Neosekken legutóbbi értékelései

Vanripper did it again, and this time I felt he upped his game (quite literally) from Helltaker! It's pretty similar in story structure and character interactions to Helltaker, only instead of taking the role of a big burly man building a harem of demon girls in business attire you're now taking the role of a lady who ends up building herself a harem of ghost girls. For those who are fans of "yuri" and similar genres delving into girls love, there's plenty of that to go around here. Just don't expect a compelling narrative, because this game is interested in delivering everything else but that.

Gameplay's a step-up (IMO) from Helltaker, where instead of being a movement-based puzzle game you're now playing a combination of bullet-hell action game and time-management simulator, with quick reflexes on your part being instrumental to your success in each of the game's stages which get noticeably and progressively harder as you go. It's an interesting combination of genres/mechanics that I've found to be surprisingly fun, if frustratingly challenging at times, but the challenge in this game's case feels fair and well-designed enough to where the vast majority of deaths I experience as I play feel like they're my own fault because I genuinely made a mistake here and there that would lead to those deaths (which there were A LOT of, believe that!). You gotta be willing to adapt to the game's difficulty and develop your reflexes real quick, because Awaria is very punishing even on it's Normal difficulty -- people who grew up with the demanding gameplay of arcade-era games will feel right at home here, I think!

The soundtrack was done by Mittsies, the game guy whose music was used for Helltaker. Every single track is absolutely stellar and sets the mood in each segment they're played in perfectly, and I personally find them so good that it actually helped alleviate any frustration I felt during my initial run because each delay I experienced via my many gameplay deaths allowed me to listen to each track for extended periods of time and become really familiar with them. To put it another way, Awaria has one of the best OSTs that someone like me could listen to as I died during gameplay more times than I could count and it only made me appreciate the game even more as a result, in a bizarre (but not unwelcome) way.

The art style of Awaria matches everything else that Vanripper has put out in the past, and it looks just as good here as it does in everything else of his I've ever personally seen. It's instantly recognizable and packed with the same charm that helped draw me into Helltaker back when it first came out, but Awaria manages to be visually distinct enough from Vanripper's previous works (Helltaker being the most noteworthy example) to where it easily stands out from the rest of his catalogue. The character designs across the board are also great, with plenty of fanservice to go around -- nothing more for me to add there.

In conclusion, Awaria feels like a natural evolution to Helltaker in every way, especially in terms of actual gameplay. I wasn't expecting to see this game drop when it did, but I'm grateful that it did and that I got to experience another gem of a game from Vanripper as a result.

And Vanripper, you should've waited to drop this game until 2025, because that would've made it an easy 2025 game of the year contender for me had you done so! But you do you, I guess! Either way, thanks for making one of the most fun games I've played in a while (again)!

EDIT:

As of 1/26/2025, I completed the game on hard mode. vanripper, on the very slim chance that you end up reading this review of mine, I have something to say to you: You're a smart and sadistic son-of-a-BEEtch, and I wanna buy you a drink for dropping another game that manages to be very fun and hair-tearingly frustrating in equal measure even on it's hardest difficulty, and made me want to keep going at it no matter how long it took me to succeed because of how fun the challenge ended up being despite the frustration I frequently felt. Making games like this takes talent, and you should be proud of yourself for what you've achieved in Awaria.

I can't wait to see what you cook up next, both in terms of games AND in recipes!

I want to preface this review by saying that I'll primarily be focusing on how this particular port fares compared to the "r3227" English fan translation of the original Windows release that I've played a few years back (I never played the PS2 original since that was never released overseas, and I've got a level of comprehension of the Japanese language that's likely worse than a toddler's so playing the game in its original Japanese script was obviously out of the question for me). I also think I've seen enough of this port's in-game assets to compare how they look/sound to the original Windows release despite the short play-time I currently have on record as of this writing.

I'll start by talking about the positives first:

First, it's nice to have ALL the UI fully translated into English. Navigating the fan translation was often a pain in the bum because most of the UI was still written in Japanese Kanji, but with this remaster finding workarounds for the old UI is now a thing of the past. Audio quality across the board sounds okay, pretty comparable to the original PC version. Controller support has been added, which I imagine was probably added so you could probably play this thing on a device like the Steam Deck. Whatever the reason may be, I'm pleased to see some additional functionality options added to this release.

