Game Life Landscape-1

At the end of the year, please allow me to introduce my game life of 2023.

Game Life Landscape of Syl (ver20231229) created by Syl

Let's start from a big change of the scale: now the games mentioned in "Part A" could appear again in the "Part B", which directly changes the "All-time Selection" of "Visual Novel", "Adventure Game" and "Puzzle Game". I originally thought that the exclusion could increase the diversity of game in this landscape while this resulted in some perversion of rational selection.

Some of previous "All-time Selections" are visited by me early this year and they are therefore naturally my "This-time Selection" for sure. There is no need to comment more about Stellaris, Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book DX and Monument Valley then.

I have finally visited famous CLANNAD this year and it definitely worth the praise of "masterpiece", whose message about family deeply influenced my thoughts on the topic. It also sent me magnificent music like Nagisa from M. Jun Maeda (though cannot outweigh the song in conlang from Nier: Automata) and presented excellent voicing especially in Kotomi Route. Only in a revisit of Kotomi Route after fully understanding the plot, could you comprehend the excellence of Mme Mamiko Noto's voicing Mlle Kotomi Ichinose to present her innocence and hesitation in face of M. Tomoya Okazaki. However, CLANNAD is still a visual novel by its nature and it hard to say it is overall a better game than something like Automata; When comparing with Itsuka no Memoraĵo ~Kotonoha Amrilato~, it lacks "something personal" like referring lingustics and some of its branchings seem to have defects in storytelling (which also underlay its lost of "This-year Best of Narrative"). I would like to recommend it or at least discuss about its story but personally I would not directly put it onto the shrine of mine.

As the previous "All-time Best Adventure Game", Metro Exodus has been discussed before. And how "aesthetic graphic" made FAR series my "This-year Best of Art" is obvious. I will then explain why the seemingly surprising Madorica Real Estate 2 is even more creative than Portal series. It is true that the gameplay of Portal is better, but Madorica is a puzzle game asking for interactions based on real-world manipulations. I have seen no previous case asking me to fold a real paper or cut or paint it while all of these are crucial for puzzle resolution here. As for creativity, Madorica win without doubt. It would be better to mention Doki Doki Literature Club here as well for its unique use of Ren'Py engine.

In "Part B", though second to Portal 2, Superlimial could still be "This-year Best Puzzle Game" of mine. And Final Fantasy Ⅶ Remake beat Metro with its versatility to be a better "Adventure Game", e.g., the music, the battle system and elegant Mlle Aerith Gainsborough, lol.

As for Inscription, though I failed to complete it as a poor card game player, its meta elements are impressive, making the whole game outstanding with indie style. It was probably my rough game experience or simply my prejudice that made it second to Vampire Survivors.

And For the King, as a chess game or strategy game it might be lame but it was about 3-player cooperation! For me, I often play a supporting role in most "Mutiplayer Game" but here all three players need fully participation to win the game, which was a novel experience for me.

In "Part C", "This-year The Most Challenging Game" is not a puzzle game but a game demanding for manipulation. Super Bunny Man uses simple gameplay but is quite demanding for the accuration of action and our control sometimes results in unexpected hilarious outcome. I irrationally attempted to score a all three-star but it finally lead to my abandoning this game.

ROUNDS is another two-player game on this list and is even a one-on-one fighting game. To be honest I am not a big fan of "beating your friend" but ROUNDS resolves it by introducing rogue-like element. The loser of each round having the oppotunity to enhance himself makes the game so "Amusing" that my roommate and I kept laughing til about 2 a.m..

On exact the contrary to Barotrauma, Inside the Backrooms that could be 5-player game ended up to be a nightmare of mine. I was oscillating between being bond and being hesitated, with a single Bacteria chasing, killing and making me throw away my headphone. It was the first time in my life to be so scared that I felt physical unease.

Finally, I have recently started to visit the most popular visual novel on VNDB - Saya no Uta. I will definitely write something comprehensive to review it but now I am just so shocked and nearly overwhelmed by its "Depressing" and even dehumanizing atmosphere. Now I oscillate between Saya no Uta to go down and Sanoba Witch from Yuzusoft to recover. Hope that I can soon finish this story without long-time trauma, lol.

It might be good to look ahead of the upcoming game here as a conclusion. Definitely I am one of those anticipating Final Fantasy Ⅶ Rebirth while it remains in doubt whether it could land onto PC platform in 2024. As for visual novel, Tencent Game Key is about to issue their Anemoi in the next year and Nukitashi 2 from Qruppo will land onto Steam in the first season. Let's wait and see anyway~

by Syl & Sylvia @ 2023-12-30 16:13:04 @ Wuhan, Hanyang District
originally posted @ https://www.cnblogs.com @ 2023-12-30