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crescentblossom66 · 2 years

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A Corruption in Time

TRIGGER WARNING FOR: BLOOD AND GORE AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, WHICH IS DESCRIBED IN DETAIL

This is a creepypasta inspired story. For those that don't know, a creepypasta was a scary story about either lost episodes of tv shows or a glitched game, of course they were all made up. The most notable example of a creepypasta was 'Ben drowned' a stroy detailing the horrible things that happened in an allegedly haunted copy of 'The legend of Zelda Majora's Mask'. So I decided to present you with this, have fun reading

I should preface this by saying that I didn't tinker with the game in any way, heck I don't even know how to code or access game files. This all happened with the regular downloadable copy of the game on steam, no mods were installed, as I wanted to experience the game as it was intended, so I have no idea how the game ended up the way it did. I also didn't have any of the DLCs, I wanted to buy them, but the Nyakuza Metro DLC didn't even exist at the time of the events, and I completely forgot about the seal-the-deal DLC.

Alright, now that that's out of the way let me begin to explain the strange things that happened when I decided to download A Hat in Time again after 4 years had passed between me playing it initially.

I was finally setting up my new PC and got Steam back on it to play my favorite games again, when the box art of A Hat in Time caught my attention. I remembered how much fun I had playing this game and decided to redownload it immediately. When it finished downloading, I got a notification that the steam cloud files got corrupted, and that due to this, all my save data was gone for good. Well, I wanted to play the game again from the start anyway, so that wasn't too big a deal. I booted the game and everything went normal at first.

Made in Unreal engine logo, created by Gears for Breakfast, all normal. Hat Kid's ship came and flew by, and the starting menu appeared. I pushed A (I was playing with an Xbox 360 controller, don't think it mattered, but thought that I should mention it regardless.), and I was greeted by...nothing. Normally Hat Kid is supposed to be striking a pose on this screen while you select your save file. I didn't think anything of it, as I hadn't started a completely new file in ages. After selecting File 1, everything played out more or less like it should, aside from the fact that Hat Kid's hat was not on the nightstand and also didn't land on her head like it normally did after she faceplants on the ground. Hat Kid just got up, yawn and went on with the day, unlike me who tried to remember if she got her hat later or something.

Now that I could control Hat Kid, I exited the bedroom and went to the main room of her spaceship. I should mention here that she controlled like normal, aside from the fact that I couldn't use her hat ability, which was kinda bad, as you can probably imagine. I just went up to the screen that showed how far away she was from her home planet, she activated it and then it started to knock on the glass. Without hesitation, I made Hat Kid walk over to the Mafia Goon and the cutscene played. Strangely enough the little “How rude!” Didn't play after she closed the window to stop the Mafia, but the rest played like it should. We lost the time pieces and plummeted down to Mafia Town.

That's when the first real strange thing happen, the title card from the level showed up, it depicts Hat Kid running away from little crows, one Mafia Goon points at her, while another rolls a meat on a bone in her direction, meanwhile Hat Kid turns around afraid, while running away. Now Hat Kid was just...missing, it appeared like they were chasing nothing. This became a theme with all the title cards, Hat Kid was just missing in them.

Nevertheless, I, along with the Mafia Goon, landed in the back alley, Hat Kid struck her normal landing pose and on I was to explore Mafia Town, still hatless. That's when I found out that there were no yarns, no matter where I looked, even places that I KNEW should have one, were completely empty.

I was a little freaked out by that, but thought that it would be a nice challenge to try to play through the game without hat abilities.

One strange thing I noticed was that none of the Mafia Goons would talk to me, not even the ones that played a game with you only to punch you in the face weren't interacting with Hat Kid. Speaking of not interacting, they wouldn't even look at her, Hat Kid looked at them, but they never looked at her, even when I placed Hat Kid right in front of their faces.

Due to me skipping the tutorial, I didn't get Mustache Girl to tell Hat Kid not to stalk her. I wondered if she would have reacted, because what happened at the fountain left me thinking that something was indeed very, very wrong with this game. The cutscene with Hat Kid and the Mafia Goon that had the umbrella played, however he didn't react to Hat Kid and the alien girl just waved her hands in front of his face, equally as confused as I was. He was supposed to push her away, which would have resulted in her snatching his umbrella and pointing it at him, while he freaked out.

First, I didn't remember Hat Kid just waving at the Mafia, even MY memory told me that was wrong. Second, now I was really contemplating just reinstalling the game and trying again, but my curiosity got the better of me. After beating up the distressed Mafia Goon, he dropped the time piece, at least all of that was still normal. I got back to the ship, and had Hat Kid switch on the energy for the kitchen and main room again, which caused the telescope to appear. I entered the kitchen and rotated the camera around to check if anything was wrong in the room, the only thing of note wasn't the surroundings, but Hat Kid herself, she looked a bit...dull in her color scheme later on I'd learn that it was far more serious than that. She also looked distressed like she does when Snatcher appears before her or when the bomb is tied to her.

To make it easier for me to gather my thoughts, and to make it easier to read, I'm going to explain level by level from here on.

Mafia Town Act 2: Barrel Battle

The level started out normal enough, Hat Kid landed near the market, Mustache Girl screamed for help, just as usual. I made Hat Kid move toward the stack of barrels, where the Mafia Goons captured the blonde girl. That was where it turned weird again, the Mafia didn't react to Hat Kid arriving and Hat Kid tapped her foot for a moment, as if she was waiting for something to happen before she just sighed and the cutscene ended. Confused, I simply tried to attack one of the big men, who yelped in pain and then turned as if to look who had attacked him.

I got a cutscene that I didn't even know was in the game, the Goon continued to look around and then spoke.

“Mafia trying to teach lesson, don't interfere...nobody is here, but Mafia got attacked. What's going on?” He looked visibly spooked. Without my button input, Hat Kid attacked the guy that held the red-hooded girl and she scampered off to safety. “Mafia is being attacked by g-g-ghost, AAAHH!” All four just started to run away, that was when I regained control, I chased down the fleeing Mafia Goons and reclaimed the time piece, by beating their leader, which concluded the level. The small scene with Mustache Girl at the end didn't play at all and I was simply brought back to the spaceship.

Now that level confirmed a theory I had from the interaction with the Mafia so far, they seemed to be unable to see Hat Kid. She could still interact with the world around her. Curiously, not much could harm her either, it became more and more clear that whatever it was, was only effecting Hat Kid and not the other characters in the game.

Mafia Town Act 3: She came from outerspace

This level made me question things even more, I thought that with Hat Kid being covered in mud, the Goofy Mafia would just run away form her, likely just seeing the dripping mud, however he didn't react, not even with the mud and the eerie glowing eyes was she able to get a reaction out of him.

Hat Kid seemingly had given up on trying to get the attention of the people around her and the cutscene just showed her looking up onto the platform where you'd get the time piece from the Mafia member. I just decided to go with it and climbed across the banners and platforms until I grabbed the time piece. When I came back to the ship, Mustache Girl didn't show up, not that I could have used her advice anyway, not being able to use hat abilities and all. Hat Kid didn't react to that sequence break at all, however she still had that concerned look on her face, like she knew or felt that something was very wrong.

Mafia Town Act 4: Down with the Mafia!

When I got to the the Mafia HQ, the Goons were still attacking Mustache Girl, without being prompted to do so, I proceeded to attack the Mafia. After I killed the first of them, the others once again panicked, spouting some nonsense about ghosts. Mustache Girl seemed to shiver for a moment before jumping down, “How did they...eh, doesn't matter, time to mess with the Mafia a little.” She walked right past Hat Kid, who only made some kind of pouting noise, while I moved her over to the switches that opened the entrance to the HQ.

Upon entering, I for once wasn't assaulted by the Mafia throwing cans at me for no reason. The cutscene with the Mafia carrying the time piece through the doors still played, so did the rest of the level pretty much. I got the key, opened the door to the freezer, went through the vent, and ended up in the hallway. No Goons were send my way, probably because no one could see Hat Kid approach in the first place. When I arrived I had to attack the Mafia Boss instead of him jumping out of his chair to attack me after giving me a speech about how glorious he was.

“What was that?! Some invisible intruder, wants to pick a fight with me? Alright, let's settle this Mafia style!” With that the fight went more or less the same, dodging his shock attack, jumping over the daggers, getting on top of the Mafia Ball to get a hit in, nothing new. The little interaction between the boss and Mu played out a bit differently, he didn't say anything while Mustache Girl said something about him having lost his marbles for fighting something that wasn't even there. Where was a certain uncertainty in the way she spoke though, as if she was trying to convince herself. After the fight the scene was vastly different though, the Mafia ran away from the unknown entity that just beat their boss into goo, while Mustache Girl only looked at the time piece and...ran away. She didn't pick it up, she only looked at it, and bolted away with a terrified expression on her face. Hat Kid then picked the time-altering object up with a smile and I got brought back to the loading screen.

I wondered how the fifth chapter would play out, now that Mustache Girl didn't know about how the time pieces worked and seemingly started to avoid them entirely. Cooking Cat also didn't show up to talk about relics after I returned back to the ship, but I still remembered that they triggered the purple time rifts.

On that note I will tell you that those and the blue ones hadn't change, so I won't have to go over them.

Mafia Town Act 5: Cheating the race

A level that would normally be all but almost impossible without the time-stop hat, but due to the Mafia not even seeing Hat Kid, I could just snatch it away and didn't have to even play the level. A bit boring if I'm being honest, but I never liked that level that much anyway.

Mafia Town Act 7: The Golden Vault

Another level that played more or less the same, the interesting thing was, that I had tried to select Act 6 before, but somehow I was unable to select it for whatever reason. Instead, I just decided to do Act 7, thinking that maybe I would be able to select it after. Another weird thing that I didn't remember happening in the game was that the alert for a new time rift showed up right after Hat Kid returned to the spaceship. The strangest thing about that rift was that it was neither purple nor blue, it was red.

Still confused, I checked where to find that rift, hoping that I didn't get too vague a picture...looking at you blue alpine skyline rift. It appeared to be on the clock tower, where Mustache Girl normally waits for you to find a way up to her in the tutorial. Easy enough to find I thought, and went there to check out what those red rifts had in store for me.

Now this is probably where you'd think something bad was gonna happen, but those red rifts were actually quite interesting, but something about them was indeed disturbing.