... Now for the stuff I'm neutral about.

Bezels have been added to both sides of the screen in order to completely and artificially fill in a 16:9 screen ratio, since the original 4:9 in-game aspect ratio hasn't been altered in any way. I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, I typically prefer having borders of some kind if none of the original art assets can be redrawn to accommodate a wider aspect ratio, in order to preserve the original presentation of the game -- having black borders on both sides of the screen in cases like these, whenever I'm using a widescreen monitor or TV of some sort, isn't a deal breaker for me when it comes to enjoying 4:9 content. Buuuut, on the other hand, there doesn't appear to be any option to alter or turn the borders they've put in off, so you're gonna have to get used to seeing those waves the entire time you're playing this particular release, although whether or not this will actually bother you is a matter of personal preference.

Now for the negatives.

While the CG and background art definitely has been messed with, the images have a faint pixelated look to them that is particularly noticeable in zoom-in shots. I went and compared a screenshot I took from the HD Remaster and looked at the same CG image from the OG PC release - in the OG release, the picture looks slightly blurry likely as a result of the game running natively at a lower resolution than my 1080p PC monitor, but I didn't notice any particularly noticeable pixilation like I did with the HD Remaster. So on this particular point I guess you could say this is a matter of whether you prefer your background/CG art to look slightly blurry on HD monitors, or slightly pixelated on HD monitors. At any rate, as far as the HD Remaster is concerned, I don't consider the artwork that I've seen so far to be much of an overall improvement - depending on how you look at it, I think one could reasonably argue that these particular assets were slightly vandalized in a way, because while the OG PC art may look slightly blurry on my monitor I doubt I'd notice any pixilation in any of it if I looked at that version of the game on a PC monitor it was actually designed for. To be fair, the visual presentation of this port is at least passable by my standard - I just think the actual remastering of the artwork wasn't as good as it could've been.

Moving on... Besides the previously mentioned added controller support, I haven't seen any new quality-of-life features added to this release - it functions almost identically to the original release. No options to adjust the in-game resolution exist, so you're stuck with whatever resolution the game natively runs in the second you boot it up.

The actual translation for the in-game script, dictionary, glossary, encyclopedia, etc.... Jesus Christ. It reads like something that went through a machine translator like Google Translate. Grammer mistakes aplenty -- odd capitalization of random words, missing periods for the end of sentences, poor choice of wording for describing certain things (things like "it seem to me" rather than "it seemed to me"), and lots of instances where written dialogue seems to say a lot more than the amount of dialogue that's actually being spoken by the character, so much so to where I'd say it's the most egregious case of it I've seen in recent memory, and sentences that just don't plain sound like something a human high school girl would naturally say (although the bizarre dialogue isn't limited to just the main character)... or any human, for that matter. I took the time to read a couple entries from the in-game dictionary (something about the two islands that the game takes place in), and it was more of what I just described. It was painful for me to read.

I'm gonna try to go through more of the remaster whenever I can squeeze in the time, but I can tell you guys that, so far, out of the box I'm not enjoying it as it is. It makes the fan translated version I played a while back look like the work of a professional by comparison, and I'm just assuming this but I wouldn't be surprised if the r3227 fan translator basically did the work for free. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to believe that an actual human did the translation for the HD Remaster, and that this script got proofread by somebody else then given the green light for publication and distribution to the general public. While I would say that, so far, the translation for the in-game script is the biggest problem with this HD Remaster, the other things I've highlighted in both the neutral and negative sections are other issues with this release that make me hesitant to call this thing an HD Remaster, or at least a properly-done one, and show that the issues with this remaster extend past it's machine-translated script.


... So, do I actually recommend you buy and play this version of Aoi Shiro? Ultimately... yes, but only if you can get your hands on a backported r3227 English translation and install it into the HD Master's files. Fortunately this is easy to do, so I'll give a quick tutorial for anyone who wishes to play the HD Remaster this way in the comments section of this review.

