Category: Video Games

Good Games with Easy, Quick Platinum Trophies

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Platinum trophy hunting (or if you play on X-Box or Steam, achievement hunting) doesn’t appeal to every gamer, but it does to me. My goal is to earn as many platinum PlayStation trophies as my age eventually. I have some work to do. More than I’d care to admit. Easy platinums tend to come from bad games, but some exceptions exist. That made me wonder which good video games have easy and quick platinum trophies.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. This post has been a long time coming. A video game can’t just have an easy-to-earn platinum trophy. We want quick platinum trophies. This eliminates a heap of video games. I just finished The Survivalists, and while it has an easy-to-earn platinum trophy, it’ll take well over thirty hours. Quick feels more like less than twenty hours. This might still be too long for some, but twenty hours is a dedicated weekend of gaming. We must pick a number.

Most gamers can find twenty hours for an enjoyable experience. That leads us to defining an “easy” platinum trophy. The trophy should be attainable through a single play-through or the game should allow players to play little of a second play-through to make this list. Finally, the game needs to be “good,” but gamers desire different things. Let’s split these games into story and gameplay buckets. I’ll do my best to explain why I included each game or game series. And this leads to the final clarification. I’ll include a game series for story and gameplay and then a few single games. Without further ado, let’s jump into the games.

Game Series

Top 5 Video Games For Couples Cat Quest 2

Cat Quest Series

We’ll start with a game series with little story but a fun gameplay loop. Cat Quest doesn’t have much of a story. It’s an excuse to have cute kitties battling beasties in an old-fashioned beat-‘em-up video game. The game has some gameplay alternatives, especially with the sequels, but Cat Quest sticks to a simple but fun formula. Cast magic with magic points. Replenish your magic points by landing weapon attacks.

Cat Quest 2 does a great job of incorporating ranged attacks. The first Cat Quest only offered melee attack weapons. As I’m writing this post, I have yet to play Cat Quest 3. It looks as if it builds off the second game in the series. The first game took me 10 hours to earn the platinum. The second game took around 15 hours. Even if Cat Quest 3 mimics Cat Quest 2 and expands the map and side quests further, it should clock in around 20 hours for the platinum and still be worthy of a spot on this list.

Telltale Games

The Telltale Games studio features story-driven games that take around 15-20 hours to complete. Most of these games were well-received at the time of their release and worth a play if you enjoy the intellectual property the game is set. I have fond memories of 2012’s The Walking Dead. This game announced Telltale Games to the video game community. Many of The Walking Dead’s moments live rent-free in my head. “Did you lick the saltlick, Clementine?” “I don’t know.” Clementine was adorable.

The Wolf Among Us was another hit and well worth a playthrough. This title also illustrates how easy it is to obtain a platinum trophy in a Telltale Game. Most Telltale Games, like The Walking Dead or the Batman series, will grant players a platinum trophy for completing the story. Super easy! Barely an inconvenience. Thank you for that phrase, “Pitch Meeting.” The Wolf Among Us requires players to make a different choice during a chapter to get its platinum trophy, but all you need to do is reload the one chapter in question and pick a different option. Even when Telltale Games makes a platinum trophy more difficult to obtain, they don’t make it that difficult.

Most Telltale Games I’ve played are a good time. I will admit that the company became risk-averse after their hit The Walking Dead. I haven’t played too many of their most recent titles. I may log a few more soon for a platinum or two.

Single Games

Nubla

A child visits an art museum and falls into the paintings. The kid must save the residents of these paintings by solving art-themed puzzles. While dated (Nubla celebrated its tenth-anniversary last year), Nubla has a great aesthetic, above-average graphics for the time, and an intriguing premise. Nubla also happens to be the quickest platinum trophy to obtain on this list, and it’s not even that close. YouTubers have speed-run completing the platinum trophy in twenty minutes. I don’t suggest watching these videos while playing the game. The puzzles aren’t that difficult to solve. I was able to finish the game in under three hours without help. Even so, you could finish Nubla in under an hour if you load a how-to video and all you want is speed.

Nubla 2 was released in late 2022. I have yet to play it. From what I’ve heard, the original cast of characters returns and again, you must rescue citizens of paintings. This may be another game I’ll need to consider, inching me closer to my platinum trophy goal.

Life Is Strange Video Game

Life Is Strange

I like to get lost in Life Is Strange’s world and characters. Set in 1990s Oregon (in the fictional town of Arcadia Bay), Life Is Strange centers on teenagers Max Caulfield and Chloe Price. Life Is Strange has an earnest quality to it that few games have. The two main characters are teenage girls and while the story can dabble in the melodramatic, it works. The world feels lived in. Steeping Arcadia Bay in a nostalgic, autumnal lens is deliberate. Even the story’s supernatural elements are designed as a metaphor for the character’s inner conflicts and there are plenty. The DontNod (design) team consulted experts to tackle difficult subjects like teen suicide.

Like the TellTale Games above, Life Is Strange was released episodically. The story goes astray a little bit toward the end but not enough to tarnish the overall experience. Life Is Strange is worth your time. It takes around 20 hours to complete the game, and you will most likely need to replay a scene or two after you finish to get the platinum trophy, but I can’t recommend the original Life Is Strange enough. And the original Life Is Strange received a remaster a couple of years ago. Yay! I may have another game to replay.

Donut County

Donut County challenges Nubla for the shortest game on this list. Again, you can find YouTube speed-runs that last an hour or two, and again, I suggest you try it on your own first. Donut County is like Katamari Damacy. Players control a hole (or donut) in the world and try to drop things into the hole. With each object that falls inside the hole, the hole gets bigger until nothing remains. Numerous mobile games have copied Donut County after its original 2018 release. It has a fun, addictive gameplay loop, and more importantly for this list, a quick and easy-to-obtain platinum trophy.

If anything, I’m disappointed that Donut County doesn’t have a longer run-time. The trophy was great to achieve, but I wanted more Donut County to play. Perhaps indie game publisher Annapurna Interactive will release a Donut County sequel. Like I need another game to play on this list.

What Remains of Edith Finch

What Remains of Edith Finch

I’ve mentioned What Remains of Edith Finch more than once on Geekly, but until this year, I had only played the demo. What Remains of Edith Finch received a remaster a few years ago and the remastered What Remains of Edith Finch has a platinum trophy. For the most part, you only need to complete the game’s six-hour story to earn the trophy. And What Remains of Edith Finch has an amazing story. What Remains of Edith Finch even manages to weave in unique gameplay elements.

The player character takes a ferry to Orcas Island, Washington carrying the journal of Edith Finch. Edith writes about her experience when she returns to her ancestral home on the island for the first time in seven years. Edith says that she’s the last surviving member of her family. The player then takes the perspective of Edith as she reexplores her family’s home and discovers the circumstances of each relative’s death. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but What Remains of Edith Finch contains innovative gameplay that matches the stories of each Finch family member. What Remains of Edith Finch shows the depth video game storytelling can achieve.

And that’s our list. The games on this list are by no means the only good video games with quick and easy platinum trophies. Let us know which games you’d include. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

5 Famous LGBT Characters in Video Games

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Happy Pride Month, Geekly Gang! Since it’s June, we’ll be celebrating with a list of famous LGBT characters in video games. JK Geekly is about to get a lot more rainbow.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We’ll be sticking to our usual format of five items to one of these lists, but make no mistake, countless other LGBT characters from video games could’ve made this list. So let’s take a look at which LGBT video game characters made this colorful list.

5) Alexios and Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey)

Alexios and Kassandra are the two main protagonists of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Alexios is male, while Kassandra is female. Both are siblings, and you can choose to play as either of them. Assassin’s Creed chose to use gender neutral terms for both characters (calling them the Greek word for mercenary), and both characters may romance any of 14 characters (male or female), but Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey goes deeper than that. Players don’t need to romance anyone. You may choose to shoot down all advances and claim that you’re aromantic or asexual, which is rare for video games that include romantic options.

Yep. We’re starting this list off strong with a seldom-represented group within the larger LGBT community. Everyone is valid.

4) Krem (Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Even though Krem was a minor character in Dragon Age: Inquisition, he received significant media coverage from gaming journalists and LGBT-centric media for his positive depiction of a transgender character in a AAA video game, and for good reason. He’s a proud member of Iron Bull’s team, named the Bull’s Chargers. Krem’s teammates accept him for who he is, and Iron Bull himself treats him like an equal.

Dragon Age creator Trick Weekes received repeated requests from fans for a respectful representation of transgender and/or genderqueer characters, without resorting to stereotypes or tokenism. Krem is the best kind of transgender representation. Honest.

3) Bloodhound (Apex Legends)

I bathe in the bloth. That’s the line Bloodhound utters every time they enter “Beast of the Hunt,” tracking down as many enemies and dispatching them as quickly as they can. Bloodhound is one of the first and few non-binary video game characters. Note: Apex Legends characters could overrun this list with Valkyrie (lesbian), Loba (bisexual), Gibraltar (gay), and Catalyst (trans woman), to name a few, so we’ll limit this list to one Apex Legends character. Apex Legends does a great job of giving its characters layers and respecting their identities.

