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flecks-of-stardust · 2 years

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I Ramble About My Video Game Experiences. Please Don’t Kill Me

i am starkly aware i am swinging a bat at a hornet’s nest here but i need to get the thoughts out okay

anyway tldr this is me rating the video games that ive played and left a lasting impression on me. the scale is from 0 to 10, with 0 being ‘how did this game even get the funding to be produced’ and 10 being ‘this game is amazing and i cannot critique anything in it.’ so neither of those numbers are going to appear, but youll know what my rating mechanic is lmao. without further ado:

Hollow Knight

starting with the bug game that started this blog. probably a solid 9/10 or 8.5/10. yes im biased, shut up. hollow knight’s a really solid game in a lot of aspects: the lore is really well fleshed out and links up well, the gameplay is a delight, the progression is smooth and pretty friendly to players new to the genre (hi), and i like that you kind of have a parallel of the player choosing their own path in tandem with what the knight is doing. its a lovely experience, and how the lore is structured gives the fans Tons of avenues to explore, which is Great.

however. because i overthink everything, the little inconsistencies in lore do bother me (the light shafts?? in greenpath???? what is up with the dirt carvers and the carver hatchers. why do the devouts have scythes for masks. actually, why do deepnest things have masks. because as far as im aware deepnest isnt actually part of hallownest??), and i do wish we’d gotten a Little more confirmation about some lore, but that’s just me. my biggest issue is how deepnest is depicted; im not too happy about how it’s talked about. which, like. i might just be nitpicking, but im rather wary of anything that depicts an external civilization that is also described as ‘brutal’ or beastlike, and being otherwise uncivilized and/or primitive. there Is nuance here, it’s entirely possible a lot of the structures in deepnest broke down over time and the distant village is all that survived, but im still on guard when it comes to this. its no secret that i resent how hallownest/the mantises evidently treated the citizens of deepnest, so im aware im a little biased here as well. but yeah, thats my main issue here.

Bug Fables

the other bug game! 8/10. lovely story, great gameplay, stunning writing of the characters, very interesting premise. i definitely found the gameplay in bug fables a lot easier to pick up than that of hollow knight, but that’s kind of a given with how the combat is structured in bug fables. there’s a lot of complexity that i was not aware was going to be in a game that looks the way bug fables does, which i adore. i also Really like the meta details scattered throughout the game, but im just a sucker for those asdkfgkjs

i have similar complaints for bug fables as i do for hollow knight, but its even worse in bug fables. i resent the way the devs handled the leafbug tribe, and i do not understand the way the lore about them was set up. there was frankly no reason for them to ambush team maki and team snakemouth when yin was emerging from her pupa, and as a result that mission just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. the whole thing reeks of barely veiled racism and anti-indigenous sentiment. i really wish the devs had taken more of a ‘they dont understand what’s going on, particularly with the language barrier’ route instead of just. ooga booga fight these random bugs that showed up for no reason other than the fact theyre convenient antagonists. :/

the lore of bug fables is also a little... odd. it works out well enough, but when you poke at it a little too much it crumbles a little. mainly the timeline of things seems. off? but, whatever. that’s more nitpick territory. i still love the game (even if i highly distrust the devs)

Ori and the Blind Forest

my first platformer! blind forest holds a very special spot in my heart because of that. id never played anything like this before blind forest, and honestly im very glad this was my first platformer; it probably would have gone Really differently if it had been hollow knight instead lmfao. id pin this as 9/10, for all the lovely things about it: the smooth gameplay, the graphics, the story, and. fuck man. ori’s cute FDKGJSKJ for a game with limited dialogue, the story ties together really well, and the lore doesn’t have many loose ends that i can think of. the concept of the spirit tree is really interesting too.

the major thing id complain about would be the combat, something i think basically everyone has bitched about at this point. you wanna fight something? button mash until your finger falls off. and then sein kinda zaps whatever it is. thats it. you can also attack with stomp and i think charge dash, but you dont get stomp until pretty far in and charge dash is... clunky. dash isnt even a required ability. blind forest does focus heavily on platforming though, so i cant complain too hard. i also have to specially mention sorrow’s pass, because wow i fucking Hated that area! i died so many times!!!!! playing on keyboard in sorrow’s pass Sucks! but the love i have for the ginso tree escape sequence makes up for it sfkjgjks