The quality of the translation for this port as is, is simply unacceptable, and given how this game is a visual novel... screwing up the game's script is pretty much the worst thing you can possibly do. If there was absolutely no way to fix/replace the translation this port comes with, it'd be very easy for me to not recommend buying this port based on that one factor alone. I'll admit the r3227 translation has its fair share of problems from a writing standpoint, but to me its at least readable/understandable when compared to the HD Remaster's script. While I wish the artwork had more work done on it, the now fully English UI, used in tandem with the r3227 translation, still ultimately makes this HD remaster the definitive way for English speakers to play this classic visual novel on current PC platforms. So if you're willing to put in a little extra leg work to get the r3227 English translation installed in your copy of the HD Remaster, then at that point I'd say go ahead and buy the Aoi Shiro HD Remaster and either replay this 2008 classic if you've played it before... or experience it for the first time ever if you're a new player who thinks this VN might be worth your time.

Although given this is far from an ideal/decent remaster of the original game, I certainly wouldn't fault you if you decided to get this port at a discount rather than pay for it full-price...

So having JUST finished playing the game for the first time (haven't done any replays yet as of this writing), I must say... Resident Evil 3 Remake ended up being a big letdown for me in the end. I still had enough fun playing the game to finish it without it feeling like a chore to do so, and to be fair the game definitely HAS a few good things going for it (good soundtrack, immersive-looking world, a couple tweaks to some of RE2R's gameplay mechanics such as removing knife durability and adding a dodge mechanic that feels better than the original RE3's, and a couple good tension-inducing set-pieces such as the substation and several of the early in-game Nemesis chases, to name a couple examples), but sitting here reviewing the entire package now that I'm done playing it, my first impressions of the entire thing are mixed to negative, especially when viewing it as a remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

In a nutshell, as a game that serves as a follow-up to Resident Evil 2 Remake I feel it's a letdown that doesn't measure up to it's overall more-polished predecessor, even if I admit the game is arguably fun enough on it's own depending on your mindset when playing the game... as a GAME. It's not a bad game to PLAY by any stretch, but it's a definite downgrade to everything the developers of RE2R had going for THEIR game, which still managed to keep most of the soul of the original RE2 as a survival horror game where you explore several complex, isolated locations with limited resources intact... which is more than I can say for RE3R, which on the whole feels closer to being a toned-down version of RE6 with an altered, compressed version of RE3's story than it does the original RE3, a game which cranked up the action from the original RE2 but was still at it's core a classic survival horror game similar to it's predecessor back in the day, albeit in a more open world (for the first half of that game, at least).

Now, as a REMAKE of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis for the PlayStation 1... RE3R was simply awful. There's so much wrong with it in this respect that I feel that I could easily make my own dedicated video on the subject comparing this remake to the original on just this aspect alone, if I really wanted to. A short summary of things that come to the top of my mind, as of me having just finished the game, are as follows: Half the original game's content is missing (no clock tower, park, Dead Factory, most of Raccoon City's streets and buildings you get to explore are gone, no construction zone, the Gravedigger boss is completely gone, etc., etc..), a good bit of what DOES remain story/content-wise has been changed up in ways that feels inferior to the original more often than not, the changes in characterization feels like a mixed bag across the board (I do NOT like the changes to Jill and Nikolai's characters in this game, while everyone else I'm either neutral on or have no particular preference when compared to their original counterparts. Brad is the only character whose changed characterization I actually feel is an overall improvement from his original portrayal), the choice mechanic from the original game that influences how the story/game progressed is entirely absent (which was the source of most of the original RE3's replayability, but not here - apparently you play through RE3R once and you've already experienced everything the game's story has to offer), and they reduce the titular monster of the original game into a joke compared to his original incarnation -- one that the other characters treat more as an annoyance than a serious deadly threat to be feared (he isn't reduced to a joke in just story, either -- for most part he's been made into a joke during gameplay, too -- he's far less difficult than he was in the original game overall.). I'm just sitting here amazed at how much this game utterly failed to not only live up to my expectations as a follow-up to RE2R, but especially as a remake to one of my favorite games in the series.

