Recent reviews by strangejett13

First off, awesome that this game exists. Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed and wondered about what the fourth dimension would look like from the human perspective. As time went on, I researched and formulated my own hypotheses until I had a very good understanding of the concept. However, main stream media hasn't caught on - constant "the 4th dimension is time" "the 4th dimension is love" etc. yadda yadda. Thankfully we've finally gotten a piece of media that perfectly portrays the 4th dimension from a 3rd dimensional perspective, and it is a mini golf game.
I do recommend this game, not only for its amazing scientific and theoretic value, but because it is fun and interesting. The reason why I slightly hesitate to tell you to buy full price is that as fascinating as it always is, it can be super frustrating.
This is a hard game that tackles enormously difficult topics. It is so difficult to wrap your mind around navigating the 4th dimensional plane, and on top of that you have to do trick shots. For every three fun levels, there is one really annoying one. And it isn't the games fault - the physics are top notch, the way the fourth dimension works is perfectly easy to control, the music and visuals are fantastic. Its not that the game falters, its that my mind constantly falters.
I recommend getting this game to anyone, but if you don't like puzzle games or golf games, you'll probably not love this. This is the only golf game where you'll get a 24 over par and think "yeah that's actually pretty good".

The million times better version of doki doki literature club.

This might be a bit of a long review, and nobodies probably going to read this, but this is a game that's been led up to me for a very long time. I always knew of this game, and I watched some people play it, before exiting out, wanting to play it for myself and see where the game goes. This game has always been told to me as a game which has a pretty slow opening hour and a half, but after that, it starts getting crazy and very good. After finally beating the game after all these years, I actually have the opposite opinion.
The way the game starts out is brilliant. The first act is a very subversive tale on all that can go wrong with a youths mind. The writing for the characters is, immediately, one-dimensional. They are all very obvious cute anime girls. However, there are little hints here and there that somethings not right with them. The way Sayori is always late, the way Natsuki talks about home life and is scared to show her interests, the way Yuri is slightly obsessed with impressing you (along with her increasingly suspicious disappearances). Eventually, you learn the sad truth of each of these girls - Sayori is battling severe depression, Natsuki is living with a terribly abusive father, and Yuri has some serious issues (self-harm, violently obsessive romanticism). While Yuri and Natsuki's stories are really only hinted at in this first act, it is incredibly well done in terms of writing. Very realistic, in the way that you would never know about their plights if you didn't pay the utmost attention to their words. Sayori's tale is the story that takes the most precedence, and is done the best in this act.
Her battle of depression is told incredibly well - the confusion of it, the idea that this moment where her best friend declares his love for her, a moment she has been eagerly awaiting her entire life, a moment that she should be incredibly joyous over, stolen by her horrible condition, telling her that this is a situation to not be happy about. The horror of this confusion is a sad reality, for many people, and its told brilliantly. The final scene of this act, where you discover Sayori's hanging body, is brilliantly horrible. The immediacy of it, knowing instantly that this human being is dead and that she will never come back, is something I would never wish on anyone. The horror of not even knowing what to do after seeing such a traumatic thing - it's brilliant. This first act was incredible.
However, this is where my negative emotions come in.
The second act is a good idea in terms of pacing, and I initially thought it was good because I thought it was something completely different from what the game was actually showing. I thought what they were going for was showing the horror of loss by resetting the timeline, but now showing a world where Sayori is gone. A more empty world. Doing this while showing, in more detail, the horror of one of the other girls worlds.
I think it would have been better this way - resetting every time a girl dies, showing, in detail, the horrors of what can happen to a youths mind. If the game went more into depth into this surreal set up, the game rebooting every time you see one of the girls die in a horrific and sad way, it could have been a great way to show the sad reality of these situations, seeing these one-dimensional, loveable, cute characters get killed off in gruesomely realistic ways. If the game ended with the entire group being destroyed by these horrible, real world situations, leaving an empty literature club, I think that would be brilliant. But, sadly, it didn't turn out that way.
Instead, the game turns into a really weird meta game in the second act. The story turns into convoluted nonsense, where all of the characters know their in a video game, and Monika is an evil computer wizard god, and they start going crazy and killing each other... it's a stupid, ape-brain plot. It's not even the cool kind of meta, where they're subtly acknowledging the existence of our reality. No, they are straight up telling you "we hate being in a video game" and stupid stuff like that. In the end, Monika destroys the reality of the video game (the room making no sense either - the room Monika's in is supposed to be a bunch of the games assets put together, but why would their be weird space stuff outside, and why would the image be explicitly threatening? In this games plot, the world is supposed to be a cute dating sim. Doesn't make sense for their to be a void room). The game tries to do this weird and explicitly meta thing where you go into the games folder and delete Monika, but even this feels gimmicky and lame (she literally just tells you in bold print exactly where to go, making it feel obvious that this is a video game telling you to do something, completely erasing the immersion the game is trying to set up with you supposedly talking to the computer).
In the end, a sappy happy ending is given with a cute final song as the game is deleted from your hard drive.
None of this was interesting. It was weird, gimmicky, and most of all - simply not scary at all.
Whenever the game tries to be scary, it pulls the same old trick - shaking the screen, playing a loud buzzing sound, having a character do something insane and grotesque (stab themselves, have an eyeball explode, vomit all over themselves) as they talk about the issues they have in the most literal, insane way possible (Natsuki says something along the lines of "daddy will beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of me" in all caps. Yuri says crazy-ass things like "I love cutting myself so your skin oil will go in my veins" or "I loved touching myself with that pen you gave me").
The subtlety is gone. The intense sadness of understanding, on your own time, the hidden plights of these loveable characters, its all gone. Instead, its replaced with overtly edgy, cringey "horror" that feels like it was made for somebody on YouTube to scream to. It's beyond stupid. That initial scene, where you see that Sayori hanged herself. THAT is horrifying. The rest of the stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? Not so much.
The final act is a nice reprieve from the stupid horror, but the dumb plot continues - now, the characters have no background horrors, they are just happy go lucky teens. A dumb twist ending, where Sayori is now the bad guy, and suddenly the game erases itself.
It makes me sad that this game could have been really special, not just a "I got you!" trick game. It's sad that this game feels like it could have been a masterpiece, when all it's relegated to is cringey YouTube horror meant to get some attention by MatPat. I wanted this game to be an emotional masterpiece about the horrors that are wrought upon the minds of innocent people, when instead it was yet another SuPeR UlTrA LoRe DuMp, Five Nights at Freddy's style.
As negative as I've been, I did still enjoy it, in a stupid fun kind of way. In no way was it good, but it got a few chuckles out of me. It would give this a negative rating, but that initial hour and a half, that initial prospect of what the game could be, I can't bring myself to. The game is free, has an excellent first act, so I'd still recommend it. But the game sincerely does not live up to what it could have been.

