PixlBit

So Mothman asked me to cover a bunch of Double Fine games. So, why not? I already covered Grim Fandango in a review (spoiler alert, it was awesome), but the rest I haven't covered as much. The one I won't put on here, however, is Psychonauts. That deserves its own blog. Maybe even two. The rest, however, go here.

Brutal Legend

Man I wanted to like this so bad. Heavy metal, goofy style, Jack Black, it just sounds awesome. And the story actually was really good. The world was so creative and all of the symbolism for heavy metal, where the different armies are different fanbases of metal and music, was fantastic. The problem was the gameplay. It was not fun.

At first I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be an action/sandbox game with some light strategy elements and puzzle solving. What I instead got was a game that turned into a shitty real time strategy game halfway through. There was little thinking involved so that how bad the interface was wouldn't get in the way and controlling a main character and an army didn't really work. Controlling your army took too long which severely held it back. I'd recommend just watching the cutscenes here.

Costume Quest

Awesome idea to have an RPG based around wearing costumes and trick or treating. The thing was, between the shallow combat, unfun sidequests, and poor pacing, I just could not get into this one. I really wanted to like it, but the game did nothing to make me want to keep playing.

Stacking

Love the world this game builds, but the gameplay bored me. Noticing a pattern here? Don't remember much about the gameplay in all honesty other than it bored me.

Kinect Party

One of the worst games I've ever played. The controls were flat out broken. But what do you expect from a Kinect game?

The Cave

Puzzles were solid, stories behind each character was great, and in co-op, this is a really good game. The problem? AWFUL structure. There's seven characters, but you can only take three with you per playthrough and have to replay the whole game two times to get all the content. One of those playthroughs you'll have to replay two puzzles. And all of them you have to replay several hours of content completely unrelated to the characters. Not to mention playing solo means a ton of passing through the same areas as different characters. It's okay, just could have been so much better.

Broken Age 

Another game where story and world take precedent over gameplay. But that's okay in a point and click game. Thing is, I definitely like the puzzles here a lot less than Grim Fandango's. Those are well made and challenging while Broken Age's tend to waver more between too easy and too obtuse.

The artstyle is great though, voice acting is top notch, and the story is brilliant. I love how the two stories are so relevant to teenagers coming of age. Shay feels he's being babied too much in life and wants something more out of life than what he gets. He doesn't want to be sheltered, he wants to help the world and improve it, even if he trusts the wrong people along the way. Vella meanwhile is against traditions and what a woman should do. In this case, sacrifice herself to a monster so it won't destroy the village. She instead wants to fight the monster and free themselves even if everyone else thinks she's crazy. They've both very relevant to their respective genders and I applaud Double Fine for thinking the story out so well.

Also has the voice actor of Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time. So it's automatically better than the rest of the games on this list.

Overall ranking of their games:

1. Psychonauts

2. Grim Fandango

3. Broken Age

4. Brutal Legend

5. The Cave

6. Costume Quest

7. Stacking

8. Kinect Party

Double Fine is definitely a style over substance company. While I love Psychonauts, I will admit Grim Fandango is probably the better game. It has a genre that lends itself to the style better and a lot less flaws. I'm just a sucker for platformers and while I adore both artstyles and worlds, I like the one in Psychonauts a little more. Broken Age meanwhile delivered some decent fun, but after that, it's hard for me to recommend their games.