Apex doesn’t miss a beat when referring to Bloodhound in gender neutral terms. The game normalizes it. Even when Bloodhound is young, during one of the trailers, Boone refers to them as “child.” Great representation.

2) Birdo or Birdetta (Super Mario Bros. Series)

Our penultimate entry on this list is none other than the first transgender character in video game history, Birdo. The only concrete link to Birdo’s gender comes from the original Super Mario Bros. 2 guidebook that states “he thinks he’s a girl” and “he’d rather be called ‘Birdetta'” with the implication that Birdo is a mocking term (either dead-naming her or an insult that she isn’t girly enough to pull off the name Birdetta). Let’s do this queen a solid and call her Birdetta.

As you can see, there may have been some confusion as to who Birdetta was. The characters known as Birdo and Ostro became fused into one character well after Super Mario Bros. 2’s original release. After Birdetta’s write-up in the Super Mario Bros. 2 guidebook was rediscovered, she became a trans icon. Put some respect on Birdetta’s name.

1) Ellie Williams (The Last of Us)

Ellie is synonymous with The Last of Us. Whether she’s voiced by Ashley Johnson in the video games or by Bella Ramsey in the television show, Ellie Williams exudes strength against tremendous odds. Slay, queen. Slay!

While other characters on this list may have hit the video game scene far sooner than Ellie, there’s no doubt she’s made an impact. A scene in which Ellie and Riley kiss in Left Behind (The Last of Us’ prequel) drew social commentary and was commended as a leap for LGBT representation in video games. You love to see it. Johnson’s performance in Part II was praised for her vulnerability and suffering. The same can be said of Ramsey’s portrayal in the Max television show. Ellie is a fantastic character. The community needed some great representation, and they got it with Ellie. I can wait to see which barriers this character will shatter.

That’s our list of five famous LGBT characters in video games. There are plenty more that could make their own list. Let us know some of your favorites in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Quirky Video Game Review: Stacklands

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Stacklands merges a survival/civilization game with the skeleton of a collectible card game, and the results are interesting. Developed by indie designer Sokpop Collective, Stacklands takes these disparate themes and mechanisms and makes sense of them. Prepare to drag cards on a board and stack them on top of each other for numerous interactions.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Today, I’m reviewing a quirky video game I’ve meant to cover for a while. Full disclosure: I’ve played a heap of Stacklands on Steam. I purchased all the DLC–we’ll only touch on some of the bonus content–and spent countless hours watching my card-sharped citizens build an empire. But how does Stacklands stack up against our review criteria? Let’s find out.

Mechanisms

Game Mechanisms: 10/10

Quirky indie video games tend to sport fresh game mechanisms, and Stacklands is no different. Stacklands combines a collectible card game and a civ builder into a cohesive whole. The experience is a great loop of exploration and optimization for your villagers. I’ve never had this much fun stacking one card on top of another card and getting something in return. One chicken on top of another chicken yields an egg. Place that egg card on a campfire and produce a cooked egg. Sounds simple, but a multitude of these actions may occur at once. Players must manage the timers for each interaction and generate enough food at the end of the day to feed their civilians. Any items you don’t use or can’t use may be sold for coins that are used to purchase new card packs. Card packs contain new items and ideas.

The gameplay loop and exploration (of what I can put together to make something exciting and new) are addictive. Earlier versions of Stacklands proved difficult to manage some of these elements, but later patches fixed many of these issues. I have as much fun optimizing my little village as I do discovering new ideas. If you were to construct a hotpot, you could place food into the pot that you wish for your villagers to eat first. This way, you can keep more valuable food items. Small upgrades like this add strategy.

And Stacklands is full of small and large upgrades ready to make your village strong enough to fight off invaders. Yes. There will be invaders who will randomly attack your village, but usually after the first five or six moons (or days). Enemy cards are indicated by red backgrounds. You may choose to fight these enemies unarmed (like the picture below) or upgrade your Villagers with weapons that will change their job title from Villager to something fancier, like Warrior or Swordsman.

Stacklands also has a knack for ramping up the difficulty. Most difficulty spikes happen organically; you won’t face a stronger creature unless you spend money to buy a more expensive pack that may contain the stronger creature. The largest of these difficulty spikes is at the player’s discretion. I don’t know how many times. I’ve accidentally summoned a demon and watched in horror as the demon decimated my villagers.

But I was the one who summoned the Demon. I’ll know for next time not to do the thing that summoned the Demon until after I’m prepared to defeat an enemy with 300 health. Like many survival games, you’ll need to restart your Stacklands village when you have no more living Villagers, but when you do restart your village, you don’t need to relearn skills and ideas. I don’t mind this. It lessens the danger, and often, I’ll have a better item I’ve unlocked and can outfit my villagers with better gear or a more optimized village. Heck. I’ve let a larger enemy torpedo my village, so I could start over.

Gameplay Loop

Above Image from GameDesigning.Org

Gameplay Loop: 10/10

I’ve already mentioned Stacklands’ gameplay loop. Combining collectible card packets with building a civilization of card villagers is fantastic. Stacklands also manages its difficulty spikes well. Players have more control over what they’ll face. Buying more expensive packs could mean stronger enemies appear, but you’ll want to unlock every card in each packet type and as quickly as possible.

Collecting cards like Pokémon mixed with exploration is a potent combination. And since Stacklands has so many hidden tech trees (the game doesn’t spell out its tech trees in a diagram), you’ll find hours of enjoyment reverse engineering a recipe. How do I get a gold bar? I need a smelter and gold ore. How do I make a smelter, and which booster pack contains gold ore? Stacklands has so many rabbit holes to explore.

Story or Narrative

Narrative: 6/10

Stacklands has a few side stories that make up a somewhat larger narrative, but it doesn’t have a traditional storyline. There’s the demon I mentioned earlier. The demon isn’t too difficult to defeat if you have the proper equipment and a large enough army. You’ll also have to challenge a witch who summons monsters from a strange portal. Defeating the witch is the closest thing the base Stacklands game has to a larger story.

Players must construct a stable portal so they can enter the witch’s realm and fight her seemingly endless army of baddies. The army the player sends may choose to return home after each level of witch minions. Defeat the final level and then the witch. Players will receive a “you completed the game” notification, but that’s not the end. You may continue playing Stacklands and its DLC. The only location you can access without buying DLC is the island. This has a “story” similar to the witch on the mainland, but it’s the paid DLC that has fleshed out stories. I’m not including the DLC in this review, but if I did, this score would rise a point or two.

Storytelling

Storytelling: 5/10

Stacklands‘ storytelling is no better than average. I promised I wouldn’t include the paid DLC (which only costs a few dollars) in this score. The base game’s story is okay. The DLC ventures into some interesting territory. I talk briefly about them. One alternate plane deals with waste; you’ll need to optimize your village so you won’t produce too much pollution. Another plane centers around death. A third pivots hard into combat and rage. Stacklands‘ DLC is well worth the price (if you like the base game), but it’s the base game’s storytelling we’re grading here, so it’s average.

User Interface: 9/10

While Stacklands has a lot going on at once, it does a good job of presenting these options to the player. In the top left, you’ll find tabs for Quests and Ideas. The quests are self-explanatory. If you don’t know what to do next, check out your active quests.

Ideas are the recipes you know. Stacklands does a great job of grouping similar recipes into tabs. You may expand these tabs to see individual recipes or collapse them if you’re not looking for that recipe type.

In the far right corner, you’ll find out which day (moon) you’re on, and the symbol on the right of this box lets you dictate how fast time moves. To the left of the moon, you’ll find your village’s vitals (food, coin, and how many cards you may have in your village–booster packs don’t count toward this total). The image above may be from Moon 5, so there aren’t as many cards in play, but Stacklands has so many ways to optimize your village that you can build one that minimizes your number of cards and is almost automatic.

Once you find a consistent source of food, you’ll be able to focus on other things Stacklands offers, and there are plenty of choices. Stacklands rewards trial and error. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Graphics: 6/10

While I enjoy Stacklands‘ graphics, they are minimal. Stacklands chooses legibility over style. Even though that’s the right choice for a game like this, I can’t tell you that Stacklands has amazing graphics. The game’s graphics are crisp, at times adorable, and most importantly, functional.

Audio: 7/10

You like lo-fi chill jams, don’t you? Who am I kidding? Of course you do. Stacklands’ soundtrack makes great background music. To be honest, I hardly notice it while I’m playing. Where this score gets a bump is when considering Stacklands’ sound effects: card shuffling, ripping open a booster pack, the little bloopy combat noises, and adorable animal calls. Sokpop Collective took time and care with Stacklands’ sound effects, and it shows.

Replay Factor: 9/10

Stacklands has plenty of DLC, and that DLC has its own puzzles for you to solve. The DLC adds a good ten to twenty gameplay hours. But the base game has tons of replay value in its own right. Even if you defeat the witch and the demon, you may want to beat the time it took you to defeat the witch and the demon. I’ve also discovered numerous recipes after beating these two, which then prompted another playthrough. Sure, I beat the game, but I figured out how to make a resource magnet. That would optimize my village to the fullest.

