with all the repair spray instead of healing spray, system critical messages when hurt and scans of dead bodies I was waiting for the reveal Mica was a (part) robot/cyborg of some sorts.
I wanna love this game-I’m one of those people with immense nostalgia for classic survival horror-but it’s just a whole lot of nothing. Love the atmosphere and general vibe, it does more than a lot of other games that try to emulate classic survival horror titles, but it falls into the same traps, as well; such as a severe lack of tension/horror, repetitive gameplay, empty locales, uneventful exploration, ho-hum enemies that don’t inspire the least bit of fear, and a dull story. What this game needed was more variety, in enemies and locations, better exploration, and more random events and surprises (like the dog jumping through the window in RE1, for example). It has the makings of a solid game, but it feels unrealized.
Every location felt like one room or hall copypasted. The streets were just the same thing over and over. Then the apartments were just the same apartment. The tunnels. Even the final MeatZone. There were almost no points of real interest, no ominous or interesting locations. Just another apartment, another tunnel, another empty road. I think the worst part for me was that nothing really *happened* in the story. You'd go from area to area just to keep moving in a vague direction. There were no plot developments, no character arcs, no scary surprises or revelations, no interesting events at all, really. They just tell you "go here" at the start of the game and you spend the entire game slowly going that way, reading the occasional note (that just repeats the same single piece of lore that was already obvious) and fighting the same 2-3 wholly non-threatening enemies. I could forgive so much if the story was interesting but nothing is going on.
this is a really good start to a game. i feel it needs more NPCs and stories. Thats part of what made SH so memorable, the characters. the setting is a huge part obviously but it would have also been boring to just run around forever without learning more about the lore or other characters.
"I tend to ramble on and on" I'm sure I don't just speak for myself when I say we love it! We love your commentary, we want to hear your opinion and we love to hear your takes. Thank you, John, for all these years of entertainment. A new game coming out isn't as good without a chance to see your playthrough of it!
Just finished the series, and agree on your read. I think it would be a great game if it had bosses, more npc encounters, and went a bit deeper into the world building through discovery. I found the npc guy you did meet on the rooftop to be super unnerving so more of that wouldve been neat. But tremendous feat for a solo dev and will certainly be following them now.
Speaking to the lack of puzzles, I was mildly irked that the 'multiple-handed machine' turned out to be just a big nothing burger. Was it meant to be 'something', but cut due to time/story restraints? Just seemed like a lost opportunity.
I had to go look to confirm my suspicion, but Jasper being mentioned when Mica looks at chocolate milk, I am pretty sure this is a Silent Hill 4 reference. Jasper is the name of the character that you needed to fetch chocolate milk for before he is killed by Walter Sullivan.
This game is like a shell for an unfinished game. The enemies are bland and the environments are empty and gray. With some effort, this could have been great. Add more enemies with combat variety and put in little events here and there. Make some mini bosses for example. It’s just bang, bang, kick, kick, next area right now.
John's had years without mid-rolls, it's almost jarring to get used to them suddenly. 🤣 I personally love his end-of-series mini reviews, it's cool to actually hear someone's thoughts on multiple aspects of a game they've completed, rather than just saying whether or not they liked it. This one was interesting, not sure I'd play it myself, but it's been enjoyable to watch.
I know this is classic Silent-Hill type gameplay where nothing really makes sense and everything's a metaphor, but was Mica not concerned at all about whatever plague turned everyone into monsters? The original research team at least had suits and masks...
She was too focused on playing Goldilocks and deciding if she would sleep in a bed to actually care about getting infected by Mystery Infection™ I guess. 😅
This series was neato dorito! Loved just chilling with John playing a game while I'm playing a game. Makes a hard day feel better. Thanks as always for the wonderful content.
The whole thing about John's "British" accent impressions makes me want to see him play "Thank Goodness You're Here" and his reaction to its... uh... usage of language.
I agree pretty much with all your thoughts on the end. Would've loved to see more fleshing out of the world and its previous inhabitants. It felt especially like there was a lot more visual storytelling in the first half of the game than in the second half. I feel like making more of the buildings explorable, even if not necessary for moving forward, could've helped. Still, it was fun to watch and I'll have to look at the other endings now. Thanks for the series!!
I can’t remember when I started watching you, Gab, and MrKravin (I do know it was years ago) but man - whenever you three upload anything new i get super psyched to watch! Always been super relaxing and I get plenty of laughs from the shenanigans. Thank you for uploading and wishing the best to you and your family! 😊
This game honestly feels somehow unfinished? Like the whole hours was just a demo and more things to come. Inspired by classic survival horror games sure but for love letter it was kinda dull. From the old games i miss those uncanny or cringe npcs. Weird cutscenes, huge chunk of environment storytelling. In this game it tapped in this direction but didn't pull through with this such a shame.
I'm super early and haven't been able to keep up with the latest episodes because I've been going through a lot and kind of struggling. I can't wait to hopefully catch a break soon so that I can catch up! Thank you for all of the fun uploads!
