![]() ![]() The Japanese theming of “they are murderers but it’s not their fault,” first brought to my attention by Ghost Trick, is rampant in Spirit Hunter. The monsters/bosses require specific items to be used and actions to be taken to defeat them – think the last bullshit fight in Corpse Party, to cite a game 312 people played. This is a horror adventure game that’s biggest scares come from the threat of having to redo long stretches of the game. Spirit Hunter: Death Mark: Kind of like Jake Hunter, but bad. I guess I’ll go harass Chris about translating one of them. I look at the series’ Wikipedia page about once a month and still have trouble keeping this straight, but I do know there are a whole lot of untranslated games in the series. That means that of the 25 cell phone games, only 9 have been localized. To complicate the math, the DS one included remakes of the first 4 games which were also ported to cell phones, and then another cell phone port. That means the West got 2 Jake Hunter games, out of the total of about 19. There was a localized DS game and then another… localization of the same DS game (which was much better, it injected needed personality and flavor to the affair and I recommend it). The series has been almost entirely left in Japan, which is sad, if shy of tragic. But there is a nice sense of place in the Jake Hunter series, which is often enough to sell me on a game. Gameplay is descended from The Portopia Serial Murder Case and almost identical to all Japanese adventure games since. For the uninitiated, the series focuses on a detective solving crimes in Shinjuku. The main story is much longer than these ports and I’d say is much better than the last game in the series that I played on Switch (the normally subtitled The Awakening of Golden Jazz). Jake Hunter Detective Story: Ghost of the Dusk: This 3DS game comes with five stories four are cell phone game ports, roughly two hours a piece, that are mediocre but I find oddly enjoyable. Like Disco Elysium, it’s also a very funny game. I could see someone arguing the grittier realism of Disco Elysium is a superior way to discuss hard political realities, but the accessibility and relatability of the characters from Night in the Woods dying post-industrial Possum Springs successfully convey working class angst despite being brightly colored animals. ![]() ![]() They have a lot of political overlap but present themselves very differently (tonally different, both include lots of people/animals standing around speaking). Night in the Woods is a good companion to Disco Elysium. On the other side of that coin, how many times have EA or Ubisoft developers created something that is plainly political in some way and then in interviews explicitly stated the opposite? Even the Fallout creators took this publisher approved position while doing the PR rounds for Outer Worlds. Writer Scott Benson has criticized other games for using political stuff as background scenery for games without actually saying anything meaningful in the specifics of the game. It may be a little twee at times but the darker themes give it an actual edge that separates it from normal precious, hipster writing. Night in the Woods: This is part of a trilogy (in my mind only) of left-wing games that also includes Disco Elysium and Kentucky Route Zero ( Cart Life and some others would also qualify). ![]()
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