Sometimes I try a game and it’s so boring or so disappointing that I don’t get far enough to write a proper post about it. I collect all those at the end of the year and write a mass post like this one.
Black Rock Shooter: The Game (PSP): This one probably deserves a full post because I played for 5 hours, dropped it, picked it up again, dropped it again, picked it up again and finally gave up. I really wanted to like it because it was by Imageepoch, but there’s a reason that company went bankrupt: some of their games just stunk. The combat in Black Rock Shooter was a slower, clunkier, messier copy of Last Ranker‘s, which is sad because LR came out first and there was room for improvement, not regression.
The world view was bleak, the stages all looked the same, gameplay was mostly running around in empty space. The last straw was a boring “talk to everyone quest” which was followed by an unskippable motorcyle-riding minigame where you had to slice and dodge enemies. I thought this was supposed to be an RPG. The game was all over the place. It had no idea what story it wanted to tell or what it wanted to play like. Massive waste of time and a huge disappointment.
Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment (PSP): I’m very interested in trying the other Sword Art Online games, but Infinity Moment didn’t work for me. Part of it was an aesthetics issue – everything on the screen was tiny and cramped and hard to see. The bigger issue was the auto-attacking gameplay, where you watch your characters attack until you get the chance to do a special. It’s a bit like Xenoblade, but much more sluggish and harder to follow. After one or two sessions, I was done.
Twelve: Sengoku Fuushinden (PSP): An SRPG set in the warring states era of Japan. IIRC it was about a young man who meets a girl on the run from mysterious pursuers. The gameplay wasn’t exciting, the graphics weren’t all that, the story didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It was bland and boring and the narrator at the start and end of every chapter ruined immersion. Pass.
Puzzle Quest (DS): I played a game a few years ago where you battled opponents through match-3 battles and someone said it reminded them of Puzzle Quest, so I tried Puzzle Quest. And I discovered I suck at Puzzle Quest. But I knew that already. It’s a novel idea but I don’t have the skills to pull it off so I called it quits after three battles.
Enkeltbillet (PSP): Enkeltbillet is a bad otome game about a brain-dead heroine on a misadventure in another country. I mentioned before that it sucked, but I kept trying to give it another chance because it has gameplay, in theory. But actually the game is set up so you can cut out the gameplay entirely and play it as a visual novel instead. In other words it’s just a crappy visual novel with slow progression, creepy love interests and a stupid lead. Why did I waste so much time on it?
Bunmei Kaika Aoiza Ibunroku (PSP): Another boring otome visual novel. This time I knew it was a VN going in, but I gave it a chance because it’s by Furyu and I usually enjoy their games. Not this time, though. This game is about a girl who slips back in time and discovers she has special powers and has to join an evil-fighting group disguised as a theatre troupe, something like that. Frankly the story is boring, the art isn’t my style and the two male characters I might have liked to date were not gettable on a first playthrough. Another waste of time.
Those are all the duds for 2017-2018. Not too many, since I don’t play as many games as I used to. I try fewer ‘random’ games as well, so I at least have a general idea what the game is like before I start. So if a game shows up here, it’s something I was reasonably certain I would like but ultimately didn’t meet my needs. If there’s no 2019 edition, I will be extremely happy indeed, but as long as there’s no surefire way to tell if you’ll like a game until you actually play it, the number of victims will only increase. So see you again (most likely) next year!
