Board 8 > July 2023 Video Games

(+) Yeah! (+)

Gotta buy Trails if physical copies are gonna be as scarce as the last two apparently

ya go my trails

Viewfinder

More Trails please

After I finish XVI I'm probably taking an extended break from new videogames

Slower month for me, which is great cause I'll have some time to finish up the stuff that was completely displaced by Tears of the Kingdom before everything heats up again from August onward.

gotta go with dat OATCHI

atelier is the one definite answer for me

contemplating pikmin

outside of the poll i'm pretty interested in the new nobunaga's ambition

also taking a quick look at my steam wishlist i've also got these on my radar and might pick them up if they're cheap enough
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1539140/STONKS9800_Stock_Market_Simulator/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1530800/Frank_and_Drake/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1955490/CaveFiction/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101130/From_Madness_with_Love/

fairly quiet month overall

FINALLY Oxenfree

July is time to catch up on better games from last month

Crime O'Clock

I want to play Reverie, but I still need to play Zero, Azure, and Cold Steel III & IV first.

Trails

Pikmin 4, but I'm still going through Diablo IV and need to play FFXVI. So I probably won't get to it until August.

I voted no games but I missed Oxenfree II was in the poll

which I have preordered

I wonder if NISA shipped my limited edition of Reverie yet. They're in the middle of a site upgrade and you can't even log on to the new site

Exoprimal not looking great, but I guess we'll see once more reviews come in.

picked up cavefiction

hopefully will also be able to get stonks98

money has been too tight for me this month to get full price releases at all... (probably won't actually be getting marie now till the end of the month)

quick review zone updates on stuff from this month because i only just noticed the trails and oxenfree ones and it got me to check other stuff out of curiosity so why not

STONKS-9800
... has like 3 reviews (2 of which are on youtube because of course) which to be fair is more than i expected for a niche and early access title, general impressions are mixed however

Viewfinder
i forgot this was a game this month oops, anyway looks like it's holding onto an 82% average so far from 45 reviews, kinda expected it to be up there for a sort of niche goty contention though i guess the short length did hold it back

Touhou: New World
this was the latest game from that touhou fangame circle that does Ys-like games (namely Scarlet Curiosity and that one Youmu one that was at a gdq forever ago), forgot about it until now honestly. Also surprised it actually has a page on opencritic, though predictably it doesn't have enough reviews for a proper average either. Roughly 67% average from 5 reviews though which isn't too bad by touhou fangame standards

From Madness with Love
has no professional reviews and it's probably better that way. judging from its 97% positive steam impressions at least (since i still haven't picked it up yet) it does very much seem to be inspired by various other "meme" vns with a focus on tonal whiplash, particularly ones like Hatoful Boyfriend, but apparently more extreme running through the content warnings users provided, so uh... easy rec to those who are into that?

CaveFiction
has basically no reviews at all to no surprise. 100% positive on steam (from 15 reviews) at least and i can say... it's a difficult sell, being a weird short adventure game that more than delivers on its promises for pseudo-intellectual dialogue. Has confusing controls, expects you to replay it at least a couple of times to make much sense of it, and something like a quarter of the time the game is just poking fun at either itself, the player or both. I still kind of like it
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/0/4/AARWb-AAEsMk.jpg

Atelier Mariemake
76% through 40 reviews not bad. Notably I will say I think the port of Atelier Remake Plus that comes with it has some issues (some effects were removed from cutscenes and stuff), but besides that it's pretty good and better received than i expected and of course it's still pretty neat there even is an official localisation of either version to begin with

Nobunaga Emblem Awakening
close behind at 75%, albeit only from 7 reviews (i blame the price tbh). console controls have been unsurprisingly been criticised, though at the same time it is getting positive reception for being the first nobunaga game on switch (to get localised at least)

Cross Tails
apparently this is a rare Kemco game that is neither made in rpgmaker nor a mobile port, and also an FFT-style SRPG, specifically from the devs of the Mercenaries Saga series. seems neat, and it's also pretty well-received judging from its two 8/10 reviews and one 7, well above average compared to all the mercenaries saga entries thanks to its more memorable characters and transition to 3D environments

Frank and Drake
welp mixed reception apparently (67% average from 10 reviews). despite the cool rotoscoped visuals, seems held back by its hit or miss gameplay and narrative

Remnant 2 is the bomb