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Derpy Review #6: Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story (Spoilers, obviously)

Micro: Cyberpunk, much like the genre of steampunk, a type of genre and name that people will either like or hate, especially with something recently like Cyberpunk 2077. I actually like the genre a bit that it did peak my interest of some games and movies, though I don't like the genre as much as I like steampunk more.

Shekra: Are you going to get to the point of this review any second now?

Micro: Yes, now hold your wings, miss impatient fangs. Anyways, as I was saying, with me having some interest in the cyberpunk genre, Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story was bound to be something I was interest to try, as well as make a review after reading a bit of some commotion of the game being put into switch.

Shekra: Right, if I remember correctly, one of the reason you picked up this game on the switch was because you found out how this game kind of had some controversy with some Twitter nutcases that were throwing a bit of a fit about the characters design or something stupid like that.

Micro: In all honestly, I'm more than certain that the Twitter nutcases didn't like being called out by the devs of this game with a small line in the game that more or less pretty much points out those type of mental insane patient's hypocritical Bull@$%@. But that's enough my disdained dislike towards SJWs, I want to talk more of the game and discuss if the game is interesting to try out.

Shekra: Well, before we do, let's at least talk some snippets of the game. If you can't tell from the game's title or art style, Sense is a 2D side scrolling horror game. I think the I read the devs were trying to bring some sort of familiarity to games like Clock tower and Fetal Frame or something like that.

Micro: I never played either of the two games, so I can't tell if the devs succeed or fail to do that part, but I still went into the game with some expectation and curiosity. And what did we honestly think of the game? Well, let's find out.

Sherka: I should be note that since this is a horror game, it might be best for you to go into this game blind so you can still be scare of the game, which is funny coming from me. Anyways, spoilers are abound!

Story:

Micro: In the year of 2083 in the great town of Neo Hong Kong, cause everything in the future must have the name "Neo" to sound futuristic, you played as a woman name Mei-Lin Mak who's on her way to go for a date.

Shekra: However, after getting bump in the way in making a left turn on Albuquerque to use the restroom, the young girl finds herself trapped in a run down apartment and is trapped with ghosts that wants to turn Mei's augmented body into a medical cadaver.

Micro: Later, Mei encounters a ghost that was some kind of exorcise by the name of Lou Fu Hung, or just Sifu for short, who tells that Mei that she and the rest of the ghost in this game are practically boned unless Mei can get rid of a dangerous ghost that is the main reason the ectoplasm poop hit the fan and the ghosts can't move on.

Shekra: And that's more or less it in terms of story without getting into the final part of the game.

Micro: So here's the thing we should go ahead and mentioned right now, this game has lore for the apartment and the ghosts that houses the whole place, but they are in the journals. If you read the journals, you find out that things has been going wrong since the 1980s where a triad family seems to have been involve with a lot of people dead.

Shekra: As it turns out, Sifu isn't the only exorcist and family in the game, as there was once another person name Hwang that seems to be one of the main problems for this whole building as he instead of the using the same Daoism or Taoism teaching or dealing with spirits, he choose to use the dark arts version of it just so he get some kind of respect and power over someone like Sifu. So, basically an idiot to say the least.

Micro: And that's it for the main story, everything else is just lore that talks about a lot of the tenants that once lived in the building, as well as who you'll probably be encountering in one way or another.

Shekra: I don't know how to feel about a game hiding its main lore in its item description, I mean, I love BloodBorne, but even I wished the game would tell me something to go by so I can understand what in the world is going on.

Micro: Honestly, I kind of liked the idea more than some might as its one of those way of letting the player play the game without getting lore dump every five seconds after getting a five minute explanation of something. But with that said, what about the way you this game and handle the ghosts?

Game Play and game design:

Micro: Ok, this is going to be a weird subject to say the least as there is a bit to talk about to put it gently.

Sherka: Right, where to begin? Well, we can start with what I mentioned earlier, and that this is a 2d sidescrolling game. In Sense, you walk in direction to another to get somewhere and interact with something. However, that's not the only thing you do, as this game is also a puzzle game as well.

Micro: Cause what is horror game without relying on puzzles? The puzzles in these games can be as simple as you having to interact with something before Mei realizes she needs to collect something and another before she can solve a puzzle. That isn't so bad until you realize that when you play the game again, Mei won't picked the solutions of the puzzle until she acknowledges the puzzles exist and she needs the items. This game kind of act like classic point and click puzzles games that I used to play as a kid, something I'm used to but I know that some people will probably not like this way of solving puzzles.

