Listen to this podcast. I’ll show you what this mouth can do.
Happy Halloween oooooooooooooooh! and welcome back to the podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about Slitterhead, an action horror title, and the first game from developer Bokeh Game Studio, founded by one of the creators of Silent Hill. In Slitterhead, you play as a kind of spirit entity with the ability to possess regular people. Some of these people are more special than others, “rarities,” and they mostly act as your main playable characters throughout the game. While possessed, characters can attack and use skills and you can swap between people with very few restrictions. This allows you to cover distance quickly, make it harder for enemies to hit you, as well as more specific tech like “avoiding” fall damage and setting traps with certain skills. This is a really cool concept for a combat system and an even cooler concept for the tone and narrative of the game. Unfortunately, that’s about the best that Slitterhead gets. The whole game is designed in a very dated way, with disconnected missions that need to be replayed multiple times with little to no variation, a lack of enemy types to flesh out the combat system which could have been fairly deep, and generally shows a lack of polish that could have really helped it sing. What is there can still be cool, if you’re particularly nostalgic for that sixth or seventh generation design, but it requires some patience and the ability to appreciate the ideas the game has despite its flaws. We’re going to be talking about the classifications of rarities and what we think the game was trying to accomplish with its systems, the frustration of being forced to play through a section multiple times, and we lament the state of development that makes games so expensive.
Thank you for joining us again this week! This is one of those games that feels like it has such a good idea that it just wasn’t quite capable of delivering on that makes the finished product more disappointing than anything, but still, I’ve seen the game has its fans. If that’s you, let us know what it is you like about it in the comments or over on our Discord. I’m sure some things that were a big deal for us might not be for you, and some of our negatives are positives in your eyes, it’s all subjective. Next time, however, we’re going to be talking about Silent Hill f, so we hope you’ll join us then!
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Listen to this podcast. I’ll show you what this mouth can do.
Happy Halloween oooooooooooooooh! and welcome back to the podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about Slitterhead, an action horror title, and the first game from developer Bokeh Game Studio, founded by one of the creators of Silent Hill. In Slitterhead, you play as a kind of spirit entity with the ability to possess regular people. Some of these people are more special than others, “rarities,” and they mostly act as your main playable characters throughout the game. While possessed, characters can attack and use skills and you can swap between people with very few restrictions. This allows you to cover distance quickly, make it harder for enemies to hit you, as well as more specific tech like “avoiding” fall damage and setting traps with certain skills. This is a really cool concept for a combat system and an even cooler concept for the tone and narrative of the game. Unfortunately, that’s about the best that Slitterhead gets. The whole game is designed in a very dated way, with disconnected missions that need to be replayed multiple times with little to no variation, a lack of enemy types to flesh out the combat system which could have been fairly deep, and generally shows a lack of polish that could have really helped it sing. What is there can still be cool, if you’re particularly nostalgic for that sixth or seventh generation design, but it requires some patience and the ability to appreciate the ideas the game has despite its flaws. We’re going to be talking about the classifications of rarities and what we think the game was trying to accomplish with its systems, the frustration of being forced to play through a section multiple times, and we lament the state of development that makes games so expensive.
Thank you for joining us again this week! This is one of those games that feels like it has such a good idea that it just wasn’t quite capable of delivering on that makes the finished product more disappointing than anything, but still, I’ve seen the game has its fans. If that’s you, let us know what it is you like about it in the comments or over on our Discord. I’m sure some things that were a big deal for us might not be for you, and some of our negatives are positives in your eyes, it’s all subjective. Next time, however, we’re going to be talking about Silent Hill f, so we hope you’ll join us then!
You like the podcast that much? Let me invite you to hell.
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re doing another community requested episode (calling it Fanbruary at this point seems a bit silly) on Shenmue. An absolute classic action/adventure game that happened to be a blind spot for both of us. Shenmue centers on Ryo Hazuki, whose father is killed in the opening cutscene in a pretty rad martial arts fight. This sets up the events for you to uncover the reason behind the murder, which you do by talking to characters, learning schedules, driving forklifts and doing a little bit of fighting yourself. The variety of activities to do in this game are what made it so unique at the time and the fact that all of your verbs aren’t based solely in combat still makes it stand out against most triple A titles released even now. That being said, it’s an older game and the number of different control schemes and things to do may feel a bit unintuitive and clunky to you now. What hasn’t aged as badly, surprisingly, are the visuals, which contain a lot more detail than you would expect from the early days of the 3D games. From character models to buildings to interior spaces, the level of fidelity on display is really impressive for the time, even if it did mean the game had to be spread out across three discs on release. Overall this game is a piece of history for good reason, even if the experience isn’t as groundbreaking if you’ve been keeping up with modern games. We’re going to be talking about the more positive aspects of schlocky elements of the game’s story and dialogue, the good and bad ways in which the game’s time-based mechanics impact the play experience, and we lament the necessity in our society to just go get a job sometimes.
Thank you for listening to the podcast this week! Shenmue is a game that really works best if you are able to dedicate the time to immerse yourself in it, and as a result this episode is coming a bit late and also we maybe didn’t get the premier experience it could offer. That being said, there is a lot to like here and even more to respect for the period this game came out, so all in all I think it was worth it. Are you a diehard Shenmue fan? What did you think of our speculation on further games in the series? Let us know over on the Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re wrapping up our suggested games for the year with Wanted: Dead, which should be a significant departure from everything else we’ve played this year, so much like Shenmue fans, I hope you’re in it for the variety, and that you join us then!
Describing The Skybox
Listen to this podcast. I’ll show you what this mouth can do.
Happy Halloween oooooooooooooooh! and welcome back to the podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about Slitterhead, an action horror title, and the first game from developer Bokeh Game Studio, founded by one of the creators of Silent Hill. In Slitterhead, you play as a kind of spirit entity with the ability to possess regular people. Some of these people are more special than others, “rarities,” and they mostly act as your main playable characters throughout the game. While possessed, characters can attack and use skills and you can swap between people with very few restrictions. This allows you to cover distance quickly, make it harder for enemies to hit you, as well as more specific tech like “avoiding” fall damage and setting traps with certain skills. This is a really cool concept for a combat system and an even cooler concept for the tone and narrative of the game. Unfortunately, that’s about the best that Slitterhead gets. The whole game is designed in a very dated way, with disconnected missions that need to be replayed multiple times with little to no variation, a lack of enemy types to flesh out the combat system which could have been fairly deep, and generally shows a lack of polish that could have really helped it sing. What is there can still be cool, if you’re particularly nostalgic for that sixth or seventh generation design, but it requires some patience and the ability to appreciate the ideas the game has despite its flaws. We’re going to be talking about the classifications of rarities and what we think the game was trying to accomplish with its systems, the frustration of being forced to play through a section multiple times, and we lament the state of development that makes games so expensive.
Thank you for joining us again this week! This is one of those games that feels like it has such a good idea that it just wasn’t quite capable of delivering on that makes the finished product more disappointing than anything, but still, I’ve seen the game has its fans. If that’s you, let us know what it is you like about it in the comments or over on our Discord. I’m sure some things that were a big deal for us might not be for you, and some of our negatives are positives in your eyes, it’s all subjective. Next time, however, we’re going to be talking about Silent Hill f, so we hope you’ll join us then!