Thanks for the playthrough John! There are things I definitely like about this game. Sound design is fun. I love the clomp of her shit kicking boots and how it changes over different flooring. I also love the twang when you hit enemies with the guitar, very satisfying and doesn't take itself too seriously. I also think the voice acting is fun and the general soundscape does a good job of matching up with that you're seeing. Monster design is cool as is the general environment vibe but both get a bit stale after a while. I feel like this game is missing a "B" section of sorts where you go somewhere that looks a bit different etc. It's definitely a trope but it feels really satisfying to go from the majority of the game "A" look to a short "B" look section and then either to an all new "C" look section or a slightly more (insert vibe of the game here) "A" section. Hope that made sense, it's 1am. I can't really speak on gameplay without playing it. It does seem to make sense but be empty, like John points out. The story was kinda hit or miss? I feel like I got the vibe but it was missing the fleshing out that made it really make sense beyond "corporation bad, plague bad". Idk, I agree with the idea that this game is a great draft (1st, 2nd, 3rd, whatever) that shows the dev's talent and interest but doesn't feel finished.
i really enjoy your end thoughts at the end of playthroughs, they could be even longer sometimes haha! i don't always agree, but i think you give good assessment as to what you were thinking while playing.
John's big grin when he was like "I'll be nice! ... Well, I'll be fair, how about that?" and the curious wandering over to look at and ubsequent stompy stomp he had Mica do on the boss were my favorite parts, something about the silent transition from looking to stomping felt like something a little kid would do and it cracked me up lol. And I would say that was a very fair assessment! It was very competently made, it was very much like the games it was emulating, and it was a cool experience. Its only problems really boiled down to a lack of variety in gameplay - lots of going around big repetitive areas and fighting the same enemies, no real puzzles to break up the wandering around and fighting enemies, and no bosses or interesting sequences (other than the one at the end). It made me think back to the first video with the first monster encounter, which was very creepy and had great suspenseful build-up, it'd be cool to have had more moments like that to catch you by surprise. But again, it was very well crafted and they had a vision for the game they wanted.
At 17:54, I believe that is a parallax interior material that is causing that effect? Its the same trick that you see on the windows of skyscrapers for games like Spiderman, essentially just a single interior cube with a texture that loosely resembles an HDRI box map that is being projected into the box and "faked". Would explain why the lighting causes it to shift as there is no real geometry for the light to hit.
I made sure to finish the game just before watching the video, so I can say there are multiple endings, but anything you saw before the credits play is exactly the same as what I experienced. The only thing different is what showed after the credits. No matter what, the mother tree(?) seems to kind of claim Mica as its own. Though maybe that's somehow different if you play through without saving? I dunno, I'm curious if something changes if you just never talk to it. As for my personal experiences, I kind of thought you misinterpreted a boss enemy as a normal enemy? There was one of those real tall guys with spikes all over its body in the house and that's the first time you encounter it. You kind of tore through the guy, but I had a much tough time with it and for me that was very much a boss fight. I do wish we had more fights like the one at the end of the game, but from my perspective it wasn't too terribly easy? I could be saying that from the perspective of lack of experience- I never played the silent hill games and I haven't really touched horror much before now, but I played on the same difficulty and had fairly little ammo and maybe 1 or 2 health sprays left when I beat the game. It might be a bit of a mix between my lack of experience (where this was just about the perfect difficulty for me, since I died maybe 3 or 4 times) and you being better at these types of games than you give yourself credit for. That aside, I do think there could've been more reward for exploration than there was for sure.
The English dude accent sounds like an English guy who moved to Australia and started picking up the Ozzie accent so overcompensated by being more English 😂
So close but so far! Regardless, very impressive work. Definitely on the higher part of the list in horror indie games imo. But it could've excelled even more I feel
I want to be positive about this game, but I sadly can not. It started off really well and it shows a lot of promise. A lot of the areas look and feel the same especially with the lack of enemy variety. A positive is the melee weapons having different animations and uses. The game tries to go for a mimimalist narrative, but it isn't interesting enough to warrant it. It really pains me to say the game is bad, but it's still a product asking for 15 dollars and it isn't worth it. I look forward to their next game.
ajskajks the British newspaper guy (and the accompanying teasing of British fans) is one of my favorite things from this playthrough. Sometimes the Gary Influence for the newspaper guy specifically, it sounds like John put him in a jar and shakes him up before he lets him out to read. (Then, back to the jar for The Hot.)
16:47 Jasper is a reference (i think) to Jasper from Silent Hill 4, that guy you give the chocolate milk to and get a weird cutscene of him drinking the whole thing lmao
I liked this playthrough for the ASMR mix of "British John Wolfe" and "British countryside gentle rain and thunder". Top work ol' sport, would 'ave a listen again. Cheerio!
