Maliciously designed to kill you.
It's banking on you to beat it out of spite. "Oh you just teleported chaingunners behind me after picking up this inconspicuous gun? Well now I'm ready next time, asshole!" It really wants to make you hate these demons with a burning passion. If Doom II was built any easier or laxer then these enemies wouldn't be much of a threat alone, and therefore less memorable. The level design accentuates the demons as scheming yet merciless. This isn't some honorable battle between warriors, this is a hunt for flesh. And there can only be one winner here.

More than many action games is Doom II a test on your memory, reactivity, and resource management. This game is straight up unfair, so you need to keep in mind what gun your currently holding before triggering the trap that killed you earlier. Demons have various levels of health, damage, and mobility; thus misusing and wasting your more powerful weapons will leave you vulnerable for when you really need that rocket launcher or B.F.G. against that Archvile. Sound cues are vital to knowing if a enemy has spotted you, or if a off-screen projectile is flying towards you. The player at least has the newly added super shotgun, though while a extremely powerful gun with good ammo efficiency, can be easy to over rely on. Definitely had times where the intervals between reloading the shotgun got me killed, when I should've attacked more from a distance with the chaingun or stunlocked with the plasma rifle.

But even with the generous usage of quicksaves, this game can get exhausting for a new player. Sometimes you get tired of being made a fool of yourself when the game teleports you into a tiny room with four imps on every side, which then proceed to tear you to shreds. Literally no way to know that was going to happen. The more bullshit people will encounter, the less willing they'll be able to continue with your game. Of course that isn't a universal rule, but there's a fine line between "Fck you, let's try that again!" and "Fck you, I quit!" For better or worse, games just don't do this kind of evil, unscrupulous design anymore.
Like Doom Eternal, I had to take breaks in the middle of levels. But unlike Eternal, it was because I couldn't be bothered at points to drudge through yet another elevator that takes me right into a horde of chaingunners that eat away at my health before I can even see where they are. It's funny how some of the earliest demons, the chaingunners, I find to be more annoying then even the Pain Elementals or Archviles.

Though with that in mind, playing Doom II showed me why this game has remained popular to this day. The enemies with their particular and variable roles, and the weapons with their satisfying designs and function, makes for near-infinite mod level packs with fresh feeling gameplay. Whether you want to have the player cleave through hordes of fodder demons with the B.F.G., or starve them for ammo as they have to whittle down a towering Cyberdemon, modding Doom II levels will live on well-passed any live service game that shuts down (six months after release).

Don't know if I played a good version of Doom II though. I'll be honest when I look up stuff for classic Doom, I get pretty intimidated by the number of ports and re-releases of the game, plus all the hard-core fans mentioning which ports are better then others. I played the standalone release from Steam on my Steam Deck, not sure what people in the community would call that port. I just took the path of least resistance to play the game, so hopefully that version won't make a Doom fan too upset at me. Did come across a few bugs, namely to do with a elevator not triggering and I had to reload my save to get it working again. Also I don't know if this is just a normal Doom thing, but sometimes it can feel pretty stingy when auto-aim will work if you're trying to hit a demon from a large elevation difference. Hard to get into a precise location to hit them when they can attack with their hitscans from wherever they want off-screen. This version of Doom 2 at least had that reticle to light up red if the next shot will hit a target, but it still doesn't change the fact how awkward "aiming" can be in this game.

And lastly, why did 'Into Sandy's City' only play in one level when it's easily the best song in the entire game?

"Really hoping Yakuza 8 makes substantial improvements, otherwise they'll need to have a story with an even bigger gut punch then this one." - AlphaOne2, 2023.
Oh how the Monkey's Paw curls this fine day...

Rating this the same as Like A Dragon 7. If you want the short of this, game is very good but wait for a generous sale. I didn't pay full price as I was gifted $20 from a Steam gift card, but thankfully for you these games tend to go on sale often. Give it time and you'll be set, or pirate bay is always an option I'm not a cop do what you please. Especially if you want New Game plus, which man that DLC shit is rancid, but after 90 hours of playtime I'm not itching to get back into this anytime soon. There really is no need to invest in that crap, the base game is plenty. Maybe too plenty.

Gameplay is a noticeable upgrade. The combat in Like A Dragon 7 became utterly exhausting by the end, wearing out its welcome well before the credits. Infinite Wealth has so many, much needed changes that make combat far more interesting. The general flow is still the same, but there's a lot more intentionality to it.
Firstly the big one: moving your character before selecting an attack. You can now plan where to send a enemy flying; where they could crash into one of their friends to hurt them as well, hit a wall for extra damage, or next to a party member where they'll whack them in midair (assuming they have a high enough affinity). You can perform combo attacks if you initiate an attack next to a party member, or move behind an enemy to guarantee a critical hit. Every character, regardless of their job, can now utilize improvised weapons, and with the addition of moving your characters it is much more reliable to make use of your environment. It saves quite a lot of resources when instead of your fire spell, you could simply swing a giant oil barrel and have it explode on a enemy group for massive fire damage.
There's more clarity when utilizing skills. It will highlight the area of effect of your range attacks, plus show arrows on where enemies will be launched to. It does mean that attacks that effect every character is a lot rarer; whether that's a heal, a buff, or a super move. Sounds like a downgrade but it really doesn't make much of a difference since Infinite Wealth has a smoother level curve then its predecessor. They've more or less gotten rid of the obnoxious jumps in difficulty that plague the endgame of 7, so long as you aren't avoiding every single battle. Though if your someone who likes to do extra content then you'll likely end up overpowered for certain battles. I've had boss fights where the boss only got off one or two attacks before they were already dead. Pretty anticlimactic, but it was my choice with how much unnecessary grinding I did in this game.

The job system is mostly the same as 7, with the exception of inheritance skills. In 7, specific skills from every job would be permanently added to a character's repertoire when unlocked. It was not only limiting since you couldn't choose what skills to carry over, but if mastered a lot of jobs then your skill list would become very cluttered with all kinds of skills you don't care for. Infinite Wealth instead has every skill from a job capable of being carried over. Now it's up to you whether your chef can football tackle through a crowd of yakuza, or breakdance so hard that they get a speed increase, or take out two revolvers and start blasting their asses. Unlike 7, it really is not necessary for every character to master every job as you can only equip so many inheritance skills (I wished I recognized that sooner, would've saved a lot of time). Your free to unlock any skills that seem interesting or fit your playstyle, but every character's exclusive job keeps their individuality so party members won't lose their own niche.
A much, much appreciated feature is the smackdown. Think Earthbound where if your statistically overpowered than a low level enemy then you can wipe them out instantly. You do receive a small experience penalty from the battle if won this way, but money and items aren't affected. Plus you really shouldn't be grinding on low level enemies to begin with. All it does is save your time, which with how prolonged this game already is, it absolutely needed this.

They haven't fixed everything from 7. Enemies and party members can still get caught on terrain even with being able to position the latter, sometimes a enemy will move out of the way just as select your A.O.E attack so don't end up catching every foe you were hoping for, going for a basic attack can be awkward if you want to be close enough for the proximity damage bonus but there's a nearby weapon that your character would automatically pickup with a element the enemy resists; just in general there's a air of awkwardness and clunkieness to the combat. Far from refined.
At the same time I feel the combat has really found its niche as a something that's very scrappy and fast paced, and occasionally indiscriminately chaotic. I've had times that I accidentally knocked a foe into a pile of explosive barrels which then exploded and caused a chain reaction that left everyone burning to death. Sometimes I would cause unintentional combos with one character sending a foe towards another party member where they would kick the enemy into the wall, and then yet another one would come over and stomped on their balls for good measure. It isn't impossible to get bored of this battle system, but it's a step in the right direction. More control yet just enough randomness in the player's favor to keep things fresh.