Shekra: Its because of something like that, we should warn you right away that this game LOOOVES backtracking like you won't believe. It will drive you nuts if you know where an item is and have to run all the way to that location to get it, or at worse, you don't know where the item is and are searching room by room tow find it. This building has six floors, seven if you really bother to call the seven one, to explore. The floors are thankfully short as well as the room, but you will be exploring rooms that will have rooms to explores inside themselves, and that itself can be annoying if you're trying to either find a clue or move on to a specific room but accidentally go to the wrong door that is next to the door you want.

Micro: Thankfully, its not as entirely as bad as we make it sound like for half of these puzzles, but it should be warn. That said, there are also puzzles in the game where the game does ask you to use your noggin and observation skills to remember possible solutions and maybe some solutions. I actually like this as I did had fun trying to think these solutions up myself without having to use a guide for a majority of the puzzles in this game. I mean, I did had to use a guide for two of these puzzles as I got so lost of what was I doing wrong, only to slap myself in the face when I realized that I missed the solutions badly for not looking back at the journals.

Shekra: That said, puzzles aren't the only thing you got to deal with, there is also the ghosts and combat as well.

Micro: The ghost I got to say is rather not bad, but sadly I can't say that there are that great as I hope as most of these ghost are more or less a simple run away or just solve their puzzles and you'll deal with them.

Shekra: You can exorcise the ghost away by making offerings, you just need to find the photos of the person, a bowl of rice and something call joss sticks, all of these rather simple to collect as long as you look everywhere. The main thing you need to worry about is making sure the ghost doesn't get a chance to touch you. You'll find something call jade bracelets that will serve as protection from the ghost, but you can only hold two of them, three is you can slightly cheese the game a bit. Once all the jade bracelets are gone and the ghost make contact with you, Mei will have quite the gruesome death.

Micro: Indeed, which is something we should also mentioned is that this game does have some "Gotcha" traps that can kill Mei, which can frustrate the player as the game as some weird checkpoints and save points, so do be keep on on some of these traps. Though, to be fair, most of the traps are obvious, so on those, those are on you if you decide to do the obvious traps. The same can be said for the ghost as you do need to keep an observant eye on how some ghost will react to you. Some ghost might be rather passive to you and might not even try to harm you, some might force you to hide somewhere or avoid them, some are just obvious puzzle enemies and will either not attack you because you are too far away from their attack or are incredibly slow as a snail, and there are some will just flat out force you to fight them.

Shekra: And finally, something I mentioned, there is combat in this game. Combat..... sucks, please try to never do combat in this game after you are introduce to Sifu.

Micro: Sifu will tell you of three ways to deal with ghost, using something call Fu to help keep the ghost in place, but its rather selective when you can do it and on what. You get something call warding rice, which is also selective as you just mainly use it on ghost that are on the walls or in the air, which you won't do after the first combat segment of the game and two of the final ghosts in the game. And the final item he gives you is some sword that is call the Taomu, which is use to smack some ghost away, but its awkward as hell as you need to get very close to the enemy and hope you see a prompt to hit them, which can be a crap shoot if the prompt shows up before the enemy has the chance to smack you.

Shekra: Thankfully for our sanity, this game really doesn't really on combat for the most part, there aren't any real bosses in this game. And the only two bosses, if you can even call them that, in this game are a pitiful joke that I couldn't tell if the game is busted or the bosses are incredibly slow to do anything.

Micro: I guess that brings up something I should mentioned in this game. For some reason, the switch version of this game is slightly buggy. There are tiny segments in the game where the interaction prompt doesn't show up and for some reason the game lags on four specific spots in the game for no reason, and I have no idea why that is the case. We did try looking up the steam version, where the game was originally in for months before having a port on switch, and see that it has some similar problems though not as bad.

Shekra: Not only that, but the game crashed on Micro several times in the worst parts and he had to redo some sections again. Its because of that you best used the quick save function the game gives you on your first run of the game and the auto saves as well as to not have a mind inducing migraine if you're playing on the switch, otherwise, you're going to have to use save items that are tape recordings and they are very limited, about ten if I counted right. Especially on your first play through of the game, which took Micro about eight hours to beat it the first time before managing to beat it two more times in around three hours each, more for why he did that later.

