Board 8 > Dec. Game of the Month Club ft. Murasaki, Hob, Road 96, Paradise, and Xenoblade

(+) Yeah! (+)

Decembers Games:
Murasaki (PC)
Hob (PC/Switch/PS4)
Road 96 (PC/Switch/XB1/PS4)
Paradise Killer (PC/Switch/XB1/PS4)
Xenoblade Chronicles (Switch/3DS/Wii)

What is Game of the Month Club?
Game of the Month is a community project open to all B8ers where users share, discover, play and/or discuss a select few games every month. The games featured each month are chosen by YOU the users (and Lady Luck)

The Basics
- Each month will usually feature three games that were chosen via a random drawing from a pool of games that users nominated
- For each game you beat, you get a cool point on our just-for-fun standings as well as a nomination for next month's randomized drawing
- In order to receive the point and nomination, you must beat said game within the calendar month
- If you beat one of the current month's games in the previous month, you can apply for a "recently beaten waiver," but you will only receive a point and no nomination should you do so
- Drawing for next month's games is usually on the 25th
- If you periodically keep us posted on your progress and/or talk about different aspects of the games, then everyone will obviously think you are super awesome!

Nomination Rules
- You get one nomination automatically each month
- You receive additional nominations each month for every featured game that you beat
- Each game you nominate has to be unique from all other nominations and cannot include a game that has already been selected for GotM
- Each game must be a standalone game that can be acquired and played on its own (aka cannot be DLC/expansion that requires the base game)
- Nominations only carry over if you beat a featured game after the drawing for next month's games but before the end of the month
- You have 9 supports you can use throughout the year. Your only limitations are that you can't support your own nomination, and you can only use one support per game per month

Just-for-Fun Top 20 Standings
KCF - 156
gameking - 116
ArkOfTurus - 96
Mr Crispy - 92
Lolo Guru - 70
Cody - 56
KnightOfNee - 35
MegamanX - 28
ViolentAbacus - 25
Wickle - 25
Arti - 23
scarletspeed - 23
FakeAccount - 21
darkx - 18
GreatPaul - 17
Fenny - 16
MZero - 16
Seanchan - 16
Suprak the Stud - 14
tazzyboy - 14

Spreadsheet with history
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X8E8oqzES42W4S82j7WTfNnzNa8c3uXdSE1rnqYG7WM/edit?usp=sharing

Additional noms this month
Crispy

Road 96 and Paradise Killer are on Game Pass for console, PC, and cloud

This might be the first month I've never heard of any of the games (well, except for Xenoblade)

I played Paradise Killer December of last year when someone on here got it as a Christmas gift for me. I enjoyed it.

I've owned Hob for a long while and started it once, but didn't get very far. Excited to try it again.

I guess I should give some advice about Murasaki since it would probably come up shortly

Just bomb through the start of stage 2. it's possible to dodge without bombing (and you have to on hard mode) but you'd probably have to practice a bit to do it.

you'll probably know what I'm talking about when you get there. I find it kind of hilarious now, and it's interesting in a "show don't tell" way about the lore. But I'd also probably consider it a possible flaw of the game and turn off or demoralize a lot of new players when they first get to it and might cause them to drop it.

Started Road 96 a couple of months ago and only did one run where I managed to get across.

Also started Paradise Killer a while ago on Switch but didn't get too far so I'll start a new game on Xbox.

Stage four of Murasaki. I am absolutely awful at it.

Well, beat all five stages in Murasaki. Does that count as finished, or is there a credits scene I can get some how?

I started Road 96, and as someone who likes to go into games predominantly blind, this is not what I was expecting (neither in a good nor bad way). We'll see how terrible my decisions so far will turn out for me.

ViolentAbacus posted...

Well, beat all five stages in Murasaki. Does that count as finished, or is there a credits scene I can get some how?

Yes, I'd consider fighting the stage 5 boss and getting the ending (instead of getting the bad ending where the fundament is destroyed) to be completing the game. Stage 6 is basically an extra stage like in Touhou.

heck yeah getting the board to play murasaki is based

i do wish it had the nice quality of life things tsurugi had though

Tag, excited to try Road 96.

