Sunday Gold Review

L-R: Sally, Frank, and Gavin

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Sunday Gold
Release Date: September 13, 2022
Developer: BKOM Studios
Publisher: Team 17
Platforms: PC
MSRP: To Be Determined

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I really, really, really want to like Sunday Gold.

I should. It’s a retro-futuristic adventure/heist game taking place in a dystopian city based on ‘70s London Gangster tropes. The art style is an odd and impressionistic one similar to Disco Elysium, one of my favorite games of all time. And the idea of planning heists and putting together evidence to take down a megacorporation is brilliant, especially with the setting details placing the monolithic Hogan Industries at the center of everything from shady pursuits to violent sports. Even some of the mechanics are interesting, with various minigames used to represent the main characters’ abilities. But looking at those mechanics reveals the underpinnings of Sunday Gold, a game fighting itself and the player every step of the way. And unfortunately, that brings the whole package down, somewhat. So in the interest of honesty, I apologize, but I have to be true to my impressions.

It was supposed to be a simple job. That’s what Gavin said when he came to Frank and Sally, all they had to do was go to Hogan Industries, use his backdoor into the system to download some incriminating data, then blackmail Kenny Hogan (who’s a malevolent jerk anyway) for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Given that Frank owed a bunch of loansharks and Sally was floundering as a veterinarian and medic given her hemophobia, it sounded like a sweetheart deal. But things got complicated real quick. Gavin’s security clearance was outdated, the security teams are on alert, and there’s the matter of the dead chief of security and the bloodstained office that the trio found upon reaching the 19th floor. Soon the three are plunged into a murderous conspiracy surrounding Hogan Industries and its founder Kenny Hogan, desperate to solve things and stay out of the red the only way they can— by heisting and piecing bits of the puzzle together so they have a chance to survive.

Sunday Gold has something of interesting mechanics. The meat of the game is a point-and-click adventure where each of the characters has unique skills— Frank, the criminal lowlife sporting a Teddy Boy-style pompadour, can find objects easily and pick locks; Gavin, the twitchy tech expert, can hack computers and upgrade items; and Sally, the team’s muscle and medic, can basically bend bars, lift grates, and heal people. All of these actions, as well as searching the environment for supplies and key items, cost AP, which you have to refresh at the end of every “turn.” Each turn taken raises the alert, encouraging you to be quick and meaningful with your choices rather than to do the adventure game thing of sifting through the environment. When you do run into enemies, the game shifts into a JRPG-style combat sequence, where your AP is used for your attacks and skills against a variety of toughs and security personnel. The object is to balance things and figure out which risks you can take to complete the story as your AP goes down, tension ratcheting up as the alert level gets higher and you have to get things just right to progress, each step bringing you closer to high alert.

The problem with this is that the words “action economy” and “point and click adventure game” should not ever be on the same continent as each other. Point and click adventure games require the player to go through the environment carefully, find multiple solutions, and work things out as they go. It’s a genre that requires a lot of trial and error and solving puzzles in a sometimes obtuse sequence so that the player can eventually reach the specific answers through lateral and unconventional thinking. An action economy is all about finding the best and most workable solutions in any given situation with limited time and resources, requiring you to sometimes find the best way out of a bad situation. The result of combining these two things is that you spend a lot of time burning AP to find the very specific path through the story that the game wants you to take, while the alert level balloons to massive proportions. Even things like Frank’s ability to scan an environment, something that could undercut the normal pixel-hunting mechanics of adventure games, costs AP each time to use, with the ability’s highlighting feature vanishing almost immediately after.

This is compounded by the game’s use of a “composure” meter, essentially a sanity meter for the characters, which can go down as they encounter horrible things. This is great for getting a sense of the individual characteristics, because each character has their own triggers to manage and things they can process. It even goes as far as having them hallucinate or making certain challenges harder unless you carefully manage their composure, which can be brilliant under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, this also means they lose composure for examining certain things, which, again, runs counter to the point and click adventure segments most of the game is built around. If you can’t examine everything and investigate, it makes it difficult to do what you’re supposed to.

