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.

"Turbo Overkill stars Johnny Turbo. It is a FPS where you gib enemies with your chainsaw leg, torch foes with the alt fire of your two cylinder chaingun, have a orbital space laser at your disposal that turns everything to ash, can shoot flaming buzzsaws that saw anything in half, explode bad guys with your grenade launcher alt fire with your double barrel boomstick, and a sniper rifle that allows you to telefrag into a enemy on command." And I only made one of those things up.

Let me just say right off the bat: despite this being a fast paced retro-style FPS with the word "Kill" in its title, this is nothing like UltraKill. This is Doom Eternal instead. A Doom Eternal that's, somehow, even faster then ever but doesn't have the same level of enemy complexity and resource management. This mostly has to do with ammo management, which is far more lenient then in Eternal. It'd be tempting to say that's a flaw, but it's simply less demanding in what is most optimal for every combat encounter. While I don't agree personally, some criticized Doom Eternal for having "right" choices when it comes to what weapon to use against which enemy. Something like casting ice magic against a fire enemy, very simple problem that solves itself with little room for deviation. I feel Doom Eternal is more of a dial of "Good" and "Bad" choices, but I do understand where people are coming from when they say they feel limited in what the game asks from them, especially when they keep running out of ammo. Turbo Overkill has nine weapons with a alt-fire for each, and apart from a few, ammo is generally fairly plentiful. Alt-fires do cost more ammo in exchange for higher rewards, but this leads to combat feeling more free-flowing that asks you "How do you want go about making the walls red tonight?"
That isn't to imply this game is overly simple, the base combat certainly is more complex then the original Doom by a wide margin. To partially spoil the guessing game I had at the beginning of this review, the chainsaw leg is your primary ammo-less weapon at your disposal. A lightning fast dash that instant-kills any small humanoids. This game has purchasable and unlockable augments that allows you customize your own Johnny, one of the most important being the augments that grant health and armor upon killing with the chainsaw leg. This gives similar experience to utilizing lesser demons from Eternal that were glorified resource piñatas. It has the same scramble feeling when you're near death and start desperately searching for these lesser foes, while dodging the far more threatening monsters shooting lasers and a hail of bullets. You also have a arm missile that you can lock-on to many enemies at once for a rain of homing missiles, or lock to only one enemy for a much stronger single missile. It's on a relatively long timer, but it deals a ridiculous amount of damage which makes it ideal to remove/weaken the more troublesome monsters off the board. And do you like weapon swapping to bypass gun recoil animations from Doom Eternal? Well you'll feel right at home with how freeing swapping weapons feel, not needing to go through any animation you don't want to sit through (except flipping off foes after a missile launch, which is kind of hilarious how that's the only animation you can't skip). One particular augment takes the weapon swapping a step further then even Eternal, but I'll leave that one a secret.
Enemies hit really hard to compensate the versatility of Johnny Turbo. Checkpoints can be very generous, but there are times where I went 100% to 20% health in a blink of an eye (I played on Hard, there are two higher difficulties above that. One of which just says "Don't" in its description if you try to pick it). Hell, sometimes I'd be dead in that split second. You have two dashes and two jumps by default, plus the aforementioned chainsaw slide, and the game expects you to be moving always. I feel the difficulty curve is generally pretty good, though the Episode 2 bosses was where it starts expecting a lot more from the player. Some parts can be a huge endurance round where you'll be on the edge of life and death at all times. The final few levels especially throw everything and the kitchen sink at you.
Levels can go on for a long time with hundreds of enemies in each one. Sometimes it feels like a joke the devs are in on: "Hey this seems like a lot of enemies... add more." You can even get a cheat to multiply enemy spawns by threefold, which is honestly hilarious by that point. Oh right, each level has three chips and three cassette tapes that unlock cheats and hidden levels respectfully. Because of your insane mobility and the length of these stages, a lot of these collectables can be borderline too well hidden. It wasn't uncommon to spend close to 30 minutes in a single level, only to miss half of the collectables despite my best efforts. Thankfully they aren't required by any means, they're just for fun and extra content. And you don't need to find them on one clean run, the game saves every collectible you pick-up.
The story here, while nothing new or thought-provoking, knows what it is the whole way through. It knows when to ramp up its silliness to the logical extreme, but also knows when to throw a curve ball that forces the heroes in a difficult situation. Its got style and attitude a plenty, maybe a little juvenile with the amount middle fingers and f-bombs thrown left and right, but it never feels artificial nor boring. And this probably has one of the only walk-and-talk sections in any game you can skip, holy shit why is this not standard? The amount humor thrown in this game is the cherry on top. I like the enemy descriptions in the bestiary that were written by a guy who clearly has a grudge against several enemies. I like some of the silly graffiti on the way in most levels of this cyberpunk dystopian that can feel like it was drawn by bored teenagers. And I especially love how bizarre and ludicrous these weapons can get. The dual uzis you get early on allows you to turn one of the uzis into a more accurate two-handed rifle, but instead of putting the other gun away Johnny will just toss the extra onto the floor where it becomes a game object with physics. Little details like that makes the personality of a game shine.