I played through a run/episode of Road 96. I made it through a tunnel. I have no idea what the differences between episodes are since I thought this was like a CYOA procedural sort of deal, but I guess I will find out!

I was successful in my second run as well. I scaled the mountain and I guess used a rope to land to my safety. I avoided it the first time due to hearing a kid telling me not to go there and my second time, I actually wanted to find the smuggler but failed to do so. During this run, I think that I messed up the directions to the motel manhunt. Maybe I was supposed to click on the two adjectives that did not describe our perp. I ended up clicking on the one that fit our perp and after speaking to just three people, every portrait was crossed off. After picking up three skills my first run, I got none here.

Xenoblade Progress:

Chapter 15 - 56 hours - Level 68

Lot of big story beats at the end of Chapter 14. ...Also a lot of tough boss battles I had to try multiple times... I'm not sure if I'm underleveled or using bad strategy or what. I just know I've slept walked through the combat and then all of a sudden I'm getting my ass kicked. I just find myself suddenly getting swarmed and then having characters die to a strong attack. Very fucking annoying.

The boss fight in Chapter 15 where I stopped is another example of this. Starts off okay, then he summons ads, then I've got to destroy these 3 plyons (or whatever) in 2 minutes. But as soon as the ads appear, I get overwhelmed.

Might just drop down the difficulty to get through this...

I did two more runs of Road 96.

On my third run, Jarod shot me to death after dealing with the cop he had in his taxi trunk. I played that scene like I did when I picked him up as a hitchhiker, and I still got a bullet for my trouble.

On my fourth run, I unlocked two more skills, needing just Fanny's to complete the set, and I made it out via the smuggler route with another kid in tow. I think the smuggler was gunned down. I'm not too sure as everything was a blur.

Character rankings so far:
Alex > Stan & Mitch > Zoe > Fanny > John > Sonya > Jarod

Okay, Xenoblade just went full anime bullshit at the end of Chapter 15/beginning of Chapter 16.

I'm finally in the home stretch of Xenoblade. Just a few more boss battles left.

Beat Road 96

Took 8 runs. 4 were able to cross, 3 failed and not sure what happened to my last one.

Cleared Runs:
Hid inside a truck and evaded security
Scaled the mountain and climbed down a rope.
Convinced the smuggler to come with me but didn't have any money so she left. Convinced another teen to come with and then got chased by security. The teen sacrified himself to help me get over the wall.
Went through some tunnels and hacked the security doors to prevent them stopping me.

Failed Runs:
Shot by Jarod after picking him up as a passenger.
Used the last of my energy for travelling and then collapsed and was arrested.
Sacrificed this character to help Zoe cross.

Ending:
Definitely didn't expect it to end since there was a timeskip with my character being captured. Seems like there's 3 endings that can have different events based on your interactions with characters. Convinced Alex to not make a bomb but a bomb was made anyway. John came and gave the code to deactivate the bomb. Fanny confronted John but nobody ended up getting hurt. Zoe was there helping with the revolution. I thought she was gonna send out the incriminating document to foreign news stations but maybe she already did that and Tyrak stopped that information from being spread in this country. Could've at least had a line in Sonya's show to not listen to the rumors or whatever. I decided to have my character help them and I think that character died? Sonya was just reporting since Jarod decided against going after her in an event that happened in a previous run. I thought he was gonna end up going after Robert since it was revealed that he was responsible for his daughter's death but Jarod didn't end up finding that out during the events I had with him.

Pretty interesting combination of Telltale with some roguelike elements. I liked all the different interactions you could make with your form of travel helping decide which event you would get, the decisions you make that can help change the ending and the survival aspects regarding your money and health. I liked that events could range from being goofy, tense or both and with some of them throwing in a unique minigame. Events can end in different ways and you don't get any repeats so playthroughs can be pretty unique. It can get kinda repetitive listening to characters' backgrounds several times due to the nature of them constantly meeting new teenagers. Had a good time with it even if it was brief and that it doesn't reach any particularly high peaks.