This is very easily my game of the year, and may be the best horror game I've ever played. The less said about it the better - all I can say is this game is worth the money and much more. To anybody looking to play this game, it is seriously one of the most ingenious games I have ever played. Stop reading reviews and play it already, trust me it will blow your mind.

If you haven't played this game (like the moron you are) make sure to buy it. I don't care if you can't buy dinner for the next week, just buy it. This game is better than dinner.

The game begins as an incredible ode to the first game (the first game being an amazing example of the mastery of subtlety). The game ends up feeling more like insane Marvel fanfiction.

This game is absolutely awesome. The pacing is one of the best attributes - starts out very slow burn, very bizarre yet calm. However, it gets absolutely wild as it keeps going. A crazy trip from beginning to end, and I never guessed whatever it had coming next. Also, one of the coolest looking games ever made.

Not very good. While Fluff Dungeon was very in-depth and well made, this was more like an extended youtube poop. Not very interesting, and often very annoying. Wouldn't recommend.

The game starts out goofy and lighthearted, and maintains this energy throughout, but by the end a lot of deep morals and ideas surface. Surprisingly mature, by the end. The game is a good, fun game with some very impactful points. The soundtrack is absolutely mind blowing. So much incredible songs in this game, especially the main menu theme, the hub world theme, and the end credits theme. I would definitely recommend buying.

Very, very strange game. It's decently cheap, and generally worth it. It's around 4 small levels with normal objectives and very not normal areas. very short, very odd, not entirely sure what to think about it.