Mafia Town: Red Rift

Hat Kid landed in same out of place zone as with the blue rifts, just some white platforms with water effect, just that the secondary color on the platforms was red instead of blue and so was the background. Next to Hat Kid were a Mafia Goon, the Mafia Boss, Mustache Girl and Cooking Cat. Thinking that maybe I could talk to them and they'd have some interesting dialogue, maybe wondering where they were or something, That wasn't the case, however...I could pick them up. Considering that at the time I didn't even have the DLC that was a bit odd.

Just like in the first DLC, I could make a stack with the characters and it appeared that that was what I had to do for this level. Another thing that I noticed was that all of them were slightly transparent, I wondered why that was at the time, I got my answer later...much later.

So, with my mission now clear to me, I made Hat Kid walk from one platform to the other. It was pretty straight forward until I heard a strange noise and stood still for a second.

That was when I saw something following me. It was about the same size as Hat Kid, and moved similar to her, however it was a bit taller and undefined, and looked more like a jumbled mass of red pixels. It did exactly what I did when I was in the position it was in, if I jumped over a gap, so would it. For simplicity's sake I will refer to this...pixel mess as Red Kid.

Hat Kid gasped when I made her stop to get a better look at the thing, she seemed to outright panic, shaking and motioning for me to get moving, by pointing forward with her free hand. So I did, the level itself wasn't very difficult, just some long leaps that could be cleared without the help of the sprint cap, which I was thankful for, otherwise my play-through would have ended right there. The only thing that made things hard was the teetering either to the left or to the right, due to the stack of people the young girl was carrying.

At the end was no time piece, but a portal that Hat Kid proceeded to throw the characters into without my input. Red Kid stopped only briefly and jumped down at the end of the platform, which completed the rift. Back on the ship, I checked if now I would be able to play Act 6 and found that I could. I wasn't ready for what awaited me.

Mafia Town Act 6: Heating up Mafia Town

Again the level started out just like normal, the Mafia asked Hat Kid to switch off the faucets that the lava comes out off. I realized something was very, very off however, when I tried to attack the faucets to turn them off. To put it simply, nothing happened. I tried and tried again to switch off the endless stream of lava, I even went to another faucet, just in case I had to switch them off in a distinct order or something, but nothing happened.

When I stopped to contemplate what to do, I noticed that the lava was slowly rising, the rather comical bouncing of the Mafia after they got burned by the lava was also replaced by them getting slowly engulfed instead, I watched in shock and turned the camera away after a few seconds, unable to watch the goofy crooks die so horribly. I knew this game could get dark at times, however, this was clearly NEVER in the game!

I tried to find out what my objective was now, most of the faucets were completely submerged in lava by now, even Hat Kid reacted by panting and wiping her forehead when idle, adding to the tension I was feeling. I needed to find away to stop the lava from rising, but I couldn't do anything!

That was when I spotted Mustache Girl in the clock tower, sitting there with her legs pulled to her chest, staring into the boiling lava below with tears in her eyes.

“H-How? H-How could this h-happen? I j-just wanted to get rid of the Mafia-” Mustache Girl wiped her face with her sleeve, “-Now EVERYONE will....All of us will.....” She buried her head in her hands, crying louder. Unlike me who pitied the girl, Hat Kid's expression showed anger mixed with disappointment. Making me think that she knew that the red-hooded girl was the one who doomed the island.

With nothing to do but to climb higher to escape the red, burning liquid, I moved Hat Kid to the cannon and jumped to the HQ, hoping that it would not reach that high. Soon Mu followed and so did the remaining Mafia that had survived until now. Some looked like they were burned by the lava, their character models were charred in some places like the shoulder and a couple of big smoldering spots on their backs. I felt bad a little, even though they were just character models, I still kind of felt bad for the guys.

“What's going on?!” The Mafia Boss, now in the jar, I should mention that he wasn't in the red time rift, came outside, followed by Cooking Cat. Both looked distressed, Cooking Cat's ears were flat on her head and she had pulled down her hat and was kneading it with both hands, while the jar was completely motionless.

With sheer horror, I noticed that the lava kept rising and was now even starting to take over the plateau everyone thought they had found shelter on. I made Hat Kid climb onto the building using the awnings, only Mustache Girl followed her.

Writing out the next thing that happened still chills me, I know that the characters aren't real, but...those screams, those terrified screams of pain and terror, I'm not lying when I tell you that I can still hear them in my nightmares...

Hat Kid was apparently also unable to take all of this, the blue-eyed girl sat down and started to cry, no one able to hear her silent sobbing but me...I felt terrible for her, call me a crybaby, but I really felt for her. First no one can see her and now, all those people died around her.

The red-hooded girl continued to cry and quietly sat down on the roof next to Hat Kid, looking at the ground while the lava slowly crept toward her, threatening to end her, just like it had ended the lives of everyone else in Mafia Town,

“How could I be so stupid...All I wanted was for them to leave...and now, and now-” She trailed of and looked up briefly before looking back down,”I'm going to...” the poor girl was trembling horribly, while I watched on helplessly. I couldn't do anything to save them, I felt like I failed Hat Kid and the people in Mafia Town.

When the lava reached Hat Kid, she didn't react at all, the girl looked at herself confused. For a moment I was a bit relieved at that but was torn right out of my brief moment of respite by loud, terrified shrieking once more. I only caught a small glimpse of the red girl, before I forced myself to look away. It was too horrible to watch...Her clothes caught fire as the lava reached her ankles.

That scene went on for what felt like hours, but was only around a minute in real life...a minute I and Hat Kid spent in hell.

That was when she got teleported back to her ship. Physically she appeared to be alright, but most certainly not emotionally.

I was about to just close the game when a cutscene played, the screen that showed the progress toward Hat Kid's home planet, showed static and Hat Kid went to check it out, still wiping away tears. I felt so bad for the girl.

The static showed a gray, humanoid shape, it spoke in a distorted manner, very low-pitched and quite eerie. “ You can't save them!”

That was all it said. Hat Kid looked shocked and confused and a little frightened. What did he mean with 'You can't save them!'? Who were we trying to save? What was up with this game!? I only wanted to play a nice platformer that I hadn't played for a few years, and now this! No, I didn't sign up to play a disturbing horror game, where a kid is forced to watch people die! No way in hell!

When I went to close the game window, however, a pop up window appeared.

Do you really want to have them all die?

Hell Yeah! No, I have to save them!

I stared at the screen blankly for a moment. Did this game honestly think that I would fall for that! If I uninstall and reinstall the game, I can play normally again, and don't have to deal with this horror. I clicked on 'Hell Yeah' and another box popped up.

So you don't care what will become of the birds, Snatcher and the minions, and the nomads? You're fine with knowing that you killed them, even though you could have tried to save them?

Nothing would please me more! I was only joking!

I would love to say that I just closed the game regardless, like a sane and normal person, but...I felt bad. I wanted to at least try to prevent them from dying. I know it's a stupid reason, but I wanted to see it through.

Alpine Skyline Chapter 1-4

After I so naively decided to continue playing, I checked where I could go to next and found that strangely enough the only area I could go to was the Alpine Skyline. I didn't even have the 14 time pieces required to enter the area, but it wasn't like I could go anywhere else. The gates for Subcon and Dead Bird Studio weren't open.

Wait.....how was I even supposed to GET to the Skyline, never mind even getting to the telescope! I had no hook shot! The hook shot badge was in the second level of Subcon Forest! I tried and tried to make the jump from the room with the washing machines over to where the telescope for the alpines was, thinking that maybe something was in that room that could help me, but I just couldn't make the difficult jump. Was that finally where I couldn't proceed any further because the game became to broken to continue? I did what everyone does in such a situation; backtrack out of desperation. I went to the main room of the spaceship, but couldn't find anything there that could help me, I had a couple of rift tokens though, so I decided to give that a shot, maybe I could get hat flairs, or maybe something changed there.

I did get something out of it, believe it or not! It was a strange badge that looked like the first dweller mask you get, the one with the fox head and the green glowing eyes. Oh, I should mention here that the badge seller appeared to be the only person in the whole game I could interact with. So far I had the no-bonk badge and pon magnet. The scooter- or the fast hatter badge obviously wouldn't have helped me considering my non existent hat. I had all three slots for badges, hoping that maybe I'd find something that could help me. Before I left him he said something I don't remember from the game, “You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?” To which he produced a strange green badge that did nothing once I equipped it, shrugging it off, I removed it and swapped it with a badge I could actually use.

Now the badge I got from the machine in the main room worked the same as the dweller mask, the green aura appeared and I assumed that I could enter the lab, now that I had the dweller mask and low and behold what do I find, the hook shot badge! At least I could proceed now, I equipped both, the dweller mask badge and the hook shot badge, and thus I could actually enter the Alpine Skyline chapters.

I walked up the long mountain path to the top and hit the weird spinny things. Then I made my way up through the clouds to the Skyline that, just like Mafia Town at first, looked pretty normal, No changes. That went through literally the whole Skyline though, so I can actually sum most of it up here.

The nomads couldn't see her, so I never received any directions form them, which wasn't too bad as the Alpines are quite big, but fairly easy to navigate through. The Birdhouse and the Lava Cake were quite easy and I only struggled a little in the Windmill, due to the lack of the sprint hat that can help you with some of the longer jumps there.

Before I went to the Twilight Bell, I noticed something again, I already said that Hat Kid looked...off a bit, now it was even worse, she was very visibly transparent now, and looked just...sickly. I figured that it had something to do with the whole nobody-can-see-Hat-Kid thing, but I had no idea what to make of it. She still controlled like normal, but appeared more pained, like something was hurting. I felt bad again for making her go through all of this, especially now that it seemed that whatever it was was causing her pain. Pushing my concerns aside, I pressed on, making my way to the Twilight Bell, that would have been all but impossible without my newly acquired dweller badge.

The real problems started when Act 5 rolled around, and the pollen were released. Before that though I got a pop up that another red time rift had appeared. It was strange, because normally you'd have to leave the Skyline to have any time rift appear, I had already cleared both of the blue ones and the purple one, and the pop ups for them came after I returned form the Windmill and the Twilight Bell and had assembled the relic for the alpines.