Again, I may be biased. I put a heap of time into Stacklands, but it has a fair amount of replay value. Each new play can lead to a different path to success.

Aggregated Score: 6.9

Potion Craft Review

Quirky Video Game Review: Potion Craft

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Potion Craft by indie game developer niceplay games created a craft system you want to play. Visuals inspired by medieval manuscripts blend with unique gameplay for concocting potions to form a singular video game experience.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We’ll get back to another free-to-play game soon enough, but in the meantime, let’s cover another paid game. You can get a good deal on the game through sites like Steam or the PlayStation store (PS4/PS5). Usually, Potion Craft sells for around $20, even without a sale. Potion Craft’s unique graphics drew me in, but its stellar gameplay kept me engaged for hours. Let’s see how well Potion Craft stands up to our rating system.

Mechanisms: 10/10

Potion Craft innovates on the tried and tired crafting game. The video game scene has seen an influx of alchemist simulator games in the last few years. Most of these alchemist simulators would have players accruing ingredients through exploration (through a dungeon mechanism separate from alchemy) and learning new potions through trial and error. Potion Craft streamlines this process. Players explore a perilous map by adding ingredients to their alchemy pot. Ingredients (that players obtain through farming or purchasing from vendors) move the player’s cursor on the map north, south, east, or west. But these ingredients seldom allow for traveling in a straight line. Spiral and zig-zag movements reign supreme. Once the bottle-shaped cursor reaches an ability, players can stoke the fire and boil their potion, so the potion gains that ability.

This simple, yet ingenious, twist puts the focus on alchemy. I waited for a second gameplay type where I played as my character dungeon diving for ingredients. That gameplay never came, and Potion Craft is the better for it. At times the gameplay can feel puzzly, but with the focus on what I put in my alchemy pot almost all the time, I felt more like an alchemist in Potion Craft than I’ve ever felt in any other video game of this ilk. And I’ve played a handful of alchemist simulators. If an alchemist simulator sounds intriguing to you, you owe it to yourself to play Potion Craft.

Gameplay Loop: 9/10

Pick ingredients from your alchemical garden. Then, tend to your garden. Serve your customers by guessing which potion would best fix their problem. You may haggle with the price if you want. Finally, explore the alchemy map to find new potion types or find better (more efficient) ways to produce potions.

Potion Craft is one of those notorious games for “just one more turn.” Everything seems as if it’s just one day (turn) or two away. Even when you know how to make a potion and save the potion’s recipe, you can create the potion, using fewer ingredients, so that you spend fewer future ingredients. That’s another great feature of Potion Craft. The ingredients you used when creating a potion recipe you saved will be used whenever you make potions from that saved recipe. There’s a reason to make the same potion twice. Let’s say that it took you three Waterblooms to make an Ice potion. But you unlocked Tangleweed and began farming that and it only takes you one of those to make an Ice potion. This can save you time, resources, and money in the long run. Brilliant!

Frequently, I’ll make a less-than-desirable recipe for a potion type just to have a means of making that potion. When I unlock the means to make that same potion on the cheap, I take it. And it feels good exploring the map through alchemy, even when I’ve already unlocked the ability I’m heading towards. Each day, experience boosts (in the form of alchemy books) reset, and players can collect them again. This allows you to level up your alchemy skills, and the skill tree, while basic, does a good job of giving players choices. Do you want to focus on selling potions, exploring the map, or farming? The choice is yours.

And then there are the customers. This dovetails into the Storytelling section (and less so for Narrative) but I’ll begin discussing the customers here. Customers often don’t tell you exactly what they want. Even when they do, there are often multiple ways to fix a problem. Light spoiler: a customer may say that they locked themselves out of their house; you can choose to give them an explosive potion or acid. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Season pick a means of fixing a problem that didn’t cross my mind. And she’s said the same for ways that I’ve solved the occasional problem.

But the core element is map traversal through alchemy. I didn’t expect to like the map movement that much, but Potion Craft nails the explorative nature of throwing things in a pot and seeing what happens.

Narrative: 5/10

Potion Craft doesn’t have much in the way of a narrative, but I gave it a five because of its implied customer backstories. Sure, some customers have generic “my stomach hurts, do you have a potion for that?” But others have more sinister motives should you get to know them better. Others still have bizarre stories like why does a scuba diver exist in medieval times? Players will have to piece together scraps of story to make one that makes sense, but Potion Craft does have a loose-knit story.

Storytelling: 7/10

Like Papers, Please, which we covered last month, Potion Craft tells its story in the game’s negative space. Hidden within the string of customers who stop by for potions rests a deeper narrative for those characters and the town in which they live. I won’t spoil some of those stories here, but Potion Craft builds its world and its story through the people who stop by for magical potions. And I love this world.

Citizens solve mundane problems with magic. Why not? If magic is plentiful, why wouldn’t you solve any minor inconvenience with alchemy? Potion Craft runs with this premise. You can solve people’s issues at lower difficulty settings through multiple means. You may need a specific potion with multiple effects if you raise the difficulty. Unlocking abilities to converse with customers may yield even more backstory. And that’s where Potion Craft’s story lies: the characters’ backstories.

User Interface: 8/10

Potion Craft does a great job of showing players where their alchemical ingredients will lead them on the map. The locations are easy to navigate. The goals are easy to find and understand. In short, Potion Craft does a great job of showing its players how to play the game. But at the same time, it still gives players the freedom to come up with unique solutions to problems.

Like I said before, there’s more than one way to fix an issue, and Potion Craft gives players the time and space to explore those options. Potion Craft’s setup isn’t the hectic DMV hellscape as Papers, Please. It organizes things in a way for players to thrive. Potion Craft is a layback and chill game instead of a tense, don’t make a single mistake game like Papers, Please. While the two user interfaces work for the games that use them, I prefer Potion Craft’s interface. I’d rather a game show me exactly what I can do. Potion Craft does this better than most.

Graphics: 9/10

Potion Craft uses medieval documents and medical books as the basis for its graphics. While simplistic, the art amplifies Potion Craft’s subject matter. I don’t know if any other graphics would’ve worked for this game. You can tell that Potion Craft is a labor of love for the designers. The user interface and graphics merge intuitively. Part of the reason why the user interface works as well as it does is because the graphics feed into the user interface and the theme. I feel as if I’m grinding leaves, flowers, berries, and roots with a mortar and pestle. There were times when I swore, I could smell the herbs.

Audio: 6/10

I’m not going to lie. I played Potion Craft while muted most of the time, but when I did have the sound on, it worked well. I wouldn’t say that Potion Craft has the most memorable soundtrack. Its soundtrack is serviceable. Potion Craft’s sound effects are what give it an above-average audio rating. You can hear the crunch of leaves and fruit. Heating your potion is satisfying. Pouring water into your solution to thin your potion is visceral. Seriously, I had to go to the restroom after hearing pouring water on more than one occasion. Potion Craft amplifies its tactile gameplay with sound effects.

Replay Factor: 8/10

This is a difficult section to grade. Potion Craft may not offer much in terms of replays through different games. You can get by beating each difficulty setting once. As of this write-up, there are four different difficulties. This still gives you well over 100 hours of gameplay. I’m giving Potion Craft a higher replay factor score because of the replays during your initial play.

I mentioned before that you may want to optimize your potion recipes. That leads to numerous hours of gameplay. But Potion Craft has a sneaky other reason why you might play. Your alchemy shop has a reputation score. You could play an evil alchemist and only sell potions to people who have nefarious plans. I didn’t know who would order a Necromancy potion with my first play. Switching to an evil alchemist showed me who would order a Necromancy potion. It doesn’t look like it, but Potion Craft is a sandbox game.

Aggregated Score: 7.8

I enjoyed my multiple playthroughs of Potion Craft. It’s the preeminent alchemist simulator game. If you have any interest in an alchemist simulator game, give Potion Craft a try. With Potion Craft’s quirky graphics, I didn’t know what to expect. The streamlined nature of Potion Craft’s gameplay is a revelation. Developer niceplay games and publisher tinyBuild are on my radar. I can’t wait to see what this studio has planned for next.

Video Game Cult Classic: Monster Rancher

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Today’s video game cult classic is a pet simulator. Something like Nintendogs may come to mind when you think about pet simulators. Fighting pet simulators? Pokémon dominates fighting pet simulators, but I’m thinking about a lesser-known fighting pet simulator. That’s right. Monster Rancher is making an appearance on this month’s Video Game Cult Classics.

Hoppy Easter, everyone! Season here. We’ve got another video game series that spawned an anime and, coincidentally, came out in the ‘90s. Don’t worry. I’ll branch out. Monster Rancher (or Monster Farm in Japan) is a game that allows the player (rancher) to raise one monster at a time from a baby to an adult. Monster Rancher is like a cross between a Tamagotchi and Pokémon (later iterations incorporate more Pokémon like features). Like the last cult classic we covered (Culdcept), for a video game to make this series, we’ll consider its reception, relevance, and accessibility. Prepare your monsters for battle, and let’s delve into gameplay.