While you can, of course, use items to boost AP and restore composure, and restore AP in combat using the “guard” function, it still just feels like you’re fighting the game every time you perform an action. Which, when combined with the “find the specific actions” approach of adventure game logic, feels more like you’re being punished for, well, playing the game. Altogether, it becomes a frustrating morass where you have to push and push and push, then reload an earlier save and use what you know to keep from getting stuck in a tight spot. The game should definitely be tense, but it shouldn’t feel like you’re fighting it as it rams you over and over again against the mechanics. Eventually, one finds themselves save-scumming like mad so that you waste less time and experience more of the story.

All of this is a shame, because the game itself, that is, the story and art and even the feel of things, is really cool. There’s an excellent sense of discovery when you get something right, or discover the right item interaction, or unlock the way forward. The story and visuals set up a nice dark sense of humor, with the character portraits even changing based on the amount of damage or composure lost, and a lot of in-setting materials that add to the world— posters, birthday announcements, and even random comments do a lot to set up the characters and the unique look of 2070s London in a very satisfying way. Hogan and Hogan Industries come off as impossibly huge jerks even before the story starts kicking in, with things like employee motivation posters with bland slogans, a murderous cyberdog used for professional racing (the titular Sunday Gold) and a bulletin board offering a sick day raffle. There’s even a codex that fills in the blanks on setting information.

The art is similarly fantastic, blending surrealist portraits, motion-comic movement, and vibrant colors together in its own unique style, something familiar but entirely its own. The whole world looks like an indie comic book, and the spy-thriller soundtrack and horn stings underscore that beautifully. Even the character animations are fun, with characters stooping over when hurt, or victory poses that keep consistent with character dynamics and personality. The presentation is awesome, and I love every second I spend in that world.

Similarly, the RPG parts of the game do actually involve a bit of tactical thinking, with skill trees, interactions, and actions like guard refreshing your action economy making it worth thinking about your choices in any given situation, balancing defense and item use with the characters who are lower in AP, giving the usual static character roles a more rotational feel. Sure, Sally is the team medic, but if Frank’s down AP and has painkillers and adrenaline to spare, Sally can be just as good at offense. Sure, Gavin can debuff, but in a pinch, if Frank and Sally aren’t able to deal damage, his output’s similarly on the level. Skill trees also add a little complexity, lowering AP costs and allowing things like Gavin upgrading more items and Frank to get a scan ability to make pixel-hunting a little easier.

But when you’re fighting the mechanics every step of the way, it’s not worth it. In the end, Sunday Gold is a brilliantly flawed game, one that, if you have the patience to deal with its barriers of entry and contradictory mechanics, has some genuine moments of delight built in. I wish, however, the brilliance that shines through, the careful consideration to the world and wealth of interesting moments throughout, wasn’t ultimately obscured by the clouds of its own systems and gameplay.

The Good
- Excellent world design
- Fantastic art and characters
- Brilliant writing and a dark sense of humor
- Unusual but rewarding puzzles

The Bad
- Mechanics that fight the player every step of the way
- Impossibly tight margin of error that makes save-scumming pretty much mandatory
- Adventure game elements and turn-based elements don’t allow each other breathing room
- Very easy to get stuck without any clear idea of where to go next or what to do

Final Score:

I wish it didn’t have to be this, but I have to be honest

Megadimension Neptunia VII Review: Maybe Someone Should Push The "Off" Switch Already

At this point, nothing I say will probably sway you on games from Compile Heart and Idea Factory. Seriously, they're pretty much the same roleplaying games at this point. Anyone who's played one of their games (with the exception perhaps of maybe Agarest) knows what they're in for. If you've enjoyed them before, great. If you're new to the world, then perhaps pick up Fairy Fencer F, still a high water mark for the company and a good introduction to their odd hybrid of visual novel and roleplaying game. 

But that said, as far as Neptunia games go, and considering Hyperdevotion Noire was a sack of doorknobs to the sternum as far as enjoyment went, Megadimension Neptunia VII (pronounced V-2) is one of the better entries in the series. IF seems to have fine-tuned their formula to an exact science, the graphics are top-notch, and the characters have enough style and humor added to them that it makes playing the game less of a slog than it might have been normally. 

