Reveries: Sisterly Love

Reveries: Sisterly Love

Operating System: PC
Website: BigFish page
Rating: 2.5/5
Comments: The music was pretty cool but the 3D, which was better than some, wasn't exactly as good as the Stray Souls cutscenes. It was still a pretty epic cutscene though, but the next in-game ones were nowhere near as good as that. The Prine was also pretty cheesy (dialogue especially) and I wasn't all that impressed with how he was animated.

The plot was: you're really sick (like, with cancer) and your sister says she'll do anything to save you.... so the mirror comes to life and steals her youth and makes you better somehow. TIME TO GO SAVE HER! HUZZAH!

The artwork was really crisp and the journal looked alright. It was like a real book with things stuck in so not too bad at least. The map was a bit weird though. The map parts reminded me of one of the match-3 games I played in that the map destinations looked like levels.

The achievement screen looked pretty awesome. The achievements were all different statues on this really picturesque  world. There was also "fortunes"  but I wasn't all that sure what it was for.

Calavera: Day of the Dead

Calavera: Day of the Dead

Operating System: PC
Website: BigFish page
Rating: 2/5
Comments: So the plot starts with some guy (who is apparently who we pay as) proposing to this girl. She then says not without her father's blessing and off you go to Mexico. You find some creepy book that looks really gross but has some nice journal pages inside. It was hilarious though because it speaks and is all "Yo hombre" because it's Mexican.

The trophy is nice. There's a lot of awards and they fill up a whole page. One of the "get more objects to fill a room" kind of trophy style. There was also a "find the skull" thing which was cool. Adds more to the game when you have little extras.

Some of the puzzles were rather irritating though... actually most of them were. And most of the things just took forever to do. It was like they had a good idea but lost most of it in the puzzles. Such a shame, but it did just end up being boring because the plot wasn't all that prominent to begin with.

Stray Souls 2: Stolen Memories

Stray Souls 2: Stolen Memories

Operating System: PC
Website: BigFish game
Rating: 3.5/5
Comments: Really nice cutscene, looked really professional even the portaits when they talked had good animation. The voice acting wasn't bad either, they must have had a good budget for this game... well, not all of them were good. That art teacher was pretty weird sounding... like a real one. The only thing I didn't like is that the ragdoll didn't seem to be as cute as I remembered. The dolls scared the crikey outta me though... that clown doll... and his creepy ass deep laugh!!!

The ending cutscene though! SO EPIC!

The plot was the typical "someone got stolen, let's go rescue them". In this case it's our dad that we need to save.... except when you find him he runs off with the daughter and seems to be totally crazy.

I like that it offered the usual "casual" or "expert" gameplay levels. I like when you can pick if you want to tear your hair out or not. The map is always good, especially with these adventure HOGs. At least that way you can easily know where you need to go. The items were also not too hard to figure out what to do with them and you could also sometimes get more than one item from doing a HOS - which saves a lot of pointless betweens.

Nightmares of the Deep 2: The Sirens Call

Nightmares of the Deep 2: The Siren's Call

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 2/5
Comments: So it starts with a nice little cutscene with rather nice 3D in some of it. It would seem it something about pirates because this guy just got Kracken'd. It also has a nice recap from what happened in the last game (which I didn't play) with talking so you didn't have to read it. The voice acting wasn't too bad either. It's a shame that I didn't care much about pirates or this might have been more interesting.

The diary, while it wasn't all that exciting did have an objectives tab. The puzzle within a puzzle was a bit tedious though. Not all that difficult but still annoying all the same. The game moves well, a nice combination between adventure and hidden object. I liked that there was an exit clause for the HO scenes: play the scene or play mahjong.

The achievements were exciting though. So many to find, it was great. Some of those bloody parrots though! It took one so long to respawn it was ridiculous.

