Max Payne is a special game. It has one of the best presentations and art directions of its era. Comic book style cutscenes, cold wintery ambiance, depressing revenge story, trippy dream sequences.. i can go on and on. Max Payne also has seamless feeling of exploration. If you need ammo and painkillers, well you need to explore every part of your surroundings. Weapon selection is also excellent.

It has two major problems in my opinion. First one is, the gameplay lacks diversity. Whole game feels pretty much the same. Yes game throws at you puzzles, new weapons etc. but, the core gunplay and your enemies gets old very very quickly. I get tired of doing same shit over and over again. Second problem is, oh boy that platforming is god awful. Jumping fucking sucks and whole platforming parts feels like a pain in the ass.

But overall, Max Payne is a huge leap forward in video game visual direction. Some shots between levels are absolutely amazing. It reels feels good. Gameplay holds back but i really love its unique charm. Pretty good game

This is a huge improvement over the NES Castlevania trilogy. Better controls, graphics, and boss battles. Lots of different stage designs to keep you amazed. I don't like that it ditched multiple layouts and unlockable characters that Castlevania III introduced.

Very fair game, maybe even a bit too easy before we got into the castle, possibly because although the game now gives you more options, the game design didn't actually give you new challenges. you can pretty much whip any direction so nothing actually harms you. The only challenging part are bosses, That boss rush towards the end can eat my shit tho.

Lovely game but not good as III and Rondo of Blood imo. Still i love the variety of levels and overall fun I've had

Great atmosphere, good replay value with 3 characters with different clans and multiple side quests that can be ignored and nice implementation of game mechanics such as hunger, skills and clans.

Main problem of this game is final act. Oh boy its rushed and absent of any meaningful choice lead up to that. It's not an RPG so it makes sense to have less choices and skill checks but few sections feels like just too rairoady to me.

Overall, game has very strong foundings that needs a better writing. I still had fun besides the ending.

Great game but definitely a huge drop in quality compared to Aria. Level design is uninteresting, touch screen mechanics are cringe, weapons are less diverse compared to Aria, exploration is just not as fun. Story itself is also not that interesting too but i love everything about Aria so much that ive cared about it. And idk if its just me but even graphics are worse than Aria. Those are my complaints basically

But.. Soul system, good controls, great boss battles and everything good about aria (besides the ones ive mentioned) are here! So its still an amazing metroidvania, just a bit lower quality compared to Aria of Sorrow and Symphony of the Night.

My 1000th Rating special

Playing shmups for few weeks because I missed the genre and I always want to get into more interesting titles. Ikaruga is one of the most well-known ones, so I saved it for a special event. And wow, this is so good. I still think Radiant Silvergun is a better game, but the dark/light switch feature makes it very addictive, has tons of unlockables and features, and it has actually story-telling unlike most of the shmups (not that I care for arcade styled games but hey I like attention to detail). Tough game too, not like some inhumanly difficult like Touhou shit, but damn it kicked my ass.