look i'm SORRY i really am but like i'm having a lot of fun checking in on all the stuff i remembered as a kid, this just so happens to be one of them LMAO

I don't have any fun tales to tell or any vibes to reminisce on like I did in my EYX review, which is unfortunate because that means I actually have to try and figure out what I'm supposed to say about "Sonic.EXE" and his game.

But I don't wanna be too negative about it. I actually have some nice things to say, though it's more so just me being surprised and not actually anything I'd call any good. My memory of this game was purely what it started out as, walk right and watch these characters die in about 15 or so minutes. To my shock and surprise, there have actually been some very major changes made in the 11 years since that original release. You are now given the option to, uh... I dunno, see a little more? You can fulfill certain requirements (walking left instead of right) to find extra stages that provide something of a story that I don't care about, culminating in one last little walk to the right as the blue blur himself. Blur as in he's being covered in static, nothing speed wise, he's still just walking. Aside from that, Knuckles can punch now, Robotnik lost his ability to slide (sad!), and sometimes you need to jump instead of it being purely a walk to the right. The art at the end is different, frankly a little more silly looking than the original, but shit I know there's not much you can do about that.

Was fun to see what's new, but it's still a shitty story written by a shitty person turned into a shitty game. As much as I got to gush over the community aspect of it all before, I still can't deny that much. Still not a 1/10 though lmao

Holy shit it has bullet drop.
Loading times and screen tearing (fixed by enabling v-sync via .ini edit) aside, damn this is so cool so far. A tacticool-retro-fps.
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Simple magazine management, mantling, unlockable bullet time, and more cool stuff I won't spoil. Also the HUD can be disabled diegetically, nice touch. There's options to modularly reconfigure the difficulty, and also a toggle for the style of bullet spread you'd like to play with. Crosshairs can also be disabled, and this is the first FPS I've seen to actually pair meaningful Aim-Down-Sights with such an option. Hipfiring and ADS both have a place in your toolset, which is a balance I've been dying to see met in an FPS.
Two chapters in, and it's safe to say I really dig this.
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Nearing the end of the campaign, I maintain my position that this is a well designed game. However I'm starting to run into more consistent crashing. I think the black blob enemy giblets might be overloading the engine. Previously reloading or transitioning between levels would sometimes throw a memory access violation, but no progress was ever lost.
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Artistically the entire production is cast in somber tones. Most of the OST is laced with melancholy, offsetting the extreme brutality on screen as the mangled bodies of the enemy gynoids lay weeping in the aftermath of your firefights.
Excellent game, deserving of a higher score if stability is improved.
I eagerly await the sequel.
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If you're seeing a lot of occlusion errors as you turn corners, you can try adding this:
[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.AllowOcclusionQueries=0
to the end of Engine.ini in %localappdata%\the_citadel\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\
It's a common UE4 graphical issue.

Who doesn't love Hatsune Miku?

As opposed to other characters, Miku can't dig on her own and is confined to using an unique weapon - her signature leek, which allows her to dash through enemies and break walls behind them. This dashing mechanic can be very powerful if used properly, as Miku can also move diagonally and each consecutive hit in a chain deals more damage than the previous one, but if you're not careful enough it can also make you end up in the middle of a bunch of enemies! Furthermore, she is balanced by taking damage on missed beats (similar to Aria), this definitely punishes you good enough for mashing while being swarmed (and I'm speaking from experience). Something else that's really cool in my opinion is how Miku's outfits change depending on the equipped armor, as she never actually wears armor and her dress just changes accordingly! She's also just a fun character to play overall, even if she has a bit of a learning curve because of her gimmick.

The DLC also adds 15 new songs to the game, 13 of those are already existing songs like Ten Thousand Stars, but there's also 2 new compositions, Too Real and My One and Oni. For the most part, I believe the chosen songs are a great fit and are a lot of fun to play, even if the BPM of some take a while to get used to - especially the fast pace of Can't Make A Song took some adjustment time.

