fun little time waster, but not that deep of a game even for atari standards. It's basically a physics simulator where you have to calculate the right speed and angle to set your cannon so mr cannonball can land in his safety bucket instead of splattering against the floor. There's a mode where the speed is randomly set and you have to set the angle to compensate, a mode that's the same thing except the cannon is farther away, a mode where you can set the speed AND angle but the position of the cannon is randomized (yet you can move the safety bucket for some reason so it's really more like catch), and a mode where the speed and angle are randomly set but you can move the position of the cannon (and again the bucket). There's also variations of each of those four gamemodes to include a giant forcefield with a rotating gap around the bucket so you have to time your shot properly as well as aiming it, but I felt that it really didn't add much besides making the game more burdensome since this is way more of a thinking mans game than anything so proper timing feels unnecessary. Regardless, in any gamemode you have 13 shots and if you get seven buckets you win whereas seven cannonball corpses is a loss. Nothing really more to it. I can imagine this game was probably a fun programming experiment and there's gotta at least be ONE math nerd out there that really got into doing cracked human cannonball trickshots in order to impress the ladies, but for me this game is just okay.

Quite a bit better than Virtua Fighter 2 on the Sega Genesis, twice as good as Deadly Alliance on Gameboy Advance, and 50 times better than Mortal Kombat Advance. You can sidestep, Korean backdash, juggle… it’s basically a shockingly functional (albeit stripped-down) Tekken 3 de-make on the GBA.

Obviously there are technical limitations in play (sprites, smaller roster, smaller moves list, less buttons, no Tekken Force or Ball) but when you look at the overall library of fighting games on GBA, having one that works this well is quite the treat.

Ótimo jogo com muitas coisas problemáticas, que claramente são consequências de um remake feito de forma preguiçosa. A história é realmente boa, talvez eu esteja sendo burro de dizer isso, mas é uma das poucas histórias da época do PS2 que são boas e não são de um RPG, mas infelizmente ela claramente não envelheceu bem, gosto bastante do começo e do meio, é uma história simples com um mistério interessante e um pacing bom, o problema tá mais na reta final, que o jogo mete uma conspiração mal feita e uma série de diálogos expositivos pq já tá no final e a RGG não tinham mais tempo pra desenvolver a história, mas mesmo com os problemas é uma história boa e divertida, com uns momentos bonitos (e um pouco toscos).

O combate é provavelmente a única coisa que é melhor nesse jogo do que no zero, os inimigos são mais espertos, eu constantemente mudava os estilos nesse jogo, eu até morri em alguns momentos por falta de cuidado. Meu maior problema em relação a gameplay, é que os bosses são paias demais, basicamente só o boss final que é realmente bom, pq todo resto é fds ou ruim, é incrível como erram tão feio nisso, e pelo que eu sei um dos bosses ruins é pior ainda nesse remake.

Mas o que realmente me deixou desanimado é o conteúdo secundário desse jogo, o Majima everywhere é realmente bem legal e criativo, mas puta merda parece que só focaram nele e esqueceram totalmente o resto, as sides na maioria dos casos é alguém tentando dar um golpe no Kiryu, enquanto isso os mini games são basicamente todos os do 0. Isso realmente deu uma pegada pra mim, eu esperava pelo menos uns mini games únicos, mesmo que seja só 2 ou 3.

Pode parecer que eu não gostei do jogo, mas ele é ótimo, história boa, combate bem gostoso e divertido, Majima everywhere sendo uma mecânica incrível e que gera uns momentos bem legais. Não é o melhor Yakuza, mas no final do dia é um jogo acima da média que vale muito a pena ser jogado

Daymare 1998 started off as a Resident Evil 2 fan remake before becoming its own thing. So it is heavily inspired by older Resident Evil games and survival horror, but plays like something a bit more modern, and is crammed full of 80s and 90s references. It is very ambitious but also unfortunately very rough and doesn’t come close to what it is trying to copy. I kind of like it though, maybe even love it a bit.

