Einherjar

*sigh* Another day, another crappy blog post about a game y'all likely don't care about (I'm basing this off of GMT times, so if it's not the 23rd yet for you, not my problem). This time, I'm pretty disappointed with the game though. Maybe I'm spoiled by games that are actually, what's the word... oh, yeah, good. Maybe I'm spoiled by good games lately, or maybe it's just another shitty game that can't live up to the hype but Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is a pretty bland game, and thus there isn't much I can say about it.

Yeah, yeah, I just got a great (and I do mean great) first impression from Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (which I'm going to finish before I even consider touching another DS game after I'm done writing this) and I finally managed to acquire a working copy of Hotel Dusk, but I decided to spend some time doing other stuff first so as to not influence my opinion of this game. I probably shouldn't have taken that break.

When you've heard nothing but good things about a game, you expect it to be good right? Well, at the end of the day, Hotel Dusk is just bland. Sure, one can argue that maybe I don't see some deep philosophical context, or that I'm not far enough into the game yet (started about 3 hours ago, and just finished chapter 2) to appreciate how good it is, but there's something missing that is really affecting how much I enjoy this game. Perhaps, the streams and streams of positive reviews gave me such high expectations that this game just can't reach. Perhaps there's actually decent music in this game later. I don't know, I don't care, and I'm not inclined to find out.

Random background-y shit (read: filler):

After I got hooked on these types of games a very long time ago (years before Gyakuten Kenji even existed on the GBA) I've found them enthralling. As something of a puzzle game enthusiast, I do enjoy the challenges a mystery game can present and I've managed to finish every single one without looking at a guide of some kind because I revel in difficulty (as we established with SMTDS I'm an Atlus fanboy; if I dislike hard games I'd despise Atlus). Sure, one can argue I looked at court-records for case analysis, but I did that long after finishing Apollo Justice and... why is any of this relevant again? Right, mystery games on the DS.

Sometime last year (like October-ish), I heard someone mention a certain Phoenix Wright series and how good it was. Naturally, I checked it out because it's a series within my second favourite genre of games (my first being RPGs of course) and became hooked within the 20 minutes or so it took me to finish the very first case. A few days later, I got all three sequels and had them beat as well. I was pretty bored of my other games so I started looking for games that could pique my interest. I heard about Hotel Dusk. I tried to find a copy, and never once found anything. I even tried emulation, but that didn't work out since it crashes when you reach game play, and I couldn't get it to work on an R4 either so I all but gave up and forgot about it. I'd seen it mentioned a few times but never once cared enough to give it a look at (for various reasons).

Fast-forward to July this year, and you've got Time Hollow. As I mentioned at the end of my post on that, it's supposed to be good if you like Hotel Dusk and, well, I'm glad I played Time Hollow first. That manages to hook you right away and this... 2 chapters in and I'm bored of it already.

A few days ago, I wrote about Flower, Sun and Rain which I'd say was the most boring game of its kind I had played but at least it was still fun in some respect. This is worse.

Now, I may not be far enough in to judge the game properly but as I have no inclination of finishing it, I don't intend to give the game a proper review (I already have a few to write anyway, I'm just a lazy git). As you may have gathered, I write most of these based on my first impressions and I guess I've just been playing good games lately. I made a jokey comment about Lock's Quest at the end of Time Hollow, and I can sum that game up right here and now: desktop tower defence DS. There's nothing to write about, really, so I didn't bother with it.

I'm kinda getting off-topic here, so if you've actually read all this way through I'd like an unbiased opinion from you: should I give Hotel Dusk a second chance or not (after SMT of course), and why? Any fanboy/hater opinions (and those from the people fortunate enough to be on my blocked list for various reasons, such as being whiny bitches, spamming me with nonsensical drivel or existing) will be ignored, and yes I'm aware of the irony in that I'm ignoring fanboy opinions and I spent a few paragraphs drooling over Atlus' unrivalled awesome mere hours ago.

There was one thing else I was going to say. Umm... oh yeah, since I recently closed my Youtube account for a little "test", I have a spare just sitting around doing nothing. Should I convert these little posts into mini-videos or not? I almost definitely won't, since I lack the awesome vocals of RandomDCE or Yahtzee, but since these aren't reviews so much as a British nerd's first impression of a game I figured I might as well ask the community, since you're the ones reading this stuff after all.