The game was arguably at it's best during the first 1/4, maybe a bit beyond that -- but once I defeated the Nemesis in his first actual boss battle, it seems like the overall quality of the game started to take a nosedive and kept going down all the way until the credits started to roll... which makes it quite frustrating for me because for that first quarter of the game I felt that I could see little hints of what this game COULD have been like if it had been given some more polish, but unfortunately a world where we got a remake of RE3 with a similar level of polish to the RE2 Remake is NOT the world we're living in right now.

So in conclusion, I'd recommend anyone who's looking into getting into the Resident Evil series to stick to the original game and avoid this remake -- the original is a far better game overall than this remake is, IMO. But if you absolutely MUST try this game for yourself, then get it on sale because I don't think RE3R has enough going for it to justify paying for it full-price... and even then I would STILL avoid playing it until AFTER you've played through the original Resident Evil 3 shortly beforehand, so that way you can experience all the differences from the original game for yourselves. But if you choose to think of and play RE3R as just a follow-up to RE2R instead of comparing it to the original game, then while it certainly could be a lot better... you could also do a lot worse than RE3R.

I've actually bought this game through gog and completed it several years ago. I've decided to play my Steam copy of the game as long as was required of me to be able to write this review, so disregard the short play time that is displayed as of this writing as it isn't an accurate indication of my actual time spent with the game. With that out of the way...

Despite what the release date on the store page shows, Dead Patient's story had actually debuted back on May 29th 2013, through the original version of this game that was never released outside of Japan. The version of the game that's currently being sold here on Steam, gog and elsewhere is known as "Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient Neues", which was made on an at-the-time brand new engine and had it's revamped version of Chapter 1 first released on October 5, 2017 in Japan. This game wouldn't see an English release until a little more than 2 years later, on October 23, 2019 - the release date you see here on the store page.

I bring all this information up because I wish to bring attention to the metaphorical elephant in the room: that being the complete and utter lack of any meaningful updates to the game's story for not over three years, but in actuality, as of this writing, almost ten. The Neues version of the game added a single "EX Chapter" to the story, but no actual full chapters past Chapter 1 have yet to be released since this game's inception. All my investigations into this matter ever uncovered were that a person or two affiliated with the game's development had offered an apology for the game's slow development a few years ago, but past that there's been virtually nothing in the way resembling actual updates to Dead Patient's progress. No screenshots, footage, interviews, game assets, nothing. In fact, I'd argue that at this point I've now seen sufficient evidence to show that this game has effectively been quietly abandoned by it's developers, if the lack of meaningful content updates for near 10 straight years wasn't enough on it's own to convince most people looking into this game (I personally don't consider the single EX Chapter they added to Neues to be anything close to resembling a meaningful content update during such an extended time frame, even for a small team of Indies.).

There are threads on this game's Steam community hub made by several people asking for Chapter 2 updates dating as far back as 2019, with no developers/publishers associated with the game ever coming forward to provide any answers. Characters referenced in and from Dead Patient have been cut from more recent promotional art and trailers, while another upcoming Corpse Party game called "Darkness Distortion" has been slowly but noticeably been popping up in new promotional materials. In relation to that, an interview with MAGES director Makoto Asada that can be found on "Noisy Pixel" (which is titled, "New Corpse Party Game Announced; Worldwide Release", and first published on their site on February 26, less than a week ago as of this writing) goes into more detail about this upcoming "Darkness Distortion" Corpse Party game, where I'm going to highlight the bits of the interview that really matter (you can read the full thing yourselves if you want the full context):

"Interviewer: Will [this new Corpse Party game] be a remake of the original?"

"Makoto Asada: [...] No, it will be a new Corpse Party with a new scenario. Perhaps the only thing that hasn’t changed is that this game strongly focuses on sound, just like previous titles. Still, we have made the horror elements stronger, so I hope that not only fans of the series but also fans of horror games, in general, will enjoy this entry. [...] However, the core concept of Corpse Party is still there because Team GrisGris, the staff writers who wrote the original game, are all involved. We have started this project with the intent of taking the horror of Corpse Party to the next level."

"Interviewer: When did plans for this development begin?"