Gameplay Overview

Quick note: most of the gameplay you’ll see comes from Monster Rancher and Monster Rancher 2. I’m most familiar with these two games, and they embody the series’ core concepts. There are a few offshoot games I’ll mention in the accessibility section, but they won’t be the focus.

Monster Rancher has gameplay that’s easy enough to pick up on, but has a learning curve for those interested in getting the most out of their monsters. In Monster Rancher and Monster Rancher 2, players assume the role of a rancher and work with an assistant. Monster Rancher 2 has a quiz for players to take at the beginning of the game, but it doesn’t affect the gameplay.

Once players get their assistant (Holly in Monster Rancher and Colt in Monster Rancher 2), they’re ready for their monster. Players can either go to the Market or the Shrine to acquire a monster. Players can also obtain new monsters at the Lab, but they’ll need to have two frozen monsters (that they can combine) to birth a new one.

Monsters in the Market are seasonal. These monsters will be base species with not-so-great battle stats. Pictured above, we have a baseline Dino, Tiger, and Suezo. These monsters are good options for players who don’t have many CDs/PS1 game discs, or if you want something simple for a starter monster.

Players may also give up a monster to the Market if they no longer wish to keep the one they currently have. Personally, I never do this because I get attached to my virtual pets. If this happens on accident, there’s no need to worry. Autosave won’t screw anyone over.

The Shrine is where the magic happens. At least, that’s where it happened for me when I played as a kid. Who am I kidding? It still happens. At the Shrine, players can select a CD/PS1 disc to put into their system to get a random monster. After the game reads the disc, it generates a monster based on the disc data. The same monster will be generated from each disc. In other words, if the player remembers which monster was generated from a specific disc, they’ll get the same monster with the same stats every time.

If the same monster gets generated from a different disc (it happens a lot), the monster will likely have different stats. Make sure to remember the discs that have the stats you want to keep.

Players can visit the Lab at the start of the game, but there’s no need to unless they want to generate two different monsters and try to get something different at the Lab. The Lab is more useful after a player has fully raised at least two monsters who have learned many fighting techniques (we’ll get to those later). The following images for the Lab section are taken from Monster Rancher 2.

At the Lab, players have the option to combine monsters to get a new monster, freeze the monster they have with them, revive a frozen monster, delete a frozen monster, or analyze the monster they have with them. Analyzing a monster gives the player insight into how to raise their current monster and its personality.

I froze my monster.

It costs 500G to combine monsters. 500G is a hefty sum at the start of the game; it’s not so bad later on, once a player’s monsters compete in tournaments and win money. Players will select two of their frozen monsters to combine (players may have up to twenty frozen monsters at a time).

The item Disc Chips is a secret seasoning.

In Monster Rancher 2, once the two monsters are selected, the game will ask if the player wants to use an item as a secret seasoning. Secret seasonings (such as Disc Chips) can offer the player other options for monsters. In this case, even though I used Disc Chips, Dragon isn’t offered as an option. This is because the monsters I chose can’t be combined into a Centaur with a Beaclon as a sub-species and vise-versa. Since they’re not compatible anyway, adding Disc Chips from another monster won’t grant me additional outcomes. They also don’t have many matching stats (the stat levels don’t match per monster).

There are a total of six stats, so to get the best possible outcome, the two chosen monsters must have all six stats at matching levels. The levels here are shown next to each stat.

Here’s a quick rundown of each stat:
Life (Lif) is a monster’s hit points.
Power (Pow) is how strong a monster’s Power-type attacks are.
Intelligence (Int) measures how strong a monster’s Intelligence-type attacks hit.
Note: Power and Intelligence are interchangeable, depending on the monster’s technique types.
Skill (Ski), also called Accuracy (Acc) in later games, is the likelihood of how often your monster’s attacks hit.
Speed (Spd) affects your monster’s ability to avoid attacks.
Defense (Def) determines how much damage your monster receives.

As we can see, I ended up with a terrible outcome. That’s not bad in the Pow. and Def. department, though. Looks like I’ll have to specialize in Power-type attacks.

Back to the first Monster Rancher. Once the player returns to their Ranch, there are options for their monster. Monster Rancher operates in a week-by-week system, so players may select one thing for their monster to do each week. During Week 1 of every month, players must feed their monsters. In Monster Rancher 2, players may check the monster’s data to see what the monster likes and dislikes. Usually, food will be listed as a like or a dislike, but there are exceptions. If a player feeds the monster food it doesn’t like, it’ll be less likely to perform well.

We’ll skip over Schedule for now since it’s going to be lengthier and lead into battles. Starting with the Item option, this will allow players to either buy/sell items from the shop or give an item to their monster. Be careful which item you select as monsters can only accept one item per week.

The Data option allows players to view their monster’s stats, history, and techniques. It also shows the players’ information about themselves through Breeder, such as their rancher grade, the number of monsters they’ve raised (including species), and what their monsters’ final ranks were before they either pass away or get frozen.

The Book subsection shows the player information about monsters at the market and monsters they’ve raised with some flavor text. Players may also view the monsters in action, as well as their species.

The Schedule option on the menu lets players either train monsters, battle in a tournament, or rest for one week.

The Work option (or Drill in Monster Rancher 2) is for one week and allows the monster to train in one or two stats at a time. For Training (Errantry in Monster Rancher 2) allows the player to select a location to send their monster for one month. This will normally cost the player 2,000G, but will sometimes be at a discount for 1,000G. In Monster Rancher 2, this allows monsters to learn new techniques. In Monster Rancher, monsters must be old enough and have high enough stats to learn new techniques with a trainer in town (through the Adventure option).

The Battle option allows players to send their monster into a tournament to win some cash and, occasionally, an item. Before any battle, the player can ask Holly about their opponent (usually their highest stat), how to execute a technique, and how to move their monster. Holly will ask if the player wants to give instructions to their monster. If the player selects no, the monster will battle by itself. If the player selects yes, they control their monster during battle.

Each battle starts by showing stats for both monsters. Arthro has more Intelligence-type techniques, so I’ll prioritize Intelligence during its training.

During battle, monsters have four zones (depending on their distance from their opponent) in which they may attack. Not all zones will be occupied by techniques, but that may change after a monster learns new techniques. Monsters execute techniques depending on how much Will they have (Guts in future Monster Rancher games). Techniques require a certain amount of Will, which gradually regenerates during battle, so choose techniques carefully.

Each technique also has a hit percentage, which will tell the player how likely that technique is to hit the opponent. Flame has a 62% chance to hit my opponent here and costs 21 Will. Also, what Byoon is doing in this picture is called “Foolery” (not listening to their rancher). This frequently happens when monsters don’t have much loyalty to their rancher.

Tournament battles last for sixty seconds. When time is up, the winner is determined by who has the most Life remaining. If a monster gets knocked out, a battle can end sooner. Yay! Arthro won!

When a tournament ends, prize money is doled out based on the monster’s rank, determined by the monster’s wins. Players also receive bonus money for battles won. Here, I got second place. Notice the monster also has Fame. Fame goes up the higher a monster places in a tournament, which can lead to things as the judges awarding a player’s monster a win during a close battle and increased prize money. In Monster Rancher 2, Fame allows monsters to go on adventures and discover items necessary to unlock new monster species.

I’ll touch briefly on official tournaments. Monsters can be ranked from E (lowest) to S (highest). Every baby monster starts out at E rank. Official tournaments allow monsters to raise their rank. These tournaments occur at the end of every quarter. They include more opponents but offer less prize money. Official tournaments are essential for monsters to compete at more prestigious tournaments and to unlock more species of monsters. Since Artho is a baby, it’s an E rank.

The lifespan of a monster depends on the monster’s species and how it’s raised. Their lifespan also affects when each monster reaches their prime, which is the point in a monster’s life when training gives them the most stat boosts.

Reception

Monster Rancher has fifteen games spanning from 1997-2022. The original Monster Rancher sold over one million copies before 2000. It was a popular game that capitalized on people collecting discs. It filled a niche that exploited the success of Tamagotchi and disc collection. In later Monster Rancher games, such as Monster Rancher EVO, people could use DVDs in addition to CDs and PS1/PS2 discs. There were some other strange releases, like the platformer Monster Rancher Hop-A-Bout that played similarly to Super Mario Bros. Honestly, I’m not sure what they were thinking with that one.

During the height of Monster Rancher’s popularity, an anime series was produced from 1999-2000. The series consists of seventy-three episodes over two seasons. It follows a boy named Genki Sakura and Holly, the assistant from the original Monster Rancher.

Relevance

Monster Rancher lost steam during the transition from people collecting discs to streaming and became irrelevant. People no longer collect discs. Okay. We have a bookshelf full of discs at my house, but that’s an anomaly. Monster Rancher jumped on the Tamagotchi bandwagon, raked in the cash, and then faded. It’s still popular inside Japan, and Koei Tecmo Games keeps Monster Rancher relevant by catering to their Japanese audience.

