Friday 23 May 2014

Games| Finished Recently: Gone Home and Child of Light


Let's start with this one, it's a story exploration game.
There is a huge debate between "gamers" whether Gone Home can be considered a game, because some consider it's merely an interactive story but not as saying that is not a bad thing and just consider as an interesting way to tell a story and others do consider as a story exploration game to tell a very human and very close to heart-warming story.
If you were expecting some horror exploration game or action, something of critical thinking and logical  game, win or lose game, danger, then this game isn't your cup of tea, it won't suit your tastes and you will find boring, because it doesn't have your own sense of "fun" there.
Now if you want to know a story, a human story, 90's nostalgia, you like to investigate and explore, examine as a way to explore the story, then you're in for a treat.
Now my own experience with the game, I did quite love the game, not my favourites in general, but is the only PC game I really enjoyed so far, I loved it because it was telling a beautiful story through exploring the house, knowing the characters, pick objects and notes and studying them and being the clues to understand the plot and  the characters, main character being your younger sister Sam and the player, the older sister Katie, the objective of the game is exploring the house to know what's has been going on while you were abroad, why is it empty and all this it's up to your own interpretation basing in what you find and search, in a very bad weather, which gives an very interesting experience.
I do consider as a game since gives an interactive experience, you explore the house, there clues piecing them up together tells a story, the more you advance in the exploration, the more you advance in the story and reach it's closure, in another words, story exploration game, with a different subgenre, drama.
to give you some idea before of thinking give it a try.

(if you're still unsure because of the price, you know there is ways to play for free right? :p)

Next is:

The current RPG of the moment, specially being a platformer Turn-based RPG, what's the best way to describe this game? Beautiful, charming and innocent.
This game is literally an fairytale in form of platform and RPG merged together in one, even though I don't like platformers (besides being terrible at them), the exploration and get items and open chests is platformer style, even being inventive by having a firefly friend Igniculus using his light to open specific chests and doors and slow down some traps(other special abilities such blinding enemies to avoid a battle, slow them down in battle and heal you and help solve the puzzle by using his light, which makes the game accessible), the RPGs elements it's in battle, HP and MP, each characters has attack moves and special abilities, so you can use different strategies to defeat your enemies and bosses and crafting.
But there is something different besides the exploration and finding chests, for example, in traditional RPGs, you can buy and sell items, but here is the opposite,you can't buy or sell them, you have to search for them and gain from battles) so besides relying on Robella (but requires MP to heal you) and Igniculus to heal you but it has limits, so balance it out so you won't rely too much on them so it won't waste their MP and energy, such as those plants to heal, the items (careful not wasting them since you can't buy them) you find and everytime you level up, you recover your HP and MP, so there is quite an well executed balance, making the game accessible.
Now the Story and the dialogue, there has been some minor complaints, such some thinking the rhyming dialogue was forced (try writing a rhymed dialogue for a less 30 hours long game then) and the story some found boring, others thought for rendered pretty story had an abrupt ending, some say it wasn't a complex story - I think the story is beautiful with it's imperfections (beauty doesn't mean perfection), when we think about it, most fairytales has abrupt endings, what makes the story pretty, it feels like telling a child a fairytale and this child is us and with it's beautiful illustrated watercolours-ish  like a pop-up fairytale books.
Child of Light has beautiful art, music (I love it, I listen to it almost everyday xD) and story, by the way, my favourite character is Igniculus, the firefly.


Let me advise you, before give a try to any of these mentioned or others, have low expectations, otherwise you will be disappointed by high expectations and don't follow blindly critically acclaimed and then be disappointed because isn't your kind of game or wasn't the way you wanted, many games or movies or animated series can be of great quality but maybe not suit your tastes, quality and personal tastes are different things.

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