Jank, awkward and occasionally frustrating, Daymare 1998 is in severe need of more time and polish. The environments and objects look good but they are let down by everything else. The zombies stumble towards you, limbs passing through things they shouldn’t, with weird rubber necks causing funny and unpredictable reactions to head shots. That’s if these zombies figure out which direction to move in, as they regularly spin on the spot and struggle to navigate doorways. And that’s if they’re not quietly hiding right behind a corner ready to try and jump scare you for the 20th god damn time when it didn’t work the first time. The best scare in the game came when I killed a zombie in a doorway and then as I walked through the doorway the zombie somehow got caught on the door and dragged upwards to become face to face with the character. The tougher zombies, who I think are known as Correct Form, just look goofy in movement and appearance. The Melted Man is generic and the bosses aren’t much better. There’s not much enemy variety here and none of them are intimidating or scary. The whole game isn’t scary or atmospheric either. The humans in this game aren’t a whole lot better. They just look low budget. Things get worse when you hear the dialogue and voice acting too. Anything emotional or dramatic falls flat not that these characters and their choices could be taken seriously anyway. Sadly the game never achieves a charming style of bad. A lot of it is just subpar and bland.

The gameplay has problems too. Exploration is often very straight forward. It rarely has that satisfying survival horror experience of slowly working your way deeper into a location by finding keys, solving puzzles and backtracking. Daymare 1998 is more linear but with roadblocks, there is nothing here that comes anywhere near close to the mansion from RE1 or the police station from RE2. The hospital is probably the area that comes closest to this except it still feels rather simple. Things are made worse by how long and tedious the game can feel at times; some of those chapters just drag on. It has a limited inventory, inventory management and its own brand of save rooms and items boxes but they don’t feel well implemented. Save checkpoints plus a small number of save rooms? Just pick one and do it right. There’s limited item space but not limited enough that I cared. It has a very basic hacking game that requires an item that will break if failed. It is pointless when you have checkpoints to abuse not that you’ll fail the hacking often anyway. There are pointless items and crafting and trading that don’t really add anything or get used well.

Shooting enemies doesn’t always go well because of the enemy issues I already described and other weird little things like a shot will go off but then there is a strange delay before the enemy gets hit. The enemies grab attack is a very long lunge that is a god damn homing missile that pretty much always requires sprinting to avoid. Don’t even get me started on the three stage tedious final boss that can be completely broken and silly in stage one and three if you take advantage of the pathetic enemy AI. The game never feels natural to control and this is coming from someone that loves tank controls and thinks they are excellent. There’s more to go through (bugs, technical issues, animations, gameplay issues) but I’ll stop here. You get the point – Daymare 1998 is not a completely awful, broken mess of a game, it’s just not very good in many ways.

However, I never once considered dropping it. Not only that I actually played through it twice. It’s rough, low budget, not great and was Invader Studios first game. On the other hand it is a likable game that is so ambitious, overflowing with passion and has good ideas. Imagine making your first survival horror game and not just focusing on a single location and character. Imagine going, nah we’ll have a few playable characters, multiple locations and shoot for something as good as our favourite game series. This is where all the problems come from. A tiny team shot for the moon on their first try and I can’t help but love and appreciate that even though Daymare 1998 ended up like this.

I really liked a bunch of the puzzles. I loved a lot of the ideas in the story and loved the effort put into the lore and documents. I liked the reveals at the end and the way things came together. I liked the environments and the zombies (when nothing is going wrong with them). I enjoyed the references throughout and that it is set in the 90s. One of the characters has a condition that causes hallucinations, which means getting attacked by false enemies. I loved that it’s viable and encouraged to try to dodge enemies and run past to save ammo. There is even a little melee attack that lets you clumsily bonk zombies, pushing them back and stunning them so you’ve got time to shoot or get away. I like that one type of the collectables and the secret rooms are found by sound. I like that they offer multiple difficulties and two modes. There is a classic mode and a modern mode that is a bit simpler and doesn’t use the games ammo management. Ammo and reloading is interesting as it requires you to combine bullets with the magazine, then when reloading there’s a slow reload and a fast one. The fast reload will drop the magazine on the ground and you need to pick it back up. It’s a cool idea that can add tension and could add to inventory choices and it feels like it belongs in survival horror.

These good ideas, and the ambition, the passion and that it is a type of game I like was enough to carry this experience for me. Daymare 1998 isn’t a very good game but it’s worth playing and there was more than enough here that I am going to purchase Invaders Studios follow up, the prequel Daymare 1994. Don’t let my score or the many other less than impressive scores this game has received scare you off. While I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone I would say that if you like survival horror then you should give this a try.