It feels this game has been going under the radar, and that's a crying shame since this game goes really freakin hard. Far harder then it has any right to. The set pieces are some of the best of any in its genre, and the gameplay is top tier in its execution and systems. Even if it can get frustrating with some endgame sections, I'm willing to look past it because of how much more this game gets right.

And you can gib enemies with your chainsaw leg.
I rest my case.

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.

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.

DLC for a game that I wrote one of my earliest reviews I made on this site. Even if it wasn't too long in the grand scheme of things, returning to this game felt nostalgic. Amid Evil was my first retro shooter I ever played which then had me try a lot of other boom shoots, which in turn encourage me to try a lot of different types of games. I was enamored by the stunning environments of the original game, and the creative arsenal of magical artifacts that were unique takes on many classic FPS weapons, while having creative quirks between each weapon.
Black Labyrinth is more of the same. More levels with tightly paced events and challenges. More stunning environments that are some of the best made by any indie studio. And even new weapons. They aren't necessarily added to your weapon total but rather the newcomers replace other weapons from the base game. Instead of the axe you have your bare fists. By themselves they may feel a little weaker then the axe, but activating soul mode will allow you to go full JoJo mode and unleash a barrage of fists as your player character screams "ORA ORA ORA ORA!" I could nitpick and point out that the barrage of punches makes it really hard to see, but honestly I feel that adds to the rampage tone they're going for. Never got me killed at least. The second newcomer is the Voidsplitter, which replaces the Aeturnum. For those unfamiliar, the Aeturnum is a literal BFG with how it shoots out a huge projectile that creates tendrils the destroys most enemies in one hit. Because of that I felt the Voidsplitter was more fun to use since its instead a scythe that creates extremely large and deadly slicing projectiles that cuts anything in two, but it needs better accuracy then the Aeturnum. Not by much, but lining up shots to destroy a crowd of enemies had me luring and planning more carefully then just tossing out a BFG when I was panicking.
Lastly the few bosses were a decent challenge, and at least didn't die in three seconds flat like most from the base game.

Not much else to add really. This was really solid and I'm glad I still really love this game even now. It's not the most complex or intricate in the genre, but it's unique and there really isn't anything like it.
And now it's a great JoJo simulator.

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.

Recommended by @DeltaWDunn

This is my first ever stealth game. Never been that interested in them as I've never liked all those forced stealth sections in non-sneaky games. At most I used stealth a lot in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, so I at least had some OK experience with the pacing of sneaks and stabs.

Sooooo, are stealth games really just puzzle games?

