Monthly in a Month #11: The Delivery edition

I just realized a few days ago that I had played 5 monthly games, so I decided to finish a sixth. I hope I'm still in time to participate:
The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day
RIVE
Minit
Tsioque
Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard
HIVESWAP: ACT 1

• Achievements weren't registering for Mr Shifty even though conditions were met, restarted and 3 achievements popped up on game start then achievements worked normally afterwards. :D
• Basement doesn't have an achievement tied to beating the game (the sole achievement in the final level is missable, I think) so here are ending screenshots as well: 1, 2, 3, 4

Hi there. I did not participate this month (unless I did the requirement by chance lol), but I might next month. I had two questions: Do the games need to be played on Steam? ie if I bought Slay the Spire on GOG, can I use a screenshot for proof? Second, how would a rougelike/lite work for this?

I haven't played any Yakuza games before, but the trailers for Like A Dragon look pretty hilarious.
I think I actually might have finished 3 in the past month, so I might actually be able to get in.

Though if I were going to enter, I should have gotten to work on it earlier, haha, not much time left and I figure I should probably focus on my schoolwork instead. ;P

Are the other Yakuza games similar to this? I feel like I always picture them more serious, but this one seems more like the goofy-ness of Saint's Row (At least the ones I've played)?

EDIT: Actually, I think I'm almost at 4, I forgot that Heave Ho was in Choice before, and it seems like the first achievements on the other 3 games were all Jan 1 or later...

I think I did it?
Heave Ho - Beated
One Step From Eden - Completen
Frog Detective 1 - Completen
Frog Detective 2 - Completen
Path of Giants - Beated
The Ambassador - Beated

Probably won't try to 100% The Ambassador, but for sure will Path of Giants. Heave Ho I wanted to until I hit the "Hard" version levels, collecting the coins from those in co-op might be too much work, haha.

..
Thoughts about the games
sorted from least favorite to favorite

Frog Detective - For a short game it's okay and almost funny, but the artstyle is uncomfortably unfitting for a big screen.

Etherborn - The level design and artstyle was relaxing, and the puzzles were pretty good but it was extremely annoying when having to backtrack when falling of a ledge or a narrow walkway.

Monster Prom - I highly enjoyed the colorful characters and the banter that goes on between them. It was a fun dating sim, and it seems to have great replayability so far.

Cry Suns - I loved the soft-blue neon pixel-art, and the combat was interesting and other gameplay mechanics were entertaining for the first few chapters. Unfortunately the story was underwhelming due to info dumps and lack of character development (and maybe I was expecting too much). I was quite sad that there was no story text for the final choices.

Hitman - Great game overall with entertaining one-liners and puns, and killer cutscenes. The best episode imo is Colorado since it gives you more freedom to roam around and there are more targets to interact with. Since I'm personally not a fan of waiting around for a whole minute, the Sapienza episode felt a bit like a chore. Will likely replay some eps to experience different dialogues and deaths, but I won't go for completion.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Best game I played in the past month. Great story overall and excellent humor and characters. I completed most of the side-stories, and I'll eventually 100% this game (I've played the Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami on PS4). Kaoru Sayama is my absolute favorite female companion in Yakuza series so far. Between the three Yakuza games, I think Yakuza 0 had the best overall stories, Kiwami 1 had the best mini-games, and Kiwami 2 had the best girl ;).

Done with the challenge

Cut it close and needed some short games, but... it is done.

Hitman (2016) from November 2018 - achievements (A Long Time Coming)
Hitman 2 (2018) from April 2020- achievements (This is Maintenance)

Figured I would assess these games together.

The concept of carrying over the maps confused me at first. If I could do it over I might have played it all in Hitman 2 to get the mastery and experience to carry over to Hitman 3, but at least I got two games for the event.

As someone who habitually reloads when things go wrong, it can be hard to just let things go wrong and enjoy the chaos, but I managed to do so in a few missions. That's probably the best way to really appreciate the "World of Assassination trilogy" Hitman games, at least at first.

The final levels could feel annoying with the high guard density, but I generally enjoyed breaking down the sandboxes and finding my opportunity to strike. And of course there's all the bizarre approaches you can take, like (minor spoiler) using poisonous frogs or sleeping pills to make a fumigation machine kill or incapacitate people).

Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York from September 2020 - achievements (Damned if you do)

The game's imagery does a compelling job of making you feel uncomfortable with all the nitty-gritty violence of becoming a vampire and living in a criminal underworld. Surprisingly, the comparison I felt most strongly was the John Wick films, given the similarities in their secret society and politicking therein. One problem I felt that hurt the immersion was some of the backgrounds got reused too often and occasionally in ways that did not match up with the text.

I wish more visual novels adopted the standard Ren'Py way of skipping text so you don't accidentally select dialogue options, but at least this is playable with a controller to change things up for my wrist.

198X from March 2020 - achievements (Continue?)

I am not quite old enough to a child of the 1980s, but the aesthetic and music of the era really charm me. Some people complained about the slow pace of the unskippable cutscenes in this game, but I think they were at a fine enough pace because I had time to really take in the beautiful art and soundtrack. That said, considering some of the perfectionist nature of the achievements, it's a shame they're not skippable on subsequent playthroughs, and the main menu needs a 30-second slow-burn introduction to let you select an option.

If anything in the overall nostalgia package falls short, it's probably the actual gameplay of the individual faux-retro arcade games, which are generally acceptable and not much else. But that problem is hard to avoid, and the overall experience is worth the hour or so to see it for the first time. The ending is also rather inconclusive, and I'm guessing promised future installments of the game are in doubt.

Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard from December 2020 - achievements

Pretty similar to the first, but I did enjoy it. (Minor spoilers) I found the introduction of Lobster Cop and the description of "Evil Guy" to be funny. The notebook mechanic, while charming and making it feel more like a real detective game, could be a bit tedious and slow to resolve, but it was a fun enough game overall.

Kimmy from January 2017 - screenshot
(I unintentionally left the Unity launcher open for a few hours. Actual playtime is about one hour.)

It's not every day you get an unironic visual novel about being a babysitter, but this game does a good enough job at it. I felt the explanation of what was really happening was rather vague, but perhaps that is an intentional way to portray the feeling of being a child who is not allowed to learn about or intervene with "adult problems."

And some words about Ghostrunner, which I won from Monthly in a Month #10:

Like many people may have been, I was more interested in Hades than Ghostrunner. The jury's out on Hades, but it might end up being the opposite. I was pleasantly surprised by the overall gameplay and feel of Ghostrunner, having generally enjoyed Hotline Miami and being somewhat disappointed by Mirror's Edge. Although my deaths ran somewhere around 1,700 for my first complete run, I felt the game was forgiving enough in the abilities and ways to slow down time that none of it really felt like it was unfair. (Minor spoiler) Probably the most frustrating part for me was the first boss; the second and third bosses felt like a breeze in comparison.

The visuals and music are excellent, but unfortunately the story is rather boilerplate and never really offers much in the way of surprises. Still, I can appreciate a game that knows what it wants to be and does not let things get out of hand with feature creep or online connectivity.

Done with the challenge, thank you.