What I Got Up To This Month (November 2023)

So, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is incredible.

 

I think I might actually mean that in the literal sense. The sheer scale and breadth of this game was constantly wowing me, reminding me of my time with Elden Ring (which, itself, made me think of Breath of the Wild). I loved Breath of the Wild (I still do) but this game is in so many ways a bigger and more fleshed out version of that game. It builds on mechanics and reuses a great deal of content from its predecessor but by doing so all of the new systems they've bolted on don't feel overwhelming. You have that foothold, that baseline for how the game works, so whenever something new comes about your brain has something to latch onto. You hear talk about "emergent gameplay" with these sorts of games (I have Idle Thumbs to blame for giving me such an appreciation for Far Cry 2 and its "grenades rolling down hills") but by giving you what is effectively the Garry's Mod phys-gun you can build so many contraptions.

I've had this game hanging over me like the sword of Damocles for so long so now that I've finished it I've decided to give some shorter games I've been keeping an eye on a shot. I've actually written about all of these in my previous posts that covered some Steam Next Fest demos.

First up is Amarantus, a visual novel.  It's flawed, sure, and some of the worldbuilding felt scattered and hard to intuit in ways that didn't necessarily seem intentional, but the vibes of this thing are immaculate. You're playing as a peasant on-the-run who's made it his mission to overthrow his nation's dictator and you're forced to juggle conversations and interpersonal relationships as you make your way to the capitol. There are really only a handful of characters in this but all of them are well-realized and their bickering and arguments feel genuine and real. I feel like it'd be all but impossible to get a "good" ending on your first go, but even my "bad" ending I got after hours of blind choices felt like a natural endpoint to my story. This is such a narrative heavy thing and I realize I'm talking in circles to try not to spoil it, but if you like visual novels this is worth giving a look.

 

Next is Venba, a game that's effectively a visual novel with a handful of cooking minigames. Its story is comprised of a series of vignettes that follow a woman and her husband as they try to fit into North American society and, by showing her trying to decipher old recipes her grandmother compiled, gives us a few glimpses into her life and how she still feels a tie to her homeland. It's fairly short and I think I honestly would have preferred more minigames (they're sorta fun!) but it's still a good time. It reminded me of Florence, another game that told a story largely through (lovingly rendered) simple puzzles.
 

I also played "En Garde!", a charming platformer/action game about a Robin Hood/Zorro/Scarlet Pimpernel-esque vigilante who uses her sword to fight her way past an evil aristocrat's militia. There's a lighthearted Saturday Morning cartoon vibe to a lot of it, it also all feels very Errol Flynn, and overall I just had a really good time. Combat seems simple but gets tricky as you progress, moving from simple one-on-one swordfights to large brawls in open areas that force you to slide over tables and kick objects towards enemies to level the playing field. Some of its "thief with a heart of gold" vibe also reminded me of Sly Cooper, unexpectedly, and anything that calls that to mind is worth recommending.

I later played "It's A Wrap!", a game that I'd probably describe as a platformer-meets-video-editor puzzle game. You follow an actor as he goes through the stunts for his movie but rather than simply just having you run through various setpieces it has you, in a sense, scripting those same setpieces before you traverse them. You'll be presented with a screen where you can dictate when an explosive might go off, or which direction a conveyor belt might move at a given time, and using a combination of the variables at your disposal you set up an arena that you'll then need to platform your way through, so that the end result looks like the action scene from the script for the movie. If that all sounds complicated then I understand, and the later sequences of this game were honestly a bit much for me to wrap my head around, but this game does a good job of easing you through the mechanics so it'll all seem relatively second-nature after a certain point. It's not incredibly long (and I, uh, may have cheated for solutions to some later puzzles because there was just too much going on for me to think clearly) but the first half of this game, at least, is so very cool.

There were a few other things that I played but I intend to write something more focused for each of those games. Maybe this'll be something I do every month, or maybe this is just a one-off because I'm only now realizing I didn't write post during November and I want to put something out. Only future-me will know for certain.