Micro: Well, besides that, what about the level design of the game. So far, the game does have a good atmosphere that its trying to do in the horror part. The apartment, while not big at all, does feel like a run down building that makes one wonder how in the world the whole thing hasn't been turn down yet. Rooms are dark and hard to see on some, but thankfully you do have a flashlight lights up a good part of the level.

Shekra: Game doesn't seem to have that much music at all, like two music, so the game mostly relies on ambiance sounds. The typical sounds of things squeaking, bottles falling around, the typical stuff you might hear from numerous horror games.

Micro: I'll be perfectly honest, the game may not do much to try to scare you, but it did a made me a bit unease in some rooms and even made me jump with either some sound effect or some of the ghost coming by.

Shekra: I guess that is a good thing, as the cyberpunk theme in the game is horribly lacking in the game.

Micro: Yeah, that's something that made me knock the game's rank down some pegs. The game might be call "Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story" but the game seems to be cyberpunk in name and name only as the only thing that is cyberpunk is the very beginning of the game that last five minutes and the ending of the game which also five minutes.

Shekra: Other than that, the only thing that reminds you that you are supposed to be in a cyberpunk dystopia world is Mei herself with some robotic parts on her body.

Character:

Micro: Speaking of Mei, I guess its time to talk about her a bit. There really isn't much to talk about Mei, but you do get some neat tidbit in her mind as she gives her thought on the situation around her as she tries everything to get out of the building.

Shekra: She does has some funny dialogue in the game that you may like. Most of it either about the things that might you think the same way, things that talks about her relationship with her sister, that kind of stuff.

Micro: Overall, I don't think she is purposely made to be written where you are force to like her, or she is some kind of survivor character, just someone who is just trying to get out of a hunted building and that it, which I can appreciate with how short this game is.

Shekra: That being said, you don't get a more important fact of Mei's family that explains as to why she can see ghost until you play a mode call Yotsuya, which only can play once you beat the game, which I believe you play as Mei's mother when she was younger. Turn's out, Mei mother made a left turn in the wrong road while sleeping in a bus that she ends up in a forest that has a graveyard that won't let her go unless she made a deal that makes it where not only she is force to see spirits whiles other can't, but her first born daughter of her blood line will to and its up to them to give them some form of care, so more or less an exorcist or spirit medium.

Micro: Got to love how powerful entities can be a bunch of spiteful bastards that they not only curse one person, but their whole family who really had nothing to do with the situation. But yeah, that's about it for in terms of Mei. I guess that leaves the ending.

Ending:

Micro: Once at the sixth floor, Mei gets more insight for the reason the ghosts are trapped here and whose responsible for everything. As it turns out, it was because of a young woman by the name of Fei Fei, who has some rather massive mommy and daddy issues, as she teams up with Hwang and gets involve into some dangerous magic crap.

Shekra: From what I understand, Hwang is kind of the reason why things with Fei Fei started to grow worse as she started showing more dark spiritual energy that results in her being some kind of demonic force in the end, with her trying to use her father's position as leader of a Triad gang leader to influence someone to be some kind of vessel for the dark magic, despite him having some anger issue himself.

Micro: That being said, Hwang was also trying to take advantage of the situation to be some kind of dark god. And for someone that tries to be a dark god, he goes down like an absolute chump.

Shekra: After dealing with the wanna be god idiot, Mei goes to Fei Fei's apartment where her father is still trap in. Mei helps the father move on and tries to put an end to whole nightmare by getting rid of his daughter's spirit. Getting some keys to the final room, Mei then encounter a massive demonic looking black spirit.... who just sniff her for a second before a white spirit woman comes by and tells him to basically no touch Mei and they both disappeared... oookay....

Micro: Mei enters a massive room where Fei Fei's demonic spirit resides, ready to strike Mei down with her ungodly wrath..... the woman goes faster than Hwang and didn't even a single fight.

Shekra: And yet, after getting bonk in the chest with the Taomu, the woman manages to hurt Mei and knock off some of her cyber parts. But then the white and black spirits came by and basically yeets her straight to hell. However, it seems that either spirits or Fei Fei tries to drag Mei along with her, with Mei struggling to fight off the spirits while officers finally breaks into the building and find her. And we see Mei in bed, and I guess she dies in the end?