Otherworld: Omens of Summer

Otherworld: Omens of Summer

Operating System:PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 3/5
Comments: The intro was nice, as there was a previous game before that I hadn't played it gave a nice little summary (with voice acting, yay!) I rather liked the art style in this game, very polished look to it. The voice acting wasn't too bad, usually they have this horrible deadpan voice for all emotions that kinda ruins it a little.

The journal was nice, the font not so much but the hand-drawn sketches were really nice. It's divided into 3 parts with the main story, character profiles and objective. Oh. My. God. Objective! How I missed those. So many games just make me run around forever trying to find a HOS or something. The map was also pretty awesome, it let you move around instantly and also marked places that had things to complete on it so you didn't have to check every single place. I also liked that when you talked to people it had highlighted in yellw what you needed to do/find.

Like always the puzzles were annoying but that's because they get old the more you play these games. I did love how there were hidden fairies to collect. I love my collectables and achievements.

Mad Father

Mad Father

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 2/5
Comments: This game was a lot better than Witch's house AND Misao. It actually had a proper plot. Like, a full back story and progressive plot all the way through! Wow. Step up from the others by leaps and bounds. I also liked that the different choices led to different endings.

This game was an obvious RPG maker map game but I liked that, with the dark setting and custom tiles it worked rather well. Reminded me of One Night in that aspect. It also had large portraits for ALL the characters (yes, even monsters) that changed from normal, happy, scared, angry. It was good. I really liked that part of it, as it has also been a while since I played a proper RPGmaker game.

This one also had multiple endings and none of them seemed to be real classic "happy endings" like I would have wanted. In fact, the one that was the "True Ending" was rather morbid and made you wonder if the girl was quite literally like her father? I'm still conflicted by that... it was a really creepy feeling to watch her with that poor girl at the end.

The Witch's House

The Witch's House

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 1.5/5
Comments: Since I like my horror RPGs I figured I would try this one out since some people said it was "a really good game". They were wrong. It was, in my opinion, just trying so hard to copy Ib that it ended up having a really crap story. You pretty much have to escape from some creepy mansion without really knowing why, you just do it.

The thing I hated about this game: there were TOO many ways to die! Seriously. Everything killed you. Walk into the house, walls cave in and you die. Check a painting on a wall, monster comes out and kills you. The ways to die were sometimes really obvious and it made me cringe when I knew something would pop up when I finished a puzzle.

There were apparently 2 endings, with only one being the true ending. The normal ending made me feel like jumping off a cliff because it made playing the whole game pointless. The "True Ending" was rather sad. Little girl gets tricked by the witch to have her body then won't give it back. It also made me want to jump off a cliff. The dad comes and shoots the girl thinking it's a monster. I would not recommend it.

One Night

One Night

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 2.5/5
Comments: Well this game started out really original and rather creepy if I do say so myself. There were moments where I jumped with all the weird shrieking and all together creepy atmosphere. The dark kinda got annoying after a while though because you really just wanted to be able to see.

The plot got retarded when the NPCs were introduced. I mean, I hate when they decide to get all full of themselves by adding "scientists messing with another dimension". I mean what did they think was going to happen? It's always bad! Plus when you realise just how lame the fight scenes were... or lack there of. You had to avoid everything or you pretty much died. Then there were the "boss monsters" that were SUPER lame. You just had to charge this laser canon by avoiding the monster for 1.30 minutes. It took WAY too long and was very annoying. The last boss took even longer and was even lamer because you ended up in another world... ugh. It ended really badly. Such a shame.

Corpse Party

Corpse Party

Operating System: PSP
Website: Official Website
Rating: 3.5/5
Comments: Typical visual novel style, which was more than a little irksome at times when you just want to play a horror game in peace! There's a LOT of talking. Perhaps too much at times which made me want to grind my teeth and throw my laptop across the room.

The characters were well-drawn and some of the guys (yes, even crazy Kizami) were very loveable. The plot was pretty interesting and kept you rather frustrated with the amount of crazy that ensued... and boy was there a lot of crazy. I wasn't a fan of having multiple endings, I just wanted to get the good one and never look at the game again... but maybe one day I'll go through and see what the "extra chapters" were. Maybe.