After finally finishing this series I have some thoughts. First off I love the Atmospheric tone of the game. That is done very well. Beyond that I see a number of personal glaring issues. I feel the areas are large just for the sake of being large with not much to do. Like you should have been bale to go into more of the houses, explore more. I feel the signals were kinda pointless other then to say you found them all, like it really didn't add much and there didn't seem to be any rewards for finding them all. For what is clearly inspired by survival horror games I feel this game is lacking alot of the core tropes: Ammo and healing items were plentyfull, there seemed to never be a reason to save your ammo or avoid fights, There were no real serious puzzles, everything was super simplistic, there didn't seem to be a huge amount of purpose to finding documents for lore purposes, alot of it seemed to just repeat itself. I also find the lack of bosses very surprising and disapointing, places I felt there should be a boss, nothing. All in all I felt the game was alright and I feel I did not waste my time watching the series, it was a good watch.
Very entertaining video, clearly you had a good day today :D Thank you for the content, it was entertaining to watch and I laughed out loud in many places which is something that rarely happens to me. Speaking of the game - I agree with you that the game was a little bit lackluster in gameplay. What I would also add to what you said was that many locations seemed same-y. The town felt like copy pasted buildings over and over again. The hotel or whatever - each floor was copy pasted too. I really liked the church though, it's weird how fast you went through it (not criticizing your gameplay but more how the game was designed) versus how much work was put into that location. There should've been a bossfight right in that church, it was a perfect place for it. On top of it all, the weapons were completely unbalanced. The game had lots of potential, it's just clearly should've stayed in the oven a little bit longer.
This game really could have benefitted from more events. You get a smattering of lore here and there but nothing is really connected or explained. There could easily be a story here and it's just...not. It would have been cool to see more things happen as you traverse, even if it didn't add to the story that much (though that would have been a godsend). They really nailed a lot of the Silent Hill feel, much better than most who have tried, but they just lacked the 'life' to go with it. By which I mean some kind of greater story, fleshed out characters, etc. You know, the reason why you keep playing. The hook to really reel you in, make you want to know more about what's going on here. You explore but there was no real payoff to it. No storytelling via any means really. We get the phone calls but it just teases us, never really paying out. That said I think the dev did some impressive groundwork, and if they can nail that aspect of game making they could make some awesome stuff.
This game is just full of nothingness, honestly. I've been waiting for something exciting since part 1, but eh. Props to John for playing this game, tho! Keep up the good work, John!
The game to me seemed like a great... lets call it 'third draft'. The foundation of the game is great: the atmosphere, the setting, enemy designs and the physical building of the world all obviously had a great amount of care put into them but ultimately it felt like it needed one more pass filling out the world to really breathe life into it and get to final draft. Honestly that's one of the hardest parts with being an indy dev though, at some point you need to move beyond the minutia and to put it out there and it's not always easy to tell when that point is reached. Still an interesting game though and hope the dev gets another chance to try again with another game.
Mica mentions about nano machines being what make the repair spray cure you, maybe se as the nano machines who prevent someone geting old in her and this is why she is not preocuped about the infection
If the ending really is tied to whether or not the suicide man survives the rooftop scene, that feels really unfair. It kind of makes the exploration in the rest of the game seem useless. I'm happy to be proven wrong if that's not the case, but I don't have the patience to sit through a full playthrough again and find out. 😅
Just finished it today. I enjoyed it but I would be lying to say I was let down. I was exploring too and was interested in the whole universe aspect reading the docs too. Definitely could of been longer and grander imo
16:45 That's a reference to Silent Hill 4, you meet this weird guy that seems like a tweaker, and he has an unusual obsession with chocolate milk, you have to bring him some to advance the story.
You are being really nice to call this game a mediocre good. Yes, there clearly has been a lot of effort put into the voice acting and the graphics but that's really the end of it. The enemies were so slow and avoidable that there was no tension in the game. The mother plot is never fully explained (in this ending, anyway). There is no impetus to find the signals because all of the sideplots are basically the same thing (running out of food, not able to leave, threatened by the echo enforcers). Repetitive gameplay. The main character is super whiny and also says the same things over and over. I watched all the videos because I enjoy your commentary, but this game was a miss for me.
Seems like a solid game though I wish there were more world building. Could have broken up the repetitive combat a bit by throwing some of that in outside of the notes and letters that don't get very deep into what seems to be going on.
Ok so I finished the video and... Is not looking good. But I have to say, this is quite a lot for one person to make, kudos to the dev. Like john said, the maps are too big and too empty. The story is also quite simplistic for the genre, not a bad thing at all but I mean, at least add some actual psychological horror to it? Not the usual " it was you all along" line, but Mica should have know what those enemies were once, maybe some sort of reaction aside of being a germaphobe? Speaking of reactions, her relationship with Sasha... She's barely there just to be rescued which is just boring nowadays, and not enough motivation to do so either. The only hint of actual interaction between them is right at the end, and is not that much. I just realized we can't even see Sasha's face until the ending! The phone voice gets more screentime lol It seems that the dev was more focused on the world building than anything else (the hint of the monster at the end tho, probably thinking of a sequel already)
Atmosphere was spot on, writing was terrible and cringy, and I can't remember much from... well anything else. There really is not much going on with the game from the moment you enter the apartment to the last hour or so. Sad since there was a lot of promise in the beginning, but it really is marred with a myriad of weird decisions and what seems like cut content.