Micro: Ok, this is something I think we need to mentioned right now. This game seems to be one of those type of cultural games, as in, unless you are familiar with the culture, or live in the area that game is them on, there will be things that will fly over you head in this game. Biggest example, the two spirits Shekra mentioned. Sifu also talks about these spirits when you talk to him, how there are spirits that are charge in dragging some spirits to hell but they can't because of Fei Fei, but we may need to talk about them a bit more. I had to look up what taoism, daoism, as well as what the some of the things in this game is base on and that is Cantonese folklore. From what I understand, and give me some credit, this isn't something I have any idea what these three truly are, the two spirits Shekra mentioned that looks at both Mei and Fei Fei are supposed to be judges that determines if your spirit goes to heaven or goes straight to hell. Fei Fei was a given to go to hell with some of the things she tries to do, but the reason why they didn't tried to take Mei was because she did nothing wrong honestly, just a innocent bystander that got drag into this mess while also is still alive. That being said, Shekra mentioned Mei possibly dying in the end of the game, however, and this something I hate about the game, when you play the game again, at new game ++, no I'm joking, and beaten the mode, you find out that Mei made it out of the mess and decides that she becomes a exorcist.

Shekra: Wait, this game has two new game modes?

Micro: Yup, and I absolutely hate it.

Bonus:

Micro: Ok, remember Shekra mentioned that I had to played this game multiple times? Well that is because of different modes the game gives you when you beat the game. There Yotsuya that we already discuss, but you get New game +, and when you beat new game +, you also get new game ++ mode, which means you have to beat this game three times to get the true ending. I hate this part as I can't tell why the devs didn't put the true ending in the new game + mode, or better yet, in regular mode that determines if you got all the ghost in the game exorcise because I'll be honest, there are some ghost in this game that you honestly don't need to exorcise if I'll be honest.

Shekra: To be fair, we did mentioned that after you beaten the game the first time, the next two modes are easy to breeze through, especially if you decide to say screw it and use a guide, but sheesh that is obnoxious to beat the game three times to get the true ending.

Micro: And the funny thing is the the two new game + modes are that different, just make saving harder. In the first plus mode, you can't quick save on the spot and will have to rely on auto saves and the save tapes. And on the final mode, auto save is also deactivated and you need to rely on save tapes to save your progress, so I hope you remember what is the good spot to save or you're redoing at a lot of backtracking.

Shekra: Other than that, the only thing you also get in the game is some fan service costumes and spots to take pictures of hidden ghosts, but that's about it.

Conclusion:

Shekra: So, how do we even rank this one?

Micro: That's weird part, there are some parts of the game I do like and parts of the game I obviously don't. I do like what the devs tried to do, and I do like the puzzles in the game with some of them having me to think of the solutions and using my observation skills. I also do like the game is also short to beat, especially with if you know what you got to do.

Shekra: But there is also still the problems like the awful backtracking we mentioned already and some of the buggyness of the game. Not to mentioned that two new game plus you said you didn't like at all. Overall, the way the game feels, this feels like a pretty average game to play.

Micro: Yeah, after thinking of it more, this game does feel like a pretty average game, but an average game that I did enjoy for half of the part. The devs said they were trying to go for a clockwork tower and fetal frame feel, but after thinking of it, it feels more like it has a resident evil one and silent hill four vibe in the game instead, both with the good and awful parts in the game. This game may defiantly not be for everyone, even the devs acknowledges this fact as well, but I still think the game has some merits that I think you guys would like.

Shekra: That said, do we think the game deserves twenty bucks on either steam or switch? Hell no, wait for a price drop on steam, cause who know if Nintendo is going to put a some sale on this game.

Micro: And with that said, with the game's up with the things I feel like the game did right and the game's down with what it did wrong, we decide that this game gets a silver rank star, but keep in mind, it BARELY gets the silver rank.

Shekra: So with that said, what now for the next derpy review?

Micro: Hmm, I was originally thinking of doing another FNAF review so we can make a dent on those games before Security Breach has a potential release date, but I think I know what indie game I want to focus on that has been on my laptop for a good few months now, one involving a certain Stickman.

Shekra: Great subtlety.... anyhow, until we figure out what game we want to do next, we all hope you all have a good day.

Micro & Shekra: Bye.

