February Games
I didn't get around to gaming as much as I would've liked last month, but here's everything I managed to play!
Interactive Fiction
I played four IF games in February, so not nearly as much as in January. My favorite was Roadwarden, which you can find on Steam. It's actually on sale for 75% off until March 8th, so now is a good time to pick it up if you're interested.
You play as the titular roadwarden, a person who's hired by a merchant guild to explore and influence an isolated peninsula. You'll travel the roads, offer help wherever you can, and get to know the people you meet in villages, inns, and hidden places. There are three difficulty levels, but if you play on the standard mode, you'll have 40 in-game days to accomplish as much as you can before taking what you've learned back to the city (or perhaps there's another option in the end?).
Although it's mostly text-based, it's accompanied by lovely pixel art and a useful map to help with your travels. You're free to explore at your own discretion and choose how to spend your days. Sometimes you're given a choice of what to do or say, and other times you're given a prompt to type something, more like a parser-based game.
I liked that my actions sometimes had results that didn't show up until later in the game, making the world feel dynamic and connected in realistic ways. There's so much to do and explore. At this point, Roadwarden is quite a well-known and beloved game, and I can say that it deserves every bit of the praise it's received.
Itch.io Games
I played a couple of games by Celia that were cute and fun. The first one is Nothing to Say, a dating sim where you gradually unlock more conversation pieces by getting to know the girl you're dating. The other one is My Friends the Monster Trainers, a deduction game where you fill out a Monster Tracker, similar to a Pokédex, based on clues in letters from your friends.
I want to point out that there's still a little more than a week left to purchase the No ICE in Minnesota bundle on itch. You'll get over a thousand games for $10, with all of the proceeds going to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Minnesota still needs help, so please consider donating if you can!
I also want to mention that Volume 2 of my indie recommendations zine will be out on the 15th! I've decided to make the 15th of each month my release date, and I'm planning on having 10 game recs this time! So keep an eye out for that if you're interested in indie games.
Physical Games
Not too much to say here. I'm still playing Artefact and still planning on doing a dedicated post for it soon!
I picked up another solo TTRPG called Last Tea Shop. It looks cozy, and I'm very excited to play it, so I'll report back on it soon as well.
Other/AAA Games
The last two days of the month were dedicated to Resident Evil Requiem. I'm a long-time fan of the Resident Evil series, and this latest installment looked promising, so I wasn't about to let it pass me by.
There are plenty of other horror games that may be doing more interesting things than Resident Evil these days, but I just find the RE games fun to play. It's really satisfying to navigate them and effectively use everything at my disposal. I can't remember where, but I once saw someone describe RE4 Remake's combat as a dance, and yeah, I get that. Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but I'm wearing my blogger hat right now, not my critic one.
As a blogger and an RE fan, I loved Requiem. I think it's my favorite in the series after RE2 Remake. I found Grace to be endearing and relatable, and it was nice to see a relatively minor character like Alyssa be fleshed out to the extent that she was. Grace's sections are tense, engaging, and feel like a natural evolution of the new Resident Evil formula that began with RE7.
Leon's sections are more action-oriented, similar to RE4 Remake. I've seen some complaints about his section in the last half being too long and less interesting than Grace's, and I understand that, but at the same time I felt it was varied enough to be enjoyable. It wasn't like the last third or so of Resident Evil Village, in Heisenberg's factory. That felt tedious to me because you're just fighting hordes of enemies over and over again. The back half of Requiem has some of that, yes, but it also has (blurred for minor gameplay spoilers) a parkour puzzle, a motorcycle chase, and classic map traversal. Enemy types and placements are varied, and every room feels like a puzzle where you have to figure out the best way to clear it.
Requiem is a love letter to the entire series, and I think it's a great culmination of the Resident Evil games up to this point. It's hard to guess where the series is headed from here. I'm hoping for a remake of Code Veronica because Claire is my favorite character, but that's also a game with some major flaws that will need to be rectified and handled sensitively. We'll see what happens, I guess. Despite Requiem feeling like an ending in a sense, I'm sure this isn't the end of Resident Evil.
Besides Requiem, I spent some time revisiting a childhood favorite called Threads of Fate for Retro Achievements (link to my profile). It's an action RPG for the original PlayStation that I'm emulating. I put it hold when Requiem came out and haven't picked it back up yet. The controls can be a little frustrating, but it's nostalgic and cute, and I'm having fun with it!
I've also started Pathologic 3 and am absolutely loving it so far. I'm a sucker for time travel, and I think this game does it well. I'll write more on it next month, as I'm sure I'll have finished it by then.