wh - it's over already?? But we hadn't - gotten anywhere yet... man, i LOVED the atmosphere of this game, but it was nowhere near as good as chasing static. i would HIGHLY recommend chasing static honestly. weird game but i really loved it. what, uh. what... happened? Here? what's.... the story. oh lord. i think maybe it's a little too... obtuse. maybe it's less of an issue on replay getting more endings. also ive never heard 'neato dorito.' ive only ever heard 'neato burrito'
Wondering if the look of the things moving on the shelf is from the light bounce off a plane and looking weird? Idk if this is Unity but lightning of 2d images/textures looks odd there sometimes. Also might have a shader to make a glass effect or something.
I'll be honest, i was simply waiting to hear what you thought of the game before i watched it. Nothing against the game but combat would've hightened it's appeal for me as well.
it was definitely an ambitious project that like you said nailed a lot of elements i know it wanted to hit, but overall it seemed to follow too many sins of the past to be a huge success. i personally wasn't a fan of the story either? felt like the idea was solid but the execution wasn't the best
my main problem with playing this game was that it tried way too hard to emulate Silent Hill and failed to have its own identity. I searched up other endings, and to little surprise - it has a dog ending. it felt more like a Silent Hill fan game to me than a game of its own, and its "retro horror elements" were frustrating. especially the obnoxious camera that managed to be worse than in the old games. the endings are all anticlimactic, and I didn't even care about reading through all the notes to piece together the story. also, the phone dialogues with "the tree" sounded almost improvised and extremely unnatural and random.
Hot take: That stupid guitar weapon made the horror aspects of this game almost impossible to take seriously. Nothing is less scary than using a cartoonish weapon with silly sound fx to beat up monsters zzz
Unfortunate bane of a lot of old school horror. There's a reason why Resi 4 became such a huge hit - It kept the horror vibes but brought them into a new gameplay paradigm.
Through no fault of yours, this game is a tedious watch. There's massive chunks where you're just walking, doing nothing, looking for nothing. At one point, I got up to do something (I was still listening to you) and came back a good ten minutes later and nothing of any substance had happened. It took me seven or eight attempts to start watching this series because the intro is so damn difficult to hear. You've been exceptionally entertaining, I feel that this game is incredibly uninteresting, badly paced and I don't care about Mica at all. It reminds me of that god awful game you played a few years ago, Typical Nightmares.
![I am finally playing [Buckshot Roulette]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Hmj-cAwkeMg/mqdefault.jpg)
![I am finally playing [Buckshot Roulette]](/img/tr.png)
![Welcome to the Johngle [Zoochosis - Part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZPfwyH_Bov8/mqdefault.jpg)
with all the repair spray instead of healing spray, system critical messages when hurt and scans of dead bodies I was waiting for the reveal Mica was a (part) robot/cyborg of some sorts.
I wanna love this game-I’m one of those people with immense nostalgia for classic survival horror-but it’s just a whole lot of nothing. Love the atmosphere and general vibe, it does more than a lot of other games that try to emulate classic survival horror titles, but it falls into the same traps, as well; such as a severe lack of tension/horror, repetitive gameplay, empty locales, uneventful exploration, ho-hum enemies that don’t inspire the least bit of fear, and a dull story. What this game needed was more variety, in enemies and locations, better exploration, and more random events and surprises (like the dog jumping through the window in RE1, for example). It has the makings of a solid game, but it feels unrealized.
Every location felt like one room or hall copypasted. The streets were just the same thing over and over. Then the apartments were just the same apartment. The tunnels. Even the final MeatZone. There were almost no points of real interest, no ominous or interesting locations. Just another apartment, another tunnel, another empty road.
I think the worst part for me was that nothing really *happened* in the story. You'd go from area to area just to keep moving in a vague direction. There were no plot developments, no character arcs, no scary surprises or revelations, no interesting events at all, really. They just tell you "go here" at the start of the game and you spend the entire game slowly going that way, reading the occasional note (that just repeats the same single piece of lore that was already obvious) and fighting the same 2-3 wholly non-threatening enemies. I could forgive so much if the story was interesting but nothing is going on.
I have to agree, really wanted to like it but ultimately it just ended up makeing me appreciate Crow County and Signalis more.
That is well put. I was thinking the same thing throughout the playthrough. Only stayed for John because the game itself was boring.
this is a really good start to a game. i feel it needs more NPCs and stories. Thats part of what made SH so memorable, the characters. the setting is a huge part obviously but it would have also been boring to just run around forever without learning more about the lore or other characters.
I would love to see them flesh out the world a little and add things to find and interact with
The switch from reading the article to the female British accent was gold
"I tend to ramble on and on" I'm sure I don't just speak for myself when I say we love it! We love your commentary, we want to hear your opinion and we love to hear your takes. Thank you, John, for all these years of entertainment. A new game coming out isn't as good without a chance to see your playthrough of it!