I mean, the puzzle can require strict timing, or the solution can change if you make a mistake; but this game gave me "I R SMART" feeling of a good puzzle game, which I was not expecting. It's all about watching enemy patterns, taking note where light is and if you can disable them, sources of sound, the kind of guards that are in the way and their positions, what ninja tools you have at your disposal, the location of grapple points and vents, and so forth. You process this information and then create a plan of action.
Lure a guard with broken light, kill them while stuffing their body in a closet, but do it fast before his buddy sees you. Not fast enough? Kill the guard and quickly hang their body from a grappling spot which will cause terror to all who see the corpse. And as you'd expect from a stealth game, going through every level without killing or being spotted is a valid tactic, though it often requires more effort then being "Sir Stabs-A-Lot". Maybe it's symbolic, "It's easier to destroy then it is to save."
I don't know how I feel about the generous checkpoint system. I think its necessary as it's very easy to die (never attempt to fight anyone head-on) but I sometimes feel like I'm cheating when I'm constantly rewinding time for every mistake I make. It's like quicksaving in any game, less stressful but very exploitable and tempting at that. I mean, if you have the tool to fix any mistake, what's stopping you from doing that? Maybe checkpoints placed further apart would make it more of a interesting decision on whether you want to re-do a portion of a level for a better score or to live with your mistakes, but again this would make failure pretty frustrating for more casual players. Despite my grievances, I think they made the better decision in being forgiving to the player.
Even with that said, the game still isn't too challenging despite the deadly enemies and insta-death traps. Going back to the analogy, a puzzle game with more then one solution is inherently easier then a puzzle with a single correct solution. You have a lot of tools and methods to tackle each problem, and till the last three or four levels enemies are fairly easy to exploit and abuse. Terrifying enemies to panic shoot all their allies is maybe a bit too strong, and there's several methods of making them go insane that aren't too much of a nuisance to pull off. When you have a rock solid plan, all you need to is execute it and your pretty much set... bearing a guard you missed that caught you red-handed (as in you're now red in blood :] ) but as mentioned restarting is a non-issue. A short term hurdle.
This game does have a fantastic presentation that always shows all the information a player needs. Sound plays a critical role in being a ninja, and you will always know how much sound something produces at any point while playing. You'll know when a guard hears something, you'll know where a guard is going to investigate, you'll know whose in shadow or not, you'll know a guard's line of sight; almost nothing is hidden from the player. Maybe the only big U.I. problem I've had is some annoying context sensitivity issues. Sometimes I press X to kill a guard but they move slightly too far and I end up smacking his head instead. Other times I'm trying to pick-up a body in order to hide it, but Mr. Ninja thought I wanted to hide behind the vase and now somebody that just spotted the body triggered the alarm. Got a few unfair deaths, but nothing to ruin the game for me.

Despite some faults I have with the game, one thing I can't deny is just how smooth the ride was. I was going through the motions at points sure, but there's something to be said about a game that you play for a few minutes and your just like "Yeah I get it!" You quickly download the rules and can then execute with precision like a real ninja... till you run right into your fifth spike trap like a dumbass
(Also, happy 250th game).

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!!

Fair warning: this game is Steam Deck verified but at present it shouldn't be. I had several crashes, the screen was extremely fuzzy half the time, and more then once the environments forgot to load, including part of the ending cutscene. Probably the most "memorable" glitch came from how I completed a quest that gave me a schematic for the ultimate weapon... except I didn't receive it yet the quest was still completed. I then learn how to load backup saves on the Steam Deck, so I guess I have that to show for this incident. I've heard using a actual PC is more then fine, so maybe avoid this on any "diet PC".
Then again I've played Skyrim on PS3 for over a hundred hours, this kind of unstable game is nothing new to me, nor is playing a game on the worst possible platform (Oh Hi Bloodstained Ritual of the Night on Switch).