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

i was reluctant to start will of the wisps after blind forest but holy Fuck am i glad i did. its... i have to say its a better game than blind forest in a lot of ways. moon studios really improved on a Ton of things that blind forest lacked in. id probably pin this as 9/10 as well, but i have to rave about the combat. i mean at least compared to blind forest, the combat is an absolute fucking Delight. slashing with spirit edge really feels like you have a sword, and the heft that spirit smash has when ori swings it is just,,,,,, mwah. so good. and those are just the two weapons im most fond of; the spike, while not the best in terms of energy cost, is really fucking cool as well.

special mention to the various glitches people have discovered for this game >:3 or more like exploits, its not all glitches (though there was a whole thing people dedicated to glitches a while back and it was Amazing. wotw is horribly easy to glitch and its Hilarious), and sentry jump is more of an exploit. like who needs launch when you can sentry jump?? you get more height than launch too in some cases i think, and you can get it Really early on. hell yeah. ori go YEET

its 9/10 because of a few gripes i have with the story. i do wish that shriek had gotten a happier ending; i do understand the message that was woven into the story, but still. baur paints it as like... he almost says its impossible for her to change? which. bleh. that’s not true, and its a little icky with the background i have. id have loved to be able to show shriek the love and care she so clearly craved, even if she outright rejected it. i dont think stopping seir from fucking blasting her into cooked owl counts, really, though i guess that could be argued about.

the other gripe is ku’s wing. i cannot find the words to describe the sheer delight i felt at the clear depiction of ku as disabled. her wing is busted, and she can’t fly. and she wants to, so so desperately, but she can’t. that sort of narrative is,,, disgustingly rare? and i was so excited about it. but then in the end they had ori do a magic tada! wing fixed! on her and :| i just wish it had been something like. ku learning to accept that loss, while also working to find some sort of accommodation that would allow her to fly for short periods. i mean if the feather worked well enough to let them fly to niwen then damn, im sure gumo could figure something out with a leaf or some shit. but no, just. magic away the disability. :/

i still adore the game though. the story that will of the wisps tells is a little cemented in, and the gameplay is pretty linear (though a little less so than that of blind forest). so i guess these two things wouldnt have fit in too well, but idk. i just wish, yknow.

Oriverse (both games as a whole)

not gonna say much here, but i did want to put this in. still 9/10 for the franchise in its entirety. there Is the weird,, protag gets amnesia and loses all their abilities that sequels to games like these have, but eh. its fine. ori just got a concussion /s the story connects pretty well across the two games, even if the worldbuilding is pretty different. the deal with seir is a liiiiiittle odd, but it works well enough. the graphics are just,,,,, holy god will of the wisps is so beautiful. but blind forest isnt far behind!

just. idk. i love this franchise so much. and its my first ever, so im biased. i highly recommend playing them both, but uh. wotw might fry your computer if its not strong enough. the graphics are just that powerful asfkjdgkjkjs

Rain World

this is where im probably gonna have people breathing down my neck but. 7/10. and i have very specific reasons why.

gameplay wise? wonderful! rain world really drives home that feeling of being hunted and being small and weak and defenseless. it advertised that and it fucking delivered it, and its great. theres also a lot of complexity to what you can actually do in the game; turtle toad’s videos have me in constant awe and slight fear. the design for slugcat is pretty unique, and honestly i really love that we’re canonically crawling through pipes. it adds a lot of realism and i guess staying power to the world, which is already fascinating and nicely fleshed out. the combat is very interesting too tbh. lots you can do with just a rock and a spear. its just... it sure is a survival sim. it sure fucking is, and i love it for that

however i have Big issues with the way the difficulties are structured. im not gonna comment on hunter, especially since ive never even finished hunter, but i will complain endlessly about monk. it’s supposed to be the easy mode, and its definitely much more of a breeze than survivor. but i resent that the lore pearls get their data wiped. the canonical explanation for that is that too much time has passed between survivor and monk for the data to remain, but then couldnt the same be said of hunter and survivor? unless those two did their journeys back to back, which i kind of doubt considering how much more aggressive the creatures in hunter are. it just feels like theyre punishing people for playing on easy, and im not a fan of that.

