Dying is a scary thing. It's a common fear and I'm not afraid to admit its my biggest one. I Am Dead knows how sensitive of a topic this is, and I was surprised with how well they handled it especially with such a positive outlook. A game with a title like that turning out to be so charming and wholesome was a very welcome surprise. Most games arent afraid to bring up things like death, but I think this games greatest strength is how boldly it serves as a little beacon - or a lighthouse, if you will - of hope. It doesnt beat you down and make you depressed about one of the most depressing facts of life but it gives you a little nudge on the shoulder and let's you know that just maybe, everything will be alright.

You play as Morris Lupton, recently deceased. One of the best indie game protagonists quite frankly. He is just the absolute most swell down to earth guy, the kind you really would want as a friend in life. His voice is as soft as he is, and a big part of this games personality is how warm of a presence he is throughout the story. He cares about the island so deeply and you can feel that through every thing he says. Most of the game is about viewing the memories left behind of other ghosts on the island. This is basically the main theme of the game: even when dead we live on in the memories around us. Whether its a lover or a passing acquaintance, memories of us keep us from truly being gone.

The voice acting, graphics and art style are all lovely like everything else encompassing this game. Shelmerston is a hell of a place, largely fiction but it feels so alive. Very intriguing lore, head to toe in fun little details and an abundance of colorful characters and landmarks. Without the great voice performances, calming music and picture book-esque art a lot of this games wackiness may not of been appreciated. But it all just works so well, and it feels like it could be real somewhere out there - fish people included.

The gameplay is mostly finding hidden objects, mementos of folks past. But this game puts a very fun twist on it. You can click on each individual object and splice it, giving you a peak inside. It's a little hard for me to explain, but it makes looking around the environments really engaging. Everything is packed with detail and little easter eggs, and its always fun to see the inside of a pie or splice into a water tower and find a little octopus just chilling in there. You also splice and manipulate certain objects into certain angles for the collectibles. You never have to get it exactly right, as the game is generous making finding them all yourself very fun and intuitive. There are also optional riddles each level that are really gonna pick at your brain and expect you to find some of the most well hidden things. These are pretty hard, and for some reason are timed which makes it so you basically have to either be sure on the object before starting the riddle or play a really frantic guessing game. Its unnecessary. I used a guide for most of these, you don't get much as a reward but it is a pretty funny one.

The only thing that stops this from having enough points to be a 4.5/5 with rounding is that the ending is just... not all quite there. I think it says enough and gets across what it wants to. It's wholesome much like the rest of the game, but I think It would of greatly benefited from just being a hair less vague about how things all come to a close.

I can't think of a better compliment to give this game than just this: I'm a little less scared now.

Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #208)
Time Played: 7 hours 54 minutes
Nancymeter - 84/100
Game Completion #105 of 2022
August Completion #25

Sega are these the men you want to hire?

Look I just don't even know where to begin, Sonic Omens is awful like i normally want to be somewhat positive and give a game the benefit of the doubt but no man, this game is bad, like shockingly so, it's genuinely baffling to me how any game releases as this, and I'm gonna talk about it today.

This review is gonna be split in two, talking about the devs and the game itself so strap in folks because this is gonna be wild.

The Dodgy Development

Okay let's get this over with, the developers are poopy shitheads, if you want more on their wacky antics check this doc here but in short, they sexualised a minor, had beta builds hidden behind a paywall subscription on Patreon, stole the How to Train Your Dragon IP as their own, have ads on Game Jolt with an insane amount of Traffic, alleged stealing from Cars 2: The Video Game (the most evil thing here, seriously of all games to steal music from why the tie-in game to a bad film) and passing it as their own and Bolt/Joh being asshats and causing drama on Twitter, devs and fans bullying people who worked on the game, plus a plethora of other heinous stuff, so if you don't want to play this (I don't know why you would) then look here, I'm not focusing on it as i feel the game itself is more important to me but i cannot ignore the development of this game since it gives context to my experience with this game plus Midrulean already went somewhat in depth with the development so go check out his review if you haven't already.

