Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

[PSV] Hotaru no Nikki

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    [PSV] Hotaru no Nikki

    Nippon Ichi are trying to differentiate their output, they finally stopped repurposing Disgaea and put forward some new games.
    Hotaru no Nikki is what could be described as a mix between a point-and-click adventure, Limbo, and Lost in Shadows.

    Point-and-click adventures because your avatar, a green fairy, is controlled by interacting with the touchscreen and rear touchpad; Limbo because of the structure; and Lost in Shadows because puzzles are mostly centered around manipulating shadows.

    The game opens with a little horned girl waking up in ruins of a modern building. Upon waking up, she's greeted by a green fairy, and the game explains that the girl will follow the green fairy around, performing topical actions like pulling/pushing crates, operating levers, or climbing stairs. By tapping the rear touchpad, you enter a "shadow world", where a purple thing (the girl's soul, perhaps?) can move only through object shadows and interact with a limited number of hotspots to clear obstacles.
    The girl herself can only fall from very small heights, doesn't move very fast, and apparently there's no combat, everything is done through simple puzzles...something I appreciate a lot.

    Graphics are wonderful: everything looks like it has been drawn by hand with pencils and (rather moody) watercolours, the girl only has few animation frames, and there's essentially no music. You're also given no context about the story or anything, the girl is apparently speechless and emotions are conveyed through her animations and subtle changes in the background music.

    Then suddenly the game shift to an isometric view of an happy family where you control a hornless little girl to solve some extremely simple fetch quests...and I'm sure these sections are here to explain the story, as more than one detail found in these sections is presented in the "main" sidescrolling game.

    Now, puzzles in the main/real game are very simple, up to now they all involved finding enough crates to pass a spiky pit or enter the shadow world to find the only available hotspot to solve the situation. Not all puzzles are "static", as in some occasions you're asked to enter the shadow world in the middle of a

    boulder coming right at you

    or a

    huge shadow beast pursuing you

    .
    I compared Hotaru no Nikki to Limbo because usually a new threat appears before you with little to no notice, killing you; the second time you're able to bypass it because the solution is right in front of you, or just needs the right timing to enter the shadow world and search for the only hotspot available. I truly appreciate the lack of fights, but I'd like puzzles to be at least a little bit engaging, and not based on a simple hotspot hunt triggered at the correct time. But I haven't played much and puzzles do become more complex, though my fear is that they'll rely too much on having the girl

    acting as a bait and triggering a trap for the shadow beast(s) after her.


    This kind of setup can work a couple of times, but it will become stale if relied upon too much. Also, you don't control the girl directly, and sometimes you're required to time your movements to shifting platforms and other means that will have the girl die horrible deaths because controls weren't tight enough. This is a problem that comes out very early in the game, as touch controls, even on a Vita, not being completely up to the task; while in the shadow world, I've also experienced getting struck, or being sent back to the normal world for no apparent reason, which resulted in the girl getting killed and being forced to repeat everything up to that point. Luckily there are a lot of checkpoints, and developers implemented a very classy "crunch!" whenever the girl gets killed, something I found morbidly relaxing after seeing her getting mauled by whatever the stages offer for the Nth time.

    Anyway, "even on a Vita"? Yes, because I've started to play the game on a Vita TV, and this got me struck at the second tutorial (thanks Kryss for the translation); never really used touchscreen/touchpad emulation with the Vita TV, and with Hotaru no Nikki, controls are excessively fiddly. The game can be played on a VTV, but it's not as natural as with a Vita: with a DS4 you can use the touchpad, but most of the times it's too unrealiable, so you're forced to hit L3 and R3 to switch between front and rear touch controls: easy in theory, too fiddly in reality; analog sticks give a lot more control over pointer movement though.
    On a Vita, things are better, but you'll be playing with your finger constantly one the screen and accessing the rear pad isn't particularly comfortable, nor the pad itself is very precise, creating a different set of problems.

    What the game does best, at the moment, is making you wondering about the story and the incredible atmosphere everything is set in. Let's hope that the rest of the game will be up to these two aspects.

    #2
    Good impressions
    Fiddly touch controls cool my interest a bit. With the story...does the language barrier present much of a problem?

    Looks so nice I am tempted, even tho I have too much to play on my vita...inc a One Piece game that arrived today I don't remember ordering

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by Loftgroover View Post
      With the story...does the language barrier present much of a problem?
      There's no text, except for the tutorials, and those don't really require a translation (unless you get struck on the Vita TV's front/rear touchpad emulation like I did on the shadow world one).
      The story is pieced together by what's show on the screen and nothing more, a rather refreshing style considering that many Japanese developers use way too much text to describe the simplest situations.

      Comment


        #4
        I'm lazy, so here's a video with my final thoughts.
        And for the lazier: easy puzzles, excellent atmosphere and way to tell the story.

        Comment

        Working...
        X