Speaking of steps in... a direction, story... yay.
Apologies in advance for the vagueness in this section, but I don't like discussing the finer details of a plot since it's always more valuable to experience it yourself and come to your own conclusions. And my conclusion is that there's too much. Too many characters, too many themes and morals, too many moving parts, too many twists, and so, so many exposition dumps. God damn do characters love to talk about anything and everything. This is a issue in other Like A Dragon games for sure, and that isn't to say every extended dialouge sequence has no reason for existing. But it doesn't help when certain aspects of the plot come with a air of "Out of touch dad explains what is "hip" with the kids these days". Basically there are subject matters that the writers lack the nuance and knowledge to convey correctly, and if you have any basic understanding on these subjects that it can be hard to swallow. They had too much they wanted to say, not all of which was profound to begin with, and it's very noticeable where things got shafted for time. Especially when they're still talking.
I don't know if I'm just more busy nowadays with preparing my new house to move into (shits expensive), but my attention span for plot dumps and exposition scenes has gotten real short. And it's a shame since there are plenty of dialouge pieces that are entertaining and interesting, but that tends to be relegated to the side content.

It wouldn't be Like A Dragon without its minigames and side stories. We got shogi, blackjack, poker, mahjong, other gambling games that I have no clue how to play, batting cages, fishing, randomly generated dungeon crawling, Pokémon Snap but with "weirdos" in Hawaii, swimming and collecting trash, just straight up Pokémon catching and battling but everyone is just some dude, Crazy Taxi but your a food delivery boy on a bike, a online dating sim where you have to make your own profile and even pay (in-game) cash to make your profile nicer looking, and a seriously in-depth Hawaii resort simulator where you gather resources and build your own island paradise for guests as you protect the resort from trash pirates. That last one might as well be its own game cause my god there's so much to it and I don't have all day to explain the intricacies of that. As a whole I enjoyed these distractions quite a lot more then previous titles. The island resort sim especially caught me off guard with how fun I found it to be.
The smaller side quests were alright, but I felt the more emotionally driven ones fell flat to me. I don't know, I find it harder to care when every side character feels the need to explain their whole life story to me at the start of every quest. And I do mean every character. Am I being too harsh? I don't want to come off as someone who tells others how to write their stories, and maybe I was just getting fatigued playing this game, but it's not a good sign when I start skimming your dialouge because it just isn't engaging me.
You know what was? Bingo. Or rather the Bingo Board, where you get to learn fun factoids of your party members while walking across Hawaii. Finding out what they do in their spare time, what food they like, personal grievances they have, flaws they're working on fixing; can't get enough of that small talk. It also improves their affinity stat, which unlocks more inheritance slots your party members can equip, so it's worth going after these. And I will say that this probably the funniest Like A Dragon game I've played yet. The ludicrous scenarios and the utterly bizzare special moves had me chuckling a handful of times. The less serious sidestories and summons especially had me giggling like a idiot.

I'll be real this review was exhausting to make (kind of like this game). There's so much more I was planning to talk about the story side of things and how conflicted it made me. The bit of good with the story made the bad especially stick out, particularly with how characterization flip flop between pretty great to "...huh?" But with this being my third draft of this piece, I've realized that I just wasn't enjoying myself having to talk about the plot. It's funny because this isn't even a story I find particularly offensive or bad as a whole, it feels more confused then anything. Regardless I do feel this a notably better game then 7, and I hope to see more improvements going forward with the series. Just, give it a few more drafts next time around, and maybe tone down the scale.

You also have a playlist you can create, with all kinds of songs from other games, that you can listen during traversal and I want this to be in every game from now on. Let me listen to Open Your Heart in the Elden Ring DLC you cowards.

Turtles are my favorite animal, period. I've loved them since I was child and I still love them today.
And this is the first time I've ever interacted with anything related to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

OK I did have a single action figure, but that was the extent of my direct experience. I have since been exposed to it a lot via culture osmosis... I mean YouTube videos, so I know the names of characters and the premise of the show. I was too young for the initial TV series (or more accurately didn't exist), but there were plenty of other shows and films that have come and gone, that I just didn't pay attention to. My best guess as to why I didn't try TMNT in any shape might have to do with "being influenced" by others as a kid, and for the sake of privacy I'll leave it at that.

So why am I finally give this a shot as someone in their 20s? Cause this game looked neat... yeah very anticlimactic. Well, there's also the fact that I've been meaning to give Beat 'em Ups another chance. I have a weird relation with this genre as it really should be my jam, but a couple of aspects that are seemingly traditional to the genre has made me hesitant in trying more of these games. Does Shredder's Revenge help alleviate my personal grievances? Eh, kind of.
Compared to other Beat 'em Ups I've played this one felt the best to control, which is a huge relief since I can't jive with the movement that well in Streets of Rage 4, as an example. Having a dash and double jump for every character, plus faster movement in general was far more comfortable and made playing the game way easier. Still have the thing where you walk into enemies to throw them; which I still feel is far less intuitive then a button command to grab them instead, but I've grown to accept that this is just how the genre operates. The combat is simpler then Streets 4 though, especially with the combo variety. I've seen some impressive combo videos from that game, and TMNT just doesn't have the same breadth of attacks that allow for some extremely technical feats. Here's the thing though... I don't care much about long and complex combo strings. You can still do some fun carry combos against enemies tossed into the air, and the dive kicks do a lot for utility that I was never bored playing this. I don't think it would've hurt having more complex combos, but it doesn't affect my enjoyment towards the game.
What does though are the boss battles. Even as someone who has mixed feelings towards Streets 4, I can tell how much of a step backwards the boss design is in TMNT then Streets. There not... bad, but juggling bosses just doesn't happen in Turtles, which Streets 4 allowed and them some. Throws are useless if the bosses doesn't have any aides that you can toss around and utilize throw invincibility to bypass attacks, as otherwise you can't throw any boss. And sadly when I think of weak bosses, I immediately think of the final boss, and how it loves to keep throwing attack after attack while being invulnerable till it feels like letting you hit it. Not a fun encounter for the kind of action game this is. Thankfully, on normal difficulty, bosses don't take too long to beat. They mostly have a small amount of health that they don't drag the pacing much. Plus there is some enjoyment trying to minimize damage taken so you still have lives for the next level, assuming your playing arcade mode.
As an aside, I do really like the customization of arcade mode and how there's several toggles to make the game easier or harder in various ways. A big one for me is the removal of the taunt button. You have a super meter that fills up by attacking enemies without taking damage, but the taunt will fill up one bar (the first of the three super bars only) for free if you pull it off without being interrupted. I actually like the taunt button, but I'll admit it can be pretty exploitable for how powerful supers are. Turning it off means you have to be more skilled in combat in order to be rewarded with a super, as you'll never get one if you keep taking damage.
I did get the DLC for this game and I tried survival mode. I personally think it doesn't go crazy enough like the survival mode from Streets 4, but honestly the DLC was worth it alone for the two characters. Karai being my favorite character, even if I had no context on who she was (same with Usagi). Actually now that I think about it, I didn't play much of the Turtle characters... maybe I should fixed that at some point.
That all said, I've played this game longer then I was intending. Because of my feelings towards the genre, I was thinking this would be a one and done. But despite the bosses, the stages otherwise were a lot of fun. There's a good variety of punching bag enemies, and enemies that force you to be more careful around them. Clearing out a room of baddies with a screen wide super never got tiring with all the shit they put me through. The music and visuals are fantastic for a licensed product. I mean, I know Turtle games have some amazing soundtracks but now I see firsthand what all the hype was about. The sprite work and animations are endlessly charming. I love all the foot soldiers doing stupid shit in the background of nearly every stage, especially those ones eating ice cream at the zoo. How the Hell does that work with them wearing masks... and being robots, I just realized that as I was typing this out... I love it. This is a thing in a lot of other Beat 'em Ups, but I love repeatedly hitting dead enemies to raise up the combo counter and filling more of the super meter. It's fun by itself, but also adds some nice skill checks to go into the next fight with a larger advantage. And those throws are especially crunchy, especially that triple ground slam. That never gets old.