Sonic Omens and the Cost of Ambition

Being Ambitious means you have to live up to people's justifiably high expectations, if you don't deliver you have big bag of wasted potential, many games do this but none so much as Sonic Omens, this game is awful, it's trying to be something it clearly can't be due to the humongous scope and clueless people working on it and yet it's so desperately trying be something it can't, a good game. But seriously, everything around this game can be seen through how ambitious it is, wanting to be a modern 2000s styled Sonic Adventure that serves as competition to Sonic's next Open-Zone game, and it fails spectacularly, what started as a ambitious quaint little fangame in 2020 that while flawed showed some promise made out of passion has ended up becoming show detested, reviled and contropassion finished out of spite.

I haven't heard many people talk about the story but wow it is messy despite a more simple premise, it's trying to be a surrogate game to the 2000s but doesn't work, like it's essentially comes to referencing it and not making an interesting story around it's concepts, it weirdly has some X stuff involved which is funny since they want me to care about X in a Mainline setting and a whole heap of forced references to make the meta era haters go "Awooga this game is great!" like the story has a super sonic final boss, The Metarex, Gaia Temples, Song cues from X and other games, Chip and Chris stuff, Shadaw, Maria, Rouge, Knuckles, the Tornado from X, Big cameos, G.U.N, music from Shadow and so much more. It's admirable i guess but is absolutely shattered by the Voice Acting, I can at least admire the people trying they're hardest since you can very much tell they aren't native english speakers but wow they couldn't have hired some other people? Delivery feels stiff and wooden and are trying so hard to replicate the 4kids cast but fail so hard, mostly with Shadow and Eggman. The dialogue also feels pretty clunky which isn't helped by the awkard delivery since you can barely understand what they're saying sometimes. One thing this game's plot attempts to do is explain why the Chaos Emeralds aren't used in mainline entires plot wise, placing this between after Unleashed and before Lost World… Did they even play the games? Barring Gens using the emeralds as the driving force of the plots they never really had a reason to use them in the plot because it'll boil down to a boring played out macguffin hunt which this game kinda is, so overall i don't see why the plot played this angle if they don't do anything interesting or compelling with it but the mediocre story is the least of our worries.

Presentation wise, Omens is very admirable though still not all that great when it comes to this, one thing I can't complain about is the Music because it's really great, using a lot of stuff in the 2000s, it isn't original but good nonetheless, i also like the character animation despite some stiff moments but it's very expressive for the most part especially with Sonic, but that's where a lot of my postives end with this game for me, the game for one is very glitchy and poorly optimized, frequent pop-in, clipping into objects, floating in the air, camera getting stuck on stuff, respawn not working, collision issues, game freezes/crashes and no sfx playing at one point but the visuals while do look decent some original characters and environments don't look very sonic like and seem like they're plopped fron radically different game plus the framerate isn't very smooth, it isn't my PC since the one i played on is pretty strong so i feel this is on the developers part.

But yeah I know, I've been trying to avoid but Sonic Omens has got to be one of the worst gameplay experiences I've ever had, this game is trying to be more like Unleashed and maybe a bit of Generations in terms of mechanics but feels like Forces 2 in this regard. Sonic controls way too slippery and his jump is too limiting making platform into a chore, he has a lot of moves from the previous games like the bonuce which was welcome, light speed dash, stomp and the boost with a screen nuke and a grappling hook plus a plethora of Chaos abilities for Shadow but they aren't put to good use, i feel the lack of a drift function hurts this game even more than Forces since they're some very sharp turns that you sure as hell can't pull with the base movement, the boost meter depletes too quickly leading to moments where you a searching for rings and boost orbs.

This wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the god awful level design (I mean if the game tells you that you need to respawn frequently then you're in for a treat), Disney's Bolt and his team decide too pull a Balan Wonderworld and use 2 completely near incompatible gameplay styles into one, this is time with Boost and Adventure level design, what you have are the most inexplicably open, spectacle relient and boring stages ever concived in a Sonic game, It's laughable how confusing the levels are, I don't know where I'm going most of the time only to have a giant arrow pointing to where I am, toppped with the controls, the levels utterly become both frustrating, confusing and boring all at once, death zones don't even make sense at points, when the game tries to pull force combat it takes way too long, Shadow's stages are way worse given how the destroy the pace of each stage using chaos powers and you can even get softlocked at points just again you can tell they wanted to do so many things with this game but it utterly falls flat on it's entire body, I was gonna do an episode by episode review of this game but what's the point? I'd be blabbering saying the exact same stuff about the levels since the marginally get better, the low point of the levels are the latter half of Episode 3 where they focus on the water parts, and now there's a very good reason why most sonic games don't have 3d water levels, You're scalling up this big tree and this was one of the breaking points for me, you have to be very precise with the platforming, almost too precise with the general structure of the tree just being annoying and monotonous especially with the water, switch and aforementioned control issues, when i lost nearly 30 Minutes of progress by a mistaken homing attack i just gave up and used a save file, this game does not respect your time and I won't either so i wanted to see if it got any better and it did, barely, the 3rd Episode as whole isn't great especially with the water escape sequence, good lord that was horrible especially with the amount of near unavoidable death zones you have in this, making you really wonder if they properly playtested this game and fixed the issues many people already had but no they barely did. But i mean when a lot of the unfair BS is over with Omens is as good as Forces worst moments so that's something i guess, I'd say Episode 1 is solid enough and Area 99 (nice X reference) is too but they have their fair share of BS and what i like to call OH WOW LOOK AT DA BLOOM AND THE SPECTACLE WOW THIS GAME IS GOOD like seriously it's in every level and I don't get why.

But i mean i would have rated this game a 3 maybe even 4/10 if it was just the levels… Then the Bosses and Tornado sections come in, seriously every single Boss is awful especially the final boss, way too long, the camera doesn't focus on them, bullshit insta kill moves, awful pacing, severe lack of rings in them and overall just not a fun time, I don't feel like i overcame a good challenge i feel relived that i don't have to undergo a painful experience.

And finally the crown shit jewel of this game, the Tornado sections. Just what the hell happened? The Tornado moves way too slow especially in reverse and moving upwards, the blaster does some pitful damage, the missles while can do some damage don't go far, Boosting has a risk reward system where you move faster but when you hit something you get damaged even more which is piled by the horrendous design which is the shining example of everything this game gets wrong, confusing because of how the world design and controls, boring because of how the Tornado feels and frustrating because of how the enemies have the giant near unavoidable laser and the entire 2nd Act of the Escape sequence due to the worm, truly one of the worst experiences I've ever had the pleasure of playing in a video game, I must apologize to Balan Wonderworld because at least that game was consistent in it's awfulness and never came close to this.

Conclusion
This game is awful, i put this game in my least favourite games list but removed it but i think Apollo Justice will be execused (for now) but i could just conclude saying "game bad bye bye now" but going back to the start of this review, the cost of ambition pays a heavy toll, every issue this game faces is linked due to ambition, the 2000s esque story, the next-gen presentation, advancing and expanding the boost gameplay, the Bosses and Tornado being more elaborate and in-depth than ever before, all linked due to the ambition this game wants to do and it would be if the developers weren't assholes and the game wasn't this horrible, like yeah it's somewhat impressive to have a near 3d sonic console game made by fans but Sonic GT beat them to it and is way better, so i don't think i even need to say why you shouldn't waste 14GB on this game and play many other Sonic fangames, mainly the Spark Trilogy and Sonic GT, that being said:

Game bad bye bye now

Yuna: "My two girlfriends. And yes, they smoke weed."
Wakka: "Do they smoke weed, ya?"
Yuna: "Yes, actually."
Lulu: "You mean she isn't just smoking a cigarette?"
Khimari: "Khimari don't know weed cigarettes."
Dressphere change: Dancer
Yuna: "It's called a phid... not weed cigarette..."
Yuna: "And yes, it is a weed phid. They all smoke weed phids before we kiss. (They are my girlfriends,)"

i got so mad at this game as a little 9 year old that i bent my ds screen backwards and broke one of the hinges off almost completely. dad tried to fix it with nail glue and somehow glued the power button as well. whole ds became unusable. it's not Gardening Mama's fault but i blame her anyways and since then this game has become the bane of my existence. every now and then i go to look at my ds games and the cartridge pops up like a reoccurring nightmare. Gardening Mama will never leave me alone.