Ratchet & Clank is a series I hold very near and dear. A childhood franchise that I played to Hell and back in the day when getting a new game was a rare and exciting time. I loved every game I played: 1, Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal, Deadlocked, Tools of Destruction, and A Crack In Time. I've played each of them at least four times. I distinctly remember being so upset that our Tools of Destruction disc got scratched, and it'd be a crap-shoot if the next planet loaded or not. Despite all of that, Crack in Time was the last new Ratchet game I played. I can't remember the exact reason, maybe I was really into another franchise at the time, or maybe even back then I recognized that the newer games didn't look too appealing. I was going to play Rift Apart whenever I got a PS5, which still hasn't happened.
As mentioned, the way I played this was completely unideal, but I still was able to stick with it. Was it nostalgia for the older games? I don't think so since the combat felt pretty different. It felt more restrictive with going into this "battle mode" where you can only shoot relative to the camera rather then your character's direction. That messed with me more times then I'd like to admit, but wasn't long before I was able to adjust. They also added their own invincible dodge, which I was mixed at first. It felt a little too forgiving with being able to dodge right through attacks with pretty generous timing. Bearing in mind that I stuck to the hardest difficulty through the whole game, I did find myself struggling a few times in some of the more hectic battles. The game still keeps the strafe flips from the older games and it then hit me why they did this. The phantom dash is invincible, but you can't shoot and are committed to a direction. Strafe jumping is much riskier but your offense is unimpeded and have more control in mid-flight. These games have never been masterful in combat encounters, but this little bit of decision making added a lot to the fun of these shoot-outs. Especially since enemies are surprisingly very aggressive at max difficulty. Some may even lead their shots, so sometimes I'd be punished by not thinking how I'm dodging attacks.
It helps that, apart from a few too many scripted sequences, I feel this is one of the better paced games in the series when it comes to action. I was never left feeling wanting before we were back to fighting, something the Future games struggle with I feel. There's not a ton of extra game modes to contend with, just some light dimensional puzzles and hacking shooting games. Neither go on for too long, though I personally wish the puzzles were a bit more challenging. Then again, it does bring up something that may be harder for me to contend with: I'm not the audience to these Ratchet games. Not anymore, that is. More then ever did I noticed all the dialogue the characters exchanged during gameplay that felt very forced. Pointing out the obvious repeatedly for the mission objectives, not really giving the player much to think about where to go or what to do. I have a map, but it's mostly used for collectable hunting (to be fair, I did get everything in this game which was pretty fun). Character's talk to themselves all the time almost like I was a kid, but they are not talking to me, but to the main audience. I watched a video on this game where it was laid pretty plainly that this series has many different audiences, with no way to please all of them. The scathing commentary on capitalism from the first four games (well, Up Your Arsenal wasn't as prominent with that commentary) is pushed aside for their own themes of self-doubt. To some of the older fans this feels like a series that has lost its edge. And frankly it has, because it changed. But what would be accomplished returning to those themes? What else does Ratchet & Clank have to say about this exploitative system that we are trapped in that it, or literally every other story about capitalism, hasn't covered yet? Hell it's not like those are completely absent from the modern games in this series, in this very game I overheard a NPC saying "Only 40 hours till my next break". Some of that theming is still there, but that's no longer their focus. Because the team is done with that kind of story. You can only do the same thing for so long before getting sick of it.
Huge tangent aside, even for a younger audience maybe you could have had a option to tone down the tutorialization on what to do. They have done a great job with all the accessibility features and options given. I especially like the option to skip the puzzles, which makes repeat playthroughs much more smoother, so adding more options to cut out some fluff would make the ride more enjoyable. But once I accepted that I'm playing a game intended for younger audiences, yet still at the capacity to be played by all ages, I appreciated the story and characters more. I think Rivet is a great addition. I like the subtle differences between her and Ratchet where one is more of a hot-headed newbie, while the other is veteran hero who feels he's been out of the limelight too long to be relevant. I've heard a few people were annoyed that the two share the same equipment with no meaningful gameplay differences, and to be blunt I really don't care. There is a in-game explanation but it doesn't explain everything, and I really don't need it to. It makes the game smoother without limiting the player. Obviously I won't talk about them in detail, but I thought the plot twists and reveals were handle well. One way they handle a particular reveal was damn clever, even when you were expecting something to happen.
I have no good way to transition to this... but the platforming is probably the best in the series. The phantom dash combined with the hoverboots that feel intentionally over-tuned as well as a more forgiving wall-jump had me doing things that felt like I was cheating. There were a lot of instances of "This probably won't wor- Wait it worked?!" And that is a incredibly gratifying feeling that I haven't felt playing this series before.

If things smooth out on the "Diet PC" end of things then I'll bump this to a four, potentially 4.5 if they resolve everything. Or perhaps I'll bite the bullet on a PS5 or a actually good PC. Either way, I said earlier that this franchise has lost its edge, but I feel its gain something else to fill that void.

And they really had to lock the Bouncer weapon to New Game Plus, huh?? I can't tell if that's insidious or brilliant, I'm leaning towards the former

Insane movement combined with gratifying melee combat compliments the Mega Man formula perfectly. Did take a while to adjust, and even after one playthrough I still don't feel completely in control with the grappling hook; but past that it hardly lets up on the high-speed action while rewarding exploration with upgrades and money. You can customize Kai with some fairly impactful equipment that can completely alter how you play. Some are better for survivability, others give platforming benefits, some enhance combat, the usual. Less usual are the burst mechanics where one can equip multitude of special attacks. These attacks come in a wide variety of utility or powers, though I never did remove the piledriver. That was just too satisfying. But you can buy other abilities like a weak healing, a temporary mobility buff, a giant laser, a literal shoryuken, summoning a platform beneath your feet, creating shadow clones, among many others.
Everything else is damn solid. The art, the music, the level design and... most of the bosses. Majority of bosses are the size of your player character, and I did find a few attack wind-ups or tells to be a little too subtle in this high-intensity game. Nothing one can't adjust too, or preemptively prepare for, it just took a few more deaths then I thought were fair. Of course this issue is something that lessens on repeat playthroughs; something this game heavily encourages with speedrunning, and experimenting with different chips and burst actions.