Slender games

Slender

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 0.5/5
Comments: This game was stupid. It honest to god was. There was no intro, no game controls, no real reason to play this game other than hearing about it from an internet meme.

What happens is, you click on start and find yourself in a forest. No rhyme or reason, you just do. So you walk around this forest and find notebook pages then some no face guy follows you around. Now, I walked around the whole game after finding that first note and never bumped into him. On a second play I found him once, but never more than 1 page.

The controls were awkward because every time I ran it looked down at the ground. I could never quite figure out the flashlight so when it started to dim I quit the game out of sheer frustration. Don't bother wasting your time, if you really want to, watch a clip on youtube first before getting it.

Haunt: The Real Slender Game

Operating System: PC/Mac
Website: Official Website
Rating: 1.5/5
Comments: Aaaand once again I am disappointed by this game. I seriously got excited when I saw this and thought that there was a whole proper story to back up the stupid Slender craze but nooooo. You start the game and it gives you a MINOR hint of "How did I wake up here?" bullshit and then once again makes you trek around forever while apparently being hunted by Slender Man (who is really not scary. He's a faceless mannequin). Once again I found myself running around a massive expanse of nothingness map and not even sure what I was trying to accomplish?

There were good things about this game, otherwise it wouldn't have a rating. I liked how it let you change the controls at the start, how it had a proper menu and also how it let you select the difficulty. The graphics were a lot better than the first game, but that's to be expected. I still hated this game because there was no real driving force to make you want to continue after a while.

Ao Oni

Ao Oni

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 1/5
Comments: I honestly thought this game would have a meaning to it. I mean, why else would some lame RPG get really popular? Easy. Apparently some stupid guy made a youtube video where he spazzes out a lot and shrieks like a girl. I dunno, haven't seen it, don't want to.

So the gist of the story is: there a haunted house. A group of teens go in there for a scare. The group of teens slowly get picked off one by one by a monster. The monster is a lame giant purple guy.
This whole game consists of: entering a room, running away from the monster. Solving a puzzle, running away from the monster. Finding a new NPC, running away from the monster. Realising there's no point to the game, running away from the monster. This was a terrible game with an even worse ending. Hiroshi escapes and leave all his friends behind and never tells anyone? I mean, 3 people just got killed in that house! It was a pointless game and I'm glad it was only short!

Skyborn

Skyborn

Operating System: PC
Website:Official Website
Rating: 5/5
Comments: I have played a lot of RPGs in my time, not the big budget ones but the small ones made by random people and smaller companies. This one, however, takes the cake. It must have taken them such a long time to plan out and make perfect. There wer no glitches, which is more than I can say for the cheaper ones. This is a must play game!

The story was also very unique. I haven't seen a steampunk RPG before and I loved the story they made up. The characters were very loveable too. I ended up really liking them all, even the bad guy because I could tell what his back story was... so emo! The artwork was of a very high quality. They had full body portraits instead of just a headshot which made is rather exciting. I liked seeing their full outfit. Plus I liked how they had all custom tiles to fit into the steampunk theme.

The fighting was standard and pretty normal, which I like. I don't like when they try to mix up the fight and it just ends up bogus. The best part was that when they got the chance to upgrade their class it went into an in-depth description of what happened when you picked that class and what new spells you got and everything. I usually find the worst part is trying to figure out what each one does, I usually go with the one that sounds the coolest.

Frankenstein: The Dismembered Bride

Frankenstein: The Dismembered Bride

Operating System: PC/Mac
Website: BigFish page
Rating: 1/5
Comments: Ok, so it had a rather cheap intro, all written text, no voices or anything. It was almost on par with a text adventure game because the intro only had a still picture with the ext, similar to how the RPGs usually start off.

I didn't really pay much attention to the plot... probably why I got confused when there was a talking brain. I thought I had some of this game figured out but it would appear I was over-thinking things. It really was just too simple to be any good.