Just finished the series, and agree on your read. I think it would be a great game if it had bosses, more npc encounters, and went a bit deeper into the world building through discovery. I found the npc guy you did meet on the rooftop to be super unnerving so more of that wouldve been neat. But tremendous feat for a solo dev and will certainly be following them now.
Speaking to the lack of puzzles, I was mildly irked that the 'multiple-handed machine' turned out to be just a big nothing burger. Was it meant to be 'something', but cut due to time/story restraints? Just seemed like a lost opportunity.
I really love the guitar twanging when u hit enemies 😂😂😂😂😂
It made me think of FLCL 😅
Lol I hated that so much
Ruined the game's atmosphere completely
I had to go look to confirm my suspicion, but Jasper being mentioned when Mica looks at chocolate milk, I am pretty sure this is a Silent Hill 4 reference. Jasper is the name of the character that you needed to fetch chocolate milk for before he is killed by Walter Sullivan.
This game is like a shell for an unfinished game. The enemies are bland and the environments are empty and gray. With some effort, this could have been great. Add more enemies with combat variety and put in little events here and there. Make some mini bosses for example. It’s just bang, bang, kick, kick, next area right now.
John's had years without mid-rolls, it's almost jarring to get used to them suddenly. 🤣 I personally love his end-of-series mini reviews, it's cool to actually hear someone's thoughts on multiple aspects of a game they've completed, rather than just saying whether or not they liked it. This one was interesting, not sure I'd play it myself, but it's been enjoyable to watch.
I know this is classic Silent-Hill type gameplay where nothing really makes sense and everything's a metaphor, but was Mica not concerned at all about whatever plague turned everyone into monsters? The original research team at least had suits and masks...
And the tendrils on each monster wer still moving after they die, like girl maybe is a parasitic thing and you could get infected? No, nothing??
She was too focused on playing Goldilocks and deciding if she would sleep in a bed to actually care about getting infected by Mystery Infection™ I guess. 😅
This series was neato dorito! Loved just chilling with John playing a game while I'm playing a game. Makes a hard day feel better. Thanks as always for the wonderful content.
blow your load was an insane phrase to use in that context 😭
For real, i was shocked 😂
The whole thing about John's "British" accent impressions makes me want to see him play "Thank Goodness You're Here" and his reaction to its... uh... usage of language.
His wife could learn a thing or two
I agree pretty much with all your thoughts on the end. Would've loved to see more fleshing out of the world and its previous inhabitants. It felt especially like there was a lot more visual storytelling in the first half of the game than in the second half. I feel like making more of the buildings explorable, even if not necessary for moving forward, could've helped. Still, it was fun to watch and I'll have to look at the other endings now. Thanks for the series!!
wow fuses appearing in places they should be? that's some immersion there
I can’t remember when I started watching you, Gab, and MrKravin (I do know it was years ago) but man - whenever you three upload anything new i get super psyched to watch! Always been super relaxing and I get plenty of laughs from the shenanigans. Thank you for uploading and wishing the best to you and your family! 😊
Haven’t watched yet, but saw how early I was and wanna say John’s got the best commentary on every game🖤🖤
This game honestly feels somehow unfinished? Like the whole hours was just a demo and more things to come. Inspired by classic survival horror games sure but for love letter it was kinda dull. From the old games i miss those uncanny or cringe npcs. Weird cutscenes, huge chunk of environment storytelling. In this game it tapped in this direction but didn't pull through with this such a shame.
As a Brit, I endorse John doing English accents. Love it. 😂
I'm super early and haven't been able to keep up with the latest episodes because I've been going through a lot and kind of struggling. I can't wait to hopefully catch a break soon so that I can catch up! Thank you for all of the fun uploads!
Thanks for the playthrough John!
There are things I definitely like about this game.
Sound design is fun. I love the clomp of her shit kicking boots and how it changes over different flooring. I also love the twang when you hit enemies with the guitar, very satisfying and doesn't take itself too seriously. I also think the voice acting is fun and the general soundscape does a good job of matching up with that you're seeing.
Monster design is cool as is the general environment vibe but both get a bit stale after a while. I feel like this game is missing a "B" section of sorts where you go somewhere that looks a bit different etc. It's definitely a trope but it feels really satisfying to go from the majority of the game "A" look to a short "B" look section and then either to an all new "C" look section or a slightly more (insert vibe of the game here) "A" section. Hope that made sense, it's 1am.
I can't really speak on gameplay without playing it. It does seem to make sense but be empty, like John points out.
The story was kinda hit or miss? I feel like I got the vibe but it was missing the fleshing out that made it really make sense beyond "corporation bad, plague bad".
Idk, I agree with the idea that this game is a great draft (1st, 2nd, 3rd, whatever) that shows the dev's talent and interest but doesn't feel finished.
John had a little to much fun speaking in British accent 😂❤
i really enjoy your end thoughts at the end of playthroughs, they could be even longer sometimes haha! i don't always agree, but i think you give good assessment as to what you were thinking while playing.