Alpine Skyline: Red Rift

The location of the rift was very easy to discern, it was on the knife of the Lava Cake. I found it strange that I could still explore normally, as Act 5 follows right after the last of the 4 levels was cleared. The red time rift looked the same appearance wise. The difference was that this time, I had to carry out lightly transparent versions of a nomad, a goat (I have no idea how she managed ot carry one of those. Well, she carried a walrus in the DLC sooo...), and a Lazy Paw Gang Cat.

Just like before, movement was a bit weird, due to the stack, but I managed alright. A couple of seconds in, I heard the weird noise again and when I turned the camera to look behind me, Red Kid was after me once again, this time I could actually make out something like a hat that they were wearing, but nothing else.

The stack teetering almost threw me off one of the platforms once, especially the fast spinning ones that rotate made it very difficult to jump on safely. I fell a couple of times, thanks to me being garbage at timing jumps right sometimes. All in all it was harder than the first, but still easily manageable. At the end I lost control of Hat Kid again, as she shoved the three characters she was carrying through the portal. Red Kid stopped again briefly, and this time they spoke: “You can't save all of them.”, with that taunt, they jumped off into the bottomless, red abyss, and thus the red rift ended.

Alpine Skyline Act 5: The Illness has Spread

This is where things took a turn for the worst again, go figure. I braced myself for the worst, and started the level. The title card displayed (Again without Hat Kid in it), and I had a bad feeling already. I hoped that it wouldn't be like Mafia Town where everyone died a cruel death that still shakes me to the core to this day when I think about it.

Tightening my hold on my controller, I made Hat Kid move through the dark despair that awaited us both, the three icons that displayed the location of the flowers showed up, and I made my way to the first one. I went with the one near the Birdhouse, avoiding the fire and the thunder of the lethal environment around me. When I got to the platform where it showed the huge plant, getting to it was exceedingly easy, thanks to it not realizing that Hat ´Kid was there to destroy it. Foolishly, I thought that this would be a piece of cake, that all I had to do now was break the flowers and I'd somehow find the time piece after.

My rude awakening out of that sunshine and rainbows daydream happened the moment I made Hat Kid attack the plant...only for it to do nothing, absolutely zero damage, not a scratch or any indication that I did anything. I tried again a couple of times and my hand started to sweat the more it became apparent that, once again, I couldn't do anything.

Hat Kid made a noise of confusion, before the big plant released another cloud of purple pollen. I didn't know what to do, so I just moved around aimlessly, trying to find a hint to something that I could do. When I got back to the small mountain where Hat Kid always starts out form, I could see the damage the pollen had done, houses had burned down all the way to the foundation, and fire and had spread to the point that I had to carefully jump around to not have Hat Kid lose health by stepping on it. Suddenly Hat Kid recoiled and did the animation she does than Queen Vanessa speaks for the first time, she crawled backwards and I had to turn the camera to see just what had scared her so much, due to the dense smoke. I wish I had just turned Hat Kid around and left, but I was too curios and as we all know; Curiosity kills the cat.

I saw the normally territorial, but otherwise harmless, goats chase after the nomads on a platform just below, the huge animal kicked on of the nomads to their doom down the huge mountain, his friend however met a worse end. The nomad seemed to plead for his live, bowing and folding his hands in prayer, but the huge herbivore showed no mercy. I was so glad that I for whatever reason turned Hat Kid around, so she didn't have to look at the horrible scene that unfolded. It still sickens me to this day and honestly I almost threw up when I saw the huge goat stomp on the small nomad, the loud crunch of his spine breaking echoed through my speakers and made my blood ran cold. Even thought blood is pink in this game, it still shocked me to the core to see the bloody mess that had once been a nomad. Hat Kid was crying and visibly distressed, and I couldn't blame her. I moved back, careful to not turn the young girl around. I have no idea if she was programmed to react to all of this or even if this whole scenario was coded and had been in the game before and I somehow accessed it or something, but whoever I have to 'thank' for this mess, I would like to send to a psychiatric ward. This was waaaay too messed up for a kids game.

The level ended when the whole area was full of pollen, so much so that I couldn't see Hat Kid anymore and just stood still in order to not fall off any cliffs. It just suddenly...ended. I wondered if any of the nomads escaped or if the goats killed all of them.

I got brought back to the ship and didn't move for a solid half an hour or so. First Mafia Town, now the Alpine Skyline. This cutsy platformer turned into a Silent Hill game faster than Sonic gets through Green Hill Zone. When I finally got the courage to grab the controller again and to move on, I noticed that Hat Kid was even more translucent, whatever was happening to her was getting worse it seemed.

I thought about just quitting then, but what Red Kid said at the end of the red rift, stuck with me. “You can't save all of them.” Were they referring to the characters Hat Kid tossed through the portal? Were they safe on the other side? It motivated me enough to see where I needed to go to next and I found that the gate to Subcon Forest was now open.

Subcon Forest Act 1: Contractual Obligations

I made my way over to Hat Kid's bed room, still reeling a bit from the horrifying events that continued to flash before my eyes. The first couple of acts for both Mafia Town and the Skyline were more or less tame, and Sucbon proved to be no exception to that rule.

I entered the creepy forest and started my way toward Subcon Village, where the fire spirits were. On the way, I half expected to actually still be captured by the net, but it didn't trigger at all, however I triggered a cutscene a bit further ahead near the bridge where you'd normally find an eyeball enemy that you needed to destroy to get a yarn, but as you know, no yarn for me. In place of the yarn, I got a cutscene that featured two minions talking to each other. The topic turned out to be one of the time pieces, apparently it fell into the bonfire that the fire spirits dance around. Hat Kid listened in, more like stood technically in plain sight, but the minions were also no exception to the No-one-can-see-Hat-Kid rule. I kind of hoped that, given the paranormal and occult themed forest, someone here would react to poor Hat Kid, whose appearance was more akin to a wraith than an actual alive kid.

I didn't waste any more time and moved Hat Kid over to the entrance of the village. I noted that she seemed to move a bit slower than normal, it could have just been my imagination, at least I thought that at that point in the game. When I arrived I obviously didn't get that scene where Snatcher makes sure that you're doing your chores, but it still zoomed in on the fire spirits and even showed the time piece that had fallen in the fire. I knew what I had to do, and was thankful that I at least could still pick things up, given that I had trouble attacking the plants, I had been worried about that. It didn't take me all that long to throw the paintings into the fire and extract the time piece. Before I could go and grab it, one of the fire walls disappeared and Snatcher appeared in the village and started to talk to a minion. I'm going to paraphrase here, sorry, I can't remember what he said exactly anymore.

“Did...did you managed to get rid of those annoying fires that stopped me from getting to parts of my forest?” He looked a bit confused, I'd be too if the thing that kept me trapped suddenly disappeared without cause.

“...Yeah?” The minion cowered in fear, probably hoping that telling his boss that he did it would be a good idea.

“Why didn't you do so earlier!? Well, it doesn't matter, get rid of the other ones too, now that you're at it.” Hat Kid appeared to pout after the Minion just blatantly took credit for something she did.

“...Thanks.” With that the, soul-stealing ghost vanished back in the ground, leaving me to finally claim the time piece.

Subon Forest Act 2: The Subcon Well

When I got back to the ship, I didn't realize that I missed something at the time. The levels in Subon usually needed to be unlocked by stepping into Snatcher's traps, with him now being unaware of Hat Kid strolling around in his forest, I could have easily gotten locked out of the rest of the levels. Thankfully, the corruption or whatever unlocked the rest of the levels aside from Vanessa's manor. That boded very ill.

After I entered the level and was brought back to the Snatcher's stump, I started by getting rid of the fire spirits in the swamp, which I could do earlier than normal, thanks to already being in possession of the hook shot badge. I got another cutscene where two minions talk about the well and that their boss wanted it to be cleaned. All in all not much of a big change here. I went inside the well, broke the ice that clogged it, and found the time piece. I decided that I would open up the other areas by getting rid of the fire spirits though. After all the death I'd already seen, I was far more uncomfortable than the first time I played the game, that I had to get rid of them.

Subcon Forest Act 3: Toilet of Doom

Yet another level mostly the same, it appeared that the outhouse got possessed differently this time, Hat Kid still had her soul after all. The fight went well enough, I got hit a couple of times, due to forgetting that the shock waves the toilet created, tripped you. The only other thing that change, was that a minion got praised for destroying the wretched bathroom appliance, to which Hat Kid shrugged again.

Subcon Forest Act 5: Mail Delivery Service

This one shared a fate with Mafia Town Act 5, due to Snatcher not being aware of Hat Kid, I could just grab the time piece without even needing to deliver the mail, not that I could have done so without the sprint hat.

Subcon Forest: Red Rift

The red rift showed right before I braced myself for the 4th act of Subcon, this time it was placed near the entrance to the manor just across the bridge where the destroyed tower or something is, it took me a while to realize where it wanted me to go. Awaiting another tougher platforming rift, I went over to the glowing orb and entered. Same deal as before, no explanation necessary, I think. I had to pick up a Minion, a Fire Spirit, a dweller, and of course Snatcher, strangely, no Queen Vanessa. I had only 2 health this time though, and due to the stack and Hat Kid's more sluggish movement that I mentioned earlier, I had quite a bit of trouble getting through the spinning platforms and the gear tower things. Red Kid's shape became even more defined, they looked like a boy with short hair and a coat that flowed sightly when he moved, which was the only way for me to tell what it was.

After some very tight jumps and lots of anxiety on my part, Hat Kid finally managed to get the people she had been holding through the portal at the end. Once again, Red Kid stopped.

“Why won't you just give up and disappear!? Just stop struggling already!” He exited by leaping away again. I got back to the space ship with Hat Kid looking confused. Was he the one who put me and Hat Kid through this traumatic nightmare? If so, why? What did he gain by doing that? With noting left to do, I tried to open act 4 again and this time I could access it. I took a deep breath and braced myself.

Subcon Forest Act 4: Queen Vanessa's Manor

Of course the scariest level in the normal game was also the trigger for an even scarier event in this weird corrupted, or glitched, or whatever you'd call it game. I had already been dreading this level, not only because of the strange and horrifying event that I already had to go through, but also because just like with Mafia Town's Act 6, it was kept for last without me being able to select it prior to completing the others.

I was honestly relieved and disappointed when nothing of real note happened at first, everything went normally. Some Minions once again opened the act by explaining that they saw one of the time pieces fall near the manor and emphasized that they would NOT go over there, under no circumstance, a sentiment that I kind of shared, but had to fight against.