I don't know if I'll try any other TMNT media, but I was pleasantly surprised by this game. I really want to try the multiplayer too, since it looks so chaotic and hectic. I see myself coming back to this every so often, which is probably one of the best things I can say towards any game.

But dude, I've spent so much writing this review when I could be gaming... if I said I was sorry for that, I'd be liar.

A "rougelike" DLC story for a game that uses that genre in the loosest definition possible.

For brevity sake, check out my review on the base game as this DLC isn't about doing things radically different or new.(https://backloggd.com/u/AlphaOne2/review/971762/) The rougelike is really just randomly generated dungeoneering, with a slightly harsher punishment for death where you lose a lot (or all, depending on difficulty) of your earned force. In case you didn't read the old review or forgot, force is used to progress through the game's skill tree. You earn a looooooot of stat ups using it, and you also use it for unlocking new spells and valuable items. Regardless, everything else you earned prior to death is kept, hence rougelike being a poor descriptor.

Just like the base game, this DLC wants you to become absurdly powerful. Like, the most overpowered character you can possibly be. Able to cast magic that starts as standard fireballs, and end with summoning lasers so large it kills hundreds of enemies off screen as all their loot gets magnetized towards you. All the other progression systems are here as well (equipment leveling, crafting and upgrading, magic leveling, item trading, and so forth). One of the more notable additions is the style system. Think more of a class system in other RPGs, but they don't change your playstyle too much in comparison. Each style comes with their own passive bonuses and one unique skill that's on a short cooldown. A magician can recover the magic meter on the spot, or a samurai will do a iaido slash as the demon gets cut in half a second later, or a assassin will teleport behind the enemy and stab them in the back. They aren't a game changer, but it is fun experimenting with them as leveling up styles will also earn permanent stat ups.

How are the random dungeon exactly? Crude and sloppy, but admittedly pretty fun. Namely due to the enemy placement. Each stratum has 9 floors. Early in the stratum enemies are relatively straight forward and spaced fairly normally. But by floor 6 the dev just seemed to not care anymore and will just randomly place twenty high level monsters in a room that attack the very instant you enter their domain. Doubly worst if these monsters can inflict debilitating status ailments like paralyze or webbed. It's actually comical how little restraint these monster closets get the further you get into the game, and they aren't rare by any means. You start getting into the habit of holding down to immediately readying your shield anytime you enter a new room, cause there's a high likelihood you'll get sucker punched by a horde of photo-shopped monsters on the otherside.
At the same time, this actually makes it pretty fun. There's a great satisfaction overcoming something so blatantly unfair and unhinged, and being rewarded with gold, loot, experience a plenty that hits me in the dopamine tenfold. And even though I played this game on hard, I never died from these relentless ambushes. Certainly came close, but you have plenty of tools to conquer these ridiculous enemy layouts. Magic gives you invincibility frames, which combined with how absurdly busted some spells are makes these things both unfair but also not frustrating.

I am a little disappointed with the lack of new in this DLC. The enemies and many boss fights are recycled from the base game, and the story doesn't go nearly as hard as it either. Though the game does warn that this DLC has massive spoilers if you hadn't played the original, so I unfortunately can't recommend this if it were standalone. This DLC is more of a abridged retelling of the base game, but as a dungeon crawler with a different main character. Again, do not expect anything truly unique.

And you know, if I ever get the hankering for Astlibra Revision again I think I might play this instead. With the nature of the random dungeons, you are experiencing more of forward momentum during your grinding sessions as you descend further down; whereas grinding in the original has you walk back and forth between the same exact areas over and over. Not to mention this is 20 hours versus 50 hours. The DLC is lengthy but not too obscene as the base game, if you feel like replaying it from start to end.

Plus now you can dress up your main character and that shit is a plus in any game ever.

I, for one, welcome the dev team for not being complete cowards by giving everyone an elephant form. Even at the risk of this being an... awakening of sorts for generations to come.

Mario Wonder sure is a 2D Mario game. Don't expect any massive shakeups to the formula, lest they risk their safe brand of near guaranteed success. Man, making a game to be enjoyable by adults and kids across the entire world sounds like a pain...
The big gameplay addition are Wonder Seeds, which can cause some wacky and amusing effects when found in a level. After a brief challenge you'll collect the seed itself, which are needed to progress through the game, and then revert the level to back to normalcy. Despite what the trailers may imply there isn't a unique effect for every single level in the entire game, but that'd give the impression that there aren't a metric buttload of Wonder Effects that infester every inch of this game. Some add a spin to the platforming with large set-pieces, some turn you into different creatures with their own mechanics, some will make the level harder, others will make the level effortless. I think what helps is that these effects, along with the levels themselves, are over before you know it.
They're a breeze in terms of challenge and length, which is definitely for the best as this is one of the longer 2D games. Not by much, but unlike past entries it doesn't seem possible to skip entire worlds to reach the end (whether it's from secret warp points or some worlds being completely optional). You still have a good amount of wiggle room at least. The Wonder Seed quota isn't too high to need to clear every level, plus you don't need to activate the Wonder Effect in most levels if you so wish. But the fast pacing may also be a result of the easy difficulty of this game. Between the brand new badges, the shop allowing you bulk buy 1-Ups, and the online system it's hard to get stuck on a single level for too long bearing anything in the post game.
Starting with badges, I feel they add a nice bit of player expression on how you want to play. You could increase your platforming abilities or you could make hazards be less lethal, but never both at once. While it would be awesome having a faster dash with a vine grappling hook as coins magnetize towards you, I think one badge apiece makes it a more important decision player as there's a lot to weigh; though you can change after every death if it isn't working out. For being the "Weird" Mario game, kind of wish there were more badges that do wacky or usless things. There's a couple that intentionally make the game more annoying or harder to play, and I kind of wanted to see more of them. Like maybe a badge that rotates the character you're playing every few seconds, or a badge that makes the character tiny; stuff like that.
I feel the shop is a good addition, albeit not executed as well as I would've preferred. It's namely the economy of flower coins, I almost never didn't have enough coins to buy every new badge or Wonder Seed at every shop. Granted I was being thorough with every level, maybe it's a bit more strict if you aren't the explorer type. Regardless I feel flower coins is one of the better motivators for exploration in these levels. Much better then the Star Coins at least.
Then you have what I feel is the most interesting addition, online. It's kind of like Dark So- GUNSHOTS.
While it makes the game even easier then it already is, online was a lot cooler then the previews made it out to be. Reviving players, who are total strangers, after they slip to their death only for them to save me moments later is such a simple yet effective method of comradery that fits with Mario's broadly-accepting tone perfectly. It's constantly picking each other backup from our mistakes with the only real benefit to you is that they might just return the favor. I had levels where people would stand at the end of a tough section and just wait in case someone fell, or sometimes they'd literally sacrifice themselves to revive a player whose timer almost ran out, or the funny moments where the potential savior missed and now both of them lost a life. I wouldn't say this alone made the game great, but if you're usually online adversed I'd recommend trying at least a few levels with it on.

