Nanaya
2022
It's a fun time but too similar to the original to the point that I get tired of playing it pretty quickly. The new stages are pretty nice though and they did an admirable job with the artstyle to match the feel of the original.
2019
Solid enough beat 'em up with a few glaring issues. Has a cute artstyle and some nice spritework as well as satisfying attack animations. The soundtrack also has some bangers that fit the game's style to a T. The most prominent issue is the game's insistence on padding despite being in a genre that's better off being only a few hours long at most. This is only made more annoying by the petty story reasons which kind of lose their comedic appeal when it's actually impeding my experience. Speaking of the story, it's surprisingly plentiful but despite the high quality presentation, the dialogue is often just awkward. However it does end up coming across as sort of endearing in a way, maybe because the girls are cute or because it feels like the creators were just having a fun time making the game.
More cuphead is always appreciated, though it ended surprisingly soon and the final boss's first phase is a pain.
Not boomer enough to enjoy the abysmal movement speed and combat, but I also didn't enjoy oblivion so maybe I'm just not big into elder scrolls.
2006
As a long-time garo fan I'd really appreciate a full-fledged game instead of a janky 40-minute button-mashy boss rush, but it still has its merits. The hits have some nice impact, they put in plenty of the major horrors from the show, and they even threw in the sick fight with Rei on the side of the building. Unfortunately the game would not stop forcing me into the pseudo-stinger instead of letting me do normal combos which kept it from being an all-around enjoyable action experience.
2017
Easily one of the strangest crossover rosters in a video game but the appeal of getting to build a team with sophie and honkers can only carry it so far. The story and stages are completely uninteresting and the gameplay is not as smooth as it needs to be to keep up that musou spirit.
This one's a blast. The levels are few but well-designed and going through a classicvania with a spear is rad. There's also plenty of cool visual effects like the spinning tower and the soundtrack is awesome as expected. Of course being a classicvania there are some particularly annoying parts like those swinging jerks in stage 6 but generally I found it a lot more fair than the likes of castlevania 3.
A solid, quirky game that's a bit rough around the edges. I thought the story was pretty enjoyable throughout, though there's a few too many superfluous cutscenes in which the characters just go "omg how could kids do this :(" which they really didn't need to keep doing after like chapter 2. Otherwise I enjoyed the characters, especially Komaru and Toko's interactions. Monaca ended up being a fun villain as well and I enjoyed her dumb tantrums. The gameplay was serviceable with its easy-yet-marginally satisfying shooting and puzzles but I mostly just enjoyed running around the stylized areas with Toko. Shame about danganronpa 3.
I was pretty stoked for this considering I love musous and three houses but I can't work up the motivation to continue it. Maybe it's the fact that I had my fill of the cast from playing 100 hours of three houses, the story that's both uninteresting on its own and lacks significance due to being a what-if scenario, the action-y nature of the gameplay reducing the importance of boosting stats through camp activities compared to an SRPG, the generally uninteresting maps and excessive focus on guard-breaking...well I guess it's a bit of all of that. Playing warriors orochi 3 right in the middle of it probably didn't help either.
This review contains spoilers
A great sequel that lives up to the series' acclaim despite hitting an almost entirely different appeal from the other games. Xenoblade 3 has an immediately interesting and unique setting and refreshingly returns to the darker tone of Xenoblade 1 while quickly introducing a likable party and battle system that takes much less time to speed up than 2's.
The 7 member party with interchangeable heroes strikes a good balance between the prior games by giving you plenty of variety to pick from without bloating the party with random gacha blades like 2 did. Where the game's distinct appeal comes in is the job system and emphasis on sidequests. Leveling jobs makes doing sidequests feel much more rewarding and addicting. The heroes and their respective colonies also being optional means the majority of playtime was dedicated to running around exploring and doing sidequests which were easily the weakest parts of the previous games.
This design makes the game a lot of fun in its own right, but it does also cause the issues that end up putting the game below the first one for me. The hero quests are above-average JRPG side content but generally weaker than the main story events presented in the other games and none of the areas are as memorable as the major ones in 1 and 2. The main story is compelling but doesn't have many impactful scenes between the first and last couple chapters. It also has some things that particularly grind my gears like the cliche rebel prison break section and everything about ghondor besides her class. The consuls were typically cartoon villains and very few of them got any development, but the content with N and M was really nice. I really liked the party, particularly my boy Taion and Eunie, and there were lots of pleasant down-to-earth interactions between them all. Even the animations when you're just resting at camp were fun to watch.
While the locations were generally indistinct, the game looked and ran quite well especially with 7 party members and several enemies wreaking havoc in every battle and the music was also very good as usual.
The 7 member party with interchangeable heroes strikes a good balance between the prior games by giving you plenty of variety to pick from without bloating the party with random gacha blades like 2 did. Where the game's distinct appeal comes in is the job system and emphasis on sidequests. Leveling jobs makes doing sidequests feel much more rewarding and addicting. The heroes and their respective colonies also being optional means the majority of playtime was dedicated to running around exploring and doing sidequests which were easily the weakest parts of the previous games.
This design makes the game a lot of fun in its own right, but it does also cause the issues that end up putting the game below the first one for me. The hero quests are above-average JRPG side content but generally weaker than the main story events presented in the other games and none of the areas are as memorable as the major ones in 1 and 2. The main story is compelling but doesn't have many impactful scenes between the first and last couple chapters. It also has some things that particularly grind my gears like the cliche rebel prison break section and everything about ghondor besides her class. The consuls were typically cartoon villains and very few of them got any development, but the content with N and M was really nice. I really liked the party, particularly my boy Taion and Eunie, and there were lots of pleasant down-to-earth interactions between them all. Even the animations when you're just resting at camp were fun to watch.
While the locations were generally indistinct, the game looked and ran quite well especially with 7 party members and several enemies wreaking havoc in every battle and the music was also very good as usual.
In terms of amount of content WO3 just can't be beat, especially with all the DLC added in. I will say that it suffers from rampant map recycling and the issue I noticed with WO4 where you're punished for frequently switching characters because everyone joins at level 1 and you don't get enough growth points to make full use of the game's massive roster. That aside, I love how everyone has their unique movesets and the mindless grind is certainly a fun one. All the guest characters like the DOA girls, Ryu, and Sophitia are great additions too and it was always fun to see which characters I would recruit next.
2022
Fun little game that gives you a fair amount of well-designed escape rooms with some charming presentation. Puzzles are clever without getting too obtuse but I'd say it ends right around where the puzzles actually start getting challenging and there's not really enough time to get much from the characters so I do wish it was a little longer.
2014
It's a good enough time. Kind of like a weaker Duck Game.
2021
Poor man's GuP without all the colorful characters and fun atmosphere.
1999
Not exactly a great game but how can I resist a game with cute girls and mechs? While the combat ends up being pretty simple, it does have a nice sense of scale and an aesthetic packed with soul. It's too bad it's not longer with more complex missions. Also Kiki CUTE!