Reluctantly, I made my way across the bridge and through the little ice puzzle to the wide nothingness that stretched out all around the manor of the ice queen. I avoided those nasty ice statues at the front because I remembered that you had to enter the manor from the basement. I sneaked around and the door to the cellar opened and I made Hat Kid jump right in.

Kind of random, but the title card for this act without Hat Kid in it was somehow very eerie, just and empty nothingness through the open door the blue-eyed child would have peeked through if this had been a regular version of the game.

This level had one of the biggest changes to the original, so far most of the levels played the same aside from the invisible Hat Kid thing, but now this invisibility caused something worse to happen, I already found it strange that the red rift appeared before I even had access to the final chapter, the reason was pretty weird.

I maneuvered my way through the house as usual, and almost got a heart attack when I opened the door to the hallway and found the shadowy figure of Queen Vanessa just walking toward the kitchen door. Hat Kid did her little skidding animation upon seeing her, while I almost dropped my controller. This may just be the only instance in the game where I appreciated a person not being able to interact with me, even Hat Kid looked relieved.

This relief didn't last long however, I needed to go to the kitchen to open the door on the left side of the hallway and the door that let to the room with the piano was locked, so I had but one option. I carefully moved Hat Kid past the queen and opened the door to the kitchen, which seemed to make the red-eyed apparition recoil.

“What?” She then followed me through the door and I opened the fridge foolishly, in hindsight I should have waited for her to turn around or leave, as that led to Vanessa being even more confused and upset, which further doomed the already pretty miserable citizens of Subcon. “What is happening?!”

Hat Kid was freaking out and so was I, due to the shadowy mass now trailing the purple-clothed child everywhere I made her go. She followed me up the stairs and into the bedroom, watching as I did what you regularly do in this level. I noticed that she started to shake more and more, I assumed it to be out of fear, but no....it was out of fury. “Stop playing tricks on me, my prince. I know you're here.”

I don't know what delusions she was conjuring up as I got the key and entered the attic. At the top I found and opened the treasure chest and that doomed Subcon.

Remembering all of this sends a chill down my spine as I'm typing this. But I'll promised myself that I'll see ti through. I just hope that I can get some answers to why my game ended up this way.

When Hat Kid opened the chest and claimed the time piece, something else fell out...a wilted, old bouquet, the flowers it was made out of preserved forever under a thick layer of ice. “You came back to me...just to get this back for her, didn't you?” Anguish and spite laced the words of the cold queen, before it switched to sadness and then anger. “I thought you came back to see me, but now I understand...-” Ice started to spread under her and toward Hat Kid, who I had no control over yet again, as she jumped onto the window sill, her eyes wide with fear as the ground started to shake.

“YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A FILTHY CHEATER!!!”

That was the line that made Hat Kid bolt, she jumped through the glass and started to run back in panic, the ice spreading behind her, as I gained control again once she landed on the ground outside. I panicked, I panicked as the view turned around and I could see the ice encase the whole manor, turning it into a huge ice crystal. The ice kept spreading at a rapid pace, and even though I had no sprint cap, Hat Kid still ran, she ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, as all I could see was the ice behind the space traveler.

Adrenalin kicked in and I tried to tilt the camera forward again, but I was forced to watch the ice spread as it covered the trees, the rocks. I almost dropped my controller entirely as an insane cackle echoed through the forest and almost made Hat Kid trip.

I only saw something dark and red run past Hat Kid as she entered the village, I hadn't even realized we had made it there already. The cold magic reached the blue-eyed kid, and once again, she wasn't affected.

Again I was powerless, again I couldn't do anything but watch.

That was when the view switched and I could see dwellers and minions slowly freeze to death, while they flailed around in a panic, and begged for it to stop, but to no avail. Hat Kid started shaking, the cruelty on display in front of her becoming too much to bear. My attention was drawn to the distance. Red and purple flashes lit up the horizon. I didn't want to go there, but I had no choice it seemed.

When Hat Kid arrived the ice was spreading up a shocked and terrified Snatcher, I turned Hat Kid around again as he slowly stopped moving and joined the ranks of the endlessly suffering ice statues. The evil cackle from the queen gave me goosebumps and I flinched when she simply shattered the ice sculpture of the tormented ghost. The insane laughter continued, while Hat Kid sat down and pulled her knees to her chest, before she started to cry. That was when it ended again and I simply got brought back to the ship.

It scares me how good the human is at adapting to things, as I was slowly getting used to these horrifying stuff that I had to bear witness to. I realized that I could see through Hat Kid now, even to me she was slowly turning invisible. Only one more chapter, only Battle of the Birds remained. I dreaded what the corruption would do to my favorite characters of the game, but I found out soon enough.

Battle of the Birds Act 1: Dead Bird Studio

Just like all those times before, I entered the first level of the Chapter. Neither the owls nor the penguins acknowledged Hat Kid, nothing new there, and both directors were to busy with the usual spiel of yelling at each other. The cutscene played and I sprinted up toward the vent, not even trying to talk to either of the directors' subordinates. The level proved no challenge, you know why by now. At the end, I simply found the time piece for the level, maybe because I couldn't interact with DJ Grooves and the Conductor.

Battle of the Birds Act 2: Murder on the Owl Express

The interesting stuff happen from this chapter onward. Murder on the Owl Express was there things got really strange. It started the same way, only that one of the owls was talking with the Conductor and the yellow bird told the express owl that he had to go to front of the train to get something. With nothing better to do, I followed the brown owl and witnessed him getting questioned by the crows. One asked him what his favorite sting of numbers and letters was to which he replied with ABC123.

Another question was about his pet's pet name, Pecko actually made me smile a little, which I appreciated after the ordeal in Subcon. It was a bit strange not being the main character in a game for once, given that all I could do was follow the owl to the front, there he picked up the detective costume and got a call about his uncle's sister, Owlina, visiting.

The owl that I had trailed for the past 2 minutes then went on his way to find the clues on who committed the murder, after he had quite the panic attack, due to the other owl lying in a pool of blood, it seems that my owl friend also couldn't tell that it was a mere set up. The important part was that he then just stopped after leaving the room with the blood and hid in the corner, shaking like a leaf.

Hat Kid just looked at the owl, a bit surprised, she hardly paid any attention to things around her anymore, if it was because of her getting more transparent, or due to the horrible things she had to see, I didn't know. I decided that it was best to just find the files and go form there, so I did. Thanking the game for still letting me pick things up at least, I grabbed the files and after I got the one that implicated the presumed dead owl from the cafeteria, the button that lowered the platform to reach the room where you'd find Hat Kid's file wasn't even there, so I simply walked back to the room the detective owl was in. Hat Kid threw the files toward the owl, which hit him in the head.

I wondered what would show up on the movie recordings for a moment, floating files that made their way through the whole train, more like a horror movie than a thriller. In the end the Conductor asked the owl, who the murderer was and the owl picked one of the suspects at random and just blurted out that the other Express Owls did it, which they then confirmed. That concluded this level, I had to look around for the time piece, and found it outside on the little balcony of the caboose.

Battle of the Birds Act 3: Picture Perfect

This time around Hat Kid landed on the big moon set, and we were following a moon penguin who was tasked with establishing a big fan club for himself. He did the endorsement scenes mostly on his own, I helped with pushing the dog cutout from the fountain, which was literally the only one of those that I could do. The others were just the penguin guessing incorrectly at the card game, and him answering with ranch when it came to the way he preferred his tuna sandwiches.

The best part about the level came from when I noticed that the penguins weren't taking pictures of their comrade, and I found one of their cameras near the area you land when the game starts. For a few minutes I actually forgot the pain and suffering the game had put me and Hat Kid through, and I had fun photographing the little moon penguin. It even showed the fedora-wearing bird in the photos that I took of him, the controls for the camera were the same as with the camera badge. All of this came to a sudden end though when I got the time piece as it popped out of the balloon, and the alert for a red rift appeared.

Battle of the Birds: Red Rift

I found the rift near the end of the Dead Bird Studio, right behind the big plastic award. I wondered how hard it would be this time and wasn't disappointed on the difficulty front, I had ONE health, if I screwed up here I wondered if I could even attempt the level again, or if I ended up killing the characters if I messed up. I really needed to concentrate this time. I made Hat Kid pick up the birds, which consisted of the two directors, an express owl, a moon penguin and a crow.

As you can imagine, moving around with a stack of five birds was really hard, fighting against the constant swaying while landing safely on the platforms was near impossible, given my horrible skills in this game. Red Kid, whose shape was now clear, was even more determined than ever to catch up to the little girl I controlled. I had never seen that character in the game before, at the time I was desperately trying to figure out who he was, not even Hat Kid seemed to remember him.

I was so happy once Hat Kid tossed the flock of birds through the rift, Red Kid stopped once again and only glared at the blue-eyed girl for a second before he left. I breathed a sigh of relief after that stressful rift, and I knew that the area I had to go to next would not be as pleasant as 'Picture Perfect' had been, after all following the red rift was only the untimely demise of the remaining cast, the other rifts before made that abundantly clear. I knew that 'Train Rush' and 'The big Parade' would not end well.

Battle of the Birds Act 4: Train Rush

Train Rush...oh where do I begin with Train Rush. This was by far together with the parade the most traumatizing act in the whole game...I honestly don't even want to open this can of worms, but by now you're probably just as interested to see what happened as I was during all this. This morbid curiosity that led me to continue through this whole ordeal...The human truly is a strange creature, that never seems to be able to know when to quit.

I landed on the balcony of the caboose, and entered after the Conductor told the owl that his next movie was gonna be the bomb in a good way...No Conductor...This bomb was bad on so many levels.

The owl pulled the trigger for the bomb, and immediately after the yellow bird stopped talking before telling him to get to the front to turn it off, he faltered, just like in the movie before. Hat Kid panicked and tried to get the hysterical owl to move, of course it did nothing. In my panic, I thought that maybe I could have Hat Kid switch it off, we could interact with objects so far, so where was at least a chance! I made my way through the exploding train carts, screaming and yelling followed Hat Kid as she ran.

I made it to the front, jumping and trying desperately to press down the switch, which didn't budge in the slightest. I yelled and cursed at the thing, while the clock kept ticking away the life seconds of all owls on board. 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1 Good bye

“Good bye.” Right before the loud explosion destroyed the only train on the planet, a weak low whisper broke the silence in the room, what followed after I could only tell from the wind shield. The train tilted to the left after the explosion send the wagons in the back off the rail, which caused the others connected to them to get flung off as well. Hat Kid fell toward the left, due the control room digging itself further into the sand, as the wheels spun around to find the traction they had lost.