5.0/10

i'm retiring it now because of all the Sony stuff (which i will not be talking about lol) but also because i just kinda lost interest in it

it's good! the game is executed to its vision extremely well, and it really helps the overall experience of the game by really feeling like you are playing it how it was meant to be viewed. combined with a goofy sort of tone and a reliance on having fun with friends, it makes for a fun time to goof around in and pass the time. i only played like 6 hours of it, mind you, so i can't speak to a lot of the inner workings of the game, mechanics, and all that, but i had fun with it

the biggest problem that comes with these kinds of games is that, for me, i love playing games solo and with friends. this game is so focused on the cooperative experience that you have to play with more than just yourself, and it does turn me off quite a bit when i just wanna kinda fuck around and do things on my own. it's why i got so hooked on Destiny, it's why something like Age of Empires hooks me so well, just any of these games that have both a solid single player and multiplayer experience works so well.

Good luck on your future Arrowhead, i really hope you're able to keep this momentum going!

For the first time I'm glad IGDB is dated and behind the times because it means I can review every pack within this DLC collectively rather than individually.

Despite being a mere DLC pack, there was a lot riding on Thrones of Decay. Creative Assembly haven't had a very good run lately, with Total Warhammer 3 taking two years to become a competent product and TW Pharaoh launching to all the fanfare of accidentally-swallowed toothpaste. The last TWWH3 DLC drew a lot of ire - even if I ended up liking it - for having a relatively poor price:content ratio.
Further adding to TWWH3's first Giles Corey is that the three races involved in ToD - Nurgle, the Empire, and the Dwarfs - have been in need of a rework for ages now. The latter two especially are deeply beloved by the franchise, with the Empire being one of three factions the game nudges new players towards.
This isn't even getting into the legion of shit CA themselves have suffered, with Pharaoh being a financial bomb and their attempt at yet another competitive FPS game having been executed by SEGA - whether out of mercy or cruelty is up to the viewer's discretion. Mentioning the staff turnover and investigation by UK employment authorities is probably pushing it.

ToD, then, does not have the luxury of just merely being good like Champions Of Chaos or Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs. It had to be fucking phenomenal. Targeted at a fanbase who're a near-permanent state of "it's so over", ToD had to tick the counter up to "we're so back" or it's all over.

Did it succeed?

Well...

Truthfully this is rather hard to discuss, because we're in an age where developers have wisely realized that launching a substantial free update alongside paid content will make both of them look better.

Reviewing is, after all, the act of transcribing one's feelings into words. Feelings dominate the profession so much that the idea of any one review being "objective" is a deeply laughable concept. Even those who sincerely believe they're objective are being silently puppeted by a million biases, preferences, deep-rooted emotional reactions and all manner of influences.

This is a problem for me.

I loved my time spent with the ToD DLCs, I really did. Hell, the game is open on my other monitor at present while I write this - it, Library of Ruina and Granblue Fantasy are devouring my free time.
But it's deeply hard to disconnect my feelings for the associated free update and its myriad reworks/fixes from the actual content I paid for.

The Empire is somewhat notorious among TWWH fans for how misleading it is. All three games posit it as a noob-friendly and welcoming campaign, a suggestion which has simultaneously become more untrue as time goes on. TWWH3 really exposed all the cracks in their foundation; they're fun when you're used to them, but before the rework they were definitely a campaign for people used to the series - the High Elves and their tutorial island were to the West if newbie wanted a safe zone.
After the rework, they're now on par with and perhaps better than any TWWH3 faction not named the Chaos Dwarfs. Franz now has a bevy of unique summons, spells/declarations and mechanics that seem overwhelming at first but ultimately manage to both fulfill the fantasy of being PRINCE AND EMPEROR and also a good starting point for newbies. Also they gave him an extra starting settlement, which ultimately benefits the AI more than the player because it means AI Franz doesn't die super fast.
Gelt has taken a vacation to Grand Cathay, gaining access to the College of Wizards which really plays into the fantasy of being an arch wizard. Yeah, it's honestly kind of overpowered that you can just transmute lead into gold and get the TWWH2 cataclysm spells for a pittance of investment, but I don't think any Lord deserved it more than Gelt. Plus it's just refreshing to have new enemies to fight as the Empire without having to do an insane detour through 4-5 other factions.
Everyone in the Empire received a significant rework to buildings and unit recruitment, removing the need for an auxiliary building to get cavalry/artillery/handgunners and bumping most units down a tier. Elector State Troops are no longer something you get 100 turns into a campaign, but acquired via a researchable technology and also some special buildings. The end result is that they're now very useful army fillers that can be summoned on a whim, or in an emergency. Whoa, cool integration of lore and gameplay in a Warhammer game? That's a first.

