I've always stayed far away from soulslike games as they really didn't seem fun to me. Why do I want to constantly be struggling and pissed off my entire playthrough? So imagine my surprise when I started playing Armored Core VI under the assumption it was just an action game! After about an hour of playing, I got stuck on a boss and wanted to quit right then and there. Had I really just paid full price for a game I want to quit immediately? But for some reason, I decided to try and get better. I eventually cleared the boss, and 20 hours later I finished my first playthrough! I would say I'm pretty addicted to this entry in the Armored Core franchise. At the time of me writing this I'm on my third playthrough and I can't put it down!
The story is great, the characters (especially Carla and Rusty) are written very well, and the gameplay is super fluid, fast-paced and just overall great!
So yeah, this game is awesome.

You know, Shovel Knight is one of those games I thought I would never enjoy due to it being a platformer (which is my least favorite game genre); but maybe I hated the genre too much.

At the time of me writing this, Shovel Knight is one of my favorite games of 2022. Granted it’s only February, but I don’t care, I love this game.

The story is very simple: Shovel Knight has to go rescue Shield Knight, who is trapped in the Tower of Fate. The Order of No Quarter is there to stop the knight in blue from reaching the said tower. Personally, I think the story could have been more detailed and larger, but the game’s story really doesn’t affect the main part of the game: the gameplay.

When I could barely beat the first level, I thought of dropping the game right then and there because the “shovel hop” ability was too confusing for me to understand. But after going through a couple more levels, I started to understand the controls and mechanics a lot more and I found the “shovel hop” to get easier and easier to use. Like mentioned earlier, I don’t like platformers; I find the gameplay too boring and redundant. But for some reason, Shovel Knight’s gameplay was so fun for me to play. I found myself wanting to keep playing until I beat the game.

It was cool that every level, even the towns, had a secret a part of them. I loved looking for the secret song scrolls and trying to find all the gems to buy new gear and abilities. I also found the concept of getting extra HP to be a cool concept.

I think the reason I am giving the game a 4-star rating is the difficulty spike. Especially in the early game, the bosses’ difficulty spikes so high. By the end, they’re pretty easy to defeat; but the first two bosses I found challenging. While you’re stuck with four HP, the bosses have eight HP, which can be difficult to fight, especially if it’s your first attempt. It was infuriating dying to the same boss over and over again. I luckily beat these bosses, but I was frustrated. Luckily, the farther you get in the game, the easier the bosses are due to abilities and extra HP on your end. But, the farther you get, the harder and more complicated the platforming is; so, it’s a trade-off.

Overall however, I found myself enjoying the game so much. I’m so excited to play the next game, “Specter Knight”. I recommend playing the game; even if you aren’t a fan of platformers, give it a shot. This game for me was the catalyst to start playing other platformers.

“Our boyfriends have been kidnapped!”

River City Girls is one of the first ever beat-‘em-up games I’ve ever played. I dabbled in the original River City game, but never really enjoyed it. However, after seeing that WayForward, the company that created River City Girls, was making a second game, I was interested. Some of my friends had told me how good the game was, but I thought I wouldn’t enjoy it. Well, I was wrong.

You can play as Misako or Kyoko, two girls who are on the hunt for their boyfriends after Kyoko is sent a picture of them presumably being kidnapped. The story is very simple in theory, but offers fun twists and funny dialogue. At the time of me writing this, I haven’t done a second playthrough, so the story could be different. For my first playthrough however, I personally played as Kyoko, simply because I preferred her design. But about halfway through, I found out the two girls have pretty different movesets from each other, with Kyoko’s attacks being faster while Misako’s are slower. I prefer the speediness of attacks, so I’m glad I picked Kyoko.

Now, of course, the gameplay is the most important. The game isn’t carried by its story, so the gameplay needs to be fun; and yes indeed it was. Pummeling the various amounts of enemies was enjoyable and trying new combos was even more fun. The shop system where you can buy items to replenish stamina, add extra damage or buying a new attack entirely was something I felt unique to the game. It gave me incentive to go out and get more money by beating up the enemies in the area so I could go buy a new way to attack and add it to a combo. It was a clever system that I hope is in the second game.

The characters were very well written and hearing some of my favorite voice actors was such a nice treat. Sure the game had a kind of lackluster story, but the characters make up for it big time. I found myself laughing at quite a few scenes. The art direction too was great and I loved seeing a sort of comic book feel in the game.

Overall, I give the game a solid four out of five stars. The only things weighing this game down are the lackluster story and how short the game is. However, River City Girls was certainly such a fun and witty experience that I hope to replay some time in the future.

I had never heard of UnMetal before until I found it on sale. Originally during the PS4 Black Friday 2021 sale, I was going to purchase a game called Outriders. But, I found the game to be too many gigabytes for my console to hold, so I removed it from my cart and looked for a different game. I found two games to get, one being Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus and the other one was UnMetal. So, now that you know how I found this game, let’s talk about it.