I finished two more runs:

On my fifth run, I ended up getting shot at the border after saving Zoe. I saw that she was at 100%, meaning this was probably going to be the last that I would see of her barring whatever the ending of this game entails, so I decided to save her knowing I would just be in the shoes of another character in moments anyway.

On my sixth run, I crossed via riding on a truck. I'm not sure if all the trucks options lead to the same scenario, but instead of using one of the highlighted options (picking lock, breaking in, etc..., I found an unmarked options with a driver standing around and paid him $50.

KCF has beaten Road 96

It worked better, and very well at that, when it gave off the air of being a series of vignettes, but I never got into the overarching narrative, which for me ended on an underwhelming and bizarre note. As far as I can recall, Fanny and John communicated via radio no more than once (maybe even never!), so for them to do this weird romantic pleading angle at the end in my ending was just odd and lame.

Honestly, Sonya might have turned out to be my favorite character of the bunch. Both the writers and voice actress actually did a great job with the vain and sincere combo.

Xenoblade Chronicles beated!

63.5 hours - Level 76

I broke down and switched to Casual Mode starting with the boss fight with Lorithia. I just had enough and wanted to see the end parts. It's a good thing I did, because I was definitely underleveled for that final area, which would have REALLY sucked. Even managed to still die a few times in the final boss fight! This despite doing waaaay more side quests than I should have.

Overall, I guess I just don't see what the big deal with this game is. It's not bad but there's also nothing special to it, though I'll admit I'm past the point in my life where JRPGs are a thing for me; I don't need a game to be 40-50-60 hours long for it to be "epic" or whatever. I spent literal hours walking down huge, long ass corridors, traveling barren landscaping, and criss-crossing back and forth between objective points. And yes, this is with ample use of fast travel. It's just that sometimes the trek is unavoidable.

I will also admit that there were many parts of the game I didn't engage with: gem crafting, trading, most of the skills, challenges, gifts/affinity system, etc. It all just seemed so superfluous. In a way, that's just modern game design that doesn't punish you for not min/maxing everything. At the same time, like, what's the point of all that shit?

Maybe someone can tell me why this game is held in such high regard. I know it was a bit hard to come by (Gamestop exclusive?) when it first came out, so perhaps people hyped it up because of scarcity. But I can't recommend this to someone who's not a big JRPG fan.

I guess, at the very least, I've made sure that there isn't a 3rd GotM game that wasn't completed by someone.

I started Paradise Killer last night. The absurdity in a surreal setting with characters playing it straight with the audience not expected to reminds me of the good era of Suda51, and I'm here for it. After recently playing Return of the Obra Dinn and yearning for an open-ended investigation game since they went the linear route when it was the perfect set-up for complete player freedom, this is perfect.

Perhaps the map is too big with an unhelpful laptop map, but I am still in an exploration-only mode, so maybe there is still hope that it won't rear its ugly head once I decide to dedicate myself toward crime-solving.I have no idea how long I have played the game (maybe two hours?), but I have basically met only one suspect since I got out of the intro stuff, Sam the bartender.

I have ignored the AR stuff and whatever and just decided to let myself explore and find things organically. I first came across HXK/HKX's house. I looked over the nearby ledge and wondered if I could just jump off given the intro of leaving confinement, and yep you can! I kept going from ledge to ledge and eventually found the outline of where HK's corpse was. I find it funny this is how I came across it because I later went back to the house and saw evidence where I didn't look before where his body was dragged. I peered over the ledge and noticed that below that area was where I found the body.

The only other non-intro suspect that I have even spoken to was Crimson who told me to find in her some sewers. I think that I left the game while just outside of a convenience store in the apartment area.

I feel like I spent a lot of time with Paradise Killer yesterday. I think that I have met everybody at this point, and most of my collectible counters are in the 70s and 80s. As much as I like exploring, I wish that it didn't feel so stiff, especially with a lot of things in various nooks and crannies that are difficult to get to, not to mention how easy it is to get stuck on geometry.

