Recent reviews by byte

An excellent port of the most unique AAA game from last generation.

I must have over a hundred hours on PS4, building the ultimate zipline network, getting every star, "rebuilding America".

A lot can be said about the themes in this game: making "connections", "bridging" gaps, delivering hope to people stranded in isolation... is there a better possible game to show us the positive side of humanity in 2020?

Yeah, there's Kojima bull****. But those are just cutscenes. And some people happen to like that bull****, so more power to them.

Death Stranding is special because it is a truly unique experience. As the joke goes, it's the best "Strand-type" game, and we all know the humor behind that joke is that there *is* no other "Strand-type" game :D Nothing is even *similar* to it.

Do I have any gripes with it? A few. The enemies can be downright annoying. I never could get the hang of understanding the "detection radius" around a PT. 100+ hours in I still didn't have a good strategy to avoid their aggro, or how to use the various "grenades" effectively. MULEs are annoying. The menus can be overly complicated.

But at the end of the day, even if you're getting tired about the whole "games as art" discussion... this game certainly keeps it going.

An excellent mystery visual novel, even for those who aren't sure they like "mystery" or "visual novel" games.

This game is better than the sum of its parts.

The art is stylistic and fun, the characters are interesting (despite a bland main character), and the story will keep you hooked to the point where you won't realize how many hours have passed.

I think the best aspect of the game is how well the (multiple) mysteries are handled. In a mystery game, if the mystery is too obvious, or foreshadowed too heavily, then you will catch on before you were "supposed" to, and the game becomes boring because you already know what's going to happen. But if the mystery is far too complicated and not foreshadowed at all, then you'll feel cheated, and it will come off as contrived.

This game walks the perfect balance. I promise you there will be times where you think you've solved the case, only to find out the game was one step ahead, and fooled you -- but fooled you in a way that's creative and doesn't feel cheap.

The ending of the game is pretty much pitch-perfect, too. I'm pretty sure if I had played this at age 14, it would have been formative in the way that Pokemon was at 8.

In short, even if you've never played a visual novel, but suspect you might like a mystery -- give Danganronpa a shot.