The Rabbit Hole

Flowstone Saga – In the isolated island town Ocean’s End, an amnesiac girl named Mirai stumbles upon a mysterious power that lets her fight monsters and construct objects; and traces it back to her connection with relic “Pangaean” technology as pirates and the local Empire bear down on the island. This won me with the concept of a jrpg where the battles are all games of Tetris. They do a decent job with that concept! You get “perks” as you level up, can equip items and consumables, and can change classes; all of which affect the pieces you get and the special effects they cause on monsters. (I never really got the knack of strategy within battle using powers and equipment—you can win just by being good at Tetris.) There’s a lot of scrabbling for materials for upgrades and sidequests and most of the gameloop is “watch a scene with a villager request, then go to the new area and find 100% of the stuff in it.” My complaints are that most of the actual sidestories and some of the lore is hidden away in the restaurant cutscenes; and the lategame feels a little unfinished. Oh, and getting 100% is annoyingly hard because there’s no way to skip battles with weak enemies when you revisit an area searching for the single thing you missed. (And a few of the percentages and an achievement may be bugged!) But in general, it’s an excuse to play lots of Tetris with a plot, but manages that without microtransactions. Works for me!

Axiom Verge – I’m pretty sure I picked this up in a Steam sale at some point; I think it had been on my Wishlist for a while. It’s an interesting metroidvania, emphasis on the “Metroid”, as both the graphical style and the fact all of your initial upgrades are different guns would indicate. I found the difficulty level a bit too high (as is often the case for me with metroidvania games that don’t have any rpg elements), and was all set to cull this until I discovered that it has a cheat system: You can enter the Konami code at the start screen to start a new game with the password item (that you otherwise find about a third of the way into the game) and you can enter an invincibility code. Once I wasn’t constantly dying, I thought the navigation puzzles and upgrades were very clever. (There are some really inventive power-ups including a glitch gun and an upgradable teleporter that lets you pass through one or more blocks.)

Trinity Trigger – In a world where the gods of order and chaos had a war that left their gigantic weapons scattered over the land, our protagonist has a magical mark that names him the Warrior of Chaos, destined to continue the battle for the gods in proxy. (I will give this credit for the worldbuilding, because the giant god-weapons as both dungeons and hazards that warp the world around them really works.) His first companion is a Trigger, a cute little sidekick monster that can shapeshift into different weapons; and he’s eventually joined by two more humans with their own triggers and ties to the tumultuous world political structure. This feels like an Ys game, between the 3/4 -view action-rpg style with rotating weapons to hit enemy weaknesses; and also given the extensive vendortrash-based crafting systems. The character designs share a lot with The Legend of Legacy, which at least some of the same developers worked on. It honestly feels a little padded for what they have here—despite the areas having distinct looks and some unique features, the gameplay loop gets very repetitive and there really isn’t enough plot and character development to support a 15-20 hour game. It’s a fun little action-rpg, but I skipped the postgame (apparently just more sidequests and superbosses) because I was ready to be finished.

Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince – The second in a series of 2D Zelda-like adventures that are framed as Grandpa telling a story to his two grandkids; which also means there are bits where the kids argue about what enemies you should fight or what sort of puzzle you face, so you get to choose. The prologue section is a tutorial and is deceptively easy; this isn’t insane but it’s not a beginner’s game. It’s also much more linear than you’d think, as the item/plot gating is very effective in keeping you to the areas you’re supposed to be in. But it is a solid 2D Zeldalike, with a full variety of tools and puzzles (both tool-based and brainteasers) and plenty of sidequests and hidden prizes. Basically, if you want something cute and A Link to the Past inspired, this has got you covered.

Lenna’s Inception - I played this a few years ago, and was in the mood to do it again when it showed up in the Games Done Quick Humble Bundle. (Also, it meant I could get the Steam achievements for it.) It still delights as a randomized 2D Zeldalike drawing from the culture of randomized Zelda speedrunning; and I totally recommend it if that appeals to you.

And two games I’m culling:

Eastward – Clearly inspired by Earthbound and Undertale, but this is an action-rpg with Zeldalike combat and puzzle solving. (And it’s very linear, broken up into chapters with missable sidequests but without backtracking.) You play an orphan and her adopted father in a repressive, dirt-poor underground society who believe there’s nothing in the world above but disaster. This also features a Dragon Quest-inspired game-within-a-game that you can play at an arcade machine. I’m not entirely certain why I didn’t click into it very well, because it’s ostensibly things I like. Maybe it was the extended sections with two-character switching; maybe it was the chapter progression forcing you to play very carefully to avoid important missables. I played more than 5 hours and into chapter 3, so about a quarter of the game, but I’ve been avoiding going back to it. It’s a shame that the aesthetic is really cool; it’s got a serious MOTHER 3 (“Cute, quirky, heartrending”) vibe going and the story is interesting. I just didn’t vibe with it as a game.

I Am Setsuna – An official Square-Enix game that tries to recapture the magic of the SNES era with prettier graphics. You’re a mercenary from a tribe of mercenaries who is tasked with killing a girl named Setsuna; but she’s the designated “sacrifice” who’ll stop monsters from overrunning the world, so you end up as her protector on her pilgrimage instead. It’s straightforwardly derivative in the way I’ve come to expect from KEMCO; with blatant references to other games mashed together but no real commentary on them. The plot has clear allusions to FF10; the battle system is much more like Chrono Trigger; and the upgrade system is closer to FF7’s materia crossed with FF12’s vendortrash setup. And the VFX artists really like snow. I made two attempts at this, each several years apart before finally making a third go at getting into it—and giving up about a quarter of the way into the game. (This is another game where only 65% of players have the Achievement you automatically get for following the plot for an hour.) It’s too derivative and insufficiently fun.

Originally formed as an undergrad acappella group at Indiana University in the 90s, the founding members re-formed their group in 2007 as professional performers after a video they made in 1998 went viral. Since then, they continued to rotate in new members (apparently all of whom were once in the still-extant undergrad group), and currently touring with a nine-man lineup.

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Overall: This was a fun concert, and nostalgic in more ways than one, as it was an extremely 90s acappella group doing 90s songs. College acappella has evolved (often for the better, but not always), and this felt like a time capsule in a bunch of ways.