52 Games Challenge 2024!!!!!

[realpoketendonl]

26. Solatorobo: Red the Hunter

I've been curious about this game for a while. I'll be honest, that was in part just because it's one of the more rare and valuable DS games. I somehow managed to snag it complete in box for just 50 bucks though, and after that I of course had to play it too. And I'll be damned, I'm impressed. This game is fantastic!

Solatorobo is what I think I'd call an action RPG. First of all: its size and scope is legitimately impressive for the DS, with multiple large sculpted worlds, creative tricks for impressive animations, and multiple playstyles with decent depth. This is on par if not above some of the highest quality titles I've played on the system. The creators really put their all into it.

The game has a ton of variety. While the regular combat takes up a good part of the game, the quests are allover the place. You go from combat to doing other tasks with your robot to open-arena flying to flying on rails to walking around and talking to people. It switches up constantly, and impressively remains almost constantly engaging. The game is divided up into two campaigns, and while I admit I started to find the game a tad bit monotonous for a tiny bit towards the end of the first campaign, all throughout the second campaign especially I was totally hooked.

Combat is solid and good fun. You control your robot in 3D space, and use it to pick up and throw enemies. It's impressively unique, very smooth to control, and slamming enemies feels really good. I'll be honest though, especially in the first half of the game it's very largely a button masher. If you can mash A, you'll get through without ever breaking a sweat. At times the enemies are laughable. But in the second half of the game, it gets a lot more engaging, because your combat skills get expanded with extra options. It's genuinely satisfying and fun. It honestly makes me wish we had an expanded version of this combat system with more options at your disposal on a more powerful system, because what's here is unlike anything I've played before.

The characters and story are really good too. Especially in the second campaign, I was completely hooked. There's a surprising amount of lore and worldbuilding here, supported by strong characters and an engaging plot. It really draws you in. This world is captivating and speaks to your imagination. I will say there is a LOT of text and dialogue. It feels like you spend over half of your time reading. But with the solid writing and tight storytelling, I honestly didn't even mind. Never did I find a character annoying.

The game is not difficult at all. I got through most of the game completely ignoring the upgrades I could give my robot, and even towards the end I never really struggled. But low difficulty is not a bad thing at all if the game is engaging and fun, and this one definitely is.

If I had to criticise the game, I can think of three things. One, I don't like how they sometimes outright halt your progress and force you to complete sidequests before you can continue the story. It feels arbitrary, and while the sidequests are fun, they grind the plot to a halt. That could've been worked in a little better. I didn't love the music either, but that's no dealbreaker. The third thing though, there are two very brief moments in the game that really stuck out to me like a sore thumb, and I feel like I have to mention it (CW: inappropriate conduct. If you don't want to read this, skip to the next paragraph) (also spoilers). There's a main character who's hundreds of years old but is stated to look like a kid (yeah, they pull that trick). And while most of the game she's just treated as a good friend with at best completely sfw romantic undertones, there are two really out-of-nowhere scenes where, in a first person perspective, the protagonist opens a shower curtain and she's there, wrapped in a towel. It feels gross and inappropriate, and I have NO idea why it's there. I had honestly already forgotten about it until I started writing this, but it's a real shame, because it's completely unnecessary and I can see some people getting turned away from this game just because of these few seconds alone (and I can't blame them, that'd be fair). It honestly makes me feel a little weird to talk about how fantastic the game is otherwise (but just look at large review sites too, it really is!). I try to view it as some of the inappropriate stuff with Misty in the early Japanese Pokémon anime and manga, or like the suggestive stuff in Totally Spies. It's bad, it shouldn't be ignored, but you can look past it and still enjoy everything else that's there.

But yeah, apart from that, if you can look past that, the game is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. I think I can genuinely say it's one of the best games on the system. I know it's really hard to get a hold of nowadays, but if you have a way to play it, it's totally worth it.

(Also one final thing: yes, it's apparently part of a series, but that's not indicated anywhere in the game and I didn't even know that until I already started playing. You don't need to play the other games at all to understand this game though: it works perfectly on its own.)