Not much more to add. You like Mega Man? And fast-paced 2D action games? Then play Mega Man X... then play Gravity Circuit.

I owe this game an apology as for the longest time I thought it was just some grindy rougelike. No it's an actually designed Metroidvania, and a solid one at that.

What gave me the impression of it being a rougelike is the footage I saw of the main character mining through samey block after samey block. This made me think the world was randomly generated, as it'd be easier to do that with such assets. But no, there's little randomness from what I can tell. Everything feels consistent and intentionally placed, which makes mining through it all the more funny in retrospect. It gives the player a lot of options on how they want to descend down the mines.
The core loop is delving downwards, finding treasure and caves containing upgrades, then returning to base before your lamp oil runs out of fuel. It's pretty slow to start as you're lamp runs dry fast, but because the mines don't regenerate its terrain, it means you're always making progress no matter what. Slowly etching your way towards the next goal at all times. It's simple but very effective. The challenge caves are all a nice... challenge, and give valuable rewards that makes mining and survivability much more comfortable. Yet soon enough you'll earn some incredibly fun moment abilities that makes traversal a blast. The hookshot is snappy and endlessly useful as you can cancel out of the pull-in while retaining momentum. After getting that I'd sometimes forget I had a wall jump since I was just hookshoting at every turn, it was really addictive.
There's a nice variety of stuff to spend your money and upgrades on. Money allows you to enhance your tools while providing access to perks limited by the amounts of cogs (cause your a robot) you have on hand. Glad it's not a skill tree system. You unlock perks linearly, but are free to have whatever perks you want. Simple and clean.
The bosses aren't ideal for a Metroidvania though. They follow patterns of invincibility as you dodge their patterns before finally getting a chance to attack back, only for your damage output to be capped so that you have to go through every phase of their fight. The final boss was cool in concept, yet it felt pretty haphazard in execution. It was too busy without enough grace. There aren't a lot of bosses to be fair, but I feel a Metroidvania having very rigid boss designs defeats a lot of the purpose of getting stronger and improving your character. This would be a bigger issue if Steamworld Dig 2 was about fighting and high action, but no its more about planning, problem solving, and exploration. Combat is low on the priority list, which for the kind of game this wanted to be is probably for the better.

This is an easy recommendation. It offers a nice balance for players who want a chill time digging, and those who want to be challenged in optimizing their paths to beat the game as quickly as possible.

I got killed by falling rocks more then I care to admit...

Here is a out-of-context spoiler I said out loud while playing Chained Echoes: "In hindsight, I should've guessed that they were gay."

