I randomly picked up this game called Beyond Galaxyland on PSN. I hadn’t heard of it, but it looked interesting, and for 17 bucks or whatever, I figured I’d give it a shot, and so far I’m loving it.

The graphic art style is reminiscent of the later-era Lucasarts point-and-click games, like The Dig. The main world traversing and map is sort of like a Metroidvania. The combat is pretty much standard turn-based JRPG fare, which ticks a box for me. So far it’s ticking all the boxes. The atmosphere feels like a mashup of 80s sci fi / fantasy tropes, and it’s great. There’s Flight of the Navigator in here somewhere, along with some Star Wars, maybe some Krull…

Really hoping it doesn’t drop off in some major way for me, because this feels like a game specifically engineered to make me happy. I’m surprised the critic reviews are so average… Hopefully it’ll be like that time I randomly picked up this game called 198X, and I loved everything about it… then when I checked the Metacritic average it had 65%. That was one of the few times I really got that “simple games can be art” feeling, and I think the critics were evaluating it more as a game.

I’ve digressed. So far, Beyond Galaxyland is awesome.