Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Th3solution Yeah, I read your comments about Titanfall 2 in the other topic; having never played a Respawn game for myself before, they gave my hopes a boost. Thank you!

At least you won't have me inadvertently convincing you to buy Jedi Fallen Order in its first week!

@JohnnyShoulder Ha, I thought the reason I struggled with the drawing bits was because I had no artistic talent to speak of. You've made me feel better, cheers

@Gremio108 No worries, that was not my intention though lol. I'm the same I have very little artistic talent. And of course me being me, all my drawings were of boobies and willies. You imagine my surprise when the sky filled up with clouds of boobies.

@JohnnyShoulder Comment of the week.

Sounds like the sort of weather I'd expect in the Senran Kagura universe, where even the laws of nature reveal an implicit fixation on the female form.

@JohnnyShoulder I'm just picturing Michael Fish, standing in front of a weather map of the UK covered in little cardboard stick-on boobies and saying things like "there's a heavy front moving in" and suchforth.

@RogerRoger @Ralizah @Rudy_Manchego I'm surprised no has commented about only getting blue tits in the winter lol.

Ouch.

And given your probably higher tolerance for nonsense from this game given your love for the I.P. as a whole than I would have, I have to imagine these problems would irritate me even more than they did you.

It's good to know I can happily pass on this when it inevitably goes on sale.

... I leave you boys alone for ten minutes and look at how quickly this topic has gone south 😂

Though I'd probably be just as juvenile... My artisitic skills are limited to stick figures (My time as a teacher has not improved it at all) and with that touch pad I'd probably conjure up a monstrosity even Picasso would find perplexing

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I just hope there is a Tearaway sequel on PS5 so I can have boobies for clouds and willies on my flags in glorious UHD.

@RogerRoger That was a fantastic review! I love the Star Wars franchise, but will probably pass on this. I will continue to hope in vain for a remake of KOTOR!

@Ralizah Oh, hey, bad Star Wars might be Star Wars, but it's still bad. That isn't to lump Jedi Outcast in with such terrible offenders as the Holiday Special and The Last Jedi, mind; it just uses the gimmick of "you're a Jedi with Force powers, go nuts" to paper over some very middle-of-the-road design choices. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the forthcoming port of its sequel, Jedi Academy, particularly since you get to create your own character, but my expectations are now a little more realistic, I think.

@beebs720 Thank you! I gather you're not alone in your love for KOTOR. Seeing these random remasters pop up on PS4 gives us all hope; between them and the PS2 Classics of Bounty Hunter, Jedi Starfighter and Racer Revenge we got a few years back, not to mention Super Star Wars on the PS Vita, there's always a decent chance of a surprise or two from the LucasArts back-catalogue.

Disclaimer: I spoiler-tagged my discussion of the game's ending. I don't think it matters, because anyone with a lick of sense will see where this game is going after five minutes, but if you're especially sensitive to spoilers, there you go.

Actual Sunlight

WHAT IS IT?
A two-hour long RPGMaker game where you play as an overweight, middle-aged man struggling with depression.

PLATFORM
PS Vita

LEVEL OF COMPLETION
Everything. All the trophies. Actually had to replay half the game to snag the last one, but considering the game's length, it wasn't a massive sacrifice.

PRO

• There... aren't any real bugs that I encountered.
• The game is almost entirely devoid of typos and grammatical mistakes.
• In general, my issues with... almost everything aside, it's fairly well-written.
• It's mercifully short.
• The occasional CG that shows what the characters look like aren't too bad. Character portaits in text boxes aren't the worst thing in the world, either.

