Horizontal scrolling mech shoot em up. Four mech types to choose or you can build you own by choosing between four special weapons, melee weapons, and leg types. Leg type changes movement speed, jump height, and number of ally soldiers that can ride and shoot off you (2-4). Your special weapon can be used when a meter charges once or twice for a more powerful version and the charges come fairly quickly, you can squat down and dash along the ground, if you are flying or underwater you can dash upwards, holding down the fire button will lock you into shooting in a certain direction or angle while allowing you to move back or forward, your melee weapon is used on close targets and can destroy certain enemy projectiles. Powerups can be found to increase your life, fill your charge meter, or power up your main weapons. Weapons drop in the form of a cylinder that you shoot to change the letter on, signifying the spread vulcan gun, a laser gun, grenade launcher, or a kind of shotgun energy weapon.

When your mech is destroyed you eject and continue to fight as a pilot. Your pilot form can have allies follow you while your suit makes you fast, maneuverable, and a small target, but you lose your special and melee weapon, one hit will kill you, and your main weapon is down to the weakest form. When you die you can choose to respawn in one of the game's four mech configurations or in the fifth form that you could have constructed yourself.

Responsive, varied stages, good bosses, good music, and being able to choose your own mech parts is a good touch. Kind of sequel to Vapor Trail but plays nothing like it.

US version removes stage story intermissions, level select that gives you two mission options for an easier and harder missions, three of the four endings, but has you play through all 12 stages like Japan's expert mode. Better than a lot of games that would just put you on a linear path while removing the other levels. This does mean that the difficulty fluctuates quite a bit between stages, the game can last too long, and while the bosses are different there are similar styled ones that probably wouldn't have seen as much if you were going off a stage select.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1371224690535010305

An arcade combat flight simulator very similar to the Ace Combat series but made by significantly less people for less money while still managing to be as good as those games and selling for half the cost. It looks great, the stages are varied, you have a good variety of planes with two seaters even given you another person with you who chimes in with the regular chatter. It controls well, tends to have a better cockpit view than the Ace Combat games if that is your proffered playmode. Has a pretty strong soundtrack, entertaining allies, gameplay modifiers to turn on in the campaign, and a separate mode where you choose missions while being able to hire ally pilots to fight with you

Problems tend to be the same thing any game in this genre suffers from. Fights against aces are just terrible as they do impossible nonsense maneuvers while constantly firing at you while still being no real threat on the lower difficulties. Larger planes and naval units with multiple areas to target need to destroy every weapon hardpoint they have before you can blow them up. Exclusive to this game is that there are no saves or checkpoints in missions, which is really no issue on the easier settings but it is pretty annoying when some in game event happens that prevent you from being able to see and then starts back up with you having no way to avoid crashing. The conquest mode where you can hire some allies is a nice idea but pretty barebones and your ally units are the usual unimpressive teammates you get in these games but with no personality. The ending to the campaign is also pretty ridiculous and mechanically dull.

Even if it wasn't being sold for such a low price, I'd still highly recommend it for fans of arcade combat flight sims. The problems are rarely issues, and I suppose matter less depending on your loadout and plane and are outweighed by the positives. And that's if they don't continue development in a way that further improves the game.

Having no VR headset I don't know how well that option works.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1370918866344312832

A short adventure game about a pig farmer planning to back out of a deal he made with the mob 15 years ago after his conscience and recent life events prevent him from carrying on in his role anymore.

Adios is the final walk you take around your house and reflections on the events, things, and loved ones that lead your life down its current path and helped to form who you are while you prepare to leave your life behind. The farmer slowly putting into words all the doubts about the life he's been living for himself and for his long time friend, partner in crime, and potential killer over the course of the day. Often while your friend tries to dissuade you from your course of action or to change topics on what often starts as a more mundane subject but ends as something more personal for one or both men. Simple but beautifully somber setting, with attention to small details.

Occasionally, you are able to choose from different dialogue prompts when asked a question, but who your character is and the decisions they have made is already set and no inconsequential change, horse shoe victory, flavor soda you throw your friend, or how spicy you make your curry will change the ending. That you can't alter who your character is to create some ridiculous ending and that the most narratively altering thing the conversation choices do is to offer you blocked out choices for things that the farmer really wants to say, is afraid to say, or is considering saying when overtaken by emotion only gives more insight into his state of mind.

