Recent reviews by Trilled Meow

Funny how I started plaything this abandoned and unsupported game the same year Rockstar somehow got it in the running for the "labor of love" award.

In addition to the need to shame these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ controls that make you hold down almost every input for several seconds as well as forcing a Rockstar account, I am leaving a negative review as I feel they have misrepresented consumers' voices with this award.

WOOD PRO-OPENING...

You wanna be a pro-opener, you gotta beat the game.

Seriously though, I am just deleting that Princess Maker remake or whatever from my wishlist after playing this. This has to be the best of the genre at this point. I played through the three main routes, and it seems like it would still take another to get exposure to all of the activities/features.

There is a ridiculous attention to detail in this game. From subtle changes to the backdrops based on season and choices you make, down to the fact that every NPC says something different every in-game day, everything shows the heart that went into this game.

Sure, the translation is abysmal and there are items that seem to have been for an unimplemented crafting system. But the former adds to its quirk, and the latter makes me want to see Volcano Princess 2.

As much as I may or may not be enjoying the game...

I can't recommend anything that required me to download random files from a third party to get all cutscenes to play. Or that has me choosing between frequently entering console commands or enabling an audio booster to reduce an audio-only stutter that seems to target fires, motors, and Barret's voice.

Fix this mess.

This had promise, but ultimately it is kind of a disappointment. You have to check out your family's creepy old hotel, which is in probate. But exploration isn't really rewarded, there are only a limited number of items you can look at to get information/insight. Gone Home feels more fleshed out in that respect. I also feel that everything about the ending went in an unnecessary direction. I was engaged enough while playing and enjoyed some eerie moments while thinking of The Shining, but in retrospect there could have been more.

This is a hospital-building simulation game. It has a goofy take on medicine, as your patients will suffer from illnesses such as Verbal Diarrhea. Those who think they are more of a hotshot than they are might find themselves in psychiatry, being treated for Mock Star. Others just need a light bulb detached from their heads.

New features are slowly unlocked as you progress through different hospitals. It can be kind of annoying to keep building the same hospital rooms, but there is a feature to save room templates to reuse. Even this can get a bit fiddly, as some areas need air conditioning and others need heating. Eventually you can start to get outbreaks in your hospital, which leads to a kind of fun mini-game that has you looking out for infected people based on the strange physical symptoms they cause.

In this game, Nancy Drew goes to Paris to solve a mystery regarding a designer of plus-size clothing of all things. Although I'm a big francophile, this entry to the series is kind of boring to me. Never enough French or France stuff, I guess. One real location you can explore is the Square du Vert-Galant. You use the metro system to travel around a handful of locations in the city.

There is often some kind of historical aspect to these games, and in this one it involves secret codes used during World War II. You get a chance to decode some of these using a few different methods. You also have to buy a lot of stuff from street vendors, which can be annoying because of unskippable dialogue. There is a logic puzzle in which you have to create outfits for a client (a cameo from an earlier game) according to certain criteria. That was a good puzzle idea, although it was too easy and the clothes are as ugly as sin. We also revert back to the days of no cell phone, so you have to call a calling card number before then calling any of your American friends (namely Bess and George). Because of that, I just didn't call them.

I played this during quarantine/lockdown, and it was fitting because the characters in this game are locked down. Literally, with metal plates bolted to all the windows. It was silly fun with gameplay in the vein of Phoenix Wright. If one student kills another, you have to have a class trial to determine who did the crime. Each character is the "Ultimate" at this or that thing, traits I thought were under utilized in some of the murder solutions. The extra mode when you beat the game is long and boring after the first time, yet you have to do it multiple times just for a few extra disappointing lines of text per character.

As Nancy Drew, you take an old steam train associated with mysterious deaths and disappearances to solve an Old West mystery. You learn about different gem stones and samplers, sort taffy, fulfill burger orders, figure out which doll is which, all while putting together some big contraption on the train that might lead to treasure...or trouble. It's up to you as Nancy Drew. You've got a trumped-up cop, a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ romance author, a Paris Hilton wannabe, a ghost hunter, and the Hardy Boys with you.

Good story-based game. Most of the game takes place in France during WWI while you alternate playing between a Canadian and German soldier. While the story is serious, there is still some light-hearted moments and cute animals, as well as a few stunning moments of fantasy that feel like they came out of a nostalgic children's story. I would definitely rank this as an example of a video game successfully reaching towards a higher art.

The only thing I could ask for is for the endings to have been more fleshed out, but that's also a sign of a good story. Some people may be put off right away by the impressionist graphic style, but I loved how the art style was used to represent an era that kind of ended with the war.

Afaik, this is the only Nancy Drew game that takes place in the past (1930, to be exact). The subtitle of this game was the title of the first Nancy Drew book, which was released that year. As Nancy Drew, you stay at the Lilac Inn in Illinois at the beginning of the Great Depression.

It's not one of my favorite Nancy Drew games. While one puzzle referred to Shakespeare, it wasn't all that educational like most other games in the series are. One of the main things about this game is driving around the roads on a world map. You can run out of gas or get a flat tire, so you have to attend to those. You can make money by delivering telegrams. You're told you get a flat rate for each letter plus tips, but HER Interactive played a funny Depression joke because no one ever tips.

You can call Nancy's dad, Carson Drew, in this game. I didn't take advantage of that much because we're stripped of our cellphones and have to use a pay phone, which means delivering more telegrams, which means getting more gas...