Accessibility

Monster Rancher’s original producer, Tecmo, merged with Koei to create Koei Tecmo Games in 2009. The Tecmo part of Koei Tecmo was dissolved in 2010. The company used the Tecmo name until 2016. This may have contributed to the direction of the Monster Rancher franchise.

If one were to look online or in their local game store for a copy of Monster Rancher, it’s slim pickings. These games are available for purchase online, but at an increased price. Original copies cost the same as a new video game. Despite this, Monster Rancher and Monster Rancher 2 are accessible to the public through Steam. That’s right. All of the screenshots I’ve taken for this article are from Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX on Steam.

These ports differ slightly from the original games (such as monster lifespans), but they’re so similar to the originals that it feels nostalgic. The Steam ports also have an option to search their database for discs to read, so there are hundreds of options that wouldn’t be available to someone who doesn’t collect discs.

Other games in the Monster Rancher franchise are less accessible. Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher is the most recent entry. Players raise kaiju monsters the same way they would monsters from the original games. I’ve never heard of this game before conducting research, but it’s available to download from the Nintendo e-shop. As of the time of this posting, it’s on sale until April 28, 2025.

As of this post, a Monster Rancher mobile game will release in Japan only later this year. This game will be available on the popular East Asian messaging platform, LINE. I’m unsure of this game’s inner workings, but it seems like players will be able to interact with their monsters directly. Maybe it has some sort of AR model like Pokémon Go.

One last thing. If anyone is interested in the anime side of things, Monster Rancher is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video without ads for Prime members.

Final Thoughts

Monster Rancher is a franchise I grew up with, and it’s one of my favorite pet simulation games. It’s great for casual and hardcore players. There’s a science behind raising these monsters that players can learn. It can get tedious, especially when you get a new monster and must start the raising process again. It takes time to unlock new content. There are always new mysteries to solve in Monster Rancher, and every monster is unique.

Do you have a preferred breed/species of monster? What’s your favorite monster you’ve raised in Monster Rancher? If there are any cult classics you’d like to see covered in future posts, let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading and have an amazing rest of your day.

Papers Please Review

Quirky Video Game Review: Papers, Please

Published on by KyraLeave a comment

Papers, Please by indie game developer Lucas Pope has received widespread acclaim. Who knew that working as an immigration officer in a fictional Eastern Bloc country named Arstotzka would strike a chord with so many people? I’m not sure if any empathy game (a type of role-playing game that asks players to inhabit someone else’s emotional world) has ever received this much attention.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Today’s post returns to a much older review I did for a now-defunct website. Unlike most of the video games I cover on Geekly, Papers, Please is a paid game. You can get a good deal on the game through sites like Steam or GOG (Good Old Games). Usually, Papers, Please sells for around $10, even without a sale. I’m reuploading my almost six-year-old review of Papers, Please to Geekly with a few tweaks to tighten the review and match our criteria. Six years is a long time. Let’s see how well Papers, Please stands the test of time.

Mechanisms

Mechanisms: 10/10

I have never seen a game as immersive and nerve-racking than Papers, Please. It wasn’t just Papers, Please’s ethical choices. There were plenty of those that made me nervous. The frenetic pace of checking people and their documentation as they crossed Arstotzka’s border took a lot out of a person.

If one divorces its setting (good luck with that), players gain an appreciation for the long lines one may encounter at an airport or the DMV. Papers, Please functions as an “empathy game,” or as Papers, Please’s designer Lucas Pope would say, an “other people simulator.” There aren’t too many games that ask players to inhabit another person’s life.

Papers, Please is one of those games. There’s a reason why Papers, Please is cited as a video game that suggests that the medium be treated as an art form.

(Note: Geekly posted a “3 Lists of 3” for Video Games as Art, check out that post with this link.)

Gameplay Loop

Above Image from GameDesigning.Org

Gameplay Loop: 8/10

It doesn’t matter how well Papers, Please embodies government paperwork, it’s gameplay centers around government paperwork. “I wish someone would make DMV: The Video Game,” said no one ever. You know, I might just play DMV: The Video Game. Don’t @ me. The tedium of checking passports and other supporting documents is mind-numbing at times. Fortunately, there’s the threat of death and supporting one’s family to spice up the act of checking IDs.

The choices the player makes between each day are a large part (if not the largest part) of Papers, Please’s narrative, and by extension its gameplay. The inspector may be given choices like adopting his niece, but his family goes without food or heat for one day. Do you help EZIC and risk being found out by the government? Do you do what you’re told and uphold Arstotzkian law? Glory to Arstotzka! But these are overarching choices, Papers, Please also gives the player plenty of choices and moral dilemmas within their job and daily routine.

An immigrant could ask to be let into the country so they can reunite with their children, but any violation of protocol results in a citation. Too many citations and the player character could be charged fines and possibly thrown in jail—or even executed. The choice to grant leniency to someone could negatively impact the player or the player’s family and that creates plenty of tension with which choices the player makes.

Story or Narrative

Narrative: 8/10

Whew. There’s a lot going on with Papers, Please’s gameplay and I may have covered some narrative structure in the previous section because gameplay and narrative are so intrinsically linked in Papers, Please. But narrative is where this game shines like an eagle, or some other mixed, cliched metaphor.

Papers, Please paints its narrative in the game’s blank space. Sure, there’s the tedium of checking government documents (and much of the game is centered around that), but the story of the inspector and his family comes in between the inspector’s daily chores. Do you uncheck the expenses for “food” or “heat” to purchase something else, knowing that your family will suffer? Do you confiscate passports, accruing warnings, or even financial penalties, so that you can doctor those passports for your family and escape? Do you keep your head down out of fear of being caught? All of these are valid choices. All these choices, or illusion of choices, puts the player in the role of the inspector.

Much like the gameplay, I can’t tell where the “story” for Papers, Please ends and the storytelling begins. It’s difficult to separate the two and that’s a wonderful thing. So many games we cover on Geekly are easy enough to separately grade a game’s narrative and storytelling. I’m still going to try to separate the two.

Papers, Please has a compelling story because its premise is compelling. But the game’s storytelling is where it truly shines.

Storytelling

Storytelling: 10/10

I mentioned earlier about Papers, Please telling its story in the game’s blank space. I’ve never seen a video game do this is such dramatic fashion. Papers, Please doesn’t just go for large moments and big decisions. It sprinkles in some nice character moments like after the first time the inspector tranquilizes a terrorist and his son hands him a drawing with the text “Arstotzka’s Hero.” Papers, Please’s character building and story come out in ways that only a video game could tell a story or build characters and that’s why it’s received several awards.

I don’t want to get too far into Papers, Please’s storylines, wading deep in spoiler waters, I may have said too much already, but Papers, Please not only challenges preconceived notions of right and wrong and what someone may or may not do if put in an untenable situation, but it also challenges video games to branch out with new forms of storytelling.

Sure, there are some moments where characters feed the player exposition and some of the world-building comes from newspaper headlines or clippings, but they aren’t used in excess. Papers, Please does a good job of showing instead of telling. It does an even better job of immersing players in its world, so much so that an indie film based on the game exists.

It’s difficult to separate Papers, Please’s narrative form from how it builds its characters, world, and story, but that may be the point. It receives high storytelling marks if only with innovation.

User Interface: 5/10

While Papers, Please takes things slowly and raises the temperature of its difficulty a little over time, it doesn’t hand-feed players. The inspection booth can be difficult to navigate at times and chat rooms and question-and-answer sites are littered with places where gamers get stuck. Papers, Please could use more of a tutorial, especially in later rounds of the game. The rulebook does point out changes to the ruleset, but it’s too easy to mess up and restart over a day or two or thirty.

Graphics: 8/10

Papers, Please mirrors the era in which its narrative is set: the early 1980s. Its 8-bit sprites add to the overall vibe of the game, but the gameplay suffers at times as a result.

Pixelated portraits can make cross-referencing passport photos, and other supporting documents, to a person a chore. On the other hand, the graphics amplify the game’s difficulty and provide a double dose of meta-gaming. Government documents often get damaged and become illegible, even for people whose job it is to deal with them, so the graphics are in keeping with the era and the simulation it’s trying to achieve.

The cruder graphics also grant Papers, Please a touch of abstraction. Sometimes players must fill in the gaps when something awful befalls a would-be immigrant. Other times the player is spared a gruesome scene. Either way, the player is actively engaged in this world and anything one creates in their imagination is worse than what a visual medium can show. Horror films have known this for decades.

Still, I must dock Papers, Please a couple of points for its graphics. That’s her face? She looks nothing like that, and I just wasted a few seconds clicking buttons and waiting for results. There are limits to the copious number of times I erroneously scanned people’s faces.

Audio: 7/10

Papers, Please doesn’t use that much music, but the music it employs drives home the point that Arstotzka is an Eastern Bloc country. The main theme, which plays at the beginning of each day, feels like the protagonist inspector is high stepping his way to work each morning.

That’s fantastic. I can, and have, listened to that song on a loop. That’s not a good sign, but at least I didn’t dance the Mamushka, “the dance of brotherly love.” Mamushka!