Uncharted 4 is a near perfect end to the series. The three games before it all led to this, and its a very satisfying conclusion. The story is great and it is very fun to play, there's not really much more you could ask from a game.

Firstly I really love the story in this. There are a lot of parallels between Nate, his brother Sam and the antagonist Rafe as well as the story of Libertalia - a long lost pirate utopia - and how obsession and greed can cause you to lose sight of what's really important. Uncharted has never been known for great villains, but I think Rafe is undeniably the most compelling one, even if in the end he's a bit underused. Nadine is also quite the badass, and I look forward to seeing more of her again when I replay Lost Legacy. Sully makes yet another return, and while I wish he was in the games more than he is, he's still one of the most lovable old bastards in gaming. The addition of Sam is great, it does lead to a few inconsistencies from previous games but him and Nate play off of each other very well. But what really sells this game for me is the relationship between Nate and Elena. Its been a budding on again off again thing across the series, but now they're married and attempting to lead a simple life. The interactions between them are fantastic, and the exploration of who they are, through their highs and lows is what makes this game so good for me as well as such a fitting conclusion especially with its wholesome ending. This is all brought together because of the really incredible performances by the entire cast across the board. The attention to detail and facial expressions add so much. The graphics are beautiful and help bring each character to life, while still sticking to the charm of the older games. Naughty dog is always great at writing banter and I think the dialogue in this is their best work yet, even moreso than The Last of Us, but some times when characters don't say a thing at all is when they say the most, which again is just another testament to the quality and care put in by everyone involved. Impressive all around, zero complaints in this department.

The gameplay is a big improvement too. I never had any problems with the shooting in this series but most can agree its a step up from the original trilogy. The melee combat in this compared to what they tried to introduce in 3 is like comparing getting fucked in the ass to getting fucked in the ass with lube. Its a night and day difference, and even if its not always viable it just feels so much better. They also do what every good sequel should do, and add in a grappling hook which adds both to standard traversal and combat. There's also a lot less linearity in this game that the others. There's a lot to explore, and quite a few open ended levels that are a good change of pace. There's also the return of the outright fantastic set-pieces the series is known for, and In my opinion the entirety of Chapter 12 is the absolute best part of the series. It showcases all of Uncharted's strengths and is a joy to play the whole way through, even ending with a fantastic story beat contrasting all the fun you just had. Anyone wants to know what this series is all about, show them that sequence.

Alas, as every game goes, it is not perfect. There are a few things that drag this game down. The climbing is fun for the most part, but there are a few chapters, namely the one taking place in Scotland that just go on way too fucking long. There's always great banter between characters, and the long segments are usually rewarded with a fun action set piece, but there is at least 3 or 4 sections in this game where you do nothing but climbing or puzzling for entirely too long, and instead of helping the pacing like it should it destroys it. I don't know why these sections are so long, it's one of the only things that stops this game from being perfect in my eyes. Adding onto this is just the sheer abundance of collectibles. If you like getting trophies like I do, I implore you to not bother looking at the trophy list until you've finished your first playthrough. This game has a legitimately absurd amount of collectibles that if you go out of your way for will make the slow moments of this feel like an eternity.

Despite a few complaints, I hope this review gives a good idea bout the overall quality of everything about this. No game is without its flaws, but Uncharted 4 more than makes up for that.

Playthrough Time - 12 hours 4 minutes
Nancymeter - 95/100
Game Completion #101 of 2022
August completion #21