A grounded and well told story with an excellent voice cast that help to further highlight and bring the needed emotion to the the well written dialogue.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1372405680607404038

Side scrolling action that starts fun but simple before giving you double and wall jumps, parry, a downward strike to bounce off enemies, sprints with a lunging invulnerable slash all leading to more interesting movement. Boss fights are varied in style with good looking enemies, though are pretty easy to beat (even when going for each of their achievement challenges). Good art though not that unique as the future dystopia setting and level backgrounds is fairly common, great soundtrack. There are more hidden pickups that will increase your health or SP for your special attacks but your health mostly increases automatically from beating mid level bosses so you aren't overly punished for not finding every hidden thing like you would be in most games that do that. The only real difficult parts of the game tend to come from some of the SP items you need to backtrack for.

The game controls well but the sprint attack is likely going to be fairly unwieldy outside of the better players, but the game doesn't overly force the move onto you as you can almost always get through sections without it. The game is pretty easy outside of knockback pushing you into instant kill pits and those deaths can always be annoying but start to get mitigated a bit once you gain the option to double jump and can angle yourself out of some of them. Even as someone saying the game is easy, I am not good at using the sprint attack. The pickups for currency to power the save machines for additional functions is just pointless as I never came close to running out and even if you did you could just grind them doing nothing for the game but adding a potential layer of tedium.

Very solid game, complaints don't really amount to much, though all the skills are rarely used together to create more interesting stage design (probably not helped by giving some of the abilities so far into the game). Not at the level of excellence that I would find the Shovel Knight games but still an easy recommendation.

First playthrough with 100% item collection and all but four achievements, took about 4 hours and 20 minutes with 66 deaths (with a good number of them being from trying to beat a boss without touching water and trying not to get hit on the motorcycle section).

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1373601628259975169
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XScyr8TBgM

A blood filled workplace satire survival horror comedy. Brian Pasternack is on a low rung of a caste system until the day he receives a letter from a major corporation wanting him to appear for his first job, later revealed to be working as a witch hunter. A witch having been corrupting the company for decades. With most of the corrupting influence and employee attitudes being directly or a metaphor for work and social issues. Monsters are ignored or worshipped, work is done over and around dead bodies, your job is targeted at lower class people to lure them into the company as hunters and sacrifices, employees looking for promotion attempt to get their rivals killed, employees make excuses of getting used to the company culture, not wanting to quit with it looking bad on their resume, or needing to help the team as reasons to stay with the company.

Good soundtrack and sound design. Satisfying puzzle for navigation and the corrupted bosses and enemies you encounter, lots of secrets with multiple endings with the updated version that released last year adding an alternate path for the endgame. Cast of likable and appropriately hateable characters. Well done and mood fitting manga influenced pixel artwork and short cutscenes.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1376103030756499464

Tactical FPS, lead a five man SWAT team into some more realistic scenarios and some ridiculous ones. You end up going against cultist, a Christian anti rock group, white supremacist, and militant farmers along with some more generic robberies gone wrong or a failed assassination attempt.

Lethal and nonlethal weapons and gear can be equipped to each character. You can order both teams of two separately or together and can see through a camera in your hud to see what they to a sniper team sees. Tense gameplay, though some odd decisions when it comes to needing to handcuff civilians who often don't want to surrender (I guess because they don't give you enough people to get them out of the building) requiring you to have a taser or pepper spray to make them surrender. Same odd moments when enemies refuse to drop their weapon when they are blinded or hit by gas and surrounded by your team.

A lot of detail spent on each mission when it comes to the locations, briefing, environment design, and creating areas that work well with the mechanics that have changes from difficulty and randomization. Very good to very questionable AI. Expansion makes improvements when it comes to order, equipment, and an added melee button that is used more to stop the odd never surrendering situations.

Anything above the easy difficulty requires you to finish a set mission with a certain score with points earned for completing it, not being wounded, not losing each member of your team, picking up all evidence and guns, reporting everything, capturing or wounding instead of killing anyone. With points lost if you injure one of the other SWAT members or injure or kill any armed suspects that aren't threatening you (or in most cases that are clearly threatening you and might have just killed multiple people, clearly not an accurate police representation.

Player made mods can combine the main and expansion campaigns (allowing you to use the new options and equipment in the old levels), add widescreen and 1080, add in cut content like traps, and there are player made map packs.

Becomes much easier when you realize the power of the paintball gun.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1378360357060706305

Action side scrolling spin off of the more strategic Door Kickers. Fight against the true enemy of gamers, doors, and their minions that have taken hostages or planted bombs around the environment. Six characters to choose from with their own weapons and equipment options, and skills to upgrade. A rifle using assault class, shotgun using breacher, woman with a shield with different functions and a pistol, off duty cop in the wrong/right place who brought his dad's old rifle but forgot his pants, recon class with silent guns, unique gadgets, and lockpicking skills, and an FBI agent with a forward roll and a stronger and faster melee attack. Each character can level up and spend points to learn new passive abilities, improve their aim or defense, or increase two skill trees that effect everyone. Killing enemies and saving hostages fills a strategic meter that can be used for special abilities to heal or to activate more powerful weapons.