"Makoto Asada: The actual production started about two years ago, but the project itself has been in the works for several years. The idea of giving Corpse Party a new form had been on the agenda for a long time, but we never got around to starting the project, and it had been stagnant. So around two years ago, I decided to take on the challenge and get it off the ground.".

... So if we take everything that Asada says here into consideration when looking back on the past 10 years of Dead Patient's existence, not only do we have someone who's involved with the production and publishing of the upcoming Darkness Distortion outright confirming that not only has work on this particular game been technically in the works for the past couple years already, but he makes it clear that the hope for this new game will be to take the series into a new direction that will be very different to previous entries that came before, and in more than just story. Drastically different, in fact. There's also the fact that all of the GrisGris writers who worked on previous entries are also currently focusing their attention primarily on this new game, according to him.

You want to know what I also noticed from this particular interview? A distinct lack of mention for any updates regarding Dead Patient.

I don't know about you, dear readers, but what I'm personally taking from all of this, along with the other facts I've previously mentioned, is that, by all appearances, Dead Patient has effectively been abandoned by it's developers in favor of a new Corpse Party game that they feel is more worthy of their time and attention than doing anything to move Dead Patient forward in any capacity - a game which, I want to remind all of you yet again, has effectively been trapped in development hell for near 10 straight years at this point with no meaningful updates past it's first chapter. This very premise truly irritates me, since I've been periodically checking back on this game ever since I first completed it several years prior, looking for the tiniest hints of any potential updates for it coming down the pipeline, and as months turned into years that kept piling on my disappointment and irritation with this sad state of affairs continued to grow... and now I'm being presented with an interview about a wholly unrelated game that more or less confirms what I've been suspecting for a while now: that Corpse Party 2 has effectively been abandoned with not so much as a single syllable from anyone affiliated with the game offering any meaningful status updates for it besides a simple tweet that apologizes for the game's slow development, which was made several years ago (Lord knows if that tweet still exists. I don't even remember who even made it it's been so long since I last heard about it.).

I could offer all kinds of speculation as to why Dead Patient has been abandoned, but this thing I've written here has gone on long enough as it is, so I'm just going to go ahead and wrap things up by parting with you the following P.S.A.:

I strongly recommend that you DO NOT purchase this game. It has effectively been abandoned. Purchasing any additional copies of it at this point is VERY unlikely to convince anyone affiliated with the game to come back and resume working on it, so you'd just be wasting your time AND money, and those are things we humans only have in limited quantities. If you're a fan of the series, just stick to the games that take place during the Heavenly Host Saga - at least the Heavenly Host Saga has SOMETHING resembling a definitive beginning, middle and end (unless Darkness Distortion decides to change all that, somehow), regardless of how one may feel about the entire saga's overall quality. You're far more likely to get your money's worth with ANY game from that saga. I speak as a fan of this series.

Take care now.

I've seen a handful of survival horror Indies that tend to emulate classic Resident Evil when it comes to its gameplay elements/style and overall atmosphere, but the amount of Indies that I can think of off the top of my head that try to emulate the first Silent Hill game in the same respect can be counted on one hand, and even then two of them aren't complete products by any stretch.

"Banned Memories: Yanamashi" is a game I've been waiting for near 5-6 years now that's been having a bit of a hectic development cycle (which I won't go into any serious detail since it isn't relevant), and despite recent development videos and screenshots showing a vastly different-looking game compared to the demo that first released seven years ago that indeed looks promising, I have no idea when it's going to come out for sure. "Terminus" by developers "adc" and "Hades" comes the closest to SH1's overall aesthetic and gameplay while still having enough distinct elements to separate it from its primary inspiration, but this game, too, isn't complete, and whether or not the game is actually going to be developed into a full project anytime soon, if ever, is something even the developers don't seem too certain about. Which leaves us "Back in 1995", the only complete game of the trio that I'm able to recall (I've played the game a couple times a little while back as of this writing), but compared to the previous two games I've mentioned, Back in 1995 looks, feels and plays like a cheap, bare bones imitation of both SH1 and other survival horror games from the 1990s in general. Needless to say, my personal experience in trying to find an Indie horror game that tries to take serious inspiration from SH1 while doing it's own thing has been rather unsuccessful to say the least.

