I enjoy the novel introduction of tower defense to gacha and think it's a good way to make use of a large team of characters. There's also plenty of really cute designs and Utage is probably the hottest thing this side of the google play store. The edgy setting and story don't appeal to me at all so I ended up skipping the story but I had a good time grinding out the stages. Eventually the lack of a skip button or higher replay speeds just started to drag and the chibi sprites don't hold up well enough in the post-blue archive age. I am also a massive brainlet when it comes to tower defense so a lot of the gimmicks could get pretty frustrating. Definitely still in the upper echelon of gachas and worth trying if you're in the market for them.

Solid remake. Environments look great and the revamped animations feel very good. I am really not a fan of the design changes made to a lot of the NPCs and enemies but aside from the very obvious ones like Old Hero looking like a total loser and the larger bosses unnecessarily made to look a lot more gross, the rest aren't that apparent when actually playing the game and not just looking at a side-by-side comparison. Also what they did to Allant's voice acting after you beat false king is painfully hilarious.

I appreciate the purist approach they took by not changing the actual programming of the game much but even as someone who has a deep love of demons souls, I can admit they could've patched up a few things like the janky AI on the maneaters or some streamlining of the weapon upgrades. I guess they do at least let you have an increased drop rate ring which is a welcome addition.

Great game but a mixed bag of a sequel. The dungeons are a straight upgrade over the divine beasts and they even fleshed out the story aspect quite a bit. The boss fights aren't all great but I'm very glad that it's not just different flavors of blight ganons this time. While the dungeons are an improvement, I found the shrines to be a lot weaker this time around. The vast majority were incredibly simple and I can count on my hand the number of shrines that actually stumped me.

The building mechanic is interesting, but you're rarely forced to use it in creative ways. The crazy twitter videos are fun but as far as my experience goes that mechanic is mainly just used to stick fans and wheels on objects over and over again for the same handful of results. When it comes to using it for shrines, any solution beyond the basics is typically just shown to you and the challenge is fumbling with the controls to stick it together correctly. Fuse was also fairly underwhelming since it doesn't significantly change combat and usually just grants an attack buff or common status effect. Ironically Ascend ended up being my favorite ability due to how forgettable it was and it led to some fun moments where I got stuck wondering what to do, and suddenly remembered I can just shoot straight up through half a mile of rock.

The world certainly feels different enough, but the exploration largely lacked novelty since it's built on top of BOTW and you're still mostly doing the same things. Shooting up in the sky is pretty fun just due to the sheer verticality of the world design but there's really not much interesting going on up there. The depths are cool conceptually and at least contain some dungeons but the drab aesthetic and constant darkness get tiring if you're down there for a substantial amount of time.

The story isn't going to win any awards, but there are plenty of cool scenes this time around and they do a decent job of giving Zelda herself more significance as well as making some kino master sword and final boss sequences. I am very annoyed at whichever nintendo employee in the sound department keeps forgoing basic volume controls because I could barely hear anyone speaking over the music and sound effects.

Despite this just sounding like a laundry list of complaints, I really did have a good time and I'm just judging it in comparison to BOTW. It certainly ended up being better than I expected given how similar it looked to BOTW pre-release. I'll be very weary if they go for a 3rd game in this exact style though.

Pretty solid expansion. It's just more Xenoblade 3 for the most part with plenty of satisfying exploration and marking off checklists. Restricting gem, accessory and art slots behind items hidden throughout the world does make exploration feel notably more rewarding but even after doing a substantial amount of exploring and completing almost all of the sidequests, I still finished the expansion lacking several affinity growth sections as well as some gem and art slots which did feel kind of annoying when it came to the more difficult bosses. The new characters were pretty weak but getting to use gigachad shulk and rex was cool and the new girls had cute designs at least. The story was decent and had cool xenosaga-related confirmations as well as a nice conclusion, but like with the main game the story did take a backseat to the gameplay. I enjoyed the combat changes but not being able to change classes like in the main game was a bit disappointing since I wanted to use Shulk but didn't want to play a tank. Also non-healers not being able to revive is still very very annoying.

RIP. One of the better gachas with a cute, colorful cast of characters and a pleasant lively energy that helps set it apart from all the needlessly serious gachas out there. Gameplay strikes a good balance of attention required for an idle game and the presentation is pretty nice. Didn't really care about the writing because it does that annoying thing where the characters repeat what your character says back to you since your self-insert isn't allowed to talk and it drives me up the wall. Who actually enjoys going through a whole conversation of "huh? you wanna go shopping with me? and you're saying you want to pay for everything too? that's so nice I love you" like I'm playing chewbacca and having han translate everything to a nonexistant audience. Yui best.

Clearly made with care and does a very good job of putting a modern spin on one of the best games ever made. Personally I don't think the more sluggish movement and aiming is a great fit for an action game like RE4 and it did sour my experience throughout, though it did get a bit better as I got more accustomed to it. The smarter enemy AI and sparse ammo drops make for a very intense experience different from the relatively stress-free shooting gallery presented by the original but the lack of hitstun when shooting enemies did make the gunplay generally feel less satisfying. I feel like my issues with the game would've been greatly alleviated if I had just played on standard and I think whoever decided to describe hardcore mode as "the mode you should play if you played the original RE4 :)" should be seriously reprimanded since it is much more difficult than the original on professional and it led to a lot of frustration. Level design and boss fights feel improved from the original and I can't say I miss some of the skipped content like the lava room and U3. The bolt gun is a cool new addition and the enhanced melee system adds a great deal to the combat as well. The story is generally lacking the charm of the original but it's not offensively bad or anything and they do a much better job with Luis this time around at least. I suppose RE4make ended up being exactly what I wanted which is a similar experience to the original while being different enough that neither invalidates the other.

Astlibra is the definition of a rough gem. The combat generally feels very satisfying and the difficulty combined with the multiple layers of customization and growth systems makes you feel like you're always growing stronger and you're constantly pushed to make use of all your different tools. The soundtrack is radical and the artstyle is immaculate with some excellent backgrounds. It won't really win any awards for its writing but it has a very earnest desire to tell a dramatic, fantastical tale which is a lot more than I can say for several other indie games. Unfortunately the last 1/3rd of the game was so consistently frustrating that I just got sick of it and didn't want to put in the time to grind it out. I'd still recommend it to everyone since anyone willing to put in the time to grind has several ways to get stronger and overcome the countless hallways full of of obnoxious enemies. I just don't have that kind of patience.