The story of Jesse Fox and his crazy adventure of being on an X Army base was great. It was so farfetched, but in a great way. The story got me hook, line and sinker. I found myself laughing way too much about the crazy stuff he found on his journey, like human-piranha hybrids and tentacles just everywhere. The writing overall was phenomenal. Very funny and witty mixed with gritty combat made for an overall fun experience. In fact, I didn’t know the game was a parody on the Metal Gear games until after I beat it! Finding that out just made the game even better with all the fun writing.

Gameplay wise, it was very enjoyable. I’m normally not a big fan of top-down shooters, but I was willing to give UnMetal a shot and gosh am I glad I did. I found the combat system to be very fun to play and when a new weapon was given, it was simple to understand and use against the enemies. The enemies themselves weren’t a big deal. They seemed scary at the beginning, but by the end, you learn their moves and it becomes a cakewalk. Well, until chapter 9, then they get more difficult. Finding workarounds for the new threatening enemies was fun, engaging and definitely kept me on my toes.

But oh gosh, the bosses. How could I forget them? The first boss (Grenade Guy) was a challenge, as I really didn’t know how to defeat him until I used trial and error. I would say every boss was challenging in their own way, especially some of the last ones. Even though they were infuriating, I would feel very proud of myself for defeating one.

The characters were so cool too. The writing for them was amazing and the voice actors/actresses did such an incredible job. Normally in games, I find the main character to not be my favorite, but UnMetal took it a complete 180°, with Fox being my absolute favorite. It all just ties back to the awesome writing the game had. Fox’s lines were funny yet “serious” at the same time, which made for some comedic moments.

The only gripe I had with the game was mentioned above, the bosses. They were way more difficult than I’d thought they would be. Every boss posed a challenge, with some taking less than five minutes to beat, while other took up to 30 minutes. I played in normal mode, which I thought would be fine, but I struggled on the bosses. Maybe it’s just my bad gaming skills though.

Overall, this game was such a great one. If you want a game to have a good laugh at, fun gameplay to keep you entertained and being on the relatively shorter side, UnMetal is the game for you. Definitely four and a half out of five stars.

I saw this game showcased during E3, and I found it interesting. I’ve been a fan of the GoTG movies since the first one came out, so I decided to get it. The gameplay and story looked good.

After playing and getting 100% in it, I can say it’s certainly not a bad game, but I would not recommend getting it full price.
The story was not long at all; I could finish multiple chapters in a single gaming session of 3-4 hours. With only 16 chapters and the majority of them being an hour or less, I found the game to feel short.
The actual story itself was really good and absolutely carried the game. Yes the story follows the movies, but even if someone had only seen one of them, you could understand the story well. The characters acted the same as they do in the movies, which was great. I was worried that the characters wouldn’t feel familiar.
Gameplay was also very fun. The combat system I really enjoyed, and even though you can’t fully control the Guardians except for Star-Lord, it worked. The enemies and boss fights were fun to do, and the unique enemies were fun to find ways to defeat.

So if I’m complimenting the game, why did I rate it low? Well, it’s the bugs and frame rate.
My PS4 is almost two years old, which certainly isn’t bad. I’d assumed that since it ran Cyberpunk 2077 very well, it would run GoTG well. But I was mistaken.
The game crashed multiple times in the middle of cutscenes (I lucked out and didn’t have it crash during a battle). The cutscenes themselves would be good quality one minute, then very grainy the next.
The frame rate was a huge issue for me in battles. It was so bad that sometimes the game would freeze and I’d have to wait for it to unfreeze. It would take almost a minute to unfreeze itself. The frame rate didn’t just affect gameplay, cutscenes were also affected. Having a laggy cutscene is never fun.
The bugs were also bad. Sometimes Star-Lord would get stuck in like a random bush and couldn’t get out of it unless I reloaded the save file. And one time, somehow, the optional dialogue options got stuck on the screen and wouldn’t go away unless I fully closed the game.

GoTG was a fun game with a great story, but the bugs and frame rate issues killed it. Out of 5 stars, I rate it a 3.

This game caught be my surprise. I had started out the Persona franchise with Persona 5 vanilla, and loved it so much. Then, I bought and played Royal, getting well over 100 hours in it. When P4G came to Steam however, I had mixed reactions. I knew it would be good (since I love Persona games), but I wasn’t sure how the older game would compare to P5R. But boy was I mistaken. P4G is now my favorite game of all time! Everything about it I loved. I thought it was a better overall story, better characters and character development, soundtrack, etc. compared to P5 and P5R.

So basically what I’m trying to say is to play P4G. Trust me, it’s a great game.