In a interview posted on the Nintendo website, the devs gave an interesting run-down on their methodology, planning, and even a few scrapped ideas. One of the more interesting quotes to me came from when they were discussing the original Super Mario: "...Back then, everything was new and packed with unexpected delights. However, now that Super Mario games have been enjoyed by players for many years, those things have somehow become ordinary". This bizzare world of bouncing shells, coins from floating brick blocks, and clouds with happy faces has become very standard as time has progressed. Though not help by the 'New' series of Mario games that felt like menial extensions from the DS game, which in turn didn't push the envelope much from there (and the general overexposure of the brand). And frankly despite their best efforts I don't think they were able to recreate this sense of enchanting newness that they were hoping for. It feels like a different Mario, but it's still Mario. There's still bouncing shells and floating bricks, with flagpoles at the end of the course and mushrooms that make you grow in size. Nothing short of an utter overhaul of every aspect of Mario could come close to this ambitious goal. But at that point it may no longer be Mario anymore. Maybe the team should do something unrelated to Mario, but sadly our old friend capitalism will piss and shit itself if you're doing anything but the most safe and secured route to success. Doubly so if you are such a monolithic icon like Mario.
Still, to say they'd failed at being especially creative in this title would be foolish. Your mileage may vary on the quality of these additions, but if you can't change the inner core of what Mario is then altering the surface is the next best thing you got. The new visuals and expressiveness of the characters is a refreshing relief after diluted 3D models of the 'New' series. Little details go a long way in bringing the world to life. Goombas react in horror as you're about to stomp them. They will also sit down and stare annoyingly at the screen if they find themselves trapped in a one-block space. Enemies of all kinds have a great "Oh shit!" face when a speeding Koopa shell is about to smash into their faces. This game's love of music and rythym sections are quite possibly the highlight of this game's charm. The talking flowers...I actually really li- GUNSHOTS
The new power-ups are quite possibly the most solid additions to the repertoire thus far. Despite the elephants larger presence (I didn't even plan that pun) I feel no power outshines another. All have their use while being fairly unique in their utility. Maybe the fire flower is weaker by comparison, but it still has the speed and range to have its own niche. I dig the bubble flower having platforming utility, but it's much trickier to pull off compared to past mobility power-ups. You have to be quick to bounce off your bubbles and it feels good when you take shortcuts with clever usage. The drill is insanely fast, can take unique level routes, and is arguably the strongest in terms of how quickly it can kill enemies, but since you have to be approaching from below it may not always be ideal in certain circumstances. And elephants are both fun and funny to control. I like all their additional animations that account for their unique shape, such as when they lower their head slightly if the ceiling is just barely too low or their struggle getting in and out of pipes. Not sure if this unpopular, but the KO arenas were some of my favorite levels. I liked deciding what power-ups and badges to use in order to optimize my route. Being able to hold onto one power-up at all times really adds a lot to planning, whether you want to swap at a specific stage or if you'd prefer it to be more of a backup in case you took damage. The times to beat are just tight enough to push you into being more competitive to achieve all the rewards, while not being so tight as to be frustrating.

Based on what I've played in the past this is probably my new favorite 2D Mario. I'm still not as ecstatic about 2D platformers in general, I'm more of Action and/or RPG person, but I still came away feeling pretty positive about the whole thing. Mario Wonder is ambitious as a Mario game, but something that's truly out there and original will probably be only found in the indie scene. Still, I'm curious if they'll be able to top themselves next time that elevate this from a Wonder to Wonderful.

They not only have elephant Peach and Daisy, but also inflatable balloon forms of them too.
Wonder if they knew what they were doing

Recent update added the long awaited map, and wow that did so much to make traversal more snappy and less meandering. And I now appreciate this game a lot more to not include fast traveling as I see just how interconnected this map is, with each area connecting to at least three other locations, but often times more.
And movement is still sublime and fun to experiment. New time trials are a nice distraction as they reward you with new costumes and most require multiple attempts to get a good route going.
Much higher recommendation now. And it turns out that tossing your tonfa does have a interesting gameplay mechanic that, while more of a novelty then useful, is still interesting to mess around with.

The dev also updated the Steam pages artwork, which is nice since they didn't like their old one.

Even the game itself isn't 100% sure what animal this character is.

True to its description, this game is a "3D Platformer Metroidvania".
Most of the upgrades you find are enhancements to your platforming moveset, allowing you traverse far more of the castle. But apart from the charge attack, it feels most obstacles can be tackled without the intended ability that the challenge is designed around. With a normal jump and the wall kick, I did so many things where the whole time I thought "Am I suppose to be doing this?" Rarely will the game tell you "No!" whenever you attempt to sequence-break, and it feels rather encouraging to break its challenges.
This would fall apart if this all felt bad, but everything here is both fluid and even original. Note how I said "wall kick" earlier, not wall jump. Pressing jump in the air will cause Sybil to kick the air. Kicking a wall will push you off of it, taking into account the angle of the wall and how close you were to it, both of which determines your trajectory. It is more complicated then a traditional wall slide/jump, but it adds a more interesting skill check to platforming. There's even a few secret techniques that can be performed which reward experimentation with added flexibility and expression. One in particular will feel right at home to those who love 3D Mario.
Combat is infrequent and only sometimes required. You have one combo and are committed to attacks, but there are ways to be mobile while swinging your... tonfa thingy. Nothing too special, though the one boss of the game was actually pretty decent. There's at least some complexity where you gain more range and power in your attacks the more you fight an enemy, but will lose those buffs if you heal (which is a skill that uses a resource gained by attacking monsters). Its interesting since you ask yourself "Can I kill these enemies without healing, or should I play it safe?" Strangely you have the ability to toss your tonfa, which I never found a use for it. Usually a strong enemy attack can knock it right out of your hands and you have to scurry to pick it back up, and throwing it isn't even an attack. Maybe it's just a button used for fun, kind of like that breakdance attack from Mario 64 that's pretty useless but is at least mildly entertaining.
Only notable issue is the lack of a map. It's not the most complicated world in a game; but areas can blend in with one another, as well as it being free-form in what areas you can tackle first. This game goes for a N64 style which is mostly cute, but they also have black fog at doorways that block your view of other rooms till you get close enough to the door. This means that it's harder to map out a mental map in your head, since its harder to remember what room connects to which. People have already drawn up maps, so feel free to use them if you get seriously lost. There was also one power up I didn't get till the end because it was behind a breakable wall, that's normally easy to see, but the area was dark and I just completely missed it. Probably could've signaled that better.
That said, this is only $5 at about 4-5 hours. I'd almost say the dev isn't giving their game enough credit since I'd be more then satisfied if this was $10. You like jumping in games? Easy recommendation.

There's an accessibility option to add pants to goat woman. It's the only accessibility option.

Quite possibly the most unhinged game I've ever played.