CON

• Have you ever been trapped in a conversation with a deeply unpleasant and negative person, but feel like you're sort of obliged to listen and just want to get the conversation over with? That's what playing this game feels like. The bitter rantings of the main character feel like they were probably derived from a first-hand experience with depression, and I've had some similar thoughts myself at various points in my life (I think everyone has), but the authenticity, or lack thereof, of the main character's self-negativity doesn't make it any more entertaining or enlightening to read. You can very easily go on a random social media website and find someone crying about how fat, stupid, and ugly they are without having to pay $5 to experience it (unless you were lucky like me and got it via PS+ one month). There's no grace, art, humor, or insight gleaned from this game. It's just a day in the headspace of a deeply emotionally unwell human being. And, frankly, anyone can vomit out the nastiness supplied by one's inner critic into a short script and call it a day.
• Please don't keep mentioning the main character's tendency to pleasure himself while swallowed by feelings of self-remorse, game. It's gross.
• I was tempted to call this a visual novel, but it doesn't really deserve that distinction. It's a plain-jane, ugly RPGMaker game with reams of text that scroll by anytime you click on anything in the environment, except that text often has nothing to do with the thing you clicked on.
• The irritating, fax machine-esque noises that issue every time text scrolls by in this game is truly appreciated. On the other hand, there's no voice acting, and basically no music, so there's no real reason to keep the sound up, either. But I didn't want to miss audio cues or something important, either. Joke's on me, I guess.
• There's a bizarre message that scrolls by at one point when you examine a couple of people outside (as I said before, the text that appears often has no relation to the object you chose to examine) that basically tells the player that, unless they're 25 or older, their problems aren't real or significant. But once you hit your 30's, like the guy in this game and (presumably) the main developer, well, it's too late to turn things around. That's the implication, at least. Might as well jump off of the roof if you don't have a good thing going for you by then.
• Oh, the roof. So, there's a grand total of, like, five different environments in this game. One of them is the roof of your apartment building. Its inclusion here is obvious: at some point, the player character is meant to throw themselves off of it. Sensing this early on, and quickly developing a headache from the irritating noises and cloying self-pity in all of the game's monologues (90% of the text in this game, as mentioned, is the main character talking bitterly about himself and his life), I was hoping this game might be the Breath of the Wild of suicide sims, and let me jump straight to the end once I felt like it, but that didn't turn out to be the case. You have to go through the motions and endure the requisite amount of mental self-abuse before it finally sends you up to the roof: and, of course, once it does, it won't let you reconsider or go back.
• EDIT: I genuinely hope that the developer's portrayal of mental health professionals isn't derived from personal experience. With that said, I do find the complete absence of competent psychologists in this story to be somewhat irritating.
• My biggest issue with all of this is probably that there's no real narrative here. No movement. No evolution. The main character begins as a deeply depressed man who apparently has no interests in life (he buys new video games, but doesn't appear to enjoy them), and ends as... a deeply depressed man who apparently has no interests in life, only, after a five year or so timeskip, he's finally ready to end it all. He has no character arc; no revelations; nothing to connect A to B aside from the necessity of the game needing to be sold as a finished product, I suppose.
• There are other characters in this game, during the middle section when it briefly decides it wants to be a satire about corporate alienation or something, but they're introduced, get a few lines of dialogue, and... that's it, really. They're never developed enough for you to care what happens to them. The main character apparently develops a loveless relationship with one of them, but this is hardly even touched on. Nobody here gets an arc or evolves or is ever anything interesting, either.
• The words from the title do crop up in the game at one point, but it's part of some off-hand phrase, and it's a bit weird that it became the title of the game. My guess? "Depression Quest" was already taken, and the developer(s) hunted through the script to find some combination of words they thought sounded good together, and settled on "Actual Sunlight."

CONCLUSION
I feel a little bad ragging on this, as I suspect this game is deeply personal for the person or people who made it. This is pathetically low-effort, though. This is the sort of game you might make as the final in an "Introduction to Game Design" course. It is certainly not something the developer should have been selling for actual money. I've played numerous free games that felt like more engaging, complete experiences. This fails as a game; fails as narrative; it reads like a series of blog posts from a teenager who is unable to process their emotions

VERDICT
2.5/10

@Ralizah I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and some of them gave me a chuckle. I didn’t find the game particularly engaging either, and although I probably liked it a little better than you, I’m glad that it was over quick and that I didn’t pay anything for it (other than my PS Plus subscription and an hour of my time). It’s unfortunate that such a serious and potentially meaningful subject such as clinical depression and suicide is given such a lackluster treatment. Sometimes I think games and other media (movies, books, articles, social media posts, etc) get “credit” or a boost in public opinion just because they are dealing with an edgy social issue, even if the effort is horribly executed and doesn’t produce any meaningful dialog about said issue or any progress in increasing awareness of a fringe social problem. I give credit for producers and writers of socially conscious media for having the guts to talk about difficult subjects or taboo issues, but when the product is not well thought out then it certainly comes across as disingenuous and then paradoxically undermines what progress they may have been hoping to achieve. Unfortunately I feel like sometimes the motivation for taking on the hard subjects is actually more for social praise and an easy cash grab by taking advantage of society’s guilty conscience as we often subconsciously fall victim to moral licensing and feel if we don’t support a politically correct or socially conscious effort then we are somehow part of the problem. For example, the Oscar Academy Awards is a good example - if a movie has a socially conscious theme then it will get much more consideration for best picture nominations. It happens every year. In the case of Actual Sunlight, the game has a 75 Metacritic score. Many outlets gave it 8/10 scores and Digitally Downloaded even gave it 5/5, calling it a “must play.” The fact that the game is a serious attempt at presenting depression into the gaming sphere seems to have been enough for a lot of reviewers to ignore the lack of any depth the game takes in tackling the subject matter, as you state in your review. Not to mention the inaccuracy of the content, as you pointed out as well.
Anyways, sorry to divert off on a philosophical tangent, and I’m definitely not saying that Actual Sunlight is guilty of using the subject of depression to sell this game, but I do appreciate your willingness to call a spade a spade when a game is just poorly developed. And like I said, I might not go all the way to a 2.5/10 even though I agree with most of your criticism of the game. The game did make me ponder things for a short time and for me it was a unique experience, so I give it some credit there. Since it’s so different from the kind of game I usually enjoy, I can’t say I necessarily regretted playing it. And if it serves as a springboard for other developers to take on mental illness in a legitimate way, then maybe that’s something. (Even though Hellblade did a much better attempt at this than Actual Sunlight.)