John's big grin when he was like "I'll be nice! ... Well, I'll be fair, how about that?" and the curious wandering over to look at and ubsequent stompy stomp he had Mica do on the boss were my favorite parts, something about the silent transition from looking to stomping felt like something a little kid would do and it cracked me up lol. And I would say that was a very fair assessment! It was very competently made, it was very much like the games it was emulating, and it was a cool experience. Its only problems really boiled down to a lack of variety in gameplay - lots of going around big repetitive areas and fighting the same enemies, no real puzzles to break up the wandering around and fighting enemies, and no bosses or interesting sequences (other than the one at the end). It made me think back to the first video with the first monster encounter, which was very creepy and had great suspenseful build-up, it'd be cool to have had more moments like that to catch you by surprise. But again, it was very well crafted and they had a vision for the game they wanted.
At 17:54, I believe that is a parallax interior material that is causing that effect? Its the same trick that you see on the windows of skyscrapers for games like Spiderman, essentially just a single interior cube with a texture that loosely resembles an HDRI box map that is being projected into the box and "faked". Would explain why the lighting causes it to shift as there is no real geometry for the light to hit.
Enjoyed the playthrough. The game embodied the name. Full body of a potentially great game just hollow.
I made sure to finish the game just before watching the video, so I can say there are multiple endings, but anything you saw before the credits play is exactly the same as what I experienced. The only thing different is what showed after the credits. No matter what, the mother tree(?) seems to kind of claim Mica as its own. Though maybe that's somehow different if you play through without saving? I dunno, I'm curious if something changes if you just never talk to it.
As for my personal experiences, I kind of thought you misinterpreted a boss enemy as a normal enemy? There was one of those real tall guys with spikes all over its body in the house and that's the first time you encounter it. You kind of tore through the guy, but I had a much tough time with it and for me that was very much a boss fight. I do wish we had more fights like the one at the end of the game, but from my perspective it wasn't too terribly easy? I could be saying that from the perspective of lack of experience- I never played the silent hill games and I haven't really touched horror much before now, but I played on the same difficulty and had fairly little ammo and maybe 1 or 2 health sprays left when I beat the game. It might be a bit of a mix between my lack of experience (where this was just about the perfect difficulty for me, since I died maybe 3 or 4 times) and you being better at these types of games than you give yourself credit for.
That aside, I do think there could've been more reward for exploration than there was for sure.
Your reviews are always my favorite part of a series!
Here he is the King of TH-cam is back just makes my day Cheers John 🙂
The English dude accent sounds like an English guy who moved to Australia and started picking up the Ozzie accent so overcompensated by being more English 😂
So close but so far! Regardless, very impressive work. Definitely on the higher part of the list in horror indie games imo. But it could've excelled even more I feel
Nice i like this game so far. I almost always listen to silent hill ambience when falling asleep and this gameplay fits well
These three-part playthroughs are really making me happy right now.
I want to be positive about this game, but I sadly can not. It started off really well and it shows a lot of promise. A lot of the areas look and feel the same especially with the lack of enemy variety. A positive is the melee weapons having different animations and uses. The game tries to go for a mimimalist narrative, but it isn't interesting enough to warrant it. It really pains me to say the game is bad, but it's still a product asking for 15 dollars and it isn't worth it. I look forward to their next game.
I do agree that Jasper enjoys his chocolate milk. Two separate mentions of SH4 this entire playthrough is insane to me
ajskajks the British newspaper guy (and the accompanying teasing of British fans) is one of my favorite things from this playthrough. Sometimes the Gary Influence for the newspaper guy specifically, it sounds like John put him in a jar and shakes him up before he lets him out to read. (Then, back to the jar for The Hot.)
As a Brit I approve the accent and its amazing cause at 20:35 you sound like Speedwagon from the English dub of Jojo's bizarre adventure 🥰
This game is just like its title: "Hollowbody" but the developers have a lot of potential so I hope they make other games!
I’m British and I love your accent, it makes me chuckle! - It does go a bit Australian at times! But it’s all good! 😂
16:47 Jasper is a reference (i think) to Jasper from Silent Hill 4, that guy you give the chocolate milk to and get a weird cutscene of him drinking the whole thing lmao
Neto Dorito video John. Keep it up!
John reading the articles like he's roleplaying young draco malfoy and im here for it
I liked this playthrough for the ASMR mix of "British John Wolfe" and "British countryside gentle rain and thunder". Top work ol' sport, would 'ave a listen again. Cheerio!