I went in expecting a simple 2D Action RPG that'd be short but sweet as it was mostly made by one guy... turns out this is a +50 hour RPG that took 14 years to complete with one of the most insane stories I've experienced in quite a while that kept going on and on and on. I got to several points where I'm like "I believe I see the end of this massive tunnel... oh no wait there's still more." Yeah I think that phrase describes Astlibra Revision perfectly, there's always more.
Where to begin... lets start with the visuals. Most of the environments and backgrounds are these edited public domain photos and materials. It gives a strange tone to the setting of the game, as I'll be starring in the background and its very obvious that these textures of this cave are just actual photos of cliffs and rocks. Some of the enemies are like this... I think. It's hard to tell with some of them, but I'm pretty sure the dev used real photos for the penguins you fight at the snowy mountain. Its a bizarre style that straddles the line between being low-budgeted and stylistic. Its funny how this made me pay attention more to the backgrounds, trying to discern what are photos and what were originally made assets. A lot of monsters and bosses are original, and to its credit there's a lot of interesting designs that show a often-treaded but no less bombastic style of medieval fantasy.
Though speaking of designs, if you aren't privy to "anime" designs or tropes then parts of this game will be hard to stomach. You fight a loooot of giant women with huge breasts which is one thing, but the story also has "classic scenes" like the hot spring visit, or the scene where a woman has to wear something very skimpy because of a big misunderstanding, or the "N-not like I like you, idiot!" and so forth. I really hate talking about this stuff, but it be remiss of me to not give a heads-up. To be fair this game took 14 years to make. I can't vouch what was changed during all that time, but standards of art change just as much as the technology we use to play games. What's seen as fine at some point is seen as "trashy" later in time, even if some of this was always the latter to begin with. It's not unlike how the infamous Duke Nukem Forever was a mess of old mechanics and set pieces that felt immediately dated when it came out since it took so long to be "finished", only that the differences is that they are, thankfully, fleeting moments in this marathon of a game. You aren't going to go on a road trip without having to drive around some potholes, but I wouldn't argue with you if you said they should've patched those holes up.
Dwelling on these misgivings wouldn't be fair as it ignores the entire plot and boy howdy what a roller coaster it is. It involves a lot of time travel with the protagonist able to prevent disasters and fixing many a tragedy by traveling into the past. That's putting the time travel mechanic as simply as I can, but they take every advantage they can with it. Nearly anytime I wonder "What would happen if they did this?" they'd actually explore that possibility in due time. Does it always make sense? I don't know. Time travel isn't real so who the hell knows. I was admittedly smiling and nodding a lot of times when some unforeseen consequence unfolds, or a new rule of this temporal manipulation rears its ugly head. I was always like "I'm hear for it!" I'm also glad that some of my fleeting thoughts on the motivations and goals of this diverse cast gets explored in many ways. The protagonist, for example, is searching for his childhood friend that he lost eight years ago. And without spoiling it I had certain thoughts about this dynamic that I'm happy to say that the author did explore, and rather thoroughly at that. Some of the craziest reveals need to be seen firsthand, it goes places.
I don't wish to delve too much into the nitty gritty of the plot, so what do you even do in this game? I listened to a podcast that gave this game a near perfect descriptor, "It's like if Vampire Survivors had actual structure and a plot". This game is all about that progression and dopamine. You can place stat points into any stat you want, but re-speccing is easy, free, and even encouraged. Every armor, shield, and weapon have a experience bar that, when filled, will reward with either a skill or a skill slot in order to use said skills. Skills do, in fact, have a massive impact on how you play, so you're encourage to use as many weapons and armor as you can. Enemies drop materials in order to buy equipment, as well as "Force" that's used on this massive skill tree. The skill tree is mostly for permanent stat ups and the rare treasure, but it also gives access to the magic spells that have a wide variety of effects. Importantly, MP is only gained by attacking enemies, and it will decrease by itself if you idle for too long which encourages an aggressive playstyle. In exchange casting a spell will grant brief invulnerability, so you can blast through a wave of enemy bullets with good timing. Further increasing aggression is a combo counter that rewards several bonuses the more hits you rack up in quick succession, so don't stand around for too long. The flexibility in how you play your character is perhaps the strongest point of this game. I've had many instances where instead of grinding for better overall stats when I hit a brick wall, I changed my stats and equipment that made the bosses much easier to deal with. One of the most memorable moments I had was with this one secret boss that I fought way sooner then I should've. Unluckily for me it was a DPS check, meaning if I didn't deal enough damage in a short enough time then it was a instant-death. It was straight up impossible to pass the DPS check at my current level. Luckily I had a skill where my damage was multiplied threefold, but as a consequence I died in one hit. I could then pair that up with a skill where you can take one hit for free per battle, and I essentially was playing Ghost n' Goblins for the whole fight. Felt amazing when my crazy plan actually worked... after many deaths.
The Vampire Survivors comparison comes from how explosive fighting can get. You can reach a point in power where you can kill anything with your 30 foot sword and your giant dragon summon, as your enemies erupt into gold and force confetti. These sessions can be a relaxing background game to play, but not the most enthralling if you're going for every achievement. I didn't get all of them, about 90% or so. It is a good sign from me when I go out of my way to get achievements in your game, but I'd be lying if I said I got that much more out of the game for getting them. This can be a very grindy game, almost never required if you want to see the end of the game but there is some great and exciting content that'll be way harder if you go in ill-prepared. I did do a lot of grinding just because I wanted to do it, so take that for what you will.
One thing that caught me by surprised are the many puzzles in this game. It's not always a straight shot to the chapter boss, you'll have to do some thinking and inventory management to progress. Sometimes the path towards progression can seem borderline cryptic, but there's usually a NPC nearby that can provide hints and guidance to what to do (sometimes you'll need to talk to the same person more then once). Oh by "inventory management", I mean that this game will rarely use a item automatically from your inventory. You have to manually open up your items and use the specific item needed. I kinda liked it actually. It made me feel smarter solving even the more basic puzzles since it was up to me to figure out what I needed to do, but maybe it could've used keys automatically at least.

Even at times I kinda wished this game knew when to end properly, I can't deny the amount of effort and passion that was put into this game. It feels like someone wanted to include everything they love into one game, and despite some iffiness here or there, it manages to put itself together far more eloquently then you'd expect. You'll be in for the long haul, but it'll be a unforgettable adventure unlike many.

...What do you mean there's going to be DLC?! This game is already 50 hours long!!

Move over New Vegas, we just found the new GOAT of Western RPGs!

Actually in all seriousness this game, despite being filled to the brim with gags and humor around every corner, is a reasonable RPG. Able to distribute experience points to any stat or skill you want, but you have to be aware of skill checks that'll allow access to easier, more profitable routes through quests and the environments. Even more surprising is that this game is auto-saving all the time with no way to rollback to earlier saves (just like Dark So- GUNSHOTS). There's many instances of permanently getting screwed out of completing a quest or getting valuable items. No joke, I killed a potential party member at the beginning of the game without realizing it. If this sounds brutal and unforgiving, well bare in mind this is a very short game for a RPG. It's meant to be played multiple times to get the most out of it; though I was plenty satisfied with one playthrough. If anything, all these ways of screwing up adds to the charm of this game. As an example, I got permanently kicked out of the circus area for wearing a polka-dot hat, and they also stole that hat from me. It sucked yeah, but tell me if that has ever happened in any other game before. And the game at its base difficulty is nowhere near difficult enough for stuff like that to cause a dead game, just gotta pull up your boot straps and keep on wandering.
Will say, this game made me nostalgic for all those stick man flash games I played as a kid all the time. I like how dopey and crude everyone, and everything, looks. Especially those hellcows. No I'm not making that up, this game is very silly.
I did also try the DLC which is a two hour adventure game based on solving puzzles in the haunted Gun Manor. Did have to look up some solutions, but it was a nice change of pace combing a larger then normal location compared to every other location in the game which are very dense and tiny.

This isn't a "must-have game" if you like RPGs; more of a suggestion if you want a cheap and short game to make you laugh and leave you baffled by its crazy characters and world.
And hats.
Looooot of hats.

It's a From Software Action RPG (or FSARPG). Not "kind of like Dark Souls", it just is. The controls, the combat, the actions you can do in combat, the inventory system, the leveling system, the way you upgrade weapons, the stamina gauge, the back attacks, the unintuitive jumping; it literally feels like a FSARPG that came from an alternative universe.

Am I complaining? Not at all. Does it do the FSARPG formula well? Pretty much with only a few snags. Is it hard? Not the hardest, but this is coming from someone whose played and beaten all of these games so I'm fairly biased. Does it do anything new? Yes, a lot of things actually.