Description

Derpy Review #6: Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story (Spoilers, obviously)

Micro: Cyberpunk, much like the genre of steampunk, a type of genre and name that people will either like or hate, especially with something recently like Cyberpunk 2077. I actually like the genre a bit that it did peak my interest of some games and movies, though I don't like the genre as much as I like steampunk more.

Shekra: Are you going to get to the point of this review any second now?

Micro: Yes, now hold your wings, miss impatient fangs. Anyways, as I was saying, with me having some interest in the cyberpunk genre, Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story was bound to be something I was interest to try, as well as make a review after reading a bit of some commotion of the game being put into switch.

Shekra: Right, if I remember correctly, one of the reason you picked up this game on the switch was because you found out how this game kind of had some controversy with some Twitter nutcases that were throwing a bit of a fit about the characters design or something stupid like that.

Micro: In all honestly, I'm more than certain that the Twitter nutcases didn't like being called out by the devs of this game with a small line in the game that more or less pretty much points out those type of mental insane patient's hypocritical Bull@$%@. But that's enough my disdained dislike towards SJWs, I want to talk more of the game and discuss if the game is interesting to try out.

Shekra: Well, before we do, let's at least talk some snippets of the game. If you can't tell from the game's title or art style, Sense is a 2D side scrolling horror game. I think the I read the devs were trying to bring some sort of familiarity to games like Clock tower and Fetal Frame or something like that.

Micro: I never played either of the two games, so I can't tell if the devs succeed or fail to do that part, but I still went into the game with some expectation and curiosity. And what did we honestly think of the game? Well, let's find out.

Sherka: I should be note that since this is a horror game, it might be best for you to go into this game blind so you can still be scare of the game, which is funny coming from me. Anyways, spoilers are abound!

Story:

Micro: In the year of 2083 in the great town of Neo Hong Kong, cause everything in the future must have the name "Neo" to sound futuristic, you played as a woman name Mei-Lin Mak who's on her way to go for a date.

Shekra: However, after getting bump in the way in making a left turn on Albuquerque to use the restroom, the young girl finds herself trapped in a run down apartment and is trapped with ghosts that wants to turn Mei's augmented body into a medical cadaver.

Micro: Later, Mei encounters a ghost that was some kind of exorcise by the name of Lou Fu Hung, or just Sifu for short, who tells that Mei that she and the rest of the ghost in this game are practically boned unless Mei can get rid of a dangerous ghost that is the main reason the ectoplasm poop hit the fan and the ghosts can't move on.

Shekra: And that's more or less it in terms of story without getting into the final part of the game.

Micro: So here's the thing we should go ahead and mentioned right now, this game has lore for the apartment and the ghosts that houses the whole place, but they are in the journals. If you read the journals, you find out that things has been going wrong since the 1980s where a triad family seems to have been involve with a lot of people dead.

Shekra: As it turns out, Sifu isn't the only exorcist and family in the game, as there was once another person name Hwang that seems to be one of the main problems for this whole building as he instead of the using the same Daoism or Taoism teaching or dealing with spirits, he choose to use the dark arts version of it just so he get some kind of respect and power over someone like Sifu. So, basically an idiot to say the least.

Micro: And that's it for the main story, everything else is just lore that talks about a lot of the tenants that once lived in the building, as well as who you'll probably be encountering in one way or another.

Shekra: I don't know how to feel about a game hiding its main lore in its item description, I mean, I love BloodBorne, but even I wished the game would tell me something to go by so I can understand what in the world is going on.

Micro: Honestly, I kind of liked the idea more than some might as its one of those way of letting the player play the game without getting lore dump every five seconds after getting a five minute explanation of something. But with that said, what about the way you this game and handle the ghosts?

Game Play and game design:

Micro: Ok, this is going to be a weird subject to say the least as there is a bit to talk about to put it gently.

Sherka: Right, where to begin? Well, we can start with what I mentioned earlier, and that this is a 2d sidescrolling game. In Sense, you walk in direction to another to get somewhere and interact with something. However, that's not the only thing you do, as this game is also a puzzle game as well.

Micro: Cause what is horror game without relying on puzzles? The puzzles in these games can be as simple as you having to interact with something before Mei realizes she needs to collect something and another before she can solve a puzzle. That isn't so bad until you realize that when you play the game again, Mei won't picked the solutions of the puzzle until she acknowledges the puzzles exist and she needs the items. This game kind of act like classic point and click puzzles games that I used to play as a kid, something I'm used to but I know that some people will probably not like this way of solving puzzles.