This collab is a great gateway for anyone interested in Necrodancer and an easy recommendation for Miku fans in general!

No matter how hard you try to break us, the future is ours to shape! Always!

The premise of Xenoblade Chronicles is simple, yet effective. Atop the colossal Bionis, the three childhood friends Shulk, Reyn and Fiora are living their best lives, until one day a particularly evil robot shows up to disturb the local peace. With the help of the legendary sword Monado, Shulk embarks on a journey across the Bionis to track down the unknown assailant and get his revenge. Not only is the Monado arguably one of the coolest weapons in fiction, it's also especially useful in combat against the machines and allows the wielder to see into the future. The theme of fate is ever-present, as Shulk has to deal with visions involving the people close to him dying several times, and only he can change the future to prevent these events from playing out, while also pursuing his own goals. I'll not take away any more from the story, since I found it to be pretty intriguing and well written until the end, despite having quite a few tropes here and there and also some predictability to it. Even with the sheer amount of downright meme-worthy lines or shonen shenanigans, the core narrative is still surprisingly solid and doesn't fall flat in terms of twists either. Yes, Dunban being "over there" is actually important to the plot. The setting of the two titans is incredibly unique and memorable, but also just straight up cool at the same time, the area progression is really satisfying here. As for the main cast, they all have their reasons to join Shulk in his fight against the Mechons and their voice acting is superb. It's a shame Adam Howden never got any major roles besides Shulk, since he especially nailed those screams and emotional moments. But honestly, the rest of the cast is just as good and I like how many unknown voice actors are featured here (and their British accents).

While the main storyline is not as long as I expected it to be, Xenoblade is still jam-packed with side content, rocketing up the overall possible playtime by a significant amount. Most of the side quests are just fetch quests or "kill x amounts of these monsters", but there are also several skill trees or other cool rewards locked behind others. It never crossed my thoughts until I beat the story, how much Xenoblade rewards interacting with the world on the side, as there's even a whole chart accessible through the main menu where you can see the relations between every single named NPC and the locale they belong to. There's an entire trading mechanic I didn't even pay attention to in my playthrough, but it's cool to know it's there, I think little things like this or the info you can read up on the named NPCs on the chart improve the already impressive worldbuilding by a lot again. Now, one of my biggest regrets is not interacting with the Colony 6 side-story at all, there were many side quests related to it and I couldn't complete any of them because I somehow didn't do the initial one. Honestly, it's a shame it took me so long to properly appreciate those aspects, so I'll definitely focus on them on my eventual New Game+ playthrough.

Amidst the fierce battle cries of "Now it's Reyn Time!", "Electric Gutbuster!" and "Star-searing flames of ABSOLUTION!", I actually ended up liking the combat very much and was surprised by how unique it was. By the end it devolved into chain attack spam for me, but before that point, I think the MMO-style approach is really fitting and fun overall, while the cheesy battle lines of the cast add a whole layer of entertainment as well. Here, good preparation is half the battle already, as you will need to decide which skills your AI-controlled party members should use and how to efficiently combine those with the tactics of the rest of the team for optimal results. I said the combat is "MMO-style", because skills are locked behind cooldowns and your active character is using auto-attacks in the downtime to fill the special bar, like in the case of Shulk it's used for the Monado Arts. His signature sword not only specializes in slicing through machinery, but can also buff him or his party in various other ways, like shielding them or granting everyone the ability to hit the Mechons. Each of those abilities uses different amounts of the special gauge, so it's up to you to decide what's the best approach for certain combat situations. It would be pretty unwise to keep throwing out Arts which use your full gauge, as enemies and especially bosses can counter those by attacking with so-called Vision Attacks. Those come in three forms, Red, White and Purple. By casting the Impulse Art on a party member, they can dodge a red attack, which is pretty straightforward. Things get interesting for the white attacks, as they require you to have a properly leveled Shield Art to even block the move - so if an enemy uses "Attack VII", you need the skill level of your Shield Art atleast at 7, anything below will not block. The use of haptic feedback is also really underappreciated from what I've seen, every time you hit with a chance attack you get vibration on hit and everytime you break an enemy's vision attack the controller emulates this "breaking" effect with a stronger rumble. There's also a pulse while seeing the animations for vision attacks playing out, resembling a heartbeat, and that's pretty cool if you ask me.