That was when the shock wave created by the explosion in the back reached the front. The owl, just like Hat Kid, ended up being tossed around by the violently shaking train. He hit the control panel rather hard, a sickening crackling noise barely leveled itself above the cacophony of other noises in the chaos, but I heard his bone snap before he crumbled to the floor. It felt like hours before everything came to a stand-still, it was almost completely silent after what felt like an eternity, broken cables swinging around and fire burning somewhere in the distance were the only things I could hear...that and a creaking noise...How I wished that Hat Kid was able to interact with people.

I gasped when I noticed that the old owl I had presumed to be dead slowly got up hissing in pain. Hat Kid moved over to him, trying to help the wounded bird. He yelped when he tried to move his right wing, and almost slumped back down. He survived! I couldn't believe it!...but of course this wasn't the end of this, this game was cruel and unmerciful. It only toyed with me, making me believe that one of my favorite characters could actually survive.

The same loud creak replaced the quiet hisses of the owl with gurgling noises as a pipe broke off and impaled him. Hat Kid shrieked and started to tremble once she realized what had happened. Blood poured out of the owl's beak and from the huge wound in his abdomen, at least he appeared to have died the moment it hit him, as he didn't struggle to free himself. I felt nauseous when his limp body sank further and further down, impaling the dead bird more and more due to gravity, that was when I finally got my act together and made Hat Kid leave.

The owls didn't have it any better. As I walked around the literal train wreak, I could see that most of them had perished in the explosion, some had been crushed by large objects or debris, while others were looked singed and burnt. One particular owl broke my heart, he tried desperately to drag himself through the hot sand, as he slowly bleed out from a large, gashing injury on his side. I lost control once Hat Kid fell to her knees and cried, once again broken by what happened around her. That was when we finally returned to the ship.

Battle of the Birds Act 5: The big Parade

When I came back to the spaceship after everything once again simply faded to black, I cried together with Hat Kid, I just couldn't help it this time, call me a cry baby, but seeing all of owls meet such a terrible end made me sick even if it is just a game, I really connected with these characters the first time I played the game, so seeing all of this just tore at my heart. The two quarreling bird directors were my favorite characters and now one of them died with Hat Kid and me just a few mere steps away form him, it made my hands shake and I still had one more level to go through, one more level of agony. I was determined to see it through to the end though, I had been through enough of this already, so I deserved some closure. With that in mind I entered Act 5, and prayed that it wouldn't end nearly as bad...You already know what I'm about to tell you though, of course it ended in huge calamity.

Just like with all the levels before it, the first few minutes nothing was wrong, the penguin put on the parade costume and started to roam around the set, while the band of owls followed him. The bad stuff started when the DJ interrupted the parade for a moment and sent the penguin to turn on the pyrotechnics, the floors stayed electrified longer than in the original version, which didn't effect Hat Kid, but made it hard for the other dancing penguins to not get electrocuted.

My unease solidified more and more as I watched them struggle, Hat Kid appeared like she wanted to help the penguins and tried to interact with them, to no avail. The DJ told the star of the show to switch on the fireworks...and that was when things went from bad to worse...far worse.

In the original I already hated those fireworks, that behaved more like homing missiles, but after this I swore to myself that I'd never launch another one of those at new years out of fear that it will trigger this dark memory.

The homing missiles didn't chase after Hat Kid, they instead targeted the penguins and objects closest to them. The very first rocket hit a building, making concrete rain down on the gathering below the stage. Screaming once again echoed through my speakers as penguins got hit and either were terribly injured or got electrocuted by the floors that now had an electric current run through them nonstop, due to one of the missiles hitting one of the buttons.

No matter where I looked, all I could see was pain and suffering, once again I couldn't save Hat Kid's psyche, she had to watch the penguins jolt and twitch as the electricity slowly killed them. One small explosion after another made my skin crawl and my eyes water yet again. Hat Kid screamed out loud as I unfortunately jumped right toward the little area where DJ Grooves stood during the parade, and two missiles were headed right his way. The kid seemed to want to warn the panicking DJ, trying to get his attention, trying everything in her power to stop him from meeting the same fate as his rival and countless others met before him. It was for naught.

The sparkling, highly explosive objects that were meant to spark joy to those that watch them combust in the night sky now only sparked sheer terror as the first one hit the turntables, sending boiling hot shrapnel at the tall penguin's face, he shrieked in pain, as his jacket caught fire from machine breaking around him. For better or for worse the second missile ended his suffering fairly quickly when it stuck him in the back and made him slump over. The missiles continued to wreak havoc, but both Hat Kid and I were paralyzed, unable to turn away form the smoking feathers and the still slightly burning red jacket. The always dancing and moving penguin now laid eerily still, his star-shaped shades were teetering at the end of his beak, threatening to fall to the now empty street below at any second.

We were only brought out of our stupor when the screen went black once again and we found ourselves back in the spaceship. I couldn't even process the events as the little girl suddenly screamed in pain. At first I thought that it was due to all the mental trauma. Damn that red boy! Speaking of the devil.

“You may have saved them, but you won't be able to save yourself!” With that threat, the screen went black once again and I landed in what appeared to be yet another red time rift.

???

This rift was more or less like the others, the first thing I noticed was poor Hat Kid, she was almost completely invisible to me now, I almost had to make my way through it, only knowing by the camera always being centered on her. The blue-eyed girl moved painfully slow now and did the little panting noises no matter if I was standing still or not. I got uneasy, not sure what I should do, but decided to just try and get through the rift. Red Kid spawned again, and this time it happened, this time Red Kid caught me, and Hat Kid did lost her last health and she fell to the ground.

“Finally! Now I can finally exist! Sorry, Hat Kid, but it had to be done.” Red Kid finally got his normal color, he had short black hair, a red jacket, a brown hat, and a white shirt with something printed on it. Some blue, tribal-looking tattoos were painted on his face and he had purple eyes. With strain in her voice, Hat Kid finally named the boy that I had labeled as Red Kid.

“T-Timmy?” He looked shocked for a moment but composed himself.

“So you do remember me! The sidekick you abandoned, and doomed to non-existence!” Hat Kid tried to move and get up, but only fell back down.

“Why? I wasn't the one who did this to you.”

“I just want to live, okay! I've been stuck in endless darkness for so long, while you had a nice, adventure and made lots of friends. I was jealous!-” The sound effect and the little poof, that happened when you switch hats played, and the brown hat, was replaced by Hat Kid's iconic top hat.

“All I had to do was steal the thing that linked you to this world, that made you the main character. Now that I have it, you'll fade away and end up in obscurity just like I was before. Now I can go on adventures and make friends. Don't worry, I won't forget you...but the others will.” With that he jumped away and left the girl on the floor.

This was it? This was how this gruesome game ended...with Hat Kid fading into nothingness? Again where was nothing I could do to help, I had to watch as she slowly faded completely. I opened the menu to find something, anything that could help. That was when the green badge the badge seller gave me caught my eye. I hurried to equip it and now it did something. Hat Kid seemingly faded back in a bit, she regained all 4 hit points and her movement was back to normal.

I ran through the parkour, determined to confront Timmy and get Hat Kid's hat back. Of course I felt a little bad for the poor boy, especially now that I know that he was scrapped in beta, maybe someone in the team put this story line in because they were upset that he was cut...what a sadistic asshole, making the player and Hat Kid go through that!

The rift ended on a huge round platform, that practically screamed 'Boss Battle', and I was right. As soon as I got there, Timmy opened a portal that showed the spaceship and the planet in the background. Timmy noticed Hat Kid approach and ran toward the portal, ready to jump in.

“You won't stop me!” He yelled, but the purple-clothed girl was having none of it, she send the hook shot and grabbed his jacket, pulling back. He growled and thus I had to battle the upset boy.

This battle was like fighting Hat Kid from the normal game, if she were an enemy. He could run very fast, due to the sprint hat, and he could slow down time with the time-stop hat. Thankfully the green badge gave me some health recovery every 30 seconds or so, which at least gave me a fighting chance, I still struggled to stay alive. I'm really bad at describing this battle, sorry, but everything just turned into a blur as I was so focused on the fight. I didn't want to lose and potentially kill Hat Kid, and have her drown in darkness forever.

I beat him after what felt like at least half an hour, and he skidded across the floor much like Mustache Girl does at the end of the battle in chapter 5. Hat Kid walked over and retrieved her top hat from the beaten Timmy, who started to fade, now that he had lost the hat.

Now I was back in control, two choices presented themselves, either leave Timmy here to fade into obscurity again, or take him through portal together with Hat Kid. As I said before, I felt sorry for him, he just wanted to exist, live and have fun, go on adventures and make friends. His actions were horrible and caused a lot of pain and trauma, but I felt bad, even though he was technically just a video game character that was scrapped.

I picked him up and just like the other characters I threw him through the portal, jumping in with Hat Kid right after. The screen faded to black and I ended up back at the title screen. I switched the game off right after, but not before selecting new game to see if it had returned to normal, which I think it has now...the only difference was the option the game gave me after I selected a file...

Start a new game as

Hat Kid Timmy

#ahit fanfic #ahit hat kid #ahit mafia goons #ahit mafia boss #ahit mustache girl #ahit cooking cat #ahit conductor #ahit dj grooves #ahit express owls #ahit moon penguins #ahit snatcher #ahit queen vanessa #ahit timmy

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sariels-world-ella · 3 years

Text

Vs Riley mod Dialog, (special dialog and other information and art is in different tumblr posts)

(This Subject to change)

(song 1: Trying….)

Pico: What the heck did you guys do to this thing?

G.F: it’s a long story.. That you really don’t wanna know

B.F: BEEP!!

G.F: BF, I don’t know how to fix your mic, I think the switch is stuck.

Riley(this one line is actually spoken); Io, You there! Excuse me?

Pico: Who the hell are you? What are you? 8 years old?

Riley; I’m a non-binary 13 year old that doesn’t have any genitals.

Pico: how the hell do you pee?

Riley: uhh.. Through my urethra?

G.F: Please ignore Pico.

G.F: What's the matter, sweetie?