Shekra: Its because of something like that, we should warn you right away that this game LOOOVES backtracking like you won't believe. It will drive you nuts if you know where an item is and have to run all the way to that location to get it, or at worse, you don't know where the item is and are searching room by room tow find it. This building has six floors, seven if you really bother to call the seven one, to explore. The floors are thankfully short as well as the room, but you will be exploring rooms that will have rooms to explores inside themselves, and that itself can be annoying if you're trying to either find a clue or move on to a specific room but accidentally go to the wrong door that is next to the door you want.

Micro: Thankfully, its not as entirely as bad as we make it sound like for half of these puzzles, but it should be warn. That said, there are also puzzles in the game where the game does ask you to use your noggin and observation skills to remember possible solutions and maybe some solutions. I actually like this as I did had fun trying to think these solutions up myself without having to use a guide for a majority of the puzzles in this game. I mean, I did had to use a guide for two of these puzzles as I got so lost of what was I doing wrong, only to slap myself in the face when I realized that I missed the solutions badly for not looking back at the journals.

Shekra: That said, puzzles aren't the only thing you got to deal with, there is also the ghosts and combat as well.

Micro: The ghost I got to say is rather not bad, but sadly I can't say that there are that great as I hope as most of these ghost are more or less a simple run away or just solve their puzzles and you'll deal with them.

Shekra: You can exorcise the ghost away by making offerings, you just need to find the photos of the person, a bowl of rice and something call joss sticks, all of these rather simple to collect as long as you look everywhere. The main thing you need to worry about is making sure the ghost doesn't get a chance to touch you. You'll find something call jade bracelets that will serve as protection from the ghost, but you can only hold two of them, three is you can slightly cheese the game a bit. Once all the jade bracelets are gone and the ghost make contact with you, Mei will have quite the gruesome death.

Micro: Indeed, which is something we should also mentioned is that this game does have some "Gotcha" traps that can kill Mei, which can frustrate the player as the game as some weird checkpoints and save points, so do be keep on on some of these traps. Though, to be fair, most of the traps are obvious, so on those, those are on you if you decide to do the obvious traps. The same can be said for the ghost as you do need to keep an observant eye on how some ghost will react to you. Some ghost might be rather passive to you and might not even try to harm you, some might force you to hide somewhere or avoid them, some are just obvious puzzle enemies and will either not attack you because you are too far away from their attack or are incredibly slow as a snail, and there are some will just flat out force you to fight them.

Shekra: And finally, something I mentioned, there is combat in this game. Combat..... sucks, please try to never do combat in this game after you are introduce to Sifu.

Micro: Sifu will tell you of three ways to deal with ghost, using something call Fu to help keep the ghost in place, but its rather selective when you can do it and on what. You get something call warding rice, which is also selective as you just mainly use it on ghost that are on the walls or in the air, which you won't do after the first combat segment of the game and two of the final ghosts in the game. And the final item he gives you is some sword that is call the Taomu, which is use to smack some ghost away, but its awkward as hell as you need to get very close to the enemy and hope you see a prompt to hit them, which can be a crap shoot if the prompt shows up before the enemy has the chance to smack you.

Shekra: Thankfully for our sanity, this game really doesn't really on combat for the most part, there aren't any real bosses in this game. And the only two bosses, if you can even call them that, in this game are a pitiful joke that I couldn't tell if the game is busted or the bosses are incredibly slow to do anything.

Micro: I guess that brings up something I should mentioned in this game. For some reason, the switch version of this game is slightly buggy. There are tiny segments in the game where the interaction prompt doesn't show up and for some reason the game lags on four specific spots in the game for no reason, and I have no idea why that is the case. We did try looking up the steam version, where the game was originally in for months before having a port on switch, and see that it has some similar problems though not as bad.

Shekra: Not only that, but the game crashed on Micro several times in the worst parts and he had to redo some sections again. Its because of that you best used the quick save function the game gives you on your first run of the game and the auto saves as well as to not have a mind inducing migraine if you're playing on the switch, otherwise, you're going to have to use save items that are tape recordings and they are very limited, about ten if I counted right. Especially on your first play through of the game, which took Micro about eight hours to beat it the first time before managing to beat it two more times in around three hours each, more for why he did that later.