The puzzles were a little bit strange in that you weren't really sure what all the buttons were. It took a while to realise that each puzzle piece had to be selected with a different button depending on whether you wanted to rotate or move something... needless to say it wasn't fun.

The HO scenes were terrible though! It was so hard to find anything! Plus they made it too tricky because I didn't realise you could click things out of the way... like that stupid gigantic barrel in the kitchen? No wonder I couldn't see the damn pumpkin! Plus half the things they wrote it didn't even mean what you clicked on. It was almost like they didn't speak English properly or something.

Grim Tales: The Legacy

Grim Tales: The Legacy

Operating System: PC/Mac
Website: IWin page
Rating: 3/5
Comments: Well it was a pretty basic cutscene with talking, you were trying get to your nephew's christening but had an accident (as you do). And you seem to follow this massive wolf into your sister's house? Because that's a good idea... Some of the puzzles were a bit annoying but you get that, you could pick the difficulty setting as well so that always helps.

The artwork was really nice though. Very smooth with minor moving pieces. The thing that was annoying was that things kept shining even when you didn't need the, to. There wasn't a diary, but there was a map that allowed you to move around quickly, what had something left to find and what your objective were.

The hidden object scenes, while they didn't come along too often, were still all-present in this game. They matched the rest of the game, which is good because sometimes it's almost like they don't even try.

Lost Souls: Enchanted Paintings

Lost Souls: Enchanted Paintings

Operating System: PC/Mac
Website: Official Website
Rating: 3.5/5
Comments: First up, the opening scene was awesome. There was none of this “let’s include real people into it” baloney that the others seem to love. It was a combination of drawing and 3D perspective. I liked that a lot. The artwork was very nice, it was very smoothed out and didn’t have that rough look that some can get from a larger screen view. There were some rather cute characters, I loved that snowman at the start.

The gameplay was new. It went picture by picture because the son’s painting got torn up into all the others. The ‘tutorial’ scene was good because it was simple and quick. It also didn’t force you to use hints unnecessarily. It wasn’t just a simple HOG, it was an adventure game, which I always love. Some of the puzzles were a little strange. I mean, you expected them to be bigger than they were. Makes it easier though because most the puzzles were easy.

It had voice acting, much better than the last one! It kinda seemed like it was cut short because you couldn't go into all the paintings? What's up with that? Why did they even have them there then? I thought it might be bonus content but they stayed greyed out... guess not.

Sweet Lily Dreams

Sweet Lily Dreams

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 1/5
Comments: This game has the CUTEST portraits. I mean, Curly and Muggles were adorable. I couldn't believe how cute they were. It's the main reason why I got this game... unfortunately that was the only reason this game was good.

The controls were a little uncomfortable. I don't usually like having to use the mouse to navigate but in this game it was kinda essential.

The fights were just too hard for the most part. Everything cost too much and I never really got enough gold for more than 3 potions. It was hard to get through one level.

I got stuck pretty much at the start of the game when I encountered an impossible puzzle and that was it. Sad though, although I didn't care much for the for the plot it would have been nice to finish it. Oh well.

Haunted Manor: Queen of Death

Haunted Manor: Queen of Death

Operating System: PC
Website: BigFish page
Rating: 2.5/5
Comments: Ok, so we all know that if there are twins one is evil, right? Riiight. Well this game is like that. I mean you are the "good" twin whose twin sister was really sick and started hating on you. You get sent away and then one day you get a letter from sis saying that you need to come back to the manor because your parents are dead. Lovely. Surprisingly you find out that there is some funky gargoyle that is stealing people's souls... and that your sis is most likely controlling it. YAY.

The game play was alright. Fairly typical at this stage. It was easy to follow where you needed to go, though I sometimes got lost and had to use the hint. There was a lot of running around in this game and I hated it so much. Too much walking, not enough fun. Most of the puzzles in this game weren't all that bad but you get pretty bored of it after a while.