Megadimension Neptunia finds its hero, Neptune, Goddess of the Purple Heart, educating and messing about with her younger "sister" Nepgear, who will eventually take control of her region of Gamindustri. The two of them get a strange message from a broken console, drawing them into a post-apocalyptic future where the world has been torn apart by "the giants," which are clearly massive, destructive versions of the Goddesses from regular Neptunia continuity. Fighting against the goddesses is Uzume Tennoboshi, a mysterious woman who has the power to transform into the goddess Orange Heart. Together, the three set out to heal the broken world.

Neptunia's gameplay sets it up as kind of a dungeon crawler. You move from place to place on an overworld map, entering dungeons to clear them of enemies and gain levels, money, items, and equipment. In the dungeon levels, you traverse through platforming-style levels and hope to catch your enemies unawares to gain a better position in battles. Battles are carried out in a turn-based style with combo attack system. As you learn better attacks, you can swap the weaker attacks out for the stronger ones and create better synergies. You can also break down enemies into smaller parts, fight massive boss battles, and use combo attacks to lay waste to your enemies and save the broken world. 

But this JRPG, in spite of all its trappings, falls into the same trap as a lot of JRPGs: Grind. It is important to grind like crazy to get up to the point where you can progress, it's important for you to constantly fling yourself at enemies to gain new powers and go up a bunch of levels, and it's important for you to check your XP and unlock all your abilities along the way. While this is true to life, that one must push themselves through a series of repetitive and boring tasks to be able to survive in the modern environment, in a game that is not similarly bound by the laws of society, it's tedious; and in this case, kind of like padding. 

Repetition seems to be the name of the game. While I don't mind hearing the character's voices, hearing Neptune constantly shout "LIKE A KANGAROO!" every time she jumps is annoying. Having to trudge across the map to Mount Doom and back every time the story requires a little more time for a cutscene is annoying. Having to battle things until finally I get to the point where I can one-hit kill entire maps of creatures to fight a boss that's only slightly more of a challenge? Also annoying. Just in general, the amount of repetition and the number of things I had to grind were annoying. 

Which is a shame. The game isn't bad. It just gets annoying after a while, and seems to have a fairly low replay value. Nep and friends have great senses of humor, and the voice acting is fantastic, the graphics are above par, and the controls aren't too confusing, though use of a controller is recommended. There's some depth to this, and I do like the depth that is there, between stat raises, mechanical rewards for achievement unlocking, and the combo system. It's all great. But the grind and the lack of much new from IF and CH means that, well...

There's just not a lot of meat here.

Final score: 3/5. It's average, but it could be more. And grind...well, that's a different article.

The reviewer received a copy of this game in exchange for a review.

Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart Review

Where do I even begin with this one? 

Okay, so for the past few years, there's been a franchise known as Hyperdimension Neptunia. The general concept is that the games industry is anthropomorphized as a land called Gamindustri, ruled over by warring goddesses who have "console wars" to determine supremacy and games companies are depicted as anthropomorphized anime characters. 

Inexplicably, this has grown into a massive franchise of games, one of which is Hyperdevotion Noire, an alternate universe game where the anime goddess representing the Sony systems has taken over everything. 

It's also not very good.

The plot of the game is fairly simple. Noire, the dark goddess, has conquered Gamarket. All she has left to do is cement her rule, which she tries to do with the help of a traveling fortune teller. Surprising no one, the evil-looking, evil-sounding fortune teller decides to take all the combined power, leave Noire powerless, and forces her to conquer Gamindustri all over again, recruiting friends and allies from her former generals along the way.,

The game takes the form of a tactical strategy game: Each turn, you move over hexes, attacking enemies and trying to complete objectives. Your weapons also do damage based on facing, element, and what abilities you use, as well as what weapons in general you're using. But, problems set in with the basic gameplay soon after, as combat gets kind of tedious when all you do is run around to the back of your opponent, hit them, and then wait for them to run around so you can take your turn again. The optional elements on the battlefield do add something, but it's miniscule at best.