This game took the most from Bloodborne, but sprinkled in Sekiro's guard and parry system. The aesthetics and environment are a lot like a less bloody, less claustrophobic Yharnam from Bloodborne; though no less in a state of "Shit's Bad!" No less an interesting setting with it being inspired by "The Beautiful Era" of France, doubly so with the use of humanoid, mutated puppets as the primary antagonistic force. Offers something that isn't too common in video games while allowing for some elaborate designs that makes progressing through the game more engaging. Also gives the same subtle humor from other the FSARPGs where they'd include some real goofball enemies. The wheel skeletons from Dark Souls 1, the naked giant man that rolls all over the place in Bloodborne, and who could forget the screaming dive bombing ninjas in Sekiro who scream "WHOOAAA!!" Lies of P has puppets who are maids, baby puppet enemies that cry, giant clown robots, puppets that stab with chimney sweepers, police puppets wielding stop signs, and certain late-game enemies that have some seriously styling mustaches.
I'm going to assume you know the general flow of FSARPGs and how the gameplay works, since I'll only go over what's different. Blocking is far more vital to your survival. You take chip damage, but you can recover that damage by attacking back at the enemy similar to the rally mechanic from Bloodborne. If you get hit before that, then that recoverable health is gone. If you don't want to take any damage at all then you'll need to master parrying. Simply block before getting hit to negate any damage and deal stun damage to the enemy. Build up enough stun from successful parries and charge attacks, then they'll fall over for a fatal strike. They'll be on their knees for a while so you'll also have a opportunity to heal, apply a buff, sharpen your weapon and so forth. This knocked down status applies to every boss and enemy, and it especially becomes a godsend in later fights where bosses hurt like Hell with long combo strings that, sometimes, feel they take too long. I get that it's more opportunities to parry and stagger them, but there have been times where I'm like "Can I have my turn now?" You can dodge through attacks, but that won't work with the red attacks. These ignore I-frames and are unblockable, plus they can only be countered by perfect parrying them (or physically moving out of way, but that's much harder when you can't utilize i-frames). It's always nerve-wracking when you see these attacks coming, as more often then not it's "Do-or-Die" when you see the red glow.
Weapons come in handles and blades, apart from boss weapons which are just a single weapon. These handles and blades can be assembled and disassembled to your liking. This allows you to utilize a weapon's moveset that you like but is otherwise lacking in damage with its current handle, or perhaps the blade has a fable art that synergizes well with your playstyle. Fable arts are this game's weapon arts, only that both the blade and the handle come with their own art. Some are big attacks, others help with blocking and defense, couple are buffs; but either way it's another factor to consider when building your Pinocchio (I wrote that, but I don't think they ever call the protagonist that). Ultimately whether you engage with weapon building is up to you, as your more then capable of playing this game with the weapons as they are when you first obtain them.
Not unlike Sekiro's prosthetics, you also have a cool mechanical arm that can do a variety of things. You got grappling hook, an exploding shield, landmines, a gun, flamethrower, or the default iron fist for quick left hook in the face. A lot of them aren't too exciting till they get upgraded, then they can deal some serious damage. Till then it can be easy to neglect them, but perhaps it's because I wasn't accustomed to using them at first.
A big thing to note is how linear this game is. While the world believable and makes positional sense, it is a straight line to the end. There are a lot of optional quests and smaller areas for loot and treasure, just don't expect to find anything too extravagant. I don't mind too much, I don't like missing bosses in FSARPGs, but if you get majorly stuck on a boss then tackling a different area or boss isn't an option. Most major bosses do have summonable NPCs if you are really struggling. I did used them a few times and they do take a lot of the stress off, plus the item used to summon them are everywhere. Makes me wonder if it was even necessary to put in that toll.

I don't have too much say on the story. I'm glad it's a lot more clearer of a plot then other souls-likes, even has characters that stick around for a while as you get to learn a lot about them. This means a lot to FSARPG fans, trust me. There's still a lot of lore notes and background details, but it's only there to get additional info on events rather then being the entire story. Also this is Pinocchio but the game really wants you lie at all times. I get the message, lies are part of what makes us human and this is a twisted version of the fairy tale. Writing this out, the theme of lying actually goes deeper then I thought as I think back at the ending, but of course that's spoiler territory.

So, do you like FSARPGs (I'm sure this will catch on in a few years)? Then give this game a shot. Maybe it doesn't do enough new and some aspects of it can cross the line of "Oh this is literally the same as Dark Souls", but as a action-RPG fan these kind of games are some of my favorites to play. They have just the right amount of push and pull with fantastic player expression that keeps me coming back over and over again.

I would also like to mention that the guide I was following put the clearly bad ending as the "Real" ending and now I am doing New Game plus to get the actually nice ending and it's been a few days but I'm still malding at this and... (EDIT: I got the good ending now. Still a good game)

I got 99% map completion with zero clue where to look and this is driving me crazy...

So here's a weird thing, I think this a better game then the original, but I'm rating both games the same score. Not because the sequel has new issues that even out the scores, but rather this is kind of just more of the same. The same gorgeous pixel art that's both beautiful yet horrifying in its level of detail, the same sense of linear progression in a fairly open-map, same basis of combat, same verbose dialogue which I have no clue what anyone is saying, most of the same mechanics, and so forth.
Let's get this out of the way: I just don't care for the story and the world. It looks pretty (and intentionally disgusting) but I barely know why I'm doing the things I'm doing, and I couldn't find a good hook to latch onto to make me interested in it. At least with other games with vague storytelling (I.E. Souls and Hollow Knight) there were plenty of memorable characters with their own interesting stories that you see many times during the game; here there really isn't anything like that. The one character that seems to follow you through most of the game came close, but it didn't pay off at all. This is a problem I shared with the first game, but it's more noticeable to me in this entry. Not like this is the most wordy of games at least, but this style of plot really isn't my jam. Cool religious imagery, wish I didn't need to read a bible to get what's going on.
Gameplay has seen some improvements. The main selling point is having three weapons, instead of the single sword from the first game. You do still have a sword weapon with a added life steal super-mode, but now you also have a rapier and dagger combo that become enhanced in lightning the more you hit enemies without taking damage, and my go-to weapon a flail with a giant metal lantern for its head that you expend magic (called Fervor) to ignite it for added fire damage. These weapons give the usual choice of balance, speed, and power respectfully, yet each one also has utility in exploring and puzzle solving. For the most part you aren't force to use any of them during combat, and what you use will come down to personal preference. Some enemies do have high resistances to elements that each weapon specializes in (Sword uses Mystical, Rapier/Dagger is Lightning, Flail is Fire), but you can simply just not activate the elemental buff and you'll be fine. I personally think the Rapier/Dagger is a little too weak though. I see the potential it has, but not getting hit at all in Blasphemous is really tough when merely touching enemies deals minor damage that removes the buff. I think with the right set-up it'd be pretty decent, but there's also no getting around its bad range in comparison to the other two weapons.
Platforming feels a lot better though. No more having to time sword swings to embed your sword into walls in order to wall-jump, now you have a simple wall cling that just works way better. I admire the first game for trying to do something different with wall jumps, but the amount of times I thought I was close enough to the wall to stab into it, only for the game to say "Nah not close enough. Die." got very frustrating. But on top of that, pits and spikes are no longer instant-death. Now they deal a lot of damage and you respawn from where you fell off. It still punishes you for failing, but it feels less like it'll waste your time to do a corpse run for something so simple.
I did find this game to be much easier overall. Not even including the lack of instant-death traps, bosses and enemies gave me nowhere near as much trouble as the first. The added flexibility in the weapons and movement, plus some added prayers (spells) made things way more manageable. There's this one prayer that you get for doing a very cryptic side quest, and that plus the flail's ability to give extra fervor in combat by hitting enemies made it borderline impossible to die. Hell before that there was a prayer that's a giant beam of light that deals frankly absurd damage that just melts everything. I wouldn't say this is an easy game, there was one boss that took me several tries, but it was less stressful overall then its predecessor.
Some miscellaneous changes are the removal of specific accessories that you had to equip so that some random platforms would appear, which is much appreciated. I felt the shops and places to obtain upgrades were placed more conveniently next to warp areas, less wasted time. There doesn't seem to be a new game plus but in exchange you can get both endings in one playthrough, which almost feels like its directed towards me who screwed up on getting the true ending from the first game at the VERY last step. And I wished you could refund skill points from the weapon skill trees, which wasn't a thing in the last game either, sadly. Might've given the Rapier/Dagger a fairer shake otherwise.