Nothing grinds my gears quite like the sound of an adult voicing a child in a video game
After finally finishing this series I have some thoughts. First off I love the Atmospheric tone of the game. That is done very well. Beyond that I see a number of personal glaring issues. I feel the areas are large just for the sake of being large with not much to do. Like you should have been bale to go into more of the houses, explore more. I feel the signals were kinda pointless other then to say you found them all, like it really didn't add much and there didn't seem to be any rewards for finding them all. For what is clearly inspired by survival horror games I feel this game is lacking alot of the core tropes: Ammo and healing items were plentyfull, there seemed to never be a reason to save your ammo or avoid fights, There were no real serious puzzles, everything was super simplistic, there didn't seem to be a huge amount of purpose to finding documents for lore purposes, alot of it seemed to just repeat itself. I also find the lack of bosses very surprising and disapointing, places I felt there should be a boss, nothing. All in all I felt the game was alright and I feel I did not waste my time watching the series, it was a good watch.
So funny you totally called it - you DO have to save the guy from jumping off the roof to get the “good” ending 🤣
Very entertaining video, clearly you had a good day today :D Thank you for the content, it was entertaining to watch and I laughed out loud in many places which is something that rarely happens to me.
Speaking of the game - I agree with you that the game was a little bit lackluster in gameplay. What I would also add to what you said was that many locations seemed same-y. The town felt like copy pasted buildings over and over again. The hotel or whatever - each floor was copy pasted too. I really liked the church though, it's weird how fast you went through it (not criticizing your gameplay but more how the game was designed) versus how much work was put into that location. There should've been a bossfight right in that church, it was a perfect place for it.
On top of it all, the weapons were completely unbalanced. The game had lots of potential, it's just clearly should've stayed in the oven a little bit longer.
Your videos are always neato-dorito, John! Keep ‘em coming! Thanks - E
the chocolate milk is a reference to silent hill 4. you give him chocolate milk and he gulps it down
This game really could have benefitted from more events. You get a smattering of lore here and there but nothing is really connected or explained. There could easily be a story here and it's just...not. It would have been cool to see more things happen as you traverse, even if it didn't add to the story that much (though that would have been a godsend). They really nailed a lot of the Silent Hill feel, much better than most who have tried, but they just lacked the 'life' to go with it. By which I mean some kind of greater story, fleshed out characters, etc. You know, the reason why you keep playing. The hook to really reel you in, make you want to know more about what's going on here. You explore but there was no real payoff to it. No storytelling via any means really. We get the phone calls but it just teases us, never really paying out. That said I think the dev did some impressive groundwork, and if they can nail that aspect of game making they could make some awesome stuff.
This game is just full of nothingness, honestly. I've been waiting for something exciting since part 1, but eh.
Props to John for playing this game, tho! Keep up the good work, John!
The game to me seemed like a great... lets call it 'third draft'. The foundation of the game is great: the atmosphere, the setting, enemy designs and the physical building of the world all obviously had a great amount of care put into them but ultimately it felt like it needed one more pass filling out the world to really breathe life into it and get to final draft.
Honestly that's one of the hardest parts with being an indy dev though, at some point you need to move beyond the minutia and to put it out there and it's not always easy to tell when that point is reached.
Still an interesting game though and hope the dev gets another chance to try again with another game.
Clicked as soon as I saw! Here for it!💞
That park is for little boys and girls John, not grown ups. Mica’s too old to play
Wishing for a tiny cowboy hat in every video.
Same😂
The time between episodes feels so slow 🥲 prob because I’m admittedly not interested in this series
Mica mentions about nano machines being what make the repair spray cure you, maybe se as the nano machines who prevent someone geting old in her and this is why she is not preocuped about the infection
Yesssss i love it when you game
Yayyyy I was waiting for this, I'm gonna watch it right after my gaming session hehe
Thanks john looking forward to watching.
If the ending really is tied to whether or not the suicide man survives the rooftop scene, that feels really unfair. It kind of makes the exploration in the rest of the game seem useless. I'm happy to be proven wrong if that's not the case, but I don't have the patience to sit through a full playthrough again and find out. 😅
Enemies are unmemorable, which i think is igregious for a survival horror.
See my mom used to say "neato bandito" instead of Dorito lol
19:39 - Laughing so hard at this Dick van Dyke English accent lollll
Just finished it today.
I enjoyed it but I would be lying to say I was let down.
I was exploring too and was interested in the whole universe aspect reading the docs too.
Definitely could of been longer and grander imo
This game was a fun watch! Have you thought about playing Beyond Hanwell, I think it came out recently
1:15:28 heather kicking god in the face
Awesome I don’t think I been this early in a while!
16:45 That's a reference to Silent Hill 4, you meet this weird guy that seems like a tweaker, and he has an unusual obsession with chocolate milk, you have to bring him some to advance the story.
Oh cool hollowbody part 3 and it was enjoyable and the video was so much fun John 🎉🎉🎉
You are being really nice to call this game a mediocre good. Yes, there clearly has been a lot of effort put into the voice acting and the graphics but that's really the end of it.
The enemies were so slow and avoidable that there was no tension in the game. The mother plot is never fully explained (in this ending, anyway). There is no impetus to find the signals because all of the sideplots are basically the same thing (running out of food, not able to leave, threatened by the echo enforcers). Repetitive gameplay. The main character is super whiny and also says the same things over and over.
I watched all the videos because I enjoy your commentary, but this game was a miss for me.