While the rest of the music is mostly forgettable, character voices and other sound effects come from public sources—one could download midis or wave files from sites like Soundcloud and create one’s own government document thriller—but Papers, Please’s usage of these sound clips is well done. Garbled voices conjure the idea that what immigrants or superiors or peers say to the protagonist doesn’t matter like much adult dialogue in a Peanuts television special. Heck, even what the protagonist says doesn’t matter to him. He’s going through the motions.

The main theme elevates the rest of the soundtrack, but I’m counting off a few points here. Papers, Please’s soundtrack is largely functional.

Replay Factor: 8/10

This is a difficult category to grade. On one hand, Papers, Please has plenty of replay value and even demands players to repay it at least a handful of times. But once one achieves a dozen or so of Papers, Please’s twenty possible endings, I’m not sure if there’s a lot of replay value after doing so. Lucas Pope included an endless mode once a player finished the game at least once, but the game loses something with that game mode.

With twenty endings there’s still plenty of replay value. One can finish Papers, Please in under an hour. Heck, one could deliberately fail as an inspector and end the game in less than five minutes. I put in over 20 hours for this review and still found avenues I could navigate the story.

Aggregated Score: 8

Even after reexamining Papers, Please, I ended up with the same score of eight. I wasn’t anticipating that. I said that I tweaked the scoring criteria to match our modern reviews, but I revisited the game, trying to see if I spotted anything different. Our new scoring criteria could’ve changed Papers, Please overall score, but it didn’t. Papers, Please is the best game (to date) of the ones we’ve covered on JK Geekly. Even after a decade past its original release, Papers, Please is worth your time.

Top 5 Video Games For Couples

Five Video Games for Couples

Published on by KyraLeave a comment

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Valentine’s Day is a couple of days away, so I figured we would talk about video games for couples. Technically, any multiplayer game could work as a video game for couples. Plenty of shooters would work here. I even thought about adding Mario Kart; it just missed my list. And it also seems odd to rank any of these games, so I decided not to number them this time.

Cat Quest 2 (iOS, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)

I want to include a game that doesn’t get as much attention, so I added Cat Quest 2. I hear that Cat Quest 3 has been released; I’m sure it’s good too, but I haven’t had the chance to play it yet. Cat Quest 2 is an adorable open-world action RPG. Couples join forces as royalty of the cat and dog kingdoms to save Felingard from evil forces. The premise screams lots of heart-pounding action and high fantasy, but Cat Quest 2 has the feel of a cozy game.  Cat Quest 2 has plenty of battles and puzzles to appeal to several different players.

Snipperclips (Nintendo Switch)

We needed at least one straight-up puzzle game for this list, and Snipperclips is that selection. Snipperclips is a physics game. Players must work together in creative and unique ways. You play as paper characters Snip and Clip and cut each other up to solve wacky puzzles by forming shapes out of each other. Snipperclips has a short runtime, the shortest of this list at about 4 hours, but it’s a fun diversion and can build communication skills in a goofy way.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch)

You’ll need two Switches to turn Animal Crossing: New Horizons into a multiplayer game but it’s ideal for long-distance couples. Heck. You don’t even need to be a couple. My family celebrated New Year’s Eve and other holidays on Animal Crossing: New Horizons while my oldest daughter was in Japan. I’ve even heard of some people getting married in the game during the pandemic. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a relaxing pace, and its creative elements make it a great way to unwind and bond.

I could’ve added so many other cozy games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Stardew Valley just missed the list. If you want more romantic options, Sims 4 could work.

Overcooked 1 & 2 (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch)

Ah! Who doesn’t love a little cooking chaos? Overcooked will test every couple’s ability to handle stressful situations, while wrapping it in the goofiest virtual kitchen imaginable. Overcooked includes levels where players must hop between two food trucks on the move, bake pizzas in a haunted house, and grill burgers in a fast-food joint ripped apart by an earthquake. Overcooked’s scenarios can become stressful but the over-the-top nature prevents anyone from taking it too seriously.

This is another game type where I struggled to keep the number of games to just one. I’ll mention the Moving Out series here; it’s filled with similar cheeky humor and puns and challenges players to help a family move out of a home.

It Takes Two (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch)

I couldn’t omit the only game that tends to make its way to the top of every list of this type: It Takes Two. There’s a good reason for It Takes Two taking most lists like this top spot. The game’s central conflict is with a couple whose relationship is on the rocks and they need to communicate better.

Players take on the roles of wife May and husband Cody. The pair are on the verge of divorce and a little bit of magic (that I won’t spoil here) turns the family upside down at the beginning of It Takes Two. May and Cody shrink to a few inches tall. They’re made of clay, yarn, and other crafting supplies. Both characters have differing abilities so even if you make it through the challenging obstacles once, there’s a reason to play It Takes Two twice. It Takes Two was specifically designed for two players and it shows.

Those are the five games we have for this list, but there are plenty more video games that can be great for couples. I almost added Lover in a Dangerous Spacetime to the list too. Which video games do you play with your significant other? Let us know who you would add or remove in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Culdcept Cult Classic Video Game

Video Game Cult Classic: Culdcept

Published on by Season1 Comment

Culdcept has titles spanning nearly two decades. It has a manga series. It’s difficult to find Western copies. Discard your card and let’s play a round of Culdcept.

Hey, everyone! Season here. We’re trying something new this week with Video Game Cult Classics. This week, we’re focusing on Culdcept (or Karudoseputo in Japanese). The basic premise of Culdcept is Monopoly meets Magic: The Gathering in video game form. The first installment was developed in 1997 by Omiya Soft. For a video game to make this series, we’re going to consider its reception, relevance, and accessibility. Since Culdcept is predominantly a deck construction game, we’ll start with the different types of cards before jumping into gameplay.

Note: Most of the images are from the Culdcept Revolt wiki, but some will be from Culdcept Second (which will be labeled).

Card Types

Before we jump into card types, Culdcept has a card rating system (how easy cards are to obtain). After a match, cepters (players) receive “card packs.” The number of cards contained in each pack varies depending on whether the cepter won or lost. In Culdcept Revolt, cepters may also purchase card packs outside of matches. The different ratings a card can have are normal (common), strange (uncommon), rare, and extra (ultra rare). Extra cards are powerful and may only be obtained after meeting certain conditions within the game.

Below, we have “Rainbow Piece,” an extra item card obtained after defeating a specific cepter in story mode of Culdcept Second.

Now that we’ve got obtaining cards and their rarities down pat, let’s take a look at the categories of cards. Culdcept has three basic categories of cards: creatures, spells, and items. We’ll start with creature cards.

Creature Cards

Creatures claim/defend land and attack/defend against other players. They’re essential for collecting tolls and fending off your opponents. Each creature card will have ST (strength), HP (health), MHP (max health), and G (cost). Some creatures will also have an element symbol or card symbol as part of their G. This means you must own the number of required land and/or discard a card from your hand to place that creature.

Some creatures will have “land limits” (types of lands they can’t be placed on) and “item limits” (items they’re unable to use in battle). Each creature card will have a different colored border, denoting their element. If the cepter places a creature on a land of their element, they’ll receive a land effect, meaning they’ll get bonus HP and ST from that land during battle. This excludes neutral (gray) creatures unless they have an effect that states otherwise.

Below, we have a “Death Gaze.” It’s a rare earth creature. It has ST: 50, HP: 30, MHP: 30, and G: 70+ you must own at least one more earth land to place “Death Gaze.” The printed “Land Limit” shows that “Death Gaze” cannot be placed on a wind land. The “Neutralize Scroll” effect means that it’s impervious to scroll attacks.

Credit: gamerinfo.net, Culdcept Second

Spell Cards

Spells can either help or harm the casting cepter. They can be used offensively to steal magic (more on magic during “Gameplay”) from other cepters and harm their creatures or defensively to protect the casting cepter and their creatures from their opponents. Some spells have area effects, alter lands, and affect movement. Spells may have different symbols that denote which aspects of the game they affect. In Culdcept Revolt, there are “secret” spells, which aren’t revealed until they’re played. More on that later.

The spell below is “Holy Word 6,” which allows a cepter of the caster’s choice to have a fixed die roll of 6 on their next roll phase.

Item Cards

Items can be broken down into four types: weapons, armor, scroll attacks, and tools/accessories. Weapons and armor can both affect a creature’s ST and HP stat. Weapons tend to provide more strength and armor tends to provide more HP. Scroll attacks give a creature a fixed strength and can have different effects, such as critical hits to certain types of creatures and can ignore items that neutralize attacks. Tools/accessories can do a variety of things. They can neutralize attacks, penetrate (remove land effect buffs from creatures), give a creature first attack, and destroy/steal the opponent’s item. There are probably more effects we’re forgetting. Some creatures may also double as items, which is described in their effect text.

Gameplay Overview

Cepters (players) draw a card, roll two 6-sided dice, and move around a board, placing creatures and paying/collecting tolls as they go. Each installment of Culdcept has different variations and add new mechanics. For this write-up, we’re going to focus on Culdcept Revolt (2016), since it’s the most recent installment.

