Recent reviews by danruL.BenQ

Immensely enjoyable from start to finish. Feels like the design sensibilities of the PS2 era brought forward and elevated for the modern day. For a game like this, I'm generally satisfied if one pillar of the game is strong enough to carry the rest (Atmosphere, Gameplay, Writing, etc), but in the case of Slitterhead, I found myself being pleasantly surprised by every pillar; simply delightful.

The environment art is gorgeous, and the setting incredibly well realised. The world feels incredibly lived in; the interiors especially are full of such delightfully & thoughtfully placed clutter that really makes them feel like people's homes rather than just another room in just another building.

Music is very subjective, but for the time being, this might be my favourite Akira Yamaoka score of all time. I lost count of the amount of times I would load into a level and be instantly overjoyed by the music & the atmosphere it created. That said, I must admit the soundtrack packaged in the deluxe edition is disappointingly selective; the tracks included could have been arranged to a longer length, and more unique tracks could have been included.

The combat may not be the most intricate in terms of inputs, but the nuance of teambuilding & bodyswapping gives you a lot of creative options in combat. I enjoyed experimenting with the roster, and still feel like I have room to explore the potential of some of my lesser played cast members on a second playthrough.

In Summary; Slitterhead is the kind of game it feels like the industry has forgotten how to make. it's focused, stylish and daring. It feels complete, and I have walked away both satisfied and wanting more. I implore anyone even remotely curious in the game to pick it up and vote with your dollars; if only for the absolutely selfish desire that one day this game could get a sequel.

Whatever the future holds for this series, I know my future holds several more playthroughs of this game as the years roll on.

If you're intrigued by the plot & setting of this game but perhaps not such a huge horror fan, I would recommend you give this a go anyway. To me, this isn't a horror game with a historical backdrop, its a historical drama with horror elements. The translation doesn't fully subtitle or translate every piece of text, but after conferring with chinese speaking friends, the text that is untranslated is more like flavour & setdressing than anything crucial to understanding the plot.
The soundtrack & presentation is very evocative of Silent Hill 2 in the best way possible, and the setting of cultural revolution Taiwan is potent and interesting to explore. Heartily recommend grabbing the game AND the soundtrack.

Hellblade is a glorious vision of what games could be without the insecurities of AAA games development.

I was initially interested in Fumiko! for its graphical presentation, but I'll remember Fumiko! a long time because of its story and the way its told. This game is fun, well structured, well written, and the soundtrack is well chosen and well used. I'm hesitant to comment on any particulars of the game, because I think it speaks for itself well enough. If you've got even a passing curiousity in this game, I recommend you give it a go. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

This game is half an hour long, 10 minutes of that occupied by an abstract unskippable opening cutscene. It's a collection of vignettes arranged with no apparent connecting meaning, but those vignettes are in isolation beautifully done. The landscapes AND soundscapes of the individual scenes are really quite haunting. The game does not progress according to a clear narrative, instead it is more like seeing someone else's dream(s). With all that said, you should understand whether this game is worth it for you.

Everything below the line is more subjective, and likely won't help you decide whether you want this game any more than what I wrote above.

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This game was frustrating to me because in theory it does so many things I enjoy. I love abstract blocky architecture, surreal landscapes, dreamlike nonsensical transitions between scenes and loud oppressive ambient soundscapes.
However, for me the details were wrong, and the structure of the game actively hampered my enjoyment .

This is nitpicky, but a few small graphical issues, such as overlapping flicking geometry (mostly around stairs)and the dark blotchy AO solution (which frustratingly showed up time and again on top of lights & lightsources) disrupted my suspension of disbelief. The art direction itself is good, but I feel like a touch more polish on these above issues (especially considering the length of the game and the relatively small number of contained areas) would have pushed the presentation that little bit further. for me.

A lot of times progression from an area is accomplished simply by being in said area on a timer, after which the screen will fade to black, before you fade from black into the next scene. This means that if you find an area interesting, you can't choose to stay. Also, this mean there's no motivation between scene transitions, which means there's very little chance to find meaning in the relationships between scenes. I suspect there isn't any.

During these scene transitions the soundscape comes to a sudden stop as the next level loads. I found this awkward audio cut really disruptive, and downright rritating. Not only do these fade-out/fade-in transitions happen in the middle of some of the larger levels, but towards the end of the game they are happening quite frequently, sometimes more than once in a minute. The awkward audio clipping ruins the atmosphere. The soundscapes and visuals of each individual scene are frequently stellar, but because of the way you move between these scenes, they can only be enjoyed in isolation. If this game aims to put you into someone elses mind, and someone elses dream, it should try and capture the drifting nature of dream. Its opening text suggests this is its goal, but these presentation issues segment in a way that conflicts w. the floating nature of dream.

Games like the Stanley Parable & Antichamber use the transitions between areas as opportunities to break conventional logic. Simple logic bending moments like walking through a door only to look back and see its not there, or going into a hallway where you turn left infinitely until you realise you have to go back. I understand that this game wasn't going for these kinds of moments, so I'm not faulting it for not including them. I'm simply trying to highlight that the most effective transitions happen during gameplay, so that the player can experience the strangeness of going from one place to somewhere completely different first hand.

I suppose what all this is trying to say is that I respect Fugue in Void, and its obvious that Moshe Linke understands how to create a compelling experience, and I hope he can do something in this vein again. Unfortunately for me, I think Fugue in Void is less than the sum of its parts. I think it could be improved as is with a few small tweaks to the issues mentioned above, but ultimately I think the goal of this piece as I understand it (to present a chaotic and varied set of vignettes without a clear throughline, in a way analogous to dream) is not interesting enough on its own. The artistry displayed here matched with a better script, structure or vision is something I would love to play. Fugue in Void, for all the promise it shows, is something I'm unlikely to touch again.