Fighting games are a divisive genre in video games. Many people directly avoid them because of the learning curve or sometimes toxic communities. I used to feel this way about the genre. That being said, one day I saw the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection on sale and decided to pick it up. I had started to become a Capcom fanboy at the time, and Street Fighter was somewhat inevitable thing I had to experience. I thought it would be fun!
This game was so, so hard for me. I always say that I'm mediocre at fighting games, but when I started this game up I was absolutely awful. I didn't know how to do inputs correctly, I didn't understand many basics of fighting games, I basically just winged it and pressed buttons. It was pathetic, and I even thought it was just the game being harder then it actually was. But, eventually, I started to figure things out. Street Fighter became my hyperfixation, with my obsession becoming a joke within my online friend group. It was a fun summer.
Yeah, this game is great. Movement is fluid, it's easy and fun to experiment with move cancelling and seeing the variety of combos to play with. The hidden custom combo system is an entire extra level of complexity to the game and it's absolutely broken in many ways. I love the roster, graphics, music, everything. It's always stuck with me.
Sakura Kasugano was the first character I ever picked when playing this game, and it's stayed that way since. She's remained my fighting game comfort character, because what isn't there to love? She's an upbeat, peppy highschooler who reaches out to challenge and learn from her personal idol. She's a fan favorite for a reason, her energetic and adorable animations and voice clips are timeless and memorable.
I love playing this game with friends, even with our different skill levels it's just such a blast. With the matches being so engaging and short I can never tire of it. If anything, losing is just a learning experience for me to improve slowly to become a World Warrior myself. And that's just an appeal of fighting games for me. You aren't gonna start out great, but dedicating the time to master your abilities feels great to earn. I've even considered learning this game competitively, it's that fun.
This game is what started my interest in fighting games. It's still one of THE most important video games in my life, as cliche as that may sound. Whenever I see that opening start up with Akuma in the flames, man I just know I'm in it for the time of my life. I may prefer KOF in a lot of ways to Street Fighter, but I don't think this game will ever be forgotten by me.
It's fun, it's charming, it's memorable, it's fantastical.

It's Street Fighter Alpha 2.

So I actually beat the game a few days ago (Wild Mode, if that matters), but wasnt quite sure on my feelings and wanted to give a bit of the post game a shot before writing a review. I figured I could 100% it, but I decided that I had gotten my fill of the game and was ready to move on. So, this game was really solid. Like, the epitome of solid. Its well made, its fun, and even though there are lots of flaws theres nothing "bad" about it. Kirby is really cute, plus the finale gets pretty bonkers and I thought it was dope as hell. What holds back this game for me I guess is just that, I wasn't really impressed.
Before I continue, I would like to note I have tried Kirby's Adventure through Nintendo Online but for all intents and purposes, this was really my first Kirby game. And for me really, outside of the initial fun of the first world and the epic finale, the game didnt really have much of a wow factor. It shows nearly all of the copy abilities and mouthful modes right at the start and rarely does anything interesting with them outside of the optional challenge trials. They aren't utilized or expanded on in any satisfying ways that makes you feel like you're getting better. Theres also the same couple minibosses scattered throughout the entire game and the most variation they get is fighting more than one of them at a time. This gets very annoying with how often they appear. The main bosses are all pretty good though at least. Kirbys movement also just doesnt really feel all that good but thats not a big deal. The music outside of a few tracks (the vocal one) was honestly pretty forgettable too. Despite all this, the presentation is so strong that I was still having a really great time for the first four worlds, and even went as far to 100% them as much as I could. But once the game starts getting into the end game, the fifth and sixth worlds just felt really uninspired and missing anything particularly interesting. I was really losing interest fast, but thankfully the finale like mentioned before was really enjoyable and unique. Two final nitpicks, the target time for some of the challenges gives like one second of leeway and can feel pretty unfair, but they're still doable. Finally theres certain missions where you have to beat a boss while taking no damage, but theres no restart so you'll have to go through the whole level which can be between like twenty seconds or as long as a few minutes of waiting to try again. Doesnt sound like much but its pretty annoying when it adds up.
Anyway.
Despite the fact that this review was almost entirely negative, I want it to be clear that those were only things that stopped me from loving it and none of it is big enough of an issue to stop the game being from a nice wholesome adventure.
I look forward to playing some more Kirby.

In Game Completion - 77%
Time Played - 25 hours +
Nancymeter - 84/100
Game Completion #43 of 2022
April Completion #12

LIBERAL GUILTY GEAR....

Testament = THEY/THEMstament
Bridget = BridgeTRANSGENDER
Sol Badguy = Sol BadGAY
Goldlewis Dickinson = GoldLGBT Dickinson
I-No = I-No