Mining companies that built their own towns for their workers operated like this.
4:03 - What does not having any Legos have to do with Archery?
Seems like a solid game though I wish there were more world building. Could have broken up the repetitive combat a bit by throwing some of that in outside of the notes and letters that don't get very deep into what seems to be going on.
Ok so I finished the video and... Is not looking good. But I have to say, this is quite a lot for one person to make, kudos to the dev.
Like john said, the maps are too big and too empty. The story is also quite simplistic for the genre, not a bad thing at all but I mean, at least add some actual psychological horror to it? Not the usual " it was you all along" line, but Mica should have know what those enemies were once, maybe some sort of reaction aside of being a germaphobe?
Speaking of reactions, her relationship with Sasha... She's barely there just to be rescued which is just boring nowadays, and not enough motivation to do so either. The only hint of actual interaction between them is right at the end, and is not that much. I just realized we can't even see Sasha's face until the ending! The phone voice gets more screentime lol
It seems that the dev was more focused on the world building than anything else (the hint of the monster at the end tho, probably thinking of a sequel already)
Atmosphere was spot on, writing was terrible and cringy, and I can't remember much from... well anything else. There really is not much going on with the game from the moment you enter the apartment to the last hour or so. Sad since there was a lot of promise in the beginning, but it really is marred with a myriad of weird decisions and what seems like cut content.
I did a double-take when it said £5 coins (which don't exist) and then I remembered "... Oh wait. This is set in the future"
Different countries, different juice, John
I love this games vibe 🌹
The ambiance of the game looks interesting at least.
wh - it's over already?? But we hadn't - gotten anywhere yet...
man, i LOVED the atmosphere of this game, but it was nowhere near as good as chasing static. i would HIGHLY recommend chasing static honestly. weird game but i really loved it.
what, uh. what... happened? Here? what's.... the story. oh lord. i think maybe it's a little too... obtuse. maybe it's less of an issue on replay getting more endings.
also ive never heard 'neato dorito.' ive only ever heard 'neato burrito'
Wondering if the look of the things moving on the shelf is from the light bounce off a plane and looking weird? Idk if this is Unity but lightning of 2d images/textures looks odd there sometimes. Also might have a shader to make a glass effect or something.
You had neato Dorito? I always heard it as "neato burrito"
I'll be honest, i was simply waiting to hear what you thought of the game before i watched it. Nothing against the game but combat would've hightened it's appeal for me as well.
it was definitely an ambitious project that like you said nailed a lot of elements i know it wanted to hit, but overall it seemed to follow too many sins of the past to be a huge success. i personally wasn't a fan of the story either? felt like the idea was solid but the execution wasn't the best
I thought it was “neato burrito” and I’ve been saying it for idk how long.
Just kind of a thing of a 90s kid I guess.
'One of you' is plural
Wait, didn't she say Sasha was her sister? Am I just mixing that up with another game?
YOU COULD HAVE DONE THE JUSTINE VOOOIIICE
Today i learnt i cannot pronounce sixth.
my main problem with playing this game was that it tried way too hard to emulate Silent Hill and failed to have its own identity. I searched up other endings, and to little surprise - it has a dog ending. it felt more like a Silent Hill fan game to me than a game of its own, and its "retro horror elements" were frustrating. especially the obnoxious camera that managed to be worse than in the old games. the endings are all anticlimactic, and I didn't even care about reading through all the notes to piece together the story. also, the phone dialogues with "the tree" sounded almost improvised and extremely unnatural and random.
The game was okay. A little boring which I feel just tends to happen with a lot of these types of horror games.
Beacon ov'ope
Hot take:
That stupid guitar weapon made the horror aspects of this game almost impossible to take seriously. Nothing is less scary than using a cartoonish weapon with silly sound fx to beat up monsters zzz
This game is....boring
Unfortunate bane of a lot of old school horror. There's a reason why Resi 4 became such a huge hit - It kept the horror vibes but brought them into a new gameplay paradigm.
It would've helped if the environment wasn't so same-ie and dull. But not the worst if you ask me.
I agree. I wanted to like it and I watched 45 minutes of video 1 and noped out.
You're the boring one. Lol!
I personally like this game and especially John's playthrough. It's never boring when John plays it :D
Maybe One of You Will Know C'mon Man you Know This 🙂And yes i am in England and love having the Mickey taken out of us Have fun dude i appreciate it 🙂
Through no fault of yours, this game is a tedious watch. There's massive chunks where you're just walking, doing nothing, looking for nothing. At one point, I got up to do something (I was still listening to you) and came back a good ten minutes later and nothing of any substance had happened. It took me seven or eight attempts to start watching this series because the intro is so damn difficult to hear. You've been exceptionally entertaining, I feel that this game is incredibly uninteresting, badly paced and I don't care about Mica at all. It reminds me of that god awful game you played a few years ago, Typical Nightmares.
man that story was awful...pretty much nothing happened that was interesting...you shot bad guys and heard some recordings of people acting upset...
I think people give solo devs too much credit...that game was stinky.