Misao

Misao

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 2/5
Comments: The first thing that I thought of when playing this game was how similar it was to Corpse Party in a lot of respects. That being said it made it at least a little interesting for me as the very limited story continued. You start as the "new girl" in school called Aki (name is customisable but I never bothered). She says that some girl called Misao vanished from school and that she wanted to be friends with her and that it's very sad. The next day at school a whole bunch of people start talking about it and saying that she cursed everyone... and then they get thrown into a new world.

The game style is rather cute and I liked the pixels. It was similar to those RPG maker sprites but made to look noticeably pixelated. The Portraits were really well-drawn which surprised me. You don't normally see a well-drawn portrait for an RPG. They may not have had a full range of emotions but you didn't really need that. One was more than enough to get the tone of what was being said.

I didn't pay that much attention to the music because it was on an endless loop most of the time unless some event was happening. Although whenever Misao talked you for some reason heard these chime bells that sounded really alien and creepy. The main thing that I hated in this game was how many ways there was to die. There weren't as many as The Witch's House but almost every other option killed you.

The ending... what can I say? This game was so damn sad ALL THE TIME. Especially when you find what you have been searching for. You open a cupboard and out pops "Misao's Legs". Yeah. This game had a really sad back story and almost NO happy ending because the girl died for NO REASON whatsoever. There wasn't really proper closure which left me feeling awful for having played that game.... I'm sorry Misao! D:

Ib

Ib

Operating System: PC
Rating: 5/5
Comments: This was actually better than I was expecting it to be. After the failed attempt at Ao Oni I was expecting some lame chase game. this was pleasantly surprising!

You play as a little girl called Ib (or Eve, depends on the translation really) who gets lost in an art gallery. She looks at a strange painting and suddenly everyone vanishes from the gallery! When you try to find them you realise you can step into this large painting in the centre of the gallery which takes you to a strange world.

This game has very nice gameplay, with little things that will make you jump simply because they pop out of nowhere. There's also multiple endings and I was determined to get the best one because Garry is so sweet.

It was well put together and thought out, and all done in pixel RPG style. Despite the art style you really get quite attached to the main characters.

Margrave 3: The Curse of the Severed Heart

Margrave: The Curse of the Severed Heart

Operating System: PC/Mac
Website: Official Website
Rating: 2/5
Comments: Well it started with a personalised soundtrack, which was new, but the first scene was a little dubious. It was real people sketched in… not liking that. One of the male voice actors sounded like the guy from The Lost Crown which kinda made me worry. I don’t think the voice acting was bad, I’ve heard a lot worse. The NPCs got worse. They were real people, reminiscent of Ravenheart 13th Skull. In fact, it was like watching a B-Grade movie in still frames!

The sketching was new and exciting. I liked that a lot. Plus the keepsakes were adorably cute. There were two different inventory screens. There was the usual cursor change, this one was quite large and noticeable. I liked that, sometimes with the smaller ones I can miss things.

The puzzles were ok. Not too hard at the beginning. I got bored of the plot, wasn’t really paying attention. I was more focussed on getting through the game then what was happening. Also, surprise surprise! The monster was some mythological Celtic beast. The best game was the naming one where you had to put together the names of the spirits... most of them were really bad though... like "Boneheart" and "Blackwhite"... yeah, they didn't try too hard with those