The Dwarfs received much the same treatment. While each Lord didn't get quite as grand a rework as Franz and Gelt, the race as a whole got access to a cool new Age of Reckoning mechanic that adds some dynamics to their campaign play and also disincentivizes sitting in the mountains for 100 turns. Restoring the Karaz Ankor is now an actual thing one can do, and doing so unlocks fast travel points - helpful, for a race so fucking slow all the time.
Like Elector State Troops, the gaudy old "sometimes get slayers if you fuck up too much" mechanic has been turned into Grudge Settlers; your performance in an Age of Reckoning affects how many units get added to the Grudge Settler pool, and they follow the same insta-recruit rules.
Similar to the Empire buildings, Dwarf recruitment has been both simplified and knocked down a tier, with some changes to how flame cannons and aerial units work really helping them against factions they struggled against.

Nurgle's rework was not quite as indepth, but still impactful. In-battle spells are now charged up via spreading poison or other contact effects, massively increasing the rate at which they can be used and no longer necessitating you get your troops halfway to death just to fire off a healing spell.
Plagues were reworked entirely to be a ~web~ of effects, with your available options being decided by the starting node.
Units spawn with much more health and the cyclical process of Nurgle's military buildings is sped up - with some buildings being made static so the faction's economy doesn't shit the bed early on.

It's all great, right?

But all of this is free.

The actual paid content is fine.

Dwarfs get an extra gun unit, a lot of extra Slayers, and the beloved Thunderbarge. The Lord/Hero additions are, naturally, Slayers.

The Empire get some more rifles, a nice Sword/Shield cavalry unit, the Land Ship (it is EXACTLY what you're picturing) and another Steam Tank variant alongside an Engineer Lord and Hero.

Nurgle's additions are, with the exception of Rot Knights, slow moving and high health entities that're exceptional at killing infantry units. Rather embarassingly, the Nurgle Chaos Lord is a reskin of the last DLC's Tzeentch Chaos Lord with a new helmet and effects. The Nurgle Chaos Sorcerer does look cool, though, and they have access to the coveted Lore of Death.

This time, the theming of the Legendary Lords (and their additions, too) is derived from the novel Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos - one of the few good Warhammer novels! Elspeth shows up alongside Theodore Bruckner, Malakai Makaisson is there with Gotrek & Felix (not part of this DLC, they were free in TWWH2) while Garagrim Ironfist shows up to add another Slayer to the roster, and of course the mighty Tamurkhan shows up with Kazyk the Befouled and a whole host (literally) of unique heroes.

They're all very nice, well animated and incredibly useful, especially once they gain their unique mounts. Tamurkhan looks phenomenal, too; they even rendered the hole where his worm form burrowed into the current host body! To say nothing of what happens if he and Theodore Bruckner have a fatal clash...

But honestly, this DLC being fine is a welcome relief. Shadows of Change was nice, but it was a pure cheats DLC. ToD is a much more balanced - Malakai aside - reticient affair and purchasing it honestly benefits the other members of the respective factions more than the included lords. Ungrim Ironfist, a Dwarf lord from the first game, benefits the most given Slayers are his shtick. Garagrim is also his son, so.

Despite everything I'm still giving this DLC a 5/5 because, as I alluded to up above, we are in fact so back. The mere fact that Cavalry units finally work is enough to rate it highly.

10/10 Be'lakor, the Dark Master wins for the fourth DLC in a row.

I am fascinated by Stellar Blade and what this game might mean for the future for video games. It's going to sound like I hate this game, but I don't. I think it's Fine™.

First off, my only real criticisms is that THE PARRYING IS BAD. DELAYED FRAME WINDOWS FOR PARRYING IS BAD. If you are going to have parrying in your game, and the parry timing is not finely tuned to the animation of an attack, then the game is going to suffer because of it. Lies of P did this shit, too. We are half a decade removed from the release of Sekiro. The excuses are running thin for games like this to function this way. Though for Stellar Blade, I genuinely do think too much processing power of the engine was afforded on the hair of Eve and is literally affecting everything about the performance of the game. Such a weird problem.