[kashell]

(Also one final thing: yes, it's apparently part of a series, but that's not indicated anywhere in the game and I didn't even know that until I already started playing. You don't need to play the other games at all to understand this game though: it works perfectly on its own.)

Waffle from Tail Concerto (and maybe some of the characters) make cameos, but you're correct. There's no need to play other games in the series to enjoy Red the Hunter. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on it. It was a fun game.

[kashell]

83. Metaphor: ReFantazio

What. A. Game. It's crazy that I didn't pay this game much attention until after it was released. It's hard for me to think of a negative critique. Maybe some of the dialogue being too wordy? Even that's a stretch. The game really was just that good. Trying to summarize it all here is an undertaking because the game itself is an undertaking. Maybe it'd be more accurate to call it a "fundertaking" because the game never stopped being fun. I'll do a replay at some point due to a trophy but for now I'm going to focus on getting a review going and playing something else that's lighter.

[kashell]

84. Divine Dynamo Flamefrit

I said I wanted to polish off something light, and this was certainly that. Less than two hours. It's a top-down, 2D action inspired both by 90s anime (which I adore) and classic Zelda. I guess Inti Creates had a video of it for an April Fool's joke, but the fans were curious and they ended up making an actual game. That's pretty cool. I only paid a couple of bucks for it so I don't feel totally robbed but maybe one or two more areas would have been fine. Oh well, I had a lot of fun with it.

[dhaabi]

43. Please, Touch the Artwork 2 || PC || 11.22.24



By chance, I came across Please, Touch the Artwork 2 and was pleasantly surprised to find that it's a hidden object puzzle game. Despite being titled as a sequel, I'm unsure of its connection to the developer's previous game as they neither share the same genre nor art style.

Throughout the game, players assume the role of some traveling skeleton roaming the set of real-life historical paintings to locate specific items that are being tasked to find. Instead of single-screen gameplay or gameplay that involves constant camera panning, players instead navigate a 2D, interconnected environment that's divided as a series of paintings. Constantly, the nameless player-character weaves in-and-out of the foreground and background as if they're a part of the painting and not some foreign entity. Despite the environment being a painting, elements (most often live subjects) are animated which makes exploring dynamic and engaging. More often than not, these animated pieces obscure hidden objects. The game isn't interactive, meaning all its information to find is present without player action needing to be taken, aside from obvious secondary puzzles that generally reveal more of the painting environment which I'll later detail.

As the game progresses, several sets of items will often be needed to find at once across a series of rooms. Of course, the player walks around to inspect their surroundings, so that the player-character's body instructs the field is a small but welcomed detail and was one that sometimes kept me from finding what was needed. Eventually, some hidden objects become expertly hidden in plain view. The game's distinctive art style makes the task challenging, as its layered colors and brush strokes create a complex field to navigate. While the field itself is comprised of real-life historical artwork, hidden objects and other miscellaneous set pieces are fully integrated as additions layered above the original piece while disappearing once found. However, an in-game hint system that's always turned on exists. A light bulb shines if an object to find is present in the current room, though players must manually select the icon to know where it's located specifically. At first, I had ignored this UI element until I became unable to find an item, but once I knew how the system worked, I found it to be more preferable to players to have the ability to toggle the system instead of being forced to ignore it.

Alongside the hidden object gameplay, a reoccurring side objective involves repairing a painting's frame which comes in the form of another puzzle. In short, players must connect all paths together without retracing any pieces. In one section, a spot the difference type puzzle is introduced which I enjoyed as well. Lastly, a call-and-repeat type section requiring the player to player a specific series of piano keys is present. Generally, none of the puzzle designs are difficult while the smaller sections introduce varied gameplay that's effective at preventing the player to become bored. As one final aspect to mention, there is a morbid tone sprinkled throughout the narrative that adds to the game's eccentric nature.

By all accounts, Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is far better than it should be. That it's a free game is somewhat perplexing as it's presented and executed with high quality. Compared to other games within the genre that I've played, it easily bests them all.