Indie RPGs are incredibly fascinating to me. A genre famous/infamous for their length and complexity usually are more bite-sized in scale and scope when created by a few, maybe even one, passionate dev. Then you have other developers truly committed to creating full-scale RPGs reminiscent of the SNES/PS1 era of RPGs as a (mostly) solo project. The influence of Chrono Trigger is very apparent. From the opening shot being a direct callback to Crono awakening in his bedroom, to the little details like being able to walk even while talking to NPCs, encounters taking place on the same map while also not being random at all, and a end-game skill being a familiar looking spinning sword attack. The developer was very open about his other influences such as Xenogears, Suikoden 2, Final Fantasy VI, and the like.
What's critical though is that this isn't a game with constant references to other works around every corner, its very tasteful while having a identity wholly its own, like with its combat. You control four party members at once in a turn-based battle system, but you also have four reserved members paired up to another character of your choice. For a free action, you can swap a character with their partner. This comes with some obvious advantages with being able to have a ton of options available with up to eight distinct characters with their own unique skills and utility, yet there's also more subtle advantages such as with buffs. Characters buffed with a skill that is then swapped out will retain the buff indefinitely till their swapped back in, whereas normally the buff in under a turn limit. The same applies though to status ailments and debuffs, so you can't keep them out of battle safely as they would wear off naturally. Swapping also lowers the overdrive meter, the most integral part of the combat system.
Attacking and getting hit increase the overdrive meter, once it gets high enough the party will enter 'Overdrive Mode' where you'll deal more damage, take less damage, and every skill costs half as much MP (its called TP but its the same as Magic Points, or SP too...). Downside being is that if you continue to increase the overdrive meter too much then you'll Overheat, where all the benefits of Overdrive are gone plus you take massively increased damage. You will have to lower overdrive by defending, swapping characters, using a limit break called a Ultra Move, or using a specific type of skill that the game specifies. Sometimes it'll ask for magic skills, other times it'll be healing skills or maybe even a debuff. The text of a skill will also be in orange to let you know that if you use it it'll lower the Overdrive meter. Overdrive is all about balance, doing what you need to do while not getting overzealous with yourself. I do find it though that it can be really hard to comeback from mistakes sometimes. Remember that getting hit also increase Overdrive, so I've had times where I was perpetually stuck in Overheat as my characters kept getting one-shotted after being revived. Thankfully restarting a fight is very painless, even gives you a opportunity to readjust your party before jumping in. Point being is that it can be easy to take Overdrive for granted and have everything blowup in your face if you're careless.
Chained Echoes is unique for not having traditional experience points. You can only earn SP instead, which is used to upgrade combat and passive skills. Passive skills can be used to increase your stats, but only as long as they're equipped. Grimoire shards are how you are getting permanent stat ups, which also allow you to unlock all the character's skills. This system in theory makes Chained Echoes a very balanced RPG, as you are always roughly where your suppose to be at any point in the story in terms of power level. At most, there are optional bosses and side quests that reward more Grimoire shards, but it still sounds like you can't get too powerful, right?.... Nope. Just need to build your party just right and you can be like me who, by the endgame, was ignoring the superbosses mechanics and two-shotting them. They're preparing a party wipe attack in two turns? Why don't you prepare for this laser from my magic lizardman and cease to exist. It was kind of ridiculous how I beat the games hardest boss on my first try and didn't really get to see any of their strong attacks, but it did feel cool as Hell I won't lie.
Chained Echoes takes place in a world of magic and mechs, the best kind of world if you ask me. Its a story about the horrors of war, redemption of your past actions and what forgiveness means, and the sacrifices people will make for their ideals and beliefs. Whether they're likeable or not, nearly every character in this massive cast is given context and reasoning for who they are and why they do the things they do. Even some of the more quirky characters can experience some hard-to-stomach trauma. Even now I'm torn if this game justifies every awful event that happens. One of which that I can't spoil here but it felt a bit "Did that really need to happen?" Most of it does seem appropriate enough for a war story, "War is Hell" as everyone says. There are many sides to the overall conflict and I feel no side doesn't get enough time to showcase why they're here and what they fight for. Like the combat its mostly balance, and even with the occasional imbalance its nothing that's frustrating or unreasonable. Of course just like most RPGs there's much more to the world then just the war, and Chained Echoes is pretty solid on what is revealed and when. Its always fun when a revelation makes you look at previous events from a new perspective. They do "cheat" with one of the bigger twists of the story where they change the scene from what you saw previously and that felt a bit artificial, but I can let it slide since it leads to one of the more impactful scenes of the story.

While this isn't my favorite indie RPG, it is a shame that more aren't giving this the time of day I feel it deserves. A lot of passion and effort was put into this game, and it is well worth its asking price.
More games should have laser-shooting lizardmen

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.

"Oh Atlus made this? Is this any different from their usual RPGs?"
Dies and get sent back to the title screen loosing all progress
"Nope. All present and accounted for."