Micro: Well, besides that, what about the level design of the game. So far, the game does have a good atmosphere that its trying to do in the horror part. The apartment, while not big at all, does feel like a run down building that makes one wonder how in the world the whole thing hasn't been turn down yet. Rooms are dark and hard to see on some, but thankfully you do have a flashlight lights up a good part of the level.

Shekra: Game doesn't seem to have that much music at all, like two music, so the game mostly relies on ambiance sounds. The typical sounds of things squeaking, bottles falling around, the typical stuff you might hear from numerous horror games.

Micro: I'll be perfectly honest, the game may not do much to try to scare you, but it did a made me a bit unease in some rooms and even made me jump with either some sound effect or some of the ghost coming by.

Shekra: I guess that is a good thing, as the cyberpunk theme in the game is horribly lacking in the game.

Micro: Yeah, that's something that made me knock the game's rank down some pegs. The game might be call "Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story" but the game seems to be cyberpunk in name and name only as the only thing that is cyberpunk is the very beginning of the game that last five minutes and the ending of the game which also five minutes.

Shekra: Other than that, the only thing that reminds you that you are supposed to be in a cyberpunk dystopia world is Mei herself with some robotic parts on her body.

Character:

Micro: Speaking of Mei, I guess its time to talk about her a bit. There really isn't much to talk about Mei, but you do get some neat tidbit in her mind as she gives her thought on the situation around her as she tries everything to get out of the building.

Shekra: She does has some funny dialogue in the game that you may like. Most of it either about the things that might you think the same way, things that talks about her relationship with her sister, that kind of stuff.

Micro: Overall, I don't think she is purposely made to be written where you are force to like her, or she is some kind of survivor character, just someone who is just trying to get out of a hunted building and that it, which I can appreciate with how short this game is.

Shekra: That being said, you don't get a more important fact of Mei's family that explains as to why she can see ghost until you play a mode call Yotsuya, which only can play once you beat the game, which I believe you play as Mei's mother when she was younger. Turn's out, Mei mother made a left turn in the wrong road while sleeping in a bus that she ends up in a forest that has a graveyard that won't let her go unless she made a deal that makes it where not only she is force to see spirits whiles other can't, but her first born daughter of her blood line will to and its up to them to give them some form of care, so more or less an exorcist or spirit medium.

Micro: Got to love how powerful entities can be a bunch of spiteful bastards that they not only curse one person, but their whole family who really had nothing to do with the situation. But yeah, that's about it for in terms of Mei. I guess that leaves the ending.

Ending:

Micro: Once at the sixth floor, Mei gets more insight for the reason the ghosts are trapped here and whose responsible for everything. As it turns out, it was because of a young woman by the name of Fei Fei, who has some rather massive mommy and daddy issues, as she teams up with Hwang and gets involve into some dangerous magic crap.

Shekra: From what I understand, Hwang is kind of the reason why things with Fei Fei started to grow worse as she started showing more dark spiritual energy that results in her being some kind of demonic force in the end, with her trying to use her father's position as leader of a Triad gang leader to influence someone to be some kind of vessel for the dark magic, despite him having some anger issue himself.

Micro: That being said, Hwang was also trying to take advantage of the situation to be some kind of dark god. And for someone that tries to be a dark god, he goes down like an absolute chump.

Shekra: After dealing with the wanna be god idiot, Mei goes to Fei Fei's apartment where her father is still trap in. Mei helps the father move on and tries to put an end to whole nightmare by getting rid of his daughter's spirit. Getting some keys to the final room, Mei then encounter a massive demonic looking black spirit.... who just sniff her for a second before a white spirit woman comes by and tells him to basically no touch Mei and they both disappeared... oookay....

Micro: Mei enters a massive room where Fei Fei's demonic spirit resides, ready to strike Mei down with her ungodly wrath..... the woman goes faster than Hwang and didn't even a single fight.

Shekra: And yet, after getting bonk in the chest with the Taomu, the woman manages to hurt Mei and knock off some of her cyber parts. But then the white and black spirits came by and basically yeets her straight to hell. However, it seems that either spirits or Fei Fei tries to drag Mei along with her, with Mei struggling to fight off the spirits while officers finally breaks into the building and find her. And we see Mei in bed, and I guess she dies in the end?