But yeah, this is certainly an improved Blasphemous with much tighter pacing. A game I do like a lot, but far from loving it. For a Metroidvania it's fairly solid, just not a favorite.

Moral of the story: Religion is messed up.

"Hi, before you begin we're contractually obligated to force you into making a Bethesda account before playing our game."
Turns on airplane mode
"... I guess that works too..."
Yeah that's a baffling thing for Doom, of all games, to have but if there's a workaround then I ain't going too complain much. Especially considering how fun the game itself is.

Doom Eternal is all about resource management. You need to be mindful of your health, your armor (more or less a second health bar), and your ammo. Even with max upgrades it's very easy to run out of ammo. You'll need to either scour the arenas for ammo, or more commonly chainsaw a demon for a shower of ammo drops. Your chainsaw fuel is limited, but recharges a single tank overtime. But having three fuel at once will allow you to instakill a larger demon for free, so now you have to choose whether you want ammo now or save it to immediately remove a demon off the board. For armor you can shoot a flamethrower to ignite enemies that will drop armor on hit, and even more upon death; bearing in mind that they don't stay on fire for long. To be as efficient as possible you could try to lure many weak demons into a big crowd, ignite them, then blow them all up with a grenade or blood punch. Alternatively you could also use it on enemies that are close to death to reap the bonus armor immediately if you desperately need some now. Health is arguably the hardest resource to manage as you can only recover (excluding pickups) from glory kills, which is when you finish off a enemy near death, an upgrade ice grenade that are also incredible tools to immobilize and/or finish off powerful demons so you may not always have one available, or if you are close to death defeated enemies will drop some health as a sort of dynamic difficulty. You can also freeze and ignite enemies at the same time (cause video games) for armor and health drops simultaneously, but now both those options are on cooldown so hope you are good at dodging.
This isn't even getting to all the weapons and the many, many roles and functions they serve. Certain weapons can more easily break parts of demons to disable dangerous attacks, some can more easily falter specific demons in which their actions are interrupted, maybe the gun can destroy armor or shields more easily, or they can lock on to a particularly mobile demon, and so forth. Doom Eternal would be a strategy game if it weren't for how fast and frantic this game is. Demons are absolutely relentless. Most are very good at chasing you across the arena, making hard to break line of sight from long range enemies or if you move away from a close range demon then you can guarantee that they'll be back in your face again before long. So many demons have specific strengths and more importantly weaknesses. It's a ton to juggle in your head all the times.
Maybe too much for some. While Doom Eternal doesn't throw all these systems at the player straight away (unless you, for whatever insane reason, play the DLC first) it does expect you to pickup these lessons fast, because the next new mechanic is right around the corner. Doom Eternal will rewire your brain to the point that all these mechanics will become natural. It won't ever become a question of "what do I do" it'll become "how do I do it". You start making decisions on what enemies and resources to prioritize without any hesitancy. You immediately identify demons of higher danger but of course you almost never fight just one dangerous demon alone but several at once. The moments that stick with me though will always be the "oh shit!" moments. The times that I miss my grenades on the flying meatballs to glory kill them, the times I get too trigger happy with a particular weapon and now I have no ammo for the demon whose weak to that very gun, when I get to careless and find myself desperately in need of health and armor with missiles flying at me, the dread realizing there's not one but two Tyrants at once, maybe I hear a the Marauder's sound cue right behind me, or worst of all I see the translucent demons being summoned by the Archville and now I'm panicing looking for that asshole.
Doom Eternal is consistently a thrill ride from beginning to... mostly the end. I found the bosses to be a low point, including DLC. Some were better then others, but they can really pushed the boundaries of fairness where I felt the game was expecting me too much of my attention with the boss and the infinitely respawning enemies. And these enemies aren't always the easy fodder kind. They'll be spamming projectiles while your looking at what the boss is doing but it's harder to justify killing them if they're going to respawn anyway and... it's not impossible by any means and there are certainly ways to make it easier, it's more that I didn't feel it was a satisfying challenge like the most of the game already was. And lastly this isn't a issue, but I actually had to take breaks in the middle of levels because my mind and hands were working up a storm of inputs and decision makings. Was having a blast the whole time but goddamn I didn't want to go into the next high intensity fight with my brain completely drained.

So glad I finally played Doom Eternal after its been on my wishlist for so long. It demands a lot from you but it'll give so much dopamine in return.

Those ghosts that possess demons in the DLC can go suck Satan taint though

Not a direct recommendation, but @moschidae recommended a lot of RPG maker games a while ago. I looked at some of them but this one caught my eye the most (I know it's not made in RPG maker, the first one was, but this looked way more up my alley. Plus moschidae gave this a good review, sooooo I'll credit her still.)

Winner of the award for "Best Face Melting Animation"

And winner of the "Best Cookie Deployment Animation", and "Best Hands", among many others. The most appealing thing of Hylics 2 is most apparent just by looking at it. The use of claymation for characters, environments, and the enemies would be one thing; but to then go off-the-rails into the surreal and make everything so otherworldly. No other game looks quite like this, not even other games that utilize claymation. Just watch these enemies yourself from the Steam store page, words can't do this game justice. (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1286710/Hylics_2/)
I'd often find myself just staring at the enemies during combat, just trying to process what in the sweet Hell am I looking at. And I love how to help with the uncanniness, most enemies don't move at the same framerate. Some are far more choppier then others, snapping from one pose to the next with seemingly little rhyme or reason. But it doesn't end there, every single spell (called gestures) and item used has their own unique animations. No game needs this much effort in using a burrito with how it rotates, opens, crumbles and warps into nothingness. Gestures meanwhile are somehow vague in what they do, yet you stare at them and think "Yeah it makes sense why that'd cause you to bleed (called "Leaking" here)" Even the less extravagant animations still have flair and a great sense if impact. Pongorma's Lightning gesture has a great "One, Two... THREE!" motion with flick of the hand casting the spell, causing the final impact to feel much more powerful.
The cherry on top is the solid turn based combat, though not without a few snags here or there. It's a moderately challenging game with how on top you have to be with buffs and status effects. Every enemy can cause at least one status effect that range from minor damage overtime to "Deal zero damage now!". Does share that issue with a lot of other RPGs where the beginning can sometimes feel harder then the late game. You learn more spells and find better equipment by the mid game, so it helps accommodate for the statistically stronger enemies; whereas early on your strap for consumables and you have so little Will (your MP equivalent for spells) that every gesture is a commitment. The encounter design also doesn't mess around. Fighting four or more enemies is the norm, and solid "Hit-All" attacks are rare for your party. Yet, for me at least, I never got messed up too badly. Some encounter were tense yes, but I never felt I couldn't make a come-back from a bad situation. Grinding isn't even a potential solution for two reasons: 1). Enemies never respond, and 2). There's no experience but instead meat. Meat is used to increase your party's flesh, which is your health in case there's any confusion. Yes having more health helps, but it almost always comes down to better strategy, item usage, and equipment to make the ride smoother. Items especially. You're a bit limited at the beginning, but you exponentially get a ton of them later on. Use them whenever, it'll make life so much easier. Lastly I wanted to comment on the party and how simple they are. Every party member has just one unique gesture and different starting stats, and apart from that they're the same. If you told me that before I played this game, I would've been under the impression that "That seems pretty boring". Yet every spell has important roles and usage, especially the exclusive gestures. It instead makes the party surprisingly moldable for any composition you want... just like clay oH FU-
I hate using this word, but exploring Hylics 2 really is a "vibe". The soft, melancholic surfer rock soundtrack paired with surprisingly expansive movement for a turn based RPG makes exploring very soothing yet fun. The iso perspective could've made platforming a pain, but there's a handy marker for where you player character is going to land at all times. Also helps that this game isn't terribly long, so you never get fully use to the weirdness and you're continuously surprised by interesting design after interesting design. You become very accepting of the strange and just go with the flow. Even the main battle theme isn't overly energetic, but does invoke a bit more tension. That said, the final boss theme goes pretty hard and is fantastic, even if the fight itself was pretty easy.