So imagine my susprise when, while using my Steam Discovery Queue/New Releases Queue (great features to use on here that I think every Steam user should get in the habit of using - I've found my fair share of hidden gems among Steam's massive library of games over the years that I probably would've never otherwise discovered thanks to them!), I'm presented with "Lake Haven - Chrysalis". After reading the store page and a couple reviews while avoiding any potential spoilers, and seeing the small price tag, my gut instinct told me to take a gamble and buy a copy of the game to try out - and I'm glad I did.

The overall asthetic, gameplay loop, user interface, etc. conveyed certainly comes close to SH1, although there are a couple differences I noticed that separate it from SH1 that I quickly took a liking to, although for this review I'll only mention one in order to keep this review from being too long:

The inventory screen displays items you find in fully 3D models that you can not only examine in fine detail, but examining certain items in specific ways is required in order to either find hidden items or otherwise reveal elements to the items you're currently examining that are crucial to puzzle solving. It's basically the original Resident Evil's 3D item examination mode with a different coat of paint to help it match Chrysalis' aesthetic. I was surprised to see something like this in this game upon discovering it since everything else about the gameplay feels closer to SH1 than RE1, but I quickly grew to like it. It didn't feel out of place with the rest of the game, and I thought it was handled competently.

As for the story of Chrysalis... since it's a prologue for a bigger game that is currently in development there isn't a whole lot I could really comment on due to how little story content we've been presented with thus far, although based on what Chrysalis DOES tell/show us, I got a theory or two as to what I think might be going on that may or may not be close to the truth of the matter:

Without going into a whole lot of specifics, when taking the contents of the notes Eleanor left behind into consideration, I get the picture of someone who's being "visited" by some otherworldly beings that are trying to influence her mind in some way, and another character, James, may or may not be a part of this mental manipulation. What sort of manipulation is going on, exactly? From what I've been able to guess, I think the same otherworldly beings were trying to get Eleanor to describe certain things in writing, and Eleanor commented that if she did just that that the things in which she's describing would be made manifest into our reality - if I'm understanding her right. When taking this idea and comparing it to some of the cryptic, surreal stuff that takes place towards the end, from strange vines coming to life to try and kill you in a red haze, to that giant floating head and the strange stuff it says about Elanor and another character, and the ending scene in which Eleanor(?) seems to somehow compell Zeke to write something down on a piece of paper, after which a whole new landscape begins forming all around them... I ultimately get the impression of some kind of cosmic horror story involving some otherworldly entities that may be trying to get some human pawns (Eleanor and Zeke, perhaps?) to bring certain ideas/concepts into reality via some kind of special reality warping power that is made manifest upon being written down by said human pawns... soooooo, perhaps what's going on here is some Lovecraftian Outer Gods or something similar is trying to invade our realm and the two main characters, Zeke and Elanor, are the only two humans that may be in a position to influence this scheme, one way or another?

SPOILERS FOR ANOTHER GAME



To be honest, if my interpretation of Lake Haven's story is anywhere close to the truth, the story kinda reminds me of Alan Wake in a lot of respects. But again, I could be very wrong with my theory here, so if I were you, dear reader, I would take everything I'm saying here with a massive pinch of salt.



END OF SPOILERS FOR ANOTHER GAME

As I mentioned previously, there's more I could say about Chrysalis, but I feel like this review of mine is going on pretty long as it is, so I won't prattle on for too much longer. I think Chrysalis has shown me something interesting and promising, and I hope to see what the full Lake Haven has to offer in the future. As long as the full game is a polished experience that shows a lot of soul/passion put into it, I'm sure I'll be happy with it. I wish Encrypt Games the best of luck with their development of the full game!

Tomagachi's got nothing on growing my own Grandpa!

I have yet to play Justice for All and Trials & Tribulations, but I have completed the first game in this trilogy, and I must say, as someone who owns and has played all three of these games on both the original Nintendo DS AND played the Trilogy that was released for the Nintendo 3DS (itself an HD remaster of the original trilogy, but without all the bugs and monetization nonsense that the mobile version had, especially at launch), I am truly impressed with the quality of this port of the Trilogy that I have seen thus far.

