It was just recently that I discovered this game through the activity of others buying it on steam. It looks intriguing, has a nice style, it seems polished even for the normal price of €10 and it’s 90% off. It was an easy buy. I’ve already completed it 100% after 3.5 hours. While I don’t regret getting it, I feel mixed about the package. All that I noticed still holds true but there is more behind the surface.

The gameplay is mostly going from room to room, find & examine notes, read them and create a memory out of them after you’ve found enough. You get to learn about a family from 300 years ago. It might help with saving humanity after a big collapse that wiped out most humans. Exploring rooms is similar to classic Resident Evil, only without the puzzles and fighting. You can find the notes on your own but you can also use the scanner that shows everything you can interact with, similar to how it works with The Thaumaturge (based on the demo I’ve tried of it). The map shows you whether you’ve read all the memories in each room and the collectibles you’re missing. There are also some very rare points where you can pick up items you need to reach new rooms but this is very automated. Sometimes you can’t pick up the items until the game tells you and shows you where they are in the map. Even when you get a code to unlock a door you don’t input the code yourself. Most of the game is lots and lots of reading. It’s not a novel but it’s still a lot. Exploring rooms and going to the next rooms offers a tiny bit of break in between.

As mentioned, the game has a great style, performance is fine, there is good attention to detail with objects and text, it sounds good whenever there is music (it happens on rare instances), I haven’t experienced any bugs, the game auto saves whenever you enter a room and you can always save manually. The writing is pretty decent and I was interested to know more about the family. The controls are fine whether it’s with mouse and keyboard or controller. I appreciate the quality of life options such as showing you the total collectibles on the map and which rooms you’ve seen the memories of. All in all, it’s a relaxing game that won’t frustrate you in any way.

That said, I would have liked a bit more gameplay. Some puzzles would have added a lot to the game and it would have been fitting too. Then there is the fact that there are no achievements. I prefer no achievements instead of having annoying achievements that ruin games but they can be motivating when they’re done right. I could have easily seen achievements related to the story, certain optional interactions and all the collectibles found etc getting added. And lastly, I’m not sold on some of the characters/interactions. There are 4 female and 3 male characters for the most part. Somehow, all the female characters are brilliant with their work, they’re obsessed with it and they’re often the boss in the relationship. There are multiple notes detailing their accomplishments and what they do for a living. The male characters on the other hand care more about the sentimental things, love is a higher priority to them, they often have more supportive roles and you don’t know much about their careers (one of them or their company is hinted at being involved with the collapse). There are certain dialogues that double down on the things I mentioned. If only 1 or 2 female characters were obsessed with work and same with 1 male character, then it would have been easier to accept. But the game is so one sided and unbalanced, that it affects the believability of the story. It’s a big deal when it’s the game’s focus.

I’ve been hesitating on whether to give this a positive or negative because of the characters. I went with positive in the end because the story is still interesting and it becomes less obnoxious near the end. The ending was satisfying and emotional. The game could have been better with more gameplay and achievements but what’s there is good enough if you enjoy reading. Give it a try if you’re willing to play it with the right expectations. The price is very cheap at the moment too, so there isn’t a lot to lose.

Top Nep is basically a cute anime version of Space Harrier. There are 5 varied stages with 5 bosses. You move around freely, attack with a long ranged weapon and use your sword to slash most dangers near you. It looks vibrant, it runs well, the controls are great with a controller, it’s fun, it has fair achievements and a first run usually takes 16 minutes. How long it takes to fully complete the achievements depends heavily on how skilled you are. Most of them can be gotten naturally except for 2: no damage run and get 200k score. It took me less than 6 hours to complete Top Nep (at least 30 minutes was afk).

There aren’t many faults with Top Nep. Maybe more options in the settings menu and some cool things to unlock would have been nice. That said, I like this package with a cheaper price point and not outstaying its welcome. Perhaps €4 might be a bit high for what you get, especially if you don’t care about achievements or high scores. But €0,80 with the last sale is absolutely worth it if you enjoy these type of games.

UG has been a bit of a gamble for me. I’m not really into photography games and I’m not knowledgeable about the subject in real life either. Many games allow you to take pictures on the side, I tend to mostly ignore this function because it feels pointless without any objectives. The negative reviews focusing on the tight timer, unclear objectives, janky gameplay and bad controls also had me spooked. And yet I feel very happy for getting the game against all odds. It seems as if the game is misunderstood with some of the claims.

