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Otsonny!! Mr. Bri returned to the upturned inn today, and so too shall he also escape from it. It was quite a bit easier to follow what was happening now that we've gotten the gist of the gameplay loop and story. The elevator continued to break every few floors on our way to 1434, and Ik also fed us more lore as we went along. I'd say things generally get a little more interesting from here on out now that we're more used to the quirks of the game. There continues to be some pretty interesting environment design, the first floor he stopped on was an outside-but-inside town with few hostile residents that was honestly a real nice change of pace. He also stopped in a factory where he narrowly avoided asking for advice on committing domestic terrorism, AND we went on an aquarium date. I also believe the whales are generally supposed to stay IN the tank, apologies Mr. Ballin. The game's use of the mannequin statue guys as both props and enemies is really neat, especially since sonny still rarely expected them to come to life despite getting jumpscared half to death last time. We kept ascending (or descending, as we would discover), completing floors and getting incomprehensible ranks for our work. V-, Z+, M+... uhh, what's the grading scale? A new mechanic was introduced, sonic-like jump springs, and he also finally got a gun when he found a laser tag room on an arcade floor! ...It wasn't very practical, but the beat it made as it fired was cool. During these last couple chapters, in an attempt to figure out how Mr. Sa Bri died once and for all, Ik started going back through the history books and would share his findings on each level. Turns out not only is humanity supposed to go through a lot of shit in the next 20 years, but Sa Bri is one resilient motherfucker. Eventually, Ik would even share the details of his own passing. It was a little... hm, he has something in common with Firestar at least. Sonny praised this a bit as well but I do kind of like that our conversations with Ik (and sometimes Mr. Sob) over the phone is pretty much the only vehicle for storytelling in the game, and even he's not exactly a reliable narrator, it's just an interesting way of doing things. One of my favorite aspects of the game though was definitely Shrimp, something vaguely resembling a dog that followed us around... Sonny quite liked him as well, you can even give him a collar and have him fetch bones! Shrimp-kun followed us for a few floors and made traversing the hotel a little less lonely... until he got ravenously hungry and attempted to devour sonny, so we unfortunately had to leave him behind after feeding him copious amounts of snacks and furniture. We at last learned how Mr. Bri died (spontaneous combustion is kinda lame ngl), and things get a little wacky as everything comes to a head. ...Literally, the pajama man gets decapitated by the elevator after chasing us down god knows how many floors. Seriously, the ending is more than a bit confusing— we at last reached our room, discovered that third party that was talking to us every now and then was the real owner of the hotel who then tried to fucking kill us a second time, so we make a break for it with the help of shrimp-kun and escape that death trap we worked so hard to descend, returning to where we started. What the hell is up with the horseman before the credits rolled?? I guess we may never now. The Upturned was a pretty neat, sovlful game and an impressive project from what appears to be one furry, I mostly agree with sonny's praise and criticisms. Some of the humor felt dated and didn't quite land, but it had some surprisingly decent writing as well; i really liked Ik's little monologue at the end before you leave the inn. I might miss him a little bit!
Also, congrats on the drama CD! While I'm still on the fence on whether I'll buy it or not (fucking EMS has been raping my unemployed ass this year, will wait for reviews and decide then), it's a first for EN so it's pretty damn cool he got to be apart of it. For some gentle first impression critique I concur from the sample that his line delivery seems a little stiff compared to what I know he's capable of, but it's kinda cute if he was nervous/pressured while recording in call with staff and I trust him when he mentioned settling more into the role as it goes on. I know something of this length was more challenging than the usual VP anyhow, proud of him for taking the plunge. Pretty interesting scenario too! Looking forward to seeing what else the livers have cooking now that EN has broke new ground. Zelda at approx. 1pm JST later, and I really could not tell if he was joking or not when he said he wanted to make it another 12 hour stream. Ahh, I'll have to get my caffeine ready regardless. As for the rest of the week, I'm not sure if he'll have a schedule out... we'll play it by ear, used to it at this point. Thanks for the stream Mr. Bri! Enjoy your sushi and see you later for more wild breath! o7