Riley; I wandered away from my parents, I think, or maybe it was a delusion or something, but either way.. I’m lost, I saw you guys and you seemed nice,

Riley:I shouldn’t be out in a parking garage,

Riley: in the dark,

Riley: alone…

Riley: So can I stick with you guys?

Pico: Oh, Hell N-

GF: of course!

Riley: oh, thank you!

GF: Do you want to sing a song with BF? His cordless mic is stuck on the voice changer mode but it still has battery left, and he left his regular one at home, but there is a chance your parents will hear you and come over.

Riley: I am not a good singer but a strange 12 year old girl that was like 7 feet tall, mixed between a humanoid skeleton and some sort of canine-goat like creature though she was mostly bones, she said her name was Sariel Gaster or something like that gave me a mic and said I am going to need this in the future and seemingly teleported away..

Riley: I think she was real, or maybe she was just a product of my imagination..?

BF: beep bop Bleep?

(Insert relevant comment about special text about: if you replayed the week, if your using a bot, screen recorder being used, using a skin mod that is not from the VS. Riley mod, if you make them sing a song that is not from the mod, if you changed Riley’s skin, or what difficulty you are on. if all of these are true then Riley will mention all of them)

Childish fears (Dialog changes if you skipped song 1)

Riley: That was fun, I don’t sing much… I only sang with my friend, we sang somewhere over the rainbow together, also about your thingamajig, I am good at fixing that type of stuff

Pico: oh good, now get over here and-

G.F: Tell us more about your friend!

Pico: you can’t be serious..

Bf: Pico, stop.

Riley: my friend? She was my best friend in the whole world!

Riley: Every time I was sad or scared, she was always be there for me,

Riley: a-and we loved to have tea parties, read books together and do each other’s hair!

Riley: she wasn’t a fan of pony tails but she let me do it anyway.

Riley: But one day…

Riley: Rax…

Riley: that’s the nickname I gave my friend, by the way,

Riley: disappeared…

Pico: what? Was she kidnapped?

Riley: no, worse!

Riley: it was like she never existed, no one remembers her, not even her parents…

Riley: Everyone told me she was a figment of my imagination…. But I won’t forget about her… and I will find her eventually even if it takes my whole life to do it…

G.F: aww… That’s so sad

Pico: *Scoff* made up

B.F: *Hits Pico with the microphone*

Pico: ow..

Gf: What about you guys sing another song together?

B.F: Beepity, bop, boo!

Riley: Beepity boo, to you too!

Riley: I think..?

Schizophrenia (Dialog changes if you replayed Riley or skipped the previous songs)

(Cutscene plays of Riley starting to cry and freak out and the “Riley” track plays a sped up corrupted version of itself)

Pico: uhh.. Is the kid alright?

Riley: THEY’RE NOT COMING!!

Riley: THEY’RE NOT HERE!

Riley: MOMMY!! DADDY!!! I WANT YOU TO COME GET ME!!!

Riley: I WANT MY MOMMY!

Riley: I WANT MY DADDY!

Riley: I WANT MY FRIEND BACK!

Riley: I JUST WANNA GO HOME!!!

Pico: oh damn..

GF: Quick BF! Do something!!

BF: I-I-I don’t know what to do!

End of track

Riley: …

???: Riley?

Riley: That's my Mommy! I hear my Mommy!

~Riley has ran away.

Pico: HEY! WHAT ABOUT THE SPEAKERS?!

Riley: I’ll help fix them later! My Mommy can tell you where I live!

G.F: goodbye, Sweetie!

Riley: oh! Wait, before I leave!

Riley: That girl, Sariel, the one I was talking about,

Riley: She told me to tell the “player”

Riley: Which, I guess, she means you guys,

Riley: To check out Sariel’s World Ella on Tumblr and Youtube and “all that shiz”

Riley: I have no idea what “all that shiz” means, I guess it’s a mixture between “all that stuff” and “all that jazz”

Riley: anyway.. Goodbye for real this time!

(the week then ends)

#fnf mod #friday night funkin' mod #VS Riley #fnf vs Riley

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coolfox826 · 3 years

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Gta San Andreas Cement Truck Mod

Realistic Cement Truck for GTA San Andreas. Download modification Realistic Cement Truck for GTA San Andreas with automatic installation using the links below.

All cars Mercedes-Benz Truck for GTA San Andreas with auto installation you can download free from gtaall.com. On our site you can sort Mercedes-Benz Truck for gta sa on body type, and replacement models using convenient filter. GTAinside is the ultimate Mod Database for GTA 5, GTA 4, San Andreas, Vice City & GTA 3. We're currently providing more than 80,000 modifications for the Grand Theft Auto series. We wish much fun on this site and we hope that you enjoy the world of GTA Modding. Today, AMG is known worldwide for the tarmac-shattering SLS and the brilliant new GT, as well as being Mercedes’ own performance tuning division. But how three little boldfaced letters became synonymous with high-performance German metal is significantly more grassroots. AMG, or Aufrecht Melcher Grossaspach, began with Hans Werner Aulfrecht and Erhard Melcher.

Files for GTA San Andreas

Mods

356

File uploaded by:werffgdls;

Hello! This is a pack of weapons from the cutscene. It includes: 1) Desert Eagle 2) Dagger 3) Bit (which Big Smoke wanted to give on the head to Sidzhe in the first mission) 4) Colt45 (texture) Everyone enjoy the game! P.S Author bits, desert eagle and dagger - TheCrazyGamer. I just pulled out the Colt45 texture from the cutscene, so I do not have my work here.

Mods → New weapons

TheCrazyGamer, Rockstar Games

')' onmouseout='hide_info(this)'>TheCrazyGamer, Rockstar Games

Unknown

Gta San Andreas Map Mod

28.89 Kb

bat.dff, bat.txd, ...

356

Spider Man by J16D (Spider Man)

The developer under the nickname J16D showed one of his most ambitious works - he transferred Spider-Man with all the mechanics of flight and movement on the web to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In a fresh video, J16D showed the progress that ...

Iron Man Mark XLII

Iron Man, armor Mark 42 from the third film. Conversion with texture improvement. Manage the costume, as Tony Stark did. The rest are on the waiting list.

Francisca Ax by VIRUStek.

The ax to replace the katana. Was relevant in the XVI - XVIII. Art. Benefit Its icon in the style of SA Position in hand is good. Nice look in the game. ...

(!) If you are having trouble installing the file, seefile installation instructions for GTA San Andreas or ask at the forum. (!) If you think that this file has already been added to the archive, please let administrator know about this with links to this file and the file that you previously added.

San Andreas is arguably the best Grand Theft Auto game ever made.

But with the game being so many years old, it’s only natural for players to turn their attention to modding – especially with all the features that we got in GTA IV and GTA V.

So here I’ve listed out some of the best mods that you can install to make GTA San Andreas feel like a completely different game.

Reinvigorate your SA experience – I’m sure you’ll love the new gameplay for hours on end!

Also if this is the first time that you’re installing mods, let me remind you that it’s better to make a backup save of your game files first before installing anything.

Be sure to make backup saves every time you install new mods as well, as some of them might not be entirely compatible with one another and it could corrupt your files.

And also you’ll need to install CLEO if you want most of the mods on this list to work. I’ve put it at the number one spot on my list so check it out!

30. Tuning Mod

The Tuning Mod is a fantastic modification for all vehicle enthusiasts out there.

It allows you to tune your cars like no other mod in the community, rivaling and even surpassing the tuning system of GTA V.

Modify the way tuning works in the game and give yourself a new car once you’ve installed this mod.

29. Skin Selector

I’m putting this mod here instead of any skin mod because you’ll need it to change the way CJ looks.

It basically lets you open up a menu that will allow you to browse through all of the skin mods that you’ve installed, so you can change the way CJ looks in-game.

28. HD Weapons

This amazing mod pack changes the way every single weapon in San Andreas looks.

It replaces all of the basic models that come with the vanilla game and turns them into the same weapons, but with an HD look to them all.

The UZI model looks particularly good, although all additions to the game are very well made.

It does seem like making this mod took a lot of time, but the effort of the creator was worth it.

The results speak on their own, and I’m sure you’ll love these new guns as much as I did. It makes everything feel new in an otherwise old game.

27. Teleport Mod

I find it hilarious how this mod uses the Portal logo as its own, given that it literally works nothing like Portal.

It’s still a really useful mod, though, as it basically adds quick travelling to the game.

Open up your map, place a marker, and once you unpause the game CJ will directly teleport to the spot that you marked.

CJ initially screams as if he was falling, but don’t worry – it’s just the map loading. You won’t take any fall damage!

26. New Effects V1

Are you tired of looking at the same and really old effects of San Andreas? I was too!

This mod changes the way water, light, fire, and interactions with other natural objects work in the game, to make everything look better and modernize San Andreas a tad more.

You will notice how many of the mods on my list are related to the graphics of the game, and that’s to be expected.

San Andreas is super old and many people don’t play it mainly because of its outdated graphics.

Some modders have come to create some fantastic graphical changes to the game, and I want to share them with you. I know you’ll love them as much as I did.

25. Collection of Graphic Mods

As its name suggests, the Collection of Graphic mods makes enhancements to the way the game looks by changing up a bunch of textures, shadowing, and lighting to make it look better and a bit more modern.

It’s a cool little overhaul that will improve the way your San Andreas game looks without breaking the natural aesthetics that made it such a popular title back in the early 2000s.

24. Wheels Pack

San Andreas is a pretty old game, so you probably already tried all of the wheels that the game has in the tuning stores for you.

I was tired of looking at the same tires too, so this mod came to be pretty handy for me.

It basically adds a bunch of additional tires that you can put in your cars once you visit any of the tuning shops across the dangerous city of SA.

23. Ghost Rider Mod

Are you tired of associating an amazing character like Ghost Rider with Nicolas Cage?

Trust me, me too.

Something had to be done about it, and this is the mod to completely wash your Caged Ghost Rider image by turning CJ into the popular Marvel anti-hero.

Ride the streets of San Andreas and wreak havoc among them with the outfit and powers of the mighty Ghost Rider.

You will be able to see the flames on the skull as well as in the tires of your mighty ride. It looks awesome apart from being a cool gameplay change, so give it a shot and prepare to enjoy some of the most hilarious cutscenes in GTA.

22. The Best Sound Pack for GTA San Andreas

This mod is a complete overhaul to the sounds of San Andreas.