Secondly, the plot and characters are just so bad that I find it cannot be enjoyed in an ironic way. This game is so earnest in it's stupidity, turning on my brain to pay attention to the game's narrative actually felt like it was my fault. You play as android woman named EVE and you meet a guy named ADAM and you two are basically the last people on EARTH. It's not deep, it is in fact stupid as fuck. But, at the end of the day, I like the fact that Stellar Blade thinks it is deep. I suggest being completely detached from caring about what's going on; as it saved me from brain poison damage. But who cares what I think. It's Souls gameplay with pristine Korean waifus with big fucking titties and asses. Shut up, me. You dipshit motherfucker. I'll kill you.

If it wasn't obvious, this game wants to be Nier Automata Souls Asura's Wrath Bayonetta. The intro of the game is VERY similar how Asura's Wrath started just swapped with Korean mobile game models usually reserved for Gacha-pull auto-battlers -- doing WW2 D-Day Normandy Beach-style Helldivers ODST dropping onto the Earth doing Bayonetta moves before getting torn to pieces like Gears of War characters by Infernal Demons. There are other games you could pull into the conversation that Stellar Blade reminds you of and you'd be on the money. The game is a homunculus of other game ideas. Stellar Blade is just the title that dared to glue every game it like together like this. It feels like an astounding ripoff with enough effort put in it's distinctions for me to not feel mad about it.

After the intro, the game settles into being Nier Automata with Souls gameplay. You know what? That mix sounds pretty damn nice. It IS pretty nice sometimes. It needs a lot of fucking work, but Stellar Blade made a good first attempt.

I love the checkpoint system, I like the earnest exploration of the environments. It's a goddamn Souls game with platforming. You can autofill what to expect from there.

Tangentially related, but sometimes I wonder how much being a perpetually online, horny weirdo is actually bad for anyone long-term. How mobile games conditioned porn-addled individuals to latch onto this game like a big-titted, zero personality octopus dragging a victim into the ocean. How much the sexiness of Eve was factored into the marketing equation as a distraction from Stellar Blade's unpolished elements. On the flip side, seeing a character like Eve on the cover and the game not being a complete waste of time is an unironic step forward for the gaming industry.

Stellar Blade should be something more aligned with how it paints itself. I waited for something beneath the veneer of this game to make itself known, only to let myself down when it didn't really happen. This shit REALLY ain't that deep. Which is ok, but why go through the effort of pretending? You know? Hello? Are you listening? It feels like I'm not being heard right now. You know what? Fuck it, whatever. Let's move on.

Stellar Blade is a marriage of two camps in gaming; the allure of Korean mobile games (meticulously designed gooner bait) and the sunsetting trends of console adventure epics. Let me put it this way: if this game came out on PS3 it would be considered among one of the best games of its generation. It is a PS5 game, though. And there is better out there.

I don't know where things in the gaming landscape go from here, but I can only hope gaming experiences that the DNA of Stellar Blade represents can only be improved upon with time and focus. The dozens of games liquidated into the essence it thrives on is hopefully put to better use.

That in the near future, seemingly shallow game experiences will have depth.

That characters with mammoth titties have a few brain cells, too.

That people who want to suck on those titties take a shower every now and then.

Art and beauty co-existing; as one cannot really exist in any meaningful capacity without the other.

Them titties though bro holy shit.

While I don't think this is my favorite Metroidvania I've played so far, I think it's best in its class.

Playing Hollow Knight after playing my first few Metroidvanias, rather than before, set my expectations in a strange place for the game. I've heard so much talk about it, and witnessed even more excitement for the ever-illusive Silksong. I went into it expecting a masterpiece of not only the genre, but of everything that constitutes a great game.

I liked the story, even if it seemed a bit dense at times with all the bugs whispering gibberish into my ear. I'm the guy destined to become the new John Hollow. I'm pretty sure that's obvious, so I'm not marking this as a spoiler. Okay, cool. I was led astray so many times by NPCs who, it seems, you talk to in the first 10 minutes of the game and then have to revisit in the 90th percentile??? Obviously a bit of an exaggeration, but the layering of side quests and their progression is definitely the most complicated out of most games I've played. I don't think that's a bad thing either. I think it's done well enough and more of a reason to be more present when playing the game if you care about the story and its characters a lot.

