we sleep.

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(cute)

Then we wake up and go outside and we eavesdrop rose talking about how this place is insane and everyone is a godamn brainwashed npc who repeats the same lines and has no lives and i'm like WHAT???

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Yurim cries and says the place is totally real and not fake. She says she thought she finally found real friends in them but they never liked her. Rose wants none of that shit, she's out.

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Ok so there is a few main problems with this twist. First of all, it comes out o nowhere. Sure Yurim making everything implies there is something wrong but i thought she would be trapped here and others were too, not that this is fake.

Another big issue here is that Rose is lying. The npcs do change dialogue when you're not with yurim and on the next day, and they all react to you. I did NOT get the vibe that these are fake npcs or something, if there was any foreshadow at all i mussed.

But the main problem is a hard to see which is the fact that this is way too sudden and akward reveal. I do not know why rose decided the first thing she must do after waking up is get away from yurim and yell about hating this place. It's not like she regrets at all and even says "Yurim needed to hear that for her own good" so why would she move away? Why not tell her in person? Or hell why not tell US the player in secret?

It would've made much more sense if she tried to talk to us before and say "hey you're new here right? You notice some stuff is wrong?" and said she was planning to leave and we should consider going with her or something. But in the demo it feels like someone smacked the dev and told them to add some drama right now because nothing happened so far.

And that's the other issue isn't it, until this point it feels like the developer make up too many groups of OC and wanted all of them to hang out and forgot to pace their videogame. The magic academy section is pointless in this demo as you dont return there and feels bizarre to get isekaied again after 10 minutes. Remember when this was about finding my brother?

But here comes the reason i quit, i simply cannot find Yurim after this point. I dont know if my save file is fucked or something but she is not where the video says she should be and i'm kinda bored and tired after more than 2 hours.

There is more to the demo later like Yurim being sad and having a breakdown and a REAL evil force appearing.

So tl;dr: The art is good but combat is pointless and slow and not fun. I do not know whats the difference between being peaceful or violent and felt no real change. There is too much dialogue and padding and too many twink OCs. I get isekaied within my isekai and forgot what was my goal. I couldn't even finish as i cant find npc and game kept freezing.

Some personal problems is that i did not feel like the MC Karam was a hikikomori as he seems fairly normal and responsible. It was only 4 months so it's dumb no one tried to contact or visit him. The game gives him enough thoughts to have a voice but not enough to have a personality so he's ambiguously nice. After the isekai he loses the thoughts and becomes silent self insert.

The trailer got 45k views in 3 days so there is clear interest and the art might be enough to carry a kickstarter but this needs some big rewrites and tighter pacing. For as slow and shallow as i find omori, it does have very high production, attacks feel good and the real world parts are extremely good. It also has a small main cast while Karaneko spreads itself too thin.
 
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gaysexenjoyer said:
So has anyone actually played YIIK?

What the fuck was the deal with that game?
Click to expand...
Don't get high on your own farts is a good summary. The yiik thread here can probably explain it better, but the game wasn't fun and its message was very antagonistic. It had a sort of a remake last year but it was mediocre so it didn't even get negative attention.
 
Truly a lot of Mother-likes at once! Cairn and Dreamed Away seem the most interesting, especially the latter, which I was waiting for a while. Checked some videos, DA has multiple endings depending on your actions which sounds cool, including bad endings, of course. On the other hand, it has a turn based combat ala Undertale (that's bad because I have slow reflexes), and you don't have a party as it's the MC's story.
I wonder which one is best.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
I watched the new "true ending" and it's the gayest shit ever, not even as a joke it works from how cringe it is. It's not even original, Space Funeral did it before.
Click to expand...
That ending is one of many, and it requires doing specific actions certain circumstances that may not happen in your playthrough as some RNG is involved. Plus it's clearly played for laughs.
 
I tried to play some Cairn Mathair curse and i genuinely don't understand how the dev fucked the balance this bad. I thought the demo was easy but it was a demo to showcase enemies, it just had to fix the stun thing and it was fine.

But the final game is a fucking pain to play there is no actual resting spot anywhere and npcs sell overpriced shitty healing items and feels like it takes forever to get one level so wtf happened.

Enemies are so bizarrely frustrating for a starting area. My first fight is against 2 blue balls with faces and they cast confuse and i legit almost died on the first fight cause the mc was confused turn one and kept punching his friend. I had no cure item for confusion either.

The stop sign starts the fight with an aoe unavoidable team wide stun and does it every 2 turns on top of beign tanky (there is no reason to fight itever). A random duck does a +12~ triple hit (i have 40~ hp at the start) and calls for help from other ducks and has high hp. A fly swarm will start with 5 enemies against my team of 2 and for insane reason each fly can take up to 3 swings if i get unlucky to hit low. Bats will suck my life and put me to sleep.

In earthbound your first enemies you fight is going to be a single enemy that deals 3-4 dmg in their strongest low chance attack.

And you know what, this would be FINE if you could rest but i can't, which is bizarre because there was a doctor who can heal you for free before but not when shit starts to go down. At least when you go in the first breath of fire 2 dungeon, there is a heal shrine that lets you heal for free so you can grind safely and not run all the way back to an inn.
Here it feels awful to grind cause i don't know if it's even sustainable. At least give me an easy mode option, i used that in Jimmy and i won't be an elitist about it.

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(i agree with these 2, the only negative reviews)

Another main issue with the game is that i's fucking S L O W to start man. You have a flashback with the old man in the forest, then you play the MC and he's has a dream sequence then fumbles around then another dream then more talking then you go outside and walk THE. ENTIRE. FREAKING. ISLAND. at blind (no map button what year is this??) and if you care you would anyway since there is some chests to get so by the time the evil cultists attack the town or something i had already player over TWO HOURS.

I assume it's trying to be like mother 3, setup the mood of the city before disaster strikes and i'm 99% sure my mom is going to die but not even mother 3 was this slow, mostly because is just easy to navigate and paced well. You waste a lot of time going back and forth this ever present forest with no sense oh how the screen you're currently at connects to.

At least the dev seems aware of this and the first real update is an attempt to adress it. There will be single use flowers that restore you and starter enemies are nerfed but that's retarded, give me a real infinite resting spot, paid or not. I don't know if i'll re-pirate this to try again but we'll see.
 
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