There was no spoken dialogue which kinda bummed me out considering they actually made the characters move. It could have been a lot better than it was, not the worst I've played though, much better than the last 2!

Twisted Lands: Insomniac

Twisted Lands: Insomniac

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 1.5/5
Comments: This had BAD graphics. Exactly the same as Dreamland. In fact, it might be done by the same people it's so similar. You pretty much wake up in hospital and start tripping out so they tie you to the bed and say they're giving you a lobotomy. Nice. Plus you keep seeing people as reptile like things... Time to escape!

It reminded me a lot of Tribly because she was in 2 places at the same time but things were different. In one, she was in the normal hospital about to be lobotomised (LOL, Sucker Punch?!) and in the other she was in some deserted town... sounds exactly like Tribly, eh? Except this lady keeps seeing ghosts and those weird
zombie reptile people.

Ok, I'll admit this was a step up from Foreign Dreams but not by much. It was a pretty bad game. The story in the end was just weird and I wasn't even sure I got it... plus I didn't even care enough to play the bonus chapter. The less I play of this game, the better.

The graphics themselves were nice but it was annoying how much you just had to go from one place to the other all the time and there was no shortcuts or anything to make it easier. There was a journal but I didn't really read it most of the time, it wasn't all that great anyway.

Foreign Dreams

Foreign Dreams

Operating System: PC
Website: BigFish page
Rating: 1/5
Comments: Ok, to begin with, this was not really supported in my size screen. It looked really stretched and not wide enough. It really bothered me and there was nothing I could do because I couldn't switch it to windowed. I didn't really like the 3D graphics. It wasn't only the people that were 3D, it was pretty much everything. Kinda like Skyland...

There was no talking in this. Call me spoiled but I've become accustomed to it of late so it was rather tedious to have to read through everything.

The story was weird. I think you were a dream police? You kinda went into people's dreams and stopped them from becoming nightmares. Something like that? Not really sure, don't really care.
This game was bad. I didn't enjoy it, don't even know why I played the whole way through. Turns out the brother with nightmares is actually dead... yeah, you heard right. I said he is dead. Except his brother loved him so much he gave him some of his own life energy... I still don't understand how he's alive then? Anyway, it was very short, terrible graphics and was just bad.

Haunted Legends: The Bronze Horseman

Haunted Legends: The Bronze Horseman

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 3/5
Comments: The cutscenes in this were really nicely animated with spoken dialogue. I was rather impressed with that. The NPCs moved when they talked instead of just being an inanimate portrait which just added to the bonus points for this game. Unfortunately the journal was not good. There are few that have good ones though so I wasn't surprised. This one had potential to be good but just fell short in the end.

The plot was alright too. You get called in to stop a "curse" in the city. This bronze horseman statue
comes to life at night and terrorises the townsfolk so you get commissioned by the mayor to find out how to stop it. Plus there's this creepy little demon goblin that had been selling these weird crystals to peeps and now they're all missing. Turns out they get trapped inside the crystals when they touch them... though you never really do find out how to get them back?

The puzzles in this weren't too hard and most of the things you needed to find were pretty easy to spot, but once again I chose to play on expert so it was a little tricky for me sometimes. The game ended really strangely with no real closure on what happened to the strange goblin demon guy. He just left or something. And the townsfolk just... died? The bonus chapter was the only thing that brought the game to a close so I don't know how I would have felt without the collector's edition.

Cursed Memories: The Secret of Agony Creek

Cursed Memories: The Secret of Agony Creek

Operating System: PC
Website: BigFish page
Rating: 2/5
Comments: I dunno, I just wasn't all that into this game from the start. It wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. The bad guy had a cheesy voice that didn't really suit a Katsuka and the plot with the miners was boring. Plus the bonus content was pretty bad as well, no bonus chapter, a couple of concept art and music. Meh.