I think it's easy to sometimes get swept up in the monotony of running back and forth throughout MVs. I touched on this in my Blasphemous reviews; it's incredible how there's a point around 40% percent through these games where you're slow, and the map is big. You're aware of countless areas that are unexplored, but you're lacking the abilities to get to them. This was me more than ever on HK. I loved exploring the map, but I think it's incredibly punishing. I can't imagine someone new to MVs having fun platforming on this game in the beginning. Granted, I'm not the greatest platformer in the world, but I'm certainly not the worst. See below.

I DID NOT FINISH PATH OF PAIN. FUCK THAT. FUCK THE DEVS. SICKOS.

The art direction is extremely cohesive. I didn't feel like anything in the game was out of place. From the sprawling backgrounds, to the enemy design, and the animations, I loved the way this game looked. The environments transitioned color pallets beautifully. I adore when a game isn't afraid to go all out with the colors while still keeping with their aesthetic. The orange of the infection is burned into my brain like one of the blobs was the sun and stared at it too long. Oh, and who knew so many amazing designs could be based around bugs? Looking back, it sounds so obvious because they're like the naturally gifted knights of the animal kingdom. They're quite literally born with armor over their bodies. If any of the bugs in HK were human-sized, I think we'd be doomed.

Combat is great and so are the bosses. I think the weapon upgrade system is balanced, as it incentivizes exploration and challenges the player to fight more bosses. Magic seems OP as hell, as usual. Magic users have tiptoed the line of baby gaming for far too long. It's time we banned all uses of magic from games. But seriously, the balancing of spirit when it comes to magic and healing is well done. Healing? What's that? Seems like they only put it in the game to use outside of combat. You definitely don't want to use it in a boss fight. I think the boss is coded to go ape mode when you start channeling spirit. Once you figure that out, I think you enjoy the combat even more. It reminds me of Sekiro in a way because you have to dance with the boss at a certain rhythm. While there is no parry (kinda) you still have your jumps and dashes to guide you across the dance floor.

The music hit all the notes. It was somber, energizing and grand. I sometimes felt like I was walking the pews at a funeral or receiving a medal for being the people's champion. I especially loved the Mantis Lords track. Inject that shit into my veins. It's incredible to me how so many studios can create such distinctive sounds for their games. Video game soundtracks are a genre of art that is probably the most ignored by the public. Anyway, listen to and appreciate more OSTs. If you're reading this on a video game review site, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that.

Overall, I loved Hollow Knight. Like with any title, there are small annoyances, but they pale in comparison to the radiance displayed during the high points of this game. I fully understand why Silksong is longed for. I fully understand why HK holds a special place in the hearts of many, as it now does mine. As always, I'm thankful to exist during a time when I can experience games like this. There's so much beauty in playing a game you always knew about but never gave a chance.

Relaxamento e meditação via fomento da expressão artística encarnado na forma de um Zelda-like. A pintura é tudo: mecânicas de movimentação, escape criativo, paralelos e metáforas, e o que corre no sangue de todas as fofinhas criaturas com nome de comida que aqui habitam - todas suas aplicações são dadas seu devido valor, o tempo para cheirar as rosas e desenhar um pintinho aqui e lá tão importante para a aventura quanto as provações que nossa heroína enfrenta. O co-op apenas eleva a experiência: arte é melhor quando partilhada, afinal. E é através dos pastéis e das aquarelas, dos rabiscos ociosos e das obras de arte comedidas, que trilhamos uma jornada quase-épica contra a síndrome do impostor e danosas relações parasociais.
Lá para o final, vira basicamente isso aqui.

Thoroughly mediocre flight combat. Sluggish and unsatisfying handling. The PC port barely functions on modern hardware. Annoying escort missions. Battle Above Taloraan has a random chance of just crashing to desktop upon completion due to some longstanding script bugs in the mission. Downing AT-ATs is j a n k. Draw distance?

The only reason this ever received any praise is because it let you fly an X-Wing without fucking around in DOS. Brb, I'm going to go fuck around in DOS.

Just skip to the second entry. The OG is a historical curiosity.

