Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Things are moving pretty smoothly so far, as I reached a bit over 50% last night according to the in-game progress tracker. I know it includes secrets and that I don’t need 100% to finish the game but that’s the most specific metric I’ve got so… I’m quite happy with the game overall. I did start to notice some things I’m not a huge fan of but they’re not enough to make we want to quit or even degrade my experience in a significant way. The main annoying element are probably the constantly respawning flying enemies - I know they are a staple of the series at this point and they aren’t difficult to deal with but that doesn’t make them any more enjoyable (especially when they try to block your climbing routes in certain rooms). Still, game is more fun than I expected it to be before starting so that’s good.
Jack Orlando A Cinematic Adventure
Ahh, another instance of a rare point-and-click adventure game. I played this one years ago and I’m pretty sure I even managed to complete it back then but I wasn’t certain and that’s not good enough. Because of this I decided to go through the game once again to make sure that yes, I did in fact play through the whole thing - it wasn’t easy.
For those unfamiliar, Jack Orlando is a game about a private detective in 1933 America (something they really commit to with the writing, character prejudices etc). On his way home from a night of drinking Jack stumbles upon a murder, gets knocked out at the scene and ends up being the main suspect. Due to his status as a hero cop and years of friendship with the police chief, he get 48 hours to clear his name and find the real culprit - that’s where the player steps in.
So yeah, I said I didn’t remember much about the game, right? Boy was it true. I thought I remembered some bits and pieces from my old playthrough but besides the very beginning of the game everything else turned out to be a complete fabrication on my part. I’m actually shocked how wrong I was about the whole thing.
That said, while my faulty memory is one thing, there are some completely out there sections I would’ve never guessed they were from this title. Did you know prohibition era America had medieval-fantasy-like catacombs with an indoor fountain and automated, Indiana Jones style mechanisms in the middle of the city? Yeah.
My lack of experience with adventure games really shined here but even if I wasn’t THIS bad at the genre, the strict and often extremely weird progress requirements, mixed with a ton of junk items strewn everywhere meant I would never finish this without a guide. A straightforward game this ain’t.
Presentation is pretty good. We have nice looking backgrounds and smoothly animated characters (even if I’m not a huge fan of the art style used for them). Voice acting is pretty solid for the most part, except for some really bad accents here and there.
Music is also great though it can get a bit grating after one too many loops. That’s probably just me though, as I have a hard time listening to saxophone and similar instruments for long stretches of time. Not great position to be in when playing a noir detective story.
I can’t say it was my favourite point-and-click played so far but it was enjoyable enough. I’d just like to know where my completely fake memories came from…
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lath@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Dunno. Finished Metro Exodus in the weekend and now I’m thinking on where to go next.
They added OpenMW and Tamriel Rebuilt on GOG, so I might give Morrowind another go. But I’m not into lengthy endeavors anymore…
lustyargonian@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I really enjoyed Exodus. Made me pause and enjoy, all that friction makes the game much more memorable than say Far Cry.
How did you enjoy Metro Exodus? I’m going to get to it soonish, and I’m very curious after loving 2033 and having very mixed feelings about Last Light.
lath@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I liked it well enough. It’s a mix of open maps and linear corridors. It still uses morality points for good/bad ending. It’s like Dishonored in that. The intermission scenes are not cinematics, so they can’t all be really skipped. It’s all together kinda telling you to chill.
I only played on normal, so there weren’t many issues with difficulty, more so if you stealth your way through it, and you can see there’s an intended way of participating in the story even though the player has some freedom.
Have to mention, I played the enhanced version because I didn’t really under the difference from regular one. And on the first run, it takes a very long time to compile shaders, so if the extra graphics don’t matter, the non-enhanced version is reportedly the same.