It adds so many sounds that you won’t even believe that it’s the same game if you cover your eyes while playing it (no idea why would you do that, but hey, to each their own).

This mod changes the sounds of explosions, cop cars, car breaks, opening doors, and much more.

If you’re tired of listening to the same sounds for years, this mod will provide you with a fantastic relief that will guarantee you to stay hooked to San Andreas for a little bit more.

21. Holes from Bullets

I have always hated how bullets seem to bounce off cars after damaging them in the old GTA games.

Yes, I even hated that back in the days when this game was the hottest title in the market – I don’t know why, but hey, there’s a reason why this seemingly pointless addition has made its way to a spot on my list.

It simply adds bullet holes to your shots, so whenever you hit a car, for example, you’ll see the spot where the bullet landed. It’s pretty cool!

20. V Graphics

V Graphics, as its name suggests, was made with the intention of giving you the graphical feel of GTA V in the world of San Andreas.

It’s a pretty complex graphical overhaul of the game, and you’ll need a decent computer to run it, but it’s super worth it if you can do it.

Combine this baby with a texture mod and you won’t notice a difference in visuals between San Andreas and GTA V.

Maybe even download a mod to turn CJ into Franklin or Michael and change the way the San Andreas story unfolds by looking at it from a different perspective.

19. GTA United

GTA United replaces the entire city of San Andreas with none other than Liberty City and Vice City, in a complete overhaul of the game map.

It adds new side missions to the game as well as Easter Eggs that could be found in the two predecessors of the famous San Andreas game.

This isn’t a canon mod by any means, but it will help you reminisce with two of the most emblematic maps that have graced our old TV screens and computers.

As far as San Andreas map mods go this one takes the cake.

18. Gravity Gun

Man, this is one of the most overpowered gun mods that I’ve seen made for the Grand Theft Auto series in general.

You can use the gravity gun to bring people towards you and throw them back to where you’re aiming at unfathomably rapid speed.

If you love canon mods, then you’re going to despise this one. Looking for some fun, though?

Go through the story of San Andreas using this baby. You won’t regret it – trust me.

17. Insanity Vegetation

This beautiful mod enhances every plant texture in the game to make vegetation look as great as in some modern games.

But I do warn you – be sure to download other graphical enhancement mods if you’re going to install Insanity Vegetation.

If you don’t it’s just going to look super weird watching a bunch of HD plants in an otherwise SD environment.

16. Weapon Menu Mod

The Weapon Menu Mod simply brings up a menu where you can choose whichever weapon you want in the game and instantly spawn it for CJ.

Gta San Andreas Mods Menu

It’s not cheating if you’re using a mod, am I right?

Regardless of how you want to use this mod, it’s a very practical tool that will help you get your hands in the game’s finest as well as least desired guns. Use it wisely!

15. Ultimate Graphics Mod

If your computer isn’t capable of handling high-quality graphics, this is the best mod that you can download when tired of the traditional San Andreas look.

It enhances the way texture load in the game, and even though it does improve everything substantially, it’s still suited to be used in low-end computers.

I believe this is possible mainly because shadows tend to be the one thing that computers struggle to handle (like Minecraft shaders, for example).

This mod adds a ton of graphical enhancements, but keeps shadows to a very low level of quality. It makes everything look great, but it doesn’t compromise the memory usage of your PC. Just what I need.

14. Textures for GTA SA

This sweet mod enhances the way the graphics of roads and streets look in the game.

Cement Truck Video

It basically adds new textures to every single street in San Andreas to make the whole gaming look smoother, something that couldn’t be added back in the days of the release of the game because computers and consoles couldn’t handle higher resolutions in the game files.

Times have changed, though. And this is just one of the many mods that completely enhances the game graphically.

Combine it with others to make San Andreas some justice and modernize the way the game feels, at least in a visual sense!

13. Iron Man Mod

So, apparently, it wasn’t Tony Stark who created the Iron Man suit, and it somehow made its way to the streets of San Andreas.

How dangerous could be a gangster dressed up in the most powerful body armor ever created by mankind?

It’s up to you to write the fate of the people of San Andreas as well as the fate of your own foes, as you’ll be able to harness your favorite Iron Man powers and use them in San Andreas thanks to this ridiculously well-made mod!

12. Dragon Ball Mod

Why play with CJ in a world where you can simply download this mod and become Goku, or even Vegeta, the Prince of all Saiyans?

Press a couple of buttons after installing this fantastic mod and use your favorite Dragon Ball characters to wreak havoc through in San Andreas and bring misfortune to the citizens of this seemingly-cursed city.

Fly around, use ki blast to attack, and take advantage of the super-strength of these Dragon Ball characters to give your GTA San Andreas save a twist like no other mod can give you (except maybe the Iron Man or Superman mods, but you get my point).

Gta San Andreas Car Mod Pc

11. Skateboard Mod

Oh man, this one is really well done.

The Skateboard mod will allow you to pick up a skateboard and roll around the streets of San Andreas like Tony Hawk would do in an alternate reality where he’s actually a drug dealer.

You would think that making such a complex mod work well wouldn’t be too easy, but the movement of CJ with this mod is so smooth that it makes you think that it’s a vanilla feature.

10. Car Spawner

Ugh, don’t you guys hate it when you want to spawn a car but you need to input some annoying code to activate it?

I hate it too, and that’s why this mod has come in as handy as they get.

It basically adds a whole new menu to the game, which allows you to instantly select a car and spawn it by just hitting one button. Pretty simple, right?

It’s great if you’re looking to spawn yourself some sweet rides and just enjoy the game for a bit!

9. Street Love

Alright, let’s get this one out of the way, as it definitely needs to have a spot on this list.

Let’s cut the explanation straight to the point as well: Street Love is a lovey-dovey making mod for GTA San Andreas.

Yes, you’ll be able to use CJ (or with your friendly neighbor Spiderman, if you have the mod installed) and screw around with digital chicks.

8. Superman Mod

CJ does know how to take bullets like Superman in the original game, as he could’ve gotten shot 10 times and just barely flinch.

However the Superman mod allows you to take things to the next level and actually become Superman in your game!

Fly around, use your super strength, and murder civilians as it would happen in a dark DC alternate universe.

7. Car Pack for San Andreas

San Andreas has been around for far too long, and I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing the same cars over and over again.

There are some car mods that you can download, which will install them directly into the game. But you may also use this pack to get a bunch of them added instantly to your San Andreas safe.

Gone are the days of seeing the same cars pass time and time again – it’s time to spice up your game with a plethora of new rides!

6. Parkour Mod

The fantastic Parkour Mod allows CJ to perform true acrobatic moves without getting interrupted in the air.

Combine the essence of Assassin’s Creed with San Andreas and experience being a true gangster while also knowing a thing or two about street athleticism like it wasn’t originally possible in the game.

Gta San Andreas Cement Truck Mod 1.12.2

It really does spice up the game, and it’s actually hilarious seeing CJ perform many of these unexpected moves!

5. Portal Gun for GTA San Andreas

The Teleport mod that we mentioned above is cool and all, but why not bring the essence of GLaDOS to GTA San Andreas if you have the chance?

Sure, this mod will not take you from one corner of San Andreas to the other, but it will enable you to create portals, much as you do in the Portal games!

This mod is fantastic to be installed if you loved the famous puzzle-solvers, and it does enrich your San Andreas experience like no other mod on this list.

4. Memory Update for San Andreas

San Andreas was made to be run in old computers as well as the PS2 and the Xbox, which meant that the game was very limited in terms of how much memory it was allowed to use.

This mod updates the core GTA San Andreas mechanics and makes the game work with all of the power that modern computer has. Which enables your game to load much more of the map, increasing your viewing distance by almost as much as GTA V allows you to have.

Gta San Andreas Cement Truck Model

Definitely worth trying in my opinion.

3. GTA V Hud for San Andreas

Weapon swapping in the early GTA games was a nightmare. There’s just no other way around it.

Gone are the days where you scroll past the weapon that you actually wanted to select, though!

This mod brings you the ultimate experience of the famous wheel weapon selector that was introduced in the PS3 and Xbox 360, and I’m therefore bringing it to you now.

2. San Andreas First Person Mod

Rockstar enabled first-person gameplay when GTA V got its current-gen console release, but San Andreas never really had it and people were still playing the game, which is not really fair to them.

Some of these mods might even look better if you were to play in first person, don’t you think?

I do too, and that’s why this mod takes such a high spot on my list.

It basically enables you to play San Andreas like never before, so you can see how CJ truly feels across the story.

You’ll also be able to play around as Iron Man or Spiderman in first person, were you to install the respective mods that enable you to do so, but bear in mind that this mod was made to work with vanilla SA.

1. CLEO 4

The CLEO 4 Mod takes the first spot on my list because it basically enables most of the mods that I’ve mentioned before, all at once.

It unlocks many features that the game didn’t initially come with and allows modders to alter certain features of the game that weren’t meant to be altered in the initial release.

The original version of this mod allowed most modders to work with new tools, and completely overhaul San Andreas with new ideas of their own.

The revolutionary nature of this fantastic add-on rightfully earns it the first place on the list. And you will probably need it if you want many of the others to work so it’s almost like the framework of all San Andreas modding.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Cyberpunk 2077 Review

https://ift.tt/3mI17m9

A preface: Cyberpunk 2077 has had one hell of a rocky release, and it’s almost impossible to play the game while also ignoring the controversy surrounding its disastrous console launch, among other points of contention. That being said, in my time with the game—which I reviewed on PC—I remained focused on assessing the game that was in front of me, period.

Cyberpunk 2077 is without a doubt a mixed bag, though its strengths ultimately outweigh its weaknesses. The game blew my hair back with its immersiveness, art and sound design, staggering scope, and production value (at least on PC). But its shortcomings are just as notable, although never catastrophic or deal-breaking. Gameplay has blemishes all over, the writing is tonally inconsistent, and bugs do mar the experience to a certain extent. This is far from a perfect game in its current state. But in spite of all this, part of me fell in love with the game for its ambition, boldness, and eye-popping presentation.