Teambuilding is a central mechanic in Xenoblade Chronicles, and also one that is handled in an interesting way. First of all, you get access to most of the cast fairly early into the story already, so you can experiment with different teams through many different areas and see who has your favorite playstyle, who you want to main and who you don't actually like at all. This availability of being able to build around your team without even getting to the meat of the main story yet is such a nice change of pace, since I know so many games where you get party members so late, that they're basically unusable, as you have probably already have a good team composition at that point. Looking at you, Fire Emblem. But Xenoblade doesn't have this issue and it's just really nice, so I hope the other two games in the trilogy adapt this approach as well. As for their actual involvement in gameplay, each teammate has an unique role and playstyle, so you can basically play any possible combination of party members together and it will work somehow. Another neat feature is the ability to choose any character besides Shulk as the leader, allowing you to control them in the overworld and battle, it's very handy for certain encounters (or if you're just a big fan of the character). Like personally I played Melia on Mount Valka so I could have an easier time reaching the airborne enemies and it ended up being a really pleasant change of pace! There is also a whole layer of customization here besides the current party setup, since you can tweak individual characters to your liking by equipping them with gems, certain armor pieces or adjusting the skill trees. I really like how skill trees are handled here, like you still can normally unlock character-specific skills of individual branches through EXP, but you're also able to make use of the skills of other characters if you raise the friendship between them accordingly. This is not a metaphorical statement, raising the affinity between two teammates comes with a nice amount of extras - you unlock new heart-to-heart events across the world, the possibility of extending chain attacks is higher and as mentioned before, you gain access to a bunch of the opposite character's skills. Very nice!

As for the soundtrack, the Definitive Edition features an (almost) entirely revamped OST with new arranged tracks. I've only heard a few of the original tracks in Smash before, so I won't compare the new arrangements to the original compositions. With that out of the way, I'm a big fan of the musical score for DE and especially the more emotional songs here really hit me at times. Hearing Engage the Enemy for the very first time in-game with the corresponding cutscene is an ethereal feeling and gave me shivers in combination with Adam Howden's performance there. Gaur Plain is also one of my favorites, even if that one's a basic pick - maybe because it's just a memorable, good song. My final nomination goes out to Mechanical Rhythm for just being a pretty sick standard battle theme, which could easily pass as a boss theme elsewhere.

Considering I'm planning to do a NG+ one day to catch up on the content I missed, it's needless to say that Xenoblade Chronicles left quite the impression on me, even after finishing the game. Now onto Future Connected and I'm looking forward to playing Xenoblade 2 in a while too. Here's hoping that the rest of the trilogy will be just as fun!

Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter developed by Swedish studio Dennaton Games and published by Digital Revolver. You play as an unnamed protagonist, dubbed "Jacket" by the fandom.
You go from level to level decimating the Russian mob, dabbling in a little bit of the ultra-violence. You can beat, shoot or generally maim your enemies until you are the last man standing. You can punch an enemy, leaving them unconscious for a while until you deliver a killing blow, usually by strangling them or snapping their neck. You can use the weapons enemies drop like bats and knives for an easy and swift kill. There are also guns available from pistols, SMG's to shotguns each with their advantages and disadvantages. Do it fast enough and you get more points which in turn unlocks new weapons to be used in the levels. Play more of the game and you unlock "masks" which give you various advantages like starting out the level with a weapon, making it so dogs don't attack you on sight etc. The moment-to-moment gameplay is fast, chaotic and cathartic. The game gives you several difficult challenges that you need to overcome with patience, quick thinking and sometimes, a bit of recklessness. Memorization and being on your toes at all times are the keys to your success. Death is around every corner and you will die a lot. Thankfully, restarting is quick and hassle-free.
There are a few flaws with the gameplay and these are not easily avoided. Enemy AI is spotty and inconsistent. Normally, enemies react to gunfire but that's not always the case. Enemies that are in close proximity barely react to your shots and enemies from far away do react. These inconsistencies make it harder to employ your strategy if you want to achieve a high-score. Enemies sometimes get stuck in the environment or even go out of bounds. This makes it impossible for you to kill them thus making it impossible for you to finish the level. This happened during my playthrough on a few occasions. There's a problem that arises when you kill a lot of enemies in the same place. They all drop their weapons in the same place and it becomes difficult to acquire what you want to use

Interspersed between levels are cutscenes, detailing the plot and giving a tiny bit more context to your murder spree. Depending on who you ask, Hotline Miami does a lot with its narrative or nothing at all. On a surface level, it is a story about a psychopathic rage-induced maniac who gets strange phonecalls, talking about mundane things like picking something up or coming to work earlier right before getting in your Delorean-inspired car and racing of to the next mission. It's Drive mixed with Scarface. There are subtle little hints that invoke a much larger plot and those details even make a return in the game's sequel.

The game's central narrative is focused on thing you do the most in this game: enacting violence. The game asks you the question: "Do you like hurting other people". The narrative scatters several trails of breadcrumbs in different directions and asks the player where they want to go. You can try to make sense of the actual story in the game, Jacket's path of a violent psychopathic killer or you can explore it's different themes. There is a lot of room for you as the player to fill in the blanks, to derive some sort of meaningful message out of the entire experience. It's as introspective as it is violent.
To me, the game asks the question why we partake in this form of simulated violence, why we do gruesome things to these pixelated mobsters and warns us not to become too detached from it all.

Everything you do in Hotline Miami is to the beat of a stellar soundtrack from a variety of different artists. From the title screen to the end, every track is a banger and perfectly encapsulates the mood in every scene. Hotline Miami's soundtrack is an anomaly when comparing it to other video games. Instead of one or several composers, the soundtrack features tracks from a lot of different artists like Scattle, M|O|O|N, Sun Araw and Jasper Byrd. Sure, other video games have done this approach too but then we're talking about big AAA sports-titles. This is a game made primarily by two guys. The music is there when it needs to be there. It keeps your blood pumping during action-heavy intense shooting sprees, comes to a screeching halt when you have killed the last man standing and it mellows out before and after missions, giving you a brief respite in your appartment, the pizza parlor or the VHS-store. These are brief moments of calm and serenity before continuing your tour of depravity.

Released in 2012 to critical acclaim, the game was a phenomenon when it released on PC first and consoles later. While being influenced by movies like Drive or Scarface, Hotline Miami would in turn, influence a lot of other artists and game developers.
On paper, Hotline Miami can be a lot of things to a lot of different people. Shocking, exciting, unnecessarily violent. But Hotline Miami is greater than the sum of its parts. For videogames in 2012, this game was lightning in a bottle and twelve years later, the synth-wave fueled magic is still here. It's still one of my favorite games of all time.

yakuza 3 is kind of sad to me, a good game held back by glaring issues. mine is still one of the strongest foils to kiryu and still has the coolest boss intro and battle theme in the series and most scenes with him are incredible, and i really like the story in terms of kiryu and the orphanage and all of that, but the combat is pretty weak and the actual conspiracy that drives the plot is by far the weakest in the series and it's hard to reconcile with that when the behind the scenes scheming and what not that drives the plot is too uninteresting to do that very well. equally integral to and great for kiryu's story and progression as it is uninteresting and not really worth revisiting in my opinion