Is this a relaunch or something? Why does Kids feel like it came out 13 years late? I can imagine this game working if it was from idk 2005, like you're browsing around playing some generic flash games then suddenly you find a random weird artsy game, and you're naturally hooked (something similar as to why Samorost worked in that context). But the thing is Kids came out in 2019, and it has no business being from that year. About the game's message... it's about as deep and subtle as a Steve Cutts short. Nothing to see here.

9/10

Uma das maiores surpresas que tive em 2024.

Esse jogo ele emula muitas coisas de ys, especialmente os ys que eram side scrolling, mas expande muito bem em questão de gameplay, tornando o fluxo do level design e de gameplay bem dinâmico.

Ele tem adições muito bem estimadas, moldam o estilo de gameplay de forma bem curiosa a depender do uso da Libra e das summons.

O sistema de armas me lembra o sistema de skills em ff9, ve ele aqui abriu um sorriso.

Existe alguns tropes de jrpg aqui, quase como uma homenagem, porém esse jogo vai um tanto além em conceitos que ja era discutidos na era do ps1,ps2, quase como se fosse um resgate de certos elementos.

Fico feliz que este jogo fora feito por uma pessoa com ajuda de algumas, fica claro a limitação X o escopo do projeto no que se diz tanto a narrativa e gameplay, mas ficou bom no fim, é conceito!

Embora existam defeitos consideráveis a respeito do que se diz gameplay e narrativa, o saldo foi positivo, devido ao sua progressão.

Nao joguem em dificuldades como hard ou acima, pois realmente os inimigos viram mobs de mmo e bosses tbm, uma penca de hp e dano lhe esperam, dificuldade artificial....

A trilha sonora brilha algumas vezes, mas é fraquíssima.... uma pena.

recommend it if you're a tetris weirdo, but i will never really love to play this verison, yet i love returning to it every now and then.

this is my go-to tetris pallete cleanser when i'm fully in tetris brain, something that hasn't been the case for a little over a year now. this era of tetris is quite fascinating, and of all console versions of tetris, this feels the most like a home computer version with its single rotation, only hard drop and less-conventional lives system. the controls feel as if they were intended to be mapped to arrow keys where a player could have their fingers on multiple separate digital actuators at all times.

this era around the late 80's was probably the most interesting period in the overall splintering and iteration of tetris as it was unleashed up on the world, they were all just learning how to cook up those quadruple rectangles and it resulted in a genuine mechanical variety that unfortunately isn't found in any tetris released in the current era. i have no idea what BPS was even trying to do here, still feels as if they're in the progress of figure out how to make tetris work on a pad. it is of zero surpise that that shortly after this, BPS would devise their own system with lock delay as a core principle of tetromino arrangement. one of the the strains of tetris that BPS would, towards the end of the 90's, overcook and would demand that to be the only tetris dish served. BPS's impending near-strangulation of tetris started here, and on many days, i would rather play this over NEStris. thankfully BPS would figure out how to cook it just right for a bit in their successor to this one (plus bombliss!)

Hello darkness my old friend
When I was a kid I used to be afraid of the dark and watched a LOT of Twin Peaks.
I got used to it so much that being in the dark felt like an old acquaintance always watching on my shoulders.
Playing this game felt just like that, though this time it's trying to kill you while sinking its teeth in your thoughts and doubts.

An amazing game overall.
A childhood welcome back love letter kind of game.
Alan maybe my favourite character in the Remedyverse games.
Also Old Gods of Asgard/Poets of the Fall fucking rock!!

"Even a fly lives for a day"

Final Fantasy IX is a very strange game. A decades-long reputation and countless Final Fantasy ranking lists made it impossible to go into this without expectations; knowing it's so widely regarded as one of or even the best entry in the series is hard to ignore, but I tried my best to stay reasonable, and even expected not to like it as much as 7, and to compare the two as little as possible as I played.
This worked out pretty well in the end, but unfortunately my thoughts on this game in isolation ended up being even more confusing as a result..