At the beginning of a cepter’s turn, they draw one card from their book (deck). Each cepter can hold a maximum of six cards in their hand and must discard down if they draw a seventh. If they are holding any spell cards in their hand, they may play one per turn if they have enough G (cost). Culdcept is played with player hands revealed except for “secret” spells, which aren’t revealed until they’re played.

Credit: videochums.com

Next, the cepter rolls the dice and moves the number of spaces on the dice. If the cepter rolls a symbol on one of the dice, it equals zero. Rolling symbols on both dice equals twelve. Land tiles are elemental and may be either vacant or occupied. The different types of land tiles are air (yellow), fire (red), earth (green), water (blue), morph, and multi-elemental. The former four are more common and provide land effects to creatures corresponding with their matching element. Morph is a neutral land tile that transforms into the element of whichever creature is placed there. In Culdcept Second, these are neutral tiles and remain neutral even after a creature is placed there. Multi-elemental provides land effects to creatures of any type but won’t provide a chain effect. More on chain effects later.

Credit: videogamesuncovered.com

Special Tiles

There are also many types of special tiles cepters may land on. We won’t go in depth here, but we will give a brief overview of them.

Gates are represented by N, S, E, and W. They must be passed to collect magic to win the game.

Warp and Bridge tiles are similar since they send cepters to another location on the map.

Fortune Teller lets cepters choose creature, item, or spell, and gives the cepter one of the selected options at random from their book.

Spell Circle allows cepters to choose one of two spells presented, which is cast instantly, free of charge.

Card Shop allows cepters to purchase one of four cards for 20G.

Path Switch alters the path on the board for cepters, like a mine cart junction.

Magic Trap with either steal magic from cepters or give cepters all of the magic it has depending on what the cepter who landed on the tile rolls (1-6).

Siege Tower allows cepters to invade any land or occupy any vacant land with a creature from their hand.

Gem Store allows cepters to sell, buy, or steal Element Gems from one another, which can be used to enhance the element they’re assigned to. This increases the value of an element for a player. Cepters choose one element for the Element Gem’s rival (this element’s value decreases) and one element for the Element Gem’s ally (this element’s value increases). Element Gems are one of the more complex aspects of Culdcept Revolt and could be an article on their own.

Culdcept Map8 Metro Bridge
Metro Bridge Map, Culdcept Revolt

Once a cepter lands on a tile, they will either perform the effect of the special tile, place a creature on the land tile if it’s vacant, summon a creature to battle on the land tile if it’s occupied, or use territory commands.

Chaining

If a cepter places a creature on a vacant land of an element they already own, a chain happens. Chaining raises the toll of that cepter’s lands if the lands occupied are the same element. So, if a cepter has two water lands and one fire land, the two water lands will be chained, raising the toll fee of that cepter’s water lands. The fire land will not be affected until that cepter places a creature on another vacant fire land. Chains don’t apply to multi-element lands.

Battles

Battles are fairly straightforward. If a cepter lands on a land tile occupied by another cepter, they may summon a creature to invade the opposing cepter’s land. The creature chosen must have its requirements met before being summoned, such as G, discarding a card, the number of adequate lands are occupied by the summoning cepter, and land limits.

The invading creature attacks first (unless the defending creature has the “first attack” effect), dealing damage equal to its ST to the defending creature’s HP. Each cepter has the option to choose an item to use in battle. Even if an item isn’t used the backside of a blank card will lay in the upper left or right-hand corner of either creature card until the battle commences.

Credit: hak271828, YouTube, Culdcept Second

If an item is used it will remain in the upper left or right-hand corner of its respective creature card and its effect will occur. If a creature has a pre-battle effect, such as critical hit, that will go into effect. If a creature survives the battle and has an effect post-battle, that will go into effect before exiting the battle screen and returning to the board. If the invading creature wins, the land will be taken over. If the defending creature wins, the cepter who landed on the land will pay the toll. If both creatures get destroyed, the land becomes vacant.

Credit: videochums.com

Territory Commands

Territory commands can range from leveling up lands to doing a myriad of things with creatures. They may only be available for territories the cepter has passed during their move phase. All may be accessed if the cepter lands on a gate. Lands can be level one through five—five being the highest. Cepters must pay the appropriate cost in G before a land can be leveled up. Cepters may also exchange the creature currently occupying a land with one from their hand or move a creature to an adjacent land (except for defense creatures that can’t be moved). If the adjacent land is occupied, a battle ensues. Otherwise, the creature occupies a new land. If a creature has a territory ability, the ability may be used. The game ends when whichever cepter collects the required magic power first.

Phew! That wasn’t nearly as in depth as it could have gotten, but I’ll spare you the nitty gritty. The game itself teaches new players more slowly, so it’s not nearly as much of an info dump as my breakdown.

Reception

Culdcept was more of a hit in Japan than in Western countries. The original Culdcept doesn’t have an official translation. However, Culdcept did get released as Culdcept DS in 2008. Culdcept also released during the middle of the collectible card game (CCG) boom of the ‘90s. It came out one year after the Pokémon Trading Card Game (1996) and two years before the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game (1999). Culdcept Second got an official translation and was released in North America in 2003 for PS2. This is the iteration of Culdcept I’m most familiar with. However, Culdcept Second still wasn’t very popular and sold roughly around sixty-five thousand copies globally. Culdcept 3DS released in 2012 in Japan, but this is similar to Culdcept Second. Culdcept Revolt incorporated an online element. This garnered Culdcept Revolt more popularity than its predecessors and it included elements to streamline the game.

Credit: Vysethedetermined2, YouTube, Culdcept Second

Relevance

Since Culdcept released as a video game hybrid of popular tabletop games, you’d think it’d have a wider fanbase. I’m not sure why it’s an obscure series, but I can hazard a guess. OmiyaSoft wanted to jump on the CCG bandwagon with a video game resembling a CCG. Culdcept got sandwiched between two popular titles during that time. Yu-Gi-Oh! (the manga) began serializing in 1996 and Pokémon (the anime) started airing in 1997. Culdcept likely got overshadowed by these two titans and faded into obscurity.

The publisher, Omiya Soft, is a small, not well-known publisher outside of Culdcept. To their credit, Culdcept lasted for almost twenty years. They had enough dedicated fans to continue producing games. On their website, they advertise themselves as a variety publisher. They haven’t released anything since Clash! Hani World in 2017, which is only available in Japan.

Credit: mobygames.com, Culdcept Second

I mentioned the manga at the beginning of this write-up, so I’ll cover the manga’s reception here. The Culdcept manga was serialized from 2004-2006, between the releases of Culdcept Second and Culdcept Saga, shortly after Culdcept Second became available in North America. I didn’t know it had a manga even though it was published in English by Tokyopop, which is a well-known English manga publishing company. Regardless, even the manga had a short shelf life.

Accessibility

If you’ve read this far and are thinking about picking up a copy of Culdcept, you’re probably asking, “Where can I find it?” Your local used video game store likely won’t have it unless you luck out. Folks sell used copies of various Culdcept titles on eBay and Amazon. The downside to getting these titles online is that they could be damaged, and you’d have to take the disc to get refurbished. Culdcept Revolt still has some new copies on the market, but their numbers are dwindling. If you want to get your hands on the original Culdcept, I recommend having a Japanese PS1 or PS2 to go with it if you’re able to find one. These aren’t the easiest games to find and the prices for English copies vary between $25-$200 USD. Maybe more, depending on where you look.

Credit: listal.com, Culdcept Second

Final Thoughts

If you’re a fan of strategy and card games, I highly recommend Culdcept. I find the game charming and enjoy the different playstyles of each CPU within the game. That’s right. Unlike games like Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, where each CPU has different decks, but employs a similar playstyle, CPU cepters have their unique playstyles that match their personalities and deck type. Some of them take over every land they see while others invade when they’re certain they can win. They can be predictable if you’re used to facing the same cepter, but they’ll sometimes leave you scratching your head.

Much of the information regarding Culdcept Revolt was found on Culdcept Central. If you want more in-depth guides for each game and deck strategies, please check them out.

What’s your favorite deck/strategy in Culdcept? If there are any cult classics you’d like to see covered in future posts, let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading and have an amazing rest of your day.

Honkai Star Rail Update

Geekly Update: Honkai Star Rail New Region Amphorius

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Honkai Star Rail Version 3.0 was released on January 14, 2025. Geekly has had some time to play the new patch, and we have some initial impressions.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. I finished the first chapter of the new planet Amphorius. Yes. Honkai Star Rail (HSR) introduced a brand new planet. Any HSR patch that includes a new planet is a massive one, but HSR Version 3.0 tops most other HSR patches because it introduces a brand new path, Remembrance.

For those who may not know, Honkai Star Rail paths dictate which playstyle a character will have. Abundance heals. Preservation shields characters. Harmony buffs. Speaking of Harmony, one of the latest new characters, Sunday, suggested that a certain playstyle would see more play: summons. As a Harmony character, Sunday buffs, which becomes a stronger buff if the character he’s buffing has a summon.

