Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Toree 3D is Like the Creepypasta Version of a Colorful Platformer

 Reviews, Video games  5 Responses »  Tagged with:
Mar 252022
 

Another game that caught my eye when I picked it up in a bundle is Toree 3D, a colorful 3D platformer with a low poly aesthetic.

You play as a duck trying to get back his stolen ice cream, but that’s not especially important. It’s just an excuse to get you platforming through 9 stages.

It’s a short, basic 3D platformer. You can walk, run, and jump (and double jump). Each level has a number of stars for you to collect on your way to the goal.

I was a little disappointed to see it didn’t have much exploration, since exploration-based 3D platformers are my favorite, but it’s fun enough for what it is. Each level is very short, roughly 5 minutes or less depending on how well you do. It times you, and gives you a rank at the end.

So all in all, it ends up being a short game, although there are two additional characters you can unlock. Its biggest appeal is probably to people who want to replay levels for faster times.

But there’s another odd layer to Toree 3D, and that’s its horror elements. Occasionally, the sound glitches out, the music gets distorted, the happy faces in the background turn creepy… it becomes a twisted version of itself, for no clear reason, before reverting back to its bright, colorful style.

I was hoping the horror elements were building up to something, but they weren’t, as far as I can tell. They’re just there.

It feels like the creepypasta version of a 3D platformer. You know, like somewhere out there would be normal copies of Toree 3D, but you got the one where weird stuff starts happening.

That’s an interesting style to intentionally emulate, although I still wish the game did more with it. While reading about it afterwards to see if I had missed something, I also came across the Super Mario 64 Iceberg and the personalization meme, which was so entertaining to read through, I wonder if any game has tried to more closely mimic that yet.

(Reading about that made me realize that something in Super Mario 64 scared me as a kid, and I feel as though I might have had a Super Mario 64 related nightmare within the past few years, which is… strange. This has also made me nostalgically want to revisit Super Mario 64.)

Anyway, Toree 3D was cute and short. I wish it had done more with its creepy elements, but it was fun to spend a little time with.

Let’s Talk About the Kaito Files

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 232022
 

Back ahead of Lost Judgment’s launch, we talked a bit about its DLC.

I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of side content being locked behind DLC, especially when that includes side cases as part of the day-one DLC.

But the one piece of DLC I had no problem with was final piece, a story expansion DLC set for spring 2022 called the Kaito Files.

Spring is here, and the Kaito Files has had its release date announced: March 28.

The Kaito Files begins with Kaito watching over the agency alone while Yagami is on a business trip, when he accepts a missing persons case that ends up tying into his own past. Several tweets have shown off new characters, Kaito’s combat, and more. Apparently he can also look, listen, and… sniff for clues.

All of this sounds great, and plenty of screenshots have been shown off as well.

Now, it seems that the Kaito Files will cost $29.99 on its own, in addition to being included in the Season Pass. The Season Pass costs $34.99, though, so it almost seems like it’s not worth getting on its own when you could get all that other extra content for $5 more.

Since I’ve had mixed feelings about the other DLC content from the start, that makes me wonder if it’s a ploy to get more people to buy the Season Pass.

More importantly, at that price, it costs half what the full game did when it first came out. So will the Kaito Files provide half a Lost Judgment’s worth of content? Back when it was first announced, it was said to be 10 hours long. That’s a hefty amount of playtime for DLC, but perhaps not for DLC that costs half as much as the whole game. On the other hand, maybe it’ll have its own side content that expands it further.

By the time I’m ready to even consider playing the Kaito Files, I’m sure I’ll have answers to all these questions. There’s a reason we haven’t talked about Lost Judgment yet despite how hyped I was for it when it was announced, and for once it’s not just that I didn’t get to it yet.

No, it’s because I decided to finish the main Yakuza series first, to avoid spoilers. So I have 3 whole games to go before starting Lost Judgment, let alone its DLC.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the Kaito Files?

Eternia: Pet Whisperer is a Strange Little Game

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Mar 212022
 

On the weekend, I decided to take a short break from dying incessantly in the Lands Between to instead play a bite-sized visual novel called Eternia: Pet Whisperer.

It was described as being inspired by Hatoful Boyfriend, a favorite of mine, and I got it as part of a bundle, so why not?

You have decided to adopt a pet, so you head to a special animal sanctuary, and the animals living there start talking to you.

I felt like this could have been expanded a bit more, since it seemed to me I went from the protagonist denying the possibility of animals speaking, to happily wondering what a koala will enjoy talking about, without anything in between to bridge it.

Anyway, the visual novel takes place over a series of days. Each day, you can pick an animal to talk to from the animals that are currently around. Once you’ve talked to an animal enough times, they’ll start showing up more and more, until the possibility of adoption comes up.

Once you adopt an animal, it’s effectively the end of the route, but you’re given an option to loop back to the start.

The loop being built into the game if you choose to take it means you don’t have to skip through dialogue you’ve already seen, because only the new conversations are available for you to choose from. That’s convenient, although it does make subsequent routes feel shorter and shorter.

Each animal has their own little story, although the stories are nothing exceptional. I also wished the ending had a bit more content, since it felt abrupt even for what it was. Eternia: Pet Whisperer is a short (less than 30 minutes for me) game about talking animals with some wacky humor. I don’t necessarily recommend you rush out and buy it, but if you do end up getting it, it should bring a few smiles.

 Older Entries  Newer Entries