As for the case, I have been more into collecting info than actually going through the info to come up with a hypothesis. It seems at this point that there are probably multiple perps for all the murders. They, and by that I mean the evidence, are really keen on Henry/Lydia/Yuri being some sort of culprit. I want to punch most characters in the face, so I'm guessing that at least one of the characters I find pleasing to talk to (Sam/Jazz/Crimson/Lydia) will be a murderer. That or they might swerve and someone like Shinji or Judge did a bad.

My time counter has me running Paradise Killer for nearly 9 hours, so roughly 3 a day since I began. That's a lot by my standards. I could end up wrapping it up in the next day or two.

Unless this is some Murder on the Orient Express kind of deal, I expect that a lot of these other crimes are minimally involved with the main objective of who, allegedly, killed the council. I forget if Witness claimed they heard the death screams of the dying council, but again we are just taking their word for it. Right now, if I had to pick one person, I think it would be Akiko because I found info in the barracks that implied that she took out two prisoners to masquerade as guards in front of the second seal, the ones who were murdered. The blade found on Henry does not match the wounds on the guards, but Akiko's blade might. Again, this crime could ultimately have little to do with the "death" of the council. I haven't even though about KHX in awhile. Watch that was not his corpse and is the council killer.

Once I feel like I have all the info that I'm going to get, I will peruse what evidence/info I have in detail.

Started Road 96. First run was a success.

Okay, I scoured the island for all that I could, so I think that I have all the evidence gathering that I can get. I suppose it is trial time, or more accurately trial time the next time I play. Starlight conveniently lists all of the crimes and evidence by character. I'm assuming that I will be going through all of the crimes, so I will go through each one in reverse order, since the first one listed is the major one, and say who I think the culprit is:

The Murder of Grace Bloodlines
Carmelina by default since she directed Akiko to leave for some reason, Henry didn't have a blade to carve into Grace, and Akiko didn't wear a ring

The Mystery of the Dead Killer Demon
Witness not only has an overwhelming amount of evidence, but the key one of him contacting an ID with the same combination as that of the crate holding a demon is pretty much having him dead to rights

Who Opened the Third Seal
This is when this swerve of a new character Dainonigate, late in the game, which I can't say that I am a fan of, starts to muck up the crimes. I think this is Sam though as he both almost certainly stole the blood and knew of a blood lock

The Second Holy Seal
Lydia's perfume, which she has said she makes herself and only for herself, is pretty damning while the presence of petals from potentially Yuri's hat can be more easily planted. Tire tracks and her tablet also present at key locations makes it hard to believe that it isn't her.

Who Kills the Holy Seal Marshals
I think this was Akiko. I was about to say Lydia again, but I changed my mind after realizing that Lydia took the back entrance to where the holy seal was at, so she shouldn't have come into contact with the fake marshals in front of the building. They are clearly the prisoners she signed out and not marshals, but I am not certain about the motive here. I may remember finding out that Marshals are not immortal and thus do not move on to new paradises, so maybe she was trying to find a way to keep her lover, Voth, from dying? I don't know what her next step would be, but that's the best I can come up with.

Who Breached the Fourth Holy Seal
Okay, now I am forgetting what the fourth holy seal was. Was it just before the room where the council and crated demon died? If so, it could be anyone, but based on the bombshell of portals presumably used by Carmelina and Dainonigate, it would be easier for them than the likes of Sam or Marshall (maybe I shouldn't be totally dismissive of Henry). There is hardly any evidence for this one though and Carm/Dai's is especially light. It feels like it has to be one of Witness/Sam then. If Sam/Lydia opened the other seals like I suspect, I guess I should stick with that narrative and say Sam even though I have no other evidence.

Henry's Demonic Possession
It was clearly Yuri with the book checking out. There is nobody else to consider.

Henry's Escape
There are persuasive arguments against either Akiko or Witness. It could honestly be something they teamed up for, but for the sake of choosing one, I say Witness because I found that aural advice on the beginning island pointed toward where Henry was locked up. He has the stronger link to that as he could use the death screams of the slaves being sacrificed to cause an adrenaline rush in Henry, something that he learned from Dr. Jazz.