This turn-based RPG is quite the dungeon crawler. The main gimmick is that you have to draw the dungeon maps yourself. This can be awkward with the new control scheme as the originals had you use the DS touch screen, but there is a option to have it automatically draw floors and walls you touch. I know some might feel this hurts the vibe of the dungeon mapping, but realistically I don't see how else they could've pulled it off on controller only. There's a reason why DS and 3DS remasters aren't too common, the dual screens are extremely awkward to redesign with one screen and no touch compatability. That said there's still a lot the game won't automatically draw for you. You have many icons that you can stamp on the map such as chests, doors, tents, gathering point icons, and so forth. While many have intended purposes on how to use them, others are more versatile to allow for your own personal map making. An example being I had trouble marking the map where the dungeon floor had teleporters. After some fiddling, I eventually settled on putting down fire floor markers to indicate where the teleporters activate and a arrow that points to where it teleports too. Can even add some text notes for more specific reminders.
But why bother with dungeon mapping? Oh many reasons. A big one is that, on death, you lose all your progress but have the option to keep your mapping. This made some game overs not sting as badly since I now had a better idea where I needed to go and where the treasure was. These floors are all big and winding, and can blend in with each other with some samey corridors and turns. Normally that wouldn't make for interesting or engaging dungeon design, but getting lost is kind of the point if you neglect the map. The dungeon is also seperated by distinct sections, but you can only return to the dungeon at the beginning or end of the these stratums. And you'll be thanking yourself when you're backtracking for quests and items, and have laid out every shortcut on every floor. Mapping can take time at the moment, but it will save more in the long run. Especially when dealing with the infamous F.O.E.s
Most of the time encounters are random, albeit they provide you some kind of glowing circle on the U.I. that will gradually turn red when you're about to be thrusted into battle. A F.O.E. though is a roaming monster that are extremely dangerous. Some you could potentially fight and win when you first encounter them, but they can drain your resources and health (or lives) if you take them lightly. This is where the map becomes your savior as many of the F.O.E.s in the game have distinct patterns and behaviors. Some will chase you, some are on patrol, some will only approach you if you're already in a battle with another monster. Yes that can happen. The F.O.E.s are still on the move even in combat, and can ambush you while your dealing with the usual monsters. They're the cherry on top of this mapping system as it adds more urgency to take notes on where these monsters are and what their patterns are.
As for the RPG system themselves they're all around solid. You have a class system in which they all fill distinct roles, plus subclassing later in the game to add a wide berth of options to your party. Admittedly there are a few classes that either too good not too have, or are outshined by others. Not helped by the high difficulty which can push creativity and expression for some, while for others it'll cause them to look up "Best Parties" instead and take away a lot of fun problem solving. It can also be time consuming to raise extra party members apart from the main five you'll have through your whole journey. Only members in the active party earn experience, and new recruits start at Level 1. You can retire a party member which will allow you to recruit a higher level explorer with added stat bonuses, but you'll be loosing another party member permanently. Personally, make use of the 'picnic mode' added to this remaster. It makes the game very easy, but more importantly it substantially increases the gain of experience points. Makes things much smoother if aren't keen on long grind times, though I hadn't grinded a lot since I did a lot of side quests.
A small quibble I have with these RPGs is that I'm not the biggest fan of how these turn-based games operate when it comes to turn order. There's probably a name for this, but essentially think of the difference between RPGs when selecting your commands. Games like Persona, the Mario RPGs, and Octopath have characters initiate their action the moment a command is given. Then you got Pokémon, Dragon Quest (not XI), and Etrian Odyssey here where you select all your commands for all your party members then proceed to watch it play out. This makes it so you have to plan better for what the enemy can do, but it can also make battles feel more luck-based then I feel is necessary. Sometimes your healer turns to stone before pulling off their resurrection spell, sometimes you give a buff to a now dead party member, sometimes your damage dealer became confused and wasted their turn. It's a lot of unpredictability which can push the boundaries of enjoyable failure and frustrating failure. At least when it comes to when turn orders operate they appear consistent. I never had my support ninja randomly move slower then my DPS, which is important since that means I can consistently debuff the enemies defense the same turn my arbalist shoots a cannon at the bosses face.
Story is more involved then I was expecting. I thought this be akin to old-school dungeon crawlers with a story that exists solely for set-dressing, but it actually does more then that. I kept forgetting this game is rated T, and that made the darker moments catch me off guard. I would say I wished the story presentation was more interesting with only having single static portraits for every character, but it is a DS game so I can't fault it too much. It's not a story that'll stick with me, but it tried a lot harder then it needed and I have to give kudos to that. Just watch what you say to others when exploring the labyrinth.

While I wouldn't call myself a fan of this franchise after finishing this, it did satisfy my RPG craving I've had and then some. Solid recommendation to RPG lovers, maybe think twice if you aren't a fan of turn-based combat.

There's a farmer class. They do some honest work I tell ya.