Micro: Ok, this is something I think we need to mentioned right now. This game seems to be one of those type of cultural games, as in, unless you are familiar with the culture, or live in the area that game is them on, there will be things that will fly over you head in this game. Biggest example, the two spirits Shekra mentioned. Sifu also talks about these spirits when you talk to him, how there are spirits that are charge in dragging some spirits to hell but they can't because of Fei Fei, but we may need to talk about them a bit more. I had to look up what taoism, daoism, as well as what the some of the things in this game is base on and that is Cantonese folklore. From what I understand, and give me some credit, this isn't something I have any idea what these three truly are, the two spirits Shekra mentioned that looks at both Mei and Fei Fei are supposed to be judges that determines if your spirit goes to heaven or goes straight to hell. Fei Fei was a given to go to hell with some of the things she tries to do, but the reason why they didn't tried to take Mei was because she did nothing wrong honestly, just a innocent bystander that got drag into this mess while also is still alive. That being said, Shekra mentioned Mei possibly dying in the end of the game, however, and this something I hate about the game, when you play the game again, at new game ++, no I'm joking, and beaten the mode, you find out that Mei made it out of the mess and decides that she becomes a exorcist.

Shekra: Wait, this game has two new game modes?

Micro: Yup, and I absolutely hate it.

Bonus:

Micro: Ok, remember Shekra mentioned that I had to played this game multiple times? Well that is because of different modes the game gives you when you beat the game. There Yotsuya that we already discuss, but you get New game +, and when you beat new game +, you also get new game ++ mode, which means you have to beat this game three times to get the true ending. I hate this part as I can't tell why the devs didn't put the true ending in the new game + mode, or better yet, in regular mode that determines if you got all the ghost in the game exorcise because I'll be honest, there are some ghost in this game that you honestly don't need to exorcise if I'll be honest.

Shekra: To be fair, we did mentioned that after you beaten the game the first time, the next two modes are easy to breeze through, especially if you decide to say screw it and use a guide, but sheesh that is obnoxious to beat the game three times to get the true ending.

Micro: And the funny thing is the the two new game + modes are that different, just make saving harder. In the first plus mode, you can't quick save on the spot and will have to rely on auto saves and the save tapes. And on the final mode, auto save is also deactivated and you need to rely on save tapes to save your progress, so I hope you remember what is the good spot to save or you're redoing at a lot of backtracking.

Shekra: Other than that, the only thing you also get in the game is some fan service costumes and spots to take pictures of hidden ghosts, but that's about it.

Conclusion:

Shekra: So, how do we even rank this one?

Micro: That's weird part, there are some parts of the game I do like and parts of the game I obviously don't. I do like what the devs tried to do, and I do like the puzzles in the game with some of them having me to think of the solutions and using my observation skills. I also do like the game is also short to beat, especially with if you know what you got to do.

Shekra: But there is also still the problems like the awful backtracking we mentioned already and some of the buggyness of the game. Not to mentioned that two new game plus you said you didn't like at all. Overall, the way the game feels, this feels like a pretty average game to play.

Micro: Yeah, after thinking of it more, this game does feel like a pretty average game, but an average game that I did enjoy for half of the part. The devs said they were trying to go for a clockwork tower and fetal frame feel, but after thinking of it, it feels more like it has a resident evil one and silent hill four vibe in the game instead, both with the good and awful parts in the game. This game may defiantly not be for everyone, even the devs acknowledges this fact as well, but I still think the game has some merits that I think you guys would like.

Shekra: That said, do we think the game deserves twenty bucks on either steam or switch? Hell no, wait for a price drop on steam, cause who know if Nintendo is going to put a some sale on this game.

Micro: And with that said, with the game's up with the things I feel like the game did right and the game's down with what it did wrong, we decide that this game gets a silver rank star, but keep in mind, it BARELY gets the silver rank.

Shekra: So with that said, what now for the next derpy review?

Micro: Hmm, I was originally thinking of doing another FNAF review so we can make a dent on those games before Security Breach has a potential release date, but I think I know what indie game I want to focus on that has been on my laptop for a good few months now, one involving a certain Stickman.

Shekra: Great subtlety.... anyhow, until we figure out what game we want to do next, we all hope you all have a good day.

Micro & Shekra: Bye.