Having set the kids to read quietly in class I took a cheeky look at Push Square whilst I had the chance @Ralizah .

Wish I'd read the book now for them out aloud instead 😂

Not that your writing was bad or anything. Your review was amazing as always... Just the topic at hand and the barebones, lacklustre presentation of the game made for incredibly dry reading.

I can't imagine actually playing it even if it was a brief 2 hours!

@Th3solution I can't believe I've yet to play Hellblade. Using 3D audio to simulate auditory hallucinations that lie to and belittle you is such an incredibly interesting use of the technology. Hopefully it'll go on sale on PSN soon.

Making a game about depression and mental illness is fine, but it still has to work as entertainment, and it still needs to have something to say about it. And, even if those failed and you fell back on just portraying a deeply depressed man and his inner turmoil, you could commit to creating a longer, more fleshed-out, and thus more devastating portrayal of the subject.

With that said, I'll admit I'm far harsher than most other people, but I stand by my criticisms.

RE: Digitally Downloaded... they have some really wild takes on stuff. I do enjoy reading that website, though. Whoever writes for it is clearly the Armond White of video game reviewers. I find that more valuable and entertaining than a hundred mainstream critics all saying the same things in the same ways.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy To be honest, I was hesitant to post the review. I was afraid I might come across as a bit too flippant about certain sensitive subjects, which wasn't my intention. Also, the subject matter of the game is inherently ugly, so it's hard to talk about it in any depth without also making one's own review sound ugly.

Oh I think you handled it rather well @Ralizah . My initial response was pretty flippant.

I can't really add anything to this you or Th3Solution haven't already covered really. It's a hard going topic and one that obviously shouldn't be taken lightly.

Actual Sunlight seems to revel in the pointlessness and hopelessness of the situation it presents a bit too much though.

I have no doubt that for some this unfortunately rings very true and obviously not all stories need happy endings but as you said there is no real narrative, growth or loss beyond living a number of days in the mind of a very distressed soul and it sounds way too hard going.

For me or anyone really.

Pretty much.

I think even this approach could have some redeeming value with the right execution, but the game's scope is far too limited for it to have the sort of devastating impact that would make it, if nothing else, a visceral and unforgettable warning about the dangers of untreated mental illness.

At the end of the day, I would have even been somewhat satisfied if the entire experience hadn't felt so... well... phoned in. This should have been a short story or film or animation or something. It's clear to me that the developers didn't care about it AS a game (they even go so far as saying: 'This isn't a game, it's a portrait' during one of this game's many droning text-based monologues), which rubs me the wrong way. Every medium has its strengths and weaknesses, and it feels like this was developed as a game because they could spend a few hours inserting a screed into an RPGMaker game with minimal effort.

Well, now that's out of the way, it's time to start working on a review for a game I enjoyed a whole lot more.

@Ralizah Everybody's depression is different; sure, there are some very generalised, common themes but they never come close to providing a "one size fits all" model for representing depression. As a result, I think these kinds of "brave" games, in their unique position as interactive media, have a bigger responsibility to help convey the feelings and sensations associated with particular mindsets, rather than just going "Here is Joe. Joe is depressed."

Not to belittle whoever made this game; as you say, it's obviously a personal story to them, or to somebody they knew. But to invite others to witness it, particularly interactively, requires a special element that I can't even identify. I've glimpsed it very briefly in some games, and felt its glaring absence in others, but I'll never be able to nail it down because I'm only me. I can only speak to my own experiences, and how certain notes ring true or fall flat within the limits of my empathy.

Having played neither but now read about both, I think the way @Th3solution described Hellblade recently would make it a far more effective tool in bringing awareness to a wider audience than this straightforward window into one person's personal experience. Put simply, if you've never thought like Joe, you won't understand how he thinks, so showing his thoughts won't help. Making you fear, making you paranoid, making you doubt yourself... well, it's cruel, but accurate.

One thing, though; mental health treatment has come on leaps and bounds in very recent history. I'm 32 and in my lifetime, I've been dismissively told by a therapist that my problems weren't a "big deal" and that, at the time, I didn't need counselling. It happens. Maybe not any more, but therapists are still human and still capable of everything great and awful about being human.

Again, just another illustration of how personal this subject matter is, and how it's perhaps a mistake to try and convey such a personal story in such simple terms.

Great review. I'm glad you posted it.

I guess, intellectually, I understand that, in any profession, you're going to have some subset inept, corrupt, or disinterested people who are going to muck things up, but I still find accounts like this to be incredibly chilling. Especially in the mental health field, where it's so vitally important for professionals to be... well... professional.

But, you're right. Things like this absolutely have happened, and things like this will probably continue to happen. I should have taken that into account, and, with that in mind, I have some edits to make.

I do find it annoying in general, though, how often mental health professionals, and therapy in general, are presented as useless in fiction. How many people are hit with the message, over and over, that therapeutic regimens and, in some instances, strategic use of medication, are pointless and entirely avoid seeking professional help for issues that are manageable? I think this kind of factors into what you were saying about the additional social responsibility that comes when developing media that centers on mental illness.