The game has 8 stages and 4 DLC stages. Each stage has a couple of main objectives that you have to do to complete a stage. The main objectives are taking pictures of something unique related to each stage. There are also optional objectives that are always the same regardless of the stage. You can think of earn x money with your pictures, find x amount of film canisters etc. Each stage has at least two camera tools to unlock. One is for completing the stage and the other is for completing everything, including the optional objectives, in one go. This means getting it done within 10 minutes. I usually HATE timers in games but it’s really not bad here. You can perfectly ignore the timer and take as long as you need. You can even turn it off from showing in the options menu. You can attempt it after exploring a stage thoroughly. It’s easier than it sounds because the stages are not big at all. It’s easy to get everything done quickly once you know where everything is. In fact, I’ve had instances where I’ve (almost) done everything on my first try once I understood how the game accepts the pictures taken. It’s also better to unlock some lenses early before attempting the timers because they will make things FAR easier.

This makes UG feel like an arcade game. None of the objectives you did before are remembered, so you’ll always have to do them again. But it works because you’ll always have the lenses and other tools you unlocked plus remembering what you did before. It also does an excellent job of giving you an idea of how actual photography works. This along with making the gameplay and progression system fun, while informative, impresses me a lot. Some people mentioned how the objectives can be unclear or how some screenshots are not being accepted while they should. This has not been my experience for the most part. Some of those pictures are required to be taken with certain lenses, you’re shown the icons in the objectives menu and it was mentioned in the tutorial. It makes it feel like those people missed these important aspects. The controls are also fine with mouse and keyboard. It’s similar to an FPS with some minor differences for the most part. The complaints were mostly about the controller, so do keep that in mind. The game looks and sounds like a Dreamcast game a bit. I’m slightly reminded of my time playing Jet Set Radio. The achievements are enjoyable to get too. There are some creative ones that might get annoying to figure out but the game has tons of guides to help out with that.

The criticisms regarding janky gameplay and a few bugs are valid. Sometimes you jump really high when you go up the stairs. Jumping can also not work when you’re too close to objects. These are the kind of janky gameplay problems that can be dealt with and avoided once you know how they trigger. The UI is not the best. It feels clunky but it can get the job done. In terms of bugs, the speedrun achievement does not work. Right now you can either go back to an older version (it’s introduced with the last update), use SAM or pray the devs will patch it at some point. It doesn’t seem like the latter will happen since the last patch we got was in 2022. The game also has weird performance issues but it’s not something I’ve seen others mention. So it might be my set-up in combination with the changes I’ve made in the options menu. The game has a kind of annoying and pretty constant stuttering. It’s worse in certain stages and can disappear after a while. None of this is solved by forcing 60fps through Nvidia.

UG is a required taste. Not everyone is going to put up with the lack of polish. But what it does is unique and it does it really well. I paid €1,85 for the game and DLC when it was on sale. It’s definitely worth it. The normal price for both is too high but they’re worth considering when they’re cheaper.

Let’s get straight to the point, this definitive edition doesn’t add a lot to the game. The art of the characters got changed (some characters look much better), same for some of the UI and you can edit your party before starting battles. I might be missing some other minor things but this is what you can expect for the most part. The game itself is a mix of puzzle and RPG, the fights are the puzzles and the rest is a light RPG. Your party members and the hero level up individually, you find artifacts to equip on the hero, level up increases a few stats, you have currency to re-buy some party members, you run through areas, talk to NPC and you can do some side quests. There are 5 mini campaigns with a different hero each with unique moves, party members and artifacts. The campaigns are unlocked one after another because the stories are connected.

The game perfectly balances many elements. While it’s not a full fledged RPG in terms volume and options, what’s there has a purpose and is well designed. The game has a kind of simplicity that makes it easy to get into but it’s also complex enough in the right way. The puzzles are very addictive. The story, while nothing original nor the best, is engaging enough to follow. The entire game has a good pacing with no real filler. It took me around 31 hours to 100% the achievements. It looks and sounds nice, you can save anywhere and the game seems to generally respect your time even with the most grindy achievement.

That said, the game seems to have many loading screens that take longer than I’d like. The loading times themselves are not too bad but I’m surprised how many times the game needs to load. There are some multiplayer exclusive achievements with at least one requiring 3 other players. They’re not bad if you can find others to work with but you’re basically on a timer to get this done. I got lucky when I checked steam forum. Lastly, this definitive edition could have added more to the game. The text on the game’s steam page is misleading when it mentions many new quality of life additions. It feels like it was released with the bare minimum effort to cash in on the game. I bought it when it got released with a discount for owners of the original game (I paid around €8). The normal price is way higher than the game’s original price.

Even with all of this in mind, M&M CoH is a game not to be missed if you haven’t had the chance to play it. It’s a beloved game that is timeless. It doesn’t feel old despite the age. I’m an RPG and puzzle fan. The game offers the best of both worlds without the bad stuff like bloat or dragging out the experience. I wish we had more games like it.