I didn't notice any stutters or outright missing frames in any of the character sprite animations, and said animations flow smoothly - maybe not quite as smoothly as the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS versions, but it still looks nice and fluid all the same. The art style has a similar look to what I've seen on the 3DS Version of the trilogy, although I have noticed that some aspects of the character sprites look a bit different in this version than the 3DS version. One notable example of this that comes to mind is the character April May's "annoyed" sprite, where she bears a wide grin with a twitchy eye, with said eyes lacking any light reflection, thus making them look dull. Think "unhappy and/or psycho Anime character eyes" and there you go. In this PC port, there is light reflection in this particular sprite, so it changes some of the emotion the player may feel when looking at this particular sprite. But to be fair, I think the DS version of this particular sprite didn't have "dull eyes of unhappiness" applied to it either, so this was probably something that was done for the mobile versions of the Trilogy but was changed back for some reason or another, although this is speculation on my part. But besides notable instances like this, the overall look of the character sprites simply looks like upscaled versions of the 3DS sprites with a couple touches added to them to make them look nice and sharp for the PC release.

Audio also sounds good. They use higher quality versions of all the music I've heard in the Nintendo DS version of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and it sounds nice and clear. I've detected no audio stuttering or any other issues.

You also have access to all the various localized versions of the Trilogy besides what was released in the United States, from the Japanese originals to a whole host of other countries, so newcomers and old fans alike from various territories across the globe will be able to enjoy the Trilogy in their native language. However, changing the settings to a different region will change both the dub for spoken dialogue AND all the text across the Trilogy, so if you aren't fluent in any languages other than your native tongue I'd recommend memorizing where the option to change the language settings is located on the Trilogy's main menu before you go around messing with it, otherwise you might get stuck trying to figure out what's what if you find yourself having difficulty navigating any of the menus. Basically, don't be an idiot with the language settings!

There's also a host of other options that you'd typically expect from a PC release of a visual novel game (and most PC games in general) from resolution settings to other features that allow you to customize how parts of the games look, like the dialogue boxes (I personally keep the dialogue boxes at the maximum transparency settings so I can have a perfect balance of being able to read the text with no issue and being able to see everything behind it. Something I wished was possible in the Nintendo DS and 3DS versions because I did enjoy seeing as much of all the art as possible.). Overall the whole list of options is nothing major, but there's enough there to make sure everything runs exactly the way you might want them to, and considering these are basically visual novels with upgraded visuals I doubt most people who have computers made within the past decade will have any issue running this port.

Finally, you have access to about a dozen save slots for all localized versions of the three games, unlike all previous versions of these games that were typically limited to one save file per game, which is great news to me because I felt limited by the single-save slots that were present in both the Nintendo DS and 3DS versions (unless you count the Japanese versions you can play in the latter, but I can't read Japanese to save my life so for all intents and purposes I have to write them off.). This may not seem like such a big deal, but it always annoyed me when I saw games that came out from the 6th generation of consoles (early 2000s) onward that didn't have multiple save slots as the standard when, as far as I am concerned, developers have had advanced enough hardware by that point to make that feasible with the vast majority of dedicated console games.

In conclusion, I am very impressed with the overall presentation of this release - I have no criticisms thus far. If Justice For All and Trials & Tribulations will deliver the same level of quality I've seen with the first game in this particular release, then I can confidently say that, without a doubt, this latest version of the Ace Attorney trilogy is the definitive way to experience these fantastic games. The Ace Attorney Trilogy were the first visual novel games I've ever played, and it is them that sparked my interest in the medium to begin with, and they're truly fantastic and fun games that can give you quite the emotional roller-coaster ride from time to time, making you laugh one minute, pitying the main character's tendency to be the universe's chew toy the next minute, and presenting you with tales of murder that can tug your heartstrings at times perhaps well before you may be able to see them coming. There's a lot of heart and soul in the Ace Attorney games, and I think those qualities shine the brightest they ever have in this latest release of the original trilogy.