theres a smattering of other things too. the map is. weird. and kind of difficult to use. also i dislike the bare bones of a tutorial the game gives you (seriously, why are you not told how to switch items from hand to hand or how to use the stomach pouch? i dont understand the reasoning for leaving those to be discovered on your own), but i guess you could argue that it adds to the survival simulator experience, idk. my biggest issue would probably be the lore, actually. this is me nitpicking about writing, but the progression of the story confuses me. you’re presented with a world that is not built for you, and youre just surviving the best you can as a little animal. youre told repeatedly, through the gameplay, that you are not the protagonist. you are barely even a speck of dust in their story. you are irrelevant in every way, and yet. you make your way into five pebbles’ chamber, and he tells you in no uncertain terms to do what he cant: find the void sea and leave this world, with its endless cycles of death and rebirth. and its like. im just. im just an animal. why are you angsting at me?? and now the story takes a weird left turn where youre now suddenly relevant, and its your goal now to find the void sea? like what happened to ‘this world is not built for you?’ and idk its just weird to me. it works well enough, its just. five pebbles you are talking to the equivalent of a rat. what the fuck, dude.

i cant rate rain world Too harshly though, even if theres a bunch of things that i hate about it (cough the part of the community that insists that people just need to ~get good~ at the game. disabled people exist, fuck you <3). its still a lovely game and a very unique experience, its just definitely not for everyone. im glad i got to experience it, anyhow. i just have beef with certain things askdjfgkjs

Celeste

this GAME. MAN. this girl is so plural and trans, you have no idea. 9.5/10, i adore it. im sure others have raved about the accessibility of this game already, but i am So so grateful the devs added it, holy shit. this is honestly what i hope all games have? sure, im not playing the game as the devs intended, and they warn us of that on the assist mode screen. i just really like the agency that we as players are given to adjust the gameplay. so what if i slap invincibility mode on and just play it for the story? is that a bad thing? and also i will say that being given the ability to do that makes me Way way more likely to go back and play the game as intended. what’s easy for other people could be what’s difficult for me, and vice versa, and being able to set the difficulty level gives me way more room to practice and get better. hollow knight kind of does it similarly, with how it teaches you the combat, but its more of an indirect ‘pick your own difficulty’ sort of game. celeste is just... its your choice, in its entirety. and it is so liberating.

and then theres the story, which is Amazing. i got the game for the story only, tbh, and i dont regret it. the depiction of madeline’s anxiety is really nice tbh, and it was all handled really well, particularly with the character development of both madeline and badeline (also again: plural!!!!! holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!!) i know this story was written at least partially from personal experience though, i think? which just makes me appreciate it more honestly, and im glad that people are making this sort of media. im driven by very similar things with my own creations, and its nice to see others getting this sort of success with their work.

theres no real gripe i have with the game tbh. just minorly complaining that its really difficult without assist mode, but like. honestly that’s not really a bad thing, i just suck at platforming LMAO. it Has been a while since ive played through the game though, so idk. celeste is just so good

in any case, highly recommend!!! celeste my beloved <3

Oxygen Not Included

and last but not least, oni, the game that ive sold my soul to at this point. oh shit im nearly at 420 hours NICE

but thats 400+ hours ive sunk into this game, and im never getting them back. and im planning to put More in. it scratches so many of the itches i have: its a very science based game, very logic based one, i get to oversee a little colony of fucking idiots that KEEP TRYING TO FENCE THEIR HEADS INTO BLOCKS, but i love them so its. okay. i guess. and i also get to decorate and design and Create. it keeps me on my toes, but its never always in my face, and its like. infinitely replayable? which is So Good. im a sucker for anything cute, but this is cute and sciency and lets me have free reign over what to do. i love it. i love it So Much

theres honestly nothing i can find to critique it on. i havent even found all the lore yet, which is Wild. theres always stuff to do in this game and probably the only complaint id have is my own damn fault anyway? like if i launch the game and start playing im going to be there for at Least three hours. guaranteed. it just sucks me in so hard sfkghjks

i will say that its probably not for everyone? im just a nerd and i love games like oni, but its by no means an easy game. its a really fucking difficult one, actually, and ive had to look up so many tutorials to even get to where i am now with my abilities. the designs people come up with to do all sorts of shit are amazing, and when i finally figure out how to make my own im gonna feel really accomplished :)

10/10. i honestly cant shit talk anything about this game. it has my entire heart, please check it out askdjfgjkjk

tldr ive spent so much time on video games, oh my god. please someone play these as well so i can scream about them with you

#nooooo main tags on this #i do not want the rabid fans finding this #but also hi i have thoughts and recs #i generally recommend everything on this list! for different reasons #viddy gaem Good. so good #i remember being so scared to branch out from oni tbh. getting the oriverse games was a big step for me #im so glad i got them and im so glad i tried the other ones on this list #a lot of my thoughts really just center around two things tbh #1. is it racist?#2. is it accessible?#half the games here cant even touch 1 though safjkdgkjs

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