Also, I just finished playing through Zniw Adventure! Which I'm happy to say was an absolute blast all the way through. Everything I said in my previous post remains true. It's a simple story with some really fun characters and amazing visuals that is exceptionally well crafted. The ending was very satisfying, and moreover extremely wholesome in a way that honestly brightened my day. In a smilar way to how a good Pixar or Disney film feels when its over.
The only issues I could really bring up are relatively minor. Zniw only moves when you click on certain clickable ground. Unlike most P&C protagonists who usually move where they can so long as you've given them a general direction. It makes navigation feel somewhat clunky on occasion but is generally not an issue. The other problem I had was Zniw Adventure's use of limited inventory. Not the biggest deal but I just don't feel like making me occasionally backtrack for items I dropped 3 screens over added anything to the game. As the game progresses you do get bigger & bigger backpacks, though.
In any case, love the game, love that such an awesome game was made by (mostly) two people and I can only hope they're not too burned out from 5 years on Zniw to consider making another great game like this. 9/10
Another game I played over the week was YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love At The Bounds of This World. It's a Japanese adventure game that's held in high regard as being extremely influential over all sorts of other Japanese media that succeeded it. I came away from my time with it having appreciated the experience but also having a fair share of frustrations at the shortcomings that hold YU-NO back from being unequivocally great.
YU-NO's biggest strength is certainly the time travel gameplay. Using a device called a reflector you're able to expend jewels which function as a save state tied to a particular point along the many branching paths of the game's story. This allows you to jump back to that point and try different interactions to see how they effect the progression of the game's plot.
You keep inventory items that you've gathered from different timelines when using a jewel save. Which leads to many clever moments where you obtain certain items in one branch, then time warp to another branch to use the item in another timeline. Which also means you have to be clever about where you leave your jewel saves (unless you want to replay an entire route to use one item). I played through the entire game without a walkthrough
(almost the entire game actually. my save was randomly deleted during the epilogue so I had to watch the last hour on YT lol.) and had a great time figuring out all the different ways to navigate the branches.
From the outset you can view certain icons on a flowchart that represent points on the timeline you must travel to in order to obtain all 8 jewels for the reflector (you start off with just two). This turns the entire structure of the game into a meta-puzzle of sorts as you figure out which actions you must take to arrive at the correct spot in time and gather each jewel. It's an
extremely in-depth mechanic and I can absolutely see the style and execution of YU-NO's branching paths in the games of Kotaro Uchikoshi, for example.
Which brings me to the frustrations I had while playing through the game. For starters the protagonists, Takuya, is frequently one of the most unlikable characters in all of gaming. He's constantly making cringe worthy passes at the entire female cast
(including his own daughter), that range from witless jokes to outright sexual assault. All of which is all bizarrely played off as a virtue of his. Most female characters will praise him for his "honesty" or "honest nature" after being creeped on. The intention is clearly comedy, but it's really just puerile wish fulfillment. Once in a blue moon one of these moments will hit the "loveable jackass" mark they were going for but not nearly enough.
Even more frustrating for me was Takuya's extremely plot convenient retardation. There's so many moments moments where Takuya will plunge headfirst into a perilous situation that should have been avoided because the script made him magically 10x dumber than he is normally. At one point he surreptitiously listens in on a conversation between another character and some shady Yakuza types. They talk about ambushing and raping someone. He also notices that they drop a picture of his mother beforehand. Takuya walks away from this exchange thinking to himself "What could they have been talking about? I'm getting a
bad feeling." That kind of thing happens far too often and it makes many of the dramatic moments feel too contrived to be enjoyable.
At its best YU-NO's plot is a genuinely enthralling sci-fi mystery trading in theoretical physics, alternate history, spiritualism, philosophy, etc to tell a multiverse love story that -- to the game's credit -- has genuinely touching moments. It's a shame, then, that so much of that is let down by the tonal whiplash of YU-NO's pornographic scenes/general H-Game vibe. There's about a million, maybe two, panty shot close-ups forced into moments where they're just awkward. The worst of all being one route in particular where Takuya's stepmother, Ayumi,
kills herself. The game shows a close up of her wrists slashed, bleeding out in the bathroom, with her breasts exposed and panties showing.
Still, for the duration I was genuinely invested in finding out what happened next. I really appreciate that YU-NO is obviously swinging for the fences, the authors are knowingly trying to make a classic. That effort does come through and is part of the games charm. it's easy to see why this would have been such an influential game in the 90s. The art is great and the soundtrack is too.
YU-NO is one of the weirder games I've played in that there's basically as much to love about it as there is to hate. But I'm really glad I played it, especially for the deeper understanding of a super influential moment in Japanese gaming history. Despite being released in the 90s, as recently as 2017 YU-NO was rated the
12th best adventure game of all time by Famitsu readers. I don't agree with the ranking, personally, but it's definitely a testament to the game's lasting appeal among those who do love it.
For me it was a very enjoyable but ultimately tragically flawed game. An experience I'm glad I had but also glad I'm over with lol. 6.5/10
Fuz
. VirtuaVerse is definitely a great game. I really appreciated the 90s tier difficulty, save for the pixel-hunts you mentioned. I managed to luck out on the jacket but there's a screen in the forest with basically no hotspots, except for a lone twig, that one got me. 
-Thanks again
Vampire On Titus
for getting me up to speed on my intelligent mistake 
(new device, little bookmark mixup)
frogmeetsdog
'sall good bro.
)