If you sit on the title screen for a moment, you'll see images of the party members, each with a title and a thought related to their personality. Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people. Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? May we don't... Devotion: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Solitude: I don't want to be alone anymore. -- These honestly make for a great first impression, and had me going in with even higher hopes that the characters would be fleshed out with rich and well written arcs surrounding their unique perspectives. I don't want to go on too long or trample anyone's love for the title, but I'm so disappointed that this ended up being untrue.
To be clear, a handful of characters do get some proper development and go through real growth. Zidane, Garnet, and especially Vivi, all succeed in this regard in my opinion, and make for some of the most interesting elements of the entire game. Steiner and Eiko definitely get their growth as well, but in a much more 'secondary' feeling way, with less ongoing presence, and this is even worse with Freya and Amarant, who seem to have their whole stories told in just a few specific moments with very little going on outside of those. (And then Quina honestly might as well not even be there I'm sorry. Their menu screen says "Indulgence: I do what I want" or something but what it should've said was "I like food, that's my whole character" 😅)

Anyway, due to this, the game fell a little short for me on the party front, and all the times I'd heard that the characters are so well written became a confusion as to how, when less than half of them even have a story to begin with. Freya's arc in particular is very powerful, and the concept is excellent, but as with a lot of the game's moments, it happens and then it's over, if that makes sense? There's no lasting impression, like being told an emotional story and then immediately putting a movie on. Idk this may just be me but I felt like a lot of scenes would've benefitted from being allowed to breath a bit more and giving me time with a soft song to let it sink in. Sure I could've just stopped playing and sat there, but that's not how I play :p

I've rambled a lot already so to quickfire some other thoughts I have: The combat in this game felt really bad, I'm sorry. Like all of it, I played on PS so I had the cheats to instantly trance and do 9999 damage, but even by the late game when I had good equipment and high levels the fights either felt unfair or just took way too long. The delay between every attack and whatever slows things to a crawl I never ever would've gotten through it playing normally. By the final area I still didn't have a single summon available on either summoner so idk what the deal was there, and after maxing out my levels and abilities to have a full party of Lvl 99's, Zidane's base attack was doing 4000+ damage and my summons were doing less than 1000.. why game 😅 This is probably me being stupid and not understanding something, but yeah not for me, big dislike. And phoenix down's reviving you with less than 0.5% of your hp is comically useless idk how you're supposed to do anything with that!

Narratively, the story took a hot second showing it's face but once it got going and especially in the endgame I ended up liking it. I can understand why the core principles and themes of the game resonate with people so strongly, I just think the execution of a lot of the arcs and the gameplay itself take away from it a lot more than I would expect for a game with a reputation so strong that when I started it the only common issue I knew people took with it was the battle intro being too long 😅

Ultimately, I definitely like this game, I dare even say that it's a good one, very good maybe. It's just a shame that the good is buried underneath so much that felt undercooked to me. Lots of really great ideas all thrown into a pot that's too small to fit them - some of it may be cooked to perfection, but you've gotta eat through a load of under or overcooked food to get to it, and that sucks.

People have been pretty vocal that this game should get a proper remake in the way that FF7 has been, with some even saying it should've gotten one instead of 7. I used to think this was just because they prefer 9, and the 7 v 9 rivalry will never end, but even as someone who prefers basically everything about FF7, I think I kinda get it. Neither game is perfect, of course not, but in terms of which game has the potential to be greater than it was if given proper time, care and a much improved execution? Maybe.. I believe that the best possible version of FF9 could improve upon its original more than the best possible FF7 could.

This ended up running a lot longer than planned so I'll cut myself off here -- hope you're all keeping busy with your backlogs in what's turning out to be a somewhat quiet year for the industry. I've not been reviewing/rambling as much recently because it takes me so long to type 20,000 words per game, but next on the docket is the latter 2/3rds of TWEWY and then honestly I might jump right back into Final Fantasy with my first proper playthrough of XIII, the controversy will continue :p
Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're well! 🙏

Harold Halibut is an outstanding technical achievement. It's not, however, a compelling game.

Harold Halibut is an adventure game that looks just like a stop motion movie. And my god do they ever do a great job at that. The game is downright gorgeous and the stop motion continuously impressed me. I really wish this tech was used in service of a better narrative.

I found it very difficult to care about the characters and plot in this world. The voice acting is excellent but the dialogue is so dull. Very rarely do characters have anything remotely interesting to say. And although some personalities shine through (namely Harold and his surrogate mother Mareaux), most of it is forgettable. This is especially true in the first 10 hours of the game which is very slice of life. The plot gets a bit more interesting by the end, but it's too late by then.

I appreciate the themes they're going for. I really like how they approached an autistic coded main character with Harold for instance. There's something so pure about how he deals with problems. I'm sure this game is for someone. Just not for me.