Character and level art is good, music is good, player made levels are able to be downloaded, and a zombie mode can be turned on that bring portals full of new undead enemies into existing stages. It's a fun enough time but can start to get repetitive fast, especially after you max out the character you want to use and can easily get through most situations just using quickly refilling points to get more armor and health. The main challenge will come from getting the three star rankings on the levels where hostages will require more thought to safely rescue (which is much easier with certain characters).

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1386153648548319235

Played with the Lil' Manster, 1.07 Translation Patch.

Took a long time for this one to get translated to what could be considered a complete state, and was much more recently updated with scrip fixes that shows this as being easily one of the best narratives in the Fire Emblem series.

Thracia 776 tells the story of what happened to some of the character and another part of the continent in the time skipped and second generation section of Fire Emblem 4.

Good story and setting with many side characters continuing to show up in later events while more important characters give you more insight into their character when they show up in Fire Emblem 4. Not following anywhere near as much the cartoonish black and white morality of the newer games (well, apart from some of the more major antagonists of a child sacrificing cult of a dark god, but, that aside). With Thracia you get a lot of details about the different nations, their history, their past and current conflicts, geography, starving and dying populace in barren areas causing refugees or banditry, effects of occupying forces on other countries and what some nations are willing to do to not be taken over by the empire, you have two strategic advisors for a large part of the game that are giving the main character often good advice while informing him of the wider issues of the nation and its people to aid in his future rule (as opposed to newer games where they like to make some random jackass a stand in for you controlling the army over the useless lords, or somehow a teacher while your character knows nothing about the world).

Well made maps that give you a variety of objectives. Capturing a location, reaching an area, attempting to get your entire army to an escape point (one level even starting half your army at the escape point while the other half is far away and can be overwhelmed by pursuing forces), defending a location, protecting civilians, etc. Reinforcements are handled well, as are positioning of long range ballista or enemy magic users that can cause status effects on your forces and more difficult enemy groups tend to be equipped with fitting weapons that might have a high critical hit change or that might be strong against certain types of units.

The fatigue system where characters can become tired and need to be kept out of a battle and the level design causes you to use more of your large roster. Although, fatigue can pretty much be bypassed by just fighting battles in the arena, making money and buying stamina drinks to remove fatigue levels, having that option is good as the negative side of the fatigue system is that it creates issues with missing conversations and recruiting talks that first time players would have no way to know about in advance without a guide.

Capture system works well, you can fight with lowered stats in an attempt to capture an enemy which can allow you to recruit some characters, take all of their items, or just let certain characters go without killing them. Units can also be captured if they lose their offensive items by breaking them or having them stolen.

Character Leadership/FCM/Vigor stats are a good way to add more variety to characters where everyone adding to your total leadership gives every unit a bonus to hit and dodge and this applies with enemy commanders to their units as well giving leaders an actual effect on the battle, vigor from 0-5 gives a chance to be able to take a second turn, and FCM between 0-5 gives a character that number as a multiplier to their critical hit chance for their second attacks. Movement is a bit more unique in this game as well where certain characters might just start with a higher number of space they can move, and each character has a 1-3% chance to raise their movement rate with each level up.

There are a few issues. The usual thing in Fire Emblem, with some oddly poor units with character's that everything narratively tells you should be better. You get access to scrolls that can effect stat gain rates at level up and you can equip as many as a character has slots to carry items to stack all the bonuses together. On one hand this means you can make almost any character good and viable to use, on the other this makes everyone pretty similar. Stats, except for HP, are all capped at 20 and classes effect nothing except for allowing access to a set of weapons or staves to use and very few giving passive skills (swordmaster and sages learn adept to possibly attack more, thieves learn how to steal, the dancer to dance). You can easily end up with characters who gain almost no real benefit when you promote them to their next class tier and can end up in situations where certain mages might even have the same defensive and avoid value as a heavily armored knight. The game also takes status effects way too far in the last few stages where multiple enemies can just be putting your units to sleep, into a berserk state, or silencing them for the entire stage unless you knew to stock up and save some, pretty rare, restore staves while also having enough units capable of using them (while also not getting themselves hit by status effects in the process).

This is easily one of the best Fire Emblem games (along with 4, 6, and 9), and is one of the better SRPGs that I've played.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1391382884435386371