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Tag: 2023

  • Slay The Princess (Black Tabby Games, 2023)

    Slay The Princess (Black Tabby Games, 2023)

    Developed/Published by: Black Tabby Games
    Released: 23/10/2023
    Completed: 28/03/2026
    Completion: Completed it twice. I couldn’t leave them there.

    After Milk Inside…/Milk Outside… I wasn’t feeling particularly positive about this one, feeling a bit concerned that another delve into inner-voice horror might not be the right move and I should just play something nice again. But I was surprised to discover how much I loved this; it absolutely deserves its plaudits.

    It opens with a simple ask–get up to that cabin and kill a princess. I think initially this is going to go a few ways depending on what kind of player you are–you might just do it, you might fight it, or you might simply get stuck arguing with the voice that’s telling you to do it, as the game offers an either impressive or annoyingly self-aware amount of options for the kind of player who like to see where the edges are. Whatever happens, pretty soon you’re going to see some fucked up shit.

    And before very long at all (well, depending on how long you spend arguing) you’ll learn you’re stuck in a loop. I think it’s that aspect where the wheels of the game come closest to coming off, because what starts as a simple story (“just kill the bloody princess”) becomes really huge and weird and existentially complicated. There’s a lot of detail that I admit I don’t really feel is necessary (I almost longed for the abstraction of Milk Inside…); the game could benefit from leaving at least a little more to mystery.

    But it doesn’t take away from the enjoyable puzzle of trying to play the game your way. You’re not choosing who to date, here, but you’re trying to live up to your own code, reacting to what the game throws at you, and I appreciate the game often forces you into unwinnable situations. 

    Of course, like any choice-based game, they haven’t been able to cover every eventuality. On my second playthrough, where I really tried to stick to my guns, that I was occasionally forced to do things due to lack of other options really stung. At the end of the game I genuinely cared what happened, which I think really proves how well the game works (admittedly helped by the rich art and excellent voice acting.) I’m really surprised it never garnered more than an honourable mention at the 2024 IGF for Excellence in Narrative.

    It’d be a bit rich to say the game was overlooked–lord, they’ve got enough money now that they’re publishing other games–but if there’s any possibility you have overlooked it, as I had until this sudden burst of research… don’t?

    Will I ever play it again? There are a lot of more paths in that I could explore, but I’m completely satisfied.

    Final Thought: I really wish I had a more consistent theme across this “theme week”, but I’m not ashamed to admit it came down to length. Sorry Raptor Boyfriend, Doki Doki Literature Club and more, once you’re creeping past an hour or two I go back to looking at my pile of unread books. It should really stand out, to be honest, that I played Slay The Princess twice. That’s how much I liked it.

  • Hi-Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks, 2023)

    Hi-Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks, 2023)

    Developed/Published by: Tango Gameworks / Bethesda
    Released: 25/01/2023
    Completed: 09/12/2023
    Completion: Finished it!

    I loved this.

    I’m not quite sure why, but saying so feels very exposing. Maybe it’s because before playing Hi-Fi Rush I had no idea what it actually was, and the game’s bright anime-adjacent stylings somewhat had me discounting it out of hand, so I assume the extremely cool people who read this would be doing the same.

    Maybe it’s also just that Hi-Fi Rush is… pretty straightforward? It’s not particularly trying to move the medium forward (although I think it does some clever stuff) it’s just trying to be very, very good at what it’s doing. And what it’s doing, actually, isn’t so much “anime” as “full on Sega blue skies” while being an incredible competent 3D action platformer/brawler with a likable (dare I say loveable) cast of heroic misfits telling a simple but effectively structured narrative with some very savvy music choices.

    The thing is that… succeeding at something that hits that many beats isn’t actually… easy? Something I’m most struck by is actually those characters. By now we’ve all seen the nadir of Marvel-inspired quip-a-thons thanks to the likes of that Forsaken trailer, but even looking at something like, say, Guardians of the Galaxy, where they have something that (at least previously) had worked, it’s remarkable how flat it falls. Here, you have a goofy, act-first-think-later hero, Chai, the cleverer-than-him female leader, Peppermint, the funny robot, CNMN, etc. in a very simple “baddies are doing bad things, let’s get the different things we need to defeat them” story, but it completely pops because there’s been care to keep the story rolling naturally so you flow through it and grow into caring about them. I’m so insanely curmugeonly that I can’t believed to ride that line for me. But they did!

    Now you could say, “ah, but the secret weapon here is that the game uses actual songs that you actually like! That always works!” But it doesn’t work if all the pieces don’t fit together. There’s no better example than one of the game’s latter levels that uses The Prodigy’s Invaders Must Die. It plays at a moment where narratively all hell is breaking loose. It feels like you’re in a climax of an action movie, not just because the music is playing, but because the story has taken you there. That the level design is clever enough to cool down, let the music pull back a little, and then kick it back in for a climax? Absolute chef kiss.

    (It only really gets better from there, too. Ending strong is rarely something I think video games aspire to, but Hi Fi Rush is sensibly around the 10 hour mark and the last three levels or so rip. Did the appearance of The Joy Formidable on the soundtrack literally make me emotional? Yes. Yes it did.)

    Now interestingly, I haven’t actually played any other Tango Gameworks titles so I don’t really know if I should have expected rock-solid play, but either way I was surprised by how well it does. What makes Hi Fi Rush genius, I think, is that it takes a type of game I am incapable of not button-mashing through and adds a rhythm action component that doesn’t expect but rather, uh… politely asks you to hit your combos on rhythm. And it works!

    I can criticise it, somewhat, however They quickly add quite a lot of subtleties to the combat and don’t tutoralise them heavily enough–I didn’t understand how to use Chai’s “partner combos” until well over half-way through the game, and I don’t know if I ever got comfortable with parries because standing around waiting for enemies to attack seemed the antithesis of everything else I was doing. There end up being a lot of buttons and you have to internalise the order of your partners and switching between them rapidly in situations where there are like 3 different kinds of enemies at once meaning at times combat is just a total stramash. But even then, there’s always the beat to follow. It’s very clever.

    Anyway. I loved this. It’s one of my favourite things I’ve played in years. Your mileage may vary!

    Will I ever play it again? When it finished I wanted to play it more. That literally never happens. I sort of hope there’s a sequel, but the story of this is so pleasantly complete that I’m not sure if there should be one.

    Final Thought: I may also be a bit of a sucker for this game because you’re always accompanied by a black cat. Inspired by the game director’s!