K. HX is Missing
If it weren't for the drag marks, I would say suicide. Akiko and Yuri have some connection with having him repair pieces of jewelry for them, but that's really it. Crimson has the much stronger relation to K. HX and his demise with her using him and him being obsessed with her. This could have gone down a number of ways for a number of reasons, but at the very least, it seems highly likely that Crimson at least dragged and dumped the body over the cliff.

The Crime to End All Crimes
Dainonigate had to have been the muscle and Carmelina had to have been the mastermind behind this. Carmelina seemed to have an idea of what Witness was up to and probably used that to carry out her plan to be able to pin the murder on either Henry or the demon, but the four portals I discovered and where they led to (Carmelina's, fourth seal, Witness, Dai's bunker/prison thing, and I forget the other if there was one), mean it has to be them.

I'm realizing that most of these are probably pretty obvious and didn't need to make this giant post, but I already went through the effort, so whatever I am posting it.

KCF has beaten Paradise Killer

I ended up changing one of my answers to where I had someone extra alive at the end. I guess that I wasn't expecting everyone to have been found guilty to be murdered. I like how goofy the execution sequence was. If I could have kept Sam, then a group of Lady, Crimson, Jazz, and Sam moving onto the next paradise would have been excellent!

Great game, I loved exploring, but once I pretty much discovered all the places, the loop of the game came into focus, and it could very tedious at times despite really getting into the investigation. The biggest culprits for that are the largely unhelpful map and the poor fast travel system (both uses finite resources and is just a text menu with no real helpful indicators if you are trying to figure out where to go). I get how these are immortal beings who have such an inflated sense of self to where all of their worst qualities come into focus, but I wish the cast, while being great in their role, were more likable. I wanted to punch nearly everyone all the time. I have a save from just before the trial, and I am partially motivated to load that back up and make Henry the scapegoat for everything if I can so I can shoot Yuri, Carmelia, Akiko, Witness, and to a lesser extent Lydia in cold blood once they thought they got away with it all.

This really scratched an itch that was created after going through Obra Dinn last month.

With my birthday next month, I'm going to put forth some games I love and would be on board to replay:

Linelight
PixelJunk Shooter 2
Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels

I have Murasaki still sitting in my Steam library

been listening to the OST over and over again, but still haven't touched the actual game yet

Road 96 update:
2nd run - Failure - I couldn't hold my breath long enough... Should have spent the money I didn't need on the water/soda at the stand.

3rd run - Failure - It was practically over before it started, as I don't think I got closer than 800 miles. I rescued Zoe but both my choices would cost 3 energy (all I had) so I just ended up collapsed and arrested.

4th run - Success - Over the mountain!

This game is not what I expected, but I've been enjoying it. Love the music! I've generally been making the apolitical choices, which means picking the "bindle" option. Interesting to see the characters story intertwine with one another. I've gotten all the powers but one (from Papa Bear). Just a few more cassettes left to collect. I assume the story ends, one way or another, at Election Day, so it seems like I've got another 4 runs to go.

Hob beaten

Great game aside from a lot of crashes, which kinda killed my enjoyment by the end.

ArkOfTurus has beaten Paradise Killer

Only thing I did differently in the trial this time was convict Doom Jazz and Crimson. Kinda surprised I got a guilty with that little evidence for Doom Jazz, though. I enjoy the game, but not a ton of replay value to be had. Was a quick playthrough when I knew what I was doing, though.

Beat Paradise Killer

Great game once you start to get into the swing of things and knowing where everything is. It took me way too long to figure out how to get to Akiko and Henry. I did everything I could in the game until my Notes section was completely empty. In my trial, I had Carmelina, Witness, Akiko and Yuri executed. Everyone else moved on to the next paradise.

Road 96 finished youngblood!

I didn't end up getting everyone to 100%. Not sure it matters.

Sounds like I got the same ending as JONALEON1. ...Seems like there was a lot of familiarity between between the various runs and outcomes of everyone in the topic, though they might have happened in different orders. While I generally enjoyed the journey and never really knowing what was going to happen next, I think I liked this a little bit less the more I played of it. Certainly I wasn't that impressed with the ending. A step below some of the other games in this style that I've played like The Walking Dead (Season 1 only), The Wolf Among Us, and Batman: The Telltale Series.

