Trabia Garden

pauraque made a post about Until Then that tempted me into checking it out. I'm so glad I did; I loved it immediately. I can never resist a story about well-meaning teenagers with memory issues making bad decisions and having terrible mental breakdowns.

Until Then is an adventure game, set (and created) in the Philippines. It's a coming-of-age story about love and grief, letting go and being left behind. It feels a little like a blend of Life Is Strange and Night in the Woods.

Early in Until Then, the protagonist needs to plug a USB drive into a laptop. I tried to plug the drive in, failed, flipped it over, realised I was trying to plug it into the wrong place, moved to the actual USB socket, tried to plug it in again, failed, flipped it over again and finally succeeded.

Forget photorealistic graphics; this is true realism in videogames.

Beneath the cut: full spoilers for Until Then. As a heads-up, I get a little bit personal here.


( Full spoilers for Until Then. )


I recommend Until Then enthusiastically to fans of games like Life Is Strange, Night in the Woods, Oxenfree and possibly Higurashi: When They Cry: anything linear and story-focused with minimal gameplay and maximal Teenagers Having a Bad Time. It's available on PS5 and Steam; the gameplay mainly just consists of walking and talking, with occasional minigames that you can win or lose without affecting story progression.

If you'd like a little preview of how Until Then looks and plays, the animation YouTube channel New Frame Plus features it for a couple of minutes in the video 'The Best Game Animation of 2024', starting around 12m10s. It's a real gem of a game, and I think it should be better known!

Q: Riona, do you really have time to write mini-reviews of every game you've ever played?
A: I absolutely don't.
Q: And yet.
A: And yet!

Some of these are more just reminiscences than reviews, but I've said at least a line or two about every game. Possibly. I've almost certainly forgotten about some.

For the most part these are listed alphabetically, so you can easily track down any games you're interested in, but games in a series are listed together, so, for example, 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma are all under Z for Zero Escape, and World of Final Fantasy comes under F. I've put a (LP) next to games I've only experienced through Let's Plays. Flash games, text adventures and electronic versions of card, tile or board games are not included.

Games I first played after originally posting this entry are marked with an asterisk.


( Thoughts on every game I've ever played, or close enough. )


I'm glad I've put this very important and necessary entry into the waiting world.