That wasn't even the most egregious thing about the game. That would be the kind of fourth-wall premise to the whole thing. You, the player, are a male secretary assigned to help Noire restore herself to power. You're also kind of a perv. Now, I understand that yes, this game has a target audience, and yes, that target audience has some very specific tastes, but seriously, I felt like making the player a character and that kind of character made me want to play the game less. It just felt forced and cheap. And unnecessary. 

The story also isn't that great unless you're already a huge fan. I can imagine that Noire's story might be something of a treat for the faithful, but I couldn't hit "X" fast enough to get rid of it all. It also didn't seem connected to the game for more than the occasional excuse. While it's true that both the plot and the game open up as Noire begins her conquest of the various lands all over again, it all feels static and linear. This could be excused-- even the worst writing can be okay in the right vehicle (and I'm looking at you, Dark Souls and Fallout 4), but with everything else, the boring mechanics, the arbitrary decisions, and the creepy overtones, it just gets buried under more and more of the same. 

And they're also super-deformed! Thus removing all the appeal of the Console Waifu franchise!

In the end, Hyperdevotion Noire is kind of just airless and cheerless. It's an okay game, but an okay game in a franchise that has seen much better titles is just that-- okay. Spend your money on something that won't put you to sleep, and maybe wait until this goes on sale. Until then, there are probably six or seven visual novels that might scratch your itch much, much better. 

2/5

Full Disclosure: The reviewer received a copy of this game for review.

Fairy Fencer F Review

I had a lot of fun with this one.

Fairy Fencer F is kind of a unique experience among JRPGs. It throws a tremendous amount of stuff at the wall, and most of it actually winds up sticking pretty well. It's a game where you can release an ancient evil god for special powers, accumulate sword spirits like crazy, have to pay an info broker repeatedly to progress in the story, and where the hero really doesn't want to do anything he doesn't have to. 

And it is brilliant. More, as always, below. 

Fairy Fencer F begins with it's hero locked in a dungeon and asleep. From this noblest of beginnings, the player is introduced to Fang. Fang wants nothing more than to eat and sleep and not much else. Accompanying Fang, however, is a fairy named Eryn, the spirit of his sword. Fang pulled Eryn out of a tree, and from that point on he is tasked with finding the "Furies" locked within swords so he can unseal the Goddess and she can once again preside over the land. Fang is warned, however, that other "fencers" are out looking for powerful furies, and he'll have lots of competition if he wants to unseal the Goddess and bring the world back to its rightful place. 

Eryn, tutorialing it up

What this entails is a staggering series of subsystems, from boosting your stats to giving your characters new abilities, to giving the characters bonus powers. On top of all of this, is a system that awards you stat boosts and various power-ups for doing things as simple as jumping up and down a hundred times. While the game doesn't feel very big at first, and the simple map/town interactions don't do a lot to dissuade that notion, it's what happens when you get into the interlocking systems that really makes the game pop. Something as simple as grinding your jumping ability, for instance, immediately moves you up in the initiative order. You use your spirits to gain new lands to explore, giving you stat bonuses and resistances based on the fury's power. And it keeps going up from there. 

The one issue with the game is that it takes a lot of grinding to do things. Something as simple as leveling up a combat power can sometimes take killing every single enemy in a level. There's a whole ton of systems, but each one requires a ton of points and money. There is a lot to see and do, and the amount of grinding you have to do is kind of tremendous to get anywhere. Combined with the game's lack of an auto-save or save anywhere feature, suddenly the difficulty curve gets a lot more difficult than it usually would be. 

The game is well worth it, though, as it has a sense of humor about itself (and other JRPGs). The characters lean on the fourth wall just enough while still committing to the premise that it's really funny, and having the bosses comment on their place in the story is hilarious. Similarly, Fang's reactions, which range from "No, please, no." to "What the hell did I just do?!" help keep the tone fairly light. 

In the end, if you're looking for a good, innovative JRPG with a surprising amount of depth and some interesting plot turns within its "Get the plot coupons" plot, then I would go with this one. While it might be prudent to wait for a sale, you should definitely pick this one up.

5/5

Full Disclosure: Reviewer received a Steam review copy of this game