Really enjoyed most of the music in the game though. I know it gets played slightly too often, but this was a favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmz4oqN3AmE

Nominate:
Black Mesa
Anodyne 2: Return to Dust

Monthly Progress
Murasaki
Hob - Kenri
Road - JONA, KCF, Sean
Paradise - KCF, JONA, Ark
Xenoblade - Sean

Nominations
KCF - Linelight, PixelJunk Shooter 2, SMB: Lost Levels
Sean - Black Mesa, Anodyne 2

Supports

I've started on Paradise Killer. This is another "not usually my type of game" games.

I started with a plan to follow a path. Then I jumped off the path, not realizing the extent to which you can just run and jump all over the place. Couldn't find a way back up so went down. Met the Doctor by the boat. Started just going "wherever" and seeing what I see.

Not sure yet how much this game is going to require my to put the pieces together versus just finding all the pieces by exploring and exhausting all dialogue options. We shall see...

I started Hob but didn't get too far as I started it just before going to bed, and I didn't want to feel overwhelmed with the lack of direction.

I also started Murasaki. I finished the first stage and thought that I could do this. Then I started the second stage and got wrecked immediately multiple times. This was also late at night, so maybe I can figure out what I did wrong with a fresher mind.

Like I said earlier, just bomb your way through it if you don't think you can dodge it.

It's possible to dodge without bombing or getting hit (and there's an achievement for it. plus you have to on hard mode and you don't start out with bombs). since the attack's aimed at you, you just need to make sure the first shot is aimed at a corner, then move far enough away from the first shot so the follow up shots are aimed towards the other side of the screen so you have the space to dodge them.

this is on hard mode but to give you a general idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIEy4CwfGJw

also yeah just to clarify until you know what to do the start of stage 2 is literally the hardest part of the game lmao

this is also the case in tsurugi too, it's deliberate

Been enjoying Paradise Killer. Its much more of a platformer/collect-a-thon than I expected. Ive gotten 2 movement upgrades and the power to focus and temporarily see all the pickups. Ive also gotten all the upgrades to be able to use the Nightmare Computers. So Ive spent quite a bit of time just running around getting those little dopamine hits collecting/using everything.

Theres the narrative stuff too but its so far been just going through all the dialogue options each time I talk to a character. Im getting a sense of the overall picture but its kind of secondary for me.

I will either be doing the drawing on Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas. I haven't decided.

Started Paradise Killer. I really thought this was more of a VN than it is. So far I've been mostly just running around grabbing collectibles, only really talking to people when I run into them incidentally.

I will say that it definitely has big "first-person platformer built in an FPS engine" energy. Lots of making jumps by standing on a waist-high railing or on the 1-inch wide molding of a building or whatever. Please just give me a better jump to start with so I don't have to do this nonsense.

Overall vibe of the game is pretty cool. I love how they just went for it with character names. As someone who comes up with the dumbest character names possible I really appreciate names like Lady Love Dies or Doom Jazz or One Last Kiss.

Road 96 and Paradise Killer are back on sale on Steam, though the former is on sale for less than 24 hours remaining:

Road 96 - $10 USD - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466640/Road_96/
Paradise Killer $8 USD - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1160220/Paradise_Killer/

Paradise Killer fully beated!

That was fun! Not what I expected. I got all 1000 achievement points, so I'm pretty sure I collected and did everything. Even bothered doing the <10 minute speed run, since it was the last thing I needed.

I enjoyed the platforming/exploration, even if there was a certain amount of odd jank and annoyance to it sometimes. The setting and characters were interesting, and thankfully the game basically lays all the dots out for you and makes it pretty damn easy to know who to convict. Certainly I enjoyed it more than Obra Dinn, even though I recognize that Obra Dinn is a little more ambitious of a game.

That's all for me this month, so I'll give my last nominations (forgot I get 4 total: 1 + 3 for games finished):
A Plague Tale: Reqiuem
Psychonauts 2

I will go ahead and support Psychonauts 2

Nominate:

The Wonderful 101
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
The Legend of Tianding