I've never played a game more outlandish. Where do I even start? The premise is you get stuck in some weird soul hotel and you have to trick a bunch of demented guests out of their souls and have enough to get out or something.
The faux-child-friendly design of the characters won't fool anyone, they are very creepy and, upon losing their souls, will chase you down and do terrible things to you if you're caught. And so it becomes a game of observation and stealth, of sneaking through corridors and peeping through keyholes to figure out the best time to seize the next soul.
The necessity of learning the layout of Gregory's hotel allows players to appreciate its nuanced design, full of peculiar delights and collectibles.
Purely on the basis that there's simply nothing like it (except its even more surreal anime series of the same name and style), this one is truly a hidden gem and well worth checking out.

I like desktop games, and I like detective games, and I like Sam Barlow's games (well, I liked Aisle, which is the only other one of his games I've played up to this point), and as a video editor I like putting video clips in a timeline, and somehow I can't stand this game.

I think the thing that really bugs me about it is just that it's supposed to be airtight, leading you through the story in more or less the same way as everyone else even if theoretically you could get to the ending clips with the right keyword, but I chose keywords that made sense to me and in like two leaps stumbled across end content.

(Sam: anyone who finds a song in your game is going to immediately assume the song is a metaphor for things that happen in the story.)

I tried to muddle through anyways, and got a little bit more complicating context, but the fact remains that the story is not written to be interesting if you know the end, and even if I did go through it the proper way I don't think I'd like it much more. Without giving anything away, what it's about is kinda trite.

The most conflicted i've ever felt about game i've put more than 100 hours into (535+ at time of writing) the list of things i hate about this game is almost as long as the list of things i love about this game. my hope is future patches could rectify some issues i have with it (namely crafting and durability system and it's myriad problems). But as for the future of this series i honestly can't say whether i'm excited or nervous. if they learn the right lessons from what people didn't like about this game for the next one that's great. but i know nintendo is stubborn to change. but who knows. maybe they'll surprise me

I dunno, is it weird to have mixed feelings on this?

I like Fall Guys quite a bit, but there are some major nagging issues and overall design philosophies that just don't gel with me. I'd say out of any "battle royale" I've played, this is easily one of the best I've tried (would probably put Warzone above this but that's comparing apples to oranges). My issues stand primarily on the heavy amount of RNG the game's based around. There's an extremely small amount of skill required to play Fall Guys, which is great because that levels the skill floor and ceiling so that more players can enjoy the game, meaning it keeps a thriving community for players of all interests and ages; unfortunately, this means that matches will constantly flow in and out of your favor at the most random of whims. You may be killing it from round to round, only to have your jellybean guy get barraged with obstacles with no chance of getting back up and trying to qualify for a round; you might be doing fantastically in solo races and other events, only to be parred with people in a team event who don't understand that a ball needs to go into a hole for you to win the round. These mixes in match quality can helm a huge range of emotions, from getting lucky with the RNG draw and laughing your way to the bank with XP or even a crown, but can also infuriate you to no end because you got paired with half-brained chimps, or the obstacle RNG decided to beat you senselessly.

I do like that no matter your perfomance within a game, you're always working towards unlocking something with XP for the game's given season, yet that only slightly softens the blow when you get screwed over by the game's unpredictability, as well as its instability.

I know that server-related issues are still being worked on, which is a good thing. Even though I've only owned this game for a day, though, within the 15-ish matches I've played (give or take), I've had 3 crap out of me and disconnect me, which isn't normally too big of an issue, except for the fact that these disconnects have come late into games, where we were close to the end, and being kicked out due to bad server connections doesn't yield you any XP.

Although I'll keep the game in my Steam library, I feel the $20 price tag is just a tad steep, add on top of that a litany of microtransactions plaguing the shop (only to get worse, I'd expect). For a junk-food game (something to play for a little while and move on to something more engaging), it works for what it's trying to accomplish, but it could still use some ironing out of some issues; even then, I still see myself having a love/hate relationship with Fall Guys.

Before August is over, and if you have any interest whatsoever in giving this a go, I'd definitely pick it up on PlayStation 4, since it's currently one of the PS+ games on offer, so it's free of charge (with subscription, of course).