If you've ever had an inkling of an interest in trying out the Ace Attorney series for yourself but aren't sure which versions of the original three you should get, this PC release should be your first option to consider, although the other ports I've mentioned are still good options to look into as well (this PC release is also available on all the current-gen consoles as well, if you want to still experience this version of the Trilogy but can't do it on PC for some reason.). All these options are great ways to experience the Trilogy, but as far as I'm concerned this PC release gives you the best bang for your buck when it comes to performance, options, etc., so if you have a capable enough PC then get this release as soon as you're able. If you like story-driven games, then chances are you won't regret purchasing this release!

With the Steam Workshop and a decent amount of internal storage on your computer, the sheer amount of fun you can create with Garry's Mod is near limitless. Its a sandbox game filled with tons of potential for creativity. I've wasted hundreds of hours of my life on this thing.

I regret nothing. There are far worse ways to waste your time, anyway. Like watching paint dry. 10 U.S. dollars is pretty reasonable for what's being offered here, but if you can get it during a sale then by all means grab it. Its pretty dated now, but despite that you should give it a shot. You might be surprised at how much fun you'll end up having.

EDIT: Fast forwarding to December of 2024, I'm still pleased to see this game being supported and having all manner of Q.O.L. features being added, either officially or unofficially via modders. Still plenty of fun even after all this time. Seriously, give G-mod a shot.

Well, this game was certainly an interesting experience, to put it lightly. If there's one thing I can say regarding my experience with Hatoful Boyfriend, I think TV Tropes's Laconic sub-page for the game puts it best:Dating pigeons is nothing but suffering and madness. (Here's a link if you want to see the page I'm referencing: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/HatofulBoyfriend )

There was humor, agitation, sadness, utter confusion, sadness, teachers prone to sleeping in the middle of virtually everything short of an actual emergency, heartwarming moments galore, the option to create a romance between a bird & a fava bean (it makes sense in context), interesting behind-the-scenes plots and information I shall not elaborate on here because pudding, nonsensical tangents that make sense in context just as often as they absolutely don't make sense in context, [spoilers]an emotional rollercoaster of a final story route that completely turns the seemingly innocent premise of the game on it's head, if some of the other characters' routes somehow don't manage to do that for you beforehand[/spoiler] and, last but not least, the option to romance plenty of birds, even your own homeroom teacher. And all of this is only the door to this birdcage of insanity that is Hatoful Boyfriend. Playing this game has subverted my expectations in ways that have made me laugh, left me more than a little confused, slightly traumatized, and has given me a slight pudding-shaped bruise that was verbally beaten into my head. Abandon all hope & reason, all ye who enter here, for thoust art unlikely to come out of this without asking at least once, "what in the bloody hell just happened?"

At least I got to experience the absolute wonder of the imagination that is Okosan. Okosan makes everything better.

10/10, would seek the True Pudding and play cupid to a bird and a fava bean all over again.
Just make sure you make the right choices unless you want to have your life, your caramel candy, iPhone 4S, ladder, and halberd, stolen from you.

I've been meaning to do this review for a long time, but in all due honesty I don't think there's much I can really talk about when it comes to the differences between this version of Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion and the original version. I've already made a review of the original version of Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion here on Steam, so most of what I've said in that there also applies here (but in case you don't want to look for my review of the original game, allow me to sum up the gist of it here: I think the original Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion is a game that, after first discovering it with a friend via a Markiplier Let's Play and eventually playing it for myself, surprised me in numerous ways in how it handled it's horror and is a title that I continue to enjoy very much even to this day, and is a title that I'd recommend any fan of horror give a try, especially since it'd you nothing to play it.).

Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion: HD Rennovation is basically the same game as the original one, albeit with a superior game engine to work with and better models across the board, along with a whole bunch of new rooms and other additions (like full controller support, achievements, and a better options/game configuration menu, to name a few.) that makes this version of the game look and feel more polished and fleshed out than the original. All in all, I consider HD Renovation to be the definitive edition of Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion.

While you can still (as of this writing) play the original version for free here on Steam (or even on sites like Game Jolt), if you liked the original game, I'd recommend getting this version for the reasons stated above and also to support the developers. Veterans of the original game won't be disappointed with this remake.