Makes me excited to see the artist behind this game, Mason Lindroth, is making another Hylics game and it's looking just as creative as this game. Big recommendation.
The main villain being named Gibby fucks me up more then it should.

I seriously beat the crap out of this one kid with severe self-loathing issues at his hometown while taking with me a mythical creature that he's been obsessed with all his life, only to then follow him to his own school where I then destroy his whole career in front of a live audience. Oh he tried to fight back; but he couldn't stand up to my twelve foot, one-eyed bear that unleashes a giant laser from the power of a bloodmoon, plus the very same mythical creature from earlier but now she brought a fiery spiked club with his name written on it. This is probably the funniest plot since X and Y.

They couldn't get the landing quite right with Part 2.

Structure of the DLC is pretty much the same as the base game, "do battles against boss characters in any order, then proceed to the finale". I liked the new characters enough but it feels we didn't get enough time with them. Seems like there are post game conversations to be had with them at least, even found out the red-head has a crush with one of the others. That's cute, kind of wish it was integrated into the main story among the many other interactions that I might never see. Plus the plot with Area Zero had nowhere near the punch that the base game had during its finale.

Will give credit though, this DLC doesn't mess around. I personally never came close to losing, but that's only because I'm an obsessive freak who gulps EV trains all their Pokémon, plus alters their natures and hyper trains for perfect stats. But both regular trainers and boss trainers use competitively viable Pokémon and intricate strategies that adds a level of complexity to battle that you seldom see in these games outside the post game. They will use both Pokémon with their hidden abilities and held items that makes them more dangerous. This is ontop of every fight being a double battle which allows for a lot more possibilities for both your opponents the players themselves. As an example, I used a Great Tusk with Earthquake alongside a Levitate Vikavolt with Discharge, meaning that both of their attacks hit both opponents while being immune to each other. Like any Pokémon game, you can still power level your team to crush your foes with raw numbers, but with how high leveled everyone already is it's a lot tougher then usual. What I do like about these battles the most though is that they're also great teaching tools in the ways you can use certain Pokémon. They show you how strong reflect and light screen are, how to utilize terrains and weather, and what moves are great for certain Pokémon.

The BBQ quests are kind of a huge mess and the biggest fumble here. Firstly, don't do what I did and start trying to fill up the Pokedex till you unlock these quests by doing the very first story mission you get. That was a big mistake and wasted a lot of time. These quests are simple tasks that, very slowly, award a currency that's used for basically everything. Do you want to decorate your room? Do you want to change how your player character tosses a Poke Ball? Do you want new photo filters? Do you want to unlock post-game rematches with old Gym leaders and the Elite Four? Do you want to 3D print items, up to and including Master Balls? Then you're going to be grinding out a metric ton of these quests. Every ten small ones gives you one larger quest with a extra payout. For the most part though things are reasonably priced, except for the terrarium upgrades.
SO! Based on the Part 1 of the DLC, I knew coming in that there would be a special Pokémon or two unlocked by reaching a certain percentage of Pokedex completion. That is indeed true. If you catch 200 out of 240 Pokémon, you can catch two new paradoxes. Here's the thing: despite your best efforts in catching, evolving, and trading you can only get about 160. And that's where upgrading the terrarium comes in. For each of the four biomes there is a upgrade to add several wild starter Pokémon from all the past games to catch. Cool, right? It would be if they weren't 3000 points.
Each.
A single quest earns you 20 to 40 points, while the tenth special quest can earn you up to 200 or so. You see the problem, right??
But what can you do to make this tolerable? One is beating every trainer in a biome. Every five or so earns quite a lot of points. Problem: this is one-and-done. Once you exhaust all the trainers then your out of luck. Almost. The real way to wrack up points is to play with friends. There are special multiplayer quests that will earn you an actual reasonable sum of points. What if you don't have friends who play this game or have online?... ummm...
On one hand, this is mostly only a pain for completionists. If you just want to reach the end then you'll need about 200 or so points. That's completely reasonable. On the other hand, Pokémon hasn't had such a pain in the ass economy since the Battle Frontier that gave you pennies for playing battles that feel like their cheating at points. It's a regression that feels very disappointing. I ended up upgrading two biomes and managed to trade for a few more Pokémon to reach the 200 quota. Was it worth it? I don't think so. If you have friends then it's probably much more tolerable. The quests may be short and simple, but they're not interesting challenges and they can make you run all over the place. And and and and! If you want to catch all the past legendries' in the post game, then you need at least some group quests completed. I would not be surprised if these quests get an overhaul in a future patch, cause as they are now they're a unremarkable grind.

But enough of that, can we talk about the Synchro Machine? It allows you take control of any of your Pokémon. "Is it useful?" If you're asking that question then you've already failed. You can toss a ball with ZR and play with it. You can play as a Joltik whose as big as a flea and hops around like a tiny bug. You can play as the slowest Pokémon imaginable or one who zooms through the sky. You can play as a Alolan Exeggutor, the funny tall palm tree dude. It's stupid fun and I wish more games in general had things not tied to any progression or goals but instead just allows you to fool around with something silly. As an aside, I saw online how one person controlled one of their shiny Pokémon and fooled their friends into thinking they found a glitched shiny that they couldn't catch. That's why you do stuff like this. (Also I caught my first shiny in Gen 9, a shiny, female Meowstic (https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-sv/meowstic/#))

Also did you know that Meloetta is in this DLC? Probably didn't since it some cryptic bullcrap you hear on the school playground from a kid who says he beaten every game in existence. No that's not physically possible Michael you stupid ass- erm anyway nice to see devs continuing to include some wild mysteries to their game and see how long it takes for people to find them. Not long in this case, if only this game was made a decade or so sooner then this would've been the wildest shit imaginable.

Wrapping back to the intro here, Kieran is one of the more interesting characters in Pokémon mainline. He's probably one of the more, for lack of better words, realistic characters for his age. I can somewhat emphasize with him as someone who used to have a severe inferiority complex, feeling as if there are people who are factually better then you in every possible way. When that belief embeds itself in your mind it can be hard to pull it back out, taking over every fleeting thought in your damaged head. Still, he's a kid. Completely immature and rash. Lashing out at others who try to look past and question his façade. He uses a Porygon-Z with Adaptability, a Life Orb, and Hyper Beam; in other words, completely fucking overkill. He created a persona of a tough guy when in reality he's a huge dork. He is someone who says "Wowzers" unironically, that's the level we're dealing with.
Whether you actually like him is a different story, for me I was both laughing at and with him. Anytime he gets those distressed anime eyes where his pupils shrink and his eyes bulge is really entertaining. I like the times where he breaks his "badass" caricature and is real bad at recovering from that flub. And you know, even if you do hate him then he's a good foil as he takes his losses really badly. So either way I feel he works as a character.

I will say, maybe I'm a very distrustful person but I counted three characters I was expecting to be twist villains. In hindsight I'm glad that wasn't the case since that might've been pretty lame, but apart from Kieran and his sister Carmine there's a lot of characters that don't get much, if any, satisfying developments or memorable moments. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but Pokémon can and has done better in the past. I don't need a ton of story sequences in a Pokémon game, but I feel a few more here or there would've gone a long way to make this a much more satisfying conclusion to Gen 9.

And what a Gen this has been. It's real close to the apex of the franchise, it just needs more polish in both an aesthetic and technical level. Plus I'm a big advocate for adding voice acting to these games. When there's several cutscenes that show a much a higher level of character acting with them seemingly lip synched to their dialogue, the exclusion makes it all the more baffling. Wishing the devs the best, and here's hoping Gen 10 can deliver something new and exciting.

Also I didn't make Michael up. He was a real kid at Elementary school.
Kids sure are something.