There were things about this game I really liked, and there were things that I didn't - and I'm not sure how much of that was a skill issue on my part, which makes it hard to review Pseudoregalia

When you know you're making progress, the game is fantastic - the movement (generally) flows extremely well, with a ton of hidden techs to find. Realizing you can bunnyhop for extra speed was super cool. Unlike other metroidvanias, there's not many unlockables and most of the ones you get are movement based, meaning it's often up to player skill to get to new areas. And this can be absolutely enthralling as you grab a ledge that feels inaccessible, or just about make a wall jump

Unfortunately, I also struggled with progression a few times and knowing where to go, which slowed things down for me a lot. More towards the first half of the game, it sometimes wasn't clear if an area was inaccessible because I didn't have the right thing, or if I wasn't good enough at the movement yet and just hadn't hit the right angle. There was one powerup (a very important one might I add) that I could've collected hours earlier than I did, but I got to its location very early in the game, couldn't see a way to progress and then didn't think to go back to until much later

Basically, my playtime of Pseudoregalia went like this: I was really enjoying the game, then spent 1-2 hours lost and unsure where to go, then started making progress again and had a great time until credits were hit. That lull in the middle definitely dampened things for me, but as I said, it's kinda hard to guage if it was a skill issue on my part, versus the game itself having flaws

The world - which feels both very big and very small - being a bit confusing to navigate doesn't help, which it seems a lot of players struggled with. Although I'm grateful there IS an ingame map, as there wasn't one at all when the game launched, it's pretty basic. I would've liked to have seen where Sybil was on it, rather than just highlighting the room you're in, because I sometimes had to keep checking it to align myself. Also the bottom/top half of the map would get cut off my screen quite often lol

Also one thing I do wanna say - I found the wall jumping/kick ability a big slippery at times. Only after I beat the game did I learn from a Steam review that was also frustrated by this, that you can cancel it early by attacking. I wish the game had told me this in the ability's description, as it would've prevented almost every frustration I had with the movement. There were also moments where Sybil would not grab onto walls to do the wall slide and I wasn't sure why :(

As for plot/story/lore, there isn't a whole lot and what there is is quite cryptic so all I'll say is, I love Sybil's design and I'm never beating the furry allegations

Hmm, I love weird experimental games but sadly didn't get too much out of this one :( The title, premise and atmosphere are all GREAT and very intriguing, but once that novelty wears off, it feels a bit barebones. Basically, Clickolding will make for a sick video essay but didn't feel great to actually play

Essentially, you are told that you need to press a button ten thousand times, while a man in a chair watches. Occasionally, he'll give you instructions or talk to you, which has the potential to be really interesting but the dialogue never really did much for me, outside of the initial "oh he's getting off on this isn't he" shock

I think my biggest issue is that 10,000 clicks is A LOT (even with a macro) and there's a pretty big gap between dialogue sometimes. So what would happen is, I'd leave the autoclick running for a hundred clicks while I read Discord or Reddit or whatever, then dialogue would pop up and maybe I'd miss the first line or not really take in what was said because I was suddenly moving my attention back to the game. I think I would've loved this if the amount of clicks was scaled down, or dialogue was more frequent or more impactful

This is probably a game where the tediousness and monotony is part of the point but I don't think that means I can't critique it

Prehaps the cruelest thing I could have done was to play this game immediately after finishing Persona 5 Royal for the first time - a game that I essentially played for 5-8 hours a day over the course of a few weeks because I was Just That Into It

It feels impossible not to compare the two, but also unfair to do so. There was a lot about P3R that I liked, and a lot that I thought could've been better, and I'm pretty sure most of that falls under "well, it's basically a 20 year old game innit"

My two biggest issues with P3R are that 1. It feels like not a whole lot happens plotwise for the first half or two thirds of the game. Although, when plot beats do happen, they're extremely good, with the last arc of the game being where things peak in an emotionally devestating way. The core themes of death, grief and making your life count are on full display here. I also like that the plot is willing to....take more risks with the fate of characters than in Persona 5. My second issue is that the men in your party never get full proper social links, and the women don't unlock until pretty late in. In a few places this makes perfect sense but it also meant I always just felt slightly disconnected to characters like Junpei, who sorta plays into the best friend archetype. I loved Sanada and Ken, and would've loved to have spent more time with them!!!

Here are some other misc thoughts:

Social links: You know, I mentioned in my Persona 5 review that Joker is a minor with multiple social links that are adults. Well, I think P3R has too many that are students lol, which potentially limits the type of stories that can be told. I found the SLs to be a real mixed bag, but my main issue is that the correct dialogue choices, which allow you to progress faster, are often you being a yes man to the worst ideas possible. Yes eight year old child, I do support you running away from because your parents are fighting. Yes fellow student, I do support your endevure to marry a teacher. I'm sure this was also the case in P5R, but I think that game was more subtle with it. As for specific characters, I loved Yuko, Bebe, Kamiki (who might be one of my favourite SLs in the entire series), Aigis, Yukari and Mutatsu. My least favourites were Suemitsu and the art club, which was the only social link I didn't manage to finish since I basically put it off the entire game. Also having series regular Tanaka from Tanaka's "I Scam Minors" Amazing Comodities as a social link was fun

Time management: A lot of players seem to run into this but I think there's not enough to do at night, and too much to do in the day sometimes. There's only two night social links, and three stats to level up, so for the last month or two of the game, I basically just played in the arcade, even with the mini episode scenes for those at the dorm.

Tarturus: Instead of the P5R approach of having pre-defined and (somewhat) carefully crafted palaces for dungeons, Persona 3 has Tarturus, which is made up of over 200 randomly generated floors. Although the visual environments change every couple of hours, it never really evolves that much and the amount of tiles is pretty limited. It is samey and a bit tedious but to be honest though, I kinda didn't hate Tarturus because I found the dungeons in P5R a bit exhausting - they often lasted just a bit too long for me. In a way, I kinda appreciated the very simplistic nature of Tarturus, especially because it let me put a podcast on

Combat: It's never a huge challenge but I do think this game is a bit harder than P5R, I even kept Yukari as a healer in my party for the whole game. Plus not being able to hide in the shadows and snap onto enemies with one button press means you aren't essentially guaranteed an advantage for every fight - in fact, I actually got caught out by shadows pretty often initially because I would swing and just fuckin miss lol. Anyway, I did get mildly frustrated towards the end because it felt like I was only ever getting Game Over'd to sudden one-shots, although that might've been me not paying full attention. That being said, it still never took me more than a second attempt to beat a fight, and I never felt like the pacing was hurt

I realize that my review feels quite negative, but I still absolutely think this game is worth playing - although I would maybe recommend P5R to a newcomer, even though it's like double the length lol