Since Sunday had an interesting game mechanism that we had yet to see, I expected any new path or characters to feature summoning. I anticipated Propagation. Instead, HSR added Remembrance. Turns out, Remembrance focuses on summoned creatures.

The following is conjecture. Judging from Remembrance Trailblazer (they receive a new path and element this patch) and the upcoming Aglaea, Remembrance will focus on summons that support, while Propagation (which will most likely be released at some point) may focus on summons that deal damage. Enough conjecture. Let’s return to the first impression. What I’ve seen of Remembrance is fun and provides more design space. Honkai Star Rail developers added a new path before the game’s formula grew stale. Remembrance does give hope for the future.

Everything I’ve said is positive or explains the state of Honkai Star Rail. If you haven’t noticed, I’m stalling. I wanted to like Amphorius and the new patch, but unfortunately, Version 3.0 is the worst.

The latest Honkai Star Rail patch features wooden characters, a derivative storyline that an Edge Lord thinks is unique, voice acting for equally Edge Lord characters, and HSR’s answer to Paimon. No. That insults Paimon. Mem is worse than Paimon. I didn’t think it was possible, but Hoyoverse has unleashed a character far worse than a character so annoying it’s become a meme. Any one of these reasons could be why I say Version 3.0 is the worst Honkai Star Rail patch, but the patch suffers the most from level design.

Bear with me. This will be relevant. I conducted an experiment. Each HSR planet has a unique currency that players can turn in at a shop (or some other venue) for upgrades. I fast traveled to the closest space anchor (fast travel location) and ran to each shop to see how long it would take me to reach the upgrade shop. Every other planet (including the Herta Space Station) took an average of 2 seconds to go from the space anchor to the shop. It took me almost 19 seconds to go from the closest space anchor to Amphorius’s upgrade shop. Amphorius increased the time to do a simple task ten-fold.

You may think that 19 seconds to visit an upgrade shop isn’t bad, but Amphorius does this with almost every task. Everything in Amphorius takes 8-10 times longer to complete. It turns HSR into a walking simulator. A five minute action on any other Honkai Star Rail location would take you between thirty minutes to an hour on Amphorius. Yes. You can smash some flying pigs and double your speed, but even after the speed boost, you’re speed is still (effectively) nerfed, and that’s if you remember to smash a flying pig or one’s available. Ugh!

Some of you may say that Amphorius’s scale is larger-than-life. This increase in size makes sense for the space. Sure. I didn’t lead with this, but I like Amphorius’s art design. When I say design, I mean level design as a game designer. Make no mistake, this shift in Honkai Star Rail’s game design philosophy marks a naked attempt to keep gamers logged into HSR longer. The design team could’ve done anything to denote the size of Amphorius. Keep the vaulted ceilings. Design options like this makes a space seem bigger.

Heck. You could keep the stages the same size. But if you insist on increasing the stages by ten, include ten times more chests. Each stage has the same number of chests, which makes Amphorius seem empty. There’s a whole lot of nothing.

Okay. Rant over. I want to enjoy Amphorius. Despite the poor level design choices, I have hope that Honkai Star Rail Version 3.1 will be better, and I’m excited to see what the developers will do with the new path Remembrance.

That’s all I have for now. Thank you for reading. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a nice day.

Top 5 Video Game Pets

Top 5 Video Game Pets

Published on by KyraLeave a comment

8Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We haven’t covered video games for some time, and I figured we would start with a top 5. This week’s top 5: video game pets. Cuteness overload is incoming. Limiting video game pets to just five is difficult, so we’ll have a couple of honorable mentions. I also didn’t want to include only dogs and horses; video game dogs and horses could fill an entire list each (future list idea). But we will see at least one (sort of) dog on this list.

Honorable Mention 1: Palicos (Monster Hunter Series)

I never know if palicos count as pets or not; I love them as characters, but they may be less pets and more of a species of humanoids. The Monster Hunter series muddies the waters with palicos. Some palicos are your faithful servants and present little more than their servitude to the player character. Other palicos have jobs (like the Meowscular Chef in Monster Hunter World, he must have a wife and kids at home to support) and the Monster Hunter Stories series shows palicos as having a culture separate from humans. Many people still classify palicos as pets, but their ambiguity makes them just miss this list.

Honorable Mention 2: Pokémon (Pokémon Series)

Pokémon, like horses and dogs, can fill a list by themselves. And which Pokémon should I pick? Pikachu is the obvious representative Pokémon. He has his own Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. But that’s reductive. I’ll include Pokémon as a video game pet type, but these critters deserve a list for themselves. Maybe even a Top 10 Iconic Pokémon list.

With Pokémon, horses, and palicos eliminated (and dogs for the most part excluded), how many video game pets are we left with? A lot. So many that I could make a Top 10 if I wanted, but these are the ones that made the Top 5.

5: Rammy (Castle Crashers)

Cheater! I can hear some of you Castle Crashers players now, you’re a cheater if you use Rammy. I say, you still have to unlock him after the bear boss. And he’s a cute orb-shaped ram. And who doesn’t like a ram charging through a side-scroller beat ‘em up game, knocking down every monster they meet? If Rammy is cheating, then I don’t want to play honorably. Charge away, Rammy. Charge away.

4: Munchie (Dragon Quest VIII)

This one is esoteric. It took me a while to think of Munchie from Dragon Quest VIII. I vaguely recalled a pet mouse who rode in the main character’s coat pocket, and the only thing I could remember was that Munchie had a mohawk and liked to eat cheese and certain cheeses gave him special abilities. All of that is true (to be precise, Munchie is a pig rat), but Munchie was central to advancing Dragon Quest VIII’s plot. The game has several moments where the player controls Munchie as he conducts reconnaissance.

Munchie often procured keys to enter or exit rooms, gathered intelligence to better interact with NPCs, and even scouted ahead before major battles. Munchie may also be a little of a cheat for this list. While he spends most of the game as your pig rat pet, he’s much more than that. I won’t spoil any of the story here—Dragon Quest VIII is well worth the play and it’s available on plenty of platforms—but there’s a lot more to Munchie.

3: Blob (A Boy and His Blob)

A Boy and His Blob uses a common 1980s movie trope of a boy befriending an alien (like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Last Starfighter), but that doesn’t discount the titular blob as a pet. And it’s one heck of a pet. I’m sensing a theme here with these video game pets: they’re useful. Rammy helps you cheat and Munchie progresses Dragon Quest VIII’s story. The Blob from A Boy and His Blob can transform into various objects (to help the player solve puzzles) by eating different flavored jellybeans.

The original A Boy and His Blob is at best unbalanced, but the concept is neat. I like the idea of a blob morphing into a ladder if fed a licorice jellybean or a parachute if it eats a pear jellybean. The other combinations are fun: tangerine (trampoline), berry (balloon), and punch (hole). But my favorite had to be apple and jack. I see what you did there, A Boy and His Blob. And of course, coconut transforms the blob into a coconut. Were you expecting anything else?

A Boy and His Blob got a sequel in 2009, but I wouldn’t mind some more time with this property. Not going to lie, I ate more jellybeans after playing this game. What would a Buttered Popcorn Jelly Belly turn me into?

2: Rush (Mega Man Series)

Rush from the Mega Man Series is our one dog-like pet on this list. I could’ve gone a different direction here, but I don’t think Rush gets enough love. So, what if Rush makes another list in the future? He’ll make a future Top 5 video game dogs list. He’s Mega Man’s best buddy.

Rush continues our trend of pets who have multiple uses. Throughout the Mega Man Series, Rush has been a coil (trampoline), a jet to cross long pits, a submarine, a spaceship, a flashlight of sorts (with its “Search” function in Mega Man 7), and a motorbike to name a few. Mega Man’s Rush bridges the gap between a pet that can help in a fight or solve a puzzle and one that aids with pushing the story further. The first two Mega Man games are two of my favorite games from that era of video games, but those two games have a lack of Rush.

1: Yoshi (Nintendo)

Could it be anyone else? Even if I included Pokémon, horses, and all video game dogs, Yoshi from the Super Mario Bros. series would still take the top spot. Heck, I named my dog after Yoshi the dinosaur. And who wouldn’t want a dinosaur as a pet?

Yoshi may be the one character on this list who doesn’t need an introduction. Most people know them and their abilities. Like Rush, Yoshi has done it all. They’re even one of the few characters on this list that have had their own video game series. They’ve had more than one.

You’re probably wondering why I keep referring to Yoshi as they; Yoshi is a sapient species of dinosaur-like creatures. They can lay eggs, which suggests that they’re female, but most people refer to the Yoshi one finds in Super Mario World as he. Yoshis (or Yoshisaurs) blur the line between male and female. They can be both or neither.

I also loved playing as Yoshi in the original Super Mario Kart. I got pretty good at managing their fast acceleration and the fact that they couldn’t take too much damage without getting knocked off course. Yoshis come in different colors. Some of these colors depict different abilities, but usually, these colors are cosmetic. Whatever their color, Yoshi rules.

Which Yoshi is your favorite? Did we miss any video game pets that aren’t dogs, horses, or Pokémon? Let us know in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.