2026 May Media Posts

I simply wouldn't be in a situation in which I need to cut wires.
 
 

Demonschool

 
I really wanted to adore this game, I think it's nearly all around cool, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to finish it. I've definitely had plenty of great times with the gameplay, this is perhaps the closest game I've played to scratching the itch I felt from how enjoyable Mario + Rabbids was as a Tactical-RPG. I appreciate the game doesn't generally have much RNG, although the boss fights could get annoying with RNG when trying to obtain A ranks. The gane's inconsistent with its difficulty, sometimes I get a good challenge, but oftentimes I'm just going through the motions which in my experience turns RPG's into a slog. Alleviating such trouble though is how the game's animations and sound effects feel immensely satisfying, I really love watching my turns play out.
 

I think the visuals in general are amazing, I find it an absolute treat to observe. I quite like the writing as well, I find the game generally humorous, the characters very likeable, just seeing the characters interact is fun. The narrative doesn't stick out to me as particularly interesting, but it strings events together fine, and I'm somewhat engaged by the mystery aspect. Ultimately though, there's just so much dialogue and stuff that I'm drawn to read that I actually just get burnt out.

I started playing this game back in January and I've only gotten like halfway through it as of writing this. I don't want it bogging my mind down anymore though, I figure it's worth metaphorically shelving the game for now so I can better focus on actually enjoying games.


Five Nights At Frickbear's 3

 
Continuing off what I said about Demonschool, I decided to impulsively start playing Frickbear's 3, because I could feel I was in a good mood to play it. I was ready to immediately lose interest and simply drop this game, but it actually hooked me gave me a great time.
 
This is one of the only FNAF related things I can think of that doesn't try to be scary, yet still had an appealing artstyle to me. The game is decently comedic, and I found the comedy pretty funny, but it's not so much so to feel devoid of other emotions. The writing was surprisingly solid all around, I really like how it retooled a bunch of various FNAF plots into a much more direct and satisfying narrative. There's a ton of passion that flows through the whole game.
 
The gameplay was very fun, the various animatronics pretty consistently fed into fun gameplay loops (I hated Lefty though). I think the minigames, while a fun addition at first, end up detracting from everything else. I oftentimes based strategies around speedrunning Minesweeper (called Fredsweeper in-game) which felt really stupid.
 

It's not absolutely astounding to me how much stuff is in this game (Ultimate Custom Night has more animatronics as of writing), but I think this game does a good job getting a lot out of its contents. Collecting different animatronics and checking out different story routes added a good bit of replay value to the main game, and I had some fun with the challenges as well. There were like 2 playthroughs though that just felt like busywork when I was unlocking characters for the challenge mode (I could've routed more optimally but that probably would've involved a LOT more struggle, and knowledge I didn't preemptively have). Overall I got like 30 hours outta the game, and I did not complete everything. For reference, FNAF 1 took me about 3 hours, and that included me beating the max difficulty custom night.
 

The Amazing Digital Circus

 
I checked this series out back when the first episode released, and came to the conclusion that it wasn't for me. After episode 8 released a few months ago I began seeing a ton of hype around the series, and people were sharing stuff that looked and sounded pretty good so I decided to give it a second chance. I enjoyed it more than I thought, the first episode gave me the impression that it would just be a miserable existential nightmare, but it was more like watching other people's therapy with some silly comedy mixed in for good measure. My favorite episode was episode 3 "The Mystery Of Mildenhall Manor", that's when the series felt like it got its footing.
 
I decided to check out the series now since the finale got leaked, I figured I'd just watch the leak rather than potentially getting spoiled (I'll try not to spoil it for y'all though). I'd say my biggest issues with the series were that the plot too often felt incidental, and the general premise felt under-explored.
 
 

Bubsy 4D

 
Movement-wise, this is game feels incredible. The movement doesn't lead me to completely loving how the game feels though, this might really emphasize how biased against 3D platformers I can be but, I don't like how prevalent the camera control is. While there is automatic camera control, with how fast and flexibly Bubsy is able to maneuver through levels I felt incentivized to be constantly adjusting the camera manually. I don't think that's an innately bad thing to have the camera as a central part of a platformer's controls, but I personally don't like it because it feels disconnected and detracting from the feeling of controlling my character. I'm getting tangential but, this sort of emphasis on camera control is something that makes me disinterested in a lot of 3D platformers, notably a lot of Sonic fangames.
 
The levels didn't amaze me, but they weren't so weak as to get naturally ripped to shreds by Bubsy's agility. The game's primarily structured as a linear get-to-the-end style platformer, but the levels often have these large fields with structures you could climb if you felt inclined to engage with the collectables.
 
This sort of level design doesn't feel very cohesive.
 
The design of the collectables also undcuts this sort of level design. You can't recollect anything unless you start a brand new save, so on repeat playthroughs of individual levels there's not much incentive to re-climb the optional structures. I didn't even find the yarn-balls (by far the most common collectable type) to be that fun to engage with in the first place because so many of them weren't in interesting locations. Most of the time if I ever missed any yarn-balls on an initial level playthrough, the remaining ones would just be sprinkled across an open field. I at least wasn't pained by collecting all of them though, the Item Sniffer ability was competent enough for me (there actually was 1 bunch of collectables that I considered unfair, but the issue got patched and I personally happened to stumble into the spot anyways).
 
The writing was somewhat funny, I think the devs found just the right balance of Bubsy being cocky and pathetic. I don't think there were much if any movie references though, I don't mind that personally since I didn't really get a lot of movie references anyways, but it seems weird to leave out of Bubsy's character. Bubsy's not charming enough for me to wanna keep his talking slider maxed out all the time.
 
The visuals grabbed my attention at first, but I don't adore looking at the game. The music was a particular low point for me, I found it kinda annoying. The ball transformation isn't my favorite gimmick in the world, but I found it fun enough.

I liked this game enough to try playing the tank controls enabled simply because they're an available option. I found the levels pretty easy, so things rarely got rough, but it's comical to see just how poorly the control/camera scheme fit the game.
 

The awful feeling straifing from Bubsy 3D is completely absent though which was annoying because it still would've been useful. I actually completed all the time trials with the tank controls, including the bonus challenge stage. I didn't bother getting the collectables with the tank controls though, nor did I play through 9-lives mode with tank controls (I did 9-lives mode on its own), I have limits for how much stupidity I can put up with just to have an excuse to play a game I like some more.


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