All that aside, the graphics were actually nice and suited the theme. The hint was pretty cool with the candles that blew out but aside from that, not much else to say about this game aside from I didn't really like it.

Juliette's Fashion Empire

Juliette's Fashion Empire

Operating System: PC
Website: Gamehouse page
Rating: 2.5/5
Comments: Ok, I'll admit that I am a fan of fashion games... and time management ones. This one made me crack up at the start with the Juliette's fashion boutique going bust. Her rival from school just laughs at her and gives her some advice that maybe she needs to, I dunno, maybe advertise her store? Good plan, dude! Too bad you gonna get run out of town now though. XD

It starts off fairly standard, you drag random models to a waiting chair, get what they need, do their makeup, dress them and off they go to fashion show! At first I got really frustrated because the tutorial was really short and I didn't really get what I was doing, nor why I could never seem to beat my rival in earnings. I have since realised it doesn't really matter, they go down pretty easy at the end.
Once I got the auto-feed guy it just cruised. All the auto people were totally awesome. Without that would have been a lot of angry models walking off. They have lots of cool upgrades that you can get, all which you pretty much need to get as the models get angrier and angrier. Damn prissy Indian bitch!

I did like how all your upgrades were still with you despite starting a new level. It just makes life easier when they do things like that. You can just concentrate on upgrading more and more things.

Age of Enigma: The Secret of the Sixth Ghost

Age of Enigma: The Secret of the Sixth Ghost

Operating System: PC/Mac
Website: Official Website
Rating: 4/5
Comments: This game has really nice, hand drawn artwork for the cutscenes. Plus there was spoken dialogue... well, for the cutscenes. The story was pretty much "you are a medium, you get a mysterious letter that tells you to go to some haunted house. You do. Help the ghosts." And as per usual, there's some mysteriously creepy shadow guy (because it's not a HOG without some creepy Katsuka!) who's helping you and seems to know everything about you. Hmmm, that's a worry!

I actually really enjoyed this game. It's been a while since something seemed new to me. This one just kept my interest for the whole game, which is always good. Good ghost games are fun to play. This one also had a variety of different cultures (Inca, Japan, Egypt, etc.) so when she teleported into the ghost's world it was pretty cool. At least you didn't get stuck in the creepy house... I meant, it even has hell! There were only a couple of the puzzle that gave me the shits (seriously, I can never figure out how a dice is meant to look when flattened) but apart from that they were pretty standard and simple. There wasn't too many which made it ok when there was a puzzle. You were just getting bombarded with them unlike some games.

Some items were a tad easy to skip over but that is possibly because I chose to play in "adventure" mode which doesn't have any hints for objects. Luckily, with the whole cursor change, it usually didn't take me long to find most items that you needed. Plus if you got stuck, there was always a guide with hints to follow.

Dreamland

Dreamland

Operating System: PC
Website: Official Website
Rating: 2/5
Comments: This game starts off with an animated cutscene showing your brother doing stupid shiz and getting in trouble with some creepy circus. My main problem with that was the graphics. They weren't good. It probably would have been better to have a more simple version or something, it just made it look cheap.

Ok, let me start by saying, the clown on the front gate BIT her! WTF? I woulda just let my bro rot after that. Too creepy for my liking. And seriously, clowns! WHY?! D:

I hated this game. It was boring and cheesy and I just couldn't wait to finish it. The little ringmaster of the circus is weird and probably the devil because when he talks he suddenly starts to glow red and gets the evil voice and all. It was more stupid if anything. And I couldn't stand his constant jibes throughout the game, I ended up turning the sound off because he drove me nuts.

The puzzles weren't too bad, except for the moon robot one. That one was almost impossible and I got help on that because no matter what I did nothing worked. I liked that there was a task list that if you click on something it would take you to that particular problem. Saves you from running round trying to figure out where things were again. The map was also very helpful. You simply clicked on where you wanted to go and you'd be there, with yellow lights to indicate if there was something left unfinished or a new HO scene to complete.