I Lied.

It's not a placeholder. I've got screen-shots and everything, but I've been embroiled in so much. Between amateur sleuthing, Navy stuff, taking my sister to the Airport, and such, I just haven't had time to talk about Ib, and now that I really begin thinking about it, there's very little I could tell you anyways. So. Here's a super-condensed rendition of my Ib spiel:

Ib is the story of a nine year-old girl - the titular Ib - who visits an art gallery filled with the works of Weiss Guertena, a brilliant but unsung artist. The day begins to wind down as Ib views an encompassing painting effectively titled "___ World"; the game omits words that young Ib does not know or understand, allowing one to share at times in her sense of confusion and displacement. 

Ib finds the gallery deserted, and is urged by eerie paint-spills to enter one of Guertena's works, "The Abyss of the Deep" where she finds herself plunged into a world of eerie curio, heartbreak, and mystery from which she must escape.

I highly recommend Ib to anyone. The puzzles require thought, but not so much that it impedes gameplay. The characters are well-written and exceptionally investing, and the scenery is well-executed with periodic breaks from the pixelated visuals to indulge in hand-drawn facets and a soundtrack that matches its aesthetics well.

In other review, I'd like to bring up Toho Koukayaku: the Game. If you're a frequent reader here, you're undoubtedly acquainted with the CPUnzan - my positively dreadful but hard-working netbook. This game is, like most, a product of its limitations. I had been speaking with Alex, who was keen on sharing a game with me, but I simply couldn't handle such favorites as Sky-Arena and such. This little number was the sole gem of Alex's collection that he was able to pass my way.

Toho Koukayaku: the Game is a Mega Man-style platformer only in the sense of its gameplay. A lot of fan-made games like this have a tendency to use poorly-cobbled pixel reskins for humor, homage, or ease. Instead, Koukayaku features fully crafted and well-animated sprites for each playable character, right down to idling poses and crouching animations. In addition each person has their own portrait with various emotions in a fashion akin to, say, Harvest Moon. Conversations are headed by the character you play as.

Each character has a different style of game-play and different abilities, each of which have a practical application while running through the haphazard obstacle-courses that line your way: Byakuren is the only playable character capable of firing continuously, Captain Murasa can essentially hookshot herself up otherwise risky gaps and is the only character with a fully-aimable shot, Ichirin can destroy walls of bullets and instantly kill enemies, if only in a short distance, Nazrin is the fastest character in the game and is able to track power-ups and bonus items, and Shou can jump an astonishing eight times before her jump meter expires.

The gameplay is fun, allowing you to play as your favorite attendant of Myourenji for any boss-fight so long as you've unlocked them, and concludes with an unexpected villain. Twice.

I have more I'd like to talk about, like Sabina, Claire, Emily, the cost of an international Fax, the Navy, and possibly what'd be fun to do after the Navy, but this post has deleted itself twice and had to be retyped by hand because my "Save Draft" feature wasn't working and I just don't really care to spend any more time sitting at this chair. I'm going to head to the Gym for the meantime. But expect a later post with much less nerdy, game-filled discussion.