The story is set in the year 2077 in Night City, a Central California metropolis run by megacorporations, populated by millions of cybernetically-enhanced denizens, and poisoned to the core by deep-seeded corruption and crime. You play as V, a small-time crook who by seedy happenstance befriends another gun-waving lughead named Jackie. Together they take on a big-time heist that goes tragically wrong and results, impossibly, with the personality construct of a decades-deceased rockstar/terrorist named Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves) implanted in V’s brain, chopping his remaining life expectancy down to a sliver. V and Johnny must work together to split their respective consciousnesses and take down the Arasaka corporation, whose borderline-demonic tech brought forth their doomed coexistence.

From this point on, you’re free to explore the city and get into all kinds of trouble. There are a multitude of slimy sleazeballs to meet, complete jobs for, and get into shootouts with, as well as all of the other side tasks you’d expect from an urban open world. You can buy/steal cars and motorbikes and use them to compete in street races, stumble upon police shootouts and join in on the action, or steal copious amounts of money and paraphernalia from warring street gangs. There’s A LOT to see and do in this game—the question is, is any of it fun?

The answer is complicated. In short, my answer is “mostly.” I find Cyberpunk 2077’s gameplay to be problematic at worst and, at best, reasonably fun. If the game didn’t look and sound so good, I don’t think I would have enjoyed the gameplay almost at all. I have yet to tire of playing Cyberpunk 2077, but I think that’s a testament to how much I love the audio-visual presentation and the characters, not the gameplay itself.

Before diving into the gnarled, twisted matter of gameplay, let’s get this out of the way: this game world is one of the greatest I’ve ever seen. Several studios have delivered amazing looking game worlds this year, but Night City is a serious design achievement that the folks at CDPR should be very, very proud of.

Looking up at the looming, almost monumental buildings that shape Night City’s skyline is breathtaking, but it’s what you see when your eyes come back down to street level that impressed me most. Trash bags piled up two stories high, plugging up alleyways with graffiti of cybernetic freaks scrawled across deteriorating walls. The environments are insanely detailed, but they tell a story, too: look up and you see big money, squeaky clean windows, and technological ambition; look down and you see a sea of sufferers, psychologically and physically wounded citizens bled dry in the name of corporate conquest. From a purely cosmetic perspective, the game looks phenomenal, but it’s the artistic intention behind the designs that really makes the visuals sing.

As far as technical prowess is concerned, the game is spectacular provided you have the right machine to run it. Texture quality is insanely high, the environments are absurdly detailed, and the game’s lighting, especially with ray tracing enabled, is incredibly realistic. The atmosphere in this game is as thick as I’ve ever seen, and combined with the game’s pulsating, evocative, synth-based score, it creates a mood that few other titles can rival. Simply taking a walk around Night City and soaking in the sights was my favorite thing to do.

The character models are another high point–from the detail of the models themselves, to the way they move, to the top-notch facial animation, every weirdo you meet in Night City is unique and expressive. An interesting thing I noticed was that during some cutscenes that I found to be banal from a narrative point of view were still captivating to a certain extent simply because the character animation and voice acting were so well done. Some of the writing is a little odd, particularly when characters who are meant to be thugs and grifters speak in an unusually formal tone, but overall, the voice actors and animators do enough to make the dialogue-driven moments engaging.

What I fear won’t be discussed enough about this game is its sound design, which is just as excellent as the graphics. Cyberpunk 2077 embeds you in its world better than any game I’ve played this year, and that sense of immersion can be largely attributed to the finely-tuned symphony of sounds that is constantly being streamed into your ears. From the squeaking of leather couches when you sit in them, to the muffled thuds you hear when you drive over speed bumps, to the way crowds sound in enclosed spaces versus outdoor spaces, the level of detail and care that went into immersing the player is incredible. The three-dimensional sound design actually makes the visuals appear more vivid and tactile than they actually are.

As for the gameplay, I found Cyberpunk 2077’s combat in particular to be clunky and a tad slow. It isn’t broken or imbalanced, but it isn’t snappy enough and there isn’t that x-factor that you find in most great shooters that keeps you obsessively coming back for more. To put it another way, The Witcher 3’s combat was so compelling and entertaining that I happily played that game for over 400 hours largely because of the combat. Cyberpunk 2077’s combat is absolutely not what pulled me through the game for the 60+ hours I played it, and there are many reasons why.

Release Date: Dec. 10, 2020 Platforms: PC (reviewed), PS5, XSX/S, PS4, XBO, Stadia Developer CD Projekt Red Publisher: CD Projekt Genre: Action RPG

Combat is of the typical first-person shooter variety, with both shooting and melee combat supported. There are a slew of weapons to acquire and upgrade via the game’s crafting system, and the weapons all look and sound pretty sweet but are somewhat forgettable, which is a shame for a game boasting such a breadth of artillery. The “iconic” weapons, which you earn at different points throughout the campaign, stand out the most and come with useful perks. But none feel exciting to wield are pack the punch of Doom’s BFG or Half Life’s gravity gun. I did however enjoy the smart targeting feature you can access through a combination of smart weapons and a handy body mod, which allows your bullets to find their target no matter what direction you aim and can save your ass if you’re cornered and hurting behind cover.

Then there are the other two pillars of combat: hacking and stealth. Hacking allows you to wreak havoc on enemy tech to sabotage or distract them long enough to give you an opening to pounce guns-a-blazing. You can frazzle a baddie’s optics while you sneak up behind them, take control of all security cameras on a given network, or turn on a flood light to manipulate enemy movements. The possibilities are innumerable, and it all sounds great on paper.

But in practice the hacking system just isn’t all that fun to use. I was amused for a time, as I got increasingly more creative with how I used my scanner to tag enemies and objects and sabotage them from afar. But after a while this system became tedious because it slows down the action to an absolute crawl, and the tactical aspects of combat just aren’t polished or engaging enough to make up for the pause. In the later hours of my playthrough, I found myself almost always resorting to in-your-face combat because, well, it solved problems more quickly.

Stealth feels even shoddier than hacking, unfortunately. In most missions, there’s a big emphasis on taking your targets out quietly, but for me sneaking around almost always led to bouts of frustrated groans and eye-rolls. For one, enemies’ lines of sight are really difficult to gauge—some will spot you from seemingly a football field away, while others won’t notice you cross a walkway mere feet in front of them. On top of this, the window of opportunity you have to grapple enemies from behind is finicky—I’d be standing right behind a guy ready to grab him when suddenly the “grab” prompt would disappear inexplicably, when neither of us had moved an inch. I’d move in closer to try again and he’d turn around and…you know the rest.

I believe that if the stealth and hacking were more polished and refined, or even de-emphasized to a certain degree, it would free up the shooting to feel a lot more kinetic and exciting. As is, the combat grows old over time, which is a real shame when you think of The Witcher 3’s combat system, which is incredible and only gets sweeter as you play.

Games

Cyberpunk 2077: Every Romance Option in the Game

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Cyberpunk 2077: The Best Cyberware Upgrades

By Matthew Byrd

There is a whole litany of gripes I have with Cyberpunk 2077’s gameplay. The driving—be it on four wheels or two—feels slippery and unwieldy. The menus are an eyesore. Melee combat is atrocious. The “braindances”–investigative crime-reconstruction mini-games–are headache-inducing…I could go on. But there were other aspects of gameplay that I did enjoy, like the streamlined stash mechanic, the flexible crafting system, the number and variety of missions available at any given time, and most of all, the well thought out RPG elements.

The character progression system didn’t immediately strike me as anything special, but the more I played the game and explored the five skill trees (Reflexes, Technical Ability, Body, Cool, Intelligence), I found that the omission of a traditional class system actually makes character progression more fluid and encourages experimentation as opposed to nudging (or shoving) you down a particular path of mastery. Although I didn’t always enjoy enemy encounters, I did feel like the different perks I acquired helped me succeed in combat in ways that were easily measurable. For example, the “Vanishing Point” perk, which increases your evasion stat for seven seconds after you dodge if you’re dual wielding a pistol and revolver, totally changed the way I approached enemies. I quit stealthing for quite a while because darting around with my pistols blaring turned out to be super effective for me.

Generally, I did enjoy Cyberpunk 2077’s story and the fact that it’s more character-based than plot-based. The relationships between the characters take precedence over the machinations of the narrative, and I appreciate that. As in most RPGs, you meet characters and complete various tasks and quests for them, but with Cyberpunk 2077, I felt that the characterizations were so strong that I was actually more compelled to find out how the relationships between V and his supporting characters progressed than I was to collect precious loot at the end of missions.

I found all of the game’s characters to be memorable, which comes as no surprise considering the character work CDPR has done in the past. Rogue nomad Panam can be both compassionate and vicious; the dutiful Goro Takemura is almost comically stoic and serious; Jackie’s tight relationship with his family and friends permeates the game in a poetic way. And Reeves does a fine job as Johnny Silverhand, though his style of voice acting took a bit of getting used to for me, particularly when compared to the rest of the cast.

The nice thing about V’s relationships is that the more you explore the city and the more characters you meet, the more possibilities open up to you in the campaign’s final act. There are a multitude of endings that you can reach, but these outcomes are largely dictated by the people you’ve met and how close you are to them.

What irks me about the game’s last act is how it plays out leading up to the ending. After playing for hours and hours in the beautiful game world that is Night City, I was expecting to be treated to even more imaginative environments and enemy encounters at the game’s conclusion. Without spoiling anything, the final enemy encounters and environments are almost laughably unimaginative and generic, and that was a big letdown.

I indeed experienced bugs during my time with Cyberpunk 2077, but far less than I’ve seen for other platforms online. A couple of crashes and a slew of visual glitches definitely cropped up for me, but they didn’t color my experience nearly as much as the game’s positive traits did, particularly in the visual department. The bugs that bothered me most were the ones that affected the narrative, like when dialogue options would be missing or when characters’ voices would drop out inexplicably. But overall I had a relatively smooth experience that was no more buggy than your typical open world game.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

My relationship to Cyberpunk 2077 is a fraught one. I have so many issues with this game that I couldn’t possibly fit them all into this review. And I have just as many positive things to say. The grandeur of the project is both what I love and hate about it. I do wish CDPR had tightened its focus and worked out some of the game’s more glaring issues before rushing Cyberpunk 2077 out for a holiday release. But at the same time, I deeply respect the scope of the studio’s vision. This is a game with a strong sense of identity, and that’s something that you can’t say about a lot of AAA open-world games these days.

Cyberpunk 2077 is problematic, but ultimately I’m a fan of it in spite of its flaws. And I think in time its flaws will be ironed out and my fandom will only grow.

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