"Gotham Knights' first big patch removes Denuvo"

Yeah, well, they shouldn't have had that shit infesting their game in the first place. While a good start, removing that dumbfuckery isn't enough to make me want to immediately buy the game, but at least now I can maybe at least begin to consider buying it at some point, which wouldn't have been the case while it was still infected with Denuvo. The game still sounds like a broken roach motel, though, so I still won't be buying it any time soon.

(Pre-post edit) Oh, wait, never mind. Apparently, they've already re-contaminated their game with the malware again, because they apparently removed it "by mistake" (when the real mistake was having it in there to start with). How utterly asinine. Oh well, back to not even considering buying it, I guess. (/Pre-post edit)

Little Misfortune (and Fran Bow)

I recently played through Little Misfortune. To be more accurate, I recently played through it three times, pretty much back to back. It's a fairly short-ish game (Steam says I've spent 10.1 hours on it overall), so that wasn't too bad.

The basic gist is that you control Misfortune, an 8 year old girl who is being talked to by a voice in her head, who she calls Mr. Voice. Mr. Voice wants to play a game with Misfortune. Mr. Voice is also aware of you, the player, and directly talks to you several times throughout the game. Misfortune does not appear to be aware of the player, though.

The gameplay flow is rather simple. It's mostly a walking simulator type of game, with many points of interest to interact with, and several binary choice points, which affect how the story plays out in mostly minor ways, and there's also an occasional mini-game. But, for the most part, the story is the most important thing here. That said, if you want to see everything (and get all of the achievements, if you care about that sort of thing), you'll need to play through more than once. Or else save scum, but I just played it multiple times. If you want the "best" ending, such as it is, be sure to keep an eye and ear out for all of the little sparkle effects, and use the glitter on them. I found them all in my first playthrough fairly easily and without having to look at a guide or anything, as they're pretty difficult to miss, assuming you aren't trying to rush through the whole thing.

The story and setting is a weird mix of comedy/humor and horror, both of the psychological variety and the more mundane, usual sort. And, at times, it is genuinely sad, too. Misfortune is a rather unfortunate child, in the most mundane of ways, as if her very name itself doesn't give that away, and that's before taking into account anything to do with Mr. Voice. That said, she still remains cheerful throughout it all, for the most part.

Also, this game is set in the same universe as Fran Bow and contains several references to that game, including brief cameos by characters from Fran Bow. Makes sense, given it was made by the same people. That said, Little Misfortune is not a sequel to Fran Bow, and having played Fran Bow is not really required to understand what's going on in Little Misfortune at all. I say that because I personally remembered pretty much nothing of the lore of Fran Bow that was presented in Little Misfortune, so... I went back and replayed Fran Bow as well, after finishing up with Little Misfortune, which I completed just prior to starting this post. I do not regret doing so, because Fran Bow was just as cool on the second playthrough.

The two games are rather similar, but different in ways, as well. Fran Bow is a longer, more traditional point-and-click game, full of sometimes rather hard puzzles, as opposed to the shorter, simpler, mostly puzzle-free, walking simulator-ish nature of Little Misfortune. Also, whereas Fran Bow was a bit more on the blood and gore side of horror, Little Misfortune was more about the squick and gross-out side of it. Another difference is that there's full voice acting in Little Misfortune, whereas Fran Bow was text only. Also goes to show that you absolutely do not need AAA Hollywood talent for things like this, given that the voice for Misfortune was one of the lead devs of the game, and she did a pretty good job of voicing an 8 year old girl. I thought so, anyway. YMMV.

In any case, I'd recommend them both. I'm not even sure it matters what order you play them in, either, though Fran Bow is first, both in the order the games were made as well as chronologically from a story/setting perspective, so I guess it would make sense to start with Fran Bow. Though, again, that's not required to be able to play and enjoy Little Misfortune. And as I said at the end of the Fran Bow post linked to up there, if/when this developer makes another game in this series/universe, I'm all for it (assuming they continue to avoid fucking it up with typical modern video game industry bullshit). Honestly, a game in which Fran and Misfortune meet would be pretty interesting.

Just to note, as of the time of this post, both Little Misfortune and Fran Bow are available on Steam for less than $10 USD.

(Also, in future posts, if for some reason I ever use some variation of the phrase "give yourself a fuck" as an insult, instead of the more standard "go fuck yourself," Little Misfortune is the reason for that. See also: "Yikes forever.")